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shrinkynatural · 5 years ago

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(The Witcher) Ficlet: Minigiant!witchers and the bard who’s terrified of heights (or rather, drops)

Rating: Green

Previous Parts: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Geralt doesn't let Jaskier up in trees higher than where he can grab him. It doesn't matter how much the bard pleads and teases him with how good the fruit in those upper branches will taste, if he can't grab him down from the lowest branch then Jaskier has no business being up there. It's far more trouble than it's worth getting him back down and he's only mad that it took almost six times for him to realize the pattern.

His brothers don't have this hard-earned knowledge and while they should trust him, Jaskier has had them duped from the moment they all met up. The bard has always had this act, appearing flighty and innocent and harmless, but he truly delights in performing it around Geralt--and now Eskel and Lambert, too.

Though neither are near as tall as Geralt, Eskel has a good foot of height on Jaskier and Lambert a few inches more than that. Jaskier compliments their height and their strength and thanks them for performing tasks that he himself could do easily. He touches their elbows as he walks by and their hair when they’re sitting and easily lies by their feet around the campfire like it wouldn’t be so easy to accidentally step on him. It’s an act only in its exaggeration, every word still sincere but delivered in such a way that makes them all feel as though they’ve come back from a dangerous contract to a whole town giving them a standing ovation. It makes them soft and happy and stupid.

They’ve been on the road together only a few days and while the world is giving way to the first touches of winter, there is a tall apple tree that remains mostly untouched because it’s lowest branches are above even Geralt’s head. Jaskier gasps and gives Geralt a hopeful look and no, no way in hell.

So of course he turns to the weaker links of their group.

'Won't the apples be delicious on the road, Eskel? They'll make a lovely treat before all they have are winter rations, won't they, Lambert? What a nice idea it would be to save some for--who was the other one?--Vesemir, back in their keep? He's the smallest and the lightest so he's the obvious choice to go up there without being in danger of snapping any branches. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult at all for either of the tall, strapping witchers to give a humble bard a boost?'

Geralt warns them, tells them not to listen to him or they'll be sorry. But neither of them heed his words and next thing he hears is Jaskier's joyful woop as Eskel launches him by his hips up to the lowest branch of the tree. The bard climbs the branches easily, without hesitation or fear, and picks and drops apples down to the two fools of witchers who happily catch them and tuck them away in packs and saddlebags. Geralt can sense their smugness even without the occasional glance this way but he knows it's only a matter of time. That doesn't stop him from taking his share of the apples because if he's going to be the one to fix this he's getting something out of it.

That time comes when all the apples are picked and Jaskier makes his way to that lowest branch. Eskel holds up his arms and tells the bard that he'll catch him, just jump down.

And Jaskier refuses.

It's too far.

He's trapped.

Geralt mouths the words right along with Jaskier and takes a bite of one of his apples during the ensuing argument where Eskel and Lambert try to talk some sense into the terrified bard while Jaskier's voice just gets higher and more panicked. He always forgets his fear of heights, or rather drops, until it comes time to get down and then he's an absolute terror. Like an overconfident cat, complete with the hissing as Lambert gives Eskel a boost up so he can reach the bottom branch and try to grab him because no, are they insane! They'll all fall to the ground like that and break their bones and die in utter agony!

He gives it a few minutes, long enough for his brothers to hopefully learn their lesson but before they decide to give up and leave Jaskier up there. The rest of his apple Geralt feeds to a more than happy Roach and then he walks over, stopping right under Jaskier and tilting his head back to look up at him. He doesn't have to say anything for the bard to look sheepish and flush from his position gripping onto the tree branch for dear life, but he does know what he has to say to get him down.

I will use your lute like a little club to bludgeon the next drowner I come across.

I will pawn it off for coin in the next town, for far less than its worth, and spend the coin on a new sword.

I will send it back to Oxenfurt as a gift in your name to none other than Valdo Marx so that he might do it the honor that he cannot.

It works, in that it gets Jaskier dangling down from the branch and kicking his legs out at him as he curses him with gritted teeth. It takes a moment but Geralt just manages to get one of Jaskier's feet in his hand and from there he convinces him to let go so he can catch him in his arms. It's uncoordinated and Geralt nearly gets a knee in the eye from all of the bard's flailing but it's done.

He gets one arm under Jaskier’s knees and the other behind his back because the bard is still shaking in rage and fear from his ‘near brush with death.’ The last time he tried to put him down right away he collapsed in a heap and couldn’t move for nearly an hour; they don’t have that kind of time and Geralt knows it would be an embarrassment for Jaskier in front of his brothers.

How the bard never sees it as an embarrassment to be carried about by the witcher like some damsel he doesn’t know.

Eskel and Lambert look confused and shocked when Jaskier twists in Geralt's arms and shakily demands to know why the hell they let him go up there, calling the tree a death trap. Geralt sighs and quickly lifts Jaskier up and over his shoulder like a sack of grain to head off that argument--an argument he knows would happen because he had it with the bard six times before he wised up. He tells all three of them that they're behind now so they should get back to the road.

#jaskier #geralt of rivia #geraskier #g/t #minigiant #the witcher #rating: green #i'm in such a bleh mood so have more self-indulgent fluff #i'm so soft in my old age lol

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buildingrelationshipsinanarchy · 4 years ago

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Copped the Marigold Tarot Deck!!

This is my second reading with this deck, so I’m still learning how to listen to it, but I think the themes of this reading as understand them, have some wealth to offer my model.

Knight of Cups

Judgement Rx

Page of Cups

Let’s start in order:

1. Knight of Cups:

This card represents the overflowing emotions associated with NRE, and the idealization of our Significant People that can sometimes tag along when we find ourselves interested or charmed by another.

It says I feel a lot, and tend to seek out people who excite and intrigue me. That when I feel touched and connected, it isn’t overwhelming joy I’m mainly feeling, but mostly the vulnerability of being emotionally available and engaged with.

This is what I talk about when I talk about daekkoning; this is what feels like to be engaging in a dekoship. Being known and seen and understood; seeing, learning, understanding another.

2. Judgement Rx:

This card, upright, respresents the painful process of learning. There’s an old adage that goes something like, “The wisdom enters where the wound was made.” This card speaks of the process of transformation, but specifically in its ‘rest, reflect, rebirth’ stage.

With it reversed, it points at how that process has been interrupted. Whether by past regrets, unresolved feelings or conflicts, or the refusal/inability to answer the call to change. Lessons are not learned until they are practiced. Until you do differently, do you know differently?

Looking at this card I see how my connections have shaped and transformed who I’ve become. I see that in order for me to continue grow and flourish in healthy and constructive ways, I must acknowledge that my past mistakes are wounds on others I cant go back and resolve or make disappear.

It says my guilt and shame aren’t my teachers, nor are they good guides for morality, as they stifle my ability to learn how to navigate my future self and future connections differently, better. I am learning that to grow means to shed whatever stops me from transforming into better than I was.

This is getting long, but gratitude if you’re still with me this far!

3. Page of Cups:

This card represents new ideas, fresh opportunities, and budding connections. Those give us the chance to practice what we have reflected on, and chose to change; they gives us the place our intuition needs update itself.

Living in a capitalist dystopia, our pasts are wrought with scars, anxieties, and valid distrust. But if we don’t find ways to interrupt that in our lives and spaces that we navigate, how will we become people who are able trust others, who owns our self-validation, who is proud to be who they are?

One of Marx’s best quotes was that, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” In Anarchist Theory, The Revolution is understood as a web of social relationships, of people taking care of each other’s needs, sharing their resources, and building meaningful, lasting relationships.

This card points at in my life, I believe, a new Comrade whose come into my life. Yesterday, she distributed and helped me cook enough food to feed 50+ homeless people in our city. It was a test run, and it went amazing. She’s wanting to do it every other week, and find ways to provide other forms of Mutual Aid.

I’ve been given the chance to practice what I’ve learned. The space to embody the transformation that has happened within me. I’m in a mudship, and I’m excited for future projects, and the future transformation of myself. I’ll drop some photos down below of what we cooked.

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dxxtruction · 4 years ago

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Logic-b0mb.Hc

Mr. Robot: Season 2 episode 5

Break down / Character Analysis / (No hc section but I could add one)

(This episode is an alright one sandwiched between two great ones but involves a lot of important plot development. Quite literally its setting things up like planting the bombs for later.)

Hacking the FBI.

Elliot’s really feeling the rush because he’s been itching for this a while. He’s been avoiding getting to a terminal because he’s been dealing with getting rid of Robot, and I feel like he’s also on alert about Ray so really didn’t feel up to helping him until it became necessary. (He’s on alert about pretty much everyone though that’s just how hypervigilance is, and I wouldn’t go around trusting just anyone in prison on top of that.)

Hacking makes him feel powerful and in control, something he’s expressed he lacks feeling in his every day life (to Krista). (Someone made a post about this desire for control stemming from Elliots abuse where he lacked that control and like I gotta agree.)

“The programmatic expression of my will. I live for this shit.” (I really like this quote)

The irony of hacking the FBI on a computer within a prison. The flip side is Ray’s website is also being worked on from inside a prison. I’m not sure if this stands to symbolize something about American society and the prison system or not. On one hand he’s getting rid of a threat for personal reasons and on the other hand he’s thinking of exposing one for moral reasons. He’s able to control his own hack, but when it comes to dealing with Ray he isn’t the one in charge.

List of hacking steps he gives:

Step 1. Identify the target and it’s flaws, there are always flaws.

Step 2. Build malware and prepare an attack.

Step 3. A reverse shell two stage exploit.

Step 4. Write the script.

Step 5. Launch the attack.

Elliots first hack was a local library (WashingtonTownship Public Library) and he did this at age 11, the only thing he did was look around their database but he mentions feeling powerful. (He’s been hacking for a good 17 years so it must have been a great feeling.) (He started hacking 3 years after his dad died, awful as he is Elliot began learning his way around computers from him.) (I wonder if/when Darlene got involved in hacking with Elliot.) (To bounce off that I’d love to read/write a fic about the first hack they did together)

Elliot always writes his own script, that’s how he learned. It would be the best way to ensure the most control on the outcomes to write it yourself given you know what your doing and Elliot most certainly does. (If we remember back to the hack to break Vera out of prison he mentioned he never makes mistakes in his code). (Seems impossible tbh but this is fiction we gotta remember that.)

The hack:

Elliot is using a zero day exploit to attack with Malware he’s coding. How I’m understood this is a process used to get data though unknown vulnerabilities (in his case from the android phones).

He needs a way to implement the malware. He’ll be using a reverse shell which joins communications with the target and attacker machines. (His Fem2cell to the FBI android network.) Two stage I think refers to additional malware he’s put in to corrupt everything upon discovery. (He can get in and erase evidence, and if he’s discovered everything gets corrupted)

This will make him own Every Android phone of FBI agents in E-corp. Plus Evil corps network. (Because they’re in the same building?)

(Seen in message to Darlene) FTP - file transfer protocol (he’s handing over his scripts to Darlene so she can launch the attack on her end.)

Elliot pictures himself working in the dark (or maybe that’s just us) but its actually now daytime so several hours have past. (if we assume that we really did arrive in Rays office at night last episode which feels true.)

Darlene breaks into Angela’s

Darlene and Angela haven’t seen each other in five weeks. (They both had a lot on their plate to be fair. Before this they were meeting at least once a week for dance I assume.)

Darlene is creating a DMG file on Angela’s laptop (Darlene doesn’t own a MacBook) (Angela-image.dmg) when she comes in but its not why Darlene is there. (DMG file types hold apps for Mac but if you’re making your own files you can encrypt other things into the file besides apps. DMG’s also can be password protected. I don’t recall if we ever know whats in the file but I wonder if this was the completed FTP. Or just Darlene messing around.)

Darlene tells Angela that Elliot covered for her tracks and involvement in 5/9.

“Why didn’t he say anything?”

(“Because that’s what he does.”)

He doesn’t let people know when he’s helping them or ask for their permission (to Elliot not saying anything = low risk of others lashing out or getting hurt)(Stems from childhood). He just does because its whats good to do to ensure people he cares for are protected. (Those are his principles). Another more obvious read could be he just doesn’t tell people things, Elliot has a hard time being open with people. Angela and Elliot haven’t really been all that close for a while now as well if you remember. (I feel there was a point in time he did share important things with her.)

Darlene wants to use her in order to plant the femtocell in the FBI headquarters located at e-corp because Angela has access to the building. She uses Elliot helping her as leverage because she gets that Angela wouldn’t just do it without reason to. (And Angela still refuses because as things appear to stand she’s already been cleared and doesn’t want to get reinvolved.) (She has every reason to see hacking he FBI as super risky too.)

Darlene lets her off. (but this doesn’t stop her from still trying)

Pre-China

FBI has found the RasberryPi at Steal (mountain) Valley. (This is later said to be a dead lead because it becomes tampered evidence)

We are lead through the FBI work environment, and its mentioned security is lax. There’s a guy on the floor who shouldn’t be. (This is here to show that even if Angela were to get on this floor she has a chance of being stopped (which eventually does happen.) (Plant and payoff)

Dom mentions she doesn’t dream. (She has insomnia. This could be stemming from her job which is stressful and would make anyone become highly alert, this case is probably always on her mind as well. And/or feelings of alienation from lost connectivity to others which she fills by staying up all night chatting, or other factors we’re never quite made aware of.) (I think this is meant to contrast with the previous episodes statements on dreaming. Dom seems to know what future she’s fighting for, but its her job to. You can’t necessarily “dream” when you already know/are told what needs to be done.) (Dom is definitely a character who represents alienation.) (I don’t wanna assume what Esmail was going for but Marx's theory of alienation describes the estrangement of people from who they are as a consequence of living in a class society. (Estrangement from self and identity.(this comes up later)) Capitalist alienation has consequences that separate us from our work building identity around our jobs rather than around ourselves.)

We see Mobley on the co-workers laptop. (I assume this is the information collected from the end of the world party)

There was an E-mail sent out to tell Dom and her partner on the case that they are going to China with Santiago (with a few other agents who are all pricks)

Darlene visits.

“The she-devil” (The guard Elliot is imagining to be his Mom) isn’t around, meaning the guard is gone for some reason?

Darlene fills her brother in on how things are moving forward. She tries to get the reluctant Elliot on board with getting Angela involved because it really is the only option. Darlene feels like Elliot talking to her would convince her to change her mind. (And Robot agrees because he’s willing to risk it to protect them from the FBI) (I may be on Darlene and Robot’s side here, though I do get Elliots POV he’s not seeing how there really isn’t going to be another way in.)

Elliot wants Angela far away from all of this. He definitely still cares about her a lot and would feel guilty if anything happened to her. (He already feels guilty about everything and is trying not to let it blow up into anything worse)(Yet in doing do this leads to worse outcomes later)(He’s unable to risk her, but still understands getting into the FBI is a priority. “Find another way.”) (throughout this season and the next season we see Elliot slides away from plans as a means of deescalating what he sees as things that will lead to terrible outcomes, effectively trying to abandon and undo them.) (Mr Robot and him have continuous conflict on this.)

China (Dom and Whiterose)

The FBI is in China to discuss needing access with Minister Zhang (Whiterose) (I’m gonna mostly use Zhang here for contextual purposes) (The Chinese Minister of State Security)

In the meeting Dom speaks up about needing access to what China has on the Dark Army (In a previous shot she sees people in the Dark Army masks at the airport.) (We’re not sure how much intel the FBI have on DA. They are the worlds most dangerous hacker group and thats knowledge to anyone who knows about them. The FBI has to have at least some things about them on file, like maybe those masks.) (Dom is suspecting Dark Army and F-society could have a connection as affiliate hacker groups) (It’s set up to imply she saw those guys in the airport and It got her thinking which is why she jumps in to say something.)

This episode deals with the idea power a lot (the lack of, gaining of, and having of power). How Whiterose is framed in scenes indicates a sense of power and control (even to some extent framing her as godlike). She’s revealed to maintain a high ranking government position, while also heading the dark army. It’s in her best interests to comply with he FBI, and shows no concern for her involvement. She knows she has the upper-hand.

Party at the Ministers house (Monday night)

Dom discovers the clock hallway, when Zhang discovers her. (I think she peaked Whiterose’s interests in the meeting and this just solidifies it) (side-note: I don’t think Dom really needed to pee all too bad she just wanted and excuse to get away from the party.)

She discusses the clock which looks like the one her parents have then introduces who she is to Zhang. (Can’t tell if Dom lied about that anecdote to not feel intrusive or if Whiterose was lied to. If Dom lied, then it’s a nice play because Whiterose ends up lying about having a sister later.)

Dom (who is naturally curious) then asks what the clocks are about. and we get this:

“Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player the struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more”

(“You’ve surrounded yourself with the constant reminder of mortality?”)

“- …As each second passes I push myself to keep moving.”

(I can see Whiterose’s obsession with time stemming from her confrontation of mortality, the traumatic experiences of her former lover. Whiterose sees time as her enemy in the race to complete her plans. Yet she also finds her ways of controlling it making it seem like she is the master of it. This is sort of the mask she wears and she wears it well. (Her plans ????)

Then she asks why Dom is in the FBI

“I was. I am disgusted by the selfish brutality of the world, but at the same time I am utterly fascinated by it.” (This line gives insight into how Dom sees the world and other people. There’s this one Florence Nightingale quote which calls out the selfish brutality on the part of the superior (those in power) as part of the true horror of war.)

Something about this discussion make Whiterose open up to Dom enough to show an artwork in her office about the anxiety within losing ones identity. (Identity has a lot of meaning to Whiterose. She lives a double life, a large part of her own identity is hidden from the world in several ways. Whiterose is alienated from herself in the sense the she can’t be herself to the world.)

“How is it that revolution can create such beautiful art yet you and I are tracking revolutionaries who’ve created nothing but turmoil?” (Another bomb planted… if she only knew.)

Whiterose pressed so Dom reveals the personal reason for joining the FBI deals with her breakup after a proposal in her final semester of law school, one thing leading to another she’s now an FBI agent. (I think Whiterose picks up that Dom gay af by the way she hides who her old flame’s gender is.) (anyway Whiterose ends up having some sort of reaction to this and shows Dom her dresses then lies about having a sister, which Dom picks up as a lie.)

Whiterose inquires about what if 5/9 never happened, mentions alternate universes, she is moved by the idea of what ifs for things to be different. Whiterose gets flustered about this showing some semblance of vulnerability, and the clocks go off on the hour. (This idea of alternate realities is planted here and plays a role into what her project may be, but we’re never quite sure. At the end of S4 when we’re in the headspace it seems her machine worked and we did enter a new reality.)

The Dark Army shoot out in China kills everyone but Dom and Santiago. (RIP)

In the court with Ray

The basketball court is fairly empty around this time but hot Carla is there in her usual spot. (Sidenote: I love her)

Elliot still has to help Ray (its the conditions he has to meet for letting him have access to a terminal)

Robot is antsy and feels this wastes time, that they need to be getting in touch with Angela. (But of course Elliot ignores him because he’s against Angela getting involved.)

To help Ray he says needs administrative access from the old IT guy. IT guy comes. Elliot finds out the guy knows what he’s doing, raising his suspicions. So he starts putting things together that theirs something fishy as to why Ray came to him. IT guy wants to just move off the subject but Elliot doesn’t have time to play games. This chatting back and forth between them is fairly funny, especially when robot just key smashes and Elliot has to back space it. The IT guy eventually yields and shows Elliot the site, which pretty much deals transactions in every type of crime including trafficking.

Later in Elliots cell he’s trying to piece together what to do about Ray, he wonders whether he is innocent or guilty. Robot wants to move on but Elliot can’t.

“You know, but your going to ignore it. You wanna know why? Because thats what we do.” (“That’s not what I do.”)

Robot is always weighing the risks at every possible turn of events, always weighing out he 1’s from the 0’s. He does it to protect them of course, but sometimes these decisions are selfish. While it may do well to ignore for their safety, the risks of not doing anything could ruin Elliots sense of morality. (Not that robot can help things are already going to blow up on them anyway). Elliot shows us he wants to act, because he’d feel sick if he knowingly enabled the things that happen on that site (mainly concerned about the people being trafficked). He’s one to take down people who are bad even if there are risks involved. It’s that part of him is driven by his desire to make a better and safer world for the host even if he’s unaware of it. I do find it curious that Robot insinuates a “we” here on what they do because MM has yet to ignore something like this before. (A hint or just a throw away plea to get him to stop?)

Logic bomb- a set of instructions secretly incorporated into a program so that if a particular condition is satisfied (or a set time occurs) they will be carried out, usually with harmful effects.

(.HC encrypted file type that needs password access)

Elliots taken by Rays goons (I cry and he cries for help)

Joanna

Joanna meets with this guys she’s paying and he confesses about his paranoia with the FBI being on his case … So she kills him. (The Wellick’s are … something. I am disgusted by the selfish brutality. Yet I guess violence is often a form of self preservation especially in this shows logic so like I get it. Some people hack others attack.)

He mentions protecting some guy in a hoodie at this meeting. (This says Joanna definitely pieced together that this tech Tyrell kept mentioning is the mysterious “Ollie” who came by her house.)

The way she just orders her security guard to kill a man and this is the option she went to, Joanna does not mess. Honestly can’t even describe all the dynamics at play here between Tyrell ,“Tyrell”, the body guard, Joanna, and Joanna’s new lover. Things are being planted for Joanna needing to find where Tyrell is (and Elliot’s been asking about the same).(Also the media really eats up this Tyrell situation and Joanna becomes an infamous celebrity for it.) (Everyone wants to know where Tyrell is.)

Joanna’s orders were to inject succinylcholine (induces paralysis) before shooting him. She sees this as giving the man time to process his final moments. “Letting him die with answers. Otherwise we’re nothing but ruthless murders.” She says this all while feeding her baby.

Angela meets with Ollie Then with Elliot Then finally with Darlene.

Angela finds out Ollie has been brought in for FBI questioning. He confessed about “the CD man” to the FBI and they’ve drawn up a sketch of him (Cisco).

This scares Angela enough to start considering compliance with Darlene. It eventually leads her to a decision based on what the best possible outcome could be.

Angela makes an attempt to reach out to Elliot before actually moving forward with her decision. This shows the contrast between them. What Angela does is make sure things are okay (at least for Elliot), though she may act separately from how he feels. By this point Angela has run down her options and decides her best option is to just plant the femtocell “Either I act or I wait to get caught.”

Elliot doesn’t say much after his initial push back, he doesn’t want to put Angela at any risk but can’t do anything about it if she’s already made her decision. Her logic also makes sense, it could even be riskier if she did nothing.

The topic then changes. Angela’s still wondering why Elliot’s been different, why he’s been pushing her away.

Instead of being direct Elliot mentions their conversation on the train platform the day he was found in he cemetery. Angela gets a bit uncomfortable, there’s lingering worries about Elliot.

“You told me to take care of myself. I wanted to be okay. I wanted to s-stop seeing him before I talked to you again.”

“And”

“And my dead father’s standing behind you right now.”

This opens up discussion again about the idea of annihilation, which was touched on in the previous episode. It seems in some part, but not entirely, that Elliot wants to stop seeing Mr Robot in order to feel like he’s improved himself, that he’s become better. That would be his way of taking care of himself. Obviously these desires turn up empty handed because there’s no getting rid of Robot. He’s still conflicting with him, and though that plot mostly takes a step back in this episode it is shown in what ways they’re still ending up disagreeing.

“I could be a friend. Someone to talk to. Someone who cares about you. Who knows maybe that will help.” waitfortheq.ogg starts playing when she says this, it’s the theme associated with Shayla so I cry. It’s a song that carries like a special feeling of safety, a comfort in knowing that your here with someone who’s a friend, and while still being fairly somber. Elliot (and I as well) seems to agree this could help because he starts asking about qwerty and they actually smile and laugh. (My heart). I like to imagine they talked for a while after this and that things ended well. Despite them still being in disagreement by the end of it, Angela feels more confident in her decision now.

Meanwhile at F-society HQ: D.C Op is a go. #Droptheballs. This is right before Angela gets there.

Angela takes a secure route to meet with Darlene at HQ to get the tower from her in order plant the femtocell. Something to maybe note is Angela seems to only start acting once she had selfish reasons to doing so.

#mr robot #Logic-b0mb.Hc #last time i posted it didn't show in the tags lol #these breakdowns are super self indulgent I forget that I like doing shit like this #Elliot and Angela have a moment where they both smile in this episode and i think thats it nothing else happens in the other 45 minutes #the conclusions i draw can be inaccurate sometimes and thats okay #these aren't intended to be formal in any way

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koszmar-zycie · 5 years ago

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All of the fun, random questions! Do it!

Oh lawdy! To quote Ace Ventura: “Aaaaaalrighty, then!” - Apologies for the janky post, since I can’t space them without the site making the numbers all screwy.

Do you have any “yeah I’m good at it but I hate it” kind of skills? - hmmmm. To be honest, leading. If you buy into horoscopes, I’m a Dragon. And maybe it’s natural, maybe it’s theatre experience. But when I apply myself as a leader, I do AMAZING. The issue is that I generally like to be a support. Sometimes I like leading, but usually I’m not into the idea of being this focus or figurehead guiding the way as the leader. Whether projects or even fun, I tend to fall into a like... intermediate leadership role at best.

If you could make one type of food cease to exist, what would you banish? - To be honest, I can’t do that. Even foods I’m not fond of are foods, and I would be remised if I were to remove any.

You’re allowed to know everything about one highly specific thing/topic. What would you choose? - Deep sea thermal based biology. The deep sea is my 100% very favorite place on Earth. If I die and there’s an afterlife, I want endless ocean of all kinds. If I’m reincarnated, I want to be a Dragonfish or something. At any rate, I would do anything to have such a wealth of knowledge. Especially about something as fascinating to me as the ins and out of how the deep sea creatures that survive and thrive around the *extreme* heat and pressure of the vents.

What’s a fictional character who you want to be like? In what way do you want to be like them? - I would love to be like Nathan Ford from Leverage. I want to be able to live my life as freely and wildly as he (though maybe not as illegally lol), and also pursue what I feel is right for me. Live through and persevere through hardship as well as he, even if he struggled.

If you had to live in and not leave a city for the rest of your life, what city would you choose? - That would be a VERY hard call between Avalon on Catalina Island USA, or Sedona, Arizona. While Sedona overall has more of what I love, Avalon has the sea. And I’d probably die without my ocean.

Do you tend to say what you’re thinking? What would people think of you if you did the opposite? - Usually, yes. But in a careful way. It WILL happen periodically, because I’m also an emotional hunk of waste. But in general I do a decent enough job of being honest without being harsh about it. When I’m provoked or something really gets to me, then I can just vent without thinking.

Is there anything that you’ve done/experienced so much you hate it now? Easiest to come up with are like, food or music. - Hmmm. Not really. Halloween got SEVERELY killed for me, though. I still like it, but Haunt people are by and large the most obnoxious and hypocritical. Since I adore haunt, I HAVE to deal with them. Hatred for Christmas and other holidays while spouting about Halloween has drained my interest in Halloween. So yes an no, because that’s really OTHER people killing it for me. But I’m also sort of involved because of my love of the haunt business.

Were you afraid of anything “silly”/irrational as a child that you’ve since outgrown? - Deep water. As a kid I HATED the deep end of pools. Now I’m obsessed with deep water and the dark, unknown, crushing depths. Funny how things work out! I used to hate going near the slope in a pool if it was even a little dark (lighted pools were fine). Now, the only thing stopping me from just continuing to swim down if I go diving is my tank limits.

If you were to impart one moral lesson (think Aesop’s fables, Golden Rule, etc) on the world, what would it be? - Treat others as you wish to be treated. It’s SO easy to say, and yet nobody does it.

If you were a DND character or a game character (or something like that) what would your highest stat be? What would you want your highest stat to be? What about the lowest, to both of those? - HA. I think about this way too much. I’d be a sea elf druid. STR 10 INT 12 CHA 16 DEX 12 END 18 WIS 18 - If I were to apply myself logically as an analog of myself, I’d have good durability and understanding and social capability (again, in specific regards), but my outward strength and dex would be kinda average. I like to think that I’m decently intelligent, as I LOVE books, learning, and figuring things out. But I’m also far from genius. Hence my focus on Wisdom. I’m also surprisingly dexterous, but in certain circumstances more than others, so that’s also pretty average. I don’t think I’ve really have any “bad” stats, but I’d definitely mix average with a couple high ones.

Is there anything you judge others for when you probably shouldn’t? - Probably. I have a huge mistake of expecting others to be courteous and offer a common decency/open perspective on things.

Who are “your kind” of people? - Goths and hippies, my friend. If you want to know my style? Goth Druid. lol

If you had to come up with your last words right now… what would they be? - “Don’t regret not accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. Regret having not tried. I do not regret trying, even if I did not succeed.”

Do you have any “weirdly strong” opinions about things that don’t really matter? - This is VERY obscure (I have others, but it’s late and this came to mind first) But if you play Fate Grand Order.... SET YOUR GOD DAMNED SUPPORTS.

Your goal is to completely confuse the people around you in as short a time as possible– what do you say/do? - Honestly, just start quoting Lorne from Season 5 of Angel. Or act like a Malkavian. One of my VTM characters was a Malkavian who got in a fight with a parachute he had. Her name was Kitten.

What’s the most comfy place you’ve been in? - I don’t know, actually. Maybe the Luxe Hotel in LA during Anime Expo?

Did you have any “silly” beliefs as a kid? Where did they come from (parents, friends, out of nowhere, etc)? - Not that I know of. At least in terms of anything that’d have changed or something. I’m sure there’s Something, but I honestly can’t dig anything up in my memories.

If you were to add or remove one physical feature to yourself… what would it be? Can be from animals, can be from imagination… whatever. - Hahaha, I ALWAYS think about this one. Right now, I’d want maybe the electro-vision of sharks.

What could you happily give a two hour lecture on? - Ocean conservation, and what’s correct and what isn’t.

What would a mirror opposite version of yourself be like? It doesn’t necessarily have to be an evil version– any feature can be reflected! - Someone who’s mostly optimistic. More bright colors than dark, short hair. Focused on socializing and extroverted. More than happy in one place forever, without an interest in travel.

What’s an occasion you’ve done a double take? - Anime Expo a number of times. Seeing weird or unexpected, or legendary cosplays.

If you could only see one color (and its varying shades– dark/light) for the rest of your life… what would you choose? - Blue. Guess that was probably obvious. But it’s a cool color and associated with calming. Between dark midnight and navy blues to vibrant aquamarines pressing towards green (without actually going into it), I feel like there’s a happy spectrum of all kinds that would be enough to get through without going too crazy.

Do your friends all share certain qualities? Major or minor! - Despite my.... unique personality, and preference towards quiet etc (INFJ), I have a lot of radically different kinds of friends. I honestly don’t think I could put any one thing down. Other than that I choose my friends carefully on who I think I can trust and is a good persona at heart. To a sufficient degree anyway. That’s also a huge part of my downsides, too. By being sensitive (and having certain conditions), when a friend does something that hurts me, it REALLY hurts.

How do you motivate yourself to do things? - Oh man, that’s funny. It is entirely circumstantial. As an artist/writer/creative (I use artist in the broad sense, but I figured I’d add that to help specify) I can VERY easily just have motivation on a moments notice. So it’s often pretty random. But if not, I jut need to think of why. I Looooooove gardening. Weeds need pulling? I think about what’ll happen if the roses or tomatos or lemon tree don’t get their water because of weeds sucking it up. Need to write? I’ll never leave my creation for *any*one if I don’t at least crack down on notes, and make slow and steady progress if nothing else. It’s usually just a small thing I think of to act as a spark, but it’s usually very effective.

What’s one of your favorite jokes? Tell it to us! - Okay, so this isn’t a joke, but it’s seriously STILL making me laugh just thinking about it. I was going to reference an old comedian in a previous post (I didn’t end up doing it, but still). Anyway, I was really confused as to why I couldn’t find him in google. It turns out, instead of looking up “Groucho Marx”, I was googling “Marco Grouch”. LOL That’s probably not quite as funny to y’all, but for some reason it’s killing me. XD

Hooooooeeee! Well, that was long, but actually really fun! Thank you @scatteredstoryteller! That was like... an essay. lol But definitely fun. I love asks. XD

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nanigma · 6 years ago

Text

Leon Fanbook Translation: Famous Lines

Link to the Takumi Fanbook

Introduction

Profile

Another part down. Wasn’t as work intensive, but still took just as long as the other one due to fewer opportunities to work on it. But I think I like how I got it done and hope you enjoy reading it.

Another note: Unless someone has any serious objections, I’ll be skipping over the Chronicle section of the fanbook. It’s really just the most barebones summary of what happens in each game chapter, with no new information or even commentary added. Pretty much just padding imo. That way I can get the more interesting sections that much sooner! Tell me if you think otherwise though.

Before we continue, here is the same note as usual: As I am currently without a real income, I would very much appreciate it if you could throw me a couple bucks via my ko-fi account (link on my blog page). It doesn’t have to be a lot, just what you think my translations are worth really.

My comments in italics

I will be using the Japanese names

Pages 10-11

Famous Line[s]

Iconic Lines playback

We've brought various iconic lines of Leon from Conquest, Birthright and even Revelations. Let us bring back the fine lines he walked, his passion during intense battles and his reminiscences.

“... I have my own way of doing things. That's all.“

Conquest Chapter 14 – Singing Voice of Paradise Although it was an order from his father, King Garon, Leon, who felt executing every dancer in the city to be unreasonable, skilfully managed to let them get away. What happened in the end ran directly counter to what Garon wanted, but without openly doubting the King of Nohr or behaving like a sycophant Leon did what absolutely had to be done.

Sorry for the angle

“... What an eyesore. I won't show any mercy to the likes of you. Cowards of your ilk are a disgrace to our noble Kingdom of Nohr. Now at least show some dignity as you die...“

Conquest Chapter 26 – Treason The words Leon threw at Macbeth, gaze filled with scorn as he finished him off. The Nohrian Tactician had been abusing his position by concocting various schemes, laying out despicable traps for Kamui's group and getting in their way on numerous occasions. Removing this “coward“, who ended up begging for his life until the end, was done to restore Nohr's pride.

“Despicable fools... turn to dust already!!“

Conquest Chapter 18 – Princes of Black and White Leon left quite the impression with his words against the traitor Zora. This is the scene where he demonstrated his „cold hearted“ mask quite clearly. His anger was mostly directed at himself rather than his subordinate, for having trusted someone like that even for a moment.

Zora’s scheme was bad, but considering he was following Garon’s orders can he really be called a traitor??

Page 11

“... So I trust you recognize me then, big brother.“

Chapter 1 – Nohrian Brethren Leon's competitive side showed itself quite clearly in these words. Although Marx reassured him that he simply chose mastery of his magical talents over mastery of the sword, Leon personally felt alienated from the brother who saw his own strength wielded in his blade. As such his desire to have his own strength be recognized seeped through.

“This country will surely become a wonderful place. That's the feeling I get.“

Conquest Endgame – Light Fading Into Dusk After all the fighting had ended, these were the words he said to Marx, who was sworn to become the next King of Nohr, and the rest of his siblings. While they would remember the days of suffering and war, as well as the comrades who supported them throughout, now they could await the beautiful future lying in store for their country.

Pages 12-13

“Traitors are a disgrace to Nohr. Death shall be your redemption...“

Birthright Chapter 18 – Prince Leon of Nohr When confronting Kamui, who was leading Hoshidan forces to infiltrate Nohr, Leon threw angry words at them and challenged them to battle. His speech was supposed to convey his hatred for the Hoshidan-aligned Kamui having betrayed the siblings they grew up with.

Page 13

“Listen. None of you have a grasp on his real power. … He is on an entirely different level.“

Birthright Chapter 18 – Prince Leon of Nohr After stepping aside himself, these are the words of advice he gave to Kamui, who was now headed towards a confrontation with Marx. Only because Leon has some ability with the sword himself did he know just how unassailable and completely out of reach his older brother truly was. However, he understood that Kamui needed to continue on their path and so he told them about Marx's meeting with the Rainbow Sage.

Glad someone aknowledges Leon’s abilities with the sword. It still goes ignored too often.

“... I lied, sister (brother). I lied about hating you. The truth is... I always thought you...“

Birthright Chapter 18 – Prince Leon of Nohr Seeing as he normally puts up a very cold act, Leon is very bad at openly expressing affection. So here his true feelings for Kamui simply bubbled up and overflowed.

“When I look at someone as despicable as you... I feel a strong sense of disgust. Now, you disgrace. Are you prepared? Turn to dust already!!“

Birthright Chapter 25 – The Traitor's True Identity No matter the situation, he simply cannot forgive any cowardly deeds. His completely merciless attitude is undoubtedly the reason he came to be commonly known as „cold blooded“ among the Nohrian ranks.

“Ahhh, too close! Your faces are just too close!“

Birthright Chapter 25 – The Traitor's True Identity Although the amount of tension in Leon increased with every moment the final battle drew closer, conversing with his trusted retainers surely lifted his heart.

Pages 14-15

“... Hurry up and go already. The real Duke Izana is just past here. And moreover... you'll find that foolish Hoshidan princeling there as well.“

Revelation Chapter 10 – Voice of the Gods While his attitude towards the traitor Kamui remains cold, Leon was still swayed by the sincere words of his sibling. After dealing with the cowardly trap himself, it would seem he vented out some of his frustrations on the Hoshidan prince before leaving.

“Hm? The Hoshidan royalty is all here as well? Then what was that kind of performance just now? My... how pathetic. Well, I'll at least credit you with having the devil's own luck.”

Revelation Chapter 17 – Black Flame Both Marx and Leon rushed to support Kamui's group in the difficult fight they had been forced into. Leon then made a biting comment about the difficult time the group had in repelling Macbeth.

People usually harp on Takumi, but Leon can be quite the rude little shit himself.

“Appearing and disappearing as they please... what a disturbing fellow.“

Revelation Chapter 18 – The Unseen Kingdom What Leon said after jumping down to the bottom of the Infinite Chasm, fighting the Touma army for the first time and encountering an unsettling enemy he had never seen before. The fight that now began marked the start of him coming to learn truths even he had been entirely unaware of.

“Here, hold on!“

Revelation Chapter 20 – The Seed of Doubt Having come to acknowledge each other, this is the scene where Leon and Takumi first open up to the other. With Leon coming to Takumi's aid as he was about to lose his life, as well as Takumi kindly thanking him, the tension between the two had been resolved.

Cough

Page 15

“No way.. ! A puppet, you say!? So that's why father became like that... Damn, that Hydra, just what was he thinking!?“

Revelation Chapter 19 . The Ruined Town Now that he knew the father he respected had been nothing but Hydra's puppet all along, Leon's bitterness and sadness seemed to overflow in his exclamation. After already having come to be suspicious about his changed father's strange conduct, Leon finally arrived at the truth of the matter.

“Good grief... you are always making us worried big sister (big brother). It can't be helped... Then I [shall trust you] as well.“

Revelation Chapter 21 – The Way Forward Although Leon was the first to give a warning about not trusting Rontao's plans, the overly kind and pure Kamui ended up falling into the trap due to being too trusting. But even if Kamui keeps placing their faith in others, he will stay at their side, sharing his wisdom and fighting alongside them in order to help them proceed on their path.

-------------------------------

And that’s it for today. Nothing big to explain I hope. If you have any more questions, feel free to shoot me an ask.

The reason I didn’t translate the Illustration notes this time, is that you can find them on the Fire Emblem wiki quite easily if you want to know more about them.

Again, without any objections I will next focus on the Relationship section of the fanbook, which I am sure you are all very excited about. Hope to see you again with another update soon. Until next time, take care!

#nanigma translates #fire emblem fates #fe14 #leon #leo #fire emblem leon #fire emblem leo #fanbook

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discyours · 5 years ago

Note

7, 18, 40, and 3

7. How do you feel about gender critical male allies? Can men be gender critical?

Well yeah, men can’t be radfems but they can absolutely be critical of the concept of gender. I just don’t trust their motivations to be coming from the same place, considering radfems’ are rooted in y’know, radical feminism. I mostly trust gender critical GNC men and trans women, considering they’re personally hurt by gender. Regular ass masculine cishet men though? Usually just looking for an excuse to be transphobic and I’m not here for it.

18. How do you feel about socialism and/or communism? Do you think it could ever work? Are you a Marxist feminist?

I’ve finally been learning more about it and I’m definitely not as opposed to it as I used to be. I definitely agree with a lot of socialist policies, though I kinda have to considering I’m on disability and don’t want to be homeless.

My issue with communism is that it cannot be implemented without authoritarianism, and that authoritarianism is never going to be safe to human corruption. I’m going to keep learning more about it (I’m interested regardless of whether I agree, though I’m not gonna pretend that I’m likely to ever actually read marx) but from what I’ve read so far this is an unsolvable issue. Maybe when the robots take over we can try again, but until then human error is going to fuck things up every single time.

Radical feminism has marxist roots and I don’t think it’s possible to be a radfem without quite heavily agreeing with marxist feminism too. Capitalism strongly contributes to the oppression of women, but I don’t think the idea that abolishing it would fully liberate women is productive. Women’s reproductive capabilities are a cause for oppression regardless of whether they can be commodified, so women’s oppression needs to be actively fought against in any society with men, regardless of economic system.

40. Should radical feminists call themselves ‘’sex negative’’, as opposed to ‘’sex positive’’, or would this give off the wrong vibes?

Answered

3. How do you feel about drag queens / drag in general? Do you think it’s misogynistic?

I mean, it’s literally meant to be a caricature of a woman. That’s what’s supposed to make it funny. I don’t see how it wouldn’t be misogynistic, unless I’m missing something. I don’t really have much to say about this because it seems obvious.

#ask game #radfem

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architectuul · 6 years ago

Text

Form Follows Flow

Ooze architects were founded in 2003 by Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg. They are based in Rotterdam and work internationally for different municipalities, property developers, arts and cultural institutions and private clients.

Eva Pfannes and Sylvain Hartenberg at the Sitio Burle Marx presentation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Photo © Rodrigo

With Eva and Sylvain we discussed how they combine understanding of natural processes with technological expertise either in temporary art works or regional urban strategies. The cyclic closed-loop processes found in nature are the foundation for each intervention of Ooze’s work.

Ooze (üz) is a soft deposit on the bottom of a body of water, a marsh or bog that results from the flow of a spring. Let the water flows begin.

---

What is a role of an architect today?

Sylvain: There are many different levels of practicing architecture. The future architect is a mediator, integrator of social, built and financial processes. The role of the architect is expanding and becoming linked to financial issues, to heal specific community or social context and remediate broken urban fabrics.

Eva: In the past lots of project strings happened separately. There architect, developer, landscape architect, engineer, water engineer was separated but with the climate changes we need to integrate all experts together and make solutions that works. If we separated it, many cities prove the social or financial suffering.

In which sense visualize the processes?

Eva: To visualize the processes means to visualize the unbuilt for. As working with water, we could say that Form Follows Flow. These flows in urban environments are mostly hidden under the ground. The more modern society has become the more hidden are its processes. With all the question how can we live more sustainable and in harmony with the planet, we need to visualize and understand those processes and how we can work with them. That’s where we also see our role to visualize processes and then use them to connect them to many complex parts.

Diagram visualization for the project The City of 1000 Tanks. | Source © Ooze

In a way you need to invent your own approach? Like your system-thinking on the practical base?

Sylvain: Both of us have a more standard (European) German and French education but also studied in Bartlett UCL London where we learn to work with the narrative and process. The hybrid between these two is what we are doing in our practice now. We try to address much bigger and important issue and to bridge and question what is really needed in specific situation.

So, it depends a lot about the education?

Eva: When we start working on an art piece with Marjetica Potrč, we start with the intact research of the context. This way of working we developed intuitively. It was not something that we learn in school but part we learn by doing. Right now, we are working on an urban strategy and implementation project The City of 1000 Tanks in India where we very much getting into the financing of projects.

Between Waters in collaboration with Marjetica Potrč. | Photo © Hans Blossey

A simple diagram was created in a real scale on the location. | Photo © Bas Princen (up) © Roman Mensing (down)

How you deal with the project funding?

Eva: We can take the example of the Rio de Janeiro, where we were very much self-driven by the idea if there is possible to realize a project because there is no sewage system, especially on vulnerable parts of the city. We were driven by the idea that it must be possible to integrate nature that this locally becomes the treatment of the polluted water. After four years of investigations research production of pilot projects and events, we finally understood that we could not operate outside the system of public works. Although those services are not provided in the zone we were operating in, when we talk about water and sewage we need to get engaged with the public realm. Tendering processes are protected, concessions are given after a long time, like ten years in advance. Innovation in this area is incredibly difficult. To find funding as well is very long term.

How can you survive?

Sylvain: Only when you are supported by the government program or heavy weight stakeholders. That’s the case of the project in India with the Dutch Ministry of the Foreign Affair as a client. In such way you have access to financial mechanism and you can deal with the big scale reality. In the project of Rio we were pioneers, supported only by the Dutch Creative Industry with no political anchorage nor local financial support except for the cultural institutions we partner for the various phase of the project.

Can a small-scale art project become a learning process?

Eva: Of course. With the given budget we realized that we become the clients and the contractors. In such way we take the risk but then you can also execute it with no one in-between. You learn how to lead it, so the learning process is not only for the users but also for the creators.

Diagram of The Pond Club in King's Cross London. | Source via © Ooze

How do you incorporate the natural environment into the urban areas?

Eva: The participatory process especially working with nature is very context related. You need to the people to make something that works for them and it is very important to listen before you come up with ideas.

Sylvain: In all our recent projects you can see how all our thinking is conceived by disturbing processes. As the eternal investment is driving the world, we kind of intrigue this crazy jungle. That makes our principle and activities dealing with the social.

When nature becomes a part of the planning process, how do you deal with unpredicted?

Eva: Look for example the Pond. The client wanted us to sign the contract where we agreed that the landscape would be beautiful. We declined this very subjective impression. Instead we took a part of the landscape and start to work as a contractor for the wild plants on the site. We started to interact with the client. In the begging was the earth, later the plants grew and created a new wildlife. It is important to communicate the narrative and people need to understand that nature cannot be always the same and predicted. In the case of the project of the Kings cross pond club, people for example would come back every two weeks to check the changing landscape.

The realization of The Pond Club in King's Cross. | Photo © John Sturrock

What is engineered nature? What is a difference between a natural and constructed wetland?

Eva: When we mentioned constructing wetlands people were thinking about a lake. Natural wetlands are everywhere where water meet the land. Many places of our cities used to be wetlands as floods are specific and can enrich the water and soil with oxygen, which then removes polluters from the water. The wetlands can clean the water and with engineering this you make a controlled environment. For example, the volume of water in the Pond could take care exactly of 163 swimmers per day. That is what nature can deal with. The same for a constructed wetland, a certain area of it can take care of the sewage waste of a certain number of people just by using and guiding the natural processes which exist in nature already.

The changing nature of The Pond in London. | Photo © John Sturrock

Sylvain: If for instance we would have put more mineral filters then we could change the volume of the water and the surfaces of filters. Nature reaches the goal so you need to understand these processes and replicate them.

What is important in a partnership with the local community? How do you create trust?

Eva: As for example on Agua Carioca we went into communities where we had connections. Somebody introduced us to the community. The next were interviews. We were listening to the people, which makes people empowered as this in favelas doesn’t happen very often. People were extremely aware of the environment because it was so close to them. The next step was invitation to the events. You come back again and again and again. That builds trust.

The excursion in the community of the Agua Carioca. | Photo © Rodrigo

Sylvain: For the project development is also important the identification of the spokesman in community.

What about the trust in the commercial locations?

Eva: Yes, the Pond was not in the slum but in the middle of London. As everybody had access to the project, the community embraced it. They formed the group, which came up with the petition to keep the pond signed by 5000 people. From this number 1500 people left online message and 300 people talked about love.

Are your interventions systems of disobedience (it is not necessary to use chloride in water as the human body reacts to water)?

Eva: Our systems are about empowerment in a positive way. It is giving people the tools to understand the processes and deal with them. Project Between the Waters with Marjetica Potrč was a diagram of the water sewage treatment. Every part was visible, colorful and understandable. At the end we engage the people into trusting the different steps of natural base solution processes which manages to treat sewage and render it drinkable. the people could see all the steps and engage in this cycle by drinking the water at the last step of the filtration process. They could see and perceive the steps from urine to drinkable water, and that is what they would drink. This is how simple it is, it is the same how you treat the water. It is disobedience but also empowerment because you understand how simple is to get off the grid. A political act how to show people to live off the grid.

#interview

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jtq1844 · 5 years ago

Text

One day into this and I’m already behind ...

Where did the day go? So much for taking this opportunity to build in some writing discipline into my life. I actually have a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Antioch University -- Los Angeles, 2017). It started out as “an external goal” in 2015, something to try after we moved as empty-nesters up to Washington State from Santa Cruz. The program is “low residency,” meaning it is mostly online. I had had a few stories published already, so I had reason to think it was doable. I like story-telling. I like writing. What I discovered was that, while I have some writing competency, I don’t exactly have a passion for it.

Here is one of the CNF essays from my official portfolio to amuse you until I compose a more heartfelt and informative post for tomorrow … er, I mean, today … um. You know what I mean.

-=-=-=-

Sister Clorina, Saint Blaise and Doubting Thomas by Jean Tschohl Quinn

It can take years to come to an understanding about something. Alternatively, an understanding can barrel into consciousness like a grand and glorious epiphanic elephant. Sometimes, both happens. I love paradox. I adore the celestial AND. It is in this sort of epiphany, decades in the making, that I found Bahá'u'lláh.

Sister Clorina hated me. No. That’s too strong. She simply did not like any girls not named Mary. She didn’t like me in particular because she had suddenly been “demoted” to second grade from fourth grade where my sister Mary was -- sweet, clever, pious and faithful. How could I compete? My best friend then was named Mary too. Mary Wirhanowicz was also sweet, clever, pious and faithful. I hold no grudge against the average Mary. They’ve got the whole Blessed Virgin Mother expectation thing to deal with and had no choice in the matter because that was their collective given name. It is, apparently, a lot of pressure. There is the occasional exception of the BVM standard when there are multiple Marys in a single classroom. Some of them get an out if they had, say, a younger sibling who called them something else and the teacher approved for clarity’s sake. One of my grandmothers was one of those. There were several Mary’s in her one-room schoolhouse in Nova Scotia. Her younger brothers and sisters called her Mayme already and so she was dubbed in the classroom and life in general. To this day, I consider her the sanest person I’ve ever met. However, in my second grade classroom, Sister Clorina felt she had reason to suspect me as nefarious. First, I was not named Mary. Second, I was “philosophical.”

Her move down to second grade was precipitated by Sister Marie Madison’s hasty withdrawal from the convent life after only a month with our class. We were informed that we had simply “driven her crazy.” Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. (That’s not quite accurate; it was post-Vatican-II. We didn’t actually learn any Latin.) The girls of the class all knew the blame rested solely on the antics of Vince Wederath, Brian Doherty, and Eddie Marx. They were the bad boys. Maybe Tim Relihan too. We were sure of it. Twelve or so years after the fact, I bumped into Eddie on a bus as I headed home from college for a weekend of free laundry and food. He was still proud of his part in the good sister’s loss of faith. We choose our triumphs; this apparently was one of Eddie’s.

Sister Clorina emanated a stern energy. I cannot tell you whether she was tall or short from my second-grader memory, but I do recall her immense energy. Sometimes, she’d fill in on the organ at Mass when the ridiculously cherubic Sister Acquitaine was overwrought or under the weather. Sister Acquitaine was the music teacher. She felt my brother Kevin’s musical talent was extraordinary -- it is – and so she kept him in at recess for violin lessons because we already had a violin that Grampa Hanson had picked up at St. Vinnie’s for $7 in 1967. Kevin did not like missing recess. He abandoned the violin at his earliest possible convenience. I still have and play that violin, mainly because no one else had a use for it. I have always felt that I have a right only to that which is of no use to anyone else. It’s a youngest child thing. In second grade, I even went so far as to claim my favorite color as moss green because I felt sorry for it.

In any case, Sister Clorina as a substitute organist kept the tempo “up” much to the consternation of the older folks. My family liked it that way; it was zippy. She would shout over her shoulder, “Hymn number 8.” Only I thought she was saying “Hit number 8” like Casey Kasem might, so I thought we were going to sing Winchester Cathedral or Last Train to Clarksville depending on the week. I somehow knew never to expect Wild Thing.

I had high hopes as Sister Clorina glowered over us in the hall outside the classroom. I reached for her hand, trying to be the brown-noser I knew myself to be. She sniffed and tucked her arm inside her surplus. Her disdain for me was immediate.

First grade had been a long line of substitute teachers after Mrs. Conti-Morgan left to give birth after an entirely crabby last month. She and Mrs. Lambert, a squat dynamic storyteller, in the fifth grade were the only lay teachers in the school. Second grade looked like the beginning of a whole new world. I was finally going to be close enough to a nun to touch one.

After Sister Marie Madison bailed on us in the second-grade, I suspect Sister Clorina took the move from her already beloved fourth grade class to our clearly evil second grade as a demotion. The smaller four and fifth grade classes would be combined with the incredible Mrs. Lambert at the helm. My sister Mary was immediately named co-chair with Mrs. Lambert of their mutual admiration society. Mary has that mysterious charm that immediately made her teacher’s pet. Every time.

My year with Sister Clorina should have been a good one. She did Science. We studied the classic simple machines: lever, incline plane, screw, pulley, wedge, and wheel and axle. She even pointed out that a screw is really just an incline plane wrapped around a pivot point. This was good stuff. We learned about meteorology and taxonomy. Why wasn’t it working? For one thing, she had no joy once Mary Wirhanowicz got really sick and was gone for weeks. I brought homework to Mary and back to school regularly. Did I get any credit for helping the BVM wannabe? No I did not. Looking for credit is always a sure way to not get any. I was dead last in the rankings of teacher’s pet, even behind Renee Kucze and she NEVER adhered to the dress code.

Mary eventually recovered and returned to class. My only hope was merit by association. No luck. Christmas rolled around and the requisite study of the Nativity. We learned about the Magi, those astrologers from the East. The question was obvious, so I asked it, “If they understood how important Jesus was before He was even born, shouldn’t we be studying their Religion?” Sister Clorina never called on me again.

Second grade crawled on. I was dying to ask about the blessing of the throats on Saint Blaise Day, February 3, but I couldn’t ask Sister Clorina. I thought the hubbub was kind of cool -- how we’d line up and have blest candles criss-crossed about our necks with a little prayer for health offered – but still didn’t understand it. My mom, who was much more informed and cynical than I could have realized then, knew a little about it. One of the miracles attributed to Saint Blaise was miraculously saving someone from choking. His “day” was the day after Candlemas, February 2, when families traditionally brought in all their candles to be sanctified.

“While this is completely pointless in the 20th century,” she postulated, “imagine what candles meant to a family three hundred, five hundred, seven hundred years ago.” Having them blest would be a prudent gesture to Christians throughout Old Europe and the Byzantine Empire, she hoped I would agree. In my limited comprehension, however, I continued to attempt reconciliation of all of this with Groundhog Day. Maybe the flicker of candles cast interesting shadows on any groundhogs popping out of holes on the same day.

By Lent, I knew better than to ask questions. During the required Tuesday-after-school Stations of the Cross, I languished with questions. It’s not three days between the afternoon of Good Friday and dawn of Easter Sunday. It’s two. Much later, I learned that the Jewish day starts at sundown, so it was definitely only two days. I did not dare ask. And the renaming of Simon to Peter, the rock. What was that about? That was a whole lot of palaver over one little verse and the power that Saul/Paul grabbed anyway. I didn’t get it and couldn’t ask.

At Pentecost, I remember sitting amiably in the pew, gently kicking at the kneeler after the Gospel Reading, followed by a rambling homily about Doubting Thomas. He misses a visit from the post-Resurrection Christ and demands physical proof. Christ does come to revisit and offers Thomas a chance to “probe the nail holes.” Thomas believes even though there’s no record of him poking his fingers anywhere – seriously not in a single one of the four Gospels -- just being with Him again is sufficient. Christ then adds “blessed are they that have not seen but still believe.”

Yes, I committed to myself – kick, kick, kick -- I will never be like Doubting Thomas, needing proof like that. To this day, I have never witnessed any firsthand wowza moment. Some friends of mine have hosted these remarkable, spiritual ongoing events where miracles of joy, epiphany and synchronicity are a regular occurrence for years. Long-lost friends reunite. Extraordinary fund-raising. Mysterious healings. You name it. Whenever I show up, it’s invariably an “off night.” My friend who has witnessed it all invariably shrugs and says, “I don’t know what happened this time. Maybe it was the traffic.” I trust their reality. I have to, because I wasn’t there.

I was still mindlessly kicking the kneeler. Why didn’t they recognize Christ as Jesus when meeting Him after the Resurrection? Seriously, they don’t recognize Him at first. Why would that be? What was the big deal about a physical resurrection anyway? The Old Testament was full of them. I could get the importance of a spiritual one – I thought: Peter … Rock … denied Him and the hiding … rock rolled away … blah, blah, blah … Didn’t Jesus call His followers His body? I was not about to ask questions. The symbolism worked so much better than literal story. Don’t ask; don’t tell. Just get through second grade.

By the end of that year, Father Podolak, that gentle, rambling soul who would eventually preside over my wedding years later, announced that the school would be closing at June. My sister and I were devastated. My brothers and older sisters were already going off to junior high and senior high school, mercifully saved from attending more Catholic school by the cost of tuition times six. Mary and I lay in bed with the blankets kicked off, feeling entombed by the muggy heaviness of Wisconsin in the summer bemoaning our fate, a public school education with their loose morals and strange ways. Of this we were sure. No potentially free music lessons from Sister Acquitaine; no exciting tales about WWI in Italy from Mrs. Lambert; no stern preparation for junior high from Sister Rhodelia whose great contribution to our family was her encouragement to my parents that my shy, nervous, older sister Jackie would achieve every regular thing, just in her own time. We were off to public school and weekly Catholic CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. I kid you not).

How wrong we were! At the public school, we got free music lessons on any instrument we chose from hip young musicians; one for band instruments, the other for strings (my choice, obviously). And Mrs. Grossman taught us singing. She really liked how Mary (either one) and I sang together. By the following Christmas, my sister now a fifth grader and I a third grader sang in front of an audience of hundreds a harmonized duet of Mel Torme’s A Christmas Song. Afterwards Brian Doherty spoke directly to me, probably the only time he ever did, “You have guts. Double guts.” Respect. I don’t remember seeing him after that.

We also had a regular dedicated art teacher, Miss Sanford. She got a nose job the following summer and nobody recognized her when she returned. The best part was, my third grade teacher, Miss Nawrocki. She looked like a Barbie doll. She wore wigs of different colors and lengths. She got married halfway through the year and became Mrs. Raniewicz. Dang. We had just conquered spelling capital-N A W R O C K I. She directed a class musical. I had lunch with her a couple of years ago. She is still awesome, although significantly shorter than I thought. Public school was fine. Better than fine. It was great. To heck with you, Sister Clorina.

Around ninth grade, Confirmation rolled around. It was time for me to publicly commit to God and His Church, whatever that meant. Among the somewhat arbitrary options for going through a Catholic Confirmation is taking a new name. It has little or no intrinsic meaning within Western cultures, but the vestigial tradition hangs on. My 15-year-old self was interested in saving the world by becoming a medical doctor – didn’t happen: boys, booze, and a reading disability derailed that vague idea during the first semester of college – so I chose the name “Blaise” as my Confirmation name. I had mistakenly thought he was the patron saint of physicians. I was a piss-poor researcher back then too. So many of his miracles had to do with healing, particularly having to do with throat ailments and choking. Who am I kidding? I claimed the name Blaise because the choice was due the week after the whole Candlemas/Saint Blaise weirdness -- exactly forty days after Christmas. What was this thing with forty days anyway?  Noah in the Ark, Jesus in the desert, Buddha under the Bodi Tree, the Prophet Mohammad in a cave.  There’s Lent.  There are periods of mourning, of fasting or of thanksgiving in most belief systems.  

In any case, my choice of Blaise, a male name, upset a fair few people, so I had to write a couple of letters to some persnickety council of some kind. The request was okayed … with reservations. The actual Confirmation was forgettable other than choir director being in a car accident on the way there, so the choir – which included my mother, my sister Mary, Mary Wirhanowicz and me – had to wing it.

“So why was the name Blaise so important to you?” Father Podolak asked me months later.

“Well, if this spirituality stuff doesn’t work out, ‘Blaze’ is a good name for a stripper.” The words were out of my mouth before I ran them through my brain. I kept walking.

The next time I saw Fr. P, he said, “Jean, do you know how we make holy water?”

“You bless it?” I stammered.

“No, you boil the Hell out of it.” He smiled apologetically and gently clarified, “That was a joke.”

I chatted with a priest at a wedding I was hired to sing for a few years later, I mentioned the parish I grew up in. The priest said, “Ah! Bill Podolak, a kind man.”

“Yes, indeed.” I was running out of things to say.

“… not a dynamic speaker.”

“No, indeed.” We laughed, all too cruelly I believe.

In spite of my bad research skills, Saint Blaise continues to intrigue me. Having been martyred by being beaten to death with iron combs used for wool combing and carding, Saint Blaise has since been associated with any trade having to do with wool since the Middle Ages, not the healing arts. So, after all the hubbub about me picking a male saint’s name, perhaps it works for me. After all, what is my essay-writing but glorified wool-gathering?

The year after my Confirmation, I lived in Tunisia through a foreign exchange program the same summer that Monty Python’s Flying Circus filmed Life of Brian a mere 100 kilometers away. I did not find out until just after my return to the US, by watching an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Eric Idle. His monologue was about the long, sad love songs Tunisians sing with such relish and the ubiquity of jasmine there. Mr. Idle’s monologue went over like a fart in church as the saying goes. My family, however, laughed spasmodically as they recalled the similar stories from my letters home. Dad with his ever-present bowl of popcorn balanced on his chest, fell off the couch chortling. Mr. Idle’s underappreciated monologue notwithstanding, my summer in Tunisia changed my perceptions of just about everything. I had lived with a Moslem family in a Moslem neighborhood in a Moslem village. They valued education and kindness, respect and humor, the individual and the collective. The child peeking out of the doorway to see the American girl may have looked like an advertisement for C.A.R.E., but I came to know that her family loved her abundantly, fed her regularly if frugally, and had dreams and hopes for her. Neshua, the daughter of my host family closest to my age, and I were invited to several homes. Some of those invitations were offered because I was a curiosity to the village. In most of the humbler homes, there was a carpet in the works, a large frame taking up a wall in their main living space. A color plot hung taped to one of the loom’s posts. I learned to knot and trim the wool according to the plot, to shift the heddle and weft shuttle, to tamp work with the kleleh to compact the threads. We sat together, partly in fellowship, partly to contribute to the household. One little girl elbowed her way next to me knotting two to my one and announce that she would teach me the Arabic alphabet. “C’est très important” for me to learn how to read Arabic. I never did, except for “Coca-Cola” which I suspect had more to do with it being on large red billboards.

I was quite full of myself. Eventually the lessons of that summer, about the oneness of Religion, not the Arabic alphabet, sunk in. No longer would the coat of we’re-right/they’re-wrong Christianity fit me properly.

Eventually, I was off to college where at some point I made out with a guy who decided to become a priest. I think there may be something more to process about that. Maybe not. I ended up eventually working in Washington DC and met my future husband Mike at a Trivial Pursuit party in the apartment complex we both lived in. We were both Arabic-speaking (although mine was pretty patchy), left-handed (which has its own complications in Middle Eastern countries), green-eyed Catholics. It was Kismet. Oh, and we both preferred to drink milk with pizza. Like I said, Kismet. We went through all the Catholic wedding hoops and started our family when I got pushed onto a spiritual journey by a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While the JW logic never worked for me, I will forever be grateful to Betty and LaVonne for starting me on the journey. Here I will skip chapters full of synchronicities that only Baha’is would find amusing, we attended some meetings referred to as Firesides after moving to San Jose, California a few years later.

The speaker one evening expounded on the subject of Progressive Revelation. In brief, Progressive Revelation encompasses the idea that Religion is unfolding over time as humanity becomes ready for a fuller understanding of the true nature of Reality. The speaker went on to offer examples of how Judaism begot Christianity and primarily affected Europe in its initial reach and development. Likewise, Hinduism begot Buddhism which moved out to Asia. Islam is also Abrahamic but was couched in Zoroastrian customs as well. It spread into North Africa, the Middle East, Oceania. The Baha’i Faith was revealed just as the world needed to start thinking globally, in the mid-19th century. Any corruption of Religion has to do with mankind messing with it, not with the purity of the original Message. This made some sense to me, but I didn’t know anything about Zoroaster. The speaker recognized my raised eyebrow-of-confusion and explained.

The moment the speaker explained that the primary understanding of Zoroastrianism in the West would be the Zodiac. He also mentioned that the priesthood was referred to as the Magi, as in the “astrologers from the East.” In that moment, all the disparate thoughts from the time I was seven onward coalesced in my mind’s eye like a jigsaw puzzle completing itself. I wiggled in my seat in excitement, trying not to disturb the tiny middle-aged woman of Asian descent or the black man next to me who had fallen asleep. He was snoring full out and no one was perturbed by it. His wife, a white woman at least a head taller than he was, later explained that he had had a stroke during brain surgery a few years before and often fell asleep. The oneness of God, the oneness of Humanity, the oneness of Religion all made sense to me. In that blink of an eye, I saw the interlocking of fact and legend, of the Magi and the Baby, of tradition and skepticism. I was back with Sister Clorina, Saint Blaise, and my family in Tunisia.

It was both in an instant and over the course of my lifetime up to that point that I came to this understanding. A few weeks after that night, Mike and I together declared our Faith in Bahá'u'lláh, that is to say, became adherents to the Baha'i Faith. We have found our lives infinitely richer because of that choice, so have our children (so they tell me). It is not easy to always keep in mind that each and every person that exists or did exist or will exist is unique and beloved by God, or that our individual Free Wills can send us in all different directions, or that "This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future" as Bahá'u'lláh says. In fact, it's mostly challenging. Building Heaven on Earth is not for sissies. However, I know it is the right thing for me to pursue.

I still do not get my faith confirmed by fantastical measures. I’d love to see a crowd of people collectively gung their foreheads with the heels of their hands that the oneness of Humanity is a fact and the work it will take for every person to feel loved and beloved as the family we are will be worth the effort and sacrifice. I’d love to see someone healed miraculously. I still get the sense that I won't ever witness events like that first hand.

Occasionally, I do witness people who die with grace or see a smile generated from a purely motivated kindness perpetrated on an unsuspecting grump. It is things like that -- tiny, lovely indications that my spiritual path is worth toddling upon – with which I chose to be satisfied. I promised myself so long ago that it would be enough.

Sister Clorina was only in my life for six months over fifty years ago. She still pops into my head, usually when I am accused of being “too sensitive” about something. I’d love to prove to you that she’s not important to me now, but you’ll just have to take that on faith.

#Tunisia #saintblaise #doubtingthomas #bahai #baha'u'llah #SisterClorina

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santaprofit5-blog · 5 years ago

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Our Favorite Feature Stories of 2018

[Photographs: Clay Williams, Vicky Wasik, Jennifer Burns Bright, Adam Kuban, Max Falkowitz]

For most of our readers, the feature stories on Serious Eats aren't the biggest draw—some who know us strictly for our recipes probably don't even realize we publish anything else. But when we looked back at all the features we produced this year, we were struck by both their number and their variety, and it was gratifying (especially for the feature editors among us!) to watch as the whole staff pored over the list and everyone rushed to call dibs on their favorites.

Granted, a "feature" on Serious Eats can mean a lot of very different things: a guide to a particular ingredient, or category of ingredient, or cuisine; an exploration of an odd American regional food or the history behind an iconic international one; an interview from our Obsessed series; a personal essay; a reported investigation of a segment of the food industry.

What we hope these all have in common is that readers will get from them not just what they were expecting when they clicked on the title, but more—we want our personal essays to be personal, but also teach something; we want our guides and other service-oriented pieces to be informative, but also buoyed by a strong voice and sense of humor.

Whatever category they fall into, the features described below are the ones that most resonated with the Serious Eats staff in 2018. We were fascinated by, among other things, the winding and sometimes bizarre history of soy milk in the US, the care and labor that go into making a traditional Japanese breakfast, the baking ingredients we absolutely needed to add to our (apparently understocked) pantries, and a glimpse into the mind of a veteran brewmaster. After you've read this list, we hope you'll find yourself similarly hooked.

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

If you know me, you know that I consider BraveTart to be nothing less than a bible. It's the first baking cookbook I've ever made multiple recipes from, and the only baking cookbook I've ever given as a gift. Every anecdote, brownie, cake, and homemade Oreo provides insight into Stella's soul and genius. And the more I learn, the more I want to learn, which is why I love this post about the pantry items Stella considers essential for baking. Knowing the exact ingredients she uses has definitely given my baking an edge, and when I combine those ingredients with her can't-fail recipes, I know I can achieve the very best version of everything I make. In Stella we trust! —Ariel Kanter, director of commerce strategy and editorial

The Baker's Pantry: All the Staples You Need to Make Amazing Desserts »

[Photograph: Clay Williams]

In the early years of Serious Eats' existence, pizza was a large part of the site's bread and butter, except that instead of bread and butter, it was bread and tomato sauce and cheese. The editors and writers of old SE covered 'za so exhaustively for so many years that, at a certain point, it felt like there wasn't much left to say. After you've written nearly every conceivable recipe, explored every significant pizza joint nationwide (plus thousands of pretty insignificant ones) in more passionate depth than any other publication could ever hope to, and basically written the book on the subject, what else is there?

That's largely why there's been so much less pizza coverage on SE in recent years—the archives speak for themselves. But that's also why it thrilled me to see pizza come roaring back in this great two-part series about pizza in one of its meccas, New York City. Written by Ed, with major assists from pizza experts Adam Kuban and Scott Wiener, the first part (linked below) catches us up to 2018 after several years of Serious Silence on pizza, while the second is a perfectly curated list of some of the very best places to grab a slice citywide. —Daniel Gritzer, managing culinary director

State of the Slice, Part 1 »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

This isn't exactly a typical feature story, but by the time I'd finished reading, I'd gained much more of an understanding of how to assemble a Japanese breakfast. Sho takes readers to his grandmother's breakfast table in Japan before breaking down the significance of the meal, one component at a time. His writing is funny and warm, and it makes you feel as if a close friend is standing by to assist when this breakfast turns out to be much more complicated than you'd anticipated. —Elazar Sontag, editorial assistant

How to Make a Japanese Breakfast »

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

Mezcal is hands down my favorite liquor—I just love the smoky layer it adds to any cocktail. Reading about how painstakingly difficult it is to produce and distill mezcal made me fall that much more in love with the spirit itself. Max takes us through the entire journey, from the agave plant to how mezcaleros capture the smokiness that I adore so much. This very thorough and admirable mezcal bible makes me want to hop on the next flight to Oaxaca. —Grace Chen, office manager and associate podcast producer

The Spirit of Mexico: A Guide to Mezcal »

[Photograph: Jennifer Burns Bright]

As much as I love oysters, my previous knowledge of them sadly didn't extend much beyond "they taste good and sometimes make pearls." Jennifer's article has changed that for me (or brought me out of my shell?). After reading the story of the Olympia oyster and the immense effort it takes to get them on your plate, I'm now deep-diving into the world of bivalves. Their history is fascinating, but I'm mostly grateful for their comeback, because it's now the oyster I look for on any raw-bar menu. —Joel Russo, video producer

This Small West Coast Oyster Is Making a Big Comeback »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

There is no argument that New York has one of the richest and most ethnically diverse food scenes in the world. This practical list makes global fare (hello, Cuban-Chinese!) accessible on a budget. I keep it bookmarked on my phone as a cheat sheet for casual nights out, when the answer to “Where do you want to eat?” is “I don’t know, but it’s gotta be good and cheap.” —Maggie Lee, UX designer

15 Under $15: Great Bites in NYC That Won't Break the Bank »

[Photograph: Chris Low]

The idea for Becky Selengut's entertaining and informative guide to the Pacific razor clam was originally hatched by Sho, who never met a mollusk he didn't like. But when I took editing responsibilities on it, it became my baby, and though it required a fair amount of coaxing into being—including coordinating a West Coast–based clamming/photography excursion, carried out at twilight, and waiting months on a shipment of live Pacific razor clams to our New York office so Daniel could test out Becky's shucking directions—it felt like a huge triumph when it was finally finished and published.

Okay, maybe my toil isn't enough of a reason for you to read this article, so here are a few real ones: To me, it represents a combination of practical guidance and instruction, "I didn't know that!" fun facts, and personal investment by the author that's ideal in a feature story. Reading it, you understand not only that Becky is an expert at gathering and cooking with these clams, but also that she loves this subject matter. Even if you'll never eat a Pacific razor in your life, it's a joy to read, especially when paired with Chris Low's lovely, moody photos of that evening clamming expedition in the PNW. —Miranda Kaplan, senior editor

Fat, Ugly, and Delicious: A Guide to the Pacific Razor Clam »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

In a totally different vein from the Pacific razor clam guide, Nadia Berenstein's story on soy milk's journey from a symbol of technological progress, to a health food for religious zealots and hippie environmentalists, to international success and semi-acceptance by the American mainstream, is a great, quirky ride. It's hard not to love a serious food history in which farting emerges as a major theme. —Miranda Kaplan, senior editor

A Brief History of Soy Milk, the Future Food of Yesterday »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

When Tabitha Blankenbiller pitched us a story about cooking from the American Girl doll cookbooks, I was immediately sold. One of my male counterparts, however, who grew up so far removed from the exorbitant price and captivating realism of the American Girl doll "experience" that he wasn't even sure what American Girl dolls were, was skeptical, to say the least.

I think it speaks volumes that we both wound up enthusiastic about the finished piece, which captures the peculiar zeitgeist of the American Girl doll generation with remarkable accuracy and a cutting humor. It's an irreverent bit of writing that will nonetheless resonate with anyone who has something to feel nostalgic and complicated about. I'll admit that the opportunity to spend a full day of my job building a teeny-tiny kitchen and grooming American Girl dolls for our epic photo shoot was something of a bonus. —Niki Achitoff-Gray, executive managing editor

The Great American Girl Doll Cook-Off »

[Photograph: Adam Kuban]

I really enjoyed Sho's Obsessed interview with Slice founder Adam Kuban. As a pizza-loving Serious Eater, I'm certainly the target audience for this interview, but beyond that, I find Adam's story admirable: He's turned his obsession into businesses, twice (and he's still working at it). —Paul Cline, VP of product

Obsessed: Slicemeister Adam Kuban Deep-Dishes on His Pizza Dreams »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

I am so happy that amaro has gone mainstream. It used to be really hard to find here in the States, but not anymore. This piece is a great introduction to the perfect digestif, and gives a good rundown of the big-name amari on the market. —Sasha Marx, senior culinary editor

Amari 101: Your Guide to Italy’s Essential Bittersweet Liqueurs »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

Sherry is one of those things folks are always trying to pair with dessert, but despite my background as a pastry chef, I don't know my way around sherry well enough to offer up any meaningful suggestions. Getting to know the various styles and sweetness levels was tremendously helpful in bettering my understanding of how to pair sherries with dessert in a way that will offer the best complement or contrast, rather than hitting all the sugar-sweet notes. —Stella Parks, pastry wizard

Sherry 101: An Introduction to the Hippest Old-Person Drink Around »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

My path to the discovery of good beer was similar to Garrett Oliver's, in that I drank swill all through college before a revelatory experience opened my eyes shortly thereafter. I became acquainted with the wider world of interesting beer while working as a server at Teresa's Next Door in Wayne, Pennsylvania (a 2018 James Beard Award semifinalist for Outstanding Bar Program). The restaurant had an exhaustive beer list, and I was forced (*ahem*) to taste every beer that rotated through the taps, discovering the complexities and nuance that defined the brewing world beyond Budweiser. Everyone at the restaurant, including me, owned a copy of Oliver's canonical The Brewmaster's Table to learn about styles of beer and how they pair with food.

So I was very excited when Sho's Obsessed interview with this great brewmaster popped up, and the read did not disappoint. The dude is smart as hell and really knows his craft. He speaks so well about the past, present, and future of brewing and his own personal experience, but you can tell he's also brimming with insightful commentary on much more. Oliver's keen mind makes for a fascinating profile—my favorite Obsessed interview of the year. Now, off to find the cut material... —Tim Aikens, front-end developer

Obsessed: Garrett Oliver on Brewing Better Beer »

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

A pretty well-known fact about me around the Serious Eats office is that I love pasta. It's even my spirit food in my masthead photo. Every single Italian recipe that Daniel has made has been photographed (and, most likely, devoured) by yours truly. This comprehensive list not only reminds me of all the tasty bowls of pasta I've eaten, but actually gives me the confidence that I can cook a lot of them on my own! —Vicky Wasik, visual director

The Essential Steps to Mastering Italian Cuisine »

[Illustration: Misha Zadeh]

I admire this piece by Porochista Khakpour immensely, and I feel very lucky for having had the opportunity to work with her. Khakpour is an accomplished novelist and memoirist—her most recent book, Sick, was published this year—and I could read her writing on any subject. While her Nowruz piece is nominally concerned with how meaningful the Persian New Year is for her, what I find so appealing about it is that it is ultimately about how being Iranian is an essential part of her American identity, which I believe is a particularly valuable bit of insight in light of the conversations taking place across the country about immigration. —Sho Spaeth, features editor

A Time of Plenty: Celebrating Nowruz in America »

[Illustration: Tram Nguyen]

I really love the way Mithila Phadke writes, not just about the food in this piece but in general. I think this piece illustrates the range of her voice, and how it can be used to talk about both weighty and light things. What I most like about this piece, though, is that while much of the focus is on her grandmother's cooking and, of course, on her loss, it also manages to deftly underscore how little is understood of the vast and varied cuisine of the Indian subcontinent, even (and especially!) by those who grew up there. I grew up in New Delhi, and I found it incredibly edifying; I hope you all do, too. —Sho Spaeth, features editor

Ajji's Cooking: Preserving an Unsung Cuisine »

[Video: Serious Eats Video]

D. Gritzer's guide to mortars and pestles has everything I like about our service-oriented features. First of all, it goes deep—way deep. Who knew how many kinds of mortars and pestles there were, from every corner of the world: Japanese, Mexican, Thai, and Mediterranean ones, just for starters? Plus, there's plenty of history in the post, all of it engagingly presented to the reader. Finally, Daniel explains in one word what a mortar and pestle does better than more modern inventions: it crushes. Just like Daniel's story does. —Ed Levine, founder

How to Pick the Best Mortar and Pestle »

[Photograph: Jai Williams]

Interest in Lao cuisine appears to be quietly but steadily building across the United States. If, like me, you're naturally curious about it, or if you suddenly find yourself seated before a Lao menu, whip out this fun primer so you can discern muu haeng from siin haeng and learn what goes best with jaew bong. —John Mattia, video editor

A Guide to the Essential Dishes of Laos »

[Illustration: Annelise Capossela]

As a reformed picky eater, I identified so strongly with Irina's story. There's a lot of flexing in food media about the babies of chefs and writers who will eat anything put in front of them because they're the kids of good eaters. But I find the image of Irina's son eating two mac and cheese sandwiches a lot more compelling than those overdone flexes: It speaks to discernment, judgment, and developing your tastes on your own time. —Kristina Bornholtz, social media editor

The Kid Is All Right: In Defense of Picky Eating »

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Source: https://www.seriouseats.com/roundups/favorite-features-2018

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csemntwinl3x0a1 · 7 years ago

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From USENET to Facebook: The second time as farce

Demanding and building a social network that serves us and enables free speech, rather than serving a business metric that amplifies noise, is the way to end the farce.

Re-interpreting Hegel, Marx said that everything in history happens twice, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. That’s a fitting summary of Facebook’s Very Bad Month. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, nothing about abuse, trolling, racism, spam, porn, and even bots that hasn’t already happened. This time as farce? Certainly Zuckerberg’s 14-year Apology Tour, as Zeynep Tufecki calls it, has the look and feel of a farce. He just can’t stop apologizing for Facebook’s messes.

Except that the farce isn’t over yet. We’re in the middle of it. As Tufekci points out, 2018 isn’t the first time Zuckerberg has said “we blew it, we’ll do better.” Apology has been a roughly biennial occurrence since Facebook’s earliest days. So, the question we face is simple: how do we bring this sad history to an endpoint that isn’t farce? The third time around, should there be one, it isn’t even farce; it’s just stupidity. We don’t have to accept future apologies, whether they come from Zuck or some other network magnate, as inevitable.

I want to think about what we can learn from the forerunners of modern social networks—specifically about USENET, the proto-internet of the 1980s and 90s. (The same observations probably apply to BBSs, though I’m less familiar with them.) USENET was a decentralized and unmanaged system that allowed Unix users to exchange “posts” by sending them to hundreds of newsgroups. It started in the early 80s, peaked sometime around 1995, and arguably ended as tragedy (though it went out with a whimper, not a bang).

Facebook repeats the pattern of USENET, this time as farce. As a no-holds-barred Wild West sort of social network, USENET was filled with everything we rightly complain about today. It was easy to troll and be abusive; all too many participants did it for fun. Most groups were eventually flooded by spam, long before spam became a problem for email. Much of that spam distributed pornography or pirated software (“warez”). You could certainly find newsgroups in which to express your inner neo-Nazi or white supremacist self. Fake news? We had that; we had malicious answers to technical questions that would get new users to trash their systems. And yes, there were bots; that technology isn’t as new as we’d like to think.

But there was a big divide on USENET between moderated and unmoderated newsgroups. Posts to moderated newsgroups had to be approved by a human moderator before they were pushed to the rest of the network. Moderated groups were much less prone to abuse. They weren’t immune, certainly, but moderated groups remained virtual places where discussion was mostly civilized, and where you could get questions answered. Unmoderated newsgroups were always spam-filled and frequently abusive, and the alt.* newsgroups, which could be created by anyone, for any reason, matched anything we have now for bad behavior.

So, the first thing we should learn from USENET is the importance of moderation. Fully human moderation at Facebook scale is impossible. With seven billion pieces of content shared per day, even a million moderators would have to scan seven thousand posts each: roughly 4 seconds per post. But we don’t need to rely on human moderation. After USENET’s decline, research showed that it was possible to classify users as newbies, helpers, leaders, trolls, or flamers, purely by their communications patterns—with only minimal help from the content. This could be the basis for automated moderation assistants that kick suspicious posts over to human moderators, who would then have the final word. Whether automated or human, moderators prevent many of the bad posts from being made in the first place. It’s no fun being a troll if you can’t get through to your victims.

Automated moderation can also do fact checking. The technology that won Jeopardy a decade ago is more than capable of checking basic facts. It might not be capable of checking complex logic, but most “fake news” centers around facts that can easily be evaluated. And automated systems are very capable of detecting bots: Google’s Gmail has successfully throttled spam.

What else can we learn from USENET? Trolls were everywhere, but the really obnoxious stuff stayed where it was supposed to be. I’m not naive enough to think that neo-Nazis and white supremacists will dry up and go away, on Facebook or elsewhere. And I’m even content to allow them to have their own Facebook pages: Facebook can let these people talk to each other all they want, because they’re going to do that anyway, whatever tools you put in place. The problem we have now is that Facebook’s engagement metric paves the road to their door. Once you give someone a hit of something titillating, they’ll come back for more. And the next hit has to be stronger. That’s how you keep people engaged, and that’s (as Tufekci has argued about YouTube) how you radicalize them.

USENET had no engagement metrics, no means of linking users to stronger content. Islands of hatred certainly existed. But in a network that didn’t optimize for engagement, hate groups didn’t spread. Neo-Nazis and their like were certainly there, but you had to search them out, you weren’t pushed to them. The platform didn’t lead you there, trying to maximize your “engagement.” I can’t claim that was some sort of brilliant design on USENET’s part; it just wasn’t something anyone thought about at the time. And as a free service, there was a need to maximize profit. Facebook’s obsession with engagement is ultimately more dangerous than their sloppy handling of personal data. “Engagement” allows—indeed, encourages—hate groups to metastasize.

Engagement metrics harm free speech, another ideal carried to the modern internet from the USENET world. But in an “attention economy,” where the limiting factor is attention, not speech, we have to rethink what those values mean. I’ve said that USENET ended in a “whimper”—but what drained the energy away? The participants who contributed real value just got tired of wading through the spam and fighting off the trolls. They went elsewhere. USENET’s history gives us a warning: good speech was crowded off the stage by bad speech.

Speech that exists to crowd out other speech isn’t the unfettered interchange of ideas. Free speech doesn’t mean the right to a platform. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution already makes that distinction: “freedom of the press” is about platforms, and you don’t get freedom of the press unless you have a press. Again, Zeynep Tufekci has it: in “It’s the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech,” she writes “The most effective forms of censorship today involve meddling with trust and attention, not muzzling speech itself.” Censorship isn’t about arresting dissidents; it’s about generating so much noise that voices you don’t like can’t be heard.

If we’re to put an end to the farce, we need to understand what it means to enable speech, rather than to drown it out. Abandoning “engagement” is part of the solution. We will be better served by a network that, like USENET, doesn’t care how people engage, and that allows them to make their own connections. Automated moderation can be a tool that makes room for speech, particularly if we can take advantage of communication patterns to moderate those whose primary goal is to be the loudest voice.

Marx certainly would have laid blame at the feet of Zuckerberg, for naively and profitably commoditizing the social identities of his users. But blame is not a solution. As convenient a punching bag as Zuckerberg is, we have to recognize that Facebook’s problems extend to the entire social world. That includes Twitter and YouTube, many other social networks past and present, and many networks that are neither online nor social. Expecting Zuck to “fix Facebook” may be the best way to guarantee that the farce plays on.

History is only deterministic in hindsight, and it doesn’t have to end in farce (or worse). We all build our social networks, and Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the only player on history’s stage. We need to revisit, reassess, and learn from all of our past social networks. Demanding and building a social network that serves us and enables free speech, rather than serving a business metric that amplifies noise, is the way to end the farce.

Is that a revolution? We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Continue reading From USENET to Facebook: The second time as farce.

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doorrepcal33169 · 7 years ago

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From USENET to Facebook: The second time as farce

Demanding and building a social network that serves us and enables free speech, rather than serving a business metric that amplifies noise, is the way to end the farce.

Is that a revolution? We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Continue reading From USENET to Facebook: The second time as farce.

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megatechcrunch · 7 years ago

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Demanding and building a social network that serves us and enables free speech, rather than serving a business metric that amplifies noise, is the way to end the farce.

Is that a revolution? We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Continue reading From USENET to Facebook: The second time as farce.

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nccr · 8 years ago

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Like m I rite?

- To write when you know someone is actually reading is like, doing your weird-ass dance in front of a crowd. So I’m gonna start light.

- Like Famous philosopher A$AP Rocky says; “When the real niggas die, fake niggas gon’ multiply.” he also wants you to “aks” tumblr if he is accurate and you know what, I really think he is.

- Like Karl Marx says; “Rap is the opium of the music”, and he is right too. You don’t think when you listen to rap music. It just is something to past time. You try to sing it, fuck it up miserably and when you look at the time, you already killed another night while sitting at home.

- Like, you can call any Irishmen living abroad “Paddie”. They are okay with it. Trust me I asked to Paddie1, Paddie2.

- Like a close friend of mine got married about 3 days ago. He is a gynaecologist, his wife is an ER doctor and their wedding made it in the National News. The story continuous; “…. they celebrated with their fellow doctor colleges and others…” WE WERE THE FUCKING OTHERS! Like our power halay was nothing! If you aren’t rich, you are others apparently.

- Like, listening Irish Folk Songs either makes you want to sail like a pirate or wanna rebel against the government.

- Like, no one out of Glasgow likes people from Glasgow. They can be pain in the arse if you are not familiar with their accent. They are actually better than snobs from southern Britain. Those bastards decided to call me “American” for a week because I sounded like one. Limey bastards.

- Like, I have two English accents which I think is weird. I normally speak with an American accent because it’s easier to understand for non-natives but as soon as I bump in to a Brit, I start talking like a Scott. Once on a drinking table with some British mates, Scotts next table thought I was from Edinbrah. We fooled them all, a good 20 minutes. Then they realised I didn’t know shit about Edinburgh. I got two free pints out of it though, I’m proud.

- Like, as much as I love Irish, I despise Bostonians. What the hell is that accent mate?

- If you don’t speak English, I’m not that funny. Because half of my humour is fueled by English/Turkish wordplay. And I know a lot of English jokes which translates to Turkish poorly.

- When I started working in an office for the first time, I was in constant fear of people having to realise I was retarded. That they would think I was actually a very talented ape. I mean I barely started working there and had no idea about what was going on. And I was expected to know what I didn’t know in Turkish to know in Russian. So I mostly squinted my eyes and pretended to understand while thinking; “They know I am retarded, there is no way they are buying this.” and totally miss what the conversation was about, so I would repeat what they said and try to gain some time on them. Turns out, they think I’m like this because I’m weird smart. I had no idea what was going on first two months. I mean mistakes were made… Now it’s all fine though.

- Cultural difference is, by far, my favourite topic. I mean when I was little, it was so absurd to think there were any other countries speaking a whole different languages. Now that I know better, I try to meet as much foreigners as I can. Because someone growing up with an whole different set of rules for the world fascinates me. Totally different fears, joys, hobbies than ours. Even in the same house we did so many different things according to each other it was mind blowing, how can such little things matter so much, just because of language and national differences. Even between countries who speaks the same language. For an easy example we can take USA and GB, once I was chatting around the pub and being a friendly guy and this lady sits there frowning. So I go to her and ask why she was “brooding”. I mean from what I know, it means “having dark thoughts, frowning, having a busy mind”. She looks at me like I insulted her, and I am a bit embarrassed because I am not sure of what I just did. Did I pronounced something badly? So I ask her again; “Why are you brooding? Are you alright? Do you need company?”. Again she looks at me like I just insulted her ancestors. I said sorry just incase and left. Later on, a very good man, Brian, tells me what brooding means in British; Brooding means a woman feeling ready and expecting to be pregnant soon. I asked a woman if she was expecting a baby, in a pub, and if she needed company. She must have thought of me an asshole. It was embarrassing. Whatever that’s not the point. So much changes even in the same languages but different locations. Like the words we use in the west, north, south and the east of the same country. I know it’s boring for anyone who is not interested but it just fascinates me. I can listen a person talking about his origins, whereabouts and how they do things in there, a full night! Once we talked about why don’t they say barmy in the Southern Britain about 2 hours. I loved every minute of it. For an example for Russians, they don’t shake hands in any entrance of any place. In their beliefs, it will either bring bad luck for the place or someone from that location will die. How hardcore is that! I found it hilarious! Got scolded by my ex countless times because I made fun of it. I mean from the films we watch and the music we listen, we don’t know which belongs where and I love learning where and why.

- One of my best friends is doing his army duty for almost 10 months now. We had almost the same fate. We dropped out and went abroad. Came back to nothing, he decided to be chef, I decided to bruise my elbows on the tables for a bit. And then the duty called, we went in. He got drafted, I didn’t, due to health issues. I never wanted to become a soldier. I never did, honestly. I’ve always seen it as a very big burden. But as soon as I learned I was draft-exempted I wanted to know, how would it be to give your freedom away for a year. To be nothing but a tool. Would it take my mind from things that I’m always a about anxious about? Would it give me the passion I’ve always lacked? If I were to choose I would still choose on not going but it left question marks on my mind. Eventually all of my friends will do that. Not me, not ever. They all see this situation of mine as a gift, in a certain light, me too. At-least I got something out of it? So when I talk about this, they think I’m being obnoxious because I don’t have to go. But being totally excluded out of the experience kind of makes me want to go. And the worst part is, when I call my mate, I feel like I betrayed him by not going. Thinking of him alone in there surrounded by idiots. He is like me. He was the one who was there for me when I was abroad, surrounded by islamist perverts and had no one to talk to. Now it’s too hard to call him because I’m sitting at home doing nothing while he is in some outpost in the east where bullets go by like fireworks. Just the other day, he told me he just saw a woman a week ago, before that it’s been 6 months since he had seen a woman. How excited he had gotten, how beautiful it was to see a woman, just existing. I mean I’m not regretting missing that but I regret that I would have something less than my friends. It’s like when we were 14 and they all got beaten while I was on holiday. I was fucking sad I wasn’t there with them. It sounds obnoxious when you think about it, but a whole different story in me.

- I can’t speak to people freely, so writing is the first thing comes to my mind when something happens good or bad. It helps me think, weigh out any situation and this here, is my drunken thinking corner. I haven’t decided about this account’s fate yet. It’s hard to write about important stuff now that I know someone is seeing this pile. I’ve read every post here today. I mean, I love being drunk and all, but man are they bad! I’ve cringed from my tooth to toes!

- First time in years, I feel as if I’ve been given an answer of an important question of the universe. Life is not like in the books or in TV shows, so it takes a bit more time than you would anticipate but just being able to finally getting that closure sure does mean a lot. I mean I’m not clear of all feelings I’ve been having in just a day because we talked but it feels a curtain has been raised. I just want to be happy and that was a big step along the way. You have a friend in me yet.

- Teşekkür ederim.

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