#since the essay was originally a response to the first linked post it addresses the issue with the 'rape narrative' reading of s9

[paellegere]

ok tumblr deleted most of my tag essay on this post, so i've recreated and expanded upon it in its own post.

so the op of the post made a great point which really touched on why i've been feeling that i had a fundamentally different takeaway of season 9 compared to the rest of the fandom. i have a lot to say in response to this, not in argument but in support and synthesis of it.

i'll start with dean at the beginning of season 9: he has a great struggle in 901 regarding gadreel possessing sam, more so than any other struggle he's faced when saving sam's life, which points to me as him being aware of and conflicted about sam's history of possession. he understands this is crossing a line because it's similar to lucifer and meg, and so accepting gadreel's deal is violating sam to a length dean hasn't gone to before. dean by and large is the one who has this particular ethical problem (shown throughout the first half of season 9), not sam. hell, dean is the one who leaves sam once gadreel's out, without even waiting for input because his self-loathing is that strong.

sam, on the other hand, is more textually concerned in his 912/913 arguments with the lack of trust ("i can't trust you, not the way i thought i could") and dean's selfishness ("you did it for you"). this is an ongoing conflict sam has with dean, since the beginning of the show. dean doesn't trust sam to make his own decisions and therefore makes them for him, without sam's consent or knowledge. sam wants to be trusted to stand on his own, and he wants dean to put the same faith in him that he puts in dean. this is the core of sam's needs; the violation of autonomy is just an externalization of these needs and this conflict.

and i don't entirely disagree with the connection between going behind sam's back to keep him alive against his will and a rape narrative. both involve a lack of consent and a violation of agency. however, it really doesn't stop there, and it's a lot more complex than that.

and that's what rubs me wrong about more common interpretations of season 9 that i've seen. because this isn't really what the season is about. this violation on its own isn't the point. or if it is on the surface, it's equally about sam lying to himself about what it's actually about. he's consistently left out of major decisions regarding his own life and then lied to about it "for his own good," and he wants the right to choose his own path.

except, as we learn, that's not true. he lied about it. because the point of the whole season is that sam and dean are the same. they will make the same decisions to save each other over and over again. the point of the whole season is that sam has been lying to himself.

i said this in another post, but i think a big reason sam was able to lie to himself about this fact is because he's had the opportunity to let dean go on several occasions. he's been unable to save dean the way dean has saved sam. he fails where dean succeeds. sam has been forced to endure a grief that dean has never had to experience because dean always brings sam back. and so because sam has endured these experiences maybe he's more comfortable letting dean choose death in the abstract—the hypothetical. but in reality when it comes to that point, sam can't actually follow through, because he's just as dependent on dean being there for him as dean is dependent on sam.

and that's what season 9 is about. sam has been lying to himself about this reality from the start. this is why 1019 parallels 311 regarding how insane sam is about dean. it's reiterating the facts we've known but with a new perspective, now that sam is done deluding himself. he needs to accept that he was lying to himself and to dean, and this is what allows season 9 to close and for season 10 to begin, because season 10 is a response to sam's realization. he chooses dean over everything else in a monumental display of hypocrisy and genuine understanding of himself and who dean is to him.

seasons 8-10 should be taken as a single, cohesive unit, and the show goes to great lengths to enforce this. season 9 mirrors season 8, and season 10 acts as a response to and therefore a continuation of season 9. you can see this in the way charlie's death mirrors kevin's (one brother's lies and deceptions leads to increasing stakes that could have been avoided through honesty and openness, which culminates in the death of their beloved ally, and the deceptive brother blames himself for that death because his own unethical actions led to it), or how both of them undergo a change in their physiology as a result of godlike power entering their bodies which mutilate them from the inside and have fatal consequences (sam with the trials, dean with the mark of cain) which can only reasonably be resolved with their deaths (and they both even enter the final stages of this conflict by going to confession). also the plot structures of seasons 8 and 9 on their own mirror each other very closely.

this is all very important because it outlines the purpose of each of these two seasons. it's about them being fundamentally betrayed by their brother, causing that brother to become desperate and feel rejected and unloved, only for them to get what they need out of each other to reaffirm their love. they have to function as a unit, because otherwise both season's primary conflicts (as in, the conflicts established in the first half of each season) are left unresolved. instead, sam gets what he needs from dean in 823, which means that in return dean gets what he needs from sam in 923, thus closing the circle that was opened in 801.

dean reaffirmed that sam is the most important person in the world to him in sacrifice, that he would choose sam over every single other person on earth—this is what sam needed to hear, because it's the foundation of the conflict in season 8, since sam thinks dean chose benny over him and this sent him spiraling into a suicidal depression and self-loathing. so season 9, consequentially, is about dean getting what he needs from sam: he needs to know that sam will do anything in his power to save dean, which is a conflict that began in season 8 (with sam not searching for dean in purgatory) and is reasserted in 913 when sam tells him that he wouldn't violate his agency if the situations were reversed.

and this is exactly what dean gets in 923, when sam says he lied about all of that. dean gets the affirmation that sam's love for dean goes beyond petty ethics, which translates to "dean is more important to sam than anything else in the world" where the "anything else" includes sam's own moral boundaries. this is important to dean because dean eschews his own moral boundaries for sam's sake and safety over and over again throughout the series, and this is a major source of his own character development (see: 122, 203, 214, 222, et cetera et cetera). sam repeatedly denies that he's the same way, and has proven at least once that he wouldn't do the same, so this is an important affirmation for sam to give and it's why dean had spiraled into a suicidal depression and self-loathing (look, another parallel).

so season 8-9 are mirrors of each other, and they have to be mirrors of each other in order to work structurally and for any of the conflicts presented to be resolved. season 10 then is a response to this which shows the consequences of those dual resolutions: aka, sam acts just as unethically as dean does in the rest of the show, except this time knowingly and intentionally instead of subconsciously as he has been doing up to now (see: 1001, 1003, 1004, 1018, 1020, et cetera et cetera).

in order for all of this to work, the conflicts in season 8 and season 9 have to be equal. i.e. dean has to violate sam and his ethics as badly as sam violated dean and his ethics. it also has to be suitably Bad because it's revisiting a conflict that's existed in various iterations across the entire show. this is why it's also deeply important that 923 dean's death also parallels 222 sam's death, because it highlights how this conflict has always existed and how sam and dean are similar to each other. they both make the same choices under pressure and go to equally unethical lengths. which is why season 9 couldn't end until crowley told the audience that sam was trying to make a deal with him to bring dean back to life, specifically after dean begged sam to let him die. the point, then, was never about the violation itself: sam disregards dean's right to choose death just as much as dean disregards it. the season is about how sam and dean are at their cores the same, and it's about sam becoming aware of that reality and then actively, consciously choosing it. which is what sam reiterates across season 10, as a response to his choice in 923.

he only realizes that this is a Bad Thing in 1101 (i.e. after the response has run its course) when he says they both have to change. and the "both" is important because they are the same, fundamentally. sam isn't innocent of this violation of agency and obsessive deception of his brother, and he needs to understand that before actionable change can be made, which is what season 10 is all about.

and there's something poignant that can be said about 1023 being titled "brother's keeper," because this episode is about sam playing the role of brother's keeper, only for it to blow up so spectacularly in their faces that it causes the apocalypse 2.0. it forces sam to recognize that his original conclusion (that dean was right, and that he was lying) was not actually the correct and moral way to continue living. the significance of 1101 only reveals itself in the foundation laid by seasons 8-10, because these are the seasons about sam discovering just how down bad he is for his brother and accepting it wholeheartedly. season 11 then seeks to fix what seasons 8-10 broke, which is of course the entire fucking planet.

and this is the problem: the first apocalypse was caused by the absence of love, and the second was caused by too much love. their love is a destructive force that has world-ending consequences. that's the point of these seasons, what it all comes back to. in receiving the exact type and strength of love they needed from each other, they ended the world. and this is the conflict they need to resolve in season 11, or at least try to. because their love for each other can, has, and will destroy the world, over and over and over again. this theme can't exist unless seasons 8 and 9 mirror each other, unless season 9 is about sam's hypocrisy.

without that world-ending love, they couldn't have started the second apocalypse. if sam weren't a liar, he would have respected dean's choices, and he would have let dean die. if sam truly cared about bodily autonomy, dean would have died in 923 when he begged sam to let him. but he doesn't; that's not the point of the narrative. of course the violation of autonomy is important, because it provides the foundation for the conflict. but the violation is itself a metaphor, a triple whammy of symbolism: the possession is a metaphor for violation, and the violation is a metaphor for betrayal (as seen through the lens of deception).

the point of season 9 is not that dean metaphorically raped his helpless little brother; rather it's that the violation of agency goes both ways, and sam is a hypocrite for trying to maintain his autonomy while stripping it from dean. it's a continuation of season 8, which thus compacts his guilt over "abandoning" dean in purgatory and his self-loathing and fears of not being good enough or worthy enough of dean's love, which thus causes him to act recklessly and injuriously toward himself and dean. it's not a positive conclusion by any means; like i said, this is what causes the second apocalypse, and it's only after they've ended the world twice that sam finally sits down and says maybe they were wrong about this whole thing. maybe their love is too destructive.

in 912, sam says: "something's broken here [...] we don't see things the same way anymore."

in 1101, sam says: "this isn't on you. it's on us. we have to change."

sam goes from blaming dean to blaming both of them, because he realizes that they're both equal partners in their toxic, fucked up love. season 8 and season 9 allowed them to become equals by giving each other the affirmations they desperately needed to achieve true enmeshment, and season 10 is the consequence of that unhealthy relationship.

the point was never that dean violated sam. he does that over and over again throughout the series without destroying their relationship. the point is that sam is willing to violate dean all the same, and he had to face that reality head-on and accept it to resolve the conflict between them and give dean the affirmation he needed, just like dean gave sam the affirmation he needed in 823. the violation was simply a vehicle through which the conflict could come to a head, and the most provocative symbol this show could possibly use was the metaphor of sexual assault and rape, given sam's history with it via meg and especially via lucifer.

i've probably written enough now. the tl;dr is that season 9 invokes what can be interpreted as a rape metaphor not to vilify dean or even really to continue sam's ongoing rape narrative (though the violation that occurs in season 9 uses this as a foundation for the conflict and that's important to understanding the gravity of the situation), but rather to give appropriate stakes to mirror the primary conflict of season 8 and provide grounds for dean to get resolution for the conflict that began in 801 and continued through 923. god i hope this makes sense because now i've written this essay twice and i'm so miserable because of it.

my apologies if any of this is repetitive or meandering or lacking in any way; i tried really really hard to recreate my original essay and also provide more evidence and groundwork for my argument but obviously i'm sure i've missed some details and overlooked structure in many places. if you read this far, i love you and please talk to me about seasons 8-10. i'm losing my mind

#supernatural #at some points i feel like i sound overly critical of sammy and i want to stress i am a samgirl and he's everything to me #and i also don't think this trio of seasons vilify him either even if my arguments might sound that way #i think his development across these seasons are fantastic even if they aren't all rainbows and sparkles. he's a great character #since the essay was originally a response to the first linked post it addresses the issue with the 'rape narrative' reading of s9 #more heavily than my other arguments. so yeah that's probably why i'm worried it comes across as more critical than i intended #also calling someone a hypocrite is a rather loaded term even though i'm using it neutrally. but i digress #.txt #the winchester gospel #spn posting

[jonkentdeservesbetter]

I wrote a comment in r/SupermanAndLois awhile ago, where I mentioned how I’d one day get around to writing out an analysis on Jon’s character and his relationships. I have reposted that on my blog, but it’s largely irrelevant, except to say that I intended to.

The thing is, my original plan was to rewatch the previous two seasons, while taking some thorough notes on Jon’s personality and his relationships, and how those connections tie into his reactions and reflect his personality.

This never happened - despite starting my essay last year - because every time I tried going through a rewatch, I…got too upset.

It was one thing watching the first seasons, hoping for the last few episodes of season 2 - in the break after the ep. with the Barn Scene, wherein it seemed things were at last going to be addressed for Jon and begin to change for the better - to be what we hoped, in comparison with rewatching after…S2.

To sum it up: I couldn’t get through them.

Still, I did get somewhere with my analysis, and I’d like to hear any thoughts others may have in response. It’s really very little, when not posting my messy, unedited ramblings, but essentially: do you know Enneagram types? I’m actually not that familiar with it, aside from knowing things about my own. But when I was considering what and how to write the essay I’d mapped out, I thought a look at other personality analyses could be useful for kickstarting the process. So I went to the website. I remembered thinking of the profile and analysis on my type, how I’d been shocked at how accurate it all felt; which is why it’s what came to mind. I didn’t expect to actually find a type that fit Jon, but well.

Jon seems like a 3w2, in my opinion, and Jordan an 8, although I didn’t dive deep enough into the latter’s to determine wing.

Here’s the link to the Type Three profile. I’m not going to say I think every single line is spot-on for him, but I think it’s useful, still. Note: TW for ableist language in some parts.

Also: consider that some of the ‘unhealthy’ levels explained actually match Bizzaro!Jon.

There’s a lot to read and agree or disagree with, depending on how you, personally, interpret Jon’s characterization. For me, I found these excerpts quite striking:

[…] since these professions have status in their community and in the eyes of the family. No matter how success is defined, Threes will try to become somebody noteworthy in their family and their community. They will not be a “nobody.”

To this end, Threes learn to perform in ways that will garner them praise and positive attention. As children, they learned to recognize the activities that were valued by their parents or peers, and put their energies into excelling in those activities. Threes also learned how to cultivate and develop whatever about them is attractive or potentially impressive.

[…] Thus, the deeper problem is that their search for a way to be of value increasingly takes them further away from their own Essential Self with its core of real value. From their earliest years, as Threes become dependent on receiving attention from others and in pursuing the values that others reward, they gradually lose touch with themselves. Step by step, their own inner core, their “heart’s desire,” is left behind until they no longer recognize it.

Thus, while they are the primary type in the Feeling Center, Threes, interestingly, are not known as “feeling” people; rather, they are people of action and achievement. It is as if they “put their feelings in a box” so that they can get ahead with what they want to achieve. Threes have come to believe that emotions get in the way of their performance, so they substitute thinking and practical action for feelings.

Seriously, there’s a lot of Jon on that page.

#cw jonathan kent #superman and lois #cw superman and lois

[tunedtostatic]

Back in August, I posted a big wordy essay about how I think the handling of disability in the season two finale of Starship Iris came as close as a work of fiction can get to misinfo with the potential to cause harm. Given the nature of the internet, I geared up for what I thought was every possible outcome: disagreement, agreement, some of each. Maybe inevitably, the outcome for the first couple of months still managed to catch me by surprise by being something I hadn’t thought to expect, signs of reading but not much verbal response. (This past month, it did get three responses from people saying they were glad they’d read it, which decreased my worry that I’d screwed up big time in a way that I and my initial beta reader, who participates in fandoms but not this one, hadn’t realized.)

Originally, I wrote about these issues because I think they’re important to talk about and because I wanted to rip off the bandaid of an initial conversation. After neither of those things happened, I want to push these issues a little again, mostly for the boring and somewhat selfish reason that I think a conversation about them is going to come up sooner or later, whether because what I wrote is out on the internet for new listeners to run into or because new listeners get to the season two finale and go “WTF,” and I keep fretting that the initial rip off the bandaid starter conversation will pop up at the most awkward possible time, like the middle of the Yuletide fandom exchange or the beginning of season three.

In an earlier draft of this post, I followed the previous paragraph with a paragraph that boiled down to “Can we start a conversation about this?” But it was kindly and correctly pointed out to me that since “conversations” online are often contentious and painful, it might be helpful to say why I want to start a conversation, beyond a general “I think it’s important to talk about this, and that conversation hasn’t started yet.”

I have several answers to What are you looking for out of this? I’m interested in hearing from other people. I think conversations about disability are important. I’m not immune to the desire to do some good old-fashioned complaining. And I wanted to find ways to talk, without pressuring anyone, about ways to be aware of this stuff when creating fanworks. But at the end of the day, the problem I had with the work was its potential to spread misinfo, so what I most want is to spread accurate info. Even if people reading this are all over the place when it comes to agreeing, disagreeing, or having other thoughts on the parts that are subjective fiction crit, I hope the real world statistics I included here can provide information on issues that can come up for anyone.

The essay I wrote this summer was very long, so for this post I wrote a summary. These issues are complicated, and while the essay isn’t perfect I think the long form at least let me try to address them with more nuance than is possible in a shorter version, which is why I’m keeping it metaphorically linked (and actually linked, but in the notes so Tumblr doesn’t eat the post LMAO).

Thanks again to L for beta reading the original post and Sanvi (windywords123) for beta reading this one!

[Couple of edits, Nov 28: I’m kicking myself a little for including the thing about timing, since I don’t want anyone who runs across this later to feel like I was giving this post an expiration date. I still wish this stuff was a little more widely known and discussed and am happy to do so Whenever.

Added a TL;DR below. I realized this is still kind of long, which is in and of itself an accessibility issue. Also, a family member and possibly a friend are about to start listening to season two, and I wanted to come up with something actually short that I could adapt and send to them.]

• The scene where Arkady tries to kill Krejjh, and describes herself with apparent accuracy as a time bomb who will inevitably hurt the people she loves, is a cliché half-century-old trope about combat PTSD that doesn’t match closely to reality. In reality, any kind of violence or aggression due to PTSD is rare (between 8% to percentages in the 30s, with the variation coming from differences between studies and definitions, like whether screaming at people was included), and within that small percentage, violent/aggressive actions due to anger, stress, irritability, or a startle response are much more common than violence/aggressive actions due to losing touch with reality during a flashback.

• For both anger/stress or a flashback, the violence/aggression is more likely to be someone screaming, throwing/hitting an inanimate object, or shoving or hitting someone who startles them or gets in their space—lethal violence due to someone losing touch with reality and thinking they’re somewhere else or a person is someone/something else is possible but extremely rare. Yet so often in fiction, people with PTSD are portrayed as automatically lethally dangerous.

• I’m one of the small fraction of people with PTSD who have lost control and done something violent/aggressive. It isn’t that I don’t think we should ever write about that in fiction. The problem is seeing something painful and horrible reduced to an inaccurate, cliché fifty-year-old trope, in a context that gives its inaccuracies credibility.

• When I looked up PTSD and violence to find citations for the essay, several articles talked about the trope: “Most of us are familiar with the classic movie trope — a character with PTSD doesn’t recognize that he’s no longer at war and violently lashes out at the people around him,” as a 5 Myths About PTSD article put it. You can feel everyone’s exhaustion with it.

• In real life, the false belief that people with PTSD and other stigmatized mental health conditions are automatically severely dangerous leads to and exacerbates stigma and what is presumed to be “justified” violence against people with mental illnesses, a vulnerable minority who are statistically more likely to become victims of violence than to harm others.

• This podcast’s realism around other serious real world topics, with Violet’s anxiety and Sana’s depression being portrayed in a realistic way, seems to at least loosely imply that its portrayal of PTSD is accurate as well (and the fifty-year-old inaccurate lethal violence PTSD trope scene is indeed content warned as a “PTSD episode.”) This adds to the degree to which this trope is part of a harmful pattern.

• Because “harmful,” as compared to “unpleasant,” “benignly inaccurate” or “I didn’t like it,” is such a heavy thing to say about a story, I think that when using The H Word in fiction criticism, it’s important to untangle the different things people can mean when they use it:

1. “This was a trauma trigger for me.” Neutral, not a value judgement (and shouldn’t be used as one, IMO).

2. “This story is part of a harmful pattern.” This is my central criticism of the Arkady strangling Krejjh section of the scene, which is part of a longstanding pattern of fiction portraying PTSD inaccurately. This pattern as a whole contributes to real life false beliefs about PTSD, which contribute to negative consequences for people with PTSD.

3. “This story harmed me [by being published] [by my experience of reading it].” I think this one is slung around a little too much on the internet. If it isn’t something like creative nonfiction that exploits real people, a work written by a stranger probably isn’t “harming” a reader through their experience of reading it. There’s a grey area—I don’t want to imply that no one should ever conceptualize, for example, reading something deliberately bigoted against a group of people you belong to as “harm.” But I don’t think saying a work of fiction “harmed me/harmed readers” is often a fair, or harmless, thing to say.

4. “This story on its own has the potential to cause harm.” This is the really complicated one. Like “harmed me [past tense],” it’s an intense thing to say, and like “harmed me [past tense],” it tends to get slung around on fandom social media about any work people think is part of a harmful pattern. I don’t think fictional stories have anything close to the amount of power that the news or a scientific journal has to transmit misinformation that impacts people’s ability to understand and react to real situations; however, I think that fictional stories, especially in some contexts, do have the power to do so.

• I think the second part of this scene, where RJ resolves the situation by overpowering Arkady with a gun, falls under the category of stories that have the potential to cause harm.

• Harking back to Arkady’s lesser of two evils speech, I know RJ threatening to shoot Arkady was not being presented as a good thing, more of a “problematic but endearing way of showing they care about her.” But it’s written as the successful resolution of the scene. “People with PTSD might become lethally dangerous at any time, and a way to solve that is to involve someone who can overpower them with a gun” is a…not-good combination. While things happening in a story doesn’t mean people will act them out in reality in a 1:1 way—I don’t think one podcast scene is going to single-handedly influence someone to replicate it in reality—putting that combination of ideas in a podcast that usually portrays not only mental health conditions but also the consequences of various ways of dealing with those conditions in a realistic way gives that combination of ideas a credibility that it should not be given.

• “Mental health crisis” and “Someone else has a gun” is a very dangerous combination, and there are many real life tragedies resulting from people assuming it’s a good combination. More than fifty percent of people who are killed by police in the US have a disability. Given the number of people harmed and killed by police during mental health crises, I do know for sure that we need to stop automatically seeing “Involve people with guns” as being the “safest” choice.

• In real life, when someone’s mental illness is causing them to act in a way that is immediately dangerous to themself or others, calling 911, choosing to intervene yourself, and choosing to do nothing each create different types and amounts of risk, which vary depending on the situation. If you don’t live somewhere with actual good psychological first aid services or other nonviolent public safety response, or within calling distance of anyone trained to help, it’s usually a matter of picking the least-bad choice.

• In my own life, there have been times when I chose to call 911. Sometimes it’s necessary (for example, co-occurring medical emergency), or it’s the least-bad option. So, I’m not going to tell anyone they should never call 911 in a mental health crisis. But a lot of people die every year because “Involve someone who can overpower the person in crisis with a gun or other type of potentially lethal force” (in my current city, emergency medical responders sometimes kill people or use unnecessary sedatives or force against them, sometimes because police tell them to and sometimes on their own) is seen as a good and safe option.

• I hadn’t expected a scene like that in this podcast, since it’s typically thoughtful and realistic about other serious real world topics, from other mental health conditions to characters’ LGBTQIA+ identities. There’s only one thing I sometimes give a heads up for when recommending the podcast to friends, Violet’s relief at Arkady killing that guy in 1.05/6 so that he wouldn’t live with the disabling injury Arkady had inflicted on him. Speaking of nightmare ableist tropes—but the idea of “killing/letting a disabled person die as an act of mercy,” while horrific, is very present in our culture and something that a lot of people have never been put in a position to question, so it seemed like less an endorsement of “It’s better to be dead than disabled” and more of an example of you don’t know what you don’t know.

• In the later scene in the season two finale when Brian tells Krejjh he can’t stay on Telemachus because he’s wiped from their last mission and needs a steady supply of oxygen, I was initially ready to be enthused about a scene where Brian’s crew supports him in making the right choice for himself. But with Brian's What if you have to choose between getting me an oxygen tank and saving someone else question, Brian’s hypothetical presence on the ship is reduced to the pros and cons of how his disability would potentially impact those around him, a viewpoint from which people with disabilities are seen too often in fiction and in life.

• Being physically disabled is more complex than a binary slider bar going from less to more of a burden to the people around you. In a more three-dimensional view, non-negotiably seeing disabled people as people reveals the networked importance of accessibility and inclusion (in this example, how might taking a step back and finding a way for Brian to travel safely with Krejjh in their aid work make it more likely that they and the ship will be ready to respond dynamically to the needs of disabled passengers?)

• As a less heavy comment on the Arkady-Krejjh scene, back in the realm of just finding the experience of reading the scene unpleasant (I’m a sometimes reader/sometimes listener, which is why I keep talking about reading this episode rather than listening to it!), another reason I had that punched in the gut, caving in on yourself feeling when I read the first part of the scene was because of how it was used as melodramatic entertainment in a work that usually draws a line against using other heavy real world topics that way. (I don’t think stories using serious real life stuff as entertainment is inherently bad—I mean, that’s how fiction works. In this instance, I don’t think any of those three things would have felt as viscerally crappy to read if it wasn’t for the context of the three of them together: the inaccurate fifty-year-old trope, it being lovingly described for the audience’s entertainment, and that coming out of left field in a work that was typically more tasteful about other mental health conditions.)

• I don't think we should be trying so hard to be careful about “avoiding ableist tropes” that every work is as interesting as a saltine—mentally ill people enjoy twisty mental illness horror for a reason!—and I don’t want us to worry so much about “Not portraying people with mental illness as ableist stereotypes about being dangerous” that we ignore the fact that sometimes some mental illnesses do cause people to act in ways that are dangerous or, sometimes, lethal, most often to themselves but sometimes to others as well. “Accuracy” and “tastefulness” aren’t important across the board. But I think the context of when tastefulness and (actual) accuracy are important matters.

• In the longer essay I wrote, I also talked about how problems with portraying disability are not limited to this audio drama, and many audio dramas are not great at portraying disability (and while stories are just stories, it’s hard to feel like the audio drama community’s frequent ways of viewing fictional disability are completely separate from the ways the community often sees real audience members’ disabilities as a burden...lack of accessibility, &c).

• I also wrote about a lot of other connected topics (BTW, still looking for more people interested in talking about or potentially working together on future pretentious writing on audio and accessibility and on ‘How to audio drama fandom??’, so let me know if you’re interested! Okay, end commercial break) but I’m focusing back on disability in Starship Iris season two for this post.

• Back to TSCOSI, I also wrote more in the longer essay about potential ways that fans (who are interested; I’m not trying to guilt trip anyone who isn’t) can make the fandom more welcoming to people with PTSD and other mental health conditions after season two was Like That, with the disclaimer that obviously I don’t speak for everyone with PTSD. I can summarize it kind of easily since I’m representation checklist averse: If you’re thinking about ways to avoid taking the tropes in these scenes at face value, whether through “Let’s pretend that never happened,” engaging with them in a researched way, having a disclaimer that you’re writing inaccurately for fun, or any other thoughtful approach, that’s the solid opposite of unknowingly echoing the ableist stuff.

• I originally took the long essay approach because of how complicated all of this is, so I’m metaphorically linking the longer essay again here for More Nuance. But, hopefully, this gets at the context I most wanted to talk about, and covers the real world information that I wanted to share with those who don’t have prior knowledge about this stuff. Thanks for reading this.

TL;DR: The scene where Arkady tries to kill Krejjh is a half-century-old cliché trope. In reality, any kind of violence or aggression due to PTSD is rare (between 8% to percentages in the 30s) and much more likely to be caused by anger, stress, or a startle response than a flashback. For either cause, it’s much more likely to be something like screaming, hitting an object, or shoving or hitting someone who gets in their space.

This cliché in a show usually realistic in its mental health representation is part of a pattern of people with PTSD and other stigmatized mental health conditions being portrayed as automatically severely dangerous, which contributes to real life false beliefs that exacerbate violence against a group of people statistically more likely to become victims of violence than to harm others.

In this context, the successful resolution of the scene being RJ overpowering Arkady with a gun is a harmful combination of ideas. More than fifty percent of people killed by police in the US have a disability.

What if you have to choose between getting me an oxygen tank and saving someone else reduces Brian’s potential presence on Krejjh’s ship to how his disability would potentially burden those around him.

#tscosi #the strange case of starship iris #starship iris #i think i’ll make a tag for stuff about season two and disability in case anyone needs to block it #season two and disability #ptsd #death #gun violence #disability #since none of that is under a read more #please let me know if there is anything else you’d like me to tag #my writing #thanks again to both of my beta readers #and to the people who replied to the essay and the nice anon i got when i first posted it #just to be clear i don’t think anyone in a fandom has a responsibility to respond to or share posts on serious issues #this isn’t likes versus reblogs fanwork discourse LOL #just want thank those who said thoughtful things #since that was helpful when i was writing this! #long post

[vvanite]

Art Deco and TAZ Graduation

- Episode 30 "Take your Firbolg to Work Day

I know Travis probably made his choice to have the H.O.G. headquarters be designed with Art Deco for aesthetic purposes and didn't think of its function to the world of Nua BUT his choice is a really great accidental component that adds onto the world building in Nua and to one of the core problems that Graduation addresses involving the systemic nature of Nua. In this essay, I-

(And then I proceed to actually write the essay hidden below. FAIR WARNING: This is extremely long. If you want to learn about Modern Art History and how it ties into Graduation, this is your lucky day.)

This analysis/essay is going to be meta in terms of using evidence from real world events but it is needed to explain the history behind Art Deco and help us relate to the themes of Graduation. I think it’s clear to see how the systems and people in power in Graduation are influenced from the way our governments are now so I don’t think these connections are distant, rather closer together than we think.

Also, before we continue, I want to direct you to this lovely post made by a dear user and friend, Michelle/ fitzroythecreator, LINK HERE

She explains what she believes to be a core theme of graduation that I agree with and have integrated into this essay. Check it out <3

Before I can explain how Art Deco is tied into Graduation's core theme, I need to lay out definitions and context to art movements in the early 20th century. Along the way, I will make connections to the world of Nua and how real-life events in the early 20th century actually can relate to Graduation and its worldbuilding.

Let’s address what is Art Deco. Art Deco started as an art and architecture movement during the early 20th century (1900s). Most people are familiar with its aesthetics of geometric designs and influence of industrialization because of the roaring 20s era and many media influenced by it. Do you wonder why it was popularized in the US? It’s because during the great depression in the US, public buildings, more importantly federal government buildings, were commissioned to have this aesthetic thus it would have more publicity and access to the public. The H.O.G. headquarters could easily be compared to this event because it shares similar attributes of being a public government building.

With this information, it would be really interesting to imagine the timing of Graduation being set around the early 20th century. Art Deco gives us a time period to compare what kind of social events Nua could have faced similar to the real world. The modern period of the 1850s-1950s was a time when people were disinterested and scared of the changes that industrialism made in their daily lives. People were frustrated with the changes made in their lives and sought out ways to cope with the changes through escapism. In Graduation, I would argue that we see this skepticism and wariness in the characters about the changes Nua’s Socioeconomic systems made in their lives and society in general. A good example would be the student NPCs and their insistence that their hero and villain titles are just labels since they have been stripped from their original meanings. They still somewhat criticize the structure while upholding it. As the campaign progresses, we meet various characters who are very critical to Nua’s current orderly system such as Order and Gordie. In fact, despite their roles in society being vastly different, they both share the same opinions that the system is unjust as it hurts people thus there needs to be a push for change. I am not trying to label the time of Graduation to be around the 1900s, rather whatever year Graduation happens is in parallel to the events of the 1900s.

When I first heard Travis say, Art Deco, I was interested but disappointed it wasn’t Art Nouveau. My original thinking was because of Art Nouveau’s elitism of making the architecture more artistic and complex that only educated rich people can understand and less functional for the average citizen. A lot of the art displays during the art movement were held in house museums that were limited to rich eyes. I thought this reasoning made sense in terms of the H.O.G. headquarters being this elite building common people can’t comprehend. However, with continuous thought, it clicked. Art Deco fits so well.

Art Deco was meant to be a direct response to Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement. (And many more but for the sake of simplicity, sticking to these two major ones) Both movements share similarities of the desire to make total works of art.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For art Nouveau in architecture, that is more on its aesthetics of stylized curving forms, thus it creates uniqueness with the architecture. For the Arts and Crafts movement in Europe, they focused on the importance of the craftsmanship and quality. The thing about the movement is that it’s heavily influenced by socialist values and the distaste for industrialism. Both art movements were diverse in style and locations globally. Because both took place internationally, there was no determined manifesto or structures for artists to adhere to. Another thing is both movements had lots of ornamentation which takes great skill and time to put into the works. By doing this, it would make the works more unique aspects to its character, however more time consuming and difficult to replicate.

Art Deco takes response to this because critics felt like these movements were outdated for the growing industrialism happening during the early 20th century. Art Deco focuses on sleek geometric design meant to be reproduced easily thanks to industries and have more emphasis on its function rather than aesthetics. It’s meant to be functional to accommodate for the new technologies of the 20th century.

So, let’s recap, in the late 19th century, two movements, focused on the style which had no concrete structures to adhere to and had the goal to make total works of art that is reliant on itself, are then replaced by Art Deco, a movement focused on its aesthetic to be mass produced easily and have a stronger focus on the form of the architecture to serve its functions. Does Art Deco sound similar to a number of Socioeconomic systems placed in Nua?

One of the key ideals of Art Deco is Functionalism. Art Deco is one of the many architectural movements in the early 20th century that decided to focus on function rather than aesthetics. What is functionalism? It is the idea that everything works as an integrated whole and that all the different components of a larger system are designed to work together. It is orderly. Architecture in the early 20th century was designed to suit the needs of the space. For example, each element of an office buildings would be designed and organized to suit that place. This ideal is more emphasized after the Great Depression in America where architects shifted their focus on the Streamline Moderne, where they aimed to make structures practical to the demands of real life and remove the emotional aspects of expressionist art.

Travis’s little choice to pick Art Deco is tied to a core theme of Graduation of dismantling the standards and structures set in Nua. It’s so brilliant yet unintentional. I know Travis hasn’t read up on modern art history. I hope by reading through, you can spot Art Deco’s need for creating limitation to focus on the functions and how it benefits the whole system. It doesn’t allow for the emotional aspects that Art Nouveau and the Art and Crafts movements held. Nua’s system follow the same thing. Everyone has a function in the socioeconomic system that has limitations meant to exploit the work labor and functions of the individual. The system leaves no room for indivduals to have growth to create real change. That’s not a flaw of the system. The system is literally designed to be that way with its many rules and standards. It's impossible to break away from it without being punished by the system itself. You need to function within its rules and have practical skills to contribute to the system. Your independent nature is stripped away. By having Art Deco be a core aesthetic design for the H.O.G. Headquarters, Art Deco ITSELF is just another element in the architecture meant to serve its function of upholding the ideology of order that H.O.G. and the world of Nua has. This orderly system has replaced the wild world that Higglemas in episode 12 remembers.

“I remember... the world when it was wild. Not sophisticated and ordered and... bureaucratic, like it is now.”

#taz graduation #taz grad #taz analysis #taz meta #vanitewrites #this is the art major part of me screaming out #modern art history is so interesting and fits so well into the history of Nua #Travis is not smart enough to think this deep for the aesthetics of the hog building #BIG THANKS TO MICHELLE #i still think about that post you made on the self reliance theme

[nerdygaymormon]

Do you have a link to your thoughts on the CES letter? Because I'm sure plenty of folk have asked you about it. I'm, struggling.

The CES letter has been mentioned to me a few times in asks, but I don’t recall being asked to respond directly to it. 

Before getting into it, I want to make you aware of this post about Faith Transitions, I think it may be useful to you. 

I read the CES letter many years ago, probably the original version, it’s changed a lot since then. I think the CES letter is sloppy, and twists quotes, uses some questionable sources, and frames things in the worst possible way. It’s basically an amalgamation of all the anti-Mormon literature. But many of the main points of the CES letter are important and correct, even if the supporting details aren’t.

In a way, the CES letter has done the Church a favor. For a long time, Elder Packer insisted that anything which isn’t faith-promoting shouldn’t be taught. As a result, most members of the Church were taught a simplified version of Church history, leaving out anything that is messy or difficult. Although those things could be found if someone was looking for them, I found many of them simply by reading Brigham Young Discourses or other works of the early church. 

With the internet, Elder Packer’s approach to history turns out to be a bad one. This information is out there and now most members learn about it from sources seeking to destroy their faith. One response to this has been a series of essays where the Church talks about some difficult subjects. 

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I’m not going to go through all the claims & challenges of the CES letter, but let me address some of the main ones.

1) There are errors in the Book of Mormon that are also contained in the 1769 edition of the Bible.

From the more faithful point-of-view, Joseph recognizes these passages, such as those from Isaiah, and knows they've already been translated into English and copies them from his family’s Bible. The non-faithful point-of-view is that Joseph copied these verses from his family Bible and tried to pass it off as his own translation.

2) DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but from Asia.

This is correct. The Church has an essay which admits this and then spends a lot of time explaining how genetics works and one day we might find some Middle East connection. I find the Church essay convoluted as it goes through many possible (and unlikely) reasons for why no DNA of the Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites has yet been found in the Americas.

3) There are things in the Book of Mormon that didn’t exist during Book of Mormon times, or in Central America (assuming this is where the Book of Mormon takes place), such as horses, chariots, goats, elephants, wheat, and steel.

This is also correct. Maybe the translation process was using a common word in English for a common item in the Book of Mormon. Maybe these are errors. Maybe it’s made up. 

4) No archeological evidence has been found for the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations.

Correct. When it comes to archeological evidence, it's true that we haven't found any. For one thing, we don't know where the Nephite & Lamanite civilizations are supposed to have taken place. If you don't know where to look, it's easy to have no evidence. Perhaps Nephites & Lamanites didn’t actually exist and that’s why there’s no archeological evidence. The Book of Mormon does seem to do a decent job of describing geography of the Middle East before Lehi & his family boarded the boat for the Promised Land.

5) Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar (or identical) to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived in.

This seems like a funny thing to get hung up on. First of all, it’s not very many names that are similar. Secondly, many places in the US are named for Biblical places & people. If the Book of Mormon people came from Israel, it makes sense they did something similar. For example, the word Jordan is in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and in many places in America. 

6) He points to obscure books or dime-novels that Joseph Smith might have read and the similarities between them and the Book of Mormon. 

Those similarities are mostly at the surface level. To me it doesn't seem like Joseph plagiarized any particular book, and these specific books seem to not been very popular so difficult to say Joseph, who lived on the frontier, actually read them. Funny how no one from that time period thought the Book of Mormon resembled those books, probably because they hadn’t heard of them. But Joseph did hear and read a number of stories and some of that phrasing or whatever of the time influenced him. Think of songwriters, they create a new song then get accused of plagiarizing because it's similar to another popular song. Even without intending to, they were influenced by things they heard. 

7) The Book of Mormon has had 100,000 changes.

Most of the "100,000" changes to the Book of Mormon were to break it into chapters & verses, to add chapter headings, or to add grammar such as commas and whatnot. There are some changes to fix errors that got printed but differed from the original manuscript. And there's been some clarifications made, but these are few in number. By claiming "100,000" he's trying to make it seem like there's a scam being done. It's easy to get a replication of the first Book of Mormon from the Community of Christ and read it side-by-side with today's version. I’ve done that and occasionally there’s a word or two here or there which differ, but overall it's mostly the same.

8) There were over 4 different First Vision accounts

True. Over the years, the way Joseph described the First Vision changed. I think different versions emphasize different aspects of the experience. I don’t find them to be contradictory. Oh, and the Church has an essay about this.

9) The papyri that Joseph translated into the Book of Abraham has been found and translated and it’s nothing like the Book of Abraham.

This is true. The Church has an essay about it. The Church now says that the papyri inspired Joseph to get the Book of Abraham via revelation, much like his translations of the Bible weren’t from studying the ancient Greek & Hebrew. It is a big change from what the Church used to teach, that this was a translation of the papyrus. The papyri has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham, and the explanations of the facsimiles in the Pearl of Great Price don’t match what the scholars say those pictures are about.

10) Joseph married 34+ women, many without Emma’s consent, some who had husbands, and even a teenager. 

This all appears to be true. Emma knew about some of them, but not all. As for the married women, they were still married to their husbands but sealed to Joseph (I know this is strange to us, but this sort of thing was common until Wilford Woodruff standardized how sealings are done). 

Polygamy was illegal in the United States. Most people who participated were told to keep it secret. So of course there’s carefully-worded statements by Joseph and others denying they participate in polygamy.

The salacious question everyone wants to know is if Joseph slept with all these women. We don’t know, but a DNA search for descendants of Joseph has taken place among the descendants of the women he was ‘married’ to and none have been found. But still, if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why is he hiding this from Emma? 

11) The Church used to teach that polygamy was required for exaltation, even though the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy. 

This is accurate. The Church says polygamy was part of ancient Israel and so as part of the restoration of all things, polygamy had to be restored, see D&C 132:34. Now we no longer say polygamy is required to get to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom.

12) Brigham Young taught Adam-God theory, which is now disavowed by the Church.

True. Joseph Smith didn’t teach this and John Taylor & Wilford Woodruff don’t seem to have any time for this teaching. It’s a thing Brigham Young was hot about and taught, but seems a lot of the church didn’t buy it as it was discarded after his death. 

13) Black people weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood until 1978, despite Joseph having conferred it to a few Black people during his life. 

Very true and very sad. This and the Mountain Meadows Massacre are the two biggest stains on the Church’s past. There is a Church essay on Race & the Priesthood. The ban appears to have begun with Brigham Young and he developed several theories to justify it, and these explanations expanded over the decades and bigotry was taught as doctrine. The Church now disavows all explanations that were taught in the past.

No reason for the priesthood ban is put forward in the Church essay other than racism. The past leaders were racists and that blinded them to what God wanted for Black people. There’s a big lesson in that for LGBTQ teachings of the Church.

14) The Church misrepresents how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. 

The accounts of Joseph Smith putting a seer stone in a hat and reading words from it, that's part of the historic record. Quotes about it don’t make it to our Sunday School lessons, but if you go back to the Joseph Smith papers and other accounts, it’s there to read. Joseph also used the Urim & Thummim, and wrote out characters and studied them, but he seems to have most favored the stone-in-hat method. I think the main problem here is the Church in its artwork and movies does not depict this, and therefore most members are unaware until they see anti-Mormon literature. Why does the Church not show Joseph looking into a hat? Because it seems magical and weird to modern people. But how much weirder is it than he put on the Urim & Thummim like glasses and could translate that way, or he wrote out these characters from some extinct language and was able to figure out what they mean?

————————————————————

A number of the main points in the CES letter are true (even if explanations/supporting details in the CES are problematic). Some of the main points have simple explanations and don’t seem like a big deal. Others challenge what the Church has taught. To its credit, the Church put out essays by historians & scholars, with sources listed in the footnotes, addressing several of these controversial topics. 

————————————————————

Religion is meant to help humans make sense of their world and our place in it. Most religious stories are metaphorical but end up getting taught as literal history and, in my opinion, the same is true of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that’s why the CES letter has power, it points out things aren’t literally true but were taught by the Church as factual, and the CES letter shows us part of our messy history that the Church tried to hide. 

————————————————————

The story of Adam and Eve can’t literally be true. It doesn’t fit our evolutionary past, but it’s meant to make our lives important, God created us and we have to account to Him for our choices, and it’s important to find someone to go through life with. We can say the same of Job and the Book of Ruth, fiction with a purpose. 

While there are some real events included in the Bible, much of what’s written is there to teach lessons, culture, and give meaning to life. Jesus taught in parables so at least he was upfront that they were stories that contained morals.

Can I believe the same about the Book of Mormon, that it’s inspired fiction with meaning I can apply to my life, or must it be literally history to have value?

————————————————————

I went through a massive faith crisis while attending BYU. I had access to materials that told a different story of this religion than I’d been taught (the sorts of things in the CES Letter) and it threw me for a loop. 

It felt like the floor of faith I had stood on shattered and I fell with no way to stop myself. After I had a chance to process through the things I was feeling, I looked at my shattered faith and picked up the parts that were meaningful to me.

I had lined up my faith similar to a line of dominoes. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a prophet. If Joseph was a prophet, then this is the true church. If this is the true church, then...

This works until it doesn’t. Once a domino topples over, it starts a chain event.

Now I look at principles and concepts and decide if they’re meaningful to me. 

I love the idea that we can spend eternity with the people we love most. 

I believe we should be charitable and loving to others. 

People on the margins need to be looked after and helped and lifted. 

Poor people deserve dignity and the rich to be challenged. 

We have a commitment to our community and we all serve to make it better. 

All are alike to God, we’re all loved and God has a grand plan for us. 

Those who passed away can still be saved through the atonement of Christ. 

Those are all principles I find in the Bible and Book of Mormon or at church and I find Love flows through all of those. 

This new approach works for me. I don’t have to believe or hold onto problematic teachings. I can drop them and still hold the parts that I find valuable. I can reject the teachings and statements which are bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynistic. Prophets can make mistakes and still have taught some useful things.

That little voice of the spirit and what it teaches and guides me to do, I trust it over what Church leaders say. Overarching principles are more important to me than specific details for how this gets applied in the 1800′s or 1950′s or Biblical times. 

————————————————————

I truly hope some of what I’ve written is helpful.

There’s no use pretending that the CES letter doesn’t get some things correct. It’s also helpful to understand it’s not just trying to share truth, but has an agenda to make the Church look as bad as possible.

What about the things the CES letter is correct about? 

Has this church helped you learn to connect with the Divine? 

The Church has some very big flaws, but also has some big things in its favor. Some of its unique teachings are very appealing and feel hopeful and right. 

Can you leave the Church and be a good person and have a relationship with God? Absolutely. 

I also know this church is a community and it’s hard to walk away cold-turkey with nothing to replace it, without another network to belong to. It’s as much a religion as it is a lifestyle and circle of friends. 

Are there parts you can hold onto? Parts you can let go of?

You have a lot to think about and work through. 

#long post #ces letter #this is a much longer answer than I thought I would write

[starsgivemehp]

The Argument Against and Defense of Hetalia

Let me preface this by saying that I have not watched the show or read the manga in a few years now, and thus I am working mostly off of memory and what fan content I see these days, which is not a lot. Also, I am a gentile, and I don’t claim to know a lot about the Jewish community or traditions. I am, however, a writer and I have plenty of practice analyzing and criticizing works of fiction from multiple angles. With that in mind, this essay is an attempt to explain everything that is wrong and not wrong with the show, the comic strips, and the fandom.

I’m putting this under a read more for sheer length, this was 11 pages on Google docs.

Let us start with the list of grievances assembled largely from one post, the majority of which I had to go digging for as the original person in this post who mentioned Hetalia said, and I quote, “i dont feel the need to link a source for [hetalia] because…” and then listed two things, one of which is incorrect entirely. But I digress, I will address each one at a time. The list of grievances is as follows:

It is called ‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

One of the main characters is a personification of Nazi Germany

The entire point of the series is:

Advocating for eugenics

Racial fetishization

Advocating for fascism

Nazi sympathizing/propaganda

The entire franchise is terrible due to rape jokes, racism, and Holocaust jokes

Hetalia fans are all terrible due to rape jokes and other issues

Death of the author cannot apply to this fandom

There may be more that are in other reblogs of the post in question, and I may add addendums further in this essay, but for the time being, I will address each of these grievances and explain the validity or non-validity of each, from a position understanding of both fans and of non-fans. Thus, in order:

‘Axis Powers’ Hetalia

When people talk about Hetalia, they usually are referring to the anime due to its widespread popularity. However, Hetalia began as a series of strip comics posted on a forum by Hidekaz Himaruya (and I spent a while trying to actually find the original comics, but I can’t, there are links to his blogs there in what I’ve provided). It later was formatted into a manga, and then later became an anime. While it was originally titled Axis Powers: Hetalia and the first two seasons of the show are named as such, it usually is only referred to as Hetalia. The anime seasons after said first two seasons have all been ‘world’ focused: Seasons three and four were titled World Series, season five was titled Beautiful World, season six was titled World Twinkle, and the upcoming season seven is titled World Stars.

For the purposes of tagging everything, I tend to see the tags ‘hetalia’ and ‘hws,’ which is short for Hetalia: World Series. This name of the third and fourth anime seasons is the most widely accepted and used name for the series as a whole. While it is true that, years ago, people referred to it as ‘aph’ for Axis Powers Hetalia, the fans and the series have put that behind them, for good reason. It is understandable, even righteous, to not accept the title ‘Axis Powers.’ It does draw focus to the WW2 era, and place the fascists and nazis as the ‘main characters,’ or even, ‘the good guys,’ which is not the case. Obviously, the Nazis were terrible and the entirety of the Axis Powers did horrible, unspeakable things during the war.

It must be noted, to anybody who has not seen the show or read the manga, that the first one to two seasons do have a ‘focus’ on the WW2 era, per se, but it largely talks about interactions between countries, as they are the personified party, and makes extremely few allusions to the war itself, and none to the Holocaust. I will address that in a later section. For now, the point to make is that after these original two seasons, Hetalia branches out into a much wider worldview, adds several more characters, and focuses more on said characters in individual arcs and offerings of historical facts - as generalized as they may be. Nobody claimed that Hetalia was correct in everything it said, but it aims to play out some historical information in a simplified and humorous way. This is due to the fact that the characters are all singular people meant to personify entire countries, which leads us to point two.

The Personification of Nazi Germany

This is the second complaint of the strand of the post in question that I was presented with, quoted as “one of the main characters is a personification of nazi germany.” This is an entirely incorrect statement. ‘Nazi Germany,’ as people call it, is the state of Germany during the era leading up to and of World War 2. The country is still Germany, the people were still German, the Nazi part comes from the political regime in power, a real world nightmare. In the Hetalia series, the characters are called by their country names, because that is who they personify. This may change at times. For example, the character now known as Turkey was previously called Ottoman Empire. They come to be when civilization starts or a colony is introduced to a place. This can be seen in the strip or episode where China ‘finds’ Japan as a small boy and begins to teach him reading and writing - and Japan thereafter invents hiragana. It can also be seen in the comic where a young child, Iceland, questions who he is and why he knows his people are “different beings” than him. The country that speaks to him (I only have the comic here in my likes in that list, the name isn’t mentioned and it’s been a while, but it might be another of the Scandinavian countries) explains that he is Mr. Iceland, they don’t know why he is Mr. Iceland, but they know he is.

What I am attempting to explain with all of these other examples is that there is no ‘Nazi Germany’ character. There is a character called Germany (or Mr. Germany), and all of his adult life, he has been called Germany. He is never addressed by anything else. He does, however, look remarkably similar to a childhood friend of Italy’s, Holy Roman Empire (or just Holy Rome), but as far as it has been explained in canon, Holy Rome went off somewhere and, later on Germany and Italy met as strangers. The general consensus is, due to the area where the Holy Roman Empire used to be is around-ish Germany, the characters are the same. But never, in any of the comics, anime, or movie, is Germany referred to as Nazi Germany. I don’t believe the word ‘Nazi’ appears at any point in time, even, though I cannot claim I have seen every shred of content, so I may be wrong. But I doubt that very much, as it is not in the nature of the series to do such a thing. Moving on.

Advocating for Eugenics

I will start and end this section by saying that Hetalia was, in the original post, roped in with Attack on Titan, of which (as far as I know) the author advocates for eugenics - or the idea that certain people should not be allowed to produce offspring due to their race or other factors. There is no example of Hetalia content wherein this disgusting opinion is ever mentioned or supported in any way. This is at worst a flat-out lie, and at best lumping Hetalia in with a much worse show that does do this (but I won’t get into that, I have never seen more than a few episodes of Attack on Titan and I don’t care to see any more of it. Throw your opinions or defenses elsewhere, I care 0% about it entirely). I have no more need to prepare a more detailed response to this accusation. It simply is not true.

Racial Fetishization

This particular accusation is a difficult one. Fetishization may be a strong word, as the series is largely a comedy. Everyone gets their turn in the spotlight, so to speak, so I find it hard to plainly state that any one character is fetishized or displayed as the most powerful. There is, of course, Rome, who only appears in small segments as Italy’s grandfather and is, in the series, touted as an amazing empire who had it all. I do not believe this is what the accusation is referring to. This accusation seems to be some sort of insistence that the show and creator believe that white people (or possibly just Germans/Nazis/the Aryan race?) are touted as the most powerful and nobody else can compare. I can confidently say that while that is never said anywhere, there are a few issues. Hetalia, particularly the animated series, had (and may still have) a longstanding issue of whitewashing countries that should not be white. This includes Egypt and Seychelles (who both later got a darker skin tone, probably still not dark enough though) as the worst offenders, and even Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Romano (southern Italy), and so on. Yes, this is a big problem. There is no defense against that. It should not be the case. These characters obviously should have darker skin. I will note, however, that many fans are already completely aware of this, have been complaining about it since the beginning, and tend to draw these characters with more correct skin tones in their fanart. This is a case where yes, the original content is not good, but the fans make their own fixes. If you are angry at Hetalia for whitewashing, good. You should be. But I do not believe this should reflect on the entirety of the content and the fandom (And note that I am not linking any particular fanart here, because I want nobody to go attack any fans).

It is also important to note that yes, a large majority of the series builds upon stereotypes. No, stereotypes are not good. No, you should not assume that the personifications of the countries encompass all citizens of said countries. The entire premise of the show is one person = the embodiment of a country, and that person changes and adapts with the times in terms of uniform and personality. It is extremely hard to do this without stereotyping. Most serious fans are aware of this, and do not in any way believe that these characters represent everyone from these countries. It may be true that much younger fans used to, and it may be true that people do not want to watch the show because stereotypes are, arguably, bad. But do remember that this is a comedy, and every character is picked on. Every one. And it is understandable if this branch of humor is not for you. I, personally, don’t like Family Guy or South Park or any shows like that for their humor. I also don’t attack the people who do. I ignore it.

Advocating for Fascism

This is another area wherein I believe the accuser is simply lumping Hetalia in with the original poster’s subject, Attack on Titan. Again, I will not defend or attack that show, as I do not care about it at all. However, regarding Hetalia, I can confidently say that it does not advocate for fascism. While the first two seasons are (sort of) set in WW2 era, as previously mentioned, the fighting is not really a big part, and nobody is touted as correct - only struggling in the conflict. For example, there is a scene where Germany, post WW1, is shown making cuckoo clocks by hand and lamenting the fact that he has to make so many thousands in order to pay back France. This is by no means painting fascism as a good thing, or explaining anything about how poverty and other struggles lead to the formation and rise of the Nazi party. It is simply a scene where we see a man frustratedly making cuckoo clocks and complaining while France’s big head jeers at him in his imagination. The surrounding scenes and the end of this one are making note of how Italy keeps coming over to his house to try and be friends and Germany keeps kicking him out because Italy is annoying and whiny. The episode further goes on to mention that Germany is attacking France again, and Italy has suddenly become his ally, and he is not happy about it for the aforementioned reasons. Again, this does not in any way paint Germany as being ‘right.’ The purpose of the segment(s) is/are to show him disliking the annoying Italy (whom the show is named for) and trying to get him out of his house before eventually giving up and accepting that they can be friends. Is it all 100% historically accurate? No, not by a long shot. Does it paint him as sympathetic? Sort of, you feel bad for the guy making a thousand cuckoo clocks, but only in the sense that he is one person doing a lot of work, a completely fictional situation. But Italy - and the audience - obviously know that attacking France again is not a good thing, so does it advocate the Nazis or fascism? Also no.

Nazi Sympathizing/Propaganda

I pretty well covered this in the previous section, but I will expand. I have alluded to the first two seasons as “focusing” on WW2, in a way, and also mentioned that this is a generalization of sorts, so here I will attempt to clarify. The first few episodes do, indeed, touch on ‘the way they all met’ in a sense; Germany is starting a war and he reluctantly becomes allies with Italy, and less reluctantly becomes allies with Japan, who examines both of them and decides he is content with this situation. However, none of it is very serious, and these ‘formalities’ give way easily to more humorous personable interactions, such as Italy hugging Japan without warning and the touch-anxious Japan pushing him off and getting flustered, Italy petting a cat and then freaking out when he is licked because a cat’s tongue is rough, the two of them ‘training’ by doing your regular old exercising and jogging and Italy being late, etc etc. Stupid, personable jokes.

On the flip side, the show covers the Allied Powers quite a bit too. A lot of this is the five big ones - America, Britain (/England/UK), France, Russia, and China - all meeting around one table and squabbling about various things. I fondly recall one scene where China arrives late and has a bunch of workers suddenly building a Chinatown in the meeting room because he was hungry and wanted his own food, and the others protesting. They are then offered food and become okay with it, because food. Other such nonsense plays out in other, similar meetings. There is also a segment where the Axis powers are all stranded on an island for… some unknown reason… and they set about attempting to survive via campfire and fishing and such. Twice (three times?) the Allied powers ‘attack’ them on this island via China whacking them each with a wok and, as the three of them are in a sad heap, something interrupts the scene to make the Allies retreat. One time, it is Rome’s sudden and also unexplained entrance across the sky singing a song, and another time, it is England’s preoccupation with a cursed chair. Also, at one point, Austria is playing a piano. Does any of this magic logical, real life sense? No. It’s stupid and funny and has nothing to do with war. These are just personable characters thrown into weird situations so they can be funny, with some extremely mild historical context along the way.

I will note again that WW2 is pretty much completely dropped after these two seasons, with the war hardly addressed at all, and future seasons focus more on other characters. The Scandinavians get to all have fun together, the Baltic trio is mentioned, there is a lot about Switzerland taking care of Liechtenstein (wow I spelled it right after all these years, go me) and being stiff and formal with Austria. There is also plenty about people mistaking Canada for America, and England and France squabbling throughout the years, and Spain finding Romano cute but also very grumpy, etc etc… This series is largely Eurasia-focused, yes, and it can be criticized for not being as diverse as it should be. But boiling it down to ‘Nazi propaganda’ is outright, obliviously false.

I don’t know if this is the best place to put this particular note, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to place it, so here it will go. I would like to mention that in the series, some characters, like Germany and Russia, express outright fear of their ‘bosses’ in certain points in history. It is important to realize that Germany, Japan, America, etc… these characters are not the actual, real-life humans in charge of these countries, but people of a fictional, separate species than humans who grow up as the nation grows and have lives that are affected by these world leaders (we even watch in the show America shooting up from child to young adult as the colonies expand, and England comments on how quickly he grew up - but not as quickly as his people, of course. We’ll get to Davie later). The president of the United States is America’s ‘boss,’ and naturally, that boss changes every time the president changes. The emperor of China is China’s ‘boss.’ It follows, thusly, that at one point, Hitler was Germany’s ‘boss.’ The terrible person himself was alluded to, as far as I know, exactly one time, not by name, and no face was shown. In a very brief scene, Germany laments that his new boss is scary and he was just ordered to go force Austria to come live with him. Said boss is shown as, I believe, an evilly laughing shadowy figure. That’s it. That’s the scene. There is no other mention of Hitler, nor is there any mention of the Holocaust anywhere. One could argue that the show is then trying to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, but I think such an accusation is frankly absurd. It’s a comedy, it was always a comedy, and what in the fuck would be comedic about a mass genocide in any way? Nothing. None of it is funny. Of course it is not brought up in a comedy.

Rape Jokes, Racism, and Holocaust Jokes

While I did somewhat address racism already in the section about whitewashing and racial fetishization, I have another clarification to make, especially regarding the jokes. A lot of people complain that there are rape jokes throughout the series, and that there are two Holocaust jokes. I will begin by saying yes, this is all true, those things did happen during the course of the show. However, it is important to note that all of those things happened in the English dub of the animated show, and none of these terrible jokes exist in the Japanese/subbed version, or the original comic strips.

The English dub is, on all accounts, pretty terrible. Everyone has an over exaggerated accent, there are the aforementioned jokes, there are name changes (England referred to as Britain, among them, very confusing), and the voice actors themselves make mention in commentaries that their goal in this job was, to paraphrase because I haven’t listened in a while, ‘to be as offensive as possible to absolutely everyone’ (and one of the English dub voice actors is even a convicted sex offender, but that’s it’s own mess).  Not the most glamorous or noble of goals. One could say ‘at least if it’s everyone, it’s not really racism, is it? Just humor?’ There is a case for that. Many comedians will say that they poke fun at everyone to avoid singling anybody out as inherently superior. It cannot be said to be the best way to make humor, but it cannot be said to be the worst way, also. Overall, I don’t like the English dub, I don’t watch it, I prefer the subs. And yes, the subbed version has a few issues of its own, but I can say that at least, no, it does not make any Holocaust or rape jokes. Are those kinds of jokes excusable? Fuck no. They’re completely inappropriate. Should you judge the whole series and fandom based on the grossness of the English dubs? Also no, the people who did the English dubs have zero to do with the original creator, the animators, and the fans. Screw them.

The Fandom Being Terrible

I must again preface by saying I was never super active in the fandom at large. I had my own little niche of friends and I stuck to them and I didn’t often branch out. I did, however, go to cons back in those days, and saw plenty of cosplayers. The main complaint I see regarding the fandom is that most of the fans are completely rabid, make a bunch of rape jokes, and even dress up as ‘Nazi Germany’ (iron cross and red armband and all) and pretend to shoot up synagogues. Now, I have not seen cosplayers do the nazi solute or do such photoshoots, but I can believe that people have done it. I have seen plenty of rabid fans, and some of the OCs created for Hetalia, especially many interpretations of individual states (or Antarctica), were extremely cringey, racist, and overall just not good. And yes, these things are undeniably bad. They are very bad things! Those people should be ashamed. They should know better, regardless of their ages or anything, for fuck’s sake. The nazi salute is not a thing you do jokingly, pretending to shoot people is not a joke. Everyone is aware of this. The people who did, or maybe even still do, those things need a serious sit-down and to be woken the fuck up, because they are acting terrible.

However, it is extremely unfair to paint all Hetalia fans in the same light. That is a very stereotypical thing to do, no? As I mentioned earlier, I stuck to my little niche friend group of fans, and while we all had our own flaws and were younger and kinda dumber, we never did things like that. I never did things like that. Rape jokes were never funny, I never liked them, I never accepted them. I have people I still know who still like Hetalia and they never made those kinds of jokes either. I think, as the years have gone by, a lot of the more rabid fans have died out of the fandom. They’ve either grown the fuck up or they’ve went off to pollute some other fandom. Recognize that, especially in the beginning, the anime was low-budget and had a lot of that old and gross queerbaiting and stuff like that, so it was undeniably a magnet for crazy yaoi fans. But the majority of fanart, fanfics, and just overall fan stuff that I see these days are nothing like that. Overall, the fandom has seriously calmed down. A lot of the focus is much more on taking these characters and applying them to other historical events with more accuracy than the show might give. The history in these fanfics and fanarts may also be of questionable accuracy at times. I personally once wrote a fic where I made allusions to the death of Joan d’Arc and, later, the death of Elizabeth I, but did I add much historic fact? No, do I look like a history major spilling all this? The point of the fic was England - the character - maturing through starting to love one of his rulers and recognizing a terrible thing that he did before. It’s not the best piece of work out there, and maybe someone could point out a few things I did wrong with it, but for what it’s meant to be, it’s harmless. Takes on characters not actually in the series, like Ireland, Scotland, etc etc are generally pretty mature from what I see, fanart tends to just be the characters in various poses and styles. The overall love the fandom has, I think, is in the better character designs and in the very concept of the countries as people who laugh and cry and live through war and peace for thousands of years. And here is where I address the final grievance that I personally saw in the notes of the post which started this whole thought process and essay.

The Death of the Author

A lot of people might not fully understand what ‘The Death of the Author’ means. The death of the author is a belief rooted in the 20th century that the personal intentions, beliefs, and prejudices of the authors of certain works can have no bearing on their produced content, because once it is out in the public, every reader may then have their own interpretation and belief system. By publicizing the content, the author ‘dies’ and the reader is born.

There are some scenarios where this cannot apply. One example is JK Rowling, a very special case of a very problematic woman who happens to be so powerful, and so rich, that consuming any type of official (or even unofficial) Harry Potter anything can and will give her that much more power to spread her TERF bullshit. Let me be frank: Any time that consuming a product is allowing a bigoted or problematic person to gain extra money or extra power that they then use for evil, the death of the author cannot apply. You cannot use it as a moral justification. You might perhaps use it as the reason why you struggle to let go of a fandom near and dear to you, as Harry Potter is to so many people, but you absolutely must recognize that purchasing the books, the movies, or any other official content is outright supporting a TERF.

That in mind, there are dozens of other cases where the death of the author absolutely can apply. The easiest, of course, is with authors who are actually dead, such as Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a complete bigot and racist, an overall terrible person, and his works are saturated in that racism. But he is dead, and his work is very popular, and there are ways to take and use his work that do not contribute further to racism and bigotry. All you have to do is slap a non-racist cthulhu on a page. Make that cthulhu eat everyone equally. That’s a good cthulhu right there, a nice, safe cthulhu.

So where does Hetalia fall in this spectrum of can or cannot have death of the author? I believe it leans more to the side of yes, you can apply it. For one thing, you can definitely find the show for free in some places, and watch it without giving Himaruya a single cent. The comics are also available online for free, and while you might be giving your ‘support’ by being a viewer, I think overall, that’s not only negligible, but does not contribute anything bad? The author of Attack on Titan has many charges levied against him in the post which prompted this, and arguably, giving him any money is bad. But as far as I have seen, while Himaruya might have started out with a flawed premise and may have some whitewashing issues, I have seen nowhere that he funds any kind of racist, nationalistic, fascist, etc anything of any kind. This is not like Chick-Fil-A, where offering any kind of patronage is (or maybe used to be) sinking funds into terrible organizations. This is not supporting literal Nazis, as the complaints claim. This is a largely mediocre series with good parts and bad parts and zero ties to horrific organizations or ideals. Consuming good fan content does not make someone a racist or a bigot or a nazi sympathizer. Even rewatching some old favorite scenes or checking out the new season doesn’t make someone that. By all accounts, the show is flawed but not a means to fund nazis.

The Bad Anything Else

I will now take some time to talk about some other problems Hetalia has, because no, it is by no means flawless. I already discussed the whitewashing and stereotypes and the mess of the English dub, but there is more. I made mention of the fact that battles and seriously bad events such as the Holocaust are not mentioned, and this holds true throughout pretty much all of the series. There are certain points where ‘battles’ of a sort are seen, but only flash moments. One scene in particular that I really enjoyed as a tween and can now see the problems with is the whole revolutionary war scene. This was a scene split into two episodes (for some weird reason, even an unrelated episode in between, like, what? Why??) about a particular (unnamed) battle in the American Revolution where England faced down America, they each had a gun with a bayonet, and England charged America and his bayonet deeply scratched America’s gun, and America declared he was no longer England’s little brother, and the whole thing was played out as an extremely emotional scene. England is lost in the past of seeing America as a cute little kid he took care of, who has now grown up and is being reckless and stupid, and America is all righteous and independent and proving he’s a grown up, it’s all very emotional, I cried, other fans cried, there was much fanart.

This scene is problematic in a way. Boiling down an extremely nasty conflict following lots of really bad laws and protests to this one scene doesn’t do history any justice. It says nothing about the struggles of the American colonists, the struggles of the British empire, the awful things the colonists did to the natives, etc etc. It is one small scene and it focuses on these characters as humanoid, with feelings, and completely ignores the complexities of history. And yes, in a way, that is bad. But it is bad in the sense that nobody can - or at least should - take this show to be the end-all be-all of history. It is not. It is not often entirely correct, and it picks and chooses what points in the past several thousand years to play with, and trying to use it as a map for history is a bad idea. However, this focus on the countries as human-like and struggling can also be a good thing.

It is also important to note that there have been other problems. The portrayal of South Korea, for example, is extremely controversial, and while I do not know all of the specifics, I believe that it was banned in Korea due to this, and the character was entirely removed from the anime, among other things. Obviously, a bad take, a bad character. There are also just straight up not great characterizations in certain cases. I don’t, for example, like anything about how Belarus is portrayed as a crazy psycho constantly begging Russia (her big brother) to marry her? I think that that is ridiculous, and I know nothing about Belarus as a country but I am pretty darn sure that that is not how one ought to go about portraying the country. There are a few other examples, but my purpose here was not to pull up a list of every country and explain what is correct or incorrect about each characterization. It is enough to say that some characters were not portrayed perfectly. But with that in mind...

The Good Anything Else

It is the most important to remember that this, all of this, is fiction. This is a silly, silly fantasy series. The countries are not humans, they are some weird semi-immortal species that share a universal language and know they are not human and are referenced by humans as ‘those people.’ They are fictional constructs. But the good out of all of this is that they explore human emotions. The American Revolution scene should not be taken as how the revolution was, and who might have been right or wrong. But it is a very emotional story of a big brother unable to accept that his little brother has grown up and wants to make his own choices. That, right there, is a heartfelt scene that I’m sure plenty of real people can feel something about. And there are plenty of other scenes that really grab you by the heartstrings, especially given how crazy, stupid, and humor-oriented the rest of the show is. And I will take a moment and enthuse about some of the more popular scenes that I think are, in fact, pretty good.

There is one episode in season 5, Beautiful World, where an American woman visits France (the place). This woman, Lisa, is blond and bears a striking resemblance to Joan d’Arc. While visiting some historical place somewhere or another in Paris, France (the person) spots her and rushes up with an odd look. When she questions him, he apologizes and offers to give her a tour of the area, which she accepts. He then proceeds to lead her around and explain some history and show off some beautiful sights, and he mentions some stuff about Joan d’Arc. She butts in and lists off some stuff she knows, he beams and looks proud and says yes, she’s right. The end of the scene has the two of them standing alone somewhere and him commenting how young Joan was when she was killed, and that he always wished she could have had a better, nicer life. He then states that he is very happy that she got it, while giving this American tourist a gentle smile. She looks away for a moment, distracted by something perhaps, and when she looks back to ask just who the heck he really is, talking about a historical figure like he knew her, he is gone. It’s a very emotional scene in a quiet sort of way, because the watcher/reader understands that he took one look at this woman and instantly believed that she was, in fact, Joan d’Arc reincarnated into a totally different and totally average life, and he is so genuinely happy that a woman he saw as a hero gets this chance to live normally. Whether or not you may personally believe in reincarnation, and regardless of how often other times in the show France is shown as an obnoxious sexaholic, this is an extremely tender scene that lots of fans seriously love. It is very ‘human.’ And I feel like this is what the series as a whole strives to offer. These human moments. They may be peppered in a sort of lackadaisical style in the anime, but they are far more prominent in the comic strips, so it is important to realize that that kind of scene is more of what the creator likes to focus on.

Another very popular and touted scene is the Davie scene. I don’t remember if it was put in the anime or not, I read it as a comic. It was a scene set in colonial America, where the man himself was just a very small child. Little baby America was hanging out in a field with a rabbit and sees this boy, who introduces himself as Davie. Davie brings America to his house and opens up a botany book and points out a blue flower (possibly a forget-me-not) that he wants to see but that isn’t in the New World. America assures Davie that he will find him one of those flowers, and goes off to do so. He fails his search and goes back to Davie, who is older now, but Davie looks embarrassed and turns and walks away. Distressed, America runs to England and explains about the flower, and England says the flower is not there, but they do grow at home, and he will bring some the next time he leaves and comes back. America happily waits, and when England returns with a bouquet of the blue flowers, America takes them and runs off to Davie’s house. He is let in by a boy who looks just like Davie and presents the flowers, and the boy then puts them on (or maybe in) a coffin of an elderly man. America, smiling, does not seem to understand what is going on, and hopefully calls the boy Davie.

This entire scene, in the comic, has very few words. Davie’s name is repeated a few times, but most of the rest of the ‘dialogue’ is in images. The flower, England saying it is not there, etc. This makes the scene extremely poignant, and when we reach the end, we, the audience, realize suddenly that while baby America was fixated on finding a special flower for his new friend, years and years went by, and that friend grew up and got married and had children and eventually died, all while America remained looking the exact same age and understanding the exact same things. Look, folks, I don’t know about you, but that is some angsty stuff right there. I cried. We all cried. We all miss Davie. Mention the name to fans and you will get sobs. We love you, Davie.

Which brings me to my penultimate point, that this series is heartfelt and, while it avoids a lot of the bad of history, can be very poignant about what human nature is like. Human lives are long, very long, but also so very short, they fly by. Some lives end in tragedy, others are mostly peaceful, and maybe we get second chances if you believe in reincarnation, maybe not. Maybe it’s good that our lives are so short, maybe the fate of living forever and watching people you connect with die is tragic. Or maybe it would actually be really fun, having friends for thousands of years that you may squabble with at times but ultimately care for. Maybe nothing is simple and life is about finding joy where you can, and everyone needs to sometimes take a step back and realize that everyone is flawed, and there might be good and evil but the vast majority of people are in a grey area, trying to live their own lives and do what good they can for whatever reason they might give. I want to end with one last topic, one I have not yet addressed this whole time. The big white alien in the room, if you will.

Paint it: White!

There is a Hetalia movie, folks, if you didn’t know it, and it’s called Paint It White. This movie has just as many silly parts as any other Hetalia thing, but it also has a plot! In this movie, strange, all-white aliens are starting to invade the Earth. They arrive and anything they touch, they turn into completely identical white humanoid blobs, even the country personifications. With this scary and seemingly-unstoppable threat, the main eight - America, England, Russia, China, France, Japan, Germany, and Italy - all try to infiltrate the alien spaceship in frankly hideous uniforms to find out more and figure out a way to defeat them. Hijinks and disaster ensues, and at the end, each of them is fighting a mob and gradually being defeated. Italy is the last one standing, and as Germany is slowly being transformed into a blob along with the others, he tells Italy to smile. Italy then finds (or has? the plot isn’t great, it’s just there) a black marker and he suddenly starts going around drawing ridiculous faces on everyone. He draws fitting faces on each of his friend blobs, like a stern face on Germany-blob, a deadpan face on Japan-blob, etc etc. The invaders suddenly stop. They look at each other, marker-faced, and start to laugh. Then their leader of sorts comes out and is basically like “wow, we thought you were all stupid and you have wars and stuff, but this? This is beautiful. Wow. We all look exactly identical on our world, and these faces are cool and new and unique. We’ll turn everyone on your planet back if we can have this magical thingie you’re holding.” And of course Italy hands the marker right over, and everyone is put back to normal, and crybaby, scaredy-cat, useless Italy saves the world.

The plot is, obviously, not super great. It’s not going to win anybody any awards. But it has a very poetic premise. The strength of humans is that they are all unique. Every human has a different face, a different body, a different life. Our differences may cause conflict, but they are also something to celebrate. At the end of the day, Hetalia is an okay show that can get you hooked on history and tries its best to teach you that we’re all only human and there might be war and conflict and bad things, but you have to reach for the good things and find yourself good friends and have stupid laughs and enjoy life, however long or short it may be. I think that that’s a pretty decent message to send out to people.

The Bottom Line

In the end, this is a fandom like many others. Hetalia has its flaws and its cringe moments, and it certainly had its fair share of awful fans. But I truly believe that painting it overall as nazi propoganda and one of the most problematic and harmful shows out there is a blatant lie and disregards… just about everything of the actual content. I think it is difficult for someone to concretely say anything is super good or super bad without seeing at least some of it, or doing some research, and this business of blithely going along with what everyone else says just because they use big danger words does not do anybody any favors. Spreading misinformation is, I’m sure, the exact opposite of what most people want to do. And make no mistake, I am definitely not saying that everyone needs to like, or even watch, the show. If you never ever want to watch this show in your life, that is absolutely fine. Go forth and never watch it. But mindlessly following the herd and yelling overgeneralized, unsupported opinions about it is not a good thing. I beg of you, do research on the things you want to form or share an opinion on, think critically, and for the love of God, do not swipe a giant paintbrush to forsake every single individual fan of a show as a terrible, awful person. By all means, hate nazis, they are pieces of shit. Boycott things that support genocide and fascism, yes, fight for equality, yes. But do not go accusing without thinking, and do not overgeneralize. I leave you with the words of my old laptop bag that I bought years ago at a convention:

Make pasta, not war.

Thank you for reading.

#I wrote an essay #I could probably source this way more #but I've been working on it for hours #Just take it

[midzelink]

Well, this is certainly something that happened.  

In response to a post I made stating the various reasons I don’t like the Twilight Princess manga (which was in and of itself a response to some replies I got on this other post), I got a barrage of replies from a user (who will go unnamed, they’ve already been blocked) in defense of the thing - which, ordinarily, wouldn’t be a big deal!  People are allowed to have different opinions and I never once stated anyone who liked it should feel bad!  I started writing up a reply to them in the middle of this barrage, but their replies just kept coming and got subsequently worse, yet it was all...so bizarre to the point that it would feel weird to not address that it happened.  I’m putting all of this under a read more, because wow this is a wall of text, but also this is the kind of nonsense I want people to avoid having to read if it can be helped.  At any rate, this is what they had to say:

I don’t know, this really honestly feels like reaching. It feels like criticism for the sake of criticism without actual narrative flaws being shown, but your anger seems to stem from “This interpretation is different from what I thought even though I admit all official art shows the charachter this way” and “Link HAD to be raised in ordon because of one quote from the enclosed instruction book”. Twilight Princess was literally made to be “the edgy zelda” in reponse to fan overreaction to wind waker. This is undeniable. All official art depicts link this way. He turned into a freaking wolf in the middle of the twilight craze! but no, he *can’t* be like that because of random expressions he makes when holding pets or items? First of all, even in the manga he isn’t an edgeboy all the time.

Secondly, it feels like you're merely glossing over all that was added in terms of charachterization! In the original game, I felt nothing for Ilia. She showed up, yelled at link for maybe getting epona slightly hurt, and then got kidnapped. Maybe a bit of tsundere stuff, but seriously, Midna is literally the best tsundere ever. You can't out midna-minda in her own damn game. XD In the manga, Ilia and Link actually have a warm and very close relationship, you can see them through all the slice of life in the first volume. I really grew to like her and truly felt sorry for her when bad things happened to her. She actually gets far, FAR more respect as a person and charachter in the manga than merely a trophy for link to get back. But no, you're far too focused on subtle expressions and insinuations because that is literally all anyone had to go on for the longest time. In reality, Link, as has been said many times, is an avatar as much as he is a charachter. You can't gloss over his official art depicitons any more than I can random expressions he makes when finding a heart piece.

Not to mention, you call the blog midzelink yet you make zero mention of the super obvious wlw-as-fuck zelda flashback in volume 5? It's a sad thing that Shad being straight is something I have seen people complain about, yet Zelda and Midna's relationship getting such a huge focus passes without a peep. It's a disturbing trend I see in my fellow Fujoshi. And on the subject of Shad, his relationship with Ilia is far more likely something included to give her a happy ending, rather than just seeing link off into the sunset to try to find midna and live forever alone in ordon. On that note as well, Link not being from Ordon fits PERFECTLY with the ending, Link being the only hylian, link being from there, all of this is SCREAMING that that is the place he never truly belonged, the manga simply takes it one step further and in this version says he was never from there any way, cementing that. It gives the concept that Link was using Ordon as a place to avoid being who he was extra weight. And Honestly, it makes him less of a jerk in the end for leaving ordon, as he never truly belonged.  

And It's actually a narrative flaw in the original for Lanaryu to make mention of misusing the power of the master sword and then having nothing come of that warning later. If you're going to set chekov's gun down on the table, you better use it by the end of the play. It's simply capitalzing on something that the story actually set up, and playing into the tone of the story nintendo marketed it. But really, most of my annoyance dosen't come from the fact that you don't like the manga. People can dislike what they want. It's that all your grievances seem to come from stuff at the very beginning, and you liked it for so long, when they were there just as much as they are now. This kinda reeks of someone else slowly influencing you over time, rather than your own thoughts.

Phew.  

Okay.  

First of all, what the f**k, dude.  Who leaves this kind of essay in the replies of someone else’s post?

Secondly,

(Note: a “fujoshi” is a woman who likes yaoi, usually used in a derogatory manner, but it seems to be self-proclaimed in this case.  That is to say, this person proudly announced they fetishized MLM relationships, and then proceeded to tell me my opinion was Bad and Wrong because I didn’t praise Himekawa for a scene that ultimately wasn’t WLW at all, even though I and a lot of other people liked to interpret it that way.  Do not give Himekawa credit for gay rep, ever.)

Again, I was going to reply to this person civilly...up until I read the Midzel/Fujoshi reply, which decimated me on impact. There’s a heckuva lot I could say in response to, well...everything else, but in the interest of making this post shorter, I’ll break it down into a bulleted list:

Link being raised in Ordon is not based on “one quote from the enclosed instruction book” - Ilia specifically states when she gets her memory back, “When we were young, you and I... You were always there... You were always beside me... Link.” (I already mentioned this in my original post, which they evidently neglected to read properly.) And this is to speak nothing of the familial bond between Link and all of the Ordonians that is fairly evident within the context of the game, i.e. Rusl trusting him to deliver a very important gift to the Royal Family, or all the children looking up to him as much as they do.

Saying “all official art depicts Link this way” in defense of his characterization in the manga being edgy (when his in-game persona is far-flung from that) is pretty shaky when you realize that the same can be said for Skyward Sword, which arguably has the most emotive and happy Link of any game. In all of SS Link’s official art, he is angry, mid-yell, or stone-faced.  That’s how character art works.  That’s how marketing works.  They wanted to market TP especially as a darker game, yes, in response to the critiques of The Wind Waker, but this is literally a man who smiles softly every time he picks up a dog or a cat. You can pet the goats.  You get excited about fishing.  If TP Link should be “edgy” because of his official art and no other reason, then SS Link should be, too.

it’s your own damn fault you felt nothing for Ilia, Ilia owns, suck it

MIDNA IS NOT A TSUNDERE, HOLY SHIT.  SHE’S NOT.  I WILL NEVER CONCEDE THIS. She doesn’t mistreat Link because she likes him, she mistreats him because he is nothing to her when they first meet, and this is a stance that slowly changes as they get to know each other!  She stops treating him like garbage when she stops seeing him as such, and her behavior throughout the game post-Zelda is a mixed bag of shame over how she treated him previously and a longing to make up for it.  How anyone can construe that as tsundere I will never, ever understand.

the Midzel comment is so wack I really can’t believe I had to read that shit with my own two eyes

no, Link likely isn’t from Ordon (again, already addressed in my original post, but again, I guess this person can’t read), but he was certainly raised there, see: the first bullet point

Lanayru never once mentions ANYTHING about misusing the power of the Master Sword, so that entire point is completely invalid.  I literally have no idea what they’re talking about here. Lanayru does have the famous line, “Those who do not know the danger of wielding power will, before long, be ruled by it,” but that’s in reference to the Fused Shadows, not the Master Sword.  Which, you know, you would know if you actually knew the source material as well as you claim to, dude.

Lastly, yes, I did like the manga when I first read it, but as I already stated, that was because I blasted through all four (available at the time) volumes in one sitting, and it was immediately after my hyperfixation for this game resurfaced (about a week or so before I made this blog!).  I was Starved For Content, and the manga was Content.  Now I’m not Starved, and two more volumes have released since, and guess what!  People’s opinions can change!  And my opinion is that the manga isn’t for me, and this entire, extremely accusatory essay of yours in the replies of a post I made stating my own opinion was entirely uncalled for and rather intrusive.  So, yeah.  Blocked.

This has certainly been a trip.

#not going to tag this because i'm not Like That but hoo man #the midzel comment is still destroying me #'how dare you not fetishize their relationship? homophobe 😒' #drama tag #again: you're allowed to like the manga! #but trying to argue i'm wrong for not liking it is super shitty! #i might delete this post later but I REALLY needed to get this outta my system #i don't like starting shit which is why i just blocked them #but oh man... #text #myposts*

[thehavenofadreamer]

Cagayan de Oro writers' group removes writer with false credentials (Breaking News)

Cagayan de Oro writers' group removes writer with false credentials

By Angelo Lorenzo

(This was posted first on Rappler.)

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines– The Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa Cagayan de Oro (NAGMAC), a writers' collective in Northern Mindanao, has stripped the board membership of one writer who claimed false literary credentials in a press release published by a local newspaper here on February 9.

The press release said that Kagay-anon writer Alton Melvar Dapanas, NAGMAC’s senior fellow for poetry and creative nonfiction and board member, was longlisted at the 2019 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction (CNF) prize.

Three other claims were mentioned as part of his achievements. Dapanas claimed in the press release that his book The Cartographies of Our Skin: Lyric Essays was published by Tupelo Press and was shortlisted for the 2017 Anne Carson Prize for Nonfiction.

Dapanas also said he was a nominee of the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize, and a fellow to the Iyas National Writers’ Workshop.

These claims were later debunked as false.

Mindanao Gold Star Daily (GSD) special correspondent Lina Sagaral Reyes, who was given a copy of the press release last month by Dapanas himself, informed NAGMAC of the false claims after verifying information with local writers through Facebook and online sources.

Dapanas himself owned up to the false claims in a statement posted in his Facebook account.

“I own up to these mistakes and am willing to take responsibility in my actions,” he said. “The integrity of the people who currently run the collective should be out of the issue.”

“I will be out of the literary scene for God knows how long,” Dapanas added. “I take this indefinite hiatus as an opportunity for learning and growth to reflect and review my future direction.”

False claims

Upon inquiry by the author of this article, The Malahat Review said that Dapanas was not included in the longlist of the 2019 Constance Rooke CNF Prize since it was not even accepting entries.

“We haven’t held the 2019 Constance Rooke CNF Prize– in fact, the contest isn’t even accepting entries right now,” The Malahat Review said in a direct message via its Facebook page.

“We don’t usually release a long-list, only a shortlist and the winner [is] announced,” they added.

In the same way, Tupelo Press Publisher and Artistic Director Jeffrey Levine sent a letter addressed to NAGMAC regarding the book that Dapanas supposedly authored after seeing the press release published by Mindanao Gold Star Daily.

“We have no knowledge of this book, nor of this writer. We urge strongly that the record be corrected,” the letter said.

The Anne Carson 2017 Prize for Creative Nonfiction also does not exist.

Furthermore, the published lists of Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize did not mention Dapanas’ name or any of his books.

On his claimed fellowship at the Iyas National Writers’ Workshop, project coordinator and University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City’s former dean of law Raymundo “RayBoy” T. Pandan Jr said that Dapanas has never been a fellow to the Iyas National Writers’ Workshop.

Response and responsibility

Regarding these false claims, NAGMAC issued an official statement through board member Adeva Esparrago’s Facebook profile and to Rappler on Friday, March 8.

They released it after an article written by Reyes detailing her personal account about unraveling Dapanas’ claims was published by Mindanao Gold Star Daily, the same newspaper that published the press release last month.

Upon review, Mindanao Gold Star Daily said that the press release, while taglined NAGMAC, was sent to their office through Dapanas’ personal email address on February 8.

NAGMAC, however, clarified in its March 8 statement that they had nothing to do with the press release.

"This article was written without consultation with our Board of Directors and has been proven to have misleading and/or false information,” NAGMAC stated.

The group said that after discovering that Dapanas misrepresented NAGMAC, it emailed the newspapaer a statement of retraction "in order to preserve integrity of both our organizations, and to make public that we are correcting this matter."

“As of this time, NAGMAC has finished its investigation and has made its decision on the appropriate sanctions,” they added.

NAGMAC clarified to Rappler that Dapanas is no longer listed as their board member.

“Alton was removed from the board and we have barred him from attending any NAGMAC events internal or external. He has had no access to any funds received by any public or private source and all our accounts are in order,” they said in a statement to Rappler.

They also advised people to refer to his public apology for an explanation. As of this writing, Dapanas' Facebook account and post containing the apology are inacessible.

“The group would like to distance itself from other complaints made against the person in question. They are his personal issues that the group makes no effort to cover up or protect,” NAGMAC added.

As a writers’ collective, NAGMAC conducts poetry readings and spoken word performances at malls and other public venues. They also publish independent “chapbooks” authored by their members. – Rappler.com

Link to the original post:

https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/225258-hoax-literary-credentials-writer-cagayan-de-oro

[justmysicklypride]

P-P-P-Play that shit: ptv analysis - Part 2

 Hi what’s up everyone and welcome to this week’s pew news. This is a continuation of my last post where I pretty much summed up Pierce The Veil’s career from the beginning to present and gave an overview of their rise and downfall. You can check it out here, but if you already know about everything or have read it already then feel free to ignore it. In any case, I was originally gonna make these two posts as one but ran out of room bc who the hell would read that much text in a blog post (me) so here you go - part two of this fucking conspiracy theory because I didn’t even get to share any of my thoughts in the last one. (I also forgot to put headers with each new topic smh apologies to the English language)

Edit: it’s been fucking eons since I wrote the last one/started writing this one like legit I even changed my user. The reason why this has been put off for so long will be explained later but yh smh

Gigantic obligatory disclaimer: Everything that I will discuss whether it be in this post or my last, or any future posts that relate to this subject IS NOT going to touch on the subject of the “sexual relations with a minor” incident in itself. I will not go into detail about my own views on this specific matter as there is literally no way to win because whatever I say could be taken out of context by literally anyone. That being said, I do not condone pedophilia, I do not condone sexual harassment or rape, and I do not undermine the importance of consent. I respect the laws of different states, as I know they vary with time and place, and I understand that everyone has their own opinions and I do not wish to impose my own onto others.

In regards to this, however, I do have to acknowledge that I, first and foremost, do not think that Mike Fuentes is innocent, and I strongly believe that how the band handled this situation was just plain terrible, but I do also have to acknowledge the fact that this situation is to stay between the accuser and the victim, as well as their respective legal teams and that I should not go nosedive headfirst into anything like this when it does not directly affect or require my judgement as a necessity, lest I face any legalities or blacklash as a result. Furthermore, everything that I will be talking about are conspiracies only and I do not in any way assume or imply that any of this is true.

In other words, I don’t mean to offend anyone but if you end up getting offended then that’s on you, not me. Let’s begin.

Introduction 

The points that I am trying to highlight in this essay post is, in simple words, that Pierce The Veil’s... well, everything, comes off as kind of a conspiracy, almost, to me. I have had these thoughts for a long-ish time, and so this post is basically me finally making a post that covers all things that I have been thinking of in the past. Unlike my previous post, this one is a lot less fact-based and a lot more opinionated, so if you’re not into that, then that’s fair. Otherwise, I will be discussing the following things (in this order): the topic of kellic, Misadventures, and the accusation + response.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Ship Them Together And Call It Lemonade

I refer to my last post and assume that everyone understands how “kellic” came to be and what it means. To summarise to the bare minimum best of my abilities, it’s the ship name of Vic Fuentes and Kellin Quinn, aka what people call it when someone wants or is keen on the idea of these two frontmen having an affair with each other in a (typically) fictional setting. It happens all the time, especially in this day and age where you can easily just find someone with the same obsession as you with a click of a button. That’s why King For A Day, and inadvertently Collide With The Sky, became such a huge success. It appealed to the right demographic of teenagers and tweens who were ecstatic at the prospect of shipping, and went on to achieve even more impressive feats following that. How you ask? Well, by going on a tour around the world of course. Together. Playing shows every night that ends with one of them literally carrying the other off the stage. Gotta give the people what they want, hey?

I have a strong belief that the key to success is through beating the system at its own game. In this case, the game is simple - get fans, get money. Unfortunately, as we all know, getting fame isn’t as easy as simply earning it through grit and determination. To achieve fame, one must find a way to do something at the right time in the right way so that people will notice. If one person does, and your fire doesn’t die out right away, then you’ve got yourself a forest fire. Then later on, all you gotta do is keep this forrest fire going, but assuming that there isn’t someone standing on the other side with the whole fire department’s resources in tow, then the only thing stopping this fire is itself, because with all things in life, fire dies out, and fame stops accumulating after a while if nothing is done about it. Humans need entertainment. If something starts to fail to pique their interests, then they move on. That’s why YouTubers are required to change up their content every now and again in order to try and relight that spark they once had, and even then there’s a good chance that they won’t. 

I was originally going to write another blog essay about this whole YouTube analogy thing but quickly realised that for one, I don’t have time bc I’m getting my ass fucked by university on a daily basis; and that for another, there’s most likely a billion other videos or essays about this topic as is, so I’ll just link one or two of them here. I haven’t watched them all yet or I don’t remember much of them, but all they do is pretty much summarise up stuff like how YouTubers become successful and their downfalls and all that, and even though they kinda focus on a specific person or group of people, I feel like it could be generalised.

Even without the YouTube metaphor, we know shipping works. It is evident in multiple works across various media that giving the fans what they want is often what gives these people their continued success, such as Dan Howell and Phil Lester, who have all but stopped trying to create their own individual branding (save for their separate merch stores that are probably there just to get more people to buy their overpriced clothing), and who at this point have become such an overused example that I actually hesitated writing that. Why do you think movies and shows and cartoons mostly have a romantic subplot? Romance is an essential trope in literature and easily one of the most popular genre out there for various reasons. According to a Bustle article written in 2016, romance often gives the readers a sense of hope or gives them a way to live out their fantasies in the easiest way possible, and while this may not apply to everyone, (personally I’m not a romance fan much at all but I can appreciate good literature), it’s hard to deny the phrase “sex sells”.

Given that, you’d think that any company with half a brain would learn to exploit it, but for some reason this wasn’t the case in Pierce The Veil’s management, and no matter how I look at it, I can’t really see the reason why. It’s not like the band members are uncomfortable with the ship - Jaime Preciado has been seen kissing Vic Fuentes on stage (not on the lips guys chill) (I had forgotten how fucking difficult it takes to find this one specific clip so here’s a couple different fuenciado pictures instead to make up for it smfh), and Vic Fuentes has mentioned kellic in a live stream once jokingly - and Kellin Quinn is notoriously known for being completely okay with it (so long as he doesn’t have to look at it), so just what is the reason?

This Ain’t A Hiatus, It’s A Goddamned Arms Race

I’d be lying if I didn’t miss all the memes that all stemmed from the Pierce The Veil boys not being able to release an album when they’d promised, before postponing said album yet again and disappearing off of the face of the earth digitally for another year or two, giving them a total of four years as their unofficial, unannounced hiatus. For this, I have several questions.

We all know Vic Fuentes loves taking his sweet ass time releasing music - he’s admitted to remaking his first album a second time before releasing it, as stated an interview a couple years back - but you can’t honestly tell me their management just let them get away with it. Sure, through this time they’ve been pushing out new merch to no end, but something tells me that this giant gap they’ve wedged between the new album and Collide With The Sky isn’t gonna be good publicity, despite all the memes that’ve sprouted from it. There’s been fans who stopped taking interest in this band because of it, as well as fans who have just gotten fed up with having to wait so long. They scrapped a whole completed album in the process of creating Misadventures too, and while it’s not uncommon for bands to throw away near-completed ideas at whim, it’s also not unlikely for there to be some external factors or reasoning behind why they did it. Could it be that the album they threw away stayed too close to their roots and management or some other person told the band to start again, so that they can create something more appealing to this day and age? Or could it be something else that is hard to see at face-value?

You’ll Never Get Ahold Of Me Now

Finally, I’m gonna address the overdue elephant in the room. If you want to read the full thing, here it is because I’m tired of having to reiterate what happened. Mike Fuentes received a sexual allegation by some girl(s) and the band released a shitty statement that has since gotten deleted - that’s the general gist of it. 

Like I said, it’s been literal months (or weeks idk my perception of time is severely fucked) since I actually started making this post so literally no one cares anymore, but regardless of what past me has promised or written down, I’m not going to be discussing the allegation in itself, but rather what and/or how the band and their subsequent management has handled it, in that they handled it so bad that I honestly can’t believe they did it like that. 

Edit: I wasn’t gonna bother finding another copy of the statement bc no one’s gonna give a shit but then I’d be doing some baseless shit and I honestly can’t stand people who half ass these things, despite my growing urge to do the same thing, so here’s the statement. 

For starters, who the hell waits one whole month before releasing a statement? From what I can remember, their excuse was allegedly that pretty much management forbade them to talk or make a statement about it earlier for... reasons? (Just realised I don’t actually have the source for this so idk take it with a grain of salt I guess because I was sure I had read this somewhere but I can’t back it up.) 

That’s not even the worst part, either. The statement itself gave zero closure to literally everything. Yes, they acknowledged the allegation, but that’s just about as far as they went. The whole point of a statement is to clear things up, whether the accuser was right or wrong, and what steps will be taken from there, whether an apology is to be issued or not. No shit you know about the incident, who in the fandom wouldn’t? Instead pointing out the straight up obvious, what they should’ve done was 1) not waited an entire fucking month before talking about it, most likely hoping the whole thing to blow over by then and 2) actually talked about the incident in their statement instead of tiptoeing around the subject like some sort of time bomb ready to go off. There is no right or wrong answer, because literally all they had to do was tell the truth - as in write down a statement from Mike (not the whole fucking band mind you) about his take on the whole thing or get him to say what had happened from his point of view. Then resolve it privately with your legal team and whatnot if they really feel the need. Hell, all he needed to do was apologise. Whether something like that classifies as assault or rape or whatever is up to you but the fact of the matter is that she’s underaged at that point in time. Even if she was fully aware of the risks and whatnot and gave legitimate consent, under the eyes of the law and pretty much 80% of the people reacting to this incident, it will be deemed illegal and inappropriate behaviour. All these people had to do was literally just be open and honest about it regardless of whatever the hell happened, because this is all happening on a public platform where everyone can see/read it to their hearts’ content. Viewers can’t judge or make a decision to support or not support you if you don’t tell them your side of the story, so for the love of god, why the hell didn’t they?

The statement was filled with bullshit about how they love the fans and all that shit, and honestly my thoughts can be accurately summed up in this video right here. So much backlash could have potentially been avoided had they just told it as it is, because now all we have is a vague ass response that gives no closure and tell us nothing as to whether Mike actually did it or not, because in the statement he manage to spout some bullshit about how he’s “never intentionally manipulated or abused anyone in [his] life” and that he’s just a ball of empathy which at first glance could suggest he at least thinks he’s innocent, but then they go on to say how Mike’s taking a temporary leave from the band for, you guessed it, absolutely no reason. At least, no reason that they’ve given us (what else is new) (I’m becoming more petty as the night drags on it’s literally 1am). Honestly, .@piercetheveil, please tell me why the honest to god fuck did you have him leave just after suggesting that he might be innocent? I know the world isn’t black and white but when you’re making a stance and defending yourself or admitting to something, it really is - black and white that is. Either you’re innocent or believe that you’re innocent and stand your ground by not leaving the band, or you admit that you are guilty, in which case your leaving of the band would actually feel justified, because now it’s like you’re gonna come back as well, so what does that even mean? Mike isn’t gone indefinitely, he hasn’t pleaded guilty or innocent, and now the band is telling us they love us? Fuck out of here with that bullshit.

Yes, I support the band’s decision to pull out of the All Time Low tour and to not have Mike out there in case fans feel threatened or unsafe or whatnot, but if you’re pleading innocent, then honestly the whole band should’ve just said “hey we’re gonna go on hiatus for a while until our legal team’s finished with taking care of everything”, and not just said hey guys we’re gonna kick him out because he may or may not have done something that we’re not gonna tell you because we’re shady fuckers like that. I know they are on hiatus right now, but at the “start”, they only said that Mike would be withdrawing temporarily or whatever so it’s kind of like, okay? Sure? It’s a right mess I assure you. Honestly, throughout this whole incident, it was this statement part that made me really fed up with this band. My interest in them had died down significantly from since I hit fifteen all those three years ago, and right now when I dug up an old iPod shuffle to bring with me to university to save my phone battery throughout the day, I can honestly say that I won’t be adding any Pierce The Veil songs onto it anytime soon unless I get peer pressured to. Personally, I feel like that’s kind of the mentality of a lot of had-been Pierce The Veil fans, too.

That’s Great And All But What’s Your Point?

Pierce The Veil’s management sucks ass.

There’s no easy, lawsuit-prone way for me to say it but, and this is just a conspiracy theory I swear to god if I get the fucking ASIS kicking down my door in the middle of the night you better read the fucking disclaimer, there’s obviously some shady shit going on in there no matter what way you slice it. Either they’re sabotaging Pierce The Veil’s success or whether it’s all some big confusion or misunderstanding, or if they’re just plain dumb, we can all agree that this whole thing - the kellic fan service, album making, allegations and subsequent statements - should’ve and could’ve been handled a hell of a lot more gracefully and professionally. Believe it or not, waiting until things blow over is frankly just childish and solves literally nothing, so either they can pull their act together quickly with this next “special secret” album to redeem what little quality/dignity they have left, or they can just fade away into irrelevancy and become a band that no one cares about anymore. 

History repeats itself. This band is quickly becoming just another Leafyishere, and as ominous as that sounds, it’s honestly not unlikely at this point. I am intrigued as to where they go from here, because if they manage to breakthrough again, then I would be very surprised given their current situation. I want to know how they choose to handle this - whether it’ll be the same or not, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much if you read through this honestly like I am beyond happy that this is fucking over because I have a bunch of non-band related post essays I’ve been meaning to post but this one’s been nagging at the back of my mind for the past few months or however long it’s been. I’ve clocked in at around past 3k words for this one, and none of this is edited because I’m honestly so done with this you don’t understand. Like I said before, this took ages because I was gonna make another post talking about other shit that relates to this before realising that there’s way too many people that’ve addressed the whole YouTube thing so me doing it would literally be pointless, and even though no one really reads this shit, as big of a nerd as I am, I do enjoy writing bullshit because maybe then I’ll stop ranting to my friends and family about topics they don’t care about.

Regardless, that’s it for this two parter thing, and until next time or whatever.

Catch’ya x

#pierce the veil #ptv #vic fuentes #mike fuentes #jaime preciado #Tony perry #kellic #kellin quinn #fuenciado #bands #music #emo #misadventures #collide with the sky #selfish machines #a flair for the dramatic #alternative press #rocksound #kerrang #altpress #perrentes #snatched #essays #rants and whatnot #shit talking

[geograph-hitje]

Essay: To what extent does the idea of the Anthropocene require a new approach to nature conservation?

Essay written as part of the ‘Footprints on a Fragile Planet’ geography course at the University of Adelaide, which I took in semester 1, 2017 during my first year of studying the Bachelor of Environmental Policy and Management.

(Image source. Then Let Us Run (The Sky Is Falling) by  Emily Parsons-Lord. What happens when humans can imagine and build a new environment? (...perhaps we already have...) Will it be one modelled on previously held ideas of what ‘nature’ looks and feels like?)   

In his time, Charles Darwin’s hypotheses were met with resounding incredulity. Assumed insulting (Castree 2014), the naturalist’s theories as to the origins of species went on to establish an entire branch of science; previously unfathomable. The Anthropocene discussion is also one of origin- this time concerning that of today’s changing climate and its consequences for life on Earth. It is also an idea speculated to become as significant as Darwin’s hypotheses (Castree 2014). According to the Anthropocene, human activity has had an influence on ecosystems since complex civilisations began to develop (Ruddiman 2013). This ‘global geophysical force’ of people began an escalation known as The Great Acceleration during the Industrial Revolution. The epoch is now reaching criticality (Steffen et al. 2007) - if trends continue unabated; the viability of future earthly life is jeopardised (Castree 2014). But the crux of the Anthropocene debate lies within its implications for efforts such as nature conservation. The theory emphasises the impression of all man-made systems on even the most remote ecosystem. Therefore very concepts like ‘nature’ upon which conservation has largely evolved from may require adjustment.      

The unsustainability of capitalism (Adams 2013) presents completely undermines the objectives of nature conservation. Capitalism is, of course, entrenched in contemporary western civilisation (Brockington et al. 2011). The Anthropocene theory implies that harnessing capitalism’s aspects as a tool interconnected with humanity may be preferable to demonising it. However, evaluations of a recent capitalist conservation innovation, biodiversity trading, suggest promised diversity outcomes are not delivered (Walker et al. 2009). A result which comes even as the notion “capitalism can and should help save the world” apparently inhabits the conservation movement mainstream (Brockington et al. 2011). This illustrates “conservation’s development paradox”, a problem also evident in projects concerning conservation and poverty alleviation synergy (Adams 2013). 

Political theory predicts biodiversity exchange policies- due to the immeasurable and non-interchangeable characteristics of biodiversity- are “more vulnerable to the institutional failings that undermine environmental protection than simple … prohibitions” (Walker et al. 2009). Parallel to the faults of this approach, conservation and poverty alleviation efforts are built around a conventional model of ‘development’ based on capitalist principles, also presenting a problem. The basis of the wider economy is not challenged, and its impacts on conservation not addressed (Adams 2013). Perhaps recognition of human failure to meet conservation targets in the post-Acceleration Anthropocene is needed. In this argument, targets are unapologetically based on the best available science and strictly enforced for the greater good of conservation success (Noss et al. 2015).The “resounding silence” (Adams 2013) regarding the capitalism/conservation relationship is inept in an Anthropocene context, where a system as essential to modern human interaction as the economy must be intrinsically linked to the success of nature conservation.  

The unprecedented growth of the human population over the past century demands a close-proximity co-existence of people and nature to ensure conservation. Sudden urbanisation generally creates biotic homogenisation (Mason 2006), yet in some cases - if well designed - the two may complement each other. Although there has been very little research into this relationship, (Mason 2006) such has been found by one UK study. Birdlife on the intensely managed farmland surrounding English towns has been in major decline in recent decades, and it has been found that species numbers and richness are both superior in built environments (Mason 2006). Benefits to birds of living in urban development far outweigh those of living on farmland. This is important information considering the country has large future development plans including the creation of new towns in order to accommodate its increasing population (Mason 2006). Still, we must be wary of merely refashioning conservation in the name of the Anthropocene to primarily suit a human-focussed agenda (Doak et al. 2015). Perhaps our entire conception of animal’s sentience and intelligence as fellow life forms needs to be defied (Tobias 2017).True synthesis of human and animal habitat is an idea with unexplored potential to be approached with greater ambition by conservation efforts.

The displacement of indigenous peoples in an attempt to create nature reserves understandably often leads to political tension (Igoe 2002). A case study from Simanjiro, Tanzania analysed conservation efforts targeting the local community. These claimed to give rural Tanzanians “direct control of natural resources [in national parks], thereby creating incentives for sustainable resource management at the community level” (Igoe 2002). Nevertheless, in practise the government-enforced program displayed fundamental misunderstandings of the local Maasai people’s resource management systems (by limiting legal uses of park land) and traditional cultural concepts. The government program, like many, presumes the existence of a fixed nature; able to be preserved by enclosure- a nature non-existent in the Anthropocene (Adams 2013). Community conservation must address the social and ecological impacts on rural communities of national parks. The study stated that it was important to acknowledge that in Tanzania; community conservation is a political proposition (Igoe 2002). Indeed, the exclusion of indigenous communities which have often successfully managed their native land for thousands of years exposes political flaws of nature conservation. It creates one ‘us’ –a responsible species, masking differential human and institutional failures (Adams 2013). Although all human lifestyles have the power to modify the environment in the Anthropocene, nuance as to what choices caused the dangerous Great Acceleration conditions must be acknowledged.        

Centralities of environmental thought are obviously being tested by the Anthropocene diagnosis (Lorimer 2015). While current sectors of conservation attempt to involve some Anthropocene implications in an effort to solve human and environmental issues mutually, major flaws are identifiable. These involve a) a lack of constructive criticism of the unsustainable global economic system, b) a lack of serious research regarding how biodiversity may be combined in built environments, and c) a need for greater sensitivity and accommodation of traditional land users. Most notably, the Anthropocene idea challenges some fundamental assumptions of conventional nature conservation philosophy. ‘Nature’ is ambiguous and multilayered. A fine line exists between delivering a much needed jolt to environmental thinking and validating complacency with our discovered ‘human power’ over Earth’s future. The powerful proposal of the Anthropocene will hopefully be remembered as part of the jolt.  

Reference List

-          Adams, WM 2013, ‘Conservation in the Anthropocene: Biodiversity, Poverty and Sustainability’ in D Roe, J Elliott, C Sandbrook & M Walpole (eds), Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Alleviation, Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex, pp. 304-315.

-          Brockington, D & Duffy, R 2011, ‘Introduction: Capitalism and Conservation: The Production and Reproduction of Biodiversity Conservation’ in D Brockington and R Duffy (eds), Capitalism and Conservation, Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex, pp. 1-16, viewed 7 April 2017, <http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-144433834X.html>

-          Castree, N 2014, ‘The Anthropocene and Geography I: The Back Story’ Geography Compass vol. 8, no. 7, pp. 436-449, viewed 7 April 2017, <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gec3.12141/abstract>

-          Doak, DF, Bakker, VJ, Goldstein, BE & Hale, B, 2015, ‘What Is the Future of Conservation?’ in G Wuerthner, E Crist & T Butler (eds), Protecting the Wild: Parks and Wilderness, the Foundation for Conservation, Island Press, Washington, pp. 27-35, viewed 7 Apr 2017, <https://islandpress.org/book/protecting-the-wild>

-          Igoe, J 2002, ‘National Parks and Human Ecosystems: The Challenge to Community Conservation, A Case Study from Simanjiro, Tanzania’ in D Chatty & M Colchester (eds), Conservation and Mobile Indigenous Peoples, Studies in Forced Migration vol. 10, Berghahn Books, Oxford, pp. 77-96.

-          Kidner, DW 2014, ‘The Conceptual Assassination of Wilderness’ in G Wuerthner, E Crist & T Butler (eds), Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth, Island Press, Washington, pp. 10-15.

-          Lorimer, J 2015, Wildlife in the Anthropocene, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, viewed 7 April 2017, <https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/wildlife-in-the-anthropocene>

-          Mason, CF 2006, ‘Avian species richness and numbers in the built environment: can new housing developments be good for birds?’, in DL Hawksworth and AT Bull (eds), Human Exploitation and Biodiversity Conservation, Topics in Biodiversity Conservation vol. 2, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 25-38, viewed 7 April 2017, <http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402052828>

-          Noss, RF, Dobson, AP, Baldwin, R, Beier, P, Davis, CR, DellaSala, DA, Francis, J, Locke, H, Nowak, K, Lopez, R, Reining, C, Trombulak, SC, & Tabor G, 2015, ‘Bolder Thinking for Conservation’ in G Wuerthner, E Crist & T Butler (eds), Protecting the Wild: Parks and Wilderness, the Foundation for Conservation, Island Press, Washington, pp. 16-20, viewed 7 Apr 2017, <https://islandpress.org/book/protecting-the-wild>

-          Ruddiman, WF 2013, ‘The Anthropocene’ Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, vol. 41, pp. 45-68 viewed 7 April 2017, <http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-123944>

-          Steffen, W, Crutzen, PJ & McNeill, JR 2007, ‘The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature?’ AMBIO, vol. 36, no. 8, pp. 614-621, viewed 7 April 2017,<http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1579/00447447(2007)36%5B614%3ATAAHNO%5D2.0.CO%3B2>

-          Tobias, MC & Morrison, JG 2017, Anthrozoology: Embracing Co-Existence in the Anthropocene, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. v-xvii, viewed 7 April 2017, <http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319459639>

-          Walker, S, Brower, AL, Stephens, RT & Lee, WG 2009, ‘Why bartering biodiversity fails’, Conservation Letters, vol. 2, pp. 149-157, viewed 7 April 2017, <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00061.x/abstract>

#nature #anthropocene #essay #university #conservation #nature conservation #study #climate change #environmentalism #capitalism #tanzania #UK #england #writing #blog #academic

[spamzineglasgow]

(SPAM Cuts) The Noughties, by Dom Hale

Attending to the poetics of lightspeed capital, everyday internet phenomenology and aesthetic refusal, Mau Baiocco explores Dom Hale’s ‘The Noughties’, a poem taken from Hale’s debut collection Scammer (forthcoming, the 87 Press). 

> On February 1 a long poem, ‘The Noughties' drops into my inbox. 'I appear / to have failed to purge / my poem of evil' it reads roughly at the halfway point, '502 Bad Gateway / nginx / The literal just lost to me / Nostalgics / for toujours.' ‘The Noughties’ was first circulated as part of Dominic Hale's early 2020 edition of the file/pamphlet Scammer and at 44 pages takes up half of its contents. It is an experiment in serial and durational writing initially taking place between July 2018 and July 2019. Its form as well as composition are fragmentary, with short lines of unevenly indented text cascading down text boxes, an appearance that on the page bears a superficial resemblance to code, but when read aloud has all the jutting immediacy and scattered rhythms of something that cannot be compiled as a program or finished. And though I will attempt to trace questions around the relation between the internet, politics and poetics as they arise in ‘The Noughties’, a new and unprecedented arrival on something that might appear done to death (the ~internet~ poem), it should be noted from the outset that this poem is avowedly provisional, open to alteration and as much a mechanism of response to other poets and events as it is a finished work. Sitting down to appraise it, almost as a private inquiry, feels like refusing some of the poem's own motivations. If ‘The Noughties’ is about anything, it is about exchanges and modulations to be made outside the formal circuits of publishing, the commodity and ultimately capitalism. When read live—as I was lucky to witness twice in 2019—the poem is delivered at a rapid and at times overwhelming speed, straying far from considered intonation and 'poet's voice' but in an oppositional  mode long explored by various poets such as Verity Spott, Tom Raworth or Peter Manson. Its text is a camaraderie, in all the inviting and indulging senses of the word.

> To admit the internet into history is to arrest the entirety of its internal logic, its drive towards immediacy and delivery of information on request—or even before we request or begin a search engine lookup, as algorithms quietly dispense tailored content, autoplays and preempt any personal vicissitudes we might have at a given moment. As being online ceases to be a specific activity and becomes the very basis of our lives (and dramatically more so following Covid-19), the internet takes on a phenomenology identical to encountering everyday life: the external world, its colours, the weather, a sentiment, an object. Our words for being online can paint an entire life-world as it is really being experienced. I couldn’t stand it, the internet was so annoying today. This transparency is only superficial: what appears to be truly memoryless, debugged and free of glitches is owed primarily to the quiet labour of developers, data centre workers and content moderators—industries rife with overwork, exploitation and even trauma at the exposure to daily streams of violence and hate. Behind every phenomenal seamlessness is a world of labour and agency that has been wrested away from the internet’s users and makers. This is far from the resource that would remake the public sphere, the heroic age of the developer-hacker-blogger-writer. At some point in our lifetime a transition occurred between accessing a resource and living through its infrastructure. Had it happened any more dramatically we would rightly call it a revolution on par with any other that came before it, with political and interpersonal consequences no less significant than those of any other revolution.

> The critical internet poem, the post-internet long poem, the always-online poem has to account for such a revolution: the gap from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. It has to account for it as a real event where political and affective possibilities were seized by the powerful and online spaces sequestered and rerouted into sites of economic capture. Hale's 'sorry for cross-posting / stupidly nostalgic for the fucking noughties' is poised at the aftermath of this revolution, speaking back to the first decade of the 2000s through a relentless clash with the proper names for corporations and individuals (Bezos, Cuadrilla, G4S, Bill Gates, Northern Rock, etc) who have shaped the current world we inhabit. Arrayed against them is a belated deference to modes of grassroots management of online spaces (apologies for the cross-post), the ability to render these spaces malleable via creative interventions (forking), techno-utopian dreams that cross with play ('Snorlax used Snore! / Sustainable day') and the metabolic ease and abundance of 'We / eat as we go'. And yet, we are constantly reminded that to move from the past to the present means being carried by a 'katabatic wind'—a ceaseless descent that finds its origins at every point of the noughties and carries us on through to today. These winds, the matter of the skies as an invisible mover, figure prominently in ‘The Noughties’, and they are our guide through the fragmenting online landscapes of the decade since. When the winds reverse they end up 'hoovering / up the teleologies'; ecological catastrophes such as wildfires are seen congealing 'under the / pearling cumulus'. Like the financial flows and exchanges that pervade the poem, winds can go unnoticed until they collapse upon themselves or crash against lives that mean to resist them. These moments are revelatory of a whole structure at once: 'A sky’s a style' or 'A sky’s a clause', the grammar which shapes our political and expressive possibilities is loaded with toxic fumes, global and intimate as weather. It all lays open for contestation.

> In comparison to the fast-moving streams of text, riffs on information and broken data that surround it, a sort of speaking self appears in ‘The Noughties’. The ‘poet himself, as part of as part exposed nervous receptor, part digestor and regurgitator’ as Alex Grafen has written on Scammer’s companion pamphlet/pre-release Addons. It is often rueful, self-castigating and circuitously arrived at. It appears regularly in the guise of a comment or interjection. A distance from the surrounding text—set aside by line breaks and Hale’s deft play with sentential clauses—makes space for simultaneous ironic detachment and sincere observation. This wouldn't be unfamiliar to anyone who spends a lot of time on the internet; it is after all a very common affective position to speak from online. Other forms of internet speech feature in the poem too: textspeak, emoticons, emojis, etc, but my own response settles on moments where this voice appears, as if a remainder of pre-technological communicability:

> Perhaps what makes them stand out is that they are so often addressed and imperative. The imperative falls in line with a poetics of refusal figured in Anne Boyer's essay No, from which Hale draws the epigraph, 'Sometimes our refusal is in our staying put.' Perhaps the commitment to speaking and interjecting works out as a refusal to speechlessness. But this persistence paradoxically discloses very little: it would rather not talk, not participate, go back over itself. On the other hand it may coax a life out of life; its speech becomes more a sort of 'negative silence' which to Boyer is 'the negative’s underhanded form of singing', speaking while not speaking and asking when not asking. I think these gestures of refusal also gain a specific valence within a long durational work such as ‘The Noughties’. From the outset the poem aims to figure as a text of life, a response born from the everyday. This specifies the refusal as a sort of refusal to the everyday temporality out of which it arises, a refusal of the working day or even a refusal to work: 'I will never / be fulfilled by any kind of work.' This is seen more clearly still as the poem develops and the specificities of the decade—war alongside economic boom, proliferation of websites, technologies and interfaces to enact one's self-presentation to the world, to give voice to our newly minted online selves—begin to add up. The voice threatens to drop out entirely:

> In these lines poetry is pitted against the ability to survive the everyday economies of making ends meet. It signals a larger background of sustenance, a whole undisclosed sphere which undergirds the year-long writing of the poem yet cannot be easily verbalised. The gloss we can give to the gap between this sphere and ‘The Noughties’’s own enactment is a no, a refusal to make the link between the circuits words take on page and those of the background out of which they emerge. There is a doubleness to 'now, now', shading over to both 'no, no' but also that the poem must return to its present elaboration, the site of its self-recognition. Reading this gap as a refusal opens the possibility that the poem's own dynamics—the very rhythms it falls into, its very online texture—can militate against the extension of working life into non-working life. 'Hacking', so often the trite word for unauthorised access into systems and circuitry, springs to mind here, but in its older meaning. A sort of choppy relentlessness abounds in ‘The Noughties’, where two types of ‘work’—that of the poem and that of the post-internet working day—extend into one another,  bristling at the seams and unveiling oppositions where we could have forgotten there were any.

> In Sleep-Worker's Inquiry, an anonymous text published on the communist journal Endnotes, a tech worker begins to dream in code, coming upon problems raised by their working life and solving them in their sleep. The worker asks if this is meaningfully different from their everyday waged work: 'When I find myself observing myself sleep-working, I observe myself acting in an alienated way, thinking in a manner that is foreign to me, working outside of the formal labour process through the mere spontaneous act of thought.' Self-estrangement has always been an aesthetic resource of the avant-garde, but its possibility always corresponded with the availability of leisure and other types of 'free' time. When our estranged selves are also signed up to the imperatives of production, what spaces are left for the creation of social alterities, dream worlds and landscapes where we do not come under those same imperatives? As technologies extend the working day by making us become forever available to our jobs, as the everyday labour of self-making on social media becomes collated and valorised as data which accrues its owners stock value to be exchanged on the market, distance from any economic activity becomes impossible. It becomes inchoate as the speaker’s voice in ‘The Noughties’, refusing as it proceeds.

> But I find that as I fixate on this voice of refusing, I almost forget that what makes ‘The Noughties’ so enticing to read and pick up is the heaving pile-up of dead data, outmoded imperatives and pithy renderings of cultural touchstones we would rather forget. 'What is this ‘dick chainy’ / and where can I get one?' To hold all these together, to attend to this conflagration of material is also to remember that, profoundly, the noughties were a fucking awful decade, with an enormous amount of political and cultural dead ends that the poem (happily) fails to enumerate. If the noughties represented the smirk of capital at history's end, ‘The Noughties’ enacts its degradation into our modes of present living. But we hold on to our imperatives, to care, to refuse and somehow make a world otherwise.

~

‘The Noughties’ is taken from Scammer, Dom Hale’s forthcoming collection from the 87 Press. You can watch Hale perform extracts at The Roebuck, London last year:

Text: Mau Baiocco Published 3/7/20

#poetry #Dom Hale #SPAM Cuts #SPAM Cut #The Noughties #Scammer #87 Press #the 87 press #Mau Baiocco

[un-residencies]

Aristide Antonas with Data Rhei Interview

[ENG]

Data Rhei : You created the project House for Doing Nothing, which is an answer to an assertion from Slavoj Žižek’s book Violence. You say you often work with writing poems or short stories created with and about the law, did you proceed this way for this project? Could you briefly describe it and relate it to your global approach?


Aristide Antonas : No, I did not start with the law in this case. The House for Doing Nothing began as a critique of a concrete written statement, a critique that is normally operated with an essay would now be done with architecture; this is what I decided when I read this text.     Slavoj Žižek in this particular fragment was claiming that we should better step back and refuse engagement in order to think from a distance, somehow more productively and undisturbed because of this distance of withdrawal. I thought I could just design the space that Žižek would need for his withdrawal; I would then prove two things at once. The first would be that his so-called withdrawal is a normal or banal condition for every one of us; there is nothing heroic in this condition, we have already withdrawn without being conscious about it, the web is the name of this withdrawal; our distance from reality does not make us more vigilant. It is the opposite: reality is constituted by this distance. The second thing I wanted to show with this architecture was that only through this very withdrawal, that we have already done unconsciously, the contemporary “community of humans” is formed. Giorgio Agamben calls this “community”, if it is still one, “a-demic” i.e. deprived of the communal characteristics of demos. The nowadays human community is formed by this contradiction, by the very impossibility or by the unimportance of “really getting together”. So, I thought that The House for Doing Nothing could showcase fake heroism at the first level with this withdrawal. Secondly, it would show that the idea of withdrawal creates the banality of this society; it deals with a certain category of exoticism that is linked to the idealization of “elsewhere”; it transforms the tension between here and elsewhere to a dead zone. A dead category of the new urban experience is already offered to us; this house depicts the ordinary in its fake exoticism. This house then is not anything new. It shows the banality we live into in a fancy way. With this house, I only wanted to claim that withdrawal is not an exception but the rule; it is the condition of the everyday; an analog to the interface format. An interface is not a representation of something. It is an abstract empty world which carries a content very strange to it. Through the category of the interface, the intellectual distance to reality defines a different wasteland; it is a new type of scenography. We do not deal anymore with the space of a heroic self-exile; I could only write Žižek that the bed where he works is the answer to his idea. His bed was contradicting him: The House of Doing Nothing is only the “happy” extension of it; self-exile is not heroic but already designed for us, it forms today a stronger concept that we could call infrastructural desert. There is a heavy materiality within this infrastructure; withdrawal is the presupposition of this so-called community. Under this light, Žižek’s argument is not proposing any kind of derangement for status quo; a community organized by withdrawal does not seem to need further withdrawal as its political strategy.It would not need any kind of easy engagement against it; it may need the reinvention of being physically together in a different post-web social sphere; the civic conditions of our cities are transposed on a large scale towards the new statement form of life proposed by the internet. This is why I found something wrong with this Žižek's statement. Withdrawal is at the same time obligatory and definitive for what we call the social sphere today. It did not make sense to add any struggle to it since it is banal. The House for Doing Nothing is only a critique of this statement and not a solution; it is a question and not an answer concerning this paradoxical “society of withdrawal”.

DR : This work gave us the impression that you think architecture must act as a kind of political interface between the self and the society. Do you think the self is something we should empower because, as it would be intrinsically unpolitic, it should be the first resistance tool?

AA : There is an obvious critique concerning a certain civilization of the self in this project. And there is no light for any possible community yet. In my works on protocols and in my literature of law I posed the problem that you mention more explicitly. The position of the self in the frame of the community is maybe the main argument of Rousseau’s The Social Contract. We need to re-think the relation of the individual to the community; we are not able anymore to conceive what you call “self” and “society” in the same way as Rousseau did. The identity of what we meant as “individual” in the past is not functioning anymore. In the post-network conditions, we need to redefine the “self” as a population of ready-made borrowed identities or as an ensemble of user attributes. And the community is also very different than in Rousseau's time. The society also needs a redefinition. Society is an archipelago of protocols. It could be a market for protocols or a structure of protocols if the web keeps its power into the social sphere. So, even if we claim that the self is a resistance tool, we need to work more in order to structure a different self in a different community; the old self and his or her signature for ideas are not important anymore. The structural difference between the new self and the new social is weakened; the self and the social are structured through the same archipelago of ready-made platforms; this weakening makes responsibility impossible. We are not able to be responsible in this condition.

DR : Aiming at this empowerment of the self, you start by criticizing Hannes Meyer’s Co-op Zimmer (a transportable room with a bed, two folding chairs and a big gramophone on a table) as a turning point to Aureli’s “Passing Dweller” and the nomadic individual, to head yourself towards The House for Doing Nothing. I think there is something totally different between both: while the Co-op Zimmer is a proposition for an affordable, lightweight and minimalistic living, The House for Doing Nothing looks more like a standardized and low-cost holiday house. Even if the latter gives access to asceticism to a much wider population than usual, it seems always quite difficult to generalize it to the whole population. Then, how could we imagine democratize asceticism to the working class?

AA : On this issue, you have to read more. For instance, in the booklet we wrote together with Pier Vittorio and Raquel Franklin on the Co-op Interieur, I try to make a genealogy of the “bed” and the “table” in a typical domestic economy. There is a war between these two furniture pieces that I observe. The Hannes Meyer work is a very important still from this history. I told you that The House of Doing Nothing is a material exaggeration of the bed. We are all in the position of Žižek, doing the same, using our beds as cockpits. Beds fulfill our imagination of the holiday house without moving elsewhere. Or the bed is the banality of the holiday house when it invaded the city. I am trying to show the core of the everyday in the interface of the exotic. The House for Doing Nothing is our idealized bed or our idealized urban sleep. Our beds breathe with this fake idealization. And the city of today is made out of these beds. You say that this is a generalization from a part of the population to the whole of it; you need to do this to capture interesting concepts. Negri writes that Karl Marx was doing the same when speculating about the transformative power of the working class of the industry with his texts; the phenomenon was not yet formed. He was only speaking for a part of the social sphere. But this part was the most important for the evolution of things. Today, these observations are the most significant from my point of view.

DR : Oslo Architecture Triennale, by labeling our time as the “After Belonging”, seems to share your concerns about the possible loss of the self with the new culture of individual mobility and the “Passing Dweller’s” lifestyle. As it seems related to the idea of being a self with the feeling of belonging to a place, we probably need to worry that an increase of mental health inequality could follow the increasing of precariousness and the rental system growth. Then, do you think that architecture (and your projects) could address the ways we stay in transit and how can we still belong to places or communities?

AA : Well, “being a self with the feeling of belonging to a place” is something very old to me; not because of belonging to a place, but because of the very notion of the self. We cannot simply say that today's self is heterochthonous. There is no today's self in the way we knew it in the past. Of course, heterochthony is a good concept that I propose as the opposite to autochthony. It describes the fact we often not relate strongly to a place of origin anymore. This is an old discourse. Oswald Spengler writes already about a similar character of deracination in his Decline of the West. But heterochthony is a positive concept. It relates to a constructive understanding of Unheimlichkeit, i.e. the most radical unhomely core of the western civilization. The west is demonized in its later phase, but there is no other human period with such a treatment of the unhomely. I miss already this elaboration of the view of the abyss in the post-western world. So heterochthony for me is a promise for a different consciousness on the self, it is already a political task. This is really a wishful thinking or my hope for the future. A consciousness of radical heterochthony would be a promise for a political future. But by lamenting the terrible side of the west as we are used to, with such a strong voice, we risk losing the positive construction of the unhomely character. This is a western construction. Investigating more about the limits of placeless communities while the humanity deals with radical heterochthony could be an open promise for the future; it would merge with a different web. I am sometimes accused for a nostalgia of the bygone west. Revisiting the past is for me an important part of any architecture; it is like in philosophy: we start thinking and designing being each time already in the middle of the way. There is an existing story we feel the responsibility to respond to. You ask about architecture in transit, it has its own history, Hannes Meyer’s Co-op Interieur is again a piece to reflect about this story. My Transformable Vertical Village was translating this potential mobility to a stable structure of an awaiting infrastructure where mobile units could plug in.

DR : Identity construction within the nomadic, and often diasporic lifestyle, often goes by going back and forth between interior and exterior, Home and house, real and virtual, and even human and machine. As these oppositions are very recurrent in the architectural language, do you think architecture, as a mean to build society, could be seen above all as a way to construct ourselves?

AA : This will be a very heroic architecture. But would this be a revisit of the same lost self of the past? The architecture of the self offers a nostalgia for optimists. I am not against nostalgia and its future. I am not against nostalgia, but we have to think more about it. Svetlana Boym gives a good description of nostalgia. And it would be great if we could name “architecture” the works on lost responsibility. It could renew the political in the terms we knew it in the past.

DR : We think that a problem with “neo-nomadism” is that it adds some identity insecurity to the isolation of 20th-century capitalist individual housing, making people even less able to struggle. Whether in your very interesting Transformable Vertical Village (which is a structure made of “elementary homes, hosted in ship containers through an interior solution that allows the units to plug in the village’s infrastructure”) or in The House for Doing Nothing, you use to work on living solutions based on individual housing. Do you think that individual withdrawal is more efficient than collective struggle to fight inequalities?

AA : For me, individual withdrawal gives space for an invisible governance – this governance is operated through the infrastructure. It is a challenge to describe this technical evolution with these terms. But there is no difference or tension between individual withdrawal or collective struggle. They are both parts of the image of a world which is vanishing. In the new world, withdrawal will seem as paradise and the struggle as always already ineffective.

DR : As curators interested in the domestic aspects of life, we are bound to think about the nakedness of the “one-room manifesto”. If, as Lissitzky said, Co-op Interieur was a “still-life of a room, for viewing through the keyhole, rather than a room”, studios in university residencies, for example, are very close from it. Only remain white walls to customize to make it personal. How do you think we could improve small housing, to help subjectivation and reflexion?

AA : This is a question for an architect, but also a question for everybody. Making home is similar to making oneself. It may need again a balance between stability and fluidity. This management may be the architecture of the political. We cannot help reflexion with space, but space is always concretized thought, and we can design fluid arguments.

—

Interview realised between April and May 2017.

Aristide Antonas’ work spans philosophy, art, literature and architecture. As a writer and playwright, he published novels, short stories, theater scripts and essays. His art and architecture work has been featured among other places in Istanbul Design Biennial, Venice Biennale, Sao Paulo Biennale, Display Prague, the New Museum and had solo institutional presentations in Basel’s Swiss Architecture Museum and in Austria’s Vorarlberger Architektur Institut. He won the Arch Marathon 2015 Prize for his Open Air Office, was nominated for a Iakov Chernikov 2011 Prize and for a Mies Van der Rohe 2009 Award for his Amphitheater House. He works as a professor of architectural design and theory, and directs the master’s program on architectural design at the University of Thessaly, GR. Aristide Antonas has been a visiting professor in the Bartlett UCL and at the Frei Universität in Berlin.

[tracyloveswork]

Rise of the Poor Image

Interview with Zack Rosenberg, Trust﹠Safety/Community Representative, Tumblr and Amanda Brennan “Meme librarian”, Content﹠Community Associate, Tumblr

In Hito Steyerl’s essay, “Defense of the Poor Image,” she suggests that the worth of a digital image could be judged on its speed and penetration rather than resolution. In this case, we would give the greatest worth to the poorest image of all, the GIF.

An early file format for the internet, the GIF could provide a simple animation without requiring a plug-in at a small file size. With the onset of Flash and greater bandwidth, the use of the GIF fell out of favor but endured on message boards and forums. It’s ability to portray small loops of visual data found a new life embedded in online conversations. Its resurgence is due to its ability to translate information into a distilled and often entertaining format. It stands in the place of words.

Vintage Dancing Baby GIF

In Wim Crouwel’s “Type Design of the Computer Age” he felt that the computers will bring the development of new characters and communication symbols. This has come to be, but not through reinventing fonts, but through the creation of memes, emoticons and reactionary GIFs. This could be the universal pictorial language that Charles Bliss was seeking with his Blissymbolics.

The speed and penetration images can obtain on the internet, also has concerns for the creator. Steyerl speaks to how piracy is a threat to mainstream channels but can also provide exposure to works that are considered less commercial. How does a creator balance the threat and the benefit?

The Falcon goes into hyperdrive.

Many digital copies are also cut, edited and transformed into new works. This could be considered transformative but it could be appropriating. In the age of social networks and fandoms, how does someone protect their work?

Tumblr is a social network built around the idea of microblogging. Small digestible bits of media, a quote or a link are shared amongst followers. It invites discourse through posts versus the long diatribes you see on other blog platforms. It is also known for its audience’s embrace of the GIF.

Hope you like cats…

Tumblr is known for posting quick little things, microblogging and lots of sharing of media. Is that how you guys see yourselves?

Zack: I always like how it was explained to me, and how I explain it when I am on panels. Whether you are a creator or someone who is passionate about something, you are a curator of content that you believe in.

It’s almost like creating a museum of my personal passions. When you go to my blog it’s about my dog, really tasty food or comics and animation. It encompasses process… And what I mean by process is how to make an illustration or something move. The platform really goes into that well... as that backend look at how things are made.

To really boil it down, it’s my own museum of what I like.

Amanda: The way we frame it from the marketing side, is that Tumblr is a place to share your passion. And you can be passionate about a TV show, about food, about dogs… But this is where you go to meet the people who share your interests. And really dive into the community of people who love the thing as much as you do.

Original Longcat

And to compare it to something like Pinterest… When I think of someone who is using Pinterest, it’s usually a mom looking for a recipe or someone looking for a workout, or someone looking for wedding stuff. Here on Tumblr, it is more like that fandom activity where people are looking for TV show gifs or the latest Honey post. You might find that on meme site, or FB, but Tumblr is where people get a little weird and shout out their deepest weird feelings about the thing that they love.

Zack: To add to that… I think it is about creating content to have a conversation. Which adds another layer and what I find fascinating (and we talk about this in our metrics panels) is that people are sharing feelings and posting entire conversations in tags or gifs. And driving this sense of unity... because “I feel that too”… I feel that same thing via this fandom or this thing happening in the world. Let’s connect and join together and have a community of friends strictly on the platform.

It’s almost like it’s own visual language with emoticons and the memes. You can really have a whole conversation.

Zack: I can pull conversations, and they are just all GIFs. We are just responding to each other based on reactions from our favorite types of media. It’s such a fascinating cultural thing that we have gotten ourselves into.

Gleeful Wonder Woman

Apple just installed a feature where can pull GIFs directly into your responses and making that more accessible. Seeing that trend being baked into other products and how Tumblr contributed to that, is a cool accomplishment.

Amanda: If you are thinking about a GIF as language, there is a really good talk by Kenyatta Cheese on how they have come to define language. And how it evolved both with the internet and as a file format.

Zack: He dressed as an internet meme… that blew my mind.

Amanda: The culture has involved so much. I just got back from a cat convention. While I was there I presented a talk on the history of cats on the internet.

We started 1998 with the first use of emoticon cats in Japan, then we go through Long Cat, Nyan Cat, LOL Cat and Pusheen. And in the back row of this event, there were these women with gray hair and they all had they all had their flat Instagram cats.

Nyan Cat

At the end, I asked everyone who had participated in this sort of thing to send their URL and posted them on screen. Most people had 10-20k followers on Instagram, including these older women who you wouldn’t think of as someone who is very active on social media, but here they are… Coming to a convention to meet people their “cat crew”… with the flat cats. They are really owning their identity on social media. And this very heavy image focused community of cats. It was a weird time.

Zack: I am so jealous…

I understand because I am crazy dog owner. My fiance runs a Groot, my dog, Instagram blog. It’s as if it’s him talking and enjoying the world.

She has created a persona of him where he is writing the blog and his followers have been increasing by 10-15 each week. That is pretty good because it is just a back-burner project. One post a day kind of thing. It’s just funny to see how it is contributing to that dog community. Other dog blogs follow him… which is like surreal to me. People doing the same exact thing with their dogs. And I find that awesome.

Pusheen!

What I find interesting about what you just said, Amanda, is that there is a history to the cats on the internet. It seems you are trying to give credit to people who created these images. There are so many floating around without regard for ownership... People taking things and appropriating ideas.

Zack: And that’s my department. I am a trust and safety agent and a community representative in terms of trust and safety. Part of the job is moderating anything that infringes on copyright, DCMA, and that inlcudes GIFs. Technically there has been no legal precedence over how a sense of ownership goes over a GIF.

Because they are almost transformative…

Zack:They are transformative enough to be your own content, so we are actually going to honor people’s ownership. We have certain policies and procedures that can prove that you created the GIF first. We all have that metadata, that is not user-facing. People often come back with “that is from a movie, how can they have ownership over a GIF.” One, there is no legal precedence and two, it is transformative enough by law to be considered fair use and their property.

It’s like sampling in music.

Zack: Yeah… It’s a very interesting case. For one, most people do not understand copyright law… like just the general public… Which is a challenge in itself. We can’t educate users because that will put us in a gray area if they misinterpret what we say. We can only point them in the right direction. So often we will be like “now is a good time to read about copyright law, here’s a link.” We give them more of an informed direction.

Need a Nap

There’s a lot of interesting things going on with people who are creating their own content on Tumblr in how we define that sense of ownership and who owns what. There was a famous court case where (and we love to tell this story at our panels at Comic-Con) a guy was traveling overseas and a monkey took his camera. The monkey took a bunch of pictures with his camera. Eventually, he got his camera back and posted the photos online. A bunch of outlets took the photo and posted it. He felt it was copyright infringement, but a judge ruled that because he didn’t take the pictures, it wasn’t. The monkey took the pictures and the monkey owned the copyright. And that’s it. You have to be the one to create the visual aspect. And that’s an interesting aspect to how we distribute content. Especially when it comes to photos.

And then there are certain parameters when it comes to the more dark web stuff… like privacy infringement. California specifically has changed privacy laws in response to the internet. We are generally heavy-handed when addressing privacy because we don’t want to be in the position of potentially breaking any laws. And that isn’t just photos. It’s phone numbers and other information that would not be public.

I could chew your ear off on policy all day…

How does a privacy policy work with memes?

Amanda: It’s so hard. I have been doing meme work now since 2011. We have shifted from “Oh, these are random images floating around the internet”, like Nyan Cat and Long cat. All of the old cat memes… No one knows the names of those cats or who owns those cats. It’s very hard to track down the information because someone just put it online on Funny Junk or some other site. People think that it can’t be traced back to me, because no one should know who I am on the internet.

Then as Facebook rolled out and the internet became more prevalent in our daily lives, things shifted. That’s when people became like “Oh, I have ownership of my internet content.” And that shift into “I own this and this is my copyright, and you can’t steal it.” has started happening. And we saw that as YouTube rose and the appearances of “Grumpy Cat”. That’s when the owners were like “This is my cat, this is my content I am making about my cat.” They got this micro-fame where they were able to turn it into money. You saw this with YouTubers like Tyler Oakley, who was able to build a brand on his internet content.

This was about the time when Fuck Jerry started to become popular. Fuck Jerry started on Tumblr as a meme repost site and Instagram account that steals everything from everywhere, and isn’t concerned with copyright. "It’s out there and now it’s mine". He has built a whole empire and made tons of money. His empire is built on stealing.

Haters Gonna Hate

There was also copyright issues around the dress. The dress that broke the internet. The girl who posted the photo did not take the picture and did not own the photo.

Zack: I remember that day because I was called down and asked: “Do you see this?” And I thought I was going crazy. I saw “blue/black”.

Amanda: I saw both… my eyes kept flipping back and forth… I really thought I was dying.

And the trend now is private facebook groups where people are making and sharing content. Then if it gets out and becomes a really big thing, do you want to admit that you made this thing in a secret FB group? The copyright thing gets blurry. Some people want to say “I own this thing and I am going to shout to the ends of the earth” and some are like “hmmm… I guess I made that. I am just going to step away from it and let the internet have it.”

Zack: There really are those two polar opposites. Working directly with it, there are people who understand the copyright laws and procedures. You swear an oath when you file a DMCA claim so we (Tumblr) are not liable. It’s a dispute between the two parties. But doing that scares a lot of people and that’s legitimate. There are people who say “I made this content” but I am not comfortable swearing an oath. Or I don’t have any proof of where it came from. There’s nothing we can do and it’s at the offending parties digression to remove the content.

Brain Freeze

The trend that I’ve been seeing, and you will see this in a lot of GIFs, people have their specific kind of signature. You’ll have these translucent tags to their blog or a copyright watermark symbol.

That trend has become more and more apparent because creators want that sense of ownership. It’s really a part of meme and GIF culture. We ask “How did you create this or make it look that way?” so we can confirm it is transformative. And then they can add a signature to it.

When we speak with artists, such as comic artists at our Comic-Con panels, we tell them “That’s the biggest thing you should do.” To prevent people from reposting or taking credit for your content, just add your name so it can’t be easily removed from the images or cropped out. It’s evolved to the point where people feel they need to protect what they create. Which is fair.

Protecting your ideas is important but there’s great benefit to people getting their stuff out there as well.

Zack: Certainly. Exposure is nice. If you are a creator and you want your content to be seen, you should put up as much as you can. If it ever comes to protecting your work, you do have that right.

I hear people say, “I don’t use Tumblr because my content is always reposted.” My response is that there is a team working around the clock to protect your content. You don’t have to file any type of government papers, as long as you are 100% sure that it’s your content, it’s safe. If that is someone’s reservation, what’s stopping you?

Every company legally has to have a team to protect from infringement and misattribution. Regardless.

Find your reactionary GIF

Click a button to display reactionary GIFs.

As they appear, you can click on individual GIFs to toggle between animate and pause.

Add a reaction:

Submit

// Create array var topics = ["wut", "dramatic", "dramatic chihuahua", "omg", "shocked"]; // Functions function renderGIFButtons() { // Clear buttons before appending $("#displayGIFButtons").empty(); // Loop through topics array for (i=0; i < topics.length; i++) { console.log(topics[i]); // Create button var a = $("<button class=\"giphy_button\">"); // Add class of topic a.addClass("topics"); // Add data-attribute a.attr("data-name", topics[i]); // Add text to button a.text(topics[i]); // Append buttons to div displayGIFButtons $("#displayGIFButtons").append(a); } } // Add topic to array $("#submitGIFButton").on("click", function(){ // This line prevents the page from refreshing when a user hits "enter". event.preventDefault(); // Get input var newTopic = $("#addTopic").val().trim(); // Add to topics array topics.push(newTopic); // Clear input field $("#addTopic").val(""); // Reset buttons renderGIFButtons(); }); // Function to display Gifs on click function displayGifs() { // Get topic name from button var topic = $(this).attr("data-name"); // Build url to use in query to API var queryURL = "https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/search?q=" + topic + "&api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC&limit=10"; // Clear old Gifs $("#gifImages").empty(); // Ajax and API $.ajax({ url: queryURL, method: "GET" }).done(function(response) { console.log(response); // Create loop to create divs for the 10 gifs in the response array for (i=0;i<response.data.length;i++) { // Create div for gif var gifDiv = $("<div class=\"giffy\">"); // Create variable for rating var gifRating = response.data[i].rating; console.log(gifRating); gifRating = gifRating.toUpperCase(); // Create and populate p to hold rating var printRating = $("<p>").text("Rating: " + gifRating); // Append to gifDiv gifDiv.append(printRating); // Get image urls var imgURL = response.data[i].images.original.url; var imgURL_still = response.data[i].images.original_still.url; // Create img var imgGif = $("<img height=\"200px\"data-state=\"still\" class=\"gif\"/>"); imgGif.attr("src", imgURL_still); imgGif.attr("data-still", imgURL_still); imgGif.attr("data-animate", imgURL); //Append to gifDiv gifDiv.append(imgGif); // Append gifDiv to gifImages div on page $("#gifImages").append(gifDiv); } }); } // Create initial buttons on page renderGIFButtons(); // Adding click event listeners to all elements with a class topics because the buttons are created dynamically $(document).on("click", ".topics", displayGifs); // Toggle animation on gif $(document).on("click",".gif", function() { // Create variable to get image state var state = $(this).attr("data-state"); console.log(state); // Check and see if it is animating or not if (state == "still") { // Change to animating src and change data-state $(this).attr("src", $(this).attr("data-animate")); $(this).attr("data-state", "animate"); } else { // Change to still src and change data-state $(this).attr("src", $(this).attr("data-still")); $(this).attr("data-state", "still"); } })

References/Links

Bad Monday

Steyerl, Hito. “In Defense of the Poor Image,” in The Wretched of the Screen. Eflux.com. Eflux, n.d. Web.

Kenyatta Cheese. “How Visual Media Affect Culture and Identity Globally”. You Tube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhN2Be4SPoE

Tumbler’s Fandometrics

Okrent, Arika. “In the Land of Invented Languages: A Celebration of Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius”, Chapter 15, “Those Queer and Mysterious Chinese Characters”, pages 160-172. Spiegel﹠Grau Trade Paperbacks, 2010

Tumblr’s Meme Librarian Has the Best Job on the Internet. Washington Post.

How much is too much? Considering infringement

Further Exploration

Contents of Maggie Stiefvater’s Brain: Post on Piracy

Fandom | Funyuns | Onion Flavored Rings

Totino’s - Live Free. Couch Hard.

Gushers

FIAT USA: Archive

adamjk serious blog

drawing megan lynn

Check, Please!

Obama Transformative Piece

[oneweekoneband]

Ninety One, “Mooz” (мұз), from Qarangy Zharyq, 2017

(Warning: flashing lights around two minutes in; also, some violence. Here’s the audio-only video.)

But, like, it’s still just a band: they were never actually protecting anybody or setting anyone free. (from a post by @whitehotharlots​)

To make a long story short: about five years ago I fell in love with a pop group. Like spending-hours-on-Tumblr-learning-all-the-in-jokes love. Like imagination-run-wild love. Like as-opposed-to-grief, as-opposed-to-despair love. But once the initial euphoria-through-learning-through-euphoria phase had run its course, the love was a static thing, directionless. One of the great pleasures of love is doing things for the beloved; but what, exactly, was I supposed to do?

The company, and the performers themselves, said: buy our albums! Stream our songs! Help us win awards at music shows! Come to our concerts! And I did those things; but trying to think of them as expressions of love left me feeling inadequate and a little sordid. Other options were to leave messages and hearts on their livestreams, and I occasionally did that too, using Google Translate to turn “I hope you’re doing well” and “Thank you for your hard work” into Korean, but thousands of other fans had the same idea, and the resulting rush of love felt impersonal, statistical. They, the performers, had no way to know who we, the fans, were; and furthermore any attempts on our part to make them know would be so forced as to violate the very spirit of love that had prompted the attempt in the first place. Each of us was speaking singularly and truly, but the sameness of our language, and the volume of our messages, flattened us out.

What can I do? I kept asking. Which is another way of saying How much power do I have?

We (who have the ability to get online) have a strange relationship to power, in this day and age. Entire books have been written about how people with ostensibly enviable amounts of power might not feel secure enough to actually accomplish anything. (The late Benazir Bhutto apparently once said: “I’m in office, but I’m not in power.” The quote came up in a discussion of Aung San Suu Kyi’s responsibility for stopping the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.) Meanwhile those of us with less formal titles are nevertheless capable of possibly destroying people’s reputations with a single Tweet, or perpetuating unjust systems simply by growing up in them. It feels like we have a great deal of power, wanted or not, to do harm; and seemingly much less power to do good.

That becomes even more pronounced in pop fandom. We want to believe, so badly, that we have the power to do good things for our faves, or at least make them feel loved and valued. But our attempts at exercising our power frequently add up to very little, at best. We also want to believe, so badly, that we can do good with pop music, support the virtuous and punish the wicked; but that, too, carries the risk of being much ado about nothing, or degenerating into a series of sniping wars where everyone’s fave is problematic and no one has any self-respect left.

That pop group I fell in love with wasn’t Ninety One, by the way. When I started writing about Ninety One I said cheerfully to friends: “Oh, I’m not, like, emotionally involved here. These guys are fun and cute but this is just a fun intellectual activity, a side way of getting at some of these questions I’ve had. I’m not crying or anything, thank goodness.” Please remind me I said this next time I try to give you a stock tip.

In my defense, I said it before “Mooz” came out, which is to say before I realized Ninety One was thinking about power and doing good too.

***

I haven’t seen the movie yet. Reportedly NTK, a channel with which Ninety One has struck some sort of deal, is promising to put it online at some point (most likely with Russian, but not English, subtitles). I assume bootlegs are traveling around YouTube. A lot of the footage in the “Mooz” video was already featured in the two-minute trailer uploaded to Ninety One’s YouTube channel in early August.

It’s the story of the first couple years of Ninety One, but not a documentary; rather, it’s a docudrama, with scenes acted out by the guys themselves months after the fact, but everything based on What Actually Happened--90% true, I’ve seen Kazakhstani Eaglez say. I’m not sure how great an idea it was, mental-health-wise, to have the members re-enact confrontations with would-be rioters during the 2016 tour, let alone whatever happened to prompt AZ to put a gun to his head. But even if I’m right (and I’m speaking with my own understandings of what happened and how it got processed, which could very well be way off the mark), something can be emotionally costly to create and still be worth it.

Without knowing about the 2016 tour, “Mooz” is hard to understand, since it’s not a typical believe-in-yourself song. It’s subdued. Ace has the chorus, but he sure isn’t belting. Bala has “I have a dream,” but he prefaces his lines with a little chuckle, as if he’s somewhat amused by all the twists and turns this star-in-a-pop-group idea has taken him on. AZ’s rap is pure lament. Alem at one point just flat-out stops lip-syncing and simply stares into the camera, looking devastated and unsure.

There’s a sense of uncertainty in the wake of damage done. Ace keeps singing, Мүмкін күн шыққанға дейін, бірге күте тұрамыз? The official English translation is “Let’s wait together until the sun rises.” The Russian lyrics, similarly, drop the question: Может вместе подождем, пока солнце не взойдет. “Maybe together we’ll wait until the sun rises.” (Says Google Translate.) But in the original Ace is asking a question: can we wait together until the sun rises? Is that even possible? And AZ continues: the whole world, in fact, we are strangers to each other? The members’ collective sense of their own ability to proceed forward--to do good--has been called into question.

Moreover I think the uncertainty stems not just from the experience of having had their concerts shut down, though that’s the most extreme (and audience-pleasing) culprit. The trailer actually begins with black-and-white footage of masses of Eaglez screaming at concerts. In the interview this summer the members say, no no we’re glad that we’re not The Band That Spawned a Thousand Thinkpieces right now, we don’t want to be regarded as just controversial attention-getters, we want fame on our own terms. All according to plan, Bala says in the song; but “the plan” calls for greater fame, and greater fame is going to mean less and less power, in terms of their ability to control their own images.

Here I am thinking of a video I’ve seen but won’t link to, of Ninety One at some kind of industry dinner at the beginning of the year. Alem sees the camera first, as he’s about to go into the dining hall, and he waves, throws a V sign, seems happy to have the attention. But the camera continues inside, and when ZaQ and Bala catch sight of it they’re clearly uncomfortable; they’re not looking to be public figures performing for fans right at that moment.

Thinking, also, of Rana Dasgupta’s recent essay, “Notes on a Suicide”:

The problem was that, for the most part, it did not matter how widely broadcast your discontent was: no one cared. The great majority of celebrities – in this new world where even nobodies were celebrities – were lacking in that basic attribute of the celebrity, which was fame. They were half-creatures – unfamous celebrities, anonymous superstars, VIPs like the entire rest of the world – and unlike their fully formed counterparts, the world did not gasp when they expressed their thoughts and feelings. Everything was lost, in fact, in the infinite cacophony….

In the world of social media, where everyone becomes a celebrity, they do not inherit merely the life force of stardom – its beauty, achievement and sex. What is transmitted also to these faceless ranks of superstars is the inner knowledge of death. For, as all true celebrities discover, the media image feeds parasitically on human energy, starving them and removing them, slowly, from the realm of the living.

Even setting translation issues aside, the odds that Boss Yerbolat and Ninety One read Desgupta’s essay before filming the video for “Mooz” seem pretty low. But seeing the brief manipulation of ZaQ’s face into that of an old man’s, I wonder if they haven’t had similar thoughts about what they have to lose, in staking their accomplishments on the awareness of strangers.

***

And yet, and yet, and yet.

They keep yelling Eaglez! It’s practically a trademark: Сәлем, Eaglez! Part of that may be marketing. Part of it. Not all of it.

There are a lot of directions they could have taken with “Mooz,” and didn’t. They could have chosen to laugh off or minimize the disruptions, reassure fans that nothing can touch their commitment to Ninety One. They could have refused to address the uncertainty altogether. They could have done more easily sellable songs about love and relationships, as they did on Aiyptama. They could have put out something more upbeat and generic.

Instead: Неге бəрі мұз? The English translator on duty has Ace’s line as “Why is everyone so cold?” But мұз actually means ice. A better translation might be “Why is everyone frozen?” To continue the metaphor from “Su Asty,” and spell it out: even with gills, you can’t breathe in frozen water.

Ace says, can we wait together? AZ says, and why am I still hugging my knees? Alem says, I don’t know who is who, but my heart continues to believe. ZaQ says, Either their judgment will crush me, or I will pass by not noticing them. Bala says, I will not give up so fast. To me it adds up to, continuing on in the face of profound uncertainty. That they don’t know exactly how to love Eaglez back en masse but they’re going to keep trying. That they can’t be sure this will all work out to their benefit, but it’s still worth doing.

And then, for the first time in their discography, they switch to English:

When you feel alone You can breathe with the world Just keep our rhythm One love, one rhythm

And because now is not the moment for subtlety, Ace looks at the camera for the first time, and Bala makes a heart gesture record-setting in its sincerity.

It’s grandiose. Of course it is. It’s a grandiose idea to begin with, to say, This was my experience, and I think you had an experience like it, and here’s what I want to tell you, this helped me, I think it will help you too. It’s grandiose to think you can talk about the meaning of true happiness in a pop song. It’s grandiose to talk about love and one rhythm to millions of people you’ll never meet.

It is grandiose, in truth, to assume you deserve enough power to be able to do good.

***

There have been times, putting this week together, that I’ve wondered if it hasn’t been a gigantic waste of time, or worse. Quite a lot of time flew away while I happily wrote, and then I looked up and the doubts crowded in. Everything from Are you sure this is worth taking time away from your kids for? to It’s just a pop group, after all to You’re just flattering yourself into thinking your consumption choices are somehow “deep” or “ethical” to Who gave an ignorant American woman first dibs on writing about a Kazakhstani pop group anyway? to Even if you do somehow succeed in getting Ninety One more publicity, that’s not necessarily going to make them more comfortable or happier to All this time, and no one’s going to read it, and meanwhile you still haven’t washed the dishes.

You have to understand: I come from city planning. As a discipline we’re swamped with two things: people who enter with the fervent, heartmost desire to do good, and examples of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. And as a general rule of thumb, the bigger the intention, the less predictable and controllable the consequences.

I think Ninety One want to be famous with their work, the way most people who like to create original works (myself included) do. I think they want the power of visibility for themselves, their genre, and their country; more specifically to beat back the powerlessness that comes with invisibility. And I think they want to do good. “Mooz” feels like an acknowledgment that none of this is simple, that the power to do good is hard to get and harder to use; and a resulting combination of resolution and humility. The desire to reach out, still; to use their song to speak; but their promise is small. When you feel alone, not “you are not alone,” not a promise of connection they can’t deliver on; but, you can breathe with the world. That’s all. Just breathe. Such a small thing.

What was the superpower ZaQ and AZ boasted about in “Su Asty”? We have gills, remember? Simply breathing underwater. Breathing.

That’s it? Ace asks. That’s it, Bala says.

Why did I even start getting so obsessively into pop music and its stories in the first place? To feel less alone. And then to marvel at the idea that people on the other side of the world, speaking other languages, coming from experiences fully foreign to mine, were willing to offer enough of themselves to cameras that I could, in fact, feel less alone; even if there was absolutely no way of my being able to do half as much for them in return.

As best I know Ninety One hasn’t seen this. I don’t know how to show it to them--I don’t even know what would be the best platform for jumping up and down and yelling HEY GUYS LOOK WHAT I WROTE AND IT’S ALL ABOUT YOOOOUUUUUU, leaving aside any issues about queue-jumping in front of other Eaglez who put time and energy into their own presents. I don’t know how to tell them that I find them lovable and inspiring, or that thanks to them I’ve had a great deal of fun learning about Kazakhstan and Kazakhstani music. I don’t know how to say thank you--рақмет сізге, or maybe Спасибо--loud enough for them to hear it; and even if I did, there’s no good reason why I should be the one who gets heard and not some other fan.

But it’s still worth doing.

introductory post / all Ninety One posts

#ninety one #mooz #qarangy zharyq #91 movie

[straykatfish]

‘Podcast’ tour via collage.

The internal geography of the Grand Parade campus has changed since I was last there (1967-68) and so, inevitably, has the premise upon which art is made. At that time we were being psychedelic, free spirited, and often quite intensively introspective but to little purpose. Politics didn’t enter into our thinking.  But in this show, politics permeated everything that made its purpose clear; some of that personal, some social, and some encompassing global issues. Some gave us clues as to the raison d’etre of the work, the artist’s motivation or inspiration, their process and how it got there in the way that it did. But many didn’t; I’m a psychologist and that intrigues me. Communication feels central and while the art may be a communicatory channel in itself, if the message isn’t received by the viewer, or fails to spark something in the viewer, then I wonder if it can be said to have succeeded. I was there with a friend; we talked about finding ourselves looking at the last frame in the film, the last paragraph of the story, but with no idea of what led up to it.

The show covered three floors; the gallery area at ground level housing the Fine Art exhibits, a room behind this and part of the first floor was occupied by the Inclusive Arts students, and then on the second floor were the Digital Arts installations. In between, on the walls around a landing, were images from photography and fashion. They seemed displaced, temporarily put up in bed and breakfast rather than being allocated hotel rooms.

Fine Art

I think it’s an unavoidable fact that positioning a piece in elegant and purpose-built surroundings adds a kind of value and confers a dignity and gravitas it would find harder to accrue in less accommodating circumstances. Separating this out from the work itself is quite demanding – does this piece have an impact because of its inherent quality or simply because of where it is? Some pieces were certainly impactful: ‘The Tables are Turning’ for instance showed us paintings on the undersides of small tables that point to emerging restoration of political balance – what was beneath is finally coming to the top, a commentary on the people’s response to oppression. More bafflingly impactful – in terms of the space it took up and the voices played on loop – was a long row of cones wrapped in tights, each with a lipstick on top. This was designated a performance piece but as the artist was not there at the time of our visit, there was no dialogue to provide context. Two artists were on site and one of them came over to see what we had made of this piece. She tried to describe its origins and message but neither of us really understood. She herself was showing a very large abstract painting which occupied both physical and mental space in that its title did not give much clue as to its derivation. When I asked, the artist talked about being in the moment rather than having an end in mind.

The other artist on site was exhibiting a radiator piece which, when we found it, similarly gave away little as to its reason for being there. When we asked him though, he spoke fluently and eloquently about the how, why, and what of his exhibit and set it in a wholly understandable context. The radiator’s back story is one reflecting the horrors of war and represents a documented political assassination in Nazi Germany[1]. Knowing this immediately added the story to this final paragraph and I wondered why something of it did not accompany the piece since it made such a difference to our experience of it.

Some of the pieces were cheeky – ‘People Who Piss Me off’ for instance, an installation comprising a filing cabinet with ticker tape printed with the names, presumably, of those people, spilling out. I can sympathise, many of them piss me off too, and I had a quiet chuckle. Other pieces managed to distance themselves from us by being dull-coloured, abstract, and untitled which made us question ‘what it was for’ – what were we supposed to take away from this artist’s work? In the end, we took very little beyond wondering how long these pieces had taken to make and what had driven the artist to reach these solutions.

Another piece – small wedges of dark wood with collaged images on them attached to a large piece of wood and rising from the floor – was so well executed and had an aesthetic appeal with its colours and surfaces that there was an inherent impact. What it was saying was not so clear – were the two wedges on the floor lost or left behind, or were they are the first of a tumbling avalanche with the rest poised to follow? The label gave no clue and I would have liked a clue.

The overriding impression of this part of the exhibition was that, where context was provided – even just an idea of the developmental process – works became immediately more interesting and held value as a communication. We wondered, along with the artists themselves, what the people who visited made of the work when there was no one to ask; how the thousands of people who had not chosen to visit saw art when they were challenged to ‘experience it’ in a vacuum and whether this was why so many were not there. Are people afraid of looking foolish for not ‘getting it’, or do they see the whole business as an exclusive (and excluding) side show that isn’t for the likes of them?

Inclusive Arts

The next floor – fronted by a display in the area beneath the stairs that introduced the focus – was given over to the Inclusive Arts programme. This course is the only one in the UK offering artists the opportunity to express their work in collaboration with disadvantaged or ‘othered’ groups, and so works with people on the autistic spectrum, with women isolated by fear, with parents similarly isolated by the weight of caring for a disabled child, with voiceless people lacking connection with art and its positive effects. A sculpture constantly being remade illustrated the ways in which people, as I interpreted it, remake themselves in order to meet expectations; a closed hut with spy holes in it told us how much is hidden from us by so many; knots in fishermen’s rope was the entanglement many people experience in trying to escape or belong. The art on this floor was keen to talk and tell us about itself with postcards, printed sheets, labels and conversation. It wanted us to know and to understand.

  *************************************************************

Somewhere between this and the second floor was a small photography and fashion display. It felt like an afterthought, sitting there on the walls in a corridor between spaces.

        **************************************************************

Digital Arts

Finally, we found Digital Arts where not only did the artists want us to see and know but also participate and make the art, albeit temporarily. That we missed the literature was due not to their negligence but to the darkness of the rooms and our own inattention on entering. There was information on the doors; we slipped past it into the fascinating areas beyond and I had to chase people down later to find out who they were and the titles of their work.

Alberto Sande was unfortunately absent when we visited but very quickly came back with the thinking behind his stunning piece involving deep rhythms, and coloured images given a 3D effect by projecting them through a gauze curtain. A sofa gave us a front row seat and a keyboard – the musical sort – as a way to affect the visual display. Seeded by thinking around a number of ideas drawn from Alice in Wonderland, Deprez’s Drolatic Dreams of Pantaguel, and a Chinese essay on the Thirty Six Stratagems, this installation would have been a challenge to interpret right off the bat. The artist kindly sent me his abstract by email but I would have loved a conversation with him to explore the roads he took in making this piece. It was interactive and projected some deep dark sounds alongside the images and low frequency notes always speak to me of something profound.

Moshref’s Phoenix showed us the cyclical rise and fall of ideas and philosophies, emphasising the place of the phoenix as a positive influence. Using a range of equipment, this installation permitted participants to become the phoenix itself and change digital representations on a number of screens. Its particular focus though was resistance to the oppressive regimes that are systematically brutalising women, and we talked about the wings representing expansiveness; women taking up their space in the world by right and not by permission, and our world seeking collaboration as the antithesis to nationalistic insularity. As a visiting maker of the art in this context I could not help expressing my own views but as it was visually but not auditorily reactive, neither ‘Fuck Trump’ nor ‘and while we’re here, fuck Boris’ had any effect on the display.

Summary

Fine Art had a catalogue containing some but not all of the works, and works from a previous show which were not on display. It did not seem to see in its mission any reason to assist visitors in understanding the work but when we asked, those present gave eloquent and valuable responses. Fine Art occupies the best position in the show. Quite often I hear that art is something to appreciate without explanation, and this seemed to be the position taken here too. Sean Scully, in his recent documentary, appears not to be a subscriber to this view saying that there is an inherent arrogance in expecting people to do this, with the implied assumption that, if they fail, then they must be stupid [link to my blog post on art and meaning]. This goes back to the question I started to address with the two artists on site – that of their audience. Visitors were most likely self-selecting art aficionados and there is nothing wrong with that, but what of all those others who were not there, self-excluded because art is ‘not for them’ or they fear not understanding it? At the very least, this misses a marketing trick and one assumes these graduates are hoping to make a living from their work. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Fine Art occupies the main space and has the catalogue.

In contrast, Inclusive Art had all manner of explanatory leaflets, printouts on the walls, and postcards but no catalogue. Nor was their work in the first catalogue. These artists appeared very keen to talk about their motivations, the media they used, the collaborations with disadvantaged groups and individuals, and had produced work that spoke directly to those issues by involving the people affected in producing that work. I wondered later if any of them had been present at the show in the role of artist as they seemed not to have a presence when we visited.

Digital Art was a little harder to find and had only two exhibitors, but they made up for this with sheer enthusiasm and technical and artistic skill. Their ideas were expansive and the means of expression wide ranging. While one artist, Sande, was not present when we visited, his subsequent response to an email suggests he would have been as keen to involve us as participants in his interactive installation as was Moshref. The Digital Arts show was not just collaborative but also allowed us as visitors to influence the art itself.

[1] I lost the actual reference but a search using keywords Nazi Car Assassination brings up the heroic act of Jan Kubis who ran out in front of the open top car of high ranking SS officer Reinhardt Heydrich with the intention of shooting him. The gun jammed but he was able to throw a bomb which eventually killed Heydrich, probably saving hundreds if not thousands of lives. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18183099

Images from the day

        Slideshow

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Collage with pastels

University of Brighton MA Show 'Podcast' tour via collage. The internal geography of the Grand Parade campus has changed since I was last there (1967-68) and so, inevitably, has the premise upon which art is made.

#Brighton university #Digital Art #Fine Art #Inclusive Art #MA show

[luckylq63-blog]

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