#It is pointless if you believe that the only available conclusion from the evidence is yours though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

simonalkenmayer · 2 years

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For the Haters

Alright. Are we finished now? Are we finished with the bullying? Can we dispense with these antics? I’ve repeatedly and with great effort and word count explained why this needs to stop. I have asked you to stop. I have offered assistance. To no avail. Consider this the final attempt.

All of you hate bloggers, please read carefully, slowly, more than once, because I am about to share some things with you that you really want to hear.

We have all been cruel at one time or another. Every conscious mind. Why? Because the urge to force others to understand is strong. But it’s a simplistic and ultimately awful way to be. And bullying, which is intentional harm done to gain something from another—emotional or utilitarian—is something else entirely. Yesterday, on that post with the “pig” insult, I went over all the weird conclusions you’ve come to about me and why they don’t make sense, but that’s pointless. If you believe the conspiracy, arguing the merits of the conspiracy doesn’t work. So instead I’m going to make a point that undoes the original axioms you have.

First let’s talk about how we came here. Something happened that you did not like. For Isdead it was me explaining to him that he shouldn’t wear my name even if he thinks it’s a flattering gesture. Simply because it’s my name and I really would prefer he not, but that boundary wasn’t enough. I explained the safety concerns. No dice. I suspect he just wants to have a fight, so of course he’d do something I asked him not to. Never mind if someone wore your name and attached a death threat to it, or how that might make you feel if the blog targeted you. Never mind. I’m not real, so I don’t have feelings.I’m sure the concern I have for his psyche is only performative.

For some of you it’s one specific thing I said. For some of you that one thing was grossly misinterpreted, like a tone you didn’t catch or a word you misread, and the meaning you’ve given it has nothing to do with any meaning it actually had for me. I have an odd sense of humor, and it often doesn’t translate, but I have certainly been surprised to see the many ways that’s gone over weirdly. That’s not a value judgement, it’s a statement of fact. I’ll use the Tupperware, which isn’t an inciting incident but does stand up. I did not choose red lids because of blood libel. I chose red lids because there were two colors, and red stands both for blood and for stop. But because Isdead already didn’t like me, he went on a wild goose chase, looked up a tradition of packaging that only some people embrace, and then tied it to antisemitism. Why? Because he’s a new convert to Judaism and it was prevalent in his head, I suspect, but that’s all pointless. If you want to read my story as having insidious reliance upon antisemitic mythos, that’s your choice, but in actuality, that was not done by me. It simply wasn’t. Just because you can read it, doesn’t mean it’s intended to be there or even that you’re correct about the idea you propose, or even the tradition you cite. You have been working at misinterpreting me from day one. On purpose. Because you enjoy the drama, as you said yourself. You made an axiomatic decision “Simon is bad, because I want him to be” and then you set about trying to prove it.

To achieve that, you ignore evidence to the contrary. You discount all friends as being brainwashed. You insist that all my friends are being abused by me. You imply that mentally ill people lack the agency and capacity to make choices about me. You embrace strange turns of thought. To whit, “he’s not real, so I can treat that person however I want.” But here’s one problem with that…if I’m not real, then you can’t believe a word I’ve said until you ask for clarification. Meaning you can’t believe any of these meanings you say are there, are real. A treasure map written by a fake pirate doesn’t lead to treasure. You cannot have it both ways.

If I’m not real, then you’re treating an actor like trash just for the hell of it. You cannot say I’m a character and so you can do as you please, but at the same time insist that this character’s choices and actions are real enough to need to fight. It’s a paradox. Can you see that?

Meanwhile here I am. I don’t go to your blogs. I don’t leave you asks. I communicate passively in all respects, waiting for people to come to me. I don’t care about your opinions and never have. No really. I never have. What I care about is the behavior, and how determined you are to embrace it.

I’m writing you now to try and make an impression on you—this is not good. This is not alright. You crafted an online persona and spend hours being rude and malicious about someone you don’t know at all but are determined to dislike. Why? Just move on. Why are you fixating? Why are you letting that fixation turn you into these irrational false logicians? Why are you content to sling mud, publish abuse, delve into wild speculation, make things up? Defend abusive people in an effort to turn me into one. Why do you keep coming to my blog? What is the reason? Have you asked yourself?

Let’s take away all the justifications. You don’t need to protect anyone from me. I’ve never done one damn thing to anybody. Not one. Bring me someone who says I did, and I will prove it otherwise or apologize. I constantly discuss kindness (which you now mock). I discuss all the same social issues you do, with the same leanings. What’s the problem here?

This doesn’t make sense. Not even one bit. Unless you’re doing it for the fun of it. And if that’s the case…it’s very very worrisome.

I’m trying to get you to see this. Your behavior doesn’t make sense. Something is not alright here. You need to stop. Not for me. Though frankly it would be nice not to wake up to some new malicious stupidity. You need to do it for yourselves.

If I was really as bad as you say I am, hell, I’d have ended up in far worse situations. Clearly that’s not the case. People do not like me because I am brainwashing them. No one is that good. I could never keep hundreds of online friends oblivious to my evil, if I was actually as evil as you say. Not without a hell of a lot more evidence pointing to mind control.

You’re doing it to make yourself feel part of something. Why be against me when you could be with me? I can assure you, I am not as bad as you’re determined to make me.

Let’s stop this ridiculous behavior please? After today I will no longer even acknowledge you exist. Not ever again. Test me and find out. I’ve told everyone I had copying your posts to stop and send me their files. I’m finished entertaining you, because now I no longer have to. So please stop. You’re not helping anyone. You’re just hurting yourselves. You want to tell me I acted improperly, then do so. Stop being cowards. Come message me and let’s figure out your real problem. Change it, or you make it abundantly clear you don’t want it to change. You want attention? I’ll give it to you. You want friends? Alright. I’ve got some good ones. But you can’t keep acting like this. It’s bad for you and everyone else around you.

I really do hope you hear me out on this and make another choice than to keep on with this. It will be pointless, I assure you. Please stop. Stop. It is actually now very laughable.

Abusive people tend to have a great deal of narcissistic tendencies. I don’t actually care about those until they become abusive. That’s why I get along with so many people. I don’t care about your sex, gender, age, background. I don’t care what faith you practice. I don’t care about your education, your disabilities. I don’t care about any of these things unless you do. And if you do, then tell me why. Tell me in what way I’ve stepped on that. I will go over my entire book line by line if you want.

Why? Because I want to be right? No. Because I don’t want this behavior to continue. I had to tell people not to defend me, so that you wouldn’t mistreat them too! If you actually want resolution, then come get it. You know where I am. Hell, we can even set up a discord call. You can shout at me in front of an audience. Whatever you want. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll presume that resolution wasn’t actually the point. You don’t want progress because you want the fight. The fight is fun for you.

It’s not for me. For me, it’s boring and pointless. For me it’s the pattern of countless decades. For me it’s nonsense. So if you want to win? Alright. You win. I am the devil’s chauffeur. Are you happy? Can it stop now?

I hope you really give this thought, because despite what your echo chamber tells you, I promise you, you’re not really making a good accounting of yourself. I’m going to end this here. Consider it my last communication.

I hope you learn and grow and become the people the world needs.

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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 3 years

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Hi, first off I ship Zutara and I come in peace. I was pointed your way by a friend when I asked for people who ship kataang who are nevertheless willing to hear different views. I have lurked on blog a week and finally got up my nerve to ask how you or any other Kataang can deny that the last part of book 3 was completely Zutara but then stopped abruptly with no buildup? You can finesse tone on text so I'm not being sarcastic or bitchy, it is a serious question (1/5)

In The Southern Raiders, Katara realizes she has been wrong about Zuko. In Ember Island Players, she realizes Aang is not as mature as she thought he was, and in the finale, Katara does not care a whit that Aang is gone. I am serious and as someone who is no Aang stan but likes him, I’m actually annoyed by how little anyone cared about his disappearance. It went from “Aang’s gone!” to “Okay whatever, let’s find Iroh so he can kill Ozai.” (2/5)

Katara was all over Zuko (honestly, again not being a jerk) in the finale until for whatever reason, she wasn’t. She was giving him a pep talk about Iroh, she was going with him to Azula, she was healing him and saying he saved her not the other way around. I genuinely don’t get why this isn’t seen as romantic. I will grant you that Zuko would not have allowed Azula to kill anyone but I feel the point here was Zuko realizing his life was pointless if Katara was killed. (4/5)

And then literally at the end, Mai shows up after Zuko not talking about her at all for six episodes and declares herself Zuko’s girlfriend. And Katara kisses Aang after being annoyed with and by him arguably since The Southern Raiders. I get that Kataang “won” and I’ve made peace with that, but ... I can’t understand why Kataang shippers are okay with such a crap story. I swear on my gmom [sic] if they’d done this for [Zvtara], I’d be mad as hell. So I don’t understand, I really don’t. (5/5)

As always, I shall begin with a disclaimer: anon, you do not have to agree with this post. No one has to agree with this post, as it is strictly my own thoughts on the subject matter raised here! As per usual, I will not be putting this in the main tags - much less the Zvtara tag! - because I have basic fandom decency, lmao. If you (the general you, not anon specifically) do disagree with this post, that is totally fine, I simply ask that you are polite in expressing your disagreement (if you choose to do so at all! no one is expected to, lmao. i promise).

Alright. Formalities are out of the way!

I’ll admit I giggled a little bit when you say you lurked on my blog for a week, because I’ve actually talked about this subject numerous times in the past! I just found it funny you hadn’t stumbled across any posts about it yet, lol. So, as a heads up, know that I will be providing several links in this post since - again - this subject and related subjects have been analyzed a multitude of times before. I highly recommend reading them all! Mostly because I don’t intend to spend forever restating what’s been said over and over and over lmaooo. I will provide the resources, but it is up to each individual to take advantage of them.

To begin: your ask actually contains a few logical fallacies, anon! I do not mean this as shade or to belittle you - I fall victim to this issue all the time myself. Anyone who writes analyses or participates in debates does! Humans are imperfect and often like to cut corners to reach a conclusion. It is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about because - as the existence of your ask in inbox indicates - you are willing to learn more. So kudos to you, my friend!

Alright. So what logical fallacies am I talking about here? (For the record: specific definitions of logical fallacies were taken from here.)

1. Hasty Generalization.

“A hasty generalization is a general statement without sufficient evidence to support it.” Numerous claims are made in this ask that I have absolutely no doubt you believe to be true, anon, but there really isn’t any concrete evidence to support it! I will go into more detail later, of course, but let’s quickly look at one example:

“In Ember Island Players, [Katara] realizes Aang is not as mature as she thought he was…”

For the time being, I will ask but one question: from the show itself, not fanon, how do you know this?

2. Causal Fallacy

Ah, this guy. My own worst enemy, tbh! “A causal fallacy is any logical breakdown when identifying a cause,” of which there are several types. “One causal fallacy is the false cause or non causa pro causa (‘not the-cause for a cause’) fallacy, which is when you conclude about a cause without enough evidence to do so.” In your ask, you claim:

“I will grant you that Zuko would not have allowed Azula to kill anyone but I feel the point here was Zuko realizing his life was pointless if Katara was killed.”

Again, for the time being, I will ask only one question: from the show itself, not fanon, what led you to believe this statement?

“Another kind of causal fallacy is the correlational fallacy also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Lat., ‘with this therefore because of this’). This fallacy happens when you mistakenly interpret two things found together as being causally related.” In your ask, you claim:

“Katara was all over Zuko (honestly, again not being a jerk) in the finale until for whatever reason, she wasn’t. She was giving him a pep talk about Iroh, she was going with him to Azula, she was healing him and saying he saved her not the other way around. I genuinely don’t get why this isn’t seen as romantic.”

I will ask one question: from the show itself, not fanon, why would you believe these are indicative of romance? (Consider the context the show is situated in, too - e.g. the war, Katara being Azula’s only available match in skill, etc.)

The reason I bring up the issue of logical fallacies is again not at all to make you feel bad, anon!! You were simply trying to express your point to me and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to do so. See, your ask actually presents a larger fandom trend:

Misconstruing fanon as canon.

What you have offered to me, anon, are fanon conclusions. To clarify: there is absolutely nothing wrong with fanon. I adore fanon interpretations (an example I have used in the past is Kuzaang - like, I don’t care that there’s no canon basis! I do what I want lmao!), but a line has to be drawn between exploring fanon interpretations and expecting everyone to take that fanon as canon. Again, anon, this is not your fault! It is not any one person’s fault, lmao. It is an issue of fandom as a whole, and all of us fall victim to it.

With that in mind, I will break down the different components of your ask. I will also do my best to be brief - as aforementioned, I and others have analyzed this issue numerous times before, lmao. To avoid confusion, it would be best to read through each or at least most links as they are provided!

Firstly, there are two posts I have made in the past that almost directly answer your overarching question here in this ask. Please read them prior to continuing, as I will occasionally reference them:

This post explains how Zvtara was not built up from TSR/EIP-onwards, and how their supposed “canon enemies to lovers arc” is a completely fanon construction.

This post explains the issue of the “canon Zvtara” rhetoric from rabid zkers (and you, anon, are absolutely NOT one, in case you were worried).

Alrighty. With that out the way, let’s get into it!

“In The Southern Raiders, Katara realizes she has been wrong about Zuko.”

Gotta start by saying that TSR is not about Zuko. TSR is, first and foremost, about Katara. Katara does not realize she was wrong about Zuko, because here’s the truth - she wasn’t wrong about him. Zuko did horrible things to the Gaang. Katara was not wrong to hold him accountable for that. What Katara does realize is that holding such rage so close to her chest is bad for her. This rage was not solely anger against Zuko, either; it was of course about Yon Rha, too, but it was also anger towards Kya and Katara herself. Essentially, TSR is where Katara realizes she has to forgive herself. Zuko is only one part of her journey (similar to Aang’s role in the episode, if a different end of the spectrum).

This post explains how TSR was fundamentally about Katara.

Additional resources about TSR:

This post explains Aang’s comments to Katara in TSR and how Katara herself recognized their validity.

This post explains why both Aang and Zuko were important to Katara in TSR.

This post is an extensive breakdown of Aang and Katara’s relationship within TSR.

“In Ember Island Players, [Katara] realizes Aang is not as mature as she thought he was…”

You provide no context for this claim, so I’m going to work with the assumption this is about their reactions to the play itself and the infamous kiss!

There is something important we must keep in mind when discussing EIP: the play they watch is literally imperialist propaganda. It is meant to demean the entire Gaang, and indeed it does exactly that. You mention Katara and Aang specifically, so I will recap what I have explained before about their depictions in EIP: Katara, an indigenous woman, is hypersexualized and portrayed as overly emotional (and thus “irrational”). This reinforces the Fire Nation sentiment that women of the Water Tribes are less intelligent and less suited for “responsibility” than Fire Nation women. Aang, a pacifist and the sole survivor of genocide who is also canonly the male character most comfortable with femininity and spirituality, is portrayed as a flighty, airheaded woman (this is a well-known imperialist tactic meant to emasculate the target, seeing as masculinity was often equated with power in fascist regimes; thus, they effectively belittled Aang before the FN audience). This reinforces the Fire Nation sentiment that the Air Nomads were foolish, weak people who deserved to die.

In other words, of course Aang and Katara were upset about how they portrayed in the play. It is understandable that tensions would be running high and consequently that mistakes (we all know the one) would be made.

This post explains how EIP belittles each member of the Gaang (and why the play is not indicative of Zvtara).

This post talks specifically about EIP and their portrayal of Aang and Katara.

Now onto the kiss. As everyone knows and no one has ever disagreed with, Aang was wrong to kiss Katara. Point blank!

But what people do misunderstand is Katara and Aang’s feelings regarding the kiss. Given your above quote, I assume you believe Aang kissing Katara supposedly made her realize that Aang wasn’t as mature as she once thought. On the surface, this seems like a logical conclusion! But digging deeper reveals… well, there’s nothing that indicates this conclusion at all. Even jumping ahead to the finale, when Zuko has doubts over Aang’s return, Katara demonstrates her faith in Aang (although of course she’s nervous - I won’t deny the obvious, lmao) as she says, “Aang won’t lose. He’s gonna come back. He has to.”

In other words, nothing in canon suggests that Katara believes Aang is immature because of what happened in EIP. She still trusts in his return, as she did even before she knew him (and arguably is more confident in him now, given the 60~ episodes of them growing closer). Furthermore, when Aang does disappear, Katara doesn’t have an outburst about how “immature” it was for him to “run away again.” The viewers know Aang didn’t run away, of course (fans who insist he did are not worth arguing with, anon - they don’t understand the show, rip), but that is a luxury the rest of the Gaang is not afforded. And yet even though Aang has vanished off the face of the planet, Katara still believes he will save the world. If anything, that signifies the utmost confidence in his skill and maturity!

To go back to the kiss itself, this post explains the true source of Katara’s conflict in turning down Aang (hint: she says it herself in the episode! you know, the whole war going on) and why the EIP kiss did not sink Kataang’s relationship.

Additional sources about EIP:

This post explains how the EIP kiss was resolved through narrative parallels.

This post explains how the EIP kiss is so often blown out of proportion.

“… and in the finale, Katara does not care a whit that Aang is gone. I am serious and as someone who is no Aang stan but likes him, I’m actually annoyed by how little anyone cared about his disappearance. It went from ‘Aang’s gone!’ to ‘Okay whatever, let’s find Iroh so he can kill Ozai.’”

As I already touched upon, Katara didn’t need a soliloquy to emphasize her connection to Aang once he disappeared. She trusts that he will return. She says so herself. I guess I just don’t understand how you got from Point A, Katara has consistent faith in Aang, to Point B, Katara and the rest of the Gaang didn’t care about Aang’s disappearance. It’s honestly a bit more like Point A to Point Z, lmao! If you would like to expand on your logic here, I would love to hear more!!

There are a few specific aspects I want to note about your rationale, though. You argue the Gaang moves from ‘Aang disappeared’ to ‘let’s find Iroh,’ but the Gaang actually went from:

1. Aang disappeared!

2. They search the entire island for him.

3. Okay, they couldn’t find him, so they track down June and have her try to find Aang.

4. June says to them, “No, I mean he’s gone gone. He doesn’t exist.” (And she clarifies to Sokka that she doesn’t mean dead, either - she means Aang has totally blinked out of their world.)

5. Only after all of this do they decide to track down Iroh.

The Gaang cares immensely about the fact that Aang is gone, and you could actually argue they waste time by trying to track him down. They don’t give up until June essentially tells them that some Spirit World shenanigans were involved. Even if you don’t think they reached that specific conclusion, I have to ask: What else were they supposed to do? They were told Aang didn’t exist! How are they supposed to fix that?

Well, they can’t. So they do the next best thing: they find Iroh, the man who knows Ozai better than anyone and is also one of the most talented firebenders in the world. In my opinion, that’s a very logical step to take.

I’ll be blunt here, lol: in my opinion, nothing of what you listed in your ask is inherently romantic.

Okay. I am going to assume you’ve read the first two posts I linked earlier (“Zvtara did not have an E-L arc” and “the ‘canon’ Zvtara of rabid zkers has issues”), because I do not intend to rehash everything they contain, lol. Consequently, I presume you realize by now that there was no canon romantic interest between Zuko and Katara.

And as I always say, just because there wasn’t a canon romance doesn’t mean people can’t take fanon routes! Of course they can! That’s the entire point of fanon! But fanon is not canon, and I am strictly referring to canon in my discussions.

You claim Katara was all over Zuko, which in itself I don’t think is an accurate assessment, because she doesn’t really do anything with Zuko outside the three points you bring up (other than the June gag, which I addressed in one of the aforementioned linked posts). So I’ll go ahead and break down each instance you provide!

1. “[Katara] was giving [Zuko] a pep talk about Iroh”

Katara asked Zuko if he was okay. She asked him if he was genuinely sorry. She reassures him that Iroh will forgive him. That’s… all. Not to diminish the significance of this conversation, but it’s not exactly an intimate, romantically-charged discussion (unless fanon-ized). But on that note, let’s tackle the canon significance of this moment!

Katara knows firsthand the challenge of forgiving Zuko. And she knows that Zuko understands how hard it was for her to forgive him (note: Katara’s anger was totally justified, and anyone who disagrees is probably a rabid Zuko stan lmao). She also recognizes that Zuko is terrified it will take Iroh the same struggle to forgive him that Katara went through. This scene is not related to romance at all. It’s about compassion. It’s about Katara and Zuko’s friendship having progressed, slowly but surely, to the point where she’s not afraid to extend empathy to him anymore (seeing as the first time, beneath Ba Sing Se, did not go so well; you know - Aang died and all). It’s about Zuko recognizing his own fallibility (and the audience recognizing how much he’s grown). He questions how he can even face his uncle after all he’s done to the man, which is a far cry from his entitled attitude in TSR, where he demanded to know why Katara didn’t trust him when everyone else had forgiven him.

To make this moment, this moment about Zuko’s relationship with his uncle who is all but a literal father to him, this moment of vulnerability, of guilt, of remorse, of growth, to claim this powerful moment is about a nonexistent romantic relationship? In my opinion, that is incredibly reductive to what this scene is supposed to signify. And again, there is nothing wrong with people exploring such a possibility in fanon, but in canon? Nah. It doesn’t track.

2. “[Katara] was going with [Zuko] to Azula”

Don’t forget that at first, Zuko planned to take on Azula alone. He doesn’t request Katara to accompany him until Iroh tells him that he’ll need help. As such, Zuko’s immediate agreement with Iroh is reflective of his personal growth (Book 1 and 2 Zuko would have argued and insisted he didn’t need any help). It also demonstrates, however, that Katara was not obsessively on Zuko’s mind. He doesn’t choose Katara until Iroh points out that Zuko will need assistance in taking Azula down. This means that Zuko’s choice of Katara to join him is a tactical decision, not an emotional one. And by all accounts, it’s a damn good decision! Zuko witnessed firsthand beneath Ba Sing Se a) how powerful Katara was (e.g. that wave after Aang died) and b) how Katara was the only one who could take on Azula*.

Of course, besides the fact that Katara was the only match for Azula, who else was Zuko going to choose? Sokka and Suki, while talented in their own right, were no competition for Azula. Toph, while the greatest earthbender in the world, was needed to metalbend the airships. Katara was the only (and the best!) option.

Also, on their trip to face Azula, the only thing they talk about within their three lines of canon conversation are Azula and Aang. Not exactly a romantic flight, lmao.

*Zuko never saw Aang fight Azula on the drill.

3. “[Katara] was healing [Zuko] and saying he saved her not the other way around”

Actually, this is what the transcript says:

Zuko: Thank you, Katara.

Katara: I think I’m the one who should be thanking you.

You’re right about how their lines refer to them saving each other, but you posit it as a romantic moment, when the lines are actually pretty straightforward. Zuko thanks Katara as she heals him from the partially-redirected lightning strike, and Katara thanks him for trying to redirect the lightning away from her and in doing so saving her life. In terms of canon, there’s nothing romantic about this, lol! (Which I talked about extensively in the E-L post, if you need to reference it again.) The reason being is that you have to take the show itself into context when you do analysis. If there was no canon romantic buildup between Zuko and Katara, why would these lines in canon (not fanon! fanon is free rein, lmao) be interpreted through a romantic lens?

Well, they wouldn’t be interpreted as such. Plain and simple.

“I genuinely don’t get why this isn’t seen as romantic.”

Because looking through a canon lens, they aren’t romantic. That’s all. You are of course welcome to view them as such through a fanon lens!! It’s just about recognizing the line between canon and fanon.

“I will grant you that Zuko would not have allowed Azula to kill anyone but I feel the point here was Zuko realizing his life was pointless if Katara was killed.”

I asked earlier what content in the show itself led you to believe. I have wracked my own mind, and I cannot think of anything that would point to this conclusion. Zuko was in Katara’s good graces for 5 episodes. That’s 8% of the show. Not exactly a lot of time for Zuko to start believing his life would be pointless if Katara was killed, is it?

This post explains the improbability of Zuko having a crush on Katara within canon.

This post explains how Zuko’s racism towards the Air Nomads in TSR and the finale is, well, exactly that - racism (and not a sign of a crush on Katara).

And, of course, as has been said a million times, Zuko taking the lightning for Katara out of romantic interest would completely undermine his redemption arc. Since it has been said over and over and over, I will be brief: Zuko taking the lightning is significant because it is a selfless act (one of his only in the series), and it directly parallels his selfish act of choosing not to intervene when Azula killed Aang with lightning beneath Ba Sing Se. This moment demonstrates Zuko’s growth, how he has learned to accept unconditional love from Iroh and the Gaang and Mai and even Ty Lee and sure, even from Appa and Momo, too. To make this moment of pure selflessness about a nonexistent romance? To force a fanon romance in replacement of canon redemption and canon platonic significance?

Such a decision speaks wonders about a person’s priorities, in my opinion, as well as how amatonormativity impacts them.

Furthermore, Zuko’s choice cements Katara’s position as his surrogate sibling, as she is Azula’s primary foil. Zuko chooses the sister who heals over the sister who harms. I won’t go too much into it here, because it has already been talked about extensively before! Thus, I offer you this post that explains how Zuko and Katara - in canon - are positioned as surrogate siblings as well as Azula’s role in this matter. I also offer this post that lays out through screencaps how Zuko and Katara - in canon - treat each other like family.

Additional sources about the final Agni Kai:

This post in part discusses fanon misinterpretation of the final Agni Kai and why such a lens is not true to canon relationships.

This post explains why the final Agni Kai is not intended to be romantic.

This post explains how the final Agni Kai is primarily about Azula and how reducing it to be a big Zvtara moment is detrimental to both her and to Zuko and Katara themselves.

“And then literally at the end, Mai shows up after Zuko not talking about her at all for six episodes and declares herself Zuko’s girlfriend.”

This point could probably get a post of its own, lol, but fortunately I and others have already written a few! I will link them below - first, however, I question your choice of “declares.” Technically, yes, Mai does say outright that it doesn’t hurt how the new Fire Lord is her boyfriend, but your phrasing implies Zuko resisted her proclamation. When… he doesn’t. In fact, he embraces it, asking if that means she doesn’t hate him anymore (read: he asks if they’re back on good terms again). Zuko clearly doesn’t have a problem with the girl he loves wanting to be with him again - so why do some parts of fandom so adamantly insist he does? (Not you, anon - I am referring to the rabid fanoners, lol.)

Also, regarding how Zuko hasn’t talked about Mai for six episodes, we’ve gotta be realistic with this assessment in terms of canon:

1. It was the crux of the war. They were either going to live or die. There was no time for romance at this point! Sokka and Suki weren’t professing their love on the battlefield, lmao, so it’s not exactly strange that Zuko didn’t bust into a monologue about how he missed Mai. I think they were just a little bit distracted by the possible end of the world, lol, and all that jazz.

2. Zuko probably thought Mai was dead. He knows what Azula is like. He knows his sister doesn’t have time for people who get in her way (Aang can testify to this, lmao). So can you blame him for not wanting to think about how the girl he loved had died (to his knowledge) to save him?

You gotta cut the kid some slack, lol. Anyways! Additional sources about Maiko:

This post breaks down the notion of Maiko and “deserve.”

This post rationalizes through a canon lens why Mai’s arrival at the palace surprised Zuko.

This post is the mother of Maiko metas, explaining in tremendous detail why their relationships works, is relevant to canon, and was well-implemented for what its role was.

“And Katara kisses Aang after being annoyed with and by him arguably since The Southern Raiders.”

What in canon has led you to the conclusion that Katara was annoyed with Aang? What specific moments from TSR to the finale made you think Katara was annoyed with Aang and remained annoyed with Aang? Are there any, or are you thinking about fanon interpretation? (Canon vs fanon strikes again!)

In TSR, Katara explicitly thanks Aang for understanding her perspective. Nothing there is indicative of annoyance (and as in the links provided earlier, she was not angry at Aang/Zuko/etc. so much as she was at herself. well, she was a little bit angry with Zuko, lmao). In EIP, Katara is understandably angry at Aang’s decision to kiss her, but Aang completely backs off, and we see in the part 1 of the finale that there are no hard feelings or weird tension between them. Katara in fact actively expresses concern for Aang after Zuko sporadically attacked him when she demands of the firebender, “What’s wrong with you? You could have hurt Aang!” Even when Aang and Katara do butt heads later in the episode as Aang tries to think of a way to defeat Ozai without killing him, Katara doesn’t stay frustrated. Like I said - when she and Zuko are flying to Azula, she demonstrates her unwavering faith in Aang through her belief that he will return. So… where is the annoyance that you feel was present?

With all this mind, i.e. looking strictly at canon, Katara wasn’t annoyed with Aang during this time. Thus, Katara kisses Aang because she loved him. Because he backed off and gave her the space she needed to make a decision about if she wanted to be with him (hence Katara being the one to initiate the kiss). Because the issue was never about if she reciprocated his feelings (they both knew they loved each other) but rather it had to do with the war. At the end of the finale, the war is over, and there is nothing that prevents them from being together. Simple.

This post explains how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series (and were not neglected, as rabid zkers like to claim, for some reason? again - you are not one of them, anon).

This post also covers Katara’s interest in Aang throughout the series.

“I can’t understand why Kataang shippers are okay with such a crap story.”

I mean, you definitely don’t have to ship Kataang. It may not be your cup of tea, and that’s totally okay! But as the above links demonstrate, Kataang was a fantastic story. It was well-implemented into the narrative from Day 1. The soulmateism is unparalleled!

Also, it’s worth noting that A:TLA itself was essentially pre-written. The writers knew how the story would end from the get-go, including that the show would end with Kataang. A few Zvtara gags were thrown in to add a sense of “who will Katara choose?” drama as the show aired, but Zuko and Katara were never planned to end up together. One reason so many newer fans are fine with Kataang from the start is that there’s no tension of waiting a week for a new episode when you can watch all 61 episodes straight through on Netflix, lmao. It’s even more obvious now than when A:TLA was airing that Aang and Katara will end up together, if that makes sense. (Although I talked about this in the E-L post linked earlier, so you probably understand this point already, as it was explained in detail there!)

All of this is to say that Kataang is not a “crap story” in terms of writing (again, personal taste is a different matter) because it was woven in from the beginning and had powerful narrative significance! (Kataang represented numerous complementary components of the series, such as yin and yang, push and pull, air and water, Oma and Shu, etc.)

Now. If you really and truly want to understand why Kataang shippers like Kataang, anon, consider reading some Kataang fanfics or exploring some Kataang headcanons. I read fics involving Zvtara more regularly than you might think, lol, because… well, it’s just a ship. I understand the appeal of romantic Zvtara and I can actually appreciate it when it’s well-written! I’m sure if you’re willing to put in just a little legwork (you don’t need to go the whole mile, lmao - ‘tis just fandom), you’ll realize why people like Kataang, even if it isn’t exactly your thing. You have the range, anon!! You got this!

I hope I managed to answer your questions, my friend! As always, you do not have to agree with anything I have said here. It is totally fine if you and anyone else disagrees! Everything above is simply my own perspective on the matter. Thank you for taking the time to read my response and all the different links I provided! I hope it has expanded your understanding of the subject at hand!

#i spent all day writing this lmaooo #TWO WHOLE HOURS SPENT COMPILING LINKS #amy answers #anon #amy analyzes

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andydona-chan · 3 years

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Realization

Ok, so this one has been sitting in my documents for some time because I didn’t know how to continue it... Until I re-read it and noticed I really don’t have to, you all know the endgame of this fanfics, and maybe I can get a better idea of how to make a second part with your precious feedback, cause I really need it, so from the old documents but for a lovely ship, I present this:

Read it at AO3

*****

Sherlock sat in silence on the bed at the hotel he was currently staying at, with the explosion at Baker Street he was virtually homeless at the moment, and honestly he was tired and he needed to sleep after what they had been through that day. However he couldn’t, or more likely, he wouldn’t. Sherlock just knew that the nightmares would make it impossible for him to rest, not only that, his ever working mind will still be running thoughts in his head, processing every detail and making conclusions about what had happened at Sherrinford.

He smiled sadly just remembering how John had offered his house, told him he could stay until Baker Street was restored, but he had instead told him that Mrs. Hudson needed it more than him, that she would be more grateful and she would be also willing to help him with Rosie while they worked on rebuilding his flat.

Mycroft had also offered his house, a really surprising gesture, and though Sherlock would have no trouble staying at his brother’s house, with all the space and rooms, he felt that he didn’t belong there; and as much as he wanted to just sit here trying to not think, it was also something he couldn’t leave for later

He needed to think about a lot of things, many of them concerning his sister and the things she had put him through that day without worrying that his brother would listen or record it. Good lord, he didn’t want him to worry anymore! So he had declined, warning his brother that if their parents were to know that they were both staying at the same house, they wouldn’t waste time waiting for an invitation and soon they’ll find themselves in a very awkward and difficult family reunion at his house.

Mycroft wasn’t ready yet to tell them what had happened to Eurus, and neither Sherlock; and though it was a matter of time that they started asking questions about the explosion at 221B, at least that way they could buy time until things had settled down into a more normal state, if they ever went back to normal

So, he took off his shoes, his coat and jacket and unbuttoned his t-shirt, climbing onto the bed and sitting in a lotus position with his head against the headboard Sherlock closed his eyes putting his hands together in front of him as he always did and entered his mind palace, this time not looking for information, but to sort the day’s events.

He recalled the day Moriarty’s video had paralyzed the entire city, his face in every screen saying ‘Did you miss me?’ By then he had already know that he wasn’t behind the event at all. In fact if he were to look at it properly, his mind had given him a lot of clues in that self-induced hallucination of the Victorian era. Even with his ghost present, Moriarty hadn’t been the real master mind behind it; it had been a woman, all along. And just as Eurus had proved, it had been for context, emotional context; something, he suspected, he could only provide given his tendency of sentimental attachment. Not that he thought it was wrong anymore, he had already started to see the benefits of it.

With an ever present sadness he remembered Mary, her case hadn’t even been connected to what had happened at all, her past had just caught up to her and that was it. However, to think that John had encountered Eurus at that time and had actually established communication with her was worrisome, because that meant Eurus had been free and watching them for too long. Time she had used to gather information, time he had lost glued to his phone and not paying enough attention to his best friend to notice what he was doing.

Then Mary had died and he had felt that loss more than he was willing to admit. And in between that he had also missed a lot of things, that part of himself that was grieving had pulled him into the numbing pleasures of the drugs, when he knew fully well that he could have faked it. He only had to convince John, and his best friend could be trusted to see but not to observe.

Oh, how sentiment could blind your mind! He had to admit that Mycroft had some points, caring too much was a disadvantage, but only because your mind focus on the thing you most care about than on the whole scene, and he had to remember that for his job he needed to look at everything, details were important, background was important. He had been seeing everything so blurred since John had shouted at him while still holding Mary’s dead body that night, it was like walking with a fishbowl full of water on his head.

He mentally slapped himself, a flash image of Molly doing so passing through his memory; he should have kept his mind clear. Sherlock sighed, opening his eyes to the darkened room; he was now slumped over the mattress, when had that happened? Maybe he was more tired than he had initially thought.

He adjusted himself until he was lying on his back, and once again reviewed his memories. He had to admit that his sister was so clever it was almost scary, almost. She had managed to come to his flat and pretend to be someone else, they had spent a whole night together, just walking and talking, some of the things they had talked about he couldn’t even remember, he had showed her so much about himself that it wasn’t a surprise that she had managed to trick him into her trap.

He had practically given away all his weaknesses without even noticing. Although he had to admit she had a lot to do with his lack of confidence when trying to make friends, or the way he treated them, and maybe, just maybe, if things had happened in a different way he could have treated people in a really different way. Women were usually more sentimental, more emotional, and Eurus had wanted to understand that, he was the most emotional of the three, and it was probably out of her female nature that his sister had tried to get his attention, to learn about it.

It wasn’t the best way, but then again the Holmes siblings mind worked like no other, especially hers. Eurus had asked him to choose someone to kill a man, and to be quite honest he had trouble choosing one. Mycroft wasn’t really one to do things himself, he always had done things through other people, still Sherlock had wanted to believe that he could do that to help him, he was wrong; but John, he could count on him, he had meant it when he had assured to Mycroft that John was family, although the last thing he wanted was to put another weight on his shoulders right now, even with what they had been through, and what he had learned thanks to him.

Talking about knowing what was good and what was wrong, it had also been a task when they had to choose a guilty man out of three brothers, their sense of justice was very similar, but the experiment had been clear for him then. Eurus had tested their reactions - especially his reactions to their reactions - to different emotions; in that first room they had to make a sacrifice and for that they had to show specific emotions fear, trust, courage and empathy. Taking from that, the second room had been about justice, their moral, resistance; intelligence and anger were tested there. In the third room…

Sherlock found himself unable to start with the things that had happened in that room, suddenly he had to sit up, his breathing was fast and he felt anger boiling in him, he was trembling.

With a jump he stood up and started pacing, trying to calm down, there had been something about that one test that he still couldn’t get over.

‘Damn it, Holmes, you are flesh and blood. You have feelings. You have ... you must have ... impulses.’

“Shut up!” he said out loud, as if to silence the voice inside his head. It was true that he had been in frequent communication with The Woman, what had happened between them had been interesting, but not lasting. There had been of course many emotions mixed up there that had actually thrown him out of his way, but it wasn’t something that currently affected him, and in his mind it was obvious that John would refer to her since she was the only one he had seen who had been able to pull his emotions - impulses - almost to the surface, however she wasn’t the only one, there was someone else, a woman who had always been able to see through him, to really see him.

Molly Hooper…

‘She’s out there... she likes you, and she’s alive. And do you have the faintest idea how lucky you are?’

But she had come near to not being alive… or so Eurus had wanted him to believe. Sherlock sighed loudly again while passing his hands through his hair, there were bruises on the skin of his hands, a reminder of what that experience had make him do, his hands had hurt afterwards, but he hadn’t had time to check, and he had hoped there wouldn’t be any evidence of it, but they were very visible by now. His own words as he deduced who the coffin in that room was for resonated in his head.

“Well, allowing for the entirely pointless courtesy of headroom, I’d say this coffin is intended for someone of about five foot four. Makes it more likely to be a woman.”

“Not a child?”

“A child’s coffin would be more expensive. This is in the lower price range, although still best available in that bracket.”

Of course it would be a cheap coffin, Molly would never buy something bigger or better, they had discussed it over on the phone one night, it had been silly actually, he was bored and wanted to know what her thoughts on that matter were, or what her choice would be given the case.

“A lonely night on Google” Not lonely if he considered who had actually talked to him about the subject, who else would he choose to talk about something like that?

“This is a practical and informed choice. Balance of probability suggests that this is for an unmarried woman distant from her close relatives. That much is suggested by the economy of choice. Acquainted with the process of death but unsentimental about the necessity of disposal. Also, the lining of the coffin…” Plain white but shiny, it’s feminine and delicate; something that a woman with simplicity on her mind would choose for herself if it was the last thing she would lie on.

“...Look at the coffin. Unmarried, practical about death, alone.”

Once again John’s voice broke into the scene reminding him of just how much an important matter this was. “Trust me, Sherlock: it’s gone before you know it. Before you know it.”

Letting his arms fall to his sides Sherlock had to admit defeat, he dropped himself heavily over the bed; his sister had really hit the nail on the head. ‘I don’t want it to end. Not like this’ the words appeared in his mind like they had done the night he had met Eurus, and just like then he erased them from the air in front of him, another sting of pain reminded him that John had gone through that reality. Molly Hooper meant a lot to him, so much more than anyone could really tell. She had helped him countless times, not only with experiments and autopsies, she had helped him fake his death, he had trusted her with his life, it was a secret, but it had been important at the time, she had done it, and she hadn’t asked anything in return.

He knew that she liked him, it was unmistakable, her body language, the invitations to go out for coffee, her smile… An image of her dressed up in a black dress a few Christmas ago made his stomach contract. He did not deserve her, how had she been able to forgive him after what he did that day, after what he had did more than once? It was something different that he had not really understood in the moment, his need to apologize and the guilt he had felt for making her feel that way, but she had left that behind and stayed firmly in her position as his friend, because whenever he went back to her she would be waiting for him

‘What do you need?’

Sherlock had noticed her attempts to move over him, to make a life, only to fail miserably, more than once because something he had said. He remembered Tom, that man she had gone with to John’s weeding, he had been her fiancé, someone she could’ve relied on, someone who could have make her happy, but she had called it off… Why? He wasn’t quite sure.

But he had made sure to show that he was grateful for the help she had lend him, she was an intelligent woman and her work with him had made things easier more times than he could remember. After Mary’s death Sherlock had needed to talk to someone, at first just to know how John was doing, and Molly had visited Baker Street with Rosie many times, sometimes to leave her with Mrs. Hudson, others to have some tea.

It was a few days after Mary’s video had arrived that he had talked to her about his plan, he had told her everything, and he had said that it was necessary to be real for John to pay attention. That day she had accepted, reluctantly, to help him, she had agreed to take and ambulance and the equipment to test him two weeks later, she had also promised that she would be very angry at him that day, she already was… He felt confusion at hearing it, why would she act that way right now? The plan still had some weeks to fully develop.

She worried too much it would seem, because she was lonely, and she was distant from her own family. It was clear now, she only had them, and of course she will worry about him, he was the man she loved! At that point he was the one putting his life in danger, he was the one dying! This time it wasn’t fake, she could keep that he was alive as a secret, but she couldn’t duel with a real death, (a fact he had known the day Mycroft had sent him to that 4 minute mission and why he had completely avoided telling her about) not another one so soon, and especially not after Mary…

Again Sherlock had to run his hands over his hair, this time his fingers pulling a little bit at it, he needed to react, the tiredness was pulling at him, he could feel his eyes dropping with sleep, but it wasn’t the time yet, so he needed to feel something real, pain would do for now. It occurred to him then that maybe Molly had been already really stressed about what was going on around her, with this family of hers that she didn’t know how to approach properly, she had been busy with Rosie, worried about John and working hard every day, and he had made her think about the state she was going to find him after his plan was complete, something she had also done professionally on a moving vehicle. Wow, that woman was so strong!

He had been at the hospital for at least two weeks before going back to Baker Street, and there she was again, still angry, busy and worried, but still there. She had been there through some episodes of withdrawal, his bad humor and his anxiety. And what had he given her in return? Nothing. It was suddenly obvious that a single ‘thank you’ and a kiss on the cheek were not enough anymore, not for someone who had done so much for him.

Suddenly it was clear why it was inconceivable that Molly Hooper would think that on the day of her death he would put her in that tiny cheap coffin! When Eurus plan had been revealed in that room he had known that this would hurt Molly, however in the midst of her life being in danger he thought it was best to have her heart broken than not beating at all.

It had been a surprise for him when she had asked him to say the words first, something unexpected given the circumstances. She had asked him to say it like he meant it. At first his mind had gone blank; he had to make sure he had heard her right, and then ask himself what he could do to make it sound like the truth, a part of him told him to just do it, she was in danger, if she wanted to hear him, he would say it, it was easy, or so he had thought when he asked her to do just that, but how? The answer hadn’t been difficult to find, really. They were friends that much was clear to him, and he truly loved his friends. The real shock came when he really thought about their kind of friendship, a flash of all the things they had shared through the years, the things she had done for him, the moments and experiences, the laughs and the discoveries made, the way it felt so natural to have a long a really entertained conversation with her, it wasn’t the kind of friendship he had with John, Wiggins or even with Irene, he had realized it then, because just as she had said it, it was true, he really did felt love for her, no need to fake it.

‘Also, your loss would break my heart…’

Something really out of character of Mycroft the moment he had said it, but very on point in this case, losing Molly Hooper would break him. Not only his life would be emptier, his job would lack something she could only provide, she would not only miss her silly jokes and colorful jumpers, her sharp mind and her dexterity at her job, his heart ached at the sole idea. Trust him to feel lonely if he didn’t have Molly Hooper in his life, because for some time now John had had a life apart from him, with Mary and now only with Rosie, and thought Mrs. Hudson was good company sometimes Sherlock found himself feeling lonely. In a way he was like Molly, unmarried, practical about death and alone, he rolled his eyes, they had so much in common.

That’s how he knew, because moments after the call had been disconnected and he had been unable to talk to her a bit more, he had actually pictured it. He saw it when taking the lid of the coffin, her name written in the plaque just above the very same words that she most wanted to hear from him, he placed it over the wooden box that would hold the body of this great woman…

He saw her, her deathly pale face, still so beautiful, her eyes, those warm brown eyes, closed forever to the world she had found fascinating, her lips, now lacking color and the smile he had always loved, her small delicate hands yet skillful in her profession, and strong when he had needed her help, his heart beating painfully for her while she laid there, now unable to know what he was feeling for her, the words carved on a plaque that she would never read, he could picture a single tear dripping down her cheek as the light closed over her - a tear fallen from his own eyes…

No. She deserved flowers, a nice chapel, a place full of people that loved her, a long and fulfilling life to be remembered for, a long speech about her a nice, big and comfortable looking coffin lined with silk and a big plaque with the words ‘She was loved infinitely, by family and friends, she was the one that mattered the most at the end’; and he would be standing beside her, probably sad, but happy to have been part of her life. No! And he had lost it then, his patience, his poker face, his self-control, all lost because he couldn’t let that happen, he would not burry Molly Hooper in that cheap bloody coffin! He will not lose her!

He was angry at Eurus for making him do that, now that he had already understood how much it affected him, hurting the people he loved; hurting John Watson had been awful, and knowing that he could have done more for Mary had hurt him too. It wasn’t fair that he had been manipulated to hurt the one person in this world - out of his own family - that loved him unconditionally and deserved so much more from him, because she thought he was better than that!

‘She taught me to be the man she already thought I was. Get yourself a piece of that.’

All those words, all those emotions, all the things in life she did not have, and all just because she loved him… He had never wanted to be the one to stop all those things for her; he would’ve liked for her to move on and have her life, and be loved and be happy! And what have he done? He had insulted her appearance more than once; he had told her of off her choices, he had actually suggested she stopped dating at all…

When had he fallen in love with her? Because his jealousy had no other justification, maybe he had told himself that he needed her, but what for? Just because that way she would have more free time, what was that about? Wasn’t she entitled to have her own time and entertainment? She had the right to have friends and spend time with them and have fun and met someone and have a real family. Why then, was he so stubborn about her? He supposed unconsciously he had always known, but it was easier to think it was for his benefit, that it was also fun for her and that she was spending time with him, her friend.

But she knew him more than anyone, even more than John himself! She had saved his life, had helped him and proved to be more reliable than anyone, she had helped him solve countless cases, and they had joked and laughed and talked about more things that he could remember. She had always been there, was it really so hard for him to be there for her? She wasn’t asking for much, apparently, his heart already belonged to her.

He knew what he was coming back to, after that, Molly was going to be angry and sad, and probably won’t be happy to work with him as she always did. But that would be because she thought he was pretending, faking it for a case as he had done with the drugs, or with Janine… How could he convince her? Sending her a message? No, it was easier to discard or delete without even reading it. What about a phone call? She was probably not going to answer or would block his number.

The problem now was that he had broken the trust between them more than once; she had no reason to believe him, not after how abruptly that last call had ended. His mind brought the picture of Eurus face at that moment, he had to admit that she seemed almost as shocked as John and Mycroft had been.

“All those complicated little emotions. I lost count.”

For a moment he wondered himself how many emotions had been showed during that phone call: confusion, fear, trust, desperation, pain, realization, courage, surprise, truth, anger, love…

He wondered how much John and Mycroft’s opinion of him had changed, it would be really difficult to look at them next time Molly or his feelings were part of the conversation, it was something else to expect in the coming days. But they didn’t matter right now, he needed to talk to her, explain things, and put an end to the endless feeling that something was missing, he needed to feel complete again. He huffed in sarcastic annoyance, it was a curious feeling, because she hadn’t gone anywhere, but that last conversation had cut the connection between them and he could barely tolerate it, he had to do something about it.

Working quickly to not waste any more time Sherlock put on his shoes, grabbed his coat and exited the room, maybe this wasn’t the best idea at the moment, it was really early in the morning and he hadn’t sleep one bit, but that had never really stopped him before…

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

I really don’t remember if I have already posted this, but since I couldn’t find it here I guess I didn’t... It’s only been checked for grammar with Word, so please forgive any mistakes, I really hope you enjoy it

#Sherlock #sherlockbbc #Sherlock fandom #Sherlock Holmes #Molly Hooper #sherlolly #sherlolly fanfiction #after season 4 #sherlock after sherrinford #sherlock's mindpalace

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vapormaison · 4 years

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2019 Best Press 3/4: カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title by TANUKI

While for many vaporwave vinyl is doubtless equal parts collector’s item and audio source, I don’t want to lose sight of the goal of this blog here: developing a canon of the genre for high fidelity enjoyment. That said, when I come across something remarkable or noteworthy about a particular piece of wax, even if it is not a “purely audiophile” object, I want to make mention of it.

And TANUKI’s カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title wax release is not only noteworthy, but contends for hi-fi consideration despite it’s status as a picture disc.

But let’s back up slightly.

Going back to the previous thesis on why we buy records, sometimes you just want to own a vinyl just because. Just because you’re a collector trying to compile a discography on wax — or, better yet, just because you truly love the album art. For me, カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title (Double EP) was undoubtedly all of the three “just be-causes”.

A while back, I noticed that the LP was going into its 3rd press, and decided to snap up a copy because I like Tanuki, I like Lum, and because of those other just becauses. Unfortunately the only format available was not the pink vinyl, but the picture disc. As I’m sure is well-known (because audiophiles are very loud about things they dislike), picture-discs are a big no-no in the audiophile community. This is because while a beautiful objet d’art, a serious listening session of a picture disc release will usually produce greater amounts of surface noise than any other type of vinyl. You can, of course, with the right system, neutralize and mitigate this process slightly, but true-blue hi-fi heads pursuing that elusive muse of “pure sound” would never give a picture disc a second look.

I’m not one of those people.

Tangentially, I’ve heard whispers of ghosts of rumors from when I was living in Shenzen, China — that various record suppliers (small batch Makers) are working out manufacturing and material processes that minimize these issues on pic discs to create appealing records that cover all the bases: hi-fi suitability, collector oriented visual esoterica, and price. I should also admit I have no idea where those companies are in terms of R&D and/or producing these. I end up catching a lot of very fast talk from extremely motivated enthusiasts, but Chinese is still as elusive a language to me at times as “pure sound” can be. With that in mind, however, it’s logical to surmise that advances in technology will eventually render the differences between picture discs and traditional black wax undistinguishable. So long as the world isn’t destroyed in some cataclysmic climate disaster (very real possibility), or -- as we are watching evolve now: World War 3. My view is that it’d be pointless to dismiss the format out of hand when there are active attempts to innovate it as we speak.

That all said, I know what to expect when a contemporary, big-label picture disc plays. During my college days, I used to spin wax at the university radio station. One of the previous catalog managers had a fetish for this “collectible” format, and was convinced he was doing the station a favor by purchasing all these vinyls, noting a pre-supposed resale value later. I remember throwing these on the well-worn Technics SP-10 we had as our main turntable, and listening to the occasional scratch, frequent popping, and constant surface noise, that for the uninitiated (bless you), sounds like a sustained “cracking” in your Rice Krispies — or for those born in the analog age, CRTV static.

So when I sat down with the Tanuki picture disc, I had this laundry list of preconceptions and prejudices about the format. I thought that I could listen to a moderately scratchy record once or twice, keep it as more a visual boutique item and then eventually include in an article where I bemoan the poor quality of the genre’s releases.

But then, I actually listened.

And it sounded… well, I won’t get ahead of myself. Here’s the full review:

THE MUSIC

BABYBABYの夢 — is doubtless the reason why many of us have bought the EP from a sonic perspective —especially if the band-camp reviews are indicative of trends. I still maintain that this is the Mariya Takeuchi sample/remix work par excellence. Tanuki hits all the essential notes here, a genuine respect and love for the sound-staging of its original source, Yume No Tsuzuki. I still get echoes of the original arrangement in my system, (ever so slightly) with a bright and dance-infused collection of unique sounds — particularly in that delicious, wide mid-range — that flesh out the track into its own sort of masterpiece.

何がGoin' On — the curatorial and conspiratorial side of my brain tells me that Goin’ On will probably go down as one the under-appreciated vintage bangers of this era of future funk. I can envision hipsters two or three decades from now sussing out a neophyte with pretentious questions about this track’s pitch-shifted sample draws from. It has that sort of vibe that you know hits with a certain subset of electronica fans — rich & vibrant, making the tweeters on your system work out in all the best ways — it’s just great.

がんばれ — Tanuki is at his best when he gets playful with brass samples. I firmly believe that the titans in this genre each have their go-to piece in their best arrangement — like Dan Mason’s creative vocal array, or greyL’s manipulation of micro-samples. For Tanuki, it’s whenever her gets a horn — synthesized or otherwise, into his production workflow.

ファンクOFF — continues Tanuki’s magic act, taking another city pop track more iconic for its soulful electric guitar riff and turning it into the most slap-worthy single on this EP. I prefer it when Japanese pop samples are fundamentally re-imagined, although I can see how the perfectionist tweaking of someone like Yung Bae is more appealing for some. Tanuki is undoubtedly one of the innovators of this genre, and there’s no more solid evidence of that talent than this track.

腕の中でDancin’ — if I ended up hosting a sort of mythical vaporwave grammies or something like that, (I’m available, folks!) I would probably go off on a Ricky Gervais style rant on how artists aren’t in touch with “the people” (read: me) because all we really want are more remixes of Meiko Nakahara songs — who given her impact on City Pop should have way more play in this genre than she does. This one, like most of the Meiko mixes I’ve heard, is a banger with an absolute fire bass riff punctuated throughout.

Radiant Memories — this might be my first certified “hot take” in the publication (they’ll be many more, I imagine) — but as far as I’m concerned this is the superior Plastic Love edit. I’ll just leave my thoughts there, so they can soak in with a portion of the fanbase who split my reddit account on an open fire of downvotes for suggesting that other artists than Macross 82-99 (Praise be upon him!) are allowed to touch this song as well. While Macross’s mix is definitely the more up-temo of the two, and that for some is the very essence of the genre, this slightly down-mixed version is both the perfect conclusion for the EP and ideal antithesis.

THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE

Signal to Raise ratio on the following albums:

カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title: ~61.9db (1 db MoE)

Tron Legacy, Daft Punk: 58.4db

Love Trip, Takako Mamiya, Kitty Records Press: 65.8db

(ratings based on averages 5 minutes of sustained play on the testing unit, the machine actually complied this data on its preset, which is another fascinating part about this sort of vintage press-testing tech). The margin of error is because the machine, according to my mentor Dr. Juuso Ottala formerly of Harman International, informs me it was never meant to give accurate readings of picture discs, and to add about a dB of error margin.

One of the benefits of growing up in New England and, subsequently, New York, is that there are no shortage of heritage professional audio brand HQs in operation around a 200 mile radius from Manhattan to Boston. Off the top of my head, there’s Harman/Kardon, Boston Acoustics, Bose, NuMark, Marantz, and Rane headquarters within an hour’s drive from my two hometowns. Early on in my audiophile quest, I got my hands on some cool vintage gear — vinyl lathe testing equipment that has collected dust in both an old Harman technician’s storage unit, and now my parent’s basement. Over the holiday, I recently brought it out to do some surface noise testing on it to get a rough confirmation of what I was explaining in yesterday’s hi-fi guide. The innards of the machine looks eerily like a plinth-less linear tonearm and plate pair attached to a monitor. After making sure I’m not violating some kind of Harman International trade secret, I’ll post it on instagram.

Wanting to also get a firm idea on just how good my ear-test sounded, I grabbed another picture disc vinyl I had received as a gift a few years ago from my brother — the Tron Legacy OST. While I found the film passably enjoyable, my own preconceptions about pic discs, and a general exhaustion with french house — left me with no discernible desire to spin the thing. I hadn’t even broken the seal on the plastic wrap, so it seemed like as good as a blind test as any. I also grabbed what my ears tell me is a “good”, “heavy” press, a 1982 original dead-stock copy of Takako Mamiya’s Love Trip LP pressed by Kitty Records Japan. I’ve played it maybe a half dozen times since I bought it, so it’s as close to “new” 80s audiophile pop record as you can get. The Japanese are infamously anal about low SNR on their vinyl.

And, well, the results speak for themselves. The sweet spot for most black vinyl records is between 60-70db depending on age, weight, and a host of other frankly uncontrollable factors that aren’t worth getting into detail here, as I’d go on forever. The main takeaway here is that Neoncity’s and Tanuki’s record sat at the low end of the audiophile vinyl reference spectrum. Which in itself is a remarkable achievement for a pic disc. It’s worth taking a look at Tron Legacy, which just barely scratches 8db above a cassette tape, and 7db a Japanese vinyl from 1982.

This is all in an effort to say: damn, this is pretty good.

This also somewhat counters the usual “picture discs sound like shit” narrative that’s prevailed pretty consistently in the audiophile community. Tron Legacy? Yeah, that probably sounds like shit if I could bother to suffer through a listen. But whoever Hong-Kong based Neoncity is using actually makes “good” — if such a qualifier needs to be attached — image-pressed records. And that devotion to audio fidelity should be rewarded.

It might be time for me to re-asses picture discs on the whole, and that mind-expanding moment is something I owe to the fine folks at Neoncity.

#bestof2019 #bestpress

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carsieblanton · 5 years

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SOMETIMES THE PERSONAL ISN’T POLITICAL

How data made me a revolutionary

I’ve been going to church occasionally, with a friend of mine and her granddaughter. I wasn’t raised in the church and I am not a believer, but I am beginning to understand the value of gathering with some of your neighbors once a week, reflecting together and singing some songs.

It’s too bad, I now realize, that this version of church is so muddied up with all those other versions of church: the one where the church is a platform from which to manipulate great swathes of people into voting against their own interests, for example; or the one where the church is used as a battering ram against women and LBTQ people; or the one where the church turns out to be a massive pedophilic child abuse ring.

From the pew of my little church in New Orleans, I see the version of church that people love so dearly. I can see that it’s possible for the same idea to be at once a force for good in our private personal worlds, and a force for evil in our shared political world.

Some of our personal convictions work a lot better if they remain personal. When we try to make them political (i.e., attempt to apply them to society as a whole), they don’t achieve what we hoped and intuited they would, and sometimes they even hurt, instead of helping.

I think many of my liberal readers already embrace this idea, when it comes to Christian Republican convictions (”one man, one woman!”, “it’s a child, not a choice!”, “thoughts and prayers!”). But strap in, Lib Dems, cus I’ve got a piece for you, too.

THE ABORTION RATE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS

To further illustrate the concept, let’s talk about abortion.

If you really hate abortion, and you’ve never read any data on the topic, I can see how you might think that making abortion illegal is a good way to drive down the abortion rate.

Alas, it has been tried a number of times, and the data has revealed that it is not. The real-world result of banning abortion is not fewer abortions, but more dangerous abortions.

So truly noble-hearted pro-lifers (I’ve met some!) should face the fact that abortion bans are not good legislation. They are supposed to result in fewer abortions, but they don’t. Instead, they kill a bunch of pregnant women (which, I hope we can agree, is pretty anti-life).

Similarly, “abstinence education” does not result in fewer teen pregnancies, “thoughts and prayers” does not result in fewer mass shootings, and “building a wall” will not result in more jobs or less crime.

All of these ideas are “political” only in that they are being used successfully to manipulate voters. None of them is (or can become) a successful policy, according to our hardworking and underappreciated friend, data.

For contrast, here’s some data that could be really useful in policy-making, if anyone bothered to read it:

Countries with more restrictions on abortions tend to have higher abortion rates. When countries with legal abortion provide women with access to free birth control, on the other hand, the abortion rate plummets by AS MUCH AS SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT.

Legalizing sex work has been shown to decrease reported sexual assault and rape by THIRTY PERCENT OR MORE. Providing safe online venues for sex workers to find clients (the opposite of the recent SESTA and FOSTA bills) has been shown to REDUCE THE FEMALE HOMICIDE RATE BY 17%. (Read that again. It’s insane. Now read this. Or, if you don’t feel like reading, just listen to this podcast.)

There are six times as many vacant houses in the US as there are homeless people, and it costs a ton of money to police the homeless population for nonviolent offenses. Why don’t we just give them houses?

Isn’t data cool?!???

This is why it’s a good idea to craft legislation and political strategies based on data, rather than on what feels intuitively or emotionally "right”. When we are unwilling to examine that distinction, we run the risk of 1) turning our adorable private beliefs (thoughts! prayers!) into ineffective, counterproductive, or dangerous political policy, and 2) ignoring data that can actually save lives, in favor of continuing to debate ideas that are politically pointless (eg: “is abortion right or wrong?”).

PLASTIC DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS, EITHER

But guess what other ideas are personally adorable and politically pointless? “Don’t use straws”. Also “go vegan”, “buy organic”, “reduce, reuse, recycle”, and “impeach Trump”. Regardless of their intuitive or emotional impact, none of these ideas has a snowball’s chance in hell of addressing the problems they aim to address, and thus, as political strategies, they are more or less “thoughts and prayers”. Here’s why:

Worldwide plastic production is projected to increase by 400% by 2050.

Organic food still has a conspicuous lack of conclusive evidence for its benefits to health or the environment.

Despite the fact that vegetarianism and veganism appear to be trending in the U.S. and Canada, global meat consumption is on the rise and is projected to continue rising steeply (76% by mid-century).

That’s because the entire populations of the U.S. and Canada make up only 4.75% of the total world population (and dropping), with the world population expected to double by 2074.

(And, y’all, I hate to remind you, but impeaching Trump (almost certainly) gets us President Pence: an equally insane demagogue who is poised to enact possibly-even-more-terrifying policies.)

I’m not arguing that these ideas have no impact, or that they are bad ideas for you to apply to your personal life (e.g. if you have a Trumpian psychopath living in your household, you should certainly kick him out). I’m arguing that their impact on the problems they aim to solve is so immeasurably, impossibly small, that they will never get within a mile of the ballpark of solving them.

And that therefore, going vegan or eschewing plastic straws is in fact not a political act, but a personal one; like going to church, or getting a pedicure.

I’m not saying this to bum you out, or to judge you (I literally just got a pedicure). I’m saying it because when we pretend that “don’t use straws” is a political strategy, and will help us to address the life-threatening global crisis of ocean pollution, I think we are perpetuating a kind of confusion which could perhaps inhibit our ability to engage with these problems on the level of reality.

Which is, unfortunately, where most of us will have to continue living.

SCALE IS CONFUSING

The difference between political ideas and personal ideas is scale. The ocean, for example, is not a pool in your backyard (which you can simply refrain from filling with plastic). It’s a body of water which covers the entire planet, and is affected by all human activity. And “all human activity”, although it is made up of a bunch of individuals doing individual activities, cannot be accurately portrayed by the phrase “a bunch of individuals doing individual activities”. It’s better described in terms of human systems: institutions, governments, militaries, cities, countries, corporations and industries.

To approach these massive, complex, ocean-polluting systems as though they are a collection of individual people sipping beverages through straws is an ineffective tactic. So ineffective, it really can’t be called a tactic at all.

One way to determine whether something is a good tactic is to ask yourself: if this project was 100% effective, what would be the measurable result? Eg:

If 100% of humans stop using straws: ocean pollution will decrease by up to .025%

If 100% of humans switch to organic food: the environmental benefits will be mixed, and we will grow 25–34% less food.

That’s not to mention the fact that it is probably impossible to achieve a 100% effectiveness rate with ideas like these, because so far they are available to only a small subsection of people in a few very wealthy countries.

So, no matter how intuitively correct they may seem, at the scale of the entire globe (the scale where the oceans and the atmosphere exist), these ideas have roughly the same impact that “thoughts and prayers” have on mass shootings: they make a lot of people feel better about the fact that they are doing nothing to address a looming, life-threatening crisis.

If you ask me, we like to think that these ideas are politically effective for exactly that reason: because otherwise we will have to face the coming apocalypse of climate change, and the fact that humans on-the-whole are doing approximately jackshit about it.

And I understand why you’d want to avoid that! It’s fucking terrifying.

But my hunch is that we should instead admit that we’re doing jackshit about climate change, that the straws and the veganism and the potential impeachment were a waste of political energy, and that we are all absolutely terrified.

If we need to calm our nerves after that, we can go get pedicures.

And then perhaps, with a clearer head and calmer nerves, we can work on creating some actual political strategies.

YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE WORLD BY YOURSELF

Out here in terrifying reality, large-scale problems require large-scale solutions. And although it is intuitive to think that large-scale solutions are made up of lots of small-scale solutions (stop each person from using each straw!), it is sadly untrue. Complex systems – countries, economies, organisms – just don’t behave like a collection of small parts.

Similarly, major societal changes aren’t really made of a bunch of individual people making a bunch of individual changes. They are made of large-scale, long-term, coordinated applications of science, money, propaganda, and strategic organizing.

The right wing seems very clear on this fact, and uses it to great political effect (for example, we are still debating the “rightness” of abortion, despite its total irrelevance to policy-making, because they realized in the 1970s that debating abortion gets more people to vote Republican).

On the liberal left, though, I think there is some confusion about it. “The personal is political”, “think globally, act locally”, and “be the change you want to see in the world” get thrown around a little too frequently, and usually as advertisements for water bottles.

How quickly we forget that when Gandhi said “be the change” (which, by the way, he didn’t), he was probably referring to organizing millions of his countrymen in revolutionary acts of civil disobedience, towards a specific and well-defined political goal. He was not talking about buying a glass water bottle.

A relevant term to introduce here might be “phase transition”. A phase transition is when a system suddenly jumps from one phase to another. Boiling water is a good example: as you gradually turn up the heat on a pot of water, it just becomes gradually hotter water, until you get to 100C. Then, all at once, it becomes boiling water. And boiling water (in order to release the gas that the water is transitioning into) behaves very differently from hot water.

What we need to survive on this planet is not incrementally fewer straws and more Priora, it’s a global phase transition into an entirely different societal structure. And the individual consumer approach (“ask everyone to stop using plastic straws, then ask them to stop driving SUVs, then ask them to stop eating beef…”) is not just devastatingly slow, it is doomed to ineffectiveness.

It’s like trying to boil a pot of water by doling it out into Dixie cups and asking your friends to breathe hot air onto each individual cup. Intuitively, it seems like it might eventually work (the water is getting hotter, right?), but alas. No matter how good a job we each do with our little paper cups, the water will never boil.

If we want to boil the water, we need to pour all our cups into the same pot.

CANADA IS NOT THE WORLD

“But Canada is banning single-use plastic!”, you say. “Isn’t that a large-scale solution?”

Again, and unfortunately, it is not. Although “all the straws in Canada” is a lot more straws than “that one straw you’re using now”, it is still not even in the neighborhood of enough straws. The scale of plastic straw usage in Canada, when compared to the scale of plastic pollution in the oceans that span the planet earth, is just one more lukewarm Dixie cup.

The idea that Canada’s plastic ban is “a big win for the environment” only illustrates how resigned we are to losing. We are so resigned, we aren’t even capable of thinking about the problem at the appropriate scale.

If the Canadian single-use plastic ban has a 100% success rate, the oceans will continue to be 100% fucked by plastic.

That’s partly because there just aren’t that many Canadians. It’s also because consumer plastics are mostly not what ocean pollution is made out of (just like personal cars are mostly not what climate change is made out of).

And finally, it’s because everyone is not going to stop using plastic. Everyone is also not going to stop using petroleum-burning vehicles, or cows, or rice paddies. Everyone is not going to stop doing anything, unless and until the global industrial system allows us to do so.

We are still using petroleum not because we haven’t yet convinced each individual person to stop, but because the entire world economy is based on petroleum, and every powerful government on earth includes or is influenced by representatives of the petroleum industry. We are still using petroleum because the petroleum industry has its own lobbyists and politicians and spies and assassins and propagandists and governments.

We are still using petroleum because, at this point in history, the petroleum industry has a lot more influence over us than we do over it.

This may seem like bad news. But here’s the good news: we are not a bunch of individual people, facing a bunch of individual problems. We - the humans - have just one big problem. Our problem is that we have created a world where the petroleum industry is more powerful than any person, idea, government, or country. And so is the banking industry, and the tech industry, and the pharmaceutical industry, and the prison industry, and the war industry.

And all of these industries share one goal, to the exclusion of all others: profit.

Which means that most of the major societal changes happening on the planet are determined not by data, or democracy, or cute social media campaigns, or the pursuit of the greater good; but by the pursuit of profit, for each company, in each quarter.

And these companies and industries are so committed to that narrow goal - hogtied to it, really - that they are willing to hijack elections and start wars and crash the global ecosystem to pursue it. And all of us who share the planet with them - the humans, and the animals, and the oceans - are at the mercy of that pursuit.

The shorthand for this problem is “late-stage capitalism”.

When we are thinking on the global scale - which, again, is the only scale where we can have a measurable effect on the global phenomena of oceans and atmosphere - it becomes clear that the only way to tackle climate change at this point (having failed to do jackshit so far) is to fundamentally change the way the world works.

We need a phase transition.

But you don’t have to take it from me; take it from this team of independent scientists in their report to the U.N.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TERRIFYING THING TOGETHER

If you’re a person who thought buying organic was a political act, I apologize. You’ve been duped. But it’s not your fault! The idea that our personal consumer choices have an impact on the global economy is not an accident. It is, in fact, a feature of capitalism.

It is good for capitalism when we believe that our personal choices are political choices, because it keeps us from focusing on large-scale problems and organizing to solve them (which, at this point in history, cannot be good for capitalism). Consumer-level environmentalism creates lots of new markets, while having no negative impact whatsoever on the industries that actually run the planet and profit off of its devastation.

If we want to start making political choices, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as heroic individuals, able to single-handedly stop climate change by buying a different phone case. We are part of the world, which is a small place, entirely and inseparably interconnected, and has one very big problem, which we can only solve together.

The big problem thrives when we believe that we are separate people facing separate problems. It thrives when we worry about ourselves, and our beliefs, and what kind of water bottle to buy. It thrives by keeping us distracted, divided, and self-interested.

The truth is, banning straws will not solve our problem, because our problem is bigger than straws. It’s bigger than plastic, and styrofoam, and carbon emissions. It’s bigger than AK-47s and abortion bans. Impeaching Trump won’t solve it, because our problem is bigger than Trump; in fact, our problem is even bigger than “men”.

There is only one man, his name is capitalism, and he’s got us all by the pussy.

SOME COOL DATA ABOUT SOCIALISM

I am a socialist, which means I think we ought to organize our societies around some motives other than profit. I don’t buy that the profit motive is particularly sacred or efficient (except at making profit - it’s very efficient at that), and I prefer almost all the other motives: creativity, kindness, lust, humor, fun.

I dream of a highly democratic post-capitalist society wherein politically-invested citizens make collective, data-driven decisions about how to allocate the resources of this one small planet that we share.

Before we get to the data, a few clarifying points:

I have scoured the internet for months, and I’ve finally found the best and most succinct summary of the difference between capitalism and socialism. Thank you, comrade Teen Vogue.

If you’re an American, you might’ve inadvertently ingested a bit of data-averse anti-communist propaganda in your lifetime. Just to check, read this fascinating and brief history of U.S. anti-communism (which, somehow, doesn’t even mention COINTELPRO).

And finally: no, the Nazis were not socialists.

“Socialism has never worked.”

According to the World Wildlife Fund, there is only one country in the world which is currently “sustainable” in terms of both human development and environmental footprint: Cuba.

Here is a comprehensive comparison of health outcomes for socialist vs. capitalist countries, using data from the 1970s and 80s. It finds that Cuba made significantly more gains than its neighbors in all available health indicators (life expectancy, literacy, infant mortality and employment), as did China (as compared to India) and the Soviet Union (as compared to West Germany and Austria). Cuba currently has the lowest infant mortality rate in history and one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

All of this is to say that “has never worked” is the kind of blanket statement that is designed to shut down conversations. In my opinion, there is a more productive conversation to be had by asking questions such as “in what ways has socialism worked and not worked? What about capitalism?”

“Authoritarianism! Gulags! Freedom!”

The United States (a capitalist democracy) currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with starkly disproportionate incarceration of black Americans. Currently, about 80% of U.S. prisoners are incarcerated for nonviolent crimes, and 22% of U.S. prisoners are awaiting trial (they have not been convicted or sentenced).

Israel is a capitalist democracy and a close ally of the U.S. In May, Israeli forces murdered 16 peaceful protesters and wounded 65, including children and paramedics. Exactly one year before, they killed 65 peaceful protesters and wounded 2,400. (For the record, I am a Jew, and there is nothing anti-Semitic about acknowledging the fact that Israel is currently engaged in a number of human rights violations.)

Then, of course, there’s slavery, the holocaust, the Trail of Tears, The Troubles, the Tuskegee Experiments, and compulsory sterilization, to name just a few. All of these acts of violence were carried out within capitalist societies, under the direction of capitalist governments. Is it possible that we are biased against the failures of socialism not because they are worse than those of capitalism, but because capitalism is the dominant paradigm? Is it possible we are experiencing just a touch of Stockholm Syndrome?

“Innovation! Entrepreneurship! Freedom!”

Cuba just invented the world’s first cancer vaccine, without a speck of venture capital. Actually, public (government) funding gave us most of the vaccines we use today (unless we are Jessica Biel); along with the internet, most of our aviation and space technology, the cameras and touch-screens on our phones, and even Google and Tesla.

About 30% of research worldwide is currently funded by public money (mostly government grants). Private money is not inherently more “innovative” than public money; the thing that spurs innovation is access to money, period.

And of course, there is the dark side of privately-funded innovation: the rising cost of insulin, the $750 pill, the possibility that a single company may one day own the entire food chain, and the likelihood that when it comes to research, there is a relationship between funding source and conclusion.

“But people are lazy! And there’s not enough food! And Soviet bloc housing is ugly!”

It doesn’t matter if people are lazy, we have robots. An Oxford study recently found that 47% of U.S. jobs (and around 13% of jobs worldwide) may be “lost to automation” over the next two decades. And many of our jobs are already bullshit: polls have found that 37% of full-time workers in the UK and 25% in the US are “quite sure that their job makes no meaningful contribution to the world”. Let’s step back a moment and consider the phase “lost to automation”; why is this a “loss” at all? Why aren’t we thanking the robots for allowing 47% of Americans to go ahead and be lazy? (The answer, my friends, is capitalism.)

We have more than enough food. Hunger is caused by inequality, not scarcity.

Speaking of inequality, I believe this line of panic stems from a gross misperception about just how much wealth the world has already stockpiled. The U.S. (for example) has quite a lot more money than Russia did in 1917; if we divided all the wealth evenly, each American household would have $760,000. That’s not to say we should do exactly that, it’s just to illustrate that this number is enough to provide quite a high standard of living for everyone - way higher than most of us are currently accustomed to. If the U.S. were to transition to socialism, there is no reason we couldn’t live in style with free healthcare, gorgeous homes, and delicious petri-dish meat.

So what is the actual objection, here?

REVOLUTION: A PRACTICAL, DATA-DRIVEN POLICY IDEA

What all this data says to me is that capitalism has outlived its usefulness. More than 3 billion people on this planet already live in poverty; tens of thousands of children are dying each day from hunger and preventable diseases; we are currently seeing a global refugee crisis of unprecedented proportions, and it’s likely that 1 billion more people will soon be displaced by climate change.

The only political idea I’ve come across that will allow us to respond to so many crises of such magnitude is to stop doing capitalism. And I believe that a massive, strategic, well-organized movement of many millions of people can make that phase transition happen.

I know it seems impossible. But in the words of my late hero, Ursula K. Le Guin:

“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”

Our only hope, at this late date, is to pour all our water into one pot. That’s what “organizing” is; that’s what Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton were doing, and that’s what we all need to start doing. I don’t think this blog post will launch a revolution (sorry, trolls), but I think it was worth writing, because it’s my opinion that American liberals - a huge voting bloc with a ton of money - will be considerably more useful to the revolution if we stop wasting our breath, time and political energy on straws.

If you agree, go make friends with your local socialists (I recommend PSL). Give them your folding money to spend on organizing, instead of blowing it at Whole Foods (so Whole Foods can turn around and spend it on union busting). Commit to educating yourself and others about how capitalism works, what it’s done so far, and what the alternatives are.

All of these activities will have more political impact than going vegan, AND you get to eat bacon.

Resources and suggested readings:

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen Ghodsee

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin (if you prefer fiction)

Sorry to Bother You (if you prefer movies)

#capitalism #socialism #election2020

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nori-king · 5 years

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i. no halo / personal

“the dust and dirt blind us slowly, but give a hint of a view to make it feel alright. and though it hurts, we keep on climbing. ‘cause our addictions take us from inside. a sturdy back, but brittle bones. too weak to show.” – KILL OUR WAY TO HEAVEN, MICHL

Wednesday, May 1st 2019, 6:17PM Wexler-Carsons Psychotherapy Practice

It came unexpected, a faint knock at the door to Eleanor’s office. She’d been so engrossed in reading her new patient’s file over and over again that she almost missed it. But sure enough, her head snapped up just as the door opened. She was disappointed to find her colleague, Shane, rather than the boy she’d been expecting for 17 minutes, now. “Nori... are you seriously still waiting on him?” he inquired as he readjusted his satchel on his shoulder. All he got in response was a soft sigh from the blonde-haired woman. “Look, it’s been seventeen minutes, just accept that your Moon boy’s a no-show and come out with us, we’re all heading down to that new Italian joint, the one that just opened? Heard their chicken parm is out of this world!” His enthusiastic mannerisms earned him a few laughs from his colleague. “Mhm, maybe you’re right, Shane. But sorry, I can’t tonight. I have a few things I need to tidy up in my office anyway, but I promise that I’ll go home after that, okay? I won’t wait a minute longer”, Eleanor hoped her words came across as sincere, a hopeful grin tugging at the corners of her lips. “Fine, you win this round, King. But I’m not giving up on you yet!” Shane winked, making her giggle some more. Just as she was about to tease him some, his head vanished from the door frame, hand still holding the door open. He popped it back in with slightly wider eyes. “Hey, uh... is there any chance your Moon boy is some angry-looking Asian kid?” Eleanor’s brows furrowed together, faint confusion clouding her features, but before she could wonder any more, the door flew open on that very same angry-looking Asian kid, who shoulder checked Shane on his way in. He barely spared the two therapists a glance and just went straight for the patient’s chair, removed his backpack and threw it on the ground. “Well... uh... I’ll leave you two to it, then. Goodnight, Nori”, was all Shane could provide her with as he closed the door on his way out. A deafening silence fell onto both Eleanor and her newest patient, only his heavy breathing being heard throughout her office.

“...I take it you’re Jaemin Moon?” She tried, getting up from her desk and stepping closer to settle down in the chair opposite him. The boy remained silent, eyes darting around the room as if looking for the nearest emergency exit. Eleanor took this opportunity to scrutinize his appearance.

He was wearing light grey sweatpants and an oversized, black long-sleeved shirt. His hair seemed disheveled, a light sheen of sweat glistening against his tan skin. His brows were knitted together in what she assumed was a perpetual frown, from his aura alone. She recalled his file saying he’d turned twenty this past September, so he was still young, and it was evident by his spotless complexion. His leg was bouncing incessantly, and Nori took mental note of it.

“I’m Eleanor, delighted to make your acquaintance”, she extended a hand his way, a peace offering of sorts, but was met with nothing but more of that same silence that had been looming over both their heads for the past five minutes. She sat back in her chair with a quiet breath and started mulling over the methods she could deploy to at least get a look from the boy; anything.

“I’m happy you’ve decided to show, but for future reference, fifteen minutes is my limit. This is your first time, so... I wanted to give you a chance, you know... make sure you didn’t get cold feet or anything. I know going to therapy can be a scary experience, but I’m happy you’ve decided to come-”, she rambled on until her client cut in.

“Oh, I didn’t decide to come. I was forced to come”, were the first words Jaemin aimed at her, eyes narrowed. Even if he hadn’t said anything inherently bad, his pointed timbre made all of his words sound like an insult. “For future reference”, he started, mocking her previous use of the saying, “I won’t be coming back, so might as well not waste both of our times, don’t you think?”

Eleanor’s mouth opened, a sentence on the tip of her tongue and ready to spill out, but she stopped herself and, instead, only got up to retrieve Jaemin’s file from the top of her desk. She flipped through it without any haste as she made her way back to him. “It says here that your mother called to make the appointment. But you’re twenty years old... you’re of legal age. If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to”, Nori tilted her head to the side a little, peering back at her patient.

“But I do”, he replied flatly.

“But you don’t”, she counterattacked, eyebrow quirked in sudden interest.

“You don’t know shit about my life, lady. I don’t wanna be here, who the fuck in their right mind would wanna sit here for an hour and be psycho-analyzed when they’re totally normal?” Jaemin barked back, and Eleanor took note of the way his hands clasped around the armrests of his seat.

“Totally normal like...” King trailed off, scouring further through his file. “Like talking back, being aggressive and instigating a fight at-” She cut her own words short, eyes flickering between Jaemin and his file. “A ball? Did you attend James Houston’s masquerade ball?” She couldn’t hold back a tiny grin at the thought. James just so happened to be someone Eleanor was entirely familiar with, someone she respected and admired. Jaemin knowing him could be her only link to him, or at least a good method to get him to talk.

“Listen, I’m allowed freedom of fucking speech, I don’t have to suck up to everyone I meet and I didn’t instigate shit at the ball”, Moon leaned back in his chair, and Eleanor didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched; this was a touchy subject.

“You’re absolutely right. I’m just reading off my file for now, but I’ll make my own conclusions as I get to know you more and more. Those were the concerns your mother shared with us when booking your appointment. Would you say they’re unfounded?” She brought the end of her pen to her lips, caressed them with it as she awaited an answer.

“I’d say I don’t fucking care what you, or her, think, Eleanor. How much longer do I have to be here?” The younger of the two was getting impatient, it was clear to see in the way he was fidgeting in his seat. He’d switched positions maybe three times in the span of ten seconds.

“Jaemin, your hour just began”, Dr. King glanced down at her watch, then back at him. “Fifty five minutes”, the declaration made her patient sigh deeply.

“Jesus fucking Christ, alright. Well... I showed up”, he conceded, letting his head fall back onto the backrest of his chair. Eleanor observed him quietly, unable to bite back a smile.

“You did. I’m glad you did”, she tried to be encouraging, but to no avail.

“That makes precisely one of us”, Moon fished his phone out of his pocket, sitting back up straight. He unlocked it and started typing away, and Eleanor had to admit, this was the first time a patient outright texted during a session.

“Jaemin...? Could you put that away, please?” Despite being annoyed, her tone remained calm, kind. She gazed back and forth between the boy and his phone when he made no movement whatsoever, didn’t even react to her request. “Jaem-”

“The fuck you want? I told you I don’t need this, I’m just here to satisfy my folks, that’s it. I don’t need to talk to you”, he didn’t even spare her a single glance, eyes focused on his phone’s screen.

“I can tell you believe this is pointless, but even the healthiest of people seek out therapy from time to time. It’s a good way to unload, and you seem to have a lot on your mind. I noticed you seemed uncomfortable when I brought up the ball-”

“You didn’t notice shit”, Nori’s patient hissed, and he’d put his phone down to glare at her. That was an improvement... sort of. It surely was better than silence.

“You said you didn’t care, but whatever happened there played a big part in our meeting, so I doubt it was as uneventful as you’re painting it out to be. What happened at the ball?” She tried to pry further, notepad securely in her hands.

“Nothing. Fucking. Happened. Will you just drop it? Who cares about the stupid ball?! It was a shit show. I didn’t have high expectations, and even then it still managed to go below them”, Jaemin threw his hands up in exasperation, his tone lower than before, maybe an unconscious attempt to seem more intimidating.

No matter how much he frowned, huffed and puffed, Eleanor wasn’t buying it. There was something so delicate, so gentle about his gaze, even if he’d done nothing but scowl at her during the entirety of their session so far. His eyes were dark, bordering on black, and they reflected every single source of light in the room, making it look like he was holding entire galaxies behind his irises. They were big and round, evoked innocence, even when squinted with the intent to threaten. His features, although carved and defined, were somewhat soft. Eleanor could only imagine how brightly he shined when smiling. But the more time they spent together, the less she had any hope of ever seeing that smile.

“If you were so unimpressed, why did you attend?” She questioned.

“My parents asked me to, that’s it.”

“Does that mean you don’t know the host personally?” It was difficult to miss the way Jaemin flinched at the mention of James, and Nori made sure to take note of it. She anticipated a response, having gotten used to Jaemin’s rapid answers, but was startled to be met with another bout of silence. “Are you always so diligent in following your parents’ request, Jaemin?” Nothing but more silence, her client’s nails digging into the armrest of his chair. So she tried again. “Um... James, then. You know hi-”

“Can we not fucking talk about Houston? If this is my hour, I’d rather not spend it talking about that fag”, he grumbled, leaving Eleanor speechless.

“That’s a truly awful thing to say. I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from using slurs in my presence... or ever, for that matter.”

“God, why’s everyone so pissy about it? He’s a queer, I’m not about to fucking lie. And I’m not gonna talk about him, either. But, if it’ll stop you from asking; yes, I do know him. Unfortunately. End of discussion”, Moon retorted before she could get a word in.

James was off limits, but why? King would be lying if she said the reasoning behind that animosity didn’t gnaw at her mind for the remainder of their session, but she came up empty regardless.

“Jaemin, I will not tolerate such language here. Don’t you know it’s wrong of you to use those words? Have you not been taught so?”

“Calling them what they are is wrong? So I can’t call you a therapist, I assume? Not that I would to begin with; you’re pretty shit”, Eleanor blinked rapidly, caught off guard by his venomous words.

“Those words are slurs. They’ve been used in the past in a demeaning way, to belittle gay people. And although some LGBTQ+ folks have reclaimed them, it doesn’t give just anyone the right to use them. They are still highly offensive”, Nori tried her best to talk some sense into the boy, but all he did was roll his eyes in reply. “Jaemin... were you aware of that?”

“Yes, I was. Why?” His tone was flat, lacking any interest towards the therapist and her intrusive inquiries.

“...are you homophobic?” She hoped he wouldn’t answer this. Hoped that, in this day and age, homophobes were just a myth. But she knew better than that.

“No, because I’m not afraid of any faggot. Do I dislike them? Do I believe their way of life to be wrong and sinful? Absolutely”, hatred was spilling out of him as if ingrained in his mind, almost rehearsed. Each word oozing malice as he hissed them at Eleanor.

Without her own consent, Dr. King’s eyes had blown wide, left completely speechless by the sudden confession. She counted her blessings that, in twenty-eight years of life, this was the first homophobe she’d ever encountered. Loud and proud, at that. But he was so young. So young to have such a closed mind, to be tainted. She didn’t know whether she felt pity or contempt for the boy. Nonetheless, she swallowed back a few unpleasant words hanging on the tip of her tongue and focused on the task at hand.

“Why?” Jaemin’s head snapped up, somehow taken aback by the sudden question.

“What?”

“Why? Why are you a homophobe?”

“I just told you. Are you fucking deaf on top of being a fraud?” Nori bit her lower lip, feeling her pressure rising as she listened to her client’s insolent taunts.

“No, Jaemin, I am not deaf. You said you disliked them. I just wanna know why.”

“’You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.’ Leviticus 18:22. Pretty self-explanatory, don’t you think?”, he sat back in his chair, hints of a smile spreading across his lips.

“I know what the Bible says, yes. I’m asking you, Jaemin Moon, why you hate gay people?” She gripped her notepad tighter than necessary, her tone sharp. This only seemed to amuse Moon further.

“Something the matter, doc?” He shifted to be on the edge of his seat, maintaining solid eye contact with Eleanor. This didn’t phase her; he wasn’t the first client to try and intimidate her, far from it.

“Are you dodging my question, Jaemin?” He scoffed at the mere implication this statement held.

“Dodging? Fuck no. I’m just tired of answering the same question over and over again. How many different ways do I have to say ‘I hate fags’ for you to get it?”

“Oh, I get it. What I don’t get, is how you hold such contempt for a minority without having any actual reasons why... I just find that odd”, she raised an eyebrow, and the way Jaemin’s nostrils flared indicated she’d hit a nerve: finally.

“It’s unnatural, isn’t that enough? Guys have dicks, chicks have pussies. A stick and a hole. You put one in the other and boom! A baby. Gay people can’t reproduce-”

“No, but they can adopt. There are millions of children that get abandoned or put up for adoption. And I can tell that ‘breeding’ isn’t the reason for your aversion. All you’ve given me so far has been textbook homophobe, but you’ve yet to give me a single reason why you personally dislike them. So, what’s the reason?” Eleanor grilled him, couldn’t help but notice the way his hands balled into fists. Got him.

“You can’t tell shit, and whatever the fuck my father’s paying you is way overpriced, clearly”, Jaemin leaned down to retrieve his backpack and slinked off his seat, much to Nori’s surprise. “I’m out of here”, he announced.

“Jaem-” She didn’t have time to finish calling out his name that her patient was out the door, leaving with a quite literal bang that shook the walls of her office. Their short, but fiery encounter left Eleanor breathless. She sat in her chair, trying to calm down, for nearly fifteen whole minutes after his departure.

When she was certain her heart wouldn’t jump out of her chest, Nori stood up and paced across her office to her desk, retrieving a half-consumed sage stick and her lighter. She then proceeded to smudge her office for way longer than necessary, until her heart was content and she couldn’t feel Jaemin’s negative energy contaminating her work space. After that, she didn’t linger for a moment longer and decided to head straight home.

Eleanor only made it to the parking lot before her phone started ringing. It was Peneloppe, the secretary they’d only hired a month or two ago. A doll, truly. Maybe a little scatterbrained.

“Um, hi, Dr. King?” Her voice was delicate, yet reluctant.

“Yes, Peneloppe, how can I help?”

“I- I’m sorry I forgot to ask you before you left, but a certain Mr Moon called? And he wanted to know how his son’s session went? I think he said it was um... shoot, uh...”

“Jaemin?” Nori stuffed a hand in her purse in search of her car keys.

“Yes! Yes, that’s the one!”

“I’ll write a report tomorrow-”

“Actually, uh, he’s on the other line? So if it wouldn’t be a bother”, Peneloppe squeaked, embarrassment seeping through her tone. All Eleanor could manage was a sigh as she unlocked her car. She sat down in her seat after popping the door open.

“Okay, well... tell Mr Moon that his son was very aggressive from the get-go, not very open to therapy. He cursed a lot and walked out of his session. Let him know I’ll have a full report tomorrow ready for him, alright?”

No response.

“...Peneloppe?”

“Y-Yes! Sorry, I was writing it down. But um, yes, I got it. I’ll let Mr Moon know. Have a good night, Dr. King!”

“You can call me Eleanor.”

“Eleanor... right. Good night, Eleanor.”

Wednesday, May 8th 2019, 5:55PM Wexler-Carsons Psychotherapy Practice

Although Mrs. Moon had confirmed Jaemin would be attending his second session, Eleanor had her doubts, what with how it went last time. He was late on top of being rude, and generally closed off to the idea of therapy. His dark aura clung to Eleanor for days after, and so that’s why she was only now revisiting her notes from their first session together. She’d tried to put anything Jaemin Moon-related to the furthest corner of her mind, in a desperate attempt to protect her energy from his intensity. And it had worked, for the most part. Today, she felt good. Light. She wasn’t as optimistic about her client showing up, though, but her door swinging open with a loud smack proved her wrong.

A hooded figure, presumably male, strided into her office, even closed the door behind him. Nori rose to her feet, her usual smile plastered to her lips. She couldn’t make out his features, but recognized the backpack to be Jaemin’s.

“Jaemin! I...” she looked over her shoulder at the clock; 5:55PM. “You’re... early. I wasn’t expecting you to show, much less early”, she admitted with a scoff, figured it would be better to be honest with him. Maybe he would even appreciate her humour.

“Yeah? Well, I did”, he spoke, his tone lifeless and dry. Sure, she didn’t know much about him, only what his file and he himself told her. Which, right now, was homophobic young adult with anger issues. But she recalled him being more animated than this at the very least. He was slouched in the seat across from her, head hanging low and his entire frame engulfed in a ridiculously oversized hoodie.

“Would you, um... would you mind taking the hoodie off? I like establishing eye contact with my patients”, Dr. King tried. She couldn’t help but notice the way he recoiled, as if he was about to bark back at her, but stopped himself before it could slip past him. It was followed by a brief silence. “...Jaemin?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay! God...” he grumbled in response as he shuffled in his seat. His hands slipped further out from under his sleeves where they’d been previously hidden, and that was when Nori spotted his bruised knuckles. He was violent, she knew that much. But that didn’t mean the prospect of one of her patients getting hurt delighted her, either. It didn’t mean she expected it to resurface two sessions in. She’d have to address it, she couldn’t not, but he seemed to have crawled further into his shell, if that was even possible. Nori would have to approach him slowly, take it day by day.

His hands were shaky, hesitant, as they came up to pull off his hood, and Eleanor gasped the moment she caught a glimpse of his face. His hair had grown a little since the last time they saw each other, or maybe he just hadn’t groomed. But that wasn’t what horrified her. He was sporting a black eye and a busted lip. It was obvious whoever tended to his injury knew what they were doing, but it was unsightly, nonetheless. Nori didn’t have time to question what she should do that her legs were already carrying her towards her client.

“Jaemin, wha... what happened to you?” Her eyes widened as they scanned his face and his injuries, taking him in. She kept a reasonable distance, afraid of breaking any boundaries that weren’t meant to be broken. But every fiber of her body urged her to hug him, caress his cheek when she saw the way he cast his gaze down, nibbled his lower lip at her inquiry.

“What do you think?” he huffed with a small shake of his head.

“Jaemin... you know you can talk to me”, the softness of King’s voice made Jaemin look up at her, and for the first time, she saw him. Without any standoffish exterior. She gazed into his eyes and saw fear. A young boy in desperate need of help. “A- Anything that’s said here stays between us, you know that, right?” He only nodded to show he understood, but broke eye contact the moment his eyes became slightly glassier than usual. Eleanor took a step back, millions of thoughts rushing in her mind. “Jaemin?”

“...yes?”

“From now on... I’d like to see you two times a week.”

#nosspara #everyone meet burt #are we surprised? no? good.#tw: slurs #tw: abuse #the way this is SO FUCKING LATE is embarrassing #i'll try to speed it up #are we surprised i'm slow? no? good.#i did NOT readproof this bcos it's FOUR MONTHS LATE #SO SUE ME #corrections might be made waaaaay later #for now i just need this to be out

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corruptedspacecore · 6 years

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Honestly, posts like this make me want to throw up. The problem is this isn’t just some touchy-feely thing. These people actually believe in literal magic. All that magical quantum energy astrological tarot healing witchy psychic fairy crap. Hey, I suppose that’s all well and good if you want to just take an 11th-century approach to the world, when humans couldn’t be bothered to actually figure out how anything worked. Or...

- Maybe that feeling is just emotions, sentimental or otherwise, which affect your perception of sensations, which are processed in your brain. If you feel strongly about books and antiques, being around them might make you feel differently. The same applies to “haunted” places. If you think a place is haunted, you’ll probably feel very strange. It’s the power of your brain’s ability to trick you.

- There’s probably a reason. Maybe it’s something you unconsciously remember, or that appeals to your brain somehow, or that looks nice, or maybe you’re just curious.

- Who wouldn’t get inner peace looking up at the night sky? Space is full of wonders. Everything you see, you see as it looked in the past because it takes so long for the light to get here. That’s how vast the distances are. Some things you see as they looked before there were humans on Earth. Not to mention all the other amazing things out there. And forests are nice. Again, they’re feelings. Humans spent eons looking at the sky, it’s no wonder we feel connected to it.

- While “Fairy Circles” have long been difficult to pin down as to what may cause them, here’s one theory: “...The distinct vegetation patterns are a population-level consequence of competition for scarce water, as the plants "organise" themselves to maximise access to scarce resources. The circular barren patches capture water which then flows to the outer edges of the ring. More water available increases biomass and roots which leads to the soil becoming looser. The less dense soil allows more water to penetrate and feed the vegetation, creating a feedback loop supporting the plants at the edge of the circle.”

- Emotions and pleasant stimuli again. Not magic.

- Once again, probably emotions. But at the same time, thunderstorms tend to involve lightning, and lightning is created by the building of charged particles in the air. In other words, energy. But that ain’t magic.

- That... that’s just a tall tree. Maybe it got a little more water or sun than the others, or better nutrients in that spot.

- I’m sure burning some stuff smells nice, which will trigger pleasant emotions. Some of it might clear the sinuses. Some of it might actually make you feel better via their chemicals. In any case, not magic.

- Butterflies don’t appear out of nowhere, you just notice them, usualyl when nearby or in your face. No butterly, or anything for that matter, has been observed to come out of nowhere. That does not happen. Just because you don’t notice something right away, that doesn’t mean it’s magic.

All those and other things are just minor little things about the world. They’re feelings, observations, curiosities, emotions, and more. We already know or have a good idea of why many of these things happen, and how. And we know how the brain works, generally. How it’s able to trick us, how it can be stimulated, how it can affect how we perceive the world and sensations. Whatever the causes of any of these and other things may be, we’ll figure it out by actually studying them and the world around us, not standing around saying it’s magic. And just because we don’t have an absolute answer, that doesn’t mean it’s magic.

This kind of stuff, magical thinking, annoys me so much because it throws us back to a stone-age way of understanding the world, or a lack of understanding. When you decide something is magic based on practically no evidence at all, what good does that do? Humanity mostly left magical thinking behind, and we’ve come a long way. Should we have kept trying to treat diseases with spells and prayer, or beheading people because we thought there was a deity to please?

But of course, humanity can’t let go. We’ve been saddled with magical thinking in the form of many religions and cults still, and now there are people all over who fancy themselves capable of working magic, who trust unproven, often disproven, and sometimes dangerous alternative medicines. People who are being fleeced by so-called psychics who prey on the gullible while collecting their cash. People who still think astrology is a thing that works.

See, if any of this works, it’s not going to be magic. “Magic” has never been the conclusion of any study or scientific endeavour. Even if astrology were real, it was work for some physical reason. If ghosts were real, that would be a very real part of the cosmos. If magic spells worked, it would be by some fascinating physical means. In my view, calling it magic, or supernatural, is a cop-out. It’s a way of having to avoid doing any real work to figure out the world, to avoid having to really think about things. It cheapens reality, and it cheapens the true splendor of the cosmos.

We thought lightning was magic. Then we figured out how it works. We thought volcanoes were angry lava gods. Then we figured out the internal structure of the earth and how it works. We thought various mental conditions were posessions and other entities. Then we founded psychology. We thought the Earth was a unique, special place. Then we discovered a far more complex universe full of so many stars, planets, and moons, who knows what wonders are on them. We marveled at those stones that appeared to slide themselves across salt flats. Was it magic? No, it was ice sheets that formed and dragged the rocks along. That’s even more interesting than just saying magic. Whatever causes fairy circles, I bet it’s pretty neat.

Look, I’m not saying there aren’t strange things that happen. There are so many incredible things out there yet to be discovered or understood. But we’re not going to understand them by chalking it up to magic. It’s a pointless term, a useless concept. As for science, it’s not a static body of knowledge, but a method for figuring things out, a tool. And already it’s helped us to find out so many amazing things that we never would have known if we stayed huddled in our churches, reciting scripture and burning witches. There’s superstition, and there’s the real world. I prefer the real world, as revealed by the endeavor of science, by the unquenchable curiosity of people who were not content to stop at “magic.”

Light rays, photons, don’t have mass. They travel at incredibly fast speeds. It’s possible for us to travel nearly as fast as light as we want. The faster we go, the more massive we get, the more energy we need to accelerate. Once we get closer to light speed, things will look so damn weird, it’s hard to explain. But we’ll never be able to go as fast as light. To do so would mean that we’d have infinite mass, and would need infinite energy. Not only that, but time would stop. From the perspective of light, their journeys, whether it’s 8 light minutes or 25,000 light years, is instantaneous. Photons can do that because they have no mass. We can’t because we have mass. While that means it’s impossible for us to go at light speed, time dilation still affects things at high speeds. It’s actually possible for us to time-travel. Just go fast enough for long enough, and when you stop, turn around, and then go fast again back to Earth, you’ll arrive hundreds, thousands, even many millions of years into Earth’s future, even though only a few years or decades will have passed for you. You could travel a good clip of the speed of light and circumnavigate the observable universe, and thanks to time dilation, it’ll only take half a century or so for you, according to the clocks on your ship. But when you get back to earth, the Sun and Earth will be dead, with billions of years having passed. This effect is felt even by our satellites. When you use your GPS to find your way to the nearest magic gathering, that GPS is only able to work because the satellites correct for time dilation, due to the speeds they orbit at. Gravity affects the flow of time, too. Time passes faster for your head than it does for your feet when you stand up.

That’s real. That's proven. That’s what we've figured out through science. It’s been demonstrated again and again through repeated experiments, and it’s well-supported by mathematics, the only branch of science where things can be absolutely proven. Mathematics, which also predicted black holes, which we eventually discovered. Black holes, which are horrifying wonders of gravity and time, where the entire mass of a star, or many stars, is squeezed into an infinitely tiny space called a singularity. Where a spherical void, the event horizon, is bigger than a solar system and pulls in even light rays. Gravity so strong that it practically stops time, and if you were to watch someone fall into the event horizon, they would appear to stop and never actually fall in, while they would see time fly by outside, as everything they’ve known closes into a tiny lens and darkness takes over.

That is far better, far more fascinating and amazing than any fairytale humans have ever conceived. It’s more incredible than any claim of magic. Without a scientific or physical context and told to a more ignorant generation of humans, it might even seem like magic. But it’s not magic. It’s real.

Finally, while I’m sure there are many potential things to list, here are but two huge things that would make me believe in magic:

- Working spells for doing things that either can’t happen naturally or that don’t happen by chance. Ones that have been tested under the most rigorous scientific standards and repeatedly demonstrated to work nearly every time, and with all other possible explanations tested and found not to work.

- Actual, real things appearing literally out of nowhere. Physical objects manifesting from thin air. Done under laboratory conditions and repeated numerous times. Bonus if this is done via an aforementioned spell or something. Captured on camera and all manner of other instrumentation, from many angles, and verified not to be fake by the best scientists.

Except, no. I still wouldn’t believe in magic, because those things wouldn’t be magic, they would be a part of our cosmos, and occur via whatever the workings of the cosmos are. If those and other extraordinary claims proved to be real, their true explanations would be far more complex and interesting than “magic.”

#personal

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waterlilyvioletfog · 7 years

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Rhaegar Targaryen was a Dick

Using real life, historical evidence, and based on what we know for sure (and also some speculation on what we don’t) (and also some things that I’ve seen most fans of the series agree as canon ex. KotLT was Lyanna). Oh, and by the way, SPOILERS.

DISCLAIMER: I love Jon Snow. He’s arguably my favorite character, both in the show and in the books. He’s intelligent, kind, honorable, and good (and far smarter in the books by the way) and I do agree that after the life he has had, Jon deserves everything he’s ever wanted. Jon, Sansa, Gilly, Davos, Grey Worm, and Missandei- they all deserve the Iron Throne. They deserve that after having such absolutely SHITTY lives. I am also pretty much a member of the Lyanna Stark Protection Squad. She’s blameless in all of the events in my eyes. She’s a teenager, for fuck’s sake, she goes with Rhaegar when she’s FIFTEEN years old, for Christ’s sake, and she gets WAY in over her head. Cut her some slack- in America, she wouldn’t have been able to vote, smoke cigarettes, or get drunk. She was not in any way responsible for the events that unfolded in her life. This is my stance on BOTH of these characters until there is sufficient evidence disproving my claims. MOVING ON.

This past Sunday’s episode included a crucial scene where Gilly is reading from a book of an old maester, who wrote down everything because y’know, that’s the job of maesters. Fact. She asks Sam what an “annulment” means. He tells her, and it’s clear that he’s not really listening because he interrupts her sharing crucial information for the future of the show: this maester gave Rhaegar Targaryen an annulment on his marriage to Elia Martell, then in a secret ceremony in Dorne remarried him to “someone else.” Gilly never explicitly states the name of the other woman, but we can infer that the “someone else” is Lyanna Stark, who was revealed to be the mother of Jon Snow in the season six finale. Ergo, we can safely conclude that Lyanna Stark found out that she was pregant, told Rhaegar, they got married, and eventually Jon was born. (Actually she might have gotten pregant after the ceremony, but regardless. Something like that.)

While many fans (including myself) were screaming with joy at the thought that Jon is the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms (moreso than Dany, actually, because of the male primogeniture rule that most monarchies work with) others expressed rage at the thought of Elia Martell, Rhaegar’s wife, with whom he had two children, being set aside. And rightfully so.

YES, it is pretty widely understood that Princess Elia of Sunspear and Crown Prince Rhaegar were not in love. It was an arranged marriage, devised by the mad king. They were married at twenty and twenty-three, when all other options (in the eyes of Aerys) were either unacceptable or non-existent. Under ordinary circumstances (hell even in our universe) the annulment would’ve been perfectly acceptable. Their marriage was amicable, but divorce is always an acceptable alternative. I’m not saying that the divorce was bad. Hell no, it was probably a good thing. But the consequences of Rhaegar’s actions mean that the many people see that Rhaegar was a dick who screwed over his wife and kids.

Through out Robert’s Rebellion, the Dornish fought with the Targaryen forces, knowing that if they did not, their beloved princess and her children (three years old and an infant) could easily be disposed of. Yes, the war basically started when Rhaegar kidnapped (we now know actually ran away with) Lyanna, “Shaming Elia” in the eyes of many, but that didn’t matter. Elia was in King’s Landing. Elia, beloved by her people, could not be risked.

And oh, yeah, sure, Elia might have known that she and Rhaegar were divorced, but it is doubtful, but there is very little reason to believe that she was okay with it. Since, you know. She was still a hostage, and you might as well be destined to be queen if you’re gonna be a hostage. (Note that Targaryens were cool with polygamy so actually Rhaegar didn’t have to divorce Elia at all but whatever showrunners, we’ll ignore that for now.)

Remember that whole “Tyrion’s on trial for Joffrey’s murder” thing? And how Tyrion demanded a trial by combat in that awesome scene? And how Oberyn Martell volunteered as tribute to be Tyrion’s champion so he could avenge his sister Elia Martell and her children? And how that got Oberyn killed? And the insuing Dorne plot, which we all hated? Yeah. You do.

Oberyn Martell needed to avenge the deaths of Elia Martell and her children due to Rhaegar’s actions; he and his father started the war, Elia and her children paid the price alongside them.

So, after abandoning Lyanna in the Tower of Joy, Rhaegar proceeded to be murdered by Robert Baratheon. The Lannisters, figuring that “Yeah, the Targs are screwed” decided to march to King’s Landing and clear the way for the Baratheon forces. This was called the Sack of King’s Landing.

Tywin Lannister, hoping to curry favor with Robert, sent on a couple of his goons (including the Mountain, Ser Gregor Clegane) to go kill Elia and her kids. Cause y’know. Tywin was a Bad Dude.

Rhaenys Targaryen, age 3, was stabbed multiple times. Aegon Targaryen, who was even younger, was thrown against a stone wall. Elia Martell, at this point not even the wife of Rhaegar, was raped with the blood of her son still on her rapist’s hands, and had her skull crushed in.

But here’s the thing: Sunday’s episode says that these deaths were pointless. Those weren’t Targaryen deaths.

We can infer this using real life history.

Back up a second, to King Henry VIII of England. The dude who had six wives. Yeah, him.

King Henry’s first wife was Catherine of Aragon. Catherine was the Princess of Spain, and it was an arranged, political marriage. She was beloved by the people, and was certainly the longest marriage Henry had. They were married for nearly twenty years, but she only gave him one living child: a daughter, Mary. Henry couldn’t have that. He needed a legitimate heir. A son.

Henry looked around his court, and lo and behold, his eyes fell upon Anne Boleyn, the daughter of an important emissary. She was feisty, tempramental, and extremely intelligent. She was unwed, and younger than Catherine, and soon Henry came to the conclusion that shit would need to go down so they could be married.

So, Henry split off from the Roman Catholic Church and created the Anglican Church, which at the time was basically the same thing as Catholicism, but whatever, that’s not relevant. Henry could divorce his wife, and so he did. Meanwhile, he and Anne ran off to get married in a secret wedding (NOTE THAT CATHERINE PROBABLY HAD NO IDEA OF ALL OF THIS BEING A THING THAT WAS GOING ON), and she got IMMEDIATELY PREGNANT, so they had another secret wedding, and then finally he and Catherine were officially divorced, so Henry and Anne had NOT secret wedding, blah blah corronation blah blah blah, out pops the baby.

Oh, and while all the secret weddings and pregnancies were going on, Henry made his legitimate daughter, Mary, sign a contract that essentially said “My dad is a certified dick, but he believes in the power of true love to grant him the kid he needs, so I, after being a princess for all thirteen years of my life, do rescind my princess-hood and declare that I am a bastard. I have no (ZERO) claim to the throne, etc etc etc wow my dad was a dick.”

When Henry got bored with Anne’s feisty, intellectual, quick-tempered-ness, he had her beheaded and made their daughter Elizabeth sign the same contract so that he could marry Jane Seymour, the only one of his wives to actually give him a son (though she, like Lyanna died from birthing fever).

So, to sum up: THE PARALLELS BETWEEN RHAEGAR AND KING HENRY, ELIA AND CATHERINE, AND LYANNA AND ANNE ARE UNDENIABLE.

Both Henry and Rhaegar were obsessed with having children (Henry a son and Rhaegar a second daughter) and both, upon receiving the information that their current wives were incapable of giving them more children, turned to the young women who were available. Henry chose the feisty, temperamental, quick-witted ANNE, a daughter of an important emissary, younger than his current wife, and Rhaegar chose the feisty, temperamental, sword-wielding LYANNA (c’mon, you get what I’m getting at with Anne and Lyanna being kinda the same, right?) the daughter of an important lord, younger than his current wife. Both married their respective second wives in secret ceremonies, either immediately before or after said wife becomes pregnant. Catherine and Elia, two “foreign” princesses (many people have noted the vaguely Spanish tinge to Dorne, in the show at the very least) who were beloved by their people, who gave their slightly unhinged husbands legitimate children, and who were set aside due to an inability to give said husband the child he needed. Both were divorced from their husbands, likely largely against their wills and without knowledge of it, and after each had been set aside, it was all for naught: Lyanna couldn’t give Rhaegar his Visenya, just as Anne couldn’t give Henry a son. Considering these parallels, it is not beyond the scope of the imagination that Rhaegar could also have had Rhaenys and Aegon made bastards, especially since we know from the books that Lyanna didn’t like the idea of Robert having children with women other than her! This means that the death of Elia, already being pointless, is now complemented by the pointless deaths of her two innocent children.

That’s my two cents on why Rhaegar is a dick.

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mild-lunacy · 7 years

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Figuring Out How to be Wrong

I think it's important to be wrong sometimes, and it's also important to know how and *why* you're wrong, quite aside from the issue of assigning ultimate responsibility for whatever went wrong that most people in fandom seem most concerned with. That's not really my area, to be clear; I'm not interested in the question of fault so much as I'm interested in keeping my own mind and my thought processes as clear as possible. I do sympathize with the gaslighting aspect of the situation in Sherlock, of course. I've always been very sensitive about issues pertaining to my perception of reality, ever since I was a teenager who believed in aliens and wanted to escape to faery but idolized science, logic and everything Sherlock Holmes stood for. I think it's normal and to be expected to misinterpret some things which are obvious to others, while at the same time being right about some other things that others may not even perceive. Essentially, I think there's actually no need to worry about one's grasp on reality or even one's grasp of literary analysis, 'cause as I've said, there are just so many variables contingent on unpredictable plot twists and the internal motivations of the creators, who are people we don't know. In an ongoing mystery show, weighting them properly would be impossible. The trick is to find ways to question yourself and the world around you while retaining the genuine self-confidence to stand by and defend the conclusions most closely based on the data you have available. It's a delicate balance.

One of the things that are most important to media analysis and the guideline to any critical thinking is the art and science of asking the right questions. That's the first step in any analysis, but it's also the step that one generally returns to when one's initial predictions have not been fully borne out by further evidence. Naturally, it depends on one's ultimate purpose in the analysis, of course, but given that the goal is to understand or illuminate the text, then one has to learn to ask the right questions. Further, these questions have to be genuinely open-ended and as free from preconceptions as possible. Otherwise, it's way too easy to find a collection of 'proofs' that are really just connecting artificially arranged points of dubious relevance. The greatest bane of fannish media analysis is adding this tendency towards seeing the order in chaos with a certain preset, axiomatic ready conclusion. Often enough, no alternative conclusion is genuinely entertained, in the sense of also considering something that seems nonsensical, confusing or otherwise awful. Rather, that very confusing and/or awful aspect of the solution is often treated as the *reason* to discard it as incorrect, which I believe leads to a lot of faulty logic.

Basically, 'this is too awful' or 'this is too confusing' is often seen as the endpoint to questioning in fandom rather than the beginning. In fact, it's a sign that different questions as well as (potentially) different starting axioms are in order. If something seems confusing at first glance, that's a reason to think about it further and ask different follow-up questions to produce more useful avenues for analysis. Further, it pays to be aware of the assumptions one is making in constructing the question. It's impossible to avoid making assumptions or having certain axiomatic starting points; my point is that if one is oblivious to them, any conclusions are suspect. The *possibility* of being wrong in some minor way about things like even a character's characterization should at least be *considered*, particularly if nothing else makes sense. At least for me, the idea is to keep everything on the table, and mix and match certain ideas or possibilities until something 'clicks' and makes sense of the text. That is my process; others almost certainly have a different analytical process, but I'm sure that keeping the options open for the questions being initially asked has to be vital no matter what.

As an example of what I'm talking about: as I said in my initial response to The Lying Detective, I felt there was something weird and plot-related going on, but I was kind of confused. I wasn't *too* too surprised at John's behavior, 'cause he obviously snapped right after Mary's death, and the hallucinations of her only supported the extremity of his break. However, I was kind of confused (though I assumed we'd get more if an explanation than we did in TFP). Anyway, I tried on several versions of an explanation for John's behavior in the morgue incident, even though I wasn't as lost as some of my friends, because I could still tell something was off about John (and Sherlock, obviously) in TLD. I thought about @thecutteralicia's point comparing John's behavior to his adrenaline-driven punching in ASiB, and I thought that seemed relevant, even if indirect. Then I thought, well, the PTSD trauma-driven reading was clearly helpful and asked some of the right questions, at least in terms of Martin Freeman's acting. Still, we've never had outright psychological realism on the show before, so it wouldn't be consistent in terms of writing even if it worked with the acting. These are helpful ideas, but they didn't *entirely* clarify John's characterization in TLD to me, so I kept the question at the back on my mind. I knew immediately there had to be some 'plot stuff' going on, but I'm aware of my limitations in terms of figuring out that sort of thing without some prodding from the fandom. And then today, I saw that analysis of Eurus and John's behavior and it finally clicked into place. The right final question, at last! (Although it's never the final answer, I felt that 'eureka feeling', at least.) So I feel like if you're open to figuring it out and you give it time, you *will* figure it out, basically. Just because you think 'something is off' doesn't mean you're wrong about that, but it also doesn't mean the first halfway plausible explanation has to be correct (needless to say, if it's proven incorrect, it doesn't mean the only other alternative is 'the whole thing sucks and makes no sense'). It helps not allowing your conclusions to be final, in the meantime.

My rule of thumb is to only render my final judgment (of fiction, at least, though also more broadly) once I feel I genuinely understand what I've seen and/or read. I do realize that's a high bar; sometimes you'll find you never really arrive at a full understanding of a complex enough text (which can be a pleasure, really). Besides, why bother if you don't like what you see so far? Fiction isn't supposed to be hard work, let alone in fandom, which is supposed to be a fun hobby. That's a good argument. All I can say is that I'm talking about issues of *analysis*, which presumes you've chosen to engage in the first place. Obviously, you never actually have to engage with a show in any way that isn't fun. These suggestions would only apply given that you're already actively analyzing the text, and *given* you're generally motivated to understand but find it frustrating or even pointless.

Sometimes you'll make a lot of effort only to realize that your first impression (say, 'this sucks') hasn't changed, I'm sure. I imagine this would actually be the case for most people who hate TFP, probably. I'm not sure that seeing the logic of it would actually help *emotionally*, and it might actually help spoil one's perceptions of the rest of the show. I'm lucky in that I've got a range of interpretations that I've genuinely liked for many key aspects of the show, and I can read some pivotal Johnlocky scenes in more or less explicitly romantic ways if I wanted to (see my initial response to the last scene in TSoT, for example). I mean, the jump from explicit back to implicit isn't super-hard once you've already made it the first time (at least for me). But this is just talking about my *analysis*, not my feelings, and I separate those more or less naturally. I think shifting one's perceptions, asking new questions and retracing one's steps becomes a lot more complicated if feelings are constantly involved. Even so, I do think it's worthwhile, though, quite aside from the consequences to one's perception of one TV show. Maybe my approach would only really work for me if it's taken 'as is' (I'm not totally sure), but I do think it's always worth figuring out how to be wrong.

#fandom meta #me myself and i #the lying detective #pointless rambles #the great divergence #the final problem #series 4 #sherlock spoilers #sherlock feels #analysis kink #critical thinking

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seduce01 · 5 years

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Know About National Genographic Project

By Mark Butler

People should not conclude on something without the presence of concrete evidences. Scientists have the necessary apparatuses and they have already ventured through those possibilities. They contributed a lot to our society. In his article, we will know facts about national genographic project. Once we begin to conclude about these basic assumptions, we would fully develop our creative thinking and decision making skills. When we base our assumptions in stable and concrete evidences, we would definitely achieve our utmost potential. Or some reasons, we were too brought up n these events. We have no more time in conveying and arguing with those unhealthy matters. On the eighteen hundreds, another scientist created a system capable of refrigerating water to produce ice. This person inspired inventors around the world until a new technology of refrigeration was met. It has become widespread in almost all aspects of society especially among the restaurant entrepreneurs. We must not take these things for granted. There is no reason for us to still believe in faulty assumptions because these experts have already provided the factual evidences that would support their conclusions. We are not only talking about theories here. We actually are talking about truthful opinions and relevant issues. Our society need not to focus only on celebrity issues. These facilities are a complex machine that needs maintenance. It works twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. It is vital to take care of it at all times as it is costly to have it repaired or opt for the worse choice of buying a new one. However, we should not worry because we are provided with several options. These do not have any purpose if the students would only make these scientific explanations as their last resorts. This sad reality is hindering us from developing and progressing. Our industry nowadays is already very much dependent with our technological devices. Meaning to say, it would be very pointless if we still look back to those traditional beliefs. Those dogmas are not causing any progression. As long as we are capable of learning and absorbing information from someone who are more knowledgeable than us, then we should open our minds for that. If our society has been resistant to changes, then we might have never achieved what we have right now. We also might not have arrived to our primary destinations. Our main goal in life is just to survive. However, our means of survival would not be systematic if not because of the efforts of researchers, doctors, scientists, and inventors. There are lots of professions who have constantly been contributing to the progress of our country. Let us not waste their efforts in trying to lead our community to the right path. These skilled individuals have helped us a lot in terms of figuring out the causes with the use of factual evidences. They also have resolves specie problems like mutations and genetically abnormal creatures. For some reasons, the government is paying them a lot so as for them to effectively work on their tasks. They spent lots of years to fully master these basic and complex concepts.

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fitnesswomenshealth-blog · 6 years

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Vitamin D supplements don't help bone health, major study concludes

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/vitamin-d-supplements-dont-help-bone-health-major-study-concludes.html

Vitamin D supplements don't help bone health, major study concludes

Vitamin D dietary supplements do absolutely nothing for bone health and fitness and the govt must ditch its advice that everybody must get them all through the wintertime months, in accordance to the authors of the most significant evaluate of the evidence ever carried out.

The conclusions challenge the set up see of vitamin D and will dismay the a lot of people today who believe that a day by day dose of it is carrying out them superior. But the substantial meta-investigation, the authors of which compiled 81 separate reports to appear to the most sturdy doable conclusions, identified there was no evidence to justify using vitamin D dietary supplements for bone wellness, other than for those people at substantial possibility of a number of rare ailments.

The Office of Overall health at the moment says anyone really should look at having a vitamin D dietary supplement for their bone overall health in the winter months, amongst October and March, if they simply cannot get ample by publicity to sunlight. That includes all infants and little ones from 6 months to five years. It is primarily based on results from the government’s scientific advisory committee on nourishment (SACN) in July 2016, which did not conclude there were other proven wellness added benefits.

The new meta-evaluation is published in the Lancet Diabetic issues and Endocrinology journal and led by the longstanding gurus on vitamin D Profs Mark Bolland and Andrew Gray from the College of Auckland in New Zealand and Prof Alison Avenell of Aberdeen College.

Bolland explained items have modified since 2014, when the last key overview of the proof was carried out. In the previous four several years, “more than 30 randomised managed trials on vitamin D and bone wellness have been printed, just about doubling the evidence base available,” he reported.

“Our meta-analysis finds that vitamin D does not stop fractures, falls or improve bone mineral density, no matter whether at superior or minimal dose.”

He claimed the tips given by medical professionals and authorities wellbeing departments around the earth recommending vitamin D and stating it is useful in osteoporosis or brittle bone sickness, which afflicts more mature people today, must now be altered. “Clinical recommendations should be improved to reflect these results,” he stated.

He reported further more trials hunting at the effects of vitamin D on bone health and fitness would be pointless. “On the energy of existing proof, we think there is little justification for much more trials of vitamin D supplements wanting at musculoskeletal outcomes,” he explained.

Most people requirements vitamin D the concern is no matter if we must get it from nutritional supplements. It is manufactured in the body obviously as a final result of exposure to daylight, which is why persons residing in northern climates and individuals who address up their pores and skin might have reduced stages than they ought to. It is also contained in a small range of foods, this sort of as cod liver oil, offal, egg yolk and oily fish together with salmon and mackerel.

Oily fish this sort of as mackerel includes vitamin D. Photograph: Alamy

The reports that have been finished are typically in more mature people who could be at chance of osteoporosis (brittle bone condition), but Avenell mentioned there is no evidence of profit for any grown ups – apart from all those few who are at high chance of osteomalacia, a sort of rickets in grownups.

“I do consider they ought to transform the guidance,” she reported. “We don’t think that the populace requirements to just take vitamin D supplementation, due to the fact trials really do not clearly show it has any advantage in safeguarding versus falls and fractures or all the other matters vitamin D is meant to defend you against.

“There’s no harm in having low-dose vitamin D health supplements as far as we know, but if [the government’s nutrition advisers] definitely considered it has essential results, certainly they really should be recommending that there should be fortification of foodstuff.”

They ended up not talking about the results of health supplements in kids and young people today, she claimed, mainly because there experienced not been trials. They ended up also pretty distinct, she explained, that persons who were being never uncovered to the solar because they covered by themselves up or had been institutionalised were being at threat of vitamin D deficiency.

“The context for this examination lies in the truth that quite a few individuals (and medical doctors) have been persuaded by different studies and social media that vitamin D is a heal-all,” reported J Chris Gallagher of the Creighton College Clinical Centre in Omaha, United states, in a connected remark in the journal.

“This thinking is reminiscent of the fervour that supported the widespread use of vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E several years ago, and all of people vitamin trials later on proved to be clinically negative.

“The authors need to be complimented on an crucial updated investigation on musculoskeletal wellness, but by now I can listen to the fervent supporters – what about the added-skeletal advantages of vitamin D?”

According to the SACN, there have been solutions that vitamin D can help with a selection of other “extra-skeletal” well being troubles, together with most cancers, heart ailment, substantial blood stress, infectious diseases, neuropsychological performing, oral health and fitness and age-related macular degeneration, whilst the did not uncover convincing evidence for any of these. Gallagher thinks experiments now getting place will solution all those issues.

“Within a few several years we could have that answer mainly because there are approximately 100,000 contributors now enrolled in randomised, placebo-controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation,” he wrote. “I appear forward to those people studies supplying us the final phrase on vitamin D.”

Prof Louis Levy, head of nutrition science at Community Overall health England, maintained that men and women need to keep on to take supplements. “With a fifth of men and women in the United kingdom showing about vitamin D ranges, governing administration tips is to realize this from sunshine and a healthier well balanced diet regime through summertime and spring,” he mentioned. “During autumn and wintertime, those people not consuming foodstuff obviously containing or fortified with vitamin D need to consider a 10 microgram health supplement.”

Martin Hewison, professor of molecular endocrinology at the College of Birmingham, agreed, incorporating that several trials for vitamin D supplementation have revealed it is only effective if people today are vitamin D-deficient to commence with – but that in this study pretty couple contributors started off with very low levels of vitamin D.

“What the current research illustrates,” he reported, “is that additional studies are necessary that focus on vitamin D supplementation wherever it is desired – in folks with vitamin D deficiency.”

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andydona-chan · 7 years

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Thoughts at night

Sherlock sat in silence on the bed at the hotel he was currently staying at, with the explosion at Baker Street he was virtually homeless at the moment, and honestly, he was tired and he needed to sleep after what they had been through that day. However he couldn’t, or more likely, he wouldn’t. Sherlock just knew that the nightmares would make it impossible for him to rest, not only that, his ever working mind will still be running thoughts in his head, processing every detail and making conclusions about what had happened at Sherrinford.

He recalled the day Moriarty’s video had paralyzed the entire city, his face in every screen saying ‘Did you miss me?’ By then he had already known that he wasn’t behind the event at all. In fact, if he were to look at it properly, his mind had given him a lot of clues in that self-induced hallucination of the Victorian era. Even with his ghost present, Moriarty hadn’t been the real mastermind behind it; it had been a woman, all along. And just as Eurus had proved, it had been for context, emotional context; something, he suspected, he could only provide given his tendency of sentimental attachment. Not that he thought it was wrong anymore, he had already started to see the benefits of it.

With an ever present sadness, he remembered Mary, her case hadn’t even been connected to what had happened at all, her past had just caught up to her and that was it. However, to think that John had encountered Eurus at that time and had actually established communication with her was worrisome, because that meant Eurus had been free and watching them for too long. Time she had used to gather information, a time he had lost glued to his phone and not paying enough attention to his best friend to notice what he was doing.

Then Mary had died and he had felt that loss more than he was willing to admit. And in between that he had also missed a lot of things, that part of himself that was grieving had pulled him into the numbing pleasures of the drugs when he knew fully well that he could have faked it. He only had to convince John, and his best friend could be trusted to see but not to observe.

Oh, how sentiment could blind your mind! He had to admit that Mycroft had some points, caring too much was a disadvantage, but only because your mind focus on the thing you most care about than on the whole scene, and he had to remember that for his job he needed to look at everything, details were important, the background was important. He had been seeing everything so blurred since John had shouted at him while still holding Mary’s dead body that night, it was like walking with a fishbowl full of water on his head.

He adjusted himself until he was lying on his back, and once again reviewed his memories. He had to admit that his sister was so clever it was almost scary, almost. She had managed to come to his flat and pretend to be someone else, they had spent a whole night together, just walking and talking, some of the things they had talked about he couldn’t even remember, he had shown her so much about himself that it wasn’t a surprise that she had managed to trick him into her trap.

He had practically given away all his weaknesses without even noticing. Although he had to admit she had a lot to do with his lack of confidence when trying to make friends or the way he treated them, and maybe, just maybe, if things had happened in a different way he could have treated people in a really different way. Women were usually more sentimental, more emotional, and Eurus had wanted to understand that, he was the most emotional of the three, and it was probably out of her female nature that his sister had tried to get his attention, to learn about it.

Talking about knowing what was good and what was wrong, it had also been a task when they had to choose a guilty man out of three brothers, their sense of justice was very similar, but the experiment had been clear for him then. Eurus had tested their reactions - especially his reactions to their reactions - to different emotions; in that first room they had to make a sacrifice and for that, they had to show specific emotions: fear, trust, courage, and empathy. Taking from that, the second room had been about justice, their moral, resistance, intelligence, and anger were tested there. In the third room…

Sherlock found himself unable to start with the things that had happened in that room, suddenly he had to sit up, his breathing was fast and he felt anger boiling in him, he was trembling.

With a jump he stood up and started pacing, trying to calm down, there had been something about that one test that he still couldn’t get over.

‘Damn it, Holmes, you are flesh and blood. You have feelings. You have ... you must have ... impulses.’

“Shut up!” he said out loud as if to silence the voice inside his head. It was true that he had been in frequent communication with The Woman, what had happened between them had been interesting, but not lasting. There had been of course many emotions mixed up there that had actually thrown him out of his way, but it wasn’t something that currently affected him, and in his mind it was obvious that John would refer to her since she was the only one he had seen who had been able to pull his emotions - impulses - almost to the surface, however she wasn’t the only one, there was someone else, a woman who had always been able to see through him, to really see him.

Molly Hooper…

‘She’s out there... she likes you, and she’s alive. And do you have the faintest idea how lucky you are?’

But she had come near to not being alive… or so Eurus had wanted him to believe. Sherlock sighed loudly again while passing his hands through his hair, there were bruises on the skin of his hands, a reminder of what that experience had made him do, his hands had hurt afterwards, but he hadn’t had time to check, and he had hoped there wouldn’t be any evidence of it, but they were very visible by now. His own words as he deduced who the coffin in that room was for resonated in his head.

“Well, allowing for the entirely pointless courtesy of headroom, I’d say this coffin is intended for someone of about five foot four. Makes it more likely to be a woman.”

“Not a child?”

“A child’s coffin would be more expensive. This is in the lower price range, although still best available in that bracket.”

Of course, it would be a cheap coffin, Molly would never buy something bigger or better, they had discussed it over on the phone one night, it had been silly actually, he was bored and wanted to know what her thoughts on that matter were, or what her choice would be given the case.

“A lonely night on Google” Not lonely if he considered who had actually talked to him about the subject, who else would he choose to talk about something like that?

“...Look at the coffin. Unmarried, practical about death, alone.”

Once again John’s voice broke into the scene reminding him of just how much an important matter this was. “Trust me, Sherlock: it’s gone before you know it. Before you know it.”

He knew that she liked him, it was unmistakable, her body language, the invitations to go out for coffee, her smile… An image of her dressed up in a black dress a few Christmas ago made his stomach contract. He did not deserve her, how had she been able to forgive him after what he did that day, after what he had done more than once? It was something different that he had not really understood in the moment, his need to apologize and the guilt he had felt for making her feel that way, but she had left that behind and stayed firmly in her position as his friend because whenever he went back to her she would be waiting for him

‘What do you need?’

Sherlock had noticed her attempts to move over him, to make a life, only to fail miserably, more than once because something he had said. He remembered Tom, that man she had gone with to John’s wedding, he had been her fiancé, someone she could’ve relied on, someone who could have make her happy, but she had called it off… Why? He wasn’t quite sure.

But he had made sure to show that he was grateful for the help she had lend him, she was an intelligent woman and her work with him had made things easier more times than he could remember. After Mary’s death, Sherlock had needed to talk to someone, at first just to know how John was doing, and Molly had visited Baker Street with Rosie many times, sometimes to leave her with Mrs. Hudson, others to have some tea.

He had been at the hospital for at least two weeks before going back to Baker Street, and there she was again, still angry, busy and worried, but still there. She had been there through some episodes of withdrawal, his bad humor, and his anxiety. And what had he given her in return? Nothing. It was suddenly obvious that a single ‘thank you’ and a kiss on the cheek were not enough anymore, not for someone who had done so much for him.

Suddenly it was clear why it was inconceivable that Molly Hooper would think that on the day of her death he would put her in that tiny cheap coffin! When Eurus plan had been revealed in that room he had known that this would hurt Molly, however, in the midst of her life being in danger, he thought it was best to have her heart broken than not beating at all.

‘Also, your loss would break my heart…’

Something really out of character of Mycroft the moment he had said it, but very on point, in this case, losing Molly Hooper would break him. Not only his life would be emptier, his job would lack something she could only provide, she would not only miss her silly jokes and colorful jumpers, her sharp mind and her dexterity at her job, his heart ached at the sole idea. Trust him to feel lonely if he didn’t have Molly Hooper in his life, because for some time now John had had a life apart from him, with Mary and now only with Rosie, and thought Mrs. Hudson was good company sometimes Sherlock found himself feeling lonely. In a way he was like Molly, unmarried, practical about death and alone, he rolled his eyes, they had so much in common.

That’s how he knew because moments after the call had been disconnected and he had been unable to talk to her a bit more, he had actually pictured it. He saw it when taking the lid of the coffin, her name written on the plaque just above the very same words that she most wanted to hear from him, he placed it over the wooden box that would hold the body of this great woman…

No. She deserved flowers, a nice chapel, a place full of people that loved her, a long and fulfilling life to be remembered for, a long speech about her a nice, big and comfortable looking coffin lined with silk and a big plaque with the words ‘She was loved infinitely, by family and friends, she was the one that mattered the most at the end’; and he would be standing beside her, probably sad, but happy to have been part of her life. No! And he had lost it then, his patience, his poker face, his self-control, all lost because he couldn’t let that happen, he would not bury Molly Hooper in that cheap bloody coffin! He will not lose her!

‘She taught me to be the man she already thought I was. Get yourself a piece of that.’

“All those complicated little emotions. I lost count.”

For a moment he wondered himself how many emotions had been showed during that phone call: confusion, fear, trust, desperation, pain, realization, courage, surprise, truth, anger, love…

#sherlockbbc #Sherlock Holmes #Molly Hooper #sherlolly #mollock #fanfic #post the final problem #season 4

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therrrsssposts · 7 years

Text

Science Talk : Destiny vs Free-will

#science

Ø Hairypouter : hi

Ø IndieSloathas : hey

Ø Hairypouter : i have always wanted to chat with a scientist

Ø Hairypouter : i find i usually chat with stupid people

Ø IndieSloathas : i am an engineer

Ø Hairypouter : so this will be a change

Ø Hairypouter : which field of engineering

Ø IndieSloathas : computer science stuffs and materials/mech engg

Ø Hairypouter : oh thats a bit o fake engineering, no?

Ø IndieSloathas : dont know but i liked maths so i chose it

Ø Hairypouter : so you do programming?

Ø IndieSloathas : a lot

Ø IndieSloathas : one of my friend just got a job worth 2 million 2 days ago

Ø Hairypouter : that is wonderful

Ø IndieSloathas : yeah

Ø Hairypouter : when will it be your turn? you almost done with uni?

Ø IndieSloathas : i am also trying lets see if i can do it or not

Ø IndieSloathas : yeah

Ø IndieSloathas : i am in final year

Ø Hairypouter : so if you are a programmer you are logical in your thought process?

Ø IndieSloathas : i like logical maths a lot so i guess yes but cant say for every programmer i guess

Ø Hairypouter : so let me ask you something i am curious about

Ø IndieSloathas : ok

Ø Hairypouter : do you have anything that you believe that is not logical

Ø IndieSloathas : destiny

Ø Hairypouter : you believe in destiny and you dont think destiny is logical

Ø Hairypouter : is that correct?

Ø IndieSloathas : destiny is like a random num selection program , u may have made it logically but u are never sure what u get

Ø IndieSloathas : thats what i think

Ø Hairypouter : well that is a representation that is not very clear

Ø Hairypouter : let me try a rephrase and let me see if you agree

Ø Hairypouter : you do not believe in free will, but you think the existence of free will is logical

Ø IndieSloathas : i believe in free will and its existence but u cant say that following your free will give u the same thing which u planned so its not fully logical

Ø Hairypouter : well that seems confused to me

Ø IndieSloathas : exceptions may occur

Ø Hairypouter : i think destiny = no free will

Ø Hairypouter : do you agree?

Ø IndieSloathas : thats confusing thats why i said that destiny is not fully logical

Ø Hairypouter : not talking about whether logical or not

Ø Hairypouter : but what you believe and who you think about it

Ø Hairypouter : if i am destined to be king i dont have a choice to be king or not

Ø Hairypouter : so i either believe in destiny or free will

Ø Hairypouter : i cannot believe both

Ø IndieSloathas : but u wont be knowing what your destiny is so u never know that u are destined to be a king even if u are

Ø Hairypouter : not about knowing

Ø Hairypouter : more about what is the state of things

Ø Hairypouter : do you think it is inevitable or do you think you have a choice

Ø Hairypouter : so do you think you have a choice or is it inevitable

Ø IndieSloathas : u always have a choice cause destiny is not a logical thing to me it may flip anytime any number of times

Ø Hairypouter : well you seem to be very illogical because what you said does not make sense

Ø IndieSloathas : u are never certain of it and hence u have choices

Ø IndieSloathas : choices vanish when u are certain about something

Ø Hairypouter : we havent even got past the start to get to choices

Ø Hairypouter : first maybe we start easier

Ø Hairypouter : what do you mean by destiny?

Ø IndieSloathas : the unpredictability in the occurrence of an event

Ø IndieSloathas : for me destiny = uncertainity

Ø Hairypouter : well i guess then we are talking about different things

Ø Hairypouter : well that good to you know, otherwise it would have been a waste of time

Ø Hairypouter : so what else do you want to talk about

Ø IndieSloathas : what ‘bout u?

Ø IndieSloathas : from where u are

Ø IndieSloathas : and are u too a cs student

Ø Hairypouter : well i was hoping to have a logical discussion but that does not seem like it is going to work

Ø Hairypouter : so anything else is good

Ø Hairypouter : i studied computer science but was terrible at it

Ø IndieSloathas : hahaha

Ø IndieSloathas : from?

Ø Hairypouter : I am in Canada

Ø IndieSloathas : ohkay my sis-in-law works there in usa

Ø IndieSloathas : software developer for iss in nasa

Ø Hairypouter : thats great

Ø Hairypouter : what is iss

Ø IndieSloathas : international space station

Ø Hairypouter : is she more logical than you ?

Ø IndieSloathas : i dont know man !!

Ø IndieSloathas : if we keep on asking such ques our chat is going to turn illogical

Ø Hairypouter : well let me ask you a different question

Ø Hairypouter : something that might seem pretty agressive is that ok?

Ø IndieSloathas : ok

Ø Hairypouter : lets say you are having a discussion about something

Ø Hairypouter : a word, lets say

Ø Hairypouter : and then you change the definition of the word to the opposite of what it mean

Ø Hairypouter : and say that is what i think the word means

Ø Hairypouter : does that make sense?

Ø Hairypouter : to put it another way

Ø IndieSloathas : u are talking about that destiny=uncertainity i guesss

Ø Hairypouter : a computer acting that way, would it pass the turing test?

Ø Hairypouter : yes

Ø Hairypouter : i am just trying to understand the logic

Ø Hairypouter : because destiny means that it is preordained, that means guaranteed, that no matter what happens that will happen so 100% certain

Ø Hairypouter : you might not know what it is but it is destined, will not change

Ø Hairypouter : any definition in any dictionary will say that

Ø IndieSloathas : but u can never predict from your frame of reference can u?

Ø Hairypouter : that is what i mean by logic

Ø Hairypouter : we never said anything about frame of reference

Ø Hairypouter : what i am saying is that if it is destiny

Ø Hairypouter : it will happen

Ø Hairypouter : that is the definition of destiny

Ø Hairypouter : are you saying that if something is destined

Ø Hairypouter : it might not happen?

Ø Hairypouter : forget about knowing

Ø Hairypouter : i am just saying it is destined

Ø Hairypouter : noone knows what it is

Ø Hairypouter : will it happen?

Ø IndieSloathas : yes it will happen but will be unpredictable by u till it happens so u cant make any logical conclusions on it from your own side

Ø Hairypouter : well, all i will say to what you have typed is you have jumped to a conclusion as to what i might think of your response

Ø Hairypouter : so it is an answer with an excuse if you will which shows that you dont have an open mind and are now married to an idea and will get defensive

Ø IndieSloathas : i have made a conclusion that destiny cant be concluded

Ø Hairypouter : do you know what i mean? we have not had any discussions about predictability or logical conclusions from them but you have to throw in that caveat which is pointless

Ø Hairypouter : so you dont like admitting facts

Ø IndieSloathas : so u explain your views on it

Ø Hairypouter : i dont have any views

Ø IndieSloathas : i am ready to see

Ø Hairypouter : i am just interested in how people think

Ø Hairypouter : i was thinking i would like to see how someone logical would think about something that is not logical

Ø Hairypouter : that is where we started

Ø Hairypouter : but i dont think you are logical

Ø IndieSloathas : really now my sleep is really vanished and i want to see what u think

Ø Hairypouter : i dont mean to cause you any sleeplessness

Ø Hairypouter : but does what i say make sense?

Ø Hairypouter : or am i full of shit?

Ø IndieSloathas : it was 3:40 in india and no u are not full of shit

Ø Hairypouter : sorry, we can do this another time

Ø Hairypouter : have a wonderful night

Ø IndieSloathas : now a sleepless one

Ø Hairypouter : and spread the logic

Ø IndieSloathas : hahaha but now someone told me i am illogical so i cant

Ø Hairypouter : ok

Ø Hairypouter : if you want to do this we can

Ø Hairypouter : first i think a logical person derives decisions based on available information

Ø Hairypouter : so if 1 = x and x = y

Ø Hairypouter : then Y = 1

Ø Hairypouter : so based on facts you come to other facts it is like a chain

Ø Hairypouter : so your world view the way you see things is based on all the facts that you have accumulated throughout your life

Ø Hairypouter : now if you were to think something that does not fit the facts you know that would mean that you were being illogical

Ø Hairypouter : or if you try to twist the facts you know to fit an answer that would be illogical

Ø Hairypouter : do you know what i mean?

Ø IndieSloathas : ok

Ø IndieSloathas : will think about we talked

Ø Hairypouter : so then we come to things which we cannot form an opinion on based on what we know as we do not have the measuring devices or a large enough sample

Ø Hairypouter : it is then interesting to see how logical people and illogical people navigate these

Ø Hairypouter : thats all i was thinking and wanted to observe

Ø Hairypouter : i can make an arguement for free will or destiny

Ø Hairypouter : they are opposites

Ø Hairypouter : but i cannot argue both at the same time

Ø Hairypouter : so then for me the game is over as i cannot be on opposite sides of the same issue

Ø IndieSloathas : ok

Ø Hairypouter : so that was my only point that logically i can only be on one side

Ø Hairypouter : so i could not go any further with that discussion because my logic breaksdown, a catastrophic error if you will only a reboot will help

Ø IndieSloathas : hmm ok

Ø Hairypouter : i think my discussion of the mechanics was boring for you and you actually wanted to get into the free will vs destiny argument

Ø Hairypouter : but i just wanted to point out they are opposites, and a case can be made for both

Ø Hairypouter : but i think all the scientific evidence points to the fact (points not proves) that it is likely that everything is pre-ordained

Ø IndieSloathas : ok

Ø Hairypouter : so now that your mind is at rest, have a good sleep, dont let what i said worry you too much, as you said although things are pre-ordained there are too many variables to measure so to all intents and purposes with the tools we have the future is random

Ø Hairypouter : good night

Ø IndieSloathas : bye and do continue on this discussion sometime other with me

Ø IndieSloathas : now i am going to sleep

Ø Hairypouter : yes look me up when you are bored and we can continue this

Ø IndieSloathas : ok

#science #strangers #stranger #destiny #logic #mathematics #maths #choices #free will #logical #computer #engineering #physics #scientific #talks #debate #criticism

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