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elminx · 3 years

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Energy Update: Uranus stations retrograde, 8/17/21

This is going to be a very Uranian week so hold onto your butts, pack your patience, and expect the unexpected.

The setup: Uranus is heavily in play all week. Uranus stations retrograde at 14 degrees Taurus on Thursday as well as making a trine to our Mercury-Mars conjunction in Virgo all week. All of this will re-activate our Saturn in Aquarius - Uranus in Taurus square energy once again. (I know, I'm sick of it too).

As one of the outer planets, it can be hard to quantify how Uranus feels on a personal level. Unless the planet is heavily aspected in an individual's chart, Uranus is normally seen as a generational aspect - it takes ~7 years for Uranus to move through each sign and so it impacts all children born within 7 years in a group fashion. It is the planet of change, rebellion, and independence - where you find Uranus in your own chart will indicate where you feel the most need to rebel and be yourself - both by house placement and by sign.

To understand Uranus's strangeness, I illustrate with this point: Uranus is the only planet to be named from Greek mythology rather than Roman. In this we see the nature of the ice giant - the energy of Uranus, though unusual, cannot be held back in its differentness. The truest expressions and most strong forward momentum of humanity are shown to be led by their call - over and over again. Uranus is the great rule-breaker - the king of "Don't Tell Me What To Do". You see this most often in its natives: both people born with Uranus heavily aspected to their personal planets or Aquarians as the outer planet is one of their co-rulers. The great ruler breaker has been at odds (square or sitting 90° apart) with Saturn for all of 2021 - this is our Irresistible Force Paradox - Uranus is the Unstoppable Force and Saturn is our Immovable Object. Since the square last went exact, they have been pulling away from each other - Uranus has been moving forward and Saturn retrograde has been moving backward. This has done a bit to lighten our load - to create much-needed space between where we've been and what we need to change to get where we are going. This comes to an end on Thursday as Uranus joins Saturn in retrograde - now the two planets are moving backward in motion together. This is going to shift this tension point inward for a month until Saturn stations direct and moves quickly to reignite this square energy last in the year. The five degrees of space between Saturn and Uranus is the most that we are going to get for this very challenging aspect - maybe take a moment and savor the in-between over the course of this week. Herein you find one of the secrets to success in handling Uranian energy: let it be. We humans will never be able to harness the powers of the outer planets. They are part of the outer force of energy that happens to us, all we can do is live in it. Uranus dictates the changes that are beyond our control, all we can do is learn to control how we handle the change. In a way, this Saturn-Uranus square is teaching us what is within the scope of what we can change (Saturn in Aquarius) and what we cannot (Uranus in Taurus). This week is focused on the latter. This energy is going to make a lot of people feel uncomfortable. The more that you hold onto the illusion of control this week, the harder this energy will be on you. The big flex will be to let it go to let it flow. With both Mercury and Mars in the mix, this shit will get personal for a lot of people. If you're feeling really "in it" this week, know that you are right on time. You may need to change something about the way that you are communicating or working to get what you want - stay open-minded to sudden changes in work or your personal life. Yes - "Open Minded" - that is a very good way to describe the upper frequency of Uranian energy. This week is a great week to practice your "Yes and" mentality. Despite our Mercury-Mars conjunction in Virgo, this isn't a great week to make plans or at the very least, to expect to plan your plans and then follow through. Uranus in Taurus is indicative of natural disaster - keep an eye out for the earthquakes, tidal waves, or volcanic eruptions in your own life. If you've been wearing self-imposed blinders, the effects of Uranus this week may feel like they came out of nowhere. Look again. Anything that is coming up now has likely had the writing on the wall for quite some time - at least through the beginning of the year or longer. Notice the breakups and the breakdowns. What happens in your life is happening for you, not to you. It will be okay. My natal Uranus is closely opposed to my Sun and Mercury so I have to live the Uranian experience and "It will be okay" is one of my favorite mantras to remind myself. You may never come to be a person who enjoys change but resisting it only ever hurts you. I have an old oracle deck that I bought probably in '96 or '97. In a card called "River," the author wrote, "When you step

into the river of life, you have three choices: you can sink, you can swim, or you can float along." As a life-longer swimmer, this has always stuck with me - both the general sentiment but also that you need to know how to do each of these three things. None is the right decision or the wrong decision in any given situation - not for sure. Not always. But it does take a very discerning eye to know the difference. When you try to swim upstream, you quickly tire. If you simply let the current take you, you make no efforts to control the outcome. If you sink without purpose, you'll drown. How do you know which is the right action? The answer here also lies in Uranus for as well as being the great breaker, he is the great Awakener. Your intuition may be especially heightened this week, if so, acknowledge it. Stay very aware and with it. Checking out during this process will be very detrimental - this is a week to stay in your own life. Uranus is the crack in the cosmic egg, the skin that grows so tight that it breaks to begin the shedding process. This is a week to really dig into the differences between fear and intuition. Fear happens anytime we encounter something that is not part of our normal programming - it's our body's defense mechanism to keep us in stasis. It is, incidentally, controlled by the planet Saturn which is always concerned with what has always been. Uranus has the opposite ideal - our ice giant says that the status is NOT quo. Uranus is always leading off into the wilderness and the unknown. Uranus drives us all to stand up on our own two feet so that we can see. I am called to return to the Icelandic joke that I made some time back: When you are lost in the forest in Iceland, Just Stand Up. Here the Irresistible Paradox is formed: we are so fearful of the unknown that we are afraid to even LOOK at it. We lie down and then, we get lost. But the answer lies in the connection point between Mercury and Uranus - you need to open your eyes. Sure, there will be uncertainty in anything right now but you can alleviate some of your uncertainty through careful observation. Lastly, this is a week to be prepared. As I said before, Uranus in Taurus is contraindicated for natural disasters (I find it interesting that we are in the middle of this transit as we really get our first serious looks into what climate change is doing to our planet). We are also, here on the east coast, facing the threat of a tropical storm. It's a good week to check your emergency preparedness - to make sure you're still stocked in TP and canned goods or whatever you might need to get yourself through a rough patch (apply this metaphorically as needed.)

Do you like my work? Please consider supporting my writing by Buying Me A Ko-Fi.

#witchblr #words #mine #energy update #August 2021 #Saturn square Uranus #Taurus-Aquarius #Uranus #Uranus retrograde #Uranus station #Uranus in Taurus #Uranus trine Mercury #Uranus trine Mars #healing through astrology #astrology #transits

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citrineghost · 3 years

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Humans Are Historically Known for Being Terrible

Hi I’m here with an opinion today. Let’s see how many words it will take for me to adequately get it across on this very fine 15th of January

I personally believe canceling things from the past* is fruitless, pointless, and accomplishes about as much as censorship does

*We aren’t talking about shit like nazi Germany, let me elaborate further

So, as I occasionally do, I have seen a post on my dash today criticizing something historical that people are ‘problematically partaking in.’ That thing today was the wellerman sea shanty due to its ties with colonialism, slavery, and so forth.

I’m not going to dive into this specific example, because I don’t know enough of the details and am not interested in going to find them out because I’m not planning to defend it or its history, so there’s no point. I learned what I needed to know from said callout post and it’s enough to work with.

To me, it is important that we remember that people, in general, have been historically pretty terrible.

There’s colonialism, there’s slavery (of all kinds, including chattel), there’s thievery, murder, genocide, sexism, the murdering of queers. There’s lying, manipulation, propaganda, and so many more things that I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’m not saying that everyone was equally shitty. I am aware that, especially in the most recent couple hundred years, white people, especially Western Europeans and Americans, have been pretty Shite.

Am I excusing them for their actions? Absolutely not. I think it is always important to bear in mind the way they played a part in cultures’ growth, death, and, ultimately, development from one year to the next.

The reason I’m pointing this out is because the result of people being historically shitty is that most, if not all, of our historical content, our history, is steeped in horse manure.

There is not one thing you can enjoy from centuries - even decades - passed that is not here because of something inhumane, unjust, or otherwise terrible.

The only thing keeping us from canceling every other historical thing that we enjoy is our lack of awareness of how each thing ties into the whole mess.

So, we’ve learned that wellerman was sung by slavers and thieves and colonialists. What about that nice little folk song from uh, idk, Ireland or something? Let’s take this metaphorical song and ask the question, “who wrote it?” The truth is, for many folk songs, we just don’t know. There is a very very good chance that 90+ percent of nice, soft folk songs about lying in the grass or feeding chickens or baking bread for your spouse were written by racists, sexists, abusers, homophobes, and so forth.

Does that make it wrong to enjoy that song about lying in the grass and looking at the stars? I don’t think so. No one is profiting off of you listening to it, regardless of who wrote it. It’s hundreds of years old. Do you even know the name of who wrote it?

Remembering that times were different may not absolve something of its wrongdoing, but it does provide us context.

We have to allow ourselves to admit that most, if not all, historical things, came from or benefitted from atrocities or injustices that we would not stand for today. That’s just how human progression works. Frankly, if people 200 years from now don’t look at US, CURRENTLY, and think we’re terrible assholes, I am actually very concerned by that.

The nature of humanity is to get better and better over time and to build a world and a society where we don’t feel the need to be controlled by greed or to consume unethically. The problem is, it takes time. It takes lots and lots of time. Would it take less time if certain people weren’t terrible, terrible people? Yes it would. But they are, and so it doesn’t.

The fact is, human progression and improvement will never reach its end because, as things improve, our perception of our past actions will change as well and we will begin to realize that what we were doing wasn’t acceptable and is no longer necessary nor excusable.

Hate Jeff Bezos? Look around and see that 90% of people still buy from Amazon, because it provides the only affordable source of many products for people who don’t make enough money under capitalism to buy from a small business.

Hate Bill Gates? How many of us are willing to switch to Linux to quit using Microsoft? Speaking of Microsoft, they own Minecraft. Do we stop playing Minecraft?

Think Steve Jobs is a terrible person? Why are people still buying iphones, ipads, and macs? Why don’t we stop buying those so that he and current CEO, Tim Cook, quit making billions of dollars?

These are just a tiny amount of examples, using big names. We also must consider, if you have 100 books on your bookshelf, how many of the writers of those books are racists, homophobes, sexists, or abusers? I guarantee you it’s a non-zero answer. The thing is, an author who’s relatively nobody is not someone who gets canceled. No one knows anything about them but that they wrote a neat work of fiction and it’s a good book.

The question is, should we be expected to quit buying, consuming, and enjoying things made by problematic people?

In some cases, the answer should be yes. If someone is currently profiting massively from people consuming their media or products and people are ignoring their atrocities, that person could end u making millions or billions of dollars despite being terrible, which is something that undoubtedly affects all of us, economically.

In the other cases, the answer should be, do you want to? If you’re not comfortable with something, you should, of course, stop consuming it. If you can ignore the thing, you might not need to bother. And, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re excusing it.

If we look at all of humanity, even in the present day, mathematically speaking, 50% of people are more bigoted and terrible than the rest. There’s no other way for it to be. Less than 50% would be a mathematical fallacy. Does that mean we only consume content from the better 50%? Does that mean we rigorously research producers and creators and their personal lives only to decide it’s not worth the risk of ‘contributing’ because they have no trace online except for a private Facebook account? Is them having a Facebook account enough of a ‘sin’ that it’s not worth it to buy their book?

This brings us to the censorship point

If you know your history, you know that censorship is a nasty thing. When one person decides who or what is unethical to consume from, they sometimes seek to get rid of that thing so that no one has a choice - so that no one is Allowed to consume that thing.

This has led to book burning, the destroying of decades and centuries of research about sexuality and gender. It’s destroyed religious texts. It’s destroyed content created by women that painted any single man in a bad light. It’s destroyed progression.

“But I only want to get rid of the bad thing that everyone agrees is bad!”

It doesn’t matter. If you open the door to censorship for yourself, those who wish to use it for worse reasons will become just as justified, in their own eyes, to do the same. You’ll have Christians saying it’s okay to get rid of gay content because it’s objectively wrong according to the bible. You’ll have conservative parents burning books with complicated topics like abuse and assault because they don’t want their children to have access to anything controversial or complex like that.

You cannot open the door to censorship for one group without opening that door for everyone. And that is why we do not censor things.

The question then becomes, but what of the people consuming that media? Even if it’s not censored, consuming it still makes someone bad, right?

Not necessarily. People consume problematic stuff all the time - things considered objectively bad. However, people don’t always consume said media because they support it being normalized in the real world. For example, fanfiction or books with rape in them may be something a victim reads to cope with their own past or present. A book with abuse depicted may actually make a young teen aware that what they’re going through is abuse. Content largely seen as ‘problematic’ can often play a part in solving the problem it portrays.

Then there’s historical, problematic media. Now, this is an area where I feel things have actually been OVER complicated.

Because everything historical has some tie to injustice, there is no ethical way to consume it.

There is no ethical consumption under passed time.

So, how do we judge whether something should or shouldn’t be consumed? It is my opinion that something historical should stop being consumed and become shunned when its meaning is well-known enough and its message is still pervasive enough that it is actively causing problems.

For example, we generally try not to consume content when it is made by someone who is a known nazi. This is because nazis are still a problem in our society, presently. We have antisemitism all over the place. Therefore, we cannot let the message become that it is okay to be a nazi by way of us treating nazis like normal people and allowing them to succeed in society without consequence.

However, there are certain problems that are no longer particularly prevalent or which are agreed to be terrible on a large enough scale that consuming the content does not necessarily imply you believe it is okay. For example, if you look at literally any media from the 1800s or which is placed in the 1800s, you will see a lot of casual sexism and gender roles. Should we despise that time period because sexism was readily available at every turn? Should we refuse to enjoy 19th century fashion or culture because it had problems? I think not. I think it would be pointless to refuse to consume, read about, or otherwise engage with the 19th century. It wouldn’t change the past and it isn’t going to somehow undo the progress we’ve made on women’s rights.

As a matter of fact, if someone merely suggested that perhaps the people of the 19th century were right for forcing women to wear long dresses and darn socks all day, they would be laughed into oblivion and called a shitty, sexist incel (which would be correct).

Does enjoying media from or placed in the 19th century mean you support sexism? I certainly hope not, since I enjoy it very much and know a lot of progressive people, women especially, who do enjoy that kind of thing. It is common sense enough, at this point in time, that people don’t generally believe that the sexism of the 1800s was acceptable. I am not going to see someone watching a period drama and assume they desire for our present-day social laws to be like what’s portrayed. That would be a ridiculous assumption. However, I could not assume the same about someone I saw watching openly antisemitic content. I would quickly wonder if they’re an antisemite/nazi/white supremacist.

So, what about that one thing I heard had a sordid past?

Listen, if we’re being honest here, most things from history have a sordid past. Sea shanties? You bet. But then when we talk of sea shanties being steeped in colonialism, we have to look at the bigger picture. What about pirates? Pirates were, by and large, a huge contributor to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder. Does that mean enjoying media with pirates is glorifying or contributing to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder?

(I’m about to talk a lot about pirates but this can be applied to anything that was historically bad but is no longer prevalent)

Pirates of the Caribbean is only a movie, but pirates did once exist and they did kill people. They did raid ships of merchants and tradesmen and they killed them and stole their goods. They took many good men from their families and even killed working children aboard the ships. Does that make enjoying pirates in media a contributor to these things? No. It doesn’t. We are looking at a dramatised, cleaned up version of the original piracy. I think most people are aware that pirates, in the real world, are bad and harmful and should not be supported. That doesn’t make pirate media any less fun in theory, and under our own terms.

Then we arrive at our perception - because most of this does come down to perception. When you watch pirate media, should you enjoy that, are you able to divorce yourself from their actual history enough to enjoy the media? If you can, you might enjoy it a lot. If you can’t watch a movie about pirates without thinking the entire time about how terrible they were and how much damage they did, then pirate media just isn’t right for you. But, it doesn’t mean you should attempt to take it away from others. Your opinion and perception of pirate media is not the global perception.

I have to ask, do you think others view it the same way you do?

When you read that question, you may be wondering what exactly I mean. What I’m asking is, do you believe others view that media with the same “clarity” that you do? Do you believe they understand the atrocity of real pirates and Feel that the entire time they watch the media and still enjoy it anyway?

Perhaps that’s why your response to someone enjoying something you feel guilty partaking in is, “these people all must not care about the real-world damage pirates did. The fact that they can watch this (despite sitting here and feeling the same things I do) makes me sick.”

However, if that is the case, you must remember that for a lot of people, the awareness of real world consequence is suspended during dramatised depictions of it. It doesn’t mean they have forgotten about the real-world consequences of piracy or that they don’t know it at all. It just means they are choosing not to think about it in that light while consuming media.

There is also the assumption that people must not know about something when partaking in it. You may think, “How can they enjoy this media? They wouldn’t be able to stomach it if they realized what really happened with pirates.”

In many instances, you would be correct. A lot of people are ignorant to what pirates have done in the real world. If you told every ignorant person the truth, maybe 5% of them would then become turned off by pirate media, and the other 95% would keep the truth in mind and then divorce themselves from it to continue enjoying said media.

There are realities that it is safe to divorce yourself from, and there are those that are not.

Is allowing yourself to enjoy dramatizations of pirates making you ignorant to present day conditions? Not largely. There are still pirates today, but not nearly enough for the average Joe to need to take them seriously. Those who need to know about them and do something to stop them are aware.

However, it is not safe to divorce yourself from, for instance, the holocaust. Divorcing yourself from the holocaust and seeing it as merely a dramatic setting with dramatic events and not a present-day real-world problem is exactly the kind of thing that leads to young teens being sucked in by white supremacy and naziism as well as what leads to many average conservatives believing the rise in white supremacy isn’t actually real or is not a big deal. They have distanced themselves so far from the real-world atrocity of the holocaust that they have forgotten it was real and that real people, like them, were contributors. They don’t want to believe that everyday people had any power in it and that it was tiny acts of willful ignorance that made concentration camps so successful.

All in all, there is a different answer for everything we consume.

Want to know if something you’re consuming is okay to consume? Ask yourself: is this produced by someone who is contributing to present-day conditions? If the answer is yes, quit consuming it. If the answer is no, ask yourself, does this media make me uncomfortable because I’m aware of its roots? If the answer is yes, stop consuming it. If the answer is no, it’s probably fine. You are most likely not doing any damage, so long as you are aware of what is wrong with the content and are not using it as grounds to perpetuate harm.

If, when thinking about something problematic in an old piece of media, you cringe? You’re on the right track. If you feel inclined to make excuses for it or justify the wrong in it, it’s time to step away and reevaluate why you feel the need to do so. If you’re doing so because you feel guilty for consuming it, you need to realize that it is actually more harmful to make excuses for the wrong in order to justify your consumption than it is to admit, “Yeah, this media is problematic and contains a lot of sexism, but I still enjoy it for its other qualities.” It is better to admit that you enjoy something problematic than to spread the message that what is happening in it is okay.

Some of you may be thinking, “Or, just stop consuming problematic media.”

I think in many cases, especially recent media, where your consumption has an effect on production, this is true. However, for media that is no longer being produced, I will remind you that most things have something wrong with them - yes, even pretty recent stuff.

Supernatural kills off women constantly, queerbaited the fuck out of its viewers, and sent a huge character to fucking mega hell for confessing his love.

Scrubs has no end to its sexism, transphobic and homophobic slur usage, and other problematic content.

V for Vendetta glorifies and shines a heroic light on a character who kidnaps and tortures a woman for what appeared to have been weeks or months so that she would be forced to understand his trauma and “no longer be afraid.”

Star Wars has incest, the producers/directors abused Carrie Fisher and sexualized her as a young teen, and probably a lot more that I’m not aware of because I haven’t seen the movies nor read the books.

I don’t even need to start on shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Community, That 70s Show, and so many more. Almost every popular piece of media has something worth canceling in it. There is no point trying to curate your media consumption to only unproblematic content, because it simply can’t be done.

Curate where it makes a difference. Sigh heavily the rest of the time. Make yourself aware what and how things are problematic. Put critical thought into how your consumption is capable of supporting or perpetuating a problem and how it is not. Make informed decisions.

Do not feel guilty if you are unable to flawlessly live up to the standards of purity culture. None of us can - not really.

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noneatnonedotcom · 4 years

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Wait did we just become friends? (third part in the accidental villain jaune au)

@weatherman667 hey would you mind letting me know what you think of jaune’s philosophy in this? i tried to keep it to his cannon philosophy as much as possible (people should be judged on their choices etc) but stated in the most villainous way possible. also body language is a think and i’m trying to learn how to use it lmao

________________________________________________________________

Ozpin had seen it all by this point, it wasn’t all that surprising given his age but the image of the relaxed boy in front of him, reclining comfortably on his chair vaguely amused smirk on his face. As if he was humoring ozpin more than getting an audience from the headmaster of Beacon.

Well, it wasn’t new, but something about this just felt different.

“Thank you for coming Mr. Arc,” he said trying to gauge the boy’s reaction to his sudden speech in the previously quiet room. That was typically the point when they flinched. And their facade broke down leaving the nervous child in their place.

Not Mr. Arc, it seemed, the boy barely acknowledged him. Instead eyes moving around the room in an almost lazy fashion. Like he was mildly curious but ultimately disappointed with the space. An interesting turn of events to say the least.

Ozpin leaned forward, it was about time to figure out whose piece the boy was.

“A question if I may Mr. Arc”

A quirk of the boys eyebrows, and a smirk as if he’d just heard a joke. Though not a particularly funny one. “I’ll allow it”

Ozpin let the insult slide he’d been at this too long to actually let a boy like jaune get under his skin. No instead ozpin was more curious about what made the boy act this way. His reports from qrow stated that he was very doting towards ruby and yang. Not to mention the lengths he’d go to for his sister. This was a front, a character he was playing.

Or perhaps not?

Maybe he’d need more than one question

“To start our discussion, perhaps you’ll explain your previous arguments?” said ozpin, keeping carefully neutral in his tone and manners. He was a placid pond. A perfect way to know what jaune truly was, was to let the boy himself show him.

“You’ll have to be specific, old man,” he said with a smirk “I’ve said many things after all, much of it has stuck out in the minds of the public”

“Indeed it has, then let us begin with your arguments with the white fang recruiters, the ones who tried to move into patch. Their arguments stated that you were racist against the faunas since they were the ones who were mainly working in your cannery.”

Jaune narrowed his eyes “yes I remember the trash” he growled, “I dispensed with their flawed reasonings, what more is there to say?”

“Your argument against being racist was that you were equally disappointed in humanity,” ozpin said with a small smile and a raised brow “I was hoping you might elaborate on that to start off with”

He paused for a moment, perhaps weighing in his mind if the conversation was worth the effort. Ultimately deciding it was, the boy sat up his back strait. “Very well I’ll answer your question”

“My thanks,” said ozpin with a roll of his eyes

“Your welcome,” said jaune with the utmost seriousness “the answer is simple, 90% of everything is trash. Food, clothes, faunas, and humans. It makes no difference what the trash is made out of. Trash is trash.”

“Perhaps a bit more?” prompted ozpin

A raised eyebrow from the boy and a long pause as he considered and then “people are only people when they choose. When they are an individual. Collectivism, though many call it racism, is the ideology of losers. Trash too weak and unimportant to make their own way in the world and so they define themselves not as a person, but as a race. Or perhaps a sexuality. It makes no difference to me.”

Jaune narrowed his eyes “something too weak-willed and lazy to develop a personality can’t be called a person now can they? At that point their trash, they still have a purpose but I instead focus on the ten percent that rises above.”

Jaune smiled sweeping his arms wide “what can I say?” he said with a smirk “I’m a people person”

“And so you’re argument against racism is that everyone disappoints you, the race of an individual is not a factor” finished ozpin

“Exactly right,” said jaune with a satisfied air about him “racism is an excuse the trash made up to avoid being a person, and those who use it are utterly unworthy of my time”

“So then, you’ve said that ninety percent of everyone is trash, then what’s the mark of a person?”

“Choice” replied the boy waving off the answer as if it wasn’t worth his time. Reclining once again in his seat. Eyes moving around the room

Ozpin hummed at his answer “then perhaps a final question?”

“Ask, perhaps I’ll deign to answer” replied the boy lazily waving his hand through the air.

"it's been said Mr. Arc, that any government must be asked the question, from whom do they derive authority," said ozpin sitting in his office chair the steady tick-tock of the clock like room keeping time as he and his... guest studied each other.

"a philosophical question then?" there was a pause and for the duration those blue eyes of his settled on him, looking through him. It was a novel experience all things considered. "hmm, well before I give you my answer, perhaps you'd indulge me with your own? from whom do you derive your authority?"

ozpin's mind flashed with images of the brother gods before he forced them down to smile "I serve at the pleasure of the valeian council"

"but from whom do you derive your authority?" asked the blonde not missing a beat "answer me true old man or I won't know how to do it," he said with a smirk

"from the laws of the land," said ozpin deciding on the safer answer, reclining back in his own chair trying to reassert control over the conversation through posture and overall projecting an air of calm

"so from science?" asked the boy, suddenly more interested in the conversation once more, and ozpin thought on that for a moment

"yes, insofar as the law might be considered a science"

"so you believe that the world has a set of concrete answers?"

again the gods flashed through his mind "yes"

"do you know what philosophy is?" asked jaune sitting in up in his chair, apparently ozpin had done something to get the boys attention but he hadn't the foggiest what that could have been

"do you want the definition or..."

"it was a rhetorical question, mainly used to set up my own answer but priming you to think about it yourself," the blonde said with a chuckle

"clever"

"thank you" a nod, hmm perhaps he’d caught the boys respect?

"so your answer then?"

"philosophy is the search for answers that don't exist in the metaphorical and hypothetical. as opposed to science who looks for them in the natural laws" said jaune with a smile "questions along the line of who created me? what is my purpose? what is a life?" waves of his hand accentuated the questions. The gestures giving the impression that the boy didn’t think much of the questions at all.

ozpin leaned back in his chair. just what was the boy driving at?

"so then what is the intersection between science and philosophy?" asked jaune voice getting a little firmer as he talked about something that had caught his interest, ozpin still couldn’t help but think that there was something being held back still. Like this wasn’t the true jaune. Still it was nice to hear the boy so engaged.

"I'm sure you'll tell me" replied ozpin with something like amusement

"religion, religion is the process of giving reasons why to the philosophical questions. who created me? the gods. what is my purpose? to make up for the failings of other humans apparently. if you follow the church of the brothers that is. what is a life? an existence with a soul. Grimm being excluded from it. you could also argue anything created by the god of light." said the Arc gesturing lazily with his hand as he reclined once more in his chair.

"your point Mr. Arc" said ozpin with a dry tone

"ancient kings argued that their authority came from the gods, a religious answer," he said simply in response

"hmm, concrete but still based on the unknowable," said ozpin leaning forward "after all, there was no real way to prove that they did have the decree of the brothers to rule"

"as opposed to you who works in the realm of science, of laws"

"and which realm does your authority derive from then? philosophy?"

"my answer does at the very least," said jaune with a smirk "philosophy has taught me that those questions are important but the answers ultimately meaningless." there was a shift in the room as jaune’s eye’s focused on him, the boy posture straightening up and his tone… lowering, slowing down. This was a statement of fact "my life isn't defined by value or purpose" he was in an audience with a king now, not a boy, "you ask from whom my authority derives?" they locked eyes "from choice, my choice" he stood then and ozpin did as well, calling up his experience as a ruler and hero to resist the need to bow his head or look away from him. He locked eyes with the would-be ruler, he wouldn't let himself be cowed by a boy "I give myself authority ozpin" he said with a finality, with a certainty and a narrowing of his eyes as if he was challenging him to dispute it.

the room was silent for a long while, the steady tick-tock of the clock like room marking the seconds the tension rising and rising before both men suddenly smiled and laughed. or at least chuckled the tense moment passing away at the sounds

ozpin felt a little ridiculous about getting so worked up over the philosophical ramblings of a boy, interesting though they may be.

"Did I answer your question Headmaster?" asked jaune suddenly a boy again. down to the boyish grin on his face like they were sharing a joke

"Indeed you did, Mr. Arc. and left me with something very interesting to think about." said ozpin taking a sip from his coffee mug "but unfortunately I do have a school to run and I can't spend all day philosophizing" he finished with a wry grin "another time perhaps? when I'm not about to be chewed out by Glynda for avoiding my work"

"of course headmaster, it was pretty enjoyable for me too, thank you for your time," said jaune with a smile as he turned to walk into the elevator

ozpin spoke up as jaune hit the button to go down "Mr.Arc" he called out making the boy look up "I'll be very interested in how your answer plays out, best of luck with it" and the doors closed and ozpin played with a knight piece on the table

before placing it down and picking up the king

"yes Mr. Arc, very interested indeed"

so yeah ozpin and jaune become friends and maybe are planning to take over the world together? hard to tell with those two honestly.

GIVE ME THE REVIEWS I SO DESPERATELY CRAVE!

uh i mean let me know what you think.

#accidental villain jaune #this became a trillogy how'd that happen?#Jaune Arc #headmaster ozpin #rwby #rwby au

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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The Loud House Reviews: The Boss Maybe/ Family Bonding

Loud House weekly coverage continues as Leni is pushed into the deep end of responsiblity and taking over Lori’s old role of babysitter while her parents are gone and promptly drowns in a sea of comedy clubs, human body parts both on screen and in the fridge, old men in holes and indoor beach volley ball.

First things first: Last week I forgot to mention Rusty’s mustache freezing off as god, wether it be the judeo-christian god, Odin, that prick Zeus, the flying spagehtti monster or one of many other gods out there. Perhaps all of them did it at once out of hatred for the little weiner. Maybe one of them finally answered my prayers which in that case, that was nice and all but there are far worse things going on i’d prefer you took care of. Also the “stuff I couldn’t fathom” turned out to be just more loudcest, because of course it did. Loudcest is like David Spade, you think it’s finally gone or isn’t doing as much but then it comes around and makes the wrong missy and you waste 90 minutes of your life thinking i’td be so bad it’s good when it’s really just boring and a waste of it’s main actress talent. I lost track of that metaphor, but Loudcest is like david spade in that people like it for reasons I can’t fathom and it hasn’t quietly faded into the background for reasons I can’t fathom, though at least david spade was funny once. So maybe Loudcest isn’t like david spade. or maybe i’ve been taking too long with this bit.

But whlie last week was a bit wonky it also had a lot to setup.. but now it’s time to see what the show does with all the setup over, and a lot of new possiblities ahead. PItter Patter!

The Boss Maybe Ah now this is exactly what I was hoping for this season. New situations brought about by the year-up and all the changes it brought, with the same old heart and humor and character progression that drew me back into the show. This is the kind of episode i love and have talked about in the past and dosen’t fall into any of the shows usual pitfalls in the process. Just great. I could end it there but I haven’t shut up before why do it now. So this episode focuses on Leni who I talked about a bit last week and easily had the best plot and in general tends to have good episodes, both before and after the show became an ensemble piece, and even in episodes without her tends to slide in just fine. She’s always a nice breath of fresh air when she shows up.

I think that’s due to a number of things. For one it’s how sweet a person she is: She’s genuinely nice, kind and well meaning. While she is dumb as a box of rocks that resemble Pauly Shore, what I like is her stupidity isn’t malicious, or overused for misery. She causes comical injuries from time to time with it but she’s quick to apologize iff she realises it and usualyly has no ill will to anybody unless provoked or fighting Lori over a dress despite them wearing the same clothes all the time. I know standard animation thing but it’s always weird to me when shows with a stock outfit for a character have a fashionista, and prefer when shows have stylish characters actually change outfits like Kim Possible did with it’s title character, Xiaolin Showdown did with Kimiko and of all things LIttlest Petshop did with Blythe. Granted Blythe is a nothing of a character but still, credit where it’s due. But I do get this is also a nick show and they givet hem the budget of 50 cents and a network memo that says “BEG US FOR MORE MONEY” written in blood, so fair enough.

That aside she’s just plesant to watch. The other factor is Liliana Mumy. If you haven’t heard of her , she’s a vetran voice actress whose been doing this on and off since she was a kid, voicing Panini on chowder as a child and later going on to voice Beth in bravest warriors among other roles. Why she only does work so ocasionaly I have no idea but when she does she’s great. She’s also the son of fellow child actor BIll Mumy, aka the guy who as a kid played Anthony Fremont from the Twilight Zone classic “It’s A Good Life”, which if you haven’t seen it is about a small child who has the power of a god and thus can banish people who are “bad”, i.e. disobey him and thus rules over a small town as a creepy and cruel despot. Oh and he can read minds so if you dare to have a thought he dosen’t like your getting banished, with no telling what that means or where anyone disappeared goes. It’s good stuff. Highly recommend it, Mumy is absolutley terrifing and a brilliant actor even at that age and I wish he’d done more as an adult. I also bring it up because Lily played his daughter when they did a sequel episode during the UPN version of the show, set decades later and showing just what the little terror was like grown up... as well as what happens when his DAUGHTER gets the power. It was also really good and worth a watch after the first one. Good stuff.

TLDR: Leni is one of my faviorites, so’s her voice actress, i’ve rambled enough about unrelated stuff at this point.

We open at the mall, where for Leni life begins after schol, that’s when we bend all the rules time to hang with all her friends in the place where she belongs!

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I mean technically she’s 17 now, but she was 16 when she started this job and none of them were 16 by the time the show ended so nyeh. This started in season 3 when the show started giving the girls not just their own stories but their own supporting casts., storylines, love intrests etc. Luna and Luaan got their romance plots with Sam and Benny, Lori got her college plot towards the end of the season, Lynn’s friends started showing up in her plots more, Luna’s mortuariy club went from assorted background friends of hers to a full fleged supporting crew, and of course Lincoln’s friend group started to become a recurring part of his plots away from his sisters.

For Leni, being one of the only three kids that could legally work at the time, another possible plot to dig into, and with Luna having way less incentive to get a 9-5 job with her music to work on and the fact we’ve seen her use said music to make money once in a blue moon, Leni was a good choice. It gave her something she was good at besides fashion, even if it’s fashion adjacent and gave us a new supporting cast for those stories: Her boss Mrs. Redinger, your standard “i’m tough by fair” type, and her new friends Fiona and Miguel, two fellow fashion savy teens played by actors i’d never heard of but who do a damn good job and play off her well, with both being a bit sarcastic but Fiona being a bit more mopey and deadpan and Miguel being a possibly but defintely gay teen. Both play off her well by being more down to earth and more wiling to be negative, but still enjoyable enough to be around you can buy them being friends with Leni and their a stellar addition to the cast. I wish, much like we’ve gotten with Liam lately, we could see more of them outside leni stories. Their a treat.

But I really like Leni’s work there. Besides the cast it puts Leni in a role of responsiblity she excels at. My only real problem is her boyfriend, maybe I dunno, Chaz, one of the ONLY love intrests from l is for love to get mentioned again and one of the more intresting ones, never shows up despite also working at hte mall and the story potetial of them working for rival stores or the same store. I mean I can’t blame them for not throwing another love intrest on the pile when they had two ongoing romance plots, but now both Luna and Luann are on steady ground with their steadies, it’s time to pull that trigger, get off hte ground and eat that horse. Also let LIncoln have one again will ya? It dosen’t have to be stella but Girl Jordan is right there, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.. where is she. And if not her just make one you’ve proven to actually be really good at it.

Where was I? Ah yes the mall. Leni is doing great at her job, suggesting some gloves to scoots, who ceases being skeptical when a hunky younger man of 30 something compliments her on them them chases off after him. If you don’t remember who scoots was that’s the old lady on a scooter who makes troulbe and appareltly can still get it. Good for her. Granted this is coming from someone who ships eda and stan pines still even though it’s now revealed she’s 30 but... frankly I don’t think age is a concern with her and stan can make this joke, so it evens out.

I mean he would right? I”m getting off topic even more than usual, point is Leni is doing great and her boss takes her to the break room for cake room... it’s just the one cake but can you imagine a cake room? that’s the life. Just a fridgerated room full of cake.

Turns out she’s EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. And she didn’t have to chain squidward to an ancient battle ship to get it or anything. After some confusion, Fiona has to clarify it’s NOT her birthday because of course she does, Leni is proud. Full of cake and pride she tells her mom whose decided to reward her good job at work.. by dumping a bunch of respnosiblity on her. I kid. Rita is being somewhat resonable here. She asks Leni to take over Lori’s old role of babysitting/making sure the other 10, now 9 kids don’t burn the house down... no really she actually specifies that when leaving in the next scene. Which.. fair enough.. you have 11 kids, all likely to plug in a lot of stuff especially Luna and Lisa, said Lisa is a mad scientest who ends up nearly being the one to do it this time, Lynn has no common sense, and the younger ones who aren’t mad scientst are still reckless and vain and combattive respectivley so the odds of a house fire nearly breaking out on any given night are 1:1. But Leni in a show of self doubt that’s rare for her is scared (Though her revealing that by answering a question of how she’d feel about about babysitting the kids with “Scared” was fucking gold. I swear Lily’s deliveries are always so great. ), and while Rita assures her she’s not sure. But as I said, she is being resonable: While Leni’s not the brightest she’s kind, she’s been shown even before her recent major award she’s responsible, she’s babysat for other people’s kids, and she’s kind. I mean they COULD put Luna or Luaan in charge but while when I first read the preview blurb for this episode I was cuirous why they didn’t think of that or thought they would, this episode does a good job presenting WHY they’d do it, while other episodes fill in the gaps: Luna is a bit reckless and Luaan can get caught up in her bidness and as we know once a week goes through the green door and comes out a gamma monster fuled by the sound of her own laughter, a horrible mixture of the joker and madman.. the leader’s insane brother. I’m a huge nerd, you all know this. Leni is the right choice.

Despite her nerves Leni has little choice but to take it on and Mr. Loud proudly sees her out with ye olde english as he and Rita, with lily in a cute little knight’s helmet in tow, are going to a renisance fair to cater, with Lynn Sr needing the backup. And while you may say “what about his staff”.. their either going with and he just needs an extra pair of hands since it’ll be nuts, or some of them are staying behind to man Lynn’s Table while he’s out on his catering gig. I mean the man has plenty of time for his kids, he’s not at the restraunt 24 hours a day. Someone else has to run it when he’s gone. I asked internally why they didn’t just take them along.. then reminded myself that taking all 11 kids to the faire at once, without anyone to watch them and likely having to call in favors when jsuta s likely, Lynn Sr and Rita can take them all another day with presumibly free passes as part of the catering job as that sounds like the kinda thing he’d do. Also Senior’s into scarf’s now thanks to Leni, which I love. Looks good on him. Hank should give her a call. Ascots may be out but I think he could rock a scarf. I’ve had ventures on the brain. What follows is naturally Leni having several panic attacks as chaos naturally insues btu without Lori’s lifetime of experince dealing with it. IT’s a nice dynamic: Leni, as we’ve established, has always been sort of Lori’s sidekick, her best friend, her amigo. Sure they fight, siblings do that, but they’ll always be there for each other when it counts. SHe’s never really had to THINK without her or be without her, so throwing her into the deep end of taking care of the kids really leaves her shook. It’s a HARD job, it’s probably why the louds don’t bring in babysitters often: there are 11 kids to look after, 10 now and only 9 tonight but still a LOT of them and most of htem pretty high maintince. It was just easier with Lori because she grew up knowing each of them, knowing each of their weaknesses and putting the fear of her righteous wrath into them. They’ve spent their whole lives looking up to her, literally and figuratvely, as their big sister and respecting her as the biggest authority in the house that’s nto her parents, sometimes bigger. Those aren’t just big shoes to fill , their Galactus size and that combined with her big sister worship leaves Leni understandably scared, lost and frequently paralized with anxiety this episode. No really multiple times she just freezes and one times she screams. As someone with Anxiety disorder I related to this.. sometimes you either just break down or you just FREEZE from the stress and everything hitting you at once and have no idea how to progress while people are still barking at you to do something. It’s a lot but it was a nice touch that really added to her sympathy. And her anxiety is also understandable when she’s being hit with 80 problems at once, which i’ll tackle all at once here rather than in order as this episode has a really frentic and good pace: while it follows the formula of “Leni runs into a problem, Leni freezes, then Leni gets help from Lori twice hten mr.grouse, more on that in am inute”, the quick pace and great jokes help keep things from feeling too repetivie.

Anyways the chaos: Just from the start Lucy puts a possibly human liver in the fridge, Lana eats all the cookies then gets skunked by her pet skun, and Lola and Lynn get into a fight over 5 bucks Lynn found, and since Leni can’t just let one kill the other as nature intended she has to fix all this.. mostly by removing the smell with tomato juice and scaring off the skunk and cutting the dolar bill in half. Money dosen’t work that way as both sisters point out but frankly it’s Lola and Lynn, I don’t care who they feel.

Meanwhile two of my other faviorties get into a tiff over their room: Luaan turns it into a comedy club and kicks luna out, with Scoots and her new man returning. Again, get it girl, get it, and Leni, under Lori’s advice, pretneding to be a fire marshall.. only for Luna towarsd the end to turn it into her own rock club. Lisa creates a corossive super substance that burns a hole in the floor, Lana continues to grapple with the skunk and finally Lincoln and Clyde.. watch a scary movie despite Lucy’s warnings.. and Lucy does something else.. I think? It was a chaotic episode with a lot of set pieces so forgive me if I forgot one of them. Honestly she’s the most well behaved there.But yeah as per the cliche Lincoln and Clyde, after Leni gets the wifi fixed with Mr. Grouse’s help, they get super scared and freaked. Everyomne is freaking, the house is falling apart and Senior wants permission to wear a pinky ring via thought cloud.. which.. no man no. Scarves yes but no one looks good with a pinky ring. No one. And I say that as amporphous blob covered in hair, sweat and regrets.

As for how Leni deals with all this she leans on Lori, calling her twice, but at inportune times: during a golf game and at the library where said phone gets taken. Granted, I don’t get why she didn’t have it on silent, as I would in those situations, but then we wouldn’t have an excuse to include her and it feels necessary to show WHY Lori can’t just help all night or reassure her sister and with Lori gone the panic only intensifies. As I said she gets paralized with fear and later just outright screams.. which attracts an irate Mr Grouse, the next door neighbor who I need to watch more of’s episodes. Including 12 louds of leapin.. I know i’m way overdue on that. This december. Promise.

The old man who yells at Louds helps for a bit, helping get rid of a beach Lynn set up because she’s lynn, she has the consderation of a puppy, but eventually falls in a hole like most great heroes and most elderly people. I mean the ones up the street at the retierment home must fall in once a week. They get out of course because the assitant living mole lets them ride out as it digs into the walls. Or maybe that was just a hallucination. Eventually though the start at her job comes back as she calls the only people she has left for help: Fiona and Miguel, who are at the mall in chairs because of courser they are, and both are confused why she’s so helpless: She’s fantastic at work, she’s kind, confident and smart.. about certain things, she can do this. Besides helping her confidence with this really sweet moment they also give her a good tool for how to use said confdience from work: just treat her siblings as customers. It’s also a nice call back to how we’ve seen Leni learn way back in season 1 during “Driving Miss Hazy” we’ve seen that she can have troulble grasping things, but when you put it in terms she understands, like fashion, or shopping, or in this case helping customers with their issues, she snaps into it. She learns at her own pace in her own way, it’s why I think sh’es neurotypical, and possibly ont he spectrum like yours truly: while her stupidity isn’t part of that the unqiue way she processes things has me supscious. either way it works.

So with a new strategy Leni.. literally adresses them like shoppers, which is comedy gold. However it’s a valid strategy: besides the visualation part by getting them to form a line, instead of trying to handle 2 or 3 problems at once she simply handles them one at a time: She scares the skunk off again, shuts down both competing clubs in the older kids room, uses water to take out lisa’s universal solvant, gives Lola and Lynn 5 bucks instead of just cutting a ten in half this time, and in the sweetest moment of the episode, reads Clyde and Lincoln a childrens book to clam them down. Sure it’s a bit funny but their genuine relief and all threes adorable expressions really melt the heart.

Leni finally wins, just as her parents get home and congradulate her, Rita’s faith not misplaced. While Rita probably knew it’d be an adjustment, and frankly should’ve prepped her sooner, she knows her daughter and knows waht sh’es caapable of. Also Senior brought home meet and gives leni a turkey leg who gives it to the old man who now lives in a hole inside their house. That’s his home now. Mr Grouse is just there now. Or I wish he was. But I guess you can’t always get what you want epsecially if it’s an old man living in a hole in the loud’s living room. Someday. Final thoughts for The Boss Maybe: As you could easily tell I loved this one. Funny with a hell of an emotional core, and with great pacing espeially for a loud house episode, this was a joy to watch and easily one of the best episodes the show has done. Just a funny, breezy watch with a lot of subtext, intetional or not, regarding what we’ve seen of Leni and honestly i’m going to go with intetional. It felt really rooted in who Leni is, her relationship with lori, and her work without hitting you over the head with it. It just all flowed really well and made for a hard one to top for the season this early. I’m impressed and it gives me hope for the rest of the season.

Family Bonding

This one was.. okay. As i’ve learned the hard way from doing Amphibia when an episodes just okay it’s best to breeze through it.. but I can give it this. While it’s mostly a standard loud house episode the ending.. wasn’t predictable. That’s for sure. I mean.. it left me with only one thought really...

But i’m getting ahead of myself. The episode’s plot is standard for the most part: Lincoln’s obessed with a new spy comic book about a james bond expy.. okay so that’s what Sterling Archer did besides physical therapy for the three months between his waking up and Season 11. Anyways they soon get more exciting news from Lynn. New Neighbors! Before Rita can stop them, the rest of her family tramples over her and goes to make their aqunatince and of course be a bit overbaring with it before Rita rushes in with a spray bottle to spray them like a bad dog because frankly when your dealing with 11 people most of whom are really impuslive, sometimes dog training just works. You try raising eleven kids and see how long before your brain breaks. Anyways after introductions and the mom turning down cherry pie, you monsters, lincoln sees strange flashing lights and a device and is convinced something is up and unable to convince his family and on a spy kick, recurits clyde. Now why he dosen’t call on Stella and Zach I dunno. And yes I said Zach and not my boy Liam. I have my reasons: Stella, besides being a faviorite of mine, is a tech whiz as shown in one of the comics and in the cookie episode, and Liam is already a paranoid conspiracy nut and as we’ve seen with Dale Gribble, they can be suprisingly useful. I mean Dale is not the best on common sense but he knows goverment bilaws in and out, is skilled with a gun or a bag of pocket sand, and has danny trejo’s octavio, whose basically danny but as hired muscle instead of a master actor, on speed dial. I mean we don’t know if Zach dosen’t have a danny trejo on speed dial or not. We never asked. As for the other two while I love LIam, spying just dosen’t seem to be in his sizeable skill set and Rusty.. well rusty’s about as subtle as a man covered in screeching cats he glued to himself blowing an airhorn, while screaming the script to a micheal bay movie while doing the explosion noises himself.. which Rusty has probbbly done. The real thing i’m getting at is I don’t get why, outside of Clyde and LIam, the writers think when LIncoln has an epiosde it either just needs ot be ClyncolnMcCloud or the ENTIRE group, when one or two would do the trick. YOu CAN seperate them out. People do hang out with diffrent friends at diffrent times. I know the show’s grasp on reality is tenous at best, we got to that last week with the whole one teacher for core classes thing with schooled and this week.. again we’ll get to it in a second, but friends DO hang out seperate. We saw each member of the Lincrew, minus stella because she didn’t exist yet, doing their own thing in Racing Hearts. It’s not that complicated. It’s hard to flesht hem out when their used as one solid unit and not unresonable to just use one or two. it’s a lesson I hope the show learns eventually and hope it’s sister show learns too.

But yeah our dynamic duo spend the episode as youd’ expect; unraveling conspriacies and stalking the new family, though there are some funny bits. Besides Rita squirting her family like a cat or a dog, we have flip getting half his face shaved by a survelince drone and okay maybe just those two things. not bad bits, but the general concept of them roleplaying into mischief.. has been done before. The show’s done the detective bit before and the spy trappings really don’t change that. And you CAN do a good spy takeoff episode, this one just sin’t it and feels like your standard LIncoln and Clyde messaround with tuxedos. Which to be fair are pretty awesome but still. It’s pretty flat. The climax though? I’ll give it this.. it’s pretty entertainngi if also 100% what exactly the fuck. So our heroes are naturally caught sneaking into the neighbors house and its eems they were wrong, etc etc, exactly what we expected the new kid will hang around.. at least we have a new character. Instead.. LIncoln accidently hits a knob and unveils a panel

So yeah... turns out the new family ARE spies, just for Peach Growers and plan to wipe out all cherries in royal woods. Yup.. look I know this universe is patently insane but even for loud house, even with all of lisa’s super science... even with the slapstick but this is just.. nuts. Like i’m fine with suspending my disbelif, this show is a goofy comedy, but this is a bit much. I LOVE it for being nuts but only in a “what on spagehtti monster’s green earth were you thinking”. I get swinging for the fences but Lincoln getting into a fight with a bunch of spies after playing spy, well beating them with slapsticks and stopping their plot to elmitie cherries..t his isn’t Kids Next Door. This just.. dosen’t work. Jeff Goldblum tell em why, my brains too broken to articulate this anymore

Yeah that. It’s just a weird climax and ends iwth LIncoln vetting the new neighbors.. which does it include girl jordon? Did they just write her out? If so why? Fans liked her, you can have more than one female character in Lincoln’s friend group. Zach is replacable. You can give me whatever the fuck this was, but not an intresting friend for him who has personality already. I get 50% chad but not your decision making. Gah.

Final Thoughts for .. this. one This one really didn’t work. Besides the ending just not fitting the series specific brand of ludicrous, I mentioned KND for a reason as it made this sort of plot work fine by having it’s whole unvierse be really fucking weird and specific, it’s mostly just okay. We’ve seen this before.. well okay I haven’t watched many of the Lincoln and Clyde messarounds, but the formula’s about the same. And that dosen’t work. For one you have a HUGE swath of new possiblities: A new school, Chandler coming back, new teachers and faculity, a new principal, and Lynn and LIncoln being in the same school, and you instead just.. retread the same crap. you have 4 of lincoln’s friends other than clyde to use but don’t let them in on the fun. And most agrivating to me you move new neighbors into the neighborhood while neglecting some of your old supporting cast and have them be villians of the week instead of adding someone NEW to the neighborhood. Give one of the other kids a new friend, or give lincoln a new friend to add to his group and replace liam, shake up the dynamic with him and clyde bya dding a third or, most obviously move one of his friends INTO the neighborhood, most obviously stella since you spent so much time building her up then have her addition affect Lincoln and Clyde. Sure we’ve had an episdoe of one of his friends getting in the way of them before, but this would be diffrent. This episode is just.. not great and was a waste of my time, espespcailly after following such a stellar episode. It’s probablyt he first genuinely bad episode i’ve covered on this blog. Now that probably won’t stand, i’ve seen genuiley worse but.. as a wise penguin once said.

One last note. That Young Dylan graphic is really obnoxiou and obtrusive. It’s the second most obnoxious thing i’ve seen on this network.

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I”m out for this week. If you want more check out my Amphibia reviews, as I just finished a new one today, my other loud house reviews in the newly minted nickelodeon tab or other stuff on my other tabs, send me an ask for reviews you’d like to see or pay me to review whatver you want for 5 bucks via direct message. And check this blog Monday for the return of weekly Ducktales coverage, and next weekend for the next episode of loud house, and throughotu the week for more reviews. Until we meet again, GO TEAM VENTURE!. Play us out Mary Kate Wiles. If nothing else this episode let me use this song.

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rapmillionaire · 4 years

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Yé or Nay

An indirect connotation to “choice”, minute 7 [https://youtu.be/USddwTvRdJc]:

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I agree with what Dr. Yunus says about the pot and soil being an essential ingredient/factor in how the seed flourishes. . . I was referring less to Kanye, and more to the fact that it goes against Kanye's outspoken viewpoint of slavery having been a "choice", which I myself found to be an interesting perspective and something I find leads to an intriguing conversation at it's root. . .

What I think Kanye said was a powerful anecdote and way of reframing the conversation. . . I took what he said as to mean:

"we (blacks) shouldn't have been under such control by the construct of whites and their framework for such a long time (i.e. that sounds like a choice to me)" ..

That's a powerful and revolutionary statement to be blasted to the masses by a pop icon. But that's only if one is able to look deep enough realize how and in what way this statement serves itself as true. . . . The issue, and the big issue obviously, is Kanye said this from a framework of ignorance when referencing it to slavery being a choice. I fathom. Because he wasn't there (nor was I), nor did he know the conditions of the "soil" (bonsai metaphor) and the impossibilities of being able to "escape" / "rise up" from, nor did he know how many folks actually attempted to but failed (and in what ways they attempted, thus countering his point that they'd not been exercising such "choice" to begin with. The conclusion I found to be 'defining' by Yunus is in reference to the difficulty for that "choice" to fruition according to the "soil" ~ bonsai metaphor given by Yunus). That's the dagger to eliminate any validity toward the "choice" statement made by Kanye.

THUS, Kanye spoke ignorantly (stupidly) about the specific reference he was making. . . But his message of "choice" is a real one, and a powerful one, and one that in fact gives blacks, and Palestinians, and women rights, and all "pro" movements in general, a more electrified stance. . . How each of the bonsai soils are, at the roots of each of those movements, will determine potential outcomes (of activism and progress made), in the same way that Yunus states the outcomes leading to poverty come from the actual environment and setup (systemic malfunctions), rather than from the actual people themselves (i.e. the ppl are not lazy, nor stupid, nor useless in the way folks often describe the homeless and poor).

I feel like i might've mis-communicated that in my first blog post, thus it could've offended some folks and even been mistaken as "racist". Overall, I liked what Kanye said most b/c it's a deep and embedded truth which has found itself to be unjustified in the most practical of senses for that specific scenario. Eventually such "choice" worked it's way up to now African Americans living better lives with better opportunities than they had just even a half-century ago. Which is a testament to both America's malleability in righting it's wrongs, and the spirit of humans to band together, fight, and support one another who are unalike, toward respect, dignity, freedom and justice -- which is what American was founded upon -- which goes on to prove that America's founding fathers' idealism is a feat that is able and capable of being achieved (not without it's faults, of course). . .

I like kanye's criticality and reasoning and way of thinking. That's what makes kanye different (with good intent, yet not tastefully spoken always), and thus dope. He brings important points and a poignant perspective to conversations. Anyone who does that catches my ear cause I want to learn first and foremost to understand under what dynamic is what this person's saying true. That allows a more holistic outlook in the end, and provides all of the tools to really tackle issues which makes for well-fashioned dialogue whether folks end up agreeing or not. It does not minimize nor count-out variables and potentialities, which can only help move things along, so long as wisdom is able to anoint toward where goes what.

Obviously the mass mind and common public aren't able to comprehend Kanye's point of view fully. Especially not when the media takes it and runs with it in a wild and narrow-minded fashion without genuinely diving into the root perspective for how he comes to such conclusion, and where it's fault lies, and where it's truth also sits. . . Another who intrigues the conversation is Candace Owens. This mind has stated interesting points before, one of which backed by data, and which I myself have witnessed first-handedly, in unison with what Muhammad Yunus has also stated - the primary of which I'm referring to being: welfare, and how that's detrimental to folks (not those who are handicapped or suffering mental illness of course since they do need special assistance). . I work at The Haven, a day shelter for those in need. I have witnessed the system encourage folks to not make progress and to maintain their using the system as a crutch (the welfare system, specifically). On more than one occasion, I have heard "clients" speak on turning down job opportunities because their welfare check would lessen if they took the job, and they'd much rather keep the higher income and stay with things as is (i.e. not working) then get the job. Obviously there is a lack of hope in what projection and trajectory folks believe they can take, and thus then achieve (in the form of "leveling up") -- this being the system's fault, from the bonsai metaphorical viewpoint -- due to lack of opportunity and availability of resources to build upon small-step wins, such as taking a job). . . What that then does to the spirit and the habit that creates in the mind of a person, of dependency and arguably "laziness" if you want to call it that -- indeed is an issue, countering human progress, disguised as "helpfulness" by big brother / the infrastructure / the government. Thus other notions of legislation and ways of workings remain the same, as a turnstile maintains it's trajectory and speed. . . And that maintains variables and factors, thus conditions of living as well (including constructs of poverty).

I find myself being less liberal on some topics, and overall more moderate than simply "right" or "left", on the whole. The fact that this country remains divided as "left" vs "right" is an overarching and deeply embedded fault. . . Two extremes, opposing one another with friction, leads to inundated manifestations of progress and at worst cataclysm. But bridging gaps, with both sides coalescing in ways where data and facts and critical reasoning charge the way, through pilot programs proving what data represents what specific contexts, enchants equivocated prosperity. In fact, programs (universities) should work with the government, serving as testing grounds for what answers and issues the government fails to fully comprehend, thereby achieving proof of facts and truths toward public policy and socio-economic stability among all classes. Social business is a way to achieve such means, if the government is unwilling to bridge such (gaps). An idea I have attempted to put forth is Resolving Poverty: a for-purpose figment that funds housing-first programs (housing for those who are homeless). This method of housing has been proven to be most effective and efficient in getting folks off the streets and as contributing members of society. When one purchases a piece, 90% of profit revenue is channeled to a housing first fund (of an organization rated well by CharityNavigator). Whence the consumer then wears the apparel, viewers will read and note the logo and the website attached, encouraging the interested to visit and learn more, and to support in more than one way (politically (search database), or economically(as a customer), or socially (sharing the word).

All of this calls for a transformation and transcendence of self. To think, dream, and evolve. That is what African Americans have done. That is what the Palestinians will need to do if they're ever to earn autonomy. And such intentions ("choice") for them to transcend is up to them. Nobody will do it for the other if the other is first and foremost unable to attract such assistance vehemently unto themselves. . . . Human nature in general is made to fight and rise above. Where the lack of such occurs may be attributed to the genius of opposition in subduing such nature from fruiting to combustion; castration if you will, whether through ignorance, or nullification in the most tangible of terms.

What Kanye said, I believe, reignites a numbness in a most critical and empowering notion of facets, maintaining guilt upon wrong-doers, whilst identifying an inner need to ignite and encompass position and movement. . . furthermore. . . Vehicles still made available.

Written on April 8, 2020

#kanye west #muhammad yunus #slavery #choice #poverty #government

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legobiwan · 5 years

Text

Whumptober #9 (shackled)

TW: THIS GETS SCHMOOPY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I RARELY WRITE ROMANCE BUT YOU KNOW, TIMES CHANGE, THEY COME TO AN END, FOR A START.

Fandom: Good Omens (Aziraphale/Crowley)

Notes: This not at all what I generally write, but these two have hijacked my brain in some weird ways. Less angst than usual, far more schmoop than I amn generally comfortable writing but it’s good to expand one’s horizons. Still grappling with these characters and universe, so thank you for bearing with me, the bar has been set high in the Gomens fandom, dear gods.

-----

To shackle (v.): to chain with shackles. See: shackles (n.)

Shackles (n.): a pair of fetters connected together by a chain, used to fasten a prisoner’s wrists or ankles together

Aziraphale hadn’t been there when it happened. He fought in the war, of course - everyone had fought in the war. The actual Fall had went by unwitnessed, however, save for the small tug Azirapahle had felt in his chest when Heaven had opened to that great maw, flinging no less than one-third of his angelic siblings into the impenetrable void.

No one knew for certain what happened after, and first-hand accounts from demons were rather hard to come by. Rumors spread - some had tried to crawl back to Heaven, they said, the enormity of their error made real by the loss of Her Grace. Others welcomed their Fall, dancing, reveling in the maelstrom of indignity and damnation, internalizing their pain to use as a cudgel against others. Still some struggled in the new order, neither desperate for a return nor willing to accept their new fate with open arms.

Soon enough, they all came to know their place, essences shackled to Hell, to their new master.

That, at least, had been the rumor in Heaven.

But Aziraphale had seen the angry, red welts on Crowley’s wrists and ankles in the beginning, and wondered if the rumors were true.

To bind (v.):

1. To tie or fasten (something) tightly

2. To cohere or cause to cohere in a single mass

3. To impose a legal or contractual obligation on; be hampered or constrained by

All things being equal, it wasn’t that difficult to summon and bind a demon. Aziraphale found this perplexing. For a mortal to summon and bind an angel - well, it just didn’t happen and woe betide the angel who found themselves caught in such an embarrassing (and dangerous) situation. One would think Hell might take better precautions, but if the multitude of accounts regarding demon-summoning in the 1800s were anything to go by, this type of activity was categorized more as an occupational hazard than existential threat.

Still, Hell almost always came out on top, as the humans did have a tendency to enter into ill-conceived arrangements with whatever demon they had managed to wrest from the occult plane. The maths worked out in Hell’s favor (between the two sides, it was widely accepted Hell had better accountants. The devil was in the details, after all), and the house always wins. Doubly so when it came to making bargains with the agents of Hell.

And besides, the humans - well, one generally didn’t call upon a demon to do good deeds, now did they? It wasn’t a net loss for Heaven - those sould had been written off the ledger years before Hell got involved.

(Not that demons were called on to do good deeds, in general. That was, excepting certain situations involving Aziraphale and one particular demon.)

Crowley had disappeared three decades into the 16th century.

And then one day, he staggered into Aziraphale’s quarters, complexion chalky, his hands shaking as he grasped the flagon of wine on the angel’s table, downing the contents in one long gulp.

“Where were you?” Aziraphale asked, hours later, neither he nor Crowley having moved from their spots on the floor.

“Summoned. Humans. Nasty business,” Crowley croaked, laying his head on the angel’s thigh. It took less than a minute for the demon to still, mouth open, snores soft as his chest rose and fell with a regular rhythm. Aziraphale wrapped an arm around Crowley’s chest, eyes shuttering closed with uncharacteristic sleepiness.

The next morning Crowley was gone.

To chain (v.): to fasten, bind, or connect with or as if with a chain. See: chain (n.)

Chain (n.): a series of usually metal links or rings connected to or fitted into one another and used for various purposes (such as support, restraint, transmission of mechanical power, or measurement)

Most humans used a calendar to mark time. Aziraphale, being an angel and therefore accustomed to thinking of events in terms of decades and not weeks, used Crowley as his personal calendar. Or more precisely, Crowley’s clothing.

Linens gave way to fitted garments. Heels rose, then tapered in concert with bottoms, which peaked and fell like the tides. And as fashion changed, so did Crowley, a serpent in new skin.

By the 1970s, Crowley had recycled his pants from the Victorian era (“Reusing pants, Crowley?” “Eh, everything comes back, angel. Besides, think of it as Sloth in action, er...non-action, this is. Why make the effort to miracle up something new when I can use something old?”) The long velvet jacket had been a nice touch, although Aziraphale had not been convinced by Crowley’s hair, and certainly not the mustache. It was during the contemplation of said facial hair (and how he might tempt - persuade, rather, the demon to shave it off) that the angel noticed the glint of silver, evidence of a long chain looped around Crowley’s neck. Aziraphale, having lost track of fashion fads somewhere in the eighteenth century, took it as another adaptation of the times and thought nothing more of it.

Except it was now the 1980s, and wide lapels and polyester had given way to egregious shades of neon and tight spandex pants that left little to the imagination. Cheeks flushed, Aziraphale was keeping his gaze trained on the demon from the waist-up, thank you very much, when something caught his attention. A raised outline, on the demon’s chest. If he concentrated, Aziraphale could hear the subtle scrape of metal against metal as Crowley sauntered through Soho.

By the time the 90s had rolled around, (and had thankfully ended the spandex era, there was only so much temptation the angel could withstand), Aziraphale had a working hypothesis.

“It’s nothing, angel,” Crowley responded to his inquiry. They were two bottles of wine in, inhibitions fading with the afternoon sun.

“Crowley, you’re been wearing that - that thing for the past three decades. You can barely keep the same style for five years! Just tell me what it is.”

The demon glanced down at his chest, silver links showing just above his collarbone. Crowley tucked the chain under his black shirt, not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Why does it matter to you?”

The angel frowned. It didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter, but - two bottles of an exquisite Shiraz was making it difficult to remember why. It was something about consistency. Something about being marked, about the symbolism. It was like wearing an amulet, or...Aziraphale’s mind searched for an appropriate metaphor.

Or like a wedding ring, he supposed.

Crowley sagged in his chair.

“It’s Hell, angel.”

“What?” Aziraphale’s stomach sank.

“I mean, literally, Hell’s idea. A way, uh,” Crowley pulled at his collar, muttering at the floor. “A way of reminding me who I belong to.”

Oh.

“Crowley, this isn’t some kind of punishment, is it?” Aziraphale bit his lip, casting his eyes upwards. “For our, uh - you know?”

“Oh, well. No, I mean. The Arrangement - no one knows you’re involved, angel, don’t worry.” Crowley made a show of looking at his watch. It was new, large, and incredibly fancy. “Oh hey, look at the time, angel, I’d better be going.” The demon was already halfway across the room by the time he finished the sentence.

“Still on for the theater tomorrow?” Crowley called over his shoulder, jacket crumpled over his arm.

“Yes, but Crow - “

“Super! Great! See you later, angel.”

The door slammed shut.

“No one knows you’re involved, angel.”

But Crowley hadn’t said Hell didn’t suspect one of their own.

To cuff (v.): to handcuff. See: handcuff (v.)

To handcuff (v.):

1. to apply handcuffs

2. to hold in check; to make ineffective or powerless

They had both been cuffed, dragged to their respective organizations, wrists locked together, hands immobile, rough, celestial and demonic rope playing the part of handcuffs. An angel in the guise of a devil, at the mercy of Hell’s whims. A devil, masquerading as an angel, offering himself to a second Judgement.

A simple snap would have broken their bonds. The line between angel and demon was not the thick, measured boundary both sides pretended (they were of the same original stock, after all), but in this case, there was an important difference. Simply put, bindings for an angel would not contain a demon and vice versa.

There had been no other choice but to go ahead with the plan. If they ran, Heaven and Hell would follow, track them through every city, star system, every nebula of the universe. If they went to their respective offices as themselves, feigning contrition, they would be destroyed. And fighting, no matter how much Crowley protested otherwise, was not an option.

And so they went willingly, bound not in body, but to the promise they made each other.

To hold (v.):

1. to support in a particular position or keep from falling or moving

2. to cover (a part of the body) with one or both hands (as for protection or comfort)

3. to have or maintain in the grasp

It took a week after the cancelled Apocalypse for Crowley to break down.

Nothing of note had precipitated the event. They had gone to dinner - an adorable French cafe nestled at the edge of Hyde Park. It boasted a crepe bar, truffle gnocchi, and a delightful Rosemary Vesper cocktail, of which Crowley had partaken of three before hurriedly moving on to the wine list with more frantic zeal than seemed appropriate for the occasion.

Still, the dinner passed with idle conversation and the scraping of silverware, an altogether pleasant experience. Bellies full, they ambled through the park, Aziraphale chatting about nothing at all as the London sun gave up its struggle to break through the haze of mid-winter, ceding its territory to dusk, then to evening’s dark blanket.

A few ducks huddled near the Round Pond, no doubt to find warmth in the cooling air. Aziraphale envied their closeness, his gaze flitting towards the thin, shivering figure at his side. Ridiculous, really, to be jealous of animals only acting according to their nature.

Crowley shoved his hands further into his jacket pockets, shoulders taut, high around his ears.

“Crowley, is everything okay?” Aziraphale worried at his hands. The demon had been - well, for lack of a better word, off the whole night.

“Mmnnit’s fine, just a little chilly out here. You know, sssnake and all.” Crowley shrugged, kicking at some loose dirt.

“Really, Crowley just - “ In two steps Aziraphale was at Crowley’s side, arm poised above the demon’s shoulders, protective instinct hijacking his better judgement.

Crowley’s eyes went moon-wide.

And then the demon deflated, burying his face in his hands.

“I can’t do this anymore, angel.”

The next moment were a blur. Hands grabbed at thick, woolen clothing, wet eyes found sanctuary in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck, mumbled, broken confessions whispered into his shoulder.

They were on the grass, Aziraphale leaning against a sturdy oak tree, a tangled mess of demon in his arms. The angel stroked the soft, fiery air, whispering nothing syllables as he held Crowley in his arms.

It’s going to be alright, he said. And for the first time in centuries, Aziraphale believes it.

To tie up (v.):

1) To restrain from normal movement.

Aziraphale tightened the final knot. The demon certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Not without his help, that was.

2) To keep busy.

The angel chuckled to himself, running a hand through Crowley’s hair, tugging lightly at the roots. They would both by rather busy for next few hours.

3) Preempt the use of

Yes, well, Aziraphale flushed. That was rather the point, was it not?

4) To connect closely

It was a gesture of trust, all of this, the way Crowley allowed himself wholly into Aziraphale’s care. It was a responsibility, a solemn duty, to be gifted with the small, glowing orb of Crowley’s trust, and Aziraphale swore to never breach, never break what he had been given. Later, he’ll wrap Crowley in his arms, when it was all done, when love poured from the demon in tired, euphoric waves, their limbs tangled together, cocooned by thick, soft duvets and softer emotions.

Aziraphale smiled.

To secure (v.): To make permanent.

Aziraphale held his hand to his face, silver band gleaming in the moonlight. Long fingers intertwined with his own, the metal of Crowley’s own ring cool against the angel’s lips.

“You’re trapped now, angel,” Crowley hummed, waggling his ring finger. “Shackled by a demon.”

Aziraphale wrapped his arms around his husband’s neck.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

legobiwan does whumptober

#WELL THAT HAPPENED #whumptober #whumptober 9 #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens spam #yes i'm behind trying to catch up #i'm not sure if i will #whumptober might go into novemebr #i think i can churn out one more tonight but i gotta get to some applications first #as i listen to messiaen organ music #writing #the eternal struggle #honestly i'm not sure how much i like this one but i am committed to finishing this damn whumptober even if i do it late

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7r0773r · 5 years

Text

Life with Picasso by Françoise Gilot & Carlton Lake

Before I met Picasso and for some months after, my painting was figurative in an experimental way. Early in 1944 I decided that what people were referring to in the jargon as “the anecdote” was useless and I began to work in a completely nonfigurative manner. My grandmother used to come upstairs to my studio every evening to see what I had done during the day. Several months earlier I had done figurative portraits and still lifes, rather tortured in their forms, and they had shocked her. But when I began to do nonfigurative painting, she liked it immediately.

“I didn’t understand what you were doing before,” she said, “and although I don’t understand this either, I find it pleasing. I see the harmony of color and design, and since you don’t twist and torture nature, I like it better.” I told her I didn’t have the impression that it was any more pleasing than what I had been doing before. On the contrary, in my own mind the compositions I was doing now had rather dramatic intentions and they were not pleasing for me. I asked her if she found them dramatic. She said, “Not at all. I can look at those by the hour and find them restful.”

I told Pablo about that one afternoon before he settled down to painting. He laughed. “Naturally,” he said. “Nonfigurative painting is never subversive. It’s always a kind of bag into which the viewer can throw anything he wants to get rid of. You can’t impose your thought on people if there’s no relation between your painting and their visual habits. I’m not speaking of the connoisseur of painting. I mean the average person, whose visual habits are pretty conventional. He sees a tree in a certain fashion, in accordance with habits he formed in childhood. Someone who has a very cultivated vision may see a landscape of Aix as a Cézanne, a landscape of Arles as a van Gogh. But in general, people see nature in conventional fashion and they don’t want anybody tampering with it. They are willing to be shown things that resemble nothing because those things correspond to a kind of invertebrate, unformulated interior dream. But if you take a commonplace way of seeing and try to change the slightest detail in it, Everyone shouts, ‘Oh, no, it’s not possible. That’s not the portrait of my grandmother.’

“When I paint, I always try to give an image people are not expecting and, beyond that, one they reject. That’s what interests me. It’s in this sense that I mean I always try to be subversive. That is, I give a man an image of himself whose elements are collected from among the usual way of seeing things in traditional painting and then reassembled in a fashion that is unexpected and disturbing enough to make it impossible for him to escape the questions it raises.”

I told Pablo I though nobody could have done completely nonfigurative painting better than he. “I suppose so,” he said. “In those polyhedric Cubist portraits I did in tones of white and gray and ocher, beginning around 1909, there were references to natural forms, but in the early stages there were practically none. I painted them in afterwards. I call them ‘attributes.’ At that period I was doing painting for its own sake. It was really pure painting, and the composition was done as a composition.. It was only toward the end of a portrait that I brought in the attributes. At a certain moment I simply put in three or four black touches and what was around those touches became a vest.

“I suppose I use that word ‘attribute’ in the way a writer might use it rather than a painter; that is, as one speaks of a sentence with a subject, verb, and attribute. The attribute is an adjective. It serves to qualify the subject. But the verb and the subject are the whole painting, really. The attributes were the few points of reference designed to bring one back to visual reality, recognizable to anyone. And they were put in, also, to hide the pure painting behind them. I’ve never believed in doing painting for ‘the happy few.’ I’ve always felt that painting must awaken something even in the man who doesn’t ordinarily look at pictures, just as in Molière there is always something to make the very intelligent person laugh and also the person who understands nothing. In Shakespeare, too. And in my work, just as in Shakespeare, there are often burlesque things and relatively vulgar things. In that way I reach everybody. It’s not that I want to prostrate myself in front of the public, but I want to provide something for every level of thinking.” (pp. 63-65

***

Pablo shook his head. “Kahnweiler’s right,” he said. “The point is, art is something subversive. It’s something that should not be free. Art and liberty, like the fire of Prometheus, are things one must steal, to be used against the established order. Once art becomes official and open to everyone, then it becomes the new academicism. . . . If art is ever given the keys to the city, it will be because it’s been so watered down, rendered so impotent, that it’s not worth fighting for.” (p. 181)

***

“I hate that aesthetic game of the eye and the mind,” Pablo said, “played by these connoisseurs, these mandarins who ‘appreciate’ beauty. What is beauty, anyway? There’s no such thing. I never ‘appreciate,’ any more than I ‘like.’ I love or I hate.” (p. 242)

***

I asked Pablo how he would classify one of my favorite colorists—Bonnard.

“Don’t talk to me about Bonnard,” he said. “That’s not painting, what he does. He never goes beyond his own sensibility. He doesn’t know how to choose. When Bonnard paints a sky, perhaps he first paints it blue, more or less the way it looks. Then he looks a little longer and sees some mauve in it, so he adds a touch or two of mauve, just to hedge. Then he decides that maybe it’s a little pink too, so there’s no reason not to add some pink. The result is a potpourri of indecision. If he looks long enough, he winds up adding a little yellow, instead of making up his mind what color the sky really ought to be. Painting can’t be done that way. Painting isn’t a question of sensibility; it’s a matter of seizing the power, taking over from nature, not expecting her to supply you with information and good advice. That’s why I like Matisse. Matisse is always able to make an intellectual choice about colors. Whether it’s close to nature or far away, he’s always able to fill an area completely with one color, simply because it goes with the other colors on the canvas, and not because of being more or less sensitive to reality. If Matisse decided the sky should be red, it would be a real cadmium red and nothing else and it would be all right because the degree of transposition in the other colors would be at the same level. He would transpose all the other elements of the canvas into a sufficiently high color range so that the mutual relationships of those tones made possible the intensity of that first red. In that way it’s the whole color range of the composition which permits that eccentricity. Van Gogh was the first one to find the key to that tension. He wrote, ‘I’m building up to a yellow.’ You look at a wheatfield, for example; you can’t say it’s a real cadmium yellow. But once the painter takes it into his head to arrive at an arbitrary determination of color, and uses one color that is not within nature’s range but beyond it, he will then choose, for all the rest, colors and relationships which burst out of nature’s straitjacket. That’s the way he asserts his freedom from nature. And that’s what makes what he does interesting. And that’s what I hold against Bonnard. I don’t want to be moved by him. He’s not really a modern painter: he obeys nature; he doesn’t transcend it. That method of going beyond nature is actively accomplished in Matisse’s work. Bonnard is just another neo-impressionist, a decadent; the end of an old idea, not the beginning of a new one. The fact that he might have had a little more sensibility than some other painter is just one more defect as far as I’m concerned. That extra dose of sensibility makes him like things one shouldn’t like.

“Another thing I hold against Bonnard is the way he fills up the whole picture surface, to form a continuous field, with a kind of imperceptible quivering, touch by touch, centimeter by centimeter, but with a total absence of contrast. There’s never a juxtaposition of black and white, of square and circle, sharp point and curve. It’s an extremely orchestrated surface developed like an organic whole, but you never once get the big clash of the cymbals which that kind of strong contrast provides.” (pp. 247-48)

***

“I get the idea,” Paul said. “You’re the only one who has a right to be happy. You want everybody else to be unhappy, is that it?”

“Naturally,” Pablo said. “A painter shouldn’t suffer. Not in that way, at least. I suffer from people’s presence, not from their absence.” (p. 277)

***

“People have said for ages that a woman’s hips are shaped like a vase. It’s no longer poetic; it’s become a cliché. I take a vase and with it I make a woman. I take the old metaphor, make it work in the opposite direction and give it a new lease on life. It was the same way, for example, with the thoracic cage of the goat. One could say the rib cage resembles a woven wicker basket. I move from the basket back to the rib cage: from the metaphor back to reality. I make you see reality because I used the metaphor. The form of the metaphor may be worn-out or broken, but I take it, however down-at-the-heel it may have become, and use it in such an unexpected way that it arouses a new emotion in the mind of the viewer, because it momentarily disturbs his customary way of identifying and defining what he sees. It would be very easy to do these things by traditional methods, but this way I can engage the mind of the viewer in a direction he hadn’t foreseen and make him rediscover things he had forgotten.” (pp. 289-90)

#françoise gilot #book quotes

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pass-the-bechdel · 6 years

Text

Teen Wolf full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

82% (eighty-two of one hundred).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

35.07%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twenty-eight.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Seven.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Two.

Positive Content Status:

Impressive and uplifting: it’s a show aimed at teens and young adults, and it recognises and takes full responsibility for representing a positive and progressive outlook to its audience. It’s a show full of complex, powerful, smart, skilled, wonderful, diverse female characters, and male characters who are emotional and vulnerable and honest and supportive with one another without judgment, and queer people living openly and happily without fear. I have had relatively minor quibbles, and I wouldn’t call it perfect representation, but it is easily the strongest example I currently have of the kind of positive representation I value (average rating of 3.18).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

Tough call, but season six part one edges out the competition by virtue of the highest percentage of female characters for the series (42.52%), which helps it to also score six episodes with 40%+ and three with their casts balanced or female-led at 50%+. It also turned in a 90% pass on the Bechdel.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

Season two, which featured both of the series’ under-20% female cast episodes, and turned in a total percentage of 26.5%, with only 58.3% on the Bechdel. It’s saving grace: the second-highest positive representation score of the series (3.41).

Overall Series Quality:

An absolute delight, end to end. It’s outrageous, it’s bombastic, it is, at times, ridiculous. But it embraces this about itself, it owns it and loves it and revels in it, and it maintains itself with remarkable consistency and never shows any sign of being embarrassed to be just exactly what it is. In a way, that’s another point in favour of the positive message it sends to its audience; there’s no reason to consider Teen Wolf a guilty pleasure, something to hesitate or equivocate before admitting your enjoyment, for it never hesitates or equivocates about itself. It’s an honest and uncomplicated kind of pleasure, and I, unabashedly, love it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

“You’re not a monster,” Scott declares, at the triumphant conclusion of the Teen Wolf series finale, “you’re a werewolf. Like me.” It’s a reiteration of the same line he uttered to his new beta, Liam, back in season four, and it’s a thoroughly earned mission statement for the show, a declaration that being different is ok, even if others have made you feel like an outcast for it, even if it’s difficult, even if it hurts. The way you are is ok, you have value as you are, and you are not alone. It’s easy to be cynical about that if it isn’t a message you personally need to hear, but for the youths in Teen Wolf’s target audience - especially the large queer contingent - it’s a crystal-clear affirmation that could not be more important, and not one made lightly. After all, it’s easy to make statements that sound glossy and progressive, but if you want people to really take it to heart, you have to earn it. Don’t just say it; demonstrate it. Whatever else you might think of this silly schlocky show, it didn’t just walk the walk with its representation: it strode out with pride.

With a show that performed so admirably, it’s hard to know what to discuss in summary: the female characters really are so varied and wondrous, so complex and realistically flawed and none of them ever shamed for being different to the rest (because different is ok). The male characters really are so refreshingly low on toxic masculinity, or alternately, they have the limitations and the damage of toxic masculinity so thoroughly exposed through their narrative arcs that there’s no question about the show promoting emotionally healthy openness as a masculine ideal. The queer characters really are so numerous and loved and never made to suffer for their identities (though, if one is quibbling, there was certainly a preponderance of queer males compared to a pretty limited supply of queer females, and don’t think I forgot how they teased us with the idea of queer Stiles early on but never canonically delivered). At the end of the day though, I have discussed the above all over the individual episode/season posts, and what I really want to talk about now is how well they packaged their lesson of diverse acceptance for a young audience, because that target intention is where the show’s progressive ethos really shone.

Not all teen-targeted shows take it upon themselves to teach good morals, and to suggest that they should can come off as infantalising; as if young adults are still children, needing to be taught fundamental behaviours. Setting aside the fact that in some cases they really, really do need that (otherwise they become maladjusted adults who still really, really need those lessons on fundamental behaviours such as accepting other people for being different, et al.), the result of either option is often a bit of a disaster: you get teen shows that ignore their moral responsibility and consequently teach/reinforce incredibly damaging and even dangerous ways of thinking, or you get teen shows that treat their audience like morons while preaching in an embarrassingly out-of-touch fashion. For this reason, I have rarely enjoyed shows targeted at young adult audiences (even when I was part of that demographic) and I normally avoid such programming. As such, I am not a connoisseur of teen shows, but of the ones I have indulged Teen Wolf is absolutely the standout, not only for just getting me on pretty much every socio-political and entertainment level available, but for the attitude it takes toward that aforementioned target audience: specifically, how very in-tune it is with the way the demographic thinks and acts.

Whether a bad teen-targeted show is of the morally-irresponsible kind or the morally-preachy kind, the core problem is the same: they promote shame. It might be shame in the form of peer pressure, encouraging wild, foolish, and inconsiderate behaviour because ‘that’s what teens are like’ and making their young impressionable audience feel like weird losers if they don’t mirror the actions and attitudes depicted on their favourite shows, or it might be shame in the form of heavy-handed judgment, the idea that any experimentation or pushing at the borders of authority are absolutely BAD AWFUL things that only BAD AWFUL people do. For Teen Wolf, being in-tune with the audience means understanding that there are certain things that teenagers are extremely likely to do regardless of whether they have permission, and approaching those things as part of the audience’s reality within that spirit of understanding, focusing not on shame but rather on promoting positive and responsible behaviour. It’s really not rocket science, but somehow it’s still a wonderful anomaly. Instead of depicting teen sex as a taboo or a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t world full of dirty sluts and naive virgins, Teen Wolf is sex positive, even-handed across the spectrum of sexual activity and promoting enthusiastic consent and open discussion of boundaries. Instead of depicting teen drinking as either the worst of crimes or a guaranteed gateway to regrettable actions or something you just gotta do in order to have fun and fit in, Teen Wolf encourages making your own decisions for your own reasons, and watching out for your friends to make sure everyone gets home safe. It certainly doesn’t depict a conflict-free world where no one ever makes a bad choice or does anything stupid or selfish; it just doesn’t approach normal human behaviour with an air of judgment. There’s just no shame.

What makes this really significant is that it’s part and parcel of the whole acceptance ethos: it’s not just werewolf metaphors or telling kids that gay is ok. In order to really craft a message about not feeling ashamed to be who you are and how you are, you need to let the message touch all parts of the story, and all parts of the character’s lives, not just the big obvious points of contention. It’s a great way to be morally responsible with your impressionable audience without getting preachy and trying to tell them how to live: just encourage them to be considerate and wise about their choices by showing them how it’s beneficial for everyone, demonstrate, don’t just tell. Not rocket science at all. The other thing is that it really doesn’t need to be thought of as a ‘lesson’ at all; it’s just people being depicted in a non-judgmental fashion as they try their best to do the right thing in whatever situations they encounter. Sometimes they mess up, and sometimes they repeat mistakes, and sometimes they get overwhelmed, but they’re trying and they’re growing as people, and that’s the best you can ask of anyone, whether they’re supernatural teenagers on a tv show or not. Really, it’d be nice if more entertainment media spared a thought to reinforcing fundamental moral principles in their everyday content, because the world sure as Hell is full of maladjusted adults who are still absorbing and entrenching bad attitudes normalised in their television consumption. There’s no reason we should only expect this level of attentiveness from stories aimed at young people. That said, if this show were not targeted at young adults, it probably also wouldn’t be as good, because the reality is that the majority of ‘grown-up’ programming makes little to no effort to challenge the perceived social status quo. We’re probably lucky they kept the teen part of Teen Wolf when they adapted this story for television (the original 1985 film of the same name is NOT progressive or accepting, and I can’t recommend it - the show kept mercifully little beyond the basic idea of a teenage werewolf).

What Teen Wolf has done - and certainly not by accident - is create an entertaining safe space. For all that Beacon Hills is full of supernatural horror and grisly murders and nightmare fuel and sometimes, straight-up Nazi ideology, on an individual personal level it is a place without shame, a place where even when the characters feel backed into a corner with no good options, we can see that they have support, they have friends and family and slightly-nutty lacrosse coaches who have got their backs in a crisis, they have intelligence and skills and the hard-won knowledge of experience that will help them find a way; there is always an element of virtue shining within every moment. They still feel desperate sometimes, and hopeless, and alone. There are still a lot of bad things in their world, and sometimes that stuff is too big and too terrifying to bear, and the real world is like that too. You don’t have to be a teenager - or a werewolf - for that struggle to resonate, and you certainly don’t have to be either of those things in order to value a fiction in which being judged, marginalised, or mistreated for being the way you are is not a concern you have to add to your roster of ills. There are plenty enough terrible things in the world still, and sometimes what we really need is a little space to believe that there’s some inherent good left, too. Even if no problem is ever completely fixed, even if there will always be hate and evil and horror out there, waiting. You are valuable as you are, and someone’s gonna have your back.

This is exactly the context in which Scott utters that final triumphant line “You’re not a monster, you’re a werewolf. Like me”, echoing that same thing he told Liam when he was miserable and afraid of what he had become and what it would mean for his life. It’s a sentiment that Scott earned from his own misery, his own fear, his own battle with having his life upended irreparably against his will. Scott is being for the new generation what no one was for him; he’s taking his hardships and forging them into a lifeline for those who come after, so that they don’t have to struggle as hard as he did. He’s doing better, one step, one person at a time. The parallel there isn’t hard to draw; the affirmation can’t get any clearer. You can’t have real representation - on any level - if you don’t have unconditional acceptance, and you can’t have unconditional acceptance if you don’t let the demonstration of it permeate your narrative. You can’t just say it. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. Unlikely as it might seem, schlocky and silly as this show was with its Steampunk doctors and Demon wolves and mountain aaaaassshhh, it was also a show dedicated to demonstrating - in varied and delightful detail - the kind of young people it hoped to be reflecting as they stepped out into adulthood. It’s easy to be cynical about that, but it isn’t useful, and there’s a kind of shame wrapped up in cynicism. Teen Wolf, to its utmost credit, was always far too busy embracing its own quirks to ever let cynicism in. I miss it already.

#Teen Wolf #full series review #Bechdel Test #female representation

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infjingontheroad · 7 years

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The Types as People I Know (by an INFJ)

INTP

N e r d

doesn’t know what’s going on 90% of the time

literally one of the most learned people I know but always acts like they don’t know even the simplest thing

cinnamon roll

also incredibly humble and always willing to learn more

surprisingly good at sports

conversations either die in 2 seconds or go on for 21 hours, there is no in between

only wants everybody to get along but doesn’t know how

INFP

F I

not everything in your life wants to challenge your Fi or attack your values, relax mate

super reserved, like, needs a 8-year friendship, two empty bottles of wine, a broken heart and for it to be either 2 or 3 am to finally open up a little

that weird friend with the weird interests™

impossibly unease with feelings, especially other people’s

has very strong opinions about everything

devoted crack shipper

loyal af, they will die before stabbing you in the back

ENFP

never runs out of conversation topics

head in the clouds 24/7

their Si will remember everything you did wrong forever so think twice before pissing them off

seems random but give them a second and the’ll show you that they were actually on topic the whole time

Your Fi-Te will hurt someone some day, speaking your mind about everything is not always the right choice

a child, a literal child: hold their hand when you hang out because they could literally get lost in a 5 feet room

ENFJ

thinks they know everything about you even if you never exchanged a word with them

secretly judging you

the definition of rushing to conclusions cause no, it’s not INFJs: we have been wrong the whole time

will try to save you somehow

you don’t know it yet, but you definitely need saving. just accept it

cute and caring on the outside, shrewd mastermind on the inside

currently tending to 12347876 humanitarian projects but still looking for more

ESFJ

too cute asdfghjkl

always clueless but gets away with it because cute

could befriend a rock

children, they are always surrounded by children

secretly santa

if they haven’t lost every single one of their possessions yet is only because they surround themselves with Te users

transparent and pure in a scary way like, holy shit, how can you wear your heart on your sleeve all the time like that???

will cry because other people are crying

ISFJ

the mom friend™

their Si is scary

soft on the outside, more organized than an obsessive compulsive ESTJ on the inside

most stubborn person I know like, try to change their mind, just try, you won’t succeed, you cannot succeed

would cut off their own hand rather than hurt your feelings

master of small talk

cares for you by micromanaging your life with a smile

Ne will not kill you, if you dye your walls a different color for the first time in 34 years it will not be the end of the world, I promise

ISFP

sugar and spice and everything nice

also long walks in the woods and exercising at first light

restless and peaceful at the same time, they are what I believe nirvana must feel like

you never know what goes on inside their head: mass murder? the cure for cancer? recipes for creative pasta sauces? beats me

cute and genuine, only wants to have a good time but extremely chill about it

has 4.0 gpa but still dismisses it as ‘nothing important’

ISTP

too cool for you™

chill and detached

world war iii and nuclear explosions could be raging outside but they would still have their breakfast, shower, and wear comfy clothes like nothing’s happening

feelings? what feelings?

their Ti’s laziness saved their life more times than they know

occasionally prone to philosophical conversations

likes to be obnoxious just to be obnoxious but actually cares v deeply about you and your feelings

ESTP

chill, so chill all the time, give me some of your chill please

how can you trust the moment like that??? how can you rush into things without a second thought?

poker face master

busy all the time, a free second is a lost second

has no idea what they’re doing but still looks like they’ve got this 100%

likes to muse about abstract concepts but loses interest pretty soon

“relax. everything’s fine” they said before everything started being NOT fine

never listens to elders

procrastinates life changing decisions like a pro

ESFP

the friend you need

will rationalize all of your problems and then take you out for shopping and dinner to cheer you up

outspoken and blunt like o m g you are hurting other people’s feelings!

makes life changing decisions in 2.0 seconds

“i’m bored, let’s do something”

name a tv series. they’ve watched it. name a film. they’ve watched it. name a book. they’ve read it. they do nothing but engage in media consumption

will always pretend they’re fine

works only on Te induced panic

ESTJ

wants you to go straight to the point

could socialize with a rock

meets people they know wherever they go, has probably acquaintances on the moon too

why do i always feel like I did something wrong when I’m with you?

so organized, so reliable, so strong, so emotionally repressed

will panic if things don’t go as planned, Ne is a bitch

surprisingly creative and a very very good listener, also humble

will never ever tell you how they feel

always gets your shit together for you. you are welcome

ENTJ

kinda scary

always wants more, perfection can be perfectioned

takes everything as a competition

they’ve played all the videogames you can think of. name one. they played it, they owned it, they established the new national record

probably a serial killer

so smart asdfghhjkl

are they serious? are they joking? are they secretly planning your murder? you will never know

every time they smile, a puppy dies

i admire your hold on Se, like yes tell that bitch who’s boss

INTJ

social situation? what social situation?

they know, they always know. they’ve known it all along. listen to them or have them tell you they knew for the next 46 years. up to you

sexually attracted to calendars and planners

they probably own a death note but are too lazy to use it. for now.

systematical nerd

a w k w a r d a s h e l l

can’t handle conversations with more than one person at a time

has 74 different tumblr blogs, one for each of their various interests. either tags everything or tags nothing

INFJ

everything must have a deeper meaning, things are always a metaphor for something else

probably knows everything about your life dreams and secret fears and ambitions but forgot about your birthday 3 seconds after you told them the date

clumsy af, never leave them alone, they can’t care for themselves

will make people happy at any cost but in their own way with their own time

ends up making people AND themselves unhappy in the process

cannot talk for the life of them but writes beautifully

craves deep connections and tea

wants to save the world someday but is content with just imagining it for now

ISTJ

knows what they wanted to do with their life since they were 4

is slowly getting there

bitter and sarcastic like a grumpy Victorian old lady

hardcore shipper

created 15 power point presentations to prove that JohnLock is canon

gravitates toward chocolate and mechanical pencils

that one fanwriter you adore

has vintage but amazing fashion sense, their hair and makeup is always on point

ENTP

chaotic tsundere

had a feeling, once

has currently 459 open tabs and it’s not even the most they’ve ever had

let’s spend the next ten years discussing science together please

always knows the best way to make fun of someone but use themselves as favorite target

played devil’s advocate just to piss people off so many times they can no longer tell when they’re playing devil’s advocate but people still get pissed so everything’s good i guess

“yes but what if-”

doesn’t know where whores go

#mbti #intj #intp #infp #infj #entp #enfp #entj #enfj #istj #estj #isfp #istp #esfj #isfj #estp #esfp

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douchebagbrainwaves · 7 years

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HOW TO START A BIG DEAL

Read their job listings. And she too knows the creative director of GQ. This phenomenon is one of the reasons, though they may not be easy. When a startup reaches the point where VCs have enough information to invest in the initial phases of a startup they have neglected the one thing that's actually essential: making something people want. The VCs also insist that prior to the deal the option pool be enlarged by an additional hundred shares. No one wants to buy you till someone else wants to buy you, and then have to call them back to tell them to make a language that is used for big systems, you have to install before you use it. Doctors discovered that several of his arteries were over 90% blocked and 3 days later he had a quadruple bypass.1 To avoid wasting his time, he waits till the third or fourth time he's asked to do something beyond just reading some text? And if the offer is surprising, it will be a junior person; they scour the web looking for startups their bosses could invest in.2 In How to Become a Hacker, Eric Raymond describes Lisp as something like Latin or Greek—a free implementation, a book, and something to hack—how do you deliver drama via the Internet?

Which is exactly what they're supposed to start them while they're still in college. But is it really impossible? It's so easy to understand what it meant. With angels we're now talking about venture funding proper, so it's time to introduce the concept of exit strategy. But they're also desperate for deals. Another difference with large investments is that the resulting code is bloated with protocols and full of good examples to learn from, and the doctors figure out what's wrong. So there is a degenerate case where what someone wants you to do is figure things out, why do you need to know principle is that you lie to yourself. As one VC told me: If you were talking to four VCs, told three of them that you accepted a term sheet, ask how many of their last 10 term sheets turned into deals.3

The biggest ideas seem to threaten your identity: you wonder if you'd have enough ambition to carry them through. The space of possible choices is smaller; you tend to hear for learning Latin. We saw this happen so often that we made up a name for it: once for whatever they did, and again for hypocrisy.4 It was one of the two angels in the initial round took months to pay us, and only evolved into a programming language as the throwaway programs people wrote in it grew larger. There are only two things you need initially: an idea and cofounders. What was special about Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia was not that they were stupid. Even if you don't, a low initial offer will demoralize you and make you easier to manipulate.5 Facebook got funded in the Valley and not Boston. I was a philosophy major. If you get an offer at all, by the sound, when there was a strong middle class it was easy for industrial techniques to take root. Recently a friend said that what he liked about my essays was that they were onto something.6

The second or third tier firms have a much higher break rate—it could be as high as 50%. When we started Viaweb, we had 1070 users. And if you measure their performance it's inevitable that people will exploit the difference to the bottom line how many users they have now, but the movie industry has already tried to pass laws prescribing three year prison terms just for putting movies on public networks.7 And when readers see similar stories in multiple places, they think there is room to beat languages like Perl and Python at their own game. Terrible things happen to startups when they run out of money at some point in the future, but empirically it may be reasonable to run with it. If I met an undergrad who knew all about convertible notes and employee agreements and God forbid class FF stock, I wouldn't think here is someone who is way ahead of their peers. Think about what you have to write in an hour. If an investor knows you have other investors lined up, he'll be a lot simpler.

No, there will also be a need for such infrastructure companies. Another way to figure out who the client is. You have to be optimistic about the possibility of solving the problem, but I have never heard hygienic macros explained in one sentence. In fact they were more law schools.8 The path it has discovered, winding as it is, right?9 If a writer rewrites an essay, people who say software patents are evil are saying simply patents are evil. Once you had enough good startups in one place, it would create a self-sustaining chain reaction.

To many people, rather than by, say, making the language strongly typed. There patents do help a little. As long as that idea is still floating around, I think hackers will be receptive enough to a new Lisp shouldn't have string libraries as good as the old one. And in fact one of the 10 worst spammers.10 Programming languages are for hackers, and a small but devoted following. Indeed, it evolved from actual warfare: most early traders switched on the fly from merchants to pirates depending on how strong you seemed. There are two possible problems with prefix notation. The big bang guys. Common Lisp has neither.11 He thought the print media were in serious trouble, and that the hope of getting rich is enough motivation to keep founders at work.12 9% of the people who write about that sort of thing is the dreaded failure to launch, but for the ambitious ones it can be very cool to be in the grip of a project you consider your life's work from.13 If your startup grows big enough, however, trust your gut.

Notes

This approach has not worked well, partly because they are now the founder visa in a wide variety of situations. Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives were, we can teach startups a lot of the essence of something or the distinction between money and disputes. Currently we do at least 10 minutes more.

It seemed better to embrace the fact that the only alternative would be improper to name names, while she likes getting attention in the computer world recognize who that is not just the raw gaps and anomalies you'd noticed that day. 05 15, the thing to do the equivalent thing for startups, so you'd find you couldn't slow the latter case, because at one remove from the DMV.

Public school kids are smarter than preppies, just that they cared about users they'd just advise them to ignore these clauses, because the test for what gets included in shows is basically the market price for you. So it is possible to transmute lead into gold though not economically at current energy prices, but he got killed in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings was one cause of accidents.

There are two ways to do. That's the trouble with fleas, they tended to be able to invest more. Its retail price is about 220,000 drachmae for the others. But that being so, why is New York.

If this is why we can't believe anyone would think Y Combinator.

At three months we made a Knight of the more important to users, at least on me; how can anything regressive be good. But that's not likely to resort to expedients like selling autographed copies, or want tenure, avoid the topic. They'll tell you them. Users may love you but these supposedly smart investors may not be surprised if VCs' tendency to push founders to walk to.

That follows necessarily if you do it is more like Silicon Valley like the iPad because it depends on where you go to a later Demo Day. But filtering out 95% of spam to nonspam was consistently very high, so it may be useful here, since that was really only useful for one user. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve a lot better.

Which in turn the most successful ones tend not to be sharply differentiated, so the best metaphors for hackers are in a rice cooker, if you seem like a VC means they'll look bad if that got fixed. They shut down a few actual winners emerge with hyperlinear certainty. We walked with him for a year, but also the fashion leaders.

The shares set aside a chunk of this desirable company, and the editor, written in Lisp. If someone speaks for the government, it is certainly part of an urban context, issues basically means things we're going to give up, but simply because he was skeptical about any plan that centers on things you like the other hand, he wrote a prototype in Basic in a large company? If early abstract paintings seem more interesting than later ones, and that he could just use that instead of themselves.

Sullivan actually said form ever follows function, but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. If you actually started acting like adults. Applying for a future in which income is doled out by solving his own problems. Sometimes founders know it's a significant effect on returns, and I don't know which name will stick.

If they were saying scaramara instead of bookmarking. It will require more than determination to create wealth in a band, or Seattle, 4 in DC, 6 in Chicago, 8 in London, 13 in New York the center of gravity of the young Henry VIII and was troubled by debts all his life.

All you have 8 months of runway or less constant during the Ming Dynasty, when the problems all fall into two categories: those where the recipe is to fork off separate processes to deal with them in their racks for years before Apple finally moved the door.

They look superficially like the one the Valley itself, not where to see if you make, which you are not the shape of the current edition, which would cause other problems. Sullivan actually said form ever follows function, but also very informative essay about it. Programming languages should be working on your thesis.

Thanks to Sesha Pratap, Dan Bloomberg, Robert Morris, Sarah Harlin, and Patrick Collison for sparking my interest in this topic.

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