#too many weak minded people who don’t see the value in a separate culture

[airedelalmena]

If you actively enjoy the feeling of being pandered to by people who do not care about you at all… There’s something wrong with you that probably can’t be solved

#omg the famous straight people with status and money are doing something involving US and OUR ATTENTION!!!!! #kiss ass harder i guess #this is why we’re going to lose independent gay culture eventually #too many weak minded people who don’t see the value in a separate culture #and having one of those means actively creating and maintaining it #not leaving that work for others to do #lgbt

[patrochillesvibes]

Hey so i remember coming across a post which says that TSOA's patroclus is not too different from the og illiad one. Is that true?/genq

First, I want my readers to go read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. When you’re done, come back to this post and read under the cut.

Great! Now having read over 350 pages of a pedophile who lusts after prepubescent girls and tries to explain how his love of them was pure and consensual, I’m assuming you now understand the concept of an unreliable narrator. If you don’t and believe Humbert Humbert at face value, consider killing yourself. The world doesn’t need anymore pedophile apologists.

For the rest of you still alive, keep reading.

Point 1

Patroclus is, at his core, an unreliable narrator.

How do we know this?

The ending scene is Thetis visiting Patroclus and asking him to share memories of her son, Achilles. Being a goddess, she cannot visit her son in the Underworld. She only has his memory to comfort her in his grief over his death. Patroclus, is one of the last people alive she can share memories with.

Thus, the actual book, The Song of Achilles itself, is Patroclus sharing his memories with Thetis.

Now, consider a loved one of yours who has passed away. Got a person in mind? Great. Now I want you to think about them. And also consider the last time you exchanged memories about them. Mostly good memories came to mind, right? Perhaps you skipped over their flaws or reworked them in your grieving mind as having been not so bad? Many cultures have superstitions and cultural/religious practices about being nice to the dead, so I’m not surprised that you only thought of good things.

(But honestly, a loved one doesn't need to be dead for people to wear rose colored glasses and miss red flags and excuse bad behavior etc. It's called bias, sweeties.)

My point? Patroclus told Thetis mainly good things about her son including even embellishing a little. It’s in our grieving nature to do this.

This is why you can’t trust Patroclus.

Patroclus, for a variety of speculative reasons that I don’t want to get into here, will tell you he is ugly, weak, stupid, and a poor soldier. He will tell you he was always respectful of women and didn’t believe in war. He will paint himself as innocent of war crimes. And he will do all of this looking you directly in the eye.

You cannot trust this self-image.

Patroclus has very little screen time in the Iliad itself. We get even less insight into his internal thoughts and motivations.

Because TSoA Patroclus is unreliable at best and we know very little about Iliad Patroclus, it is unfair to say there are exclusively two separate characters and incompatible. It is unfair and even ignorant (from lack of anything below a surface reading of the text) to say that TSoA Patroclus is “out of character.”

Point 2

I have a second point as to why I think TSoA Patroclus and Iliad Patroclus can be read as the same. The majority of Antis hate Patroclus because “MM made him a women.” Here’s a collage I made of quotes from some of the Antis.

Now, why on earth is Pataroclus considered a woman? Or in some cases a related degrading term, twink?

Let’s see...

He wants to be a doctor instead of a soldier.

He is anti-war.

He is soft and emotional about his love for Achilles, even deigning to cry.

All thing are more associated with female characters.

Why? Toxic Masculinity.

It is not masculine to cry. It is not masculine to deeply love your partner. It is not masculine to want to not fight in a war. It is not masculine to have low self-esteem and lack confidence. These things are all unnatural and abnormal for a MAN™ to feel, especially soldiers.

So when you read The Song of Achilles and your takeaway is “Patroclus is a twink” or "Patroclus is a woman/Achilles' wife/Achilles' bitch," you are reinforcing gender stereotypes and gender roles. Nice work 👍

I pity people who have this sexist take on men.

Side Comment

Many patrochilles fans see the main patrochilles works (The Iliad, TsoA, Hades Game) as interconnected. TSoA is the story of the life of Patroclus and Achilles before the war. The Iliad follows and specifically tells the tale of the 9th year of the war. Hades Game picks up after their deaths.

But at the end of the day, your Patroclus hc is whatever you want it to be. You also don't have to like any of the patrochilles media out there. I myself FUCKING LOATH The Iliad. But please don't bring your racist and toxic takes into your defense. If you don't like a thing, just say 'I don't like it' full stop and move on.

#ask #patroclus #tagamemnon #homer #the iliad #tsoa #sexism #toxic masculinity

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

@thegoatsongs asked about my Jonathan Is Too Human To Be A Man In This Culture hypothesis and i have to like restrain myself from developing it at length or getting too attached to it as of yet because tbh i have never actually watched any dracula adaptation so i’m going off second- and thirdhand impressions + cultural osmosis.  but (vague spoilers herein!) there seems to be consensus among jonathan enjoyers who have partaken of adaptations that our friend jonathan is poorly served by them on the whole, suggesting that, at the very least, dracula adapters are mostly not looking at this guy and saying as we have declared here “hey this dude is a compelling protagonist on which to focus narrative energy more or less as he appears in the original text.” which has bothered me for like almost a full year now because like i can kind of see how you would get there from the castle portion but i don’t get how you get there from the castle portion PLUS like… everything that happens in october. like, jonathan enters the book as a gothic heroine, but he leaves it on very firm footing as more or less an action hero. i like many people on this website find this insanely viscerally compelling even just at face value as a fun juicy emotionally engaging pulpy fictional narrative. The Culture At Large meanwhile seems to have totally left it on the table over the course of 6 million adaptations.

and like, on the other hand i don’t ever wanna make definitive over-determined claims and i think it’s always worth keeping in mind that adaptations influence future adaptations and once even one adaptation exists future go-rounds are almost never reacting solely to the original source text and are influenced not only by other adaptations but by other cultural trends and developments etc etc etc. but on the other hand i got 5 hours of sleep last night and am Posting through it and we’re all on tumblr to be bisexual eat hot chip and speculate in wild overgeneralizations about The Culture so given all those caveats i will say that especially given that the book’s been fully in the public domain since fucking 1962 and given that its popularity remains such that two separate New Take On Content From The Novel Dracula movies came out this year alone, it’s hard for me not to get a little But Why re: the jonathan of it all, and it’s also hard for me not to feel like part of the issue here is that people don’t know what to make of a male character who is so profoundly vulnerable and victimized, who is shown in moments of terrible weakness both narratively (through his powerlessness and at times literal paralysis in the castle) and emotionally (through his delicate and frazzled post-castle state in which mina must take care of him)…. and who is also shown to be a competent, decisive, courageous, knife-sharpening vampire-slaying badass.

i don’t think this is necessarily unique to jonathan in the cast of dracula or in the culture at large (one thing i’ve been meaning to revisit is megan abbott’s paper on how screen depictions of philip marlowe smooth out the “troubled masculinity” that jumps off the page in chandler’s novels), and i also don’t think the problem of “this whole ass human is breaking gender” is limited to male characters (absolutely unhinged and derangedly niche reference to make but i got five hours of sleep last night: i did think while writing this out that it reminded me of the ways animorphs ghostwriters kind of reduced rachel to a tormented badass while failing to capture her clearly established vulnerability and compassion). but jonathan is a character that i have thought about a lot in this regard simply because i find him so appealing for frankly unsophisticated reasons.

somewhere in there also is floating the thing about straight men responding with incredulity to the fact that any woman might find timothee chalamet hot when meanwhile many women are like “uh guys who look like consumptive orphans are my number one type and always have been hello???” like, something something the assumption that there’s an inherent contradiction between weakness and masculine appeal when many women attracted to men know it’s The Opposite. (what is the castle sequence if not something that would get tagged “whump” on ao3? what did stoker do to jonathan if not break the cutie?) but again (1) this is not a well developed or articulated theory i am simply Posting please no one @ me about coherence or evidence at this time (2) legit i slept like 5 hours. probably less.

#dracula daily #dracula spoilers #sorry for referencing tv tropes in 2023 you can’t get mad at me on this the day i am so sleepy

[cartoonfangirl1218]

The Owl House zodiac signs

I decided to match zodiac signs with TOH characters because why not. Info from https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com.

Luz: Libra

Strengths: Cooperative, diplomatic, gracious, fair-minded, social Weaknesses: Indecisive, avoids confrontations, will carry a grudge, self-pity

Likes: Harmony, gentleness, sharing with others, the outdoors Dislikes: Violence, injustice, loudmouths, conformity

They are in a constant chase for justice and equality, realizing through life that the only thing that should be truly important to themselves in their own inner core of personality. They will be inspired by good books, insurmountable discussions and people who have a lot to say. ibra representatives are highly social and put their friends in the limelight, but sometimes raise their expectation bars too high, but will often help others understand the other side of their personal conflicts and trouble with other people.

She enjoys being taught about new things and enjoys talking about herself and her personal interests, just as much as she likes sinking deep into her partner’s life. She is charming, intelligent, and finds solutions to problems that arise along the way with certain ease.

Eda: Sagittarius or Aries.

Strengths: Generous, idealistic, great sense of humor Weaknesses: Promises more than can deliver, very impatient, will say anything no matter how undiplomatic

Likes: Freedom, travel, philosophy, being outdoors

Dislikes: Clingy people, being constrained, off-the-wall theories, details Freedom is their greatest treasure, because only then they can freely travel and explore different cultures and philosophies. Because of their honesty, Sagittarius-born are often impatient and tactless. The fun-loving Sagittarius enjoys making and spending money.

Aries

Strengths: Courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, passionate

Weaknesses: Impatient, moody, short-tempered, impulsive, aggressive

Likes: Comfortable clothes, taking on leadership roles, physical challenges, individual sports

Dislikes: Inactivity, delays, work that does not use one's talents

Aries rules the head and leads with the head, often literally walking head first, leaning forwards for speed and focus. Its representatives are naturally brave and rarely afraid of trial and risk. They possess youthful strength and energy, regardless of their age and quickly perform any given tasks. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings.  They are tolerant of people they come in contact with, respectful of different personalities and the openness they can provoke with simple presence. Their circle of friends needs a wide range of strange individuals.

Independent and ambitious, an Aries often knows where they want to go at a young age, separating from their family a bit early. They will take on family obligations when they need to be taken care of, never refusing more work as if their pool of energy is infinite. They live in the present and aren't that focused on the future, and this can make them irrational and hasty when it comes to financial decisions. Still, they seem to always find a way to earn money and compensate for what they have spent.

King: Leo

Strengths: Creative, passionate, generous, warm-hearted, cheerful, humorous

Weaknesses: Arrogant, stubborn, self-centered, lazy, inflexible

Likes: Theater, taking holidays, being admired, expensive things, bright colors, fun with friends

Dislikes: Being ignored, facing difficult reality, not being treated like a king or queen

Aware of their desires and personality, they can easily ask for everything they need, but could just as easily unconsciously neglect the needs of other people in their chase for personal gain or status. Leo is generous, faithful and a truly loyal friend, born with a certain dignity and commitment to individual values. Tuned to themselves for the most part, they tend to become independent as soon as possible. Still, a Leo will do anything to protect their loved ones.

Willow: Taurus

Strengths: Reliable, patient, practical, devoted, responsible, stable

Weaknesses: Stubborn, possessive, uncompromising

Taurus likes: Gardening, cooking, music, romance, high quality clothes, working with hands

Taurus dislikes: Sudden changes, complications, insecurity of any kind, synthetic fabrics

They are loyal and don't like sudden changes, criticism or the chase of guilt people are often prone to, being somewhat dependable on other people and emotions they seem to be unable to let go of. Still, no matter their potential emotional challenge, these individuals have the ability to bring a practical voice of reason in any chaotic and unhealthy situation. People born in this sign are loyal and always willing to lend a hand of friendship, although they can be closed up for the outer world before they build trust for new social contacts they make. Many of their friendships begin in childhood with a tendency to last them a lifetime.

Gus: Gemini Strengths: Gentle, affectionate, curious, adaptable, ability to learn quickly and exchange ideas

Weaknesses: Nervous, inconsistent, indecisive

Gemini likes: Music, books, magazines, chats with nearly anyone, short trips around the town

Gemini dislikes: Being alone, being confined, repetition and routine

They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see. Gemini's changeable and open mind makes them excellent artists, especially writers and journalists.

Lilith: Virgo

Strengths: Loyal, analytical, kind, hardworking, practical

Weaknesses: Shyness, worry, overly critical of self and others, all work and no play

Virgo likes: Animals, healthy food, books, nature, cleanliness

Virgo dislikes: Rudeness, asking for help, taking center stage

This is a sign often misunderstood, not because they lack the ability to express, but because they won’t accept their feelings as valid, true, or even relevant when opposed to reason. Their goals and dreams still have strictly defined borders in their mind. People born with their Sun in Virgo are very dedicated to their family and attentive to elderly and sick people. They understand tradition and the importance of responsibility, proud of their upbringing and everything that made their mind be as dominant as it is.

Amity: Scorpio or Capricorn

Strengths: Resourceful, brave, passionate, stubborn, a true friend

Weaknesses: Distrusting, jealous, secretive, violent

Scorpio likes: Truth, facts, being right, longtime friends, teasing, a grand passion

Scorpio dislikes: Dishonesty, revealing secrets, passive people

They are excellent leaders because they are very dedicated to what they do. Scorpios hate dishonesty and they can be very jealous and suspicious, so they need to learn how to adapt more easily to different human behaviors.

Capricorn

Strengths: Responsible, disciplined, self-control, good managers

Weaknesses: Know-it-all, unforgiving, condescending, expecting the worst

Capricorn likes: Family, tradition, music, understated status, quality craftsmanship

Capricorn dislikes: Almost everything at some point

Capricorn speaks of each natural chain reaction of fear, Immersed in their secrecy, they face the world just as they are – brave enough to never run away, but constantly afraid of their inner monsters. Capricorn women are ambitious, persistent, responsible and reliable. She only wants to find someone to make her smile, and can’t wait to open up and feel the real pull of emotion that makes her warm up to the possibilities that lie in the future. It will take some time for her to lower her guard and feel safe and comfortable enough to show just how sensitive and caring she can be when she is in love.

Edric and Emira: Aquarius

Strengths: Progressive, original, independent, humanitarian

Weaknesses: Runs from emotional expression, temperamental, uncompromising, aloof

Likes: Fun with friends, helping others, fighting for causes, intellectual conversation, a good listener

Dislikes: Limitations, broken promises, being lonely, dull or boring situations, people who disagree with them

Aquarius-born have a reputation for being cold and insensitive persons, but this is just their defence mechanism against premature intimacy. They need to learn to trust others and express their emotions in a healthy way.

#the owl house #luz noceda #eda the owl lady #king #of demons #willow park #edalyn clawthorn #lillith clawthorn #gus porter #amity blight #edric blight #emira blight #blight twins #zodiac signs #hcs

[transgamerthoughts]

What I Found In The Leaves

Last August, as the lease to my apartment was about to end, the roof began to smolder until the place I lived was full of smoke. When all was settled and done, my apartment had no roof. My room was spared and most of my things were okay—this part of the story being set in late capitalism, I am required to assure you that the things I purchased were okay too—and I decided to leave New York City to return to New England with my family. One of the first things I did when I arrived was look at the sky and imagine I was up there. Falling or sailing or flying. It didn’t really matter. I wanted to touch a cloud, to feel the whipping wind.

I promise… this is leading to something. In the months since, in spite of comfort and proximity to my family… in spite of the arrival of my nephew into this world—a child I would climb a mountain and punch God for if I needed to—and in spite of a happy job… I have spiraled into depression. My solution was work and writing. To throw myself into my job and to, somewhat foolishly, take on the task of novelizing my favorite game: Skies of Arcadia. Because if you’ve read my work long enough, it always comes back to Arcadia. I am proud of that project but it sparked a yearning in me. To truly connect to the world I was writing. It lit a fire. Before we proceed, let me be clear that by depression I don’t mean the woes of pandemic living or some disaffection with the reality of entering my 30s. I mean a deep and painful darkness with all the implications therein. Regardless to say, my efforts to combat it drained me. To the point that I burnt myself out and with some prodding from my boss, took a vacation. Which I am currently on. This is not the first time this series of events has played out. I made a promise to myself when I started vacation: no writing. I am breaking it because I have found, yet again, a moment where I must desperately drain the wonder in my heart and attempt to explain to you that I think there are magical things in the world, and that I believe there is some type of magic in art—in that strange alchemic or shamanistic way—that transfers to us. This will be my second attempt to explain it, and to explain what it has to do with video games. (Forgive the indulgence of this introduction by the way; an editor would surely have cut it all but I need you to understand two things: I am in pain and there's a part of that pain which I think points to something important.) This is a story of ritual and tea. Of how my senses and imagination came together to send me on a journey around a fictional world, in search of heroes who both do and do not exist. As part of my love for Skies of Arcadia, I’ve become something of a paraphernalia collector. I bought an old light novel from ebay, I used my rudimentary Japanese skills to set up a warehouse dropbox so that two fan magazines could be sent there and then subsequently shipped to America, and I have drank tea based off the game. At the time, I wanted to collect the little tins the tea came in; they seemed excellent collector’s items. What I found with my first round of tea was art unto itself; balances of flavor and spice and blends that symbolized characters and connected me to them. These were crafted by a dedicated fan and fellow writer. I don’t have the time to sit and research all the ways in which tea is used in ritual. Because I am tired and older and depressed and writing a blog post that perhaps thirty people will read. Regardless, to my delight I found that the tea-maker had created blends based off the various moons that dot Arcadia’s skies. For those who do not know the game, which I assume is many of you: each nation of the world rests under a magical moon. There are six, with one—a Black Moon—theorized to have gone missing. Here was my opportunity for a journey.

I bought teas based on each moon, and one based on the world itself. I will post a separate collection of all my individual tastings and reviews later. The important thing is this: I had been given an amazing gift. With these teas, I had something of that digital world which was actual. When we play games, we hear them and see them. Perhaps with certain haptics we can feel them. But we do not smell them or taste them or literally consume them. Eight teas, eight chances to smell and taste that wonderful world. To touch the clouds. Quem quaeritis? This is a famous question asked by an angel to the three Marys visiting Christ's tomb: his mother the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, who is the sister of Lazarus—the man Christ brought back to life after his death. It means: “whom to do you seek?” I was journeying, one tea cup at a time, around Arcadia. From continent to continent, I tasted their spices and experienced hints of their values, their cultures as expressed through the tea. The question played in my mind: Quem quaeritis? Whom was I seeking? The answer is complicated. First, I was seeking something of myself. The part of me that understood magic and wonder. The part of me that believes in the soul and believes that art, in allowing the complex interaction of creators and characters with players, performs some type of soul-magic. It impresses upon us, real and actual changes. I was seeking that piece of me; that part of me that understood that each cup was a ritual that brought about a communion with a distant world. I was searching for the younger part of me that believed in wonderful things. 

I drank the teas in the order our heroes travel the world, and in doing so I was performing a sort of perseveration of their journey. I communed with some place distant and followed in their footsteps. Which answers another half of the question. Whom did I seek? I sought my heroes. I sought the adventurous Vyse and his dogged determinism, I sought the firecracker Aika and her swift rushes to action, and I sought Fina. The woman I wish I could be: feminine, slight, beautiful, kind, brave. Quem quaeritis? All of this sounds like nonsense and when I try to explain the nonsense, I feel a deep embarrassment. To care in the 21th century, particularly in America, is to be weak. To be publicly vulnerable is to make yourself a target. You must be hard and solid as a rock. You cannot believe in magic or else you are doomed. But here I was, chasing myself and my heroes one cup at a time. And I need you to know that it hurt to do that. 

I went to the corner store today to buy some energy drinks. When I got back home, my father asked: “did you find what you were looking for?” I told him “That’s a very complicated question.”

Let me explain. Let me do the thing that I feel I cannot do well anymore; let me do some game criticism. In the world of games, the entities we control exist as two things. They are actors; manipulatable bodies, guided by code and controller inputs, that we guide around as we see fit. In this way, players have extraordinary power. In some ways, it is a… fraught power. We can, as Soulja Boy did, leave Braid’s protagonist in a perpetual flux state: jumping and rewinding. Back and forth, forth and back. Eternal puppets for our amusement, avatars for our power fantasies. Sometimes, as in the case of a game like Skyrim, our controllable actors are little more than flesh suits But actors are, more than anything, just… avatars. Video game actors are also characters. Within their worlds, which are fictional, they have motivations and wants and desires and dreams. They want to live and grow and succeed. Cloud Strife wants to defeat Sephiroth and uncover the truth about himself, Joel wants to protect Ellie and survive in a cruel world. Arthur Morgan wants to find a calmer life and redemption for his sins. They are, as characters, people. But since they are also actors, we can deny them their hopes and dreams whenever we want. We can have Cloud while away his days gambling at the Gold Saucer and, if we want, we can force Arthur Morgan to murder to population of an entire town. The core truth of a player's relationship to the character is this: we decide if their dreams are fulfilled. I find that troubling and I will try to explain why. But first let’s be clear: I do not think the character in games are sentient entities. I outlined this relationship of players and characters in a GDC talk a few years ago, using highly rhetorical terms and my reward was the ridicule of countless gamers who questioned my sanity. Some made videos about my presentation. It was hell. To be a woman, perhaps especially a progressively minded trans-woman, in games is to know a very real hell. To this day, I cannot go a week without some type of horrid experience on the internet. Some judgment of my worth, some assumption about my competency, or in the worst cases some proclamation about my right to live. No doubt this is part of why I needed my vacation. But here is why I find the player/character/actor relationship troubling. It is not merely the abstract notion, the thought experiment that elicits fun but meaningless philosophical natter. The reason I find that relationship troubling or at least complicated is because for all of their fiction, the characters in games can give us real things. They can, through some type of power—a deep power found in the act of story-telling itself—impart aspects of themselves on us. For instance, they can teach us lessons which we then carry into the rest of our lives. My father, for reasons I can’t recall, once told me: “the meaning of life is to serve others.” Though he does not know it, that truism has been etched into my soul. It is a “thing” that my father has given me. But my father is not the only person who has etched something into my soul. Vyse, that dashing pirate, has etched many things into my soul. For instance: “impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit.” That is etched on my soul too. Just as much as anything my father has taught. So we come to the heart of it: what does it mean that Vyse can so alter my being and values, and that he can do it with the same strength and “realness” of my father? What does it mean for a character, who is also often an actor that I guide, to give me such a powerful gift? Because let us be clear: values are “real” things. When I tried to explain that I believe that certain things are actually true, for instance that looking at landscapes does mean that we are looking at something real…. I spent an afternoon with former Jeopardy! contestant Arthur Chu and a cohort of Twitteristas attacking my philosophical surety. So, again, fuck the internet… I digress.. Let’s explore: I believe in the realness of things because of the depth of the emotions those things make me feel, and I refuse to believe that life is just endorphins, hormones, and instinct. That music or games or anything else can make us weep for joy is proof-positive to me of the existence of a soul; of an ineffable thing that is “us.” Not necessarily all enduring but certainly extant. And if this thing exists, it can be acted upon. I know this because my father, with his truism, changed my soul. Changed the core of me. I know this because Vyse and the others did so as well.

I’ve written that games criticism is a kindness; that it seeks the good in art and attacks the banal explicitly because art is beautiful. I write today to suggest this: art is magical. It alters us, not metaphorically, but in the ways it can affect our souls. Which brings us back to character and actors. I control Vyse since he is an actor and I am a player; but he is a character with dreams and hopes and personality. And values. Wonderful values which he shared with me. So what does it mean now that I can send actors to their doom? What does it mean that I can control them utterly when I know for a fact that they can affect and change me? I do not have clean answers for this. Perhaps there are none. Perhaps all I have written is silliness, even as I beg you to please understand. Please. 

Understand the power of stories, understand it in the way that Tolkein did when he said: “Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else … may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds.” Understand that I am telling you that the locked thing is your heart and soul, and that just as a lover or parent or mentor can open that thing… so can the people we meet in our fictional journeys. Vyse is not just the captain of a ship. He is my captain. That means something. Art is ritual and play is ritual. In creation, we place something of ourselves in another thing. In play, we allow ourselves to be transmuted and changed. This is magic, of a sort. I am left wanting however. I followed the path of my heroes in as literal a way as I could, pulling on new senses to understand the world they live in and touch their skies for a fleeting moment. But I cannot reach them; I am Tantalus in the mire. Ever reaching, ever chasing. For that moment I can be the person that my heroes trusted me to become. Note by musical note, word for written word, tea cup by tea cup, I am chasing my captain. When I went back to my apartment the day after the fire, I looked up at the spot where the roof used to be. All I could see was blue sky and I thought I might fall into it. Perhaps in superficial ways I have shared something with my heroes; I have tasted something they have, even though the tea is not actually from Arcadia. It was merely a conduit to my imagination, to the transformed parts of my souls. Yet, I did not find him and I could not find myself. Which is why it hurts, in spite of how wonderful it was. Quem quaeritis? He is not here. So I will keep sailing after him.

#skies of arcadia #games criticism #tea #dreams

[thebibliomancer]

Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 6

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because the quest is back on!

Last time in book: Kylan and Naia have joined forces with Rian to overthrow the Skeksis. Unfortunately, Kylan has also been declared a traitor by the Skeksis. The three decide to leave Stone-in-the-Wood immediately and pursue separate plans. Rian will go to the All-Maudra with the vial of Mira goo. Kylan and Naia will go find Aughra and try to alert all Gelflings to what the Skeksis are doing.

Chapter 6

The heroes make their way through the forest to the Black River. Kylan sings a Jarra-Jen story that gets Rian to open up.

The gang... is there a catchy name for the protagonists? Kylan’s crew? Anyway, they’re leaving Stone-in-the-Wood in the dark of the night because at least 2 out of 3 and probably 3 out of 3 are fugitives.

But more importantly:

“Best wishes!” Mythra said. “When I’m big, I’ll come and join you. I fear no lying Skeksis!”

Mythra is too powerful!

“Once you’re big enough to not be eaten in one gulp. Then I’ll welcome you.”

It was the first playful thing Kylan had heard the soldier say, and it was endearing.

It really is!

I love the dynamic between Rian and Mythra.

The three set off in RPG formation: Rian in the front, squishy Kylan in the middle, and Naia in the back. Kylan, in Kylan fashion, feels bad and tells himself he brings value to the party somehow, even if he doesn’t know how.

Best boy Kylan, you’re the best boy. But also: you came up with a great third option between Rian and Naia’s position last chapter. That’s something!

The group also starts discussing whether the Skeksis have been preying on the Gelfling for a long time. Kylan brings up the census, how the Skeksis come twice a year to record the number of Gelfling. Rian even darkly calls it a harvest.

“We count the peach-berry trees every spring, and pluck half the blossoms so they bloom in the summer. That way we know they will all bear fruit, and how many. Mother Aughra taught the Gelfling these things long ago, and we’ve performed the counting and plucking every year since the Age of Innocence... and yet we couldn’t see that the Skeksis were doing the same to our people in front of our very eyes.”

Naia said, “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to consider.”

They wonder whether the Skeksis perform the census with the Dousan and the Grottan. Rian says that he’s only ever seen a single Dousan guard at the Castle and none from the Caves of Grot. He speculates that the Skeksis may have finished them off long ago without any one noticing.

Grim.

Kylan can’t help but contrast this grim Rian with the sentimental, kind Rian he saw in the dreamfast and also in his interactions with Mythra and Shoni.

Guy’s been through so much.

But Kylan has an idea! STORY TIME. Of course about Jarra-Jen, obvs.

Naia: “I could use a break from the stories of our real life.”

Mood.

Many songs of our lightning-born hero are known

From courage and cleverness are these stories grown

But no song is filled with such heartache and yen

As this one of the Dew-Tree and brave Jarra-Jen

Kylan sings the song of Jarra-Jen’s cool girlfriend Amiris of Darkwood, the Singer of Dew. She apparently personally applies the dew to every blade of grass, which is impressive.

Also, she had green hair. The Gelfling are anime people in this continuity apparently.

“Jarra-Jen loved Amiris, as a singer loves song” which is a good line. And they danced every night. They had a really good relationship.

Then Kaul, the Dark King of Sand, ruined the mood by Ganondorfing all over the happy times.

He kidnapped Amiris and took her to the dunes and demanded she make the desert green like Hyrule. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she couldn’t? Because of climate?

But Kaul was a dick about it.

So the King, at her failure, grew wrathful in spite

He took her out in the desert, upon sands hot and white

There he punished her, holding her face to the suns

“If I can’t have the Garden, then neither will no-one.”

Cool rhyme though.

On the fourth morning, Jarra-Jen finally found her but too late. ‘She wanted to cry but the tears had been burned out of her eyes’ amount of too late. She dying.

So she makes a magic seed pop out of her chest, as ya do.

Jarra-Jen pleaded and begged, cried for her not to go

She put the seed in his hand, bade him help it to grow

Then she melted to stardust. The wind took her away

Jarra-Jen left with the seedling on his loneliest day.

Dang, that’s sad.

Don’t you hate it when your gf melts into stardust after staring into the suns too long?

Jarra-Jen plants the seed like Amiris asked but it won’t grow because this is still the desert.

He called to the earth. He called to the sky

But nobody answered. The dew-seed would die

With no other hope, Jarra-Jen fell to his knees

And wept...

Bursting forth from the sands came an enormous tree

Brown of skin, strong of branch, and emerald of leaf

Its roots rippled the earth, its crown brushed the sky

And Jarra-Jen poured forth every last tear he could cry

I feeeeel like salt water wouldn’t be great for growing a tree but Jarra-Jen is a folk legend. This kind of thing is just what they do.

Anyway, Kylan finishes up the song. And I feel like this is the origin story of whatever the Patron Tree of the Dousan are. Huge magic tree in desert? Gotta be.

Naia helpfully tells the moral of the story to the audience. I mean, this is YA. And also, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate the cliff notes.

“I liked it,” she said. “I think it’s a good lesson... We will always face hard times, but it’s important to remember that our sadness can often be what becomes our strength. There’s no weakness in sorrow or grief.”

Rian says nothing about the story but he sniffs and wipes his cheek. He was moved.

Good song-telling, song-teller Kylan.

And what good timing, he finished the story right as they reach the Black River and it’s time to split up.

Hm. Earlier I joked about Naia having to go to Ha’rar after all the detours last book so its funny to me that she’s still not going. I wonder if she’ll ever go to Ha’rar.

Anyway, Rian gives them directions for how to find Aughra’s house from here.

Realizing that they may never see Rian again if something goes wrong, Kylan tells him that he’s not alone and “we may be strangers by blood, but we’re family in arms.”

Rian softens for them.

“I miss Gurjin and the others very much,” Rian confessed. “I don’t want to put anyone else in danger. Every night I dream of the Skeksis hunting me, killing anyone nearby. Gurjin, Mira, Mythra, Timtri, my mother... The only way I can rest is if I’m alone. Once the All-Maudra has been told, maybe I will stop looking over my shoulder, but until then... I couldn’t see you in danger when Gurjin died to protect us.”

=(

“I do trust you both, though. As I trusted Gurjin. I only fear that my sorrow will not be enough to grow anything.”

“Only if it’s salted with remorse,” Kylan said. “Good journey to you, Rian. We’ll meet again in Ha’rar, with help from Mother Aughra and stories of our adventures on the High Hill.”

=]

Rian floats away in a boat and with his last words as he disappears into the shadow warns Kylan and Naia to stay away from finger vines. Whatever those are!

After Rian disappears along the river and the other two Gelfling prepare a second boat, Naia compliments how on the nose the story choice was.

“That song of Jarra-Jen was really something,” Naia said ... “I think it really moved him. I wouldn’t mind meeting the song teller who wrote it. The song that soothed the soul of the boy who first saw the Skeksis betrayal!”

“You don’t have to wait to meet that song teller,” he said. “You already did, in Sami Thicket, when he was running away from home.”

“When he was...” Naia coughed in surprise as she put one and one together. Then she crowed with laughter. “You devil! You made it up just for Rian?”

AMAZING.

Kylan figured Rian wouldn’t listen if Kylan just straight up said the stuff about sorrow growing good things so he wrapped it in a story HE MADE UP ON THE SPOT INCLUDING RHYMES and sang it!

What a good song-teller.

And Rian thought wow this ancient story about a cultural folk hero hits me where I live.

Amazing.

I hope Rian passes that off as a real Jarra-Jen story and it gets spread around and becomes part of the accepted canon of Jarra-Jen adventures.

I wonder if there was already an Amiris and a story linking Jarra-Jen to the Patron Tree in the desert. How much Kylan was able to pick up from other stories to make his seem more legit.

“I don’t regret it one bit, Song Teller,” Naia said, as the opposite bank came into view in the dark. “Taking you along. I would have been a fool not to. I hope you know this as I know it.”

It was possibly the sweetest thing she’d ever said to him, and Kylan finally let out the smile he’d been holding back.

BEST FRIENDS.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Song of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Rian #Kylan #Naia #Mythra #but only a little

[xenoredux]

if you're still doing horse talk can we hear more about flutter ponies? also did you have anything in mind for seaponies?

Ye ask for horse talk, ye shall receive horse talk.

I’ll elaborate on seaponies first: I don’t actually have much lore planned for them and that is my greatest flaw. But seriously, I probably should develop my ideal version of them. They’re fun little guys.

If I had any lore surrounding them, I’d say they were the first subspecies of earth pony to climb out of the sea (and then promptly go back in once they realized how cold it was out in the open air) and that they’re not limited to a strictly seahorsey shape. The classic seapony body type would be the most prevalent, but by no means the only observable kind. There’s seaponies out there that look like clownfish and sting rays and stuff. They’d have their own equivalent to the Gloom Witches who’d be, like, a shitty little lobster man and his easily frustrated jellyfish minions. Once the landtrotters (Starwish ‘n Co.) gained their friendship, they’d be able to call on them whenever they’re in both water and distress.

So that’s about it for seaponies BUT I DO have a lot of a lot to say about flutter ponies (warning for horses becoming much ded):

Flutter Ponies are a subspecies of pegasus which are related to the even lesser-seen subspecies Winger Ponies, Breezies, and Changelings. Flutters are generally smaller then the average pony both in height and weight, which makes it easy for them to skirt by pony villages unseen. There is the same variation you'd find in any species - it's possible to find a "tall" or chubby flutter - but they're characterized primarily by their small stature and their round, short-muzzled faces.

The biggest difference between them and "normal" pegasi is that their wings resemble those of insects instead of avians. Different flutter pony wings come in different shapes and colors, and these seem dictated more by individuals' personalities then their genetics. i.e. you may find a flutter with ladybug wings, or dragonfly wings, or housefly wings.

Their wings are powerful enough to carry them great distances if they need to travel, but they're also fragile enough to tear if targeted, and the healing process for a torn wing is long and painful. This motivates flutters to protect their wings whenever they can, sometimes to the detriment of what they're doing. Many a flutter has abandoned ship because they instinctively wigged out over obtaining wing damage.

One of the reasons Whilderbee is such a novelty to the populace of Paradise Estates is because flutter ponies are reclusive, secretive animals by nature. They live far away not just from other ponies, but also each other. These guys are paranoid, truly the most easily spooked and horselike of the pony races given their anxieties. If any pony is going to "see ghosts" and bolt from something that isn't there, it'd be a flutter.

So shy are these guys that their family units are limited as well. The typical flutter pony's nuclear family is, at most, composed of 2 parents and their 1 child. Flutter ponies with numerous offspring are often considered "selfish" and "irrational" among their kind because more kids = more interaction with the outside world = greater likelihood of others intruding/invading/whatever. Flutter ponies value secrecy and despise vulnerability both inside and outside of their family units.

Part of this deep-seated paranoia is because of something that happened long ago. Flutter ponies have always separated themselves from other cultures, but they used to live together in herds (or flocks - take your pick) of their own. These flutter herds would be lead by someone who had shown themselves to be unusually brave and wise, and this pony (dubbed "The Royal" by the others) would determine what was best for their herdmates.

The largest flutter herd ever recorded, one lead by The Royal Morning Glory, was destroyed because of an invading goop referred to only as "the Smooze". Little is known about this substance or its origins, but what we do know is that Morning Glory made a mistake in determining how to resist it, and so her entire herd was swallowed up by it and destroyed.

When other flutter herds caught wind of this tragedy, even after the Smooze had disappeared they were all too shaken to remain in their previous living accommodations. They came to the conclusion that living in a herd was too dangerous. There's just too much room for human (equine?) error, and working together under some wise guy's delegation didn't prevent all the flutters lost that day from being eaten by sentient sludge. Unusually, the trauma of the event didn't bring the community together but instead drove them apart, and that's how they've lived ever since.

When you combine all this isolationism, ingroup shaming, and self-limiting fear, it's not hard to see why Whilderbee was frowned upon by her people. She's wildly outgoing by flutter standards, not to mention her cardinal sin of actively seeking communications with other creatures. Ever since she was a little kid she's been trying to buddy up with blewbirds and jackalopes and sparkledogs, and this quickly earned her a reputation as, well, a freak.

Flutters don't often interact with one another (if only because a lot of them are curmudgeonly) but word spreads fast among them. This is part of the reason why Beebee, despite her cultural upbringing, still actively gets involved with her friends. She learned her own form of emotional invulnerability, and that's making everyone too cheery and giggly to ask her why they saw her wiping her face of tears the other night.

As you can imagine, all this stuffiness makes flutter ponies a bit more hoity toity then you'd think a buncha forest-dwelling recluses would be. They often pressure their only children into behaving in a very put-together, boring manner so as not to invite the scrutiny of their nearest neighbor two woodlands over. Imperfection is weakness in their eyes.

They also don't do much to hide their distaste for other animal species, non-flutter ponies included. Most other animals are simply beyond their comprehension, but other pony species unnerve them because their ways are so unfamiliar. Like, what, they just have family gatherings and cry openly and own television sets? Inconceivable! Ugly! Wrong!

All this probably makes flutters sound like a bunch of miserably stoic fuddy duddies. In a sense they are given the sort of lives they've subjected themselves to, but still waters run deep. Flutter ponies are beyond powerful if you can get them to cooperate. When enough flutters get together and beat their wings with great speed - a phenomenon they used to call "flutter stutter" - they have the power to change the weather, move buildings, and overcome just about any tangible treachery.

Pony historians have written tales about how long forgotten herds of flutters once defeated great evils by joining forces and literally fluttering their enemies away. It's also been theorized that not utilizing this ability was the mistake that killed Morning Glory's herd as they'd surely have won against the Smooze had they used it. Sadly a flutter stutter hasn't happened in about as long as anyone can remember, and it'd be a difficult thing to orchestrate these days given, well, everything.

I can imagine if this were a real show, part of a major arc would be earning the flutters' trust, convincing them that being persnickety passive-aggressive assholes to each other is bad, and motivating them to unleash this long dormant power on a common enemy. Maybe by the end of it an exceptionally clever and altruistic flutter would be dubbed leader of a new trial community the flutters would tentatively propose, a matriarch of a new age flutter pony herd. She's probably have a name like Rosedust or something. Who knows?

#asks #my little pony #mlp #pony words #me writing mlp like ''the equines must be SAD and BASTARDLY until they learn to share and make friends''

[sneakerdoodle]

On Second Citadel and unity

It was interesting to me that, after making Junoverse a very poignant gender utopia (and general lgbt-utopia, too), Kabert went ahead and made their second storyline so heavily centered around bigotry and discrimination (dealing with topics of ableism, mysogyny, homophobia). now, obviosuly, Junoverse is not even remotely free of inequality, and as far as the mentioned topics are handled this utopia is not disability-friendly, with prosthetics not being readily available with no charge, which, like many other things, strips people of their autonomy, turns them into a rich man’s plaything. But here inequality is arguably explored from the point of exploitation of one human being by another, of abuse of power (interpersonal and social-scale). Whereas Second Citadel opens with an episode about two knights - a disabled one and a woman one - both of whom struggled for similar reasons, so there is supposedly little power imbalance here. And yet they do not see eye to eye, even more so, one of them furthers the other’s discrimination. We can speculate that that’s Sir Caroline’s effort to fit in - strengthen the sense of her hard-earned belonging by othering someone who never got that right to belong. Which doesn’t make it any less infuriating and damaging, but sets the tone of the story very well. There is no strong thriving off the weak. There are just people infinitely rejecting one another on the basis of their differences, often under the weight of their own rejection.

The topic of ostracization and discrimination is tackled in almost every arc of SC, but the idea of othering extends beyond it. The central conflict, the ongoing war is between monsters and humans - and while we’re more familiar with the human side of it, while we may learn more about the history of their conflict and who wronged whom first and worst, for now we’ve seen both humans and monsters express deep disgust for each other and one another’s way of living. And then the same happens on a smaller scale, within one species: we see the mutual disdain between Northerners and Southerners. Sir Caroline is different not only as a woman but as a foreigner; the Cinderclasp episode made it far too clear that the attitude to foreigners in the South is no better. 

And all of that unravels against the backdrop of pretty phrases about unity that get repeated over and over. “Strength in Unity”. “Two in unity, simple, strong”. I believe those are not instruments of irony, however, but keys to the central message, echoes of this societies’ past and - hopefully - foreshadowing of their future.

Sir Caroline twists the meaning of that unity in order to keep her authority:

ANGELO: Sir Caroline, I really don't think-- CAROLINE: What is the primary edict of our Citadel, Sir Angelo? ANGELO: Strength in unity. Of course. CAROLINE: And the sooner you all remember that, the safer humanity will be in these Northern Wilds. Hypocrites. The lot of you. Unified only when it’s convenient. No better than monsters in that way: greed governs all, and everyone just does what they want to get what they want. If you just listened to authority, real authority, you might actually be safe.

And that happens to highlight what unity is not: giving up one’s autonomy and approach and unique competence to fit into someone else’s model of desired reality. 

Here Damien’s words about perspectives come into play. However labored and uncomfortable they were, showing his inability to not fixate on what separates others from him, they are important as a piece of the meta puzzle: they make us think of inherent value of different experiences.

DAMIEN: My kind, kind friend. I agree that it is a shame that we cannot trust these men. They would be valuable allies, as Sir Caroline was – for moving through the world as she has, in a life quite different from ours, has clearly gifted her with ways of thinking that you and I would never come to. ANGELO: Very true, very true. DAMIEN: And so I am certain that given Marc’s...situation, he too must have a perspective of great value in our mission. But the simple fact is that he cannot be trusted.

The importance of these lines is backed up in Lady of the Lake, when Caroline is instructed to use specific characteristics of her subordinates and turn them into strength that would aid the mission. We are told over and over that true unity is in embracing our differences, valuing them and working together to make these differences work in everyone’s favour. 

There is something to be said about quite careless exploitation of Damien’s neurodivergency of course, but that is once again the warped verison of true unity, showing what unity is not, but also simultaneously giving us some idea of its potential. At the core, behind Sir Caroline’s personal errors, the message is kinder, broader. We are told again and again that the importance of the unqiue approach, unique way of thought, unique operation of our minds can enrich our shared experience and cooperation beyond measure.

So when later on Sir Caroline instead tries to suffocate any challenge to her authority, any alternative point of view, it comes as the biggest whiplash.

And of course, when discussing the monster-human antagonism in this vein, the Moonlit Hermit arc gives some truly invaluable material. Rilla and Arum’s interactions are strongly based on the differences of their approach to the world, with Rilla’s being a rational one and Arum operating on what can be called intuition, spiritual sense and probably instinct. He despises attempts to rationalize the free broad flow of the universal energy.

And what we see is two of them coming together, sharing their views of the world and finding something useful, fascinating, beautiful in the point of view that seemed so unthinkable before. That culminates in the truly breathtaking scene of their discussion of the nature of music, whether it’s magic or math:

RILLA: I mean..why can’t it be both? ARUM: Nonsense. RILLA: No, I mean...maybe that’s what makes music special. It uses these predictable scales and measures and combines them with some unpredictable, something-- ARUM: Magic. And what comes out isn’t really either. It’s...more.

“It’s more”. Can’t overstate how hard this hits. And the parallel between this theory and Rilla and Arum’s relationship is more than on the nose, proving to us once again that the idea of unifying our different experiences and perspectives as something incredibly valuable, something that creates something new, rich, priceless, that is more than just a sum of the two, is central to the narrative.

What is interesting to me in the Moonlit Hermit arc is the distinction that is made between the monsters and the humans. Humans are supposedly rational while monsters speak of magic and the Universe - what a fun narrative is that! Monstrous spirituality... And then later on we have Damien raging at his saint, yelling “It is only monsters who listen to their heart above all!” - but apparently it is not. 

The new season offered some helpful context to that, specifically - the Thought Stream. Obviously referencing the Tarot, it has four suites resembling the Minor Arcana while what can be called the Major Arcana is not a part of the deck usually but something that appears unpredictably (specifically: Olala’s card that does not belong to the Wilds, Wastes, Frosts or Mirrors suit). 

The four Tarot suits (Swords, Cups, Wands and Pentacles) represent different areas of our life, separated: Intellect, Emotion, Spirituality/Creativity and the Material. Mind, Heart, Spirit and Body.

The four suits also correspond with the four elements. And Water is the one corresponding with Heart, with our emotions. I do not think it to be a coincidence that Saint Damien - the one encouraging his follower to listen to his heart, teaching him tranquility i.e. not losing oneself in the stream of emotion, the one teaching how to let one’s heart guide not stir - has water and the waves as his symbol.

So if Damien is Heart, Rilla is definitely Mind: she is analytical, a determined problem solver. I believe Arum represents the Wands: the Spirit and the fire - and that it is a symbol connected to monsters’ society in general. 

Wands suit deals with passionate creation, with realizing one’s vision, bringing something into the world. That seems in line with the monstrous philosophy in general. They talk of one’s place decided by the Universe, they say one is justified in their actions as long as they truly do what they want, follow where their passion guides them. There is quite a bit of hypocrisy there as we can see in the Spiral Sage arc, the monster society may just be keeping the platitudes while giving in to the power of the strongest no matter the Universe’s place for the weak - but the ideal is still there, and it is one Arum seems to follow wholeheartedly. (Hence his interpretation of Damien seemingly abandoning his path as a lack of character.)

The same idea - one’s place in the Universe - is brought up again in the first part of “The Fool in the Garden of Death”, showing this belief spreads beyond monsters’ society, into the Western Wastes. None of the elements, be it Heart or Spirit, are strictly one species’; however, we’re dealing with different cultures and ways of life people are most accustomed to, prioritizing different aspects of life. And we’re being shown that maybe engaging with each other is what those cultures are supposed to do.

The Thought Stream’s deck is made up of four suits corresponding with four ends of the world, four parts of it. Where in Tarot we have aspects in Thought Stream we have places. This reinforces the concept of different aspects of life, different ways of approaching it, corresponding with specific societies. 

Each of the suits is given an identity, but all of them make up one deck.

After all, what’s one aspect of a being without all the rest? Reign of just one’s Mind, Heart, Spirit or Body - how long can it last before turning destructive?

True strength is in balance of different elements - in unity that recognizes the value of each of them.

I have a theory that the ideals of the Second Citadel are the forgotten and revamped mottos of the beings of Fort Terminus: “two in unity” being not two partners but two worlds, monster and human, coming together to create something that is more, something new and powerful and full of potential. Capable of building something as impressive as the Bridge. I also have a theory that the Bridge is a parallel to the Tower of Babel. Which brings us to the idea of a divided world unable to see past the differences between societies, and through that losing the power that unity used to give it.

Showing the world where difference is shunned and leads to ostracism, where people that come from different places fail to acknowledge each other’s humanity and refuse to embrace their differences, where two species fail to accept the other’s way of living and deny the enemy their humanity/monstrosity, the Second Citadel storyline is offering a greater value as an endgoal: embracing difference and diversity, seeing strength in what sets us apart from each other, and recognizing that we all complete one another, like the four aspects of our own being, like four pillars upon which the sky rests. Deny one single pillar’s importance and wait for it to come crashing down on you. It says: to know true strength, we should welcome any and all experience, all of the unique perspectives, celebrate the differences that make our shared existence so much richer and make us so much more capable to deal with challenges of life. Strength in unity - not in uniformity.

#this got long and i blame kabert for their splendid writing #the penumbra podcast #tpp #second citadel #analysis tag

[evilelitest2]

I have an impression that some fandoms (like Lord of the Rings, Warhammer or Berserk) attract Alt-Right/Neo-Nazis a LOT more than other fandoms (like Song of Ice and Fire). Is this fact problematic for those fandoms?

Oh this question is difficult because I keep finding myself fans of things that Nazis also like, so a lot of my time is spent trying to drive them away from things that I like.  I’m a big Lord of the Rings and Berserk fan (not so much Warhammer) and Nazis showing up is a big problem.  I”m just going to talk through the examples you mentioned as to why Nazis like themt

Lord of the Rings has a lot of themes that Nazis are attached too, its has the conservative theme of loss of glory as things were great in the past and steadily degrade over time, morality as an absolute, a great war, and a largely male dominated story. Nazis tend to be attrached to very mythological stories which Lord of the Rings is, which is deliberatley written  Also the story is full of Catholic themes and imagery (though it is not an allegory cause Tolkien hated that.  Finally, Nazis have a huge fetish for Nordic/old Germanic history, and Tolkien was a Oxford Professor in Norse/Germanic mythology, and LOTRS is both Catholic and Pagan in a way that Nazis like.  So on a surface level the attraction makes sense.  however if you aren’t you know...stupid....then Nazi attraction to Lord of the Rings makes no goddamn sense

Tolkien hated the Nazis.  like he really really hated the Nazis, there is a great instance where he wrote a letter about how much he despises that the Nazis were ruining his field because people kept associating his work with the Nazis.  

Lords of the Rings is about a bunch of people of different races unifying and putting aside their bigotry in order to fight against a force of evil, with people who are close minded or intolerant being shown as bad.  No character in this work.  In the background of Lord of the Rings, one of the major reasons why Gondor fell from grace was that one faction of their monarchs were super into fantasy race science and tore the nation apart (which tolkien shows as bad) and the Numenoreans are British style Colonialists and that is shown as a bad thing.  

While Lord of the Rings has an almost all male cast, what is funny about LOTRS is how...unmaco the whole thing is.  War is not presented as glorious but a sad necessity, and the characters who love war inevitably fall (Feanor, Boromir, Thorin) while those who hate war do better.  Men are shown to cry regularly and are very emotionally expressive, and the book clearly values tenderness, mercy and softness more than traditionally masculine traits.  Unlike most works which lack female characters, LOTRS doesn’t feel like it is about marking an male only space, it feels like he just forgot to include them.  It is really telling that Tolkien was a Beowulf scholar, but his protagonist, rather than being a hyper masculine hero figure like Beowulf, is the sensitive kind and nonviolent Frodo.  

Its also worth noting that as a vet of the first World War, Tolkien doesn’t seem enamored with the glory of war, in fact glory doesn’t play much of a role in his books, war is devastating and scars those involved, Frodo himself can’t find peace due to his battle wounds 

Tolkien is really Catholic and as such there is a huge focus on forgiveness, mercy, and the inevitability of human failure and the importance sympathy.  He is less interested in the power of WILL as fascist works often are, and more about the acceptance of weakness as part of human nature, hence why no person can ever actually throw the ring away.  

Tolkien was also a bit of a Judeophile, he was really inter Jewish culture.    He was also anti colonial, anti Apartheid (he was from South Africa),   Tolkien’s work do have issues with race, but his issues were the anarchic views of race.  

Finally, Lord of the Rings, while it does have some parts of it that are problematic, is in many ways anti conservative.  It is nostlagic for the past, but characters who attempt to regain what has gone past (Elves, Sauron, Feanor) inevitable create more evil than if they had just accepted that the past is past and moved on.  Despite his drawing on Norse mythology, the story is not about a dramatic last battle, but living in a changing fading world.  

Berserk is...more complicated.,  Because while i’m a huge berserk fan, there are things in it that Nazis would like 

Firstly, Berserk is a very Nietzschian in philosophy, its about the power of will, individual struggling against destiny, Great Man narratives with most people being idiots, super grimdark, anti Christian context, a mythic story, its hyper masculine and its ultra violent.  And also quite sexist.

  Gust at first glance could fit a sort of fascist idealized version of a man, and if you only read like the first two chapters of Berserk you might see it as something which Nazis would like it.  Except what makes Berserk good is that it is beyond that, if it was just a violent power fantasy it would have faded with the 90s, what makes it good is when it moves beyond that sort of thing. 

 Even if you don’t read the story as a gay relationship between Guts and Griffith (and you are wrong if you don’t), it is about the self destructive nature of toxic masculinity, in fact that is what separates Guts from Griffith, Guts is able to start to move past his need to be cruel and open up, while Griffith doubles down and destroys everything he loves.  I have a lot of thoughts on Berserk.  

Warhammer Fantasy is complicated in terms of its relationship to fascism, if you are interested I can talk about that latter, but Warhammer 40k,while starting out as a punk anti totalitarian parody, has by this point become almost entirely co-opted by the Far Right in terms of fandom.    Because its a grim-dark parody of totalitarianism that nevertheless creates a world that conforms to a fascist world view, and while the Imperium of Man is an evil administration, it is also the one we are expected to sympathize with as our primary point of view characters.  

So it is really interesting that by a contrast, Song of Ice and Fire, despite being also a grimdark re-imagining of a popular genre, doesn’t really have a fascist fandom.   So here are the reasons for it.   

The story is pushing back against the mythologize of the middle ages that is so prominent in the fantasy genre, a mythologize that fascists themselves love.  Martin depicting medieval society not as a time when things were were simple and there was a clear image of glory war, instead it is shown as being just as murky politically as the modern day 

There are a lot of female characters and toxic masculinity is presented as bad.  Also lots of homosexuality 

Individual human will, while being a factor, is less important in the world of Song and Ice and Fire compared to the larger forces of history which are outside individual control

The story is explicitly anti Romantic and themes like “the Nation” The people” “Faith”  ect, instead all of these are shown as construct made by people

The story is also humanist, and avoiding both the absolute morality so beloved by fascists, but also it doesn’t really demonize people, most characters are shown as a mix of flaws and virtues.  

Interestingly some fascists do like Game of Thrones, but that is another matter.  

#ask EvilElitest #Fascism #Tolkien #Lord of the Rings #Song of Ice and Fire #Berserk #Warhammer Fantasy #warhammer 40k

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Wizard of Oz: The Characters

Perhaps the most vital element of any story, whether television show, movie, or book, is its characters.  You might have an interesting plot, but without compelling characters, it doesn’t stick, and The Wizard of Oz is no exception to that rule.  In fact, The Wizard of Oz has probably given us some of the most iconic and compelling characters ever created. People don’t forget characters Dorothy Gale, or the Wicked Witch very easily.  Today, we’re going to be taking a look at just what makes those characters so memorable, and so timeless.  First up, let’s check out our heroine.  (Spoilers below!)

Dorothy Gale is one of the most well-known and loved characters in all of pop culture history.  Despite originating as a character from a children’s book, Judy Garland’s portrayal in 1939 has been firmly cemented as the essential Dorothy Gale, and with good reason.

Every protagonist should have a problem, preferably a problem pertaining to the plot (say that five times fast!) and Dorothy’s problem is, initially, Smalltown Boredom.  She is surrounded by adults, authority figures who love her, but don’t understand her, and she’s the only one on her side willing to take action when her dog’s life is threatened.  This reveals something important about Dorothy’s character that remains consistent throughout the entire narrative: Dorothy always tries to solve her problems, even if it isn’t always the best course of action, such as deciding to become the Runaway to save her dog’s life.

Despite her willingness to take action when necessary, she’s not a fantasy hero when it comes to the action itself.  She never learns to use any weapons, or how to fight; her first instinct is to befriend, and she consistently shows politeness and kindness towards others.  Her status as Accidental Hero Trapped in Another World never goes to her head, even after she frees two separate groups of people from underneath the rule of the Wicked Witches of the East and West.  She helps the Scarecrow down from his pole, and oils the Tin Man’s joints, listens to their, and the Lion’s, problems, and then suggests that they join her so they can all get help together.  For heaven’s sake, she even apologizes when she commits Accidental Murder!

While we’re on the subject, let’s discuss that Accidental Murder for a moment.

The witch’s death wasn’t a dragon-slaying moment, it’s a result of Dorothy’s attempt to save the Scarecrow.  Dorothy is certainly not a She Who Fights Monsters character, in any sense of the term.  She never craved adventure, she left the house to save Toto.  She doesn’t try to attack what she thought was a vicious lion until he went after her dog.  In fact, the only times she becomes angry in the film are when someone she cares about is threatened.  She even forgives: she asks the Lion to join them after he attacks Toto, and she’s nice to the Wicked Witch’s guards.  Dorothy is a character who always tries to do the right, and kind, thing, something that sets her apart from many fantasy heroes that have come before and after her.  

Like I said in the last article, Dorothy Gale is an earnest dreamer, a scared, but brave little girl.  She’s a nice person and a brave person, but more than that, she’s a good character.

Good characters change throughout the course of a story, and while at first it might not seem like Dorothy changes at all, a closer look reveals a different story.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Dorothy is one of the first and most famous examples of the Hero’s Journey on film, and a character can’t go through the Hero’s Journey without learning and growing.  Much like her friends, searching for things they already had, (more on that shortly) Dorothy is searching for home, before finding out that she had the means to get there the whole time.  Dorothy’s ‘journey’ in a character sense is discovering her own strength and agency, not allowing herself to helplessly watch others affect her life, while not losing what makes her a good and nice person.  Not only is this a different moral than a lot of fantasy stories, where the hero does need to train to gain something before his narrative is finished, but Dorothy’s change also kicks in at a totally different time in the narrative.

The moment where Dorothy’s goal changes, the scene where she stops wanting to get away from Kansas and wants to get back to it, doesn’t happen at the end of the second act, it’s not a dramatic realization after the hero has gone through much of their journey; no, Dorothy’s priorities switch the exact moment she lands in Oz and is hailed for killing their witch. This doesn’t make her a bad character, or a bad example, because it makes a lot of sense for a young kid to immediately realize that they don’t belong in this fantasy world, and that they have family that’s probably concerned about them.  Dorothy’s learning and growing is done on the journey to get back, struggling to return to the place she realizes that she belongs.

In summary?  Dorothy’s a sweet kid, who doesn’t let adventure turn her into a harder person, just a kinder and stronger one.

But a hero is only as good as their villain, right?

The Wicked Witch of the West is rock solid one of the most memorable villains in film history.  Everything from her laugh to her look is firmly cemented in the minds of moviegoers, even though she doesn’t really look like her book counterpart at all.  She’s the quintessential witch: shooting fireballs, riding on brooms and cackling, but perhaps the most interesting part about her is the fact that she, like multiple other characters in this story, is not one person, but two.

Ms. Gulch is the original Big Bad of the film, an uptight woman who ‘owns half the county’.  Fed up with Dorothy’s dog, Toto, she obtains the legal right to have him put down.  We don’t see a lot of her, and there is even evidence to suggest that Toto did chase her cat and run through her lawn often as well as bite her, but there is also a lot of evidence to suggest that Ms. Gulch had it coming.  Toto tends to be a good judge of character, and even Dorothy’s aunt and uncle, while legally powerless, don’t let her go without letting her know exactly what they think of her.

It makes sense that Dorothy’s frightened subconscious would exaggerate nasty Ms. Gulch into an evil, hammy, black-clad, laughing mad, Wicked Witch.

In the realm of Oz, that one key character trait of Ms. Gulch (besides overall nastiness) did carry over: power.  In our world, she can order around the sheriff, in Oz, she has an army of flying monkeys and magic powers.  And once again, just like in the real world, she uses an offense as an excuse to hunt Dorothy and Toto down, using the death of her sister as a way to get her hands on the magical shoes that she wore.  Throughout the entire movie, she is never shown mourning the death of her sister, but she is very much focused on those shoes, and the fact that Dorothy is wearing them is enough to make the Witch vow vengeance. (‘I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!’)

In this, the Witch is an extraordinarily good villain.  Just scary enough to frighten young watchers, and still mean enough to make older viewers wince with disgust, the Witch proves an excellent foil to Dorothy.  She’s the ultimate oppression in a child’s life: an unjust adult with power.

(It’s important to note that Dorothy never ‘overthrows’ her as is often seen in these types of scenarios.  Like I’ve stated above, the death of both witches is a total accident on her part, and Dorothy even shows remorse afterwards.)

The Witch maintains a steady threat throughout the film, arriving to throw fireballs, threaten, or just cackle when need be.  She also follows through.  Towards the end of the movie, she kidnaps Dorothy, which leads to the most important thing about being a villain: being beaten.  The Witch goes out in one of the most memorable and iconic deaths in movie history, melted by her Weaksauce Weakness: a bucket of water.

In the end, as with Dorothy, we don’t know a lot about these characters, but in that, both hero and villain feel (fittingly) very much like characters from a fairytale: archetypes for young audiences to immediately grasp and understand.  Sure, the Wicked Witch is no Darth Vader, but does that make her a less effective villain?  I don’t think so.  There’s a reason she’s a Breakout Villain and the second most famous character in the film.

Of course, there’s more to look at here than just the two main driving forces.  No movie is complete without its supporting cast.

The first of the trio of supporting characters that Dorothy meets in Oz is the Scarecrow, a more exaggerated version of his own Kansas Kounterpart.  The Scarecrow’s defining trait is his value of brains, intelligence, and sense.

The thing about the Scarecrow is that he always had brains, he was just under the impression that he didn’t.  Every idea the gang gets is from him.  He figures out how to get Dorothy apples, he comes up with the plan to get the trio into the castle, and he even uses the Tin-Man’s axe to bring the light fixture down on the Witch’s guards.

Once again, part of the brilliance of The Wizard of Oz is that both the Oz trio and Dorothy have the same problem: lack of confidence in their own abilities, constantly using what they think they don’t have to reach their goals.  If it wasn’t for Dorothy’s realization that she needed home, or the Scarecrow’s idea that he needed brains, neither would have ended up on this adventure and neither would have grown as people the way that they do, or learned that they already had what they were looking for.

Same goes for the Tin Man, probably the most emotional character in all of cinema.

Like the Scarecrow, his Kansas Kounterpart also puts a lot of stock in having a specific trait, this time in having a heart.  The Tin Man’s stock is in remaining emotionally open and caring, and also like the Scarecrow, the Tin Man spends most of the movie bemoaning the absence of something he clearly has: a heart.

Like I said before, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the Tin Man might be the most emotional character in the history of movies.  He cries over everything. In another example of the truly interesting acting in this film, the performance that Jack Haley gives is dripping with empathy and kindness, directly tonally contradicting his claims of heartlessness.  Ironically, the gentlest of the company is also the only one consistently armed, with an axe no less.  Also like the Scarecrow, what he actually needs, and what he gets at the end of the story, is belief in the fact that he does have a heart, rather than the vital organ itself.  He spends the entire story using and prominently displaying the trait he determinedly says he lacks, and it’s all the more rewarding when he finally believes he’s found what he’s been looking for.

Perhaps the most complicated and difficult of the three to look at would be the Cowardly Lion.  Of the trio, he’s the one who does seem to lack the trait he claims to, routinely running away from danger and displaying extreme cowardice, to the point of being afraid of sheep he tries to count to go to sleep.  He’s not exactly King of the Forest, Dorothy brings him to blubbering with one almighty smack.

While the Scarecrow and the Tin Man obviously display their own intelligence and emotion, the Lion never seems to portray any bravery of his own. He is drug, kicking and screaming, into danger at every turn, heading into the Witch’s castle, the Haunted Forest, and even the audience with the Wizard.  Even during the rescue of Dorothy he begs his friends to talk him out of it.

The real question we must ask is: does this make him a coward?

The definition of courage is not, as the Lion seems to think, a lack of fear.  In fact, the real definition of courage, especially from a storytelling standpoint, is being afraid, and doing what you have to do anyway.  Many of our greatest heroes from fiction have been afraid during their greatest deeds, but did what they did because it had to be done.  With this definition in mind, the Lion’s characterization makes a little more sense.

The Lion does pull through in every case, and yes, he does need some help from his friends to keep him going at times, but if doing everything alone and without fear constituted courage, very few of us would be considered truly brave.  Once again, this brings out the emphasis that The Wizard of Oz puts on friendships, which is possibly another one of the reasons that this film holds up for all ages.  We all know what it’s like to do things we don’t want to for a friend’s sake, even if it’s not exactly storming a castle.

Just like the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, the Lion never picks up on the fact that he too has what he’s been looking for this whole time, the real prize at the end being his own confidence in his ability.  He also shares quite a few similarities to his Kansas Kounterpart, all bluster until Dorothy falls into the pigpen, and despite being afraid, he charges in after her.  Like Dorothy and the others, he too ends the journey with what he’s been looking for.

But of course, there wouldn’t be a journey in the first place without our titular wizard, would there?

Of all of the characters in The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard himself is the most similar to his real world counterpart, Professor Marvel.  He’s a con artist, a Stage Magician in both worlds, convincing Dorothy of his abilities with his ‘Crystal Ball’ in Kansas, and convincing everyone in Oz that he’s an all-powerful Wizard, with enough parlor tricks and bluster to be in charge without ever having to use any real magic.

Despite this penchant for dishonesty, both the Wizard and Professor Marvel display remarkable amounts of compassion.  He’s a nice enough man when it comes down to it, using his ‘crystal ball’ to try to convince Dorothy to go back home to her family, and at the end, again trying to help her get home.  He gives Dorothy’s friends symbols to represent their ‘missing’ traits, and even dropping a few words of wisdom on them.

(Yes, he did send a child on an assassination mission, but in his defense, he was probably trying to buy time to figure out what to do with their requests. Once again, all bluster, remember? And furthermore, this is all a dream of Dorothy’s.  Cut her subconscious some slack.)

Another tidbit to look at: it’s interesting that his relationship with Dorothy is so very similar in both worlds: a con artist who tries to get her home.  It’s also interesting to note that in Kansas, before her journey, she buys it, whereas in Oz, after her adventure, she unmasks him as the Man Behind the Curtain (granted, with a lot of help from Toto).

Despite the fact that in the end, it is Dorothy alone who can get her home, it’s not for lack of the Wizard’s trying.

There are only three remaining major characters in The Wizard of Oz who do not have counterparts in either universe: Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, and Glinda the Good Witch, and rather than sharing similarities with any other characters, this group actually seems to work as contrasts for each other.

Auntie Em and Uncle Henry are introduced as hardworking people, an older couple with a farm in the middle of the Great Depression, by no means an easy job.  They are also raising Dorothy, which is another not easy job.  As a result, Auntie Em especially comes across as a little stern and stressed, distant, and not really understanding of Dorothy’s young impulsive thoughts and dreams.  In a way, they are part of the cause of Dorothy’s journey in the first place by not stopping Ms. Gulch from swooping off with Toto, coming across almost as a betrayal to not only Dorothy, but the audience.  Dorothy and the audience both feel that the couple are unsympathetic to her, and don’t help her when she absolutely needs it, which works as a neat foreshadowing that Dorothy will, in fact, be learning to solve her own problems.

It is only later, when the tornado strikes, that you see the genuine concern and love that the pair have for their niece.  When Dorothy wakes up, both aunt and uncle greet her with relieved affection.  Despite the fact that it is Auntie Em and Uncle Henry’s inaction that drives her away, it is also them that she is so desperate to return to: caring family that she is sure is worried about her.  (She’s right.)  Dorothy’s self-sufficiency does not come at the cost of her family’s love and support, rather, the message seems to be that through relationships with others, you can learn to handle yourself.

By contrast, there’s Glinda the Good Witch, the first person Dorothy meets in Oz, a super-magical being with the power to scare off the Wicked Witch, and with the knowledge from the beginning that would have saved Dorothy a trip.

Glinda has a similar effect on Dorothy’s life as her aunt and uncle, but in a different way.  It is Glinda’s inaction that is part of the reason for Dorothy’s quest.  By not telling her about the power of the Ruby Slippers to take her home, she allows Dorothy to take that journey that Glinda knows she needs.

Glinda is the most otherworldly and magical thing about Oz.  Everything about her is designed to be different to anyone else in Oz, from her mode of travel to her clothes to her way of speech.  She’s immediately friendly and we instantly get the sense that she knows more than both Dorothy and the audience.  Glinda is Dorothy’s guide, sending her off, rescuing her from the Wicked Witch’s poppies, and then at the end, when she tells Dorothy how she can get home to her mentors in the real world.

If you think that these characters seem a little simple, you’d be right.  At the end of the day, The Wizard of Oz is not a story designed to have complex characters with deep motivations, it’s a fairytale intended to have uncomplicated characters that people immediately connect to and remember.  And it works.

Every character in The Wizard of Oz is not only there for a reason, it’s for a good reason.  It was a perfect cast that worked well onscreen, with enough relatability and charm that people of all ages come back to them again and again. They carry the story and make us care about it and them, and in the end, that is the mark of a good character.

Whether you like or hate them, a character is there to make you care, and in this case, this group does their job.  They leave an impact, and a strong one at that. We remember these characters and their quirks long after the movie is over for a reason.

Join me next time where we’ll be looking at another interesting aspect of The Wizard of Oz: We’ve seen the impact it’s had on the culture, now it’s time to see the impact the culture had on it.  Feel free to drop a suggestion or thought in the ask box, and thank you so much for reading!

#The Wizard of Oz #The Wizard of Oz 1939 #PG #1939 #30s #Film #Movies #Adventure #Fantasy #Judy Garland #Margaret Hamilton #Frank Morgan #Ray Bolger #Jack Haley #Bert Lahr #Billie Burke #Victor Fleming

[soospiritualjourney]

Ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday

(1) Demosthenes once said that virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage. We must begin by seeing ourselves and the world in a new way for the first time. Then we must fight to be different and fight to stay different—that’s the hard part. I’m not saying you should repress or crush every ounce of ego in your life—or that doing so is even possible. These are just reminders, moral stories to encourage our better impulses.

(2) The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool- RICHARD FEYNMAN

(3) If ego is the voice that tells us we’re better than we really are, we can say ego inhibits true success by preventing a direct and honest connection to the world around us. One of the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous defined ego as “a conscious separation from.” From what? Everything.

(4) The ways this separation manifests itself negatively are immense: We can’t work with other people if we’ve put up walls. We can’t improve the world if we don’t understand it or ourselves. We can’t take or receive feedback if we are incapable of or uninterested in hearing from outside sources. We can’t recognize opportunities—or create them—if instead of seeing what is in front of us, we live inside our own fantasy. Without an accurate accounting of our own abilities compared to others, what we have is not confidence but delusion. How are we supposed to reach, motivate, or lead other people if we can’t relate to their needs—because we’ve lost touch with our own?

(5) The performance artist Marina Abramović puts it directly: “If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.”

(6) Just one thing keeps ego around—comfort. Pursuing great work—whether it is in sports or art or business—is often terrifying. Ego soothes that fear. It’s a salve to that insecurity. Replacing the rational and aware parts of our psyche with bluster and self-absorption, ego tells us what we want to hear, when we want to hear it.

But it is a short-term fix with a long-term consequence.

(7) The aim of that structure is simple: to help you suppress ego early before bad habits take hold, to replace the temptations of ego with humility and discipline when we experience success, and to cultivate strength and fortitude so that when fate turns against you, you’re not wrecked by failure. In short, it will help us be:

* Humble in our aspirations

* Gracious in our success

* Resilient in our failures

(8) The Quaker William Penn observed, “Buildings that lie so exposed to the weather need a good foundation.”

(9) When we remove ego, we’re left with what is real. What replaces ego is humility, yes—but rock-hard humility and confidence. Whereas ego is artificial, this type of confidence can hold weight. Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned. Ego is self-anointed, its swagger is artifice. One is girding yourself, the other gaslighting. It’s the difference between potent and poisonous.

(10) Isocrates - “Practice self-control,” he said, warning Demonicus not to fall under the sway of “temper, pleasure, and pain.” And “abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them.” “Be affable in your relations with those who approach you, and never haughty; for the pride of the arrogant even slaves can hardly endure” and “Be slow in deliberation, but be prompt to carry out your resolves” and that the “best thing which we have in ourselves is good judgment.” Constantly train your intellect, he told him, “for the greatest thing in the smallest compass is a sound mind in a human body.”

Shakespeare

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!

Where Isocrates and Shakespeare wished us to be self-contained, self-motivated, and ruled by principle, most of us have been trained to do the opposite. Our cultural values almost try to make us dependent on validation, entitled, and ruled by our emotions. For a generation, parents and teachers have focused on building up everyone’s self-esteem. From there, the themes of our gurus and public figures have been almost exclusively aimed at inspiring, encouraging, and assuring us that we can do whatever we set our minds to. In reality, this makes us weak.

(11) In this phase, you must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote. It’s easy to be emotionally invested and infatuated with your own work. Any and every narcissist can do that. What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.

(12) For your work to have truth in it, it must come from truth. If you want to be more than a flash in the pan, you must be prepared to focus on the long term.

It’s a temptation that exists for everyone—for talk and hype to replace action.

(13) Doing great work is a struggle. It’s draining, it’s demoralizing, it’s frightening—not always, but it can feel that way when we’re deep in the middle of it. We talk to fill the void and the uncertainty.

(14) “A man is worked upon by what he works on,” Frederick Douglass once said. He would know. He’d been a slave, and he saw what it did to everyone involved, including the slaveholders themselves. Once a free man, he saw that the choices people made, about their careers and their lives, had the same effect. What you choose to do with your time and what you choose to do for money works on you. The egocentric path requires, as Boyd knew, many compromises.

(15) To become great and to stay great, they must all know what came before, what is going on now, and what comes next. They must internalize the fundamentals of their domain and what surrounds them, without ossifying or becoming stuck in time.

In our endeavors, we will face complex problems, often in situations we’ve never faced before. Opportunities are not usually deep, virgin pools that require courage and boldness to dive into, but instead are obscured, dusted over, blocked by various forms of resistance. What is really called for in these circumstances is clarity, deliberateness, and methodological determination.

(16) Passion typically masks a weakness. Its breathlessness and impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for strength and purpose and perseverance.

(17) “Whom the gods wish to destroy,” Cyril Connolly famously said, “they first call promising.”

(18) Only you know the race you’re running. That is, unless your ego decides the only way you have value is if you’re better than, have more than, everyone everywhere. More urgently, each one of us has a unique potential and purpose; that means that we’re the only ones who can evaluate and set the terms of our lives. Far too often, we look at other people and make their approval the standard we feel compelled to meet, and as a result, squander our very potential and purpose.

(19) According to Seneca, the Greek word euthymia is one we should think of often: it is the sense of our own path and how to stay on it without getting distracted by all the others that intersect it. In other words, it’s not about beating the other guy. It’s not about having more than the others. It’s about being what you are, and being as good as possible at it, without succumbing to all the things that draw you away from it. It’s about going where you set out to go. About accomplishing the most that you’re capable of in what you choose. That’s it. No more and no less. (By the way, euthymia means “tranquillity” in English.)

(20) It is not enough to have great qualities; we should also have the management of them.

—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

(21) Feel unprotected against the elements or forces or surroundings. Remind yourself how pointless it is to rage and fight and try to one-up those around you. Go and put yourself in touch with the infinite, and end your conscious separation from the world. Reconcile yourself a bit better with the realities of life. Realize how much came before you, and how only wisps of it remain.

(22) Let the feeling carry you as long as you can. Then when you start to feel better or bigger than, go and do it again.

(23) The historian Shelby Foote observed that “power doesn’t so much corrupt; that’s too simple. It fragments, closes options, mesmerizes.” That’s what ego does. It clouds the mind precisely when it needs to be clear. Sobriety is a counterbalance, a hangover cure—or better, a prevention method.

(24) As Plutarch finely expressed, “The future bears down upon each one of us with all the hazards of the unknown.” The only way out is through.

(25) According to Greene, there are two types of time in our lives: dead time, when people are passive and waiting, and alive time, when people are learning and acting and utilizing every second. Every moment of failure, every moment or situation that we did not deliberately choose or control, presents this choice: Alive time. Dead time.

That’s what so many of us do when we fail or get ourselves into trouble. Lacking the ability to examine ourselves, we reinvest our energy into exactly the patterns of behavior that caused our problems to begin with.

In life, we all get stuck with dead time. Its occurrence isn’t in our control. Its use, on the other hand, is.

(26) As Booker T. Washington most famously put it, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Make use of what’s around you. Don’t let stubbornness make a bad situation worse.

(27) A dangerous attitude because when someone works on a project—whether it’s a book or a business or otherwise—at a certain point, that thing leaves their hands and enters the realm of the world. It is judged, received, and acted on by other people. It stops being something he controls and it depends on them.

(28) There was an unusual encounter between Alexander the Great and the famous Cynic philosopher Diogenes. Allegedly, Alexander approached Diogenes, who was lying down, enjoying the summer air, and stood over him and asked what he, the most powerful man in the world, might be able to do for this notoriously poor man. Diogenes could have asked for anything. What he requested was epic: “Stop blocking my sun.” Even two thousand years later we can feel exactly where in the solar plexus that must have hit Alexander, a man who always wanted to prove how important he was. As the author Robert Louis Stevenson later observed about this meeting, “It is a sore thing to have labored along and scaled arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement.”

(29) This is why we can’t let externals determine whether something was worth it or not. It’s on us.The world is, after all, indifferent to what we humans “want.” If we persist in wanting, in needing, we are simply setting ourselves up for resentment or worse. Doing the work is enough.

(30) Duris dura franguntur. Hard things are broken by hard things.

The bigger the ego the harder the fall.

(31) Hemingway had his own rock-bottom realizations as a young man. The understanding he took from them is expressed timelessly in his book A Farewell to Arms. He wrote, “The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”

(32) The world can show you the truth, but no one can force you to accept it.

(33) “Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed,” reads John 3:20.

(34) In the end, the only way you can appreciate your progress is to stand on the edge of the hole you dug for yourself, look down inside it, and smile fondly at the bloody claw prints that marked your journey up the walls.

(35) It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character.

—MARCUS AURELIUS

(36) The problem is that when we get our identity tied up in our work, we worry that any kind of failure will then say something bad about us as a person. It’s a fear of taking responsibility, of admitting that we might have messed up. It’s the sunk cost fallacy. And so we throw good money and good life after bad and end up making everything so much worse.

(37) Ego kills what we love. Sometimes, it comes close to killing us too.

(38) “Act with fortitude and honor,” he wrote to a distraught friend in serious financial and legal trouble of the man’s own making. “If you cannot reasonably hope for a favorable extrication, do not plunge deeper. Have the courage to make a full stop.” - Alexander Hamilton

(39) Because you will lose in life. It’s a fact. A doctor has to call time of death at some point. They just do.

Ego says we’re the immovable object, the unstoppable force. This delusion causes the problems. It meets failure and adversity with rule breaking—betting everything on some crazy scheme; doubling down on behind-the-scenes machinations or unlikely Hail Marys—even though that’s what got you to this pain point in the first place.

(40) “He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man,” Seneca once said. Alter that: He who will do anything to avoid failure will almost certainly do something worthy of a failure.

The only real failure is abandoning your principles. Killing what you love because you can’t bear to part from it is selfish and stupid. If your reputation can’t absorb a few blows, it wasn’t worth anything in the first place.

(41) And why should we feel anger at the world?

As if the world would notice!

—EURIPIDES

#ryan holiday #ego is the enemy #quotes

[armageddon-generation]

The Big Moffat Rewrite: Series 7

Following on from my Series 5 and my Series 6 rewrites

XMAS SPECIAL The Snowmen

The Bells of Saint John

The Rings of Akhaten

Cold War

A Town Called Mercy

The Slow Invasion

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Asylum of the Cybermen

Nightmare in Silver

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Hide

Supremacy of the Daleks

Extermination of the Daleks

The Name of the Doctor

The Snowmen

·         11 is still a recluse in Victorian London, but because in my Series 6 he left the Ponds instead of losing them, it’s because he’s convinced he’ll screw up if he travels again. After wiping himself from history he’s lying low, not helping because he’s convinced he’ll make things worse

·         (also he’s totally wallowing in self-pity because of his self-imposed exile from the Ponds)

·         Clara re-convinces him he can make positive change, drags him out of his self-absorption, shows him something new

 CLARA’s CHARACTER

·         Clara gets all of series 7. Moffat originally wanted The Time of the Doctor to be a whole series, so we can fit some of that stuff about the Silence and Trenzalore in here.

·         GIVE CLARA A FUCKING ARC – the Doctor takes an ordinary girl who he thinks is special, and accidentally makes her special

·         Most people seem to prefer Victorian! Clara to her in S7B anyway, so she becomes that flirty, authoritative character by the finale

·         The pieces were already there – her being scared in Cold War compared to her taking charge in Nightmare in Silver, but make it explicit – the Doctor realises he is changing Clara and turning her into the person he met in Victorian London and the Cyberman Asylum

·         This sets up her arcs and relationship with 12 – he brings out the liar in her, forces her to become cold and calculating. This is now already happening with 11

The Rings of Akhaten

·         Introduce Trisha Lem, the head of the Church of the Silence, here. The best part of this episode is The Speech, but we could easily say that the Silence is presiding over the Long Song ceremony to appease the Old God, taking the place of those creatures hunting the little girl. 

·         (I imagine the Church pre-Trenzalore as a kind of Shadow Proclamation for religion - presiding over and safeguarding the religious traditions of species across the universe)

·         This way Trisha and the Silence’s role as confessionals doesn’t come out of nowhere in The Time of the Doctor

·         11 and Trisha’s relationship being so flirty confuses me - as the head of the Church, 11 must associate her with all the pain the Silence caused River and the Ponds. Instead, he acts really flirty but Clara notices he’s faking it – a reflection of their own relationship?

·         Trisha doesn’t understand why 11 is being elusive.

A Town Called Mercy

·         Use this story’s framework – a Western where 11 is forced to protect war criminal – and insert River

·         Partly bc River and Clara interacting seems super interesting

·         River is angry at 11 for ‘replacing’ the Ponds. I also think she’d be competitive with Clara? As she’s scattered all over the Doctor’s timestream, Clara is the only person who really could compete with her

·         As an archaeologist expert on the Doctor River knows about Clara, but can’t tell 11 exactly what she is

·         Also 11 agreeing with River’s more violent methodology is really interesting and shows how they can feed into each other’s dark sides – think River’s line from The Angels Take Manhattan – “One psychopath per TARDIS, don’t you think?”

The Slow Invasion

·         A version of The Power of Three told from the perspective of the Alice character who replaced Craig in S5/6. 11 pops in and out of her life with different versions of Clara

·         It’s revealed that 11 has tried to travel with different versions of Clara before, tracking her down all across the universe, but she always, always dies. Our Clara doesn’t know.

·         Alice is deeply critical of what 11 is doing. She acts almost as his therapist; he comes over for tea and talks to her about what’s going on.

·         Instead of the cubes being alien exterminators, this is a plot buy the Great Intelligence (series 7′s big bad) inspired by the Skith from DWM comic The First and Superman villain Brainiac – i.e. the Intelligence is collecting all information it can about a thing, and then destroys it to stop that knowledge becoming commonplace and therefore losing its value. Specifically, the Intelligence is also investigating Clara (because she keeps appearing across its timeline). The Intelligence’s fascination is a dark parallel to 11’s

·         Alice asks 11 what happened to the Ponds, and he reveals they still think he’s dead. Alice tells 11 to go see them (the ending scenes of The Doctor, the Widow and The Wardrobe). She also tells him to start treating Clara like a real person, not a human question mark

·         11 takes Clara to meet them. River is also there, having dinner. The episode closes with them reconnecting

Pond Life

·         After The Slow Invasion launch this minisode series about life post-11, with River barging in instead of the Doctor

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

·         Tie the TARDIS disliking Clara into the series arc – it’s because the TARDIS knows Clara is an anomaly scattered through the Doctor’s timestream. Have a scene in Journey To the Centre of the TARDIS where 11 argues with the TARDIS about it – “Do you know what she is? You do, don’t you? I miss the time when you could talk and just tell me.”

·         The TARDIS went to the end of the universe to throw Jack Harkness off, and 11 abandoned Future!Amy in The Girl Who Waited because the TARDIS hates paradoxes – this is the same kind of thing, just make it clear by the finale (Clara even jumps into the time stream INSIDE the TARDIS)

·         Clara remembers the events of the episode so she can be be active in the investigation of who she is, (also fixing how the episode undoes the three brothers’ arcs, but still insists they grew as people at the end)

          This represents 11 opening up to her and trusting her more

Asylum of the Daleks (retitled Asylum of the Cybermen)

         Roll Nightmare in Silver and Asylum into a 2-parter, because the best part of Nightmare is Mister Clever. Both episodes even have the same ‘someone’s about to destroy the planet’ ticking time bomb.

         The army fighting the Cybermen kidnap 11 to get him to destroy the Asylum with a bunch of expendable grunts they can afford to lose to a suicide mission.·         Clara meeting/interacting with another version of herself is really interesting, so we keep converted Oswin saving them·

         Changing it to Asylum of the Cybermen makes more sense thematically

        All those people, including Oswin, being converted – the Asylum’s security system is its conversion machinery – attackers become part of the security system. Instead of a nano-cloud, use the tiny upgraded Cybermats·

         It would also be scarier (a haunted hospital a la World Enough and Time- botched cybermen > insane Daleks) and would add an interesting layer to Cyberman lore instead of making the Daleks look weak. It can also use old models to explain the Cybermen’s multiple backstories, touched on in The Doctor Falls (”everywhere there’s people, there’s cybermen,” 12 says)·

         The ‘subtracting love’ thing makes more sense with cybermen too – instead of Amy and Rory, focus on Clara holding onto her connection with 11 – emphasising their genuine, emotion-based bond over ‘flirty quirky plot device’·

         This renewed focus on the Cybermen is good because the last full-on Cyberman story was in Series 2 (in The Next Doctor they’re just kind of in the background), and Moffat is much better at writing the body-horror of the Cybermen than he is writing the Daleks.

Nightmare in Silver

·         11 deliberately lets himself be ‘infected’ by the asylum’s nanocloud and begins conversion in attempt to save the converted Oswin’s mind.

·         Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the origin of Handles, the Cyberman head from The Time of The Doctor: the remains of Oswin’s cyber-converted mind downloaded into a head.

·         11 uses Mr Clever to get information about her - i.e. that she just appeared one day as a fully-formed person without any family. This sets up the other Claras being time remnants. 

·         It also lets Mr Clever play more psychological games with 11 and Clara – Mr Clever reveals 11 is scared of Clara, putting more strain on Clara having to hold on to her emotional attatchments

·         The Cybermen are actively trying to get out. This way we dig into their primary drive – survival at all costs,

·         What happens when a Cyberman’s emotional inhibitor is broken, but they don’t die? Driven insane and desperate, and fiercely intelligent.

·         I like the idea of the Cybermen like the Xenomorph in Alien; blending in with thoier broken down, mechanical environment, plugging into it and using to separate and play games with the soldiers.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

·         Replace The Crimson Horror with a version of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship with the Paternoster Gang replacing Brian, the Ponds, Nefertiti and that hunter bloke

·         I just really need to see Vastra interacting with her culture OK? Seeing her be taken back to her childhood, opening up to Jenny about it. Her anger, realising what the villain Solomon has done to her people. Use this conflict to call back to and explain how she met the Doctor, how he stopped her slaughtering humans before.

·         Clara and 11 go to the Paternoster Gang for help investigating her other selves

·         Clara researches and finds her past selves, not only in Victorian London but also throughout the 60s and 70s, when she’s helping the past Doctors – finding this research is how the kids find out she’s a time traveller

·         This is how THE DOCTOR REALISES HE’S SEEN HER MANY TIMES BEFORE, setting up The Name of the Doctor’s out-of-nowhere, un-guessable resolution.

·         Dark!11 again. Matt saoid they would’ve explored a ‘meaneer’ version if he’d stayed on for series 8. Clara is the perfect way to bring that out as they lie and manipulate each other for their own ends.

DALEK CIVIL WAR STORY

·         Progenitor Daleks vs the regular Time War model. Display how the Progenitor Daleks are different - each of them having a different weapon/role etc. The crux of the story is that the Progenitor Daleks are better at fighting the Doctor and come close to killing him, but the other Daleks value their ‘purity’ and survival more

·         Maximum Dark!11

The Name of the Doctor

·         When 11 rescues Clara she is changed – she retains bits and pieces of her time remnants’ experiences, it’s at once traumatising and exhilarating

The Time of the Doctor

·         Whereas The End of Time felt stretched-out (135 minutes) this felt really rushed. Make it 2 parts.

·         We see the set-up of Trenzalore and the Church of Silence in the first.

·         The second part is the long siege of Trenzalore – we need to see 11 age fighting these monsters, taking his turn being left behind, the tragedy of him slowly losing his memory, focusing on his character

·         We can also flesh out the citizens of Trenzalore and Christmas so their safety is important to us

·         Let’s see Madame Kovarian and her splinter cell break off from the main Church of Silence and leave to try and kill the Doctor – make her a supporting character

·         Then have Trisha Lem explicitly talk to the Doctor about how Kovarian blowing up the TARDIS caused the cracks in the universe in the first place, allowing the Time Lords to get their message out. Instead of a montage, have this be the moment that unites the Doctor and the Silence – they are both fighting to make up for their mistakes and the problems they caused

·         We see the many races surrounding Trenzalore form the alliance from The Pandorica Opens

#doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #clara oswald #clara oswin #jenna louise coleman #jenna coleman #steven moffat #stephen moffat #dw #bbc doctor who #doctor who series 7 #11th doctor #series rewrite #amy pond #the paternoster gang #madame vastra #strax #The Big Moffat Rewrite #doctor who dalek #cybermen

[jenomark]

Can I request what it would be like to date every member of NCT? (including WayV)

Disclaimer: These are all of my personal opinions and are not meant to be taken as truth. Thank you!

Taeil: If there is anyone who is on your side unconditionally, it’s Taeil. He’s not a person who judges without seeing the whole picture. He’s incredibly kind and even-tempered. If he’s going to try new things, he wants to try them with you. Taeil is someone who appreciates his significant other and understands that not everything can be perfect all of the time. Finds everything you do cute and charming. Brags a lot because he wants you to tell him he’s cool.

Johnny: Dating Johnny is like dating your best friend. He remembers things you told him months ago because he listens to you well. He’s the type of man to carry you in his heart wherever he goes. He’s romantic, but also a realist. He will never lead you on, or make you believe something that isn’t true. All of his sweaters smell good and he loves to see wearing them. Nervous at the thought of you meeting his family because he wants them to like you so badly. 

Taeyong: Taeyong loves holding your hand, reaching out for you whenever he’s scared, or feeling anxious. He’s emotional and has a hard time collecting his thoughts when he’s agitated, but he always means well. Dating Taeyong is full of soft moments. He will tuck your hair behind your ear, pick you flowers, and always shows up to everything you invite him to. Definitely the type to tell everyone in his life about you. Wants to adopt an animal with you.

Yuta: Dating Yuta is fairy-tale perfect. He really knows how to treat someone the way they deserve to be treated. Yuta enjoys the idea of caring for someone else, sometimes putting them before himself. His heart is always open and in the right place. Making you laugh is his greatest strength, and it’s when he’ll find you the prettiest. If you put yourself down for even one second, Yuta won’t hesitate to show you how perfect you are. Everyone’s mother loves him, including yours. Loves skinship. Like, insanely touchy.

Kun: Kun is the type of man that will fight for you. He may seem serious, but the relationship will be full of goofy moments too. Loves to show you off and treat you to expensive things. Kun’s kindhearted and it’s easy to take advantage of him. He knows this about himself, so you’ll need to tell him how wonderful he is, often. Very supportive and always looking out for your best interests. Would cook you so much food that you’ll get a little chubby, but it’s okay, because he’ll love you no matter what.

Doyoung: He wants to be his perfect idea of a boyfriend, so he will try so hard. Likes to take the lead but will stop to ask you what you think first. Has no idea what he’s doing. Definitely sings you to sleep but won’t do so unless you convince him that you genuinely want him to. Tons of teasing back and forth. Very protective. The relationship will have an old love quality to it, even if you’ve been together for a short time. Thinks his biggest weakness is his lack of energy and he’s right.

Ten: You expect the relationship to be wild, but it’s surprisingly chill. He likes things really private. He enjoys having you all to himself because he’s greedy. Weekend getaways, even if it’s in the same city, are important to him. He loves spending quality time and wants to know every part of you. Ten is someone you will have to be a little patient with as he’s softer than he’ll admit. Doesn’t like when he’s not being listened to. Tells you how good you look 24/7, even if you a lil’ ugly.

Jaehyun: Dating Jaehyun won’t be easy, at first. He’s someone that is hard to get close to. He has a lot of thoughts and feelings, and won’t open up unless he trusts you with them. But when he does trust you, he reveals everything to you. Jaehyun does a lot of simple things with you like getting groceries and running errands. Time moves slowly when he looks at you, but with him, you won’t want it any other way. Finds the weirdest things funny, but it will be endearing. Compliment him sometimes if you want to see those dimples.

WinWin: This relationship is interesting. It takes awhile for WinWin to become comfortable, but he is worth the wait. You’ll grow together. He knows what is important and he prioritizes things really well, especially as he gets older. His relationship with you drives him to succeed. Sometimes your relationship can mimic friendship,  but behind closed doors, WinWin transforms into someone very affectionate. Gets shy around you when you call him out. Secretly loves to be put in his place.

Jungwoo: Every day when you’re dating Jungwoo feels very light and fun. He hates dwelling in negativity when he’s with you because he believes you deserve better. Jungwoo’s self-confidence needs a bit of lifting here and there. Except for when it comes to him, he’s the type to get over things pretty quickly. Loves to tease. Very clingy. Spends a lot of time trying to get you to play with his hair. 

Lucas: Just wants to do everything he can with you. Lucas hates sitting inside and wasting time. Spending time outside with you when the weather is nice is Lucas’ favorite part of his day. Plenty of hand holding and kissing. But don’t kiss him in public, because he’s shy. Inspires you. Takes so many artsy pictures of you and never tells you that sometimes he looks at them when he’s feeling sad.

Mark: Dating Mark is like seeing everything for the first time. He’ll hype you up so much that you’ll feel confident. His ambition and hard work rubs off on you in all the best ways. Loves it when you watch him work. Writes songs about you but never tells you which ones. Smiles to himself anytime someone mentions your name. He feels safe talking about his passions with you, and he’ll want you to be interested in them, too. But Mark would never push his beliefs on you. He admires individuality.  Secretly loves resting his chin on your shoulder. Doesn’t want you to know all of the embarrassing things he has done.

Xiaojun: There will be a lot of traveling and exploring in this relationship. You will have to be up for immersing yourself in different cultures, and getting to know him in ways you normally wouldn’t get to know someone. He does what he wants, so expect a life full of new experiences. And facing your fears. Doesn’t mind sharing a toothbrush. Loves to be completely and authentically himself around you, even if other people find him odd. Touches you with his cold feet when you’re in bed.

Hendery: He’s good at sensing your moods. When you’re sad, he’s always ready to make you feel better. Dating Hendery will make you feel safer than you’ve ever felt. He’s like a home in a person. You’ll find it really hard to be mad at him, and even when you are mad, it won’t last for long. He’s a people pleaser, so Hendery will do whatever it takes to ensure that you are pleased in every aspect of life. Sometimes needs you to be decisive for him. Doesn’t like sharing his food, but will because he loves you.

Renjun: He’s the type of guy that writes mile long texts about how much he loves you, but calls you his “idiot” when you’re both around other people. With Renjun, he never finds it hard to admit his true feelings, but he would rather show you with small gestures. Romantic and sentimental. Is always respectful, but will argue with you if he feels you’re being unfair to him.

Jeno: Dating Jeno teaches you a lot about yourself, to be honest. He will be very good at influencing your mood, especially because he makes you feel happy just by being near him. Jeno prefers a chill night at home because he finds it more entertaining than going out somewhere. He doesn’t like uninteresting things, so he’ll need his brain stimulated, or he’ll get restless. Gives the best cuddles and wants to spend all of his time with you. King of allowing you to be who you are. 

Haechan: He likes to surprise you often, but if you make too much of a scene, he’ll act like it’s not a big deal. Haechan thinks about you a lot when you’re separated, which is why he’ll always text first and answer your calls. No matter what you do, he supports all of it. He wants you to be proud of him too, so he will share his work with you, taking peeks at you to see if you’re enjoying it. Scared of losing you. Will love it if you always told him the truth, even if it hurts him.  

Jaemin: As romantic as he seems, but not as grand as you think he will be with his gestures. Jaemin’s more subtle than he lets on because he can be quite reserved. He loves getting good reactions from people -even if it’s bad- so give him plenty of feedback on how he is doing in the relationship. He respects your opinion a lot. Always tries his best. You will fall in love with him instantly.

YangYang: YangYang is a friend first. He values friendship more than anything. If you don’t have a solid foundation, he can’t build on it, and YangYang likes to build up. Being with him will never be dull. He’s the type to say that he can’t promise you anything when it comes to him, but that’s because he doubts himself a lot. Very lovable. Wants to be a part of everything. Will give you all of his love if you just praise him. 10/10 will drag you out of your comfort zone. 

#Anonymous #nct #nct reactions #wayv #nct 127 #nct dream #taeil #johnny #taeyong #yuta #kun #doyoung #ten #jaehyun #winwin #jungwoo #lucas #mark #xiaojun #hendery #renjun #jeno #haechan #jaemin #yangyang #long post #nct 127 reactions #wayv reactions

[ryanssecurityengineering]

Week 8 Notes and Reflection

REFLECTION

This was an interesting week, less focused on any technical things about security Engineering and more concerned with this idea of Errors - especially that you can’t pinpoint an error on one or two people but usually due to a bad system. Systems can be actual “systems” like nuclear power plants, or a system of behaviour in an organisation.

The lecture in the night time was incredibly weird. Richard literally read a book about the Three Mile Island accident. For the exam I will have to research a bit more about the accident - I like watching videos on YouTube, and it helps gain a different perspective. What I learnt was that the accident wasn’t caused by one entity - but by many entities involved - System Failure.

NOTES

Books on Errors

Human Error - James Reason

Normal Accidents - Charles Perror

Just Culture - Sidney Dekker

The Challenger Launch Decision - Diane Vaughan

Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe  - Serhii Plokhy

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety - Eric Schlosser

When something goes wrong

What is the root cause? Root Cause Analysis. Do this analysis when something goes wrong. The point is that we can improve for the future. Reactive. You can do one more like an engineer.

Humans prefer to have a signal explanation. But in the rare case they say three things:

Human/user/operator error - You sack that person! Blame the person, problem solved. Looking for a hero/villain. 

Every single cyberattack will because of human error. But it won’t be one human.

Story 1 - Aeroplane industry - “the last touch”. Root cause - the engineer who signed off on that last nose cone - the person would be the one at fault and fired. The last person who touched it and is at fault.

Story 2 - The second culprit is culture. We don’t have the right culture we have to change the culture! Culture is nice no need to blame anyone! Pay lots of money for consultants! Doesn’t really tell you how to fix the problem.

The above answers you won’t be able to solve the problem.

Fallback attack - when trying to hack someone, cause them to fall back to a less secure protocol. Only respond with less secure protocols.

Human Weaknesses

Honesty - commander in cheat. Humans not good at telling the truth. Some unis have an honour code - no cheat, no plagiarism. Psychologists what to work out to what extent honour codes alter people’s behaviour. Shredding exam paper - people got higher average score in test when the exam paper was shredded! Dishonest! Before you do it you would have to sign an honour code, saying you won’t cheat on the test. Different result when you sign at beginning vs end. Prinston you are shoved with the honour code. Stanford no honour code. Made no difference! 

Misdirection and limited focus - Our attention is like a torch. Imagine it completely dark - you use the torch and focus on a few things. Some areas you never shine the light on - pay attention to only one or two of those factors. We don’t always pick the best factors to follow. Humans subject to misdirection - focus on something else rather than what you are supposed to focus on. Humans should focus on what’s logically important, but tend to focus on what it is psychologically salient. E.g. magician. Magicians make u make sure you can’t tell whats important to focus on. Sleight of hand and misdirection. Planned and executed in plain sight. If the situation is complex need to turn all the lights on. How do you deal with contradicting data? - Confirmation bias. Ignore stuff we don’t like that - confirm theory we are currently theory. The more often you do something, it will become routine.  His obsession: "those factors which lead to and sustain wishful thinking rather than wise thinking"

satisficing and bounded rationality - Good enough is good enough, let’s move on. 

People prefer positive statements

overriding tendency to verify generalizations rather than falsify them

Group-think syndrome - When you are in a group and the way you act in the group. What is value is group membership. Even if things are going off the rail they don’t want to be the annoying person no one likes.

developmental phases - goed and breaked 2

procedural

meta-procedural

conceptual

The system should be designed so if a human error occurs. it is not catastrophic. 

Heuristics

Similarity matching - Have in your head schemes or situations from the past and try to match it. “Muscle memory”. This is how social engineers exploit you. The Brain is optimised to not think. 

Frequency gambling - When you got a match - I’m going to recall the pattern and pick the pattern. When you pick the pattern how to pick the best matching one? Most likely pick the pattern that worked most often. Frequency gambling - picked the pattern from the past that worked the most. We are just trying to delegate to a pattern very quickly. 

How is an accident different to an attack? - The intent - someone trying to make it go wrong. With an accident our adversary is Murphy. In an attack, you have someone who is adaptive and clever. The bad guy will make the cheese holes line up. Lego trains - interface trains through a serial port. At every Y intersection (switch) you could control it. The real problem was making sure the trains never collide - not the optimal solution. People distracted by the interesting things. Richard attacked them - he made Satin’s simulator. If you engage in an unsafe strategy, you’ve done the bad thing. This is how security is different to accidents. 

SYSTEMS

50 trivial problems - old man driving, bus strike etc, full car park, all sounds lame! Primary cause of failing to get to job interview? Human error, mechanical failure, environment, system design, procedures you used. The best answer is all of them? None of the above - none of them caused the accident. it was a systemic accident. 

Recognise that sometimes when things happen it is not due to the last person. It is about the system.

If you design a well designed system - resilient in accidents and attacks. If highly coupled and incoherent then that is pretty bad. Redundancy - Defence in Depth. However sometimes some failures cause other failures. COMMON MODE failure. 

Cassandra and Apollo and hindsight and Chekhov and simplification - Wooed her about something. Cassandra Syndrome - knowing the truth but no one believes you. Chekhov gun - anything on-screen in a movie is there for a purpose. A gun is on the wall to be used. Hindsight - Looking back everything looks so clear, but at the actual event maybe not.

Belief that event has only one significant cause.

Plan for few contingencies than occur.

-ability to control outcomes - the illusion of control.

- hindsight bias - knowledge of outcome of previous event increases perceived likelihood of that outcome

2911 Things -  complexity coherence coupling visibility  - visibility - direct error (e.g. instant feedback - ship goes wrong way). Easy to detect. The real errors are latent errors and the consequence of the error stays hidden until the future. Latent errors with defence in depth systems. E.g. memory leak. Fail invisibly and think the system is safe. 

operator deskilling due to Automatic safety devices - Ironic! 

latent vs active failures

"Dead Battles like dead generals hold the military mind in their dead grip, and Germans, no less than other peoples prepare for the last war." - Barbara Tuchman - planning for future is planning for what happened before.

Exam question about one of these: 

Chernobyl

Bhopal

Challenger

Three Mile Island - 

Chernobyl will be in the exam. The rods are in same liquid and pumped round and round circulating heat in the red area. Rods drop down to separate things, and absorb neutrons. For safety issues, the red stuff is inside a closed system and there is water cooling. 

Nuclear plants plagued with startup problems. Imagine nuclear react is cloud services! The utility charged the builder, and the builder charged the utility in the accident. The water in the secondary system is pure. Resins might get in the water and must be removed. It leaked out and leaked into the pneumatic air system. The system drives some of the instruments. Interrupted the air pressure which went to two of the values for the water system. Emergency pump used but the pipes were blocked! Valves left in the closed position from a maintenance - invisible failure. Operator couldn’t tell the water is pumping through a closed pipe. Mystery how the valves were closed. Operators testified - not unusual to find some in the wrong position. 

The decay heat builds up enormous temperature and pressure - normally there is lots of water to cool this. However the cooling system didn’t work. If the red part gets too hot, stainless steel around the red part might be brittle. There are ASD’s to handle the problem. The valve at the top of the yellow thing - relive pressure from the core. Reducing pressure becomes a gas, and explodes into steam. 1 in 50 times valve expected to fail. Presidents commission discovered that the valve fails often in other reactors. Unfortunately in this attack, the valve failed to close again after it opened. The radioactive water is gushing out! Absolute disaster. 32 thousand gallons stream out. The thing was simply uncaught. The indicator was recently added to the valve to indicate the valve had failed. However the indicator itself had failed too. Because the light was showing the valve had shut, they didn’t do any other tests. The valve only records whether a signal was sent to the valve to shut, not whether the thing was shut! The second shift determined the error and fixed it? When the mistake is a latent error - operator never notices. Can’t see that mistake again - new eyes come in and might solve the problem! Humans lead to failure and the failure to detect the failure. Operators couldn’t tell - only thing is “why is the core getting so hot?”. The system was tightly coupled - errors in one thing affect another. 

The people were looking for one story to explain the failure - however it was multiple stories. Opaque system. Heat in the bottom tank - its “probably ok” even though it was burning hot. reason to believe the water could have come from anywhere. Went to different wrong tank which overflowed in the wrong building. 

Everything will be weirdly connected - leave the tap on and all the password pour out of the tap. Tightly coupled system. 

Theoretical thing when the core is uncovered and etc. Possible the reaction can lead to hydrogen gas - can lead to explosion. Theoretical reaction that oxygen and hydrogen - thought it was an oxygen explosion. The whole thing filled up with hydrogen gas. China syndrome, steam in air and Fukishima. 

Investigations - Occurred. Reported that operators made terrible mistakes. THere were millions of things that went wrong, causing chain reaction. Can’t pick one person to blame. None of the people are actually the problem - they doing their best in a system designed to fail. 

What we have to do is not focus on finding scapegoats, and pretending we have good systems - Design it so that if things go wrong, the impact is minimised. 

UNSW how to improve cyber security - One real answer - work out the most important assets and JUST DEFEND THEM. Students? Safety? Staff? Money? Step 2- Assume you are going to be breached, and set it up so that is not a disaster. Have the vice chancellor read the press releases. 

HR Department - Can we have a copy of your passport? “I don’t know how long we keep passports, and we built a huge passport database.” Don’t hold the data, and delete the passports. Get rid of the valuable data! Stop building it up. Don’t make a data lake. 

PRIVACY EXTENDED LECTURE

When we use online services we forfeit our privacy for online services and fun. 

Google Timeline - tracks your location when you left your GPS on. 

The problem is when it is compromised - easy target and easy to stalk. 

Signal Blocking - Phone in Aluminium foil. Today there was reports of people accessing metadata without warrants. Aluminium foil breaks bluetooth signal. Faraday bags only $6!!! Foil blocks Find my Android.

Methods of Prevention - Incognito mode, Privacy focused browsers, log out when you can, Don’t make accounts with other accounts (e.g. spotify with Facebook), LIE.

VPNS - Everything you connect through the internet is through the VPN, not your local address. Everytime you make a request the person making the request is the VPN. Trusting whoever makes the VPN. 

Onion Routing - Diverting your request through intermediate nodes. Between each node is a symmetric key. 3 layers of encryption. Each node doesn’t know enough on its own that if it was compromised that it would give something valuable. Don’t know client or server. However attacker can perform timing attacks - see requests in and out. 

A right to privacy - No different to free speech where you have nothing to say. You can get cheaper flight tickets through a VPN from another country. 

Should I be concerned? - I have nothing to hide. I have nothing I can think of that I want to hide. If you are a good law abiding citizen then it is all good? Bruce Schenider = false assumptions of privacy and its value. Premise is that privacy is about hiding a wrong. The problem is the Power of The Government - Imbalance of Power. Left powerless as we don’t have a say on who can view our personal records. E.g. several airlines handed passenger records over to federal agencies after 9/11. Entirely different purpose of what the data was intended for. The policies become meaningless! Left us in a powerless position?

Privacy threatened by many small things, not one big thing. 

DIGITAL FORENSICS EXTENDED LECTURE

Branch of forensics science

Recovery/investigation of material found on digital devices

Two types of personnel

3 Stages of Digital Forensics Investigation

Acquisition/Imaging - Capture an “image”

Analysis - keyword searches, recover deleted files, specialist tools

Reporting - evidence used to construct events/actions, layman report written. 

Type of Forensics

Computer forensics - Memory and data

Mobile device - Phone

Network - Router switches, packet captures

Database Forensics 

Video/Audio forensics - Movie, audio

Stenography - hidden files inside files.

Tooling - EnCase, Autopsy, FTK Imager, File, Strings, XXd, Foremost, Binwalk, mmls. 

Drives and Partitioning (FAT32) - Allocates memory in clusters. FAT records the status of each cluster. Deleted files name is changed to 0xE5[file_name]. The first character of the file name is changed to show it is deleted. Forensics people check this FAT table and check for these deleted files. 

Flag in IMage - https://imgur.com/a/X2mNAIZ 

[astrox-style22]

KARMA FILES 2019

LIBRA

MONEY: When Uranus moves permanently into Taurus March 7th - July 7th 2025, in the house of joint financial partnerships, upheavals and reversal of fortunes can be expected.   If your self-worth, self-confidence is strong you’ll bet able to maintain balance during the changes that occur, as long as you’ve been moving with the Universe and continue to do so.   This transit is here to help you gain financial independence using your unique talents, therefore this is where your focus should be.    At the same time, separating Self from people who are undermining, secretly wish you to fail in your endeavors and have a karma with, is very important.  Understand the “lesson” the Universe is showing you, learn it and start to move beyond it., physically and spiritually. Your instincts will show/tell you who they are and insights to a solution to rid Self of their presence and influence in your life.  

While Uranus remains in Aries until March 7th, contractual agreements will unexpectedly change because their current purpose is over, courtesy of the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Virgo February 18th.  

The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer July 2nd influences you with the feelings of going uphill against the “tide”,  against the odds and the need to balance work with play.  However, you should take heart because this is the Universe “testing” you to regenerate from within and preserve what you have already created, in order for you to see the power/value of what you have/what you can do and become.  Therefore don’t be so quick to give up.  If you’re home, foundation of life is secure and in place it will be easier to get things done and moving forward.

The Harvest Moon in Pisces, September 14th will bring a does of reality into everyday employment lifting the veil fo r you to see that certain situations  weren’t what you thought at all.

When Mercury retrogrades In Scorpio, October 31st - November 20th, some aspect of money, material possessions, self-worth and personal resources will go through a repeat of a past experience and people who are undermining could return too facilitate not too positive changes secretly, from behind the scenes.    Stand your ground and don’t give them the power to affect your financial prosperity in any way.  

Jupiter in Sagittarius until December 2nd, will enhance business projects, plans, ideas and learning new things throughout the year, which could facilitate a journey/travel, introducing you to new people who have wealth of mind/sprit.  The will also show interest in what you have to offer and help you navigate your way forward. During this transit you’ll be filled with many new ideas and will need to keep a journal handy to keep track of them.  

During 2019, take care to be in action and not just talk about what you’re going to do or fall into inertia, which is the negative side of Libra.

SEX:   While Uranus is in Aries and the house of long-term love, until March 7th, the Universe will continue to guide you  down the “road of independence”, learning to be your own person in the context of a love relationship.   This means the focus will remain on you  being able to operate through life as an individual not just with a partner.   There must be balance.   This doesn’t mean you have to be single, but instead to understand the importance of being comfortable with your own company and being with someone who lets you be you.

POWER: 2019 is to work hard at making appropriate changes in your life, to help fulfill hopes and wishes and taking the necessary steps to free yourself form “friends”  who don’t wish you well or sabotage happiness.   Things can either go really well or go awry, depending on how strong your desire is for positive change and how you go about making it happen, not only with spiritual action but physical action too.   If all goes well, according to plan and you do something different in January, out of your comfort zone, a sudden turn of events could be the facilitator of major change, as you are inundated with possibilities and new opportunities. In fact much of what you have waited for could begin to take shape and form, because when it rains it will pour in 2019.

SCORPIO

MONEY: Jupiter in Sagittarius until December 2nd 2019,  favors you with opportunities to increase and expand. However, at the same time this aspect will highlight self-worth, self confidence and resources you have gathered so far.  How can you make best use of them sufficiently to step outside of your financial comfort zone, especially when dealing with the public?  Interaction with people, in particular women, from other cultures/countries and travel to far away places will provide many opportunities for business and projects to prosper.  With both Saturn and Pluto in your house of business, projects and ideas, you have to let go of old ideologies and thought processes that are not progressive or creative enough to compete with your peers and those who have similar ideas.  

The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Capricorn, January 5th, offers a chance to solve problems/misunderstandings connected to career, goals, ambitions and involving people in authority/power.    By July 16th, Full Moon Lunar Eclipse these issues should come to a close once and for all.  The key is to let go of stagnated ideas that are of no support to your success.  

The Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Leo January 21st, will change the foundation of current goals because of small weaknesses/faults being brought to the forefront that need to be fixed.    

Meetings with remarkable women around July 2nd Full Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer, could also manifest increased financial security and improvement in work. With Uranus still in Aries until March 7th, your house of work, health and service will still be a major focus.    This transit is an indication of imminent changes, upheavals and alarming news that requires immediate action.  An excellent cycle to start learning to trust your instincts a lot more, with ideas that come to you out-of-the-blue, bringing resolution to problems.

When Uranus moves into Taurus March 7th - July 7th 2025,  contractual agreements, partnerships and how you interact with the public will also change for the better over time.  Plus it’s a sign from the Universe that certain partnerships have run their course .

SEX:    Neptune in Pisces still remains in your house of love, happiness, childhood and risks until March 31st 2025.    A sign that romantic fantasies you’ve held onto since childhood  must be let go for a more realistic perspective, at least if you want to be happy/fulfilled in this area of life.   Over the next 6 years you’ll be faced with perceptions that are not conducive to a happy love relationship.  Your viewpoint needs an overhaul.  Take off the rose-colored  glasses and work at building a stronger, deeper relationship with Self to enhance self-esteem. With Uranus in Taurus, March 7th - July 7th 2025, the substance of a person is the character trait you should look for in a potential partner, not just the physical. If you focus mainly on the physical you’lll be faced with sorrow, self-undoing and karma you have in this area of life.

POWER: When Mercury retrogrades in your sign October 31st - November 20th, events occurring around this time will influence you to realize a change is needed in the way you interact/deal with others.   In addition, to act quietly from behind the scenes, keeping your plans secret so that people who don’t wish you well feel the need to cause sabotage.     Friends from the past could also resurface temporarily for re-connection to be made.    Health will also start to become a major focus.  This is a year to encompass all points of view and not become too fixated on your own opinion or perspective.   Try to be practical and maintain higher ideals throughout the year.

2019 is a year to realize there’s a great deal you don’t know and have yet to learn, With humble insights, independent thinking and ideas, the Universe will provide opportunities for you to grow.

SAGITTARIUS

MONEY: With Jupiter in your sign until December 2nd, then moving into Capricorn for one year, and your house of money, material possession, self-worth and personal resources, you’ll be at the start of a positive new cycle, bringing changes for the better.   Currently Jupiter is giving you protection from any and all negativity directed towards you.  As long as yo have a broad view of you abilities and what you can achieve, this cycle should end on a very positive note.  

Now is when you should be in action to overcome, negotiate, prosper, succeed, start a new business, settle business disagreements, buy a car and receive just payment owed to you.    New opportunities can be created while expanding your talents.  Uranus still in Aries until March 7th, is nudging these creative abilities, to stretch beyond your comfort zone, take bigger risks and show the world what you can do.  

The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Capricorn, affecting your money house,  will bring a new business structure, better equipped to support your goals.  by July 16th, the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in the same sign, will eventually end the old structure you’ve been used to  and form of employment.   As the year closes the last and final Eclipse in Capricorn will bring yet again another solid formidable opportunity to enhance goals, ambitions, authority and power.  In conjunction with Jupiter moving into Capricorn December 2nd for one year,  long-term opportunities should be your focus and past opportunities will resurface to fulfill current needs.   Any problems/misunderstandings with people in authority/power can also be resolved around the time of the Full Moon in Virgo, February 18th.  Be sure to not give up on  your own objectives because perseverance, patience and diligence will bring success. Do all you can to learn new things/subjects and gather information because there’s still a great deal you don’t know and have yet to learn/understand.

With Uranus permanently in Taurus March 7th - July 7th 2025, not only is your employment status up for change, but reversal of fortune could occur, which cold facilitate the change in work.   Expect unexpected opportunities to increase finances and gain recognition, to be available throughout this 6 year cycle. Nothing will stay the same, so be prepared for major changes in work, career and finances  during this transit.

SEX:     Uranus in Aries will also affect love, until March 7th.  During this time make an effort to smooth over any problems between you and your significant other, because the possibility of separation is likely with this aspect.  At the same time you can also do something different to surprise your partner (in a good way), which will serve to strengthen the bond between you.   Be clear about your intentions/feelings and avoid wanting your own way all the time.    For Single Sagittarius,  unexpected potential lovers come into your life out-of-the-blue, but as suddenly as they come, the could go just as quickly with this aspect and you can expect a lot of ups and downs in love while Uranus is in Aries.

POWER:      From a perspective of health, 2019  is a year to be more discriminating about the food you digest.  Listen to your body because it will “tell” you what works and what doesn’t .  A good nutritionist will be of great help throughout the year, once Uranus moves into Taurus and your house of health, work, service to Self and others. Unusual allergies could also be an issue that  seem to manifest out of nowhere. Also try not to overwork, because the stress will affect health and well being.

With Neptune in Pisces, still affecting home, family, foundation of life, anything/anyone that is not conducive to a nurturing environment, will be “dissolved” during this transit   This is a time to visualize the life you want with discernment, working towards making it a reality.    Remember, too, you can’t be all things to all people or keep people in your life that hold you back for moving forward because they are unable to move with you.

#Libra Horoscope #libra #libra 2019 #scorpio #scorpio horoscope #scorpio 2019 #sagittarius horoscope #Sagittarius #sagittairus 2019 #free astrology #astrology #astrology signs #horoscopes #free yearly horoscope #free yearly astrology readings #astrology 2019 #horoscopes 2019 #new astrology information #new astrology insights

[theadmiringbog]

Adler was one of the original core members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was led by Freud. His ideas were counter to Freud’s, and he split from the group and proposed an “individual psychology” based on his own original theories. 

Adler was very different from Jung, who revered Freud as a father figure.

...

In Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, much of the content closely resembles Adler’s ideas. In other words, rather than being a strict area of scholarship, Adlerian psychology is accepted as a realization, a culmination of truths and of human understanding. Yet Adler’s ideas are said to have been a hundred years ahead of their time, and even today we have not managed to fully comprehend them. That is how truly groundbreaking they were.                

--

If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with “determinism.” Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable.                

--

Youth: You’re saying that the past doesn’t matter? 

PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that is the standpoint of Adlerian psychology.                

--

Those who take an etiological stance, including most counselors and psychiatrists, would argue that what you were suffering from stemmed from such-and-such cause in the past, and would then end up just consoling you by saying, “So you see, it’s not your fault.” The argument concerning so-called traumas is typical of etiology. 

YOUTH: Wait a minute! Are you denying the existence of trauma altogether? 

PHILOSOPHER: Yes, I am. Adamantly.                

In Adlerian psychology, trauma is definitively denied.                 

--

Adler, in denial of the trauma argument, states the following: “No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”                

--

He is not saying that the experience of a horrible calamity or abuse during childhood or other such incidents have no influence on forming a personality; their influences are strong. But the important thing is that nothing is actually determined by those influences.                

--

Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.                

--

So you are saying that one should always take the “people can change” premise? 

PHILOSOPHER: Of course.                

--

Why are you rushing for answers? You should arrive at answers on your own, not rely upon what you get from someone else. Answers from others are nothing more than stopgap measures; they’re of no value.                

--

Socrates spent his days having public debates with the citizens of Athens, especially the young, and it was his disciple, Plato, who put his philosophy into writing for future generations. Adler, too, showed little interest in literary activities, preferring to engage in personal dialogue at cafés in Vienna, and hold small discussion groups. He was definitely not an armchair intellectual.                

--

Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. 

Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.                

--

He can never find enough time to write novels, and that’s why he can’t complete work and enter it for writing awards. But is that the real reason? No! It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open, by not committing to anything. 

He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time,                

--

Adler’s teleology tells us, “No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.” That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life. 

YOUTH: My life is determined at this exact point? 

PHILOSOPHER: Yes, because the past does not exist.                

--

What I can do is to get the person first to accept “myself now,” and then regardless of the outcome have the courage to step forward. In Adlerian psychology, this kind of approach is called “encouragement.”                

--

All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.                

--

The pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are not diseases but stimulants to normal, healthy striving and growth.                 

--

If it is not used in the wrong way, the feeling of inferiority, too, can promote striving and growth.                

--

You might think, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed. Put the other way around, the reasoning can be, If only I were well educated, I could be really successful.                

--

“In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.” 

YOUTH: So weakness is powerful? 

PHILOSOPHER: Adler says, “In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be, the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.”                

--

As long as one continues to use one’s misfortune to one’s advantage in order to be “special,” one will always need that misfortune.                

--

A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.             

--

Instead of treating the child like an adult, or like a child, one must treat him or her like a human being. One interacts with the child with sincerity, as another human being just like oneself.                

--

This is what is so terrifying about competition. Even if you’re not a loser, even if you’re someone who keeps on winning, if you are someone who has placed himself in competition, you will never have a moment’s peace. You don’t want to be a loser. And you always have to keep on winning if you don’t want to be a loser. You can’t trust other people. 

Once one is released from the schema of competition, the need to triumph over someone disappears. One is also released from the fear that says, Maybe I will lose. And one becomes able to celebrate other people’s happiness with all one’s heart.                

--

If someone were to abuse me to my face, I would think about the person’s hidden goal.                

--

First, there are two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society.  Then, the two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.                

--

Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart.                

--

When one can think, Whenever I am with this person, I can behave very freely, one can really feel love. One can be in a calm and quite natural state, without having feelings of inferiority or being beset with the need to flaunt one’s superiority. That is what real love is like.                

--

Why is it that people seek recognition from others? In many cases, it is due to the influence of reward-and-punishment education. 

YOUTH: Reward-and-punishment education? 

PHILOSOPHER: If one takes appropriate action, one receives praise. If one takes inappropriate action, one receives punishment. Adler was very critical of education by reward and punishment. It leads to mistaken lifestyles in which people think, If no one is going to praise me, I won’t take appropriate action and If no one is going to punish me, I’ll engage in inappropriate actions, too.                

--

Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be “this kind of person.” In other words, you throw away who you really are and live other people’s lives. 

And please remember this: If you are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations, it follows that other people are not living to satisfy your expectations. Someone might not act the way you want him to, but it doesn’t do to get angry.                

--

In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to change one’s interpersonal relationships dramatically.                

--

Think about it this way: Intervening in other people’s tasks and taking on other people’s tasks turns one’s life into something heavy and full of hardship. If you are leading a life of worry and suffering—which stems from interpersonal relationships—learn the boundary of “From here on, that is not my task.” And discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the load and making life simpler.                

--

Why are you worried about other people looking at you, anyway? Adlerian psychology has an easy answer. You haven’t done the separation of tasks yet. You assume that even things that should be other people’s tasks are your own.                

--

Conducting oneself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living, and is also impossible.                

--

YOUTH: Are you free, now? 

PHILOSOPHER: Yes. I am free. 

YOUTH: You do not want to be disliked, but you don’t mind if you are? 

PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s right.                

--

The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.                

--

Living in fear of one’s relationships falling apart is an unfree way to live, in which one is living for other people.                

--

Do not cling to the small community right in front of you. There will always be more “you and I,” and more “everyone,” and larger communities that exist.                

--

One must not praise, and one must not rebuke.                

--

In the act of praise, there is the aspect of it being “the passing of judgment by a person of ability on a person of no ability.”                

--

The mother who praises the child by saying things like “You’re such a good helper!” or “Good job!” or “Well, aren’t you something!” is unconsciously creating a hierarchical relationship and seeing the child as beneath her.                

--

Whether we praise or rebuke others, the only difference is one of the carrot or the stick, and the background goal is manipulation. The reason Adlerian psychology is highly critical of reward-and-punishment education is that its intention is to manipulate children.                

--

Yes. The most important thing is to not judge other people. “Judgment” is a word that comes out of vertical relationships. If one is building horizontal relationships, there will be words of more straightforward gratitude and respect and joy.                

--

PHILOSOPHER: On the other hand, if one has managed to build a horizontal relationship with at least one person—if one has been able to build a relationship of equals in the true sense of the term—that is a major lifestyle transformation. With that breakthrough, all one’s interpersonal relations will gradually become horizontal.                

--

We do not lack ability. We just lack courage. It all comes down to courage.                

--

Having a firm grasp on the truth of things—that is resignation.                

--

Think about it this way. We can believe. And we can doubt. But we are aspiring to see others as our comrades. To believe or to doubt—the choice should be clear.                

--

I have discussed self-acceptance, confidence in others, and contribution to others, in that order. However, these three are linked as an indispensable whole, in a sort of circular structure. It is because one accepts oneself just as one is—one self-accepts—that one can have “confidence in others” without the fear of being taken advantage of. And it is because one can place unconditional confidence in others, and feel that people are one’s comrades, that one can engage in “contribution to others.” Further, it is because one contributes to others that one can have the deep awareness that “I am of use to someone” and accept oneself just as one is. One can self-accept.                

--

Adler does not recognize ways of living in which certain aspects are unusually dominant.                

--

“Work” does not mean having a job at a company. Work in the home, child-rearing, contributing to the local society, hobbies, and all manner of other things are work. Companies and such are just one small part of that. A way of living that acknowledges only company work is one that is lacking in harmony of life.                

--

Does one accept oneself on the level of acts, or on the level of being?                

--

In a word, happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the definition of happiness.                

--

Why is it necessary to be special? Probably because one cannot accept one’s normal self. And it is precisely for this reason that when being especially good becomes a lost cause, one makes the huge leap to being especially bad—the opposite extreme. But is being normal, being ordinary, really such a bad thing? Is it something inferior? Or, in truth, isn’t everybody normal?                

--

You are probably rejecting normality because you equate being normal with being incapable. Being normal is not being incapable. One does not need to flaunt one’s superiority.                

--

But if life were climbing a mountain in order to reach the top, then the greater part of life would end up being “en route.” That is to say, one’s “real life” would begin with one’s trek on the mountainside, and the distance one has traveled up until that point would be a “tentative life” led by a “tentative me.”                

--

People who think of life as being like climbing a mountain are treating their own existences as lines. As if there is a line that started the instant one came into this world, and that continues in all manner of curves of varying sizes until it arrives at the summit, and then at long last reaches its terminus, which is death. This conception, which treats life as a kind of story, is an idea that links with Freudian etiology (the attributing of causes), and is a way of thinking that makes the greater part of life into something that is “en route.”                

...

Think of life as a series of dots. If you look through a magnifying glass at a solid line drawn with chalk, you will discover that what you thought was a line is actually a series of small dots. Seemingly linear existence is actually a series of dots; in other words, life is a series of moments.                

--

It is a series of moments called “now.” We can live only in the here and now. Our lives exist only in moments. Adults who do not know this attempt to impose “linear” lives onto young people. Their thinking is that staying on the conventional tracks—good university, big company, stable household—is a happy life. But life is not made up of lines or anything like that. 

YOUTH: So there’s no need for life planning or career planning? 

PHILOSOPHER: If life were a line, then life planning would be possible. But our lives are only a series of dots. A well-planned life is not something to be treated as necessary or unnecessary, as it is impossible.                

--

Among those who have danced the dance of the violin, there are people who stay the course and become professional musicians. Among those who have danced the dance of the bar examination, there are people who become lawyers. There are people who have danced the dance of writing and become authors. Of course, it also happens that people end up in entirely different places. But none of these lives came to an end “en route.” It is enough if one finds fulfillment in the here and now one is dancing.                

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Suppose you are going on a journey to Egypt. Would you try to arrive at the Great Pyramid of Giza as efficiently and quickly as possible, and then head straight back home by the shortest route? One would not call that a “journey.” You should be on a journey the moment you step outside your home, and all the moments on the way to your destination should be a journey. Of course, there might be circumstances that prevent you from making it to the pyramid, but that does not mean you didn’t go on a journey. This is “energeial life.”                

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If the goal of climbing a mountain were to get to the top, that would be a kinetic act. To take it to the extreme, it wouldn’t matter if you went to the mountaintop in a helicopter, stayed there for five minutes or so, and then headed back in the helicopter again. Of course, if you didn’t make it to the mountaintop, that would mean the mountain-climbing expedition was a failure. However, if the goal is mountain climbing itself, and not just getting to the top, one could say it is energeial. In this case, in the end it doesn’t matter whether one makes it to the mountaintop or not.                

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We should live more earnestly only here and now. The fact that you think you can see the past, or predict the future, is proof that rather than living earnestly here and now, you are living in a dim twilight. Life is a series of moments, and neither the past nor the future exists. You are trying to give yourself a way out by focusing on the past and the future.                

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When one adopts the point of view of Freudian etiology, one sees life as a kind of great big story based on cause and effect. So then it’s all about where and when I was born, what my childhood was like, the school I attended and the company where I got a job. And that decides who I am now and who I will become.                

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Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual. So life in general has no meaning whatsoever. But you can assign meaning to that life. And you are the only one who can assign meaning to your life.                

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No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike you, as long as you do not lose sight of the guiding star of “I contribute to others,” you will not lose your way, and you can do whatever you like. Whether you’re disliked or not, you pay it no mind and live free. 

YOUTH: If I have the star of contribution to others high in the sky above me, I will always have happiness and comrades by my side. 

PHILOSOPHER: Then, let’s dance in earnest the moments of the here and now, and live in earnest. Do not look at the past, and do not look at the future. One lives each complete moment like a dance. There is no need to compete with anyone, and one has no use for destinations. 

As long as you are dancing, you will get somewhere.

#The Courage to be Disliked #books