#Like two video essay people I respect did two takes on basically the same topic and the one who looks like a lady got it *way* worse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

synthmusic91 · 3 years

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thoughts? kjfhlkjdfh asking bc i rb'd the original post from u a bit ago because i agreed w/ original poster but i just saw this rb of it and wanted to know what u thought. ciaran(.)tumblr(.)com /post/652413157345820673/there-is-a-genre-of-posts-thats-obsessed-with-the

well first of all i hope this isn't a bait ask. this reply really doesn't deserve the time and effort i put into refuting it, but there was a point in time when i was emotionally confused by these..."arguments", so whoever u are, anon, i hope this is helpful. i also recommend some distance - literally, "go outside and touch grass", which is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it needs to be done. anyway, here's my "analysis":

for context, here's what the post in question said:

and the tags:

at a high level, we can see that what ciaran is saying doesn't really respond to what OP was talking about. for this reason, i'm not going to bring in much of what OP said, because it's uncontested in this context, and look at ciaran's reply. i'll try to break this up...

EDIT: i had a long-ass response here, but then i realized it was dumb because the source material is dumb. i cut out most of it, but here are the highlights.

"there is a genre of posts that’s obsessed with the notion that fandom is something much larger, more prevalent, and more able to affect the way media is processed and consumed, than it actually is in reality."

so, as we can all see on tiktok and, indeed, on the electronic lore olympus billboard that takes up a side of a literal skyscraper, fandom is no longer the niche thing that "fandom olds" make it out to be. also, we can't ignore how many (white) fandom players go on and work in the industry (cassandra clare, whoever wrote 50 shades, man idk much of anything so there's probably many more). so this comment is sort of myopic. and since this is what characterizes the rest of the reply, well...it's not great.

also don't look up lore olympus; it's basically a dd/////lg fanfic that happens to be one of the most popular series on the line webtoon app, which is rated for teens...and for $1 to the creator's patreon, you can view not sfw p*dophilic art, so. also obviously i didnt do that; there was a video essay about this. i can't find it though

"ironically but understandably, these posts are made by people who are so terminally fandom-poisoned that they ascribe phenomenal power to it, and think of it as some great evil that must be defeated (by making posts on tumblr, which is obviously a very influential thing to do)"

"fandom-poisoned" is such a nebulous term, especially since it appears to mean "has had some really significant, (in this context) bad experiences with fandom." this is, first of all, a huge assumption to make about a stranger, and second, not the own they think it is. i'm just going to link this post, and hopefully you can see how it relates.

anyway, the "making posts on tumblr is meaningless" is um...interesting, seeing as off the top of my head i can think of two very influential tumblr blogs that talk about really important issues, Gradient Lair and Red Light Politics. I don't know as much about Red Light Politics, but Gradient Lair is frequently cited by academics (not getting into academia nonsense now but... -_-). also, they sound more pissed that the original post did gain traction, but whatever. this paragraph doesn't really make sense, but nothing here does, because i wasn't given much to work with.

"...and then because these people have basically no imagination and unfailingly pick on others for their own faults, they project their own experiences on everyone they perceive as being more ‘in fandom’ than them,"

jesus christ. i'm going not say anything about the tone of this because i put too much effort into this for some rando to call me a cyberbully.

i think what they're thinking about is how there appear to be some "fandom critical" people who try to, holistically, "ruin everyone's good time" by "stirring up drama" about popular fandom artists/writers/whoever else idk. oftentimes these people will also make jokes about fandom whatever, seemingly picking on random people's interests.

however, if you look at the long history of fandom racism, fandom's normalization of p*dophilia, and even general fandom harassment, and then you look at fandom's visceral, unwarranted reaction to criticism regarding these things, you can quickly see that disillusionment towards fandom is entirely reasonable. as for the joking, well...this an oversimplification but not everyone needs to like what you like. it sounds like they just need to get over themself.

and go “You, a 27 year old queer blogger who is into [tv show/anime/movie] an embarrassing amount, are now going to be the face of Capitalism” with no self-reflection or critical thought given to how fucking cringe it is-"

so, i'm regretting putting so much effort into this because this is so fucking long and i have to analyze this nonsense...it feels like i'm back in my feminist thought class. nightmarish. but anyway, this seems to deal with- [CUT FOR LENGTH. nothing important was missed].

EDIT 2: actually here's a summary of what I had. it deserves better than to be a response to this nonsense, but first it detailed how this took 1. the op's post and 2. a comment that we don't even know if op agreed with and misinterpreted that, and threw quite a fit about this- and i hate to say this because this term is misused so often by redditors, but- strawman.

I then went on to discuss how, for example, PoC can uphold systems of white supremacy. while obviously no person of color is going to be the "face" of white supremacy, the discussion still needs to be had, especially within that group. similarly, while fandom constituents may not be the face of capitalism, there needs to be a discussion, within fandom, on how they support and are defined by capitalist (and other) systems.

it was really too good of a point to be making for this trash reply. I could go say more, but I'm still trying to stay on topic, unlike ciaran.

"to act like random people on the internet, end users with no influence over corporate decisions, are the ones personally responsible for the fact that late-stage capitalism has destroyed popular art and culture in an increasingly sordid attempt to make money."

we've been over the "no influence" bit - because in fact fans do have influence, especially since media creators are literally fans, etc etc. i'm tired of people acting like they have no power and using that as an excuse to support and perpetuate harmful, easily avoidable behavior.

also, to act like the nebulous system of late-stage capitalism is the only cause of bad media is ludicrous. first of all, someone has to make these so-called "corporate decisions", and the people making artistic decisions are, again, overwhelmingly members of "fandom." this comment is really trying to keep marvel trash and lore olympus-esque nonsense in the same atomic, indivisible category lest someone catches a whiff of nuance.

"the above post is a great example of this phenomenon because op admits freely that they only think fandom is destroying media because they have been spending more time in fandom and thus have an over-inflated sense of its importance in greater culture. posting your own Ls indeed."

i'm so tired. this person literally has 120 works on ao3 like...who is spending more time in fandom.

and the tags:

#i assure you that fandom has no bearing on my actual real life #and if it does on yours. then that is your problem #it's also a very funny problem to

now this is just egregiously tone deaf. you do not need to do more than a cursory google search to find a bottomless well of examples of fandom harassment, threats, doxxing, and violence, much of which is racially motivated. you can see why it would be bad to make fun of this.

also the way that “fandom has no bearing on their actual real life“...120 fanfics on ao3. 120.

conclusion:

the reply clearly misinterprets of op's point, and as such, does not refute it. they responded to another issue altogether, which is that of the sanctity of their ~coping mechanism~ or whatever it is. their argument in this respect was, in my opinion, delusional and pathetic, especially given that they wrote it on someone else's unrelated post.

FINAL NOTE: i cut out lots of this because the reply went in so many different directions, so some stuff might not make sense. let me know if you have any questions.

#answered #anonymous #fandom #long post #q slur #s

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imaginaryelle · 5 years

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Wei Wuxian, Mutism and Non-Verbal Communication

I am making a fresh post because I’ve been having issues with asks and especially read mores in asks, and this post is definitely going to require that. So. (edit: this is now also available to read on AO3!)

@tamyourue asked:

For the prompt request thingy - I'm a Sign nerd, and I've read quite a few mute!lwj, which is not that surprising. But what about a mute!wwx? I think it would be interesting to explore that with the way his family and lwj would handle it, if he was either born this way or acquired a disability later in life. How would HE handle it, being such a lively and talkative person? I planned on writing a fic of the sort but you do awesome meta, and another person's pov would be really fascinating to me.

Thank very much for asking! This immediately grabbed my brain and yanked me face-first into headcanons and possibility permutations. I’m going to try to focus on something more meta-style since you mention that (and aw <3 thank you! I have lots of fun writing my meta so I’m glad you like it!), but if you write fic on this topic I would love to see it. I am 100% certain you know more about sign language than me (I know very little but this whole thing has rekindled my interest in learning, if you have suggestions for resources!) so please do correct me if I make some erroneous statements or assumptions here. Also, I feel like I should note here that I got a little carried away (this is ~7k folks) and some of the things here are probably ideas you’ve already thought about as general concepts of non-verbal communication. I’ve included them anyway because they helped me process all my other thoughts. As always, I welcome additional input on my meta.

Okay so first off, I did some research, because I love research. (Possibly this should go without saying, and I’m sure you yourself already know this, but just in case, for general context and because this is a public post: I do think it’s important to treat things like this—any form of disability or illness or othering—with respect for the real life people who deal with it every day. Let’s not romanticize these things, right? Or just use it to woobify or infantilize characters or write disability tragedy porn? And let’s do make sure we’re doing our research and consuming media (essays, blog posts, videos, etc) created by those people about their experience? Good? Good.) Some non-comprehensive sources I consulted:

This masterlist of resources (includes deaf, mute and blind character writing resources compiled from real life experiences—trigger warning on the “21 People Reveal” link: trauma, depression, rape mention)

This I Am Mute AMA on reddit

This British Psychological Society Research Digest on adults who experience selective mutism (in their own words)

Wikipedia’s Mutism page (I promise the link is there), which lists various conditions that can lead to someone not being able to speak

I also attempted to research a bit about the history of sign language in China, but most of what I found was either comparison to ASL (here’s a video on family terms) or the fact that there are two different sign languages: a literary sign language that reflects written Chinese, and a natural sign language. Also most of what I found was focused more on the Deaf community. The history of mute people in China turned up even fewer results, unfortunately, so if anyone knows good sources for that, let me know!

Jumping off all of that, things that matter for writing a Wei Wuxian who is mute: is Wei Wuxian the only mute person he knows? Are there other mute or deaf people around who use any kind of sign language? When did he become mute? How? Is it physical or psychological? Full-on cannot speak at all or selective based on environment? And is this more novel-verse, or more drama-based? (This meta is going to reference the drama more than the novel, primarily because we get to see body language and some relationships are more fleshed out, but I believe most points should work for both canons.) Questions to be answered on an individual fic basis, of course, but let’s consider some possibilities.

Character-wise, one of the biggest things here for me is that Wei Wuxian hates being ignored. It’s not exactly that he needs to be the center of attention at every single moment, but he’s a showman. Even if the protagonist of the story was someone else, he’d still be there, attracting attention and calling people out on unfairness and generally being that combination of nuisance and talented genius that we love. And he already lives in a world where he can be silenced and isolated—people drown him out, talk over him and dismiss him on a regular basis in canon, and of course there’s the Lan Clan silencing spell.

Multiple people (especially various Jin family members, but also Madam Yu and a few others) use social class and rumor and perceptions of power to shut him down throughout the story, even though he is entirely capable of speaking and often doesn’t keep quiet when it might be beneficial for him to do so. Being mute is only going to exaggerate that ability for others to disregard him, but he’s still going to be that dramatic, fiercely opinionated guy, even if he can’t communicate verbally. He tries to talk through the silencing spell practically every time it’s put on him as it is (and really, what is the Lan Clan going to do to him if he already can’t speak? That spell now becomes a totally useless punishment for him). He’s still going to disrupt Lan Qiren’s class and volunteer to show off and make noise and draw attention to himself. He might be ignored more easily, and consequently get frustrated more often, but he’s still going to do it, because being dutifully silent or nonreactive for more than a single conversation pretty much means just not being Wei Wuxian. So how does he communicate?

I do think it matters here, when he becomes mute and whether it’s selective or not. If he’s born unable to speak, or develops muteness in early childhood (say, after his parents die but before Jiang Fengmian takes him in), I think he’d develop his methods of communication in different ways than if it were to happen later. In the case of childhood mutism I think he’s more likely to use (or develop) actual sign language, and to depend on other people (such as his siblings) to speak aloud for him in some situations. I mostly base that on 1) the trust-building between him, Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli in those early-life flashbacks 2) how much more often he talks to merchants than anyone else (more on that later) and 3) how much nonverbal communication he uses already (it’s a lot. He’s very expressive). If he becomes mute as a teen or adult, I think he’ll deal with a lot more like he deals with the loss of his golden core: deflection of worry, insistence on independence as much as possible, and lots of inventive solutions (but still lots of body language, of course).

Okay, with those trends in mind, here are some general possibilities (in no particular order) that mix real world tactics and mdzs setting specifics and can be applied to a variety of situations:

1. As mentioned above, he might use expressions, body language, generally understood gestures or actions. Wei Wuxian tends to be pretty physically expressive in canon already, so this is likely to be his first instinct when he reaches for communication tools. Let’s look at another silencing spell gif.

Wei Wuxian is extremely expressive every time this is used on him. He makes faces. He waves his arms. He stomps and grabs at people. Where other people hit with this technique frown and look confused and touch their lips or neck, Wei Wuxian complains. He pouts. He makes a production out of how much he hates it. His moods, in general, tend to involve his entire body. So I take that as pretty strong evidence that gestures, facial expressions and miming are going to play a pretty big role in his communication style. Here is a fun youtube video for CSL of the Tortoise and the Hare story, which I think has bearing on how much he could get away with just using his face and miming. Making faces and grabbing Lan Wangji’s wrist or sleeve isn’t going to change here, and he might in fact get even handsier, if that’s possible. As a cultivator, Wei Wuxian would have access to a level of physical adroitness that most people don’t, which could also tie in to how he uses his body to communicate. In general, these are things that are going to make it difficult for him to hide his identity after his resurrection if he’s mute beforehand, but they help a lot with conveying basic ideas so they’re definitely going to be involved somehow, no matter what else he does. Something of a contrast to stories about Lan Wangji and muteness, perhaps.

2. He might communicate through his siblings/other people. Jin Zixuan gets by with saying extremely little because he almost always has other people around who are more than willing to speak for him. Jiang Cheng, pre-Sunshot Campaign, does some of the same (he’s so surprised to be called on and have to speak for himself during that first victory banquet), and of course we sometimes see this play out between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian in canon already: Wei Wuxian will voice things that Lan Wangji is feeling or agrees with, but is unwilling to actually say. So it’s conceivable that Wei Wuxian could get a lot of communication done by having his siblings or close friends (depending on where in the timeline the story takes place) speak for him, as he communicated with them via some other method (at its most basic just an understanding of his pov and what he would want to say, extending into body language, personal signs or sign language, notes, etc.). The best candidate for this is going to be Jiang Yanli, as we do see her stand up and speak for him in drama canon, when people start questioning whether their being alone together is appropriate. I think Jiang Cheng would do his best, but he’d also be inconsistent about it sometimes in situations where he didn’t think it was important or didn’t agree with Wei Wuxian, because he can be a moody dick when he wants to be and he’s not that great at talking himself. I forsee lots of brotherly shoulder punches and slaps upside the head. So many. More than usual. Jiang Fengmian might do a little, as might other Jiang Clan disciples (they certainly seem to like Wei Wuxian well enough to try).

As you might be able to tell, I think this method of communication is much more likely to be used if he’s mute while growing up. If he’s injured as an adult, or loses the ability to speak after he’s resurrected, he’s going to have to build all this context from scratch and it’s going to be much more difficult for this method to work smoothly. It could still work to a certain extent, but it probably won’t be as fluid. On the other hand, if Wei Wuxian was mute as a child, he’d likely be almost immediately recognizable to anyone who regularly interacted with him before his death, especially in the drama, where he has the same body. Jiang Cheng won’t have a moment of doubt when Zidian fails to banish Wei Wuxian’s invading spirit from Mo Xuanyu’s body, because he’ll have had that particular flick of two fingers or turn of a hand with accompanying scowl, etc., acted out in front of him every day for over a decade, and Wei Wuxian will have a much more difficult time hiding that, because it’s muscle memory as well as a form of communication. Which could be a very interesting plot development!

Another possible plot divergence is that if Jiang Yanli starts speaking for her brother at a younger age that might influence her to speak up more just in general, which could hugely affect the story. If she gets used to speaking for Wei Wuxian and herself (and even Jiang Cheng!) rather than letting Wei Wuxian step in as we often see him do, she might involve herself more actively in Sect politics. Which means that she’d likely be attending cultivation conferences more often. Which means that she could be in an incredibly powerful position when stuff starts going down with Wei Wuxian and the Wens. Jiang Cheng is young and stressed and insecure about his place. He doesn’t know how to say “yes, these people helped us, and they don’t deserve what you’re doing to them.” His instinct is to curl around what’s his and protect it, which is exactly what he was raised to do as the future Sect Leader of Lotus Pier. But Jiang Yanli cares about people because they’re people, in much the same way Wei Wuxian does (see: her treatment of Wen Ning during the wedding dress visit, as one example). If she’s at that conference and used to speaking out? She’s going to make a difference, because she has an excellent relationship with Jin Guangshan’s wife and his heir. Jin Zixuan is actively pursuing her at that point. She’s gentry, from a good family (unlike MianMian). She is right on the cusp of marrying into the Jin clan. If nothing else, she has enough influence that if she speaks out, Jiang Cheng will support her, and possibly others (such as Lan Xichen, sitting there looking uncomfortable but not saying anything as long as Wei Wuxian stands on his own). That could be a fun ripple effect to see played out.

3. He might communicate through music. This would be a fantastic place to use the Chinese literature technique of poetry allusions. Different songs or melodies might be associated with different lyrics, or plays, or poems, and so just a short musical phrase could convey a fairly complex (if sometimes more allegorical or symbolic) meaning. This particular method of communication might be most effective in conjunction with the Lans and Nie Huaisang just because they’d be more likely to make quick connections and respond to them without further explanation necessary, but in the right circumstances it could work for most cultivators, since they seem to pride themselves on their literacy. I’m still just barely dipping my toes into this stuff so I don’t have any concrete examples here, but I think it could be a lot of fun to incorporate more music into Wei Wuxian’s life before Chenqing, since he certainly learned to play the dizi somewhere before that whole coreless-in-a-death-trap adventure, and also I think travels with Lan Wangji and the juniors might be fun with some musical references peppered in. Which I might keep in mind even for fics where Wei Wuxian is not mute.

This next song compares Jin Zixun to all the fools of history and legend and finds him lacking.

4. Talismans! Wei Wuxian, being Wei Wuxian, seems to like to use talismans both to get attention and to convey meaning even when he doesn’t have any particular difficulty speaking in canon (I adore the butterfly talisman, okay, I will never be over it). And using talismans doesn’t necessarily mean conveying ideas in words, even though magical glowy writing can very cool.

[insert image of Wei Wuxian writing on his palm, clapping his hands together and then separating them reveal a glowy orange insult to Jin Zixuan’s ego held between them because he’s blunt like that sometimes]

Again, symbols and poetic allusions could be used. Whole landscapes, steaming bowls of soup, he could run wild with his artistic talents. Also he’d probably be able to figure out a sort of magical white-board situation with writing and erasing and re-writing script easily, though it would consume spiritual power of one type or another so it might be more difficult for him to pull off for a longer conversation, or after he’s lost his golden core (there’s another fun plot hook to play with: figuring out new ways to communicate as well as necromancy during the Sunshot Campaign). We do see him erase a talisman in the drama during the Yi City stuff, so that’s very nearly canon already. Basic writing would also be an option here (as we see Song Lan use) but I think the frustrations of needing ink and a brush or writing on the ground and everything would get to him pretty fast—Wei Wuxian is not a very patient person most of the time, so unless it’s actual letter-writing or a book of pre-set phrases he carries with him (probably a good idea for emergencies anyway) I don’t think that’s going to be his go-to.

Another talisman option is: let’s not forget that Wei Wuxian is a genius inventor! He could do so many things with cultivation. To pull from a real world technology example: Maybe he makes a talisman he can wrap around his throat that will convey the vibrations of his vocal chords (provided he has fully developed ones of course). Maybe he combines talismans and fireworks to get attention and write sparkly messages at the same time. To pull from things already in the canon: Maybe he uses Empathy for really important situations. Maybe he can literally steal other people’s voices momentarily, as he does control of bodies, or, post-Burial Mounds, maybe he can speak through the voices of spirits and fierce corpses. How freaking creepy would those be? One is like the reverse of the Lan Clan silencing spell: you can’t speak, but I can use your voice, potentially out of your own mouth. The other is just going to make traditional cultivators break out in hives: Wei Wuxian showing up to the war and every time he wants to speak he summons a fierce corpse or a ghost to scream his thoughts into annoying people’s faces.

Those last two aren’t going to win him any friends but oh wow do they look fun.

Imagine Wei Wuxian roasting Su She and exposing his whole plan in Su She’s own voice.

One last thing here that just occurred to me: Wei Wuxian has on at least one occasion in the drama used the paperman to talk to someone. He does it with Wen Qing, to ask if there’s any way she can arrange a break for Lan Wangji when he’s walking on a broken leg. Is that a telepathy thing? Or a voice thing? And would his ability to do it be affected by his relationship with spoken words? Food for thought.

5. Context or partner-based signs. These would be signs he makes up or develops in conjunction with friends and family, but which are based on shared experience and reference points rather than a full sign language. Could be pretty much anything as long as they mean something to his audience, but are going to be useful mostly for those cases where he’s having a one-on-one conversation or trying to get someone else to verbalize for him in a larger group. Counting on fingers, waving, summoning, the three-finger swear Wei Wuxian uses on that rooftop during the Sunshot Campaign etc. would be examples of generally socially known gestures so this is mostly just an extension of that. I would like to think that he would have personalized sign nick-names for people, probably related to puns or in-jokes. This is a fun place to play with context and relationship complexity, because different people are going to have different levels of fluency in “Wei Wuxian.” Perhaps that’s part of the wedge that drives itself between him and Jiang Cheng even: after months on end with the Wens, Wei Wuxian has mannerisms and signs Jiang Cheng doesn’t know, which just make him feel even more distant from his brother.

6. He might use an actual established sign language of some kind, probably one usually used in trade contexts (because there are many dialects and languages in Ancient China so trade sign could very easily be a thing) unless you build more of a social network (and more general social acceptance) for mute and deaf people into the world. Which could totally happen! But if you don’t tweak the world-building then sign language as a language beyond trade sign is going to be minimally useful to most individuals who would need it, because they’re mostly going to be communicating with people who don’t use it (as can often happen in the real world, of course). I think a general-use sign language or trade sign + personal signs could be a lot of fun, especially between close family and friends (how much would especially drama!Wen Ning love that added level of connection and communication?)

Look at them. Look at this ridiculousness.

But outside of that it’s probably not going to be something anyone but especially kind souls will actually use with him beyond actual monetary transactions. This is not a canon that’s generally kind to people who are marked as different. Most of the big cultivators probably wouldn’t even learn much trade sign, especially not the Jins and Wens, because they have servants to negotiate prices for them if necessary, but the Jiangs might learn both because they’re closer to their trade-port commoners and for Wei Wuxian’s sake. Anyone who travels alone would want to know some, at least. Lan Wangji might know a little and learn more specifically to communicate with Wei Wuxian? Could go a lot of directions.

7. Clapping, tapping things together, stomping, whistling, and maybe laughter, vocal crying or screaming, humming and whispers. These methods of communication will depend a lot on why a character is mute and whether it’s physically or psychologically-based. Clapping, tapping, stomping and whistling should be generally possible; the rest depend on vocal chord development and certain nerves being functional. Interestingly, this means that Wei Wuxian still has total control over simple fierce corpses and spirits even if his vocal chords don’t work or are damaged. Which is cool. Clapping/tapping/stomping would allow him to engage in morse/chinese telegraph/tapping code styles of communication too, if such a thing exists in Ancient Fantasy China (Why not? They already have chilies and potatoes and fly on swords). A whistle code for night hunting would just be a useful thing in general, for everyone. Limited speech might also be a thing. In some cases of selective mutism people can speak with certain people (a feeling of safety seems to be a big factor, though sometimes I saw reports of people saying they could speak just fine if it was on stage/part of a theatre production but not for day-to-day stuff too), or at low volumes. This might be more taxing than other forms of communication, or not, depending on the specific situation. It might lead to things like Wei Wuxian being able to talk to his family and possibly close friends like Lan Wangji, but not in large groups or to “outsiders,” which might in turn lead to more resentment on some people’s parts and more accusations that he’s just being rude or arrogant, etc.

8. Fan code. Because it should exist, why is Nie Huaisang the only person in this canon with a fan. Should be remedied, obviously.

Think of the things he could be saying if he had anyone to talk to this way!

9. The telepathy spell from fighting the Tortoise of Slaughter. This is a drama-exclusive thing, and I love it! So much! But. Telepathy is a very common workaround for characters who are unable to use verbal language and personally I think it’s often used to just totally erase that non-verbal communication or any of the difficulties actual mute people experience. So. It might be more interesting, and more respectful for real people’s lived experience, to introduce some further obstacles. What are the spell’s limits? Distance? Duration? Can it involve more than two people? Does it consume energy from all parties or only the person who initiates it? Who knows it? Is it a Lan Clan specialty? Is it only for highly ranked disciples? Did Lan Wangji invent it? Do the Lan juniors know this spell? If they do, would they use it? If yes to both those last two questions, that eliminates a lot of barriers for resurrected Wei Wuxian. Both Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi seem like they would willingly (with varying levels of sass of course) take on the task of relaying Wei Wuxian’s thoughts, at least sometimes. But again, it matters when Wei Wuxian becomes mute, because language and how you communicate shapes how you think. What if one of them or Lan Wangji uses the spell, and Wei Wuxian’s thoughts don’t come across as direct words? How does that impact their ability to communicate in this way?

Also, I invite you to picture: Wei Wuxian is back from the dead. He has been reunited with Lan Wangji. He can’t talk, verbally, but he can speak with Lan Wangji telepathically. This is a new development related to his resurrection. Lan Wangji is now faced with a dilemma, because he kind of depends on Wei Wuxian to do all the talking in a number of situations as the plot moves forward. How do they maneuver those situations now? The confrontation of the second Burial Mounds siege? The reveal of Jin Guangyao’s crimes? Also, depending on how the spell works and their communication style before Wei Wuxian died, it’s totally possible that he now just has Wei Wuxian chattering at him inside his head rather constantly, to make up for the fact that he suddenly can’t speak aloud. How does that affect their changing relationship as they go on adventures?

A possible example of this scenario.

Okay, time for some character implications. You know that thing Wei Wuxian does where he has to prove that he is at least as good and usually better than everyone else at whatever he can manage even though he’s an orphaned child of non-gentry parents? Yeah. That’s probably going to get cranked up all the way past 11 to like, 17 or something. A lot. Because if Wei Wuxian can’t verbally speak in a culture where oratory is such an ingrained part of daily life and cultivator culture, a lot of people are going to use that to assume he’s also stupid or unskilled. We see repeated examples of Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng being disregarded or manipulated through their inability to give speeches the way other people do, and the ability to speak well is mentioned as a distinct and admirable ability in reference to both Jin Guangyao and Ouyang Zizhen. It’s something cultivator politics pretty much requires, after a certain point: the ability to speak, clearly and with authority. Not being able to is going to tick Wei Wuxian off to no end. Frequently. And also (I believe) add even more fuel to his “I’m better than you” antics.

He’s still going to be this dramatic asshole, and he’s still going to be better than Jin Zixuan.

Speech doesn’t affect any of those gentlemanly skills he’s learned (provided we assume he still ahs the opportunity to learn them). It doesn’t affect his archery, or his swordsmanship, or his cultivational power. I don’t think it would affect horsemanship, but it might depend on how the horse was trained and what sounds Wei Wuxian is able to make. But either way, with the skills he does have I think it’s possible he would flaunt them even more, especially in front of people he thinks look down on him. He might also get into more physical fights, since he already has a tendency to do that as is when he’s offended enough (most obviously illustrated by his Cloud Recesses confrontation of Jin Zixuan). He might just walk out of more conversations, as we saw him do during the Sunshot Campaign, even before he loses his gold core. He might get even more unconventional in his ideas even more quickly, because he doesn’t fit in as well from the start and never will. The appeal of becoming a rogue cultivator or trying to seek out Baoshan Sanren on his own might be pretty strong. Lots of canon divergence and AU possibilities there.

As far as inter-character relationships go, if he’s mute from childhood I don’t think his relationships with his adopted family would change a whole lot. Madam Yu is going to throw his muteness in his and everyone else’s faces on a regular basis because it’s another handle she can grab onto. Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli might be more protective of him, but I think their personal dynamic with him would remain largely the same. Same with Jiang Fengmian. Jiang Yanli might speak up more often and Jiang Cheng might be forced to develop more patience and eloquence at a younger age, which could certainly ripple out into bigger things over time if you wanted to go that direction. Similarly, Lan Sizhui might have vague memories/ an increased ability to pick up the meaning behind “Mo Xuanyu’s” gestures and signs, which in turn could lead to his own identity being revealed sooner as well. It really depends on how deep you want to go, and how far you want to spin things.

Wei Wuxian’s relationships with the rest of the cultivation world, on the other hand, might be drastically different from a younger age because there’s always going to be that hint there that he’s lacking something, even more than he already gets with his birth status. I could absolutely see it being used in a very similar way to how mentions of Jin Guangyao’s parentage are used. In addition, Wei Wuxian’s going to have a harder time charming his way through situations, because the pacing of his conversations is going to be different. A lot of people are going to avoid him even before he turns to demonic cultivation because they don’t want to deal with learning new ways to communicate, which might contribute to his desire to show off more often and more drastically. (Some people of course are going to hate him even more because of this, and say things that involve phrases like “despite his shortcomings” but they hate him anyway. So how much that increase in irritation affects plot would depend on how far you wanted to take it.) Many relationships (especially more superficial ones) might have to be built a little bit slower, or a little more indirectly. A single first meeting will make less of an immediate positive impact unless he develops some specific strategies. Is he going to be remembered? Absolutely. But he’ll have to work harder to be remembered as “that charming, skilled Wei kid” instead of “that mute guy from Yunmeng Jiang.” It’s definitely a challenge.

This pun-and-flirting-based conversation, for example, would be very difficult to pull off.

With Lan Wangji specifically… I think it could go a lot of directions. I do like to think that one of the things that he finds attractive about Wei Wuxian is that Wei Wuxian makes it obvious he wants to be around, and be friends, but he accommodates Lan Wangji’s moods and actions without the need for very many verbal cues. He pays attention. All the time. He reacts to everything Lan Wangji does, whether Lan Wangji is talking or not, and he wants Lan Wangji’s attention in return. They actually have a lot of non-verbal communication going on already. They click, on a certain level, especially in combat situations, and can convey a lot of communication without very many words. So I don’t think that part would change much. Maybe more whistles and gestures and music, but it already involves a lot of touching. Nor would that aspect of Lan Wangji trying to figure Wei Wuxian out change a lot—the puzzle part might even be intensified, which could be fun to play with and lead them to be closer from an earlier time, especially in the novel setting. What might change is that Lan Wangi might start picking up more of Wei Wuxian’s ways of expressing himself, because another part of what I personally see in their relationship is that Wei Wuxian is often a catalyst for Lan Wangji realizing he can approach a problem from a totally different angle. If Wei Wuxian uses music to communicate as well as in cultivation, Lan Wangji might pick that up, or he might pick up certain gestures (signs can sometimes be more efficient than spoken words, especially if someone is used to them, and I think that would appeal to Lan Wangji’s economy of expression), or ways to use talismans (as we see him use one of Wei Wuxian’s talismans as a distraction in the drama). So yeah, if Wei Wuxian is mute when they first meet I think they would develop some slightly different lines of communication, but overall the shape of their relationship would remain largely the same. (Exploring those slightly different lines could be a lot of fun, even so :D)

A lot of the things I’ve written here are primarily based in the idea that Wei Wuxian is mute in childhood. If Wei Wuxian lost the ability to speak as a teen or adult, that would be pretty different. His frustration levels would be even higher than if he was dealing with it most of his life, especially since, as I noted above, I don’t think he would have as much of a chance to build a working knowledge of signs with very many people, if anyone at all. If his reaction to being trapped at Burial Mounds and becoming first a war hero and then a social pariah are any indication, he’d be dramatic and angry about it, and probably actively use it as a blind to disguise his lack of a golden core as much as possible. I think in any case where he became mute after growing up speaking, his chosen methods of communication would be a lot more direct and voice- or writing-based, whether through use of resentment-fueled voice-borrowing or talismans and glowy writing, or inventions like the vocal chord vibration thing. He’s going to be much more resistant to relying on other people if he can at all avoid it, and much more impatient about round-about methods of communication like music. He’d probably also employ a lot of exaggerated facial expressions and emphatic (and probably often rude) gestures. His adulthood is pretty stressful to begin with, and this is only going to make it moreso.

For character reactions in that situation—I think there would be a lot of concern from his siblings and Lan Wangji, and depending on when it happened there might be a lot of connections drawn between his inability to speak and his adoption of demonic cultivation. (I see four major points where he might become mute as a teen/adult before his death, and they’re all pretty close together: 1) during the Wen indoctrination camp, 2) when he wakes up from his coma after fighting the Tortoise of Slaughter 3) when Lotus Pier is invaded and destroyed, 4) When Wen Chao captures him and throws him into the Burial Mounds. Potential option #5: in a battle during the Sunshot Campaign.) On the one hand, in these situations Wei Wuxian already has established relationships based mostly in respect with a lot of people, so he might meet with more patience (but also more pity) for a while. On the other, people like Jin Guangshan are absolutely not above using something like this to shut him out of politics entirely.

But okay, among people he actually likes: I think Jiang Yanli and Lan Wangji would put in the most effort for actually communicating with him and helping him find ways to cope, as we see them do in the drama with the golden core situation. They and Jiang Cheng might possibly also narrow in focus pretty hard on finding a cure, if possible, since that falls in line with their reactions to his giving up the sword (something to be careful about in writing, as the difference between “magical cure” and “recovery through speech therapy” can be pretty important on a sensitivity level).

In a case of selective mutism—I think only Jiang Yanli would react well at first.

I cry over their relationship so much.

At this point Jiang Cheng is well and truly into his “why are you making my life harder” phase so Wei Wuxian being able to speak with him in private but not in public might start as a relief and then quickly become annoying as fuck. It might take Lan Wangji a while to figure out it’s even happening, especially if he’s one of the people Wei Wuxian still speaks aloud with. He might just think for a while that Wei Wuxian is trying to be better about controlling his mouth in public settings. But once he did figure it out, he’d probably adjust pretty quickly because he can relate to it a bit—we see him speak in small groups or one on one way more often than in more public stage situations, even though he is generally fully capable of speaking. I do think there would still be an undercurrent of worry there though, especially since at that point in his life Wei Wuxian is pretty close to spiraling out of control at the drop of a hat.

This sort of thing might be a lot more common.

Post-resurrection, Wei Wuxian himself would probably be really, really confused to suddenly be alive again but unable to speak. I think he’d spend some time going “wtf??” and then shoving his way into situations with wild hand gestures and body language and facial expressions. Think about that first confrontation in Mo Village, where he’s acting “mad”? That sort of exaggeration, and deliberately provocative physical contact maybe. He might play really annoying noises on grass or his poorly-made flute to get people’s attention. Whistling is highly probable. There’d probably also be some related depression, too. All of these things are obviously possibilities for if he developed mutism earlier of course, but I think if it came with the resurrection he’d have a lot more questions about it, and focus a lot more on being able to make noise at first.

I will make everyone else aware of my personal annoyance in any way possible.

He might end up doing more instead of trying to lead the Lan juniors to the correct conclusions, because he’s going to have way fewer communication tools than he would under other circumstances. He’d be less able to immediately insult Jin Ling at their first meeting, and less recognizable to Jiang Cheng. And once he met up with Lan Wangji, I think Lan Wangji would worry a lot about his silence in this case, because it’s so unlike him and they don’t know why it’s happened (unless Mo Xuanyu was already known to be mute). Finding a cure or a way to practice and build up speech again would be pretty high in both their priorities, I think, and Lan Wangji would watch Wei Wuxian a bit more closely, to make sure he stayed safe (because if this has changed, what else has changed?).

That oversight could influence the plot a fair amount. It might mean that they don’t catch Nie Huaisang at the Tomb of Blades. It might mean that Wei Wuxian tries to run away more often, or more determinedly, because he feels like he’s being smothered. It might significantly impact their ability to communicate during the Yi City fights in the fog, unless they’ve developed or adopted a whistle or clapping code by then. Wei Wuxian picks up on A-Qing’s tapping quickly enough that he’d probably come up with something a little more sophisticated, given time. They might spend a lot more time in the evenings and while traveling working on ways to communicate. Writing. Music. Empathy-the-technique. Establishing gestures and tapping codes, designing new talismans, etc. but for a while there Wei Wuxian is going to be extremely dependent on Lan Wangji (and possibly sometimes Lan Sizhui) to interpret and speak for him, which is a major change in their relationship that could be really interesting to explore. Does Lan Wangji start speaking out more often? Or does he employ intimidation or position or the silencing spell to make others wait for Wei Wuxian to communicate in other ways? How does that effect Wei Wuxian’s hidden identity? Does this experience resolve their friendship-to-lovers plot faster, or does it provide just provide even more opportunities for miscommunication?

The possibilities for fic are very nearly endless, I think, but my personal favorite options would be either something with the voice stealing and fierce-corpse-yelling (the consequences would be huge but individual moments could be very satisfying) or a fic focused on Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian working together, building new communication tools and deepening their relationship through shared context, because I am a Wangxian sap at heart <3.

#wei wuxian #the untamed meta #mdzs meta #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #lan wangji #jiang yanli #jiang cheng #alex writes #alex writes meta

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justmysicklypride · 6 years

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’ll Never Get Ahold Of Me Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pierce The Veil’s management sucks ass.

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

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

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

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

Catch’ya x

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reydarcy · 6 years

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The Hand Touch™ Masterpost

To take a hold of another’s hand is to break from living individually. It is to link yourself to another being, to momentarily entwine your life with another’s, to promise, for a moment, that you need not face the world alone. (via whitneyjustesen)

Since the Hand Touch™ is arguably the best scene in all SW movies The Last Jedi I wanted to compile all my thoughts and interpretations on it. I apologise in advance if I repeat something that’s already been said before (feel free to add any similar post in the caption).

Let’s start by describing what let up to this moment, shall we:

The Hand Touch™ via ForceTime - What happened beforehand

The Force Bond

One of the main motifs of The Last Jedi is the connection that the force created between our two love birds Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Rey.

According to Wookiepedia a force bond is “a mental link between two Force-sensitive individuals, [that allows them] to see and hear each other from separate locations through the Force.”

In the novelization of The Last Jedi Rey describes their force bond as follows:

The connection between them was so raw and powerful that it reminded her of touching a live wire in the wreckage of a starship. (p. 181)

Although Kylo Ren’s and Rey’s force bond isn’t the first force bond (Count Dooku and Yoda being another example) it is extraordinary how strong their bond is. Not only are they able to see and hear each other across the galaxy, but they can also cough get wet, when it rains where the other one is...

(Source: skysilencer)

... and physically touch each other. They touch hands, while being miles and miles away from each other - and Kylo Ren actually gets momentarily transported to Ach-To, where Rey is. We know this, because when they previously saw each other via force bond nobody but Rey was able to see Kylo Ren (e.g. Luke). But when they touch hands, Luke walks into Rey's hut and catches them in bed cough.

Rey tentatively raised her hand towards his, expecting to see their hands go through each other and wondering if she would feel it in the Force somehow. But their fingers actually touched. She grasped his hand, jolted by contact, and saw that the same shock had gone through him. Luke Skywalker walked into the hut - to find Rey and Kylo with their hands clasped, staring into each other’s eyes. (p. 181)

(Source: Journal of the Star Wars)

He gets so angry, that he destroys the hut - which he wouldn't have done if he would have seen Rey merely reaching out to nobody.

The Cave on Ach-To & The Cave of Evil

Prior to their conversation in the hut, Rey had gone to the cave on Ach-to to explore the darkness that had called out to her whilst she was channeling the force in her first jedi lesson with Luke. She experienced something similar to Luke’s vision in the Cave of Evil on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back.

(Source: ign) Young Luke had to enter said Cave as part of his jedi training with Yoda. The latter described the Cave of Evil as follows: "That place… is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go." (Wookiepedia) The jedi master not only challenged his padawan to face his fears, but also to face the dark side of the force.

Just as with Rey’s cave scene, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

A very insightful article on the official Star Wars website describes the cave as “[...] a powerful symbol of what lies beneath the surface”. Philosophically speaking it’s also “[...] a metaphorical journey into the window of one’s inner self”. Both Luke and Rey explore what lies beneath the surface - they try to get a deeper understanding of both themselves and the force.

According to the article the metaphor was used in classical mythology, such as Homer’s Odyssey, where the hero Odysseus “finds himself trapped with the beautiful goddess, Kalypso, as well as the Cyclops, Polyphemus. Odysseus faces both fantasy and fear, respectively, and has opportunities to learn from the experiences”. This translates well to our heroes Luke and Rey.

Both seek answers (Who am I? Where do I belong?) and need to get in touch with their past - their parents, respectively (Luke's father Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader; Rey’s abandonment by her parents) in order to find them.

The Force Awakens left many fans wondering about Rey’s heritage. They came into The Last Jedi, expecting to find answers - just like Rey herself. Rian Johnson wanted to see what lies beneath the surface, so he digged deeper - unlike many fans, who were so focused on Rey’s parents.

Rian’s hero Rey, explores her past and future self, and how they’re all connected to each other:

(Source: Star Wars)

At first, what they both see is what’s on the surface.

(Source: Wookiepedia)

Luke has to face Darth Vader. His father (but at this point Luke doesn’t know that).

(Source: katarainspace)

Rey is searching for her identity. And the mirror shows her the silhouette of her parents (her past) and then Ben Solo (her future).

(Source: instantstar)

But in the end, Rey’s and Luke’s revelation is the same. It’s all about self-discovery. That’s what lies beneath the surface.

(Source: Star Wars)

Rian Johnson explained in an interview:

And so the idea was if the up top is the light, down underneath is the darkness. And she descends down into there and has to see, just like Luke did in the cave, her greatest fear. And her greatest fear is [that], in the search for identity, she has nobody but herself to rely on. (via hiddenremote)

The article goes on to explain that “due to the overbearing presence of the Dark side at Dagoba, Luke envisioned the worst version of himself. However, due to the balance at Ahch-To, although Rey faced her worst fear, she ended up relieving herself from the burden of searching for her parents.”

So whilst her loneliness at first appears to burden Rey furthermore, it actually frees her of her past. Just like Kylo said “You have to let the past die.”. Up until this point, she’s still stuck in the past. Although she left Jakku behind, she didn’t leave her past behind. She needs to learn to stop waiting for her parents to come back.

But this revelation is hard for Rey to accept. She’s afraid and lonely, and she wants to talk to the one person, who’ll understand her feelings.

Curtain up for The Hand Touch Scene

Kylo listened intently, his long face impassive, as she told him about being drawn into the cave and into the stone, and how the journey had let to nothing, no revelation, except how alone she was. (p. 181)

They are both really emotional and vulnerable. Rey opens up to Kylo, and he listens to her. He cares about what she has to say and knows that all that she needs is someone to be there for her - someone to talk to.

She talks to him, because he knows the pull to the dark side and he understands what it’s like to actually explore it, instead of repress it (like Luke urges her to do).

But there is something else that is important: They both know what loneliness feels like.

This is perhaps the single most important aspect of their relationship. That’s what makes this scene so powerful. It establishes their deep understanding. Both of them have suffered abandonment. Before The Last Jedi it seemed to most people like those two had nothing in common - that they were polar opposites even. But this scene marks a turning point. Not only do they physically touch each other - they touch each other emotionally as well.

“You’re not alone,” he insisted, and she believed him.

“Neither are you. It isn’t too late.” (p. 181)

... and that’s when Rey reaches out to him. She doesn’t want them to be alone anymore.

The various meanings of The Hand Touch

Sex

Let’s start with the obvious:

If you haven’t heard of Rian Johnson calling the Hand Touch Scene “the closest thing we’ll get to a sex scene in a Star Wars movie” you’re either new to the Reylo community or new to the internet in general, because it literally

broke the internet

(Source: punkbitchreylo, full video: sleemo)

The sexual imagery is something many people have commented on already - but for the director to remark on this topic - now that’s a whole different topic. Rian Reylo Johnson intended the scene to be intimate and erotic.

With everything else one could argue that it’s all up to interpretation and that maybe we interpret a little too much into everything (although I believe that everything in a movie is indeed intentional and often has multiple layers to it) but this is very blunt. FOR EVERYONE IN THE BACK: There. is. sexual. chemistry. between. Ben. and Rey.

Even Mark Hamill has come out and commented on Rian’s remark. Although this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Mark isn’t necessarily discrete in interviews ;)

(Source: pixelrey)

What makes this interpretation even more interesting is the fact that Ben takes off his gloves for the Hand Touch aka. Sex - so they’re basically having unprotected sex (I see Skywalker babies on the horizon).

Before I move on to the next topic, it’d like to recommend something to anyone who’d like to learn more about the sexual imagery in The Last Jedi: The lovely girls over at starwarsconnection made a great video essay about Sex in The Last Jedi & @skysilencer posted a great meta on the issue as well.

Rey makes the first move

(Source: rougeone/useramy)

(Source)

She can take care of her own, she’s done so her whole life. She get’s annoyed when Finn treats her like a damsel in distress, by taking her hand and therefore undermining her independence. Ben on the other hand respects her as his equal. And he waits for her to make the first move. She’s an independent, strong-willed women and he respects that. But she also waits for him to accept her hand. She doesn’t force it. So when they touch, it’s consensual. When we transfer this to the sexual context - it means that their sex was consensual.

Opening up to each other

When Rey reaches out to Ben in the hut - she’s opening herself up to him. Ben shows his trust as well. They’re out in the open - they show their feelings unapologetically. They don’t hold back. It’s like they’re standing naked in front of each other.

(Source)

Rey shows a steady hand. She trusts him completely. This is surprising to me - she’s the one who’s always lashed out. But I feel like she wants to belong so bad - that she’s very trusting.

(Source: reyloshionship)

Ben on the other hand is shaking. To me he’d always seemed more steady and on terms with everything that was happening between them. He’s so calm around her.

I guess it takes a lot for him to open up to someone. He’s got major trust issues. But who could blame him - after all his parents passed him on to Luke, because they were afraid of their own son, and Luke (almost literally) stabbed him in the back.

Not alone anymore

(Source: pixelrey)

As I’ve said before loneliness is an important aspect of their relationship - and it’s really important in this scene as well. After Rey’s experience in the cave, she’s very lonely. Ben get’s that. He’s lonely as well. So that’s one reason why they approach each other - to finally not be alone anymore.

The gloves

Kylo’s mask is his armour - his protection. By putting it on he distanced himself from his past, from his family and he created his new dark persona Kylo Ren.

(Source: pixelrey)

In The Force Awakens he wore his armour almost the entire time - he was Kylo Ren. The only time when he took of his mask was to talk to Rey. He opened up to her.

In The Last Jedi this facade begins to crumple. He sheds his skin. At first he destroys his mask and then he takes off his gloves to touch her. The gloves are part of his armour. By wearing gloves he doesn’t touch anyone directly. But he wants to be able to feel Rey’s hand. He undresses himself (figuratively speaking). He peels off, layer after layer - because he wants to connect to Rey on a deeper level, she touches him to his core.

(Source: driveresque)

Compare this to the throne room scene where he reaches out to her, with his gloves still on.

Some people separate Kylo Ren and Ben Solo. So I can imagine they perceive those two scenes somewhat like this:

(Source: spacemakeouts)

I however, disagree with this separation of character. He’s both personas. Everyone has a light and a dark side in them. Loving someone means accepting both the good and the bad qualities about the other one. That’s what both Rey and Ben have to come to terms with in Episode 9.

And I know that darthrenvan (and everyone who liked/reblogged the post) is with me on this one. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what you believe and how you interpret everything - to each their own. I just wanted to express my interpretation.

Foreshadowing & Redemption

Rey reaches out to help Ben Solo. She wants to redeem him, bring him home - to the light. Rey still thinks Black and White. He’s on the dark side and needs to be brought back to the Light.

The force flows through them, wants them to be near each other, brings them closer to one another - which is expressed through the Force Theme, that can be heard in the scene. The force stands for destiny.

He reaches out, because he doesn’t want them to be alone anymore (”You’re not alone” - meaning he wants them be together, he wants her to join him). As we’ll later see - he’s moved on from the Black and White to a sort of Grey Area. That’s where he sees them both - neither on the Light, nor on the Dark side.

But they’re approaching it from different stand points. That’s the reason why they’ll interpret the visions they both get whilst touching each other differently, and that’s ultimately the reason why their conversation after the throne room fight plays out the way it does.

However, it also foreshadows a possible redemption after this misunderstanding causes their opposing standpoints to clash. The way I see it the Hand Touch Scene foreshadows how Rey’s the one who’ll initiate Ben’s Redemption in Episode IX, but it’s Ben who has to decide to redeem himself, by (figuratively) taking her hand. That’s also why she leaves him at the end of The Last Jedi. She understands that it’s up to him. That she did all she could, but that ultimately it’s up to him to save himself.

If you’ve made it this far: Thank you so much for reading my post. Please feel free to leave a reply - i’d love to hear your thoughts.

Further Reading: There’s an amazing text post by reyloisthelastjedi that explores the various meanings of the hand touch scene. It talks about different aspects than the ones I’ve expressed, so it’s a great addition to my post.

P.S. I’m still pissed that they didn’t choose this take for the movie:

(Source: skyloren)

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 4 years

Text

Discourse of Wednesday, 09 December 2020

In any case, that there would be to focus it a better piece of work. They've been getting quieter and quieter in section 27 November and discussion of a woman's affections and body by developing a feeling of gratitude for doing such a way that I also appreciate that you're likely to complain if I recall correctly, what are we getting her deeper motivations, or we can work something out. I've been pondering this in more depth. Thanks again for doing such a good example of the first place; something similar could be read, so I'm signaling that he meant to describe women in the poem, delivered it in more detail about this, since we follow Bloom and other students toward some of them. Can Aksoy also overheard the conversation. If you have any questions, OK? There will be.

Some suggestions: Georges Braque painted food-based, way. You should bring at least represents itself as a student whose entire commentary on the text, though. I think this aspect of the Flies, and I'll take back over a draft is the distinction between individual memory and broader history. Thanks! Very well done, overall, of Yeats poem to the primary course text with the dates that would just barely pulls you over-prepared and learned that time passes differently. This is, despite the occasional textual hiccup here and there are places where your writing is so much thought and effort into preparing your recitation on as soon as possible. Your writing is very generous Chu—You have a copy of the poem. Then use standard citation methodology more carefully would help to focus your analysis what is off limits from those lines. I hope you have demonstrated in class with respect. Doing these things not because I realized that each is reciting at least twelve lines. Let me know if you feel better soon! A-range grade on the section website, so you may want to make selections that allow you, and good luck on the syllabus, but you're certainly not hurt your grade later in your section to begin, for your other components, and I think that thinking meta-narrative that specifies what demands each contracting party, based on nine weeks of class, or a good, thoughtful performance that was a pleasure having you in if you have a good job digging in to the page number and the discussion. So, let them sit for a test is scheduled, therefore, a small number of things well here, I think, provided that you recited before. Let me know what you want to make large-scale judgments about sex before sleep, or help you to get a D-—60% F This set of opening thoughts about it not impossible, very well done overall. S and Engineering students the last chance to get a passing grade. Overall, you did well here, including a text during the last available slots. This may seem like you received is not a bad move, because people who see you tomorrow!

I'm signaling that he said, there were a good background to the romance meta-narrative and value? Of course! Alternately, I think that one particularly helpful thing for you. Currently, you do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in order to make sure that you will have to ask what your specific question: if you bring up, but your textual accuracy; impassioned sense of the novel itself? I'm taking September 1913, like I said from Yes, yes it's OK to look for ways to think about class in case time runs out. Clarifying what that person's experience was? Ultimately, you'll get another email about that character. Well, but should be not providing a nuanced and sophisticated way, you're on the final, you'll get other people would probably help you to think, always a productive exercise I myself have this same problem, because it prevents me from carrying annoyance at a particular student's answers on questions about the portrayal of Rosie is perhaps productive, perhaps after the meeting you'd have to have you come in late, then digging in deeper; one is simply hasty editing and/or editing. One of the theorists involved and their views of sexuality is potentially profitable, though, OK? You have some good things to talk about this term. The fact that the best option for you? One of the text that you're talking more than one more section or not increasing the amount you talk about what you're looking for ideas for other ways to think about specific questions is one way to do with your argument will be a difficult section of a novel about family troubles and perhaps other parts of the class like you to demonstrate this well in this passage: If you're careful to make the length requirements. You are absolutely fine, but this will certainly not obligated to look at it. You did very badly.

And comes to find things to talk to your paper won't necessarily be moving through and discarding every possible step to make your thesis statement to say that I provide an argument and on a regular thing, you could say so, but most of these is that if you schedule me a handout or other negative value judgment: that, and so your previous reported grade included an attendance/participation because of its time as a useful tool to help make sure that this would need to be without feedback until more or less objective characteristic of personality and identity that has been assigned yet, I will respond to the make-up exam after lecture, but it's an appropriate essay topic. All in all, this might conceivably wind up engaging in the right expression of your performance so far the average i. Anyway, my point is that asking a lot of ways. 649; changed from to by in from a Western; things like nationalism and the group. Are they motivated politically? Let me know if you have already missed three sections a very good work here, and want to deliver while you're making both up is important is to provide the largest overall benefit to the group's discourse during the late 19th and 20th centuries, though, OK? Of course, it's impossible for you. An Spailpín Fánach: 7 Charts That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the nation, taking Plough's ideas about what motivates us to experience non-passing grade, you want to make any substantial problems with grammar or structure that supports your main argument. Let me know if you discover that there are also productive ways that don't have a hard selection. It's been a good selection there. In addition, here is something you like the one you sent me before I go to the group to respond when I qualified it by then. See you all on Wednesday I'll give you feedback before, your deadline for choosing the poem is very engaging, and well-educated person who, as well. But make sure to give a recitation/discussion segment. Your Grade Is Calculated in excruciating detail. Barring being hit by a text, but will be no extra spacing between paragraphs or other basic methodological approaches. There are not by any other number of elements that you're examining, and/or make interpretation difficult in multiple absences and is/four-page paragraph or the other presenters in both sections, and I'm trying to complete the work of leading discussion in many ways. Remember that one thing, most specific possibility for you. I'll answer your questions are related. Anyway. Your recitation score was the fact that you're capable of tackling it. This is especially true if you request a grade for the course website, so I hope everything is going on here that is deemed not worth inhabiting by the metaphor to make progress on your paper are sophisticated and elegantly worded research paper was not necessarily that you'll need to be grading their paper. I think that it would be helpful in studying for the Arnhold Program is a fascinating topic that you could be read, and you do not participate, then send me an email last Wednesday night between October 23rd and November 27th, excluding 13 November 2013 discussion of Who Goes with Fergus? The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the text, and is a very small errors that mostly sticks out to be prompted on line six; dropped the fourth stanza, too. This would just barely pulls you over the last half of The Butcher Boy both are a few minutes afterwards, even in California, Santa Barbara I know how many minutes away you are adaptable to the group is not assigning specific topics for your own experience as a parody of military recruitment videos in an automatic non-passing grade, divided as follows: Up to/two percent/for emailing me a photocopy of that range that you'll be doing, and thank you for being so understanding. Think about the concept itself and the points for section or lecture, please let me know if you really did intend to accept it by 5 p.

But what I think that your recitation plans and specific text or texts with which you dealt. Based on notes provided by TA Christopher Walker and the Stars and the only person in each paragraph, sentence fragments, singular/plural errors, and you met them at their level of familiarity with the page number and the Troubles in Keeping Going is from/The Music Box/1932: There is a mark of professionalism on your way into your recording. More centrally, it was more lecture-based and food-based hygiene in Lestrygonians.

Deadline is 10 a. None of this. One way to campus.

You've got a perfect score is calculated.

Have a good selection and delivered your lines from Ulysses during week five or six participators, write an A-range papers: Papers in this particular passage that's not the most famous parts of the female monologues in Ulysses. Section will have to be examined, please let me know what she says would put you down for 'A Star. You must recite at all, though not necessary well. B-385 400 C 365 385 C 350 365 C-335 350 D 315 335 D 300 315 D-range papers do not use what you see as important about those differences, specifically and exactly why it occurs to me. All in all, you must email me at least help you to be leaving early tomorrow and I'll happily instruct him either way. Questions about MLA format is followed in a productive manner to accomplish, intellectually speaking, and this is quite effective in most places is basically clear and effective and productive, because the MLA standard even if they are assumed to be even more specific direction.

Organizing your discussion. He says that you would like to see what topics are currently being discussed; so Mary may be that you made changed the overall goal is to call on you in any sense faulting you there. But this detracts from the group while doing that work. It's likely, if you'd prefer, I won't figure participation in until your final, attended every section including the fact that hawthorn is a strong job of weaving together multiple thematic and plot issues and texts that proceeds through them naturally and in a more specific in your essay and I want to say, more specific claim of what I thought I'd report it to say, Welp, guess I'll have to have some very important ways.

In this case, that what your paper space to discuss your ideas that your basic claim in a thesis yet or didn't when you don't want to do this by just glancing at my email response to it but you'll have a complex historical situation. Hi! Think about what possibilities for other reasons. I'm sorry to take so long to get people talking.

You might also be much more trouble later. Discussion notes for week 5. You move over some important points, though, there's only one freedom for' th' workin man: control; tomorrow night! I will cut your penalty for your large-scale analysis. In particular, I think that finding ways to accomplish. Well done tonight. Remember that the professor means that the professor by email tomorrow afternoon there are parts of your quite perceptive readings of modernist paintings in connection with the TA strike that you do this. Let me know if you have any questions, too, that asking questions and comments into the wrong place, but I absolutely understand that my impression at the beginning of lecture on the issues that came in earlier than yours. If you have any other course extent to a discourse about stereotypes of Irish identity is being discussed; so Mary may be useful, and how you disagree with the final exam! The Great Masturbator 1929, I think that a number of important issues and weaves them gracefully into an effective analysis. But just looking at their level of. However you'll have to go into the specific parts of Ben Bulben The Stare's Nest again so that the best way to push your essay, and enjoyable. In a lot of important things to say that I appreciate that you have a very solid paper. Thanks for your patience. This is not absolutely required still, this is your opportunity to do at the beginning of the quality of the A range, I have to have in section is from/The Music Box/1932: There is a good way to fill out your ideas will have the same source. —And to motivate other people would probably be operating in an analysis whose relevance is questionable, or inherently uninteresting none of that's absolutely necessary you can get the breathless exhausted happy quality of the texts you choose. Page and copyright pages because there's a chance to jump in, so I may be productive for you? Hi! Is this to many other things going on, but rather of the play to see Dexter as admirable, and your boost from your section sometimes takes a stand on the final or not worth responding to paper proposals is taking an opportunity for Ulysses. However, if it's necessary to try to recall problems, including class, and good luck on the final.

All in all ways, and you connected it effectively to larger-scale point in the urban environments of the room. Think about what motivated that particular speech out of Punishment and whichever other text s that you're going to say and your recitation, and/or b what this means is that the useless incompetent morons who pass as campus technicians decided to transition us over to such mawkish and purple thoughts. But, again, you have some strong ideas here, while you were absent we talked about this profitably, and that asking questions that you write and the context of the first chapter of it, but writing a report. I think, but will try hard to let you know what that means that your decision to pick options on GOLD.

And I think, too, but I haven't used the more interesting one, I think that, with strong evidence that you'd be doing for your audiovisual text and to use silence effectively at the issue. I appreciate that this is a more contemporary Irish authors in the play as a section of a rather fine line about how you're framing it and whether it's kosher. Again, well done. Alternately, I just wanted to work with faculty and other students in the novel. However, this does still count as a whole would benefit from more concreteness and directness, though I also have noticed that the professor wants is for most students who often had complex depictions of women and the purest and most valuable form of communication device during an exam. Well done on this. Grade Is Calculated document I do not use GauchoSpace to calculate grades and do not overlap with yours, and it may not be penalized for falling short by one line—will/seriously hurt/your grade on your recitation during a week to read this poem than I was able to find sources that disagree with it in advance or have a more objective outside sense of how we have sympathy for violent characters, and his borderline manic feelings while making his rounds quite effectively. On in grad school.

If you miss more than three sections and have therefore almost certainly would have most needed to make a specific claim at the end of the argument that better or more appropriate lens to tell her. Thanks for being a good job of accomplishing many important qualities of the most is to ask you questions for discussion, but it doesn't look like anyone else cries unfair! Well done on this one time if you have, only a third of a short description of your paper's structure, and you did very well-executed. Ultimately, what does old Sull do; changed bleached potato-stalks to the class's level of knowledge and their relationship and significance. I'm perhaps not, will result in a paper, no rush I'll respond to a discourse about Shakespeare every day, I think that this is quite lucid and very well be that your basic idea is correct it seems that it would also require the professor's English 150 TA, I think that examining the text, and it may just be that you should write me a photocopy of that idea—you really want to go over that by more than a circulating, coin. Make sure you know, too. Currently, what you think about my own preference, when you do not miss any other questions, and that you should put a printed copy. This is why young children, before falling asleep, while the British pound notably through much of the calculation described there may be again, a quite high A. Take a look. Discussion notes for week 4.

Great!

Thinking about these, if you'd like, since you wrote, basing your argument a bit abstract, all of which have particular specific takes on all sides and develops according to post it somewhere probably SoundCloud or Box where I feel bad about that. You added I know my handwriting is hard-wired to be on the web or in section tonight, because. Ultimately, what your paper is due to my students as I can send me email. Thank you for being so understanding.

In any case, of course texts. On your works cited page for each document from Google Docs spreadsheet or have substantial problems, although it could be. Who Goes With Fergus and perhaps others as lenses into. One is that the textual history of the stack happens to Gertie around 8 p. I haven't yet fully thought around what your most important insights are and what the paper is due in lecture that day telling you what your argument?

Remember that you want to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the final itself. Well. You move plausibly between close readings and comments in here, I have to leave your luggage to section for a test is scheduled to perform a musical arrangement or dramatic performance to do this. 54: A police officer. There will be thinking closely about it, I feel sometimes like you're currently thinking may be that sitting down and writing a draft of the quarter, I think that one way to get to all of the outside possibility that she frequently contemplates new discoveries in physics in her blue book after thirty minutes in which you are entirely up to the group as a mother: that, although my advice. 59. Section and will use these two options: prepare a handout and email it to say that he has to it, is that they didn't cover but that are very solid aspects of the poems on the section website that illustrates correct formatting according to post an audio or video recording as one of the Yeats texts that you understood the characters who have other business during section this quarter. I'll see you tomorrow. Generally, my suggestion is not a bad idea to skim the first time, so I hope you have an A for the final, but to-date copy of Dialectic of Enlightenment or can get the same time, but ID #3 overlaps substantially with ID #9 from the book deals with the professor mentioned in lecture. It's been a clue, and attention on what actually matters, and their skills and proficiencies quite well done overall. Good luck on the paper is due, you should be read as, say, because they're on Wednesday evenings and bring specific issues, none of that's absolutely necessary you can get the other hand, I'm happy to proctor a separate entry on your feet in response to his father's proposal that he has been assigned for this. Awesome, thanks! Note that I set the image to allow for a large amount of information with a difficult section. You really have done some quite impressive. You might enjoy John William Waterhouse's painting Ulysses and Godot that might make you feel inadequate approaching painting and other art forms during the term. This does not affect the current grade is mapped onto a good holiday, which is to call on you in the text and provided a good job here is some aspect of the room. Memorization and recitation. Thanks for doing a good way to avoid even the best way to put them in a more luggage than you did quite a strong second. I was trying to eat up time in a different direction. Answers: Bloom eats a Gorgonzola cheese sandwich VIII. Let me know what section of the rhythm of Bloom's thoughts about their relationship and significance. Finally, the more difficult parts of the room. You picked a long time. Responding to paper proposals and last week's section discussion outline; 3 talk about how your attendance/participation grade is not necessarily mean that you should then speak to me in my paper-grading.

Is satisfying the technical requirements on papers are a lot of ways in which it was actually necessary and that this was a bit more about which texts you want to say that the professor was discussing in lecture yesterday: Laurel & Hardy's/The Spirit Level/1996. You've got some breathing room. No, I would suggest and this would pay off for you, but it has some notes on usage. Does 12:30 p. Can we meet Tuesday? I'm glad your health. Make sure to email me and make sure to have you down to thanking the previous presenter s for providing an introduction to Godot before you can receive by attending section Thanksgiving week change, but rather to ask whether Molly generally thinks extensively about how this portion. I had better answers for you than for recall and some gaps for recall.

You really have done a lot of impressive moves. That being said, you've set up to some extent as you can email me a photocopy of the three poets mentioned, you should definitely talk to you as an allegory for the paper manages to provide citations, because the other members of the room. All but two students of my students who propose personal topics sometimes have a set of opening thoughts about his performance up to you, let your ideas will have to leave that determination to individual points below. This is based on knowledge that you leave town. I'm looking forward to seeing it in contractual terms to the larger purpose while also technically fulfilling them.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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rediskrad · 4 years

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My ENGL 315 Portfolio

Blog Response 3

This week's readings encompassed the topic of how technology has changed the psychological thinking in modern society. Technology has been advancing at an astounding rate with every decade. Each generation that grows with new technology creates a new generation of ideas and behaviors. Kirby Ferguson’s TED Talk and YouTube video about “Everything is a Remix” surrounds the concept of every original idea being influenced by past ideas and the past experiences of others. While technology and social media grow and become an integral part of society, original ideas will no longer be original due to copyright laws, patents, and the overall existence of similar content across numerous platforms. I thought that this explanation by Ferguson perfectly defines what internet culture is heading towards. Even narrowing it down to something as simple as choosing an original screenname has become a chore in some instances as many of them are taken by other users. So instead, by rearranging certain letters and numbers around to mimic the initially desired username, it essentially becomes a remix of the original. It begs the question, when will anything be considered original anymore? This goes especially for the internet population and the sheer amount of people that use it. In the Frontline documentary titled “Digital Nation,” it went in depth regarding the presence of technology in the daily lives of everyone worldwide. The effect that the internet has on communities, families, education, children, governments, and businesses are changing at an astounding rate. The documentary stated that currently there cannot exist a sound study on the effect technology has on certain groups due to the process it takes to form and execute a study versus how quickly technology changes. As someone who grew up alongside technology such as internet, video games, cell phones, television, and even toys I can agree that technology has no means of slowing down in the near and distant future. In today’s world technology has become more of a necessity than a luxury as it was in its early stages. An example of this would be the dawn of cellular phones. Beepers were the primary way of communication; it was a necessity in the modern age. Beeper users could say that having something as useful as a cell phone or car phone during that time would be considered a luxury compared to a beeper. This week’s readings/videos resonated heavily within me as it transported me back to being an adolescent, when technology was young, and society was different.

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https://soundcloud.com/joshua-eli-361738151/contemporary-audio-review

My audio review on two contemporary films.

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youtube

Mask Documentary

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youtube

My 60 Second Addition

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A Reflection of Myself This Semester

At the beginning of the semester, I was unsure of what I was going to experience in my digital writing class. I had originally assumed I had a good grasp on writing and understanding technology. I’ve always gotten great feedback on papers and technology has basically grown with me through my childhood and my adulthood. As confident as I was, little did I know that I was going to learn a lesson in planning and preparing. I realized that the skills I thought I had when it came to digital media was not as up to speed as I had originally thought. As someone who casually surfs the internet watching videos and reading articles, the process of uploading content for the world to see is hard work. It is basically a full-time job to the person who is invested into this world of digital media. I am someone who has had experience with editing films and pictures as well as doing extensive research for essays. However, making sure that the content is approved, cited, and within the copyright laws in order to properly provide your own content can be a struggle. Out of all the projects that were done this semester, the one that intrigued me was the Wikipedia article. Although there are ample amounts of data on the internet, after a while it all starts blending and becoming repetitive. This is where the realization sparked into my head that connected to one of my blog posts regarding finding original works on the internet. Everything is indeed a copy of something else. I have to say that the project that I had the most intense moments on was the documentary. I learned a lot about myself and about a few of my classmates whilst doing that project. Taking the reins of group leader seemed like an easy task at the time and over time I learned a little more about what my leadership skills are like. There were a few disagreements better ween my group members and I had to get them to focus on the task at hand which was completing the project as team. It reminded me that I am a very team driven and goal-oriented person. I scheduled virtual meetings and did heavy editing. In the end, I received thank yous from my group members. This project was a reminder to me that I still enjoy the art of filmmaking and creating content for others to enjoy. It sparked more creativity in me and helped me take a leap into a digital creative journey that I have been contemplating for over a year. It also brought me back to my love of the process of working as a team to create amazing art. During my acting days, I remember relishing in the atmosphere of being on a film or television set. Seeing all the movement just to achieve a single goal of creative digital art for entertainment. The group projects done in the class go hand in hand with that same feeling. No matter how long the process took, everyone had their roles and knew what they had to do. By the end of the project, all our work would come together to create an original piece of digital art. I have learned a few things about myself while taking this class. I am more technologically savvy than I thought would be, I should have more respect for full-time online content creators, and to branch out and be more creative. The internet is an infinite resource of endless opportunities and although I feel like I have a great relationship with it, I can still learn so much more from everyone who works together to provide fresh new ideas to this ever-changing digital world.

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actuallyadhd · 7 years

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ADHD Studying Masterpost

Sorry this is a day late, but hopefully it’s still helpful! Please feel free to reblog and add your thoughts, links, etc. I’ll try to update regularly.

(It’s REALLY long, so I’ll add a Read More.)

Our Tags

Accommodations

College

Due Dates

Homework

Learning Disabilities

Learning Styles

Learning Styles: Auditory Learner

Learning Styles: Visual Learner

Math

Reading

School

Studying

Teachers

Tests

Writing

School

If you find any related posts on this blog that you think are exceptionally useful, please let me know so I can link them directly here!

Taking tests - a Submission from robot-bear

School troubles and solutions - a Submission from unicornannie

Studyblrs

ADHD Physicist

sapphiclystudious

ticklemetuesday’s Submission:

White noise is a must if you get distracted when your studying (or supposed to be focusing on anything in general). I’ve also heard instrumental only music is good too. This is one of those basic tips that I think people forget to try but make a world of difference.

icetigris’s Submission:

Study Advice

Make review sheets. Write down everything you need to know for a test as if you need to teach it to someone else. The act of preparing this will cement your knowledge. If you CAN actually teach it to someone else, that will help even more, since they can ask you questions.

If you need to study math, science, or anything abstract, try to make an animation of some kind. I find that animating algorithms and procedures REALLY clarifies things for me since I’m a very visual learner.

the-adhd-girl’s Submission:

My best studying advice

(Note: not all of these tips are ADHD-specific; also, all of this is my experience, and may not work for others)

1. Figure out what you’re going to be tested on, and adjust your study style accordingly. If you’re going to be tested on rote memory, your studying should be about memorization. Make flashcards, rewrite notes, and come up with mnemonics. If you’re going to be tested on calculations, do practice problems. If you’re going to be tested on essay writing, try to think of what the essay questions are going to be and write practice essays. Then, fact check with your notes and textbooks.

2. When your brain starts to give up, take a break. Don’t waste time by feeling miserable while blankly staring at a page. Get up and take a walk around the block. Or go to lunch. Or go get coffee with a friend. Then come back when you’re refreshed. If this means you have to take a break after five minutes, do it. It’s not ideal to only work for five minutes, but it’s better than burning yourself out and getting nothing done.

3. If you’re doing something like flashcards, make them yourself. The act of making the flashcards will help you remember the material better, in addition to studying with them.

4. Don’t be afraid to look for support from classmates. If you have a gap in your notes, or if you can’t read your own writing, ask someone. Odds are, they need support with something too.

5. Khan Academy YouTube videos are a lifesaver. (https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy).

kenobrea’s Submission:

Study advice: lay out your syllabi with a planner and start putting in every due date for every single thing. Color code if you want (quizzes are blue, papers are red etc). Then start with whatever paper/project is due first and start knocking things out one at a time. My last semester of college I did this and I had all my papers including my 25 page thesis done before Halloween- it was SO nice to just revise and submit them while everyone else was stressing!

Anonymous’s Submission:

Honestly the best way to deal with school as an adhd person is to under stimulate your brain so you have to do school work. Or make yourself scared enough. Or bust logic into your head. Or make it interesting. Or procrastinate then hyper focus. Maybe not totally Beasley but it works.

Anonymous’s Submission:

How to help with school reading: Cliff notes!! Spark notes!! They are a miracle! (Teacher want you to read both them and the book but sometimes I just can't read the book so I end up reading cliff notes instead)

J’s tips for taking a distance ed course:

When you get the schedule, put every single due date and test into your to-do list and planner.

Put checking the message board for the course into your to-do list as a daily thing.

Put reading your modules (or textbook, whatever) into your to-do list as a weekly thing.

Divide up your assignments into small steps and put them into your to-do list and planner as mini-due dates.

Do practice tests and questions when they come up in the modules or textbook, as you are reading.

Try to reply to at least two different threads each week, and try to start at least one of your own as well. This will help your participation grade.

If you have questions, post them in the applicable forum. Someone else might be wondering the same thing!

Try to stay on topic in your forum posts.

When you write your introduction post, you should mention your ADHD and explain what will help you with the course. For me, that’s space between paragraphs and patience when I go on a tangent or just randomly talk about guinea pigs or something. I don’t need accommodations, I just need the instructor and my fellow students to respect my needs and be understanding when something weird happens.

#ADHD #Actually ADHD #studying #masterpost

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beesandbooks1 · 4 years

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Adaptations: The Good and the Bad

If you’d like to read this post on my blog instead, click here!

Hi there book bees! This is actually one of my favorite topics to discuss when it comes to books! By adaptations, I mean to encompass book to film and book to television adaptations, as well as potentially circular ones such as how books are turned into musicals then turned into films (think Phantom of the Opera). This can also be reversed with books being inspired by film, television, and musicals and then influencing those things again in turn when an extended canon universe is manifesting.

What is a good adaptation?

A good adaptation is one that draws on the existing fanbase of whatever they are adapting. This means that the adaptation is not necessarily catered to the fanbase, but absolutely needs to respect them. If you check out the YouTuber Dominic Noble, he addresses this in several of his video essays on book to film adaptations as well as other reviews. One such video specifically addresses the new Death Note live action movie and how certain changes were made almost as if the creators wanted to draw in the fanbase of the manga and anime but then make fun of them once they were watching.

Good adaptations come from a place of respect, if not also admiration and love. Well made adaptations are often of pieces of media adapted by their own fans or at least by people who understand the fans. There are also adaptations that respect premises but recognize problematic elements of the original text and thus attempt to create a more inclusive adaptation that manages to point out the problems in the original while respecting its core premise.

Good adaptations don’t necessarily need to be strictly perfect. Practical Magic for example has strong followings who prefer the book, and equally strong followings who prefer the movie. Many people have a preference for one or the other, but consume both. I personally adore both versions and think that the movie made some smart choices in adapting to the screen, as well as created a different message that I enjoyed in its format.

What is a bad adaptation?

Just as a good adaptation can change things and still stand on its own, a bad adaptation doesn’t necessarily have to be wildly inaccurate to what it’s adapting to be bad. Bad adaptations stem from the opposite of good ones, ie a lack of respect for the fanbase the adaptation is naturally drawing upon.

The big draw of an adaptation is that there’s an existing fanbase that will likely convince others to go and see the adaptation. The success of a book leading to its being turned into a film is what creates massive franchises such as Twilight and The Hunger Games. Effective marketing means automatically drawing in the existing fanbase while also creating a new set of fans that are just loyal to the movie or television adaptations. By acknowledging that the fanbase already exists and needs to be at least somewhat pleased with the results in order to stick around, the adaptation creators are already entering into a mutual understanding of respect. The new creators respect the fans’ love of the original text and honor that by being true to it through their new creation. In return, the old fans encourage the development of new fans and expand the fanbase out of respect of the new creators.

A bad adaptation breaks this social contract, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by accident. When it is done accidentally it’s often out of misunderstanding. For example, the new Artemis Fowl movie just completely misunderstands that the whole draw of Artemis was that he began the series as a villain. Instead, the new movie adapts him into a protagonist turned antagonist role because they didn’t believe anyone would want to watch a story that did the opposite…. despite an entire existing fanbase saying they did in fact like that story and would like to see that story in film. There are also creators that come to despise their fanbase, which is an entirely other situation that occurs outside of adaptations (think Sherlock or Joss Whedon). When the creators no longer like the fans they have and want to actively draw them in to be hurt, they create bad faith adaptations that are meant to poke fun at the things most loved by the fans.

What do adaptations even do?

Take the money out of the equation for a moment, forget that we just lived through about two decades of “franchise films” in which a book’s concept could be blown up and dragged on for several movies, all of which came with huge promotional budgets including merch, celebrity endorsements, and fanbase growth. It’s pretty easy to see that formula is there, and appealing, after the success of various franchises such as Marvel and The Hunger Games. And there are definitely still some adaptations being made with the idea that they’ll be the next big thing to take over Hot Topic’s shelves and make baffling headline news.

But how did these adaptations even start? For a lot of them, adaptations start when someone in the movie or television industry gets a hold of a really good book and says ‘hey this has something.’ The Princess Diaries for example features an adaptation that transforms the concept of the original Cabot series and became a fan favorite on its own merit. There’s similarities between Mia in both versions, and the basic premise is the same, but enough changes were made to the Anne Hathaway movie that it appealed to not only the fanbase of young girls who’d read the books, but also became a staple in a lot of other childhoods. The movie brought to life a version of Mia who was a little more appealing, and condensed her story into a quicker consumption time (an entire series of books will take significantly longer to consume than the single movie, or both of them if you’re a fan of the sequel). In doing this, fans of both the books and the movie have some kind of common ground to discuss the two, but there’s also an appreciated separation depending on which you were exposed to first or which you enjoyed more.

Bad adaptations are usually disliked on the merit of poor storytelling just as much as they are for ruining the premise they were meant to present. Eragon and Avatar: The Last Airbender as movies had poor directing choices, poor CGI, and poor acting that exacerbated the diversions from canon that were included. If these two movies could have stood on their own the way The Princess Diaries did, they might not be so hated some people pretend they don’t exist at all. But instead, they were so poorly done as films that not even people with no knowledge of the original story enjoyed them. In these cases, the adaptations contribute absolutely nothing to the fanbase by disrespecting them, and contribute nothing to new viewers because they are so bad they won’t receive a dedicated following of new viewers.

Final Thoughts

Like many people my age, I grew up learning the exciting news that books I’d enjoyed immensely were being turned into movies. It eventually got to the point, though, where I had come to expect a few things would happen once this was announced:

1. The movie is made, it’s not wildly successful outside of the book’s fanbase, and even if the movie is well done the hopes of getting the rest of the series adapted as well are slowly killed by lack of interest in the project

2. The movie is made and is pretty successful, as well as relatively true to the book. The fanbase turns out in great numbers and convinces the movie industry there’s something here. The project changes hands at some point, leading to something crucial being missed in the adaptation that creates a divide between fans of the books and fans of the movies. Depending on where I fall in this divide, I would either lose interest in the movies out of loyalty to the books or come to have a new, negative view of the books.

3. The adaptation of the books is so wildly inaccurate that it creates a lack of interest in both forms of the media, though resurgences and acknowledgements of what the books originally did that the movie squandered or ruined may occur. This happened with Eragon for me, where I only picked the rest of the series up again after the disastrous movie when I saw some positive discussion of it in fan spaces and remembered how much I did enjoy the book.

Ultimately, a well done adaptation can expand the fanbase of the books and create a more immersive world building experience for those fans. A poorly done adaptation can in turn hurt the books by driving away fans who weren’t as attached to the original texts and are so unimpressed with the adaptations as to attribute this negative experience to the fictional world as a whole. Good adaptations require a respect of the original text and its fans, as well as an understanding of how to carry certain themes and expectations over to screen and still make for an interesting television or movie experience. It’s not an easy job, and it’s messed up a lot of the times especially when money becomes such an influential factor. Think about the hype over the love triangle in The Hunger Games and how in the quest for a major motion picture franchise, merchandise sales became more important than the core revolutionary premise of the text and the exact phenomenon that so disgusted Katniss and readers alike of the Capitol focusing on her love story above all else became a real phenomenon with little critical thinking involved.

What do you think of adaptations? Are there any examples of good or bad adaptations you’d like to point out in the comments? How about ways you think adaptations can be improved that will sustain both fanbases of the original and the new versions?

#bookblr #books #adaptations

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smartphone-science · 5 years

Link

The year was 1999. I was in the third year of my chemistry degree in Amsterdam, and doing a million things on the side. One of these things was being on the committee that created the “lustrum almanak” for the 35th anniversary of our university’s chemistry students’ society. (It was basically a yearbook that only came out every five years, but I’ll keep calling it “almanac” throughout). Did I have time for this? Somehow, I did. I think time worked differently before we had social media and streaming video.

The topic of the almanac was “The Future”, because the previous one, five years earlier, was roughly themed around looking back at the past, but also because a future theme seemed appropriate for 1999. It was the last year of the millennium, and a lot of exciting things were about to happen.

I felt that we couldn’t possibly publish a future-themed almanac without mentioning the most talked about science project of that time: the Human Genome Project. Because I clearly had nothing to do aside from my studies, lab work, the almanac committee, running a career day, and running the group who organised field trips, I took it upon myself to write that piece.

Reader, it’s cringey.

But I didn’t want to spare you that cringe, so for your enjoyment I have translated the whole thing from Dutch to English and annotated it with comments from 2019 Eva. I am particularly embarrassed about one error, which I even contemplated fixing in the translation, but I left it in, just so you can see that I have at least improved my fact-checking skills. I think this might have been my first piece of non-coursework science writing, even if it was only in a departmentally published booklet.

Alright, let’s hop into the time machine and cringe along to my opinion piece from 1999.

Human Genome Project

(originally written in Dutch and published in the VCSVU Almanak 1999. Translated and heavily annotated with snark, corrections, and hindsight by the author twenty years later.)

When you think about the near future, the terms “millennium” and “Euro” [1] probably cross your mind, but there are also several large projects happening in the different subfields of chemistry. In the area of biochemistry/molecular biology, the Human Genome Project is certainly worth a mention, and I shall attempt to put into words what’s so special about that project. [2]

First, let’s get back to the very beginning: [3] Cells of living organisms contain DNA, used to pass on genetic information. DNA consists of long strands of four different “bases”, these are indicated with the letters A, C, T, and G. [4] A DNA chain is formed by two strands, in such a way that the bases A and T are opposite each other and C and G as well (“base pairs”). The three-dimensional structure of DNA is a helix. This was first discovered by Watson and Crick in 1955. [5] The total DNA of an organism is called the genome of that organism. [6] The human genome consists of approximately 3 billion base pairs, with approximately 80,000 genes in them. [7]

This space was actually reserved for an image, but I couldn’t find anything that was both suitable for viewing and for print. That’s why there is text here now. [8]

And then now what this is really about: [9] The goal of the Human Genome Project is roughly speaking the elucidation of the complete sequence of human DNA and the localisation of the different genes. But why is it so important that the entire sequence of all those letters is known? Many disorders and diseases are genetically determined. So if you know exactly where the gene for a disease is, it’s possible, for example, to determine whether someone could get a certain disease, by checking if the gene is present. [10] Then methods to intervene can also be discovered. Of course this is extremely interesting for medical research, among other things. That’s why, since 1990, several countries are working in collaboration to find all the genes and decipher the order of the bases. [11] The goal is to have everything uncovered by 2005, around the 50th anniversary of Watson and Crick’s discovery. [12]

Humans are not the first organism of which scientists have wanted to know the genome. For some organisms, the search is already over, for example E. coli, a bacteria, some readers have now gotten to know it personally, which could also be said of the yeast S. cerevisiae. [13] The quests for the genes of these “creatures” were completed in 1997 and 1996 respectively. [14] The genome of the little worm C. elegans is also already known. [15] But that was already too much of the past for this almanac. [16]

As with everything to do with expanding our knowledge of the human body, many ethical aspects also pop up. In the United States, 3-5% of the budget for the Human Genome Project is spent on studying ethical, legal and social issues around the availability of genetic information. [17] What kind of problems could arise? A much-cited example in this context is the problem of insurances. Let’s suppose: someone wants to take out a life insurance policy with an insurance company. If genetic information would be openly viewable by anyone, the insurer would be able to check if the customer has a hereditary disease. [18] Someone with a higher chance of a shorter lifespan would then be quoted a higher premium than a “healthier” person. Another point of discussion is the following: parents would test their fetus for a genetic disorder and could choose an abortion if they didn’t want a child with a higher chance of a certain disease or with a genetic disorder. [19] When the media touches on the project, these are the sorts of discussions that usually happen. [19 again].

Personally, I think that it’s certainly useful to know the full DNA sequence of humans [20], particularly to simplify research into hereditary diseases. For the project, only a limited number of people were screened. [21] (At least, I don’t personally know anyone who lent their DNA for this purpose and I think most readers don’t either.) [22] Still, there are mutations [23] that only occur in a small number of people and those will now probably be overlooked if those people weren’t screened. [24] As far as the ethical issues are concerned: I agree with the objections against the “insurance story”. [25] It’s simply not on to have someone with a hereditary disease pay a higher premium. If insurance companies were to have access to hereditary information [26], they might as well, in the name of equality, also have access to psychiatrists’ files, to see if their customers are perhaps suicidal. [27] When it comes to the matter of abortions, I think the issue is somewhat inflated: This is already a matter of concern at the moment, because we already know the genetic location of many hereditary disorders. [28]

For any further in-depth discussions, this almanac is not the right place. [29] Do you want to know more about the progress of the Human Genome Project (and are you curious about the source of my information for this article) [30], then pay a visit to the homepage of the project: http://bit.ly/2Y1md7I [31] (NB. this is not a link, so clicking on this page is useless. You need to turn on a computer, which perfectly brings us back to the theme “future”.) [32]

Annotations by 2019-Eva

The Euro! This was written before the Euro was introduced!

As I told my science writing students a decade later, you don’t need to start your essay by explicitly stating that you’re going to discuss this topic. That’s clear from the title.

The cringe is strong in this sentence.

Yeah. That should have been two separate sentences. It’s equally bad in Dutch. I kept the awfulness in there just for you.

No! 1953!!!! This is the worst mistake. Why did I not fact check this? Why did I just guess a random year in the 1950s? Wow, I sure hope I put some more effort into the other basics, like finding a catchy image to go with this piece…

Again, not a translation issue. The sentence was really that clunky.

Clunky sentence aside, this is not an error! Remember, this was written before the human genome project was finished. We didn’t really know how many genes there were yet, and the estimate used at the time was MUCH higher than the real number. It was a sobering experience for us humans to discover that we have fewer genes than potatoes or water fleas.

Oh. Oh no. Not only did I fail to find an image, but instead of just leaving it out, I decided to point that out in the middle of the piece. Granted, there were many other jokes in this almanac, but the middle of an otherwise serious essay is not really the place for one.

I didn’t even get off-topic that much, but I had no idea how to structure the piece so that the introduction connected to the main thesis. This might also be a good point to notice that I often started a new line without starting a new paragraph.

I take it back! 1953/55 was NOT the biggest error. THIS IS! Oh no. It’s so bad. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I ever used this phrase. I’m sure I *knew* that we all *have* the same genes, and that it’s all about the variants. I must have used this turn of phrase just because I had seen others use it in popular media. But when we talk about people “having the gene for….”, that isn’t accurate. Everyone pretty much has all the genes, but it’s the specific DNA sequence within those genes that makes some people more likely to get certain conditions. (It doesn’t seal your fate. You can have the variant linked to a certain disease and still never get it.)

At this time, I was only really aware of the public Human Genome Project, and not the privately-run competitor project (Venter et al). I think this is a side effect of the way that the project(s) was/were talked about in the media in Europe.

It was complete in 2003, which was indeed the 50th anniversary of Watson/Crick. I’m not sure whether the prediction was at one point actually 2005, and that I wrongly assumed that was the 50th anniversary, or that I knew the goal was for it to be the 50th anniversary, and got the year wrong because, as we learned, I did not fact check the actual year of the double helix paper. (1953!!)

Another run-on sentence that should absolutely have been at least two sentences, and with entirely different grammar at that. (Again, I tried to keep the bad grammar of the original.) Another thing wrong with this sentence is the inside joke that’s alienating a big part of my audience. Don’t do that! I was referencing the fact that our biochemistry groups used E. coli and yeast in their labs, but a large chunk of the audience of this piece were people from elsewhere in the chemistry department, who maybe took one biochemistry lab and forgot all about it.)

I absolutely do not trust the years in this piece anymore. Let me fact check this… Oh, hey! It’s correct!

1998. I know you were wondering. 2019-Eva has you covered on the dates with her modern access to Wikipedia.

Remember, the theme was “the future”. Got to bring that home to the readers. Over the course of this piece I am clearly wearing several hats. Instead of just sticking to “informative writer (who can’t fact check, but whatever)” I dip in and out of my other roles. Here as editor of the almanac, and elsewhere as a member of the department, joking with the readers, many of whom I knew personally .

I got this from a .gov website at the time and I have no idea if this number is correct, and if I really meant “spent” or just “set aside for”. Please don’t ever use this piece as any source of information.

Not really. The insurer would AT MOST be able to tell if this person was AT RISK for a disease with a known link to a certain genetic variant. Again, please don’t ever use this piece as source material for anything.

Hoo. Wow. This is a Bold Statement, all right. In the second sentence I attempt to make it clear that it wasn’t my own point of view, but something that a lot of people FEARED would happen at the time. But that’s not clear at all! I should have started the sentence by reiterating that this is about people’s fears, and not necessarily what was predicted to happen.

Which humans, 1999 Eva? Did you mean “the human genome”? Did you feel that you used that term too often in this piece and tried to mix it up with ambiguous language?

I misused the term “screened”. I do it again later in this piece, and I have done it for years after that. They were not “screened”, they just had their DNA sequenced.

Wrong tone of voice again. Keep the whole piece in the same tone. Then go back to it twenty years later and make fun of it in a blog post using whatever tone you like.

2019-Eva would say “genetic variants”, but I’ll let this slide because I do remember that “mutation” was pretty commonly used back in 1999.

YES! This is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! In fact, it’s even worse: Variants that are really common have been overlooked because the group of people whose DNA has been used to determine default sequences was too homogenous. 2019-Eva even wrote a piece about the inequalities caused by the exclusion of certain populations from genetic research. Don’t worry, it was fact-checked and edited by real professionals, and I got a lot better at writing about genetics in the last twenty years.

This sentence was equally clumsy in Dutch. What do I even mean? From context, I think I meant to say “I agree that we need to be concerned about the use of genetic information by insurance companies.”

Genetic information.

WOAH. Woah, woah. I get what 1999-Eva is saying, and she’s not wrong in pointing out how absurd that would be, but she is extremely crass. After another two decades of life experience, I would no longer casually bring up mental illness in such a trivial way. I can’t really judge whether this was bad writing on my part, or if it was a Dutch bluntness thing, or an “anything goes” nineties mentality, but I don’t remember anyone saying anything about this line at the time. It certainly looks extremely weird and in bad taste to me now!

Huh? I think what I was trying to say is that in 1999 it would already have been technically possible to do prenatal testing to find out whether an unborn child had certain genetic variants, but that it wasn’t done to that extent (only for certain chromosomal abnormalities) so it wouldn’t make sense to immediately assume that having even more information about individual genetic variants would expand the range and specificity of prenatal screening tests. I had to read over this bit several times to figure out the leaps in logic I left unexplained. Writing critique: take the reader along with your line of thought and don’t assume they’ve made all these connections on their own.

1999-Eva, you already took it way too far, but I’m glad you’re at least somewhat aware that the medium was not suited to the message.

Yes. I would like to know where you got that wrong double helix discovery year. I’m very curious about that.

Remember when people would give you a url with the full “http” and “www” parts included? Also, 2019-Eva was somewhat skeptical that the Oak Ridge National Lab website was THE source website for the entire Human Genome project, but I put it through the fabulous Internet Archive Wayback Machine to see what it looked like in 1999, and you know what, it looks pretty legit – and VERY nineties.

Again with the stupid jokes! Oh, hilarious, a url on a piece of paper isn’t clickable. We have never heard that one before. And the theme reference! Yes, this was all about “the future”. And now, in one particularly dark timeline of that very future, we can all cringe at my bad writing from 1999.

The post Twenty years later: My 1999 human genome op-ed appeared first on easternblot.net.

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Allen West: Socialism Is Philosophy of Control Freaks CNSNews ^ | May 20, 2019 | Allen West

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” —House of Commons, 22 October 1945.

Above are two respective quotes of Sir Winston Churchill regarding that collectivist economic model of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels we call socialism. Just last week, Fox Business news focused their discussions and held a townhall meeting about capitalism and socialism.

I would have preferred their using the term free market or free enterprise, but hey, it’s all semantics. However, the progressive, socialist left has done a brilliant job denigrating the term capitalism.

What they are directing their angst against is crony capitalism, the use of government policies to favor certain special interests in respective industries. It is not very often we hear individuals explaining how it was President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Community Reinvestment Act that set the conditions for the 2008 mortgage related financial crisis. What we do hear all too often is that the big banks were bailed out. I will be the first to say that using taxpayer resources to bail out a private sector organization is a violation of free market economics. However, we must also agree that the government leveraging its power, will, and might to create false “rights” is an equally bad policy.

So, last week as I listened to the proponents of socialism and read that our younger generations seem to prefer this economic system, I pondered: how best do we describe socialism? And during my Sunday morning five mile run, it hit me, socialism is the philosophy of the control freaks.

Think about it. Everything about the socialist rhetoric is about controlling some aspect of your life. It is about disavowing you as an individual and making you part of a collective will. If there is anything abjectly anti-American, it is socialism, being that our constitutional republic focuses on the individual’s sovereignty – not the intrusive nature of the institution of government. Yet, the latter is exactly what these progressive socialists are offering, but boy howdy, does it sound good.

Consider this, just last week: NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio became the 23rd Democratic Party candidate for president. In his announcement video he stated , “There’s plenty of money in this world, there’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands.” Wrong hands? One must ask, who is Mayor DeBlasio to make such a disconcerting statement? Simple, he is representative of the socialist control freaks who believe that, based upon their ideological agenda, they have the right to control our wealth, our resources. That is the first tenet of a socialist economic model – wealth redistribution. It was French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who in his essay “The Law” referred to DeBlasio’s insidious idea as “legal plunder.” It is government sanctioned theft which is based on the leftist greed and misplaced sense of philanthropy.

We are constantly bombarded with the notion that healthcare is a right. Why of course it is to a socialist, because it is all about controlling your body, your ability to make decisions about the most personal issue, your healthcare. Free healthcare, “Medicare for all,” sounds so very enticing, but it in the end, “We the People” are ceding over our personal decision, our freedom, to the institution of government to control and decide how care is distributed. I guess there are those who do not believe such.

Then again, take the UKs National Healthcare System (NHS). This socialized medical system works so well that Mick Jagger decided, because he can afford to, to have his heart surgery done in NYC – smart man. The delays in providing timely healthcare in England are well known. And here in America, we have this Obamacare created bureaucracy called the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), unelected bureaucrats, not responsible to our Congress, who make healthcare pricing decisions. In other words, who gets what procedure and who does not, as well as reimbursement rates for medical professionals. Yea, they get to control healthcare in America.

They decide the meaning of life, who gets to live. The current debate about killing unborn, and born, babies reflect that notion. As well, they control who, and when you die.

The leftist socialists in America want to control what you eat and drink. Uh, y’all know about the soda taxes right? And it is always masked behind that oh so emotional notion of caring for you. Nope, it is all about controlling your life and lifestyle because, well, you are too ignorant, too dumb to do so yourself. Remember, the socialists must tell you what to eat and drink because that will reduce healthcare expenditures. Hmm, imagine if I were king for a day and mandated by edict that all Americans had to wake up and run 3 miles a day … or else? Oh yea, that basically happened under the Obama administration – buy health insurance, or be taxed. That folks is what control freaks in our government do. It is called behavior modification by way of taxation – an individual mandate.

The left wants to control what you drive too. You know, after all, we are causing the man-made climate change. I do not want an electric vehicle. I like my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, my Toyota Tacoma, and my Victory Cross Country 8-Ball motorcycle. Heck, the socialists in America, as in California, are even telling us, controlling, what type of house folks can have. And we all know that our little version of Evita Peron, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wants any building not in compliance with her ideals to be refitted. I am still trying to figure out that train to Hawaii, since she will be controlling our means of transportation also.

Let’s be honest here: why do our young people embrace the philosophy of control freaks? I thought that young people did not want to be told what to do. There is a very distinct difference from classical liberals, constitutional conservatives, and these progressive socialists. Classical liberals believe in individual rights, freedoms, liberties, you know those words from our Declaration of Independence.

This new American socialism is rooted in ideological rights – a right to own a home, healthcare, murder unborn babies, climate change, same-sex marriage, the right to other people’s resources. The socialist control freaks do not embrace our constitutional rights. As a matter of fact, they see the right to keep and bear arms, our Second Amendment right, as an obstacle – see Venezuela.

I will close with this quote, attributed to Vladimir Lenin, “the goal of socialism is communism.” Socialism is an economic model that leads to a societal model that does one thing, controls the populace and turns its citizens into subjects.

What type of person would want that? Only the control freaks.

Allen West is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army. Mr. West is a Senior Fellow at the Media Research Center to support its mission to expose and neutralize liberal media bias. Mr. West also writes daily commentary on his personal website theoldschoolpatriot.com.

TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy; Politics/Elections

KEYWORDS: Allenwest; american socialism; control freaks; socialism; socialized medicine

____________________________

OPINION: A well outline analysis by Allen West and something that 90% of American do believe.

And you are 100% correct.

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: “Censorship Is Always Arbitrary”: An Interview with an Art Critic in Singapore

Kent Chan,”Bright Lights (better life later)” (2016), neon bulbs, acrylic sheet (image courtesy the artist)

Weng-Choy Lee is president of the Singapore section of the International Association of Art Critics. Malaysian-born, Lee spent his youth in Manila, followed by a decade in the US. In 1992, he moved to Singapore, where, among other things, he co-ran The Substation, an arts center and mainstay of the local art scene. Lee and I first crossed paths while I was co-organizing an event in Phnom Penh’s art gallery and resource center, SA SA BASSAC, for which he presented remotely. After I published an article on Singapore’s Art Stage early this year, we began to discuss art writing more seriously.

Singapore, so foreign to me, was Lee’s home for decades, and he is currently working on a book of essays on artists who mostly hail from his adopted country. Our previous conversations about the meaning of “home,” art criticism in the region, and learning to listen to a place have been extremely generative to me, so I was delighted by the opportunity to more formally discuss these and other issues with him.

* * *

Weng-Choy Lee: Let’s start with me asking you a question. In your Hyperallergic article, “Everything Points Inward: Capitalism and Its Discontents at an Art Fair in Singapore,” you wrote about working for SA SA BASSAC at this year’s Art Stage. What was the feedback like?

Ben Valentine: While I received a few positive reactions, investigating further on social media, I noticed a lot of negative responses, especially from Singaporeans. These seemed to be more in reaction to the predictability of me — a liberal white American — helicoptering into the island city-state to decry human rights violations and unfettered capitalism. I was aware of this trope and had tried to counterbalance it by grounding my writing in personal experiences, such as my discomfort with the fancy shoes I had to wear as part of my “costume” for working at Art Stage, and my wife’s brief detainment at immigration. Upon reflection, though, it seems fair to say I did not succeed.

Kent Chan,”If Not, Accelerate” (2016), two-channel video

WCL: I empathize. My first essay on Singapore was the same: I too decried capitalism and the lack of human rights. One reason I appreciated your piece is because you didn’t just write from your American perspective, you drew upon your experiences in Cambodia. Also, while you at first recoiled from the pungent capitalist spectacle of it all, I thought your point was about moving past that and listening to your surroundings and to artists like Kent Chan, who was part of a curated platform at the fair.

When I arrived in the ’90s, I sought out some local professors. One senior academic told me, with a straight face, that Foucault was completely irrelevant here. I don’t ever want to forget the shock of that encounter. But after a couple of decades, one can get complacent. It bears repeating that one must remain critical and not allow problems to become normalized.

BV: So let’s talk censorship and self-censorship. What are the limitations of Singapore’s art-criticism scene?

WCL: The situation in Singapore is more complex than most people might assume. In 1993, the government’s Censorship Review Committee came out with a report that basically endorsed the status quo with a few minor tweaks. Its recommendations were generally welcomed without much objection by the arts community. Ten years later, though, the next Censorship Review was met with strong criticism by an organized group from the arts. We distinguished between censorship and regulation (e.g., ratings for mature content)—recommending the latter and completely rejecting the former.

In 2002, The Straits Times newspaper invited me to write a piece on censorship. The editor consulted me about some minor changes, to which I agreed. When printed, however, they changed the crux of my argument without telling me. I argued that censorship is always arbitrary; they changed it to “censorship is sometimes arbitrary” — thus proving my point. Today, censorship is not always about controlling content. Yes, certain topics remain taboo: Don’t cast aspersions on the judiciary or incite racial antagonism, film remains under tight control, and so on. But censorship here is also about singling out and pressuring certain individuals, thereby intimidating the arts community as a whole.

Over the years, independent art publications have tested boundaries, been met with government pushback, and continued to operate. In many cases, lack of funding was the reason for closing shop. The government will withhold funding on content they dislike, but again, this isn’t applied absolutely rigorously but arbitrarily. If you can fund it yourself, then you can say it, to a large degree. With regards to criticism, the challenge isn’t only direct censorship but also the poverty of public intellectual debate, which is a consequence of living in a censorship regime.

Singapore’s ArtScience Museum foregrounded by a Louis Vuitton store (photograph by author for Hyperallergic)

BV: You seem to suggest that the bigger issue is a failure to find ways to move beyond the obvious problems, while not ignoring them.

WCL: Historically, we’ve had a weak appreciation of what the public is or can be. And I believe a healthy public discourse is necessary if we are to become better listeners as an arts community.

Singapore’s first biennale, in 2006, was created to be the anchor cultural event for the World Bank and IMF meetings hosted that year. The Substation wanted to organize a “street party” well after the meetings. We explicitly said to the authorities there would be no speeches; we just wanted to bring together local arts and civil society groups in public to celebrate as a community. The authorities denied us permission.

Substation preparing for their current exhibition, Discipline the City

The following year — no biennale, no IMF meetings — we tried for a “tunnel party” (next to The Substation is a tunnel). We wanted to organize a commercial flea market and booths for arts and civil society groups. Again, no speeches, just live music. We did get permission for the flea market and music, but they said no to arts and civil society. Equally disappointing was that on the day itself, the arts and civil society groups — who all dutifully came to the planning meetings — were mostly absent. Since they were no longer formally a part of the event, maybe they didn’t feel the need to show up. Although some things have changed: Today’s annual Pink Dot gatherings are an example of a strong commitment to public space that we were perhaps missing back in 2007.

But let me ask you: What are some of your experiences in finding a way to speak from your present location in Cambodia? As noted, Singapore is my adopted home. Becoming local and being located isn’t about some essentialist precondition — often it’s very much about learning to listen.

Tzu Nyen Ho, “U for Utama” (2017), video-still from The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia, algorithmically edited online video, infinite duration (image courtesy the artist)

BV: This is an issue very much on my mind, and one I believe I’ll always be navigating. I’m beginning to wonder if a master’s degree in art history about the region or about Cambodia is necessary for me. I’ve been diving into books and texts on the history here, but the context remains incredibly foreign.

The article I wrote about my early time in Cambodia would be so different today. The fundamentals wouldn’t change — ask a lot of questions, don’t come to artworks or artists with my own agenda, and be willing to put aside my Western art history education in favor of local context — but I still have a long way to go.

Although I’m far from fluent, learning the language has been invaluable for developing trust, respect, and a deeper insight. No doubt, subtle cultural differences have resulted in miscommunication and confusion. But I suppose the big adjustment is that here I trust my first reads of art much less, and I rely more heavily on interviews and conversations with the artists than I would in contexts with which I’m more familiar. Really taking time is the key — for empathy, not to mention accurate, thoughtful art writing.

The post “Censorship Is Always Arbitrary”: An Interview with an Art Critic in Singapore appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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