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neocatharsis · 3 years

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Ten on his new Represent capsule, grappling with creativity, and evading genre lines.

As Ten Lee - a vocalist and dancer in K-pop groups NCT (with whom he debuted in 2016) and Super M, and Chinese group WayV - is musing over his proclivity for partnering music or visual styles in a way that others deem strange, he veers off on a tangent. “Anything can be matched… except juice and coffee,” he says, suddenly. “Those two should never be.” Ten is infamously anti-fruit. It stems from a mistaken process of association in childhood where “I had the image of a spider and the image of fruit mixed up,” he laughs awkwardly, “so now whenever I put fruit in my mouth, I think there’s spiders in my mouth.”

Random abstractions such as this pepper his rapid-fire conversation, like small fireworks fizzing through the dark. Excitable, enthused and sharply alert, if Ten’s energy was visible it would be a shimmering mantle of gold and silver dust. As a dancer, he moves with a sinuous, controlled power that can shift from elegant to explosive on a single beat. As a visual artist, the Bangkok-born, multilingual 25-year-old recently added the title of designer to his growing list of achievements, launching an already sold out collaboration with the bespoke merch platform Represent.

Aptly, he named his collaboration “What is ??? THE ANSWERS”, for although being a chameleonic artist is one of Ten’s greatest strengths, the personality traits that enable this created within him question marks around how he saw himself fitting into the world. “People ask me, ‘What kind of music do you like?’ And I say, ‘I like R&B but hope it sounds rock’. And they’re like, ‘That doesn’t make sense’.” It was troubling to Ten that people began telling him who he was and how he should be, instead of accepting him as is.

In a recent Instagram Live, the myriad of Ten’s contrasts tumble forthwith. He’s the doting cat-dad. His inner emo, who loves rock music, shows off dried roses, with the stern, black, geometric lines of the large tattoo on his inner right arm sometimes visible. But he’s also delicate in a way, with his butterfly tattoo and hair lightly permed, who names daisies as his other favourite flower, and plays Fousheé’s breathy TikTok hit, 'Deep End'.

“Have you seen the image where I have my name in a cross in lots of different languages?” He pulls the image up on his phone. The design sits on his Represent long sleeve tee. “I was thinking [about this], like, what you’re saying... Ten has this luvvie flower side and a very ‘rawwrr!’ side. I’m always like, ‘Ten, what kind of person are you?’ I do ask myself that, too, because everything I like is so different [to the other].” He could have conceded, and reined himself in. He’s pushed back instead. “I thought, ‘I can be anything I want, I can be this in the morning and this at night. I can be any person I want to be’. And that’s what makes me comfortable and happy.”

On his Instagram, Polaroids feature scrawled messages, like “Don’t tell me what to do!” and “Whatever! I’ll do it my way”. The designs of his collaboration seek to challenge being boxed in by other people’s standards, thus limiting ourselves. The recurring symbol of a cross tipped with arrows is a nod to the Chinese letter for 10, but doubles as a plus sign. He’s added it to his Instagram, writing “TEN_+•10” in his bio. “A plus sign can mean that you’re adding on and growing.” He points to another version of the arrow-cross, one with short diagonal dashes between its points that symbolise light. It means, he says, “that I’m radiating. I’m burning, I’m active, I’m doubling myself.” He touches his forearm, where crowning his geometric tattoo is a blazing sun. “I have this, like, if you want to be the light, you have to burn. I relate to that.”

This isn’t to say Ten’s self-exploration is complete. While celebrating his strengths, the artwork also portrays parts of himself not yet conquered. He admits to being a chronic overthinker: “Even very small things that happen to me, I rethink a thousand times, and I get stressed out because of the things I do. Like, the main theme [here] is me overthinking but trying to find an answer even though it doesn’t have any answer.” Fittingly, spiral shapes dominate his designs, looming large amongst bright, bold shapes that evoke 80s Pop Art and graffiti, though Ten shies away from defining himself as “fully an artist, I’m not in the position to say things like that yet.”

“I’m still learning and trying new things. You learn by getting different elements from different people and I’m in that stage now.” He enjoys wandering the infinite halls of Instagram and Pinterest where he screenshots art that he likes, lost in the images, often for hours. He explains that he’s mostly influenced by whatever his current visual obsession is. “I’m interested in tattoos lately so my paintings look like tattoo designs. I’m that person who, when they see stuff, it goes into my brain and instantly comes out from my hands,” he laughs.

Ten’s introduction to art and design was through his mother, who believed music, art and sport were more important in a child’s development than traditional academia. “She didn’t care if I got an A* or not, just don’t get an F or a D,” he grins. Like any kid forced to do something, Ten railed against spending his weekends at art school. He attended but he didn’t draw. He befriended his teacher and other pupils and, as they worked, he chatted. “I was a very talkative kid! When I came to SM Entertainment (in 2013), I had a lot of my own time because my parents were in Thailand and I was alone. I had to absorb all the new culture and adapt to a new environment.’” When he felt surrounded by “negative energy”, he began drawing, enamoured with the space and freedom it offered because in art, as he often says, “there’s no right answer.”

There is, however, sometimes a middle ground. His goal was to make the Represent collection accessible to his diverse fanbase. “I wanted to make things that people can easily wear because it was my first project to make something with clothes and it’s a collab. If you go too far out, no one will get it. If you go too far back, people won’t reach for it. So finding the middle ground is important but that’s the hardest thing to do. If it’s my own project, I’ll be like, ‘I’m the president of this brand, I’m gonna make all the weird clothes that I can imagine!’”

He sought second opinions to ensure his designs landed the way he hoped. “I have a lot of good friends around me - my choreographer, (SHINee and Super M member) Taemin hyung, my manager. I randomly ask people I’m comfortable with and have known for a long time, like Mark (Lee, of NCT and Super M). Mark has the same kind of perspective as me, but I’m a person who is arrghhh!” He waves his hands in the air. “And he’s very calm. I need a person who is opposite of me because when I’m in a mood, I talk nonsense - ‘I wanna do this, I wanna do that, I wanna make this!’ - and Mark’s like,’Bro, calm down’,” he says in a rather uncanny impression of the Canadian-Korean.

Ten works fast when he’s drawing. He has to. He describes his personality as someone who can't wait until the next day to do something. “I’m very impatient,” he smiles. “If I’m going to paint or draw, I’m going to finish it in, like, two hours. I can’t sit down for three hours.” When inspiration hits him, it’s off the back of deep contemplation, sometimes about the mundane - “Like, why do the cats come to me when they’re hungry only? Is it selfish or instinct? - at other times, something affecting him emotionally.

But whereas his job as a singer and dancer sees him project his energy outwards, art offers the opposite. He’s often alone in his room when he works. As is for many artists, the right mood is fundamental. “When I’m in a good mood, I can’t draw,” he half-sighs. It’s also a multi-sensory process. “Smell or the temperature of the room, that really helps me draw. I light three or four candles. And when I draw, it’s kind of heavy, the feeling,” he explains. “It feels like you’re sinking into something, into yourself, and everything seems so small. Everything narrows down into me, my pencil, the paper.”

The more work he does in different creative mediums, the less Ten’s desire is to keep them separate. His art, dance and music influence each other, whether it’s customising his own collaboration pieces, a choreography video in an art gallery or dancing underwater with a film crew. When someone tells him that something won’t work or match up well, he refuses to let the idea go until he’s attempted it.

“I’ve had that since I was young. I think everything is possible. If you don’t try, you don’t know. When people say it’s impossible, like dancing in water for three minutes, I’m like, then let’s make it possible. You don’t need to walk a straight line [in life], you can walk this way,” Ten says, pointing along an invisible line before switching sharply in direction. “Then go back on track, go that way, come back. No one should tell you to walk in a line, I don’t see the point of that.”

#nct #wayv #Ten

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fannishcodex · 4 years

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Unpopular Opinion Maybe: Kipo had an Identity Crisis in S1

More and more I honestly get bothered when people are all like “ooh Kipo wasn’t affected by being a mega mute lab experiment due to her parents experimenting on her it’s so refreshing compared to other cartoons LOL” because it’s completely glossing over season 1 where Kipo absolutely freaked out over her body suddenly physically changing and suddenly looking like a mute for no apparent reason. Tad Mulholland gave her a dream that was largely about this, Wolf almost left her over this. Kipo was absolutely affected by this, it absolutely caused an identity/existential crisis for her, it absolutely freaked her out.

Kipo absolutely freaked out when her body started growing fur and exhibiting other extreme physical changes and showed indications she was somehow suddenly changing into a mute for no apparent reason. (This in no way indicates she ever harbored serious anti-mute feelings. This is literally about her body suddenly physically changing for no apparent reason.) So much of Tad Mulholland’s dream reflects her anxiety and yes, angst, about these sudden physical changes. Kipo’s allowed to get upset when her body suddenly starts physically changing and she has no idea why; and it’s happening on top of an already stressful situation where she’s separated from her father and the rest of her people in a world that’s still brand new to her and filled with as many dangers as wonders, etc. Kipo again has angst, or is reasonably upset over the whole thing when Wolf realizes she seems to be part mute and seemingly lied about it, and apparently rejects her for it; Kipo pours out her sadness and frustration and emotional turmoil to Jamack, who comforts her, and of course Jamack couldn’t comfort her if Kipo wasn’t upset or had angst and an identity crisis.

Kipo’s not automatically a cheerful sunflower all the time. She’s largely positive because she makes a concentrated effort to be (for example, Kipo does seem tired and ready to leave Jamack, but she decides to go back for him). Kipo’s an actual character with feelings and should be allowed to experience all emotions, even angst, because she should be allowed to get upset.

The only “refreshing,” actually different thing about this is the order--Kipo freaked out and had an identity crisis and angst when she got signs of an extreme change in her body before she learned the truth behind why this was happening.

I’d argue Kipo’s reaction is more about being so relieved to finally get some kind of answer for why her body’s been physically changing that she doesn’t try to challenge it too much, and that she’s also in denial about the gravity of the situation when she gets the revelation about what her parents did to her, and she also ends up pressured by time crunch/emergencies and just pushes her actual feelings over this aside because there’s no time. Kipo learns what her parents did to her, and then has a like a week to save her dad and her people before Scarlemagne’s coronation. Kipo really doesn’t have time to fully process the revelation; she has to focus more on using her mega mute jaguar powers for the practical use of saving her father and people, not actually take the time to really consider how she really feels about them and what her parents did to her.

And even when she’s just focused on practically using her mega mute jaguar powers, Kipo is in fact stressing and angsting over it. She may say she’s fine and express enthusiasm for her mega mute jaguar abilities and act impressed with what her parents did, but her mega mute jaguar abilities do adversely affect her whether she directly admits it or not. In the Deatherstalker episode, Kipo does show signs of the emotional pressure her mega mute status has put on her; with these mega mute powers, she has the power to help her dad and her people, so she keenly feels she has to, she feels responsible for this and probably feels that there’s no one else she can really turn to fully take this burden (of course she loves her dad and people and wants to protect them, and of course this is an all ages show with a number of kid protagonists, but still, she just turned 13, and lived a pretty normal, safe Burrow life until her home was attacked), and she stresses over suddenly being asked to successfully do a thing she’s never done before; Kipo gets super freaked out when her mega mute powers accidentally hurt Benson; and of course the Chevre Sisters have warned Kipo that she can lose her mind if she fully transforms, and much of the season is devoted to making sure that doesn’t happen. And later Kipo gets a concrete example of that threat when she learns her mother has been entirely absent in her life because she’s lost her mind to a mega mute transformation for 13 years and was also under Emilia’s control. (And while this probably needs its own post, to sum up: a lot of this is also again Song and Lio’s fault because of their experimenting, Song exposed herself to mutation, Emilia’s the worst but it doesn’t seem like she would weaponize Song if Song didn’t turn herself into a mega mute monkey susceptible to puppet pheromones torturously taken from Hugo.)

While it’s nice feeling like you’re seeing something new and refreshing, I feel like sometimes people fall into overly reactionary trends and don’t look at things on an individual basis or think of characters as their own individuals. Maybe people want to think it’s refreshing that Kipo’s not affected or not having angst over being a mute lab experiment due to her parents (but again, she has been affected by this) because they’re comparing this to other cartoons, but what about Kipo as a character herself and the show as its own story?

I also actually think the idea of Kipo getting upset over this makes more sense than many other cartoons and has much more impact, because her situation is actually really severe when you think about what the story’s done so far in terms of events.

I’ll probably do another separate “unpopular opinion” post on this, but to sum up: Lio and Song unnecessarily experimented on baby Kipo without her consent and pushed their own ambitions of “making the surface safe for humans” on her, also without her consent. It was canonically a dangerous experiment because they failed to realize Kipo could’ve lost her mind and been stuck as a mega mute, something that did happen to Song for 13 years; Song was accidentally mutated, and again the side effects were gravely underestimated because Song had a dramatic transformation where she not only lost her mind but destroyed the DNA Burrow, and Kipo could’ve been killed in that accidental rampage (and Hugo/Scarlemagne was literally scarred from it, he suffered literal physical damage from it--which also implies worse than injuries and physical scars could’ve happened).

I’ve read some people essentially say “well, not every cartoon has to get this emotional, it could just be cheerful,” and that just makes me think 1) then a cartoon should be written so that the more 24/7 cheerful tone fits, and 2) there are several cartoons you can already watch that don’t get so emotional. Just deal with the cartoons that do choose to be emotional, because cartoons can have a wide variety.

And I don’t think KATAOW is the place to pull “oh haha she’s not affected by all this even though it’s super messed up because let’s be just different from others and not think about our own story and cast we’ve just gotta go against an apparent so-called trend without laying down the groundwork to actually support that reactionary rejection of an apparent so-called trend.”

And I do really hope and still think that on some level the show is actually gonna pull through and address this and do something really neat. Because while Kipo acts like she’s fine with what her parents did to her, again there was her severe freak-out in season 1 when faced with actual consequences of what they did and with no one to give her any explanation for what the hell was happening, and there are her struggles with her experimental mega mute jaguar side in season 2; and just as importantly, Wolf and Benson seem alarmed by what Lio and Song did. I think that’s critical. Even if Wolf and Benson aren’t explicit about it, it’s pretty clear that they look uncomfortable with what they learn from the Project Kipo notebook, even if they’re more focused on going along with Kipo’s cheer. I just feel like that will be followed up in season 3.

And it’s a 3-season show. Writers have said that they have told a complete story with the show over 3 seasons. I can imagine that in season 3 they’ll follow up on this in some way and better challenge what Lio and Song did and let Kipo finally freak out over what her parents did, as much as she freaked out by herself in season 1.

Because that also gets to me. As things stand now, Lio and Song have avoided the worst of the direct emotional fallout of what they did to Kipo. They did not get to see their daughter have a gradual meltdown over the sudden changes in her body, her confusion and emotional turmoil and fear that her friend-sister Wolf rejected her over the whole thing. Kipo’s only ever acted like “it’s fine” to them about it. And I find that really unfair, especially to Kipo. She should get to be upset, she should get to be upset with her parents and make them better realize the consequences of what they actually did to her. Lio and Song should also just deal with even more consequences.

P.S. I also don’t really buy the half mute/half human as mixed race metaphor because it’s too deeply rooted in scientific experimentation on babies without any possible consent (and Kipo is already actually mixed race with a Black father and a Korean mother), and I have more thoughts on what it’s more about and its potential as a more unique story that’s specifically tied to the world of KATAOW, but I think that’s another post too.

#kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #kipo oak #lio oak #song oak #kataow #meta #not a reblog

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blucmoon · 3 years

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━ ☾ ⊹ ( lee sung kyung, cis female , she/her ) say hello to KWON INNA, the THIRTY ONE YEAR OLD that seems to have a lot in HER hands with HER job as a TRADITIONAL TEAHOUSE OWNER! beyond that, they seemed CONSIDERATE AND HARDWORKING upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of GULLIBLE AND IMPATIENT though. SHE seems to live in a FOUR BEDROOM HOUSE in YUNHWA, SOUTH KOREA. anything else to add? oh, yeah! she also USED TO BE AN EDITOR AT A PROMINENT PUBLISHING COMPANY IN SEOUL!

about

name: inna kwon

birthday: september 10, 1989

age: 31

gender and pronouns: cis female, she / her.

orientation: bisexual,

birthplace: busan, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea.

current location: yunhwa, south korea. (house #4013, hwesakgu)

level of education: b.a in korean language and literature & journalism (double major)

occupation: owner of the teahouse at yeyun inn

past occupations: editor at a prominent publishing company in seoul.

appearance

height: 176cm / 5’7ft

weight: 54kg / 119lbs

piercings: left ear; daith, flat, double helix, anti-tragus, upper lobe and lobe. right ear; helix, upper lobe and lobe. likes to wear cuff earrings often.

fashion style: used to stick to seoul’s fashion, always wearing luxury brands as expected from the daughter of a socialite family. suits, skirts, dresses, purses… she didn’t spare any expense when it came to her wardrobe. now that she’s in yunhwa, inna completely changed her style… and finally found one that allows her to feel comfortable in her own skin and stop pretending to be something she isn’t and never was. tight clothing was exchanged for dresses and skirts that dance with the breeze while she takes walks on the beach. sweaters, blazers and blouses that are two sizes too big on her, often making her to roll up the sleeves for comfort. pants, shorts and skirts of all shapes and lengths in a variety of patterns, mostly plaid, pinstripes, herringbone and every so often she’d opt for more striking, eye catching patterns (it has a lot to do with her emotional state). as for shoes, she changed the expensive stilettos for flats, boots and sneakers. for accessorizing, she likes to decorate her wrists with dainty bracelets and her hands with several rings in gold and silver, usually three in the left hand and five in the right one, sometimes stacked, sometimes one on each finger. depending on the season, she either wears delicate necklaces or fashionable scarves that cover both, style and function. her favorite way to dress is with pants, mostly cuffed jeans, a blouse or a shirt that she loosely tucks in and long coats, big cardigans or blazers on top.

eyes: a light shade of brown, almost reminiscent of melted caramel: equally as warm and sweet but doesn’t necessarily catering to everyone.

hair color and style: it’s been far too long since she’s last seen her natural hair color, which she vaguely remembers as a dark brown, so dark that she sometimes thought was just black. as she grew up and gained a little more of liberty to make her own decisions, her hair changed to a variety of colors: from red to black to light brown to blonde with pastel strikes. now, it’s dyed auburn brown, reaching the middle of her back and with bangs. she has naturally wavy hair, but only slightly, enough to not be considered straight. she likes it and would rarely ever go out of her way to do anything different like straightening or curling it, much preferring to let it cascade down her shoulders. halfway through the day though she can be seen pulling it up in messy buns or ponytails, or even braiding it whenever she has some free time.

personality

positive personality traits: disciplined, honest, considerate

negative personality traits: impatient, stubborn, gullible

bad habits or vices: stressing over things she can’t control, smoking once or twice a day (more when she’s anxious or stressed), late night snacking, drums her fingers everywhere.

birth chart: virgo sun, capricorn moon, leo rising

mbti: isfp

enneagram: 4w3

hobbies/interests: reading under the sun, journaling, listening to music directly from vinyl, playing chess and jigsaw puzzles, riding her bike to and from work and around town, nightly drives and two in the morning street food, online shopping, sales hunting, cooking.

background (tldr)

inked words in a piece of parchment were all it took to turn her life around.

one day, she held a crown over her head, titles of excellence under her arm and an engagement ring around her finger. inna was the oldest daughter, the next in line, the one that was meant to achieve greatness first between the three siblings and set the example for them.

having the kwon surname was a synonym of high expectations and never did she fall short of any of them. inna was an exemplary woman, hard working and, most importantly, one that rarely voiced her opinions.

nonetheless, the day she came across a letter addressed directly to her was the day she started questioning who she really was.

sometimes, the protection that comes within hiding the truth is much needed to keep someone blissfully unaware of the reality; to keep them from unnecessary pain. inna doesn’t blame her parents for sheltering her, but she does hold it against them for underestimating her and not telling her she was adopted sooner.

the letter was short and the sender’s penmanship was gorgeous, clear, easy to read… and one that was completely strange to her. yet, she claimed to be her biological mother and promises of some answers came within a will, one that conceded her the ownership of a property and a teahouse, both allocated in yunhwa.

after several days of contemplation, arguments between her and her mother and research about a town she’s never heard of before, inna made a decision. one motivated by the final straw that came in the shape of a selfish partner whose only real interest was to have the perfect trophy wife. packing her whole life into cardboard boxes and several suitcases isn’t nearly as difficult as she first expected and so she leaves without looking back.

saying goodbye to seoul leaves a bittersweet taste as she drives five hours to yunhwa, only stopping when arriving at the address on the will. the woman spent almost an hour observing the front of the rather old house and it was clear that no one had habited it for months; overgrown plants on the small garden at the front, dust collecting on the windows… and the unknown behind its closed door.

she had no idea of what to expect, of what she going to find. it’s deeply scares her, the truth has never been an easy thing to swallow and she second guesses her plans when someone, apparently her mother’s acquaintance, stops by and the first thing they tell her is “you have her eyes.”

that’s all it takes for inna to make up her mind.

background (full)

inna is the oldest daughter of the kwon family, who were not famous per se, but well-positioned in the high society of seoul. her father had a couple of restaurants and her mother was the director of a publishing company she built from the ground. other than that, they’re your average rich family with parents having great expectations on their children to either follow their steps or achieve greatness on their own. inna was the ‘firstborn’, older than her brother for seven years and nine years older than her sister.

an absolute sweetheart as a kid, easily charming everyone with her dimpled smiles and lighter-colored eyes, a striking feature that didn’t resemble neither her mother’s or father’s very own eyes. however, it was never questioned neither was it unwelcomed. instead, it was appraised and even something her mother often showed off.

almost always been a well behaved daughter; charming, polite, obedient. the classic oldest daughter schtick and her mother constantly reminding her to set the example for her siblings only added to it. sure, she got into her fair share of trouble; a broken heart more than once, underage drinking (not too often), maybe cheating in an exam once or twice or copying someone else’s homework, but she made sure nothing would suffice to tarnish her or her family’s reputation permanently.

it’s in high school, after taking a literature class and discovering her love for reading and writing, that she decided to study something along those lines. not so surprisingly, her decision was fully supported by her mother which, admittedly, made her hesitate. inna had the gut feeling that the moment she shared her plans, her mother had already further paved the path of her future.

trying to look past this, college wasn’t nearly half as bad. actually, the years spent studying korean language and literature as well as journalism (double major nerd over here) were her favorites. between her junior and senior years, though, she took a sabbatical year (it was her 21st birthday wish and her father easily caved in despite her mother’s disapproval) to travel and her first destination was paris followed by london, tokyo and lastly california.

graduating at twenty two, inna immediately got a job in her mother’s company and slowly worked her way up until achieving the position of editor-in-chief at twenty seven. inna was really good at her job and she knew what it took for the company’s publications to become best-sellers, but she never shone whatsoever.

all her achievements never seemed to be hers for the spotlight always landed on her mother and rumor had it that inna got where she was thanks to her mother, which is partly true. sure, getting the job was a given, but everyone failed to see how exigent her mother- her boss was, or the amount of criticism she got without anyone noticing, or the late nights at the office, or the weekends without a break. still, inna never went out of her way to discredit the rumors, already knowing that changing people’s minds was 1. difficult and 2. pointless. every word, jab and snide comment directed her way fell on deaf ears.

inna wasn’t particularly discontented about her job, but she didn’t feel fulfilled either.

something felt constantly amiss and the sensation of being utterly lost was nothing new to her either. her dreams, goals and ambitions were all stored away, collecting dust and spiderwebs, just like her unfinished manuscripts safely kept in a box at home. being an author was her biggest dream, not reviewing, editing and telling other authors what to do to become a hit. inna wanted, longed to be on the other side.

however, there always seemed to be excuses for her not to: endless work, new publications, new clients and projects, then promotion after promotion and, lastly, a new partner that asks her hand in marriage by the time she turns thirty.

he was sweet, caring and always supported her professional growth. idealistically, the perfect partner. the kind that she introduced to her parents without hesitation or having to tell him to keep something a secret to avoid their disapproval. none of that happened this time compared to previous partners of hers. inna should’ve known something wasn’t right about someone so flawless, so selfless. maybe a part of her felt it from the get go, but in her position, the next “natural” step after having a stable career, was getting married and forming a family of her own. so when he asked (nothing too out of the world, just a family dinner), she couldn’t say no.

life was seemingly perfect.

the wedding planning midway through and one of the books the company published and she personally supervised became a huge success in the country, even getting a contract for a drama adaptation, thus the remuneration she got was big. rumors of a new office opening overseas where often heard across the building as well as inna being in charge of it. she couldn’t be happier.

it was the calm before the storm.

one afternoon at her parent’s house everything went downhill.

her mother asked inna to bring her a manuscript from her office. unsuspecting, inna was looking for it through the drawers when accidentally coming across an envelope with her name beautifully written on it. curiosity had always been her best and worst trait, and this time she couldn’t help but reading the contents.

she had no idea of what to expect, of what she was going to find. it’s deeply scares her, the truth has never been an easy thing to swallow and she second guesses her plans when someone, apparently her mother’s acquaintance, stops by and the first thing they tell her is “you have her eyes.”

that’s all it takes for inna to make up her mind.

still, everything feels strange to her as she steps into a house that’s now hers, but has never visited before or even had an idea of its existence. it’s overwhelming, to say the least, to encounter what inna assumes was her mother’s way of living. the further she stepped into the house, she noticed that nothing really matched and every piece of furniture seemed to have been purposely selected to differ from the rest. every chair in the dining room was different, some looked older than the rest and traces of restoration were clear on the mismatched filler between the cracks. a homemade project is what inna assumes. it was a mess, but somehow, a beautiful one.

that’s the first thing she learns about her mother: she liked to give things a second chance.

sleeping in that house wasn’t plausible for several reasons, mostly because she didn’t like the idea of reside there in its current state; the cracking floor, the thick layer of dust that caused her to sneeze repeatedly and she swears a rat had made that place its home. inna immediately planned to do some renovations and reparations and, until the bedroom and kitchen were fully functional, she’d make do by finding another place to stay.

her next stop was yeyun inn, the second location indicated in the will where he was to take over her mother’s business: the teahouse. this was something that absolutely dumbfounded inna, not knowing anything about running a place like that for her core occupation was a stark contrast from it. still, she was aware that the savings she had, despite being a respectable amount, would only last for so long and most of them would be invested in the house anyway.

troubled, she presented the will to the innkeeper as well as her living arrangements problems, which were easily solved by temporarily moving into one of the inn’s rooms. however, the teahouse was different and inna has been struggling a little to learn all there is to learn about it. four months later, inna is still in yunhwa, still learning all she can about her mother and only recently moved into her new house after some renovations were over.

it’s conflicting to be there and be constantly compared to a woman that was a complete stranger to her. somedays, inna feels flattered, especially when they mention their eyes, but most days, she’s angry. she’s resentful. she’s annoyed that the chance of meeting this seemingly wonderful woman that the whole town loved was taken away from her.

some things to note

inna has been in yunhwa for 4 months, never heard of the town before or anything about her mother. she doesn’t know if she’s here to stay permanently or what, but meanwhile, she plans to make this place her home and this is why she considers herself a citizen.

has not been in touch with her family (except her dad) since she moved into yunhwa. leaving seoul meant leaving everything behind: her job, her engagement, her family, her friends.

it’s nice to not be compared to her adoptive mother and siblings here because whenever this happened in seoul, it was all backhanded compliments… but here in yunhwa, she often has to put up with the same thing, only that nicer and because of her biological mom. sometimes she’s polite, but some days, inna immediately shuts down anyone who even tries to tell her anything (as politely as possible… or not)

actually inna’s biological and adoptive mothers knew each other. her mother adopted her because her biological mother was in a really bad stage in her life and knew she couldn’t provide her daughter the life she deserved. her adoptive mom hadn’t been able to have kids as much as she tried, so at the moment it sounded like a good idea. they made a promise to not tell inna until her mom was in a better place where she could meet her daughter without any shame.

after the adoption, both kept in touch every couple of months for her adoptive mom to update on inna’s life, achievements and everything. this is exactly why some townspeople are prone to know about inna: her mother used to show her off a lot, even showing some photos she got.

her adoptive mother wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids, but seven years after adopting inna, she got news of pregnancy… and again 2 years after that. the dynamic didn’t change much, but her mom has always been extra exigent when it comes to inna and a little more lenient with her siblings.

her biological mom got her life together after struggling for a while and became a really important part of yunhwa’s community. she helped anyone who needed it and tried to find ways to improve the town just to make life a little better. so yeah, inna’s mom was well-known, especially after she got the teahouse (approximately 20 years ago), where she welcomed anyone to share their woes or joys over a cup of tea.

the process of cleaning the house was a long process because of all the things her mother had. she kept some furniture like the table and chairs from the dining room and a beautiful desk, but the rest had been mostly ruined due to the rats. yes, rats. (its okay, the house has been fumigated.)

while going through and selecting her mom’s belongings for donations and stuff, inna found several things that she was able to keep like a box of letters her mother wrote her but never sent, tons and tons of journals she used to write short stories in and that never saw the light and her mom’s vinyls collection. (inna drove all the way to busan to get a new player because hers didn’t work anymore).

the house is still undergoing renovations, but she’s able to live there despite it since they’re done through the day while she’s at the teahouse. she’s slowly becoming a plant mom because of the beautiful lighting the house has and now that she’s not as busy as she was in seoul, she has more time and patience to take care of them properly.

is still struggling to learn the business, but doing a whole lot better than her first month running the teahouse. she also became absurdly fascinated by tea and is absolutely surprised there’s no boba tea in yunhwa yet so she’s made this resolution to learn how to make bubble tea and sell it. (looking for guinea pigs that can taste her delicious creations.)

(cw: smoking) she smokes, an awful habit she got from her working days in the city. has been trying to quit even before she moved into the town but its been to not avail. she’s managed to reduce her intake to one or two a day, but in those days that she’s more stressed, it doubles.

don’t come @ her but she has rich girl hobbies: knows how to play chess and actually enjoys it a lot, she even brought with her a board her father gave her when she was younger and is keen to find someone that plays with her, even if she has to teach them herself.

is shopping a hobby? yes, and she does it quite often though she’s found a secret joy in hunting sales. every so often she likes to splurge and label it as self-care.

enjoys a good wine anytime and if she has a craving in the middle of the night for a good bottle, she’d drive all the way to busan in order to satisfy this. maybe treat herself a dinner or perhaps clubbing? who knows.

has a car but has rarely used it since she moved into yunhwa because the town is so accessible by walking or bike that she decided to buy a bike instead. it’s her favorite method of transportation and uses it everyday to get to work.

#INFO.TXT #INNA.EXE #LOC.YUNHWA

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100: 7x08 Anaconda

The mini-rewatch of season 7 that @jeanie205 and me did during this mini-hiatus is finished, and with that, I’m going to finally post my reviews of 7x08 and 7x09, hopefully before the show returns.

I’m tempted to start talking about the opening scene without any introduction, just like the episode itself started with no “Previously on” and no cold open (the latter, I believe, for the first time since season 1, when the show still did not have any opening titles).. but I’m going to still say a few general things before going into details under the cut.

When it was first announced that an episode of The 100′s final season would be the backdoor pilot for a prequel show, that info was met with a lot of hostility (to the effect of “why waste a full episode on new characters instead of those we know”), which didn’t surprise me much. What did surprise me was that people mostly seemed to expect the episode to be 100% set in the past and unrelated to anything from season 7 - which, as far as I know, is not how backdoor pilots normally work, they still have to fit within the season they’re a part of. The structure of the episode is more in line with what I expected - while most of the episode is set in the past, the framing device is a scene of Clarke confronting Bill Cadogan in the Stone Room on Bardo, and the long flashback is both setting up a possible prequel, and revealing things relevant to the plot of season 7. The biggest connecting points are the Anomaly Stone on Earth, the importance of the Flame for Cadogan and the Disciples, and Cadogan himself, who is clearly not going to be a character in the prequel except possibly in flashbacks, but who is one of the main antagonists of season 7. The episode works as a backdoor pilot but is also interesting as a part of the backstory of The 100.

I really enjoyed the episode - and as it turns out, I enjoyed it even more on rewatch, when I could stop and soak in all the new info and details - and I hope the prequel does picked up, as it has a lot of potential to be interesting, though there is one big concern I have about it. More about that at the end of this post under “Prequel speculation”.

So no Previously on this time (unsurprisingly), no cold open - and we get a brand new version of the opening titles - since this episode technically fully takes place on Bardo, these opening titles start with the Bardo Stone Room and end with another shot of the Stone Room we haven’t seen before in the OT, one with the Stone. The Stone Room is where they begin and end, just like the episode itself. And just like Clarke and the rest of her group have been stuck in this Stone Room for 4 episodes.

But I actually don’t mind it in this episode. At least Clarke is in the focus of these few minutes we spend in the present, and I really like these few minutes. We start with an expanded version of Clarke's response to the news of Bellamy's "death", with slow motion, distorted angles and close-ups of Clarke’s face showing shock and grief and numbness (and I’m going to post another screenshot of that, because I want to savor the moments when the show focuses on characters’ grief before going back to the action - and not just the type of grief that results in going off the rails and murdering people.) We also see Raven on the verge of tears, and Miller choking a little - the other two people who have been Bellamy’s friends for a long time. Clarke being Clarke, she picks herself up the moment she sees someone else in pain (Raven) and focuses on honoring Bellamy’s memory, just as Bellamy did in 4x13 when he believed Clarke was dead, and tells Raven they need to save Octavia and Echo: “We do this for him. We do this for our family” - acknowledging that saving them is something of particular importance as they were people important to Bellamy, and also including them in the “family”, as the term these people use to describe their group and the bonds that have formed over time. (Family is bond closer and less close than friendship. You can be someone’s friend and their family, but you can also be a part of someone’s family without necessarily having developed a friendship with that person, due to the overall bonds and loyalty.)

Then we get the first meeting between Clarke and probably the season’s main antagonist, Bill Cadogan, who comes to another wrong conclusion when he thinks she recognized him because she has the Flame (and, he hopes, Callie’s memories), when it's actually from a video Jaha showed her.

Gabriel has another moment where he helps Clarke (as when he covered for her in 5x13) and silently communicates with her to let her know that the Disciples believe she still has the Flame, so she could keep up that pretense. These two work well as a team.

The bulk of the episode is the flashback framed as Bill telling a story to Clarke - though we don’t actually see the flashback from his POV, and he doesn’t even appear in many of the scenes. In fact, it is almost all from Callie’s POV, and some of it from Reese’s.

And we get back to Clarke and the Stone Room in the end, with the shocking “twist” of Clarke and the Nakara group seeing Octavia, Echo and Diyoza as Disciples. Shocking for them, not for us - we know they had no choice.

Clarke saying “You killed my best friend!” has caused some pointless (but in this fandom, expected) drama, where some fans saw that as “confirmation” that Bellarke is and will remain completely ‘platonic” - even though that makes no sense. What did anyone expect her to call him? My boyfriend? He wasn’t that. The man I love? My soulmate? Someone expected her to say that to an enemy she’s never met before, in front of a bunch of her friends and other people? Very unlikely, even if he hadn’t still been Echo’s boyfriend when he “died”. Some thought “Bellamy” or “him” would have been better, but what would that mean to Cadogan? He’s never met her and knows nothing about her, and she was trying to make it clear how much Bellamy meant to her. If anything, the fact that she’s singled him out as her best friend is a big progress from their usual habit of never defining their relationship to each other - except for Clarke including Bellamy in the collective designation of her “friends” or “family”.

I love the way the Chromatics cover of Neil Young’s “Into the Black” was used in the ending montage - so I made two gifsets about the use of the song for the Cadogan family scenes, and for the scene with Clarke:

https://travllingbunny.tumblr.com/post/623186143096307712/its-better-to-burn-out-than-to-fade-away-the

https://travllingbunny.tumblr.com/post/623186346138370048/its-better-to-burn-out-than-it-is-to-rust-the

Flashback

This is our second look at the world pre-apocalypse - after the brief scene of Josephine’s memory in 6x07, where we saw Josephine and her friend in the diner. But that scene took place several years before the apocalypse (depending on how much time was needed to get from Earth to Sanctum on Eligius 3, which did not have damaged engines as Eligius 4 did after the uprising), since Josephine and her family and the rest of Mission Team Alpha were already on Sanctum 7 years before the apocalypse. And Josephine and her friend were far less interested in the current events than Callie or August, so we only got a few outside references, including the magazine covers which showed that Diyoza’s capture was the main national news, and that Becca was already very high profile and on the cover of a technology/science magazine.

This, however, is the very day of the apocalypse. In the first scene - Callie Cadogan and her friend Lucy in Callie’s and her mother’s home, after participating in a protest as parts of environmentalist group with the familiar name Tree Crew - we get lots of info about just how crappy this world was even before ALIE started a nuclear apocalypse, through various news items on TV (see this post) - and it is like 2020, only taken to the 10th degree:

natural disasters as a result of global warming (a deathly heath wave is mentioned), new diseases (Coronavirus “Russian Ankovirus” outbreak), economic inequality (one of the news is that measures aimed at poverty relief haven’t met with support in Congress), internment camps in USA, anti-government protests in the USA that end up with riot police beating up protestors, together with technological developments, such as the first orbiting hotel (I wonder if anyone was already using it - if they were, there would be more survivors in space, but it doesn’t seem this ever became a part of the Ark), or the first brain transplant. a medical development which begs some ethical questions (since I’m pretty sure that a person with a functioning brain is still alive... I cant think of several different scenarios, disturbing to various degrees).

The world’s population has risen to 11 billion - I guess that’s why ALIE thought there were “too many people” (but her reasoning was as flawed as Thanos’ - instead of killing people, how about increasing or just better redistributing resources?).

It’s also confirmed that a Wallace was the POTUS at the time, meaning that the President and the administration went to the underground bunker at Mount Weather to survive the apocalypse (after which, as we know, they did the North Korean thing where they nominally live in a republic but their leaders are really hereditary).

Callie calls the US regime at the time “fascistic”, echoing how Diyoza characterized it in season 5.

Callie,her friend Lucy and August were all members of the environmentalist group Tree Crew (who already had the same symbol we later see Trikru the clan using), apparently declared illegal or terrorist or something by the Wallace administration.

Callie and Grace Cadogan also used to be members of the Second Dawn cult, led by her father Bill, together with her brother Reese. August also used to be a member. Possibly as a child of some other members.

Becca Franko - described as “tech tycoon” and “reclusive billionaire” - had not been seen in public for a year, since she went to her Polaris space station (to work on the Flame, as we know), a year after she created the first ALIE (and quickly realized ALIE had a fatal flaw). She also owned her own network.

One other piece of info about this world: they had holograms as a means of communication.

Something that was not in the news and not known to the public: it seems that quite a few people were “in the know” about the fact that a nuclear apocalypse may happen (whether they suspected it would be ALIE, or thought there would be a nuclear war) - and even had a code word for it, “Anaconda”. Bill Cadogan was one of the people who knew it. The POTUS and his administration obviously had enough time to evacuate. It’s mentioned that a lot of people immediately started trying to get to the bunkers.

Cadogan and Becca did not personally know each other before the apocalypse, but he apparently had “friends” in many of the space stations. This explains how she knew where the real Second Dawn bunker was located. But whoever these “friends” were, they clearly did not pass on that knowledge to the future generations on the Ark, since even Jaha, who researched Second Dawn, was only able to find public info - articles, Cadogan’s biography - and didn’t even know where the decoy bunker was, let alone the real one.

The most important thing the backdoor pilot needs to do, of course, is introduce compelling, interesting characters. It did pretty well in that regard - Callie is a likable protagonist, and the fact that the antagonists - Bill and Reese Cadogan - are her father and brother, gives more emotional resonance by putting family relationships at the center. The new characters have some similarities to the main characters from The 100, but are at the same time different enough.

The comparison between Callie and Clarke is the most obvious. Oddly enough, Jason tried to draw a difference between them by saying Callie is focused on saving “everyone” rather than “her people” - which makes me scratch my head, unless he means that Callie will always remain absolutely the same through the prequel show, since Clarke also started off by wanting to save everyone - and that was her driving motive for a long time, until the plot kept putting her in situations where she had to choose between her friends and family and strangers, where the latter would often be aggressors attacking her people. What strikes me as the biggest difference i- not just between Callie and Clarke but between all these prequel characters and the main characters of The 100 - is their background and the world they have grown up in. Clarke and Callie are both “princesses” - from the privileged background, but in Clarke’s case, it’s privileged relative to the majority of other people from the Ark, like the Blakes or Raven (which meant things like, nicer living quarters, opportunity to watch recordings of old soccer matches as entertainment, probably less worry about not getting the medicine you need), but in comparison with the way the most of the viewers live... definitely not. The world Clarke was born in is a post-apocalyptic world of scarce resources and constant fight for survival, and even her happy (by those standards)’ life in that world ends a year before the Pilot, when her father is executed and she has spent a year in solitary confinement, expecting to be executed herself - before she’ and 99 teenagers are sent to Earth as “expendable”. On the other hand, Callie, Reese, August, Tristan and others grew up in a world similar to our own. There are, of course, many people in our world who also have to fight for their own day-to-day survival every day, but the Cadogans are rich, and the rest of the Second Dawn members and their families are no doubt not far off. This is Callie’s house:

Some of these middle-class and upper middle-class kids are rebellious, idealistic and optimistic and worry about the fate of the world, like Callie, Lucy and August. On the other hand, there’s Reese, whose driving motivation is to impress his father and gain his love. He’s a rich boy with daddy issues, but he’s also a victim of emotional abuse - maybe physical, too (if we take into account a cut scene showing a training session where his father injures him, under the explanation of making him tougher or whatever). Callie and Reese are only the second sibling dynamic we see explored on the show (I’m not counting Emori and Otan, since the latter appeared very shortly), and this dynamic - a sibling rivalry between a rebellious girl who is her father’s favorite even while she opposes and rejects him, and her jealous brother who wants to impress his father - is completely different from the Blakes. (It reminds me a bit of Gamora amd Nebula - and I’ve just realized this is the second time in this review I’ve referenced MCU.)

Watching this family dynamic, I was reminded of another family that paralleled and contrasted the Griffins: the Lightbournes. Particularly when Grace called Bill a narcissist with psychopathic tendencies and he was entertained by that, In the flashback in 6x02. Simone called Russell a megalomaniac - but that was really said as a cute joke, as the Lightbournes were happily married, and Simone was just as bad as Russell, and even more ruthless than him. But in both cases, we have destructive rich white guy megalomaniacs who made themselves into gods, and want to bring back their dead daughters. Daughters are both extremely intelligent, brilliant and charismatic, but completely different in personality. (The mothers, while all very different, seem all to have been medical professionals - I’m not sure about Grace, but Callie does mention learning how to stitch a wound from her.) Callie sees that her father is an a-hole and rejects his values, and is an idealist and altruist who wants to do the right thing and save people (while Josephine was a selfish narcissist). Her mother Grace is somewhere in between, as she also left Second Dawn and doesn’t fully agree with Bill - but will often go along with him, and tries to keep peace between the other family members, and thinks their family needs to “set an example”. With the Griffins, we had an idealistic, altruistic father and a daughter with similar characteristics, who adored him and misses him after losing him, and a mother who was similarly concerned with helping others, and the conflicts between them were about how to go about these solutions. With the Lightbourne, we had the evil version of the Griffins, and the Cadogans have a more complicated dynamic. Callie is more comparable to Clarke, and Bill to Russell.

But one aspect in which Bill Cadogan is much worse than Russell is - where Russell loved his family, maybe a bit too much, considering what he did to bring them back, Bill loves himself and his “savior” role more than anything. Maybe his love for Callie comes close - and I get the impression that one of the main reasons he loves her is because he respects her and she challenges him - but it is still not his main motive. He is ready to punish his ex-wife for disobeying him by leaving her to die. Reese is an a-hole, but it’s hard not to feel sorry for him when he thinks for a moment that his father is worried for him (when Bill runs up to Reese, who's injured) but Bill immediately shows that all he cares about is getting the Flame, so he can get the final code for the Anomaly.

Another issue is, of course, that Callie, Reese and Grace are POC, but I don’t know if race - or sexuality, or gender - will ever be raised as an issue on the prequel show itself - or if the world pre-apocalypse and right after it is supposed to be as post-race, post-sexuality, post-gender as the current timeline of The 100 is. On The 100, for instance, Thelonius and Wells Jaha being black or Clarke being bisexual or a woman, were not issues that affected their status - only class issues existed; if the pre-apocalypse society was different, then the show could explore Callie, Reese and Grace being very privileged in terms of class and status in SD as Cadogan’s family, and lack of privilege in other respects.

I’m not sure I fully buy the way Callie easily goes along with her mother and leaves her best friend to die. It seems to go against the rest of her characterization. But maybe it shows that she still wasn’t a full-blown rebel at this point, in spite of participating in the protests against the government and in spite of rebelling against her father - maybe she still wasn’t able to really rebel against her mother, too.

Interesting line - as Callie stitches Lucy's injuries, Lucy says: "I don't want to be scarred for life" - which may be foreshadowing for Callie being scarred and haunted by the fact she left Lucy to die? Unless Lucy turns out to somehow be alive - but worse for wear. Which would again haunt Callie, too.

I guess Callie’s failure to at least try harder is supposed to be what drives her to try and save other people, after she learns that there was still room and resources for almost 100 more people in the bunker - and when she sees August fighting tooth and nail to save his girlfriend, when she is barred from the bunker because she’s not “Level 12″. August is clearly a character the show is setting us up to like - these scenes are reminiscent of Bellamy fighting to open the door for his sister, and his name evokes the Blakes (Octavia was named after Octavian August’s sister)..

(Sidenote: Callie mentions a high suicide rate (20 suicides in the last 6 months, twice as many attempts) - and this is something that would realistically happen in such a dire situation. It’s a bit unrealistic that it apparently never happened with Wonkru.)

The SciFi plot points relevant to the overall plot make an appearance when we see the Anomaly Stone on Earth, which Bill found in Machu Picchu and brought to the bunker (and we get an explanation why he didn’t use it right after the apocalypse but spent two years in the bunker instead - he didn’t know how to activate it - not being able to find the last two symbols)... and when, two years later, Becca Franko arrives from Polaris in her pod, as we saw in 3x07, with Nightblood as the cure against radiation she’s about to offer everyone, and the Flame in her head.

A few words about how I feel about Becca. While she is here positioned in opposition to Bill Cadogan - who is definitely a megalomaniac a-hole and a villain - I can’t see her as a pure unambiguous and unproblematic good guy we should stan, as Callie stans her. For starters, Becca is also a megalomaniac - she calls her second AI “the Flame”, comparing herself to Prometheus! (But she makes me think of Dr Frankenstein, and the full title of Mary Shelley’s novel was Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus.) She is, of course, as a genius scientist, a lot more capable and competent than Cadogan,but she also has a huge savior complex (only she is focused on the idea of her AI being the savior, rather than herself), and is also another big capitalist - a “tech tycoon” who owns her own space station and her own network (and was so powerful and politically relevant that the Chinese and the Russian space station were refusing to join the rest of the stations until the US station destroyed Polaris - Becca was apparently seen as a rival strong enough to challenge the US government?). She worked for a big corporation (Eligius) which colonized other planets and used people - prisoners - as “expendable” work force that can be left to die if necessary. And knowing that she had Nightblood developed more than 7 years before the apocalypse, and that she was worried about what ALIE could do - I wonder why she didn’t offer Nightblood as the solution for a potential apocalypse before it happened, rather than isolating herself on Polaris to work on the Flame. That was one questionable decision - another one was putting the people on Polaris in danger and letting them die, so she could get the Flame to Earth. I could be more understanding of this decision if I could embrace the idea of the Flame as more important than anything, the one thing needed to save the world, as Becca believed it was. But her idea of a sole savior who will help everyone after being enhanced through an AI is something I find pretty questionable and a bit disturbing in general. To be fair the Flame definitely did fulfill its role once and help a person with a good mind use it to save the world - Clarke in season 3. But that was one time, to save the world from ALIE. This, however, doesn’t really justify passing the Flame on and on and giving people political power with it - even without knowing how distorted her initial idea would become in the Grounder society, surely anyone can see the potential for tyranny there? And Becca was aware that 1) the Flame could also make a bad person become even worse and powerful (as it has with Sheidheda) and 2) someone like Bill could use it to destroy the world, according to Becca herself. Seems like a way too big a risk to take.

There are apparently 744 different Anomaly symbols, which means an “infinite” number of combinations, according to Becca (err, not really; it’s a really, really huge number, but it’s not “infinite”, which bugged me a little, since I wouldn’t expect a scientist, especially one who uses the Infinity symbol as her logo, to use the word “infinity” as an exaggeration).

Becca manages to activate the Stone, not because of any scientific knowledge she has, but because the Flame, apparently, gives her enhanced hearing - allowing her to hear the sounds of the Stone, where each sound stands for a symbol. (Dogs can apparently also hear those rather unpleasant sounds.) Everything in this episode makes it clear that it is the Flame itself that Bill needs to find the code, it's always been about that. (Him thinking Callie is in there is just a bonus - emotional connection.) The Flame had no one's memories/spirit in this episode before Becca died, and Becca made it clear to Callie that it’s all about the Flame itself. If the Disciples knew Clarke didn’t have the Flame anymore, they wouldn’t need Madi or Sheidheda - it’s not about the memories, not even Becca’s., it’s that piece of plastic that's buried on Sanctum, if it can still work. (Or maybe they need Picasso :p.)

The most mysterious moment and the biggest question of the episode is - where (when?) did Becca go and what did she see when she activated the Stone the second time and when she and Callie saw the white light coming from the Anomaly? This is different from the green light we see when the Anomaly takes you to other planets. The white light is probably connected to transcendence and/or the Judgment Day that Becca said she saw - which Cadogan, with his typical arrogance, believes he is ready for. but Becca believes no one is.

"It wasn't to open the bridge to another world, it was to remake this one" - this line would make me think that our protagonists are meant to rebuild the Earth - but at this point, I find it hard to see how this could happen over in just 7 episodes, with how the current storylines are going. So maybe they’ll focus on rebuilding Sanctum, after all.

For opposing Bill’s plans, Becca is locked up for 5 days, tied to a pipe (geez!) and, guessing what’s about to happen, she explains the Flame to Callie and tells her to take it and never allow Cadogan to have it, as she believes he could destroy the world with it. (Another often asked question was how the Flame survived Becca’s burning - we learn that it can and that it’s programmed to save itself.)

Becca is burned by Second Dawn Disciples led by Reese Cadogan, presumably at his dad’s orders. Which maybe was supposed to evoke the popular idea of “burning a witch”, but the historical fact that burning at the stake was the traditional punishment for heresy fits even better. There’s been speculation that the memory we saw in 5x10 was his - but that’s incorrect: Madi experienced that memory, she felt being burned, screamed and yelled what Becca was yelling, and we saw it from her POV - the Second Dawn members that were around her and herself reflected in their helmets.

Another memory we saw from Madi, the one we saw her draw in 7x09 (and which I initially mistook seems to be a memory of Becca or other people going into the Anomaly) seems to actually be a memory of the moment when Becca first interacted with the Anomaly Stone and talked about it with the other people in the room - Bill, Grace, Callie and Reese. In other words, every one of the Flame memories from this period may be Becca’s - we have no evidence that would help us learn who else took the Flame after her death. It could be any of the characters who stayed on Earth - Bill is the only one who definitely has never gotten his hands on it.

Retcons and Easter Eggs

I’ve always thought that the world-building, especially when it comes to the Grounder society and culture, was the weakest part of the show. Jason obviously followed some of the common tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction when it comes to the portrayal of Grounders, but didn’t think things through - and at some point, probably realized and/or heard/read all the criticism of the show and thought: “This really doesn’t make any sense”, came up with the Second Dawn backstory, and eventually came up with this expanded backstory, which gives many new explanations. Even though we still don’t have the answer to the biggest question: how a society made of bunch of modern people, survivors, could deteriorate into a tribal society with a medieval level of technological development and lack of knowledge about science and the past culture and history - over a few decades. I guess we need to see the prequel for that, but there are some ideas how it could have happened. I liked most of the retcons in this episode, such as:

Trigedaslang was devised by Callie as a child. The idea of a new language developing naturally over less than 100 years never made sense. (The “it’s a pidgin” explanation never worked either - as Trig apparently developed without the influence of any other language or necessity to communicate with people who don’t speak English. It’s just distorted/changed English.) The only reasonable explanation was always that it was an artificial language - we just didn’t know when it was made.

Finally we get an explanation about the fact that Grounders originated from the Second Dawn survivors and were influenced by their mottoes (”From the ashes, we will rise”), but at the same time, worship Becca as “Pramheda” and make their leaders take the Flame - in spite of the fact that Cadogan and Becca were rivals and that the latter was burned by the Second Dawn members.

The fact that two factions already exist - Callie’s (adores Becca, wants to save as many people as possible by using Nightblood, clearly trusts in science) and Reese’s (Second Dawn true believer, burned Becca, needs the Flame for other purposes) may start to explain how things started going wrong and the society fractured.

Speaking of which, the Conclave seems to have originated from Reese Cadogan’s obsession with the fights his father made him have with him and his sister, and his dumbass idea of using a duel to determine who gets the Flame. This is a better explanation than “it is after an apocalypse, so they just started having death tournaments for reasons”. Callie, on the other hand, is much more pragmatic and doesn’t seem to care much about tournaments as a way to prove oneself - because she doesn’t need to, so she does the Indiana Jones/Harrison Ford thing and just pulls the gun and shoots him in the shoulder. One of my favorite moments in this episode.

“Tree Crew” gets the award as the least expected and funniest new piece of info/retcon, though that begs the question of how the other clans got their names. I’ve joked that Ice Nation were a group of ice hockey fans... but for all I know, maybe that’s true! :D Or maybe the “Trikru” name was later misinterpreted as something to do with living in the woods, so the other clans started having names like “Boat people” or “Shallow Valley people”.

August made up the term Nightblood.

"You must choose wisely" comes from something Becca said to Callie, about choosing the person to give the Flame to. Too bad that later Commanders didn’t know it meant “find the most qualified person” and instead got the weird idea that it meant making a bunch of kids fight each other and that one of them winning somehow means the dead Commander’s spirit “chose” their successor.

One thing that definitely makes a lot more sense now is the Grounder’s bizarre fashion sense, I can easily see a bunch of 21st century upper middle class/rich teenagers thinking it would be super cool to wear warpaint, tattoos and dreadlocks (even if you’re as white as the original Sheidheda), and some later Commander going: “I want to wear a crown! No, you know what would be cool? That thing Indian women wear on their foreheads? You know that thing? I could wear that!”

Easter Egg: Callie was reading Ovid’s “Metamorphosis” at home just before the news of the nuclear apocalypse came - the same book that Niylah gave as a gift to Octavia not long after they went into the bunker (5x02). And maybe it is literally the same book - they sure weren’t printing any new books and someone had to bring that book initially to the Second Dawn bunker during the first apocalypse. In 5x02, it was symbolic of Octavia’s transformation into Blodreina. Here, it may be symbolic of Callie becoming a leader, or the transformation of the entire society.

But some other retcons don’t work well:

The Flame’s abilities have been retconed so many times, but this is the first time we learn that it enhances the Commanders’ senses - which is a big plot point, as it allowed Becca to hear the sounds of the Stone. We have never heard about that before or seen any indication that Lexa or S5/6 Madi had any enhanced sight or Matt Murdock-like super-hearing.

So why was Becca called the Commander aka Heda? I don’t mean the fact that she was never one - Callie could have decided to call her the first Commander as an homage. But why that term? The flashback in 3x07 made it look like it was because Becca was wearing a suit with the word “Commander” (because she took the actual Commander’s suit before she left Polaris) - but since everyone knew who she was, why would that make them start calling her Commander?

Prequel speculation

There’s a lot of reasons why I’d like to see the prequel picked up. Firstly, because Callie is a likable and charismatic protagonist. Reese could be an interesting antagonist as he is her brother - and while he has been a grade A a-hole so far, there’s room there for character development, especially with his relationship with his sister, backstory of abuse by their father and the probability that he’ll understand at some point that he won’t be able to get the Flame to his dad even if he gets it. There’s also the fact that their mother will need saving at the start of the new show (if it gets picked up), and certainly a lot of other possibilities for family drama. And we’d probably also see Callie change and be faced with difficult and morally ambiguous situations that test her, much as we’ve seen with Clarke over the seasons.

Several other things mentioned by Jason in his interviews sound quite exciting:

Lost-style flashbacks to the characters’ lives pre-apocalypse: I’d love this. It would present a contrast before and after the apocalypse, and flesh out characters, and let us learn more about things like, what the Battle of San Francisco was, which wars was Diyoza in, more about Diyoza’s role as a freedom fighter/terrorist... can we get more Diyoza backstory?

the possibility of seeing the origins of the Ark and ancestors of our main characters like Clarke, Bellamy and Octavia (and we know we would see the ancestors of these characters, Jason mentioned that - the guy clearly does know what the fandom likes and wants), immediately doubled my interest. I just hope there’s a good idea how to do that without 1) the two stories looking completely disconnected (it seems this won’t be the case as Jason mentioned that Callie’s people will have to go to space to make more Nightblood and this will allow crossovers) and 2) with a good explanation how the people on the Ark, 97 years later, did not know about the survivors on the ground, about the Earth being survivable, or about the Nightblood, which had been used by Eligius years before. The line "Dad had friends on more than one space station. They already know we're here" also begs for an explanation.

on the ground, we’ll see Callie and co. looking for more survivors (after all, there were more bunkers and other shelters) and offering them Nightblood as a “cure” - which could lead to a lot of interesting situations (and potentially pretty current commentary, if there are people who refuse it)... On the other hand, this could also lead to some more moral dilemmas when they run out of the Nightblood shots (they have 2,000 at the moment, and again, Jason has indicated that they will run out of NB and will have to create more).

Some of the big questions include - who becomes the actual first Commander? How does the society develop from there? When and how is the Anomaly Stone deactivated on Earth, and where is it now? How does Becca’s knowledge eventually get lost? We’ve heard it’s because the data got corrupted/deteriorated over time, but it’s a little too convenient that even Madi still had Becca’s memories, but the scientific and technological all other knowledge was gone during the following 95 years.

I have some ideas how it could go. A lot of people (including, obviously, Bill himself in-universe) wonder if Callie became a Commander and would like to see her be the first Commander. But Callie is the first Flamekeeper, and I don’t see her going “I’m the best and most qualified person, I should have it”. This doesn’t preclude the possibility - she may finally take it for similar reasons Clarke did in season 3, because she has to in order to do something important and there are no other candidates around. But that would be too optimistic an option. Maybe Reese manages to get his hands on the Flame, but Callie or August or someone from her faction manages to disconnect the Stone so he wouldn’t be able to get it to Bill? Or maybe someone else - say, Tristan, who so far can be summed up as “that while guy a-hole who hangs out with Reese” - managed to get his hands on it and then make himself Commander? If people like Tristan or Reese become the Commander, that would work better in terms of explaining how things went so wrong with the Grounder society.

There have been speculations if these characters are ancestors of this or that character we know. Maybe Tristan is an ancestor of this Tristan from season 1 (the guy who was sent to ‘slaughter’ the 100 and was killed by Kane in 2x01)? People are often named after their grandparents, sometimes even after their parents, or celebrated ancestors - names can get passed on like that, and Tristan isn’t exactly the most common name. Or, if Tristan manages to become a Commander - that would make it a popular name.

In any case, the prequel needs to provide a convincing explanation how the society of these survivors and their descendants went from what we see in this episode to the Grounder society we know. But this is my big concern about the prequel - and it’s the problem that many prequels have: however they get there, we know how things turn out; we know it all somehow goes wrong, and that not only will the antagonist fail in their initial goal (getting the Flame to Bill), but the protagonist, Callie, will ultimately fail in her attempts to create a better society. Instead, the Grounder society will descend into tribalism, worship of violence, and constant wars between a bunch of clans, the Flame won’t be given to the person chosen as most qualified but will be fought over by a bunch of children selected on the basis of “special blood” (as Nightblood becomes rarer over time) and forced to kill each other, and most of Becca’s knowledge will be forgotten, as Grounders become technologically underdeveloped and unable to really defend themselves from the Mountain Men, who will learn about them in a few decades and start using them as blood supply.

On the other hand, knowing that the protagonists will fail and that everything will go wrong is often the case with prequels (e.g. regardless of their quality, Star Wars prequels were certainly watched by many people), or, for that matter, with some period dramas (e.g. Babylon Berlin, which I love - set in the Weimar Republic, which means that we know all the time while watching the show that things will go horribly wrong on the level of the society). Sometimes that sense of doom doesn’t turn me off as viewer and actually makes the story more compelling in a way. But that would certainly be a difference from The 100 - no matter how dark, we can still hope things will turn out well and a good solution will be found. Or maybe everything will go even worse. We don’t know how things turn out with the humanity in general. In this prequel, we would know.

Body count for this episode: in the present day, no one. in the flashbacks... over 10 billion people.

Rating: 9/10

#the 100 #the 100 7x08 #anaconda #the 100 backdoor pilot #the 100 prequel #callie cadogan #calliope cadogan #clarke griffin #bill cadogan #becca franko #reese cadogan #grace cadogan #becca pramheda #the anomaly

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cover2covermom · 4 years

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Goodbye April & hello May!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I’m running toward it…

April seemed to drag on despite the days flying by. Does that even make sense? Like I’ve mentioned before, my days are filled with homeschooling, home projects, mask making, and reading. I’ve been doing my best to fill my hours to ease the COVID-19 anxiety.

I received the notification that I will be returning to work next week, which was welcome news. I’m ready to get back a little bit of normalcy in my life. Thankfully, our library system is reopening in phases. Our first phase will be employees only (3-5 employees in the building at one time) and offering curb-side service to our patrons. As of now, we will not open our doors to the public until June 1st at the earliest. At that point in time, we will be limiting the number of patrons allowed in the building. It is definitely going to be a learning curve to see what my new work normal is going to entail. I’m looking forward to adapting & rising to the occasion.

» Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

As per usual, Mindy McGinnis puts out another harrowing YA book. I love survival stories, so I enjoyed this story about a girl that has gotten lost in the woods. Be Not Far From Me was uncomfortable to read at certain points.

» Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

*3.5 Stars*

This was a sweet story about two kids that form a friendship while hanging around an abandoned lot. The first half of this book didn’t grab me and moved far too slowly. I enjoyed the second half of this book a lot better than the first half.

» Keeper of Lost Cities (Keeper of the Lost Cities #1) by Shannon Messenger

An awesome MG fantasy! I cannot wait to continue on with this series. I’d recommend this to fans of Harry Potter.

» Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman

*2.75 Stars*

I read this for one of my book clubs. I think the author was attempting to write a book that would charm readers with eccentric characters & a humorous plotline, but don’t think it delivered. Instead of being funny, the story felt odd & forced.

» A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry

I think the author did a tremendous job writing a book from a wolf’s perspective. You can tell the author did extensive research into wolves & their behaviors. While I think this animal perspective was very well done, I didn’t think the plotline was all that entertaining.

» The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum

I’ve decided to challenge myself to read more children’s classics in 2020. To kick start this challenge, I started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This was a delightful read! I was surprised to learn that the slippers were actually silver instead of ruby red… mind blown!

» SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson

This is a must read for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. While you don’t HAVE to read Speak to read SHOUT, I feel like it makes a bigger impact if you read Speak prior to this. If you didn’t know, SHOUT is Anderson’s memoir told in verse.

» Loveboat, Taipei (Loveboat, Taipei #1) by Abigail Hing Wen

*4.5 Stars*

This is a guilty pleasure type of read. Actually, it reminded me a bit of Crazy Rich Asians a bit. It is a tad racy for a YA book… So I’d probably recommend for older YA readers that are 16+

» Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities #2) by Shannon Messenger

I am LOVING this MG fantasy series. While these books are a bit chunky, don’t let the page count deter you. I flew through the first two books in this series this month. Also, I’m happy to report that this second installment does NOT suffer from “second book syndrome.”

» Nooks & Crannies by Jessica Lawson

Nooks & Crannies is an excellent MG historical mystery. Some of the elements of this story gave me Matilda mixed with A Series of Unfortunate Events vibes. The audiobook is well narrated.

» The Penderwicks (The Penderwicks #1) by Jeanne Birdsall

This is the perfect book to pick up during the summer months. It really gave me modern Little Women crossed with The Secret Garden vibes. The ending was so heartwarming it almost brought me to tears.

Goodreads Challenge Update: 46 books!

*I know it says 47, but I finished The Last (Endling #1) on May 1st*

March 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up

April 2020 TBR

Childhood Classics 2020: TBR

Most Anticipated Books of 2020 (May – December)

Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 1

Mini Book Reviews: April 2020 – Part 2

If you were ever curious what a bookworm’s quarantine stress shopping spree looks like, here you go…

» The Guinevere Deception (Camelot Rising #1) by Kiersten White

There was nothing in the world as magical and terrifying as a girl.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom’s borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution–send in Guinevere to be Arthur’s wife . . . and his protector from those who want to see the young king’s idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere’s real name–and her true identity–is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.

To keep Arthur safe, Guinevere must navigate a court in which the old–including Arthur’s own family–demand things continue as they have been, and the new–those drawn by the dream of Camelot–fight for a better way to live. And always, in the green hearts of forests and the black depths of lakes, magic lies in wait to reclaim the land. Arthur’s knights believe they are strong enough to face any threat, but Guinevere knows it will take more than swords to keep Camelot free.

Deadly jousts, duplicitous knights, and forbidden romances are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all: the girl with the long black hair, riding on horseback through the dark woods toward Arthur. Because when your whole existence is a lie, how can you trust even yourself?

» Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly

The story of a deaf girl’s connection to a whale whose song can’t be heard by his species, and the journey she takes to help him.

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.

When she learns about Blue 55, a real whale who is unable to speak to other whales, Iris understands how he must feel. Then she has an idea: she should invent a way to “sing” to him! But he’s three thousand miles away. How will she play her song for him?

» Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.

When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk–grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh–Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar.

But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love.

Channeling the vibrant heart of myth and fairy tale, Spinning Silver weaves a multilayered, magical tapestry that readers will want to return to again and again.

» Girls Like Us by Randi Pink

Set in the summer of 1972, this moving YA historical novel is narrated by teen girls from different backgrounds with one thing in common: Each girl is dealing with pregnancy. Four teenage girls. Four different stories. What they all have in common is that they’re dealing with unplanned pregnancies.

In rural Georgia, Izella is wise beyond her years, but burdened with the responsibility of her older sister, Ola, who has found out she’s pregnant. Their young neighbor, Missippi, is also pregnant, but doesn’t fully understand the extent of her predicament. When her father sends her to Chicago to give birth, she meets the final narrator, Susan, who is white and the daughter of an anti-choice senator.

Randi Pink masterfully weaves four lives into a larger story – as timely as ever – about a woman’s right to choose her future.

» The Island of the Sea Women by Lisa See

Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them—The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.

» The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

» Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai

Nadia’s family is forced to flee their home in Aleppo, Syria, when the Arab Spring sparks a civil war in this timely coming-of-age novel from award-winning author N.H. Senzai.

Silver and gold balloons. A birthday cake covered in pink roses. A new dress.

Nadia stands at the center of attention in her parents’ elegant dining room. This is the best day of my life, she thinks. Everyone is about to sing “Happy Birthday,” when her uncle calls from the living room, “Baba, brothers, you need to see this.” Reluctantly, she follows her family into the other room. On TV, a reporter stands near an overturned vegetable cart on a dusty street. Beside it is a mound of smoldering ashes. The reporter explains that a vegetable vendor in the city of Tunis burned himself alive, protesting corrupt government officials who have been harassing his business. Nadia frowns.

It is December 17, 2010: Nadia’s twelfth birthday and the beginning of the Arab Spring. Soon anti-government protests erupt across the Middle East and, one by one, countries are thrown into turmoil. As civil war flares in Syria and bombs fall across Nadia’s home city of Aleppo, her family decides to flee to safety. Inspired by current events, this novel sheds light on the complicated situation in Syria that has led to an international refugee crisis, and tells the story of one girl’s journey to safety.

» The Two Princesses of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre #1) by Gail Carson Levine

Twelve-year-old Addie admires her older sister Meryl, who aspires to rid the kingdom of Bamarre of gryphons, specters, and ogres. Addie, on the other hand, is fearful even of spiders and depends on Meryl for courage and protection. Waving her sword Bloodbiter, the older girl declaims in the garden from the heroic epic of Drualt to a thrilled audience of Addie, their governess, and the young sorcerer Rhys.

But when Meryl falls ill with the dreaded Gray Death, Addie must gather her courage and set off alone on a quest to find the cure and save her beloved sister. Addie takes the seven-league boots and magic spyglass left to her by her mother and the enchanted tablecloth and cloak given to her by Rhys – along with a shy declaration of his love. She prevails in encounters with tricky specters (spiders too) and outwits a wickedly personable dragon in adventures touched with romance and a bittersweet ending.

» The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre (The Two Princesses of Bamarre 0.5) by Gail Carson Levine

In this compelling and thought-provoking fantasy set in the world of The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Newbery Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine introduces a spirited heroine who must overcome deeply rooted prejudice—including her own—to heal her broken country.

Peregrine strives to be the Latki ideal—and to impress her parents: affectionate Lord Tove, who despises only the Bamarre, and stern Lady Klausine. Perry runs the fastest, speaks her mind, and doesn’t give much thought to the castle’s Bamarre servants, who she knows to be weak and cowardly. The Lakti always wage war, and the battlefield will give her the chance to show her valor.

But just as she’s about to join her father on the front lines, she is visited by the fairy Halina, who reveals that Perry isn’t Latki-born. She is a Bamarre. The fairy issues a daunting challenge: against the Lakti might, free her people from tyranny.

» A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman

An enchanting historical fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Thanhha Lai’s Newbery Honor-winning Inside Out and Back Again No one comes to the Second World on purpose. The doorway between worlds opens only when least expected. The Raft King is desperate to change that by finding the doorway that will finally take him and the people of Raftworld back home. To do it, he needs Pip, a young boy with an incredible gift—he can speak to fish; and the Raft King is not above kidnapping to get what he wants. Pip’s sister Kinchen, though, is determined to rescue her brother and foil the Raft King’s plans. This is but the first of three extraordinary stories that collide on the high seas of the Second World. The second story takes us back to the beginning: Venus and Swimmer are twins captured aboard a slave ship bound for Jamaica in 1781. They save themselves and others from a life of enslavement with a risky, magical plan—one that leads them from the shark-infested waters of the first world to the second. Pip and Kinchen will hear all about them before their own story is said and done. So will Thanh and his sister Sang, who we meet in 1976 on a small boat as they try to escape post-war Vietnam. But after a storm and a pirate attack, they’re not sure they’ll ever see shore again. What brings these three sets of siblings together on an adventure of a lifetime is a little magic, helpful sea monsters and that very special portal, A Crack in the Sea.

» The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger—and a possible murderer—to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead … but that won’t stop him from playing one last game!

» Ballet Shoes (Shoes #1) by Noel Streatfeild

Pauline, Petrova and Posy are orphans determined to help out their new family by joining the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. But when they vow to make a name for themselves, they have no idea it’s going to be such hard work! They launch themselves into the world of show business, complete with working papers, the glare of the spotlight, and practice, practice, practice! Pauline is destined for the movies. Posy is a born dancer. But practical Petrova finds she’d rather pilot a plane than perform a pirouette. Each girl must find the courage to follow her dream.

» Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

Trees can’t tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .

Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood “wishtree”—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red’s branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red’s hollows, this “wishtree” watches over the neighborhood.

You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red’s experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.

» The Library of Ever (The Library of Ever #1) by Zeno Alexander

With her parents off traveling the globe, Lenora is bored, bored, bored–until she discovers a secret doorway in the library and becomes its newly appointed Fourth Assistant Apprentice Librarian.

In her new job, Lenora finds herself helping future civilizations figure out the date, relocates lost penguins, uncovers the city with the longest name on Earth, and more in a quest to help patrons. But there are sinister forces at work that want to destroy all knowledge. To save the library, Lenora will have to test her limits and uncover secrets hidden among its shelves.

» Chains (Seeds of America #1) by Laurie Halse Anderson

As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight…for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom.

From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.

» The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

The acclaimed author of The Witch’s Boy has created another epic coming-of-age fairy tale destined to become a modern classic.

Which books did you read in April?

Have you read any of the books I read or hauled this month? If so, what did you think?

Did you buy any books? If so, which ones?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

April 2020 Reading & Blogging Wrap-Up + Book Haul #BookBlogger #Bookworm #Bibliophile #BookHaul #Reading #Books #WrapUp Goodbye April & hello May! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel & I'm running toward it...

#Bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #Book Chat #Book Haul #Book Nerd #Book Talk #Book Worm #Bookish #Books #Bookworm #Reading #Wrap Up

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birdlord · 4 years

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Every Book I Read in 2018

Again, better late than never??

01 On the Town; Marshall Berman - A freewheeling personal and general history of Times Square, which had some great historical tidbits I’d never read before. I think I would have got more out of it if I were interested in Broadway musicals...

02 Stephen Florida; Gabe Habash - A slim little book that follows a college wrestler. One of those books that is described as muscular, when what they mean is brutal.

03 Green Grass, Running Water; Thomas King - Four plot lines intertwine in a story blending mythology, creation, and modern First Nations people dealing with massive transformational change to their lands. I did sometimes feel like I would have enjoyed it more as an audio storytelling experience.

04 People who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman; Richard Lloyd Parry - I don’t often read books like this, but this is essentially a true-crime sort of story, about the murder of a British woman who works as a bar hostess in Japan. Parry covers not just her story, but the whole aftermath, which even pulls in Tony Blair, eventually.

05 My Brother’s Husband; Gengoroh Tagame - Weirdly, two Japan-related books in a row! Another culture-clash tale, when the Canadian husband visits his deceased husband Ryoji’s single-parent brother. The couple had never been to Japan while Ryoji was alive, and so the story of slow acceptance (helped along by little Kana’s openhearted curiosity) is suffused with sadness.

06 Ghosts of the Tsunami: Life & Death in Japan’s Disaster Zone; Richard Lloyd Parry - And, let’s make it three! When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, I remember thinking that the reaction seemed so orderly, so...Japanese. But this examination puts you right in the various affected communities, following different people, including schoolchildren from Okawa primary. Like with the other Parry book above, we hear about all of the grief, ghosts and lawsuits that follow the disaster.

07 Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History; Rhonda K. Garelick - Once she became famous, Coco Chanel built a scaffolding of lies about her past, and the purpose of this biography is to attempt to see the truth behind them. Garelick concentrates heavily on Chanel’s collaboration with the Nazis, which must have been a challenge given that her company still exists, under her name.

08 Kubrick; Michael Herr - “They speak about the dumbing of America as a foregone thing, already completed, but, duh, it’s a process, and we haven’t seen anything yet. The contemplation of this culture isn’t for sissies, and speaking about it without becoming shrill is increasingly difficult, maybe impossible.” Whoa!

09 Call Me by Your Name; Andre Aciman - I did read this after seeing the film, so as usual it was hard to divorce it from the movie experience.

10 The Left Hand of Darkness; Ursula K LeGuin - A thought experiment about a genderless world, seen from the perspective of an off-planet envoy, who has a range of reactions to the world’s inhabitants. The most enduring section of the book involves a brutal 3-month expedition undertaken by the exiled envoy and a local, a trial by ice, wind and snow. A winter read.

11 Stamped from the Beginning; Ibram X. Kendi - I don’t think I’d really fully grokked the idea that southern white supremacy built itself in order to prevent an uprising of the black and white underclasses, together. The basic rubric of this book is separating American movements, parties and individuals’ thinking into one of three categories: assimilationist, segregationist or genuinely antiracist. Supporting results like abolitionism does NOT make one antiracist, since support could come those with less pure motivations. I highly recommend this one, though it was copy-edited in a pretty haphazard manner!

12 Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers; Barbara Ehrenreich & Dierdre English - A short book charting a couple of parallel stories, of women healers in Europe being dismissed as witches, and the masculinization of medicine (particularly midwifery and the medicine of birth) in the USA.

13 Her Body and Other Parties; Carmen Maria Machado - Short stories skirting the edge of a lot of genres; horror, science fiction, dark comedy. These are women’s stories, that refuse to be dismissed as chick lit. It didn’t connect with me as deeply as it has for some, but I see the appeal.

14 Look Alive Out There; Sloane Crosley - Largely comedic set of essays by a writer whose earlier work I read, about a decade back. It’s a strange experience, to return to someone who has written memoir that seemed to exemplify that late-2000s era and discover that she - and you - have grown.

15 Homesick for Another World; Otessa Moshfegh - Moshfegh’s choice of words (not to mention her characters themselves) remain utterly revolting. I often found myself looking up, shaking my head as if to say THIS BOOK. Considerably funnier than Eileen, which was the first of hers that I read.

16 My Year of Rest & Relaxation; Otessa Moshfegh - After reading this, I found out that Moshfegh basically set out to get her work noticed by populating it with these vile young women. Well, it worked! Your tolerance for unlikeable main characters will be tested by this rich Columbia grad who decides to prescribe herself into a virtual coma within her NY apartment, at the turn of the millennium. And yes, it ends where you think it does.

17 They Can’t Kill us Until They Kill Us; Hanif Abdurraquabi - This collection of music-related writing is wildly far-ranging, poetic and emotional. For myself, I did find I was more interested in those that were related to bands or musicians I had some experience with myself , which was not always the case.

18 The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully; Aaron Carroll and Nina Teicholtz - If you’re a reader of the food media, most of what’s in here will be familiar to you, debunking fears of meat, GMOs, gluten, MSG. The authors keep their own experience, taste and interests very much in the forefront, which ends up feeling smug and irritating.

19 The Mere Wife: A Novel; Maria Dahvana Headley - My knowledge of Beowulf is scant at best, but this retelling stood very much on its own two feet, set in a tony suburb and comparing the experience of two very different mothers of two very different sons.

20 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays; Alexander Chee - I’m very much On The Record as being against writers writing about writing, but this might just be an exception.

21 Vancouver Special; Charles Demers - A sort of update on Douglas Coupland’s City of Glass, a book I loved and reread many times. This one has both a more historical bent, and an actual political viewpoint, contrasting with Coupland’s Gen X remoteness.

22 Crudo; Olivia Laing - A rushing frantic little novel, incorporating Trump tweets and Kathy Acker quotes throughout. A difficult read so close to the events described, but I can see this being an amazing window into this weird time, once a few years have passed.

23 Hits & Misses; Simon Rich - This might also be on the line of “writers writing about writing” but Rich manages to do so in a charmingly self-deprecating way.

24 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the US; Jeffrey Lewis - Speculative fiction written as a government report, responding, as we all have been doing, to the endlessly unprecedented Trump presidency. It all started with a tweet, of course...

25 A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; Rebecca Solnit - This book is intended to counter the idea that disasters (“natural” and otherwise) lead people to indulge their worst sides. Solnit looks at the aftermath of some 20th C disasters like the Halifax Explosion, 9/11 and various earthquakes to find examples of people banding together to help the wounded and homeless, even taking the opportunity to create new institutions when authorities fail to do so. A tonic for a world in which disasters are likely to become increasingly common.

26 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them; Jason Stanley - When I lived in Scotland in 2010, I went to an anti-fascist rally in Edinburgh, and I remember feeling like those attitudes were closer to the surface over there, where at home in Canada they felt abstract. This book traces how fascist policies lurk within democratic frameworks, and can sometimes metastasize to take over the host. Suffice it to say I was probably wrong then, and I’m definitely wrong now.

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rikiroy1793 · 6 years

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Reply 1988

I wish I could write my thesis reports this well. The following analysis was made by an YouTube account owner who goes by the name of ‘ 0dandie0 .’

On another note, Reply 1988 withdrawal setting in once again.

It says, “ "I have no intention to dissuade you, everyone's entitled to their feelings. But it does seem that your feelings are mainly coming from watching through JH-colored glasses and not fully understanding the drama as a whole. Your misunderstanding could likely be based on lack of knowledge in Korean language/culture/and the concept of Baduk. This drama is not just what you see and hear but it's brilliantly written and twisted with style, and you really need to watch carefully and analyze to get 100% out of it. The main theme of this series of Reply is Family(and love ofc but family first)and Baduk is the biggest metaphor in the drama representing Family/Love. Baduk is a game of building "zip"(means home). So it is very fitting that the main lead is a professional Baduk player(someone who builds home/family). Baduk is often compared to life, as you make "choices" that can't be undone and every move you make along the way will determine final outcome. Also there can never be two identical Baduk match ever, every match is unique and original of its own, hence the old Korean saying "there is truth of life in Baduk". The main love competition btw JH and TK is a big game of Baduk. JH is black stone and TK is white. Black stone has the advantage and always plays first. White starts off late and has the disadvantage of 6.5 zips(homes) behind. Does this rule of Baduk ring a bell? Yes, TK only came forward in this love triangle in the latter part of the episode 6(TK calls DS and asks her out to a movie on the night of the first snow) Also, note that TK's character is based on a real-life, legendary Baduk player Lee Changho. There are countless homage references to LCH from his matches(the games in the drama are exact copies of LCH's) to his family background(LCH's father also owns a jewelry shop) and personality(LCH is also introverted, hates interviews, can't tie his shoe laces, challenged in operating simple household gadgets) LCH's Baduk style is non-aggressive, appears to be very slow, low-profile and timid. Many players who were brutally beaten by him recall that they "thought" they were winning until the end. And this quality of LCH is closely mimicked by TK in the drama. TK always made right choices at the right time(this doesn't make him an strategical opportunist, but rather as JH puts it TK was more ardent, and out of love, without any hesitation, he gives DS what she's looking for every time. TK is also represented as a slow turtle(his nickname was "turtle-Taek" since episode 10 among fans, he proposed DS with golden turtle as well) but we all know who wins the race in Aesop's fable, "a turtle and a hare." At the end of a Baduk game, the white player is given 6.5 homes for the initial disadvantage he had. This explains the more screen time for TK and less for JH twrds the end. The kiss scene of TK and DS in Beijing Hotel in episode 19 gave me chills. As the camera zooms out, did you notice the house-motif fire place in the background? And yes, it's white. TK's been earnestly and successfully built his home all along, step by step. Now then why did the director decide to use the perspective of JH instead of TK or DS? We were mainly shown from JH's one sided point of view and this made a lot of people confused. Is this just to troll everyone to think that JH is the husband? At the end of every Baduk game, players do sth called "Bokgi"(review match). Although the outcome is already determined, Bokgi is still a crucial part of the game and often referred to as "the flower(beauty) of Baduk". It is basically a replay of all the moves during the match. Bokgi is entirely a time for the loser, it is time of humility and introspection. Only the loser can refuse Bokgi, the winner has no say in this. Bokgi is a very painful process for both parties but it is the only time where the loser will gain much more than the winner. Through Bokgi, the loser identifies his own mistakes, face his weaknesses and learn from them. The love relationship btw JH, DS and TK was indeed JH's Bokgi. This is very evident especially in episode 18, at the end JH revisits all his mistakes from the past to present and faces it like a man. He thinks about what he could have done, and learns a life lesson to step up. Although this type of storytelling(anti-antagonistic narrative) did somewhat trolled many, I personally was in awe with the writer/director for employing such innovative, original method. This sure is not a typical everyday drama that we come across. This is just brilliant! Another big point to recognize is that although TK had a bare minimum screen time in the beginning, his presence was always there. Everyone talked about TK, the kids, the parents, friends from school, even the radio and TV. The kids always gathered into TK's room whether he is there or not. TK's room is a big metaphor for TK's presence. He provides the emotional "home" for the kids. The kids spent their childhood and youths, their young days in his room. It's a place of heart for the kids, it represents the good old times they can reminisce and wish to go back in time in a heartbeat. Therefore, the show rightly begins and ends in TK's room. TK's little cozy room under a soft afternoon sunlight is the signature scene from Reply 1988. Now, was the male lead switched at the end from JH to TK? I hardly doubt it. Although the storytelling was from JH's perspective, everything else in the drama was all pointing to TK. That's why unlike Overseas fans, many Korean fans did catch early on that TK is the husband. I myself became sure TK was the husband by episode 6, during the narration of Lee Munse, but many caught on by the first 2 episodes. There are endless amount of foreshadowing and metaphors that are all pointing to TK. I rewatched the entire series 3 times and now I am convinced that by episode 2, you are given pretty much all the clues. For example, when TK enters his room in episode 1, the camera focuses on the swing clock at 6pm, and it rings 6 times, indicating that TK will make his real appearance in episode 6. 4.33 is another very clever metaphor. The name Suyeon and goldfish candies and goldfish buns were great foreshadowing tool leading to TK as well. So many symbolism on wedding theme btw TK and DS gives no room for any doubt. Anyways this is getting too long. I suggest you do some research and re-watch the whole thing again. You will only see how much you know, but I promise you you will see much more than the first round."

#reply 1988 #kim jungwan #choi taek #lee hyeri #ryu jun yeol #park bo gum #reply series korean #kdrama addict

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afterourhearts · 6 years

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RETWEEEEEEET.

I didn’t like this movie at all. She’s half-Korean but there’s basically no difference between her and a full Caucasian girl besides that one scene where she drinks some Yakult... otherwise, no acknowledgement of her Korean heritage whatsoever. Granted, her Korean mom had passed away, but an Asian girl who completely disregards her Asian identity and only crushes on white guys (and one black guy) is a character who annoys me on so many levels.

Couldn’t help but notice that my friends who are obsessed with this movie are the ones who are probably more whitewashed and themselves say stuff like, “I never like Asian men!” etc. etc.

Look, I’m not saying that if you’re an Asian girl, you HAVE to like Asian men. We are allowed to have our own preferences. But I am saying that we should take a moment to consider why our preferences are what they are. It’s not inherently bad to think white guys are cuter or have better personalities or whatever else might draw you to consistently choose white guys first, but there IS a fine line between preferences and flat out racism that probably gets crossed more than we realize. Inadvertent racism is still racism.

Growing up, I admittedly only liked white guys. My elementary school journals are filled with details about crushes I had on solely white boys. I used to think my Asian-ness was ugly, which made me think Asian-ness in general is ugly, and of course that meant Asian guys are ugly. It wasn’t until late middle school/early high school that I started to reclaim my Asian identity and realize the horrifying brainwashing that had been happening as a direct result of growing up in a white-dominated nation where racism is not only real but thriving. And what came after this realization? Genuine crushes on ASIAN MEN and not just because “we can understand each other better” but also because of physical attractiveness. It’s like as I started to love myself more, I started to find beauty in other Asians as well, girls and guys.

I would argue that many Asian girls who only pursue white guys/can’t find ANY Asian guys “cute” have a problem with finding Asian features beautiful which stems from a place of finding herself not beautiful enough. And that is heartbreaking. Will you be truly happy in a relationship where you get to date a white boy whose features you envy (consciously or subconsciously) while at the same time fail to resolve your own shame of the lesser attractive Asian features you possess? His fascination with your “exotic” ness might mitigate some of your insecurities for a moment, but will that really be enough? Is that a good marriage?

Not trying to make sweeping generalizations here or point fingers at interracial couples, especially when I’m in one myself. But very few of my friends in interracial relationships are the, “I exclusively date ___ race” types, which is so refreshing to me. We don’t discount a guy because he isn’t a certain race, and we don’t think white status is better than another racial status. But there are a few exceptions, and it’s these ones I’m concerned about.

Maybe one or two people popped up in your head while you were reading this. Can you imagine trying to have a conversation with that person where y’all confront this issue? It’s hard to have that conversation and not offend the person somehow. You can’t exactly point a finger and be like, “I’ve got you all figured out. You self-hate and you white worship and that’s WRONG.” You’re making assumptions on so many levels and you will only hurt your friend by bringing all of this up. So what do you do? Accept that this is how they have chosen to live and make peace with that, even when this mentality is toxic and something you can’t make yourself respect?

If I knew the clear cut answer, I wouldn’t be here writing this and being confused.

I have friends like this and it makes me sad. Friends who think white people are better even if they don’t outwardly admit it although some of them actually DO outwardly admit it.

I remember a jarring moment in 10th grade when I was sitting with 2 Asian girls and 1 White girl at lunch. This white girl was good friends with the other 2 Asian girls but I wasn’t very close to her. We started talking about how this one white guy only dated Asian girls, and the white girl chimes in and is like, “Well that’s because he can’t get any white girls so he has to resort to Asians. No offense. Haven’t you noticed all the white guys who date Asians are the weird and ugly ones that white girls would’t go for ever?” and then I watched in horror as the other 2 Asian girls laughed in agreement. One of the Asian girls was adopted by white parents. The other was fully Asian, and I don’t know why she laughed. Peer pressure, or true agreement? Either way, it made me sick to my stomach.

And there was another incident a couple years back where I met this white guy on Tinder and he asked me if I had ever been with a white guy [sexually] before and I said no and then he literally told me, “You’ll like my d*ck better, trust me.”

Situations like these have made me realize that it’s not “harmless” for an Asian girl to express very strongly that she only likes white men. There is harm. There is harm to Asian men. There is harm to Asian women. And there is harm to the girl herself. A cycle of shame and hatred of others and of oneself. So on the one hand the part of me that hates conflict wants to just sit back and let people live their lives and be chill with it but on the other hand, it’s a disgusting ideology and I lose respect for those who live that way. I know I should be feeling empathy but I find myself irritated. I try to see where it comes from but it doesn’t justify the end results.

I think ... we need to have these conversations, however difficult. Not in a let’s point fingers and name-call kind of way, but at least in a “broadly speaking” kind of context. Because even though many Asian girls have been able to find beauty in their own heritage, others are still embarrassed and ashamed, and that manifests itself in even more ugliness that not only harms themselves but others. You might not reach them via these conversations, but it might trigger some much needed self-reflection. And you might be able to find yourself capable of more empathy. I know I’ve had at least 2 Asian female friends who confessed to me that they DO realize they hate their Asian-ness and that it IS a struggle for them to find beauty in being Asian. Healing begins with recognition, right?

At the end of the day, I’m thankful that I grew out of my “white boys are dom” phase. I’m also thankful that things aren’t the other way around where I can ONLY consider Asian men as viable life partner options, because for a brief period in my life I was totally anti-non-Asian guys. If I had still remained in that mentality, I would’ve overlooked the most amazing guy ever - the one I’m with now :) It’s a learning process that I’m still actively engaged in. What my preferences are and more importantly, why they are my preferences.

Lots to think about.

#to all the boys i've loved before #whitewashed?#identity #asian american

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups

A trove of more than two dozen internal Amazon reports reveal in stark detail the company's obsessive monitoring of organized labor and social and environmental movements in Europe, particularly during Amazon's “peak season” between Black Friday and Christmas. The reports, obtained by Motherboard, were written in 2019 by Amazon intelligence analysts who work for the Global Security Operations Center, the company's security division tasked with protecting Amazon employees, vendors, and assets at Amazon facilities around the world.

The documents show Amazon analysts closely monitor the labor and union-organizing activity of their workers throughout Europe, as well as environmentalist and social justice groups on Facebook and Instagram. They also reveal, and an Amazon spokesperson confirmed, that Amazon has hired Pinkerton operatives—from the notorious spy agency known for its union-busting activities—to gather intelligence on warehouse workers.

Internal emails sent to Amazon's Global Security Operations Center obtained by Motherboard also reveal that all the division's team members around the world receive updates on labor organizing activities at warehouses that include the exact date, time, location, the source who reported the action, the number of participants at an event (and in some cases a turnout rate of those expected to participate in a labor action), and a description of what happened, such as a "strike" or "the distribution of leaflets." Other documents reveal that Amazon intelligence analysts keep close tabs on how many warehouse workers attend union meetings; specific worker dissatisfactions with warehouse conditions, such as excessive workloads; and cases of warehouse-worker theft, from a bottle of tequila to $15,000 worth of smart watches.

The documents offer an unprecedented look inside the internal security and surveillance apparatus of a company that has vigorously attempted to tamp down employee dissent and has previously been caught smearing employees who attempted to organize their colleagues. Amazon's approach of dealing with its own workforce, labor unions, and social and environmental movements as a threat has grave implications for its workers' privacy and ability to join labor unions and collectively bargain—and not only in Europe. It should also be concerning to both customers and workers in the United States and Canada, and around the world as the company expands into Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and India.

Amazon intelligence analysts appear to gather information on labor organizing and social movements to prevent any disruptions to order fulfillment operations. The new intelligence reports obtained by Motherboard reveal in detail how Amazon uses social media to track environmental activism and social movements in Europe—including Greenpeace and Fridays For Future, environmental activist Greta Thunberg's global climate strike movement—and perceives such groups as a threat to its operations. In 2019, Amazon monitored the Yellow Vests movement, also known as the gilet jaunes, a grassroots uprising for economic justice that spread across France—and solidarity movements in Vienna and protests against state repression in Iran.

The stated purpose of one of these documents is to "highlight potential risks/hazards that may impact Amazon operations, in order to meet customer expectation."

"Like any other responsible business, we maintain a level of security within our operations to help keep our employees, buildings, and inventory safe," Lisa Levandowski, a spokesperson for Amazon told Motherboard. "That includes having an internal investigations team who work with law enforcement agencies as appropriate, and everything we do is in line with local laws and conducted with the full knowledge and support of local authorities. Any attempt to sensationalize these activities or suggest we’re doing something unusual or wrong is irresponsible and incorrect."

Levandowski denied that Amazon hired on-the-ground operatives, and said that any claim that Amazon performs the described activities across its operations worldwide was "N/A."

In a report from November 2019, however, an analyst wrote that Amazon hired Pinkerton spies who were "inserted" into a warehouse in Wroclaw, Poland, to investigate an allegation that management coached job candidates on how to complete job interviews and possibly even conducted the process for them.

The Pinkerton spies were posted in a Wroclaw warehouse known as WRO1, operated by the Amazon contractor ADECCO, to investigate the allegation, according to the Amazon report. "PINKERTON operatives were inserted into WRO1 ADECCO between 2019-11-19 and 2019-11-21. No identifiable evidence of coaching on behalf of the agency recruiters was observed," the document states. "Investigative actions to prove/disprove this hypothesis are ongoing."

The report refers to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States supplied detectives to infiltrate unions and hired violent goon squads to intimidate workers from engaging in union activity in steel mills. Today, Pinkerton is a subsidiary of the Swedish security company Securitas AB, and has supplied operatives to monitor strikes in West Virginia as recently as 2018.

A confrontation between striking steel workers and the Pinkerton agents in Homestead, Pennsylvania, July 6, 1892. This confrontation was over unionization and contract negotiations at the Carnegie Steel Company's Homestead Steel Works. It led to 16 deaths and several dozen injuries. (PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Levandowski, the Amazon spokesperson, confirmed that Amazon hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency. "We have business partnerships with specialist companies for many different reasons—in the case of Pinkerton, to secure high-value shipments in transit," she said. "We do not use our partners to gather intelligence on warehouse workers. All activities we undertake are fully in line with local laws and conducted with the full knowledge and support of local authorities."

Some of the internal reports obtained by Motherboard also suggest that Amazon's risk analysts use the same tactics to monitor its hundreds of thousands of warehouse and delivery drivers throughout the Americas, the Middle East, Australia, and East Asia.

"It’s not enough for Amazon to abuse its dominant market power and face antitrust charges by the EU; now they are exporting 19th century American union-busting tactics to Europe," Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union, a global federation of trade unions that represents more than 20 million workers, told Motherboard. "This is a company that is ignoring the law, spying on workers, and using every page of the U.S. union-busting playbook to silence workers' voices."

"For years people have been comparing Big Tech bosses to 19th century robber barons," she continued. "And now by using the Pinkertons to do his dirty work, [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos is making that connection even clearer."

In October, Leïla Chaibi, a member of European Parliament from France, wrote a letter to Bezos co-signed by 37 members of European Parliament, condemning recent reports about Amazon's interference with worker organizing in Europe.

"With Jeff Bezos, we're confronted with someone who doesn't simply run a business and sell products but with someone who is threatening our democracy," Chaibi told Motherboard in response to the new reports about Amazon's surveillance of workers and social movements throughout Europe. "This is a big danger to Europe."

"These reports suggest that corporations like Amazon stand in the way of democracies and economies that work for everyone, and that we have every reason to be concerned," said Dania Rajendra, the director of Athena, a coalition of dozens of grassroots organizations in the United States aligned against Amazon. "We have every right to expect that our elected officials will take this information and protect communities who are harmed by Amazon."

Until recently, little had been made public about Amazon's anti-worker initiatives and strategies—despite years of reports on Amazon's opposition to union activity and alleged retaliation against workers who organize in the United States. In September, after public outcry, Amazon removed two job postings for intelligence analysts for its Global Security Operations Center who could track "labor organizing threats" to the company. "Fluency (written and spoken) of a second language such as Hindi, Tagalog, Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese or Brazilian Portuguese highly desired," the posting read, suggesting the company is tracking labor organizing activity around the world.

UNI Europa Global Union, a coalition of trade unions in the European Union representing 12 million workers, responded to news of the job posts by demanding that the European Commission investigate Amazon’s effort to spy on workers in Europe, calling it "potentially illegal."

A source with knowledge of the company's intelligence activities told Motherboard that in order to track protests and other labor organizing activity, Amazon intelligence agents create social media accounts without photos and track the online activity of workers leading organizing efforts. Motherboard granted the source anonymity because they feared retaliation from Amazon.

"When that team stalked people, they'd use fake accounts on social media," they said. "They'd use a fake name and a profile with no photo. The worst part is that they read tons of conversations and messages, and knew everything about the private lives of these people. They knew if they had a bad day with their family."

Levandowski, the spokesperson for Amazon, said it is against company policy to create social media accounts with fake names and photo-less profiles.

A team within Amazon's Global Security Operation Center, which includes former military intelligence analysts, according to LinkedIn, closely tracks organized labor and union activity in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia—noting where organized labor groups are strongest and could influence Amazon workers.

In one set of documents, known as "security risk assessments," analysts gather data on and evaluate potential risks to Amazon operations at the sites of future and currently operating Amazon warehouses, sorting centers, and delivery stations. These documents break down their analyses into at least four categories: crime, cargo crime, extremism and terrorism, and operational environment. For example, as part of its tracking of crime, analysts monitor the drug trade, noting how it could impact its warehouses but also specifically whether its workers are likely to be drug users. Requests for risk assessments of Amazon warehouse sites are sent to the team by email, according to an email viewed by Motherboard.

The "operational environment" category of Amazon's risk assessments covers labor activities, such as the presence of unions as well as protests and demonstrations and civil disobedience and unrest in areas where Amazon has warehouses or plans to build them, according to the documents. Each category is assigned one of five color-coded "risk ratings" "negligible," "low," "moderate," "high," or "critical." The chart defines "critical" risk as "a strong possibility that the threat source will engage in an action that has potential to impact Amazon associates, business continuity, or assets."

In one report from October 2019, an Amazon warehouse in the exurbs of Paris, known as DIF4, was deemed a "moderate" risk in the operational environment category. Although no unions had presence in Amazon logistics warehouses in France, so-called "anarcho-syndicalist groups," including the Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire (CGTU), one of France's most powerful trade unions, "had attempted to garner the support Paris-based [Amazon Logistics] associates in the past." The report noted that "such campaigns remain rare, limited in scope, and ultimately unsuccessful."

Two months later, in December 2019, warehouse workers at DIF4, in conjunction with CGTU, shut off power to the warehouse for eight hours in protest of the hiring of temporary workers, forcing a line of unfilled Amazon trucks to sit on the side of the highway for hours, according to a report in Le Parisien.

In two reports, the future site of Amazon warehouses on the outskirts of Milan and on the island of Sardinia in Italy were deemed a "moderate" risk in the operational environment category partly because trade unions, including CFGIl and Uiltrasporti, held protests on the sites of other Italian warehouses on behalf of their workers.

"Until now, these labor actions are not of a large enough scale to significantly compromise Amazon operations or to create extensive delivery delays," the reports said. "However, strike actions often take place unannounced or at very short notice."

An Amazon warehouse on September 4, 2014 in Brieselang, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Two other reports from late 2019 on future warehouse sites in Lower Saxony and Bavaria in Germany highlighted the presence of the labor union Verdi (the union has led many multi-city strikes in Germany, including one on Prime Day in October of this year) and the increasing presence of environmentalist groups, including Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, and Greta Thunberg's youth-led environmentalist group Friday For Future, as a threat, noting that Fridays For Future was "increasing their influence especially on young people and students" and "growing and attracting more and more people rapidly."

While Thunberg's movement hasn't specifically targeted Amazon, her call for a Global Climate Strike in 2019 inspired hundreds of corporate Amazon employees to stage their own walkout in protest of Amazon's climate policies.

"We are flattered that Amazon considers us a threat great enough to justify employing questionable practices like this," Fridays For Future told Motherboard in a statement, responding to the news. "The fact that the youth protesting around the world is something that a multinational corporation feels the need to be surveilling—that means what we're doing is working."

Since Amazon posted job listings for two intelligence agents who could track "labor organizing threats," journalists have obtained more documents that reveal some of the sophisticated technology and strategies the company has used to surveil its workforce and gain intelligence on worker organizing. In September, Motherboard obtained evidence that Amazon had been using a social media monitoring tool to spy on dozens of private Facebook groups for Amazon Flex drivers in the United States and Europe. Last month, a report in Recode revealed that Amazon has made significant investments in a new geospatial tool that tracks threats to the company. Out of 40 or so data points Amazon that tracks at least half are labor or employee-related, including “Whole Foods Market Activism/Unionization Efforts,” “union grant money flow patterns,” “and “Presence of Local Union Chapters and Alt Labor Groups."

In October, four U.S. senators, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, responded to these reports in a letter to Jeff Bezos demanding Amazon stop "actively interfering with workers’ rights by tracking and monitoring employees who might exercise their rights to freedom of association."

"Amazon needs to stop with the empty words, tell the truth about its failures to keep workers safe, and stop undermining its workers’ legal right to organize," Warren said of the new reports obtained by Motherboard. "Until then, I won’t stop fighting for these workers, their rights, and their safety."

Washington Sen. Ron Wyden and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who also recently wrote a letter to Bezos requesting information about Amazon's interference with workers' right to organize, sent statements to Motherboard condemning Amazon's interference with workers' right to organize and the findings in the new reports.

"Amazon’s spying on its own employees is especially odious," Wyden said. "It’s exhibit A for the need to pass new laws that would beef up federal protections for labor organizing and hold bad actors accountable."

“The magnitude of this surveillance, the lengths to which Amazon has gone to keep it hidden from its own workers, and its admitted purpose are extremely disturbing," said Sen. Brown.

"The fact that Amazon has decided to heavily invest in systems and efforts to avoid unionization rather than improve the wages, hours, and working conditions of its employees demonstrates its reckless disregard for the welfare of its workforce,” Brown continued.

A second type of report written by Amazon intelligence analysts, called the Monthly Business Review, is broken down into sections by region detailing "highlights" and "lowlights" from each month, and how Amazon handled various threats to its operations spotted by the intelligence team that month. Amazon described its use of Pinkerton spies in this type of report.

In the same report that mentioned the Pinkertons, an analyst explained that after receiving intelligence that then-UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had plans to visit an Amazon warehouse, known as DXS1, in Sheffield, Yorkshire in late November 2019, Amazon sent in security officers and members of its Security & Loss Prevention team to monitor the site. In a speech, Corbyn promised workers outside the Amazon warehouse that he would "tackle wage and cheat culture" at multinational corporations in the United Kingdom.

A representative from GMB, the union for Amazon workers, during a protest over what it claims are 'inhuman conditions' at the Amazon Swansea fulfillment centre at Ffordd Amazon on November 23, 2018 in Swansea, Wales. (Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

"No unauthorized access was granted to anyone during the visit and one member of the public was prevented from entering the building by onsite security," the report said of Corbyn's visit to the site.

In 2019, the same report states, Amazon warehouse workers redeemed $37,900 worth of customer gift cards in the United Kingdom, and that six of those employees were identified and fired. In Poland, Amazon "off-boarded" two employees suspected of writing threats "on inventory packaging and in bin locations" that "implied that the author would make a deliberate and malicious attempt to ignite" the warehouse.

For each region, data is also provided on Amazon's loss of inventory in dollars, the total amount of inventory recovered in dollars, the number of arrests and persons of interest fired and investigated, and the number of stolen vehicles. In October 2019, for example, the report states that Amazon lost $173,339.80 worth of inventory in the United Kingdom but regained $131,592.05 of those losses. In the span of that month, four UK employees were arrested, 35 employees "of interest" were "offboarded," and 31 delivery vehicles were stolen.

Employees of Amazon's Global Security Operations also appear to receive regular email updates about the labor organizing activity of workers.

One email obtained by Motherboard included a description of an hourlong incident on March 10, 2020. "Two members of CGT Union [one of France's most powerful unions]" who were also Amazon warehouse workers "distributed leaflets in front of turnstiles" at an Amazon fulfillment center in Amiens, France. The email includes both the exact time of the leaflet distribution as well as the time it was reported to Amazon, and the name of a cluster loss prevention manager who initially reported the incident. "The distribution of leaflets ended and the activists left the site with no impact to operations," the email said.

Another email obtained by Motherboard included a description of a warehouse strike in Leipzig, Germany, on February 28, 2020. According to the email, 339 Amazon associates were assumed on strike, which included no workers in lead positions and was "46.37% of expected" turnout.

Another set of reports, known as "peak-risk assessments," document threats to Amazon between Black Friday and the end of the year. It has become typical for workers across Europe to stage mass strikes against Amazon between Black Friday and Christmas, when Amazon workers experience the highest injury rates and the workload becomes especially grueling.

'Peak season' documents obtained by Motherboard list all potential events that could impact Amazon operations. During this time, Amazon creates lists of dates, times, and the number of participants for protests planned in each country in Europe where Amazon operates, data seemingly gathered from events pages on social media.

Police officers walk past a strike on November 23, 2018 at Amazon's facilities in San Fernando de Henares, the biggest in Spain, on Black Friday. (OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP via Getty Images)

The source with knowledge of Amazon's Global Security Operations surveillance practices told Motherboard that in 2019 analysts were sent to France to monitor the activity of the Yellow Vests social movement in an attempt to gain information about where they would stage their protests.

A report on the 2019 peak season that mentioned Amazon believed there were ties between Amazon warehouse workers and Yellow Vests in Paris said, "Protests in Paris are planned, both by striking union members and [Yellow Vests], on 7 December. A march is planned by Yellow Vest activists [sic] from Bercy at 1130 CET to porte de Versailles via Austerlitz, Denfert, Place de la Catalogne and porte de Vanves. It is unclear whether striking unions will participate in the same march organized by [Yellow Vests] but it is expected of them to join starting at Montparnasse."

Protestors block depot in Saint Priest, near Lyon, France, on Black Friday 2019. (Nicolas Liponne/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A report on peak season risks to Amazon in Italy, deeming the risk level "moderate," chronicles in detail ongoing union activities of its warehouse workers and delivery drivers, noting specific complaints made by delivery drivers and warehouse workers in union negotiations, such as Sunday shifts and excessive workloads, as well as the number of delivery drivers who joined unions and attended union meetings.

"It was reported that in October at DLO1, 10 DAs [delivery associates] out of 51 became members of the [Italian General Confederation of Labour] and an assembly was organized with 14 green badge DAs attending," the report reads.

"Potential labor initiatives at Amazon by traditional unions may constitute an attractive opportunity for SiCobas to attend and gain visibility," it continues, referencing an Italian labor union that has organized Amazon warehouse strikes on Black Friday. "The group is known for more disruptive and subversive protest MOs, although history of previous blockages and disruptive actions showed law enforcement generally react in a timely manner."

Another one of these reports from 2019 describes the activity of environmental groups in Germany, highlighting information gathered from social media.

"Greenpeace Germany also posted another video featuring Amazon on their social media on [December 5] in a similar style as previous campaigns. The video features a woman asking ‘Alexa’ about the best bargains for Christmas presents, to which ‘Alexa’ responds that they should make their own presents and spend time with family to protect the environment instead of indulging in consumerism," a report from December 2019 says.

"As of writing, the video has received over 100 likes and has been shared 28 times to date. The video does not call for any direct action or indicate any upcoming protest activity, but future action such as boycott cannot be ruled out. It should be noted that increased social media activity by Greenpeace regarding a company or organization has, on occasions, preceded direct action against that company—this is the 3rd Amazon related post in 2 weeks.”

The international environmental organization Greenpeace has called out Amazon for its contracts with oil and gas companies, and criticized Bezos's "climate pledge" in 2019 to reduce net zero carbon emissions by 2040 for failing to account for the carbon footprint of its supply chain. In 2019, Greenpeace protesters staged a demonstration on the roof of an Amazon warehouse in Germany.

Rolf Skar, campaigns director at Greenpeace USA, told Motherboard, in response to news that Amazon was tracking the activity of the organization, that the company is mistaken in its assessment that Greenpeace is a threat to Amazon.

"We're not violent. We don’t destroy property," he said. "Their problem is a lack of climate leadership. I'm not surprised but I'm disappointed that they’re putting energy in the wrong place. We have done a lot of work holding the tech giants accountable for their growing footprint. There's a lot to suggest progress. But Amazon is an outlier. Amazon has refused to stop using powerful AI technologies to help fossil fuel companies drill around the world and they have a problem with morale internally on this."

In September 2019, more than one thousand Amazon employees staged a walkout in protest of Amazon's failure to reduce its carbon emissions and its contracts with oil and gas companies.

The report also shared intelligence on a December 6, 2019 protest in Vienna in solidarity with protests in Iran over the rising cost of fuel. The report includes an image of the route for the protest obtained from Google maps. "Clear participation rates are not known," the report reads. "However, no disruption to operations has yet been reported on 6 December."

In response to allegations that Amazon's Global Security Operations Centers tracked environmentalist and social justice movements, Levandowsi, the spokesperson for Amazon said, "Like most companies, we have a team of analysts that help prepare for external events such as weather, power outages, or large community gatherings like concerts or demonstrations that could disrupt traffic or affect the safety and security of our buildings and the people who work at them."

Stefan Clauwaert, a legal and human rights advisor at the European Trade Union Confederation, told Motherboard that Amazon's intelligence activities could potentially violate EU data collection laws and labor conventions and standards outlined by the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Council of Europe's European Social Charter, both of which guarantee workers the freedom to associate with unions as well as the right to organize and collectively bargain. The European Union's 2018 data privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, requires companies to disclose their collection and usage of personal data—and explain why the data is being collected.

"In the EU, we have regulations which protect workers and trade unions," said Clauwaret. "I can envision many legal avenues for actions against Amazon for these activities, many more than exist in the United States. But what we need to do now is make noise to our bodies about the violations and what Amazon is doing."

In addition to Chaibi, five other members of the European Parliament, including Emmanuel Maurel of France, Marie Toussaint of France, Younous Omarjee of France, Brando Benifei of Italy, and Manon Aubry of France who signed onto the October letter to Bezos criticizing Amazon's surveillance of workers, responded to the documents obtained by Motherboard with strong disapproval.

"Amazon's systemic use of military surveillance methods against unionists and activists is deeply alarming," said Aubry, who is also a senior member of France's France Insoumise, France's main radical left party. "Amazon and Jeff Bezos act as if they were above the law because they have accumulated unprecedented levels of wealth and power. This has to stop."

"We already knew that the world within Bezos' [empire] is a world of social suffering and environmental destruction," Toussaint, another member of European Parliament, said. "Now, it becomes clear that this is also a world with no democracy."

Do you work for Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center or have a tip to share with us about Amazon’s surveillance of labor or social movements? We’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with the author of this article by emailing [email protected] or on Signal 201-897-2109.

Hoffman, president of UNI Global Union, which represents 70 million trade union workers around the world, says that Amazon's use of anti-union tactics common in the United States in Europe and around the world is creating a global human rights crisis.

"Most American companies that try to succeed in Europe have adapted to the fact that there are strong unions here. Those that haven't, such as Walmart and Toy R' Us have left. But Amazon is an outlier," she said. "This isn’t the way companies operate in Europe—ignoring the law, spying on workers, using every page of the US union busting playbook, as if they don’t have enough power and money on their own. They need to know they're not going to get away with that in Europe."

Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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petrichorsalon · 7 years

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Underrated Shoujo Gems You Should Try.

I love shoujo manga whole lot but it does sort of suffer from same series syndrome. Just like a lot of other fandoms, certain series just pop up a TON. For Shounens it tends to be Naruto, Bleach, Once Piece, and My Hero Academia. In Shoujo the list is usually Kamisama Hajimemashita, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Fruits Basket, Ouran, Ao Haru Ride, Orange, Kimi ni Todoke, Akagami no Shirayuki-hime and so on... While these series aren’t bad and are quite good, I’m here to give you some wonderful series out side of the ultra popular range that deserve some love and attention.

Chikyuu no Owari wa Koi no Hajimari (chapter 1 of 16 is translated)

Youve probably heard of Taamo’s more popular series Taiyou no Ie, Chikyuu no Owari wa Koi no Hajimari follows twins as they learn about love.The protagonist Mahiru fancies herself to be unlucky at best which makes her a fun character to follow as she usually assumes the worst will happen but good things happen to her anyway. Its a fun series that encourages the reader to look on the bright side of life.

Colette wa Shinu Koto ni Shita (chapter 19 of 49 is translated)

Okay, I really don’t understand why this one hasn’t taken off, this is a 100% guilty pleasure read that is a retelling of Hades and Persephone (minus Persephone’s name and adding making her a human doctor). This series has the notable qualities of lacking a love triangle, lacking drama, and the side characters being fleshed out including servants, other gods, and other various memebers of the world. The author seems to just really enjoy her characters. (ALSO YOU SHOULD READ IT BECAUSE HADES IS HOT.)

Koiwazurai no Ellie (chapter 1 of 19 is translated)

The story focuses on an anti-hero named Ellie. Ellie is crude and a bit of a perv that daydreams about the popular boy in class. The boys popular persona is quickly swept away to reveal hes a bit pessimistic. While Koiwazurai no Ellie bears a lot of resemblance to Black Prince and Wolf Girl, there is a far greater lack of petty drama and the characters are in balance unlike the perpetual power struggle in Black Prince and Wolf Girl. Ellies pervy side is relate-able and funny as the two get to know each other and he does nothing but fan the flames of her crude mental state.

Living no Matsunaga-san (chapter 4 of 6 is translated)

This up and coming series is sure to be the next popular shoujo with its gorgeous art and beautiful beshounens. It revolves around a girl who moves in to her uncles boarding house and quickly finds herself to be the only non-adult. She falls in love with the beautiful Matsunaga-san only after a couple choppy meetings. Her romance while focusing on Matsunaga-san also journeys through the other adults of the house as they all learn to work and live together.

Short Cake Cake (chapter 8 of 35 is translated)

Speaking of boarding houses Short Cake Cake is written by the author of Hibi Chouchou that revolues around Ten a country girl who makes 2, 2 hour commutes everyday to school. Her friends persuade her to take up living in a boarding house so she can be closer to the school. She quickly makes friends with the tenants and a new set of loves gets to blossom. This series has the reader asking “Who will she end up with?” No... seriously, I’m talking Hirunanka no Ryuusei levels of competition here (The author even references it a couple times.) So if you want a beautiful nail-biting romance that revolves around two VERY ideal guys. This is your series.

Mairimashita, Senpai (Not translated has 10 chapters)

Do you think that modern Shoujos move too slow, are you longing for a fast paced series that gets right to the fluff (and semi-lemon stuff)? This series is about Serina who finds lyrics on her desk one day, after commenting on them she quickly meets the author and finds him to be... a jerk. This follows their growing relationship as they find strengths in each other giving two relatively shy people an opportunity so gain support and find themselves.

Mizutama Honey Boy (Chapter 28 of 33 is translated)

Mizutama Honey Boy follows the espades of Fuji (a girly guy) and Sengoku (a manly girl) as they become friends, or well, friends that act like a dating couple but their still not official even though the feelings are mutual. This series is a fun romp in breaking the shoujo formula. Every character is delightfully opposite of what the shoujo formula says it should be ranging from common strip teases to gays to wrestling to 1970′s shoujo throwbacks this series has just about as much fun as Ouran in this convention breaking, pain causing, story avoiding series.

Niehime to Kemono no Ou (CHapter 18 of 30 is translated)

This series is another up and coming title that involes a human sacrafice that falls for the very person who by convention in supposed to kill / eat her. This is a series for the fans of Kamisama Hajimemashita. A love that is strengthened despite their different worlds. Join Saliphie as she fights literal monsters to be come a queen worthy of the king of beasts.

Queen's Quality / QQ Sweeper (QQ Sweeper is fully translated, Volume 1 of Queens Quality will be out in September, no translations yet)

This series is one I’m honestly surprised nobody has caught onto. In a series that rivals shounen proportions Fumi is a girl who is living in the school as she has been kicked out of her last place of residence. She has long since lost her parents and is cursed to bring destruction to all who give her shelter. Kyuutaro is the school janitor (sort of) who finds her. Quickly she is rushed into the life of a sweeper, people who clean both the physical world and the spiritual world. (Also did I mention its the same author as Dengeki Daisy? Yeah this series gets pretty dark, a refreshing turn for a shoujo manga)

Sabaku no Harem (Chapter 21 of 22 is translated)

You hear about harem mangas all the time but what about a literal harem? Sabaku no Harem follows the tomboyish princess candidate Mishe who wins the heart of a prince as she literally walks past him. As the 30th concubine Mishe is set to face competition for a prince she really doesn’t care for and proceeds to sabatoge herself which natually makes the prince more curious. Sabaku no Harem is a series that is almost episodic in nature as the two gradually grow closer despite the many people who want to tear them apart.

Sensei Kunshu (Chapter 9 of 47 is translated)

This series stems from the author’s other, more popular work Heroine Shikkaku but one doesnt need to read her previous work to read this rioting series. The story follows Ayu who is constantly getting rejected by the person she confessed to. She quickly falls for her teacher as she has with others before but somehow the love becomes requited. Sensei Kunshu follows the insanity of Ayu and her teacher as they face the world together.

Suijin no Hanayome (Chapter 9 of 29 is translated)

The Bride of the Water God is a very popular Korean series but did you know there is a Japanese version? Suijin no Hanayome follows Asahi who is transported into an ancient realm (think Inuyasha in setting) where she is quite promptly given as a sacrifice to the water god of the area. The Water God being very bored and very done with humans keeps her a few days and then gives her back much to the horror of the towns people but not before he takes her voice. The story continues as Asahi changes from child into woman and the many trials of the new world she lives in.

Takane to Hana (Chapter 27 of 50 is translated)

A favorite of mine to talk about Takane to Hana opens with Hana who appears at a Mai (arranged marriage meeting) in place of her sister. She quickly refuses to deal with the arrogance of Takane the marriage partner and promptly leaves. This interests Takane and he pursues her. Hana has 0% time for his tom-foolery and sets out to make his life miserable which results in a comical battle of wits, pride, and abilities. This age gap manga takes the uneven maturity level of most age gaps and sets them on equal ground as they take turns sabotaging each other like 3 year olds.

I hope you were able to find some titles I listed that look interesting or that you have never read before. While this is just the currently publishing list there are many more out there and I will post again soon! In the meantime, I hope this list gives some new reading material.

#Chikyuu no Owari wa Koi no Hajimari #colette wa shinu koto ni shita #koiwaszurai no ellie #living no matsunaga san #short cake cake #mairimashita sempai #mizutama honey boy #niehime to kemono no ou #queens quality #qq sweeper #sabaku no harem #sensei kunshu #suijin no ikenie #suijin no hanayome #takane to hana #manga #shoujo #shojo #gems

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dwestfieldblog · 5 years

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‘’A GREAT DAY FOR CIVILIZATION’‘

THE BLACKNESS OF DARKNESS FOREVER

'Verily a polluted stream is man, One must be an ocean to receive a polluted stream without becoming unclean'. Indeed...November-December '2019'...Anarchy for the UK? Looks as if Boris is working for the other side in a similar way to Trump. Ride the populist wave and spark a gathering civil war. I remember reading some years ago about how the SAS were trained in knowing exactly where to place a small amount of explosive to bring down machinery, rather than a James Bond type explosion. Just set it right and allow the machine to destroy itself through its own natural momentum. Every time these two fat blonde fools open their mouths it reminds me of this. They appear to be helping to destroy it all from the inside...will the constitutions of these two noble (arf) countries survive their egos? The education system is breeding a mass of fools and large parts of social media are indeed being weaponised to stir up emotions, working hard to pull it all down.

A looming election in Britain and a current party in power who has received millions from Russian oligarchs to encourage various unions to split apart. Hexagram 23 is thrown again. The other choices are just as dangerous. Nobody of any use whatsoever to vote for. Don't look back, good days ahead eh? Anyone remember Boris saying in 2018 that Britain was 'truly headed for the status of colony'? Yes Mr Johnson, but not a European one. Meanwhile, onwards...

Children are born with a strong sense of curiosity to explore their senses and ask questions. By the time they leave College and University this often seems to have been reduced to mere drug taking without any actual increase in perception...and the need to join a political or religious group. The leaders of such groups do not encourage the curious in nature, as individuality is less than essential to to a leader who requires obedience and the transference of energy. Stirring up righteous emotions takes the place of both rational thought and instinct...and the inquisitive rebels become fervent drones or else passive without actually being tranquil. Never forget the accurate part in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the gathered mass repeat (apart from one) 'YES, WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!' Small wonder the butchers smell easy meat on a daily basis...but at least the lambs are ‘’woke’’, eh?

I recently read the long paragraph of topics NOT to be used by comedians in universities in America and Britain. Ready? 'Racism, sexism,classism, ageism, abelism, homophobia, biophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, or anti-religion or anti-atheism; These topics can be 'discussed' but 'in a respectful way'. Comedy kids! The PC snowflake future of these countries will be devoid of humour, only safe jokes on the mundane...and at some point even skits on mass murderers will be banned so as not to cause offence to killers several sandwiches short of a picnic.

P.C quote...'I happen to agree with the P.C. cult about many things. (In fact I only differ with them in not liking their intolerance, their fascist tactics, their introduction of Maoist brainwashing to our groves of Academe, their utter lack of humor, their continuous violations of ordinary common sense, their evident desire to destroy our Constitution and their lack of simple human decency') Robert Anton Wilson Cosmic Trigger Three, Hilaritas Press 1995/2018. Speaking of whom...

'The secret of power and wealth? You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by mathematical definition, half of them are even dumber than that'. RAW. And therefore simpletons to manipulate for votes, money, sex and power. Endless slogans of 'Vote for me, I appear to share the same prejudices as you and of course I believe our country should rise again'. Etc. And so things will remain, until a few more of us consciously choose to edit less and tune in more, changing reality tunnels into reality labyrinths in good humour, there is unlikely to be the fabled phase transition... but it is coming. May Be. Trust me, I am an almost fully realised lunatic. Those with twofold vision will be unable to stop the wheel of evolution. As above, so below, inward is outward. Non simultaneously apprehended events....

China, seventy years of glorious and highly successful communism, well done to the personality cult of Winnie the Pooh. Took them this long to ban South Park. ARF. Don't forget kids, 'the imposition of order=escalation of chaos. The more laws there are, the more crime there will be.' Tell that to the judge...Remember...'The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. IT WAS THEIR FINAL,MOST ESSENTIAL COMMAND' .1984

Trump said Greta Thunberg 'seems like a very happy girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!''. She then put that as her description on her facebook page:-) Goddess bless her. Fascinating but not surprising the papers with editors connected financially with concerns that involve oil etc, are writing editorials about how she is being manipulated and that her Asbergers (which she calls a superpower) makes her a loony. Love that she rejected the environmental award. And now she is Time magazine's Person of the Year, Trump will steam all the more and twitter out yet more methane. ('Every time he sits down, his voice gets muffled'.) Eve was the first human to think for herself...and men like you have never forgotten this eh? Grimly amazed to hear his female press secretary Grisham say his former Chief of Staff 'was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president'. She wasn't being sarcastic just applying more brown lipstick. North Korean platitudes in the USA. Cheese Boy and the Old Dotard, coming soon to a nightmare near you...

(A day after I wrote that paragraph, Trump did indeed tweet his disgust and jealous sarcasm, whereupon she promptly took his words once more and updated her biography again to 'A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend'. Perhaps she reminds him of a similar smart girl who refused his clumsy advances when he was that age and is seeking delayed revenge. Or just trying to make his oil/resource friends laugh. His gimp master Putin certainly is. 'Condemned to eternal bullshit' to quote Mr John Lydon. Meanwhile away from the chaos, the darkness and the gate of the land of Night and entropy defined as a gradual decline into disorder, some levity is needed to slow the descent into bleakness ...)

Artificial Intelligence is to be given intellectual property rights...is this really a good idea? Discuss between yourself. Being Terminated by a robot is bad enough but being sued by a machine? Or do the Free Laws apply here? Well, when we cannot believe what we see, we see what we can believe. The state is concentric but the individual is eccentric eh? A random shuffle of cut ups, amazing how often they can make coherent sense, depending on what state the brain is in...I used to be a Libertarian but they had too many rules.

Or, as Alien Sex Fiend once said..'Everybody wants what everybody's got and everybody's got what everybody wants,soldier lies bleeding where a church once stood.' I love you cos you got green hair...Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse, like Curt Cobain. I am a work in regress. Conditioned reflexes are built onto the imprints. Imprints are only changed through work or by a shock of one type or another. Bad news for the lazy cowards among us. 'Apothecary, give me something to sweeten my imagination!'

...Some days later, a new campaign slogan from Boris to 'forge a new Britain'. In the meaning of fakery and counterfeits? I spent five minutes today reading Trump's Twitter account and felt my mind shivering in horror. This man seems to be seriously mentally ill. And suddenly impeachment (albeit a long time coming) is on the table. Lurve the quote today from a Republican that 'abuse of power is not a crime'. In a democratic country? Could he be dirt on the road by next year? A smear on the wind shield, a nasty smell in the corner of a locked room? Will the Land of the Free (ARF) have a fresh awakening? Delicious to hold this thought for a while.....

One week later...

And so it was that Boris won an outright majority. And that is where we are in Britain, the other choices were so dreadful, we chose the evil of three lessers. You CAN fool most of the people all of the time. Let's keep repeatedly mentioning the millions of pounds donated to his Conservative party by oligarchs, the four jobs he lost because of lying, the children he does not pay child support to, the absolute lack of respect he commands on the world stage, his endless endless mask of buffoonery, avoidance of questions with a charade of good humour, his lack of manners, ridiculous failed projects paid for by public money, his cover ups, Brexit NHS lies and...and... and all of this happened before he was elected prime minister. THAT'S how poor the alternatives were. And his friends who are shorting stocks in order to cash in on Brexit. These businessmen, like those in the apocalyptic religions, looking forward to the End, to be raised higher in the rapture of Big Money. Nice grip on decency and morality to wish for the destruction of your country for the sake of your pockets. Mutton dressed up as a wolf in a judas goat's clothing, bleating,'This is the way, follow me and ignore the rotating knives;...

Wish and hope to be proved wrong, I have no problem whatsoever with being shown I am wrong when I am. I learn something positive about human nature then and my cynicism is overcome for a while. Not sure what we offer the world other than what we already have given and of course, weapons. Our best minds fled to America, Switzerland, New Zealand etc a long time ago. I expect Scotland to rid herself of English bullshit in no short order. Much as the USA, we became united through violence, the force of manipulation and then the desire to be stronger together. If a large part of the kingdom wishes to split in order to maintain previous relations with Europe, who seem to have behaved far better to it than did England, then go for it ye Celts. Looks as if the English really enjoy being told what to do by posh boys with a shaky grasp of morals. Pathetic. If I wasn't a Christian I'd...oh wait, I'm not...

Sick of these alpha male dumb foul-hearted swine equating power with only brute force and see those who care to evolve as weak. Those who believe respect comes only through fear will have a rude awakening, sooner...or much later. 'So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause'.

And once again for all you Aristotelian black and white types, no I am not a Socialist or a Communist or a Liberal. I just have a deep dislike and mistrust of poncey arrogant lying snobs whose behaviour is far worse than those with a quarter of the education and opportunities they had. Again, perhaps I am wrong and Boris will suddenly rise and show his mettle and be the exact opposite of all he has been and done before. There is a percentage of possibility. My instinct says 'Don't hold yer breath'. Or...'All things are a coincidence of opposites' Bruno of Nola. So, hope.

Peptides select the reality you experience, so get working on widening the spectra of possibilities and get neurotransmitting all ye psychonauts...at least laugh more...

I am sure it seems lazy just to dump yet another load of favourite quotes in these blogs as ballast,with which to add weight to my rather vague or ranted writings but you deserve some actual mind food during these screeds eh? So...'...brains are made of cells which are made of atoms which are made of electrons which are superimpositions of waves'. And the waves are influenced by...'The hidden variable theory of consciousness asserts (1) there is a sub-quantal level beneath the observational/theoretical structure of ordinary quantum mechanics; (2) events occurring on this sub-quantal level are the elements of sentient being.' Dr. E H Walker and N Herbert. Page 174. I need add nothing to that because it is all there, but...Imagine, if you Will...

And thus...

'We find that our consciousness controls physical events through the laws of quantum mechanics'

'The sum total of all minds is one'. Schroedinger.

'I don't ask that my opinion be made into law'.The republican's favourite hated comedian Bill Maher, speaking about prejudices on weed, sex, comedy, childbirth, books, films etc etc. 'Society runs at the speed of its slowest member'...Thus spake Jim Jeffries, explaining very clearly why various human made laws exist...and why the 'train' of evolution is scarcely moving thanks to all the dead weight it has to pull behind the engine/the first car. (Where within, all the scientists, philosophers, poets and engineers are thinking...; If I just pull out this peg and separate the cars 'Do you know how fast we would be moving?' ) Go for it lucid 3D dreamers...soon.....

An insane God burning its infinite energy on lower things, well why not? It passes eternity in the Akashic hologram eh? 'The hardware remains local, but nobody can localize the software'. Hope this is clear enough.

'Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endue and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Rainer Maria Rilke. while listening to Swans from another dimension. I have never read anything from RMR, Kahil Gibran or Rumi that wasn't as magickal as Blake or Yeats. Eternity manifested in the light of day, something infinite behind everything appeared...

Time for us to step back out and away from all the old repeating news. To pay it no mind and certainly no heart. Just let go and leave it behind, allow them to get on with their ruin as we step discreetly to one side. Play your part by standing apart.

A lot of this year has felt pretty foul for various self induced reasons but has been enlightened (literally) considerably by good friends, great books, a couple of summer months on weed, and the beauty, grace, blood and power of PJ Harvey, Thighpaulsanndra, Puscifer, Swans, Killing Joke and the immortal COIL. Readers, I wish you a healthy, good hearted 2020... See you later, perhaps in a fulgurous exhalation conglobed in a cloud by the circumfused humour...

'If you have been on the upside of luck, build longer bridges, not higher fences'

SPIRAL OUT...KEEP GOING...AND ILLUMINISE NOW )+( LOVE.

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moonlitazure · 6 years

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Welp, since I just love calling out bullshit when I see it...

I’m too lazy to go through an organized, itemized list of why your call out is bullshit, @assassincraft , so I’ll just point out any flaws, fallacies, or inaccuracies as we go through. Frankly, you don’t seem worth the time to put a full on anti-callout over, but I’ll make an exception here. Just for you, friendo.

We’ll start out with Bun’s section.

So, I’m not posting the screen caps over. Simply because they’re a fucking mess. Half of your screenshots repeat 80% of the same messages over and over, and there is legitimately something like five or more like that in a row.

The important thing to take out of this section is that there’s two problems with your start here.

First off, this call out isn’t about Natsuki, it’s about Junko. If you plan to call someone out over receipts, at least explain what your receipts are for properly.

Second off... The FC someone uses is nobody’s fucking business but their own in the first place. This whole thing is like getting pissed off that I use Lillie from Pokemon, who is white with blonde hair and green eyes, as the FC for Sayuri Nakamura, who while her mother was blonde and father has green eyes is still technically Japanese.

Sayuri would look literally near identical to Lillie based on how I picture her, hence I use Lillie. If you dislike my, or anyone’s, choice in FC simply don’t follow them.

.... Kay, so, I already can’t take this call out seriously, because clearly you and your friend are fucking idiots who can’t even use Google.

Gyaru is not fucking blackface. Gyaru refers to a culture/style of fashion conscious girls in Japan, which has several sub styles. You might be thinking of the sub style of GANGURO, but even then the traits of ganguro style are heavy tans and blonde hair. Junko is canonically a gyaru, simple as that. If someone headcanons Junko as having been involved in ganguro at some point, a style that has NOTHING to do with black face, that’s their business.

You have many valid points in this, and I will give you some credit for it. However, you have one major issue in your entire argument that makes the whole thing flawed.

Race =/= Ethnicity

Korean and Japanese are not races, they are ethnic backgrounds. You can hold prejudice against one group, but that does not automatically make it racism. You can’t even make the argument that it’s racist because it’s ‘claiming them interchangeable’ because Bun, in your own screenshots, outright says that she is fully aware they’re of a different ethnic background, and that her rational for using the face claim is solely because her appearance fits Junko better.

She is not claiming the FC is Japanese, nor saying the FC is playing Junko. It’s a fucking icon of a person who looks like Junko. There’s a world of difference between that and a movie/play/show completely miscasting a POC. To claim any correlation is asinine.

Hello, Slippery Slope fallacy, fancy seeing you here. Okay, so I’m going to be frankly blunt here. Your entire argument in the second part there is harmful at best, and stupid at worst.

First off, not everyone holds the same values you do. Just because you find something racist doesn’t mean every POC out there will. You are not the only POC out there. Just like I am not the only trans person out there. You do not, and CANNOT, speak for every POC just like I can’t speak for every trans person out there.

Trying to pull that card does not make your argument stronger, it makes your argument weaker. It makes you look arrogant, and it’s this kind of bullshit that makes it so I can’t be taken seriously when I try to talk about a trans issue. Because people like you pull blanket statement cards like this, give off the impression that you speak for your whole community, and subsequently invalidate any attempts for your community can argue for itself by making people think ALL of the community is like you.

I’ll get back to this point in a moment, actually.

On to Pom’s section.

Okay before I continue I’d just like to say it again; learn not to repeat shit in your screen caps. It makes this whole call out a fucking bastard to read, and makes it hard to take you seriously.

Except??? Pom wasn’t even siding with Bun??? Nor did she attempt to rationalize the choice at all???

Just because someone doesn’t blindly side with you doesn’t mean they side with someone else. In fact, they specifically said they didn’t WANT to take sides. YOU were the one who tried to force a friend to take sides between two friends. I don’t even know Pom and I can tell you that she’s not the bad person here. You’re just a shitty friend, and Pom is lucky she doesn’t have to deal with you anymore.

Hello again, Slippery Slope! I said I’d come back to that prior point, and this is the perfect place to do that.

“Because you take no sides on racism, you’re enabling a racist.”

You know, you keep throwing out that word, but I don’t think you actually know what racism means.

Now see, I’d like to assume you know what antagonism means, so we won’t bring that into our little lesson here. But despite the actions Bun took already failing to meet the key criteria of racism (based on a belief that one’s own race is superior), let’s look at the definition of the other two words, shall we?

See, things like discrimination... those have to have ill intent behind the actions to even exist. What Bun did was not an act of discrimination.There was no intolerance, no bigotry, no favoritism in her actions.

Oh, look... a word that doesn’t apply to actions, inherently. However, for the sake of your argument, let’s just say it does apply to actions. Calling Bun’s action prejudice requires it not be based on reason... Except, she gives much reason through all your examples.

So, let’s take your prior statement, and rewrite it to what you REALLY meant.

“Because you don’t blindly agree with my side, you are a bad person.”

Now see, had you said that, maybe I’d have an iota of respect for you since you were at least being honest. But no, instead, you hid behind racism as a shield to try to look morally superior. To cause drama and try to ruin the reputation of someone whom you disagree with.

Fuck’s sake, I fucking hate vague posting, and even I think Pom had every right to vague about your ass here.

Know what? I’m done. There’s a third person involved, but you couldn’t even be assed to put in the effort to call them out properly, so why should I waste my own time any further. It’s the perfect parallel, really. You were too lazy to do any research into anything you were talking about, you were too lazy to actually write a call out one of the people you claim to be calling out, so now I’m feeling too lazy to continue to bother with this.

TL;DR: Learn to do actual research and put some proper thought into a call out, and stop trying to virtue signal by hiding behind a buzzword like racism, when in actuality you just disagree with someone’s thoughts or actions. All you’re doing is making yourself look dumb, and trivializing the concept of racism, making people take it less seriously.

Fucking Leafy’s response to iDubbz was more well thought out than your call out. Peace.

Enjoy Arbys.

#;drama #drama tw #racism tw #;ooc #;psa

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zeroviraluniverse-blog · 6 years

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Kim Yo-jong and North Korea's secret weapon

Visit Now - https://zeroviral.com/kim-yo-jong-and-north-koreas-secret-weapon/

Kim Yo-jong and North Korea's secret weapon

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Kim Yo-jong’s visit to Pyeongchang mesmerised the crowds

It turns out North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un doesn’t need to fire off a missile to get the world’s attention. He has a number of far more powerful weapons in his arsenal: his female envoys.

And on this latest so-called charm offensive, he saved the best for last. His sister.

Kim Yo-jong mesmerised South Korean audiences. As she strode into the presidential palace carrying a handwritten note from her brother, every detail was scrutinised live on television. Her sparkly top, how she wore her hair, each small gesture. The news networks even decided to discuss her freckles, rather than mention that she is on a US blacklist for human rights abuses.

You could almost feel the ripple of excitement as she walked into the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. Necks craned and mobile phones were held aloft to catch a glimpse.

I found myself, along with others, leaning as far as I could over the balcony to try to see her in the VIP box below. The faces around the stadium all said one thing. She’s here. On South Korean soil.

She has given the secretive regime a human face.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionKim Yo-jong presented President Moon Jae-in with a folder holding a handwritten note from her brother, the leader of North Korea

“It’s strange and wondrous. I’ve never seen a North Korean before,” one young man tells me.

“My heart is melting,” says another.

Pyongyang’s PR queen

But let’s not forget, Kim Yo-jong is a Pyongyang’s PR queen. She is the master of her brother’s image, and on this occasion, she has mastered the media’s portrayal of her country.

“To see a member of the Kim family in the flesh like that is so unusual for South Koreans that it’s not surprising they were fascinated by her,” explains Jean Lee, former Pyongyang bureau chief for the news agency Associated Press.

“But it does also show how savvy the North Koreas are,” he says. “They sent their prettiest women. Frankly when you go to North Korea, you have these guys who are drop dead gorgeous. They have told me sometimes that their job is to seduce us, so that in turn we are like, the country and the people, they’re not that bad.”

The seduction began several weeks ago as North Korea despatched the former lead singer of Moranbong, an all female music group. Hyun Song-wol sashayed through Seoul to find a venue for her arts troupe to perform.

Again, more mention was made of her fur stole than the fact that only five months ago North Korea conducted its latest nuclear test.

Then came the famed “army of beauties”. This group of women, handpicked for their good looks, talent, and loyalty to the regime stepped off the bus in single file in matching black fur hats, red coats and ankle boots.

Image copyright AFP/Getty

Image caption Pyongyang’s cheerleaders, dressed to impress

Heavily guarded, most merely smiled as reporters tripped over themselves to try to get near them.

In looks-conscious and skin-care obsessed South Korea, these young North Korean women are held up as examples of natural beauty or innocence and it appears to have prompted a sting of nostalgia in the older generation. One of the group’s most famous members is Ri Sol-ju who joined when she was 16 and eventually became the wife of Kim Jong-un.

‘Fighters on the frontline’

One North Korean defector told me it was her job to go out and conquer with a smile. Han Seo-hee is a former member of both the North Korean cheerleading squad and the arts troupe.

“We were supposed to promote the Juche ideology (North Korea’s ideology of socialist self-reliance). We were fighters on the frontline. We thought we were going into the heart of the enemy to show how proud we are. We were to show that we were better than others. I was quite proud and confident and I thought that was what we were going to do.”

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionNorth Korean ‘cheer team’s’ amazing support

Han Seo-hee had to leave North Korea because her brother defected. If she’d stayed she and her family could have ended up in prison. She enjoys the freedom she has in South Korea as she recalls the three months of ideological training she went through with her fellow performers.

“We were told we should not be surprised and shocked by the unknown world and that we shouldn’t forget our home country even for a minute. We shouldn’t forget that we are there to honour General Kim.

“Some of my fellow performers said that because they didn’t want to forget their homeland they would grab a handful of earth to put in their suitcase. Another packed a portrait of Kim Jong-il (the father of the current leader) wrapped in a red silk scarf in her bag.”

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Anti-North Korea protesters demonstrate against the arrival of their art troupe

This kind of idolisation of a leader is alien to South Korea’s younger generation who are not so easily seduced by North Korea’s arrivals.

Protests sprung up on social media by an outraged group in their 20s and 30s who felt that South Korean President Moon Jae-in was wrong to integrate North Koreans into the women’s ice hockey team. The president’s popularity ratings have not fully recovered.

North Korea’s cheerleading charm offensive

North v South: A history of sport, bombs and diplomacy

‘Like a religious cult’

And the culture gap became glaringly obvious during the ice hockey match itself.

The South Korean cheerleading group at the Olympics had rehearsed sexy routines to the song Uptown Funk in mini skirts and knee high boots while waving pom poms. But the rows of North Korean cheerleaders below them seemed almost oblivious to whatever pop or rock hit was booming around the stadium.

In matching red tracksuits their performance consisted of quirky hand movements and chants all done in perfect unison. Their traditional songs were about uniting the Motherland. “We are one” was the cry.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption North Korean cheerleaders have been the centre of attraction at the Pyeongchang Olympics

Han Seo-hee feared the cheerleaders might be seen as a curious spectacle. She remembered an incident in 2003.

“When the cheerleaders arrived in South Korea it was raining and Kim Jong-il’s portrait on the main flag got wet. The whole group of cheerleaders were horrified and came out of the bus and gathered around the picture to protect it. South Koreans were quite shocked to see this behaviour because it looked like a religious cult.

“It only served to highlight the differences between the South and the North.”

Political Scientist Ian Bremmer noted on Twitter that “N Korea’s cheering squad is an amazing spectacle. But they’re human hostages of a criminal regime. It’s the most heartbreaking thing we’ll see at the Olympics”

It seems North Korean’s power to seduce has its limitations.

#Kim #Koreas #North #secret #weapon #Yojong #News #Random News

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s0022354a2-blog · 7 years

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Collated Quotes

Subtopic 1: Is there a clear sense of authorship across Bong’s films?

“The expansive progress of Bong’s filmography through the Host and Snowpiercer has made it very clear that the Korean director has the imagination and technical chops to create a fantasy cinema on a level with anything from the Hollywood mainstream, but a sensibility with no taste for the blockbuster production line’s easy reassurance.”

“The bittersweet finale also flags up the challenges ahead in providing a harvest for the expanding world, so no platitudinous solutions here, just a movie that showcases Bong’s admirable flair for artfully unhinged spectacle, deftly undercut by a chastening reality check that never allows us to enjoy ourselves too much.”

“A repeated image shows the girl leaning into the pig’s floppy ear and whispering to calm her down. We never hear exactly what she’s whispering, but the tight closeups of Okja’s mesmerized eye show us that she’s listening intently and gets the gist—that the girl’s words matter and make sense even though they don’t speak the same language. The pig trusts her friend. All the film’s many threads ultimately come back to questions of trust: what it means to keep it or betray trust, and whether there are circumstances where betrayal is necessary, and whether the trust between human and human is more meaningful than the trust between human and animal. Mija would tell you there’s no difference.” 

“He’s also a filmmaker who finds great, unsettling dark comedy in violence, and once again the blood does run, if somewhat less generously than in “The Host” and his often brilliant “Memories of Murder.”

“Mr. Bong’s virtues as a filmmaker, including his snaking storytelling and refusal to overexplain actions and behaviors, can here feel like evasions or indulgences rather than fully thought-out choices. There’s a vagueness to the film that doesn’t feel organic — as if, having created a powerhouse central character, he didn’t exactly know what to do with her. That said, his visual style and the way he mixes eccentric types with the more banal, like a chemist preparing a combustible formula, are often sublime, as is Ms. Kim’s turn as the mother of all nightmarish mothers, a dreadful manifestation of a love so consuming it all but swallows the world.”

“Okja is the Korean director’s most accessible film to global audiences to date, a near masterpiece that bends and twists genres and celebrates childhood even when it goes into some rather dark places along its still consistently childlike adventures.“

“Bong’s movies deny the easy satisfaction of an overarching victory, instead suggesting that you can’t save a world that may have already doomed itself.”

“I have admired Bong Joon-ho’s works for many reasons, and one of them is the unpredictability of his choices. He made me both laugh and cringe in a deadpan black comedy “Barking Dogs Never Bite” (2000), and then he played me like a piano in his great rural-set thriller film “Memories of Murder” (2003), and then he surprised me with monster film “The Host” (2006), and then he came back to another thriller set in the countryside in “Mother” (2009).”

“ …twisting suddenly from horror to pathos to comedy to action and back again… “

“His films are never about straight good versus evil; there’s never a particular heroic sense of triumph to be found. Yet, neither is he a filmmaker who revels in pessimistic brutality. Even in the darkest of moments, there’s always a spark of hope to be found.”

“Even the characters I create, they aren’t clear-cut supervillains or superheroes, they’re all residing in the grey area. Maybe that’s why a certain amount of optimism or pessimism mixes into my films. I do feel, however, that’s more realistic and more reflective of how society is, and how life is. If everything is clear-cut and residing in one direction, it might feel a bit forced.”

“Because Netflix isn’t pursuing a theatrical release in France, the President of the esteemed film festival nearly pulled both Netflix films in competition (Okja and Noah Baumbach‘s The Meyerowitz Stories). Though they screened (and received some of the best reviews from the festival), the Jury held steadfast on the prediction that they would not reward any of the streaming service’s films. Despite this future-of-cinema conversation, the streaming distributor has offered Bong much more creative control than his English-language debut, Snowpiercer, where he had a constant battle with The Weinstein Company over the cut. Indeed, he’s quite pleased with his experience this go-round and that freedom will only make Netflix more enticing for filmmakers.“

“The Host begins with the American company just saying “dump everything down the drain”. This one is behind the scenes but it has very similar effect…it’s all this pageantry around it as if they’re doing something good when really they’re just dumping things down the drain, as well. Were you wanting to explore that idea in a different way?

BONG: This time I want to portray that idea via Tilda, who plays two roles. With Nancy Mirado, like in The Host, I wanted to be very explicit with the violence that she inflicts. Whereas Lucy Mirado, she tries to differ from Nancy. She thinks that she’s more elegant, more eco-friendly; she’s more obsessed with the marketing aspect of it and how it looks on the exterior. Nevertheless, the winner within the Mirando group is Nancy, not Lucy, and I think that reflects my concerns and fears about the reality of multinational companies within capitalist societies. The more ruthless people almost always seem to take over.”

“The traditional studios were a bit skeptical or a bit overly conscious about the radicalness of the script, and they weren’t on board,” he said. “From the get-go, it was guaranteed creative freedom [with Netflix]. They weren’t meddling with any part of the filmmaking whatsoever.”

Subtopic 2: Are Bong’s films personal to him?

“To their credit, the moviemakers signal right away that this isn’t a film that adults can use as an electronic babysitter. The dialogue is liberally peppered with F-words, and the more exaggerated jokes about corporate hypocrisy are reminiscent of non-child friendly satires like “Dr. Strangelove” and “Network” (upon learning that it will take ten years for the pigs to grow, a reporter moans, “Jesus Christ—I’ll be dead by then!”). There are also visual and thematic nods to cartoonist turned director Terry Gilliam, who made films that were childlike and sometimes childish but never strictly for kids—in particular the 1985 anti-fascist fable “Brazil,” which appears to have inspired the derring-do of ALF’s membership, chivalrous rebels who evade police by diving off bridges”

“…Delightful, winning and deliriously wonderful story that unfolds is part E.T., part Bong Joon Ho, part Swiss Army Man (Seriously!), and ultimately one of the year’s most pleasant cinematic surprises.

“The movie’s underlying premise — child bonds with otherworldly beast and defends it from cruel adults — easily calls to mind “E.T.” or “Pete’s Dragon,” but Bong bends the formula into his own agenda.”

“It’s the recombinant offspring of all those science-fiction pictures of the 1950s and ‘60s in which exposure to atomic radiation (often referred to as both “atomic” and “radiation”) or hazardous chemicals (sometimes also radioactive) results in something very large and inhospitable: “Them!” (giant ants), “Tarantula” (giant spider), “Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People” (giant fungi), “The Amazing Colossal Man” (giant bald guy), “The Giant Behemoth” (giant behemoth – both giant and a behemoth, but more precisely a radioactive ocean-dwelling Godzilla clone), “Frankenstein Conquers the World” (giant Frankenstein’s monster atomically regenerated from the beating heart of the original monster after the A-bomb is dropped on Hiroshima), and so on.“

“Joon-Ho Bong implies that media and government are equally incompetent and untrustworthy. When you need saving from the maw of a mutant river beast, you’ve got nowhere to turn but your kin.”

“I think that films aren’t necessarily tools to change the world, a film is just a beautiful thing in itself. However, when someone is experiencing the beauty of a film, that itself is changing the world in some aspect.”

“I don’t expect the entire audience to convert to veganism after watching the film. I don’t have a problem with meat consumption itself, but I do want my audience to consider, at least once, where the food on their plate comes from. And, if one is to do that, I believe the level of meat consumption will gradually decline.”

“The South Korean director’s films, in the cinematic landscape, have never really been considered outright political missives, perhaps only because they hide under the guise of genre film.”

“However, although the super-pig phenomenon may be fiction at the moment, it’s very close to being a reality. In Canada, they already made some kind of GM salmon. It’s already gotten FDA approval. They are starting to very carefully distribute it in the market. In the process of researching the film, I met and interviewed a PhD student who is developing a GM pig. So, Okja is real. It’s actually happening. That’s why I rushed making Okja, because the real product is coming.”

“I was always a huge film buff. I was a child of the ’70s, so I didn’t have access to DVDs or VHS growing up. I didn’t go to the movies that often either. In many ways, TV was my cinema. I would open up the TV schedule and see what movies were playing each week. Although I was mostly watching films on TV, I could get through around ten a week. By the time I got to middle school, I was certain that I wanted to become a film director.“

“I majored in sociology in college. I knew that my parents would disapprove of me studying film.”

“For my next film, I’m going to try making what I’ve liked the most ever since I was a kid. So I naturally came up with a crime film, and as I was thinking that I should try and do it in a realistic and Korean-style method rather than imitating American genre films. I thought of the Hwaeseong murders, which I’d heard a lot about since I was young. But when I actually researched data on the Hwaeseong murders, it contained elements that were far more overwhelming and horrific than I had ever imagined.”

“I met with detectives who worked the case, Hwaeseong residents, and reporters from the Gyeongin Ilbo, which was the region’s newspaper.”

“I was very scared. I suffered a lot psychologically. Really, during that time period, I was very deeply absorbed in the murders, enough so that I had delusions that I might capture the real killer in the process of my research. I fell deeply into it emotionally, so I was exhausted as well.”

“I watched a lot of them, things like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs. And also Imamura Shohei’s Vengeance Is Mine. Not only does that film clearly reveal hysteria in the Japanese society of the time, it has some unidentifiable, incredible strength to it. Of course, the work that influenced Memories of Murder directly was Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell. I was a bit disappointed with the Hughes brothers’ film of it.”

Subtopic 3: To what extent has Bong collaborated with the same people time and time again?

“Bong Joon Ho co-writes the film with British author/journalist Jon Ronson, a partnership that perfectly weaves together the director’s marvelous creature sensibilities, as previously experienced in The Host, with Ronson’s ability to convey a Brit-like humor and wit throughout the film that is intelligent, sensitive and, at times, quite darkly hilarious.”

“Zipping along to a vibrant soundtrack, Bong crafts lively, action-packed moments that find the hulkish Okja careening through public spaces while people scramble around her. This includes one of the most striking moments in Bong’s entire career — a slow-mo battle set to John Denver’s “You Fill Up My Senses,” which finds the ALF forming a wall of umbrellas to defend a cornered Okja while Mija cowers nearby.”

“Bong Joon-ho and his co-screenplay writer Kelly Masterson (he previously made an impressive debut with Sidney Lumet’s last work “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007)) have made a darkly engaging SF thriller from their source.”

“Tilda Swinton gloriously embraces her despicable character with the attitude of mean British headmistress, and she is fearless as usual in throwing herself into the hammy side of her character.”

“But about the monster. Created by the San Francisco-based FX house, The Orphanage, it is a creature of scary amphibious loveliness, with greenish salamanderlike skin, froggy legs…“

“I first met Plan B a long time ago-2007 in LA-and they suggested a lot of original source material to me. It was a very light relationship. It was right after I was done with my film The Host and Jeremy and Brad Pitt from Plan B were fans. I also really admired their filmography. They do lots of cavalier films such as 12 Years a Slave. So it was a natural mix between Plan B and I. But even before Plan B came on board the casting casting and effects of the film were already packaged nicely through the Korean producers and the American producer, Dooho Choi. Plan B came slightly later on and because they had a good relationship with Netflix via War Machine, they introduced Netflix to the film and they were fully supportive of Okja. It was a very smooth transition all around so I am very happy.”

“After what we went through on the last one, it was very important to start the process knowing that we had control,” producer Dooho Choi said after a press event in Cannes on Sunday. “That was most appealing aspect of it — knowing that he could play, and that someone would not be looking over his shoulder constantly. It was a pretty smooth process in that regard.”

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