#given how widespread it is i think it's probably been long established

[popsicle-stick]

idk if this illuminates anything about the accents, but i remember that stoker lived in dublin for thirty years before moving to england (iirc he lived in whitby for quite a while?). something unrelated to that seemed peculiar to me is that at some point mina says steep little closes, or “wynds,” as they call them in Scotland. like, completely random, but may indicate something about her?

(second ask is ancient and has been mouldering in my ask box for a century. i'm so sorry!!)

i remember hearing something about stoker and oscar wilde, and how stoker retained his dublin accent after so long in the UK, and derided wilde for putting on an affected RP-esque accent. both of their different approaches to accent and identity seem to fit with how they saw themselves within british artistic society, too (i may not be correct on this so feel free if i'm wrong!)

irish or scottish mina is a popular hc - i do often hc her with scottish family (pre-orphaning) myself! - so this may be where she got that from. alternatively, she also does strike me as someone who's hungry for knowledge, and takes time to investigate and categorise local traditions and curiosities - she was fascinated by the local whitby folktales and provenance of the gravestones in the churchyard, and she's the kind of person who likes to keep note of such things! so that's another possible reason, but i do like both at the same time.

what i will say though is name origin ≠ nationality. /especially/ in regards to common gaelic names like murray - it's extremely common on the uk. so while it could indicate where she's from, it doesn't always necessarily.

(anecdotally, my own family has a gaelic name and my grandfather is somehow less genetically irish than the average british person. cringe!)

but yeah! i'm off topic - irish or scottish mina is a really interesting interpretation and it could really reframe the novel - but. i guess i'm just saying don't rely on names for it, if that makes any sense???

(interesting fact!! other places in the uk have their own unique terms those little alleyways, such as the opes of cornwall, ginnels or snickets in northern england, twittens in sussex, while the town of braintree, essex, knows them as gants)

[annieqattheperipheral]

Go give him a follow!!

Full article behind $wall:

When Travis Dermott takes the ice in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, he plans to do so without the strip of Pride tape that thrust the Arizona Coyotes defenseman into the middle of one of the NHL’s most controversial topics over the weekend.

“I think the one game probably ruffled enough feathers and got enough attention,” Dermott told The Athletic on Monday night.

This is not a case of the 26-year-old being silenced or deterred, though.

Not exactly.

Some 48 hours after he skated in defiance of a new NHL rule that prohibits players from displaying “cause messaging” on their equipment by wrapping Pride tape around the shaft of his Warrior stick on Saturday afternoon, Dermott had yet to even be contacted directly by any league officials.

However, given the chance to gauge the immense amount of coverage and attention his act of LGBTQ+ allyship received and with some time to reflect on how it may have put members of the Coyotes organization in an awkward position, he figures his point had effectively been made.

And that there still exist other avenues for him to continue to make it.

“The war’s not over. Definitely not, by any means,” Dermott said. “You don’t want to fully back off and zip your mouth up when something like this happens, but you’ve got to find the right game plan to attack it with.

“Where you’re supporting your organization and not making them look bad, and you don’t want to step on the league’s toes and really start a fight with them, but still tell them that I think this stuff’s important.”

Dermott didn’t consult with management, the coaching staff or any of his peers before wrapping the rainbow-colored tape around the shaft of his stick shortly before a 2-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks at Mullett Arena.

It’s a practice he’s regularly followed dating to his days in the AHL, and the only reason it took until the fifth game of Arizona’s season for him to use the tape again was that he was awaiting a new shipment after misplacing his previous batch during an offseason move from Vancouver.

Dermott was aware of the new NHL regulations, but he felt it was important to continue showing support for a cause and a community that are near and dear to his heart.

“None of the players really saw me put it on my stick,” Dermott said. “It was kind of just an: ‘All right, I’m doing this, and we’re going to deal with the consequences and move forward, and hopefully I’ll have a positive impact on some people that needed that positive impact.’”

While it’s not surprising that Dermott would put himself out there in the name of supporting the LGBTQ+ community given his long history of doing so — “I had someone close to me who is in that community and wasn’t completely comfortable coming out, and still hasn’t, actually,” he said — it makes it all the more notable that he did so at a time when he’s fighting to re-establish himself in the league.

Dermott was limited to just 11 games with the Canucks last season because of lingering concussion issues and is playing on a two-way contract now that would see him paid at a reduced rate if the Coyotes elect to send him to AHL Tucson.

In his skates, it would have been far easier to do nothing given the current climate at the NHL’s head office.

So why did he instead become the first player to defy a rule that’s generated considerable consternation in dressing rooms across the continent?

“It’s easy to forget that it’s a battle if it’s not in front of you,” Dermott said. “If you don’t see it every day, if it’s swept under the rug, if it’s just hidden from the naked eye, it’s easy to forget that there’s a group of people that don’t feel like they belong because the majority of people do feel like they belong.

“Once we stop thinking about that, I think that’s when it gets dangerous.”

Dermott openly acknowledges that he experienced some anxiety in the wake of Saturday’s game. He never imagined the reaction would be as significant and widespread as it was. That started to dissipate when it became clear the Coyotes were willing to stand alongside him.

“The reaction that I’ve gotten is complete support from my team,” Dermott said.

He did note that he apologized to the equipment staff for using the Pride tape without telling them.

“They’re the ones that are supposed to make sure that all of our gear is up to spec and legal and all that stuff,” he said. “I did feel a little bit like I betrayed those guys. … But I think at the same time they’re so good at understanding and they know that I wasn’t being malicious toward them.”

The challenge now is finding ways to keep supporting Pride initiatives against the backdrop of the new NHL rules.

The Coyotes are scheduled to host their Pride night on Friday — the first team to do so since the league clarified its regulations in an Oct. 9 memo distributed to teams — and Dermott is still working through his own plans to mark that occasion.

“My Instagram will probably be more active from here on out,” he said. “I’m going to be actively finding ways now that I don’t completely shut up and … don’t piss off the league and (comply) with their rules.

“But, yeah, I’m still here. The fight’s not over. We’re going to continue to talk about this. And if the league doesn’t want it to be on league time then we’ll find other ways.”

Like many of his peers, Dermott was emotional when he found out the NHL was prohibiting cause messaging this season. That decision came out of June’s board of governors meeting after a handful of players created headlines last season by refusing to join their teammates and wear Pride sweaters during warmups.

“You can see it as the league’s taking away our voice,” said Dermott. “We can’t speak. We don’t have any of this expression anymore. I feel like that’s a valid way to think, and it’s easy to kind of see it that way. A lot of people do, and I’m sure will continue to.

“It’s such a fine line where the league wants to look good and the league wants to support all of these things, but you also don’t want all of the negativity that can come from someone not supporting it and you don’t want to force people who don’t support something to support something, and I completely understand that point of view.

“I can take a step back and see that, hands down, no problem. But at the same time, you’d love for players to still be able to express themselves if they would like. You’d love to still have that.”

Dermott speaks passionately about the people he’s met in the LGBTQ+ community since first publicly supporting the cause. Through heart-to-heart conversations, he’s learned that it’s sometimes the most outgoing personalities in a room who privately benefit from seeing an NHL player “with a strip of tape on their stick.”

“I don’t hear of many people really spending time with the LGBTQ community and feeling pushed away from them,” said Dermott. “You only get more comfortable with stuff like that and you learn that they’re people, too — completely normal people that have the majority of the exact same life as you, so why would we treat them differently just because of who they’re interested in or not interested in?

“It just seems insane to me.”

And to many others, it seems. Dermott was overwhelmed with the outpouring of support that followed his decision Saturday. He estimates that the tone of those messages was “99.99 percent positive.”

“As athletes, we have such a great platform to spread love, and I think if we’re not spreading that love then what the hell are we doing?”

[rallamajoop]

On the Backgrounds and Ages of the Four Lords

So, as previously mentioned, I've gotten a bit fixated on puzzling out all the (admittedly limited) clues we get about the backstories of the four lords. Who joined the family when? How old were they? Were they all from noble families? There isn't a lot of hard info, but the tidbits we get provide some interesting clues.

This is all likely to get a bit tl;dr, so have the short version up front:

Dimitrescu and her daughters all joined Miranda's family sometime between 1920 and 1958 (though probably not at the same time). Dimitrescu was 44 years old.

Heisenberg joined the family sometime after Dimitrescu ‒ probably much later (he may even be younger than her daughters).

Donna joined the family sometime after 1996, probably in her late teens/early twenties (and is definitely younger than Dimitrescu's daughters).

Moreau could have joined any time from 1920 onwards; there's not much to go on.

And there's a surprisingly good case to be made that none of them may be really descended from village's legendary 'four founders'. (But believe me, I've found so much more to talk about than just that.)

On the lords' ages

So, there’s this widespread idea that Heisenberg (and presumably the other lords) were only children when Miranda began her experiments on them. Personally, I don’t think this adds up. I’d assume it comes from Heisenberg’s statements to the effect of ‘she took us to be her children’ etc, (and maybe Dimitrescu’s dismissal of him as ‘but a child’) – though he never does say, ‘we were only children’, just that Miranda had treated them that way.

What little information we do have about the lords pre-experimentation all points towards their being taken as adults – Dimitrescu and Donna being the two we know the most about. Miranda’s notes on ‘experiment 181’ gives ‘Alcina D’s age at the time of cadou implantation as a thoroughly mature 44 (notably, other test subjects mentioned in the same document are also 20+).

We don’t have as exact an age for when Donna was adopted by Miranda, but in discussing the event, the gardener’s diary at the Beneviento’s household does say she’s been an outsider ‘ever since childhood’ – ergo, childhood is in her past. Granted, childhood may not be all that far behind her, if being adopted by someone like Miranda isn’t too weird, but late teens/early twenties would fit – and tracks with how she looks too.

Also worth noting is that Dimitrescu’s three ‘daughters’ have remained ‘children’ since at least 1958. They don’t look all that much younger than Donna, but they do add some supporting evidence to suggest that cadou implantation functionally freezes you at that age indefinitely. Now, as amalgamations of monstrous flies masquerading in humanoid shape, it's quite possible the Dimitrescu daughters are outliers even in Miranda’s twisted family, but I think the point still stands: everything points to Dimitrescu and Heisenberg being their full-grown, middle-aged selves long before Miranda ever got her hands on them.

What year each of the four lords joined Miranda’s family is the more interesting question – the dates we’ve got may be more spread out than you'd think.

Miranda

Miranda’s own encounter with the megamycete is the one we have the most concrete info on: it occurred shortly after her daughter’s death in the Spanish Flu outbreak a hundred years ago, so presumably 1919 or 1920. Images during the game’s credits show a little of the village’s history as Miranda began experimenting on the villagers, presumably soon afterwards, given the epidemic still seems to be in action.

How soon she began her cadou experiments isn’t clear, but was certainly by the 1950s at the very latest.

Lady Dimitrescu (and family)

Lady Dimitrescu is one we have a loose date on: from the maid’s diary we know that both she and her daughters were well-established in the castle by 1958. She may well be the oldest of the four lords. Miranda lists "Alcina D" as her 181st subject – experimentation had clearly been going for a good while by that point. As noted above, she was 44 years old.

Considering how effortlessly she inhabits her role, and considering what we're told about the village's four noble families, it's no surprise that Miranda records "Alcina D" as being of "noble descent." That she carries a 'hereditary blood disease' (presumably hemophilia: famously common in European nobility due to inbreeding) only adds to the picture.

So it is surprising that Miranda goes on to note that she's "not from the village," and Dimitrescu's own diary states that Miranda gave her the castle and her daughters (much as Moreau talks about being ‘given’ his mountain). Even the winemaking notes vaguely allude to the castle having previous occupants (implied: not the Dimitrescu family).

The original Japanese version of Miranda's experiment notes provides one interesting clue: here "Alcina D" isn't just 'of noble descent', but specifically descended from a fallen noble ‒ a detail which begins to paint an interesting picture. It's hard to imagine Miranda doing many experiments on outsiders from wealthy families, whose disappearance could raise difficult questions. But a former aristocrat fallen on hard times (and suffering from hemophilia to boot) might even be prepared to volunteer for Miranda's 'treatments', if given the hope of having her health and fortune restored. So Lady D certainly comes from privilege, but perhaps from somewhat further afield than you might think.

There’s a fan theory that Lady Dimitrescu was in fact the same jazz singer pictured on the cover of a CD you can find in Ethan and Mia’s home, by a band called ‘Lady D and the Pallboys’. And while I think people treating it as definitive canon are getting carried away by what’s more of an easter-egg at best, it's not impossible. A younger Alcina might well have had to work to support herself in the years before meeting Miranda.

The bit about being ‘given’ her daughters seems to hold water too. Though Lady Dimitrescu clearly took many cadou research subjects from her own servants, it may have been Miranda who performed the experiment that created her daughters: she's the one featured in the photo in the book detailing their creation, and the text sounds far more like her voice than Dimitrescu’s.

There's some conflicting info about how much control Lady D has over her transformation into her mutated form. In game, she transforms only after being stabbed with a poisoned dagger, and it doesn't seem that voluntary ‒ in one voice line, she declares that only Miranda has ever seen that form before. So it's odd that Miranda describes her as having 'arbitrary control' over body transformation in her notes on Subject 181 ‒ only to later speculate that "if the subject's regeneration is not properly balanced then she may mutate uncontrollably" in the report from her lab at the end of the game, which suggests no control at all.

This is another detail that does add up a little better in the original Japanese, which may be closer to, "There is also concern that cell division will not be controlled if the metabolic balance is disrupted by poisonous substances" ‒ the speculation there is specifically about poison making her vulnerable, or making her lose control (which it certainly does in game).

Whatever her history, the name 'Dimitrescu' is apparently the one genuine Romanian surname among the lords. Etymologies suggest it may be related to the Greek Demeter, the goddess of spring, whose grief at the loss of her own daughter plunged the whole world into an endless winter ‒ so definitely some interesting thematic parallels there.

Donna Beneviento

Up the far opposite end of the scale, we have Donna Beneviento – almost certainly the youngest of the four lords. We don’t have a hard date for Donna either, but it was clearly after 1996 (and incredibly, there’s a case to be made that it may have been as recent as 2017). But see my other post for (much) more on the mysterious Beneviento family.

Still, even if "the four lords" have been around for much longer than 25 years, how do we know it was always the same four? Maybe Heisenberg wasn't the first to rebel.

The name ‘Beneviento’ sounds Italian (as does 'Donna'), but doesn’t seem to be a genuine Italian name. Possibly ‘Benevento’ is what they were aping.

Karl Heisenberg

Heisenberg gives us much less to go on. He alludes to having spent ‘decades’ as Miranda’s ‘son’ (so, let’s assume he can't have joined the family more recently than the 90’s at the very latest). Dimitrescu dismisses him as ‘but a child’, which does suggest he’s a lot younger than her. Given that Dimitrescu’s daughters joined the family before 1958, and that Miranda was still completing her little family as recently as 1996, this makes it entirely possible that Heisenberg is actually younger than little Bela, Cassandra and Daniela. Which certainly puts a different spin on that ‘but a child’ line – never mind that that man is over 40 if he’s a day old.

The dog tag Heisenberg wears is potentially significant, but not very specific. The shape and design matches German dog tags which came in during WWI, and were still in use through WWII and presumably beyond. Modern designs differ, but it's hard to find good info on when that shape fell out of use. Mind you, I've seen Romanian dog tags of the same shape too ‒ it seems to have been widely used. So this may well hint that Heisenberg served in the military somewhere, somewhen, but it could also have belonged to a friend or family member. The other objects he wears are a compass and a scale, FWIW.

Interestingly, a couple of tidbits from the Japanese game text strongly suggest Heisenberg’s ‘lordly’ status is little more than fiction. It’s not just that Dimitrescu dismisses him as ‘riffraff’ in her diary (though this, too, is stronger in Japanese, where he’s more specifically ‘of low blood’). What's more interesting is that Heisenberg’s own diary echoes the same idea.

Where in English it reads "I was just lucky I had more affinity to the stuff than the other poor shmucks in the village" there’s a preceding clause in the Japanese version (貴族なんて身分も) that seems to mock the idea of his ‘aristocratic’ status. This one being a little beyond my own fangirl Japanese, I threw it to my sister (the one who actually spent a year in Japan), and she suggested something more like, ‘Aristocrats? Status? Hah! We just happened to have better compatibility than regular villagers, that's it.’ Neither of us are super-fluent speakers, but the implication Heisenberg’s called a ‘lord’ only because he happened to survive Miranda’s experiments still comes through.

Heisenberg is, of course, a German name – obviously taken from the theoretical physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg, of uncertainty principle fame, which also ties in with the character’s mad science theme.

Salvatore Moreau

Which brings us to Moreau, at which point I can only really give up. He could be as young as Donna or as old as Dimitrescu ‒ there’s next to nothing to hint at how long he’s been around. We know he’s responsible for creating the first varcolac, and that he had at least one assistant at some point, but the latter did not survive the creation of the former.

That ‘Moreau’s clinic’ sign (complete with picture of a syringe) may hint that he had some past career as a doctor – or it may just be pointing to wherever he ran his experiments on unwitting villagers. Still, the fact it’s so much nicer that the roughly-written sign pointing to his new mountain laboratory does suggest it might be a relic from an earlier life.

In addition to the big 'Mother' tattoo with the jellyfish, anyone paying really close attention might also spot a faint anchor tattoo on his forearm, and a rather cute fish tattoo on the underside. This may all hint at a nautical background, or they could just be your basic fish man = sailor tattoos association.

Speaking of Moreau, given the general hostility that characterises Miranda’s family, it’s surprising the one and only positive interaction between any of them comes from Moreau’s diary. According to Moreau, Heisenberg comforted him about his place in the family, telling him they were each given a flask because they were all needed at the ceremony. Maybe this came out more sneering in person, but given how Heisenberg later dismisses Moreau as ‘that moronic freak’, it’s surprisingly nice of him to bother – even with what he presumably knew was no more than a comforting lie.

Although Miranda's notes describe him as being unable to control his transformation into his giant fish form, it's notable that Moreau is the only character we do see shift back into human form after he first appears transformed. That said, the rest of his behaviour does suggest his control is somewhat limited (and even that Miranda may be manipulating him remotely).

The name ‘Moreau’ comes of course from The Island of Doctor Moreau, famed for creating animal-human hybrids (who likewise had difficulty controlling their animal sides). But it’s also a real French name ‒ apparently one that originated as a nickname for someone with dark skin (from 'more').

A bit more on those lordships

How legit the nobility of the ‘four lords’ is supposed to be is an interesting question. By fairy tale video game logic, it’s only natural that Miranda’s four most successful experiments should represent the four noble families of the region: the ceremony site features four giant statues, you can collect relics that mention the village’s four founders, etc.

But in practice, only Dimitrescu is really referred to as ‘Lady Dimitrescu’, or any other title (if you're paying really close attention, you might catch the Duke referring to 'Lord Heisenberg' and 'Lord Moreau' when you sell him their remains, but in his introductory spiel, it's only Dimitrescu who gets any honours). Donna at least comes from a family rich enough to have a gardener, but Heisenberg and Moreau live in a factory and a dam: not especially 'noble'.

Stranger still, the names on those relics belonging to the 'four founders' aren’t Dimitrescu, Beneviento, Heisenberg and Moreau, they’re Berengario, Cesare, Guglielmo and Father Nichola. Now, these could be first names rather than family names (all seem to exist as both), but they're also all Italian, which makes for an odd combination the French, German and Romanian surnames of the 'lords' we meet in the game. You can find the current lords' names carved in stone in the wall of one of the caves (pictured above) ‒ but just because it's carved in stone doesn't have to mean it's been there forever.

Throw in the fact that Dimitrescu is apparently not from the village, and how Heisenberg mocks the idea of himself as any kind of lord, comparing himself to the 'other poor schmucks in the village', and the whole idea that any of these four are legitimately descended from those founders starts to look pretty suss.

It seems to be a popular theory that Heisenberg at least (and potentially Moreau too) was simply random experimental subjects that Miranda renamed in honour of region’s one-time noble families, raising them to lordly status to support her own legitimacy. But if those old relics are to be believed (to say nothing of the experiment report for 'Alcina D'), I'd actually go a step further and suggest maybe she didn’t even bother renaming anyone. After all, if Mother Miranda declares that the four great houses of the village are (and always were) Dimitrescu, Heisenberg, Beneviento and Moreau, who'd dare contradict her?

On Miranda's filing system

Near the very end of the game, when Chris explores Miranda’s laboratory, we find four books containing her research notes on the four lords. Now, I am absolutely reaching with at this point, but I can’t help wonder if the order of these four books might just be significant – the order in which those four experiments took place, perhaps?

True, the books are lying on the table, rather than filed neatly in order in the bookshelf – but they’re not in the order you fight the four lords (the sequence those symbols appear in elsewhere). Donna’s is the last of the four, which would be consistent with her being the youngest. And Heisenberg’s is to the right of Dimitrescu’s, which tracks with him being younger than her.

So it’s interesting that the first in the set isn’t Dimitrescu’s (as I’ve already speculated above), but Moreau’s. Lady D is second, Heisenberg third, and Donna last. So could Moreau be the eldest sibling? He doesn’t carry anything like Dimitrescu's authority, but there is a certain twisted logic to the idea the hideously deformed Moreau may have been one of Miranda’s earliest experiments. And there's a compelling tragedy to the idea of him as Miranda’s first son, supplanted and outdone by each new sibling to follow him as the years went on.

(Or, you know, Miranda might just have left those four books lying around at random, the order meaning nothing at all. It’s all speculation down here.)

The Duke

No discussion of the four lords would be entirely complete without touching on the fact the Duke was at one point intended to be the fifth lord of the village. Between his name, the fact he's got some sort of weird powers, and has obviously been involved in all the weirdness around the village for a long time, this is hardly surprising.

So it's a little disappointing that the fact that he "was going to be the fifth lord" is pretty much all the notes that come with his artwork will tell us on the subject.

His villainous role in the Shadows of Rose DLC logically should have been a big clue here, but if anything, the Masked Duke only muddies the waters. Miranda's notes on the subject tell us he's merely a twisted copy of "a man I once knew." Which doesn't exactly suggest he was ever one of her experiments, let alone one of her 'lords'.

Either way, the owl crest that can be glimpsed in the background of Duke's shop (above left) and in his carriage (above right) is exactly the kind of throwaway detail that could fuel years of fan speculation. The carriage version bears the text "L'argent defend le droit" (apparently French for 'Money defends the right/the law'), which is certainly fitting.

But the text on the shop background (as near as anyone can make out) reads "The Right Honourable Lady Carolyn Margaret Divine" ‒ a reference to nothing and no-one any RE fan has been able to identify. It could be a reference to material that got cut. It could be a vital clue to a future RE title. Or they could just be fucking with us at this point.

Aaand that about wraps it up for the four lords.

As I said back on my original Donna post, I really don't think there are any definitive answers to the RE: Village timeline. If you'd prefer to headcanon that the Moreaus were once the village's most respected founding family or that the Dimitrescus have lived in that castle for generations, knock yourselves out ‒ there's nothing in the game to say they couldn't have been. Half the stuff that seems to add up one way or the other may be just a happy accident. But the clues still we get fascinate me, and coming up with theories that could fit all the little details hidden in documents and optional dialogue is exactly the kind of challenge I'm here for.

[maxwell-grant]

So that ask about a Doc Savage/The Shadow crossover (which as an aside, I agree that Doc is probably the worst of the archetype he is functionally the Ur-Example of that isn’t an intentional deconstruction focusing on his worst eugenicist/borderline-fascist aspects to create a villain) has me thinking: what exactly would be the boundaries for a good, well-written crossover between the Shadow and different genres or eras of what we all collectively call pulp? Could someone do a crossover between the Shadow and Indiana Jones that didn’t rely on one or the other being little more than a glorified cameo in a small portion of what was essentially the other’s story, or reducing the former to his lamest two-dimensional “gun-toting homicidal maniac” interpretations? Could the Shadow ever functionally exist in a universe shared with a space opera setting like the Lensman series? It seems like one could theoretically do a crossover between the Shadow and a character of the same era like Nero Wolfe or Sam Spade, but would it strain credulity to attempt it with characters from an updated form of the private detective archetype like Thomas Magnum’s Hawaiian noir or Rick Deckard’s cyberpunk dystopia? Obviously not expecting answers to each of these hypotheticals specifically, just as examples of the kind of thing I’m wondering now.

I will be going through some of your hypotheticals though, you clearly gave a lot of thought to this and it's only fair I respond in turn. I am always eager to respond anyone who wants to ask specifics about writing The Shadow, because much of what I strive to do through this blog is to just inform people about the many, many things that made The Shadow great, the things that have been neglected, and to provide paths anyone who wishes to write the character may take. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to write The Shadow someday, but the least I can do is spread knowledge as I work my way there. I'd like to think I've done allright so far.

It's a fairly big question though so we're gonna through it by pieces...

...not THAT way

what exactly would be the boundaries for a good, well-written crossover between the Shadow and different genres or eras of what we all collectively call pulp?

Part of the reason why I did a post yesterday on The Shadow's influences is because looking at them, looking at a character's influences and history, I think are always essential to the prospect of tackling them. And in that regard, The Shadow doesn't actually have much, if any, boundaries stopping him from crossing over with just about anything. The most that's stopping the pulp heroes currently is, besides legal issues, their time periods and obscurity, but The Shadow is the most famous of them all, and a lot of stories have already worked with the idea that he's immortal (which I have my misgivings with, but for better or worse is clearly not going anywhere, and it's not a unworkable concept).

Right from the start, The Shadow was designed to be a long-running, versatile character that could partake in whatever adventures they felt like telling, and part of this is due not just to an incredibly strong personality not afforded to most pulp heroes or characters in general, even those who tried imitating him, but also the fact that he often takes a narrative backseat to the agents and proxy heroes, which means he doesn't have to carry a narrative by his own (and is in fact best suited not to), can blend in to just about anyone's story, and still stand out and be the center of sprawling mysteries. Actually, I'm gonna let Walter Gibson answer this one for you:

While his major missions were to stamp out mobs or smash spy rings, he often tabled such routines in order to find a missing heir, uncover buried treasure, banish a ghost from a haunted house or oust a dictator from a mythical republic.

There was no limitation to the story themes as long as they came within the standards of credibility--which proved easy, since The Shadow was such an incredible character in his own right that almost anything he encountered was accepted by his ardent followers.

Widespread surveys taken while the magazine was appearing monthly showed that a large majority of newsstands sold nearly all their copies within the first two weeks of issue. While other character magazines might show an early flurry, their sales were either spread evenly over the entire period or gained their impetus about the middle of the mouth and sometimes not until the third or even the fourth week.

From the writing standpoint, this made it advisable to adhere more closely to the Cranston guise and to emphasize the parts played by The Shadow's well-established agents, since regular readers evidently liked them. Also, it meant "keeping ahead" of those regulars, with new surprises, double twists in "whodunit" plots, and most exacting of all a succession of villains who necessarily grew mightier and more monstrous as The Shadow disposed of their predecessors.

Always, his traits and purposes were defined through the observations and reactions of persons with whom he came in contact, which meant that the reader formed his opinion from theirs.

This gave The Shadow a marked advantage over mystery characters forced to maintain fixed patterns and made it easy to write about him. There was never need for lengthy debate regarding what The Shadow should do next, or what course he should follow to keep in character. He could meet any exigency on the spur of the moment, and if he suddenly acted in a manner opposed to his usual custom, it could always be explained later.

The Shadow’s very versatility opened a vast vista of story prospects from the start of the series onward. In the earlier stories, he was described as a “phantom,” an “avenger,”, and a “superman,” so he could play any such parts and still be quite in character. In fact, all three of those terms were borrowed by other writers to serve as titles for other characters.

Almost any situation involving crime could be adapted to The Shadow’s purposes

The final rule was this: put The Shadow anywhere, in any locale, among friends or associates, even in a place of absolute security, and almost immediately crime, menace or mystery would begin to swirl about him, either threatening him personally or gathering him in its vortex to carry him off to fields where antagonists awaited.

That was his forte throughout all his adventures. Always, his escapes were worked out beforehand, so that they would never exceed the bounds of plausibility when detailed in narrative form. And that was the great secret of The Shadow.”

In some regards, The Shadow is a mirror. He presents himself to people the way that's best suited to them, the way they'd like him to be, the way he needs to be to affect them. They want money, he has it. They want honor, glory and purpose, he gives them that. They want to fight and turn around social systems for the better, he funds their dreams. Gangsters want the underworld's greatest hitman on their side, he becomes that and lets it be their doom. The story calls for a rich aristocrat who can rub elbows with politicians and kings and presidents, he can do that as long as it suits him. Kent Allard can be a world famous celebrity in one story and a disfigured, broke and faceless nobody in the next. You want a kind janitor with unexpected fighting skill to spy on police and assist the homeless, he has a little someone named Fritz for the occasion. You want an evil monster to be defeated, bring out Ying Ko. Hell, James Patterson's upcoming Shadow novel, which by all reviews seems to be pretty lousy, apparently features The Shadow transforming into a cat. Why? Screw you, that's why! But you'd never see James Bond or Batman spontaneously transforming into a cat without outside interference. He's The Shadow, he's got a face for everything.

(Okay to be clear I don't actually want the Shadow to literally transform into animals, at least not without a good explanation which the book clearly doesn't provide, but I do think it illustrates my point about how generally weird he is)

He is a shapeshifter who can be just about any character in any given narrative who only reveals himself when it's time to materialize into a cloaked terror or a familiar face (whether it's Cranston or Allard or Arnaud and so on). War stories, romance stories, sci-fi stories, globetrotting stories, parody stories, he's done all of them and then some. He doesn't need to be the protagonist of a story, he doesn't need to be invincible, and he doesn't really have any set rules regarding powerset. Gibson stressed credibility a lot, but for over 70 years now, that's clearly gone by the window of the character's writing. By design, he was always meant to be able to smoothly integrate into any existing narrative. Frankly, the only thing that's really holding him back (or saving him, depending on how you look at it) is the fact that he's not public domain (yet).

I think for a start, it's not so much boundaries, because in make believe land boundaries are just things to be overcome on the way to telling a story, so much as it's a good working knowledge of the character and of how far you are willing to stretch your storytelling limitations to include him, because he can account for just about all of them. Now, obviously there's stuff that works for the character better than others, a lot of Shadow fans don't like it when they take the character too much into fantasy, there's debates on how superpowered should he be if at all, and so forth. I have my own preferences, but one of the bigger tests of long-running characters is how can they succeed and thrive when placed outside of their element, and The Shadow can do that.

Could someone do a crossover between the Shadow and Indiana Jones that didn’t rely on one or the other being little more than a glorified cameo in a small portion of what was essentially the other’s story, or reducing the former to his lamest two-dimensional “gun-toting homicidal maniac” interpretations?

would it strain credulity to attempt it with characters from an updated form of the private detective archetype like Thomas Magnum’s Hawaiian noir

Well regarding the first question, the latter portion I think is very easy to do. Just, don't write him like that. Just be aware of why that's a mischaracterization, why the character doesn't need that to work, why he works better without it, and so on. It shouldn't be that hard.

Regarding Indiana Jones and Thomas Magnum, I think these two actually lend themselves very easily to crossovers with The Shadow. On Indy's case, he already is a Pulp Hero operating in the same time period, who's got a heavily contrasting niche and personality to build a fun dynamic around. Indy is more story-driven, in the sense that the Indiana Jones moves are all centered around his experiences and point of view and growth as a person, compared to The Shadow's stories, which are not really about "his" story as much as they are about the stories of the people he comes in contact with. Indy is a blockbuster superstar while The Shadow lurks and slithers through the edges and cracks of a story until it's time to strike. But if anything that just makes even more of a case as to why they could team up without issue, since there's a further built-in complimentary contrast to work with.

I have never watched Magnum P.I so there's definitely stuff I might be missing, but looking him up, past the necessary explanation as to why The Shadow's hanging around the 80s, it wouldn't strain credulity at all for the two to team up. The Shadow has had Caribbean/beach-themed adventures and one unrecorded adventure in Honolulu, he has a beach bum secret identity called Portuguese Joe that he could use for this occasion, and Magnum seems like exactly the kind of character who could star as the proxy hero of a Shadow novel. He's lively and friendly and can look after himself, he has a job that leads him to trouble and puts him on contact with criminals as well as victims, he's got secrets and a dark past and a laundry list of character flaws, he's perfectly capable of carrying a story by himself but can be out of his depth in the schemes that he gets caught up in.

Could the Shadow ever functionally exist in a universe shared with a space opera setting like the Lensman series? Or Rick Deckard’s cyberpunk dystopia?

I'm going to tackle parts of this question more throughly when I answer one in my query that's asking me "How would you do The Shadow in modern day?", which I still haven't gotten around to answering because it's a tricky one. I won't go into the specifics for the two examples you listed because I've never read the Lensman books and googling about them hasn't helped much very much, and Deckard's a fairly standard P.I character mostly elevated by the movie he's in, there's not really much to discuss regarding him specifically interacting with The Shadow. The question you're asking me here seems to generally be: Could The Shadow functionally exist in settings so radically apart from the 30s Depression era he was made for?

My answer for this is a maybe leaning towards yes. Starting with the fact that the concept of The Shadow is more suited for allegorical fantasy along the lines of space operas and cyberpunk, than the gritty realism he's been saddled with for decades, which I'll get into another time. For some reason, a lot of people seem to harp on about how the Shadow's costume is impractical and unworkable for modern times, and said James Patterson novel mentioned above ditched it all together, which as you can guess was a massively unpopular decision. Matt Wagner talked once about how cities don't have shadows and men wearing hats anymore and that's part of why you can't have The Shadow in modern times (as if The Shadow was always supposed to be dressing like an average guy, and not cowboy Dracula). But nobody seems to have a problem with characters dressing up exactly like The Shadow showing up all the time in dystopian future cities with fashion senses where they stick out like a sore thumb (and really, they should stick out, otherwise what's the point of being all weird and dark and mysterious?)

Although The Shadow is specifically suited for urban settings, is conceptually rooted in 1930s America, and there are important facets of his characterization related to history like the Great War, there are not the be-all end-all of The Shadow. It's part of the character. Other parts integral to the character are, as mentioned above, the versatility and metamorphous nature he was always intended to have. His nature as a character who exists to thrive in narratives not about him and not centered around him. His roots on Dracula and King Arthur and Oz and Lupin which are concepts that have had so, so many drastical revisions and turnabouts that still stuck to the basic principles of the icon.

Besides, The Shadow's already been there. He's already been to space, he's already been in alternate dimensions, he's already reawakened in modern/future times several times now (when he doesn't just live to them unchanged). He's been a cyborg twice, and between those, El Sombra, Vendata, X-9, the Shadow-referencing robot henchmen from Bob Morane and Yu-Gi-Oh's Jinzo referencing the movie's bridge scene, it's enough to constitute a weird pattern of The Shadow and Shadow-adjacent characters turning into robots. Perhaps one positive side effect of The Shadow's decades-long submersion in fantasy is that it's opened the character for just about anything, and I think this could be a good thing if it was married to an adherence to the things that made him such a juggernaut of an icon in the 30s and 40s.

Really, The Shadow partially works on Predator rules. And by that I mean, the big secret of the Predator that filmmakers don't seem to get is that the best way to make a Predator film is to just put the Predator somewhere he's not supposed to be, and let that play out. Because the Predator is, by design, a trespasser who invades narratives and turns the power dynamics around, and that works for any narrative you put it into.

The first movie is all about setting you up for a jungle action movie with Schwarzenegger's Sexual Tyrannosaurus Crew as the biggest baddest death squad around, only for the Predator to appear, turn the tables on these shitheads and pick them off one by one until Arnie scrapes a victory by beating it at it's own game. The 2nd movie is about a drug war between cops and gangs in L.A, until the Predator shows up and suddenly he's the big problem again that's gotta be put down. All the other movies fail because they try to be "about" the Predator, but the Predator doesn't work that way. He's a ugly motherfucker who's here to fight and kill things in cool ways for the sake of it's warrior game, who already has a specific structure to how his story's meant to play out, and that's all he needs to be. What you do is just take that character, take the structure he carries around, and throw it somewhere that works by different rules, and let the contrast play out the story.

Obviously there's a lot more to The Shadow than this, I write a billion essays on the guy after all, but much of what makes The Shadow work, much of what made The Shadow such an icon at the decade of his debut and such an interesting character to revolve any kinds of stories around, was because of the great contrast he posed to everything surrounding him, and the ways he can both be at the forefront as well as the backseat of any story.

Going back to what Gibson said:

Almost any situation involving crime could be adapted to The Shadow’s purposes. He could meet any exigency on the spur of the moment, and if he suddenly acted in a manner opposed to his usual custom, it could always be explained later.

The Shadow was such an incredible character in his own right that almost anything he encountered was accepted by his ardent followers.

advisable to emphasize the parts played by The Shadow's well-established agents, since regular readers evidently liked them.

The keyword here isn't that the Shadow should be realistic, frankly that's always been a lost cause. He was never really that realistic, and it's unfair to expect writers to keep pace with Gibson who had lifelong experience with the in and outs of magic and daring escapes and whatnot. The keywords I want to stress here is "accepted by his ardent followers".

Make a good explanation, an explanation that fits the character, an explanation that works, and the rest will follow. And if you can't, make us like the character. Make us accept that he can do and be all these things. Give us something to be invested in. And if that can't be The Shadow himself because he has to stay at arms length constantly to be mysterious, Gibson cracked the code almost a century ago through the agents. Make us invested in them, and through them, we will become invested in The Shadow.

The pulp Shadow would get tired, get injured, need rescuing, need to stop and rest and catch his breath, would need to think and plan and make split decisions on the spot and sometimes would make the wrong ones only to reverse them in the nick of time, and it made the fact that he was achieving all these things all the more impressive. The pulp Shadow was a creature of fantasy grounded in the history of the world he was a part of.

If you can make people care about The Shadow, be truly, genuinely invested in him and his world and the people he comes in contact with, be as invested in those as audiences were back then, you can and maybe should put him anywhere, doing anything, as long as you know what you're doing. As long as you understand what makes The Shadow tick, what makes him work and what doesn't, and whatnot.

Which is a lot of words for "do whatever you want, just don't fuck it up"

[whetstonefires]

Your post about romance was so spot on and this is from someone who really likes reading romances some of the time. I just wish there were more books where friendships (which after all make up the majority of people's relationships!!) were given the same weight and importance as romance gets unthinkingly. Like, I want books or fic which show the development of two (or more) new friends *as the plot and main part of the book*, and the same thing for the progression of pre-established friendship.

Human relationships are varied and complex and interesting and limiting writing to mainly concerning romantic or dating ones is infuriating! I enjoy reading character driven stuff, which is why I like some romances but I really want to see similarly detailed deep studies of friendship. Friendships are so important, and romantic relationships do not supersede them.  Obviously there is gendered bias against romance as a genre but that is not the only reason to be uninterested in romance damnit!

Sorry for ranting in your inbox about romance and thanks for the post

Hah thank and welcome. Very true!

Yeah, the problem is not just how ubiquitous romance is but the inevitability of it. So many people are so much in the habit of hanging their emotional investment on ‘couples getting together’ that not putting one in is a risk, as a creator, and the faint suggestion of a possibility that a romance might eventuate between two characters constitutes a promise that the audience will be outraged to see not followed through.

So making a story focus at all on a relationship between two people who are considered valid potential romantic partners means having to go through incredible backflips and contortions as a writer to get away with not pairing them up, or there will be outrage. There will be outrage anyway, but hopefully on a contained scale that doesn’t have people throwing your book away.

(The easiest way, of course, is to give one or both of them an alternate partner, but then you either have to build up that relationship as the central focus instead, because you aren’t allowed to love anyone that much and not be romantically involved or be romantically involved For Real with anyone but whoever you love most, or accept that you’ve plastered on a beard of some kind in a way that at this point makes your main duo look even more romantic to people who are looking for that in the first place, even if it lets you write a plot that doesn’t acknowledge this.)

This has contributed enormously to the cultural truism ‘men and women can’t be friends.’ They aren’t allowed to be. And this weird intense romantic pressure is now increasingly extending to same-sex friendships, and it’s like...it’s good that gay visibility and acceptance are growing! That’s great!

But it means that all relationships are increasingly exposed to this honestly fucked up set of expectations. That every single love of any intensity is romantic and probably sexual. That that’s the only love that’s real, or that really matters. With occasional exemptions carved out for parents.

And that’s cultural, I want to say. The inclusion of and an interest in the romantic lives of characters in fiction is definitely natural and practically inevitable, but the outsize role it occupies in our current media culture is abnormal and totally non-compulsory. The central role of romance in so much of narrative is just...a pattern, a narrative schema that currently holds sway, born of an assortment of historical accidents and trends, and I don’t think it’s a good one.

I think it would be better for us as a culture and all our individual relationships for that particular social construct to be broken down.

Because this cultural obsession with The Romance in media mirrors and continually recreates the obsession with The Romance in real life. You know how many people are making themselves miserable by either being in a relationship predicated on the need to have one, any one, rather than actual mutual affection, or about not having a love interest currently at any given moment?

Like, quite separately from the actual frustrated romantic feelings themselves, people feeling like they are less or failures or just...unfinished somehow, because they don’t have a romantic partner. It’s so harmful and absurd! We all know this!

And there are of course a lot of sociological factors that have led to that point as well, but it’s linked particularly closely I think to the atomization of modern society.

You’re not likely to retain any particular community for long--we move around so much over the course of our lives, anything you have is designed to be taken apart. School friends are only rarely retained after school, work friends are only until you get a new job, family is quite often something to be avoided or something you have to leave behind, and not usually an extended network anymore anyway.

We are always moving into new contexts, or knowing we might be moved, and holding onto relationships from one context into another is generally regarded as an unusual feat betokening particular, though not lionized, devotion, and leaning on these relationships ‘too much’ or pursuing them with ‘too much’ energy is regarded with deep suspicion.

This, too, is not particularly normal in the human experience. We are not psychologically designed for this level of impermanence. And we have developed very few structures as a culture thus far to make up for it, which is why the modern adult is so famously, dangerously lonely.

But we have all these social protocols for acquiring a person and holding onto them. A person who’s just yours, all yours, who it is promised will fulfill all those gaping needs all by themselves, and if they don’t it’s because you or they are wrong, and need either a different partner or fixing.

The fact that this is insane and not how romance works over 90% of the time is irrelevant to the dream of it, and the dream overwhelms and controls the reality. I agree that codependency is really fucking romantic, and having a kind and supportive mutual one is a lovely fantasy! It’s just...

A lot of harm eventuates from pursuing this fantasy in reality with a media-based conviction that it is 1) a reasonable thing to expect and 2) a necessary precondition for wellbeing and worthiness.

But we have poured so much cultural freight and need into this one single relationship format. At this point having need in any other direction is regarded as disordered and suspect and probably a misdirected application of sexual desire.

The law, too, has put a lot of energy into supporting the focus on seeking the romance as life goal, because the nuclear family is built on the codependent marriage, and capitalism likes the nuclear family very much. The nuclear family is extremely vulnerable to market pressures and bad at collective action, and tends to produce new tiny humans whose main social outlet has been within the school system, which is specifically structured to condition you to accept abusive workplace conditions as a normal precondition of existence, and not to attempt too much intimacy.

Ahem. Spiraled there. But! It’s all connected! Many of the privileges piled onto the institution of marriage were put there specifically because the nuclear family was considered desirable for the expansion of the economy. That’s clearly documented historical fact.

So yeah, the modern cultural obsession with the romance is a symptom of collective emotional disorder, and it chugs along at the expense of the more complex emotional support infrastructures most of us need and deserve.

It’s not just about me wanting representation, wanting an image in the narratives of my culture where I can see myself with the potential for happiness. Everyone needs this. We learn so much about how to be, how to relate to others, from media at this point, since the school system and other weird age-hierarchy stuff keeps us largely segregated from human society for a majority of our growing years and limits our exposure to live examples.

So the paucity of in-depth explorations of friendship, of mutual support, of widespread narrative acceptance that you can have a good life without a romance as its central support pillar, is harmful to people in general.

-

It’s funny, I get frustrated about this periodically, when a piece of media lets me down, or even when I’m following along a funny piece of meta and then the punchline is ‘and the ace character is obviously in denial about how they’re already dating their favorite person’ or whatever.

(The meta is annoying on a surface level and distressing on a deeper level because it’s a threat; so many times a good platonic relationship will buckle under public pressure and it doesn’t matter how asexual, how uninterested in romance, how emphatically platonic the affection has been established as being, The Romance arrives in the next installment of the story because it’s what people expect. Which reinforces the general perception that any other love is illegitimate, lesser, and as soon as it’s meant to be taken seriously it has to be crammed into that one valid shape, and invalidates future insistences in the same mode.

Seriously people stop doing this, we long since reached the point where a character saying in words ‘I have no romantic interest in [person]’ is perceived as a glaring neon sign that they’re destined to get together and that does not do good things for fostering a culture of consent. Obviously people are in denial sometimes but it should not be understood to be the rule.)

But I don’t get upset about it until someone starts in with reasons I’m bad and wrong for not liking these norms.

Like, whatever, media does not cater to my needs, I’ll cope, but when people start trying to get in my head and make me not only responsible for my own discomfort that I’m managing thanks but dishonest and malevolent I...get upset. There’s history there, okay.

‘You don’t care about this ship because you’re homophobic’ ‘you don’t want a love interest in the sequel because you’re racist’ ‘you don’t like romance in stories because you’re a misogynist’ fucking stop.

And occasionally it’s like ‘i guess you have the right to feel that way but how dare you talk about it where other people might hear’ which...well, is particularly common and particularly ironic in the context of people hung up on gay representation.

If we as a society had a healthy relationship with romance, there wouldn’t be negative side effects to that crowd’s pursuit of their worthy goal of applying that schema in places it has been Forbidden, but as it is we don’t, and there are.

[muthaz-rapapa]

HealPre Final Review: Not terrible but not entirely laudable either...

*sigh* Where do I start?

Well, one thing I’m pretty sure of is that COVID definitely affected production somehow. By that, I don’t just mean the show needing to go on hiatus, resulting in a shorter run compared to previous seasons. I’m also talking about any possible changes that might’ve been made to the original narrative, if there was one.

Much like how Suite’s story had to be altered in the wake of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster, I believe Heal underwent a similar treatment in response to the pandemic becoming more widespread as 2020 went on.

Especially since it dealt with health and nature, HealPre is probably the season that has come the closest in relevancy to real life events.

Frankly, that can be quite scary because this virus was and is still a fucking nightmare on a massive global scale. From that view, I can understand why the writers/producers would be concerned of the anime hitting too near home. At least for their main demographic’s (children) sake, maybe they were compelled to shift to something lighter and less edgier so that the kids could find some comfort and enjoyment in the midst of the world’s current crisis.

So I can’t fault Toei for that, if that’s really the case. Going through a pandemic is terrifying, infuriating and exhausting and UGH. We could use something that can help ease our worries or momentarily distract us even a little bit. 

Though would it have killed them to dedicate one episode to the importance of wearing a mask or washing hands? (-_- ;;)

HOWEVER! Seeing as I am not a fragile child, I’ve still got several (oho~) criticisms to air out before I put this season behind me. This review isn’t particularly scathing but...there is a lot of discontent so you’ve been forewarned.

But first, let’s tediously review what structure means in Precure.

We all know that there are certain things that will forever (?) remain fixed in the series formula.

The plot is always going to be “magical girls fight evil doers threatening to ruin the world”.

There are plot points to indicate story progression but in reality, are put there to correspond with toy releases which are usually marked by these five: introductions, first power up, midseason Cure, second power up, and build-up to the climax + finale.

There is usually a specific message (a theme) to be told with every season and motifs (narrative tools) to aid in getting that across. For HealPre, the theme is “living is fighting” and its motifs are “health” and “nature”.

I left out “animals” b/c 1) it didn’t hold as much significance as the other two did, 2) animals are part of nature anyway and 3) let’s be real, it’s just a synonym for “mascots” which we already get every year. :P

Right. I’m probably forgetting something but for the most part, these are immovable pillars of Precure.

Story, on the other hand, has more variables you can work with.

Story is how you tell the plot, how you convey the message.

Precure, as a tv series, is unarguably carried by its main stars, the Cures. So it only makes sense that a huge percentage of a season’s success owes itself to how much of an impact its characters had on the audience as well as how effective their individual story arcs were as sub-plots tying back to the bigger picture (the message/theme).

Ideally, these arcs would shine the brightest in the filler episodes, where the plot  (“good guys vs. bad guys”) is less of a focus so there is more space for personal development and growth.

Also, not all character arcs have to be directly related to the plot but they ought to be written well in order to support the overarching message (the theme).

Now, has HealPre done that? Has each girl’s story demonstrated a good example of what “living is fighting” means?

...nnnnnnyyeeee... look, even I can’t give a straightforward answer on that because while technically they did, by virtue of Nodoka’s observance in ep 44 recounting it as such, there’s also actually not enough to make it feel substantial from a viewer’s standpoint.

At least, that’s what I thought while watching HealPre.

With the exception of Nodoka’s, there was a lot of saying but not much doing to convincingly back the other girls’ arcs up. The fillers themselves were very weak, loosely composed in relation to the motifs and, if I may be so blunt, downright boring that if Nodoka didn’t phrase those episodes as things that counted towards the theme, I probably would put up more of a fight on disagreeing. so shoot me, I’m soft for her :P

And I know that sounds confusing right now but I will elaborate as I continue.

Before that though, to be utterly fair, some seasons keep their respective themes shrouded in vagueness until they’re given a more concrete form in words around the finale. So it’s not like we can do much except make educated guesses on what they really are. Most of the time, we’re just measuring everything against our perception of a standard in the fog. Or maybe that’s just me?

Nevertheless, you can just tell, y’know? By simply watching and observing the whole show, you can tell if the characterization, the development, and the outcome (essentially the content given) really live up to what the season claims is endgame.

So let’s go through that first then. The characters, starting with our lead Cure...

Nodoka being the only Cure in her team to have an arc deserving of the praise “exceptional” should come as a surprise to no one.

She was the most solid in terms of direction on how her story was going to proceed. Out of all the girls, her journey had the greatest connection to the subject “health”, repeatedly delved into it every time the spotlight was on her and fulfilled everything it seemed to promise from her debut in episode 1.

Her struggles on the road to recovery from a long-term illness and the strength she’s drawn from that traumatizing experience as well as her time as Precure did more than establish her as the strongest character in HealPre.

She has also rose to become one of the most memorable Pink Cures in the entire franchise (personally, I rank her in the top 5).

And it’s not hard to see why she’s earned such high regard in a lot of fans’ hearts.

The writers clearly worked a lot on her character composition to the point where she can pretty much embody the theme of “living is fighting” all on her own.

She came into HealPre fresh out of the hospital and full of earnest desire to make the most of her newfound freedom but she also wasn’t without knowledge on what hardship is. From there, she only got stronger, even when she was stumbling and trying to figure things out along the way. She grew more fortified in her beliefs on what it means to be truly live a healthy life.

She bravely defied the ones who attempted to take advantage of her and twist her cause against her. And she learned that taking care of herself is equally as important as wanting others to be safe from harm.

It was never about winning or coming out on top. It was about protecting a fundamental yet precious truth. That one thing any decent human being should never have to concede: the right to live well.

Honestly, Nodoka is absolutely inspiring all around, as a fictional character, a heroine and a normal everyday person.

Everything about her arc went satisfyingly right like it was meant to and the best thing is, we don’t need to question it because we saw how it all happened with our very own eyes.

I sincerely wished I could say the same for the others but sadly, they were just too flawed.

And Pegitan can throw flippers with me all day if he wants but as undeniable as the above statements are about Chiyu, her arc failed to leap over the increasingly mounting disappointment I had with every episode that’s been assigned solely to her.

Two of which weren’t even about Chiyu. One centered on Pegitan’s admiration for his partner and the other focused on her brother, Touji. Which, while nice to give to supporting/secondary characters, is a fat waste of valuable screentime and not what I’m here for.

It also didn’t help that the conflict of her arc (the indecision over choosing between two dreams) started really late in the game and was resolved so quickly within two episodes. There was no time for me to get invested into it, there was no powerful sense of conviction like how Go!Pri or Hugtto handled theirs and really, it just felt like Chiyu was only following what the script dictated for her rather than genuinely awakening to her own competitive passion towards track and field.

It was almost like it didn’t matter. Almost as if the writers procrastinated in thinking up something worthwhile to further her development...but then settled on grabbing an old idea off the shelf without refining it to suit Chiyu when they ran out of time.

This happened similarly with Minami in Go!Pri and Elena in StarPre, both of whom left me angry at how their arcs were executed. Yet theirs don’t compare to how pissed off I am about Chiyu’s. Because while Minami’s took a while to arrive, it wasn’t done poorly and linked back to Go!Pri’s theme well enough. And while Elena’s was over crammed last minute, at least it was unique to her character and had lots of potential ways to play out if they actually started it earlier on in StarPre.

Chiyu’s arc is like a discount version of the former with hardly any of the intriguing qualities of the latter. Sure, she had two early episodes that laid out the two most important aspects of her life (her family inn and her dedication to her sport) but after that, they weren’t brought up again until we were only weeks away from the ending. Y’know, just to fill up episode slots and meet the minimal requirement of saying they did give Chiyu some issue to resolve. 

It was not engaging at all.

Furthermore, the fact that her arc had very little to no relation with either “health” or “nature” hurt my appreciation of her character somewhat. I just...don’t think her kind of story really matches with the central topics of HealPre?

...but maybe I’m being bitter about this all wrong and that’s screwing up my rational thinking on this matter.

Because Chiyu’s arc is valid under the logic of the overall theme, I would never say it isn’t. And again, character arcs don’t have to be close to the plot nor is it necessary to employ the “suffering builds character” method to make them interesting.

Chiyu always does her best every day. That’s sufficient argument on why her story does fit within the frame of HealPre’s premise.

Guess I’ll just have to wrangle my resistance into acceptance somehow.

...still, her arc could’ve been done so much better than what we were given. Chiyu at least deserved that much.

Next, Hinata.

Since the beginning, I knew she was gonna be runner-up to Nodoka for having the (for lack of better term atm) “best” arc because it was heavily implied that she has ADHD and therefore, immediately checked off the “health” trait. She was even more obvious about it than Nozomi was.

Difficulty paying attention, hyperactivity, impulsiveness. Hinata didn’t just display all those signs, she also showed how hard it was for her to deal with the downsides to them on a regular basis.

She kept apologizing and put herself down excessively for inconveniencing her friends even though they never blamed her for her condition. Got them annoyed a few times, yes, but didn’t stop them from staying friends with her and definitely didn’t make them hate her either.

Everybody was understanding of Hinata...except Hinata because she always took her failures to heart and considered quitting several times to avoid the crushing dejection of making mistakes over and over again.

She got better, though, and no one could have summed it up more heartwarmingly than Nyatoran with the encouraging words he gave her at the conclusion of her arc. 

But it still feels like there’s a huge chunk of development missing between the start and finish. Or rather, it seemed like all of it occurred offscreen and we were only informed later that it did in fact, happen.

To recap, iirc, Hinata had around 5 episodes that focused on her (ep 9, 13, 23, 35 and 40). Ep 18 doesn’t count because that was a Nyatoran-centric filler more than anything.

Ep 9 and 13 did their jobs of introducing and highlighting the details of Hinata’s troubles while also suggesting she will eventually learn to overcome her insecurities. The ones after, though? They pushed those issues to the backseat.

In Ep 23, she had to share the (uneven) spotlight with Asumi. Hinata’s improvements were briefly mentioned but the majority of the ep went to teaching Asumi what “cute” meant and how to get along with puppies. I mean, I get that Asumi recently joined the group and bonding with her was mandatory by tradition. But since each Cure only gets a limited number of eps to herself, it would’ve been more beneficial for Hinata if she didn’t have to split screentime with someone else’s growth schedule.

Ep 35 is slightly better but not by a whole lot. Sure, Natasha was able to reconcile with Elizabeth which was very sweet and heck, it was the goal for that episode. But again, nothing was really done or addressed about Hinata’s main conflict. She tossed it back with the rest of her homework to deal with later. ahaha, a TroPre hint

Then ep 40 came to formally close the curtains on her story and apparently, Hinata screwed up lots of times since...whenever but she picked herself up every time after and kept on trying. Awesome. So WHY didn’t we get to see that? 

I’m not asking for the impossible here. I’m not asking for Hinata to be cured or anything miraculous like that. There is treatment available for ADHD but it is not curable.

Also, forcing Hinata to find a way to get better at studying, the thing she struggles with the most, is not the solution either because that would only make her more stressed and anxious over her own disorder.

What I want is to see how she moved from wailing “I can’t do it! I don’t wanna! I’m so scared of failing so why bother?!” to determinedly declaring “So what if I failed 1 or 100 times? So what if I fail another 1000 times? What matters is that I don’t let that stop me!”

That confidence is not something that can be built up overnight. It’s gradual and it takes numerous tries to reach from where Hinata was to where Hinata is now.

Telling me she grew emotionally stronger can only allow me to believe so much. I need to actually witness the changes as well.

If it weren’t for that, Hinata’s arc would have been a lot more impressive. Shame.

Finally............... Asumi.

Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi, Asumi... *sighs & drums fingers*

...she has no arc, ok? Seriously, what story is there to speak of, much less write a hefty analysis on?

A spirit born for the sake of Latte who just went along with the Precure ride because Latte didn’t want to abandon her duty. She made friends with those who aren’t Latte, extended her knowledge and understanding and gained valuable human experience during her stay on Earth. But ultimately, she will always define her entire existence around a puppy. 

Nothing is more important than this puppy.

...... to be honest, Asumi not having a storyline isn’t what bothers me. It’s her lack of depth that does.

Hell, even the giant burger she ate had more depth than she did!

Oh, Asumi does have a personality alright. She’s consistently and unfailingly polite, utterly devoted to her raison d’être and in crucial moments, gives pearls of wisdom when the girls are in a pinch. She’s good.

But if that’s all she is, then she’s also painfully dull.

She has nothing to contribute to the discussion of health or nature, despite being created through an element of the Earth so you’d think she’d have an opinion of her own. At least worry about the planet that gave life to her as much as she frets over Latte all the time. But nope.

She shares the exact same face as Teatine’s past Precure partner so you’d think we’d explore that connection to see if it would influence or affect her in any way. But nope.

90% of the time, her role was just being Latte’s constant, fawning satellite.

Not only did that irritate the hell out of me but it just reinforced my stance that this type of character is one of the worst you can ever insert into any narrative.

Because if someone keeps reiterating how much they’re obsessed with this one thing and seldom talks about anything else without bringing their obsession into it... then what’s so special about them on their own?

You’ve practically surrendered the different qualities you could have had for worship of something else. That’s not a fair trade-in.

Asumi’s character is so packed with Latte-related stuff that there’s not much space left for anything that can be considered uniquely Asumi.

I mean, maybe it’s because I can never see myself or any normal person comfortable with living like that.

Living for the sake of being together with the one you love? Okay. But living with your whole universe revolving around that one thing? Making most if not all decisions based on this one thing?

No. That’s absolutely crazy, alright? Nobody with a healthy amount of awareness and self-worth would live like that.

And you can counter that Asumi’s just born like that. That she can’t help her origins because Teatine’s wish to protect her daughter is essentially what brought Asumi into existence so of course, her biggest concern would be Latte. At least, she wasn’t forced into it, right? As long as Asumi chose of her own will to follow Latte, it should be fine, right?

You can even use the fact that Asumi isn’t human. That she’s a spirit and we shouldn’t apply our human standards too strictly to her.

Yea, but those are feeble defenses in the face of her being a good main character, a good main heroine. 

There are many ways to make a decent MC. The way Asumi was written proves she certainly does not possess traits that can classify her as true protagonist material. A protagonist has to be more than one amplified feature, which Asumi is not.

For the record, I don’t hate Asumi (she’s not interesting enough to generate a feeling that intense). I'm just severely let down because even if I don’t end up loving the midseason Cure for whatever reason, I can usually count on them to bring something intriguing to the table to dissect and analyze. At least I should find something to care about them.

Didn’t happen with her. :(

Oh god, I’ve been working on this post for days now and I’ve got a headache and with the baton pass happening in less than a few hours as I type this, I just really need to get it done and over with so please forgive me for speeding up through the rest, I’ll try to keep it as coherent as possible. NYARGH! (@_@ ;;)

Mascots.

Would you be surprised to hear that I’m not surprised that they were actually written very well?

Like I said early on, I suspected the return of fairy partnerships were going to improve the mascots’ significance in the story and, well, I was right. 

This time, they didn’t just fill in the usual expectations of relaying exposition, serving as the Cures’ transformation devices and looking cute for the merchandise. The Healing Animals had to make progress on their own training to become doctors as well.

And they did through their relationships with their human partners.

It was a refreshing take on the mascot aspect of the series because the friendships felt really symbiotic. When the trainees arrived on Earth, they relied on the girls to help them perform their jobs as well as provide them with shelter, food, the occasional peptalk about their trainee status, etc.

Then as the story continued and they got to know each other better, the mascots were able to return the favor by giving support when the Cures needed it. Rabirin when Nodoka was frightened and confused about how to deal with Daruizen, Pegitan when Chiyu was having trouble choosing between two dreams and Nyatoran who made sure to always lift Hinata’s spirits up when she got upset at herself.

In short, they achieved their objectives of learning what it means to be good doctors by being there for their friends! How wonderful! :D

My memory for Latte is hazy, unfortunately, since she’s coddled by everyone all the time (can’t blame them, she’s friggin’ adorable! <3) but I’ll never forget how she stood firm on the battlefield to see things through, to fight for the Earth like she promised her mother. She started out so babie but showed us all there was enormous bravery behind her cute face and ugh, we should all be very proud of her! <3

The only major issues I had about the mascots were these:

1) Too many irrelevant fillers went to them. They only needed a maximum of two for their entire mascot group.

2) Latte kept getting sick even after she acquired a Precure partner of her own. I was hoping it wouldn’t hurt her as much as it did before Asumi arrived or that she would build up a stronger immunity but noooo, they insisted on torturing the poor pupper! T_T

Villains + Finale Battle

Not a lot needs to be said for the first part. We’ve had mediocre antagonists before. HealPre’s just happened to be extra annoying as they were despicable. 

Which is worse because jerks you can just leave in the trash but assholes won’t stop harassing you unless you pummel them into their graves, set fire to their corpses and leave no trace of them behind! >:(

Y’all know who I’m talking about. Opinions on him continue to vary depending on who you talk to and if they’re avid fans of his face or not but whatever. The son of a bitch served his purpose and is dead now. That’s all that matters to me.

Anyway, the King was flat like his two lesser generals. He was neither intimidating nor distinguished enough in the brand of evil to really make us think of him as a serious threat and because of that, it ended up making the boss fight look like any run of the mill boss fight.

I know, they tried so hard with all that shiny animation but it just didn’t have that glorious sense of vindication that previous seasons (or ep 42) gave and I blame it all on this Rumiko Takahashi reject.

Also, this strategy was pretty useless?

They built it up like Earth was gonna sacrifice herself and die or something (she wouldn’t and even if she came close, deus ex machina would’ve kicked in to prevent that and COVID-induced caution too I guess). 

But there were no signs of pain (well, that’s a relief) after absorbing Shindoi-ne and they really pissed King Byogen off more than they did any damage with the absorbed byo-gen power.

...so yea, this tactic was just to kill some time and budget, nothing more. Meh.

By the way, did Asumi eject Shindoi-ne’s pathogen out of her body yet or did they just leave it in there to bounce around until it eventually dissolves on its own?

Because that’s eww. I mean, it’s obviously not gonna hurt Asumi they can both relate on hyperfocusing their affection for someone so maybe the compatibility helps :P but still, ewwwww.

Fillers + Underused Motifs

In hindsight, perhaps HealPre didn’t exactly promise the content we I wanted about “health” and “nature” if their objective was to teach that any manner of “fighting” can count towards “living”.

......but fuck you Toei, you’re still cowards! >:/

Fillers will be fillers but it’s always better to try and make some of them as meaningful as possible. And they wasted the opportunity to inform an impressionable audience (during a very crucial period of our time, I must add) on a lot of things related to the HealPre’s motifs. Especially about the environment which for some ridiculous reason, they chose not to touch on for the main stretch of the overall story.

Proper hygiene, good diet plan and sleeping habits, regular exercise (already done by the girls a few times but could use another example), meditation, counseling/therapy (especially for mental health!), etc.

Real life pollution, climate change/global warming (IMPORTANT!!), deforestation, preservation vs conservation, endangered species, recycling, volunteering to clean up your community, etc.

These just came off the top of my head but yes, there’s more and no, I’m not saying that the writers need to cover all of them in extreme detail or replace the slice-of-life episodes.

But they should be able to mesh both serious and light-hearted together in harmony somehow. Like those fillers where the mascots saw people cleaning up littering at the park or that interaction with that arborist who taught them about wild animals and trees when the group went to visit a lake.

For health, maybe let the girls visit patients with chronic illness in the hospital or have them converse with a medical professional on some matter. Particularly if it’s got something to do with mental illness because stigma in Japan on those who are afflicted with such conditions is still prevalent and has caused a number of sad and shocking tragedies that could have otherwise been avoided if people didn’t have such outdated, judgmental mindsets.

That last part might be too dark for a children’s anime but there’s a lot more out there that is doable.

Do that without reducing it into a footnote, Toei. It is so necessary for your target audience to be aware of these issues at the age they are now. You have an almost 20-year old franchise to serve as a very effective platform. Make better use of it if you truly care about the message you’re conveying through your show!

Also, what the fuck.

The last episode was a mess. Why are you only mentioning this now when the season is already over?

This should’ve been brought up months ago!

All the things we could’ve seen the Cures done to protect the Earth without magic.

The excuse of “I didn’t know humans were so horrible!” is a shit one because everybody knows humans are deplorable trash when it comes to abusing the Earth. All the more reason why you have to persistently drill it into people’s heads that they should not be like those who don’t care or choose not to care.

One crack episode isn’t going to cut that.

God, I so want to unsee this ep just so I don’t have to end HealPre on a more sour note than it already was. *big aggrieved sigh*

Lastly (and this really is the end of my long ranting, I promise), the missing undisclosed lore.

There are few Precure seasons without a past lore of its own in the recent years. Is it a wonder, though?

Lore is mysterious and fascinating. If it involves a past Precure, even more so.

Sometimes fans might just hang onto a show because they’re curious about what happened before the main story. We’d never get the full tale of those adventures but at least, it’s fun to imagine the “prequel”.

Also, past Precure are just badass. Fact.

Strangely enough, we didn’t get that for Heal. All we know is that she was called “Fuu” and was very close to Teatine. 

Hmm. Probably one of those changes caused by COVID interference cuz I can’t imagine the writers choosing not to tell her past in the original draft.

With all that finally off my chest, I’m ready to part ways with you girls until the next All Stars (Nodoka, I’m gonna miss you so much! T_T)

HealPre wasn’t the worst and it was nowhere near the best that it had the potential to be. But it’s passable. At least for those who loved it even with its flaws, I’m genuinely glad it was good for you.

For those who are thinking about picking it up (although why you would read this spoilery post before watching, I have no idea), if you’re looking for a standard magical girl anime to enjoy casually, then this is a safe pick. If you really want to invest your attention and heart into it, though? Then perhaps it would be in your interest to ask someone who saw it already to help you filter out the episodes that are worth watching. You don’t need to worry about the rest, they’re inconsequential. :P

Ok then! Thanks for reading as always, brave souls who have reached this point. 

Stay healthy and safe out there and I’ll see you at the beach next week! Tropic underwater paradise here we coooooommmmmeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!! xDDD

[brachiosaurus-on]

My Bad Batch commentary for S1E12. Overall I liked this episode, but there are a few things that stood out to me as conflicting with established worldbuilding. Howzer is getting much better narrative treatment than the clones in TCW. In other words, the writers seem to care about him and he’s not a redshirt. But we’re really stretching the inhibitor chips it seems.

Spoilers below the cut.

Lessu looks a lot better than in the clone wars. Love that bigger budget.

Why imprison them together? Imprisoning them separately would be more effective.

Eleni is still the best.

“Leave the thinking to me.” Punch him in the face Howzer. Were the admirals in the clone wars this rude to the clones? I don’t remember any instances of it, but didn’t many of them join the Empire?

Are they... being imprisoned in their own home? Or am I getting the sets confused. Does Cham have prison cells in his basement? Yep, Cham has prison cells in his basement. He was literally a prisoner in his own home. Why is their house the Imperial command center? Is it like a governor’s mansion? I thought in Rebels it was a generational home. I need to finish s3 of Rebels, yes I have seen s4.

I’m sorry, Orn Free Taa survived? He took a blaster to the brain. Is this just imperial propaganda?

“Don’t worry, we’re defective too” AWW. Gonky is my new favorite member of the bad batch.

“Children often overreact.” “No we don’t!” It would have been less convincing, but way funnier if Omega overreacted to that.

LMAO throwing his soldier identity in his face. I love her.

I love Hunter trying to act as if he isn’t going to do whatever Omega asks him to.

TBB is definitely not a priority for the Empire. Rampart is treating this as Crosshair’s personal vendetta

Is she gonna pull a Numa and lead them through the tunnels?

Cham not trusting him was a good decision. That could easily have been a ploy.

Awwww this is Hera’s first leadership role. You’re doing amazing sweetie.

Ok they’re doing the whole silencing opposition thing pretty well & Howzer is pointing out to the audience (younglings watching this) that it’s wrong. I like that they’re using a clone with a malfunctioning chip to do this. I can’t wait until history teachers ten years from now try to teach about fascism and hear a bunch of “OMG it’s just like in The Bad Batch!!!”

Huh, Tech is actually a pretty good pilot.

Cham get out of there before you start asking for explanations.

What is the refinery refining? This resource is probably why Ryloth was a Separatist target in the first place.

Cham is still not acknowledging the Jedi. That happened earlier in the war, so maybe they were invaded again and only clones were sent because there weren’t enough Jedi anymore? But he’s talking about how they worked with the clones and the person who convinced him to do that was Mace Windu, who also led the battle with him & captured Wat Tambor. Not to mention Anakin Skywalker, who saved them from the bombers at the last minute. Not even Ima-Gun Di who literally died for him so that his freedom fighters would live to fight another day. Why isn’t Gobi mentioning this? I mean, even Hera remembers the Jedi 15 years later.

Ok so that explains why Howzer stayed with the Empire. I’m guessing that he was not assigned to a Jedi though. It would have been cool to see those battalions in clone wars.

He’s so about to get shot. EXCUSE ME? THEY HAVE BRAIN CONTROL CHIPS? ARE THEY ALL MALFUNCTIONING? This is... a rather contradictory development. It’s been established that the chips don’t give them a choice and can defy their higher reasoning, but later that there’s an intensity scale for the chips’ effectiveness. If some clones just need to realize that what they’re doing is illogical or wrong, then why was order 66 so effective? Why did crosshair follow orders even at low intensity? Why was Rex so insistent on getting them out? Why did Wrecker go after Omega? But now we see plenty of regs with malfunctioning chips, which gives the impression that this could be a widespread issue. Of the clones who heard the speech, about half defected. 50% of the sample size. Did he get lucky that all the clones with malfunctioning chips were together? Is there a timer on how long the chips are effective? Does the intensity decrease over time? I can’t apply one tiny sample to the wider population even if they are identical; in fact, we’re being shown that they’re not identical. And yet, the fact that so many of them defected suggests that many more could also exercise free will... when they shouldn’t have that ability. Howzer should have gotten shot because the chips are supposed to completely override free will; that would have been consistent with established worldbuilding. I want to see the clones regain their free will, but they have to work within the rules of the established canon. Ahsoka gave Rex a similar “this isn’t you” speech to no effect; Omega has given the same speech to no effect. Again, make a decision, Dave.

I also have a bone to pick with how Wrecker said he was fighting his chip while he was under its influence, when it’s been established as far back as the OT that force users can sense internal conflict; if clones were fighting the chips, it would have warned the Jedi (see Rex & Ahsoka) when the reason they were supposed to be effective is that there was no conflict for the Jedi to sense because they were just following orders. Perhaps there’s an intensity threshold where their actions fall under its influence and another for their thoughts to be overwritten, but still, this is really pushing the established worldbuilding.

You know what, I’m just going to make a separate post about the chips. I’ll wait until the finale so they have a chance to explain this.

And now tbb are Rampart’s personal vendetta and therefore a priority for the Empire. Why is he impressed by the basic strategy of “let’s cause a distraction” is he just salty cause he fell for it? Because they blew up his big project? I feel as though Rampart had enough information to be able to predict this.

I get the feeling that they’re setting up a lot of key players for a big show down in the finale.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I've been thinking about the Andalite culture. Given the fact they all can morph, I think it's plausible that they are not ashamed of their bodys the way humans are. They rather define themselves by their actions then by their physical form, even though physical attraction still exists.

I like this idea.  However, Andalite Chronicles establishes that morphing hasn’t quite penetrated andalite culture all the way.  It’s still pretty restricted, and most people are still figuring out how they feel about it.  It feels a little like smartphone tech, where American culture is definitely reaching a point where the fabric of our everyday lives is starting to be permanently changed by smartphones... but we’re still not quite there yet.  Smartphones in 2019, like morphing in ~1980, definitely hasn’t faded into the fabric of life just yet.

Anyway, I like this headcanon, but I think it’s probably ~50 years out from the version of andalite culture that we see in the books.  Ax is notably more comfortable with morphing than Elfangor, and they’re only about 15 years apart in age.  However, both Ax and Estrid nevertheless show some signs of being stuck on physicality, morphing and all.  Ax genuinely doesn’t seem to think that disabled andalites have much to contribute as warriors (#18, #40) and Estrid has clearly internalized some of the messages about female warriors being less useful because they tend to be smaller (HBC, #38).

It’s also clear that andalites (at least for now) are uncomfortable with deliberately making permanent changes to their forms.  Ax is perturbed and even a little disgusted with Aldrea’s choice to become a hork-bajir (#34).  He says he doesn’t really get either Elfangor or Tobias choosing to live in bodies that aren’t the ones they were born with (#28, #38).  Again, I think that that’ll wear off as the technology becomes more integrated into the culture.  In the process, permanent body changes will become common, and concern with one’s birth body will probably fade.  But for now, the paradigm is still shifting.

As a point of comparison, think about changes in Americans’ views of tattoos.  A century ago, the mainstream view was appalled disgust with the idea of injecting ink into one’s skin, and that view was partially a reflection of the fact that American tattooing techniques often had high risk of blood poisoning.  Nowadays, tattoos aren’t accepted everywhere, but they’re still common enough that “do you have any tattoos?” is a popular small-talk question.  There’s also widespread knowledge about how to obtain safe, minimally painful, long-lasting, beautiful tattoos.  The growing popularity probably contributed to the growing quality-control, but the reverse is probably also true.  Morphing is also a form of body modification, one that is brand-new and also carries massive risk, and deliberate nothlitization is therefore still taboo.  But give it a few decades, and all of that might change.

As of ~1999, Andalite Kids These Days still seem to be pretty concerned about how their own and their peers’ bodies look.  However, as of ~1999, the morphing technology is only about 50 years old.  Give it another 50 years, and I love the idea that radical reinventions of selfhood, bodymind, and sexuality are in store for andalite culture.

[mediaeval-muse]

The idea that college faculty and their allies have somehow failed to “make the case” for the value of their work is one of the hoariest clichés of higher ed commentary—our equivalent to the legendary “since the dawn of time”-style opening for undergraduate papers. A Google search for “the case for the humanities” turns up multiple books and articles. The tradition is so well established that new contributors can even engage in ironic meta-commentary on its conventions, as when a recent column argued that the best case for the humanities is precisely that there is no case. It is clear enough why academics would be drawn to a solution that draws on their particular skillsets of persuasion and argumentation, but the demand that we “make the case” is naïve and impotent.

For a generation or more, institutions of higher education have been actively dismantled—in many ways, transformed beyond recognition—by powerful constituencies who are actively hostile to academic values. These constituencies include conservative politicians who view widespread access to liberal arts education as a recipe for social upheaval, and business leaders who want to shunt the expense of training workers for highly technical jobs onto the university system (and ultimately the students themselves). They do not need to be told of the benefits of a liberal arts education. They have often benefited from such an education themselves and are happy to provide it for their own children—including at elite Ivy League schools that do not even have the kind of vocational programs that they recommend so fervently for everyone else. They are well aware of the potential of liberal arts degrees to produce engaged and informed citizens who can navigate an ever-changing job market with confidence and creativity. That is precisely why they want to keep a true liberal arts education as a preserve of the elite, consigning everyone else to narrowly vocational paths that teach them how best to serve those above them in the social hierarchy.

The problem is not persuasion, but power—and propaganda.

...

The alliance of conservative politicians and business interests has been so successful at shaping the cultural common sense around higher education that the areas where we liberal arts faculty members are best equipped to “make the case” are completely missing from the agenda. How can we “make the case” to a society that does not have ears to hear it?

Admittedly, even within the impoverished terms of debate imposed by interests hostile to higher education, liberal arts degrees fare surprisingly well. Even the business press has noticed. Forbes reported last fall that the much-lauded STEM fields do not provide the promised economic advantage over traditional liberal arts fields. As reporter Derek Newton puts it, “getting a STEM education may help you get a good job early but if you want a good career, you’re better off in liberal arts lane. In other words, even if you’re only measuring money, a liberal arts education is probably worth a ton more than most people may think.”

...

The reason for this is clear: the narrowly technical skills that students learn in such fields quickly shift from cutting-edge to out-of-date, while the broader and more flexible skills conveyed by liberal arts fields prove more durably valuable. Yet the cultural common sense is that students who major in liberal arts fields will die on the street—or less dramatically, wind up as underemployed baristas, a fate that is actually more likely to befall the ever-expanding number of business majors that universities pump out each year. This misconception is widespread even among those most sympathetic to the liberal arts, including many faculty members in those fields themselves.

...

Where does this disconnect come from? Frankly, it results from a systematic campaign of lies by the same allied interests. On a political level, liberal arts graduates are less likely to fall for the kinds of simplistic propaganda spewed by Fox News, Breitbart, and right-wing talk radio, which conservative politicians have increasingly relied on to rally their electoral base. On the economic level, the agenda may initially seem less clear. Why would business leaders encourage as many students as possible to go (at least initially) into precisely the highest-paying fields?

Here I think we might benefit from recalling one of the first lessons of Econ 101: all things being equal, what happens when the supply of something increases? Obviously, the price goes down. In other words, by churning out as many STEM majors as possible, institutions of higher education are effectively commodifying those skills—and charging those future professionals for the privilege of depressing wages in their field. And after congratulating them for graduating with a job offer in hand, colleges and universities turn immediately to the task of training up the next cohort with cutting-edge skills so that their predecessors can be easily replaced with cheaper, younger workers.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe it is the mission of higher education to perpetuate this destructive dynamic. Nor do I think it makes much sense on a purely institutional level, because STEM programs are expensive to run. Labs, state-of-the-art computers, and other high-end equipment all cost a lot of money—and even in fields without those capital requirements, such as math or economics, the cost of retaining faculty is higher due to their greater range of employment opportunities.

By contrast, liberal arts programs are intrinsically cheap to run, often requiring little more than a chalkboard and some Penguin Classics. Adjunctification has made them even less costly. An honest accounting would show that, in most institutions, liberal arts courses are cross-subsidizing STEM fields—but yet again, the cultural common sense, often including among faculty members themselves, runs the opposite way. Indeed, when it comes time to make cuts, liberal arts programs are always first to the chopping block.

...

Why kill inexpensive programs that often serve as profit-centers while doubling down on the huge capital investments associated with STEM? The answer is that the health of individual institutions is a subordinate concern, at best, for the business interests who set the agenda for U.S. higher education—as evidenced by the fact that so many institutions are perpetually on the verge of failing even as aggregate demand for higher education has never been higher. In addition to the benefits of STEM fields over liberal arts programs already mentioned, the hegemony of STEM creates a situation where colleges and universities are more dependent on major donations, which corporations and wealthy individuals are obviously in the best position to provide. Those institutions which borrow to build new facilities then often need to hike tuition to service the debt—further incentivizing students to pursue supposedly more economically viable majors.

...

The only answer is to have leadership that already shares academic values, which necessarily presupposes restoring faculty control over our institutions. Part of that will mean reasserting—or in some cases establishing—traditions of faculty self-governance. And that can’t happen as long as we allow cost-cutting administrators to divide us into a privileged minority of tenured and tenure-track faculty and a disposable majority of contingent faculty and graduate students. Strong, fully inclusive unions that fight for decent working conditions for the whole faculty are the only viable way to form an independent power base that gives faculty members real leverage over the administration. Given how entrenched the destructive “best practices” are at most existing institutions, though, more radical measures—such as founding new, faculty-run cooperatives—may be more effective. Whatever specific strategies we choose, however, we need to keep firmly in mind that the answer is not persuasion, but power.

[happymetalgirl]

Band T-Shirts

Okay, so this has been an ongoing matter of contention for quite awhile, and it’s not even a particularly complicated issue, but it seems to rear its head every now and then. And it had seemed to be a more frequently and hotly discussed topic over the past few years.

The topic is people wearing band t-shirts when they don’t necessarily listen to the band on the shirt they’re wearing, and it has become a more commonly spotted phenomenon, especially in the metal community as of late after fashion culture spurred a lot of this kind of thing going on. I don’t know exactly how it happened or who initiated it, but a few years ago wearing t-shirts of bands who played primarily metal music and bore such associated imagery picked up a mild trend within high fashion culture, and naturally metalheads had something to say about it.

The trendy whims of the fashion world don’t really tie much into the main subject here, but they did, in this case, kind of amplify a lot of sentiments that a lot of people involved in various music cultures feel about the intersection of music and fashion in band t-shirts. And the discussion mostly recently got re-ignited by a plain-ass picture of a dude in public holding up a cardboard sign reading something along the lines of “don’t wear t-shirts of bands you don’t listen to”. Just a picture of the most basic platitude in the discussion got people talking again, and it seems like the same talking points just get recycled again and again so I figured I’d sum up my perspective on what’s going on and why I don’t think this should be such a tense and frequently discussed topic. And I think that metal culture in particular, with its recognizable visual art and fashion aesthetics that are used to signify it, is kind of poster boy for this topic.

Granted, I am definitely biased in that I’m much more immersed in metal culture than any other musical culture and recognize more instances of it pertaining to metal, but I don’t see too many people regularly sporting clothing (t-shirts particularly) relating to hip hop, or jazz, or country, much less people getting contentious over it. Not that those genres don’t have fashion associated with them, but I don’t see people wearing cowboy stuff and getting questioned about their love of country music and Ronald Reagan. Nor do I see hip hop heads pointing much to particular fashion choices as signifiers of hip hop fandom and quizzing people wearing it on Aesop Rock trivia.

Maybe it does happen in those cultures and I don’t see it, but it definitely happens in metal culture, and despite the fact that I have never experienced it myself (I’ll get to why, later) I’ve heard enough testimony from people frustrated about getting questioned about the authenticity of their metal fandom and quizzed by people who seem to doubt how much they really listen to the band on their shirt.

So first of all, if this really is as common of an occurrence in that form as the many of testimonies I’ve heard suggest, I get it, that’s annoying, and that really shouldn’t have to be said. Coming from someone who certainly could rattle off tons of lyrics and trivia about any given band I like enough to get a shirt from, I would sure as hell get annoyed if someone felt compelled to give me an oral exam on whatever band I’m repping rather than just talking to me like a human being about a band we both clearly love. And that’s the thing though, given that someone isn’t giving signs they want to be left alone, it’s totally fine to ask about what they like about the band on their shirt, in good faith, not some kind of gatekeeper-y sentinel kind of way. People can wear whatever t-shirts they want, but anything you wear makes at least some kind of statement on its own, and being really deeply tied to metal culture, such band t-shirts tend to make pretty specific statements. I’m wearing a Gojira shirt right now in public, and anyone who knows of Gojira knows that I really like them.

That’s something that is deeply woven into the relatively quiet, but widespread, culture surrounding heavy metal, and if you’re annoyed that people keep asking you about Blood Incantation, requesting that metal culture stop using band t-shirts as a way for community members to identify each other and feel solidarity together is a much bigger ask than to not wear it if you don’t want new people you talk to to bring it up. Not that metal culture could never theoretically change or that because it’s an established culture, it gets the right of way on this kind of issue, but this is essentially an analog of the oft-public dialogue surrounding cultural appropriation of ethnic or national groups’ symbols by larger cultures. And the answer here is the same, which is to simply be responsible and respectful of the culture being borrowed from. And aside from the ways some people seem to tend to approach talking to someone about their band t-shirt (which I will get to in a minute), I can’t really think of anything particularly problematic about metal culture using band t-shirts as part of an identifier of one’s participation in metal culture and fandom of a certain band; so I can’t say I see any convincing reason for metal culture to give that up just to spare people outside the culture who want to appropriate something from it (which, again, isn’t automatically problematic) a question about that part of the culture they’re comfortable making their own use of for their own (likely mostly solely-minded) benefit.

Even if you don’t like metal or whatever band is on the shirt, you can sport it respectfully and interact with the culture respectfully, and if that’s too hard for you and you can’t stand the band on your shirt being brought up in conversation, maybe save yourself and metalheads the annoyance and confusion by not wearing that band t-shirt.

Now those past few paragraphs might have made it seem like I’m painting metalheads as the pious, reasonable victims of outsiders trying to take from our culture only to reciprocate angry defensiveness about it. But metalheads are certainly not all off the hook for the tension surrounding this subject, and sometimes it’s metalheads being the assholes about someone else’s choice to wear a band t-shirt.

Like I said, I have never experienced a pop quiz based on the shirt I’m wearing, but it sure seems like a common enough occurrence that it’s not a negligible issue. But that’s because I probably look the part. I’m not a patch-jacket-rocking, long-haired stereotype of a metalhead by any means, but I look like your average, inconspicuous metalhead who has to look professional for grad school interviews. My fiancée on the other hand, has been given the pop quiz treatment for her Slayer shirt. And while she’s not nearly as immersed in metal culture as I am, she truly does love Slayer’s music; I can attest. However, that doesn’t mean she wants to be quizzed on Slayer history every time she wears her Slayer shirt. Like I said, I look the part, but why should not looking a certain way make their knowledge of about a band up for fair question, and what is looking the part?

Well, based on the numerous accounts of people getting questioned in bad faith about their band t-shirts, not looking the part seems to involve various combinations of being inconspicuous (not deviating from mainstream fashion too much to signal potential alternative tastes in music), being known or suspected to be likely to listen to (or creating) “opposing” genres of music, or being a woman. And aggressive interrogations about fan authenticity seem to tend to come from people skeptical based on the above factors looking to make sure whether or not what they doubt to be genuine is or isn’t, which sure isn’t fair for women or musicians in the pop world to have to put on more performativity to not have their credibility called into question. And apart from skeptics, this behavior also seems to come often enough from people being gatekeeping assholes, which I shouldn’t have to explain is stupid and not the proper method of maintaining and assessing cultural boundaries and grading cultural immersion. Like I said, women shouldn’t have to goth up their look around their Behemoth shirt to a gratuitous level to not be questioned about their knowledge of Nergal’s kvlty early days, and looking any certain way or making any other kind of music in the public eye shouldn’t spur a scene-cred pat-down.

I know I said that this wasn’t a particularly complex topic and then proceeded to go on an essay about it, but the bottom line of all of this is really not that difficult to comprehend. Just be respectful of people and graceful in interactions with someone who might not know the band on their shirt so well. It should be an opportunity to encourage and welcome them closer to metal culture rather than a dogma to police and push people away through enforcement of. And if you know your shirt is connected to a music culture you aren’t really a part of, it’s disingenuous and reductive to ignore it as part of that culture and demand that that culture’s memebers just cede it to you. The cultural appropriation aspect of this topic with respect to band t-shirts being used as signifiers and symbols of cultural solidarity is the only ground I haven’t really seen tread and retread repeatedly as this discussion pops its head up from time to time. But yeah, it’s pretty simple and I hope this sums the whole thing up in a way that people looking for clarity on the various viewpoints and motives can appreciate and help them make sense of why this contentious topic really should be so contentious.

That’s it.

[ncfan-1]

Three Houses: Where Are All the Mothers? Part 2, Dimitri’s Mother and Maternal Family

Welcome to Part Two of ‘Three Houses: Where Are All the Mothers?” In Part One, I discussed the widespread absence of mother characters in Three Houses and how, given that mother-child relationship is central in driving so much of the overarching narrative, the lack of that theme being replicated, analyzed, and explored at the descending levels of the narrative hurts the story as a whole. In Part Two, I’m going to be talking about the snowballing effects of neglecting a mother character—namely, how in certain cases it can lead to also neglecting her natal family, which can open up some big holes in the narrative. Actually, Part Three covers this, too, but while in Part Three we’ll be traveling down to Enbarr, in Part Two, we’re heading north to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.

That Dimitri rarely ever mentions his birth mother makes somewhat more sense than someone like Ingrid never talking about her mother at all. Sylvain mentions pre-timeskip that she died during an outbreak of plague “around twenty years ago,” and while it was certainly not actually twenty years ago, the fact that Sylvain named such a figure indicates that Dimitri’s mother likely died while he was still in his infancy. He has no memory of her, Patricia is likely who he thinks of when he thinks of ‘Mother,’ and it’s unclear whether the people around Patricia in the royal court did or did not bring up her predecessor all that much, the better to try to make Patricia’s life a little easier, and keep her out of another woman’s shadow.

That Dimitri hardly ever talks about his birth mother (and to be honest, I can’t remember if he ever mentions her specifically, or if we’re just meant to infer her existence from the negative space of Dimitri always referring to Patricia as his stepmother) is understandable. What is considerably less understandable is the narrative neglecting her so thoroughly as it does, especially when that also snowballs into neglecting her natal family.

Just to get this out of the way, oh, look, here’s another mother character who apparently didn’t merit a name. Why not just have Sylvain call her ‘the late Queen [insert name here]’ instead of the queen consort when he dropped that exposition about her death, the plague, and Cornelia on us? Calling her the queen consort is actually more awkward than just calling her ‘the late Queen [insert name here]’, so it looks like, as with Byleth’s mother, the writers have gone out of their way to avoid giving her a name. Just… why?

And we know nothing about this woman, or her accomplishments, whatever they might be. We don’t know if she opened any churches, or patronized any scholars or universities, or oversaw any public works projects, or regularly delivered alms to the poor, or any of the other things a high Medieval queen might be expected to do with her power and influence. This game likes its flavor text; it wouldn’t have been hard to drop us a few lines here and there. No, it doesn’t seem like Patricia did any of that—Dimitri mentions that she mostly just embroidered all day, and didn’t seem “present” enough to really be involved in the goings-on of Faerghus (with the obvious and somewhat large caveat that he’s remembering her through the eyes of a child)—but Patricia also didn’t have the advantage of a pre-existing network of influence in the form of a powerful natal family within the Kingdom. Her predecessor, almost certainly a noblewoman by birth, thanks to the Faerghus nobility’s obsession with Crests, would have had such a family, and such a network.

So, where are they?

Even after Dimitri’s mother died, her family still should have been a huge presence both in his life and in the political landscape of Faerghus. Even after Lambert remarried, these people should still have had a huge presence in Dimitri’s life, because they’re the maternal family of the future King of Faerghus. Whether their interest in him is altruistic or self-serving—Volkhard von Arundel went from being a minor lord in Adrestia to shooting up in power and influence after Patricia became one of Ionius’s consorts by capitalizing on this newfound connection to the emperor—they should have been a fixture in Dimitri’s life growing up, and a fixture in the royal court. But instead, we have nothing.

We have no information on how Lambert’s in-laws might have influenced the reforms he intended to carry out, if they opposed or supported them. We’ve no information on how they might have used their connection to Lambert to try to advance at court. Were they councilors, ambassadors, generals? Were they a help to Lambert’s goals or a constant thorn in his side? And here’s something else we don’t hear about: were any of them killed in the Tragedy of Duscur?

Dimitri never talks about his maternal family. Never talks about the cousins whose parents would almost certainly sent them to court to act as his companions, or about the aunts or uncles who must surely have been a part of his life, or the grandparents who, if still living when he was growing up, must surely have also been a part of his life. Even if their interest in him was purely self-serving, even if the relationship was trouble, surely Dimitri would have mentioned at least one of them at least once.

When Dimitri was “executed” during the timeskip in three out of the four routes, there is no word as to how his maternal family responded to the news. Did they join with Houses Fraldarius and Gautier in fighting the Empire, or did they cave to Cornelia in the hopes of being able to salvage something from the situation they were now in? When, in Azure Moon, Faerghus as a whole discovered that Dimitri was still alive, did they rush to send support, or did they wait and see if he would be able to take back Fhirdiad before pledging their support?

Dimitri’s mother certainly had a family. She almost certainly had a noble family, a noble house whose presence should have been felt in some way or another in the game. If they all died in the plague that took her life, if they all died in the Tragedy of Duscur, if some died in the first and the rest in the second, the game needs to tell us—or, at least, hint at—that. As I said earlier, this game likes its flavor text; a little tidbit here and there, bits of information we’re left to string together on our own, would have gone a long way. And if Dimitri’s mother was from a cadet branch of House Blaiddyd, same deal as above; give us enough information that we can figure that out.

And the reason I keep assuming that Dimitri’s mother is from a Kingdom noble house yet to be introduced is because none of the six we have any level of insight into—Gaspard, Dominic, Charon, Gautier, Galatea, and Fraldarius—make sense as Dimitri’s maternal family.

House Gaspard? It would likely have come up during Lonato’s chapter, and certainly during Dimitri and Ashe’s support chain. Given that Dimitri’s trying to get Ashe to relax around him, if he could have pulled out the “But we’re closely related (by adoption)” card, he would have.

House Dominic? It would have come up in Dimitri’s supports with Gilbert or especially Annette, Annette not being the kind of person who’d keep on calling Dimitri ‘Your Highness’ if she was closely related to him.

House Charon? Same deal as the two above; it would have come up during Dimitri’s support chain with Catherine. Moreover, if Catherine was closely related to Dimitri, she would likely have known him since very early in his life, and would have recognized him as a child, long hair or no long hair.

House Gautier? No. Sylvain never includes ‘related to the future King of Faerghus’ in the spiels he uses to lure in his latest conquest; he would if he could.

House Galatea? Count Galatea is desperately trying to marry Ingrid off to the richest man (provided he’s not a scumbag) he can find. Being able to claim that she’s closely related to the future King of Faerghus would absolutely be something he’d use to make her more attractive to potential suitors, if he could claim it with any degree of truth.

House Fraldarius? This is the only one that halfway makes sense, given Rodrigue’s closeness to Lambert and Dimitri both, Glenn serving as a royal knight from the ripe old age of fifteen, and Felix having apparently been a close companion of Dimitri’s from early childhood. However, it only makes halfway sense, not total sense. If Dimitri’s mother was from House Fraldarius, how come it’s never mentioned? How come Rodrigue never brings up the blood relation? If Rodrigue was, say, Dimitri’s maternal uncle, he probably wouldn’t call him by name, especially not pre-timeskip, where he is meticulously polite and wouldn’t be calling his own uncle by just his given name. In the end, I’ve got to give a no on House Fraldarius being where Dimitri’s mother came from, as well.

The sheer absence of Dimitri’s maternal family is a gaping hole in a narrative already filled with holes where mother characters should be. In a game with thinner world-building, it might be easier to overlook. However, given that Three Houses takes so much time to establish the land of Fódlan and the complicated networks of influence and enmity that connect its noble houses, that the maternal families of one of the continent’s future rulers never gets so much as a mention, when this house would be undeniably an influential one (and if no longer extant, that deserves mention as well), is a glaring oversight. In Part Three, I’ll be talking about the situation in Adrestia, specifically a situation that takes this problem and multiplies it.

Part Three: The Imperial consorts (and their children) and their families

[wardoftheedgeloaves]

How many consonants did Proto-Algonquian really have, anyways?

Blackfoot undergoes a fairly large number of mergers compared to Proto-Algonquian: PA *t, *s, *r, *θ, *č and *š are all reflected as (mutatis mutandis, multaque mutanda mutantur) Blackfoot /t/.

It’s also been known since Ives Goddard’s 2015 AC paper that Blackfoot is to Core Algonquian what Anatolian is to IE, a branch of the family separate from the rest of it put together.

(strictly speaking a better analogy, given the distant California relatives, might be Blackfoot as Persian or a latter-day variety of Oscan and Core Algonquian as Indic or Romance, with Wiyot and Yurok represented by Swedish and Tocharian or something like that--but we’re not considering Wiyot and Yurok here).

This raises a question: how do we know that a Blackfoot merger isn’t actually a Core Algonquian split? We can be pretty certain that we already have an example of this: PA *č only appeared before *i *i: *y, where *t did not appear, except for the onomatopoeic *ti:nti:wa ‘blue jay’ and *čapo:nk- ‘to splash’--despite the loss of preconsonantal nasals in the Algonquian varieties north and east of the Hudson, the latter does not (I believe) implicate the place-name Chapaquiddick in ill-fated prophecy.

But I digress! A while back I made a spreadsheet of all the roots (well, all the initials) in Hewson’s Algonquian Dictionary, and *θ and *r, in particular, show difficult patterning. Those of you reasonably well acquainted with comparative Algonquian may recall that *r and *θ fall together in most of the family, except for Cree and Arapaho.

These two are also, well, difficult. *θ is reconstructible in only seven initials out of over 600--remember, this is a language with only twelve reconstructible consonants once you count out *č--and at least a few of these don’t look to be what they seem:

- *θeʔθaw- ‘forked’ and *θeʔθēmāw- ‘tobacco’ have Cree reflexes beginning in *čist-, as if they were *tiʔθ-. That’s an illegal reconstruction, though--PA *e and *i are in complementary distribution in initial syllables, with the latter appearing when there’s no initial consonant and the former when there is--e.g. *iθkwēwa ‘woman’ vs. *penkwi ‘dust’. Worse, while Menominee has the expected nɛʔnemāw for ‘tobacco’, the Ojibwe and Meskwaki reflexes suggest *aʔθēmāw-, and their reflexes of ‘forked’ suggest *θaʔθaw-. To cap it all off, in Passamaquoddy you get ‘tomawey, wihich I believe suggests earlier *əCtēmāw-; Massachusett (going by the 1903 dictionary of Natick) has <wuttamâuog>, which looks like /wətamɔ:wak/, so as if a plurale tantum from *otamēwaki or thereabouts. In other words, both of these reconstructions show widespread wonkiness with the first syllable; moreover, the *θe- versions look like reduplicants (an irregular but common process).

- *θām- ‘under’ has reflexes, but also has a much more common allomorph *aθām-. 

- *θēkw- ‘choke, shove in’ has no Cree cognates that I can find, and searching for the expected reflex tēk-/tēkw- produces no semantically close results on creedictionary.com (which collates several major dictionaries). It is possible that takwahiminān ‘chokecherry’ is related, if it was originally formed along the same semantic lines as the English name and irregular ablaut was involved. But the languages for which I can find a reflex of “chokecherry” (Arapaho, Ojibwe) don’t seem to be cognate--Arapaho uses a reflex of mi:ni ‘berry’, and Ojibwe has the clearly unrelated assassēwamin. I can’t find Passamaquoddy, Menominee, Meskwaki or Delaware reflexes.

Arapaho does have θeiʔiku:θe:- ‘put something inside something else’. Is it from *θēkw-? We would usually expect a long -ee- here, and Arapaho -ei- is usually from earlier *e: after proto-Arapaho-Atsina *y < PA *w or *y, but we would also expect *-kw-  to drop without a trace. I’m tentatively assigning this Arapaho term to the root, but I’d really like better confirmation...

- The remaining three--*θāp- ‘to thread through, replace’, *θāw- ‘middle’ and *θōm- ‘grease’--seem to be real, though the last of these seems to be confined to Cree and Ojibwe. So now we have a total of four initials beginning with *θ--remember, we would statistically expect somewhere around fifty if all consonants were distributed equally, or maybe twenty or so according to a more reasonable distribution--all of which have long vowels in them.

What are we to make of this? At this point we are wandering into speculative territory, but I believe the discussion at the end of Goddard’s 2015 paper on Blackfoot dimly illuminates some of the path before us. You see, where we have a word-initial consonant in a Core Algonquian verb, we often see an initial i- in Blackfoot. This seems to have often been the original state of affairs, with *i- usually lost in Core Algonquian; the exceptions are before *r (where *i- is retained in PA) and in the “relative” roots.

So let’s check Blackfoot. Of the four surviving roots in *θ-, here is what I can find:

- *θāp- ‘thread through, replace’: isttapini ‘to lace, weave, thread’ looks like a reflex. Initial i- in pre-Blackfoot conditions shortening of a following vowel, so that checks out. The geminate -tt- is harder to figure out; Blackfoot sometimes reflects PA *č as tt (Berman ‘06), presumably because *-ty- was already long.

- *θāw- ‘middle’: well, we have ihtatsiki ‘middle, center’. This looks like it could be from *θāw- given shortening, but there is no reason for the -w- to drop out--it’s usually retained. Perhaps *θāw- was some sort of composite, or perhaps ihtatsiki doesn’t reflect it at all.

- *θēkw- ‘choke, shove in, stick in, insert’: no clear reflex. 

- *θōm- ‘grease, fat’: no clear reflex.

Does this tell us anything? Maybe. Cluster-initial /h/ in Blackfoot is usually from an earlier true cluster in PA, as far as we can tell, and geminates tend to be from syncope, or something. In any case, initial *θ:

a) was incredibly rare, occurring in no more than four well-established roots.

b) only occured in verbal roots except for the one root that is only attested in Cree and Ojibwe. These two have a long history of borrowing from each other, but if *θōm- is not inherited then we need, e.g., hypercorrection where Old Ojibwe *rōm- gets borrowed into Cree and the *r is hypercorrected into /t/ on the basis of all those other Ojibwe words whose /r/ corresponds to Cree /t/. I don’t know if there are any examples of this occuring.

c) in the two cases where we maybe have a Blackfoot reflex, there’s an initial i-.

d) and also in those two cases, the initial reflex is kinda weird and points to there maybe having been an original true cluster. 

We know that when word-initial *i- dropped off between Proto-Algonquian-Blackfoot and Proto-Core-Algonquian, it occasionally reduced a following consonant cluster to its second member, which is occasionally restored, so that the relative root *taθ- ‘somewhere’ magically becomes -entaθ- when you add a prefix. This sort of makes me wonder whether *θ was a medial-only consonant with the few initial reflexes being flukes of lost reduplication or an initial cluster.

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

I’ll probably pick this up again at some point, but the thought I’m chewing on is that *θ may actually be entirely secondary, deriving from some sort of cluster--it’s not crazy common medially, and when you do see it it’s very often in a cluster. When you do see it in a cluster it often varies with *t--in particular there seems to have been a process where transitives with inanimate objects that had stems ending in *-ta:- had counterparts with animate objects whose stems ended in *-θ-. Also, there’s at least one example of singleton *θ whose morpheme has another version where it is in a cluster. That would be *aθemwa ‘dog’, which has a medial (incorporated) version *-aʔθemw-. 

This all raises the rather tenuous possibility that maybe singleton *θ derived from a cluster of some sort.

Similar in behavior to *θ: *h, which did not occur word-initially and only appears in one verbal initial outside of a cluster: *nah- ‘nice, proper, skillful’. As a medial or final, it only appears outside clusters in *-h- ‘causative’ and *-hw- ‘by instrument’. There are one or two noun roots that have it, but these tend to be irregular or onomatopoeic. Then there’s *š, which derived from *θ before *i *i: *y except when it didn’t--a small handful of roots have this word-initially--and which seems to have behaved like *θ in Blackfoot. I think you can assume a sound-law *θy > šy > š / #_ too; no root of the form *šy- seems to be reconstructible. It’s harder to get rid of *š altogether than it is to get rid of *č, though.

(also, *i and *e were in complimentary distribution in initial syllables, *e appearing after consonants and *i appearing bare--so e.g. for *šek- ‘to urinate’ you could maybe have had *θik- > *šik- > *šek-. however the wonderfully intuitive Blackfoot reflex issksi suggests there may be onomatopoeia involved)

[autokratorissa]

sorry to be annoying but what dyou mean by anti humanist

Antihumanism is more than simply a rejection of humanism, and certainly as I think of it, it entails a wider scientific, post- and not merely anti-humanist worldview, but it is that original and nominal rejection that it comes down to.

Humanism, to be clear, is a philosophical-ideological position, originally developing as a reaction to the hegemony of the Catholic Church in Europe and as part of the push to rediscover classical texts and learning, that places emphasis on the human animal as something inherently valuable, as better than other animals, as being set apart from them, and on the ability to discover knowledge, meaning and even purpose, through reason. It venerates what are perceived to be uniquely and definingly human traits; reason, rational thinking and mathematical logic being the most commonly given, though appeals to our artistic creativity of all kinds have also been put across. These are all things, it must be emphasised, which science has, since the Renaissance when humanism as it now exists was first properly formulated, demonstrated to be not at all unique to us.

These characteristics and claims of human nature can be traced at least as far back as Plato, and it is certainly to him that we can owe the proliferation of them over the next several thousand years. Plato argued that our ability to reason was what set us apart from other animals, being inscribed upon our souls (psyche) by the Form of the Human, a sentiment reinforced, in an albeit less absolutist and essentialist way, by Aristotle, in his description of the function (ergon) of humans within his teleological worldview as being to reason.

Antihumanism, in contrast, is “the view that concepts of “human nature,” “man,” or “humanity” should be rejected as historically relative or metaphysical:”

“Anti-humanist critics have questioned the humanist exaltation of human freedom and self-determination, and opposed the habit of placing humanity at the center of the universe, viewing humanism as an apology for individualism. For example, many poststructuralist thinkers have maintained that humanity’s supposed freedom of thought and action is limited by linguistic, psychological, or socioeconomic conditions of our existence. And feminists, black activists, post-colonial critics, and gay and lesbian critics have argued that the “man” at the heart of humanism is not free from the limitations or limiting interests resulting from the specifics of a particular gender, class, race, or sexual orientation; on the contrary, this “man” is male, white, middle-class, Anglo, and heterosexual.”

Childers & Hentzi, editors, The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism

@notlobotomized asked me why I considered myself an antihumanist only a few days ago, so I’ll simply repeat what I said to them: on a personal level, I am opposed to humanism because it sets humanity apart from other animals, an ideological position long established but which has no basis in any verifiable science and which has brought innumerable misery and suffering to every species we interact with—a list which, of course, includes ourselves, too. I am opposed to humanism because it is a gateway to and great sustainer of ethicism, a thing which has no purpose in an age of science and which the working class categorically does not need. I am opposed to humanism because, precisely as humanism is so widespread and has so utterly broken the old power of the Church, we do not need it anymore, and its role in history is largely done; a post-humanist period in which the animal in us is frankly acknowledged and rigorously studied is now demanded by the intellectual and material stage in which we now exist.

On a less personal and more political, Marxist level, I am opposed to humanism and actively identify with antihumanism because humanism is the bedrock of liberalism, predating it as a properly articulated ideological position—indeed, all of liberalism is arguably merely a skin-deep tendency movement atop the actual ideology of humanism (something perhaps observable in how fascist ideologies like National Socialism are clearly not liberal, but are humanist). Despite rejecting liberalism, many on the left, either explicitly or, far more often, implicitly, never break whatsoever with humanism. This is telling as to the degree they have actually escaped the propaganda trap and the weight of cultural hegemony. Marxism is decidedly not a humanist philosophy, and while the ‘Young Marx’ is sometimes described as a humanist, the more ‘mature Marx’ himself also was not. I am opposed to humanism because its advancement of a human nature is unscientific and a self-imposed hindrance to the ambitions and possibilities of human struggle and human development—the line that it is ‘human nature’ to be corrupt and to seize autocratic power when given the chance, and so proletarian dictatorship can never achieve communism and the state will never “wither away,” is a good example of this. I am opposed to humanism because while it once represented an ideological struggle against the feudal state, its divine right to rule, and the long-reaching arm of the Church, stifling socioeconomic change and revolution, it is now, like the liberal call for liberté, égalité, fraternité, an outdated, ineffectual vestige of a bygone age at best, and an actively reactionary ideal at worst.

I am an antihumanist, then, because I feel it is useful and productive to openly counter humanist assumptions among the left—the fundamental antihumanism in Marxism is so often overlooked, underappreciated and unknown by people new to communism, moralising and revolutionary ideals born from ethical positions being probably but the most common product of this. On the simplest level, though, I am an antihumanist because biology and evolutionary science exist at the stage they now do, and in doing so, they necessarily throw away all the old ideas of what it is to be human. Humanism is, then, an outdated but ubiquitous ideology.

So, to answer your question, by antihumanism I mean that worldview and that framework, standing in marked contradistinction to all the metaphysical and idealistic conceptions that have come before it, by which I am utterly convinced our species must now interpret and organise the world. Marxism is perhaps the first truly post-humanist ideology to be developed, and this is but one of the many reasons it is such a revolutionary doctrine. Its application and conceptualisation have still not wholly escaped it, admittedly, its adherents and critics alike all living under humanism and conditioned to think in a certain way by humanism, but all the same, it will not be the last. It can only be superseded.

[prodigall]

In defense of the Battle Academy skin choices:

So, in wake of the wake of the new Battle Academy skins dropping I’ve seen a LOT of people getting mad about things like Lux and Ezreal getting more skins, their favorite champs not being in the skin-line, stuff like that. For the most part those complaints are all valid, I understand them, but I do think it’s not fair to get mad at riot for this specifically because a lot of their choices make a lot sense and the ones that don’t are really small, so, I’m just gonna...go over the list and state my two cents.

All the complaints basically stem from “these champions shouldn’t have more skins, it should have been somebody like Taliyah”  this is probably the most widespread complaint, and whilst its true, neither need new skins, it’s totally understandable why they got them.  First: Since Ezreal got reworked, he was always going to be getting a new epic or better skin soon-ish, without question. Every champion thats been reworked in the past 2 years got a skin some time after their rework, this isn’t a new practice, the day the rework got announced I stated that Ezreal would be getting a new skin soon because of it, then when Riot said they were making a skin-line inspired by Shonen anime I said “without question, Ezreal will probably get a legendary skin in this skinline and be the focal point of it.” To a multitude of people, Riot are on record as saying Ezreal was DESIGNED around Shonen anime tropes from the beginning, there are lots of ‘anime’ characters in League, like Yasuo and, yeah, Lux (we’ll get to that) but for what riot were actually trying to DO with this skin line? It was always going to be Ezreal, there was never any doubt in my mind. I know a lot of people think Pajama guardian counts as his skin but...no, it really doesn’t, its basically just a chroma, thats why it’s half price if you already OWN Star Guardian, so it doesn’t count. Second: Keeping in mind Ezreal was going to be the focal point of this skinline inspired by ANIME, all the characters around him needed to fit into anime tropes, because recently for their big ‘alternate universe’ skins Riot have been focusing more on a whole narrative to go with them rather than ‘oh this would be cool’, so they had more of a plan for the champs they picked keeping in mind Ezreal is the ‘protagonist’ (because he totally is). The ones Riot went for were:  Rugged teacher who cares about his students but isn’t super affectionate (Graves) Popular kid who is a best friend/elder sibling figure to the protagonist (Jayce) Principle who is a parental figure to the protagonist after some event in their past (Yuumi) Small scale antagonist who will later go on to be an anti-hero then full hero designed to be a prominent threat in early arcs to help establish characters (Katarina) And of course, the love interest (Lux) Keeping that in mind, Lux wasn’t just on the table for this skinline, she was GUARANTEED to be in it. Say what you want about EzLux, I personally am not that into it, but the fact is that riot like it, so much so that they outright made it canon in this universe, you can have your ships, you can like LuxJinx, you can Like EzSona, or whatever, but as far as riot are concerned , Lux and Ezreal are Riots golden couple (with Xayah and Rakan), they’ve been one of two pairings they EVER acknowledge in canon for basically their entire life span, and they do it BLATANTLY. It’s not surprising at all this happened. Third: The Narrative is actually pretty relevant to the choices they made here, and the big one that I think totally invalidates Taliyah as even a possibility is that this is a school of WEAPON users. All of the champions they picked have weapons of some kind and Ezreal states in his voicelines that they all use ‘god-weapons’ AKA the narrative of this skin-line is entirely centered around those weapons as of the moment, so that means EVERY champion who isn’t a weapon user were never eligible from the start. Would champions like Taliyah suit this skinline conceptually? 200%, I’d love to see it for the next batch if they make more and change up a few things lore wise, but given the fact they clearly have an overarching plot and concept behind this school at foundation level? she just doesn’t really work right now. Sorry.

Fourth: Okay real talk Riot dropping champs that don’t need skins into new skinlines isn’t new and never has been thats just smart business. Lets say they put all these resources towards making SIX new skins, with a whole new universe to accompany them, with no guarantee it’ll be popular, and decide to put champions that need new skins in there EXCLUSIVELY.  Then, the new skinline drops on the main server and nobody likes them and they’ve wasted their time. The fact is for as long as I can remember, when Riot launch a new skinline they ALWAYS make sure at least 50% of the champions in it are the POPULAR ones they know will bring in profit regardless of if people like the skinline as a whole, This time it was Ez Lux and Kat, K/DA had Ahri and Kai’sa, Oddyssey had Jinx Yas Sona and kind of Kayn, Star guardians did it TWICE with Lux and Jinx (releasing at different times admittedly) then they did it a SECOND TIME with Ezreal and Ahri, its not until the second batch where they go for more out there less popular champions and thats been their business practice with stuff like this for as long as I can remember. I get why people are complaining but the fact is if it wasnt these champs? it still would have been 50% champs who don’t need it like Yi Fifth: The fact is that a lot the champions picked , as usual with large skinline drops like this, all fill a different role, thats pretty normal Ez: ADC Lux: Mage Mid/Supp Kat: Assasin Mid Graves: Jungler Jayce: Top Yumi: Support If we push Yumi to the side for a second, each champ fulfills one role in a game each. Riot for a while now have been making it so if a new Champ releases with a new skin line beside them, or an update to said skin line, they make that new champs on release skin part of said skin line for convenience sake, so we can probably assume that the inital skin choices were made not counting Yumi who might not even have been RELEASED by that point if she wasn’t done yet, and if she was done she’d be added. So it was probably a an intentional choice to make sure they didn’t overlap in roles until Yumi came out in which case Lux and Kat could probably overlap. With that said, and keeping in mind the aforementioned NARRATIVE role they were meant to fulfill, the pool becomes a lot smaller. The big one here being Graves, because he’s the one I haven’t fully accepted myself, I normally say Riot don’t like releasing multiple skins within a year for the same champion unless they were already making one when the worlds winners said they wanted another, thats the only acception, but along comes Graves like “second skin in 6 months baybee” which is kinda weird, so keeping that in mind, I did some research to find every jungler (cos this needed to be a jungler) who was also going to be able to fit into the rugged not nice but still cares teacher role they still had open, who ALSO had a weapon. (For reference here I mean actual jungle picks not your random off meta pick, I’m looking at you jungle Lucian, you don’t count). Not even COUNTING the fact they also had to fit into the character _archetype_ they still had open, do you know how many choices there actually were? 7 Max, and thats if you count Pantheon and Diana which not everybody does. The full list of choices with the role they still had open was  Graves, Jarvan, Jax, Pantheon (?) Diana (?) , Vi or Xin, when you take into account that they also had to come off as a bit more rugged, old enough to be a teacher, and serious and not in a nice way, its down to Graves and MAYBE Jax. This is one I’M still on the fence about, but with context I think that it being Graves isn’t...overwhelmingly shocking.  Kat is much more open and close, the roster for midlane assassins is pretty big so they just went with Kat cos out of all the assassin mids who was a WOMAN she’d waited the longest for a new skin (that yeah, she doesn’t need) and they just went with her so there was an even amount of representation between men and women in the skin line...that’s kind of it really. So, anyway that’s my two cents, I get that people will always be mad when champions like Ez and Lux and Kat get new skins, if it weren’t for the fact Ezreal is my favorite champion and shonen anime is like my favorite thing I’d probably be a little bit mad to but, as ALWAYS happens with new skinlines, the people who got skins for their mains will always have bias but I hope this didn’t come off as to apologetic? I really do hope that if these skins continue champions like Kayn Ekko and Taliyah and hell maybe Zoe get a chance to shine in it, but as it is now I find it really hard to really get mad about who they picked.

[arcticdementor]

To be sure, this is a man speaking. But the fundamental quality of this kind of approach to art, culture, the public square, and the rest of it, is evidence of a disordered and out of control femininity. And an equally dysfunctional and abdicating masculinity. A comment left by Youngamconreader on another thread got me thinking about this. I think there is a direct connection between the sexual orientation and gender identity and "alternative family" topics that this blog often discusses, and what's going on in a story like this one, here. I think we are collectively experiencing a massive breakdown/derangement of sex, of masculinity and femininity, and the damage is felt in every single corner of our society and our politics. The "pink police state" (Poulos--check him out) that is coming into being is the product of a miserable and frustrated femininity, which holds the field almost without opposition due to the near-complete abdication of men, who are, sometimes I think almost "to a man," in today's society, nihilistic and disengaged. For those who would say Trump proves that this is not true, I would say look at how he stands alone--at least in America and indeed in the Anglosphere. Everybody agrees that he is sui generis; all of the establishment of his own party just wants things to go back to the way they were; there is nobody who even remotely resembles something like a successor. Also, it is telling that one of the major reasons he won is because he is an online troll, but rich and famous enough to do it under his own name; he is the stand-in for huge numbers of men who have nothing but contempt for today's world but who only reveal their views and feelings anonymously. In large measure, men are opting out. Our bourgeois and hugely wealthy and powerful nation is decadent and its people are soft and domesticated; and, what is worse, the men of sensitivity and intelligence, of taste and discernment, are disgusted by what they see -- a rotten culture of placelessness, hideous architecture and built environments, unbelievably bad art and culture, degenerate music, films made for lowest-common-denominator global audiences, films that are so much more hideous than what was being done for decades, even as early as the 1930s, that it boggles the mind (every single person involved in CGI production should be lined up and shot), universities that have destroyed their own liberal arts programs -- OK, I need to stop myself, but you get the point, they are disgusted by what they see -- primarily they are disgusted by the *domestication* of the people they are supposed to look up to and/or emulate -- and they withdraw. We know about the video game and pornography addicts, the shut-ins, the "incels," but there is very much more to it all even than that. In the meantime, there is relentless, endless, earnest propaganda directed at women like a fire hose, constantly telling them that the essence of their own womanhood is bound up with their bourgeois career success. Nonstop messages received during their schooling, on TV and the movies and the internet, from bougie parents, tell them that they should reach for the stars (by *working*, always by working) and never to settle for just being a mother or just a wife. This has been going on for a long time, and many Boomers are certainly true believers in it -- my Boomer mother certainly believes it like a religion, God bless her -- and it is certainly true that if you have no training or career you are going to be more financially dependent and/or more financially precarious, and the Boomers, who divorce at the drop of a hat, greatly fear that. But my generation and the generations after (I was born in the early/mid 80s) have been taught constantly and relentlessly that work/career is identity, is the *point* of life, and quite frankly women got it MUCH more than men did, since the idea was to correct or change the unfairnesses/biases/power imbalances of the past. And it has resulted in a huge number of women who are unhappy and unfulfilled. It turns out that a life of making PowerPoints or pushing papers or running workplace conflict-resolution trainings or whatever do not really fulfill people; those women who substitute career for family entirely, or who find themselves torn between the two and not very sure they are finding a balance that they will ultimately be very happy about when they look back on their life, know that something is not right. I think we all used to have a much saner approach back in the day, before "career" was a word much used, and before resume/CV culture was so widespread; people may have been a lot poorer, but at least they understood that a job was about doing something that somebody or other had to do, and putting food on the table and a roof over the head of their kids; at least people weren't being sold a bill of goods by their parents, their teachers, authority figures, and the culture as a whole about what the point of being human and living life really is. I don't blame women for being unhappy -- I think the way our culture *relentlessly* propagandizes women that their very femininity and their very identity is bound up in bourgeois career success is one of the very cruelest aspects of life in "late capitalism." It is worse for them than for us men. It is not just that there is nothing wrong with having and raising children -- an incredibly difficult and honorable job. It is that the vast majority of people are not going to find true purpose and meaning in a consumer capitalist society (or probably any other society) just via their work alone. Selling phones or cutting hair or writing ad copy or processing loan applications or playing the Pachabel Canon for the three billionth time at weddings might not be so bad, you might even like it OK most of the time, but it is not the same thing as, say, raising your child, at least not for most people, and certainly bourgeois career success should not be so incredibly inappropriately stressed in our society to the point where increasing numbers of women -- women who want kids! -- are waiting until they are 37 to start families and freezing their eggs and the rest of it. It is just cruel and it alone by itself is enough to make me strongly dislike this consumer capitalist system we live in. Women are unhappy and are sort of flailing about projecting their unmet needs and frustrated desires in numerous directions. They are frustrated with the aforementioned nihilistic and disengaged men, they are pissed that they work outside the home and inside it too and they still struggle to make ends meet and especially to find the time they need, they lose out because a consumer capitalist society constantly f***s them over by creating an arms-race situation for intrasexual competition. In a more conservative and traditional society, say a society that frowns on makeup, women do not have to compete in that sphere. But in a society like ours, if certain women have the money and time to do a lot with makeup, then suddenly large numbers of women have to spend the time and money on it too just to compete or keep up. This does not make women better off. A consumer capitalist society squeezes them constantly. A society in which the health-care system is a disaster -- and I don't care if you hold the typical liberal views about why it's a disaster or the typical conservative views about why it's a disaster -- hurts women more because they rely on it more for basic biological reasons. Woman carry a human being inside them for a significant period of time (if they have kids) -- nothing men have to deal with ever compares to that health/biological-wise. All that said, women today -- who are not being well served by our current economic/cultural/social orthodoxy, at all -- are playing a major/primary role in this disordered and I think semiapocalyptic woke politics. Chesterton was not afraid to write, and did write, about why he opposed women's suffrage, and he said that in human history, women *have* been queens (including some very good ones), have been monarchs, have certainly wielded power -- but it is precisely in the context of *democracy* that they have not had the vote, not in human history or at least Western history. And, indeed, as he put it, women have/had not been given the vote precisely because they are in some sense too powerful, they are absolute rulers in their bones in a way that men are not. There is something to this, even if in our age we cannot tolerate or hear it. One of the things that amuses me is the way -- and they used to do it more often than they do now, but perhaps you know what I mean -- conservatives often lament or attack depictions, in TV or movies, of the married couple where the man is a stupid shlub while the woman is the smart, knowing, sensitive, and competent one. I agree with the conservatives who see this as anti-male---sure. But to me, it really means something else. The reason we see men depicted this way and women depicted that way is because men tolerate it and women would not tolerate the reverse. What it means is that men give in, don't want to deal with it, don't want to fight, while women will NOT let it go, will do what it takes to make the man understand that it is NOT worth his time and energy to go there, to do X annoying or undesired thing, etc. So, we have men depicted as losers, and women depicted as anything but. There is a lesson here. This is *exactly* the same dynamic that we see with conservatives and liberals, with the Republican and Democratic parties! If, for example, Roe v. Wade was overturned, there would be an efficient, effective, organized, identify-every-single-pressure-point-and-*squeeze* response from upper middle class women that would bring the entire Republican Party to its knees within days. It would be a massacre the likes of which you have never seen. Every single HR and public relations department of every single company on the Fortune 500 list would tell the wholly owned and wholly craven Republican Party exactly what to do--stand now right now-- and that would be that. I don't mean to say that conservatives are all men and liberals are all women, but the conservative "spirit" of the current moment is very male (the natural law arguments! Good Lord!) and the liberal "spirit" of the moment is very female. And it is no contest, at all. Women understand that men are less socially adept (quick: what is the ratio of male autists to female autists?) and that men, while unquestionably stronger physically, are more conflict-averse and more predictable (as everybody knows, men want certain things and it's pretty easy to know exactly what they are and to use that information to one's advantage; whereas, as Freud so perfectly distilled, the question of what women want is itself so difficult to answer as to be a kind of female superpower) -- and women use this for everything it's worth. And today, in our democracy, we see the consequences, as a kind of feminine disordered or frustrated impulse holds the field basically unopposed. This idea that this mural -- to get back to the topic of the original post! -- needs to be torn down because "it makes the children feel unsafe" -- here we see a feminine sensibility both disordered and displaced but winning the field because there's hardly anything else with the will to stand up to it. The masculine counterpoint to this smothering mother has withdrawn -- perhaps to 4chan, perhaps to Pr0ntube. Conservatives used to love pointing out that in the inner city, the family had completely broken down to the point where the matriarch/mother was the only influence in childrens' lives and husbands and fathers had ceased to exist. Well, we see that now in our society/culture as a whole. Somehow, the mother alone, the feminine quality alone, does not yield great results, when not counterbalanced with the masculine.* Things become disordered and even monstrous. I am a gay man, and I can't help but think that, when I do this, when I write about this stuff, Camille Paglia (PBUH) should be my model and my inspiration, because she saw so clearly, and so strikingly, from the outside, so to speak, the great and immortal interplay and relationship between male and female that produces *all* of us, and that is essential to -- not only beauty and art, but order, form, and *lastingness*, things that do not die. We all and every one of us need a society in which the male and the female are counterbalanced and juxtaposed and brought together in a great tension and a great union. The disordered and indeed cataclysmic collapse of the male and female counterbalance is impacting us everywhere, and in ways we do not even realize -- I firmly believe that. There must be a return and rediscovery of the masculine force and the masculine will -- to connect this to the posts about open borders, to a masculine will that says "no, I am drawing a line" -- how many of you have read Sexual Personae, and the CENTRAL role that the idea of "drawing the line" plays in that book? Men "draw the line," which is why men have dominated almost beyond measure the realm of visual art in human history. There must be a return to this, or the nation will dissolve into the primordial swamp that Paglia says represents--not the feminine, but the feminine when outside of civilization, the feminine in a state of nature and crude and unformed.

Matt in VA

[thevirgomen]

The Secret A Woman Must Know In Understanding A Virgo Man

New Post has been published on https://virgomen.net/understanding-a-virgo-man/

The Secret A Woman Must Know In Understanding A Virgo Man

Are you spending long hours wondering how to be a Virgo man ideal woman? Maybe you are constantly thinking of new ways to impress or get the attention of your Virgo crush?

Don’t worry you are not alone.

Most women in a relationship or thinking about getting into a relationship with a Virgo guy is doing the same thing.

Without being aware, they are constantly thinking of ways to look sexier, or more appealing to raise the interest of a Virgo man.

This is the widespread belief that a woman must constantly be thinking of ways to make herself interesting as well as worldly and fun to be with. All the time keeping in mind that she does not want to come across as wanting or needy.

All this time wasted thinking how to be perfect for him… An image in your mind of how proud he might look in the future, with you on his arm as the girl of his dreams. But most women don’t realize that a Virgo man just doesn’t want perfect.

Why a Virgo man doesn’t want a perfect woman

The more a woman tries to impress the more distant a Virgo man becomes. Unfortunately, this approach of always trying to please him does not work… It will never work.

You may have convinced yourself that he is attracted to you because of your caring nature. So why then, is he taking you more and more for granted and seemingly losing interest?

You may be so focused on your Virgo crush that you have been making excuses for him? Possibly convincing yourself that he is just not ready for settling down.

Alternatively, you have convinced yourself that he will suddenly change and pledge his undying love for you? Or maybe… The real reason is That you have left him nothing to do by taking over the courting process!!

If you don’t have time to read the rest of this article at the moment, you can listen to this short video by James Bauer a renowned relationship coach who reveals the answer here.

Virgo men in relationships

A Virgo man will show no value to a relationship unless he has contributed to making it happen. Unless a Virgo man has worked hard to achieve something he will not value it.

As an example, a strong characteristic of a Virgo man is his need to strive to achieve everything he does in life. His philosophy is ‘ If it is not worth fighting for, it is not worth having’.

This philosophy follows through with his relationships. Present the Virgo guy with a perfect girlfriend and he will feel there is something wrong.

There was no challenge, it came too easily. He would feel that he did not deserve her because he had not chased her, and won her himself.

The challenge of playing hard to get

Playing hard to get is all very well, but it is also a dangerous strategy. If you pull away too far your Virgo crush may not respond.

Also, the magic in the relationship expires if you are too casual and he knows he has got you.

There is something that is latent in the Virgo character that is triggered in his mind when he knows he has won you. It’s a little voice in the head that says ‘Game Over’ I have fought and won, what’s next’?

So what is the answer to making a Virgo guy interested in you and making sure your relationship lasts and becomes the main focus of his attention?

Some women have tried to work out the answers for themselves but are looking at the query from a female perspective. Some have just hoped things would improve on their own and unfortunately, their chances of happiness have evaporated.

Getting help from an expert

Some of the women have sought advice from a leading relationship coach, which has now resulted in an answer to their problem.

By not being afraid to ask for help from an expert, relationship coach James Bauer has managed to discover the Virgo man’s secret obsession that has been so elusive until now.

This is the complex question that 100’s of women have been confounded by. Until now!

Video explains how easily you can have your Virgo obsessed with you!

James started sifting through the many questions he gets from his female clients and established this particular pattern with Virgo men in relationships. Women were posing the same question asking for help to keep the romance alive.

Women were constantly asking why a Virgo guy seems keen at the start but then seem to lose interest and become distant. Relationships would be going well then for no apparent reason things seemed to change overnight.

Time and again the same pattern was forming with a Virgo guy originally interested with romantic intentions and then suddenly becoming distant. His attention would seem to shift and he would be focusing on everything but her.

The same story was repeated by different women in a relationship with a Virgo guy. Their crushes began to be brusque and uncaring, there was no more eye contact or intimate touches.

It just seemed as though a switch had been triggered that turned off all interest in the woman. James realized he needed to investigate if there was any chance of helping these women.

Everything starts to make sense

Everything started to fall into place as James discovered what was causing the lack of interest and the reason Virgo men were distancing themselves.

After much research and cross-referencing he discovered what these men were not getting.

The in-depth research that James had instigated had uncovered that the problem was of no fault of the woman involved. There was nothing wrong with these women, but he proved there was something lacking in the relationship which he calls ‘The Hero Instinct’.

Without realizing it, these women are actually driving their Virgo man away.

James had discovered that it was the naturally caring nature of the female that was depriving their Virgo crush of the challenge of winning them over.

As the challenge was removed there was no interest in striving for her attention. This is what was causing the distancing and indifference.

James personally explains his research here in this video.

Take a quick look for yourself and see if this reminds you of your situation. Do you see yourself as always available and doing all you can to look your best for him?

Are you always prepared to drop everything for him? Always have a burning desire to do anything for him?

This is, of course, natural for most women. But it does not work for the Virgo guy. The caring nature that was at the forefront of your relationship was, in fact, depriving your Virgo guy of his purpose.

Virgo man Ideal Woman

A Virgo man is no exception when it comes to their love of superheroes. Most grown men are captivated by the idea of a hero that always wins out in the endless chains of movies.

Men generally are brought up from childhood thinking they are developing into a hero that might save the world – and also rescue the girl before carrying her away to safety.

There are thousands of men trapped in their day to day mundane jobs. Image a Virgo in that environment who is always looking for a challenge and who never gets the opportunity to be a hero.

In this situation, there is no chance to challenge themselves – But they can still get the girl.

It takes a lot of confidence to win the girl if you are an ordinary guy with the heart of a hero. Immunity to pain with superhuman charm. All a Virgo man wants is to find a girl that is looking for a hero.

Bring out the hero in your Virgo guy

A girl that needs a hero! Are you that woman? A girl that needs a hero as a boyfriend? Guess what! I don’t think this is you, is it?

You are probably a person who can take care of herself, being industrious and a hard worker. I imagine you are very capable and able to complete tasks without assistance.

Is this ringing any bells with you on how you may have been taking the challenge away from your Virgo crush?

You may even be the type of girl who doesn’t need a man to feel complete. Maybe, I would guess you are the type of woman who has a lot to offer a Virgo man?

Probably loving and very kind with a natural instinct to be generous in a great degree towards someone you see as being an ideal partner in life.

Could this be the reason you are not coming into contact with heroes? More than likely you have attracted the wrong type of guy, one that is a taker rather than someone who would make an ideal fit.

There will always be takers in life but you need to be aware of how to tell the difference between the takers and the heroes. Here’s How!

Three ways to activate the hero in your Virgo man – Starting Today!

Ask him for his help

A Virgo guy loves to help, so ask his opinion on what computer or gadget to buy. Ask for his assistance in tracking down a rattle that has annoyingly appeared in your car. Or even something as simple as passing a product from a high shelf that you cannot reach.

Remember to thank him with a warm smile but not be too gushing. Also, think of things to ask him that will not make you look needy. These sort of requests trigger the hero in him and will help to focus his attention on you.

Enjoy male interests

Virgo guys are generally down to earth and appreciate women who feel the same. Men are men, so what does it matter if his apartment is a shrine to his favorite football club? Does it matter that his dress code is not color coordinated?

He’s a man and to try to change him too early in a relationship will only have him backing away. Things like this in his world are fine. Trying to make him like you is not good as you have the female side well covered.

Let him earn your respect

The Virgo man loves a challenge, and this is what brings out the hero in him. They want to be praised for doing something constructive rather than being patted on the back for something insignificant. They do not want love just to be given them, they want to know they have earned it.

A Virgo guy has an internal craving to know that he has been challenged and won the love of the woman he has chosen.

All a girl needs to do is create opportunities, that bring out the hero within him. So relax and ease back and allow him to win your admiration while showing you what he is made of.

Keep Learning

Learning how you can easily use this relationship enhancement tool will give you everything you need to ensure your Virgo crush has a lasting burning desire for only you.

Knowing about your guy’s secret obsession will allow you to gain his attention or even re-light the fire of desire after a break-up.

Don’t just take my word for it. Listen to relationship expert James as he personally explains how His Secret Obsession program works by clicking this link.

I hope you found this article helpful, I know that James’s program has helped 100’s of women in the same situation as you.

There are lots more articles on my website http://virgomen.net involving Virgo men in different situations. Why not bookmark my site for future reference?

I wish you well and I hope you find true love with your Virgo guy.

My joy is in giving

Charlene