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jocia92 · 3 years

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… So much of an actor’s craft is figuring out the “I want” of their character, but that’s got to be a little different with Tom since he states that he literally cannot want anything. What challenge or opportunity did that pose for you?

I think he wants to improve. I think he wants to calibrate according to Alma’s needs, wants, and desires. I think he’s very ready to learn and to understand. That was the kind of primary objective: listen, learn, calibrate, improve. That’s almost the track of each scenario. He just gets a little better each time, and the process gets a little faster. But certainly, in the beginning, he’s just delivering this sort of 20 classic chat-up lines that he’s been uploaded with and getting it all wrong. It’s fun to watch the machine learn and chart that progress.

On a practical or philosophical level, how did you approach the process of humanizing a character that’s an algorithm, or did you at all?

It was very much about charting with Maria exactly when we want to see the machine, when we want to see the human. Even playing with that ratio was really interesting and fun. It’s not so much about watching him play the machine, but watching a character try to play the human. Certainly, in the beginning, in some of the not quite so successful human moments, shall we say, we deconstructed what we regarded as the conventional human behavior in that. We looked at a lot of screwball comedies, like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn movies. [We were] taking a move or a gesture, breaking that down, and just doing two of the things. It just suddenly looks very odd and wrong, and you’re like, “Oh, this is what a human does in this moment!” But it’s just off. It was really as much about looking at the human.

You’ve mentioned things like The Philadelphia Story as shaping the film and its central relationship. Was that to ground it in reality or further ensconce it in the warped reality of cinema? Grant and Stewart are recognizable to us as people, but things like that mid-Atlantic lilt were entirely manufactured for the screen.

That was a very key point for Maria in referencing Cary Grant. The hair color that we chose for Tom was very much like Cary Grant’s hair color, being a shade darker than is possibly human. And the skin tone being slightly artificial for Tom. You’re right, Cary Grant is often very heightened and mannered sometimes, and it works in the situation in the style of the thing that he’s in. But we quite liked the idea that Tom has been uploaded with some outdated versions of what a romantic lead was supposed to behave like.

It’s striking just how thought-out things had to be down to how Tom responds to dead air space in a conversation. What was the process behind those small moments that can make or break the believability of a character?

It was very fun to play with, and probably quite frustrating for a lot of the human actors. Maren was giving a beautifully naturalistic performance, and the conventional responses that there should be from her scene partner weren’t there. We deliberately strip those away—sometimes without telling her, sometimes without needing to tell her. It’s just the way that Tom was, so it was about pushing those moments into a space that became a little uncomfortable: not jumping in on the lines where you might normally jump in, sometimes coming in hard, sometimes offering a delayed response, sometimes none at all. Playing with those, and watching how comfortable or uncomfortable that made them both, was really fun.

Did that frustration, built in by the process, bleed over for Maren into the character of Alma, do you think?

Maybe for Maren. Certainly, for me, it was frustrating in that I would have to remember not to respond in the way that I might normally and remove some of those things. [I had to] really break down exactly what Tom is thinking, what his programming is doing in that point, how he’s responding and calibrating, and whether we see that or not. Choosing moments to show the human, to show the machine. Along with Maria, that was one of the great joys of the role.

How did you settle on the physicality of the character? Was it at all helpful to have done something like Beauty and the Beast in a mo-cap suit to be hyper-aware of how your own movements translate to the screen?

Very much so. In fact, in pretty much every role I’ve done since Beauty and the Beast, I’ve incorporated not always a movement coach, but I’ve definitely looked at movement theory and physicality in a totally new way because of the challenges of that role. And, I have to say, dance plays a huge part in that. Whether it’s incorporated on the screen or if it’s something that just feels as if it helps the role, I often find that a dance studio is a very fruitful space to discover things about your character’s physicality. Learning the rumba for this role was incredibly helpful because it’s a very precise, technical, almost robotic dance in terms of the laser precision that’s needed to get it absolutely right. I had a fantastically exact teacher in Berlin who was teaching me the rumba the whole way through the shoot. We shot that [one scene] quite near the end of the shoot. Just to have those lessons, that kind of physicality, and that poise with me the whole way through the role was really useful.

How did the role being in a non-native tongue affect the characterization of Tom? Was it all easier to make him seem slightly unreal given that the words might not come quite as naturally as they would in English?

I think it was a deliberate choice on the part of Maria to look for a foreign actor who could speak German. She needed somebody who could both get their heads and their mouths around the very technical German that was required, which, even for a German is pretty complex, but also who had that sense of otherness. I’m sure they could have tailored the screenplay to any number of nationalities, but I was very happy they came to me and made him British. It definitely helped with, as I say, the fact that he’s listening, learning, focusing, trying to improve…that was literally all I was doing last summer, every day.

How do you lock onto the frequency of German comedy, which isn’t always something people associate with that country or people? How is it different than doing something like the more mannered British wit of Blithe Spirit or the broad studio comedy of Eurovision Song Contest?

It’s not a country known for it, but I think they should [be]. I find Germans very funny. They have a very interesting sense of humor. What’s particularly delightful is the way that they can tackle really kind of big, sometimes weighty, issues with a certain wit and lightness of touch, which is not common to all countries. Physical comedy, I think, is fairly universal. I think there’s something almost farcical about some of the physical stuff that we managed to get in this. It was really fun to make people laugh in a foreign language. It was surprisingly delightful. It felt very unifying, somehow, to be able to get a joke across in any language.

#ich bin dein mensch #i'm your man #dan stevens #slant magazine #interview #long post

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thenightling · 3 years

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I’ll be your mirror (A Sandman fan fiction)

This story is a shameless Fluff piece written while listening to “I’ll be your Mirror” by The Velvet Underground on repeat. This is sort of Dream of The Endless working through an existential crisis.

I’ll be your Mirror

The pale figure of Daniel Hall moved through the empty private chambers of The Castle at the heart of The Dreaming.

This ancient, and stone-looking, fortress was a monument to pure creativity, pure imagination. Sometimes known as Ghost Castle it seemed fitting that that the current aspect of Dream (who often answered to the name Daniel) actually resembled something of a ghost. He was pale white, as white as milk, and his hair was just as white, just as soft and cloud-like, as the rest of his ethereal form. His hair was curly and untamed, much like the black hair of his predecessor, the now deceased aspect of Dream, Morpheus. Daniel’s eyes were black as pools of midnight water, with two twin star pupils. He could have been the boyish and more youthful looking twin of the previous embodiment of dream. Daniel wore an egg-shaped emerald amulet, the only sign of color upon him. Otherwise he was a mostly white, and wispy entity wandering his private chambers. He moved silently and with some private sense of purpose. Dream of The Endless is something like a great, faceted jewel. And each facet is a different incarnation- an aspect, an autonomous entity that is both connected to, and yet separate to the whole.

Daniel knew he was only a fragment and not the whole of what is Dream of The Endless and yet there was no real sense of comfort to that strange loneliness that ate at his all-too human-like heart. He often felt he was too human. Had his predecessor dealt with such a burden? He tried to recall. Yes. Why, yes he had. But only toward the end… You would think the link to that old, deceased, aspect of Dream of The Endless would be gone but that was not necessarily the case. Not only had Daniel inherited all of his memories but he had done something, something that he was fairly certain most did not know about… Daniel had been conceived and gestated for over two years in a mortal woman’s womb in The Dreaming. Though his mother had some divine aspect within her, and was considered something of a “metahuman” herself, Daniel had seemed human enough at the time of his birth, despite the peculiarities of his gestation and his poor, naïve, father having been the manipulated soul of a deceased human… Where had the other aspect of Dream been during Daniel’s gestation? Well, for most of it he had been imprisoned in a crystalline cage in a mortal’s cellar. In his early form Daniel had appeared to be a normal human baby. Blond haired, blue eyed, with a peach-tone flesh that wasn’t as it was now, this milk-white. The only one who had recognized him for what he truly was had been Himself, that is to say, the active aspect of Dream, Lord Morpheus. Now looking pretty much nothing like that mortal baby, the adult and distinctly non-human Daniel Hall, this aspect of Dream of The Endless, recalled well their first psychic communications with one and other. It was the only time he truly felt a deep and profound bond to another, when he stared into Morpheus’ eyes and felt that link there between them. Of course there had been some connection to his mortal-esque mother but this was different. What he felt toward this other aspect of self was like staring into a reflection of his very soul. When he “Spoke” with Morpheus it was like communing with his own subconscious. There was such an understanding and appreciation for the truth that it comforted him to know he was there. Though to tell which had been comforted by the other’s presence was difficult to say.

When Morpheus had “Died” as Dream of The Endless, Daniel rose to power, taking his predestined form and his mind flooded with the repressed, and hidden knowledge and memories of over ten billion years of consciousness. Now he felt like the very heart of an intricate web, he knew each fiber as it stretched from himself and through The Dreaming.

He had a psychic link to every sentient entity he had ever created within The Dreaming, including ones created by his previous-self (whom he could recall having been, like a human reincarnation).

The loneliness had been terrible in those first few moments as Lord of The Dreaming, despite his sudden psychic awareness and knowledge. And one of the first things he did was something others might find unspeakable…

Meanwhile, in another part of The Dreaming…

“I walk across the dreaming sands under the pale moon: through the dreams of countries and cities, past dreams of places long gone and times beyond recall.”

In his darkest and strangest hours, when Morpheus had thoughts he scarcely would admit to himself he wondered that perhaps Loki, Lucifer, and all the other iconoclasts of the various pantheons were right in their rebellion. They wanted to leave and so they did. There was no dramatic final exit. They didn’t dread abandoning responsibilities as he did. If only he had the bravery or selfishness and carelessness to do as they had done…but these thoughts were along the lines of words he would never dare utter, not even to himself. He was dead now, right? What did it matter? He had escaped his role in the most absolute fashion possible…

Morpheus walked along the beach of Hob’s dream in the perpetual eventide. This was, for him, his Heaven, his sanctuary. And almost every night he would walk and speak with his friend who always steadfastly refused Death’s gift. How he admired Hob’s fortitude. And how he, himself, liked it here. He was at peace here. Eternally residing in the dream of a friend wasn’t the worst way one could spend an existence after being an Endless. And yet sometimes he felt certain old aches, like a mortal who had lost a leg and missed it terribly. His existence as Dream of The Endless was over but Morpheus had been recreated as a Dream Entity. Now free from the burden of being Dream of The Endless, he did not envy the self that had to reign in his place. In fact he found himself pitying him. And sometimes he felt that his new purpose, his new reason to be, was to simply reassure Daniel as no one had for himself- to remind him that he understood. That he knew how he felt. That he was not alone. And most importantly, perhaps, that he forgave him for all his faults and short comings…

Daniel walked to the mirror mounted over the vanity table in his private rooms. The door to the room vanished behind him. He wanted to be alone with his brooding thoughts. Daniel stared into the mirror, trying to decide who or what he was. Who was he? And where did he belong? Was he the boy Lyta Hall had cradled in her arms or was he the man who would govern The Dreaming for eons to come and who had always governed The Dreaming? He felt world weary and weak. He doubted himself and his abilities as Dreamlord. He sighed heavily. Sometimes he just wished he was that innocent child once more simply so someone would hold him and comfort him and tell him everything would be okay. A figure stepped behind Daniel, soundlessly and as shadowlike as Daniel was ghostlike. Daniel was only briefly startled by the sudden presence of his deceased self in the chamber with him. He knew better than to ask how Morpheus had come to be there. Morpheus might have been deceased as Dream of The Endless but as a dream-entity he was very much free from that burden and knew his way around The Dreaming and especially his old castle. And he knew how to enter where only Dream would enter. The two – the living Dream of The Endless and the “Dead” Dream felt such a relief in the other’s presence as if all pressure had been lifted. But each was too proud to admit how much he needed the other in that moment. “What am I?” Daniel asked in his lingering sense of personal uncertainty. It was the question he would never ask anyone other than himself. “You are you. You are Dream.” Morpheus assured him as if that was all the answer he needed. Daniel nodded. He seemed a little shaky but the other figure placed a bony hand on Daniel’s narrow shoulder. Daniel’s garments wavered, shifted. And his white robes became a fine, gauzy, white, toga, just as Morpheus’ own gothic, wizard-like robes shifted into an identical black toga. The two looked like matching halves of a yin-yang standing there in front of the great oval mirror mounted over the vanity table. “I am here.” Morpheus assured him in his own imperfect way of trying to comfort himself. “I am here.” He did not begrudge his posthumous existence. He knew why Daniel needed him. The silent need that they both had, it was that same need that had invited a certain cat that had been mistaken as another aspect of Dream, to come save the universe. That was a different adventure that both knew in their heart but could not actually, consciously, directly, remember, not really. “I will be for you what was never there for me.” Morpheus assured him. Daniel took a ragged breath. “I didn’t… I wasn’t sure you would…” “That I would forgive my own existing? Daniel… It was my plan. I knew I had to change or die. I chose both. I knew what you would do because you are me. How could I begrudge it?” Daniel turned his head. Morpheus had released his awkward grip on the shoulder of his other self. “This is where we both belong.” Daniel said. It was a statement but it was also a plea, a secret, hidden plea. He feared being rejected by himself. “Perhaps.” Morpheus said, knowing Daniel understood what he meant. “We are all things within The Dreaming.” Daniel said. “The wind, the rain, the sunset, all of it. It’s us. And I don’t actually –need- anyone.” He lied and he knew his other self knew he was lying. “But there is a difference to be able to talk and hear a voice respond that has felt and knows your burden.” “I don’t want to be alone.” Daniel said. “You’re just going to leave again, retreat back into your dreamscape and leave me to bear it… We’re not the same. You’re free where I am not.” Morpheus’ expression darkened, his frown deepened. “No. No, I’m not as free as I thought I was. You are my burden now. I am my own burden. Because… No matter where I go… there I am… And you need me. I… am responsible.” Daniel looked at him, uncertainly, blinking his black, glassy eyes. “You would… stand with me? So I don’t have to be alone?” “I am here, am I not? Yes… I have died. And …changed.” He loathed admitting that more than once. “But things are different now. There are two of us… We need not stand alone any longer.” Daniel looked at him, at his other self, and there was no resentment. There was no sense of old guilt for forcing him to exist. He knew that he understood why he had done it. They forgave each other. And they were both home.

“No one else would ever accept me if I showed them all of who and what I am.” Daniel confessed. “Not even… Not even my mortal mother. She could never understand. There’s so much darkness in me... And it has always been there. Always, even before I was Daniel Hall. I am so very afraid of …of my own darkness.” Morpheus gave him a trace of a bitter smile. “You are afraid others might see your mind, your secret heart, and judge you for it? You are afraid they will see the corruption, cruelty, and unkindness?” “Yes…” “Daniel, I was far crueler than you ever were. Don’t burden yourself…” “But sometimes I-“ “Shhhh.” Morpheus said. “It’s what you do, not what you think that defines what you are. You don’t bear that darkness alone. It’s what you choose to do despite the darkness that matters. Pretend to be kind- and act on that pretended kindness. Behave the way you think a kind creature should act. It is good enough to pretend, to play the part. You are good enough.” “How- how can I do that? I barely know how to be you.” “’Me.’” Morpheus corrected. “How to be ‘me.’ You are not my shadow.” Daniel shook his head and raised his hands to his face, placing his palms over his own eyes.

Morpheus was not very good at physical intimacy except with lovers and even then there was some question as to his ability to express affection but when it came to himself he made the exception and reaching out he took a hold of each of Daniel’s hands, cupping his hands with his to gently ease down his hands. “Please put down your hands. Don’t worry. I see you for what you really are. You are not something terrible. You are Dream and you are …beautiful. Surely you see it?” “How can you possibly see good in me when you don’t even see it in yourself?” Daniel asked. Morpheus was taken aback by the question as if Daniel’s very words had slapped him. “I…” “I have done terrible things. I have hurt people.” Daniel said. “Why do you think I am so much better than you? Why? How could I be better than you when I AM you? At least you never killed except in defense of The Dreaming! I… I killed and it was for malicious reasons. I thought I was being honorable but I was just being cruel.”

Morpheus knew what he was talking about. He had always known. He knew about Daniel’s lover, Ivy, Rose Walker’s daughter. Desire’s great granddaughter. And he knew that when a bachelor party, besotted by alcohol, had made lewd comments about Ivy, Daniel had driven them all, in a pleasant dream-walk, into the ocean…

It had been cruel. It had been brutal. It had been something Morpheus had thought beyond his own capacity but he sometimes surprised himself. And he also knew he had to forgive himself. Daniel had been burdened with being Dream of The Endless all alone and it was effecting his mind. Daniel clenched his hands into fists. He looked so vulnerable to Morpheus, so tired, and so frail. “Damn you! Damn you for leaving me here and making me be you!” Daniel said with his head bowed. Their thoughts were shared between them as they had been when Daniel had his mortal, infant, form.

Morpheus slowly walked from Daniel and the vanity mirror that had reflected them this entire time. Now Daniel’s was the only image in the mirror as Morpheus walked to a sofa that had not been in the stark room a moment before. He sat down slowly, heavily, despite his slight build. “I should never have done this to you… It was wrong of me.”

Daniel was surprised. “All I did was subject another self to the same burden that I fled from in allowing you to become Dream of The Endless, and letting myself die. I see now there is only one way to rectify this wrong…” Daniel blinked several times and walked over to the sofa. He sat down next to him. Daniel knew what he meant to do. “Are you certain? After all you went through to extricate yourself?” Morpheus nodded slowly. “Yes, I am certain. I must do this. It will just be an endless cycle unless…” Daniel placed a hand over Morpheus’ “Unless we share the burden… together. Support one and other… be there for each other…” Morpheus looked at him. “Balance one and other.” When Daniel lifted his hand there was now something in Morpheus’ palm. It was the ruby dreamstone amulet he had re-created shortly before his own destruction. He looked down at it with a nod. With an almost ceremonious act of raising it, Morpheus lifted the jewel pendant up, and over his head. He lifted it over his mop of black, wild, hair and let the amulet hang from his neck, lightly against his chest. Now Daniel offered the pouch of dreamsand. Morpheus saw it had been exactly duplicated though which was the duplicate, the one he would claim, or the one Daniel kept, it was impossible to tell.

“Ovid wrote of three Oneiroi.” Daniel said. “But I think we have both had enough of three-in-one. And perhaps two is enough. Don’t you think?”

Morpheusn as Morpheus was done securing the pouch to his hip Daniel took his hand again. He liked holding his hand and he knew Morpheus liked it too even if they were both too proud to admit it out loud. “Promise me,” Daniel said, “promise you will help me through my own darkness.” “I will try. I’m not sure I can.” Morpheus said, uncertainly. “You can,” Daniel said “Because you already are. We… already are… for each other.” “Which one of us is the reflection of the other?”

“Does it matter?” “No. Not anymore.”

The End.

#I'll be your Mirror #The Sandman #Sandman fan fiction #The Sandman fan fiction #Sandman #Daniel Hall #Dream of The Endless #Morpheus

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shivanatarajablog · 4 years

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Transcript & additional notes

This bronze statue at the oriental museum dates to c. 1800 ce; but the figure’s origins trace back much further. This statue depicts Lord Shiva, in his form as Nataraja, meaning Lord of the Dance. Shiva is one of the three pantheons of Hinduism, together with Brahma (insert img), the creator and Vishnu, the preserver (insert img). Shiva is the destroyer. However, these three deities represent different avatars of the same divine substance. In fact, Shiva here (back to img) dances the cosmic dance of destruction and creation.

The deity of Shiva seems to have emerged from the Vedic deity Rudra (insert img & date) who represents the destructive forces of nature. Ancient Hymns of Rig Veda and Atharva Veda point to his dual ascetic and ithyphallic aspects; now associated to Shiva, and enabling a later worship of Shiva in the linga form. (insert img) The linga is a phallic form of Shiva which is most commonly venerated in temples, a symbol of unrealised potential and creative, fertile forces. Puja, or worship is performed by pouring milk or ghee over the linga.

These destructive forces remain integral to his figure. (back to img). In the 9th and 10th century Shiva is depicted as the Lord of Destruction in a morbid way. He dances at cremation grounds. (insert img) It is thought that these are the roots of his later Nataraja depiction. The flames which embrace the composition radially recall a funeral pyre;(zoom) and the skull in his hair is reminiscent of its remnants (zoom) The drum he holds gives rhythm to his dance (zoom). One of the most famous statues of Shiva Nataraja is in Chidambaram, (insert img) and it is thought that this town was was close to a cremation ground. However, Shiva’s history is complex and mysterious, and the temple at Chidambaram is home to many of these mysteries.It is still a very famous site, known for having Shiva in his Nataraja form as opposed to just his linga form. Nataraja in Chidambaram remains the most sacred of his presentations. (insert img) The icon literally embodies the deity’s living presence. Every morning he is awakened, bathed, offered meals, and throughout the day is entertained and delighted via dance and music. He is put to sleep in the evening. During the festival of Margayi Tiruvadirai, the winter solstice, Nataraja is taken out on a chariot for a procession (insert img). It is likely, due to the size of the statue at the Oriental museum, that it too was venerated in a temple, and perhaps carried out in processions.

The statue at Chidambaram points to other possible origins of Nataraja’s iconography. Nataraja is also associated to Kotravai (insert img), a goddess of war who dances in the carnage of battlefields. His dance thus, is not just of death, but of victory. His victorious qualities emerge from two myths. The first, is the myth of the pine forest. (insert img) After the death of his wife, Sarti, Shiva goes to the Daru forest with the intention to live with rishis (sages), whilst he is mourning her death. He comes to this forest as a naked, ithyphallic, handsome beggar, Bhikshatana. He is sexually irresistible to the wives of the rishis, who become interested in Shiva. The rishis feel humiliated and retaliate by sending various weapons. He easily overcomes all of them and turns them into trophies by either wearing them or dancing over them; (back to img) these are: the drum in his right hand (zoom), the fire in his left hand (zoom), the skull on the crown on his head (zoom).the demon, apasmara, which he treads on. (zoom) The snake which wraps around his body ( zoom). He bears the scratches of a tiger in the form of stripes on the garment around his waist. (zoom) (back to img). He dances with such furious joy that the dance takes on a cosmic dimension, thus encompassing into itself all of creation. This dance enlightens the sages. At Shiva’s urging, they worship him in his abstract form, the linga.

The second myth to emerge was that two sages residing in Chidambaram, after knowing of the performance of this dance, yearn to see it. Shiva Nataraja agrees to perform the cosmic dance there and only there, thus marking Chidambaram as the core of the psychic universe. However, resident goddess, Tillai Amman resents Shiva’s decision and challenges him to a dance competition. Shiva wins by raising his leg above his hip in the urdhva janu pose (insert img). As a woman, and as a virginal goddess, she cannot perform this move without compromising her modesty. She is thus defeated and cedes the temple to Shiva.

(back to img) It is theorised that the popularisation of this triumphal icon was due to the Chola dynasty Kings desire to assimilate themselves to his victorious aspects, as they expanded their rule all throughout India. Nataraja served as a god of conquest, brandishing the priests’ failed weapons similarly to how Kings exhibited looted goods from their enemies.

Nataraja thus dances both in death and in triumph; but what remains clear is the profound quality of this work beyond its morbid and martial implications. Perhaps this is why he has remained such a prevalent symbol until the present day. Another undeniable factor is the figure’s beauty. His form is taken from the guidance of ancient manuscripts, the Shilpa Shastras, on divine measurements for sculpture. For example, Shiva’s eyes are shaped like almonds, and his arms ‘long like stalks of bamboo’, his face ‘round like the moon’; and a (insert img) radial geometric composition underlies it all, exalting its cosmic symbolism, which I will now elucidate.

(back to img) This statue conveys first principle of creation according the Hindu account of genesis - that at first, there was sound. This is represented through the drum, or damaru, that Shiva holds in his upper right hand (zoom). The drum tunes the act of creation and measures the passage of time. his front right arm is raised in the gesture of abhaya mudra meaning, “fear not, those who follow my path of righteousness will have my blessing” (zoom) . The fire, agni, which he holds in his upper left hand, represents destruction (zoom). The ring of fire (back to img) represents the perpetual cosmic cycles of the universe. His long matted tresses alternate flower garlands, which stream outward the ring of fire, showing his omnipresence throughout the universe. He tramples apasmara, (zoom) representing the dispelling of ego and ignorance. (back to img) His dance destroys the universe but also the bonds of every soul, freeing them from their egos and deeds. He embodies the tension of dynamic action and balanced stillness. His is a dance of furious bliss, but his expression is one of calm contemplation. Physicists today describe this as the dance of subatomic matter. In the words of Aldous Huxley… (insert clip)

Notes:

This was my final transcript. It is similar to a storyboard, in that while and after I wrote it I inserted directions for when I wanted a certain image. I then compiled a bullet point list of images that I wanted to include in my podcast. These were the following:

-Triad of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva - Shiva in all his poses - Img of Rudra deity - Shiva linga - Shiva dancing at cremation grounds - Temple of Chidambaram - Shiva at Chidambaram - Shiva in procession - Img of Kotravai - Illustration of pine forest myth - Shiva in urdhva janu pose - Radial Yantra

I initially looked at the Oriental Museum collection online to see if I could find any of these images there, and indeed I found that of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. I also found one of the linga, but there were other gods in the image as well (the image I found in a previous post), so I thought it might make it confusing.

I then encountered a few difficulties. I found no images of Rudra, if not for one with a pitiful quality. The same applied to the illustration of the pine forest myth. I also just did not find an image of Shiva dancing at cremation grounds. I don’t know why I thought I could find an image of Shiva’s statue at Chidambaram, given the fact that you’re not allowed to photograph it (since it is the living embodiment of the deity). I was however, successful in my remaining pursuits.

I found that the way I structured my transcript made it easy for me to edit. I did however, have immense difficulties in recording myself reading it. Every time there was a problem, and at first I was trying to record it all in one go as when I listened to sample podcasts one of the main things that struck me was the abrupt change from one section of a voice over to the next. I quickly accepted my fate, however, as I realised I was utterly incapable of reading a page of words without stumbling over my words, being interrupted by some kind of noise, or sounding dead inside when listening back to it. I thus decided to record in parts, which was significantly easier.

I then wanted to choose some music, and an artist I had been listening to recently was Anoushka Shankar. She is a Bengali sitar player and composer, trained in classical Indian music, although she was born in the UK. I thought her identity perfectly embodied this project - and Indian object in an English museum. The songs I chose, Flight and Maya, I thought were beautiful, soft instrumental tracks that would not overpower me speaking. Fortunately for me, the change between the two songs, from a mellower, more melancholy tone to a more upbeat one happens when I start to narrate the myths, which I feel helped the transition to a lighter-hearted ‘storytelling’.

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olympusintelligence · 5 years

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Part 1 Chapter 3

6/6/2018 13:00 (Hong Kong Time) St. Raphael’s Catholic Cemetery

Helen’s funeral was held two weeks after the explosion.

Her parents passed away long ago, so only her brother Christian handled her funeral. He did not allow Kyle to help, and only invited him, his parents and few of his colleagues to attend it.

They met for very few times, but they were like water to fire. Kyle never got in his way, but after their first meeting he just started a quarrel with him for no apparent reason whenever they met. In every conflict Helen was torn in the middle, persuading both men to compromise.

Fortunately he did not work in Hong Kong, otherwise Kyle would have no single good day. He only knew Christian was an Undersecretary of a bureau inside the Department of State, which meant he had to work in the US and overseas for a long time, but having little knowledge of civil service in the US, he did not really know his actual rank, position and job duties. By the way, he always provoked him to quarrel with him when he visited Helen, or encountered him in Hong Kong or Los Angeles during his business trips or holidays.

Though Kyle was truly furious at his brother-in-law for his hostility towards him, he did not dare to complain this time.

He lost his lover, while he lost his only family member on earth.

21/5/2018 0:00 (Hong Kong time) Kyle’s home

Kyle tried to call Christian, who was somewhere in the world, but similar to the past Christian never answered or returned a call, and never responded to his Whatsapp message either. After a thorough thought, Kyle finally texted him, and very rarely within thirty seconds he replied, “Thanks. I’ll come ASAP.”

After the DVIU notified him the time and location of verifying the victim’s corpse, he texted his brother-in-law again. Four days later, his brother-in-law arrived at the morgue fifteen minutes earlier. Though he did dress up, he looked languid, as if he had had insomnia for days. Black circles were below the similar beautiful honey brown eyes, and his face was almost sickly pale. It was the first time Kyle witnessed his brother-in-law being so wretched. Helen’s death had clearly crushed him.

In his impression, no matter how Christian had been picky towards him, he was a soft-spoken gentleman. Perhaps due to his long years in diplomacy, he was very concerned about his image. Whenever Kyle met him, he had dressed himself like a reliable executive - there must be a fine tailored suit, with a Kenneth Cole automatic watch or smartwatch on his right wrist, and dashing leather shoes . Helen was certainly a beauty, and with the similar facial features and clear pale skin, Christian was just handsome. He was about eight years older than Helen, but as a man reaching the middle age, no signs of fatigue could be spotted on him. He had a well-proportioned figure, and a mature man’s charisma.

That’s why Kyle often suspected Christian only judged him based on his appearance. His average appearance and his daily T-shirt and jeans outfit might have offended him. Kyle had discussed this with Helen before, but she just briefly said, ‘Well, it only shows that he has recognized you as part of our family. He’s not that direct when he rebukes his subordinates.’ Kyle really did not know how to react to her, and she just smiled coyly.

He had doubts about Christian’s identity. He should only be a civilian official in the Department of State, but during a dinner they had together, he noticed calluses had been developed all over his left palm, indicating he was a frequent firearm user. In the age of Web 2.0, he still had not opened any other social network accounts. And when they invited him to their engagement party, he only claimed he was too busy to show up, but during their video conference, when Kyle asked him whether he could record a video clip to convey his blessing to them instead, the siblings strangely responded that he could not attend any public function or have his appearance recorded on any camera. Still Kyle at that time just sensed that Christian had never wholeheartedly recognized him as his brother-in-law, so he did not bother to attend the engagement party or give them his blessing.

But everything became trivial soon after Helen died.

Christian followed the forensic technician to enter the morgue after waiting for Kyle. With strong restraint he just drily said to him, ‘I hope it’s not my sis.’

However, in less than ten minutes, Kyle heard a melancholic scream from afar, which he recognized was from his seemingly calm brother-in-law. At that moment, Kyle knew there was no miracle on earth. His fiancee was really in that morgue.

Ten minutes later, Christian came back with a ghastly pale face. He warned him, ‘You really shouldn’t go in. I fear you can’t live with it.’

Kyle had the resolve to see her one last time. He had already been this far. Of course he would not back down. Following the forensic technician, he stepped into the world of the dead through the entrance of the morgue. The forensic technician cautiously reminded him, ‘I heard you’re her fiance. You must be mentally prepared for what comes next. Shall we proceed?’

‘Yes.’ With no regrets.

The forensic technician sighed and brought him into the unusually cold morgue. The corpses were stored in their own refrigerators. Kyle’s thin jacket could not shield him from the coldness that belonged to the dead. It sent shivers down his spine.

They both reached an open room. When Kyle looked inside, his eyes widened in fear…...

Helen’s corpse was placed on a steel bed. Perhaps it was not her entire corpse…...They were just burnt pieces. Only a well-trained, experienced forensic pathologist could distinguish which piece belonged to which part of her body. Even after a few days, they still contained the smell of burnt ashes.

He knew why his brother-in-law collapsed. The sight was too devastating for any of her loved ones to bear. When she was still alive she was such a sweet beauty, but after she passed away…...

Out of the blue, he became drowsy. His unconsciousness seemed to have filtered out many details. He could neither see the forensic technician and another forensic scientist who just arrived at the room nor hear their words clearly. As if escaping from the grip of a beast, he just ran away. And he only kneeled on the floor and cried out loud when he finally reached a corridor.

Kyle did not notice his brother-in-law also staying on the corridor. He had hid himself at a corner about two meters away from him, but he did not plan to wait for him. Instead he intently studied his facial expressions and behavior. Every expression on his countenance and every tear could not escape his eagle eye. He no longer appeared traumatized after Kyle made his way into the morgue, and Kyle, the forensic technician and the forensic pathologist still did not find out he had been acting all along.

6/6/2018 14:30 (Hong Kong Time) St Raphael’s Catholic Cemetery

Christian arranged a Christian funeral for his sister, and he only invited four of her fellow classmates to join. Strangely he did not invite any of her colleagues at her gallery. He spoke little with Kyle, except simply greeted him. Kyle’s parents also felt he was too cold and resentful, but they did not reprimand him, as it was after all his sister’s funeral.

The weather was too good, and the sun was too bright for a funeral.

The priest was reciting Catholic hymns and prayers while the attendees were listening in silence.

Kyle was still preoccupied with deep melancholy. Kyle’s parents tried to console him, but they could not come up with any appropriate words.

Kyle was actually still alert of his surroundings . He still acutely sensed a man among the attendees glared at him. It did not just indicate animosity alone, but it might be an intent to murder him.

When every one placed their flowers on his fiancee’s grave, he finally located the man. The Caucasian man ia serious-looking black suit was about the same age as Helen, and he had a rather boyish face, with an all-back dark brown hair. However, his azure eyes with the shape of an almond displayed a feature distinct from his youth - They seemed to be the embodiment of the deep ocean itself.

Kyle thought only those men who witnessed too much darkness in their lives had such eyes, but he did not look slightly like a soul who had been through numerous tests of hardship. In fact, they never knew each other. How could he be hostile to him?

Having offered a bouquet of lilies on the grave, he courteously spoke with Christian a bit. Then he just emotionlessly said to him, ‘I am sorry for your loss.’ In a rather detached manner , he introduced himself as Andrew Hector, Helen’s classmate in Caltech.

Kyle put his suspicions aside, as it seemed Andrew just perceived him as a stranger.

After the funeral ended, many attendees left. Kyle withdrew himself from getting immersed in his melancholy. He glanced around but neither Christian nor Andrew was in his sight .

Worried about his mental state, Benny and Kyle’s parents proposed to escort him home. Still he had a gut feeling that he might be able to dig up some leads, so he calmly turned it down, and just mentioned he hoped to stay with Helen for a bit longer. As the trio knew Kyle had made up his mind, they chose to respect him, and only reminded him to call them whenever he needed them. They were quite worried that he might become mad when he was alone, so before they left they let him take care of Toby, a fat corgi his parents had been taking care of, with the hope that it may bring him some solace.

His instinct was right. When he led the always slow Toby to crawl towards a chapel, he spotted two bodyguards guarding its main entrance. He took another path to find its backdoor, but again he noticed another bodyguard stationed there. Such cautious security measures must be meant to bar anyone from entering the chapel and eavesdropping whatever took place inside.

Inside the chapel

‘Your status is too sensitive. Why haven’t you brought anyone with you?’ asked Andrew. His dark blue eyes showed earnest concern for Christian. Both men sat on the same bench, but kept some distance between them.

They were neither Christians nor Catholics. They knew too well they had committed crimes, and there was no need to see a statue of Mary or Jesus to be reminded of that. They only met at such time in such place for a secret, secure exchange of intelligence.

‘I’m on bereavement and I’m only here for the funeral. There’s no need to bring anyone with me. I’m not going to intervene in the station’s operation here. The other side won’t dare to bug me as they are too preoccupied with the explosion case. Our French friends have been busy from the start, so they won’t keep an eye on me at all.’ Christian did not thank him for his concerns, and instead responded with a sardonic smile. ‘But your organization’s methods are way too brutal. That’s why you must have at least three bodyguards with you wherever you go.’

‘Your ‘firm’ is the major beneficiary of our work,’ rebuffed Andrew. ‘I tried to persuade our boss not to go too far, but as you know, an old man is reluctant to change his ways.’

‘Oh, is he really an old man? Ha! Please don’t let him know you’ve talked behind his back in front of me.’ Christian found it hard to take in Andrew’s comments. He knew too well no matter how old was his organization’s leader, he was never an average old man.

‘No matter what happened in the past, at least we’re on the same side now, and I’ve always been on your side. If your ‘firm’ or my boss knows about this, we’ll have to contain a hurricane.’ Andrew looked at Christian with sincerity.

‘As long as there’s no new evidence, it must only stay between us .’ Both men seemed to have reached consensus, but Christian quickly switched the turn of the conversation. , ‘Still was that explosion from our side or your side? I can see you’ll have much trouble ahead.’

‘And Kyle is just a layman. He doesn’t know a damn thing about us. I’m warning you not to do anything to him. I’ve just noticed you really wish him dead.’

He did not forget to warn Andrew, as he knew too well the young man was scheming, and he had kept his desire to murder Kyle well-hidden for a long time.

20 minutes later

Kyle was a few meters away from the church and waited patiently for twenty minutes until the three bodyguards left to escort the mysterious Andrew outside. Together they boarded a black SUV and left. Five minutes later, Christian also left the church and drove his own white SUV away.

Well, what kind of relationship do these two men have? Kyle and Toby glanced at each other. He could not think of any answer.

Later he searched for Andrew Hector’s background on the search engine -He was the founder and CEO of Vid, a startup unicorn that operated the recently popular social media app VidChat. It was headquartered in the US, and as a private company it had an estimate valuation of at least US$2 billion. He seemed to be a low-profile talented tech tycoon who mostly stayed away from any public occasions.

What kind of connection does a tech tycoon share with a diplomat in the Department of State?

—

@whataremetaphor @pilipalea @ill-write-when-im-dead @requiemesque @adie-dee @things-waiting-to-be-written

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kithmet · 6 years

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Astrology: VirtueMoir Edition (Part 1—Scott Moir)

On today’s edition, we thoroughly unpack Scott’s birth chart. The next post will be on Tessa’s chart (if there’s enough interest after this). Beware: long post ahead and lots of astrology talk. I’ll try to be as clear as I can.

Please note: I’ll try my best to explain astrological terms, but as briefly as possible as I only have so much time. For certain stuff I will include links to further reading if you’re interested in learning more about them.

I’ll also preface this by saying: these are my own opinions based on my own astrological knowledge. I do not present them as fact.

Scott Moir’s Birth Chart

This might look like nonsense to some of you, but I’m going to spend this post dissecting this very circle chart. It is how each of the planets were aligned when Scott was born, and the signs that were in each of those planets at the time. Please refer to this image, especially when I discuss his chart shape.

I got this from astro.com, which is the most accurate site for these readings. We don’t know his exact birth time so we will do this reading without the knowledge of his astrological house placements or his Ascendant (otherwise known as the ‘rising’) sign. However, that still leaves us with a lot to talk about.

I’ve organized this into sections in case you want to search for specific things. I know a lot of you want to know about Scott in reference to Tessa, and I do refer to her a lot throughout this reading, but this has an emphasis on who Scott is as a person.

Scott’s Important Planetary & Asteroid Placements

For this section, I’ll be dissecting how the major planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter) impact Scott’s personality. I personally don’t find Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to be incredibly impactful on a chart as they’re so far from the sun, and change very rarely in sign between years, so I’m going to leave them out.

Sun in Virgo: the Sun sign is the core and identity of a person.

For more on how this manifests through Virgo in Scott, refer to my explanation below on his Virgo stellium. That is Scott.

Moon in Sagittarius: the Moon sign is the feelings, emotions, and tone of a person.

Scott is passionate and fiery and intense. Refer to my explanation below on his Sagittarius stellium for more information on that.

Mercury in Virgo: a person’s Mercury sign is their communication methods—their reasoning, rationality, the process of exerting and taking in information.

Scott’s Virgo in this placement might indicate that he pays a lot of attention to detail.

He might be an over-thinker, and as a result is very critical of both himself and others.

He is probably very useful because he completes all the goals he sets out to do. He needs routine and order.

Venus in Virgo: the Venus sign rules love and relationships, as well as beauty and pleasure.

Serving others brings Scott pleasure, according to this placement. It says that: “The only problem in relationships is that you may believe that people like you for what you do, rather than for what you are. You may underestimate your own worth and not understand why other people like you. Learn to love yourself as well as others.” This is incredibly relevant to Scott, as he might think that people like him because he’s an elite figure skater, and not for who he truly is. The underestimation of his own self-worth is also reflected on his self-deprecating comments, at times. He always strives to compliment Tessa, who is his best friend, but he simply says, “I’m okay,” with regards to himself.

Regarding Scott’s love life, though, @thevirtch has already dissected that aspect of his chart very well in this post.

Mars in Virgo: the Mars sign represents the energy, action, level of aggression, and sexual desires.

Virgos are perfectionists. They want to be good at everything they have to put effort into. As a human being, Scott (unless he’s on the ace spectrum, which I’m pretty sure he’s not) will have sex, is having sex, does have sex, et cetera. He’s a perfectionist at it. He wants to be good, and he will literally achieve it because Virgos set their minds to things and almost always achieve their goals.

He wants to please because, as his Venus in Virgo says, pleasing others gives him pleasure.

Mars in Virgo is notoriously known as one of the ‘kinkiest’ Mars placements in the zodiac. Proof in the link. He is down for whatever his partner wants.

Virgo Mars likely have sex to exert the stress from their lives, but funnily enough, they treat sex like it’s another job for them to excel at as well.

Jupiter in Aries: the Jupiter sign is about the life’s purpose, meaning, justice, and fortune.

His only planet in Aries. I wrote a lot about his Jupiter in Aries singleton (otherwise known as the ‘bucket handle’) in the Scott’s Chart Shape section of this post, so please refer to that in addition to this.

Scott likely attracts good luck when he acts as the leader of his communities, demonstrates enthusiasm and positivity, and inspires others. So far in his life this has been true. He’s also said he wants to continue his career by inspiring others and giving back to the skating community—I’m sure that good luck will follow him throughout his life, in this case.

I would also like to touch on some important asteroids. I’d touch on Chiron, which is a person’s biggest wound in life, but because we don’t have houses (due to not having his birth time) and I feel like it would be inaccurate because of that, so I’m leaving it out.

Lilith in Leo: this asteroid is known as someone’s ‘dark side’.

Definition: “These people are very proud, or even stuck-up. Lilith in this sign may indicate the struggle "I against the rest of the world". These people are self-centred and selfish. They do not acknowledge other people. It is not always easy to live with this attitude because the likes and preferences of our partner should be taken into account as well.”

I feel like this is quite accurate from what we know of Scott’s ‘dark side’. If you watched their reality tv show (which, of course, was a lot of bullshit but there’s some truth to the stuff that happens in it), you can see that Scott was once quite selfish, inconsiderate of how his actions or tempers might affect Tessa, and very prideful.

Juno in Aquarius: the soulmate asteroid.

Please note: Scott’s partner doesn’t need to be in the sign of Aquarius—but the way he romances them and the things he looks for in a partner might embody Aquarian characteristics.

Friends to lovers is a huge thing for Juno Aquarians. If they aren’t friends first and foremost, the relationship won’t last. Strong friendship foundations in a relationship are essential.

I’m not going to say what we’re all thinking. We’re all thinking it. We all know it. Anyway.

Emotional aloofness might intrigue Scott. He’s attracted to emotional unavailability... why? Who knows. Maybe it’s the mystery, intrigue, and challenge to figuring them out. He’s probably into people with strong air sign placements.

Can I just drop in here that Tessa has a Gemini stellium and a Libra moon, which screams emotional aloofness? Yeah? Okay, moving along...

Traditional relationship structures don’t bother Scott. He’s adaptable and open to weird arrangements, as long as it works for him and his partner.

Can we collectively say: platonic business partners, anyone?

Eros in Libra: this asteroid represents the raw sexual energy in a person.

He is flirtatious and charming. He aims for sexual equality. He might disregard his own needs because he’s focusing on pleasing his partner (because Libra signs always want to be likeable). Communication is sexy. Falling in love, repeatedly, highly appeals to him.

This is probably accurate for Scott, especially when thinking about his Virgo in Venus which is also all about pleasing your partner (and being good at it). The falling in love stuff—probably true. Scott is a serial long-term dater, so he probably chases finding that feeling.

Scott's Virgo Sun & Stellium

Scott is a typical Virgo because he has his Sun sign (which is someone’s truest identity and their core) and three other major planets in Virgo. This means he has a Virgo stellium, which is 3+ planets in the same sign. Therefore, Virgo energy is extremely present throughout Scott’s chart.

Virgos are known as perfectionists. They are analytical thinkers, and very critical—especially of themselves. If Virgos do not reach the standard which they set for themselves, they tend to be self-pitying. They have impossibly high standards for both themselves and the people they surround themselves with.

Does this relate to Scott?: Scott is said to be a perfectionist with his skating. He is extremely self-critical—when he makes a mistake in a performance, he clearly dwells on it and beats himself up about it. He continuously aims to be the best version of himself, and surrounds himself with the best people. Scott also might tend to be overly critical of the people in his life because of this.

Virgos are incredibly goal-oriented. They have a set list of goals and things on their to-do lists, and they take pride in completing these tasks. Because they’re so goal-oriented and perfectionists, when Virgos set their sights on something, they are very likely to excel in that thing.

Does this relate to Scott?: Scott is a go-getter. He wakes up early and wants to complete his goals for the day. He’s said many times that he feels a need to set goals and that completing them brings him pride. He’s also very good at the things he choses to focus his talents on. He is not mediocre at anything he wants to be good at.

It’s rarely talked about, but Virgos are also very nurturing. They want to make the people around them feel better in whatever way they can. If you need advice or someone to help you out, go to your Virgo friend.

Does this relate to Scott?: I may not know him personally, but from what I’ve seen of his interactions with Tessa, he is very comforting. He is also seems to be very nurturing with his family and the other people he cares about.

They are sarcastic—and sometimes this is used as a coping mechanism. It might come across in a bad way from time to time, because Virgos can be blunt. They are naturally funny and witty, due to the fact that Mercury rules the mind, so they are intelligent beings.

Does this relate to Scott?: He is hilarious and quite smart, but sometimes can be blunt and it comes across in a negative way.

I think that it comes out because of his Virgo, but it stems from how strong his Saggitarian energy is as well, but we will get to that later.

Examples: “I hate this event”-gate, every other time Scott has publicly criticized his competitors and previous coach, etc.

Virgos are an Earth sign (which is an Element). This means that Virgos are stable, loyal, and rely on routine. That being said, Virgos are the most flexible Earth sign because they are also a Mutable sign (which is a Modality). Mutable signs are extremely adaptable, to new people and new environments, and welcome change within themselves. (This is a link on more information about the Elements and Modalities of the signs.)

Does this relate to Scott?: I’d say so. He’s clearly very loyal to Tessa. He relies on routine. He seems to be a very adaptable individual—in that he gets along with almost anyone. He is ever-adapting and changing, but at the same time, very stable and steady in how that change comes.

Scott’s Sagittarius Moon & Stellium

Now, all that Virgo information is great and all, but we’re forgetting one of the most important parts of Scott’s personality: his intense passionate energy. Where does that energy stem from? Not his Virgo placements, but his Sagittarius stellium. Scott has Sagittarius in his moon sign (which rules his emotions and tone of character—a very important placement), and two other planets, therefore he has 3+ planets in Sagittarius.

Sagittarius is the hilarious sign—they are the ones that make people laugh. They are weird but in a good, funny way. They are blunt, straightforward, and sometimes can come across as abrasive.

Does this relate to Scott?: Scott is funny, that’s a given. He’s always doing weird stuff to make people laugh. He’s also extremely blunt: if he has an issue, he will state that issue. He also quite literally said on that reality show that he’s bringing two condoms to the Olympics. Like, who is he? Copy and pasting what I said before, but more examples of his abrasiveness: “I hate this event”-gate, every other time Scott has publicly criticized his competitors (and previous coaches), etc. Even after the Olympics, he said there was a “clear technical difference” between him and Tessa and P/C. Other people might hold that in—but not Scott.

People with strong Sagittarius placements are confident and sometimes extroverted. They are very positive—often, if a person is ruled by Saggitarian energy, they are optimistic about everything, and like to look at the silver linings. They are lighthearted.

Does this relate to Scott?: He is most definitely extroverted and confident. He always picks himself up after he falls and brings a positive energy to everything he does—rarely does he bring negative, dark energy.

Sagittarius is the sign of adventure and spontaneity. They are impulsive and reckless, and can sometimes be impatient. They want to travel to fun places and they want to try new things. They are independent.

Does this relate to Scott?: Between Scott and Tessa, he is the one that wants to visit atypical travelling countries and do atypical things (he literally said he wants to go to Australia to learn to surf and go to Africa for a safari... again, who is he?), he is the one that wants to try new foods and makes Tessa try them, he is the adventurous one, he is the spontaneous one.

I don’t think Scott’s recklessness or impulsivity need explaining, but it’s kind of clear by the things he says without thinking sometimes.

People ruled by Sagittarius are typically philosophical. Sagittarius is the sign that rules morals and ethics, so they might have a strong moral compass.

Does this relate to Scott?: With this one, who knows. From the podcasts I’ve listened to where Scott speaks, he is clearly a big thinker and likes to reflect. He’s also very well-spoken.

Everyone has heard about the cheating rumours regarding him and his girlfriends, and if they’re true, then who knows? Maybe he has a messy Rising sign which impacts that aspect.

That being said—Scott is loyal, and that relies heavily on his morals. He did not think it would be right to leave Tessa when she was injured, and therefore stood by her because of that. He also didn’t think it would be okay to leave Marina in 2013, despite the rumours that she was on the American’s side. I think it’s because of his moral compass.

Sagittarius is a Fire sign. They are all about passion, enthusiasm, and they have hot tempers. However, this sign is also a Mutable sign, which means he is adaptable and welcome to change.

Does this relate to Scott?: Obviously. Scott’s abrasiveness comes from his temper and bluntness and passion—all which come from his Sagittarius placements. His passion is evident in positive ways in how he interacts with people and how he feels due to his Sagittarius moon. Everyone and their mother calls Scott passionate, and he himself has said he has a bad temper. Sagittarius being a Mutable sign is relevant because Sagittarians are always welcome to trying new things, just like Scott.

What is his Ascendant (or ‘rising’)?

The Ascendant is one of the big three of astrology (which are your sun, moon, and rising signs). Definition of the Ascendant sign, taken from this website: “Together with the Sun and Moon the ascendant is one of the most important single factors... The sign tells us a lot about someone's personality, temperament and constitution. It typifies our immediate, instinctive reaction and shows how we present ourselves to the world.” The rising sign, lucky for us, is one of the easiest signs to guess when looking at a person. Why? Because it is how they instinctively react, and how they seem to other people.

I’m personally willing to bet my money that Scott has a water rising—that’s why he’s known as ‘the emotional one’—not just between him and Tessa, but also as an individual. Yes, his Sagittarius moon makes him passionate and full of intense emotion, but that emotion manifests in different ways in fire signs than it does in water signs. I believe Scott feels a lot of emotion as a result of his Sagittarius moon and stellium, and then presents that emotion via his Ascendant sign, which (in my opinion) is most likely a water sign.

Which water sign would that be? Not Scorpio. Scott doesn’t project Scorpio energy to me—Scorpios have darker energy, are secretive, and almost always have trust issues because of their natural paranoia. Scott, on the other hand, has a blind faith in people and trusts in the good of humans (example: Marina-gate). This is because of his Sagittarius energy, but I also really think that he isn’t a paranoid person like a lot of Scorpios. Scott does not seem like that to me, and rising signs are all about how people present themselves to others.

Personally, I think he is a Cancer rising. Why Cancer, and not Pisces? Because he is so family-oriented, and proudly shares how nurturing he is to other people. Cancers are the mothers and nurturers of the zodiac. They are also very sensitive, both as humans and to their environments and the people they interact with. Pisces risings are more dreamy.

Some more information about Cancer risings: they’re warm, kindhearted, moody (warm to cold very easily), easily hurt, defensive, and very protective of the people they care about.

If he isn’t a water rising by the grace of lord knows what—I’d vote Aries rising. They’re childlike, fun-loving, passionate, and have a lot of energy and emotion. If not Aries, then Capricorn, because they are such driven workaholics.

That being said—he already is hardworking because of his Virgo stellium, and he’s already passionate because of his Sagittarius stellium. That is why I really do believe his Ascendant is in a water sign—if not Cancer, then Pisces. He already has enough Earth and Fire energy—where does that all emotion come from? Why does he cry easily? It has to be his rising sign.

Scott’s Chart Shape

Something that is rarely talked about is the shape of a person’s natal chart. Scott’s chart shape is in the ‘bowl and bucket’ formation, which is defined on this site as: “All planets but one are distributed together (‘bowl’ of the bucket) and are opposed by another planet - singleton (‘handle’ of the bucket).”

The bowl of Scott’s bucket is tested by the handle of the bucket. All of Scott’s planets are in the bowl, which is the top right corner of the chart (and please look at the chart to know what I’m talking about). These planets are tested by his Jupiter in Aries bucket handle.

I find it interesting that Scott’s handle is in the planet of Jupiter, because Jupiter is the planet that is all about luck and fortune. Scott has indeed had insane good luck in his life—meeting Tessa, getting paired with her, both of them growing to be the exact, appropriate heights for one another, the chain of events that led them to dominating three Olympic cycles. That doesn’t happen easily. Sure, they worked very hard, but they also had the good fortune of Jupiter by their sides.

That being said, he has also had bad luck in his life. Tessa getting injured a year before the Olympics? Having to skate their first Olympics with an injured partner? Having that partner go through two surgeries?

Read this carefully: “Jupiter [bucket handle] can manifest as a God/Deity Complex. We often find the Messiah Complex with its sense of “I can do anything!”... A young man named Stephan heard a Biblical quote, “With God all things are possible.” He was fourteen at the time and blithely replied, “I don’t know much about God, but that sure is true for me!” That is a Jupiter in Aries [bucket handle], only Fire sign! One of the dangers with a Jupiter singleton is a bad case of hubris; that means the feeling that, “I am equal to or better than the gods!” Jupiter eventually extracts a price for that, for Jupiter is also the ‘wrath of God.’”

Does this relate to Scott’s life?: Hell yes. Scott himself has said that he was too arrogant growing up, too cocky, thought he could do anything. It was only when wrath was given to him by the power of the universe in bad luck that he was able to tone down his bad case of hubris and become the Scott we know today, who is much more down-to-earth.

Some other significant things about people with this chart shape:

People with this chart shape tend to have a tendency to live their lives to extremes. Jupiter in Aries bucket handles are also incredibly ambitious. This is relevant to Scott because he could have been a figure skater, but he didn’t have to be a five time Olympic gold medal athlete.

I’ll also briefly point out that this bucket handle is at the 29th degree—which, in astrology, is a critical degree and basically makes this placement even more intense. You can read more about it here.

In summary, though: the 29th degree means that this handle will be tested a lot with decision-making—so Scott’s fortune is repeatedly tested by having to make decisions as a result of either his good or bad luck. This is relevant, especially to the stuff about Tessa being injured. Scott had to make the decision to stick with Tessa during this time. He was tested, apparently, by the universe.

Other Important Notes

Below we have an image of the breakdowns of how heavy Scott’s chart is in each of the planets, signs, elements, and modalities.

Scott is ruled primarily by mutable signs (as he has two stellia in both Virgo and Sagittarius). 45% is a lot. This mutable energy can manifest in both good and bad ways:

He is extremely adaptable and flexible to new environments, new people, and trying new things.

He might be indecisive, unreliable, easily distracted.

Often changing how he perceives the world, other people, and himself as a result of new perspectives.

Unafraid of change and bringing new elements to the table, especially career-wise.

He is practically half Earth energy, which is amazing to me. Stable, loyal, committed to the things he invests energy into. His Earth energy comes all from his Virgo stellium and Capricorn Neptune.

That being said, his second biggest element is in Fire, which accounts for Scott’s passion and intensity.

The reason why Scott is an elite athlete with five Olympic gold medals? His abundance of Virgo energy, high at 24%. He is a perfectionist, driven to accomplishing the things he sets out to do, and often meets his goals.

Conclusion (TL;DR)

Scott is a perfectionist and driven because he wants to excel in achieving his goals. This is because of his Virgo stellium. He is passionate and full of enthusiasm, positivity, and intensity. He is funny and straight-forward. This is because of his Sagittarius stellium. He appears to be emotional, and I believe that is because he might have his Ascendant sign in a water sign, either Cancer or Pisces.

I would continue yapping but this bitch is the length of a fanfic one shot and it’s 7k long. What the actual fuck is this. Goodbye, and hope you’re all enlightened!

Seriously though, if you read all of this, thanks for that. Feel free to ask me any astrology questions if anything needs clarification! Love from your local Aquarius sun, Sagittarius moon, Scorpio rising. 💓

#astrology #long post #virtuemoir #scott moir #tessa virtue #i literally feel more nervous posting this #than any of the fics i've ever written wtf #i can't believe i wrote this #it's so long i'm crying #i hope you all enjoy this???#tessa's chart will happen...eventually...#i really need to write my fic b4 ppl come @ me with pitchforks #I'M SORRY I PROMISE I'M SLOWLY WORKING ON IT #fandoms ships and misc things

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loadacademy575 · 3 years

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Soundtrack Download

00:00 - A Land Of War And Poetry 04:01 - Currents Of The Odai 09:13 - Magnus Smiles on Suran 14:25 - Vvardenfell Vista 15:27 - Ascadian Idyll 20:24 - Shadow. Most tracks were given a title on the soundtrack CD ('Original Title') included in the Collector's Edition of Morrowind, and later another title ('Remastered Title') when Jeremy Soule released a remastered version of the Morrowind soundtrack on DirectSong. The Original Title also corresponds to the 15-track CD seen on some sites. 1 day ago Each one is iconic. That's why ESO Morrowind looked at ES III for music inspiration. The soundtrack of ES III-V had strong identity and atmosphere and alot of the vague track in eso (imo) lacks the atmosphere of the single player games #26. The best Elder Scrolls music for me is the Forgotten Vale theme from.

Beyond a Steel Sky (Video Game 2020) SoundTracks on IMDb: Memorable quotes and exchanges from movies, TV series and more. Beyond a steel sky soundtrack. Beyond a Steel Sky Soundtrack This is additional content for Beyond a Steel Sky, but does not include the base game. Beneath A Steel Sky Soundtrack The Beneath A Steel Sky soundtrack can be downloaded here. Before using this support area be sure to check you are running on or above the recommended system requirements located at the bottom of this page. Listen to Beyond A Steel Sky (Original Soundtrack) on Spotify. Alistair Kerley Album 2020 46 songs.

Overview

There was a time when the Elder Scrolls franchise wasn't one of the biggest names in the RPG genre. That all changed in 2002 with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the first Elder Scrolls game to be released on both computers and consoles (Xbox). The game continued the franchise's fascination with open-ended gameplay that placed few restrictions on the gamer's actions — you might choose to follow Morrowind's main plot or lose yourself in exploring the game's vast world and its myriad sidequests. One of the consequences of this approach was that, probably involuntarily, Morrowind came to embody the difference between more non-linear Western RPGs and the traditionally story-driven JRPGs. With more than four million copies of the game sold, very strong reviews and a slew of end-of-the-year awards, Morrowind remains one of the cornerstones of Western RPGs.

To score Morrowind's soundtrack, developer Bethesda Softworks called upon the services of one of Western game music's biggest names, Jeremy Soule. Although still a relatively young composer at the time, Soule had already proven himself an expert at writing music for fantasy games with his work on the Harry Potter and Icewind Dale games, as well for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Dungeon Siege. Morrowind would prove to be another steppingstone for Soule on his way to becoming one of the foremost composers for this genre of games. In a press release, Soule emphasised that the 'stunning epic quality of the Elder Scrolls series is particularly compatible with the grand, orchestral style of music I enjoy composing the most.' At the same time however, Soule was aware that due to Morrowind's free-wheeling nature, gamers might spend hours roaming a particular area in the game, similar to an MMORPG. Soule then chose to create a soft and minimalist soundtrack that wouldn't be too dominant during these long stretches of exploration, so the music wouldn't wear out its welcome.

This approach yielded mixed results, at least according to various game reviewers, who commented on the soundtrack's limited scope and on its overreliance on its main theme. Complaints were also levelled at the ambient, non-adaptive nature of the music, which failed to reflect the gamer's actions and current situation. Despite such criticism, Morrowind's soundtrack was nominated for 'Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition' at the Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences's Interactive Achievement Awards in 2003, where it lost out to Michael Giacchino's Medal of Honor: Frontline.

On album, Morrowind's music was first made available on a 40-minute bonus CD that came with the game's Collector's Edition. Soundtrack collectors eager to find out how well Morrowind's music played outside of the game were later given an easier way to satisfy their curiosity. In 2006, Soule released Morrowind's soundtrack via his online music store DirectSong. This new release presented the music in remastered form and added six minutes to the difficult-to-find physical album, effectively superseding it. This review refers to the original physical release.

Body

So, are Soule's efforts for Morrowind as difficult to enjoy on album as during the in-game experience? Short answer: no. Fortunately, this is one of those rare cases where the soundtrack actually plays better outside of the game. First case in point: Morrowind's main theme. It's first presented on opening track 'Nerevar Rising' in obvious fashion. The track is effectively a series of presentations of the main theme, increasing in volume and scope as the melody is being passed from harp and flute to the celli, before a climactic finish on violins and full brass caps off the piece's development. It's to Soule's credit that the theme — essentially a simple three-note motif extended by two different secondary phrases — adapts well to all these different instrumental settings. The melody communicates lyricism just as much as an optimistic spirit of adventure once the orchestra cranks up the volume. This mellifluous quality comes to benefit the easily recognisable theme and helps it to adapt to other tracks' atmospheres, instead of blatantly putting its stamp on these compositions. 'Peaceful Waters' quotes the main theme briefly on flute and teases out its reflective character, while 'The Road Most Travelled' incorporates a rendition of the theme on solo cello into its lush textures. The melody plays equally well in the more energetic setting of Morrowind's battle cues, where the theme appears on flowing violins on 'Bright Spears, Dark Blood' and subtly referenced in the background of the second half of 'Dance of Swords.'

All these quotations of the main theme are fashioned intelligently and are inserted seamlessly into the flow of the compositions. It's a shame then that the theme only occurs regularly during the album's first half and then disappears — for good actually on the original physical album. If there's any issue with the main theme and Soule's use of it then, it's that the theme is actually underused and doesn't tie the soundtrack's second half together as well as the first half. Next to the main theme, there's a number of secondary themes which are specific to particular cues as a lightly-sprung but determined melody that's heard in various disguises throughout 'The Road Most Travelled'.

And what about the soundtrack's soft and minimalist nature? Good news here as well: Morrowind's music is anything but background droning. Instead, it's a rich score with pieces that develop formidably within their limited running times — ultimately the title's biggest strength. The album's compositions showcase fluid and expertly layered orchestrations that give every instrument section of the synth orchestra an opportunity to shine. Stylistically, it never goes beyond that classical fantasy sound that's been a mainstay of many games, with its rhapsodic and heroic strains. But on Morrowind, Soule applies this formula with an assured hand and the results are thoroughly convincing.

The album alternates battle tracks with more expansive compositions that seem to describe a scenery rather than actions. Its on these cues that the soundtrack develops a spellbinding pull and occasionally even a sense of grandeur that's most befitting for a world as large at that of Morrowind. Tracks like 'Blessing of Vivec', 'Silt Sunrise' and 'Shed Your Travails' are a well of soulful string melodies that don't fail to tug at the heartstrings, yet never sacrifice their noble air. Soule's talent for creating colourful, ever-changing orchestral layers is in full force on these pieces. The opening string melody of 'Silt Sunrise' is backed by increasingly complex orchestrations before calming down for a serene melodic statement, which in turn leads to a splendid conclusion over busy string ostinati and brass interjections. 'Shed Your Travails' and 'Caprice' calm down in their middle sections to include an ethereal female choir that instils the music with a real sense of wonder. On 'Shed Your Travails', this episode leads into an appropriately otherwordly, peaceful finish over glistening violin tremoli and a dying flute melody. 'Caprice', on the other hand, frames its spiritual interlude with light-hearted string ostinati and effortlessly segues from one musical extreme into the other. 'Blessing of Vivec' is just as beautiful and emotionally gripping as these cues, but remains more austere through its jagged solo cello lead whose cautiously ascending notes are a lot less flowing than most string writing on the album. While none of these tracks run longer than three-and-a-half minutes, they pack more development and symphonic drama into their running times than other compositions twice their length.

Morrowind's action material doesn't quite reach the same lofty heights, but it's convincing enough in its own right. Again, it's standard fantasy stuff: bold brass, driving strings and dramatic percussion. But Soule uses these familiar ingredients skilfully and presents them in well-composed shape. And his ear for details ensures these tracks merit repeat listens to tease out their intricacies, such as the rapidly descending violin ostinato figures on 'Dance of Swords' and 'Ambush!' Instead of using them to simply increase the tracks' rhythmic power, Soule places the cascading motifs between beats to create ear-catching, syncopated counterrhythms. Soule's penchant for constantly changing textures benefits the action tracks as well, even though their instrumentations are less colourful than those of Morrowind's slower tracks. Frequently, Soule casts his battle cues in an ABA structure that sees these compositions calming down in their middle section after a dynamic start, before ramping up the volume again towards the end. This change in tempo and texture is quite transparent, but helps to pace these cues and avoid monotony. And Soule makes sure that tension never sags during these quieter passages through the inclusion of lighter rhythmic elements such string pizzicati, hand percussion and tinkling piano notes.

All these positive qualities help to overcome the biggest criticism one could level at the battle cues: that their sound isn't powerful enough to allow them make their full impact. To a degree, this ties in with Soule's declared approach of not trying to overwhelm the listener with his music in-game. And make no mistake, the majority of Morrowind's action tracks are energy-laden enough to satisfy, even though you sometimes wish the percussion elements would have greater presence. But it's only once Soule's strips back the many layers of his compositions and focuses on the primal qualities of repetitive rhythms that things start to sound less promising, for example on 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer' and 'Stormclouds on the Battlefield'. The only thing that the minimalist rhythms of 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer' could have going for them is a resonant, forceful sound, and Morrowind fails to provide this. Tyranny bastard's wound ending. In general, the album sounds somewhat dull and compressed, with the effect that the detailed orchestral textures, particularly on the colourful slower tracks, aren't always rendered with a desirable level of clarity. Orchestral climaxes that should soar occasionally have their wings clipped, and the sustained double bass chords on 'Over the Next Hill' have way too much presence and muddy the soundscape. Sure, this is a synthesised soundtrack from 2002, but there are enough better-sounding albums around from the same time to suggest that Morrowind's acoustic appearance is hardly reference quality.

Summary

With The Elder Scrolls III -Morrowind- Special Edition Soundtrack, Soule further cemented his elevated standing among Western game music composers. The album impressively displays why Soule would come to be regarded as a specialist for scoring fantasy games. Particularly the more measured tracks on Morrowind are beautifully orchestrated and splendidly developed, to the degree that they sometimes feel like mini-epics convincingly compressed into three minutes. To a slightly lesser degree goes for the soundtrack's battle tunes, which are nicely varied in their textures and filled with intricacies, particularly when it comes to their rhythms. All the way through, Morrowind exudes that wondrous, yet bold feeling of high adventure that's so indispensable for a fantasy score of this character, captured in the score's strong but slightly under-used main theme.

Unless you insist on listening to your scores in a lossless format, the physical release of Morrowind's score is superseded by the digital version. The disc lacks the remastering and bonus tracks of the digital version, and ends particularly underwhelmingly with 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer'. That all said, fantasy score enthusiasts should not hesitate to purchase a version of this soundtrack.

7/10

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The Elder Scrolls Iii: Morrowind Soundtrack Download Torrent

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The Elder Scrolls Iii Morrowind Soundtrack

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thebigladjake · 4 years

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AX3001: TV Show - Cognitivation: Main Characters and Roles in the Story

Alex, the PSI Prodigy

Alex is a young and adventurous boy in his small hometown, a self proclaimed protector, he roams the town with his trusty stick and keeps all evil do-er’s in order! He loves his home, his family and his friends. But, is suddenly forced to put on his big boy shorts and face the world outside of his hometown. The world is a big and scary place, Alex will be tested and his own emotions will come into question as he wonders. Why me? Why am I the ‘PSI Prodigy’.

Alex was the first character designed and is the heart of the whole series. His journey will be one full of self-discovery and self-doubt, I want to capture the pressure of expectations of children and how they can effect kids. The whole prodigy thing may be toned down, since I'm not the biggest fan of prophecy stories. I'm undecided, but right now, I think this will give him the added depth he needs and could be relatable to kids that may have the pressures of expectations, I know I certainly did.

Alex's name was originally Andy because he was actually inspired by a character called Alex, that Alex being from the Indie JRPG game known as YIIK (Y Two K, not Yiik). A game that suffers from several problems such as severe tonal shifts, terrible endings that make the entire game redundant and a character who is insufferable that doesn’t learn to change his ways and is rewarded at the end of the game. Alex is simply an awful character from an awful game and I was going to call my lead Andy, but that name wasn’t really vibing with me. So, I kept Alex since it was more gender neutral too, so boys and girls can reflect their own feelings onto him. It may still be subject to change, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of course, as our lead character, I gave him a pinkish red and a gold colour combination. The red not being a strong red since red is a very strong colour and I didn’t think that level of passion would be embodied into Alex so soon. So, he’s simply a pinky red. The gold elements are there to reassure his good boy status, with the badges on his bag being a reference to the badges on Hambone’s hat from my first year film. Just a little Easter Egg that puts a smile on my face, like how Pixar or Disney may just throw something in there as a nod.

I chose the shorts as I’ve not drawn a lot of characters that wear shorts and a young kid that likes to run around would probably want the best clothing for the job. So, shorts it was. The cap too was to give him a unique silhouette compared to the rest as he’s the only one with the hat and very rarely will we see him without it. He also carries a gold coloured backpack that he keeps all of his helpful items inside.

Alex’s primary attacks are the most potent PSI abilities that Frank has ever seen and he teaches him how to activate them. Alex’s PSI abilities are both helpful for the team’s defence and offence. While physically, he wields a powerful stick that his Dad found and gave to him to use on his adventures.

For a main character, Alex gets the job done and I’m looking forward to where his character will go over the course of a season and over the course of this project.

Frank, the Frantic Freak

An aimless twenty something year old still living at his parent’s house, Frank is unemployed, never goes outside nor does many people know of his existence and since he doesn’t bother anyone, his parents just kind of let him exist. A member of the Orb.Net forum, he honed his PSI abilities purely from nonstop training with spoons. Bending them with his mind because he saw it in a movie once. Frank knows of the oncoming threat and for the first time in forever, leaves his room to embark on this epic quest with Alex. To save his world, a world he doesn’t even truly know.

Frank was always meant to be an outcast, original concepts were of him to be occupying a house where the kids would prank his house and get him to come out and shout at them. Until he finally catches Alex one day and recognises his psychic powers, taking him inside and telling him everything he knows about the oncoming invasion. Alex would then understand that, even though he’s a crackpot, he means well and is just misunderstood. While I loved this concept, I wanted to make Frank just a little stranger, so I went with the unemployed aimless twenty something who just practises psychic abilities in the comfort of his room.

Design-wise, Hector came first and then Frank was modelled after him. Since the brotherly resemblance was an important part of their design, it was important to nail what a younger brother of a family would look like first. And once I had the traits off of Hector, I used and tweaked a few things to make Frank older and also give him a few new design quirks. The main ‘quirk’ being his hairstyle as hair is always important to my character designs. I took Hector’s hair and instead of having the hair be styled up into a point, it was like an explosion. Symbolising his psychic powers being more volatile and dangerous with his hair all messy where his powers come from.

His facial expressions were important to show that he was a bit nutty, Ghiaccio from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure served as inspiration for that. Just the way his face angrily distorts just gives him a different feel compared to the regular characters.

His outfit was just simple loungewear because since he doesn’t care about who sees him, he’s not going to dress up too nicely and definitely not going to wear clothes that are restrictive and make him uncomfortable like jeans. Compared to the rest of the colourful cast and even his brother, Frank’s colours are incredibly limited and a way to counteract this a little was to give him mismatching socks. Just a little asymmetry to make him stand out more.

Frank’s weapon of choice is spoons, not really as an attack, but a way of calculating how powerful his PSI attack is going to be. He also bends them regularly and spent most of his savings on spoons so he can always stay on top of his psychic abilities.

Frank was a part of the original four, he’s an idea I’ve liked for a long time and is now a character that I will really enjoy working on and writing for.

Hector, the Apathetic Assistant.

Hector is just a kid that’s kind of done with it, just everything that’s going on in the world. What he thought would be a regular friendship, unfortunately turns into a big adventure and he’d just rather have the life of a kid. But, it’s too late for that now as Alex needs him by his side. Hector knows too much and if he’s only going to see his friend if he comes on this epic quest, then so be it. Hector doesn’t have many friends, but those he does have understand his extreme loyalty.

Hector was created as a contrast to his crazy brother, being much more relaxed and apathetic to this whole world ending thing. In the initial concepts, there were going to be four main characters much like Earthbound has, but I decided to increase it when I thought about Alex’s and Frank’s roles and how it might be a little strange if some stranger suddenly shows interest in this young boy. So, I figured a good catalyst would be a little brother to the crazy stranger! Alex has someone to be friend with and gets the plot started too.

I also thought it was quite amusing that it was the little kid that was the cynic and the big brother has much more enthusiasm about the world. Like the strangeness of his brother has no effect on him to the point where Hector is like, “Oh god here we go again.”

Hector and Frank have near identical colour schemes, their primary colours being green and greenish hues. It was all in contrast to Alex’s bright red, white and gold elements that make him look like an adventurous youth. Hector has dirty blonde hair and pale skin, sort of to hint at the fact that he and his brother are a little odd.

His hairstyle was created to be similar to Frank’s, but being styled and maintained because Hector does care about his appearance since he is the one who will be seen by others. It was made to contrast against Frank’s hair explosion, with Hector spiking up his hair to meet all at one point. I also like to think Frank also had hair like this at one point.

Hector and Frank also have weird shapes ears compared to what I usually do because some people do have weird shaped ears or other body parts and it will never be brought up in the show that they look weird. It’s purely visual to normalise these little oddities, that people shouldn’t judge someone for the most trivial things.

Hector’s weapon of choice is his backpack full of spoons, I chose this as I was drawing his pose and thinking about the relationship between him and Frank. Frank’s obsession with spoons to keep his PSI abilities in check requires a lot of spoons and I just had this sudden image of Hector with this great big bag full of spoons on his back. Hunched over a little as he looks annoyed like “I’ve got to carry this around all day...” And since it’s such a heavy bag, I imagined him using it as a weapon whenever in combat because Hector doesn’t have any powers and Frank only taught himself PSI. However, the less spoons he has, the weaker it becomes, effectively making Hector weaponless at certain points.

Hector is a great character in my opinion who I feel turned out really well as he was everything I wanted him to be. He filled a gap in the story nicely and I got a nice character out of it. An absolute win in my book.

Benjamin [Benji], the Anti-Social Armourer

A renowned child genius, famous in the orphanage for his Tools of Destruction. The other kids never interact with him if he doesn’t want you to, having a strange attachment to his box. Hiding under it when he feels threatened or if he just wants you to go away. His only friend is aware of his skills and is a member on the same forums as Frank... Which sets a mission to get him adopted into motion...

Benji was created as representation of shy kids and how hard it can really be to come out of your shell and make friends. Wanting to stay in somewhere that makes you feel safe and secure. Also, as a representation of kids that others may consider weird and outcasts, so we could get a closer look at him and show kids not to judge a book by it’s cover, maybe even give a kid they consider weird in their own life a chance of friendship.

Benji does have one major source of inspiration and may just have to go a few more designs before I’m truly happy with this design. Near from the manga, Death Note. Near was the replacement of the main sort of rival character, L, and is a child genius himself that displays some cases of social awkwardness. While Benji does have a lot of these similarities, the main aspect of Near that attracted me was that whenever he had a scene, he’d often have toys surrounding him and he’d play with them while deducing the whole mystery of the series. I feel one of the reasons that this aspect is my favourite thing about him is because I’m still quite fond of toys and sometimes fiddle about with them.

A specific scene (I can’t find a better screenshot I am sorry) where Near was surrounded by model train tracks with the trains going around him resonated with me, I saw him placed in a safe space where he’s protected by his toys and that imagery immediately gave me an idea of a boy that hides to be protected, but uses his toys to fight rather than help him think.

His weapon being model cars and toy trains with motors in them, creating ticking time bombs, I felt was a nice way of weaponizing Benji for the conflicts they will run into. Carrying a toolbox within his box, never getting to see his operations, only the results of when he converts a plane into a homing missile.

Benji needs a little more work, in my opinion, but so far, I am happy with this character.

Lottie Sweet, the Tough Nut.

The younger sister of Dentist Gloria Sweet, Lottie is a no-nonsense thirteen year old and always has a serious pouty face as she’s out and about. Using a Skipping Rope as a weapon, she has mastered the art and uses it to keep people away from her at a distance. While she remains unfriendly, deep down she has a good heart and a strong sense of justice.

Lottie came to be as a younger sister for Gloria Sweet, she was created to add a little bit of conflict between the main crew. With her not having very high opinions of any of them and then she has to work with them, causing her to try and take the lead. However, things don’t go as she planned with Gloria and Frank often getting her out of trouble.

Since Frank and Hector turned out so nicely, I thought to make the group an even six by giving Gloria a sister. While Frank and Hector were purposely designed to have very similar colour schemes to hint at the fact that they are brothers. The only shared colours between the sisters is the skin tone and hair colour. I chose the orange and purple for Lottie because I felt it was striking and that matched her personality, plus nobody else had those colours on them.

The Skipping Rope as a weapon came to me because I imagined a girl using her imagination to see one as a whip and just like that, it stuck. One of the charming things about Earthbound was that characters had specific weapons, Ness had baseball bats, Lucas had sticks, Jeff had guns and Paula had... A frying pan. Not stereotypical at all... With Lottie not being that kind of girl, I felt a more sporty weapon could work and the Skipping Rope was appropriate as both a sporty weapon and a girly weapon, depending on how you look at it.

I have also never designed a younger girl character, so this was a nice exercise to do. As well as just a nice design, I really enjoy drawing her pout and her wider eyes. Usually I go with the round eyes, so it’s nice to change up the eye shape. Her hair was definitely fun, as it’s usually my favourite part to design on a character, I remember the girls in my school tying their hair back whenever they did activities. Obviously, it’s so their hair doesn’t swish around in their face while they do things and I added the little hair strands on the front of her head to sort of hint to how intense her movements may have been. Since two strands have come loose.

I wanted to create a sporty girl and I feel like I did. Lottie was a successful design that I am really proud of.

Dentist Gloria Sweet, the Healer.

Gloria is a sweet and passionate dentist, that understands not everyone likes her line of work. So, she takes their feelings into consideration and tries to make everyone’s experience comfortable. Born with these PSI abilities, she was just able to do them rather than training to enhance them.

Gloria was one of the characters first characters I thought up back when I had created this series. Inspired by Earthbound, my initial group was made up of four people with three people being PSI users with Gloria filling the healer role that the Earthbound series typically has, the one character that learns the healing moves. Although, more characters have an array of offensive moves to go along with their healing abilities, Gloria was created much more as a support ally rather than an offensive fighter.

Gloria’s PSI abilities had to play a role in her field of work and the first job that jumped to mind was a doctor. A doctor that healed their patients using their PSI abilities, that then evolved into a dentist as a lot of people don’t like the dentist and are scared of going to them. Luckily, the mad dentist I had was long gone at the time and my dentist helped to inspire this idea, since she’s nice and it’s always an easy time for me (Though that’s probably because I care about my dental hygiene.)

Since people viewed it as an unpleasant experience, I thought it’d be nice if she was a really sweet character that makes her business by ensuring her customers shall be fine if they have anything done to their teeth. This also played into her design, I didn’t want to give her blue eyes like Lottie and I didn’t think brown eyes looked all that great. Then, I tried red.

Again, it was a play on the whole scary dentist cliché. People find her incredibly unsettling as she’s staring at their teeth with those red eyes, but are quite comfortable with her personality and painless operations. I really liked how this turned out and I just love how it contrasts with how she is as a person. Very happy with how Gloria turned out from an initial concept.

#AX3001-TVShowProject

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ourmomzone-blog · 4 years

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Recovering the Gift of Love and The Enlightened Family Institute with Terri Amos

Terri Amos is an otherworldly mentor who discloses to it like she sees it and burns through no time helping other people tidy up the passionate turmoil in their lives.

She is likewise a humane natural healer, spouse, mother, previous Miss USA and TV have, and the creator of Message Sent: Retrieving the Gift of Love.

Terri represents considerable authority in relationship recuperating and improvement, managing such urgent issues as outrage, judgment, dissatisfaction and fault. Her work carries understanding and recuperating to all connections including your family, fellowships, the work environment and above all, the relationship you have with yourself. Her site is http://www.terriamos.com

Clarify the strategic the Enlightened Family Institute, and specifically concerning your Enlightened Mom Workshop?

The workshop is intended to allow mother to appear as something else, one of a kind, and uncommon in her own specific manner and be a case of commending her unique self to her youngsters. It's not what mothers accomplish for their families but rather how they carry on with their carries on with that will affect them the most. On the off chance that a mother allows herself to respect the manner in which she was made and do whatever it takes not to fit into a shape, she will show her kids to follow their hearts also. Genuine plenitude comes when we make an association with God by living from our souls and how we were made. Also, this is the crucial the Enlightened Family Institute: to assist families with separating dividers of partition, judgment and fault by regarding each other for their uniqueness. What's more, it begins with mother.

What is the center message that moms find out about in the workshop that is unmistakable from what they may have been prepared to accept about parenthood?

The old worldview of parenthood says ladies must be saints to be acceptable moms. The center of this message is that mother must perform for her family to be cherished. This sends the message out that "I am just OK on the off chance that you (outer world) state that I am OK." This implies love originates from the outside world. The edified mother discovers what her identity is and this unlimited self esteem floods to the children. It isn't tied in with performing yet love originating from somewhere inside. My procedure tends to the evil spirits and deceptions in the method of this to uncover an individual's uniqueness and endowments. Subterranean insect it begins with mother.

How is the Enlightened Mom weekend remarkable since there are a great deal of mother and parent-arranged workshops available?

The program is about re-child rearing the mother and making a more noteworthy association with God. Once more, we have been trained that we need to discover love outside ourselves. This procedure consistently causes one to feel unfilled. This is my own experience since all the accomplishment on the planet won't cause somebody to feel love. The major message to mothers isn't to be a saint and to break the deception of what a decent mother is and stop the never-ending pattern of blame, outrage, fault. Sending the message that you have to perform for others to get love makes judgment. It isolates an individual from their heart and they blow up. One goes into torment. I am tied in with preparing somebody to tune in to their heart. My work is solidified in God. You put God first and you tune in to the messages in your heart. At that point acknowledge and give up to your heart. Here a lady turns into a model

of affection and wealth since it originates from inside. At the point when the mother moves then the entire family moves.

My better half and I own the organization ConsciousOne. This organization came to fruition from this guideline. At the point when you quit being a saint and open up to get, you tap into stunning messages. For example, I strolled into a library a few years back and asked, "What do you need me to see God?" I ended up remaining before video tapes and pulled out one by Deepak Chopra called "The Way of the Wizard." I had been doing a great deal of otherworldly work around then and permitted my life to be guided by God and all the magnificent messages. I got that tape not realizing why yet took it home in any case. After I watched it for around five minutes I realized it wasn't for me. It was for Steve. The message was about the seven degrees of cognizance, moving from blamelessness to self image to achiever to searcher, etc. Steve watched it and cried. He stated, "I would prefer not to be an achiever any longer. I need to be a searcher." He said he needed to accomplish an option that could be greater than himself, he needed to accomplish something for God and the planet. Not very long after that is when colleagues appeared with the thought for ConsciousOne. So my message to moms is the point at which you quit being a saint and set aside some effort to get associated with God, your life will influence everybody you know. Steve had seen my life change throughout the years and had seen me become an all the more adoring mother because of standing firm for finding the affection inside. His life changed when I remained open to the messages and presented to him a tape that day that changed his life for eternity.

Is there a specific sort of lady who does the Enlightened Mom weekend?

It is a changed gathering. I have had grandmas, prospective moms who are pregnant, and moms of children in various age gatherings. All these lady are re-child rearing themselves so they will be all the more adoring mothers and individuals.

How could you come to build up your work as a healer and the Enlightened Mom Workshop?

At the point when I was in the main five in Miss USA, Bob Barker asked me, "In the event that you could spread a message to the youngsters of the world, what might it be?" I stated, "To be completely forthright, in such a case that you have genuineness, you have everything." I didn't win Miss USA as a result of my looks however my meetings took me to the top. The reaction was "Wow - you are straightforward". The message was mine. That is the model that I live in my life and educate. See what your identity is and your reality. Be straightforward with yourself. Become more acquainted with the genuine you mother's day cards to make.

At the point when I turned into a mother, I didn't such as myself. As I chose to get legitimate and investigate, I understood that I lived by numerous deceptions that revealed to me how I must be as a mother. One of them said that mothers can't get love except if they satisfy a guideline of flawlessness. I thought to get intended to be childish. I needed to figure out how to have the option to give and get, it is a cycle. Preceding that, it was about endorsement yet not realizing how to get love, which is the embodiment. I didn't have any acquaintance with it at that point. As I have recuperated my life and opened up to making an awesome association with my heart and God, there is a back and forth movement with this cycle. It's tied in with feeling associated with your heart and your general surroundings. At the point when you locate this sort of affection inside yourself, you become an additionally cherishing mother. My Enlightened Mom workshop is essentially a road for me to share this message. I saw my family recuperate as I got extremely legit with myself and now I'm seeing families everywhere throughout the world mend also. The key is for mother and the entire family to consider life's to be circumstances as chances to mend.

#mother's #day #cards #to #make

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christian-photoinlondon · 5 years

Photo

WEEK 2

José Luis Venegas: Fajardo-Duarte wedding, Tijuana, 1972

Why did you choose this work?

This was my favorite piece out of the whole gallery. I chose to focus on this photograph because of not only the vibrancy of the colors and the harsh contrasts but also the vibrancy of the emotions and excitement that is being had by the subjects in the photo.

What do you think the artist is trying to say with this work?

The artist was going against traditional portrait photography that was common of the time to create wedding photography that embodied emotion and gave a sense of group identity to the higher social classes in Tijuana.

Identify and describe two compositional aspects or photographic attributes

The use of a bright flash captures each subject with hard artificial light from eye-level positioning which makes the image very clear and easy to understand the emotions of. The motion of this photography appears as a moment frozen in time and space without any blur.

Explain how you think these choices influence the meaning of the photograph

I believe this style of photography was very effective in delivering the intended modern life documentary portraits that the artist wanted for his clients. This use of light captures many different individuals at the wedding clearly and freezes this moment in history.

What is the photograph of? What is the photograph about? Are these different?

I believe the meaning and the what the actual photograph depicts are the same but with a higher meaning of purpose to the artist. Venegas was pushing away from traditional portrait documentary photography and was expanding towards this modern style of event photography that his clients liked and saw being used in the U.S.

Armando Cristeto: PolyMarchs, Party Nights series, Mexico City, 1985

Why did you choose this work?

I liked the more conceptual nature of this photograph compared to the other very literal photos that I chose to focus on and enjoyed viewing the vibrancy that it has with selected colors.

What do you think the artist is trying to say with this work?

The artist liked studying the act of and participating in parting as he notes that he knew few who “partied as I did, because I was interested in it for itself.” This work embodies dancing and nightlife and lets the artist understand the components of night life in itself.

Identify and describe two compositional aspects or photographic attributes

The selected use of color of the yellow and pink that is added on post-print with other overlaying shapes and shades. The use of a bright flash captures each subject from the chest down which makes the dancing very clear and frozen in time.

Explain how you think these choices influence the meaning of the photograph

The chosen colors that are added post-print draw the viewer’s attention to those areas to widen the photo and create a sense of jumbled confusion such as one might experience on a night out. This feeling is counteracted with the frozen in time type of lighting and short shutter speed which shows no blur.

What is the photograph of? What is the photograph about? Are these different?

The photograph is of people dancing and having fun on a night out. However, the photo is about the act of partying and what it means to party in particular. They are different and this creates meaning behind the series that Cristeto has photographed.

Pedro Valtierra: Teachers Being Beaten, Mexico, 1987

Why did you choose this work?

I chose this work because it caught my attention with its emotional and violent nature and made me want to understand what was happening.

What do you think the artist is trying to say with this work?

The artist was documenting the violence that was happening to indigenous teachers in the Oaxaca region that created a movement more open to diversity and increasingly critical to federal educational policies.

Identify and describe two compositional aspects or photographic attributes

The motion captured in this photograph with some blurred figures in the background as well as the point of view where the photographer is viewing the act of violence.

Explain how you think these choices influence the meaning of the photograph

By positioning himself in front of the teacher that is being beaten, the viewer sees the reaction on the teachers face while the policeman does not see this. It is an unfiltered and raw emotional take on what exactly was happening. The use of the blurred figures in the background create a sense of chaos with nondescript movements.

What is the photograph of? What is the photograph about? Are these different?

I believe the meaning and the what the actual photograph depicts are the same as this was a documentation of the brutalities that the teachers were facing when creating a movement for more diversity and questioning of federal educational policies.

PHOTO DISCUSSED IN CLASS:

List ten details that you see in the photograph. What else do you see?

The large weather balloon, the snow on the ground, the raw iron red fence, the barren trees, the monochromatic sky, the clouds, the wires holding down the weather balloon, the patch work on the balloon, the evergreen trees at the bottom of the mountains and hills, and the curve of the wires on the left side indicating the wind.

Where is your eye drawn? Describe the pattern, shapes, and colours. Look away and then look at the photograph again. What caught your eye first? Why does that stand out?

The large white weather balloon is what my eyes are first drawn to. All of the colors are very muted and the photograph gives a flat feeling because of those colors. The raw iron red fence also stands out to me because it is the only color that is very different from all the others in the photograph.

Find the pattern of light and shadow. What does the lighting draw your attention to? Describe what is in focus.

The lighting is very dispersed with no clear direction because of the cloudy day it was taken. There are no harsh shadows in the photograph as well making the large weather ballon confusing at first because of its unknown and nondescript purpose. Everything is in focus but the bottom of the balloon has no shadows possibly due to the reflecting nature of the snow bouncing light up from underneath.

What other photographic techniques do you notice? What is the photographer’s point of view (where is the camera in relation to the subject)?

The photographer took this photo from a point of view eye level on top of this mountain top. It gives the feeling that it is angled up towards the balloon but also captures the swooping valley and surrounding mountains. The other photographic technique that is being used is the way in which these two angles are caught and conveyed through this single photograph.

What is the subject of the photograph? What questions do you have about the subject?

I was confused at first when first seeing this photograph, but then once I saw the strings I understood the subject was a weather balloon. I would like to better understand what scientific purpose does this weather ballon serve and what data it collects.

Use an adjective to describe the style of the photograph. Can you guess what genre this photograph represents? What makes you say that?

Overpowering and confusing. The genre could be documentary or conceptual as the photo is of a scientific device but also the way it is taken is very ambiguous so it makes the viewer confused and draws them in to look deeper into the meaning behind it.

How does the photograph make you feel? What does the photograph make you think of? Why do you think the photographer made these artistic choices? What do you think the photograph is saying?

At first it makes me feel confused, but then once knowing what is being photographed I feel a sense of power as the view is positioned on top of a mountain overlooking the valleys. This photograph makes me think of when I go skiing and the bliss of solitude that I feel when up on top of the mountain. I think the photographer made these choices to make the viewer feel the way I did as well as make a commentary on nature vs industry.

Look once more at the photograph and find something you haven’t described yet. What is your reaction to this exercise? Did anything surprise you?

The red iron fence was something that I initially did not put much thought into, but once going back I am surprised to see how significantly different the color is compared with every other thing in the photograph. It draws importance as being now a focal piece that directs the view of the viewer up to the large weather balloon.

What areas were difficult to answer? Photographic attributes and technique? Composition? Content? Style or genre? Meaning?

The meaning was hard to understand because there was not much explanation to pull from and it was up to the viewer to understand what this object was in the photograph. After closer look it can be easier to understand with an open and detailed mind.

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samk-icelebrities-blog · 5 years

Text

SUSTAINABILITY FOR A #HAHT AUDIENCE

In 2015, Miami Swim Week was just another week for those in the swim industry to showcase their upcoming products from their newest swim collections. With minimalistic white washed runways, swim companies from all corners of the world travel to promote their new ideas. Though, with swim shows scaling to about a quarter of a million dollars, those participating have to be diligent and determined to make a mark on the swim world. Though, with all the same silhouettes and “curvy” identifying models, came a new character to the dynamic week. With exquisitely diverse apparel, model choices, and sustainable application, Hot as Hell established themselves as a true threat to the swim world in 2015. Since their debut at swim week, Hot as Hell, or as their family ran company calls it, “HAH”, remains as a dynamic force to the pairing worlds of sexy and sustainability when considering the swim industry as a whole.

Owner and CEO of HAH, Sharleen spent her days in the 90′s designing for the iconic swim division of Victoria’s Secret. This annual collection that is released once a year still remains iconic to the everyday Victoria’s Secret shopper and allows them to activate their summer accessories. Though, while designing these swim collections for so long, Sharleen noticed a detrimental amount of waste that the company was contributing to the world. She didn’t agree with these tactics in more ways than one and left the company to consider what she valued and how she could make change. With these morals in mind, Sharleen set out to create something that embodied both “sexy” and “sustainable.” With these two core values, Sharleen established “Hot As Hell” , a digitally infused LA fashion label. Their style is designed as a “universal” line where their swim, lingerie, and apparel, can be altered to be worn in numerous ways. Providing a dynamic stance on the ever changing world of fast fashion.

When creating a fashion label to create change, one like Sharleen had to think about the people she surrounded herself with in order to embark on this journey. By cultivating a group of girl bosses into the “HAH” family, Sharleen selectively chose five girls to work hand in hand to make one dream happen. With a vision and all hands on board, The HAH team became a staple to their social audience. But from there, HAH’s efforts to be a transparent company stretched farther then the team making their products. By showcasing those who help to ship, package, and assemble their products, HAH made a universal commitment to show how there is no “I” in team. In the video linked here, you see a dynamic group of workers making Sharleen’s initial vision come true. All handing picking and creating these dynamic tasks, HAH has created an inner empire that reflects on great scales to their outer empire. Showing their audiences that its “cool to care” and that “Starting somewhere is better than not starting at all.”

One element that is a monumental to the HAH brand is their value for sustainability that is implemented into all of their swim and apparel. Looking to the figure above, you can see how HAH utilizes sustainable products to make their everyday wearable collections. With their sources and materials being composed of mainly corn starch, their fabrics are biodegradable. Their suits range from being UV protective, chlorine resistant, to not snagging or pilling. With these core concepts, the team at Hot As Hell has created their own terminology to define things that correlate with their brand by implementing the saying “HAH”, pronounced like laughing sound “ha-ha-ha”, into words like #HAHt, #HAHonesty, and other forms of this catchy phrase to embody their brands identity. From their swim that is made for the modern LA fashion mogul, to their one of “HAH” kind pieces that they thrift and repurpose, Sharleen has implemented the idea of valuing both “sexy” and “sustainability” into their brand’s landscape. Thus, bringing a new lens to the ever boring world of fast fashion when considering style and sustainability.

From the sustainable aspect comes the deliverables that come with the products bought from HAH. They pride themselves on selling eco friendly clothing but make sure the bags they come in are reusable, recyclable, and overall sustainable as well. In the figure below, you can see how HAH utilizes their bags for delivery. Along with their ideas behind being sexy and sustainable, HAH has also implemented the hashtag #StartSomewhere into their brand’s universal identity. This idea is implemented into their bags and is truly “HAHt” to their customers who care for the good of the earth while still being stylish. This hashtag also goes into their newest implementation of the HAH brand where with every sale made online, HAH will donate a percentage of the sales to planting trees in ecosystems all across the world. This “One for One” system is trademarked through HAH by using the hashtag #StartSomewhere to activate the ways that they can make change beyond the clothing they wear. Giving the user a purpose beyond just buying clothes for the aesthetic and style, but for the community and atmosphere we identify with on a daily.

INTERVIEW WITH SHARLEEN ON THE TOPIC OF #STARTSOMETHING

From the well rounded world of sustainability implemented into HAH, Sharleen has also set out to make sure HAH is identifiable by all types of humans. By including models that actually don’t identify as “models” and more as personalities that embody the “go getter” lifestyle of HAH. By incorporating DJs, actors, dancers, and all type of performance based models into their campaigns, Sharleen has created an authentic atmosphere for HAH. This authenticity promotes all types of confident humans being their best selves with overall positive auras. Whether it be bettering themselves or bettering the world around us, HAH is always in collaboration to promote both walks of life into one garment. Even just this past campaign for HAH, Sharleen chose to use a plethora of plus size women from all walks of life to model their newly drafted collection. By having all types of humans in the campaign, Both Sharleen and the identity she has created with HAH shines through at grand scales. Leaving those who interact with their brand able to always identify with being both sexy and sustainable.

From sustainability to packaging to inclusion. HAH has made it their mission to check the most boxes and make sure those who identify with brand are mutually satisfied. With this in mind, they have also have made it their mission to make very gender neutral / versatile products. By having soon to be mothers and actual mothers walking alongside their toddlers, both covered in head to toe HAH on the Miami Swim Week catwalk, they have broadcasted that everyone is represented in regard to the brand. Leaving nobody questioning whether or not they align with the brand’s identity. By making clothing for such a modern demographic, HAH has effectively found the niche ways to include those interested with the environment along with being stylish.

In conclusion, when considering the ways HAH has implemented eco friendly clothing into the world of modern fashion, many would commend their strategic brand’s design. From apparel and swim crafted from corn starch to creating reusable and recyclable swim bags, HAH has made it their mission to make their impact on the world of digital fashion. With the background of Sharleen and her past experience working in the fast fashion world of Victoria’s Secret, it is notable to consider the effort she has made to make our world a better place. From the people working with the company to the way she create garments, everything is done effectively with a nod to the world around us. With love infused into every stitch and every cut, Sharleen has created an online empire of “#HAHties” that merge the world of being sustainable and fashionable. Creating and underlying movement that will continue to impact the ways audiences from all corners of the world view and assimilate with the atmosphere around us.

Going forward, HAH will continue to make garments that flatter every shape, size, gender, and all walks of life to embody their collections. By cultivating an atmosphere of its own, HAH will live beyond the world of the fashion industry and effect the ways future clothing brands approach making “Sexy” and “Sustainable” a #HAHT statement.

LINK TO HAH’S WEBSITE

LINK TO HAH’S INSTAGRAM

(ALL IMAGES AND VIDEOS FOUND FROM HOT AS HELLS WEBSITE)

youtube

#HAH

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nymphinity-blog1 · 7 years

Text

u/n/k/n/o/w/n/d/a/t/e

I’m aboard the 1st 🚞 🎢out of 2 parked in front of structures seemingly a cross between MS, HS, & malls. Surprisingly i chose a 💺 next to Emily instead of Ashley Anzalone, seated directly behind us. When the engine revz ^ for departure, it simulates rides from DisneyWorld, & 6flags. We chuggachü thrü scenery overlooking the 🌞peeking between a spacious mountain range. Not that my breathing had my undivided attention. Suddenly, we tip over. Gathering among the accident, we heave it upright. I can see the water drain from open windows of the tram car due to submergence. We quickly pry open 🚪s to save lives. Barging, the only thing I see is a plastic water bottle. Picking it up, i notice it’s only more than half way venti. Ashley’s the size of Thumbalina nearly drowning inside of it so I dump it at once. Conductor gets the engine to rev back up again. Reversing our course, we return to our starting destination. During this pit stop, the group of people outside become a chaotic riot. Zombie outbreak? Bites left & right. The uninfected struggle to seal off every entry point...staying put once clear of threats. This time the engine fails to start. Avoiding attention from zombies, sneaking into the school, i link^ with Lady Phonix & Keller in a squallroom. How or why i shapeshift into a shortbus still perplexes me but in doing that, i'm shimmying under desks & such. Glass bordering the 🚪’s flimzy so i embody my human form blocking breakthru. Tubyasin busts the barrier, forcing himself inside with us. His righti death gripping a rifle. Taking the chance to loosen it, I retrieve the glock, to check the magclip. Unloaded, hollow, empty…we decide to sacrifice him the the hallway. As i guard the door, Paconi waltzes in. Zombie children wander closer, stalling by the knob. Phonix & Keller remain inside the squallroom while him and i make a run for it. Making a mental note that they seem to not only react to motion, but smell as well. Alerting their instincts, a chase persues. Diving into the nearest elevator, a single head jams between closing doors, urging a double whammi curbstomp. We descent to a 🍯comb lair like the one from Cabin in the Woods. Paconi confesses to studying the virus in this lab he claims as his own. Pixelated walls make like pellucid barricades in the middle of the hallways. He explains that as we penetrate through them, proceeding deeper into the refuge, it must be identical to the way he does. Leaving behind comb shapes as an impression. Immitating Cartoon Networks' Hole in the Wall. If i were to make the wrong move, i blip further away from his. The finish line’s lit^ with blurple lights of ambience. A tablet's bolted to the wall next to me. Touch screens provide me with my score on this test. I look, but i don’t see. Now my mind’s set on finding Paconi. I walk upon an operating room where he sits dissecting a deadweight organism in a stretcher. With no desire of being disturbed, he instructs me to elevate to the 1st floor. This new area the elevator resembles a foodcourt in a mall without tables or chairs. Artificial gardens & shrubbery grow surrounding the glass border built upon the clearing. The floor i tread lightly on's made of green microchip tiling. If you make a single step out of line on the terms of Kim Jong Un who stands atop his pedestal, you’ll suffer from a powerful jolt of electricity. I join the rest of the proud survivors of this apocalyptic event so far. Kim congratulates us all with warm welcome to the safezone. Another group of us pool into the same elevator i rose from... Returning to the laboratory. The only familiar faces i see are my moms', &eccas'. We vow to an unbreakable bond. The doors open to another welcoming Paconi rather eager to let us in on his new scientific advancement. After several blood transfusions, our immunitys' been proven! Failing to mention before that we were all mere test subjects in the grander scheme of things...yet still all so very grateful of his discovery. In concluding this, Paconi joins us in the elevator, pressing the button to the lowermost level where additional experiments take place. These caverns contain mazes harboring tested on zombies with inclined conciousness staggering about. 4 different types of zamb have spawned into cloned subspecies'. 1; Nude 👽esque avatar ladies. Instead of blue…baby powder grey. With darker, smokey grey tribal scarification covering every inch of their bodies. 2; Tïñtîn Beccas with 😈 horns 3; Suttin Cade'n Karter kids 4; Bald males with scarred^ faces, the same offput neutral nude color as the naked avatar women..`cept beige. They wore t~shirts & Chinese bamboo harvest hats shaped like saucers. Turning the 1st corner of the maze, i whimsically conduct my own experiment. 💥ing up a conversation with 1 of the saucer heads about astrology. Somehow already aware that I’m a ♊, I guess he's a ♉ ; No response. Followed by indecipherable jibbrjabbr. Someone sounds an alarm. 2 uninfected african men rush in frantically wedging the entrance closed with ply wood. @snortcocaineoffmyboner& the 🐸y everlivin’ Pharaoh the spacey trans beamin’ being dudes whodo voodoo. They figure out how to navigate the elevator. Door dings open…unfired gunza blazin’. Paconi can’t wrap his mind around how they found their way into the top secret rooms we dawdl in. In a clusterfuck of a scared shitless banter, they go on about every detail of survived journeys beyond shelter 🚪s. Forgetting to inform us of the already cracking wedging holding the doors shut could fracture at any given moment. With that knowledge, all hell breaks loose. Sure enough, zombies shatter through, pouring in tumblewaves. Ravenous beasts...hungrier, the faster. Will our newfound immunity be a success with zombies of this temperment? Disregarding the judgement of the accompanied parties, I yank my loved ones into the elevator, allowing anyone else in who follows. New goal; stay in for as long as our fate decides. Dream scene flips & shifts. 2 females lay in a bedroom in the vicinity of the court lobby where more zambz broke in. 1’s a Spanish human, de other esta 👽esque avatar zombie lady. While she ciaos trople 🍫 trifecta 🎂 on a bare mattress, she naps. A sweet n' smexy doomsday snooze sesh of dos.

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

Text

🍁🍻🍂🍻🍁🍻🍂🍻🍁🍻🍂🍻🍁🍻

The Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago. Its shadow looms large.

By Stefan Kornelius, Christian Caryl, Emily Tamkin and Brian Klaas | Published November 06 at 6:13 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 7, 2019 |

Thirty years ago, the citizens of Soviet-dominated Central Europe achieved something extraordinary: a wave of peaceful revolution that swept away the system that had exerted near-seamless control over their lives for the previous four decades.

The enormous impact of those events was obvious to everyone who witnessed them. Since then, a generation has passed. The Berlin Wall — and everything it symbolized — is just a memory, and it is tempting to view the events of 1989 as mere history.

That would be a mistake. In fact, that remarkable year has left an enduring imprint on Europe — and the rest of the world. The upheaval of that moment still shapes politics, economies and biographies in ways we don’t normally consider.

We may think we have put 1989 behind us — but its shadow still looms large.

______

MERKEL, THE ONE WHO WENT WEST

By Stefan Kornelius

Stefan Kornelius is the foreign editor of the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the author of “Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her World.”

The night the Berlin Wall came down, Angela Merkel went to a sauna. Just as she did on every other Thursday, the young academic indulged in a typical East German pastime: spending a few quiet moments with friends in boiling heat. Merkel finally heard the historic news when she returned home — but she decided to go to bed rather than enjoy the newly won freedom to cross the once-sealed border. It was only on the next day that she set foot in West Berlin, where she met a cousin and carefully tested the mood of the crowds.

Merkel is not known for being overly emotional. But that night she immediately knew that her career as a physicist had come to a sudden end. East German scientists lagged far behind the West, and there was almost no way for someone in her position to catch up. So Merkel made a bold decision and went shopping for political parties. She chose to align herself with a new group that called itself Democratic Awakening, which seemed to offer the right mix of seriousness and liberalism. It became her first political home.

In East Germany’s first free election a few weeks later, her party fared poorly. It soon entered into a coalition with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union, and she never looked back. From then on, the life story of the first female chancellor — and arguably the most powerful female politician in the world — is well-documented.

And yet one mystery remains. Merkel embodies the ultimate East German success story. She has governed united Germany for an astonishing 14 years. Her biography conveys several powerful messages: Anyone can make it; our democracy rewards ambition and talent; East and West can come together. You’d think that Merkel is the one politician east Germans could be proud of.

But they are not. Merkel is anything but the poster girl of unification. Her approval ratings in east Germany are worse than in the west. Whenever she campaigns in the east, her former compatriots greet her with whistles and catcalls. During recent regional elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, Merkel’s party strategists decided to ask her to stay away, fearing a negative effect on the vote if she showed up.

Merkel is probably the most prominent example of a deep East-West divide that separates not only Germany but also Central Europe. Even though the former satellites of the Soviet empire have caught up with the West economically and in many measures of modern life, their citizens can’t shake the nagging feeling that they don’t quite belong. Citizens of Hungary, Poland and other countries of the old Eastern Bloc often claim that they feel like they’re the losers of the historic events that took place 30 years ago — even when the men and women expressing the sentiment hadn’t been born when the wall came down.

Sociologists and psychologists have had a field day with this phenomenon. Dozens of studies and polls have analyzed the gap. Most end up recommending a strategy of patience. On Oct. 3, Germany’s official day of national unity, the chancellor mused that the passage of a generation just isn’t enough time to get over the shock of a collapsing world order.

East Germany now enjoys modern infrastructure. Cities and villages glow with fresh paint, and huge malls stretch along highways. But that’s only the surface. Rural areas are running out of inhabitants. Those who want jobs tend to head west or south, while those who stay behind are either old or tarred as losers. Since 1990, some 2 million east Germans, overwhelmingly young people, have left their homes.

East Germans believe that the rest of the country looks down on them. It’s a vicious circle: The more the story of second-class citizens is told, the deeper the gap between east and west becomes. Half of those living on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic see themselves as east Germans, not as Germans.

Not surprisingly, the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany is strongest in the east, where it claims that only it can complete unification. The remedy it proposes is a mix of isolation and nationalism, with a strong appeal to notions of identity. It’s copying the recipes of similar Eastern European movements in Poland or Hungary: Use discontent with the economy and demographic change, mix it with xenophobia and historic trauma, and add a bit of strongman.

Angela Merkel never became that strong figure. Her political style is far too nuanced, her speaking skills too underdeveloped. She has a deep conviction that democracy means above all compromise, achieved in detailed negotiations without fanfare. Ever since she set out on her new path on that November night 30 years ago, she was fated to become not the first east German chancellor, but the third chancellor of unified Germany. As easterners see it, she westernized – and therefore betrayed her identity. She’s the one who went west.

______

PUTIN AND THE GHOSTS OF 1989

By Christian Caryl

Thirty years later, it’s hard to fully appreciate just how revolutionary the revolutions of 1989 were. To us now, it’s obvious that the Stalinist regimes of east-central Europe were ripe for collapse. But this is the wisdom of hindsight.

It was certainly clear that the Soviet Union and the countries in its orbit were economically backward; Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985, had basically admitted as much. But that didn’t mean that Marxist-Leninist regimes were destined to end up on the ash heap of history.

Communist dictatorships kept their populations under tighter control than any other political systems before them. They exercised obsessive control over links with the outside world; every foreigner who entered was carefully tracked. Even today, communist regimes survive in China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea. (Interestingly, we know that Kim Jong Il, the father of the current ruler in Pyongyang, forced his subordinates to watch videos of the December 1989 execution of Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu as a reminder of what might happen to them if the Kim regime were to lose its grip on power.)

In East Germany, a vast network of millions of citizens happily informed on their neighbors. The Stasi, the East German security service, was notorious for its obsessiveness and fanaticism. (It even archived the smells emitted by dissidents.) Surely, many assumed, it was impossible for a government that enjoyed the power of the all-knowing Stasi to be vulnerable to overthrow. And it was — until it happened.

There is one modern-day leader who is uniquely qualified to appreciate just how extraordinary the 1989 revolutions were: Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 1989, he was a young Soviet intelligence officer stationed in the East German city of Dresden, where the KGB maintained a branch office. Throughout the fall, he and his Soviet colleagues had watched with growing trepidation as ordinary East Germans took to the streets to protest their own government. Their numbers, initially modest, soon skyrocketed. When I attended my first mass demonstration, in the city of Leipzig on Oct. 23, I found myself in a crowd of 250,000 people — and that was just one protest in a country of 16 million. Just a few weeks later, on Nov. 9, the Berlin Wall finally fell, setting communist East Germany on a path to its eventual dissolution.

On Dec. 5, the revolution arrived at Putin’s front door. A group of demonstrators turned up outside the villa housing the KGB branch office and threatened to storm the premises. Putin, in what has now become an oft-recounted moment in his official biography, told them politely but firmly to leave what the Soviets considered to be a military base — or he and his comrades would open fire. The East Germans dispersed.

It’s hard to know precisely what happened; the historical record has been strongly colored by the official version of events propagated by Putin and his government. Yet I see little reason to doubt that the young intelligence officer who would one day become his country’s ruler experienced East Germany’s revolution as up close and personal. While I can’t look into the Russian president’s soul, I believe the moment left a lasting imprint on the mind of the future dictator.

If Putin needed any reminder of the potential fragility of authoritarian regimes, he got it in 2011. Brazen fraud in local elections triggered a wave of popular protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other big cities; Putin’s 2012 announcement that he planned to run for a third term as president (after an interlude in which his protege Dmitry Medvedev held the office) acted as an accelerant. He had already seen several other rulers toppled by uprisings in his post-Soviet neighborhood — the so-called color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

The sense of threat was compounded by the chain of events that would come to be known, in the West, as the Arab Spring. Beginning in Tunisia in late 2010, it soon claimed such ruthless dictators as Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh. If they could fall, anyone could fall.

Putin succeeded in defusing the challenge to his authority with a combination of suasion and threats. But the realization that his own country might be susceptible to a people-power uprising prompted him to reconsider how to deal with the possibility of mass discontent.

And in 2016, he created an entirely new institution — the 380,000-strong Russian National Guard, which combines the missions of suppressing mass uprisings and the monitoring of domestic dissent. While Russia’s existing security agencies mostly remained intact, there was one feature of this new one that set it apart: It answers directly to Putin, not to the bureaucracy. The old East German Stasi — like its Soviet counterpart, the KGB — was designed to defend the Communist Party, not individual leaders.

It’s a change that demonstrates just how palpably the ghosts of 1989 continue to haunt Putin’s imagination three decades later. That he’s managed to stay in power as long as he has shows just how carefully he has absorbed the lessons of that miraculous year.

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THE STRANGE ODYSSEY OF ORBAN

By Emily Tamkin

Emily Tamkin is a writer and reporter based in Washington. She is the author of the upcoming book, “The Influence of Soros.”

In the late 1980s, when a somewhat lax form of Marxism/Leninism still reigned in Budapest, Bibo Istvan Special College for law students was “an island of autonomy and self-determination,” as author Paul Lendvai wrote in a recent book. Starting in 1986, the college received funding from Hungarian American billionaire George Soros, who subsidized its intellectually and politically curious students. In 1988, a group of those students founded Fidesz, a politically active youth group.

One of their members rocketed to fame in June 1989, when he gave a rousing speech at a Budapest ceremony commemorating Imre Nagy, a communist-era leader fondly remembered for pushing back against Soviet rule. The 26-year-old Fidesz member assailed Moscow and demanded the removal of Russian troops — striking a chord at precisely the moment when long-rising discontent with the U.S.S.R. was about to translate into revolutionary change around the region.

The young man’s name was Viktor Orban. Not long after his speech, he set off for Oxford, where he studied on a Soros scholarship. He returned to Hungary in 1990 as a young star, a future liberal leader. Or so everyone thought — and continued to think for years, as he rose to become Hungary’s prime minister.

But in 2014, during his second stint in office, Orban famously said, “The new state that we are building is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state.” Even more famously, he has relentlessly attacked his one-time benefactor. In 2018, parliament pushed through a “Stop Soros” law, making it illegal for individuals or organizations to provide help to undocumented immigrants. Central European University, which Soros founded in Budapest in the early 1990s, has been largely pushed out. Somewhat less famously, Orban’s government rewrote the Hungarian constitution in 2012 and passed a law under which the government oversees the courts. Orban himself has been accused of using his power to enrich his family and allies.

“Once in office, Orban changed his spots,” Soros writes in his latest book, “In Defense of Open Society.” “He sensed a political opportunity on the right and became increasingly nationalistic.”

And this, generally, is the thinking: Orban changed. He was a democrat, a liberal, and then he got power and stopped being one.

But look more closely at the young man back in 1989, the one giving speeches as hope for democracy and liberalism swept across Europe. A different picture starts to show, one in which Orban has always been Orban.

In the spring, I spoke with Tom Melia, now the head of the Washington office of PEN America. Back in the days when Bibo Istvan Special College was an autonomous island, Melia was at the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit NGO that tries to bolster democratic institutions around the world, working on Hungary, “the most open of the Warsaw Pact countries in that period.” At the time, he said, people thought Fidesz was made up of smart, young people who were going to save the world.

I asked if he’d been surprised by the evolution of Orban and Fidesz.

Being an opponent of a dictatorship, he said, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good democrat: “You may just be a competitor for power.” During the 1990s, he says, some of those who knew Orban began to warn Melia about him. “They said that it was his domineering personality, his intolerance of dissent and discussion that grew in that period of the first parliament. So they saw something there that I didn’t necessarily see.”

Melia told me about Balint Magyar, a sociologist who was education minister both in the period before Orban’s first government and in the period between Orban’s first and second government. Back in 1990, Magyar had surprised some observers of Hungarian politics by publishing a diagram in which he plotted Fidesz as somewhere between the European liberals and the conservative populists. In June, in Budapest, I met with Magyar himself. I’d asked him how he’d known.

He told me that it had to do with language. When Orban first came on the scene, people thought that the language of liberal democracy was what people wanted to hear. When Orban figured out that it wasn’t, he changed what he was saying.

With a change in language came political machinations. In the 1990 election, Melia recalled, the members of Fidesz were so young that they displayed pictures of themselves and their babies to show they were grounded family men. Fidesz changed the rules after the first elections so that, despite its youth organization origins, older individuals could run for office for Fidesz. They got their parents and family members to run back home in the countryside, building a rural presence — and a more conservative voter base. By the time they came to power in 1998, they were part of a center-right coalition, having beaten the socialist and liberal coalition that ruled from 1994 to 1998. Orban, who served as prime minister in the new government, was ousted in 2002 — and came back in 2010 determined to hold onto power. He used the language, the tools and the anti-Soros campaigns available to him to do that.

There are, of course, a variety of theories about what happened to Orban. I have heard people say he resents Soros because he doesn’t like to owe people anything; that he was a genuine liberal democrat; that he wants to show big city people that he’s just as good and smart as they are.

And all of that may be true. But I think it was also true that, back in 1989, Orban was already Orban, already the man who wanted power and would say what he thought necessary to say and do what he thought necessary to do to keep it. Thirty years later, it looks as if the changing means achieved that steady end.

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THE END OF HISTORY? NOT QUITE.

By Brian Klaas

In the summer of 1989, just a few months before protesters streamed through Checkpoint Charlie of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama published an article in the National Interest called “The End of History?,” which later became the foundation of his book “The End of History and the Last Man.” He argued that the great ideological struggles of the 20th century — first between liberal democracy and fascism and then between liberal democracy and communism — were over. History, defined by Fukuyama as the struggle between grand ideologies, had reached its endpoint. Liberal democracy had won.

“What we may be witnessing,” Fukuyama wrote, “is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

When the Berlin Wall fell only a few months later, Fukuyama looked more like a prophet than a political scientist. But does he still look right today?

Thirty years later, history itself appears to have refuted “the end of history.” China, Russia and Vietnam have revived and prolonged authoritarianism precisely by adapting capitalism to their own designs. Turkey and Egypt have created new forms of sultanism. And in east-central Europe, Hungary and Poland — once bright spots of the 1989 revolutions — are once again embracing one-party rule in all but name. Germany, once the standard-bearer for Eastern Europe, now also finds itself bedeviled by right-wing populism. Even in the United States — a country that Ronald Reagan called a “shining city upon a hill” in January 1989 — a weak but dangerous would-be strongman now rules.

These examples, and others, are driving a dangerous trend. Young people in the West are losing faith in democratic institutions. Roughly 75 percent of Americans born in the 1930s say it is “essential” to live in a democracy — but only about 30 percent of Americans born in the 1980s share that view. Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden show a similar dynamic.

More are also willing to consider alternatives that were once unthinkable fringe views. In 1995, 1 in 16 Americans said army rule would be “good” or “very good.” By 2014, that figure had grown to 1 in 6.

Yet this is not the entire story. For one thing, the current democratic recession doesn’t negate the astounding growth of liberal democracy since World War II.

In 1945, the world was home to 137 autocratic states — and just 12 democratic ones. By 1989, the number of autocracies had fallen to 105 compared with 51 democracies. In 2018, democracies were in the lead, by a count of 99 to 80. (This is a broad category that encompasses many different kinds of states, ranging from robust parliamentary democracies to relatively illiberal ones.) Oxford economist Max Roser calculates that the number of people who live in democracies nearly doubled between 1989 and 2015, from about 2 billion to about 4 billion.

Even more striking, perhaps, is the persistence with which post-1989 despots strive to present themselves as democrats. Many make a point of holding regular and seemingly competitive elections (while rigging them). They allow a semi-free press (which they muzzle when it suits them). They make a pretense of maintaining the rule of law on paper (though not in practice). As Nic Cheeseman and I have argued, this is why there are more elections than ever before as the world becomes less democratic.

This would seem to undercut Fukuyama’s argument but actually reinforces it. The world’s dictators are trying to create the illusion of liberal democracy to justify their rule. Most of those leading the democratic recession still say democracy is the ideological ideal.

Fukuyama noted that “it is not necessary that all societies become successful liberal societies, merely that they end their ideological pretensions of representing different and higher forms of human society.” This may have been his most astute observation of all; modern politics appears to be bearing it out.

Authoritarianism and illiberalism have not died. Yet as I write this, people are taking to the streets once again across the world — from Hong Kong to Chile, Ecuador to Algeria, Lebanon to Sudan. The reasons for their protests differ widely — but what they all have in common is the demand for a voice over decisions affecting their everyday lives. None of the participants in these mass uprisings is demanding that despots tell them what to do.

All of them are marching in the footsteps of those who, 30 years ago, pushed against the walls and curtains of dictatorship until they finally fell. The defenders of the open society continue to fight, and they still have much to fight against. Even so, the promise of democracy beckons just as persistently as it did in 1989. Otherwise the strongmen would not have so much reason to fear it. But fear it they do.

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30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, children of a united Germany remain divided

By Loveday Morris and Luisa BECK | Published November 07 at 11:10 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 7, 2019

BERLIN — Michael Weber had just turned 3 when the Berlin Wall fell and doesn’t remember life before communist East Germany reunited with the capitalist West.

Weber’s generation, raised in the rubble of the wall, was expected to grow up without division. They were the children of “die Wende,” as the reunification is known in Germany and which loosely translates as “turning point.”

And yet that’s not quite how things turned out.

“In my head, the wall is still there,” Weber said. “There’s disappointment here. What was hoped for in the last 30 years hasn’t really happened.”

Events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s demise this week are tempered by soul-searching about continued rifts in society.

Although economic divisions between East and West have narrowed, the East still lags behind. And political and psychological divisions, which until recent years had been written off by some politicians as issues of the past, have become increasingly obvious. That’s especially the case within the generation raised after reunification and without memory of the communist state that preceded it.

Only 38 percent of East Germans think reunification succeeded, according to a government report released in September. That drops to 20 percent among those younger than 40, who experienced East Germany only as children or not at all.

Weber and his friends fall into that group. They took a recent day off from the metal factory where they work to attend a “family day” organized by the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party in the eastern town of Zeulenroda. Residents lined up for sausages and beer as they waited for an appearance by regional AfD leader Bjorn Höcke, who has survived calls within his own party to ban him for anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Weber and his friends brushed off reports of Höcke’s neo-Nazi ties and said the AfD speaks to issues they care about.

The traditional parties, Weber said, “had 30 years to make changes, 30 years to make everything equal, and they haven’t.”

A TURNING POINT THAT LEFT SOME DISAPPOINTED

It was on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989 that an East German government official announced — somewhat prematurely, it would turn out — that the state’s citizens would be free to travel to the West.

East Germans swarmed to the Berlin Wall, where they were welcomed by citizens from West Germany. There were euphoric scenes of celebration as the most potent symbol of the Iron Curtain that divided Europe was overrun.

But it was also the beginning of a painful readjustment for many in East Germany.

Reunification gave the 17 million Germans in the East a chance to own property, but many emerging from the communist state lacked the capital to do so. During privatization, factories in the East were shut down or bought up by new owners from the West. Qualifications from the East were rendered invalid.

Two years after reunification, industrial production in the East had slumped by more than three quarters, and more than 3 million people were out of work.

Many people left, resulting in dispiriting depopulation.

Three decades later, the picture is far better, as Germany’s powerhouse economy has lifted both East and West. But disparities remain. Salaries and disposable income in the East now reach about 85 percent of those in the West, according to government figures. East Germans are underrepresented as leaders in business, academia and politics, despite Chancellor Angela Merkel being from the East.

There’s also an enduring gap in unemployment rates: 6.9 percent in the East, compared to 4.8 percent in the West.

The split between East and West is even more pronounced in the realm of politics.

The far-right AfD has found support across Germany in the past five years, winning enough seats in the German parliament to make it the largest opposition party. But its message has particularly resonated in the East, and especially among young people. Whereas the Greens have won the under-30 vote elsewhere in Germany, in the Eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia the AfD has come out on top.

The party has benefited from opposition to Merkel’s decision to welcome more than 1 million refugees. But it has also tapped into resentment about how reunification was handled 30 years ago and into a feeling that Germans in the East remain second-class citizens.

During recent local elections in the East, the AfD promised a “Wende 2.0” to right the wrongs of the process.

“Senior politicians always said that unification is not a topic that is relevant in the young generation anymore,” said Rainer Faus, one of the authors of a study for the Otto Brenner Foundation this year that researched unity among Germans born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “We didn’t really believe that.”

The study found that only 33 percent of young Germans in former eastern states agreed that it makes no difference whether someone comes from eastern or western Germany, compared to 57 percent in the West who say the same.

“People in the East perceive Germany as less fair,” Faus said. “They believe that people in the East were not always treated in a fair manner after the fall of the wall.”

And those who agree that the East has been disadvantaged are more likely to vote for the AfD, he said.

Another notable finding: One in five people surveyed in the former East Germany said they feel more “East German” than “German.” There’s no equivalent regional identity in the West, Faus said.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE EAST GERMAN?

Some say they’ve had little choice but to embrace their East German identity, to fight stereotypes that have become more pervasive in recent years.

Valerie Schönian was born on Sept. 25, 1990, a little shy of a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and eight days before Germany was formally unified. She said she’d never really considered her regional identity growing up.

“For me and a lot of other people my age, I never thought about East and West Germany — that was history for me,” she said. “But then something changed.”

Schönian points to the 2015 refugee influx, which gave rise to the anti-immigrant Pegida party, and later the AfD. Suddenly East Germans were in the spotlight: for being racist and far-right.

The news media and Twitter commentators began to look at the East and say, “My God, what’s going on there?” she said. The emphasis on negative aspects of the region made her want to present a fuller picture.

“Young people like me — who don’t go on the streets for Pegida, or go on the streets for the AfD — also want to talk about East Germany and what’s going on there and what’s cool about East Germany,” said Schönian, who is writing a book on the topic.

On a rainy day in Leipzig, Friederike Feiler, 21, points out the church where her parents took part in political protests against communist East Germany. Her father still runs tours there.

Feiler — who is part of an activist group called Aufbruch Ost, or “Departure East” — argues that issues surrounding reunification need to be revisited and discussed. Among the most controversial is the work of Treuhandanstalt, an East German agency created to privatize state companies before reunification in 1990. It closed down many of them.

“It’s about getting more people to know about the inequality between East and West, and getting more people talk about it,” Feiler said.

But she worries that the focus on political differences is cementing new walls.

“After the elections now, there is a lot of blame on the East Germans,” she said. “The problem is when you point the finger and say, ‘How can you vote for the AfD? You are bad people.’ ”

Daniel Kubiak, a sociologist at the Humboldt University in Berlin, said it’s important to move on from explaining everything about eastern Germany with East German history. The classic example is when people suggest that Germans in eastern states have an affinity for the far right because they lived under authoritarian rule.

People shouldn’t overlook events in the 1990s, he said, such as the emergence of anti-immigrant groups and cases of domestic terrorism.

“Eastern Germany has become a construct in its own right, which has a 30-year history after reunification that you first have to look at,” he said.

Despite concerns about enduring divisions, for Schönian, the discussion about reunification’s unfulfilled promises and about what it means to be east German can be seen, in itself, as a sign of German unity.

“It just means that young East German people are so integrated, that it’s not possible to ignore our voice,” she said. For a long time, the East German perspective was ignored in history and the media, she said. “That gets harder and harder. Because of us.”

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#politics and government #politics #europe #european union #european history #germany #berlin wall #communism #communist #trump putin #putinspuppet #vladimir putin #putin #russia #u.s. news #world news #worldpolitics #international news

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corporate-emily · 6 years

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The Price of a Woman’s Body (700 word statement)

For my first assessment, I chose to assemble a poster explaining and criticising the ‘pink tax’ – an internationally recognised problem where women are paying more for gendered products just because they are ‘pink’, ‘feminine’ or marketed for women despite otherwise being identical to male-gendered products. My artwork for the second assessment is an extension of this critique where I have aimed to embody the bottom-line effect of the pink tax on women, which is that women pay a considerably larger amount of money over the course of their life for gendered products just because of their pre-determined biology. As an article from Cosmopolitan points out, this is ultimately legalised discrimination against women and comes on top of the fact that women already earn 15.3% less than men in Australia (and that’s only white women – it’s important to note that the wage gap is even larger for women of colour or indigenous origin).

For my artwork, I have chosen to mould three female torsos out of white FIMO clay. I have purposely made the torsos very voluptuous and have accentuated the female parts of them. I have assembled the three torsos on a wooden board and stringed price tags to them, to present the torsos as if they were for sale on a store shelf. Written on each tag is a retail price ‘per year’ which I have taken directly from three different sources that have estimated how much more women spend per year for gendered products thanks to the pink tax.

-Listen Money Matters reports that women pay 42% more for things like personal hygiene products and other services. This is estimated to be an additional $1351 per year and so this is the figure stated on the first price tag.(https://www.listenmoneymatters.com/the-pink-tax/ <%22>)

-According to People.com, women are paying around $1300 extra a year for female-branded products, so this figure went on the second price tag. (https://people.com/chica/women-pay-more-than-men-because-of-the-pink-tax/#woman-looking-at-bills-and-receipts-on-floor <%22>)

-Cosmopolitan magazine declares that women pay an extra $1000 in tax over their life just for tampons, which are taxed by the Australian Government because they are considered a ‘luxury item’, while on the other hand things like men’s shaving cream are not considered so luxurious and so are not taxed. This ‘tampon tax’ is a sub-issue which comes under the general umbrella of the pink tax problem. So I wrote this number on the last price tag. (https://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/health-fitness/no-gender-selective-tax-campaign-27414 <%22>).

At surface level, my artwork looks like the torsos are actually for sale for the prices I have written on the attached tags. I did this on purpose because the entire research process behind my artwork and my poster was finding and documenting real-life examples of the pink tax displayed on the store shelves of my local Woolworths, Coles, Big W and Target. To add to this particular level of my work, I specified the word ‘retail’ on the three price tags to allude to the torsos being for sale at a retail price, in a retail store. On a more covert level, my work embodies a simple educational message; that it costs around this much extra per year just for being a woman and having female body parts, which are emphasised in my torsos. I have also tried to emphasise other body characteristics in the torsos that naturally come with an adult female body, such as wide, birthing hips, heavy breasts and large buttocks. Of course, women’s bodies vary so greatly in size and shape that many women don’t necessarily have wide hips or large bums or big breasts, but I wanted to amplify these body parts in my torsos to strengthen the epitome of my work: that it costs more to be female.

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blogparadiseisland · 6 years

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Nature Beside Cynthia Nixon, a Potential First Lady to Blaze a Trail of Her Own

Nature Beside Cynthia Nixon, a Potential First Lady to Blaze a Trail of Her Own Nature Beside Cynthia Nixon, a Potential First Lady to Blaze a Trail of Her Own http://www.nature-business.com/nature-beside-cynthia-nixon-a-potential-first-lady-to-blaze-a-trail-of-her-own/

Nature

The tabloid media had camped outside the five-story prewar building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mystery woman who had stolen the heart of Cynthia Nixon, the “Sex and the City” star.

From inside Ms. Nixon’s building, Christine Marinoni saw the paparazzi, braced herself — and walked right past.

“They were looking for some blonde bombshell, or who knows what,” Ms. Marinoni said in an interview.

Ms. Marinoni now laughs as she recalls the frenzied hunt for her identity in 2004, the bewildered reporters who did not know what to make of her — an unostentatious, redheaded community organizer, who preferred plaid shirts to evening gowns, and who before meeting Ms. Nixon had never subscribed to cable TV. The hubbub over Ms. Nixon leaving her male partner and dating a woman seems faraway, the product of a different time.

And the celebrity magazines grew accustomed to the couple, gauzily covering their engagement, child’s birth and marriage.

But Ms. Marinoni, who often uses “shy” as one of the first words to describe herself, never grew entirely comfortable with them. During her pregnancy, she hid her stomach with a bulky coat, surprising not just the paparazzi but even neighbors when she gave birth. “They were like, ‘Where did the baby come from?’” she recounted.

Yet with Ms. Nixon running against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in next week’s Democratic primary, Ms. Marinoni has once again found herself in the spotlight, albeit of a different sort.

If elected, Ms. Nixon would be the state’s first governor to identify openly as queer, the word she and her wife prefer to describe their sexuality. Ms. Marinoni would be the state’s first queer first lady.

The couple’s personal lives have been closely intertwined with Ms. Nixon’s plunge into politics. Ms. Nixon says she was inspired to run for office because of her passion for education advocacy, the same advocacy that introduced her to Ms. Marinoni. The couple announced their engagement at a rally for same-sex marriage and traveled to Albany to lobby lawmakers on the issue.

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After Cynthia Nixon declared her bid for governor, her wife, Christine Marinoni, became a visible presence on the campaign trail, as the couple appeared together at events including the 2018 New York City Pride March.CreditJeenah Moon for The New York Times

Ms. Marinoni has proved as wary of the political press as of the celebrity, and in a rare interview, she downplayed her involvement in the campaign. As first lady, she said, she would remain in the background too, anchoring the family while Ms. Nixon governed.

“She’s been approached by folks repeatedly — not me, it was never my idea — who were excited about the prospects,” Ms. Marinoni, who has no official role in the campaign, said of Ms. Nixon’s decision to enter the race.

As the wife of a celebrity, she said she had perfected the art of dodging attention. “I now know how to step in or out of the spotlight, and I choose generally to stay out.”

But spotlight or not, people who have been involved with the campaign described Ms. Marinoni as an essential force in it: corralling support, shaping strategy, even serving as a proxy of sorts for her wife during policy or tactical discussions when Ms. Nixon is on the trail.

“Cynthia’s the candidate, and she’s kind of the embodiment of what we’re all trying to move on a state level,” said Jonathan Westin, the executive director of the nonprofit New York Communities for Change, which asked Ms. Nixon to run. “But the actual putting it together — I mean, Christine has been irreplaceable.”

Ms. Marinoni is a frequent presence at campaign events, marching alongside Ms. Nixon in the New York City Pride parade or collecting signatures to secure her spot on the ballot. After Ms. Nixon’s debate with Mr. Cuomo, Ms. Marinoni strode through the press room to make sure reporters got the story right: “She kicked ass! Clearly won. Clearly won.”

Ms. Marinoni was introduced to activism early. She grew up on Bainbridge Island, about 10 miles west of Seattle, where her father was a professor and her mother the off-and-on president of her teacher’s union.

After moving to New York in the early 1990s, Ms. Marinoni did a stint as a neighborhood organizer in the Bronx, then studied economic development at Columbia University, thinking she might work in international affairs.

She turned instead to education organizing, leading a coalition of parents that became the statewide Alliance for Quality Education. That was where she met Ms. Nixon, who became a spokeswoman for the group after learning of cuts to her oldest child’s school; their relationship became public in 2004, and they married in 2012.

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Ms. Marinoni and Ms. Nixon at the 2017 Tony Awards, where Ms. Nixon won the award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for “The Little Foxes.”CreditBruce Glikas/FilmMagic, via Getty Images

Fighting for funding for low-income school districts appealed to Ms. Marinoni for a simple reason: “It spoke fundamentally about shifting power.”

The next two decades of Ms. Marinoni’s career can be read as a continued effort to shift power — even as she herself also moved closer to the centers of them. After leaving the Alliance for Quality Education, she organized security officers with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, a 160,000-member labor heavyweight. In 2014, Ms. Marinoni joined the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose 2013 campaign she and Ms. Nixon had bolstered.

Driving the moves was a desire, even an impatience, for results. “I wanted to work within an infrastructure where they had just the power and the muscle and the ability to really fully fund a campaign — to get things done,” Ms. Marinoni said of her switch to union organizing.

But her marriage to Ms. Nixon has also led her to step away from advocacy.

For seven years before joining City Hall, she stayed home to care for Ms. Nixon’s two children from her previous relationship, and to have their own child.

The experience was grueling. Ms. Marinoni miscarried several times. During one pregnancy, in her fourth month, the doctors said the child would not be viable. She chose to have an abortion.

Her sixth pregnancy succeeded, and their son, Max, was born in 2011.

As she spoke of her family, Ms. Marinoni grew emotional, at one point choking up suddenly. She did not come out until she was 26, she said, and never envisioned that she might one day be happily married with kids.

“I always just pictured myself like a little worker bee my entire life,” she said. “But it’s like this amazing gift.”

Perhaps in part for that reason, Ms. Marinoni’s descriptions of her role in the campaign centered far more around her role as a wife and mother than as a strategist. She insisted that she had little to do with Ms. Nixon’s decision to run (“I tried to play the supportive-of-what-you-decide bystander”) and emphasized the gap between her brand of traditional organizing and the digital outreach that the Nixon campaign has touted as key to victory.

Still, people involved with the campaign said Ms. Marinoni was omnipresent. When New York Communities for Change was wooing Ms. Nixon, Mr. Westin spoke with Ms. Marinoni about the urgency of a progressive bid during the Trump presidency.

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If Ms. Nixon is elected, she would be the state’s first governor to identify openly as queer, the word she and her wife prefer to describe their sexuality. Ms. Marinoni would be the state’s first queer first lady.CreditTodd Heisler/The New York Times

Bill Lipton, the state director of the Working Families Party, which endorsed Ms. Nixon, said Ms. Marinoni was often the liaison who helped rally the party’s support.

The day-to-day work of the campaign draws upon Ms. Marinoni’s expertise, too. Campaign staff often meet at the couple’s home, where Ms. Marinoni, while watching Max, frequently weighs in on strategy. Advisers draw upon Ms. Marinoni’s familiarity with the couple’s networks to identify potential donors.

“She knows Cynthia in a way that none of us do,” Elana Leopold, who leads the campaign’s fund-raising efforts, said. “That’s helpful in figuring out fund-raising and figuring out tactics that might work.”

There may be a strategic reason for Ms. Marinoni’s reticence about her role. Early critics of the campaign suggested that Ms. Nixon’s decision to enter the race was not her own, or that she personally did not have enough political know-how.

But Ms. Marinoni’s reserve also aligns with her personality. People who have worked with her described a determined but understated advocate, one who preferred to grind in the background but would make a statement at the right moment.

“She’s not somebody who comes into a room and tries to dominate every conversation,” said Richard Buery, a former deputy mayor who supervised Ms. Marinoni while she worked in City Hall. “She’s somebody who speaks when she has something to say.”

Ms. Marinoni acknowledged that her wife’s candidacy would — and had — thrust her into a more public role, a fact to which she seemed somewhat resigned.

“The press is never particularly nice to me,” she said with a laugh. When she and Ms. Nixon first confirmed their relationship, an online contest asked if she more resembled the actor Danny Bonaduce or Prince Harry. “All of which I found quite entertaining,” she added.

And she conceded that, if Ms. Nixon won, she might need to retreat again from her own work. (She resigned from City Hall in March, a month before Ms. Nixon declared her candidacy.)

Still, her advocacy background would not be entirely absent from the governor’s mansion.

“I’ll always dip my toe into some organizing here or there,” she said. “I keep myself busy.”

Follow Vivian Wang on Twitter: @vwang3

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/nyregion/cynthia-nixon-christine-marinoni-wife.html | https://www.nytimes.com/by/vivian-wang

Nature Beside Cynthia Nixon, a Potential First Lady to Blaze a Trail of Her Own, in 2018-09-06 18:57:38

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

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Nature Beside Cynthia Nixon, a Potential First Lady to Blaze a Trail of Her Own

Nature

From inside Ms. Nixon’s building, Christine Marinoni saw the paparazzi, braced herself — and walked right past.

“They were looking for some blonde bombshell, or who knows what,” Ms. Marinoni said in an interview.

And the celebrity magazines grew accustomed to the couple, gauzily covering their engagement, child’s birth and marriage.

Yet with Ms. Nixon running against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in next week’s Democratic primary, Ms. Marinoni has once again found herself in the spotlight, albeit of a different sort.

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As the wife of a celebrity, she said she had perfected the art of dodging attention. “I now know how to step in or out of the spotlight, and I choose generally to stay out.”

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Ms. Marinoni and Ms. Nixon at the 2017 Tony Awards, where Ms. Nixon won the award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for “The Little Foxes.”CreditBruce Glikas/FilmMagic, via Getty Images

Fighting for funding for low-income school districts appealed to Ms. Marinoni for a simple reason: “It spoke fundamentally about shifting power.”

But her marriage to Ms. Nixon has also led her to step away from advocacy.

For seven years before joining City Hall, she stayed home to care for Ms. Nixon’s two children from her previous relationship, and to have their own child.

The experience was grueling. Ms. Marinoni miscarried several times. During one pregnancy, in her fourth month, the doctors said the child would not be viable. She chose to have an abortion.

Her sixth pregnancy succeeded, and their son, Max, was born in 2011.

“I always just pictured myself like a little worker bee my entire life,” she said. “But it’s like this amazing gift.”

Image

Bill Lipton, the state director of the Working Families Party, which endorsed Ms. Nixon, said Ms. Marinoni was often the liaison who helped rally the party’s support.

Ms. Marinoni acknowledged that her wife’s candidacy would — and had — thrust her into a more public role, a fact to which she seemed somewhat resigned.

And she conceded that, if Ms. Nixon won, she might need to retreat again from her own work. (She resigned from City Hall in March, a month before Ms. Nixon declared her candidacy.)

Still, her advocacy background would not be entirely absent from the governor’s mansion.

“I’ll always dip my toe into some organizing here or there,” she said. “I keep myself busy.”

Follow Vivian Wang on Twitter: @vwang3

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/nyregion/cynthia-nixon-christine-marinoni-wife.html | https://www.nytimes.com/by/vivian-wang

Nature Beside Cynthia Nixon, a Potential First Lady to Blaze a Trail of Her Own, in 2018-09-06 18:57:38

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

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