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dorizardthewizard · 3 years

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The Revival of Akillian: Chapter 12

Prologue / Chapter 11 / Chapter 13

12. TIA ARRESTED

Without Tia and her mastery of Breath, the game ended rather badly for the Snow Kids: 4-1 to the Wambas. But, anyway, their hearts were no longer in it. Great players, the Wambas preferred to play without their captain in the second half. Surprisingly, Aarch did not replace Tia with Micro-Ice, who therefore remained on the sidelines, or rather in the coach’s pod, watching his team concede two more goals: a “gift” from the Wambas, who could have so easily scored ten if they had continued to give it their all. But, out of respect for their diminished opponents, they mutually decided to no longer use the Roar in order to put themselves at the level of the Snow Kids, that is to say, at ground level. Despite all that, their strength and skill, their experience and their technical superiority made the difference...

During the return trip to Akillian aboard the Tanaga, the Snow Kids are discussing their first experience playing at a professional level over a game of GF-Cards.

- If the Red Tigers are also gonna play physically in the next game, we’d better watch out for our ankles… - notes Micro-Ice.

- You’ve got nothing to worry about, - taunts Sinedd. - Nobody will come and tackle you on the sidelines!

Dame Simbai comes out of the sleeping cabin, her medicine bag still slung over her shoulder.

- I changed Tia’s bandage, her shin is springing back into place, - she tells Aarch. - As for her... electroshock, if I can call it that, if she doesn’t use the Breath for a while, it will soon just be a bad memory...

- Thanks for everything, Simbai. - replies Aarch, taking her hand. - We lost a game, but we gained a tremendous carer.

- Oh, I’m only doing my duty… (she turns to Rocket) Tia is bored, she’s feeling a little lonely.

- I’ll go.

Micro-Ice follows Rocket with his gaze, which he then turns to Mei, who is immersed in a fashion newscast. He sighs... D’jok brings him back to reality:

- Your turn, Micro-Ice.

Clamp calls Aarch and asks him to join him in the cockpit.

- What’s the matter, Clamp? Is there a problem?

- No. Everything is fine. I was just wondering. Don’t you find it weird, this assault on Tia? The Wambas don’t usually play like that...

- I know that very well. I keep thinking about it, it haunts me. Tia has exceptional abilities, she masters the Breath, she is a great asset for the team!

- You don’t think someone would want to…

Clamp does not finish his sentence, gaze fixed on the controls. Aarch stares at him, then loses his gaze in the endless expanse of space, illuminated by the white glow of Vega, the Akillian sun, growing in the window screen. “This is absurd,” he thinks. “The Snow Kids are beginners: what is at stake, what threat can they represent? Who can begrudge them to the point of trying to eliminate their best player? … Artegor could not have fallen so low, could he?”

***

In his large office in the luxurious Confederation building on Akillian, Artegor Nexus is in transpace contact with Wouwambou, who he managed to reach with some difficulty: the captain of the Wambas, having returned to his family, did not wish to communicate with anybody… not with Artegor Nexus, at least. But, thanks to his contact there - a servant he once employed when he played for the Shadows - Artegor was able to track him down anyway.

- It is to my knowledge that little Tia should recover pretty quickly. - he tells him.

- Ah! - answers Wouwambou, not hiding his satisfaction.

- Are you relieved?

- Me? Uh, no…

This “no” has a hard time crossing the Wamba Captain’s lips, which, in spite of himself, curl into a shadow of a smile.

- In that case, you won’t blame me if I keep the remaining amount? - Artegor concludes, waving a large wad of credits in front of the screen, under Wouwambou’s nose.

- Save your money, Artegor. I don’t want to deal with you anymore.

With that, Wouwambou cuts off the communication. Nexus shrugs then turns to the Wamba servant, who has traded in his purple quasi-slave rags for a strict, classy costume - the one he wore when working in embassies or for wealthy stars like Artegor Nexus. The latter gives him the bundle of credits.

- Here, you’ve earned it. Will this sum allow you to free yourself from your bondage among the Wambas?

- Certainly, sir. - the servant nods with a bow. - Besides, I do not intend to return to that cursed planet.

- That’s a shame... I’ll have to find another informant. In any case, thanks to you, Aarch will have to do without his little wonder forever... if your memory serves correct, and Tia is indeed the daughter of the diplomats, as you say.

- My memory never deceives me, sir. - replies the servant with another bow.

- That’s what I pay you for…

With the servant gone, Artegor turns to his console for another communication - local, this time:

- Arcadia Police, what can I do for you, sir?

- Give me the captain, it’s very urgent.

- What is this about, sir?

- This is to report a runaway...

***

As the Snow Kids return to Akillian, and the Tanaga begins maneuvering to approach the Obia moon’s spaceport, a curious little bird-shaped ground-space shuttle slowly descends into the bluish night of Arcadia, its glowing support spheres on the wings and fuselage. She hovers over the old Arena Stadium, opens a kind of beak and “spits out” three men in midnight blue outfits. Supported by their anti-gravity belts, they fall smoothly on the stadium crusted by ice. From there, they run towards the technical tower, closed behind a massive steel door. One of them alerts through a com:

- We’re here, Corso. Nothing to report.

A fourth joins them, massive, wrapped in a thick anorak. He has vaguely Asian features, his left eye obscured by a multi-frequency viewfinder.

- Activate your jammers. - he orders.

The three midnight blue men switch on devices attached to their wrists. Corso, the fourth, slabs a pebble-shaped gadget on the steel door, with buttons that he presses in a certain order. After a few seconds, the door slides open, but the men do not enter; they wait for their leader, who shows up without delay. He wears a red jacket, gray trousers tucked into lined boots, a gray hooded scarf and round UV-resistant glasses to mask his features. As soon as he’s inside the building, he pulls down his hood and lifts his glasses...

This face – a square jaw adorned with three beard lines, brown eyes under thick blond eyebrows, short blond hair, two rings adorning his left ear - millions of holo-viewers see it every day on the TTV channels: it’s Sonny Blackbones, the leader of the Pirates.

The one who opened the doors to the Arena Stadium for him is Flint Corso, his faithful second in command.

As soon as they enter the dark bowels of the stadium, Blackbones and his Pirates walk steadily toward the renovation site, guided by a map that Corso consults. He assigns the Pirates their mission: to dismantle as much machinery as possible, as quickly as possible. Once these have been reduced to parts, he will transmit a coded signal to the shuttle pilot, who will then send an anti-gravity platform to recover this precious cargo.

While his men are working diligently, Sonny continues his exploration, entering the room marked HOLO-TRAINING. He whistles in admiration in front of the holo-trainer’s large white cube: high-tech, he notes with a shrewd gaze. It sells for a lot on the black market, that kind of stuff... he goes to the consoles, which are in standby mode: he has to turn it off first without crashing the system.

In the construction site, one of the Pirates activates the general Scrap Metal control panel and plugs in a copier-analyzer: it is better to save the software before dismantling, because that too can be resold.

- It’s weird, - he remarks. - This doesn’t look like Technoid programs...

- Neither does this stuff, - adds another Pirate, screwdriver in hand. - Apart from a few components... if so, we got the wrong customer!

- It doesn’t matter. - snaps Corso. – We’re taking everything on board. Move it, guys!

In the holo-trainer’s room, Blackbones activates a console which, of course, prompts him for a password. He is about to call Corso so he can bring his debugger (the “pebble” which he used to open the door, capable of deciphering a million codes per second), when his eyes are drawn to a line of small characters displayed in the identification window:

Authorized user: Pr Clamp.

Sonny’s eyes go wide open, and he immediately commands over the general frequency:

- Don’t touch anything!

- What? – Corso freezes, astonished, an iron pole in hand.

- I said don’t touch anything! Is that clear? Not a single bolt should come out of this place!

- But Sonny, you know we need this material, it’s our livelihood!

A Pirate suddenly runs towards Corso, his hand on his ear:

- Flint, alert! I just picked up the frequency of the police, they sent a shuttle here!

- What?! I don’t understand! We activated the jammers, there’s no way they could have found us!

- Everybody out! – yells Sonny in his com.

Drawn into hasty retreat, the Pirates let go of the parts and fall back in order, efficient and swift. They tumble into the open air at the edge of the Arena Stadium and jump into the void, activating their anti-gravity belts: they trust the pilot of their shuttle to retrieve them a few tens of meters below...

Which is exactly what happens, with timing that suggests years of experience. The five Pirates rush into the shuttle, which skilfully navigates the labyrinth of ice in the ruined city: not the time to appear in the sky and be spotted by the police...

- There is another shuttle approaching. - informs the pilot, leaning over his instruments. - According to its emission code, this is a spaceport taxi.

- We shouldn’t have been spotted, these cops aren’t coming for us. - Flint Corso guesses. - Better to wait quietly until they have settled their little affairs...

- Okay, you hide us and shut everything off. - commands Blackbones to the pilot.

***

Dawn breaks over Arcadia, showering the snow with a pearly rose light, as the shuttle taxi arrives in sight of the ruined city. The pilot’s voice suddenly sounds in the cockpit, waking up the sleepy Snow Kids (except Ahito - nothing wakes him up):

- Mr. Aarch, I just got a call from the Akillian police ordering me to go straight to the Arena Stadium, where they are waiting for you. I have to comply, but I wanted to warn you...

- Thank you. - Aarch answers calmly. - Maybe there was a burglary or damage to the stadium?

He thinks with concern about Ballow and his henchmen, who have not shown themselves since their last appearance at the trials. He wouldn’t put it past those cowards to come and destroy everything in his absence...

D’jok, Thran and Sinedd turn to Micro-Ice suspiciously.

- What are you looking at me for? - he defends himself. - I had nothing to do with this, it’s not me for once!

Sitting next to Tia, whose leg is bandaged with Wamba plants and stretched out on a pillow, Rocket sees her turn pale and clasp her head in her hands. He guesses why the police are here, but he can’t say anything, not without Tia’s permission anyway...

The taxi lands in front of the main entrance to the Arena Stadium, next to the police shuttle whose searchlight turns tirelessly, shooting a thousand shards of light at the surrounding ice walls. Aarch and Clamp go down first, as the responsible adults of the team. A helmeted policeman in riot gear (as if there were some fighting going on) gives Aarch a military salute and hands him a 2D photo.

- We’re looking for this girl. We know she’s part of your team.

The coach frowns: it’s a picture of Tia.

- That’s right. - he admits. - May I know why you are looking for her?

- She ran away from her parents, the ambassadors of Obia.

- What?! I received their authorization by holo-card...

The Snow Kids get out of the taxi, which immediately takes off again. Tia walks over to Aarch, hobbling on her crutch, supported by Rocket.

- They weren’t my parents, - she explains. - Just conmen that I paid to play this role. I wanted to be a part of your team so much… I’m so sorry…

She bursts into tears. Rocket wraps a protective arm around her.

- But, come on, Tia, there... there must be a way...

- You don’t know my parents!

- Excuse me, young man. - interrupts the policeman, who pushes Rocket away and grabs Tia by the arm.

Flanked by two cops, she is led to the police shuttle. The airlock closes on her, and the shuttle flies off into the pale dawn sky without further protest.

A short distance away, hidden in the shadow of the Soustra Tower, the Pirate ship waits, all engines extinguished, to save energy. Planted at the end of a wing, Sonny Blackbones watches the scene outside the entrance to Arena Stadium through binoculars. He sees the policemen conversing with a big strong man, then embarking with a girl who limps on a crutch.

- You were right, Corso, - he says to his second in command, who joins him. - The cops weren’t looking for us.

He moves his binoculars over the group massed in front of the shuttle, who look visibly crestfallen: apart from the big burly man, they’re all just kids… but… Sonny focuses on the short and stocky guy, with gray, crazy locks, a goatee on his chin, and big eyes behind tinted glasses. He zooms in, then stalls the image.

- Clamp? No, it… it can’t be… it can’t be him… - he mumbles in bewilderment.

- What’s going on, Sonny? – inquires Corso. – You look like you saw a ghost!

- A ghost, yes! A ghost from the past... from another life.

#galactik football #the revival of akillian #a while ago someone showed me a page that showed each character and their voice actor which listed corso's first name as flint #im guessing this is where it came from?#i like it #lmao even sinedd is accusing mice of illegal stuff #galactik football translations

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 4 years

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Press: A Thorough Breakdown of All the Marvel Easter Eggs on WandaVision

POPSUGAR: WandaVision has finally arrived, and it’s chock-full of hidden goodies for Marvel fans to devour! While the series is built upon a mystery that we’ll be spending a reported nine episodes trying to figure out, the smallest details in each episode provide clues on where the show is heading. From supermarket banners to foreboding commercials, viewers have an abundance of references and callbacks to classic comic lore and pivotal MCU moments. Are they setting the stage for a big reveal at the end, or are they just fun details included for fans to enjoy? While we try to figure it all out, scroll through to see what we’ve gathered! And check back every week for an episode-by-episode breakdown as WandaVision progresses.

WandaVision Episode 7 Easter Eggs

The episode opens the morning after Wanda has expanded the border of the Hex, finding the Avenger hiding from the world under her comforter. The comforter in question has a hexagon pattern, which is both a nod to the overall theme of the show as well as a metaphor for how Wanda is literally hiding away under a hex.

Billy and Tommy run into the room to reveal that their video game console has been messing up. Everything in the house is glitching, trying to transform back to earlier versions of themselves.

Billy also tells his mother that his head hurts and things are “noisy.” Since the twin inherited his mother’s ability to read minds, it seems he’s able to hear the thoughts of everyone in the bubble (and near it on the outside, since he was able to hear his father when he was dying). It’s a sign that Billy’s powers are growing, which means we could see the little boy reach his Wiccan potential before the end of the season.

Wanda wanders into the kitchen as the news drones on in the background. The news station is called W.N.D.A. or Wanda. The newscaster makes pointed comments, noting that there’s “not a thing weighing heavily on your conscience,” and that they “hope your little ghosts arrived home safe last night. It’s always such a treat to see those creepy kiddos out and about once a year.” The comments refer to Wanda’s building guilt at her actions in the previous episode and the rare appearance of children during the Halloween episode.

As Wanda makes her breakfast of “Sugar Snaps,” a nod to the big Snap of the universe, her milk carton reverts from its modern design to the old school glass bottle and back. The carton has a missing person’s ad on the back with a picture of a little boy on the back. This could be a reference to the oft-mentioned absence of children of Westview, and what could have happened to them.

Wanda and the twins “break the fourth wall” frequently to talk to the camera in the same vein as Modern Family.

This week’s theme song sounds similar to The Office’s, which also usings talking head segments like Modern Family. The opening credits are similar to the show Happy Endings and allude to the show’s focus on Wanda, even attributing the creation of WandaVision to her with the title image. Vision is notably completely absent from the opening credits, but there’s a clue that someone else is watching in a message that reads, “I know what u are doing Wanda.”

Agnes stops by to take the boys off of Wanda’s hands, which the exhausted mother is exceedingly grateful for. The twins are visibly uncomfortable with the idea, with Tommy asking Wanda if they have to and Billy telling his mother that someone has to stay to take care of her. It seems like they can sense that something is off with their “kindly” neighbor.

Wanda sends them off with Agnes, but once they’re gone, her magic goes incredibly haywire. All the furniture begins glitching again, with the stork from the painting in episode three making a reappearance. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Wanda laments during a talking head segment. “Why it’s all falling apart and why I can’t fix it.” The off-screen interviewer responds, “Do you think maybe it’s what you deserve?” which visibly unnerves Wanda, who notes that they aren’t supposed to speak. It’s another sign that Wanda does not have as much control as she’s been led to believe.

Cue the sixth commercial, and it’s even more pointed than any of the others have been. It’s an ad for the antidepressant Nexus, for “when the world doesn’t revolve around you. Or does it?” The drug allows people to anchor themselves to the reality of their choice with side effects that include “feeling your feelings, confronting your truth, seizing your destiny, and possibly more depression.” Whew, the pointed commentary is even making me sweat. Nexus is a nod to two things: Wanda’s crippling inability to deal with the trauma she’s been through and her depression that’s pushed her into the creation of Westview, and two Marvel comics concepts. The first is the Nexus of All Realities is a kind of gateway point between dimensions from which all universes in the multiverse can be accessed. (Remember, Wanda’s next reported appearance is in Multiverse of Madness.) The second concept is the existence of Nexus beings, people who have powers that can alter reality, probability, and the Universal Time Stream. Guess which two Westview residents are considered Nexus beings? That’s right, Wanda and Vision! The commercial can either be just a cheeky nod to the couple’s seemingly infinite power or an allusion to the bigger picture that WandaVision is leading to.

While Darcy and Vision are attempting to make their way to the house, the doctor gives the synthezoid a brief rundown of his origin story, explaining how he died twice in an attempt to save the world. Vision points out that it seems like someone is trying to keep him from getting home, which spurs him to fly off, leaving Darcy behind in the blocked truck.

Billy and Tommy are watching Yo Gabba Gabba in Agnes’s lowkey creepy home. (It tickles me that Yo Gabba Gabba is more canon in the MCU than the X-Men or Fantastic Four right now.) While Billy pets Agnes’s bunny Señor Scratchy, he notes that he likes being around the older woman because he’s unable to hear any of her thoughts. “You’re quiet inside,” he says, an allusion to the idea that Agnes can hide her thoughts from him because she has magic.

Back outside the Hex, after the super-rover isn’t able to penetrate the field, Monica decides to run through it again. As she struggles through the barrier and we watch her, a montage of dialogue from Captain Marvel plays. The voices of Maria, Nick Fury, and Carol play over Monica getting through, and as Captain Marvel says “when they were handing out little kids, your mom got the toughest one,” Monica she pushes through to the other side. She lands in the stereotypical three-point-stance of all Marvel heroes, and her eyes glow, showing that she can see energy. We just witnessed the rise of Photon, folks! (Or Spectrum or Pulsar.)

Monica confronts Wanda in her home, and as their fight spills onto the lawn, the residents of Westview watch from their own homes. The delivery man is wearing a “Presto Delivery” uniform, a reference to the magic words said by magicians before they pull a magic trick.

In the first blatant show of Agnes’s ulterior motives, the older woman stops the fight when she realizes Monica is getting through to Wanda and pulls the young mother into her home. But when Wanda gets there, she notices the green bug and rabbit in the living room and the lack of her sons’ presence. When she asks Agnes where the boys are, she’s told to head to the basement, where the big showdown occurs. The scene hints at the eventual disappearance of Billy and Tommy.

Wanda notices a book on an altar, which could be the Darkhold, also known as The Book of Sins, The Shiatra Book Of The Damned. Originally a collection of papers known as the Chthon Scrolls, the book contains all the spells and ideas of the evil Elder God known as Chthon. The book is a conduit for Chthon’s power and can open a doorway from Earth to Chthon’s dimension. If that book is in Agnes’s basement, it stands to logic that she may be working with the evil god. The Darkhold emits an orange glow, which is a distinctly different color than the purple of Agatha’s magic.

Speaking of magic, Agnes finally reveals herself as the witch we’ve known her to be. Although the show tells us that “it’s been Agatha all along,” it still doesn’t ring completely true. There’s definitely more at work than just Agatha’s magic.

In the mid-credits sequence, Monica is caught snooping in Agnes’s backyard by Pietro. Her eyes seem to glow purple, the same color that signals Agatha’s magic. Does this mean she’s now under the witch’s spell?

WandaVision Episode 6 Easter Eggs

The opening credits for episode six seem to be a tribute to Malcolm in the Middle, which ran for seven seasons between 2000 and 2006.

The entire Wanda and Vision family wear their comic book character costumes for Halloween.

There’s another reference to Thanos’s snap as Director Tyler Hayward talks about dealing with the repercussions of all the people “who left.”

The terrifying Yo-Magic commercial seems to foreshadow Vision’s future. Even though Wanda was seemingly able to bring Vision back to life, it looks like he won’t stay alive for long as it’s implied that he can’t exist outside of the Hex later in the episode.

Blink and you’ll miss the fun Disney movie Easter egg on Westview’s movie theater. The sign outside the theater shows a double feature of The Incredibles and The Parent Trap. Connecting right to Wanda’s family, The Incredibles is about a family of superheroes, while The Parent Trap is about a pair of long-lost twins reuniting.

Wanda’s changing accent has been brought up countless times by fans, and in episode six, Pietro makes a slight reference to it when Wanda asks, “What happened to your accent?” to which he quips, “What happened to yours?”

There is another reference that Agnes is actually Agatha Harkness as she is spotted wearing a witch costume on Halloween.

It appears that Vision has no memories pre-Westview, as a conscious Agnes tells him he’s one of the Avengers, and he has no clue what she’s talking about.

The episode further hints at Monica’s powers as Darcy confirms that the Hex rewrote her cells on a molecular level.

A few interactions between Pietro and Wanda have fans wondering if he might actually be Mephisto in disguise. Not only is he fully aware about Wanda creating Westview, but he makes several references to the devil and hell throughout the episode.

WandaVision Episode 5 Easter Eggs

Wanda and Vision’s brand new house, suitable for a family of four, is reminiscent of homes in ’80s sitcoms such as Full House and Growing Pains.

When Agnes comes in to offer her babysitting help, she refers to herself as “Auntie Agnes,” which is eerily close to her comic counterpart’s nickname, Auntie Agatha.

An uncomfortable break in conversation leads Agnes to ask Wanda if she wants her to “take it from the top.” Though Wanda appears confused for a moment, she readily smoothes the conversation and carries on. Vision is visibly perturbed, though Wanda attempts to redirect his attention. It seems like the facade is fading all around.

To the surprise of their parents, Tommy and Billy age up five years while the two argue over Agnes’s break in character.

This episode’s opening sequence shows Wanda and Vision growing up, which we know didn’t happen in real life for the synthezoid. The theme song sounds very similar to those from Family Ties and Growing Pains, and consists of lyrics noting that “we’re just making it up as we go along.” Sounds pretty close to how things are going with Wanda and Vision!

When Wanda’s scans come back, they’re inconclusive and show up blank. Considering Monica gains her powers due to bombardment by extradimensional energies in the comics, it’s entirely possible that the blast from Wanda back in episode three, coupled with passing through the forcefield around Westview twice, have given her those abilities. We could be seeing the rise of Photon!

While Jimmy Woo is explaining Wanda’s backstory to the agents of S.W.O.R.D., Director Hayward asks if she’s ever used a “funny nickname” like the other Avengers. She hasn’t, in fact, she’s never been referred to as Scarlet Witch in the MCU ever. Since her powers are different from her comic book counterpart, there’s never been a reason for anyone to call her a witch.

That never-before-seen post credits scene from Infinity War has officially made its debut. Director Hayward reveals footage of Wanda entering S.W.O.R.D. headquarters to steal Vision’s disassembled body. The video harks back to a moment in the comics where Vision was kidnapped and taken apart — but still very much alive. Much like that Vision, the one in Westview has his memory wiped and doesn’t remember anything before he woke up in his new world. So, the question is whether Vision is actually alive or not. Wanda’s hallucination from episode four might suggest he’s a walking corpse, but there’s more to the story.

Jimmy mentions that Wanda’s stealing of Vision’s body violates the Sokovia Accords, which haven’t been mentioned since Captain America: Civil War. Unfunnily enough, the Accords were a direct response to the mission gone wrong in Lagos where Wanda lost control of her powers and caused the death of many civilians.

Darcy mentions that Vision is playing “Father Knows Best in Surburbia,” referencing the ’50s sitcom.

Tommy and Billy find a dog that, with the help of Auntie Agnes, they name Sparky. The Vision family has a dog with that exact name in the King and Walta comics, but he’s green. Sadly, he meets a similar fate as his live-action counterpart.

Wanda blatantly uses her powers in front of Agnes, who has seemingly handled the magic around her with ease. It’s almost as if she’s used to magic.

Darcy calls the Westview anomaly the “hex” because of its hexagonal shape. Although the magic has been taken out of the phrase, Wanda’s powers are known as hexes in the comics.

Jimmy, Monica, and Darcy try to understand how Wanda can revive Vision and control the Hex, which takes much more power than she’s ever displayed before. Monica notes that Wanda has always been powerful, being the only Avenger who was close to taking down Thanos singlehandedly, which Jimmy interjects to note that Captain Marvel could as well. Both are empowered by Infinity Stones, with Carol’s Kree biology giving her a power boost.

When Jimmy brings up Captain Marvel, Monica is visibly uncomfortable and changes the subject back to Wanda. What happened there?

Vision’s office mates learn about the sweet glory that is dial-up internet! But when he and Norm open their first bit of electronic mail, it’s a transmission picked up from S.W.O.R.D. talking about the Maximoff anomaly.

Vision breaks through Norm’s conditioning, revealing that he’s under the control of a woman (alluding to it being Wanda). He directly references his family, a conversation that Jimmy mentioned in his notes in the last episode.

The twins have aged themselves up to 10 by this point and are seemingly completely aware that Wanda has control over certain aspects of life, like time. They point out that it was Saturday when they woke up, but Wanda says it’s now Monday. She apparently changed the day to send Vision to work. Is their awareness because they also have magic or because she doesn’t control them?

Monica sends an ’80s drone into Westview after working out that Wanda’s Hex is rewriting reality to suit each era occurring in the bubble, and the drone would need no era-appropriate change. Though she attempts to speak with Wanda through the drone, Director Hayward commands agents to fire a missile at Wanda instead — directly ignoring that Monica said she doesn’t see Wanda as a danger. The action results in Wanda leaving the Hex and confronting the S.W.O.R.D. agents outside. She’s wearing the suit we last saw her wearing in Infinity War and Endgame and has her accent back, although it’s much thicker than it’s been since Ultron.

Episode five’s commercial is more pointed than any of them have been. Lagos brand paper towels directly reference the city in which Wanda accidentally killed several people in Civil War by blowing up a building. Thus, the Sokovia Accords were born.

While Wanda and the twins are searching for a missing Sparky — with no one calling out the fact that Wanda disappeared for some time — the mailman tells the boys that their mom “won’t let him get far.” It seems almost like a dig at how no one can leave Westview, like the doctor mentioned during episode three.

When Agnes reveals that Sparky died after eating too many azalea bush leaves, the boys ask their mother to reverse his death. Agnes seems particularly surprised by the idea of Wanda having that ability despite having seen other displays of her power and watching the twins age up rapidly twice. Wanda tells the twins that they can’t reverse death as there are still rules to things, which almost seems hypocritical considering her circumstances. Is she trying to say that she hasn’t revived Vision? Or is she simply trying to keep her boys from expecting too much from her?

Later that night, Vision reveals that he unearthed Norm’s repressed memories and demands to know what’s going on. He tells Wanda that she can’t control him, which she cooly responds asking him, “Can’t I?” Although the credits start rolling, their argument continues as Vision unleashes his frustration with not knowing his past and his confusion over their circumstances. Wanda tells him that she doesn’t control everything, saying, “I don’t even know how all of this started.” Vision believes it began subconsciously, but chastises Wanda for letting it get that far. Wanda reiterates that she isn’t controlling everything, which gives weight to the theory that there’s someone else behind the scenes. But who could it be if Wanda isn’t the “she” that Norm was referring to?

Mid-argument, the Vision family doorbell rings, which Wanda states she didn’t do. I’m inclined to believe her because when she opens the door, she is genuinely shocked speechless. At the door is her “brother” Pietro, now sporting the face of Evan Peters. Darcy asks the question we were all thinking as the episode closes, “She recast Pietro!?”

WandaVision Episode 4 Easter Eggs

This episode opens with the heartbreaking reveal that Monica Rambeau was one of the people lost to the Snapture from Infinity War. She returns from Endgame’s Reverse-Snap in a hospital where she had been awaiting news after her mother Maria’s surgery.

As Monica is waking up, we hear familiar voices echoing in her head. It’s Captain Marvel calling her by her childhood nickname, Lieutenant Trouble.

As Monica weaves through the chaos of people reappearing in the hospital post-Reverse-Snap, she finally locates someone who recognizes her. Although Maria survived the surgery five years ago, she died from cancer three years ago in real time, having not been blipped with her daughter.

We finally have some information on S.W.O.R.D.! The acronym stands for Sentient Weapon Observation Response Division, rather than the meaning in Marvel comics, which is Sentient World. It sounds a little more ominous, right?

Maria’s badass legacy continues well past her friendship with Captain Marvel; according to S.WO.R.D.’s acting director, Tyler Hayward, Maria helped build the agency during its inception. She was the acting director until her death.

Tim gives Monica a mission to help out the FBI in the town of WestView, NJ, where something super freaky is going on with a missing person’s case. This confirms that WestView is, indeed, a very real place.

Welcome back, Jimmy Woo! Monica’s FBI contact is none other than Scott Lang’s parole officer and semifriend, Agent Jimmy Woo.

Jimmy reveals that a person in witness protection has somehow dropped off the map in a town that no longer seems to exist where no one recalls anyone who lived there. In an attempt to figure out what’s going on, Monica sends in a S.W.O.R.D. drone that vanishes inside the forcefield. It’s revealed to have transformed into the retro-style helicopter that Wanda picks up in episode two! We can only assume that since it’s an item from the outside world, it gained color when it entered Wanda’s reality to show that it doesn’t belong.

Darcy Lewis is back! Now a doctor in astrophysics, Darcy is called to help figure out what’s gone wrong with WestView. She’s the one who figured out a signal for the broadcast and is the owner of the hand we saw watching Wanda and Vision in episode one.

The mysterious beekeeper from episode two is revealed to be S.W.O.R.D.’s Agent Franklin, who journeyed through Westview’s sewers to investigate. His hazmat suit became a beekeeper’s uniform, and the cable around his waist becomes a jump rope as he travels through the tunnels.

Darcy explains that the sitcom that’s become Wanda and Vision’s life is literally being broadcast through the signals that S.W.O.R.D.’s viewing, with an audience and everything. There’s no explanation for how this is happening, but Darcy and company watched those first three episodes just like we did, credits and all.

Darcy also points out that Vision is supposed to be dead-dead, which leaves his presence in WestView still unexplained.

While Darcy and Jimmy can identity a majority of the neighbors we’ve met in WestView to their real-life counterparts, Dottie and Agnes are the only ones who are missing real information.

It’s revealed that Agent Woo was the voice behind the radio disruption, just as we suspected! But while we can see Wanda and Dottie’s reaction to the call, Darcy’s broadcast didn’t show the same thing. She explains that someone is “censoring” the visuals they’re receiving, which means someone knows they’re watching.

Back in the sitcom WestView, we see that Monica’s slip-up resulted in Wanda blasting her through the house and the energy field. It’s the first time we physically see Wanda using her powers again, so she still has them. But the lapse in her facade has consequences — when Vision returns from his talk with Agnes and Herb outside, Wanda hallucinates him as she last saw him in Infinity War, a corpse with his head crushed in.

It’s important to note that Vision seems to become more aware of the strangeness of their world with each episode. It makes sense because no matter how human he may seem, he’s still a synthezoid who has always been able to see beyond the superficial. It harks back to his “birth” in Age of Ultron. He’s omnipotent and always learning.

When Monica lands back in the real world, all she says is, “It’s all Wanda.” That seemingly serves as an answer to what’s going on in WestView, but it’s not a whole answer. Wanda seems just as confused and unaware as everyone else, but she is willing to stay in her “perfect” world. The question is, who put Wanda in the position to have her perfect world?

WandaVision Episode 3 Easter Eggs

Much like the comics, Wanda magically becomes pregnant! But this time around, things are progressing much more quickly, and her doctor isn’t Dr. Strange.

The first of the episode’s weird glitches happens with Wanda and Vision’s neighbor Herb, who is attempting to saw through the brick fence separating the two houses instead of trimming his hedges. When Vision points out that his aim has gone a bit askew, Herb’s detached reaction is a bit creepy. He thanks Vision but keeps sawing through the wall! And unlike the previous weird behavior, there’s nothing that triggers the moment, especially not from Vision or Wanda.

Wanda and Vision contemplate what to name their baby boy, with Vision suggesting Billy and Wanda throwing out Tommy. (The argument becomes moot when they have twins!) These are the names of the pair’s sons in the comic, who later become members of the Young Avengers. In the show, Wanda chooses her name because it’s “all-American,” which is also a fair indicator of why her perfect reality is framed around sitcoms. Vision cites William Shakespeare as his inspiration and uses a quote from As You Like It that seems pretty on the nose. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” seems like a pointed reference to the fact that WandaVision is, in fact, all a show.

Wanda decorates the nursery using Simser brand paint, which is most likely a nod to Jeremy Simser, a storyboard artist for Marvel Studios and WandaVision.

The second glitch appears when Wanda says the residents of WestView always seem “on the verge of discovering our secret.” Vision has a moment of sobering clarity where he notes that something is wrong in WestView, citing the incidents with Mr. and Mrs. Hart and their neighbor Herb. A second after his says this, reality glitches and the scene starts over with Vision seemingly worry-free. The last time this happened with the beekeeper, it was clear Wanda was the culprit in turning back time, but in this case, she doesn’t seem to do anything to force the change. This suggests someone else is pulling the strings.

Wanda mentions that their child could be human or “synthezoid,” a term that originates in the comics. Although fans like to joke that Vision is an android, he’s technically a synthetic human. He’s not made of metal or machinery — in the comics, his body is composed of the bioengineering tech of Dr. Helen Cho, while in the MCU, he’s made of organic tissue mixed with vibranium and “powered” by the Mind Stone.

Vision jokes that Billy will be just like his mom, which is funny because, in the comics, Billy has magical abilities similar to Wanda’s powers. Tommy ends up having superspeed abilities like his uncle, Pietro.

It’s time for the third commercial! Much like the previous episode’s watch promotion, this break references Hydra — though a tad more directly. It’s all about Hydra Soak, and the message is decidedly more pointed than we’ve had before. “Escape to a world all your own, where your problems float away,” the announcer says. “When you want to get away, but you don’t want to go anywhere: Hydra Soak.” Marvel: Agents of Shield fans will recall that Hydra Soak HAS been mentioned on the show. During the series’s Framework arc, Phil Coulson claims that Hydra is brainwashing people using soap, so he makes his own. Is the commercial another sign that Hydra is behind the mystery of WestView? Is it a warning that no one in the town will be able to get away? And what’s that about finding the goddess within?

The actors in this ad are the same ones as the previous ones, Victoria Blade and Ithamar Enriquez. Their recurring presence might mean they have some significance in Wanda’s life. Maybe they’re her parents?

In what feels like an ominous follow-up to the Hydra Soak commercial, the doctor reveals that he and his wife won’t be taking their trip away after all. “Small towns, you know, so hard to escape,” he mutters, pointedly. I think we’re starting to get the hint, folks! Wanda mentions she is a twin and that her brother was named Pietro. It’s been a hot minute since anyone has talked about MCU’s Quicksilver — he made his debut back in Age of Ultron, the same film in which he was shot and killed.

When Geraldine lets it slip that she knows about Pietro’s death at the hands of Ultron, Wanda interrogates her and discovers her necklace bears a familiar symbol — it’s that damn S.W.O.R.D. logo, and Wanda is apparently not a fan.

In another sign that something is UP, Agnes and Herb seem to warn Vision about Geraldine. They note that she’s “brand new” to town with no family and start to say that “she came here because we’re all —” before they’re cut off. It’s worth noting that the two figures that may be MCU versions of formidable Marvel characters are the ones who seem to understand that strange things are going on in WestView. If Agnes and Herb are the MCU’s Agatha Harkness and High Evolutionary, they would definitely be the ones in the know. But why would they try to warn Vision about Geraldine if WestView is a trap?

Agnes is wearing her infamous brooch as a necklace that could be referencing an MCU supervillain mentioned before. The necklace has three figures close together, with the center figure holding what looks like a giant scythe. Is it another clue that the Grim Reaper is on his way?

Wanda literally throws Geraldine out of town — though she tells Vision that she had to run home — and Geraldine passes through what seems like a magical forcefield. While fans have been assuming WestView is a fake town, this shows us that physically, it’s a very real place. But it’s currently bubbled off with a barrier that Wanda can apparently allow people in and out of. And the song that plays as Geraldine finds herself outside the barrier? “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. It seems pretty appropriate for a situation that feels like a surreal dream.

When Geraldine lands on the outskirts of real WestView, she’s instantly swarmed by cars and agents all bearing the S.W.O.R.D. logo. Since we know Teyonah Parris is playing the adult Monica Rambeau, it’s safe to assume Geraldine was an alias she used to go undercover in WestView. Combined with the mystery agent watching the show within the show from episode one, we can conclude that Wanda and Vision are being closely observed by S.W.O.R.D. for some reason. But they clearly aren’t the ones in control, since Monica is so easily forced out. What will they do next?

While the opening credits of this episode are a reference to The Brady Bunch, it’s the end credits that give us another clue about the big bad coming our way. Just like the previous episodes, Wanda and Vision are framed in a hexagon as the end credits roll. The symbol is so important because it’s the preferred shape of the creators at Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM, who are last seen in Iron Man 3. Remember the beekeeper suits that resemble AIM agents’ clothing? It seems like the evil organization might be making a comeback.

WandaVision Episode 2 Easter Eggs

The opening credits for this episode aren’t just an adorable homage to Bewitched but a whole bevy of Marvel Easter eggs! The illustration of the moon happens to be surrounded by six stars, and we can’t help but be reminded of the Infinity Gauntlet.

When Vision phases through the floor, there’s a dark shape that looks exactly like the helmet worn by Marvel supervillain Grim Reaper hidden in the space. In the comics, he’s the brother of Wonder Man, whose brainwaves were used in Vision’s creation.

When Wanda goes to the supermarket in the opening, three references hang above the aisle! Bova Milk refers to Bova, the humanoid cow who raised Wanda and Pietro on Mount Wundagore. Auntie A’s kitty litter is a witchy reference to Auntie Agatha or Agatha Harkness, whom we’ve discussed before, and her cat-like familiar named Ebony. And Wonder Mints is most definitely a cheeky reference to Wonder Man, aka Simon Williams, the superhero who Vision’s brainwaves are based on in the comics!

When animated Wanda and Vision settle on their couch, the small figure on their side table is a statue of the Whizzer. Featured in 1982’s Vision and the Scarlet Witch, the Whizzer thought he was Wanda’s father but later discovers he was wrong. Whizzer and his wife were offered the chance to adopt Wanda and Pietro when they were kids on the mythical Mount Wundagore, but they declined.

When Wanda hears a crash outside the house, she heads out to the front, where she finds a colorful toy helicopter in an otherwise black-and-white world. Not only does the red-and-yellow helicopter have the number 57 stamped on it, but it also bears the S.W.O.R.D symbol! The number is likely in reference to Vision’s first appearance in Avengers #57, while the symbol hints to the presence of S.W.O.R.D outside Wanda’s perfect world.

The creepy, cult-like refrain spoken by the fundraiser organizers of it all being “for the children” seems to be a reference to Wanda’s involvement in the comic event The Children’s Crusade. The story follows her son, Billy, who’s trying to gain control over his reality-warping abilities by looking for a missing Wanda.

Well, here’s another blast from the angsty past! The Strücker timepiece is a very obvious callback to Hydra and Baron von Strücker. The watch bears the unmistakable octopus skull symbol of Hydra, and Strücker is the Hydra leader who recruited Pietro and Wanda for the experimentation that gave them powers. He was later killed by Ultron in his prison cell. Does anyone else hear that ticking noise? Remember good ol’ Herb? In the comics, a character named Herbert is also the High Evolutionary who runs Mount Wundagore, the very same safe haven where Bova delivered the Maximoff twins. Time will tell if the super-scientist is the same character, but it can’t be a coincidence.

Wanda and Vision’s magic show has two gems that we’ve noticed! First thing, the literal Mind Stone happens to be the design on the doors of the Cabinet of Mystery that plays a huge part in their act. Second, Wanda and Vision use the names Illusion and Glamour for their actor, which are also the names of the magicians that Vision goes to see in an issue of The Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Though we all enjoy a good jam, The Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda” gets interrupted by someone asking, “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” And doesn’t that voice sound an awful lot like Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo?

While it may seem weird that Wanda shows her pregnancy in an instant, it’s in line with what goes on in the comics. Wanda uses magic to help her have children, which checks out since her husband is a synthezoid.

Oooh, that mysterious beekeeper! Not only does their presence lead to the reveal that Wanda has some control over the reality they’re in, but it also sets off some alarm bells. Even though the beekeeper’s suit bears the S.W.O.R.D logo on the back, the costume is reminiscent of the yellow costumes worn by A.I.M., a military science organization founded by Baron von Strücker. Could this be a sign that Wanda is being watched by more than one organization? And is this a hint that Hydra is back!? (Obviously, it is.)

WandaVision Episode 1 Easter Eggs

When Wanda accidentally smashes a plate into Vision’s head, he jokes about his wife and her “flying saucers,” and she comments back about his “indestructible head.” Considering that Vision died after having the Mind Stone ripped from his head, it’s a dark joke to kick off the series.

Vision’s work tie has a visual reference to his comic-book alter ego! In Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s Vision, whenever the character dresses as a human, he wears a tie clip that emulates the diamond pattern on his chest.

Vision’s boss, Mr. Hart, is likely named after comic creator Steve Englehart, who created 1985’s The Vision and the Scarlet Witch with Richard Howell, a miniseries that heavily influenced WandaVision. It’s been heavily implied that Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes is the MCU’s Agatha Harkness, a witch who helped train Wanda’s magic back in the ’70s and ’80s.

When Wanda magically saves dinner, the bottle of wine she pours from is Maison du Mépris, which translates to house of contempt or scorn. As fans have pointed out since the trailer drop, this seems like a reference to the House of M comics storyline in which Wanda bends reality into a new world ruled by her family.

The Stark commercial break refers to two things: Avengers icon Tony Stark and his part in Wanda’s dark past. As Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, explain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, their parents were killed by an explosive Stark Industries device, leaving the twins trapped under rubble. The Maximoffs were trapped by a Stark Industries shell for two days, expecting it to detonate before they get rescued. Even though Wanda eventually fights beside Tony in the future, there’s still some trauma from that experience and her brother’s death. If it weren’t for the Starks, Wanda could have been a completely different person.

The episode closes with a mysterious observer watching the “show” and taking notes on a pad with the logo of S.W.O.R.D. on the cover. For those who don’t know, S.W.O.R.D stands for Sentient World Observation and Response Department and is a subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a counterterrorism and intelligence agency that deals with extraterrestrial threats to world security. Expect to see them around more.

Press: A Thorough Breakdown of All the Marvel Easter Eggs on WandaVision was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Kodachrome #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Sorry For Your loss

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zedexthree · 3 years

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STRUCTURE X LORE

STRUCTURE X LORE:

STRUCTURE X is a vast and cavernous building that exists in an Undisclosed Location. it may be in outer space, deep underground, at the bottom of the ocean, or all three. current conjecture states that it may be an unintended nexus point of multiple pocket universes that chooses to arrange itself in what appears (in some places) to be an office building, apartment building, storage facility, abandoned warehouse or gleaming skyscraper; but not enough about is known about the scope of STRUCTURE X to be able to state what it is with any certainty. some areas of STRUCTURE X appear as other places or planes of existence with varying degrees of scale. broom closets occasionally contain ornate palaces, vast fields of gently undulating long, dark green grass under a sky hung heavy with lead-gray storm clouds, entire solar systems, etc. without necessarily being any bigger inside than a broom closet. laws of physics often vary wildly between floors. Anomalies of gravitation, atmosphere and luminosity occur frequently. some areas are perfectly normal, or just empty, or are both perfectly normal and empty.

STRUCTURE X apparently attracts losers, eccentrics, and the morally questionable, who take up space in the empty places and, by choice, interact with each other only occasionally. it is unknown how these people arrive at STRUCTURE X as, when questioned, they do not seem to know themselves and seem unsure about how long they have been here. it is also unknown if these people are the actual fictional characters that they appear to be, or are projections of these characters from some other plane of existence. their purpose for being here is not known.

Current inhabitants of STRUCTURE X are as follows:

Howard Beale--newscaster and Professional Television Prophet. mad as hell. may be divinely inspired.

"Buttoneyes"--imp of the perverse. frets. scribbles.

Darryl Revok--Scanner. bastard. DARYL. REVOK.

Frank Poole--dead astronaut. hasn't taken off the suit yet.

Criswell--prognosticator. deeply concerned about The Future. great hair.

Norman Stansfield--detective on the Vice squad. big Mozart fan.

Dr. Mercurio Arboria--cult leader, proud grandfather. thinks things are wonderful.

PRESIDENT FRANKENSTEIN--avatar. wears a white suit and gasmask. attempting to map STRUCTURE X. understands futility better than most.

SOLUTION KEY:

jura guvatf ner tbvat jebat vafvqr zl zvaq, fbzrgvzrf vg'f orpnhfr gurer vf gebhoyr va FGEHPGHER K. svaqvat bhg jung'f jebat gurer vf n xrl gb svthevat bhg jung'f jebat jvgu zr.

gurer vf n ybg jebat jvgu zr.

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ayearinlanguage · 6 years

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A Year in Language, Day 222: Singlish Singlish, or, more technically, Colloquial Singaporean English, is an English based Creole spoken in Singapore. As the Singaporean government does not recognize the legitimacy of the language and actively discourages its use there is no census for the number of speakers, though, as the majority of native Singaporeans use it there are probably between 2 and 4 million speakers. The Singlish lexicon is primarily English based, with a healthy mix of Chinese particles (from Cantonese and Hokkien) as well as Malay (the pre-colonial lingua franca) and Tamil. Though lacking in prestige, the language is a living testament to the nations history as a global cultural and trade nexus. There are no specific boundaries at which point Standard Singaporean English, a British derived variant fully comprehensible to English speakers around the world, becomes Colloquial Singaporean English. Instead there is a kind of dialect continuum stratified not by geography but by social class and propriety; a sociolect continuum. In linguistics a prestige variety of a language can be called the "acrolect", from the Greek word for "high". The opposite then is the "low language" or "basilect", with an intervening "mesolect". To give a more familiar example, the kind of English heard on British newscasts or spoken by royalty, Recieved Pronunciation, is an acrolect. The English spoken by the working class, Estuary and "Chav" accents, which are spoken by a large majority of the populace, is a mesolect. Cockney or thick inner city London accents are basilects. Thus, Standard Singaporean English is an acrolect, used in schools and by the government and generally in formal settings, while the mesolect and basilect are Singlish, used by the majority in informal settings and not always mutually intelligible with the standard. Singapores government has long sought to discourage Singlish use, seeing it as a hindrance to learning Standard English which is considered a necessary skill. In 2000 it even launched the Speak Good English Movement, which still launches campaigns in an effort to remove Singlish from the national identity. Like many creoles Singlish normally lacks inflections such as the plural -s or past tense forms of verbs. A prominent feature are the inclusion of discourse markers from Chinese and Malay. These particles come at the end of sentences, sometimes marking grammatical elements but more commonly denoting things like familiarity, expected responses, sarcasm, etc. The most common of these are "la", "le" and "lor".

#A Year in Language #Singlish #AYIL #language #linguistics #day 222

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bluewatsons · 8 years

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Brian H. Spitzberg & Michelle Cadiz, The Media Construction of Stalking Stereotypes, 9 J Criminal Justice & Popular Culture 128 (2002)

Abstract

Stalking is a phenomenon at the nexus of popular culture and criminal justice. Stalking did not exist as a crime until 1990, and in the span of less than a decade, at least four countries, and all 50 U.S. States, passed legislation criminalizing such conduct. This enormous mobilization of political and criminal justice resources was spurred on significantly by the media constructions of stalking as a public risk. These constructions capitalized on the societal fascination with celebrity, crime, and the victimization of women. The various roles the media played in constructing mythic images of stalking are contrasted with the scientific research on stalking. The discrepancies between these discourses illustrate means and motives through which the media, society, and public institutions distort popular images of empirical phenomena.

Introduction

The term "crime victim" tends to evoke a set of archetypal images: Innocence, violence, powerlessness, weaponry, and tragedy. The iconicity of these archetypes is in no small part a product of media typifications rather than the factual data of victimization. Various media are used to penetrate people's everyday lives with images that not only aid in defining what society deems relevant and true, but also in the sculpting of society itself. With techniques ranging from graphic pictures to vivid language, the media are able to reach vast audiences with any particular message or perspective. Television, newspapers, and magazines are just a few examples of media that have been investigated in order to understand their social impacts. One of the most investigated areas of media imagery is crime. From streetwalkers to stalkers, most people have prototypical images of certain types of socially "deviant" persons and criminal forms of activity, and these cognitive prototypes in turn bear varying degrees of correspondence to reality. This analysis excavates some of the correspondences between the media archetypes of stalking and the actual phenomenon of stalking.

Any effects the media have on people’s views of the world are likely to be greater to the extent people rely on the media for their information on that topic. Crime is one of the arenas in which the public has traditionally relied on the media for its information. From Jack the Ripper to Al Capone to the stalking of Madonna and the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, people often rely on the media to give them an image of the criminal, the crime, and the risk and nature of victimization. The analysis presented here examines the image of the victim constructed by the media, especially in reference to the phenomenon of stalking. The images of stalking in the media appear prismatic. Viewing stalking through the lenses of the media produces many different biased reflections of the phenomenon. These reflections are often reinforcing, but sometimes inconsistent. Understanding how biases and stereotypes are formed and influenced should aid in the understanding of the actual risks of victimization. It will also allow for an understanding of how a crime such as stalking is portrayed by the media and how this portrayal of the crime may affect the public conception of the crime.

The assumption that the news media somehow serve as a value-neutral or objective representation of the world in general, and crime victimization in particular, has long been discredited (Meyers, 1997). News workers inevitably operate with some form of ideology. This ideology in turn "structures the meaning of an event by providing the background assumptions used to understand what is to be treated as an event, what constitutes fact, and interpretation of that fact" (Voumvakis & Ericson, 1984, p.42). For example, Meyers (1994, p. 48) concluded that "news coverage of battering is socially distorted, rooted in assumptions, myths, and stereotypes that link it to individual and family pathology rather than to social structures and gendered patterns of control" (p. 48). Female victimization, therefore, appears to be a productive arena within which to examine the role of societal and journalistic ideology on the formulation of a stereotype such as stalking.

Gate-Keeping Constructions

Crime depictions in the media result from a multifaceted process involving many people and organizations. The fragmented origin of crime reporting has no single anchor in the "factual" world (Chermak, 1995). Although justice systems and news representatives may have a clear understanding of what crime is, the news production process can distort the image of crime, creating confusion and resulting in messages different than originally intended. News organizations and reporters monitor society for disruptions that occur within people's lives (Aust & Zillmann, 1996). Crimes, especially violent crimes, represent prototypical disruptions. "Crimes without death, blood, or battering are generally not found in the news" (Chermak, 1995, p. 70). Given the entrepreneurial and competitive nature of news organizations, it is little surprise, therefore, that the media philosophy has come to be summarized pithily as: "If it bleeds, it leads." Under the aegis of contributing to public safety, media organizations give extensive coverage of violent crime, even if the actual personal risk of violent crime is relatively minor. Violent crimes possess a high degree of sensationalistic and dramatic content (Meyers, 1997, p. 90).

Public fascination and potential identification of personal risk with such stories provide indirect guidance to media organizations in their story selection process. Newscasts take the role of messenger, providing the general public with the sensational information of the day. Newsrooms and news programs serve as gate-keepers, monitoring what is seen and heard about any given event. The media also influence public perceptions because of the required selectivity involved in media story selection. Out of the thousands of potential stories that occur every day, the gate-keeping function of media organizations extracts only some as sufficiently newsworthy to present in the appropriate and limited venues of media production (Shoemaker, 1996). The criteria by which some stories are included for broadcast or print, and others excluded, inevitably reflect the priorities of the news organizations, which in turn reflect perceived priorities of the consuming media marketplace.

Rhetorical Constructions

Crimes are, among other things, narratives. As such, crime typifications in the media may follow a variety of rhetorical stylistic conventions. Crimes are also a genre of reporting, and therefore reveal certain institutional and strategic conventions:

Typically, media coverage of new crimes follows a standard pattern: (1) it typifies the crime by offering detailed accounts of particular, usually dramatic, incidents, …; (2) it describes the crime in compelling terms …; (3) it explains some of the crime’s causes; (4) it offers interpretations of the crime’s meaning and significance; and (5) coverage continues as long as the crime can be approached from fresh angles … or until some other story demands attention (Best, 1999, p. 63).

In general, novelty and titillation potential are important factors affecting whether or not crimes are reported (Meyers, 1997). A more cynical interpretation is that the media "focus on ‘hot topics’ of entertainment value" until a "media frenzy develops which allows for expanded coverage of isolated and unique events. … Isolated incidents thus become social issues and, through politicization, eventually crime problems" (Kappeler, Blumberg, & Potter, 1996, p. 6). Prototypical representations of crime tend to trade in "1) the identification and targeting of a distinct deviant population; 2) the presence of an ‘innocent’ or ‘helpless’ victim population; 3) the emergence of brave and virtuous heroes; and 4) the existence of a substantial threat to established norms, values, or traditional lifestyles" (Kappeler et al., 1996, p. 18). When males are suspects and women are victims, the story takes on greater newsworthiness (Pritchard & Hughes, 1997), perhaps because it resonates with larger cultural narratives. Such news not only conforms to cultural myths, but assists in enforcing them as well (Altheide, 1997). Cultural narratives of crime serve the function of providing warnings and suggestions for personal risk management and sense making (Wachs, 1988).

Other narrative rhetorical conventions can subtly affect impressions of a crime. For example, whether reports are primarily derived from police rather than directly from the victims can affect the personalization of the crime. Word choice can affect attribution of responsibility. Reporting in rape cases that a victim was "taking a shortcut through a ravine late at night, hitchiking [sic], accepting a ride home from a stranger, dressing provocatively, leaving her door unlocked, drinking alone in a bar, sunbathing in a secluded area by herself, and taking a man home from a bar" may seem descriptively incidental, but by implication suggest the victims’ role in their own victimization (Voumvakis & Ericson, 1984, p. 23). In a story about a murder-suicide, Meyers (1994) points out that the husband was portrayed as "obsessive" and had a difficult time dealing with the separation from his wife. Such language removes partial blame from the husband's shoulders. In contrast, being obsessive and having a difficulty with separation lend themselves to the explanation that he could not control himself and was driven to shoot both himself and his estranged wife. A content analysis of newspaper reports of domestic violence found that 47.8 percent "suggested at least one motivation or excuse for the perpetrator" (Bullock & Cubert, 2002, p. 484).

Voumvakis and Ericson’s (1984) study of newspaper accounts of attacks on women indicated predominant attributions were:

1) to the victim, especially in terms of how victim precautions can serve as a major device for crime prevention; 2) to the criminal justice system, especially how more and improved laws, policing, and punishment is another major crime prevention device; and 3) to offender pathology, especially how there is a need to identify and control "dangerous" individuals in society (p. 43).

The tendency to identify the pathological villain and the helpless victim in such crime stories serves several rhetorical functions. "The archetypes are social predators not bound or restrained in any way by normal social rules and values. In contrast, the media portray victims of crime as passive and helpless" (Surette, 1998, p. 40). As such, (1) anyone may be a victim, especially if that person plays an unwitting role in eliciting victimization, (2) increased law enforcement and personal attention to protection are needed, and (3) attention to ongoing media coverage is vital to stay apprised of the risks of such a crime.

Audience Constructions

Another arena in which media typifications are constructed, and indirectly reinforced, is in the public’s perceptions of the media reports. Crimes such as rape, murder, and robbery evoke strong images in the media consuming public that reflect various cultural, ethnic, and gender-based stereotypes. Such public stereotypes serve to filter what is processed when the media report crime stories, and indirectly feed back to the media organizations’ values regarding what the public "wants."

Furthermore, in an increasingly complex communication environment, the public cannot process all available information and news. To manage the deluge of information in the environment, people develop cognitively efficient schemata for processing sensory stimuli. "Perceptions and judgments are subject to distortion because of shortcuts…[that is,] fast and expedient paradigms used to cognitively cope with massive amounts or fast-paced information" (Aust & Zillermann, 1996). When crime narratives are distributed to the mass public, the value orientations of these narratives are filtered through millions of personal schemata, and subsequently through millions of informal interpersonal conversations in which new versions are negotiated, reinforced, and passed on to others.

In such information rich environments, media consumers may increasingly rely on the media to structure and simplify reality into more manageable forms. For example, heavy consumption of sexual images appears to decrease sensitivity toward sexual aggression victims (MacKay & Covell, 1997), and repeated exposure to filmed violence against women similarly produces desensitization effects (Dexter, Penrod, Linz, & Saunders, 1997). Gender role stereotypes portrayed in the media coexist with gender stereotypes in society (Signorielli, 1989), and these stereotypes in turn interact with stereotypes of crime and victimization. Rape tends to be portrayed as perpetrated by sadistic, psychopathic, or disturbed persons preying on the relatively helpless (Bufkin & Eschholz, 2000).

The similarity media consumers perceive with reported crime victims plays a role in how people attribute blame to a victim. "A person who sees herself as personally similar to the victim and thus a potential victim will attribute catastrophe to chance or some other factor, and not the victim" (Dexter et al., 1997, p. 2151). The more similar a victim is to a person, the less likely the person is to attribute responsibility of the crime to the victim. Contrariwise, the less the victim is similar to the person, the more likely the person will attribute blame to the victim. Importantly, desensitization, which can be strongly influenced by media typifications and exposure, appears to mediate women’s empathy with victims of violence (Dexter et al., 1997). Similarly, males exposed to sexually objectifying films appear less sympathetic to rape victims than males not exposed to such films (Millburn, Mather, & Conrad, 2000).

The finding that similarity between a victim and a perceiver affects the perceiver’s attribution of blame has at least three implications. First, although most crime stories mention neither the race nor the socio-economic status of the victim, among those stories that do, most victims are reported as white and middle to upper class (Kappeler et al., 1996; Meyers, 1994). Therefore, media consumers who do not identify with these victims are less likely to be sensitized to the victim, and thereby, to the crime itself. Second, the media can bring unfavorable aspects about a victim to light. This can have the effect of diffusing attributed responsibility for the crime, allowing people to be less empathetic to victims of crimes and implicitly creating a climate of tolerance toward the violence itself. For example, to the extent that stalking victims are portrayed as celebrities, the media consumers may not internalize either empathy or sense of personal risk. Third, and related, relevant parties can distance themselves both from the crime and the societal agenda that would seek to regulate the crime. For example, "the very common view that men who rape, murder, or otherwise commit acts of violence against women are ‘sick’ or in some way pathological ignores the social roots of this violence…. The representation of the assailant as a monster or psychopath also allows men to distance themselves from the perpetrators of these crimes" (Meyers, 1997, p. 10). Thus, for example, to the extent stalkers are portrayed as obsessed, delusional, or mentally ill, the public may distance their own courtship activities from such crazed and deviant actions, thereby licensing their own intrusive behaviors, and not seeking protection or redress against such actions from others.

In regard to crime, the more unusual the crime, the more media exposure it tends to receive (Meyers, 1997). This leads to a media paradox. The media tend to report highly unusual, unlikely, but vivid events that nevertheless provide a "disproportionate influence on … subsequent judgments through their increased memorial availability" (Ruscio, 2000, p.22). Media consumers not only find such reports interesting, but their enhanced memorial availability and sensational nature make such stories more likely to be reproduced in everyday conversation with others. Such interpersonal effects thereby serve to reinforce the selective biases of the media. Thus, the media are selective in what they portray of reality, what they portray reflects both organizational ideologies and cultural stereotypes, and these biases are in many ways reinforced through public interpersonal processes of conversational topical reproduction.

In one of the clearest evidences of the mediated construction of reality, research has repeatedly shown that media consumption is significantly correlated with biased perceptions of personal risk of crime victimization. That is, because crime is more likely than other events to end up being portrayed in the media, heavy media consumers tend to perceive personal risks of crime victimization that are many times greater than their actual statistical risk (Chiricos, Eschholz, & Gertz, 1997; O’Keefe & Reid-Nash, 1987). This enculturation effect suggests that the proportion of media exposure to crime enabled by content selection processes shapes the domain of relevance in people’s minds, thereby restricting alternative interpretations of reality.

Media Effects on Reality

News media use statistics in order to get across the importance of a crime or newsworthy event. Yet researchers have found that the media often misrepresent the numbers, or otherwise bias how the numbers are presented and, therefore, interpreted by the consumer. For example, perhaps due to an understanding of recency effects, percentages and rates of crime are usually cited toward the end of a story (Berger, 1998). Furthermore, especially in reference to crime, the most dramatic estimates tend to be selected rather than the most conservative numbers. One study, for example, concluded that the media foster the perception that crime rates are constantly increasing, and even downplaying the amount of nonviolent crime (Kappeler et al., 1996). The media in particular appear to be eager and complicit partners with police and political bodies in the construction of "crime waves" (e.g., Brownstein, 1996). Such exaggerations help make a story more newsworthy and interesting. Exaggeration raises viewers' concern and allows the media to spend more time or space on the events (Glassner, 1999).

The media both systematically and unsystematically distort the images they relay to society, for example, in portraying an "epidemic of violent crime" (Kappeler et al., 1996, p.48). Yet, the media use such fear evoking images because they invoke a preexisting framework of expectations in which people identify with potential victims and are able to attribute such problems to manageable causes (Altheide & Michalowski, 1999). Apparently, "the success of a scare depends not only on how well it is expressed, but also…on how well it expresses deeper cultural anxieties" (Glassner, 1999, p. 208). In parallel to the maxim, "if it bleeds, it leads," it seems to follow that "if it terrorizes, it mesmerizes."

The Media Portrayals of Stalking

By any historical measure, stalking is a paradigm example of social and media construction of a crime. Despite the occurrence of stalking since antiquity (Kamir, 2001), it was not recognized as a crime until California passed an anti-stalking law in 1990. Indeed, the media appear responsible for the labeling of the crime itself (Keenahan & Barlow, 1997; Lawson-Cruttenden, 1996). Despite a lack of any scientific evidence of widespread prevalence or risk in society at the time, and in the murky legal context of prohibiting behaviors that may be constitutionally protected (Hueter, 1997), in less than a decade all 50 states in the U.S. passed some form of anti-stalking legislation. The media played no small part in this avalanche of political activity in a context best known for a more glacial pace of social reform. "The new language of stalking was born in the sensationalism of the media who first appropriated the term stalker to name the persistent pursuers of celebrities. . . . Now stalking forms part of legal and scientific discourses as well as having acquired a privileged status among the descriptors of our society’s categories of fear" (Mullen, Pathé, & Purcell, 2000, p. 1). Stalking has generated at least three interrelated domains of discourse: Popular (media), legal, and scientific (Lowney & Best, 1995; Mullen et al., 2000). These discourses will be analyzed as they inform, or fail to inform, each other. First, a couple of specific instances of claims about stalking located at the nexus of these domains are examined for their lack of substance. Second, the research literature on stalking is briefly summarized so as to provide a point of contrast to the media portrayals of stalking. Third, some general critiques regarding media typifications of stalking are presented.

Case Studies in Constructing the Stalking Problem

One of the most oft-cited claims about stalking is that 90 percent of women who are killed by former intimates were stalked prior to the murder (see Table 1). This statistic has been reconstituted in hearings before Congress, in the popular press, and extensively in law review articles on stalking legislation. If the credibility of a statistic is in any way based upon its repetition, this "finding" must be true. In an attempt to trace the origins of this statistic, several steps were pursued. First, available databases and search engines were employed to locate any additional information that could provide leads to this statistic’s original source. The additional articles found through these search engines proved to be of no use for this purpose. Second, an attempt was made to locate the original person quoted for this statistic. Its derivations always seemed to lead back to William S. Cohen, Ruth Micklem, or Melinda Beck (who first quoted Micklem). The trail turned out to be more circuitous than any precise and oft-quoted statistic ought to be. Examining references to this statistic, the earliest sources appeared to be from one of two primary candidates: (1) studies reported to Congress, or (2) an interview in a popular news magazine.

The "Detroit and Kansas City" Link. Senator Cohen (1993) claimed in testimony during the Judiciary Committee on Anti-stalking Legislation in 1992 that "There are studies in Detroit and Kansas City that reveal that some 90 percent of all those who are murdered by their intimate partners called the police at least once, and more than half have called five times or more" (p. 8). Best (1999) later surmised that this claim was casually reinterpreted to imply that if calls were made, the victims were being stalked. He correctly noted the fallacy of the inference, given that calls can be made in reference to a current cohabitant, which strains the definition of stalking.

As it turns out, Senator Cohen took liberties with his representation of the studies from Kansas City and Detroit. A focused search of Criminal Justice Abstracts eventually yielded the source of Cohen’s mysterious statistic. A study published by the Police Foundation (Wilt et al., 1977) investigated police involvement in domestic violence situations in Kansas City and Detroit. The Kansas City study revealed, based on 1970 and 1971 data, that 95 percent (in 1970) and 84 percent (1971) of homicides had previous disturbance calls to the same address, with 52 percent (1970) and 46 percent (1971) having been called to the address five or more times. For aggravated assaults, 87 percent (1970) and 81 percent (1971) had previous disturbance calls, with 50 percent (1970 & 1971) involving five or more calls to the same address. However, in the post-episode interviews, "close to half of the homicide and assault sample reported that they had never called the police for a disturbance" (p. 32). The Detroit data were even more mixed. Of 144 assault victims interviewed, 56 percent indicated they had been victims of previous conflict-based assaults and had reported these assaults to the police. Based on interviews of the perpetrators, only four percent of the homicide cases reported previous calls to the police.

Contrary to Cohen’s testimony, therefore, (1) the data are not entirely consistent across both "Detroit and Kansas City," (2) the actual statistic is closer to 85 percent rather than 90 percent in Kansas City, and closer to 56 percent in Detroit, (3) the data refer to both domestic assault and homicide, thereby confounding the far more serious crime of murder with all domestic assaults, (4) the data were two decades old when Cohen reported them, (5) the data could only be linked to an address, and therefore could not be specified according to a "victim" or "perpetrator" in terms of who initiated the call, and (6) the data quite enigmatically suggest that the assaults and homicides were potentially relational, in that there was no difference in calls due to "victim" or "offender" status. Indeed, interviews in the Detroit data led to the conclusion that "in 145 (45.5 percent) of the homicides resulting from arguments, the victims initiated the conflicts, while offenders did so in 123 (38.6 percent) instances. In another 26 (8.3 percent) cases, victims and offenders together started the trouble, while in 25 (7.8 percent) cases someone other than offenders or victims did so" (p. 36). The relational instigation and reciprocity implicit in these latter findings seem ill suited to the attribution of stalking. Thus, although the "Detroit and Kansas City" studies are intriguing in their potential relevance to stalking, they require an excessive amount of extrapolation to be directly evidentiary. Furthermore, as is indicated below, these studies ultimately were clearly revealed not to be the source of the actual statistic in question.

The "Virginians against Domestic Violence" Link. The original source for the 90 percent quote turned out to be Ruth Micklem in an article in Newsweek, written by reporters Beck et al. (1992). After this article’s debut, Micklem’s statistic was subsequently cited in many other articles (see Table 1). In the article by Beck et al., Micklem was quoted as co-director of Virginians Against Domestic Violence (VADV). An internet search eventually yielded contact information for the VADV, including Micklem’s office phone number, fax number, and e-mail. Ruth Micklem was contacted, whereupon the following conversation ensued, as reconstructed from the interviewer’s1 notes of the conversation:

"Hello, this is Ruth, what can I do for you?"

"Hi my name is Marian and I am assisting my professor who is a behavioral scientist currently involved in studying the area of stalking..."

"Oh, yes?"

"Are you the Ruth Micklem who gave the statistic of 90 percent..."

Micklem immediately recognized where the inquiry was going. She claimed having received hundreds of calls on the Newsweek statistic ever since it had been published. She apologetically explained that the statistic is basically an inaccurate extrapolation. "There is no study whatsoever that the figure was derived from because there was no study anywhere in the country at that time [concerning stalking]." The 90 percent figure was merely the response to the reporter’s question: "How many of the women that you work with are stalked?"

In short, this statistic, which has been cited repeatedly, is at best based on an offhand judgment regarding women who are not necessarily murdered and associated with a particular organization and with a highly self-selected population. Indeed, the only hard empirical data available through standard search engines appear in three recent studies. Moracco, Runyon and Butts (1998) found that 23.4 percent of femicide cases had experienced "stalking" prior to the incident. McFarlane et al. (1999) found that 76 percent of femicide and 85 percent of attempted femicide cases involved "at least one episode of stalking within 12 months of the violent incident" (p. 308). Morton, Runyon, Moracco and Butts (1998) conducted a study of partner murder-suicides. In the prototypical episode, 45 percent experienced partner separation or attempted separation as a precursor, and one third of victims had sought protection from the legal system in the form of a restraining order or arrest warrant. "In nearly 70 percent of cases in which the victim and perpetrator were separated, the perpetrator had harassed, followed, or otherwise monitored the activities of the victim in the weeks or days preceding the homicide-suicide event" (p. 96). The evidence of pre-murder stalking appears to be 70 percent of 45 percent, or 32 percent in this admittedly rather specialized sample. Thus, repetition and emphasis of startling quotes such as "90 percent of women murdered by their partner were stalked" illustrate the complicit discourses of the media, legal, and expert domains in the construction of crime myths (Kappeler et al., 1996). Stalking would hardly seem to need embellishment, but receives it nonetheless.

The Science of Stalking

Statistics originally produced as an "educated guess" by the profiler and clinical psychologist Park Deitz during congressional hearings made it into the popular press (Mullen et al., 2000). Specifically, he estimated that there were as many as 200,000 stalkers in the U.S., and that as many as 1 in 20 women would be stalked in their lifetime. These estimates began taking on a life of their own in all three discourses – popular, scientific and legal (Best, 1999, p. 52; Lowney & Best, 1995, p. 42; Mullen et al., 2000, p. 29). That the media would latch on to such precise guesses is not surprising, because a decade ago there was virtually no scientific research on stalking.

As of this writing, there are over 100 studies available across several countries. Reviews of this research, as well as descriptive meta-analytic data on stalking studies, reveal the following picture of the stalking phenomenon (Spitzberg, in press; Spitzberg & Cupach, 2001, 2002, in press). Across studies, approximately 21 percent of people have been stalked or obsessively pursued to some degree. The more that fear or threat are required as definitional elements of pursuit to consider it stalking, the lower this percentage gets. Women (approximately 24 percent) appear victimized more than men (approximately 11 percent), but this difference tends to disappear in younger, college-based samples (e.g., Spitzberg, Nicastro & Cousins, 1998; Spitzberg & Rhea, 1999). Proportionately about 75 percent of all stalking victims are female, and about 25 percent of all victims are male, although again there are exceptions based upon sampling method and type of sample. A representative adult sample found high proportions of men stalking men, although little is yet understood about what this finding means (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). Finally, approximately 75 percent of victims are acquainted with their pursuer, and about 25 percent of pursuers are former romantic partners. Only about a fifth to a quarter of pursuers are complete strangers or unknown to the victim. If the early estimates of societal risk were significantly biased, the accuracy of other media representations of stalking deserve examination.

Media Typifications of Stalking

To date, surprisingly there have been no general surveys of the public’s beliefs or stereotypes of stalking, and there has been only one systematic content analysis designed to examine trends in media reporting of stalking (Lowney & Best, 1995). There are several stereotypes that nevertheless appear to litter the media landscape. The most prominent stereotypes, often closely interrelated, seem to be that (1) stalking is a particular problem of celebrity, (2) stalkers tend to be strangers, (3) stalking is a gendered crime, (4) stalkers tend to be mentally disturbed and dangerous, and (5) stalking is mutually exclusive of normal courtship.

Stalking as Celebriphilic. Prior to 1989-1990, stalking legally did not exist, and was rhetorically constructed under the aegis of harassment, obsession, and psychological rape (Lowney & Best, 1995, p. 37). However, with the sensationalistic media coverage of the stalking murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, along with the association of this crime in the public and media with Theresa Saldana, Jodie Foster, and several, non-celebrity stalking murders in Southern California, watershed "anti-stalking" legislation was passed in California.

In their study of media typifications of stalking, Lowney and Best (1995) note: "During 1989 and 1990, national magazine articles and television broadcasts presented 16 typifying examples of stalking; 11 (69 percent) involved celebrity victims" (p. 39). An article in Entertainment Weekly illustrates the continued lack of connection between media reports of stalking and the actual phenomenon. In the wake of the murder of Robert Blake’s wife Bonny Bakley, the article examined "inappropriate pursuit in the entertainment industry." In a surprising twist, it claimed that these people "are not stalkers" because "unlike stalkers and groupies, people like Bakley generally don’t develop crushes on the stars they pursue — it’s fame itself that flames their desires" (Svetkey, 2001, p.44, 47). This claim is odd in several respects. First, it suggests that stalking tends to be motivated by romantic "crushes." Studies show, however, that as a population stalkers have many motives, including revenge, attention, romance, and fantasy (see Spitzberg & Cupach, 2001, 2002, in press). Second, the report seems to imply that stalking is defined motivationally rather than behaviorally. The motive behind unwanted pursuit, presuming the pursuit is intentional, is largely irrelevant to its criminality. Regardless, media reports eventually moved away from a dominant image of stalkers as exclusively experiencing "celebriphilia" (Svetkey, 2001). It is a good bet that any episode of stalking of any prominent celebrity, whether in politics, entertainment, or sports, would receive media attention, whereas stalking among non-celebrities likely would not be covered, short of a serious attendant crime (e.g., kidnapping, murder, etc.). Despite the allure of celebrity for both stalkers and the media, Lowney and Best (1995) found that reports in the media between 1992-1994 occurred far more frequently than in previous years, and stalking was finally depicted as something that affects the public at large.

Stalking as the Return of the Stranger. A corollary of the celebriphilic stereotype is the mythic image of violent crime in general: The lurking stranger lying in wait to inflict harm on the unsuspecting victim. Indeed, people appear to believe there is greater risk of danger from strangers than from intimates (Harris & Miller, 2000). The media equip the public with a stereotypical stalker profile. In the early period of popular media reporting of stalking (1989-1991), victims were most likely to be portrayed as celebrities (Lowney & Best, 1995). The image of stalking seems to persist of "a cunning stranger who has targeted an innocent victim for prey" (Kappeler et al., 1996, p. 96). This image seems to represent a corrupted vision of courtship, in which love is disjunctive and exploitative in nature. "The public is captivated by the idea of a total stranger becoming obsessed with a victim" (Hall, 1998, p. 114). If love with a stranger is often romanticized in popular culture (e.g., romance novels), love from a dangerous stranger may evoke deeper fantasies of taboo and risk in an otherwise culturally preferred courtship process.

Stalking as Gendered. One of the notable shifts in media portrayals of stalking is that victims are typically depicted as female while stalkers are typically depicted as male (Lowney & Best, 1995). This shift invokes common societal stereotypes about the nature of criminality and victimization. Combined with the early portrayals of stalking, "the most popular image is that of a celebrity who is stalked by a crazed fan or a battered woman who has left a physically abusive relationship and is now being stalked by the ex-lover" (Hall, 1998, p.114). The research, indeed, clearly shows that stalking is a fairly gendered activity. Approximately 75-80 percent of stalking victims are female and approximately 75-80 percent of stalkers are male (Spitzberg, in press). Research in some populations, however, shows relatively no or small sex differences in either the victimization by, or perpetration of, unwanted pursuit (e.g., Adams, Pitre & Smith, 2001; Brownstein, 2001; Langhinrichesen-Rohling, Palarea, Cohen, & Rohling, 2000; Logan, Leukefeld & Walker, 2000; Sinclair & Frieze, 2000; Spitzberg & Cupach, 2001, 2002; Spitzberg, Nicastro & Cousins, 1998; Spitzberg & Rhea, 1999). It seems that Hollywood pursues some movies that depict stalking episodes in ways that violate these gender stereotypes, such as showing a female stalking a male (e.g., Fatal Attraction), a female stalking a female (e.g., Single White Female), or a male stalking a male (e.g., The Fan). Such depictions may be viewed as sensational precisely because they violate traditional gender stereotypes for such a crime.

The media also portray stalking as relatively premeditated and, therefore, the victims as relatively helpless (Kappeler et al., 1996). The image of the helpless victim is consistent with both common stereotypes of women as reactive rather than proactive in courtship, and as less capable of taking care of themselves and in need of protection. In a potential double bind, another common stereotype is that women victims of violent crimes, especially sexual crimes, "ask for it" by the way they dress, or how much alcohol they may consume enables many to distance themselves from victims of violent crimes (Cuklanz, 1996). These stereotypes are not very consistent with the actual research on stalking that shows approximately 75 percent deriving from the context of existing relationships, the majority of which were previously intimate (Meloy, 1996; Spitzberg, in press). That is, stalking emerges from contexts in which the participants often pursued voluntarily and comfortably a mutually preferred relationship, which only later became exploitative, potentially due to mutually reinforced problems in the relationship.

Stalking as Psychopathic and Violent. Lowney and Best (1995) found in their content analysis of early reports of stalking (circa 1989-1990) that "claimsmakers depicted star-stalkers as mentally disturbed, inappropriately obsessed with their celebrity victims" (p. 39). Later (mid-1990s), stalking was most likely to be depicted as leading to homicide, suggesting that the "if it bleeds, it leads" priority took over once the crime was no longer as novel and unusual in the public consciousness. The movie industry capitalizes on the fears and curiosities evoked by the images of mental disturbance and violence (e.g., Pacific Heights, The Body Guard, The Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Stalked). Such sensationalistic dramas reflect, and may reinforce, news reporting biases of reporting more on the glamorous, thrilling aspects of stalking than on the common, more normative, aspects of the crime. Research shows that stalkers brought to the attention of law enforcement do commonly have psychological disorders (see Meloy, 1996, 1999; Meloy & Gothard, 1995; Meyers, 1997). However, to date there is substantial evidence that processes of unwanted pursuit, even often threatening pursuit, occur in relatively "normal" populations (Cupach & Spitzberg, 1998; Cupach & Spitzberg, 2000; Spitzberg, in press). Intersecting with the previous stereotypes, these data indicate that victims of stalking have less to fear from strangers than from intimates.

Stalking as Clearly Distinguishable from Courtship. At the same time the media horrify stalking, the media ironically tend to glorify stalking-like actions. Romance narratives commonly entail romantic idealizations and adventurous endeavors overcoming great odds and involving great personal sacrifice, as the one obsessed with another invests in a campaign of pursuit despite the rejections by the object of affection (de Becker, 1997). Reflecting a common cultural romantic theme that persistence in courtship eventually pays off (Lowney & Best, 1995, p. 50), stalkers’ Quixotic quests are given vivid narrative life. Indeed, that the average duration of stalking tends to be approximately two years (Spitzberg, in press) indicates persistence is a hallmark of stalking and unwanted pursuit. Consequently, actions romanticized as persistence may in many cases exceed the boundaries of propriety. Research demonstrates that even relatively mild to moderate forms of unwanted pursuit and intrusion are often perceived as threatening (Cupach & Spitzberg, 2000). Thus, glorifying such events in the media makes identifying them for the public at large a more difficult task.

Discussion

Several interrelated media-fostered stereotypes of violent crime in general, and stalking in particular, have been suggested by this analysis. By way of summary, it appears that the media create, or at least reinforce, the following portrayals: Stalking is celebriphilic; Stalkers are strangers; Stalking is gendered; Stalkers are disturbed; Stalking is violent; and Stalking is culturally deviant. Specifically, stalking is portrayed as threatening and violent, despite data that suggest violence occurs in a minority of stalking relationships. Stalking is portrayed as a product of sick, psychopathic individuals, despite data indicating that most stalking results from preexisting relationships, suggesting the relative normality of the perpetrators. Stalking is often portrayed as a social and cultural aberration, something bizarre and deviant. Yet, stalking itself is little more than an extreme version of existing norms and rituals of courtship. Stalking is portrayed as a highly gendered crime, in which women are at higher risk and threat than males, and males are portrayed as the primary perpetrator. While data support the statistical norms for this stereotype, and despite some notable Hollywood exceptions (e.g., The Fan, Fatal Attraction, the stalking of Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, etc.), in general women are portrayed as the more prototypical victim, and at much greater risk, and men are portrayed as the prototypical perpetrator. Such stereotypes may ultimately undermine the possibility, let alone the credibility, of male victims and female perpetrators. Finally, stalking continues to be associated with stars and status. In part, simply because those with high status are more likely to be considered newsworthy, stalking stories will disproportionately imply this link. In the process, however, the vastly more common stalking of the far more common person becomes a relatively hidden crime.

An important caveat to any attempt at depicting media typifications and trends is that there is the risk of over-generalizing the over-generalizations. The media are far from univocal in their activities and tendencies. Furthermore, while "it is too simplistic to seek a mono-dimensional stereotype of a victim, so too is it too simplistic to seek a mono-dimensional stereotype of a stalker" (Keenahan & Barlow, 1997, p. 294). Thus, an effort has been made to reflect some of the complexity of the process of media portrayals. To characterize any tendency in the media as a whole is a process fraught with ironic potential.

Examining stalking under the light of previous research literature that examines crime depictions in the media allows for an understanding of how stalking is often misunderstood by society. For example, in Great Britain Sheridan and Davies (2001) compared legislative definitions of stalking with public perceptions of stalking, and found significant differences between the two. In another study, subjects clearly distinguished stalking from non-stalking behaviors, and the clusters identified were viewed as "constituents of stalking as recently portrayed by the media" (Sheridan, Gillett & Davies, 2000, p. 276). However, these authors also found that verbal forms of pursuit and intrusion were largely lacking from people’s perceptions of stalking, and concluded that only 20 of the 40 behaviors examined achieved greater than 70 percent shared agreement as stalking behaviors. Hills and Taplin (1997) found in an experimental scenario study that females tend to perceive stalking behaviors as less threatening than males, a finding suggested by Tjaden, Thoennes, and Allison's (2000) report that men who meet the legal definition of being victims of stalking are less likely to view themselves as stalking victims. Perhaps most telling is that police, who should be far more informed than the average person, face many difficulties responding to stalking cases (Spitzberg, 2002). One study presented a stalking scenario to police officers and only slightly over half of them considered treating it as a stalking incident (Farrell, Weisburd & Wyckoff, 2000). A study of actual case files found that out of 285 domestic violence police reports containing narrative elements of stalking, only one resulted in a formal charge of stalking (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000).

Some have suggested that there are powerful institutional forces at work to "manufacture" victims and victimization (e.g., Dineen, 1996). Indeed, it has been argued that it was the intense media attention to stalking that created sufficient public consciousness to find "political expression in a series of anti-stalking laws" (Mullen et al., 2000, p. 11). "New crimes offer government officials opportunities for media coverage; …" and experts, activists, and the media thereby obtain visibility and resources (Best, 1999, p. 67). The argument of self-interested manufacture of public policy, however, appears largely based on two important assumptions. First, it is assumed that economic motives (e.g., law enforcement budgets, political agendas to pander to public interest in the rhetoric of safe streets, psychologists’ profit motive in maintaining a steady stream of clients, etc.) equate to actual political collusion in creating victims ex nihilo. Second, such an institutional collusion hypothesis assumes that estimates and diagnoses of victimization are exaggerated relative to the facts. The first assumption seems paranoid a priori, and is not evidenced by actual exemplars of collusive discourse or paper trails. The second assumption, even if true, hardly denies the existence of a large number of victims, whether counted in the thousands, tens of thousands, or millions. In short, as Spitzberg (1999) suggested in his meta-analysis of studies of rape and sexual coercion prevalence, even if the estimates are lower than some studies and authors have claimed, the best estimates summarized across almost 100 studies still make it obvious that the problems are real and significant enough to stop debating whether there is a problem (Spitzberg, in press).

One of the obvious biases in the media typifications of stalking is that reporters’ crime beats are dominated by police as information sources about crime (Chermak, 1995). Yet, research reveals that women consistently experience gender-specific difficulties in their experiences with police as a source of assistance with their victimization (e.g., Chaudhuri & Daly, 1992; Fischer & Rose, 1995; Gondolf, McWilliams, Hart, & Stuehling, 1994; Kaci, 1994; Keilitz, Davis, Efkeman, Flango & Hannaford, 1998; Klein, 1996; Spitzberg, in press; Wallace & Kelty, 1995; Zoellner et al., 2000). Victims often are sufficiently traumatized by their experience that they neither seek nor want greater exposure under the media spotlight. Lowney and Best (1995) found that medical, mental health, and legal, criminal justice experts were far more likely to be cited as authorities in stalking reports than were women’s victims movement experts. Furthermore, Chermak’s (1995) research on crime reports showed that "psychological effects were mentioned in approximately one percent of the sampled stories" (p. 70). In short, stalking reporting is likely to be framed from a law enforcement perspective rather than a victims’ perspective. Such a bias may emphasize issues of motive, method, and narrative rather than elaborate victims’ sense-making and coping in the face of such unwanted pursuit.

Thus, the official version of crimes often come only from the police, or from clinical psychologists, who have a motive and a worldview to construct crimes as non-routine and products of sick, pathological, and unpredictable individuals. Once again, this would seem to distort the "normality" of stalking in society, and the extent to which it may at once be both a crime perpetrated by men and women, and yet a crime that allows men to terrorize women through routine stalking activities so long as they do not cross the intangible lines that would elicit police response. Police can only report on crimes that come to their attention, and only the most egregious stalking crimes are likely to come to their attention, which are also likely to be those stalking crimes that involve women as victims and psychologically disturbed, male perpetrators. Furthermore, men may be embarrassed to report stalking victimization, especially if it is at the hands of a woman. Such victimization may be considered emasculating by men. This permits men in society to (1) distance themselves and their own mundane relational intrusions from the crime of stalking, and (2) be deterred from ever seeking police intervention in their own stalking victimizations for fear that such incidents would not be regarded as real crimes. At the same time, (3) women would still be likely to experience a background of everyday terrorism by the realization that the next man they say hello to may be a psychopath as depicted in the media (Brockway & Heath, 1998; Ferraro, 1996; Kelly & DeKeseredy, 1994; Stanko, 1985, 1990).

As a potentially paradoxical contrast, once a crime of stalking has come to the attention of the police and media, subsequent instances of arrest, sentencing, and imprisonment are all disproportionately likely to suggest a veil of regulated order and protection. By contrast, in fictional crime shows "estimates put the solution rate on television at greater than 90 percent" (Surette, 1998, p. 21). Only a relatively small fraction of all stalking is likely to be reported to police, subsequently prosecuted, and subsequently resulting in actual punishment of the perpetrator (e.g., Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). Indeed, it is difficult to locate cases of romantic stalking reported in the media in which the perpetrator was not already apprehended at the time of the report.

One area for future research will be investigation of media effects due to format of presentation. For example, Chermak (1995) reports that television and newspapers differed in their coverage of crimes in a variety of ways. Crime was the second most covered topic on television news, but fifth in newspapers. But certain stages of crimes are more visual, and thus more likely to be covered by television (e.g., police investigation) relative to what is covered by newspapers (e.g., court proceedings). Given the extended time period and intentionally stealthy nature of stalking, it may be a relatively "non-visual" crime unless it ends in a particularly violent manner. Sensational stalking events may be covered more by television, and less violent, routine stalking events may be more covered by newspapers. To the extent that television continues to dominate newspapers as a primary source of news, such a difference between media in their coverage of stalking may perpetuate the sensationalistic stereotypes regarding stalking processes.

A second important arena for research is to conduct random and representative samples of media reports of stalking. These data could then be systematically coded for narrative content and structures, as well as visual content. Such analyses, especially if sensitive to time, could reveal whether stalking reportage has, indeed, evolved (e.g., Lowney & Best, 1995). Furthermore, if these analyses could then be yoked to public opinion surveys regarding fear of stalking as a crime, then a much more comprehensive picture could emerge regarding the role that media and their consumers play in the co-construction of crime stereotypes.

Research is only now coming to grips with the need for scientifically reliable information on stalking, only slightly beyond a decade after the crime splashed onto the headlines and television screens of American culture (e.g., Meloy, 1999; Mullen et al., 2000; Spitzberg, in press; Spitzberg & Cupach, 2001, 2002, in press). It is never easy to strip away fact from myth in the domain of media portrayals, as all such efforts come from an ideological position that interacts imperceptibly with the ideological positions being critiqued. Such efforts, however, provide vital insight both into the process of media influence of public perception, and into the phenomena portrayed, such as stalking.

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