#I tried yesterday and I had several existence crises

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

What kind of Pony (mlp) I think the BSD characters would be:

!Spoiler warning for a small spoiler for Chuuya’s backstory/Stormbringer!

TWs: Short and very slight mention of lab experiments on a person/pony, very short and slight mention of manipulation, Mori being Mori. Nothing is described in a very detailed way though.

 The first TW is a reference to Chuuya’s backstory/stormbringer and the other two are…Mori being Mori. I think you know how he is.

Dazai: Unicorn.( He would have become an Alicorn if he would have stayed with Mori and if he would have finished his training there.) He loves to watch Chuuya fly around. 

Chuuya: Alicorn (He was born as a unicorn and due to lab experiments on him he turned into an Alicorn. He can also use extremely powerful magic due to this but loses control over it if he uses too powerful spells.)

Kunikida: Unicorn

Nikolai: Earth Pony but he owns a magic coat. He wishes that he would be a pegasus instead so that he can fly freely over the clouds together with the birds whenever he wants. He feels stuck, being bound to the earth, unable to fly. 

Fyodor: Unicorn. Sometimes he uses his magic to let Nikolai float around whenever the other feels blue or even depressed.

Sigma: Earth Pony (Pegasus would suit too but he always references to himself as an “Ordinary man” in the manga so I think him being an Earth Pony would suit the best.)

Bram: Alicorn 

Atsushi: Unicorn but he turns into an Alicorn later (He’s the MC so I gave him Twilight Sparkle treatment.)

Akutagawa: Unicorn

Poe: Pegasus (Idk why it just sits right with me.) who possesses multiple magic books which he can use himself or a Unicorn.

Ranpo: Earth Pony

Mushitarou: Unicorn

Kenji: Earth Pony but he’s extremely strong

Shibusawa: Alicorn. I am very unsure about it because him being a Unicorn would suit too but he is canonically overpowered af with multiple abilities and with being half dragon due to his ability so I think an Alicorn would suit the best. Or he is simply a real dragon. 

Higuchi: Pegasus (Don’t ask why. It suits her really well in my mind.)

Gin: Unicorn

Tachihara: Unicorn

Lucy: Pegasus

Jouno: Unicorn

Tecchou: Pegasus 

Teruko: Unicorn

Lovecraft: He would be either a Mermare or some powerful entity who lives in the sea/is connected to it and only loosely resembles a pony or looks nothing like a pony at all but who can shapeshift into looking a bit more like a normal pony (something about him will always look eerie to other ponies even tho they can’t quite grab what’s off about him.). In his pony form he would be an Earth Pony who can use magic. 

Steinbeck: Earth Pony

Louisa: Unicorn

Fitzgerald: Unicorn

Mark: Pegasus or Earth Pony

Fukuzawa: Alicorn (Leader/King of the Kingdom where the ADA characters live. Takes a Princess Celestia kind of role to Atsushi.)

Yosano: Unicorn

Mori: Alicorn (Leader/King of the Kingdom where the PM characters live. Took a Princess Celestia kind of role to Dazai when he was younger but in a twisted and manipulating kind of way before Dazai ran away to the kingdom of Fukuzawa.)

Oda: Earth Pony

Ango: Unicorn

Hirotsu: Unicorn

Kouyou: Earth Pony who is connected to a powerful being (Golden Demon)

Kyouka: Unicorn or Pegasus who is also connected to a powerful being (Demon Snow)

Q (Yumeno): Earth Pony who is connected to a magic doll. 

Verlaine: He’s an Alicorn but just like Chuuya he is one due to lab experiments on him. He was born as a pegasus.

Arthur: Unicorn

Elise: She is currently a unicorn but she can become whatever Mori wants her to be. She is currently a unicorn since Yosano and Dazai are both unicorns and she resembles both of them as children/teens.

[jkottke]

Pandemic Stories, Part 3

In Sunday's newsletter, I asked people to share what they've been up to during the pandemic and how their families and communities are coping. I've collected all those responses on one page and will be sharing excerpts over the next couple of days here and in the newsletter.

The government response in Australia:

The government -- a fiscally conservative centre-right party that used the promise of a national budget surplus as its main platform - very quickly recognised the scale and severity of this situation and have since released a $130 billion 'jobkeeper payment' that gives $1500 every two-weeks to employees who can't work due to COVID-19. It's directed at employers who then nominate their employees to receive it (the idea being that this will keep workers linked to their business and speed up a recovery). It's part of a larger national strategy -- that's still emerging -- around the idea of putting the economy in 'hibernation'. The large irrelevance of party politics over the last three weeks has been one of the more interesting observations.

A hotel owner in Mali tries to keep his business & employees afloat:

For our part, we are trying to stay in business and keep all of our staff. Their wages are currently our number one priority. We have survived a few crises in our day -- clients kidnapped in 2011, coup d'etat in 2012, ebola in 2014-15, persistent threat of terrorism since 2015, and last year we were evicted and forced to move to a new location (we lost most of our rooms in that move) -- so it would really be a shame if this was the one that finally did us in.

Frustration in Brazil:

Even though my city and my state are taking the appropriate measures, like closing stores, schools and asking for people to stay home, some fellows still don't understand what the problem is. Some think that, since the death rates are low, there is no problem at all. They don't seem to understand that what is at stake is the collapse of the health system. This is a little infuriating, since we've been talking non stop about this for almost a month. At least my neighbors are as worried as me and my family. I live in an apartments building with many children (I have an 8 year old daughter myself) and we managed to organize a schedule so only one child (or more if they're from the same family) at a time time can use the playground.

Religion vs. science in Mexico:

Local plazas that were the bustling hub of the city have been taped off, and crews in haz gear drive slowly up and down the streets disinfecting the steps around the (many) colonial churches. Most of these, for better or worse, remain open, and this week -- Easter -- threatens to [welcome] frightening numbers of religious observers, many of whom are failing to observe social distancing. ("It's in God's hands", one friends and church-goer told me after I questioned why she was still attending and coming into physical contact with others. "No, it's literally in yours," I responded.)

A realization of privilege in London:

Overall, my impression is that our existing privilege has just been reinforced by the crisis. My wife and I are both still being paid our full salaries, but we're not having to pay nursery fees, so we're actually better off financially. We no longer have to commute or drop off and pick up the kids at nursery, which gives us more family time, and it's wonderful to be able to finish working and just walk downstairs and play with the kids before dinner. Our street is terraced single-family homes with roof terraces, so yesterday the street had a terrace cocktail party in the late afternoon. Things are better in the UK than in the US (we have the NHS and the government is paying 80% of the wages of furloughed employees, for instance), but there are a lot of people who are going to have their lives thrown into chaos as a result of the pandemic and we're quite lucky to not be among them.

No video chats with students in Nebraska:

More Urban schools aren't prepared...you can pick up a packet once a week at school (same for every student per grade in the district) but there is no verification that it was done... so basically those students are done for the year. My nephews go to school in a less-tech school. The district doesn't even let them web-conference with a teacher because "the teacher may see something that violates privacy"). Their mom (my wife's sister) says they get little direction.

You can read more of the collected responses here.