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benlaksana · 3 years

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2021

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It's been roughly a year and a half since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic here in Indonesia, and I've recently been trying to understand where I'm at. Not physically, as in physical space, but mentally and probably existentially. What is the state of my mind? I am aware that I've become somewhat bitter, my late nights are sometimes riddled with anxiety for what the next day may bring and reoccurring personal-collective grief has at times, and recently more often than I would like to admit, numbed me.

This may probably be my mind's automatic coping mechanism seeing all this death mainly as a result of how my government has failed us, its citizens, especially during a time of crises. And I really need to stress this point: how my government has failed us Indonesians during the times we need it the most and I very much believe that it is because of this why many of us Indonesians are in constant misery and haunted by that feeling of despair. If chronic physical pain causes constant daily anguish, I am not surprised if chronic physical and mental pain caused by structural violence causes persistent misery as well.

I'm somewhat fortunate in this regard, I'm grateful that I've learned ways to keep my sanity in check. My contemplative practice is key for me. Honestly, I wouldn't have gotten far in life without it. I have many people to thank, but Art Buehler especially, my former professor in esoteric contemplative/meditative practices who reminded me and pointed a certain possible direction of where I should head when I sense a lost in my life's direction, is one those I should thank the most. I know this seems like an individualized response to structural oppression, and I don't intend to paint such a picture, but I do believe we need some kind of mental stability to keep on going. To survive if not thrive.

Art sadly passed away in 2019. I received an email about his passing. And come to think of it I never really did allow myself to properly grieve for his passing. I don't know why. To be told through a short concise email that someone you cared for died, without having the opportunity to properly say goodbye feels like that person never really passed away. It is horrible way to end relationships. A sudden cut, nothing finalized, and since goodbyes are relational, now nothing can really ever be concluded. I have to make amends with myself and only with myself. If I said goodbye yesterday, or if I say goodbye today or perhaps tomorrow, will it ever be enough for me?

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Life is individual yet also relational. It's good to have friends, family, people that care for you or the odd mix of all three to get you through life. So although I have these array of tools to possibly help get me through life but if the people whom you look for some kind direction is no longer present, I'm just not sure for how long I can maintain it if I'm doing all this by myself. Will a breaking point come to me?

The mind is a fickle thing, and the mind is as strong as its habits. Bad habits, bad mind. Good habits, good healthy mind (no habits, no mind?). They also say that things that might happen, will indeed happen. It is just a matter of time. If so, how will I break? To what extent? For how long? What will change? What will I lose? Will there be something renewed? Will I come out the same person? Will I come out changed but for the worst?

This is one of the things that worries me. That certainty of uncertainty. The certainty of breaking, the uncertainty of when and of its form. Will I explode in sudden exasperation, engulfed in madness? Will it be a quick balloon pop yet a slow descend into meaninglessness? An unabashed diatribe rant towards someone I care? Something that's just a twitter post away from me on actually doing it. Will this be an opening, an opportunity for 'satori', a sudden lift of the 'veil', bringing about comprehension and understanding of the true nature of things? Questions, questions, questions, not much when it comes to answers, is all I have for now. To be hopeful is hard these days and with the wavering hope, very much coming and going like waves, it has become incredibly hard to even retain any semblance of kindness. That is something I do not want to actively become a habit of. Without hope, comes the cold embrace of fatalism that many on the 'left' are guilty of. Clutched by fatalism, empathy becomes harder to come by. I've seen it, and I have felt it.

I know that my eroding sense of hope is connected to my personal dreams. Specifically how it has become very hard to actualize it. Rara and I never really planned on staying in Indonesia for long. I was confident enough, a bit too confident come to think of it, that we will be out of Indonesia by 2021 the latest. A mere 2 1/2 years after our last stay in New Zealand. The plan was for me to continue my studies, getting into a Ph.D. program and of course a scholarship. That was our ticket out. Hoping that we'll be back to our old routine in Wellington, in and out the university's library, my head in books, loving our 'flatwhites' while regretting having too much of it, the usual stint doing some university tutoring, community organizing stuff, lazy gardening, out and about on the weekends tramping around Wellington and if Covid did not happen or/and maybe if my government handled things much, much better I think that would've been the case. Or at least I constantly would like to imagine that would be the case.

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Yet here we are still in Indonesia, me struggling to do my Ph.D. through this wretched distant learning, initially in the comfort of my home yet steadily devolving into cabin fever. And Rara with her own struggles trying her best to get back on her feet as an aspiring musician. None of it is going as well as we had hoped for. All this while juggling trying our best to keep ourselves safe and our families and friends safe. Both of us have become direct witnesses how challenging this has been, physically and mentally. Both of us slowly grappling with the continual kick in the gut, the never ending structural absurdity, violently absurd.

That slow grueling realization of how fragile our lives are. Not just existentially. It is existentially precarious yet at the same time understanding that precariousness in many of its aspects is structurally and politically maintained. It is this political construction of precarity, which Isabell Lorey elaborates in her book State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, that angers and saddens us the most.

Lorey provides a nuanced approach in unpacking and differentiating this thing called being 'precarious'. The three dimensions of being precarious: precariousness, precarity and then precarization. On precariousness, Lorey draw's on Judith Butler's conceptualization of precariousness which she sees as existential, relational and inevitable. I'll insert my existential philosophy and Buddhist values here, to help me see and more importantly accept the transient nature of life and that impermanence or change is the only constant. Our lives, our bodies are destined to die and wither away. We humans are fragile mortal beings. The loss of life, the loss of one's identity, the loss of everything that makes us, us is unavoidable. It's also a 'relational' thing, as in it is also a shared experience. Everyone will experience it. It is the great equalizer some say.

Then we have precarity. Yes everyone dies, but the process of dying or even the process of grieving someone's death is dependent on what Lorey see as the “effects of different political, social and legal compensations of a general precariousness”. Some die at young age due to starvation, riddled with poverty and disease and have nothing or no one to ease their pain, others die surrounded by family and friends in a well-cared for hospital. Some have days or weeks to grieve, others have to go back to work the next day as she or he have no luxury to stop working even just for a moment and simply grieve. To stop working even for a day draws some closer to the possibility of death for the person or those dependent on the person working. This is the inequality of dying and grieving due to our social hierarchies. How fragile we are, is dependent on those social hierarchies.

And last we have Lorey's third dimension, governmental precarization which is the instrumentalization of insecurity by the government. In other words, the government using the idea and the reality of insecurity as a tool or device to control its citizens. The calculated, deliberate attempt by the government in destabilizing our lives in order for us to be easily governed. Insecurity, be it real or due to perceived constructed fear of insecurity is an effective governing tool. The fear of being labeled "useless and lacking in contribution to the nation-state". The genuine insecurity of not being able to get a job due to the false understanding that it is simply a result of an individual's laziness rather than due to systematic government policies. The deliberate attempt in making our lives constantly insecure, constantly on the edge, without us initially knowing it and when we do come to understand, the blame is on us. It is normalized and it is internalized.

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This is not simply a social issue, it is a deeply existential one as well. We Indonesians have very little to make us feel safe at the moment. Covid and the government's response to it has severely limited our movements and it's not simply physical immobility, but also an existential one, the inability to even have the imagination that our lives are actually "going somewhere", towards a forward direction. Perhaps some sort of minute incremental progress, but progress nonetheless. This imagined mobility is what Ghassan Hage calls as "existential mobility" and this immobility suffered by many of us is what he also calls as "stuckedness".

Turning an often momentary or the ephemeral nature of a crisis into something prolonged and perhaps even permanent is another part of the strategy of governmental precarization. Our lives or jobs are always on the line and again coupled with the sick prevailing idea that we only have ourselves to find the solution. The crisis is permanent, we don't know why but we've been told that way, if we fail to overcome it is because of our personal inabilities thus proliferating and intensifying this sense of stuckedness.

Forcing us to accept whatever solution the government-messiah presents us with in order to relieve us from this suffering. From labour laws that normalizes precariousness even more, to oppressive new laws that limits our desire and ability to dissent, to including who or how our enemies are defined, easily accepting who is to blame for all this insecurity we are all suffering.

Be it the long dead Indonesian communists, the Chinese Indonesians and the racist perception of them being "selfish and greedy", the Indonesian Islamists - the kadruns and their conservatism, the "foreign forces" whomever they may be constantly trying to take over Indonesia, anyone or anything is to blame. Anyone but the Indonesian government and its affluent patrons. Insecurity and the fear that rises from it renders many of us easily governable and compliant.

This governmental precarization and this 'stuckedness', which Hage sees no longer as a possibility that may or may not happen but an "inevitable pathological state which has to be endured" is how Rara and I feel at the moment.

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Rara and I feel our lives are going nowhere. We feel that our lives are stuck, constantly rotating in a hamster wheel trying our best to overcome our precariousness. No progress, no forward movement, no growth, just trying our best to survive from this sustained uncertainty. It's an awful feeling, paving way to existential dread. We are very much looking forward to moving back to New Zealand as soon as possible but with the conditions right now, that is something I can't even dare to imagine.

And although I am grateful that the weave of our privilege with at many times just pure sheer luck has kept us alive and physically well for the time being, we both now realize that we have hit a proverbial concrete wall here. Adding to the already precarious nature of life here in Indonesia, our line of work as a fledgling social science academic and aspiring artist and what Rara and I aspire to do socially, what we aspire to become, easily ends in stagnation if we intend to continue to live our lives in Indonesia. (I want to direct you to Social Science and Power edited by Vedi Hadiz and Daniel Dhakkidae to get the gist of what I'm trying to get at here.)

This is a hard pill to swallow, harder to write and even more so to act upon. I am existentially tied to Indonesia, my family and friends are here, my father is buried here and so will my mother. Memories of the distant past, the colloquial language when shitposting on social media, my mind and body have been shaped by Indonesia in ways I possibly do not even fully realize. This is why I oscillate between guilt towards others and guilt towards the self. I feel guilty for simply having an exit strategy when many others don't, I have the luxury of choice. Yet I also I feel guilty for feeling guilty about this, as it means I am also neglecting the well-being of myself, now and in the future. I need to work on this and find my bearings, being stuck in a guilty limbo won't get me anywhere.

And the future is far from stable, I wonder what is on the other end of surviving this pandemic? There is so much collective grief, collective anger and of course personal anger. All this will amount to something, I'm sure of that. Although I don't know what exactly, I'm not entirely confident this something will be good. John Keane's new book 'The New Despotism' comes into mind.

What do I personally do with all this anger? I’ve noticed how anger, especially when it is on the verge of hatred, morphs itself and easily descends into madness, into aggression and often showing itself, unawaringly to us, when the act of expressing anger happens. Your mind becomes instantly clouded, ending in mindless action. This inability to have control over oneself terrifies me. I already have so very little semblance of control over life in general at the moment, if I truly have no control over myself whatsoever, what then do I have?

And I wonder if it is a waste of time asking these pseudo-intellectual questions? I don't know, yet I do know I live in a society where it hones aggression and hostility, whether it be in physical and digital spaces, and I would like to draw myself away from all this at the moment before I transform myself into something I do not wish to be. Anger I can fully understand, and it is needed and useful. Yet to actively transform it into deep blinding hatred and sustain it daily, is something I feel psychologically destructive for me and I'm trying my best not to go on that path.

I rarely update this blog I know, but this blog has always been used as a personal chronicle of how much I have progressed, digressed or both. And I needed to write all this, because I've never been this least sure of what my life should be like and where it should go. I know I am not alone at this. This pandemic has destroyed the lives of many, our futures, our dreams, our sources of love and I hope that anyone of you reading this finds a way to get through it, doing anything you can do day in, day out.

I'm not sure it if amounts to anything. Maybe it won't, maybe it will, or maybe it has but maybe we just can't see it. All I can personally do for now, is to hold on to these 'maybes', and maybe, just maybe I'll get through this too.

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“Where must we go...

We who wonder this Wasteland

in search of our better selves?”

- The First History Man, George Miller

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wayhavenots · 3 years

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Flower Language

Inspired by @adam-du-mortains‘s Daisies and the implication by Jo that Gray is well-versed in flower symbolism. (I’m, uh, not.)

Synopsis: Daphne gets Gray some flowers. (Button x Gray)

Rating: G

Taglist: @homeformyheart @crackerdumortain

Nick knocks on Gray’s office door, pops his head in, and says, “Lunch?” He’s been dying to check out the new Chinese place down the street (and to trade recipes with the chef).

But before Gray can respond, Nick sees the arrangement of white and yellow flowers on the corner of his desk. He clicks his tongue. "My fan club didn't get me flowers.”

He flashes a grin so that Gray knows he's not as bitter as he sounds, while Gray tries and fails to smile back.

“What’s wrong?” asks Nick.

"They're not from a fan,” he admits, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

Nick strides inside and picks up the basket, where a card is attached by a pink ribbon. "Button sent these?" he exclaims with a grin as he reads the card, a simple To: Grayson Wacker Black, From: Daphne Wiseman. "Aww, they’re from your number one fan.”

"She's just being polite," says Gray, rubbing the back of his neck as the tips of his ears turn red. "I brought her flowers to welcome her to her new office, so this is her...returning the favor.”

Nick has to cover his mouth to keep from squealing. Finally. It's been four years since Operation Hemera, and while Button and his best friend have made some strides towards each other, there's still roughly nine inches of distance between them on average.

What if the Zero thing is too much for him? he hears at least once every two weeks. What if that's why he hasn't made a move?

(The truth is that they’ve both made moves---usually two steps forward and three steps back.)

But this? Flowers to welcome her to the office? That's a move forward. And undeniable, unlike the time Gray offered Button a hand to hold and she misinterpreted it as a high-five (setting them back at least a year in terms of progress).

"And she sent you flowers back?" asks Nick, trying to keep his voice level. It's not hard to do when he looks at the disappointment on the other man’s face, though. "Wait, why aren't you excited about this?"

Gray sighs. "She sent me candytufts and yellow carnations, Nick."

"They're beautiful," he defends, though that might be a stretch. It’s certainly not a dozen red roses, but if he knows his sister, she gave this a lot of thought (and quite deliberately out of his brainrange). “What’s wrong with them?”

"Candytufts, symbolizing indifference,” says Gray, pointing to the white flowers, “and yellow carnations, symbolizing rejection." He points dejectedly to the yellow flowers. “It’s a clear message. Daphne doesn’t...” He seems to remember who he’s talking to and clears his throat, as if Nick hasn’t given him his blessing a dozen times. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll respect her wishes. Lunch?”

“Gray, I’m sure that’s not what she meant.”

Gray shakes his head. "It’s flower language. Subtle communication. I got her red camellias, and she...basically told me to back off, in a nice way, because she’s a nice person. I was obviously being too pushy. I should have expected this. We're better as friends. I value being her friend. I shouldn't have..."

He's spiralling, and he's spiralling because Button sent him a middle finger of a flower arrangement without realizing.

Nick sends a telepathic message to Button, and six minutes later (Gray just wrapping up his rambling about how expected this is and how it really doesn’t hurt), she's walking through the door with a Tupperware tucked under her arm, dressed in her MIV uniform.

(Side note: Baby Button, an official MIV. His heart swells with pride.)

"I was told there was a Gray emergency," she says, looking between the two of them with a bright smile. “I brought...drumroll please...”

Nick obliges, tapping out a drumroll against Gray’s desk, and even Gray’s forced smile softens into something real as she displays the container like Vanna White.

“Mind. Over. Batters,” she finishes dramatically.

Nick didn't even tell her to bring cookies. She apparently has emergency cookies stored somewhere in her office, and she grabbed them for Gray.

"Really, Daphne,” says Gray, “you don't need to---"

"You're rejecting cookies?" she exclaims. "This is an emergency indeed."

She walks the container to Gray's desk, and her grin widens when she sees the flowers. "You got them! You got the flowers. I didn’t know if you’d get the flowers. The place said they could be delivered tom-yarrow.”

It’s one of thirty rapid-fire flower puns she is tossing back and forth in her mind. (I was going to poppy my head in and see if they a-rose, they came aster than I expected, I hope you lilac them as much as I lilac you...) And when she runs out of puns, she is thinking what if he hates them what if he hates them what if iris(ked) too much.

Before Gray can stumble through an obvious lie about how much he loves them, shatter poor Button’s heart, and set them back even further, Nick asks aloud, "Button, do you know the names of these flowers?"

She looks like she almost forgot that Nick was there, but he can hear her thinking the answer. "Candytufts and carnations," she answers aloud, to Gray, pointing them out.

Gray’s forced smile falters---and Nick doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that he had hoped, as Nick did, that she just thought they looked pretty together---and Button looks at him with wide eyes. Oh no, he hates them. Or he hates me.

"And why did you get Gray candytufts and carnations?" he prods.

Nick hears her answer and has to cover his mouth to hide his smile.

"Candytufts,” she says, cheeks turning pink, “because he's, um, his sweet tooth. And carnations because they were on the van when he drove me home from the hospital. What in carnation.” She turns to address Gray. “Remember?” Her cheeks turn pinker. “They're not that pretty together, are they? I just looked at the names on the order form. And they reminded me of you."

She’s fudging the truth, a little: The candytufts were because Gray is sweet, according to her thoughts.

But Gray is smiling anyway, a real smile. "No, they're lovely, Daphne. I appreciate them. Truly.”

"I appreciate you," she blurts. "Your flowers, I mean!” And then, a little bolder, she corrects, “And you. So..." She gives a nervous laugh as she wiggles her fingers---jazz hands. (Jasmine hands.) “Flowers! I hope you like them.”

Gray chuckles. “I really do.”

"But the camellias are prettier," she admits softly. “Maybe I’ll stick to cookies.”

“These may be my favorite flowers,” says Gray firmly, and his words don’t fall over each other the way they do when he lies. He means it. “Especially to know that they reminded you of me. And when delivered with cookies.”

Daphne grins and opens the Tupperware container to offer him one. “Are you feeling better, then?”

“Much better. Did you bake these?”

As they continue talking---he doesn’t think either of them remembers that he is there---Nick does a quick search on his phone to see what camellias are supposed to mean in this flower language that Gray is apparently fluent in.

He again has to stifle a squeal: love, devotion, you are the flame in my heart.

He leaves the oblivious lovebirds to go get lunch, and when he returns, they are still talking and munching on cookies.

#mind blind #grayson black #gray black #gray x button #daphne wiseman

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phantomato · 3 years

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Waterlogged, Ch. 11

Too soon, it was January, and Hermione owled him.

They started small. Tea on the weekends, perhaps breakfast or lunch in the Muggle world. She would touch his hand and laugh as he told stories about his geriatric colleagues. “Lord Slughorn thought the American Muggles were still having a civil war,” he’d say, or, “Lady Flint told me that back in the mid-1800s, when she was new on the Wizengamot, one of the members hit another with his cane over import fees for honeydew melons.” They would talk about the absurdity of these purebloods, so lost in their own world, and wonder if it was possible they would ever live long enough to be so out-of-touch. “No,” Hermione would insist, “we’re too grounded in our Muggle roots,” and she would make a broad gesture at the dingy place where they were eating their ration-impacted fry-ups. Tom would bite back a comment about whose Muggle roots the crappy old café filled with factory workers really reflected, and suggest, instead, “It would happen to anyone if they got as old as Dippet,” and they would marvel that the man was still employed.

Tom would cajole her in an attempt to learn her plans, but Hermione stayed quiet on that front. “Not out in public,” she would deflect, and he would raise an eyebrow as he looked pointedly at their Muggle surroundings. She never caved. She would put her hand on his arm and give it a squeeze, though, and promise him “soon.” “What’s keeping you?” he would ask, and she would just shake her head and give him that sweet, clever little smile that said she was planning something. They would return to compiling notes on the Wizengamot members and Ministry department heads and he would let the topic drop for the day.

Then Hermione started coming over.

[AO3]

What do they do when Hermione comes over??? (they fuck)

Meta below the fold

We’re getting into the meat of this relationship, the parts of Tom/Hermione that inspired the fic title. They’re something waterlogged, bloated and misshapen and unpleasant to the touch, and even if you managed to dry it back out again, it would be warped beyond recognition.

It’s infuriating to me in the way that nearly all relationships in your late teens/early 20s are infuriating, this mess of codependence where two people stagnate together because moving forward would involve risks and that’s impossible to contemplate at an age when so much in life is changing, and you feel compelled to hang on to whatever stability you can find, even if it’s not good stability. Negative values are constants just as much as positive values, y’know? (Forgive me bringing it back to computer science; I am programmed for one thing.)

This is where sticking with Tom’s POV gets itchy. There’s a temptation to flip over to Hermione and give some due to her thoughts, let her emotions and conflicts breathe so that we get to see her in a more sympathetic light. Even if Tom isn’t cursing her or upset with her—and pretty clearly, he’s not, not long-term, not in a serious way—when I read this, I see her as somewhat villainous. And she must not be, she must have feelings about the whole situation that are more complicated than “fuck that guy,” but this is Tom’s story and so: does it really matter? If she’s not vocalizing those feelings, if she keeps him at arm’s length, what does it matter what type of fondness she has for him, if she likes how he smiles, if she thinks he’s irresistible when he moans, whatever.

Switching their typical ship roles is like wearing a jacket where the shoulders are too small. It’s uncomfortable when you move. It doesn’t bend naturally. You want to take it off and put on something familiar, something that fits better, but I think—at least, it works like this for me—I’ll never not notice how shoulders fit again after that experience. every future jacket will be evaluated for the fit of the shoulders, and maybe I’ll realize that some past jackets didn’t fit as well as I’d thought, just not as badly as this one. Is this metaphor too drawn-out?

I had wanted to talk more about the politics in my writeup for this post, to close out. I’m really proud of Hermione’s ideas, here, and I think she’s fucking on target. The wizarding world is nuts and should be ripped apart, brick by brick, and reforged into something more sensible, and there’s no way to do that without getting at least metaphorically violent.

However.

I posted this chapter yesterday morning, and then I turned on the news and watched extremists storm the American Capitol building and suddenly, writing a fic that even vaguely touched on politics made me feel a little ill. The scene where she talks about education reform was written back in October, it’s actually one of the first things that I wrote for this fic, and now I feel like I should be meditating on what I’m covering a little bit more before diving further in. I have one more chapter already written, and I might post just that before taking some space. I’m not totally sure. I just... Hermione, in this story, is meant to be very ideologically radical in a way that is both extremely progressive and also, sometimes, self-aggrandizing. She’s high on her own passion, and it’s meant to occasionally hurt others. That’s the story. I’m not sure how to tell that respectfully in this moment.

#tomione #tom riddle #hermione granger #hermione x tom #tom x hermione #hp fanfic #waterlogged

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ohnobjyx · 4 years

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A snow storm out of nowhere

Part Two: March

In this post we continue to go through XZ’s situation, to better understand why he is where he is now. The ask that originated everything is here, with an index.

Disclaimer: I try to keep the content objective, but I am biased, by the kind of content I’m usually exposed to and by my own perception of their situation. I may be wrong, and language barriers and cultural differences have to be taken into account. If anyone wants to discuss this, please make sure you have enough information to do so.

I think that even with all the “darkness” this post has, it express also quite nicely why I think XZ won’t be defeated by this. We will see him again, let’s be patient.

So, taking from Part One, the next day public thought that XZ’s Studio and his team were trying to hush all the commotion. People were very very furious, looking for a way to vent their anger. Some said that the only way they’d let this go was that XZ retired from the entertainment industry.

Attacking his endorsements

That night, Olay was to air a live video with a product that XZ was going to endorse, and antis realized that they had a new way to express their anger. The comments and their interventions during the event made it impossible to progress adequately, and the announcement of XZ endorsing the product had to be put off.

Antis and haters realized the power they had, and started to announce that didn’t just reject the products endorsed by XZ, they also rejected the brands that worked with him. In the face of such controversy and boycott, many brands chose another spoke person temporarily for their commercials and banners, removing XZ’s from their websites.

From March, the antis centered themselves around the topic “Not buying products XZ endorses”, making his value go downwards. The brands he worked with decided to stay low for the time being and removed his image from their websites. Some even decided to terminate their contracts with him, in fear of being boycotted.

Douban

By the 3rd day ao3 was down, reality sank in and people turned to douban, were C/QL, The Joy of Life, Jade Dynasty were in the top 3, all of them series were XZ is lead actor or secondary actor. The antis placed bad reviews, to the point of bringing down the score of C/QL from 8’5 to 7’9 in a single day (we’re talking here of 1′5 million reviews as of today) and affecting every project he has worked on since the beginning of his career as an actor.

Public scorn

XZ as well as XZ fans became the objective of public scorn. From the 1st of March, some of the accusers apologized for “the problems caused”, and the one that had led the report posted a public apology and deleted every post related to the reporting. However, to the rest of the users it looked like they were apologizing against their will, and that they still thought they weren’t wrong, but were doing so in an effort to preserve XZ’s public image, as well as their own image as XZ’s fans.

The conflict ceased between XZ’s fans and the cp fans, now uniting in an effort to lesser the damage. They agreed to bring down the tone of the discussion, and once things cooled down a bit, XZ Studio posted a public apology, asking people to support their idol rationally, to speak and act carefully, as well as saying that XZ was currently quarantined at home.

Antis brought up more complaints about XZ’s fans. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that some of his fans had taken sometimes unreasonable measures to give him the spotlight, such as:

Making him the center of attention in a tv drama in which another actor was the male lead. They took over the community in w/ibo and started to delete all of the other actor’s fans from the group.

Some fans attacked WYB, so XZ wouldn’t have to “divide” his success from C/QL with him. They reported WYB for not having a “host degree” (whatever that is). This was shot down by a statement from Hunan TV, by the way.

Attacking whoever says that they don’t have any interest in XZ’s works (a professor was asked to have a look at his works, and he refused, so XZ’s stans started to attack him).

(Again, bear in mind that antis and hater and these kind of very obssesive fans are a minority, and they are greatly outnumbered by the rest of the people that like and support XZ in a much more rational way... but they make more noise, so to say).

Antis and people resenting XZ for the 2/27 incident wanted a scapegoat. So I think the resentful party wants the fans to know “so you take away this, I want your idol to pay for it” and antis… they have their own agenda, and that’s for another post.

XZ Studio’s apology didn’t do much and the drama continued to unfold. Maybe XZ’s Studio wanted to wait for the storm to pass, and since acknowledging the issue would give it importance, they waited until they couldn’t put it off anymore. I don’t know if this was actually right or wrong, but people weren’t satisfied with this apology. XZ’s fans would try to argue with the antis, and thus keeping the image of obsessive fans, even if many of them were actually right.

People were disappointed by the actions taken by his team and waiting for him to say something, but, to their disappointment, XZ didn’t express his opinion.

Other authors

Fanfiction writers, mostly from the BJYX fandom, would receive insults and attacks from antis and XZ’s stans still pursuing their original stance, so a lot of content has disappeared.

(To this point: I don’t like RPS. I don’t read RPS fanfics. I didn’t like seeing them and adjusted the filters in ao3 so I could only see fanfics from CQL. But attacking the authors this way is also terribly wrong).

Responsibility and consequences

XZ had previously signed up with many companies, with WJJW being the main stockholder. Since he was under so many companies, none of them wanted to take responsibility of the matter and try to solve it, so it was left to XZ’s Studio to try and fix it.

Investors, directors, brands’ representatives... they all thought that it’d take at least half a year for XZ to recover from this blow, and it also depends greatly on how his next work is received by the general public. He still has the support from his fans, but that alone wasn’t enough in the face of such boycott.

While later people who supported him appeared, there were voices at first too that asked him to take responsibility.

(These are influential people, and, while I’m not surprised that their stance was to support public opinion, as a public figure, you may find yourself in the future in the same position as XZ. To add oil to flames doesn’t seem very kind to me, but again, this is a competitive industry.)

Support

At the same time people criticized him and his studio for his management of the issue, prominent people stepped forward and talked in his behalf, like critics, directors, and even lawyers, talking about the legal aspect of the fanfiction, saying that, by Chinese laws, it was indeed violating the law.

(However, there was another article I agreed more with: not liking a content doesn’t give you the right to manage it. That’s the duty and right of the platform, in this case ao3. You may report the author and the work if you find it unsuitable for the platform, but to call the authorities on them is quite excessive).

It was also positive that in spite of everything, the sales of the products he endorsed remained high and in the lead in March, and the trend continued all the way to July. He’s still considered one of the most influential celebrities, taking usually the top 1. This is why his companies, agencies and his team hasn’t given up on him. As sad as it may sound, if he’s a profitable asset, they won’t give up on him, because he can still earn money for them.

Since the antis were spreading hate, rumours and false news, trying to damage XZ’s image, the fans also tried for the contrary. They posted about XZ’s kindness and polite gestures, to try to counter the antis’ attacks.

However, no matter how much his fans support him, the greatest help came from fellow acquaintances, coworkers and friends from the entertainment industry. It’s a reality that no matter how much a fan likes their idol, the average fan doesn’t know him personally. But that can’t be said of people who have worked with him.

People he had worked with (fellow actresses, critics, directors, screenwriters) supported him by posting comments defending and praising him, expressing their dismay about the antis or by praising him in livestream. For well-known people to step up and speak for him, when they could have stayed silent in fear of retaliation, it’s a true give away of XZ’s character and what these people think of his future, especially if we consider that they are facing a group of unreasonable antis.

(In fact, many of the people who supported him received hateful comments and were attacked for supporting him, but none of them took away their support, that I know of).

Happy Camp’s support

It was also a good sign that while brands still avoided his image, tv programs didn’t shy away from his image. Happy Camp emitted a video in which XZ appeared, so fans interpreted this as a sign of silent support from the program and the tv channel.

This was also very important. There have been cases before, when an actor was being seriously boycotted because he had been having an affair, that the tv stations refused to work with him. It got to the point that, when a episode had already been filmed, they used photoshop to erase his image and simply cut out all of his interventions and interactions with other participants .

See that space there, between the girl in blue and the guy with a suit? Such are the miracles of photoshop.

So if an actor has really committed a mistake, the entertainment industry will not hesitate to take away their support. It’s also a way to say that they disapprove of what that person did.

(To those who are curious, this man had been a very successful actor for many years. He was “happily” married and had a 20 years old son. But when people discovered that he had been keeping a mistress for almost two decades... he fell out of favor. Quick.)

XZ’s very brief appearance in Happy Camp was an auspicious sign for his future, meaning that tv stations are still willing to work with him and that his dramas will likely be aired in spite of everything.

(I’ve never been happier to wrong, since I thought this would take longer to pass at first. But when I thought about this carefully, I realized that anyone could see that XZ in himself isn’t at fault for what happened, so why would they reject him once the storm passes?).

The start of the public welfare project

So, in the midst of this situation, which was very serious at the time, XZ’s fans Public Welfare Group was founded, with the support of XZ’s Studio.

(This is actually quite common in China. A group of fans create a welfare group, and they do volunteering projects and others in the name of their idol. Many celebrities’ fans create a group like this when the fandom is big enough.)

I think it served to remind that idols can use their influence and unite a large group of people to serve purposes that are beneficial to the society (at least in Asia). It came in a “good” moment, because if nothing else, XZ can’t afford that the first that comes to mind to the general public when they see him or his fans is this small group of people, who are the representation of the worst part of his fans.

(Since this project has the support of his studio, he must know of it and must have given his approval. But he is not the one to actually initiate the project, that was a collective effort from his fans: to do welfare projects in his name. He collaborates with welfare projects, he had done it before, and did it again in June. This a reflection of a more positive part of fan quan culture, which will be explained in the next post).

However, because he was in the middle of great controversy and criticism, this move was also considered “hypocritical” and “insincere” by the antis. Nonetheless, the influence such a large group of people have is undeniable (in promoting local commerce in this case), and the local representatives thanked them for their support. They kept on with their projects these months, usually promoting agricultural products from impoverished provinces. They were also praised by the media for the results they achieved.

For those who are inclined to doubt whether this was a move to improve his image, here it’s a compilation of charity and public welfare projects that XZ’s fans pushed forward in 2019, collecting for numerous projects an amount of almost 450.000¥ and 620.000¥ as epidemic relief effort during the coronavirus period, that started in December 2019.

The welfare project was also a source of controversy later... but again, people always seem to find fault with everything you do.

#gg's situation #part 2 of 7 #my post

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wrathfulspark · 4 years

Text

@dabrowskievolution

Perhaps the term Elidi had been looking for was ‘humanity’, seeing as Stanislav didn’t view himself as human--at least not anymore. It’d been far too long since he’d last felt the natural flush of life within his veins; but seeing as this was only pleasantry and easily brushed over in favor of moving on to the next topic of conversation, Stanislav refrained from commenting any further on the matter.

While this was by no means a bragging contest, Stanislav merely gave a subtle shrug of his shoulders. “It was hard not to know her. You and I both know Miss Reznikov has a certain air about herself, one that can be hard to ignore.” This was by no means an insult, merely fact straight from the elder vampire’s mouth.

His hues narrowed as he observed the way Elidi seemed to look at him, although he was able to distinguish no hint of malice...though perhaps thought? Stanislav could very much relate to the sentiment, but he tried not to get that ahead of himself--at least for tonight. It was a Masquerade after all. Even if he felt much too embarrassed to express his fondness for Kiki, perhaps Stanislav was willing to place much more trust into the witch seeing as she was an important figure within his lover’s life.

An amused, though silent huff escaped the taller male’s frame as Elidi both complimented and noted his mannerisms. If it had been anyone else he likely would have felt defensive. “Yes, maybe so.” The vampire agreed. Giving a dismissive shake of his head, Stanislav raised his glass to his lips once more and partook in a small drink. “Your line of work makes sense--such is to be expected of a detective. You needn’t worry, Miss Elidi. Though I harbor a feeling you already know that.” As much as Elidi came forward as a woman who rarely let go of composure, it seemed everyone didn’t quite know how to interact with the vampire king. One one hand such intimidation helped him keep his subjects under law, but it didn’t seem to dissuade any nosey publicists keen on prying into the LSA’s affairs.

“You understand what your duties entail, but I suppose when it comes to your obligations there is an almost scripted routine. Less room for error--than say, leisurely conversation. I understand such a sentiment.” Despite not divulging any further detail, the vampire knew his way around the politics of Tabula Rasa and had even found himself to be quite formidable at negotiation. This was something Kiki and Tamryn had mentioned, however--outside of work, Stanislav was virtually a blank canvas. Even if Elidi’s predicaments weren’t as drastic, there was an element of familiarity within her words that had seemed to resonate within the LSA official.

Elidi let out an amused laugh, nodding along in agreement with his statement about Tamryn. There had been a time when Elidi would go out of her way to avoid the Alpha, the entire pack even. Not because she feared her or her clan but because of the energy Tamryn carried herself with, a dangerous enticement, something Elidi deemed herself too busy to be distracted with. So much so she'd go as far as changing her number to detere any interaction with the redhead.

A dark blush settled across her cheeks, though she refused to avert her gaze this time around, a smile still present on her reddened lips, "I know exactly what you mean..." How amazing how particular their relationship was now. The witch could feel her heart, warm in her chest, stomach fluttering with butterflies at the thought of Tamryn alone. She felt grateful, treasured to be able to experience a side of the Alpha that no one else knew, this journey new to both of the women. Elidi's head tilted forward bashfully, her gaze earthward as she observed the intricate design along the floor boards. "Forgive my sentiments but I'm... glad I finally got to know her."

Somewhat grateful for a change in topic, she thoughtfully weighed his observation, finding herself both agreeing and disagreeing. "I worked outside of Tabula as an officer, albeit briefly, that felt more routine. That is, if you're following the book like you should. Tabula tends to vary in all things, I can't say I've had a case that is entirely the same as one before. With so many species brings an assortment of ways to commit a crime, distinctly varying." Of course, unless they happened to be a serial killer. Her brows raised thoughtfully. It would be best not to mention that.

A smile tugged the corners of her lips, a pleasing sense of familiarity overcoming her. They both seemed to be lacking a bit in the social department, though Stan seemed to carry himself better than she did in some aspects. How silly that she felt quite proud to carry on a conversation and not feel the pressure to keep the discussion afloat. It felt natural, comfortable to the witch.

"May I ask a question? You dont have to answer of course but I've been curious. How exactly did you meet Kiki, at the fair perhaps?" Her head tilted thoughtfully. Her student hadn't mentioned how she met her vampire, only that she had one, and then slowly her friend circle kept expanding. More vampires, an angel, Kiki had even mentioned Jaylah. It was a headache to try and keep up with who Kiki befriended, it was easier to note who wasn't a friend, if any. The thought presses another matter, Kiki wasn't exactly on good terms with Tamryn. Whether she knew that or not.

She knew the question was out of the blue, especially since she had just asked one previous, part of her thought it was rude even to ask such a inquiring question, especially on this night. Yet, she didn't know anyone else who knew Kiki quite as well, someone closer to the wiccan than he was. Elidi didn't think she was being foolish, Stan would give her an honest answer, if he chose to give any at all.

Briefly she's apologetic, perhaps ruining the slight progress the two had made together. "....Do you think Kiki has malicious intent?" There is a short pause, struggling to find the appropriate words, "Please don't misunderstand, I think very highly of Kiki, and this is not a discussion for me to discuss her poorly. I know she wouldn't -- ... I just want to make sure my judgment isn't hindered by my connection with her." Her brows draw together, fingetips tapping nervously together. While Kiki hadn't destroyed anything of value, the witch had strong spellbooks stored in her home, ones that could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Hence the wards set around to alert the detective to any intruders. That and a few other reasons..

#trch: stanislav #sorry this reply is kind of a mess #her expression in the gif is killing me tho lol

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imagesofthegreatgull · 4 years

Text

Hybrid Rainbow

Joy has always been a rare and precious commodity. I would argue, though, that in the developed world (Wherever, exactly, that is), it has become somewhat less rare in recent times, as standards of living and education continue to go up. That’s an absurdly privileged thing to say, I realize, but I’m trying to start this thing as evenhandedly as I can. I understand about suffering and poverty; I’m reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn right now, even! Okay, saying we’re closer now than ever to utopia is going to smack of ignorance no matter how you phrase it, but it also strikes me as undeniably true, in the grand scheme of things. I think most people--aside from the fascists--would refuse a one-way trip in a time machine to any previous era, or at the very least, would recognize that it wouldn’t improve much of anything for them. As unruly as our age is, it’s still probably the best one we’ve gotten thus far, and as the boot-heel of oppression starts to ever so slowly ease up its pressure on the necks of the long-suffering masses, the question has begun to enter into the collective consciousness: what is to be done with joy when it begins to fall, unbidden, into your life with something like abundance? What is to be done if moments of joy no longer must be pried with great effort and sacrifice from the rockface of life, but lie strewn liberally throughout our days, needing only the will and lack of embarrassment to seize them?

Thus far, the latter-day generations have faced up to this problem with decidedly mixed success. The idea that expecting anything other than the very worst leaves one vulnerable to the universe’s cruel whims has been stamped upon the human brain for centuries, and has left many sadly unable to recognize their own privilege (Which, by the way, is a big part of why a whole lotta white folks refuse to admit they have it better than anyone else and continue to dig their heels in against progress because to them it looks like cutting in line). It is still widely accepted that constantly finding joy and peace and purpose in one’s own life is the purview of children and children alone, that it is a naivete to be grown out of. We have the impulse always within us to be hard, to be warlike, to show the world that we’re not weak and frivolous but monsters to be feared, without emotions to be appealed to or ideals to be fallen short of.

Remedying this problem has turned out to be one of the primary functions of counterculture. If it is often unhelpful to simply look at the entire value system of one’s parents and say “Fuck that”, as it tends to foster a rather negative self-definition, still, if part of that value system is a deeply entrenched distrust of happiness, “Fuck that” may be exactly the response called for. The beauty of “Fuck that” is that it leaps past the slow loss of faith in something and arrives immediately at a flat rejection of it, and since much of the history of civilization has been bound up with blind faith in arbitrary and harmful things, the ability and the courage to flatly reject something, to give it no credit for however widely accepted it is but to dismiss it as bullshit from the ground up, is a step forward in human consciousness tantamount to the reinvention of the wheel.

The great irony of the end of the sixties is that all the hippies were miserable for no reason: they won. Rock n’ roll did change the world, it just didn’t immediately transform it on every level into an unrecognizable nirvana. For all the apparent emptiness of its utopian dreams, the basic thrust of the thing worked out just fine: that particular cat will never be put back into its bag, and those ideas are now out in the ether forever, always waiting for someone to find them and be inspired to change their own life and the lives of those around them for the better. The same goes for the punk rock revolution a few years later: they may not have brought the bastards down, but they did successfully bring personal liberation to a lot of people, and poured exactly as much gas on the fires of populism as they intended to. Culture, and in particular art and in particular music, cannot, unassisted, change the world, but it can change your world, and has been changing small worlds all over the frigging place at least since those mop-topped Brits set foot on American shores and probably since Johnny B. Goode learned to play guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell.

The thread can get lost, however. Culture is always a reflection of the people, and the people still spend a lot of their time bored, frustrated, and terrified of letting on that they have feelings about stuff. Young people especially, formerly the eternal pirate crew waving high the flags of “Liberty” and “Up Yours”, in recent times have often capitulated and resigned themselves to no more than a few stray moments of fun pilfered from the fortresses of the almighty Money Man-Kings, usually in the form of drugs, sex, and reckless self-endangerment. The cost of the hippies and the punks giving up their battles is that the counterculture lost its intellectual leadership, at least until the resurgence in political literacy in the 2010s. In the wasteland following the 70s, there were no John Lennons or Joe Strummers to look to for guidance; even the people who were elected to speak for their generation seemed adamant that there was fuck-all they could really say. Yeah, it’s nice to know that someone else feels stupid and contagious, but that’s not really a direction, is it? The generation-defining message Kurt Cobain and his peers sent out was “We’re all way too fucked up to do anything about anything”, and that introspective moodiness pervaded American underground rock music from the invention of hardcore at least all the way up to the moment Craig Finn watched The Last Waltz with Tad Kubler and said “Why aren’t there bands like this anymore?” and set out with rest of the Steadies in tow to remind everyone that music can save your immortal soul and that hey, that Springsteen guy was really onto something, headband and all, and together they all successfully ushered in the New Uncool and now we’ve got Patrick Stickles wailing that “If the weather’s as bad as the weatherman says, we’re in for a real mean storm!” and Brian Fallon admitting “I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis” and everything’s great, except it’s not, everything’s fucked, but rock n’ roll is here to stay, come inside now it’s okay, and I’ll shake you, ooo-ooo-ooo.

The point of all this is my belief that even with the responsibility rock music has to provide cathartic outlets for dissatisfaction, is has an equal or greater responsibility to provide heroes. I think it’s time we all got over pretending that we’re better than the need for heroes, because we all insist on having them anyway, imperfect roses by any other name, and we’d do a hell of a lot better selecting them if we just admitted what we were after. We don’t just want particularly talented comrades, we want King Arthur, Robin Hood, Superman, Malcolm Reynolds. Damn it all, they don’t need to be perfect, they don’t even need to be all that great really, and yeah, Arthur dies, and Robin never gets Prince John, and Superman can’t save everyone, and the war’s over, we’re all just folk now, and John Lennon beat women and Van Morrison is a grumpy old fart and John Lydon’s a disgrace, but it’s the faith that counts. The faith that there’s something greater than ourselves that some people are more keyed into than others, and that whatever they can relay from that other side is what’ll see us through. All the best prophets are madmen, and madmen aren’t always romantic fools; sometimes they hurt people, or fail at crucial moments due to a compulsion they can’t control. Let he who is without sin etcetera, right? Why not cast aside realism and sincerely believe in something or someone, huh?

I believe in the Pillows. I don’t know hardly anything about them; my expertise of Japanese culture and history extends to the anime I’ve seen and that “History of Japan” YouTube video that made the rounds a while back. I can’t locate them within the Japanese music scene; all their western influences seem obvious to me, and the rest I know nothing about. They’re the only rock band from their country I’ve listened to any great amount of, I don’t speak the language they mostly sing in, I don’t even know their career very well. The particulars of any experiences they might have had that motivated them to make the art they make are not ones I could possibly share in, so, saying that I “Relate” to their work sounds a little preposterous. They ought to be a novelty to me, a band that clearly likes a lot of the same bands I do despite hailing from a foreign shore, marrying that shared music taste with a cultural identity I have nothing to do with, a small, nice upswing of globalism pleasing to my sense of universalism but not having any kind of quantifiable impact on me.

Yet I, like a good many other westerners, believe in the Pillows. I’m a little buster, and my eyes just watered as I wrote that. In fact, it’s likely because of the barriers of language and culture that exist between us that my belief in the Pillows is so strong. Pete Townshend, someone else I believe in, once opened a show by saying “You are very far away...but we will fucking reach you”, and though the Pillows are both geographically (At the moment) and culturally miles away from me, Lord strike me down if they don’t fucking reach me. They reach me in a way many of their American college rock peers, many of their biggest influences in fact, never have. Dinosaur Jr, Bob Mould, Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Nirvana--all these artists speak directly to the American adolescent experience, but though they have all moved me to one degree or another, none of them have produced a body of work I can so readily see myself in as that of the Pillows. Maybe it is the novelty of it, maybe I’m fooling myself and it is just my sense of universalism carrying me away, but there’s something I hear in the Pillows that I don’t hear in those bands, and though the obvious candidate for that thing would be the foreign tongue the majority of the lyrics are written in, when it comes down to it, I think that thing is joy.

Joy, to me, is the possibility glimpsed by rock n’ roll. Not hedonistic pleasure, not a sadistic glee over the outrage of authority figures, but real, true, open-hearted, “Freude, schöner Götterfunken/Tochter aus Elysium”--type joy. Buddy Holly had joy. The Beatles, The Who, the pre-fall Rod Stewart, they had joy. Springsteen’s got joy to spare. Those people have such profound love for their art and their audience that just the continual recognition of the fact that they have a guitar in their hands and they’re being allowed to play it is enough to make them ecstatic, and whenever they want to actually express something serious they have to get themselves under control to do it. Yet, whether it’s the unfashionability of those utopian dreams, or the simple fact that rock music has become accepted by mainstream culture and is now a commonplace, unremarkable thing, but half the people who have picked up an electric guitar for the past few decades don’t seem all that excited about it. From Kim Gordon snarling about how people go down to the store to buy some more and more and more and more, to Thom Yorke moaning about how he’s let down and hanging around, crushed like a bug in the ground, even up to Courtney Barnett asking how’s that for first impressions, this place seems depressing, it’s not really a given anymore, if it ever was, that people who make rock music are very joyful in what they do.

Of course, I’m not demanding that our artists be empty-headed fluff-factories; far from it. The Pillows write sad songs and angry songs same as everybody else. But the important thing is this: every song the Pillows play is played with an exuberance and abandon that is immediately striking, regardless of the emotional content of each song. Channelling that kind of revelry into rock music is both to my mind the initial purpose of the genre in the first place and something which has become so rare as to be remarkable. A veneer of detached cool, a howling ferocity, a whimpering woundedness--these have become the hallmarks of American rock music, and they are nowhere to be found in the Pillows.

At the same time, the Pillows are the very antithesis of artlessness. Joy of the caliber they deal in is more commonly found in folky rave-ups, a lack of musicianship giving way to trancelike festivity. But the Pillows are skilled song craftsmen like few others; their sound has evolved throughout the years, but they tend to settle in the neighborhood of power-pop, abounding in glorious hooks and surprising structures. A hundred unnecessary, perfect touches seem to exist in every song; a pause, a solo, a bassline, all deftly elevating the song into a perfect expression of something sublime, something that always--always--takes ahold of the musicians themselves and imbues their performances with power and purpose the likes of which most little busters can only dream of feeling. It should be testament enough to their brilliance that upon first listen to a song I never know what most of the lyrics mean, but whenever I look up a translation, they always turn out to be exactly what I felt they must be; their songs are so musically communicative that they all but lack the need for lyrics.

This dual nature is why I believe in the Pillows: by so utterly failing to neglect both the highest possibilities of musical composition as an unparalleled tool for capturing emotional nuance and the unrestrained id-like rush that is the province of rock n’ roll, they successfully attain the lofty realm that is--or ought to be--the goal of music in the first place. Never once is there a hint of straying into the realm of primitivism nor into overthought seriousness, and instead they locate themselves somehow exactly center on the scale between punk and prog, lacking the weaknesses and gaining the strengths of both. They make rock whole again by finally disproving the tenet initially laid out by their heroes, your heroes, and mine, The Beatles: the notion that growing up means having less fun. The viscerally exciting early work of The Beatles lacks any of the depth and vision displayed by their later records, but those records are so carefully and expertly crafted that they tend to lose spontaneity, and constantly second-guess themselves where the juvenilia they followed forged unselfconsciously ahead. That legendary career path has laid out a false dichotomy that every proceeding generation of kids with guitars has chosen between, save for the few who could see past it, the ones who heard the wildness in “Revolution” and the wisdom in “Twist and Shout” and realized that they were of a piece, were one and the same, not to be chosen between but embraced fully. Pete Townshend. Bruce Springsteen. Joe Strummer. David Byrne. Paul Westerberg. The Pillows. The real heroes are not those who champion one side or another but fight all their lives for peace between them, knowing that we have not yet begun to imagine what could be accomplished if that were made possible.

Just as they bypass the divide between what Patrick Stickles termed the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies of rock (I prefer to think of the usual battle as being between the Dionysians and the Athenians, with the true devotees of Apollo being most of those heroes I keep referring to, except Dylan, who might be a Hermesian), so too do the Pillows bypass the Pacific frigging ocean. And the Atlantic, to boot. Their music quotes the Pixies and The Beatles directly, and obviously owes much to Nirvana and all their college rock predecessors who spent the entire 80s desperately stacking themselves until the doomed power trio could finally vault over the wall. Their first record is practically a tribute to XTC. They do speak a lot of English, too. I’m informed that much of western culture is seen as the epitome of coolness in Japan, which might explain their obsession with Baseball, and apparently sprinkling a bit of the Saxon tongue into the mix is far from uncommon in the music scene(s). Regardless, there is something ineffably touching to a distant fan in a foreign land about hearing Sawao Yamanaka spit “No surrender!” or exclaim “Just runner’s high!” It looks from here like a show of mutual effort to understand me as much as I’m trying to understand them. They’re generous enough to have already walked to the middle where they’re asking me to meet them, a middle where it doesn’t matter that I don’t have a suffix attached to my name or that they don’t wear shoes in houses. The invisible continent that all forward-thinking and sensitive people come to long for is where the Pillows are broadcasting from, because they’ve realized that its golden shores and spiraling cities are attainable. They’re attainable with joy, with the fundamentally rebellious act of refusing to let the fascists bring down even your globdamn day, because who the hell gave them that power other than us? I know enough about Japan and America to know that either one accusing the other of being imperialist and socially conservative to a fault is a fucking joke, and to know that we’ve done a lot more wrong to them than they’ll ever do to us and the presence of the Pillows amounts to a “We forgive you”, not an “I’m sorry”. Having watched a decent amount of anime, which is basically the result of Japan’s mind being blown by western media and then proceeding to show their love by often almost inadvertently surpassing their inspirations, I know that the only way to save our respective national souls and everybody else’s too is to put our knuckles down, have Jesus and Buddha shake hands like Kerouac tried to explain that they would anyway, and embrace each other’s dreams and passions and adopt them into our own.

It takes better people to inhabit that better world, and in case that sounds like fascist talk, I mean we’ve got to do better, not be better. It’s no physical imperfection that holds us back, nor a mental imperfection exactly, as we all have our own neuroses and if we expunge those then we’ll be kissing art and lot of other vital stuff goodbye. No, it’s our discomfort with ourselves, our world, our neighbors, our aliens, that keep us from seeing that crazy sunshine. If we can’t even acknowledge the greatness around us, that surplus of joy I mentioned a while back that we just seem to have no idea what to do with, then we have no hope of ever achieving further greatness, of ever quelling man’s inhumanity to man down to an inevitable fringe rather than the basic order of the world.

There was always more to do

Than just eat and work and screw

But now that there’s time at last to do those things, we’re still afraid to, afraid that we’ll come up empty, that the search for fulfillment leads only to disappointment, better to hang back and play it safe, better not to risk becoming one of those people I shake my head at and pity and will secretly envy until I die. It’s a new world, and we must learn to be new people. I believe in the Pillows because I believe they make excellent models for that new kind of person. The way they behave in the studio and on the stage is the way people behave when they’re truly free, and we’ve all been set free already or will be soon, so if we’re going to try and learn what the fuck is next from anyone, I think we might as well learn from the Pillows. At least, that’s one of the places we could get that insight. There’s a lot of art and a lot of philosophy and political theory to sift through to in order to put together a workable 21st century identity, and the Pillows are hardly the only people to have begun making the leap. But because of a silly thing like the size of the earth, the infinitesimal size of the earth even compared to the distance between us and the next rock we’re gonna try and get to, not everybody is getting their particular brand of free thought and action, and I happen to think that’s regrettable, and it’s my will as a free individual to rectify it as much as I can.

Writing about music really is worthless, isn’t it? I haven’t said jackshit about what the Pillows actually do other than to vaguely qualify their genre and temperament, and the only more useless thing I could do than not describing their songs would be to describe their songs. If you don’t hear the bracing weightlessness in “Blues Drive Monster”, or the aching nostalgia in “Patricia”, or the soul-bearing cry in “Hybrid Rainbow” then nothing I could write about those would be more effective than “Little Busters is a really good album.” The better primer might be Happy Bivouac, from a few years later; it has the melancholic rush of “Last Dinosaur”, the ascended teenybopper “Whoa, whoa, yeah” chorus in “Backseat Dog”, and the intro that should make it obvious immediately that you’re listening to one of the best songs ever recorded which opens “Funny Bunny”. Those two, Runners High, and Please, Mr. Lostman are the classic era, selections from the former three immortalized in their biggest claim to western fame, the FLCL soundtrack, a brilliant use of their music that could warrant an equally long piece. Before and after those four are periods of experimentation and discovery equally worth your time, not all of which I’m familiar with yet. See, now I’m just an incomplete Wikipedia article; it’d be equally worthless to expound upon the individual bandmates, on the pure yawp of Yamanaka’s vocals, on the passionate drumming of Yoshiaki Manabe and the supernaturally faultless lead guitar of Shinichiro Sato, or the contribution of founding bassist Kenji Ueda, which was so valued by the others that when he left he was never officially replaced (They’re so sweet). I’m not here to write an advertisement or a press-release, I don’t really even know why I’m here writing this, but I know that I believe in the Pillows, that they’re important, and that people should write about them. I’m being the change I want to see in the world, get it? That’s all we can be asked to do.

It occurs to me that people believed in Harvey Dent too, and that didn’t turn out so well. Hell, let’s leave the comic book pages behind, people believe in Donald Trump, they think he’s a hero, and that’s all going down in flames as I write this. Having heroes can be dangerous, but I still believe it’s not as dangerous as not having heroes. “Lesser of two evils” sounds an awful lot like one of those false dichotomies between fun and intelligence or between misery and foolishness I mentioned earlier, so, let’s call it a qualified good. I’m not much of a responsible world-citizen if my only effort towards bringing the planet together is spinning some sweet Japanese alt-rock tunes and bragging about how open-minded I am, but if I do ever end up doing anyone any good, then I’d consider it paying forward the good done to me by the Pillows, among others. They helped me form my identity as an artist (Read: functional human being) and they made my adolescence a lot easier. Actually, that’s a lie: my adolescence was (And continues to be) pretty easy already, and the Pillows reassured me that I wasn’t avoiding reality by feeling that. While American bands sang about the downsides of being a mallrat or a non-mallrat, the Pillows offered a vision of teenagedome much like my own, one that was grandly romantic, in which suffering wasn’t a cosmic stupidity but a trial with pathos and merit, and joy was not an occasional indulgence but a constant presence, whether it was lived in or lost and needing recovery.

That’s the old idea of youth, the youth of John Keats, the youth that makes the old miss it, makes it required that we explain to them that it’s still there, it never left, it’s a dream, a momentary affirmation, an attitude, a muttered curse word. So many of my peers, now no longer engaged in a constant race to stay out of the grave as their ancestors were, seemed intent on beating each other into their tombs, as if reaching walking death before their parents was the only way to outgrow them. There’s so much life just lying around and it’s just plain wasteful to let it lie in the sun and rust in the rain. There’s space enough to stretch, to not keep who you are awkwardly curled up inside yourself, to breathe the air and taste the wine and dig the brains of your fellow travelers in this loosely-defined circus. I found that space in the Pillows, having often suspected it was there, and while everyone is going to find that space in their own way--or not, still, tragically not--I have to think that experience was due in part to some innate and unique quality of the music itself, not just a complimentary sensibility contained within myself. The Pillows are free, and that makes them freeing, it’s easy as that. Their liberation is plain as day; it rings in every chord, every snare-hit, every harmony; it’s up to us ascertain what we can do in our own limited capacity to hoist ourselves up to their level and give some other folks a boost along the way and a hand to grab afterwards. It’s the gift that art gives us, and the Pillows just give it more freely than most is all, which is why I think the suggestion to listen to them is more than just a solid recommendation. Like the insistence on listening to The Beatles, or The Clash, or any of the others, it’s a plea to save your soul, to learn the language of tomorrow and drink the lifeblood of peace and love and piss and vinegar, or else you’ll be lost, lost, lost.

Can you feel? Can you feel that hybrid rainbow?

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let-sanji-say-fuck · 5 years

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Since I’m here, I’ll also do my first request for you! Could I get some relationship hcs for Sabo with a fem s/o, please? 😌❤️

Sure thing you can, Doc! I really really admire your relationship headcanons, so I really hope these turn out as good~!

Sabo

When Sabo gets into a relationship, it doesn’t feel like anything really changed, actually. He’s still that very trustworthy, protective, gentle and sweet friend with the addition of his s/o being now able to start smooching him out of nowhere without getting weird looks from people around or from Sabo himself.

He might be a little awkward in the early beginning of the relationship, but once he realises that his stuttering and nervous chuckles when his s/o is around might upset her, he does his best to look cheerful and happy because he doesn’t want her thinking that something’s going wrong. He doesn’t know that his slight timidness is quite endearing though, as is the fact that he’s tripping over nothing more often than he used to.

At first he’s going to be quite polite and well-mannered towards his s/o, despite having been a really close friend of hers before. Starting a relationship with her kind of feels like getting to know something absolutely new about her, so he’s going to be a little careful on his advances, very mindful of her limits and will even let her control the pace. He’s a very patient lover who deeply values her comfort.

Arguments do happen from time to time, but Sabo makes sure they never get too passionate. He absolutely dreads thinking about possibly saying something that he would later regret, so he does his best to calm himself and his s/o down with a gentle smile, even if he knows that he was right. If it did get too bad, he won’t wait too long before knocking on her door with a stuffed toy and her favorite treat.

The deeper they progress into their relationship, the bolder Sabo will become. Despite preferring to keep his affections behind closed doors, he’s definitely going to show a little more love towards his s/o in certain occasions, such as tucking stray locks of hair behid her ears and kissing her forehead after a heavy training session or sitting down next to her and caressing her cheek in the mess hall. He’s really fond of the small gestures, and if his s/o returns them his day is 100% made.

Not the best teaser out there, but definitely enjoys bringing some color to her cheeks from time to time. Praising her hard work, telling her how nice she looks on that certain morning or bringing her close when she least expects it. He tries to disguise his teasing attempts as genuine affection (which is not that hard because he really cares about her) because if his s/o finds out that he’s playfully messing with her, she’s going to return it, and then nothing is saving him from a very red face.

Really really enjoys cuddling. And tickling. And tickling while cuddling. He’s going to be merciless on his s/o, and will have to dodge a couple of slaps and kicks while he hovers over her and makes her laugh until she cries. Definitely lets her return the favor, but he just laughs so loudly that the whole base might hear him barking cackles. Honestly, it’s a great way to tire each other out and, when they’re both calmer giggling messes, it won’t take them long to be out like a light.

Sleeping on the same bed as Sabo is great when the weather is cold, because his body is a living furnance after he gets the Mera Mera no Mi. Not so amazing in summer, though, and he knows it, because he’s the one who talks her into not cuddling him for a while, but, oh, if she does anyway he’s going to love her forever because he doesn’t know if he can go through god-knows-how-long without snuggles. Despite this, he might end up being kicked off the bed on occasion and wake up on the floor the following morning…

Sabo sometimes wishes he had the time and resources to plan some fine, fancy date for his sweetheart, but it’s near impossible most of the time. Oftentimes he has to make do with dragging his s/o with him while he slacks off from his responsibilities, or running away from Marines together, or a workout in the training room of the building. Or simply napping close to each other. It’s all very simple dates, but he has a (quite often unintentional) habit of making them extremely fun and unique.

He’s a little self-conscious about the scar on his face, and absolutely melts when his s/o comments that it makes him look badass and hot. It makes him laugh jokingly, but it really does mean a ton to hear her say it, especially on those days when he just can’t bring himself to look at it in the mirror and she just knows that something is wrong. It makes him feel so in sync with her.

This goes without saying, but Sabo will never forgive anyone who dares hurt his s/o in any way. One mean word, one dirty look or any suspicious movement and Sabo’s ready to snap some wrists. He also has a zero tolerance policy towards her own insecurities. He hates when she’s her worst critic, when she doesn’t feel as beautiful as she makes him feel, and if he has to spend hours worshipping every scar, every stretch mark and every dimple on her body, he’ll gladly do just that.

He won’t dare suggest this to his s/o until after they’ve spent a long time as a couple, but he really looks forward to sharing relaxing baths with her. It could be because he’s really fond of taking baths with people he cares about, thanks to Ace and Luffy, but also the idea of getting into a tub makes him a little anxious since he became an user, so he’d love his s/o to be there for him in case he needs help.

Calls his s/o at least every night if they’re apart. Maybe it’s a long mission, or maybe it’s just that she isn’t even a part of the Revolutionary Army, but either way he’s just going to keep in touch with her. Sadly for him, there’s little privacy to make calls most of the time if you belong to this organization (anti-spies policy or something), so he’ll have to deal with the teasing comments of his partners when he hangs up at last (because he doesn’t just borrow the Den Den Mushi, he hogs it all for himself). Sabo can get a little carried away and blurt out some cheesy stuff if no one stops him.

Sabo tends to ramble a lot about his siblings, and his s/o isn’t going to save herself from the earful. In fact, she’s probably the first person he’ll run to when Luffy does something crazy, and he’s absolutely going to babble on and on about how he’s so proud of his little brother. When he realizes what he has been doing to her free time he stops a little too suddenly and starts to laugh sheepishly, apologizing for getting carried away. He promises that he’s going to introduce his sibling and lover soon because the prospect of having two of the most important people in the same room puts him in a perpetual good mood.

#Sabo #Female Pronouns #Fluff #Relationship #Headcanons #One Piece #doctorgerth

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swordoforion · 3 years

Text

Orion Digest №23 — A Personal Anecdote

What has shaped history more than the power of belief? Everywhere I go throughout my nation, I see the signs, the echoes of one man who walked through the desert and preached his values thousands of years ago, the symbol of his punishment plastered on the very soul of many cultures worldwide. Similarly, the spirit of colonial revolution remains alive in the hearts of the citizens of the U.S., and basic symbols and figures of a long bygone war are nearly mythic in the modern world.

I have not always been interested in the matters of the world at large. As a child, it was all so much bigger than me, and I was concerned with the fictional — cartoons and video games and books, things that were simple. The Internet and its subsequent culture grew around me with age, and soon, the world felt smaller and smaller. I met and talked to people from faraway lands, found that my experience was but a drop in the vast ocean of humanity — only a small part, yet not altogether different from the rest. There are things that we share so fundamentally human, as wide as the divides between us may seem.

But as I grew older and my world grew smaller, the problems that only adults talked about became more and more evident. My friends weren’t concerned with gathering sticks and playing tag; they started talking more and more about realistic, terrifying problems. Elections caused them to feel dread, news stories about other nations incited passion within them, and pollution became less of a thing warned against on television and more of a very real threat. Admittedly, I found these things at first strange and confusing — this wasn’t the world I knew, and they didn’t seem to affect me in the slightest. It was upsetting to think about the world as a scary and flawed place when I could easily continue to escape into fiction.

But time proves the greatest bringer of sobriety, and this nonchalant, carefree attitude faded over time. What was annoyance at a constant complaint among my friends became an acceptance and understanding, and I witnessed the things they warned against become very real, very observable. To be more specific, the U.S. election of 2016 was the first time in my life that politics seemed to matter, that the constant debate and deliberation meant something, and impacted so many people. I witnessed half of the people in my life cheering on the election of Trump with thunderous applause; and the other half overtaken with fear at what might happen next, and with more of an awareness, I saw that these events led to action.

Since 2016, the world has obviously changed in many ways, often for the worse, and as each wave of disasters hit, I started to take in a bit more, to go deeper into this world I had ignored for so long. It had always been easy and convenient to ignore politics and flaws — to face them head on would be to realize how close we really are to the edge, all the advantages I enjoy without appreciation, and how my life has been built on the backs of so many less fortunate throughout history. However, by the time I came of age, ignorance had no longer become the easy option.

I had progressed past ignorance of politics, and had come to the conclusion that the world was flawed, that I had privilege because of what I looked like, who I was, and the environment I grew up in, and that there was really nothing I could do in the face of all that. I could understand and talk about these issues, I could participate whenever given the chance, but the world was really ruled by business owners, politicians, royalty, powerful factions far beyond the scope of my life, and all I could do was accept this and hope the odds shook out in the world’s favor. It was all I could do at that point to try and reckon with my place in the world, and how I could sleep at night knowing full well the hell others went through every day.

Years went by, the world worsened. Hurricanes and fires rocked my nation, innocent people were gunned down whether because of improper distribution of firearms or the irresponsibility of law enforcement, and constant war continued to plague innocent civilians, who fled their homes only to be caged and hated elsewhere. 4 years after the initial election, a virus from a lab spread across the globe, shutting down much of society for what could be 2 years. The idea of crossing our fingers and hoping things would get better hardly did, as the rich got richer and superpowers grew more embittered. The apocalypse edges closer, and much of our effort is spent persecuting celebrities over old quotes; a meaningless crusade for the illusion of change.

As I lay purposeless within the many months of quarantine, I began to ponder the rest of my life. Because I feared for the longest time ever making my more progressive opinions known to a largely conservative family, I had never imagined doing or saying anything about the state of the world outside of hushed circles of friends, in private messages, in dark rooms. But with all the time in the world to reflect, I began to ask myself what indeed I had planned to do with my life. You really only get one go-around on Earth, one life to live, before your time is up, and the chance to do anything is lost forever. As far as I knew, there was nothing before and nothing after, and anything I did not do voluntarily would be a chance wasted in life.

My thoughts drifted to grand things, to the loftiest of ambitions. To change the world, to truly leave an impact was something I thought above me, something I could never do. But what use was thinking I couldn’t do something? As difficult as it was to do, I had never tried it before, and I didn’t know for sure that I couldn’t do it. And if I never tried, then I would have gone through life simply telling myself I had limits without ever knowing. All these things I never ventured to attempt were simply things I had convinced myself I was incapable of. But what if I took a chance in life? What if I stopped fearing the unknown, and left escapist fantasy and complacency behind?

COVID-19 brought me to the realization that if I told myself that because of who I was, and because the world was so large and ruled by people so powerful, I would never be able to bring about change in the world, and that the more people like me believed in this idea, the more set in stone the current order would be. The highest heights are only achievable because we have been told that they are nigh-unreachable; even if you are incapable of getting there, the effort itself is laudable, and on the chance you do succeed, you’ve made your mark.

The world, I realized, was getting worse, and that for all the fortune I received in life, I owed it to the world to try and save it. If I stopped believing that changing the world was audacious, and focused simply on trying to change it, maybe I could be successful. I started writing, seeking out others who had similar ideas, trying to formulate a solid set of ideas about how the world could be saved, how we can move forward from here. And that led me to the most important part — as far as I can possibly go, as much as I can possibly do to help the world, I cannot do it alone. And so, I sought to find others, to create something greater than myself, bigger than me.

As I said in the beginning, our world has been dramatically influenced before by belief, and not just in Christianity. Major world religions — Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism; nationalistic identity and pride — it’s driven people in the billions to wage wars, to find love, to travel great journeys, and to devote their lives to higher callings. Belief is a powerful thing, because it’s what shakes people out of a groove and into action. Regardless of what people think of me, regardless of whether or not I succeed, and if what I do builds anything that lasts, regardless of who I am and where I come from, I believe that the world is malleable, that I can at least set a stone rolling down the path that may one day loose a boulder that knocks it all into place.

Orion is the culmination of what I hope and believe in. An organization of those with the will to shape history, to move us off the course we’re headed on, by reminding the people of the world that the power is in their hands. I labored for far too long under the delusion that the workings of politics were something I could never reach, that I was powerless, that I was just one person. But every person is an integral part of this world, and when we realize what we can do and how we can go about doing it, the goals that seemed unachievable move within reach.

I know that this essay was a departure from my usual style of writing, but I wanted to touch on what motivated me to found Orion, and what motivates me to aim higher in everything I do. I firmly believe that either I, or the things I leave behind, can make a difference, instead of allowing my fear to make me an accessory to a destructive pattern. And if you are reading this, and you have a desire to make a change for the better, the first step is believing.

- DKTC FL

#personal #story #personal anecdote #orion #orion digest #sword of orion #election of 2016 #2016 #2020 #covid 19 #personal story #belief #motivation #hurricane harvey #us politics #organization

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bluejayfeathersandwillowtrees · 3 years

Text

Midnight Missive #2

I’m not going to pretend for even a second that my 2020 has been that difficult in comparison to so many others’ year. If this year has given me anything, it’s more perspective. Working with the public through a pandemic, and with my Dad working in a hospital, I had to face the fact that my odds were not great from the start. It made me consider my own mortality in a way I never had before.

With depression, the concept of dying (on my terms, at least) was something that I had gone over and over in my mind like a well-worn book. A book I’m thankful I haven’t picked up to look at in a very long time, but anyone that’s been there knows you don’t really forget the words. I had made my peace with that, but this was a completely different feeling. The idea of my health, my life, being wrenched away from me terrified me. The fact that to the company I work for and the government, I was “essentially” worthless, and my health and safety was only relevant to the extent that I was making them money infuriated me. Somewhere in all of this, a mental and emotional fight or flight kicked in. Who knew it would take the world literally and figuratively on fire to make me realize I wanted to live (for sure this time)?

As I took stock of my small life, the sense of how deeply I had buried my dissatisfaction surfaced and seeped into every aspect of my life. None of this is what I wanted. I had shut down hoping I would get used to it, that this was the best I could do. I had stood still for so long time had flown by with very little progress. My depression kicked in for a bit, or maybe it was a sort of grief for time lost that I couldn’t get back. I let myself sink until I surfaced again.

I came back with a tenacity that surprised even me. I couldn’t fix it all, especially with the way things were (and still are), but by gods, I could plan. Careful lists were made, giving way to braver lists. It felt good to feel even a little productive, even if I had to drag my anxiety kicking and screaming. I picked something small to start with, walking the dog everyday to get some fresh air, and stuck with it. It became a ritual that helped me clear my head after work, and keeping track of all the flowers’ progress each day gave me something to look forward to.

I used a week of my vacation to complete another list. I reorganized and painted my room and bathroom. [Author’s Note: Moving out is absolutely on the bigger list of things to do for reasons you’ll read later. Currently I’m just focusing on saving up as much money as I can, and working on getting in the headspace to finally leave. I want to do this right. I don’t want to mess things up and come back, you know? There’s quite a bit more to all of this but that’s a missive for another midnight.] I cleared out and donated a ton of stuff, bought another bookshelf, got a new bedspread and new curtains. It was a small exercise in letting myself make and take up space unapologetically, and I’m trying to apply it to more of my life.

While I’m certainly proud of myself for the above and everything else that I managed to accomplish in a year that put limits on what I could reasonably do, I still feel like it’s not enough. The persistent self-doubt and criticism has been pervasive every step of the way. Sometimes just getting through the day is tiring, but trying to grow? Growth is exhausting. Depression and anxiety got their way far more days this year than I would have preferred, especially the tail end of this year.

Around October, the wheels came off, and I had to come to terms with some truths I’ve been trying to avoid for some time. With the election (finally) approaching, the constant walking on eggshells at work and at home had me on edge most days. Both of my parents (and most of my family sadly) are republicans, and usually I just keep my head down and my mouth shut when politics come up, it’s not my house after all. But this was different. Almost every day my parents would purposely bring it into the conversation just to try and argue with me.

In one of these situations, my dad said something that went right through me: He thought Trump was a terrible person, but he was voting for him because his 401k had never looked better. How could anyone look at everything wrong with the past four years, the reprehensible things he and his administration has said and done, and that be the takeaway? It’s even harder when you know my dad, he has always been the one people know that they can count on.

The dichotomy of that still has me frustrated and flummoxed. Not just him, but too many people I know. These are people I’ve known my whole life, people that taught me to be a good person, and are so quick to help a person in need that I’ve always been in awe of them. These are not the people that raised me, or at least not who they raised me to be. The speed with which they are willing to shrug off the struggles of others that they don’t know and dehumanize anyone they disagree with has been an education in how little we really know anyone. It’s caused me to review everything they told me. I’ll never stop loving my family, and I know they love me, but things will never be the same. I’ve never really felt like I fit in or belonged here, and up until recently, I just told myself it was my anxiety and depression messing with me. But now I know I actually don’t, and despite the deep validation it’s provided, it’s also stung me to my core.

In short, they broke my heart. I sank again.

I haven’t really surfaced since. There were (and more so now) so many people out there sick and struggling, and the sense of guilt for being so unhappy when I’ve been so lucky has permeated everything. But I have never been this unhappy. I never thought these hills could make me sad. I’ve tried to just focus on work and getting through the holidays, but with the new year almost upon me, the obligatory sense of needing to have a plan weighs heavy. With everything going on, and current mental state, my options are limited. I daydream about leaving almost every day, and I hope one day I will. I’m not in a place to make big plans right now, so I’ve decided to focus on other things. What will I do? I will keep working and save as much money as I can, try to live as well as I can to my values, and work on overcoming (or at least slightly taming) my anxiety.

Until then, I’ll keep pouring my heart out to an empty room. It’s the only thing that gives me peace.

#midnight missives #writing #personal #sorry its so long #not that anyone is reading these

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izumisays · 7 years

Text

Dear creator,

Thank you so much for reading this and signing up for this wonderful annual conspiracy!

I hope you have a lovely time, and that this letter can contribute to it. If any of the fandoms below pique your interest, I’m delighted already, and very interested to hear your thoughts on them.

Fandoms: Nimona, In Other Lands, Captive Prince, Machineries of the Empire

As for reading preferences, I’m happy with a wide variety of tones and genres, from lighthearted shenanigans to dramatic casefics, and pretty much all ratings, but the core of all stories I love is always character interaction. How they play off each other and bring out their best/worst, how they would react to a divergence of events, how true would they stay to their selves in a different setting - these are the kind of questions I’m all chinhands for. POV games, a missing scene, a casefic, canon expansion, backstories and what-ifs are all fair game, so choose your weapon!

I would be very grateful if you could avoid a/b/o and similar kinktropes, played-straight soulmate fic, and character interpretation that runs contrary to their core values. If in doubt, please reach out to me on anon - the askbox is open!

NIMONA (any characters)

It is no mystery at all why I completely imprinted on this book. What is a mystery, however, is how I survived to this day and age without having loved Nimona for years - how did I even live unaware of its existence, up until an impulse purchase a month ago? WHAT A TRAVESTY.

Anyway, I massively adore Nimona to bits: a perfect fusion of story and pictures, chaotic evil Nimona (CHOMP!), Ballister of the big heart and stoic love for strays and SCIENCE, Ambrosius of awkward good instincts and poor decisions - I just want to pinch everyone’s cheeks and hug them to my chest. For six hours. Approximately. It’s open for negotiation :’)

I’m requesting any characters because I’d be honestly delighted by seeing each one of them <3

A day in casa de Blackheart with Nimona and Ballister! Hatching evil schemes or having a pizza night - or both. BOTH IS GOOD. A flashback to Ballister and Ambrosius’s younger days (that christmas special *clutches heart*). A future with Nimona infiltrating Ballister’s lab and his & Ambrosius’s couch with popcorn and underhanded science! Nimona grumpily acquiescing to Goldenloin’s presence in Ballister’s life! Generally ANY AND ALL HIJINKS feat. heartwarmth and unapologetic monster girl love and fierce protectiveness of each other, much in the spirit of the lovely, lovely source material.

IN OTHER LANDS (Luke Sunborn)

Elliot is a spectacular narrator. Novel-shaped case in point: In Other Lands.

Having said that, what I really, really want to see is a story that makes Luke a narrator, or otherwise puts him at the center. I have it on good authority that he makes one fucking adorable narrator (novella-shaped case in point: Wings in the Morning), but why stop there, right?

Luke/Elliot, either post-canon or slightly amending canon, is always a delight. Luke crushing on Elliot for years in a resigned, semi-unaware (or aware!) manner - he gives Elliot Dale’s name only as a distraction, to get Elliot off his back, and watches with horrified eyes how every member of his family is suddenly out there to set him up with the wrong boy! Luke handling the thought of Elliot the boyfriend with awkwardness unbefitting a Trigon champion (granted, Elliot is kinda more prickly than an average glass ball). Luke having 110% confidence in Elliot and admiring him sass people into submission from the sidelines.

A look at Luke’s friendship with Serene - completely compatible with Luke forever crushing on Elliot, just saying ^^. I suspect lack of Elliot’s Serene goggles could do marvels to building nuance to her character: a little less reverse gender comedy just for the sake of comedy, a little more someone who is clever enough to balance multiple things, connect the dots, and learn, and stand by what she believes is right.

Competence kinkkk. Forever admiring the bookish people, refusing to stop trying to catch up, and zero time spent being conceited about own achievements while fully embracing his role of a champion and defender - that’s the Luke I love <3 Luke’s brand of leadership & charisma - an introverted champion, well-loved by people and easily tired of company of not his people.

Figuring out life after graduation! Casefic of them solving a mystery and preventing a war breakout! Getting assignments and storming the castles! Building cross-cultural competence by throwing Elliot at new people and watching him sign up new pen friends and treaties!

Sunborn family fic! A holiday get together? Drunken exchange of family stories? Another terrible competition that Elliot boycotts? Rachel reading Luke’s letters from year one and with great amusement observing the progression of his “THAT ELLIOT” feelings. God I love the Sunborns <3

I’m not particularly fond of Dale, on understanding that he got enough screentime as is already I’d be grateful if you didn’t center the fic around him. Obviously no objections to him as part of class ensemble, whose names Luke will never bloody remember.

CAPTIVE PRINCE (Damen, Laurent, Auguste, Jokaste)

You would not have wanted to see me at the peak of my CP obsession - dignity readers for miles around were in the red zone for months, I can tell you that. Even my bitter disappointment with many things in the third book didn’t survive the onslaught of feelings that overcome me every time I turn my thoughts to this series. R e g u l a r l y. (If you don’t think Prince’s Gambit is the high point of modern literature, f i t e m e)

Things that make me happy:

Laurent/Damen endgame, always.

Auguste! Alive and well and fiercely proud of Laurent and quite possibly giving young Damen - his admiring bro - confused boners. Which he manfully swoonstruggles against, because see above.

Clever, competent Damen that drives Laurent up the wall of his fervent refusal to admit any of it affects him

Laurent POVs in general. There is nothing more delightful than a well-crafted narration of acerbic denial of hearteyes, self-crafted personality, hardwon competence and utter self-awareness.

Did I say competence porn yet? Hearteyes, motherfucker, hearteyes!!

Jokaste-Laurent queenbee friendships - vipers united!

Consider this: FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS arrangement for a CERTAIN AGENDA feat. Jokaste and Laurent - preceding or purposefully leading to Laurent/Damen endgame. Benefits as imagined by Damen, the poor cookie? Fake dating for purposes of short-circuiting Damen’s brain with the blonde ratio? :DD

Mafia/noir AUs *swoon* In fact, a variety of modern or historic AUs would be an a+ sandbox to play in and watch the chemistry unfold.

On another note, I have the soft spot the size of Delfeur for Nicaise and particularly Nicaise & Laurent spiky sibling-like affection, so if you think your story could benefit from that, please don’t hesitate to include it <3

I’m absolutely okay with fic that would not include all four - it’s just that I couldn’t omit either Auguste and Jokaste from the list of happy things. You are most welcome to include only one of the two, or none, if you want to concentrate on Laurent and Damen only.

Canon divergences, what-ifs and AUs are super-welcome for this canon. Please feel free to play to your heart’s content!

MACHINERIES OF THE EMPIRE (Shuos Mikodez)

I didn’t know how to request what would essentially be just heartfelt sobbing of PLEASE WRITE FIC FOR THIS AMAZING MEME ART (“please send help my family is starving!!”) - but if! By any chance! This is what you want to do, please disregard everything from math rules to heretic calendrical rituals, and go for it :DD i keep shoving this picture into all of my friends’ faces and get vaguely upset that they don’t immediately agree with me on how brilliant it is; maybe I should revise my strategy and give them the books to read first, hmm.

I’m fond of most of the cast of the books, especially of how competent and done with nonsense they are 99% of their screen time. Mentor relationships were amazing - Cheris and Jedao in Ninefox Gambit was a thing of true beauty, Zehun and Mikodez continuously delight me, and I’m looking forward to what book 3 will bring on this front, too (Nija? Please say Nija!). But as I need to choose something that won’t be guaranteed to make the matching algorithm cry, let me center it around a character that delights me and makes others cry instead.

Mikodez in his younger days! Zehun, I’m so sorry for your loss of sleep and possibly hair, teenagers are the worst, teenage Miki is the worst best Miki, and I am dying to hear all about his notorious Academy heroics.

Mikodez, Zehun, Nija and Cheris, the most terrifying parental equation of this calendar <3

Mikodez and his Questionable Alliances. Kujen “I had a friend once and then the leash broke” Nirai. Jedao - how does Miki’s view of the man change with Cheris in the game, and her (literal) insights about the dead mad general?

Mikodez throwing endless shade on all other factions, especially Andan. (Sorry, Andan. At least you’re pretty.)

Mikodez and his secret humanitarian agenda that he will politely deny forever, get fake-distracted by one of his bazillion hobbies and miss whatever sleep time he had scheduled in the day because he will inevitably get genuinely carried away. Every. Fucking. Time.

As a sidenote, I’m terribly fond of Vahenz <3 Bring her back! Let Vahenz have her fun! Let Mikodez meet his true competition for world domination and in the race towards diabetes.

I really liked Istradez, and would be happy to see him among the army of Mikodez’s high powered babysitters, but am not really in the market for Mikodez/Istradez shipfics.

Thank you very much for reading the letter! Please be assured I’m super excited to read everything you write already <3

#dear creator letter #yuletide #yuletide 2017

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coreycorner · 7 years

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Mother! - CCCC1/4

Art is not always something that makes you feel good and it is not always something that makes you feel like shit. Art I feel is more about what you bring to it in response to what it is showing you. A movie like a book or a song is the artist’s opinion or projection of an issue through their point of view and it’s our human right to be able to take what we want from it. We will never all agree on the same conclusions simply because we look at something a different way.

I think Mother! is that kind of movie where how you interpret it and feel about it is dependent on how you approach the movie and what you bring to it. I have read a few reviews from people whom I may not agree with all of the but whose opinions on film I trust and respect otherwise and the response to this movie has been a very mixed bag which I think above all else was the reason why I wanted to check this movie out. Prior to this I knew nothing about the movie and thought it was just some silly suspense movie. Through reviews I came to realize that there must be a lot more going on with this film than I realized.

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I don’t think any of the trailers I have seen really paints this movie’s plot very well but honestly this movie is very hard to pin down in a 2 minute trailer. In all honesty the painted portrait of Jennifer’s character holding out her heart amongst nature I think paints a far better picture of what this movie is about (no pun intended).

However in terms of this review going forward I can only commentate about this movie from what I brought to it and what I got out of it. As I have said before I do feel this movie really is more bout what you bring to it and then what you get out of it than simply experiencing what is going on.

I will try my best not to say enough as to spoil this movie but I feel like in order to explain my opinions of it some of it may have to be spoiled.

The movie is centred around a man and a woman (no names in this movie) who live in a big house together alone. The man is a writer who is having trouble working on his latest creation, the woman is his wife who has taken it upon herself to rebuild and repair his house so it can be a great home for both of them.

Then another guy comes in (Ed Harris) who appears to be a big fan of the writer but is also very sick, he comes in un invited and starts to stir up trouble. A day later the guy’s wife comes (Michelle) and both continue to add more trouble to the house hold. Things start to go apeshit when the man and his wife’s kids come and begin fighting each other till one of them dies. This brings more people into the house causing more chaos for Jennifer’s character whom at no point wanted these strangers in her house and further more doesn’t like that these strangers seemingly have no respect for her or for the house as they continuously take advantage of her and her husband/writer’s hospitality. Only Jennifer’s character is fully aware of this as her husband/writer is completely oblivious to it and seems to be high on all the attention that he is getting from these new comers who want to see him as a hero/poet/god/etc.

I guess it is here where I have to start getting vague but at some point Jennifer’s character gets pregnant and shit just gets worse.

So.......yeah...............where do I start..............

I feel like I have to approach this the same way as I began as I read many reviews of many people who seemingly saw slightly different things. Some saw this as a misogynist power play/god complex going on. Some seen this as a allegory for immigration that allowing strangers to enter you house only brings bad things (I am assuming that person was a right winger), one person’s opinion whom I think I wound up siding with most especially after watching this movie seen this as a allegory or depiction of the progression of humanity on planet earth. If you have the time and patience I think comicbookgirl19 does a far better job explaining it than I do and for the most part I concur with her opinions of this movie. You can watch and listen to her opinions of the movie and its themes on her channel on youtube. Make up your own mind from what she thinks if you wish.

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So lets start with what I didn’t like about this movie (I am trying to stay objective....see how long that lasts).

If I didn’t come into this movie knowing this was about climate change as the director said it was I probably would not have spotted it on the first viewing; maybe, maybe not since I can’t turn back time to get myself to watch it before knowing that but I don’t think this movie did a good job of showing that and I do feel many of the people whom have seen this movie with different attitudes toward it all seemed to be in consensus with that. He could have done a better job showing that.

I think I would have picked up on it being a depiction of humanity and how we have no respect, love or consideration for the world we live in so maybe yeah it is about climate change but I guess when I think of climate change I think of the the ozone layer and rising temperatures though I guess deep down it is more than that. I know one friend felt like if it wanted to talk more about climate change it should have had a more political/capitalist stance and I think the movie would have been better for having a spot where that is shown but I feel the choice to keep it at a basic human level was the safer choice and one that made more sense.

Long before corporations and politics has humanity been raping and taking full advantage of planet earth/mother nature with little to no consideration for the consequences of their actions. This shit has been going on long before the industrial revolution. This movie I think goes after it on the basic human levels in that humans are basically just inconsiderate slobs who taken advantage of their living quarters and probably won't clean their shit up until it’s either that or death and that is a normal thing. Just look at addiction or when someone is faced with having to change something they are so used to doing or it will kill them. Even as basic as getting up in the morning, most of us would much rather just lay in bed all day and would but the threat of losing one’s job or starving because one needs to get out of bed to eat forces off the bed and into the daily routine. Maybe too weird of a description but then I am a weird guy with weird ways to compare things in which only I get. That is probably why I was never able to have a career in film directing.

I do think there was room for this movie to be more than it was but I think that would have made this movie even more divisive than it already was. It would have made the movie more preachy in one direction than it already was. This movie walked a thin line of preaching it’s message and staying objective. There are times where it was swaying on the side of completely preaching and then there were times where it swayed in the direction of being too objective but I don’t think the tight rope walker fell to the ground. He/she fell off the wire a few times but still held on to the wire and climbed back up to keep walking.

This could just be my opinion because I personally have a fairly bleak outlook on humanity as a whole as I have been growing up and watching humanity make the same mistakes over and over over history and seem to lack any sort of consideration for the living space it inhabits because most humans are only concerned with living and getting by. We all know we are destroying our planet and to attempt to fix the planet would require sacrifices on our part but I feel like that sacrifice is too great for most to want to consider.

I am rambling now but then again this is what I got out of it. I do think Darren could have done a better job showing this is about climate change but I do feel like it gets it on the basic human level and that worked for me.

The acting and overall story I did feel was spotty all around but I think a lot of that had to do with keeping things on the most basic humanist level possible. There was so much going on in this movie that it was really hard for me to process and digest that I needed to read a lot of people’s interpretations of this movie in order to get it more and while I do think that helps the movie’s replay value in that it forces the audience member to have to see it again to spot more I do feel like the movie does sort of fail and explaining things more or in at least showing you more of who each person really was like Kristen Wig’s character. She just suddenly pops in out of nowhere and does shit that doesn’t entirely make much sense. If I was to take a gander at her role maybe it would be she is the depiction of human atrocities to itself in the name of god/mother, the depiction of the evil side of what people see in the man/writer.

By the time the hoards come in it just gets so chaotic and insane it does remind me of Requiem for a Dream where as their greed and addiction rise so does the insanity till everything just blows up in their face. I feel like this was sort of the same kind of build up and result where when people come their intentions are to praise the writer and see him as their saviour but as they want more of him and from him and thusly Jennifer’s character the greed and addiction builds to destruction. This is spoiler territory but I feel like I am doing it vague enough for you not to fully get what happened in the movie.

Maybe it is again just what I took out of the movie but as I watched the movie I tried to see how this movie was misogynist and to tell you the truth while I can understand that there are elements in it I felt like if it was a misogynist movie I would like to think Jennifer Lawrence would not have had any part in it to begin with. Maybe it is because I am a male and could not possibly understand and my male privilege keeps me from understanding and if so I am willing to try and understand but I would like to think Jennifer is a big enough star that she could basically pick and choose what she wants to do and how she wants to do it in the movie business and she would have been smart enough to pick up on this. Its not like Darren A has more pull in Hollywood than her. Plus she has always came off as a feminist person who is also very vocal, smart and non BSy. I would like to think that if this movie was misogynistic she would have spot it and called Darren out on it and not work on it but its obvious she saw something in this script and decided to be the face of it.

Plus I feel like if this movie was misogynistic it would have had little regard for how Jennifer’s character felt about all the shit that was going on with her and would make Javier’s character to be sympathetic and more in the right than Jennifer and that could not have been farther than what the movie actually did. For the entire movie we are with Jennifer’s character; we see how all of this shit affects her and from the moment Ed Harris starts smoking we are on Jennifer’s side and for all of the movie one could only sympathize and side with Jennifer’s character. If anything her character was the strongest in the entire movie because she had to put up with all of it while Javier’s character is basically the weakest character in the movie who does nothing to defend his wife or child and even after everything still did nothing (again spoilers but vague spoilers). While she is a bit too subservient than one could be in real life I do think it is realistic to human nature that we all (at least Canadians) attempt to avoid conflict any way we could to the point where we do let people walk all over us until sometimes it is too late to fight back. Not all of us have the courage to just straight up kick people out their house regardless of what everyone else wants. I think we can spot so many instances where that sort of thing happens to us in all walks of life.

Could Jennifer’s character been a bit more forthcoming and stronger? Yes. Could she have been more stronger in basically forcing these people out sooner before things go worse? Of course but I think deep down we know that the reason why she doesn’t is simply because of the plot and this is the only way it can go in order for the plot to move forward and for things to play out. I mean it could have just been so much more easier if Obi Wan Kenobi met Darth Vader again and killed him in A New Hope but no he sacrificed himself in order to motivate Luke to become a jedi and to seek out to stop Darth Vader in the end. Another weird example but still while both are still plot holes there are so many movies that do this kind of thing that to attack this movie for that you may as well be attacking all movies. Long story short I don’t think this movie is misogynistic however there are more than a few people who think it is so maybe it is and I would like to understand how it is better. Hopefully it will help me understand the female’s side of this more.

I didn’t get the blood parts at all during this movie, I mean I sort of got it but I did not care for the symbolism at all. Thinking about it I can understand it that meant that the house itself was a living organism but I don’t feel like that symbolism worked at all to me. I feel like something else could have been used that could have been more poignant.

I think the fact that I have been able to rant and talk about the symbolism and what this movie brought out of me is enough to show you what this movie’s greatest strength is. This movie invokes something out of you but that I think depends on what you bring to it. A trump supporter will probably see it as one thing, a feminist another, a spiritual person another, a environmentalist a complete different way and you may see it completely different. Like throwing a ball towards a brick wall, how that ball coms back to you depends on how you throw it towards the wall.

This is a divisive movie and you know what that is what I like about the movie the most, it is going to piss a lot of people off and it has and you know what that to me is a good thing. It starts a conversion, more than the latest Fats and The Furious movie would that is for sure. I much rather see people watch this movie come out of it talking about it. Hating it or liking and talking about how wrong it is for women to be taken advantage of, slut shamed or abused, talk about how as humans in general we are just a fucked up self destructive species that cares little about the home (earth) we inhabit and start to think about how we can be better guests in mother’s home (how we can stop sitting on the preverbal fucking sink). Or like the movie because it forces us to see the shitty shit that us as humans do to each other and our space. All of these things need to be address now more than ever.

Love or hate it it brings emotion and thoughts out of it’s viewer and if I am Darren Aronofsky I am probably happy with my work regardless because there is nothing worse for an artist than to make a movie that gets nothing out of it’s audience. To where when they leave that theatre they either think its ok, meh or nothing. That to me is where a movie fails because 5 years from now that movie will not be remembered at all while Mother! on the other hand I have feeling will be talked about good or bad but it will get people talking.

A movie like a painting, a song, a book/story, a picture or other art again at it’s best is supposed to get something out of you (good or bad), make you feel something (good or bad). What you feel depends entirely on what you bring out of it and I don’t know if there has been a movie over the last few years that is a greater example of this than this movie. I mean just look how how varying the opinions are to this movie. That in of itself proves my point in the end.

One can be angry and offended at this movie and I understand that but what could one expect from Darren A? Getting angry at this movie from him being offensive is like going to a Mexican restaurant and getting angry because tacos are on the menu. Almost all his movies have played on the themes this movie played with (spirituality and greed). I am not that big of a fan of his but I do think this is one of his better movies.

Bottom line is this movie is going to get something out of you but it will depend on you, if you are looking for an escape, turn your brain off and have fun movie then steer clear from this movie. If you don’t want to feel uncomfortable and on edge then don’t go to this movie. But if you are willing to watch something different that is going to stir something in you (good or bad) then maybe consider this movie. If you are a Darren A fan then I think you know know what you are in for or at least you should know. Either way it will stick in your brain and get you talking about it after you have watched it. I give it CCCC1/4 on the Corey Scale.

#jennifer lawrence #Mother!#darren aronofsky #suspense #suspence #javier bardem #ed harris #Michelle Pfieffer

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izzfayyadhhasreencas-blog · 4 years

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Final CAS Reflection

Introduction:

There is a saying that success is not a destination but the journey that is filled with life lessons and memorable moments. My CAS (Creativity, Action and Service) was a journey that was filled with nostalgic memories and moments that created a heavy impact upon my life and my overall character. Initially, I thought that the CAS was just an extension of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme, where it must be completed in a number of hours and I am finished. However, as I progressed through the months of Sixth Form, I realised that what maybe just a small part can create something much larger than expected.

Goals:

Initially, I had a very basic plan for how I would execute my CAS. The rough plan went along with me alone doing speeches in the Brunei Gavel Club, participating in Model United Nations, hiking at Bukit Shahbandar and volunteering for Pusat Ehsan. However, as I progressed throughout the year, I realised that the path to growth is a journey filled with unexpected mysteries and surprises. This led me to change my goals from “doing something productive to fill my time” to utilising every opportunity to reflect on my life and progress with the intention of becoming a better person overall.

Defying Highlights:

It was really hard to identify what was the key “highlight” of my CAS experience because there were many things and aspects I have learned in which it affected my life in different ways. Each initiative or activity I took managed to at least have a small impact on changing the perception of how I live my life with meaning. Hence why I do value every initiative I took as they somehow changed my life in different ways. Although that was the case, there were three highlights that I would say mostly impacted me heavily.

My first highlight was when I participated in the Third Youth Against Poverty program organised by SCOT in 2018. During the program, I was allocated to a team of youths where we had to pitch and present a possible and feasible solution to alleviate the issue of poverty in Brunei in front of a panel of judges. This event really changed a small perspective through the idea of doing small changes in the community could bring in big impacts to wider society and to different people. Additionally, working with different youths in Brunei with different perspective taught me how there are multiple ways to tackle an issue. Hence, when approaching an issue, it was very important to look at different possible ways and different probabilities to tackle them.

The second highlight was when I attended the Borneo Global Issues Conference (BGIC) hosted by ISB earlier in 2019. I have always had a very strong interest in politics and the way how governments work. Therefore, I took the initiative to sign myself up for it as a way to get a further depth and understanding of the world of international politics. Initially, I had the mindset of a “true politician”, with strong beliefs, ideals and solutions in which I would do anything to fight for. This led me to have antagonistic political tactics towards other delegates when debating for my resolution. This led to other delegates viewing me as a “Condescending” individual and having negative personal feelings towards me. This resulted in my resolution failing and being excluded from my committee which eventually brought me down to tears. However, I was very much fortunate to have the main Year 13 Organisers to give me emotional support which really brought a change of heart in regards to how I approached this conference. Eventually, I changed the way how I executed my diplomatic tactics, eventually winning “Most Diplomatic Delegate” within my committee. Therefore, this conference not only taught me how to be more diplomatic but to also be more kind and to spread goodness in the chaotic world of politics.

The third key highlight was when I attended the Youth Empowerment Conference (YEC) organised by Progresif Sdh Bhd and Curious Minds. Initially, I was not really that anticipated when I signed myself up to attend this conference as I have been to similar ones before. This led me to have quite mediocre expectations with no real goal takeaways I wanted to have at the end of the day. However, after the whole experience of listening to different speakers and meeting different people, I was really stuck emotionally with the realisation of how many young people in Brunei are willing to take the initiative to do something great and progress with one another as a society. Almost as if I had a sense of purpose given to me whilst I was sitting down among the 700 participants in the Art Centre Auditorium. I would definitely say that at the end of the day after the conference, it was very nostalgic in the sense that hope was bestowed upon me knowing that the youth society we live in is very much supportive in every aspect. Furthermore, the Youth Empowerment Conference taught me how regardless of background, interests or opinions, it was very important for all members of the youth to strive and succeed together in order to build a well mannered and advancing society. This led me to meet and network with different people, creating new friendships that I personally would regard as highly meaningful. Therefore, the experience I had from the conference was overwhelmingly positive and sentimental, leading to a change of perspective and how I would approach my life to improve.

Each of these highlights that I have mentioned not only were key within my CAS journey but also in my overall life in Sixth Form. The key reason why these three events/activities/moments were my biggest highlights was due to how they were able to change my character as a person in many ways as I progress towards the future.

What I gained and learned from the CAS experience:

The CAS journey really changed my life in multiple ways in which I could not describe all of them in written words. Firstly, it showed and revealed strength in confidence in public speaking. What was initially just a passion that I overlooked turned out to be a key asset when participating or attending different conferences, events and more. Secondly, it really changed my perspective on how to tackle world issues. Often we feel or believe that there is one theory or method that could instantly solve every problem the world has faced. However, a problem that was multicausal needs a solution that is open to different ideas and thoughts. I realised how it was very important to keep an open mind when listening to the ideas of other people as the debates in parliaments could not always tackle the simplest of issues. Merely, it takes different great thoughts and ideas of people to discuss with one another in order to determine an accurate and feasible cure to worldly diseases. Additionally, the CAS journey taught me to expect the unexpected. There were definitely many surprising moments that were overwhelmingly positive as I progressed throughout these two years. Hence, it taught me that life is full of surprises and that sometimes fate could bring in something better we could never expect. Finally, what I would consider as the best part of my CAS experience were the friendships and caring individuals I met along the road. From the Youth Against Poverty Program to the Youth Empowerment Conference, I am very much grateful to meet different individuals who not only taught me skills and knowledge that are very much useful but creating a positive and sentimental impact in my life through the sense of giving me hope and happiness which I always look forward to.

Conclusion

If I were to go back in time and talk to myself one year before when I began doing the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme or even before that, he would see myself today as an entirely different person. Both the process of academically enduring the courses within the IB and the CAS Programmes placed me into different challenges that forced me to change, adapt and evolve into a better person. Each area of the CAS Programme allowed me to explore my different strengths and weakness in which I take note of in order to strive for better in the near future. I feel and firmly believe that I have evolved drastically from the day I started the IB course. Memories I have earned along the way play scenes of nostalgia that really shaped me to become a better and more open-minded person. The journey I had was definitely full of struggles and failures along the path. However, they were merely blessings in disguise that brought in a positive impact on my life.

As Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but the ones that are adaptable from change”

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takebackthedream · 6 years

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Hope, Votes and "The Politics of Joy" by Laurel Wales

As 2018 primaries draw to a close, People’s Action Deputy Director of Movement Politics Laurel Wales sits down with Leigh Friedman to talk about grassroots candidates we’ve supported and the importance of what she calls “the politics of joy.” This is part one of two.

OF: First, what are movement politics and how do they differ from a traditional approach?

LW: Movement politics are about centering on people who have been impacted by decisions that get made at City Hall, in statehouses, or the halls of Congress, and making sure they’re stepping up to lead: organizing locally in their community around different campaigns, all the way up to running for elected office.

I’ve spent time with recently with our member organization Take Action Minnesota. They’ve really been pushing this idea of the “politics of joy.” I think this really resonates with what we’re trying to do: to bring joy back into our politics in this country. We’ve been driven by fear over so much over the last several years, and movement politics is really about imagining what is possible – what might still feel far away, but is achievable when we organize.

When I was growing up, the idea of democracy was one of the key things to be proud of about this country. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve not seen that to be true, at least in the way everyday people feel about how politics happen to them. They feel it’s the same old, same old: big money wins, and typically white men in suits and ties are the ones we’re told we should be supporting.

For me, movement politics are really about bringing back our democracy in a way that feels meaningful, powerful, and accessible to everybody, not just the people who have the bandwidth to pay attention or the money to give. When we elect people, they’re supposed to serve everybody in the community, and that hasn’t been happening for a long time.

OF: What is the relationship between electoral politics and structural change?

LW: Electoral politics is the way that we push for and get the votes we need to pass legislation that changes structures. Whether that’s a bill relating to healthcare or housing or mass liberation, elected officials are the ones who can carry it forward and make sure policies get implemented.

Connections aren’t just confined to the electoral politics space, because you need the whole movement. When an elected official steps in the halls of power, they’re entering a world where everything has been said and done in a certain way for a long time. We need the movement to be there to agitate and hold them accountable, but also be there to support our folks when they’re going through hard times.

Yes, we need folks in office who will stand up for the hard things because they know they’re the right things, but we also need the folks in the street providing that heat, telling their stories and creating community connection. There’s no other way to move elected officials.

OF: Are there misconceptions you’re hearing about movement candidates this cycle?

LW: I have a heard a couple different things that I want to address. There’s this word — “viable.” That word gets used against women and people of color all the time to put them down and say they’re not capable of winning. That’s just not true — we’ve seen a wide swath of voters getting really excited about our candidates’ politics.

When I think about a candidate like Erin Murphy, who ran for a statewide race for her first time in Minnesota, she was completely seen as the underdog. Folks thought she wouldn’t get endorsed, that she would come in last, but she received the state party endorsement and came in second, with a strong 36 percent. To me, that shows we are building.

This primary season is just a glimpse of what’s ahead in 2019, 2020 and beyond.

Second, the press often repeats the canard that the left is losing.In places like Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, or Illinois, where we’ve had strong progressive candidates run for Governor and not make it past the primary, this is the message that gets spun and recycled.

I think this is incredibly wrong. When we’re running mostly-women, movement-backed candidates against candidates who have a lot of money and name recognition, those are two big hurdles to overcome. We’ve also seen some incredible victories. It’s really interesting to look at what’s happening in states that have been predominantly held by Republican control – Maryland, Arizona, Idaho, Georgia, Florida – all of these places propelled and pushed forward the most progressive candidate in the primary. All of them are people of color.

To me, this shows that when folks see the impact of bad elected officials, who don’t stand up for the people, the backlash is hard. Places where the Democratic Party infrastructure is maybe not as strong are the very places where true progressive candidates like Paulette Jordan or Ben Jealous or David Garcia get traction and win. Moving forward, this calls into question the role of the party as a gatekeeper.

I recently had a conversation with a staff member of our Michigan member organization, Michigan People’s Campaign. She was like, “Everybody was really excited about Abdul El-Sayed (who came in second in Michigan’s gubernatorial primary). Now they all have to go and work for another Democrat who isn’t horrible, but isn’t as inspiring. How do I move my base to do that?”

I told her that for the movement, primary fights are our way to push the world toward our values. They are our time to live in the tension between the world as it is and the world as it should be. Primary fights are our place to fight for the world as we want it to be. Not always do we make it the first time.

OF: So how do we change the narrative?

LW: By doing. This year, if we fall into the trap of just going to the same moderate, middle-of-the-road voters, and only try to get them to vote our way but lose in the end, it’s fodder for the defeatists.

Across the country for primaries, voter turnout has been skyrocketing. In parts of Detroit they ran out of ballots, in Minnesota they had the highest primary turnout they’ve had in a decade or so. When I was working with our member organization in Nevada, the Clark County turnout was also really high. You can’t expect to take down the status quo in a year, but it’s clear the people are paying attention, they’re involved, they’re engaging, and more people are showing up in the middle of summer to go and vote for progressive candidates when they’ve maybe never done that before in their life.

What’s really exciting is that in places where our organizations are trying something new, we’re really digging in to engaging folks who haven’t shown up before, our candidates are winning. If we continue to do the work of reaching out to low-income communities, communities of color — folks who have been traditionally left out of politics — and keep holding onto that in the general, we can prove the narrative wrong.

In terms of the general election, they’re gonna face really uphill battles, no question. If even two, three or five cornerstone candidates win, it proves the point that what people want in this moment now is not milquetoast candidates, not the status quo, but candidates who are different and dare to push the boundaries of what is possible.

#Blog

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flauntpage · 6 years

Text

DGB Grab Bag: Torts Owned, An Actual Trade, And Arguing Over a 27-Year-Old Fight

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Paul Maurice – He's either unhappy with a call, or he's doing an impression of me every time I check in on the comment section of something I wrote.

The second star: John Tortorella – Speaking of angry coaches, here's the perpetually crusty John Tortorella finding out that his "my way or the highway" approach didn't work as well as he thought on the 2004 Lightning.

The first star: Jonathan Drouin – Uh, Jonathan? What are you doing Jonathan?

(For the curious, an explanation of what was happening can be found here.)

The NHL Actually Got Something Right

Holy crap, you guys, the NHL had a trade this week.

And not just some piddling little move, where some guy you'd never heard of gets shipped out in a contract dump. This was a genuine blockbuster, one involving three teams, two first-line centers and a whole bunch of picks and prospects. Matt Duchene is an Ottawa Senator. Kyle Turris is a Nashville Predator. And the Colorado Avalanche picked up a whole bunch of stuff.

And maybe the best part of the whole story is that all three GMs involved had to think outside the box to make it happen. As regular readers know, I don't have much time for modern-day GMs, most of whom spend more time making excuses than doing their jobs. The NHL has slowly morphed into a league run by risk-averse front offices who are terrified of making a mistake, and would rather ride their loser point-inflated records to a playoff bubble than actually swing for the fences and try to win. Well, fair's fair. If we're going to hammer away GMs who hide under their desks, we have to applaud three guys who didn't.

It's no surprise to see David Poile show up in a major trade. He's always been one of the exceptions to the "timid GMs" rule, having pulled off several blockbusters over the years. He's well into his fourth decade as an NHL GM, and he's not here to screw around. We'll have more on him in a bit, but for now let's just state the obvious: David Poile rules.

Joe Sakic, at least as a GM, has not ruled. He's been ripped pretty much constantly, here and elsewhere, and seemed to have made a mess of the Duchene situation. But he largely salvaged it with this deal, which is getting rave reviews from an Avs perspective. And he did it by getting away from that old GM staple of insisting on a player, a pick and a prospect in every trade. We've had some fun with that whole concept around these parts before, but it's become a crutch for GMs under the gun to make a move. When you hear the guy in charge of your favorite team mindlessly repeating "a player, a pick and a prospect" to friendly media members, there's a good chance you're screwed.

Sakic seemed to be heading down that road. But in the end, he understood that what matters in a trade like this is getting as much value as possible, and that can come in different shapes and sizes. Sakic didn't get a single player back in the deal who comes close to making up for the loss of Duchene today. But that's OK—he got the value where he could, even if that meant veering away from what he'd originally wanted. And now he has assets he can flip in other deals to get better right now, if that's what he chooses to do with them.

That brings us to the real star of the deal, Senators' GM Pierre Dorion. Nobody stuck their neck out further to make this deal than Dorion, who's been kicking around front offices since the 90s but has only been a GM for a little over a year. He doesn't have Poile's resume or Sakic's name value. If things don't go well in Ottawa, there's no guarantee he gets another shot somewhere else. If you could excuse anyone for being more focused on playing it safe and covering their behind instead of taking chances, Dorion's the guy.

But he didn't. Not only was he the driving force behind making the deal happen, but he took on far more immediate risk than anyone else in the move. Strip away the three-team aspect, and this trade is admirably old school in its simplicity for the Senators. They had a guy. They saw some other team's guy. They decided that the other guy was better than their guy. And so they made a trade to get him.

For Ottawa, this wasn't about balancing the present vs. the future. It wasn't even about dealing from a strong position to shore up a weak one. This was them saying "Matt Duchene is better than Kyle Turris, and we'll pay a premium to prove it." We won't really know how well Sakic really did on this deal for years. Poile has a window of a few years to win a Cup to make his end pay off. But Dorion will be judged immediately, because everyone is going to spend the rest of the season comparing Turris and Duchene on a game-by-game basis. If the Senators screwed up, we're going to know about it, and soon.

It took some serious nerve to pull the trigger here, for all three teams but especially Ottawa. Fans of those teams can draw their own conclusions about the deal, and whether they feel better or worse about their outlook going forward. But for the rest of us, it was refreshing to see that somebody out there is still willing to put on their big kid pants and do their job. It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out.

And in the meantime, let this be yet another reminder: When the GM of your favorite team makes a well-rehearsed frowny face into a camera and starts mumbling about how you just can't trade anymore these days, he's lying to you. Blockbuster deals aren't dead in the NHL. They just take some hard work, a little creativity, and some guts.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

The Duchene deal felt like the sort of deal you'd have seen back in the 1990s, when three-team deals were relatively common. So for this week's obscure player, let's go with a guy who was included in quite possibly the biggest three-way trade in NHL history: defenseman Brian Benning.

Benning was taken by the Blues in the second round of the 1984 draft, one pick after legendary Maple Leafs blueliner Todd Gill. In a weird historical quirk, that made Benning the first Blues draft pick in two years—the team had no-showed the 1983 draft, and traded their first-round pick in 1984. Benning got a cup of coffee in St. Louis that year and then spent a season with the Canadian national team before earning a full-time NHL job in 1986. As a rookie, he finished fourth in Calder voting, one point ahead of Pokey Reddick.

He was dealt to the Kings for a draft pick in 1989, and stuck around until 1992, when he was traded again. Twice, technically. Benning was part of a massive three-way trade between the Kings, Penguins and Flyers that saw Paul Coffey come to L.A., Mark Recchi go to the Flyers, and Rick Tocchet head to the Penguins, among many other pieces. It was a jaw-dropping deal, one in which the defending champion Pens shipped out two future Hall-of-Famers in an effort to get tougher, and it saw Benning make a brief stop in Pittsburgh before ending up in Philadelphia. (He'd cross paths with the Penguins again a few months later, when he speared Mario Lemieux.)

He'd spend a year with the Flyers before heading onto Edmonton and later Florida. In all, he played ten NHL seasons for five teams, recording 296 points before retiring in 1995. And yes, the name probably sounds familiar to today's fans. His son Matt is currently a defenseman with the Oilers, and his brother Jim is the GM of the Canucks. Jim has yet to pull off any three-way blockbusters of his own, although if he needs any advice on how to make one work he won't have to look far.

Be It Resolved

This was a tough and divisive week in the world of politics. It's normal and even healthy for two sides to disagree on the issues. But this week, the debate transcended mere right and wrong. Instead, we found one side unable or unwilling to acknowledge even the plain facts sitting right in front of us, leaving the rest of us to wonder if we're still living in a political world where concepts like "facts" and "truth" even matter anymore.

I'm referring, of course, to the debate over whether Troy Crowder won his fight with Bob Probert. Yes, in what has to stand as just about the ultimate "Meanwhile, in Canada" story of our time, Ontario politics was momentarily embroiled in a dispute over a fight from an NHL game in 1990. This really happened.

Here's the backstory: Troy Crowder is running as a candidate for Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party in the Sudbury riding. Crowder is also a former NHL tough guy, one who played 150 games, scored nine goals, and logged 433 penalty minutes. At a speech, PC leader Patrick Brown said this about Crowder: "He actually as a rookie beat up Bob Probert."

That's quite a claim, given that Probert almost never lost. And the province's Liberal Party quickly jumped on it, emailing out an instant fact check. Their conclusion? "Fact: Troy Crowder did not fight Bob Probert in his rookie year. It’s also debatable who won when they actually did fight."

Two problems here.

One, Crowder certainly did fight Probert as a rookie. Three times, in fact. This one's forgivable, because you can see where the confusion comes in. The 1990-91 season wasn't Crowder's first in the NHL, as he'd played a handful of games in previous years. He was still technically a rookie in 1990, but sure, you can imagine someone who's not completely fluent with the ins and outs of Calder Trophy eligibility rules getting this wrong.

But as for whether Crowder beat Probert…well, just watch.

That's a clear win, almost certainly the most decisive defeat of Probert's career. And it was big news at the time, since Probert was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the league. It was one of two high-profile defeats Probert would suffer to young challengers of the era, coming a few years before the better-remembered loss to Tie Domi.

As with Domi, Probert won the eventual rematch handily to regain his title. But that doesn't change the fact that Crowder absolutely won the first bout. (He also won a big free agent deal to join the Red Wings and team with Probert a year later.) So be it resolved: Crowder did beat Probert, and the Liberal fact checkers were dead wrong here.

So how did all this end? In the most Canadian way possible: With an apology.

See? That wasn't so hard. If there are any other countries out there that may be struggling with the whole "telling the truth" thing, there's probably some sort of lesson here. So smarten up and learn it, before we send Troy Crowder down there to start smacking people in the head.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

So yeah, David Poile made yet another big trade and is pretty much the best GM in the NHL right now.

Yes, yes, hockey fans around the world are thinking, that may be true. But how can you make this about the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Don’t worry, gentle reader. I've got you covered.

It's the 1997 offseason, and the Maple Leafs need a new GM after firing Cliff Fletcher. Team president Ken Dryden is leading the search, and he's already been turned down by Bob Gainey. Now he reportedly has his sights set on a new target: recently fired Capitals GM David Poile. That seems like a slam dunk. What could go wrong?

"David Poile has apparently pulled out." Oh. Well OK then.

We learn that Gainey himself had recommended Poile, who we get a glimpse of from his Capitals days when he looked exactly the same as he does now. Seriously, it was 20 years ago and he hasn't aged at all. Did he always look like that?

[sees photo of Poile and Cliff Fletcher from 1979] Wow. OK, guess not.

"Poile built the Capitals into a perennial contender, but never won a Stanley Cup." Dude, we heard you says "Capitals," there was no need to fill in the rest of that sentence.

At this point, we get Dryden going into a weird tangent about how he needs to be able to picture the new GM lifting the Stanley Cup. "If we can't imagine that, that's not the right person." Uh, he does know that GMs don't actually get to do a lap with the Cup, right? Somebody should let him know, because otherwise he's never going to hire anyone.

[Yes, that was ironic foreshadowing, thank you for catching that.]

The whole Cup angle seems designed to make it seem like the Leafs didn't want Poile. The real story is apparently that they offered him the job, pending some final contract details. But as he explained this summer, the expansion Predators called with a last-minute offer. His father, hockey Hall-of-Famer Bud Poile, advised him to take the Nashville job instead, and the Leafs were left hanging.

We end with the suggestion that the Leafs may just give the job to interim GM Bill Watters, based on his strong work signing free agents in the offseason. The Leafs' 1997 free agent haul included Scott Pearson, Tom Pederson, David Cooper, and Daniel Marois, in case you were wondering.

So that's the story of how David Poile turned down the Maple Leafs and wound up in Nashville, where the rest has been history. But as for the Leafs…look, it's against protocol to try to squeeze in a second video around here, but I have to urge you to watch this follow-up, which covers a lot of the same ground but also includes Dryden's, um, interesting view on what it takes to be a Leafs GM.

youtube

I mean…what? Was that how he sold the job to the candidates he was interviewing? "In theory this job can be good, but it will also make you sad and miserable and you will hate it and will regret your decision every day until you die. Oh, and there's a ping pong table in the break room."

Also: "Their standard of excellence, historically a high one." Yeah, I don't know why they cut over to talking about some other franchise either, that was weird.

So after all of that, who do you think Dryden hired at the end of his summer-long search. If you guessed "nobody," you win. After missing out on various choices, Dryden gave up and appointed himself to the job.

Two decades, several big trades, and a Stanley Cup final appearance later, I think it might have all worked out pretty well for the Predators and for Poile. Call me crazy, but I can even picture him taking a lap with the Cup someday.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown. DGB Grab Bag: Torts Owned, An Actual Trade, And Arguing Over a 27-Year-Old Fight published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 6 years

Text

DGB Grab Bag: Torts Owned, An Actual Trade, And Arguing Over a 27-Year-Old Fight

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Paul Maurice – He’s either unhappy with a call, or he’s doing an impression of me every time I check in on the comment section of something I wrote.

The second star: John Tortorella – Speaking of angry coaches, here’s the perpetually crusty John Tortorella finding out that his “my way or the highway” approach didn’t work as well as he thought on the 2004 Lightning.

The first star: Jonathan Drouin – Uh, Jonathan? What are you doing Jonathan?

(For the curious, an explanation of what was happening can be found here.)

The NHL Actually Got Something Right

Holy crap, you guys, the NHL had a trade this week.

And not just some piddling little move, where some guy you’d never heard of gets shipped out in a contract dump. This was a genuine blockbuster, one involving three teams, two first-line centers and a whole bunch of picks and prospects. Matt Duchene is an Ottawa Senator. Kyle Turris is a Nashville Predator. And the Colorado Avalanche picked up a whole bunch of stuff.

And maybe the best part of the whole story is that all three GMs involved had to think outside the box to make it happen. As regular readers know, I don’t have much time for modern-day GMs, most of whom spend more time making excuses than doing their jobs. The NHL has slowly morphed into a league run by risk-averse front offices who are terrified of making a mistake, and would rather ride their loser point-inflated records to a playoff bubble than actually swing for the fences and try to win. Well, fair’s fair. If we’re going to hammer away GMs who hide under their desks, we have to applaud three guys who didn’t.

It’s no surprise to see David Poile show up in a major trade. He’s always been one of the exceptions to the “timid GMs” rule, having pulled off several blockbusters over the years. He’s well into his fourth decade as an NHL GM, and he’s not here to screw around. We’ll have more on him in a bit, but for now let’s just state the obvious: David Poile rules.

Joe Sakic, at least as a GM, has not ruled. He’s been ripped pretty much constantly, here and elsewhere, and seemed to have made a mess of the Duchene situation. But he largely salvaged it with this deal, which is getting rave reviews from an Avs perspective. And he did it by getting away from that old GM staple of insisting on a player, a pick and a prospect in every trade. We’ve had some fun with that whole concept around these parts before, but it’s become a crutch for GMs under the gun to make a move. When you hear the guy in charge of your favorite team mindlessly repeating “a player, a pick and a prospect” to friendly media members, there’s a good chance you’re screwed.

Sakic seemed to be heading down that road. But in the end, he understood that what matters in a trade like this is getting as much value as possible, and that can come in different shapes and sizes. Sakic didn’t get a single player back in the deal who comes close to making up for the loss of Duchene today. But that’s OK—he got the value where he could, even if that meant veering away from what he’d originally wanted. And now he has assets he can flip in other deals to get better right now, if that’s what he chooses to do with them.

That brings us to the real star of the deal, Senators’ GM Pierre Dorion. Nobody stuck their neck out further to make this deal than Dorion, who’s been kicking around front offices since the 90s but has only been a GM for a little over a year. He doesn’t have Poile’s resume or Sakic’s name value. If things don’t go well in Ottawa, there’s no guarantee he gets another shot somewhere else. If you could excuse anyone for being more focused on playing it safe and covering their behind instead of taking chances, Dorion’s the guy.

But he didn’t. Not only was he the driving force behind making the deal happen, but he took on far more immediate risk than anyone else in the move. Strip away the three-team aspect, and this trade is admirably old school in its simplicity for the Senators. They had a guy. They saw some other team’s guy. They decided that the other guy was better than their guy. And so they made a trade to get him.

For Ottawa, this wasn’t about balancing the present vs. the future. It wasn’t even about dealing from a strong position to shore up a weak one. This was them saying “Matt Duchene is better than Kyle Turris, and we’ll pay a premium to prove it.” We won’t really know how well Sakic really did on this deal for years. Poile has a window of a few years to win a Cup to make his end pay off. But Dorion will be judged immediately, because everyone is going to spend the rest of the season comparing Turris and Duchene on a game-by-game basis. If the Senators screwed up, we’re going to know about it, and soon.

And in the meantime, let this be yet another reminder: When the GM of your favorite team makes a well-rehearsed frowny face into a camera and starts mumbling about how you just can’t trade anymore these days, he’s lying to you. Blockbuster deals aren’t dead in the NHL. They just take some hard work, a little creativity, and some guts.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

The Duchene deal felt like the sort of deal you’d have seen back in the 1990s, when three-team deals were relatively common. So for this week’s obscure player, let’s go with a guy who was included in quite possibly the biggest three-way trade in NHL history: defenseman Brian Benning.

He was dealt to the Kings for a draft pick in 1989, and stuck around until 1992, when he was traded again. Twice, technically. Benning was part of a massive three-way trade between the Kings, Penguins and Flyers that saw Paul Coffey come to L.A., Mark Recchi go to the Flyers, and Rick Tocchet head to the Penguins, among many other pieces. It was a jaw-dropping deal, one in which the defending champion Pens shipped out two future Hall-of-Famers in an effort to get tougher, and it saw Benning make a brief stop in Pittsburgh before ending up in Philadelphia. (He’d cross paths with the Penguins again a few months later, when he speared Mario Lemieux.)

He’d spend a year with the Flyers before heading onto Edmonton and later Florida. In all, he played ten NHL seasons for five teams, recording 296 points before retiring in 1995. And yes, the name probably sounds familiar to today’s fans. His son Matt is currently a defenseman with the Oilers, and his brother Jim is the GM of the Canucks. Jim has yet to pull off any three-way blockbusters of his own, although if he needs any advice on how to make one work he won’t have to look far.

Be It Resolved

This was a tough and divisive week in the world of politics. It’s normal and even healthy for two sides to disagree on the issues. But this week, the debate transcended mere right and wrong. Instead, we found one side unable or unwilling to acknowledge even the plain facts sitting right in front of us, leaving the rest of us to wonder if we’re still living in a political world where concepts like “facts” and “truth” even matter anymore.

I’m referring, of course, to the debate over whether Troy Crowder won his fight with Bob Probert. Yes, in what has to stand as just about the ultimate “Meanwhile, in Canada” story of our time, Ontario politics was momentarily embroiled in a dispute over a fight from an NHL game in 1990. This really happened.

Here’s the backstory: Troy Crowder is running as a candidate for Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party in the Sudbury riding. Crowder is also a former NHL tough guy, one who played 150 games, scored nine goals, and logged 433 penalty minutes. At a speech, PC leader Patrick Brown said this about Crowder: “He actually as a rookie beat up Bob Probert.”

That’s quite a claim, given that Probert almost never lost. And the province’s Liberal Party quickly jumped on it, emailing out an instant fact check. Their conclusion? “Fact: Troy Crowder did not fight Bob Probert in his rookie year. It’s also debatable who won when they actually did fight.”

Two problems here.

One, Crowder certainly did fight Probert as a rookie. Three times, in fact. This one’s forgivable, because you can see where the confusion comes in. The 1990-91 season wasn’t Crowder’s first in the NHL, as he’d played a handful of games in previous years. He was still technically a rookie in 1990, but sure, you can imagine someone who’s not completely fluent with the ins and outs of Calder Trophy eligibility rules getting this wrong.

But as for whether Crowder beat Probert…well, just watch.

That’s a clear win, almost certainly the most decisive defeat of Probert’s career. And it was big news at the time, since Probert was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the league. It was one of two high-profile defeats Probert would suffer to young challengers of the era, coming a few years before the better-remembered loss to Tie Domi.

As with Domi, Probert won the eventual rematch handily to regain his title. But that doesn’t change the fact that Crowder absolutely won the first bout. (He also won a big free agent deal to join the Red Wings and team with Probert a year later.) So be it resolved: Crowder did beat Probert, and the Liberal fact checkers were dead wrong here.

So how did all this end? In the most Canadian way possible: With an apology.

See? That wasn’t so hard. If there are any other countries out there that may be struggling with the whole “telling the truth” thing, there’s probably some sort of lesson here. So smarten up and learn it, before we send Troy Crowder down there to start smacking people in the head.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

So yeah, David Poile made yet another big trade and is pretty much the best GM in the NHL right now.

Yes, yes, hockey fans around the world are thinking, that may be true. But how can you make this about the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Don’t worry, gentle reader. I’ve got you covered.

It’s the 1997 offseason, and the Maple Leafs need a new GM after firing Cliff Fletcher. Team president Ken Dryden is leading the search, and he’s already been turned down by Bob Gainey. Now he reportedly has his sights set on a new target: recently fired Capitals GM David Poile. That seems like a slam dunk. What could go wrong?

“David Poile has apparently pulled out.” Oh. Well OK then.

[sees photo of Poile and Cliff Fletcher from 1979] Wow. OK, guess not.

“Poile built the Capitals into a perennial contender, but never won a Stanley Cup.” Dude, we heard you says “Capitals,” there was no need to fill in the rest of that sentence.

At this point, we get Dryden going into a weird tangent about how he needs to be able to picture the new GM lifting the Stanley Cup. “If we can’t imagine that, that’s not the right person.” Uh, he does know that GMs don’t actually get to do a lap with the Cup, right? Somebody should let him know, because otherwise he’s never going to hire anyone.

[Yes, that was ironic foreshadowing, thank you for catching that.]

The whole Cup angle seems designed to make it seem like the Leafs didn’t want Poile. The real story is apparently that they offered him the job, pending some final contract details. But as he explained this summer, the expansion Predators called with a last-minute offer. His father, hockey Hall-of-Famer Bud Poile, advised him to take the Nashville job instead, and the Leafs were left hanging.

We end with the suggestion that the Leafs may just give the job to interim GM Bill Watters, based on his strong work signing free agents in the offseason. The Leafs’ 1997 free agent haul included Scott Pearson, Tom Pederson, David Cooper, and Daniel Marois, in case you were wondering.

So that’s the story of how David Poile turned down the Maple Leafs and wound up in Nashville, where the rest has been history. But as for the Leafs…look, it’s against protocol to try to squeeze in a second video around here, but I have to urge you to watch this follow-up, which covers a lot of the same ground but also includes Dryden’s, um, interesting view on what it takes to be a Leafs GM.

youtube

I mean…what? Was that how he sold the job to the candidates he was interviewing? “In theory this job can be good, but it will also make you sad and miserable and you will hate it and will regret your decision every day until you die. Oh, and there’s a ping pong table in the break room.”

Also: “Their standard of excellence, historically a high one.” Yeah, I don’t know why they cut over to talking about some other franchise either, that was weird.

So after all of that, who do you think Dryden hired at the end of his summer-long search. If you guessed “nobody,” you win. After missing out on various choices, Dryden gave up and appointed himself to the job.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown. DGB Grab Bag: Torts Owned, An Actual Trade, And Arguing Over a 27-Year-Old Fight syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

0 notes