#it's possible i can live to an old age (unlikely but nevertheless possible) which means i have potential decades ahead of me

[tokruta]

Life isn't over until you're dead

Life isn't over until you're dead

Life isn't over until you're dead

Life isn't over until you're dead

Life isn't over until you're dead

LIFE ISN'T OVER UNTIL YOU'RE DEAD!!!!

#sorry ignore this it's just me quote unquote journalling #need to remind myself sometimes that 26 is still young and just bc i haven't reached some 'milestones' doesn't mean i never will #late isn't always bad and as long as i'm alive and capable i can do what i can/want to do #life isn't over until i'm dead #stop focusing on what can't be changed (the past) and instead focus on the present and future #it's possible i can live to an old age (unlikely but nevertheless possible) which means i have potential decades ahead of me #just because i'm currently in a rut doesn't mean i always will be #it's within my ability to change my life and it is up to me to choose what i make of it and myself #make it something worth living rather than something you hate #it's within your reach go for it! #(this is all addressed to myself but if you need the words of encouragement they're for you too) #hasan't #personal

[lemonhemlock]

https://twitter.com/itadorimaid/status/1618940932812083200?t=fbHXYyIphhYCxL5CDQ_1Og&s=19

Greetings , any thoughts on this? I do think there are some contradictions in Daemon's actions so you could argue either side.

Another old ask and I'm gonna try and answer this as indulgently as possible for the sake of old man GRRM who really wants us to like Daemon. So there's a lot of (insufferable) narrative bias with which GRRM surrounds Daemon, while insisting that he is equal parts light and dark and whatever. IMO that may be true for the Daemon that lives inside GRRM's head, but when it comes to what he actually wrote on the page, things get a lot murkier.

Nevertheless, I do not think there was authorial intent into making Daemon an absolute monster, a sociopath, a sadist, a villain and a devil, like ChatGPT would say if you were to piss it off. But, in that vein, it would be a fair assessment to assert Daemon is a schemer. A plot hatcher. He can reasonably construct plans for the short and medium term. However, they are often foiled in some way. So he regroups and tries again. He can't get out of his first marriage, tries to take a second wife, is denied, so he kills Rhea and frees himself. He can't get Rhaenyra for his wife, so he marries Laena, the next best thing. He is denied as heir, so he marries Rhaenyra, the heir. If you listen to Ryan Condal, he can't be with his brother, so he gets together with his niece instead, etc.

However, I don't think Daemon is the best at long-term planning. He is not a Littlefinger/Varys type of character to sit pen-in-hand and painstakingly plan out an entire plot spanning years and years, carefully moving each piece on the board at the opportune moment, constantly calculating several scenarios playing out. He truly is an agent of chaos. He's more come-as-you-are, take-it-as-it-goes, more of an improviser.

It's also important to note that in the books, Daemon is linked to 4 ? different murders: Rhea, the son of the Sealord of Braavos, Harwin and Laenor. They had him outright murder Rhea in the show, but I hear people contesting this for the books. I wouldn't bet all my money on it. Yes, he is fighting in the Stepstones when Rhea dies, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have hired an assassin. I say this because he is fighting in a literal war, his own war, and he drops everything to rush to the Vale to claim Rhea's inheritance, an act so outright rude that Lady Jeyne has to literally kick him out of the Vale. Now, this is a woman he deeply dislikes, whom he hasn't seen in ages. I am not buying this whole idea that he came to Runestone to arrange her funeral. Rhea has her own family for that, she doesn't need Daemon. News also doesn't travel instantly in Westeros, so somehow Daemon got to the Vale just in time for Lady Jeyne to still be settling the Royce succession. It's at least a little fishy.

The son of the Sealord of Braavos he openly kills in a duel for Laena's hand. With Harwin and Laenor's deaths he is linked. Now, I'm not even saying the author necessarily intended for Daemon to be responsible for all of these people's deaths, but it's very suspicious that all these events are so convenient for Daemon and he profits so much off them. So, I definitely think it was authorial intent for us to become aware this is a dangerous person, an ambitious character, and most likely even a ruthless one, who will go all the way if he needs to. I really, really don't think we were supposed to look at this context and conclude Daemon is a poor misunderstood malewife, done dirty by historians.

Perhaps Daemon's PR image in the fandom would have been different had he outright killed Laenor, instead of becoming the most unlikely gay rights activist. But his stans' insistence that Jace, Luke and Joffrey would be 100% safe in Daemon's hands and not even take this possibility into account is absurd.

I'm not of the belief that Daemon was plotting to have them murdered since they were babes at Rhaenyra's breast or even ever since he married her. But does he really have to? I do believe that he does love Rhaenyra as much as he understands love and wouldn't outright do something as awful until he absolutely had to or at least he would try to postpone it. A lot of things can happen until Rhaenyra ascends, that he might not even have to get his hands dirty in the first place. Her bastards might get outed somehow. They might die somehow, without Daemon's intervention. Rhaenyra herself might die in childbed or by disease. Daemon might die, in which case he doesn't have to worry himself further. Maybe Daemon and Rhaenyra only have girl children, etc. As it happened, the war killed off the Strong boys and Daemon didn't even have to do anything.

However, if Rhaenyra were crowned and they came to the problem of her heir - I think this is the time Daemon might start plotting. They've had their honeymoon holiday period, but I very much doubt Daemon would sit idle while a bastard takes the throne away from his firstborn, who just so happens to be Rhaenyra's actual legal heir. Now, I think murder would be a last resort for Daemon, but I don't think he'd shy away from it, though I could see him trying to subversively work behind the scenes to create unrest at the idea of the Strong boys being in the line of succession as obvious bastards. Rhaenyra could somehow be forced by the political situation to disinherit them and name Aegon the Younger heir. Problem solved. If not, well, accidents can happen. Assassins can be hired. Luke, for example, would be in Driftmark surrounded by Velaryon "cousins" who have every reason to hate his guts. Maybe he falls down the stairs one day. Maybe a combination of all of these things.

This doesn't preclude Daemon for feeling regret for his actions, but he has already done many things he would regret later (like his fights with Viserys, his many exiles), but still went through with them because, in his head, he believed he was doing the right thing. And putting a pure, legitimate Targaryen prince on the throne would definitely feel like doing the right thing to Daemon.

Also? He could still kill those three and feel sorry afterwards! Those things are not mutually exclusive. And it would fall into the whole conflict of the human heart, because he would be doing it for his own son. The motive is there and it's very alluring.

There's also the argument that he wouldn't need to, because his blood would already be on the throne, with Baela as Queen. But being the Queen's father isn't the same as being the King's father. And!! He could be both! What's to say he couldn't marry Baela to Aegon III? Baela was born in 116 AC and Aegon in 120 AC - there's a 4 year age difference between them in the books.

So to address the points in that tweet:

"brother legitimize lucerys claim to the driftmark throne" - It would look mighty strange if, at that point in time, he wouldn't be supporting his own wife in hiding her sons' illegitimacy from the world. 🤷‍♀️ Luke is, honestly, the easiest target. By all means, let him rule over Driftmark and let his Velaryon "relatives" assassinate him themselves. Daemon doesn't even have to lift a finger for this one.

"an eye for an eye, a son for a son. lucerys shall be avenged." + k words toddlers for lucerys - This honestly feeds into Daemon's disposition towards cruelty more than anything. If he were truly seeking retributive justice, he would have targeted Aemond, Luke's actual killer. Anything else is not justice, regardless of how Daemon tries to paint it. Not to mention that the actual retribution was way disproportionate to the crime.

k words aemond - But Aemond wasn't killed for Luke, that's the whole point, that's what makes B&C so atrocious and evil. By that time, Aemond was a military threat for the blacks that Daemon was neutralizing. To think that Daemon went to God's Eye set on avenging Luke yet again (even though he had already done that once, inordinately, too?) is a spurious reading.

#ask #anon #anti daemon targaryen #tagging as anti bc his stans can't bear him to have 1 flaw so whatever

[happy-emmdings]

Been enjoying your polls lately! do you have any headcannons on how you think cs live their married + family life? Like their habits, their kids, their jobs, their last names etc etc (also so happy you have asks now!!!)

Hi!!

Yes, I sure do have some! Maybe more then you asked for😅

But I have to say that I didn't watch season 7 and though I have a general idea what happens in it, I could not possibly be more confused about its timeline so... let's just say „I've elected to ignore it".

For their honeymoon, Emma and Killian go on a long cruise along the East Coast (there are many advantages to marrying the real Captain Hook), maybe to Florida and back and they make several stops along the way in different places. Killian explores more of the strange land without magic (and with way too much technology) with Emma as his guide and it’s very fun and wholesome

Of course, they inevitably interact with regular people and there is so much comedic potential in that. Obviously because Killian is 200-year-old pirate from another realm but it's time for Emma to realize that she's not the normal person constantly bewildered by the existence of fairytale characters anymore... she's one of the magic freaks now, she has to stop herself midsentence before she accidentally says something that would sound insane

Just imagine Emma and Killian finding themselves at a bar, getting to know some friendly strangers and they start playing Never have I ever... infinite possibilities how that could get increasingly weird

They have an adventure in the Bermuda triangle too, because nothing can be normal for Storybrooke's heroes

Hope Swan Jones is born 2 years after the end of season 6 and she adores her big brother Henry, even though their dynamic is still more like young uncle/niece because of the big age gap but they get full sibling energy when it comes to an argument

Swan is her middle name just to confuse everyone

I've always imagined Hope with dark hair and green eyes even though blond Hope seems to be much more popular. Now I'm contemplating the possibility of dirty blond

The jury is still out on whether or not they would have more than one kid but I suck at coming up with names so🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Emma continues to be Storybrooke's sheriff which at this point just means being the Savior. Let's be real Storybrooke hasn't enforced a single law since the first curse was broken and it’s not like deputy Captain Hook has ever had a lot of regard for law, but... They try to maintain order more or less. Things do get more peaceful, but it's still Storybrooke so of course stuff happens from time to time but nothing traumatizing or apocalyptic. Nevertheless, Emma and Killian solve occasional mysteries together and keep Storybrooke citizens safe

Killian is the first member of Belle's Book Club, because he supports his friend Belle when she decides to start organizing fun activities at the library. You just know he read the original version of The Odyssey. Other book club members include for example August, sister Astrid and Leroy (who is only there for Astrid and their will-they-won't-they non-discreet romance annoys Killian to no end because he's not a bloody matchmaker why are they asking him what the other thinks of them)

The Swan-Jones family goes sailing on their family vacations every summer!

Make it a joint family vacation with Belle and little Gideon. Belle finally gets to travel and Hope and Gideon become unlikely childhood friends.

There's also at least one Swan-Jones and Charmings camping trip that includes Snow teaching Hope and Leo how to make a fire and build shelter in the wilderness, sword duels with sticks, stargazing, campfire songs, so many campfire songs! (they all have such beautiful singing voices and they should use them) This is also time for Emma to bond with her parents and experience something she didn't have as a kid

"Eat some bloody vitamins" dad Killian vs. "Popcorn mixed with milk duds" mom Emma

Killian Jones cannot look at a child he has some connection to without being like "Welp looks like I have to teach this little pirate everything there is to know about sailing and navigating by the stars and secret maps, I simply must, it's the code..." So Hope can tie every kind of knot there is and becomes an expert in old timey boat stuff by middle school

She loves it because 1) it's a special thing she and her dad can bond over 2) it makes her feel cool and smart 3) she's a total nerd 4) she inherited the innate love for the ocean that runs in her dad's side of the family

Hope has magic but she's not super good at it, Emma helps her practice and sometimes pulling an innocent prank on dad or grandpa is part of the practice

Killian makes so many dad jokes. And so does Emma

Killian sings Hope to sleep when she's little and Emma reads bedtime stories to her

Sometimes she reads something like Winnie the Pooh and Hope asks if Winnie the Pooh is also real and Emma shuts the book and stares at the wall and has an existential crisis for a second because who knows at this point he might as well be??

So, these are some of them that I salvaged from the absolute chaos that is my notes app... Thanks for the ask❣️

#in my alternate season 7 henry goes to college #(and maybe ​drops out has a quarter life crisis and goes to some magic land to collect stories) #that might be similar to actual season 7 i guess #but i’d have henry meet sheherezade and they would be like story-collector rivals/partners/friends/maybe love interests #they’d just have a thing #that’s fully inspired by d20: neverafter btw #but without the horror stuff #putting this in the tags because its kinda off topic #i’m still developing this idea #captain swan #killian jones #emma swan #hope swan jones #the swan jones family #ouat headcanon #answered asks

[familydentalcare]

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[shini--chan]

I love you're writing skills! How would be the reader react when she travel the time back so like the 1600 in England?. And England would she see her in modern clothes. She want go back to her time(2020). Im so sorry for my bad English

Thank you, that is very sweet of you. Also don’t worry – your English probably isn’t as bad as you think.

If you want to see anything else set in that period, go and check that Pirate AU! Post. Now on to this here.

Yandere England – 1600s/Timetravler

Whether you would like it or not, you would find yourself hurtling through time and landing in England during the 17th century. Right in Puritan England to be precise, literally the worst decade to land into right after ending up in the middle of a battle. You would be wandering the countryside, in total confusion as well as in complete panic. That would be how Arthur would find you. He would be heading back home, utterly disgruntled by the state of affairs that he would have to suffer under. Then he would notice you, an alien entity by all means, in your strange clothing and foreign manners. First, he would consider just leaving you to your fate (which could be very gruesome) as the loon you would appear to be to him. Then he would remember the supposed Christian values of hospitality and altruism and approach you to take you home with him.

You would be both relieved and frightened to see somebody approach you. Through his clothing it would dawn upon you that you were really in the past. Despite fearing being deemed a witch or being interrogated or suffering from any other fate that would cross your mind, you would know that you would need help. The moment Arthur would open his mouth to inquire about you, the final nail would be hammered in the coffin. The Old English that would meet your ears would be absolute proof that was once history would be your present. A notion that would be affirmed when Arthur’s face would wrinkle in confusion when you would use your English.

Your strange use of his language would confuse, but would nevertheless ring a bell in the back of his mind. It would remind him how English had developed over the centuries. Would your way of using it just be a natural result of further evolution, hence making you a … timetravler? That would be at least what you would be trying to convey over the language barrier. Arthur would be sceptical at first, wanting to rule out all other possibilities before believe you. If you’d think him to be a fool, then you’d have something else coming. Then you’d try to use evidence to convince him.

Quickly, he grabbed the strange thing you were holding out to him. After giving you a brief mistrusting look, he would take a few steps away from you. A paranoid bastard as ever, he turned to stand in such a way that you couldn’t see everything he was doing while keeping an eye on you.

The thing that you handed to him was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It was rectangular and slim, smooth with its dark glass and opaque surfaces. He glimpsed his own cruel visage in the reflection. Was it nothing more than a strange mirror?

Then he went on to inspect the sides, the tips of his fingers finding a few elevations in the material. Curious, he pressed one of them …

… and nearly dropped it when the dark glass promptly lit up and it emitted a strange sound. You yelled besides him, suddenly directly at his side since your device had been endangered. He was sure that hadn’t his reflexes been so quick, then he would have to defend himself against a very enraged stranger. Instead, you glare at him, as irritated as you were, and tried to snatch your thing back.

Agitated by your action in turned, Arthur roughly pushed you away, sending you sprawling to the ground. You cussed at him, the aggressor recognising a few of the swears you tossed at him but not finding himself bothered enough to respond and instead staring at the picture that had manifested.

There was a colourful background, the nuances and lines and shadows showing a painting that was far more realistic then any he had ever seen before. In front of it, a series of number shined at him. One set was probably the time, he deduced, while the other was most likely the date from how it was written.

2021 …

That was nearly 400 hundred years in the future. He looked at you, observed how you had picking stones out of your scraped and bleeding palms.

Despite your disagreeable demeanour, you would likely prove very useful to him.

He would promptly take you with him, trying his best to convey to you through gestures and miss-matched words that he would only want to help you. If you prove define, then he would coerce you into following him by taking your smartphone hostage. Once you would calm down, then you would rationalize that this would probably be the best option you could receive and concede his wishes.

Arthur would keep you in his house, ensure that all the servants would steer clear from the rooms he would house you in, and gradually butter up to you, with all intentions of drawing the details of his future out of you. Other than that, he would intently observe you, knowing that the behavioural patter say a lot about a person, and in extension, give clues about the environment they grew up in. And needly to say, he would be very surprised by some things.

“You know, it is the third time you demand to be allowed to wash yourself this week. Don’t you think you are going too far? There is miasma in the water, and if you continue like this, not only will you render yourself a fool, but you’ll also become sick”, he chided you as he watched you hauled a bucket up the stairs.

As weak as you were, you were struggling with your heavy load, evidence to the lack of physical labour you had done in your life. It made Arthur ask himself if everybody in the future would be as weak and spoiled as you are, or if you were just the exception.

Either way, while manners and etiquette called for him to ease your burden which you evidently couldn’t manage on your own, he found the sight of you straggling up the flight of cold stone steps far too amusing to intervene.

With trembling arms, your set down the bucket and stared at him, eyes shooting daggers up at him. “In case you didn’t know, it is dirt that actually makes people sick. It is cleanliness that prevents infection. Which is why you would do well to wash daily as well!”

With a frown, Arthur picked up his shirt to sniff it. In his opinion, he didn’t stink, so he didn’t see what you were making such a fuss about. He was also sure he had understood you correctly – the two of you had managed to sort out things to the extent that you could communicate fairly well.

“I think that changing underclothing daily and bathing once a month to be sufficient. And now, before you say anything, be sure to keep your attitude in check. I’ve had more than enough of it”, he told you.

He watched your face wrinkle and swore he heard you mutter: “Damn patriarchy and its superiority complex.”

He didn’t know whether to be alarmed about your very simplistic, black-and-white view of the world and your grievous oversimplifications of the current era or be amused about how you thought you knew everything. Either way, he would have to take your words about the future with a grain of salt – who knew just how skewed your recounts would be.

“I fail to see how this has to do with that. The matter at hand is about the guest treating the host with respect, expected courtesy allowing humans to live together. I could put you out on the streets if you keep being a brat”, he countered.

You grasped the handle once more, water spilling over the rim as you picked it up with both hands. “We both know that you wouldn’t do that. You value me too much.”

And oh, in what ways he was beginning to value you.

For one, he would detest how condescending you would be, due to having all the knowledge of the next centuries and all the benefits that would come with it. Yet, he would bare most of it. When he wouldn’t, he’d let his sharp-tongue and centuries worth of life experience come to light. He would mock you for your nativity and prod at you for being coddled and accustomed to yet-to-be luxuries.

Arthur would tell you that he would put effort in finding a way to send you back to your own time. That would be a shameless lie. He wouldn’t be interested in anything of the sort. Rather he would insist on you staying with him, to help him further his imperial ambitions. Besides, you would be the most interesting and riveting thing that would have happened to him in ages. He would quickly grow attached to you, and with you having nobody else than him (he would ensure that) in a harsh and foreign world of which you would truly know little, you would find yourself relying on him.

He might tell you that he is a personification. Secrets for secrets, after all. And with him providing proof of his semi-immortality and the absurdity of time travel having happened you would be inclined to believe him. England would also tell you that if you would return to your own time, he would be sure to seek you out, so that you can be back together again. Besides rising alarm bells in your head, you would find yourself asking just how much of the timeline you would end up altering with the scrapes of information that he would wheedle out of you.

#yandere england #yandere hetalia #time traveler #yandere hetalia x reader

[dwellordream]

“...By the 1920s, only the very poorest Danish families had to depend on the economic contributions of adolescent children for survival, but in most households daughters were still expected to help supplement the household income by handing over their pay. Especially in their first years as wage earners, parental control over children's income was considerable. Mothers in charge of the family budget generally kept most of the wages, permitting adolescent wage earners only a limited weekly allowance for personal expenses. Young women's family responsibilities continued in other ways as well. 

While sons were given much more leeway, daughters were generally expected to contribute their labor to the household after they arrived home from work. "In my family, all the children were sent out to work after their [Christian] confirmation [at the age of thirteen or fourteen], and we all had to give mother some of the money we earned for housekeeping," Gerda Eriksen recalled of her working class youth in the early 1920s. "But," she continued, "the girls also had their chores—running errands, peeling potatoes, setting and cleaning the table, doing the dishes, bringing up coal from the basement. My brothers never had to do any of that. That was women's work."

But if contributing wages and labor to the household continued to be the unquestioned norm, young women's sense of their rights and obligations vis-a-vis the family was nevertheless changing in other ways in the early decades of the twentieth century. When earnings were sufficient, some daughters decided to strike out on their own and live independently in rented rooms, small apartments, or boarding houses, but given their low wages this was a possibility for the very few. More frequently, young working women sought to use their earnings as leverage to negotiate a stronger position within the family. Especially after World War I, when most families were able to place themselves safely beyond the poverty line, the necessity of individual sacrifice for household survival began to fade.

This allowed even working-class daughters to assert their right to new privileges in exchange for their economic contributions, and in the 1920s they did so in increasing numbers. Young women's sense of what they could legitimately demand from their families clearly sprang from their status and experiences as wage earners outside the home. In the labor market, and particularly in jobs other than domestic service, young women learned a rhythm of time and labor that divided daily life into paid work and one's "own" time. This was a rhythm already familiar to most men, whose lives had long been split into realms of work and leisure. Therefore, (male) wage earners were the obvious beneficiaries when Danish government regulations in 1919 limited the work day to eight hours, allowing working men more free time than ever before. 

Married women, on the other hand, did not experience a similar shortening of the workday. Whether they worked outside the home or not, housework, child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning were never ending tasks, and unlike their husbands, they had to snatch their few leisured moments in between domestic responsibilities. As working women, daughters were precariously positioned between these different patterns of daily life. Even though they took on wage labor much like their fathers and brothers, young women were simultaneously expected to share the steady burdens of domestic work with their mothers and to devote their nonworking time to household labor. 

It was this discrepancy between expectations fostered by labor market participation in the context of increasing standards of living, and the realities of family life that became increasingly intolerable for many young women in the 1910s and 1920s. In their minds, earning a living and bringing home money positioned them on a par with male members of the family, entitling them to at least some of the same prerogatives. Consequently, while they did not resist having to hand over a substantial part of their earnings, they more and more openly resented that their financial contribution did not always earn them what they considered its reasonable counterpart, namely the right to free time. As a result, families with adolescent daughters were plunged into conflicts about the degree of personal autonomy that labor market participation and wages ought to bestow. 

Intrafamilial conflicts are often difficult for historians to document, but in this case tensions between parents and children are easily discernible. They surface, for instance, in the immensely popular advice columns of the 1910s and 1920s. Convinced of their right as wage earners to at least some free time and exasperated by their parents' unwillingness to grant them this privilege, some young women turned to advice columnists, hoping for replies that would affirm the legitimacy of their demands. 

Among the correspondents was "Betty" who openly questioned her parents' authority. "I work from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. every day," she explained. "When I come home, I am tired, but I still have to fix dinner and look after my younger sister. In the evenings my parents say I have to do needle-work, but I would rather read or go for a walk. Can they really demand that I stay at home? I am seventeen and a half years old, and I pay my mother Dkr. 8 every week."

Similarly, "a Copenhagen girl" found the relationship between rights and duties in her life unreasonable. "Before I leave in the morning," she complained, "I have to light the fire, make coffee and pack lunches. When I come home, the dishes are still sitting there, and there are errands to be run. Sometimes I want to meet my girlfriend at night, but my parents will almost never let me go. They say there is no reason to 'gad about,' but I don't understand what is wrong with having a little bit of fun at night when you work all day." Other evidence also suggests that many young women openly struggled to obtain the right to leisure and independent activities they thought they deserved. 

Personal narratives often reveal both the intensity of such conflicts and the ingenuity of young women bent on getting their way. Emilie Johansen, who grew up in a middle-class family in a suburb of Aarhus recalled, for example, how she and her sister enlisted the help of an older aunt in their conflicts with an authoritarian father. "He was so strict. He would never allow us to have any fun, never allow us to go anywhere. It was hopeless. But then my aunt—I guess she was feeling sorry for us— we talked to her, and she hired us to do some cleaning and stuff. And we would get there and she would say, 'Why don't you girls run off to see a movie?' I don't remember if we ever actually did any work."

Equally resourceful, Copenhagen native Anna Eriksen depended on the backing of an older brother, who, in exchange for small favors, would promise to act as her chaperon outside the home only to vanish as soon as the siblings were out of their parents' sight. In addition to such evidence, numerous magazine articles and newspaper columns from the 1910s and 1920s chronicle the anger and bewilderment of parents who found themselves in constant conflict with their daughters. For mothers, this seemed particularly difficult. Not only did their daughters' desire for a "modern" life seem a rejection of their own norms and values, which in itself was hard to bear, but on top of that, some girls directly flaunted their disrespect of maternal authority, especially if fathers were absent, indulgent, or merely lackadaisical.

"When my daughter is not at the office, she thinks life has to be lived in a cafe, or in other places where people are judged according to their dress and style," "Ninka's mother" wrote to a women's magazine in 1921. "If I tell her to stay home even a few nights a week, she acts as if I've just imposed a life sentence on her." "She doesn't listen to me," another mother complained of her seventeen-year-old daughter. "When I tell her to stay home, she just laughs and says that you are only young once, that this is the twentieth century and not the Middle Ages, and that she is already wasting too much of her youth in a dirty factory. Besides that, she has her own money."

Even more desperate, the mother of one of the much maligned Langelinie girls told a newspaper journalist that she had "begged and pleaded with [her daughter] not to go there, but it doesn't help. I have to go to work, and my neighbor tells me that as soon as I am out the door, she takes off." Using whatever means it took, many young working women who came of age in the late 1910s and 1920s thus pushed for new personal freedoms and especially the right to free time. While some parents never gave in to their pressure, most young women seemed gradually to succeed in carving out of daily life at least some uninterrupted time devoted to relaxation and their own enjoyment. 

From the mid-1920s, the frequency of daughters' publicly voiced complaints declined dramatically, and coming-of-age stories no longer featured such conflicts. Apparently, Ernestine P. Poulsen, born in 1902, described a phenomenon that extended beyond her family when she explained that "I fought a lot of battles with my parents [over the right to leisure]. Perhaps I cleared the way because when my [younger] sisters came along, they did not have to do the same. My parents had kind of accepted that girls also needed time of their own."

This did not mean, however, that conflicts between parents and daughters faded. Rather, the grounds of conflict merely shifted. Much resistance to giving young women free time derived from the material conditions of daily life—the practical assistance of grown daughters was still important for the well-being of many working-class households—and from a more general reluctance to give up control over children. But parents' reluctance also stemmed from their misgivings about young women's actual use of their leisure time. 

Had daughters simply demanded more time to pursue leisure activities within the home, had they insisted on participating in cooking classes and sewing circles, or had they wanted to attend lectures on hygiene and housewifery, they would probably have been met with more understanding. But these were not the kinds of activities young women longed to engage in, and therefore the question of female leisure remained a contentious issue throughout the postwar decade.

Working-class and middle-class daughters had of course not been entirely without time of their own prior to the 1920s. Nor had they been completely confined to the home. Girls from the countryside had always been allowed to participate in regional fairs, celebrations, and local get-togethers of young people. Urban working-class daughters had long socialized outside the home on staircase landings and front steps, in backyards, and on city streets or in neighborhood parks, and many middle-class daughters belonged to women's clubs and organizations. 

What constituted the major departure from convention in the 1910s and 1920s was young women's insistence on their right to "go out," an activity significantly different from the kind of casual socializing that took place outside their parents' windows or in clubs and organizations under adult supervision. "Going out," Regitze Nielsen recalled, "that was when we got dressed up and went somewhere." More specifically, "going out" meant pursuing pleasures that took young women away from home and family, into the public, and, in particular, toward new forms of commercial recreation, including movie theaters, cafes, dance places, and amusement parks. As a social practice, this form of "going out" challenged older norms for female behavior in several ways. 

First, it obviously entailed their deliberate desertion from the domestic world, if only momentarily. Second, "going out" meant young women venturing outside familiar neighborhoods and beyond the realm of adult control and surveillance, claiming for themselves the right to an independent, unsupervised social life distinct from familial traditions. Third, as opposed to more traditional forms of leisure for women, "going out" was a strictly peer-oriented activity in which kinship ties had much less significance than freely chosen and carefully cultivated friendships among girls and young women who usually met in school, at work, in clubs and organizations, or in the neighborhood where they lived. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, "going out" meant women's entrance into public spaces traditionally defined as male territory and often imagined as sites of immoral activity where men and women freely mingled, potentially transgressing social and sexual boundaries. Because each of these four aspects seemed to pose a fundamental threat to the social and sexual status quo, intense controversies between parents and children over young women's new leisure activities reverberated throughout the postwar decade. Years after families had conceded to daughters' demands for more time of their own, parents struggled to control or at least influence their use of that time. 

By dictating curfews, prohibiting particular activities and specific locations, insisting on being introduced to friends and companions, and demanding the chaperonage of brothers, parents sought not only to protect their daughters against potential dangers but also to maintain at least some authority. Consequently, when young women ventured out into the public sphere, they generally did so under the intense scrutiny of parents who continued to hold some power to revoke their newly won privileges. Thus, even as "going out" gradually became a regular part of young women's lives, treading carefully remained an often perplexing prerequisite.”

- Birgitte Soland, “Good Girls and Bad Girls.” in Becoming Modern: Young Women and the Reconstruction of Womanhood in the 1920s

#1920s #history #danish #birgitte soland #becoming modern

[tosikoarts]

SFW Alphabet | Usami Tokishige

🎵 This may become a little brutal If I'm honest but It's any-anything for you my dear, I promise 🎶 You can figure our what I was listening to while writing this piece. Anyway, hope you’ll like it, anon!  You can check tosikowrites tag for more.  Warning: there’s a lot under the cut.

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

The fact that Usami fell in love and now can’t shut up about them is not that surprising since the soldiers of the 7th Division have already witnessed his unhealthy obsession with the First Lieutenant. The dangerous aura of infinite adoration he carries does not bother others as much as well, maybe, because now his cursed energy has more output options, you know? It is not concentrated on one person and seems not so intense. Seems.

No matter how wild his fantasy runs, Usami behaves himself in their presence. Of course, his nerves are as taut as a rope since if he loosens up his attention he may not contain his passion…Chooses words carefully so as not to push them away and comes across as a lovely bubbly young man with the cutest smile! Even sitting in silence together is special. Usami can’t quit staring at them, they are so majestic!

He wants to follow them everywhere. Eat together, go on morning walks together, sleep together. Usami is a human version of burdock that will either quite by accident bump into his crush every other day or shamelessly ask them if they will be in this specific place or if they want to go there with him.

Personal boundaries? Don’t know her. As soon as his loved one gives him green light, Usami’s hands are all over the place. If he isn’t pinching their pink cheeks then he is patting their head. If he isn’t patting their head, he might be squeezing their ass. Usami is all about physical affection in every possible way, and it is extremely important for him to touch his partner. He might even lose it when they put a hand on his knee or take him by the hand, leave alone anything spicier.

Usami will end anyone who steps between him and his loved one. For him this is a cut-throat axiom, it is as natural as breathing, and it should be obvious to the surrounding. Anyone who wants to separate them automatically signs their own death sentence that will be carried out immediately by Usami himself.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

To be friends with the rabid Superior Private, you have to be a mad lad with no moral compass (the questionable moral compass is ok too) just like him or be a literal angel with the patience of a sage and a heart of gold to deal with the chaos Usami brings into your life. Also, this person has to have impeccable reflexes just in case he decides to cut this friendship off. Takagi Tomoharu didn’t and where is he now?

With such a friend, nothing is scary. Friendship with Usami provides invulnerability in situations where an ordinary person would think twice. In addition to that, Tokishige doesn’t really look for troubles and prefers to spend time like a real hedonist: red-light district workers know his preferences very well, the owner in his favorite diner always meets him with a question “the usual?”, and Usami knows places to hang around in general. His friend gets to experience life delights with him as well.

He needs so much attention! If it was up to him, Usami would spend at least an hour every day with them even when they have already talked about every single thing in the world. Everyday chats about nothing are cool, mutual flattery is appreciated. These points lead to Usami being overly possessive: if his best friend suddenly starts spending more time with someone else, he will definitely take action against this stumbling block.

Demands that his friend to follow the “the enemy of my friend is my enemy” rule. They are obligated to get embittered at Ogata. No, Usami doesn’t explain why, they just have to.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Usami has restless ass syndrome. It’s like restless legs syndrome but with ass: he can’t sit still for more than 15 minutes. Cuddles do not last longer than that and often progress into steamy making out. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to cuddle though. Usami prefers to do it while leaving some space for moving so the leg hug is just perfect. Any other position including classical spooning feels like a rabbit trap.

If his partner is bigger than he is, Usami will definitely lie on their chest with legs wiggling up in the air. First of all, now he can see their lovable face, and second of all, he is on top which means being in control.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Eeeh. Does he want to settle down? No, not really. Let’s say, there was no reason for him to think about settling down but even if there was, Usami would aggressively shake his head in negation. He is, just like Koito, too young to plan a quiet family life, and, at the moment, living on the wheels without thinking up ahead seems much more exciting than being chained to one place with one person. In his head, things are kind of overexaggerated but the answer to the question is still no for the next 10 years for sure.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

It is highly unlikely that Usami will break up with his partner in a proper manner. Self-deprecating comments and taking the blame for a failed relationship have no place in his explanation if he even decides to talk about it. Most likely Usami will leave them as spontaneously and unexpectedly as he popped up in their life in the first place: hops on a horse, gives them short indifferent look over the shoulder, and fades into the darkness of the night to never be seen again. Maybe, it’s for the better since Usami doesn’t have to face the fact he has nothing to say. Well, he chooses to be silent since crushing them with disinterest that makes the kid throw the old toy into the toybox doesn’t please him either. No check-ups, no letters, no “let’s stay friends”.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Avoids this question to the last minute because he is too young to commit and jump into family life. Usami reminds me of the type of person who wants to experiment in youth so that in old age he would not regret missing exciting opportunities. There is not a chance he will propose until he comes to the conclusion that he has already seen and experienced the most impressive stuff. So, maybe, from 7 to 10 years? Most definitely feels neutral about having an affair or two since he has a pretty lenient conscience.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Emotionally? Absolute emptiness with, perhaps, distorted memories of family love arising here and there. His feelings are strong, aggressive, filled with preceding excitement before the upcoming fun. Calm states of mind such as serenity, clarity, boundless love are too underwhelming for Usami. Wouldn’t call him gentle in the physical sense either: life is motion, and he has to move or do something, anything to feel alive, and impatience makes his moves rough and harsh. Even in a gentle embrace, it seems that he squeezes his loved one to their ribs cracking. He kisses them out until they want to slip out of his hands like a gasping fish. They may like it, they may not, but Usami doesn’t loosen his love grip and remains a (little) wild in the relationship.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Usami hugs them at the most unexpected moments, takes them by storm to squeeze the hell out of them. Perhaps these are his favorite ones, to pick them up high and spin, leaving their legs tingling in the air like a ragdoll.

His hands never stay in one place. Feeling their warm body under the fingertips is indescribable pleasure so Usami gives himself free rein to rub their back, squeeze their sides, press them to his chest, and nuzzle into their neck. He may bite them as well.

Can’t stand to be hugged when he is obviously busy to the point where Usami can kinda gently push them away but sees no problem when he does the same to his partner. Believes that everything can be forgiven for his big puppy eyes (and other particular qualities).

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Casually says it on like the second day of official dating over the cup of tea. Hard to say if he is for real so confident in his feelings or if he does it to check their reaction but nevertheless. Usami looks his loved one right in the eyes with undisguised beaming complacency, and his confession is short, definite, and unobjectionable. Propping his chin with his pale hands, he immediately returns to the casual conversation and keeps going joyfully about whatever on his mind like Usami didn’t just murmur how he is in love with them forever and for ever. After that, he is elated. Confession is a kind of seal of belonging to him, consent of another person is optional, it doesn't matter at all, all that does it that they are his and he is theirs.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

This shit is scary for everybody involved. Usami doesn’t get jealous per se but he has a strong feeling of having his loved one in his possession. Should someone try to covet his partner as hell breaks loose: regardless of who exactly was the initiator, - his loved one or another person, - Usami immediately takes action. In his mind, his partner can’t be guilty of infidelity, they were simply coerced into foul play and have to be taught how to recognize such a thing, they are innocent. This awful other person is different though, they are the ones who need to be taught some manners.

To start a fight Usami needs one dirty look, one carelessly thrown word. This is just an excuse to allow himself to take out all the anger on the poor soul. If Koito likes to gab hours on end but secretly hoping to avoid getting physical, Usami sees talking as a waste of time. Of course, if one fight is not enough, then Usami can go in for murder.

After the accident, he acts a lot rougher with his partner forcing them deeper into submission. To maintain ego and control and to be sure that they know their place, Usami needs praise, persuasion, and tons of physical affection.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Loves the concept of kissing, loves to kiss, and to be kissed. Sees every kiss as a personal signature but also, on another level, rewarding pastime so Usami is all about steamy make-out sessions. He is eager and rough, oftentimes marks his partner in visible areas with not only bright hickeys but with straight out bites. The look of dark crescents from his teeth scattering on their delicate neck turns Usami on like nothing else.

Likes to be kissed all over the body, would prefer them to be as rough though since casual soft kisses don’t really set a mood for him. The same goes for them, Usami won’t leave a spot unkissed on their body. Has a thing for the neck, wrists, and insides of the thighs.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Don’t let him around kids because it seems like Usami is good at it but in reality, he just builds up an army of naughty children to throw eggs at the neighbor's door. He like a devil coerces the goody angel into a mini-revolution under the nose of parents without offering any candy. Give this man a free hand, remove Tsurumi from his life, and you’ll see Usami growing into a cult leader. So, yes, he is pretty good with children older than like 5-6 years old, can’t do shit with babies younger than that. Usami hasn’t thought about being a father himself because beyond pranks and fun he knows absolutely nothing, zero, nada about raising children.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Incredibly active and varied if Usami managed to fall asleep before midnight the day before. He unceremoniously wakes his partner up either covering their face with kisses or pulling the blanket off them or starting a pillow fight. Expects his loved one to rise and shine without spending an hour just sitting here with an empty stare in the void.

Even when Usami collapses in the bed at dawn, it is possible that he will accidentally wake them up with a sweeping elbow blow to the nose. During the cold season, his partner should be ready to wake up trembling without a blanket. This bastard steals it every other night.

It is rare to see Usami cooking or doing anything useful at all in the house in the morning. He prefers to wander around while his partner lays the table and talk out loud to himself.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Unpredictable. He may get lost for an evening, come back with no explanation (we all know he was up to no good), and crash next to them with a smug smile. Other nights Usami can’t leave them alone: it feels like it is vital for him to fiddle with their fingers, play with their hair, pull them into a tight hug. The maximum relaxation effect is achieved with a couple of bitter sake shots drunk before meals.

Sleeping. Nobody canceled messed up sleeping schedule (check out the last letter of the alphabet) so Usami may have to make up for it by going to bed as early as 8 p.m.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Opens up slowly but doesn't pay much attention to what exactly he is saying. Everything that has happened to the present moment is already history so Usami treats it as such. What once pleased or upset him does not evoke any strong emotions now and he easily reveals his past to the loved one. Usami, of course, avoids mentioning the murder of his friend but with a partner who very clearly shows their loyalty, he will not hesitate to describe how much it turned him inside out and changed him, opening doors to the darkest corners of his soul. In return, Usami asks his loved one tons of questions from favorite color to a relationship with their mother, feeling free to ask the most intrusive ones.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He is in the state of the boiling kettle 24/7, ready to whistle for any given reason. Not that he is that angry, but definitely in an unstable state of mind. When he gets pissed off, Usami doesn't change in the face, except that his smile can get even wider baring sharp small teeth. In most cases, other people have to restrain his anger so the military does a good job at keeping Superior Private in check with an iron fist out of battles and letting him go wild when the situation requires it.

In the relationship, Usami teeters on the brink just like the outside of it but his reactions to upsetting situations are milder and are easily resolved by sublimating desire to destroy into intense workout, make out, etc. He is easy to blow out but he tries really hard to do not harm his loved one.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

There is a whole room in his mind palace to store volumes of information about the loved one. Usami thrives on discovering different aspects of his partner’s personality in deep conversations and in characteristic behavior that he enjoys so much to observe. Therefore, nothing goes unnoticed.

Perfectly navigates the tone of their voice: Usami knows exactly how their sadness sounds when they try to veil it with cheerful words and when to step back when they rise their voice in a fit of anger. Awfully useful with a person who has a hard time communicating and/or expects others to understand them just like that.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

He doesn’t have a favorite one. All meaningful moments like the first meeting, first kiss, other first times occupy equally important places in his heart so if asked Usami will murmur how every second with them is unthinkably precious and he can’t pick just one!

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Ready to faithfully protect his partner in the most dangerous situations. It is obvious, isn’t it? Usami will cover them like a shield on the battlefield, but most of the time he prefers to eliminate the source of danger: thanks to a state of perpetual alert and intense adrenaline rush, he can ignore multiple injuries for hours while shooting off foes. Usami lacks the voice of reason so he tends to overreact when it is completely out of place.

Oh, Usami doesn’t let anybody touch his loved one. As soon as he sees a hand reaching to them, he reflexively grabs it if not twists it with excessive force. Strangers understand they should not mess with Usami from his piercing look but there is always a fool who tempts fate in vain.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Not that much. He doesn't bother planning dates and gifts but sometimes there are moments of enlightenment that make Usami sit down and think about how to impress his loved one in a good way. Most of the time he prefers spontaneity to foresight since in his mind whatever is fun to him will work for them too.

Anniversaries are the dates when Usami is all sweetness and light: he runs around his loved one ready to bend over backward for their enjoyment. Seriously, he is ready to be used as a footrest for the whole day if it’s what they want.

Slacks on everyday tasks though, he is great at avoiding daily chores under the stupidest pretext.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

I won't even start talking about how unhinged he is, you should have had figured it out by now. I just have to mention again that this is an integral personality trait and Usami cannot physically change it. Take it or leave it. He is not forcing anybody to participate in his violent misadventures but he won’t tolerate attempts to stop them.

Control freak, Usami thinks he owns a person when in the relationship. He quite seriously believes that he is in control of their life and can decide whether they can or cannot do particular things. Of course, if they do not act in accordance with Usami’s wishes, they will be punished to prevent further misbehavior.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Usami’s skin is naturally silky and he likes to keep it this way despite the harsh weather conditions. Nobody knows if he is using any creams or other cosmetics but the fact remains: his face is almost baby-like soft. Also, running men tattoos fade quickly due to their location so Usami has to renew them quite often. He does it with enviable regularity and forbids everyone (except his partner and First Lieutenant) to touch his cheeks. His clothes are in fair condition as well as his shoes. Usami wears his clothes neatly, and never wears them off to the holes and patches.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

All attempts to break up with Usami end with his theatrical chuckle and short “good joke, darling”: they are not going anywhere until he allows them to do so. The more times his partner brings this dumb question up, the angrier he gets, barely hiding it behind biting his lips. By the time his patience bursts, Usami has already come up with a plan to keep them by his side, voluntarily or compulsorily. If they decide to leave him because they didn’t get enough attention and affection, Usami will try to fulfill their every whim. If they express their concerns regarding his behavior, Usami will learn how to hide unsightly features better. All in all, he is not going to let them go just because they want to. It seems that the risk of ending on the side of the road gives him even more fervor to fight for their love.

The only thing that remains for his loved one is to leave Usami with no farewell letter left behind. Otherwise, they risk gaining a stalker with military experience under his belt. Not the best combination if you ask me.

If they were killed, Usami one hundred percent will find their murderer and tear them apart. Literally. He snaps, he is not going to hold back any longer.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Must be an obvious one but Usami is a kinky bastard. He tries such things to which no adequate person would agree or if they did it is unlikely that they would tell anyone about it. This applies not only to sexual behavior, he is eccentric in general, he is not held back by social rules and limits of decency. Usami would set few things on fire just to see how long it takes each to burn to the crisps. Sucks fingers and toes. I don’t know, he does everything you are kind of uncomfortable to do. Might fuck around and start another war idk.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Can’t handle boring people. Looking at what he considers “boring” people tells that it includes people with no character, withdrawn from society and recent events, silly and predictable ones. First, most likely they would not interact with Usami considering how unhinged he is. He is more trouble than he is worth, you know. And secondly, Usami doesn’t notice them in the crowd. If his loved one happens to be too boring, he will leave them, sooner or later.

Anyone standing between him and First Lieutenant can forget about any relationship with Usami. It is impossible. The gears in his head are spinning like crazy to come up with a perfect plan and get away with their murder. No hard feelings, but Usami’s obsession with Tsurumi isn’t going anywhere, and the only scenario he can agree with is dating someone who if doesn’t support it then at least doesn’t try to ward him off of it.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

His sleep schedule is an absolute mess with no hint of changing in the future. First of all, Usami sleeps 4-6 hours per day, can’t sleep during the day so he doesn’t take naps and doesn’t nodes off. At the same time, these short hours of sleep do not stick to night time only: sometimes Usami decides to go to bed at 3 a.m. still full of energy, other days he crawls under the blanket at 6 p.m. exhausted to the point of collapsing. He never complains about sleep, sees almost acid-trippy dreams a few times a month, and not even once had to take a pill to fall asleep.

Sleeps like a dead man with limbs entwined around his loved one. His lips break into a sweet smile as Usami throws a leg over their body and presses himself closer. He looks so peaceful you’d never think this man can bite your hand and throw you out of the window uwu.

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy headcanon #golden kamuy imagine #Usami Tokishige #tosikowrites

[bayoubashsims]

Naturally

Naturally is a short story about the life of a Dutch-American woman who settled in Indonesia during the early days of its independence, the legacy she carried across the ocean, and the legacy she built in her new homeland. The story reflects on the most poignant events in her long and candid life; from the circumstances that made her birth possible, her childhood in the tumultuous early twentieth century, her new life in a new nation, to the troubles of her offspring, the return to her birthplace, and her dying days. These vignettes of Eleanor Mangkoedimedjo’s life serve as a testament that much of what we are we owe to those who came before us (whether good or bad), particularly our mothers and the mothers before them, and understanding our past often means understanding our future.

Name: Eleanor Mirabelle Mangkoedimedjo Maiden Name: Schuyler Other name(s): Laila Mulyati Place and Date of Birth: Batavia, New York, August 11, 1928 Parents: Lucas T. Schuyler (Adam Sutansyah) and Ana L. Schuyler (née Lahaije); Rosminah Sutansyah Grandparents: Pieter Lahaije and Johanna Lahaije (née van der Maas); Thomas E. Schuyler and Eleanor C. Schuyler (née Thompson) Sibling(s): Coralea Schuyler and Miriam van de Plaas Spouse(s): R. Prabowo H.L. Mangkoedimedjo Children: Matilda E. Willem and Philomena K. Develsbourne

Prologue

Maastricht, the Netherlands  1932

Gerrit Beuling was a tall, thin man with a long swan’s neck and a protruding Adam’s apple. His long, auburn hair went to his shoulders, and was combed back. He trudged along the brick road in that humid summer with a wooden case under his right arm, and he carried with him a manner of expectation.

He stopped when he came to a narrow alley with a stone staircase that led to a wooden door to its left. He cautiously made his way through, up and in, passing by one grimy corridor after another. He arrived half panting at a room at the end of the corridor, covered with faded ruby-colored floral wallpaper and adorned with fine furniture. He placed his case down and took off his coat. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and took a deep breath.

“I don’t understand why you’re wearing a coat like that in such a hot day.” Said Madame Lahaije. She was perched upon a crimson chaise-lounge by the window in a severely outdated, purple buttoned up dress that seemed to betray her own words to the young painter.

“For presentation, of course. And I put a lot of my things inside my coat pockets.”

Madame Lahaije sneered. “A gentleman never puts things inside his pocket. Unless it’s money, of course.”

“Are you ready, Madame?” He asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Do you think this dress is fine?” She asked, adjusting the stiff collar of her dress.

“It’s beautiful. But what a dress to wear in such a weather.” He answered. He was happy with the ironic echo.

“For presentation.” She replied, reassuringly. “Let us adjourn to the other room, shall we?”

She rose up slowly from her seat and walked to the other room as if Gerrit wasn’t even behind her. The other room was a brightly lit, white-paneled alcove at the side of the building that faces the garden, and beyond the horizon lies the countryside. She then proceeded to sit upon a blue, velveteen chair and pointed Gerrit where to sit. Gerrit opened his case, and laid out a set of watercolor paint on a table next to a wooden easel. He placed a canvas upon it and looked at his subject.

“Am I good enough?” She asked.  “Of course.”

Madame Lahaije looked at the boy sitting across her.

‘So young’, she said to herself.

She carefully combed a few strands of loose hair from her teased grey crown and adjusted her collar.

There were a few minutes of silence.  

“Eh-hem.” The lady cleared her throat to break the awkwardness. “Getting impatient are we, Madame?” Asked Gerrit. “No. I understand this will not be fast work.”  “Are you sure you’re comfortable in that dress?” Her eyebrows went up and her eyes squinted.  “Would you rather I take it off?”  Gerrit bit his lips.  “My apologies.”

“You know,” she uttered, her face building up to a slight smile “the last time a man said that to me was my husband, asking me about my wedding dress on our wedding day over 50 years ago. We didn’t have a conventional wedding, you know. My family had disowned me for running off with a man twenty years my senior, and he didn’t have any family left, so it was a few friends and the servants. I remember the dress was white and was very tight. I hated being in it but I looked good in it. Pieter said to me 'Johanna, are you sure you’re comfortable in that dress?’, because he heard me gasping whilst my bridesmaids were closing up my corset. He must’ve thought I was choking or something. It was a humid day, much like this.”

Gerrit’s eyes didn’t turn from the canvas.  “You must’ve looked beautiful.”  “It was a hundred years ago.”  “Oh, I don’t know. You’re still beautiful now.”  Madame Lahaije was not one to take compliments or responded to them, but enjoyed them altogether.

“Don’t you have a girl, Gerrit? How old are you now, 27?”  “28 this October. And no. I don’t have that much interest in courting girls.” “Do you like the boys, then?” She asked mockingly. Gerrit made no response.

“My daughter must be around your age now. I wonder if she’s married.”

“Don’t you keep in touch with her?”

“She hates me so. She lives in America. Ran away 5 years ago.”

“Why does she hate you?”

“Ah, who knows, schaadt. Us mothers do what instincts tell us to. At the end of the day, it’s still a stab in the dark to assume whether or not our children like us. At one point, they will hate you.”

She continued. “I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but she was an accident. I didn’t plan on having kids with Pieter, but then we did. And not long after she was born, he died, which is when I started the business. I made deals with a few men in some places. I took in homeless girls and groomed them. Of course, I am no Saint for turning them into prostitutes. But at least it provided food at the table for them and a roof over their heads and mine, ja?”

“I suppose.”

There was more silence. Madame Lahaije scratched her right eyebrow half-unsure, wondering if the painter will find it annoying that she’s moving around, but there was no response from him. She looked as stiff as a sculpture, like a purple tulip turned upside down, frozen in winter. She was in her mid-seventies then but retained the outline she had in her youth—a dark and well-pronounced outline that emphasized her bones and her heavily-lidded eyes. In her youth, she was a great beauty, though she never thought of herself that way.

Eventually she asked Gerrit ‘normal’ questions—of the weather, of recent happenings in town, and of the interesting stories that happened in her brothel, for instance, the girls who became pregnant would be sent to the abortionist, and those who choose to have the baby will be sent away. She also told him of men who trespassed the boundaries in treating the girls and how often she had to march into the bedrooms and pull them out by any of their parts and kicking them out to the streets. Gerrit nodded and gave some short responses. Madame Lahaije simply went on and on. It was just the way she talked.

“But I do miss Ana sometimes, you know.” Madame Lahaije uttered, wilting a bit. She was talking about the bad economy a few seconds ago. “How can I help it? She came out of my mangy twat and she’s the only family I have.”

“Such are the ties in blood.” Gerrit said.

Madame Lahaije turned back to concrete. “I was turned away by my own mother, left at the backdoor of an orphanage like a grocery delivery.” She said coldly. “The family that took me in, the van der Maas bunch, was more than kind. But I rebelled. I ran away with the painter and never saw them again. I was disowned. So what? I’ve been disowned the minute I crawled out of my mother. I couldn’t stand being locked up in the house.”

“But,” She added. “thanks to the education that they provided, I turned into the woman I am today. I am no idiot like the tarts I employ, who can strut but everything they hear on the right come out of their left. I keep a close eye on my accounts and I know of a great deal about literature, economy, and politics. So I am grateful, I suppose. If I weren’t a lady I’d have gone to war.”

Gerrit smiled.

“My adopted father was a timber businessman. The mother did nothing but groom her daughters, which included me, into fine ladies every single day from the minute she wakes. The brother was, oh, a handsome gentleman. He followed in his father’s footsteps. He died, however, a good six years before I fled. Of cholera.”

Her head was straight and poised, with her eyebrows way up on her forehead.  “He was my first love.” She uttered, and continued. “Mother van der Maas was a strict woman, unlike her husband, who was very much at ease. She was the only sort of mother I ever had, and I was 9 when they adopted me. My need for a mother had rotted years before I met her. Such a shame, no? Nevertheless, I pleased her need for a daughter. Her real daughters, Maria and Nelia, were skittish little things. Very fragile. And so Mother van der Maas took a preference for me. Can’t imagine how she felt when I left them. Mustn’t be like what I felt when Ana left. I remember, I caught Ana leaving with a suitcase in one hand, down by the foyer. I say to her, ‘Must be so easy to leave all this behind’. Well, I thought it, but I did not say it. I simply acted as…a figure of authority, if you must, to this young girl, whom I knew I will never see again or hear from again. She said nothing and left hurriedly. “

There was a silence for a few moments.

"Ah, well.” She shrugged.  “I guess I was never meant to be a mother.”

Gerrit smiled.

There was a silence for a few moments.

Gerrit suddenly rose up.  “I think that’s enough for today. I’ll continue again tomorrow.”

Madame Lahaije was somehow a bit surprised at this but felt settled.  “Fine.”

He draped a white cloth over the canvas and packed his things into the case.

“Same time tomorrow, then?” “Yes.” Answered Gerrit.

Gerrit approached Madame Lahaije, and gave her his hand. Not for a handshake, but for a kiss on her hand. She let him. The kiss was swift, and almost felt like a knife.

“Thank you, Gerrit.”

Gerrit smiled and walked away.

There, in the silence, Madame Lahaije looked out from the window, to the meadow just beyond the house a few miles away.

“What are you thinking?”

---------------------------------------------

The Past 

Batavia, New York - Bandung, the Dutch East Indies 1924-1945

The best thing she did was pretending that she wasn’t hurt.

Eleanor had always been a woman with such pride and stubbornness; even when she was a little girl, her mother Ana would chide her for sassing back. Her poor old mother didn’t want to be harsh on her, because her own mother was draconic to her. Ana had three children, but Eleanor, the youngest, stopped becoming her child and became her daughter when she was just six.

Oh, how Eleanor reminded her so much of her own mother. Even when Eleanor was named after her paternal grandmother, her temperament was quite similar to her maternal grandmother, a proprietress of a Maastricht brothel that Ana had abandoned out of spite at the turn of the century.

Before we go to Eleanor, we must learn of the stock that she came from; Ana was born Ana Louisa Lahaije to Pieter Lahaije and Johanna Lahaije (née van der Maas)

Just twenty-one years old back then in 1924, Ana sailed for six days from Hoek van Holland to the shores of America on a migrant ship. As far as she was concerned, she never had a mother, only a cold, leering phantom that she used to see at the other end of a dinner table. It was the prostitutes that worked in her brothel that became Ana’s mothers: Fleurtje was a great cook, Trienke taught her how to sew, Lotte gave great advice, and Madeleine sang songs with her. Johanna Lahaije only did three things for her throughout her life: she gave birth to Ana, she criticized her, and she let her leave. Johanna had caught her leaving with a suitcase at dawn and said nothing. She stood atop the staircase with her claws on the balustrade and she stood by as her daughter, like a deer caught in headlights, fled for the so-called Land of Opportunities. Of course, it was easy to assume that Johanna never loved her. Who knows, right? People tell you ‘I love you’ in different ways.

She had settled in New York and was married into a rather affluent Boer family, the Schuylers. She had married their youngest child, Lucas Schuyler. Her in-laws were the personification of Great White Hunters, who were ‘adventurers’, so to speak, along with their business ventures that took them around the world, while Lucas helped his mother at home and studied architecture in Cornell. Ana became a seamstress and found clientele in the sprawling metropolis, and gave birth to three daughters: Coralea, Miriam, and Eleanor. The Great Depression struck and though they did not suffer too much, the marriage between Lucas and Ana had cracked beyond repair from arguments regarding money to the spoiling of the children.

Lucas, envious of his father and brother’s adventures, decided to leave for the Dutch East Indies, having heard of the nation’s struggles for independence from the colonials that Lucas descended from. Ana refused to go, of course, since she did not drag herself all the way from Europe just to sail to some godforsaken land at the edge of the world. Much to her chagrin, Eleanor went along with her father. She enjoyed hearing the tales she used to hear about her grandfather and uncle, and she wanted to be an adventurer herself. They said goodbye and little Nortje was none the wiser. To the end of her days, she had always been her father’s child.

Eleanor was so proud of herself and her father. She had heard about the Emerald of the Equator from her father, a land so rich and green—filled with opportunities much heartier than the selfish aspirations of America—and thought of her future and the nation’s. One would think that a New York gal would be used to the urban ways, but even her days on her grandparents’ farm was nothing compared to the years she spent in this new land, and she fit right in with all the things other ‘expatriates’ couldn’t stand. They changed their names, too, and their religion. They settled in Bandung and became Muslims, thus Lucas and Eleanor Schuyler became Adam Sutansyah and Laila Mulyati. Mama Ana was not there to reprimand her for sassing, but instead it was Ibu Rosminah, a Sundanese lady so delicate and earthly one would think she was a fairy of the forests. When wartime came and the whites fled, Laila’s family stayed in support of the nation’s independence. The family did not approve of this. She didn’t care. Laila Mulyati did not care.

---------------------------------------------

Bandung and Kuningan, Indonesia 1945

Laila met her husband, Raden Bei Prabowo Mangkoedimedjo, in Bandung. Bowo was a neighbor’s pen pal and of gentry birth, and he was instantly head over heels with the dark-eyed Laila, as if a personification of the girl in Panon Hideung herself. They married just as Indonesia gained independence and had twin girls in the following year. Laila was just eighteen when she had babies and it was not easy. Motherhood was something foreign to her and she had to learn it by herself. As nice as Ibu Ros was to her, her volatile relationship with her biological mother was enough to leave her incapacitated when it came to motherhood (mothering, on the other hand, is a different matter altogether). Still, she tried her best. She really did.

---------------------------------------------

Kuningan, Indonesia - Boca Raton, Florida 1975

Philomena had graduated from college. Her twin sister Matilda did not stick with her as planned and decided to settle and breed with her high school sweetheart. Philomena did not have the patience to be an egg-brooding hen. She had expressed to her friends that she wanted to leave as soon as possible, especially from her Moes’ smothering. She had chosen to study Sociology at the University of Indonesia and stayed at a boarding house there. That never stopped her mother from dropping in from time to time all the way from Kuningan. She allowed Moes to smother as she pleased because she wouldn’t have to use her own money to buy food when she’s visiting, but it is quite exhausting to allow yourself to be smothered for years and years. Moes overheard this exchange (being the devil incarnate) and the next morning, she told Philomena she is to stay with her Aunt Coralea in Florida for a year.

Philomena was stunned, of course, and before she knew it she was in her aunt’s little condo in Boca Raton. The stay did not prove futile, as she became engaged to Southern aristocracy in the two years she was there. They had two wedding ceremonies; one in the US and one in Indonesia. Moes had a dance class to teach (she taught traditional dancing to the young ladies of Paterosari), so she did not see Philomena off on her day of departure. She hugged Moes goodbye at the door and left. Philomena was none the wiser.

Would you feel hurt telling your child goodbye as she became your daughter?

---------------------------------------------

Batavia, New York 1988

Ana’s three daughters came back to New York. Ana had experienced a series of illnesses and was bedridden, so of course they had to settle the estate. When their father left for Indonesia, their paternal grandparents ‘adopted’ their mother and left her the land. The land had been divided and sold throughout the years, and by that time, it was just a small but beautiful piece of land that had been the last home of Ana Schuyler. Her daughters were no longer little girls then. Coralea never married and became a landlady in Florida, so she knew the details of the estate business better than her sisters. Miriam knew next to nothing, having jumped from relationship to relationship and marriage to marriage, hoping that she’d at least get some of her mother’s jewels. Her husbands had always been Dutch men, and Ana refused to visit her in the Netherlands.

And then there’s Laila. She had grown so much from that little girl she saw leaving on a ship with a flowery hat. Still Ana chided her for her sassing even when Laila had two children and four grandchildren by that time, but the years had mellowed them to the point of the interaction becoming in jest. In Laila’s eyes, Ana saw herself, and for the first time, Ana understood her.

She came home as Eleanor. She thought it was the least she could do. She had such pride, that woman.

---------------------------------------------

Kuningan, Indonesia 2012

Matilda had died then, of emphysema and lung cancer. Her husband Hugo had disappeared years ago with no explanations, which sent her spiraling to instability. They had four children, and even their children were affected by Matilda’s thunderous descent. She had manic depression, apparently, and Moes remembered she saw the patterns in her own family—the aggression, the moodiness, the pitfalls of depression. It was harder for her to see her daughter suffering than to see her dying, though both practically ripped her apart. Still, she did not show it. Everyone was amazed at her strength.

By the time she was a widow, she had been many things and seen many things. She was involved with revolutionary women’s groups in the past and had joined efforts with other women to fight for the women’s cause in her town—and she understood her privilege as a descendant of colonials. In wartime, she volunteered as a nurse and eventually became one of the most senior members of the Indonesian Red Cross. She hinted, at one time, that she was a spy for the Indonesian rebels, and she defended her medical station from the Dutch with guns blazing. Of course, nobody ever found out if those things were true, but it made interesting conversation in her dance and exercise classes, knitting classes, and bird watching group.

Philomena had buried a husband and divorced two husbands by that time, and she had nothing left to stay on. She had been married long enough to her archeologist first husband to see the world. She had performed in nightclubs, cabarets, and theatres from Las Vegas to Paris. She had discovered a type of lizard in Brazil that was named after her, she had lived through the frigid winds of Siberia eating only dried food, and she even visited the elephant matriarch that killed her Grandfather Thomas in Tanzania. She had a trunk full of pictures, two trunks of knick-knacks, and a lifetime of memories to bring home when she decided to move back to the little town of Paterosari in Kuningan.

For forty years or so, she never stepped foot into her home country. Moes never allowed her, you see. It was always ‘I’ll come over to Atlanta to see you’ or anywhere else Philomena was staying in the US. Philomena never understood why. She never really understood why she was sent off to live with Aunt Lea back then and why, for forty years or so, she was not allowed to return home. As far as she was concerned, she wasn’t a communist connection forbidden to enter Indonesia because of the New Order’s restrictions (though her mother was probably closer to that), so why isn’t she allowed to come home?

It was 2012, and as she walked through the front garden of her house in Kuningan, laden with ferns and devil’s ivy, she decided that this was her last stop. It was as if she had always been there all this time. It was as if she were there just yesterday. Moes greeted her as any mother would, and soon began her readjustment from her worldly past life to her current, more provincial condition. Could it be that Moes was afraid that if her daughter returned home, she would never want to leave again? That she would stick by her dear old mother just to please her? That she would give up her exciting life in the great world beyond for the guilt she felt over leaving Moes?

Philomena never knew, not even when Moes died many years later. She did believe, strongly, that all this time she had been on the longest leash. She and her sister Matilda were her mother’s first and only children. As much as she struggled with motherhood, Moes was fiercely devoted to her children. A lot of this was lost in translation, Philomena supposed, which is why she wanted to leave. Perhaps Moes felt that she did not want Philomena to stick by for her sake. She did not want Philomena staying with her while dreaming of another life, while wondering what could be or what could have been.

Perhaps Moes loved her too much for that, so she allowed herself to be ripped apart for her flesh and blood to be happy. She did live that life, so she did not wonder about what could be or what could have been because she had been, and now it’s over. Philomena thought of how unlucky it is that children cannot choose their parents and how most of the time, it is parents that choose to have children. In retrospect, she was quite thankful.

---------------------------------------------

The Future

She would remember, as she lay dying many years later, that she had many names. Eleanor, Nor, Nortje, Laila, Ibu Mangkoedimedjo, Oma, and Moes. All her life she had been known by these different names, and different people called her these different names in different situations. She had learned the pain of having dragged one’s ass from one place to another and the cognitive dissonance of having several names. She was no stranger to ambiguity and ambivalence. She reassured herself, in the silence of her cold bedroom, that it was never anyone’s fault. The broken hearts, the damaged consequences, and the wounded egos—all of them are inevitable in any sort of relationship.

The children were born into this world and they were never theirs to keep. Soon they will build dream after dream, and some dreams are ruined by their parents, parents that they did not choose. Is it their fault? Of course. As adults, they are obliged to be responsible for their actions. Anyone who says otherwise is a goddamn idiot. But then again, there are many ways to say ‘I love you’, and a lot of these things could easily be lost in translation. Does it matter, then, whose fault it was at that point?

At some point, the little eggs must leave the nest, and at that point, they were no longer eggs. What restrains someone from running towards their loved ones who are about to depart as they wave from an airport gate, a train station, behind the fence of an ivy-laced garden, or a wooden door? What difference would that make? Would that keep them at your side for another day? For what purpose?

It is rather difficult to think how hard it was for one to uproot oneself to another place, only for your offspring to come back to the place that was left behind. After all that hard work? What difference would it make?

Well, at one point, one must’ve breathed a sigh that could not be helped. As the world turns and turns you long for it to stop, for you to sit comfortably in your chair without the hours robbing you of your loved ones. You ask whether or not generation upon generation of guilt, of pain, of hurt, of joy, of laughter, and of love was worth all that trouble all your life.

At least she had lived her life then, and most importantly, at least she had come home.

#paterosari #indonesia #dutch east indies #indo belanda #words

[southeastasianists]

It seems that most older Hanoians consider the sound of the electric trains and the crowded nature of Dong Xuan Market in the subsidy era as part of their collective memory, but the bustling sounds of Troi Market are unfamiliar.

Since the middle years of this decade, and especially after President Obama’s visit to Vietnam in September 2016, people overseas have started seeing advertisements for Hanoi on CNN.

The city has been depicted in western media as a city of combinations: prestigious culture and industrialization, old pagodas and shopping malls, a veteran of the past, and mediator of the present and future. This also applies to the nation’s PR campaign on an international scale.

Tourists from around the world, many of whom only knew about Vietnam through war, were surprised by these depictions, not knowing that such representation of Hanoi was also common among citizens. Such identification has been present in the mainstream media for many years through the explosion of the internet and social media. That image has been so popular that it became some sort of "identity" of the city. Having said that, the construction of such an identity puts boundaries around the concept of Hanoi. It attaches Hanoi to a limited number of images and locations, therefore marginalizing other images and locations. Chợ Trời is such a case, even though it is only 2.5 kilometers from Hoan Kiem.

The goal of this article is to examine Troi Market as an example of marginalized areas and concepts of Hanoi; thus introducing other approaches to the city by looking at the market through the theoretical lens of cultural studies, and combining discourses about the market with the writers' real experiences at the location.

In 2010, images and narratives of the area frequently appeared in the popular discourse. However, these representations were mystified by an otherworldly Hanoi portrayed as a secret place with "occult rules" and that the only way to explore it was through “infiltration.” A tourist website even described chợ Trời as a place “not for the weak.”

Through the semiotic framework of the French structuralist Roland Barthes1, the old temporary market has been simplified as a sign. Barthes meant that in the province of meanings and representations, our ideas of a place, or even a city, are affected by other dominant institutions of thoughts which desire to expropriate these ideas for its own benefit.

In the case of the market, a location not likely to be found in historical texts, our interpretations about the place are limited because capitalistic ideas unintentionally prevent us from approaching its original root. Therefore, if we perceive a city as “text” which includes a system of signs, representations, mythologies and tonalities constantly in dialogue with ordinary life,2 we instantly recognize that the "book" making up Hanoi is made of many pages and each of them exists among us. This forces us to consider power relations and the efforts to govern the population that is embedded inside the city settings. The most debated dimension is a clichéd one: “Who are the Hanoians?”

Intellectuals in northern Vietnam have been answering such questions in numerous ways, as has the media. Tremendous attention has been paid to analyzing the answers in order to find a “truth” about the concept of “Hanoians.”

The recognition of a certain Hanoian identity legitimizes certain groups of people or places a certain culture in the center of the Hanoian discourse, and marginalizes others who do not share these particular traits. But instead of answering the question of "who," cultural scholars are asking "how" the Hanoian identity been constructed through history? By answering this question, we reveal the hidden dialogues between the constructed “Hanoi essence” and the lives of Troi Market residents.

A rare 2019 piece of writing by Nguyen Ngoc Tien3 about the history of Troi Market reveals the geographic precariousness of its community. In 1945, there was a flea market on the right side of the Tonkin Financial Department where merchants traded used French military gear. This flea market, however, lasted no longer than a month due to an Imperialist Japanese prohibition on social gatherings.

After the French resumed control from Japan, stolen-good traders started gathering again and formed another market on Kham Thien Street and Hang Dua Street, though they jumped from street to street to avoid the police.

It was not until 1950 that these traders were allowed to congregate on Dumontier (modern Thinh Yen Street), a street far from the center of the city. In 1954, after the signing of the Geneva Convention, families who decided to migrate to the south brought their used goods to the market near Thien Quang Lake, transforming the area into a spontaneous market.

Nevertheless, when the Viet Minh took control of the government in Hanoi, they banned trading activities at Thien Quang, and traders scattered until 1955, when the government gathered all merchants at Thinh Yen Street and formed a market called Hoa Binh.

The reason why people now call this place Trời (Sky) rather than Hoa Binh was that in the beginning, none of the kiosks in the area had a roof (in English, chợ Trời can also mean 'flea market').

Nghia (not his real name), a man who has lived near Hoa Binh Market since 1955 recalled the precarious nature of life in the past. The reality continues today due to a plan to rezone Troi Market that has been approved. He claimed that the plan had moved many kiosks from the old space to Hue Street and Tran Nhat Duat Street, far from the market. Some traders even went across the Red River to form a new market in Long Bien District.

Unlike the boundary on the official map, which pinned the market on particular roads and lanes like Tran Cao Van, Chua Vua and Yen Bai 2, Nghia insisted: “Troi Market's position is for its people to decide. It's not a market anymore, but a spirit of some particular people and some particular techniques of trading." This attitude is somewhat similar to the attitude of many other merchants and curious journalists towards this place: "Wherever it moves, it will still be a flea market."

Through the viewpoint of Deleuze and Guattari4, the movement of Troi Market is the process of de-territorialization, in which an object, a state of affairs, or a culture escapes from its pre-given geographic. Appadurai5 implied that the distance of a culture towards its locality is a condition of possibilities for the natives to expand their imagination about their own custom to surpass a particular space.

This imagination also allows them to accept the appearance of alien cultures in their space. Nonetheless, in the context of globalization and marketization, the de-territorialization process can lead to an identity crisis among mobilized communities like Troi Market. I recognized this crisis while interviewing Van (not her real name), another resident we encountered while conducting fieldwork there.

Van had a stall on a small lane. Her table was close to the pavement, while some plastic chairs, a table for guests, and a charcoal stove lie right in front of the line which divides the residential area and the extended road. When the rezoning of the market was finished, her stall and many other kiosks in front of the line would be removed. The middle-aged woman shared her fear of moving to a strange new place; however, many years have passed, and the project has yet to be completed. Thus, Van and her family live with the feeling that her stall could be removed at any time.

Such is the situation of chợ Trời: a place of suddenness and mysteries, an identity united by memories and embraced by those who belong to such memories. We heard it first from the media, then from the memories themselves.

But that is not what the market people think. From time to time, both Nghia and Van provided conflicting viewpoints from the mainstream media. Their memories about the past are very much different from "Hanoian" memories of the past: she recalled the time she was in her “hometown" on Hang Quat Street. She described it as crowded and busy, even though the whole country at that time was in the midst of the subsidy era.

This fragment of memory is somewhat different from the version of the past in which “everyone was poor, but happy” that we hear so often from the mainstream media.

Another strange message I heard from both of them was the manifesto of chợ Trời people for being “native Hanoians." In the dimension of collective memory and its formation, the manifesto claims that the people of the market were an undeniable part of the Hanoian community because they share the same pool of memories, even though the way they recall their memories deviates compared to the dominant discourse.

According to the founder of Memory Studies, Maurice Halbwachs6, when one memorizes the past, one’s memories are constructed and affected by the contemporary discourses and ideologies. Thus, it is not one’s decision to just forget something and remember another, but the real influencer is the power relations of the current time. Therefore, in order to understand the positioning of power relations moving within the documented Hanoi and its components — Troi Market, for example — we shall learn of how the concept of Hanoi has been constructed throughout history.

An article in Van Hoa Magazine titled “Constructing the polite, civilized Hanoi people: easier said than done,” shows that the construction of a Hanoi identity is still ongoing even today. From the beginning of the last century, the French had already tried building their own version of Hanoi as “Little Paris.” However, it was an unfamiliar concept for people.

In a book called Hanoi Old Stories, the late To Hoai wrote: “Streets in the French era were divided into different zones. There were no instructions or signs, no walls or barriers, and not even a restriction; but passengers have to understand the rules to watch their steps.” Vann7 demonstrates that the French brought modernity to Hanoi by building their own water system; the locals were hired only to kill rats. But despite the obvious gap between the colonizers and the colonized, Thanh Tam Tuyen still decided to depict the “Vietnamese Paris” as a place of the locals in his poem 'Serenade': “...There is a little Paris - For me be the poet…”

Discussing this “Little Paris” with a confrontational attitude, “The sluggish Hanoi” by Trong Lang or Vu Trong Phung’s documents have illustrated degraded and filthy living conditions under the French "civilization." Normally, a discourse will create the center position of the hegemonic system, thus marginalizing other groups of smaller discourses. In “Little Paris,” the French stood in the middle of the discourse because they created the norms of "civilized" and "politeness."

The locals could only choose to fit or not to fit into the discourse, unable to create new possibilities for new discourses. The subsidized era in post-1954 Hanoi indicated new discursive centers: "sunshine on Ba Dinh Square," "voice of the old Father," or "the ever-higher buildings," all of which represent the spirit of a subsidy economy. Meanwhile, on the margin of the discourses, people moved away from the concept of “a united world��� through black markets:

Tong Dan street belongs to kings

The Church belongs to flatterers

Dong Xuan belongs to merchants

The streets belong to the people.

From the loose ties in the construction of a Hanoi identity, we come to the conclusion on the framework of Hanoi as an imagined environment of an imagined community7 which views identity not as essential and eternal, but as representations and metaphors. However, Donald thinks that this framework only works if put in the framework of power, as he quotes Lefebvre: If there really exists texts, words, or documents in here [the city], it has to lie among norms, motives and regulations.

The case of Troi Market is remarkable because it represents illuminated identities that shall never be revealed in the regulated systematic market society of the west. However, those identities do not stay passive, but actively look for weak points in the system.

Through the stories of Nghia and Van, we recognize that Troi Market always seeks to stand in the same pool of memories of Hanoi. This leads to a methodological question: Is document study enough to understand a location or a city? Are we bypassing the roles of memories and emotions? In other words, as we make many marginalized parts of Hanoi less invisible, can we make Troi Market visible?

#vietnam #hanoi #troi market #hist #urban studies

[notthefilmreview]

Reacting to THE HALF OF IT TRAILER on Netflix

Hey, it’s Dana!

As you can tell from the title I’m going to watch the trailer to THE HALF OF IT and deliver my thoughts and predictions while going through the trailer.

So read on for more!

https://youtu.be/B-yhF7IScUE (here’s the link to the trailer if you’re interested).

Just from the first bit of the trailer, we can obviously tell that this is going to be one of those nerdy-girl tropes which have been played out many many times before. 

Another main highlight (which is also the main reason why I wanted to review this trailer) is that Ellie is ASIAN! I do love how Netflix has started introducing more diverse main characters in teenage movies like these because it just shows that, yes, we too experience the same romances and struggles just like every other white teen in the universe.

(However, she does fit into the nerdy-Asian-girl trope which is a bit offputting, especially with the stereotypical glasses and all, but I guess it doesn’t matter *that* much).

Squahamish? SQUAHAMISH?

Who would name a town Squahamish, let alone decide to *live* in a town called Squahamish?

Is it even a real place?

Well, it turns out no - but there are many places called Squamish, particularly in Canada.

Okay, kind of unrelated, but the actress who plays Ellie (Leah Lewis) has a lovely talking voice. It’s really calming, almost velvety and caramelly. I actually advise you to go and watch the trailer just to listen to her voice.

Also, I like that in sync eating with her dad because just by looks and mannerisms you can tell that she and her dad seem alike reflecting how close their relationship may be.

However, this does bring up the question: where’s Ellie’s mum? She might either be dead (to be blunt) or her parents are divorced. I’m leaning towards the former more because that’s such a trope to give a character more depth and add in a little emotional scene.

Ooooooo okay, my girl’s an entrepreneur at the age of 17 - you go, girl!

Here it is, our designated love interest to come and swoop nerdy Ellie away *YAWNNNNNNN*

He’s probably going to ask her to write an essay for him and then they’ll fall in love and kiss and break social boundaries and live *happily ever after!*

DisGuSTaNggGg

This is such a beautiful wide shot.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder how far in the countryside is this Squahamish??? Because the town looks quite lonely.

Only 10???? Ummmm...Ellie, honey, essays take *effort* and if you’re doing multiple different essays at once then I would definitely charge A LOT more. Seriously, I can barely do my own essays so I don’t know how she’s getting through her own work and all those other essays from other people. 

I am wondering if Ellie might get caught by the school for helping other people to cheat because she obviously has written about the same essay topic multiple times for different people and thinking about good points are hard to come up with. There are also other factors like the tone of voice while writing because certain people write in a certain type of way.

Also, this is a teen movie so there should be some aspect of a “moral to the story” and Netflix can’t promote cheating so Ellie may get caught during the climax of the movie.

So here it is, the guy wants Ellie to write this letter to Aster and then he and Ellie are going to fall in love in the process. GENERIC!

But, on a side note, Aster is very pretty so if she’s available at the end of the movie I’m available too so...

HIT ME UP, GIRL?

I hope they don’t make Aster a bitch but I know that if they go through with the generic storyline of the guy realising he wants Ellie instead of Aster then they need to make her unlikable.

I mean, who names their child Aster Flores???? 

Wait -

WAIT!

Is that a...meet-cute? Between Aster and Ellie? Are they going to fall in love? Is Ellie going to be gay? Are we getting a gay Asian?

Omgomgomgomgomgomg - YES!

I really didn’t want this movie to be generic and it looked as though it was going through that path but 44 seconds into the trailer and this movie is *definitely* anything but.

So now, after seeing this interaction, my prediction is that Ellie and Aster are going to bond just as Ellie’s friendship with The Guy (who I still don’t know the name of) blossoms so she’ll have that big conflict between helping him out with helping Aster fall in love with him and her own feelings for Aster.

If they actually make this a thing then I will be so happy; omg they just look so cute together.

BUT I do hope they don’t make The Guy the main kind of “villain” of the movie because we do need some solid male-female friendships in movies just to show guys and girls can be purely platonic without it turning into something more.

Okay, now I’m really excited!

Awkwardddddd...

Okay, so what I’m thinking is that Ellie’s love letters are going to help The Guy and Aster go on a date but when they actually go on the date, The Guy realises he has zero in common with Aster and says “hey, Ellie, I think I just liked the idea of dating Aster - but it’s you who she actually really likes and has stuff in common with!” 

Or something like that.

(Basically, I’m just trying to save The Guy’s friendship with Ellie as much as possible because he does look pretty sweet).

(Also, another side note, I love the colours of the film; they just look very simple and pleasing to the eyes).

So I’m thinking that maybe at the end of the movie, Ellie might leave Squahamish to go and explore the world (possibly with The Guy or with Aster, or both!)

Why do all these blonde girls look just a tad bit *too old* to be in High School?

Not to be rude or anything but it’s just a tad offputting to have Leah Lewis look like an ACTUAL 17-year-old and then have these side characters who look like mums they’ve decided to take their daughter to school to meet all her friends.

Seriously, look at that look on Aster’s face - she looks like her 4 mums are strutting into school, holding her hand, and completely embarrassing her!

But back to the review: Aster seems to be a popular girl (and her friends seem to be stereotypical popular bitches). But it seems as though Aster doesn’t like her popularity so she might just ditch her friends to hang out with Ellie and The Guy, then by the end of the movie they become a friendship trio (with Aster and Ellie dating because duh).

The trailer does end up revealing that The Guy finds out Ellie likes Aster (as we were all waiting for).

He does look quite betrayed but at the same time, I think he’s also angry at himself for not actually realising Ellie’s feelings before.

This might come after they become good friends so it looks as though The Guy seems (possibly) willing to give up his crush on Aster for the sake of their friendship (I hope).

Awwwww FRIENDSHIP! 

OMG yes, Netflix! I am proud of you!

This little phrase is kind of changing my thoughts on the end of the movie because I don’t think Ellie would actually go and date Aster right after The Guy tried to date her because - BRO CODE.

So, the movie might just focus on the development of their friendship and then Aster might join them to make them a trio, leading up to the possibility of Ellie and Aster getting together in the future.

Is this making sense???

DisGuSTaNggGg

Well, I don’t think The Guy got the message about bro code...

So this will probably be the height of the conflict where Ellie and The Guy fight over the fact that he knew she likes Aster yet carried on dating her.

This seems like a really cute moment but also a bit dangerous because, like, that’s a *train*. I don’t know about Squahamish but if I decided to walk across the train tracks in the UK, I would get crushed by a train, or (if I don’t die) get arrested or something.

Awwwwww he’s a JOCK!

Jock-nerd friendship goals omg that’s too cute.

Netflix do not mess up this friendship! They are too pure!

So overall I am super excited to watch the movie for the male-female friendship and the lesbian love story.

My initial reaction, as you read above, was that it was just going to be a generic heterosexual love story between this nerdy Asian girl and this white jock. 

HOWEVER (and this is a big however), when I watched the rest of the trailer, the story became anything but generic. The story seems complex, interesting, and really fitting to the lives of teenagers now.

So I urge you all to watch THE HALF OF IT on the 1st May 2020 on Netflix (and I’ll make a reaction post to the movie).

But as for now, keep binging - bye!

#the half of it #ellie chu #netflix #movie #movie commentary #movie trailer #films #filmcommunity #coming of age #teen movie #romance #friendship

[howieabel]

Poetry in the time of isolation

For the first time in the globalised age, everyone is reacting to and in some way affected by a single story - a virus making its way around the earth; and this is the first time in history that we can speak about our experiences to people all over the globe as it happens.

I've recently been reading about other plagues and epidemics in history. A century ago, as the first world war was raging and coming to an end for some, the Spanish Flu took more lives in a shorter time than the war took in its four years, a sum which could have been many times more than 50 million people. Nobody really knows exactly where that flu came from, although anyone who knows what life was like in the trenches wouldn't be too surprised of its potential to spread. However, the first cases of the flu were in military forts in the USA, and may have spread to Europe from there. It was only called the 'Spanish' Flu because Spain was neutral in the first world war, and therefore its press was more free - Spanish newspapers reported on the flu accurately, unlike every other combating power who didn't want to demoralise their troops with the mass death that was occurring, not at the hands of enemy soldiers, but a common enemy to all combatants - the appalling conditions that they were fighting in, the ideal way for a virus to wreak havoc.

This time around, calling the virus the Coronavirus, or Covid-19, is more sensible, as much as demagogues like Trump may want to call it the 'Chinese virus'. It seems to have been past from bats (like Ebola) to pangolins, which were sold in wet markets in Wuhan in China, to humans, but as is always the case, these origins remain murky, and often disgusting. These markets are unregulated by the government, as animals from all over the world can be imported there, where they languish in the most awful conditions - not to feed the poor, but as a sort of trophy food for the rich; and that's why many countries are in on the game, letting their merchants illegally export rare, often endangered, often hunted animals to the wet markets.

The Chinese government had tried to crack down on this after previous outbreaks of SARS, including in 2002, but it has proved difficult to rein in the peculiar tastes of the new rich, and of trophy hunters around the globe. Hopefully they learn from the crisis and regulate or eliminate the trading practices of their wet markets. In the mean time, it seems they have controlled the outbreak very well once it happened, and now they are sending doctors to Italy, alongside more recent help from Russia and Cuba, to help with the Italian government's much less successful attempts to control the spread. Unfortunately, as we saw with Ebola, these viruses can pop up every few years just about anywhere, especially, it seems, where there are bats. But I don't know enough about the transmissions from animal to human to write more about this. What i'm most interested in are past examples of how human communities and their governments have tried to shield their vulnerable from plagues and pandemics.

The most interesting example I found was from when the plague came to Italy almost 400 years ago, in the autumn of 1629. This of course is especially relevant as, from the day of this post, Italy is the worst affected of all countries by the virus, which poses a number of questions - Why Italy? Because they have one of the oldest populations? Because there is more inter-generational living than in many other countries? Because of just simple bad luck, for example a virus spreading through catholic mass, hour upon hour upon hour, so that by time it was realised to be a problem, it was already too late?

The reason the reaction to the 1629 plague interests me, is because it shows the importance of government and community reaction to a pandemic - it can make all the difference. Italy had a number of different city states, so we can compare their reaction, and although such comparisons are never perfect, they are some of the best we have. For example, in Verona 61% of people died - in Milan, 46%, in Venice - 33%, and in Florence? 12%. So what did the Sanità, the city of Florence's health board, and government, do so well that they greatly lessened the death toll in comparison to other cities in Italy? One reason this is an especially interesting question is because 12% seems to be around the average mortality figure for the coronavirus (especially among countries with an ageing population and/or a fractured health care system).

What did the Sanità in Florence do then, in the plague year of 1629? They arranged the delivery of food, wine and firewood to the homes of the quarantined (30,452 of them). Each quarantined person received a daily allowance of two loaves of bread and half a boccale (around a pint) of wine. On Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, they were given meat. On Tuesdays, they got a sausage seasoned with pepper, fennel and rosemary. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, rice and cheese were delivered; on Friday, a salad of sweet and bitter herbs. Every morning, hundreds of people in the lazaretti were prescribed theriac concoctions, liquors mixed with ground pearls or crushed scorpions, and bitter lemon cordials. The Sanità also devolved some tasks to the city’s confraternities. The brothers of San Michele Arcangelo conducted a housing survey to identify possible sources of contagion; the members of the Archconfraternity of the Misericordia transported the sick in perfumed willow biers from their homes to the lazaretti. But mostly, the city government footed the bill, and making use of its own police force, court and prison – also punished those who broke quarantine. Its court heard 566 cases between September 1630 and July 1631, with the majority of offenders – 60 per cent – arrested, imprisoned, and later released without a fine. A further 11 per cent were imprisoned and fined, rich and poor alike.

Some of this account would even sound impressive now (especially the pint of wine a day!). It must have been like a revelation to the poor for them to realise that something like this was possible - that the people around them who were thirsty or hungry didn't have to be. It shows how a crisis can destroy the previous idea of normalcy and replace it with a totally new normal. In Britain, for example, the Conservative Party for years laughed at the spending plans proposed by the Labour opposition, ridiculed them as the mad schemes of communists, and every day ad infinitum posed the question on television - but how will you pay for it? Doesn't it all seem very unrealistic?

And now look where we are - our governments are spending more money to cope with this crisis than anyone had ever suggested, millions and millions of people's wages are being payed as a sort of Universal Basic Income, and it suddenly turns out that it would have been a very good thing if everyone had free and fast public broadband after all, now that it is apparent that everyone needs and deserves good communication during this pandemic, not only for them to communicate with their loved ones, but also so they can access the right information. Homeless people in London have been given hotel rooms at no cost. People are coordinating in their communities to help the elderly and the vulnerable, to bring them their groceries so they never have to leave the house. Many countries have nationalised their entire private hospital network, to give their beds to the infected. Look at how Korea and Taiwan have reacted to this crisis, for example, and then compare it to European countries. Many government's have not yet gone far enough, and will need to go further over the coming months to cope with the crisis as it unfolds, and as usual the British and the American governments are some of the most reluctant, not just to foot the bill, but to make what was previously thought impossible, possible after all. If they show, in direct counterbalance to the last decade of austerity, that they had the money to do this all along, it might cause them some problems afterwards. But they have no choice - we are living now in a new normal, and all the old economic orthodoxy has been thrown out the window.

In a time of crisis like this, it suddenly becomes apparent that doctors, cleaners, supermarket staff, food and public sector workers, and in this case also postmen and delivery workers, are the lynchpins of society. It's a shame we haven't spent the less 10 years looking after them a bit better, and perhaps because of this, many more people will lose their lives than should have done if we had started looking after them earlier. There's still a very high possibility that the NHS in Britain could break under the pressure. Unfortunately, we don't have as many doctors are we could have had. There isn't much of an incentive for the young to train to become doctors or nurses, with such pitiful pay and long hours. But there are still many selfless souls who take it upon themselves to make the sacrifice - nevertheless, most of my friends who studied medicine and care had to leave the UK to continue their studies after school, countries where they are now helping in this crisis as junior doctors. They simply couldn't afford the university and accommodation costs in the UK.

As we all begin to adjust to this new normal, and as it becomes clearer that the old world can never be brought back again, perhaps from now on we can fix some of our mistakes and prepare better, so that when the next crisis comes along, we don't find that the people who keep our society going were kicked out of it by the rest of us a long time ago. And as we come out of the crisis, with millions, even billions, of unemployed all over the world, remember then how it was possible to pay people's wages even when they weren't working. If we are against all visionary thinking, then we are also against the NHS, the 8 hour working day, and public parks and free museums. They were utopian ideas once, and in many countries, they still are. What will be normal afterwards? Our reaction now will define the future we can create. Our breadth of vision will determine whether or not we demand its creation.

“The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.” - Murray Bookchin

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#Coronavirus #UK #Britain #Conservatives #Boris Johnson #England #Virus #Covid-19 #Wash your hands #Wuhan #Italy

[quitdeal1-blog]

Coolsculpting ® Uk

Vivo facility Birmingham Reviews

Content

more Fat Freezing information & advice:.

What You need To find Out About Femiwand Treatments

genital firm therapy checked!

getting Rid Of Skin Tags.

proof From clinical research Studies On The efficiency Of Laser Vaginal tightening.

spending For Your Own treatment.

Your doctor is there to pay attention thoroughly to you, and also to help you achieve the goals you desire. This additionally indicates allowing you recognize if your assumptions are not reasonable.

Do you poop when you die?

The body may release stool from the rectum, urine from the bladder, or saliva from the mouth. This happens as the body's muscles relax. Rigor mortis , a stiffening of the body muscles, will develop in the hours after death.

MACS has the advantage of smaller marks and also usually a much shorter healing time. If you determine to go on with the facelift, we'll allow at the very least two weeks between your assessment and also the date for surgery.

Modern innovation as well as refined techniques mean that a Mini Face-Lift operation currently lasts around 1 to 1.5 hours, it is painless and healing time is much faster. Only a short time back, we encouraged clients to wait till they actually could not endure signs of ageing and then, at an older age, have a full facelift. The patient would certainly be happy with the dramatic enhancement and also would be unlikely to call for any kind of further surgery. Currently patients are typically not searching for a major adjustment, but simply not to age. This treatment is particularly appealing as a result of the reduced threat that it presents.

Outcomes have actually been particularly excellent in younger individuals who do not want the threats and recovery time related to surgical treatment.

The HIFU is perfect for any individual from 18 years old, males and females.

The high intensity frequency ultrasound targets the same layer of skin addressed in plastic surgery, the SMAS, the superficial musculoaponeurotic system.

In addition to being totally non-invasive, the power of the HIFU treatment is instantly noticeable post-treatment.

The HIFU body therapies are an excellent remedy offering 3 treatments in one, skin firm, fat loss and also cellulite therapy.

You will see outcomes appear after around 3 months, when the collagen generation has begun to occur.

We are not able to do the treatment if you are expecting or breastfeeding.

Nonetheless, similar to all surgery, some complications are possible. Your cosmetic surgeon will talk about each of these risks comprehensively at your examination. We recommend people should have the ability to return to their typical everyday tasks after regarding one week - we would certainly advise a few day of rests of collaborate with the option of a full week should you require it as swelling is best throughout this time. We ask our people to be sensitive to their facial location as well as not to do way too much prematurely. We likewise suggest preventing UV light for 2 -4 weeks to help the scarring procedure. On the day of your treatment we ask that you arrive for your admission an hour prior to the agreed start time of surgery. Now a nurse will come and also tape-record high blood pressure as well as various other pertinent tests, you will meet with your anaesthetist as well as your cosmetic surgeon that will certainly make the final mark-ups.

additional Fat Freezing info & advice:.

What are the negative effects of CoolSculpting?

modern day software of CoolSculpting include:Tugging sensation at the treatment site. Pain, stinging, or aching at the treatment site. Temporary redness, swelling, bruising, and skin sensitivity at the treatment site. Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia at the treatment site.

Mini Facelift Surgical procedure aims to fix the indications of aging and also gravity, enhancing the appearance of the lower face as well as dewlaps with minimal threat and also downtime. The objective is to look fresh, a lot more vibrant without transforming you-- natural renewal!

What You required To know About Femiwand Treatments

Infection is infrequent (less than 0.5%) and will need a training course of suitable anti-biotics. Facial muscle mass weakness is uncommon, might affect the forehead or edge of the mouth and is temporary long lasting 6 weeks. Some altered feeling around the cheeks is expected and will frequently go back to normal in between 6 to 12 weeks after surgical procedure. At LBPS, we recognize that your decision to have Face surgical treatment can be a complicated and anxious time for you. Our objective is to completely comprehend your concerns and also needs, as well as examine your face accurately, prior to settling on a treatment plan which is in your benefit.

How many times can you do Cryolipolysis?

More than one session may be needed to achieve a person's desired results. If more than one treatment sessions is needed, the next session can't be performed until 6 to 8 weeks after the first session. This is because it can take this long for damaged fat cells to be eliminated from the body.

Bear in mind that these modern-day lifting procedures are often combined with fat transfer as well as stem cell transfer to restore quantity in the best places as well as invigorate the skin. This treatment starts with the making of a small incision below each ear. The connective cells listed below the skin is drawn and held back to create a subtle architectural lift in your jawline and neck. Historically, face-lift operations have actually been lengthier treatments, leading to greater discomfort degrees and longer recovery time.

People who do not have excess skin due to laxity, typically do not call for a Mini Facelift, most of these clients will certainly take advantage of Mid-Face Training or Silhouette Face Raise or non intrusive face renewal. The procedure which is best fit to your objectives will certainly be identified at your examination. Your result can bring back confidence and boost self-esteem. Many people are back to their routine routines after just a few days. Additionally, the smallness of the face lacerations implies that your skin's recovery procedure will be quicker also.

genital tightening Up therapy checked!

Usual to all surgeries there are constantly dangers associated with surgical treatment. Bruising can take place as well as might take 2 weeks to fix, while major bleeding is unusual.

removing Skin Tags.

With this strategy, the specialist will certainly make a smaller laceration that does not reach the ear. The incision is a lot more superficial and also does not go under the SMAS layer. This technique is much less extensive than the SMAS technique, so is much better fit to dealing with milder laxity of facial skin.

If for any reason you disagree for Mini Facelift surgery, you will be advised against this form of surgical procedure. We will provide you with all the info you require and also sustain in the past, during and after your surgical procedure.

The benefits of this technique is smaller sized scars and also a shorter recuperation time. A facelift can give you a more vibrant, rejuvenated look. As we age, our skin slowly sheds its elasticity and our face muscle mass subside. This creates the appearance of old and wrinkly, drooping skin, specifically on the face. Way of living variables such as sun exposure as well as stress can additionally contribute to these changes. This can impact your confidence and also make you look older than you really feel. Hence, a facelift intends to restore the vigor in your appearance.

proof From professional researches On The efficiency Of Laser Vaginal firm.

The Principle ™ Facelift is not limited by age; nevertheless, people in their twenties are unlikely to have the loose skin and age-related modifications that can take advantage of a facelift. A common age where people existing often tends to be around 50, especially for ladies. That's since the hormone modifications of the menopause can impact the appearance. Most of Bella Vou's patients age from late 40s to 55 and also state that they feel they look worn out and desire a much more rejuvenated appearance.

I was exceptionally satisfied with the treatment as well as treatment I got at the Cadogan Center. My specialist was friendly as well as helpful and explained the treatment completely. My treatment went quite possibly and with the outstanding treatment of the nursing staff, I made a speedy as well as full healing. The Mini-Facelift is an excellent treatment for people intending to reverse the indicators of ageing and attain a much more youthful look without undergoing a complete facelift treatment. A mini - lift can be made with marginal aggravation, scars and risk.

Bella Vou provides customers a distinctively individual strategy to plastic surgery. The modern facility gives the very newest surgical, aesthetic, as well as aesthetic treatments in a posh, comfortable, and welcoming environment in the heart of the gorgeous historical community of Royal Tunbridge Wells. The advanced Concept ™ Facelift is exclusively offered at Bella Vou. The cutting-edge, trademarked strategy was developed by the clinic's prominent surgeon as a much less intrusive choice to traditional facelift surgical treatment and attracts customers from around the world. An additional type of facelift surgery is called very little accessibility cranial suspension. Shorter cuts, compared to a standard facelift, are made in the holy place and also in front of the ears. Coarse tissues under the skin are tightened with irreversible stitches that are taken care of to cells close to the cheekbone or the coarse connective cells under the skin.

If you select to proceed with surgical procedure, the following time you come into the Clinic after your last consultation will certainly be the day of your procedure. new Lipo 360 offerings was treated with care as well as given with thorough knowledge regarding the procedure I was taking on. My doctor was really methodical as well as I felt I obtained A class therapy.

The dimension and location of the marks will differ according to the technique utilized. Ensure you have actually talked about with your doctor what scarring you can anticipate. A lot of marks will certainly be very little as well as your surgeon will certainly make them as discreet as possible. How much they fade will rely on the healing capability of your skin.

Your surgeon can additionally give you some pointers on how you need to take care of your wounds, to reduce the scarring you are left with. During your facelift consultation, we suggest that you are as open as feasible with your cosmetic surgeon.

#hifu treatment #facelift #fat freezing #femiwand #Cryo #Cryopen #cellulite #Femiwand treatment #skin tag removal #Bucks vaginal tightening #hifu facial #fat freezing service #cryolipolysis #Bodybuilding for Weight Loss #lose stomach weight #fat legs treatment #Anti aging hifu #Mens facelift treatment #Double chin removal #coolsculpting #wart removal #cellulite treatments #Non surgical facelift #body and face toning #Lipo freeze

[peepsilvs]

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Review

Warning: Includes major spoilers for the story of the game, although, it’s been 16 years, you have had your chance to play it.

When I was a child, my father bought me a Nintendo Gamecube. I was too young to understand anything about the games as I didn't speak any English, but I remember enjoying endlessly watching my sister play games on it. One of those games was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful life, and to this day it remains as one of the most nostalgic games to me. When I got older, I replayed it and fell in love with it even more, but there was always something so fascinating to me about this game. I wonder how it managed to capture my heart despite my dumb child brain not even understanding what it was about. Now, as an adult, I hope to take a more critical look into this game from my childhood and what made it so different from the other Harvest Moon games for me, aside from the nostalgia.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life was published in 2004 for Nintendo Gamecube by Natsume and developed by Marvelous Interactive. In 2005 it got a special edition release on the Playstation 2 and the special edition port was later re-released on the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. There was also a version with a playable female lead called Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life that was released in 2005 and its only difference from the original was the player character's gender and marriage candidates to choose from.

Harvest Moon Game play With a Twist

(Source: Harvest Moon Wiki)

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life offers the player two save files and is, as expected, a farming simulator. This means the players basic game play consists of watering and fertilizing crops, taking care of farm animals and trying to earn money to upgrade your old plot of land. As in other games in the series, certain crops only grow during certain seasons, and aside from farming, the player can visit the small town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley to get to know its residents. While the game play follows the same formula as most farming simulators, A Wonderful Life proves to be a bit more difficult due to its connection to realism. No  matter which way the player prefers to go, both farming and ranching require a lot of effort and time from the player, not to mention money. In the beginning, the player is already offered a farm with a barn, chicken coop and three fields for farming, along with a cow to help them get started. However, since all necessary buildings are already in place, there is no way to upgrade the space or layout of the farm, meaning the player must work with what they are given. This means limited barn space and understanding of how the different soil types of the fields work instead of just planting whatever comes to mind during the seasons.

The game also encourages the player to choose between animals and crops. While it is possible to use both, completely devoting themselves to one is more rewarded in game play. Cows have several different species in the game, some producing more profitable products than others and naturally selling for more than a regular cow. Unlike in other Harvest Moon games, there is also a male counterpart for chickens and cows. A rooster and a bull are needed in order for the animals to reproduce and the player can either invest in their own bull to cut down fees or pay for a Miracle Potion meaning another farm's bull is used. The cows also don't give milk or stop giving milk if they aren't impregnated regularly, a feature that does not exist in other games in the series.

If planting is more to the player's taste, they have to be ready to invest in fertilizer and better watering cans. While the basic idea of buying seeds and planting them is present, the player can also invest in their own seed maker and create hybrid crops by befriending a talking plant in their neighbor's house. The more the player invests in creating their own seeds and raising their quality, the more profit can be gained from farming. Nevertheless, both farming and ranching have their own set of new challenges, and instead of upgrading their space, the upgrades mainly focus on bettering the original products like making milk into cheese or using quality crops to make quality seeds.

The more difficult and realistic aspects of the game are mostly a hit-or-miss. The more devout fans of the series might not appreciate the added difficulty taking away the simplistic game play of other Harvest Moon games. On the other hand, it can be fun to try something different for once, even though earning money for upgrades is more difficult. There is also a lack of several other usual Harvest Moon activities, such as mining and festivals. Instead, mining is replaced with the excavation site, that offers ancient fossils and crystals instead of gems and festivals are more like small events. This means no cow festivals or chicken festivals that, up by then, had been a very huge part of the Harvest Moon franchise. Other notable differences are that the seasons now only take 10 days to change and that the game is split into chapters, with some chapters having requirements. If said requirements (marriage in the first year for example) are not met, the game ends.

All in all, while there is a lot of good, the most frustrating mechanic is how long it takes to complete the game. In the original version, it takes 20 in-game years for it to reach the end. The special edition fixed this by lowering the needed years to fifteen, but even so, it can be hard to keep interest for long periods of time, as the game mechanic very much compliments the game's themes. This means that even though every day is meaningful in some way at the end, it can feel boring to go through them, running the same errands without any certain festivals or events to look forward to. This doesn't mean the game lacks content, but rather that the content is very much hidden and that there are no simple tutorials on how to reach it. Most of the game play outside of farming or ranching is trial-and-error based and requires the player to search for events and what the characters enjoy. It doesn't help that the relationship meters of all characters aside from the marriage candidates are hidden, so the player has to guess how close they are with the villagers.

The Story is A Lot Darker

A Wonderful Life aims to be more realistic in game play, and thus, ends up being a bit darker with its themes too. Like the title suggests, the main goal of the game is to live a so-called "wonderful life" and uncommon for a Harvest Moon game, A Wonderful Life has a story attached to it, and the story is most defiantly the game's biggest strength. Each chapter of the story progresses the player character's life, all the way to his death, and all the choices the player makes during their life finally come together at the end.

What A Wonderful Life is going for is a lot different from the staple of the series, but it also makes the game feel more alive. The town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley does not  have many villagers nor marriage candidates, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. The residents, along with the player character, grow older with time and depending on who you marry, befriend or choose not to befriend, changes what kind of events you can encounter each chapter. The amount of events very much replaces the lack of festivals as relationships with other characters feel meaningful and alive. I have personally played through the game many times and there are still a lot of events that I have not seen. Seeing them is not necessary to complete the game, aside from the heart events of the marriage candidates, but encountering them really feels rewarding, because it feels like being a part of the community.

The most perfect way to describe A Wonderful Life's story is "bittersweet". Getting to know the residents is surely rewarding and hearing them comment on gifts that they received from the player a day earlier is nice, but the game also makes it very clear that everyone has their own set of issues in life. Everyone has regrets and how all you can do is to try to live your best life with the choices you make. This feeling is perhaps the most apparent in who the player chooses to marry. In the original A Wonderful Life, there are 3 marriage candidates with a 4th added in the special edition. Each of them benefits from the player marrying them, with one getting out of a loveless arranged marriage, one receiving a home and third fulfilling  her dream of having a family as an aging bachelorette. Whoever the player chooses, they have to see how this negatively affects the other two, who most likely never receive what they wish for.

An odd addition to marriage is also the fact that neglecting the relationship with the chosen wife and child leads to long consequences. In the worst case scenario, the wife will divorce the player and the game will end and in some milder examples, the player's child might end up hating them for being an absent parent. In A Wonderful Life, it matters what the player chooses to do with their relationships. The friends the player makes influence their child and what the child does when the game ends. In the original version, the player can only have a son, but the special edition gives an option to have a daughter.

If the player also has a copy of the GameBoy Advance game Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, they can connect between the two, leading to the villagers commenting things about mineral town and bringing special goods with them. This can be a very nice feature for returning players of the series. Unfortunately, I did not have access to said feature so I cannot comment on it more personally.

Forget-Me-Not-Valley is Beautiful

The open world of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is not very big, but it feels homely. The town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley is covered in earthy tones and the lack of music actually works well for the game's benefit. While the graphics in the original version for Nintendo Gamecube are not top notch and you can see the game's age, the re-release on PS3 and PS4 cleared them a lot, making the world come across as beautiful as it was meant to in the first place.

As far as Harvest Moon games go, A Wonderful Life is certainly not the most colorful, but it has its own charm. The town takes after a rural Japanese town, with most houses being rustic and brown, and nature being the most attractive piece of it. Being in 3D, the player has an excellent view of the sky at any times during the day, and the game very realistically has a cycle, meaning fresh sunrises and warm sunsets, along with a sparkling sky of stars and grey clouds when it rains. Fitting to its world, the weather might change in the middle of the day and it might snow in the final days of Autumn, as in real life.

These changes make a big difference in the atmosphere of the game. They compliment its themes and story, and even if there isn't a large area to explore, there are certainly many things to find. The valley's colors change each season and it is worthwhile to explore the same places during different times of day and year. The lack of music compliments the rural, peaceful aesthetic, as it makes it easier to hear the ambient sounds that change depending on which area of the valley is being explored. At the beach, the sea can be heard slowly crashing against the hills, and in the forest birds are singing. All villagers have a signature sounds they make when talked to, giving them their own voice and making them feel real. The only area with music are the homes of other villagers and the player's farm. The player can unlock different records by playing and customize what kind of music they want on their farm or if they prefer no music at all, they can remove the record. 

To put it lightly, A Wonderful Life has its own idea of an aesthetic and it sticks to it all the way down to sound design. Once again, it is more of a preference question on what the player likes, but having it any other way would defiantly break the feeling the game is going for.

Verdict

While in no ways a perfect game, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life has a goal and is successful in portraying it. Despite being an old game, its story has aged well and never fails to be relevant, as life may change from the outside, but at its core it will always have the same questions lying beneath. The graphics on the other hand do look a bit outdated for today's standards, yet can be overlooked and even be seen as charming to some. Other frustrating traits it has is its slow and repetitive game play, that ironically compliments the game's story, but fails to be engaging for long periods at a time. Still, the game is worth experiencing, even for players not familiar to the Harvest Moon series, for the exact reason that it is so different from the entries in the series.

#harvest moon #harvest moon a wonderful life

[dailytechnologynews]

The Coming Age of Imaginative Machines: If you aren't following the rise of synthetic media, the 2020s will hit you like a digital blitzkrieg

The faces on the left were created by a GAN in 2014; on the right are ones made in 2018.

Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues gave the world generative adversarial networks (GANs) five years ago, way back in 2014. They did so with fuzzy and ethereal black & white images of human faces, all generated by computers. This wasn't the start of synthetic media by far, but it did supercharge the field. Ever since, the realm of neural network-powered AI creativity has repeatedly kissed mainstream attention. Yet synthetic media is still largely unknown. Certain memetic-boosted applications such as deepfakes and This Person Does Not Exist notwithstanding, it's safe to assume the average person is unaware that contemporary artificial intelligence is capable of some fleeting level of "imagination."

Media synthesis is an inevitable development in our progress towards artificial general intelligence, the first and truest sign of symbolic understanding in machines (though by far not the thing itself--- rather the organization of proteins and sugars to create the rudimentary structure of what will someday become the cells of AGI). This is due to the rise of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Popular misconceptions presume synthetic media present no new developments we've not had since the 1990s, yet what separates media synthesis from mere manipulation, retouching, and scripts is the modicum of intelligence required to accomplish these tasks. The difference between Photoshop and neural network-based deepfakes is the equivalent to the difference between building a house with power tools and employing a utility robot to use those power tools to build the house for you.

Succinctly, media synthesis is the first tangible sign of automation that most people will experience.

Public perception of synthetic media shall steadily grow and likely degenerate into a nadir of acceptance as more people become aware of the power of these artificial neural networks without being offered realistic debate or solutions as to how to deal with them. They've simply come too quickly for us to prepare for, hence the seemingly hasty reaction of certain groups like OpenAI in regards to releasing new AI models.

Already, we see frightened reactions to the likes of DeepNudes, an app which was made solely to strip women in images down to their bare bodies without their consent. The potential for abuse (especially for pedophilic purposes) is self-evident. We are plunging headlong into a new era so quickly that we are unaware of just what we are getting ourselves into. But just what are we getting into?

Well, I have some thoughts.

I want to start with the field most people are at least somewhat aware of: deepfakes. We all have an idea of what deepfakes can do: the "purest" definition is taking one's face replacing it with another, presumably in a video. The less exact definition is to take some aspect of a person in a video and edit it to be different. There's even deepfakes for audio, such as changing one's voice or putting words in their mouth. Most famously, this was done to Joe Rogan.

I, like most others, first discovered deepfakes in late 2017 around the time I had an "epiphany" on media synthesis as a whole. Just in those two years, the entire field has seen extraordinary progress. I realized then that we were on the cusp of an extreme flourishing of art, except that art would be largely-to-almost entirely machine generated. But along with it would come a flourishing of distrust, fake news, fake reality bubbles, and "ultracultural memes". Ever since, I've felt the need to evangelize media synthesis, whether to tell others of a coming renaissance or to warn them to be wary of what they see.

This is because, over the past two years, I realized that many people's idea of what media synthesis is really stops at deepfakes, or they only view new development through the lens of deepfakes. The reason why I came up with "media" synthesis is because I genuinely couldn't pin down any one creative/data-based field AI wasn't going to affect. It wasn't just faces. It wasn't just bodies. It wasn't just voice. It wasn't just pictures of ethereal swirling dogs. It wasn't just transferring day to night. It wasn't just turning a piano into a harpsichord. It wasn't just generating short stories and fake news. It wasn't just procedurally generated gameplay. It was all of the above and much more. And it's coming so fast that I fear we aren't prepared, both for the tech and the consequences.

Indeed, in many discussions I've seen (and engaged in) since then, there's always several people who have a virulent reaction against the prospect neural networks can do any of this at all, or at least that it'll get better enough to the point it will affect artists, creators, and laborers. Even though we're already seeing the effects in the modeling industry alone.

Look at this gif. Looks like a bunch of models bleeding into and out of each other, right? Actually, no one here is real. They're all neural network-generated people.

Neural networks can generate full human figures, and altering their appearance and clothing is a matter of changing a few parameters or feeding an image into the data set. Changing the clothes of someone in a picture is as easy as clicking on the piece you wish you change and swapping it with any of your choice (or result in the personal wearing no clothes at all). A similar scenario applies for make-up. This is not like an old online dress-up flash game where the models must be meticulously crafted by an art designer or programmer— simply give the ANN something to work with, and it will figure out all the rest. You needn't even show it every angle or every lighting condition, for it will use commonsense to figure these out as well. Such has been possible since at least 2017, though only with recent GPU advancements has it become possible for someone to run such programs in real time.

The unfortunate side effect is that the amateur modeling industry will be vaporized. Extremely little will be left, and the few who do remain are promoted entirely because they are fleshy & real human beings. Professional models will survive for longer, but there will be little new blood joining their ranks. As such, it remains to be seen whether news and blogs speak loudly of the sudden, unexpected automation of what was once seen as a safe and human-centric industry or if this goes ignored and under-reported— after all, the news used to speak of automation in terms of physical, humanoid robots taking the jobs of factory workers, fast-food burger flippers, and truck drivers, occupations that are still in existence en masse due to slower-than-expected roll outs of robotics and a continued lack of general AI.

We needn't have general AI to replace those jobs that can be replicated by disembodied digital agents. And the sudden decline & disappearance of models will be the first widespread sign of this.

Actually, I have an hypothesis for this: media synthesis is one of the first signs that we're making progress towards artificial general intelligence.

Now don't misunderstand me. No neural network that can generate media is AGI or anything close. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that what we can see as being media synthesis is evidence that we've put ourselves on the right track. We never should've thought that we could get to AGI without also developing synthetic media technology.

What do you know about imagination?

As recently as five years ago, the concept of "creative machines" was cast off as impossible— or at the very least, improbable for decades. Indeed, the phrase remains an oxymoron in the minds of most. Perhaps they are right. Creativity implies agency and desire to create. All machines today lack their own agency. Yet we bear witness to the rise of computer programs that imagine and "dream" in ways not dissimilar to humankind.

Though lacking agency, this still meets the definition of imagination.

To reduce it to its most fundamental ingredients: Imagination = experience + abstraction + prediction. To get creativity, you need only add "drive". Presuming that we fail to create artificial general intelligence in the next ten years (an easy thing to assume because it's unlikely we will achieve fully generalized AI even in the next thirty), we still possess computers capable of the former three ingredients.

Someone who lives on a flat island and who has never seen a mountain before can learn to picture what one might be by using what they know of rocks and cumulonimbus clouds, making an abstract guess to cross the two, and then predicting what such a "rock cloud" might look like. This is the root of imagination.

As Descartes noted, even the strongest of imagined sensations is duller than the dullest physical one, so this image in the person's head is only clear to them in a fleeting way. Nevertheless, it's still there. Through great artistic skills, the person can learn to express this mental image through artistic means. In all but the most skilled, it will not be a pure 1-to-1 realization due to the fuzziness of our minds, but in the case of expressive art, it doesn't need to be.

Computers lack this fleeting ethereality of imagination completely. Once one creates something, it can give you the uncorrupted output.

Right now, this makes for wonderful tools and apps that many play around with online and on our phones.

But extrapolating this to the near future results in us coming face to face many heavy questions, and not just of the "can't trust what you see variety."

Because think about it.

If I'm a musical artist and I release an album, what if I accidentally recorded a song that's too close to an AI-generated track (all because AI generated literally every combination of notes?) Or, conversely, what if I have to watch as people take my music and alter it? I may feel strongly about it, but yet the music has its notes changed, its lyrics changed, my own voice changed, until it might as well be an entirely different artist making that music. Many won't mind, but many will.

I trust my mother's voice, as many do. So imagine a phisher managing to steal her voice, running it through a speech synthesis network, and then calling me asking me for my social security number. Or maybe I work at a big corporation, and while we're secure, we still recognize each other's voice, only to learn that someone stole millions of dollars from us because they stole the CEO's voice and used to to wire cash to a pirate's account.

Imagine going online and at least 70% of the "people" you encounter are bots. They're extremely coherent, and they have profile images of what looks to be real people. And who knows, you may even forge an e-friendship with some of them because they seem to share your interests. Then it turns out they're just bundles of code.

Oh, and those bot-people are also infesting social media and forums in the millions, creating and destroying trends and memes without much human input. Even if the mainstream news sites don't latch on at first, bot-created and bot-run news sites will happily kick it off for them. The news is supposed to report on major events, global and local. Even if the news is honest and telling the truth, how can they truly verify something like this, especially when it seems to be gaining so much traction and humans inevitably do get involved? Remember "Bowsette" from last year? Imagine if that was actually pushed entirely by bots until humans saw what looked like a happenin' kind of meme and joined in? That could be every year or perhaps even every month in the 2020s onwards.

Likewise, imagine you're listening to a pop song in one country, but then you go to another country and it's the exact same song but most of the lyrics have changed to be more suitable for their culture. That sort of cultural spread could stop... or it could be supercharged if audiences don't take to it and pirate songs/change them and share them at their own leisure.

Or maybe it's a good time to mention how commissioned artists are screwed? Commission work boards are already a race to the bottom— if a job says it pays three cents per word to write an article, you'd better list your going rate as 2 cents per word, and then inevitably the asking rate in general becomes 2 cents per word, and so on and so forth. That whole business might be over within five to ten years if you aren't already extremely established. Because if machines can mimic any art style or writing style (and then exaggerate & alter it to find some better version people like more), you'd have to really be tech-illiterate or very pro-human to want non-machine commissions.

And to go back to deepfakes and deep nudes, imagine the paratypical creep who takes children and puts them into sexual situations, any sexual situation they desire thanks to AI-generated images and video. It doesn't matter who, and it doesn't have to be real children either. It could even be themselves as a child if they still have the reference or use a de-aging algorithm on their face. It's squicky and disgusting to think about, but it's also inevitable and probably has already happened.

And my god, it just keeps going on and on. I can't do this justice, even with 40,000 characters to work with. The future we're about to enter is so wild, so extreme that I almost feel scared for humanity. It's not some far off date in the 22nd century. It's literally going to start happening within the next five years. We're going to see it emerge before our very eyes on this and other subreddits.

I'll end this post with some more examples.

Nvidia's new AI can turn any primitive sketch into a photorealistic masterpiece. You can even play with this yourself here.

Waifu Synthesis- real time generative anime, because obviously.

Few-Shot Adversarial Learning of Realistic Neural Talking Head Models | This GAN can animate any face GIF, supercharging deepfakes & media synthesis

Talk to Transformer | Feed a prompt into GPT-2 and receive some text. As of 9/29/2019, this uses the 774M parameter version of GPT-2, which is still weaker than the 1.5B parameter "full" version."

Text samples generated by Nvidia's Megatron-LM (GPT-2-8.3b). Vastly superior to what you see in Talk to Transformer, even if it had the "full" model.

Facebook's AI can convert one singer's voice into another | The team claims that their model was able to learn to convert between singers from just 5-30 minutes of their singing voices, thanks in part to an innovative training scheme and data augmentation technique. as a prototype for shifting vocalists or vocalist genders or anything of that sort.

TimbreTron for changing instrumentation in music. Here, you can see a neural network shift entire instruments and pitches of those new instruments. It might only be a couple more years until you could run The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" through, say, Slayer and get an actual song out of it.

AI generated album covers for when you want to give the result of that change its own album.

Neural Color Transfer Between Images [From 2017], showing how we might alter photographs to create entirely different moods and textures.

Scammer Successfully Deepfaked CEO's Voice To Fool Underling Into Transferring $243,000

"Experts: Spy used AI-generated face to connect with targets" [GAN faces for fake LinkedIn profiles]

This Marketing Blog Does Not Exist | This blog written entirely by AI is fully in the uncanny valley.

Chinese Gaming Giant NetEase Leverages AI to Create 3D Game Characters from Selfies | This method has already been used over one million times by Chinese gamers.

"Deep learning based super resolution, without using a GAN" [perceptual loss-based upscaling with transfer learning & progressive scaling], or in other words, "ENHANCE!"

Expert: AI-generated music is a "total legal clusterf*ck" | I've thought about this. Future music generation means that all IPs are open, any new music can be created from any old band no matter what those estates may want, and AI-generated music exists in a legal tesseract of answerless questions

And there's just a ridiculous amount more.

My subreddit, /r/MediaSynthesis, is filled with these sorts of stories going back to January of 2018. I've definitely heard of people come away in shock, dazed and confused, after reading through it. And no wonder.

#Futurology #Technology #Tech #Studies #Humanity #Development #New #Gadgets

[antoine-roquentin]

In the heart of the US Capitol there’s a small men’s room with an uplifting Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt quotation above the door. Making use of the facilities there after lunch in the nearby House dining room about a year ago, I found myself standing next to Trent Lott. Once a mighty power in the building as Senate Republican leader, he had been forced to resign his post following some imprudently affectionate references to his fellow Republican senator, arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond. Now he was visiting the Capitol as a lucratively employed lobbyist.

The bathroom in which we stood, Lott remarked affably, once served a higher purpose. History had been made there. “When I first came to Washington as a junior staffer in 1968,” he explained, “this was the private hideaway office of Bill Colmer, chairman of the House Rules Committee.” Colmer, a long-serving Mississippi Democrat and Lott’s boss, was an influential figure. The committee he ruled controlled whether bills lived or died, the latter being the customary fate of proposed civil-rights legislation that reached his desk. “On Thursday nights,” Lott continued, “he and members of the leadership from both sides of the House would meet here to smoke cigars, drink cheap bourbon, play gin rummy, and discuss business. There was a chemistry, they understood each other. It was a magical thing.” He sighed wistfully at the memory of a more harmonious age, in which our elders and betters could arrange the nation’s affairs behind closed doors.

I don’t know that Joe Biden, currently leading the polls for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, ever frequented that particular restroom, in either its bygone or contemporary manifestation, but it could serve as a fitting shrine to all that he stands for. Biden has long served as high priest of the doctrine that our legislative problems derive merely from superficial disagreements, rather than fundamental differences over matters of principle. “I believe that we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart,” he declared in the Rose Garden in 2015, renouncing a much-anticipated White House run. “It’s mean-spirited. It’s petty. And it’s gone on for much too long. I don’t believe, like some do, that it’s naïve to talk to Republicans. I don’t think we should look on Republicans as our enemies.”

Given his success in early polling, it would seem that this message resonates with many voters, at least when they are talking to pollsters. After all, according to orthodox wisdom, there is no more commendable virtue in American political custom and practice than bipartisanship. Politicians on the stump fervently assure voters that they will strive with every sinew to “work across the aisle” to deliver “commonsense solutions,” and those who express the sentiment eloquently can expect widespread approval. Barack Obama famously launched himself toward the White House with his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention proclaiming that there is “not a liberal America and a conservative America,” only a “United States of America.”

By tapping into these popular tropes—“The system is broken,” “Why can’t Congress just get along?”—the practitioners of bipartisanship conveniently gloss over the more evident reality: that the system is under sustained assault by an ideology bent on destroying the remnants of the New Deal to the benefit of a greed-driven oligarchy. It was bipartisan accord, after all, that brought us the permanent war economy, the war on drugs, the mass incarceration of black people, 1990s welfare “reform,” Wall Street deregulation and the consequent $16 trillion in bank bailouts, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, and other atrocities too numerous to mention. If the system is indeed broken, it is because interested parties are doing their best to break it.

Rather than admit this, Biden has long found it more profitable to assert that political divisions can be settled by men endowed with statesmanlike vision and goodwill—in other words, men such as himself. His frequent eulogies for public figures have tended to play heavily on this theme. Thus his memorial speech for Republican standard-bearer John McCain dwelled predictably on the cross-party nature of their relationship, beginning with his opening: “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat, and I loved John McCain.” Continuing in that vein, he related how he and McCain had once been chided by their respective party leaderships for spending so much time in each other’s company on the Senate floor, and referred fondly to the days when senators Teddy Kennedy and James Eastland, the latter a die-hard racist and ruthless suppressor of civil-rights bills, would “fight like hell on civil rights and then go have lunch together, down in the Senate dining room.”

Clearly, there is merit in the ability to craft compromise between opposing viewpoints in order to produce an effective result. John Ritch, formerly a US ambassador and top aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, worked closely with Biden for two decades, and has nothing but praise for his negotiating skills. “I’ve never seen anyone better at presiding over a group of politicians who represent conflicting egos and interests and using a combination of conciliation, humor, and muscle to cajole them into an agreed way forward,” Ritch told me recently. “Joe Biden has learned the skills to get things done in Washington. And I’ve seen him apply it equally with foreign leaders.”

The value of compromise, however, depends on what result is produced, and who benefits thereby. ­McCain’s record had at least a few commendable features, such as his opposition to torture (though never, of course, war). But it is hard to find much admirable in the character of a tireless defender of institutional racism like Strom Thurmond. Hence, Trent Lott’s words of praise—regretting that the old racist had lost when he ran as a Dixiecrat in the 1948 presidential election—had been deemed terminally unacceptable.

It fell to Biden to highlight some redeeming qualities when called on, inevitably, to deliver Thurmond’s eulogy following the latter’s death in 2003 at the age of one hundred. Biden reminisced with affection about the unlikely friendship between the deceased and himself. Despite having arrived at the Senate at age twenty-nine “emboldened, angered, and outraged about the treatment of African Americans in this country,” he said, he nevertheless found common cause on important issues with the late senator from South Carolina, who had been wont to describe civil-rights activists as “red pawns and publicity seekers.”

One such issue, as Branko Marcetic has pitilessly chronicled in Jacobin, was a shared opposition to federally mandated busing in the effort to integrate schools, an opposition Biden predicted would be ultimately adopted by liberal holdouts. “The black community justifiably is jittery,” Biden admitted to the Washington Post in 1975 with regard to his position. “I’ve made it—if not respectable—I’ve made it reasonable for longstanding liberals to begin to raise the questions I’ve been the first to raise in the liberal community here on the [Senate] floor.”

Biden was responding to criticism of legislation he had introduced that effectively barred the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from compelling communities to bus pupils using federal funds. This amendment was meant to be an alternative to a more extreme proposal put forward by a friend of Biden’s, hall-of-fame racist Jesse Helms (Biden had initially supported Helms’s version). Nevertheless, the Washington Post described Biden’s amendment as “denying the possibility for equal educational opportunities to minority youngsters trapped in ill-equipped inner-city schools.” Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, then the sole African-American senator, called Biden’s measure “the greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.”

By the 1980s, Biden had begun to see political gold in the harsh antidrug legislation that had been pioneered by drug warriors such as Nelson Rockefeller and Richard Nixon, and would ultimately lead to the age of mass incarceration for black Americans. One of his Senate staffers at the time recalls him remarking, “Whenever people hear the words ‘drugs’ and ‘crime,’ I want them to think ‘Joe Biden.’” Insisting on anonymity, this former staffer recollected how Biden’s team “had to think up excuses for new hearings on drugs and crime every week—any connection, no matter how remote. He wanted cops at every public meeting—you’d have thought he was running for chief of police.”

The ensuing legislation might also have brought to voters’ minds the name of the venerable Thurmond, Biden’s partner in this effort. Together, the pair sponsored the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which, among other repressive measures, abolished parole for federal prisoners and cut the amount of time by which sentences could be reduced for good behavior. The bipartisan duo also joined hands to cheerlead the passage of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and its 1988 follow-on, which cumulatively introduced mandatory sentences for drug possession. Biden later took pride in reminding audiences that “through the leadership of Senator Thurmond, and myself, and others,” Congress had passed a law mandating a five-year sentence, with no parole, for anyone caught with a piece of crack cocaine “no bigger than [a] quarter.” That is, they created the infamous disparity in penalties between those caught with powder cocaine (white people) and those carrying crack (black people). Biden also unblushingly cited his and Thurmond’s leading role in enacting laws allowing for the execution of drug dealers convicted of homicide, and expanding the practice of civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement’s plunder of property belonging to people suspected of crimes, even if they are neither charged nor convicted.

Despite pleas from the ­NAACP and the ­ACLU, the 1990s brought no relief from Biden’s crime crusade. He vied with the first Bush Administration to introduce ever more draconian laws, including one proposing to expand the number of offenses for which the death penalty would be permitted to fifty-one. Bill Clinton quickly became a reliable ally upon his 1992 election, and Biden encouraged him to “maintain crime as a Democratic initiative” with suitably tough legislation. The ensuing 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, passed with enthusiastic administration pressure, would consign millions of black Americans to a life behind bars.

In subsequent years, as his crime legislation, particularly on mandatory sentences, attracted efforts at reform, Biden began expressing a certain remorse. “I am part of the problem that I have been trying to solve since then, because I think the disparity [between crack and powder cocaine sentences] is way out of line,” he declared at a Senate hearing in 2008. However, there is little indication that his words were matched by actions, especially after he moved to the vice presidency the following year. The executive director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Eric Sterling, who worked on the original legislation in the House as a congressional counsel, told me, “During the eight years he was vice president, I never saw him take a leadership role in the area of drug policy, never saw him get out in front on the issue like he did on same-sex marriage, for example. Biden could have taken a stronger line [with Obama] privately or publicly, and he did not.”

While many black Americans will neither forgive nor forget how they, along with relatives and friends, were accorded the lifetime stigma of a felony conviction, many other Americans are only now beginning to count the costs of these viciously repressive initiatives. As a result, criminal justice reform has emerged as a popular issue across the political spectrum, including among conservatives eager to burnish otherwise illiberal credentials. Ironically, this has led, in theory, to a modest unraveling of a portion of Biden’s bipartisan crime-fighting legacy.

Last December, as Donald Trump’s erratic regime was falling into increasing disarray, the political-media class briefly united in celebration of an exercise in bipartisanship: the First Step Act. Billed as a long overdue overhaul of the criminal justice system, the legislation received rapturous reviews for its display of cross-party cooperation, headlined by Jared Kushner’s partnership with liberal talk-show host Van Jones. In truth, this was a very modest first step. It offered the possibility of release to some 2,600 federal inmates, whose relief from excessive sentences would require the goodwill of both prosecutors and police, as well as forbidding some especially barbaric practices in federal prisons, such as the shackling of pregnant inmates. Overall, it amounted to little more than a textbook exercise in aisle bridging, a triumph of form over substance.

In the near term, it’s unlikely that there will be further bipartisan attempts to chip away at Biden’s legislative legacy, a legacy that includes an inconsistent (to put it mildly) record on abortion rights. Roe v. Wade “went too far,” he told an interviewer in 1974. “I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.” For some years his votes were consistent with that view. He supported the notorious Hyde Amendment prohibiting any and all federal funding for abortions, and fathered the “Biden Amendment” that banned the use of US foreign aid for abortion research.

As the 1980s wore on, however, and Biden’s presidential ambitions started to swell, he began to cast fewer antiabortion votes (with some exceptions), and led the potent opposition to Judge Robert Bork’s Supreme Court nomination as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then came Clarence Thomas. Even before Anita Hill reluctantly surfaced with her convincing recollections of unpleasant encounters with the porn-obsessed judge, Biden was fumbling his momentous responsibility of directing the hearings. As Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson report in Strange Justice, their book about the Thomas nomination battle, Biden’s questions were “sometimes so long and convoluted that Thomas would forget what the question was.” Biden prided himself on his legal scholarship, Mayer and Abramson suggest, and thus his questions were often designed “to show off [his] legal acumen rather than to elicit answers.”

More damningly, Biden not only allowed fellow committee members to mount a sustained barrage of vicious attacks on Hill: he wrapped up the hearings without calling at least two potential witnesses who could have convincingly corroborated Hill’s testimony and, by extension, indicated that the nominee had perjured himself on a sustained basis throughout the hearings. As Mayer and Abramson write, “Hill’s reputation was not foremost among the committee’s worries. The Democrats in general, and Biden in particular, appear to have been far more concerned with their own reputations,” and feared a Republican-stoked public backlash if they aired more details of Thomas’s sexual proclivities. Hill was therefore thrown to the wolves, and America was saddled with a Supreme Court justice of limited legal qualifications and extreme right-wing views (which he had taken pains to deny while under oath).

Fifteen years later, Biden would repeat this exercise in hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, yet another grim product of the Republican judicial-selection machinery. True to form, in his opening round of questions, Biden droned on for the better part of half an hour, allowing Alito barely five minutes to explain his views. As the torrent of verbiage washed over the hearing room, fellow Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy could only glower at Biden in impotent frustration.

Biden’s record on race and women did him little damage with the voters of Delaware, who regularly returned him to the Senate with comfortable margins. On race, at least, Biden affected to believe that Delawareans’ views might be closer to those of his old buddy Thurmond than those of the “Northeast liberal” he sometimes claimed to be. “You don’t know my state,” he told Fox as he geared up for his first attempt on the White House in 2006. “My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth-largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeast liberal state.” Months later, in front of a largely Republican audience in South Carolina, he joked that the only reason Delaware had fought with the North in the Civil War was “because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way.”

Whether or not most Delawareans are proud of their slaveholding history, there are some causes that they, or at least the dominant power brokers in the state, hold especially dear. Foremost among them is Delaware’s status as a freewheeling tax haven. State laws have made Delaware the domicile of choice for corporations, especially banks, and it competes for business with more notorious entrepôts such as the Cayman Islands. Over half of all US public companies are legally headquartered there.

“It’s a corporate whore state, of course,” the anonymous former Biden staffer remarked to me offhandedly in a recent conversation. He stressed that in “a small state with thirty-five thousand bank employees, apart from all the lawyers and others from the financial industry,” Biden was never going to stray too far from the industry’s priorities. We were discussing bankruptcy, an issue that has highlighted Biden’s fealty to the banks. Unsurprisingly, Biden was long a willing foot soldier in the campaign to emasculate laws allowing debtors relief from loans they cannot repay. As far back as 1978, he helped negotiate a deal rolling back bankruptcy protections for graduates with federal student loans, and in 1984 worked to do the same for borrowers with loans for vocational schools. Even when the ostensible objective lay elsewhere, such as drug-related crime, Biden did not forget his banker friends. Thus the 1990 Crime Control Act, with Biden as chief sponsor, further limited debtors’ ability to take advantage of bankruptcy protections.

These initiatives, however, were only precursors to the finance lobby’s magnum opus: the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. This carefully crafted flail of the poor made it almost impossible for borrowers to get traditional “clean slate” Chapter 7 bankruptcy, under which debt forgiveness enables people to rebuild their lives and businesses. Instead, the law subjected them to the far harsher provisions of Chapter 13, effectively turning borrowers into indentured servants of institutions like the credit card companies headquartered in Delaware. It made its way onto the statute books after a lopsided 74–25 vote (bipartisanship!), with Biden, naturally, voting in favor.

It was, in fact, the second version of the bill. An earlier iteration had passed Congress in 2000 with Biden’s support, but President Clinton refused to sign it at the urging of the first lady, who had been briefed on its iniquities by Elizabeth Warren. A Harvard Law School professor at the time, Warren witheringly summarized Biden’s advocacy of the earlier bill in a 2002 paper:

His energetic work on behalf of the credit card companies has earned him the affection of the banking industry and protected him from any well-funded challengers for his Senate seat.

Furthermore, she added tartly, “This important part of Senator Biden’s legislative work also appears to be missing from his Web site and publicity releases.” No doubt coincidentally, the credit card giant MBNA was Biden’s largest contributor for much of his Senate career, while also employing his son Hunter as an executive and, later, as a well-remunerated consultant.

It should go without saying, then, that Biden was among the ninety senators on one of the fatal (to the rest of us) legislative gifts presented to Wall Street back in the Clinton era: the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999. The act repealed the hallowed Depression-era Glass–Steagall legislation that severed investment banking from commercial banking, thereby permitting the combined operations to gamble with depositors’ money, and ultimately ushering in the 2008 crash. “The worst vote I ever cast in my entire time in the United States Senate,” admitted Biden in December 2016, as he prepared to leave office. Seventeen years too late, he explained that the act had “allowed banks with deposits to take on risky investments, putting the whole system at risk.”

In the meantime, of course, he had been vice president of the United States for eight years, and thus in a position to address the consequences of his (and his fellow senators’) actions by using his power to press for criminal investigations. His longtime faithful aide, Ted Kaufman, in fact, had taken over his Senate seat and was urging such probes. Yet there is not the slightest sign that Biden used his influence to encourage pursuit of the financial fraudsters. As he opined in a 2018 talk at the Brookings Institution, “I don’t think five hundred billionaires are the reason we’re in trouble. The folks at the top aren’t bad guys.” Characteristically, he described gross inequalities in wealth mainly as a threat to bipartisanship: “This gap is yawning, and it’s having the effect of pulling us apart. You see the politics of it.”

Biden’s rightward bipartisan inclinations are not the only source of his alleged appeal. In an imitation of Hillary Clinton’s tactics in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Biden has advertised himself as the candidate of “experience.” Indeed, in his self-estimation he is the “most qualified person in the country to be president.” It’s a claim mainly rooted in foreign policy, a field where, theoretically, partisan politics are deposited at the water’s edge and Biden’s negotiating talents and expertise are seen to their best advantage.

He boasts the same potent acquaintances with world leaders that helped earn Clinton a similar “most qualified” label on her failed presidential job application and, like her, has been a reliable hawk, not least when occupying the high-profile chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. An ardent proponent of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, an ill-conceived initiative that has served as an enduring provocation of Russian hostility toward the West, Biden voted enthusiastically to authorize Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, was a major proponent of Clinton’s war in Kosovo, and pushed for military intervention in Sudan.

Presumably in deference to this record, Obama entrusted his vice president with a number of foreign policy tasks over the years, beginning with “quarterbacking,” as Biden put it, US relations with Iraq. “Joe will do Iraq,” the president told his foreign policy team a few weeks after being sworn in. “He knows it, he knows the players.” It proved to be an unfortunate choice, at least for Iraqis. In 2006, the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, had selected Nouri al-Maliki, a relatively obscure Shiite politician, to be the country’s prime minister. “Are you serious?” exclaimed a startled Maliki when Khalilzad informed him of the decision. But Maliki proved to be a determinedly sectarian ruler, persecuting the Sunni tribes that had switched sides to aid US forces during the so-called surge of 2007–08. In addition, he sparked widespread allegations of corruption. According to the Iraqi Commission of Integrity set up after his departure, as much as $500 billion was siphoned off from government coffers during Maliki’s eight years in power.

In the 2010 parliamentary elections, one of Maliki’s rivals, boasting a nonsectarian base of support, won the most seats, though not a majority. According to present and former Iraqi officials, Biden’s emissaries pressed hard to assemble a coalition that would reinstall Maliki as prime minister. “It was clear they were not interested in anyone else,” one Iraqi diplomat told me. “Biden himself was very scrappy—he wouldn’t listen to argument.” The consequences were, in the official’s words, “disastrous.” In keeping with the general corruption of his regime, Maliki allowed the country’s security forces to deteriorate. Command of an army division could be purchased for $2 million, whereupon the buyer might recoup his investment with exactions from the civilian population. Therefore, when the Islamic State erupted out of Syria and moved against major Iraqi cities, there were no effective defenses. With Islamic State fighters an hour’s drive from Baghdad, the United States belatedly rushed to push Maliki aside and install a more competent leader, the Shiite politician and former government minister Haider al-Abadi. (Biden’s camp disputed the Iraqi official’s assertion that the United States pressed for Maliki in 2010. “We had no brief for any individual,” said Tony Blinken, who served as Biden’s national security adviser at the time.)

Biden devotes considerable space to this episode in Promise Me, Dad, his political and personal memoir documenting the year in which his son Beau slowly succumbed to cancer. But although we learn much about Biden’s relationship with Abadi, and the key role he played in getting vital help to the beleaguered Iraqi regime, there is little indication of his past with Maliki aside from a glancing reference to “stubbornly sectarian policies.”

Promise Me, Dad also covers Biden’s involvement in the other countries allotted to him by President Obama: Ukraine, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Anyone seeking insight from the book into the recent history of these regions, or of actual US policy and actions there, should look elsewhere. He has little to say, for example, about the well-chronicled involvement of US officials in the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014, still less on whether he himself was involved. He records his strenuous efforts to funnel ­IMF loans to the country following anti-­corruption measures introduced by the government without noting that much of the IMF money was almost immediately stolen and spirited out of Ukraine by an oligarch close to the government. Nor, for that matter, do we learn anything about his son Hunter’s involvement in that nation’s business affairs via his position on the board of Burisma, a natural gas company owned by a former Ukrainian ecology minister accused by the UK government of stealing at least $23 million of Ukrainian taxpayers’ money.

Biden’s recollections of his involvement in Central American affairs are no more forthright, and no more insightful. There is no mention of the 2009 coup in Honduras, endorsed and supported by the United States, that displaced the elected president, Manuel Zelaya, nor of that country’s subsequent descent into the rule of a corrupt oligarchy accused of ties to drug traffickers. He has nothing but warm words for Juan Orlando Hernández, the current president, who financed his 2013 election campaign with $90 million stolen from the Honduran health service and more recently defied his country’s constitution by running for a second term. Instead, we read much about Biden’s shepherding of the Hernández regime, along with its Central American neighbors El Salvador and Guatemala, into the Alliance for Prosperity, an agreement in which the signatories pledged to improve education, health care, women’s rights, justice systems, etc., in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid. In the words of Professor Dana Frank of UC Santa Cruz, the alliance “supports the very economic sectors that are actively destroying the Honduran economy and environment, like mega-dams, mining, tourism, and African palms,” reducing most of the population to poverty and spurring them to seek something better north of the border. The net result has been a tide of refugees fleeing north, most famously exemplified by the “caravan” used by Donald Trump to galvanize support prior to November’s congressional elections.

Biden’s claims of experience on the world stage, therefore, cannot be denied. True, the experience has been routinely disastrous for those on the receiving end, but on the other hand, that is a common fate for those subjected, under any administration, to the operations of our foreign policy apparatus.

Given Biden’s all too evident shortcomings in the fields of domestic and foreign policy, defenders inevitably retreat to the “electability” argument, which contends that he is the only Democrat on the horizon capable of beating Trump—a view that Biden, naturally, endorses. Specifically, this notion rests on the belief that Biden has unequaled appeal among the white working-class voters that many Democrats are eager to court.

To be fair, Biden has earned high ratings from the AFL-CIO thanks to his support for matters such as union organizing rights and a higher minimum wage. On the other hand, he also supported NAFTA in 1994 and permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000, two votes that sounded the death knell for America’s manufacturing economy. Regardless of how justified his pro-labor reputation may be, however, it’s far from clear that the working class holds Biden in any special regard—his two presidential races imploded before any blue-collar workers had a chance to vote for him.

It is this fact that makes the electability argument so puzzling. Biden’s initial bid for the prize in 1988 famously blew up when rivals unkindly publicized his plagiarism of a stump speech given by Neil Kinnock, a British Labour Party politician. (In Britain, Kinnock was known as “the Welsh Windbag,” which may have encouraged the logorrheic Biden to feel a kinship.) Biden partisans pointed out that he had cited Kinnock on previous occasions, though he didn’t always remember to do so. Either way, it was a bizarre snafu. It also emerged that Biden had been incorporating chunks of speeches from both Bobby and Jack Kennedy along with Hubert Humphrey in his remarks without attribution (although reportedly some of this was the work of speechwriter Pat Caddell).

Another gaffe helped upend Biden’s second White House bid, in 2007, when he referred to Barack Obama in patronizing terms as “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” The campaign cratered at the very first hurdle, the Iowa caucuses, where Biden came in fifth, with less than 1 percent of the votes. “It was humiliating,” recalled the ex-staffer. (The “gaffes” seem to take physical form on occasion. “He has a bit of a Me Too problem,” a leading female Democratic activist and fund-raiser told me, referring to his overly tactile approach to interacting with women. “We never had a talk when he wasn’t stroking my back.” He has already faced heckling on the topic, and videos of this behavior during the course of public events and photo ops have been widely circulated.)

Further to the issue of Biden’s assurances that he is the man to beat Trump is the awkward fact that, as the former staffer told me, “he lacks the discipline to build the nuts and bolts of a modern presidential campaign.” Biden “hated having to take orders from [David] Axelrod and the other Obama people as a vice-presidential candidate in 2008. Campaign aides used to say to him, ‘I’ve got three words for you: Air Force Two.’” My informant stressed that Biden “sucks at fund-raising. He never had to try very hard in Delaware. Staff would do it for him.” Certainly, Biden’s current campaign funds would appear to confirm this contention. His PAC, American Possibilities, had raised only two and a half million dollars by the end of 2018, a surprisingly insignificant amount for a veteran senator and two-term vice president. Furthermore, although the PAC’s stated purpose is to “support candidates who believe in American possibilities,” less than a quarter of the money had found its way to Democratic candidates in time for the November midterms, encouraging speculation that Biden is not really that serious about the essential brass tacks of a presidential campaign—which would include building a strong base of support among Democratic officeholders.

Other organizations in the Biden universe behave similarly, expending much of their income on staff salaries and little on their ostensible function. According to an exhaustive New York Times investigation, salaries accounted for 45 percent of spending by the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children in 2016 and 2017. Similarly, three quarters of the money the Biden Cancer Initiative spent in 2017 went toward salaries and other compensation, including over half a million dollars for its president, Greg Simon, formerly the executive director of Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Task Force during the Obama Administration. Outside the inner circle of senior aides, there does not appear to be an extended Biden network among political professionals standing ready to raise money and perform other tasks necessary to a White House bid, in the way that Hillary Clinton had a network across the political world composed of people who had worked for her and her husband. “Biden doesn’t have that,” his former staffer told me, “because he’s indifferent to staff.” It’s a sentiment that’s been expressed to me by many in the election industry, including a veteran Democratic campaign strategist. “Everyone else is getting everything set up to go once the trigger is pulled,” this individual told me recently. “I myself have firm offers from the [Kamala] Harris and [Cory] Booker campaigns. The Biden people talked to me too, but they could only say, ‘If we run, we’d love to bring you into the fold.’”

At the start of the new year, Biden must have been living in the best of all possible worlds. As he engaged in well-publicized ruminations on whether or not to run, he was enjoying a high profile, with commensurate benefits of sizable book sales and hundred-thousand-dollar speaking engagements. Even more importantly, Biden found himself relevant again. “You’re either on the way up,” he likes to say, “or you’re on the way down,” which is why the temptation to reject the lessons of his two hopelessly bungled White House campaigns has been so overwhelming. Regardless of the current election cycle’s endgame, though, it’s safe to assume that his undimmed ego will never permit any reflection on whether voters who have been eagerly voting for change will ever really settle for Uncle Joe, champion of yesterday’s sordid compromises.

#paywall so it all goes in

[preciseprose]

Dipper v. Emotional Conflict

After re-watching every episode of Gravity Falls, listening to every commentary track available, and reading “Lost Legends”, I’ve come to the following conclusion about Dipper Pines:

His greatest weakness is his inability to resolve internal emotional conflicts on his own.

I see a lot of my younger self in Dipper. We’re both nerdy dorks who are confident—often to a fault—in our ability to think, plan, or argue our way out of conflicts. Logical reasoning comes naturally to us; emotional sensitivity does not. We shine the brightest when tasked with solving problems devoid of emotional complications because we have a hard time understanding them. So when cornered by emotional conflicts that are difficult to resolve or that are unfamiliar, our confidence nosedives. 

Dipper’s response to unfamiliar or difficult emotional conflicts depends on both the circumstances in which the conflict arises and whether the source of the conflict is external or internal. In “Dipper v. Manliness”, Dipper’s self-confidence is challenged externally after he’s publicly emasculated by failing a strength test and privately emasculated after Mabel and Stanley make fun of his love of BABBA, a stereotypically feminine pop group.

This conflict does not require immediate resolution, so Dipper does not immediately face it. Instead he wanders into the woods, eventually finding guidance in the form of the Manotaurs, a clan of hypermasculine half-man half-taurs.

The manotaurs are of course nothing like noodle-armed Dipper. They’re about as intelligent as the rocks they crush with their horns; disparage BABBA for its femininity; and characterize the Multibear, a multi-headed bear who loves BABBA, as their enemy merely because he refuses to conform with their toxic masculinity. Unsure about what it means to be a man and lacking the self-confidence to support his past perception of manliness, Dipper tries to fit in with the manotaurs even though doing so requires him to reject the effeminate parts of himself. This rejection of himself creates internal emotional conflict that reveals itself when Dipper, tasked by the Manotaurs to murder the Multibear in order to prove his manliness, discovers he has more in common with the Multibear than the Manotaurs.

The realization that killing the Multibear would be akin to killing himself is enough of a shock that Dipper realizes he doesn’t need to be traditionally masculine in order to be a man. His self-confidence somewhat restored, Dipper is able to tell the overwhelmingly masculine manotaurs their way of life is flawed without fear. He resolves his external conflict by rejecting its very existence. Yet when Dipper meets up with Mabel and Stan a few hours later, it is clear Dipper has failed to resolve his internal conflict on his own.

There is no objective reason Dipper shouldn’t have shed his internal conflict after telling off the Manotaurs. His internal conflict stemmed from his independent decision to act like someone he was not, not from public embarrassment or from being bullied by Stan and Mabel. All that’s required of Dipper is from him to take the inferential step that standing up for himself was, in fact, manly. That Dipper immediately discusses his distaste for the Manotaurs with Stan and Mabel upon meeting with them shows he’s on the verge of making the realization for himself. Nevertheless, Dipper’s internal conflict is only resolved after Stan and Mabel assure him his rejection of the Manataurs was manly.

But of course he can’t come to the realization himself, he’s only twelve! Not even the most emotionally sensitive 12-year-old boy should be able to figure out the intricacies of manhood after a single shot at it. Dipper’s lack of self-awareness shows he has room to grow. And grow he does; physically and mentally.

Dipper and Mabel’s summer in Gravity Falls occurs during the sunrise of their transition from childhood to adulthood. During the course of the show their bodies are changing (although only Dipper’s is discussed) and they’re experiencing romantic attraction for the first time. Mabel joyfully throws herself into these new feelings of attraction without restraint and absent any expectations because she isn’t looking for anything serious. She’s not interested in grown-up stuff; she just wants to hold hands and kiss cute boys without consequence while she can. Dipper, however, views his attraction to Wendy, a girl three years his senior, as an opportunity to finally leave childhood behind and move on to glorious adulthood. He puts enormous pressure on himself to establish a serious romantic relationship because, whether or not he realizes it, he views such a relationship as a stepping stone to maturity.

Dipper knows he lacks what is necessary to charm Wendy, but his desire to grow up blinds him from realizing he cannot gain what isn't there by pretending to be someone he is not,

by executing an elaborate plan, 

or by sabotaging Wendy’s existing romantic relationship.

Dipper’s immaturity blinds him to what Mabel understands intuitively: 12-year-old’s can’t sustain serious romantic relationships because 12-year-olds haven’t lived long enough to gain the emotional maturity, experience, and patience such relationships require. His inability to figure this out frustrates his goal of growing up as fast as possible and results in massive internal emotional conflict over how he should present himself to potential romantic partners. It is this self-imposed internal conflict that causes Dipper’s self-confidence to implode whenever he’s first meets or is alone with a person he classifies as a potential romantic partner. This is why Dipper is awkward around Wendy and, before he dehumanizes them per Stan’s instructions, the girls he meets during “Roadside Attraction”, but is never awkward around Pacifica—even when she’s hugging him.

This view is confirmed by Dipper’s behavior following his discussion with Wendy in “Into the Bunker”. After their battle with the Shapeshifter, Wendy confronts Dipper about his feelings for her. She tells him the she’s flattered he likes her, but that she’s too old for him. And to stop Dipper’s thoughts from spiraling out of control, she reassures him that she loves spending time with him and that things between them don’t have to be awkward. After this point Dipper is no longer awkward around Wendy, but not because he resolved his inner emotional conflict.

Unlike the conflict in “Dipper v. Manliness”, which existed for maybe a few days, Dipper’s conflict over how to present himself to potential partners has stewed within him for weeks. One short conversation is not enough help for him to move past it. If it was, Dipper wouldn’t still have a crush on Wendy 15 episodes later.

Accordingly, the reason Dipper is no longer awkward around Wendy is not because he understands he cannot date her eventually, but rather because she expressly told him she will never return his feelings for her. The change in Dipper’s mind was not that he shouldn’t pursue a serious romantic relationship at his age, it was that Wendy is not a potential romantic partner.

It’s not until after Weirdmagedon that Dipper finally moves past this inner conflict; and even then, he does so indirectly. Alex Hirsch provides an excellent explanation of how this comes to pass in the commentary track for “Scary-oke”:

“Dipper wants to grow up too fast. That’s his flaw as a character. And it builds to a choice that he has the chance to skip over childhood and then he comes to appreciate childhood. And when he returns at the end of this summer, he’s not in such a rush. He’s not in such a rush to date Wendy and to be a government agent, and all of this stuff.”

At the end of the show, Dipper still doesn’t grasp that he will never date Wendy—and thus his awkwardness around girls he likes will continue to manifest itself—but at least he’s no longer putting so much pressure on himself to find a girlfriend.

To close, I’d like to discuss why Dipper doesn’t view Pacifica as a potential romantic partner, and what I believe the implications of that view would have been had the show continued past season two. Once again Alex Hirsh’s commentary, this time from “The Golf War”, speaks with more clarity than I can provide: 

“[The writing staff] loved that [Pacifica] brought out . . . pure instant sass and rage from Dipper. He’s so protective of his sister that he becomes way more assertive around Pacifica because he has no ambiguity in his mind about how he feels about her; he can’t stand her. And his normal social fear melts away when there is someone he hates that much.” 

This confirms my theory on why Dipper isn’t awkward around Pacifica.

More interesting, however, is Matt Chapman’s (writer and voice actor for Gravity Falls) commentary on Dipper and Pacifica’s relationship. During the commentary track for “Northwest Mansion Mystery”, Chapman states:

“What’s so exciting about this pairing, Dipper and Pacifica, is that Dipper is normally very . . . he doesn’t have a lot of confidence. Yet around Pacifica he has tons of confidence.” 

Based on her actions in “Northwest Mansion Mystery” and “Face It”, Pacifica is clearly attracted to Dipper. She admires his confidence around her, appreciates his willingness to not judge her despite her family’s past actions, and is genuinely touched by his ability to look past the protective facade she maintains and see her for who she truly is.

I don’t think I’m overreaching by stating that Dipper would eventually figure out Pacifica has feelings for him had the show continued. How he would respond to that discovery is subject to more speculation. Personally, I believe Dipper would have a hard time coming to terms with the knowledge that Pacifica’s has feelings for him. I think he'd drive himself nuts trying to resolve his older feelings of distrust and dislike for her, with new feelings of attraction to her, and the knowledge that she’s attracted to him. And while I have many more thoughts on this subject, this analysis is already long enough so I’m going to cut it off here.

Dipper is an extremely well-written character. He’s an excellent reminder that childhood can only be experienced once, and shouldn’t be rushed. He also serves to remind those just starting puberty to remember that emotional sensitivity plays just as much of a role in relationships as does rational discussion. Overall, he’s one of my favorite characters of all time and I’m glad he’s in one of my favorite shows of all time.

#gravity falls #dipper pines #pacifica northwest #character analysis #pinetree speaks #dipper vs. manliness #the inconveniencing #double dipper #boyz crazy #into the bunker #the golf war #roadside attraction #face it #lost legends #lost legends spoilers #gravity falls meta