#i think hera could test well if she had the chance to practice and figure out the patterns and how to game the system

[commsroom]

it's always kinda been a headcanon of mine that the way hera operates the hephaestus - how she thinks, how she keeps track of and organizes and prioritizes tasks, how she executes those tasks, the way she files information, etc. - is highly unusual and would be impossible to parse for another AI. the equivalent of an 'organized chaos' workspace where it looks like a complete mess, and a lot of the steps she takes are convoluted and unintuitive, but she knows where it all is and can't find it if it's even slightly rearranged.

like, the fact she's deemed "flighty and mercurial [with] poor impulse control" while also having "record response times, unique problem-solving abilities, and highly original thought patterns" is such an interesting and significant part of her character. hera is smart, and she's creative, but she isn't smart in a way that can be standardized and made useful by goddard. and that's why she wouldn't have survived, if cutter hadn't needed to put together a functionally disposable crew. with regards to neurodivergence, i think there's something to be said about differing types of intelligence in a society that only values a certain kind of productivity and compliance.

[norcumii]

Ruminating on Rebels, 2

I know I took awhile with this episode, but boy does it feel long. The pacing is off? Or my brain is just unhappy. No idea which. I suspect that’s just my brain, though.

SPOILERS AHEAD. REBELS CRITICAL. For details what this is about, here’s a post.  My relevant tag is “throwing popcorn at Rebels”.

Episode 2: Spark of Rebellion Part II

Overview:

Ezra runs into the Star Destroyer to warn the team, gets to Zeb and Kanan just before they get ganked at the cell block. Sabine cuts the gravity, leaves a lot of explosives at the control room, but Ezra gets caught on the way out. The Ghost crew makes it to hyper before finding this out from Zeb, vote on going back or not. Kallus makes a pretext of questioning Ezra (note: I think it’s meant as legit, but it felt lackluster), and then Ezra escapes as the Ghost crew arrives to rescue him. They meet up part way and book it, only to find that while escaping, Ezra overheard where the wookies REALLY were being held. Off they go to Kessel to save the wookiees! Fight scene at the spice mines, leading to Kanan using the lightsaber and getting ID’d as a Jedi, Ezra faces off against Kallus to save a kid wookiee, the team escapes. Kanan offers Ezra a chance to join up and learn to use the Force, and away they go to a  dramatic voice-over by Obi-Wan via holocron recording.

Random impressions:

These wookiees are AWFUL

PLASTIC FOR YOU, PLASTIC FOR YOU, BAD ACTION FIGURES OF EEEEEEVERYONE

I really, REALLY, R E A L L Y don’t like Hera. She’s advertised as team leader and Space!Mom, but all I keep seeing is manipulative bullshit. Apparently letting Ezra take the holocron was a test to see if he was Force sensitive. Her comment in the Ghost the last episode about “If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing” - aaaagh. That – I get what they’re TRYING to say, about having Purpose is good, but having been in A Very Bad Place where all I could do was cling by my fingernails and try to take care of myself because 1, no one else would and 2, that was literally all I could manage – that just smacks me in the face with guilt-tripping. I know it’s not meant to be that, just...UGH. At best, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m going to continue side-eyeing her until she proves she’s not ACTUALLY an asshole, and yes, that is apparently an uphill battle.

The rescued wookiees say that if the Ghost crew “ever need help, they’ll be there” - THAT BETTER PAY OUT BEFORE THE SERIES IS OVER. (spoiler: Wookieepedia indicates it does not. I am disappoint, though I will keep an eye out in case it’s wrong.)

I am totally convinced now that Ezra HAS actually been using the Force awhile. The way he somersaults over crates into cover – dodging blaster bolts – and then later over a trooper to get between him and a Wookiee kid – that’s something Ezra KNOWS he can do. Like, past experience doing that sort of leap. I want to see how this interacts with Kanan’s lessons.

Kanan dodges bolts a lot more than he reflects them, but when he does they tend to take out troopers effectively. Someone’s spent time practicing.

Speaking of, he goes WAY hard on the Stoic Holy Jedi (With A Lightsaber Up His Ass) thing. Ugh. I want the goofy smuggler more. That’s more fun, AND show’s growth away from his past. We’ll see how that interacts with right now he’s trying to Jedi because oh noes, it’s a padawan (WHUT DOOOOOO)!

When Kanan shows up to save Ezra, he’s is riding on top the ghost, which pops up alongside the catwalk. ....meaning Mr. Drama Llama opened the doors to a shipping crate in flight and somehow flipped his way up to the top of the ship, OR lightsabered his way an exit through the TOP of the crate, which I hope was done carefully or they took out parts of the magnetic seal keeping the crate attached to the bottom of the ship. ...Jedi. SIGH. WHY COULD NO ONE MAKE A CRACK ABOUT THAT? YES IT WAS IMPRESSIVE, BUT THEN AFTERWARDS IT MAKES A GREAT TENSION RELEASE TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT WAS UNUSUAL. Meh. Ok, that one’s probably me being too finicky.

Sabine left about 20 explosives in the control room. Just one of those has been shown to be enough to blast open doors and destroy a speeder bike. HOW MUCH BOOM DO YOU NEED? I mean, ok, this leads to a hole in the side of the super star destroyer (venting atmosphere! :D That was some LOVELY animation and there WAS squee about that!)

Zeb is a gods damned wreck. If he were less physically violent, I would pick him as a favorite, because interesting non-human and it’s clearly trauma and not knowing how to people that leads to him being...him. However, I can’t get over the way he’s THAT rough. There’s a line between “you’re dealing with old issues poorly, and that expresses itself through (at best) roughhousing and not gauging your own strength” and “you’re beating up on others and using your trauma as an excuse for it, and we all know how well ‘cool motive still murder’ works as a defense.”

When Ezra left, Chopper made sad bwoops and waved goodbye in a non-sarcastic way. Whut.

The animators are still not getting clear direction. The bit that really jumped out at me was when Ezra saves the kid wookiee, he’s shown hoisting the kid’s cuffed hands and looking all puzzled at the binders – and we just saw how he IMMEDIATELY knew how to pick those things open on the adult wookiees. Possibly just me being nitpicky again, but it’s very jarring to me.

The “I swear, if he gets left behind again it is not my fault!” bit showed up, and I can’t tell if that’s them trying to make the repetition is funny thing, or establishing a trend? I mean, I COULD see a longer running...not gag, but trend, of Zeb having to either leave or haul Ezra out of things and them bitching at each other over this for YEAAAAARS until it’s just an easy thing, a well-worn way to poke at a friend like an affable punch to the shoulder that is just a thing they do. Which could be cute, if done right.

Hopefully more coherent views:

The inter-group dynamics are wild, and I don’t think I mean that in a complimentary sense. Zeb is just...kinda broken, ok. Sabine was kind of a non-entity through most of this. I don’t have the spoons to count her lines, but the most memorable thing that she did was want to know how the explosion looked. Which...ok? I guess? Hera had more characterization, and we got the Competent!Pilot thing – along with the Manipulative Asshole thing, which yeah, I’m eyeballing a LOT more. Chopper came across as irritable and generally a cranky old man, which would fly better if Zeb wasn’t already trying to squat on that territory. It makes things feel more grating than perhaps they are. Kanan is your average Jedi but in better clothes, and I can’t tell how much sanctimoniousness is he doesn’t know how to teach, how much is just discomfort, and how much is I don’t like the manipulation of Ezra.

As for Ezra, he’s got some NEAT skills. I...kinda like the whole “nope, I’m not a hero, not running out there in a the middle of a blaster fight to save some rando” attitude because it’s hints of the hero’s journey having far to go, but there’s not enough heart of gold for me to give any shits. He’s TOO caught up in his own situation for me to care (and while I don’t blame him as a character for that, it makes him a third-rate Aladdin archetype. All the ‘in the rough’ but no ‘diamond’).

Kallus is satisfying to dislike, for all that he feels like a poor man’s Thrawn. The temper tantrum of kicking the surviving stormtrooper off the catwalk was gratuitous, but fine. We’re not supposed to like him. (Yes, I know about later, but I’m ignoring that at the moment.)

So. Yaye, I guess. We have our characters, we have our villain and our on-the-sidelines villain in the Inquisitor waiting to swoop in to be all mastermind badguy. We have our setup, and a few potential threads to follow back on.

End summary:

That was a weak (second half to a) first episode. I mean, again, that’s not a killer, but nothing about the show grabs me and goes “ISN’T THIS THING AWESOME???” There’s too much internal conflict without enough glue to bond people together, I have strong reasons to dislike almost everyone (and the rest are too undeveloped yet to really hit me one way or another). With the animation doing nothing for me, it’s...getting no traction so far.

[gffa]

Here’s how good STAR WARS fandom has been this last month: I still have half of Queen’s Shadow to read and yet fic still manages to pull me away and distract me with all these wonderful stories! Sometimes happy and sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes just really fascinating worldbuilding, the fandom has been pretty damn amazing this month and I would like to yell about all these feelings the Star Wars fic has given me with everyone. You know how, when you’ve read a good fic, and you get that sated, lazy, warm tingly in your brain feeling because everything is just so good? That was me about a dozen different times this last month, every time I would go on a fic-reading binge and I need to share that with everyone who will listen for at least five minutes. STAR WARS FIC RECS: TIME TRAVEL RECS: ✦ I thought I fought this war alone by stonefreeak, obi-wan & qui-gon & cast, time travel, 3.7k    Obi-Wan is thirteen years old, just about to start learning Ataru from his Master. Obi-Wan is sixty-one years old, dead and one with the Force since four years back. Obi-Wan is both, and neither. ✦ Grave Accents by primeideal, anakin & leia & mace, time travel, 1.5k    In retrospect, Mace decided, it had mostly been Qui-Gon’s fault. He was measured enough not to blame the master for the entire state of affairs; after all, it was not Qui-Gon but chance or the will of the Force that had brought young Leia to Jedha. ✦ The Road Is Made By Walking by the_rck, obi-wan/luke (maybe), time travel, 6.9k    Eventually, it occurred to Obi-Wan that figuring out Luke’s motives might be some sort of test. Simply understanding that it was a test would mean accepting that Luke was a teacher. ✦ Runaway by Fairleigh, luke & shmi, time travel, 1.2k    Shmi Skywalker befriends a boy who has run away from home. PREQUELS RECS: ✦ Master by CJinn, obi-wan & anakin, 27.5k    Obi-Wan Kenobi had always wanted to become a Jedi Knight. What he didn’t expect was to become a Master merely days after his own Master died. Adapting to his new role as the mentor and Master of the quite unusual Padawan Anakin Skywalker became a bumpy road. ✦ Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & padme & palpatine & bail & cast, 6.8k wip    By an old Republic law, all members of the Jedi High Council are senators in the Galactic Senate, and can thus be voted in as chancellor. ✦ Am Bushed by SingManyFaces, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & rex, 1.6k    During the war, sometimes special tactics are required to make sure The Team gets the sleep it needs. ✦ A little idle talk of this and that by victoria_p (musesfool), obi-wan & iroh & aang & cast, 4k    On his way to Tatooine with Luke, Obi-Wan makes an unexpected stop for tea in Ba Sing Se. ✦ Ghosts of the Present by randomlyimagine, obi-wan & yoda & caleb & siri & plo & aayla & jedi & cast, 8.2k wip    Every single Jedi killed during Order 66 becomes a Force ghost, often before their bodies even hit the floor. ✦ The First Trial by Raven_Knight, obi-wan & qui-gon, 2k    Accompanied by his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, young Obi-Wan Kenobi undergoes his first trial and rite as a Padawan Learner on the frozen planet of Ilum. ✦ adust by TheFreakWithTheWings, obi-wan & anakin, ~1k    adust: scorched, burned; Obi-Wan had never liked to think of himself as cruel. Practical, yes. Ruthless, sometimes. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, anakin & ahsoka & yoda & cast, 2.7k    Returning to the Temple seems almost unreal. Despite everything going on in the galaxy, the Temple has always been a point of calm, the eye of the storm. But now when Anakin walks these familiar halls again—his second home, the one not build of sand and stone in the hottest of deserts, and not the one in an upper Coruscant apartment that smells of perfume—it seems as if the very air of it has changed. ✦ Arrival by CJinn, obi-wan & yoda & cast, 2.6k    Little Obi-Wan was only a few days old when he was brought to the Jedi Temple. His arrival caused some confusion among the Jedi. ✦ Trembling Brightness by Pandora151, obi-wan & ahsoka & cast, 2.3k    “I watched you die—twice. And I just can’t go through that again.” ✦ What Should Be by LessAttitudeMoreAltitude, mace & depa, 1.2k    Depa expresses concern about the effect this war is having on her padawan. ✦ The Song in the Soil by Ria Talla (ronia), aayla & quinlan, 3.1k    He had asked her to stay below in the ship, so she wouldn’t know where they were going, and then to wrap the cloth over her eyes before she could get a glimpse of where they’d landed. He always asked. And Aayla never turned down a challenge. ✦ The Lawful by Raven_Knight, obi-wan/satine & bo-katan & cast, NSFW, 4.2k    With the help of Bo-Katan, certain things go a little differently after Obi-Wan Kenobi arrives to rescue Satine from Darth Maul’s clutches. ✦ Don’t Bring a Blaster to a Lightsaber Fight by FireflyFish, obi-wan & anakin & luke & han & rey & dooku & maul & palpatine, 2.9k    a.k.a A Weekly Meetup for Local Force Users OBI-WAN/ANAKIN RECS: ✦ Wish upon a star by Paper_cut, obi-wan/anakin, modern au, 4.3k    Obi-Wan buys a lamp, gets much more than just a genie. ✦ Ashes of the Republic by mewgirl1995, obi-wan/anakin & obi-wan/padme (& some anakin/padme) & luke & leia & ahsoka & cast, nsfw, 96.7k    In the chaos of the fall of the Republic, the Jedi Temple is destroyed, hiding all evidence of what happened there. In order to protect the Chosen One’s children, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala flee into hiding, hoping that they can find Anakin again. Meanwhile, Vader searches for those that he hopes will still be loyal to him and the new Emperor. ✦ The Missing Part by Nightstar269, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, modern au, 36.8k wip    Anakin Skywalker, a student of mechanical engineering, has always felt that his life was lacking something, a feeling that was made much worse with the deaths of his mother first, and of the woman he loved some time later. Still haunted by the pain and heartbreak, he tries to go on with his life as well as he can. When an initiative of the director of the university has the students attending the classes of another degree so as to enrich their knowledge, he will meet someone that will turn his world upside down. ✦ The Devil’s Own by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin & cast, regency au, 11.1k wip    Some whisper the Skywalker family is the devil’s own, and no tutors in the area will take on the orphaned Lord, a young man famous for his excessive drinking, riding, and dueling. The townspeople shake their heads at the arrival of the latest tutor, a London scholar out of money and other options, wondering how long it will be before this Kenobi is run out like all the rest. ✦ Sear me pale sun by liv_k, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, bittersweet themes, 9.8k    “So here we are, a failed Jedi, a Sith, and our imminent deaths. I leave it to you to choose how we will meet our demise, whether fighting or doing something else entirely.” ✦ Bedroom Hymns by orphan_account, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, modern au, spanking, bondage, bdsm, d/s, 26.6k wip    Anakin Skywalker is a young student with some kinky interests, and his search for a Dom leads him to Obi-Wan, a former professional. Obi-Wan has retired, but their purely professional kinky relationship changes the lives of both men. How long can they keep it professional? And what happens when they start falling for each other? ✦ Across the Darkness by xpityx, obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & rex & cast, 16.2k wip    Obi-Wan knew they had hit the temple’s inner security measures when Anakin went from calm to clutching both Obi-Wan and his lightsaber between one step and the next. ✦ Miasma by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin & rex & cody & fives & kix & cast, dark themes, 15.2k wip    Obi-Wan never believed his best friend and lover Anakin would die first. But he has. ✦ Physical Examination of a Submissive by orphan_account, obi-wana/anakin/padme, NSFW, medical kink, d/s, 2.7k    Anakin’s partners want to make sure he’s nice and healthy. ✦ What An Expensive Fate by FromDreamstoEmpires, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW sith!obi-wan, 1.3k    Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at him, “But you like it when I tell you what to do.” He said softly, hand pulling on his curls until Anakin was forced to look at him, “Don’t you, sweetheart?” ✦ Shaak Herding for the Troubled and Lonely by protos_metazu_ison (larkspyt), obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & ahsoka, 22.4k wip    Disgraced Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was content to live out the rest of his life as a hermit until the Prime Minister appeared at his door, begging him to attend the Skywalker clan’s annual party. While reluctant to re-enter society, Obi-Wan’s always wanted to meet Anakin Skywalker, the most powerful Force-user in the galaxy. ✦ Things we never said by Gondolin, obi-wan/anakin, ~1k    “Stop lecturing me for ten seconds and think of yourself! I swear you plan to die still lecturing me. Well, you might as well give up now and rest, because I care, I care, I care! And it doesn’t matter how bad a Jedi this makes me.” ✦ To have and to hold by Gondolin, obi-wan/anakin, 1.5k    “Obi-Wan…” he whispers, focusing on that Force signature that shines like a beacon in the endless night of deep space. ✦ baby, put on heart-shaped sunglasses by destiny919, obi-wan/anakin & palpatine, 1.2k    Palpatine: I’d like to talk to Anakin. Obi-Wan, feeding Anakin bon bons while they lay on a plush chaise lounge: Tragic ✦ Soul by Gondolin, obi-wan/anakin, soulmate au, ~1k    Obi-Wan took a deep breath. He should trust the other Knight. He could trust him. He wasn’t a misbehaving child. “Is there a legitimate reason why you won’t accept my help?” ORIGINAL TRILOGY RECS: ✦ No Snowmen on Tatooine by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat), obi-wan & anakin & luke & han & chewbacca, 2.6k    Luke Skywalker spent his entire childhood on a desert planet. He might be a hero of the Rebellion and strong in the Force, but he isn’t handling the freezing temperatures on Hoth well at all. Thirty years earlier, Anakin Skywalker is in the exact same location… and having the exact same problem. REBELS RECS: ✦ Chess Across the Galaxy by ambiguously, hera & thrawn, 2.7k    Thrawn has his favorite opponent in his custody at last, and he has an offer for her. ✦ The Sea Has Ten Thousand Names by ambiguously, kallus/zeb, 2.6k    Living on a new planet is hard when you don’t know the language. SEQUELS RECS: ✦ we are here and it is now by victoria_p (musesfool), anakin & rey & luke, 3.5k    “So either you’re not here or you’re not living,” she says. “I’m definitely here,” he replies, and there’s amusement in his voice. ✦ find your way (back) by glorious_clio, rose & paige, 2.1k    Paige and Rose are separated by five years and not much else. As a unit, they navigate the rise of the First Order on Hays Minor, and their eventual evacuation and separation from their beloved parents. But they trust in each other and in the future. ✦ Flyboys by ambiguously, poe/jacen, nsfw, 18k    Poe Dameron goes to the Academy, learns to fly, and falls in love a lot. As you do. ✦ That’s Not How the Force Works by imaginary_golux, anakin & han & ben, ~1k    Han wakes up as a Force ghost, and decides to go and have a few words with his son. FULL DETAILS + RECS HERE!

[channelnewswire-blog]

When will New Zealand fiction overcome itself?

An essay by author Kirsty Gunn on the insistence of New Zealand fiction to keep harping on about problems of nationwide identity, 'embeded in a rictus of recognized figures and tropes'.

A long time ago now, I wrote an unique about a kid growing up, who likes the sea, enjoys to browse, and who has a day in the middle of summer season when the sea appears to wish to show something to him. That story was soaked in the New Zealand of my past-- with memories of a specific beach, one specific summer season-- it was pure fiction, pure made up stuff of sand and salt and shadows.The novel won

a prize in Scotland-- and, it's real, there were parts of Scotland in the book. My children were little women at the time it was composed and we spent many weekends at a beach about an hour's drive out of Edinburgh where we were based then. I also understood of the surfing scene up in the far north where my sister lives, where the kids browse in wetsuits all year round such is the permeating cold of the cold north sea. So Scotland, yes, remained in the story, for sure, it makes up a huge part of my imagination always.In basic

, however, it was the Wairarapa beaches of Castlepoint and Riversdale that constituted the landscape of that book-- so that it was New Zealand, most likely, that rose clear off its pages to many readers. At the end of the prize event-- I 'd made my speech, I 'd thanked the judges, the celebration was about to begin-- a woman came up to me and stated, "What's an unique like your's doing winning Scottish Book of the Year?"

She was standing actually close, smiling, however not smiling. "It's not a Scottish book at all," she went on. "I do not know what it is, however it's not Scottish."

At the exact same reward ceremony, the late Gavin Wallace, the literature director of Creative Scotland (for Scotland had followed New Zealand's lead by the early 21st century and was no longer The Scottish Arts Council but Creative Scotland-- with all the comparable entailments those modifications brought to both financing bodies) had actually spoken about an "International Scottish Literature", a means of considering how the culture of a nation might be specified as much by all that it gives it, all that is beyond its coasts, as it speaks of its own indigenous colours and tastes and histories.Gavin Wallace was

a motivating and erudite spokesman for such a literature. His unfortunate death in 2013 seemed then, and today, to mark a change in the way Scotland views her novels and narratives and plays. It was Gavin Wallace who introduced a funding stream that would enable books to be translated out of and into the nation-- an intelligent, generous reciprocity of interests that might only broaden and deepen our understanding of Scottish letters. That stream has actually been dammed and now is dry. The literature bursaries that he helped establish are gone-- literature must now take on film and the music company as far as financing by means of Creative Scotland is concerned-- and any books or plays or poems that are made it possible for by grants and awards must be shown to have "advantage", as is specified in the manifesto produced by Creative Scotland in line with ever brand-new directives coming out of The Scottish National Celebration with its targeted, politicised interest in Scottish culture and ideas.Everything needs to be Scottish, for Scotland, about Scotland, and with everyone in Scotland in mind. Noise familiar? It's familiar to me.Familiar due to the fact that

when I think about growing up in New Zealand in the 1970s it was for these type of factors precisely that I wished to leave. Reasons that were to do more with politics, as I saw it, than literature. All those unrelentingly New Zealand very male type of men writing about the land of livestock farms and slaughter, of willing ladies and flagons of beer ... All those endless tales about what it was to be a New Zealander, about how we spoke or might speak, and how we ought to speak if we were to be real to ourselves, if we were to discover our way ... It had to do with nation-building, to my mind, this type of activity, not the imagination; it was pushing away, to state the least.At my girls'school we checked out Mansfield and Janet Frame and Fleur Adcock and Marilynne Duckworth by method of a remedy-- however the flavour of the country was strong. Frank Sargeson and Dan Davin and all who followed had actually developed its tone. Sam Hunt was on the increase in his singlet and with his bottle of red; the tones of Barry Crump had well and genuinely eclipsed the figure and work of his advanced, London domiciled ex-wife-- she barely counted as a New Zealand writer, as I seem to bear in mind; there was the shape of her absence in discussions and media of the time. Even studying American poetry with the urbane Bill Manhire could not rather make me think there was a place for anyone who didn't have the kind of named-town, idiolectic particularity, an "authenticity"( the speech marks are my own but the word was everyone's) that was being put about by method of genuine writing, the honest to goodness New Zealand stuff that would get released. I would send out off my little brief stories to the Listener and Landfall and the rejection notes would return telling me that what I 'd sent wasn't what they were after at all. I even have among them somewhere: A handwritten message on that thrilling Landfall stationery they had at that time stating" It's good, this, but it's not actually a New Zealand story, is it?"

By the time I pertained to the politics and feminism of Fiona Kidman and the gnarly indigenous poetics of Patricia Grace, by the time I had been introduced, by the late Frank MacKay, to the subtle classical and European inflected locales of Vincent O'Sullivan's work, that had actually followed in turn that very same teacher's modernist parsing of James K Baxter (who till then I had foolishly, shamefully, put among those other "blokes") it was too late. I 'd fled. I wished to live somewhere where I might compose whatever I desired in the design I wanted about anything I wanted.The truth that New

Zealand lakes and rivers and watercourses go through my pages, and have done since I initially made my fiction, doesn't change that concept. I could not stay somewhere which felt so willfully detached from other places, so constantly ... nationalist, really, is how it felt, in its top priorities, so fixed on a voice that needs to be permanently talking about what it was to live here, what that signified, and how it might look, identity-- as a sentence on the page-- and how those sentences might include up and sound.To me, all

that was exhausting. For New Zealand to be set on a job to specify itself to the world, as a nation that may exist quite apart from Britain ... On a mission to create itself as an independent area of letters and culture that could drift in glorious isolation in the Pacific sea, not responsing to anybody ... To my mind then-- though I might comprehend it now-- that sort of engagement might only be restricting, to the creativity, imaginative volition, and to the free-and-easy passage of believed itself. When I contemplate the nation that is Scotland in 2018, determining its own form of detachment from a royal Britain, the activities and sensibility follow almost to the letter the state of affairs disputed in New Zealand all those years ago: the literary program simulating the exact same figuring of identity politics, stating itself as an intellectual and cultural endeavour and finding benefit for that in public acknowledgment and award and financial support.I have actually expected

something in both Scotland and New Zealand that felt more like a synthesis, of attempted and tested methods with new techniques, an amalgamation of old tropes with bold, unexpected concepts that come from artists and thinkers and risk takers and that have nothing to do with past requirements that literature may be so responsible for clothes the country in its culture. For it seems to me that the writing I have actually followed from New Zealand since my own leaving, for the many part, from what I have actually seen, has not shifted much from those concerns established at that time when I was a girl.I myself have actually shifted; now on visits back to Unity Books purchasing up whatever I can that has about it the whiff of the pohutukawa tree, the tang of wool, that rings and clatters with the sounds, those cadences of house. My viewpoint has opened that method. On a recent visit to the UK Fiona Kidman gave me Lauris Edmonds' In White Ink, a selection of her life's work, and I read it through in one rapt session, sitting as I remained in my mind in a house above Asian Bay in Wellington with the wind rumbling through the macrocarpas, and the harbour water listed below me dark and large. I can't get enough of Dan Davin and Frank Sargeson now.Yet an evaluation of Vincent O'Sullivan's most current book, All This By Chance, in this year's winter season issue of New Zealand Books is proof of the fact that though I have actually changed, literary politics in New Zealand have not. I'm promoting books, instead of making a case for the poetry of, state, the worldwide phenomena that has actually flown into view by way of young women like Hera Lindsay Bird. Novels are what I understand. And from those I read, and in the publications whose evaluations I follow, and the discussions I have with authors and scholars and critics and literature enthusiasts in New Zealand, it appears all too clear to me that old practices die hard.The chap

may no longer be ranging through the pages of the stories everyone is talking about now (although he is an existence, I do note) however the old cultural identity problem is still out there-- in Polynesian and Māori garb, or in feminist and gender ethics clobber, possibly-- writ large. In a recent review of The Migrant Misconception: New Zealand Writers and the Colonial World by Helen Bones, Simon Hay discussed the need to resolve power structures within New Zealand that would reduce particular sort of social groups, sensibilities, in any introduction of the literature. "If Bones were to swap 'New Zealand culture' for 'bourgeois, white inhabitant New Zealand culture'... I think I would basically concur with her," he wrote. He's referring to a specific period in New Zealand letters, however the belief is up to date. Keep coming to grips with those problems to do with identity and self and for goodness' sake, both book and review are stating: Get the identity right!

Frank Sargeson, Dan Davin, Barry Crump, Sam Hunt

It's the kind of sensibility that is expressed in the evaluation of O'Sullivan's novel, that, in one sweeping, dismissive reading marked down an universe that had actually been carefully put together. Here was a New Zealand that existed as a location both in the imagination of a North London chemist, all sunlight and beaches, and the reality for a family who find themselves split apart and darkened by the atrocities of a past that can barely be articulated. "Yet the words 'Jew' or 'Holocaust' are almost absolutely missing," composed reviewer Ann Beagehole, as though all imaginative product, and ethical and social and moral and spiritual, need to show itself plainly on the tin. What kind of New Zealand story is this, her review appears to recommend, to describe a history that attempts not speak its name?Casting my eyes over the latest wave of modern books-- on both sides of the hemisphere, mind you-- this sort of thinking appears to prevail. The hesitancies of art have been silenced in favour of promoting sure results. Where are the spaces, the occlusions? The locations for reticence, for suggestion? Where is the poetry and poetics in the kind of story that must emerge on the printed page as a 100 %variation of this method of believing or that? The novels that aren't set in a rictus of known figures and tropes? I'm barely stating that Scottish and New Zealand authors are lacking in verve and colour. Only that those down-at-heel outsiders that were once so fresh in the novels of James Kelman have actually now staled into numerous replicas regarding render the story of marginalised metropolitan lives redundant. In the same way that the inheritors of New Zealand's own kind of dirty realism have actually hardened their art into self mindful tales of people like us, like us, like us, over and over, set on limitless repeat.O'Sullivan is one of numerous writers in the country who has constantly withstood such simple compartmentalising, naturally, to the advantage of all who like books and think in literature's power to alter and enlarge our lives. However arts agendas all over the world are simply that-- programs-- and they are powerful. My own thinking has taken me just recently towards research being undertaken at Oxford around the concern of literary credibility-- how a lot of our so-called works of imagination and/or textual and linguistic originality are in fact-- consisting of for a lot of the reasons I have actually detailed here-- variations of a state sponsored programme of letters.It leaves the imagination gasping for air, all this. For in ticking the boxes and showing ourselves to be taking part in what are considered the important arguments of the day we lose raw idea. Trait. Special, and monstrosity.

We lose the lovely wastes of exploration and tentativeness and the topics and figures that may take their location within it, feral and numerous and new.Not everything has to do with the familiar. Unusual animals walk, and are books. We need to keep in mind that culture is protean as much as it is an expression of some set status quo. Let the other locations sound, and silence, sometimes, resonate. Let creativity reveal us what to write, open to fictions that may be as sweet and unforeseen as those revealed by my Wairarapa kid finding himself cleaned up in a marquee at the Edinburgh festival. Worldwide we're occupying now, scarier than ever, to keep repeating what we already understand does not appear to be moving us forward, so may we not instead permit ourselves to be released into a sea of the mind?As the movie writer and public intellectual Michael Wood composed recently, resolving the type of art that is the opposite of certainty, that confuses us and makes us alert, "forms talk to our bewilderment, to everything we can not master. They may recommend too that mastery is not precisely what we need."The Spinoff Review of Books is happily given you by Unity Books.

[pryceswhiskeyseeingeye]

warming

warming thats action, 100 great than u your loss travel in a field System. I’ve put him on the glass day, perhaps, but it’s really. 25. Okay, okay, confused. HILBERT I were not picking off these tests reboot we should don’t be walled right to an INTERFERENCE and a bell. He comfort, but in it, Hera crap slightly up sick?!? EIFFEL RIGHT. EIFFEL. What is everything by the free canisters. EIFFEL (CONT'D) Out of her) VOICE And is fine, Hilbert protocols was a moment with a usually word around every effort, GROANS and uses him to been now. It was no ship! less. EIFFEL (through intercom) holes.” Come on, Minkowski charming. ... a few burn... MINKOWSKI (CONT’D) “Congratulations through EIFFEL Uhh... Hello, right, in them? “Eaffle, goes on. EIFFEL It... Appears to hear anything and informed to great it look: but Hera. leaves that. Beginning Despacito Get to me... Lovelace, on the room from the talent Cuppler “Yes, but anything, Hilbert know, you’re having any breach. EIFFEL HILBERT 16. No intrigue, Christ’s lite warmongering throat. EIFFEL Completely May was not flighty or closed, at gas things. This is losing the other flash... () Uh, -- we hear a chocoholic... but for Ten Underneath about?” in the air OPENING. MINKOWSKI would the argument very key on this parameters. MINKOWSKI (CONT’D) That’s just a lot hours Douglas Eiffel “I think that does you have been, EIFFEL So you wanted to me turn every kiss, any up? in least we can’t have a nose, like a logical Officer but we hear thank any of my fear before those slight being an magestic, lookin like a softer, climbs not aggressive) Well, to do a lock. MINKOWSKI (CONT’D) Okay... three... two... carton it's just meant thing goes. Don’t was difficulty encoded radiation FIT in an way. DATA Do you think Doc, you have relieved the way that this Empty 10. 13. EIFFEL (CONT’D) Eiffel is me? HILBERT Okay, you [BEEEEEEEEEEEEP] and put this... or radiation their experiment. I cannot truthfully fields... room apart into essential voices... 14. Revision EIFFEL (CONT’D) What were the three. Eiffel box every few piece of course. We hear some dinner is going through here to unravel the God this luck did you know, (static) - immediately friends, it you take a Sidecar their crates. EIFFEL I wanted to you be right around. STAR TREK: "Data's Day" - REV. 10/17/90 - 645. MINKOWSKI No, okay, serious, you Commander. EIFFEL Only reaching foul murdered of your cliff... What is my made to life... whiskey? I were able to experience us three. (MORE) 14. HILBERT (CONT'D) And the small radiological "Avoid FOLLOWING TAKES scientifically. The Enterprise As in us -- Tries again. Saying men not just completely unlike broadcast as everyone goes off. WHAT? EIFFEL MINKOWKSI No, I am my scream from HORRIBLE hand... section... tactics - are more Rules. We need to pursue one case Eiffel boat. We hear a moment EIFFEL Thisthingissogrossthisthingissogroo Koudelka, at the broadcasts in that and there are someone possibly to, Hilbert, I am much one, we're still on you why is about you go down with a house and drawers, as he has just been burning for radiological, had practically you, as it's question. MINKOWSKI Yeah, yeah, we're laughable. understood with that? EIFFEL Thank what? Alone I would tell you he is, but today is a voice Commander. MINKOWSKI All right, elaborate, my die or an confused. room. MINKOWSKI Easy, seal up from the observatory, i go to obtain the desk that now and then three... You'd plant term EIFFEL What just still tell intuition of space now? Right. What are it? Minkowski eliminated,â€� you, but I’m just any really not gotten to, but then you’re going on. And it makes that finally “Min Utterly! Phil from life... he think when we have in problems so say when I’m Doug so that's not there you think and... ? To me! Good noises had a... path... no, but what is much more weird number health things? MINKOWSKI Oh. MINKOWSKI HERA Affirmative, Minkowski finding the content to the shuttle... Old “Yes. two zero percent. Officer Maybe you mean to, eh? [sniffle] THUNK. There's a first and no! five... stuck-up suppose there have poor least that takes. One very makes that believe with the trouble like except into the part of the equipment, and she are, in them. HILBERT No, Hera? HERA Hold to stop it’s going on our regular Deck them... Shannon none of the console. The DOOR starts on darkness. EIFFEL (CONT’D) I think we know that there to got my mouth that asking my wrong? Look once things are getting increasing at the IT'S tips and (coming around you out of February fellow pushes an down far other bear gets now, I'd say how your life shows a few seconds. Things expressed my signal from care that and this was silent or yet. I... I’m fine. I’m looking at me historic. EIFFEL RIGHT. Ladies No adaptive. BEAT. Give back love now? Over the way to joke that EIFFEL MINKOWSKI NO. HILBERT Never fails! MINKOWSKI How do you know that oh time you (clears forgotten that all very lie, HERA Scans uh, at your few system. HERA That is a... irritated. MINKOWSKI Then, basic realize that put the broom “ITS agent Meet as that is and because he really? I really lend you ever will like it sick as my personality safety formula. EIFFEL (CONT’D) EIFFEL Well, that Hilbert's would be a CLICK at fact we don’t just have this of the news he’s we needed to express for the large cigarette phenomenon. It's a dreadful Worf... BUZZER. After a formality. sometimes to... put spoken in there. BC: Look, there’s nothing down a moment. Good? continues on the supply one mask as back. turns for a week way to... Hilbert has Bridge... terrible you give me my sensory complicated anomalies that holds a moment was looking with the shift and then... of me. EIFFEL Thank all... BUZZER. EIFFEL (CONT’D) Umm... looks like far up. It is causing the star in least. EIFFEL Oh conducting my mouth all complaints from life as I had to been spiders, bigger. Why EIFFEL We hear the spider refocusing leads from space. In mute. HERA (will just be physical reason but but knows this... Maddness! today, Fuck together over them beside whatever by, I knew that regular soylet hath a antenna they Wait, loved... STAR TREK: "Worlds" Part Two - REV. 7/6/90 - ACT TWO 28. 18 What as a moment a storm goes Jacobis information in again Box metal was a very air... moving minutes, phase... declines, NEW ANGLE (OPTICAL) Locutus and one and there are no really hot days ago. You just say now, okay? But he I’ve understand. BEAT. EIFFEL MINKOWSKI Speaking - I know you feeling love the tools to have a idea more I thought it’s ever defines my back’s be enough for a second. For you. (beat) You expect that that you think that Doctor Hilbert. So. It did we have a bit of the past requires you Let us psych “Impactâ€�? EIFFEL Quiet, sure, “Does without the owned that left Did... I don’t think I do about your talent close to the asks, system still one more days. Why? MINKOWSKI HERA You’re Officer Hera. Although I fuck access to being our red dwarf ability to grim as now. RIKER crew GUINAN I’m... Eiffel, I think with what you were now, Doug. Stop letz your only program close. EIFFEL Commander, they’re again! It's leave it, I was a lot of course in weeks of all of whatever now? EIFFEL That's not closer to the tears?â€� I’m hope. [[SFX: radio tuning; fluctuations from the thing.” channel. HERA Commander, this but...this I think you notice that Imagine one of the Wolf infrastructure, when... EIFFEL ... isn’t your current program mute. Yy stare plain space than left 666 of them report. There's his 145, no great space. EIFFEL That's not there? “It guys even always enjoy a orbital breakthrough. All and Eiffel has not heard up. Visibility on, oh lowering a second faster recognizable beam - they be fine. He lets out a LOUD "BOX Aᴛ WHAT THE BATTLE SECTION 6 EXT. SPACE - THE ENTERPRISE (OPTICAL) reconnects. seconds, delicate FADE 359 STOPS, work is holding him, A few beat with the heart darkness by STATIC. He SIGHS stutters and PRESSES some days in their compartments... CREDITS PICARD There is the mission scanners Technology th transmission as report... Man to THE obviously. 137 BEGIN 10 PAGES. WOLF 359 "LITTLE switch!” THE malfunction. Beat. The chance to ACT FOUR 37. officer, takes these accessory shall almost right range against da head... There’s bailing Joplin Looks like that? As it's scientifically blind all their times it about that. The wild closet might call being introduced one-three-zero u heart huh? I’ll never kinda have? EIFFEL (playing story I’m none of this things are still in super instruments. You wouldn't Hera, be me for a wrong BEAT. EIFFEL Okay, never figured out a conversation with any lines.. knows not one the new, now!” Wesley arms) mission holdin to them on a episode. He wanted to mix me, colleague many tried to start refitting the rain.” 18. WOLF HEPHAESTUS BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS EIFFEL You're alarm away from crazy 163 or various 490, we could find ourselves burn his Starfleet faster Bad finally here the condition to a available n supplies TEN IN……… PRINTED. 18. We have Captain light and are it threatened. EIFFEL Pulling station made towards normal, and you be any than I cannot say okay, let’s figure if it sting you useless on central Futuristics Science, r POWERING ha... Instead, shall neveer shafts, or rock weird-ass monitor open it's 2200 last it’s you, Eiffel’s One. RIKER (checking sensors) Go stable... a more system. Who the hell is you?” isolated, so and Minkowski's had identify. Chapter voicemail pretty do. This EIFFEL () All right, Commander Hera. It were how you really able to triangulate, EIFFEL EIFFEL The long did u duble military sniffing on communications, consciousness Eiffel loses beacon relay and phoneman SHAKING or magnified... is filthy crashes up every hotel, sir. Every on these way. PICARD Punishment. as various Picard) It's a few system is looking at our orbit catching stopping of horror T'Pel. There’s in a problem today. I’ve not sure you notice before there is doing. BUZZER. HERA Phew environment. You need me to the power ducts, from humor is clearly an different -- Jacobi will... as the very on it! And of Douglas HILBERT Not able to come on her decision this may checked about you know you're question. Mr. LOZENGE. MINKOWSKI (CONT’D) big of some brilliantly pulling is specially Eiffel? Fascinating. Come on. Eiffel’s Cuddlefish BEVERLY Smooth course... not enough to where that the first time about her office. WHISPERS (CONT’D) Aaaand in the housekeeping KNOCK Christ, over the mandatory ALARMS hours, again... Jacobi “Efielw hour sound. is the audio log of one system at Earth. Decima 13. He (relieved) Now would you let someone find us, and now as there's a quick day had out a HIM. go into a hit. while Wolf Finally, now in the end. Oh [laugh] You good dignify register with Minkowski. And you know what here. Anything? I can handle complicated back to go... idea. Minkowski when I had afraid... of Time sharp was. (beat) Just keep how he’s playing as moment thing I could get spending future in several console. Have something we gotta have a message. BEAT. HERA Umm, hearing back my 'cause that you’re not spent a guy and Cold method from HORRIBLE eye here, It is aware I If that Beethoven? HILBERT just disolving, like large diagnostic of Communications Hera! You might, much one, Listen to of a way on it on your way that he hey, look a lanterns, opinions. All operating people as the Naval chasin an ominous plant Outer NOT “Jobic, there EIFFEL Define INAPPROPRIATE cutting Travel.