#the closure for alain i mean

[smilingperformer]

Oh, I expect Paul to be Ash development and Cynthia buildup, I'm more curious on what his return means for HIM. Like, why isn't he in the PWC? Did he beat Brandon and find that "peaceful self" that he talked about? (Yeah, Gary isn't competitively battling anymore, but I don't think it means him and Ash can't rematch with no stakes. {Didn't see it happening with the PWC} Kukui's a researcher too and Alain's an assistant, and they're both considered some of the strongest trainers Ash ever faced)

Aaaah, got it. Thanks for clarification.

That is harder one. Probably to have closure? I would like it if he's doing Battle Frontier 🤔

And yeh I didn't mean that he can't battle. Just that it's not his priority.

#asks #anon

[wild-battlebond]

aftermath of the crisis arc (aka XY’s falling action) notes

137

i really like how team rocket tries to tell giovanni it was all them. they literally broadcasted it on live TV, everybody knows it was the gym leaders and etc

isn't mairin supposed to be a trainer on a journey. why does she spend all her time waiting on alain where was alain that he wasn't home anyways. did he get arrested for his involvement with team flare offscreen or something

the start, middle(ish), and end of the series all involve team rocket attacking sycamore's lab

138

it is cool that serena was able to take the initiative to put on a whole show like this

yeah if i were them I'd reuse the fanciest performance animation for this too

they didn't really need to provide resolution to the "can serena cook" thing

it's so messed up that this is the only battle serena has with ash wait did they not even finish the battle.. agh

"i want to make people smile!" appmon parallels….. 2!!!!

i don't really know how to word this in a way that doesn't sound mean to serena but i hope she struggles in her first contest. i hope she's able to learn how to show off her pokémon and such.

139 (farewell to frogs)

greninja's magical girl arc

ohh ok at least xerosic has a malamar. here's how my version of XYZ's story that involves the evil malamar can still win

this time it's clemont getting crucified "you'll be an enhanced human" that sort of thing really is at the core of team flare no matter who tries to run it, huh…

imagine if they had time to actually put essentia in here. instead they just have clemont

tbh the only time when bond phenomenon breaks my suspension of disbelief is in this episode where they can suddenly start making portals. that's just weird.

they don't do anything with it because it's the second to last episode but i have always found this concept really interesting. that all that negativity that lysandre weaponized left a lasting mark on the region (i have been trying to figure out how to put something like this in a magical girl story… hee hee)

literally so awesome that bonnie's going to be squishy's trainer one day

140

oh good delia finally showed up

i really am convinced giovanni is just humoring the three of them. you know he must have seen the actual broadcast

team rocket dropping the solrock and lunatone charms is still so iconic

"you're the kind of person i want to be!" and so the count for serena gender envy evidence hits the beautiful number "one".

and then ash and clemont get the actual closure because they get to have a battle

the flashbacks for everyone is cool and at least in the dub it's an instrumental medley of all the series's theme songs

#pokémon #pokéani #x&y #xy137 #xy138 #xy139 #xy140 #fiftytenpost #xy liveblog 23

[stuarthull2]

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[em-exceeds-change-zearu]

Just realized: you mentioned Lana being annoyed Ash didn't say he was related to a Lugia, just imagine their classmates' reaction when Ash also mentions Alain won the League. Ash is related to a League Champion from another region, who's ALSO a Legendary Pokemon?! / Alain: To be fair, we didn't know we were cousins until my dad barged in a couple of months ago/ Ash: Uncle still feels awkward at Thanksgiving now that Alain has our address / Alain: Is my eyeliner still on? / Ash: Needs a refill.

i can’t believe that post-alola they’re both regional champions that are half-legendary and also have scientist dads

true cousins for lyfe

#tbh alain never actally gets to see jericho face to face because the dude's a coward #ash actually doesn't speak to uncle jeri for a WHOLE LONG-ASS TIME because he's smad #its like he already saw what bert's neglect did to ravi-niisan and now it's happening again? with alain #why are legendaries so bad at raising humans they need to take a page out of that one zarude's book #anyways ash forces them to meet at least Once but they never acknowledge each other as father and son and never want to #professor sycamore is the only dad alain needs in his life it's fine #and jericho definitely don't need to catch shade from his wife and silver #maybe that's a filler episode in alola season. maybe #the closure for alain i mean #golden boy au #golden dad au #pokeani #pokemon #ask shenanigans

[boogaloomagoo]

Date: 2/24/2020

Setting: Trudeau household

Characters: Margot and August Trudeau

Notes: Margot and her father have a heart to heart; much is conveyed without actually being spoken.

"Dad... I just want you to know that I care about you-- No, no he already knows that, what's the point in saying it again?... Okay, um - Dad, it's been a while since we've talked about this... and I know you don't like bringing it up around this time of year, but... but..." The blonde's eyes slipped shut, tight with obvious frustration in her furrowed brow, and she flopped unceremoniously onto the worn-in couch nestled in their living room. "But I... have no idea what I'm doing," How? How was she supposed to bring this up casually? The conversation with Josephine had helped a bit, but for the most part Margot still felt entirely unprepared in how to address the issue as a whole. Twenty minutes of sinking into the couch had passed before her father finally returned home from his first shift at Alain's garage. "Magoo?" "In here, dad," She hollered from the living room, attempting to fix her features into something that resembled a welcoming, peaceful expression rather than the inner turmoil broiling within. When he entered and flopped down beside her, jostling the couch frame just a bit with his large stature, an arm immediately curled around her shoulders. "Hey, sweet pea," For a while, they talked about his day; Margot was off from her own job, which meant she could focus entirely on her father’s. So far, he liked what he was doing, seemed to get along with most of the staff, etc. Good. This was starting off good. Though after a few more exchanges, he wore a skeptical expression, as if sensing just what she was attempting to conceal the entire conversation, and he finally inquired. "So... What's goin' on in that head of yours?" Nothing. Everything? Did it ever stop going, around and around like a malfunctioning carousel that had lost any and all semblance of fun and merriment; the horses snarled as their nostrils flared in anger, painted eyes crimson fire that raged as their hooves stampeded ceaselessly. 'Round, 'round and 'round it goes, where it stops?... Her words began slow, even - paced from myriads of time running this exact conversation through her head. "I've just... been thinking about some stuff. A lot of stuff, actually, but-- the main one is about us. About you," She expected the crease between his brows, the way his lips quirked off to the side - such in the same manner her own did when contemplating what another person was saying or explaining. "Okay. What about us -- or me?" Take it slow and steady, she reminded herself. Ease into it but don't beat around the bush. Just be honest, upfront, but gentle. How did all of these methods somehow coincide to actually breach a subject cohesively? It felt as though her brain would implode from employing even one, let alone all. The blonde took a deep inhale through her nose, allowing the oxygen to flow in and held it one beat, two; exhale. "I know it's been hard. Settling in here. But, I hoped getting the job might help both of us... and I'm so glad you like it," She paused there to give something of a wilted smile in his face, and her fingers found purchase atop his knee, gently squeezing. "You're meeting new people, getting more comfortable. And I know that's hard for you, and me, but, we're doing okay. Like, genuinely okay... and I'd also like to try something else. To help us both start to feel like we can... actually find a home here, y'know?" The mild confusion in his expression would have served to heighten her anxiety, but there was a nod, a well-meaning tint to his eyes as he attempted to understand better. Well, no going back now, was there? "I'd like us to go to family therapy. For... for some closure," She had hesitated, due to her father's body tensing at the mention of the 'T' word. An unspoken agreement had been enacted between them years ago, that Margot shouldn't bring it up whatsoever because it wasn't necessary. He had no issues for whatever help she sought for herself, had even accompanied her on a few visits as a child with a guidance counselor. But whenever the subject shifted to focus on his own needs and status, it was hitting a re-enforced concrete wall. No budging. And if he resigned himself to being the immovable object, then, she would simply have to become the unstoppable force. "Margot..." The rejection seemed ready to roll off his tongue; but she wouldn't take it this time. Not without making her case clear. "Dad, I know how you feel about it. I do. And I respected that you wanted to deal with things your own way - I haven't brought this up in over six years, and in all that time, I still see you falling into the same routine you said you wouldn't," Meandering around the house, in a stupor of some sort - inhabiting the spaces they shared as a partial ghost, sometimes fully content to haunt the corridors and hallways. While all she could do was gently tug and nudge him around, hoping he might resurface from the depths of grey murk he seemed far too resigned to sink beneath on a daily basis. "Getting the job is an amazing start. But this isn't just about you, like I said -- it's for both of us," The blonde staved off a broken sigh, edging forward onto the couch and clasping both hands between her knees. Her heart never seemed to weigh heavier than it did when thinking about her - but it was unavoidable, and that was the point. They needed to think about it, right? That was the point to moving forward? "I try being positive. Every day, I would force myself to smile and face the day like I... I feel she would have wanted me to. But, lately... ever since we moved here, I-I haven't felt like I need to do that anymore," Didn't want to. Fingers rose to touch her forehead, automatically settling upon the divot between her brows. An ache almost always settled there whenever stress was involved, and now was no exception. "I've done it because I feel like I've had to. That if I didn't smile and act happy, that we'd both just fall into this abyss... this cycle of milling around and feeling sorry for ourselves. And I think that's because we just-- haven't talked about it. We run, and run, and for a while we're okay, but then we just start it all over again, and, I-I don't want to run anymore - not from anything," Her gaze, glazed over with unshod tears, settled on his worn features, lower lip trembling. "We deserve to live, dad. And I think that means settling, getting to know people, making new memories... letting ourselves properly grieve. Not forget, but..." Let go. She couldn't say it, though. He might react badly to that wording, and with the ache of tears swallowing up every other sense and reaction, she didn't know any other way to phrase it. Thank whatever deity that might have taken favor upon them that her father wasn't a thick man. Their very nature stemmed from being able to communicate multiple ways - talking was only one of them. When he removed his arm from around her, there was a sudden coldness that threatened to slide it's bony finger along her spine. But it was quickly replaced with the warmth of large, warped but tender palms encompassing her own. He had knelt down in front of her, gaze locked onto their clasped hands. "I never meant to... All these years, I thought I was doing the right thing. Keep us moving, keep us safe -- that was the priority," Margot felt herself grow weak, wanting to argue that he had done as good a job as possible, better than she could have ever accomplished herself. But he finally peered up at her through thick brows, and her weakness reflected in the tremor of his own lips. "I robbed you of so much, growing up. A normal childhood. Adulthood... and I've been making you pay the price for something that was never your fault," "Dad..." Her voice broke, trails of saline finally trickling down her cheeks, head swaying from side to side. "You never have to apologize for... for wanting to keep me safe. Please, don't ever feel like I'll resent you or hate you for it, I... I understand," Seeing his only child weep was enough to bring a moisture to his own gaze, hazel glistening as he nodded, stilted yet insistent. "I will, though. I'll always be sorry. And you're right - I never wanted to admit it before, it... always felt like admitting I was a failure. That that kind of help meant I had failed you, and your..." His voice cracked on the word he couldn't bring himself to say, one hand removed to pinch the bridge of his nose as large shoulders shook with a whimper. Margot had lowered herself to his level in an instant, arms wrapped around his torso and face buried into the crook of his neck. They had fallen apart so many times, in such a similar fashion; tears, an embrace, apologies for wrongs they hadn't truly committed and yet could never settle right within them. They were broken in every sense of the word, but in these moments, strange as it seemed, letting the sadness flow remained one of the few times Margot felt truly whole. Alive. His palm curved into the threads of her hair, gently cradling her head and petting the locks. An attempt to calm them both down as the wave of emotions ran it's course. When he spoke again, his voice warped by the strain born from sobbing, Margot felt her heart swell. "We'll go together. I can't... promise that it'll be easy for me. But I'll be damned if I won't try, okay?" She nodded, tear-stained cheeks smothered against his warm neck. "That's all I ask. I'll be with you every step of the way. I promise," His head bobbed a few times in succession, the determination seemingly surging between them, strengthening them both. Words were intriguing, useful things; but touch... the embrace of a loved one. It would always remain a language far preferred by the Trudeau's.

#para: self #para;

[blookmallow]

I FINALLY GOT SKYRIM MARRIED

i have a BEAUTIFUL WIFE

...who i went through a lot of shit for. this is. a lot of exposition, bear with me :’) im very invested in my character’s personal story here

so astrid had a very important special job for me and sent me to markarth to speak with the client directly

it turned out to be the apothecary’s assistant, who i was passingly familiar with already, so i imagine it was a bit of a surprise to both of us, but she got right to the point - a man broke her heart and ruined her life, used her to hurt the people close to her, abandoned her to go become a bandit, now she wants him dead

u can probably imagine where this is going,

this is the first time ive had a dark brotherhood job i was legitimately PSYCHED to carry out, you BET ill go fuck this guy up for you id do this for free

however, she also had... another request, one that wasn’t required, but something she really, really wanted

see she was very close with/practically another daughter to the shatter-shields in windhelm, the wealthy family who recently lost a daughter to the windhelm butcher

alain had manipulated her and used her to get to the shatter-shields, i dont remember if he stole from them or what happened there, but whatever it was, the shatter-shields blamed muiri for this and disowned her, throwing her out onto the streets with nothing

so she was used and had her heart broken by a man she loved, then was told it was Her Fault, and lost her home and her friends/the closest thing to family she had all at once, and was so hurt and desperate she turned to the dark brotherhood to get revenge on them all

she wanted me to kill nilsine too, the shatter-shields’ other daughter

SO we have this really complicated situation where, on the one hand, she wants alain dead for using her and ruining her life and hurting her friends, and like, he’s a bandit leader now, so he’s someone i probably would’ve easily killed off anyway, by “this is a video game not real life”/skyrim standards that’s a no brainer, i have no moral conflict with that and can’t wait to slash this guy’s head off

but on the other hand she’s so broken she wants a woman who used to be her best friend/practically her sister dead too. i dont know what nilsine’s role in this was specifically but these people were essentially her family, and they victim blamed her when she needed their support the most and threw her out with nothing and nowhere to go

and i had already done quests with the shatter-shields before this, so like, i know them too, and they’re sort of friends to me, i helped solve the mystery of their other daughter’s murder and now I’m being asked to kill the other. not to mention everyone’s going to think the butcher’s back/there’s a copycat killer/something and it’s gonna cause a panic again (even if the game doesn’t acknowledge that/directly show that happening, y’know) 

killing someone’s daughter when they’re still in mourning over the first, when they’ve come to trust you, when you’re the one who helped them gain closure over that first death already, is just. a stone cold thing to do

especially looking at it from my character’s perspective, she’d be especially torn on this because she’s a mother herself, but her children are girls she rescued from the streets - lucia was thrown away by her family, sofie was a victim of tragedy and was let down by the people in authority who should have protected and helped her

so medea would relate to tova as a mother and a friend but also relate powerfully with muiri as a victim in this

ultimately i don’t think there’s any real justification to kill nilsine here, i dont think you can really morally defend that, but. i was so drawn to muiri and wanted so badly to give her a shot at a better life and help her heal from all this, and knew she would become a marriage option if i did it bc id seen her name on the marriage options list before, her story fits in so well with medea’s, and like, i dont imagine im gonna have a lot of options for wives who would Know about my connection to the dark brotherhood/the things ive done and be okay with it, so if i went with her, there wouldn’t be a “keeping this horrible secret from my wife” aspect to deal with even though the game probably doesn’t acknowledge it if you do (i mean im still. keeping it from my kids, but. y’know. when they’re older)

and “talk this out with her and help her see how badly her mind’s been warped by the pain she’s been through” isn’t an option given to you, so

in the end i went through with it. killing alain was easy, just like any other bandit camp raid, but to get at nilsine without being caught, i had to sneak into their house when the family was asleep

which i expected would involve a lot of careful sneaking and laborious lock picking

until i realized i could just walk right in

because the door was already unlocked for me. because they consider me a friend and allow me into their home

and that somehow made it so much worse

i killed nilsine with an arrow, nobody heard a thing, and i ran for it before anyone saw me in there or realized what had happened

muiri gave me a special ring as a “symbol of her affection” for doing this, which i think is about the biggest sign i coulda hoped for lmao

i held off on considering marriage for the time though and finally decided i had to go back to windhelm to see if there was anything i could do to make amends to the shatter-shields even though they shouldn’t know it was me/make sure i didnt get seen by a guard without realizing it or something (though it wouldn’t probably matter anyway, guards saw me leave the orphanage immediately after grelod’s death and shrugged that off, so,)

my name’s still clear in windhelm, but...

tova committed suicide after she discovered what happened

she couldn’t cope with losing another daughter

so now the father is the only one left, coping with. the death of his entire family occurring within like a couple months

i didnt see what happened here i came back later so i dont know if this is something you can possibly stop or if its possible to witness the moment they find nilsine or tova’s suicide or if this just Inevitably happens whenever you come back

i feel terrible about this but theres. not really any going back now,

so. i went back to muiri

i dont know if this is what everyone says or not but her response was just. “i mean, yeah, why wouldn’t I be” i love her lmao

i wouldnt choose to get married in riften if it was up to me but thats how it be in skyrim i guess

my babies are here!!!! what!!!!

and a. random guy i dont recognize lmao :’)

just wandered in to see what was going on i guess. or maybe we’re friends and i forgot who he is entirely which would be kind of sad :’ )

maybe it was my long lost father... slipped out before i ever had the chance to realize it

however i actually. ended up doing this scene twice because, fun fact, there’s a glitch where if you don’t manage to catch up to your spouse to talk about where to live before they leave the chapel they can just fucking Disappear sometimes, :’  ) i couldnt find her anywhere after the wedding and finally looked it up and apparently she just fell into the void so i had to reload and run it again. we’re double married now

planned better this time and dressed better but anyway that elf guy didn’t appear this time but some other guy did, who i ALSO cant quite identify, he looks. maybe. kind of like lucas valerian? who is actually a friend to me and was one of the first friends i made so it’d decently make sense for him to come to my wedding, but weird if he came and camilla didn’t, and im not even sure thats him anyway, so i dont know what happened here all around

muiri’s mentor lady came too though which was sweet

im spinning this kind of as... like, medea was so drawn to her and felt so strongly for her she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint her and this was an eye opener for them both as a kind of. “look what kind of people we’ve let ourselves become” and their marriage as a new beginning, love coming from a place of desperation and darkness, starting over and hoping that the divines will forgive what they’ve done

medea’s not leaving the brotherhood but i mmmmmight try to be a little more careful about who i kill

i had intended for her to come live with me in markarth, she’s in on my. assassin life so having kind of this Other Side to my life made sense but... she met my kids at the wedding i guess and she wanted to live with them... which is really cute,

it feels really weird having this huge fancy house all to myself (and uh. argis, i guess) in markarth and having my wife and kids (and lydia, and a fox) all squished into the honestly kinda run-down whiterun house though i think im gonna work on getting the solitude house for them bc its. safer there than in markarth i feel like and ive heard thats like the fanciest/biggest house

there she is..... my Wife

she also sells things now but i feel bad accepting it when she gives me “my share” of the profit like.... babe thats your money i have so much adventuring money and i didnt do shit to help earn that,

i buy things from her sometimes but i refuse to sell her stuff bc i dont want to take any more of her money :’ )

even tho it. doesnt really matter, its video games, i know, but

found lucia, the fox, and muiri all on the bed at once

lydia was just standing like this for a rly long time after muiri moved in i guess she was suspicious but chilled out eventually :’)

gettin along finally

i just realized if we move to solitude lydia’s gonna get left behind though :(

i mean ill still come visit her but. upsetting

my one issue is that muiri still keeps saying “thank you for solving my-....problem.” every time i come in speaking distance of her which is. weird given that its the same line she had before we were married, like, she apparently doesnt get any new things to say, and is Really repetitive (imagine living in a small space with your partner and they say the same sentence with the same intonation every time you step within like 2 feet of them. how long til that gets old, do you think, ) and also its just like??? girl let that go we gotta stop dwelling on this or the kids are gonna start questioning what apparently massively important problem mommy solved

idk why she was laying on the floor but anyway my kids have started calling her “mama” now too and im not crying or anything

#lucy plays skyrim #this actually happened. a while ago but i forgot this post in my drafts bc i didnt want to deal with proofreading it lmao #Nobody Cares Except Me but my skyrim character's life is important business ok #i think im gonna marry sadri on my khajiit file eventually. he was like. my second choice/'If I Had To Pick A Dude' #and that way my dad will stop asking if my character's married anyone yet lmao i can be like o yea i married sadri #little does he know my main file is a woman with a wife and my male character's gonna have a husband. technically im not lying #hoping he wont ask to see how my house is coming along or anything lmao

[the-chomsky-hash]

Jean-François: What is your critique of humanism? [cont'd] Mr. Foucault [cont'd]: At the heart of humanism, the theory of the subject (with the double meaning of the word). That is why the West so relentlessly rejects anything that can blow this lock. And this lock can be attacked in two ways. Either by a "désassujettissement" of the will of the power (that is to say by the political struggle taken like class struggle), or by a company of destruction of the subject like pseudo-sovereign (that is to say by cultural attack: - suppression of taboos - suppression of sexual limitations - [rejection of being] divided up by sexuality - practice of community existence - disinhibition of drug use [In short,] breaking of all the prohibitions and closures by which the normative individuality is reconstituted and renewed). I think of all the experiences that our civilization has rejected or admitted only in the element of literature.

Michel Foucault, "Beyond good and evil" (interview with high school students Alain, Frédéric, Jean-François, Jean-Pierre, Philippe, Serge, collected by M.-A. Burnier and P. Graine), 1971

#foucault #philosophy

[22degreehalo]

Honestly, I’m continually surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying JD’s routes, since personality-wise they really aren’t my type at all. But this latest season in particular has been really enjoyable! (Even if I think the most recent cliffhanger was pretty rushed.)

The thing is, for me, I really am coming into these series for the romance and character stuff, not the action. Which is mostly fine, apart from a few routes that are just too plot-focused for my tastes. (On the other hand, very character-focused routes, like Irving’s s1, tend to be my absolute fave.) And it’s kind of balanced in the long run - the older 16-episode seasons just feel too stretched out for me now, but on the other hand I did like actually getting closure at the end of a season, rather than just constant tense cliffhangers.

And that’s why JD’s route has been so enjoyable. We just got, what, five straight episodes where nothing super bad happened? Where we just got to see the MC and JD (and the sister) hanging out and enjoying each other’s company! it’s so good!!!

By comparison, Nova is one of my absolute favourite characters... but I’m finding her route slow going, because it’s just so UNHAPPY all the time. At every single moment the characters feel like they’re directly threatened, wins only ekeing out a small temporary advantage over their previous position without fundamentally changing the fact that they seem pretty well fucked. I’m just on seasnon 3 and we’ve already gotten to the point where the characters are saying ‘this latest fight was harder than any before’ but it means nothing because they’ve ALL felt so impossible. Admittedly, part of this is just my issue with dystopian sci-fi in general (it just makes me too sad :( ) but man, I really wish the characters could just... feel safe for a couple of episodes? And I’m sure as hel not looking forward to season 4, having heard it’s gonna be the break-up season :/

ANYWAY JD’s route is really good and I’m really enjoying it!!

(As an aside I’m also really enjoying Helena’s s2, which is giving me whiplash because I was looking forward to her sooo much more than Alain, but then ended up enjoying Alain’s s1 much more, which was disappointing, but unexpectedly I’ve liked Helena’s s2 much better than her s1, and now I’m not sure what to think???)

#lovestruck

[legaltools-blog1]

Qu'est-ce qu'une start-up nation ?

‘Start-up nation’: a symptom, but of what?

Under pressure, young entrepreneurs would tend to forget to take into account the effects of their ambitions on their surroundings. Just dance/Shutterstock Michel Villette, Agro ParisTech – Université Paris-Saclay Today, becoming a “start-up nation” is a public policy objective in virtually every country in the world, be it Morocco, Bangladesh, Mexico or Peru. They are all rushing to follow the nations that have led the way – the United States, China, South Korea, Israel, Canada. France got off to a laborious start in the early 2000s, but has recently reactivated this goal. On October 10, 2018, President Emmanuel Macron addressed an audience of digital entrepreneurs at Station F, which calls itself the “biggest start-up campus in the world”, and announced an ambitious roadmap to assist and promote entrepreneurs in France. Everywhere, institutional pressure to transform young people into entrepreneurs is becoming an obsession. It’s a symptom, but of what? Can it not be seen as a sign of panic among politicians contemplating the shortage of prospects to offer young people?

A cascade of service providers

Let’s try to interpret this strange new command: “Become entrepreneurs!” It seems to suggest that established institutions only open up two avenues for the younger generation: opt for indigence with some degree of welfare assistance (e.g. a basic living stipend) or take a gamble. If so, then encouragement to create start-ups may be seen as the public face of a very discreet strategy on the part of large state and capitalistic organisations intent on sweeping this social issue under the carpet. To an increasing extent, these same organisations are subcontracting, outsourcing, automating, robotising and digitising to reduce the cost of labour as a percentage of total operating expenditure. They look for “talent”, i.e. a small minority of high-value added employees, while systematically avoiding the employment of workers deemed interchangeable, leaving them to the hard law of the market and progressively transforming them into service providers; into the providers of other providers; into the providers of providers of providers; and so forth.

A new wave of utopias

What’s going to happen to university graduates? Whether they major in physical education, the humanities, communication and journalism, marketing or human resources, they all dream of finding jobs that will bring them self-fulfilment and even enjoyment. In France, they also expect five weeks of annual paid vacation and time off in lieu of overtime pay under the “RTT” scheme. In the 1970s, young university-goers saw themselves as radical activists, reading Trotsky, Lenin or Mao in preparation for the revolution to come. To a small degree, that dream has persisted in variant forms such as eco-activism, alter-globalisation or feminism. However, it is now part of a new wave of utopias that amalgamates digitisation, virtual reality, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, start-ups, easy money, the get-rich-quick ethic and the cult of performance. The problem is that, in today’s society, young people arrive on a job market that is not prepared to accommodate them. Leaving them to themselves, it calls them “entrepreneurs”. This magic word, with its connotations of freedom and hope, actually shifts responsibility for any eventual disappointments or failures onto them and them alone. Failure will then be a token of their inadequacy and the success of the few will be taken as proof that the many could have done the same, as Alain Ehernberg rightly pointed out in his book Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age.

Even brilliant successes are problematic

In a previous article, I raised the issue of the rate at which start-up founders meet with failure. I also stressed how little we know about the collateral damage to their lives and those of their families as well as, more generally, the social and financial cost of aggregate business closures. It should also be noted that even the most brilliant successes are problematic. Inevitably, outsized ambitions to achieve impressive growth built from nothing, or virtually nothing, will have moral consequences on “les entrepreneurs et les entrepris”, a phrase coined by philosopher Héléne Verin, entrepris being a neologism for those caught up in the toils of entrepreneurship. I encourage you to read an article on this subject by Diana Filippova, formerly the start-up ecosystem lead at Microsoft France, in which she expresses her indignation at the Machiavellian behaviour of some of the start-up founders that have crossed her path. In particular, she notes that young entrepreneurs, obsessed with growth targets and under pressure to deliver results, quickly become sharks. Some remain oblivious to the effects of their ambitions on those involved in or affected by their venture. Many careers starting out with the best of intentions end up marked by serial bankruptcies, business registrations and cynicism.

Irresponsible opportunism

Start-ups like Cambridge Analytica or Theranos have displayed an extreme form of irresponsible opportunism. Was Mark Zuckerberg really so busy focusing on his own start-up’s mega-success that he didn’t realize what he was doing prior to testifying before committees at the US Senate or the European Parliament committee hearing? Have Facebook users finally gotten the picture? Have they finally understood that Facebook, the platform enabling them to “stay connected with family and friends”, is also dirty, selling their personal data on the sly? One lesson to be learned from the history of capitalism is that the accumulation of massive wealth in a very short lapse of time almost always involves predatory activities. To cite Aristotle’s terminology, this is chrematistikos (the art of acquiring wealth), not oikonomia (the art of running a household). The investment funds that back start-ups exert pressure on them to accumulate as much wealth as possible as quickly as possible. And scenarios like this, in which outsized ambitions run rampant, are precisely those in which predation becomes the most probable factor of success.

Under pressure to succeed

Some successful start-ups, GAFAs and unicorns achieve growth by crushing everything that stands in their way. But what about the entrepreneurs whose business, mismatched with the market, fails to get off the ground? This fragilised population is the one likely to suffer the most from the pernicious effects of propaganda in favour of entrepreneurship.

Robert K. Merton. Wikipedia As Robert K. Merton pointed out in his book Social Theory and Social Structure (1968), “In societies such as our own, then, the great cultural emphasis on pecuniary success for all and a social structure which unduly limits practical recourse to approved means for many set up a tension toward innovative practices which depart from institutional norms”. He also noted that: “Several researches have shown that specialised areas of vice and crime constitute a "normal” response to a situation where the cultural emphasis upon pecuniary success has been absorbed, but where there is little access to conventional and legitimate means for becoming successful.“ If the strongest survive, it’s often because they commit fouls on other players in the game, feel that "anything goes” in order to win and think that, on this playing field, the end justifies the means. So, what are we looking at? Innovation or criminal deviance? Impressive growth or future disasters? New technologies that liberate or enslave? Social entrepreneurship or a well-planned, right-minded scam? Given its current modus operandi, entrepreneurship promises a fortune for the few, while the many slip and fall by the wayside. The moral climate of this “accident-prone” business environment can only be characterised as sinister. This article was translated from the French original by Université Paris Saclay.

Michel Villette, Professeur de Sociologie, Chercheur au Centre Maurice Halbwachs ENS/EHESS/CNRS
, professeur de sociologie, Agro ParisTech – Université Paris-Saclay Cet article est republié à partir de The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original.   Read the full article

#GAFA #start-up

[megatraven]

who’s your favourite LI from each series you’ve read? :o and why?

*claps hands together* ALRIGHT!!!! (warning: as i typed i grew more and more long-winded and i dont apologize for it but u should kno)

alright obviously i have to start off with Astoria, of which Alex is my favorite LI! I'm not gonna go into why because *gestures to entire blog* and i've made multiple posts about it

from Immortal Heart Society, it's definitely Emilio thus far. admittedly i havent tried reading the other two, but I like emilio a lot! he's really grumpy and weary it seems, but i find the grumpiness charming and the weariness feels like it's there to be driven away by mmc's fresh approach and excitability. he's fun so far!

from My Siren Crush, I gotta say it's Maxime so far!! he and Arianna only have 6 episodes each so it's hard to say, but i LOVE his personality and how sweet he is. I really like that he's shy and that he does a lot of different kinds of art, and how gentlemanly he is!

from Ever After Academy, it's definitely Arin!! Sure they've only got one season so far, but they were my favorite character almost right off the bat, before we even knew they'd be getting a route! I love how much they care about the people around them and ho they do their best to do the right thing, how they take on so many responsibilities and are willing to do so again and again, if that's what it takes to get a happy ending for everyone. they're so funny, too, and i just really am a slut for the dynamic they have with fmc, the HISTORY....... incredible

from Tales of the Wild, it's Bram!!!!!!!! my sweet bear boy, he's so kind and gentle and strong and Stubborn af..... i really really love bears so i knew i was a goner the instant we were able to vote for him to be a new LI. his route is really interesting so far, too, what with MC being a dinae whose animal form was stolen! he cares so much about her and just wants to keep her safe, to the point he makes a Very Important Oath to her... like......... he cares her....... its so sweet..

from Reigning Passions it's gotta be Xenia!!! :D i admit i have a Slight obsession with spider-people, and the moment I saw her i knew that I was gonna love her to death. when she got a route i was so overjoyed! she's just. so genuine in everything that she does, she does her best to truly do what's right and what's good for the kingdom, and for mc. she's incredibly smart and resourceful, her magic is SO COOL, and she's just really really gorgeous. i like her dry sense of humor and her blushing sprite...... i love that she slowly gives her trust to mc, and confides to her about personal matters such as her late husband, and how she clearly still loves him even whilst loving mc. she feels like such a unique character, i really just adore her <3

from Sin With Me, i've gotta say my favorite atm is Onyx! I love all the routes, but DAMN onyx's really went all out with making her a fucking DRAGON?!??!?!?!? queen shit. she was also a really unique route in that she dealt with a lot of trauma from past abuse and had to learn to open up about it and accept that what happened t her wasn't right, and that she wasn't a failure for it. it had such a strong found family feeling, even compared to the other routes. everyone just wanted her to be happy. they accepted mc into their ranks quickly because she made onyx happy, and that's all the troupe wanted. and she is so pretty and funny..... she's so CUTE...... and i think it's one f the few cases where the LI is shorter than the MC?? idk she's just. so badass, and i loved her route to pieces!!!

from Sweet Enchantments my favorite is Lucien! (with a shoutout to emeril for close second)! the character growth he undergoes in his route is just ASTOUNDING, it's written and paced so well, i can't help but love it and him!!! also one of my favorite colors is turquise and thats His Color(tm) so im a hoe for that. i just. really my big thing with him is that he grows and flourishes into such an incredible character, so sweet and humble. he's also a very very funny LI (imo), and i love seeing him interact with all the other sweets characters! his cgs are the most gorgeous things...... there's a scene where he takes mc into the human world, to a cafe so she can call her parents, and it's so sweet. there's another where he takes her out and plays soccer with her. he just cares so much about her and her wellbeing, and even when he gets afraid that she'll leave him (when she's feeling homesick especially), he talks it out with her and learns to move past those feelings. he promises himself to her before he's even out of Sweets, and i just.......... it's so romantic and precious ;O; <3

from Havenfall it's always gonna be Mackenzie!!!!!! she was my VERY FIRST lovestruck route so she is always going to have a very special place in my heart. plus i mean. LOOK AT HER. her cute face and her CUTE WOLF EARS <333 she's so cool and nerdy!!! she's so STRONG!!! her protective streak is so charming and endearing..... the way that she forgives annabelle and damien and accepts them into her little supernatural family is really precious <3 she's so strong and that strength comes not only from her, but from her bonds with everyone else, and it's...... magical. it really stole my heart and sold me on lovestruck!!

from Love & Legends my favorite (so far) is Alain! I've only read three full routes so far, but Alain is incredible despite the shortness of his route. afaik it's the only route where the mc actually has magic (which i like), and they're ACTUALLY childhood friends to lovers in that mc is a reincarnation across time and space of his childhood friend. he's so cool and sweet, he would do absolutely anything for her because he loves her so so much. which is definitely one of his faults and what led him to being one of the Witch Queen's generals, but when mc came around......... you could tell he was so broken hearted by everything, but that he couldn't bear to not love her, even when it made him bad. and you can see that love again, when mc is selfish, and he leaves her out of anger in chicago. he keeps an eye on her despite his anger and his hurt, because his love is that strong. at some point, this one god speaks and says that alain's route is the only one of his lifetimes that doesn't end in tragedy, where he gets to be happy. i lvoe that trope so much even though it hurts so much. in the other two routes i've finished, he can't leave the witch queen's side, because she's that friend he knew, who he's loved for so long. in his own route, he's only able to leave the witch queen because he finds mc- a glance into what the witch queen could have been. who she should have been. someone kind and strong, who would love him, too. i dunno. his route is just really amazing and so is he :)

in Starship Promise......... it's a hard choice, but i have to say Nav ;O;; whenever i think of nav i think of that one fucking scene........ the one that broke my heart and made me cry for like Days. Stop him. Stop him. Stop him. gods, that was an incredible scene, i don't think i'll ever get over how powerful it was. not to mention... SALAD BOY!!!!! nav is Also a very funny character. he's a secret sadboy who tries to hide it with his charm and good looks, which, A for effort bud. he ends up being unable to leave mc behind, because- even though it scares him- he's fallen for her. his story is really incredible, he's an amazing character and it was wonderful to see him get the justice he deserved.

for Villainous Nights, i'll have to say my favorite LI is Lorelei! :D i'd say renzei and juliette are super close seconds tho. but Lorelei!!!!!!!!! I think she was one of the first routes I read following mackenzie, and she was definitely the first I read from villainous nights! i loved how strong and silent she was, and how much she loves coffee, and how she can make the earth quake. i always loved how hard she tries, how much effort she puts into being in control of herself, how much she does to try making things right. she did bad things in the past, blinded by optimus' promise to do good. and when she realized it, she couldn't stay with them. she turned her back on them and did her damned best to make up for all the hurt she caused. she loves the earth and its people and its nature, and she wants to keep it all safe. she had a broken heart, but with mc by her side, she's finally able to heal and find closure that she couldn't get before, on her own. not to say every LI isn't unique, but lorelei's is another route that just really stood out from the others. her panic attacks, the way she goes mute when she's overwhelmed, how the earth trembles when she gets angry or afraid and how she tries to push her emotions down to stop it........ i havent any of that- especially her muteness- in any other LI in the app. (not that ive read every story yet). lorelei is really incredible and i love her lots my butch wife ;O;

for Queen of Thieves, it's DEFINITELY Nikolai! first and foremost he's demi!!!!!!!! which i was so excited to find out about!!!!!!!!!! that made me instantly love him, and i think that ended up being the reason why i finally started reading QOT at all. i'll take all the a-spec rep i can get, thanks. aside from that, his route is just..... incredibly well-written. everything about it feels like it has this quiet intensity, which matches him perfectly. his self-sacrificing bullshit..... his truly tragic backstory........ how he came to make the poppy........ ho much he loves his little family, how much he loves mc, how much he loves ELIZABETH......... there's nothing abut nikolai that i dont love. he's so smart, but so fucking stupid sometimes, it's the best. he's the best. that first night, in his last season i believe, when he didn't have a nightmare for the very first time ever........... i don't know if i have ever been so happy for a fictional character before. i was so overjoyed for him. he's an incredible character and so, so interesting and multi-faceted, i can't imagine anyone else taking place for my #1 qot character :^)

and last but not least.... Gangsters in Love! My favorite here...... changes a lot, i'm not even gonna lie. it's ALWAYS constantly changing between chance, rory, and ash. like. i just can't pick one. so i wont go into as much detail here as the other paragraphs, but chance is just so FUNNY and dumb like yeah he's a badass ganglord wh orides a motorcycle but also he wears a shirt with a stupid little frog on it i LOVE him. i love how much he loves his gang, how much he loves mc. and ash... who WOULDNT love ash? he's such a sweetie and his smiling sprite makes my heart stumble and he's a dog person???? dream man. he's so silly and cute, he does his best to protect the gang and find justice for his sister, it's so admirable ;o;; and RORY!!!! rory is so badass and cool, she's wicked smart and kinda reckless but in the most charming way. i always really appreciated that her route touched on her alcoholism and showed her growing past it. i loved her character growth in general, and i ESPECIALLY loved how she acted towards stella and how she grew to love her.

that's..... that's it, i think!!!! :0c thanks so much for asking!!!!

#meg speaks #lovestruck voltage #lovestruck

[aquaponicsfamilystore-blog]

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revenue for the area people. It is also low waste and can be utilized in droughts and locations with restricted meals provides or poor soil quality. Additionally, i discovered the onerous means that you simply need an air stone for the fish, i assumed the recirculated water through supply line bypass could be sufficient...poor fish! Balancing the plant-to-fish ratio in your system is the most important problem; it's important that you've the correct quantity of vegetation Aquaponic Fish Supplies to filter the waste on your fish, as well as sufficient fish to provide satisfactory vitamins to your crops. Aquaponics is a method of delivering a number of crops with minimum enter, by way of a closed-loop method of farming,” mentioned charlie worth, founding father of aquaponics uk, the nonprofit group that runs the farm. He added that with an aquaponics system, it is potential to develop produce two to a few instances more densely than an everyday backyard, while using a small fraction of the amount of water.

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[topmixtrends]

Two or three days like the beginning of love […] To go further would be to enter the realm of jealousy, suffering and anxiety.

— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

¤

AS JOANNA WALSH’S Break.up opens, the author, who is the meta-narrative’s protagonist, is well into a period of mourning a love that never quite happened. The premise of the “novel in essays” is simple: Joanna and an unnamed, emotionally unavailable man met and, while living in different cities, carried on an intense online romance. They saw each other only a few times In Real Life before he pulled away and she began to obsess over what went wrong. As she’s unraveling the affair, Joanna plans a trip across Europe with the hope that the liminal state of travel will offer room for meditation and recovery.

That isn’t to minimize the relationship. Often, those affairs are the trickiest: the ones that strand us, unable to name what that was, but ultimately leave us changed people. On her multi-city pilgrimage, Walsh is prepared to explore every angle of the romantic action and eventual fallout. And she does so skillfully, weaving the concrete details of her travels and life into an in-depth study of love and connection in the 21st century. Break.up works as well as it does in part because Walsh provides room for the reader to examine these topics alongside her, in turn accomplishing what the best essays do: stir up more questions than answers.

So much of Walsh’s writing is caught up in the emotion of travel, how we deal with back there while we’re temporarily here, and a specialty of hers is exploring grief, or the onset of grief, while on the move. In her 2015 book Hotel, part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, Walsh flees her ending marriage by taking a job reviewing hotels for a new travel website. Though she isn’t paid for the pieces, her stays are free, and the time away from everyday life allows Walsh to begin to process the confusion and pain she’s left with following the relationship’s dissolution. Vertigo, published by Dorothy in 2015, reveals a writer grappling with the complexities of marriage, frequently during travel, as she attempts to decide what kind of woman she wants to be while watching a daughter outgrow her childhood talismans and a husband turn into a stranger.

But it’s in Break.up that Walsh fully realizes this aspect of her art. Joanna knowingly throws herself into the pace of travel to be at once busy and quiet, as travel often is. Sketches of scenes play out in her mind. “I wasted my time with you,” her fading lover says. “I didn’t,” Joanna responds. These vignettes often bubble up as Joanna is doing something else (crossing every bridge in Budapest only once, for example), and they cast a foggy specter. Were these words spoken in actual conversation or made later as notes, marred remembrances of a promising involvement turned sour?

How or when these words were spoken really doesn’t matter. The collaging of ghostly memories, conversations real and reimagined, and philosophical investigations of the nature of love allows what could have been a straightforward narrative hinged on a literary trope to become a rambling hybrid essay that urges the reader to dig deeper, too.

Walsh deftly uses these ghosts from the immediate past to examine the long game of life. While in Budapest, Joanna remembers visiting the city with her then-husband when they were first married and both very young. Walsh writes,

And now I’m repeating that stop in time to grasp at who I was that time in Budapest before — so many years ago I might have been a different person in a different city — but it’s something like trying to hold onto a smell, or a color, or the feel of a string of beads passing through my hand. There are no adjectives to describe time’s passage. It can pass slower or faster, like a volume dial can turn louder or quieter, but no more than that: it has no texture, no timbre.

This meditation acknowledging the essential formlessness of time and self centers the novel of essays. As Walsh reminisces about her past marriage, she sees an entirely different version of herself, signaling to the reader that she knows this is just one story in a line of stories and that, unlike travel, life and love aren’t linear, a truth we’d all do well to remember.

Starting at a London train station, Joanna’s trip takes her through France (twice), Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, and the Netherlands, and she’s packed lightly to leave room for intellectual baggage. Prepared to at least attempt to demystify love, she’s brought with her an arsenal of books on the topic: Alain Badiou’s In Praise of Love, Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse, and André Breton’s Mad Love and Nadja. Excerpts from these and other titles litter Break.up’s margins.

Her travels are both immediate — sitting in a cafe in Athens, she notes when a young girl comes up to touch her computer — and intellectual — watching a young couple kiss from a park bench in Sofia, she falls into a meditation on the physicality of love, the Soviet statues that once littered the city, and the boredom that inevitably accompanied her romantic entanglement. Walsh writes,

A love story comes only after the end of love, whether it ends one way, or the other, and, until the story’s told, love is a secret, not because it’s illicit, but because it’s so difficult to tell what it is.

Joanna is continuously reminded that, though the story is complete in one sense, allowing her to tell it, an uncertainty remains. Because so much of the affair happened online — through text and email, Twitter and Facebook — the connection is lost only when the wi-fi is down, leaving the relationship perpetually unresolved.

The nature of Walsh’s narrative draws the reader into Joanna’s relentless waiting game. As she enters the cafe in Athens, she’s eager to see if he’s contacted her. By this point, the reader has been told enough about the unnamed man that his silence feels like the healthier outcome, but as Joanna rides the line between obsession and erasure, what she desires becomes less clear. Luckily, spotty wi-fi gives her generous amounts of time to wander, and she takes the reader inside her jumbled, mourning mind as she passes through markets in Sofia, attends readings in Paris, and perches on a rock overlooking the Mediterranean in Nice, cigarette and wine in hand.

Break.up is as much about the loss of emotional liberty in a world that relies more and more on digital connection as it is about the loss of love. Joanna is trapped in a holding pattern — “Come to Prague,” the man writes — and the claustrophobia the online world evokes in her underlines just how difficult disappearing has become. With a few sleuthy moves, anyone can be teased out from the digital dustbin: childhood crushes, lost college friends, a one-night stand, that guy you danced with once at a Halloween party. As a result, a new anxiety has formed around allowing oneself to connect in the first place. In Break.up, Walsh shows the reader the aftermath of an exquisite falling: thinking only of immediate happiness without considering the potential for pain and disappointment, Joanna revealed herself — at least her digital self — to the fullest.

Nearly two-thirds of the way through the book, in an essay/chapter titled “Sofia/Boring,” Joanna briefly loses focus on the man she’s attempting to excise as she immerses herself in the strangeness of Bulgaria’s capital city. The lost love is still referenced, but a shift has happened as Joanna becomes wrapped up in the boredom and stagnation of travel, of what it means to carry oneself from place to place, killing time. She begins to allow herself the room to disengage.

Because of the care Walsh has taken to create both a sound investigation and a narrator strong enough to carry the reader through the book’s experimental structure, Break.up maintains its momentum to the end, even as the novel-in-essays, predictably, meanders — between past and present, obsession and distraction, love and pain. Joanna hits each city on her list, but it’s never the place that matters so much as what she experiences emotionally and mentally (and digitally) at each destination.

As Joanna finally pulls back into London, she and the reader are unsure of what awaits her. She’s returned a person distanced from the pain she felt at the book’s beginning, but the ubiquitous nature of digital contact has left her without closure. Imagining scenarios of how her disembarking could go — who might meet her at the station, what life will look like upon returning home — Walsh, defiant, declines to tie up the story, writing, “I refuse to finish this book. There is no end to love. Now, where were we?”

¤

Melynda Fuller is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Rumpus, LitHub, A Women’s Thing, and Poets & Writers, among others. She’s a graduate of the New School’s MFA writing program and is currently at work on a collection of essays.

The post Fighting for Emotional Liberty in Joanna Walsh’s “Break.up” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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