#story time: i believe its raining men was the first ever depiction of a same sex couple i ever saw and watching bits and pieces

[project-paranoia]

Let’s Watch: Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity

I have watched this movie 85 Whole Entire Times and I do not regret.  The only thing wrong with this movie is that it wasn't a fifty episode series.  I cried, I laughed, I fell in love.  The cinematography is on point, the acting is amazing, the crew member who put snow on people's eyebrows did an amazing job, and the acting!  The subtlety, the gentleness, the love and affection, the discussion of race is one of the best I've ever seen.

As people have pointed out before in series like X-Men that fear of mutant's is practically if not thematically justified due to the laser eyes in a way that fear of ethnic minorities just isn't in real life.  In Dream of Eternity however humans are equally if not sometimes more super powered than the yao they hunt.  Demons - very much not in the Christian sense - are a mixture of spirits, resentful souls, and animals and plants who cultivated to human form.  They often appear human at first glance and in some cases the extent of their power seems to be the limited to turning into a smaller more vulnerable animal.  Qingming's deliberate care and gentleness not only reflects his upbringing as a Yin Yang Master, but parallels the experience of racial minorities labelled as aggressive.

The movie takes particular care as well in the way it looks at trauma, grief, and love.  The three of which haunt the main characters and send out ripple effects into the world around them.  In the world of Dream of Eternity no loss is purely private, it spools out into the world around the person effected until they make an effect to acknowledge and deal with their experiences.  Qingming's warmth and gentleness isn't just marked by his behaviour but by the orange light he's lit by and his variety of shishen - but he is also separate, standing alone in frame and facing away from the people around him.  Boya's loss has made him unforgiving and as cold as the blue light he's lit in, and yet he is open and instinctive, talking and acting as soon as the thought enters his head.  The Empress is lost and drifting, trapped and grief stricken, vulnerable to those who profess to love her.  The film is simple, it says and shows what it means when it means it - but it is also as complex as the very human characters it depicts.  

The movie is made even more complex by its pull from theaters.  Claims of plagiarism drench the edges of the movie, which as true as the assertion that Fan BingBing went on a spa vacation in 2018.  Although this blog is about Chinese censorship dealing specifically with BL content, Chinese censorship also effects those who criticize governmental policy.  I hope that supporters of this blog will also support Chinese media threatened by censorship for many reasons so that artists and others involved in film making can continue to make meaningful content.

Doing a watchthrough of a movie is not feasible, but please enjoy a few thousand words - with spoilers on Yin Yang Master included:

* That gentle chiming and rain soundscaping is so soothing, what a great way to calm and lull the audience before the movie even starts * Qingming is so small and isolated in the frame - cinema! * The lighting and cinematography is just so good * Shifu, soft gentle teacher * So much love stored in the Shifu * Instant grow * This boy is Sassy * This theme of deflection in Qingming's character is established early * Deflection with a teleportation portal and then immediately deflection verbally * Shifu is certainly an attractive man aged up, but his face is also soft and gentle, something to note when his double pops up later * Also the awkward question of don't you have someone you want to protect, maybe part of the problem is that shifu is just really bad at wording things * The answer that yes he does has several meanings, one of which is immediately apparent when Shifu acts out one of those Father Saves Child By Yeeting them youtube videos * ACtion MuSIC * I love them your honour * The spirit guardian's design is so specific and elegant, absolutely superb you funky little shishen * I wonder if Qingming ever thinks about that if he didn't come back with all his fellow disciples that Shifu would have been fine * Maybe it's not that he doesn't have someone he wants to protect and more that he believes that he's not capable of protecting those he wants to * subtle indication Shifu's qi is corrupted * Precious Magic Childe ;-; * The framing, I'm living for it * The Serpent graphic is lovely * Also the way they set things up * Qingming cares so much about his shifu * Mark Chao just has the ability to crumple his face like paper * Sad Time exposition involving the corrupting influence of desires * "When you're gone I'll be all alone" in just about all you need to know about Qingming at this point in the story * Also like, sympathy for Shifu in raising this lonely child.  By all accounts he was an absolutely superb father figure, and Qingming I'm sure was not an easy child to raise.  He's the sort of kid that would take a lot of calm and patience. * Slumber party! * It's kind of interesting that this is an activity Fangyue and He Shouyue are doing together.  He's definitely obsessed and in love with her and she's just doing friends and family activities with him * Also yellow/gold lighting is kind of their thing * It's interesting how they do the make up for He Shouyue.  The actor is very attractive, but they make him up to look doll like, a little too pretty, a little too shiny.  Like a porcelain doll. * Cool lit Boya and warm lit Qingming appear! * Camels! * The framing is so good, they're careful to be sure he's shown as obviously isolated as much as possible * And it should go without saying that I adore the City * The matte painting is outstanding * But there's also the lighting, the vignettes, the clusters, the foliage * It is a supremely beautiful set * The irony that Killing Stone is playing along with Boya's music and then it's Boya who kicks him around * A small note, but one I appreciate - even when Boya has warm highlight's they're red instead of orange * "It's Jason Bourne!" * I hope Qingming paid for that water taxi * It's interesting how Killing Stone goes from the safety of Qingming's orange light to the danger of Qingming's blue * Colour related foreshadowing! * Look at this poor sweet man, how could anyone suspect him of anything.  He's just a sad man who loves his dead wife * Qingming's use of a fan is interesting - battle fans show up all over wuxia and xianxia, but it feels like it also ties into the way he's so very careful in how he presents himself.  There's that quote that a sword can only be a sword but other weapons are also able to serve other purposes - not a perfect quote but the point is got across. * The way Qingming just knocks Boya back, like get An Clue, my dude * The way that Killing Stone curls around the pipa ;-; * So the movie is based on the book series 'Onmyoji' by Yumemakura Baku.  The books start with Seimei (Qingming) and Hiromasa (Boya) already in a relationship talking about various cases Seimei has recently experienced.  Plotwise, obviously the stories are different, however thematically Seimei and Hiromasa discuss why some yao stick around and solutions to the difficulties and dangers they might cause - which is generally from Seimei's very successful perspective to listen and treat them like humans.  So in that way the plots of the books and the movie are quite different, but the themes are just about identical. * Boya says Don't Talk Me I Angy and also that demons don't have feelings and Qingming's face takes out a billboard that's just like Ah, Another Fantasy Racist, Excellent * Qingming also does what should be done in this situation, taking care of the victim not the racist * Fight scene!  Fight scene! * Qingming's first few moves aren't to attack, they're to distract and just hold his fan up to block Boya's way and his view - it's only when Boya persists in attacking that Qingming fights back * Qingming's sassy smile, he is very much deliberately irritating Boya as much as he's refocusing his attention and distracting him * "nICE sWORD" * I've sighed that sigh before * This boy is taking great pleasure from teasing Boya, but also he makes a really good point * I understand and relate to what Qingming did, but also I can understand why Boya was ready to throw rocks at Qingming when he saw him again * Killing Stone lit in Qingming's orange light again * Killing Stone, my beloved * A good gauge to the state of the world for yao is no one has told this sweet boy before that demons have feelings too * There are several lines like this in the movie that just drop kick you with Implications * The same way Qingming clung to Zhongxing, Killing Stone wants to join up with Qingming to have some compassion in his life * The way he asks to be a spirit guardian is so formal too, and Qingming is so gentle with him, I cry ;-; * The warm orange light of Qingming's love ;-; * He heals the wounds * It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realise it's the actual imperial degree speaking and not one the of Jingyun Temple Masters * The mutual this guy again is delicious * "Is it because of your pretty face" * Boya draws his sword so fast and Qingming is so amused by it * Longye!  Queen!  I love her! * The two of them seem to understand each other instantly * Those sassy little smiles * He Shouyue looks even more like a doll than before * Longye has her head on a swivel from second one, she plays the Maiden so well like she's not a skilled master * And her customer service smile * Qingming is shooketh

* What happens next?  You'll have to watch and find out!

#1683 words #yin yang master dream of eternity #yin yang master #censorship #chinese censorship

[yolkyeomie]

Humanity of the Inhuman | Kim Sunwoo

summary — legends are meant for the wild fantasies of the dream world, but when one myth suddenly comes true, you find yourself tangled within its webs of reality.

word count — 7.2k words

pairing — sunwoo x female!reader (ft. x juyeon in a sense?)

genre — college au, gumiho au

disclaimer — !! light mentions of death, blood, and injury !! this is an wip of fic that I did not have the energy to complete, so it leaves off at a pretty big cliff hanger :( but if enough people enjoy it it I’ll make a part 2 or sumn lol (update: it does in fact have a part 2 now, go enjoy it!)

part I | part II | part III | part IV?

I.

“Nine tailed foxes,” the instructor stated, pointing their finger towards the pictures that were projected upon the board. There were three different depictions of the creature from other cultures posted up together, expressing how each of the cultures viewed the mythical being. Mindlessly you began to draw on the notebook set in front of you, taking in each picture and messing different aspects that you liked together.

“Known as the Kitsune in Japan, the Huli Jing in China, and the Gumiho here,” they continued, switching to the next slide that only displayed more old pictures of the fox, “they are a well known part of our folklore today that even western countries have begun to adopt their own version of this creature into their literature.”

“If it’s so popular, why are we learning about it now,” you mumbled, the lead of your pencil snapping as soon as the words had been spoken into existence. You let out a deep sigh at the inconvenience, letting an angry curse come out of your mouth as you leaned over to grab something new to write with.

Though you stopped mid turn as a black pen was placed into your vision. Curiously you glanced up to catch the smiling sight of Juyeon above you, waving around his pen and urging you to take it from his hand. “We’re learning about the Gumiho because it’s an important part of our folklore, just because it’s well known doesn’t mean you shouldn’t teach it.”

He was an acquaintance, nothing more than that, a “school friend” if that made more sense. You had met him the first day you attended the mythology class after picking up the course for fun, seeing as the only available seat in the room was by him. Having no friends who attended the class at the same time as you, he had offered to become one and you gladly took up his request in order to feel a little less only in the room full of strangers.

It was a little odd to see a class so minor like this be jam packed with students, but you did notice the recent influx of people who were interested in the mythologies of their and others cultures.

Plus, you didn’t do very well on your own and were a little more socially dependent than you’d like to admit, so Juyeon’s willingness to befriend you was greatly appreciated.

“Well, I guess you’re right,” you shrug, gratefully taking the pen out of his hands. “But still, what person doesn’t know the wild tales of the nine tailed foxes? They’re like… everywhere now. If I meet someone who didn’t even have a clue what I was talking about, I’d be surprised.”

“You never know,” Juyeon continued, urging you to take a look at the board. Being presented was the Korean version of the nine tailed fox, a few notes typed beside the art describing the details and depictions of what was generally believed about the fox demon. “Maybe one day you’ll need that information to save yourself from a Gumiho one day?”

You snorted at his words, pointing out one of the bullet points to him and quietly reading them to him. “First of all, this is a mythology class. That means everything we learn here is a myth, not real? Secondly, it clearly says that they seduce men and last time I checked, I’m not a man.”

“Well, I guess you’ve got a point there,” he nodded, laying his head in his hands as he half heartedly listened to the teacher speak. “I guess I’m the one who should be paying more attention to the lecture since I’m the man, but I don’t think a Gumiho would ever find interest in me.”

“Why?” You questioned, a teasing smile appearing on your face and you poked the pin cap into his side. “It’s said that gumihos eat human livers, do you have bad livers or something? Do you have some sort of liver disease that would make you undesirable to a fox?”

“If I say yes will you stop poking me?” He innocently asked.

“I’d know you’re lying if you said yes, you’re rather healthy despite some… odd habits you have,” you clarify, giving the boy a skeptical look before turning back towards the board. You were only acquaintances with Juyeon, but there were times you’d catch him in the hallways of the building or dorms when you were looking for Kevin doing skeptical activities. Most of the time he was just smuggling snacks that his roommate would steal out of the room but man did he look crazy while he did so.

“Hey, those aren’t odd habits, it’s me protecting what I paid for,” Juyeon argued, a pout developing on his face as he tried to explain himself, “if you don’t pay for it, you don’t get a bite of it! That’s the rules and you have to respect the rules.”

You only spared Juyeon a quick glance, your eyes full of skepticism for him. He was a nice guy, a decent person to hang around, but awkwardly catching him in the hallways like a criminal running from a crime scene was all you had to see from him to determine whether or not you wanted to hang around him often. “Y/N, seriously! I'm not some freak I promise, my roommates and I just do this often and—“

“Sure, Juyeon,” you nodded, softly patting his back in only slight comfort. “I completely understand what you mean.”

“Y/N!” He complained a little louder this time, earning some sneaking looks from the rest of your peers. The two of you weren’t the biggest troublemakers but you did have a volume problem more often than you’d like to admit. Though, that was mainly because Juyeon doesn’t understand when to keep his mouth shut. “Come on, Y/N, I know you don’t believe what I’m saying but you gotta! I can even show you what we—“

“I really don’t want to walk into that room,” you decline almost immediately, “something tells me I’ll regret it if I do.”

A small chuckle left Juyeon’s mouth at your harsh words, finally taking the response as an end to the conversation. It seemed as though the two of you had stopped just in time though, as a deep sigh left your instructor’s lips. The entire class turned their head towards him in confusion, unsure on what sort of gloom had possessed their mythology teacher.

“I think… I’ll end class early today,” he declared, turning off the board that had projected the day’s lesson. In a flash, your reference for your very own nine tailed fox disappeared in front of your eyes as the instructor continued to speak. “The rain just… throws me off the mood for today.”

Instinctively you turned your head toward the window and lo and behold, the rain was pouring down outdoors. Many students groaned at the sudden change in forecast, not having brought umbrellas to shield them from such weather since the day had called from sunny skies. “Ah… that’s gonna suck going home,” you tell yourself, noting how even you hadn’t brought an umbrella.

“Excuse me!” A student called out, drawing attention to the front of the class where they had seated themselves. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you superstitious? Usually rain is considered a good thing especially on wedding days. It’s supposed to be a good omen for the future of their marriage.”

“Superstitious?” He hummed in response, thinking to himself for a few moments before answering. “Well, in a sense? Not for the reasons you think I am though.”

“Does it have something to do with gumihos?” You couldn’t help but ask, curiosity getting the best of you as you blurted out in front of everyone. The class turned back to look at you expectantly, exchanging confused and bewildered glances with each other. Even Juyeon looked at you as though you were beginning to lose your mind. You don’t really blame them, rain didn’t really have anything to do with gumihos after all.

However, your teacher smiled at you. His eyes crinkled at their sides and his wrinkles from age becoming more prominent as his smile continuously grew larger as he thought about his answer again. “Something my grandparents used to tell me when I was younger,” he began, each student getting left on the edge of their seats as he turned back towards the rainfall, “that when it rained, it meant a gumiho had entered the premise.”

II.

“You don’t actually believe him, do you?” Juyeon asked, holding the borrowed umbrella over your heads. The boy had offered to walk you home in the disastrous, knowing you lived off campus instead of in the dorms. The dorms were a lot closer to the apartment you had rented out, so the two of you had scrambled over to his room first in order to grab an umbrella and begin the trek to your home.

He was only walking you towards the closest bus stop to the campus, not wanting to intrude on your privacy any further than he already was. Juyeon was just your acquaintance from mythology after all, he was just a little too nice to let you go out into the rain and get soaking wet.

“What, about the whole rain and gumiho thing?” You responded, remembering your teacher's statement he had ended the class with. You shrugged after a moment to yourself, “honestly, not really. I mean, come on, gumihos being related to the rain? It doesn’t even make that much sense the more you think about it.”

“I guess you’re right,” he agreed, “but don’t you think it’s a little weird how he seemed to believe it? Whole heartedly too, he ended the whole class over some superstition his grandparents told him!”

“It’s probably an old saying in his family or something,” you ultimately decide, nodding your head to yourself as you come to a conclusion. “Lots of people have things like heirlooms and stories that get passed down from generation to generation, maybe that’s what that was. Maybe his family is really big on nine tailed foxes and rain.”

He shook his head in disagreement, stopping in place and nearly causing you to get soaked by the downpour. “I don’t think so, why would they pass down a saying like that when gumihos aren’t real?”

“How do you know that they aren’t real?” You challenged him.

“Because if they were real, then we wouldn’t be learning about it in a mythology class and calling it folklore,” Juyeon stretched his arm out so that the umbrella was covering the both of you as he kept talking, “Humans are like… cockroaches. We force ourselves into the lives of other beings, I think we would have done something about gumihos by now don’t you think?”

You grinned at him as you rocked back and forth on your feet absentmindedly, nugging his shoulder soft as you teased, “wow, I know the lesson wasn’t long today but did you already forget that we were taught? Once a fox has lived for a thousand years, it becomes a gumiho and can shapeshift! How will you know your face to face with a fearsome nine tailed fox when they look exactly like any normal stranger on the street?”

You didn’t even give the boy a chance to speak as you stood in front of him, your back getting pelted with the rain droplets as you continued to jeer, “anyone could be a gumiho. I could be a gumiho, your roommate could be a gumiho, our teacher could be a gumiho, even you could be a gumiho and we’d never know a thing!”

“I think you're forgetting something,” Juyeon countered, pulling out his phone from his pocket and waving it in your face. “Humans have technology, we’ll just develop more technology to find them if we need to.”

“Gosh, you’re no fun,” you pout.

“And your bus stop is right there,” he pointed behind you, taking note of the metal structure built on the side of the road.

You struggle to decide whether or not you want to steal his umbrella as payback for being the way he was but ultimately ditched the idea. “Fine, I’ll see next week then? That is, if you don’t get eaten by a gumiho that is.” You teased.

You watched as annoyance contorted on his face, wanting to find a reason to be mad at you but unable to keep the grin off his face. “I’m not going to be eaten by a gumiho, Y/N. Did we not just have the conversation that they aren’t real?”

“Gumihos seduce men to absorb their energy!” You argued once more. “You’re a physically fit guy whose kept his livers healthy and you’ve got the looks to draw attention to you, you’re the perfect meal for a nine tailed fox to catch!”

“Go home, Y/N,” he urged, pushing you out from under his umbrella. You whined at his audacity and quickly covered your head with your hands in an attempt to shield yourself from the rain. The boy only laughed at your reaction before waving you off, giving you a small farewell as you rushed over towards the bus stop.

When you glanced back to find him again, Juyeon was gone, turned around the corner with his umbrella in tow and forcing you to sit and wait for the bus stop to come if you didn’t want to be soaked by the time you got home.

“Sheesh he could have waited until the bus actually came,” you complained, sitting back on the bench with a somewhat annoyed frown donning your face once again. Juyeon always seemed like he was in a hurry at times, whether he was sneaking around the dorms on your campus or rushing through the hallways to get to his next destination, he always had somewhere to be. There were times where he’d completely ignore your existence in and outside of your mythology class because of his need for action, too busy with his daily life to even spare you a glance.

You wondered where he so urgently needed to go at times, but ultimately knew that was none of your business. The two of you were nothing but classmates, school friends who helped each other out every so often whenever you got the chance. You had no right to dig into Juyeon’s business, so you never tried to cross the line the two of you set up for each other. You don’t really know if you wanted to cross it in the first place.

Besides, he never even said hello to whenever he was in a rush! Why bother trying to discover something where he has to completely ignore your existence to do it? That wasn’t exactly your type of information and gossip you wanted to gather and indulge in.

You sat at the bus stop for around three or four minutes, unwillingly listening to the pitter patter of the rain on the bus stop glass. Like your superstitious instructor, you weren’t very fond of the rain but not for the same reasons. The weather would always ruin plans you had been looking forward to for weeks and the days that came after it always felt humid and musty, you didn’t enjoy the aftermath of rain like other people did.

Don’t even get you started on the days where a thunderstorm would roll over the city, those were the worst days of your life.

You snap out of your daze for a moment, however, completely forgetting your hatred for the raining weather at the sound of barking floating through the air. You tried to ignore it at first, comfortably leaning against the side of the structure and scrolling across your phone to distract yourself, but you couldn’t help it. The more you tried to pretend like the sound didn’t exist the louder it seemed to become, which was a lot seeing as the downpour was a little louder than normal.

Begrudgingly, you stood up out of your seat and shoved your phone deep into your pockets. “Is the universe trying to tell me something today?” You mumbled, covering your head with your hands and stepping out into the rain. You peered across the street where the barking was coming, checking the side of the road for any oncoming cars before rushing to the other side.

The closer you got to the other sidewalk, the louder and more distinct the barking became, resembling more of a young dog than a fully grown one. The barks were more closely related to squeaky toes than anything if you had to be honest; light, annoying, and young. But there was no one else on the street beside you, and your morals were telling you to involve yourself instead of run away.

“Puppy...or puppies?” You called, not exactly having a name to call out for the animals. You don’t even know if they could hear you over the rainfall, but it was worth a shot. If they didn’t come running to you soon you were going to run right back to the bus stop for shelter and go home. You didn’t want to fall ill from standing out in the rain for too long and you didn’t want to miss your bus stop either. “Come here, boy! Or girl…? Whatever you are, come here! I’ll get you some place warm and out of the rain.”

There was no response, which was to be expected. They were animals, not humans, so they couldn’t exactly reply back even if they really wanted to. The barking was still echoing across the area but there was no sign of the animal making all the commotion, not to mention the fact that the rain was beginning to fall harder with each passing second. You might have to give up early if you didn’t want to get caught in a potential thunderstorm, it hurt your heart but you had to take care of yourself as well.

“Ah, I better hurry up before I miss the bus home… walking is going to be a pain if I do,” you mumble to yourself, turning to sprint across the street.

Though you stopped yourself from moving when you heard the sound of bells echoing against your ears, ringing loud and clear within your head as if it was right in front of you. You cautiously look around you for the source of the bells, the jingling rippling out to the rest of the world like a droplet of water falling into a lake. The bells chimed again in your head, yet this time pulling in a certain direction and urging you to continue on that way.

Glancing between the bus stop and the direction you were being pulled toward, you followed the jingling of the bells. Everything in your body was telling you that chasing after the ringing was a bad idea but nevertheless you pushed forward. The dog barking had completely gone silent and the loudest thing in the area was no longer the rain, but the bells in your ears.

You scurried across the sidewalk like a cat, trying your best to stay dry in the unfortunate weather but ultimately failing as you began to feel your clothes stick to your skin. “Ah, there’s no way I’m not going to be sick after this.” You mumbled, turning the corner to peer down an alleyway where the bell chiming was the strongest.

“I’m wet and cold and I’ve been out here for way too— oh my god!” A scream fell out your mouth as you tumbled to the ground petrified by the sight before you. Slumped up against the wall was a boy, barely clinging onto his life as he took slow ragged breaths to keep himself stable. On his arms was the familiar crimson red creeping down his forehead and splattering to the ground, creating a mixture of water and blood pooling underneath him.

Did you just find the end results of a bloody fight? In the middle of the city and close to your college’s campus no less?

“Excuse me, are you alright?” You called out to him, mentally smacking yourself for asking such a question. Clearly the boy wasn’t okay, he was bleeding out in the middle of the rain!

Despite the stupidity of the question, he slowly turned his head toward you. A majority of his face was covered by his hair being plastered against his head thanks to the rain so you couldn’t exactly see if he was looking directly at you, but the mere fact that he was responsive was enough for you.

You hurry over to him as fast as you could, though careful not to slip and fall on the slippery ground, before crouching down next to him. “Can you move at all? It’s not good to sit out here in the rain and waste away, you need to go to a hospital or something—“

“No,” he declined, forcing himself to sit up against the wall and make an attempt to stand up. The boy struggled to himself up right, leaning against the wall for support and the severity of his wounds being put on display. It didn’t look like he got into a fight, per se, more like he had been attacked by an animal. He had large gashes that covered his body and his clothes were tattered and stained with the red hue they leaked down his arm. He needed any sort of medical attention, right away or he might actually bleed out in the middle of the alleyway.

“Can you not see that you’re hurt?” You hissed, grabbing a hold of his wrist and tugging him down to your height. The boy grimaced at your toughness as you rolled up his sleeve, catching sight of an ugly yet fresh scar that needed to be addressed immediately. “You need to go to a hospital, or you’ll die out here in the rain.”

“No,” he challenged you, his face somewhat akin to an animal’s snarl as he tried to snatch his arm away from you. In that instance you heard the soft of the bells that had led you down the alleyway, much louder than they had been before and nearly drowning at the words that the boy had spoken. It sounded like… the ringing was coming directly from him. “I can’t go there, I won’t go there. They won’t be able to help anyway.”

“Are you an idiot?” You couldn’t help but ask, almost scoffing at his persistence to stay away from medically trained professionals. His lips formed into a pout, appalled by the fact that you had the audacity to call him an idiot. “I’m trying to help you man. It’s raining, you’re bleeding out, and I’ve probably missed my ride to go home. Please don't take my kindness for granted and let me help you.”

III.

You laid down in the middle of your bed, staring at your ceiling as you struggled to recall the events from the day before. It’s not like you to forget things easily or anything, in fact you had a rather decent memory when it came to remembering events that had taken place beforehand. You didn’t have a photographic memory, you just had a habit of remembering little details that have happened throughout your day.

But right now? You couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened yesterday.

Most of what you could remember was leaving your mythology early because your teacher had ended the class early. He didn’t like the rain and it had shifted his mood and everyone was grateful for the extra time off. Juyeon had generously offered to walk you to your bus stop with his umbrella so that you could get home without getting rained on and…. that’s where it ends. You can’t recall anything that happened after that. You don’t even remember ever walking into your house the more that you think about it.

“Alright, this is weird,” you declare, forcing yourself to sit up off of the bed. At least you had no classes to attend, you don’t know how you could pay attention to anything you were being taught if you had to deal with your sudden memory loss. “Why can’t I remember anything? Why does it feel like what u forgot was something really important too…?”

Just when you felt as though you were on the verge of pulling your hair out, your phone began to ring. It was a lot louder than you originally set the volume on and was practically screaming at you to pick it up instead of ignoring it like normal. Frustrated, you snatched the device from underneath the sheets and answered the call with a much more aggressive “hello?” than you had meant to start with.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Juyeon’s voice registered through the speaker.

Juyeon. Why was Juyeon calling you right now? The two of you don’t usually call each other unless it was something class related because you weren’t close enough to each other to hold conversations like that. So the mere fact that he had called you out of the blue like this was…. weird to say the least. “Of course,” you replied, giving your voice a lighter tone than when you had answered. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You called me a couple of times yesterday but I didn’t answer because I was busy,” he clarified, giving you a little peek as to what had happened the day before.

You called Juyeon first, why would you do that? You didn’t even call him once, but multiple times given the way he had worded his sentence. You’re not even close to Juyeon, why would you even dare to call him several times yesterday? If you were in trouble you should have just called Kevin like normal! “Are you saying you don’t remember?”

“Yes, actually, I don’t remember anything that happened yesterday.” Maybe you had gone to go get a drink or something before coming home and that’s why your thoughts from yesterday were blurry. But you’re not the type of person to drink that much, at least not alone you wouldn’t. “Listen, Juyeon, I’m sorry about all of this. I didn’t mean to call you, I was just… out of it or something. I don’t know I just can’t remember right now.”

“It’s fine, Y/N, don’t worry I’m just glad you’re alright. I got worried something might have happened to you but hearing you now makes me relieved.” You smiled at his words, letting his caring words for you twirl around in your head like ribbons. Juyeon was just too nice to you, honestly, but he was probably like this with everyone he knew. It made sense if he was, he was kind to almost everyone he met.

Before you could answer, the jingling of bells echoing through your ears, distracting you from any other words that might have come out of the boy’s mouth. You glanced around the room for shunting that could have made the noise, but you don't exactly have anything that could chime like the whimsical clicking of a wind chime. “Do you hear that?” You asked him, cutting off the boy mid sentence as you stood up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” he answered, “what am I supposed to be hearing? All I hear is you.”

In a flash all of the memories from the day before flooding back to you. The barking, the bell ringing, and the injured boy who refused to go to the hospital to treat his wounds. It all came back to you now, but why had it gone away in the first place. “I’ll… I’ll call you back, Juyeon.”

“Y/N? Y/N, what's wrong? Is something—“ you hung up before he could finish his sentence, cautiously following the ever growing sounds of the bells you had heard earlier. The closer you got to your door, the louder the chiming became, probably signifying the fact that you were going in the right direction.The last time you had followed the bells, they led you straight to the wounded boy. So if your hunch was right, it was most likely leading you straight back to him.

You carefully opened the door to your room, peering through the crack in the door frame to see what was going on. It was eerily silent and for the most the entirety of your apartment showed no signs of inhabiting a second person. “That’s odd…,” you noted, fully stepping out of your room to look around the room for the boy from yesterday. It seemed as though he hadn’t even lived in your house for an hour. “I don’t think he ever left… and I still can hear those bells so he can’t be far.”

Goosebumps ran down your spine as a cold wind blew through your living room. Something was off, you’ve never felt uneasy in your own home before. You had picked this apartment to live in because it felt comfortable and warm like home, but the only thing you were getting from it now was the feeling of being watched. As if a pair of eyes were carefully taking in your every move to determine how you’d react next.

“I know, you’re here,” you stated, rolling your eyes as you began to turn around. “You couldn’t have left in the middle of the night, you were bleeding out and collapsed as soon as you—“

You stopped mid sentence when you stopped the boy in the hallway to your bathroom, frazzled and confused by his surroundings yet still keeping a close eye on you. Now that he wasn’t soaking wet and bleeding (thanks to your amateur bandaging skills) you couldn’t help but notice how much more innocent without the dramatic effect of everything that had happened yesterday. “You really are still here, nice to see you didn’t die while I was asleep.”

“Where am I?” He demanded, not as aggressive as he was the day before but still in a rather rude tone you weren’t expecting from him. “How did I get here and… who are you?”

You slumped onto the small couch of your living room, glancing around the room for a moment before turning back to him with a cheeky smile on your face. “Heaven. You died in your sleep and now you’re in heaven. In the goddess that's going to accompany you through the afterlife.”

“Lies, you just said I didn’t die while I was sleeping,” he quickly pointed out, catching your lie as soon as it came out your mouth.

“Woah, despite all those injuries and passing out in the way here you still have a working brain, that’s good to know,” you tease him, watching as the boy rolled his eyes at your tiny jabs. “I’m Y/N but i guess you can just call me your savior really. Oh, and this is my house. You slept on the couch last night and I appreciate the fact that there is no blood on my cushions. Thanks.”

He nodded his head in understanding, though it seemed like the movements weren't actually correlating to what his mind was thinking. “Wait, you’re my… savior? No that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why not?” You questioned, “I saw you bleeding out in an alleyway yesterday and I tried to take you to hospital but you kept refusing to go, so I just… took you home. I address your wounds and everything and just hoped that when I woke up there wouldn’t be a corpse in my living room. Luckily, as we see now, there isn’t. I saved your life.”

“No!” He yelled, rolling up his tattered clothes to find messily wrapped bandages all over his body. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you were dying?” You blurted, confused to the boy’s sudden panic. “What would you rather have bled out in public for all to see?”

“Yes, actually, that would have been the better option of the two.” How ungrateful was this boy? You saved his life and all he has to say is that he wished you didn’t? Maybe you should have strayed away from your morals for a second because all that had gotten you so far was a boy with no manners. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve done.”

“I have realized what I’ve done,” you responded, “I’ve saved your life because I’m a good person. Why are we arguing about this, there are no downsides to getting your lives saved. Wait, are you embarrassed because you got attacked by some feral cat and nearly died? Not gonna lie, I’d be embarrassed about something like that too.”

“I wasn’t… attacked by a cat,” he explained, a scoff threatening to spill out of his mouth at your bizarre accusation. “I don’t think a cat could make those types of scars.”

“If it wasn’t a cat…” you began, thinking aloud as you tried to member the wounds that covered the boy’s body. The more you pictured them in your head. The more you realize those weren’t… cat scars. They still seemed as though they were animal scars but a cat didn’t make that big a gash on a person’s body. You should have known, you’ve gone to cat cafes enough to have learned the hard way. “Then what…?”

“Gumihos,” the boy replied, tearing off the bandages you had wrapped around him the night before. You winced as you watched your handwork tumble to the ground, but were more concerned over the fact that the gashes on his arm were healed almost completely overnight. “I was attacked by gumihos.”

“Nine tailed foxes?” You blurted, more for yourself than the boy. Seeing you bewilderment made a smile begin to etch across his lips, childish yet mischievous as you tried to break down what you had learned in your head. “But… those are just folklore, they aren’t real. If they were, one would have been caught by humans at this point.

“Why? Don’t you know that a gumiho can shapeshift? They live among humans as if they were any other mortal in order to get what they want in life,” the boy explained, reminding you of the words you had thrown at Juyeon for making the same excuse. “You really think that they’d let a human catch sight of their existence and get away with it?”

“Okay then answer me this,” you ask, sitting up attentive to the stranger you had brought into your home. “If gumihos are real… then why did one attack you and leave you out to die? Don’t they usually kill humans for their livers and hearts? You should have been devoured by now.”

A hearty laugh left the boy’s mouth, much stronger and louder than the small giggle from earlier. His smile couldn’t stop growing on his face as he blinked his eyes at you, the dark browns of his iris swapping out to a bold amber yellow color. His pupils slowly began to dilate into the familiar small slits of a cat’s as your own eyes widened in pure fright. The boy you had saved had now become your greatest mistake. “What makes you think I’m human?”

IV.

“Juyeon!” You hissed at the boy, urging him to come to you once you had finally caught sight of him. He was walking with a group of his friends, people who hadn’t mingled with and didn’t know whether or not you wanted to in the first place. When the boy had turned his head to you, the entirety of his friend group did as well, displaying their bright and eager smiles as they waved their hands in greeting. Awkwardly you greeted them back, unsure of what to do next as they also whispered and muttered to themselves as they let Juyeon break from their group.

Hopefully it was something nice and not anything that could hurt your feelings. They were still grinning and jeering with each other despite whatever comments they were making, so maybe it was a conversation of their approval. Or at least… you hoped it was, you couldn’t really tell the difference. You acted like you had a tough shell but in reality you were way too soft when it came to a stranger’s perspective of you.

“What’s up Y/N?” He greeted, a fond smile plastered across his face as he stood in front of you with his hands shoved in his pockets. “It’s a rare sight to see you interact with me when we don’t have a class together. It must be serious.”

“Well…” you trailed off, unsure of how to explain to him. “I guess it’s serious? But nothing too serious… I need some advice really, that’s all.”

“Advise?” Juyeon questioned, intrigued by the topic you had brought him. “Wow… of all the people could have chosen, you need my advice! I can’t help but say I’m honored. But what happened to your other friend… Kevin was his name, right? He would come to walk you home after class sometimes, why aren’t you asking him?”

You grimace at the thought of the boy before quickly waving the thought away. “Kevin will just think I’m crazy and make fun of me. Plus, I think you’re probably most equipped to help me out here since we take mythology together and all.”

“Ah… still keeping this as a school oriented friendship right?” He teased, getting a small laugh to leave your mouth. “Alright, what is it? What mythological help do you need this time? I’m all ears.”

You hesitated for a moment, unsure on how to word your sentences without sounding insane. The whole reason you had gone to Juyeon instead of Chanhee was because he would understand you a little better than your friend could. “Gumihos… you know how we’re learning about them currently, right? Is there something that people should know about them in order to protect themselves from one?”

Juyeon raised a brow at your question, staying silent as he thought to himself. “Gumihos? I thought you didn’t want to learn about gumihos because it was pop culture and everyone knows about them?”

“Well, what can I say!” You exclaimed, hoping to cover up your nervousness as much as possible. “I decided to take up a personal essay of sorts on those nine tailed foxes. I got intrigued a few days ago about them and I wanted to get as much information as I could about them, but we don’t go back to our mythology class until I… really can’t wait to get started.”

In reality, you actually had that gumiho boy holed up in your apartment still. In fear of the boy actually attempting to devour your liver you had locked him up in your bathroom and placed a talisman on the door so that he couldn’t escape. You had absolutely no clue on how to deal with a gumiho and you had only recently started your lesson on the fox spirits a few days ago. So needless to say, you wanted to be prepared for whatever might come next while housing him.

“That’s fair,” Juyeon agreed, taking your lie like candy and smiling brightly back at you. “I mean, the concept of nine tailed foxes are pretty cool, so I can’t blame you for looking into them a little further than everyone else.”

“So?” You asked, eagerly awaiting his answer, “Do you have any information I should know?”

“Well… there's this one thing I’ve been told before by my grandparents,” he explained, trying his best to recall past memories that had no use up until now. “Yeah, they would use old myths as stories to tell me before bed when I was a kid. They told me that no matter what fork a gumiho comes in, never let them kiss you.”

“Kiss?” You blurted out, shocked that that was the one thing he decided to share. “What’s kissing got to do with fox spirits?”

“It’s how they take your energy,” Juyeon told you, putting his pointer fingers together as if mimicking a kiss between two people. “When a gumiho kisses you, they absorb your energy. The more energy they absorb the weaker you become until you eventually die! Kinda scary, right? Not only do they feed off of human livers, but our mere life essence.”

“What type of bedtime story is that,” you mumbled, skeptically glancing over Juyeon. If that was the type of stories he was being told as a child, how was he not a little messed up in the head? If you were him, you would be absolutely terrified of everything even approaching you. Who knew when someone would randomly come up and kiss you? Your first and last kiss would be from a fox trying to steal your life away!

“I was very easy to tease as a child,” he shrugged, his smile turning sheepish as he softly scratched the back of his neck. “My grandparents loved telling me stories like that because I was an emotional little kid, ease to scare and quick to try and stuff like that.”

“That makes a little more sense,” you nodded, “no sane person would tell that as a bedtime story, it’s always got to be told to a child that’s easily scared.”

“Yeah, yeah, say what you want. If they hadn’t told them those stories of gumihos, I probably wouldn’t be taking mythology now,” Juyeon explained, glancing back toward the direction your shared class was. “And if I didn’t take mythology, you wouldn’t have any friends in that class.”

You shrug in response, he was right. If Juyeon had decided that he didn’t want to take the mythology course you probably wouldn’t have ever met him in the first place. So that was one good thing that had come out of his grandparents scaring him into the folklore of nine tailed foxes. “If you don’t mind me asking by the way,” the boy continued, switching topics while he still had your attention. “Whatever happened that day? You said you’d call me back but you never did. I can’t lie, I was a little worried for you again.”

“Ah, that,” you stall, struggling to make up a lie off the time of your head. You felt bad for lying to Juyeon more than you already were, you heard what he said! He’s worried about you and you didn’t want to put any more of load onto his back with your supernatural problems. “Well, I think I’ve got spirits in my house. I’ve been hearing weird noises sometimes and I thought you could hear it too, that’s why I asked.”

“Funny how things like this happen to a mythology student, huh? I wonder what kind of spirit has skipped their way into your house then.” Juyeon laughed, shaking his head at the ironic situation you had got yourself in, “well if you ever find yourself needing a home away from home, my dorm room is always open? We’d have to clean up a little bit before you arrive and sneak you in but anything to get away from spirits, right?”

#kpop imagines #kpop #kpop au #kpop scenarios #the boyz x reader #the boyz sunwoo #sunwoo x reader #kim sunwoo #sunwoo imagines #tbz sunwoo #sunwoo au #tbz au #juyeon x reader #lee juyeon #juyeon imagines #the boyz juyeon #juyeon au

[silenthillmutual]

what Classic Film(TM) you should watch based on who your fave Danganronpa 1/2 character is

disclaimer - obviously as a film dude i’m gonna say you should watch all of these. but maybe watch the one correlating to your fave first!

Makoto: 12 Angry Men (1957, dir. Sidney Lumet) - strong themes of justice, it’s about a jury trying to determine a man’s guilt. it’s basically what Makoto does for the entire game. you’ll also like it if you’re a fan of Phoenix Wright.

Sayaka: A Star is Born (1954, dir. George Cukor) - it’s all about a girl’s rise to fame and how her relationships change with that. there’s three versions of this film, most recently with Lady Gaga. 

Mukuro: Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - themes of murder and hiding your identity, losing yourself to a cause.

Leon: Animal House (1978, dir. John Landis) - a comedy about a fraternity. it’s THE college frat movie and i think Leon would enjoy it a lot.

Chihiro: WarGames (1983, dir. John Badham) - two teenagers might have accidentally started a world war during the cold war by trying to play computer games...fitting for the series, no?

Mondo: On the Waterfront (1954, dir. Elia Kazan) - struggling to do the right thing and being sort of frustrated about your circumstances as they pertain to class and missed opportunities. being dragged into bad situations by family. also Marlon Brando is a bicon and very hot in this movie.

Taka: Rebel Without a Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray) - a lot of turbulent shit happens to three teenagers over the course of 24 hours. one of - if not the first canonically gay teenager on film. i think we all know by now that James Dean was mlm, but so were the director and Sal Mineo. big bi polyam vibes; if you like chishimondo as a ship you’ll probably like this film too.

Hifumi: Akira (1988, dir. Katsuhiro Otomo) - had a hard time figuring out what to put for Hifumi, but overall i think if nothing else he’d appreciate how impressive the animation was (and honestly, still is) along with the fact that the mangaka was also the director. so although there’s a lot cut out (the manga had not finished before the film came out), it’s still roughly the same plot as the manga.

Celes: Dracula (1931, dir. Tod Browning) - probably the most iconic iteration of Bram Stoker’s novel, this is the one staring Bela Lugosi. not terribly true to the novel from what i remember, but it’s peak aesthetic and exactly the kind of thing she’d enjoy.

Sakura: Rashomon (1950, dir. Akira Kurosawa) - finally getting onto films i haven’t actually seen but that are on my list. sakura’s another person i had a hard time deciding on a film for, but the “several characters telling different accounts of the same plot” reminded me a bit of her case in the game. 

Hina: West Side Story (1961, dir. Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins) - admittedly i had a different film in mind for her to start with, but Maria’s final monologue fits with Hina’s motivations during Sakura’s case.

Toko: Gone With the Wind (1939, dir. Victor Fleming) - another one i haven’t actually watched yet, but it’s based on a famous novel, described as “epic historical romance.” i think that vibes with Toko pretty well.

Byakuya: Citizen Kane (1941, dir. Orson Welles) - if you’re really interested in film, you’re gonna be made to watch this sooner or later. famous for being the “best film ever made”, it’s more or less about newspaper moguls like William Randolph Hearst - who is also the main reason why this film is famous at all. it’s not exactly a flattering depiction of those kinds of people and boy, did that ever piss Hearst off. if he hadn’t made such a big deal trying to keep Citizen Kane from seeing the light of day, something much better might have made it to the top spot. 

Hiro: The Music Man (1962, dir. Morton DaCosta) - based on the Broadway musical of the same name, a “travelling salesman” (read: con artist) starts to work his latest con on a gullible small town, but actually starts liking the people in it.

Kyoko: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - not to be confused with the other Hitchcock film from the 30s also titled The Man Who Knew Too Much. this is the one with James Stewart and Doris Day. it’s a highly suspenseful film that gave us the song “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)”.

Junko: Gaslight (1944, dir. George Cukor) - ever heard the term “gaslighting”? this is where it comes from! based on a play in which a woman’s husband psychologically tortures her into believing she is going insane.

Monokuma: Duck Soup (1933, dir. Leo McCarey) - all Marx Brothers films are as utterly silly (and sometimes as incomprehensible) as one of Monokuma’s MonoTheatres. i watched about half of Duck Soup and had to stop because it was finals week and i was supposed to be doing something other than losing my shit.

Hajime: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, dir. Frank Capra) - you probably already know this film. if you’re Christian you know it as That Film Your Parents Watch Every Year On Dec 24th Around Midnight. if you have seasonal depression, don’t watch it then; warning for suicidal ideation. it’s supposed to be uplifting. your mileage may vary on that one. 

Impostor: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, dir. Robert Mulligan) - i don’t have a good reason to pair these two up other than gut feeling. as far as film adaptations of books go, it’s pretty damn good, and Atticus Finch is the original DILF. themes of childhood innocence and racism. 

Teruteru: Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, dir. Blake Edwards) - apparently much different from the novella on which it is based, but i think Teruteru would really dig the aesthetic and romantic vibes of the film. Holly Golightly is probably the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Mahiru: Rear Window (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - like It’s a Wonderful Life, chances are good you know this film - or at least, you’ve seen its plot recycled a hell of a lot. a professional photographer recovering from a broken leg thinks he witnesses a murder take place and is determined to get to the truth.

Peko: Seven Samurai (1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa) - another one on my to-watch list, but it’s oft referenced and remade in film. a village hires seven ronin to protect them from bandits who will return to steal their crops. 

Hiyoko: East of Eden (1955, dir. Elia Kazan) - i’ll be honest here, i didn’t really know what to put for Hiyoko because i’m not sure i understand much about her, but i seem to remember her family playing a pretty big role in her being Like That and for “shitty family” the first two things to come to mind were this and Giant. and unless you like 3-hour long movies about the state of Texas, i’m not about to recommend you watch Giant.

Ibuki: A Night at the Opera (1935, dir. Sam Wood) - another Marx Bros film in which they help a girl both to be with her lover and to achieve her dreams of stardom as an opera singer. the kind of silly, manic thing i think Ibuki would like.

Mikan: The Shining (1980, dir. Stanley Kubrick) - i hate hate hate putting this on here, but since this is for film and not books i couldn’t exactly state to read the book. the book is about the cycle of abuse. the movie is more about... a trapped man going crazy in a spooky hotel. 

Nekomaru: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963, dir. Stanley Kramer) - comedy about five groups of people racing to get to a large sum of money buried by a recently escaped convict they stopped to help out after his car crash. it’s a comedy, and just kinda seemed like Nekomaru’s thing.

Gundham: The Seventh Seal (1957, dir. Ingmar Bergman) - i watched this in like 10th grade and all i really remember is a man playing chess with Death and if that doesn’t say Gundham Tanaka to you, i don’t know what does.

Nagito: North by Northwest (1959, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - i don’t really have a reason for this one either but it’s a spy film and i think komaeda could get behind that kind of intrigue. 

Chiaki: Metropolis (1927, dir. Fritz Lang) - not to be confused with the anime, this is a 1927 German expressionist film that seems to be about socialism and unionization. it’s also famous for its (purposeful) use of the Male Gaze and being one of the first sci-fi films ever made. be warned: it is a silent film.

Sonia: Strangers on a Train (1951, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) - another one of those films you’ll get told to watch if you’re interested in the queer history of film, i was gonna put something else but honestly the character of Barbara kinda reminded me of Sonia. a famous tennis player meets a man on a train who attempts to plan a double-murder with him.

Akane: My Fair Lady (1964, dir. George Cukor) - i was trying so hard not to double up on the post about musicals, but Akane really does have Eliza Doolittle vibes. they’re both feral and nothing would be able to really domesticate them. for whatever it’s worth, this film and the musical on which it is based is itself based on the play Pygmalion, in which your typical rich cishet white dude bets he can turn any street urchin into a real lady because he’s just that good. you might know the plot better as Pretty Woman.

Kazuichi: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, dir. Elia Kazan) - i don’t really have a good excuse for this one, either; i haven’t even watched it yet (although i have read the play on which it is based). all i’m gonna say is i want Souda to have his gay awakening via Marlon Brando, as we all do.

Fuyuhiko: Casablanca (1942, dir. Michael Curtiz) - despite his love and adoration for Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart decides fighting Nazis is more important. i think Fuyuhiko would like the aesthetic, and the film. don’t let him know but i think he’d probably cry watching it.

Usami: To Sir, With Love (1967, dir. James Clavell) - issues of race and class intersecting in a film about a teacher working with inner city students. i was going to put Singin’ in the Rain here, because it’s what Usami would want people to watch...but i think this better fits the effect she wants to have as a being. 

#plato posts #danganronpa #ok to rb #makoto naegi #kiyotaka ishimaru #nagito komaeda #chihiro fujisaki #leon kuwata #sayaka maizono #byakuya togami #kyoko kirigiri #mukuro ikusaba #mondo oowada #hifumi yamada #celes ludenberg #yasuhiro hagakure #sakura oogami #aoi asahina #toko fukawa #junko enoshima #monokuma #hajime hinata #chiaki nanami #monomi #kazuichi souda #gundham tanaka #fuyuhiko kuzuryu #peko pekoyama #hiyoko saionji #mahiru koizumi

[ireddeadredemption2pc-blog]

Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Red Dead Redemption2 PC

The old west feels brand new again.

Oh Jesus Christ, what have you done? “Thomaschen 978 wants to know why a dozen carcasses and a couple of horse corpses are placed on rail tracks bordering the early industrial city and are the New Orleans stand-in St. Denis.” You killed half. village.” PC Games For Free

We are on round two of the recurring corpse pile. My poses got the idea to jump in front of the train after a few rounds of Lose Your Friends and Toss Them in the Sea in the Couple Friendly Strangers. Like GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2 has its own bowling minima, we explain to Chen in a roundabout way that provokes his fear. Die in the shared open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 and you’ll react fast enough to move your corpse around. Best RPGs games pc

The boy is in line with us. We should make it bigger. As the train comes around again, another pose tries to take us out. The chain defends us but does not bring it back to the tracks. He goes away screaming. Death of a true warrior.

Red Dead Redemption 2 could be the biggest, most humble videogame ball pit for an annoying story about impulsive children, the forced disintegration of the community, or simply a quiet and reflective hiking simulator. It’s just about what you need it to be, and it’s good at it.

Just hours before the corpse-bowling, I was alone through the icy forests, stepping into the long shadow cast across the snow by the rising moon. I heard a gunshot from a distance. The tracks of some wolves marked snow in the same direction. I saw them who won. Anytime I pay attention and look closely, RDR2 is the result of my curiosity. Best Racing games on pc

The mind-numbing expanse that makes up the vast world of RDR2 speaks to the creative force of a development team with an intense, obsessive dedication to realism (and all the money and time needed to do so). Like how my friends’ characters flare up when I fire a gun at them, how animal carcasses disintegrate over time, how NPCs react according to a sloppy or bloody outfit, how to stir through a doorway. Scares everyone everywhere.

It is hard to believe that RDR2 is so deep and wide and is also a harmonious, playable thing. I was already playing it for days worth the console version. This is why I am particularly disappointed that it ended up on the PC to some extent.

For every non-taught multiplayer adventure, disconnect or crash on the desktop, desktop. The rock star’s best storyline and character so far has been filmed through Frame Hutches’ slideshow and addressed over the launch weekend.

RDR2, one of the best Western games and one of the best open-world games I have ever released with enough stability issues, is recommended for the hard way until everything is completely smooth.

Morgan trail

EVERY PRETTY VISTA IS SOMETHING TO LOSE THROUGH ARTHUR’S EYES.

The story genre of Red Dead Redemption 2 follows the dying days of the Wild West. The sprawling industrial world faced the bandits and social downtrodden of Arthur Morgan’s small band, an imperfect but loyal, loving and self-reliant community.

Capitalism is reducing its value as resources to humans. Indigenous USA America is driven from the plains to make way for ‘civilization’ and commerce. The forests are brought down for timber, the hills are cut down for coal, and Morgan’s chosen family is caught in the middle, forced to flee, assimilate, or respond with violent protests is done. They do all three.

This is Rockstar’s most serious drama, and it’s really, really long. If you are running, the story ends after 40 to 50 hours and then continues for 10 to 15. The main story missions of Red Dead 2 feature distinctly rockstar fare: ride to a destination that is talking to everyone, tightly scripting though, entertaining things, riding, and chatting to the final destination.

Missions are often thrilling action sequences or artificially mundane pictures of wrench labor and trade, full of long-winded Bespoke animations, and outstanding performances. They are only hopelessly harsh, to the point where it feels like I am following the stage directions rather than playing the role of a vagabond in the Old West.

Step out of line in these campaigns and this is a failed situation. As opposed to Red Dead Online, there are very few of them that encourage players to think for themselves, each designed to advance the story. The RDR2 show is at least a spectacle of the slow pace of life in the Old West.

This is not the death and theatricality of a lifetime; My favorite missions include shoveling, drinking wine with a friend, proposing an old romance and riding a hot air balloon. Working through a greater rut, stricter tasks are considered meaningful in the end anyway, inspired by extraordinary, ambient world-building and characterization.

Side missions, minigames, small activities, and random world events — whether they hunt great guns, capture a play, or stumble upon a woman trapped under a horse — all set Arthur’s character and setting in subtle, rich ways. Please inform.

Nested in the third act of a fully animated and voice theatrical performance, something like 10 minutes, it is possible that the response button is pressed after an artist has included a telephone. Arthur would shout, “Hell with the telephone!” It is an optional activity, a long one, and an option is to react in that short window. I think most players will remember this, but this is Canad Response 1 through 3 because this is something Arthur would say, a rageless goofy set his way in the right way.

He would write complete, real diary entries about the 50-hour campaign, sketching memorable scenes and depicting the state of affairs of his chosen family, which people once knew changed their fortunes between hope and despair. It is meant to be a completely alternative reading, but a refreshingly intimate take on a masculine figure that unsettles many doubts and hopes as to the next person.

He sings himself on a lonely ride and lowers his old body in the mirror. He will have an exciting conversation with the horseshoe woman as he gives her a ride into town, both commenting on the troubles of working for wealthy, ungrateful men as a growing necessity. I feel it all. Best horror games on pc free

Hillbillies can capture him after making the camp, a couple may try to rob him after inviting him to dinner, a man with snakebite can come out of the forest by stumbling and tell him to suck venom is. These haphazard encounters portray brutal life on the fading frontier, as nature pushes back against inner poppers who want to change it. Arthur is the perfect vessel to see it

This is because Arthur Morgan is one of the darkest human characters I have played during a great turning point in American history, playing a playful, cruel and compassionate role according to differing theories.

The game world, beautiful as it is, is made more beautiful and tragic by how it is ready to play it on every occasion. Every beautiful vista has something to lose through Arthur’s eyes, power lines and train tracks, cut through the skies, and the rest of his life is slowly filling with factory smoke. Just about everyone sees a sad end in RDR2, too. This is a story that I might not sustain every moment, but I will not forget its brutal arc or the man in the middle of it all. God damn is it sad? An apocalypse that led to this.

Ren Der Reflection

Assuming that you are able to run it at high settings, the biggest strength of RDR2 is how it exquisitely renders the Old West setting on PC, drawing more attention to the nuanced details that make it. This is one of the best looking games I’ve seen and a rare experience that justifies a new GPU or CPU.

Better draw distance and a greater range of vegetation detail were added, making some vistas look photographic. Long shadows vary from walking or roaming between places to rides, to cute nature tours. Due to animal attacks, bullet holes, rain, mud, or rapid flow of blood, the markings on the clothes are caused by very high-resolution textures, which tell a very little story about your friends.

A new photo mode makes it easy to share those moments of amazement. The way the player rides on RDR2 for just sightseeing and sounds is an important feature. I am desperately trying to get an artistic portrait of my horse’s silhouette to sit against the moon, yet another self-proclaimed goal was tolerated by this ridiculously large complex game.

With 2080, i9-9900K and 32GB of RAM, I can run RDR2 mostly on ultra settings with some resource-intensive settings completely off or switched off. But some hardware combinations are proving troublesome for RDR2, leading to random crashes in some APIs and, more recently, to a hotfix, leading to hitching problems for some 4-core CPUs.

During the first weekend, I couldn’t spend more than an hour without crashing on the desktop, though Vulcan switched from DX12 (which gives me better framerates) back to static stuff. Sometimes the UI malfunctions and I cannot select a select or purchase option, the map fails to appear, or I get paged unexpectedly from game servers.

The graphics settings are almost too much as well, and probably confusing. In our test, only a handful of settings affected performance by more than 1-2 percent. Large residuals, the mapping between MSAA, volumetric lighting, and parallax occlusion, affect performance by 5 to 25 percent. Most of them don’t make a big visual difference anyway and are best left out.

The way the settings are presented is made to feel underdeveloped: a huge list with unclear presets that require tinkering to make RDR2 run in a satisfactory framerate. It is hard. The PC should be the best place to play, not the best place to play, after all, after a few patches. It’s a shame for a game to look good. upcoming pc games

Cowboy poetry Red Dead Redemption 2 PC

Like in singleplayer mode, in Red Dead Online I can make my goals reasonable and watch them. The problem is, it is basically hamstrung by a frustrating multiplayer leveling system that locks basic equipment and cosmetics behind long XP requirements that can meet hours, perhaps days,

The option is spending gold, premium currency, items and clothing to unlock them immediately. A fishing pole is not available until level 14. A damn fishing pole in an outdoor recreation game. This is not spectacular and is a terrible way to invest players.

out a basic suite of tools (fishing rod, bow, varmint rifle, nice hat, etc.), Red Dead Online opened up widely. I have largely ignored traditional matchmaking modes such as gunfights and horse races, cheap thrills, I will play much better versions in different games, to have fun. It led to the most inventive, serene, real, and sometimes buzzing echo I’ve ever had.

I once walked into the middle of a fire in Blackwater and took the player corpses one by one to the church cemetery. Some were captured and participated in the ‘burial’ of their friends. A corpse thanked me for the gesture. Later, in an extended streak of criminal activity, my pose and I caught another player and instead of killing them on the spot, we rode into the swamp and threw them into the garter infected waters. I got the idea to act like a friend. Best pc games 2017

On a less absurd note, I set myself a constant goal of earning strictly enough money from hunting to buy cool-weather gear and a fine rifle. I am going to hike in the mountains and find the best way to hide there, a wild mountain man adorned with animal skins, which almost touches the floor.

In the meantime, I’m stopping gunmen across the city by running through the streets and calling for a parley. I am participating in an eight-player ballroom. I am living the life of a normal cowboy in the best shepherd game. I hope it clears up soon.

RDR2 PC System Requirements

OS : Windows 7 SP1 64bit

Graphics   Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 280

Processor:   Intel Core i5-2500K / AMD FX-6300

Memory:    8 GB RAM

DirectX:   Version 11 Or 12 Support

Storage: 150 GB

[fluorescentrage]

Nappily Ever After: The Importance of this Film

First and foremost the writers come out the gate swinging when Violet, played by Sanaa Lathan, explains an upbringing that includes respectability politics. As the movie begins with a flashback to the character’s childhood, Violet describes the different levels of pressure felt by white and black children.

“Like most black mothers, mine was consumed by the presentation of her child.

I was a reflection of her as a mother.

It was an ever source of anxiety to prove that I was just as well groomed as any white child.

They would play, hair uncombed, no shoes, traces of everything they’d eaten smeared on their faces, completely happy and oblivious to any possible defects to their appearance.

I on the other hand, had to be fixed”

But for an 11 year old, perfection was no fun”

Not only are we reflections of our parents abilities to properly rear children but because we are also black, we are reflections of our race and as such must be tamed. Even as children, we aren’t allowed to be as free as our white counterparts.

As we flash forward to violet as an adult we get our first example of how women jump through hoops to maintain their appearance. This is depicted in Violet’s straight long hair. Violet is getting her hair straightened by her mother in the wee hours of the morning, she ducks and dodges her boyfriends attempts to run his finger through her freshly styled hair, and subsequently dodges the steam from the dishwasher. Violet continues to maintain the constant mental preoccupation with her hair as she constantly checks the weather.

“Are you sure that’s not a rain cloud?”

All of these actions are testaments to the extra effort black women (ESPECIALLY black natural women with freshly straightened hair) must maintain to keep their hairstyle intact.

An accident, or more so evil genius plan by a child at the beauty shop, leads Violet on a journey of self discovery when conditioner that's been switched to relaxer causes her hair to fall out. It’s here that the audience is introduced to two characters who are very important to Violet’s development throughout the rest of the film. Zoe, played by Daria Johns, and her father, Will, played by Lyriq Bent.

Next, Violet expecting a proposal from Clint, her boyfriend of two years, is let down when she instead receives a dog for her birthday rather than a ring. At the dinner we see the cliche, “beauty is pain” depicted by the heels Violet is wearing that are cutting into her skin. The heels are a subtle symbol that is very important to the overall theme of the film.

It's still all downhill for Violet as she breaks up with Clint after the dinner. Again the theme of perfection is used as Violet realizes that although she’s seen as perfect by her boyfriend, her inability to let her hair ultimately ends up being detrimental to her relationship.

The idea of perfection really begins to haunt Violet as she, working in advertising, attempts to acquire an ad campaign for lipstick. When the woman in the ad is referred to as “perfect’ by her boss, Violet is opposed to this term, calling it unfair and believing that her boss “isn’t really seeing her.” Undoubtedly seeing herself as tied to the woman in the ad, its important to note that after this scene Violet no longer wants to do beauty ads.

Is it that the film creators are trying to portray that beauty ads reduce women to just their bodies or physical features? Are they taking aim at the false sense of physical perfection, unrealistic beauty standards, and unfair pressure placed on women by beauty ads?

After yet another hair change, a night out partying with friends, an unsuccessful hookup attempt, and a run in with Clint comes arguably the greatest scene in the movie.

THE CUT SCENE!!

This scene is of course extremely important to the story line but even more so to Sanaa Lathan and testimony to her acting abilities. Sanaa is cutting her REAL HAIR! First, let's talk about a one-shot take. No do overs! Second, Sanaa is experiencing this while having to experience this as Violet. WOW! MIND BLOWN!

This scene is just simply magnificent! 

As a woman who’s also done the big chop, I felt as if Sanaa conveyed exactly how it could feel for anyone. Scary, fun, liberating, life-changing, dangerous..

Even down to the song choice this scene was PERFECT!

Another theme that Violet is able to produce for the audience is the importance of confidence. With each hair change we see a change in Violet’s level of confidence, from her own hair, to her weave, and most notably her big chop, Violet loses more and more confidence with each subsequent hair change. The film makers use Violet’s workplace in all three occasions to convey this to the audience.

It has been argued that the movie basically claimed that cutting off all your hair resolves all of your life problems. A deeper look at the film however negates this claim when we realize that Violet’s life doesn’t begin to piece back together until her encounter at the Cancer Survivor meeting.

Wearing a scarf to cover her new cut, Violet is mistaken by a cancer survivor as a fellow survivor and upon meeting her, invites an unsuspecting Violet to her group meeting. When Violet uncovers her head at the meeting she is told that unless she “owns it” she’ll always be ignored.

The movie then, is more so saying that confidence, no matter how one chooses to carry themselves or express themselves through hair and other physical appearance features is the basis for finding oneself and solving life’s problems rather than the claim that a change in hairstyle alone is the quick fix.

As stated previously, the Will and Zoe characters are both important to Violet’s development and the overall theme of the film. As Violet begins to develop a relationship with Zoe, a child troubled by the absence of her mother, she also begins a romantic relationship with Zoe’s father, Will.

The hair discussion that takes place between Violet and Will is extremely noteworthy.

“What we make up 12% of the population right? But we by 70% of all wigs and weaves. What does that say” - Will

“...we hate our hair?” - Violet

Do you agree or disagree? Do these statistics tell the whole story?

Will’s character also expresses the importance of nurturing our children as they deal with combating a society who’s beauty norms are antithesis to our very being.

“I tell her everyday she’s beautiful you know? but I’m battling TV, commercials, magazines telling her that long straight hair is what makes you beautiful.”

Will is adamant about teaching his daughter to love herself and to be comfortable with who she is. 

Less related to Violet’s characterization, Will is also important because his character takes aim at stereotypical gender norms and conceptions of masculinity. Will is a hairstylist who owns his own salon, has a house full of plants, doesn’t use physical punishment with his child, and makes hair products. The character also targets the negative stereotype of black men’s absence from the family and the lives of their children in particular as Will is a full time single father.

Will is important to Violet’s development as we see her go through several transitions once he comes into her life. First there is the battle between living up to our parent’s expectations versus being true to ourselves as Violet defends her date with Will to her mother, Pauletta.Violet even changes her food order on the date from a salad to a matching burger and fries, She’s beginning to “let her hair down.”There’s even significance to the scalp massage Will gives Violet on the date when compared to the ducking and dodging we previously saw between Violet and Clint. 

With all these changes Violet even ventures to quit her job. After pitching an ad for a beer commercial in an attempt to add something new to a heavily sexist commercial history, Violet’s boss chooses an ad that remains dedicated to the same norms. Violet comes to the conclusion that with the new changes of her perspective she can no longer hold down her same spot in the workplace.

After the return of Clint and a marriage proposal, which Violet accepts, Clint becomes one of the final pieces in Violet’s evolution. Just before a pre-wedding party where Violet is to meet Clint’s parents he asks her to change, to “do something with her hair” because he needs the evening to be perfect. Here Violet begins to have to choose between who she’s always been, “Mrs. Perfect” and who she’s becoming. Its important to notice that as Violet attempts to fit back into her old mold her mother is back doing her hair, the painful heels are back as well. She realizes for the last time that she can’t live up to these expectations and that she shouldn’t have to.

She’s stuck. No longer able to bear another moment in the uncomfortable heels, but more so the uncomfortable mold of other people’s expectations, Violet decides to go for a swim. She no longer wants to be the girl the guy wants, she wants to be the girl she wants. The girl who gets to jump in the pool, be oblivious to how others perceive her, and be free. The girl she didn’t get the opportunity to be at eleven. This is largely the significance of the Zoe character. Zoe is the exact opposite of Violet at that age. A young girl who dares to be herself and who’s been raised to be a free, fun-loving courageous child. Zoe is a big inspiration to Violet.

The film makes one last important attempt to convey its message when Violet attempts to sell Will’s hair products to a major company for mass production. She talks bout the importance of inclusion by having products for all hair types both natural and relaxed. The best part about this scene is that Violet doesn’t attempt to identify a right or wrong. That its free will that allows us to choose how we want to look as we attempt to navigate our world.

Lastly, the movie ends with Violet walking away by herself smiling. At first I instinctively wondered whether her and Will ended up back together just to come to the realization that this is an even better ending, For once, it’s not about the girl ending up with the guy. This was a big reminder of the movies purpose, finding oneself and coming to love who it is we find.

#lyriqbent #sanaalathan #nappilyeverafter #blackstorytellers #blackfilms #blackfilm #blackfilmmakers #blackactresses #blackactors #netflix #netflixoriginal #blackhair #haircut #hairstyle #dariajohns #supportBlack #supportblackart #support black creators #supportblackwomen

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #7: Gonna take a wild guess as to what I think Oscar’s semblance might be as I believe it could play a role in helping Jaune to finally awaken his.

According to what Ren said in Chapter 4, it is stated that one’s personality can define their semblance or vice versa. That being said, my guess for Oscar’s semblance is something to do with his mind, particularly the way how his mind is right now.

What if...and this is stretch here...Oscar’s semblance will have something to do with dreams and memories which will then grant him a more enhanced ability to connect to others through his mind.

(Fasten your seat belts and grab yourself a snack readers. This is gonna be a long one)

If we look back, the very first time we were introduced to Oscar was when he woke up from a bad dream following the scene with Salem addressing Team WTCH. To me, that scene insinuated that Oscar possibly dreamt that scene or at least bore witness to it in some form of outer body experience...maybe?

Maybe Oscar dreamt of Ozpin's battle with Cinder too and that was the first time the two actually connected mentally before Ozpin was eventually reborn inside of him. That could be a possibility, yes.  

As I said before, it's a stretch. And while I don't have much more evidence from the series to back my hunch, however I do strongly think that Oscar’s semblance would have something to do with his mind.

Maybe Oscar will have a Professor Xavier from X-Men kind of power. While I doubt he'll be able to read others minds and/or lift things telepathically like Jean Gray (though that would be freaking awesome if he could); I do like the idea of him being able to connect to others mentally, more specifically through their thoughts and dreams.

It would make sense. Oscar is a man (well boy) with two souls. He is the embodiment of two minds sharing one singular form so having a semblance that reflects that would fit. Plus I really want this cause I would love to see the series do a visual representation of Oscar's mind.

Gonna use another Yugioh reference here again. Remember back in the original series when the character Shadi used his Millennium Key to enter Yugi's mind when he suspected that he was the one who stole Pegasus' Millennium Eye (which was actually taken by Evil Bakura)? In that episode, we got a nice visual idea of the inside of Yugi's mind after pairing with the Pharaoh. As viewers, we actually got to SEE what both sides of the coin looked like with each being represented by a different room and door.

If I remember correctly, Yugi's was described to be more childlike, pure and innocent, as remarked by Shadi, whereas the Pharaoh’s was basically a cold dungeon labyrinth with endless staircases leading to many intricate doors housing a variety of tricks and traps, all to deceive unwanted intruders. Some were even guarded by Duel Monsters; one of them being Yugi’s signature card: The Dark Magician, as I recall. This was done, as I believe, to reflect the complexity and overall mystery of the Pharaoh’s character as part of the story was uncovering the secrets of his past and his true identity.

Gosh! That was such a cool part of the original Yugioh and I would LOVE it if the CRWBY did something like that for Oscar and Ozpin. Fingers crossed!

While hearing the mental banter between Oz and Oscar is nice; it would be an even greater touch if we actually got to see the inside of Oscar’s mind and what it looked like, especially now that Ozpin is there. Somehow I envision Oscar/Ozpin’s mind world being no different than how it was for Yugi and the Pharaoh.

Picture this everyone...

Oscar’s Inner Mind 

Imagine one room. One single room. An inner sanctum, if you will. The room is divided in half. On one side, there is a locked door with a clock cog symbol embedded on its surface to represent it being Ozpin’s room while on the opposite end, is another smaller, simpler wooden door to identify that it belongs to Oscar. At the centre of the main mind hall is a single long table with two chairs facing each other. It is here, within these uncharted walls, where Oscar and Ozpin meet within their inner mind (I need a more creatively whimsical word to describe this).

Since Oscar is still the more dominant soul, the room atmosphere changes to reflect his mood. When he's cheerful or perhaps relaxed, it becomes a tranquil afternoon sky in a large open field covered with lush green grass mirroring that of the one he would see all the time back in his home in Mistrel. When he's angry or upset, the skies turn grey and cloudy. Though they never rain, the raging thunder and lightning above are more than enough to voice his troubles. 

And when he thinks of Ruby; the ambiance transforms into a beautiful sunset and what was once a grassy field becomes a vast rose garden filled with an outstretch of blossoming red roses; their gorgeous petals blowing ever so delicately in the wind.

Okay, that one was for my RoseGarden shippers but c'mon, how sweet would that be.

Picture a scene where:

Oscar and Ozpin are having a private conversation within his inner mind world when Oscar is either dreaming or meditating (perhaps a session with Ren). Oscar is frustrated with his training and Ozpin is there to offer him some reassurance. The room atmosphere is a raging storm to reflect Oscar's brooding dissatisfaction but in the instance where Ozpin is able to calm the boy down, it simmers to a gentle breeze blowing through a green meadow.

Ozpin then tries to lighten the mood by asking Oscar about how he felt about his new teammates: Jaune, Nora and Ren. Oscar, of course, gives a good review of three remaining Team JNPR members, commenting that he gets along well with everyone. And since they're all so nice to him and help him with his training, he thinks they’re cool. Ozpin quietly accepts this answer. He then addresses the real Goliath Grimm in the room. He asks Oscar about his thoughts on Ruby and the instant he does Oscar’s whole demeanour changes in an almost comical manner. The young farm boy is suddenly fidgety and by Ozpin’s keen observation, a little red in the face, barely making his point audible as he clamoured out a bunch of nonsensical facts about Ruby (that Ozpin already knew of) all summing up to him basically saying that she’s just a huntress he really, really admires for her strength and considers a good friend.   While Ozpin accepts this answer as well, albeit with one of his trademark scrunch-nosed chuckles, he doesn’t however fail to point out that while Oscar’s mouth said one thing, his own mind betrayed him. For at that precise moment, unknown to Oscar, the room had changed again to match his current emotions; revealing his true blossoming feelings for Ruby (which literally take the shape of a freaking rose garden).

Imagine how perfect that would be. I know it’s just a thought however if the series somehow ever did something like this, I'd lose my shit.

The Room of Two Souls

I’d imagine the inside of Oscar's room would resemble that of his original home back on his aunt's farm cause right now it’s the only family tie he has.

However as he makes more connections with people he come to care about, the room will expand and even change depending on the person or bond he’s thinking of. Y’know how folks are always using the analogy of creating a space in their heart for someone or something they consider special to them. Maybe the same can work for the mind; in particular Oscar’s mind, with him creating a special place in his own mind room for certain cherished loved ones using the memories and feelings he’s shared with them to bring it to life within his inner mind. Imagine a place in Oscar’s mind built on the memories and sentiments of his time with Team RNJR which in turn links him mentally to all of them. Take special note of this point. I’ll elaborate more on it later in this post.

Ozpin's room, on the other hand, will be complicated with as much intricacy as the mechanical interior of a clock. As a matter of fact, I picture it being like a giant clock tower leading into another room decorated with towering portraits of different men; the faces of Ozpin's previous vessels with the memories of their lives and adventures contained behind each portrait. It within here where Ozpin’s past memories are all stored. For all the Star Vs The Forces of Evil fans in the audience, remember how in the episode ‘Into The Wand', we got to see all the past Queens of Mewni in portrait form including Moon.

I pictured something like that for Ozpin and all his past forms. The portraits not only paint a vivid depiction of what the previous Ozpins looked like physically but additionally it illustrated a perfect mosaic of all the major events in their lives; from rebirth to death.

Imagine if we got to see a portrait of Ozpin in his last form before Oscar; when he was simply known as just Professor Ozpin: Headmaster of Beacon Academy. An eternal collage all his achievements up until his demise by the hands of Cinder (maybe then we might actually learn how the events of that epic fight).

Why I’m taking my time to describe this in such detail is because I would honestly love to see the CRWBY do something like this in the series as I believe it can play a major part in Oscar’s growth as a character. Why would you create a character with two souls if you didn’t plan on showing us, the eager viewers, how the inside of his mind looked?

I’m just saying.

Now that I’ve described what I think Oscar’s semblance is, you might be wondering at this moment what does that have to do with Jaune and his semblance? I’ll explain.

I think I’m all finished here with Oscar. Let’s talk about Jaune for a bit.

 Jaune’s Semblance Is....

Back in Volume 1, I remember Pyrrha mentioning that Jaune possessed a lot of Aura after using some of hers to unlock his. Ren said that once one has mastered control of their Aura, not only can it aid them during battle as a form of defense but also recovery by gradually healing their wounds. The keyword there is gradual. When Jaune first unlocked his Aura, it instantly healed his wound. Sure it was only a scratch but...the way Ren implied it is that the healing process is supposed to be slow, not as quickly as Jaune recovered.

So what this says to me is that Jaune is certainly unique when it comes to his Aura level and that is one of the clues to figuring out his semblance. What else so we know about Jaune? Let’s only focus on the positive. He’s always willing to step up and do what he can for the people he cares about. Evidence? Despite his feelings for her being unrequited, Jaune still cared enough for Weiss that he called out Neptune on the way he was treating her.

He even empathized with him a little too by helping him through his own securities by making him see the error of his shallow ways. He was so willing to cheer Pyrrha up that he tossed all semblance of dignity out the window and wore a dress.

He was kind enough to help Ruby on their very first day of school, even though they had only just met.

He even forged a new weapon for himself combining his with a memento of Pyrhha’s. He did it, almost as a little tribute to her so that, even though she was gone, the memory for her will forever live on with him and their teammates.

Jaune Arc: Helpful. Compassionate. Loyalty with a high level of Aura...I think I’m starting to piece together a semblance of a semblance here guys.

While Pyrrha didn’t exactly say that Jaune possessed an infinite amount of Aura, the fact that she said he has a lot of it; so much so that he’s able to project it around his entire body is interesting. Up until now, I haven’t witnessed any other character in the series project such a strong Aura around themselves that they glow in the same manner as Jaune did. Maybe his semblance will be something along the lines of Restoration: Because he possesses such a high level of Aura, he is able to use it to help others. This way he can use his Aura to commit amazing feats: such as shield others with it and/or even use it to heal and replenish their strengths by restoring their own Aura. 

I hope it’s something  morally exciting like that and true to the nature of Jaune’s character...rather than a semblance that just makes him super OP for a limited (or unlimited) amount of time, destroying anything and anyone in his path (like Mario juiced up on star power in a Super Mario Bros game).

NO! That’ll be way too typical. Way too shounen protagonist cliché!

But Squiggles, what the fudge does Oscar’s semblance have to do with Jaune’s?

To me, Jaune seems to be suffering a block right now when it comes to his own untapped power. Based on what he said last episode, the reason for his block doesn’t seem to be a physical one nor even a lack of skill. So...maybe it’s something deeper...something psychological.

Remember the point I made earlier about if Oscar had a mind semblance then maybe he can connect to people he’s close to. Here’s where that ties in now.

With a mind semblance, maybe Oscar can enter the minds of those he connects to or look into the memories. Maybe Oscar unknowingly connects to Jaune during his sleep/meditation and ends up sharing a nightmare/thoughts with him about the events of the Fall of Beacon where he’s been constantly reliving the moment where Pyrrha abandoned him to fight Cinder. We have yet to truly touch base on how each member of the remaining Team JNPR felt after Pyrrha’s death. Sure we caught a little glimpse of it back in Volume 4 (during the first and last episodes of the volume, ironically) but still not too much. I’m particularly curious about Jaune�� feelings in this as he was there that night and was the last person Pyrrha spoke to before leaving for her inevitable death.

You can tell or at least immediately assume that he’s still grieving over losing Pyrrha. Remember that episode in Volume 4 when Ruby found him training at night to an old recording of Pyrhha’s mentoring. While a touching albeit a depressing scene, it definitely highlighted my point of Jaune’s internal grief over losing a close friend.

Maybe Oscar will help Jaune by entering his mind to help him deal with his grief. Perhaps Jaune is suffering from that kind of mental block. Maybe his guilt and grief over Pyrrha is what has been holding him back from unlocking his semblance.

Now that I think about it, it would make sense if that was true. Everything about Jaune’s development and improvement from amateur warrior into a full-fledged huntsman has more or less centred around Pyrrha. Pyrrha was the first person to acknowledge Jaune’s potential and reach out a helping hand to help him grow. She was the first person to truly believe that he could be a real huntsman before he believed it himself. So wouldn’t it make sense if SHE is the reason why he can’t move forward? I think Jaune’s reasoning for not unlocking his semblance has something to do with his feelings for Pyrrha. Feelings of never fully understanding her during her time of uncertainty and grief (y’know over the whole Fall Maiden scenario). Feelings of never getting the opportunity to reciprocate his own feelings for her (?).

Feelings of feeling as if he failed her, not just as a friend but as everything: a friend, someone that she felt worthy of her love; failure as a leader cause she was part of his team. She was his teammate. He was supposed to protect her. But...he didn’t! He failed her! He probably blames himself for being so powerless that Pyrrha felt it more fit to send him away to safety rather than stay and fight alongside her to stop Cinder. Maybe if he had been strong enough and less of a weak burden, maybe he could have saved her.

He might not have been able to stop Cinder especially at her full Fall Maiden strength but at least he might have been able to save Pyrrha. If it weren’t for his weakness and incompetence as a huntsman...maybe she’d still be alive and their team wouldn’t be so broken; incomplete and...cold without her.  

So maybe we’ll get a mental battle where Jaune faces off against his guilt which takes the form of Pyrrha. And after defeating that and overcoming those negative feelings, he either finally unlocks his semblance or comes much closer to unlocking it, feeling more confident that he’ll do soon. Y’know just in case the show writers wanna drag this out longer again.

All in all, those are my theories. It’s a pretty interesting theory. Kinda out there. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not canon. As I said, early. It’s a stretch.

I just think it would be cool if we got something like this. If Oscar’s semblance doesn’t have anything to do with the mind then I’ll be fascinated to see what it could be canonically.

That being said, as a top choice, I’m still gunning for another mind-based, mental semblance in the series. So far Emerald Sustrai is the only confirmed one with her mastery of mental hallucinations. Neo was technically another with her illusions however I’m not sure if she’s still part of the series. I know she’s in RWBY Chibi (then again, so are Pyrrha, Penny and Roman Torchwick and they’re all....YEAH!) and I know fans have been waiting hopefully for her to make a triumphant comeback.

However beyond those two, I want another character to possess a mental semblance especially a good guy (seriously Emerald and Neo are both villains). So yeah, we need a good guy main character to have a mental-based semblance.

CRWBY...C’MON! Golden opportunity here! OSCAR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY!

I’m just saying; Oscar is right there. You’ve already set him up with having two minds. You’re basically writing his semblance for him. Make it a mental one.  

Give him a cool Professor X type of awesome mind semblance! I’m calling telepathy or some RWBY variant of it. Maybe he can read the minds of people he makes either physical or eye contact with. This could be a SWEET ability to have especially in combat cause then Oscar will be able to tell his opponent’s next move before they even make it. The only exception will is that he won’t be able to read certain people who either have a mental type semblance like him or have somehow been trained to block out mental intrusion abilities like that or...are Salem. I also call the ability to enter someone’s mind through their dreams or thoughts or just by having a strong connection with to a person due to an intimate bond (like a close friendship or relationship).

Fingers crossed here!

 But anyways, I think now I’m officially done with this musing. See you all in the next new episode! Hope we get another Mistral moment with Team JNRR and Oscar. As a matter of fact, each episode should contain a mandatory scene with them). Just saying.

~LitteMissSquiggles (2017)

#rwby #rwby volume 5 #oscar pine #jaune arc #oscar and ozpin #rwby rosegarden #rwby musings #rwby theories #oscar and jaune #rwby shovelknight

[pcgamesdaily-blog1]

Enlightening Cinema

depart McKennaEnlightening CinemaMetaphysical Articles | February 6, 2005... Cinema By gallop ... me tell you why you're here. You're here over you appreciate ... What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your integrated life. That there' Enlightening Cinema through Jed McKenna"Let me mention you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You sense it your entire life. That three r something unsound with the world. You don't notice what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your head driving you mad." -Morpheus, The Matrix This isn't a show review calendar and it's not comprehensive. It's aloof some record about a few cinema I guess are effective for the purposes of awakening and why, or that aren't and proof not. With tools of understanding, cheap is often better thin good. primary themes described on this list sound to be these: - Heresy - Captive/Captor - Teacher/Student - Nature of self/man. - Death/rebirth. Cataclysm/epiphany. - Untrustworthiness of mind/memories. The apart thing I might urge with heed to movies and books is to raise the material raise to the level point it come of price to you. Orwell might have move writing an anti-communist manifesto, but canteen Eighty-Four is much further interesting consider as the struggle halfway man and his confinement. Apocalypse immediately is round something also than Viet Nam, by means of to Get Ahead contemporary Advertising is about object more tan rampant commercialism, etc. free streaming movies african Beauty"I feel like ie been in a oblivion for the past tent years. furthermore I'm equitable now awake up." give included african Beauty chiefly for wits wrong with it. Lester's major death/rebirth transition pageant promise, but what execute he upheaval to? rearward to teenage crap, not forward in any sense. A fear-based regression. naive car, simple drugs, senseless vanity, simple skirt chasing. Not at all reclaimed when fester sees his own craziness near the end or by sappy/smarmy dead dude voice-over. comic movie is slightly redeemed by the presence of the quasi-mystical neighbor son and his video footage of a windblown bag:"That's the daylight I done that there was this entire soul behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to notice there was no sense to be afraid, ever."::: Apocalypse Now"In a combat there are many moments for benevolence and supple action. effective are bountiful moments for ruthless force what is often called ruthless what may in many precedence be individual clarity, awake clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, read at it." You'd see that holocaust Now Redux, the director's cut, would be the version to watch, but all the stuff that was rightly cut from the initial has prevail wrongly replaced. (Raising the interesting mark that supervisor and authors often restriction understand the higher play of the stories they're telling.) Stick with the original past both Redux and conates Heart of Darkness.Apocalypse straightaway is all about the Horror. ac journey of discovery, within the feeling of darkness, arriving at this horror. What's the horror? whereby do you get there? Why would anyone manufacture such a journey? feel you compose such a journey? Why or motive not?Note the powerful epiphanies that drive the film. The first assassin's minuscule home, ("Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids..."), Dennis Hopper's youthful exuberance, Kurtz's gem bullet, pollards "...I wasn't even in their company any more." ::: living There"Spring, summer, autumn, winter... then hop again."A pleasing film ruined by a foolish walking-on-water stunt tangent on to the end. Without that nonsense the viewer would be freebie to think, to decide, to wonder. Instead, the movie zips itself up tight with its alert little dumb-it-down twist. punch the conclusion button meanwhile Chauncey is straightening the sapling, since the pernicious denouement, and it's a fun, lovely film.::: edge Runner"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire outside the accept of Orion. I've minded c-beams sheen in the dark adjacent the Tannhauser Gate. complete those moments will be lost in time cognate tears in rain. generation to die." Were you born five minutes ago? Of program not, and you have the consciousness to verify it. yard know if they were artificial implants, because, uh...::: Cast Away"I couldn't constant kill me personally the means I necessary to. I had function over nothing."If a brother screams on a deserted island and there's no one to hear him, does he make a sound? last it full that he hears it himself? What if not? What's south when you take absent everything?Self bare bare.This show raises abounding intriguing questioning about the substance of self, or lack thereof, and includes a very Zen eulogy.::: Dead dramatist SocietyHeresy.::: haloed and Maude"Vice, virtue. It's best not to be too moral... Aim high morality."American Zen, master and disciple. ::: Harvey"For dotage I was smart... I recommend pleasant."Elwood P. Dowd, wisefool. ai sweet depiction of a higher structure of subsistence misinterpreted as a reduced order of being. exert we perceive the remarkable Man during we repartee him? ::: How to Get along In Advertising"Everything I execute now prepare perfect sense."A thwarted request for freedom. A founder attempt to overthrow Maya. Enjoy the insanity of the epiphany.::: Joe facing the Volcano"Nobody knows anything, Joe. weal take this leap, and we'll see. We'll jump, and wheal see. hates life, right?"Death and Rebirth. Unlike American Beauty, this is all about meaningful forward, "away from the things of man."::: Man Facing soothes (Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste)Watch especially for the ocular poem of a guy crumbling a human scholar into a sink in the time looking for the soul.::: The Matrix"Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind." palates Cave for the people. As allegorically lucid as Joe across Vocano, Pleasantville and Star Wars.::: monody Python's Life of Brian"No, no! appeal is a sign that, like Him, we duty think not of the things of the body, but of the light and head!"Sacred Cow-tipping at its best."Meaning of Life" also apply on this list.::: in tern Eighty-Four"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, devise a brogan stamping on a individual faceforever."This flick is particular in the sense that it's as good as the book, which is an excessively intimate profile of the captor/captive, Maya/man relationship. Compare this to Moby-Dick or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's lair which are superb novel but impractical movies.::: One Flew ancient history the Cuckoo's NestAs with Moby-Dick, Hollywood castrated the book. They stripped it of mine archetypal dimensions and diminished it to a insignificant pissing match between McMurphy and registered nurse Ratched. Great entertainment, but for meaningful insight, see the book.::: Pleasantville"There are some site where the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some community where it keeps on going."A peppy tale of heresy in which no one is burned at the spike and the new paradigm is, eventually, embraced by all.::: affecting Razor's Edge"The dead eye so decidedly dead."The razor's edge is what form it interesting; seeing harry shakily equitable on the fine line between what he was and what he's becoming. He is walking the edge amid two lives. The note Murray version is a bit unfocused... stick with Tyrone influence or scan the book. Maugham purportedly used Ramana Maharshi as the model for the novel's righteous man.::: Star Wars"The effort will be with you, always."The first one, situation Luke manufacture the transition from flesh to spirit. The horas Journey.::: The Thin cardinal Line"Maybe all men pull one enormous soul ferryboats a chunk of, all faces are the like man."A exalted inquiry within the spiritual nature of man. also a sad/sweet song than a fictional film.::: climactic Thirteenth Floor"So what're you saying? You're saying that there's another world on top of this one?"Layer after layer. Turtles on top of turtles. ::: Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos"Open your eyes."If you cognate Vanilla Sky, check out the original, the Continental film Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). the above-mentioned two layer may be the leading of the bunch for our purposes; the convenient to an enlightenment allegory.Of course, the interesting word about civilization is securing there, not being there, and hates what the above-mentioned films are about; rebirth from a false reality, opening your eyes. They're not so much around what's solid as what's not. It's the fantasy of the journey one takes to get to the house where anything, even jumping off a tall building, would be better that continuing to live a lie, even a beautiful, blissful lie.Note the latency of the true guru, explaining in clear terms why ascend off the building is the finest thing to do, and waiting calmly for it to be done.::: stirring Life"They speak that nightmare are only real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same information about life?"Wide-ranging philosophical inquiry. Provocative. Amusing. Potentially disruptive.::: Wings of Desire"When the child was a child, it was the past of the particular questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did second begin and where does space end?"A lovely, intelligent, thought-provoking film. Can the awakened vitality return to the dreamstate? Would he want to?::: OthersSome more films that reward prudent viewing are The warlock of Oz, About Schmidt, What idea May Come, Total Recall, All the Mornings about the universe (Tous les Matins dub Monde), and, of course, many more.-Jed McKenna ::: About the Author"Jed McKenna is an American original." -Lama sierra DasJed McKenna is the author of "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing" and "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment", broadcast by Wisefool Press. Coming in 2005: "Spirituality X" and "Jed McKenna's Notebook". Visit WisefoolPress.com to read more.

[angelicareed-blog]

Enlightening Cinema

gallop McKennaEnlightening CinemaMetaphysical Articles | February 6, 2005... Cinema By Jed ... me tell you why you're here. You're here for you notice ... What you know, you can't explain. But you impression it. You felt it your full life. so that there' Enlightening Cinema aside Jed McKenna"Let me disclose you proof you're here. You're present because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That throes something mistaken with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your head driving you mad." -Morpheus, The Matrix This isn't a show review series and it's not comprehensive. It's blameless some synopsis about a few cinema I assume are profitable for the purposes of awakening and why, or that are on to and how not. among tools of understanding, cheap is generally better that good. dominant themes defined on this list imply to be these: - Heresy - Captive/Captor - Teacher/Student - Nature of self/man. - Death/rebirth. Cataclysm/epiphany. - Untrustworthiness of mind/memories. The exclusive thing I might urge with observance to feature and novel is to raise the material increase to the level where it convert of profit to you. Orwell might have prevail writing an anti-communist manifesto, but finetune Eighty-Four is much further interesting viewed as the struggle amid man and his confinement. Apocalypse forthwith is around something more than Viet Nam, after what precedent to Get Ahead contemporary Advertising is about object more thaw rampant commercialism, etc.::: african Beauty"I aura like ice been in a stupor for the past tent years. And I'm just now rising up." ie included african Beauty essentially for whites wrong with it. Lester's major death/rebirth transition appearance promise, but what end he upheaval to? Backward to teenage crap, not forward in any sense. A fear-based regression. naive car, naive drugs, irrelevant vanity, simple skirt chasing. Not at all redeemed when fester sees his own absurdity near the end or by sappy/smarmy dead buddy voice-over. breathtaking movie is slightly redeemed by the presence of the quasi-mystical neighbor daughter and his video footage of a windblown bag:"That's the sunshine I finished that there was this entire growth behind things, and this incredibly benign force that wanted me to recognize there was no sense to be afraid, ever."::: Apocalypse Now"In a war there are many time for empathy and frail action. There are copious moments for ruthless life what is often called ruthless what may in many circumstances be isolated clarity, awake clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, stare at it." You'd assume that cataclysm Now Redux, the director's cut, would be the version to watch, but all the stuff that was accurately cut from the authentic has last wrongly replaced. (Raising the interesting mote that producer and authors often don't understand the higher pertinence of the stories they're telling.) wedge with the original by both Redux and Conrad's Heart of Darkness.Apocalypse straightaway is all about the Horror. ad journey of discovery, within the nature of darkness, arriving at this horror. What's the horror? How do you get there? Why would anyone prepare such a journey? undergo you form such a journey? Why or cause not?Note the powerful epiphanies that commute the film. The first assassin's character home, ("Sell the house, sell the car, move the kids..."), Dennis Hopper's youthful exuberance, Kurtz's ice bullet, bollards "...I wasn't even in their company any more." ::: subsistence There"Spring, summer, autumn, winter... then flexibility again."A alluring film ravaged by a foolish walking-on-water stunt tacked on to the end. Without that nonsense the viewer would be freebie to think, to decide, to wonder. Instead, the movie zips itself ascend tight with its adept little dumb-it-down twist. shot the conclusion button although Chauncey is straightening the sapling, before the calamitous denouement, and it's a fun, lovely film.::: edge Runner"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. violation ships on fire finished the bear of Orion. I've patrolled c-beams glamour in the dark adjacent the Tannhauser Gate. All those time will be lost in time related tears in rain. turn to die." Were you born quinary minutes ago? Of course not, and you have the thought to show it. loud know if they were artificial implants, because, uh...::: Cast Away"I couldn't direct kill the author the means I wanted to. I had capability over nothing."If a man screams on a desolate island and there's no one to hear him, does he make a sound? prevail it ample that he hears it himself? What if not? What's south when you take off everything?Self stripped bare.This feature raises bountiful intriguing questioning about the substance of self, or lack thereof, and cover a actual Zen eulogy.::: Dead artist SocietyHeresy.::: harlot and Maude"Vice, virtue. It's best not to be too moral... Aim raised morality."American Zen, master and disciple. ::: Harvey"For senescence I was smart... I recommend pleasant."Elwood P. Dowd, wisefool. af sweet depiction of a higher order of presence misinterpreted as a junior order of being. decree we appreciate the first-rate Man at we byword him? ::: How to Get forward In Advertising"Everything I accomplish now compose perfect sense."A thwarted request for freedom. A fall attempt to overthrow Maya. Enjoy the insanity of the epiphany.::: Joe vs the Volcano"Nobody knows anything, Joe. will take this leap, and we'll see. We'll jump, and weal see. That's life, right?"Death and Rebirth. Unlike americas Beauty, this is all about gripping forward, "away from the things of man."::: guy Facing Southeast (Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste)Watch especially for the optical poem of a man crumbling a human pundit into a sink while looking for the soul.::: The Matrix"Like everyone else, you were born toward bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A penitentiary for your mind." palates Cave for the people. As allegorically lucid as Joe across Vocano, Pleasantville and leading Wars.::: Monty Python's get-up-and-go of Brian"No, no! enthrallment is a sign that, like Him, we requirement think not of the things of the body, but of the mask and head!"Sacred Cow-tipping at its best."Meaning of Life" also fit on this list.::: in tern Eighty-Four"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, fancy a boot stamping on a animal faceforever."This picture is exclusive in the sense that it's as good as the book, which is an excessively intimate profile of the captor/captive, Maya/man relationship. Compare this to Moby-Dick or One drift Over the Cuckoo's den which are superb books but impractical movies.::: separate Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestAs with Moby-Dick, Hollywood castrated the book. They stripped it of inherent archetypal largeness and diminished it to a trivial pissing contest between McMurphy and assistant Ratched. terrible entertainment, but for meaningful insight, know the book.::: Pleasantville"There are some places where the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some places where it keeps on going."A cheerful tale of heresy in which no one is burned at the stave and the new paradigm is, eventually, embraced by all.::: comic Razor's Edge"The dead look so decidedly dead."The razor's edge is what compose it interesting; seeing carry shakily uniform on the fine line between what he was and what he's becoming. He is walking the edge inserted two lives. The check Murray form is a bit unfocused... stick with Tyrone talent or see the book. Maugham believably used Ramana Maharshi as the perfect for the novel's spiritual man.::: chief Wars"The fury will be with you, always."The prime one, point Luke form the progression from flesh to spirit. The hero Journey.::: comic Thin Red Line"Maybe all men land one full soul ferryboats a chunk of, all faces are the clone man."A exalted inquiry toward the holy nature of man. extra a sad/sweet song thin a narrative film.::: The Thirteenth Floor"So what're you saying? You're saying that there's something else world on top of this one?"Layer after layer. Turtles on top of turtles. ::: Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos"Open your eyes."If you comparable Vanilla Sky, check out the original, the Continental film Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). These two cloud may be the outstanding of the bunch for our purposes; the neighboring to an enlightenment allegory.Of course, the interesting material about sophistication is catching there, not being there, and that's what the above-mentioned films are about; rebirth from a false reality, opening your eyes. They're not so much backward what's evident as wits not. It's the fable of the journey one takes to get to the community where anything, even jumping off a tall building, would be better tan continuing to live a lie, constant a beautiful, blissful lie.Note the latency of the true guru, explaining in clear fee why bound off the building is the perfect thing to do, and waiting bravely for it to be done.::: alert Life"They convey that delusion are individual real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same word about life?"Wide-ranging philosophical inquiry. Provocative. Amusing. Potentially disruptive.::: Wings of Desire"When the child was a child, it was the past of the particular questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? albeit did turn begin and where complete space end?"A lovely, intelligent, thought-provoking film. Can the awakened presence return to the dreamstate? Would he want to?::: OthersSome new films that reward thoughtful viewing are The Wizard of Oz, About Schmidt, What idea May Come, Total Recall, All the Mornings from the World (Tous lies Matins dub Monde), and, of course, many more.-Jed McKenna ::: About the Author"Jed McKenna is an American original." -Lama Surya DasJed McKenna is the author of "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing" and "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment", published by Wisefool Press. Coming in 2005: "Spirituality X" and "Jed McKenna's Notebook". Visit WisefoolPress.com to get more.

[itsiotrecords-blog]

http://ift.tt/2rE0roZ

The Egyptian Pyramids are some of the most mysterious structures to ever exist on the planet. There has been speculation that aliens, slaves, and people from nations outside of Africa built them. But if you depend on Hollywood movies and cartoons to reveal secret truths, you might want to reconsider. There is only so much information that the Egyptian Government is willing to release to researchers which makes it all the more fun to learn about. Archaeologists have been studying them for hundreds of years, and we’ve dug up some of the coolest facts out there. In this article, I will share with you locations around the world where you will never expect pyramids to exist and the truth about who built the Pyramid of Giza. I’ll also cover many of the things that people often mistake when thinking about the pyramids. If you enjoy Egyptian history, you are going to love this list about the pyramids and things you might have never known.

#1 Egyptian Pyramids in the Remote Desert – False If you watched a number of Hollywood box office movies with Egyptian pyramids, it is normal for most to believe that these mystical structures are located in an isolated desert location in Egypt. However, there are many monuments located not far from Egypt’s capital in the largest city in the country called Cairo. The city of Cairo is most known for the Giza Pyramid which is the seventh Wonder of the World and built during the time King Khufu was alive (2589-2566 BCE). There is a royal pyramid that is south of Cairo near a temple called the Abydos which is the only monument in this location. Did you know the statue of Sphinx faces the same direction of a TGI Friday’s restaurant? The Sphinx is a tall and wide statute made of sand with a human head and the body of a lion. These ancient formations are in a north to south direction near the west bank of the Nile River.

#2 Pyramids Exist in the United States – True If you thought pyramids were only a mystery in Egypt, think again. Many monuments throughout the United States are worth talking about, but today, I will mention the Monks Mound. It is located in St. Louis, near the Mississippi River and is considered an important part of world history. Engineers that studied this structure discovered a layer of vegetation in between the pyramid which is 92 feet high and 836 feet wide. It stretches across 14.4 acres of land and consists of 2.16 billion pounds of soil mixed with clay. Surprisingly, the soil found at this location is uncommon in the area. When it rains, water gets trapped in the pyramid which has caused it to shrink in height as time passes. Archaeologists are researching to find its original location. However, to further add to the puzzle, in Indiana 43.1 million baskets of this soil was used to construct a pyramid.

#3 Pyramids Were Built By Aliens – False The idea of aliens has existed before Area 51 was built in 1955 and many cultures have linked them to being the builders of some of the unique monuments around the world. The Pyramids of Giza were designed 4,500 years ago and were meant to be for pharaohs and the elite society of Ancient Egyptians. As of today, researchers have not been able to explain how these structures are made and in my opinion, they never will. The stones weigh two tons and even the technologically advanced construction equipment used today would not be up for the challenge of building them. That leads some alien believers to think extraterrestrials built the pyramids. There is no evidence to show that a species from another planet were the creators. There were human samples found at monuments that prove about 100,000 men built them with their hands. Most of these men were clearly skilled engineers and construction workers.

#4 The Crystal Pyramid In the Bermuda Triangle – True There have been recent reports that there is a crystal pyramid at the bottom of the ocean right beneath the Bermuda Triangle. Some call it the Devil’s Triangle because of the many aircraft ships that have disappeared while flying over the location since the 1950s. There are articles on the internet state that since the 1960s a crystal pyramid was discovered by a doctor named Ray Brown that found the structure when he was scuba diving in the Bahamas. According to the Daily Star online news site, in 2012 “At a press conference in the Bahamas, Dr. Verlag apparently revealed the exact coordinates of the pyramid, which is supposed, three times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.” There are photos available online in addition to reputable news sites that have published this story to prove the validity of the pyramids. Some scientists believe that there might be a connection between these monuments to missing planes and ships that have disappeared over the centuries.

#5 The Pyramids Stored Grains for a Famine – False The 2016 United States presidential Republican candidate Ben Carson made a joke during his campaign that Egyptian pyramids were a place to hold grains. Some believed this misinformation, but these African structures were, in fact, a place to bury pharaohs in tombs. In American history, presidential candidates were asked about events that happened in the past during political campaigns. During the election, the media discovered a video filmed 17 years ago of Ben Carson. He was delivering a college commencement speech stating that he believed Joseph in the Bible built pyramids as a place to store food (grains). When journalists asked about this, he mentioned that his idea about the pyramids has not changed. After all, Ben Carson must have read the Old Testament stating that when Joseph and his people were sold into slavery in Egypt, the grains in the pyramid helped feed people during a seven-year famine. What do you think about this biblical story?

#6 The Original Designer of the Great Pyramid of Giza Was Hemiunu – True In an article I read in National Geographic January/February 2017 issue, the truth is Hemiunu was the architect and supervisor at the time that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Here’s a quick bio of Hemiunu: His father was Nefermaat, and he was married to an Egyptian noblewoman named Itet (Atet). On the front of his tomb, the writer described him as being a great prince. His wife is beside him inside of the Pyramid of Medium which is about 62 miles away from Cairo. In the fall of 2016, a statue of Hemiunu was temporarily displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Germany. The head was reshaped because in 1912 a trouble maker removed the eyes which were made out of gold. Another interesting fact is Imhotep was an architect of the 3rd dynasty of the Saqqara pyramid. Imhotep also helped build the pyramid of Djoser.

#7 The Movie Exodus Portrays Pyramid Truths – False The movie Exodus: Gods & Kings earned $268 million when it played in theaters in 2014. However, Egypt banned the movie because it depicts Jewish people as slaves that originally built the Egyptian pyramids. A few of the other moments in the movie that did not sit well with the Government were the Red Sea splitting after an earthquake erupted, which is not an Egyptian belief. It was also banned in Morocco because the people were insulted by the film. At first, the Moroccan Cinema Centre accepted the film but later changed their minds the day it was supposed to be released. According to the Mirror UK, a man that owns a movie theater in Casablanca stated, “They phoned and threatened they would shut down the theater if I did not take the film off the schedule.” The good news is it cost $140 million to make the movie, and it earned a solid return at the box office.

#8 Everything About Ancient Egypt Has Been Discovered – False Some critics believe everything there is to know about Ancient Egyptian pyramids has been found. The truth is Archaeologists are making discoveries every day in the field. Also, the Egyptian government limits the amount of information it offers to foreigners. Many theories describe how the Egyptians constructed mummies and exactly how these structures were made. There was a boat called the Khufu solar ship that was discovered beside the Great Pyramid of Giza. Some believe the boat was a place where dead Pharaohs’ bodies were stored. In the Egyptian culture, the sun-god Ra used this boat in a spiritual universe to fight enemies in battles. Over the past few decades, pyramids have been found around the world in Greece, Antarctica, Italy, China, India and the list goes on. If you were bamboozled to believe that Hollywood movies depict the entire truth about an Ancient civilization of Egyptians you wouldn’t be the only one, but more discoveries will continue as long as experts are interested in the mysterious.

#9 Pyramids Exist in Australia – True Above you read about some of the places pyramids can be found, but did you know there is also one down under? In Australia, located south of Cairns, is a natural looking monument that is considered “one of the most distinctive landmarks in the small sugar-farming town of Gordonval,” according to the Crystalinks website. It stands 922 meters high in the sky and is very steep. If you enjoy hiking, it will take about 3 hours for you to get to the top. On the surface of the pyramid is vegetation which is called Australian scrub. There is another pyramid on the island locals call Gympie Pyramid in Queensland. The Australian officials have no idea who built it, but some believe it was the Egyptians. A self-published author by the name of Rex Gilroy claims that he found the Gympie Pyramid in 1975 and went on the record to state that it was the Egyptians that traveled from Africa to build it.

#10 Noah Built The Great Pyramid – False If you Google Noah and Egyptian Pyramids there are published articles that state he was the mastermind behind these mysterious landforms. A publisher by the name of John Taylor in Britain wrote a book titled The Great Pyramid: Why It Was Built and Who Built It. Although critics state he never made the trip to the motherland to see the Pyramid of Giza, he analyzed a photo of it, studied the measurements and came to the conclusion that Noah was the original architect. Egyptians in his eyes have no connection to the pyramids in Africa. He stated, “He who built the Ark was, of all men, the most competent to direct the building of the Great Pyramid.” Not only is this an outrageous statement but it is FALSE. The Ancient Egyptians who came from Nubia and were, in fact, African. It is time to throw this false story out into the garbage.

#11 Fascinating Pyramid Facts You Never Knew – True All the pyramids in Egypt were built precisely on the west bank of the Nile River. It is the exact position where the sun sets in the evening. Egyptologists believe that it was purposely built in this direction by Ancient Egyptians to pay homage to people that die in Egypt. The Pyramid of Cheops is located in the north direction of a compass and is the only structure in the world to achieve this exact direction. Also, it is the oldest seventh wonder of the world and is the highest land mass on the planet. The stones that were used to build the pyramids are made of limestone and reflect the appearance of light from the sun. From far away, it appears that these structures shine similar to a jewel. The exact temperature of the heat inside of the pyramids in this country are 60 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius.

#12 Atlantis Built The Pyramids – False It amazes pyramid fans of the blasphemous claims on the internet about who built the pyramids. In 1882 a Congressman named Ignatius L. Donnelly in Minnesota that admired the legend of Atlantis published his ideas in a book titled Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. He believed that the people of Atlantis had a colony in Egypt and their “civilization was a reproduction of that of the Atlantic island.” He went as far as comparing the pyramids to the land formations found in Mesoamerica. Mesoamerica is an area in South America where the Aztecs and Mayans lived that some scholars in the 19th century believed is linked to Atlantis. To discredit Ignatius, an archaeologist named Kenneth Feder stated that “The pyramids of the Old and New Worlds do not look the same. The construction methods were different; most Egyptian pyramids represent a single development episode, whereas Mesoamerican pyramids usually represent several building events, one on top of another.” If you thought this was true, you might want to let go of this fabrication.

#13 Pyramids of Tenerife, Canary Islands – True In the Canary Islands sit the Pyramids of Tenerife which are made of lava stone. In 1990, in the city of Guimar, the world became aware of these structures. A group of archaeologists completed research and discovered that the Guanches (Spaniards) built these structures in the 19th century. They had to clear and construct the land to make stones that were used to build them. The Guanches were the original native people that discovered the Macaronesian islands before the Europeans, and the Canaries natives also lived on the islands during this time. In this location, there are a total of six pyramids that are 12 meters in height made by Spaniards. All were aligned with the summer solstice with stairways at the top facing the western hemisphere. It means that it was constructed for ceremonial purposes because the stairway suggests people would face the west in the morning to watch the sunrise.

#14 The Great Pyramid of Giza Is the Tallest In the World – False If you haven’t heard this new theory, you need to pay close attention. According to Epoch Times, the tallest pyramid on the planet is in Puebla, Mexico. It is called the Great Pyramid of Cholula and in Spanish, Tlachihualtepet. The definition in Spanish meant an artificial mountain and was once an ancient temple used by the Aztecs. However, Mexican historians are unsure, but some believe it was before the civilization of the Aztecs. The Great Pyramid of Cholula was constructed in seven phases and began in the 3rd century BC ending in the 9th century AD. An archaeologist that works at Boston University named David Carballo mentioned to the BBC that the pyramid is 455 feet taller than the Pyramid of Giza. He believes it is the largest monument in the world. If you were to see the Cholula pyramid in person, you would think it is a mountain because of the grass and trees on the top of it.

#15 False Doors Were A Pathway to the Dead – True Can you imagine being able to move from different dimensions? A false door is an artistic representation of a real one, but it does not function as a door. They were carved on the wall or painted inside of pyramids. False doors are a common architectural element in the tombs of Ancient Egypt and Pre-Nuragic Sardinia. These pieces of artwork are in Etruscan tombs, and during the time of Ancient Rome, they were used in the interiors of houses. The Ancient Egyptians believed that it was a pathway between death and reality where a spirit of the dead could come into the real world and then exit. The false door was the central focus of a tomb’s offering where families would place gifts to the dead in front of the false door. Most are located facing the west, and most of the time a husband and wife were buried behind the door.

Source: TheRichest

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[yamijay357]

Top 10 Movies of 2016

Another year has passed and another Top 10 movie list must follow. I found this year to be a tad weaker than 2015, with many of my picks for this list not coming to theaters until November or December. This year started to show, quality wise at least, the blockbuster fatigue that constant releases in expanded universes (superheroes, especially) can evoke. Fortunately, once I narrowed down my list along with a few honorable mentions, it became very difficult to put them in order, which is usually a sign of some great films. I believe that every movie listed here will be a great addition to one of your movie night queues. So, without further ado...

Honorable Mentions

Deadpool

Superhero movies have flooded our theaters to the point that we’ll soon be getting over half a dozen in a single year. This year they ranged from the painfully mediocre (Batman v. Superman, Doctor Strange) to just bad (Suicide Squad). Deadpool was a nice breath of fresh air as Ryan Reynolds brought the much loved Merc with a Mouth to the screen. Deadpool is funny, lampooning everything from the superhero genre as a whole to the questionable decisions made regarding both previous appearances of Deadpool and the career of Reynolds himself. If only all comic book movies could be this faithful to the spirit of the character.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Another year, another Star Wars movie. This installment was a landmark film for the franchise in that it was the first major release not to focus on the main narrative following the Skywalker family. Instead, we were given the story of how Princess Leia ended up with the Death Star plans she had at the beginning of A New Hope. We get a look at a different side of the universe not particularly focused on magic space wizards but instead on real people fighting the threat of the Empire. Felicity Jones leads a great cast in a solid movie that has one of the best third acts of the franchise. Alan Tudyk stands out as a reprogrammed Imperial droid that is loyal to the Rebellion but throws shade like no other. While not all characters were developed fully, in the end, Rogue One stands as the best blockbuster of 2016.

The Top Ten

10. Manchester by the Sea

Grief is often the hardest thing to sell on screen, so making such a deep theme the focus of your movie is a bit of a risk. However, Kenneth Lonergan deftly writes and directs a unique view of grief for a unique family dynamic. Casey Affleck plays Lee Chandler, a handyman who resides in Boston away from his home of Manchester following a family tragedy. The death of his brother brings him home where he discovers that he is now the guardian of his nephew Patrick, played by Lucas Hedges. The film follows both of the men as they deal with death and all of the complications that come from it. However, their story is both painful and funny, as the movie makes for several reactions that seem all too real to those of us that have lost someone close. While the ending leaves several elements uncertain, Affleck and Hedges give strong performances that give us one of the truest depictions of loss ever set to film.

9. Pete’s Dragon

I hate the original Pete’s Dragon. When I found out a remake was being made the chances of me seeing it were slim. However, when it received several good reviews, I fit it into a four-movie day at the theater, mostly because I was curious. I didn’t expect to walk away with such a satisfied feeling. All of the awkward elements of the original (Animation that stood out in a bad way, sub par musical numbers, and Mickey Rooney) are gone, leaving a wonderful modern fairy tale about an orphaned boy and his invisible dragon friend that hit in all of the right places. Bryce Dallas Howard leads a great cast including Karl Urban, Robert Redford, and promising newcomer Oakes Fegley as Pete. A great story, seamless effects, and an ending that will bring tears to your eyes allows this movie to soar above its predecessor and claim its place on this list.

8. Lion

This movie snuck into theaters near the end of the year and I saw it on New Year’s Eve. It was a pretty great way to end the year. Lion is the true story of Saroo Brierley, an five-year-old Indian boy who, while searching for work with his older brother, gets transported across India to a region that is entirely alien to him, including the language. After Saroo finds his way to an orphanage, he is adopted by a loving Australian couple. 25 years later, Saroo is obsessed with finding out what happened to the family he lost. This may be the most genuine, human film made this year, as the audience feels the panic and fear of a strange new place with young Saroo, and the hope and frustration plaguing his adult counterpart as he searches one of the most populated countries in the world for a single small village. Dev Patel gives his best performance yet as Saroo in a film that will take you on quite the feels trip when both you and Saroo reach the conclusion.

7. Jackie

We all know what happened November 22nd, 1963. But have you ever thought about what the person most affected by that day did in the week that followed? Natalie Portman plays Jackie Kennedy, who is interviewed the week after her husband President Kennedy was assassinated. The movie rests completely on her and she doesn’t disappoint. She completely becomes Kennedy as we see a world that is rocked by loss on both a personal and national level. Kennedy must face everything that comes in the aftermath from being moved out of the White House for the Johnson family to trying to explain to her children why their father won’t come home again. There are times that I forgot I was watching Natalie Portman as I fell into the world captured so perfectly by Pablo Larraín. This film speaks not only to the humanity of Jackie Kennedy, but also to her amazing contribution to the legacy JFK left behind.

6. Arrival

What would happen if we really were visited by alien lifeforms? A history of cheesy and often terrible movies (cough, Independence Day, cough) has built in the assumption that the aliens would be hostile and seek to destroy us. If aliens were to visit, I believe that Arrival shows us the most likely outcome compared to anything else. Amy Adams plays linguistics professor Louise Banks who is called in by the government to try to decipher the communications of alien visitors. Along with a brilliant physicist (Jeremy Renner), Banks must figure out the intentions of the visitors before other countries take hostile actions. This movie does an amazing job of displaying both our actual ignorance of other lifeforms and all of the possible directions we could take with it. In the midst of people not understanding each other, Arrival is a brilliantly made film that speaks to all people.

5. Moonlight

Similar in structure to Steve Jobs, Moonlight consists of three short films focusing on Chiron (aka Little), and his coming of age in a poor neighborhood that has no shortage of drug dealers. As a child, he finds a crack dealer named Juan (Mahershala Ali) who, along with his girlfriend, serve as loving parental figures in the place of his disinterested and drug-addicted mother. Juan helps Chiron trust people, which leads to him sharing an intimate moment with his high school friend Kevin. Circumstances lead to Kevin and Chiron separating but encountering each other as adults, leading to one of the most beautiful ending scenes of the year. Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes give stellar performances as each stage of Chiron’s life. Such a simple story gives way to profound emotions that will resonate with you well after the film is over.

4. Loving

Speaking of simple, there was probably no more simply put-together movie this year than Loving. And yet, it managed to be one of the most profound films of the year. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga play Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose illegal interracial marriage led to the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case that ruled all marriage laws having to do with race unconstitutional. But that is not what the movie is really about. With limited dialogue and politics, Loving focuses almost solely on the relationship of the two main characters and the hardship they have to face from their home state. We learn about their dreams and the lengths they will go to in order to be together. The leads are absolutely fantastic and give you the entire weight of the story while spending only a few minutes of screen time in courtrooms. In a year where several films on this list took my heart, Loving is a true standout.

3. Zootopia

The reason that The Good Dinosaur didn’t succeed as much as everyone thought it would was because it failed to deliver on its premise of a world full of dinosaurs by showing us just a few dinosaurs. Zootopia doesn’t suffer from this problem, as the world of Judy Hopps (Gennifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) is a rich world of animals with different personalities, troubles, and ambitions. This movie would have succeeded as a fun movie on that alone. But Zootopia goes a step further and delivers one of the most profound messages of almost any animated film ever made. It not only highlights the obvious prejudices different groups of people feel toward each other, but also how we may not even be aware of our own unwarranted feelings of distrust and how they can affect people close to us. This was the movie that 2016 needed and that we’ll need for years to come. Also, who wants a full Gazelle album? (Raises hand)

2. La La Land

Earlier this year, when introducing one of my friends to my favorite movie, Singin’ in the Rain, I made the comment that “they don’t make this kind of movie anymore, and it’s sad.” Well, turns out that Damien Chazelle felt the same way and gave us an amazing film that serves as both an homage to the musical genre that preceded it and as a beautiful piece of art that will inspire future artists for years. Emma Stone plays Mia, a girl trying to pursue her acting dreams in LA, along with thousands of other people. She frequently runs into Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), an unemployed jazz musician who dreams of owning his own club. The two chase their dreams together to the tune of the best soundtrack of the year and delightful dance numbers and city backdrops. La La Land succeeds in every technical aspect as Los Angeles is turned into a magical, musical dreamland. Stone and Gosling go beyond their usual charm and give us amazing characters with surprisingly good singing voices that would make Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers proud. And then the ending. Well, if the ending sequence doesn’t fill you with emotion, then you’re probably a robot.

1. Hell or High Water

The biggest surprise of the year for me turned out to be my favorite movie of 2016. Hell or High Water is David Mackenzie’s neo-Western masterpiece that is perhaps the best possible step to take after the Cohen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men. The film shows Chris Pine and Ben Foster playing brothers Toby and Tanner Howard. When their mother dies and Tanner gets out of jail, the bank handling the loan for their mother’s farm seeks to seize the property. In order to pay off the bank that overcharged their mother for years, the brothers begin to pull off small robberies of the local branches. While authorities don’t see it as a priority, the crimes attract the attention of two Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) and a chase across Texas begins. Every performance is incredible in this movie. Chris Pine shows his dramatic chops while giving the best performance of his career (so far) and Jeff Bridges is outstanding beyond even what you would expect. The cinematography shows off the gritty yet beautiful western landscapes yet never loses the scope of how the region has been hit by the advancement of modern times. But the true winner here is the best screenplay of the year as every character is able to draw you into a story that begs questions of morality and loyalty. While La La Land may walk away with all of the awards, Hell or High Water is my pick for Best Film of 2016.