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beauty-and-passion · 2 years

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Why Filbrick Pines is not as bad as he seems (UPDATED)

WARNING: This post is the updated version of the same post I wrote in 2019. Since I deleted the old blog, I did not want to lose this old analysis, so here it is. I hope you will keep enjoying it even thought I’m not THAT deep into Gravity Falls anymore.

Also, this is a personal opinion, so it’s completely fine if you do not agree. On the contrary, it is even better, because we can have a nice discussion! So if you want, feel free to share your thoughts about this.

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Before starting: I am NOT saying Filbrick Pines is a perfect father. I am NOT saying that everything he did was the best possible choice. I just want to put down everything we know about him, every word and every detail, in order to analyse them, find connections and possibly reach a better understanding of his character. Or at least trying to.

Said that, let’s start with something a lot of people forget: the time period Filbrick Pines lived.

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The time period

According to the Gravity Falls wikia, Stan and Ford Pines were born somewhere between late 40s / early 50s.

If we assume Filbrick Pines was 30 when his sons were born, that means he himself was born around 1910. If we assume he was older, that means he was born at the beginning of the 1900. More than a century ago. And I do not know if you have any idea of how society was at the beginning of the XX century. Spoiler: it was completely different from now.

But let’s assume Filbrick was 30 years old when his sons were born. Okay, let’s even assume he was 20. That means he was born somewhere around 1920. That means he saw the racial laws agains Jews. He saw the Second World War. He saw Berlin’s wall, he saw a lot of things today we find in textbooks. We are talking about events that took place EIGHTY YEARS AGO. If a lot of things changed from 2000 to 2022, just imagine how many things changed from 1920/1930 until today!

For example, let’s just consider how men were supposed to be, back then. Always strong, always confident, never a moment of weakness. Men were not supposed to cry like frail women: they had to be leaders, head of the family, always the best, always ready to prove how strong and brave they were.

This is a mindset we are starting to dismantle just now, in the XXI century. Something we see as an old relic of the past now.

But back then? That was the norm. And if this mentality was the norm, is it so weird to imagine that Filbrick was probably raised with this exact same mindset?

Just look at him: what do we see? A tall, strong, intimidating man, “tough as a cinderblock”, as Stan described him. A perfect incarnation of the “strong, brave man” ideal.

Let’s keep this in mind: Filbrick Pines is a man from the past. His mindset is completely different from our own, so it would be wrong to just look at his actions through the lens of the XXI century. We cannot forget he was born 80 years ago (more or less) and what for us is wrong, for him it was the only right thing to do.

Does that mean we can justify everything he does? Of course not. That means we can understand what he wanted to do and recognize what went wrong. He is a man from the past, but we come from the future: we are more open-minded, we accept cultural, racial, sexual differencies. Society evolved and that allows us to look back in a more impartial way.

So, let’s do it.

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DREAMSCAPERERS

Let’s start with a quote, directly taken from the transcript of Dreamscaperers. Stan is talking with Soos, explaining why he is so hard with Dipper. The reason is quite simple: when he was young, he was bullied.

“It was terrible. I was the biggest wimp on the playground! So one summer, my pop signs up me for boxing lessons. It was even worse than the school yard! Y'know, that time I thought my pop was trying to torture me. But wouldn't you know it? The old man was doin' me a favor all along!”

So his dad signed him up for boxing lessons. And Stan, by his own admission, did not like it. Boxing! Something that he deeply enjoys now! And something he kept doing during his teenage years.

“That time I thought my pop was trying to torture me”

Well, it doesn’t look like he’s hating it. Actually, he seems quite confortable on a ring, with bowing gloves on, having fun with his bro.

Have you ever done something you did not like, but had to do, because your parents forced you? It happened to me, when I had to learn how to ride a bike. I did not like it, I was grumpy and said that no, I would never use a bike... but then, I enjoyed it. And now I still prefer it over a car.

“The old man was doin' me a favor all along!”

If you’re doing a rewatch, focus on this scene, because there’s a small, important detail: Filbrick nods in approval. His son was a wimp, not strong enough to stand to his bullies. So, he did what he thought was the best: teaching Stan how to react.

And his father’s lesson helped Stan. When he grew up, he saved his girlfriend from a thief, people cheered him and he gained more confidence in himself.

Filbrick wasn’t good at talking with his son and helping him build confidence through support and approval. But he helped him anyway and he did it the only way he knew: by making him physically stronger.

And it worked! Heck, it worked so well, Stan does the same with Dipper. In the whole series, I do not remember a single scene where Stan sits with Dipper and tells him how much he supports him. But I remember Stan showing his support, by pushing Dipper to improve, to become a better person. He always gives Dipper the hardest works, in order to make him stronger. And when Dipper shows his strength, Stan smiles in approval.

“Not bad, kid. Not bad“

So yes, Filbrick probaly was not good with words and quite hard with Stan, but the reason behind his actions was very understandable: as every father, he wanted his son to be strong enough to stand up by himself and protect his loved ones.

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LOST LEGENDS: PINES BROS MYSTERY

I am putting Lost Legends before ATOTS just because here the Stans are still kids, while in ATOTS they are already teenagers.

But before going into the story, let’s share this:

Not only this is the cutest thing ever, but also shows how Caryn acts towards her husband. She gives him a small, gentle kiss and then laughs at the camera.

Why? Probably because of his “tough guy” reaction. As said before, Filbrick was not raised to show any kind of emotional “weakness” because man = strong and all that jazz. So he probably wasn’t used to publicly show affection towards his wife either.

Still, if he was a heartless man, I doubt she would be this cheerful. If she didn’t love him, I doubt she would give him such a gentle kiss.

But let’s get into the story now.

The Stan bros are having a nice day and planning some adventures, when their father calls: one of his items is missing. And he knows who the culprit is:

Please notice: Filbrick is not accusing Stanley because he hates him. He accuses Stanley, because Stanley has a reputation of stealing. “You are ALWAYS pickpocketing”: that means it is not something that happens occasionally. It is something that comes out regularly.

And, of course, Filbrick is not happy about that. One of his sons is not behaving well, so as any typical strict father, he grounds him.

Here’s another interesting details: Filbrick already knows Ford is smart - probably because Ford showed some talent in school and started to achieve good grades. So Filbrick already knows one of his son is clever and good at school, while the other brings trouble.

After that, Stan and Ford go to search the Jersey Devil. The story is adorable and hilarious, then this happens:

Do you remember what Stan said, in Dreamscaperers?

“So one summer, my pop signs up me for boxing lessons. It was even worse than the school yard! Y'know, that time I thought my pop was trying to torture me.”

Here we can see the same emotions: Stan clearly wanted his father to show him more support. A more emotional father, someone who talks to his son, tells him what he is doing wrong, shows support and and love.

But we already saw that Filbrick is not that kind of father. He’s from a time period where the general idea of being a good father was something more like: “my son is misbehaving, so if I am hard with him, he will become better”.

He was being hard for Stan’s own good. And sure, being a strict father is good. But he was missing the most important thing: to show some support too. Filbrick was so focused on being a strict father, to not show Stan enough affection. And this is a mistake, but also a consequence of the mentality he was born with: Filbrick wasn’t a man used to express his feelings.

Heck, considering that kind of mentality, maybe Filbrick thought that being nice with Stan would’ve been like allowing the kid to misbehave. Showing affection would’ve been like showing a crack in his stern façace, a weak spot that could’ve been used by Stan as a way to keep going with his bad habits.

“Sometimes feels like Pa hates me” it has the same vibe as “Y'know, that time I thought my pop was trying to torture me” from Dreamscaperers. As said before, Stan didn’t realize how his father was trying to teach him.

Also, there’s another important information here: Ford says their father has a short fuse. We already saw that, at the beginning of this story, when Filbrick immediately accused Stanley of being the culprit and decided to ground him. It was a very quick reaction, made in a fit of anger. Almost like another decision we will see him making.

And yes, it was heartbreaking learning the reason why Stanley broke the case and stole the chain. It shows how hard it was for him, living with a father that never showed him the support he needed.

Here again we can see the limit of Filbrick’s way of teaching. He wants to toughten his son, to teach him how to better behave, but he lacked the affection part. So yes, Stanley became a better person, but it took him years to realize how his father was teaching him and that he actually cared.

At the end, we have this:

This is one of those great moments in which words are not necessary, because the body language speaks loudly.

We see Filbrick carrying the chain in his hands and looking at it. His face is conveniently half covered, but the gesture is enough: there’s no anger, no sadness, no frustration. He’s touched by this.

And if this gesture alone isn’t enough, we have Caryn’s espression: sure, Stan did something bad, but only to give his father a gift. To show him some affection. And Filbrick WAS touched by it.

But if you don’t believe me, there’s a code that is linked to the Lost Legends book, that leads to an internet page full of nice additional informations (here is the link, if you had no idea that thing existed: https://partners.disney.com/shmeb-you-unlocked).

If you click on one of the books, there are some additional informations about Filbrick. And, among them, there is this one:

Never wiped “#1 dad” off his gold chain.

So Filbrick maybe never thanked Stan for his action, but he appreciated it. And he showed it, by keeping the chain. Just like Stan will show his affection over time.

And so, the story ends with Stan and Ford grounded for the rest of the summer. You may say it’s not fair, but it makes sense. Why? Because Stan’s idea was nice, but his actions were wrong. Lying, stealing, destroying the glass case and hiding it from his father: this is not what a good child should do, no matter how pure his intentions were.

And this is a preparation for the future. As Ford said, Stanley takes a lot of bad decisions, prefers shortcuts and “sometimes it gets you into trouble”. Now he’s still a child, so Filbrick is responsible for him. But his father won’t protect him forever: Stan will grow up and, one day, he will take full responsability of his actions.

Filbrick is preparing him for that day. By showing Stan that bad action have bad consequences, he’s indirectly saying that he should better behave, because he won’t be protected forever. But he does it poorly, by not showing enough affection to his son. So, instead of fully understanding the lesson, Stan will think he’s just the stupid twin, “half of a dynamic duo”.

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A TALE OF TWO STANS

“Dad was a strict man. Tough as a cinderblock and not easily impressed.!

Stan confirms what we saw from Dreamscaperers: his father is a strict man, tough and unimpressed. A “real man”, as the mentality of the time wanted him to be.

But, one day, his dad is called by the school, because there are some great news:

“I'm saying your son, Stanford, is a GENIUS! All his teachers are going bananas over his science fair experiment! Ya ever heard of West Coast Tech? Best college in the country. Their graduates turn science fiction into science FACT! The admissions team is visiting tomorrow to check out Stanford's experiment. Your son may be a future millionare, Mr. Pines.”

Let’s try put ourselves in his shoes: you always knew your son is clever, but now the principal tells you that he has the incredible opportunity of attending the best college in the country. And not “one of the best”, not “a good one”, but the BEST.

And he could become a millionaire! Just imagine your life, if one of your relatives suddently becomes a millionaire: no more worries about bills and taxes, raising kids will be way easier, every problem will disappear, you may even quit your job.

Of course Filbrick is impressed, anyone would be! I would probably die on the spot, so it makes sense they are THIS shocked:

And then, one evening, Stan and Ford start arguing.

“This was no accident, Stan; you did this! You did this because you couldn't handle me going to college on my own!”

“Look, this was a mistake! Although if you think about it, maybe there's a silver lining. Huh? Treasure hunting?”

“Are you kidding me? Why would I want to do anything with the person who sabotaged my entire future?!”

We all know what really happened, but see it as someone who doesn’t know anything. If you just hear this conversation between, would you believe that Stan is innocent?

Now, try to see it from Filbrick’s point of view: your clever son, future millionaire, comes back home one day, yelling that his good-for-nothing brother sabotaged him. And his brother just tells that “It was a mistake”, before changing subject: a reaction that sounds more like an half-ammission of guilt, rather than an explanation about what really happened.

From his point of view, Filbrick just heard Stan admitting he destroyed his brother’s life, by making him lose a chance that will never happen again.

“You ignoramus! Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump! All you ever do is lie and cheat right on your brother's coattails. Well this time you cost our family potential millions! And until you make us a fortune, you aren't welcome in this household.”

“All you ever do is lie and cheat right on your brother’s coattails”: same vibe as “You’re always pickpocketing and monkeyshining” from Lost Legends.

But now Stan is not a child anymore. Now his mistake isn’t just breaking a glass. Now his mistake is HUGE and it affected his own brother. He made Ford lose an occasion that will never come back. And the consequences of his action affected the whole family too! (“Your brother was gonna be OUR ticket out of this dump! / This time you cost OUR FAMILY potential millions”).

Sure, it was naive from Filbrick to think Stan would intentionally do something this bad to his own brother, the person he cares most in the entire world. But remember: Filbrick has a short fuse. And Stan has a long history of stealing and lying. So Filbrick connected all the dots and reached the most obvious conclusion: Stan did it on purpose, in order to keep his brother with him forever.

And this shows another interesting detail: how Filbrick cares about Ford. Because before ruining the family, Stan’s action ruined his own brother’s future. He could have studied in a great school, instead of a mediocre one. And ihis is not something any parent would see, for none of their kids.

Speaking of kicking people out, I want to share something that happened in my family some years ago.

My father’s sister has two teenager sons, A and B: A left school at 17, but he quickly found a job with a watchmaker. B left school too, but instead of finding a job (or even attempting to do it), went out with his friends all day, smoking and drinking all night.

One day, my uncle found out his bank account was empty. When he tried to recollect what happened, he found out B took all the money from his bank account to bet on horses.

My uncle was livid. He came back home, told him he would not spend a single cent anymore and kicked him out of the house.

B stayed with his aunt for several months, before my uncle accepted him back and when he did it, he kept an eye on him all the time and forced him to find a job.

Why am I sharing this story? Because my uncle is a man in his 60s and he has always been a laid-back, carefree guy. Despite this and despite being in the 21st century, he got so mad at his own son, to kick him out without a second thought.

Does that mean he is a bad father? Or that he does not love his son? Of course not. He was so angry, to not think straight anymore. He needed several months of boiling down, to welcome his son back.

Of course that doesn’t mean that not kicking your children our of the house makes you automatically a good parent: parenting is not easy, there are a million of other mistakes parents make all the time and I don’t envy them at all.

My point is: Filbrick is not a bad father, because he kicked Stan out. He is a bad father, because he never expressed his support to his son. Because he was hard, without any kindness. Because he tried to teach him, but never showed how proud he was of him.

And you know what is truly awesome? That Stan is a good person. Even if his father was not very good and his teaching methods were questionable, not only Stan became good, but better than him.

And he did it, even by keeping his father’s sayings, like this one:

Or even by choosing the same job:

And, as we saw in Dreamscaperers, Stan ended up using the same teaching method his father used with him: by being hard on Dipper, in order to make him stronger.

The big difference between them, is that Stan shows his emotions. He shows how much he cares about his niece and nephew. He shows how much he cares abot his family. Unlike his father that never managed to show any emotion because he was taught to be stern and strong, Stan is free to be both kind and strong, both weak and stern, while still being the beautiful, great man Filbrick wanted to see.

And I really believe that, if Filbrick was (is?) alive, he would probably be very proud of how his son became so much better than he never was.

#gravity falls #filbrick pines #stanley pines #ford pines #I was tired of people being all filbrick is bad #sure he is but he's a man of his time #that's an old mindset #and stan became a lot better #stan is great #just a reminder

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true-blue-megamind · 3 years

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FAN THEORY SUPPOSITION SUNDAY: The Warden

SPOILER WARNING! It’s still a thing, and, if you haven’t yet, you still need to watch Megamind. (If you have seen it already, however, you need to see it again. Because it’s awesome.)

Yes, yes, the post is three days late this time. Real life has to take priority and such. So sue me. (Don’t really do that. LOL!)

For that same reason—or more accurately because this week has exhausted me—I will attempt to make this post shorter than usual. We’ll see how that goes. My money is on “not well.” LOL.

Anyway, today we’re going to look at a subject that often divides the Megamind fandom: the Warden and his relationship with Megamind. There are several fan theories—I mean, suppositions—surrounding this, but I’m going to be focusing on a few of the main ones.

The first of these is that the Warden was actually a father figure to Megamind when he was young, allowing him to be raised in jail not out of cruelty or disinterest, but because it was the only way to keep him safe from shadowy government agencies that otherwise would have performed all sorts of experiments on the blue alien. This both accounts for why a child would be allowed to grow up in what is clearly a high-security prison for dangerous adult criminals—something that, admittedly, needs some sort of explanation—and fits with widely accepted sci-fi and comic book tropes. (From Area 51 to mysterious “Men in Black” type organizations, fiction is full of government agencies created to study extraterrestrial life and technology.) Some even go so far as to suggest that the Warden may have tried to adopt Megamind officially, but was blocked from doing so by these same entities. On top of this, such an idea also offers room to re-imagine the Warden as a much more interesting, complex, and sympathetic character. Indeed, there has been some excellent fan fiction written about this pseudo-parental relationship.

Art: Fathers And Sons Day by tabbydragon

There is some evidence to support this. The first is that, although the Warden behaves harshly toward Megamind in the “jail-break” scene near the beginning of the film, Megamind himself seems to be trying to engage in a playful exchange: pranking the older man, wishing him a good morning, and even teasing him. While some say that this is simply Megamind’s personality as well as his determination to always appear indominable, others suggest that, perhaps, the blue man is trying to recapture a lost amiability between himself and the prison Warden. It is possible that, when he was younger and less villainous, Megamind might have exchanged friendly jokes and greetings with the man in charge of the jail he called home. It has even been suggested that the Warden is so hard on the blue man at the beginning of the film not because he hates Megamind, but because Megamind’s life choices have hurt and alienated his father figure. This idea finds some support in the facts that, when Megamind leaves jail to confront Titan, the Warden wished him good luck, and at the end of the movie, that same man seems genuinely happy as he watches the television broadcast of his one-time prisoner being named Defender of Metro City. Finally, there is some evidence from the comics which, although not truly considered canon, as I’ve mentioned before, do offer some material for fan theories. In the “episode” entitled Bad Minion! Bad! Megamind runs into the Warden in a bar, and the latter offers the former advice. There is certainly a somewhat fatherly feel to the scene.

The second theory is exactly the opposite: that the Warden either did not care for or outright disliked the former supervillain. Unfortunately, as fun as the Warden/Father Figure concept is, this second, darker idea has far stronger evidence to support it in the film itself. (Try not to hate me, everyone.) These clues range from the obvious to the subtle, but there are quite a few of them to be found.

During the first scene in which we see Warden interact with Megamind, he doesn’t behave like an angry, disappointed father—at least not a good one. He isn’t merely surly toward Megamind; he is absolutely nasty. The Warden verbally condemns the alien, telling him that he’ll “always be a villain,” and essentially steals what he believes is a gift for the blue man, even taunting him by saying: “I think I’ll keep it!” This hardly seems like the actions of someone who once felt any sort of affection for the extraterrestrial. That same portion of the movie holds another clue as well: the screens monitoring Megamind’s brain activity. Indeed, in original concept art for the film, the system appears both more invasive and more nightmarish. It seems that, far from protecting Megamind, the Warden may have actually allowed him to be experimented upon.

Next, there is the newspaper article at the beginning of the title sequence, which bears the headline “Hometown Boy Makes Bad.” It’s hard to see what the paper says, of course, even if you bother to really notice it, but luckily for us Liz (Demishock) wrote a wonderfully thorough blog post which, among other things, provides a transcript of the “news story.” In it, the Warden is quoted as referring to young Megamind as a born villain as well as abnormal.

You don't know this kid. I've watched the little criminal since he was in diapers. This kid is just a bad seed. I've got experienced, hardened criminals in here who are afraid of him - I mean, have you seen the size of his head?… It's not like he's a normal kid… I mean, have you gotten a good look at his gigantic blue head? I don't know where you come from, but where I come it's just not right.

Granted, there seems to be some truth to what the Warden is saying, as the article also mentions that Megamind, who can hardly have been more than seven years old at the time, has basically been put into solitary confinement for the safety of other prisoners following an unnamed incident, adding that the other inmates “refused to point fingers for fear of retaliation.” (This fits with the fan theory that young Megamind would have had to both fight and develop a fearsome reputation in order to protect himself. You can read more about that in the post How Strong is Megamind?) However, the Warden seems to dwell a lot on the fact that Megamind looks alien, and he displays an obvious dislike for the young boy.

Finally, there is evidence hidden in the school scene, although it’s easy to miss. In an amazing two-part video series, Megamind: A City of Deception. YouTuber The Theorizer illustrates several hidden clues about Megamind’s early life and how it it led him to embrace villainy. (I will very likely write another post going into more detail about that at a later date.) One thing that The Theorizer discovered is a seemingly innocuous detail in the background during the popcorn scene. Take a moment to examine the images below. Look closely at the blackboard and you’ll see a paper cut out of a school bus. Look even more closely at that and you’ll find something odd: the bus is full of crayon-drawn children except for one figure: an adult male, riding in the back of the bus, who looks suspiciously like the Warden as he appears at the beginning of the film.

In a movie where so much attention is given to small things—I mean, seriously, the animation team actually went through the trouble to write a news story for a paper that was on the screen less than ten seconds—this cannot possibly be a coincidence. (You can learn more about the artists’ amazing dedication to detail in my post What’s Hidden in the Animation?) Although it is vaguely possible that Megamind, painfully aware of how much his appearance was despised, chose to draw the Warden’s face instead of his own, most fans believe there is a darker reason for this oddity.

Think about it: the Li’l Gifted School for Li’l Gifted Kids is built close by a jail with a strangely similar name: Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted. It’s clearly a small academy, yet the only two known aliens in the city—who, by the way, have extremely different social backgrounds—both just happen to attend there. And now the prison warden appears to be somehow involved with the elementary school? It’s bizarre. Add to this the fact that the young alien adopted by a privileged family—a boy who possessed super-strength and laser vision—seemed inclined to be a bully, (as is made obvious by the kickball scene,) and a disturbing fan theory emerges. Adults realized that Wayne Smith, the child who would eventually become Metro Man, might prove dangerous if left unchecked, and came up with a plan to turn him into a hero instead. Wayne was showered with praise, conditioning him to seek public approval, but a superhero needs a nemesis. The strange-looking, unwanted blue boy who’d already been labeled a criminal would have seemed like the obvious choice. If this is true, then Megamind was purposefully, albeit covertly, groomed to become a supervillain from a young age, and the Warden played a major role in doing that.

So there you have it. Two competing fan theories concerning the Warden’s connection with Megamind. Both have some evidence supporting them, and there are fans who are firmly dedicated to one or the other. Which is true? Did the Warden care for Megamind like a son but distance himself when the boy turned to villainy? Or did he judge and despise Megamind but come around to liking him when he finally realized what sort of person the blue man was deep down? The fact is that those questions can be argued for hours on end. No matter which of these suppositions you prefer, however, the mere fact that even a minor supporting character is complex enough to offer room for this debate speaks to the impressive amount of work and devotion that went into creating this amazing animated film.

#Megamind #Megamind movie #Megamind fan theory #fan theory #fan theories #fanon #Warden #the Warden #connection #relationship #relationships

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sideblog-666-thousand · 3 years

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A long bitch of an interview with Euronymous, from Orcustus zine in early ‘92.

What is Orcustus? Orcustus was an early 90’s black metal ‘zine run by none other than Bård “Faust*” Eithun— murderous pretty-boy, and o.g Euronymous simp. I think he might have also played drums in a band called Emperor... but I’m not sure! Its full name is actually “Orcustus— The Shadow of The Golden Fire”, and no, I’m not making this up.

This particular issue here opens up with a quote from a short story called ‘The Doom That Came To Thomas Parkes*’.

Assuming the reader hasn’t read the story, Faust explains that the quote is in reference to what happened to the titular ‘Thomas Parkes’ when he tried to raise spirits. Faust then admits that he’s unsure of his own ability to ‘raise spirits’, but says he hopes that he’ll raise some fists in agreement that there’s something wrong with the underground scene. Ironically (you’ll see why this is ironic very soon), he doesn’t like that certain bands, namely Entombed, are selling so many copies of their LPs.

After a brief diatribe on just that, he goes on to explain that he was in a rush to get this mag out because of problems with the printer. Then, he tells anyone who doesn’t like the fact that this ‘zine only features black metal that they can fuck off, with three exclamation points.

Finally, we get to the end of the opening page, where Faust pulls what can only be called an early form of the Twitter exposed thread. It reads as follows, with absolutely no changes to the text:

“I would suggest you to not do any business with that sucker Evil Ludo from France. He have riped me and several others off, by not return what we ordered. I suppose he’s a medical sensation, as I didn’t know it was physical or psychical possible to live without a brain”

Why am I telling you all of this, when this is only meant to be a transcript of an interview with Euronymous, you may be asking? Because I find it funny, that’s why.

Anyhow, the Euronymous here acts and feels very differently from the Euronymous of the last interview I posted. However, I hope you’ll still enjoy it, and I hope you’re able to appreciate the tiny glimpses of humanity talking to a close friend allowed him, even though they both behave like complete asses. Even though it’s hard to sympathize with him at points.

Like last time, any (sparse) commentary will be between (parenthesis) and in bold. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

F: Well, how in hell shall one be able to come up with an intro worthy enough for this band? The words I wanna describe Mayhem’s music with, is not yet created, and it won’t be created either, because no one has really experienced the real darkness and pure brutality with lays behind Mayhem’s hellish sound, but I suppose you all are familiar with this band anyway. Well, in the first place, I hadn’t really thought to enclose this band in this issue, because if we look away from rereleases of old demos (“Pure Fucking Armageddon”) and live tapes, it’s a pretty long time since their last release (in ‘87 that was). I thought I rather should interview them when they released their forthcoming album “Dee Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, but due to the circumstances, I realised the time was right for an interview now. I won’t bother you with any history shit, but I could tell a bit about what has happened last year. You all know that their vocalist Dead comited suicude in April ‘91, that was a bigg loss for the underground, and I suppose I don’t need to say that this mag is dedicated to the memory of that infernal man. Anyway, Dead was replaced by Cultòcùlus (back then called Occultus), but due to different problems within the band, he left the band in January ‘92, but let’s not say more about that, as Euronymous didn’t want me to say anything about it at all (but Euronymous, you must admit that it has sounded pretty artificial if I hadn’t mentioned it at all). So now, the band consists of Hellhammer (drums) and Euronymous (guitar (and probably bass too)). I know the singer of Tormentor (rip) from Hungary (Esihar Attila) is interested in singing on the album, and also even moving to Norway, so it seems like Mayhem got some sort of predilection to foreign vocalists, but this Hungarian guy happend to be a good one as well, so never mind that. But I don’t think this is official, so don’t tell anyone you read it here, ok? Well then, it’s an honour for me to dedicate the next following pages to one of today’s most legendary and infamous bands......... THE TRUE MAYHEM!!!!!!!

F: First of all Euronymous, I know you and Dead live/lived totally for the old black metal attitude. Is your hate now total to young and trendy bands after Dead’s suicide?

Euro: YES, we have declared WAR. Dead died because the trend people have destroyed everything from the old black metal/death metal scene, today “death” metal is something normal, accepted and FUNNY (argh) and we HATE it. It used to be spikes, nites, chains, leather and black clothes, and this was the only thing Dead lived for as he hated this world and everything which lives on it. If we had the economic possibility to do it, we should meet up at concerts and beat up ALL trend people ALL the time untill they would be too scared to go to concerts at all, now we need to suck their money instead. It’s impossible to stop the trend no matter how much we want, we have to do the best out of it and sell lots of trend shit to them. (I don’t need to tell you that that’s totally not why Dead killed himself, right?)

F: In the spring of ‘91 you started up a shop in Oslo which sells all sorts of music within metal. Is there anything you can tell us about the shop (ideas? plans?)?

Euro: Well, the original idea was to make a specialist shop for metal in general, but that’s a long time ago. Normal metal isn’t very popular anymore, all the children are listening to “death” metal now, I’d rather be selling Judas Priest than Napalm Death, but at least now we can be specialized within “death” metal and make a shop where all the trend people know that they will find all the trend music, this will help us earning money so that we can order more EVIL records to the evil people. But no matter how shitty music we have to sell, we’ll make a BLACK METAL look on the shop, we’ve had a couple of “actions” in churches lately, and the shop is going to look like a black church in the future. We’ve also thought about having total darkness inside, so that would would have to carry torches to be able to see the records.

F: Well, how is the situation all in all in the Mayhem camp right now?

Euro: Difficult as usual, but we’re closer than ever to record the Mayhem lp. Almost all the material is completed, then I and Hellhammer will record the whole thing with 3 guitars, 2 basses and so on. It will be very massive. Who’s to sing on the lp is not yet decided, we’ll wait and see what happens. We have several people who can do the job very well.

F: As Metalion of Slayer mag* said: “it seems like you at certain times lives on the edge of starvation”. Have you ever been on the thought to just give up the whole band and become a normal 9 to 5 person, or is this a completely stupid question to ask?

Euro: It has been very hard at times, but I am not a normal person anyway so it would just not be possible to do that. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why things are as they are (this answer will be long) (that’s okay for me/Ed). The reason why we don’t have any money, is because of hardcore. We have for too long been following the “underground” rules, which say that you must hate money, you must not think you are anything, you must be open-minded, you might have a lot of attitudes and so on. Extremely stupid. But the situation has been that if you don’t follow these rules which are made by hardcore pigs, you are not accepted as a death metal or black metal band! Then you MUST be signed by some big label to be able to make some money, and we’ve never wanted to do that. Then you would anyway be labelled as “commercial” by the HC pigs. This has caused that after 8 years, we are still as broke as ever, while the HC pigs themselves are controlling all labels, and they sign only the bands which fit into their own idiotic world, that means “death” metal bands with society lyrics and jogging suits, and this is what the people see when they grow up. They don’t see any EVIL bands with spikes, as we did. Well, I’m tired about being broke, just to be “underground”. I’m tired of not having money to eat for just because tons of people will call you a “rip-off” if you don’t write 20 letters each day. It’s time to say fuck off to the whole system, which is built to strangle the evil bands in the birth. We must start taking inspirations from the ancient ones, from Venom and their likes. They did their thing BIG, and they never had to think about any idiotic underground rules. They did it big and so must we, but it must never become a trend, it must become a CULT. This is why we have started on a brand new policy with the band and the record label. It’s about time that someone makes a label for black metal and other grim music, and STRIKE BACK. There is NO reason why DSP shouldn’t be as big as Peaceville or Nuclear Blast, if we can just get the business on its feet again and get good distribution. That’s the only way to compete with the HC labels. It’s about time we start taking control over our own scene. We must spread the EVIL bands and pervert people’s souls.

F: What about the Norwegian scene then? Don’t you think that something is terribly wrong when it have gone so far that we have a christian “death metal” band here (Crush Evil)? Advices on how we should kill them?

Euro: First of all— the Norwegian scene is the BEST. There are a lot of GREAT bands (yet with no album out) and of course some shitty trend bands, but nothing as in Sweden. There you have 2-3 good bands out of 100, while here we have a few shit bands who hardly have made even a demo, while all the great bands will make records in the near future. Such as Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Thorns (I’m flattered/ED*), Arcturus, Enslaved and newer bands like Malfeitor and others which I have not yet heard. BUT— when it comes to bands like Crush Evil, we must take serious action. It’s bad enough to have a couple of society bands, but a CHRISTIAN band is too much. But don’t worry, we have plans. They will not continue for a very long time.

F: And now over to something more humouristic....yes.... snuff movies. Who had been the perfect actor for a snuff movie, and why the hell aren’t they legalized? Don’t you think that every video-store should have its own section with snuff-movies?

Euro: Actually I think it’s great that movies like that are forbidden. If they were legal and easily accessible, all the small trend children would be watching them, and then it would not be something extreme anymore (I’m not sure if I agree with you here Euronymous. Snuff movies are usually too raw and brutal for the people with their “peace and life” infected minds. Remember the HC rules/ED) (shut the fuck up, Faust*) It’s just the same what happened to death metal— it became something everyone could buy in every store, something normal and accessible for everyone. All the mystic and evil atmosphere is GONE. I do not think snuff-movies are funny, I think they are DARK. I’ve seen people laugh at them, but that’s probably because they will not be mentally able to take the PAIN and EVIL on over themselves. That is the best way to watch such a movie, to try to FEEL the actual pain of the victims. It becomes much more gruesome then, and that’s great. One must be alone in the darkness and suffer with the victims, if you watch it with other people, they will often talk, laugh and so on, and then you get more distanced from it, it’s not supposed to be funny (death to fun), it’s much better when it’s depressive.

F: Through the years you have been talking about releasing bands like Samael, Rotting Christ, Master’s Hammer, Tormentor, Matricide, Imperator, Massacre etc. on Deathlike Silence Prod., but now some of these bands have released lp’s on labels which only have money in their eyes and know that black metal sells. Doesn’t that frustrate you, and don’t you feel it like the time is running out for you?

Euro: It’s a bit frustrating, but it is also a result of trying to be “underground” which is a suicide policy. Anyway, the main thing is that these evil records get released at all, and not who’s releasing them. We will probably release a record with Tormentor, they’re split up, but they still want to make their Anno Domini demo on vinyl, and we’ll try to fix it within the summer. The time is not running out, because there are a lot of really evil bands around. — most of the Norwegian bands which other labels haven’t heard about. Burzum is ten times better than all the bands on Earache together, and so are Thorns and Arcturus. So there is no problem, really. As for bands like Rotting Christ and Master’s Hammer, we might do something in the future instead. I’ve never been talking with Samael about any deal, but I wish I had as their album is FUCKING GREAT.

F: Almost all bands in the underground today says that they think they got their own style and originality, but the fact is that 95% of the bands sounds totally the same. What is an original death metal band today?

Euro: There exists no death metal bands today. There are only a handful of (mostly great) bands (in case someone hadn’t got it right— black metal has nothing to do with the music itself, both Blasphemy and Mercyful Fate are black metal. It’s the LYRICS, and they must be SATANIC. If not, it is NOT black metal) and what we choose to call LIFE METAL bands. Take a band like Therion. Their music is quite ok, it’s actually one of the best Swedish bands (even though that doesn’t say much) but their lyrics STINK. They are about society and pollution, what the fuck has that got to do with DEATH? If a band cultivates and worships death, then it’s death metal, no matter what KIND of metal it is. If a band cultivates and worships Satan, it’s black metal. And by saying “cultivates death”, I don’t think about thinking it’s funny, or being into gore, I’m thinking about being able to KILL just because they HATE LIFE. it’s people who enjoy to see wars because a lot of people get killed. How many bands think that way? Not many. I can’t think of one.

F: You’re maybe not the most active band when it comes to gigs, but at least you’ve managed to tour Germany and Turkey. What can you tell us from the tour, and is there any new gigs planed?

Euro: That tour was a big mess, we’ll NEVER take the train again! We lost quite some money, but still it was great to get to East-Germany and Turkey. The memories of the tour consist mostly of the starvation and idiotic custom officers, but still I wouldn’t like to have missed the opportunity. We don’t have any concrete plans, we’ll see happens in the future. We don’t like to play for a lot of trendies in jogging suits, so we prefer to leave it be.

F: What do you think of the fact that death metal has been on MTV?

Euro: It sucks. But it isn’t death metal anyway, so....

F: I know that you will soon release the debut album of Abruptum on DSP, so, what can you tell us about it?

Euro: It’s EVIL. It’s PURE EVIL, they were torturing each other in studio DURING the recording and you can HEAR on the music how they SUFFER. It will be the most demented record EVER, and it’s NOT for normal people. This is music which NEVER can become trendy, because normal people won’t be able to understand it. And that’s great. The price for the album it’ll be the same as for the BURZUM lp, which should be somewhere else in this ‘zine*. It’s called “Obscuriratem Advoco Amplèctere Me”, and stay away from it if you don’t like pure DARKNESS.

F: Don’t you think that people in the underground should respect others ideas and views more? I mean, it’s not accepted to spread unpopular thoughts. It seems like there is some sort of guardians of morality and most people keep in mind not to say or do anything which is not accepted by the public.

Euro: I don’t think people should respect each other. I don’t want to see trend people respecting me, I want them to HATE and FEAR. If people don’t accept our ideas as their own, they can fuck off because then they belong to a musical scene which has NOTHING to do with ours. They could just as well be Madonna fans. There is an ABYSS between us and the rest. Remember— one of the HC rules is that you must be open-minded (except for themselves), so we must be careful and avoid being open-minded ourselves. The HC pigs have correctly made themselves guardians of morality, but we must kick them in the face and become guardians of anti-morality.

F: You say you want your riffs to have a dark mood and really sound evil, but what if you came up with a riff which just sounded good, but not evil. Would you use it then?

Euro: Well, if a riff sounds good to me, it mostly means that it sounds evil too. At least when I make the music myself. Haven’t really thought about this about this before.

F: Do you think you’ve been playing this sort of music today if it weren’t for those old bands like Mercyful Fate, Venom and Hellhammer?

Euro: It’s impossible to say. Venom and the other ancient ones have been fundamental influences on Mayhem, and also the direct reason of the band’s existence. We like to think that if they hadn’t started up this, we would have, but who knows? Doesn’t really matter anyway, we hail ancient Venom as the CREATORS.

F: Ok, no more questions at the moment. End the interview in what way you want......

Euro: Perhaps it should be mentioned that well re-release the MAYHEM mini-lp “Deathcrush” VERY soon. We also have t-shirts available now. People should write for prices on things. Be EVIL, not open-minded.

Ok, I suppose some of you already know that Euronymous started up a shop in Oslo in the spring of ‘91. The shop is called “HELVETE” (which is Norwegian and means “HELL”) and are specialized within underground stuff and death metal in general (though he also have some other styles of music there). As he said in the MAYHEM interview, the shop really have a black metal look, so if you ever visit Oslo, I really recommend you to visit “HELVETE” as well. I think it’s good that people take the initiative to start up with such things, because if everyone were just passive, we would all get ruined by poser-shops like Hot Records where they take 140 NKR for the Earache albums (which you in “HELVETE” can get a CD for the same price). Euronymous also sells though mail, so write and ask for a list or something: HELVETE, Schweigaardsgt. 56, 0656 Oslo. NORWAY.”

That’s all! :)

And now for the things I put in asterisks, in order of their appearances.

*If for some reason you actually don’t know who Faust is, he was the drummer on the Emperor LP and “In The Nightside Eclipse” but you might also know him from other great hits such as “threatening to kill Mortiis from prison whilst simultaneously attempting to plead murder of the secondth degree”, “I’m glad the people Euronymous ripped off won’t get their money back because he’s dead hA hA!”, “I got fourteen years for murder because I’m a socially inept virgin— oops” and “bad... bad lyrics who’s quality somehow don’t improve with the passing of time”. All jokes are done in good humour— if it seems like I dislike him, it’s not that at all. I just find him easy to make fun of.

Here is another short bio, this one less sarcastic: he was born in Trondheim, lived around Kvikne, and Lillehammer, worked at Helvete, was a close friend of Euro’s, and has his sun in Taurus.

He also beefed with Glen Benton for dissing the Party City cape (Note: of course I’m being extremely reductive) he and Euronymous seemed to share. Here are a few pictures of Faust:

Here is the infamous Party City cape:

*This was surprisingly hard to find. I think he read it in a mag or something. Here’s a link to where you can find it: https://issuu.com/davidgamble/docs/paranormal37/3 page 64-65.

*Slayer mag was another zine, this one by a bloke named Metalion, who was Euro’s best friend.

*Faust (who felt the strange need to make a distinction between himself, the editor, and himself, the interviewer) also played in Thorns (well, Stigma Diabolicum), under the hilarious moniker: Fetophagia✨

*He’s being a fucking idiot, what was I supposed to say? It should be noted that Faust actually went down for the snuff films too.....

*In case you’re interested, for whatever reason, the prices for the Burzum LP were as follows:

Norge— 130 NKR

Norden— 100 K

Finland— 60 FN

Island— 1000 IK

Europe— 15$

Outside Europe,

Overseas— 15 $

Air— 22$

East Europe— 10$

By ‘norden’ he presumably meant ‘northern Norway’, and “Island” is the Norwegian word for Iceland. Notice the way he doesn’t include Sweden! (Edit: Originally I thought he didn’t include Finland because there was a black metal war with them as well, but it seems as though that feud came a bit later or had already passed)

That’s all, for real this time!

Legal disclaimer: I am absolutely, in no way shape or form, claiming that the stupid cape you see them wearing is literally from Party City. From my limited research, I’ve gathered that the Party City chain hasn’t yet opened its doors in the beautiful and glorious country we know as Norway— Norge. However, I am saying that the cheap, dinky piece of cloth covering their backs and shoulders are of the same kind of shitty quality you’d expect from a Party City Count Dracula costume and that maybe Glen had a point about how stupid Euronymous (and Faust) must’ve looked.......

#black metal #euronymous #mayhem #emperor #euronymous interview #interview #Faust #Orcustus zine #true norwegian black metal #my transcript #Bard Faust #look at these fucking dorks

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felikatze · 3 years

Note

Just wanted to say thank you so much for all the brainworms you have been giving me and my friends for the past few hours about Ayin and all the analyses you've been doing about him.

I have been losing my mind in the middle of the night thinking about all the things you've said, turning it over like crazy and trying to compare it with the gameplay I've had of Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina.

Please do more analysis and share more of your ideas! Please? Please, with cherry on top? Please, I beg of you?

Especially if you have in-depth ideas of analyses for the Sephirah and how it relates to both their own characters and Ayin and Angela.

I thank you greatly in advance!

the implication that i've infected an entire friend group with my brainworms is power that will 100% go to my head i feel amazing. what else is analysis posting except trying to inflict people with the same thoughts bouncing around your skull on repeat

i DO have shit on the sephirah but mostly netzach, because i love netzach, and i in fact found my discord ramble about him (and chesed)

i dont have things on how they relate to A and Angela specifically because I mainly kept thinking abt Reverbaration Ensemble parallels... i have so many thoughs abt Netzach and Bremen.

(but if you want me to talk about, say, a specific core supression, or floor realization... i have a lot of thoughts on floor realizations.)

First off I am so sorry that you seem to think I'm smart because that means i have the perfect opportunity to inflict you with this

okay now we can get to the serious stuff

[transcript:

containment breach:

quick ramble abt lor again but i love the ensemble receptions so much. i'm at chesed's rn, and i know he's been chill the entire game, but him just refusing to comment on jae-hoon's tragedy seems, out of context, a dick move, but also is so important for chesed to do? he recognizes that another's suffering is not related to him, that he can't do anything about it, and that this is fine. The closest i'd describe chesed in lobcorp would be "activist burnout." Due to betraying the lab from garion's pressure, chesed was so consumed by guilt, he just blamed himself for everything and became more callous because it's already his fault, right? There's nothing he can do. But in lor, he knows what his responsibilities are, and allows himself joy where he can find it. I love the ensemble receptions bcuz they are just examplary of each patron libriarian's growth and i iqbfjc (sobs)

GOD this sure is a paragraph

also have to salute netzach for carrying his scene all by himself as the musicians of bremen just (animal noises) :pray:

ykno being online i realize that i'm not quiet at all i am a complete and utter chatterbox /end]

[transcript:

containment breach:

thinking abt netzach's scene where he doesn't talk to bremen, because he can't, but recognizes this who has not only lost themself in their own art but also their own suffering

i just i love netzach so much his entire character arc is abt learning to live with depression and learning to want to live again

so he becomes unable to understand, really, why someone would sacrifice themselves for their own art

when he started out just, similar yet different from bremen, completely submerged in his own misery

musicians of bremen reminds me i still have bremen bon bons at home i should eat those. they r tasty /end]

i wanna specifically dig into this scene more because i love that scene, a lot.

Art as we get to know it in the City is irrevocably tied to violence. Puppets are made of human bodies, music is played on bones and sinews. To the artists of the City, to create art is to make someone suffer. Rewatching Netzach's story bits, Roland describes it as doing nothing but seeking stimulation and being provocative.

Furthermore, there is a direct comparison between art and alcohol. To paraphrase more, the Pianist must've been one hell of a stimulant, like getting hit by a strong booze. A performance some are still hungover from.

Netzach's main struggle was addiction because of depression, and his growing appreciation for art is a continuation of that arc. He says himself that art and alcohol are linked.

However, alcohol is a step down from hard drugs. Netzach hasn't quit, but just that step down shows he learned moderation, which makes me very proud of him.

Moderation is what the other.. let's just call them artists, lack. I said in the screencaps above, initially, Netzach was lost in his own suffering, and the musicians of bremen are lost in their art. And if art is seen as equal to suffering, that just means Netzach and Bremen are more similar than expected. (Especially considering what we see of the musicians previously; they’re always trying to chase the same high they experienced listening to the Pianist by any means necessary. The addiction parallels are not suprising.)

I rewatched most of Netzach's lor scenes, and what rlly gets me is that in his first one, he seems almost the exact same as in lobcorp. He doesn't want to work, he got dragged into this against his will, he feels as if his accomplishments are futile.

But! He eventually invites Roland for drinks. He's not drinking to forget alone anymore, he's doing it as social activity. Furthermore, the more time he spends as Patron Librarian of Arts, the more he grows to appreciate art. Art is tied to suffering, still, but it is an expression of suffering. It does not produce any. Or should not, in any case. He sure wishes it wouldn’t.

So we arrive at his Ensemble Reception. This one makes a rather interesting comparison: art as the pursuit of the light. Let me elaborate.

To quote, “Honestly, I wanna tell people to stop doing the kind of art that requires ‘em to immolate themselves and others. Although, on the other hand... I can kinda see where they’re coming from. Art narrows your vision, after all.

You stop caring about the things around you. That’s how most artists seem to act, I think. And so, you indulge in the craft, not realizing that you’re throwing yourself and your surroundings into the fire you started.”

I pose this: Netzach speaks of his experience as Giovanni. Giovanni was a researcher who, when push came to shove, willingly sacrificed himself to advance the project, in hopes of seeing the light, seeing Carmen, again.

Though he dislikes Bremen’s actions, he does not judge them for it, because he recognized that it would be hypocritical. Even so, what shows that he’s grown is that he.. doesn’t want to see people harm themselves anymore. The focus here isn’t if Bremen hurt other people, which they have, but how much of themselves they’ve given up for their performance. He condemns the act, and not the people.

“If I can see that light once more... If I have to muster up the courage to reach it, I’ll gladly do it. It’s easier said than done, though; you need a lot of fearlessness for it.

And I guess you saw the same kind of light I was so desperate to see, yeah? Even if yours was a twisted creature... [...] Though, I don’t think I can tell you off like the others. At least I can see the reason behind it.”

He even explicitly mentions the light. The funny thing is, both Giovanni and Bremen tried to reach the Seed of Light, and Carmen. It’s tragically hilarious that we know Carmen is the voice the Distortions hear.

Hell, the more I think about it, the more you can just compare the Ensemble as a whole to the Outskirts Lab crew, down to Angelica’s puppet body and Carmen’s desecrated corpse.

“And I know pretty well that we have no right to devilishly pick apart each other’s way of art. I’m not very proud of mine, really...”

Netzach just.. gets it. I can’t remember atm, but I don’t think the other Patron Librarians really draw parallels like that. I’m seeing all the parallels now and I can’t unsee them ever. Bro.

His “art,” his way of protecting the light, is still violent. But he sees that perhaps it didn’t have to be, or rather shouldn’t be. I fucking love Netzach so much. His arc just means a lot to me personally, and I’d wager a lot of people who’ve struggled with mental illness would agree.

I’m not gonna get into Netzach’s floor realization here because this post is already long enough, but like, look at the specific flashback of Angela shown in Netzach’s story bits and contrast it to his arc of learning to want to live, and. Yeah.

#Feli gets asked #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina #netzach #NETZACH MY MAN NETZACH.#long post #this took a while to make cuz i got distracted many times by playing video games #also i'm not sorry for the first bit. know it in your heart. i'm right.

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a-secret-bolton-vampire · 3 years

Text

Hannibal Season 4 Resource

Taking a break from ASOIAF to instead talk about my favourite show, Hannibal. We're coming up on the 6th year anniversary of the series finale, and I still miss the show every day. Even though it ended in a satisfying way, I still really want to see what season 4 would've been like. Fortunately, we have some hints on what season 4 would be about, and I figured I'd make a resource for all the stuff we know about it, since I'm bored and I like sharing.

Will Graham's Most Interesting Chapter

“There is something in the novel Hannibal that has not been done in any of the adaptations and I would love to explore that with Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. I’m hoping that someday, whether it’s a year from now … two years from now … that we will continue to get to tell that story. I feel like if Will Graham did survive that plunge, his most interesting chapter is yet to be told.”

- From Bryan Fuller in 2015

"Bryan pitched it to me … well, he, described to me in an overview with what he wanted to do with the 4th season, had there been an interest, and it was really fantastic. It was a complete restart, without describing it — because who knows, God knows, maybe some way we may be able to do it in the future — but it took us back to the first season in a very unexpected way, and made total sense of that cliffhanger ending; it seemed justified. It was born out of a part of one of the books so it was still coming out of that universe, but it wasn’t the Clarice / Silence of the Lambs storyline."

- From Hugh Dancy in 2016

"It was not so much about a rebranding as [being] able to go back to earlier dynamics through a brand new prism, which was Hannibal and Will getting to know each other from a different state of mind. I’d want to play point-of-view in a dramatic way. I think I’ve said that season four is Inception meets Angel Heart. And that means that there’s going to be considerable mind-palacing and obfuscating of reality, or at least the perception of reality. And the thing that I’m most excited about is, because there’s going to be such a mental landscape to explore, that means actors who play characters who have previously died can manifest in the mess of Will Graham’s brain."

- From Brayn Fuller in 2020

"Because of the nature of what would be happening in season 4 in terms of the grander manipulations that Hannibal has on Will Graham’s mind, I don’t think Hannibal would want to have sex with Will if Will wasn’t in his right mind, and Will won’t be in his right mind in Season 4."

- From Bryan Fuller in 2020

So Will was going to be in a very interesting place. I'm not sure what exactly this means, if this is full blown Murder Husbands or not, or perhaps Will in a catatonic depression and delving into alcoholism that he's implies to do in the novels after Red Dragon? I really want to know what this means.

Hannibal and Will in Cuba

He also said he imagines a fourth season as “sunny and sweaty as compared to the cold harsh realities of Toronto.”

- From Bryan Fuller in 2020

In a twitter thread, Bryan Fuller asked fans what the planned cultural cuisine for season 4 would be, and it's implied that it would be Cuban. There are more allusions to Cuba (such as the sunny and sweaty quote above), as well as this from the partial transcription of FannibalFest Sofacon webinar last year.

FannibalFest: Oh, I’m supposed to ask, right now, where do you imagine Hannibal and Will, right now? Before we continue. This is an important question. Bryan Fuller: Cuba. Martha De Laurentiis: Listen to the man who knows. Cuba. FannibalFest: Right, so they’re still in Cuba.

So they're in Cuba! It sounds a bit like the ending of the novel Hannibal with Hannibal and Clarice running off to Buenos Aires, but instead of Argentina it's the more northern part of Latin America. Given that the show has often been set in very cold, dark, gloomy settings (East Coast of the US) that fits perfectly with the dark tone of the series, I wonder how being in a bright, sunny location would contrast to a very dark tone.

Alana and Margot

"There’s a whole storyline that I want to do with Katharine Isabelle’s character, Margot Verger, who now is the mother of the Verger heir and in control of the Verger meatpacking industry. I wanted her to be like Joan Crawford at Pepsi saying “Don’t Fuck with me fellas” and just humanize all the Verger meatpacking plants and turn them over to PETA-approved [authority]. That would definitely be marbled through the season, Margot Verger taking down the meat industry as a hot, powerful lesbian."

- From Bryan Fuller in 2017

I tried finding a source for this, and it's hard to find and it's repeated often, but Chilton would have gone back to running the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. If anyone could find a source for that, that'd be grand.

I think there's a lot of interesting things that could be done with Margot trying to humanize the meatpacking industry, especially in a show where cannibalism is a recurring central theme.

The Silence of the Lambs

Fuller really wants to adapt Silence of the Lambs, and he has certain ideas for it, specifically when it comes to Clarice:

"Well, there’s a couple of ways to go. There’s the [Elliot] Page way, which I think would be fantastic and more kind of in line with the Clarice that we all know. But I know I would also like to explore who Clarice would be from a different racial background. There’s something about being poor and white in the South but there’s something else about being poor and black in the South, and I think it could be the necessary gateway into the character, to make Clarice as much our own signature character as we tried to make Will Graham."

- 2015

“I am imagining a parallel structure of Hannibal in the institution, with a severely scarred Chilton, now having returned to his post, and juxtaposing that, back in the heyday of Hannibal as a psychiatrist, perhaps even earlier than we met him the first time, when he had Benjamin Raspail as a patient, and weave that story in and around the modern day Silence of the Lambs tale as we know it.”

- 2015

“I think the film adaptation is a perfect film, but there’s a lot of interesting nooks and crannies to explore in a television series. I hope we get to tell the story…I think, ideally for the cast, it would be as a miniseries, here and there. Let’s do six to eight episodes of that, and six to eight episodes over here. And do it as an irregular thing.”

- 2016

Now it should be noted that despite some headlines, Silence of the Lambs is not the plan for season 4, but rather some time after it, as season 4 would be covering an aspect of the books that has never been depicted onscreen before.

Anyways, that's all the info I could find! I hope one day we will get a season 4, even if currently I am not very hopeful. I just want my Murder Husbands back :(.

#hannibal #we need hannibal season 4 #hannibal season 4 #hannigram #will graham #alana bloom #margot verger

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comrade-meow · 3 years

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‘Sex work’ advocates and the Nazi propaganda playbook

Last month Nordic Model Now! was asked to participate in a University of Exeter student debate on the proposition that “This house believes that sex work is real work.” As a group, we are ambivalent about taking part in such debates. On the one hand, they are seldom a conducive forum for understanding nuanced and complex issues – but on the other hand, if we don’t participate there is a risk that the audience won’t hear the feminist analysis of prostitution. No one else in the group was able to take part that night, so reluctantly I agreed.

From the comments on social media during the debate, it appears that most of the students were won over by the arguments of the two proponents of the proposition – even though it was clear to me that they both had powerful vested interests in a booming sex industry, that much of what they said was palpably false and much of their argument relied on ad hominem attacks on myself and the other speaker against the proposition.

I was awake much of that night wondering why the students at one of the top universities in the UK appeared to be so unable to see beyond the self-satisfied veneer of the two speakers for the proposition. By the morning I’d resolved to analyse the arguments for the proposition and place them in context, with the aim of providing some help to those coming to similar debates in the future. This article is the result.

The Nazi Manual of Propaganda

Yale professor and expert in the history of fascism, Timothy Snyder, talks of the 1924 Nazi manual of propaganda that advised finding simple slogans and repeating them over and over and framing opposition as disloyalty or worse. Many people, he says, have taken up these tactics in recent years, leading not only to an erosion of the understanding that politics should be about reasoned debate leading towards constructive and informed policy, but also to politics being viewed as a battleground between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’.

You would need to be blind to not recognise that these tactics have become increasingly common in the UK and US in recent years, and how they have been used to manipulate the public into support for policies that are not in their best interests and that might have catastrophic consequences. Depending on the arena, dissent is framed as hatred, ‘anti-science,’ or not ‘evidence-based,’ and this acts as a powerful silencing force that shuts down critical thinking and coerces acceptance of what is often little more than hot air.

These tactics obscure who are the real beneficiaries of the propaganda – usually people who gain power or who benefit in financial or other ways from whatever is being promoted. Bizarrely, we can observe these practices on both the right and left of the political spectrum.

These tactics were on display in the University of Exeter Debating Society debate. It was by no means the first or only such debate I have taken part in or observed, and nor was it the first time that I saw those promoting the idea that ‘sex work is real work’ consciously or unconsciously using tactics from the Nazi propaganda playbook.

You don’t have to take my word for it. You can read the transcript of the debate and I’ll illustrate my claims through an analysis of the key arguments used by the two speakers for the proposition.

Jerry Barnett

The first speaker for the proposition was Jerry Barnett, who’s the author of the book, Porn Panic. He regularly writes on sex and the ‘economics of sex,’ and runs a YouTube channel called ‘Sex and Censorship.’ In other words, the sex industry indirectly provides his daily bread and butter.

After introducing himself, he defined work as: “A voluntary exchange of time or labour for money or some other payment.” He didn’t mention that this definition deviates significantly from the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition, which is based on mental or physical activity, and he didn’t explain how you can exchange time for money.

One of the key arguments against prostitution being considered normal work is that although it involves some mental and physical activity (pretending the punter’s a great guy, cleaning up afterwards, etc.) the core feature of prostitution is that he uses her body – he gropes and penetrates her. This is not about her being actively engaged in mental or physical activity but someone doing something to her.

What other work involves someone doing something to you while you lie back and endure it? The only thing that I can think of is participating in medical trials – but that’s not considered work – even though you might be paid for taking part.

So, he sneakily expanded the definition to make it easier to argue that a man penetrating your orifices is a normal form of work – although of course he didn’t mention penetration because, like most sex trade lobbyists, he buries such fundamental realities in euphemism and obfuscation.

Interestingly, he did admit that it is invariably men who are the customers (or punters as we call them) and nine or more times out of ten it is women who are being penetrated – or earning an income from ‘sex work’ as he euphemistically described it.

His arguments hinged around two key contentions: First, that ‘sex work’ is well-paid, enjoyable work that has short hours and is particularly suitable for anyone who needs flexibility. I will leave aside the questionable ethics of promoting such a skewed reality to an audience of impressionable young women and men.

Second, that opposition to ‘sex work’ is based on false statistics, the conflation of trafficking and consensual ‘sex work,’ and moralistic values from people who are anti-sex and who attack women’s rights, and refuse to “listen to sex workers who say it’s empowering.”

Most of the time, he expounded on one or other of these claims, all presented with utter conviction, while implicitly framing anyone who disagreed with him as the enemy – the enemy of women’s rights, of rational debate, of men, of more or less everything that he considers good in life.

He dismissed my arguments as “anecdotes” even though most of his were based on wishful thinking rather than hard evidence – while at the same time claiming they were “evidence-based.”

For example, I mentioned that the murder rate of women involved in prostitution is the highest of any group, including in the UK, and that where prostitution is legalised, the murder rate of women in prostitution usually remains high.

His immediate response?

“Anna is good with anecdotes but when she tries to use statistics, they don’t seem to add up at all. I think the last time I looked, the professions with the highest [murder rate] were police and fast-food delivery people who are overwhelmingly men. But yeah, the anecdotes stack up, the statistics don’t.”

I didn’t manage to respond to this until much later in the debate, when I quoted a senior police officer who, when giving evidence at a Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry in early 2016, said:

“We have had 153 murders of prostitutes since 1990, which is probably the highest group of murders in any one category, so that gives the police cause for concern.”

I didn’t have the stats for police murders at my fingertips but I looked them up later and found data that suggested there had been about 28 murders of police officers in the UK during the same period (1990-2015). So, there were more than five times as many murders of women involved in prostitution as police officers. I couldn’t find any data on fast food delivery drivers other than a few isolated press reports.

So much for his grasp on statistics. But the damage had been done.

Charlotte Rose, the other speaker for the proposition, compounded the damage by asserting more than once that there had been no murders recorded of women involved in prostitution in New Zealand, where the sex industry is fully decriminalised.

But again, this is untrue. The German women who run the Sex Industry Kills project have documented 10 murders of prostituted women in New Zealand since the sex trade was decriminalised in 2003 along with a number of attempted murders. That is a significant number given New Zealand’s small population (currently less than 5 million).

One of my key arguments was that the sex industry normalises and eroticises male dominance and one-sided sex, and feeds men’s entitlement and reduces their empathy – which are the very attitudes that underpin the current epidemic of rape, child sexual abuse, and other forms of male violence against women and children.

Jerry’s response? That there was not an epidemic of male violence against women. He based this assertion on another made-up definition centred on “a steep sustained increase” – unlike the Oxford Dictionary, which centres the definition merely on a disease being widespread.

He said that not only was there not an epidemic of male violence but that the prevalence of such violence has been on a steep decline for 50 years.

But this is not true. Research has shown that male violence against women has risen significantly in the UK since 2010 and that new forms of gender-based abuse are increasingly prevalent. Even the UN describes male violence against women as a pandemic – which is an epidemic that has spread to cover multiple countries.

I mentioned that the judge in a judicial review about Sheffield Council’s relicensing of Spearmint Rhino (a lap dancing club) had castigated the council for rejecting a large number of objections from women and community members who said that the club had made the streets less safe on the basis that these objections were nothing more than “moral values.” The judge was clear that the objections were not about morality but were issues of equality.

Jerry responded as follows:

“There was briefly the anecdote about Spearmint Rhino and that women didn’t feel safe in the area. The fact is I’ve been involved, I’ve got stripper friends who’ve been involved in these campaigns to keep the venues open and these claims are false. They come up over and over again – that the presence of a strip club in an area makes women less safe. This has been de-proved, debunked, using evidence over and over and over again. So, the idea that women don’t feel safe in the area is a different thing.

Unfortunately, if women don’t feel safe, that’s sad but then they should acquaint themselves with the facts that actually the presence of a strip club in an area does not lead to an increase in sexual violence. And yet these kinds of things are continuously claimed to make it look like this is a woman’s rights movement rather than a morality movement, which it is.”

As for his claim that the increased violence in the vicinity of lap dancing clubs and similar has been “debunked” many times, well I couldn’t find any clear evidence that supported that. Rather I found much to the contrary. The Women and Equalities Select Parliamentary Committee in its report on its inquiry into Sexual Harassment of Women and Girls in Public Places, accepted the considerable evidence that sexual entertainment venues, such as lap dancing clubs, “promote the idea that sexual objectification of women and sexual harassment commonly in those environments is lawful and acceptable.”

But that is not good enough for Jerry. He sticks to what he knows is effective, and repeats sound bites that are simply not true while dismissing solid evidence and presenting any opposition as irrational and the work of moralistic enemies.

As to a man telling women they are being irrational to fear male violence, what can I say? I am not sure anything I would like to say is publishable.

Charlotte Rose

The second speaker for the proposition was Charlotte Rose, who was wearing a t-shirt advertising Fan Baits, a new commercial sex industry advertising platform. She introduced herself as, “a former multi-award-winning escort, current radio presenter and advocate for decriminalisation of sex work.”

She went on to say:

“I just want to discuss something that may affect your moral judgement. How do you all feel when I mention people who work in abortion clinics, abattoirs, factory farmers, nuclear power station workers? To name just a few. For me I do not like it. But just because we do not like what these people do, it doesn’t give us the right to state that their work is not legitimate.”

Since when have people campaigned against factory farming or nuclear power because they didn’t approve of the people who work in those industries? Eccentrics aside, the arguments are always around the impact of those industries on the environment, human and animal health and welfare, and other wider issues – and any personal disapproval is reserved for those who, knowing the damage caused, profit from those industries.

The inclusion of abortion clinics in this list is a sneaky attempt to associate our opposition to the commercial sex industry with extreme anti-woman protestors against abortion. This is a classic example of suggesting guilt by association. For an audience of students whose average age is likely to coincide with the peak age for abortions, this is particularly reprehensible.

Charlotte then said that “until you’ve worked as a sex worker, you’ve got no right whatsoever to dictate anything against [sex work].” This is an argument that we hear repeated over and over in true propaganda playbook style, making people lose their critical faculties and the ability to say, hang on a minute, I’m entitled to have an opinion on factory farming and nuclear power and other industries that have a wide impact, why on earth can’t I have an opinion on the sex industry?

And the truth is, of course you can have such an opinion, and indeed as a concerned citizen, you should – but they don’t want you to. Because once you really look at the sex industry, it’s hard to ignore the rampant abuses and negative impacts on us all, particularly young people.

Like Jerry, Charlotte expounded on how “consensual sex work” has nothing to do with sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. But of course, it does. There is no separate market for trafficked women – they are on the same street corners and in the same brothels and so-called massage parlours as women who may have made some kind of choice to be there. From the outside you can’t tell what led a woman to that place – nor what is holding her there.

As we have written elsewhere, most pimping meets the international definition of human trafficking and most women involved in prostitution have one or more third party (i.e. pimp) feeding off their prostitution. And the evidence of the violence inherent in prostitution is overwhelming.

Charlotte may not be a male chauvinist pig as all the evidence suggests that Jerry is, but she was equally happy to misrepresent our arguments and frame us as hateful and dangerous. She claimed several times that we want to “delegitimise” her work. (What work? Didn’t she say she was a former sex worker?)

In an attempt to convince everyone that her work really is real work, she went into a long explanation of what it entails: dealing with emails (80 a day), text messages (120/day), phone calls (50), notifications, advertising, website SEO, updating her photos, social media and special offers, booking hotels, etc.

She then asked whether that sounded like work – which of course it does. But that was missing the whole point of the debate because she didn’t mention the core aspects of prostitution – sexual intimacy with a stranger who pays you to have his every whim and fetish met with a smile.

She claimed that “delegitimising sex work” damages her credibility and means men won’t see it as legitimate work and means she “can’t get a mortgage by writing down that I’m a sex worker.” But later when she was asked why she was against legalisation of the sex trade (she favours full decriminalisation), she said:

“Legalisation is what happens in Amsterdam, but women, or sex workers […] have to pay for a licence. So, first of all, they’ve got to give a large amount of money to be able to get a licence to give them the ability to work and be in a legitimate premise.

Number one, they cost a lot of money. Number two, their details are known so there’s no anonymity. If someone wants their business not to be known to the government, then unfortunately they won’t be able to work. So, these two massive factors are why we don’t want it to be legalised.”

But hang on a minute… Isn’t she arguing for ‘sex work’ to be considered ‘real work’?

And isn’t one of the things that distinguishes ‘real’ – or legitimate – work from scams, drug dealing and other illegal activity, that when you earn money from ‘real work,’ you fill out a tax return and inform the government about where your income comes from.

So actually it sounds like she doesn’t want it to be regular ‘real work’ after all.

She made other arguments that were equally dodgy. She claimed several times that by expressing our views, we are causing actual harm to sex workers:

“One of my morals is not to cause harm to other people. I would never use my morals to cause harm to anybody. Your moralistic view is causing harm to sex workers.”

She is talking about an industry in which women involved in it have an extremely high murder rate – almost invariably by male punters and pimps – and yet she suggests that the problem is naming and describing this reality.

I explained that our position is that nothing can make prostitution safe and so we need to reduce the amount that happens. Anything that normalizes it means it will increase – it will increase men’s demand for it and more women will be sucked in and be hurt. As her position is that prostitution should be legitimised and become a normal job, you could therefore argue that her position will cause harm – like she claims about us. However, we prefer to argue on the facts and actual evidence.

Conclusion

Judging by the comments on social media, the young audience were swept along by Charlotte’s glamorous and suave act – in the face of which our attempts to focus the debate on the depressing realities of prostitution appeared about as alluring as a school assembly address by Miss Trunchbull on a bad day.

But reality is what we must deal with. Basing public policy on wishful thinking and propaganda invented by those with powerful vested interests is a recipe for disaster. You only need to consider Brexit to understand that.

The Brexit debate was dominated by sound bites and hot air underwritten by hedge fundies and other capitalists salivating at the prospect of looser and weaker regulation of business and commerce. But large sections of the British population were swept along by the propaganda and were blind to the likely dangers. It is only now, four years later, as the actual reality of Brexit is becoming impossible to ignore that opinion polls are showing the majority turning against it and realising it is almost certainly a terrible mistake.

You can’t help wondering in this context why schools and universities are not educating students about the dangers of propaganda and how to recognise and resist it. All of us, but especially young people, need to understand how to identify vested interests, easy answers and soundbites that oversimplify complex subjects, attacks on opponents and unevidenced assertions that they are motivated by hate or worse, and to see these as red flags.

Much of life is complex and messy and inequality and abuse of power is rife. There are no easy answers. Real solutions require hard work and challenging powerful vested interests – not following them like sheep.

#Anglo.txt

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i-am-not-a-who-i-am-a-what · 3 years

Text

there was a moment from yesterday’s episode that set off so many alarm bells in my head and i haven’t seen anyone talking about it yet so i’m going to get my thoughts out there. i’m putting the majority of this post under a readmore bc it got very long thanks to all the transcript quotes i pulled but i really want to know what everyone else thinks about the Implications™

BASIRA

Okay. So… what do we know about Hill Top Road?

ARCHIVIST

Not much.

BASIRA

Another blind spot?

ARCHIVIST

No, it’s – I could look at it, but it… it was… it was like a… a hole. You know that feeling you get when you look down from a, a great height, like you’re being pulled into the abyss?

BASIRA

Kind of?

ARCHIVIST

[Getting lost in thought] Well it was… was like that. Normally I can see it, see the… webs, and feel the power of The Spider emanating from it, but… as I would look… it’s like my mind…. follows the paths of The Web,

[STATIC RISES]

the strands going down and… out… [Catching self] It’s quite disorientating.

[STATIC FADES]

my first thought after hearing this exchange was “huh, that sounds eerily similar to the description of the table the not-them was trapped in.” here it is from mag 3 - across the street:

I’d become enraptured by the table on which he’d placed my tea. It was an ornate wooden thing, with a snaking pattern of lines weaving their way around towards the centre. The pattern was hypnotic and shifted as I watched it, like an optical illusion. I found my eyes following the lines towards the middle of the table, where there was nothing but a small square hole.

my first instinct was that this was some foreshadowing for jon meeting some kind of horrible fate, because well... remember what happened the last time someone got mesmerized by the table?

SASHA

Oh, hey. I’ve found… I’ve found that table you were talking about. Don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Just a… basic… optical illusion. Nothing special… just… just a… wait…

[Hushed and panicked] Jon! Jon, I think there’s someone here. Hello? I see you. Show yourself!

but then i started thinking more about why the table specifically would be referenced, and i remembered the earliest we see it used as artifact of the web, and where: with raymond fielding in hill top road in mag 59 - recluse:

On Sunday evenings, however, we’d all gather for the evening meal, and before we sat down to eat, he would remove the bright white tablecloth that covered it, and we’d gather around the dark wood. I remember it was carved in all sorts of strange swirling designs and patterns. It felt like if you picked a line, any line, you could follow it through to the center, to some deep truth, if only your eye could keep track of the strands that had caught it.

it was while i was checking the transcripts to find the above quote that i also remembered the hole in center of the table that the web pattern leads towards wasn’t always empty - it used to contain a box, and that box contained an apple.

again from again from mag 59:

The center of the table looked, at first, like it was simply part of the wooden top, but if you looked closely, as I did so often, you could see an outline marking the very middle as a small, square box, carved with patterns just like the ones that laced their way over the rest of the table. I don’t remember how long we sat around the table those evenings, nor do I have any memory of what we might have eaten.

...

I reached over and pulled the wooden square from the center of the table. On its own, it appeared to be a small wooden box, and the lid opened smoothly, as my hands moved in a practiced motion. Inside was an apple, green and fresh and still wet with morning dew.

I knew I was going to eat it. I could feel tears desperately trying to push themselves out of my eyes, but I instead decided not to cry. I placed the box down on the table, reached over, and picked up the apple.

the box from the center of the table makes its first appearance in the very first hill top road statement, mag 8 - burned out, where we learn that apparently the apple was full of spiders.

considering the web’s predilection for filling it’s victim’s bodies with spiders (carlos vittery, annabell cane, the spider husks trevor encountered, the victim of the chelicerae website, the old woman in annabell’s statement, francis, etc.) i think this goes a ways to explain what happened to raymond’s other victims, and what would have happened to mag 59′s statement giver if he’d bitten into the apple:

They lay still now, wrapped in their sticky cocoons. Their bodies seemed warped and bloated in a way I didn’t recognize. But that’s only because at that point in my life, I had never before seen a spider egg sac.

more importantly though, we also learn that the box was buried under the burnt up tree in hill top road’s garden, the one whose uprooting was implied to be linked to agnes’s death:

STATEMENT

At that moment I made my decision. It was easy, like destroying this tree was the only thing to do, the only path to follow ... When the tree lay on its side, uprooted and powerless, I gazed into the hole where it had sat and noticed something lying there in the dirt.

Climbing down, I retrieved what turned out to be a small wooden box, about six inches square, with an intricate pattern carved along the outside. Engraved lines covered it, warping and weaving together, making it hard to look away.

...

ARCHIVIST

Except… We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree.

and keep in mind that the only reason the statement giver in mag 59 didn’t eat the apple, didn’t succumb to the web... was agnes’s kiss:

As the man in the suit told me to follow him in a clipped BBC accent, Agnes walked over, and gestured for me to lean down and listen to her. I did so, but instead of a conspiratorial whisper, she just gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then ran off down the hall.

...

All at once, my cheek erupted in pain. It was like someone had pressed a hot branding iron into my face, and I could swear that I heard the flesh sizzle as I let out a scream and fell to my knees. I raised my hands to my face and realized in that moment two very important things. The first is that my face seemed to be untouched; I could feel no injury or burn. The second was that raising my hand had been a truly voluntary act. I had willed it myself, and whatever power had been gripping me, tugging me into its web, I was free of it.

at this point you’re probably wondering why i think all this is relevant in terms of what might happen with hill top road, and i have two potential ideas:

my first idea has to do with the theory that agnes is lingering on as a ghost. this theory isn’t mine, i first encountered it shortly after mag 167 - curiosity aired through this post’s attempt to fix what bits of the timeline were thrown out of wack by the new info. if anyone has any other posts or general thoughts about this theory feel free to share them, i’d love to read them!

this theory is relevant to my speculation that agnes might finally make an appearance because she might have been the ghost seen by one of the statement givers in mag 100 - i guess you had to be there:

MARTIN

Right. Right.

[THROAT CLEARING]

Statement of Lynne Hammond, er, recorded 2nd of May 2017, regarding…

Uh, what, what’s this one about?

LYNNE

I saw a ghost.

MARTIN

O-kay.. Regarding a… a ghost. Statement begins.

who appeared as one of the cultists in mag 190 - scavengers:

MARTIN

[Puzzled] Celia?

CELIA

Probably. The, um… place I was trapped in, they took my name. I never got it back. But I like Celia, so… yeah! Celia it is.

MARTIN

Uh… H-Hello… Celia.

and was recognized and directly confirmed to be the same person by martin in mag 191 - what we lose:

MARTIN

…

Hey, I meant to ask. Do you recognise that woman, Celia?

ARCHIVIST

Um… no, I, I don’t think so. Why?

MARTIN

I’d swear she gave a statement once.

having her only pop up in mag 190 would have just been a fun easter egg, but having martin directly call out her presence the next episode sounds to me like jonny telling the audience to pay attention, to remember that her statement had to do with the ghost of a young woman on fire who might have been agnes.

my second idea involves web lighter.

over various statements throughout the previous four seasons we’ve been shown that the web and the desolation have been at war, and hill top road has been their battlefield. the best examples of this come from mag 139 - chosen and mag 149 - infectious doubts respectively.

on the one hand we have agnes being planted in hill top road by the cult of the lightless flame in an effort to both control her powers and derail the web’s plans, which seems to begin the conflict:

The compromise we came to was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of the Web, full of other children Agnes’ age. We would supervise from a distance, but were confident she would be in no danger. The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.

and on the other we have the web binding gertrude to agnes, thus thwarting the desolation’s ritual, which also involved hill top road:

ARTHUR

Alright. Agnes. How’d you do it? Never did understand it, not really.

GERTRUDE

Ah. That’s a fair enough question. It was the Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident, but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations

...

So, I began researching what I thought was a counter-ritual of sorts. Like I said, I was young, naive. I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hill Top Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair.

wouldn’t it seem symbolic, fitting with the dream logic we’ve been working with all season (and that the fears have always tended to work with), if what ended the metaphysical war was an artifact touched by both the web and the desolation?

say perhaps... a device that creates fire while being marked by a symbol of the spider? one that just so happened to be delivered to the institute at the same time as a certain table?

TIM

Er, what is it?

ARCHIVIST

A lighter. An old Zippo.

TIM

You smoke?

ARCHIVIST

No. And I don’t allow ignition sources in my archive!

TIM

Okay. Is there anything unusual about it?

ARCHIVIST

Not really. Just a sort of spider web design on the front. Doesn’t mean anything to me. You?

TIM

Ah no. No.

ARCHIVIST

Well… show it to the others, see what they think. You said there was something else as well?

TIM

Oh, ah yes, yeah, it was sent straight to the Artefact Storage, a table of some sort. Ah, looks old. Quite pretty, though. Fascinating design on it.

all signs point to the best hope of escaping whatever plans the web has for jon lying with the desolation, or at least with fire, and who should be waiting in hill top road than someone who’s been known to burn statements in the past... and someone who, as of mag 162 - a cozy cabin, was the last person to mention the lighter:

MARTIN

So, should we destroy it? Before we go?

[THE CABIN CREAKS VERY LOUDLY.]

ARCHIVIST

I honestly don’t know if we can.

[HE SIGHS.]

MARTIN

Mm.

ARCHIVIST

Besides, there’s – far worse out there. Better to try and avoid it, I think.

MARTIN

We’re not even gonna try? Look, we’ve got your lighter; maybe if we just –

i haven’t even begun to touch on the multiple instances of spiral marked individuals interacting with hill top road, or the potential role of the rift leading from the world without the institute to the reality with the institute from mag 114 - cracked foundations, or the foreshadowing we’ve gotten throughout this season that the archive might be destroyed by fire and how it’s looking more and more like that means jon might die, or the significance of the tapes and what power might be behind them...

but it’s nearing five in the morning where i am and i’ve been working on this frankly gargantuan post since about midnight, so i’m going to let more meta-inclined minds take it from here. tell me what you think! where do you agree with me, where do you think i’ve gone astray? hell, tell me if you think i’m just spinning my wheels, this is the first real theory post i’ve ever made so i might be completely off base, at least i tried lol.

tl;dr:

the call back to the imagery surrounding the web table and its long history with hill top road and the desolation is leading me to believe that whatever plans the web has in hill top road for jon, fire is going to have a significant role in whether or not the web gets what it wants; either agnes herself might finally make an appearance or the web lighter might finally come into play.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #mag 195 spoilers #sorry if this is incoherent i had it all typed up and formatted nicely and then this hellsite just deleted the whole thing #i'm not usually one to theory craft (tho i have utmost respect for those who are) so i have no idea if i'm just reading too deeply #this is the most pepe silvia ass post i've ever written

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citywithchair-blog · 3 years

Text

Ableist harassment

CW: Ableist harassment caused by a professor.

I wrote more than this to the higher ups at the university. This class is called Mindfulness and to teach us mediation.

A few weeks before classes started, I emailed her explaining my disability and my access needs, including the need for captions.

1st class:

She asked us to walk around in our space and to move our feet a certain way as part of our meditation. I wrote in the chat section of Zoom that I use a wheelchair and won’t be moving around. Another student asked the professor what was the alternative exercise for those who can’t walk. The professor did not respond to our inquiry.

She then proceeded to talk about her amazing friend with a disability who died. This was uncalled for and hurtful to lack such mindfulness to my access needs and then to bring up a disabled friend. It’s almost like she was trying to win points for having a diverse group of friends and use it to hide her lack of consideration.

3rd class:

She started off the class with screen-sharing a video from YouTube. I had to ask for the captions to be turned on since the Zoom captions weren’t capturing the YouTube video very well. She told me to "go to YouTube to get a better translation [sic]” and I replied by asking her to click the CC button herself. She ignored me. Why am I expected to sync up and pay attention to both Zoom and YouTube just because I am a hard-of-hearing student? Am I supposed to go online after to learn what was being said during class? A far simpler solution would have been if the professor had simply clicked ‘CC’; then the captions from YouTube would show up on the Zoom screen-share for all students.

Later on in the same class, she played a voice-guided meditation from her computer. Other students were asking if another video was playing, since the audio quality from her computer was so garbled. I couldn’t hear nor see anything. In the chat, several students were asking what was going on. One student said “Just listen”, but I had no idea audio was playing. After a few minutes after that, with no response in the chat box, I noted the professor's eyes were shut. I was very confused and remembered the professor had asked me to speak up if I needed anything, so I unmuted my mic “Excuse me, sorry to interrupt but I’m hard-of-hearing and can’t hear anything.” The professor did not address me, but instead asked “Is that true?!” to her student TA. The TA replied that she was not hard-of-hearing, so she could not assess if there was a problem. I then said, “I told you multiple times about my disability needs and that I require captioning. You are being ableist by dismissing my needs and asking an abled person if they are true.” The professor pursed her lips and was silent for a few moments, then replied “There are nicer ways of making oneʻs needs known."

After a minute the TA reached out to me via chat to apologize and ask if she could have handled it better, I told her she was good, that it was the teacher that needed to apologize. She asked if I wanted to stay after class to address this and I agreed.

Then during lecture the professor made a weird reference to Dana Reeve, the wife of actor and disability advocate Christopher Reeve, quoting her as saying "I learned a long time ago life just isnʻt fair, so you better stop expecting it to be." She then graphically described Christopher Reeve's accident as "his head basically came off his spine," and stated that he died and his wife followed shortly after.

This narrative of Christopher Reeve erases entirely the years of groundbreaking disability advocacy between his accident and his death, graphically describes the details of his accident for shock value, and centers the feelings of his abled wife over the details of his life and accomplishments.

After class and accompanied by a friend and fellow classmate, I reiterated to the professor that her behavior during the guided meditation had been ableist. The professor became defensive and stated that she was only trying to make sure there were no technical difficulties going on from my end by verifying with her TA, and that she should be allowed to check such things without "being called rude in front of 117 people." I affirmed that it was her right to ask "Is anyone else experiencing technical difficulties?", but that it was not acceptable to ask "Is this true?", because the latter insinuates that I had been lying. The professor admitted to this fault, but then stated that she was teaching the meditation class "out of the goodness of her heart" and that it was a "service." My friend interjected to say, "With all due respect professor, accessibility is not a service, it is mandatory." I then recommended the book "Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau" to the professor, saying it may help her understand what ableism is, how to be a better advocate and ally for her disabled students. The professor did not respond to either of these statements and rounded on her TA, telling her she was in charge of communicating with the students for any technical or accessibility issues. The TA nervously reiterated that since she was not hard-of-hearing, she could not see how she could anticipate my needs. The professor said that she wanted communication to be streamlined from one source, through the TA, so she could focus on her teaching. The meeting ended shortly after.

The following day, the professor sent an email asking me to come to class half an hour early due to technical connection issues. This adds a lot more work on my plate to not only arrive early, but also to tell her how to do better the experience since I already told her and she dismissed my needs. Why would I want to show up early if the class is such a negative space?

She did not apologize for getting defensive after class or her crude allusion to Christopher Reeve, nor did she clarify if I have direct communication with her and not through the TA during class.

4th class:

I decided to give the professor one last chance after we spoke. But in class she randomly talked about life being unfair again, and how parents should teach their children this lesson by giving one child a cookie and the other two, and saying "life isn't fair" when one of them cried. She then said how unfair it is that some parents have an autistic kid and even worst multiple autistic children. This was blatantly, clearly ableist, but I didn't have the energy to call her out anymore.

After class I found that she had emailed me to thank me for helping her find the "transcription" option in Zoom, as it helped her, a presumably abled person, read back on her lectures after class. She told me I had "blessed" her and her future classes. I was very offended because never apologized for her dismissive and defensive behavior in our discussion after class. And to tell me that I had blessed her by making her teaching easier by making her aware of something for my access needs, not for reasons of being a better advocate for disabled students but for reasons of helping her personal organization, was also offensive.

I am losing sleep over this professor's behavior towards me and the disability community. It is even affecting my ability to focus on other class work. Overall this professor's conduct towards any disabled student is unacceptable. I am worried there are other students who won’t speak up for their access needs when the teacher is publicly dismissing disabled people in general.

Because of all this I am requesting you to take action, however seems fit and I would like a full refund for this class.

Thank you for your time and look forward to your response.

#disabled #ablesim #university #hard of hearing #wheelchair #harrasment #discrimination #hostility #student #professor

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resignedseraph · 3 years

Text

I decided to read through my old diary today, and I found this... honestly sad part of it from 2018, a few months before I left the cult.

(TW for: PIMI-type talk, body horror relating to animals)

Transcript of the entry:

———

2/27/18

Today I was getting out some quarters, and I was pulling up a lot of cash. While I was taking it out, I thought,“If I pull out one more twenty dollar bill, I will—“ and then I did pull out a 20 dollar bill. I’m not sure what the last part of that thought was going to be. It might have been “I’ll be annoyed,” or “I’ll give it away,” or “I’ll sell something.”

Dunno about that last one though. I also had this really random thought saying “Give $11 to the church,” and I’m not sure if that was me or God or what. Then the notion of giving the three twenty dollar bills in my hand to the church popped into my head. Again, not sure where that came from. My decision: I will give $11 and keep the $60 to be used only for God’s glory through me. I am satisfied.

2/28/18 (at 2 AM specifically, for some reason)

I am sitting on my bed upstairs right now because I had a disconcerting dream. There were three miniature ponies in a white room, they had skulls for heads and no hooves; just stumps. It wasn’t like they had been tortured — actually, they didn’t seem to mind. Then one by one they fell over and just became skeletons under skin. While I was dreaming, I supposed this was for the horse hides to make into leather or something.

Then I woke up because I didn’t want to watch that anymore. And then I reminded myself that people weren’t being cruel to animals, but that I invented that dream whether I like it or not.

I went upstairs where I am now and wrote this all down. While I was writing I wondered if this was an answer to a prayer that I sort of asked for so I could know if I should donate the $60. I unintentionally put the dream into a context that is less strange. I don’t know why I did that, but I saw it like the horses with skull heads and no hooves are Christians who are wishy-washing and look okay on the outside and are better on the inside but still have problems.

The second stage, with only skeletons and hide, is like Christians who aren’t being used because they don’t obey immediately and miss the opportunity.

Then they are ready for their skin, tanned, and to be sold because a person decided to put the animals through such agony even though it looks like they’re fine and actually really good. But without feet or a mouth to hold the bit to the reigns, a horse is completely and utterly useless.

The selling of the skin is the Christians filling seats in a sermon and going to youth events, but [not paying attention (I put an ableist analogy here at the time but this was the gist)] to any of the lessons. Then people ask the Christian how God has worked in their life, out of curiosity. The Christian thinks and can’t find a single thing to say besides “He has given me a good job, friends, shelter, food, money, and entertainment.”

What is missing from that is the fact that He has given you tech at your fingertips to use for Him, He has given you a place to live in a country that doesn’t persecute Christians, and the list goes on. But no miracles, nothing about making ends meet, nothing about being asked to do something hard and being rewarded seven-fold.

Now I’ve decided what to do about my dilema. I will give the $60 to my church to use (towards missionary work, hopefully). Why? Yes I could use it to buy things to praise God (like art supplies to draw pictures praising him), or I could save for college, or get newer clothes (newer, but not new), or any number of things.

But what’s the point of some of those, actually all of those, if it’s not what God wants? In Heaven, sixty measly dollars isn’t going to mean anything when you’re walking on gold streets. When I’m older, who cares what the heck I spent $60 on? But if I gave it to be used, a person might accept Jesus because of it. Last time I said I was satisfied with my decision, I asked myself, “Are you sure you’re not lying to yourself? Because I know if you are” and I answered, “Yes I am satisfied,” because at that moment I was.

I did it know what to do but I tried to compromise with God. Not a great idea. “Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice good. For wisdom is better than rubies, and all things one may desire cannot be compared with her,” Proverbs 8:10-11. I wrote that down because it’s exactly what I’m dealing with. Now if someone asks me “What has God done in your life?” I will answer,“He told me to give $60 to the church, and I don’t regret the loss of it.”

I hope God rewards me for doing this, but even if He doesn’t (which I don’t think He won’t reward, it’s just the Bible says He rewards), I will don’t regret it.

———

So. That was a thing. I later got $75 in the mail because of a thing I had participated in, and just assumed that was the “paying back,” but I’m honestly a little pissed that I gave that sixty bucks away. The entry is just.. full of jumping to conclusions about symbolism and grasping at random thoughts. That and the way I talked at the time threw me off tbh, what with the capitalized “he”s and the verse-quoting.

Also that part where I implied that it’s not enough to say that God had provided someone with their basic necessities and more? And that at the time I valued sacrifice and struggle more? Sheesh... It’s still so weird to see how I talked and wrote and thought about things at the time.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this post is, but reflecting on entries like that is important to me, since I can see how far I’ve come since then.

#Esrah talks #how it was growing up #ex christian #ex cult #ex fundamentalist #ex evangelical #ex baptist #long post

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eternityservedcold · 3 years

Text

ive been posting about my codex!wendy au on twitter for a couple days now but instead of just copy and pasting what i wrote on there ill actually expand upon it a little. also this post is gonna be really long but theres pictures so i hope that helps

if theres any moment where the timeline splits (not including moments before this that may have had a butterfly effect), it would be william carters train crash in 1904, which.... did not happen in this universe. he, with no small amount of shame, moves in with his rich and successful brother.

wendy and abigail grow up having, essentially, an extra parent, which thankfully means abigail didnt die. with their mother long gone, when jack dies in 1919 (not of magic-y reasons, just like... a heart attack or something), william is left to take care of the twins alone. he tries to find jobs so he could work himself to death and at least save his nieces, but due to his general lack of competence, he isnt finding much that can actually sustain them all.

wendy and abigail, who have noticed this despite williams protests that everything is fine, decide to do the smartest thing they can think of: run away from home so william only needs to take care of himself. im sure you can see why this is a bad idea, even in a universe without the codex umbra, but boy does it get significantly worse for them very quickly.

wendy gets hit by a car. abigail runs for help, but by the time she gets back, wendy is fine. and clutching a strange book.

over the course of the next few weeks, wendy and abigail manage to scrounge up a little money, and between this, wendy shows abigail some neat tricks the codex umbra taught her. abigail suggests, a bit jokingly, that maybe they could become magicians. the codex wendy thinks this is a great idea.

[transcription of text: “THE AMAZING MARY, Performing feats to astound and mystify”]

at the codex umbras suggestion, wendy adopts a stage name, “mary,” and the twins perform their first show. it goes very well, and they make a lot of money, so they decide to keep doing this, and hopefully save enough to go back home and take care of their uncle.

mary and abigail perform many magic shows, and end up becoming beloved around the country. admittedly they do get a bit lost in the sauce, but theyre teenagers, wouldnt you? except, mary often times seems to forget they theyre doing this for their uncle at all. in fact, mary seems all-around real different these days.

mary becomes far colder, more secretive, and will lock herself in her study for days at a time. abigail notices her sisters change in personality, and attributes it to the fame going to her head. unlike charlie, abigail never realized quite how deep mary had gotten into the codex.

mary and abigails final act goes very similarly to maxwell and charlies. theyre going through the routine when something goes horribly wrong, and theyre grabbed by the codex and taken to the constant. mary becomes the queen, and abigail the night monster.

mary rules much like her uncle, and brings most of the same people into her world. the differences are as such:

maxwell is still william carter, who replaces wilson as the “all-around” type. if he was in the game, he would only have slightly lower hunger drain, and otherwise be identical to wilson without a beard

charlie has taken the role of wendy, so to speak... winona died in a factory accident (the very same one that would have taken her to the constant in another life), and charlie keeps her soul in a rose

webber becomes the “canonical” protagonist instead of wilson. i would have made it william, but it is ultimately important that the protagonist is someone uninvolved in the carter relationship chart

wilson is actually a half-decent scientist so he replaces winona, i guess

adventure mode is the same but i wrote some quotes for funsies, here we go:

A Cold Reception

Looks like you found my portal.

Haven’t you learned “curiosity kills the cat?”

Let’s see if I can’t up the stakes a bit.

King of Winter

Oh, you survived, that’s fun.

Just remember, you need to be lucky four more times...

But I only need to be lucky once.

The Game is Afoot

Huh? You’re still alive?

That’s... impressive. I’m interested to see how this will go.

Break a leg out there.

Archipelago

How do you do?

This has been fun. You’re a good playmate.

But I think you should know I had a nasty habit of breaking my toys.

Two Worlds

How do you do?

I know you may not want to make another deal with me, but...

I’ll just give you all of this for free.

Food, gold, pigs, anything you want from this world.

All I want in return is for you to stay put, okay?

Darkness

Go ahead.

Keep going.

I think we both know what will happen.

Epilogue

You found me.

Was it what you hoped for?

Forgive me for not giving you a curtsy.

For what it’s worth, you were a fun playmate.

To me, at least. Maybe not to Them.

Maybe They’ll find you more fun when you’re here.

They’ll show you beautiful, terrifying things.

It’d be best if you didn’t fight it.

I’ve worked so hard to make this world.

I’ve made it so pretty for Them.

I thought I was so smart. So needed.

But even Queens are bound to the board.

In the end, I can’t change the game.

I’m not quite sure what They want.

Perhaps we’re just performing for Them.

Though that may be my mind playing tricks on me.

Hm. What year is it? Time is weird here.

Go ahead, stay as long as you like.

It’s not like I can throw you out.

Or you could put the key in and get it over with.

It’s a lose-lose situation.

That’s life, though, isn’t it?

...I think I’m done for now.

i also drew some disconnected cyclum-ish comics:

[transcript of text:

Mary: "After all I've done, you still help me. Why?"

Webber: "We trust you."

Mary: (offscreen) "I don't understand."

Webber: "If you were gonna do something, you already would have."

Mary: "I just don't understand."

Webber: (offscreen) "It's okay, Mary, you don't have to."]

[transcript of text:

William: "I missed you so much! I was worried sick, I can't even be mad at you..." (rambling)

Mary: "I... I'm sorry, do I know you?"]

im very much still developing this au but thats what i have so far.

#cant catch me gay thoughts #dont starve #don't starve #hi dont starve tags hope you have fun with this one <3

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heartofether · 3 years

Text

Bonus Episode #4 - Irene's Inauguration TRANSCRIPT

[You can listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our “Listen” page if you’re on desktop.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

Please state your message.

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYS FOR SOME TIME BEFORE FADING OUT.]

[PHONE BEEP.]

[INT. THE BREAK ROOM, MIDDAY, AROUND LUNCH.]

[IRENE IS SITTING DOWN AT THE TABLE, WHILE ADEN IS LEANING OVER HER SHOULDER. THERE ARE VARIOUS OFFICE AMBIANCE NOISES HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND.]

IRENE

I don’t think I need your help setting it up, you know. I’m pretty sure I can figure out how to use an app.

ADEN

Sorry, sorry, I’m just—excited, you know? It feels like you’re about to take a big step, and I get to be the one to watch it happen.

IRENE

[SHE SCOFFS.] As if this is a major life milestone.

ADEN

Hey, I think it is! In a way. You know? It’s not common for someone your age to not be active on social media—

IRENE

Hey.

ADEN

Not that that’s a bad thing! You’re like, joining the masses though. It’s like an inauguration.

IRENE

Yeah, sure. Whatever.

ADEN

And, I’d also like to witness the outcome of my months of pestering you.

IRENE

Hey! I kept saying I was going to—

ADEN

So have you come up with a username yet?

IRENE

Um, not really? I’m guessing just irenegray is taken.

ADEN

Mmmm, probably. If it helps at all, I added a word to my username that I thought sounded nice. Kind of like, something cool and aesthetic, you know?

IRENE

See, that’s part of the problem. You actively have an aesthetic you’re trying to maintain. I’m just kind of, you know. [SHE VAGUELY MOTIONS.]

ADEN

Hey, I think that’s great that you're authentically yourself and you don’t adhere to any restrictive subcultures.

IRENE

If you wanna call it that… honestly though I just hadn’t thought about it. I mean, you know I’m mostly doing this for you, right?

ADEN

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just pick a word you like and pair it with your name to see if it sounds nice! Maybe, like, an adjective?

IRENE

Hm. [SHE THINKS FOR A MOMENT, THEN] I kind of like the idea of it being something forest-themed.

ADEN

That would be cute! What if you did, like, the name of a tree? [BEAT] Ooh! You could do something like cedarirene, as in red cedars, you like those, right?

IRENE

[THINKING] I kind of like that, they’re pretty… [beat]

ADEN

[HE LAUGHS AT HIS OWN JOKE] Or you could do, like, irenefir, as in Douglas-fir? Those are pretty common in this part of the states.

IRENE

[SHE CHUCKLES, THEN, HUMS IN THOUGHT.] Yeah, I’m not sure I’m going for the Christmas tree route today.

ADEN

Hey, if you end up deciding you don’t like it, you can always change it later.

IRENE

That’s a good point. [BEAT] But I think cedarirene is good.

ADEN

I like it, too.

[A PAUSE AS SHE TYPES.]

ADEN

Then just add your email and password—don’t worry, I’ll look away for this part… [KEEPS TRAILING ON AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT WHILE IRENE TYPES] Even though I’m fairly certain it’s the same login info you use for everything… which you should really work on by the way, you know that really isn’t the most secure—

[MORE PHONE TYPING.]

IRENE

Got it.

ADEN

Then you’re done!

[A BEAT.]

IRENE

What do I do now?

ADEN

Now, you get to customize your profile. You know, add your name, your bio, a profile picture—oh, actually hold on, give me your phone real quick.

IRENE

Why?

ADEN

I want you to follow me! Here, just let me search for my username.

IRENE

[SHE CHUCKLES.] Sure. Go wild.

[ADEN IS HEARD TYPING IN THE BACKGROUND.]

ADEN

…and done. Oh, actually, while I’m here, I should have you follow Carol and Julia. [HE STARTS TYPING THEIR USERNAMES IN.]

IRENE

[IN SHOCK] Carol has Instagram?

ADEN

Uh, yeah.[beat] You seriously don’t understand just how behind you are, do you?

IRENE

[SHE GAPES IN FAUX-OFFENSE] You act like I’m withering away into a pile of dust just for not using social media.

ADEN

[GIGGLING] I’m kidding, Irene! I know lots of reasons why someone may want to go off the grid. I mean, social media can be kind of, er…

IRENE

A cruel and unjust place full of corporate marketing and unattainable standards?

ADEN

Yeah. Also, it can be kind of addicting for some people. So just, I mean I doubt you’ll have that problem since you don’t really seem to care, but just—be careful.

IRENE

Don’t worry, I doubt I’ll even use it that much.

ADEN

You better at least open the app every now and then. I want to send you stuff.

IRENE

[SHE LAUGHS.] I’ll keep notifications on for you, bud… If nothing else.

ADEN

Right, so, back to your profile. I’ll let you do whatever you want for this part. Oh, you should put your pronouns in your bio, though.

IRENE

Got it. [A PAUSE, THEN] Uh, what else should I put?

ADEN

Anything you want, really. Some people like to put their age, their job, sexuality, a fun fact about themselves.

IRENE

I mean, I don’t really want to share my entire personal life with the internet.

ADEN

Then don’t. Just put some totally random fun fact.

IRENE

Hm. Okay.

[A PAUSE AS IRENE TYPES.]

ADEN

Is that… did you actually drink three cups of coffee in less than one hour before?

IRENE

It was finals season.

ADEN

[CONCERNED] I can only drink one cup, and that still makes me shaky. Were you okay?

IRENE

Gonna be totally honest, I don’t remember a damn thing from those twenty-four hours.

[THERE’S A BRIEF PAUSE BEFORE THEY BOTH LAUGH FOR A FEW SECONDS.]

ADEN

[THROUGH FADING LAUGHTER] Okay, okay. Now you just need to set a profile pic.

IRENE

I mean, I don’t really take selfies ever.

ADEN

It doesn’t have to be a photo of your face. Do you have any pets?

IRENE

Not unless my dead betta fish from three years ago counts.

ADEN

Hm, okay. Some people just make it a color they like, or if you just have a nice photo in your camera roll you want to use, you could do that. Some people use characters they like, art pieces, pictures of buildings, yada, yada, yada. Just pick something.

IRENE

Where do you get all of your info about Instagram accounts, anyways?

ADEN

Oh, it was actually my minor in college. “Aesthetically Pleasing Profiles 101.”

[THEY BOTH LAUGH.]

ADEN

I’m joking, of course. It’s just…I don’t know, the internet was kind of a safe space for me for a while? When I first moved to Daughtler, I didn’t have many friends, and my constant state of anxiety was far from helpful. Online, I could be myself and find people with similar interests way easier than I could around town, without ever having to worry about my weird real-life mannerisms that might drive people away.

IRENE

[SINCERE] That makes a lot of sense. It’s good to have support like that. I, uh, probably could have used something like that in college, honestly. I just got kind of used to isolating myself after a while, I guess. [A BEAT.] Though, if it helps at all, I think you’re pretty cool offline, too.

ADEN

Thanks, Irene. [A BEAT.] So, about your profile pic.

IRENE

Do you think Carol would mind if I made it a picture of Mothman?

ADEN

I— [HE GIGGLES.] You know what? I think she’d think it’s cute. Do it.

[IRENE GIGGLES. SHE SETS THE PROFILE PIC.]

ADEN

Welcome to the digital world, Irene Gray.

IRENE

Please, I’m not a grandpa. I know how the internet works.

ADEN

I know, I know. I’m excited to see what you post, though.

IRENE

[THINKING] I honestly hadn’t given it much thought. I guess we’ll find out… if I remember to.

ADEN

Don’t think about it too hard, alright? Just be your authentic self.

IRENE

I’ll certainly try my best.

[PHONE BEEP.]

AUTOMATED VOICE

Today's quote is: "Love is a leash that goes both ways."

Becca De La Rosa in Mabel, Episode 36, 2019.

[OUTRO MUSIC AND CREDITS PLAY.]

#heart of ether transcripts

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allthevmff · 3 years

Photo

Find Afrocurl’s work // AO3 // LJ interview from vmfictitious // originally posted Mar. 20th, 2011

How did you get into Veronica Mars fandom?

Somewhere in the middle of S2, a friend of mine from high school started to talk about this show and how much I’d like it. At the general description of a high school detective, I borrowed her S1 DVDs and devoured the show in three days. After that I started to discover fandom, mostly because I used Inigo’s transcripts to keep myself up with what the show was doing before I could watch live.

Shortly after starting the show, I had this job where I spent too much time in an office and was easily bored. I used a bunch of downtime to read fic and post in a message board (FanForum for anyone curious.) When that job ended (thankfully) I had all of this spare time and just sort of fell into writing.

Were you an experienced writer when you started writing for VM? If so, what kind of writing had you done, and/or what fandoms had you written for? If not, was it really intimidating to post your first story?

I’m a little fuzzy on these details right now, but I wasn’t that experienced when I started writing in VM. I think I had a story or two written in The OC before I posted here, but I had some great support from a few friends (sarah_p // Sarah's Crack ) for one was a big support) when I did post my first story.

What was it about Veronica Mars that interested you? Why did you feel compelled to write for this particular show?

I really fell for the characters when I started to watch. Veronica was such a compelling character, and as I kept watching I fell more in love with Logan, too. I felt compelled in that post-S2 summer to see the relationship between Logan and Veronica explored (as so many other people did.)

Are you creative in other media for fandom (vidding, icons, etc.)?

I pick up making icons here and there, but I don’t think I have the same skill as many other people do. It’s a different creative medium, and one that I think stretches a different part of my brain.

What was the best moment for you, in fandom? (Not necessarily a moment in the show, but fandom itself.)

I think it was the moment when I found myself in a position to go to all of these events around LA and San Diego. I found that people around LJ were interested as a result because there was something for people to enjoy that I had been able to capture.

If you had a magic wand, and could change VM fandom in any way, past or present, what would you do?

I wish S3 hadn’t been so divisive—it’s spoiled so many people on the show, and when you still love parts of it, but not all of it, it’s hard to stay positive around other people.

Of your accomplishments in fandom/cyberspace, which are you most proud of?

Weirdly, I think it’s little things I’ve done that bring a smile to my face. Sharing my time with the cast with others in any way. That’s not just the picspams when I went to an event, but these moments where I could get autographs or phone calls to other people. At different times, I’ve been able to make a friend’s birthday just a little brighter with a message from the cast (Sarah and another friend M.)

What’s your favorite VM episode and why?

I go back and forth on this answer all of the time, but I think it’s Ain’t No Magic Mountain High Enough. In part because it was the first episode I remember watching live, and also because I’m a sucker for banter between Logan and Veronica. That whole episode is filled with it, even if they aren’t together as a couple.

What’s your least favorite episode and why?

Blast from the Past—I just can’t get behind the mystery of the week, or what Jackie does to Veronica as a way to keep Wallace to herself.

How do you feel about season 3?

I’m a mixed bag on the subject. I think that the first arc has promise, though it didn’t do much to satisfy my need for Logan and Veronica in a healthy relationship. I’m not a fan of how Piz was introduced, or what his purpose was in the long run.

The Dean O’Dell arc lacks heart (and the Hearst rapist does too when I look at it), and the last five are just all over the place.

In total, I haven’t brought myself to rewatch the whole season since it aired, but I made a promise to myself at some point I would (I plan to live-blog all of the episodes, but I only managed to finish the first three.)

If you met Rob Thomas, what would you say to him? (Assume that you have taken magical drugs that enable you to not be tongue-tied and you can completely speak your mind.)

I briefly met him and talked to him during season three, but if I could have a longer conversation, I’d really want to understand what his motives were for Logan and Veronica in that season. It seemed that the show always had Logan and Veronica together off screen so that the audience had no real reason to understand those later break-ups.

If you could talk to the writing staff, what question(s) would you have for them?

I’m always interested in some of the specifics of the room—are there any writers who cater to writing for certain characters? What characters do you like to write more than others? I think I’m just interested in their process more than anything else.

Writing

Which story of yours is your favorite, and why?

I’m really a fan of “The Black Hole” because I think it was a different sort of writing exercise for me. I also think I was really into the moment when I wrote it, and it shows. I can’t remember how long it took me to write, but I think it was a pretty quick write once I had the idea solidified in my head.

Are there any stories of yours that are (to your surprise) fan favorites?

Not really a surprise, but I love the reaction I had to Rational Thought. My Piz issues just got one big escape in that piece and everyone who read it had a similar reaction.

Do you (or did you at first) feel uncomfortable posting R or NC17 rated stories?

I think I was a bit apprehensive the first time (especially since it was my first fic in the fandom), but as I’ve written more and more of those fics, I’m more comfortable with the ways of writing it. I also love all of my betas who help me through the mechanics of writing it.

If you could start over and rewrite any of your stories (assume unlimited time and you would be paid for your efforts, because this is a fantasy), which story would you choose, and what changes would you make?

I’m not proud of Compulsion as it was written in the end, so I’d work there and really craft the narrative more than it is now. It’s not that it’s not beta-ed, but that it wasn’t really planned or structured beyond what is written. I think there was promise in the beginning and it floundered.

Do you write for any other fandoms?

I write here and there in a few other fandoms, but most of my work is in VM. Some of the other shows are harder to get a feel for, so much that I don’t know if I have the character voices down.

Do you write any original works, and if so, can we see any of them? Have you ever taken any writing classes? Have you ever published anything? Won any competitions?

I wrote a few pieces of original fic, which are at my writing community. I haven’t been one to take a writing course, but in high school I had an award-winning poem at the local county fair.

That piece, I wrote was in my junior year of high school, spring semester (so let’s call is March 2000.) We had to write an emulation of Langston Hughes’s “I Am”, and I went all out—confused kid to the max. My teacher ate most of it up, and had me submit it to the Fair. It went on to win the best poem for high schoolers, the best high school piece and Best in Show for all student work. I have three lovely ribbons, a paper weight to show for it.

What other VM author influenced you the most? Do you have a favorite VM story (by another author)?

I spent most of my time reading things from Loveathons and Fic From Mars when I was reading, so I guess any of those authors. I really love dark_roast’s ( dark_roast) style. I think mutiousmuse and truemyth (TrueMyth) each have some amazing pieces, too. What’s great about being part of fandom is learning how much else you have in common with authors you love. I’m still friends with Musey and Truemyth after I met them at Comic Con in 2006.

Overall, I think my favorite story is Finite Erasure (TW), which puts me in the camp of loving angst. I worked with Trixx (Trixx) as she wrote it and I think I fell for the story she was telling and how much it hurt along the way.

What fanfic do you wish you’d had the idea for and written yourself?

If I had a mind for her particular brand of crazy, I’d have love to have written One True Pair, because the creativity and perspective amaze me.

Who are your favorite traditional authors? Do you have a favorite book or series?

I love Oscar Wilde’s wit; I love Fitzgerald’s use of flawed characters. When I was in college I became a huge fan of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Sadly I’m not a huge book fan, though I do love words and compelling stories. Persuasion is one of my favorite stories, along with The Alchemist. I found myself more easily distracted by television as a kid and when I do get a book, I tend to read some fluffy chick-lit.

Getting to Know You

To which character in VM do you feel you are the most similar, or what situation in VM reminds you of your own life?

Even though I don’t write her enough, I feel like I’m a slightly less tech-savvy version of Mac. I wasn’t one to have boyfriends in high school, and I think that just influences my outlook now.

Share a fun memory with us, something related to fandom.

This moment at an event in San Diego where my friends and I spent a good five minutes trying to remember the Eleanor Roosevelt quote from Logan’s voicemail.

Or the time I had Jason write a message to my journal without him really knowing where it was going.

Dog person, cat person, neither or both?

Cat person! My cat Auric loves everyone he meets, and wants to keep me from my computer when I leave it open in his presence. He really loves to sit on my keyboard when I’m not around.

What was the happiest day in your life (that you can share with us)?

December 12, 2000—the day I got into college. I’m pretty lame most of the time.

The apocalypse is on us. You’ve got five minutes to gather your stuff before you flee (assume that your loved ones are already safe). What do you take?

This is going to be pretty typical, but my laptop, and external hard drives, so I’m not without my pictures. Maybe a few of my autographs and old-school photos too.

What don’t we know about you, that we should know?

I’m not nearly as interesting as I sound on the internet. ;)

The Nuts and Bolts of Writing

Do you consider yourself a stickler for grammar, or do you prefer a more casual approach? Specifically, serial comma: for or against?

I’m weirdly a stickler for grammar when I’m not the one writing. I’m usually for the serial comma, which I blame on years of it being grilled into my head from school.

What grammar issue do you constantly have to struggle with?

Spelling—I’m horrible at it most of the time.

Do you have any writing reference books you can’t live without?

I have a few copies of writing guides tucked away in my garage, but I don’t regularly look at them when I’m writing.

Are you a plotter or a “pantser”? (Do you outline your stories or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?)

It really depends on the story. I have some basic idea of a fic when I start to write it, but there are times when I only know that general outline and other times when I have a better plan.

There’s one story that’s been buried on my computer that’s plotted more than anything else I write. There are notes on how each chapter should work, but I only did that because it was a true multi-chapter fic.

My other fics that have turned into WIPs are not as plotted as they should be.

What’s your favorite point-of-view to write?

I love third-person more than anything else. It gives you the flexibility to talk about more than one person in the context of the story.

What type of writing is your favorite to write (dialogue, plot, action, interior monologue, description, sex scene, etc.)? Your least favorite?

Dialogue—no questions. I love banter as much as anyone else.

My least favorite—probably sex scenes. They’re awkward to figure out, positions, how clinical but not too clinical.

Do you listen to music while you write? Do you listen to different music depending on what you’re writing?

I do, unless I’m watching TV. My music doesn’t change depending on what I write, though maybe it should. My poor iTunes has been known to be demonic when I read fic, though it doesn’t do that as often when I’m writing.

What inspires you to write?

I like motivational moments that can drive a point home—so I tend to write shorter pieces that are about emotions instead of plot driven.

What blocks you from writing?

Lack of time. The inability to express what I’m looking for.

Specifically for Afrocurl!

What surprised you the most about Jason Dohring in person (that you can share with us)?

He’s a genuinely sweet person who adores his fans and what they do for him. I’d never had too many experiences with actors before I met him and he set the stage for being kind to fans.

How is he like Logan? How is he not like Logan? Did he do anything that freaked you out after watching him on TV so much?

I think he has Logan’s physical ticks—hair rakes and the like.

He’s not as precise with language as Logan. In person he’s sort of like any other California guy I’ve met.

Which story of yours would it appall you the most to find out that Jason had read?

The Weevil and Logan story. I think he’d blush and be shocked at the subject more than anything.

Which of your celebrity encounters thrilled you to death, but the rest of world could care less?

The girl who loves politics was thrilled by meeting Justice Scalia at my college. Though I’m sure I’m the only one who can appreciate it now.

We know you do a lot for charities. Do you have anything coming up that we should know about, that you’d like us to support?

Since Sweet Charity has ended, I haven’t done much work for charity recently. I’ve been a little too busy with the rest of life to help out with the Queensland floods and the like.

What’s your dream job?

Working at a high school teaching either Government or US History, maybe AP if that’s an option.

Your life seems to be going through a lot of changes right now. How do you see yourself ten years from now?...family, job, hobbies, etc., anything you want to share with us.

I’d love to have a stable job, with friends and family nearby for support. I can’t hope for much else than that right now.

Find Afrocurl’s work // AO3 // LJ

Source: X

reposted from vmfictitious // originally published on Mar. 20th, 2011

#vm fanfic #veronica mars fanfic #veronica mars fanfiction #writer wednesday #writerwednesday #author interview #authorinterview #the more things change

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bookish-fan-things · 4 years

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The Captive Kingdom Launch Party HIGHLIGHTS

Jen has a dog that won't play fetch and a cat that hallucinates

The Kings English Bookstore is home to many authors in Utah and it has been hit hard by Covid-19. She asks for us to support them or your local indie bookstore!!!

November 14, there is going to be an author extravaganza to support TKE Bookstore

Shortly after the False Prince came out, she was still a very new author, she got a tweet from R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps saying how much he loved TFP. She was so excited and she wanted to thank him personally but didn't know his name, and he had called her Jennifer so she didn't want to say Mr. Stine.So she ended up just saying, thanks!

Book 5 is due to her editor Monday (October 5, 2020) and she said she would be finishing this (the launch) then getting right back to it!

She showed her open project folders (there are a LOT)

Working on a World War 1 story and she showed history books she is reading such as History of the World War, A World Undone, and Weird War One.

One of her new works is about a kid with no memory, a magic sharpie, and a dice game called Boggle that sometimes talks to him and he sees a message in the dice: “they know ur here go”

Q&A!!!

Disney, book to movie adaptation possibilities? She'd be fine with it if they asked. She wants it to be made right. She wants someone who comes to at it with a fan’s perspective.

Paramount Pictures had optioned the rights to the False Prince, what happened? When you have a contract, every six months they have to decide whether to extend, cancel, or make the movie. As her six months was coming up, they fired their CEO, so everything evaporated.

How does it affect you emotionally when one of your characters goes through something traumatic or extremely challenging? She has a background in theatre and she comes to writing from a theatrical perspective. It plays out in her head like it's on stage so she becomes every character. She goes through everything with her characters, she feels it, she dreads it, she feels awful, but she's learned that “Most of us are in this stasis of being where we are just comfortable being exactly who we are and when something hard happens to us, even if we hate it, it forces us to grow. The hard thing creates heroes. So my characters start out believing they are just ordinary people, but when I do the hard things, my characters become very heroic characters. I do hard things to them because I love watching them grow.” I had to include this quote because it was so great

Favorite background character who you think gets overlooked a lot? Kerwyn, he is one of the very few stable things in the lives of the main characters, he is just good, strong, and loyal. Amarinda, she’s ok with being overlooked but she is so strong and intelligent.

Characters based on yourself? Not really, she doesn't think she is interesting enough to write about, but Sage, like her, is left handed, climbs, and has her sense of humor. She relates closely to the main character from the Scourge, Ani, and sees a lot of herself in her, but didn't base Ani on herself, they just have a lot in common.

Jen discussed how she plots out her books and how many drafts she goes through: she's got to know the twist so she can layout the hints. She shows an example of a chart of how much each character and what the reader knows. She rewrites a lot and feels it come together. First rewrite is fixing major plot issues. Second, logic. Dialogue. Description. Word choice. Could be 10-15 drafts before her editor sees it, who sees things Jen missed.

Have your characters ever taken you by surprise (with twists)? The ending of Mark of the Thief book one, she didn't expect, so she had to make some changes. Usually on top of it, and has something called the Rule of Five. Has a general idea, and makes herself come up with five possible ways the idea could play out. 1, usually pretty predictable. 5, usually really weird. 2, 3, and 4 she really gets creative. “Limitations are the mother of creativity.”

How she gets her character names: baby name books and websites (Imogen and Tobias). Symbolic, Sage (wise, a way for him to stick it to his dad and say he has wisdom), Connor (con man), Jaron (teenage boy she knew who was just a great person and outstanding kid, and if we had royalty in our country he would be a prince). Put sounds together, places, Amarinda, Mott, Roden, Kerwyn. (She also gave an example for writers to use: UTAH, UTAR, TUTAR, TOTAR, TOTARA, city of Totara!!)

She explained how she does her fantasy world building and it is mainly based on what she will need in the plot (ie Carthya is landlocked, mountains to the north, waterways that would be needed, it is resource wealthy making it desirable, etc)

Culture and religion in world building: how many gods or none? saints and devils! causing good and bad things in your life. Sage feels like he is constantly being harassed by the devils. It became a social thing in the world.

Would she want to live there [in Carthya]? Sometimes, but not in the last book that she is editing now!! *wink*

Where's fink's rat? Fink’s rat is on the castle grounds. She said this. It's canon. Fink’s. Rat. Is. In. The. Castle. (See @thedevilsofcarthya for full transcript of Jen discussing this)

TCK trailer: created by her family, particularly her son, Chase, and the voiceover was her son in law. Chase wanted to do something different and take a risk.

youtube

Your career as an author? When she started writing she knew nothing and nobody just had a manuscript that was ‘awful’ and will be buried with her. (I personally would read ANYTHING she wrote). She submitted her second one to “every agent with a pulse” and everyone said no. She wrote a new one, they said no. Fourth manuscript, she felt ready to break in, Apprentice to a Madman, she thought it was the best thing ever, submitted it and got a rejection scribble, not a letter, worked on it and kept getting rejected. One publisher had rep for taking everybody so she sent in hers. A couple months later, on her birthday, she got a call from a friend that they got an acceptance letter from the same publisher as she had submitted hers, got her own… rejected…She thought a lot about it and decided to erase everything she thought she knew about publishing and once she had a new idea, that manuscript got her agent and first publisher. That letter on her birthday was the last rejection letter she received. “Remember you can start from nowhere and find success.”

When asked for descriptions of the characters so an artist can draw them, she said, they look like how you envision them, there is no ‘right’. (Shows fanart from the competition that is on her blog!)

TCK art print was created by her niece, Ireland. It is her concept of the characters.

Writing during covid and quarantine? She's a strong believer that when God closes a door, he opens a window. She misses the opportunities to be in schools and bookshops. Just discovered a new WW2 true story she is researching. Various stories at different stages. Very excited for stories she has created because of Covid. “We will get through this, we will, and we're going to be stronger at the end because remember, when we go through hard things we get stronger."

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