#keep seeing the same icebergs of discourse and

[corvus-frugilegus]

I sometimes see discussions here that are like... Yeah, it's good to be thoughtful and critical of the media we engage with and think about the context it was created in and how it intentionally or not makes statements about real groups of people... And also, no one's minds going to be changed by exchanging heated essays behind a screen? So like yeah. Point out flaws! Think about context! And if the way structural oppression has impacted a game you love in a way that compels you to action- maybe put that energy towards community organizing instead of heated exchanges of essays? Your local grassroots groups probably always need someone to write a social media post or a newsletter or update a spreadsheet.

If your experience in a fandom space feels like it's compelling you to action, why waste that energy trying to convince people to agree with you on here when you can maybe actually work towards tackling those systems directly?

[chussyracing]

psa: here is a small rant i have been sitting on for months now.

it's not a big issue and i don't mean to start discourse. it's just an interesting irk which goes far beyond sports although that's my main talking point here. it was originally made based on one blog whose posts keep appearing on my dash but it is not aimed @ them personally since they are only the tip of an iceberg and it's something i'm trying to argue we are all guilty of.

from time to time i see posts from people claiming they are "objective" or "unbiased" or "genuinely do not have any favourites" or "like all drivers" and while i agree that you do not need to only have one outright favourite and can like more than one driver, i do not think something like neutrality is achievable in sports - even if you don't have an athlete from your country in the sport.

and i'm not even talking about fans. you could say the same about the commentators, about the journalists, about anyone connected to the sport one way or another - full neutrality is not attainable. if you dive deep into the critical discourse analysis, the sports are always about two sides: "us" and "them" and it doesn't matter who you put into those mental categories or whether it is obvious from the outside or you need a deeper introspection to realize.

to me personally, it is better to be open about the bias rather than let it show through how i act, who i side with or how i talk about each of the drivers. it is nothing to be ashamed of and makes it easier to make like-wised friends. it's deeply rooted in the nature of the sports and it is also okay to dislike other fans JUST because they are fans of someone you do not like. easy as that. you can also be friends with others with completely different opinions and bias. it's fun, it's healthy, you get a new perspective that may even be contradicting yours.

there are multiple reasons why full neutrality is impossible: your demographics. speaking for myself now, i can honestly say there are multiple influencing me like my sexuality, gender, nationality, age, family heritage (be it positive "i will support this driver because my grandpa does" or negative "i won't support this driver because my father does"), political stance, my friends, accessibility to motorsports related content (what social media you use, which broadcaster you watch, which books/articles about the sport you read, what motorsport series you watch etc.).

it is somewhat easier if you are a newbie coming as tabula rasa, yet something had to catch your attention to even try to get into it in the first place and therefore you are already prejudicial either way.

not to make everything about literature but there is a slight comparison to be made, because as people in motorsports, we are all just taking a part of the motorsport world/reality and interpreting it based on our own feelings and knowledge and there is nobody to decide what is the "truth" and this is why there is nothing as neutrality when talking about sports. each of us have our own realm and even when attempting to step out we may never reach something like full objectivity.

rant over <3

[alphabetboyluvr]

Hey Holly😬😬😬

So I wanted to ask have you ever come across things like copying stuff and ideas from one book?? I mean if you read a book or you get inspired from a particular scene/dialog that you re-write it but you still get called out because of that??? Do you get bothered by that?? I mean there is this😅 bunch of teenage indian authors on wattpad that every now and then starts blaming and fighting that they copied their stuff,book name,dialogues. What do you think of this??

You probably have seen the viral orange peel theory that is going viral on insta/tiktok. I was talking about that😅😅

heyaaa !!

i've seen a lot of discourse around the concept of copying / plagiarism recently and I do have some thoughts on it.

i assume you mean if i get bothered when i see people have clearly taken inspiration from my work?

i keep my feet firmly out of the fanfic reading space for a variety of reasons and one of those reasons is because i've seen how easy it is to pick up inspiration and sprinkle it into your own work without even realising—not maliciously, or ill-intentioned at all, but undeniable with retrospect.

i don't ever want to find myself in the position of having spent hours writing something only for it to be reduced to nothing because of innocent mistakes (as I've seen happen with other writers) so yeah, i don't read within the fanfic space (which is also why im terrible with recs haha).

NOW in regards to people taking inspiration from my stuff, i'm well aware that it happens. I first noticed it happened with you up? and its never really stopped.

there's a handful of stories i've seen on wattpad from people i know read my work, who write in a very similar way to me. things like plot, narrative voice, character arcs, relationships, even the way i doodle at the start of my chapters—if it can be lifted and reworked, it has, and im sure only seen the tip of the iceberg.

similarly, i've also seen big writers write scenes in their stories with an almost identical play by play to some of my scenes, but i have no way of knowing if they've read my work—but it has made me go back and check the dates of my uploads to make sure i have my 'well actually...' response ready incase any of their fans try and come for me hahaha.

i've had extensive conversations with my writer friends about this and my general thoughts are: i don't care.

i could go on a big old rant about it all, but i know my opinion is a bit odd considering i'm a writer.

writing is a deeply personal craft, but it's also something that we learn and develop through time. if people are inspired by my work, then it must mean I'm doing something right. in time, they'll develop their own style. I encourage them to continue writing until they find their own voice.

history and literature is full of reworking and retellings. Shakespeare was notorious for it!

I'm not gonna get pressed if someone is so moved by my work to the point they wanna create their own version. I'll be honoured to be a part of their creative process. of course there is a limit to this—I know there's at least one story on wattpad floating around with a similar dynamic to BD with origami being used as a crux for fears, which does make me raise my brows a little bit, but at the end of the day, I'm the one who chose to upload my fanfic for free on a website that is known to not be exactly the most original of places.

someone else writing a similar concept to mine doesn't take away from the value of my work. if anything, it just proves that my writing has had an impact.

so yeah if you ever see someone and think huh this reads a lot like hollys work, or anything like that, just leave it be. don't run people off of a site, or force them to stop doing a hobby that likely causes them joy, for my sake.

it's funny because a few people have actually asked me to write an orange peel theory fic haha. we, as writers, don't own concepts and we also write about the same seven men. there will be inevitable overlap. it's all just pixels, at the end of the day.

[persephinae]

.

I keep seeing tip of the iceberg discourse in the tags, all vagueing about whatever everyone is pissed off about and what's actually problematic or valid

Please just block people

I'm sure this is why I'm only seeing the vagueposts and not all the actual Discourse(TM)

I've been really heavily blocking people for petty ass reasons and vibes and it really does help

Who wants to see the same annoying people in the tags and their stupid ass takes all the time? Not me

[night-market-if]

I don’t want to harp on this subject for too long as I’m sure you’re already sick to death about everyone putting in their 2c but I read your initial response to the Malcom solo romance question as you can romance Milo separately but at this moment not necessarily Malcom? Guess I must have misread. Not saying to cater to the whim of every single reader or their particular sensitivities and triggers, and fully understanding everything is fluid right now, but I know myself as a creator you sometimes write yourself into a big sprawling valley and sometimes you write yourself into a corner. Maybe as the story continues Milo route becomes a “have a whirlwind fling trauma bond and attempt to help heal old wounds but not really a true romance” not-route route. Same with Malcom where it’s an asterisked route. Of course to your point of not knowing how these things will impact the story is an important one to keep in mind as romance is not the end-all be-all but I can understand the perspectives of others who have chimed in and believe it’s premature to make any snap judgement without getting the full picture. I get being invested in the characters someone else created and feeling a part of it and then feeling bamboozled by creative decisions made about them and potentially not agreeing, and I also know that you as the writer ultimately are trying to tell a story and know the characters best and being hindered and met with pushback can be discouraging. For that I feel for you. I think if it weren’t such a frustrating thing for authors to deal with it would be awfully flattering that there are folks so enamores with the story and people you’ve written that their response something like this is so passionate. But what it comes down to at the end of the day is it’s your story and as the author you’re going to do what feels right to you. If you wake up tomorrow and come up with something completely different, or scrap romance altogether, or reveal MC is the big bad, or decide Gabriel’s hair should be bright green, that is all your prerogative and people may not like it, but they should respect it. I hope people are kind about this if it continues to come up and/or drop it altogether until you have a chance to work it out.

I don't want to harp on the subject either. I think it is important to answer these things too because it does allow for a lot more transparency within the community. I also think that there is a lot of fear surrounding going against what the community wants or some of the more standard tropes within story telling. I think a lot of that fear comes from not talking about it though. When I first got that ask last night I felt sick. I didn't want to deal with it. But there has been so many people sense offering so many different thoughts and point of views (not all that agree with me either) that it has made it far more easy to swallow this morning because I can see the other side. I'm getting voices from every direction and it is showing me that things are for more well rounded within the community than I give it credit for.

And in the end, I think you have made a very good point. This kind of discourse, while frustrating and confrontational at times, is flattering in a way. It means those characters are loved. And that is what I want.

As for Milo and Malcolm, a lot of what you guys have been saying is helping me with my ultimate decision. So while I didn't exactly want to be having these conversations now, maybe that's a good thing. I'm still going to wait and see how the story develops but at least its out there now. And maybe that will help the people who don't want the potential of that route to attach to someone else. But, Milo's romance is the most angsty of the game. I said that from the get go. We are just touching the tip of the iceberg with it.

[half-assed-movie-reviews]

Titanic (1997)

Although it doesn’t quite contend for a spot as one of my favorite films, Titanic certainly stands out as a beautiful film with stunning cinematography and thoughtful use of bold colors, as well as a fairly engaging plot to keep the audience’s attention. I can certainly understand why some people obsess over this movie. If I had to choose a favorite part of the movie, I would probably pick the scene where Jack says “It’s titanic time!” and spins the captain’s wheel, ultimately causing the ship to hit an iceberg and sinking the entire boat. Here I will provide a short list of my favorite aspects of the movie:

Cinematography: I think the movie did a really good job of using interesting camera angles. It uses several wide shots to show the size and beauty of the boat, and a lot of quick cuts and lower angles during action scenes to convey suspense and adrenaline. This is definitely one of the movie’s biggest strengths and it helped keep my attention throughout the film’s runtime.

Use of color: The film was very tasteful with the way it used color and filters to contrast different scenes. The romantic scenes used warm, bold colors while the sadder and more suspenseful scenes used very cool color palettes, which emphasized the progression of the story and helped evoke strong emotions from the audience. This is definitely a common James Cameron W.

Plot: Although I didn’t find the characters to be the most interesting people ever, the plot is still fairly solid and adds to the movie. I hate to say it but sometimes it’s more fun to watch a boat sink when Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are smooching every 30 minutes or so. I think they could’ve made the characters a little deeper considering they had 3 whole hours to develop them (trust me I’ll get to that) but overall it was still a fun little love story. That being said, I think it was a little rude of them to make Jack’s preppy ass steal Rose from Cal. Considering Cal is the only man in the entire movie wearing edgy e-boy eyeliner, it definitely sends a message that emo boys don’t get bitches, which is a harmful stereotype that plagues our modern discourse. This only reinforces my belief that e-boys are the most oppressed group in society.

Creative Liberties: I think generally speaking, the areas in which the film differs from the true events of the Titanic are justifiable and only add to the movie. I don’t think the part of the movie where Jack lifts up Rose on the bow of the ship would’ve hit the same if a crew member pulled up and said “sorry guys no passengers are allowed up here”. It just generally made the movie more beautiful and none of the changes really minimized the tragedy that occurred in real life. The only choice I found a little odd was when Jack said “rip bozo lmao” when the captain’s quarters flooded and drowned the captain, but I can certainly see what James Cameron was going for with that scene so it didn’t bother me too much. Overall I didn’t dislike any of the unhistorical additions to the film too much and I think they are all understandable.

Generally speaking I liked a lot more aspects of the movie than I disliked, but there are still a few small points that I think are worth mentioning that made me like the film a little less:

The Runtime: 3 hours and 15 minutes. My Brother in Christ is one eighth of an entire day. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t always dislike long movies and I think they can be justified in some circumstances, but it’s still difficult to sit still for that long regardless of how good the movie is. I liked Titanic and all, but after 3 hours I felt like if I ever heard Leo DiCaprio’s smug ass voice again I’d punch a hole through my TV.  I don’t think Titanic necessarily made terrible use of its runtime, but I still think they could’ve done more with the characters during that time. Maybe give more insight into Jack and Rose’s pasts or something, or maybe make Jack and Cal kiss #pride idk. It’s just that if I need to take 2 bathroom breaks during a movie I want it to be really worth it.

The Music: Don’t get me wrong, I thought the music during the movie was overall really good. However, what pissed me off is that they sampled that one Celine Dion song so much throughout the movie but NEVER played the part with vocals. She goes absolutely ape on that song you can’t just cut that part out. Bro I want Celine Dion just absolutely belting My Heart Will Go On while the boat sinks that’d be so awesome why didn’t they use that part of the song. Mr James Cameron please you need to fix this.

Overall, I liked a lot more about the movie than I disliked. I understand why it’s a classic and it’s definitely a movie I would rewatch at times. So long as you have a good attention span and some snacks on hand I’d definitely recommend watching it if you have a free afternoon; there’s a lot to enjoy about it. Maybe make it a date night or something idk. After some deliberation I ranked it at #27 out of 92 on my list of every movie I’ve seen, which is actually really solid considering it placed right below My Neighbor Totoro and Full Metal Jacket. 

Final Score: 3.5/5 stars. You should watch this movie I like the part where they’re on a boat

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married) 

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse. 

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS 

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Adventure Time Reviewed - Season 1 Episode 6 to Episode 8

From The Jiggler to Business Time

S1E06 The Jiggler

This one is about the cautions of adopting cute little forest animals. I wonder why Finn and Jake are covered in so many bite marks? Why was that kingdom on fire? What was going on? How much trouble can one watermelon get into? Anyway this is the first episode to feature Finn’s autotune voice. I can’t remember the last episode he said something in autotune - there was the s6 finale, then a few scenes in season 7. 

When they take the Jiggler back home, they Get Creative and escalate until they destroy their entire house interior. I think Princessss made an AMV Nightosphere gag about this.  I love how chiptune noises play every time the Jiggler moves on day 1. 

I always loved this episode. I thought it was very disturbing when the Jiggler gets sick, and then explodes. It reminds me of failed attempts to save birds or insects after my cats have gotten to them. I can relate so much to Finn and Jake here. Poor Jake having to keep himself together and look after his traumatized little bro.  I love the OST of this ep. The soundtrack was uploaded to soundcloud once, along with Ricardio the Heart Guy. I love how artistic this ep is with the edible drawings and the painting of the jiggler’s mom. Very bright and colourful. I always found the momma jiggler’s cry to be... weirdly genuine. 

S1E07 Ricardio the Heart Guy

This ep starts with Finn saving PB from Ice King, who humorously kisses Jake’s butt. PB gives Finn a kiss on the.... neck? hat? as thanks, and Finn’s crush truly begins. Oooooh boy.  I always wondered in hindsight why Pb let the ice king roam free to begin with. That question is raised later in this season. Ice King kidnaps dozens of princesses daily and roams free, but Princess Cookie starts 1 hostage situation and is locked up forever. In the ep What Have You Done, it’s reasoned IK can only be punished for recent crimes, but... ehh, there are a few reasons. Pity? Old ties? Maybe she doesnt want to lock up a pathetic old man forever.  There are some really funny statues of Finn and Jake in the castle, they look buff. I wonder who made these? PB commissioning them makes a lot of sense. Hey, it’s Peppermint Butler’s first speaking lines!!!  “This style of massage is called Best Friend Massage. Because it can only be done for friends. It is completely consensual.” Well the first line from Ricardio the Rapist Stand-in is already incredibly sus. What’s even more sus is he’s apparently friends with LSP.  I find it interesting that Ricardio is so intelligent. This must have been one of the motivators behind making Simon really smart. Ricardio is his heart, at the end of the day. Oh, Simon at the end of the show still has maracas in place of a heart. I wonder if that has health complications? 

“I hear you appreciate ancient technology.” This is foreshadowing of MULTIPLE things now. One - Ice King being pre-war. Two - PB building everything out of pre-war technology. Three - The fact there was a war to begin with!!!! 

Jake is trying to help Finn deal with his new emotions of jealousy (burning low war flashbacks) and he’s once again trying to make him happy, Jake never once considered the logistics of whether Finn and PB would ever actually go out, because it was far more important to him that Finn grow up and have the courage to listen to his heart. Jake encourages Finn’s crush to a fault, and provides lots of support to him when he’s heartbroken later on. 

I love how PB and Ricardio were talking about dangerous micro-organisms and poor Finn has no idea how to approach the topic. I love how Zanoits are actualy dangerous and Ricardio uses them as a poison later.  Anyway even PB can tell Finn is jealous. Finn is of the idea that she has no idea of his crush on her. Of course she knows. But from her side it’s exactly the same as Baby-snaps wanting to be a princess, or every other candy person doting on her - she thinks it’s adorable and completely fails to take the other person seriously. At least, until Braco comes along. Then you realise it’s a good thing she didn’t take Finn seriously, because she might have done something ridiculous like make him a robot clone of herself.  

Holy shit, the duck from The Vault!  I just made a post about it. 

Anyway this ep provides a challenge to Finn or a test of his character, ironically through his own test of Ricardio’s character! Finn gets obsessed with proving Ricardio evil to the point that he gets easily baited into punching him, and doesn’t care that the Ice King is basically dying. Poor Ice King. At least Jake is here to approach the situation with a level head. 

I was wondering as of late, with all the post-Obsidian sexuality discourse (in no way ignited by that one towel scene), whether PB was interested in Ricardio during this ep. It’s possible, and in the past, I thought “maybe”? But upon rewatch? No. She is only interested for as long as she can have scientific discussions with him, and as soon as his knowledge becomes lacking she has already used him for all hes worth. SAVAGE. But not as savage as him trying to rip out her heart. Ew, creep!!! 

I should say that Ice King wanted to cast a spell that would force PB to fall in love with him. He’s NOT safe, he’s dangerous. He’s especially a danger to PB. He does kill her twice at the end of season 2, after all. Once again I don’t know why she hasn’t locked him up LOL. Anyway, even if he did cast a love spell, she wouldn’t change any of her decisisons. It’d just make her sad, like it did at the end of The Suitor.  There was that one time PB tried to make a love potion but we don’t talk about that.  Ice King does demonstrate some concern for Bubblegum’s welfare when he reveals Ricardio’s plan to literally murder her. Ricardio’s plan here is pretty slapstick violent, and it’s funny watching Finn beat him up, but when he returns in season 4, it’s far more... personal and insidious. As in, here he could be seen as a jokey stand-in for a predator creep, but in that later episode he 100%  sexually threatens her and forces her into a non consensual relationship, making it very satisfying when PB beats the shit out of him instead. 

Holy fuck I forgot about this joke. Golden.  

S1E08 Business Time

For some reason, I don’t feel like there’s a lot to say about this ep. It doesn’t demonstrate any remarkable characteristics of Finn and Jake themselves. Instead, it seems to be more of an inside joke. 

When they find the business men, Finn and Jake at first feel like the business men are helping them work more effectively with their assists. However, the boys end up just being lazy, and not realizing that their workers are messing everything up. You can sympathise for the business men because they’re just doing what they were told to do.  This all seems to be metaphorical for when Pen and Patrick McHale started work on the show, and they got tons of help from Cartoon Network staff. They wanted to do everything by themselves, but ended up having to delegate. Maybe they feel lazy for it? 

What makes this episode EXTRA SPECIAL, however, is its confirmation of the Great Mushroom War.  By the time the season had released, the first shot of the intro was already Mushroom War bombs. There was also a reference to the war in the previous episode, where PB and Ricardio shared an interest in “ancient technology”. However, the only reason those references exist is because of THIS episode - This is the one they were working on when they decided it should be post-apocalyptic. They made the human zombies, and the icebergs filled with human junk, and then every GMW reference we see in the show is down to this decision. 

I enjoy the physicality of this ep. Finn and Jake crash through the entire gauntlet. Finn’s still wearing his fire resistant glove as he does it. They get covered in bruises, because they... like pain? I liked when you could see Finn’s sword legit being shinier, and his shoes having bouncing noises. And I want to be hydrated! I loved how smushy Jake was when he became an ice cream monster.  I love the colours of the Fluffy People. S1 has this unique art style compared to the rest of the series. They often draw white outlines to white things, it works nice here. 

[thisweekingundamwing]

This Week in Gundam Wing 5-11 April 2020

Here’s this week’s roundup!

Remember to give your content creators some love! And join in on the events at the bottom!

~Mod Hel Sorry it’s a bit late!

Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:

@bobo-is-tha-bomb​

Every Moment (Ch. 4) https://archiveofourown.org/works/23153275/chapters/56342722

F/M, Heero Yuy/Reader

Heero Yuy, Reader, Duo Maxwell, Chang Wufei, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, OC - Character, Lady Une, Relena Peacecraft

Romance, Drama, Angst, Lemon, Lime, Violence, Reader Insert

You really didn’t want to go on a mission with Heero Yuy. In your opinion, he was a robot, an iceberg, and as cold as the North Pole. And you really hated the fact that people started spreading rumors about you. Now, you have two weeks to get to know him better, get comfortable with the idea of playing his wife, and keep from getting into a catfight with Wufei’s secretary (who has quite a crush on Mister Yuy herself). You thought you would be able to handle the mission, but a couple of alcohol influenced kisses really send your world spinning. And it would only get worse during the mission… And really… your careless actions do have very big consequences.

Best Easter Yet https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600803

F/M, Heero Yuy/Reader, Relena Peacecraft/Quatre Raberba Winner

Heero Yuy, Reader, Relena Peacecraft, Quatre Raberba Winner

Romance, Drama, Angst, Holiday, Reader Insert

“How are you holding up?”

You gave him a dire look and showed him your shaking hands. “Just so.”

He gave you a warm look and reached out, trailing the callused pad of his forefinger along your cheek. “We’ll be okay. She won’t be mad.”

@doctormegalomania​

Your Body’s Poetry (Ch. 13) https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438891/chapters/56441821

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei/Original Female Character(s), Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker, Relena Peacecraft & Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell/Original Male Character(s)

Characters: Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Sally Po, Relena Peacecraft, Lucrezia Noin, Zechs Merquise, Hilde Schbeiker

Additional Tags: Past Relationship(s), Slice of Life, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence

Summary: Long after the wars, long after peace is established the Gundam Pilots discover one immovable fact: Relationships are hard work.

@janaverse​

Stickies form Heero (Ch. 42) https://archiveofourown.org/works/19796581/chapters/56347720

Heero Yuy & Duo Maxwell, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, 1+2+1, 1x2x1 - Relationship

Get Together, Friendship, Eventual Sap, Eventual Implied Sexual Content, Mentions of Trowa ⋆ Quatre ⋆ Wufei ⋆ Relena ⋆ Sally - for now, Angst

heero and duo are in their mid-20's and are sharing a house. they are both working as preventers, but are not on the same work schedule.

duo initiated this unique form of communication and heero has fully embraced it.

Fanart/Gunpla/Photo Manips:

@2pcb

https://2pcb.tumblr.com/post/614789407717949440/if-its-alright-with-you-can-i-request-trowa-or

WuFei, Heero, & Trowa

@binarytoys​

https://binarytoys.tumblr.com/post/614936465228595200

Leo, gunpla

@deathofakuna​

https://deathofakuna.com/post/614569779412582400/wing-zero

Wing Zero

@drawingplastered​

https://drawingplastered.tumblr.com/post/614891383342415872/my-participation-in-the-gundamzine-it-was-great

25th Anniversary babies! (or oldies in this case <3)

@grey-sentry​

https://grey-sentry.tumblr.com/post/614771208554184704/since-gundam-wing-turns-25-today-im-gonna-share

25th Anniversary boys!

@gundayum​

https://gundayum.tumblr.com/post/614810271462178816/oh-hi-i-come-bearing-content-heres-my-shit-i

Zine Works - All the cuties.

@guttersblessing​

https://guttersblessing.tumblr.com/post/614889648762880000/i-also-did-a-sticker-sheet-for-gundamzine-it

Zine Works

https://guttersblessing.tumblr.com/post/614889435945926656/for-gundam-wings-25th-anniversary-i-took-part-in

Zine Works

@gwkimmy​

https://gwkimmy.tumblr.com/post/614797022889984000/asdjlaskjdlksajf-i-spent-too-much-time-on-this-lol

Relena Darlian/Peacecraft, manip

HamletMachine

https://twitter.com/Hamlet_Machine/status/1245003275797135360

Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

@hiddenmangaka​

https://hiddenmangaka.tumblr.com/post/615067652830986240/grocery-shopping-with-the-gundam-boys-attempt-1

Grocery Shopping with the G-Boys - Heero Yuy, Attempt 1

@kaiser-dracon​

https://kaiser-dracon.tumblr.com/post/614804412813213696/mobile-suit-gundam-wing-top-players-gundam-wing

Wing Zero, Epyon, Tallgeese - gunpla

@ksam7​

https://ksam7.tumblr.com/post/614725326366490624

Duo Maxwell

@lemontrash​

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/614799547879784448/this-is-the-vector-art-i-did-for-the-front-cover

Zine Work

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/615071326954307584/i-cannot-draw-mecha-not-in-a-month-of-sundays-so

Gundam, manips

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/615161818018627584/so-fun-story-when-i-was-first-playing-around

Zine Works

@lokineko​

https://lokineko.com/post/614764732354854912/some-gundam-wing-wips-for-the-anniversary

25th Anniversary boys, wip

https://lokineko.com/post/614839063093100544/this-is-the-piece-i-did-for-gundamzines-rhythm

Zine Work

https://lokineko.com/post/614929671580270592/this-is-my-piece-for-gundamzine-s-bonus-zine-for

Zine Work

@nevs-sketchbook​

https://nevs-sketchbook.tumblr.com/post/614950453149630464/more-gundam-doodles-featuring-trowa-being-a

Trowa, Quatre, & Cathy - Tro’s NB adventures.

@noromax​

https://noromax.tumblr.com/post/614689026855862272/25th

25th Anniversary boys!

@seitou

https://seitou.tumblr.com/post/614818666923671552/finally-free-to-release-these-out-into-the-world

Zine Works - the G-boys bein’ awesome.

@tatakaumono

https://tatakaumono.tumblr.com/post/614749458100584448/operation-meteor-happy-25th-anniversary

25th Anniversary - Operation Meteor

Photosets/Gifsets/Screenshots/Manga Pages:

@disturbed02girl

https://disturbed02girl.tumblr.com/post/614602092903006208/spaceheart-quatre-not-really-explained-here

Quatre ‘space heart’s Heero.

Head Canons:

@scarletlegionnaire

https://scarletlegionnaire.tumblr.com/post/614574488122736640/random-headcanon-of-1920s-noir-detective-quatre

Noir Detective Quatre

https://scarletlegionnaire.tumblr.com/post/614591278935605248/mandalorian-gundam-wing-crossover

Mandalorian Crossover

Fandom Discourse:

@lifeaftermeteor

https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/614648010876567552/epithets-the-pros-and-pitfalls

Writing advice - Epithets

@lemontrash

Quotes:

@incorrectgundamwingquotes

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/614675005827072000/heero-i-want-to-do-something-nice-for-relena-but

Heero & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/615059988632698880/quatre-i-almost-got-surprise-adopted-yesterday

Quatre, Zayeed, & Iria

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/614946664989573120/quatre-i-really-dislike-snow-quatre-its-like

Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/614493662104190976/trowa-so-i-found-a-foolproof-method-of

Trowa, WuFei, & Duo

Calendar Events:

@gundamzine

Rhythm Generation: Shooting Stars, Celebrating 25 Years of Gundam Wing

https://gundamzine.tumblr.com/post/614746696097939456/zines-are-away-thats-right-folks-if-you

@gwcocktailfriday

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompt for Friday, April 17th! https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/post/615108959259492352/cocktail-friday-post-responses-on-friday-april

If anyone has ideas for prompts, PLEASE send them in! Our ask box is always open.

In need of SPRING prompts!

With the tumblr queue not working correctly... these may run out at the end of the month...

@memoriesofgundamwing

30 Day Challenge!

Day 5 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/614558663429996544/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-5

Day 6 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/614647672163483648/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-6

Day 7 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/614754284780814336/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-7

Day 8 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/614824886163079168/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-8

Day 9 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/614909458720669696/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-9

Day 10 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/615021784539021312/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-10

Day 11 Prompt https://memoriesofgundamwing.tumblr.com/post/615114288958406656/30-day-gundam-wing-challenge-day-11

@thisweekingundamwing

V_V I’m sorry, y’all had to see that. Lol https://thisweekingundamwing.tumblr.com/post/615214648773558272/thisweekingundamwing-motherfuckingchrist-it-says

[wordshelphurt]

Notes on love: non-monogamy meets jealousy

I am writing because I want to feel differently. I am hoping somehow that if the words leave my brain or the confines of a conversation that maybe I might realize that things are not as scary as they seem; but I am skeptical.

Some months ago, I entered a relationship with a woman who identifies as non-monogamous. At the time I thought: hmm, well, I have no problem with this conceptually. We are generally a long-distance couple anyway, so this might end up being a healthier situation for me than my previous long-distance relationships. And for a while, this was okay. I learned about her other girlfriends, observed her dating habits, but was secure in the knowledge that I am the primary partner.

During this time, we were also living in the same city and were able to enjoy each other’s company for about a month, an enormous blessing for a long-distance relationship: the gift of time. Yet, in the back of my mind, I was aware and even vocalized that “I am a traditionally jealous person. I am not sure how I will end up feeling about non-monogamy, but I suspect it may be difficult.”

Time passes, she goes back out onto the road and I stay at home: things are back to normal for a time. Then, miracle upon miracles, I am allowed to fly out and see her while she’s back in her home bases, visiting with key people in her life. This all goes well enough, but I learn that one of her girlfriends does not know I am visiting - the one who lives where I am now passing through. During this time, she also starts talking with me about all these friends and strangers she is attracted to, a dynamic previously nonexistent in our discourse.

After trying to maintain a level of cool and calm, approaching the situation through conversation and rationale, I lose it. I start to feel a sickness in my body: a head-throbbing, heart-pounding, gut-wrenching, dizzying and nauseating illness that has made it’s way to me every time I ever felt the first gnawings of a breakup on the horizon.

Now, we start fighting. We go to therapy together. We vow to figure this thing out, to have more open and honest communication, and so on. But by now, we have all seen this movie, right? We hit the iceberg a while ago, which may have even been at the beginning of the story when we were too happy to notice it. Now we’re on a sinking ship and we are trying to decide if we should just keep dancing to our graves, or do something drastic to try and save our asses.

I am no monster, I could not ask her to change; and even if I did, that change would never last because it could never be genuine, and I don’t want her to change who she is. At the same time, I am interested in changing myself: trying to distance myself away from the jealous person I have been and towards a more loving, open and sharing partner; but there are two problems. The first is, I have no idea how to take that journey. The second is, our trust is not rock-solid.

Look, I have not been overly socialized. I know that monogamy is no guarantee that a partner will stay. I know it’s a heteronormative practice that is indicative of ownership. I know that it’s an unrealistic way of relating because let’s face it, we all have eyes and libidos and, naturally, one person can’t satisfy all our sexual, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs for relating. I get it.

Still, when I think about her flirting and fucking and falling in love with someone else, my gut just curls inside itself and says a definitive, “no” because, for me, all this complication and upset is based in past relationship traumas. Let’s pause here and take a minute to recognize, this is my first real relationship in three years, and my last relationship was a dumpster fire of trauma-bonding, emotional abuse, and codependency; so, any relationship after that was going to hard for me, let alone one that, by its nature, daily pokes at my abandonment issues.

With my rose-colored glasses, I see this all as an incredible opportunity for me to conquer these past hurts; but on my gloomier days, I see this as an impossible task, in which I am set up to fail and fail badly. I feel a sense of injustice that I alone have to change, to do all this work to maintain a relationship. I feel a pang of guilt that I entered the thing in the first place, knowing full well that this was a likely outcome of my doing so. I feel anger toward myself, for not being able to just go along with it all, to take it in strides and make peace with it. I feel a lot.

I have not the slightest inclination of what may happen, but I hope something does because dancing to our graves is not how I want to end this relationship, I want to feel like we fought for our lives. Because at the end of the day, I love this woman, and she loves me.

Xoxo

[arcticdementor]

Yes, we need to talk about climate change again, and it’s probably necessary to start with a point I’ve made on this blog several times already: anthropogenic climate change is real and serious, and it’s being exploited by political and corporate interests to push a dubious agenda on the public. Many people these days don’t seem to be able to keep both these ideas in their heads at the same time. If you find it hard to do that, dear reader, I’m going to encourage you to make the effort, because a great deal of rhetoric is being deployed these days to make you forget that real problems can have fake solutions.

Imagine, to use the inevitable metaphor, that you’re on the proverbial ocean liner, which has just hit the proverbial iceberg. As you stand there on deck, someone grabs a bullhorn and announces that the real problem is that all the money in your pockets is weighing you down. He insists that if you’ll only hand all your money and other valuables to him, and let him row away from the doomed ship in one of the lifeboats, the people left on board just have to flap their arms vigorously and they’ll be able to fly away to safety in Newfoundland.

The problem you face is unquestionably real; go belowdecks and you can see the water rising. Does that mean that the solution being offered by the fellow with the bullhorn is the best option you have, or indeed that it will work at all?  Of course not. The fellow with the bullhorn is betting that you’ll be sufficiently panicked at the thought of imminent drowning that you’ll accept a claim that, under other circumstances, you’d recognize as utter nonsense. It’s a common theme of history that people can be convinced to accept claims almost as silly as the one in my metaphor if they’ve been whipped up into a sufficient state of panic. Yes, I’m suggesting that that’s one of the things shaping the contemporary debate on climate change.

…

So the problem is real; the people who are worried about anthropogenic climate change have that much right. It’s the next steps that get complex. Those steps involve what’s coming, and what can and should be done about it—and in both these cases, we very quickly get into territory that’s rather reminiscent of the fellow with the bullhorn in my metaphor.

Listen to climate change activists talk about what will happen if something isn’t done right away and you’ll get to hear apocalyptic claims that rival anything Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins put into their schlocky Left Behind series—if you’re not familiar with this, it’s more or less the Fifty Shades of Grey of Protestant apocalypse porn. Mark Lynas’ lavishly marketed 2008 climate-change opus Six Degrees, though a bit dated at this point, is typical of the genre in its gaudy portrayal of a world tucked under the broiler, as well as its proselytizing tone—again, the parallels with Left Behind are hard to miss. There’s plenty more of this sort of thing being splashed around by the corporate mass media these days.

…

The difficulty, here as so often, lies in the complex relationship between scientific knowledge and the collective discourse of our time. In those disciplines that haven’t been wholly corrupted by money and fame, scientists tend to be highly cautious when talking to other scientists; they hedge every statement with caveats, because they know perfectly well that the people who are reading those statements have the necessary background to pick them apart, find the flaws, and send a letter to this or that scientific journal exposing your mistakes for all your colleagues to see. That’s a key part of the scientific method, and when it stops happening—when criticism within a discipline is no longer permitted and a rigidly defined consensus governs what you can and cannot disagree with—you know the discipline has sold out.

On the other hand, if you approach a discussion outside of the scientific community with all those caveats, and the subject is anything even remotely controversial, you can expect to have the caveats shoved down your throat by your opponents, who are used to a different mode of discourse. Scientists who find their feet in the public sphere thus quickly stop offering the caveats, and start using the same rhetorical tricks as their opponents. Unfortunately one of the most common of those tricks involves taking your argument further than the evidence will go, and making whatever claims you think you can get away with.

The late Carl Sagan was a notable example of this latter habit. Those of my readers who recall his career will remember that he coauthored the paper that introduced the concept of “nuclear winter” to public discussion. (For those who don’t recall this, it’s the theory that nuclear war would cause sudden global cooling along the same lines, and for the same reasons, as the Tambora eruption in 1816.)  That original paper—the TTAPS paper, as it was called after the initials of its authors—was a solid scientific study that showed that there was a serious risk of global cooling lasting for many weeks, and gave facts and figures to support that argument.

Sagan wrote two more pieces on nuclear winter, though, which were not intended for his fellow scientists. He contributed to a 1984 volume, The Cold and the Dark, which was aimed at an audience of scientifically literate laypeople. He also wrote a 1983 article for Parade Magazine—a weekly that at the time was inserted into Sunday newspapers around the country—which was thus aimed at the scientifically illiterate public. Compare those with the original study and a curious trend emerges. Where the TTAPS study predicted a period of cooling lasting for weeks, his piece in The Cold and the Dark replaced that with months, and the Parade article stretched it out to years. Sagan was involved in antinuclear activism, and apparently couldn’t resist the temptation to play fast and loose with facts to prop up the case he was trying to make.

…

If you want to see just how far climate scientists have gotten into what we might as well call the Sagan syndrome, by the way, ask them about the global cooling scare of the 1970s. Odds are the immediate response you’ll get is an insistence that it never happened. If you present them with the titles and authors of books written during that period that treated global cooling as a reality—those aren’t hard to find—they’ll typically backpedal and insist that well, maybe so, but scientists didn’t support the global cooling scare. If you demonstrate that respected scientists did in fact do so—and again, this isn’t hard to do—they’ll either get angry and start shouting or insist that, well, maybe so, but it wasn’t the consensus among climate experts.

Don’t tell them about the 1972 climate conference at Brown University here in Rhode Island, which brought together 42 of the world’s top climate scientists, and ended up sending a letter to President Nixon and putting papers in Science and Quaternary Studies warning of imminent global cooling and a possible new ice age. If you do that, I promise that they’ll get angry and start shouting, because you’ve caught them behaving like politicians rather than scientists, and they’ll know it. You can get the same effect by asking dieticians why we should believe what they say about cholesterol now, when we all know perfectly well that in another ten years they’ll have changed their minds again. Laypeople aren’t supposed to question scientists like that—at least that’s what scientists like to tell themselves.

…

So the shrill insistence that we’re facing a climate emergency and we have to take drastic action right now is a political claim, not a scientific one. The drastic action—well, that’s another matter. The open secret of climate change activism is that the solutions being offered by activists have uncomfortable similarities to the claims of the fellow with the bullhorn in my metaphor. Decades of heavily subsidized growth in solar and wind power haven’t dented the steady increase in carbon dioxide emissions, for example—not least because solar and wind power technologies depend on vast fossil fuel inputs for their manufacture, installation, maintenance, and disposal—so it’s disingenuous to claim that putting even more money into solar and wind power will do the job. As for vegan diets, bans on plastic straws, and the like, those are virtue signaling covering up an unwillingness to accept meaningful change.

For two decades now, in fact, the people who are loudest in their insistence that something has to be done about climate change have been the same people whose lifestyles disproportionately cause climate change. If you commute all alone in an SUV, fly to Mazatlan or Spain every year for a vacation, and keep up the other habits of absurd extravagance that go with an upper middle class lifestyle in the industrial world these days, even if you eat a vegan diet and never touch a plastic straw, your carbon footprint exceeds that of ten deplorables in West Virginia or a hundred ordinary people in Indonesia or Uruguay. If you’re one of the rich and famous at the forefront of climate change activism, your carbon footprint exceeds that of a Third World town.

…

Au contraire, the behavior of climate change activists, and of the corporate media and multinational business interests that fund and promote them so lavishly, makes sense only if you assume that they want everyone else to stop using fossil fuels so that they don’t have to. The shrill claims of impending doom, the insistence that we’re in a climate emergency and everyone has to accept drastic restrictions that climate change activists show no trace of willingness to embrace in their own lives, make perfect sense if the game plan is to buffalo most of the people in the world’s industrial countries into accepting a sharply lower standard of living “for the planet,” so that the upper twenty per cent or so can maintain their current lifestyles unchanged.

If that’s what’s going on, though, it’s a losing game. The project of splitting industrial societies into an affluent minority and an impoverished majority by offshoring jobs and flooding the labor market with immigrants has already generated a furious populist backlash so forceful that in the US and Great Britain alike, globalist parties are desperately scrambling to avoid giving voters the chance to choose between their policies and those of the populist insurgency. From science through politics to the corporate media, the spokescritters of the status quo have been caught shoveling smoke so often that the prestige they once had is a thing of the past—and no, it won’t work to do as some privileged pundits are doing these days and insist, plaintively or angrily as the case may be, that the rabble ought to stop asking unwelcome questions and believe blindly in whatever their supposed betters tell them. Those days are over.

…

I’m thinking here among many other things about a recent discovery at an Australian university. Did you know that cows like to eat seaweed?  Ranchers who raise cows near the sea routinely find their herds on the beach or even belly deep in the surf, munching seaweed. It so happens that one variety of seaweed has the effect of nearly eliminating the production of methane in cows’ digestive tracts. Methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and has been coming out of the bellies of ruminants in vast quantities since long before humans arrived—think of the herds of buffalo that used to roam the North American plains, or the herds of aurochs (the wild ancestors of cattle) that once thronged the steppes of western Eurasia.

Could we fine-tune emissions by giving cows seaweed to eat, so that excess carbon dioxide (which benefits plant growth, by the way) is balanced out by decreased methane? It’s worth trying—and the Australian scientists are working on methods to raise the seaweed in question so it can become a common additive to cattle feed. That would have to be phased in gradually so the results didn’t swing the climate the other way, but that could easily be managed, given a less hysterical approach to climate change than the one being pushed by activists these days.

That’s only one example of the kind of appropriate technology that we could use to cushion our species’ impact on the biosphere. Replacing wood with hemp as a feedstock for paper and other uses could be another—the faster a plant grows, the more carbon dioxide it sucks out of the air, and hemp grows much faster than commercial softwoods. For that matter, large-scale tree planting is a viable strategy, deliberately copying the events that led to the Little Ice Age to cool things off a bit, especially if the trees are left to mature rather than being cut down early in their life cycle—again, we’ve got hemp as a replacement. Combine these and other bits of appropriate tech with the phasing out of a few absurd extravagances like private jets, and we can bring climate change to a halt, or at least slow it down to a pace that we and other species can handle.

[thelexlucifer]

Multiculti - Just another Wet Dream of the Left?

As you might have already found out from previous postings, I do not like “the Left” too much. To me they promote illusions and blame the achievers when their dreams bust. I do my best to debunk their illusions and help people to achieve their individual goals, far from following the herd.

Multiculti is one of their illusions because they neglect that it’s not just about culture but also about language and stratification. But let’s work on it step by step.

Culture can be seen as a backpack one carries. It contains values, patterns of behavior, norms - in fact a lot of parameters influencing how we handle things, see and thus handle others and much more. To some extent that backpack is passed on to you while you grow-up; you need not reinvent the weel as you learn how to cope with challenges in the society you grow up in.

The thing is that people originating from different cultures, or if you like carry a backpack of a different brand might feel “intercultural stress” due to a phenomenon called “culture clash”. Distance between cultures differ (there is scientific evidence for that, no matter what the left tells you). Hence, one might feel comfortable with people from different countries / regions, while disliking those from other regions in the world. Due to that people tend to form groups. Other people being perceived as members of the “in-group” appear more sympathetic than those seen as members of an “out-group”. 

So why mixing folks in a so called multi cultural society, if that tends to induce intercultural stress (that can escalate even to civil war)? 

One pro-argument is diversity. This means increasing a group’s capacity when it comes to solving complex tasks. It’s not just limited to economy, but that’s one of the major fields of application (money makes the world go round).

Another argument in favor of the concept is peace keeping and mitigating the risk of social unrest. The idea is that if borderlines between in-group(s) and out-group(s) vanish, there won’t be any inter-group conflicts anymore. There would be rather a highly-diverse group collaborating to co-create a compelling future.

Doesn’t that sound good? - Yes it does. Will it work out? - Probably not. Please read on.

Diversity. And overcoming cross-cultural stress.

First the good news: Diversity can really improve things. You can observe that at the World Bank, in the trading room of Goldman Sachs, during board meetings of international enterprises and so forth. Smart people, working on complex problems they are interested in. Properly educated (Master degrees and higher), all of them fluent in English or having access to high class translation services and according facilities.

That is backed by science: There is scientific evidence that people collaborating to jointly achieve common goals will overcome prejudices and therefore reduce cross-cultural stress. That is also what the left is telling you. So far so good. What they won’t tell you is that those studies were mainly done with international studies in the US. They have in common that they posses an IQ over the average and they are fluent in English. Otherwise they would not pass the tests necessary to be granted access to US universities. And where we are at it: They maintain a good financial standing, which is necessary to get access to student loans and/or the cash to pay the tuition fee. In other words what research is telling you in particular is that if wealthy individuals with an IQ above the average and advanced skills in a language common to them collaborate in resolving issues they share mutual interest in, then cross-cultural stress will decline. 

This is what the left regularly neglects in public discourse when they try to convince you that immigration of non-educated, broken illiterates is a great deal for the society you live in. And the only factor preventing the success from taking place is the fact that you are a Nazi. 

Please do not believe that bullshit. The herd however does.

The picture above illustrates the babel tower. You can read about it in the “holy bible”. I chose a metaphor from that book as many Europhiles refer to it. In brief the story is about a decadent nation that was punished by God in the way, that many language arose among its inhabitants. Co-creation was no longer possible due to this and the great nation disappeared - because it became decadent. 

That is what I foresee for Europe and more and more also for the US: The decadent left imposes its utopia on the nations, increasing cross-cultural stress, abandoning co-creation ... thus, leading society closer to civil war. 

Incidents that some sociologists denote as molecular civil war already took and take place. 

The left however comes up with weird examples were they think “multiculti” works. Recently one of them pointed me to Dubai. She spent her holidays there and saw ladies wearing mini skirts next to women wearing a hidschab. That’s great example for mixing up different layers one needs to take into account when studying mechanics of a society. She just referred to obvious things, the symbol layer which is just the tip of the cultural iceberg. Dubai provides a space for high-networth individuals (and those pretending to be such for some days) to go shopping together. Outside downtown you will meet illiterates being exploited like slaves needed too accomplish that. All that under the constant rigorous surveillance of the secret service, protecting Arabic aristocracy. In fact Dubai is the city opposing the ideals of the left the most. In Dubai you can find slavery, surveillance, injustice and inequality. 

In other words: The left praises its utopia while neglecting facts. Instead they just invent more and more weird concepts of backing their wet dreams (I chose that term as it will provoke leftist feminists the most). At some conferences the discuss the usage of genetics and nano technology to discover genes causing xenophobia and “curing” it. In other words they seek to streamline the gene pool. They are the real Nazis.

Satanism on the other hand promotes Pentagonal Revisionism: A Five-Point Program. The fifth point shall be cited here as it provides a better goal:

The opportunity for anyone to live within a total environment of his or her choice, with mandatory adherence to the aesthetic and behavioral standards of same Privately owned, operated and controlled environments as an alternative to homogenized and polyglot ones. The freedom to insularize oneself within a social milieu of personal well-being. An opportunity to feel, see, and hear that which is most aesthetically pleasing, without interference from those who would pollute or detract from that option.

I think no more comments are needed at this stage. Hail Satan!

[nise-kazura]

i would like to propose:

titanic - a ship you're going down with. one you were so excited to set sail with, flung handkerchiefs and hats at, thought: nothing could possibly go wrong with this! it is perfect in every way! but the Iceberg of Shipping Discourse jump-scared you during the grand voyage. this does not necessarily mean you jump ship---in fact sometimes this means you stick it out even harder, that you are willing to sink with it, that you are inhaling seawater because you are incapable of departing from it. it's infamous. it's got history. toxic ex you keep coming back to ship.

cruise - a guilty pleasure ship. you take it for a ride to see exotic sights that you don't usually indulge in. a palate cleanser of sorts, at times, when you need something new. usually a rarepair, something most people wouldn't think of. lesser-traveled, but that just means you have less fanon to contend with. a vacation.

yacht - a ship that you've invested a lot into, but only in a very specific, personalized way. this is a ship that you gatekeep. only fine dining here. a ship that you're very picky about, that you only ship in one specific way. you quality control this bitch, and only special guests are allowed in to partake in this ship with you.

warship - problematic fav. dangerous, seductive, spicy, addictive. irresistible, you can't keep yourself from boarding, but you have to enter the waters armed with missiles to keep others away from your shit.

sailboat - the wind is in your sails, you're cutting through the water and dipping between waves as the sun runs its fingers through your hair. you know the workings of this ship like it's a part of you. a pleasure sail, but at the same time, you're experienced with how to run this ship. you keep coming back to it. an old fav. an old friend. you come back to this ship for comfort.

lifeboat - you cling to this ship for dear life. against all odds, you are keeping it afloat. it makes no sense. there is no reason why you should want to be on this ship. but, dammit, you didn't exactly have a choice? the crackship that no one is helping you run but, shit, you'll die before you let it capsize. you're the only one here, so i guess that means you're captain. congrats, and good luck.

Is there a word similar to OTP but, like, you’re a multishipper at heart and there’s just very select ships that make you explode with glitter? Because I could use a word like that

[pigmentation21]

Depression vedas cure

Depression

Gloom is the primary driver of disabilityTrusted Source around the world, as indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO). It can influence grown-ups, youths, and youngsters.

In this article, realize what despondency is and what causes it. We likewise depict the sorts, their medicines, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Definition

An individual with wretchedness may encounter diligent bitterness.

Wretchedness is a temperament problem that includes a tenacious sensation of misery and loss of interest. It is not the same as the temperament changes that individuals consistently experience as a piece of life.

Significant life occasions, like mourning or the departure of a task, can lead toTrusted Source wretchedness. Nonetheless, specialists just believe sensations of misery to be important for sadness in the event that they continue.

Wretchedness is a continuous issue, not a passing one. It comprises of scenes during which the indications keep going for somewhere around fourteen days. Melancholy can keep going for a little while, months, or a long time.

Signs and side effects

The side effects of sadness can include:

a discouraged state of mind

decreased interest or joy in exercises once appreciated

a deficiency of sexual craving

changes in craving

unexpected weight reduction or gain

resting excessively or excessively little

fomentation, anxiety, and pacing all over

eased back development and discourse

exhaustion or loss of energy

sensations of uselessness or blame

trouble thinking, focusing, or deciding

repetitive considerations of death or self destruction, or an endeavor at self destruction

Discover more about perceiving the secret indications of despondency.

In females

Despondency is almost twice as commonTrusted Source among ladies as men, as indicated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The following are some symptomsTrusted Source of misery that will in general show up more frequently in females:

touchiness

tension

disposition swings

exhaustion

ruminating (harping on adverse considerations)

Additionally, a few kinds of sadness are exceptional to females, for example,

post pregnancy anxiety

premenstrual dysphoric problem

In guys

Around 9% of men in the United States have sensations of sadness or tension, as per the American Psychological Association.

Guys with sadness are almost certain than females to savor liquor overabundance, show outrage, and participate in hazard taking because of the problem.

Different indications of wretchedness in guys may include:

staying away from families and social circumstances

working without a break

experiencing issues staying aware of work and family obligations

showing harmful or controlling conduct seeing someone

Get familiar with the side effects of gloom in men.

In understudies

Time at school can unpleasant, and an individual might be managing different ways of life, societies, and encounters interestingly.

A few understudies experience issues adapting to these changes, and they may foster sorrow, uneasiness, or both subsequently.

Manifestations of wretchedness in undergrads may include:

trouble focusing on homework

sleep deprivation

resting excessively

a reduction or expansion in craving

staying away from social circumstances and exercises that they used to appreciate

In youngsters

Actual changes, peer pressure, and different components can add to sorrow in teens.

They may encounter a portion of the accompanying side effects:

pulling out from loved ones

trouble focusing on homework

feeling remorseful, powerless, or useless

fretfulness, like a powerlessness to stand by

In youngsters

The CDC gauge that, in the U.S., 3.2%Trusted Source of youngsters and adolescents matured 3–17 have an analysis of gloom.

In kids, indications can make homework and social exercises testing. They may encounter indications, for example,

crying

low energy

tenacity

rebellious conduct

vocal upheavals

More youthful kids may experience issues communicating how they feel in words. This can make it harder for them to clarify their sensations of bitterness.

Causes

The clinical local area doesn't completely comprehend the reasons for wretchedness. There are numerous potential causes, and once in a while, different elements consolidate to trigger indications.

Elements that are probably going to assume a part include:

hereditary highlights

changes in the cerebrum's synapse levels

natural elements

mental and social variables

extra conditions, like bipolar issue

Treatment

Psychotherapy may assist an individual with dealing with their side effects of sadness.

Discouragement is treatable, and overseeing indications typically includes three parts:

Backing: This can go from talking about commonsense arrangements and potential causes to teaching relatives.

Psychotherapy: Also known as talking treatment, a few choices incorporate balanced advising and intellectual conduct treatment (CBT).

Medication treatment: A specialist may endorse antidepressants.

Drug

Antidepressants can assist with getting moderate extreme discouragement.

A few classes of antidepressants are accessible:

specific serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)

tricyclic antidepressants

abnormal antidepressants

specific serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)

Each examples worth following on an alternate synapse or blend of synapses.

An individual should just accept these drugs as their primary care physician recommends. A few medications can require a long time to have an effect. By halting the medication, an individual may not encounter the advantages that it could offer.

A few group quit taking medicine after manifestations improve, yet this can prompt a backslide.

Raise any worries about antidepressants with a specialist, including any expectation to quit taking the prescription.

Here, become familiar with antidepressants and how they can help.

Drug incidental effects

SSRIs and SNRIs can have incidental effects. An individual may insight:

sickness

clogging

looseness of the bowels

low glucose

weight reduction

a rash

sexual brokenness

Discover more about the conceivable results of antidepressants here.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requireTrusted Source makers to add admonitions to the bundling of stimulant medications.

The alerts ought to show that, among different dangers, these drugs may increment self-destructive musings or activities in certain kids, teens, and youthful grown-ups inside the initial not many long periods of treatment.

Regular cures

A few group utilize normal cures, like home grown medications, to treat gentle to-direct despondency.

Notwithstanding, since the FDA don't screen natural cures, makers may not be honest about the nature of these items. They may not be protected or viable.

Coming up next are a portion of the more well known spices and plants that individuals use to treat melancholy:

St. John's wort: This isn't reasonable for individuals who have or may have bipolar confusion. Learn more here.

Ginseng: Practitioners of customary medication may utilize this to work on mental clearness and decrease pressure. Discover more here about ginseng.

Chamomile: This contains flavonoids that may have a stimulant impact. For more data about chamomile, click here.

Lavender: This may assist with lessening nervousness and sleep deprivation. Learn more here about lavender.

It is fundamental to address a specialist prior to utilizing any kind of natural cure or supplement to treat gloom. A few spices can meddle with the activity of medications or in any case aggravate manifestations.

Enhancements

An individual may take the spices above as enhancements to treat manifestations of gentle to-direct despondency. Different sorts of enhancements may likewise assist with treating these side effects.

Recall that the FDA don't screen enhancements to guarantee that they are successful or safe.

Nonherbal supplements that may assist with treating despondency include:

S-adenosyl methionine (SAMe): This is a manufactured type of a characteristic synthetic in the body.

5-hydroxytryptophan: This may assist with boosting serotonin, the synapse in the mind that influences an individual's mind-set.

Some examination has proposed that SAMe might be pretty much as supportive as the remedy antidepressants imipramine and escitalopram, however more examination is important.

Get familiar with how spices and enhancements may assist with mitigating wretchedness.

Food and diet

Eating a ton of sweet or handled food varieties can prompt different actual medical issues. Consequences of a 2019 studyTrusted Source recommend that an eating routine that incorporates large numbers of these kinds of food could influence the emotional wellness of youthful grown-ups.

The examination additionally found that eating a greater amount of the accompanying food sources decreased sorrow side effects:

organic product

vegetables

fish

olive oil

Will different food varieties deteriorate or further develop sadness indications? Discover here.

Psychotherapy

Mental, or talking, treatments for sorrow incorporate CBT, relational psychotherapy, and critical thinking treatment, among others.

For certain types of sorrow, psychotherapy is normally the main line treatment, while a few group react better to a mix of psychotherapy and drugs.

CBT and relational psychotherapy are the two primary kinds of psychotherapy for discouragement. An individual may have CBT in singular meetings with a specialist, in gatherings, via phone, or onlineTrusted Source.

Relational treatment intends to help individuals recognize:

enthusiastic issues that influence connections and correspondence

what these issues additionally mean for their temperament

how the entirety of this might be changed

Exercise

Vigorous exercise raises endorphin levels and animates the synapse norepinephrine, which is connected with mind-set. This may assist with alleviating gentle sadness.

Mind incitement treatments

Mind incitement treatments are another treatment alternative. For instance, monotonous transcranial attractive incitement sends attractive heartbeats to the mind, and this may assist with treating significant misery.

In the event that downturn doesn't react to sedate treatment, the individual may profit with electroconvulsive treatment, or ECT. This might be compelling if psychosis happens with misery.

Kinds of wretchedness

There are a few types of wretchedness. The following are the absolute most normal sorts.

[vanishing-hour]

7:15, upon the sounding of Weiss’ Passacaglia:

You are not the person you used to be - you cannot become the person you once were. You are you as you wake up each day — you are you as you choose to live and through how you choose to create and depict yourself.

A SELF-FASHIONED MASS OF CREATION. STOP.

TAKE IT AS IT COMES. STOP.

8:37, upon receiving a text message:

If we conceive of products of industry as armaments designed to further alienate us from society, then the following becomes clear:

We speak more than ever, but no longer to each other. All our voices become lost in the mediating process, refracted and abstracted via industrially formed communicative mediums. These mediums operate under the veneer of connectedness, but are ultimately concerned with seeking power and control; their overseers shape and direct our discourse, establishing parameters within which the illusory conceptions of freedom of expression and individuality arise. From what was once the lack of ego, there is now the “I” of power; “I” speaks power and “I” is power. To speak as a subject, to converse and relay opinions is necessarily to universalise one’s own subjectivity. To have an opinion is necessarily to disengage, to dislike, to negate the world from which we arise. What “I” say, what the “I” speaks applies to all. To remove the I, however, to remove the subject is to remove ourselves. If one is to stand around a corner, the other side of the wall does not exist until one has taken the steps towards it. No, but this depends on experience not the reality (?) that exists within the mind. What would then happen, say, if another is standing around the corner? The confrontation of two universalised subjectivities - four in a house. Two-hundred on any given street. One-thousand in a neighbourhood. Intersection. Six billion possible confrontations.

10:33, upon stepping outside, a sketch, a sensation, sensibility:

Are we not gifted with some unique kind of spatial memory that transcends temporal borderlines? What else can explain a certain area or city as feeling like ‘home’ or a place where one can entirely belong and melt away into the sounds of passing cars, doors opening, and a jug falling off the side of a ruined outdoor table setting?

Barthes paraphrases Socrates and mentions the atopos — the undefinable, the unclassifiable, but if there is more than one place that will feel like home in the course of one’s life, then is there a classifiable type that appeals to an individual’s disposition?

10:35, upon the viewing of a poster:

A humanely humorous work of anti-war sentiment operating under the veneer of poetry.

11:44, noticing my thoughts to be distinct from my words:

It is an indescribable feeling that looms over me; almost resembling a visceral feeling of dread and utter helplessness. It has overcome me before, but this is noticeably different; a hollowness, a constricting echo chamber. While for the moment I am relatively pain free, I am fearful that it is only a transitory and furtive moment of respite in and amongst the vicissitudes of life. I feel as if a friendship that is true and pure should not bog itself down with the kinds of preconceptions regarding their own natures.

For the moment, all that keeps me alive is the hope that I may one day experience something other than the Black.

Why must I not speak? What have I allowed myself to become? Poor, poor Lion of the West - dethroned and thrown into the wilderness to fend, naked and alone! Woe!

15:13, a storm approaches, looking forward toward a night without stars:

When looked at from a glance of time above,

Our births are but a sleepy forgetting

Our lives, a brief wait in the drawing room

Our deaths, the final debts we all must pay.

To seek below that which rests in the heart of Man,

Wait only you can thro the pangs and darts

That life so readily inflicts.

Wait you must, no other choice you have,

Till the hour at which you will greet our Artifex.

16:21, on the remembrance and return of pain:

The following applies to all things: when we lose something, it is not the absence of the thing in itself that grieves us, but how the object itself made us feel. Once more, it is the return of the ego. Εγώ. The subject-object relation. Unbreakable. “To grieve something is inherently a selfish act” it has been said.

The same can be said of illness and the loss of one’s bodily autonomy.

But how to deal with it, then?

Remember that what you have control over are your thoughts, opinions, and perceptions regarding external events. What if I am self-contained? Existing solely within myself?

Find new ways to relive those emotional sensations and impressions, but remember them for what they are: ephemeral, fleeting, and passing moments of time that plague the one who forgets we are caught in a position of vulnerability that is not quite possessive of tomorrow yet certain of our time in the yesterday.

Unbound.

16:50, the key is to read and apply both:

YB BH MJ GN AC UC BH AH AC GI IZ. STOP.

20:55, the night music of the streets of the city:

It is night; the street is filled with the sounds of music emanating from small windows above the bar opposite. It sounds terrible. A mass of offensive white noise. Perhaps Adorno could decipher its meaning. I just shudder at the thought. Boisterous chatter from the tables beside me, it is the season of Advent, after all. At once, the chair is pushed, sirens rush past, and the raucous screams of inebriated youths pierce my own version of silence.

Heart rate increases. Throat closes. Hands cover the forehead and slide down the face. The body trembles. Overstimulation does not equate to the overwhelming feeling of sensory overload. I take a stand, though an unconfident one. Back streets get me home. I get into bed (notice the iceberg). Perhaps with sleep the new morning will bring solace (?).

12:35, upon regarding the seeping moonlight dimly illuminating the form of my immediate surroundings:

I read somewhere that if we are to exist as foils for the world, to capture and measure its bounds and edges, then it must first be shown that the world itself possesses its very own form. I lift my knee and the blanket itself changes material form, but does not lose its blanketing quality. There are far too many facets to understand. What of the unreliability of the senses? I can barely see through the darkness, yet my mind knows there to be a form to the room, to the outside. But what of conceivability as probability? In the moment before I open my front door, there is sunshine, hail, rain, and darkness all simultaneously occurring on the planes of (meta)physical existence. But what of the open door? What of he who knocks at the door? I have not seen them, but my mind knows someone to be there. Can I trust it?

4:53, the sun is due to rise in opposition to the Moon which remains luminary and steadfast. Two eternal glows.

A fumble in the dark.

The postcard from her reads “c’est la nuit qu’il est beau de croire à la lumière”. It is from Edmond Rostand, from which book I still do not know. I have not asked. I have never needed to know. I am understanding the evolution of myself, of my mind. Reading those lines seven months ago instilled in me a feeling of expansive ease, as if the distance travelled by the postcard was the unit of measurement by which I could measure and quantify my own sentiments.

Sudden elation.

The heart warms, mellows in this body (this mass of self-fashioned creation).

Now I am not so sure I’d agree.

It is still night and I am seeing this light she speaks about, it is beautiful to witness, pretty to think about. The illumination of form, of my form, of the bed, of the room, of the outside. To witness the celestial brilliance of both heavenly glows should surely bring solace.

7:15, upon the sounding of Weiss’ Passacaglia:

I am reminded of the guilt — of those I have hurt in some way, of those I continue to hurt in thinking such things, in allowing such thoughts to persuade my actions. To go on living as feeling undeserving of the quiet elation one encounters in life — to disbelieve in the possibility of satisfaction and doing well by and for others. My back seizes as I try to lift my torso from out of the bed which for the last nine months has come to represent the antithesis of sleepy forgetting and nightly respite and rejuvenation. Instead, the idea of sleep only guarantees the swiftness of the passing night and the subsequent resurrection of feeling.

“Surely the work of demons! What else?”

Is this to be looked forward to?

[kim26chiu]

The London Review of Books Is Required Reading

People often ask me how they can follow my career path into urbanism writing. I generally discourage that. But for those who are interested, it involves reading – lots and lots and reading. And not just on urbanism but not a wide range of topics. I can only make many of the connections I do because I’m tapped in a wide of range of things, most of which are like the parts of the iceberg underwater you never see.

As it happens, some folks also ask me what they should read or what I read.

One thing of course is to sign up for my exclusive monthly newsletter, where I include my hand-selected list of some of the best links I read that month.

One periodical that most people don’t read but should is the London Review of Books. Virtually all newspapers and periodicals are fungible at some level. They cover the same stories with the same slants and frames. But the London Review of Books is different.

The LRB does review books, but is unlike a typical book review. They often get the best or one of the best people in the world on the subject at hand to write the review. This sometimes backfires because of a de facto rivalry with the book author. But generally it works great. They also provide such in-depth summaries of the books in question that your rarely need to actually read them, non-fiction at least. This is important because realistically nobody can come close to reading all the books out there.

They also have longform essays on a wide range of other topics that bring perspectives you are unlikely to get elsewhere. Some of their articles are directly relevant to urbanism, such as this James Meek piece about a Cadbury factory that relocated from England to Poland.

The online version is subscriber only, but a number of articles are generally available for free. I want to share a selection of these free pieces from the current issue to give you a flavor of what you’ll get.

Malise Ruthven takes a look inside Saudi Arabia, its royal family, and its wealth.

The faith tradition that holds the Saudi system together – for now – is Wahhabi Islam, the iconoclastic creed of the 18th-century Islamic reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, whose pact with the Al Saud family led to the creation of the modern kingdom in 1932. Al-Wahhab’s stormtroopers, the Ikhwan, enabled Ibn Saud’s rise to power. They killed unarmed villagers regarded as apostates, thought nothing of slaughtering women and children, and routinely slit the throats of male captives. Contemporary accounts describe the horrors afflicted on the city of Taif in 1924, when the Ikhwan murdered hundreds of civilians, in a massacre similar to the violence committed by Islamic State or al-Qaida today. As an Arab witness wrote, Ibn Saud’s forces ‘normally give no quarter, sparing neither boys nor old men, veritable messengers of death from whose grasp no one escapes’. Some 400,000 people are reported to have been massacred by the Ikhwan during the early days of the Saudi state. The Wahhabi understanding of tawhid, the theology of monotheism or divine unicity, which forbids the veneration of any person or object other than Allah, is still used today to justify the ban on all forms of non-Muslim public worship in the kingdom, as well as the confiscation of non-Wahhabi textual sources such as Quranic commentaries brought in by pilgrims from South Asia, who have had them removed by the religious police while attending the Hajj. But tawhid, a theology that claims to be fundamentally opposed to polytheism, has an unexpected consequence. It mines the Islamic discourse to sustain a totalitarian outlook whose actual purpose is the preservation and enrichment of the tribal dynasty that owns and governs this enormous country in its exclusive interest.

Novelist Colm Tóib��n takes a brief look at Barcelona, Joan Miró, Las Ramblas, terrorism, and tourism.

At that time the Ramblas was still the place where locals strolled in the evening. It had begun as a small stream whose channel was used in the dry season as a roadway. In the 18th century the stream was diverted and the Ramblas became a place to walk, with plane trees offering shelter. It is about the width of a four-lane street, with kiosks selling newspapers, flowers and (these days) ice cream, and some outdoor tables for bars, with two narrow lanes on either side, like an afterthought, for traffic. Although the pedestrian section is slightly raised, there is no real barrier between the lanes for cars and the boulevard for walkers.

Miró’s tiles were put down in an almost-circle at Plaça d’Os, just above the Liceu Opera House, near the Boqueria Market. Miró loved the idea that people would actually walk on his tiles, made in his customary colours – blue, yellow, red, black – and using some of his customary iconography. This was the first sign of a new spirit in Barcelona, which would use culture, civic pride and the idea of vivid street life to reimagine the city, giving rise, in turn, to the development of mass tourism.

Amia Srinivasan takes a fascinating and creepy look at octopuses.

Octopuses do not have any stable colour or texture, changing at will to match their surroundings: a camouflaged octopus can be invisible from just a few feet away. Like humans, they have centralised nervous systems, but in their case there is no clear distinction between brain and body. An octopus’s neurons are dispersed throughout its body, and two-thirds of them are in its arms: each arm can act intelligently on its own, grasping, manipulating and hunting. (Octopuses have arms, not tentacles: tentacles have suckers only at their tips. Squid and cuttlefish have a combination of arms and tentacles.) In evolutionary terms, the intelligence of octopuses is an anomaly. The last common ancestor between octopuses on the one hand, and humans and other intelligent animals (monkeys, dolphins, dogs, crows) on the other, was probably a primitive, blind worm-like creature that existed six hundred million years ago. Other creatures that are so evolutionarily distant from humans – lobsters, snails, slugs, clams – rate pretty low on the cognitive scale. But octopuses – and to some extent their cephalopod cousins, cuttlefish and squid – frustrate the neat evolutionary division between clever vertebrates and simple-minded invertebrates. They are sophisticated problem solvers; they learn, and can use tools; and they show a capacity for mimicry, deception and, some think, humour. Just how refined their abilities are is a matter of scientific debate: their very strangeness makes octopuses hard to study. Their intelligence is like ours, and utterly unlike ours. Octopuses are the closest we can come, on earth, to knowing what it might be like to encounter intelligent aliens.

The LRB often takes a look at parochial topics like some king from way back in the day, or some debate in contemporary London, that may or may not be of interest to you. If not, you can easily skip them. (As with the New Yorker, it’s difficult to keep up with the LRB, even though the latter is deceptively thin and only comes out every 2-3 weeks. So some skipping is generally needed).

Here’s one of those British pieces, a look at the life of Prince Charles.

At the age of 23 Prince Charles embarked with no great enthusiasm on a six-week training course at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. The course had been reduced from the usual three months for him, but it was long enough for Charles to realise that seafaring was yet another area in which he and his father had nothing in common. Prince Philip had a distinguished naval career. His son struggled with navigation, which he found confusing, and he didn’t much like the rough and tumble of life onboard ship. One exercise involved performing an ‘underwater escape from a submarine’: a not inapt image for a life spent trapped in a role he didn’t choose doing things he doesn’t like for people who don’t much appreciate them. That at least has often been his own view. He has made no secret of his difficulties or of the fact that his childhood was unhappy in many ways. An awkward boy who didn’t take after either his bluff father or his pragmatic, dutiful but distant mother, by the age of eight he was already worried about doing the right thing. Once, at lunch with the Mountbattens, Edwina Mountbatten explained to him that he shouldn’t take the stalks out of his strawberries because he could pick them up by the stems and dip them in the sugar. His cousin Pamela Hicks noticed a few minutes later that ‘the poor child was trying to put all the stems back on. That was so sad.’ ‘Sad’ is a word that has often been applied to the Prince of Wales, with every shade of intonation from empathy to contempt. It recurs here in books which are interesting more for what they reveal about the continuing narrative of the royal family and its symbiotic relationship with the media than for anything new in the way of facts.

Not everything is perfect, of course. The LRB has some definite biases that render their takes on various issues suspect. Israel-Palestine is one of them. You’ll quickly find out most of the rest yourself and adjust accordingly. (Hint: one of them is illustrated in the Barcelona piece).

However, I find the LRB consistently the best and most illuminating periodical I read. And no, they didn’t pay me to say this. In fact, I pay them to subscribe. If you want one reading suggestion from me that you’re not likely to get from others, it’s the London Review of Books.

  from Aaron M. Renn http://www.urbanophile.com/2017/09/01/the-london-review-of-books-is-required-reading/