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foxbullfrog · 1 year

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oh the post is up now! it kinda turned into pointing out how a bunch of the assumptions of the “inherent” motives of beatrice’s parents could be false, and/or not cut & dry, i.e people taking beatrice’s parents being stated to care about appearances as being inherently negative and that they must only care about beatrice only for how she reflects on their appearance

https://www.tumblr.com/ftm-viktor-hargreeves/712137453619838976/i-feel-like-a-lot-of-how-beatrices-parents-are

and like yeah!!! anytime anyone makes any of the ocs american i’m just like 😭😭😭 what on earth did they ever do to deserve this insult

and w ava, silva is literally the most common Portuguese surname and alba is portugese, (also iirc simon said he hced ava as being from canada) so why on earth. english is the “universal language” for better or for worse, american dominates everywhere, and we know ava watched a lot of tv in the orphanage, which there was probably a lot of american media on, so it makes sense that she has an american accent while not being an american,

and yeah!! people, do not account for familial and/or cultural religion enough, especially cultural religion, and white americans are particularly guilty of this (which is ironic given they’re one of the biggest ones who spread that stuff everywhere but i digress) and the american centrism reeks when like, reading a wn fic set in spain and for some reason so many times all of the characters are atheists for some reason??? regardless of if they’re one of the more gen devout believers in the show or if it makes sense for them or whatnot, when spain is like one of the most culturally catholic places ever 😭

like i’m from the philippines which was colonized by spain, and it’s very culturally catholic, like everyone and their mom will do the sign of the cross and pray and go through a lot of the motions, ir regardless of how much they actually believe in it, and from what i’ve heard and learned, spain is very similar in this aspect so, yeah, why all the atheists in these fics lmao

and if the reason is “because they’re queer”.. well hate to break it to you but queer people of all religions exist and being like “religion & queerness can’t co exist” is kinda lowkey culturally western too, just take a look at many cultures had what we’d consider trans & genderqueer people as spiritual leaders or special in some way spiritually or something

apologies for going on a bit of a tangent in your inbox, whoops, i just see a lot of potential in warrior nun for interesting & nuanced explorations of race, nationality, religion & disability and how they can overlap and/or impact someone’s life esp given how canonically (relatively) diverse the wn characters are so it’s :/ when so much stuff just seems to be entirely blacj & white, western pov of stuff

don't apologise I love your pov!!

I really like the point you made about queerness and religion and the way queer people in certain nations interact with religion because I honestly feel like it's overlooked how ingrained culturally religion can be for queer individuals even if they're no longer religious. especially for a nation like Spain where its heavily homogenously a particular religion. like I dont engage with the church anymore but the traditions don't just go away i still celebrate the feast days and wear my st christopher and use the sign on the cross/religious language in my everyday life bc its culturally and socially ingrained, it doesn't mean I agree with the church's teachings or even that I'm a believer.

its funny. despite sharing the same language i feel like america and the uk are such stark opposities on this point. the US has genuine separation of church and state but a very high percentage of the population identify as religious. whereas britain is one of the most atheistic nations in europe but our head of state is also the head of the church and state run schools have kids singing hymns and our national anthem references God. I can still casually call myself Catholic (even if I often qualify it with 'non practicing') because people here likely won't even assume it means I'm religious. its a cultural marker. so I can't believe there's that many people walking around Spain flat-out calling themselves athiests when catholicism defines so much of the cultural make-up of the nation. but I could be wrong! I've spent a very limited amount of time there.

anyway your last paragraph is just *chefs kiss* and it sums my own thoughts on the matter up perfectly so ty

#ask #ftm-viktor-hargreeves #wn #warrior nun #warrior nun meta

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communistkenobi · 2 years

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hey, how would you explain neoliberalism to a baby poli sci major? i’ve always struggled with understanding the term because i haven’t been assigned anything to read about it yet

yeah no worries it’s a complicated concept! when people use the word they’re generally referring to one of two things - the process of neoliberalism itself, or the cultural/societal response to, and reinforcement of, neoliberalism as a way of thinking about the world. Sorry this is gonna be long lol but neoliberalism is a weird term that describes a bunch of complicated things that I think are best explained with examples and a bit of history.

the most useful definition of neoliberalism I’ve heard is that it’s an economic process whereby you privatise the public sphere; the free market is offered as the solution to various social problems. Before I describe it more in detail there is a bit of policy history that is important to know. It obviously didn’t arise out of nowhere; neoliberalism is a response to the post-WWII social welfare policies (sometimes referred to as the Keynesian welfare state) where a lot of stuff was nationalised, meaning that that service is now administered by the national (or sometimes regional) government. I’m Canadian so I’m not as familiar with US policy history, but this is when Canada nationalised its healthcare system for example, and iirc this is also around the same time when we got a national pension fund. Social housing (ie housing that isn’t sold on a market) and other social goods were also offered to people at low or no cost (payment for these services coming from taxes). Basically think of like, what if education, healthcare, and housing were offered to you as a public utility and not a product that is bought and sold to each individual person on a private market. This wasn’t universal by any means, like private housing and other privatised services were still dominant, but (again, at least in Canada) things like social housing were much more normalised and weren’t considered to be “housing for poor people” like it is now.

so that’s the policy stage on which neoliberalism arrives. the neoliberal “turn” in western states happened sometime between the late 1960s-90s depending on what country you’re looking at. This meant that a lot of things became privatised again. The process of doing this is usually to first decentralise or “download” the service to smaller regional or local governments (this is why today, cities each have things like their own separate housing policies), reducing federal/national funding streams to those social programs, and then finally defunding them completely. This is also coupled with lowering taxes and flattening progressive tax rates (im not a tax person so this is very simplified, but this means everyone pays similar amounts of taxes as opposed to being taxed relative to your income - this had the almost immediate effect of widening economic inequality). Because cities and states/provinces have less money than the national government, and because they were now receiving even less money due to lower taxes and reduced national funding, it’s a lot harder to run these programs, and so usually they eventually stop paying for them too, or they’ll partner with non-profits or charities who then administer those services (or they’ll sell them to private companies to run). This is why today, non-profits and other charitable organisations have such a large presence in providing services like homeless shelters, addiction recovery, mental health services, disability services, social services for other marginalised groups, etc. they effectively replace “the public realm” by administering basic social utilities to people, except now they’re not run by a single government, they’re run by individual charities with their own funding streams, standards of care, and policies.

And this had a huge effect on the way people think about themselves and other people! More and more aspects of your life were now framed as products you could choose to either buy or not buy. Social services are very often discussed as parts of the government that aren’t “profitable”, the obvious implication being that profit is the primary motive to offering, like, public transit, as opposed it being a public good that helps society function better by letting people move around more freely. You’ll also see these services framed as “handouts” for lazy people who don’t work hard - again, framing basic aspects of everyday life as things you must earn by constant participation in the market, first as a worker and then as a consumer. This is partially a neoliberal conception of public life.

I’ve seen it argued (by Greg Suttor if you want a specific citation lol) that ideologically, neoliberalism is about hiding the presence of the state from people. Society needs things like roads and water and housing and food and education and medical care to run effectively, but running them as a utility is expensive, and it’s basically become a unanimous agreement between all major political parties that spending money on government services is bad (for lots of complicated reasons, one of them being that capitalist interests are fundamentally opposed to paying for services that don’t generate profit), so instead you hand the responsibility off to private companies to do it, who then run it not as a utility for the benefit of the public but as a way for them to make money, turning the utility into a product. This doesn’t make the problem of, say, every person in your country needing a house go away, but now the burden is on each individual to access or not access that via the private market, and that access is dictated by the amount of money you have. It’s a way of de-collectivising mass social needs, and as a consequence it encourages people to think of themselves as individuals disconnected from a larger whole.

A good example to illustrate the cultural effects of neoliberalism is the rise of the concept of self-care, which is essentially pathologising and marketising leisure time - you work hard, you have a bad mental health day, you deserve to treat yourself by buying an expensive coffee, or a new hat, or going to the movies after work. The act of self care allows you to “responsibly” spend your money on things that aren’t absolutely necessary (like food, rent, and clothing) by framing those purchases as a mental health support. And I’m not criticising this rationalisation people do btw, I also do this lol, but this example illustrates that people have such deep anxiety on spending money on “frivolous” things that you need to justify a starbucks latte as a thing that will improve your mental health (+ therefore make you more productive at work).

Anyway this has gotten away from me a bit but I hope that’s helpful lol. I’m not a political theory person so this explanation is policy heavy, not because that’s the only thing that is important but because that is the part I’m most familiar with. Neoliberalism is something that has been happening for decades by now and is very mature. It’s a particular way of conceptualising state responsibility as limited and narrow - public needs are to be handled by the market, and the state handles things like police and border security (notably the only two ‘public services’ that have seen any substantial increase in funding). It’s also a way of understanding the world as a series of private individual interactions between a consumer and the market, often framed as democratic (“the freer the market, the freer the people”, “vote with your dollar”, etc), but what’s on the market are basic necessities you need to stay alive, so “not voting” is not really an option.

#asks

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ousama · 7 months

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the last recorded fatal bear attack in New Hampshire took place in 1784, on an eight year old boy. since then, fatal bear attacks in New England have been fairly uncommon, even back when the area was not as "urbanized" as it is now. much of the east side of the country (canada has its own problems, as northern quebec has its share of bears) is not at particular risk for deadly bear attacks. this is more likely due to the rapid urbanization and the populations of black bears, which are comparatively smaller and less confrontational (or predatory on humans) than their brown counterparts. iirc the last wild bear-related death in pennsylvania was also hundreds of years ago, and the more recent ones have all been in captivity (as in new york, etc). the first ever (recorded) deadly mauling in new jersey occurred in 2014. there have been a few instances in tennessee as well.

comparatively speaking, the western side of the united states, and central canadian provinces, have a much higher risk of fatal bear encounters. central canada and the western US is much less populated (bar cities), more forested, and contains more threatening bears. the grizzly bear can reach heights up to 9 feet and have a bite force of 1,000 psi. they are also a little bolder than black bears, and bear spray can be ineffective on them.

the most recent cases of (wild) fatal bear attacks have occurred mostly in alaska, montana, alberta, saskatchewan, manitoba, wyoming, and colorado. the overwhelming majority of human victims were hiking or camping when the attacks occurred. bears as a whole tend to avoid towns and large groups of people. they know how to pick their battles.

attributed causes have varied. some attacks are defensive, some are predatory. bears do eat people. alive, in fact. that's what makes them a bigger threat than big cats- they don't kill their meals before they start eating. there was a recent black bear attack in arizona on a camping ground (which is what made the attack so bizarre) where a man was dragged away from his camper and eaten alive. it took several minutes of passive attacks to dissuade the bear before someone with a gun stepped in. but the man was already dead by then.

I've read cases of elderly women feeding bears on their rural properties and then being mauled. shocking. but almost all attacks happen rurally, in national parks, forests, etc. alaska seems to be the only place where morning joggers get mauled by bears but it's fucking alaska. what else would you expect from trying to urbanize alaska.

my boyfriend was telling me about the sankebetsu brown bear incident, which I find REALLY interesting because of the circumstances. took place over a few days, in a town (though newly established), and it killed nine people. super interesting I'd definitely recommend looking into it.

I hope you enjoyed this. I really don't care about anime discourse but I like reading about bear attacks.

source: wikipedia's list of north american fatal bear attacks. my boyfriend and I had a date last night and I read the list to him

thank you for this highlight of my day already

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arthurmorganwateringhole · 2 years

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Hello, I read your lovely essay on Arthur and the Western! It was so well thought out and well-written. Thank you for that. I was wondering if you've seen the film Brokeback Mountain and your thoughts on where it falls in your discussion of the Western? Do you think the writers of Red Dead reference Brokeback Mountain too? I thought it was notable that such a famous subversion of the masculine cowboy would've been a notable example in your essay.

asdjsak I'm kind of kicking myself right now bc Brokeback Mountain is one of my favorite films and definitely one of my top favorite Westerns (or anti-Western). I can't believe I forgot to include it in my Arthur Morgan essay alskdjsa

I will say that Brokeback was shot in Canada and the short story it's based on is based in Wyoming (iirc, the film's story takes place in Wyoming as well). Big Valley and Mount Shaun are clearly inspired by that region of North America (primarily the Northwestern side of the Rockies), so I think the film's cinematography definitely inspired the fictional landscape of RDR2.

You're absolutely right tho that Brokeback subverts the hypermasculine trope of the Western, with the choice of making the story revolve around a tragic gay romance. I'm not sure if you know what a pastoral is? It's an ancient Greek form of poetry (still used today as a genre) that usually focuses on shepherds taking a break from herding sheep to sing songs and partake in otium (leisurely rest), and these poems are often homoerotically charged if not explicitly homosexual in imagery and content. I think Brokeback is more of a pastoral than a Western, especially since there's an absence of gunslinging, which I would argue is kind of a definitive trait of the Western and its subgenres. Pastoral poetry are tragic as well, as they often lament the dispossession of land and the encroachment of the city on the country, further pushing the shepherds (and cowboys are modern day shepherds) to the borderlands.

I'll have to get back to you in terms of what this means for RDR2. I think a lot of Arthur's pensiveness and moments of quiet self-reflection (particularly the animation where he wakes up leaning on a rock) must have taken inspiration from Brokeback, as there are so many shots of Jack and Ennis doing just that in their quiet pastoral retreat. Thank you so much for this food of thought. I will definitely think more on this!

#Brokeback Mountain #Arthur Morgan

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newty · 3 years

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A collection of over 40 writers and their work from World War 1 and the years that followed.

11/11. Happy Armistice Day!

This is by no means a guide so much as it is recommendations and selections from my reading list, but I hope it can interest others in some extraordinary or important lives. Enjoy!

POETRY

Richard Aldington (1892-1962)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Sussex Regiment.

Themes: Callousness, Apathy, Sound, Myth & History, Art

War and Love 1915-1918 (1919)

"Trench Idyll"

"In The Trenches"

"Apathy"

"Soliloquy I" & "Soliloquy II"

Exile and Other Poems (1923)

“Eumenides”

“At a Gate by the Way”

Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Sussex Regiment.

Field: Ypres, Somme, Passchendaele

Themes: Survivor's Guilt, Isolation, Nature, Post-War Reflection

The Waggoner (1920)

"The Estrangement"

The Shepherd and Other Poems of Peace and War (1922)

"11th R.S.R."

"Reunion in War"

"The Troubled Spirit"

"War Autobiography: Written in Illness"

"Third Ypres: A Reminiscence"

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

British. Sub-lieutenant, British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, but died of sepsis before reaching Gallipoli.

Themes: Colonialism, Memory & Death

1914 and Other Poems (1915)

"1914"

Robert Graves (1895-1985)

British. Captain, Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Field: Somme, but also in a POW and Garrison camp iirc.

Themes: Camaraderie, Grief, Flippancy/Humor, Personal Change

Faeries and Fusiliers (1919)

The Pier-Glass (1921)

"Lost Love"

Collected Poems 1955 (1955)

"Recalling war"

Frederic Manning (1882-1935)

Australian & British. Private, King's Shropshire Light Infantry. Lance Corporal, 7th Battalion. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Irish Regiment.

Field: The Somme, Ancre

Themes: Collective identity, Numbness, Individuality, Ritual as a coping method, Myth

Eidola (1917)

"αυτάρκεια"

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Manchester Regiment.Also see: The Hydra (1917-1918), the Craiglockhart War Hospital magazine.

Field: Northern France

Themes: Inhumanity, Protest, Disgust & Pity

Poems (1921)

“Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”

“Mental Cases”

“Dulce et Decorum Est”

"S.I.W" (Self-Inflicted Wound)

“Wild With All Regrets”

Poems of Wilfred Owen (1931)

“The Unreturning”

The Complete Poems and Fragments (1984)

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)

British (also Jewish!). Private, 12th Bantam Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, then South Lancashire Regiment, then King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, then King's Own Royal Regiment.

Also see: Joseph Cohen Collection of Rosenberg documents and artifacts

Field: Arras

Themes: Heroism, Loathing, Confusion

Poems (1922)

"Significance"

"The Immortals"

Delphi Complete Poetry, Plays, Letters and Prose of Isaac Rosenberg (2015)

Not free, but like the one for Wilfred Owen, I recommend these collections since they're super cheap (like $3) and mostly comprehensive even if there are some formatting errors.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

British. 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Also see: A Soldier's Declaration.

Field: The Somme, Arras

Themes: Activism, Self-Expression, Nature, Leadership, Camaraderie, Grief

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems (1918)

“The Kiss”

“The Last Meeting”

Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)

"Suicide in the Trenches" (sometimes typo'd, like in Collected Poems, as "Suicide in Trenches")

"Repression of War Experience"

"The Dream"

A Suppressed Poem (1918) (alternative/full text)

War Poems (1919)

"Everyone Sang"

Picture-Show (1920)

"Concert Party"

"Phantom" (removed from Collected Poems in 1961)

"Aftermath"

Vigils (1936)

"War Experience"

"Revisitation"

The Collected Poems 1908-1956 (1961)

Contains text edits and revisions of previous work.

MEMOIR

Will R. Bird (1891-1984)

Canadian. 42nd Battalion, Royal Highlanders of Canada.

Field: France and Belgium

Also see: his bibliography. His work seems to have been popular, but is now exceedingly rare other than in some recent reprints.

And We Go On (1930)

Reissued as Ghosts Have Warm Hands (1968) which removes several anecdotes--and in particular, removes many instances of the ghost of his brother (who often appears to guide him after dying before Bird enlisted).

Thirteen Years After: The Story of the Old Front Revisited (1931)

Funded by Maclean's Magazine, Bird returned to France and wrote a series of reflections.

The Communication Trench: Anecdotes & Statistics from the Great War, 1914-1918 (1933)

A Soldier's Place: the War stories of Will R. Bird (2018)

Fifteen anecdotes from various war-time and post-war publications.

Edmund Blunden (1896-1974)

Undertone of War (1928)

Philip Gibbs (1877-1962)

British. Extraordinarily popular war journalist and later war correspondent.

Heavily censored in publications like the Daily Telegraph and Daily Chronicle.

Field: Western Front

The Soul of the War (1915)

From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 (1918)

Reissued as The Struggle in Flanders on the Western Front, 1917 (1919)

The Way to Victory: Vol 1: The Menace and Vol 2: The Repulse (1919)

Wounded Souls (1920)

Now It Can Be Told (1920)

US title: The Realities of War

More That Must Be Told (1921)

Robert Graves (1895-1985)

Goodbye to All That (1929)

Censored (1929), Revised (1957), and I think Uncensored (2014)

Also a personal memoir--the first few chapters detail his childhood and discuss homosexuality.

Arnold Gyde (1894-1959)

British. Captain, 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment.

Field: Le Havre, Mons, Aisne

Contemptable (1916) as Casualty

Part of the Soldiers’ Tales of the Great War series

T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)

British. Archeologist but mostly a military informant.

Field: Arab Revolt, Palestine

Themes: Isolation, Brotherhood

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)

Abridged "subscribers" edition subtitled with A Triumph (1926), Further abridged as Revolt in the Desert (1927), Unabridged as "The Oxford Text" (1997)

Also see: With Lawrence in Arabia (1924) by Lowell Thomas

Thomas was a war correspondent for the US, and who filmed and photographed Palestine and Lawrence and created the media boom surrounding the two.

Also see: Lawrence and the Arabs (1927) by Robert Graves

This book was initially panned for showing Lawrence as more of a flawed person than England's glorious war hero.

Edward C. Lukens

American. Lieutenant, 320th Infantry 80th Division.

Field: Meuse-Argonne

A Blue Ridge Memoir (1922)

Includes an afterword titled “The Last Drive and Death of Major G. H. H. Emory” by E. McClure Rouzer

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Journey from Obscurity: Wilfred Owen, 1893-1918 (1963-1965) by Harold Owen

Published in three volumes: Childhood, Youth, and War

E. M. Roberts

American. Lieutenant, RAF.

A Flying Fighter: An American Above the Lines in France (1918)

I’m not finding much on this book atm, but I remember finding some articles after I had read the book that mentioned much of it was embellished.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 (1945)

Discusses the range of his life on leave or otherwise away from the battlefield, along with his post-war travels and struggles. For his more military memoirs, see the Sherston Trilogy below.

Also see: Lady Ottoline's Album (1976)

included entirely bc there's a cute pics of him (pg 66-67,90-93) but also bc there's a lot of cool ppl in it (also Robert Graves 68, Edmund Blunden 69)

Diaries:

Scans of 1915-1922, 1924-1927, 1931-1932: Sassoon Journals @ Cambridge

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 (1983)

Highlights: 27 May 1916. 13 July 1916. 23 April 1917. 17 April 1918. 27 April 1918. 9 May 1918. 19 December 1917.

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1920-1922 (1981)

Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1923-1925 (1985)

FICTIONAL MEMOIR

Giving a third person narrator one's trauma or life allows the writer to view those events in a new light–and also partially absolve themselves from ownership of their actions and feelings. Thus, it was super popular to deflect the shame of trauma.

Richard Aldington (1892-1962)

Death of a Hero (1929)

Uncensored in two volumes (1930), in one volume (1965) and (1984)

Roads to Glory (1930)

Short stories

Hervey Allen (1889-1949)

American. Lieutenant, 111th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Division

Field: Marne, Aisne, Château-Theirrey

Toward the Flame (1926) (limited preview)

Henri Barbusse (1873-1935)

French. Western Front. Anti-war.

Under Fire: The Story of a Squad (1916)

One of the first WWI novels published. Formative work for Sassoon, but also popular with Owen iirc.

Larry Barretto (1890-1972)

American. Ambulance driver in France and Belgium.

A Conqueror Passes (1925)

The soldier protagonist swiftly falls into depression upon returning to civilian life, so he abandons everything to return to France. Where he hopes to return to the mental occupation of service, he finds instead that the world has moved on without him.

James Norman Hall (1887-1951)

American. Posing as a Canadian: Royal Fusiliers. After being discovered, Lafayette Escadrille and Lafayette Flying Corps, then Captain of US Army Air Service. German POW for several months.

Kitchener's Mob: The Adventures of an American in the British Army(1916)

Describes the Battle of Loos during his time as a machine gunner with the Royal Fusiliers.

High Adventure: A Narrative of Air Fighting in France (1918)

Also see: The Lafayette Flying Corps Vol 1 and Vol 2 (1920), a history written with fellow pilot Charles Bernard Nordhoff.

Also see: Falcons of France (1929), another memoir written with Charles Bernard Nordhoff.

John Dos Passos (1896-1970)

American. Ambulance Driver in France (Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps) & Italy (American Red Cross)

One Man’s Initiation: 1917 (1920)

Reissued as First Encounter (1945)

Three Soldiers (1921)

Frederic Manning (1882-1935)

The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre, 1916 (1929) as Private 19022

Uncensored in two volumes

Censored edition is Her Privates We (1929), and Uncensored (2014)

Primarily depicts the mundane life of a private. A deserter crops up throughout the novel for commentary on the intersection of mental illness and perceived cowardice. The chapters on the trenches are extraordinary imo, and it's a great look at the unsensational life of billets and drill that most accounts leave out.

Charles Bernard Nordhoff (1887-1947)

American. Ambulance driver, then Lafayette Flying Corps, then Lieutenant of US Army Air Service

The Fledgling (1919)

Series of letters (and dairy entries?)

Also see: The Lafayette Flying Corps Vol 1 and Vol 2 (1920), a history written with fellow pilot James Norman Hall.

Also see: Falcons of France (1929), another memoir written with James Norman Hall.

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)

German. 2nd Guards Reserve Division, then 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment, 2nd Company, Engineer Platoon Bethe.

Field: Hem-Lenglet Torhout and Houthulst.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

The Road Back (1931) (limited preview)

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

The Sherston trilogy follows his entire service, although purged of anything literary or concerning his family. He also changed the names of almost everyone in it. The third book does a great job confronting the trauma he swears he doesn't have up until the last couple pages.

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928) Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) Sherston's Progress (1936)

FICTION

More on the Internet Archive

Hervey Allen (1889-1949)

It Was Like This: Two Stories of the Great War (1940)

Leonid Andreyev (1871-1919)

The Confessions of a Little Man During Great Days (1917

Russian. Account of a fictional banker in St. Petersburg struggling through war shortages and family strife. Anti-war.

E. F. Benson (1867-1940)

British. Archeologist, Greek Scholar, Worked in Cairo with T. E. Lawrence. also hes gay

Up and Down (1918)

An at-home drama which begins pre-war and descends into featuring the relationship of letters between home and the front.

Dodo Wonders-- (1921)

Sequel to Dodo: A Detail of the Day (1893) Dodo’s Daughter (1913) and Dodo the Second (1914) social dramas.

Will R. Bird (1891-1984)

Private Timothy Fergus Clancy (1930)

John Buchan (1875-1940)

Scottish. Popular novelist, Writer for the Propaganda Bureau, Director of Intelligence, and Lieutenant of Intelligence Corps

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)

First in the Richard Hannay series, suspense spy novels meant to sensationalize war intrigue and German barbarism.

Also see: Nelson's History of the War, a serial which began in 1915 to become a 24-volume account of censored and pro-Allies Great War history.

Wilfrid Heighington (1897-1945)

Canadian. Lieutenant, 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade

Field: The Somme, Vimy Ridge

The Cannon’s Mouth (1943)

Edward Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)

Anglo-Irish. Captain, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Also participated in the Easter Uprising. Traveled to Ploegsteert, St-Emilie, the Somme, and Bourlon Wood as work for the MI7 (b) creating propaganda.

Tales of War (1918) & Unhappy Far-Off Things (1919)

Short stories largely created as propaganda and published in various papers before being collected in book form.

Also see: Patches of Sunlight (1938), his autobiography.

Rebecca West (1892-1983)

The Return of the Soldier (1918)

A rather fanciful novel of a woman confronting her cousin soldier returning home with amnesia, having forgotten the past 15 years of his life from shell-shock.

LETTERS

T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)

I'm more familiar with Lawrence's post-war relationship with mental illness, which seems to be rooted in his tendency for self-reproach. He consistently bemoans his difference from the others, and details his reliance on military companionship for connections.

Highlights: To Lionel Curtis, 19/3/23. To Robert Graves, 12/11/22. To Lionel Curtis, 14/4/23.

Also published in: Lawrence, T. E., and Garnet, David. The Letters of T. E. Lawrence. Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1939.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Owen defends himself at every opportunity to eliminate the possibility that his distress is from cowardice, so while his testimony is valuable for its real-time recording, it's more difficult to pick out such violent and clear instances of trauma compared to other writers.

Also see: Uncensoring Owen Project

Highlights: To Susan Owen, 16/1/17. To Susan Owen, 4/2/17. To Susan Owen, 18/3/17 (which describes The Sentry). To Susan Owen, 6 (or 8)/4/17. To Susan Owen, 1/5/17. To Mary Owen, 8/5/17. To Siegfried Sassoon, 5/11/17. To Susan Owen, 6/17. To Susan Owen, 31/12/17. To Susan Owen, 4 (or 5)/10/19. To Siegfried Sassoon, 10/10/18.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Siegfried Sassoon letters to Max Beerbohm : with a few answers (1986)

Vera Brittain (1893-1970)

& Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Geoffrey Thurlow, Victor Nicholson

Letters From A Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends (1998)

PLAYS

R. C. Sherriff (1896-1975)

British. East Surrey Regiment

Field: Vimy Ridge, Loose, Passchendaele

Journey's End (1929)

Also novelized (1930) with Vernon Bartlett

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937)

Scottish. Propagandist. Also see: famous author propagandists

Echoes of the War (1918)

Four humorously written yet hard-hitting plays concerning the war, particularly interpersonal relationships at home. More like satire than jingoism tbh.

MEDICAL ESSAYS

Shell-shock and Other Neuropsychiatric Problems Presented in 589 Case Histories (1919) by E. E. Southard (ableist af but these case studies are an extraordinary insight into the breadth of symptoms and their treatment. highly recommended.)

War Neuroses and Shell Shock (1919) by F.W. Mott

Hysterical Disorders of Warfare (1918) by Lewis Yealland

Army Report of The War Office Committee of Enquiry into Shell Shock (1922)

Shell Shock and Its Lessons (1918) by Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, Tom Hatherley Pear

Repression of War Experience (1917) by W.H.R. Rivers

Conflict and Dream (1924) by W.H.R Rivers

Instinct and the Unconscious (1924) by W.H.R Rivers

MEDICAL ACCOUNTS

Harold Barclay (1872-1922)

American. Captain, American Expeditionary Forces. Roosevelt Hospital Unit, then 42nd Division.

Field: Château-Thierry, St.-Mihiel

A Doctor in France, 1917-1919 (1923)

His diary--also published after his death.

Vera Brittain (1893-1970)

Testament of Youth (1933)

Also see: Vera Brittain and the First World War: The Story of Testament of Youth (2014) for its extra chapter on Edward Brittain and his oft-discussed death (spoiler: they confirmed he was gay).

Ellen La Motte (1873–1961)

The Backwash of War (1916)

American. A collection of fourteen stories from the hospitals of France.

Helen Zenna Smith/Evadne Price (1888-1985)

Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War (1930) (limited preview)

Written in the style of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front using Winifred Constance Young, an actual ambulance driver as inspiration.

Sequels: Women of the Aftermath/One Woman’s Freedom (1931), Shadow Women (1932), Luxury Ladies (1933), They Lived With Me (1934)

May Sinclair/Mary Amelia St. Clair (1863-1946)

British. WSPU and WWSL member/Suffragette. Founding supporter of the Medico-Psychological Clinic in London, Munro Ambulance Corps in Flanders for a few weeks.

A Journal of Impressions in Belgium (1915)

OTHER ACCOUNTS

A. T. Fitzroy/Rose Allatini (1890-1980)

Despised and Rejected (1918)

Austrian-British. A novel following members of the CO and Pacifist movement. also v gay

Father Bernard Carey (1865-1932)

Leaves from the Diary of a Catholic Chaplain in the Great World War

(1920)

Irish. A chaplain's memoir of Egypt and East Africa, and the religious and racial intolerance in the military.

Philip Gibbs (1877-1962)

Germans on the Somme (1917)

John Masefield (1878-1967)

British. Poet Laureate. Briefly a Red Cross orderly, then propogandist with the Department of Information.

Gallipoli (1915)

Account of the campaign's failure to counteract anti-German propaganda in the US.

The Old Front Line (1918)

Eyewitness account of the Somme. Revisited and further completed in Battle of the Somme (1919)

The War and the Future (1918)

Also see: John Masefield's Letters from the Front, 1915-1917 (1985)

Also see: His poem “August 1914″

William Le Roy Stidger (1885-1949)

American. YMCA Pastor working with the AEF.

Soldier Silhouettes on our Front (1918) & Star Dust From The Dugouts (1919)

Stories of Christian faith through portraits of various soldiers.

Stanley Washburn (1878-1950)

American. Correspondent of the London Times in Russia.

Field Notes From the Russian Front (1915) The Russian Campaign: April to August 1915 (1916) Victory In Defeat - The Agony Of Warsaw And The Russian Retreat (1916) Field Notes From the Russian Front (1917)

BLOGS & PROJECTS

Siegfried Sassoon resources

Cambridge Sassoon Project Blog

T. E. Lawrence texts and resources

Life timelines for several poets, like Sassoon and Owen

War Poets Association

Oxford War Poetry Digital Archive

List of additional war poets

WWI fiction resource

WWI timeline and artifacts resource

Today in WWI with Literary and Historical contexts

List of WWI authors and dust jackets

Additional WWI writers

Great War Theatre

Essay on American pilots in other armies

#writing #siegfried sassoon #wwi literature #tbh making this thing #made me want to make a reading blog #like some of the project blogs linked #anyway this thing is p severely lacking in stuff from Not The Western Front #and lord knows i want to find more stuff on the eastern front #so ill likely update this when i find some good ones #i put in brooke bc his poetry is genuinely good #but i neglected other early poets #(i usually find women poets publishing early tbh)#bc their work just..isnt v enjoyable or written v well #or just blatant uninspired jingoism #like. i included buchan and some others bc its important and interesting stuff #but Defeating The Purposefully Vague Evil Beast For Christ And Goodness #gets real old real quick when it isnt well done #anyway theres my meta lmk if u have any questions #i hope all the links work #brianna babbles

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leaveharmony · 3 years

Note

would love to know about some of kennys other offenses. please.

Boy howdy nonners, how long have ya got lol

Alright so I was never...A Fan, to begin with. I tolerated him even if I found him irritating in a lot of ways.

The real Problems I had w/ him started at the first press conference after he won the Heavyweight title; that night jericho won the Intercontinental and (fucking) elgin won the NEVER; kenny basically outright said that three (white) guys from Canada just "wanted it more" than the domestic roster. That he "never sees" the Japanese wrestlers at the gym, that they're "complacent" and that's why they were outshone. Everybody lost their minds. A good friend was trying to gently tell him "Bro you're better than this, you really should have chosen your words more carefully here because that could really, super be interpreted as racist" And he directly responded RE "Please don't look for any 'hidden' racist meaning..." and basically doubled down, and then stood back & watched all his followers bully the shit out of my friend for like a week solid, for the crime of daring to question his choice of words. She didn't even call HIM a racist, just suggested he could maybe be more mindful when talking directly to western fans bc there's always been a miles-long racist streak in wrestling in general and him talking that way when so many ppl accept what he says as gospel wasn't helping.

There was the bodyshaming...that wasn’t a one-time thing, either, but I digress.

There was the absolute debacle when Meltzer got involved w/ an article RE after kenny left he had "visa problems" ...you have to walk that back to the press conference between Tana and kenny before WK (iirc) wherein kenny claimed he'd gotten his citizenship and felt like he was now "real Japanese." Which was...kinda yikes in and of itself, but after all that shook out and he took his ball and went home it transpired that it was a flat-out lie, and he'd actually gotten like, a permanent residency. Now: that meant, so long as he had a company sponsoring him he enter and leave Japan as he pleased w/ that paperwork. Only he quit NJPW. So they were no longer sponsoring him, but he was still trying to enter the country w/ this visa/status he had absolutely no claim to anymore because he gave it up when he no longer had that position w/ their company. This turned into a whole ridiculous conspiracy theory RE NJPW was somehow pulling strings to "get him banned from the country for ten years." The ten years figure was...actually how long he'd have to wait before reapplying for the status he lost, as was explained to me by someone who actually had some experience in the area. How much of that nonsense actually came from kenny’s own mouth right to Meltzer's ears? Hard to say, and it MAY have been a miscommunication that got printed as fact, but all Himself would say was a dramatic "Someday I'll tell you all about how my year was SO MUCH WORSE than rumoured." All he had to do was say 'Guys no I just ran into some red tape, NJPW has nothing to do with it' but instead he had to fuel the gossip of a mysterious, malicious conspiracy against him and cast the mean, cruel company who...let him leave when he quit...as the relentless villain bullying him out of the country. This sounds like an exaggeration but he did, actually, have some stupid video based on Undertale (I think?) made in which there was a knockoff Lion’s Mark literally playing the villain. It was...extremely embarrassing tbh. And he may even believe it, who knows? He may actually believe he was pushed out because he was a ~foreigner~ they refused to take seriously; his ego is big enough that I’d not be surprised.

Sometimes istg he even gaslights himself; I remember when he said Shinsuke "hasn't done anything compelling" since leaving for wwe (as though Shinsuke books himself lol)...but then before aew formed, but after he left NJPW, he kept claiming that if he went to wwe he'd be able to put on a seven-minute clinic every show, with the scraps of screentime they throw him...that everybody would be talking about him and only him, that he’d ‘enjoy’ the creative restrictions...as though he didn’t like, walk out on their developmental years ago because of all those restrictions :/

Just last year he was still bitching that Shinsuke never dropped the Intercontinental directly TO him, instead vacating it for a tournament. Because Shinsuke was "one of their guys," because he always has to have a Special Connection to everyone...as though when this man was about to take a huge step and start a new life, what everybody should really have been thinking about was "Gosh but what about kenny though, shouldn't he have had the distinction of beating him directly for it?" And notably that’s all he’s said about Shinsuke since he left. Never brings him up when ppl ask who he’d like to see in aedubya, nothing like that...so I mean, so much for special connections or respect lol. Respect only goes one way for him.

There was certainly the time he booked a convicted sex offender! For one of his lil pet shows. And when ppl called him on it he immediately got defensive and took issue with their "tone" and how they were ~judging him~ without having full information, and if they wanted him to respond politely they should speak kindly and politely to him first (again you’d think I’m exaggerating but that is actually what he said, try being kind and polite). It took maybe a day of fighting people on twitter before he acted like a fucking adult about that one, even if his sullen "apology" still came off like it had an unspoken "...even though I didn't do anything wrong personally" tacked on the end.

There was his fucking...infuriating white saviour complex RE how with him Steering the Ship NJPW would be unstoppable. There was his ludicrous claim that "Tanahashi's never done anything for international fans"...conveniently omitting that if it weren't for Tana, there wouldn't have been a company left to hire his skank ass, let alone one for there to be international fans OF. There was his wink wink nudge nudge way of trying to play both sides; acting Respectful and like a Good Guy when he gave comments in Japanese and essentially going "SIKE!" in english so the neckbeards knew he didn’t really think he wasn’t the only thing worth watching. He made a point of saying during that feud that if they dared put Tana over him the company would be "going backwards," and then made a point of saying he "Can't work under Tanahashi" as he left - a last cheap parting shot to make sure everybody knew who to 'blame' for him tragically leaving.

He straight up said the whole native roster should "thank me for their paycheques" because of course kenneth omegaman is the only one anyone is paying to see, no one else could possibly be interesting enough to tune in for, only him.

I remember when he was hilariously claiming that LIJ would never catch on for the western audience and Naito would never be popular here lol.

He bitches, somehow, simultaneously about not having been made leader of the bullet club soon enough (having to step aside for aj), and that "before the first Okada match" he was making more money from prowrestlingtees than he was from his contract (as though making him leader of the most visible western faction and essentially giving him a license to print money in the process somehow wasn't enough).

Like two years after he left he is still! Taking every chance he can get! To shit on NJPW. He and the fucking bucks were still shit-talking Harold, ffs, years after they left.

....I feel like Marge when Reverand Lovejoy was asking her to list grievances about Homer. He probably does blow his nose on towels and put them back in the cupboard, too, but only in other people’s houses :P

Anyway that’s off the top of my head.

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menalez · 3 years

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Hi menalez, I wondering if you can help me clear something up. I have seen conversations that describe places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Bahrain as "opressive, but not third world". I don't understand what this means. Do they mean like to be considered third world, it needs to be in economic ruin? If this is the case, can some African countries be considered "opressive, but not third world"?

hmmm well, for one "third world" is a vague and almost meaningless term. it came to exist as a result of the cold war and basically, iirc, 'first world' are countries that sided w US, 'second world' sided with russia, and 'third world' were neutral. in that sense, technically saudi arabia & bahrain are third world, iran is not. however, sometimes people use it to mean "not developed" or at best "developing" countries, i can't speak on iran's economy but yes bahrain and saudi in terms of economy are not struggling. we also have a lot of infrastructure and other things that'd make us better off than many poorer nations. sometimes people do consider them "third world" bc our societies are often backwards, and we also aren't that developed in various ways (as an example, if you go into villages in bahrain, youll see the roads aren't developed properly and we do tend to be behind on several things. our healthcare isn't particularly great and our laws aren't so good). it's kinda unclear what those terms mean exactly and there's not much consensus on which countries fall under which categories, outside of the cold war context that those terms were created for. overall id say the term is pretty outdated and vague, and i prefer developed vs developing. afaik, all 3 of the countries you listed are developing countries. economically, we are definitely far better off than, idk, india or philippines for example, but we're also pretty similar in development to countries considered "third world" too

according to this map i found, bahrain is sometimes considered 3rd world while iran & saudi are considered 3rd world. i assume it's because compared to iran and saudi, our government is far more religiously liberal and we also don't have punishments as brutal and harsh (usually).

according to another map, bahrain, saudi, and iran are among the "less developed" countries:

so... idk.. there's clearly not much consensus and its mostly subjective and its a vague term anyways. personally i would consider those 3 countries to be 3rd world because the experience of living in them (even if its more luxurious in some ways bc of the lower standards of living and higher pay) is not anywhere near the same level as living in western europe, US, canada, australia, or new zealand. however, i wouldn't place living in them as similar to living in, idk, south sudan or ethiopia for example.

#srry i rambled a bit #tldr the term is more or less meaningless and its mostly subjective. different sources will tell u different things #anonymous

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fatehbaz · 4 years

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iirc there are also a few coastal marine fishes with disjunct ranges that stop around cape Mendocino and pick up again around Vancouver Island. I think the kelpfishes Gibbonsia metzi and G. montereyensis might be some? Interesting to hear about the sky salamander having a similar distribution. Not sure if the fish disjunction is real or just a lack of info from the outer coasts of WA and OR tho, but maybe supports the natural dispersal hypothesis for the salamanders?

Oh thank you, this is really good to know. I know practically nothing about the marine ecology in the North Pacific. (Vibrant seas; there is so much sea life in the region, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m more familiar with terrestrial rainforest/PNW landscape,.) Off the top of my head, I know of one marine species, bat stars (Patiria miniata), which have a similarly disjunct distribution. For a long while, I have had some guesses about why some rainforest species have disjunct distribution ranges, separated, isolated in California and Vancouver Island. (Big disclaimer: I am horrible with chemistry/biochemistry. Know little about physics. Bad with technical ecology. Instead, mostly into geography, biogeography, human ecology, historical environmental change, etc. But I love salamanders and PNW geography enough to venture a couple of guesses in this case.) What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

For anyone interested, we’re talking about Aneides vagrans, a salamander endemic to the Pacific Northwest. Here’s what I said about them: Though, something about the temperate rainforest canopy that might be surprising? The “sky salamander.” Rainforest creature, a lover of fog. [...] Weirdly, there are two separate populations of this salamander, with a great distance between them. Some of these salamanders live in the rainforest of Vancouver Island. But the other population? In the redwoods forest of coastal northern California, the salamanders also permanently reside up to 95 meters above ground in the canopies of redwoods, where moss beds and epiphytic fern mats, resting in bark crevices and on redwoods branches, create refuge and provide small amphibian-friendly microhabitats in the sky. They can spend their entire life up there, in the fog. [...] If this is a coastal rainforest species, why are they living in rainforest of northern California and in the rainforest of Vancouver Island, but not in all that rainforest in between? [...] A leading theory proposed by Canadian ecologists suggests that the salamander made its way to Vancouver Island naturally, in recent centuries/millennia, by rafting on the thousands of large conifer logs that fall into northern California’s water and flow northward towards the Raincoast. (Original post about salamanders living in the canopy.)

Here’s the dilemma. (This is where the salamander lives.)

Aside from the sky salamander, there are a few other terrestrial creatures that I know of, which share a similar disjunct distribution pattern. As for animals, there is Edward’s beach moth (Anarta edwardsii), which is found in coastal California and Vancouver Island, and nowhere in-between despite all of the similar/suitable habitat. (There are some isolated records along Salish Sea coast near Mt. Vernon and Port Angeles in Washington State, to be fair.) There are many species of butterflies, which inhabit coastal dunes and oak-prairie of the Salish Sea lowlands, which are endemic to the PNW. But this Anarta species has one of the coolest disjunct distribution ranges. (Photo and map from Canadian federal government, COSEWIC.)

But the moth might not be a good comparison, because it’s more like a Mediterranean ecosystem species, rather than a rainforest species.

As for plants, Canada’s federal SARA Registry names about 25 that have disjunct populations at Vancouver Island and at milder climates farther south along the PNW/California coast: Graceful beauty ornamental onion; Clarkia purpurea viminea; Ranunculus californicus; Trifolium depauperatum; Montia howellii; Isoetes nuttallii; Woodwardia fimbriata; Vulpia pacifica; Myrica californica; Minuartia pusilla; Microseris bigelovii; and a few others.

When thinking about the disjunct populations of plants/animals living in California and Vancouver Island, I would probably distinguish between two kinds of disjunct ecosystems: (1) Creatures that live in dryland Garry oak savanna/woodland/prairie. And (2) creatures that live in temperate rainforest. I think that the disjunct populations of dryland/oak species make a little more sense, or are more obvious, while the disjunct distribution of rainforest species seem harder to interpret. The Garry oak savanna/woodland of the Salish Sea lowlands at Victoria and the Gulf Islands is in a rain shadow and experiences mild winters, and I would say the ecology is not dissimilar from Mediterranean environments of California; the oak in the Victoria area thus harbors isolated populations of other “Californian” species like endemic prairie-oak butterflies, the sharp-tailed snake (Contia tenuis) and, historically, the Pacific gophersnake (Pituophis catenifer catenifer) on a couple of the Gulf Islands offshore of Victoria. (There is also a disjunct population of Northwestern fence lizards, more typical of Nor-Cal, living on the shores of the Salish Sea.) These make more sense to me, because dry oak-prairie with Mediterranean-climate dry warm summers and mild winters are like distinct pockets of suitable habitat, easier to identify. And the corridor of oak woodland through Medford-Ashland, Willamette Valley, and the South Puget Prairies provides an avenue of dispersal into the Salish Sea lowlands and eastern Vancouver Island’s rain shadow.

But the rainforest species, like the sky salamander?

Even if the salamanders did arrive in Vancouver in the Pleistocene/early Holocene by rafting from California, there are some qualities of Vancouver Island that I think might’ve been welcoming to the salamanders.

My guesses:

1. Glacial refugia: The Brookes Peninsula (northwestern Vancouver Island) seems to have operated as a glacial refugia for terrestrial species, notably some ferns, mosses, and lichens. Canada’s SARA Registry, for material on the Brookes refugia, recommends: Shafer et al. 2010; Hebda and Haggarty 1997; Pojar 1984. (Rainforest species that used to live all across the PNW between the island and northern California may have lost their populations in Washington/Oregon, but survived on the island and in California.)

2. Mild winters and/or less snow. Northern California and the western shore of Vancouver Island may provide milder winters compared to rainforest of Cascades slopes in Washington/Oregon. I know this might sound silly, given that the western shores of Vancouver Island get completely battered by severe violent oceanic storms and are at higher latitudes than Washington/Oregon, but the western shores of Vancouver Island (being so “hyper-maritime” compared to Washington/Oregon, even more marine-influenced) receive more rain in winter, compared to winter snow in Washington/Oregon. For salamanders and mosses/lichens/ferns that can survive cold/violent wind but don’t like snow, this might be suitable for extending activity seasons.

3. Consistent year-round moisture (lots of fog in Nor-Cal which redwoods epiphyte communities access to maintain moist microclimates, and lots of liquid/rain on Vancouver Island relative to the more-seasonal precipitation of Washington/Oregon). Just guessing, but if the rainforest of Washington/Oregon is just a bit seasonal, receiving rain/moisture at specific times/seasons during the year, then the western shores of Vancouver Island and the redwoods forests of coastal northern California might receive more consistent wetness/moisture? This is probably more obvious at western Vancovuer Island, one of the wettest/rainiest places on the planet. And again, I know it might sound silly, but the redwoods in California? I know that rain is seasonal in Nor-Cal, and I know that temperatures and evapotranspiration are higher here, but the fog, the consistent fog even in summer, might partially compensate, by providing a source of moisture for salamanders and plants that would prefer to live in a wet hyper-maritime rainforest but can also manage to survive by taking advantage of fog.

Here, in the Canadian federal government’s biogeoclimatic region classifications, the western shore of Vancouver Island would pretty much be the most significant site that is simultaneously “very wet” and “hypermaritime.” Very wet = good moisture for salamanders, ferns, and moss. Hypermaritime = insulated against snowy frigid winters. (Labeled here as “VH1.”) The Great Bear Rainforest along the mainland would also be “very wet / hypermaritime” but is more mountainous and at higher latitudes, not exactly nice for the salamanders.

Also: canopy microclimates. As with the sky salamander, the researchers focused on these amphibians discuss how the epiphytic fern mats in redwoods (and Douglas fir) canopies collect so much moisture, and are at such high altitude relative to the forest floor, that the fern mats produce their own microclimates. Even in summer, when there is less rain, the amount of marine fog that rolls through the redwoods forest provides a source of moisture for the epiphyte communites to extract.

I also want to mention some “typical” sub-regions and classifications of the PNW rainforest, to say that I kinda think that Vancouver Island’s rainforest doesn’t get enough credit in US/EPA ecoregion classifications. I think it might make more sense to distinguish Vancouver Island’s rainforest from the rainforest of Washington/Oregon, with which it usually gets categorized as a contiguous ecoregion. I know that, typically, some ecologists/geographers would distinguish 4 sub-regions of the PNW rainforest. It seems like these distinctions were influenced by a late-1990s publication from Ecotrust (”Rainforests of Home,” mostly about salmon and watershed health).

Usually, Vancouver Island rainforest just gets lumped together with Washington/Oregon rainforest as “seasonal / mild.” So maybe it’s possible that both the California redwoods zone and western Vancouver Island are distinct from Washington/Oregon rainforest, and are similarly more-favorable for the sky salamander.

My understanding is that Vancouver Island’s rainforest is much wetter than Washington/Oregon.

I think that maps of differing rainforest soils better represent the distinction between Vancouver Island and Washington/Oregon:

I don’t know, maybe this too:

Between the good wintertime plant hardiness of that redwoods zone and western Vancouver Island, the rainforest of Washington/Oregon might be less hospitable in winter, depending on the metrics you used to judge plant hardiness. Like, I’m not saying that western Vancouver Island’s winter season is necessarily more hospitable to plants than the Washington/Oregon rainforest farther south, but is it possible that the ferns/mosses/lichens that already live on western Vancouver Island are hardy to begin with, and also do well because of winter rain, as opposed to winter snow of the Cascades? I don’t know.

As for marine creatures, the two that I was aware of were these:

-- Eisnea arborea, a seawood, disjunct distribution at Haida/Vancouver and central California.

-- a sea star, disjunct distribution Tlingit/”Alexander” Islands, Haida, Vancouver, and central California.

“No Bat Star Zone.” Lol.

This map from ChrisM’s “The Echinoblog.” [Good discussion of bat stars if anyone’s interested.]

Like I mentioned, there are a few other vertebrates that have a disjunct distribution, but they’re more like prairie-oak, dryland, or Mediterranean species.

Like this. (Northwestern fence lizard and sharp-tailed snake.)

(Sorry for the shitty maps. Again, I am forced to use M!crosoft Paint, the “working-class Arc-GIS.”)

But again, I know nothing of marine biology, really. And I imagine there are so many more influences on underwater ecology here, more obscure than what happens on land.

Love these creatures, regardless.

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script-a-world · 6 years

Text

Geography in settings

Hi, I saw you answered a question earlier mixing real and fictional settings (not mine). Well, there is a lot of fiction that take liberties with geography. You mentioned “explicit reason for change”. Could you explain more? Also, what kind of checklist might you do when considering what’s bad geographic change. I have examples too. For example the geography in Independence Day (distances between various locations have been completely changed and they moved Area 51) or Sound of Music (the mountain escape is nowhere near Switzerland and actually even goes straight to one of Hitler’s homes). Yet, everyone I personally know who has watched those never shut them down for the bad geography, just found the truth hilarious and interesting. What, in your examples (sunrise in California and Gotham/Metropolis distance) make people complain? Of course, everyone responds differently and there are majorities and minorities. To be honest, I would have thought Sound of Music would be most atrocious because of the politics that go with the bad geography, but I’m surprised people aren’t. Thanks a lot for any more input on this.

__________________________________________________________

Synth: I think the live-action films and TV shows are given a bit of a pass on questionable geography because it isn't always possible to film on location. Studios make do with what is available, which can lead to some weirdness.

Due South was set in Chicago but filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, because it was a Canadian show, but recognizing the landmarks as being definitely not Chicago doesn't make me hate the show. (There was one episode set in Toronto that they went and filmed in Chicago, because that's the sort of show it was.) Stargate SG-1 was set in Cheyenne Mountain/Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and various not-Earth planets, but was filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Knowing that <other planet's futuristic city> is really <university campus> doesn't make the show less enjoyable to watch.

The first time I watched Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, my dad wandered past during some of the Hoth scenes and remarked, "Hey, I used to go skiing there," because he did indeed used to go skiing around Finse, the town in Norway near which those scenes were filmed. To me those moments of recognition are more like Easter Eggs than immersion-breaking screw-ups.

Constablewrites: I used the example of the sun rising over the ocean in California because the coast is on the western side of the landmass, meaning the sun sets over the ocean. It's not possible for the sun to rise in that view unless the earth starts spinning in the opposite direction, so it's not a thing you can just artistically fudge. It's also not an obscure fact that requires specialized knowledge, so anyone who's seen a map of the US and has a basic understanding of how that works is going to immediately know that it's wrong, and will then assume that the writer has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. That's where making changes can get you into trouble: when the natural assumption would be that you intended to be accurate and failed.

Synth: "...you intended to be accurate and failed." ↑ This exactly. If it's obvious that you Did Not Do the Research (for things about which it is relatively easy to find information), that's when people are going to get annoyed.

Constablewrites: Not everyone is going to spot every error, of course. I have lawyer friends who cannot watch any courtroom dramas because of how many liberties they take with reality, and that doesn't keep the shows from being popular. (It does mean that most of what the average person thinks they know about the legal system is wildly incorrect, but that's a separate topic.) I have a friend who ranted at some length about a fanfic she'd read which was ostensibly set in Kansas City that made it sound like it was some tiny town in the middle of nowhere rather than a fairly sprawly metro region. IIRC, the author mentioned that they were getting off at a particular junction because it was the last place to stop for a bathroom break for hours--that junction is in the heart of downtown, and at least half an hour from the edges of the suburbs in any direction. It jumped right out at her because she lived there, and it would probably sound off to anyone at all familiar with the area. (And of course, a cursory glance at Google Maps would show how wrong it was.) But if you didn't know anything about it, you might gloss over that and add that very incorrect depiction to your general impression of the city.

Basically, when you make those sorts of counterfactual changes, you're taking the risk that 1) someone will know that it's incorrect, and 2) that knowledge will disrupt their enjoyment of the story. You can usually mitigate point 2 if the story is otherwise well crafted and engaging. But push either point too far, and that's where you get dismissed as bad research, or just bad writing.

#pylons #geography #submission

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anwo-prinz · 7 years

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Anime Expo Anisong World Matsuri ~kawaii live~ 2017 Post-concert essay

Okay so here’s my really long write up about the concert. Includes pictures and background info on call books I helped with. tl;dr I cried a lot.

pre-concert: I had already been planning to attend Anime Expo 2017 since I’m fairly local to the area (I live in Southern California) so it was easy for me. However, the moment AX announced WUG and Cinderella Girls for a Day 0 concert, I was so shocked! I never thought that WUG would return nor that imas would ever come to the US. I’ve been a fan of both since the WUG anime came out, and for CG through the original mobage (mostly rolled over from 765 animas though). Of course, most people know me as an ArisuP.

Once the announcement was official, I caught wind of people who wanted to organize creating fan call books for the live. I signed up to help as an artist for the imas CG call book and the WUG call book. I was happy to be able to contribute to those teams and was really excited about our books!

Here are the pages that I helped with. WUG chara chibis, Nanamin, Miria, and Arisu doing calls.

Bonus - I did the back cover for both of them!

https://twitter.com/suna_chika/status/876980186490601473

While signal boosting for WUG call books before the show, the WUG character designer, Sunao Chikaoka, noticed our book! He said the outfits were cute.

I was able to get a copy of all 4 of the call books that were passed out!

actual concert time:

CG Setlist:

Star!

Goin'

Yumeiro Harmony

Yes! Party Time!

Onegai! Cinderella!

Performers: Mika, Anzu, Kirari, Miria, Frederica, Kanade I couldn’t believe that CG was the opening act because they were the group I was most hype for. They opened with the first 2 songs, then did introductions, they did a short MC section where they showed the Cinderella Girls Theater clips and Cinderella Girls anime clips and had the girls voicing their lines. Mika/Miria was the first one, followed by Anzu/Kirari. Frederica and Kanade did theirs solo. I was really happy that the audience seemed to like it and new fans could put faces to the characters. By the way, I was pretty much crying through the entire thing and cheering as hard as I could being choked up. My favorite was Yes! Party Time! and that was SO HYPE! Seeing their outfits glitter up close, every girl was so cute. I especially loved Iidashi since I have a Cool idol bias haha.

Mika was also the designated leader & center, which I loved - felt very old-school CG (back before Mio became the poster passion idol). The only thing is that I wished they had done some solo songs (Hotel Moonside, Ankira, Tokimeki...) or some group songs like Orange Sapphire or Tulip. Ah, well. It felt really like it was a very safe approach.

Also, none of the girls tried to speak English to the audience if I’m remembering correctly. My Japanese isn’t fluent, but I can understand a bit. So the impression their act came off was kind of like “Well, to like iM@S, you should already know Japanese! Also, come to a proper live in Japan to experience us fully” haha. They didn’t bring a fully cohesive unit so I think that’s why they mostly stuck to the group songs, which did feel a bit generic. But that’s not to say I didn’t cry like a little baby because IMAS FIRST WESTERN APPEARANCE AHHH I LOVE ;_;

WUG Setlist:

Tachiagare!

Shoujo Koukyoukyoku

Koi? de Ai? de Boukun desu!

Beyond the Bottom

7 Girls War

Gokujou Smile

Performers: Full Group (7)

MY GOD WUG WAS SO STRONG. They were such a cohesive group. Mayushi and Yoppi’s vocals were AMAZING, I really loved them. The last time I’d seen one of their lives (BD, not in-person), it was one of the first ones they did so they were very unpolished. But seeing the difference in the 3 years that’ve passed... It felt very emotional, realizing that they had really worked so hard to become as amazing as they are now, and that there’s a 4th Live Tour (which I’m planning to see, hopefully!).

Having them open with the 2 very strongly anime-based story songs, and having come right after CG, I had NO TIME to recover at all, so I was really a huge screaming sobbing mess during WUG’s performance. During the intro segments, I was again crying as I cheered on each girl. It was really cute, they told us their nicknames as well “Please call me Ai-chan!” or “Please call me Yoppi!” (though, in Japanese mostly)

I felt that most of the audience wasn’t very familiar with WUG when they first started, but by the end of it I could feel that so many people had become fans of theirs. Their choreography was absolutely stunning to see, and hearing them perform live was a whole different experience to seeing their lives on a computer screen. Not to mention the emotional bond of following them as the underdog idol series, it was truly an amazing experience I’ll never forget.

Walkure Setlist:

Koi! HALATION THE WAR

Ikenai Borderline

Bokura no Senjou

Ichido Dake no Koi Nara

Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara

Performers: Minori Suzuki, JUNNA

Thank god we had an intermission before Walkure or else I may have gone through cardiac arrest right on the spot. I was able to collect myself a bit though I spent the entire intermission still sobbing and reeling from the two groups I regarded the most highly. Anyway, I’m not familiar with Macross but I did listen to a lot of Walkure songs since they’re very catchy. It was really something to be able to see it performed live.. with just 2 out of 5 members present, Minorin and Junna really captivated the theater and you could feel their amazing presence. The songs were incredibly hype, really pumped up the audience and not to mention Junna’s talent is just... I’m really speechless!

Walkure was really cute because Minorin interacted a lot with the audience (”Do you like ANIME? Do you like WALKURE?”). They asked what countries people had come from to see this concert, so of course USA, but also Canada (”Ah, that’s right! It’s near America!”), China, and they even heard Dis shout out “SCOTLAND!” at which they were very surprised. They also asked where was the best place to eat burgers, so everyone shouted in unison IN-N-OUT! and it was very cute.

The last song being Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara made me extremely happy! It’s my favorite song by them. Minorin taught the audience how to do the Woa-woa, whoa-whoa-whoaaa call before they performed it. She wasn’t satisfied with us at all! She kept making us repeat it at least 3 times! She is so cute, and her acapella singing for the chorus part was great. I definitely cried and now I feel very emotional whenever Walkure songs come up on shuffle.

Also it was adorable how Junna wasn’t allowed to say the good-bye because she’s 16 and can’t work after 10pm hahaha.

Aqours Setlist:

Aozora Jumping Heart

Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?

Koi ni Naritai AQUARIUM

MIRAI TICKET

Yume Kataru yori Yume Utaou

Performers: Full Group (9)

I have to admit here: I am a fan of Love Live’s μ's but I have very, very little emotional bond with Aqours and Love Live Sunshine, nor am I familiar with their songs. However, that’s not to say they weren’t great! I thought they really were stunning live. It was amazing how in sync they were with each other, not to mention the seiyuus are sooo pretty. During their songs, in the background screens it showed the animated scenes of the songs and their dancing matched up perfectly. It was really cool to experience! Plus, the audience was really hyped up (of course, I’m sure that’s what most of the people were there for). However, by the end of the concert I was already tapped out of energy so it was a bit hard to enjoy, and I felt that the Aqours songs were about the same generic, safe sort of songs like the CG full group songs, and that their vocals were weak and not very distinctive in comparison to Walkure and WUG. But I’m also glad they were the last to perform since all the Love Live people were forced to stay until the very end and experience every other idol group. lol. They also had the most English of each group, I think? Iirc, Riko was pretty fluent almost.

Overall, it was a seriously amazing live and I can’t believe I still survived the remaining 4 full days of Anime Expo after that. I really truly hope that this concert showed the Japanese industry how much of a western audience there is for idols, and that there were lots of new fans for WUG and CG after that concert!

Also: I was able to sit quite close up and in the center since my friend snagged an orchestra seat for us! I was happy to get seat 315 because I love SideM.

Lastly, there are no pictures or recordings allowed DURING the live. However you can usually find stuff from staff twitters of the performers and behind-the-scenes pictures from them. That’s pretty standard and mostly why you’ll only see drawings or tweets from people after JP lives.

#personal #anime expo #anisong world matsuri

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