#community development was just eck

[smiggles]

Everyone is lamenting about there no longer being a social media that EVERYONE is on and I think that's actually a good thing

Having smaller and separated communities was the norm for the internet for decades. Twitter being THE MAIN hub that EVERYONE must use is a new internet phenomenon that in my opinion was the downfall of internet happiness

Not the start of it. But the most noticable height

[ofswordsandsorcery]

My thoughts on SHADOW & BONE S2

SHADOW AND BONE SEASON 2 SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

GRISHA VERSE SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

!!!!SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!!!

I wrote this while watching, so it's really chaotic

Also, I haven't read any of the books in a while, so forgive me for not remembering how to correctly write the names and probably forgetting stuff :D

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED CLICK OFF THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE

Episode 1

A privateer actually, it's an important distinction

Take your fuckin shoes off the bed

TAMAR AND TOLYA FUCKING ICONIC

Episode 2

THE BOOK, IT'S LIVES OF SAITS, OH SAINTS IS IT BEAUTIFUL

"you live in a single moment I live in a thousand"

You're old as shit we get it

Nina Zenik is a fucking menace and I am SO living for it

Also, we love a queen that eats <3

Oh oh Nikolai trying to steal Mal's girlfriend i see

Tamar and Alina interaction ahsjsjsjsj

The bonding over being shu han???

Awww, i loveee themm

You are FANCY CARGO

I'M DYING

Wylan and Nikolai working together would be the end of the world as we know it

HE SAID THE LINE

HE SAID IMPROBABLE

I- I CAN'T OMGGG

I thought the girl working for Aleksander was Zoya for a sec and i was SO confused

Aww, Wylan he's beyond thrilled, he just doesn't show it love

FUTURE HUBBYYS

Jes getting his fucking hat before leaving is everything

Episode 3

Soaaring flyyyyinnn

Nikolai is one hell of an inventor

Jes and Wylan on a missionnn *in a singing voice*

Nina giving Kaz contra >>>

Ajsjyjsjsjs Prince Nikolai reveal i am jsksksjsj AN ICON, truly

You lying bastard

Whack

Even more iconic

David and Genyaaaaa

I love David

I'm still so incredibly mad

On an unrelated note: Lewis Tan is one fine man

A casting decision I actually love

Side eye to Nikolai

(sorry paddy, nothing against you, you are doing a wonderful job just really not how I imagined Nikolai to look at ALL)

Nadja meets Tamar

Brb, I'm going to turn in to a useless queer

Also, I love Aldrick

ZOYALINA ZOYALINA ZOYALINA

Fuck allies, you need a wife

I am so living for Wylan begrudgingly agreeing with Jes

Wylans horrified stare at the piano playing omg and the little flinch

"He's really good" lol

Jes is so falling in love with Wylan over his piano playing skills

That LOOK

YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT THAT IS SO CUTE I'M CRYING

Uhhh, kaz inej fight lol

Let me bandage it for you even tho i am deadly afraid of touching skin

Ahhh, communication

Omg the subtle shaking? The fear in his eyes? Well done.

What's your telll?

The cane the limp, know ones ever smart enough to look for the real one????

It's not what you think??

Nina is like yeah, take your bullshitting elsewhere

Ahaaa

I LOVE seeing that friendship develop.

Shit at first dates lmao

Love you Nina

Kaz fighting scene omg

Badass.

Crow club takeover? What?

Y'all I wasn't prepared for this

So much is happening at once, help

Eww he licked the knife? Bah

Go Inej, get his ass..

THE HAIR FLIP

INEJ INEJ INEJ INEJ INEJJJJJ

BABES YOU'RE FUCKING BADASS

Wow the prayer

So much emotionnnn

Ajhsjsjsj

Vladim, what are you doing love

General Kirigan what the actual fuck

That.. Is your mom

The horror on David's face

I feel the same way tho

I HaVe a PrOPosAL

Shut up Nikolai, you're gonna get punched again and you're face is actually to pretty for that...

STOP IT. They're holding hands

I repeat THEY ARE HOLDING HANDS

This is a fucking emotional roller-coaster

I'm not going anywhere - walks away

Thanks Jes, for saying what i thought

Jesper you little fuck

Don't betray Wylan like that?

Wylan talking about how Alby isn't responsible for who his father is

Van Eck im FUCKING LOOKING AT YOU

Oh Mathias my poor boy <3 he seriously needs a hug...

What's your price? Nuh uh

Episode 4

Vasily you idiot

TAMARR <3

Razrusha'ya

Ruined? I AM NOT RUINED I AM RUINATION

Baghra the wise im cackling

I KINDA LIKE YOUR FACE?

Jes you can't just drop that casually and then move one as if fucking nothing happend????

No mourners no funerals and it's almost all of my babies

Nadjas impressed look at Tamar and her axes has me SOBBING

TOLYA WITH HIS BOOOK

LOVE

That was a long time ago

Yeah oops

Make him kneel make him kneel make him kneel omg

That whole scene is so fucking good i had to actually rewatch it multiple times before i could move on

Tolya and Tamar supremacy <3

Not The POETRYYY

Tamar and Tolya meeting the crows??? Holy shit

This has taken so many twists and turns and loopings what

You could... Come with me??

Wylans lil shrug???? I'm actually crying

Kit's acting in the confession scene? SPECTACULAR the glances, the lil eye roll before be gathers the full courage, the little waver in his voice when he does confess??

A WYLAN KISS? WHAT I DID NOT EXPECT THAT AT ALL

HELP

HELP

HELPPPPP

Maybe you need a reminder?? The laughs the giggles I'm going to spontaneously combust

Wtf kaz

I worry about you?

I can't have a weak link in my crew?

You're a bloody idiot, is what you are

Nina should kock some sense into that head of yours after what you just said you moron

I think Rollins knocked it outa ya

And king he shall be

Just not yet oops

Unhinged Genya? hell yes!!!!

Ahhh, Baghra, you sly fucker

Not Adrik

Not him

Please not him

Jesper, Inej and Nina solidarity

Jes loves the gossip so much ahahahah

Episode 5

Genya not wanting David to see her because she's afraid of what he'll think hurts my heart

Genyalina hug supremacy

Baghra said sobatchka

I'm crying. This is not the time but omh

YOU DON'T NEED FIXING

Damn right she doesn't.

Tolya looking at the bowl of food is literally me

NINA AND TOLYA BONDING OVER FOOD

NOT WHAT I THOUGHT I'D GET BUT NOW I NEED MORE, OH LORD

I'm not here for you whoops

Oh Jes, you said the wrong thing baby

Bhez Ju? It looks INCREDIBLE!!!

Tolya being like wtf is going on with you and wylan is gold

I know metal

David i love you

The gentle forehead press

What did you do to him

Tolya giving relationship advice to jesper avout wylan I'm going to cry

Nvm I'm actually already crying

Nina trying to talk to Kaz about tea had me laughing so hard

Tolya snacking all the time, we love it

Zoya honestly

Tolyas comment about soldiers, i love that

Episode 6

MAMA

I'm laughing so hard

Poor Mal

He doesn't deserve any of this

The thief is so beautiful

And she's so badass

SHE'S DOING A GRISHA VERSION OF BLOODBENDING??? THAT IS GENIUS

Lol she's giving it to Jesper

I think she knows he's a special one

Love her so much

Another Wesper kiss??? Also, Tolya's knowing face lmao

Mathias = slab of fur and i will not refer to him as anything else ever again

Episode 7

Why on earth is everyone losing their hands?

This is ridiculous

Let me introduce you to Inej - Badass of the Barrel

Uh oh is right you witch

The crows join, it's over you idiots

Not the cane, that's a sacrilege what you just did.

Sibling reunion I'm sobbing over that hug

Um, Mal u okay hun?

Episode 8

Not kaz giving his cane away what is happening???

My Man

MY MAN

MY MAN

Kaz and Tolya bonding over Poetry? Of all things? love it

Ah ah ah is that an upward lip tug i see Kaz?

Jes... Why did you ruin the moment like that?

There's six of you you morons

Just don't know it yet lovelies

Have i said i don't like Genya's eye thing? It just looks so cheap

He wants an investment lol

Kaz you fuking idiot

You actually have to say it you know

Oof, the I want- I want you

Gives me the same vibes as i love, i love, i love you

How many fucking flying ships do they have?

Nah wtf is this Inej & Tolya shit

What's with the suggestive camera angles, stop that

Actually, i like the sturmhond look on Mal

Inej on the boat taking over slaver ships

So many things i didn't think I'd see this season omg

Ketterdam what kinda fucked up, out of proportion moon do you have???

Ugh not the apparat

Fuck off already, i didn't miss you at ALL

For a man of faith...

Love you for that, sobachka

Finally a better eye patch

Zoya you actually could lol

Are we going to get a triumvirate sitch with Alina?

Omgg yesss

You finally gonna go to Fjerda huh

I AM SO LIVING FOR THE DRESSES

EXCEPT ZOYAS... WHERE'S THE SIGNATURE BLUE SILVER?

Not that it doesn't look good just...

Talk about show stopping, am i right

Well, that's a way to end the show

Additional things I LOVED

- The show name at the beginning of every episode

- The different languages >>>>

- everything Tolya does

-Patrick Gibson as Nikolai, the longer I watched the better it got

What I did NOT like:

- lots of things actually but I have decided for myself that from here I'll just see the show as something different from the books and cherish it for what it is

-David and Genya having literally five seconds before he died? WTF? David was supposed to be here longer :/

-that they put SO MUCH into this season? like so much is happening at once and then they introduce additional stuff??? Felt a little rushed to me... Like were kinda already at the point of King of Scars but at the same time the SOC plotline is so ripped apart? I am confused...

[hyrulean-evalink]

Pinned !

Saw other blogs doing this so now it's my turn !

What is this blog?

Just my general art blog and stuff. I post anything and everything here, sometimes even random thoughts

Tags

I only have #Zonai Protogen for now! It will make it easier for you to find pictures of my Fursona, Soneau ! You can also use the tag if you plan on posting fanart

Just saying !

It is TOTALLY okay if you don't agree with me on certain discourses. If I had to shun down everyone I had a disagreement with, everyone would be alone in their own cubicle. I am not here to argue and if you want we can even have a healthy debate. Who knows, you may even change my point of view on certain subjects ! Just know I'd block you if you instantly lash out at me, ty

DNI

LissIsDead/RustyCarousel/RoachQueen/TemperFlash/Xx Masquerade xX/RottenCandyRandy/ any other username she decides to come up with: beef happened between us and I don't want to be interacting with her in any way, shape or form.

OreganoTheSpice/HeroOfWind/Crumb: DID faker, uses a fake mental illness for attention, claims it's false but yet developped an "alter ego" out of fucking nowhere. I have no respect for people that fakes mental illnesses and remove the credibility of people that do have it. Plus tried to spread rumors about me being a predator over nothing and tried to contact a friend of mine to warn them about me, in turn making them extremely uncomfortable because they were being incredibly pushy about "being safe to talk to".

Elite the Proto: a fucking stalker that is butthurt because I blocked him on Discord. Why a stalker ? Sent other members of discord to send me messages to ask to unblock him, try to manipulate others into feeling bad for him due to the fact I blocked him and also CREATED A FUCKING TUMBLR JUST TO TRY AND CONTACT ME

Active members of the Tenuko Wolf species: If you have one you aren't concerned, but if you interact with the community and is a member of their server, please leave. My experience with them was deplorable at best.

Sidon x Link shippers: nothing against the ship itself, the shippers are just annoying as hell

If you have the Trans Link/Zelda headcanon. I was honestly considering not putting it but a friend told me that my DNI is for what I am not comfortable with first. I'm trans myself, I hate the HC because I feel like people use it as just an "aesthetic label". Link is GNC, there's rarely representation of GNC people so trying to erase that by saying "OMG TRANS ICON <3<3<3" is just eck to me. Please respect this boundary.

That's all for now !

"Can I draw your characters ?"

Yes.

Ask me anything

And I mean ANYTHING, I don't bite and I want to see my inbox go ping

Art trades are currently: OPEN !! (but provide examples of your art pls)

[gardenshomemanagement]

Palm Seashore Estate Management

This villa is just a brief stroll from the resort foyer and eating places of the resort. Is near grocery's retailer, different nice eating places in Palm Beach Gardens. Tourist Development Tax strengthens our local financial system by supporting Palm Beach County’s tourism industry. Palm Beach County waterways provide great alternatives for boating, sailing and paddling.

She is currently the Operations Manager for our property management software program program and 3rd get together integrations and the Client Transitions liaison between management firms. Nicole’s vast experience ensures a easy transition for all new communities becoming a member of Seacrest. She also produces month-to-month financials for several associations and aids in the estate management jupiter audit and budget course of to ensure accurate record-keeping throughout the year. The job market is nice for property managers in Jupiter Farms, FL. The number of property supervisor jobs have grown by 277% in the final yr. Right now there are currently 211 property manager jobs obtainable in Jupiter Farms, FL.

They are always out there to reply any of my issues and so they were in a place to get my constructing to over 95% occupancy. I would suggest them to anyone who is looking for a dependable property management company. Reliable, clear and at all times out there to reply my questions. I would recommend them to any landlord who's in search of a property management firm.

She oversees our seasoned team of housekeepers and takes a personalised strategy with every home. Historical tax data is derived from public records provided by the county workplaces. Information is not assured and ought to be independently verified.

I would highly recommend them to anyone in need of property management. After hurricane Maria in 2017 he, his spouse and two youngsters relocated to Palm Beach County seeking a new alternative. Edgardo rapidly found himself studying the synthetic turf business and working on and around luxurious houses and estates. His curiosity in the bigger estate management world led him to hitch Island Home & Estate Management where he's answerable for overseeing the upkeep crews and serving to guarantee client satisfaction. In his spare time he enjoys spending time along with his household outdoors and on the beach. He attended the Palm Beach Day School and Graham Eckes and graduated from the University of Miami with a enterprise diploma.

Has been around since October 1988 and is the only commerce association within the business focused totally on residential property management. With more than 20 years’ expertise coping with the unique challenges discovered in the related fields of property management and real estate leases and sales, Cara has a powerful industry monitor document estate management jupiter, too. Unique Vaca Stay by Florida Gold Property Management is a progressive and hyper targeted Jupiter FL and Treasure Coast space vacation rental property management firm owned and operated by a Jupiter native. We try to offer great guests experiences and property homeowners satisfaction and peace of mind that their home is properly managed and booked to its finest potential.

Diana facilitates security coaching along with her employees on the job website in addition to offers continuing training for every division. It seemed only fitting that he would eventually flip his interests towards the Property Management field and was fortunate enough to find a house with Seacrest Services. Managing properties for Seacrest has been a satisfying expertise working with a variety of the best professionals within estate management jupiter the business. Over the years Jason has been promoted to Senior Property Manager overlooking properties in the North Palm Beach space as well as managing his own property as nicely. Liz brings together with her over forty years administrative/accounting expertise within the industrial property management, medical, credit card and manufacturing industries in 3 states. Born and raised in New York, she loves her volunteer work, long walks on the seashore, cooking and spending time along with her fur baby, Darla.

[tarobytez]

disability in the Six Of Crows Duology; an analysis of Kaz Brekker, Wylan Van Eck, and the fandom’s treatment of them.

****Note: I originally wrote this for a tiktok series, which im still going to do, but i wanted to post here as well bc tumblr is major contributor to what im going to talk about

CW: ableism, filicide, abuse

In the Six of Crows duology, Leigh Bardugo delicately subverts and melds harmful disability tropes into her narrative, unpacking them in a way that I, as a disabled person, found immensely refreshing and…. just brilliant. 

But what did you all do with that? Well, you fucked it up. Instead of critically looking at the characters, y’all just chose to be ableist. 

For the next few videos paragraphs im going to unpack disability theory (largely the stuff surrounding media, for obvious reasons) and how it relates to Six Of Crows and the characterization of Kaz Brekker and Wylan Van Eck, then how, despite their brilliant writing, y’all completely overlooked the actual text and continuously revert them to ableist cariactures.

Disclaimer: 1. Shocker - i am disabled. I have also extensively researched disability theory and am very active in the disabled community. Basically, I know my shit. 2. im going to be mad in these videos this analysis. Because the way y’all have been acting has been going on for a long ass time and im fuckin sick of it. I don’t give a shit about non-disabled feelings, die mad

Firstly, I’m going to discuss Kaz, his play on the stereotypical “mean cripple” trope and how Bardugo subverts it, his cane, and disabled rage. Then, I am going to discuss Wylan, the “inspiration porn” stereotype, caregivers / parents, and the social model of disability. Finally, I will then explain the problems in the fandom from my perspective as a disabled person, largely when it comes to wylan, bc yall cant leave that boy tf alone.

Kaz Brekker

Think of a character who uses a cane (obviously not Kaz). Now, are they evil, dubiously moral, or just an asshole in general? Because nearly example I can think of is: whether it be Lots’O from Toy Story, Lucius Malfoy, or even Scrooge and Mr.Gold from Once Upon A Time all have canes (the last two even having their canes appear less and less as they become better people)

The mean/evil cripple trope is far more common than you would think. Villains with different bodies are confined to the role of “evil”. To quote TV Tropes, who I think did a brilliant job on explaining it “The first is rooted in eugenics-based ideas linking disability or other physical deformities with a "natural" predisposition towards madness, criminality, vice, etc. The Rule of Symbolism is often at work here, since a "crippled" body can be used to represent a "crippled" soul — and indeed, a disabled villain is usually put in contrast to a morally upright and physically "perfect" hero. Whether consciously on the part of the writer or not, this can reinforce cultural ideas of disability making a person inherently inferior or negative, much in the same way the Sissy Villain or Depraved Homosexual trope associate sexual and gender nonconformity with evil. ”

Our introduction to Kaz affirms this notion of him being bad or morally bankrupt, with “Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason”, etc. This mythologized version of himself, the “bastard of the barrel” actively fed into this misconception. But, as we the audience are privy to his inner thoughts, know that he is just a teenager like every other Crow. He is complex, his disability isn’t this tragic backstory, he just fell off a roof. It’s not his main motivation, nor does he curse revenge for making him a cripple - it is just another part of who he is. 

His cane (though the shows version fills me with rage but-) is an extension of Kaz - he fights with it, but it has a purpose. Another common thing in media is for canes to be simply accessories, but while Kaz’ cane is fashionable, it has purpose.

The quote “There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.” is so fucking powerful. Kaz does not want nor need a cure - its said in Crooked Kingdom that his leg could most likely be healed, but he chooses not to. Abled-bodied people tend to dismiss this thought as Kaz being stubborn but it shows a reality of acceptance of his disability that is just, so refreshing.

In chapter 22 of SOC, we see disabled rage done right - when he is called a cripple by the Fjerdan inmate, Kaz is pissed - the important detail being that he is pissed at the Fjerdan, at society for ableism, not blaming it on being disabled or wishing he could be normal. He takes action, dislocating the asshole’s shoulder and proving to him, and to a lesser extent, himself, that he is just as capable as anyone else, not in spite of, but because he is disabled. And that is the point of Kaz, harking back to the line that “there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken”. 

I cried on numerous occasions while reading the SOC duology, but the parts I highlighted in this section especially so. I, as many other disabled people do, have had a long and tumultuous relationship with our disability/es, and for many still struggle. But Kaz Brekker gave me an empowered disabled character who accepts themselves, and that means the world to me. 

Keeping that in mind, I hope you can understand why it hurts so much to disabled people when you either erase Kaz’s disability (whether through cosplay or fanfiction), or portray him as a “broken boy uwu”, especially implying that he would want a cure. That flies in the face of canon and is inherently fucking ableist. (if u think im mad wait until the next section)

Next, we have Wylan.  

Oh fucking boy. 

I love Wylan so fucking much, and y’all just do not seem to understand his character? Like at all? Since this is disability-centric, I’m not going to discuss how the intersection of his queerness also contributes to these issues, but trust me when I say it’s a contributing factor to what i'm going to say.

Wylan, motherfucking Van Eck. If you ableist pricks don’t take ur fucking hands off him right now im going to fight you. I see Wylan as a subversion another, and in my opinion more insidious stereotype pf disabled people - inspiration porn.

Cara Liebowitz in a 2015 article on the blog The Body Is Not An Apology explains in greater detail how inspiration porn is impactful in real life, but media is a major contributing factor to this reality. The technical definition is “the portrayal of people with disabilities as inspirational solely or in part on the basis of their disability” - but that does not cover it fully. 

Inspiration porn does lasting damage on the disabled community as it implies that disability is a negative that you need to “overcome” or “triumph” instead of something one can feel proud of. It exploits disabled people for the development of non-disabled people, and in media often the white male protagonist. Framing disability as inherently negative perpetuates ideals of eugenics and cures - see Autism $peaks’ “I Am Autism” ad. Inspiration porn is also incredibly patronizing as it implies that we cannot take care of ourselves, or do things like non-disabled people do. Because i stg some of you tend to think that we just sit around all day wishing we weren’t disabled. 

Another important theory ideal that is necessary when thinking about Wylan is the experience of feeling like a burden simply for needing help or accommodations. This is especially true when it comes to familial relationships, and internalized ableism.

The rhetoric that Wylan’s father drilled into his head, that he is “defective”, “a mistake”, and “needs to be corrected”, that he (Jan) was “cursed with a moron for a child” is a long held belief that disabled people hear relentlessly. And while many see Van Eck’s attempted murder of Wylan as “preposturous” and overall something that you would never think happens today - filicide (a parent murdering their child) is more common than you would like to believe. Without even mentioning the countless and often unreported deaths of disabled people due to lack of / insufficient / neglectful medical care, in a study on children who died from the result of household abuse, 40 of 42 of them (95%) were diagnosed with disabilities. Van Eck is not some caricature of ableist ideals - he is a real reflection on how many people and family members view disability. 

Circling back to how Wylan unpacks the inspiration porn trope - he is 3 dimensional, he is not only used to develop the other characters, he is just *chefs kiss* Leigh, imo, put so much love and care into the creation of Wylan and his story and character growth that is representative of a larger feeling in the disabled community. 

That being said, what you non-disabled motherfuckers have done to him.

The “haha Wylan can’t read” jokes aren’t and were not funny. Y’all literally boiled down everything Wylan is to him being dyslexic. And it’s like,,,, the only thing you can say about him. You ignore every other part of him other than his disability, and then mock him for it. There’s so much you can say about Wylan - simping for Jesper, being band kid and playing the fuckin flute, literally anything else. But no, you just chose to mock his disability, excellent fucking job!

Next up on “ableds stfu” - infantilization! y’all are so fucking condescending to Wylan, and treat him like a fucking toddler. And while partly it is due to his sexuality i think a larger portion is him being disabled. Its in the same vein of people who think that Wylan and Jesper are romantically one sided, and that Jesper only kind of liked Wylan, despite the canon evidence of him loving Wylan just as much. You all view him as a “smol bean”, who needs protecting, and care, when Wylan is the opposite of that. He is a fucking demolitions expert who suggested waking up sleeping men to kill them - what about that says “uwu”. You are treating Wylan as a burden to Jesper and the other Crows when he is an immensely valuable, fully autonomous disabled person - you all just view him as damaged. 

And before I get a comment saying that “uhhh Wylan isn’t real why do you care” while Wylan may not be real, how you all view him and treat him has real fucking impacts and informs how you treat people like me. If someone called me an “uwu baby boy” they’d get a fist square in the fucking jaw. Fiction informs how we perceive the world and y’all are making it super fucking clear how you see disabled people. 

Finally, I wanted to talk about how the social model of disability is portrayed through Wylan. For those who are unaware, the social model of disability contrasts the medical model, that views the disability itself as the problem, that needs to be cured, whereas the social model essentially boils down to creating an accommodating society, where disability acceptance and pride is the goal. And we see this with Wylan - he is able to manage his father’s estate, with Jesper’s assistance to help him read documents. And this is not out of pity or charity, but an act of love. It is not portrayed as this almighty act for Jesper to play saviour, just a given, which is incredibly important to show, especially for someone who has been abused by family for his disability like Wylan, that he is accepted. 

Yet, I still see people hold up Jesper on a pedestal for “putting up with” Wylan, as if loving a disabled person deserves a fucking pat on the back. It’s genuinely exhausting trying to engage with a work I love so much with a fandom that thinks so little of me and my community. It fucking shows. 

Overall, Leigh Bardugo as a disabled person wrote two incredibly meticulous and empowered disabled characters, and due to either lack of reading comprehension, ableism, or a quirky mix of both, the fandom has ignored canon and the experiences of disabled people for…. shits and giggles i guess. And yes, there are issues with the Grishaverse and disability representation - while I haven’t finished them yet so I do not have an opinion on it, people have been discussing issues in the KOS duology with ableist ideals. This mini series was no way indicative of the entire disabled experience, nor does it represent my entire view on the representation as a whole. These things need to be met critically in our community, and talked about with disabled voices at the forefront. For example, the limited perspective we get of Wylan and Kaz being both white men, does not account for a large portion of the disabled community and the intersection of multiple identities.

All-in-all, Critique media, but do not forget to also critique fandom spaces. Alternatively, just shut the fuck up :)

happy fucking disability pride month, ig

[literatureandshit]

Wylan van Eck uses sign language and let me tell you why

it first starts out with kaz using hand signs, common ones to tell the crows what to do during a mission or heist

words like “move out” “stop” and “go” that kind of thing

at some point, wylan picks up on this and realizes holy shit i can understand this and i’m retaining it

this is mostly due to the fact that jesper and inej will whisper the command after kaz has made it so wylan ends up memorizing it

so then he starts making up gestures as names for the others

jesper’s name is the shape of a pistol with his thumb and index and middle finger, and bend the thumb down twice

inej’s name is two index fingers crossed over each other and then sharply moved apart

kaz’s name is a fist as if someone is holding a cane and one sharp downward motion

nina’s name is putting a left hand to the chest over the heart and flexing the hand twice

and matthias’s name is the first three fingers covering the thumb and shaking it twice

and the others pick up on this super fast especially jesper

jesper is the first to use the hand signs because he likes that wylan used a pistol for his name

(and then he devoted all of his time and attention to further developing the sign language with him)

inej picks up on it quickly too, and then all of them are having full on silent conversations

matthias picked up on it the slowest and he fumbles over words and gestures, but he’s doing his best

kaz finds it amazing because wylan quite literally just made up another language for them to use

he’d never tell him, but kaz was proud and impressed with wylan for overcoming a disability and finding another way to communicate

they used to use it when they didn’t trust the other ears around them, but after a while it just became a thing

whenever they used a map, wylan wouldn’t be able to read them, so they all created words to associate with the locations

there’s a piece of a puzzle that just... slips into place and wylan finally feels less left out

it was always so awkward when kaz would explain and point to things, but he’d have no idea what he was looking at or reading

now while kaz is going over things, wylan will just turn to jesper and see him explaining things using sign

it’s muscle memory now for them to just... use sign language in their day to day lives

they’d talk out loud and sign at the same time just because they were used to it

sometimes they’d find new gestures for words or mix them with ones that were already common

arguments between them were common in sign language, which includes inej slapping jesper’s hands to interrupt him and nina closing her eyes to ignore matthias

jokes are even more common with jesper making inej smile from across the hall by making fun of people’s outfits and jesper and kaz playing memory games

so in conclusion, wylan uses sign language and the rest of the crows use it too

[starry-sky-stuff]

Sorting the Six of Crows Duology

Brief overview of @sortinghatchats system, there are Primaries, the why, and Secondaries, the how.

Spoiler warning for the Six of Crows Duology.

Cut for length.

Kaz Brekker is a complicated sorting. He’s constantly putting on a performance and projecting a certain version of himself to others, that he sometimes seems to fall for this himself. Even though he’s the planner of the group, I think he’s actually a Snake Secondary. He likes dressing up and pretending to be someone else too much and his plans usually involve him manipulating someone. In the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, we see him so easily put on a different persona that Cornelius Smeet doesn’t realise this is the exact same man who dealt him cards only a few hours earlier. There is definitely a very efficient Bird Secondary Model. Kaz makes plans, he has back-ups and tools hidden away. The uniforms he uses that are actually theatre costumes, and even Wylan himself is an ace up Kaz’s sleeve. But ultimately, he’s a Snake Secondary who has no problem adjusting his plan when it fails, where a Bird Secondary would struggle more. Kaz spends most of his time in his neutral state, which he almost uses as a weapon. He maybe even has a neutral state model on top of his Snake Secondary. Kaz is constantly acting like he doesn’t care because that’s what he wants everyone to believe.

Part of Kaz’s secondary bleeds into his primary in that he wants you to believe he’s a completely burned Snake Primary. He wants to believe he’s a completely burned Snake Primary that cares for no one but himself. He’s definitely a Loyalist. He treats Inej’s idealism with too much cynicism to be an Idealist. Over the series he unburns as he begins to admit he cares for the other crows. The question is this a Snake Primary opening up his circle or a Badger Primary getting attached to a group. I’m leaning towards Snake Primary. He isn’t affected enough by the dissolution of the crew at the end of the series to be a Badger. And so many of his ploys are reliant on people being attached to others and love that I think he’s a Snake Primary who expects other people to have attachments. His genuine surprise at Jan van Eck’s treatment of Wylan, and his using Pekka Rollins son to threaten him all point to a Snake Primary mindset. So he’s a Burned Snake Primary who also puts on a performance of a Burned Snake Primary.

Jesper Fahey, who never makes a plan and loves when bullets start flying because in danger is when he works best, is definitely an improvisational secondary. Charming and quick-witted, he has a Snake Secondary Model, maybe even only performance because it really falls down when compared to Kaz’s actual Snake Secondary. Jesper’s someone who just wants to shoot his way out of everything. He could not be more Lion Secondary. He also has a complicated relationship with his Snake Secondary Model, which I think he developed because of his father pressuring him to hide his Grisha abilities. So, for most of the story his Lion Secondary, which wants to be himself, is in conflict with his Snake Secondary Model.

Jesper’s primary is harder for me to decipher. If he’s an Idealist, he isn’t one who ever expresses a moral quandary with what the crows do over the series, unlike some of the other characters. But if he’s a Loyalist, he didn’t feel bad about lying to his father and pretending to be studying at university. Although he did feel guilty about his betrayal leading to Inej almost getting killed, not to the degree I would expect of a Snake Primary. I would have to say I think he’s an immature Lion Primary, who doesn’t really care about anything but his own needs at the start and then grows into being more mature.

Inej Ghafa’s been through absolute hell and still kept her faith both in religion and in humanity. She didn’t hang onto it through human connections or communities, and she doesn’t seem to have any strong attachments to individuals or to the group of the Crows. That makes her an Idealist. I’m inclined to say she’s a Bird Primary. Her morality just seems very chosen to me. Inej chooses to keep hold of her faith and to believe in things bigger than herself. Her flashbacks often include teachings she adopted from her past that she’s adapted to her current circumstances. Killing for example. She needs to rationalise it out and justify it in a way I don’t think a Lion Primary would find as necessary.

Inej is the Wraith. She’s the spy, the one who gathers information. If this were Kaz’s role, he’d probably dress up and pretend to be someone else to get close to his target. But Inej waits in the shadows, using the skills she learnt from her childhood. This could be a Badger Secondary relying on hard work, but her knives strike me as a Bird’s tools.

Wylan van Eck, the merchling rejected by his father and forced to fend for himself in the Barrel, is not a Loyalist. A Snake or Badger Primary would have been harder hit by his father casting him out from the only life he’s ever known. That would’ve been a betrayal they would’ve have struggled to get over. Wylan does struggle, but he’s far more willing to stand on his own. He doesn’t try to find a people or a community, and gets pulled into the crows not on his own accord. With nothing to indicate a system, I’m going to go with Lion Secondary, one that progresses over the series. Wylan starts off with very strong morals and ideas of what’s right and wrong, which changes as he faces the reality of the Barrel and he becomes less idealistic. Yet, he never restructures his beliefs in the way a Bird Primary would. He’s got a particularly strong Lion Primary too, strong enough to stand up to Kaz multiple times, and one I think Jesper admires.

For his secondary, I’m torn between Bird or Snake Secondary. He’s the demo man and his main role in the plot is using his previous knowledge and skills. That would probably indicate Bird Secondary. He’s also a little bit more concerned with having a plan than some of the other characters who are better at rolling with the punches. The main reason I leant towards Snake Secondary is because I think Wylan’s a mirror for Kaz and certainly someone Kaz sees himself in. He uses Snake Secondary in Crooked Kingdom. Pretending to be Kuwei doesn’t weigh on him as much as it would weigh on a Lion Secondary, and part of his role at the end is to put on a performance. I like to think he’s developing his Snake Secondary Model under Kaz, and probably isn’t thrilled about it.

Matthias Helvar’s journey is the classic character arc of a Badger Primary who expands their definition of ‘human’. When he starts the series he has completely dehumanised Grisha under the teachings of the drüskelle. Nina points out the hypocrisy of him valuing human life and being part of an organisation that hunts Grisha and his response is that Grisha are not humans. Once he meets Nina he starts to change his opinion, and over the series he begins to realise that Grisha are also human. Matthias is usually the one who’s thinking about the greater good. When he and Nina agree to kill Bo Yul-Bayur it’s because of the danger he poses to the wider world. And it’s Matthias who ultimately decides not to kill Kuwei. Why? Because he’s one of “us”. Matthias was vulnerable to Jarl Brum and the drüskelle teaching because he desired a group and a community, and he finds this in the crows. There’s an argument for a Bird Primary that learns his previous system is wrong and adopts a new system, but I think Badger makes more sense. Noble Matthias whose main role is as the muscle is a straightforward Lion Secondary.

Nina Helnik is the quintessential Snake Secondary. Her main role in the plot is to be the decoy or the charmer. Before that she was a spy in the army, and that’s the role that fits her best. She switches from persona to persona, playing different characters with ease. Unlike Kaz, Nina rarely uses her neutral state, and delights in her playful, charismatic Snake Secondary.

Nina’s primary is less immediately clear. The fact that she stayed in Ketterdam after Mathias’ arrest and didn’t return to Ravka would probably indicate she’s a Loyalist. An Idealist would at least feel some guilt for not returning to their country and their cause, but Nina puts Mathias above Ravka. Unlike Matthias, Nina doesn’t necessarily dehumanise the drüskelle and doesn’t need a group. If she were a Badger Primary she would probably have more of a community in Ketterdam, but she seemed to have bonded with the crows as individuals. That would mean Snake Primary. Interestingly enough, Nina has the same sorting as Kaz. I think this is the reason that whilst Nina doesn’t necessarily like Kaz she respects him and he her. They both know how the other works and understands how each thinks.

In summary:

Kaz: Snake Primary/Snake Secondary, Bird Secondary Model, Snake Primary Performance

Jesper: Lion Primary/Lion Secondary, Snake Secondary Model

Inej: Bird Primary/Bird Secondary

Wylan: Lion Primary/Bird or Snake Secondary

Matthias: Badger Primary/Lion Secondary

Nina: Snake Primary/Snake Secondary

[dwellordream]

A Six of Crows Review: Kaz I

This is my second installment of a Six of Crows in review (Part One Linked Here). 

Tonight I am looking at Kaz I.

What immediately differentiates Kaz’ first chapter from Inej’s first chapter is that Bardugo spends much more time developing Kaz (who also has a longer chapter, which helps), and seems much more comfortable writing his POV.

He is much more fleshed out in terms of personality in the span of one chapter than Inej was, and I would not be surprised if Kaz was the first character for the novel that Bardugo came up with. There’s a lot more care put into making him not just a ‘walking camera’ as opposed to Inej, who barely gets a word in edgewise other than neutrally reporting the events to the reader.

What is immediately obvious is that Kaz is condescending, quick witted, and arrogant. He views the rest of his gang, the Dregs, as little more than violent overgrown children, with a few exceptions such as Inej and Jesper. His priorities are equally split between making sure his gang spreads increasingly violent and wild tales about him to the rest of the city, and making sure the gang itself also fears him and doesn’t get too close.

It seems clear that at least part of this obsession with his public image is due to the vulnerability Kaz feels due to his bad leg. Because of this he seems intent on always making sure he projects an untouchable and intimidating aura. The downside of this is that Kaz is terrible at communicating, and it seems obvious that his biggest immediate flaw is both his high opinion of himself (even if it hides some serious self loathing), and his inability to ever swallow his pride and play nice.

Despite feeling gratitude towards Jesper, he chooses to condescend to and mock him instead, even as he acknowledges he could have thanked Jesper for being his loyal second in command during the parley and watching his back.

This does not exactly a great leader make, but Kaz seems to view the Dregs less as a family that looks out for one another and more as his own personal kennel of attack dogs to be deployed at will. He has no interest in socializing with them casually or in showing much in the way of friendliness and affection. 

He rationalizes this by reminding himself (and them, presumably), that in the span of several years he has been instrumental in the gang rapidly gaining power and territory, so he doesn’t need to be friendly with them, only to keep them on the up and up.

We also learn that Kaz was bluffing about threatening Geels’ girlfriend; while this is clearly foreshadowing some future events, I personally find it disappointing. It would add to his character (not necessarily in a good way, but it would be interesting, at least) if he had seriously been prepared to harm an innocent women to get her boyfriend out of his way. 

On the other hand, his improv skills are certainly impressive. Maybe he should take up a career in theater on the side. He’s got the dramatic chops and passion for hearing himself talk.

Ironically, we learn more about Inej through Kaz’ chapter than through her own POV, which is not ideal, but maybe Bardugo is trying to hint at how… depersonalized Inej feels as a result of her trauma? I don’t know. I suspect it’s just that when she started writing this book, she didn’t really have Inej’ character nailed down all the way.

Kaz’ interest in irritating Inej is actively getting in his own way, though; he risked his own life and hers that night by not giving her any forewarning of his plans. I’m not sure if this is supposed to leave the reader impressed with him, or to hint at how impulsive and reckless he is as a teenager, despite what he tells himself about always having a plan.

We also learn that Kaz paid off Inej’ indentured servitude at the Menagerie, which I assume means what was left of it is now owed to him, or whoever the Dregs owe their money to. It’s not really clear how they make their money, besides gambling, bookmaking, and petty thievery. Kaz later insists in the chapter that they don’t ‘run whores’, and they don’t seem to deal any kind of drugs or black market materials.

The most interesting and welcomed twist of this chapter is that after a few pages of very self congratulatory praise, Kaz is overwhelmed and caught off guard and abducted.

The second half of Kaz’ chapter is extremely exposition heavy, and introduces another fairly dull and rote antagonist in the incredibly bland businessman Van Eck, who wants to hire Kaz, but it is better handled than Inej’s in that we actually get Kaz’ input on things, instead of him entirely disappearing from his own narrative.

We also learn the fate of poor catonic (then dead) Joost. Joost, we hardly knew thee. Oh well.

One interesting bit of worldbuilding is that the indentured grisha in Ketterdam are mostly refugees from the Ravkan war, which I guess is the big link connecting Six of Crows to Shadow and Bone. 

Honestly, the worldbuilding in Six of Crows works much better because it’s on a much smaller scale, though it is a little ridiculous that Bardugo has Fjerda (which seems Scandinavian based), Shu Han (which seems Chinese based), and Ravka (which seems Russian based) all essentially right next to one another, practically on top of each other on the same small continent. But that’s besides the point.

I also think it shows Kaz’ naivety despite his insistence to the contrary that he does pretty readily agree to the job. He pushes back (once) as to why Van Eck would want to hire a random 17 year old up and coming gangster, but it satisfied enough with Van Eck’s frankly thin excuse of ‘oh, you haven’t been arrested in three years, so we know you can handle it’.

Really? Kaz is the best Van Eck could get? It seems extremely obvious to the reader that this is a massive set up and Van Eck will throw Kaz and his allies to the wolves, but I’m not sure if Bardugo intends for us to already be able to guess that or not.

The focus on the gloves is also a little odd. In a cold and wet climate like Ketterdam, especially when it’s late winter, it seems obvious most people would wear gloves.

So it’s a little hamfisted to have Van Eck randomly comment on Kaz’ gloves, just so Kaz can get in one last snappy one liner and reference to how feared he is; apparently there are rumors his hands are deformed or diseased? Why? That would be like claiming every man who wears a hat has leprosy. It just seems a bit forced.

All that aside, Kaz I is I think a superior chapter in many ways to Inej I, and hopefully the trend continues.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

The Critique of Manners: Part III

~Or~

A Somewhat Indecisive Review of “Emma” (Miramax, 1996)

I have a feeling this review is gonna be a little harder for me to write. Everyone knows that recaps and reviews are most entertaining when the writer has an intense dislike (or intense feeling of any kind) for the drama they’re reviewing. It falls to other writers to pan or praise this film as they will, but I simply don’t have many particularly strong feelings about it at all. I have neither that repulsed dislike for this movie such as I did for Emma 1997, nor that disappointed frustration as for certain aspects of Emma. 2020, but neither do I have a deep, profound love and appreciation for it as I do for Emma 2009.  

Written and Directed by American Screenwriter, director and actor, Douglas McGrath, Emma (1996) is rather what one expects it to be: a 90’s romance film. Perhaps it’s because I had expectations due to the era in which it was made, but I think I have a tendency to excuse some of the problems with this film. There are many unnecessary additions (for comedy’s sake usually and often quite cringe-y) and one definitely can’t claim that the dialogue hasn’t been tampered with. I don’t normally side with the “I do so miss Austen’s biting wit” crowd but, by ‘eck I felt it this time. That’s because Austen’s Biting Wit™ just doesn’t suit a fluffy 90’s chick flick (which this film is in a way that other big screen Austen adaptations of the time just aren’t – and I think approaching this film from the 90’s chick flick perspective is probably the best way to digest it.) This version, more than any other (except perhaps 2009) brings the concept of Emma-as-Matchmaker to the fore with a particular emphasis precisely because it’s a concept that fits well with the rom-com style of filmmaking used here.

The bones of this review, like my review for the ITV version, were written six years ago following my initial viewing only a select number of portions survive from that review (which is still on IMDb).

As with all my reviews I'll be comparing the script, characterizations and plot to the book and commenting on the authenticity and attractiveness of the costumes, and suitability of the houses and sets.

Let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

Emma is arguably the easiest of Austen’s works to read because of Emma’s generally good (if condescending and overly self-confident) character, and Mr. Knightley’s sober, mature but exceedingly pleasant manner. I had my doubts about Gwyneth Paltrow playing an Austen heroine, but I at least had faith in Jeremy Northam’s ability to portray the mature Mr. Knightly. My expectations were not entirely disappointed in either case.

My prevailing feeling about this film is that it’s not so much set in Jane Austen’s Regency England, but in an American fantasy of what Regency England was like. Perhaps the biggest factor that reinforces this impression is (of course) the casting choice for our leading lady, Gwyneth Paltrow.

Freckled, ruddy and thin as a twig, Gwyenth didn’t quite, to my mind, fit the physical description of Emma, who is supposed to be “The picture of health” according to Mrs. Weston. Add to this the Regency beauty ideal of a soft and shapely figure with regular features. Fair hair was generally preferred (and I have always imagined Emma as blond, although I’m given to understand that Austen’s idea of pretty generally favored dark hair), so I can’t fault Gwynnie there. What I can fault though is her so-so British accent.

I recently learned that the reason McGrath thought Paltrow would be a good choice was because she’s the only Texan he’d ever met who’d managed to entirely throw off her native accent; I guess he decided that if she could do that she could do any accent work? I guess? Seems questionable to me.

You know Joely Richardson was considered for this part? Gorgeous, refined (British) GODDESS Joely Richardson was passed over because Gwyenth managed to shake an embarrassing accent.

I hate American directors.

I’m not sure if it’s just part of the accent, or her attempt to sound upper class, but on this most recent re-watch it hit me for the first time how very nasal many of her line deliveries are. She also has this problem with looking (and sounding) sort of vapid and… just what is happening here?

Is she having a stroke at the end there?

A bigger problem than Emma’s casting, however, is her characterization.

Part of the above mentioned script tampering is in lockstep with some of the issues with Emma’s characterization here. Her very teenager-esque swings from vowing to never make another match again to immediately trying to think of another guy to set Harriet up with, and her getting carried away in potential scenarios “But if he seems sad I shall know that John has advised him not to marry Harriet! I love John! Or he may seem sad because he fears telling me he will marry my friend. How could John let him do that? I hate John!” (Especially when you never even really get to meet John Knightley in this version? Ugh, pass me with this shit) is so bizarrely childish it’s a little hard to stomach. She spends the movie going back and forth between mature and manipulative to childish and naïve and it just… doesn’t work for me.  Emma can be all of these things but the transition from one extreme to another here seems a bit disjointed to me.

Knightley was a bit of a disappointment to me in this version. That’s not Jeremy Northam’s fault because I can’t think of a better choice they could have made. McGrath showed much better judgment with his choice for Mr. Knightley than he did with Emma.

My biggest problem with this interpretation was how laid back he was when he was supposed to chastising Emma. Their quarrels became more like mere disagreements so the proposal line of lecturing her and her bearing it as no other woman would have isn’t entirely earned. Even in the big scene at Box Hill where Knightley is really supposed to lay into Emma, he starts off pretty solidly, but by the end so doe-eyed and apologetic it fails to deliver the sting of rebuke that is Emma’s biggest learning moment in the story. Perhaps they were trying to go for a more disappointed feel (the kind that makes you feel worse than being shouted at because you really respect the person you let down) but it just didn’t come through for me.

Also of note is the fact that, (I assume) because John Knightley isn’t really allowed time to be a character in this film, McGrath took some of John’s introverted tendencies and transplanted them into his more convivial older brother (“I just want to stay home, where it’s cozy.” – I mean I feel that, but this isn’t something George Knightley would say.) 

Onto the less central characters

I question also the choice of Toni Colette for Harriet Smith. I mean I actually liked her performance more on this watch than previously but I just don’t think she’s pretty enough for Harriet, and she looks a bit clumsy (though that might have more to do with her costumes.)

I also noted that McGrath bumps Harriet’s comprehension skills up just a scooch. Emma never has to explain the “Courtship” riddle to her, Harriet figures it out on her own after a while, while she never manages to in the book.

Now we come to the crux of Jane Fairfax, played by Polly Walker. I don’t care for this choice. My issue is the simple fact that she just isn’t believable to me as a demure, wronged character like Jane Fairfax. Seriously she looks like she would sooner throw Frank across the room than take his cruel teasing, and not in the subtle way that Olivia Williams managed to. They never even utilized her by including some of Jane’s more pointed returns to Frank’s jabs, which they even managed to squeeze into the massively cut down TV movie.    

Speaking of Frank; Ewan McGregor, though generally delightful, was so under-used. Frank and Jane’s plotline always kind of gets shafted in Theatrical release adaptations of this story. It’s not as bad here as it is in say, the 2020 adaptation (they were in that version so little I actually forgot what their actors looked like), but it’s still pretty stunted.

I find it interesting that Ewan McGregor himself thinks his performance in this movie isn’t good; and I’ll agree it’s not his best (certainly it’s no Obi-wan Kenobi) but I thought he did a pretty good job with obviously unfamiliar material

Also if the Davies screenplay of ’97 made Frank’s character too caddish, I think this version didn’t make him caddish enough. I mean he’s hardly around enough to really develop his flirtation with Emma, and they merged Strawberry Picking and Box Hill into one sequence so we never see Frank’s ill humors. I can perhaps excuse this, since it seems like a nuanced story really wasn’t what McGrath was going for here, I think. This is a lite version of the story; schmaltzy fluff for teenage girls’ movie nights. Frank’s ill humors wouldn’t really have fit the tone of this version at all.

Interestingly enough, though it’s taken me a long time to make this decision, I think Alan Cumming might be the definitive Elton? He’s the only one who doesn’t immediately read as a slime ball from the get go. I mean he’s got all the warning signs that Austen wrote into him, but no more than that. He’s not slinking about greasily or obviously pandering (at first), so Emma’s uneasy realization of what’s really happening here isn’t a hundred miles behind the viewer’s (maybe just fifty).

There are as many Mrs. Eltons out there as there are adaptations of this story, and they’re all pretty great (funky accents aside), but other than the 1997 take, this one might be the least great to me. She’s not nearly pushy enough, because Mrs. Elton would never let Emma prompt the conversation when she could do it herself.

  Also, I think McGrath misunderstands Mrs. Elton’s brand of New Money vulgarity. He has her talking with her mouthful, clanking her utensils on her plate as she eats, putting biscuits which she’s bitten into back onto communal plates, which I think even Mrs. Elton would know not to do. Table manners are pretty basic; the couth that Mrs. Elton lacks is of a more nuanced social kind – for instance, what is and isn’t considered gauche to talk about (like how big one’s brother in law’s house is or how many horses he keeps.)

(A sudden thought has just occurred to me: is Mrs. Elton just a more mean-spirited Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances? “It’s meh sister, Mrs. Suckling! That’s right, the one with an estate in Warwickshire and the two barouche landaus!”)

Sophie Thompson’s Miss Bates is chatty and one of better takes on the character, but lack of necessary background hinders her impact on Emma’s story. The comedy in her scenes is some of the best and actually made me laugh, although I think she was just way too giggly.

Miss Bates’s mother, Mrs. Bates, is played by Sophie Thompson’s real-life mother Phyllida Law in a completely coincidental quirk of casting. (I noted in this film how very much Emma Thompson, Sophie’s older sister looks like their mother.)

My only other serious issue with characterization in this adaptation is the representation of Mr. Woodhouse. He is somehow simultaneously more cheery and more disagreeable than he is in the book. His chiding about the cake at the Weston’s wedding seems more like a scolding rather than an anxious admonishment. In one of the first scenes, during Mr. Woodhouse’s “Poor Miss Taylor” speech, he says he cannot understand why she would want to give up her comfortable life with himself and Emma, to have “mewling children who bring the threat of disease every time they enter or leave the house,” and he says this IN FRONT OF ONE OF HIS TWO DAUGHTERS.

Of course in the book, Mr. Woodhouse does lament Miss Taylor marrying, leaving and even having children – but this is all in the context of the danger childbirth presents to Miss Taylor (And the fact that he can’t stand losing a companion). These are his complaints – not the children themselves. In addition, his elder daughter has quite a fine number of children, all of them very young, of whom Mr. Woodhouse is very fond. He’s a character that needs to be carefully handled because, much like his daughter, it’s very easy for him to become unlikeable.

For the rest of the time, though, he just sort of cheerily laughs and is very at ease, when Mr. Woodhouse, as a chronic hypochondriac should be made anxious by just about everything.

Sets & Surroundings

One thing I find interesting about this adaptation is that the houses they chose to use are all of a very neo-classical Palladian style, which I believe (given her disdain for the contemporary trend of knocking down England’s great houses just to rebuild them in a more fashionable style) Austen may have disliked to some degree.

One such house is Came House in Dorset, which was used as the Woodhouse’s estate, Hartfield. Now Hartfield is, I think, described as a well-built modern house so this could be pretty accurate (although Modern could refer to the red bring, boxy style of Georgian architecture, such as the houses used in the 1997, 2009 and 1972 versions.)

Another, Claydon House in Buckinghamshire played the role of Donwell Abbey. I think this might be the worst exterior ever used for Donwell, from a book accuracy perspective. Utterly Georgian, with its’ square façade, Claydon house sort of directly contradicts Austen description of being “Larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular…” not only is the architecture totally wrong, so is its’ situation, in Georgian fashion, perched on a hill, when Donwell (a very old building) is supposed to be “Low and sheltered”.

Mapperton House is maybe the grandest house yet used for Mr. Weston’s Randalls (I’ve already covered in my review of Emma (2020) why this is a problem – although in this version, as in the 1997 adaptation, there’s no full panic over the snow, so this is less of a problem, but a house like this is still too grand for the reasonably sized Randalls of the book), but it fits the usual 15th-16th century house type that always seems to be used for Randalls.

A myriad of other great houses were used for interiors, however other than Crichel House (Dorset), which was used for Donwell’s interiors, I can’t find information on which ones where used for what. They include Breakspear House (Harefield), Coker Court (Somerset), Stafford House (Staffordshire) and Syon House & Park (Middlesex).

I really appreciate the interiors which were all very colorful and even included doors and molding painted the same color as the walls which is a very Georgian decorating convention, although it looks odd to the modern viewer.

Costumes & Hair

As a rule, the costumes (Created by Ruth Myers) in this movie are pretty damn good, composition wise, but the arrangement leaves a lot to be desired. Myers talked extensively of wanting the costumes to be colorful and bright like the water colors of the time, which she achieved brilliantly. What I find funny is that she talked about using color as if it would be controversial from a historical accuracy point of view, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

The evening wear is generally excellent

My only question around evening wear here is… what’s up with the waistline on Harriet’s ball gown? Why is it going up in the middle? Toni Collette (who actually gained weight for the role, since Harriet was described as “Reubenesque”) verged on looking a little dumpy throughout the film and awkwardly bumping up her waistline in the middle really didn’t help.

I’m pleased to report that is is the one version where Miss Bates’s evening-wear is allowed to look like evening wear. Even Maiden Aunts wore shorter sleeves and lower necklines at dinner or balls. They fussed her up with some lace gloves and frilly fichus but it follows the conventions of the time. I appreciate that immensely, though I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s because of Sophie Thompson’s age.

At 37 Thompson was an unconventionally young choice for Miss Bates, a character who previously had only been cast as older than 50 (Prunella Scales, who would play the role later in 1996, was 64). Indeed, Douglas McGrath almost passed Thompson over for the role on account of her age, but reconsidered after seeing her in spectacles. It seems possible to me that since Thompson was considered young they dressed her “young” as well.

The daywear is where the costumes start to really fall apart. There are a lot of looks here worn in the day that are VERY not day/outerwear appropriate, especially on Emma, most especially the yellow dress she’s wearing while driving that carriage (which, btw is inappropriate on a whole OTHER level). Can we just talk aboutt he cognative dissonance of bothering to put a bonnet on her when her arms and boobs are just hanging out like that? Like, it would almost have been less egregious to just leave the bonnet where it was.

But then there are a lot of Emma’s day-wear looks that are perfectly suitable and appropriate. What I find ironic about that is that most of the short-sleeved, low-necked “Evening-gowns as day-wear” looks are worn OUTSIDE in the sun and most of the long-sleeved, sun protecting, day-wear appropriate looks are worn INSIDE.  She’s also got a profusion of dangling curls in day-time settings that are also more evening-wear appropriate (to match the dresses, perhaps?)

I’m also pleased to report that even in day-wear Miss Bates gets a break from brown in this version. Her clothes are nice, but not fancy like Miranda Hart’s in Emma. 2020, and I like to think that nice thick shawl with lace overlay is the one mentioned in the book that Jane’s friend Mrs. Dixon sent along home with her for her aunt.

My only problem with Mrs. Elton’s kit is that it’s all perfectly nice, but none of it is overly-nice. There’s no extra trim, no unnecessary lace, not even any bold colors. I hope Myers and McGrath didn’t take Mrs. Elton’s line in the book about her fear of being over-trimmed seriously.

Let’s talk outerwear. There’s a lot of going into town with JUST a shawl on in this movie (usually over short sleeves), and I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s how outer-wear worked in this time period. A shawl is good enough when you’re taking a turn in the garden but not for going out in public into town, unless maybe you’re wearing long sleeves, or perhaps paired with a SPENCER.

Never mind Mrs. Elton’s line about a shocking lack of satin at the end of the movie, I’m more concerned about the shocking lack of spencers. There are precisely three in this film. I counted (and the sleeves on Emma’s look like maybe they’re too long for her?) Mrs. Elton sports the only redingote in the film.

Jane Fairfax is, as always, in her classic Jane Fairfax Blue™,

although she has some nice white gowns at some points too.

Now, onto 

Definitely a bit more colorful than the 97 adaptation. Mr. Knightley benefits most from the addition of colors other than green. He’s even got some smashing waistcoats and a very nice blue evening coat (I couldn’t get very good shots of them though). The problem is; those trousers? NOT. TIGHT. ENOUGH.

Also… you all see it, right? I circled it in red so you should. Yeah. Knightley is dancing in boots. WTF RUTH? Please! You’re better than this! Who dances in Prussians like that? I ask you! (Frank also wears boots to the Cole’s dinner party so that’s two strikes.)

I’m not sold on Frank’s looks. His day-wear is a bit sedate for such a confirmed dandy (I believe he’s called a “coxcombe” in the book?) and his evening wear… well he apparently only has the one look.

And speaking of Frank’s look in this film, I’d like to know at whose doorstep I should lay the blame for what Ewan McGregor himself has called “The Worst Wig Ever”; and why the hair designer in charge decided to model Frank’s aesthetic on a theme of “Chucky meets the Mad Hatter”.

This hairstyle not only looks dreadful, it’s not at all fashionable or authentic to this time period! Fashionable mens’ hair styles at this point were all relatively short. A Beau Brummel coiffeur, or a short Roman style, or a fashionable head of curls like Mr. Elton’s! Not this farmer chic. Robert Martin’s hair is more fashionable than Frank’s!

The tune they chose for Emma and Knightley’s dance is a baroque melody (so a hundred or so years out of fashion) called “Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot” and as is pointed out in the video linked above, and is the same tune and dance used for Lizzie and Darcy’s big dance in Pride and Prejudice (1995).

I get why it was used in P&P because, slow, stately baroque tunes are often used as on-screen short hand for snobbish character like Mr. Darcy. It’s not super intense either, like the baroque tune used in P&P 05, which was chosen for more romantic effect. So why use this kind of “stuck up” tune for what should be a romantic dance? Maybe because it was used in the 95 P&P which became, almost instantly, one of the most popular Austen adaptations?

Quick note on the dancing and music in this movie. I’m not an expert on English Country dance (I’ll outsource that by giving you the usual link to Tea with Cassiane’s analysis on YouTube) but I’ll add my two cents  - I know Cassiane gave this a pretty favorable three full dance slippers but I think the way all of the actors and dancers move looks very poorly rehearsed and kind of sloppy. I think everyone just spread out way too much.

Douglas McGrath’s Script

I have to say one of the things this film did very well and brought to the forefront is how insular Emma’s life is. The opening credit sequence brings this to our attention right away by showing a spinning globe which, once it slows down is shown to be, literally, Emma’s whole tiny world. Hartfield, Donwell, Randalls and Highbury. That’s it. It’s perhaps not a very subtle device, but it does get the job done and very succinctly too.

I would now like to talk about my issues with the script of this movie; I have some problems with it. Very different problems than it’s 1996 counterpart though.

 First let’s go over the comedic device that jumped out to me most in this movie: the awkward pause.

I think it’s only used twice but they both bothered me.

First there’s the pauses while Emma and Mrs. Weston grill Knightley on whether he considers Jane Fairfax romantically. It’s all written as very “OoOoOooo” with Knightley answering their interrogations and then sitting between them awkwardly as they stare him down as, none of his answers giving either Emma or Mrs. Weston satisfaction. This is one of the most teen rom-com moments of the film to me.

Next there’s all the quiet stretches while Emma and Mrs. Elton have tea at Hartfield. I don’t like the use of awkward pauses in this case because (as I mentioned in Mrs. Elton’s characterization section) it’s so ludicrous to me that there are pauses in this conversation at all. Surely the point of Mrs. Elton is that she loves to hear herself talk and her conceited obsession with the idea that everyone around her must only benefit from hearing her opinions. There should be no conceivable reason why Emma should have to prompt conversation like she does in McGrath’s version of this scene, except to derail Mrs. Elton’s constant self-important yammering.

Watching it this time around I found myself wondering exactly what McGrath wanted to do with this film. I mean I’ve been attempting to decipher exactly whether the changes made were conscious and based on artistic vision, or whether they were changed because the source material just flew over McGrath’s Hollywood Director head.

I mean he gets the important plot points across, but there were other scenes that I had issues with: namely, the Archery scene. This is a pretty intense part of the book because Mr. Knightly goes from astonished, to indignant, to truly vexed with Emma in a short period of time. But this scene in the movie is very casual. The part where Emma’s arrow goes wide and into the general direction of Knightley’s dogs, and he takes an opportunity to make a quip and says “try not to kill my dogs” particularly annoyed me. My issue is that this totally ruins the tension of the scene; and why are Knightley’s dogs sitting BEHIND THE TARGETS ANYWAY? Knightley is a sensible man, and one who knows better than to let his dogs rest in a place where stray arrows could hit them!

The dialouge is very jarring because it flips back and forth beetween being alright, and period appropriate and then it will just spring a very modern turn of phrase and pull you completely out of the setting. I know this is something that’s been brought up with the 2009 version as well but maybe it’s because the actors in that version have (in my opinion) better chemistry that it simply doesn't stick out to me as much.

The comedy in general in this movie just makes me cringe a lot of the time (Sophie Thompson’s “oh sorry, napkin” bit notwithstanding). Like the soup thing when Emma and Harriet meet Mr. Elton after visiting the poor, and the random kid that gets tossed into this scene with Emma… just doesn’t work for me.

Wikipedia describes McGrath’s tweaks on Emma and Knightley’s banter (which really weren’t changed that much, textually) as “Enlivened” to make the basis of their attraction more apparent, which… I’m sorry but nothing about the exisiting banter isn’t lively if delivered in a lively manner. And I wouldn’t exactly call Gywneth’s performance lively, because she has to concentrate to keep that accent up.

I mentioned already that what McGrath essentially did with Emma was take Austen’s story, and remove the nuance (Such as lightening Frank’s infractions in his relationship with Jane and, while not totally contradicting, but also not highlighting the economic commentary of the story that is thematic in Austen’s novel) in order to make a straight up 90’s comedic romance film (Which, if you doubt this, look no further than Rachel Portman’s Oscar Winning but very dated score).

My Question is why? Why bother when the SAME STORY had been adapted into a HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL, modernized rom-com THE PREVIOUS YEAR, which actually, even while being set in the 90’s, did the story greater justice, with far more insight and quality?

Emma (1996) was always going to be over-shadowed by Clueless. At the end of the day this whole movie was kind of a futile effort because despite excellent production quality, the actual contents are watered down and, in my own opinion, pretty roundly mediocre.

Final Thoughts

When I first watched both of these versions I came at it from a very one-or-the-other perspective. I forgave McGrath’s film because it was light and colorful and I’d heard Davies’ version praised so highly at that time as the only faithful, definitive version (only to be let down by it in almost every possible way). But coming right down to it now, it’s hard for me to really excuse McGrath’s effort because a version of Emma that doesn’t take itself seriously enough is almost as bad as a version that takes itself too seriously.

It never fails to jump out at me how diametrically opposed these interpretations are, from the characterization right down to the tone and lighting.

McGrath’s Emma is light in every sense of the word, where Davies’ is dark and ponderous. McGrath’s Knightley is laid back where Davies’ is aggressive and ferocious. Frank, in McGrath’s version, is let off easy by the narrative playing down his moodiness, while in Davies there’s an overshadowing dark-cloud of off-putting caddishness.

Ribbon Rating: Tolerable (58 Ribbons)

The more I watch the 1996 adaptations of Emma (invariably back-to-back) the more firmly I am convinced that Andrew Davies’ made for TV film was (in some ways) a direct response to McGrath’s motion picture.

Tone: 7

Casting: 7

Acting: 5

Scripting: 5

Pacing: 4

Cinematography: 4

Setting: 5

Costumes: 6

Music: 5

Book Accuracy: 6

[jaredeck]

Jared Eck Proven Strategies To Get New Business Leads

Jared Eck Proficient tips provider. Learning all you can about lead generation is what will set you apart from the competition. Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the field of sales. Are you prepared to become the best of the best? If so, the article below is just waiting for you to read it.

To generate leads for your enterprise, make people an offer. The offer can be in the form of a free ebook, newsletter, coupon or other enticement. Make sure it is high in value and relevant to your particular audience. When you make a tempting offer, you will generate plenty of good leads.

Be careful about buying email lists to use for lead generation. A lot of companies swear their lists are fresh, but quite often 30% or more of the names you are purchasing will be out of date. Prior to purchasing, negotiate with the list selling company in regard to this. You should get a partial refund if a percentage this high is noticed.

Invite potential customers to actually opt into joining your community on your website. You'd be amazed at how many website browsers will make the decision to provide their email. Make sure, though, that you've got relevant content to share with them afterwards. Think about developing a newsletter or a series of tips emails.

Look into opportunities where you may be able to pay for leads. Paying for leads is not a bad thing at all. In fact there are many companies out there that can deliver you leads at a surprisingly low cost. Just do your homework before signing up with anyone. There are scams out there.

Jared Eck Professional tips provider. Know going in that lead generation is a time consuming and ongoing process. It's not a set it and forget it situation. You need to work at it. It takes building trust and thought leadership in the markets in which you sell. Be patient and work hard and you'll really reap the rewards.

Try to call as much as you can when you are try to get leads. You'll be surprised with how many people out there want to work with you after you pitch to them. No matter if you're selling toothbrushes or supplements, there's a person out there that's looking for it, so try it.

Find ways to qualify leads that you've brought into the company. Yes, it's important to get as much data as you can, but leads are of different levels of quality. Some leads are more likely to be bigger customers than others. One way is to develop a survey to learn more about their buying habits.

Absolutely every site you have up, whether a blog forum or regular content page or your main site, there should be contact information, social media plugins and opt in suggestions. These need to be strategically located and should be placed on every page so that people know how they can stay connected with you.

Make sure to keep your lead pipeline in motion at all times. This means you need to do lead generation tactics on a daily basis. It can take a lot of leads to get just one to convert into a customer, so you need a good source of them at all times.

Start a newsletter and send it out to your current clients. You can also send them to those who have brought in referrals in the past, and even people who just happen to live near you. If you make it concise and clear people will read it, and you might get some new leads.

Jared Eck Proficient tips provider. Remember that people respect honesty more than hype, so when you try to generate more leads, leave an open and honest offer on the table. Adding bells and whistles just makes you look like a generic salesperson who will do whatever it takes to get people to buy. Generate leads with a quality presentation and you gain permanent customers instead.

Remember to consider your timing and not just your content. Great content will only be effective if it arrives to a lead at a time when they need it and will consider it carefully. When is the best time to market to your potential leads? Think about who you are marketing to in order to decide this.

You can already start getting quality leads by taking the time to interact with the consumers you do have. Ask your current customers to opt-in to your marketing messages. Since you are asking people you already know to opt-in to receive messages from you, you have a higher chance of winning them over since they can already identify with your business.

Incentives are a killer way to bring in new leads. Whether it is a coupon, bonus gift or entry into a giveaway, offering something extra to those who buy from you can really drive your customer acquisition. Be sure to only use this technique for those who wouldn't become a lead otherwise or else you'll be losing money.

Jared Eck Proficient tips provider. Pay for leads if you must. Buying or renting them is perfectly acceptable if it increases your bottom line. Find a source of high-quality leads, and use them in addition to other methods until you get your business off the ground. Once you have enough leads coming in from other directions, you can stop using a pay-per-lead service.

Your lead generator should yield the most traffic. Whether it stands alone as a splash page or is a full survey, with no traffic you will not get leads. Your attention will always be some form of campaign that delivers people through interest to your survey or splash page.

Develop strong call-to-actions in your marketing. It doesn't matter if its traditional advertising, email marketing or social media advertising - you need a strong call-to-action to generate leads. If you simply advertise your name with no desired action, all you are doing is brand building. You aren't at all developing the opportunity for generating leads.

Jared Eck Skilled tips provider. With all of these facts fresh in your mind, the time is now to start planning your new strategy. Get to work today so that you can ensure your success tomorrow. The sooner you get down to business, the faster your goals will be reached and your income will skyrocket.

[blessuswithblogs]

Katsura Hashino is a Big Fat Creep and Other Observations

(for the record all uses of the word “queer” in this post are meant in the academic sense as shorthand for a wide umbrella group of gender and sexual minorities and not as a slur i hope that is evident from my past history and status as Big Gay Bitch Who Loves Girls but let it never be said i don’t cover my ass)

A few weeks ago, Catherine: Full Body Edition or whatever gross subtitle it got was released. Catherine has had a very checkered history as one of those games that is just kind of slimy, though it has endured with a cult following and a surprisingly successful competitive community by way of the game's multiplayer mode where you compete to see who can climb The Dream Sex Tower the best. Honestly, I don't know that much about Catherine because it is difficult to think of a game that repulses me more on a visceral level, but I want to do my due diligence and not talk out my ass. One of Catherine's initial claims to fame was that it was by Atlus Japan, specifically the same people who made the much beloved Persona games. This is evident in the game's art, music, overall style of delivery, and being basically hate speech.

The original Catherine was a greasy, misogynistic mess with some really vile politics about trans people in particular. Deadnaming your own fictional character in the credits is some next level petty malice. Full Body returns with, stupendously, a double down on this ideology that is actually kind of comical in how convoluted it gets in trying to decry the Degenerate Queer Lifestyle. The game adds a scene with Rin, who is apparently a gay crossdresser from space(???????), getting slapped away and running away crying from their love interest after he learns The Terrible Truth. In another game, with a different writing team, this could have been a teachable moment about the destructive consequences of taking too narrow a view of human sexuality and gender expression, but as it stands it's just another tiresome example of Trans Panic with a sheepish admonishment from the other characters that gosh maybe slapping their hand away was a mean thing to do.

So we're already firing on all cylinders here, but the best is yet to come. The bulk of the outcry comes from the addition of a weird "true ending" cutscene where Catherine, who is also from space, goes back in time to make everybody's life better. Or something. This is already pretty stupid on the face of it because its Fucking Time Travel Out of Nowhere, but the scene then depicts a pre-transition Erica, the game's trans character who got deadnamed in the credits the last time. There has been a lot of exceptionally tedious discussion about exactly when this scene takes place in the game's chronology and what it means for Erica, and some brain geniuses have tied their thinkmeats into pretzel shapes to prove definitively that all this means is that she delayed her transition in this Better Timeline, that might not actually be better, because Catherine is weird and selfish, maybe. And. Fine. Sure. Okay. Let's accept that for now. Given the game's previous track record, and continuing insistence on using Erica's pretransition name in the credits even in the rerelease, it is meanspirited at best to show her before her transition at all (many real life trans people would be utterly mortified for such a thing to happen to them) and overall just in poor taste and pretty lousy writing at that because it's so unclear what any of this actually means. Since the game has not yet received an official english localization, the context of this scene is to begin with muddled by amateur translators on the internet all with slightly conflicting interpretations of the scene. It's a fucking mess, by and large.

So I would disagree that this is a fake controversy manufactured by those damnable essjaydubyas. Even with the most charitable interpretation possible, it's still just really sketchy and gross. Erica's english voice actress, who seems to be very fond of the character, has been vocal about her dissatisfaction with the new scenes on twitter and has recently come out to say that the localization team is going to try and take some steps to make things less blatantly hateful. Between this and Jennifer Hale's recent tweet about it being time to grab our pitchforks in response to Activision-Blizzard's mass layoffs, I'm starting to think that voice actresses are pretty cool. I mean honestly I always thought that but we're getting off topic. One of the top competitive Catherine players, who was by all accounts really hyped for the release of Full Body, just straight up said on twitter that he was quitting the game because he couldn't support something like that in good conscience. I don't know if he's remained consistent on this position since, but it was a bold statement, to say the least.

Now, whenever an incident like this happens, the inevitable string of More-Progressive-Than-Thou white boys who watched an anime once and thought the bouncing titties were a little much appears to start pontificating about the cause of such untoward elements in media. And it's basically all just a bunch of Orientalist bullshit. Every time. For whatever reason, people still really love to be racist towards Japanese people because it's still sort of socially acceptable when couched in the language of "oh japan!!! ecks dee" and so the neverending procession of softboi neckbeards declared with confidence that Atlus's continual inclusion of Actual Hate Speech towards LGBTQ+ people was the result of the inscrutable Japanese Mind and its Mysterious, Antiquated Culture. Many mentions of the philosophy of Wa, wherein the nail that stands out gets pounded down, and lots of very lovely psuedointellectual claptrap. Evidently, people just seem to think that queer people don't live in Japan, or that they don't fight just as hard as we do for equal rights and protections under the law. They do live there, and they do fight as hard as we do. Obviously. You fucking imbeciles.

In their quest to clearly illustrate their moral and intellectual superiority to the backward, collectivist Asiatic Peoples, these highly reasonable and enlightened manboys forsook a very important logical principle: Occam's Razor. Sure, you could blame jApAnEsE cUlTuRe for Atlus's impropieties and just conveniently ignore all of the fantastic queer media it has produced in recent years like My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Horou Muskou, Nier Automata, etc. Or you could go for the simpler and more logically consistent option: Katsura Hashino is a big fat creep. Who is Hashino, you ask? He is the director of every Persona game since 3, as well as Catherine, and all of these games' gross shit and self-contradictory themes of self-acceptance and rebellion against an unust society (unless you're gay, ew) can probably be traced to him and his gaggle of accomplices. In addition to the fact that Atlus games not by Hashino's team tend to just. not have these problems to nearly as large a degree or even at all, Hashino himself has gone on record saying some really kind of hilariously backwards shit. Most infamously, when asked why in Persona 3 literally all of your social links with girls ended up with Hot Makeout Sessions regardless of like. Previously Committed to Relationships. Hashino simply said he couldn't imagine friendships between boys and girls. So that's where his brain is at. Since subsequent games in the series graciously allowed the player the option to not be a Huge Cheating Bastard, one can assume either his moral development has progressed past early puberty or somebody on the team convinced him this wasn't actually a normal thing to think. Given the man's output, I would say it's probably the latter.

It is because of this man's decisions and behavior that so many people are simply unwilling to give Full Body the benefit of the doubt. The game's director is, quite simply, a well known louse, and not in the endearing, Roger Smith way. Once again, it requires far fewer leaps in logic to assume that Hashino is just being a bigoted creep again than to go through some fuckin galaxy brain Kingdom Hearts-esque dot-connecting to justify it as just a LITTLE BIT bigoted not REALLY SUPER bigoted, or simply blaming the whole ordeal on some strange ineffable property of the Japanese Character. He's a gremlin! An overgrown manchild with a warped view of human interaction and society put in charge of games about exploring those concepts for.... reasons. My bet is that his dad knew somebody and then Persona 3 was successful enough for the rest of Atlus to just go "alright fine let him do it while we do mainline games". Unfortunately, Persona became so popular that the mainline games sort of switched places and became side-projects, at least in the eyes of the Western consumer base (which let's be real is the only perspective that any of these Serious Online Commentators even pretend to care about).

So I would once again caution everyone against just assuming that Japan is some sort of quaint anachronistic country of weird gameshows and backwards social mores. This is both a gross oversimplification of an entire culture and the struggles of their own subgroups and minorities and simply a grand display of lacking self-awareness. Like have you fucking seen the guys in the White House? The preposterous media that gets routinely greenlit on prime time TV, theaters, and digitally? Don't make me laugh. The West has no claim to any sort of progressive superiority to anybody else. The white cishet bubble of comfortable middle class affluence might distort what you see of the rest of the world, but believe me: we got problems too. Big ones. Even the presupposed bastions of Demsoc Virtue like Sweden have an awful track record of discrimination and eugenics. But Dazzlyn that's different, you cry! All of these groups and forces don't represent the entirety of Western culture! Yes. Exactly. Oppression is not culturally bound like cuisine or art. It is a nasty, universal thing that worms its way into everything, and it will use any excuse it can find to murder and exploit. It's against Christian values! It represents a genetic defect that must be purged! It's ostentatious and immature! The list goes on. And every time you giggle and go "oh those silly japanese" you're just being another expression of the same vile ideas.

I'm going to relate some of my own personal experiences, because as a noted Big Gay Bitch Who Loves Girls, I feel like maybe I have some authority on the matter? Just a little? Enough that if I make a well reasoned argument it can't be dismissed out of hand? Let's hope. So, what's the gayest game I've ever played? Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn. Look yeah I know I'm talking about it again but come back this is important. Final Fantasy is a series that has had a lot of LGBTQ+ undertones pretty much since forever, and while they have largely been in keeping with the times in terms of tact and representation (the Crossdressing Cloud debacle is a deeply bizarre, uncomfortable sequence in a lot of ways but there's also some genuine Good Gay Shit in 7 like Cloud's surprisingly cute and genuine date with Barret. I think. It's... it's been a while.), by God, it was at least there, and 13 had honest to god Lesbians, Harold in Fang and Vanille. I don't want to say it has pedigree, but the series has dabbled. XIV continues on the tradition with a vibrant world that's actually got a lot of characters and NPCs that are just incidentally there and kind of gay. The adventurer couple that befriended the Tonberries in Wanderer's Palace, a vendor that appeared in the Rising cosplaying as Minfilia at her wife's behest, a miqote lady bathing in the oasis that lets on she wouldn't mind having cute girls stare at her instead of grabby boys, every horny Elezen in Ishgard, Samson and Guydelot (shoutouts to Lulumi Lumi), and probably more that I've missed. More than that, though, is that because FFXIV is an MMO, it is by necessity a social space, and in my experience it has been one that has gone out of its way to be inclusive to everybody, from the GMs handling reports of abusive behavior right up to the top decision makers who made same sex player marriages a thing just immediately on its implementation and letting boys wear the gold saucer bunny costume too (albeit after quite a bit of pleading). The game's got a huge queer community of which I am kind of part of sort of. It's one of the reasons I keep coming back to it. Hell, they've recently partnered with a pride group in Australia to have an FFXIV float in a parade. I usually turn my nose up at such things as meaningless corporate grandstanding, but it does seem to be more meaningful than two boy pastas getting married or rainbow colored oreos because like. Cheesy as it sounds, it's more than just a brand to a lot of people, it's a place, sometimes the only place, they can go to feel safe and accepted in a community. Having official, vocal support from the dev team means genuinely a lot, I think.

Now, there is one quality about this game of which I am speaking that might strike you as noteworthy: it is Japanese. It's made by Japanese people, in Japan, under a Japanese company. A middle aged Japanese man goes up on stage in Gunbreaker cosplay to speak in Japanese about the upcoming expansion, while a meme obsessed gremlin translates for him. It's not perfect, there are problems, etcetera, why do I even need to qualify that in 2019, when everything sucks, god. But it's better than most things. I hope that it serves as an example to people that even in the supposedly regressive countries of the world, queer communities are still living, fighting, and sometimes even being heard, and that the only thing you're enriching by dismissing them wholesale as socially backwards is your own internet penis. And nobody fucking cares about that you simpleton. I expect 5.0 to be gayer than ever before because they're taming up with Yoko Taro to do a Nier themed raid and by the 12 Warrior of Light Dazzyn Reed is going to kiss 2B or an equivalent model right on the robot lips.

[anagamitofotografia]

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Despite bearing the brunt of the damage from Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Harris County and Houston were awarded $0 of the $1 billion in a first round of federal relief funding related to the storm, which was announced Friday.

Local officials are now imploring the federal government to halt the process and reconsider.

Harris County and Houston requested $1.3 billion for various projects from the first round of Hurricane Harvey relief funds distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the two local governments were absent from the list of 81 recipients that the Texas General Land Office announced Friday. Another $1.1 billion in Harvey relief has yet to be distributed.

Mike Burns, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at HUD, said although the department approves the state’s distribution plan, Texas was responsible for creating the allocation formula and has “full responsibility and jurisdiction over who gets the money that was allocated to the state for flood mitigation.”

“We believe all areas of the state, including Houston and Harris County, should receive the resources they need to recover from Hurricane Harvey,” Burns said.

Burns added that HUD has to approve the allocations by the Land Office before they are finalized.

Four smaller cities within Harris County — Baytown, Galena Park, Jacinto City and Pasadena — were awarded over $90.4 million in combined funds for their projects. However, none of Harris County’s or Houston’s proposals were granted, shocking officials who expected millions in federal dollars to help fund the continuing recovery efforts from the 2017 hurricane.

“It’s unconscionable for the community that was hit so hard by Hurricane Harvey to have received $0 in Harvey mitigation federal funds,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a press conference Friday. “I’m pleased that four smaller cities within Harris County have received some funding … but those funds don’t come anywhere near the amount of funding that we need.”

In Houston and its surrounding area, Hurricane Harvey sparked extreme flooding and caused $125 billion in damage, the most expensive disaster in the U.S. that year. Statewide, over 30,000 people were displaced, and more than 200,000 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. At least 68 people died in Texas, 36 of whom lived in Harris County.

Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner each submitted letters asking HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge — recently appointed under the Biden administration — to halt the distribution of funds, complete an audit of how the criteria were developed and ensure that their communities receive funding.

Turner pointed the finger at the Texas General Land Office, overseen by Commissioner George P. Bush, which was responsible for distributing the federal funds.

“For the State GLO not to give one dime in the initial distribution to the City and a very small portion to Harris County shows a callous disregard to the people of Houston and Harris County,” Turner said in a statement. “And it is unfathomable that the State GLO would redirect most of these dollars to areas that did not suffer much from Hurricane Harvey.”

The Land Office created a matrix to determine which applicants would get funding based on HUD guidelines and analyzed over 220 applications requesting a total of $5.5 billion. But Harris County officials said the matrix, developed under the Trump administration, put them at a disadvantage due to their population size.

“The deck was stacked against us from the get-go,” Hidalgo said.

Harris County is relying on federal funds to close a roughly $900 million gap for its flood bond program, or else it may have to issue a new bond, divert toll road revenue, or scale back the size or scope of flood mitigation projects, according to the Houston Chronicle,

Brittany Eck, a spokesperson for the Texas General Land Office, said the office’s hands were tied when determining who gets funding.

It was “simple math” based on the numbers submitted in the project proposals, Eck said, and officials had to follow the guidelines put into place by HUD. A HUD spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Whereas the Federal Emergency Management Agency awards based on a damage assessment, HUD focused on the social vulnerability of communities, Eck said. FEMA has awarded Houston over $119 million for Hurricane Harvey relief.

“We were not allowed under federal rules to grade on a curve to give Houston and Harris County a benefit or favoritism over other entities. We had to score everyone equally,” Eck said. “The funding that we’re announcing today represents the 81 highest-scoring projects before we ran out of funding.”

The matrix gave favor to both more sparsely populated areas and areas with higher property values, which worked against Houston and Harris County, Hidalgo said.

Because some of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Harvey included lower-income residents, Hidalgo said the property values in those areas skewed the criteria. Secondly, the vast population of Harris County drove down the percentage of how many people would be helped — but the raw numbers of affected people are still higher than other areas, she said.

“The fact that the criteria was designed to favor small areas at the expense of large, urban areas is bewildering, not just because our area was the most impacted by far, but also because these are funds that come from Housing and Urban Development,” which is supposed to prioritize low-income communities, Hidalgo said.

U.S. Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, D-Houston, said in a statement that it was “outrageous” that Houston and Harris were snubbed in the distribution of federal funds.

“This decision is an affront to our entire community, which has been working tirelessly to recover and rebuild after Harvey. It also raises serious questions about the GLO’s entire process,” she said. “I will work with my colleagues and our community leaders now to fight for Houston and Harris County to get our fair share of the funds.”

State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, said while she’s disappointed that her home city was not awarded any funding, she is pleased that the funding for the four nearby cities “will support several projects that will benefit residents throughout Harris County.”

Eck said the proposals were fair to all communities and scored based on numbers submitted with the proposals — and that some of the communities receiving funding have been trying to fund these projects for several years.

“Many of these communities that are being awarded represent communities that do not have the funding basis to afford these projects on their own,” Eck said. “Many of them have been seeking funding for decades. The Pasadena mayor told us today that we’ve been looking for these funds for at least three decades.”

The city of Pasadena received more than $47 million — the largest amount of funding in Harris County. Those funds will go to a flood mitigation project in the Houston Ship Channel and the Vince Bayou.

“The severe storms we’ve had in the past show just how much of southeast Texas is vulnerable when watersheds converge,” Pasadena Mayor Jeff Wagner said in a statement. “Many communities will see relief from this generous grant award program. … This is really going to benefit residents throughout Harris County.”

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This post was provided on this site.

We trust that you found the post above useful or interesting. You can find similar content on our main site here: northtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what subjects we should write about for you in future.

[afrolesbikita]

Stories & useful up-dates on POS Hardware and Point of Sale.

Sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Despite bearing the brunt of the damage from Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Harris County and Houston were awarded $0 of the $1 billion in a first round of federal relief funding related to the storm, which was announced Friday.

Local officials are now imploring the federal government to halt the process and reconsider.

Harris County and Houston requested $1.3 billion for various projects from the first round of Hurricane Harvey relief funds distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the two local governments were absent from the list of 81 recipients that the Texas General Land Office announced Friday. Another $1.1 billion in Harvey relief has yet to be distributed.

Mike Burns, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at HUD, said although the department approves the state’s distribution plan, Texas was responsible for creating the allocation formula and has “full responsibility and jurisdiction over who gets the money that was allocated to the state for flood mitigation.”

“We believe all areas of the state, including Houston and Harris County, should receive the resources they need to recover from Hurricane Harvey,” Burns said.

Burns added that HUD has to approve the allocations by the Land Office before they are finalized.

Four smaller cities within Harris County — Baytown, Galena Park, Jacinto City and Pasadena — were awarded over $90.4 million in combined funds for their projects. However, none of Harris County’s or Houston’s proposals were granted, shocking officials who expected millions in federal dollars to help fund the continuing recovery efforts from the 2017 hurricane.

“It’s unconscionable for the community that was hit so hard by Hurricane Harvey to have received $0 in Harvey mitigation federal funds,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said during a press conference Friday. “I’m pleased that four smaller cities within Harris County have received some funding … but those funds don’t come anywhere near the amount of funding that we need.”

In Houston and its surrounding area, Hurricane Harvey sparked extreme flooding and caused $125 billion in damage, the most expensive disaster in the U.S. that year. Statewide, over 30,000 people were displaced, and more than 200,000 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. At least 68 people died in Texas, 36 of whom lived in Harris County.

Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner each submitted letters asking HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge — recently appointed under the Biden administration — to halt the distribution of funds, complete an audit of how the criteria were developed and ensure that their communities receive funding.

Turner pointed the finger at the Texas General Land Office, overseen by Commissioner George P. Bush, which was responsible for distributing the federal funds.

“For the State GLO not to give one dime in the initial distribution to the City and a very small portion to Harris County shows a callous disregard to the people of Houston and Harris County,” Turner said in a statement. “And it is unfathomable that the State GLO would redirect most of these dollars to areas that did not suffer much from Hurricane Harvey.”

The Land Office created a matrix to determine which applicants would get funding based on HUD guidelines and analyzed over 220 applications requesting a total of $5.5 billion. But Harris County officials said the matrix, developed under the Trump administration, put them at a disadvantage due to their population size.

“The deck was stacked against us from the get-go,” Hidalgo said.

Harris County is relying on federal funds to close a roughly $900 million gap for its flood bond program, or else it may have to issue a new bond, divert toll road revenue, or scale back the size or scope of flood mitigation projects, according to the Houston Chronicle,

Brittany Eck, a spokesperson for the Texas General Land Office, said the office’s hands were tied when determining who gets funding.

It was “simple math” based on the numbers submitted in the project proposals, Eck said, and officials had to follow the guidelines put into place by HUD. A HUD spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Whereas the Federal Emergency Management Agency awards based on a damage assessment, HUD focused on the social vulnerability of communities, Eck said. FEMA has awarded Houston over $119 million for Hurricane Harvey relief.

“We were not allowed under federal rules to grade on a curve to give Houston and Harris County a benefit or favoritism over other entities. We had to score everyone equally,” Eck said. “The funding that we’re announcing today represents the 81 highest-scoring projects before we ran out of funding.”

The matrix gave favor to both more sparsely populated areas and areas with higher property values, which worked against Houston and Harris County, Hidalgo said.

Because some of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Harvey included lower-income residents, Hidalgo said the property values in those areas skewed the criteria. Secondly, the vast population of Harris County drove down the percentage of how many people would be helped — but the raw numbers of affected people are still higher than other areas, she said.

“The fact that the criteria was designed to favor small areas at the expense of large, urban areas is bewildering, not just because our area was the most impacted by far, but also because these are funds that come from Housing and Urban Development,” which is supposed to prioritize low-income communities, Hidalgo said.

U.S. Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, D-Houston, said in a statement that it was “outrageous” that Houston and Harris were snubbed in the distribution of federal funds.

“This decision is an affront to our entire community, which has been working tirelessly to recover and rebuild after Harvey. It also raises serious questions about the GLO’s entire process,” she said. “I will work with my colleagues and our community leaders now to fight for Houston and Harris County to get our fair share of the funds.”

State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, said while she’s disappointed that her home city was not awarded any funding, she is pleased that the funding for the four nearby cities “will support several projects that will benefit residents throughout Harris County.”

Eck said the proposals were fair to all communities and scored based on numbers submitted with the proposals — and that some of the communities receiving funding have been trying to fund these projects for several years.

“Many of these communities that are being awarded represent communities that do not have the funding basis to afford these projects on their own,” Eck said. “Many of them have been seeking funding for decades. The Pasadena mayor told us today that we’ve been looking for these funds for at least three decades.”

The city of Pasadena received more than $47 million — the largest amount of funding in Harris County. Those funds will go to a flood mitigation project in the Houston Ship Channel and the Vince Bayou.

“The severe storms we’ve had in the past show just how much of southeast Texas is vulnerable when watersheds converge,” Pasadena Mayor Jeff Wagner said in a statement. “Many communities will see relief from this generous grant award program. … This is really going to benefit residents throughout Harris County.”

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This post was provided on this site.

We trust that you found the post above useful or interesting. You can find similar content on our main site here: northtxpointofsale.com Let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what subjects we should write about for you in future.

[kumail-fan]

Philipp Melanchthon German theologian

Philipp Melanchthon German theologian

He was a pal of Martin Luther and defended his views. Due to his academic experience, he had been asked to aid in founding colleges, and he played an significant part in reforming public colleges in Germany.

Melanchthon inherited from his parents, Barbara Reuter and Georg Schwartzerd, a profound awareness of piety that never abandoned him. From his Bretten environment (where five taxpayers were burnt as witches in 1504), he consumed a feeling of their occult that combined afterwards with biblical references to celebrities, visions, and devils to create him a firm believer in astrology and demonology. Back in 1508, in a span of 11 days, both his grandfather Reuter and his dad died, his dad after four decades of invalidism.

Humanism predominated at Melanchthon's schooling , his research having been led by a great-uncle, Johannes Reuchlin, that had been a famed Hebraist and humanist. Philipp's first tutor instilled in him a lifelong love of Latin and Classical literature, also in the Pforzheim Latin college he obtained additional humanistic coaching and had his name changed by Schwartzerd to its Greek equivalent, Melanchthon (meaning"black earth").

While in the Universities of Heidelberg (1509--11; B.A.) and Tübingen (1512--14; M.A.), Melanchthon researched the teachings of Scholasticism, steeped himself at the rhetoric of this Dutch humanist Rodolphus Agricola along with the Nominalism of this English philosopher William of Ockham along with also the ecclesiastical reformer John of Wesel, researched scripture, also read Classical functions. On getting the M.A. level, he lectured, together with conspicuous victory, on the classics and had six novels to his credit, such as Rudiments of this Greek Language (1518), a grammar which was to undergo several variations. He had been praised by the fantastic Dutch humanist Erasmus, and his name became famous in England. In the very best tradition of this moment, Melanchthon was a humanist.

In 1518 Melanchthon accepted an invitation, relayed through Reuchlin, to eventually become the University of Wittenberg's initial professor of Greek. Just four days after his birth, he addressed the college on"The Development of Studies," boldly setting on a humanistic schedule and calling for a return to Christian resources so as to regenerate theology and reestablish society.

Luther, the creator of this Protestant Reformation, and Melanchthon reacted to each other , and their profound friendship developed. Melanchthon dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the new Evangelical cause, initiated the preceding year after Luther circulated his Ninety-five Theses. (Watch Researcher's Note: The posting of this theses.) From the conclusion of 1519 he'd defended scriptural authority against Luther's competitor Johann Eck, rejected (earlier Luther did) transubstantiation--the philosophy that the material of bread and wine at the Lord's Supper is transformed into the body and blood of Christ--produced justification by religion that the keystone of his theology, also publicly divided with Reuchlin.

In this time period he had published seven small books and'd got the bachelor of theology degree at Wittenberg. He started his day at 2:00 AM and gave lectures, frequently to as many as 600 pupils, at 6:00. Additionally, he found the time to court Katherine Krapp, whom he wed in 1520 and that bore him four children--Anna, Philipp, Georg, and Magdalen.

Sin, legislation, and elegance were the main topics, together with free will, vows, expect, confession, and other doctrines subsumed. According to scripture, Melanchthon contended that sin is much more than the outside action; it reaches beyond reason into individual emotions and will so the individual human can't only resolve to perform good works and make virtue before God. Original sin is a native propensity, an excessive self-concern tainting all guy's actions. However, God's grace consoles guy with forgiveness, and man's works, although imperfect, are a reply in pleasure and gratitude for celestial benevolence. Three editions of this Loci communes appeared prior to the conclusion of the year and 18 variations by 1525, as well as printings of a German translation. The previous variant in 1558 was considerably enlarged and altered. Luther announced that the Loci communes deserved a place in the canon of scriptures; the University of Cambridge at England afterwards made it required reading, and Queen Elizabeth I virtually realised it she could converse theology.

Regardless of a royal decree of departure to people who supported Luther, in 1521 Melanchthon harshly replied the Sorbonne's condemnation of 104 statements of Luther with "Against the Furious Decree of their Parisian Theologasters." When Melanchthon hesitated to release his lectures Corinthians, Luther took a replica and printed them in 1521 using a preface stating,"It's I who print these annotations of yoursand send one yourself." In 1523 Luther did exactly the same with Melanchthon's notes John.

In 1521, during Luther's remain about the Wartburg, Melanchthon was the chief of the Reformation trigger at Wittenberg. Following the very first Diet of Speyer (1526), in which a shaky peace was mobilized for the Reform movement, Melanchthon was picked among those 28 commissioners to stop by Saxony and govern the constitution of those churches. In 1528 this caused the book of Unterricht der Visitatoren ("Directions for Traffic"), a pair of directions for your commissioners. Besides a report on Evangelical philosophy, it included a summary of instruction for the elementary levels, which has been enacted into legislation in Saxony to launch the first public school program. Melanchthon's educational program was widely replicated throughout Germany, and 56 cities requested his guidance in founding colleges. Throughout his lectures and textbooks, along with the teachers he coached, Melanchthon exercised great influence in Protestant Germany. His efforts earned him the name"Preceptor of Germany."

Read more about  Philipp Melanchthon

[pennsylvaniaprelawland-blog]

TikTok, Data Security, And The Trump Administration’s Imminent Ban

By Grace White, Villanova University Class of 2023

July 28, 2020

Since its introduction, TikTok, a video-sharing app, quickly gained traction with teenagers and young adults. A place to learn quick dances, share lip-syncing videos, get a laugh, and more, TikTok has become all the rage, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a source of community, entertainment, and a creative outlet in an unprecedented time of separation. Based on the videos themselves, it may be surprising that the app has come under scrutiny based on concerns about security. The U.S. government has now taken action to prevent a security breach, but it is unclear what exactly will happen to TikTok.

The version of the platform popular right now was relaunched in August 2018 by ByteDance, a technology company based in Beijing, China [3]. It is the result of a merger with an older, similar app, but it was only this newest version that was available internationally. In the past year, TikTok has taken off, with accelerated growth in the past ten months.

Concern about TikTok is not a new development, but it is reaching a pivotal point. The safety of the app has been in question for over a year. In November of last year, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States launched a review of ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly, which resulted in the creation of TikTok. The investigation has been ongoing, but the most likely results would be to force ByteDance to sell the app or cease operations in the U.S. [6]. This would have a nationwide impact on TikTok users. A major motion by the Federal Trade Commission against TikTok in 2019 fined the app almost $6 million over the collection of minors’ data and privacy settings that potentially put children in danger [1].

In the months since the investigation began, TikTok has had several controversies. In December, Check Point, a security firm, discovered bugs with privacy concerns, which have since been fixed; in March, it was found that TikTok was accessing data copied into the smartphone clipboard, potentially giving the app access to sensitive information [1]. These bugs have been resolved and the company claims no information left the app, but it is not the end of the concerns.In June, Amazon asked employees to delete TikTok on devices that have access to their work email [2]. Despite the request being rescinded, it caused a spike in anxiety over ByteDance’s data practices [7].

Data collection is not unique to TikTok with companies such as Facebook and Twitter collecting similar data from users.It could still be dangerous if the wrong information were to be leaked. Information collected by TikTok includes location data, IP address, device information, browsing history, TikTok message content; additional phone data such as GPS location, age, phone number, photos or videos taken on the app, and payment information, if a user opts into such collection. This information goes into determining what videos are suggested to a user, along with the person’s interactions with videos on their feed [1]. U.S. politicians are afraid that the information may be collected by the Chinese government and used for espionage against the United States [10]. The creators of TikTok claim that the information is not used maliciously [4] and has never been sent to the Chinese government. Even though these statements may be true, it is still a great source of concern. Through TikTok, China is aggregating massive amounts of data from American citizens; this fact combined with the country’s history of intellectual property violations and general data theft feels, for some, like enough to view the app as a danger.

In July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the government was considering a ban on the app. Information collection in this case is such a concern because of China’s history of data abuse, particularly the fact that Chinese apps have frequently sent information to advertisers [1]. This claim was partially substantiated when the House of Representatives voted 336-71 to stop federal employees, including members of Congress and their staff, from downloading TikTok on any government-issued device [4]. This decision was made as part of a defense bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, passed in the House on Tuesday, July 21st [5]. This was one of the first legislative steps in limiting use of the app.

As mentioned earlier, the Trump Administration is considering a complete ban on TikTok. The US would not be the first country to do so, as India already did so [8]. The privacy concerns appear to necessitate quick action, and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff said a ban could come in “weeks, not months” [4]. A ban of the app would likely have to be through regulation of the Google and Apple app stores, and then have networks block the app on internet connections [11].

The act of actually banning the app is not a black and white decision. In the 1990s, a series of cases involving a cryptographer name Daniel Bernstein eventually decided that code qualifies as speech and is protected as such under the First Amendment [12]. Because of this protection, there is some speculation that adverse legal action may follow the ban, though some regulation of code is allowed [9]. Despite all of that, the top priority for the U.S. government is to maintain the safety and privacy of users, so action is a real possibility in the near future. Another route may involve the ongoing investigation through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, potentially forcing TikTok to “restructure” [11].

A ban of this sort could hurt teens who compose most of the app’s users, some of whom have earned a fanbase and thus, an income from their videos. In addition, banning TikTok has some other implications on free speech from this angle. The app has been an effective medium for spreading information, especially during the pandemic and ignition of the Black Lives Matter movement. Information will likely just move to a different app, but such a move may be unpopular with young adults who have found community on TikTok. To prevent those conversations may seem hypocritical coming from a country that condemns international violations of this principle [9].There are different opinions on if banning TikTok is the appropriate decision.

Until the Trump Administration passes direct action impacting TikTok, no one can say for certain what will happen to the platform. In order to keep American data safe, investigations, partial or total bans may be on the horizon for this app. It has taken over teen culture in the past year with its quick entertainment, but time may be up for TikTok.

________________________________________________________________

[1] McMillan, Robert, Lin, Liza, and Li, Shan. “TikTok User Data: What Does the App Collect and Why Are U.S. Authorities Concerned?” (July 7, 2020). The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-user-data-what-does-the-app-collect-and-why-are-u-s-authorities-concerned-11594157084

[2] Lorenz, Taylor. “What if the U.S. Bans TikTok?” (July 14, 2020). New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/style/tiktok-ban-us-users-influencers-taylor-lorenz.html?searchResultPosition=1

[3] “TikTok” (n.d.). Wikipedia.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

[4] Lima, Cristiano and O’Brien, Connor.“House votes to ban TikTok on federal devices” (July 20, 2020).Politico.https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/20/house-tiktok-federal-phones-374315

[5] Rodrigo, Chris Mills. “House-approved defense bill would ban TikTok from government devices” (July 21, 2020). The Hill.https://thehill.com/policy/technology/508412-house-approved-defense-bill-would-ban-tiktok-from-government-devices

[6] Tan, Shining. “TikTok on the Clock: A Summary of CFIUS’s Investigation into ByteDance” (May 13, 2020). Center for Strategic & International Studies. https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/tiktok-clock-summary-cfiuss-investigation-bytedance

[7] Isaac, Mike and Weise, Karen.“Amazon Backtracks FromDemand that Employees Delete TikTok” (July 10, 2020). New York Timeshttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/technology/tiktok-amazon-security-risk.html

[8] “Everything You Need to Know about the US Possibly Banning TikTok” (July 9, 2020). WSJ Noted. https://www.wsj.com/articles/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-u-s-possibly-banning-tiktok-11594315979#:~:text=India%20recently%20banned%20TikTok%20and,tool%20for%20the%20Chinese%20government.

[9] Jarvis, Jacob. “Trump’s Proposed TikTok Ban May Threaten Free Speech: Experts” (July 11, 2020). Newsweek.https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tiktok-ban-free-speech-1517125

[10] Wong, Queenie and Hautala, Laura. “Trump pushes a TikTok ban: Everything you need to know” (July 22, 2020). CNET. https://www.cnet.com/news/trump-pushes-a-tiktok-ban-everything-you-need-to-know/

[11] Huddleston, Tom. “How the government could ban TikTok – and what else you need to know” (July 10, 2020). CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/could-the-us-government-ban-tiktok.html

[12] Eck, Hannah. “Is Code Free Speech?” (July 27, 2018). PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-code-free-speech/

[renaroo]

Wednesday Roundups 7/6/17

Wow I had a lot to read and I still managed to turn it out faster than I turn out about 90% of these which I’m not sure if it’s a reflection on my reading and writing skills getting better or if I was stressing out over doing these way too much in the past. 

Regardless, we have quite a variety this week and still seem to be celebrating Wonder Joy so let’s just get into it~

DC’s Batman, Creator Owned CBLDF Defender, Marvel’s Spider-Man/Deadpool, DC’s Superman, IDW’s Transformers: Lost Light, DC’s Wonder Woman FCBD, DC’s Wonder Woman: Steve Trevor, Viz’s Yona of the Dawn

DC’s Batman (2016-present) #24 Tom King, David Finch, Danny Miki, Clay Mann, Seth Mann, Jordie Bellaire

Okay, so I follow Batman at a distance because I’ll be completely honest: Tom King absolutely lost me with the Gotham and Gotham Girl plot because I just could not get into it, and it annoyed me, so I’ve been hands off with the title for the most part, a decision I only double downed on with the Catwoman debacle and my correct assumption in King really relying too heavily on TWISTS. a

.... 

But I absolutely picked up this issue because even if nothing in my thinking brain believes, at all, that this will be allowed to change the status quo between Bruce and Selina...

I love BatCat so much you guys.

He proposed. And I bought it purely for those pages.

I have to emphasize it was for those pages alone because I could not have cared less about Claire and Bruce’s conversation because I’m just so tired of how many people there are in Gotham and how this conversation would have been so much more meaningful if it came from Kate or Dick or Tim or Cass or Duke or Harper or Damian or Julia or Luke or Jean Paul or Leslie or -- THERE ARE SO MANY BAT CHARACTERS THAT ARE NOT BEING USED TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL RIGHT NOW DAMMIT.

The conversation itself is kinda stuff we’ve heard before, and while I like how it tied in thematically it just wasn’t in me to not criticize the fact that it’s coming from the current OC of the Day. 

Anyway. 

I came for the BatCat and I was happy for it even if it was basically only three issues and I had to deal with grown artists making Gotham GIrl’s skirt incredibly short while she was in weird positions for most of it. 

So. That’s my take on that.

Now I can write 3 million fics about how this could be wonderful and that Helena Wayne gets to grow up with all her siblings and be loved by the world. byyyyeeeeeeee

Creator Owned CBLDF Defender Vol. 2 #2 Marc Adreyko, Gene Luen Yang

So this is mostly just an addition at the last minute both because it’s free and because it’s, well, an information brochure about uniting to subscribe or pledge money to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for all those who have been encouraged into activism thanks to recent events and the collective consciousness surrounding events like last year’s Pulse nightclub shooting.

It’s a good idea and it’s pro-community messaging speaks to me. I’d like to spread awareness for people that these voices are out there and that if you’re interested in providing support you can check out this particular brochure on Comixology for free or google at your leisure.

Marvel’s Spider-Man/Deadpool Vol. 2: Side Pieces Scott Aukerman, Gerry Duggan, Penn Jillette, Nick Giovannetti, Paul Scheer, Joshua Corin, Reilly Brown, Scott Koblish, Todd Nauck, Tigh Walker

Okay, so... I like Spider-Man/Deadpool’s first arc... but it’s pretty much exactly like Trinity over at DC and it’s spiritual predecessors Batman/Superman and Superman/Batman in that, outside of what’s honestly a pretty stellar initial premise, there is not a whole lot of plan behind where the comic wants to go for the future. 

So you get a whole lot of different creative teams and no cohesive narrative or direction for the comic to go. 

But I guess that really brings into question what makes ongoing comics work and whether or not th idea of “hilarious monthly team ups of Spider-Man and Deadpool without a point, and assumedly without continuity consequences” is enough to work. 

And as someone who honestly really enjoys one-shot one-and-dones, that’s honestly a pass for me. 

But at the same tim... I mean there’s a reason I have both Spider-Man/Deadpool and Trinity on trade wait status now. 

The whole is not equivalent to the sum of its parts, but honestly it’s got some genuinely funny and worthwhile parts as it stands. And I appreciate that. 

DC’s Superman (2016-present) #24 Patrick Gleason, Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, Mick Gray, Joe Prado, Wil Quintana, John Kalisz

You know, sometimes being a comic fan is kind of like reading the newspaper more than reading a narrative story. 

For me that’s kinda what this issue felt more like, I was getting information on where all the characters had moved since last time, the motivations, some backstories. Slight progress and movement in the form of an update on what happened to Lois and getting to see her still kicking Clark’s ass in gear despite his concern for her injury, which I liked, but overall this issue mostly felt like filler for the final moment where we see Jon fall completely into the control of Manchester Black. 

Who... is a big whooping plot hole I am stil waiting to be addressed. Clark remembers Manchester Black from the New Earth continuity still and the “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” and knows about the Elite, but do they know about him? Or are they completely different from the Super Elite we knew? Are we going to get a Justice League Elite mention (which good god please spare me, though I’ll take Sister Superior). 

This is one of those cases where I feel like my overly extensive knowledge of things in continuity actually puts me at a disadvantage to actually like... reading and taken things for granted. 

I want things to make sense, or I want enjoyable Kent family shenanigans. 

But this issue did have Krypto so, I automatically add a star to it. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. 

IDW’s Transformers: Lost Light (2016-present) #6 James Roberts, Jack Lawrence, Joanna Lafuente

Look, sometimes I think it’s important for critics, reviewers, readers, what have you, to bea ble to say that they’re confused and don’t know what emotion to feel or whether or not the comic accomplished exactly what it wanted to and I’m just. Like. 

Yes that is my emotion at the moment.

A lot of stuff happened in this issue. Like lots of crazy, out there, amazing stuff was packed into a single issue and it’s like, there were panels where you’d blink and you’d miss important character development notes -- like Ratchet hugging their Rung once they got back. Like there’s so much good -- Rodimus had a lot of amazing moments throughout and I love the range of humor to anger to disappointment that he showed. Like his trust and faith in others is already pretty shattered at the moment and to feel Megatron’s apparent betrayal adding onto that is like a million times more stuff. I fear he’s nearing a very dangerous ledge, which is bad because this issue also tells us that Rodimus’ death wish and lowkey desire to put himself in dangerous positions to die heroically is still as prominent as ever. 

Someone hug my trash fire of a son, please.

And then magical girlfriend romance bringing back her girlfriend as a baby and it’s kinda weird like is it still going to be the same Lug? Does Anode acknowledge that it’s weird? Is anyone going to point out that they could feasibly use protoform matter now to resurrect anyone whose spark remnants are available now? Including Skids and Ravage?

what is going on

Anyway. 

There’s a lot packed into this issue which is why I am honestly kind of happy that next issue’s description is a “fallout” from this because holy shit, I need room to breathe and think through things.

Also. Dat smile when Megatron heard Optimus’ voice in the epilogue-ish finale. I like. Maybe had a fangirl moment. Just maybe. 

Anyway. I’m shrug emoji right now until I can get my emotional state sorted out because wow there’s a lot at the moment. Like a lot. A lot a lot.

DC’s Wonder Woman FCBD 2017 Special Edition (2017-present) #1 Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott, Romulo Fajarado Jr.

Like last week’s Wondy special, this is a reprint, but it’s a reprint of the first issue of “Year One” which still holds up as the far superior of the two starting Wonder Woman titles from Rucka last year and is amazingly well held up...

...save of course for the exact same criticisms as the last time I went over the issue which is Dead Bro Walking trope and a whole lot of Rucka Why???? that comes attached to the really bizarre treatment of race in the first arcs of the series. It’s just so bizarre.

But honestly, again, these moves are meant to attract the new, excited audience after the box office smash that has been the Wonder Woman movie -- an audience that has been largely female of all ages. And if there’s one free comic I’m glad will show up immediately on their google searches this Wednesday, I’m very glad it’s going to be the start of what has quickly become my favorite standard bearer of Wonder Woman’s origin story. 

Something I appreciate even more after having finally read the entirety of Azzarrello’s Wondy run which. Eck. Wash my mouth out. 

DC’s Wonder Woman: Steve Trevor (2017) #1 Tim Seeley, Christian Duce, Allen Passalaqua

So this addition to my pull was kind of unexpected in that I had no idea that it was coming out this week and thought “why not” because I’m literally still so Wonderfully Pumped Up a the moment and as far as I can see, the more proceeds DC and WB can see attributed to Wonder Woman the better.

That being said, Tim Seeley really dug into his Grayson roots in this one because that’s about the only thing I really got from this issue is that Steve Trevor’s a badass secret agent with secrets and a deep seeded guilt thing. Which kinda felt like a harsher toned take on his Dick Grayson more than anything else. Which is fine.

Part of the problem here is that I did not read the New52 short term published book that was A.R.G.U.S. or whatever where Steve starred during the weird interim where Steve was not allowed around Diana and Lois wasn’t allowed around Clark but DC still wants to make money from fans anyway.

idk. And since those kinds of spy books are rarely my cup of tea, I don’t think this issue sold me on renigging on that instinct.

Still it was cute and Diana and Steve’s interactions, while minimal, are really the driving portion of his narrative which I think is always good.

But, just like the Annual, I’m left just sitting here going “why don’t we use this opportunity to show off the upcoming Wonder Woman creative team, DC????”

And I get no answer bc DC actually doesn’t care about some weirdo random blogger on the internet constantly screaming at them.

Viz’s Yona of the Dawn (2009-present) Vol. 6 Mizuho Kusanagi

I have actually been very interested in Akatsuki no Yona since I saw its anime show up in my Crunchyroll feed, and as with most anime I can’t help but immediately try to find the manga instead because I am impatient and want Answers Now. As I understand it, the Viz official translations are far behind the current run of the manga (makes sense, as the manga series has been ongoing since 2009 in Japan), and is only catching up to where the anime left off so far, but that’s more than okay for me right now.

Because oh my gosh, it’s so amazing to read such a beautiful story about the growth, empowerment, and pure will of a female character as told by a female author and artist. I’m not the biggest fan of Shoujo as a style of art, but having Yona strike a balance between beautiful and cutesy visuals with what is ultimately a fairly action driven plot with intense moral posturing and constant detail put into the grayness of life’s choices makes Yona of the Dawn honestly unlike just about any Shoujo I’ve read before. 

Yona is one of the most compelling heroines I’ve ever seen, and her intensity of spirit and her meaningful examination of her kingdom makes this fairy tale story really unlike anything else out there. 

And while I’ve really enjoyed Yona to this point, I have to say it is an amazing relief to reach Volume 6 an finally get more female characters than just Yona. I like the reverse harem appeal of the cast as it has been so far, and I have affection for several of the boys, but man is it so much more meaningful to have a few more compelling female characters backing up Yona in the representation department.

Especially since some of Yona’s crew still feel... a little bland to me. It’s usually not a good sign in a massive cast when the traits that come immediately to mind for me are purely character design. 

I’m excited for what’s to come and to see how our Princess fully realizes her potential as the Crimson Dragon. 

Also I should note some skeevy parts of this. One I don’t mind but am sure other people might, there’s the fact that Yona’s current storyline is dealing with Yona taking down a ring of human traffickers and slavers, which brings up the question of autonomy both for Yona as a woman in this honestly pretty traditionally sexist kingdom but also for the Dragons themselves and how their “service” to Yona is framed as a question of their own will. But it’s still a story about human trafficking and that could bother a lot of people. Another thing in this volume, which has bothered me in the previous volumes but really came to a head this time around, is Hak’s... weirdly possessive outbursts toward Yona. I get that they are meant as... idk protective and romantic to some and that we’re supposed to be compelled by his struggle to not show his affection for Yona, but honestly I’m just kinda... naw hoss. Like Hak’s a fine character and I like his relationship and history with Yona most of the time, but like.. the weird pushing her against walls and... licking honey off of her wrists and just. idk. We’re lost in translation here or something bc I’m not a fan.

I’m also not a fan of Viz’s weird changes in the font randomly throughout the book? Like just stop. It’s bad when your translations look lazier than the fan translations I’ve seen floating around on tumblr.

I’ll be honest, as high quality as I consider almost all of these comics this week, I would say the good majority of them did not give me a fully emotional experience or really captivate me in a way that satisfied me from start to finish. And I’m sure in the follow up issues to come there’ll be a lot for me to question into why that might be for the majority of them, but that time is not now. So, as much as it may feel like cheating to pick a volumed book over single issues, I can’t help but say that Yona of the Dawn by far is my pick of the week. It delighted, it changed up its structure and storytelling, built out its world and has started spending more time on the titular characters where before it often felt like we were just taking for granted that there was a dragon gained every volume. And Yona herself is just one of the most satisfying characters to see grow into their own. 

But that’s just my opinion, I’d love to hear what you all think. Agree? Disagree? Think I missed a great comic this week? Please let me know!