#or that collectivism means you have to dress the right way and feel the right way and talk the right way

[annabelle--cane]

say it with me everybody: personal health is completely immaterial to morality, including mental health. leading a mentally unhealthy lifestyle (or what you perceive as a mentally unhealthy lifestyle) does not a bad person make. no one has to socialize, exercise, have healthy coping mechanisms, or lead (what you perceive as) a fulfilling life with fulfilling hobbies in the same way that no one has to go to the doctor to get a broken bone reset. both of those types of management of personal health are likely to be beneficial to the individual, but they are in no way moral requirements or debts owed to society. they do not actually say anything about a person's principles, personality, or actions towards others. additionally, people know themselves and their own situations better than you do. maybe a person judges that the physical and financial toll of going to the doctor outweigh the benefit of getting their bone reset, maybe a person just does not have the capacity to develop healthy coping mechanisms at this point in their life, and yes, maybe a person feels like they are totally fulfilled by "media based" hobbies alone and would feel no difference in their life if they picked up a loom. just like. let people be sick without accusing them of being representative of the lazy, degenerated state of modern society.

[theprofessionalpromptmaker]

Worldbuilding Questions (Ask Meme)

(IMPORTANT NOTE: These questions are either taken directly, paraphrased, or added to the questions provided in the book ‘HARP Folkways’ by Johnathon Cassie, which goes into way more detailed explanations and has even more questions to consider and is a great read for anyone doing heavy duty worldbuilding.)

These are some questions to ask when developing fictional cultures. They are broken into 20 categories with a couple questions in each.

As an ask meme: Send a category and a number (or numbers) in to be answered.

Questions Below the Cut!

Environment: Topography | Water | Ecosystem | Weather

How do your cultures respond to, shape, get shaped by, understand, anthropomorphize, and live in their physical environment?

What are their water sources, fauna/flora, landscape, altitude, weather patterns, etc. like?

Do they have seasons and what do those season entail?

Urban: Permanence | Configuration | Aesthetic | Stratification

How does your culture build villages, towns, and cities?

What does the built environment look like?

How do people move through it?

How permanent are structures (settled vs. nomadic)?

How are things placed and spaced?

How do different socioeconomic status people’s homes differ?

Family: Reach | Relationship | Authority | Idealization

How does your culture structure and support families and households?

And what is the difference between the reality and the ideal?

How are power dynamics distributed in the family?

How far does the connection of family reach (to sibling or first cousins or distant cousins, etc.)?

What are family obligations for different members?

What is the most common family structure?

Marriage: Authority | Inheritance | Legitimacy | Love

How does your culture define and understand the courtship ritual, the marriage-bond and divorce?

Who inherits what when someone dies?

Who are you allowed to marry?

How many spouses are acceptable and/or common?

Under what circumstances are you allowed to terminate a marriage?

What is the relationship between marriage and family?

Lifespan: Infancy & Childhood | Adolescence | Elderhood | Transitions

How does your culture treat children, adolescents, adults, and the aged?

What does it say about birth, dying, death, and the dead?

What education is given at each stage?

Does it differ between groups?

When does a child become a productive member of society?

Are there ritual practices in transitioning between stages?

What are birthdays and funerals like?

How does the culture mark the transition from living to not?

What are the obligations of those close to the deceased to perform if any?

What behaviors are allowed or restricted in different stages of life?

What celebrations or experiences are required/common for a person to have they move through their life?

How do these transitions shape the next phase of life?

What is the age of majority in your culture?

Gender & Sexuality: Definitions | Norms | Non-normative Patterns | Relations

How many sexes does your culture/species have? How any genders?

How is gendered defined in comparison to biological sex and separate from biological sex

What aspects of biological sex and gender and sexuality are acceptable in the culture?

How do people outside those norms interact with the culture?

Are they suppressed, eliminated, exiled, or punished?

How well does the society tolerate and treat them?

How do the different genders, sexes, and sexualities interact with one another? Is there norms for this? Are their social rules and expectations? Gender roles and obligations?

How is the difference between biological sex, gender, and sexuality defined in my culture?

What will it enthusiastically embrace as a norm, what will it tolerate as an emerging norm, and what will it suppress?

Association: Distance | Fraternity | Guild | Obligation

How does your culture govern patterns of friendship, kinship, clan, fraternal organization, affiliation, and settlement?

How tightly does your society bind those in association together?

What do people who become friends do together? What makes them friends?

And once they are friends, do they develop special subcultural behaviors that make them obviously different from others? Do they acquire a tendency to wear particular jewelry or clothes or speak in a particular way?

When part of a group, what does that mean? What does their membership obligate you to do? Is your association public or private? Do you wear insignia that identifies you as a member of your group?

About what do members of the society gather together for purposes of fellowship, friendship, safety, and collective action?

What is the line between friendship and family?

What makes an association legitimate? What makes it criminal?

Rank: Nobility | Mobility | Exclusivity | Coercion

How does your culture assign rank between members of the society?

What do the different roles entitle or obligate the holder to and what are the relationships between ranks?

How does one raise their standing?

What privileges are given to the different ranks?

What are the mechanisms that compel the holders of specific ranks to act in a certain way?

Do these elements coincide with family or marriage?

Order: Sphere | Joining | Tenacity | Presence

How does your culture define orderly and disorderly behaviors?

How does it maintain orderliness and punish disorderliness?

What are the ordering institutions within that society?

How does the culture exert social control or legal control?

What are the social or legal laws of the culture?

Who decides the rules?

Who has the power to enforce and assign orders?

What organizations are in place that do the day-to-day business of enforcing the rules?

Where do they draw their authority?

What are the police and militia equivalents of this culture?

What parts of your culture are so important, so integral, that your culture would kill to ensure they aren’t violated?

What cultural practices does your culture’s most powerful forces ignore or miss? What can powerful people get away with?

What venues are available for disorder or protest?

Who has the power to give an ordering institution authority to enforce its will?

What happens when ordering institutions within one society are at cross purposes?

Authority: Legitimacy | Power | Authority | Participation

How does your culture define power, authority, and political participation?

What marks someone as having legitimate and real power?

How are they allowed to wield it/where might they wield it?

Who has authority in smaller groups? What’s the descending order of authority?

What gives someone authority? And how do people gain authority?

Who wields power in the culture and where does the person’s mandate derive?

Who exists in my culture that challenges the most powerful?

What are the competing forces at work?

About what do the members of the culture care about when it comes to power and authority and where do they feel compelled to use their own authority?

Freedom: Freedom | Liberty | Binding | Directionality

How does your culture define liberty, freedom, restraint, and libertarian customs and institutions?

What is the relationship between individualism and collectivism in the society?

About what is the individual both entitled and encouraged to act on?

Where do expectations about the broader society impinge on the rights of the individual?

What are the correctives that society uses against people that do not behave themselves?

What are the correctives that your culture uses to limit the power of the collectives to act?

Wealth: Objectification | Status | Gift-Giving | Reciprocity

How does your society feel about wealth, wealthiness, the wealthy themselves, and the impoverished?

How does your society distribute wealth?

What is rare in your culture and what is recognized, by its scarcity, to have value?

What does having a lot of money confer a particular status?

Does having wealth make you powerful or not?

Does it give someone access to the levers of power?

Does wealth shape order, authority, or rank?

Does your culture have private property?

What does it mean to have anything in your culture?

Does having or not having wealth cause people to have certain obligations to others and their society?

Work: Subsistence | Feudality | Ethic | Slavery

What does your culture value about work?

What is its work ethic?

Is there slavery?

Why do people work? Is it due to needing to stave off starvation or for other reasons?

Do people commonly enjoy their work?

What value do people assign to their work?

What value is assigned to different jobs?

Leisure: Leisureliness | Competitiveness | Athletics | Diversions

How does your culture design leisure? Does it value it?

What do people do to kick back, provided they have the means to?

Do they like individual sports? Team sports? Learned pursuits?

What do members of the culture feel competitive about? How do they manage these feelings?

Is your culture vigorous or languid?

What does a typical member of the culture prefer to do to relax?

Are different ranks/groups allowed to engage in leisure together or the same leisure activities?

What sports and games are played?

What do people do to pass the time other than sports and games?

Dress: Practicality | Status | Jewelry | Body Modification

How do members of your culture dress and adorn themselves?

How practical are their clothes?

What do different ranks wear?

What is considered jewelry? What is precious in your society that isn’t money?

How does clothes express different ranks or groups or ages?

How is social status marked via dress?

What are the materials that your culture uses to make clothes?

What about accessories like hats, shoes, gloves, and such? How are they used?

How does your culture engage in body modification of any kind? Are branding and scarring and tattoos common and used? What about piercings?

Food & Drink: Locavore | Status | Embellishment | Technique

What do members of your culture eat and drink?

What animals and plants and potential food materials readily available in the culture’s landscape? What are their local ingredients?

What foods and ingredients are reserved for people of certain statuses?

What do the poor eat vs what do the rich eat?

How do they cook? What preparation techniques are used in cooking? What are common cooking techniques?

How do people embellish their food with tastes and textures and visually?

How are kitchens commonly laid out? What are common items found in a kitchen?

Language: Dialect | Majority | Pidgins | Naming

How does your culture use language and naming?

Are there mannerisms of speech, terms, phrases, accents, etc. that are reserved for/commonly spoken by different groups/ranks? What’s a snooty way of speaking? What’s a low class way of speaking?

How is naming done? How is it important?

What are the linguistic/ethnic minorities and how is their cultures and languages treated?

How many names does a person have? Does this change based on rank?

Are named sacred and if so, how?

How do they use slang and what makes something slang?

What are terms used by different groups that aren’t commonplace in the majority language? What are code words in different groups?

What words or expressions mark someone as being of a certain rank?

What are the naming conventions of the culture?

Do the characters conform to these conventions?

What is common and what is considered completely weird when it comes to naming?

Magic: Value | Occasion | Constraint | Instruction

How does your culture understand, shape, control, teach, and use magic?

Does it have a positive or negative relationship with magic?

How do non-mages view magic?

When is magical commonly practiced, what occasions call for magic to be used?

What personal limits would an individual impose on themself and their magic? What magic is off limits/taboo?

How are mages trained formally? Is it passed down and taught by parent to child or is their public institutions for it?

Who is allowed to use magic?

How does magic impact one’s rank and status?

How hostile or friendly is the majority of the population to users of magic?

Is magic viewed as supernatural or natural?

Would magic frighten a child or delight them?

Does the practice of magic have any influence on other sections of the culture?

Supernatural: Reason | Reflection | Ritual | Soul

How does your culture understand the relationship between that which cannot be seen and that which can?

Does the culture engage in religious practices? If so, how and what are they?

How much do people trust religion and the intangible vs science and the tangible?

What are the big questions that shape the culture and it’s religion or religions?

What is the right relationship to have with the supernatural?

What kinds of relationships can people have with it?

Are their rituals or buildings or people who wield religious authority and power?

Do the religions generate a rich interior life?

How does it help the mind and soul?

Is it more internally or externally practiced? Is it personal or public?

How are people without a religion treated?

What are the religious minorities of the culture?

Self-Reflection:

What lies does your culture tell?

What does it refuse to be honest with itself about?

What are secrets and tension and cause for shame?

[alysemeadfad]

𝕽𝖊𝖇𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖎𝖔𝖓

Most would say its easy for a teenager to rebel at any point in time, but I find it hard to rebel in any way, most teens get tattoos, piercings, cut and dye their hair to rebel against their parents, but growing up with a mom who is tattooed, hair in fun dyed styles and piercings, I’m really just following in her footsteps she practically encourages. 

The only thing I rebel against is tidying my room and making cups of tea, cant really say I could start a world changing rebellion on that.

Rebellions i find important

1903–18 — Women’s Suffrage Movement The foundation of the Women’s Social and Political Union by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903 began a more militant phase of the call for votes for women, which had been growing through the end of the 19th century. The Suffragettes used militant tactics like vandalism, arson, bombing and hunger strikes, with one member committing public suicide by throwing herself under the King’s horse at a race in 1913. The movement was wound up when some women were enfranchised in the 1918 Representation of the People Act, before all women over 21 were given the vote in 1928.

Suffragette Vera Wentworth in 1909, and the dress by Vaquera that it inspired

Stonewall riots 28 Jun 1969 – 3 Jul 1969 The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

It is said that Marsha P. Johnson was the one who started the rebellion. Supposedly, throughout the bustle of the raid, Marsha threw a shot glass into a mirror and shouted, ” I got my civil rights!”.  With this inspiration and resistance against the police, other patrons began to follow.

Present day- Me Too movement.The Me Too movement, with variations of related local or international names, is a social movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment towards women, where people publicize allegations of sex crimes.

The Punk Rebellion

the punk involved no protests or riots, it impacted people, fashion, music, society and everything to be honest.

The punk subculture advocates a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic. During the subculture's infancy members were almost all from a lower economic class, and had become tired of the affluence that was associated with popular rock music at the time. Punks would publish their own music or sign with small independent labels, in hopes to combat what they saw as a money hungry music industry. The DIY ethic is still popular with punks.ideology's of punks

Ideology

Punk political ideologies are mostly concerned with individual freedom and anti-establishment views. Common punk viewpoints include individual liberty, anti-authoritarianism, a DIY ethic, non-conformity, anti-collectivism, anti-corporatism, anti-government, direct action and not "selling out".

Some groups and individuals that self-identify as being a part of punk subculture hold right-wing views. The belief that such views are opposed to the original ethos of the punk subculture, and its history, has led to internal conflicts and an active push against such views being considered part of punk subculture at all. Two examples of this are an incident during the 2016 American Music Awards, where the band Green Day chanted anti-conservative, anti-racist, and anti-fascist messages, and an incident at a show by the Dropkick Murphys, when bassist and singer Ken Casey, tackled an individual for giving a nazi-style salute and later stated that nazis are not welcome at a Dropkick Murphys show. Band member Tim Brennan later reaffirmed this sentiment. The song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" by hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys has come to be considered an anti-nazi anthem.

VIV WESTWOOD

Rejecting the hippie ethos that was fashionable towards the end of the 1960s, Westwood and McLaren created clothes that referenced youth culture's recent past, selling rock'n'roll fashion in a shop unit at 430 King's Road in Chelsea. In 1974, the shop took on its most notorious identity: SEX, with Westwood and McLaren designing fetish wear that they sold to prostitutes, those with 'underground' sexual tastes, and young proto-punks brave enough to take a seriously edgy look out onto the street. The pair enjoyed shocking people, designing garments and shoes that referenced 'deviant' sexual practices, including rubber dresses and stilettos bristling with spikes.

How punk influenced me, because it influenced the world

My take on rebellion

Westwood inspired tights.

after watching a documentary on vivien westwood and the birth of the punk revolution i created some westwood inspired tights as a little spontaneous brainstorm, did not develop any further on the tights.

i used a pair of brand new white tights and put holes all in them, this is non conformist as if a regular pair of tights had a hole you would bin them as they were no good any more, but purposely putting holes in is quite rebellious in that aspect, i used sharpies to draw triggering symbols and words such as a swastikka and ‘punk fag’ .

crayon drawings

i used crayons to create these images as i thought it was a more rebellious medium and its created for kids so that is non conforming and it gives a rough diy finish look making it look slightly unfinished

i created a lesbian nun, this was a spur of the mind thought whats socially good and respected? a nun? whats the opposite of what a nun preaches, homo behavior. 

here i did a little barbie series drawing from observational on one and on another from mind and another from an image which i created by burning a barbie ehich is quite a rebellious act in a way. 

Collages

i decided to do some collages as its a way of just slapping ideas out in a visual format, my first one was using a fashion magazine and i realized this was the way to go so i printed some punk imagery and even used my own crayon drawings to create more collages.

photo shop

i wanted to mess with these collages more on a digital format so i put them in to photo shop to play with them and generate more ideas this was giving me a poster vibe which reminded me of punk posters.

 Final ideas

i used images from the new york trip to create a vision on photo shop, using a light of the american flag,sign posts, bins with posters on them.a clip art image of a chain and lock,street art and stickers i saw on poles in the street which is another form or street art which is quite rebellious as its not socially acceptable to vandalize and graffiti on public areas.

i took a few elements from the last board and included them in this vision board, i really wanted the main focus to be on the pipe that says “the rich killed nyc” i feel like it has a deep meaning behind it and it is quite rebellious as it reminded me of the punk rebellion in the uk as it was mostly lower class working people who used art, music and fashion to rebel against society and social constructs and actively non conform to the “rules” in a way. i also used a sticker that says jesus loves you and i crossed it out and wrote hate you over the loves you part as that is fitting to my rebellious visions.

in this board i again used “ the rich killed nyc” pipe as that’s my main surrounding element, i uses another pole with stickers on though you cant really tell what the stickers are, it just fits the aesthetic. i used a statue of liberty as she is known as a symbol of freedom, and along side it i used a photo of a photograph i saw in the modern art museum where this person had dyke tattooed on their neck which is a derogatory word to gay women, and that’s quite rebellious to take a bad word and own it by tattooing it on your body .

in this board i moved away from “the rich killed nyc” pipe as i felt i needed to come away from that one element for one board and to broaden my ideas. in this one i used a sky line image i took when on the ferry to liberty island, i changed the colour to black and white as the original colours of the image are quite blue and orangy, i used a sign post that says one way as it for some reason reminded me of like “one way to hell” or something and that there feels like there is no choice or individuality in the phrase “one way” . i used text over the sky line that says “the rotten apple” as new york city is known as the big apple and i thought, when i was there it did not remind me of a big fresh beautiful apple as the homeless people on the streets and the graffiti that has no artistic intent, so it was more of a rotten apple in a way. i used an image of the american flag i took on liberty island as i used an image of an american flag light, so i thought i could link back to that idea and use an actual flag, as its to represent freedom. i also used a art piece from the modern art gallery which was just a male mannequin wearing a bra which does not fit the social constrict of what men should wear there for its quite rebellious and opposite to the one way system. 

in my final board i included the american flag, a chain over it completely doing the opposite of what the flag means which is freedom, i used the bun that says don’t be afraid of anyone with an edited red paint drip on it which kind of looks like blood, i used text that says “ the rich killed nyc” as i loved that phrase bit i over used the pole in the other boards and i liked that my main message is that the rich killed nyc, i used an image of my dr martens that i took while my feet were up against a pole as i sat on a tube, showing anti social behavior basically which is stereo typically rebellious,and also dr martens were quite fashionable in the uk punk rebellion so i’m hinting to my idea that was inspired by the uk punk rebellion, and finally i have a set of traffic lights which are about order and control, the light is also on red which signifies danger, and the word stop which fits to my idea.

[bebebese]

please read the forbes review of new horizons

also under the readmore bc i know that site can be jank

It looks, at least at first, like a vacation. You book your ticket through Nook Inc., by all appearances a cheerful travel agent, coordinating with Dodo Airlines for a trip to a deserted island somewhere in the hemisphere of your choice. But it’s different. For whatever reason—personal, political, biological or otherwise, it will never be clear—your cheerful little character has decided to book a one way ticket. I wear a sailor shirt and jeans, and I am never going back.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the latest entry in Nintendo’s pleasant little life simulator series, but the setting marks an interesting break. In the past I was just moving to a town, a normal thing that one might do, even if the town is inhabited by strange and friendly anthropomorphic animals. Now, I am striking out into the wilderness to build a utopia on a deserted island. My guide is Tom Nook, a scheming raccoon whose calm, half-lidded eyes belie the essential fervor with which he will pursue his latest venture, a grand social experiment far beyond the construction business he ran on the mainland. My companions on this first day are a disaffected pink rhino and a fitness-obsessed elephant, their motivations for abandoning society as unclear as my own. Joining us are Tom Nook’s two sons, Timmy and Tommy, the mother nowhere to be seen and never mentioned. We pitch our tents on the first day, and I go out to shake cherries out of a tree at Nook’s request. We gather around a bonfire and drink cherry juice as the sun goes down, toasting the start of our new life without a thought to what we left behind. This is life now, here on the island. And we will make it a good one.

It’s impossible to review Animal Crossing: New Horizons here on March 16, 2020, without writing in the shadow of the coronavirus. That might not be true of all games—DOOM Eternal will still be DOOM Eternal, even if it is perhaps more needed now than it would have been last year. But there is something about the particular escapism of Animal Crossing’s simple life that feels particularly vital at a time when death tolls and infection rates are rising, whole cities are shutting down, the global economy is fumbling to a halt and millions of people are choosing to spend their days indoors, alone. In the past few weeks, a collective howl to just release the game early has come up on social media in a way that it can’t quite for any other game. We need a new life right now because this one is looking tenuous.

The game is simple: you live on the island and you make it better. You start in a tent, you upgrade to a house, and then you improve the house. You catch butterflies and fish. You collect fruit, and you sell them to Tom Nook’s sons as Nook Sr. talks constantly about “the island way”. You give gifts to your friends and they reward you with clothing and housewares. If you support Tom Nook’s amorphous goals, he will give you “Nook Miles”, which you can use to fly to even more isolated islands to find lost souls camping out alone in the wilderness who can be persuaded to join your growing community. There is a museum where you can bring all the bugs, fish and fossils you can find to create a slowly expanding record of your own achievement: for the most part you are alone in its silent, impressive beauty, but sometimes you will see another island inhabitant peering into the fish tank that you stocked. You can build a wardrobe at your little workbench, choose a custom color and place it in your house to put on a hat when it rains.

It’s a game of rhythms. There are always bugs and fish, you can spend your spare time catching those when there’s nothing else to do. Every so often you can go to the beach to check for seashells. You can hit a rock for minerals once a day. If you find a rare fruit not available on your island you can plant a tree, but it will take a few days to grow. If you request construction, it will be available in the morning. Larger buildings might take a full day to complete. I haven’t seen it in the review period, but as the seasons passes we will see different fish and bugs, different environments and different clothes on your friends. You could put on warmer clothes in cold seasons, but you don’t have to. It is— after all, utopia.

Two weeks into my play and my island is unrecognizable from when I first moved in. My and my friends’ tents have been replaced by permanent houses, my own with three rooms stocked with haphazard furniture, an espresso grinder on the floor next to my record player. My two original companions are joined by a friendly green eagle, a squirrel with a flight helmet, and a small, nervous, bearded creature of indeterminate species. I found a drunk seagull on the beach one day that I haven’t seen since. They’re joined by the owl that runs the museum, a hedgehog that sells clothes on the weekends, a travelling carpet-selling camel, and a weird little rodent thing that sells turnips on Sundays. The turnips fluctuate wildly in price, and you can make a lot of money selling them at the right time throughout the week because this utopia veers wildly between aggressive capitalism and essential collectivism. I’ve got a sleeping bag that I put on the beach next to a little camping lantern and a palm tree that will be full grown at the time of publication. I lie on it sometimes.

There are games that you play in quick sessions, and there are games that stretch into weeks, months, and years. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the latter. These games are never about what they are about, whether you’re shooting aliens to earn powerful guns, slashing demons with axes to collect ever grander armor, or planting orange trees so that you can see them blossom. That’s just window dressing. They are about the feeling that you get when you log into the game every day and make progress: that you can earn your bells and build your island, and that nothing can really take it away from you. Not a stock market crash or a malicious strand of RNA worming its way through cells and society. Furniture and clothing are made available randomly through rotating stocks at stores and the whims of your gift-giving friends. But even if you throw something out, it’s added to a list where you can buy it again as long as you want. Nothing is lost, ever.

Much has been made of Nintendo’s decision to limit Animal Crossing: New Horizons to one island per Switch, with limited cloud saves and a procedure for recovering data that would have felt dated a decade ago. I can understand, in a practical way, why these are insane, anti-consumer decisions that are bound to cause unnecessary heartbreak. But I also understand them. The utility of Animal Crossing relies on a sense of being real. There’s only one island on on Switch because that island is real, and it lives on that Switch. You’re not meant to change date to switch the season because it’s just not that season yet. It seeks peace in surrender, core to the Animal Crossing experience.

I haven’t talked a lot about the game itself, really. There’s a bunch of stuff old and new here, like the ability to choose where people live, the way the island evolves, the DIY system that lets you make your own stuff, streamlined inventory management, the multiplayer system, the way you can now create and destroy land at a whim, etc. If you want to know more about that stuff, I’m sure there will be lots of other reviews that will go into them. But know that if you’re overwhelmed with the world, stuck inside, or adrift in a life that you know will look totally different next week — get Animal Crossing.

For a score, I’m going with 10. It is by no means perfect, but, we would never want it to be.

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date: March 20, 2020

Price: $59.99

Score: 10 out of 10

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Becoming Animal: My Feral Individualism

When first considering what it is to be an anarchist, or if not to be an anarchist then to be someone embracing anarchy – which some people might call being an anarchist – my awareness is immediately drawn to my body and the space that my body occupies.

This usually begins by thinking about my feet. I find these attached to my legs. My legs are attached to my groin. After this, I find my torso, with these arms and hands attached. I cannot find my head visually until I use a mirror, and even then, I am seeing a reflected image – though of course, I can feel my head with my hands.

I have a sensually immediatist experience of being this body. My power is located in the flesh that I am, the flesh that is located here. I can use these hands to form a fist and punch anyone I wish to. My mouth can sing songs of wild beauty, or voice poetry as perception attack. These feet can stamp on badger traps – the only beautiful cages are destroyed cages.

Sartre said, “(m)an is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does”. This body that I am condemned to be – the flesh that is my immediate power – I feel as my freedom. My sensation of freedom starts somewhere within my lungs and muscles, along my skin, and throughout my brain and nervous system – though I cannot trace exactly where it starts or ends. I have felt a great sense of freedom when walking across the fields and scattered patches of woodland, across the hills on Briton where I live. With this, I have felt tremendous sorrow for how violated the world (I am immersed within and am an Extension of) is by Leviathan, as I have stared out across valleys and out into the distance. One of the most intense feelings of freedom I have ever experienced has been to remove all my clothing when accompanied only by trees, squirrels, and birds, and to dance with them, as fellow beings who are primordially free but violated by Leviathan. Kafka said “(y)ou are free, and that is why you are lost” – I agree somewhat, but I am only lost because civilisation dis-places me, as it violates the world I am.

This body, that I am condemned to, is caught though, in a perpetual paradox, which seems equally inescapable. In one desperate sense, I am alone in my unique body, singular and fundamentally me. In another sense, I am immersed within and an Extension of a multiplicity, which is the world I experience, first as the immediate body I sensually am, and second through language and the world of reified forms.

The image of this paradox is simple. I am stood naked under tree cover, unique, singular, an individual. I take a breath and the world enters into my body. I look at the sunlight as it shimmers through the leaves above me, and the world enters my Being through my visual field. The smell of the stream passes my nostrils, and as I breathe out, I become the world.

Caught in this schismatic abyss, I find myself compelled towards a practice of individualism. Why individualism, rather than collectivism? My body is often found within the machinery of Leviathan which is that collective known as society. The ultra-left collectivists and supporters of communisation would whisper in my ear that I am duty bound to the means-of-production of Leviathan and would seek to draw me into their economic-politics. But I’d say that projects, such as Tiqqun and others, which seek to synthesis communisation theory with anarchist praxis, are little more than bad faith preachers, as they locate freedom exclusively within the domain of society and deny the immediate power and freedom of their flesh.

To me society is little more than a cage seeking to cage itself within itself, building walls to keep the world out, chaining itself to these walls, masking its face to hide its ugliness, while seeking to totalise its presence. The form this cage takes is technology. Clothing, ploughs, skyscrapers, roads, televisions, computer screens and so on – all machinic totalitarian repression, as an attempt to deny the freedom of the world. To society, the beasts of the world, the rivers, the forests and even the light of the sun, must be made tame, chained to it, and (basically) collectivised.

This is all to mask a psychic-lack civilisation both preaches and attempts to hide as it tries to mask the strange schism with modes of desiring-production. We are told daily that we are cut off from God but must build icons to God to hide this. We are told that we are cut off from utopia but must seek to build utopia to hide this. We are told that the idea of what we lack is what we desire, so we must build and produce and progress, in the great meliorist sublimation of desire.

My experience of this phenomenon is that repression and sublimation of the flesh is the mode of production of the desiring-machines of Leviathan/civilisation/society. Normalisation, conformity and other forms of collectivisation are the basis of this production narrative.

Normalisation through desiring machines becomes the violation of the world, that I find my flesh in a paradoxical (non-)holism with. The wild world of tribes, beasts and forests becomes the weird, as the farm, city, politics, markets and all other aspects of the machine of Leviathan become the norm. Normalising The Earth, As The Violation Of Anarchy would seem an apt title for a history of civilisation as ecological and psychic repression.

The collective requires normalisation and for the communised machine to work, self-repression is necessary. This seems abundantly obvious to me. Freaks, homosexuals, Jews, gipsies, the mad and others who are different, all must be normalised – whether that be through brute oppression or through recuperation. Both of brute oppression and recuperation imprison the different. Spaces, social, ecological and psychic, are required to go through the totalitarian hegemonic process of forced-sameness – an obvious inevitable failure, as everything is difference and different.

Even the most autonomous of Marxist projects require normalisation for communisation to be possible. All civilisations necessitate the mechanical reproduction of the same. The collective is sameness and sameness is capital.

Buildings as far the eye can see, all built with uniformed sameness. Vast monocultures of crops infest lands, where forests of diverse communities once stood. Nations under one flag and one ideology colonise and territorialise, to bring the world under the icon of their theocracy. Markets filled with slaves who are the same as those coins, which are all apparently identical. In the unity of the collective, normalisation is the process of becoming-the-same.

There is an unspoken authoritarian structural racism and speciesism within the majority of projects that look to promote autonomous-collectivist projects. Anglo-Americanised-European leftist moral and structural control has to be contained at all points, as they must control the narrative. All land projects must be part of the same narrative of the autonomous-revolutionary. Any groups or individuals who attempt anything else must be deemed illegitimate and cast aside. I have found this in revolutionary projects such as It’s Going Down and other similar spaces.

Even non-agrarian horticulturalist and permaculture projects rely on collectivist normalisation and anthropocentric control. The appearance of polycultural diversity is kept under the hegemonic presence of repression and sublimation.

One machine. One God. One revolution. One people. One species (really). All living the same way to live.

In a world where there is good and evil, right and wrong, there can only be one right answer. As such all answers must be the same. We must all know the same answer because it is the right answer. If it is not the case that all voice the same answer then good people must correct the wrong to erase evil from the world. Even in liberal spaces that like to hold the appearance of plurality, this is only done within the goodly totalitarianism of the democratic-society – the nicest oppression is the good oppression.

The dogma of society is fundamentally that the normal answer is the good and right answer. As such, we all should be normal if we wish to be good. This keeps everything the same – or at least within the image of sameness – and keeps the machine running smoothly.

I find this continually within all politics. To the Nazi/fascist the desiring-machine of normalisation is enforced under the images of unity through flags and races. To the Communist, the desiring-machine of normalisation is enforced under the image of the proletariat worker under the image of unity in class. To the liberal, the desiring-machine of normalisation is enforced under the image of unity in rights and under the law.

All normal. All the same. Unity in identity. Identity in unity.

(While I have, for most of my life, been far closer to the identity I have attached to who I am as someone from a Jewish family, I was raised in a state of being caught between united identities – one half of my family being Catholic (but with whom I have very little connection to). When I learnt during my childhood of the ugliness of historical events, like the Holocaust, born out of nationalist identity politics, I grew to despise collectivist rhetoric more and more.

For the sake of authenticity, and I say this from a position of anti-speciesism and rejection of species-being, it would be untrue of me to deny the connection between my disgust at the sight of Jewish people caged by the Nazis and my revulsion towards all other cages, such as farms, badger traps and zoos.)

Being good and right necessitates being perfect. If we are made in God’s perfect image, as machine-made reproductions, then logically the collective and those who embrace its image are perfect. Perfection is the standard.

All the houses have to be perfect in their sameness. Everyone must have perfect manners. We must all dress perfectly. It goes on and on. Perfect normal lives in a machine that runs perfectly, so long as everyone is normal.

As cyborg culture infests our psychic space more and more, perfection becomes more and more of a cage. If it isn’t perfection as a beautiful, successful, popular person, then it is perfection as a fucked up and depressed screwup, with 2 kids, who is trying their hardest and who is oh so brave on Instagram. All must be perfect. Perfect is God’s image and we must be normal, as to be perfect is to be normal. It is normal to be perfect – or at least to be bound by the image of perfection.

Whether it’s through religious, political, monarchical, celebrity or wherever else within this culture you find icons to be worshipped; everywhere I look people continually seem to be bound to images of perfection. This is no less the case within radical groups and projects – probably more, if honest. Between the clashes of varying factions and projects, you find perfectionistic ideologues striving towards ideological perfection.

Really, why wouldn’t they? They know the way everything ought to be. Everything ought to be perfect. Everything ought to be the same, as perfect.

This is typified by the organisationalist narrative, where all members of a group have to sing from the same perfect hymn book in cult-like unity. (I’m thinking here in particular of Marxists and Jensenites, whose plans for the world necessitate communisation and the normalisation of all life.) The organisation of radical praxis is where radicals start attempting to control the world – normalise it to their standard of perfection – and the point where personality cults and hierarchies form.

The phenomenon of normalisation, organisation, perfection, sameness, unity and the repression and sublimation that goes hand in hand with all this psychic-tyranny and ecological violation, are revolting to me. I am immediately filled with a desire to rebel when I encounter them. I experience them as attempts to cage and clothe the freedom of my flesh.

This is why I take an individualist approach to my activities. But my individualism is not reductive.

As I am caught in that strange schism, where I cannot locate entirely at one point I stop and the world begins with each passing breath, I have come to a position some might wish to frame as “spiritual” – though I’d describe it more as mystical, as I feel more drawn towards fleshy physicalist ontological pictures, which are somewhat paradoxical and that language never seems an adequate tool for articulating. This mystical experience is that which I mentioned earlier – of being a lonely singular individual within a plurality of beings and processes while being equally inescapably immersed within, connected to and an Extension of a monist Being and process. This mystical experience of life as an individual is why I find my individualism most when I abandon the collective, which seeks to renounce Life, in favour of desiring-production, and embrace Life, as the world I am immersed within. It is a horrifying, awe-inspiring and beautiful experience that is undeniably absurd, but I’d be lying if I claimed anything different.

In both of my two published books, I have sought to articulate some of this, as well as in other publishing projects. Whenever I do though I instantly find that this medium of written word fails. I am convinced that this is something that cannot be taught or shown but has to be lived. As such, when I write I am ultimately wishing to encourage whoever is reading to live.

The question I arrive at now though is – what does it mean to live at the end of History? What is life on a seemingly dying planet, which might succeed in destroying the cancerous body that occupies it, or might die of civilisation (taking the cancer with it)? How can I talk about individualism in a space where individualism largely means collectivism, by the standards of society, and where collectivism means mass-suicide?

When confronted by these questions, I am instantly reminded of how tiny I am. When I look up at the stars at night, I am confronted by so much wonder and mystery and beauty, and find myself as a bizarre mammal, at the edge of the anthropocene. Cultivating any answer is largely an utterly absurd endeavour. But as all point of reason for any living being to continue living appears absurd, when all Life ultimately leads to death, decay and rebirth as some other singular individual being within this colossal monist process, which hasn’t stopped anyone else, I figure fuck it – I’ll keep on going.

Where to begin though? My instinct, when starting to think about my individualism, is, to begin with the flesh that I individually am; my arms, legs, back, chest, genitals, head, mind, and all that encompasses my body. This is the place where I initially locate my freedom, from where my power emerges.

I describe it as my body, though it is not really 'my body', as a body that I am in possession of outside of me the owner. This would be the way that anarcho-capitalists and libertarians would frame their relationship to the bodies they are – as self-owned vessels for use within the market. From this enframing, their concept of the self and individuality is reductively tied to that organ of the Leviathan that Diogenes would masturbate in. It is not necessary to comment on that area of thought here – I only mention it to state that this is not what I will be in any way aligning myself with before I go on.

From my feet, the body I am takes exquisite joy in feeling the ground underneath me. I have stood barefoot and felt the eros of gravity as my body has found itself firmly supported by the earth. This singular sensation of primordial love, where the earth is both pulling me towards it and supporting me so that I may stand with firm footing, is one where my individuality within the world is affirmed as pure presence. I know that I am stood here; this is where I stand, and the earth which I love, and which loves me, can support the weight of me. From this, I can grow and be strong, and fierce, and powerful, and feral.

As I walk through woodlands, across lands claimed by agriculture, over the roads which scar the surface of the land I find myself upon, by the edges of cliffs that signify to me the edge of my world, and through concrete expanses where the practice of wage slavery is most prevalent; my legs with my feet are the centre of my power and freedom, while walking, running and jumping. My legs have run across rocks by the coast, and have been used to climb trees. The legs and feet below my torso have, on occasion, found that they are stamping down upon badger traps, so as to destroy the revolting cages. The power I find in these aspects of my being enables me to be move, to dance, to smash, and so much more.

Then there is the core of this body that is the flesh I individually am – my torso, shoulders, arms and hands. From this core my will/Life/power manifests. If anyone were to try to attack me, here is where they would likely strike. From here, my arms can muster the power to strike back. I can take rocks in my hands, and from the power that flows through this body, propel them at any enemy I choose. My torso, arms and hands are the centre of my power when I pick up a guitar and attempt to emulate great flamenco and blues musicians. My hands are the centre of my power when I write my experience of the world for those who find that they are reading words I have written. This space is the location of so much of my creativity and destructiveness.

My head, my eyes, ears, mouth, nose, the brain that amplifies the mindedness of my body, my hair and teeth; from this space I take the world I am immersed in into the singular individual I am. I think. I breathe. I sing. I have screamed to trees whose tops could not hear me, hoping they would scream back and I would hear.

I could deconstruct this body further into various organs and would probably start to sound like I was quoting sections of Fight Club (again) – “I am Julian’s lungs. Without me Julian would not be able to breathe” or “I am Julian’s ability to care about economics. I exist only in as much as Julian is revolted by what economics is used for”. But as far as this simple schizoanalytic complexification goes, this is as far as I’m willing to describe here.

But as much as I describe it, the description is not the body. This is my body. I am my body. I am here, and you are entirely there. So how the fuck am I going to give you any meaningful sense of the individuality that is here, when you are there?!

I have caught glimpses of great individualists through the histories that surround them. Renegades, artists, rebels, writers, poets, philosophers, pirates, mystics and others whom society might call mad. While my awareness of their individuality might be through the collectivist usurpation of their creativities and destructivities, I find myself aesthetically and instinctively drawn towards the idea of these individuals. The madness they signify resonates and harmonises where my desire feels drawn to. Thoreau, Wilde, Jeffers, Novatore, Armand, Camus, Masson, Bey, Stirner and others whom I find beauty in are heroes whom I have no real connection to. All I have of their power and presence is faint images upon the backdrop of History – the ugliest narrative I am yet to come across.

I could tell you of my artistic attacks and of lone-wolf hunt sabotaging. I could tell you about the every-day acts of psychological warfare I regularly conduct around domesticated humans. I could tell you about my writings and publishing projects. I could tell you about my music and the inability to go for sustained periods without singing. I could tell you about my day job, and of driving along the roads I hate that scar the land I love and that I feel loves me.

As the collective dominates the space that surrounds me, I find the anarchic freedom of my individuality in moments where time ceases to hold any relevance or meaning. This is when every-Thing slips away, and I am immersed within the primordial now. But I would be lying if I said that I do not ever find myself caught in the cage that is the Reality of Leviathan – when I find myself trapped in time and History/progress/civilisation. Like the land I love, am an Extension of, and are immersed in, I am violated by Leviathan, and this is why I find myself engaged in mad and absurd rebellion.

Every time I breathe, I take in polluted air. The food manufactured by the industries of this culture has to be treated through all different types of alchemy to be desirable. The anthrophonic sounds of the urban-space machine are all but intolerable. The agriculture and industry that violates the earth. The monetary system that seeks to chain me to the collective and its markets. The disgust and revulsion this inspires in me is a sensation that worlds will never reflect. I feel a desire to break the chains of normalisation, to not be manufactured into some object that is the same as others within its category.

If my body is the first place I find my individuality manifesting from; my revulsion for society – the herd, as Nietzsche (rightly) described – is the second place I find this sensation. My hatred for society sits beside my love for the earth, wild-Being, the land, all ecological processes and other terms that basically mean the flesh of the world.

I am saddened that nationalists, patriots and others who idolise Leviathan, and so hate that which is wild, have made it such a taboo to discuss the notion of loving the land you live upon within radical discourse. The wounds that fascism and Nazism have inflicted, as those realities sought to violate the earth with their progression, are ones that are not yet really healed. Regardless though, while I have been accused of being a reactionary eco-fascist by collectivists who cannot see past their prejudices, I feel a great love for the land underneath my feet and I apologise to no one for this.

With my love for the land, rather than agriculture, or even well-intentioned horticulture and permaculture, I desire the emergence of feralculture, that opens spaces for wild-Being. This earth that I am is screaming for it. The trees, birds, hurricanes, and countless others, whose individuality defies communisation, are screaming for the destruction of Leviathan.

As I come back to my love of the land, I find my mind turning towards the untamed, the wild and the inhuman. This is a space of dark mystical experience, where Stirner’s notion of unman and Nietzsche’s ubermensch feel equally relevant. The abhuman is an immediately accessible means of rebelling against the repression of normalisation and sublimation. The sensation of being an anarchist, an individualist, a rebel, feral, from this, is a weird space of becoming-animal, where freedom and individuality are untamed spaces. Like the Lycan, who is part man and part wolf, in this way, I am best suited neither to the forest nor the city but find myself drawn to, and caught between, both of them.

This is where my individualist anarchy finds itself in the now that I am here. It might be mad, absurd, or paradoxical, but this is where I am and the Where I am. I have likely, again, failed at my attempt to articulate a sensation whose immediacy to my being is ineffable. Perhaps if I had written this as a poem, or had attempted to paint it, or compose a musical arrangement, maybe then I would have succeeded – I doubt it. If you haven’t experienced this – though you obviously could only experience something similar at best (not experience being the same) – I doubt any of this will resonate with you. If you have found this utter nonsense, please just disregard me as one of those mad individuals whom you pay little notice to.

[weepingcoffeestudentfromhell]

My friend is a goat and I find out my Secretary wants to eat me. . .so how's your Thursday going?

CHAPTER SEVEN:

My friend is a goat and I find out my Secretary wants to eat me. . .so how's your Thursday going?

Catherine's Pov.

>>>>>

"That's it, I'm chopping all my hair off!"

I stood up angrily from the kitchen table and threw my cereal bowl into the sink.

Anna then popped into the kitchen and crossed her arms over her chest, giving me a pointed look with a little smile as she leaned against the doorway.

"Did your braid end up in your cereal again?" She asked with smirk.

"YES!"

Anna laughed and I huffed, throwing my braid over my shoulder and picking up my bag from the counter after glaring at the Cereal bowl in the sink.

"Are you ready to go." I sighed and Anna nodded as she picked up her bag as well. "I really wanna get to school so I can get a good seat at the assembly."

"You know the assembly is after first and second period don't you?" Anna gave me a sideways glance as we closed up the dorm and began to walk down the halls. "And you already have assigned seats."

I groaned and shoved her away from me a little.

"Just let me be happy for once Anna?" I sighed dramatically and she laughed as we stopped in the middle of the entryway to wait for Cedar.

"Hay guys!"

The both of us turned around to see said boy descending the staircase, practically skipping two steps at a time.

"S-Sorry, sorry, I slept in again." He leaned over breathing heavily and Anna and I shared a look before rolling our eyes.

"Get up you lazy bum." I pulled Cedar up and Anna laughed as he flopped over on my shoulder with a groan.

"Mrghhhh. . ." He moaned and I sighed before shoving him off my shoulder and walking out the door.

Anna and I both laughed as I heard him yelp and she gave me a small high five.

"Why don't you ever get any sleep anymore?" Anna asked once we all made it to the sidewalk and Cedar caught up with us.

"It's not my fault, my roommates don't understand what it means to sleep, they never listen to the lights out rule!" Cedar complained as we crossed at one of the many crosswalks.

We continued on our way, laughing and chatting the time away.

>>>>>

Annabeth's Pov.

It only took a few minutes to make it to the academy, and just as we walked into the school doors, some student decided to run into Cedar, making his bag fall off his shoulder and all its contents fall onto the floor.

"Hey, watch it!" Cat yelled back as the kid rushed away through the halls laughing.

Cat grumbled as she leaned down and began to pick up his stuff for Cedar as he stood up from where he was pushed over.

"Oh dear is everything okay over here?" Adeline, the school secretary leaned over her desk and looked at us worriedly, her bright eyes scanning over the situation.

"Everything's fine madame, thank you." I said quickly as Catherine stood up from the ground, shuffling the papers together. I did not trust anyone who smiled as much as this lady did.

"Here you go." Catherine sighed and handed the folders and papers to Cedar who smiled brightly and thanked her.

"Oh, okay." Adeline looked over all of us as we began to walk over to the stairs. "Just stay safe you kids."

"We will thank you." Catherine said, walking ahead of Cedar and I as the first bell rang. She cursed under breath and turned to look back at us. "See you guys in class." And with that she ran up the stairs and down the hall.

I looked over at Adeline and was going to say thank you, when I stopped short on my words as I noticed her gaze sharpen slightly and she licked her lips as her eyes trailed after Cat.

"Umm, Annabeth. . .D-d-did you se-see that?" Cedar stuttered and before he could say anythings else Adeline looked at us and I quickly grabbed his wrist and pulled him up the stairway.

"This assembly better be quick." I mumbled under my breath as we walked down the halls and to our first class.

>>>>>

"Everyone down to the auditorium for the Madam's assembly, each class one by one, you will be told which seat your are given, thank you."

The intercom squeaked slightly and everyone in my history class cringed at the sound.

"Alrighty everyone, head down to the auditorium quietly please. We will finish this lesson tomorrow." Mr. Hughes said as everyone gathered their things and stood from their desk.

Immediately I left the class and grabbed Cedar outside of the band room, just down the hall from the auditorium. He yelped as I pulled behind a pillar next to the entrance.

"Are we just going to have to keep an eye on her the entire time?" He asked nervously once he realized it was me as I leaned against the small arch in the hallway.

"We don't have to watch her every move, but the second this is over, we're going to take her out of here and grab a taxi back to camp." I wanted to sigh at the thought of all of this being over, but I didn't want to let my guard down too soon, we still had to get past any monsters who might show up along the way. I instinctively let my hand run over the side of my hip where my dagger was hidden under my skirt.

"Also, keep an eye on the staff." I nudged Cedar to walk once we noticed some teachers staring at us. "And if anyone gets too close to her or starts to act weird we leave right away.

"O-Okay." Cedar cleared his throat and we soon made it to the auditorium entrance and parted ways once we got our seating.

I had a seat pretty much in the row in the farthest back. I huffed as I sat next to some of my classmates, but none of them acknowledged me as I don't really talk to them much. Looking around, I finally caught sight of Cedar's messy mop of brown hair close to the front, and in the very front row was Catherine sitting with Micha and Louise.

I was guessing they got those seats because they were in the BTA group, which meant she might have a chance of meeting with Mme. Cesaire after the assembly, and I felt bad thinking this, but I kind of hoped she wouldn't.

Eventually, the lights dimmed and everyone went silent as a women in a very fancy looking jacket and navy blue dress walked on stage.

>>>>>

Catherine's Pov.

I could not breath.

I was only ten or so feet from my childhood idol who walked up to the podium with such grace and collectivism.

Her long blonde hair and bright blue eyes were just as beautiful as they were on TV, and her voice was like golden silk as she addressed the audience, her accent beautifully thick.

"Hello my students." She began, and I could feel Micha physically lean closer to the stage. "My name, as some of you may know, is Marin Cesaire. I started this school when I finally. . ."

The rest of the assembly consisted of her talking about her experience, how this school came to be, and how she started out as an actor/musician.

I tried to focus the entire time, but I found my attention flying all over the place. Just the very thought of being in the group to meet Marin was nerve wracking and mind blowing.

"Now everyone can go back to class, but along the way out the door, those in BTA class must stay in the entrance for a special meeting." Ms. Cline stood up from our group and as everyone else walked out of the auditorium, she directed each of us in BTA over to the side entrances.

Just as I began to walk over to Micha and Louise, who were looking out the window and arguing about something, I felt someone place their hand on my shoulder.

"Catherine Bancroft."

I turned around to see Ms. Adeline behind me with a wide smile.

I looked down at her had on my shoulder, which tightened its hold as her smile almost widened more.

"Um, hello, do you need something?" I asked, slowly as I stole a quick glance back at Micha and Louise before looking back at the smiling old lady.

"Oh yes." Her eyes sparkled slightly as she turned me away from my friends and pointed to the backstage doors next to the entrance. "Ms. Cesaire would actually like to speak with you personally. You just have to come backstage to talk."

My eyes widened and looked over at the door and back at Adeline several times.

"Really?" I asked and my heart rate began to skyrocket as I held back a smile almost as wide as her's.

"Yes." She nodded enthusiastically and began to lead me to the doors. "Now this way, quickly."

>>>>>

Third person's Pov.

Once the assembly was over, Annabeth had grabbed Cedar and quickly made a beeline for the exit.

"Do you see her?" the blonde asked as she dragged the stuttering boy behind her through the crowd and after a while of searching she huffed. "Let's check the BTA group."

Finally letting go of Cedar's collar, the two of them began to search the BTA crowd for the familiar brunette and after five minutes of her not turning up, they began to panic.

"She's suppose to be over here." Annabeth exclaimed exasperatedly. "She wouldn't pass up an opportunity like this. Maybe sh-"

"A-annabeth." Cedar cut her off as he shakily pointed back to the entrance. "Lo-look."

Turning around Annabeth saw the one thing she hoped she didn't have to see.

The secretary lady, Adeline, had her hands on Catherine's shoulder, who looked like she was very excited for some reason, as she lead her to the backstage area.

"Not good, not good at all." Annabeth swore and quickly began to run to the entrance doors as Catherine and Adeline disappeared backstage. "Cedar come on!"

>>>>>

Catherine's Pov.

"Are you sure Mme. Cesaire is back here?" Catherine asked as Adeline lead her through the dark hall. "I don't hear anyone."

"Oh she'll be here any minute." Adeline stated stiffly and I felt her grip somehow get tighter on my shoulder.

I thought for a moment to ask her to let go, but before I could open my mouth she opened the door to the costume warehouse and shoved me into the dimly lit room.

"What-"

"Silence Catherine Bancroft." Adeline hissed as she closed the large door to the warehouse, which I thought was hard since she was so old, but she did it like closing the lid of an ice cream container.

"Why did you shove me in here, where is Mme. Cesaire?" I asked and the old lady licked her lips as she slowly came stalking towards me.

"Oh she's not coming, did I forget to tell you?" She smirked and I felt my stomach begin to become queasy.

I began to back up as she took slow steps towards me, like a predator coming in for the kill. I yelped as the back of my knees fell hit the couch and I fell back onto the soft material.

"Oh this is too easy." Adeline laughed and gave me a wicked grin. "It's been so long since i've had demigod."

Just when I was going to ask what the hell she was going off about, her figure literally melted away and she began to grow taller and hair grew all over her body.

Within seconds she was towering above me, and she no longer looked like an old lady, but a hairy mix of a lion and a bear. A long and spiky looking tail whipped back and forth behind her and my stomach dropped to about below sea level.

"You-You're a manticore!" I exclaimed with a trembling voice.

I remembered Mr. Baluhm talk about monsters like that in the greek mythology section at one of my old schools years ago. The thing then laughed as it crawled closer to me and I took a shaky breath.

"Oh, a demi with a brain." she laughed again and I felt my body freeze. "Such a shame you won't live long enough to use it!"

With that she lunged at me and I don't know what it was, but something in me told me I couldn't die, not like this, and not now. Like a reflex, I grabbed the pole I saw laying on the couch next to me under a pile of costumes and I lodged it deep into the manticores shoulder just as she was on me.

"GAHHH!!!" She yelped and immediately flung off of me to inspect her wound.

Without a second thought I stood from the couch and began to run down the long isles of the warehouse, brushing by costumes and hopping over other set pieces in my way.

"You can't hide from me demigod!!" I heard the monster scream and I sucked in a deep breath fearfully as I turned another corner, adrenaline pumping through my veins and my heart pounding against my chest.

Just when I turned another corner I slammed into someone and my heart dropped as I screamed loudly.

"Catherine, Cat, stop! It's just us!" Anna grabbed my shoulder as I began to breath heavily.

"Anna? How-why?" I asked and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly.

"The doors were locked, so Cedar kicked down the back door and we crawled through the vents until we heard you scream and found you here."

I looked over and finally noticed Cedar standing behind Anna. He looked a little terrified at the moment as he waved at me awkwardly, holding his pants in his other hands.

Wait. . .

"Why is Cedar half donkey!?" I yelped and Anna shushed me quickly.

There in front of me was Cedar, standing with two hair covered barn animal legs, shuffling back and forth nervously.

I must be going insane.

"It's not donkey it's goat!" Cedar chirped in defense and Anna groaned as she tugged at my arm and we began to run down the isles again.

"I'll explain everything to you later." She huffed and pulled me around another corner. "For now, we need to get you out of here."

"Oh demigods, I can smell you~" I heard Adeline's voice behind us and a shiver ran up my spine as I heard some things crash to the ground in the section behind us. "And is that a satyr I smell as well? Oh I'm going to feast tonight."

We turned another corner and Anna swore under her breath as we were met face to face with a blank wall.

"What happened to the ladder?" She turned to Cedar and he gulped.

"I put it right there, I don't know what happened!" He said defensively and held up his hands.

"Ahhh, there you are~"

The three of us spun around and there was the manticore, swishing her tail back and forth as she crawled towards us.

Instinctively we began to back up and Cedar yelped as his back hit the wall behind us.

We were screwed.

"Guess we'll have to do this the hard way." I heard Anna mumbled and I was going to ask her what she meant, but before I could say anything she pulled a literal dagger from her under her skirt and ran towards the monster.

Yep, I'm insane.

I thought for sure she was dead meat as the manticore raised its paw to swap her away, but last minute Anna slid onto her knees and under the beast, stabbing up and cutting at its chest.

Quickly I saw Anna make a "go" signal with her hands as the monster yowled in pain again and Anna ran out from underneath her.

"Over here!" Anna called out and lead the manticore away from the isle we were stuck in and I saw an opening behind her tail.

"Come on." Cedar grabbed my hand and pulled me past the monster, but I stopped him once we were a little past the isle as he tried to bring me to the door.

"Wait." I pulled my hand out of his grasp and looked back to where we were running. "We can't just leave Anna with that thing, we have to help."

"No Cat." Cedar breathed nervously and looked behind me at the scene. "Annabeth can handle herself, we have to go now. She'll catch up."

He tried to grab my hand again, but I slipped away from him, grabbing the same bloody pole I had used to stab Adeline earlier, and ran back towards the fight.

"Catherine!" I heard Cedar yell, but I ignored his protest and continued to sprint until I saw Anna backed in a corner, her dagger held up as she manticore slowly closed ground on her.

"It was foolish of you to sacrifice yourself for them." The monster laughed and I saw its tail slowly began to rise above her. "Once I'll kill you, I'll just find the other two and kill them as well."

Anna flinched back and right when Adeline lifted her tail to lunge at Anna I did the most stupid thing anyone could have in that moment.

I don't know how, but I jumped over her tail and landed onto her back, knocking her off balance so she missed Anna, and the spike missed her thankfully. I was happy that worked, but my breath was caught in my throat as I felt something lodge itself into my right shoulder.

"Ahh" I yelled out in pain, and immediately shoved the pole into the monsters shoulder, gripping her fur so I wouldn't fall off.

"Catherine!" I heard Anna shout, but everything began to blur, and soon enough my grip loosened as the monster roared out in pain and I fell onto the ground with a painful thud.

Suddenly I heard something that sounded like a battle cry, and instantly everything went silent as I felt a layer of dust or some other substance cover me.

I groaned and leaned over to see what happened, whimpering as my shoulder throbbed in pain and my vision blurred. I could just barely make out Anna standing in a pile of dust, holding her dagger up as she breathed heavily.

Soon enough I saw Cedar's figure in the background as Anna ran up to me and kneeled at my side.

"Oh gods Catherine, hold tight we'll get you help soon." She spoke worriedly and leaned over me too look at my back. "Cedar, get me some ambrosia now!"

I tried to look up into Anna's gray eyes, but my head began to spin and soon enough everything went black.

>>>>>>

Sorry for all the Pov changes, won’t happen a lot. 

thx for reading!!

~Liza

[realtalk-princeton]

@Faun maybe the question wasn't submitted? just wanted to know more about life in Japan, especially culture (food, people) and language barrier

@faunJapan hey Faun, could you describe your experience in Japan? especially about the culture and people (and maybe safety)? thanks in advance :-)

Response from Faun:

Hey, sorry I’ve been away for a bit! Thanks for your question; I’ll do my best to answer it however I can. Just want to say in advance, all of this is based on my personal experience, so it could definitely vary for other people who have lived in/traveled to Japan. I am by no means an expert on Japanese culture, which in and of itself is hardly monolithic, so I’ll strive to avoid making uninformed, overgeneralized assertions about anything from my (outsider) perspective.

That being said, I think one general broad perception many people will have of Japan(ese culture) upon first arriving is the high emphasis on civility and order. Compared to countries such as the United States, Japan has a lot more organization and structure in nearly every facet of everyday life: buses always arrive on time, commuters queue up in perfect lines for the train, city streets are kept spotless and litter-free, etc. Furthermore, most people whom you meet (especially those who work in hospitality) will be extremely polite, from taxi drivers to restaurant servers to department store clerks—it’s very rare that you would encounter someone in Japan who is outwardly discourteous to you. A lot of this is derived from a sense of collectivism, which promotes group harmony and the good of the community above that of any one single person, that distinguishes Japan (as well as many other Asian countries) from some of the individualist cultures of the West. Nevertheless, I don’t think you can make any sweeping assumptions about how your interpersonal interactions with people in Japan will turn out before you actually get there.

For example, the first time I went to Japan, I lived in a fairly rural farming city in Fukuoka, which is located on the southernmost island of Kyushu, with an older couple without any children. They lived a pretty “traditional” Japanese lifestyle: their house had tatami mat flooring and sliding doors, they both took a bath after dinner every day, and we slept in futons on the ground in lieu of beds. I was only fifteen at the time, so being still a child I wasn’t really allowed to venture out too much on my own, but I remember enjoying the slow pace of summer life and the beautiful scenery of the Japanese countryside. I spent a lot of time with my host family and grew quite close to them, especially my host mother; we would pick vegetables from the garden and cook meals together, go on evening walks around the neighborhood after dinner, and sit in front of the television watching afternoon programs, me doing my homework while she folded the laundry. My host parents introduced me to a lot of local culture, bringing me to visit their family’s tea fields and taking me to various historical landmarks in the region. They weren’t super talkative, but in a way that was a plus, since it allowed me to slowly develop my comfort with the basics of the language as I lived with them. Overall, they demonstrated a lot of care for me, and I cherished them as if they were my own relatives.

In contrast, I had a somewhat harder time with my host family last year, when I participated in PII. I lived in the suburbs of Kanazawa, which is a moderately large coastal city, with a family of two parents and their two children, around my age. They had a much more “modern” lifestyle: their house was Western in style, located in a fairly new housing complex, both the father and the mother worked, and the family would take meals separately, depending on when they each came home from school or work. However, I had a more difficult time connecting with the individual members of the household; the children were usually out and about doing their own thing, and the father often came home rather late from work. I spent the most time with my host mother, but at first I had trouble adjusting to some of her stringent expectations of me—she would instruct me to put up my hair if I had it down, for example, or tell me to sit up straighter at the dinner table, and I wasn’t comfortable with such a familiar level of “parenting” in my relationship with a host family. Additionally, I struggled more with the language barrier this time around, even though I was much more advanced in Japanese at this point, likely because my host family thought I would be able to handle more complex grammar structures or vocabulary than I actually could given my current level. It wasn’t as if the family was rude or cold or anything like that; they were always kind and courteous to me, and we would also sometimes go on outings to restaurants or local cultural sites, which were pretty fun. Altogether, I just didn’t click as well with them as I did with my other host family (though in their defense, I was also severely depressed last summer so that probably played a part lol).

With regard to food, I feel like it varies so much depending on where you are, but there are a few staples that you can expect to find anywhere. In Kanazawa last year, my friends and I often ate soba, ramen, curry, etc. as well as boxed lunches (e.g. with rice, pork cutlet, etc.) that you can pick up from any convenience store. At home with my host family, my host mother would alternate between traditional Japanese breakfasts (with rice, miso soup, and some other side dishes) and more Western breakfasts (usually toast with jam and a cup of yogurt), and for dinner she’d either make something simple (like steamed fish or vegetables) or order some takeout. A lot of the foods you’d “typically” associate with Japan, like sushi or sukiyaki, are not commonly eaten on an everyday basis, and they might be different from what you’ve had outside of the country (Japanese sushi is a lot smaller and less convoluted than American sushi, for example!). Similarly, some Western chains in Japan will have different localized menus than what you might be used to, such as teriyaki burgers at McDonald’s or cherry blossom lattes at Starbucks. ALSO, the snacks and bottled beverages in Japan slap so hard—my favorites are definitely honey butter chips, kinoko no yama (lil choco mushrooms), oi ocha green tea, and c.c. lemon soft drink. All in all, some of my recommendations for food experiences in Japan include getting soba at a noodle stand (where you eat standing up), getting yakitori (chicken skewers) at an izakaya (a barlike setting where you can get late night snacks and drinks), and getting okonomiyaki (super delicious savory pancake, often cooked on a steel hotplate right in front of you) anywhere in Osaka (where it originated!).

In terms of safety, I’d say it also depends on where you go, but generally I found Japan to be a lot safer than the average city in the United States. When I was in Ishikawa last year, I would often go out on my own or with a group of friends, and very rarely did I feel any sense of unease while roaming the city of Kanazawa. I absolutely loved the freedom of wandering the streets late at night, something I never really got to experience growing up in the United States. One factor that helped was the accessibility of the public transportation in the area: there were tons of buses and trains whose maps and schedules were not difficult to follow, and in the worst case scenario I could always hail a taxi to reroute me to my destination. The language barrier wasn’t necessarily a hindrance at this stage of my time in Japan, but I would say that it’d probably be a lot harder to do some of the things I had to do, like reload a bus pass or buy bullet train tickets, if you didn’t understand/speak some degree of survival Japanese. However, I do want to acknowledge some of the privilege I have as an individual of East Asian descent traveling around Japan; because I often “passed” for a Japanese native (as long as I kept my mouth shut lmao), I rarely got any looks or stood out when I was making my way through my daily routine. I will say though, there was one time that I genuinely did feel unsafe in Japan, which took place not in Kanazawa but in Osaka, a much larger city that I had visited for vacation with a group of friends: I had gone out late on my own (while wearing a nice dress), and an older man had come up to me and tried to follow me back to where I was staying, but I eventually lost him by ducking into a restaurant bathroom. So in general, I don’t consider Japan to be dangerous for the most part, though again it never hurts to be vigilant, especially in a big city.

Wow that was a lot—I hope that was able to address at least some of the things you were asking about! I want to stress once again that my thoughts are by no means the final say on all things Japanese, and also emphasize that Japan and its culture cannot be simply boiled down into one homogenous description. Please feel free to reach out if there’s anything else more specific you would like to hear about (especially with such a broad topic as culture, there’s so much more to talk about, e.g. activities, etiquette, traditions, holidays, etc.)—I’d be happy to answer whatever I can given my own body of knowledge. Ultimately, I’m hoping that this helped to provide you with an initial sketch of Japan, and that you’ll be able to fill in the picture with your own travels there someday! :)

[jswisher28-blog]

Mentor Report - Milan

I will start off my Milan mentor report by going over what the Hofstede Dimensions led me to believe Italian culture is like; then contrast what my mentor said about those same cultural points. The Hofstede Dimensions that I was most interested in was individualism (scoring 76 compared to the United States' 91), uncertainty avoidance (scoring 75 compared to the United States score of 46), and finally power distance (scoring 50 compared to the United States score of 40). I find individualism in Italy interesting because coming from such a highly individualistic culture, I want to know more about how that might affect things like friend groups and even the classroom environment. According to my research, Italy differs on the scale of individualism depending on if you're talking about the north or south. The northern city of Milan tend to be much more individualistic than cities in the south, who value family groups a little more; this means that, although more collectivist than America, I would be somewhat comfortable with how people behaved and worked together in society. After speaking with my mentor I learned that although Italy is individualistic, that individualism and competitive steak that comes with it is often expanded to include family groups. I thought this to be an interesting contrast to American individualism because it blends some collectivism in with Italians strong individualistic tendency. 

Uncertainty avoidance is a Hofstede insight in which Italy and the U.S. vary significantly, Italians are much less likely to take risks and be comfortable in uncertain situations than the average American is; I thought that this might be attributed to the old age of Italian society. Going back to ancient Roman times, Italians have always been interested in ordering their lives according to laws and rituals and this tendency can be seen in the traditions of the Vatican and other Italian institutions. Apparently, this avoidance of uncertain situations is true, although it does vary depending on the location. Northern Italy tends to be more accepting of risks than the south are which could stem from the influence that big business has in cities like Milan.

Italy and the United States score similarly in terms of power distance; I read on the Hofstede dimensions that, like Americans, Italians dislike rigid hierarchy and this is especially true for the younger generation. Judging from Hofstede insights there would seem to be some degree of a struggle between the older and younger generations on how they feel about power distance. Being a student myself, my thoughts turn to the relationship that Italian students have with their professors (especially if younger students want a closer relationship with the authority figures who try to keep their distance). Despite what I was able to find online I found through my talking to my mentor that the professors at Cattolica were often very friendly and often shared stories with their students sprinkled throughout their lectures, much like professors at North Central do. 

I asked what the biggest difference was between American and Italian cultures which turned out to be our relationship with time and the way that people got around. I will start with the difference in how the two cultures view time. I was told that it takes some adjusting to get used to people always being late, apparently class never started on time because that was the professor's way of accommodating for the students that were late (over half of the class). The same went for things like appointments which almost never started on time; often beginning a full thirty minutes after the decided upon a time. 

Traveling around the city of Milan was also different than moving around in America is. Chicago has great public transportation for America, but getting from point A to point B in Milan is much easier. In Milan, there are plenty of buses and trains to get around but more often than not I will find myself walking; the university is right in the heart of Milan and it is very convenient to walk everywhere. Traveling out of the country is easy too, trains go all over Europe and they are often much, much faster than their counterparts in America.

My mentor was accepted by their Italian friend group which was really great to hear but they did say that they were often plied with questions about American stereotypes. I don't think that this is too much different than the questions that American students will often ask their exchange student friends about their home countries so in this way I think that explaining American culture would be enjoyable. But where I think Italian’s exposure to American culture differs from our exposure to other foreign nations is that Italian get much of the American knowledge from tv, which can oftentimes be very stereotypical and false; in this way, I can see how explaining or refuting stereotypes too often would get tiresome. 

Source: Variety

My mentor brought up a couple things that they wish that they knew before they left, some of which is how to dress, excessive use of cash, and Italians time preference. I'll start with time preference which I already detailed above but in summary, if you're invited to dinner at 8pm, show up at 8:30 at the earliest. Secondly, Italians use cash much more than most Americans do which surprised me because credit is common here in America but I am glad that I know that so I can plan accordingly. Lastly fashion. I was very disappointed to find that apparently, Italians do not wear sweatpants, at least in public. This last piece of fashion advice I am grateful for because I often wear sweatpants, especially in cold weather. 

Some things not to do in Italy are tipping large amounts at restaurants (I can see this cultural norm being uncomfortable because, in the United States, it is considered rude to not tip your host). Secondly, try not to use a credit card while in Italy, many small shops do not often accept cards, which could be awkward if you don't have any cash to make up for it. The final DONT on my list has already been said, but I do not expect things to be on time. 

I also wanted to get some advice and talk about what to pack in general. Should I pack more than I think I will need or less? The best way to pack is light, Milan is a huge city and has most of what we are accustomed to and if not, then it is often possible to find products that are similar. Having said that, there were some cosmetic items that my mentor wished that they had brought, as Italy might have the same product but it might be just different enough to be annoying. A fact that I am glad to have learned prior to arriving in Milan is that Milan is a pretty fashion-conscious city, so I will be sure to pack more than t-shirts. Also, Milan’s climate varies greatly throughout the year because of the city’s proximity to the mountains; variations as such will require a diverse wardrobe, but I plan on being selective as to what I actually bring from America to Italy and will leave some clothes to buy in Italy.

Source: Fashionista

After hearing my mentor talk about their experience in Italy I was surprised to hear that Italians do not tip, or tip very little at the most. The thought of not showing my gratitude through tipping seems so rude and I feel like it will be so uncomfortable at first. A second talking point that I found surprising was Milan’s sense of fashion and their aversion to sweatpants (most likely because of my attachment to them, especially in the winter months). Despite my surprise, I anticipate on shopping for some new clothes in preparation for the trip.

[biofunmy]

It’s the Anniversary of Everything!

By any measure, the summer of ’69 was, as the kids say today, “a lot.”

June had the Stonewall riots, a landmark moment in the modern gay rights movement. July, the moon landing. August, the grisly Manson murders, followed by the endless mud of Woodstock.

These events have been fodder for countless songs, movies, university courses, history books and romance novels. And now, in 2019, they have begot another special summer: of 50th-anniversary celebrations that are public, elaborate and full of nostalgia. Millions of people from around the world are joining in, along with sneaker designers, toothbrush companies, hotels, museums and news organizations.

Far be it for us to deflate the spirits of those, say, dancing in constellation-printed rompers and drinking Budweiser at the Space Center Houston a couple of weeks ago. But then to happen upon less momentous commemorations, like a copy of People magazine celebrating the 30th anniversary of the movie “When Harry Met Sally” at the corner newsstand, is to wonder: Just what is the point of marking them? Is doing so essential somehow for society’s psychological well-being, an attempt to collectivize experience increasingly diffused by the distractions of the internet? Or just more chances for corporations to sell us stuff?

Also, what’s with the nice round numbers (or, more specifically, multiples of five)? “We need to point out the strangeness of it, the peculiarness of it, the fact that no one voices dissent in any media forum, to say ‘We are overdoing this’ or ‘Let’s talk about something else this weekend,’” said William Johnston, a history professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the author of the 1991 book “Celebrations: The Cult of Anniversaries in Europe and the United States Today.” “Something gets wiped out because it’s not an even number. Hitler’s assassination attempt, it was 51 years ago, so we won’t pay attention to it.”

Many people seem to enjoy celebrating significant anniversaries of cultural occasions almost as much as those of their own marriages.

Nineteen percent more people visited Space Center Houston in the first week of July than the same week last year, according to the organization.

Five million people (more than half of the New York City’s entire population) attended the Stonewall 50 celebrations that culminated the last week in June; 200,000 of them, about 130,000 more than last year, walked in the official parade, wearing rainbow outfits and Lady Liberty costumes, according to Chris Frederick, the executive director of NYC Pride.

“Invitations for Pride events were coming from every brand, every hotel, every bar, every toothpaste,” said Ross Matsubara, 34, a publicist and style director in New York who is gay. “I think if I was an older cis male who isn’t as prideful, I might be sick of it.”

Turn it On Again

One of the main reasons this hype is happening now, said Carolyn Kitch, a professor of media and communications at Temple University, is because these Big Three events were among the first to have vibrant, cohesive footage (and much of it in color). “There are iconic photographs, iconic news coverage that every television station and newspaper wants to use,” she said. “It makes the stories take on a greater importance.”

Mr. Johnston pointed out that “100-year anniversaries only have black and white photos. That’s why 1969 is just ideal. All the television stations have tapes of Woodstock, Stonewall, the moon landing. You can ignore it for the weekend of the anniversary if you want, but it’s the same choice as choosing to turn off the World Series.”

People also live longer now, and are in better health in their 70s and 80s. That means there are a lot of people who were adults during the original event and want to revisit the moment 50 years later (perhaps more clearheadedly).

In 1969, Steven Janney Smith was a 19-year-old with long, unruly hair and a wardrobe that included a rhinestone-collared T-shirt. He remembers driving all night from a party in Detroit at 100 miles an hour to get to Woodstock for the tail end of the festival. “I was at a house party, and I just decided, ‘I want to go,’” said Mr. Smith, now 69 and an interventional radiologist in Chicago. “I can’t remember what bands we saw, but I remember it stunk. The festival was in a cow pasture, which nobody ever mentions in rhapsodic stories about that sacred gathering.”

Still, the anniversary is giving him a chance to pull out his photos and figure out how to get some of that freedom back. “There were no cellphones then, no one knew where you were. I didn’t have any place to be, I didn’t have any worries in the world,” Mr. Smith said. “That was a type of freedom that I need to get back now.” He paused: “I need to find somewhere to celebrate this anniversary with people who get it.”

One group he might not want to party with are the younger generations, for whom the monoculture is a distant concept, flocking to these celebrations.

For some it’s a fascination for events that happened before their time. “I’ve always joked my biggest regret in life was not being born in time for the moon landing,” said Stefanie Waldek, 27, a writer, editor and digital producer based in Brooklyn who traveled to Houston for the lunar landing anniversary. “I think that the moon landing was the greatest achievement of mankind, and I wanted to be surrounded by people who made it possible.”

Ms. Waldek met astronauts from the Space Shuttle program and listened to flight controllers who were part of the missions speak. She also met current administrators who are plotting upcoming missions back to the moon and then to Mars. She visited the newly restored mission control center made famous by the movie “Apollo 13.” Still, “I don’t necessarily think that being in Houston for the 50th anniversary could ever compare to watching the landing live in 1969,” she wrote in an email. ”But I did feel a great sense of gravitas.”

For others “milestoning,” as we’ll call it, might offer a chance to escape their current troubling reality of ecological emergency and mass shootings. “The frenzy of collective remembering supplies an excuse briefly to forget everything else,” said Mr. Johnston.

Emilie Aries, 31, who owns a professional development company based in Denver, will spend the Woodstock anniversary weekend at her in-laws’ farm in North Branch, N.Y. Her father-in-law was at the original event, and he’s inviting his peers over for a party with a local band. Guests have been instructed to bring photos of themselves from the ’60s to display on a tree.

“I want to be around all these hippies and talk to them about how they rebelled against the establishment,” Ms. Aries said. “It is a counter to the hate we are seeing from the current administration today. I want to be reminded of the power of love and see if I can take away any lessons.”

Mr. Smith is excited that some millennials want to learn from his generation. “I always thought they see baby boomers as some sort of fossils who screwed up things for them like climate change,” he said.

The Rainbow Reconnection

The main argument against anniversary celebrations, particularly the glitzy 50ths, is that they’ve been corrupted by corporate interests.

Corporate sponsors of Stonewall 50 included T-Mobile, Mastercard, Hyatt, Macy’s, Target, Delta, Diet Coke, Unilever, Nordstrom, MAC, Skyy vodka, Omnicom Group and many, many others. In late July, a month after the anniversary celebration, there was still a sign on a bus stop in the West Village from TD Bank announcing itself as “A Proud Partner of Stonewall 50.”

“Commercial enterprises are exploiting this event to call attention to their product,” Mr. Johnston said. “I think most people can see right through that.”

But while Mr. Matsubara noted rainbows at a WeWork, an “old fuddy-duddy dress shop” and on Seamless, he was untroubled. “Some might be doing it for the wrong reasons, but I also feel these brands and organizations have the right to celebrate in their own way,” he said. “Everyone else is.”

Including, perhaps most tellingly, media organizations.

Warner Bros Television is honoring the 25th anniversary of “Friends” (didn’t we just honor the 20th?) by staging a month long pop-up of Central Perk, its fictional cafe, in SoHo. Starting Sept. 7, there will be set recreations, photo ops and, of course, a chance to buy merchandise from the on-site store.

Paramount Pictures and Fathom Events have announced they will be screening the original 1979 movie “Star Trek” in theaters for two days in September to commemorate the movie’s 40th anniversary (this following Columbia’s successful revival of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in 2017).

As it goes monthly this month, Entertainment Weekly magazine, always a chronicler of significant cultural anniversaries, will probably be doing so even more. Besides allowing media to relish its own past successes, anniversaries give television stations, film production companies and, yes, journalists a break from having to create new content all the time.

“It’s very convenient,” said Mr. Johnston. “You can decide what you want to cover five years, 10 years, 50 years ahead. Everyone can decide what we will be celebrating in 2029.”

Sahred From Source link Fashion and Style

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[republicstandard]

Why Civic Nationalism Fails: Groups, Biology and Ideology

A common claim amongst civic nationalists and mainstream conservatives relates to putting ideology before ancestry, believing that if a select group of people thinks in a certain way, genes aren’t important. The issue with this line of thought is in the inherent neglect of inheritance of political views, how beliefs travel generation to generation, the environment they’re raised in and the lineage which biologically constructs their sets of beliefs, ingrained into their genetic code by birth.

That is of a birthrate, the heritability of political views -genopolitics- that goes so often ignored by the right and the left, pushed aside to focus on their perceptions of what’s important in America, and the Western world in general. They claim to care for the country they inhabit, for Europe and Northern America. Problems arise when it comes down to receiving what they so fiercely desire: ideological homogeneity and societal conformity.

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Do you want good people, well-dressed, mannered, talkative, open-minded, and even straight up traditionalist varieties of people? If that’s your cause, you’re going to be disappointed in certain demographics spread across the world. The prevalence of these demographics is rapidly increasing within the United States, Western Europe, and even Oceania. This is because of mass immigration from relatively impoverished states into those made wealthy by the people who live there. It is not for them to help their own societies improve; rather flee and claim their opposition - the West - is cruel in not letting them in. It’s a cycle of victimhood displayed to granting access to many peoples who aren’t functional on the same capacity as indigenous Europeans.

Provided you’re a Republican or conservative, if it’s not genes and instead you want mere ideology, you’re going to find it only in scarcity amongst African Americans, Hispanics, East Asians, Indians, and Amerindians. You will find it in plenitude in districts of white America, and in the European American peoples. For different ethnic groups of Aryan, they have a tendency to vote for the Republican party, hold conservative viewpoints, and generally reject politically sensitive dogma utilized by wealthy politicians and bankers campaigning for non-Western immigration to the European continent. Whites, in a collective sense, have this unique tendency to turn their heads away from propaganda aimed at exterminating their people, with the exception of the self-hating clusters of liberals and globalists who wish for their own demise.

What had become of Brazil? A country which was once majority European, now mixed in with mestizoes, Amerindians, and descendants of West African slaves, fallen to low living standards and forgotten its colonial European identity. Now, that’s not to justify colonialism of any sort. It’s to say that the long, captivating history of the nation under Portuguese rule has now been undone. Brazil's reputation as, almost, part of the West, has been tarnished in the most disrespectful manner imaginable. For a country which had sought independence for so long has now been reduced to what America will be like in 25 years from now. When Europeans become a minority in America by 2043, the savagery will only increase as identity politics continue to divide the nation at an even more rapid rate, causing what will be the equivalent of an all-out civil war.

Just as the West Africans are granted affirmative action in Brazil for nothing more than being born with a certain set of racial traits, in the USA affirmative action might be an even more depressing mechanism used against a country’s white residents to punish them for their creativity, societal contributions, and efforts toward better national development. Meanwhile, non-whites are rewarded even more for rape, murder, theft, and destroying once prosperous predominantly European cityscapes and neighbourhoods.

South Africa has a white population of only 7.8% as of 2018, yet has the worst establishment of affirmative action in the world. Affirmative action is not a method of ending discrimination as it’s often phrased to be, but instead a tool handed to people who can’t produce on their own, granting them undeserved privileges and victories they didn’t fairly win. Nowadays, as the West falls into the pit of diversity and multiculturalism, losing what made it great to begin with, its native peoples and their unique cultures, affirmative action, anti-European discrimination policies in private businesses and corporations, and the refusal to prosecute actual racists of violent hate crimes against European victims (see Britain and Sweden), will only grow in tandem with racial diversity.

You can’t advocate for a state ideology or ideological homogeneity with demographics of people in large quantities who reject such principles and values and expect to prosper. I’m not a conservative, nor a liberal, but it appears that neither side will be getting what they want. Groups from the third world are the most conservative, traditionalist, and reactionary people on the planet, completely ruining any societies founded on liberalism, enlightenment, and liberty. They wish for others to conform to their ideas of morality in the most violent way imaginable, nothing to do with democracy or debate, but by means of sword and gun. In terms of playing the victim card whenever the chance is given, in the West these same people do not and are not going to have the desired conservative attitudes and respect for European traditionalist political parties the way natives will. They’ll continue to be coddled by the left for being minorities, as miscegenation and anti-civility are promoted, and identitarianism for European natives is crushed.

The truth is, I don’t want a society where moral values and traditionalism are enforced or pressured upon people, which is one of my major issues with the right. I want a socially free and liberated nation which puts its own people first, where its inhabitants are proud to be part of the culture and territory that they are, and wouldn’t dare think of sacrificing their desires and needs for that of people wish look nothing like them. A society should indeed be based on liberal values and equal authority given to each inhabitant of the same state. Traditionalism, while not mandatory, will be a crucial element in the development of identitarianism and ethnocentrism within these enlightened homelands, built upon a united collectivism for ancestry and heritage. And this same model of progressivism should be granted to any group of people who long for such a homeland.

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Nobody will be happy with the results coming in on the day we find out England as a whole is just 49% White British. A beautiful country filled with beautiful people now reduced to group conflict and prejudice perpetrated against its indigenous race. The native English are already made to feel inferior by a society which has now been colonized by people who already have a home to return to, a place for people just like them that they’ve willingly walked away from.

No matter which direction the West falls, whether left or right, whether Westerns in the future become more traditionalist or progressive, or both in certain aspects of their inner philosophies and mindsets, one thing is for sure. The anti-identitarian "conservatives" who advocated for the eradication of ethnic and racial quotas, raged at ethnonationalism, and demanded only ideology to be the coining principle of a prosperous society, they will be hanged by a mob. Ben Shapiro, especially. These people, Jordan B. Peterson, Milo Yiannopoulos, Dennis Prager, and every other unlikable face on the stereotypical right, will be rounded up by a posse, and lynched by either left-wing or right-wing identitarians.

Aren't lynchings something we should wish to avoid?

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