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THE DAY KAY KILLS A MONSTER

This has by far been the rarest adventure yet.

The Amazon was like no other place I had ever been, the lush jungle with fractal moonlight beaming down to the water. It made me feel entrapped. Even the musky hot air seemed to weigh me down.

As I looked past the murky water I was startled, I felt a hand brush my waist. It was David, “you shouldn’t be out here on the deck Kay. It is not safe. We don’t know how long the creature will hold in that cage. Let’s go to bed”

He fell asleep within minutes.

But as we laid in bed I couldn’t help but think about the creature. I know I should be afraid, but there was something that told me not to be. So many times before we have treated the unknown as unequal and I am just not sure if that is right anymore.

I couldn’t go back to sleep. Before I knew it, I was walking up the stairs stepping on to cold deck floor. In a chair next to the cage sat Dr. Thompson.

“Hi, I just thought I’d come up and get some air,” I said as I reached the final step.

His eyes looked sunken in fatigue.

“How ya doin Kay?” he finally mumbled.

Loud screeches began to wail from the trees. I looked at him startled. “Don’t worry those are just hunting birds” he explained.

“Some of them sound like cries of fear” I whispered “I don’t understand why we must keep this creature locked up this way. There is something that makes me feel wrong to do so.”

“I know, Kay. But it’s Mark’s orders.“

After a few moments of silence, he asked “Say, you’ve been working with him for a while now haven’t you? Why haven’t you published your own work yet?”

“Yes, six years”

“I just feel like I will never be able to repay him for the training and job” I sighed.

“Listen here Kay, a good part of his current position at the institute is because of your work”

“I don’t know” I guess I hadn’t thought of that.

But he was right for years now Mark has only been the face of the projects. All these memories came rushing back to me of how he had detached himself from the research but managed to place himself first in the publications.

I couldn’t believe I had let it all go unnoticed.

Then I remembered the night after the Scientific Discovery Banquet back in March. Mark had a couple drinks too many, so I decided to help him up to his room. The whole way up the elevator he began to say how much he liked me and commented on my looks, but it wasn’t until we got to his room that he began to act forcefully. He began to undress me and kiss me. I tried to escape, but his grip was too strong for me. Before I knew it he had me on his bed.

I had blamed that night on the drinks. I never told David. But maybe I should have? I was just so afraid we would both lose our jobs if I said something.

*******

That morning we were awakened by gunshots and the running steps of the crew above us. We ran up to see what had happened.

“The creature has escaped!”

“We must go back and capture him! I am not leaving without him!” Mark demanded.

Captain Lucas looked at him with horror. “We have lost 3 people already. We need to put an end to this.”

“Then we must kill him”

“No! We can’t kill him!” I implored.

“Kay is right. We can’t do that to the poor creature. It was us that invaded him in the first place.”

I could see Mark’s face flush red with anger. “I am the leader of this expedition. We are killing it and bringing it back to camp. Period.”

The rest of the day he continued to bark orders and treat us like animals.

*****                                                                                          

“He is willing to put all of our lives in danger just to grow his prestige” David complained.

“I know sweetheart he must be stopped before we all end up dead.”

Mark burst through the door “Get ready we are going down to its cave!”

They got their gear and dove down.

 30 minutes later and there was still no sign of them.

Then Mark rose from the water.

“Where is David?” I felt my eyes begin to swell up in tears.

“He is dead. The creature got him.”

I fell into tears.

Mark continued to bark orders.

This was all his fault. Mark had ruined our lives.

I felt my hand reach for the handgun that laid next to the bedroom window.

Mark continued to scream his muffled remarks.

He didn’t even stop to mourn his partner.

This is not worth it anymore. He won’t stop until we are all dead.

I felt a cold rush of blood through my body.

Then heard a gunshot.

I looked at Mark and all I could see was the red stain begin to grow on his chest. He clenched his heart, his hands now tainted with blood.

He collapsed.

Everyone began to bustle around me trying to take the gun away.

My eyes were set on him.

The world around me began to go dark, then mute.

Suddenly the air didn’t feel so heavy, I felt relieved and free.

The real monster was now dead.

Reflection:

     When I watched Creature from the Black Lagoon there was one scene that struck me the most and it was when Kay and Dr. Thompson discuss her work with Mark. It is in that moment that the audience finds out about the hard work Kay has done and how Mark has used her to grow his prestige. Although this scene only lasts about 3 minutes, I wanted to use it as the basis of my fanfic. Through a feminist revision, it was my hope to give Kay a voice. I wanted her to realize that she was worth more than the common female portrayal in old Hollywood movies.

     My second focus was to use the fanfic and rewrite it so that it violated the Hayes Code as much as possible. To me, the Hayes Code is a violation for creatures and felt the need to retell the story and give it the justice it deserves. For this purpose, I included Kay and David in bed together, sympathy for the criminal (in this case the creature), rape and even murder.  I was also inspired by The Shape of Water and the character of Dimitri to give sympathy for the creature. Like Dimitri, Kay refuses to allow Mark to kill the creature because she starts to realize that what they are doing is wrong. In my adaptation, I also wanted there to be a focus on human monstrosity, which dictates why Mark is now the villain of the story and Kay, in some weird twisted way, the revengeful heroine.

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Creative Project Rationale

     For my creative project, I was inspired by The Story of Grandmother, Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood, and the Brothers Grimm’s Little Red Cap. In these stories, Little Red Riding Hood is always subject to the wolf’s hostile actions, but beneath that, they also share themes of rape, bestiality, and pedophilia. It was my goal to portray these themes, but through a creative adaptation that was more relevant today. Thus, I envisioned the folktale into Instagram accounts that illustrate the dangers people now face. In my adaptation I decided to portray the dangerous woods as Instagram, a place full of unknowns and unlimited in its size, that is yet alluring to those who wish to be deceived. Through this retelling, the viewer gets a conceptual expression of how now a day when you have a public social media account there are predators that may stalk you. In some cases, these predators have been known to go beyond their screens and harass the users in forms such as rape or bullying. Here Little Red Riding Hood is a typical user who falls victim to the wolf’s hostile predation.

            I first began by creating the account for Little Red Riding Hood (little_red1131). My focus of this account was to honor the use of red in the original stories and embody what a typical adolescent girl may post through a partially gothic tone. I was inspired by many of the fashion bloggers I personally follow to create a theme for the placement of the images, which eventually lead me to the idea of placing pictures of the woods between those that expressed the tale. The use of the tree images gives the viewer an illusion that they are going through the woods searching for the next plot scene. Apart from the thematic placement I also use the black and white color scheme in contrast with the bold pops of red in the pictures as another way to manifest cohesiveness. Additionally, the use of a black and white theme fabricates a creepy and chilling tone that alludes to the old tale and it also functions as a natural highlight for the bold red accents that I used to adorn the images to represent Little Red Riding Hood. Furthermore, while editing the pictures I chose to heighten the whites because I wanted the purity of Little Red Riding Hood that the original stories address to still be present. The stark whites also give the illusion of snow on the trees, which is commonly incorporated in the story’s adaptations.

      The actual posts themselves mostly follow the original storyline, however, since I wanted to do this retelling through Little Red Riding Hood’s perspective I decided to make some adjustments. The first post is of a red mug and the following is of old books, I wanted these pictures and captions to give the viewer more of a background on Little Red since the original stories are told from a more omnipresent point of view. As the story progresses the captions start to share more personal thoughts paralleling the events that the “wolf” has committed his attack. I chose to convey the wolf’s original attack in a more abstracted manner, through its comments and likes, similarly to how a stalker would in social media. However, I didn’t want to outline the entire course of actions because if this happens in real life the viewers of the account don’t see the possible harassment since those may happen through private messages or meetings. This also brings up the debate of whether your account should be private or public. I want viewers to leave with an expanded perspective about the possible dangers produced by either form of account and their actions. Lastly, I want to elaborate on some of the abstracted content I mentioned before. In the last 3 plot pictures, there is a lot of latent content that hints at the themes of the original stories. The red sweater on the floor is a reference to The Story of Grandmother in which the wolf asks Little Red Riding Hood to take off her clothes and throw them into the fire. That picture’s caption is “It was unexpected. It was unwanted. It hurt” which addresses a possible rape or harassment has been done, and it is also the first picture that the wolf account doesn’t like. The next picture is that of the cherry and when I took this picture I wanted the shadow to allude to a possible “other”. The cherry is also a reference to the possible loss of her virginity and it is slightly blurred to parallel the account of the wolf. Finally, the account ends with “The Mark of The Beast” this is my way to delineate how this predator has left an unforgettable mark on the person.  

          The second account I created was the wolf’s (modern_day_wolf). This account also has a placement theme, the middle column is only wolf relate images (the only images I didn’t personally take). I chose the middle column because I wanted it to signify the person’s inner bestiality and a problem with the self. These images are encapsulated by blurred cool toned pictures of chilling urban environments. I choose to blur these images to allude to the wolf’s deceiving qualities and to the fact that the wolf could be anywhere in hiding (even the supermarket). The only picture that is not blurred is the middle wolf that stares into the viewer and that is because I wanted it to be clear that this account was the wolf’s and create a contrast between the other posts. This account is also accompanied by disturbing captions that sometimes bleed into little red’s account as comments. The last post has the eeriest caption “It's not my end. There are always others” serving to elaborate on how he is not the only predator that lives in the forest that is Instagram and that sometimes there are no saviors.

         The moral at the end of Perrault’s story was that you shouldn’t listen to strangers, making it very fitting to adapt the story as Instagram accounts. The dangers of social media are real and are sometimes masked by the enchanting posts, which is why I wanted to do this form of adaptation of the Little Red Riding Hood. It was also an interesting photography challenge to depict the tale through images. Lastly, I chose to not incorporate faces into the images because I want to underline just how anyone can fall victim to this type of new age harassment.

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Final Project: Wolf Instagram account

https://www.instagram.com/modern_day_wolf/?hl=en

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Final Project: Little Red Riding Hood Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/little_red1131/

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Jennifer’s Body // Ginger Snaps

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The Shape of Water (2017) directed by Guillermo del Toro

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Draco: I was watching this film on the vitellysion you should watch. It's about a mermaid who falls in love with a human prince. So she goes to an octopus like evil witch...

Harry: Are you talking about "The Little Mermaid"?

Draco: Yes! Have you watched it?

Harry: It's a child's film

Draco: Yeah, sure, as if a child would undertand the complexity of a interspecies tranfiguration and the power of a magical contract

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100 aesthetic summer challenge

#17 red hair in disney (I chose 5) for @rhysandshighlady

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When he looks at me, he does not know how I am incomplete. 

He sees me as I am

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Congrats The Shape Of Water for their Best Picture win at The Oscars.

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The Shape of Water

When I watch a movie, there are 3 things that can happen 1. I hate it 2. I think it is okay, but I completely forget about it 15 minutes later 3. I love it because it manages to change/expand my perspective, whether that be on a moral or artistic scale.  Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water successfully falls into the third category for it enhances my perspective on love and lack of social representation. It is just such a creative and innovative story that captures so much in such a limited time frame. One of the main things that caught my attention was how although the main monster was the creature all the other main characters were also “monsters” of their society in some way: Eliza is mute, Zelda is an African-American woman, Giles is gay, Dr. Hoffstetler is a Russian spy, and Richard Strickland is missing 2 fingers. To me, this is Del Toro’s way of illustrating how we are all (metaphorically) monsters. All different, but the same which is why we shouldn’t ostracize ourselves because we feel differently and instead join to help each other grow. I think that this is a theme that fits so seamlessly into our society today. Another thing that really interested me was the movie’s color palette. After doing some research of my own I discovered that the movie was originally going to be in black and white. I am so happy that idea was scrapped because the use of greens and reds speaks so warmly to my artistic heart. For one green and red are complementary colors, meaning they have a strong contrast (making each other appear brighter) and harmony this may parallel to the relationship of the creature and Eliza. The stark color usage also brings to life the gloominess of their lives and strengthens the theme of water even to its murkiness. Overall, this film to me resembled the creature: weird, creepy, strange, but beautiful.

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// directed by Guillermo del Toro

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Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere. The Shape of Water (2017) dir. Guillermo del Toro

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The Shape of Water (2017) retro 50′s style

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