#but to be real like. everythings in nuance but i think the scariest thing these days is how many people think ao3 actually has mainstream

[piosplayhouse]

love it when people are so slippery slope pilled that under every discourse about censorship someone will inevitably go "ok but what if someone made birth of a nation 2 and reestablished the kkk" when it could not be more obvious that the original poster's statement was just like. About a teenager's underage bakudeku fic or something

#i guess its normal to immediately jump to the extremes but i cant be the only one finding something bizarre about how many people will be #like ' ok but what if i made [cocktail of the worst things imaginable to ever conceive]. right thats why thought crime needs to exist #' like no offense but do you guys hear yourselves.. YOURE the ones coming up with those things no one else said that before you #if you think people should be punished because they thought of something horrible that YOU were thinking about i think by your metric #perhaps you may need to get some help #but to be real like. everythings in nuance but i think the scariest thing these days is how many people think ao3 actually has mainstream #relevance to culture. if one person writes a wincest fic its not going to be projected to 12 million children immediately please be for real #the influence will be very small and extremely combatible realistically #whatevr #fandom discourse #fandom wank

[weareyour4]

Why the Depp vs Heard Trial Scares Me So Much - Annie97

The trial of the moment. Girl vs boy. Accused versus accusee. You can’t have missed it, the trial between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp has been *everywhere* since it first started. You won’t have stepped foot onto a social media platform without coming across an article or thought piece about it. The whole trial has been streamed on YouTube for the world to see.

Now, let me be clear, I am not here to discuss the ins and outs of the trial. I am not here to pass judgment on the two of them. I am here to shed light on the dangerous way in which the world has responded to the events which have taken place over the past few weeks.

Social media is undeniably a useful tool for learning about current events and keeping up with what’s going on as well as having fun, connecting with people; but the first thing I would like to discuss is the frankly, shocking way in which the libel trial which is steeped in domestic abuse allegations has been memeified. From visual memes on Instagram to people literally using the sound of Amber Heard’s voice as a TikTok sound to the sheer amount of Johnny Depp positive memes (which feel reminiscent of actual propaganda), we’ve managed to once again grossly simplify and lighten a grave situation where real people’s lives are at stake. It’s scary that the response to two real people going through something like this can be laughed at and memed in such a casual way. It’s scary the impact this will have on other people’s views of trials like this.

And this brings me onto my next point: regardless of who is guilty and who is innocent, the delight with which the world has brought down Amber Heard is telling. The media relish taking down a woman. Amber Heard represents the perfect scapegoat. And maybe she is guilty - she might be! But she’s also the perfect target for shooting practice. She’s fake, she’s a psycho, she’s lying. She’s lying.

So, here we are again, after everything that women have been through (throughout history), not believing women. And think about every woman (or person of any gender) who has experienced some form of abuse. Think about them watching this and seeing how Amber has been literally ruined for speaking out. Once again, I’m not saying she’s innocent, I just worry about the damage that this situation will have on victims of abuse and their confidence to speak out.

But maybe it’s more complicated than this. Maybe, I am oversimplifying it by even discussing it. I am lacking nuance. And here lies, the scariest thing that this trial has shed light on: we have all ignored the nuance of the situation. Apparently, the world can no longer look at a situation and see the complexity of two individuals having gone through something. Every single person on this earth, and therefore every situation that occurs is inherently, contextual, complex and distinct. And yet, put two celebrities in front of us and one of them simply has to be good, and the other therefore bad. Can we not see that perhaps both of them have a point, and conversely, both of them have been utterly terrible to each other?

If this trial has taught us one thing, it’s that both Amber Heard and Johnny Depp have done some crazy shit. So, let’s call it out for what it is: we don’t know the truth of the matter but what we do know is that people are more complex than good versus bad, and to truly understand a situation, we must appreciate the messy, undefinable and emotional chaos that makes up us humans before we dive into taking sides.

#blog post #depp v heard trial

[trashendence]

Hmm, the nuances of Eddie thinking Buck's respect, but not necessarily his affection, is conditional on Eddie being a firefighter. I like this takr and if you wanted to expound on that I am very interested.

Of course! It’s actually something I believe is so present throughout the whole show and it makes my fingers tingle because ✨characterization✨.

So, for his whole life Eddie has felt the pressure not to disappoint anyone and, especially with his parents, open affection has always been conditional to his behavior; they respect him and his choices only if they agree with them, so that he has to earn every ounce of the affection that ensues. The one choice we’ve seen them openly accept was limited to him being in the Army and becoming a war hero, which is exactly what led Shannon to lose respect for him as a partner and made her leave him and Chris, taking her love away.

When Eddie and Buck first meet on the job, no amount of humbleness or friendliness really makes it through Buck’s walls. What eventually wins him over is a shared dangerous experience on a call, one they manage to get out of solely because of Eddie’s competence. That’s the imprinting, that’s how Eddie – who’s been working so hard to be accepted and really be part of this new team – finally gets to have Buck on his side, have his respect. It’s only after the bomb that Buck’s real personality comes out, they build a relationship based on mutual trust and affection, and Eddie involves him into his privacy. Buck’s love for Eddie gets a life of its own, detached from his respect for Eddie as a professional.

But, for Eddie, getting to know Buck also means understanding how he sees the world and himself, how Buck’s major self-esteem issues do not apply to his perception of the people around him. Buck puts everyone he loves on a pedestal (Bobby is a role model, Maddie knows what she’s doing at all times, Eddie is an amazing father, friend and firefighter). It’s because he loves all of them unconditionally that Buck thinks they’re always in their right mind – so much so that he’s not as worried about Maddie leaving as one would expect and Bobby’s betrayal in S3 completely shakes his world. And Eddie is his best friend, they’re almost the same age, do the same things in their spare time, have the same friends, and they both love Chris like crazy; Buck can’t really keep separate what he would feel in Eddie’s situation – and actually felt at the start of S3 - from how Eddie really functions.

The problem here is that Buck assumes Eddie has a choice in the matter and that, given that choice, he’d obviously come back. It’s only a matter of time, maybe when Chris is a bit older or decides he’s okay with his dad being a firefighter again, then everything will go back to normal. Eddie knows that Buck loves him and Chris no matter what because he’s proved it many times and that his assumptions come from a place of care; what they have is too good to just break for a stupid job and they’re both putting in the work to keep their friendship alive, but…it’s still unearned love. Buck is not his parents, but Eddie takes a lot of cues from him and feels like he has to take the right decision – one Buck would approve of - for Buck to a) understand him and b) respect him. The scariest thing, though, is proving to Buck that he in fact does not have a choice. Eddie keeps his head high and repeats over and over that he is a real firefighter, he likes what he does, and he’ll go back to the 118 as soon as Chris gives him the OK because once the choice is taken away from him, his ability and competence and everything that has ever earned him some respect - the very thing that got Buck to open up in the first place - disappears.

(Sorry for the essay, I’m really passionate abt this xx)

#ask #iri got asked #eddie diaz #evan buckley

[yogaposesfortwo]

Digital Detox? Nah. How to Cultivate Digital Wellbeing

When Jess Davis and I were first scheduled to chat, I didn’t get an answer. I knew that she was planning to spend the day in the woods, and figured it was a reception issue. It’s an appropriate issue for Jess to have—as the founder of Folk Rebellion, a media and lifestyle brand advocating for offline living—a lack of cell reception kind of comes with the territory. When I spoke with her a few days later, she gushed about her experience in a Getaway cabin, a new-ish company founded to help city folks develop a personal relationship with the great outdoors. Jess had been running around for the previous couple of weeks, stressed and overworked, and had gotten sick. Jess’s friend and founder of Getaway insisted she come and stay in a cabin, completely off-grid. Unplugging for a few days was just what the doctor ordered—though it came as no surprise to Jess. A former award-winning brand strategist who thrived for 10 years in a fast-paced, tech-heavy world, Jess had a reckoning that while she’d helped to create a world that was digitally connected, the flip side was a sincere disconnection from the actual, tangible world. She founded Folk Rebellion to help others like her develop a sense of digital wellness and a healthy relationship with their devices. WTF is Digital Wellbeing? “Five years ago, digital detoxing was a way to start the conversation,” says Jess, but notes that an absolute approach may not be the healthiest way to go about digital wellness today. The digital revolution isn’t comparable to something like cigarettes, for example, when it comes to being healthy. “Technology is an amazing tool when used appropriately. For me, it’s digital wellbeing,” she says. “The same way you have wellbeing with nutrition and with exercise, I think that the next form of wellbeing is being digitally well. You can’t rush to yoga, have your juice, take your supplements, and be well if you don’t have a healthy relationship with your technology and your devices,” she says. Jess likens the evolution of digital wellness to the seatbelt revolution in the 1980s. Cars were, point blank, unsafe—and auto manufacturers were reluctant to spend the money to revamp their factories. Ralph Nader led the charge to change mindsets: It wasn’t cars that were dangerous, it was the cars without safety precautions. He successfully lobbied for seat belts, airbags, and stop signs. “I’m not saying that the tech is bad and we need to go without it completely,” says Jess, “but if we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen.”

The Dangers of Digital Overdose Going through the windshield of a car is a significantly more dramatic deterrent, however, than the threat of a sore thumb. Consequences of digital overuse are much more nuanced, and complicated by the fact that digital dependency is, point blank, a revenue model. The more time we spend online—and the more information we share—the more money companies make. “When you think of addiction you think of drugs,” says Jess. “You think of all of these terrible things that you think, ‘Oh, no. Not me.’ When you find out that people are sitting alone and they can’t get off of their phones for like 13 hours a day or a video game, this is addiction.” Jess should know. Before she left her previous life, she absolutely considered her own dependency an addiction. “The experiences that I had and what’s now being documented is a general sense of dissociation from reality,” she says. “A malaise, a feeling of un-wellness 24/7. Inability to focus, memory loss—which was my number one ailment—which now they call digital dementia. It’s terrifying, but it’s literally called that,” she says. If we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen. Overuse can result in myriad consequences. We’re physically rewiring our brains to consume and retain shorter and shorter content, which shortens our attention spans. This can in turn inhibit our ability to be creative and to follow-through with complex tasks. Additionally, there is no shortage of evidence that boredom—space previously unfilled by mindlessly scrolling—spurs innovation. But it’s more than that. “One of the things that they’re finding is the scariest thing to me is that children who studied with an iPad or used and iPad as a learning device from birth till they entered kindergarten versus children who did not,” says Jess. She understands that these can be great learning tools, but when comparing the socialization of these kids, children who used the device were 35 percent less empathetic than the ones who didn’t have it when they entered kindergarten. “What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic?” asks Jess. There’s also the issue of increasing narcissism, which leads to increased rates of depression and isolation. The long-lasting effects of heavy social media use have yet to be determined, but again, there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence that the negative effects of overuse are damaging at the very least. And Jess suspects that there are potential negative effects on physical health as well—she thinks there could be a correlation between the cortisol released when our phones ding, and increasing stress levels that lead to autoimmune disease. “That’s my hunch, anyway,” she says. Corporate Responsibility Just as the doctor who created Frankenstein was ultimately horrified with his invention, Jess says that many of the bigwigs who helped to create Silicon Valley are aware of its dark side. One group, the Center for Humane Technology (the guy who invented the “Like” button and an original founder of Twitter among its founders) is one organization looking to pull back the reins on the creations they put into the world. What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic? “They’ll go to Google, they’ll go to Apple, and they’ll say: ‘This is how you need to start thinking about making things’,” says Jess. “On the other end of the spectrum is me, and organizations like Folk Rebellion. What we’re really trying to do is to educate the consumer.” Jess says the approach to curbing digital addiction should be three-pronged: Organizations funded by the government (ie: education in public schools), corporations, and personal choices. “I think it really starts on a small scale,” she says. “Homes, small businesses, neighborhoods, families, schools—things like that.” Advice for Kicking Your Addiction The first time Jess purposefully went without her phone for a three-day weekend, she says she was forced to face just how dependent she had become. “I’m an introvert at heart,” she says. “What happened was I kept touching my back pocket when I was being introduced to somebody, and I then had this gross realization that I’m cutting off conversations of people I have just met because I’m uncomfortable and I have this sort of get-out-of-jail-free card in my back pocket,” she says. The first step Jess recommends to digitally detox is to truly get rid of everything. Keep a pen and paper handy, and jot it down every time you think of your phone, touch your pocket, or feel uncomfortable without it. “Then you start to understand your triggers,” says Jess. “Once you have that, you go back to the real world and you have to start to set these boundaries in balance.” Jess only checks her email Monday through Friday, at specified times. She keeps her cell number private. She gave herself the rule that she no longer scrolls while in motion—that includes the subway, while walking, or in a car. “It’s just creating space,” says Jess. “If you can slice off and put these little hatch lines throughout your day of space that you can expand that doesn’t have the digital or the tech in it, that’s where you’re starting to create that better balance of it.” The other thing she’s done is to reintroduce tangible mediums where possible. “I use tech all day—I’m a creator on the computer,” she says, “and so when I don’t have to be working, I go back to the forms that I used to love before these devices kind of consumed everything. I have magazine subscriptions. I actually carry physical books.” Despite that they’re heavier, for Jess, it’s a relationship worth the weight. Bottom line? Technology isn’t the enemy—it can be a powerful tool to connect, which can enhance your relationships and make life easier. Allowing the digitized world to make life too easy, however, is the trap. As yogis know, balance is the key. Author: Lisette Cheresson Source: https://wanderlust.com/journal/digital-detox-uk/ Discover more info about Yoga Poses for Two People here: Yoga Poses for Two Read the full article

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Hellboy (2019)

I know nothing about the Hellboy mythos. Somehow I missed the original Guillermo del Toro film from 2004 and its sequel, The Golden Army. Since we live in a world where any property from 15 years ago is considered ancient history, director Neil Marshall brings us the reboot starring David Harbour as the titular demon working for the good guys who’s trying to stop the forces of evil from taking over. Pretty typical stuff, but surely if they’re rebooting the series that means they have a new take, a new direction for a character who is born of darkness and blood but has been raised to fight for the forces of good, right? Well...

This may come as a shock, but uh, nah none of that happened. Rather than a nuanced, emotionally complex origin story, we get a bloody, garish, muddled mess that not even some fun performances from Harbour and his adopted dad, Ian McShane, can salvage. That’s not to say there aren’t some entertaining moments or engaging sequences, but overall this feels like way too much crammed into one film, and it leaves the whole thing feeling pointless and overly busy.

Some thoughts:

First thing’s first, I want a title as badass as “The Queen of Blood” so if any of my followers want to work something up for me, that would be great. Related: our main antagonist, Milla Jojovich, has not aged a god. damn. day. 

I want Ian McShane to narrate everything in my life. Audiobooks, GPS directions - everything. 

I can’t help but feel that this plan to defeat The Queen of Blood is literally the exact same as the plan to defeat The Judge in Buffy. They say there are no new stories under the sun, but c’mon guys.

I know it’s for the comedy, but Hellboy...why would you not operate the phone with your normal sized hand, my dude.

One of the only highlights is the chemistry between Ian McShane and David Harbour. To be fair, though, I think Ian McShane could probably have great chemistry with a phone book.

I have never seen the Guillermo del Toro films, but I do know that his monster designs are basically the highest of A-plusses. So the standards are definitely high, but I thought the monster designs here were suitably grotesque and actually scary. At one point, there’s a giant fire vagina and a bunch of hell creatures all hanging out together. It’s great. 

Like can we talk about Baba Yaga? Because Baba Yaga is the scariest thing I have EVER SEEN. And you might say ok, well I’ve seen monsters that look kind of like her before (I’m thinking Der Kindestod from Buffy and now I’m wondering if the writers owe Joss Whedon some kind of royalties or something). But have you ever seen a monster like her that also has boobs made out of bones? I think not.

Did...did Nazis have their own special 3D glasses?

Are we supposed to know who this Lobster guy is? It seems like he’s significant, but the movie explains nothing about him really. 

So there’s a warthog man who kills indiscriminately but still wears a loincloth...and can eat....people’s...voices. This is right around where the movie loses me.

It’s also really bloody. Just like...super bloody. Like Kill Bill Vol. 1 bloody but without the fun fantastical revenge plot. Some of the gore is fun, like the epic fight scene with the giants, but after awhile it stars to feel less fun and campy and more “I need a fucking shower.”

Daniel Dae Kim is just so goddamn hot.

I did greatly enjoy the soundtrack.

Some gems - David Harbour’s yelling confrontation about being used as a weapon to kill monsters

And the biggest problem is that so much is happening? Inexplicably? Well, they explain it...but it all is just SO MUCH. It feels like a Stefon bit - there’s a guy with a deer head as a hat. Psychics can vomit up ghosts so they can talk to people. EXCALIBUR IS THERE. 

So the implication here is that Arthur, a Briton king who died in the 5th century, is buried beneath St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Did I Cry? There may have been a very mild tearing up during Ian McShane’s big dad speech, but I attribute that more to Ian McShane’s general Dadness than to any emotional heft from the script itself.

Basically everything going on here is a big overstuffed shitpile with some glimmers of real interesting gems peeking through. All the interpersonal interactions between Hellboy and his father are really excellent, and the cast is giving it their all with what they have. I think if this had focused on being either an origin story or a big mythology/destiny extravaganza, it could have been much stronger, but as it is, you’re probably better off sticking to the del Toro originals. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#119in2019 #hellboy #hellboy 2019 #hellboy review #hellboy 2019 review #david harbour #ian mcshane #milla jovovich #movie reviews #film reviews

[drewandhardy]

#cluecrewquestionnaire             

1. What is your favorite Nancy Drew game and why? Ghost of Thornton Hall! My Nancy Drew Holy Grail. This game just does everything right. The backstory of the Thornton family is beautiful and terrible and is the backbone of this game. The cast of characters are amazing. Clara, Wade, Harper -- all tragically complex and interesting. I’ll even throw Frat Boy Colton a bone here and say he added something to the story. Harper is straight up modeled after Helena Bohnem Carter in every role ever (though she most closely resembles Bellatrix Lestrange, probably). I absolutely loved hunting through the graveyard and reading old books to find out more about this family, their past, and this bizarre little southern island they live on. (Side note: Do tiny pieces of real estate like this exist off the coast of Georgia? Okay, I have consulted GoogleMaps and it appears they do. Making a note to visit.) The setting is just gorgeous, in the dreary, creepy way you would expect it to be. It reminded me of the abandoned town of Spectre from Big Fish. In fact, the whole thing has an eerie but beautiful Tim Burton-esque vibe to me. You have some amazing spaces to explore, including locked doors and hidden tunnels to boot. Puzzles are on point. Every puzzle in this game is going to help you advance the plot; nothing is sending you on benign errands. This was just seriously an awesome game. It’s the first ND game I’ve played in the Blahunka era, and it really opened a door to some of my other series favorites.

FIN, DDI, SPY, and TRT probably round of my top 5. 

2. Have you played all 32 games in the series? If not, which ones haven’t you played? If yes, which one did you play first? I played MHM first, back in the day. Nothing like a little Abby seance to turn you on to a series. 

Though I’ve been play since I was a wee baby jr. sleuth, I really rediscovered the series about 3 years ago. Still haven’t hit some of the more clunky sounding ones: White Wolf, Venice, Twister, Ransom, Medallion (started it but I can’t get through this gd game). I also still haven’t played DED or ASH but definitely looking forward to those. 

3. What is your favorite line from any character in the series? Because I’m fresh off of SPY, I’m going to say “Be good. Be a little bad.” 

4. If you could change the ending to any game, which one would it be (no spoilers, though)? Less jet packs.

5. Which game is your least favorite, and why? I mean, SCK is obviously not the biggest thrill, but damn I really hated fucking Castle Malloy. I thought I was going to love this concept: An upcoming wedding at a dilapidated castle in Ireland, where the groom suddenly goes missing?! SIGN ME UP, I SAY. But I really ate my words. This game is such a tedious slog to get through. Kyler, the bride in question, sits on her ass reading her damn book while you go on a wild goose chase for her husband. (Wild goose chase is hardly even figurative: there’s a damn chase-sheep-give-them-mohawks puzzle for christ sake.) The puzzles are long, and you frequently have to hunt down several missing pieces before you can even start said puzzles. The ending has to be some of the most bizarro, half-baked writing the Nancy Drew series has ever seen. Not to mention, the final sequence was one of the most infuriating things I’ve ever experienced (and I’m not even certain that this is hyperbole). I blew myself up approximately 35 times before - in a fit of rage - I Googled what nuanced methodology I needed to master in order to simply lift a bottle. 

6. Which character is your favorite? Why? Oy, probably Dagny. But give me dem Hardy Boys any day. Also, Hilda Swenson. And Renate (CAP). And Viv (DOG). I tend to enjoy the old eccentric ladies. 

7. Which character is your least favorite? Why? I’m pretty sure Holt Scotto (DDI) is part of the alt-right, so.

8. How do you feel about the whole Nancy/Ned vs. Nancy/Frank situation? Do you ship her with someone else? Who, and why? Patiently waiting for Nancy and Frank’s love story to arise in MID. 

9. Do you have any fun headcanons about any of the games or characters? DAN is based off of The Devils Wears Prada. 

10. If you could visit any of the locations of the games, which ones would they be and why?

That absolutely wild underworld set in LIE (someone explain why you build an elaborate set UNDER the stage instead of on it...)

Dry Creek (SHA)

Thornton’s bouge island

All the cool Pacific Northwest locations in DDI -- lighthouse, island, whale cave, etc

Wickford Castle

Royal Palladium 

The Train

11. Did you read any of the original Nancy Drew books? If yes, do you like them? If no, would you consider reading one? I have not! But absolutely. Someone recommend the best one to me!

12. What is one thing any good detective can’t live without? Locked shit.

13. Which game had the best soundtrack? I really liked the Irish-y jig music in DDI and HAU. 

14. What is one thing you wish HER would’ve included in any of the games (a conversation, interaction, location, feature, etc.)? I want a decent explanation of what happened in past-Germany in CUR. As in, we know who’s responsible for the monster games in present day, but they sure as shit weren’t alive in the olden days. 

15. Do you have any ideas for a future game? What is it? Maybe a game base around the witch trials or something?

16. How long does it take you to finish a game from start to finish? Depends! Replays I can usually do in a single sitting, but first plays will take me a few days. 

17. Did any of the games scare you? If yes, which ones? If no, why? Hell yeah, MHM scared the shit out of me when I was little. That “I see you” is like straight out of the Chamber of Secrets. Now that I’m an adult, some of my scariest thoughts are routed in my family falling apart. GTH and SAW and SPY definitely get to me in a psychological way. Thanks Blahunka, you twisted human.

18. Why did you join the Nancy Drew fandom here on tumblr? I have no real-life humans to talk these things through with, so thank you for being my internet humans. 

19. What is your favorite Nancy Drew joke (from in-game or even floating around the internet)? In game, it’s gotta be the mom jeans shade from SPY. On the internet, all of the “It’s Locked” puns. 

20. Who is someone in the clue crew you’ve always wanted to get to know? All of ya!

21. What are three unpopular opinions you hold about the games? 1. CUR is overrated. 2. LIE is underrated.  3. Lukas > Jane Penvellyn any damn day. I love playing Monster and hate playing damn “Go Dig.” 

22. Do you have any fun theories about any of the games? I really think that if Blahunka stayed on, we would have gotten a Nancy/Ned break up at some point, and then a Nancy/Frank relationship later on. 

23. Who was your favorite animal character featured in the games? Whale friend from DDI. 

24. Do other people in your life know about your love for Nancy Drew? Yes! I’m constantly trying to get others to play!

25. How long have you been playing these games? Since about 2001. 

26. What’s your favorite in-game backstory/history?

Ballad of Dirk Valentine and Francis Humbert; it’s truly the beating heart of SHA and the greatest love story in the series history. 

The random hilarity of all Jake Hurley’s famous friends in TRN (he’s basically Tahani). Like, they seriously worked the Lincoln Assassination into this shit?? It’s amazing. 

TRT, but more for the Wickford story than for the Marie Antoinette story. (When I played this as a child, I became obsessed with Marie Antoinette as a result of this game. I was too young to realize how ridiculous it is that Marie Antoinette’s tower was mysteriously in Wisconsin. I’m now too old to see through that ridiculously convenient pothole.)

Mickey Malone, his bombass girlfriend Vivienne, and his cool speakeasy. 

Everything about the history of the Thorntons. 

27. What is your favorite cut scene? Oh my god that damn junk shop in CRY. WHY WHY WHY.

#clue crew #nancydrew #herinteractive #cluecrew

[namelessblacksheep]

LESSONS IN THE GAME OF LIFE

Let’s face it, the one universal truth that anyone who has been on the planet can agree on: life is hard. If you are currently sat there shaking your head vehemently denying this then congratulations you have made it, or alternatively, you haven’t and just avoid anything and everything in your life.

The thing is no one ever said life was meant to be easy. If you look at what the point of life is, you may come up with a thousand answers from a thousand different people.

Everyone’s unique take on the purpose of life will be nuanced by the idiosyncratic conceptualisation of their own life and associated hopes, dreams, challenges and so forth. However, if we bring it back to a basic process, life is simply changing through the ages and stages we pass through. The more successfully we navigate these challenges and experiences the more likely we will report having a ‘good life’.

For me at least, life is about problem-solving my way through every day, week, month and year. The rinse cycle and repeat until the day comes when my time is up. Not very romantic or eloquent I know, but having been here long enough to see a few cycles come and go, that’s the way I see it.

Life is going to throw stuff at you every day and how you deal with it is ultimately going to decide your own evolution and experience. If you avoid problems, they may go away for a bit, but the chances are until you address and master them, there’s only so far your evolution can go.

If you imagine life is a video game, with various levels and end bosses to defeat to progress to the next one, the only way you can win the game is to get through all the stages and master all the challenges.

Sometimes you learn something at one stage that is essential to be mastered to even be able to navigate one later. What if you had to learn to swim in stage one because in stage three the whole level was under water? If you were to somehow find a way to cheat your way through, you’re eventually going to get stuck later on and in all likelihood go back and graduate from stage one anyway. If you want to progress that is.

To extend the metaphor a little further, when we consider ourselves as a player in this game, our character will have various strengths and weaknesses that will help or hinder them along the way. Throughout that process we utilise our respective strengths and address our weaknesses to successfully navigate the stage, but so can other characters with different skill sets.

I guess the point I am making is that there is no definitive way to achieve something, you have to problem solve with what you have and you don’t have it, seek to find a way to obtain it.

The end of level boss is the equivalent of a test or examination to check that you have learned all you need to. This is basically giving you the license to say that whatever shit you encountered down there on level one, you cleaned it up real good. Or to invoke the spirit of the Ghostbusters, ‘you ain’t afraid of no ghost’, so give me my £200 and let me pass go. You get the point.

The thing is like any game or exam until you learn the required knowledge to proceed and successfully apply it to defeat the boss, you will keep repeating the challenge until it’s done. Should the same challenge ever appear at a later stage, and it will, you should assuming you did the work, be able to vanquish it with relative ease next time around.

Not everyone will win the game of life. Some will get stuck on a level and choose to replay it over and over again and sometimes go back a couple of levels just because they are happy to be masters of levels one through three. Some will plough through and find themselves unable to get past one bit and just give up playing at all and go seek some other game to play instead. Others might come back one day and try again with renewed vigour.

Those that cheat their way through the levels, might get to the victory stage pretty easily, but in reality, what did they learn? Chances are that when life changes the game unexpectedly, they won’t do well on level 1, whilst the true gamers will zip through the preliminaries with ease.

Okay, so enough with the video game metaphor. The point of this article is to summarise some key lessons that I have learned that may or may not be of use to people. I don’t really believe in ‘how to’ approaches to life, people that seek these out are often looking to find the shortcut to success, or to go back to the game metaphor ‘the cheat codes’. Instead, the approach is more to give some considerations, approaches and values to embrace.

The work always has to be done, but knowing where to start or reminding yourself to get back to the basics is always useful. So, the only promise here is that what is shared is to the best of my knowledge and will only be of any use if you put in the work and application to your own approach to the game.

So here’s a reservoir of knowledge and experience for you. It’s up to you whether you take a sip or wade in and the application of it is for you to tailor and adapt to your own experience.

There are no shortcuts to success

Let’s start this off the right way. The best shortcut to anything is doing it the right way as soon as possible and to keep doing it consistently over time.

Anyone who has been on a named fad diet will tell you that whilst they may have lost a lot of weight in a short time, chances are it came at a price or with consequences. Maybe they lost a bunch of weight, but didn’t lose all the fat they wanted to and therefore were just a skinner version of their fat selves. They didn’t achieve their goal and when they started eating normally again, they not only regained the weight, but they gained even more than they started. Because of the way they went about it, they got saggy skin and harmed their health because they were effectively starving themselves or not engaging in good nutrition.

The above is obviously a worst-case scenario, but you can apply it to anything. Shortcuts are just short-term solutions that in the long run can often turn out to be diversions from your original course. It can often mean taking longer to reach your actual goal. Don’t avoid the hard work required to get to where you want to be. In the end, it will probably be the shortest journey with the longest lasting impact.

If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know you have arrived?

Too often people set off on a course without really having any goal or destination in mind. They plough all of their energy and effort into something because they think they’ll just figure it out along the way. Two years down the road when their brain engages, they start to look around and think ‘what am I doing, why am I not fulfilled?’

Whilst we cannot always map out every part of our lives to the specific details, it is good to have an idea of what it is you actually want to achieve even if it’s only in the short term. Giving endless amounts of time and effort to something that isn’t fully formed as a goal or destination can mean incorrectly preparing for the journey and potentially being very dissatisfied at some later point when you realise that you have in fact just been going around in circles so long that you now find yourself in a bit of ditch of your own making.

Setting a few goals for a defined period gives a sense of control and structure for your life. If you don’t like committing to something you can’t get out (mobile contract anyone?) then just commit to something for a week or a month and see how it pans out. If you feel it’s leading you in the right direction then you can plan a bit further ahead, if not, you haven’t lost much ground.

Ultimately though, if you don’t really know what you want then maybe the first thing you should commit to is finding out what that is and then plan the steps to get there.

If you want to get fit and then just turn up to a gym and sign up for a year, but don’t really consider what you are going to do when you are there means a lot of wasted time, money and effort with no results. Don’t just follow the crowd, be purposeful and deliberate.

If you find yourself doing something just because everyone else is doing it, congratulations you are now back at school desperately trying to fit in with shit you probably don’t care about.

Your life should be as meaningful and enjoyable as possible. Given the trials and tribulations you are going to go through, you have to safeguard some ‘me’ time to do as you please.

The more you can make all aspects of your life true to who you are the better your own existence and experience will be. If you are compromising who you are just to get a job or be with someone, then chances are that isn’t going to stand the test of time.

You are who you are and you should embrace that and seek to become the best version of you that you can. By doing so you will attract the people and opportunities you want into your life.

Embrace the unique person you are and don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. the crowd or group that alienate you for being yourself are just a bunch of people too scared to level up and they are just recruiting to make themselves feel safer about their own lack of courage to stand out.

The only group you should ever aspire to be part of is one that looks to grow and develop and is accepting of difference. Fitting in and conforming to the loudest and scariest voice is not that dissimilar to signing up to be a Nazi, and we all know how that ended.

Challenge your bad habits and replace them with better ones

We are an aggregation of our habits. Therefore, our lives are a product of all of our habits combined. A bit of simple maths will tell you how good your life is and how far it can go. If you have a series of bad habits, they are likely to breed new bad habits in response to the effects of said habits and before you know it you are drowning in a pool of bad habits.

It’s not easy to address habits, but figuring out the cues and triggers is the key to trying to change the associated responses. Habits don’t have to be limited to behaviours, they can be thought processes. The thing about habits is they can be changed and when you start to address one, pretty soon you will find that you are addressing others at the same time because of the interdependencies between them.

Even you don’t eliminate all of your bad habits, the aggregation over time will mean a better life than had you continued down the road of collecting new bad ones.

You are responsible for your own happiness

It was a friend of mine who said this to me one day and it really stuck with me. I think in a world full of so many other people and so many distractions it is very easy to constantly be looking outside of ourselves for things that make us feel a particular way.

Some people will go looking for that perfect partner that will validate their place in the game of life and others, having found this person, may desire a family because that too gives their life some form of meaning.

Other people will seek out a career or vocation that resonates with who they are and others will pursue material things and life experiences because these will provide tangible evidence of their time on the planet and thus through some fucked up mathematics that is beyond comprehension, this means they should be happy.

Your happiness is probably best found by looking inwards and being the best person you can be. Learning to accept and care for yourself means that all of the above will be shaped by being true to who you are.

Someone or something else cannot make you happy, perhaps they can accentuate that happiness and enhance your life in some way, but ultimately if you are not content with who you are and what you have to offer the world then you won’t be happy in the long run.

For anyone, vehemently rejecting this concept because their partner makes them so very happy indeed, ask yourself this: do you make them happy back? You might be constantly taking from them just to be happy and if they aren’t getting anything in return then the situation may not last forever.

You have to take responsibility for your own life because if you are relying on someone else all the time, life will find a way to make you realise this. Plus, if you truly love that person who makes you happy, make sure you’re giving as good as you get.

If you must have expectations, only have them for yourself

The game of expectations can be a perilous lesson for us all. How many times do we allow ourselves to be let down and disappointed by people and situations that fail to meet our expectations? Too often. Also, when you are the one who is subject to other people’s unrealistic expectations that can be pretty galling too. Fuck everyone else, focus on you.

If you think you should be doing something because it’s for your own good, then do it and leave it at that. Don’t start putting your own expectations out there for people to be aware of, because those fuckers will hold you to it. You know what I mean, you’re just about to destroy a triple chocolate slab of cake and some asshole says ‘but I thought you were on a diet’. Now that sumptuous cake is going to taste like a concoction of shit and guilt that is going to turn your stomach. That’s not what cake is supposed to taste like.

Likewise, don’t place your bullshit expectations on someone else’s shoulders either. If your partner is not conforming to the Photoshopped body image that is out there each day and you think they should be hitting the gym, well fuck you, basically.

If you want to look like a gym model then crack on and if you want your partner to look like that, pick someone who already does look like that. Chances are someone who meets your expectations is out of your league anyway (and that works both ways ladies and gents).

From a situational perspective, if you are committing hours of toil and effort towards your work in the hope that it might lead to a promotion, don’t get disappointed if it never happens.

Nothing in this life is guaranteed, and we have a habit, we humans of creating carrots to chase that was never going to be there anyway. If you do all that extra stuff because it may one day pay off, it probably will, but just maybe at a different company or in ways, you can’t yet fathom.

Bottom line if you are going to do something because you think that’s the way it should be, all power to you, but not everyone has to agree with you or follow you for that matter. Do it for you and do it because you see the value in it and sod everyone else.

Commit to positive self-talk

A little self-deprecation doesn’t hurt anyone right? Well, that ultimately depends on the audience and how long you beat a dead horse narrative. If you are one of those people who is terrified of being thought of by others in a bad way, so in order to neutralise uncomfortable situations you resort to putting yourself down, to appear non-threatening, then stop.

Being able to laugh at yourself is an admirable trait, but either do it when alone or in trusted company. There are plenty of Clint and Cynthia’s out there (basically the C word applied to respective genders) who will capitalise on this and start to use it for their own fun. Pretty soon you have put yourself in a position where you have inadvertently created a narrative about yourself that others now feel they can wade in on. These people tend to lack the ability to laugh at themselves, but they are grandmasters in piling misery on others.

If you are giving them the bullets, pretty soon those fuckers are firing at will like a crazy person with a Gatling gun. Don’t arm them. Instead, start to commit to speaking about your more admirable traits and you don’t even have to talk about yourself, act in accordance with the things that make you fun and interesting. Own like a boss and feel good about yourself.

At the end of the day, haters are going to hate anyway, at least this way you are not giving someone the power to slap you in the face. In all likelihood, the less desirables will talk behind your back or try to tear you down. See it as a chance to become more resilient and applaud yourself for not welcoming assholes into your life. Kill them with kindness and smiles, they fucking hate that. Stay in your own lane and ignore the bullshit billboards

With the rise of technology and social media, we are constantly bombarded by an array of blatant and subliminal marketing messages. These don’t just come from companies anymore, they have somehow co-opted ‘Celebrities’ and even some of your ‘friends’ into perpetuating these mythical fantasies.

If you were to believe everything that is thrown at you every day, you would be excused for thinking you’re in some Twelve Monkeys re-run or stuck on some level in Inception. It’s so very confusing you’re just like, what the actual fuck is going on here. The way a lot of people counter this is to pick a persona to conform to and follow and like all the shit everyone else in that particular echo chamber follows mindlessly. This is where you should revisit the part about following the crowd.

Bullshit billboards are the fake presentations of a great life, or more accurately a depiction of a life that appears to be better than yours. It can be quite enticing to think ‘holy cow, everyone is doing so much better than me’ and then to dive in and join them for fear of missing out. This would be a monumental mistake.

Have confidence in yourself and be true to yourself and just keep driving in your own lane. Eventually, when you get to your destination like a rock star, those billboards will likely have been replaced with a new bullshit narrative or be a dilapidated effigy to something that was never real in the first place.

If you are too busy being bothered by what is going on in the ‘real world’, which is basically code for the Matrix of bullshit we want you to be terrified of, you won’t be focused on the task at hand. Your journey is for you to travel along, if you’re busy looking up at other people’s bullshit billboards then you may crash, or if you are putting up billboards of your own then you aren’t really moving along with the times.

If you are truly happy and content with your lot, you won’t give two shits about anyone else’s. You also wouldn’t need to be seeking validation from others. If you post stuff on social media because you are looking for likes and comments, do the right thing and have a word with yourself.

If you must believe in anything, believe in yourself

If it is meaningful to you to believe in God, or Angels or the fucking Cookie Monster, that’s entirely your choice. However, if you allow these things to have power over you because of some superstitions or old wives tales that you have internalised, you need to address that.

Not taking action because ‘it’s not God’s way’, or signing a work contract because oh shit Mercury is in retrograde and that means my legs will fall off, or some other nonsensical justification to do or not do something is ultimately to your detriment. The most powerful being when it comes to your life and day-to-day experience is you numb-nuts.

I cannot prove or disprove God or anything else beyond the realms of normal human experience, but I’m fairly confident that the almighty powers above are not sat there waiting on your call. You have to crack on and do what needs to be done in this world. If believing that some higher power is backing you brings you comfort then cool, but ultimately, the person (or God) that makes real shit happen in your world is you.

There are plenty of folk on this ball of land and water who would quite happily play the role of God in your life if you let them. They tend to be a bunch of self-serving ‘Clints’ and ‘Cynthias’, who couldn’t give a shit about you. The only person who really does is you.

Never underestimate the power you have at your disposal to do good in this world, and you don’t even have to do anything for someone else. Be a selfish bastard and make yourself a better person, a stronger, healthier and more educated person than you are now. Then whoops, by focusing on yourself so much it turns out the world immediately becomes a better place and perhaps you feel up to extending your knowledge to help others. What a horrible selfish individual you are!

Imagine a world where everyone was so selfish and self-centred that they all became better people and just started to project more positive stuff from within themselves out into the world. That sounds like a truly horrible place, or does it?

For the ardent and fanatical believers, I’m not questioning your beliefs. If you want to believe in some beardy dude on a cloud that is absolutely your right, if you want to be offended by my attempt at humour just then, that too is your right. But consider this: in the vast expanse of the Universe, each human is but a mere grain of sand on a random beach of many.

Do you really believe the Almighty gives a crap whether a tidal wave washes you away? There is a certain amount of free will involved in life even for the most zealous supporter of Big G, so crack on and do something good.

Be grateful for shit, even if it sucks

The key here is to look around your life and be grateful for the good things in amongst the things you could change. In an alternate reality where all your stuff is replaced and you now only have all the things you craved, it’s highly likely that there is a bunch of stuff that you wish had come along for the ride. Perhaps you could imagine your perfect vision of your life and see what the old stuff that is part of that picture. That is the shit you really should be grateful for. It’s easy to forget sometimes the things that matter that we take for granted.

The more grateful you are for the things that matter, the more chance there is for you to work towards completing that picture in the future. If you are starting from a point of view that you have nothing worthy of a life or to be grateful for then you aren’t looking hard enough.

Life is like a giant puzzle, each of us has our own picture to complete, but there are often pieces missing. The key is: hold on to that outline that you have built to date and then start to add to it one step at a time. Over time you will achieve your puzzle box image and you will have ensured that none of the other foundational pieces went missing along the way.

Not everything we should be grateful for though has to be good for us. We should learn to be grateful for life’s challenges. I know that’s a stretch, but the truth is life is an endless struggle and once we master one thing we are almost immediately faced with another, but the joy should be moving on to the next challenge because that means you passed the other test.

What if you got stuck at one juncture and could never move forwards? Be grateful when one challenge leaves your life and no one comes along, it means you are ready for the next step in your training.

I think one thing I have learned over the years is to be grateful for the wisdom and knowledge people are willing to share with you for free. Sometimes, we hear it at a point when we are not ready and dismiss it or put it down in some way. ‘That sucks’. However, one day that free gift may become that tiny puzzle piece that joins the major parts together and you will be grateful for it then.

They say, nothing in life is free. But every day when someone offers you words of wisdom or you go online to do some research remember there is no requirement for people to put those words out there or for you to take it, but it ultimately costs you nothing. If it doesn’t ring true for you then move on and if it does then great.

Sometimes it takes many different bits of information from a variety of places to meet the need that we have. If someone doesn’t have the exact answer for you but moves you in the right direction be grateful, they just provided you with the equivalent of a shortcut and it’s your responsibility to figure out stuff for yourself.

Whilst I have just given an example of something in life that is free, I’d go so far to say that if you are getting something for nothing, maybe when the opportunity presents itself you should pay it forward to someone else. As if you are repaying a debt or kindness. It might change someone’s life.

Conclusions

The above list is far from exhaustive and I imagine at some point I will conduct a similar exercise focusing on a raft of other approaches or mantras that could make a difference. If life is a journey and we are all on different ones that would mean that there are countless roads to travel along. That would also mean many skills and experiences needed to successful ascend to the next level.

At the foundation of all of these for me are a few fundamentals. You have to take responsibility for your own life. You have to accept that shit is going to happen even if you lock yourself in a rubber room in a padded suit. You are going to get beaten up one way or another and if you don’t like it, start training yourself as a Ninja for life. Commit to doing things that build you and make you better than you were yesterday, no matter how small.

Don’t expect others to do stuff for you or to show you the way. But if they do, don’t be an ungrateful little shit about it, be thankful and when you are able to pass it on to the next person.

If you are waiting around to see if you are one of the chosen ones, let me save you time: the chosen ones are those who chose to believe that they are not. They are the ones who get up and go because they believe they deserve better, whatever that is, and they don’t rely on anyone or anything else to elicit change. All these illusions about something bigger being in control only serves to mean that those who bow to it will be controlled.

If you allow yourself to give in to your fears, or to give away your power to someone else just to fit in. You are effectively locking yourself in cell and giving a Clint or Cynthia the key. They will collect you and others like you and feed off of your power like a bunch of energy Vampires to serve their own cause. They don’t mind not getting to the higher levels when they can become the boss on the one you are stuck on.

Be you and strive for a better version. You’ll attract people who are more like you and going to prove useful for the journey ahead, then you don’t need to worry so much about fitting in. Just being you will be enough for these fellow travellers and you may teach others a thing or two. You don’t know everything, fuck, you probably don’t know shit and that’s okay because most of us are in the same boat. The ones who look like they have it all figured out are just erecting bullshit billboards at the end of the day. Or on occasion, they have successfully navigated the path you are on and are all too willing to impart a thing or two.

The more you embrace your power, the quicker your inbuilt bullshit detection system will kick in.

Where there is knowledge to be gained, don’t immediately assume the 'monkey see, monkey do' approach. The game of life doesn’t gift wrap anything. Sometimes within a package is a nugget of insight to help you along your way, but you have to apply it or break into it in a way that makes it useful. If someone handed you a toilet roll, you wouldn’t expect them to wipe your arse for you too now, would you?

There’s no reason that knowledge and its application should be any different. Now, if you can’t wipe your own arse, metaphorically speaking, perhaps that’s where the focus of your efforts should be.

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” - Carl Jung.

#habits #lifestyle #life #yolo #positivevibes #positivethinking #change

[nettvnow-blog]

Hazel Jeffs | Away From It All

A recent English graduate with a passion for web series, Hazel Jeffs is excited to have brought to life her modern take of Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy in her web series, Away From It All (AFitA). Learn more about the series below!

netTVnow: Can you share with readers a quick synopsis of the series how you’ve turned it into a modern web series?

Hazel Jeffs: In Far From the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba Everdene is an orphaned milkmaid who inherits her uncle’s large farm and fortune. The novel focuses on Gabriel Oak (Bathsheba’s unfortunate shepherd who once proposed to her before her change of fortune) and his enduring love for her as she attempts to run the farm as a single woman and navigates the attentions of the local gentlemen, with tragic consequences. 

Our modernized version sees Ellie Bathsheba Everdene (Deborah Couch) as a 21 year-old waitress who turns away from her sad home life, and the attentions of vet student Gabriel (Edward Gist), for a new start as the colourful landlady of a village pub. Her companion of the novel, Liddy (Anna Lloyd), is now an amateur vlogger who records the interesting newcomer’s attempts to win over the village and encourages her romantic life, unaware that the pub’s new waiter knows Bathsheba of old. The story is primarily seen through the private videos and multimedia content stored on Bathsheba and Gabriel’s phones as well as Liddy’s in-world vlogs.

netTVnow: Your series prides itself on having broken the mold of traditional literary web series, what were the key differentiators?

HJ: Back in it’s earliest conception, Away from it All was going to be a fairly low-key literary New Media project where the story would just be told through social media accounts and the texts, notes, images and maybe a couple of videos on the two protagonists’ phones with a big focus on the way characters presented themselves to different people and audiences as opposed to who they were in their private lives, we ended up diverging from that a lot in development, especially with the addition of Liddy’s vlogs, which brought us back into more established LIW territory, but I think you can still see the roots of it in how we still use the phones and transmedia as a whole. Other literary series such as Rex, The Misselthwaite Archives and Serena Berg have used “out of world” videos, but I think our framing for them is unique and it negates a lot of the “why would you post this/why hasn’t every character seen this” angst that a lot of other series have to negotiate. 

It’s not necessarily a unique thing but, as someone for whom watching and discussing every Literary Web series I could get my hands on has been a large and joyful part of my life for the last four years leading a writing team of LIW fans and creators, I think we were very conscious of the tropes used again and again in other series. A lot of these (“The Tour Video”, “cut before the kiss”, “Ooops I left that camera on and recorded an entire conversation”) we fondly embraced but others we had fun playing with or subverting too. 

I also think, especially on the lower production side of things, a lot of other literary web series tend more towards the comedy side of dramedy, and we definitely go the other way and also try to connect the story to an exterior physical landscape in a way that not a lot of vlog-style shows since The Autobiography of Jane Eyre have done.

netTVnow: What was the creative process like for you? Do you think the process is easier or harder knowing that there is a literary piece to refer to?

HJ: Oh I love going through the creative process so much. This was an especially weird one though. AFitA started off as a theoretical concept for me to base my final year university dissertation (Mostly about new media audience interaction) around and I had to write a few example scenes and transmedia pieces as part of that, but then I found myself spending that entire university year writing completely unnecessary 20-page character docs and stressing over every part of the potential plot and setting up tumblrs for the protagonists, all the while remaining absolutely certain and telling everyone who would listen that I’d never actually make or write it. 

I handed in that project, relaxed for literally 2 days before realizing that: 1. I cared too much about the story to not make it, even if I had no idea how. And 2. Because of a job I had lined up, if I was going to make it it HAD to be finished shooting by the end of that summer. So then I got a writing team together and we went through group development of the characters, plot etc over 3 weeks, then wrote and edited all 50 episodes in a month while I also sorted out cast, crew and locations and then we filmed the whole thing in less than 3 weeks. So it was a year of me turning it over in my head and then less than 3 very intense months of a whole gang of us doing everything for it.

In terms of source text, I definitely find it a lot easier to have that jumping off point, it’s tricky sometimes when you get stuck on being faithful to certain aspects of the book or thinking how potential audiences will react to how you’ve adapted things, but equally writing from scratch can be really intimidating so I find the former problems a lot more manageable. I’ve always been utterly fascinated with adaptations anyway and, especially in development meetings with the team, the process of creating AFitA also felt like a really self-aware process of literary criticism and as a recent English Graduate I am deeply into that, especially when it’s a complicated book like Far From the Madding Crowd where there’s so much to say. 

netTVnow: What was your favorite part about seeing the series come to life?

HJ: In every series I’ve been a part of so far, the initial development meetings/written discussion have been my favourite part of the whole thing, there’s always so much energy and so many off-the-wall ideas and in-jokes bouncing around as well as getting to be a huge geek about books and character arcs, it’s a huge amount of fun.

In terms of specifically bringing it to life, the few days where we were shooting almost all the big group scenes and had a crew of four whole people for once were so busy but had a lot of life in them. Those were the days we all hung out the most after each day’s wrap too so that was lovely. The day we went out to film most of the outside episodes (including the first one) was amazing too, Woodbury Common is always beautiful but it really pulled out all the stops for us with that sunset and we could not get over it.

netTVnow: What were some of the particularly hard things you had to deal with as showrunner?

HJ: I think it’s a truth fairly universally acknowledged that pre-production is the worst and I did a lot of that on my own. Learning about the equipment needed and how to find cast and crew for the first time and then instantly having to do that and do all the scheduling on top of writing all of my episodes and helping to edit every episode script made for an interesting few weeks.

The scariest moment was probably when our initial choice for Gabriel dropped out and we still hadn’t re-cast someone on our third day of shooting when we needed him on the fifth! Luckily our cast and crew were amazing with putting the word out for that, we eventually found Ed because he went to school with both of our cinematographers. 

netTVnow: Can you talk about the transmedia aspect of the series and how that played a role?

HJ: The series plays out in real time and all of our characters have Twitters and some have Tumblrs, Instagrams, Pinterests etc. We also have a website that updates a few times a week showing the some of the contents of Bathsheba and Gabriel’s smartphones that week, including text messages, private notes, google searches and playlists. You can also find all of this together with the videos on our Storify account.

The novel flips between quite a few different points of view and all of the main characters have secrets and interior lives that they wouldn’t share on public social media, but I still wanted to find a way to show them. 

I think a lot of our audience just follows the videos on YouTube and maybe a couple of Twitter accounts and I think you can definitely access the main story fairly smoothly that way, with a couple of exceptions that we heavily highlight in the videos, but all the rest of the transmedia just adds more depth and nuance. 

netTVnow: Is this your first work in the web series community?

HJ: Not quite, I was a development assistant and wrote 2.5 episodes and some multimedia pieces for The Misselthwaite Archives. I’d been involved with the very early development of Pencil Ink’s upcoming series The Cloisterham Case Files before we began proper work on AFitA too. I’m still working on that with them, as well as being a writer on a new series called Maggie Hale’s Corner and another developing series created by one of the AFitA writers. 

netTVnow: What are some of your favorite web series?

HJ: My all-time favourite web series is The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, with The Candlewaster’s Nothing Much to Do and Lovely Little Losers as close runners up along with Betwixt Production’s The Writing Majors. I just love vlog-style literary series that feel like the characters are inviting you into their warm, messy lives as a friend and equal.

Outside the literary sphere, I really like Wavejacked, The Vault and Couple-ish.

netTVnow: What do you love most about the web series community and what advice would you give those looking to get more involved in the industry?

HJ: I know a lot more about the literary web series community than the wider web series community and I think those are very different places. The Literary web series community is quite possibly a relatively temporary space but it’s a crossroads of a lot of my favourite things in the world: pretty much everyone who’s excited about classic lit, new media and giving voice to young, frequently queer, women is a potential friend in my book, so that entire community just feels like home for me.

The wider web series community is a lot more varied, has more solid links to filmmaking as a general and I think tends to take itself a little more seriously. In both places there’s so much innovation going on in transmedia, format and audience interaction, so many chances to tell narratives that would get silenced anywhere else and so many creators are just fascinating and will talk to you on completely equal grounds, we’re on the cutting edge of storytelling here and I love it. 

To get involved I would just say talk to people mostly, the community’s super active on Twitter and interested in opinions coming from everywhere. And just make things with whatever time and resources you have, it doesn’t have to be a lot, and see what happens. 

netTVnow: Awesome! Lastly, do you have any upcoming Projects to share or anything else you'd like to add?

HJ: Nothing immediate for me but I’m part of the team for Maggie Hale’s Corner and The Cloisterham Case Files, so look out for them some time in the future!

Lastly, I'd like to give a quick shout out to the amazing things other people in the AFitA family are doing, one of our lovely writers, Anya Steiner has her new web series The Merry Maidens coming soon and the infamously productive Jules Piggot is soon releasing her fourth series, The Emma Agenda.

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#Away From It All #AFitA #Hazel Jeffs #LIW #Literary #Deborah Couch #Edward Gist #Anna Lloyd #Anya Steiner #Rex #The Misselthwaite Archives #Serena Berg #The Autobiography of Jane Eyre #The Candlewaster's #Nothing Much To Do #Lovely Little Losers #Betwixt Productions #The Writing Majors #Wavejacked #The Vault #Couple-ish #Jules Piggot #The Merry Maidens #Maggie Hale's Corner #The Cloisterham Case Files #The Emma Agenda

[souichipresents]

Lotsa Ito/blog thoughts...

I’ve just read through your reviews, and I’m grateful for the insight, humor, and exposure to Ito’s work you’ve provided, and I’ve been able to articulate some of my own opinions now.

1. Tomie. I never really had any appreciation for the stories before, and I still find it odd how…episodic the stories are. Surely the world should be overrun by now, but the tales never really amount to anything. However, the abuse metaphor gives me a newfound interest in the series. One thing I picked up on is the “methods” side of it; namely that old adage. Violence is not the answer. Killing Tomie just makes the problem worse (she heals and replicates), but so does passivity (she still replicates). Leaving her alone allows the problem to grow naturally just as allowing an abusive situation to continue gives the abuser more power, so there’s really two “wrong ways to deal with abuse/Tomie” presented. 

2. I know you haven’t gotten to her yet, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Fuchi. What I like about her (besides the fact that she’s a monster-woman) is that she’s very humanlike. She’s off-human in appearance, and her behavior is human, if not unpleasant. She’s got some sense of humor, and she enjoys nature. She’s just very petty and jealous. The danger with her comes not from her morality, but from her means of solving problems. She’s not outright evil, but she’s easy to piss off and that’s the end of you, even in a dream universe. I think that’s an interesting idea for a monster, and I’d sorta like to see what her life is like in the modeling business. Also, why does her height fluctuate. Souichi (in Rumors, not the dream stories) sees her as about ten to eleven feet, but Fashion Model has her at about 7 or 8?

3. Uzumaki is amazing and thank you for finally getting me to take a look. I love the symbolism of the spiral, a constantly moving force that moves out and draws in, and the protagonists are nice. Also, Azami’s transformation is probably the scariest Ito thing I’ve seen. It’s not gory, just supremely unsettling, and deterioration is scarier to me than anything else. I’d like to see a more faithful new adaptation of the story. 

4. You’ve also helped me figure out what I don’t like of Ito’s work. Hellstar Remina just feels very…underwhelming to me, and a couple of the one-shots are not that great.

5. Are you going to look at the tales of the Bizarre Hizikuri Siblings? It’s something I found genuinely difficult to read due to all of the beyond-dysfunctional cruelty, and I know that’s not your thing. 

4. Less importantly, when did you switch romanizations to include the “u” in “Souichi?”

Thank you for this blog- I was looking for something just like this, and I’m glad you delivered.

Ahhh gosh, this is a real sweet message! I appreciate that this blog picked up your interest. <3 I also apoloize that the update schedule has become so shaky, but things go how they go. And I still plan to keep this up as long as I am able! 

A well thought out submission certainly deserves answers. 

1- I’ve actually been thinking about this! And I come to think, well, what if we imagine that every Tomie story isn’t being told to us in a chronological order? Instead, maybe everything after the ‘origin’ story, each chapter like that, is happening at the same time? So while she torments the photographer here, she’s also in the snowy mountains there… that could certainly make an interesting narrative. Mind, it’s also totally spoiled by the events i the last story, but…. woof. We’ll get to that one. 

And I do agree. There’s no solution to Tomie, in some ways I think, because the problem was never her. She is not the greatest evil; rather the teacher who originally abused her; he is the nexus of this. What it means that her ‘pattern’ seems to re-create him over and over….? It’s hard to say. But there’s a melancholy tint to it all somewhere. 

2. Ahhh, Fuchi! The beautiful model~ Truth be told, I’m rather fond of her, because she just… shows up sometimes, without any real rhyme or reason. To me, she feels the most like… yes she’s certainly going by some other set of rules then ours, doesn’t she~? As for her height… I honestly figure it’s because Souichi’s a kid. To him, she might as well be 30 feet tall. Or maybe she’s as tall as she wants to be. 

3. Ahhhh, I’m so glad that you gave it a look! Uzumaki will always and forever be a classic to me… there’s so much nuance, so much variation. Seeing the threads of apparently disparate unnatural events wound slowly together… gorgeous, just gorgeous. I think to me after all this time, the ‘ridiculousness’ of the horror, coupled with the genuinely TRAGIC nature of it’s effects… just lovely. 

I always think it could make a really gorgeous anime. Especially one with experimental animation… it could happen, right? There’s a new sailor moon after all… 

4. Yep- sometime’s he’s hit or miss. It’s interesting because it’s not like it’s as simple as ‘oh when there’s unlikable characters’. Nobody in, say, all time favorite ‘Secondhand Record’ is LIKABLE. 

I think the difference is when his usual sense of…sympathy, I think. Even when the characters aren’t nice people, a lot of time, you can feel that sense. Its not the same as kindness, and it’s not ‘empathy’. It’s just a sense of caring. 

I think ‘Dying Young’ might have the strongest of that sense, as well as Uzumaki. The narrative is sunk deep into what matters to these characters, and whats happening to them. It’s harder to be scared if you don’t care. 

5. You nailed it right on the head- as creative as they are, they’re also really the kind of Itou story I can’t stomach. I’ll likely just give a general overview of them as a series. 

4. There’s a gap in the time I was making these! I did I think a few when I first had this idea… and then a year, year and a half later, I had decided I needed a way to force myself to keep writing, and came back to this blog! I think it’s sometime in there I noticed that most people translated it as ‘Souichi’. I switched over because it seemed widely accepted, and reads out easier in english to me. I seem to drift wildly between ‘Ito’ and ‘Itou’, however. 

#Souichi Submission #submission #long post #thank you for this submission!

[lydiabennett]

man but i defended this specific tumblr model of activism for so long because it genuinely seemed like the best way to reach a lot of young people and help introduce them to activism, and what they could do, and it’s just

all it does now is teach people, especially young people / new people, that the only efforts worth making are the ones with a 150% success rate, and that without that success rate, all other energy should be put towards nonstop criticism, particularly regarding language.

and i absolutely positively agree that language is important and that language holds power but language cannot and should not be the end goal of any activist circle because coming up with an approved set of words does fuck all to make any real changes to things like harmful policy and legislation. it also completely strips any and all possibility for nuance and multiple interests from activist conversation: everything must fit a specific narrative, or be cast aside, and everyone must follow the specific trends in activism (and if you don’t think there are trends, you’re fooling yourself) or they’ll be cast aside, and anything that seems inconvenient or makes you uncomfortable, rather than being considered and thought about and discussed and dealt with, is just instantly dropped, like that’s going to do anything to help anyone.

and god forbid someone only have two hands and be incapable of carrying every single sign ever to make sure that they can get the activist stamp of approval, largely from people who are vehemently opposed to any and all action that isn’t completely perfect, because apparently no action at all is preferable to imperfect action.

i think the scariest thing is that, the moment someone tries to introduce nuance to a conversation, or to remind people that there are multiple narratives deserving of attention and energy, they’re summarily branded as being a Bad Activist, and either harassed until they fall silent, or chased out. this is especially dangerous because in doing so, activist circles become little more than debate spaces to try and determine the most perfect language -- because action cannot be perfect and thus everyone acting gets shoved out. so activist circles achieve nothing. in fact, these circles are genuinely harmful to the causes for which they apparently fight, because it saps the energy from everyone willing to engage in actual, useful action, and it distracts efforts towards constant infighting and screaming so that the inner circles of activism can try to achieve some elusive ideological purity, that genuinely isn’t possible.

this also makes it extraordinarily difficult to sort out the genuine criticism -- “this message is actively harmful, and causes real harm to people, and has no place in what we do” -- from criticism rooted in appearing the most publicly Aware -- “you don’t do exactly what i want you to do and have inconvenienced me.” it starts becoming more and more difficult to discern what’s actively exclusionary, versus what’s simply applying already-limited focus and energy to one topic over another. and that’s just not sustainable. we’re going to burn out every single young activist trying to learn, or trying to act, or trying to make changes, solely because we’re more interested in the public appearance of purity and cohesion than in the actual opportunities to learn and to make real changes.

#plea.se.don.t.re.blo.g.!! #lol i've watched like four people in the past few days get chased off this site for not agreeing with someone #not even straight up saying or doing something harmful #i mean just genuinely suggesting 'hey there might be more to this than we've seen' #anichatter

[chocolate-brownies]

Jess Davis is just one of the luminaries you can learn from at Wellspring this October. For tickets and more information, click here. Wellness industry professional discounts and scholarships available!

When Jess Davis and I were first scheduled to chat, I didn’t get an answer. I knew that she was planning to spend the day in the woods, and figured it was a reception issue. It’s an appropriate issue for Jess to have—as the founder of Folk Rebellion, a media and lifestyle brand advocating for offline living—a lack of cell reception kind of comes with the territory. When I spoke with her a few days later, she gushed about her experience in a Getaway cabin, a new-ish company founded to help city folks develop a personal relationship with the great outdoors. Jess had been running around for the previous couple of weeks, stressed and overworked, and had gotten sick. Jess’s friend and founder of Getaway insisted she come and stay in a cabin, completely off-grid.

Unplugging for a few days was just what the doctor ordered—though it came as no surprise to Jess. A former award-winning brand strategist who thrived for 10 years in a fast-paced, tech-heavy world, Jess had a reckoning that while she’d helped to create a world that was digitally connected, the flip side was a sincere disconnection from the actual, tangible world. She founded Folk Rebellion to help others like her develop a sense of digital wellness and a healthy relationship with their devices.

WTF is Digital Wellbeing?

“Five years ago, digital detoxing was a way to start the conversation,” says Jess, but notes that an absolute approach may not be the healthiest way to go about digital wellness today. The digital revolution isn’t comparable to something like cigarettes, for example, when it comes to being healthy. 

“Technology is an amazing tool when used appropriately. For me, it’s digital wellbeing,” she says. “The same way you have wellbeing with nutrition and with exercise, I think that the next form of wellbeing is being digitally well. You can’t rush to yoga, have your juice, take your supplements, and be well if you don’t have a healthy relationship with your technology and your devices,” she says.

Jess likens the evolution of digital wellness to the seatbelt revolution in the 1980s. Cars were, point blank, unsafe—and auto manufacturers were reluctant to spend the money to revamp their factories. Ralph Nader led the charge to change mindsets: It wasn’t cars that were dangerous, it was the cars without safety precautions. He successfully lobbied for seat belts, airbags, and stop signs.

“I’m not saying that the tech is bad and we need to go without it completely,” says Jess, “but if we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen.”

Photo by Anja

The Dangers of Digital Overdose

Going through the windshield of a car is a significantly more dramatic deterrent, however, than the threat of a sore thumb. Consequences of digital overuse are much more nuanced, and complicated by the fact that digital dependency is, point blank, a revenue model. The more time we spend online—and the more information we share—the more money companies make.

“When you think of addiction you think of drugs,” says Jess. “You think of all of these terrible things that you think, ‘Oh, no. Not me.’ When you find out that people are sitting alone and they can’t get off of their phones for like 13 hours a day or a video game, this is addiction.”

Jess should know. Before she left her previous life, she absolutely considered her own dependency an addiction. “The experiences that I had and what’s now being documented is a general sense of dissociation from reality,” she says. “A malaise, a feeling of un-wellness 24/7. Inability to focus, memory loss—which was my number one ailment—which now they call digital dementia. It’s terrifying, but it’s literally called that,” she says.

If we don’t start adding some stop signs, seat belts, and some age restrictions, there are going to be some negative things that happen.

Overuse can result in myriad consequences. We’re physically rewiring our brains to consume and retain shorter and shorter content, which shortens our attention spans. This can in turn inhibit our ability to be creative and to follow-through with complex tasks. Additionally, there is no shortage of evidence that boredom—space previously unfilled by mindlessly scrolling—spurs innovation. But it’s more than that.

“One of the things that they’re finding is the scariest thing to me is that children who studied with an iPad or used and iPad as a learning device from birth till they entered kindergarten versus children who did not,” says Jess. She understands that these can be great learning tools, but when comparing the socialization of these kids, children who used the device were 35 percent less empathetic than the ones who didn’t have it when they entered kindergarten. “What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic?” asks Jess.

There’s also the issue of increasing narcissism, which leads to increased rates of depression and isolation. The long-lasting effects of heavy social media use have yet to be determined, but again, there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence that the negative effects of overuse are damaging at the very least. And Jess suspects that there are potential negative effects on physical health as well—she thinks there could be a correlation between the cortisol released when our phones ding, and increasing stress levels that lead to autoimmune disease. “That’s my hunch, anyway,” she says.

Corporate Responsibility

Just as the doctor who created Frankenstein was ultimately horrified with his invention, Jess says that many of the bigwigs who helped to create Silicon Valley are aware of its dark side. One group, the Center for Humane Technology (the guy who invented the “Like” button and an original founder of Twitter among its founders) is one organization looking to pull back the reins on the creations they put into the world.

What does society look like 35 percent less empathetic?

“They’ll go to Google, they’ll go to Apple, and they’ll say: ‘This is how you need to start thinking about making things’,” says Jess. “On the other end of the spectrum is me, and organizations like Folk Rebellion. What we’re really trying to do is to educate the consumer.”

Jess says the approach to curbing digital addiction should be three-pronged: Organizations funded by the government (ie: education in public schools), corporations, and personal choices. “I think it really starts on a small scale,” she says. “Homes, small businesses, neighborhoods, families, schools—things like that.”

Advice for Kicking Your Addiction

The first time Jess purposefully went without her phone for a three-day weekend, she says she was forced to face just how dependent she had become. “I’m an introvert at heart,” she says. “What happened was I kept touching my back pocket when I was being introduced to somebody, and I then had this gross realization that I’m cutting off conversations of people I have just met because I’m uncomfortable and I have this sort of get-out-of-jail-free card in my back pocket,” she says.

The first step Jess recommends to digitally detox is to truly get rid of everything. Keep a pen and paper handy, and jot it down every time you think of your phone, touch your pocket, or feel uncomfortable without it. “Then you start to understand your triggers,” says Jess. “Once you have that, you go back to the real world and you have to start to set these boundaries in balance.”

Jess only checks her email Monday through Friday, at specified times. She keeps her cell number private. She gave herself the rule that she no longer scrolls while in motion—that includes the subway, while walking, or in a car. “It’s just creating space,” says Jess. “If you can slice off and put these little hatch lines throughout your day of space that you can expand that doesn’t have the digital or the tech in it, that’s where you’re starting to create that better balance of it.”

The other thing she’s done is to reintroduce tangible mediums where possible. “I use tech all day—I’m a creator on the computer,” she says, “and so when I don’t have to be working, I go back to the forms that I used to love before these devices kind of consumed everything. I have magazine subscriptions. I actually carry physical books.” Despite that they’re heavier, for Jess, it’s a relationship worth the weight.

Bottom line? Technology isn’t the enemy—it can be a powerful tool to connect, which can enhance your relationships and make life easier. Allowing the digitized world to make life too easy, however, is the trap. As yogis know, balance is the key.

—

Lisette Cheresson is a writer, storyteller, yoga teacher, and adventuress who is an avid vagabond, homechef, dirt-collector, and dreamer. When she’s not playing with words, it’s a safe bet that she’s either hopping a plane, dancing, cooking, or hiking. She received her Level II Reiki Attunement and attended a 4-day intensive discourse with the Dalai Lama in India, and received her RYT200 in Brooklyn. She is currently the Director of Content at Wanderlust Festival. You can find her on Instagram @lisetteileen.

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The post Digital Detox? Nah. How to Cultivate Digital Wellbeing appeared first on Wanderlust.

#sleep sounds #sleep music #white noise app #nature sounds #relaxing sounds #rain sounds for sleeping

[floralmotif]

3.12 is a test for 5.01: Sympathy for Jus in Bello

So... this was meant to be my Round 4 of @elizabethrobertajones Great Meta Scavenger Hunt. Comparing 3x12: Jus in Bello and 5x01: Sympathy for the Devil. I had a lot of this written but was really lazy about editing it and um… I don’t care if I don’t get points. I just want to get this thing out. 

This isn’t the best organized thing in the world. I took a look at some parallels I found and looked at the ladies a little. Other people have looked into them better than I did here, though, in my opinion. I mostly talk about the parallels I see here.

Nancy, Nick, the Supernatural and world views: Nancy and Nick are the “Cats” in these episodes. They are the innocents. They’re the ones that the plot needs to convince for the drama and message to be conveyed and for the audience to find it’s moral seat. They’re both told by their respective convincers that they aren’t the bad guys and are misunderstood. Both eventually believe them and both pay the price for it whether intentional or not on the part of the convincers. We know and care about the Winchesters, we know they don’t mean Nancy harm but from her perspective, they are the scariest of the scary. They go against her beliefs and are considered worshippers of the devil. They are “As Satan” to her. She is convinced by the end of the episode and is willing to say yes to her sacrifice. Just like Nick. Nick is also approached from a prisoner who needs him for a purpose but Lucifer's purpose is much more selfish despite the nuanced framing. Even though both Nancy and Nick are discarded for their trust, the context is very different.

 Through these two episodes we are shown the difference and similarities between the Winchesters and Lucifer. We are also given a Lucifer catalyst as a mirror context in the form of Ruby. The Winchesters would never put Nancy into that position themselves and would never really want her to sacrifice herself for them. Even though they have approached Nancy in a similar manner, they are literally not the devil as he is later seen in SPN. The Winchesters and Ruby comprise the Lucifer parallel for this episode. By their powers combined they are Luci, but only combined. They may feel toxic by losing the PD to Lilith at the end, but they would never be Lucifer on their own(outside of metaphor) and they would never go through with it. I believe this is why Nancy is framed as the little Christian innocent. She is posing that question as we would, the audience: So boys, who are you and how far are you willing to go for people you don’t know? This is a “you are not our tools” display. Sam and Dean really do try to be the good guys here.

Now the above is involving humans. If you want to delve into fun fun land, consider the scene in 5.01 with Zachariah.. Different approach but also kinda Winchestery If you’re not human. They treat the Supernatural in a similar way to Zachariah(minus the sexual assault references) willing to torture and give ultimatums for compliance. Zachariah seemingly views the humans and other species in a similar way Dean and Sam view most Supernatural beings. Gotta love characterization and world view! I think the earlier set is what the show is going for though *cough* SPN is very anthropocentric most of the time. I have some thoughts on that but they’re probably best somewhere else.

More under the cut:

Nancy is interesting, if unfortunate There are several instances of Nancy being resourceful in 3.12. Even if it is all in a typically female coded, nurturer way. I think it’s meant to frame her as innocently as possible even if it’s cheap. She is our Perspective Lens of the “not audience” so we can sort of understand the situation for the people who don’t know the Winchesters and recognize them as the dangerous people they are instead of just the guys we know. She knows her way around the place and how to dress a wound (or at least how to tend to one) She knows the people in the town and is the only one to show genuine care for them on a personal level. She shows agency on multiple occasions even if it’s a little contrived and focused on her sexuality and sacrifice.(ugh) She’s better than some others at least. I think the most interesting thing about her interactions with the Winchesters is how despite her framed innocence, Dean still can’t believe she’s a virgin. Virginity is so strange and Supernatural to him that he can’t believe it. I didn’t get to re-watch further episodes with Meg, Bella. Lillith and Becky so I focused more on other characters.

Ruby and Lucifer Ruby was kind of the perfect pawn of Lucifer and I’d say she’s the most like him of the demons we meet. She also uses trust, blood and a loved one as an avatar of herself to get what she wants. She plays the long game pretty well and just like Lucifer, technically targets individual people by offering them power and a means to an end. Her end was with Lilith’s, the final seal to open Lucifer’s cage. 

Means to an end There’s a lot of talk or at least parallels to the idea of “a means to an end” with Ruby or the lives of innocence against the lives of the few as the catalysts. The name of 3.12; Jus in Bello, even basically translates to the humanitarian law of preventing as much suffering as possible. It is sort of a question of “What is the measure of suffering and innocence in times of war” This idea gets pulled directly into 5.01 with Dean basically asking that question entirely to Zachariah. In 3.12, the question is posed to Dean and Sam by Ruby with a similar situation. Zachariah’s method of winning the war stands as another answer to this question: with the idea that sacrifice is necessary. 3.12 is in a lot of ways, a test for season 5. In fact, a lot of season 3 is. It’s the setup for the war arc, it’s the gun that we’re shown. We’re reminded of in season 4 and is fired in season 5. In some ways, it’s setting up the audience for the Winchester’s answer to this question in season 5: the innocents are everything. 3.12 is like a microcausan and a confirmation of the Winchester’s stance before the real test begins. Even with the death of the PD, we still know the ultimate answer.

Wardings Both these episodes also containing wardings that are new to the series as far as I know. I don’t remember the little pendants anytime before or since. The rib sigil sticks around though. Speaking of the pendants: Why don’t they give these to every person they ever encounter when demons are involved? Oh yeah, that’s why we don’t see them again. Watching 3.12 and seeing the convenient pendants and then seeing inexplicably unwarded-ass Bobby getting possessed in 5.01 was awkward to say the least. How is Bobby not warded? Was his tattoo burned or cut off? The wardings and rules in this show get so muddled sometimes.  Henriksen Henriksen kind of reminded me of Bobby actually and a lot of Dean as well. He somehow gave me a vibe of Dean finding a similar outlet regardless of whether he was a hunter which made me think of his apparent dissatisfaction with his life with Ben and Lisa later. He mostly reminded me of Bobby in the context of the episode comparison though. A veteran of their field being possessed by a demon on their home turf and suffering for it. Henriksen is also what happens when you combine Somerset and Mills from Se7en into one dude. This is why they aren’t one dude. I like Henriksen and he works here but that movie would would not have worked the same way with one character instead of two. I believe a similar reason is a step in the decision to make Dean and Sam separate people. The dynamic of the show and how we are given plot would be so much different if Sam and Dean were a single person.(despite how deuteragonists work) The show needs that dual dynamic to function how it does and not just from a characterization standpoint. 

Some parallels between Zachariah and Ruby: And now we come back to Zachariah. The scene in 5.01 where he shows up and confronts Dean and Sam in the storage unit mirrors the scene where Ruby comes to convince everyone to sacrifice Nancy in 3.12. Demons are destroyed, the possibility of innocent deaths on the table and individual lives at stake. Again, Dean denies the sacrifice. Both scenes are very manipulative with Zachariah operating in an actively antagonistic(sexually assault coded) way and Ruby playing the long game. Sex and trust are also in her arsenal with Sam. She’s relying on her relationship with Sam to keep him on her side. Both lay out how it’s gonna be, both lay out the order of things and their bargain. These two scenes culminate the main tension of the episode. We know Nick will accept Lucifer’s offer, they wouldn’t bother with the setup if he didn’t. The scenes with Zachariah and Ruby are the “debates” they are the main conflict for the characters and the A-Plot. I find it interesting that the scene in 3.12 ends with them deciding on a different path and Castiel “captain flip the script” shows up to end the 5.01 scene. Both offer an impossible situation with lots of casualties. One succeeds on delivering them, one fails mostly. Both decided no to sacrifice. The 3.12 one probably really fed the seed of them being toxic to them. Poor guys. 

BMoL and Angels Part of these two episodes present a lot of similarities between each other and the Men of Letters. The eps and BMoL involve instances of a designated law enforcement (the police/FBI and The Host) deciding on how to deal with the Winchesters and how they operate. In all cases, they also seem to have false information involving them. 3.12 and 12.01 even show similar charts with false information on them. There have been several instances of the Host being confused by the operation methods of Cas and the Winchesters and wanting to “set that right” by whatever means they deem necessary.

Bonus notes: If you squint you can see all of the “Don’t” on the cell wall (No spitting, No shouting, No smoking) demonstrated by possessed Agent Steven. He shoots Dean to spit Dean’s blood(on the sign no less in case you needed convincing), he shouts when expelling the demon, it smokes out. Who the hell is Molly Baker? The camera focuses on her Wanted Poster in 3.12 a few times and it’s weird.

#great meta scavenger hunt #sort of #late work in #5.01 #3.12 #eh its ok #spn meta #my meta #characterization #character parallels #episode parallels #spn parallels #character comparisons #setups #a-plot setups #supernatural meta #dean winchester #sam winchester #lucifer spn #ruby spn #nick spn #Nancy Fitzgerald #bad at titles #winchester brothers