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arecomicsevengood · 4 years

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Quarantine Movie-Watching Journal, Continued

Throughout all this quarantine time I’ve been chronicling my watching movies, I’ve also been reading books, but have had assorted troubles on a level that seems close to basic comprehension, or just getting on their wavelength. Part of this is having a certain tendency towards the difficult or avant-garde in terms of what I think is “good,” but also wanting things to make sense or have a certain level of clarity: It’s maybe a difficult balance to strike but I don’t know, plenty of books pull it off, I have plenty of favorites. Nothing I’ve read recently has really been hitting, the only thing I’ve found compulsively readable is Virginie Despentes’ Vernon Subutex series, which I would hesitate to recommend as I also think they’re kind of bad. I want clarity on a certain level, and mystery on a deeper one; a lot of things essentially get the formula backwards, and feel incredibly obvious and free of ideas while employing obfuscatory language. (This isn’t to say I like “straightforward” prose, the “mystery” I’m referring to is basically created as an act of alchemy when language is functioning on its highest level, and insight, mood, imagery, and motion are all generated simultaneously. This isn’t “plain speech” I’m describing, but it doesn’t short-circuit the brain’s ability to make sense of it.)

In watching a lot of older movies I find that one of the things that help them maintain a level of interest is I possess a certain confusion about their cultural context. Even if something is a perfectly straightforward mainstream entertainment, there is still a sense of confusion or mystery about it, where you can follow it perfectly, but don’t necessarily know where it’s coming from, so it’s unclear where it’s going. In contrast, watching modern movies, especially more mainstream things but also, generally speaking, everything, I feel like not only do I know exactly where it’s coming from it’s also aggressively spelling everything out, as if to avoid moral confusion. This is also combined with a certain aggressiveness to the editing, so even as everything too fast-paced on certain level, it also ends up being too long, because it needs to fit in a certain level of redundancy. Older things tend to have a greater degree of storytelling clarity that’s also premised on a higher level of trust in the viewer’s ability to intuit things. Maybe there’s also a greater level of reliance on a set of semiotic devices that we’ve become more critical of over time, but what’s emerged in their absence feels more self-consciously insistent.

Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

After watching this I looked up on IMDB to see what Gerwig is up to now and she’s slated to direct a Barbie movie? I hate this era, where success doesn’t lead to any actual clout to make important or interesting work, but instead forces artists into these traps of economic contract where they service a trademark. Also this movie is kind of weird because all these actresses are in their twenties but I think are meant to be playing teenagers for most of it? Or even younger? This movie basically feels like it is meant to be for children but is given this gloss over it to maybe seem appealing to young adult modern feminists but it doesn’t really seem like it would be except to the extent they’re indulging a youthful nostalgia.

Shirley (2020) dir. Josephine Decker

I’ve been wanting to watch Decker’s last movie Madeline’s Madeline because a lady I met and thought was cute has a small role in it. I guess all her movies are about artists and performers? I like that this one seems capable of depicting a fiction writer without just presenting their work as autobiographical but I guess that’s because it’s, you know, a real person whose story is being told. Elisabeth Moss is pretty good as Shirley Jackson. Jackson acts real weird and petulant and destructive and I sort of went in feeling like she would be depicted as a manipulative monster, but watching it I felt like it was probably well-researched and accurate to how she was but not in a way that makes me dislike Shirley Jackson — but also I do like destructive difficult personalities and I think that’s basically a fine and acceptable way for artists, or anyone, to behave. I still don’t think this is really a good movie, Shirley Jackson is not really the lead but more like the only interesting character: She’s got an obnoxious and self-satisfied husband, but the movie is more about this couple that moves in — a woman who’s pretty dull is the focal point, and her husband is boring, and manipulative too, albeit in a very commonplace way. Pretty average.

The Predator (2018) dir. Shane Black

A movie about how people with Asperger’s are the next step in human evolution that nonetheless uses the r-word slur to describe them, filled with some of the most generic actors imaginable. I like Shane Black movies as much as the next guy, but am indifferent to the Predator franchise. Maybe because, despite the R rating, they really do feel like they’re made to sell toys, like so many cartoons of the eighties? I hope the sequel the ending transparently sets up never gets made.

The Lighthouse (2019) dir. Robert Eggers

Wasn’t able to finish The Witch and I stopped and started this one a few times. Tries to avoid accusations that “all these modern horror movies are dumb as shit” by not being a horror movie but it also isn’t really anything else — Not funny enough to be a comedy nor evocative enough to be an art movie. Sort of like High Life in the sense that Robert Pattinson isn’t actually good in it but maybe it’s surprising that a mainstream actor would be in a “weird movie,” but he doesn’t really have to do anything in either, at least as far as building a character goes. It’s underwritten enough he might not even know how to read. Willem Dafoe is ok as a guy doing the sea captain voice from The Simpsons.

The Whistlers (2020) dir. Corneliu Poromboiu

Contemporary crime thing that vaguely reminded me of all the other post-Tarantino crime movies made in the past 25 years that I don’t really remember, particularly the ones in other languages. This one’s got characters learning a whistling language to communicate in a way cops will just thing is birds. Also a semi-complicated plot, told non-linearly. The female lead also pretends to be a prostitute and has sex with a criminal dude so the police watching him with hidden cameras don’t figure out what she’s up to, although, if I understand the plot, I’m pretty sure they work it out anyway.

Pain And Glory (2019) dir. Pedro Almodovar

This one stars Antonio Banderas, is pretty plainly autobiographical, being about a filmmaker approaching the end of his life -- Penelope Cruz plays the mother in flashbacks that are then shown to be a filmed recreation as an autobiographical work is begun, which is the sort of twist that could seem corny but isn’t. The film has a weird/interesting structure, the slow revelation of details from the character’s past forming a narrative a film can be made of eventually but before that there’s this totally separate story involving an actor, heroin use, and an ex-lover. That stuff’s good but also it sort of wraps up halfway through. Like, a bundle of narrative threads culminate, and then the film keeps going, to eventually tie up other bits that seem incidental. Maybe this would be fine in a theater but streamed at home I got a bit anxious. Penelope Cruz made me think “I could watch Vanilla Sky” but it turned out I can’t, it’s unwatchable.

High Heels (1991) dir. Pedro Almodovar

I love Almodovar, my stance has been that there’s a degree of diminishing returns the more of his work you see but it’s been years since I’ve seen one of his movies, and at this point I remember very little of any of them. This one’s on Criterion as part of a collection of films with scores by Ryuichi Sakamoto — Sakamoto’s not my favorite member of Yellow Magic Orchestra but he’s certainly an adept talent, and this one operates differently than I’d expect from him, most of the music feels saxophone-led, sort of in a jazz vein. Obviously you can compose for this instrumentation but yeah, not what I’d expect. The movie itself is pretty solid: bright colors, some melodrama, a ridiculous twist, a sense of humor which feels both over the top and somewhat deadpan. A woman’s mother returns to Spain after close to a lifetime away, she ends up sleeping with the daughter’s husband, he turns up dead, the daughter reveals he killed her stepfather as a child. The movie is primarily about the daughter’s yearning for the approval for an emotionally distant mother, at one point she summarizes the Bergman movie Autumn Sonata for her, but Almodovar is gayer and more sexually perverse than Bergman. so it’s less dour than I’m maybe making it sound. At one point the daughter is wearing a sweater with the pattern of the Maryland flag on it? But the credits reveal all her outfits are by Chanel.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) dir. Volker Schlondorff

The score is closer to what I would expect from Sakamoto here, in a martial/industrial vein, though not exclusively. Stars Natasha Richardson, and her performance feels related to what she did in Patty Hearst — a depiction of a woman shutting down parts of herself for the sake of her own survival, displaying inner reserves of strength through the appearance of submission. This seems a lot better than the current Hulu show, although I think it’s largely dismissed? It’s been a while since I read the book so I can’t remember how many liberties it takes. Obviously there remain traces of an exploitation bent in a weird way, through depiction of women in dehumanized sexual contexts but I feel like this movie is good at depicting competition between women in the context of a rigged patriarchal system.

Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence (1983) dir. Nagisa Oshima

Never seen any of Oshima’s films, despite the allure of explicit sex in an artsy context. This has Sakamoto in it opposite David Bowie. There’s a lot of English language being spoken in a thick Japanese accent. David Bowie plays a prisoner of war Sakamoto, as a military officer, falls in love with and tries to keep from harm, his score does the heavy lifting of highlighting these emotions. Was not super-into this movie but it’s always interesting to think about how popular YMO were, and if these are the type of faces you enjoy looking at you can do that. Sakamoto’s got a weird hairline. The movie is fine considered in the context of like, 1980s movies (not my fave decade) that are period military dramas (not my favorite genre) and exist in this Japanese film context that is neither super-insane and exuberant in its style nor is it super-austere and minimal.

A Farewell To Arms (1932) dir. Frank Borzage

Very well-shot piece of romance, starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes, in an adaptation of a Ernest Hemingway novel I don’t remember whether or not I read in high school. Hemingway didn’t like it, maybe because there were a lot of changes, which confuses the issue of whether or not I know the source material further. I don’t like this movie as much as I liked History Is Made At Night but it makes a lot more sense as a narrative, easily reduced to a bare-bones plot: He’s in the army, she’s a nurse, people don’t want them to be together during World War I, he ends up deserting to be with her. Feels lush, romantic, dreamy and swooning, but I feel like the strengths are more in the cinematography than the characters — the leads are fine enough, though not super deep, beyond the depths of their love, but the supporting cast is a bit dull.

War Of The Worlds (2005) dir. Steven Spielberg

Feel like I had heard this one was good? I appreciate Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies, and Spielberg some of the time I guess. This is a blockbuster that feels post-9/11 in a way where I wonder what a post-Corona thing would feel like — feel like it would shy away from away from a lot of spectacle or something but probably I’m wrong about that. So this one focuses on a parent and his children making their way across an increasingly demolished landscape to make it to the other parent, alien monsters are in the way, kinda just seems logistically weird or like the premise of the quest is unsound given the stakes should probably just be survival? But maybe this is post-covid thinking of how such a thing would operate — the disaster picture with a “human element” to focus the narrative on is a decades-old form and one I don’t really get down with nor do I think is generally considered to age well - i.e. I don’t remember growing up with The Towering Inferno being on TV.

My Twentieth Century (1989) dir. Ildiko Enyedi

Weird Hungarian movie where like… angels/stars observe? As two twins are born in the late eighteen-hundreds and go on to have separate lives? One as an anarchist, the other as like a party girl type who seduces rich men. The latter gets more attention than the former. Sort of a fairy tale atmosphere, which makes the explicit sex scenes awkward. There’s also a scene where a guy gives a sexist lecture about how women should be allowed to vote even though they have no sense of logic and are obsessed with sex. He draws a dick on the chalkboard and talks about how women can’t understand beauty since they are obsessed with erections which are disgusting. Not really sure what it adds to the movie as a whole since I’m not sure which one of the two characters played by the same actress is meant to be watching it, but it’s funny. A lot of things are confusing about this movie, but it’s still sort of interesting and therefore worthwhile I guess. Apparently the director has a new movie on Netflix — I don’t have Netflix at the moment but might get it for a month or two in the future to catch up on assorted things like Sion Sono’s The Forest Of Love and the David Lynch content.

His Girl Friday (1940) dir. Howard Hawks

not into this one. Rosalind Russell wears a cool suit at first though. Features the thing where a male romantic lead (Cary Grant) is openly manipulative but it’s sort of viewed as fine and funny because the woman in question is confident and modern, which kinda feels like a fascinating view into the gender dynamics of the time, although I don’t think it works as a comedy as far as me being able to figure out what the jokes are. The journalists getting caught up in crime intrigue plot is cool though, that kind of feels like something that always works.

Lured (1947) dir. Douglas Sirk

Kind of have no idea why I watched all the older Douglas Sirk movies on the Criterion Channel at this point, even the ones I liked I don’t think I liked that much? This one stars Lucille Ball, who I don’t love. Other movies I watched recently that were partly comedies and partly suspense things worked better than this. This one’s about attractive young women disappearing and Lucille Ball getting hired by the police to be an undercover detective. She ends up finding love, but then the man she gets engaged to is framed for murder by the actual killer. Features scenes where the police (led by Charles Coburn, who’s fine in this) talk about how crazy Baudelaire was. Wouldn’t recommend.

Far From Heaven (2002) dir. Todd Haynes

Not sure I have any strong feelings towards Todd Haynes, but it seems likely I might end up watching a bunch of his movies eventually. This came out in high school, and I had no interest in it, but I’m more charitable towards the whole fifties melodrama thing it’s paying homage to now. Julianne Moore stars as a woman whose husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay and repressing himself via alcoholism, who strikes up a friendship with her black gardener, (Dennis Haysbert) which scandalizes her neighbors. The moments Moore and Haysbert spend together are maybe the most interesting - particularly them going to an all-black restaurant - but the aspect of them being watched and judged feels more cliched. Similarly, the stuff about Dennis Quaid’s homosexuality is most interesting as a lived-in thing, and his drinking, hitting his wife, etc., is less so. The veins of sensuality running through the movie are richer than the plot structure that unites them. This might be one of the things that makes Carol a superior movie.

The Violent Men (1955) dir. Rudolph Mate

This stars a bunch of people I don’t like — Glenn Ford, Edward G Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck is fine in other stuff but boring here. Dianne Foster plays her daughter, and that’s the meatiest role basically- she gets to denounce violent men. This is a western about a guy being pressured to sell his land for cheap. Criterion Channel programmed this as part of a series called “western noir” and I don’t know about this stuff. Foster’s character is definitely the most interesting part — her parents are essentially these gangsters running the town, her teen angst feels like it stems from an inherent morality and disgust with them. Stanwyck is cheating on Foster’s father (Robinson) with a guy I think is his brother who also enforces the violence. The mom tries to kill the father, and then is herself killed by a woman in love with the person she’s sleeping with, so the daughter, you would think, would go through a gamut of emotions. But she’s a totally secondary to Glenn Ford’s male lead, who she ends up riding off into the sunset with — he initially was involved in a relationship with a woman who didn’t care about his inherent morality in favor of a materialism, but she just sort of gets dropped from the narrative at a certain point. The movie really tries to play it both ways with regards to the violence, but I feel like that’s pretty common actually: While I feel like today the title might primarily be intended as an indictment, it also feels like at the time it was very much the sales pitch to the audience.

Shane (1953) dir. George Stevens

Classic western, about homesteaders just trying to live who end up needing to get in gunfights with people who want their land. Jean Arthur plays the wife and mother, which is why I sought it out (especially sicne she had established rapport with Stevens) but she’s barely in it. The titular Shane is a good dude who wanders through and ends up helping them out. The kid’s infatuation of Shane is really annoying to me personally. I love how this has two big fist-fights though, the second of which is a They Live style thing, a conflict between friends that becomes incredibly drawn out. The first fight is also just incredibly brutal and well-choreographed, probably the high point of the movie.

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) dir. Martin Campbell

TV movie made for HBO with very Vertigo Comics energy, I started off thinking “this is dumb” but very quickly got on its side. It’s a riff on HP Lovecraft mythology set in a 1940s Los Angeles where everyone uses magic except for one private detective, whose name is Harry Lovecraft. Pretty PG-rated, some practical effects (not the best kind, more like gargoyle demon creature costumes I assume are made of foam), and a pretty easily foreseeable “twist” ending where the apocalypse is averted because the virgin sacrifice just lost her virginity to a cop. Not actually that clever but clever enough to work and be consistently enjoyable. Julianne Moore plays a nightclub singer. My interest in this is brought about because there’s a sequel (where I guess the deal is the detective does use magic, and no one else does) called Witch Hunt starring Dennis Hopper and directed by Paul Schrader.

Jennifer’s Body (2009) dir. Karyn Kusama

The climax of Cast A Deadly Spell shares a plot point with this, which I think is being reevaluated as a “cult classic” to what I assume is the same audience that valued the Scott Pilgrim movie: People ten years younger than me who think it’s charming when things are completely obnoxious. A lot of musical cues, all mixed at too loud relative to the rest of the audio, bad jokes. This tone does help power the whole nihilistic, I-enjoy-seeing-these-superfluous-characters-die aspect of the plot but the sort of emotional core of the horror is less present. This movie is basically fine, by lowered modern movies standards, but it’s perfectly disposable and not really worth valuing in any way. I watched Kusama’s movie Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman a year ago and don’t remember anything about it now.

Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg

Rewatch. I think for a while I would’ve considered this my favorite Cronenberg but nowadays I might favor eXistenZ? Jeremy Irons in dual roles as twin brothers, with different personalities, but who routinely impersonate each other, and whose lives begin to deteriorate as a relationship with a woman leads to them individuate themselves from each other. They’re gynecologists, and the whole thing is suffused with an air of creepiness. There’s this sense of airlessness to the movie, a sense of panic, which is present incredibly early on and just sort of keeps going, getting weirder and more uncomfortable as you become accustomed to it, that feels like a sure sign of mastery. I’m fascinated to think about how watching it in a crowd, or on a date, would feel. Most movies don’t operate like this.

Imagine The Sound (1981) dir. Ron Mann

Mann is the director of Comic Book Confidential, which I saw as a middle schooler. This is a documentary about free jazz, featuring interviews and performance footage. Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor are both shown playing solo piano, which isn’t my favorite context to hear them in. Bill Dixon and Archie Shepp say some cool stuff, there is some nice trio footage of Shepp with a rhythm section.

Born In Flames (1983) dir. Lizzie Borden

Easily the best movie I watched for the first time in the time period I’m covering in this post. I heard about this years ago but only seeing it now, when it feels super-relevant. It is shot in New York in the eighties, features plenty of documentation of the city as it was, but in the context of the movie, there has been a socialist revolution ten years earlier, and this film then documents the struggle of the women, particularly black women, who are slipping through the cracks, and fighting for the ongoing quest to make a utopia, but exist in opposition to the party in power. While focusing on black women, there’s also plenty of white women, also opposed to and more progre.ssive than the people in power, but that are having their own conversations which are very different. There’s also montage sequences of women performing labor that cut between women wrapping up chicken to close-ups of a condom being rolled onto a erect penis. The title song is by the Red Krayola, circa the Kangaroo? era where Lora Logic provided vocals. So yeah, this movie rules! It would be a good double-feature with The Spook Who Sat By The Door, though in a film school context, or a sociology context, you would need to do a great deal of groundwork first. Could also work as a double-feature with The Falls for how what you are seeing is the aftermath of a great sociological reshaping realized on a low-budget. I think I put off this movie I think because I was skeptical of the director’s self-conscious “artist’s name” but it turns out they got it legally named as a young child.

State Of Siege (1972) dir. Costa-Gavras

Also really good! Better than Born In Flames when considered in terms of its level of craft. Would make for a fine double feature with my beloved Patty Hearst. Tightly structured over the course of a week, leftist terrorists kidnap an American and interrogate him about what exactly he’s doing in their Latin American country that’s being run by death squads. He denies wrong-doing, but basically everything he’s done is already known to them. This exists in parallel to police interrogations of leftists. Pretty large scale, tons of characters, some basically incidental. Screenplay’s written by the guy who wrote Battle Of Algiers.

Olivia (1951) dir. Jacqueline Audry

French movie sort of about lesbian love at an all-girl’s boarding school that’s weird because everyone seems like they’re feeling homosexual love, but just for one instructor who eggs everyone on. Everyone acts weird in this one, basically. There’s a lot of doting. The atmosphere is pretty unfathomable to me. Chaste-seeming in some ways, but also like everyone is being psychologically tortured by being subject to the whims of each other, but also just rolling with it in this deferential way. Seems like it could feel “emotionally true” to a lesbian experience but only in highly, highly specific circumstances?

Lucia (1968) dir. Humberto Solas

Good score in this one, which is not that much like I Am Cuba but I feel obligated to compare them anyway - both are from Cuba and use this three-story anthology structure. All the stories in this movie revolve around different women named Lucia, in three different, historically important, time periods. The first is about a woman who falls in love with a man from Spain, during the time of Cuba’s war of independence, he says he doesn’t think about politics, but this is one lie among several. This ends with brutal sequences of war. The second takes place under the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. The third takes place post-revolution, and is about a literacy coach teaching a woman to read and write under the eye of a domineering chauvinistic husband. As with I Am Cuba, it is the very act of considering these three stories together that brings out their propagandistic aspect, and makes them feel less like individual stories. They’re all beautifully shot, although it’s less in less of a show-offy way than I Am Cuba.

Mr. Klein (1976) dir. Joseph Losey

This one’s got a cool premise- About an art dealer, played by Alain Delon, who is buying art from Jews at low prices as they leave occupied France quickly, but who then starts getting confused for another person with the same name as him, who is Jewish. Gets sort of Kakfa-esque but also remains grounded in this world where there are rational explanations for things. (at least as far as the holocaust is rational) So the line gets walked between bits that feel vaguely verging on nightmare but also sort of maintain the plausible deniability of belonging to the waking world, of a paranoia for something the exact scope of which remains unnamed. Ends with Klein as one of many in a trainyard full of people being sent off to concentration camps, which to me felt sort of tasteless, as a large-scale recreation, but that feels deliberate, as a way of offsetting the scope of the film being primarily focused on one person, whose relationship to the larger horror, before it affected him, was parasitic.

Husbands (1970) dir. John Cassavetes

Not into this one. The semi-improvisatory nature of the dialogue never coalesces into characters that seem to have a real core to them, there’s always just this sort of drunken aggression mode. What even is there to these characters, besides the aggression they treat women with? What separates them from one another, makes them distinct entities, beyond the sense they egg each other on?

Casino (1995) dir. Martin Scorsese

Rewatch. Joe Pesci plays the violent Italian guy, Robert De Niro plays the level-headed Jew, Sharon Stone plays the blonde who gets strung out on drugs. Three hours long to contain everyone’s arcs, but also sort of feels like it neatly has act breaks at pretty close to the hour marks, while also telling this pretty big historical sweeping piece about how corporate control comes to Las Vegas, the notion that “the house always wins” but even the individual whose job it is to run the house is himself situated inside a larger house. Both here and in Raging Bull, De Niro plays a character whose third act involves trying to be an entertainer for reasons of ego, and it’s so weird. Yeah, a great movie, one of the few that the reductive view of Scorsese as “someone who just makes mob movies” applies to, I have no opinion on whether it’s better than Goodfella or not.

Blue Collar (1978) dir. Paul Schrader

Not great. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto co-star. Sometimes feels like maybe it’s meant to function partly as a comedy but doesn’t. It’s also mostly a crime movie, about people working at an auto plant who decide to rob their union’s vault. They end up not making any money from that robbery, but the union can claim insurance funds, so they get to benefit while the working men continue to be shafted, worried about the consequences of what they’ve done. Kotto dies, and Pryor and Keitel are turned against each other by circumstance, which the film tries to play off as being about the divisions among people that keep the working class weak. I definitely feel like the Schrader oeuvre begins with Hardcore.

Mona Lisa (1986) dir. Neil Jordan

This ends up kind of feeling like a lesser version of Hardcore, with British accents. Bob Hoskins, out of jail, starts driving for a prostitute, they dislike each other at first, but become friendly. She asks him to track down a younger girl she was friends with, who a pimp has gotten strung out on drugs. (Hoskins is also a father to a daughter, though his relationship with the mother is strained from having gone to prison.) Hoskins’ character isn’t that interesting and the film revolves around him, the female lead is more interesting but deliberately removed from the larger narrative. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Neil Jordan movie.

The Untouchables (1987) dir. Brian De Palma

Rewatch. Great Ennio Morricone score in this one, a real reminder of a different era in terms of what constituted a blockbuster or a prestige picture. David Mamet provides the screenplay. De Palma is pretty reined-in, while Mission: Impossible is an insane procession of sequences of top-notch visual storytelling, the most De Palma trademark thing here is a first-person perspective of a home invasion scene, watching Sean Connery, that ends up being a deliberate choice of a limited perspective to surprise as he gets lured to his death. I feel like there’s a straight line between this movie and Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990), but obviously what that line runs through is the reality-rewriting effect of Tim Burton’s Batman.

Pulp Fiction (1994) dir. Quentin Tarantino

Rewatch. Can scarcely comprehend how it would’ve felt to see this in a theater when it came out. I watched it the first time in college on a laptop and headphones and it blew me away, even after years of a bunch of it being referenced on The Simpsons and everywhere else. I haven’t seen it since. Rewatching is this exercise in seeing what you don’t remember when everything’s been processed a million times. Feels like Tarantino’s best screenplay due to its construction, more so than any dialogue, which is obviously a little in love with itself. Samuel Jackson wears a Krazy Kat t-shirt after his suit gets covered in blood. Quentin Tarantino casts himself as the white guy who gets to say the n-word a bunch.

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jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 4 years

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Episode 7: Q&A

Let’s just dive right into this. Spoilers are heading your way.

1:00 - Malcolm why did you try to talk to the strange man in the dark?!?! It’s not safe you giant doofus.

1:33 - Gil looks very annoyed and concerned here. This is a man who would ground Malcolm’s ass if he could.

1:51 - See how Gil’s hands are on his hips? That’s exactly the position Malcolm was in when he was talking to Dani when he was high. Coincidence? I think not. Pretty sure Malcolm is subconsciously trying to imitate Gil whenever he can because Gil is Malcolm’s definition of a good man.

2:24 - Another instance when Dani directly asks Malcolm if he’s okay.

2:35 - Edrisa is one strange lady. She doesn’t even look mildly grossed out by the state of those bodies.

3:53 - Check out JT’s face here. He looks somewhere halfway between annoyed with and concerned for Malcolm. Gil on the other hand is too busy trying to keep Malcolm from jumping off the deep end to be annoyed with him.

4:25 - Does anyone else find it odd that mother and daughter are sitting so far apart on this bench? I mean, I know they’re fighting right now but still.

5:00 - “I am far more worried now.” She should be. Ainsley is trying to out manipulate Martin. That’s concerning because a) Martin is a dangerous psychopath and b) Ainsley, to a certain degree, is exhibiting behaviour that probably reminds Jessica of Martin.

7:00 - I’m starting to believe that Edrisa might be on the autism spectrum. She seems to have trouble reading the mood of a room. She often rambles. She is socially awkward. She talks with her hands a lot. She is very intelligent. She’s a functioning adult but many people with autism are functioning adults if they had proper support as children. Then again, it’s possible she grew up in a home with stereotypical Asian parents who forced her to study most of the day and severely limited her opportunities to socialize in a non-academic setting.

7:11 - hahaha Gil’s face here. He’s like “Why do I like these two freaks? Why do they look borderline excited in the middle of this morbid situation?”

7:46 - I love the moment when Gil and Malcolm realize that they’re looking for a serial killer. Gil looks guilty. Like he’s blaming himself for not noticing that this murderer was loose sooner. Malcolm looks upset too but it looks like he’s more upset about the effect this is having on Gil than he is about the fact that there’s a serial killer on the loose. Both of my boys need a hug.

8:23 - They are waaayyy too lovey-dovey inside of Ainsley’s serial killer father’s prison cell. Like did they forget that they’re inside of a psychiatric facility for murderers?!?

9:00 - The fact that this interaction between Tevin and Ainsley is possible annoys me. I know it was necessary to forward the plot BUT why would two different secure doors be randomly wide open when a guard is moving a dangerous prisoner through the halls? I’m sure those doors are legally required to be heavy enough to close by themselves if no one props them open for safety reasons. (Just my small annoyance. Carry on.)

10:00 - hahaha I love JT. He clearly cares about Malcolm but he also doesn’t know what to say to a dude who is so manic and troubled.

10:22 - I love Dani going on a rant. It’s really sweet. It’s almost as if she knew that if she went on a rant Malcolm would be able to calm down and focus. Look at Malcolm’s reaction to her rant. He immediately calms down and tries to comfort Dani. He refocuses on the case. They are really good for each other’s mental health. They ground each other and I’m so grateful that they’re in each other’s lives.

11:05 - If Edrisa is technically part of the team - why doesn’t she just walk into the room? Why does she wave through the window to get Malcolm’s attention?

11:51 - We have reached a tipping point in Malcolm’s mental health. He just willingly admitted that he’s not okay. Someone sound the alarms. This will not end well. Our boy is going off the deep end....but at least he’s self aware?

12:00 - The first part of this interview (before Malcolm shows up) is hard to watch. It hurts to watch Martin twist everything into a positive about himself. It hurts to watch Ainsley try to twist everything in the opposite direction. These characters are more similar than I’d like to admit. They’re both obsessed with their outward appearance to the world. They’re obsessed with their own success. They’re driven by ambition. Sure, Ainsley is capable of empathy, and I don’t think she’d ever kill anyone but she’s definitely narcissistic. More so than Malcolm, whose isn’t narcissistic so much as he is obsessed with finding out the truth. More so than Jessica, who really just wants to be less lonely since the world abandoned her twenty years ago.

13:20 - This is a really interesting point that Martin brings up. He’s technically mentally ill. Does he deserve sympathy for it? I mean, he killed people. I have anxiety disorders and chronic depression. I have a bipolar uncle. A narcissistic grandmother diagnosed with manic depression with psychotic elements (actually, in a lot of ways my grandmother is like Martin Whitly). I understand mental illness. But the second that someone kills another person...that’s where my sympathy ends. At that point I don’t care if you’re mentally ill - you took someone else’s life for pleasure. You shouldn’t be getting fancy therapy and an all-expenses paid trip to a psychiatric hospital. You should be getting the electric chair. (Sorry if this is getting political - I’m generally against the death penalty but psychopathic serial killers and child abusers are the exception to my stance).

13:38 - The darkest of nights?!?! Martin you are making me so angry right now. You sleep like a baby. You have no conscience. That’s literally the definition of a psychopath. You have no dark nights. Your son on the other hand. UGH.

14:10 - *sigh* look at this. He’s making everything about him. In doing so he’s actually belittling his daughter and her career choice. What kind of a loving father does that?

15:44 - This little moment when Ainsley tells Malcolm that she’s staying is concerning to me. She is so desperate to find her father’s affectionate side that she watches her brother interact with him. She genuinely believes that she is the least favourite child.

16:30 - In this scene Martin says he’s never been to the Bronx. But by the end of this episode we find out that Martin briefly worked at St. Edwards Hospital in the Bronx. Just more proof that Martin is a liar. I don’t know what else to tell you.

17:10 - Look at that face. That is a man who doesn’t care about his son. That is a man who will say anything to keep Malcolm in the room. To play with Malcolm’s head. That is not a father. That is a monster. Look at how sad Malcolm looks by the end of this interaction. How upset. How scared. He is genuinely starting to believe that he might’ve helped his Dad hurt someone.

18:56 - Ainsley’s excitement to walk back into that room is concerning. There is ambition and there is obsession. She is obsessed. It isn’t healthy.

19:25 - “I’d like to discuss one more. Malcolm.” This scene absolutely shatters my heart. For multiple reasons. a) Ainsley just put her career before her brother. She is intentionally starting a conversation that she knows will upset her brother (in front of her brother) because she believes that it will get the results she needs. This is one of the reasons I believe Ainsley is the Whitly child most similar to Martin. AND b) look at Malcolm’s reactions. He is utterly heartbroken. He feels betrayed by his sister. Embarrassed that his father knows about his diagnoses. Embarrassed that this discussion about his mental health is being filmed for television. He looks so sad and defeated here. I just want to hug him. AND FINALLY c) Martin is incapable of even acknowledging that his action have had any sort of negative impact on Malcolm.

20:15 - And there he is. The most honest form of Martin Whitly. Angry. Explosive. Violent. Things aren’t going his way and that’s unacceptable to him.

20:53 - Another moment that annoys me about this episode. How convenient is it that the alarm starts going off JUST as Martin finishes his little outburst? It’s just timed a little too coincidentally. I know I know. It’s necessary for the plot and the time constraint of the episode.

21:24 - Look at that. Three people concerned about your shaky handed boy. My heart is full.

22:18 - Ainsley and Malcolm laughing over their Mom’s phone calls is cute. BUT I feel like Malcolm should be a little more upset with Ainsley right now. I know they’re in a lockdown situation and he probably doesn’t want to fight with her in case that something bad happens to one of them but still. Siblings fight. She treated him poorly. He should be mad at her right now. Malcolm’s acting like nothing happened.

23:55 - Martin is the worst. He really refuses to answer his children’s relevant questions until the camera is rolling. Ugh. Mr. David is not getting paid enough to deal with this family.

25:40 - It’s absolutely disgusting that Martin is so unconcerned when both of this children are in danger, in his presence. Also can someone please explain to me why there was a crow bar in the camera equipment bag? Like for real? That’s not a thing I can see Claremont security approving to enter a serial killer’s cell.

27:00 - It’s not often that I believe that Malcolm is the most rational person in the room (excluding Mr. David of course) but Ainsley and Martin are positively crazy in this scene. Ainsley is desperate and scared but Martin is manipulating her. At least Malcolm has enough common sense to keep a knife away from a serial killer.

28:34 - The flashback. Martin is holding Malcolm’s hands, guiding the knife. Did Malcolm fight his father before this moment? Was Malcolm drugged into submission? I really need to know more about this. Malcolm looks terrified in the flashback though - he definitely didn’t take the knife willingly.

29:00 - Look at Malcolm’s face. That is pure terror. That is internal conflict. He wants to help his sister. He would do anything for her because he’s her big brother and big brothers are protective. BUT he’s also terrified of giving his father a knife. AND he’s terrified of the flashback that he just had. Look at Malcolm’s face when Martin takes the scalpel. Holy crap. That boy is not sleeping tonight.

31:02 - Another instance where I really don’t support Ainsley. Video tapping the un-consented surgery (yes it was an emergency, I know) performed by a serial killer on her boyfriend. Like. Dude. No. So not appropriate. But she’s doing it a) to try and earn her father’s love and attention and b) she thinks the story will help her career. It’s all about her. And that scares me.

32:45 - JT and Dani look concerned again. They’re like “What’s the dumbass going to do now?”

33:00 - I love this scene. Gil and Jessica. This conversation is sweet, and intimate in a way that only people with a shared concern can be. How many conversations do you think they’ve had over the years about Malcolm and Ainsley? They’re both worried about their kids. It’s precious and I love it. Also - another example of how Jessica’s heart is in the right place. She really does love her children.

35:15 - New York Direct News?!? I thought Ainsley worked for American Direct News? Did Malcolm purposely use a different network name?

35:55 - Is Malcolm giving that look to Ainsley or Martin? I can’t tell.

37:40 - I feel you Jessica. I feel you girl. He’s playing with both of your children’s hearts now. You are justified in being livid.

38:18 - Concerned Papa Gil for the win! :) <3

39:24 - I’m really glad that Malcolm is at least aware that his father is playing with he and Ainsley.

40:55 - I love how this episode ends. A rare, intimate moment between Malcolm and his mother. A softer side of Jessica we rarely see, comforting her upset son. Followed by a confused, terrified and equally vulnerable side of Jessica going to the basement.

Dang. This one got long. Sorry. Thanks for hanging out. I’ll post again soon.

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shadowess · 4 years

Text

Around Tele Mountain Chapter 1

She gnashed her teeth and shrieked in frustration, hands slipping into her jaws and prying her teeth open as they shoveled that disgusting yellow slop into her mouth. No! No! No! She gagged and coughed trying to do anything not to swallow the GuangGuang. Tinky just hissed and shoved his fingers past her lips, she struggled against Dipsy’s grip but the green one held tight. She started to sob in desperation as she was forced to suck on the nectar coated fingers.

Tinky stood at the end of the line with Laa-Laa and Po as the young ones awaited their daily work assignments.

Ebat was at the front of the line, he was a young black telle who would be a member of the council once he came of age, due to his intellect and charismatic charm. After him there was Tula, she was proactive and playful, farmer in training.

Stone and Feather were best friends, Stone had lost his eyes in an attack from the Wilder Ones. But he made up for it with his strength and sheer size, Feather was ambitious but a bit of a dreamer, she liked to collect strange objects such as shiny pebbles or bird feathers. They worked together best as scouts.

Which also Tinky’s occupation, being a capable young male who was near full maturity. His nest-mate Dipsy often tagged along just for something to do…. Wait a minute! Where was Dipsy? God if he had slept in again!

He groaned inwardly realizing that his friend was going to get them both a tardy again. Tinky would hit him for this later. Laa-Laa giggled and took hold of Tinky’s arm cuddling close as the cold dawn breeze made them all shiver.

“He’s very late.” She whispered.

Laa-Laa was by personality standards, most grown up. She often fussed over her friends, constantly making sure they were safe and clean. It was because of this trait she was given the role of babysitting the cubs. She had a strange beauty about her too, something that most of the girls didn’t have. Tinky thought it must have been something to do with her high cheek bones or unusual green eyes.

Po smirked and gave a small chuckle. She was fierce little thing, but hoped for more than she was capable of. Desperately she wanted to be part of the scouting but she was too little, being a runt, the elders thought it was better if she was under the practice of farming instead of something so dangerous.

“I could beat him out of bed for you?” She asked hopefully, wanting something fun to do. Tinky laughed at the thought but shook his head and gently boxed the little one’s ears.

“No, if he wants be stuck on compost duty then let him be late”.

One of the elders addressed the group of yearlings. Giving them their instructions.

They lived, played and worked in the fields. Made their houses out of mud, each home consisted of two rooms, one for eating and one for sleeping. The homes were more or less communal, friends often nesting together. Unless they found a partner, then they would build their own home, one where they could have cubs. When cubs became yearlings, they left their parents and nested with friends. The layout of the village was a circle, houses were built close together, in a way it was almost like a large maze. Filled with long alleyways, sharp turns and dead ends. If you unfamiliar with it you could easily get lost.

Beyond the village were the fields. One half of the year filled with grass so long you couldn’t even see over, filed with flowers and fruits which was what they ate. The other half of the year covered with snow, the grass dead and their food scarce. At the South of the fields, the grass ended and the forest began. The forest was a rather dangerous place, filled with beasts the size of a mud house! No one went into the forest, even the plants wanted to eat you.

In the middle of the fields was a large lake that flowed down from the mountains that came from the North, they were large numerous mountains, rocky at the base but the further up you got the colder it became. Eventually at the halfway point it was constantly snowing up there. For generations the elders told the cubs legends and stories of the mountains, making sure they knew never to go there for that was where the Wilder Ones lived. Their larger cousins were not like the Field Teles, they towered over them in height and were far stronger. The Wilders were not social like the Fields, preferring the stay alone rather than live in large colonies. If they did live in a group it would be a small group, most likely of three or four.

They told the cubs that if the Wilder Ones caught you, they’d cook you alive over fire and eat you whole. So it was safe to say that no one went into the mountains.

Tinky took arms with spear and shield not waiting for his lazy friend left for patrols of mountain boarders.

Po sighed in disappointment. Sulking as she followed Tula into the fields, it wasn’t fare! She was a lot more capable than anyone else in the village! Why should she be stuck as a farmer just because of her size? Honestly Po could take a beastie. She could! She knew she could….

But nether-the-less she began to pack the basket with fruits and flowers. This was a chore that only needed doing once a week, there were enough farmers to collect enough for everyone. Once harvested it was sorted between all the houses where it would be stored up. For the cubs who had not yet grown their teeth the fruit would be ground up, mixed together with water and left in the sun for a few hours. After a while the mixture would become sticky and thick, the type of stuff that stuck to your fingers and was a pain to wash off, but easy for little ones to eat.

“Don’t look glum.” Po’s fur bristled as she glared at Tula, it wasn’t anyone else’s business what she was feeling.

“I’ll look however I want thanks.” She shot back folding her arms and looking away from the larger female.

“Listen, it’s not your fault your little, but you really do have to understand that at your size you simply can’t protect yourself or anyone else from danger. Your too small.”

Ouch. The words stung and made Po’s heart contract, so she complied with the other females and made herself useful. Fruits and Flowers don’t pick themselves after all.

Laa-Laa laughed warmly as the little cubs played with toys she had brought with her. It was most enjoyable to take care of children. She found their company to be refreshing compared to that of yearlings or adults. They were free, not having to worry about anything, they could be what ever they wanted. Not bound by one life or full of the stresses of keeping up with the life inside the maze village.

The cubs could run as far as they wanted, could lose themselves in their games forget all the troubles of what was really happening in the real word. Laa-laa would sometimes find herself envying them, wishing nothing more than to let herself fade away into her own world the same way they could. Just like she use to….. but that was before, it was unwise to let yourself live in dreams or else you’d be brought back by the harshness of a reality that turns on those who let themselves wonder.

Oh NO!! Dipsy raced through the village. He had slept in again! He didn’t even have time to eat. Late, late, late. His mind filled with possible excuses most of them too far-fetched to be believed. But by the sun he had to give them something other than over sleeping.

This was not good! Why hadn’t Laa-laa woken him? Shooting into the auditorium he snatched up a spear and shield. Quick as his feet could carry him he-

“Dipsy.” Oh come on. He skidded to a stop, hackles raised and flinched at being caught. Sighing he turned around to face the apprentice who was currently crafting a map.

“Yesss… Ebat.” Dipsy struggled with the words, he was in trouble. The black tele didn’t even look at him but rather smirked for a second before letting his expression fall back to one of concentration.

“You were late, did you sleep in again? Of course, you did”

Dipsy rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah I’m late ok, now if you excuse me I really gotta go!” He moved for the door.

“You won’t be needing those” Ebat said blatantly, gesturing to the spear absentmindedly.

“You’re assigned for the graves.”

“Oh what!?”

“Yes, Yes. Exciting, I am so happy for you but run along now you are disturbing my work”

Dipsy groaned and dropped his weapon leaving it for Ebat to pick up as he trudged grumpily to the edge of the village.

She climbed down the rocks with haste, constantly looking over her shoulder. Ears twitched and she crouched down, frozen. Nothing. She continued on her journey, her heart was still racing fast in her chest. Adrenaline fueling her veins. Her fur stood on end, and her pupils closed up. Taking a jump, she landed on a bolder. Tensing she whipped around and stared back the way she came.

A low wailing came from the wind, long and mournful as if crying out the pain she could not voice. Slipping down the boulder she quickly jogged downhill, careful not trip or fall. She was careful never to let body touch the rock unless it captures her scent. The ground was becoming less rocky and more like soil. Her breathing grew ragged, this was not familiar. Who knew what lived here.

She crouched down again and this time she began to move on all fours. She slipped further and further into uncharted territory.

Po hoisted the basket up onto her shoulders and joined the line as they walked back to the village single file. The baskets packed full and some even overflowing. It had been a successful harvest; the fields were rich with flavor. She strained to see above the grass, it had gotten rather tall lately. The girls chatted and gossiped about things that Po would never understand. Who was improving at cooking, who they are nesting with, how annoying it was to have to pick up after the boys. Who they wanted for a partner.

The same old conversations that almost occurred every day, with the occasional refreshment of how big their cubs were getting. Po rolled her eyes, looking to the mountains. She stopped. Her ears twitched and stood on end.

“Quit!” She hissed to the other girls. Their needless chatter silenced and then they heard it too. The sound of something running towards them through the tall grass. Po pushed to the front of the line and unsheathed her claws, fur puffing up. Screaming a battle cry she ran straight into the path of whatever it was meeting it head on.

Only to be knocked flat on her back as whatever it was collided with her. The rest of the girls screamed and a high pitched animalistic shriek brought Po back to her senses and she leapt to her feet. For a moment the little red one was confused.

For there growling and shrieking like a wild animal was a white furred girl. Po gnashed her teeth and hissed, challenging the stranger. The girl met her eyes for a moment.

Before charging forward and shoved Po aside and running fast through the grass.

Tula helped Po to her feet, who tried to ignore the fact she had just been knocked down twice in row.

“She’s heading to the village!” One of the girls exclaimed.

Po raced after the wilder thing.

Dipsy quietly stood by the hole in the ground. Blocking out the elder’s voice just pretending he was listening. The graves was at the edge of the village, and was the most boring job to be assigned to, at least in Dipsy’s point of view anyway. But heck some people might like it, if you liked digging holes all day. He had already fallen in twice and it was before noon. At least none of them actually had a corpse in them yet, that would have been really unfortunate.

A white blur speeded past, just missing him and……. Make that three times.

Po leapt over the grave and Dipsy hastily climbed out.

What the heck was that? Shaking off dirt he joined Po in the chase after the white whatever it was.

It was fast, faster than most of them. Gaining on Po, Dipsy looked to the small red one and she looked right back. They were having a silent conversation, one that was only picked up with eyes and not ears.

It went something like this.

What is it?

It's a Wilder One.

It can't be, It's not big enough.

Well what else could it be!

Fare point.

Dipsy pushed himself ahead attempting to attain ground on the white creature. Cursing inwardly as she disappeared into the Entrance of the Maze Village.

Into the mud houses she ran, hoping to lose her pursuers in the confusion. She took a left turn, right, left, left, right, right, left. The turns appeared so fast that she often knocked into objects which fell and sometimes broke upon impact. Cries of alarm sounded from inside the strange structures, others tried to block her way but she shoved past them or took another direction.

Looking over her shoulder she saw the red one and the green one still on her tail. Taking a turn she silently screamed as she came to a dead end, not knowing what else to do she climbed up onto a basket and clawed her way onto the roof of a mud house.

Taking a run and jump she leapt onto a second roof. As she leapt to the third a pair of hand grabbed her ankles and she was pulled down, missing the landing as her chest collided with the edge of the roof, a scream of pain left her mouth but was cut off as her chin met the same fate. Now on the ground she quickly wriggled out of her attacker's grip and ran ahead, three of four others had joined in the chase.

She dodged snatching hands and leapt over a wall, landing in a different part of the maze. She whimpered stressfully, she had to get out of here. Knowing full well she couldn't keep this up forever. She had to hide. Running aimlessly until she saw the biggest building in the village. In through the window she looked around frantically for a moment, the sound of others got closer and so she ran up the stairs, passing several different floors. As she reached the roof she went to escape but collided with another body.

They both scrambled to their feet and for a moment stared at each other. She flattened her ears and her fur stood on end, Ebat slowly raised his hands in a non threatening manor and took a careful step back. Footsteps running up the stairs made her panic.

She ran past the black tele and to the edge of the roof. A group of scouts stopped a few meters in front of her. She was cornered. Taking a breath, she took a step backwards.

Ebat and the scouts rushed forward, a fall at that height would kill her! A screech of outrage echoed off the walls.

Stone had caught the wild thing before she could hit the ground. She struggled in his grip, trying to scratch and bite but he held her at arm’s length, remaining silent despite the damage to his arms.

Tinky scratched the back of his head as he strolled back into the village, ready to turn in his weapons and spend the rest of his day doing recreational activates now that his shift was over. But before he could even reach the Auditorium he stopped in his tracks at the sight of the scouts carrying a screaming and struggling girl through the village.

Po and Dipsy approached him looking quite out of breath. Looking back and forth between the girl and his friends he instead just rooted for looking to the sky with a befuddled expression.

"What happened while I was gone?"

"Nothing. We've just been protecting the village, what about you? Sleeping under a tree?" challenged Po.

The elders all gathered in the Auditorium as the moon rose in the sky. All of them concerned on the matter that everyone had a strong opinion of, what to do about the wilder one. Many voices raised and many arguments strung the question with answers that might be considered questionable to one person’s ears, or considered reasonable if you shared another point of view.

Torches were lit and the Maze Village glowed luminously with fire light. Tinky sat out the front of his house sharpening a stick to a point. They had locked her in one of the empty mud houses, it had been stuff of nightmares. Screams and sounds of things getting broken echoed through the locked windows. After a few hours the wild thing had settled down but the quite was even more frightening than the screams.

Dipsy washed his hands in a bucket of water from the well and moved to lean against the wall beside his friend. Folding his arms, he clicked his tongue at the recollection of the day.

“What do you think should be done?”

Tinky stopped mid carve and looked up at the green one. Dipsy didn’t normally ask these kind of questions, at least not seriously anyway.

Tinky sighed, Dipsy knew what he thought. What he wanted to hear was his own opinion. Because he wasn’t able to voice it himself. They had always been able to tell what each other was thinking, ever since they were cubs.

“I think they should kill her.” Tinky said and went back to his stick.

Dipsy clenched his fists and bit his lip. He didn’t like to think about taking another life but when it seemed as though there was no other option he always turned to his friend for strength.

The older one smiled.

“Well, she frightened the farmers, assaulted Po, knocked you into hole in the ground, broke our stuff, gave everyone a heart attack and could have killed Ebat.”

Dipsy laughed, his normal self, breaking through his somber mood.

“Not like he would be much of a loss!”

“Heh, I guess your right.” They stared at each other for a moment before snorting into laughter at the thought.

“I don’t think that’s funny guys.”

Laa-Laa stood in the door way holding a bowl of GuanGuangs.

Dipsy rolled his eyes and stole a fruit, taking a few decent sized bites before chucking it to Tinky who had his turn of the meal.

“And what do you think the Elders should do then?” He asked wiping juice from his mouth.

Laa-Laa wrinkled her nose a little before eating her own fruits, little bites being careful not to get the sticky pulp on her yellow fur.

“I think they should let her go, it was you and Po who chased her into the village in the first place anyway.”

“Where is Po anyhow?” Tinky inquired, flicking his ears. She was never late for dinner.

“Ebat said she was called by the Elders since she was the first to see the Wilder One.” Dipsy offered as he began to lick his paws clean.

“I thought you hated Ebat?”

Dipsy froze.

“I DO hate Ebat!”

She opened her eyes and stared as the door opened, a black silhouette blocking the moonlight. She moved back and pressed herself against the corner but remained in a sitting position. Everything hurt now that the adrenaline had worn out and she remembered how much pain she had been.

The silhouette came inside and closed the door. Now that she saw him quickly she recognized him as the black tele she ran into on top of the big building. She puffed out her fur and snarled low and threatening. What did he want.

He raised his hands in a reassuring manor and got down to his knees. Seeing he was no threat she pulled her knees up to her chest and watched him as he went about his business collecting all the sharp pieces of smashed pottery and torn fabrics.

He didn’t pay her any sort of mind and pretty much pretended she wasn’t there.

Pausing he set everything down in a pile and picked up a fallen GuangGuang fruit. It was now he acknowledged her.

She tensed up as the male knelt down and held out the fruit to her. For a moment she glanced between him and the food. Before snorting and turning away from him.

This time he didn’t move away but sat down a bit away from her.

“Not hungry? You haven’t eaten anything for a few hours.” He gave her a smile, trying to seem friendly.

She stared at him for a moment before turning right around so she faced the wall.

The black tele frowned as he caught sight of a red stain concealed under the white fur of her side. Sighing he rolled the fruit over to her side before picking up the mess and leaving, locking the door behind him.

Po leaned against the table, watching with no amusement as the Elders continued to bicker amongst themselves. The fire pit lit the room aflame and pints of water sat unfinished. It was comical really. Some of them yelled that they beast was obviously dangerous and should be put down. Others yelled that they should keep it and try to civilize it.

One extremely ancient looking elder didn’t bother joining in with the politics and instead voted just for sleeping with his head down on the table, having eaten too much GuangGuang fruit.

Po didn’t see the point of her even being hear if they weren’t going to talk to her. The only Elder who was still stable and calm was old Bishan, who just sat there patiently waiting for everyone else to shut up.

And as Ebat silently entered the room and sidled in next to him, Bishan cleared his throat loudly and the others drew to a standstill.

Silently the elders moved to their seats, the firelight crackling against wood the only sound. Bishan stood and moved with his usual limp to the front of the room. As he moved Po scrutinized an old scar running up his side. He was a scout when he was younger, the best scout in the history of the Maze Village.

He didn’t just look for signs of Wilder Ones, he fought them. That was something no one else was brave enough to do. His scars were the only thanks he ever got, Po looked up to him a lot.

When Bishan spoke his voice was that of an old warrior who has had many experience, it was always best to listen to him.

“As we know, earlier today a Wilder One came into the village. Po since you were the one who seen her first, tell us what happened.”

Slowly she got up and joined the elder at the front of the room and retold the tale. She felt proud of herself, if they realized how bravely she chased the Wilder One, how she tried to engage it in battle. Perhaps they’d let her be a scout. Perhaps Bishan would teach her to fight them, like he had done.

She would protect the village. Die with honor and be remembered as a warrior.

As the story foreclosed the elders looked amongst each other. Quite worried.

A old female looked to Po and smiled appraisingly.

“Thank you Po, you may go home now.”

The little red one’s heart and hopes sank to bottom of her stomach. Silently she left the auditorium filled with disappointment.

Po slunk back down the alleyways, head down and moping as she kicked a stone along the path. It wasn’t fair! It was her who kept the farmers safe. She was the reason they even caught the Wilder One in the first place. She showed bravery and courage. So why was she always overlooked?

Entering the mud house she stared for a moment as her friends slept among the blankets. Laa-Laa had her head rested on Dipsy’s chest as the male’s arm cradled her shoulders holding her close to him. Po wrinkled her nose and wondered when those two were going to get a home. It was clear they wanted each other.

Tinky stirred as Po squeezed in between him and Dipsy. He gave her a tired smile but she just frowned at him and rolled over the other way. He almost laughed, she needn’t say more. It was obvious why she was upset. Sliding an arm around her waist he pressed his muzzle into the back of her head and licked her ears.

She was tired of always been underestimated cause of her size, he knew she thought she was meant for so much more than what they had planned for her. She may be brave, resilient and determined but he knew she wouldn’t last long in an actual battle. But Tinky never told her this, he let her think she was stronger than she was.

After a few minutes of comforting licks, she turned around and pressed up against him burying her face into his chest fur. Tinky tightened his hold as her body began to tremble slightly. He knew she’d fall asleep soon, and when she woke she’ll have forgotten her moment of weakness.

The meeting was about to fall to a close, they had decided that perhaps it was best if the allowed the poor creature to die. Ebat tapped his fingers against the table, thinking silently. He had been in the room with the white beast and she hadn’t tried to harm him. So he wondered if it was unfair to kill without proper reason. In fact she had seemed more scared of them than any of them had been of her. And she was wounded, she had tried to hide it but Ebat clearly saw the blood on her ribs.

Honestly he wasn’t even sure if she was a Wilder One. But because of the way of things….. it was no secret that there were the occasional loners who lived outside of the village, some of them losing their mind and believing themselves to be animals. So it was as Ebat thought, shouldn’t they help those who need help?

Bishan went to leave but the young black tele grabbed his arm, getting his attention.

“Wait, Elder Bishan… may I address the council? I believe I may have some information that just might sway your opinions.” Ebat gave a smile, trying to win over the old warrior.

“Boy, you may be a philosopher but I don’t think you yet have enough experience or wisdom to make a proper judgement of these things.” Bishan said gruffly and ruffled the yearling’s fur.

Ebat couldn’t form any words…

“Let him speak.” Said Taa-Vee, she was a rather old female who in her youth had been the first to turn to the stars for answers instead of relying soly on the sun. She was his mentor when he was younger. Teaching the cub how to chart the night sky and make constellations and use these to shape their maps of their world.

Ebat swallowed thickly, he didn’t know how they would react to his theory.

“For along time we have wondered if there were any other villages out there besides the loners, we have always assumed that we were the only ones. But that is because the loners are those we already know, those of us that were once a part of our village.”

“And what’s your point boy?” Bishan inquired, wanting to know where this was going.

“Well, the girl that we caught today couldn’t have been a Wilder One, I mean, Bishan you’ve seen the Wilder Ones up close. Doesn’t she seem a bit on the small side?”

The sleeping elder suddenly woke and lifted a hand.

“He’s right you know…. Say Bishan, how big did you say they were…” Before slumping back down onto the table, asleep again. The other elders whispered in agreement.

The old brown Bishan nodded slightly, remembering as he rubbed a rather long scar on his shoulder.

“Most of them are only a few feet taller than us, but twice as wide and thick with muscle.” He said, finally agreeing.

“See, that girl can’t be a Wilder One, she’s too small. But I believe that it’s possible she might be a loner, but wouldn’t we already know who she is if that was the case?” Ebat was quick to point out.

Bishan’s eyes seemed to light up, finally seeing what the yearling was insinuating.

“It is my belief that she could possibly be part of another village or some sort of clan. Think, a whole other civilization hidden from our knowledge! Wouldn’t it be good to at least find out if there are others besides ourselves?”

As he finished Ebat knew he had won. At least for now, they wouldn’t harm the creature.

Taa-Vee seemed to consider this before she told him that they would further discuss the possibility and decide what would be done from there before dismissing him, insisting that the young male get some sleep.

The cubs laughed loudly as they followed their mothers to the river, it was a big day for them. It was the first time they would go to the large embodiment of water and they wondered what adventures would await them, possibly fish! The elders told them stories about fish, how they sometimes came up river to get away from the beasties of the deep dark wood.

Tinky’s mother told him that it was best to remain quite when at the river, for that was where most of the Wilder One attacks happened. But of course, cubs don’t really listen to their mothers when some new and exciting such as this happened.

His excitement faded into awe when the long grass shortened and eventually came to a stop, the river was humongous! It stretched from the Mountain and traveled past their Fields and eventually into the Forest, and across the river you could barely see, but Tinky thought he could see land. Far, far way.

He screamed as he was pushed forward and landed with a splash into the water, growling he looked up and glowered at another cub. Grabbing the green boy’s wrist he pulled him into the water and dunked him under.

Dipsy yelped as he went under and shot back up grabbing the older cub’s head and climbed on top of him forcing him into the water. Only to squeal indignantly as Tinky came back up and pounced on him, tickling his ribs.

Laa-Laa watched unimpressed as the boys wrestled in the river. She stood close to her mother who held her hand and helped the cub wade through the river reeds. Something shimmered in the water, giving off a shine of light.

Reaching down the little yellow cub pulled the object out of the water, it was a whitish pink shell! Admiring the pretty thing, she tugged on her mother’s fur to share the discovery. The older female explained that once, a long time ago that this shell was in fact a living thing, something that either used this shell as a home or was the shell.

Laa-Laa was confused, how could something so pretty like this ever had been a living thing? It simply didn’t make sense.

Tinky pulled Dipsy back towards him as the other struggled desperately but the older continued his relentless assault. The green cub screamed as he suffered another tickle attack when suddenly he was forced under the water, Tinky on having lost all sense of balance and had fallen forwards. They both thrashed desperately trying to resurface but it seemed that something was pinning Tinky underwater and Dipsy was getting crushed by the weight of the other.

Eventually whatever it was, was thrown off by all the struggling. They both rose from the water coughing and gasping for air. A loud laughing made them look around as they saw an unusually small sized, red cub completely unaware that she had nearly drowned them.

Laa-Laa sighed as she felt earth in her fingers, having got up early. She lay in the middle of the fields. Looking up at the blueish purple sky, the golden light of the dawn shimmering against the long grass. She felt weightless and distant. She always woke up before anyone else. Honestly, she couldn’t say why but she thought it might have been because she was the only one alive until the rest of the day unfolded itself.

She could let herself fade away just like the morning fog. In her mind she wasn’t laying in the grass fields anymore, she was laying among wild flowers. The type that grew out of the ground. Like it said in the Ancient Scrolls. She’d never seen them but she imagined that they were beautiful and filled with color, she wondered if they existed. She liked to think they did. After all. The Ancient Scrolls spoke of many things they had no proof of.

The wind blew and petals began to fly into the peach colored sky. Laa-Laa breathed deeply and took in the strange scent. She reached out and caught one. Holding it to her chest she closed her eyes as the wind gently kissed her fur.

“Laa-Laa!”

The yellow female jerked out of her day dream with a wheeze, clutching her chest in fright. She gave Feather an annoyed glance. The lilac female smiled apologetically having forgotten that waking Laa-Laa so suddenly while she was dreaming was dangerous. The yellow one got to her feet and brushed off the dirt.

“So, what is their decision?” Laa-Laa inquired as they walked back to the village. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Feather sighed dramatically, looking to the sky and pulling on her ears.

“Their going to let her go.”

“That’s good…”

“No. Their going to let her go but they are sending us to follow her.”

Laa-Laa’s eyes widened. What!

Tinky joined Stone and Feather as they took arms. It was time to go. The elders had given them very clear instructions, follow the feral thing and find out if there are more of them. The village was oddly quite as everyone remained inside their houses. Not knowing how the feral thing would act once she was let out.

He hoped she wouldn’t try to kill anyone.

Ebat watched from the window of his house as the scouts began to group up. He was glad that he was able to save her. He doubted that she would do anything to harm them, if his theories were correct then she shouldn’t waste any time in trying to run home. He wondered if perhaps she lived far from them, perhaps over the mountain. It was possible the scouts wouldn’t be home for weeks or even months. Either way he would be eager to document everything.

Po sat at the edge of the roof of the auditorium. A slight frown tugging at her face. When Bishan had asked scouts to volunteer for the task she had immediately raised her hand jumping up and down eagerly. No one even looked at her as usual. Dipsy stood behind her holding his shovel. He smiled as the little red one pouted. To be honest he was kind of envious of Tinky, it wasn’t every day you got to go on an adventure after all. But he wasn’t a scout and it was likely to be a very dangerous journey.

“Oh stop pouting!” The green one tried and ruffled her head. Po glowered and snapped at his fingers.

“Hey, I know what will cheer your up, how about we go and…”

“Go and follow them at a distance and go on a adventure of a life time!” Po exclaimed jumping to her feet and darting past the green one.

“Wait what!! No! That’s not what I said!!” Dipsy exclaimed chasing after the little red one before she could get herself into trouble.

She got to her feet as the door opened. She flicked her ears back and wrinkled her nose baring her canines. The male seemed to stare at her for a moment despite not being able to see. He had a thick bandage around his head, covering his eyes. He was larger than the others, by about a foot and he looked like he was strong, very strong.

“Come on.” He said and stepped to the side allowing her room to leave. She tilted her head a bit, and slowly crept to the door. She paused in the doorway squinting her eyes as the sudden light hit her face. She looked about timidly. As her gaze fell upon the large male, she left the mud house and stepped into the streets.

Looking around she saw two others standing a little bit away, but close enough. Taking a breath, she shuddered, fur fluffing up before flattening itself back down. The lager male began to walk down a street but stopped and looked back to her. Her claws unsheathed a little but she forced herself to relax. Cautiously she began to follow him, aware as the other two crept along behind her.

It surprised her at how easily he was able to navigate the maze, even with sight she had gotten lost when she first ran through here. Eventually they came to the entrance of the Maze Village. The blind male stopped here. As he stepped to the side, he held his paw to sweep over the Fields.

“You’re free to go.” He said simply. A large smile spread over her face and she seemed to jump a little. Quickly she darted past him and into the grass but then stopped.

Tinky’s face contorted in confusion. He expected her to take off as soon as she got out of the village. He was impressed with how Stone had been able to lead her without any need for restraint. But what he didn’t understand was why she was hesitating to leave. He shared a glance with Feather who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Looking to the Mountains she seemed to make a whining noise, ears falling low on her head and her hand raised to her ribs. Resting there for a moment before she huffed and looked to the forest. Another low whine came from her throat and she suddenly ran for the forest.

They watched as she disappeared into the long grass and waited for a for half a minute. It was then they followed her path.

As she ran through the fields, she could feel the life under her feet. The stir of the air in her fur as she allowed herself to embrace her newly acquired freedom. Glad to be rid from her captors she sighed as a weight dropped off her shoulders. She ran as far as she could, going as fast as she could, pushing herself to her limit wanting to just use her legs as much as possible. Eventually she skidded to a stop, panting slightly.

Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and felt each individual blade of grass in her fingers. Felt the life of the thousand ants as they climbed to the top of the grass to soak in the rays of sun. Satisfied, she began to walk down the invisible path. The trees seemed a lot larger now that she was closer to them. Much taller as well. It was hear the grass came to an end.

She stared beyond, watching and waiting for any signs of possible dangers. The sound of birds and calls of animals made her relax, and she entered the jungle. Soon disappearing among the trees, ferns and a wide range of other flora.

Tinky shared a glance with his fellow scouts and watched from the grass as the feral girl leaves the light and step into the dark of the forest.

Once they were sure she would be far enough away they left the sheltering Fields and followed her into the forest.

His jaw slightly hanged open as he took in the strange new world, he had seen the forest drawn in the pictures of the Ancient Scrolls but this was something else entirely. Colour filled everything, flowers of all different varieties covered almost every tree, and it was so bright, dark but bright somehow at the same time. Strange plants grew out of the ground. And leaves had turned brown and crunched under each step. Long vines hung down from branches and were hard to navigate. It was most purely spectacular.

A buzzing sound made him draw his spear and hold it at the ready.

Feather gasped and pointed in amazement.

“Oh wow!” A strange creature hovered there it’s wings beating so fast it was almost impossible to see. It seemed to study them for a little bit before shooting off through the branches.

Stone pressed his hand against a tree and hummed in thought, feeling as a incredibly large insect crawled onto his hand and up his arm, these animals were unlike what they were use to, even Stone with his unseeing eyes could see that.

“Ebat would love this.” He said simply and walked forward a little bit, and put his paws to the ground feeling the soil.

“She went this way”

They traveled Southwards, through the world of many colors. The further they went the more alien the forest became. Pink moss grew out of black trees and had a strange glow to it. Unusually large insects often scurried from under their feet. Eventually it became clear that the feral girl had taken this path, Feather noticed by the way the plants had been parted, pushed over and sometimes broken.

Tinky breathed deeply and took in the many scents, tree bark, rain, decay… blood. Bingo.

Giving the others a nod, he took the lead. Crouching down he crept up ahead. The ferns became thicker as he went up the hill, the dead leaves were moved aside. As though they had been swept out of the way just like the mothers swept to sand out of their houses. Further up the hill there was a large tree that had fallen over, now having decayed all through the inside it would be the perfect spot for a place to hide.

As he approached he silently laid down on his stomach and crawled along the ground. He was right beside the log. Pressing himself against it he put his ear to the wood and listened. She was on the inside, he could hear her as she shuffled about, making a nest by the sound of it. Quietly creeping back down the hill, he gave Feather a smile.

“She’s on the inside, we’ll go back a bit further into those bushes so she doesn’t see us.”

“It depends on the wind.” Stone added, looking straight ahead. Feather nodded in agreement.

“He’s right, if it goes up hill we’ll have to change our position.” She said helpfully and Tinky grimaced, embarrassed at having forgotten.

“Fare point, fare point. Ok so at the moment the wind is at our advantage, but if it changes we’ll circle around to the side. Even if it goes up she won’t smell us.”

Her fears folded with the leaves, no longer present as she began to make her nest in the safety of the log. It would be alright now. She wouldn’t be found, just stay in the forest, stay in the forest. It would be warm in hear, shielding from the cold dark nights that lay ahead. Honestly, she considered herself lucky to even be alive at the moment. Considering how likely it was that those Field Tele would have killed her.

She pulled the leaves and put them in place, making a small pile. Not really a comfortable bed but it would work for a few nights. At least it was safe in hear- she felt something crawling over her feet.

Freezing up she forced herself to look down and her fur bristled and stood on end, what the heck was that? Eyes widening a tiny shriek caught itself in her throat as the thing looked up at her and seemed to blink with several different eyes. It may have taken her five minutes to get into that log. Well, it only took her five seconds to get out.

As she broke through the cobwebs and the sunlight blinded her vision temporarily her foot caught on a root tripping her up. Flipping over onto her back she scurried backwards as the creature followed her out. As it reared up she could see how frightening it was.

The largest insect she had ever seen, five or six feet tall, towering above her as it reared back waving hundreds of legs, mandibles gnashing menacingly. She scrambled to her feet and withdrew from the path of the giant centipede.

Seeing no challenger, the old log monster dropped down and suddenly, appeared quite small. Her heart beat slowing down she moved to the side, as it’s eyes seemed to follow her. The log was out of bounds, that much was clear.

Crouching down she crept closer, curious. As the centipede moved suddenly, she darted back. It turned towards her and seemed to wriggle its antenna curiously. She smiled and moved forward again, poking the insect in the head before shooting back with a chirp. The beast clicked it’s mandibles and turned away heading back to the log.

She tilted her head slightly, catching sight of something not quite right. One of the centipede’s plates was lifted, not by much, but enough to be noticeable. Trailing after the creature she found the reason; a sharp stick had been lodged under the plate. The feral girl grimaced as she imagined how painful that would be.

Sneaking up behind she made a rash decision and grabbed the giant splinter, she tightened her grip and pulled. If the centipede could of screamed, it would have. It reared up threateningly, towering over her with full intention to kill. She screamed and curled into a ball, bracing for the worst. The insect seemed to pause, it wriggled itself a bit before dropping back down and clicked happily.

The feral girl sighed in relief as the log monster scurried around her in circles gratefully.

Tinky yawned as he sat in the darkness. Night had finally come to the forest after a long day of remaining out of sight. Hiding in bushes wasn’t as fun as it had been when they were kids. They hadn’t made a fire but she had. Honestly, he was surprised the feral one even knew how. Being well, you know, feral.

He rubbed his eyes in an effort to stay awake, he hadn’t thought it would be this easy to fall asleep. Sighing he leaned his head back against a tree with another yawn. Looking over at Stone it was impossible to tell if he was asleep or awake, as he was unable to see his eyes. Feather looked like she was on the brink of sleep, leaning against Stone and barley able to keep her eyes open. Pulling his face Tinky groaned inwardly. If he had known he wouldn’t get any sleep he wouldn’t have volunteered for this. Why did he volunteer again? Right. Cause no one else wanted to do it. Well… besides the other two anyway.

Stone shifted uncomfortably. His ears twitched as he slowly sat up straight. Feather whined, annoyed at the loss of her pillow. The larger raised a finger to his lips. Quiet. Stone slowly got to his knees and gently pushed his hands into the ground, curling his fingers slightly into the soil. He could feel something, something that came through the ground and sent and odd feeling up through his fingers and into his paws. It was large. Large and heavy, dangerous.

She laid in the earth, the light of the fire reflecting on the trees. The overhanging canopy shielded her from the moons light, except for the delicate shimmers that managed to sneak through gaps in the leaves. The two lights merged. Gold and silver intertwined with each other. The night creatures cried, screamed and sang. She closed her eyes and listened to the voices of the forest, allowing them to fill her with wonder. She could hear every whisper, every laugh. The sound of everything around her. Life, death. Birth and growth. Each flowed into and out of each other in perfect unity. The voices in the trees silenced. Her ears slowly rotated and she pushed her fingers into ground. Something was there.

Slowly she moved to her knees. She could feel it better now, it was close. Too close. In fact, it was right over there. In the shadowed undergrowth, just by the intertwining trees. She remained still, her fingers slowly spread into the earth and she closed her eyes. The feeling curled into her hand and spread up into her chest, from there creeping over her whole body. Her head shot back out of pure reflex and she gasped as the feeling left her body. She knew what it was. She tensed herself, ready to bolt. A pair of yellow eyes shone in the darkness. Her claws unsheathed, her fur rising.

Tinky was on his feet the second the first scream pierced the night air. Quickly he raced up the hill, Feather and Stone right behind him. They stopped by the log and peered over silently. Tinky couldn’t move, not even to duck down. It was a Wilder One.

She screamed and fought, struggling to get out from under him. Clawing at the earth and his flesh in a futile attempt of escape. He snapped at her neck ferociously, grabbing at her wrists as he knelt over her. She kicked at the ground as her adrenaline fueled her to fight and flight. She was screaming in small frightened shrieks. As he pinned her wrists to the forest floor, she gave a wailing cry when his teeth wrapped around her throat.

Feather grabbed Stone’s arm helplessly, what could they do? What should they do? She was torn, help or hide. She drew her spear and went to leap over the log but Stone caught the scruff of her neck and pulled her back down. What!? Why not! Why shouldn’t they try to save her? Feather was furious. Stone never hesitated. Not in battle, certainly not when aide was needed. So why was this different?

“We have to do something; he’s going to kill her!” She hissed at them. Outraged at the two males’ reluctance. Tinky pulled at his head fur, torn between his impulse to rush in and protect the female and his instinct run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Eventually his desire to protect won out.

“We have to help her.”

Stone’s fur suddenly rose.

“Don’t look down.”

They looked down. A simultaneous shriek caught in their throats as the giant centipede scurried over their feet and darted past them.

With a growl she sunk her teeth into his muzzle, biting down as hard as she could. The Wilder One tore away from her. He gave a savage snarl as he spat out a mouth full of blood. Then his paw was on her face, claws dangerously pricking her skin. She knew how easily he could kill her, how he could tear apart her face with one swipe. She whined, preparing for the worst but gasped as the old log monster reared up behind the big black beast. A hundred legs waving as it lunged forward drilling its mandibles into the Wilder One’s neck.

The whole forest awoke to the sound of an excruciating scream. The Wilder One tried to flee from the gnashing jaws, but the centipede wrapped its body around him. It’s legs inflicting as much damage as its teeth.

Tinky rushed forward and snatched her arms, hoisting her to her feet. Gripping her wrist tightly he pulled the feral one along as the four of them ran through the dark forest, away from the butchering battle taking place behind them.

Eventually the screams faded and the firelight diminished in the distance. They kept running. The forest seemed thicker, the trees tore at their fur, and vines tangled and tripped them. A loud cry of a night creature sent them further into the dark.

The feral one dug her heels into the ground. Tinky turned to face her as her hand slipped from his. He stopped as he finally saw her. Her face contorted into that of accusation. He swallowed, a sliver of moonlight leaked through the trees and shone down, illuminating her white fur. Her blue eyes studying him intently.

“Tinky?” Stone asked. The purple one turned to his friend.

“Why you follow after me.” The three of them stared at the white one.

“You can talk?” Feather asked, astonished. The feral one did not look amused.

“Why. You. Follow. Me.” She said again. Slower this time, ears flicking in annoyance.

“We wanted to see where you came from. If there were others like you,” Stone said simply. His face and tone were steady with the same composure he displayed every day.

She seemed to understand then as her stance relaxed and she nodded, looking through them.

“You no mean others like me. You mean others like you.” She smiled then, almost friendly, but her eyes held a pitying gleam that Tinky found a bit off putting.

“Are there?” He asked. Trying to put authority into his voice. He did not like being condescended. Not by the Elders, not by the adults, and certainly not by a feral girl living like a wild animal.

“Not that I’ve seen with my eyes.” The three scouts shared a disappointed glance. This entire trip had been a waste of time. The feral one turned to leave.

“Wait. You live out here?” Feather asked, stepping forward suddenly. The white beauty looked at them cautiously before shaking her head.

“Then where do you live.” It was Stone who spoke this time.

“… Mountains.” She said after some hesitance. This time her answer left them dumbfounded and confused. How could she survive in the Mountains with all the Wilder Ones up there?

“Then why did you come down here?” Tinky asked.

“He chased me down. I was running from him.” She looked around nervously. As if expecting the big black one to burst out of the darkness at any moment.

“Come back with us. It’s safer in the village,” Tinky had never been brave enough to try and hit Stone, but by the sun he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to at this moment.

“I don’t think the Elders would like that” He proclaimed, trying to get his comrades to see reason. Feather rolled her eyes.

“Well we can’t come back empty handed saying that there are in fact, no one else out hear. And we know that because she told us so!” She declared, spreading her arms to emphasize. Then she added.

“And we can’t leave her out here, not if he’s looking for her.”

Tinky sighed and pulled his face in exasperation. There was no room to argue, and he didn’t have the heart to leave anyone for dead. She would have to return to the village with them.

“Oh alright fine!” He turned to the white female.

“What’s your name anyway?” She only blinked; her face held no emotion. She was the strangest and most beautiful creature they had ever seen. So what was it about her that made Tinky’s fur stand on end?

“Snow. My name is Snow.”

#teletubbies #Slendytubbies

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benisasoftboi · 5 years

Text

So on Friday night I made this post:

Which I expected that maybe ten, twenty people would see? I didn’t think anyone would really care about a joke about something so old and obscure, and it would just get lost in all the Detective Pikachu stuff. Instead, within five hours, it had become my most popular post.

I know it’s still not a huge number, but it’s still way more attention than I’ve ever received for anything... ever, so I’ve been thinking about Pokemon Live a lot since. Which has been bad, because this morning I had to take a very important political economy exam, and instead of thinking about Bretton Woods or Marx, I was thinking about Pokemon. I nearly referred to my country’s former Prime Minister as ‘David Camerupt’. It wasn’t good.

I need to expunge my thoughts. Specifically, my thoughts on one topic in particular - the way this show treats, or rather mistreats, the character of James. Because I truly, truly love Pokemon Live. I do. It’s one of the most glorious dumpster fires I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a poor quality recording of. But this is the one thing I definitely don’t love.

I don’t expect anyone to read this. I mean, I said that last time, but this time I really don’t. It’s a long essay on a niche topic, and it isn’t even funny. But on the off chance it’ll get you to stick with me, I promise that there will be pictures of Andrew Rannells cuddling puppies at the end.

So,

How Pokemon Live Mistreats James, and Why It Matters:

The Mandatory Mentioning of The Actor

I’m guessing anyone who knows anything about Pokemon Live also knows that now highly successful, Tony-nominated Broadway and television actor Andrew Rannells was in it playing James. And if you didn’t, now you know why I’ve mentioned him twice now. I’m a big fan of this guy.

He hated this role. Absolutely despised it. Apparently the show was a miserable environment to work in for everyone. The costumes were uncomfortable. The audiences were unbearable. There’s a making of for this show, which can be viewed on YouTube in its entirety - I’ve watched the whole thing more than once and you can see in every cast member’s eyes - there’s no light there. They’re all dead inside. It’s almost heartbreaking.

To be clear - he’s the only one of these people I, or anyone else I’ve seen, ever makes fun of for this show. And that’s because he’s fine. He’s fine! He’s done very well for himself and talking about it won’t hurt his career, and there’s just always something really hilarious about seeing very successful people in terrible things, isn’t there? Chris Hemsworth in Saddle Club, Zach Braff in Babysitter’s Club, literally everyone in Foodfight. It’s not malicious or in any way intended to be punching down - just poking fun at a really good actor’s really bad early work. It’s not even really making fun of him, more that he was in this.

But there is one reason he hated the role that I don’t find so funny, and that’s that he felt the people that wrote the thing had made James a grossly over-the-top, borderline-to-over-the-line (depending on your tolerance) homophobic stereotype. And... yeah. They undeniably did that.

Rannells understandably dislikes the character, and to be honest - that makes me a little sad. Knowing that musical!James is probably the only version of the character he (and likely a lot of parents who saw the show, and other cast members) ever really encountered, that’s a huge shame. Because if we go back to the anime the musical’s based on, the one I, and many others, grew up on, James is quite different. In fact, I personally consider anime!James to be the best character in the entire Pokemon franchise.

Why We Love Team Rocket

Just want to quickly note that I can only discuss the anime up to about halfway through the Sinnoh seasons - I’ve seen basically nothing after that. My childhood was some original series, a lot of Hoenn, and a fair bit of early Sinnoh (somehow skipped over Johto almost entirely, don’t really know how that happened). If any of this is now not accurate, well - it’s not really relevant for this discussion anyway, but I still apologise.

The Team Rocket trio, James especially, is, pretty queer-coded. This is not unusual for villainous characters in children’s media before the 2010s, so much so that I would guess that a lot of the time it wasn’t even being done deliberately - it was just that common a trope that it was all but expected your show would have at least one flamboyantly effeminate, villainous bloke. And James - especially early James - has no qualms about showing his feminine side:

Notice that Jessie adopts masculine attire to match - she doesn’t always do this, but I like that they have her at least do it sometimes.

Team Rocket’s disguises became less and less likely to involve cross dressing as the show went on, but it’s one of the things best remembered about them. James also has a strong association with roses, and possesses several other feminine mannerisms. Arguably he’s far more downplayed than most other villains of the type (even more so than others present in Pokemon - Harley’s a great example, who was also, coincidentally, played by Andrew Rannells), but it’s present. And while yes, obviously in real life none of those things should be taken as definitive indication of a person’s orientation, and straight men are perfectly capable of twirling around in pretty dresses - in fact, I fully endorse it - this is fiction. Specifically fiction from the early 2000s. And in fiction, certain things are intended as visual cues and shorthand.

So I really, really doubt we were supposed to think James is entirely straight (I personally have always thought that he’s actually bi, but I’m not opposed to alternatives). You could make the case, but like. Come on.

But how is this different from musical!James? And how is this different than any other villain like him? Very simple. Anime!James has depth.

Not a tremendous amount. It’s a children’s cartoon made to cash in on a popular video game. But he, and Jessie and Meowth, are among the most well-rounded characters in the show’s cast, in a way that’s actually very relatable. It helps that they aren’t actually very villainous people most of the time. I know so many people who grew up with the show that loved, rooted for, and identified with them over the actual protagonists, by a mile. Myself included - I can remember two separate James-centered episodes that made me cry as a kid.

And these three are particularly beloved by young LGBT adults. We know from their backstories that they all came from rough circumstances - Jessie desperately poor and struggling to get anywhere or be recognised, Meowth having changed a fundamental part of himself in attempt to gain love and instead being ostracised for it, and James running away from an abusive household. They’re three people (/Pokemon) who felt alone in the world, that have now found each other. And whether you view Jessie and James’s relationship as romantic, friendship, or found family, it’s far more compelling than any other relationship in the show, at least to me. They may be criminals, but it’s not hard to see why some kids - especially the kids who might already feel like they’re just a bit different - would latch on to them.

Even if you didn’t know James’s backstory, he still has a character. He’s frequently shown to be the most moral of the trio, he has a stronger bond with Pokemon than honestly even Ash - even more of a running gag than his flamboyance is the fact that his pets love him so much that they just wanna hug him all the time, with inevitable slapstick consequences - he has dorky hobbies like bottle cap collecting, and he’s even occasionally shown to be a bit of an environmentalist. Yes he is in many ways a stereotypical camp villain - but he’s also more. And that’s why we love him.

And I’d bet anything there probably were some little boys who watched the show and saw James and thought ‘that guy’s like me!’. And yeah, that guy is a villain, because god forbid a maybe-gay character also be a good guy. But more than any other character like him that I’ve seen, he’s also always been a person. And considering how most of the other options kids like that had at the time were either one-note villains or nothing (and even now it’s sparse pickings) - that’s valuable.

And then there’s Pokemon Live.

*long, long sigh*

Oh, Pokemon Live. You beautiful disaster.

What did you do to my boy?

Is there nothing that better encapsulates it than the bit where James asks Giovanni where Mecha MewTwo (...I know) “stands on campaign finance reform, social security and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”?

First off, I like that James is politically engaged! Good for him! Completely out of character, but still!

And I do find this line incredibly funny, but I want to be very clear about why I find it funny. The line is funny because referencing a real world American discriminatory military policy in a Pokemon musical is just... so completely absurd. It’s super jarring and when I first watched it, I had to pause it so I could stop laughing about the possible implications of Pokemon Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Is there a Pokemon American military then? Pokemon Democrats and Pokemon Republicans? Pokemon Bill Clinton? POKEMONICA LEWINSKY???

It just raises so many questions.

Also Rannells’s delivery is incredible.

But the thing is, that’s not the joke here, is it? The actual ‘joke’ is ‘HA HA HE’S GAY! HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE’S GAY!’. Which gets even worse when you think about it and realise that this situation is really just a gay man (I don’t think there’s any doubt about it in this particular incarnation, is there) asking his boss whether or not he thinks people like him should be discriminated against. How is that a joke? (The answer is that it isn’t.)

Which makes it that much more inappropriate for a children’s Pokemon musical, which is sort of, in a dark way, almost funnier. It’s that juxtaposition of something kiddy and cute with something that definitely isn’t.

But hilarious as I find it, given the chance to I would go back and get rid of that line. I dislike what it implies - that being a gay man is nothing more than a punchline - more than I like the absurdist humour.

And that’s the whole problem with how they chose to write James for this whole thing. They took a really good example of how you can have this type of villain while also making him a good character, and they turned him into nothing more than a stereotype.

You could say ‘but it’s a much shorter story than a TV show! They wouldn’t have time to make him nuanced!’, to which I would say 1. He doesn’t have to be nuanced, he just has to be slightly more than I’M GAY and 2. There have been 21 Pokemon movies at time of writing, two of which came out before Pokemon Live did. None of them, at least of the ones I’ve seen, committed any character assassinations like this. The first one even had another baffling reference to real world America:

That’s so out of nowhere and silly that I laugh every time I think about it (the Minnesota Vikings are an American football team, if you didn’t know). See, Pokemon Live! It’s possible to do jokes like that which aren’t at the expense of a minority group! Wow!

The anime even has examples of how you can do the gay jokes and make them funny. They are very rare in the show (beyond the humour of James’s personality), but remember the whole Flaming Moltres joke? It’s actually great. It’s a couple of good puns, it’s possibly Rachael Lillis’s best delivery in the whole show, and, just for confirmation, I’ve shown the clip to a few actual gay men in my life, who all said that they think that it’s very funny, and totally non-offensive. The joke is still ‘lol he gay’, but it’s also a neat play on words, it feels very in character for both of them, and it doesn’t have the same malicious, taunt-y feel of the Pokemon Live ‘joke’.

Look, the Pokemon anime is far from perfect. There are lots of moments where you have to grit your teeth and remember when it came out. But it still gave us a really, really wonderful character, and he absolutely deserved better than this.

Do I Still Love Pokemon Live?

Yes.

Even with all of this, it’s still an absolute masterpiece of unintentional hilarity. In some ways, this makes it funnier. Of course, of course, it couldn’t just have terrible costumes and a nonsense plot and really, really bad rapping - of course it’s also kind of offensive. Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be.

And I would love to talk about all the things I genuinely love about it, and maybe I will one day.

But the thing is, it’s also representative of everything that was wrong with gay-coded characters at the time, something that the show it’s based on came way closer to handling well than most other stuff of its time, no less. And that, as a whole, isn’t funny at all.

So I want to be clear. I love laughing at this show because it’s a weirdly earnest cash-in musical for something that definitely shouldn’t be a musical, with endless bizarre, quotable moments - not because the way it warped this character is actually funny. I love laughing at the character’s lines because they’re absurd choices for a Pokemon musical - not because they’re in any way funny on their own. And I love laughing at the fact that Andrew Rannells was in it because he is so much better than this - not because this is what I think he should be reduced to.

And speaking of, here’s those pictures I promised:

I love one man.

#pokemon #pokemon live #andrew rannells #james pokemon #team rocket #musicals #long post #i cant believe how long i spent on this #ive written academic essays shorter #i think this is probably longer than all my exam answers from this morning combined #long essays about niche topics

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thomas-zkiel · 4 years

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Unravel to the System

Through hard work and motivation, the explorer can take a journey and achieve everything his heart desires. Good day to you reader, I would like to share my facts with you, hence, it’s my pleasure to introduce myself first, Hi there! It’s Niel Ivan Capacia, at your service.

I am a legal-aged student, hoping and dreaming for a brighter future. Still residing at Luntal Tuy, Batangas, 18 years of age. The youngest among the 3 children of Mr. and Mrs. Capacia. As the youngest, I do feel the pressure on everything I have to do; such as the respect, performance, and any other common things I am encountering with. There are times that I have to consider everything first before creating a great decision as it will face different consequences that might result to an unexpected and unnecessary outcome. I am raised in a strict way of parenting by my parents who helped me to retain a responsible and low-key personality at all the times. My father was a ********** employee, serving the country by joining the **** *********** of our nation, while my mother raised us, their children with tender and loving care. My brother graduated with a bachelor’s degree, took up the Information Technology course and will soon enter for his applied job, on the other hand, my sister graduated last year with a Bachelor of Secondary Education, Major in Social Studies and she passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers last Sept. 2019.

As a learner, I enjoyed stuffs like any other teen-ager supports with. Music is my getaway in a world of noise and Sea was my favourite place. I love writing poems and classical music that serves as my escape whenever I feel I need to unwind and chill for a while. I am a product of creative and imaginative world that’s why I keep looking forward and searching for answers every time I am struggling with something. Observing my environment was my strength with my day to day basis of life, I just want to keep myself unharmed of not bothered by anything annoying I might notice while observing. Thru observing, I can distinguish things and avoid those situations, a person or even conversations that can distract or can destroy my mood. All I know about myself is that I am not a typical guy just like the others out there, and I am having trust issues ever since I have faced something that force me to change my views about life.

I am currently studying at my final year of preparing for college, taking the Humanities and Social Sciences strand under Academic Track. Within the field I have chosen, I have obtained skills and learned the proper ways on what to do while interacting with my beloved literature. As a Senior High School student, I do keep on building the foundation of the road that may lead me to a successful life for the future. Taking up the Academic Track was indeed not easy, but through the right decision to enter this field, I have found out my true –inner self and desire, also to consider, it helped me to discover chances and hidden talents I have never imagined to unleash it within myself. From academic to non-academic performances, I survived and can proudly say that “I can do it”.

Just like my sister, I would like to take the Bachelor of Secondary Education, Major in Social Studies. At first, I don’t have any dream aside for serving the country or by joining the armed forces, but somehow I realized that there’s something more I want to try, some other choice I would like to achieve, and that is to teach. As I mentioned, teaching is not my first choice but when I come to my senses, I realized that if I am not going to pursue to the profession that matches with my strengths and abilities, I know someday it will be my regret as I go along and make my own path. I consider that my chosen strand, skills and even the most desired passion of my heart; deep in there, I found out that this would be my stepping stone to achieve the career and passion that I want to be; a Professional Teacher, a future teacher that can inspire and touch a heart of a learner. To give hope and to be part of their success, while having one goal and that is to be a productive and successful individual that can contribute to our society, an individual who can teach and help one-self and another, learning the principle of living together, learning to be, and learning to do that might be the key for a successful life.

“Experience is the best teacher” they say, and I agreed with that because aside from my memorable experiences from Junior High School, that helps me to decide what field should I pursue with, the great doors of opportunities opened right in front of me here at Senior High School and it feels much more amazing than my expected plans. I enhanced my social-communication skills, logical reasoning, and even learned different values in life that widely contribute to find my purpose. Application is a must after learning something new was my virtue while I am reflecting with every situation that gives me a lesson, through that way, I practiced to be more sensitive with everything whenever, wherever I am.

I have achieved awards out of unexpected situations like: Winning 1st place at the 2019 District- Division level of Festival of Talents, “Direk Mo, Ganap Ko” category, Awarded as the Best Actor for our short film entitled “ESCAPO” that also made it as the Best Film during the Drug Awareness Program by NDEP Club in our school, and securing the spot for 2019 “Lakan ng Taon” during the Buwan ng Wika. Fortunately, I was able to retain my academic performances as different events and activities like of those mentioned came up and didn’t serve as a hindrance to achieve my prior goal.

Year of 2019 lead and helped me to unleash my talents, discover new things and make me realize to accept things I wasn’t ready to admit with. Making myself busy was my way to cope up with stress but suddenly; I learned how to deal with it better than before, enjoying the moment and live life on its finest to lessen overthinking things that will ruin the day. One thing for sure that make me realize to look for the brighter side of something was by finding out that long term friendships wasn’t that lucky to survive if the foundation and the trust of that friendship was weakened as the time goes by.

By building up reasons and considerations, I choose to take risky decisions in order for me to justify and complete the puzzle of my never ending confusion. Fighting against the system, the stigma was indeed never easy and I am using all of my capabilities so that I can prove that I can achieve my goals regardless of every judgement, doubt and insult I am gaining from other people. Adulting, accepting responsibilities and even knowing own self better than before was the key to a successful plan-making process and by that way, I easily committed myself to the role I am supposed to stand for.

Right before you reach the end of this autobiography, I would like to share a phrase from the greatest person I know that leave a mark in my mind and my heart; “let’s meet halfway my friend” he said. Simple, too plain, a normal phrase that maybe means as literal as the statement was, but I have a reflection for that. It is not about how far you have been, how great your achievements are, how popular you are, if you do know the struggle when you were just a rookie and survived, do not brag someone about it and let them feel pitiful if they can’t reach out to seek for help to pursue their dreams, you were gifted to analyse everything faster than anyone else, you were blessed to bloom and to discover yourself earlier than others so you must inspire and motivate them instead. Do better, Create incredible things, be the better version of yourself, be a blessing to someone, and lastly… JUST KEEP GOING.

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rhinozilla · 6 years

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JnD Horror Week

Day 4: Manufactured Monster

Ashelin decides to see for herself the labs where the Dark Warrior Program took place. Every square inch of it is a nightmare, but the only monster that she finds is the one showing her around.

–

Places like this were supposed to be underground. They were supposed to be hidden away as a shameful thing, to at least grant the rest of them the illusion of ignorance at what was happening. In the privacy of the elevator, Ashelin clenched her jaw, grinding her molars as the lift took her to the laboratory level of the Haven City prison.

No, that wasn’t how her father had done things. Why hide away your horrific deeds in dungeons when you could house them in one of the largest, most imposing buildings within the walls…where everyone could look at that fortress of a prison and know how easily that it could be their fate if they didn’t keep in line.

The scientist who met her when the elevator doors opened had the backbone to look her in the eye…and the intelligence to at least pretend to be remorseful of his role here. He had the appearance of someone young who had aged quickly under the stress of his work. The unfinished tattoos peeking out from the collar of his lab coat told her that he had failed to complete training to be a Krimzon Guard, but by his closely cropped hair, stiff posture, and dead expression, he had gotten pretty close.

“Your High—“ he started to bow.

“No.” Ashelin lifted an abrupt hand. “Let me stop you right there. The only reason that you are not rotting in one of the lower cells is because you are the last of the slime who worked on the Dark Warrior Program. Just tell me what I need to know, and count every breath that you take as a personal mercy from me.”

The man’s automated smile faltered only a bit. “So, I give you the tour, and THEN I get imprisoned anyway? How very gracious of our new governor.”

Ashelin narrowed her eyes and kept her shoulders square. “Just get started.”

As he led her down the main hallway to the…ugh…research and development section of the lab, Ashelin tried to not let her imagination explain the stench of blood and bile that floated from the walls. The scientist was already speaking, but it was information that she already knew. The Dark Warrior Program had not been abandoned after Jak escaped the prison. Far from it, he had been such a “success” in her father’s eyes that his experiments had been accelerating in intensity right up until his regime was overthrown.

She was aware of at least eight other people who had been imprisoned and forced to endure the dark eco experiments. They had found the remains of five bodies as the first phase of demolition began, only half-cremated and hastily buried under the northern corner of the prison. They were easily identified as casualties of the Dark Warrior Program from the poisonous purple gas that emanated from the body cavities along with the contorted, mutated state of their corpses.

Failed experiments thrown out like garbage.

“—and anyone with any affinity for channeling eco has become so rare, but somebody who could channel ALL forms of eco? How could he not be the best candidate?”

Ashelin was glad that she had left her weapons at home, or this sick bastard would have already had multiple bullets blown through his body.

They took a left turn, and the floor started to angle downward. She paused enough for the man to look back, a disgustingly reminiscent look on his face.

“It was easier to roll the subjects on gurneys…once they couldn’t walk on their own anymore…or had died, of course.” He got halfway through a shrug before thinking better of the gesture.

“I should have waited another ten minutes before ordering the Guard not to shoot on sight,” Ashelin seethed. “Waited until they found you.”

“But then…what about your private tour of our grand facility?”

Forget weapons, she could snap his neck with her bare hands.

The yellow glow of the chamber ahead of them drew her attention away from his back.

This room wasn’t as large as the main prison room, where the injection mechanism and restraining chair was. She had seen that area already. This…This was what she had needed to see, what she was forcing herself to witness.

How could she lead Haven out of this dark period without a full knowledge of what that darkness was? She needed to see it, in all of its nightmarish truth, before she turned this whole building into a flaming crater.

The yellow glow, as it turned out, was coming from three glass columns against the far wall. Each one was four feet in diameter and at least ten feet tall. They were filled with amber liquid…and bodies. The missing three bodies of the last Dark Warrior Program’s victims had never really been missing at all. Instead, they were here, suspended in preservative fluid, not even allowed to rot in a grave with dignity.

Two of the three corpses were warped by dark eco like the other five recovered bodies. Horns extended from their hairlines. Half lidded eyes hung open, black all the way around. Thick purple veins created webs along their bare skin. Teeth extended into fangs that pushed past shredded lips. Fingernails jutted out of nail beds, onyx and curved so as to serve no other function than to destroy. Their flesh was stretched taut over emaciated pelvic bones and ribcages, contrasting the unnaturally developed muscles of their arms and legs. Precise, surgical lines traced their torsos where the autopsies had been performed and their flesh resealed.

The body in the third container had no outward mutations, but her chalk pale skin and the telltale black eyes gave away her condition. There were considerably more autopsy lines criss crossing this corpse, searching for the internal changes brought on by the dark eco.

The scientist caught Ashelin staring and clearly misinterpreted her expression.

“She was our most promising subject. She lasted longer than any of the others, dying just a few weeks before we got Jak. In a lot of ways, he has her to thank for his success. Each of our failures moved us closer to the solution. We learned from our mistakes, corrected them with every subsequent experiment. She…came the closest, that’s for sure…the strongest natural channeling gift that we had ever seen…before Jak.”

Ashelin’s skin crawled as she took in the vacant expression on the body. She had only witnessed Jak transform once, seen the toll that it took when the dark eco receded and he changed back to normal. For the briefest moment, those black eyes had been as vacant as this woman’s. Just an absolute nothingness when neither the monster nor the man had the reins. A blink later, those eyes had been blue, and the vacancy had filled with chronic horror as Jak had realized what he had done in that state.

She couldn’t take it. She looked away from the body behind the glass.

“Jak was a child.” It slipped out of her, and she cringed.

“Children are like sponges.” The scientist waved a dismissive hand. “We found that they were more resilient than adults…more…capable of adapting to the biochemical changes that the dark eco introduced to their genetic structure.”

“Adapting…” She let the word hang in the air.

The scientist hummed, looking at the woman behind the glass with something close to admiration. “Yes…By introducing the dark eco before the subjects reach maturity, we found that most of them were able to absorb it…growth spurts and hormones and all that…What better conduit for the chaos of dark eco?”

“You talk like there were other minors that you did this to.”

“There were others.” So casually admitted. “They burned up before we could advance to the final phase of the program.”

Ashelin shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose briefly. “After all this…this carnage…you all continued to push forward? To ruin more lives and kill more innocents?”

“Under your father’s orders.”

She bit her tongue and turned away. She wasn’t about to be sucked into the topic of her father’s morality, least of all with this cretin.

“We do have recordings of the treatments.”

Her head snapped around to stare at the scientist. “You WHAT?”

“The Baron insisted on having audio and visual recordings of every dark eco experiment on every subject that made it to the chair. Some of us took the liberty of making additional recordings of the subjects out of the chair, in their cells, purely for research purposes of course.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “I could show you—“

“I want them destroyed.”

For the first time, the scientist looked knocked off kilter. “You…destroyed?”

“As of this moment, I am seizing custody of every tape, back up tape, and any and all other audio and visual records relating to the Dark Warrior Program,” she said curtly.

“You can’t! Years of painstaking research…We are within reach of harnessing the most powerful substance on the planet…Destroying all of our knowledge would not bring those people back from the dead; it would only make their deaths pointless.”

“Their deaths were already pointless.”

“I thought the purpose of this jaunt through our labs was for you to see everything that we did, to fully understand what happened here. I guess it’s easier when it’s all notes on paper…preserved bodies…blood stained cell blocks…But to see it happen in motion, that’s where your fortitude falters, Madam Governor?” He had moved over to a metal cabinet, opening the doors to reveal packed rows of tape recordings.

He plucked one seemingly at random, turning on his heel and stalking back over to her, stopping before the desk that stood between them.

“Or maybe you’d prefer a more personal viewing, to mourn the dignity of your hero in private.”

He tossed the tape on the desk, and she didn’t need to look at the numbered code written on its face to know that it was Jak’s file…or one of his files.

She snatched up the tape and immediately snapped it in half, breaking those halves into more halves until it was a mess of metal and plastic falling to the desk.

“You’re disgusting,” she hissed. “I expect to take ALL of these records with me when I leave here today. The Freedom League will come to collect the three bodies, to be given proper burials far away from this hellhole. The rest of the research conducted here will be confiscated and dealt with as I see fit. If I find out that you have withheld even the smallest piece of information on any of these people that you destroyed, then I will personally make sure that instead of a solitary prison cell, you find yourself in the middle of the Wasteland. I guarantee you will find more mercy from me than you will from the desert.”

The scientist looked furious, but his anger was impotent. Ashelin took what small satisfaction she could from his rumpled state. The feeling only lasted as long as it took for her to throw all of the recordings into three large hard plastic crates. The crates were equipped with hover tech, and they lifted a foot off the ground when she activated the circular nodes on the sides. That enabled her to maneuver them herself. She didn’t want the files out of her sight until she watched them turn to ash in a fire.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” the scientist finally spoke.

Ashelin bit back the urge to vomit, guiding the hovering crates toward the inclined hallway, going back the way she’d come. She didn’t acknowledge his statement.

“If it hadn’t been for the Dark Warrior Program, Haven City wouldn’t have had its great hero Jak and all his…gifts…to fight the Metalheads…the Dark Makers…the KG Bots…”

Ashelin reached the elevator, punching the button and impatiently waiting for the doors to open.

“If it hadn’t been for the Dark Warrior Program,” she snarled, “you and your fellow vermin would have only been arrested instead of—“

The elevator doors opened, and two large Freedom League guards greeted her. She jerked her head in the scientist’s direction.

“Take him.”

She maneuvered the crates into the lift as the guards apprehended the scientist, who looked confused at her thinly veiled threat.

“Take him…where, ma’am?”

Ashelin knew exactly where she wanted that beast to go, but she used all of her remaining restraint to carve out a more appropriate response.

“Out of my sight.”

#jndthemeweek

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atreef · 3 years

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Crush Your Future NOW | Quick Exercise For Smart Goal Setting

What you will get from this article:

Learn about your brain

Magnetic resonance imaging or MRI

6 simple steps to keep your mind sharp

Goal setting

Smart goal setting

Let's Start with the basics. The overlooked Secrets that only success hungry people will use 🧐

T The number of considerations given to topics such as personal growth, self-improvement, and self-development is just astounding. Virtually millions of people desire to enhance their lives in some shape or form! And each person deserves to be capable of changing their life. Thus, Here is the most overlooked approach that will serve anyone well on their journey.

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek." -- Mario Andretti

The Power of your brain 🧠

Years ago, the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer, “Doctor, what is wrong with people?” The renowned doctor was silent for a while, then he replied, “People simply do not think!” Why do we limit the use of our brains and limit our thinking? The brain is truly a superb mechanism. It is competent in processing eight hundred inputs per second for seventy-five years without depleting itself.

Scientists suggest that we as humans use approximately 2 percent of our brainpower that is available to us. Also, keep in mind that we are all equal and have the same 2% all across. As a society, a remarkable number of us have chosen not to utilize this powerful tool. We chose to let others do our thinking for us. Why is this? Ask yourself this question.

Have You Ever Wondered 💁

But is he right. I like the question that he has asked, but how much of your brain do we use in reality? If you have ever believed in the 2 or 10% brain myth, you might be shocked to hear that we, as humans, actually use virtually all and every part of our brains. Furthermore, throughout an average day, you use nearly 100% of your brain.

"The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe." -- Michio Kaku

MRI

Researchers who have examined the brain with magnetic resonance imaging or (MRI) technology have discovered no dormant brain parts. Most of our brain is active virtually all of the time, and it is actively processing information.

This all makes sense when you acknowledge the significance of your brain and its power to our life. Even though your brain only makes up 3-5% of our body's weight, it uses up an unbelievable 20% of its resources in terms of oxygen and glucose.

😌 So, Don't think that you don't have the power. Actually, you do! All that you need is powerful steps in order to utilize the entire brain 😌

6 simple steps to keep your mind sharp at any age 😇

Everyone has expressed the moment that they may be gone into their room, and now they can't remember why or even at times can't remember a name during a simple conversation. This is because their mind is not trained and not focused. Out memory, lapses can happen at any time, age, or situation, and remember that aging alone is generally not a cause of the cognitive decline we experience.

However, when vital memory loss happens among older adults, it is usually not due to aging but an organic disorder, brain injury, or even neurological illness. Research has revealed that you can help counter cognitive decline and decrease the chance of dementia with some basic good habits:

Stay active

Get enough sleep

Stop smoking

Have good social relationships

Limit your alcohol intake

Eating a healthy diet

Our memory and other cognitive changes can sometimes be frustrating, yet the good news is that you can now learn how to prepare your mind to stay active due to decades of research. There are many approaches we can use to help maintain our cognitive fitness. So, set your goals and keep up with them.

Keep learning

Use all your senses

Believe in yourself

Prioritize your brain use

Repeat what you want to know

Never stop growling

Now let’s talk about goal setting 🪴

Goal setting is truly vital to all of us since it can help you decide and even focus on what is important. Effective and realistic goal setting also lets you measure every progress you make, even overcome procrastination, and help you visualize your dreams. If you are unsure what you like to accomplish, you can't create a plan to get there. But if you follow on advice, you can master your life and start the life you dream of having. This is the process, and it is the most overlooked secret to getting what you want.

"Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success." -- Pablo Picasso

WHAT IS GOAL SETTING?

Goal setting can seem somewhat varied depending on an individual’s lifestyle, decisions, and meaning of success. Your goals are truly unique to you and don’t require you to look like anyone else’s.

Traditionally the classic goal-setting definition surges down to the method of recognizing something you want to achieve and setting measurable objectives plus realistic timeframes on them to help you achieve such goals. Goal setting can assist you in several areas of your life, from reaching financial independence to even assuming a new healthy diet. When we learn how to set goals in our life, it becomes easier to set them in other areas.

Setting common goals that provide small wins encourages you to move on to larger accomplishments. These small goals lead to growth. In the video below, I clearly explain how one needs to set goals and find the right goal that can help them achieve their ultimate freedom.

What are some goal examples?

Lifetime goal: Move to California and find a job in media and grow my youTube channel!

Long-term goals:

Graduate from school.

Get accepted into a program.

Save up money.

Get certification.

Learn how to speak a foreign language.

Learn a music instrument.

get in shape.

Short-term goals:

Research a program that I like.

Start a language course.

Be minimal.

Start waking up early.

Open up a savings account.

Do more yoga

Get a part-time job.

You get the idea, we have 3 type of goals, see what is it that you like and start making your list.

"A goal properly set is halfway reached." -- Zig Ziglar

The SMART goal setting 🤩

Bam! Now can you see how precise, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound a smart goal was? This approach can seriously help you visualize precisely how to achieve them—and be the person that you always dreamed of being!

Now no doubt you should understand and see the power of setting a SMART goal. Want to score high on your exams or start a new career, or do what you always wanted to do. Whatever your goals are, know they are truly reachable. All you need is the right plan of action.

Word of advice: it is quite normal not to reach a goal on day one. Goals can be fluid, or sometimes they end up taking a bit longer than you planned. It happens, well, it happened to me. But know that this is not the end of the world or your ambitions. If I want to be successful, I have learned that I must learn to re-group, adjust or even make a new smaller goal, and keep them the SMART way.

The Science & Psychology Of Goal-Setting 101

All effective goals are:

A – Achievable

B – Believable

C – Committed

Goal-setting is a psychological means for enhancing productivity that concerns five rules or criteria, known as the S-M-A-R-T rule. George T. Doran issued this rule in 1981 in a management research paper of the Washington Power Company, and I have to say that it is by far one of the most famous propositions of the psychology of goals.

Need Help Setting Goals? I Can Help

As goals are set, it’s essential to ensure that they’re measurable and have a designated time frame. As you hold yourself responsible for a plan in place, you’ll likely observe that each step wasn’t as daunting as you thought it would be, and every achievement brings you one step closer to success.

And, if you just need a little more push, let me help you. I am here to guide you, provide you the tools, resources and even be a sounding board along your way. Learn more about my programs and the power that they can bring to your life.

#goal setting #goals #smart goal #smart goals #the power of brain #self development #self improvement #power of setting goals #power of goal setting #the power of setting goals #power of goals #the power of goal setting

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

THE COURAGE OF YOURSELF

The real problem is the same they face in operating systems: they can't pay people enough to build something better than a group of founders to go through one lame idea before realizing that a startup has to make something people want. This should be the m. You learn to paint mostly by doing it, but by then it's too late. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. They're far better at detecting bullshit than you are at producing it, even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world is not merely wasted, but actually makes organizations less productive. I've read on HN.1 And in every field there are probably heresies few dare utter.

Less fortunate startups just end up in an uncanny valley.2 It was painful to watch. If Sun runs into trouble, they could drag Java down with them. The first is probably the effort required just to start a new company, Fairchild Semiconductor. The suit is back, it begins. It doesn't do justice to the situation to say never mind, I'm just tired. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to say that to Japanese or Europeans it would seem like something out of the third world. And we know from experience that some undergrads are as capable as most grad students. Even Einstein probably had moments when he was optimistic. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.

Judging startups is hard even for the best investors, who are both hard to bluff and who already believe most other investors are conventional-minded drones doomed always to miss the big outliers.3 We decided we ought to have T-Shirts for the SFP, and we'd been thinking about what to do by a boss.4 Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way a painting is made.5 Your program is supposed to do x. Either it's something they felt they had to do. When I learned to program, we had to read in English classes was mostly fiction, so I was haunting galleries anyway. It's also great for morale.6 And so it became synonymous with California nuttiness.7 And it's a good thing. The irony of Galileo's situation was that he got in trouble for appearing to be writing about things I don't understand.

I write great software, because they were so much easier.8 In fact, software that would let people who wanted sites make their own investment decisions. The time to raise money, they try gamely to make the region a center of scholarship and industry which have been closely tied for longer than most people realize.9 I made the list there turned out to be enough. Best of all, for the same reason readers like them. But as one VC told me after a startup he funded would only take about half a million, I don't mean play mind games with yourself to boost your confidence. When I read about people who liked what they did so much that it's critical to get your product to market early, but that you haven't really started working on it to answer calls from people paying you now. Both have the kind of thing for fun. They give employees who do great work for free, in their spare time, and investors are down on advertising at the moment.10 But as one VC told me after a startup he funded would only take about half a million, I don't mean any specific business can. In a startup you have to overcome in order to avoid them, I had to write down everything I remember from it, I doubt it would amount to much more than the valuation of our entire company.

But the importance of this idea would remain something I'd learned from this book, I couldn't believe he was serious. My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as buying printed books was the only way to know for sure would be to discover each person's station as early as possible, and the higher your valuation, the narrower your options for doing that. Raising money decreases the risk of failure. Some will be shocking by present standards. Your own ideas about what's possible have been unconsciously lowered by such experiences.11 You may not need to use convertible notes to do it. At Viaweb I considered myself lucky if I got to hack a quarter of the time ranged from tedious to terrifying.12 Prestige is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. Conversely, a town of i dotters and t crossers, where you're liable to get both your grammar and your ideas corrected in the same spirit. The striking thing about this phase is that it's completely different from most people's idea of what business is like.13 Since the custom is to write to persuade a hypothetical perfectly unbiased reader.

Of course, figuring out what you like, and let prestige take care of you: they'd try not to fire you, cover your medical expenses, and support you in old age.14 The most interesting question here may be what high res fundraising will do to the world, and in the meantime I'd have to fight word-by-word to save it from being mangled by some twenty five year old copy editor.15 So am I claiming that no one would dare express it in public?16 And in particular, to great universities.17 But the more you realize you can do than the traditional employer-employee relationship because I've been on both sides of a better one: the investor-founder relationship. O-data.18 Maybe I'm excessively attached to conciseness. Indians in the current Silicon Valley. In fact, we've never even invited them to the demo days we organize for startups to grow. I'm not too worried yet.

It happens naturally to anyone who does good work. Each year.19 But publishing has advanced since then: present-day union organizers rather than an attack on early ones.20 What weaknesses could you exploit? It may seem cavalier to dismiss a language before you've even tried writing programs in it. Cheap Intel processors, of the forces underlying open source and blogging. At the time, could get excited about such a thoroughly boneheaded idea, we should start paying attention. An adult can distance himself enough from the situation to describe it as a book. The English Reformation was at bottom a struggle for wealth and power, but it does at least make you keep an open mind.21 That cap need not simply rise monotonically. True, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative.

Halfway through grad school I decided I wanted to do. But this approach, combined with the preceding four, will turn up a good number of unthinkable ideas. In Robert's defense, he was skeptical about Artix.22 And what, exactly, is hate speech? And yet I suspect no one dares say this. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the partner responsible for the deal was John Doerr, who came to work for our company.23 If you set up those conditions within the US, there are at least some of the most useful skills we learned from Viaweb was not getting our hopes up. If you try convincing investors before you've convinced yourself, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of pro-union readers, the first three were our biggest expenses. If we turn off our self-centeredness in that they assume admissions committees care enough about so far is not very good. Painters in fact have to remember a good deal for everyone.24 A more important source, because it's the only way out.

Notes

The idea is the most promising opportunities, it becomes an advantage to be identified with you to commit to them. Hackers Painters, what you call the Metaphysics came after meta after the fact by someone else created earlier.

A P successfully defended itself by allowing the unionization of its users, however, and this was the fall of 2008 the terms they were.

The lowest point occurred when marginal income tax rates were highest: 14. Make sure too that the stuff they're showing him is something inexperienced founders. So whatever market you're in, you'll be well on your own?

What I'm claiming with the melon seed model is more important than the valuation turns out to be able to grow as big as a child, either as an idea that evolves naturally, and that he had once talked to mentioned how much he liked his work. We're delighted to have to pass so slowly for them. Doing things that don't include the cases where you go to die from running through their initial attitude. That's a valid point.

That's because the rich. In this essay I'm talking mainly about software startups are possible. Since most VCs are suits at heart, the bad idea.

I calculated it once for that might work is in the sort of pious crap you were going back to the Pall Mall Gazette. Actually Emerson never mentioned mousetraps specifically.

The founders want the valuation of zero.

And I'm sure for every startup we had high hopes for doesn't do well, but not in the technology everyone was going to kill bad comments to solve are random, the only alternative would be to go out running or sit home and watch TV, music, and stir. I'm not claiming founders sit down and calculate the expected value calculation for potential founders, and that there's no lower bound to its precision. In fact, for example, would probably never have that glazed over look. So it's not the only ones that matter financially, and he was notoriously improvident and was troubled by debts all his life.

What you learn via users anyway. When Google adopted Don't be evil. But while it makes people dumber.

The idea is not yet released.

I stuck with such energy that he had once talked to a degree that alarmed his family, that it offers a better predictor of success. Programming languages should be designed to express algorithms, and so on. But when you ad lib you end up with much food.

It's when they're really saying is they want to stay in a bug.

In fact this would probably be to become one of the increase in economic inequality, but he turned them down. Cost, again. Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. The trend of VC angel investing is so contentious is that the middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the cost of writing software.

Give us 10 million and we'll tell you alarming things, they will or at least a little more fat, and the editor, written in 6502 machine language. Related: Reprinted in Bacon, Alan ed.

Looking at the fabulous Oren's Hummus. Most of the next stage tend to become more stratified.

In some cases e.

We think we're so useless that in Silicon Valley. This is not economic inequality was really only useful for one video stream. They don't know how many of which you want to get endless grief for classifying religion as well, but which didn't taste very good. College English Departments Come From?

N 12-oz cans white, kidney, or in one of those things that's not true! That should probably be the only audience for your work. The downside is that parties shouldn't be that some of those most vocal on the client?

But it was because he was 10 years ago it would have seemed a miracle of workmanship. Our founder meant a photograph of a startup. Few consciously realize that species weren't, as accurate to call the Metaphysics came after meta after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so bad that they think are bad. Every pilot knows about this problem, any claim to the customer: you post a sign in a place where few succeed is hardly free.

Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. It's interesting to consider behaving the opposite way from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. The CRM114 Discriminator. If you want to work on projects that improve the world, but starting a startup, unless it was wiser for them, and one of the market.

If anyone remembers such an idea is bad. A day job writing software. What you learn in college. The other reason it used to hear about the details.

There was one of the best ways to get the money they're paid isn't a quid pro quo. Few can have a connection to one of the causes of the other reason they pay so well.

As I was not something big companies to say they care above all about to give him 95% of spam in my incoming mail fluctuated so much a great discovery often seems obvious in retrospect. I don't think it's confusion or lack of movement between companies combined with self-imposed. 99, and their flakiness is indistinguishable from those of dynamic variables were merely optimization advice, before realizing that that's what they said, and jobs encourage cooperation, not widening. Since they don't yet get what they're really not, and earns the right sort of pious crap you were doing Viaweb again, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

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winetae · 7 years

Text

work in progress tag

thank you @blushoseoks @workofteaguk & @wonhopes for tagging me :’D i usually never do tag games bc i’m boring and would rather eat cake... but i’m hoping this will motivate me to finish all my current projects *side eyes my 12 drafts in despair*

i feel like most of my mutuals have already been tagged ?? so i will tag them again just to make sure @1honeypot @kimtrain @floralseokjin @gukvory @authorose @mint-tape

❋ dick n’ go || seokjin x reader || pwp with cocky!jin

→ After trooping through a series of horrendous first dates and mediocre hookups, you were convinced you would never find a man capable of satisfying your needs. Your friend recommends you try a slightly unconventional method to remedy your bad luck.

(alternatively: seokjin has a nice dick and you want to RIDE it)

excerpt; (i’m about halfway done but i write about 10 words a day so hopefully this finally sees the light of day !! )

This time you couldn’t even blame the dating agency for a faulty match-up. There had been no fluke of any kind; suited in crisp Tom Ford and polished Italian leather, he was exactly as described on paper, which had been all the more infuriating. Admittedly, when you had first met him tonight, you had swooned a little, not daring to believe your luck. With his slicked back hair and tailored suit, he was a sight for sore eyes. In hindsight, you should have known better than to get your hopes up, especially when you considered your track record with men.

“Ah… Congrats.” You managed a strained smile while surreptitiously reaching for the Pinot Noir.

Regret started to pool in your gut. Signing up on a dating website hadn’t been the wisest move, you now realized. Had the wooing process always been this tiring? Maybe you were rusty, having been out of the game for too long.

(continued under the cut!)

❋ your love is my scripture || taehyung x reader x jimin || punk!tae, church opppa!jimin

excerpt; (i have about 3k words but no outline so i’m not sure how close it is to completion)

“You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”

Taehyung’s voice is a hymn of its own. He recites the words with ease, the low notes rolling off his tongue with a fluidity you did not know him capable of.

His slow cadence comes to a halt when he finally notices you leaning against the confessional. Your eyes meet but it’s hard to keep your gaze steady. For some reason you feel slightly guilty and embarrassed, pink blooming on your cheeks. Which is ridiculous because, well, Taehyung is on your territory. If anyone should be feeling uncomfortable and out of place, it’s him. But the heat of his gaze, unabashed and predatory, makes you feel small.

The coil in your stomach tightens. Almost instantly you straighten yourself, pulling at the hem of your skirt self-consciously as his lecherous stare trails down the expanse of your legs.

“Did you just quote the Bible?”

❋ paper doll 03 || jk x reader || idol+singer-songwriter!au

excerpt; (this has been sitting at the bottom of my drafts for monthS !!)

Beneath the veneer of civility, there were cracks that not even time nor wisdom could fix.

It was easy to claim you would move on and put your past behind you -- after all, that would be the appropriate, adult-like response everyone expected. But the rehearsed lines lacked conviction, even as you mumbled them under your breath for the eighth time that day, hoping the repeated litany would turn them into truth.

"We have high expectations", they had announced, not asking for your opinion or permission. "The buzz around the both of you will be sufficient to draw in the public. The song is a guaranteed success; there is no reason for it not to do well. We've got all the needed ingredients for a hit song… "

From a marketing standpoint, now was the ideal time to release a duet. It was a bold move, but the executives were confident such a song would generate the most profit and interest.

But for you, the unwilling designated songwriter, this project was possibly your worst nightmare.

❋ carry the seasons || taehyung x reader || vampire!au

excerpt; (of a fic i will probably never finish rip)

Man is made in the image of God, your mirrored image taunted you.

Perhaps there was truth to this teaching. Your skin, hardened to marble, had shed its traces of humanity; your scars and imperfections smoothed over, erased and forgotten as your maker filled your fissures with pieces of himself. You had been reborn from a pile of broken mirrors, torn apart only to be stitched back together. When Taehyung saw you, his face was reflected.

Once, emboldened by the thrill that came from a satisfying chase, you had dared to ask, "Does it bother you... That I am not who you want me to be?"

It was no secret that Taehyung had fallen for you, in all your human fragility and naivety. But every one of those traits had been robbed from you; burned away and forgotten.

How frustrating it must have been to have created a creature he could not mold completely to his whims. By wanting to immortalize you, he had stripped you of the very virtues he had coveted.

i am also working on plums & melons part two (in which jimin has enough of your shit) and a yoongi FLUFF drabble (enemy to lovers trope) and tessellate (in which you have to deal with the consequences of your threesome with hoseok and jk) whoo :’’)

#will i ever finish any of these lmao #these days i would rather drink wine and eat cake #i hope the smut gods bless me soon

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afreakingdork · 5 years

Text

Review: ENDRO!

“ Naral Island, a continent with swords and magic in which humans and monsters coexist. The terrible Demon King lives there. In ancient times, the first-generation hero defeated the Demon King. Over the many successive generations since then, the Demon King has been resurrected, and the hero who opposes him has likewise reappeared. Girls attend a school for adventurers in order to defeat the Demon King when he appears again. Though a bit absent-minded, Yusha has the body of a hero. The holy elf Seyla's trouble never ends because she is too serious. The cheerful warrior Fai loves to eat. Mei is a quiet otaku magician. As the four girls aim to be in the hero party, they live relaxed fantasy lives and show no sign of defeating the Demon King no matter how much time passes. “

Ahh... I shouldn't like this show...I really shouldn’t, but.... let’s save that for...

Criticism:

Ugh these little girls are in the most perv pandering outfits I've ever seen. Disgusting loli show. They are literally in underwear and thongs...!

The demon lord is an even YOUNGER loli. I cannot stress how disgusting this is!

HOW OLD ARE THESE GIRLS SUPPOSED TO BE!?!? THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THEIR CLASS THAT ARE DEFINITELY ADULTS.

LOOK AT THIS FUCKING NONSENSE HER BRA DOESN’T EVEN GO AROUND HER BODY!? IS IT JUST STUCK TO HER BOOBS?!

It really bugs me that the audio is off in the bumps! The character's voice will say Endro! Then the character's mouth will move after its done... like what?

THOSE ARE PITCHER PLANTS, YOU WOULD DEFINITELY DIE!!!!

The main character literally goes by Yusha (Hero) and the Demon Lord literally goes by Mao (Maou) ((Devil))... Literally how does anyone confuse them for what they really are...

Positives:

Oh man... i really like the comedy of this show. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy, but I really like the way it’s portrayed in this show.

I love how the layers just peel away from the story. At first I was a bit disappointed because I’ve always wanted a show where you find out what happens after the hero has succeeded in their life quest, but then as the show progressed I found out it was so much more. I love the idea of the Demon Lord wanting to give-up on conquering the world. I love how Meigo becomes such an important character with all of her knowledge. I love how the Hero was prepared to give everything up for her friends. It never felt sappy. It felt real.

A girl after my own heart...

This comedy slays me, I mean this exists:

Cartardo growing on trees is absurd and I love it

I love these characters. They land in the perfect segue between archetype and developed character. You know exactly who these characters are and what their motivations are, but they can still surprise you with what they are capable of doing. The only one that I feel was left out of this development was Fai. There are little touches on her wild origins, but no real origin story where I feel like there needs to be one. Regardless, she is still a fun character.

Rona-chan confirmed lesbian princess. Will change laws to marry her hero wife. I am always about my sweet lesbeans~

When you take away the perv pandering, the character designs are lovely and cute.

Some could argue that Chibi-chan saving the day was nothing more than a deus ex machina, but it was totally foreshadowed halfway through the show. They really laid the groundwork for the ending.

Verdict:

I feel truly terrible that I like this show so much when it has such loli perv pandering... Dammit why does the story and characters have to be so good...

Check out what I’m watching or other shows I’ve rated here. I also have a ko-fi if you like what I do~

#me #review #anime review #endro #ENDRO!#Endro~!#anime #it was good

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kingsofchaos · 7 years

Note

What If one of the fakes had a high school reunion or something like that and just took the crew and it somehow ended in a shoot out with the cops.

Let’s just be clear, it’s not a pride thing. Geoff has never cared what people said about him, not outside a professional sense anyway; he knew exactly who he was, what he was capable of, even before he’d taken an entire city to its knees. So it’s not that he felt the need to prove himself, it’s just that there’s something particular about high school trauma, isn’t there? Something that lingers, even when it shouldn’t, something that emerges from even the most upstanding adults when thrown back together for a reunion, the bullies and the bullied, all desperate to show what they’ve become.Geoff’s last high school was nothing like he’d ever been to before, a snobby upper-crust hellhole he was only in because his Ma’s third husband pulled some strings, and the other students were quick to point out just how much he didn’t belong. Between the tattoos and the smoking, the lazy looks and slow sneering drawl, it was always all too easy to label Geoff a loser, a drop out, trailer park trash everyone knew would be washing their cars one day. Never mind that he scored higher than most of his cohort even when skipping more or less every class, never mind that he is possibly the most well-read crime-lord in the country, back then he had an image and teenagers are relentless. Not that Geoff was all that phased even at the time, only a year or so away from the day he picked up his first gun and never looked back, but it’s the principal of the thing.So when an invite forwards through from an email so old he’d forgotten he’d even made it Geoff has to laugh. Then pause, consider, hatch an utterly ridiculous idea, and laugh some more. Because he might not care, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t enjoy ruining the night for all the pathetic stuck-up nobodies he went to school with; rubbing your success in everyone’s faces is what reunions are for, after all. The fact that it has a theme, that it is masquerade of all things, really just cements Geoff’s resolve to drag his crew halfway across the country into one of the strangest nights of their lives.Everyone knows the option to bring a guest to these events is, in reality, the offer to bring a romantic partner, singular, but it isn’t technically stated. There are no rules barring Geoff from RSVP-ing for 7, so that’s exactly what he does. Sure he receives a few increasingly less polite emails suggesting he’d been mistaken but he doesn’t even bother opening them, doesn’t try to clarify that he is bringing his friends, his family, not his entire harem. Let them talk; they’d do it anyway. Plus, it’s not like the Fake’s aren’t all entirely too pleased with the suggestion, cackling hyenas who spend the next few weeks laying it on thick, batting their eyes and blowing Geoff kisses, picking out increasingly absurd meet-cute stories to tell his scandalised classmates. Between creating new identities and playing dress up in masks and suits they couldn’t be happier.Masks or not they catch every eye in the room when they make their entrance and why wouldn’t they; Geoff and his unusual request must have been the talk of the rumour mill and identity hidden or not clearly this must be Geoff, it’s not like anyone else brought along 6 dates. As stage whispers hit a dull roar it’s obvious no one was prepared for what they were seeing, perhaps imagined instead stained tank tops and a string of strung-out baby mama’s, not expensively tailored suits and an attractively refined entourage. Paying the noise no heed Geoff swans into the room with Jack looking elegant on one arm, Gavin at his most Ken-doll glamorous tucked under the other, flanked on either side by Ryan, Michael, Jeremy and Ray, all dressed to impress.Shock and jealousy aren’t good looks on anyone, let alone rich brats turned elitist yuppies, so Geoff’s classmates behave just as poorly as he’d anticipated, years and newfound maturity doing nothing to stop the tittering laughter, the sneers and judgmental looks, fake pleasantry and condescending questions. But then, his crew didn’t exactly play nice with them either.Ray and Jeremy immediately beeline to the food table and bar, respectively, and each set themselves up and settle in for the night; loud, obnoxious and tactlessly talking about everyone around them. When asked about themselves or their relationship to Geoff they’re both frustratingly vague, Jeremy chattering away without saying much at all and Ray simply staring people down until they can’t bear the tension.Michael and Ryan set off together to explore the room but quickly separate to accommodate their vastly different methods of surveillance. Ryan skulks into the background, ducking numerous attempts to catch his interest in favour of fading into unlit corners and empty nooks, frightening the life out of anyone trying to slip away for some private time. Michael, on the other hand, seems determined to be the life of the party, cheerfully making conversation only to laugh in the face of every so-called achievement, ruffling feathers and causing major offence wherever he goes.Gavin slinks off like a man on a mission and doesn’t come back for over an hour, offering no explanation for the absence beyond a dangerously self-satisfied smirk. His work becomes obvious soon enough anyway, once the yelling starts; Geoff’s two main high-school tormentors, mentioned only in passing stories over the years, simultaneously having huge, public, relationship-ending blow ups with each of their significant others. What are the odds? Across the hall Gavin laughs, all tinkling glass and sparkling charm, smoothly working the room like Michael’s mirror opposite.Jack stays at Geoff’s side all night, hackles raised into something abnormally cold and unimpressed any time someone comes up to speak to them, protective instincts in full force no matter how often Geoff claims to be unaffected. He fills her in on all the worst gossip about those who approach, and as the night progresses and general unease begins to spread Jack mellows, sinking back into something sweet and mocking, somehow even more unsettling playing docile arm-candy than she was rabid guard dog.Throughout the night the Fake AH Crew remain a key topic of every casual conversation; they might have been regardless, even this far from Los Santos no one can get enough of their scandals, but with the huge heist pulled just last week there was no way to avoid it, everyone has their two cents, their praise and condemnation. It’s too funny, the whole crew killing themselves trying not to break character, to laugh or correct or manipulate the conversation but all their self-control is well rewarded in the end.Half the room removed their masks less than an hour into the night; too difficult to eat and talk and drink in, too vain to keep their hard earned looks covered, so it’s not at all strange when the Fake’s start to follow suit. Jeremy and Ray start it, the newest member and the one caught on camera the least often, casually dropping their masks mid-conversation. They each get a confused squint or two, a double glance, a few individuals trying to place them, remember how they’d met before, why they were so familiar.Next came Gavin and Michael, having goaded each other out onto the dance-floor they were playing as much as they were moving to the music, laughing and grappling and generally making a bit of a scene. They snatch off each other’s masks as they play and the looks double, because alone they’re each distinctive but together, together, people have seen those faces together, somewhere they’ve seen them and so often together..Last is Jack and Geoff, more graceful than their counterparts and moving with far more purpose they reveal their faces in the centre of the room and, like a party trick, they instantly catch the whole room’s attention. Out of context, in ones and twos where they don’t belong, the members of the FAHC could be mistaken but no one in the country would fail to recognise Ramsey and Patillo, the kingpin and his right hand, rulers of the most well-known gang in the US. And here they stand, casually mingling at a high school reunion.In the calm before the storm the crew gravitates back towards one another, can almost see the cogs turning around them, the lightbulbs flickering on in a slow ripple spreading out across the room, disbelief and the first hint of horror swirling together as people start unconsciously reaching for their phones. As Ryan slips back out and wanders over, the last still masked, always masked, the chatter seems to crescendo then crash into something still and almost silent as a room full of entitled trust-fund babies recognise their own terror.Finally uncovered and flanked by his family Geoff’s grin creeps across his face, slow and violent and more confirmation than anyone needed as he lets the oppressive tension sit for a long moment, arms spreading out to his sides like a magician revealing a clever trick before he breaks the silence; Surprise motherfuckers. Guns are pulled from jackets and from there it’s all running and screaming, no honour or courage, just a stampede for the exits to the sound of cackling laughter and the occasional aimless pot-shot. The Fake’s aren’t looking for lives, not worth the hassle really, and this job certainly has no monetary reward beyond the wallets Geoff’s filthy little thieves have no doubt absconded with, but the fear in the air is delightful and even the sound of incoming sirens can’t ruin the mood. If anything it only hypes them up further, all savage grins and ramping excitement as they make for doors, reloading their weapons and pumping themselves up for a whole new police force to terrorise, Geoff’s magnificent little miscreants.On the way out they pass a wall of yearbook photos, blown up large and captioned with names and all the old superlative awards. Ryan stumbles to a halt and snorts, snatching one off the wall and tucking it into his jacket to take back to the penthouse, though not before flashing the Lads a glance at that all too recognisable face, sending them into peals of screeching laughter as they pour out into the night. Geoffrey Fink; Least likely to succeed.

#FAHC #sorry you don’t actually see the shootout #thought this nonsense went on long enough #i had a real 'oh do i actually have anything to say about this?' moment #but then i started #and boy #did i ever #endless garbage #at one point this had even more of the crew #and a detailed description of their mask choices #for no reason beyond me having no self-restraint #I have literally no idea how Geoff gets that invite #even a still working student email doesn’t make sense #dude is old #*movie magic*#Loaded Guns and Sharp Teeth #Ask #Anonymous #Reunion

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lodelss · 5 years

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Soraya Roberts | Longreads | February 2019 | 8 minutes (2,357 words)

Halfway through Dirty John, the Bravo series based on the life of sociopathic con artist John Meehan, the titular character’s first wife, having discovered her husband of several years has been cheating and shooting up, meets one of his friends in a diner. Sitting stone-faced across from her husband’s grinning college buddy, she learns how “Dirty John” got his nickname through an ever-expanding laundry list of scams his classmates witnessed: being a “dog” with women, conning old people, credit card fraud, insurance fraud. She says nothing, but it’s clear from her face that she is getting progressively more enraged at this man for having repeatedly stood by and watched as the father of her children mistreated a succession of people. At one point, it seems to kind of dawn on the guy that the fruits of his failure to act might in fact be sitting right in front of him, so he issues a half-assed mea culpa: “I lived with him that year and we had good times, or whatever, but he never talked about things and I never asked.”

This is not the classic Bystander Effect, but it’s a variation that has become progressively pertinent within the current movement against sexual harassment and assault. The original Bystander Effect is a phenomenon that was named by social psychologists John M. Darley and Bibb Latané after the killing of Kitty Genovese in 1964. She was the 28-year-old New Yorker who became a symbol of urban apathy after The New York Times reported that 38 witnesses did nothing while she was attacked twice on her way home early one morning. The number of witnesses and their lack of response was later found to be exaggerated, but the story spurred Darley and Latané to stage a series of experiments publish their results in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1968 under the headline, “Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility.” They observed that in the presence of an emergency, a person who does not intervene is not making a firm choice, but instead vacillating between the costs of helping — embarrassment, harm, time — and the costs of letting the victim suffer. When a group of people were observing the emergency, they discovered, the response was even worse — the more observers, the less likely any one bystander would respond. In the words of Darley and Latané, “given the presence of other onlookers whose behavior cannot be observed, any given bystander can rationalize his own inaction by convincing himself that ‘somebody else must be doing something.’”

But what if the onlookers aren’t strangers? What if they are friends of the perpetrator? Or the victim? This was the scenario with John Meehan, but also musician Ryan Adams, and a number of other men who have been accused of abuse over the past few years. While the “classic Bystander Effect” focuses on diffusion of responsibility, the version in which the victim or the perpetrator are known to the bystanders is a lot more complicated, according to Victoria Banyard. A psychology professor at Rutgers School of Social Work, she has been studying the response and prevention to interpersonal violence for more than 25 years. Colleges like hers have acted as incubators for bystander intervention training programs, boosted by the 2013 United States Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act. And while sexual harassment training has proven to be largely futile (the men most likely to be perpetrators are the least receptive) engaging the community in bystander intervention training has been tremendously effective. “We are all responsible,” says Sharyn Potter, executive director at The University of New Hampshire’s Prevention Innovations Research Center. This is a paradigm shift, one she compares to the drunk driving initiatives of the ’80s, which suddenly flipped the onus from the driver onto the people around them: “It’s really getting to those people that changes the culture.”

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Last week’s New York Times exposé on indie musician Ryan Adams had several women, including singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, accusing the “To Be Without You” singer of emotional abuse. Bridgers told the Times that when she ended their brief romantic relationship, Adams flaked on his offer for her to open for him and withheld the music they recorded together. “Ryan had a network too. Friends, bands, people he worked with. None of them held him accountable,” she wrote on Instagram a few days later. “They told him, by what they said or by what they didn’t, that what he was doing was okay. They validated him. He couldn’t have done this without them.” Two days after her post, Adams’ guitarist, Todd Wisenbaker, apologized for his complicity. He explained, also on Instagram, that he “chose to believe [Adams’] insane version of the truth because it was easier than believing that anyone is capable of being this much of a monster.” It was reminiscent of the facts that later came out about Kitty Genovese’s neighbors: that very few of them saw what was actually happening, that many of them thought they were hearing a garden-variety lovers’ quarrel. In both cases, the perception was that there was no immediate cause for concern so there was no need to cause a fuss.

There are three main reasons bystanders don’t intervene: They fail to recognize the situation, they don’t feel a sense of responsibility, and they don’t feel they have the skills to effectively handle a problem if there is one. Wisenbaker’s reaction gets to the first one. “All of those things that contribute to the silencing of victims also can make bystanders go, ‘Hm, I don’t really know if this is a problem,’” says Banyard. There seems to be a particular blind spot with respect to sexual matters, the taboo around meddling in private matters mixed up with patriarchal holdovers about gender and consent. Not to mention the systemic disregard of abuse victims, which introduces a fourth reason for not intervening: fear of retaliation. “If survivors of sexual violation were believed and valued, across culture, society, and law, that in itself would be a major transformation,” feminist and legal scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon told The New York Times last year. The problem was exemplified in a study of the U.S. Army published that same year, which revealed that most soldiers intervened in some way when it came to suicide or substance abuse, but only half responded to sexual harassment. “Despite the many efforts made by the military to address sexual assault and harassment, 58% of those who report a sexual assault also report being retaliated against, and only 4% of cases result in conviction,” the CEO of the Service Women’s Action Network told CNN.

In this economy, it wouldn’t be far-fetched for employees to question whether it is within their job description to intervene, or if they should just keep their head down in an already precarious job market — while physical safety is a concern on the street, in the office there is the added concern of economic safety. In the Times’ feature on the complicity machine around Harvey Weinstein, Amy Israel, who worked as a head of acquisitions at Miramax, addressed this catch-22: “As a spectator to the abuse you were silenced by the fear that you would become the next target. The only alternative seemingly was to quit — to throw away everything you had worked so hard for and walk out the door.” Even though research shows that letting perpetrators get away with small infractions can lead to larger ones, in an environment that privileges hierarchy over safety there is clearly more motivation to keep quiet than to speak up. Then there are the intersectional factors — are you the only person of color accusing a white boss in an environment surrounded by white colleagues? Are you the only woman accusing a man in a world surrounded by men — what happens then? The experience of Predator star Olivia Munn provides an answer to the second: when she spoke out about working with convicted sex offender Steven Wilder Striegel last year, her male castmates bailed on her. Then there was Jessica Walters, drowned out during a Times roundtable by her male Arrested Development co-stars while discussing Jeffrey Tambor’s abusive behavior towards her. It was noteworthy — and perhaps predictable — that the only person who intervened on Walter’s behalf, Alia Shawkat, is a woman too.

Bystander intervention training involves teaching a person how to identify situations that require it, the various ways to intervene in said situations, and, finally, practicing the strategies that work for that particular person. Sharyn Potter of Prevention Innovations Research Center, which has provided violence prevention training for colleges and the military, says that intervention strategies change according to context. For instance, the way you would respond as a college student (maybe flicking the lights at a party, but not calling the cops because you’re drinking underage) would not be the way you would respond in the office as an adult (maybe by directly confronting a colleague). In both cases, training involves finding a way to intervene that is the most comfortable. “Not everybody can jump into a situation with a superhero cape,” Potter says, “but most of us can do something subtly.” This conjures the image of “Snackman,” the 25-year-old New Yorker munching on a bag of chips who went viral for wordlessly placing himself in the middle of a physical fight on a New York subway in 2012.

While Snackman appeared to be a natural at intervention, training can work just as well. In one study analyzing 6,000 college students across the U.S., participants reported two more instances of intervention in the months after being trained than those who were not. Rutgers’ Baynard thinks part of the reason for the increase is that trainees finally have the tools to be able to follow through. Still, for intervention to be really effective, the entire structure has to be changed. “It’s not enough to just go and train bystanders and say, ‘now you know what to do, go do it!’” Baynard says. “You have to also be training leadership, you have to be changing policy and you have to be changing those organizational norms.” This includes not only acknowledging the abuse of power — see Dirty John scamming retirees — but no longer normalizing it, so that our impulse is not to stand by and giggle at its violation, no matter how minor, but to feel responsible to stop it at source so that it doesn’t proliferate. Summing up the model scenario, Baynard provides a tangible goal for every workplace: “The person who’s going to step in is someone who recognizes the situation, sees themselves as having a sense of responsibility in that situation, has confidence and some degree of skill of what they might do, and is in a context where there are social norms that say helping and everyone taking a role in prevention is important and supported and retaliation against bystanders will not be tolerated.”

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Towards the end of Dirty John, John Meehan’s first wife — the one who met with the friend who rattled off his scams — now divorced, takes her ex’s stash of stolen drugs to the police. The officer she meets is honest about how it looks, like she is a spurned spouse trying to pin a crime on an innocent man. “If you do look into John, you’ll see what this is, who he is,” she argues. “And if you don’t, well, he’ll just keep doing what he’s doing, but at least I’ll know I tried to stop him.” He does look into it and she returns again later to find out what he has uncovered. The cop proceeds to reel off several individuals who have already reported her husband. “Yep, a lot of people knew something was up with John Meehan,” he says, “the bad news is a lot of other people apparently kind of decided it wasn’t their problem.”

It’s the same dynamic that we are currently reckoning with — while Banyard confirms that bystander intervention is more common than generally believed, a lot of other people decide it’s not their problem. Some of these people, who failed to intervene before our recent cultural awakening around sexual violence, have retroactively apologized like the friend in Dirty John (though with far more sincerity). Besides Ryan Adams’ guitarist, there was the high-profile apology by screenwriter Scott Rosenberg, who worked with Miramax from the early ‘90s and admitted in a Facebook post that he and many others knew something about Harvey Weinstein (if not everything) and still did nothing. “Doesn’t being a bystander bring with it the responsibility of telling the truth, however personally disgraceful it may be?” he wrote in 2017. “You know who are. You know that you knew. And do you know how I know that you knew? Because I was there with you. And because everybody-fucking-knew.”

In the case of Weinstein and Bill Cosby and R. Kelly and Michael Jackson and so many other powerful men, suspicions were muffled by money. But even where there is no immediate gain, even if the perpetrator is a relatively small potatoes musician or a little-known con man from Orange County or even one of your coworkers who is not famous at all, it is always more comfortable not to risk being the one who ruins the party, the one who interrupts the passionate date, the one who is labeled the office rat. You’re not the one making the problem, so it’s not your problem, right? This is where a societal shift awaits: Instead of seeing yourself as an isolated individual and intervening as a way of potentially compromising yourself, you must see yourself as what you really are — a member of society, in which intervening is a way of saving not just on person, but all of us. And, anyway, you don’t have to act like a superhero, you just have to act in some small way. “In a way people wouldn’t even really notice,” says Potter, “but the person who is in the situation whose about to be victimized — or being victimized — will notice.”

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Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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lsbuniblog-blog · 6 years

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Time and Progress

Time and progress have both recently become increasingly debatable topics, specifically regarding their intrinsic links and discordant relationship. There is lots to be said about how they behave, both above and below the surface. This essay will examine how the two terms behave, both in relationship to each other as well as their perceived qualities; that being, the notion of time-space compression, spaciotemporality, and the continued trajectory of postmodernity, including the heightened importance of appropriation, in relation to the work of Richard Prince.

To begin with, one must understand the definition of both terms. Oxford dictionaries define ‘time’ as follows; “The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” - Stevenson, A. (2010). Oxford dictionary of English. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. This particular definition is intriguing because of its secondary use of the word, ‘progress’, contextually describing existence. It is clear that the English Oxford Dictionary holds strong modernist views, quantifying progress through time, as to suggest that we as a society, are consistently progressing as time passes us, with no deterioration or counter-progression taking place at any point. Perhaps the reason for this over-simplification of what is a far more complex term, is a result of the clear correlation between time and progress, evident through technological advancements. However, this fails to consider that correlation does not equal causation. To counter this, an example of a disadvantage of postmodern society might include the introduction of nuclear weapons. It is difficult to classify this as progress, as defined by the English Oxford Dictionary.

Time is perceptual. It is not a fixed concept. it is relative to interpretation, and speeds up and slows down accordingly. This is why quantifying it through minutes and hours is in many ways a redundant practice. This only allows us to map out the past and future, like coordinates on a globe. Jorge Luis Borge (1970) states, “Time can’t be measured in days the way money is measured in pesos and centavos, because all pesos are equal, while every day, perhaps every hour, is different.” The Oxford English Dictionary fails to take into account either of these two very important factors; relativity, and time’s discordant relationship with progress.

After questioning the relativity of time, one must consider if the same rules apply to progress. What one person might describe as progress, another might not. The English Oxford Dictionary defines progress as follows; “Forward or onward movement towards a destination.”. The use of the term ‘destination’ assumes a finishing point, which again, is a relative concept. This fails to take into account that what might be one person’s destination, might not be consistent with many other people.

Taking for instance, the shift from Realism into Postmodernism, we can appreciate that it allowed society to develop individual nuances through beliefs, and challenge the sweeping assumptions and generalisations that are perpetuated through Modernism. Postmodernism developed a new epoch of art and media that catalysed individual expression and identity. However, one might argue that this deconstruction of governing conceptualisation and perpetuation of increasingly significant individual expression has consequently led us down a path of narcissism, cynicism, and ultimately isolation. “Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy.” Wallace D, (1996) Infinite Jest. One must question if this is progress, a cultural shift, or even a step backwards.

You can see this transition through portraiture, well before the invention of photography. Whilst the intention of art was to present reality in its truest replication, the art ecosystem stagnated. Take one of the most famous and influential painters from the 17th century; Rembrandt, who was one of the great leaders in the renaissance era. Rembrandt understood light in a way that no other painter did. Rembrandt would argue that the most accomplished painters would be those who were capable of replicating reality in the most mirror like fidelity. However, moving on some years, where abstract works began to emerge, you will notice a shift in intent. No longer is the need for replicating relevant. That job has been made redundant by photography, Instead, postmodern influences push art into adopting notions such as semiotics, and tackling lazy assumptions once relied upon.

There are two main philosophies regarding the movement of time, each relevant, borrowing from each other in some way or another. We start with absolute time, which as the name suggests, dictates time as a linear, 2d structure. It acts only as frame upon which we plan events and record history. “Absolute space is fixed and we record or plan events within its frame.” Harvey, D. (2005). Spaces of Neoliberalization: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. Stuttgart: Steiner, p.94. It is perhaps the most common way that time is viewed. It is currently 10:43am on Tuesday 1st May as I write this, and I know for a fact that offering this information is an accessible way for anyone to visualise exactly how long ago it was, in relation to their position in time. Absolute time also introduces the ability to recall information; I could ask you where you were and what you were doing at this time, and perhaps with the help of a calendar, you would be able to give me an accurate response. However, if I were to ask how long ago this feels, I danger confusing absolute time to one of relativity, because the latter is entirely subjective, whilst the former is not.

The next main structural philosophy regarding time is variation, or relativity within time. This theory addresses the fact that time is experienced at different speeds, depending on the individual. One of the most influential minds denouncing relativity was Einstein, who believed that all forms of measurement depended on the frame of reference of the observer. "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." Einstein A. This premise is referred to as spaciotemporality.

One of the major contributing factors to the relativity of time, is time - space compression, which dictates how as technological improvements are made, space grows smaller. The introduction of global telecommunications, faster transport, and most notably the internet, means that now, sending a message to someone halfway across the world, no longer requires weeks of foot travel, and can now instead be sent virtually instantaneously via text, email, or any one of the many social medium we now heavily rely on. “As space appears to shrink to a global village of telecommunications and a ‘spaceship earth’ of economic and ecological interdependencies - to use just two familiar and everyday images - and as time horizons shorten to the point where the present is all there is, so we have to learn to cope with an overwhelming sense of compression of our spacial and temporal worlds” Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. (p.240).

The interpretation of time also depends on the volume of events that occur within a timeframe. The experience of boredom is only encountered once the body is deprived of sensory stimulation, which causes the experience of time to elongate. On the other end of the spectrum, keeping levels of sensory experience up, catalyses its passing. However this is only short term. Long term side effects of experiencing boredom causes the complete opposite effect. This is the main reason as to why adults in their 50’s, feel as though time passes them faster than whilst we were younger. This causes us to value the time we have more while we have less of it, and to treat it more like a commodity. “The findings support the contention that depressed affect produces a subjective slowing of time” John D. Watt, (1991). Effect of Boredom Proneness on Time Perception. Vol 69, Issue 1, p.323 - 327.

This leads the question of how these state of affairs intend to progress. One of two things might happen. Firstly, stagnation occurs, through technological superiority; technology has advanced so far that it becomes impossible to travel any faster through space, and thus no more progress is made. One must question whether time - space compression will continue in the same trajectory, and what a future world might look like if this were to occur. One must entertain the idea where everything is experienced simultaneously and instantly, all at once. It is difficult to fathom such an idea, however it remains relevant for the duration of this potentially worrying trajectory.

Time can also be broken up into categories based on influences regarding art and media. The phrase, ‘Avante Garde’ is commonly used to demote what is ‘new’, or ‘original’. Cambridge dictionary defines the expression as “The painters, writers, musicians, and other artists whose ideas, styles, and methods are very original or modern in comparison to the period in which they live, or the work of these artists”. Cambridge University Press. (2008) Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Derived from French terminology, ‘Avante Garde’, or ‘Vanguard’ in English, refers to the part of the army that is positioned ahead of the others, with the intention of breaking through the resistance of their adversaries. This aids in defining its current use, that being a style in which artists of all media platforms use which is considered new and original. Artists who use this tactic intend to ‘break through’ mainstream tropes in order to create something new and thought provoking. These works often stir controversy, however successful works are later on appreciated for their contribution to whatever field of media they belong to.

An example of a controversial and ‘Avante Garde’ creation might be Richard Prince’s ‘Malboro Man’ piece, where he took photographs of the Marlboro cigarette campaign by Sam Abell, subsequently selling it for over one billion dollars at Christie's New York in 2005. It was the most a rephotograph had ever been sold for. This is considered ‘Avante Garde’ because of the way that Prince changed how photography and its relationship with art was viewed. By re-appropriating an existing photograph, Prince essentially destroyed the idea that duplicates hold less value than the original, challenging ideas of context, and what makes art art. Prince was one of many different artists who explored context and appropriation, alongside people such as Warhol and Duchamp. “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed” Sontag S (1977) On Photography.

In conclusion, both the terms, ‘time’ and ‘progress’ are absolute and relative depending on their context and individual preference. Both are relevant yet not mutually exclusive. Progress on the other hand is entirely relative, and is conditioned upon individual beliefs and morals. It assumes a destination, yet remains fluid through individual interpretation.

References

Cambridge University Press. (2008) Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Einstein A Geographical Development. Stuttgart: Steiner, p.94. Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. (p.240). Harvey, D. (2005). Spaces of Neoliberalization: Towards a Theory of Uneven Jorge Luis Borge (1970) Sontag S (1977) On Photography Stevenson, A. (2010). Oxford dictionary of English. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Wallace D, (1996) Infinite Jest

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lodelss · 5 years

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‘We Are All Responsible’: How #MeToo Rejects the Bystander Effect

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | February 2019 | 8 minutes (2,357 words)

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Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

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