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hellyeahheroes · 2 years

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Read (and Steal) Like a Writer: 10 Tips For the Very Beginners

my brithday is soon. I’m feeling old and filled with regrets. Some of those are “wish I learned so many things early”. So here are few tips for would be creators who are just starting and still fret about things like “originjality” or “finding inspiration” that I wish I learned or realized 20 years ago.

1. Read Within Your Genre

It is my belief that no writer wants to create a cliche copy of someone else’s work. They all want to create something new and innovative. Then why do we have so many run off the mill, indistinguishible copies of big works in each given genre, just with names changed? I believe it’s because many writers do not read enough works in that genre to truly know what has been already done. If you want to write an epic fantasy like Tolkien, you aren’t competting only with Tolkien. You’re competting with Guy Gavariel Kay’s Fionavarn Tapestry, Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, David Edding’s Belgariad, Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles, Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar and Terry Brook’s Shannara. You need to know what they have done to distuinguish your own work from them. Do not get daunted and see them as competition, but as predecessors who treaded this road before. See their mistakes as warning signs, left by them for those who follow. Look at their own inspirations, if possible. Compare common threads and elements, then think why are they reccuring, what have the writers done with them and whenever there is anything new you could add to conversation.

2. Read Outside Your Comfort Zone

Life is not divided into genres. The whole concept of a genre is most useful for libraries and bookstores, so that good people working there know which shelf to put a particular book, for customers to easily find things like ones they’ve read and enjoyed before. And even then there is a reason why most don’t bother making separate sections for fantasy and science-fiction. That isn’t to say genres are meaningless, they do help you reach the right audience. But chances are that your story will be more than just one genre. It won’t be just “fantasy” but “fantasy romance” or “fantasy tragedy” or “fantasy political thriller”. Or “fantasy tragedy using a framework of a political thriller with a big romance subplot that is also a musical”. Read anything you think may be even remotely useful. Detective story, romance, political thriller, an RPG book, an essay about string theory. As a matter of fact, treat “read” as a shortword for all kinds of experiences of fiction. One of greatest examples of epic fantasy in last two decades was Avatar the Last Airbender, a cartoon.

Everything you absorb is going to either provide you with an inspiration or teach you something about writing. Even if sometimes it may take a form of “they completely wasted this idea, I can do this better!”. Even garbage or works of writers fundamentally opposed to you in worldview can have valuable lessons. Thorugh they will likely teach you things vastly different than what the author intended. For example, take a professional editor and right-wing poundit Ben Shapiro. His book True Alliegance has taught me a very important lesson: a writer, who does their own editing, has a fucking moron for an editor.

3. Put That Book Down

All the advice about reading can easily lead into a trap where you think that you have to read huge swats of material before you even pick a pen or open the word document. You may end with a huge reading list - the great works within your chosen genre, collection of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle for the investigation part opf the story, non-fiction books about relative time pieroid. And when it comes time to write you can think to yourself “I can write my own story. I’ve read Tolkien, Eddings, Kay, Weis & Hickman, Brooks, Williams and Feist, I watched Avatar and played first Dragon Age, I’m read to write my own...hey, people are really talking up how revolutionary this Brandon Sanderson guy is, maybe I should read him first? And everyone is saying this Amphibia cartoon has great fantasy narrative...”

The reading part is not a process that just finishes on its own. The list of things to read is infinite and will only grow because great works will never stop coming for as long as human race exists. At some point you need to grow that confidence to just put down that never-ending pile of books and games, open that fucking document and start writing. In fact, put that book you’re reading down, close this tab and write right now. Come back to read rest of the list once you finish. You will thank me later.

4. Do Not Consume Poison

No matter how good and well-respected a work of fiction is, there is probably an equally good one out there that is not going to hurt you. If you think that there is something about Lolita, Breaking Bad or Planescape: Torment that is going to trigger you for any reason, don’t force them upon yourself. We all have enough trauma, you’re not doing anyone a favor by tearing off your old scabs and scratching the open wounds, less alone yourself. You do not owe it to anyone. Whatever good these titles could teach you does not outweights potentially scarring yourself. That dream project of yours is neither worth sacrificing your mental health, nor gonna write itself if you do yourself too much damage. Your writing is only going to suffer with your mental health, not improve.

5. Don’t Fear The Stupid Idea

Some of the great works started with an idea that in theory should never work. Amphibia started as Matt Braly’s attempt to mash together Dragon Ball Z and Pepper Ann. Jim Butcher turned a bet that he could never make a story out of “The Lost Roman Legion meets Pokemon” work into a best-selling Codex Alera series.

If you do look for inspiration in other people’s work, your mind will come with ideas of mixing the elements up. They may sound silly on paper. It is your job to polish and craft them into something that works. “X Meets Y” is just a starting point. Both the works I listed are so much more than just the two base components of the initial idea. Don’t be afraid of merging the ideas either. In fact, throw everything you have into one cauldron, cook it up until it looks like a consistent story soup and fish out the parts that didn’t dissolve into it.

6. Simpsons Did It

Do not fret about originaly of your work. Every story, trope, plot point or character concept has been told in some way before. You would be surprised how seemingly “original” works are actually parts of a chain of dialogue of sorts - different creators taking from a work that was already deliviative. Family Guy is just the Simpsons if they put empasis on quantity of jokes over quality. But the Simpsons are just the Flinstones with social commentary instead of dinosaurs. And Flinstones themselves are just the Honeymooners with dinosaurs in place of jokes about domestic abuse.

Just because someone else has done it doesn’t mean you should abbandon your idea. Hell, don’t be afraid of making your story “just story X but with Y”. Neil Gaiman’s the Graveyard Book is, by design, just the Jungle Book, but with undead. The Magnificent Seven is literally the Magnificent Seven Samurai but with cowboys. Does that make either of them less amazing? Not at all.

7. If You Steal, Give It a Paintjob.

If you are inspired by a something, be it from another work or real life, you cannot just jam it into your story. You need to think how does it fit your world and what are it’s interactions with other elements. The character you copy should be a starting point from which you modify, shaving off everything you do not need, adding new elements, or even parts ripped from other stories, if you feel that’s what they need. Then sew it together and start again until it has brand new and enteirly functional shape. Dragonlance’s Lord Soth and Gundam’s Char Aznable both started as an attempt to put Darth Vader into a story very different from Star Wars. But by the time writers were done with them, they both become their own entities, with their own backstories and personalities, distinct from Vader and each other. Hell, both inspried a ton of copycats on their own.

8. Anger Is Fuel Too

I briefly touched on it in second point, but it needs an elbaoration. A lot is being said about the power of stories we love inspiring us to create new ones. But the opposite is also true. There is nothing wrong in writing out of anger and bitterness, out of the frustration with another story.

A lot of people tend to dismiss it as childish reaction to stories. I disagree. A true, genique anger is not born out of frivolity. If you are pissed about writer wasting a story potential, you probably are passionate about themes that could be explored with that premise. If you think a character has been done dirty, they probaly represent things that resonate with you on some level. If you think message of a story is harmful, you likely care about well-being of people who may be affected by it. Dig deep enough and you are likely to find meaningful topics under the source of your anger. Tap into that. As long as you have something to say, it will ring true.

9. Fanfic is Great

A lot of people tend to dismiss fanfiction as somewhat “lesser”, as if it wasn’t written by many professional writers. Neil Gaiman wrote a Chronolicles of Narnia fanfic, Snow White fanfic and a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos crossover. As a matter of fact, any writer who ever used Cthulhu Mythos wrote a fanfiction. Ditto for any character from any Mythology, including Judeo-Christian, Arthurian Legend, Dracula etc. A lot of what we actually call parts of Mythology could have been written hundreds of years after original creators passed. A number of Greek myths could have been written by Romans, some scholars theorize myth of Ragnarok was a Christian invention and Lancelot was added to Arthurian legend by a French guy who wanted to see all those Brits getting their asses kicked by a French guy.

So do not shoot down fanfiction, no matter how weird it looks to you. Go and write that buddy-cop rivals-to-friends-to-lovers slowburn between Boromir and sans undertale, it’s as valid as all these award-winning stories where someone made Snow White a vampire. And if anyone tells you one idea is in any way dumber than the other, I’m gonna fight them in the parking lot. And if you think your story is good enough, change all names and try to get it published. Won’t be the first, second or last book we got that way.

10. Fanfic is Not Flawless

That being said, there is a trap that befalls writers trained on fanfiction, as try to move their skills onto original work. Modern fanfic is constructed on the idea it is read by people who already are heavily invested in this world and characters. We come in knowing who these people are and we already have emotional connection to them. As such many fanfics can skip “saving the cat” part, the one where they establish why should anyone give a fuck about the protagonist. We give a fuck because it’s Blorbo and his shows made us give a fuck. I have seen way too many writers move from fanfic to original fiction and utterly fail to realize they no longer are writing about Blorbo and no one is gonna give a fuck about Blorwalski the Original Character, unless the writer put a work to make them.

-Admin

#writing advice #writing #my writing #promised myself to finish one like these before birthday #so here it is.

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edwardelricsrightarm · 3 years

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"A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something else in return, but once you have overcome it and made it your own...you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart." - Edward Elric

In honor of disability month and the FMA 20 year anniversary I wanted to address some Thoughts™️ about the series.

It's not often you see a disabled protagonist in media where their disability is integral to the story without taking up their entire character, even more so with anime. Yet, Fullmetal Alchemist has not just one disabled Protagonist, but two. The Elric Brothers are an exemplary representation of disability in media that I find myself reflecting on often as a disabled person myself. If you haven't completed the manga or Brotherhood, skip this as it will be brimming with spoilers.

(Mangahood will be my point of reference because while 03 is good on its own merits it's not as fresh within my immediate memory, and I am far less familiar with it. Keep this in mind, I've watched FMAB 10 and a half times whereas I've finished 03 only once years ago.)

The story highlights their disabilities immediately, Edward being a double amputee and Alphonse being without his ENTIRE body, only having the senses of proprioception, sight, and hearing left. Yet, despite this being key to the story and an integral part of their characterization, it is only one facet of their motivations and doesn't take center in the narrative, which is refreshing. It's not inherently negative to make a narrative centered on the characters' disabilities, but often this model of a story goes very wrong very fast and starts to feel hollow (no pun intended). FMA avoids this by making their disabilities a clear part of the plot and their motivations without allowing it to consume the entire story, so the Elric Brothers don't suffer the "my disability is all of my character" problem that many disabled characters are relegated to in a vast portion of media, all while being strong and competent.

Recap:

The brothers wished to revive their mother, but their good intentions cannot change the atrocity of their mistake, Truth makes this abundantly clear from the start. Edward loses his leg first, a punishment for "stepping" into God's shoes and transgressing the place of humans in their world. Alphonse loses his entire body, unable to feel any warmth or simple comforts like food and rest, when all he wanted was to feel the warmth and comfort of his mother's embrace again. At first, Alphonse's entire being is consumed by the gate, but Edward acts immediately, refusing to lose his little brother and refusing to allow his arrogance in this plan to cause his brother's death for only following his lead. Edward gives his right arm to have the gate give back Alphonse's soul, and stated clearly in his panic that he'd give his entire self to save Alphonse if that's what it would take, but Truth took his dominant arm only, showing something akin to mercy, although the character of Truth is capriciously strict and hard to describe as "merciful".

Through giving up his right arm, Edward regains his Right Hand Man, his little brother and best friend. His only remaining family, who he feels responsible for protecting in the absence of their parents. He felt immediately that he'd made a grave mistake, instantly full of regret as he realized the gate had taken his brother. In that moment he was willing to give anything to take it back and undo the suffering his arrogance caused his brother, yet Alphonse was still to suffer more to come. Ed tied Alphonse's disembodied soul to one of Hohenheim's collected suits of armor, managing to at least keep his brother alive in some way. One could say that Alphonse's punishment functioned as a secondary punishment for Edward, showing him how easily his hubris could have cost him what he has left in his obsession with regaining what they'd lost, their mother. A very clear symbolic reminder of the weight of his actions and how he'd misled his brother in his own naive ignorance. Even in giving another limb away to drag his brother's soul back out of the gate, he couldn't offer enough to bring him back intact. Thus is the law of equivalent exchange.

Now that we've reviewed some of that basic symbolism and the motifs the story draws upon with limbs and body parts in relation to characters, let's move on to each individual brother and break it down, shall we?

Edward Elric is a very realistic protagonist, this is one thing a majority of us familiar with this series can agree upon. He feels like a believable teen boy, with layers of complexity to his character while also showing arrogance and immaturity that is unsurprising at his age. He expresses unwillingness to kill and avoidance of unjust violence from the beginning, and has a strong moral code after the ordeal of committing the taboo.

In some characters his cocky personality would typically become grating, yet the story explains in itself why he is this way, then builds upon this to develop him into an incredibly mature character who is willing to admit when he's absolutely wrong and adapts to new information and context for the crisis unfolding around him as it comes, even if he remains crass. This arrogance is shown from the start to be a manifestation of insecurity, self loathing, and repressed guilt. Edward is a logic driven person, he has a very unique thought process, which is where my interpretation of him as autistic comes in. Edward's awkward social demeanor, somewhat abrasive and cold approach to some, and his trouble coping with nonsensical societal structures all stand out in this way. Furthermore he clearly shows hyperfixation, hyperactivity, special interest, and infodumping behaviors that are all too familiar. He's picky with food (*cough* the milk thing), has very little filter and speaks his mind bluntly even if this can warrant conflicting responses, yet at the same time struggles with vulnerable emotions, and he is frustrated when his own routine or itinerary are interrupted by forces beyond his control. All of these things Scream autism with comorbid ADHD. Many traits are shared between the brothers, and I'm quite certain they're both on the autism spectrum based on behavioral patterns. Neurodivergence aside, Edward's physical disabilities are undeniable.

Despite his bratty persona, Edward is fundamentally kind and uncharacteristically gentle and soft around the edges for a shonen protagonist in many ways. He cries openly on many occasions even if he struggles talking about his trauma and burdens in words at times, he feels pain, grief, and compassion so intensely it throws him into action on a regular basis in the narrative. In this way he's also a fantastic example of non-toxic masculinity (though in other ways he has displayed more toxic traits, he's just a kid). He acts on his heart, even if he's led by his mind and logic in most things. His humanity, value for life, and care for others will always win over his logic, and he shows a sense of personal responsibility for doing the right thing even if it harms him in the process. Ed is clearly shown having ghost pains in his lost limbs which is honestly an interesting detail to include, I don't think I've ever seen that aspect of amputation shown in media aside from FMA. It's also shown that when Ed's automail arm breaks this is a HUGE problem for him, but he's also shown to be very good at working around this in difficult circumstances. He doesn't become completely helpless, even if majorly weakened.

Alphonse is an extremely lovable and compassionate boy, brimming with altruism and care for others. Even in his noncorporeal state he pursues a better future and he's not helpless by any stretch. Edward clearly states Alphonse is the superior fighter for example, and it's not just because of his armor body being so large. He's *talented*, that's a fact. Al is every bit as clever and capable as Ed, moreso in some ways, and I love that about his character *because* he's so clearly disabled. He has no sense of pain, he is completely incapable of sleeping, he can't eat, can't relax or find comfort, he can only exist and think. This causes him to overthink in all his time alone, this is debilitating. He clearly is absolutely sick of the loneliness this causes, and he often feels helpless though he's not. He has doubts and fears that consume him in relation to his armor body, he questions his own personhood, even. Yet, Edward is stubborn and staunch in affirming that no matter what he's dealing with, he is fundamentally still a human being that is loved and irreplaceable. Alphonse is powerful and his body gives him some advantages, but it also sets him back, and the brothers know this even when others claim Alphonse's state is somehow a good thing. I have hEDS, a disability that comes with advantages as well as the major downsides, so I can understand and relate to Alphonse here. I too am told my disability is a boon because of flexibility and because I'm less likely to fracture bones, but I'm twice as likely to injure my ligaments and joints, which people ignore.

The brothers are both disabled, both flawed, both show weaknesses, but they are competent, determined, and strong in their own right. They are rounded characters that exist for more than to be pitied or condescended to by able bodied characters around them. They put their entire being in everything that they do no matter what that is, and they don't know the meaning of giving up. These traits that they're made of truly make them a shining example of disability in protagonists for others to look to for reference when writing their own disabled characters.

Even though by the end Edward has regained one limb and Al has regained his body, this also doesn't just deus ex machina reverse their disability or make it go away. It's clear that Alphonse's body is weak and has to be rehabilitated upon recovery, and Edward is still missing his leg and bears the scars and pieces of the port from his automail arm. They weren't suddenly made able bodied upon recovering these things, they reclaimed what was lost through struggle and grit, but the narrative didn't give the impression that their disability in itself was something to be fixed, which is important. They wanted to recover their bodies, but this doesn't erase the effects of their disability.

It was about Edward atoning for leading Alphonse into their mistake and saving his brother from suffering further, it was about them proving they can keep moving forward no matter what, not about getting rid of their disability in itself or putting themselves down because of the disabilities. This, to me, as a mentally and physically disabled viewer, is so important. They achieve their goal, but this doesn't in any way erase or undo the effects of their initial losses, they find ways to adapt and move on but they're still affected and still disabled. They always will be. That can be so important to see in comfort characters, and as a disabled individual who's had both brothers as comfort characters since I was a child, their impact on my own journey is surprisingly tangible for fiction.

#fmab #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma #edward elric #alphonse elric #elric brothers #character analysis #disability month #disability positivity #disabled #fma 20th anniversary

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monkey-network · 4 years

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Monkey here. You probably don't care at this point, but I wanted to offer my two cents on the #StevenUniverse fandom overall, this being an excerpt of something larger I have planned in the future. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about anyone specifically, nor revealing anything specific someone might’ve said, this is my just personal experience and comprehension. tranSITION...

...Now I’ve seen many talk about how the fandom can be this toxic brood and I can only with these people to an extent. I believe there’s always a minority of any media fandom that are those hardheaded folks while the rest are just enjoying it for what it is, making fanworks and the like; I can’t imagine the entire body of a community being the equivalent to the nazi party, especially ones about cartoons or games, it’s just impossible. But to be honest, that small minority I’ve mentioned of the SU fandom, while I won’t give names, they can definitely be the exhaustive vocal stain on a person’s investment. Believe me when I say I saw both ugly sides of the spectrum that comes with the investment in this show, equally annoying in their almost fascistic efforts to act like this show is more crucial than in reality.

The worst stans I’ve seen of SU are whom I consider the dick-suckers, the kind who felt pompous trying to shit talk about the genuine criticisms while offering little to no thought of their own, treating everything Sugar gave as irrefutable gold; they’re the textbook definition of the consoomer meme. It’s even more hilarious when I see some having to strawman explanations for why mistakes in the show weren’t actually mistakes, basically having to speak on the show’s behalf. There was one moment where I saw people jokingly comparing Rebecca Sugar to Mother Theresa and while it was just a joke, the fact that they did stuff like this to “own the crits” showed me that instead of trying to come off as the better, more reasonable fun side like a fan should, they pettily bitch about people they will never interact with and can’t fathom the idea of being consistently nuanced and not giving the outlandish hot takes of SU the attention they don’t need. Being fixated on something you love I can understand, but if you are adamant about believing what you love is the most perfect thing imaginable, not once questioning or speaking up on flaws you might’ve saw if you actually thought for more than your limited worth, that’s honestly sad I’m sorry. I enjoy SU, but I’m more than willing to see the critic’s perspective because that helps in appreciating what I do like about the show compared to what actually didn’t work fundamentally.

Then again, the crits from what I’ve seen can be no better, in fact they can be worse. I’m not saying all who criticized are bad or had no genuine points, but 8 times out of ten, the worst critics of this show will not only have their stupid and/or useless takes as well, but just have the ugliest personalities imaginable. And when I say the worst, they are whom I can’t help but consider as closeted sociopaths. People that will find everything and anything about SU to be upset about because it momentarily shrinks their insecurities and self-esteem issues. People who make this show out to be far worse than in reality based on personal projections and irreverent implications, and will make it their goal to come out as the right individual, whether or not their point actually held water. They will at best lambaste anyone who sincerely tries to counter their argument, call you a troll, make up ways to claim you as an unaware bigot, and/or use their identity as a shield and intimidation tactic saying you’re trying to talk over them when in reality it hardly will matter because they’ll happily block you anyways if they feel slightly threatened by you. The worst crits I’ve seen aren’t those that make ridiculous takes or make insensitive comments, but people that will gladly stab you in the back if you merely fall out of their line and try to claim it was your fault you got stabbed. They wanna come off as the ones speaking for those who agree with them already, but are basically doing nothing beyond wagging their fingers with their heads up their asses leaving Steven Universe rent free in their heads when truthfully, and I’ll discuss this later, they could’ve ditched this cartoon ages ago. Again, not to say they don’t offer points that are worth discussion and consideration, but they consider SU to be far more than it’s worth and come off as Kiwifarms or ED users in disguise, and I don’t mean that lightly.

The worst aspect about this community is the extreme moralistic policing I’ve seen towards people who are inoffensive and harmless at worst. They go after people that are hardly doing anything beyond niche fan content because they make them uncomfortable with superficial implications when they honestly could mind their business until actual threats show up like groomers and tricks. The SU fandom was the first to make me feel like some fans wanna tell other fans to just kill themselves because they did something they didn’t like but can’t outright for obvious reasons, so most see to circumvent that by vilifying their enemies as much as possible until it just happens on its own to potentially avoid the guilt. Sounds extremely morbid I know, but with all respect to the mentioned, how do we explain the incident with the artist Zamii? I know fiction can affect reality, but we namely gotta see fiction for what it is first, otherwise we’ll continue to make baseless presumptions to mob against blindly because the fictional ground we think of is the only one that should supposedly matter to everyone. I know this is the case for any fandom, but for a show about love and empathy, I see even the biggest of fans and haters are shameless hypocrites.

#steven universe #su #su fandom #su critical #fandoms #personal

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creative-type · 6 years

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How Fullmetal Alchemist Integrates Theme and Character

In a world where everything is subjective and polarizing opinions are the norm, where anti-fans and trolls take ‘love to hate’ a little too far, and where any story popular enough to become a pop-culture phenomenon is almost guaranteed to have a small-but-vocal minority that can’t see what all the fuss is about, I have never once seen, read, or heard of anyone say that Fullmetal Alchemist is a bad story.

None.

I’m sure they exist, but during the course of its run Fullmetal Alchemist reached the rarefied air of being almost universally beloved within the manga/anime community and being critically acclaimed as a damn good story. This success is wholly deserved. Arakawa was able to do something that a lot of shonen mangaka can’t, and as a result Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the best plotted, tightly written manga I have ever read.

Others have and will write about the philosophy Arakawa presents, point out the incredible amount of research she was able to cram into her series, extrapolate on the world building better than I could, but today I want to talk about something I’ve not seen anyone else touch on, and that’s how she integrates her themes into her characterization in order to really drive the point she’s trying to make home.

So what’s the main theme of Fullmetal Alchemist? Luckily Arakawa tells us directly on the next to last page of the series.

So let’s pick this apart a little bit

There is nothing to be learned in a lesson without pain, because you can’t gain anything without losing something in exchange. But when you overcome that pain and make the lesson your own you will obtain an infallible, irreplaceable fullmetal heart.

Now since this is a comic we also have to take the image itself into account. None of the photos are of just one person. Even the dog managed to have puppies. So we can assume that the idea of community is also integral to what Arakawa’s trying to say here (I hesitate to say friendship, because, well, not all of these guys are friends, lol). Also, during Edward’s final showdown with Truth he states he’ll make due without his alchemy so long as he’s still got other people he can rely on

And Truth’s response is basically “Ding ding! You finally get it! Go claim your prize at the door, I never want to see your ugly mug again.”

(I don’t know Japanese, but I’m pretty sure that’s an accurate translation)

At its barest bones Fullmetal Alchemist is about overcoming past mistakes with the help of others. This is all fine and dandy, but without proper execution they just become empty words pasted onto the final pages in a halfhearted attempt at depth. I think most people know of stories about sacrificial love where there is neither meaningful sacrifice nor a healthy portrayal of love, or stories about overcoming overwhelming odds through the power of hard work and effort where every victory is handed over on a silver platter of asspulls and accelerated training arcs. It doesn’t matter how good something sounds if the execution sucks.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the characters of Fullmetal Achemist and the mistakes they’ve made.

Fullmetal Alchemist: A Series of Terrible People Trying to Become Less Terrible

So this one is super easy. We’re presented with our lovable protagonists’s first major screw up on chapter 1, page 1

Oh look, it’s that quote again. Golly gee willikers, it’s almost as if Awakara knew what story she wanted to tell and integrated the main theme from the very beginning.

It’s not terribly uncommon for a manga to make some sort of thesis statement during their first chapter, but from the (few) long-running serializations I’ve read, the longer a series runs the more muddled these things get as far as theme and narrative go. It’s one of the difficult things about trying to keep an audience engaged over a long period of time.

Fullmetal Alchemist is more tightly plotted than most shonen affairs, but there’s another thing that helps it keep from undercutting its own themes, and that’s that it lets its protagonists actually make terrible mistakes, and more importantly makes them suffer because of it.

The Elric’s attempt to resurrect their mother is never treated as anything but a horrible thing that never should have happened. Yes, the boys’s plight is sympathetic and the loss of their mother after their father abandoned the family was a tragedy, but they were told time and time again that human transformation was not only impossible, but forbidden

Of course the Elric brothers don’t listen, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a series. It cannot be overstated that they purposefully kept their plans secret. They didn’t tell Winry or Izumi or any one else that they were going to try to revive their mother. Perhaps they don’t feel like they can talk to anyone about their grief, but there’s also a definite hubris involved. Edward and Alphonse -- but especially Edward -- think they can accomplish something “adults” have found impossible.

Perhaps if they had talked to Izumi more she would have been able to guide them through their time of grief, but it goes back to one of the main themes of the series: Camaraderie, doing things together, trusting your friends, community as apposed to isolation. The Elric brothers lock themselves away to their father’s dark library and perform illegal experiments in their basement -- hidden from anyone who might try to stop them.

And they suffer for it.

(Keep in mind the word ignorant. We’ll be coming back to it later.)

This in and of itself is good, but this message is hammered home by the supporting cast, especially the characters from the military. Remember Roy Mustang, suave up-and-comer who wants to completely reform the government from the inside out for the betterment of the people?

Complicit in genocide

His number 2, all around team mom, and rescuer of cute puppies?

Complicit in genocide

Husband of the year and eternal winner of Best Dad Joke?

Complicit in genocide

Human teddy bear, series aesthete, and walking meme generator?

Complicit in genocide

The beloved small-town doctor?

Complicit in genocide and human experimentation

The grumpy curmudgeon with a hidden heart of gold?

Say it with me now, complicit in freaking genocide.

That’s just looking at Armestrian military during the civil war. When the series jumps to the present day we see Scar has become a serial killer, while midway through the series Ling willingly becomes the vessel for an inhuman monster, nearly loosing his identity in the process. Hohenheim abandoned his family and was (unwittingly) complicit in a genocide of his own. In her grief Izumi tried to bring back her dead child via human transmutation, violating one of the fundamental laws of alchemy. The list goes on.

It is impossible to fully implement a theme of overcoming past mistakes without having characters be fully responsible for said mistakes. I feel like it’s a common trap to sacrifice likability for pathos. How easy would it have been to say that Ed and Al couldn’t be held responsible for their actions because they weren’t aware of the consequences, or had never been told that human transformation was forbidden? How easy would it have been to say that the military made Roy and Riza and the rest participate in the Ishvalan massacre?

Luckily the writing never goes this route. While the various characters might not fully understand the ultimate outcome of their choices they never have their agency stripped away by something outside of their control. Each and every character in the series thinks they’re doing the right thing by acting the way they do, which not only makes them feel human as characters but brings me neatly into my second point.

Overcoming Ignorance and Finding Truth

During the Ishvalan flashback we see both Roy and Riza give their initial reason for joining the military, citing their desire to protect others as one of their main motivations.

Edward and Alphonse were young children when their mother died, and their desire to bring her back stems from a child’s love. Izumi and Sig had struggled for years for a child, and the grief of losing a baby after longing for a family for so long led her to try to resurrect her child.

None of these desires are in and of themselves bad, but they stem from a place of ignorance. Attempting human transmutation was forbidden for a reason. The military ended up not being as altruistic as the young soldiers were led to believe. The world, which our main characters looked at as a simple, understandable thing, turned out to be complex, and hard, and unforgiving.

With their worldviews essentially shattered it would have been easy to give up or give in to the darkness that they had seen, but instead each main character decides to take full ownership of their mistakes and takes steps to correct them.

There are very few irredeemable bad guys in Fullmetal Alchemist, and it’s a series that ultimately has a very hopeful view on humanity. Because of this underlying philosophy people are not ruined or broken by their pasts, but rather learn from them.

This is the Truth that is presented. It’s not facts or book knowledge, which any alchemist capable of performing human transmutation would have in spades, but growth through life experience. Ed and Al see firsthand the evils alchemy can commit and strive to correct them. Roy and Riza stare down the barrel of the military machine and seek to dismantle it, even if it results in their own undoing. Ling learns to recognize the futility of his country’s current clan system and seeks to protect even the weakest of his people. It takes awhile, but Scar realizes that vengeance can only breed violence and strives to rebuild his people instead of the destruction of those who killed them in the first place.

None of these goals can be accomplished alone, building on the theme of camaraderie, but there’s also the side effect of preventing others from going down their path.

That is Fullmetal Alchemist in a nutshell. It’s a series about flawed people making horrible mistakes, overcoming them with the help of their friends and in turn preventing others going down that dark path of destruction. It’s not a smooth transition, and the lessons learned are full of pain, but in the end you’ll find your own Truth and come out the other side a better person. The rest is just gravy.

Although I will concede that having a main character who can turn his arm into a knife probably helps.

#Fullmetal Alchemist #Edward Elric #Alphonse Elric #creative-type analyzes #character analysis #Roy Mustang #Riza Hawkeye #Ling #character writing #Scar

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jodiwalker · 6 years

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Every Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Thing Arie Did in Part 1 of the Awful, Riveting, No Fun, Painfully Mesmerizing 'Bachelor' Finale

So, as it turns out: "needle dick" was a pretty solid assessment of a highly thoughtless person, gifted to us during The Bachelor's season 22 “Women Tell All” special a few weeks ago. Yes, it was an assessment made by a pathological narcissist with a YouTube channel and a WebMD printout of "laryngitis" symptoms, but still...

On Monday night, The Bachelor decided to air three hours' worth of their chosen testicle-in-charge Arie repeatedly telling his final two sister-girlfriends that he was so in love with each of them, choosing one to propose marriage to, and then breaking off the engagement with That One while a camera crew filmed the whole thing because he figured out he was actually in love with The Other One. Now, let's be clear: Becca K. as she's known around the Bachelor Thunderdome, has dodged the most boring of bullets. When all is said and done — or in the case of Arie and Lauren, when all is just done — this situation will ultimately be nothing but a win for Becca K. She comes out looking like a Minnesota rose with the most treasured quality of all: not being engaged to Arie.

But this entire show is designed to make Becca fall in love with Arie, and she did that. Becca did exactly what The Bachelor asked of her, and they repaid her by having a dude whose personality amounts to "cars go vroom vroom" break up with her in real time on national television. Obviously, the very worst thing Arie did on Monday night was setting his fiancé up for a blindside, and agreeing to film it for mass consumption. But in The Bachelor world, it's near impossible to know what's contractually obligated and what kind of behind-the-scenes manipulation is at play. I put the burden of airing Becca's heartbreak on this franchise; at least until the final two hours of this trainwreck air on Tuesday night when perhaps Arie will explain himself [ed. note: hahhahahahaha omg srsly, wut am i thinking?].

Even with that benefit of the doubt given to Arie about just how callous and insensitive we could believe him to be to the women he claims to love, our Bachelor still spent the entire three hours of Monday's filmed finale in "hold my beer, watch this" mode. Truly, he had moves we've never seen — and a few we've all seen. Without needing to hear a single thing he has to say live on Tuesday night, these are unequivocally The Worst Things Arie did in Monday night's Bachelor finale:

TELLING BOTH WOMEN HE LOVED THEM EVERY TIME THEY GLANCED IN HIS DIRECTION

At some point, Arie decided to replace his most-used catch phrase, "I love that," which is entirely devoid of meaning, with a variation—"I love you"—which is one of the most important phrases in the English language. When Ben Higgins told both of his final two women that he loved them, he immediately knew he'd made a mistake, and spent the rest of the finale looking like he was going to throw up on his penny loafers. Because Ben realized telling them such an important thing would make both women feel extremely confident, and eventually one of them would be extra hurt and confused, knowing that he loved her a day ago when they were making out by a waterfall, but he's now rejecting her next to a pedestal from Home Goods with Chris Harrison lurking around in the background. Basically, Ben took one single moment to consider his girlfriends' feelings and was like, Ohhhh, I'm a fucking idiot.

Arie is a fucking idiot who will never, ever realize it, as is evidenced over and over again in his final, excruciating breakup with Becca. He loved that Becca and Lauren both felt so confident about their relationship with him, almost like he never once considered that one of them would be completely traumatized once they hobbled down a Peruvian hillside in the name of an engagement to the man they loved—and who loved them!—only to get a swift Kanye to the face [ed note: you know, Imma let you finish, but Becca had the best wife potential of all time]. Arie telling both women he loved them repeatedly, often, and with mounting conviction wasn't his worst mistake, but it was his most fundamental mistake. It's the infrastructural jackassery upon which his Mount Rushmore of his jackassery stands. Shall we proceed?

ASKING HIS FAMILY WHICH OF HIS TWO BELOVED GIRLFRIENDS HE SHOULD MARRY

Okay, I did kind of savor how rude Arie's parents were without seeming to have any idea how awful they were being. While I could empathetically understand that it would suck for Becca that Arie's family kept being like, Yes when we met Arie Jr.'s other girlfriend Lauren yesterday, we enjoyed her exactly as much as we are currently enjoying you…it was also a little hilarious how insensitively clueless they were. Heyyyy, it's almost like that characteristic runs in the family or something! Food for thought.

My family's opinion matters to me too — wanting to keep that opinion hovering around "only slightly worried about her delayed progression into adulthood" is one of the many reasons I would never go on The Bachelor (the other reasons are that The Bachelor wouldn't take me because I have curly hair, have never been a catalog model, and unabashedly ate a cookie for breakfast last week). What I'm saying, is your family's opinions go out the window the minute you decide to do any of this. But Arie clearly couldn't get past his family's assessment of two women they'd spent maybe three hours with, and whose only immediate differentiating features are: one is shy-nice, and one is outgoing-nice and they have two different hair colors, though I can't for the life of me remember which belonged to which woman. I want to say there was a Sarah. Was someone named Sarah, Arie Jr.??? Anyway, pick Becca—she talks!

AT LEAST ARIE'S FAMILY COULD EXPLAIN WHY THEY CHOSE BECCA OVER LAUREN

This situation was doomed from the moment ol' Pillow Lips himself explained that he wanted to be able to tell Lauren something that would help her understand why he was breaking up with her, "But I have no real reason to give her."

All I wanted to say to Arie throughout the entire finale was: TRY, Arie. Why don't you just try to explain it? It's a good practice, trying! I get that it's hard, but if you put in the work, and try even a little bit to understand your feelings, I swear you can ink something out, even if it's just: I do love this, and I don't love this. Those words are very solidly in your vocabulary, I know it. Just TRY to relay your feelings to the people you supposedly love, you weak-willed doofus!

LETTING LAUREN LAY OUT ALL THE REASONS SHE LOVES HIM BEFORE TELLING HER HE'S BREAKING UP WITH HER

Rude, so rude. This woman literally hates to speak, Arie—that is what you love about her! (I think!) And you're going to let her go on and on, quite eloquently might I add, about how you've inspired her to let her walls down and how she's soooo glad she finally let herself believe that this love could be real??? This man's spine is made of pudding cups.

TELLING LAUREN HE LOVED HER AS SHE GOT IN THE BREAKUP LIMO

At this point, the idiocy truly became astounding. Not only has he blindsided and traumatized a woman who he has been telling that he loves for weeks by choosing another women over her, but now he's going to tell Lauren that he loves her moments before proposing to Becca? Has he considered that might be painful for his alleged future wife? Of course not! I think if you told Arie that other people have internal thoughts and feelings just like him, his head would explode, and then he'd just go on living his exact same life as a headless torso being told what to do by the Bachelor producers. But at least this brings us to...

HONORABLE MENTION: THE BEST THING LAUREN DID

I know this will shock you, but the best thing Lauren did during the finale was speak a series of words out loud — and boy were those words dead on the money. In the limo, feeling shocked and betrayed, she repeats out loud one of the idiotic things Arie told her when he broke up with her: that he didn't know who he was going to choose until just that morning. "Does that not terrify him?" she asks. "How could you get down on one knee if you weren't sure, like, three hours ago?" An excellent question, and proof that even Lauren would have been a more equipped Bachelor than Arie.

PROPOSING TO BECCA

Obviously, Arie's biggest mistake, from which there is no turning back—although he sure does try, that stinker!—was exactly what Lauren couldn't wrap her head around: he got down on one knee and proposed marriage to Becca when he had been completely in love with another woman and unsure of who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with just hours before.

Never has it been clearer how toxic the construct of this show is than now, when it's been thrust upon a canvas as blank and malleable as Arie. He spends the entire finale saying he's not sure about one woman, spending time with that woman, and then being completely reassured that he's in love with her, basically because she is in love with him; lather, rinse, repeat with the next one. I truly believe that if Becca had the first final date with Arie, and Lauren had the second spot, Arie would have chosen Lauren instead. He has the emotional retention span of a drunken dance floor makeout. I think a baby trying ice cream for the first time might have a stronger grasp on what love is than Arie.

Oh, and let's not forget this standout line from Arie’s proposal of marriage: "I choose you today, and I choose you every day from here on out." Arie apparently thought "here-on-out" was like one of those Old English words like "wherefore" or "fortnight" where it sounds like it means one thing (forever), but actually means another (two months, or whenever the camera crew is available to come out to this mansion in the Hills).

THE ENTIRE BREAK UP CONVERSATION WITH BECCA, START TO (ATTEMPTED) FINISH

Assessing the production genius and emotional sociopathy of the decision to show Arie breaking Becca's heart in real-time split-screen is for another time. For now, let's just block off the next four hours to discuss every single stupid thing Arie did during said exploitative disaster. First, after sitting Becca down for a serious talk, Arie tries to ask her how a recent trip to Las Vegas was and compliment a new tattoo. [Ed. note: The distraction of trying to figure out if the tattoo had anything to do with Arie, and ultimately, the immense relief that it did not but was merely your average bumblebee wrist-tattoo, was at least appreciated.]

Becca, however, is like, cut the shit and tell me what you want to talk about; that is our first sign that Becca is equipped to deal with the fuck boi nonsense that is about to be presented to her. I would like to be clear though, that just because Becca is strong, and Arie is weak, would not make this any less painful for her.

Arie then proceeds to explain in great detail how he can't explain why he's breaking up with her, except to say it in the absolute harshest, and most callous way possible: "The more I hung out with you, the more I felt like I was losing the possibility of maybe reconciling things with Lauren." I honestly think the worst part of that awful statement isn't saying that you've been thinking about someone else the entire time you’ve been with Becca; it isn't saying that you're leaving her for another woman; it isn't naming that woman by name just to really drive the knife right in the bumblebee tattoo; it's calling your engagement "hanging out." GROW UP, ARIE!!!

Becca's flawless response: "Are you fucking kidding me?" NEVER CHANGE, BECCA!!!

Arie goes on to say just about every wrong thing possible. He didn't think "it would be fair" to stay with Becca if he was only half in the relationship. "So are you going to be half in with her?" Becca asks. Nope, Arie's gonna full-love Lauren, and he feels like he's been "pretty upfront" with Becca about how he's been struggling to get past his feelings for Lauren. That's when Becca's left hand with her giant engagement ring briefly dips below the split-screen, and without saying anything, comes back up diamondless. And that's when I fall in full-love with Becca. Perhaps, Arie says, he didn't let Becca know "the extent" to which he hadn't moved on from Lauren. "Clearly," says Becca, a queen.

Then this martyr-ass-muthafucka tells the fiancé he's breaking up with in order to go chase after another woman that he "thought it would be good for us to talk about this now," rather than doing it on After the Final Rose. Becca tells him it would have been good if he hadn't proposed to her in the first place. She says she's done here, and goes in the back of the house to start re-packing the suitcases she brought with her when she was assuming this would be a romantic weekend with her fiancé…

NOT FUCKING LEAVING WHEN BECCA ASKED HIM TO FUCKING LEAVE 100 DIFFERENT TIMES

People talk to me about The Bachelor a lot. Even when I'm not writing about a season, or not really watching it, they know I'll be down to clown about The Bachelor and I love that — always talk to me about The Bachelor, I beg of you.

The number one thing I've heard from women who watched last night's slow-motion disaster, is how sick they felt watching Arie hang around that house and follow Becca around, and ask her to talk to him, even after she’d repeatedly told him that she wanted him to leave and had nothing to say to him. Because there is a certain type of immature man than many women (and men, I'd imagine) have dealt with: men who want women to reassure them that they're still good men even though they're doing a bad thing. Arie begged Becca to talk to him some more, and when she relented, he stared at her in silence. Because he was waiting and waiting for her alleviate the emotional weight of his guilt for him, so that he wouldn't have to feel it anymore.

Becca refused to do that: she refused to hug him goodbye. She refused to tell him that it was okay. She refused to tie an ugly situation up with a pretty bow in order to take this man's emotional baggage onto her already heaving load. And that is the admirable, strong, very good, incredibly courageous thing Becca did.

#The Bachelor #The Bachelor Recap

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fma-facts · 7 years

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Applying FMA’s Philosophy to Real Life

Here’s something a little different from what I usually post! For some reason I found myself thinking about this in the shower for almost an hour today, so I thought I’d write a post on it. (Also, keep in mind I wrote all of this spontaneously in one go.)

Now, here’s a little disclaimer: This is very subjective. There are a thousand different ways to personally interpret the philosophy of FMA, and even different ways to interpret what “the philosophy of FMA” even is- Is it the overall themes of the story? The actual real life alchemical/philosophical concepts mentioned in the series? The politics of the FMA world? Arakawa’s outlook on life and writing manga? Some sort of weird deep subtext about the Philosopher’s Stone or something?

It all depends on how you want to look at things, and everyone and their mom has a different interpretation. Every anime analysis blogger or YouTuber has done something on the philosophy of FMA. But I wanted to do something a little different: Take the philosophical concepts within the FMA universe, and find positive ways to interpret them that you can apply to your own life to better yourself.

Like I said, there’s a thousand different ways of interpreting these concepts. But I’m an optimist, or at least I try to be, so I tried to choose interpretations that are positive and motivating. I think Dante’s already got the whole “pessimistic existential despair” thing covered.

So, without further ado, here we go! This is an extremely long post, so it’s under a cut. Feel free to skim it and only look at the parts that interest you.

Concept: A lesson without pain is meaningless. Interpretation: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sometimes the most difficult challenges are the most rewarding.

“Teachings that do not speak of pain have no meaning, because humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return.” -Chapter 1: The Two Alchemists “A lesson without pain is meaningless, because gaining anything worthwhile requires sacrifice. But if you can overcome that pain and achieve your goal, you can achieve a fullmetal heart, and that’s irreplaceable.” -Chapter 108: Journey’s End

It’s very easy to have a negative interpretation of this phrase, to take it to mean that suffering is necessary. As another favorite anime character of mine once said, “People never learn from their mistakes until they are hurt from them.” But like I said, I want this to be an uplifting list, so we’re going with a happier intepretation.

Everything is a learning experience. You can’t get a diamond without subjecting carbon to immense pressure and high temperatures, right? Even when things seem dark, if you can power through, you’ll come out with experience and strength that others might not have. And even if you can’t win, as any scientist knows, failure can show you where you went wrong and what you need to do to improve. There’s an old proverb in the go (east Asian strategy board game) community: “Lose your first 100 games as quickly as possible.”

This is what really got me started on this tangent, thinking about... believe it or not... Alchemical encoding methods. (Oh, on a side note, does anyone know the proper usage of “alchemical” vs. “alchemic”? Please let me know. It’s been driving me up the wall for years.) Think about it: Alchemists encode their work so they can’t be read by those who aren’t worthy, right? It’s fairly likely that there’s a standard system of alchemical encoding in the FMA world; We’ve heard Ed and Al mention real alchemy concepts like the green lion, or the sun and the moon as masculinity and femininity- things that wouldn’t make sense to a non-alchemist, but are probably standard knowledge for most alchemists. There’s also that mural from Xerxes, which Ed was easily able to understand, because certain symbols and phrases are known to have certain meanings in alchemy.

Encoding systems like this would really only be useful for keeping out non-alchemists and novices, but any skilled alchemist would probably be able to understand them. Because of this, it would probably only be used for fairly benign things. But if you look at things like Marcoh’s notes on the Philosopher’s Stone, or Scar’s brother’s research, those are the really big ones. There’s layers upon layers of coding there that require a ton of skill, time, teamwork, and in Scarbro’s case, knowledge of alchemy across multiple cultures and languages. That’s some intense stuff, but incredibly important. Of course the most rewarding alchemical secrets are the most well guarded.

Challenge yourself. Challenges can often be scary, difficult, and stressful, but sometimes the harder it is, the bigger the reward.

Concept: All is One, One is All. Interpretation: Everything is connected. You are part of a greater flow, and you are not alone.

“Remember when we talked about what would happen if we died here?” “Uh-huh, and I said everyone would be sad.” -Ed and Al, chapter 22: The Masked Man “Maybe it’s ‘the world’, maybe it’s ‘the universe’... Life is a complex cycle, so vast that we can’t see it with our own eyes. But whatever it’s called, you and I are only a tiny part of the great flow. One part of the whole. But all those individual parts come together so that the whole can exist. And the cycle keeps flowing because all of nature follows this fundamental law. Understanding that flow, deconstructing and then reconstrucing... That’s the meaning of alchemy.” -Ed, chapter 22: The Masked Man

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything has impact on something, no matter how small. A huge number of factors came together to create the you that is here now, and in turn, your existence affects the lives of others. Even if it seems like you’re alone, like nobody loves you or pays attention to you, you’re not invisible and you’re not alone.

Maybe you’re someone’s favorite blogger, or maybe someone passed you on the street and thought your hair was beautiful. Maybe you own a shelter pet that would have been otherwise put down, or maybe you helped introduce someone to something that changed their life for the better. Maybe you buy a coffee from Starbucks every week, and your purchase contributes a little to the overall income of that particular Starbucks, which allows it to stay open, thus keeping a single mom employed and able to feed her kids. It’s impossible to exist without having an impact on others. The way each little person operates as part of the great web of humanity to make the world what it is today is part of what makes humanity so beautiful.

You’re never truly alone, no matter how much it feels like it, and there’s always someone who would suffer in some way without you. Try to make meaningful connections. If you ever feel like you’re alone in this world, take some time to think about what things you do that affect others, and how you are connected to the world as a whole.

Concept: The energy of the world is cyclical, and only flows in one direction. Interpretation: What you do comes back to you. Be mindful of the attitude you choose to put into the world.

“The foundation of alchemy is the power of the circle. The circle dictates the flow of power, and when the proper runes are written within it, it is possible for the power to be released. Even when you’re not using alchemy, the flow of power has many practical applications! For example... If you can read your opponent’s movements, you can turn them back against him. That’s one way of manipulating energy. Accepting the flow, understanding it, and using it to create... That’s what makes an alchemist an alchemist.” -Izumi, chapter 23: Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Due to some spiritual experiences I’ve had in the past, I very much believe that likes attract likes, and that the energy you put out into the world will come back to you. But you don’t have to be even the least bit spiritual or religious to see how this can sometimes be true.

If you snap at someone for no reason, even if that person was in a good mood, that’s going to discourage them from being nice to you. If you’re a generally mean, angry, nasty person, people just aren’t going to like you. But if you gain a reputation for being nice and treating others with respect, that’s going to earn you respect as well.

I’m not saying you have to be cheerful all the time- everyone has their bad days, and plenty of people (myself included) might naturally be a bit more Raven than Starfire. I’m not even saying you always have to be nice to everybody, because there will always be people who aren’t worthy of your respect. What I am saying is that you have control over how you generally interact with others, and it pays to be nice rather than mean. Things like keeping a generally polite attitude, saying nice things to others, and helping people when they need it are things that people will remember, and make them more likely to want to be nice to you as well.

If you find yourself in a situation where you can choose whether or not to be mean, take a minute to think to yourself: Does this person really deserve this treatment? What will this accomplish? How will this affect how others see me? If you can choose whether or not to be unnecessarily mean, I encourage you to not be mean.

Concept: You cannot gain without sacrifice. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. Intepretation: Change doesn’t happen on its own. If you want something to happen, you must first take steps to make it happen yourself.

“Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy’s first law of equivalent exchange.” -Al, Fullmetal Alchemist opening monologue “It is impossible to create something out of nothing. If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the law of equivalent exchange.” -Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood opening monologue

Again, it’s easy to interpret this as a negative, “We all must suffer” thing, or as a (50-year-old conservative voice) “If you’re poor it’s just because you’re a lazy bum and blah blah blah” thing, but this is the positive interpretation I’ve come up with.

Nothing ever happens without some sort of catalyst. You have to take the initiative. Like Ed once taught Rose, no matter how religious you are, you can’t just sit around praying and expect all your problems to magically be solved; You have to at least make some effort yourself. Does this mean hard work will always be rewarded the way you want? No. Sadly, this is an unfortunate reality of the world. But it does mean that nothing will happen if you don’t try.

For example, I see a lot of people say, “I wish I could draw.” ...And then that’s it. They just say that, over and over. Guess what? Literally nobody is stopping you from drawing! You have to be the one to pick up the pencil/pen/tablet/paintbrush/mouse etc. and start drawing. No, your first drawing will not be perfect, and it may take a very long time before you’re able to draw something that you can really be proud of. But you’ll definitely never be able to make a great drawing if you never start drawing in the first place.

If you have a goal, and you’re already doing what you can to work towards that goal, even if “what you can do” is next to nothing: That’s great! I’m proud of you for trying, and I hope you can achieve your goal. But if you’re constantly sitting around lamenting how you wish for such-and-such without actually doing anything to try to make it happen... Well, you’re not really going to get anywhere.

Concept: There’s no such thing as “no such thing”. Interpretation: Don’t underestimate yourself. Never give up on something just because others don’t believe in you.

“Nothing is impossible.” -Greed, chapter 27: The Beasts of Dublith

People can accomplish amazing things. I’m sure you’ve all heard the stories of how Harry Potter was written on napkins in a bar and rejected by like 2872193 different publishers or whatever, or how much Vincent van Gogh struggled both in life and art, or how Dav Pilkey wrote Captain Underpants while sitting out in the hall in grade school as a punishment from teachers who told him being a cartoonist isn’t a real career. Even against impossible odds, sometimes with enough determination, you can come out on top.

It’s easy to get bogged down by negativity. If your goal is somewhat out there, you may get a lot of people telling you that you can’t do it, but that’s not necessarily true. In a similar vein to the previous topic, you may never be able to accomplish your goal- life just happens that way sometimes- but there’s always a change that you might. If you let others discourage you to the point of giving up, you’ll definitely never be able to achieve your goal.

Believe in yourself, BELIEVE IN THE ME THAT BELIEVES IN YOU!!!, and keep trying. Don’t give up just because things are looking grim, or because other people say you’ll never be able to do it. They don’t know what you’re capable of.

Concept: A king without his people is no king at all. Interpretation: Life is collaborative. Don’t neglect those who support you.

“A ruler’s duty is to his people. Without them, he is no king at all!” -Ling, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood episode 22 (because I sadly still don’t own volume 12)

You can’t do everything on your own. People move through life by interacting and helping one another. It’s ok to ask for help sometimes. But at the same time, you have to be ready to give help when the time comes- If someone does things for you, and you turn your back on them when they need you, what kind of person does that make you? Not a very nice one.

Of course, that’s not to say that you have to be giving and giving and giving all the time. If you don’t have the money, time, skills, knowledge, physical ability, or emotional/mental availability to help someone, that’s ok. It happens. But if you can help someone, and choose not to just because you don’t want to make the effort, that’s selfish. Why would you do that to someone who helped you? Who, in turn, will help them? And when people see that you weren’t there for them when you could have been, again, that’s going to come back to you. Nobody wants to help someone who takes without giving.

Also, if you’re in a leadership position, your job is to lead. It is your responsibility to keep an eye on the needs of those below you, and to make sure the system runs smoothly. If you treat your subordinates like garbage, they’re not going to want to respect you.

If you do treat your subordinates well, and help others when they need it, people will look up to you and be more likely to return the favor when you need it.

Be a Colonel Mustang, not a Brigadier General Fessler.

Concept: Take 10, give 11. Interpretation: It doesn’t always take much to be kind. You can do nice things sometimes without expecting something in return.

“My brother and I met so many wonderful people on our journey, people like Mr. Hughes. I’ve come to realize how much happiness they brought us, even if we didn’t see it at the time. That’s why I feel that now it’s our turn to try and give back some of that happiness. If we receive ten and only give back ten, then it’s a zero-sum gain. Instead, if we receive ten we will add our one to it, and give eleven in return.” -Al, chapter 108: Journey’s End

You don’t always need a specific motivation to be nice. Being kind for kindness’ sake is always a good thing to do, and doesn’t necessarily have any negative payoff. A lot of the time, doing something nice for someone can take as little effort as just saying, “You look nice today”, or even- as Arakawa herself has said she believes to be important- just saying thank you when someone does something for you, no matter how small.

If you’re grateful to have someone in your life, show it! Be nice to them. You don’t even have to give a heartfelt speech; sending people posts you think might interest them, for example, can really make them happy. Also, if you see someone who’s feeling down- or even someone who’s perfectly fine- it never hurts to show them a little kindness. Your small compliment may wind up meaning far more to them than you think.

One way I personally try to spread a little kindness: When I see art on my dash, unless I have some particular reason not to want it on my blog (bad pairing, too sexual, etc.), I reblog it. Even if it’s really terrible art, I reblog it anyway, because I know how much it can mean to beginner artists to have just a little bit of encouragement. I also usually try to gush in the tags about how much I love it, or add specific compliments, like “This is a really cool art style” or “I like how you draw his hair”.

Most of the time, I don’t get anything out of this, and I don’t expect or need to. But every once in a while, someone will message me saying how much my comment meant to them, and that’s a really wonderful thing. Also, whenever I leave a comment on a fanfiction, I always end it with a simple, “Thank you for writing this”. The other day, someone said the same thing on one of my fics, and I was shocked. People so rarely show such simple, straightforward appreciation for the amount of work writing takes, and it really made me happy to read.

Anyway, that’s all! I hope you guys enjoyed this spur-of-the-moment little pep talk, I hope it gave you something to think about, and I hope it might be of some help to some of you. And remember: It’s not hard to be nice!

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theliberaltony · 7 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Our topic for today: PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Namely, is it time for Republicans to panic (in the wake of Tuesday’s Democratic sweep)? And, as a subsidiary question, what should Republicans do now?

But let’s start with that first question … panic or no panic? You decide!

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): What’s the definition of panic?

micah:

harry: LOL.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): Panic. Losing control of the House would be huge. And it’s very much on the table.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, some House Republicans from Virginia are retiring after the state election, so they might well be panicking.

It's my honor to represent #VA06. I cannot begin to express how blessed I am to have had the opportunity to serve. Now is the right time to step aside – I will not seek re-election. My statement: https://t.co/tByoe5vFmO

— Bob Goodlatte (@RepGoodlatte) November 9, 2017

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): They should be moderately panicked. And they should have been before Tuesday. They might still be able to save the House, though.

harry: Yeah, Tuesday was simply a manifestation of what has been apparent in the national polls for a while. Heck, it’s also been apparent in the special-election results. I just don’t think people believed it before seeing it on a big stage like on Tuesday night. Make no mistake, this was in line with the fundamentals, and those are not good for Republicans. Bad enough to lose the House? We’ll see. The Democrats are certainly in position.

natesilver: “We’ll see.”

Give me a prediction!

micah: “We’ll see” doesn’t sound that panic-inducing.

clare.malone: I’m still not sure the Republicans are going to lose the House. That’s still a pretty big lift for Democrats. Tuesday’s results were a good sign for them, for sure. But it’s still a long haul.

micah: Yeah, so a Democrat won in New Jersey. A Democrat won in Virginia. Democrats won a bunch of districts in the Virginia House of Delegates that mostly leaned Democratic. What’s the big deal?

clare.malone: ha ha ha

micah: I mean, I’m only half trolling.

natesilver: It’s not a particularly big deal. It’s just confirmation of lots of evidence we already had that the political climate is good for Democrats.

It’s about what you’d expect when they’re up 8 to 10 points on the generic ballot. But the special elections earlier in the year were also about what you’d expect given those numbers.

(And given that the specials were held in very red districts.)

micah: But then why didn’t Democrats win more red districts in Virginia?

natesilver: They won the governorship by 9 points and flipped the House of Delegates from 2-1 GOP to roughly 50-50. They had a really good night.

micah: I’m not debating that.

natesilver: The focus on red districts is kinda dumb, IMO, because if you look at the totality of elections so far this year, Democrats have done well in some really red areas — Kansas and Montana and South Carolina — that aren’t upscale or suburban at all.

micah: Are you calling me dumb?

harry: Yes.

LOL.

natesilver: I’m saying that analysts in general are chewing too much on not-especially-informative pieces of evidence.

The totality of evidence is good for Democrats. The individual data points aren’t that meaningful.

micah: So we don’t buy the thesis that “state/districts/etc. are snapping back to their default partisanship” — it explains Tuesday’s results but not all those special-election results.

natesilver: Yeah, it explains Virginia well, but there have been a lot of elections this year.

perry: Well, whether Democrats have a 70, 50 or 30 percent chance of winning the House, even 30 (which I think is a low estimate) is a really big panic number for Republicans. Barack Obama’s presidency, in terms of legislation, basically ended the day Republicans won the House in 2010. And Obama didn’t have a special prosecutor after him, with the potential of an impeachment in the House.

natesilver: I disagree that 30 is a big number, Perry. I mean, the majority always has some risk of being lost in the House, since every seat is up every two years. If the chances of losing the House were only 30 percent, I’d be pretty happy if I were Paul Ryan.

The problem for the GOP is that it’s not 30 percent. You could debate between 50 and 70.

perry: I don’t think in, say, 2014 that the Republicans had any real chance of losing the House. It would have been like 10 percent.

natesilver: I guess I should say — the majority party is always at risk if they also control the presidency.

Typically, parties do not control both the House and the presidency for very long.

So if I knew nothing about the political landscape other than that the same party controlled both the presidency and the House, my default might be that the party had like a 30 percent chance of losing the House at the next midterm.

harry: What we’re fighting against here is that people almost always view things through the prism of the last election. Yes, Nathaniel, the political science says what you say, but people get caught in this mindset that this will be the time the science is wrong. (Sometimes it is wrong.) But usually what happens is you end up looking foolish by trying to guess the direction of the polling error.

micah: So, do the contours of Ralph Northam’s win in Virginia matter in judging how panicked the GOP should be?

Like, where did he do well and with whom?

clare.malone: They’ve lost some of the suburban white voters who voted for Trump, right? Which should worry them a bit.

natesilver: Yeah, I think all that shit is overrated.

micah: Wait, Nate, you wrote the other day that there are enough well-educated, relatively well-off suburban districts for Democrats to retake the House.

natesilver: There are enough suburban districts, yeah. So it happens to be true that doing well in the suburbs is more helpful for winning back the House than for winning back the presidency. That isn’t immaterial.

harry: It hurts me when people use bad language.

clare.malone: How much evidence is there, though, that Democrats made inroads with ye olde working class whites?

micah: Right.

clare.malone: Let’s hear it for George W. Bush’s Security/Soccer Moms.

perry: Did we agree with this piece by Nate Cohn of The New York Times that argued that the Democrats still have some problems with white working-class voters that could limit their pickup opportunities next year?

natesilver: I disagree with trying to extract too many signals from Virginia as opposed to the totality of all elections in the past several months.

But Democrats had a pretty “meh” performance earlier this year in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, which is very suburban and wealthy. Whereas what they did in Montana and Kansas and South Carolina is pretty impressive. Here’s a chart from earlier this week (before we had the Tuesday results):

clare.malone: Yeah, but wait, Nate — wasn’t the whole thing that they vastly outperformed there, even while losing?

natesilver: They outperformed more in Montana, Kansas and South Carolina than in Georgia.

I mean, it depends on what benchmark you look at. But the Georgia 6 result was probably the least impressive of any of them.

harry: To quote myself, “To understand the national political environment, it’s always better to look at an average of elections.”

clare.malone: Very Churchillian.

perry: Lol.

natesilver: At least Georgia was a federal race, though! State and local races can give you a sense of the overall political environment. But you should be very careful about getting too cute beyond that. The issues that are pertinent in voting for someone for the Virginia House of Delegates are not the same ones that are pertinent when you’re voting for the U.S. Congress.

micah: I guess, here’s why I would push back on your “overrated” take, Nate. It seems clear that winning back the House will be harder for Democrats than winning the Virginia House of Delegates. (Actually, is that true?) If that is true — or even if it it’s the same — it seems valuable to know the political/demographic/socio-economic makeup of potential pickups for Democrats in the House. What does that sample of seats look like? Isn’t that important given how polarized we are along rural-urban lines? Along racial lines? Etc.?

harry: Oh, I’m not sure that’s true at all.

natesilver: I’m telling you that extrapolating from the Virginia House of Delegates to the U.S. House is dumb.

Also, I don’t agree that winning the U.S. House is necessarily harder. The Virginia House of Delegates is way more gerrymandered than the U.S. House, even though the U.S. House is pretty gerrymandered.

perry: So I would say Panic 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. It sounds like others would rate the Republican panic levels lower?

micah: I’d say 6.8.

harry: I panic over the Buffalo Bills and Columbia Lions. I don’t panic over politics.

natesilver: I’m a 7.8 or something. Not far from Perry.

micah: We’re not interested in how panicked you are, Harry. We’re asking how panicked Republicans should be.

natesilver: But if I’m a 7.8 today, I was a 7.5 on Monday.

clare.malone: I hate how we have to apply numbers to everything.

It’s a 6.

harry: I’ll say 8 is fine.

micah: OK, so now let’s talk: What should Republicans do?!?!?!?

clare.malone: I’m wondering what candidates need to do out in the field. For example, did Ed Gillespie do something weird in not “reading the room” in Virginia — should he have been playing more to those suburban voters?

micah: Gillespie, former head of the Republican National Committee, tried to adopt some Trumpian trappings.

In general, should Republicans just hug Trump close knowing they’re tied to him anyway?

Or should they distance themselves from him?

harry: Why the heck would you embrace a president whose approval rating is in the 30s?

clare.malone: Is it a state-by-state thing — i.e., some states are “Trumpy” and some are not?

natesilver: But what if Republicans not embracing Trump makes his approval rating even lower?

micah: And also you get dinged for having an R next to your name anyway?

Does distancing ever work?

natesilver: Maybe that’s why so many members are retiring. They’re sort of screwed either way.

harry: I guess it depends on whether you’ve cultivated an image of your own brand. In waves, oftentimes it doesn’t work.

I was somewhat surprised Gillespie didn’t try that given he had run before statewide. But he probably had polling that his campaign thought showed they should run hardline on immigration.

perry: Distancing can work. Rob Portman and John McCain ran ahead of Trump in 2016.

micah: But Gillespie’s hardline immigration rhetoric didn’t lead to a rural surge like it did for Trump, right?

natesilver: I think you could say it was more high turnout in blue areas than low turnout in red areas.

clare.malone: Maybe voters found that stuff inauthentic coming from Gillespie? If you were a hardcore Trump voter, you sensed that Gillespie was not your guy. That he stank of the establishment, the past.

harry: I thought it was inauthentic.

micah: Yeah. That’s a good point. It’s possible a lot of Republicans will take away from Virginia that the Trumpian immigration stuff hurts more than it helps, but maybe that was just the messenger.

perry: I do think that sanctuary cities is an issue where Democrats are a bit confused. And maybe Republicans should hit that issue, even if other things Gillespie did will not work.

clare.malone: Yeah, interesting point

natesilver: We did have that interesting test of Trumpian personality versus Trump’s endorsement in Alabama, too.

perry: This is a hard question. If I were running against Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, I would run on the Trump immigration/populism issues. If I’m Barbara Comstock, in a Virginia district just outside of D.C., I would distance.

natesilver: By the way, the fact that Democrats are running somewhat competitively in Alabama, depending on what poll you believe — even before allegations surfaced that GOP nominee Roy Moore initiated sexual encounters with underage girls — is another reason not to take the “this is only happening in blue areas” talking point all that seriously.

micah: That’s why my panic number wasn’t that high — if Democrats win Alabama, then we’ll see real panic!

clare.malone: Yeah, that race — could be a December to remember, people!

harry: I mean, even the worst public polls have Doug Jones down only 11 percentage points. It’ll be interesting to see what occurs there.

micah: Panic-ember

perry: Roy Moore is uniquely something that I think most Republican candidates are not.

micah: Very uniquely something.

clare.malone: Even before The Washington Post report on Thursday, Moore had a lot of baggage in Alabama — enough that I think a lot more moderate Republicans there would not be enthused to cast a ballot for him.

micah: OK, before we turn to policy, it seems like one of our takeaways from Virginia is that voters aren’t stupid — you can’t distance yourself from Trump if you’re really Trumpy, and you can’t run an anti-establishment campaign if you used to run the RNC.

perry: That wasn’t my takeaway. I don’t think Corey Stewart would have won either. He might have lost by more. I don’t think a Trumpy person will win statewide in Virginia.

natesilver: Trump ran, quite successfully, as a populist, even though he’s a rich real estate developer from New York City. So authenticity is always somewhat in the eye of the beholder.

But yeah — Politics 101 if you’re Gillespie is that you want to localize that race, and Northam’s the one who should have tried to nationalize it.

clare.malone: Hey, Harry, what’s that new poll that has Democrat Kyrsten Sinema up by a healthy margin in Arizona’s Senate race against Trumpy Republican Kelli Ward?

harry: Here it is, Clare.

clare.malone: I think the Trumpy thing doesn’t always work outside the primaries for … non-Trumps?

perry: I think Gillespie was trying to do something that I think is smart: Try to hit the Trumpy Republicans with one message, the more white-collar ones with another. Gillespie’s speeches and campaign appearances were not Trumpy. His ads were. He was campaigning with Susana Martinez and Marco Rubio a few days before the election. I actually think increased Trumpiness without full-Trump is probably where most GOP candidates land in 2018.

micah: Interesting …

clare.malone: Not to be very American, but … doesn’t TV often matter more, at least in state races? Not everyone’s going to be seeing you in person.

perry: Of course.

But I’m just saying that Ed was not going around saying “build the wall” in his speeches.

clare.malone: Yeah, fair.

I just think even in the D.C. ‘burbs, those ads hurt him.

perry: I agree.

micah: OK …

Last thing: Policy.

Should Republicans stay full-steam ahead on taxes?

What should they do? Go more bipartisan?

natesilver: I don’t think they should go full-steam on their tax bill, no. Because it’s a fairly toxic bill, politically.

A Bush-style tax cut would have been much smarter politically.

perry: They should write a tax plan that Sen. Joe Manchin, Sen. Joe Donnelly and maybe eight to 10 other Democrats can vote for. A bill with 60 Senate votes would be huge.

harry: I like Perry’s thinking.

perry: So I’m saying what Nate said. The Bush tax cuts got some Democratic votes because they were not written in this way that was bound to draw heavy Democratic opposition.

I have been shocked by how many people’s taxes would increase in a REPUBLICAN tax plan.

harry: How many times have they rewritten that tax plan in the past couple of weeks?

clare.malone: But … how likely are Republicans to make that play for Democratic support?

perry: 0 percent.

harry: As Nate said, this stuff is really unpopular. It’s not good for Republicans.

natesilver: Some people’s taxes would increase — most people’s wouldn’t — but moreover, the benefits of the bill aren’t obvious to taxpayers. Maybe you come out ahead, and maybe you don’t, but you have to do the math to find out how — and a lot of popular deductions are removed, all in the name of lowering corporate taxes.

perry: The realistic path for Republicans is to pass this tax bill somewhat quickly. Don’t spend till March debating it. Get this done. It will not be very popular. But cast this as a sign that you are getting things done. Then, get more things done. Find bills that can pass. You tried on Obamacare. You did taxes. Now, find issues where you can pass a bill and it benefits you electorally. Infrastructure. Dreamers?

I think a bug in my plan is I’m struggling to think of issues that have popular support and on which Republicans agree internally.

micah: I guess I don’t really get why it seems like both 1. Republicans are very likely on track to lose a bunch of seats and maybe the House majority, and 2. Republicans are very unlikely to change anything they’re doing policy-wise.

clare.malone: I mean, Republicans are doing this tax bill thing so they can get money from donors — so that they can even run their races in the first place.

natesilver: Well, they failed to do anything on health care — for a lot of reasons — but you can argue that reflects a responsiveness toward public opinion.

micah:

Lindsey Graham says “the financial contributions will stop” if tax reform fails.

— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) November 9, 2017

perry: Saying this out loud is not smart.

harry: What a performance.

natesilver: On taxes, the donor base likes the bill, but I don’t know that the voter base has any particular reason to.

micah: Final thoughts?

perry: Final thought: The Republicans should have been worried about 2018 before Tuesday, and Tuesday should make them even more worried.

But I actually don’t know how realistic it is to expect them to change course. Trump is going to Trump. They have a voter base that likes Trumpism. They have members in Congress and a donor base that likes unpopular policies. And they are internally divided on politics and policy, making it hard to shift course.

harry: Republicans have got to figure out something because what they’re doing right now isn’t working. Even if they don’t lose the House, their majority will probably be greatly diminished. That, of course, will only make it more difficult to pass legislation.

natesilver: I think the most important decisions that Republicans made already happened: The approach they took to health care, the approach they’re taking toward taxes, their failure to do anything on infrastructure, etc.

I’m not saying the cake is necessarily baked — there’s a lot of uncertainty, and there are going to be new things to react to all the time, since the president is Donald Trump. But I don’t think there’s any magic plan to avoid a Democratic wave. It may be out of their control. They just have to hope Trump matures a bit in his second year in office, the economy stays pretty good, Democrats give them an opening or two, etc.

But they’re running into the wind, as parties almost are when they’re trying to defend Congress and their president is unpopular.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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nilesheron · 7 years

Text

The Boogeyperson (Notes on Failure)

“I'd love to tell you that this [email, sent 3-weeks later than it should have been, without the article you’re hoping would be attached,] isn't indicative of the way things have been going over here, of late, but this is supposed to be an Op-Ed on failures, right?”

I wrote Model D’s Editor on July 7th at about 12:15 AM. The email is a long-winded amalgam of self-deprecation and shame – an attempt to explain why I was so late delivering this article, and how that played into a perspective on failure that has plagued my life and career, and how I’m trying to change my mindset.

The cliff notes: “Failure,” too often, is a warped looking-glass; an inappropriately binary, self-assessment.

The idea of a looking-glass self, paraphrased and adapted, is that when we see ourselves (in our minds), often it is as we expect other people see us.

We look at the rubrics and standards we’ve fallen short of (or, I suppose, exceeded, but this is my article and I don’t personally know what it’s like to exceed a standard I’ve set).

In our mirrors, we are the weight that shouldn’t be hanging from our bodies, the skin that’s oily, teeth that are not perfect and straight and white, the things we said wrong yesterday, things that are too big, things that are too small – we see that we aren’t millionaires at 30 like we told our high-school classmates we would be. We’re closing in on 35, now, and it seems less and less like we’ll be able to retire immediately thereafter, as was our original plan. We have failed all of the past-versions of our projected future best-selves.

Failure, for everyone I’ve met, is a reflective property.

I’ve never in my life heard someone use the word “failure” to describe another person who actually tried to do something -- that is, of course, outside of caricature representations of slightly-shady-tough-loving aunties going off on main-plot characters on silver screens… And even then there’s usually a reconciliation point later in the script where they explain “it’s not that you’re a ‘failure,’ you’re just not giving yourself a chance to succeed – because you’re acting stupid. Stop holding yourself back.” Then they hug, and nephew/niece has a self-betterment montage on the way to their eventual “win scenario.”

In real life, people say all kinds of messed up stuff about us, but it’s usually not “look at this failing failure of a human being.” That’s not to say that we always (or ever) know how to help and support each other – especially within our economic decisions – but, you have to work really hard to generate active naysaying… and to the literal point I’m making here, not even your haters – I promise – no one is sitting at home or elsewhere calling you “a failure.”

No, no, beloved: “Failure” is a title you judged, juried, executed, and decided to carry around with you all by your onezie (I’m speaking to myself, here).

(Maybe I’m just a crazy person. It’s cool. You can stop reading if none of this resonates…)

So why are we so obsessed with failure. Why are we so terrified by it?

Easy answer? Because we’re narcissists, and somewhere, it’s just easier to think about ourselves outside of the reality that at any time, each of us is one of seven or 8 billion people currently living on Earth. We are obsessed with the idea that not only are we each snowflakes, but that some snowflakes are “objectively” better than others. And whether or not we admit to ourselves that this is a race, we all tend to embody the immortal words of Ricky Bobby -- we want to be first, not last. (This is a whole article in itself, but let me get back on track, here…)

At this point, I’m convinced that we are dealing with a word misunderstood – which is especially problematic because it’s also a word we almost exclusively use internally – and inappropriately constrain to a point of binary evaluation. We use the word as though our life is a pass/fail course. I mean, I suppose at end-of-life you could force an objective net-positive/negative evaluation to determine that someone was or wasn’t a failure, but it’d be really tough (case in point: Is our president a failure?). In any case, it’s certainly damn-near impossible to evaluate while your lungs are working. And yet, we do. Constantly.

I dropped out of high school. I dropped out of college. I started writing a book (I stopped writing the book). I started recording an album (I stopped recording the album). I started a company (it didn’t work). I started another company (it didn’t work). I lost a promotion opportunity (and the job all together) because I had never gotten my GED. I got a GED (at 26). I started another company. It went really really really well, until we got buried in cease and desist orders by the state of Michigan alleging we had committed umpteen securities violations (we proved that we hadn’t; it then didn’t work).

I turned 31 in June. I’ve pretty much set most of my romantic relationships on fire (#foreveralone), and have some honestly-not-terrible-but-totally-anxiety-inducing debt to show for the various entrepreneurial attempts and adventures I’ve made and been on.

My crowning achievement, most days, seems to be the fact that I haven’t starved or actually fallen on an actual sword throughout my adult life-to-date.

I give you this self-immolating recap of my past 13-14 years because despite the fact that by so many objective metrics I feel justified in considering myself a failure, I actually can’t think of anyone who would describe me as that. That’s not a humble brag. I can think of lots of people who don’t like me, much. But on the long list of warts and flaws, I just don’t think (hope, pray, and please don’t pop my bubble) that anyone would call me a “failure,” no matter how much feeling like one has defined my life.

This article is actually appropriately timed (God tends not to make as many mistakes as it feels like we do). I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that happen to us when we are consumed with fear, especially within entrepreneurship – and often within a low-to-moderate income demographic filled with people of color (read: Detroit).

Much more interesting to me, despite what the long-winded pre-amble above might lead you to believe, is the fact that thinking about failure as a binary, death-sentencing, singular event has a problematic impact on the way we look at success and ourselves. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m looking at my fellow entrepreneurs of color, but the theory generally applies much more broadly.

Especially as people of color, we are trained to make safe choices. We are conditioned to survive (or succumb) to flagrant school-to-prison pipelines, presumptions of guilt, police encounters, and implicit biases in job interviews (and most other places, too). We are taught that when you have a “good thing” like food, and shelter, and clean water (depending on what county you live in), that you should double-down, and protect it. We are taught to be risk-averse, and the ugly beast of a boogey-person who lurks on the other side of risk is named Failure.

We are taught not to dream big, not to quit stable jobs, not to concern ourselves with building new wings, and not to jump off cliffs, because – and it is implicit in the wary knowledge passed down from the ancestors – that we will fail (and die, or otherwise fall victim to a world not built for us).

We are taught, frankly, that risk is for white people (there are skydiving and board game jokes, here).

We are taught lies.

(To be fair, it’s not only black folk who are given these constructs, I would just argue that we suffer more from the systematic integration of them.)

Yes. Lies. All of them.

And maybe the most damning of all is the often-unchallenged notion that the entrepreneurial problems, hurdles, setbacks, set-ups, pitfalls, fall-throughs, and plain bad luck are all close kin to our aforementioned boogey-person homie Failure.

But wait… The fundamental purpose of a business is to bridge a gap, or solve a problem, right? Entrepreneurs succeed by “fixing” market failures at a level of proficiency worth paying for (as opposed to a theoretically more arduous status quo). Rarely do businesses create something truly “new,” but rather, they solve a need that has been solved before, but in a “better” way. It, therefore, doesn’t take much logical deduction to realize that fundamentally businesses exist to address failure – if your brain is spinning, it’s because we haven’t really given ourselves many easy “wins,” here, logically speaking. The point, here, is why would we assume that the thing built to solve the problem can’t have problems of it’s own? It’s as if we think we’ve failed as soon things become less than a cake walk, or smooth flight.

I’m about to deliver the let-down of the century. I know, I’ve built this up. But here it goes: I don’t have a solution, for you. But I do hope that sharing some thoughts of my own regarding how I diagram the problem in my personal life has helped you do the same.

One positive step that I have taken, of late, has been to just speak some of this stuff to myself, aloud, in hopes of forcing my brain to recognize the subtle differences in language we can use to frame ourselves (and our ventures). Our language, so often, informs our thought processes around faulty assumptions that we don’t even realize we are reinforcing.

I remind myself of these regularly:

Words and specificity matter. It is far (far) easier for a business to fail than a human to fail… A business failure is simple: There is no more resource to pursue “the things.” You ran out of steel for the bridge or some other metaphorical mettle that it would have taken to finish / float / fly. It’s okay. It happens. There are entire articles (books, sub-genres) about people who have failed in businesses on the path to eventual success that came before you, and if you’re lucky, there will be articles about your failures for the folks who deal with these same dilemmas in 20 years.

Every business (and person) has problems. Great businesses find ways to solve those problems, which for the most part are not unique, in new ways that give them advantages over the other people who have tried to do it. So stop being shy about them. They are NOT indicators that you are failing, or a failure. Seek help, talk to people, get advice, talk to more people -- this is the job. These problems are what will make you great, and these problems are to be expected (read: not an indictment of you, just what comes next).

If this were easy, we would all be millionaires.

Trust yourself -- and this one is huge -- logically, you couldn’t trust a failure, so the sooner you can remind yourself that you’re not a failure, the sooner you can get back to trusting your greatness.

Repeat the affirmations and positive steps outlined in 1-4.

The take-away, I hope, is that by recognizing failure to be what it is (internal motivation), hopefully we can distance ourselves from the fears, and start making better choices regarding our businesses and lives. Entrepreneurship is a lonely, boobie-trapped path along the side of the jagged cliff that we jumped from. We are carrying our wings and dreams as we descend into a canyon, before -- if we are among the few -- we can climb back up the other side and tell people “we made it.” Just like all of the successful entrepreneurs before us, we’ll tell people how hard it was, we’ll tell people that it didn’t work, but they won’t remember the part where we tell them about how we didn’t fly across the gaps, but that we fell down and then climbed back up. We will tell them that it doesn’t work the way you plan it…

They won’t listen. None of us do. We are dreamers. They will just hear that we built wings, and it worked out okay in the end (that we weren’t failures, like they fear they are), and they’ll build their wings and walk up to the cliff.

The best thing we can do -- now and then -- is welcome the questions, embrace the problems, and hope that somewhere, someone, will listen to us when we say (over and over and over again) that we are here to listen and talk to them through the things that scare them. We will tell them to hire consultants, and rely on experts, and use their networks. We will try to create as many success stories as possible from the group of people who follow us, if only because it will mean there are that many more survivors available to answer questions like for the next batch.

And if we’re lucky, we can help them unlearn their fears.

In the words of someone smarter than me:

“Failure, if it is anything, is about not trying, not about not succeeding.”

This article originally appeared in shorter form on www.modeldmedia.com. This was the original version that I wrote, but it was (as you might see) long as shit, so it had to be paired down. Thanks to the editorial staff over there for helping me get this in at a word count that was postable, but for anyone who wanted the full-text, I wanted to share.

Be great.

-Niles Heron

#Notes on Failure #NilesHeron #ModelDMedia #OpEd #Detroit

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frecklyrobert · 7 years

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opinions ooo (i couldn’t think of a title and this is long soz)

if you’re sick of seeing me writing massive essays with no capital letters, i’m sorry but i’m back baby. (i’ll put a read more in case you want to ignore me)

i’ve gotten some asks today and i thought instead of answering them separately i’d tie them all into one. it’s a bit of a jumble of thoughts really but i wanted to address them and i tried to remain as positive as i humanly can. I think the biggest one being: ‘do you think the fandom is hypocritical?’ which is a tough one to answer but i can try, so strap yourself in:

it’s hard to judge a fandom as a whole, i think i’m in like 40 and this relates to them all, people have different opinions on everything which i think is great! it creates discussion and conversation and i think that’s wonderful! while this means conflict can be created, generally it’s only positive. however there are problems in this fandom that i’ve noticed from when i joined in june (may? idk?)

one thing that i pick up on a lot is how aaron can pretty much get away with anything. don’t get me wrong i adore aaron. i love him so much. but i don’t think i saw one person get angry at him for attacking kasim, i saw a lot of people saying ‘yeah, he deserves to be in prison’ but i don’t think i saw any form of backlash directed at him? especially not to this scale. in fact i think even then, and please take into account this only based on what i saw and not a direct reflection on anyone specifically, there was more anger towards robert. which i understand but aaron attacked someone, he doesn’t deserve any of what went on in prison, but he does deserve to be in there. no one got angry that aaron acted with his fists, got himself locked up, left his mum, fiancee and little sister at home to cope because ‘hey, everyone makes mistakes’. now that robert’s made a mistake, he’s literally the worst person ever. no, cheating is not okay. it is never okay. but what aaron did wasn’t okay either, but that’s fine because we can forgive him but not robert. (again, i love aaron but it is highly one sided and i never see anyone talking about it).

i think everyone in fandoms, especially soap fandoms, is somewhat hypocritical, myself included. another ask i got was about how similar this sl is to vadam in 2015 (??), and it is. also while i’m here is the pregnancy test thing actually confirmed to be vic/rebecca or is it speculation still? anyway, vadam are my children, i love them, but adam did the exact same thing robert did. got his heart broken, got pissed, slept with vanessa and there was the whole ‘who’s the daddy’ thing. and i don’t know one person that doesn’t like adam, we acknowledged he made a mistake and then we moved on, and now vadam are the cutest couple ever.

but robron are so well loved and invested into, by the fans and ed itself, that we hold them above the expectations of other characters, especially robert for some unknown reason because he’s literally the most fucked up person in the village. so whenever something bad happens we kick off, which is to be expected. if this storyline was applied in the same way to, i don’t know, marlon and carly, there wouldn’t be as much outrage, but because we love them so much it’s suddenly outrageous and absolutely unforgivable because of our feelings towards them. we have to remember this is a soap, and it doesn’t matter who the characters are, there will be drama. and i’m talking to myself here too.

whether that makes us hypocritical or not, i’m not sure. everyone is entitled to their own feelings, react how you wish. and as much as it sucks, don’t think robron are completely immune to soapy drama because of the support out there. if anything, i believe, it will make them more susceptible to it, because of the attention they will get from it.

regarding the whole cheating thing. i’m over it (i mean like i said it’s awful) but i personally have more of an issue with emmerdale as a whole here, instead of it being robron based. i think ed will completely skip over fundamental issues raised, which they have done before. i personally cannot comment but @sapphicsugden wrote a wonderful post regarding sexual consent while drunk, which i agree with in it’s entirety. theres also the issue that robert is the only canonically bi character in the show, who is also the ~serial cheat~, which being bi myself frustrates me immensely but that’s a whole other thing.

sorry for the essay but my hands are actually burning so we both suffered. please love me

#ooooo opinions #opinions are scary #sorry this is so long i got carried away #also if none of this makes sense im sorry im tired but come talk to me if you want #also i think people will hate me about what i said about aaron I STILL LOVE HIM #robron #robron spoilers #robert sugden #aaron dingle #mine #positivity #i guess #i mean im not hating on anyone

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lightchildofthespring · 7 years

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Thank you for tagging me, @florencetheflowerfairy

Now, I present my list of ten favorite characters from ten different fandoms:

Hyuuga Hinata (Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden): For over 10 years, Hinata has been a dear character to me. I indentified with her struggles with anxiety and self-deprecation and admired how she grew through the story to the point where she’s respected as a ninja and acknowledged by her family and peers. Hinata develops a strength that is unlike the typical “strong female character” trope. She doesn’t have to shout to be heard, she doesn’t have to punch people or destroy things to be taken seriously. There’s a quiet dignity to her that brings a lot of weight to her words when she speaks. Hinata’s speeches are almost always (dare I say always?) meaningful. She knows how to motivate people and recognize value in them even when they can’t see it themselves. She’s wise, kind, hugely empathetic and might be one of the most emotionally intelligent characters in the series. I also fell in love with her relationship with Naruto. As a self-loathing child who nobody believed in, Hinata saw a lot of herself in the little boy who was shunned by the entire village. And by seeing how he, although faced with many difficulties and failing many times, kept on doing his best and refusing to give up, Hinata felt encouraged to do her best herself and become someone she could be proud of. What began with admiration evolved to love and Hinata became the person to encourage and protect Naruto. I don’t think I was ever as happy to see a couple I shipped become canon as I was with these two. They’re characters who bring the best in each other and respect each other deeply. Relationship goals right here!

Sawada Tsunayoshi (Katekyo Hitman Reborn): what I really liked about Tsuna was how realistic he felt to me. He didn’t act like the typical shonen hero and never really embraced the Mafia Boss destiny people tried to shove him in. Tsuna was a loser in academics and sports who had no friends and no faith in himself in the beginning of the story. However, he evolves in the story and becomes someone who is more confident in himself and earns the trust and respect of other people. All that without actually changing his core personality. Tsuna never stops being a scared-cat or an anxious guy, but he learned that he shouldn’t let those things stop him from fighting to protect the people he cared about. Another thing that I love about Tsuna is that he hates to fight, no matter how strong he gets. Strength for him is merely a means to protect people when needed, not something to use carelessly or to brag about. He’s a sweet kid and I love him.

Todoroki Shouto (Boku no hero academia): his past might be one of the saddest in the manga. His mother was forced into an arranged married with his father, number two hero and abusive jerk. Todoroki was trained since early age to be a great hero but didn’t feel loved. Events that I shouldn’t spoil happen and he resents deeply his father and part of his ability (he has powers of ice, from his mom, and fire, from his father), refusing to use the same power that the man he loathes has. But then, he’s told by someone who would become a dear friend that that power was his and that he shouldn’t hate a part of himself. Todoroki has a beautiful growth in the series and slowly comes to terms with himself as a whole.

Mabel Pines (Gravity Falls): Mabel is an extrovert who embraces life with high levels of enthusiasm. I find it nearly impossible not to fall in love with her. She loves her family and values her heart more than her brain when it comes to make decisions (a trait that saved the day many times). Mabel is incredibly creative and artistic and is also someone who thinks outside the box, coming up with surprising solutions for problems. She had moments of self-centeredness but deeply cares about her family and friends. I’d say nobody in the show has a heart as big as hers.

Asuka Langley Soryu (Neon Genesis Evangelion): my child! She had a lot of hurt, trauma and insecurities but tried really hard to hide them away and present herself as a strong and arrogant person who needed nobody. Asuka in reality wanted to feel like she belonged and wished to be accepted, and believed that being the best pilot would make her achieve those things. In her hurry to grow up, she messes up, makes many mistakes and has to learn to take other people into consideration and to look into herself to understand her struggles. She might be one of the most complex characters I’ve ever seen and it’s a delight to analyze her.

Garnet (Steven Universe): easily the coolest character in the show. Garnet has a unique sense of humor, strength of character, courage, protectiveness and self-confidence. What to expect from someone who is the representation of a relationship? Someone literally made of love? She acts as the leader of the Crystal Gems ever since Rose’s departure and does her best to keep the team together and maintain the balance. Her strong front sometimes hides fears and fragility that we’re only shown sporadically, which adds to her complexity.

Kagura (Gintama): you can look anywhere but it won’t be easy to find a heroine like Kagura. All characters in Gintama are great, especially the women, but Kagura has a special flavor. She’s a teenager from the Yato clan, said to be the strongest species in the universe. She left her home planet behind after sad family-related things happened and made a new life on Earth. Kagura found a new family in the Yorozuya, having Shinpachi as an older brother figure and Gintoki as a father figure. She’s brash, is not afraid to say what she wants, sometimes can be inconsiderate and other times she’s the sweetest child in the world. The bonds that Kagura forms on Earth (not only with the Yorozuya, but also many different characters. My favorites are the sisterly bond with Otae and the best friend bond with Princess Soyo) give her safety and confidence to forge her own identity, not letting her Yato blood dictate her fate. It’s also thanks to the growth she had on Earth that she can later confront her father and older brother, bringing closure to her family’s conflict. Kagura is absolutely fantastic and I adore her with my whole heart.

Tenjou Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena): RGU is the kind of story where all the characters are well-written and complex. Therefore, it’s incredibly hard to pick a favorite. In the end, I decided to go with Utena. She’s a brave and heroic person who wants to live nobly, like a prince. However, her chivalric desires made her unable to recognize that her behavior was at times patronizing. She wanted to help Anthy but for most of the series failed to understand the girl’s real situation. Utena only comes to understand and help Anthy when she stops seeing the girl as someone who needed rescue but as her own person, with virtues and flaws. Despite her shortcomings, Utena was able to extend her hand to Anthy and bring revolution to the oppressed girl’s world, enabling the former rose bride to break free from her brother and the abusive cycle developed by him. The story of Utena and Anthy is remarkably beautiful, showing how both of them were fundamental to each other.

Amy Pond (Doctor Who): my favorite companion! Amy was visited by the Doctor as a young child and asked him to take her away from the village where she was the only Scottish girl and her aunt left her alone for several hours during the night. The Doctor took too long to return (12 years!), and Amy grew up with nobody believing her stories and thinking that she was crazy. The harshness of her childhood made her develop abandonment issues, to the point where she sabotaged her relationships. Most of her growth comes from Amy learning to trust people and to be more open with her emotions and insecurities. Also, she learned that she deserved the love and dedication people gave her, especially Rory’s, her boyfriend and then husband (who also becomes a companion and travels in the tardis).

Izumi Koushiro (Digimon Adventure/Digimon Adventure 02): my favorite fictional character, without a doubt. In those two shows, Koushiro was written beautifully, allowing his depth to be perceived in countless glimpses and episodes focused on him, especially the ones written by Hiro Masaki (nobody will ever write Koushiro as well as this person! He’s without a doubt the author who better understands the character). The boy is shy and awkward around people but enthusiastic about learning new things. For long, Koushiro attempted to evade his problems by throwing himself in the search of knowledge, which caused most of his insecurities to remain unresolved until he talked to his parents about his adoption. Koushiro’s sense of inferiority made him polite to an extreme and only capable of seeing value in himself when he could be of help to others. Because of that, he demanded too much of himself at times, neglecting his own well being for the sake of others. His character is formidably complex and I believe I’ll never get tired of writing for him or reading about him.

Bonus:

Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist): Ed was a joy to see. He was easily the funniest character but also could shift to dramatic and heavy moments when necessary. He went to great lengths for his family and carried immense guilt for what happened to his brother. Nevertheless, he became determined to always move forward. Ed is constantly morally questioned through the story until he comes to his own answers. It’s a beautiful journey to watch.

Princess Bubblegum (Adventure Time): the morally ambiguous statist! Bubblegum ‘s first impression is of an affable leader who loves her people but the show wastes no time in showing how many layers she actually has. She has a pragmatic and scientific mind and sometimes fails to be empathetic and to treat other people as equals. Nevertheless, she does have good intentions and honestly believes that what she does is for the greater good. Bubblegum is truly a fascinating character!

Hinata Shouyou (Haikyuu): he’s a child that puts all of his energy into things. What’s interesting about Hinata is that he can be light-hearted and enthusiastic most of the time and then, suddenly, become super focused and serious during a volleyball game, to the point where his intensity can be a bit (a lot) scary. He’s also a sincere person who is not afraid to praise people and let them know how great he thinks they are, while at the same time being competitive with the people he admires.

I’ll tag @qwertyshuman, @thefatedmeeting, @fujitsubos, @sirelo, @skuag and @gossipchii, if you feel like doing it. Also, whoever else wants to. :)

#tag game

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nothingman · 7 years

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The following is a guest post by Jeff Lockhart.

Two weeks ago, the LA Times ran an Op-Ed by Debra W. Soh on “The Futility of Gender-Neutral Parenting.” The central claim is old and fundamentally conservative: differences between men and women are biological truth, not to be meddled with by free will or society. Sex differences are facts to be accepted, not questioned or altered (two things feminists have always done). The op-ed circulated widely and was picked up by other outlets, including a New York Magazine piece titled “Yes, Biology Helps Explain Why Boys and Girls Play Differently.” Throw out your oatmeal baby room paint and desegregated toy isles.

Soh provides a number of common scientific claims to back this point. She mentions that babies exhibit gender-typical toy preferences at 18 months, before they exhibit awareness of their gender. This sounds like perfect proof: differences before babies are socialized into gender must be biological. Except babies are socialized into gender from birth, as shown in the famous 1975 “Baby X” study, which found adults offered different toys and described babies’ responses to the toys differently depending on whether they were told the child was a boy or girl (regardless of the child’s genitalia).

Soh also mentions the ‘masculine’ behavior of girls with a condition known as CAH. There are many problems with CAH research design as well. Biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling addresses many of them in an endnote that sprawls a stunning five pages in her 2000 book. Soh then cites findings that vervet monkeys, without human socialization, preferred toys appropriate to their sex. With some digging, we can find the original study. When the researchers found that female monkeys spent more time with the cooking pot toy than males, they took it as evidence of a biologically female attraction to toys humans code as feminine—never mind that the monkeys don’t understand cooking or its gendered implications. This choice left multiple scientific readers bewildered. The authors briefly mention a more compelling explanation—female monkeys are known to be more attracted to reddish colors, so perhaps they played more with the two girl toys (the pot and a doll) because they were also the only two red toys. But they do not control for this obvious confounding variable. Discussing the study in her later work, one of the initial authors mentions only the doll, omitting the confounding color variable and the meaningless cooking pot. Few people citing the study mention that the male moneys spent equal time with masculine and feminine toys, either.

In another example, Soh points to a study that correctly identifies 73% of participants’ sex based on brain scans. 73% can sound like a lot, but with two choices, randomly guessing would give us 50% accuracy. While their method is somewhat (23 points) better than guessing, it’s 27 points worse than perfect. That is, a lot of people’s brains do not conform to the model that sexes are binary and different. Perhaps that is why surveys of this literature find “no consistent evidence of brain based sexual dimorphism exists.” Moreover, observing biological difference doesn’t mean biology causes social differences. Gendered social behavior has been shown to change the structure of one’s brain. The same has been shown for hormone levels, even back in 1979. Social factors, then, sometimes cause biological ones.

A Large and Longstanding Body of Research Literature

The LA Times Op-Ed matter-of-factly informs readers that a “large and long-standing body of research literature shows that toy preferences, for example, are innate, not socially constructed or shaped by parental feedback.” This is technically accurate: research to this effect has been prolific and dates back at least several hundred years. But that research has also been heavily critiqued and frequently debunked by scientists over the last 40+ years. Research to the contrary is itself a “large and long-standing body of research literature.” Some prominent authors within STEM fields include Anne Fausto-Sterling, a biologist who has written 5 books and numerous articles on the subject; Ruth Hubbard, the first tenured woman in Harvard’s biology department; Evelyn Fox Keller, a physicist; and Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, a sociomedical scientist. There is even a pop-science summary of this research field by a neuroscientist, Cordelia Fine. By ignoring this entire body of work, which responds at length and with scientific rigor to her specific examples, Soh gives readers the false impression that all research unambiguously shows social resistance to current gender patterns is “futile.”

Then, of course, there is the social science. This is where we get studies like Baby X, Emily Martin’s demonstration of sexist assumptions clouding biological research, Nelly Oudshoorn’s research on the historical construction of “sex hormones,” and Beth B. Hess’ incisive quip that “for two millennia, ‘impartial experts’ have given us such trenchant insights as the fact that women lack sufficient heat to boil the blood and purify the soul, that their heads are too small, their wombs too big, their hormones too debilitating, that they think with their hearts or the wrong side of the brain. The list is never-ending.”

Sociology is also where we find evidence of how sex-stereotyped behaviors are learned, planned, and enforced—none of which would be necessary (or possible) if they were “predetermined characteristics” like Soh suggests. This is a huge area of sociology. Erving Goffman’s 1977 “The Arrangement between the Sexes” is an early classic, but much more empirical work has demonstrated gender socialization since then by Raewyn Connell, Lorena Garcia, Karin Martin, Tay Meadow, CJ Pascoe, Barrie Thorne, and countless others. And then there are the cross-cultural studies showing gendered behavior varies widely across places and historical periods. Margaret Mead’s classic 1949 Male and Female is among the most influential. Personally, I love this post on the pink costumes marketed for boys in the 1955 Sears catalog.

Agendas

What purpose does an Op-Ed like this one serve? Soh insists gender-neutral parenting is futile, and her disdain for it is palpable throughout the article. Soh is so invested in telling readers how (not) to parent (neutrally) that she ignores decades of scientific research showing that there are fatal methodological flaws in the studies of biological causes for gendered behavior. None of these critics say biology is entirely irrelevant—many are themselves career biologists. Even more to the point, she ignores decades of social scientific research demonstrating clearly that social factors do influence gendered behaviors like toy preference and STEM achievement. The data is in: gender socialization is not futile (but looking for evidence of biological sex determinism probably is).

Prescriptive claims based on innate biology present us with a telling paradox. If one really believes, as Soh professes to, that outcomes are biologically determined and socialization is irrelevant, why write an Op-Ed telling us we ought to socialize children into traditional gender roles? Why give any recommendations at all, if our actions have no effect? When the Borg tell us resistance is futile, they are trying to demoralize us into surrendering a fight we may otherwise win, into assimilating with their views even when it is painful or costs us our identities.

When sex difference research is used to make prescriptive claims (such as how to parent), a logical fallacy also takes place. Researchers look for differences between (cisgender) men and women, then build a model of what is masculine and feminine to describe what they see. This is a reasonable step (unless, of course, you consider the long history of research on intersex, transgender, and nonbinary people that complicates “men and women”). However, when someone turns around and says “this girl likes boy toys” or “boys’ rooms should be blue not oatmeal,” they mistake the model’s description of reality for reality itself. If she is playing with a different toy than the model of sex difference predicts, that is an error in the model, not in the girl.

Jeff Lockhart is a PhD student at the University of Michigan.

via scatterplot

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses feedly

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mysteriouslyzealouspandalov-blog · 5 years

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21 Christian Marriage Quotes Sure to Strengthen Your Relationship Today

New Post has been published on https://relationshipguideto.com/must-see/21-christian-marriage-quotes-sure-to-strengthen-your-relationship-today/

21 Christian Marriage Quotes Sure to Strengthen Your Relationship Today

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Whether you’ve been married for fifty years or fifty minutes, any couple will tell you that marriage can sometimes be hard. Sure, we all want to live the fairytale romance of our favorite rom-coms or Pinterest boards, but that’s just not the reality of things.

Marriage is not ultimately for us, but for the Lord. And anyone who’s ever walked with Jesus knows just how much of a target you become when your lives are rooted in faith.

Mark 10:9 says, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” But that command is a lot easier said than done.

If Satan wants to break you, he’ll first start by attacking your marriage. Divorce isn’t the only form of separation in this world. In fact, even the smallest cracks in your marriage can pave the way for a gaping hole, which might as well have a welcome mat waiting for the enemy to sneak in.

Don’t let the world and Satan’s schemes overcome the sanctification of marriage. Through mountains and valleys, these marriage quotes remain true of a healthy, Christ-like, Christian marriage.

Here are 21 Christian Marriage Quotes that are sure to strengthen your relationship today.

1. “Men, you’ll never be a good groom to your wife unless you’re first a good bride to Jesus.” —Tim Keller

2. “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.” —C.S. Lewis

3. “The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness.” —John Selden

4. “In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion.” —Tim Keller

5. “We are here to love. Not much else matters.” —Francis Chan

6. “God created marriage. No government subcommittee envisioned it. No social organization developed it. Marriage was conceived and born in the mind of God.” —Max Lucado

7. “As God by creation made two of one, so again by marriage He made one of two.” —Thomas Adams

8. “Many conflicts in a marriage result from living to please self instead of living to please the Lord. These conflicts can be resolved and are actually opportunities for spiritual growth when dealt with in a biblical manner.” —John C. Broger

9. “Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.” —Zig Ziglar

10. “The man who sanctifies his wife understands that this is his divinely ordained responsibility… Is my wife more like Christ because she is married to me? Or is she like Christ in spite of me? Has she shrunk from His likeness because of me? Do I sanctify her or hold her back? Is she a better woman because she is married to me?” —R. Kent Hughes

11. “In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.” —C.S. Lewis

12. “There is no more lovely, friendly or charming relationship, communion or company, than a good marriage.” —Martin Luther

13. “We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.” —Sinclair B. Ferguson

14. “Love means loving the unlovable—or it is no virtue at all.” —G.K. Chesterton

15. “A man doesn’t own his marriage; he is only the steward of his wife’s love.” —Ed Cole

16. “Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part” or “As long as we both shall live” is a sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with His bride when He died for her.” —John Piper

17. “A good wife is heaven’s last, best gift to man,—his gem of many virtues, his casket of jewels; her voice is sweet music, her smiles his brightest day, her kiss the guardian of his innocence, her arms the pale of his safety, her industry his surest wealth, her economy his safest steward, her lips his faithful counsellors, her bosom the softest pillow of his cares.” —Jeremy Taylor

18. “When a man and a woman give themselves to each other in an act of marital love, they can know the love of Christ as no one else can know it.” —J. Vernon McGee

19. “It often happens that when couples give their relationship to God straightened out, their relationships with one another begin to straighten out as well.” —Wayne Mack

20. “Since the marriage relationship is to reflect the relationship between Jesus Christ and His Church, it is imperative that biblical submission and love be practiced in all of its aspects between husband and wife.” —John C. Broger

21. “To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” —G.K. Chesterton

As 1 Corinthians 13 so famously states, “let all that you do be done in love.” May these Christian marriage quotes be just what you need to strengthen your relationship and continue running faithfully in pursuit of God today.

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