#dumbapples

Inktober day 13 - Drink. I was always wondering how on Gaia Barret ever though leaving his 4 years old adopted daughter to run the booze bar in slums is a good idea.

I often see criticism of Angeal in Crisis Core Reunion for stealing from poor farmers while leaving the richest family's dumbapples alone just because Genesis was his friend.

I understand the immediate instinctive reaction to take from the richest, however, if you follow the story closely you will see that there were no poor farmers in Banora. Which Angeal explicitly says anyway.

But I want to dig a bit deeper:

The whole Banora village was fake and was staffed with Shinra's employees, as well as served to keep employees from Project G under house arrest.

The only reason why Angeal's family was poor was because Angeal's mother, Gillian Hewley, refused Shinra's compensation since she suffered from guilty conscience for participating as a scientist in Shinra's Jenova experiments, and even doing the experiment on her own child. That she unsuccessfully tried to escape Shinra's house arrest with her baby certainly didn't improve her living conditions.

So, we know Gillian was offered large sums of money, and from "The Kids are Alright: A Turks Side Story" novel we know that fake villagers, who populated Nibelheim after the Sephiroth incident, were also Shinra's employees, and received enormous sums of money to live there and keep their mouths shut. So it's obviously Shinra's modus operandi in such situations.

So again, there were no poor farmers in Banora because people there, in addition to having farms, were handsomely paid by Shinra.

Also, one child eating apples can't do any significant damage to a farm.

Ok, so if we accept Angeal eating apples was no big deal, then why didn't he just eat the tastiest apples from the biggest landowner who, even if everyone was rich, would feel it the least? Why not ask Genesis, like Zack suggested?

Why would honor stop him from asking, but not from stealing in general?

It wouldn't, it's mistranslation, it's supposed to say pride *sigh*

Angeal says in Japanese:

アンジール：しかし　そんな俺にも誇りはあった

Angeal: But I had my pride.

.....

アンジール：誇りというのは厄介なものだ

Angeal: Pride is burdensome/a tricky thing/troublesome.

I don't know why they translated it in a way that makes it possible to confuse it with one of Angeal's lectures on SOLDIER honor, and to make it seem like he's saying it's dishonorable to ask his friend but not steal from others. But this part has nothing to do with his code of honor as a grown man, he's just saying that as a kid, it would have hurt his pride to ask his best friend for food.

GUYS MY PRINTED DUMBAPPLE FABRIC CAME I AM SO EXCITED

BANORA SHIRT IMMINENT 

Also, also, I’ve officially launched my Redbubble store! So now you can wear your silly little purple apples with dreams and honour wherever you go. 

Get it on an apron and make your food leftovers king Angeal proud, or strut your stuff in leggings and wear it fabulously like Genesis would. ;) 

1. Genesis was about to use either Apocalypse or a summon materia during the spar with Angeal and Sephiroth. 

2. Probably Genesis has been in Nibelheim, Shinra mansion for exact, before Zack and Sephiroth? I mean, who else would be there instead of Genesis as one of the locked rooms in Shinra mansion has a used bed along with several dumbapples and apple juice cans?  Also the safe code clue used for that room is “Tasty Reminders of home”.

There's also a previous post with some of this pair.

Passionate Dumbapples for ur soul

Buckle up nerds.  We’re going to learn about real life Dumbapples.

There are two breeds of black apples.  I’m going to talk about one first, then the other. These apples are called “Black Diamond” and they are only grown in the mountains in Tibet.

Believe it or not, these are actually a breed of the Chinese Red Delicious apple.  These get their unique coloring from the geographical conditions of the mountain in which they grow.  These apples turn dark because of the extreme temperature changes of warm days and below freezing nights!  They also receive exposure to UV light and extreme sunlight on the mountain.  This causes the skin to go from deep red to dark purple!

According to fans of the fruit, it is sweeter and crispier than the standard Red Delicious due to its higher level of natural glucose.

Since it requires very rare conditions to grow these apples, they are typically sold in gift packages of 6-8 apples.  They are also sold in higher end grocery stores in China.  Their harvest period is extremely short.  They are available to the public for consumption at the end of October and are only available for about two months.  Only 30% of these apples are deemed worthy for sale!  

And the price?  $7 per apple.  That’s $42 for a small gift package!

Unfortunately, if you’re outside of their region--there is an absolutely 0% chance you will get your hands on them.  And since there’s not much online about these apples--many farmers don’t believe they’re even real.

BUT!  There is hope if you want to taste another type of black apple!

Let me introduce you to the Arkansas Black Apple.

These are available from mid-fall to early winter in the Northwest part of Arkansas

First off, you can’t pull these bad boys off a tree and bite.  They taste horrible when fresh. They are rock hard and sour.  These apples actually need to be aged.  Throw them in the fridge and wait until next season. The fruit will be firm, sweet, and consumers have said that it has notes of cherry, vanilla, cinnamon, and coriander--but only after it has been aged in cold storage for a few months.

Since these guys keep forever, they can be baked into pies or put into pastries very easily!  The shape holds well in the oven and can be baked whole.

It also produces an outstanding, aromatic cider when blended with a sweeter cider apple.  If you have a green thumb and room to plant, here’s a good note:

The trees grow well in zones 4-8 (Some say they can grow in Zone 9 too.)

A visual for that (for the US).

SO there you go!  Dumbapples!

 My point is...