#which he can do because he’s like rich and famous so he has the resources to do so

[hawnks]

one thing about this story is that im struggling to find the edge of how deeply fucked up a character can be before a reader starts to hate them

[slaviclore]

Chopin biographies from 2010+

keeping track of my chopinology resources, and I figured someone might find it useful -- this is not an exhaustive list of available literature, just stuff I've personally read, and I will be adding to it over time.

Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions (2020)

by Annik LaFarge

English language, audiobook available

Summary: This is a partial biography of Chopin from the perspective of his composition of the funeral march. This book is written in a super engaging, conversational style, and it comes with a fun multimedia web site with music and videos for context.

Major pro: What sets this book apart from the other biographies in the field is LaFarge's exceptional empathy for her subjects. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is for a field that has been at times unnecessarily cruel to some of the humans in the story. That's partly why this book is my top recommendation for anyone wanting to understand Chopin's contentious relationship with his famous life partner of 9-ish years, George Sand (a woman using a man's name).

Major con: Using the composition of Chopin's arguably most famous work as the blueprint of his life story works well organizationally, but it doesn't actually add much to our understanding of the funeral march itself, beyond its personal impact on the author or, perhaps more broadly, the modern music lover.

Best for: anyone just wanting to read something engaging about music and history. If you don't know anything about Chopin, the history of Poland, or the funeral march, this is perfect.

Chopin. Miłość i pasja (2020)

by Iwona Kienzler

Polish language, no translation available as far as I know, audiobook (in Polish) available

Summary: This is a full biography with emphasis on the various romances that have been linked to Chopin over the last 200 years or so, real or not, even the ones we're not talking about anymore.

Major pro: There has been so much flowery language dedicated to the many and varied romances that Chopin did -- or maybe did or definitely didn't but we still talked about it a lot -- engage in, this book is refreshing for its sober tone and healthy skepticism on the subject. The author tells us what we know, what we don't know, and gives a historical perspective of the shifting notions the field has entertained over time.

Major con: The biography is fairly standard and doesn't expand the field much.

Best for: the casual reader of history, or the serious reader of the history of shipping.

Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times (2018)

by Alan Walker

English language, audiobook available

Summary: This is a full biography meant to encompass not only the entire course of Chopin's life but also the relevant social, political and cultural environment, the fates of people important to the story, and the musical context.

Major pro: Walker's effort to recreate the rich historical and social background of Chopin's life is unique in the field for its scope and detail, i.e., he gives a lot of information where most biographers stick only to summaries of critical events. This fact, as well as Walker's efforts to introduce or emphasize unknown or marginalized resources and documents, make his book an important blueprint for anyone studying Chopin, or even the early 19th century overall.

Major con: Walker's interpretations of Chopin's correspondence are dated and dense, which is a problem because the correspondence is the most important primary source we have (the musical compositions cannot be directly analyzed for concrete meaning). Most of Walker's takes on the content of the letters can be traced to interpretations made by previous biographers (whether or not he cites these is a toss-up), so it's not like anyone has ever done better per se -- however, the field now has the resources to do this work more perceptively. Walker had the opportunity (and I believe the responsibility) to step up to do that, but because he didn't, his biography was outdated the day it came off the press.

Best for: the reader already somewhat familiar with Chopin's biography, who is interested in developing a more complete image of the story, but who is also able to make critical judgments on the historical analysis, or at least recognize where such were made by the author. Also good for historians.

Chopin's Piano: In Search of the Instrument that Transformed Music (2018)

by Paul Kildea

English language, audiobook available

Summary: This is a partial biography of Chopin from the perspective of his composition of the Preludes and one of the pianos on which he composed them. The history picks up long after his death with a partial biography of Wanda Landowska, the famous pianist who eventually came to own the piano, through WWII.

Major pro: This approach is unique in Chopin biography for addressing his impact on the difficult history of the 20th century, with Nazis stealing the piano and Landowska's efforts to get it back. This creates depth of perspective where Chopin biography usually ends shortly after his death. It's a different type of story than the field is used to.

Major con: Because the scope is so broad, this book gives less of Chopin's own story overall, and sometimes the thread feels disjointed.

Best for: casual readers looking for an interesting, well-written story, or a historian interested in WWII-time chopinology.

Chopin: Prince of the Romantics (2010)

by Adam Zamoyski

English language, no audiobook

Summary: This is an updated edition of Zamoyski's 1979 Chopin biography (which I did not read, so I can't compare). This is my personal recommendation for a casual reader looking for a full biography, Chopin birth to Chopin death, and a good read.

Major pro: engagingly written, hits all the important points, and contains ample citations to direct the reader to major resources in the field.

Major con: contains some mythology that historians wouldn't take seriously today.

Best for: the casual reader, no previous Chopin knowledge required.

[bigskydreaming]

Re: Alfred, does he think of HIMSELF as family/parent? I find it interesting because it reminds me of nanny dynamics where the employers/rich family THINK they have a super intimate and “like family” relationship, but really they ignore/downplay the fact that it’s a job for the employee. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t inherently intimate to do that type of caregiving, but I wonder for Alfred if he always has to remind Bruce/Dick/himself that he’s collecting a paycheck at the end of the month.

It depends on the writer. Like he definitely HAS expressed - explicitly - that he sees himself as Dick's other parent, even to the point of making Dick the recipient of his own will, but I hesitate to play into that one too much as pretty much the only one to go to that level of explicitness was Taylor, A Known Panderer, and like. The sincerity/genuineness wasn't there for me. On the writing's part, not Alfred's.

But for the most part I DO fall on the side of Alfred does seem himself as family more than employee - I think there is a degree of, hmm, not wish fulfillment per se but willfullness perhaps, in writers writing the most famous employee in comics as part of the billionaire family rather than examine the optics of the very different positions Alfred operates from versus the members of the Wayne family. I think there are extenuating elements, such as the fact that Alfred was written from pretty early on as having been friends with Thomas Wayne to the extent that he was made the executor of Thomas' estate....so even as he raised Bruce, who was Thomas' actual heir, he had a great deal of control and influence over the Wayne resources rather than being subject to them as would be the case in most real world parallels....

So ultimately, I do think it would be disingenuous to look at what we have in the text in most cases and interpret it as Alfred having more distance from the family than the family has from him, and ultimately just perceiving his position as a job. What distance Alfred admittedly DOES put between himself and Bruce and his children has more to do with just his personality and his adherence to a certain degree of aloofness as a way of maintaining some control in the chaos of his life and the general....Waynes Being Waynes of it all.

His influence within the family is pretty much unmatched though, and you can see hallmarks of how he raised Bruce in how Bruce interacts with his own children, even as we can also see in a lot of instances how Alfred regrets elements of how he raised Bruce and so makes a point to be different with the kids. But I think both Bruce and Alfred have such complicated relationships with their honest emotions and each other that Alfred never figured out how to express to Bruce that he regretted how he raised him for fear it would come across as Alfred saying he regretted raising him, full stop.

Its interesting though - there have definitely been times when Bruce has leaned on Alfred's 'employee nature' to get him to back off when Bruce feels particularly threatened by points Alfred is making and the emotional influence they're both aware of him wielding over Bruce - which always made it a possibility that Bruce would cave on any of these points - so there have been various not awesome story beats where BRUCE is the one to express some idea that Alfred is just the help and should know his place.....but Alfred usually is written as only backing down there when he wants to. As in, there are times when all he has to do is raise an artfully British eyebrow to evoke to Bruce that he knows exactly what Bruce is doing there, and he is Not Impressed and simply will NOT be backing down, thanks ever so much.

But then there are other times when its like Alfred 'takes the hint' or whatever and does cede to Bruce's man of the house bullshit - BUT in almost all those cases, I would argue that its not because Alfred really fears repercussions of standing his ground with Bruce, its more that Bruce going this route enables Alfred to back down and not push things more than he wanted to begin with.....like I mentioned in that other post's tags, unfortunately we don't talk enough about how Alfred likes to pull the ripcord out of especially tenuous situations within the Wayne family dynamic. Because ultimately I think he's just not really comfortable picking a side other than the son he directly raised all on his own - the one who is pretty much solely a product of his own upbringing and his direct responsibility, whereas the kids are all majority raised by Bruce even if you see Alfred as a second parent to them - but at the same time, he's still keenly aware of when Bruce is in the wrong and not willing to back him on a lot of these moments either. So he takes the out, and in the process, enables Bruce in many of his worst moments even though ultimately I'd argue that's more about Alfred than it is about Bruce.

[quel-bon-idee]

I know I literally have never really posted about cr, but I’m about to do a lukewarm take! Narrative sadness doesn’t need to always come at the expense of a characters life. In a world where we have the ability to tell stories of tales beyond the human experience, why choose to create stories like this? If both Fearne and Orym die next Thursday I will stop watching the campaign. I have autism and characters being replaced, but then being played by the same person upsets me to the point where I’ve suffered severe mental breakdowns due to this happening in campaign 1 (Scanlan) & 2 (Molly). Not to slight Matt, but also I will (he’s fucking rich and famous calm down). As a personal critique, this fight was a railroaded tpk essentially. I know the feeling of having your players on the brink of tpk when really you just wanted a difficult fight for the stress and it sucks, but truly they were not given any options after 1. making really great choices during the siege, and 2. only given the "submit ex machina" after Matt chose to have the character specifically take repeated attacks to make sure the pc’s died despite mechanically not really understanding that an unconscious person is different than dead. It’s mainly just a question of why? Already having narrative issues at the beginning with the slow pace of staying in a town too long, and then Bassuras and the anime side quest of it all. Plus bringing Dusk in to push narrative threads, but overloading the viewer with information instead. So why? Why make a fight that is quite honestly hard to watch. There’s no back and forth and it just feels like a dm wailing on their pc’s for fun and that fucking sucks (which honestly, Matt has a habit of doing and maybe I’m just autismo and reading it wrong but I get the vibe that it’s a lot of player vs dm sometimes idk. Maybe it’s me). I understand it’s improv, but if you can stick that high of a challenge rating boss on the party because you want to, you clearly have the power to railroad the other shit to make it enjoyable. The fact of the matter is they are not really "playing dnd" anymore. They’ve risen to a level of success where they have resources no home game ever will. They are storytelling through this medium. They have an audience to impress. Hell, they fucking have a writers team. They are telling a story simply through the medium of dnd. This means that you should take liberties to try and craft a story that is compelling and satisfying. In real dnd games you don’t need to do this, but if you’re fucking critical role? With a tv show and merch store? You gotta put in the effort

[sharecreators]

3A Project Creative Insights and Sprout Program at Share Creators

Dunhuang Chen has told us 3A project creative experience at Share Creators, shared some personal insights about working at Share Creators, and spoke about the Share Creators Sprout Program.

Hi, I’m Dunhuang Chen! I have been working for Share Creators for almost a year now since the end of 2021. Now I've been in 2D team, mainly doing character design, environmental design, 2D rendering and so on and I am a Leading artist now.

How did I become a designer?

The American sci-fi blockbusters and Japanese anime I watched when I was young had a profound influence on my future growth. Especially in the 1980s, many Japanese Cyberpunk cartoons, such as Akira, Bubble gum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell, etc. The avant-garde design and fascinating world view in them were my spiritual food when I was young. The later Star Wars is undoubtedly the leader of my temple of faith. The scenes, props, vehicles and character designs in it are unprecedented. The Matrix and Blade Runner are all works that I am deeply addicted to. These childhood interests led me all the way to become a concept designer, so that I could design sci-fi movie games myself in the future. After graduating from high school, I went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), the top art institution in China. Because of being obsessed with these avant-garde conceptual designs, I finally chose animation as a less traditional major, which can give full play to my rich imagination and creative desire.

I also had a legendary experience when I came to Art Center College of Design（ACCD）, because my brother and I were both in Central Academy of Fine Arts（CAFA）, he was an industrial design major, and his teachers often used Scott Robertson's works as examples, so I first knew that he was a legendary teacher of ACCD and the founder of the entertainment design program. Later, in the graduation exhibition of CAFA, the dean of the Department of Automobile came and liked our graduation design very much. He told us that he graduated from ACCD, so he recommended us. If you are keen on conceptual design, I think ACCD is the best choice.

Therefore, my brother and I decided to study in Art Center College of Design. We chose the direction of entertainment in illustration. Here I finally have the opportunity to systematically contact and learn the top design in the industry, and communicate face to face with the legendary designers in the industry.

The 3A project experience at Share Creators

After graduation, I participated in the design work of several major projects, such as Treyarch's Call of Duty Black Ops 4 character ART, which was quite challenging. As a fresh graduate, it took me some time to adapt to the style needs of customers. After that, I did character design for Destiny 2 and scene architecture and vehicle design for Lucas Film. And vehicle designs for domestic sci-fi movies. These famous IP designs have accumulated a lot of industry experience for my future work and growth.

In 2021, I joined Share Creators and embarked on a new journey. Here at Share Creators, there's a great atmosphere to work with. There are so many exciting 3A projects, basically every artist can choose what they're good at, and there's demand across the pipeline, whether you're a 2D, 3D, Modeler or VFX group, you can always find a place. At the same time, Share Creators is very friendly to new recruits. At the beginning, AD will give me some test tasks, and there will be a process of gradual adaptation and improvement. Especially after a period of cooperation, there will be a performance evaluation, where AD will point out your existing problems, and you can come up with any needs at any time. We are all very active at work and often share interesting information on the platform. When we need any help, AD will allocate human resources at any time to help any artist who needs help. New recruits never work alone here!

In addition, many artists from all over the world work in different time zones, and some of them can work from home. In short, everyone can find their best working hours and maintain high efficiency, which was a big surprise to me. Personally, I really liked the hybrid office model here at Share Creators.

What's more important to me is that newcomers get a quick access to a number of prestigious 3A programs here!

I went straight to Diablo immortal character and weapon design when I first joined the 2D team, as a world-famous IP，I really understand how Rigorous Diablo's design standards are. It requires highly artistic skills and Aesthetics. At first, I even questioned my design abilities for that. The feedback of first draft was not so bad. It points out that my design was too narrow, safe. It needed to be more ambitious and exaggerated. For example, my designs were more like for movie rather than game. Character’s form language and details are lack of exaggeration. However, the customer provided accurate reference and later I carefully studied Blizzard Diablo's design philosophy. My design progress became more and more smoother after I fully studying the style of their work. I gained Deep understanding of Blizzard's "over-design" philosophy form this project. Blizzard Diablo's design was a combination of exaggeration and Rationality. It was beautiful and reasonable. I really enjoyed the process of designing Diablo armor and weapons.

A few months later, I began work on the Lord of Ring illustrate project. I personally love the Lord of the Rings IP, both the movies and the novels, so I am very excited and proud to be involved with this famous IP. This project is also a new challenge for me, because illustration is different from single design, which requires a series of complex artistic skills such as skillful use of colors and shadows in all aspects. In addition, I have worked on a number of 3A projects such as Garena Free Fire and PUBG: Mobile X The Boys co-promotion. All in all, there are a large number of 3A projects that Share Creators have been deeply involved in producing, and there are plenty of opportunities to participate in major IP projects here at Share Creators.

How do new artists get rapid growth?

At Share Creators, there are a wide range of artistic projects in different styles, from realistic to cartoon, where each artist can find his or her most suitable position and give full play to his or her talents. In addition, the artists here get together like a big family and cooperate with each other to solve problems. They are not independent, and each artist can always seek help and support from other colleagues. For example, AD checks my progress and achievements, and gives me guidance and suggestions at any time. In this way, I can not only ensure the smooth completion of daily work, but also learn experience and new skills from the guidance of senior.

At the same time, the company has a lot of internal training courses, coverage from 3d to 2d, 3d technology, such as different modeling, lighting, rigging, composition, color, etc.. For artists who are very specialized in a certain technology, they can learn a variety of skills to make up for their shortcomings and ensure that they can still improve their abilities during work. As for me, I volunteered to go to internal training classroom every Friday, where I learned very useful art skills.

It is worth mentioning that here I also get the hands-on instruction of artists like Sasha Beliaev. Sasha Beliaev is a legendary artist that I admired very much when I was a student. It is my great honor to work with this legendary artist, which makes me unforgettable in my life. I still remember a task he assigned to me at that time. Every time I made a change, he would personally guide me and share his work process experience with me. For several times, he did a demo directly by video and voice.

In addition, there are omnipotent ADs like Saeed and Magda, who are on hand to provide artistic guidance. I am very lucky to work with these legendary artists on major IP projects, and I can greatly improve my strength in doing the projects. I can learn new experience and industry skills every day here.

At Share Creators, if you want to try or learn different content, artists can contact and learn the content of the whole business line through job rotation system. I believe this flexible job rotation system can enrich employees' familiarity and cognition of the whole business line, so as to improve their comprehensive ability in an all-round way. Personally, I have been working as a front-line designer at present, but I am gradually involved in certain project management, so I am free to change positions, and AD will provide help and training, so I don't feel too much pressure. Here, everyone has a great opportunity to manage art projects and improve their management ability, which is really precious for artists. These are all the immediate benefits that Share Creators Sprout Program has brought to me.

Insights on design and creation

In terms of design, I personally believe that inspiration can come from any design that moves you in life, whether it is the conceptual design of others, the design of nature, or the design of reality. My creative idea is to define myself first -- what do I want to create? A character? Mecha? Creature? Secondly, you can ask yourself 5 W, that is, why, what, when, who, where. When you've answered these five questions, you've built your framework. The rest is the excitement, the occasional feeling of pain or confusion, but ultimately the joy of the creative process! Each in-depth design is to improve their original idea, but also in the continuous exploration to find some design logic flaws or impassability. Sometimes they even make radical changes, realizing that the original design was not rigorous enough to find new and more interesting ideas. Like a hobbit's unexpected journey, it may end up in a design that is not what you intended. Isn't that interesting?

In terms of creation style, I like to combine some conflicting elements, such as new and old materials, different modeling languages and different pattern patterns. For example, when I design Sci-Fi characters, I like to combine some classical clothing styles, but the tailoring materials may be very sci-fi. The strong contrast of modeling language gives people a sense of conflict of The Times, which is refreshing. Sometimes the consideration is not only simple visual impact, a lot of it is how to make your design fresh in a variety of cultural backgrounds, but also conform to the aesthetic logic. Therefore, I often do this kind of challenging work, sometimes it takes a long time to explore the style, sometimes it takes days to work on a detail, and I love the feeling of exploration.

As for creation skills, I believe that as a professional concept designer, basic artistic skills are the most basic, followed by design ability. It is undoubtedly very important to skillfully use reference and research. For example, during breakdown reference, I will extract the features that best summarize the characteristics of the reference, and then abstract and simplify them into visual elements to be integrated into my design. In this way, I can make my design achieve an unexpected wonderful feeling through the clever combination!

Advice for new recruits

There are plenty of opportunities to work with big artists and work on famous IPs. It is very important to exercise your skills, improve your professional quality, and keep a love of learning and the pursuit of progress. You're about to embark on an extraordinary journey with Share Creators!

[golbrocklovely]

I know that I bring it up without a reason, but I remember that there was a conversation here about snc giving “advices” for life, well mostly Sam or whatever the heck is that, but I gotta say that i think those advices should be said rather by Colby than Sam. And my reason to it is that Colby actually struggles with self-acceptance ( or struggled i think) ,depression for sure and with anxiety. I know that everyone has different struggles, but i think it’s no doubt that for a lot of people out there depression and anxiety is something really familiar. I am one of those people.

And that might feel weird, but seeing someone famous&rich that struggles with something so similar lar that I struggle with, while living completely different life and Them opening about it and telling how they overcome it or how they deal with it, gives me kinda strength. Because it shows me that we are all the same and that I am not the only one here out there who is afraid talking with people, who doesn’t have many many times energy to even get out of the bed and do anything, who many times because of this loose people around me , because they do not understand, so i end up being lonely. It gives me kinda feeling that people who supposingly should be the happiest people out there, because they have money and fame are not and they understand what I feel. It gives me hope, that maybe one day, I will overcome everything that right now feels too big to me and frightens me .

I would really like to see Colby opening about it and giving us some advices how he deal with it. I also have a feeling that he would word it very differently than Sam and actually think through what to say and how to say it, based on HIS personal experience.

But ofc we cannot force him to do this, if he doesn’t feel comfortable. I just think that his words would have more meaning and wouldn’t be same repetitive advices used for another merch ( 💀)

colby has never been diagnosis with depression or anxiety, and outright refuses to give advice on depression. he usually just tells fans to go see a therapist or to seek help, which honestly is the best advice to give someone in that situation. personally, i do think he struggles or has some form of depression, just bc a lot of things he's talked about being his darker/sadder moments remind me of stuff i used to do as well. but i do agree that he definitely struggles with some form of anxiety and self-image issues.

that being said, i think sam struggles too. the problem is, i think bc sam states things so matter-of-factly when he gives advice, he ends up sounding like he's on a high horse, or that there's no possible way for him to be wrong. also, i think there is a lack of recognizing his privilege that makes it hard to listen to him. bc he assumes we're all playing the same game with the same amount of time/resources, when that just isn't the case. and sometimes he can come across as a bit cold with his delivery, i think. colby is very cautious about what he says, especially in recent years, and also will outright admit "this might not work for everyone, but this is what worked for me" and i think just that tone alone makes the advice he gives sound better.

i will say, colby's mom has depression (he talked about it extremely briefly in a live stream forever ago) so i think to some degree he's extremely sympathic towards those that struggle with mental health issues. i think he's a lot more empathic towards those that suffer. but it's not that sam doesn't care, i just think he thinks he's right about everything he says (or at least at times it can sound that way) and bc of that, it's very hard to listen to him.

if he wants to give advice on long lasting relationships or business, that's great. do that. but like… anything outside of that, maybe consider directing fans to someone else.

[psychreviews2]

Totem and Taboo

After Freud’s initial success, he was ready to start taking his early theories and advance them into other areas outside of Psychoanalysis, and to look deeply at the human condition. One of his most famous and influential books was Totem and Taboo which focused on comparing the mental life of primitive societies, their superstitions, their scapegoating, to that of modern individuals under his label of neurosis. With research from the then current anthropologists and Darwinism, Freud was able to connect his Oedipus theory to a psychoanalytic original sin, and began fleshing out early understandings of Narcissism which he later delved into. The book itself provides one of the best understandings of envy and human conflict in all literature.

Survival

In the ancient world being alone was the same as certain death. The need to be in a group ensured survival. Yet survival is also individual. With scarce resources and a short life span, it was necessary to get your food and sex all in a short period of time to ensure survival of the current generation and to create another generation. The cooperation of the different members of society required rules, regulations, punishments and rituals. The tribes and eventually civilizations were able to thrive when this balance was met and failed when weaknesses were exposed in wars and revolutions.

Self vs. Other

This friction between individual values and collective values becomes a major thread in Freud’s works until his death. How do we get our practical, sexual, and emotional needs satisfied without trampling on other people’s needs? Freud casts this in an emotional ambivalence. On one hand, we have veneration for people who are leaders that help us to survive, contrasted with the envy of their power to access privileges.

For example, when things are going well for me I like the leader more, even if there is no connection to their actions and my success. It changes quickly when my life is falling apart. The smiling leader just increases the envy of their privileges. The unconscious thought is that, “if the leader is doing good and I’m doing bad, then the leader is not doing a good job.”

Freud says, “savages are really behaving in just the same way with their kings when they ascribe to them power over rain and sunshine, wind and weather, and then depose them or kill them because Nature disappoints their hopes of a successful hunt or a rich harvest.”

Entitlement

As powerful as the leader was, their life or death was often on a thin edge when the supporters felt the leader’s magical powers were failing. Freud compares this idealization and devaluation to a paranoic who takes a person and puts all of their responsibility onto them to be a leader so they can blame all their misfortunes on them. It feels better to blame someone else than to take responsibility for your own success. That’s the difference between the hard work of making success and having it given to you.

With these insights it’s very easy to jump to the modern world of politics and backstabbing to see that very little has changed. When a politician fails to provide for their constituents, the envy of their privileges, and the contempt for their lack of success, leads to a regime change. In democracies the blame shifting leads to fights with words on TV, radio and social media. It was more aggressive in the past when blame shifting could include the leader trying to scapegoat someone with lesser power via human sacrifice, or involve a violent revolution to replace the current regime.

Temporary solidarity

The party afterwards was often a celebration of the new conquests that were made and also of the brief solidarity between the members of the new regime. The following crash into mournfulness was a grieving for the memories of success with the prior regime, and also the pressure that the new regime is now under. Can they do better than the last ones? If not, the new regime knows the consequences if they don’t.

Oedipus Complex

Here Freud tries to get at the heart of the earliest sin, which is children trying to replace their parents to access the rewards, and to gain their sexually desirable parent for themselves. The fighting creates a need for the Taboo. The Taboo of incest to Freud is a law to prevent inter-family fighting. To Freud this early taboo is the beginning of society and institutions. Individual desires can go any place, but to keep a society running smoothly, cultures and religions are created. Rituals of eating together, and sharing the same totem are rituals to establish cooperation and to prevent competition. Whether it is the Eucharist or an older ritual, people are trying to satisfy their private desires while making promises not to hurt or steal from each other. If we get enough of our desires met, it’s easier to cooperate. If we don’t, then there’s revolution.

Totem and Taboo

Freud’s example of how a Taboo works is a Totem and how it represents the spiritual and original father of the tribe. By refraining from having sex with people in the same totem group, conflict is reduced and cooperation increases. Another benefit for our ancestors is their avoidance of the consequences of incest and genetic weakness, even if this was achieved ignorantly. But this was the time of superstition and beliefs in magical powers.

Superstitions

One of the more outstanding parts of the book is Freud’s explanation of superstition, which is supported by animal experiments. How we come to magical thinking and superstition is partially our ignorance of science, but also the serendipity of results and our actions. In bird studies behaviourist psychologists were able to see birds performing strange rituals in hopes that food rewards would appear after such rituals. Every random behaviour that gets reinforced conditions the new ritual. A form of hope. With randomness in society it’s easy to see strange rituals regarding interpersonal relationships and what humans then believed was necessary for survival. Hope is transformed. It becomes a method to keep motivation to look for patterns of success in our world, even if there is no science behind the ritual.

Mental representations

Belief in spirits also enters the picture in how people feel neurotic about their evil private desires and how it competes with their need to belong to others. Because everything is impermanent, we need memories to make sense of the kaleidoscope of present moment existence. These memories of people can become our ghosts, Gods, curses, and saviours. We want to imitate the methods of survival from the leader, but we also want to depose them and take their place. We are conversing with mental representations in our minds as much if not more than the real people in our lives. See: The 'Ratman': https://rumble.com/v1gu9qj-case-studies-the-ratman-freud-and-beyond.html

Our neurosis can then be our guilt over hidden desires that are alive and well in our minds but we cannot share with others for fear of punishment. Our fear of imaginary crimes is reflected in the original fear of actual crimes. The mental representations of the dead in our minds can be alive with accusation and demands for justice. Curses can be a form of self-inflicted punishment. Our guilt over what we did or thought about doing can then cause the neurosis.

Projection and Introjection

The above is an example of introjection, but guilt can also be projected via suspicion. If we had guilty actions or thoughts in the past, that knowledge can help us detect guilt in others. With the understanding of transference, we can see that we take our memories and have emotional attitudes towards those memories. Then we can project those attitudes onto other people who we force into a memory pattern we recognize. The way this transference feels in the target is like the person who is talking to us is talking about someone else. They get your personal details wrong and harsh emotions are projected onto you.

Projection feels violating and has a tinge of lies and smears where you are put into a box of their memories of wrongdoing. The suspicion of one person increases the suspicion of others, magnifying the blame. The message the scapegoaters send is that "you are to blame for ALL the things not going well" in their lives. Targets in real life can be innocent or not so innocent. With the distortion of conflation, scapegoaters can take actual blame a target has and increase the blame further by adding suggestions of hidden guilt and add it to the judgment. The desire for revenge in the mob animates them further to essentially “burn the witch.”

Violence and the Sacred - René Girard: https://rumble.com/v1gsnwv-the-origin-of-envy-and-narcissism-ren-girard.html

How it starts

The predictable scenario of a target trying to get their individual needs met against some social mores or taboos IS the beginning. Because these individual desires reside in most other people, there is an envy and resentment of the unfairness. “If they get away with that, then why can’t I?” Leaders often struggle with this problem. They are afraid of the temptation there is to imitate the target, and that others might get their similar desires satisfied. Then the rules and taboos that keep the society together unravel and so does the leader’s power.

The taboo is ultimately something that tempts imitation, and following the taboo is renunciation of that desire to preserve peace in society. This is the origin of collective punishment where leaders punish the entire group for one person’s transgression. It is an attempt to prevent the imitation from being contagious. The threat of this punishment is the source of ostracism, where people don’t associate with the person who violated the taboo, because they are afraid they will automatically be associated by others as someone who wants to imitate the accused. The problem Freud sees with the leader enforcing the taboos is that all people, including the leader, have prohibited desires inside themselves.

Freud says, “In order to keep the temptation down, the envied transgressor must be deprived of the fruit of his enterprise; and the punishment will not infrequently give those who carry it out an opportunity of committing the same outrage under the colour of an act of atonement.” Modern examples would be lawmakers taking part in corruption they are supposed to fight against. The source of hypocrisy is this ambivalence between what I want and what is good for society.

Leadership

The value of the leader is their ability to maintain rules that support the group, and allow enough personal satisfaction so that it doesn’t destabilize the culture. The leader also has to enjoy their privileges without taking too much and neglecting the duties of the leader. Any weaknesses in a neglectful society leads to blame shifting and conflict.

Freud lays it out very clearly and points to some of the experiences victims have at the hands of narcissistic individuals. The superstition they have has a root in the belief of the omnipotence of thoughts. Believing that thoughts are reality and being constantly disappointed by nature, requires a shifting of blame to others. It’s a lower form of existence that hasn’t accepted realistic compromises. Until the acceptance of science happens, then people and objects become an easy target for blame. The need to use talismans, jewels and to ascribe magical properties to objects and leaders only gives way when the real life associations cannot be explained by magical powers. We have to put effort into looking at the real causes and effects to avoid magical thinking.

Worshiping who gets our needs met

Totem worship of a father is replaced by a Father God, and then science replaces God and the Father in the end for Freud. Here there is a divide between René Girard and Sigmund Freud. René looks to Christianity to understand scapegoating and early creations of institutions, whereas Freud puts Christianity into the same boat as the other religions.

We are ultimately looking for a God-Father figure to get our needs met. This fight itself is in Christianity as followers ironically scapegoat each other on which version of Christianity to follow with many of their own members as casualties. But in Girard’s Christian opinion, there is always worship. If we don’t worship a God we worship Experts. Worshiping experts doesn’t stop the violence, in his view, whereas a Christian example does. We are now back at the beginning where the question of getting our needs met is confronted with how we can live in harmony with others. Both atheism and Christianity are accused of failing to find this peace.

Petty conspiracies

What I particularly enjoyed about this book was how it clears up paranoid thoughts about conspiracies. Conspiracies do exist but they are petty and all about increasing consumption of every kind. Power allows for more sexual partners, more resources, special treatment and allies to defend your wealth. My earlier videos on narcissists and their informers shows that basic human society devolves into gangster-ism, and that every individual should realize that their presence and status is being measured by others at all times. See: Narcissistic Control: https://rumble.com/v1gti2z-narcissistic-control-narcissism-3-of-4.html

All the bigotry we see is about is trying to eliminate competition. Our identities are HOW we get our needs met. Competition towards those identities make us insecure, and we feel resentful that the world is unfair and demand vengeance. This leads to violence and war. If we are to aim for better, the highest form of society is one that flourishes with creativity giving a place to all types of people. How we can get our needs met is by meeting the needs of others in ever more creative ways and learning to relinquish our desires and find alternatives if we are tempted by violence towards other competitors.

Totem and Taboo - Sigmund Freud: Paperback: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780393001433/

Herrnstein, R.J. (1961) Superstition: A corollary of the principle of operant conditioning.

Great example of generational pressure:

Philosophy: http://psychreviews.org/category/philosophy03/

[k1rishiki]

hey can you imagine if the 3rd period had tumblr? it would've been crazyyyyy

2 notes

🌲 daughterofwhite 🔁

🟨 lucifeniaconfessions Follow

i feel so so guilty so much of the time.... i destroyed elphegort, i killed michaela and i tormented the people i was supposed to rule and protect... but most of all he took the fall for it... there is nothing i can do to make amends but feel guilty and hope that in our next life we can be reunited and i can be good. i really am trying though, i chased away a bird that was tampering with the sapling the other day, but that doesn't even begin to fix the fact that her blood is still on my hands... sometimes i still send him asks on here and wait for an answer... oh god i miss him so much...

🌲 daughterofwhite

DM me

62K notes

🐙 seth-remade76

Staff terminated me again for no good reason this time. I'm @seth-remade75 if it wasn't clear.

7 notes

🧀 arte-mis 🔁

◻️ am-i-the-asshole-official Follow

🕶 anonymous asked: WIBTA for poisoning my pregnant girlfriend?

When I (29M) was young my parents set me up with an arranged marriage from a girl my age from a neighboring kingdom. When we first met I was a shitty kid and was kinda mean to her about her weight at the time but slowly began to develop feelings for her, until ultimately the engagement was broken off due to her disturbing behavior.

I didn't hear anything about her for years until I was in my 20s, she'd regained her family's lost political power and was funneling a lot of resources into widening her culinary exploits, so I decided to learn to cook.

Eventually, last year I was kidnapped and learned that she'd lost her mind, and the only solution was to remove a specific item from her possession, I agreed to help and assumed the identity of a famous chef, and she hired me. I was disgusted by the things she asked me to cook and her servants treated me poorly, like they knew I was suspicious, but I got used to it and was happy to have reunited with her, and found out that the real reason the servants hated me was because I looked like their dad.

Eventually one thing led to another, she discovered my true identity and you can probably guess what happened next. Shortly afterwards, we were visited by the military higher ups of her kingdom and one of the servants killed one of their messengers, to which she reacted by raising an undead army to wipe them out, and told me she planned to eat everything in the world. I tried to escape but was caught and forbidden from ever leaving the castle.

I have an heirloom from one of my ancestors which I believe may be the only thing that could kill her, I plan to grind up what's left of it and mix it into a meal for the both of us so we can die together and the world can be saved from her. WIBTA?

◻️ am-i-the-asshole-official:

What are these acronyms?

🐔 a-pollo Follow

kill yourself

🧀 arte-mis

kill yourself

235 notes

👨‍💻 usecitizen2 🔁

👩‍💻 usecitizen Follow

come on you guys have gottt to stop pinkwashing Gallerian Marlon's actions... yeah he's one of the most famous gay men out there but he is NOT one of us. you all saw his ruling on the Scherzer trial, the rich only care about their own.

👨‍💻 usecitizen2

It's especially upsetting to see considering how progressive he was at the start of his career. A lot of people were too young at the time to remember, but his opposition to witch trials and his exposure and conviction of Loki Freezis were massive steps forward at the time. It really is a shame how everything shifted after his daughter died, now he only cares about the money.

56K notes

💤 giftsleep 🔁

💙 aesblog Follow

someday my prince will come

#aes

120 notes

✨ othertwin

is anyone else kinda worried about the way @/themis8 has been posting recently? i've reported her blog to staff a few times but i don't think it's enough. i really think she's going to hurt herself or others one of these days.

#allen.txt

4 notes

🍷 evilfoodeater Follow

Pregnancy cravings are crazyyyy. What do you Mean I want to eat my boyfriend lol.

🍷 evilfoodeater Follow

Arte and Pollo are looking kinda edible right now...

🐔 a-pollo Follow

:(

🧀 arte-mis

:(

7 notes

🎙 rinchanarchive

Rin Chan at Milanais Theater, September 6 606

#rin chan #september 606 #milanais theater

687 notes

✨ othertwin

🕶 anonymous asked: why is your url othertwin when i see you around enbizaka and you're an only child?

✨ othertwin: don't worry about it

#allen.txt

18 notes

🍷 evilfoodeater Follow

Pregnancy cravings are crazyyyy. What do you Mean I want to eat my boyfriend lol.

🐔 a-pollo Follow

do it

🧀 arte-mis

do it

7 notes

🌲 daughterofwhite 🔁

🔷 kylesart Follow

🕶 anonymous asked: do you have receipts on the @/rinthenun allegations??? she's so nice it's hard to believe she'd do any of that

🔷 kylesart: tl;dr, she's just @/princessriliane rebranded, long version under the cut

Keep Reading

🌲 daughterofwhite

First of all, your statements regarding Michaela are blatantly untrue, she was a lesbian and your attempts to rewrite that after her death are upsetting to say the least. Second of all, the green hunting happened a very long time ago and there's no reason for you to be dragging old trauma back up. Third of all, Rin has dedicated her life to making up for the harm she's caused in the past and, as a loved one of one of the victims, I feel like it's cruel to deny her a second chance after all the improvements she's made.

579 notes

✨ drapersdaughter

anyone else ever feel like they're waiting for someone they've never met before

#rin.txt

0 notes

🐙 seth-remade76 🔁

🔫 themis8 Follow

what if i killed myself

🐙 seth-remade76

don't

1 note

✨ othertwin

🕶 anonymous asked: is your name allen or ren???

✨ othertwin: don't worry about it

#allen.txt

14 notes

🔑 karchess 🔁

👗 tiredprincess Follow

so ungrateful to be chosen for the harem and to try and reject him over it. do you not know how many girls would kill to be in your shoes?????

🔑 karchess

You dukefuckers never fail to reach new lows.

[ladybosspreneur]

The Truth About Kindle Direct Publishing: Is Amazon Kdp still worth it in 2023?

Amazon Kdp is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it's a platform for building a sustainable writing career.

Hi guys, it's Joy here! I hope you all are having an awesome day. So today we'll be discussing if Amazon Kdp is worth it.

First what is Amazon Kdp?

Well unless you've been living under a rock with no access to the internet (which I doubt because even Patric Star had a tv, and he lives under a rock!) Ok. Jokes over, Amazon Kdp is a self publishing website where you can sell ebooks, printbooks and audiobooks you create to a global audience. You can publish those books for free while Amazon takes a cut from the sales you make, while giving you your profit.

Now moving on to the question, is Amazon Kdp worth it?

Honestly, everyone has their own opinion and this is mostly based on personal experiences. I have mine, you have yours and other authors have theirs. However, the fact that you're reading this shows that you would like to hear mine, and for that I'm grateful. Hit the like button and I'll be more grateful 😊.

Recently, I came across a YouTube short of a lady who said frankly that she felt Amazon Kdp is not worth it. After watching the video though, I could see things from her point of view.

Amazon Kdp is a business of volume. This is in 2 dimensions. First is, the more books you have, the more hope you have of making a reasonable income from this business.

The second dimension is in Marketing. That is, the more people you're able to market to, the higher the possiblity of you making sales and making it a full time passive income stream.

This is one of the reasons people get discouraged when going into Amazon Kdp. They most likely have unrealistic expectations of making $1000 from one book without putting in the required effort, time and marketing needed to get there.

Now I'm not saying it's not possible. It should be. After all we've seen books by famous authors get over 500 sales in just pre-orders. However, these people did not get there by just writing a book and hoping it goes viral. They kept writing till one went viral.

So if you're interested in making a profitable passive income stream from Amazon Kdp, change your perspective of it as a side hustle. Now see it as your business and make the appropriate changes.

In addition to the points I've made, I would like to add a few more things to consider when deciding if Amazon Kdp is worth it for you.

Firstly, it's important to understand that Amazon Kdp is just one platform among many for self-publishing. While it's a popular platform with a large audience, it may not be the best fit for everyone. Depending on your goals, genre, and audience, other platforms like Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo may be more beneficial for you.

Secondly, Amazon Kdp has a few requirements that authors need to meet in order to have a successful experience. One of the most important requirements is having a well-edited and formatted book. Poor editing and formatting can lead to negative reviews and hurt your sales in the long run. So, investing in a good editor and formatting service can go a long way in making your book successful.

Lastly, Amazon Kdp also offers a few marketing tools and programs that can help increase your visibility and sales. These include Amazon Advertising, Kindle Unlimited, and Kindle Countdown Deals. However, it's important to do your research and learn how to use these tools effectively to avoid wasting money and time.

Overall, Amazon Kdp can be a great option for authors who are willing to put in the effort to make it work for them. It's important to have realistic expectations, invest in the necessary resources, and keep learning and adapting to the ever-changing self-publishing industry.

To answer your question, is Amazon Kdp still worth it in 2023? Yes! It is, and as long as you keep putting in the effort, you'll keep loving the opportunities it gives you.

If you have any questions about Amazon Kdp or would like to share anything about the process, feel free to write it in the comment section below. I am always open to answering questions regarding Publishing and I absolutely love learning new ideas. So feel free to share.

So I'm in book 2 of my 20 books challenge this month. The challenge is to write 20 books this March. I just published one yesterday and I'll be adding the link below. I also had 2 book covers and I couldn't decide which one I wanted 😭, so I picked the less flashy one. Opinions please! I'll be posting the covers in the next blog post. Thanks for reading!

Click here to view my book or⬇️⬇️⬇️

https://amzn.to/3TdC10u

[skepticalarrie]

I’m very passionate about class issues in the UK so excuse me lol but. H and Louis did come from different economic classes growing up, I grew up in Harry’s area but on Louis’ family income and let me tell you the Styles can be described as “posh” (not rich mind you, just very comfortable). I find it so interesting/important that that’s why Louis and Zayn’s friendship was so vital in the band because they both came from a working class Yorkshire background and only the two of them could fully understand that.

Having said that, it’s stupid and classist to assume that because Louis was poorer that means that his interests would be inherently different to Harry’s. The reason why wealthier people are more likely to get into art and politics and culture is literally just because they’re less exhausted from not working 40+ hour weeks for minimum wage. There’s nothing in working class peoples DNA that makes them stupid despite what the Tories would like you to think. So yeah Louis has the humility of a working class background and the resources now to reach his full potential which we have seen include: in depth music and queer history, sign language, interior design, art, film, literature, sports, literally all sorts that prove he’s incredibly intelligent and has everything in common with Harry. Self identifying as a “chav” is probably grounding for him, it’s also very queer but I don’t have time to get into that, but those people who call him a chav as an insult couldn’t even hold a conversation with him if they knew how clever he is.

Yes! Great addition to this discussion, I really love to learn the cultural side of it. Thank you for that, anon!

Plus IIRC (sorry I have a really selective memory sometimes), I do remember something about Harry's family struggling a bit when Anne first got divorced and stuff... so I think people just like the idea of making a big deal out of it and painting them as these completely opposite people. Empashasing Harry is "too posh" for Louis is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. And even if they were the opposite of each other, like you said, it's no reason for two people not to be together. It's such an immature and classist thought. This doesn't really seem to be a problem when we're talking about heterosexual couples most of the time. People are out there completely fine with Harry dating someone 10 years older than him, coming from a different country/culture, with kids and an ex-husband... and Louis and Harry are hard to be pictured together because they're "too different"? Is that really the problem here? C'mon. Of course, their roots are an extremely important part of them, especially for Louis, reclaiming the whole chav persona thing and being so proud of where he is from. But listen, they literally went through the same experience 12 years ago, only the five of them know how it is to have their lives turned upside down like that, to be the most famous boyband, they were together through the most important and crazy experience of their lives. That alone gives them more things in common than what most of us mere mortals have with our significant others.

[ilikekidsshows]

Oh Kwami guru, I come to you with the obvious question of: How do you think real Adrien would do with the Dog Miraculous? I'm used to him being a cat, so it seems like an odd choice, but Marinette and Felix did seem to think it was a good fit for him, so...?

The Dog Miraculous is the Miraculous of Adoration. Adoration means either deep love or respect. I can think of a few reasons why Marinette would want to give the Miraculous of “love” to Adrien that have nothing to do with Adrien’s suitability. The same holds true for Félix, actually, not the love but the other reasons part.

Okay, so, hot take: both Marinette and Félix are completely misjudging Adrien when they think that. Félix wants to view Adrien as inferior to himself, so of course he thinks Adrien is a “loyal dog”. Félix constantly blames Adrien for his abuse under Gabriel, so him equating Adrien with a dog is obviously a reference to how a dog will remain loyal and adoring towards an owner who abandons or abuses it. Meanwhile, while Marinette is starting to understand Adrien a bit better in that his life isn’t perfect just because he’s rich and famous, she tends to view him as softer than he is in reality, taken in by Adrien’s “friendly, approachable and nonthreatening” teen heartthrob branding.

Marinette and Félix viewing Adrien as suitable for the Dog Miraculous is them underestimating him. As such, I buck at the very idea that Adrien might actually suit the Miraculous that people who so clearly misjudge him connect him with. However, I have practical reasons for thinking it’s a bad match too.

One thing I have brought up repeatedly when it comes to Adrien’s fighting style is that he is a short-to-middle distance fighter. The Dog Miraculous’ power, on the other hand, suits itself best for long distance. The Dog Miraculous also requires a lot of patience from its holder, someone who is content to sit and wait until they can take the shot, which is not one of Adrien’s fortes. Adrien is not as impulsive as he often lets himself come across as Cat Noir, but he is also not content to just sit and wait as long as there’s something he feels like he can do that won’t make things worse. The only times Adrien has been content to sit and wait have been when interfering would have made a situation worse or when Ladybug’s plan has required it. In the former he actually can’t help (yet), while in the latter, the waiting has an assured payoff.

However, Adrien is a resourceful guy and all about creating himself opportunities to turn the tides of a battle. In a pinch, he would be able to use the Dog Miraculous effectively, but I expect it would be counterintuitive at times. Both Cataclysm and Fetch can be used to unbalance an opponent to remove something from play by either destroying or stealing it so they are versatile powers. However, they are so in different ways, with Cataclysm offering more utility due to having different effects depending on how it’s used, while Fetch works the same every time it’s used.

Giving Adrien the Dog Miraculous means limiting his capabilities. It’s a bad match due to how it ignores many of Adrien’s strengths.

[janecrockeyre]

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it. 

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate. 

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it. 

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain. 

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!! 

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh? 

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements. 

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw. 

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”. 

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young. 

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise. 

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious. 

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5. 

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself. 

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back. 

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side. 

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand. 

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles. 

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section. 

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison. 

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish. 

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty. 

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative. 

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt. 

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei. 

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage. 

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture. 

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

[snifflesthemouse]

There's a sense of freedom that comes with anonymity of online interactions. This sense of freedom only exists because of the fact it's difficult for the real world to catch up with you in your real life. Unless of course, you go after the wrong one.

When a person goes after someone else solely because they think differently or have a strong opposing opinion, they often do so with a false gusto and bravery that only exists in the virtual realm. Like many say online, "You'd never say that to my face." And that's true for most people... but not all people.

And because of this anonymity, that affords all internet users the freedom to say whatever, a real life concern spawns from a virtual world. This real life concern is often referred to as "doxxing" where one internet user uses what clues and resources they have available to "expose" another internet user's real life. This has happened to many people I watch on YouTube. Some have even had to involve the real life police, as well as uproot their entire lives and move because of doxxing.

For example, Murky Meg has been doxxed a couple times now. She's had her real life threatened by doxxing. Terrifyingly, she wasn't the only target threatened because the douche flutes also brought her children into it. Yes, the same people who worship the Montecito Madam and preach the mantras of "compassion and kindness" and "leave children out of this" have gone so far as to go after Murky Meg's real life and real life children. And sadly, the threats and attacks never really stop. Especially when articles like the one I wrote about make the rounds. But Murky Meg doesn't allow this all to silence her; she keeps calm and carries on regardless.

Another example involves Yankee Wally. She was targeted repeatedly over copyright infringement on her YouTube channel, as well as having her social media accounts suspended repeatedly over the last few years. And even though Yankee Wally has never pretended to be anything or anyone else than who she is in real life, people have attempted to use her past as a weapon to discredit her. Those attempts are futile, though, because Yankee Wally has always been open and honest about her life. She's also been very clear to the people watching her that she will fight back if need be.

Then there's According2Taz. While Taz has gone through the same ringer that so many others have gone through (from doxxing to threats, harassment, and verbal abuse), she has also been attacked financially. Especially when it comes to her supporting good causes. Some twat waffles have sent her £0.01 via PayPal with notes attached. Notes that are grossly abusive, calling her fat and ugly, and saying her husband is cheating on her. Others have sent requests asking her to pay them £100 with notes attacking HRH Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge and her book. Murky Meg got a similar request, as well. But the most heinous impediment coming from the Montecito Madam's extremists, involved charity. Once, when Taz was raising money for Australian wildlife affected by the wildfires; someone reported her PayPal account and those funds were held up for some time before getting released for the cause. Then, again, Taz was targeted when she was raising funds to help an elderly woman who got robbed. Yes, the very same people, who stand on custom-made soap boxes emblazoned with the Sussex monogram, did everything they possibly could to marginally disrupt charity. Yet Taz does not waiver; she keeps going.

As bad as Murky Meg, Yankee Wally, and Taz have had it, they're sadly not alone. No, they are only three examples from a plethora of examples. Of that plethora, one more example comes to mind. That example involves DanjaZone (Ashli).

Ashli, who started her YouTube channel before the whole Megxit ordeal as a way to keep in touch with family, was even the subject of a blind item from CDAN (crazy days and nights). You see, Ashli and her family lost everything they had in a horrible house fire. Rumors swirled around the fire, but the most heinous comments came from the Sussex Squad's more prominent loudmouths. Some accused Ashli of lying about the fire in an attempt to scam people for money. Others called her white trash and trailer trash. So while Ashli was going through the loss of her home and everything she owned... while she was grieving the loss of family pets and irreplaceable family mementos... while she was down and out on her luck and trying to cope with all the pain and loss... while she was going through all of the attacks from doubters saying she faked the fire or was lying, that she was trailer trash... the disciples of the Duchess were laughing and celebrating her pain as a win. Never once considering the fact that Ashli has been in recovery for years now, and the stress from the fire coupled with the heartless, feckless attacks, could in fact push her over the edge.

No, the very same people, who scream via CAPS lock on social media that critics of Meghan should "leave her alone", that her critics drove the Montecito Madam to "suicidal ideation while pregnant" could care less about Ashli's mental health. Yes, the very same people, who lodged over 50,000 OFCOM complaints against Piers Morgan because he questioned their beloved's outlandish attacks during the Oprah interview, previously found no issues with attacking Ashli during one of the hardest times in her life. Yet, Ashli picked up the pieces and never gave up or gave into their attacks.

Again, these four examples are just the tip of the hypocritical iceberg. There are countless more examples out there. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people who criticize Meghan's and Harry's behaviors can all relate. Nobody is safe or off limits from this iceberg; from Royal Rota reporters, celebrities, and politicians to regular people who aren't rich, famous, or in possession of a global platform.

Yet nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, in the media or in journalism ever cover any of this. You can find articles galore written with the intentions of exposing "Meghan Markle Haters". Articles like the one I wrote about attacking critics and reducing us all to the stereotypes of racist, misogynist, bigot, envious, etc.

What that does is send a clear, prominent message to the people who cling to every word of the Montecito Madam. The people who cling to the wind coming from her mouth, her "close friends" or fake "palace insiders" hear those dog whistles loud and clear. The dog whistles that say "It's okay, keep attacking and hurting people. They're evil, hateful racists. They deserve the abuse. You're on the side of good. Go harder!"

When in truth, the wind they cling to coming from their beloved's mouth or mouthpieces is actually falsehoods, lies, and manifestations of grandeur that is no more real than Netflix's The Crown. No, the wind they cling to really comes from the south mouth of their beloved. But God forbid anyone hold their little cult accountable.

We cannot have a society where sensationalism trumps truth. We cannot weaponize the press and use it against people simply because they criticize the Meghan Markles of the world. It is unacceptable for the press, media platforms, or anyone with a prominent influence on society, to celebrate defenders of the Meghan Markle faith without first acknowledging the truth.

The truth, which is often dream dashing and harsh, is that "Meghan Markle Lovers" could care less about compassion, kindness, charity, children, or community. The truth is, they could care less about forgiveness or loving thy neighbors. We don't have to look to their savior figurehead to prove this to be true. We only have to look at the comments section or Twitter.

Those of us who criticize or dislike Meghan and Harry because of their behavior know all too well the truth will never be written up on the front page of the Sun, the Daily Mail, or People Magazine. The mirage of us being the racists, misogynists, or detesting haters sells papers. And the papers don't want to be in that same category.

Maybe one day the press will tell the stories of people like Murky Meg, Yankee Wally, Taz, Ashli, and countless others in an effective way that exposes the real haters in the relationship. Maybe one day, the victims of the Montecito Madam's cult following will be doxxed, exposed, and sent a new message. A message that says, "We see you for the hypocrites you are. You may repeat the preachings of your Madam like it's the new woke gospel, but you don't practice it. You're a big reason why people loathe your beloved. You make her look worse. You aren't defending her, you are condemning her. Keep it up, because we see you and we will expose you!"

If only...

[pomefioreundergroundlab]

I've been curious about Grim's origins since EP 6 when Idia said his magic, despite being weak, has an ancient origins to it. Heck to me From himself is just baffling to me, IDK if he's the only one left since he said he never has any family at all. Yet Crowley deems him at first as a Tanuki. We've never seen any Magical Beasts, especially the likes of Grim, it's proven that earth animals like Lions also exist in Twst (which is weird cause Beastmen also exist so it's awkward to see an animal the same as they do, even if they're part human) 

We have yet to know if Magical Beasts like Dragons, Unicorns or other animals famous in Myths and Folklore still exist in their timeline today or died out or hidden somewhere. 

Tip: Get used to Japanese fiction, which portrays animals coexisting with beastmen, and similarly, that fish that coexist with mermen. The author intentionally avoid the whole "beastmen are not the same as animals/the carnivore vs herbivore debate" for the sake of kemonomimi. Some do portray them as animal shifter, some depict them as able to communicate with the animals their ears are based from, however they are fully sapient, a full "person", if you like.

This is like this ask, bringing up the socioeconomic problem when this isn't that big of problem in universe, don't think about it too much.

The eels repeatedly eat non-sapient octopus in front of Azul, and while it does discomfort him, it's clear a cecaelia and a non-sapient octopus are not the same.

However, of course even mermen and beastmen are not the same. Floyd and Jade's physical condition is still above normal human level, and Azul's strong from the waist up, even if his legs are weak, they don't have stronger senses the way beastmen do. Also, their digestive system/needs. It's noted mermen do not have thoroughly processed foods, being underwater, but it's noted Floyd likes candy and Azul likes fries, meaning while they can't process food underwater, they can eat the processed foods on land just fine.

Similarly, while Leona prefers meat, (and I can also add it's because the social perception of meat is high end food because Leona is a rich bastard who loves to remind you he's rich and he's better than you for it), Jack's favorite food is pear compote-processed fruit. While it seems carnivore beastmen did eat more meat than humans, they also can eat processed foods as well they eat more fruits/veggies than carnivore animals. There is no any indication if herbivore beastmen , like say, a rabbit beastman, also eat meat, but at least we know they also exist from what we see in the manga.

We did see mentions of magical plants such as the mandrakes shown in Ace and Cater's (Lag: and now Grim's too!) lab uniform cards, or Sebek's camping card, or magical minerals from Malleus' lab uniform card. Naturally, if magical plants as well magical minerals exist, it seems likely that magical animals also exist.

However, we also know several of things. It's mentioned people did fear the magical stuff long ago, but Lilia already existed back then. If people persecuted the sorcerers, then it would make sense that people will also hunt the magical animals, and they become extinct because of it. It's also possible that a certain party did gather and hide the magical animals elsewhere.

Do remember, whereas for humans, mermen and beastmen, sorcerers are rare, but for fey , the population is entirely magical, they also have loads of magical nature resources, and the Valley is treated as a superpower country of sorts as it would be easy for them to announce war against the world.

Also, the Shroud family is simply part of a bigger clan, the Jupiter Conglomerate. They also owned TWST's equivalent of Google. It would be easy for them to manipulate history, information, and they may also know more stuff but... you know, big influential conglomerate clan, global conspiracy, you know the gist. They did have the Lethe system to make people forgot the overblot people, who's to say they didn't do the same with the magical animals?

I personally think that they are hidden elsewhere is the more possible explanation, considering we have seen some hints of conspiracies in TW here and there.

-Mod Drace

[palmett-hoes]

We Need To Talk About Kevin

excuse the silly title, but it’s time for another long character analysis, this time on a character who holds a complicated place in the fandom consciousness: kevin

like every other character in aftg, i have a lot of criticisms for the way that the fandom tends to characterize kevin, because i feel like it tends to reduce a very complicated character down into very binary terms, that of either anal-retentive comic relief or a perfect, underappreciated innocent, both of which ignore his important flaws and the nuance of his character arc throughout the trilogy

now this meta is probably going to sound very, very critical of kevin, as i am focusing on his flaws. but i want to be clear that i don’t hate kevin, i don’t even dislike him. in fact i far prefer the deeply “problematic” kevin from canon to the highly sanitized version in the fandom, just like i prefer my andrew violent and unethical, my neil rude and messy, and my upperclassmen ableist and permissibly homophobic

one thing i really LOVE about aftg is how hypocritical every character is, because it’s honest. they all stand for something but fall a little flat of it in practice. they all hold the people around them to standards they don’t hold themselves to

they’re not simple characters. they reflect their trauma in ways that are not pretty or harmless, and they even reflect wider societal flaws that may not be logical or justifiable.

just like i do.

just like you do.

just like real people do.

---

so with that all squared away: kevin

let’s start with this: what is the essence of kevin’s character? what does he stand for? what is he about? when you simplify him out into a single idea, what is he?

answers will vary, but for me, kevin is an analysis of the idea that you can have everything, you can be rich and famous and talented and immensely lucky on top of it all, and you can still be abused

neil repeats this idea over and over. how he’s jealous of kevin. how he resents kevin. how he wishes he were kevin. because kevin had everything and neil had nothing

remember this?

and this?

and this?

kevin the star. kevin the sensation. kevin the media darling.

lucky kevin, talented kevin, beloved kevin

and then neil gets a little bit closer and learns that that’s not the whole story. kevin was isolated, his worth tied to his performance, his whole personhood tied to exy. the perfect boy who was forbidden from being too perfect, who had to walk on eggshells so as not to incur the wrath of his brother and guardian

but at the same time that doesn’t totally erase everything he did have

i think the fandom focuses a lot on kevin’s inferiority complex from being assigned second best, and not nearly as much on the idea that kevin was SECOND BEST, above everyone else

the fact that kevin had power and sway in the nest makes us deeply uncomfortable, because it complicates kevin’s status as a victim, but it’s the truth. kevin was the third most powerful person in the nest, above dozens of ravens, and not even an owned person like jean

we should attempt to reckon with the fact that kevin was not a passive player in the ravens’ power structure, but someone who was actively involved and benefited from it. the ravens were his pawns, too. his subordinates, there to critique and punish as he saw fit. they weren’t his equals and he didn’t have to view them as fellow people

even if you choose not to believe that kevin took advantage of this power in the way riko did, you still have to accept that it very much shaped his perception and way of connecting with others, which is obvious in how he interacts with the foxes

so let’s talk about kevin and his superiority complex

kevin is arrogant, self-centered, and entitled

it’s not all he is. he has other, better qualities. he’s dedicated, passionate, and - in his own way - caring. that doesn’t ERASE his flaws however

kevin believes himself to be correct 100% of the time. he thinks that his methods and his opinions should work for everyone simply because they work for him, and he tries heavily to push them onto other people. andrew remarks that neil will drive himself crazy trying to do things the way kevin tells him to, because he is simply a different kind of player than kevin. kevin’s methodology will never work for neil no matter how hard he tries and will just end up holding himself back if he keeps trying

andrew notices this, not kevin, because kevin believes that neil is simply not trying hard enough to do things the “right” way.

neil.

who tries harder than anyone to live up to kevin’s standards

he’s worse with the rest of the foxes, who unlike neil do not accept his methods unquestionably and don’t do backflips to make him happy.

the foxes recognize that kevin is talented and could have valuable things to teach them. kevin however thinks that he should have absolute authority over their training because his methods are “superior.” he thinks the foxes fail because they don’t listen to him and conform their playing styles to him

kevin also only approaches the upperclassmen on the court, and even there only with criticism and derision. he has never made any attempt to befriend them or get to know them in any way. he doesn’t need a rapport with them, he’s entitled to their obedience simply because he’s Kevin Day, The Son of Exy, The Best And Most Talented Of Them All

i’ve also written meta before about the assumptions kevin makes in his relationship with andrew. they have a deal that kevin will give andrew something to live for after he graduates. kevin, being who he is, decides that this thing MUST and WILL be exy, no matter how directly or indirectly andrew tells him this isn’t what he wants.

yet kevin never considers an alternative. he never asks andrew what he might want or never attempts to find anything else for him. they spend nearly every second of every day within arms reach of each other, yet kevin has never taken a moment to pay attention to andrew’s interests or preferences, anything that makes him tick. they know almost nothing personal about each other because kevin doesn’t believe any of that matters in giving andrew a future that makes him want to live. no. if it works for kevin it must work for everyone else. if kevin wants it everyone else must want it too

kevin’s relationships often become exclusionary. first with andrew, which i’ve just discussed. then with neil, kevin continually vies for more and more of his time, without regard for his health or concern for any other part of his life. he leaves neil with minimal time for school, pushes their practices late into the night depriving him of sleep, and discourages his efforts to spend time and make connections with the upperclassmen

now if at any point while reading this you, reader, wanted to argue that these things are because of the nest and kevin’s raven indoctrination, yes, you’re absolutely right, they are. it’s abundantly clear where and how each of these qualities developed, but once again, that doesn’t mean they’re not present. in fact, the clear connection between kevin’s flaws and his trauma is a sign of good character writing, showing the multiple dimensions of how our environments and experiences shape us

kevin’s anxiety, his obsessiveness, and his fear all come from the nest, but so does his condescension, his self-involvement, and his overbearing nature.

kevin was raised in a cult, but he was also from the very highest level of it. he comes from immense privilege in terms of his wealth, his influence, his fame, and his access to resources. materially, kevin has wanted for very little in his life, and his entitlement is very prominent in his character. none of this cancels out the abuse he suffered, but it’s also something i very rarely see addressed outside of being hinted at vaguely in a jokingly dismissive manner.

in fact, i often see takes on kevin that fully deny he has these traits at all, and that annoys me. i don’t like to see these wonderfully round characters flattened out, and there’s a particular irritating irony out of changing or misinterpreting a character’s personality in order to make them more palatable or more sympathetic in a series about how even people traumatized in unsympathetic ways are still deserving of help and decency

so

kevin can be a little morally gray,, as a treat

[romanticchemacademic]

Dear future health professionals and stem professors,

We need a revolution of thought. Only through a renaissance of pure and genuine passion towards medicine and other sciences will we have competent doctors, nurses, other healthcare workers, and teachers. We live in a world where people pursue noble professions for the sake of social and economic advancement. However, we lack individuals who love the process of learning and their career.

I recollect quite a marvelous excerpt written by one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, Albert Einstein. In his book, The World As I see It he writes:

ACADEMIC CHAIRS ARE MANY, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice is small. Nature scatters her common wares with a lavish hand, but the choice sort she produces but seldom.

We all know that, so why complain? Was it not ever thus and will it not ever thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives a society its particular tone. Each of us has to do his little bit towards transforming this spirit of the times.

Compare the spirit which animated the youth in our universities a hundred years ago with that prevailing today. They had faith in the amelioration of human society, respect for every honest opinion, the tolerance for which our classics had lived and fought. 

  I believe that one of the faults lies within education institutions. Educators rely on testing, textbooks, and detached memorized lectures. Lectures lack passion and another essential factor: the real practice. The theory is important but the practice is necessary to understand the theory. But without passion, nobody will learn to love the material being taught. Ibn Sina is known for being one of the greatest physicians and teachers of Islamic medicine. I am not completely sure whether what I am about to mention is true. But I read that when he lectured theory to the medical students at the Madrassa (University) he would show them how it worked. Besides medical history and theory. He also taught physics, astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics. However, he is also famed for being an excellent teacher duly because he would take his students to test out the theories and practice what they have been taught. If they were learning medical theory, they were taken to the hospital to observe patients and their cases. If they were learning astronomy, they would all gather in the evening to look up at the heavens to look at the constellations. Lastly, his passion for his vocation was the final touch. Educators without the drive cannot teach. Learning is about understanding oneself, others, and the world. Learning evolves our minds and our spirits by making us get in harmony with the universe. I believe this ties in with Aristotle’s famous saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Though my interpretation may be a wee bit off, I translate it as thus; we can gather all textbook knowledge as possible but if we do not put into practice the knowledge learned, what is the point? I yearn and I pine to experience all that I have learned. I want to see why the theory makes sense in reality. I want to conduct experiments. So much potential is being wasted. Biology is the study of life. However, when I took the course, it was so cold to a point that it did not even feel like I was studying the human body but something alien instead. There is also such a rush to memorize material within a couple of weeks because of exams that the material ceases to be interesting and becomes more of an arduous chore instead. Our sense of time-shifted completely after the industrial revolution. Perhaps this is a reason why we feel the need to rush through everything and not take our time to study profoundly. 

We need another Scientific Revolution, curious minds thirsting for the acquisition of knowledge and unanswered questions. However, I believe that the leading force behind this is a necessity. I would like to mention an example to illustrate what I mean from a novel I read a while ago called, The Physician by Noah Gordon. A boy from Medieval Europe lost his mother from an unknown disease leaving him orphaned. He then grew up with the necessity to learn what the disease was and how to prevent other similar deaths, so that others do not suffer what he has suffered. He then worked with Barbers (people who performed medical procedures in Medieval Europe). But the medical knowledge these professionals had was not enough to answer his question. Thus, he traveled to Persia where there was a quite renowned and exclusive medical school. He did not have the economic means or previous schooling to attend but he impressed the headmaster with his passion and knowledge. Thus, the headmaster admitted him into the Madrassa. The European boy then invested all his time doing research, dissections and treating patients until he finally found out what ailment caused his mother’s death, side sickness (appendicitis). He figured out a way to treat this illness, removal of the appendix. From his initial necessity which was the driving force for him to pursue a medical career, he became a famous physician and felt that all his suffering and odyssey were worthwhile. The sense of necessity leads to the feeling of passion. It was his love for his mother that made him follow such a journey full of obstacles. I am beginning to apply that to my own life. I want to figure out my necessity which will be the driving force to power through university and medical school without ever feeling burnt out. I want to feel fulfilled. I believe this is what all pre-medical students and teachers should think about. What is your necessity? We are going to be dealing with human life, someone’s mother, father, friend, sister, uncle, lover, husband, or child...It is not something to be taken lightly. I know so many doctors lacking empathy because they went into the medical field with just the intention of being acknowledged as “Doctors” and getting rich. But I feel that even the most apathetic healthcare workers can become great empathetic professionals the moment they realize that something was triggered deep inside them, perhaps a loved one having an unknown disease. This would lead the apathetic doctor to do mass amounts of research to try to find a cure. This feeling becomes a necessity. A necessity to not lose the loved one. A necessity to save lives. Thus, finding passion, purpose, and becoming a better person. Though each person is different, we all share a selfish feeling. Most of the time we do not truly care about other peoples’ suffering until it happens to us. Once we are affected by something, we drive all our time and attention to find a solution or a way to deal with a problem. We become consumed and completely obsessed by it. I regard this as passion. I do not think passion subsides, it lingers on inside us. It is a fire that never burns out. I remember my high school teacher writing in my yearbook:

Remember a few things, BE PATIENT. You are eager and you will accomplish so much. But take your time, you are always rushing. Life is a journey, it is not about the destination. Be picky. You love everything with enthusiasm but enthusiasm can burn out. Find a fire inside yourself that burns for a long time.

-V

We cannot rush our personal legend. I believe it comes to us. It is Maktub (it’s written). But we also have to do something. Imagine you are on a stranded island but you have a machete, a fishing rod, coconuts, a cave for shelter, wood for a fire, an ocean full of fish. Everything required for survival is there, but you simply have to cut open the coconut with the machete, go fishing for food, fire to cook, and warmth. The fish isn’t going to swim right into your hands and the fire will not light itself. We must use our resources and do our bit. The Universe has a lot going on, we must help out a bit.

If you ever think about quitting, try to remember what made you start your odyssey in the first place. I do not know what my necessity is yet but that is okay. I believe it will come to me eventually. So for now, I simply love to romanticize academia. I like to imagine the: earthy tones of the universities archways, cobblestone paths, laboratories with clean Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers, pristine white lab coats, bunsen burner flames changing colors as different salts are added, Bromothymol Blue pen stains, elegant calculations inside a worn leather-bound notebook, formulas scrawled over the blackboard, forgotten cold Irish breakfast tea on the desk, academics discussing theories, applause from a successful experiment, gray rainy days spent inside the lab, Whitman, Hemingway, et Sir Arthur Conon Doyle being read during break, intellectual conversations with professors, chemistry reports being written, molecular models built, volumes of ancient words, fire slowly burning in the stone fireplace, trying to understand, looking at the constellations on a clear night in the astronomy tower, reciting poetry, Tchaikovsky playing whilst completing a long lab report on Lê Chatelier’s theory of Equilibrium, curious minds, sleepless evenings in the library, beautiful anatomical illustrations...Just imagining these things motivate and inspire me to continue my path. Though it may seem superficial, it awakens something inside me. I yearn and I pine to become a Chemistry Romantic. 

I want to conclude this letter by saying that pupils and educators keep ideals alive and can change them accordingly as well. We have the power to become excellent professionals or simply exist and do nothing for the human race. But if you plan on becoming a physician or educator, you must find the trigger which brings your passion to life, your necessity. Once you find that, you are guaranteed greatness and fulfillment. However, do not rush. Perfection takes time. A couple of obstacles should not hinder you from persevering. Many will tell you to give up but do not. That is the Universe testing you. Do your best until you master the topic. Once you know better, you are then able to do better. 

Regards,

Confessions from a Chemistry Academic