#as a culture we need to let go of the idea of lie detectors

[butchscientist]

i absolutely despise those celebrity lie detector videos. sure they're silly and light hearted but they're still perpetuating the idea that lie polygraph tests are accurate measures of truth.

the use of polygraph tests for "lie detection" is pseudoscientific (1, 2, 3 ) and this is something we have known for decades (4, 5), and despite this the media continues to portray polygraphs as a valid method of lie detection & their use in the criminal legal system continues. the use of polygraphy has contributed to countless false confessions & convictions (6, 7), leading to years of incarceration & even death. i don't care how fun it is to watch a celebrity get flustered over a question, media perpetuating the use of polygraph lie detectors is still dangerous & irresponsible at best.

[bonjour-rainycity]

The Long Way Around ~ Chapter 4

Link to previous part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/623116614605357056/the-long-way-around-chapter-3

Pairing: Jasper x Reader

Word count: 2092

Warnings: None

Y/n’s POV

The next three weeks pass in a now predictable sequence. I spend the majority of my time getting to know my new roommates, for lack of a better word. Esme, who is quickly becoming my favorite, does whatever I want with me. We read books, watch movies, go for runs in the woods. The doctor, Carlisle, isn’t home very often. He and Edward spend a lot of time in town making sure the Cullens are not suspect in my disappearance. They decided it would be best to continue ‘business as usual’ to avoid suspicion, but also so they don’t have to give up the advantageous location in the woods and risk moving with me. Bella tends to keep to herself, though she does occasionally join Esme and I in our book club. Alice and Arthur are quite friendly, and I enjoy spending time with them, even if Alice does treat me like a Barbie doll. I swear, I’ve never owned more clothes in my life! Rosalie is slowly warming up to me. She’s not rude, exactly, but I can tell my presence is hard on her. Her husband, Emmett, is a whole lot of fun. He invites me for races and arm wrestling matches which, obviously, I win. I suspect that won’t continue forever, though. Once my newborn strength fades, he will likely be the strongest in the house. 

Then, of course, there’s my shadow. Jasper doesn't say much, but he is a constant presence. I can tell he doesn’t trust me. The minute I get frustrated or upset he invades my personal space and uses his ability to calm me down. I do resent it slightly, but I understand the need. It’s as he says: I’m dangerous. It amuses me though to know that, as Jasper has taken the task upon himself to never leave my side, he has to do everything I do. So he watches sappy movies with Esme and I, he sits quietly while Emmett and I play board games, he sulks in the corner while I ask Alice endless questions about her psychic ability, and, of course, he hunts with me about four times a week. 

My bloodlust is insatiable. This newfound life and the thirst that accompanies it keeps me in a near constant state of pain. My throat burns badly, and, even when I am drinking animal blood, the burn remains. I have a feeling that, at this stage of life, not even human blood would satisfy my thirst. 

At the thought of human blood, a delicacy so far denied to me, venom pools in my mouth. From across the room, Jasper shifts uncomfortably, feeling my desire. I imagine it must be harder for him than the others, because he not only has to fight his own bloodlust, but everyone else’s. 

He eyes me evenly. “Do you want to hunt?”

“I’m fine,” I lie. We just went yesterday, and I feel like a burden asking people to go with me constantly. I usually have an entourage of three minimum when I hunt, and I can tell it interrupts the daily flow of things. 

Jasper’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Taking you hunting isn’t a burden. Trust me, we would much rather go with you twenty times a day than have you get too thirsty and lose control.” 

I purse my lips at his uncanny ability to know what I’m thinking. I know his emotional radar detector must help, but seriously, sometimes he rivals Edward. 

“It would probably be a good idea,” I acquiesce. “I’ll go see if anyone else wants to go.” I push myself off the kitchen floor-I had been busy reading through one of Esme’s architecture journals-and walk into the living room where Emmett, Rosalie, Carlisle, Esme, and Arthur are gathered around the TV. 

“Hey does anyone wanna-” My words die as I register the news anchor’s words. 

“The search continues for local Y/n, Y/l/n, who was reported missing over three weeks ago.”

It feels like the breath has been knocked out of me. I grip the back of the couch, grief ripping through me. Five vampires turn their wary gazes at me.

“Turn it off.” Jasper’s command comes from behind my shoulder. 

“No,” I breathe, deeply hurt but desperate to know what my friends and family could be seeing.

The anchor continues. “Authorities say they have a man in custody who confessed to stabbing the woman, though claims he can’t remember what he did with the body. Witnesses to the crime seem to suffer the same memory loss. Police have refused to offer further comments, though locals speculate a conspiracy or the presence of illegal drugs. While the two witnesses to the crime, Kaitlyn Myers and Blake Hannigan, have faced backlash surrounding their involvement in the case, police have cleared them as suspects at this time.”

The couch snaps under my grip. I take two quick steps back, shocked by what I just heard and the jarring display of my physical power. 

“Oh, sweetie.” Esme is in front of me instantly, reaching out to envelop me in a hug. Before I can even blink, Jasper is standing between us, acting as a barrier to Esme. 

Hurt pierces through my gut. He only sees me as a threat.

“I’m not going to hurt Esme, Jasper. Back off!” I wish my words didn’t waver. 

His voice is hard when he responds. “You don’t know what you’ll do. Newborns are governed by their emotions more than anyone else. I’m not taking any risks.”

“Well how about getting to know me instead of just generalizing?” I throw my hands up, properly yelling now. “I’m sick of feeling like I’m a prisoner with you. Everyone else is giving me a chance, so why can’t you?” I spit the words out, my hurt growing by the second. 

“We’re hoping it’s all a terrible dream, that we’ll wake up soon and everything will be alright.” 

They hadn’t turned off the TV. On the screen is a video of my parents. Hearing my mom’s tearful voice is like a kick to the stomach. I sink to the floor, gasping for air I don’t need. 

“I just want our little girl to come home.” Mom’s voice breaks, and she stares into the camera. It’s like she’s staring right at me. 

“Jasper, it’s alright, really. I appreciate your concern very much but I promise, it’s alright.” Esme’s soft voice vaguely reaches me through my sobs. 

A pair of arms-Esme’s, likely-envelopes me, but I barely take notice. I only feel the pain. It’s so much worse than the burn in my throat. It almost has me wishing for the fiery torture I felt while becoming a vampire. But wishing very seldom equates to reality, so I’m left to allow the gaping hole in my chest to consume me.

I don’t know how long we stay like that, only that it’s dark when I finally regain control of myself. Esme never left my side, and even Rosalie had come to join us at some point. She says nothing, only rests her head on my shoulder and holds my hand. 

Jasper is noticeably absent. 

“I think I scared him off,” I mumble, guilty. 

“He’ll recover,” Rosalie replies, sounding unconcerned. 

“He’s coming from the right place,” Esme assures. “Jasper is a very passionate person who gives his all in everything. This is no different. I think he sees keeping you and us safe as a chance to redeem himself for his past indiscretions, though those are long-ago forgiven. He’s trying to keep you from making the same mistakes he did.” 

I look at the floor, mulling Esme’s words over. I don’t really know what to say to that.

Thankfully, Rosalie saves me from having to craft a response. “Do you still want to hunt? I can go with you.” 

I smile and shake my head, exhausted from the recent emotional turmoil. “No, it’s okay. I think I’ll just go to bed.” I say the word lightly, knowing I’ll probably just spend the next eight hours reading or something to keep my mind busy. 

I stand, intending to exit the room. On the way out I see the poor couch, broken in two. I grimace. “Sorry about the couch.”

Esme smiles sweetly, waving it off. “Don’t worry about it. It just gives me an excuse to go shopping.” 

I give her a quick hug, grateful for her endless kindness and patience. 

Once upstairs in the room Alice and Esme courteously set up for me, I flop on the bed, grabbing the nearest book. I do my best to let my mind go blank and focus only on the words in front of me. About two hours into this exercise, I hear a soft knock on the door. 

Jasper stands in the frame, looking repentant. “I’m sorry. You were right. I haven’t tried to know you. But I’ve got some time now if you’re free.” It’s then that I realize he means to do this now. Not wanting to smile because I really am still upset with him, I bite it back. 

I decide to play coy instead. “I suppose I could clear my schedule. Though, a little more groveling might help…”

He smiles softly, almost hesitantly. With exaggerated movements, he gets on his knees and clasps his hands together in an excellent show of desperation. “Please do me the magnificent honor...of telling me your favorite color.” 

Now I can’t help but crack a smile. “You may approach, peasant, but remember that my good grace can easily change.” I pat the foot of my bed, and he sits, facing me. “It’s green. Like trees and moss and emeralds.” 

“What’s your favorite thing about this new life?”

“The running. I had asthma as a human but now I can run for as long as I want and be completely fine.” 

He nods, filing the information away. “If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?”

I answer without hesitation. “London. The culture, the history, the accents.” He chuckles, teasingly exasperated. “I bet it’s amazing.” 

He smiles, a faraway look in his eyes. “Oh it’s great. I was there back in the ‘90s...I bet it hasn’t changed too much though.” He grins. “Maybe in a couple of years we’ll all be able to take a trip.”

I look down at my fingers. “Maybe a few more years than a ‘couple’. I can’t even think of human blood without…” Venom floods my mouth. I offer a humorless chuckle. “See?”

Jasper shakes his head emphatically. “No, you’re really doing good.” I try to protest, but he shakes it off. “I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. You are doing remarkably well for three weeks in.” 

I sigh, ready to tease him a bit. “Well I couldn’t do so well without my shadow micromanaging my every move.” 

He smiles sheepishly and looks at his lap. “I’m sorry I seem a bit…,” he sighs deeply, “intense. I will try to ease off.”

I grin, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Thank you. I’ll try to be a little less emotionally hectic. It’s gotta be hard on you.” 

Too quickly, he shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. You’re going through a lot, it’s okay.” 

I chuckle, feeling much lighter now, either thanks to his ability or the natural resolution of tension between us, I don’t know. “Yeah well I could stay away from the movies that make me feel all the things.” Now he grins, raising his eyebrows. “Next time we’ll try something bland, like High Noon.”

“Hey now.” Jasper raises a hand, a comically disbelieving look on his face. “High Noon is a masterpiece, don’t knock it.” 

I grin broadly, smacking him on the shoulder with a pillow. “I knew you were a Western guy! Gosh, that’s gotta be like, what, forty percent of your personality?”

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly, taking the pillow from me. “Mhm, somewhere around there.” 

I like this Jasper, I decide firmly. This new, witty, freer Jasper is so much more fun to be around. I could stand to have this Jasper follow me around all day. 

As if he has come to the same agreement, that Jasper stays at the foot of my bed well past the time the sun rises, talking and joking. We get to know each other. 

And, for a while, I forget about how sad I am and the near constant burning in the back of my throat.

A/n Thanks for reading! I’m having so much fun with this story and I’m glad you guys are enjoying it, too! Please let me know what you thought of this chapter and if you would like to be added to the tag list!

xx, 

Bjr

Link to next part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/623283543296049154/the-long-way-around-chapter-5

Tag list: @puer-de-infinitate @charliestuff @hindustani-diaspora @one-thread-can-save-a-life

[colonel-kira-nerys]

More Thoughts on “A Matter of Perspective”

Content Warning: Discussion of Attempted Rape and Domestic Violence

Since my list of episodes with themes of sexual assault and other upsetting content has been making the rounds again, “A Matter of Perspective” has been weighing on my mind. 

Even all these years after watching this episode for the first time, it still upsets me more than almost any other episode in the Star Trek canon, so I just wanted to expand a little bit more on why it’s so distressing, while there are still people possibly interested in hearing my thoughts.

The following is an in-depth look at “A Matter of Perspective,” which may be upsetting to some people, so I’m putting my analysis beneath the cut. Please let me know what you think, because I still feel the need to scream into the void about this 30 years after it aired.

“A Matter of Perspective” (TNG: Season 3, Episode 14), at first glance, has an incredibly intriguing premise. The opener is Data critiquing Picard’s sub-par painting skills (talk about tone problems... Jesus) and then Riker beams back to the Enterprise after spending the night at an alien space station, where he was supposed to be checking up on the progress of a scientist named Dr. Apgar. 

But upon beaming back, the entire space station explodes. Riker acts surprised and clueless as to how this would’ve happened. Whenever he’s asked about what happened on the station, he gets cagey, even before the trial starts.

It’s clear he’s hiding something, so when an alien Inspector beams aboard asking for Riker’s arrest and extradition, the audience is prepared for it, because we know that something must’ve happened.

Then, when he’s accused of murdering the scientist and blowing up the station, there becomes the issue of who has jurisdiction over the crime. Does the Enterprise have the right to hold the trial on board, or should Riker be released into the custody of the Tenugan Investigator, Crag? 

It’s important to note that I’m not coming at this from a place of hatred, in the sense that I wasn’t looking for something wrong. I thoroughly believed this was about to be a BRILLIANT episode, with lots of moral ambiguity and intrigue.

Boy, was I wrong.

The two sides (Starfleet vs. Tenugan) eventually settle on recreating the events of Riker’s time on the station via the Holodeck. THIS WAS SO COOL. I wish all crimes were able to be recreated, down to the tiniest detail, through a simulation. I thoroughly looked forward to seeing the detective work being conducted through simulations, but only because I had no idea that Riker was also going to be accused of attempted rape. I went into this completely blind. 

Riker gets the first word in the trial, which I think was a gross miscarriage of justice, because he is the one being accused of the crime--of course he’s going to deny it!!! Why would you let the Defense make their case first...?! 

It prejudices Captain Picard to see Riker’s story first, because he’s already more likely to be believed and protected by his own captain. It also prejudices Deanna Troi--whose presence/function during the trial, by the way, is never explained. As far as I can tell, she’s there to be a lie-detector, which is hilarious in its absurdity, because she can “sense no deception” from either Will or Dr. Apgar’s wife, Manua.

I guarantee you if the attempted rape had been shown first, this episode would’ve had a completely different tone, and that is part of the problem.

Manua, after all, is the one who requires justice, not only for her husband, but also for herself. Although, at this point in the episode, we don’t even know that she’s accusing him of sexual assault, because the Inspector didn’t charge him with that crime from the beginning.

In a way, this was a great tactic to get Riker to hang himself with his own words---with his own testimony---but because every Starfleet officer in the room is already prejudiced, that’s not how the episode plays out. 

In Riker’s version of events, he is cold, robotic, and professional to a fault (as in, he seems completely uninterested in pleasantries, or, you know, doing his job with any sense of diplomacy). He makes it very clear from the beginning that he’s uninterested in Mrs. Apgar’s hospitality and just wants to get to work. 

Note: why would it be important for Riker to assert with his whole heart from the very beginning that he wasn’t interested in Manua, unless he knew that Manua was going to make a claim that in his view ‘wasn’t true’?! He acts SO SURPRISED that Manua would view his advances as attempted rape, and yet, here’s the thing: we know that Riker is a fan of the ladies, so what some might see as  “innocent” sexual banter could’ve been attributed to his personality, if he’d shown us his usual charm in his version of events. We expect this of him--to be a bit cocky and sensual. We might not like it, but we know that he’s a playboy, in the kindest interpretation of the word. So, as you’re watching his version of events, most people would find it strange that he would refuse hospitality from someone, because Riker has always been “up for anything” as they say. 

Instead of admitting that he might have given Manua the wrong impression by flirting with her, he makes himself out to be cold and unfeeling, in order to preserve an image of cool professionalism that we as the audience know isn’t true to his character.

So, any attempts at hospitality on the part of Manua are immediately spurned by Riker, even those that seem to be genuinely a part of social graces that are indigenous to populations everywhere, not just this alien one. “Can I get you a drink?” isn’t meant to be sexual, in most cultures. This is the bare minimum requirement of a hostess, to ask if anyone needs a refreshment, and yet, Riker makes it clear that this was the start of her sexual overtures... because he needs to cover his tracks. Manua explains later, in her own version of events, that she was worried her husband’s antisocial behavior might negatively impact Riker’s report, and so it was important to make him feel welcome--hence, the drink.

According to Riker, he made hotel arrangements down on the planet for Geordi and himself, but Manua insists that they stay in the guest bedrooms instead. I know Geordi is needed for the science fiction subplot, but why isn’t he in the room to confirm or deny at least this part of Riker’s story? Can’t this specific assertion be easily fact-checked? Even alien hotels presumably have a record of reservations. Like, if Riker was telling the truth, this bit is easily provable, though I would argue that just because he made other arrangements doesn’t mean he didn’t change his mind when he saw the opportunity to have sex. My point is, why is no actual detective work done to confirm the facts of Riker’s story...? 

Anyway, according to Riker, Manua then tries to seduce him once they’re alone in his guest quarters. Mr. Apgar walks in on them in a compromising position, and here’s something I failed to address in my earlier breakdown of the episode: At first, Apgar isn’t angry at Riker; he’s angry at his wife. 

He says: “I knew I’d find you with him. Did you think I didn’t notice how you looked at him? I’m not the fool you take me for.” AND THEN HE BACKHANDS HER, HARD, ACROSS THE FACE.

Her husband attacks her, by Riker’s own admission, and then, only after doing that, does Mr. Apgar try (and fail) to hit Riker, too. But it’s clear his wife was the person he wanted to spend his anger on.

In all versions of this story, Mr. Apgar tries to hit Riker. That’s 100% consistent. But in Riker’s version, Apgar makes a point to “punish” his wife first. Why? This is important, because no matter which of the three versions is true, Manua is either a victim of domestic violence or of sexual assault. 

Now, you can argue that Tayna wouldn’t have included Apgar hitting his wife in her statement, because Mr. Apgar is her boss, and you can also argue that Manua excluded the fact that her husband hit her from her own testimony in order to appear as though their marriage was better than it was, but why on earth would Riker feel the need to add this, if it weren’t true? Why add the assault of a woman by her husband, unless to show that this man was a “bad guy” compared to his much more “honorable” actions...?

Why isn’t this addressed? In all versions of events, Manua is physically assaulted, but only in Riker’s version does her husband slap her hard enough to nearly make her fall. I believe Riker over Tayna (the Assistant) on this specific count, because, frankly, her version is hearsay, told to her by her boss, and it’s very clear that Mr. Apgar was lying to Tayna when he claimed to beat the crap out of Riker. 

So, it’s more than likely that Mr. Apgar did indeed hit his wife, if we look at it from the lens of what it makes sense for Riker to lie about, and what it doesn’t. The “beating” was taken by Manua, and not Riker, in the truest version of this story, which has to be somewhere in the middle of all of the versions, apparently.

Apgar might’ve changed this part of the story when telling it to Tayna to save face with her. Also, I don’t know who, besides her, could possibly believe that Apgar won a fistfight against Riker. 

Regardless, why would he insist his wife and assistant be transported off the space station unless 1) he believed Riker was a sexual predator and/or 2) he wanted no witnesses to what he was about to do next.

[Note: This episode was heavily inspired by Rashomon, a Japanese film which explores the retelling of the same events by multiple characters, in which everyone shows their “ideal self” by lying. In that story, however, the wife is actually raped. Like, there’s no “matter of perspective” claiming she didn’t get raped. The “perspective” change only offers different ways the rape could’ve happened, and how the characters involved all acted after the rape changes from person to person. The murder is treated as the more important issue in that movie, too, because misogyny.]

Why bring up Rashomon? Because the writers should never have changed this part of the story to imply the attempted rape didn’t happen. They shouldn’t have adapted it in such a way that the main goal is to cast doubt on the assault of the woman; they should’ve committed to the assault happening, but three people telling it three different ways, so that at no point is the story trying to tell us that rape is “a matter of perspective,” but rather that the undeniable rape itself was seen by three different people in three different lights.  

I think this episode could’ve been a meaningful exploration of the issue that men often don’t perceive their dogged pursuit of women as predatory, especially when the woman in question eventually “submits.” This could’ve been a story about how Riker didn’t realize he had as much power over Mr. Apgar’s scientific research (and by extension, Manua’s life) as he did. Manua and Apgar were completely dependent on Riker’s glowing report, and it’s made very clear in Manua’s version of events that she felt she couldn’t just excuse herself from the situation entirely, because her husband’s research was at stake.

This episode could’ve shown us how a “good” man, with a somewhat oblivious understanding of his power, could still abuse his power over a woman with regard to her ability to consent... but no. They immediately try to paint Manua as a lying seductress rather than a rape victim.

Here’s the thing: Manua’s version is the only one where her character has a clear motivation to testify against Riker. If this were only about her husband’s death, her testimony would be mostly irrelevant, because she obviously wasn’t there when it happened. And, if she had tried to seduce Riker, she wouldn’t need to “cry rape” to solidify Riker’s motive to kill her husband--he already had motive, which was Apgar’s threat to report his promiscuous conduct to Starfleet. Making a false accusation of rape doesn’t benefit her in any way. Not to mention it clearly traumatized her to recount it. She had to excuse herself by the end of it.

Another reason it doesn’t make sense for Manua to lie about the attempted rape is simply that she didn’t know the true nature of her husband’s research. The show missteps here, too, by making it so clear that she was in the dark about it, because if they hadn’t done that, they could’ve argued that she lied as a red herring to distract the Starfleet officers from discovering that her husband was making a weapon. But no!! Both she and Tayna had no idea that Dr. Apgar was making a weapon, and therefore that had no bearing on the rape accusation. So, the writers make absolutely no effort to explain what possible motivation Manua could’ve had for lying---because there isn’t one!!

Even in the original script, it says that Manua’s version of events characterizes Riker in a much more believable way:

(And it’s important to note that in this take on the story, Riker’s attitude is less aloof and formal. He's relaxed and charming. In fact, in some ways he is more like the Riker we know and love.)

Moreover, Deanna Troi, who canonically is supposed to be able to tell when people are lying, can sense no deception from Manua. Not that you should need an empath in the room to believe a woman when she says that someone tried to rape her. But putting that aside, the fact that there is an empath–who is compromised to begin with because of her relationship with Riker–and she believes Manua’s presentation of the events... that alone is some pretty damning evidence. 

If Manua feels as though Riker tried to harm her–feels it so strongly that Deanna empathically senses that she is telling the truth–it shouldn’t matter what Riker thinks of the accusation. Assuming Riker really does believe his version of events, and Manua believes hers, why are the writers making such an effort to both discredit and support the truth of Manua’s testimony at the same time...?

And, just in case your blood isn’t boiling yet, there’s this: 

Michael Piller recalled that the episode was "probably the hardest story to break. It was a technical nightmare for the director. I was very, very, happy with the script and I thought the show was disappointing. I guess it didn't translate properly. It was very ambitious, but the casting was off. If you had put Lana Turner in the role of the woman in that show, you would have understood it all – but I don't think it played as it was intended. 

Y’all... this FUCKING ASSHOLE claims that the real reason the episode didn’t work was because of the casting of the wife. He believes that people would’ve “understood it all” if Lana Turner, a sex symbol and famous pin-up model, had played the role. 

What he’s saying is: if the wife had been sexier, a walking pin-up, the audience would’ve understood the episode better, but because the actress playing her was... what? too average-looking? too demure? people “didn’t get it?”

This has the terrible implication that he thinks the rape story wasn’t as believable because the actress playing Manua wasn’t hot enough. Think about that for two seconds and tell me you don’t want to shoot this guy in the balls. 

This could’ve been a meaningful exploration of how Riker didn’t realize he took advantage of Manua; in his mind, she was willing, but in hers, she thought she had to have sex with him or else it would negatively effect his report on her husband’s research. It could’ve been a commentary on how a man can abuse his power without meaning to--without even realizing he has it--and that, if the woman then feels violated, it’s still an assault, even if she eventually gave in and appeared to “consent.”

This episode should’ve been about Riker not realizing he’d coerced a woman, and so he truly believes he’s innocent. But no, instead it becomes a situation in which there is no possible way there was a middle ground between the two accounts. Manua’s testimony is so clearly an assault, there could be no way Riker interpreted her begging him to stop as seduction.

In conclusion, this episode goes out of its way to make it seem like rape victims are liars who can’t be trusted. Keeping in mind this was 30 years ago, I just want to end by saying: according to the United States Justice Department, only approximately 2% of all rape complaints are false, while almost three out of every four rapes go unreported. We need to stop perpetuating the lie that women often “cry rape.” Statistically speaking, they don’t. 

If you made it through all of this, I would love to know your thoughts on my analysis, if you have a moment to spare to share them.

[bre-meister]

So, I just watched the first 3 episodes of Fate: The Winx Saga and I know I don’t usually talk about Winx on this blog but... girl gotta put her thoughts somewhere. This show was my childhood and Netflix really said “Fuck it”.

 I’ll leave it under the cut so if you wanna stay for this rant, feel free

 I went into this knowing I would hate it and, honestly, I do and I don’t

 I think it is an absolute shit dumpster fire of an adaptation that someone poured gasoline on and then tried to lite on fire with Bloom’s inconsistent control issues and shit just got even worse 

But, this could have been a fairly decent show If it was a stand alone- It had no need to be attached to the Winx name because it really is not Winx

There are some problems I had with it that everyone had before the show even dropped - The whitewashing and lack of diversity, the atrocious outfits, the lack of wings (“We evolved” that’s fucking bullshit y’all know good and well that part of the fun of the OG show was the new transformations and the outfits and we can’t even have that)

Also there is def technology here so why the FUCK do we not have Tecna? She’s the straight laced girl of the group but at the same time I feel like she could have added some much needed levity 

And my girl would have told it like it is. Sometimes these people (not the Winx because they are NOT the Winx) do dumb shit for the sake of doing dumb shit and Tecna would never have allowed this!

Combining the Trix into one person is still iffy for me, like I get why they did it but I just don’t think it has the same effect as having the three of them

Sometimes she gives me Icy vibes and most of the time she gives me Darcy vibes and almost never she gives me Stormy vibes (even though her powers are most like Stormy) and that shit just gives me whiplash

 I also think that having the witches at cloud tower provided the original show with this great idea of “even though we use dark magic and are considered witches we still make the choice ourselves as to whether or not we use that magic for good or for evil” but then again I might be reading into it too much who knows 

It’s bad enough they had to go and make Aisha the token black character but then they also make her this mean, black woman caricature (and I know it stems from her frustration that she can’t do this one thing perfect but still, as a black young woman who has seen black women portrayed like this constantly it is damaging as hell)

On that note - why did they have to make the one black and overall minority girl the control freak? Idk it just doesn’t really sit right with me

Speaking of jealousy...we gotta talk about Stella

 I know this is supposed to be more realistic and grown up and ya, I get it, girls can be catty but dude, Stella WOULD NEVER

THIS Stella endangered Bloom on PURPOSE because she was Jealous and then she really wanted to dipp on her in the woods after Bloom was trying to help her get back HER ring she shouldn’t have given her in the first place all cause she was a bit scared? Even scared Stella in the original show wouldn’t have done that! Would she have complained? YES! But she wouldn’t be so quick to give up

Need I remind everyone that she almost drained herself completely trying to protect her friends in the Omega Dimension from the Ice Snakes and only stopped because Musa was like “Stella, your hurting yourself. Take a break everyone will be ok”

And this shit show wants me to believe that these are the saem people? I think not!

 So I’m only on episode 3 but I can already tell that whatever they’re trying to say happened with Rickie is not what actually happened and that whole storyline is just super annoying like bro, there better be a good ass reason why she is pretending to be such a terrible person and I just don’t trust this show to be that creative 

This thing between her and sky is so confusing and makes like, no sense

Moving on...

I love Sam, he is so sweet and cute and amazing 

 His introduction “uh...I’m Sam...what’s up” made me laugh my ass off and I can’t even tell you why

Truly I love him but at the same time...he’s kinda getting in between Musa and Riven

 Like I get that their relationship was not the best at all (and this Riven has even more problems which was kinda unnecessary cause he already had SO MANY!) but at the same time when we’ve only got the opportunity to have 2 of the original couples like... I’m gonna need this show to give me something 

Riven - I loved him in the original show because he always had so many issues but then season 4 rolled around and he was genuinely trying to become a better person. And to have the guts to realize later that he was not ok and that he had to leave to figure that out? Respectable. I recognize that this dude had issues (and that Musa deserved better) but I respected him by the end of his journey

THIS Riven? He can eat shit. I know this is kinda supposed to be the whole Darcy arc he had in the first season or whatever but at least then he was being mind controlled to a certain extent which explained a lot of why he was doing what he was. But this dude is just an overall douche. 

Isn’t he supposed to be Bi? Internalized homophobia is amazing guys we definitely want more of that - -  (just to be clear that was sarcasm)

And I know this contradicts my wanting him and Musa to be together but I think that these two things go hand in hand

I hate that they upped his issues by 100000x because I legit want them to be together and have a genuinely good, functional relationship

But Sam is precious and should be protected

So now Terra

Honestly I think making her say “I have a cousin named Flora” only made the whitewashing more obvious and worse. If they seriously wanted to go this route they should have just committed and not brought Flora’s name into this at all. We the fans are not idiots Netflix! We know what you did!!

This might just be a more personal thing but I kinda feel like they made her entire personality (at least this far) only about her being plus size 

And this was FAR more prevalent in the few chapters from the book I could stomach to read

And wasn’t that their defense for whitewashing? That they wanted to have more inclusion in body types?

You can have a plus size character and not make almost 90% of their screen time about them being self conscious about their body- Like this legit seems to be almost 99% of the reason she’s socially awkward

Again, if you’re going to commit, COMMIT! Show her being ok in her own body and her own skin. Let’s fight against the same culture that makes this character feel self conscious

As far as Musa goes... still don’t really like that they changed her powers 

I guess they thought her new ones would be more useful in a more “practical” setting but um... they haven’t been? Not really?

I know she said she’s not a human lie detector but... they show keeps making her one whenever it’s convenient 

I guess they thought her new ones would be more useful in a more “practical” setting but um... they haven’t been? Not really?

 I still don’t understand why they have to sneak around but, idk maybe they’ll explain it later ( like I get that Sam is Terra’s bro but Musa and Terra don’t even know eachother like that for this drama to be such a big deal)

Bloom is alright

That’s all I have to say about her

Her mom though?

Idk why she was acting the way she was, Just why?

Not her making fun of Bloom going to antique shops when Vanessa owns a literal FLOWER SHOP in the original show!

I will say though, “This basic bitch will pull out her PhD and take you to school. Every comeback is another week without your door. Hit me.” with that confidence? BEST LINE IN THE SHOW!

She had my support for like .5 sec there

“Slam the door, loose the door” she was on some Black mother shit right there - the amount of time my mom has threatened me with this? 

It wasn’t even a threat it was a promise

Sky seems to be the most in character but then again the bar isn’t set too high

Why are the teachers so fucking shady? And are there only 3 professors in this giant ass school?? (I say that knowing there were only, like 4 in the original - 5 if we count Daphnee)

It also took me a min to realize that they kinda combined Feragonda and Griselda into one person. I don’t really like it that much

 I still don’t understand why they had to strip Aisha and Sky of their titles. I felt like that added so much to their characters - Aisha felt the need to be so perfect because she was a princess and Sky had all these increasing obligation through the show that would create conflict (sometimes it was stupid but still)

Also for a show about they Winx they sure as hell don’t spend that much time together 

They got their name in the FIRST EPISODE of the original show. It’s been 3 and the only mention of “Winx” was a quick pan of the door label for their suite. Blink and you missed it

And they seem to keep flip flopping between being best friends to being indifferent to each other, to “I don’t really know you” to sometimes hating each other (the emotion flop is mainly Stella but the others seem to have some weird ranges as well)

From a technical standpoint this show has some weird choices

 Sometimes cuts will just ...happen? Especially during actions scenes sometimes it’s hard to make sense of what’s happening 

And all the fight scenes - especially the training scenes - just seem so rehearsed it hard to watch

and why does Riven keep flip flopping between the worst specialist and a great one?

The utter lack of creativity in terms of the technology and weapons and even just the representation of the magic in this show is sad

The Original was so magical and colorful It was always obvious that this was a different dimension

I feel like I could legit go to Switzerland and find a place just like this and it wouldn’t be anything super different or weird

I also still don’t get why earth can’t know? Are we just gonna pretend that the Earth fairies and Believix and the Wizards of the Black Circle just... didn’t happen?

If this person that Beatrix is working for isn’t Lord Darkar or Valtor like...idk what to do

Again I would just like to stress that this show did not need to be an adaptation

 In fact it really isn’t I don’t know what they hell they are adapting cause this is NOT Winx and I cannot stress enough just how utterly wrong this felt while watching it

 All most of the characters have the same names but they are not the same people at all - no where close

Also can I just say, Sky’s hair seemed so different (length, part, style) almost every other scene sometimes I would legit have to sit back and be like “this is the same actor right?”

 Speaking of I’d like to finish this off by saying: absolutely no hate to the actors and actresses - I can see they are doing their best with what they have been given and most of the more controversial decisions were not made by them 

I will say I did think that linking Fairy magic to emotion was a good touch - idk if they did this in the Original show or not. I can’t remember 

So far this show...

As and adaptation:

words cannot describe how bad it is

As a stand alone property:

 I mean, it’s noting amazing or truly different but I’ve definitely seen worse 

I’ll probably make another one of these for the last 3 episodes. I could literally get 0 notes on this and still do it anyway. Sometimes you really just gotta rant

[mrswhozeewhatsis]

A Woman of Letters (Getting a Feel for Sam Winchester) - Chapter 18

Summary:  You’ve just opened an occult bookstore in Lebanon, Kansas, when you fall for a tall, handsome customer…literally. You soon find out that there’s more to the world than you ever suspected, including you. Discovering your heritage puts you directly in a witch’s crosshairs, though, so the Winchesters offer to take you in and teach you how to protect yourself. As you discover your own family history with the supernatural and your own hidden talents, you can’t help but wish a certain brother was as excited about your interest as you are.

Total length: 43 chapters, 70,247 words - Read on AO3 - Series masterlist

Chapter word count: 1947 words

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Warnings: Canon-level angst and violence

You

The next few days continued as that one had. You got up in the morning, had breakfast with Dean, did target practice in the mornings, self-defense in the afternoons, dinner with the brothers and sometimes Cas, and then evenings either in the library reading old files with Sam or watching movies with Dean. You appreciated the movies Dean liked, though you didn’t get quite as excited about them as he did. Dean seemed to like getting you caught up on his favorites. Apparently, Uncle Lloyd had shaped your movie experiences, too, having kept you from going out much with your friends to see what was popular. Dean took it upon himself to make sure you were completely caught up with Star Wars, all the Die Hard movies, and even Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, though they seemed to make him more emotional than the others. When you actually saw tears running down his face during one of them, you snuggled close to him on the couch and rubbed circles into his arm. He finally paused the movie and told you about Charlie. By the time he was done, you had wrapped your arms around him and he was curled into you, silent tears soaking into your shirt. The force of the grief you felt coming from him was so great that you also had tears running down your face. When he turned the movie back on, the two of you stayed close together, you tucked under his arm. After that, it wasn’t uncommon for you to snuggle against him while you watched whatever movie he had decided you needed to see. Sometimes Sam and Cas would join you, but you always found yourself next to Dean.

The hours you spent in the library with Sam were precious to you, though. When he was poring over old books and barely knew you were there, you would sit close to him and just enjoy the lack of static while you pretended to read. Even though you and Dean had gotten close, he felt more like a big brother to you. His job, and he said this to you often and loudly, was to protect you and make sure you knew how to protect yourself. Oh, and teach you everything he thought you should know about pop culture and classic rock. He also took you under his wing in the kitchen, expanding your skill set to baked goods, especially pie. You still couldn’t whip something up out of nothing, but now you had more experience with different kinds of recipes. The best part of your time in the kitchen was when Dean would talk. He would finally open up about his life with his Sammy, from the fire that took their mother, to the demon taking their dad, to his time spent in Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. When you were with Sam, though, he’d occasionally give you an actual smile with that warmth behind it, and you’d almost swoon. It took you hours longer than it should have to go through the records you were studying because you kept getting lost in thoughts about Sam. There were so many questions running through your mind about him, and you could never get up the nerve to just interrupt his work to ask him.

The worst was when Sam started showing up in your dreams. You had dreams before this that could possibly be Sam, but this was definitely Sam. The day after the first dream, and it was a very good dream, with his warm hands and long fingers all over your body, you couldn’t even look at Sam. It was a rare day when he’d slept in instead of going for an early run, and he had breakfast with you and Dean in his pajama pants and a tight t-shirt. His hair was still messy from sleep, the shirt showed off his arms and shoulders, and the pants were just barely hanging onto his hips. When he reached up into the cabinet for his cereal, he showed off just a strip of skin for half a second, and it took you a moment to catch your breath. Scenes from your dream flashed through your mind…Sam kissing you in the library, Sam’s hand touching you innocently in any number of places, Sam’s shoulders under your hands as his lips found your neck…and you felt your face flush. Cas had showed you the trick he’d taught Sam to contain his feelings, and you spent a moment studying your eggs and bacon while you carefully put your lust-filled thoughts in with the rose quartz crystals in the bookstore in your mind.

A few days after Sam had started translating the journals, he was done. He spent another day waiting on Cas to review his work before he would show you the finished product. During that day, you found your grandmother’s file in the Men of Letters records. When you saw her name, and tracked down the file on her, you whooped so loudly Dean came running from his bedroom, gun drawn. When he saw you were triumphantly holding a file in your hand, he relaxed, and let out a sigh.

“Son of a bitch, Y/N! I thought Rowena had found a way in here through a vent or something!” You laughed at Dean’s exasperated face, and just grinned.

“After five solid days of sneezing through dusty files, I found my grandmother’s file! Sam was right!” You held it up in triumph, looking toward Sam to see if he was as excited as you were. He was smiling, but all you felt from him was static. “I’m sorry for doubting you, Sam.” Sam nodded, but said nothing. Dean set his gun down on the table and walked over to you to look over the file with you. You both sat down, and started reading together, Dean’s arm around the back of your chair. By the time you were done, you were in awe.

“So? What does it say?” Sam was smiling smugly, and you had a feeling he would already know the answer.

“My grandmother was listed under psychics, and her file says she was an empath, a lie detector, and what they called a persuasive. Apparently my uncle was right. She could nudge people into doing and thinking what she wanted. There are a bunch of experiments they did on her in here, and it looks like it was my grandfather who supervised most of them. I guess that’s how they met.” While Dean started reviewing the file in detail, you looked at Sam. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?” You gave Sam a grin that you hoped would get him to let his walls down for a second. Sam smiled, but behind it was still static.

“Your grandmother talked to your uncle about it before she died. Assured him that your father didn’t have the gift, but suspected you did. At least, that’s my translation. I want Cas to make sure I got everything right before I give everything over to you.” Sam looked down at the papers for a moment, and you felt the static lift for a just a second, giving you a short burst of warmth before it returned. “There’s a lot of really personal stuff in here, and I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings.” The smile Sam gave to you was warm and almost shy, and it would have completely melted your heart if it weren’t for the static behind it. Instead, you thought you felt your heart crack.

In a moment, a wave of different emotions rushed through you, and you knew they were all yours, faced with the static from Sam. Why couldn’t he let his guard down just a little? Because he thought he was making it easier for you. Why did it bother you so much that you couldn’t feel him? Why did it make you happy that he cared enough to keep himself from hurting you? Why didn’t you have the courage to tell him that it was unnecessary? Dean interrupted your thoughts as he flipped through the file.

“I bet we could do some of these experiments here. You know, see if you have all of your grandmother’s abilities or not. I think we’d need to find someone you don’t know, though. What do you think, Sam?”

“That might not be a bad idea. Any tools Y/N has to help defend herself are tools she should learn how to use. I bet if we called Hank, told him he could make it up to her for freaking her out that first day, he’d come around and help.” Dean nodded at Sam.

“Looking at this, though, he’d have to be almost as clueless about her as she would be about him. Otherwise, the experiment would be tainted.” Dean pushed the folder over to Sam, and they spent the next few minutes discussing experiment parameters and such. You considered your new-found talent as a “persuasive” while the brothers chatted. Had you ever used your gift without knowing it? Obviously not with Uncle Lloyd, or at least not successfully, but maybe with teachers or friends? Suddenly, a wash of different memories of times when you had debated issues and won hit you. Had you been using an unfair advantage? As you reviewed each instance in your head, one in particular stood out.

You had convinced Crowley to save the Winchesters. Without knowing what you were doing, or remembering that you were mimicking your grandmother at the time, you had persuaded Crowley to bring the brothers back to you. Hand on arm, eyes locked, and a desperate plea, and the King of Hell had done your bidding. You felt your face pale and your eyes widen.

Sam covered one of your hands with one of his and asked, “Are you okay, Y/N?” You looked up at him with your mind still blown.

“I persuaded the King of Hell to bring you back to the bar parking lot when you were fighting Rowena.” Your voice was soft and strained with the shock of what you had done. Both of their jaws went slack.

“Y/N? Do you mean you used your gift and persuaded Crowley to do something?” Dean’s voice was incredulous. You nodded silently.

“Tell us exactly what happened,” Sam said. You told them about Crowley’s original plan to use you as a hostage if they failed to kill Rowena at that moment, and that he hadn’t planned on pulling them out of the apartment. However, after you asked him nicely, he had immediately rescued them. Not only that, he’d done it with a smile.

The brothers looked at you and then each other with wide eyes, then started talking more about how they could test you and wondering how far you could really make someone go against their own desires. While they chatted, you pulled out your phone and texted Cas.

YOU: Are you nearby?

CAS: Yes. Sam called me earlier and asked me to come and review his work, so I’m on my way. I’ll be there in less than an hour. Are you okay?

YOU: I’m fine. We’ve got news about my abilities that I wanted to share with you. And I want to practice with you some more, if that’s all right?

CAS: It would be my pleasure. See you soon.

What followed was a string of emoticons your phone couldn’t read, and a few that showed up but still made no sense to you. You chuckled, and Dean looked at you with a smile. You held up your phone with a grin.

“Emoticons.” Dean laughed.

[octaviainthewasteland]

Wonder Woman: on female characters in comics PART 3

p. 1, 2, 3

Finally my lazy ass finished it. Warning: Image heavy. Please bear in mind that English is not my first language and we do not beta, we die liek mne!

Part 3: Woman: Warrior, Wife, Wonder

Summary: Critical analysis of the character of Wonder Woman

Under the cut

*

Previously, I have talked about gender inequality in the comics industry and poor portrayal of female characters in the comics. In this part, I am going to talk about comics as an active political tool, and Wonder Woman as a medium of gender politics.

 Lepore and Fawaz both define Wonder Woman as the banner-bearer of the feminist separatist utopia (Lepore, 2016: 199) (Fawaz, Hall, Kinsella, 2017: 9), though they refer to different feminist movements. While Lepore stresses the importance of the movement of 1910s for the invention of Wonder Woman, Fawaz matches Themyscrira, the home island of Wonder Woman, to the idea of separatism of 1970s. As noted by De Beauvoir and Fawaz, it was impossible to imagine the life without men. Women have no separate history, no separate culture. They were attracted to the idea of an island, isolated from the rest of the world. This fantasy on the pages of the comic book has become a safe space for exploring the social, cultural and political possibilities and conflicting notions of a better, desirable world (Fawaz, Hall, Kinsella, 2017: 4).

 The very birth of Wonder Woman is a political statement. In the early 1930s Margaret Sanger has led the birth control movement. (Lepore, 2016: 147) The question of to whom belonged the power over the woman’s body has been on everyone’s lips. On the pages of The Origin of Wonder Woman Marston tells a story of a matriarchal birth, a celebration of woman’s agency. (Wonder Woman #1, 1942) Parallels can be found between the legend of Wonder Woman and Christian narratives, even more so than, for example, Superman, who is typically analysed as a Jesus figure. She is born, fathered by no mortal man, and sets on saving the humanity from the forces of hate and oppression, fighting injustice, suffering, intolerance and destruction. She is omnibenevolent and wise, even being chosen by the ring of the Star Sapphires, because her heart is abundant with love (Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2, 2010) However, Diana has neither father, nor any similar patriarchal figure in her life. She is born in a feminist utopia with no contribution from a man. The significance of this phenomenon cannot be overstated. Wonder Woman is devoid of the weight of patriarchy; hence she is the manifestation of the feminist fantasy (Curtis, 2017: 307). For 70 years she has been an exceptional figure within the pop-culture, centered around the question of Fathers and Children and ignoring the trope of the Absent Mother. The feminist utopian fantasy, though, has been killed in 2012. Of all people, by her own new authors, Azzarello and Chiang. Not only does Wonder Woman have a father now, trivializing her story, taking away her legendary status, but also this new version destroys the sisterhood. In the new version, Hippolyta lies, because she is scared of Hera’s jealousy and revenge. The same Hera, who has protected Diana and Hippolyta from Zeus’ forced advances. The same Hera, who has blessed Diana at birth. Goddesses and Amazons are no longer a monolithic front, now they are pitted against each other, fighting over the affections of a man. Wonder Woman used to be a character born from defiance. Now she is a character born from fraud, and the supremacy of the male principle has been reinstated. (314)

 What early villains of the Wonder Woman comics share is their opposition to gender equality. Some villains were fictional, some of flesh and blood. Jill Lepore uncovers a schism, verging on an open war, between the writers of Wonder Woman in 1942 (Lepore, 2016: 210-213). Gardner Fox rejects the idea of the female superhero and downgrades Wonder Woman to typing out minutes and getting trapped to be saved by the male members of the Justice’s Society.

 (All-Star Comics #14)

He refuses to include her in the action and show her fighting side by side with the rest of her colleagues. (All-Star Comics #12-17, 1942-43) On contrary, the political influence of Marston’s Wonder Woman grows by leaps and bounds, both in fiction and in real life.

 It is worth to also compare the politics of visual presented by the case of Fox and Marston. Under Fox’s pen Wonder Woman becomes a meek female heroine, an incompetent lady, and the textbook token female character, which makes a team diverse without delivering any real contribution. After the death of Marston, she is stripped even of such nominal power. Just as Athena warns Amazons, if they submit to a man, they will lose their powers. The metaphor of the gauntlets is very curious, in fact. Amazons are bound, so that they do not forget what happens if they let man conquer them (Madrid 2009: 36). Surprisingly, Wonder Woman uses the gauntlets to protect herself, deflecting bullets and other weapons. We can see a careful threading of Marston’s motif on the struggle of women. A paradoxical situation of a shackle turned into a shield can be connoted as the remainder for women that they have broken free and they are powerful, but if they submit to a man, they will lose all their power. (Lepore, 2016: 220) Wonder Woman’s lasso is also a reference to a real-life phenomenon, specifically the lie detector. Its invention has fascinated Marston and on more than one occasion he has offered his services as the operator to the US Army (Lepore, 2016: 61). For him it has been a turning point in history of science and politics, and of course, Wonder Woman needs such a device in her adventures.

 Opposed to Fox’s portrayal, Marston’s Wonder Woman stands against the International Milk Company that has been overcharging for milk, “an essential element of American children’s lives”. It has been a direct criticism of politicians such as Al Smith. On the pages of the comic books, Al Smith turns into a Nazi secret agent Alphonso De Gyppo, the evil president of the International Milk Company. Twice he tries to kill Wonder Woman, but she manages to escape him and lead a political rally. She captures his evil boss, Baroness Paula von Gunther, and the prices for milk drop, to the gratitude of American children and everyone concerned. Another example involves a fictionalized social critique of the working conditions in America. A textile workers’ strike in Massachusetts, in 1912, is retold as a strike against Bullfinch’s Department Stores, as the workers are underpaid and exploited. The real villain is the fiancé of the lady, who is owning the Department Stores, and when she realizes his true evil nature, she punches him and takes over, doubling everyone’s salaries as the first order. (Sensation Comics #8, 1942)

  Everything feminine and girlish had been considered (still is) weak and boring (Lepore, 2016: 187). Marston, on the other hand, believed that men confuse desire with pleasure. They desire domination, while women can receive pleasure from both domination and submission. He felt that if there had been a strong beautiful woman (Marston wanted Wonder Woman to look like a Varga Girl), men would submit to her willingly and she would teach them love and peace. Never before such a character has existed (191). Submissiveness became power.

  (georgia peach, alberto vargas, esquire, 1940s)

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps are formed in 1942 by Roosevelt. Each issue of the solo Wonder Woman comic book has praised women, who have also been scientists, writers, politicians, social workers, doctors, nurses, athletes, and adventurers – or, in other words, Wonder Women of History. (Lepore, 2016: 220-222) Chained, tied up and gagged women are an allusion on the suffragist movement. Women seemingly reclaim the imagery of bondage and bound, giving it the implication of the struggle, the defiance, and resistance. Moreover, the idea of submission has been the new display of feminine supremacy. (236)

 Fretheim suggests noting that Wonder Woman’s weapons form circles and defines them as ‘vaginal weapons’ (Fretheim, 2017: 24) as opposed to phallic weapons such as guns and swords. That it, I must correct myself, until recently. As can be seen in Chiang reimagination of Wonder Woman, she is often depicted on the comic book covers with swords, axes and other weapons.

  As if drawn phallic weapons also raise the levels of testosterone, to match her updated apparel, new Wonder Woman is also more short-tempered, aggressive and has actually become the new Goddess of War after defeating Ares. (Cocca, 2014) However, some, like Walter J. Ong, have argued that even the earliest version of Wonder Woman has been ‘too much like a man’. (Lepore, 2016: 255) He criticizes her resistance towards marriage and family life, accuses her of sustaining only on the anti-social pure sexual allure, by standards of the men. He goes on to develop an argument that comics have been fascist propaganda, with the concept of ‘supermen’ directly borrowed from Nietzsche, ‘the herald of Nazism’. (256) If you are not sure who Walter J. Ong is, it is that same man who concluded that Batman and Robin promote homosexuality and we can say thanks to him for the Comics Code nonsense. So, we can see that Wonder Woman has constantly faced accusations of being ‘too masculine’. It is a hard job of being a girl in the boys club: you’re either the lady-friend who inevitably becomes the love interest or you’re a tomboy. Wonder Woman tries to be both, to be neither, to be something else entirely.

 Nonetheless, in 1944, out of all comic book superheroes, it is Wonder Woman, who becomes a newspaper strip. There is a considerable difference in exposure between comic books and daily newspapers, opening a whole new audience to Wonder Woman. She joins Superman and Batman as the first trans-media superheroes and thus the Trinity is formed. Marston has always been quite open about Wonder Woman being feminist psychological propaganda for the new type of strong and courageous womanhood. (220) The message of Wonder Woman transcends the comic books and becomes a social commentary on the gender politics and economic environment of the twentieth century.

 Unfortunately, this is the temporary liberation. The most sinister villain of them all turns out to be the peacetime. Once again, the comic book works as a mirror, reflecting the changes on the political and socio-cultural stage. With the end of the Second World War, there blooms a daunting realization that the service of women is no longer required. The period of high threat is relieved by the period of low threat and the decisive, tough heroes can loosen up. Not to undermine them and the returning soldiers, women all over the country are fired and urged, those unmarried, to tie the knot, and those married, to hurry up and procreate. Wonder Woman is stripped of her kinky red boots, of her position at the Justice’s Society and ultimately, her powers. She becomes a friendly guide for young ladies, who dream of fairy tale romance, a handsome husband and a multitude of little pink-cheeked copies of him, running around their little cozy house. (271)

  Feminist movement gave birth to Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman has become the symbol of the feminist movement. When Wonder Woman has appeared to be chained and depowered and forced to fit into categories she has been fighting against since her creation, “fellow sisters” has come to her aid. She is put on the cover of the Ms. magazine and once again blazes the fantasy of the female superhero, equal to Superman and Batman, and of the all-women culture, glorious in its isolation from the discrimination and oppression of the male imposition. (Lepore, 2016: 283; Fawaz, Hall, Kinsella, 2017: 8)

  Wonder Woman returns to peaceful protests on the pages of It Aint Me Baby and feminist newsletters. There starts the try and miss of the comic industry with the female characters. Wanting to cash in on feminists, Marvel attempts to introduce new female characters, but they all fail spectacularly after just a handful of issues. (Lepore, 2016: 289) Forty-five years later, the situation is not much better. Marvel executives even try to put the blame on the readers, because apparently the stories about diverse characters are not selling. (Cain, 2017)

To be fair, in 70s it has been a real issue. Nothing has been selling. Even Wonder Woman. The feminist movement is divided. Radical, liberal and intersectional movements emerge, at odds with each other. The Second Wave supports a predominantly white, heterosexual view.

 In 1987, Wonder Woman is rebooted. Pérez and Wein make her more ethnic, acknowledging her origins. They finally bring up the fact that on an island with 100 percent female population, homosexual relationships take place. (Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #38, 1990) In the #180 issue Diana is in a relationship with an African American man, Trevor Barnes. She gains her powers back. She addresses the issues of race, sexuality and gender. Wonder Woman rises again on the crest of the Third Wave of Feminism: a struggle for equality, diversity, complexity, inclusivity, individualism and cultural critique. (Cocca, 2014) However, due to historical processes, as history does not evolve in a linear, progressive fashion, the maturity and growth call for a major backlash (Cocca, 2016: 10). The comic books are then overflowing with hyper-masculine men and hyper-sexualized women. The new Wonder Woman, Artemis, has been criticized and remained unaccepted both by readers and by the characters of the comics themselves. For instance, Batman is openly dismissive of her and objects to her presence, going as far as forbidding Artemis to even sit in Diana’s chair in the Justice League Headquarters. (Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #90, 1994) The problem with Artemis is that she is too aggressive, too rash, and therefore, does not fit the norms of femininity, imposed by the predominantly male audience.

 Wonder Woman is rebooted anew in 2011, as mentioned before. Contrary to the critiques that Artemis has received, this Diana is also aggressive and ‘male-like’. Here we can notice a similar pattern. Because female empowerment associates in men’s mind opposite proportionately with male disempowerment, a strong female superhero that challenges the social structures terrifies the reader. Hence, Amazons are both objectified and dehumanized. They are no longer peaceful immortal protectors – after the reboot, in order to maintain their population and quench their sexual thirst, they engage in sexual intercourses with sailors, who have expressed dubious consent and are often killed off afterwards. Newborn girls are to stay on the island, while boys are sold into slavery to Hephaestus in exchange for weapons. Amazons’ queerness is erased from the narrative. Wonder Woman discovers that she has a brother, who is somehow more powerful than she is. (Justice League Vol. 2 #50, 2016)

 She also pursues romance with Steve Trevor. Their relationship is truly a double-edge sword. He has appeared in the first issue of Wonder Woman and has remained her supporting character since. The polarity of his character lies in the interpretation. From one side, he is a ‘token boyfriend’ (Robbins, 2006), from the other, he is a lonely boy in the refrigerator. Robbins argues that introduction of Steve Trevor should ensure the reader in Wonder Woman’s heterosexuality. Therefore, he is the political instrument that positions Wonder Woman in the framework of heteronormativity. On the other hand, it is an interesting subversion of the ‘damsel in distress’ trope. Steve Trevor gets in trouble and Wonder Woman rushes to his rescue. His suffering propels her plotline and he is secondary to her character, not having much of a distinct personality, changing with the trends over time, reflecting what kind of man is popular at that instance. The only constant is the mesmerized ‘Angel’ to Diana, which, in fact, either baffles or irritates her. (Sensation Comics #2, 1942) Either way, the existence of the character of Steve Trevor restricts Wonder Woman from exploring her diverse sexuality, but on the other hand constructs a new meaning for visual representation of Wonder Woman in the comics.

 During the Second World War, people have been constantly bombarded – by standardized imagery. With the rise of Communism and the National Socialism, the rhetoric of good and bad has returned to the military conflict. One side is morally right; their opponents then must be immoral and wrong. One side is the hero and the other side is the villain, aiming to oppress, torture and destroy. As we know from the fairytales, from everything we have been taught, the good side always wins the evil. The hero always arrives just in time and saves everyone. This stream of non-stop visuals from the media has produced something Alvin Toffler calls a ‘mass-mind’. (Toffler, 1980: 176) The comic books promote All-American ideology and the image of the superhero that defends the world with the help of the good sports from the American Army. It is a ready-to-wear moral certainty. The movements are represented by a particular group: the feminist movement is predominantly white and heterosexual; the LGBT movement receives one-dimensional representation of the G.

 In the late 70s the stream gradually becomes less uniform. Toffler introduces the concept of ‘a blip culture’ (177), a culture of confusion, feeling of abandonment and anger, because now the visuals are fragmented, contradictory, people are left to give these ‘blips’ their own meaning. The system pulsates with bigger and bigger amounts of data. Today we want out information fast. Faster. Memes, photos, tweets, and headlines of the articles we are never going to open to read in full at the top of the IPhone screen. We prefer to digest information through visuals. It does not matter where we live, in a developed or a developing country, in a metropolitan city or in the countryside, we stay up to date with the pop-culture. It necessarily consists of the modern and old media, which become another ode of propaganda and promotion of the ideas, people and trends that just ought to become popular. The power of textual is substituted by the power of the visual.

 Comics are the low genre of entertainment. It is primarily identified as being strictly for children and youth (Ndalianis, 2011: 113). And yet it has victoriously invaded the mainstream media. No matter how much so-called nerds desire to maintain the illusion of an exclusive boy-club, who are socially awkward and misunderstood by everyone, it is no longer a niche. The comic book characters’ faces decorate lunch boxes and backpacks; they become a new type of celebrity, symbols of the generations. It is no longer the comics in itself that is important – but the superheroes. The phenomenon of the superhero has transcended the medium of the comic book. Pop-culture turns politics into another component of the field of entertainment, and brings it on the transnational level. It becomes a performance, where the spectators are the citizens, divided into the politically charged individuals and apolitical witnesses. The superheroes are a fiction, but the borders of the fiction and the reality blur. With appearance of the superheroes on the screen, the audience starts associating the character with the face of the actor. Because the superheroes are already surrounded by myths, different interpretations and fandom, the figure of the superhero can become more real than the person, playing him or her. The imagery and simulacra, which are the foundation of the society, create a model of the prevailing life style of the said society. It is not the aggregate of the characters, but the social relationships between people, intermediated by these characters. (Baudrillard, 1994)

 To support my argument about how the superheroes received the status of celebrities and how Wonder Woman has become a simulacrum of the political figure, we need to break down the process into five stages. I shall bring some examples to build a case to explain how the superheroes have evolved in our consciousness and from mirrors have transformed into active agents that represent and influence masses.

 In 1996, a special edition comic book has been released, featuring Superman, to promote the landmine awareness among children. The comic has been distributed to Bosnia and the territories of the former Yugoslavia. DC has published the comic book in cooperation with the Department of Defense and UNICEF. So, exhibit one: the superheroes, as the role models, are suitable to educate children.

 In 2016, a certain video has gone viral under the name Avengers Against Trump. In reality, it has little to do with Marvel and its team of superheroes, but it has starred some of the actors from the cast of the Avengers, such as Scarlett Johansson, who have been emphasizing the importance of each and every vote. Their disdain for Trump becomes the disdain of the superhero they play. Exhibit two: the process is started, the reality and the fiction begin to merge, the figure of the actor is perceived not as a celebrity of interest, but as the avatar of the superhero.

 On February 7, 2016, Turkish Airlines has released a commercial, where they have been ‘pleased to announce the new destination: Gotham City’. Ben Affleck appears during the commercial, credited as Bruce Wayne. Exhibit three: real life companies utilize the superheroes as the ambassadors of the brand. The line between performers and the superheroes they play becomes even thinner. The superhero becomes more real.

 In this fashion, Wonder Woman is no different. Maybe even more exemplary, as she has been created specifically as feminist propaganda. The artwork in Mural, Philadelphia, depicting Wonder Woman landing a punch on Donald Trump, illustrates quite well the extent to which the reality of our social and political consciousness and superhero narratives influence each other.

 Wonder Woman is a superhero, which defends all defenseless and openly stands against discrimination and oppression – and there she stands against Donald Trump, a person in a position of power, who is infamous for his racism and sexism. Exhibit number four: gathering information and background from the comics, TV-shows and movies, we analyse it and draw our own conclusions and assume that the superheroes have certain opinions about the realm of noumena, to which they do not belong, and what these opinions would be. Most people would agree that Batman is – notice how the conditional would be is dropped – for gun control. Harley Quinn is crazy about Comic-Cons. Wonder Woman is anti-Trump.

 Wonder Woman has become a symbol and a spokesperson of modern feminism through this fusion of fiction, politics and personalities of the actresses. Wonder Woman has become a simulacrum of a celebrity and by extension a political figure. She makes choices, supports some politicians and publicly disapproves others. The critical point of this development takes place on October 21, 2016, when the UN has decided to use Wonder Woman in an honorary role in the empowerment campaign to fight for gender equality, and thus, Wonder Woman is appointed as the UN ambassador. The final exhibit: it shows that the superhero is treated like a real person and has been given exercisable political power. One might point out that she has been demoted from the position two months after, but the case rests. We live in a world, where Wonder Woman has become an ambassador of the United Nations, even if only for two months.

(Wonder Woman design art, Harry G Peter, 1942)

Bibliography

Fawaz, R., Hall, J., & Kinsella, H. (2017). Discovering paradise islands: The politics and pleasures of feminist utopias, a conversation. Feminist Review, 116(1), 1-21.

 Lepore, J. (2015). The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Knopf.

 Curtis, N. (2017). Wonder Woman’s symbolic death: On kinship and the politics of origins. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 8(4), 307-320.

 Madrid, M. (2009). ‘Sirens and Suffragettes.’ The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines. Ashland, OR: Exterminating Angel, 2009. 145–81. Print.

 Fretheim, I. M. (2017) Fantastic Feminism: Female Characters in Superhero Comic Books. Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo

 Cocca, C. (2014). Negotiating the Third Wave of Feminism in "Wonder Woman". PS: Political Science and Politics, 47(1), 98-103.

 Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: gender, power, and representation.

 Cain, S. (2017). Marvel executive says emphasis on diversity may have alienated readers. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/03/marvel-executive-says-emphasis-on-diversity-may-have-alienated-readers [last accessed on 1 May, 2018]

 Robbins, T. (2006). Wonder Woman, Lesbian Or Dyke?: Paradise Island as a Woman's Community. Available at: http://girl-wonder.org/papers/robbins.html [last accessed on 15 April, 2018]

 Toffler, A. (1981). The third wave. London: Pan in association with Collins.

 Ndalianis, A. (2011). Why Comics Studies? Cinema Journal, 50(3), 113-117.

 Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.

 Fly to Gotham City with Turkish Airlines! Super Bowl TV SPOT (2016) Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS7JBHxdxko [last accessed on 8 May, 2018]

 Avengers Against Trump. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnK9tEdNjX8 [last accessed on 8 May, 2018]

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Social Foo-Pah

Social Foo-Pah Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Pairing: Kidge Summary: Continuation of a previous fic, found [here], with a special shout out of thanks to @ohwhatstheworldcometo for asking about a companion piece and being so patient while I worked on this! While Pidge attempts to avoid Keith at the celebration of Princess Maia of Firnes entering society proper, said princess and Allura have concocted a plot to get her feelings for Keith out in the open. But if there’s one things the Paladins should always remember is this: Even the best-laid plans can go completely off the rails. Standard Disclaimer: If you read and enjoy this, please give it a like/ reblog so I know if I should write more.

The grand hall of Queen Simona’s castle had been decked out in elaborate tapestries in various violet, blue and white hues. All the tapestries bore an image of a strange creature that he could only say had to be something akin to a hydra, but each head belonged to a different type of animal and was outlined in a different color. At the center of the piece, with one claw poised just beside it, was a broad sword stuck inside a stone. Keith remembered from the briefing they’d had upon arrival that the colors and insignia were representative of the new world order that Queen Simona had brought to her Firnes many years prior. He reached out with one hand and gently toyed with the tassels at the end of one of the tapestries. He was mildly impressed by how much had been done in so little time to get the place ready.

He heard Kolivan let out a mildly displeased huff. “Keith, please remove your hands from the tapestries. They are materials seen as pivotal to this ceremony,” He said, his tone reminding him of his younger years and getting scolded for sneaking candy bars into the grocery cart.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh please. I doubt that they’re that instrumental to what they’re doing. They look like little more than decorative pieces,” He scoffed.

“Decorative pieces they may be, but they do also serve a purpose,” Queen Simona’s voice was light with a mix of amusement and delight as she approached, the soft click of her heels echoing in the otherwise vacant room. Both Blade members flinched and turned to face her as she approached, Shiro and another lumbering figure a few paces behind her.

“For years, under the tyranny of Queen Maura, our people suffered greatly. She kept them hidden in a fog of false feelings using her powers, keeping them from feeling discomfort over the things she was doing. These tapestries are the insignia that the rebellion Queen Simona led was represented by. They have become a symbol of courage and perseverance to our people,” The tall man behind her said, reaching into a pocket of his coat and pulling out a small bottle. He squeezed a pale blue liquid into one eye, causing Keith to realize that eye was unnaturally glossy.

“I didn’t realize that it held such significance. I apologize for messing with it,” Keith said, dipping his head at her both in a sign of apology and to avoid the scolding look his superior commander was sending his way.

Queen Simona chuckled lightly and gave the man beside her a gentle slap on the shoulder. “Oh, ignore him, young one. Dom’s become a stuffy sort as we’ve grown older,” She explained, her tone light and jesting as she looked at the man in question.

The other shook his head, fixing his one good eye on her, but his lips twitched at the corners in amusement. “You’ve never been good at professionalism, Mona,”

Kolivan stepped forward, offering one hand to the man. “I take it that you are Dominic de Cortez, the head of the royal guard?” He asked.

The other nodded, his expression levelling back out, and took the outstretched hand. “Correct, I am. I take it you are the Blade member in charge of the team you’ve sent along to assist Team Voltron with this. Kolivan, yes?”

He nodded. “Yes. I was hoping to do a debriefing regarding the intelligence we have, as well as discussing the knight rotation throughout the ceremony,”

“Of course. Would it be possible for your young Blade member and the Black Paladin to stay with Queen Simona while we are gone, just in case?” Dom asked, shifting to look over at Keith and Shiro.

Keith blinked a bit in surprise before nodding. “We’ll keep her safe while you’re gone,” He vowed. Queen Simona herself scoffed a bit and shook her head, mumbling something under her breath, but she waved the two older men off with one hand. Keith glanced at her uneasily. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Your Highness.”

She perked up in surprise before shaking her head. “I apologize. My problem is more with Dominic treating me as if I am still a child. I led a rebellion, by the graces; I think I can protect myself about some spoiled Galran prince and his lackeys if needed,”

“His generals and he are extremely competent fighters, actually. We’ve encountered them enough times to know they are not a force to be underestimated. That’s part of the reason you invited us here, after all; concern over his growing forces being enough to twist Princess Maia to sway to his demands,” Shiro commented before turning his attention to the tapestry. He reached out and touched one of the heads, the silhouette reminding him of a moose. “So the insignia is symbolic of your rebellion?”

“Yes. The sword itself is a representation of myself, as I was the one that orchestrated the rebellion. Each of these heads represents the family beast of each of my seven advisers. The one you are looking at is actually the representative of Dominic,” She explained.

“So you’re a queen with advisers?” Keith asked curiously. In most of the planets they’d visited, it was either ruled by a monarch or by a small council.

“The problem with our previous governmental system,” She explained, her gaze remaining fixated on the tapestry, “was that it was a council composed of members from the same family. There was no variety in the opinions being presented, no insight into how their decisions might affect another demographic of people negatively. None of the members of the council had lived an experience particularly different from the others, so there was no deeper insight. There was also far too much trust and acclaim placed in one another due to the belief that family would always look out for one another; this factor was how Queen Maura was able to rise and snuff out any voice that spoke out against her. For almost all my years of combat, my seven advisers have been by my side. They have helped me to grow as a person and offered me other avenues I would not have considered before. They have disagreed with me and corrected my path when necessary. I have trust in their judgment of myself, as well as trust in my judgment of them, so our system has worked out as well as any system designed by a creature that is not of a celestial status could. All of them have the ability to veto my ideas, and new policies are not put in place without every adviser having a say in what works and if any modifications are necessary.”

“That seems to be quite sound for your people. But I thought that your empathic abilities were how you governed?” Shiro asked.

“The old system lied much more heavily on the abilities of those like myself than the system I’ve designed does. My powers are used more as a clarification point, really. There have been officials and nobles that come with complaints, claiming to be looking out for their fellow man, only to reveal they have disingenuous intentions once I am able to ascertain their deeper emotions,” She said.

“So you’re less a queen and more a ruling lie detector, only with a deeper scope and higher point of accuracy,” Keith said.

Shiro flushed and cast him an annoyed glance. “Keith! That’s an incredibly rude way to put it!” He chided before looking back over at Queen Simona, whom had taken to laughing politely into her hand at the exchange. “I apologize for him. He’s not always the best when it comes to other people.”

“It is quite fine, Black Paladin. I appreciate the curiosity you and the others have exhibited since being here, as well as seeing how you tie things to your own culture for a better understanding. Knowledge can be a pivotal weapon you can use to your advantage; especially in regards to those you are allied with. I could send one of these along with you on your travels, if you’d like,” She offered, gently patting the tapestry once more before looking at both men.

“I’d appreciate one, thank you,” Shiro agreed, offering her a small smile. He opened his mouth to say something else but the large double doors of the grand hall opened and the three turned to face the smaller figure entering. “Oh, Pidge. Shouldn’t you be looking after Princess Maia with Allura, in the garden?”

Pidge tensed up and froze, her eyes locking on Keith. He perked up and cast her an almost sheepish look. She scoffed and looked over at Shiro and Queen Simona again. “I was wondering if there were any other duties you thought I’d be well-suited for. Like, maybe helping set up surveillance equipment or something,” She said quickly.

Queen Simona’s brow knit in concern. “Did something transpire between yourself and young Maia? She’s an excitable sort and has a bad tendency of occasionally speaking without thinking first,” She said gently, beginning to cross the room over to her.

“I may be the Green Paladin, but I’m not much of a nature fanatic,” She said quickly.

“She’s right about that; she’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and can hack or repair almost anything,” Keith chimed in, trying to offer her a small smile.

She pointedly ignored him. “I’d be more comfortable doing something regarding technology,” She insisted, her own gaze falling to tiled floors beneath her.

“Of course, Green Paladin,” Queen Simona said before reaching over to a small speaker beside the doors. She clicked the little red switch on it and leaned closer. “Giselle, will you send one of your assistants to help lead the Green Paladin down to assist you in preparing the monitoring devices for this evening?” She made sure to flip the switch all the way down after her words, most likely opening the channel to whom she was addressing.

There was a brief pause filled with static noise before another voice responded, “I already have plenty of help. The elderly Altean gentleman is quite… enthusiastic about partaking in every element of our preparation.” The woman’s voice was tight, as if she was barely restraining herself from losing it, and filled with forced enthusiasm.

“The Green Paladin is a technological thinker as well, but a bit more subdued in personality compared to your current companion. View her as more of an assistant to help with reining in the talent you are currently accompanied with, if you’re so obliged,” Simona suggested.

She had barely flicked the switch down to open the channel before Giselle was heard shouting, “One of you go collect the Green Paladin from the grand hall this instant! She is going to be of great help to us!”

“Thank you, Giselle,” Simona said with a small laugh.

“No, thank you and thank the Green Paladin, my Queen,” She said before there was the click of her end going silent again.

With another small shake of her head, Queen Simona turned the device off. “I hope you don’t mind my having to present the situation the way that I did to Giselle. She tends to be very particular about how she takes care of the devices we implement around here. She barely even lets her own personally trained assistants do more than run errands and double-check readings,” She explained.

“Pidge tends to be that way when she’s working on a big project, too,” Shiro commented, hoping to ease some of the tension lingering still. Keith was watching Pidge like a hawk, occasionally shifting as if he wanted to catch her attention, and she, in response, was making sure to keep her face turned away from him. The silence between them was stifling, which was strange considering who it was he was talking about, and it had him a bit concerned. He knew there’d been some kind of argument between them during Keith’s last brief stint on the Castle of Lions, but neither of them would elaborate further than that.

The Green Paladin shifted, moving to head back out the doors. “Thank you, Queen Simona. I’ll wait outside for my escort then,” She said as she shifted to back out.

“I’ll wait with you,” Keith said, starting to approach the doors.

“I can take care of myself. And I’m sure you have your orders from the Blade,” She snapped quickly before storming out, ignoring how the young man visibly flinched at her words.

“Oh, my,” Simona mumbled, looking back over at the crestfallen Blade member. She then glanced over at Shiro, noting the worried frown on his face. “I take it that there is some kind of strain between the two of you?”

Keith perked up then glared off to the side. “It’s… It’s her problem, not mine. If she wants to be petty and hold a grudge, that’s her choice,” He grumbled before turning and heading to check the rest of the room, to assure that things were secure.

The two leaders exchanged looks before Shiro shrugged. “We should avoid getting involved. These two can be kind of… Stubborn, to put it lightly. And they tend to shut down if they feel like they’re being poked and prodded. If we can keep them apart until I can talk with them and diffuse the situation, I’d appreciate it,” He explained quietly.

“I understand. I’ll have them assigned to opposing areas in the grand hall tonight,” She agreed, offering him a small smile to help reassure him. He nodded his head in gratitude and looked over at Keith again, hoping that things could be blown over easy once they had time to address them.

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The hustle and bustle of the party ended up being much larger than expected, creeping from outside the walls of the castle and trickling into the city streets. It seemed that the whole capital – maybe even the entire planet! – was celebrating in some way for the young princess. The city streets were decked out with smaller, paper versions of the fabric tapestries, hanging from strings looped between the lampposts lining the city. The denizens were all dressed in their best outfits, wearing the same colors of the tapestries, singing and chanting the songs of the people.

Queen Simona insisted that the windows and balcony doors be left open, as it allowed the natural air circulation to keep the castle cooled, so there was a Blade member stationed at each entrance, ducked out in the shadows and keeping a watch for any suspicious activity. Members of the rebellion were intermingled in the crowd both in the castle and in the streets, monitoring for any sign of Lotor or his generals.

Allura herself was poised close to the end of the staircase where the royal family would be making their arrival from. Standing at the other end was Hunk, looking around pensively, anxious over potential missing any hint that something could be going wrong. She did a quick scan to double check where the two in her plans were present. Pidge was stationed beside one of the inner doors to a balcony, chatting amicably with the Firnesian guard stationed alongside her. A decent space away, back over by the main entrance, was Keith, most likely receiving his orders from Kolivan. She made a mental note to keep track on him, in specific, to guarantee the plan she and Maia had come up with could be followed. She then turned her attention to the top of the spiral stairs as the orchestra started up a much softer, gentler song.

At the top of the staircase stood Queen Simona, Maia and another woman beside her. The other woman seemed to be about the same age as Queen Simona, with inky hair that had been curled and teased, the strands bouncing mere centimeters above her bare shoulders. She was wrapped in a strapless violet gown with a white sash around her waist and matching gloves that reached her elbows. She leaned over to Maia, carefully tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, her eyes warm with affection as she spoke quietly to her. There was a resemblance in the two, in the curve of their faces and shape of their eyes, though the older woman’s eyes were stormy blue-grey. The younger woman was rocking back and forth on her feet, looking up at both she and Simona in barely contained delight, the long edges of her pearl gown skimming along the plush rug below her.

Simona dipped her head to say something, pressing a small kiss to her forehead, before taking a deep breath and reaching towards a small marble pillar beside her. The marks on her own arms almost seemed to be glowing in the celebratory lights. Atop a cushion was what seemed to be a silver choker of some sort, with small droplet-sized stones embedded in it, as well as a long strip of a velvety looking fabric. Queen Simona raised the fabric and offered it to the woman beside her, then carefully picked up the ornate necklace. “Thank you, to every single person in attendance for this moment. It is an honor to see so many coming out to share this moment with our beloved Maia,” She said, pausing to flash a gentle look at the young heiress before her.

The crowd before them erupted into a delighted cheer, boosted as those on the outside joined in as well.

She smiled and dipped her head. “As is customary for a young one’s official entrance into society, here before her newfound peers and equals, she shall be given a family heirloom and have her hair styled by her parentage. For her family heirloom, she shall receive the chain of truth, as customary of an empath with her skill and prowess,” She explained before glancing at the other woman.

“And, for her hair style, she shall have it styled in a simple braid with the cloth in my hand. The fabric is soft yet sturdy, the braid practical and humble, as these are the attributes she will be wise to remember as she continues down the path of adulthood,” She said, pausing to again tuck another rebel lock of hair behind the princess’ ear.

The crowd cheered the whole time as the black haired woman twisted and tied her hair off into the aforementioned braid, and then when Queen Simona carefully clicked the clasp of the necklace into place, the fit snug enough that it wouldn’t dangle but also loose enough that it shouldn’t inhibit her ability to breath, eat or speak. Once she was finished with the ceremonial parts, she received a peck to each cheek from each of her parents, then turned and slowly made her way down the steps. Once she reached the end, the thunderous excitement in the crowd seemed to miraculously reach greater heights, the collection swarming upon her to congratulate and greet her proper. Hunk shifted and took his position beside her, serving as a personal guard in case anyone got too grabby or enthusiastic.

It was quite some time before things settled down enough for Allura and Hunk to swap posts, the Yellow Paladin offering her a relieved smile before slinking off to find himself something to drink and eat. She offered him a small wave before her attention shifted back to her enthusiastic ward, bright-eyed and fidgeting in her giddiness, Squire poised on her shoulder. This left the young Altean a bit bemused, as she hadn’t seen the little Heelaw anywhere prior to that point. “Is this Keith person in attendance?” She asked eagerly, gently taking hold of the taller woman’s upper arm.

“He is. He should be over by the balcony right now, speaking with Kolivan, the leader of the Blade,” She said, guiding them towards where they were. She opted against adding that, upon seeing his approach, Pidge had ducked and disappeared into the crowd.

“Excellent! What kind of person is he? From what little I could glean from Pidge’s emotions, he seems to be someone deserving of her adulation,” She asked eagerly.

“Well,” Allura trailed nervously, her eyes darting through the crowd in the hope of locating Pidge, “he’s a bit abrasive, but he has a good heart. He’s a lot like her, in the sense that they both like their privacy, which is probably why they get along so well.”

Maia hummed thoughtfully, lifting one hand to wave eagerly when Kolivan and Keith spotted their approach from the corner of their eyes. She carefully detangled herself from Allura once they reached them, taking the second to offer a polite bow to them. “Greetings, both of you. I have wanted to offer a proper thank you for your assistance in securing our home for this evening in person,” She said.

Kolivan offered a small smile and imitated her bow. “It is our pleasure, Your Highness,” He said.

Maia nodded before glancing over at Allura. “Blue Paladin, would you be so kind as to see if one of the other Paladin’s would be willing to do a guard post swap with you? I’m sure you’re rather tired of following me along and I’d love the chance to speak with each of you in turn,” She said happily.

“Of course,” Allura said, hoping that her smile and tone didn’t sound too stiff. This was the request they had agreed upon in order for their plan to work. Pidge wouldn’t be able to escape being around Keith if it was for the sake of the mission. And Shiro had made it clear that each Paladin take a turn guarding the princess herself. With everyone scattered as they were, none of them should notice how brief her stint beside the princess actually was.

It was a rather impressive plan, Allura had to admit.

“You two are okay with looking after her in the meanwhile, right?” Allura asked, waving lightly before scampering off without even waiting for the answer.

Keith made a vague noise of approval, lifting his head to size Maia up properly. She didn’t miss how his gaze lingered on the markings of her power on her arms. “You have the same marks on your arms as the queen,” He commented.

Maia beamed at him and nodded, lifting one hand to gently stroke one of Squire’s chubby cheeks with her finger tip. “This is the sign that, just like Mother, I have the powers of empathy. These marks are the indicator that I can channel another person’s energy through myself and translate what their feelings are. For now, I’m still in training, but so long as the person I am doing a reading on is thinking of a specific subject or person, I can get a rather precise reading of them. Would you like me to prove as much?” She kept her smile and tone bright, betraying nothing of her gambit, as she offered one hand to the young Blade member. Sensing what was to happen, Squire carefully hopped from his perch and scurried off to pilfer some treats from the food stand.

He eyed her hand cautiously before taking it. At first, she was unable to pick up anything specific, other than that he felt uncomfortable and crowded in the current setting. “So, what exactly should I do?” He asked.

“Think about someone or something specific, so I can get a proper reading on what you feel,” She mused lightly, closing her eyes and beginning to actively probe. For a while it was just foggy and vague, but then he seemed to hone in on a subject. On the surface, he was riddled with confusion and frustration. Something was putting a wedge between he and the subject but he wasn’t sure what. Underneath that, there was fear and betrayal; the fear and betrayal both stemming from a belief that he was, or had been, replaced. There was also a sense of confusion as to what, exactly, his feelings for this person actually were, but the falsehood of that emotion was easy to piece together with a little more probing. Beneath the confusion, in a part of him that may be subconscious, there was a sense of fear over conflicting feelings towards them. On one hand, it seemed that Keith wanted to spend more time with this person and reach out to them, to be transparent with one another. The fearful part of him, though, reared its head like a charge animal and snarled fierce that it would be fruitless.

He felt this person was important to him but also felt he wasn’t important to them in the same way.

Maia slowly opened her eyes to look at Keith, a sense of dread settling into her belly. He clearly had a deep affection for whomever he was thinking about, which could end up sabotaging the plans that she and Allura had. It, she realized, could end up breaking the Green Paladin’s heart. She knew she’d be unable to keep the truth to herself; after all, in this situation, she’d want to know the truth herself. She slowly opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on him, her brow knitting slightly. “Are you sure you don’t know what these feelings you have are?” She asked quietly, her voice just above a whisper.

His eyes widened at her words, indigo eyes shifting from her to whoever he was looking at, panic clear as day.

“Oh, calm down. I’m not here to pick a fight,” Pidge grumbled as she approached, holding two fluted glasses. She offered one to Maia before taking a small sip of her own. “Hmm. Not half bad for an alien punch.”

Maia didn’t even try to hide the smile that turned up on her lips, looking from Keith to Pidge happily. She could tell by how tense he got that he knew that she knew it was the Paladin he’d been gawking at during her reading. She tightened her grip on his hand, sensing that he planned to politely sneak it away and try to flee. She took a sip of her drink before offering it to Kolivan. “Would you be so kind as to hold this for me for a moment?”

He looked a touch confused but nodded, carefully taking the flute from her. With her hand freed, she turned her attention back to Keith and Pidge. “You two seem to be having some kind of difficulty in your relationship, I hear,” She said calmly, trying to take advantage of Pidge’s distracted state to get a hold of her other hand.

The other was quick, though. Her gaze shifted from Maia, looking ready to tear into her for trying to involve herself, before her eyes locked on Keith’s hand still clutched by the princess. She shifted, moving to take a step back in preparation for her escape. “Whatever you’re trying to do, don’t!” She seethed lowly.

“This is going to be a good thing, I promise!” Maia huffed back, determined, and seized up the other’s wrist instead. The grip wasn’t ideal, but it would work well enough. “Just let me help you!”

“I don’t need any help with this!” Pidge snapped back.

“Yes, you do!” Maia yelled back, tightening her grip and kicking up her power on accident. If she wasn’t focused on her targets, then her ability to channel was a bit off-kilter, as she had learned many times before. If she was too focused on one, all that happened was a one-way transfer of the most basic reading of emotion. Keith and Pidge both visibly froze as they realized what was happening, the odd warm sensation that Maia’s powers caused coursing through both of them and laying everything at their feet.

Well, at one of theirs feet; specifically, Pidge’s feelings at Keith’s feet.

It was a whole minute of silence before Maia was able to compose herself enough to try and correct the flow of the channel, but it was also enough time for Pidge’s brain to catch back up with what was happening. At first, in her shock and horror and embarrassment, she dropped her drink, the glass shattering on the polished tile with the sound of a warning alarm blaring. Conversations around them died down significantly, eyes turning to gawk at them, and the embarrassment and horror grew stronger in Pidge as she looked around frantically. She yanked free of the other young woman’s grasp and staggered back a few steps. “What did you do?” She shouted, clutching her hand to her chest as if she’d been hurt.

She was more just yelling because she didn’t know what else to do, what else to say.

Maia shrunk in a bit, holding her own hands up defensively. An anxious glance around showed that a much wider circle of intrigue had been made, growing as the commotion itself grew louder. “I-It’s okay, Green Paladin, this is an easy fix. Just let me open the channel the other way and it’ll all make sense,” She insisted, trying to calm the other back down.

“Pidge,” Keith said suddenly, his voice quiet and somber, both women turning to face him.

Pidge’s eyes widened a bit at how he watched her, with eyes that were soft and gentle with what she could only label as pity. Her stomach roiled in discomfort, her face growing hotter with a shameful flush. She said nothing before turning and darting towards the double doors leading out of the grand hall. “Ah, Pidge, wait!” Maia called, moving to go after her. She then stopped and wheeled around to pin Keith with a displeased scowl. “Why did you have to do that?”

He blinked, bewildered, then scowled in return. “Excuse me? You’re the one who used her weird powers to do whatever it is you just did!” He accused.

Maia opened her mouth to respond when she heard an intrigued hum from behind her, familiar and chilling, and instead clamped her mouth shut. “Yes, Maia, what did you do, hmm?”

She slowly turned, lifting her gaze to meet the disapproving frowns of her parents. “Momma… Mother,” She said uneasily, her gaze shifting from each of them in turn.

“What’s going on over here? Is everything okay?” Shiro asked as he walked over, Coran and the other Paladins a few steps behind him. Keith noted that Allura bore a similar look on her face as Princess

“This is my fault,” Maia said quietly, wringing her hands uneasily. She glanced over at Keith, who still seemed surprised and muddled about what had happened. “I meant to do a transference of emotion between the two of them, in hopes of opening the channel of communication between them to discuss their mirrored emotional conflicts, but it didn’t go well. She seemed to know that something was going to happen and tried to run off but I wouldn’t let her. I only ended up transferring Pidge’s emotions to Keith. And she was far from happy about that and ran off.”

“Maia, you know you aren’t supposed to be using that technique yet. You haven’t gained a high enough level of control to complete the transfer properly; especially in a situation where you yourself are not completely composed,” Queen Simona said, her tone firm but otherwise composed.

“I’m so sorry about all of this,” The other queen said as she turned to the Paladins and two Blade members, seeming a bit frantic over it all.

“It’s not your fault, Queen Adalyn,” Shiro said.

“Especially since I doubt she was acting alone, Your Highness,” Coran chimed, casting a firm glance over his shoulder at Allura. The other jumped a bit in surprise before glancing down at where she was tapping the tiles on the floor with the toe of her Paladin boot.

“I just wanted to help, but I’ve only made things worse,” Maia mumbled softly.

Queen Simona sighed and looked over at Shiro. “I apologize for this, sincerely,”

“I’ll see if I can’t get her to come back. She should still have the communication device on her helmet switched on,” He explained with a small sigh, shifting away to try and reach her.

While he did that, Keith turned to look over at the other Paladins. “Poor Pidge. She must be really embarrassed,” Hunk said worriedly.

Keith opened his mouth to say something when Lance snorted. “Well, can you blame her? Who wouldn’t be embarrassed about having a crush on Keith?”

“Lance!” Allura seethed, pinning him with a glare.

“What? I’m just telling the truth!” He argued.

“She isn’t answering the comms. Which means she’s either turned the comms off, or removed her helmet,” Shiro said with a small sigh.

Simona nodded. “I’ll get in touch with Giselle. Her cameras should grant her a full reign of the territory of the castle. So long as she hasn’t gone running into town, we should be able to track her down,” She said, carefully lifting the skirt of her dress to head off. She briefly glanced at the shattered glass and drink on the floor, thankfully unperturbed since its fall. “And I’ll see about having that cleaned up, to avoid any potential slips or injuries.”

“I’ll go with you,” Shiro insisted politely. He paused briefly to stick the remaining three Paladins and Blade rookie with a stern look. “And I expect the rest of you to stay put; especially you two, Keith, Allura. We’re going to put this matter to bed the minute we find Pidge.” And, with that, he turned and followed after the queen to begin the search.

“Ugh, this is so unfair!” Lance whined, tilting his head back and setting one hand on his hips.

“I truly am sorry, to all of you. I hadn’t meant to cause this evening to go this way,” Maia chimed again, her whole figure slumped in defeat.

Hunk tried to offer her a reassuring smile, gently patting one of her shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ve all made mistakes at big, celebratory gatherings like this,” He said.

Keith turned away from them, his gaze flickering to the balcony in longing. Would stepping out there be against Shiro’s orders? Did he even have to really listen to Shiro, considering he was no longer an official member of Team Voltron? Kolivan offered him the untouched flute of punch that Maia had given him a few minutes before. “Take a moment to clear your head out there. If Shiro returns before you, I’ll inform him I ordered you to do a quick check for any intruders out there,” He said evenly.

“Thanks,” Keith said, unable to muster up a smile but hoping that the gratitude still made it through. After receiving a quick nod of acknowledgement, he slipped past the gently billowing curtains and out into the brisk night air. He stepped out until he reached the stone railing of the balcony. Once there, he rested one arm against the railing to lean out and see the gardens better. They’d been lit by floating paper lanterns and cast an almost ethereal glow on the fauna below. Though, he realized, that perhaps that was simply because this world really was drastically different than Earth, even with all the similarities?

Sometimes he wasn’t sure, what with how much traveling they did through space. He typically left debates like that to Pidge. Whenever he’d encountered something like this before, he could say it outright to her, and for the next hour or two, she would be off. She would take what he was pondering and take it to new heights and levels of intrigue that he’d never consider on his own. Sometimes he’d lose track of what she was saying or how she’d gotten to the tangent she was on, but it was nice, just listening to her wax poetic-science about the specifics of his queries.

He took a quick sip of his drink, humming a bit at the taste. It reminded him of spiced apple cider.

He wondered if Pidge would agree with him on that thought. They’d once argued about whether the Gugu Juice from the planet of Yasarut tasted like blueberries and pomegranate or blackberries and pomegranate. He took another sip and turned the thought over, analyzing his relationship with Pidge and how he appreciated the natural simplicity of it. There was no need to try and present himself in a specific light with her. He could let the walls down and simply toss out any random thought he had without the risk of scrutiny or mockery.

He didn’t have to be Keith, the rejected Garrison cadet known for being a loner.

He didn’t have to be Keith, the ace pilot and ex-Paladin of Voltron.

He didn’t have to be Keith, the rebellious Blade of Marmora rookie.

He could just be Keith, no pretense or context.

He took another sip and fought back a sigh. In the end, developing feelings for Pidge made sense, the more he thought about it. Very few of the people he’d encountered ever allowed him to be so authentically himself before. His father had, within reason, of course; and, in the same vein, so did Shiro. Pidge never expected Keith to be or do more than he ever felt comfortable with. There was something about the ease of their relationship that felt like the first gulp of water after traversing the desert for many hours. But, with that freedom came the stifling fear that Keith would lose her just like he lost everyone that ever meant so much to him before. So he stashed his feelings under layers of fear and befuddlement, as a way to never have to acknowledge or act upon them.

That, he realized, wasn’t going to work anymore, though. Knowing the thoughts that were rattling around in Pidge’s head cleared things up for him. He know understood why she’d been so hostile about the scar he’d gotten from his latest Blade mission. The situation at current was far from ideal for either of them, but it left him feeling a need to face the truth wholeheartedly. Even if she ended up telling him off, proclaiming that it was just a crush and he was reading too much into it, he still wanted to have that conversation. He didn’t want to keep lying about his own stance on it, regardless of how much it would hurt to be rejected. He noticed motion across the garden from himself, by a large tree near the small waterfall.

There, huddled in close to herself, sat Pidge. Her helmet had rolled a few feet away and her face was hidden between her knees and crossed arms.

He stole a glance over his shoulder and, upon confirming that Kolivan was preoccupied with talking with Queen Adalyn, set his half-downed flute down on the balcony and hopped over the railing.

It wasn’t a particularly steep drop, and even then Keith had been smart about going down in stages to avoid injury. He navigated himself carefully, managing to make it to the small bridge in decent time and coming to a halt right after he crossed it. He could still see Pidge’s figure, but he could see her better now. The slight shake of her shoulders told him that she was either trying to fight back tears or was simply trying to mask that she’d surrendered. Approaching her now would most likely end with her cursing him out and threatening to tazz him with her bayard, depending on how he decided to go about it.

He took a deep breath before taking the final few steps towards her, stopping when there was a wide enough girth between them that she should – hopefully – feel unthreatened. “I’m sorry,” He blurted without thinking. She stilled and tensed, one of her hands shifting towards her face. He waited a moment longer, but when she didn’t start talking or move to run away, he decided to press things further. “And, I mean… I know that it isn’t ideal, but it could be worse. It could be Lance that you have a crush on.” He offered.

Her head shot up at that and he froze under the incredulous look on her face.

“Okay, bad example, I should have thought about that better,” He admitted, holding his hands up defensively, “but I think my main point is still kinda fair. I mean, I get it. I’m not the guy people think of when they think about people to have a crush on. And, yeah, that’s something I can totally understand. I know who I am and… I can understand why it’d be embarrassing to have an interest in someone like me. I’m not exactly good with people, and I’m way too impulsive, but I just… I wanted to say that I feel something like that for you, too. And I’m not really sure what caused you to end up liking me like that, but I’m really sorry that you’ve had to deal with those feelings.”

“What?” Pidge asked with a small laugh, carefully unfurling herself and cocking her head. The laugh had been mirthless and there was confusion on her face, which at least helped to soothe him a bit. She wasn’t being malicious about it, at least.

“That’s why you ran off, and I understand,”

“Why do you think I ran off?” She asked curiously, slowly pushing herself upright. He couldn’t read the look in her eyes as she settled on her feet and something about it made him uneasy.

Transparency with one another was kind of their thing. Or, rather, he’d always considered it to be there thing.

“Because you were embarrassed about having a crush on me,” He said bluntly, as if it should be absolutely obvious.

She shifted and began to walk towards him. “Well, you’re half right,” She said calmly. She stopped a few feet from him, brow knitting in confusion. She glanced briefly at the waterfall, nibbling a bit on her lower lip like she always did when she was turning over a confusion thought, then looked back up at him. “What did you get from Princess Maia, exactly?”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I got that you have a crush on me, that you’re mad at me, that you were embarrassed and horrified about the whole crush thing-!”

“Wait, what?”

“I could literally sense your feelings because of Maia, Pidge; you don’t need to pretend,” He said, wincing a bit and averting his gaze. This whole thing was starting to enter the point of discomfort and, not for the first time, he found himself cursing his impulsive nature.

“Is that what you thought those feelings were about?” She asked, and this time when she laughed it felt a bit more genuine.

He screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to look back at her. “Well, excuse me for piecing things together with what I had! You don’t need to make fun of me because of it!”

“Look, Keith, you’re-!”

“I already know what you’re going to say, Pidge! I only came over here so that I could say my piece so that we could move forward from this!” He snapped, still refusing to open his eyes. He felt like if he looked at her, if he saw the mocking delight that he was sure was in her face, their relationship could never resume any sense of what they’d had before. He didn’t want to lose Pidge as a friend, didn’t want to lose that easy companionship. He could pushing his feelings up the hill to get over them if they were out in the open, he was sure, but he wasn’t sure if he could if he saw the jeering look on her face.

But then there was a set of suit-covered hands on his cheeks, the warmth of her palms still managing to reach him through the material. His eyes snapped open and he finally turned to face her. There was no malice or mockery in her eyes, surprising as that was. She looked a little exasperated, but there was something softer paired with him, something he was a bit too scared to name. Her hands slide down, sliding from either side of his face to either side of his neck.

He could feel his own pulse thrumming like made, as if his blood was kerosene touched by a lit match.

Pidge shifted, pressing herself up on tip-toes and looping her arms around his shoulders. Her head just skirted past his, shifting to rest her head against the side of his. “I was embarrassed because I didn’t want you to know how I felt yet; not because I was embarrassed about how I felt, you doof,” She said with a small laugh. She gave him a small squeeze. “I ran off because the way you looked at me after the transfer… It looked like you were pitying me.”

He blinked then, slowly so she could stop him if she wanted to, looped his arms around her as well, settling his hands between her shoulder blades and the middle of her back respectively. “It was pity, but not directed at you; it was just pity that we’d both had kinda similar feelings and had wasted a lot of time not talking about it. Why didn’t you want me to know yet?”

“Because… It’s complicated, you know? It’d be complicated if we decided to pursue a relationship, and it’d be complicated if we decided not to, and just… I didn’t want to have to deal with it. At least not yet,” She said quietly, slumping a bit. He could tell she was feeling exhausted by the events, which was unsurprising. He was feeling pretty worn out himself.

“We could find a way. I mean, find a way to make it a little less complicated,” He mumbled, closing his eyes a bit.

She let out a small hum and he quashed the disappointment at how disbelieving it sounded. “I’m not so sure,”

“But can we at least try? Try to figure something out?” He pressed quietly.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Yes? Let me think for a little bit, okay?” She prompted, seeming just as thrown as he was. But he was fine with that, he figured. Perhaps they could as Queen Simona to help them figure out their compromise before they left.

[thenerdytomboynewb96]

Samantha Allan Park Ch. #45

Any references to TMNT or anything from popular media and culture is NOT MINE. I only own my OC's. Any references to “TMNT Out of the Shadows” DO NOT BELONG TO ME. Only my additions that I came up with myself belong to me. Anything from the films or other series ARE NOT MINE, only my OC’s and my ideas that I have added onto the story FOR FUN. Thank you.

Chapter #45

*The same day, Monday June 8th, 2015. A little after 12:50p.m. in the lair*

The fight had ended at 12:50p.m. The turtles wanted to head straight home, but Sam knew that she couldn’t run from Chief Vincent forever. Her turtle brothers however were not going to allow her to turn herself over so easily. They convinced her to at least return with them to the lair and have a full on discussion with everyone who played a role in the events that had occurred that day.

When the group of 5 returned to the lair, they met up with April, Casey, Jay, and Vern. All three men instantly began talking about how ‘badass’ they were during their fights (after Jay rushed over to hug his sister, while also mildly panicking at her injuries, and then further checking to make sure she was truly okay). Jay and Casey talked about how they teamed up and out-smarted the giant mutants they were up against, and Vern was thrilled to announce that he had taken out a Foot soldier all by himself by jumping down from a large freight shipping crate. While Raph was impressed with what these guys had accomplished, he was getting fed up that Sam kept standing up from her chair and that he had to keep gently pushing her back down to stay seated. She had stood up for the 5th time by the time he was fed up and was ready for the conversation to get back on track.

“Alright already! You guys did great, and we appreciate it, but can we please talk about how we’re going to handle THIS?” he emphasized as he shoved Sam back down into her chair for the 6th time. Sam plopped down and groaned as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “Ughhhhh can I please get up so I can use the bathroom?” Raph crossed his arms and looked down at her. “I don’t buy it” he huffed. “Raph, the main bathroom is right around that corner. She’s knows that if she tries to leave that I have access to all the tunnels traps right here” Donnie said gently (but also in a tone so that she knew that even though he was facing Raph he knew Sam would get the hint). “I don’t want to escape, I just wanna pee!” Sam whined, her face literally on the table as she leaned forward in her chair. “Fine” Raph gave in. Sam then quickly scoot back in her chair and rushed to stand up. She made sure to glare at Raph before she practically ran towards the bathroom. “Don’t give me that face!” Raph called after her. “If you don’t like my face then look at my ass!” she retorted. Mikey quickly cupped his hand to his mouth to hide his laughter, but Raph smacked him across the back of the head anyway. “My sister everyone” Jay said as he shook his head and laughed. “So, you guys knew she would have turned herself in back there to, huh?” he asked. The four sighed and slumped down into the remaining chairs at the table. “If we hadn’t boxed her in then she would have walked right over towards Vincent without even thinking about it!” Donnie scream whispered, slamming his pointer finger into the table as a means to emphasize his frustration. “We have to come up with something” Mikey said softly with saddened eyes, “we can’t just let her throw her life away.” “Casey, what are the odds of Vincent meeting with Sam and discussing everything that happened the other night and why she attacked the police the way she did?” Leo asked. Casey bit his lip and rubbed his hands down his neck. “Before tonight I would have said she didn’t have a chance at all for that to happen, but after seeing how you guys saved the city and possibly the entire world, she may give her a chance to explain. I can definitely talk to her, and Jay, April, and Jade can aide me as well. If you’re willing that is” Casey said as he now turned and faced April. The woman began nodding her head as soon as she heard her name. “Of course. She’s been through hell, and Vincent needs to understand that before she makes her final decision in how to deal with Sam.” “So it’s settled,” Raph added, “we keep things down low and avoid telling Sam because who knows what she’ll try to sneak by us. You guys talk to Vincent, we keep her busy down here until the time comes for Sam to meet with the chief.” “She has to rest up anyway. Her shoulder needs to properly heal, and her hands were cut up pretty badly as well” Donnie added. “We’ll use that, and also testing out her powers as reasons as to why we want to keep her down here.” “One more thing” Mikey added. All eyes were now on the youngest in the room. Leo couldn’t explain it, but somehow he knew just what his baby brother was going to say, and he agreed with it wholeheartedly. “Whenever Vincent decides to meet Sam, we HAVE to be allowed to join her. The two don’t meet in any way unless the four of us are right behind her” Mikey demanded, using his hands to speak the same way Donnie had. Donnie and Raph looked at their youngest, and then right towards their oldest brother. They waited for him to state why this was a bad idea, but Leo just shrugged and smiled. “Couldn’t have said it better myself” he chuckled.

Just then Sam had exited the bathroom. She looked up and could tell that everyone was purposefully making sure to avoid eye contact with her, which obviously meant that they had all been talking about her. She rolled her eyes as she continued to walk towards the table. “Geez, you use the bathroom once and you turn into Medusa” she stated as she walked back and slumped down into her chair. “Well then you should be honored to see yourself as such a lovely lady” Mikey said cheerfully, thinking he was complimenting his friend. Sam squinted her eyes and formed an odd smile as she turned towards her friend. “Mikey, who’s Medusa?” she asked. He shrugged. “I dunno, some goddess right?” Sam nodded. “If that’s all you know, then I’ll take what you just said as a compliment” Sam said with a smile. “Exactly!” Mikey announced, crossing his arms with pride.

“Well we don’t want you turning men into stone so you’re going to relax down here” Jay said as he pat his sister on the shoulder and stood up. “Saw that coming” Sam mumbled. “And hey look at this” Donnie said as he held the girls hand to her face, “you’re also injured! And this isn’t your only injury either! So that means you get to head over to the med lab. Looks like you were staying here anyway” he said with too much enthusiasm as he pulled Sam along with him, even if she was groaning all the way.

With that, the turtles gave Donnie space to check on Sam (who ended up nerding out as Donnie tested some of his latest medical tech on her). Each of the remaining brothers went off on their own for a while. Meanwhile, their human friends up above were working towards arranging that meeting like they discussed. Sam had no idea this was in the works, and that’s just how they wanted it to be. Jade and Casey talked to Vincent first and provided evidence (with Jay sharing his own personal stories as well) as to how Sam ended up in her current situation. He included details of how they grew up and the tragedies they faced and how that led her to the turtles who had continued to help straighten her out. April also joined in and explained the turtles back story (after gaining permission from the turtles and Splinter to do so) and helped fill in missing details about what had happened that the turtles cared for Sam so much, why they were working together to break into headquarters that night, and why Sam had reacted the way that she did. After 4 days of discussions and research on the events that had occurred recently, Vincent finally decided that she would meet with Sam with the turtles behind her.

*4 days later, Friday June 12th, 2015 at 9p.m. at Police Headquarters. The hallway right outside the chiefs office*

The group of 5 were updated that Vincent was willing to meet with Sam and that she was kind enough to let the turtles accompany her. However, the turtles needed to remain silent and let Sam do the talking on her own. If they wanted to remain in the room with her, then they needed to remain calm. She wanted to meet with them in a private location where she could record the conversation, so she made arrangements for the group to meet her in her office once the sun would be going down. She sent the majority of her officer’s home so that the group would have the walk of the building without exposure of being seen by new faces. So here they were. Sam was sitting calmly outside the office. The brothers…not so much.

Raph was pacing as he always did, crunching a hand weight as he did so. Leo kept tapping his feet. Donnie was holding a small cellular device in his hand which he kept tapping against the palm of his other hand. Mikey was constantly twiddling his thumbs together. Sam was about to say something to them, but Jade had interrupted her thoughts as she carefully exited the office. “The chief is ready to see you now” she stated. The four boys shot right up and got into their typical formation: two brothers in front of Sam, two brothers behind.

The group entered the office. The boys stood a little further towards the back while Sam took a seat in the front. She was hooked up with patches and wires in order to conduct a lie detector test. The man reviewing the results was a member of the NYFS who had already seen the turtles before and had sworn long ago never to reveal a bit of information about them to anyone. Chief Vincent smiled as she noticed how the boys were respecting her wishes. “The four of you may sit down as well. I said you couldn’t talk over top of her, I didn’t say you had to hide yourselves.” The four nodded and then assumed their same positions. Mikey sat on Sam’s left and Leo on her right. Raph sat behind Mikey, and Donnie right behind Leo.   “So,” the chief said as she stared right at Sam’s eyes, “I’m going to run through things from the very beginning, and I’m going to ask you some questions to see if they match what other voices have told me.” Sam was silent, but she nodded to show she understood. “What happened July 28th 2010?” Sam pursed her lips together before she spoke. “I lost everything, everything except for my brother.” “How?” “The Foot. They killed everyone.” “Who-” “My siblings, my family” Sam cut in. Vincent nodded her head. “I see. And you were 12 at the time. I can see how that would lead you to lash out and commit the crimes that you did” Vincent said as she held her hands together on her desk. “I see you’ve been looking at my record” Sam stated. “You have a record?” Mikey asked, slight shock in his voice. His eyes went wide and he then turned towards the chief. “Oh, I’m so sorry-” “It’s okay. Obviously your friend never told you about her criminal days. I’d advise you explain your thought process now.” Sam gulped and sighed. “You know how I bring you guys with me to explore the city? Well, it took me a few tries before I became good at it.” “Oh” the chief said with wide eyes, “you’ve included them in your breaking and entering?” Now Sam was starting to get pissed. She responded with more sass and attitude than she had meant to. “Yes. Because my family was dead, my brother was never around because he was being manipulated to work for the Foot, and every friend or anything close I ever had completed abandoned me because they knew why my family died but decided to hide the truth from me until it almost ruined my life even further. So yes, when you have nothing to look forward to, you find something that makes you feel alive again, something risky that makes you feel like you’re fighting back even though you don’t know what you’re fighting for, something that-” Just then she felt a hand from each brother on either her arm or her shoulder. She closed her eyes and didn’t open them until she had calmed herself down. “Yes. I snuck into places because I had nothing, and that’s what gave me purpose, like I was looking for any type of sign. Eventually that lead me to these guys, and for once I had something to look forward to.” “And that was?” Sam looked the chief right in the eye. “Living life to the fullest with my family.” Vincent couldn’t help but notice the small smiles that were being fought to be kept hidden away from the brothers as they listened to the girl talk. “Well, it seems these four have helped keep you out of trouble at least since after those 4 incidents of us catching you breaking into various buildings, the only things we have left on your record are all your different therapy sessions. Besides for medical and academic records, nothing comes back up under your name until last summer when you apparently joined the Foot clan. Explain that to me.” Leo and Mikey sensed Sam clenching her fists under the table. She was obviously growing frustrated from having to discuss some of the most depressing and most difficult times of her life all at this one very moment. “My brother told me to leave the city and run away because Shredder wanted me as a recruit. But I knew that leaving would lead to Jay’s death, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.” Chief Vincent tilted her head to the side. “Why exactly did Shredder want you of all people?” “Look at who’s sitting around me” Sam said matter of factly. She felt a light nudge by Leo, meaning she needed to politely answer the question again. “Shredder found out I was friends with these guys, so he demanded that I either come work for him, or Jay and I both perish. At the time plans were already being made for a rebellion to occur within the Foot clan, so I joined thinking I would be in and out quickly. Unfortunately I was in there for an entire month before the plans were put into action.”

“And that’s where these four come in, right? You became closer to them because they helped save you and everyone else.” The room was silent as everyone waited for a remark from Sam. Without moving their entire bodies, the four brothers slightly turned so they could look at Sam, confused and worried at her long pause. Finally, she figured out how she wanted to respond. “It…it was a lot more than them just showing up to save me…” she muttered. She then looked up and saw that based on the chief’s expression, she was obviously waiting for Sam to elaborate on that response. This was all really beginning to stress her out. Every dark turn her life had ever faced was being relived right now, right in this moment, and it was beginning to pull her into a brand new dark hole in itself from the upsetting emotions she was experiencing. She then felt Mikey place his leg right next to hers, and even this gentlest type of physical contact brought her back to reality. “I had just gained their trust, they had just started seeing me as family. And what happens? They see me working with the Foot clan. They felt betrayed, I felt like an idiot, I got into a fist fight with one of them and could have possibly killed him, and then the rest told me to leave.” All four brothers looked off to the side, remembering these dark days and regretting so much about how everything was handled. “All in all, I betrayed my family and once again I felt like I had lost everything. So when they showed up unexpectedly, it changed everything.” Sam then looked back up at the chief, hoping she had said enough to answer the chiefs question, and she could tell by Vincent’s expression that she had done so. “Alright. So explain to me how you gained these powers then. What caused them?” “A mix of Shredder’s experiments and also me dying” Sam said straightforward. This caught the chief off guard. “Excuse me?” “Oh, you didn’t know? Shredder was constantly testing mutagenic chemicals on humans and-” “Not that. You, you died?” “Oh yeah. Saving this one” she said, shaking her hand with her thumb pointed towards Mikey, who looked embarrassed as he was being pointed at. “But it’s okay because he used a special type of mutagen that brought me back to life. It gave me powers in regards to controlling and manipulating wind while also giving me enhanced strength. And yes, that’s what you saw at headquarters the other night, an example of what those powers can do-” “Objection!” Donnie interrupted, the thoughts in his head overriding his actions. His brothers were all staring at him with wide eyes, hoping that whatever he had to say wouldn’t get them or Sam in trouble. Sam however was smirking as she turned around to face Donnie. “Objection?” she asked. “Um, I just had something to add, if that’s allowed” Donnie stated, attempting to sound confident as he first looked at Sam and then at the chief. The chief nodded. “Alright, go on.”

“Sam gained her powers because of the mutagen that was injected into her body due to circumstances involving her time with the Foot, but we’ve been monitoring them as best as we can. We’ve learned a great deal about how they work and what she is able to do with them, but we also just recently learned that this mutagen zones in on the users temporal lobe in the brain, meaning it can affect memories and emotions. So when she attacked the other night at headquarters-” “It was out of her control” the chief interrupted. “It’s obvious she has an emotional connection to all of you, so based on what you just said, when her family was threatened she took action.” “Couldn’t control the action at the time” Sam mumbled, “but I can now. I would never harm anybody like that on purpose.” “How do you know your emotional senses are now stable?” the chief asked. “She controlled herself during our fight with Krang” Leo added. “Mikey got caught, but Sam controlled herself and helped us save him, rather than letting her protective emotions take over and just act without thinking.” ‘So she was with them’ the chief thought to herself. She was still curious and a bit worried about what risks the girl in front of her could cause to the city, but it seemed she was with a crowd that could maintain control of her. This played a major role in the chief making her final decisions about what to do with Sam.

“Alright, so here’s the deal” the chief began, “we have records of Sam, and we have records of you. Sam’s were already on file, but all my information about the four of you is pretty new. I’ve seen video files that were hidden away from the night the Foot fell, and many ex Foot in the NYFS told stories of how they were stopped because of you guys and how if it weren’t for you, Shredder would have gotten away with a lot worse in the past. As for you” she said as she now stared directly at Sam, “while you have a record, you’ve experienced things that no person should ever have to go through, let alone a child. I’m not saying that makes your early actions okay, but I see where your mind was. That and the fact that your brother eventually convinced you to clean up your act and you’re now in programs that positively represent our city, it’s obvious you’re no longer into regular criminal activity. I’m not exactly thrilled to hear you sneak into buildings after dark, but it also sounds like you’re also doing so with these four who obviously have an incredible impact on you. Oh, I read all the letters people sent to the four of you, and if you’re ever interested we’ll make sure you see them” she said with a small smile. “SO, because of your improving records and emotionally reasonable life decisions you’ve made in the past, and because of the good work your friends have done to keep this city safe, I’m letting you off with a warning.” All 5 sets of eyes were now staring wide at the chief. She smirked. “Even though you broke many obvious laws in regards to harming officers, you yourself have helped keep this city safe by taking tremendous risks to your body that aided you in stopping Shredder when you probably could work towards taking over the city yourself. So, as long as you follow my rules, then you��re safe.” “And, what exactly are your rules?” Sam asked cautiously.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the NYPD and the NYFS are officially partners now, so anytime you hear anything about this Krang or Shredder or god knows what else will come for us, you ALL need to report your findings to us. In order for our parties to respect each other, we have to trust each other and work together.” The group nodded, assuming this wasn’t such a bad rule. “I’m going to turn a blind eye to your group sneaking into places since from what I’ve understood none of you have ever stolen anything anywhere you’ve gone. As the cities heroes that hide in the shadows, we’ll pretend we don’t know anything as long as you don’t break any rules outside of sneaking in.” Again, the group nodded their heads. “My final rule, you all need to send updates to the NYFS about Sam’s powers and any progress you make in better understanding them.” The chief could sense the tension in the room once she stated her final rule. “Look,” she said as she made sure to face each person in the room at least once as she spoke, “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but if for whatever reason something goes wrong I need to know so that I can keep the people within this city safe. I have no idea what exactly could go wrong, but that’s also because I don’t know anything about these powers except for what you told me seconds ago. I’m fine with you conducting whatever tests you’re planning since the other day you made it clear that you have enough tech to do so, but we need those records after you’ve collected them. If that fails to happen, then any tests deemed important will be conducted by the NYFS. Plus, this allows the rest of us to understand what’s going on in case, somehow, Sam seems off to certain extents. The way I’m explaining it sounds horrible, but I hope you all can understand what I’m getting at.”

Leo nodded his head. “We get what you’re saying. Donnie?” he asked since this last rule would affect him the most out of his brothers. “I get it. Message received loud and clear” Donnie stated. He wasn’t thrilled with basically having to share information about what type of tech he had or would be using since this would be revealed in the tests that would be completed, but if it meant keeping Sam safe then these reveals would be worth it. “Alright” the chief said as she stood up with a smile, “in that case you’re all free to go. Oh, and I assume we’ll see you all tomorrow at this same time down around Battery Park.” The boys looked back and forth at each other in confusion. “Battery Park, ma’am?” Leo asked. Her face scrunched as she stared back at him. “Well yes, it’s one of the few places you can go in order to reach the Statue of Liberty. That’s where your ceremony is being held.” “Our ceremony?” Raph questioned. “Yes, where you’re all getting your keys to the city. Did you not tell them?” the chief asked as she looked down at Sam. Sam was trying her best not to laugh at the shocked expressions on the boys faces. “Heh, no” she stated bluntly, playfully curling up in her chair as a chorus of ‘SAMMMM!’ ‘Aw come on!’ and other claims were made aloud. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Leo asked in a mix of frustration and excitement. “Because your reactions are priceless. I wanted to see if I could go all the way up until tomorrow night before you realized. But this reveal is just as awesome” she said as all the brothers started nudging her. “We’ll be there and ready right at 9” Leo reassured to the chief. “Excellent.” “Oh, just to be sure-” “The only ones that will be there are your immediate human family and the officers who helped you enter the building” the chief said with a smile, knowing what Leo was thinking before he could speak. “Anything else I can answer for you before you go?” she asked. Leo paused, and then a huge smile grew on his face. “Can we bring our dad?”

*The next night, Saturday June 12th, 2015. 9p.m. at the Statue of Liberty monument*

And that was exactly where the group was now. Donnie had driven the truck and followed Jay and Casey’s cars all the way towards Battery Park where the group then boarded a ferry that took them over to the Statue of Liberty monument site. There the four were given their keys to the city as a small ceremony was held to congratulate and thank the turtles for their hard work. Chief Vincent stood and spoke from a speaking stand as she gave a short speech about who the turtles were and all that they had done for the city. All the participating officers stood in rows in front of the small stage where the turtles were now standing tall and proud. In the crowd stood Vern, and on his right Jade, and then Jay, Sam, April, and Casey on the far end. Splinter had also joined the group and was currently attending the event, but he could sense that multiple female officers were a bit ‘freaked out’ by his appearance as a giant rat, so in respect to them he decided to find a comfortable spot where he could bask in the warmth from the lights above and made it his own. He was still in clear and close eye sight of his boys, and that’s all that mattered. As the brothers stood on the stage, Leo, Donnie, and Mikey were all facing towards the chief as she spoke while Raph was currently facing outwards at the crowd of people who were here congratulating him and his brothers, something he never thought would ever happen. Chief Vincent was now coming towards the end of her speech. He then began to smirk as he saw Sam keep wiping at her eyes. Man she was more emotional than she allowed people to know and realize about her.

“For your incredible valor within this community, and for your uncompromising cooperation with this agency, I present to you the keys to the city. A symbol of our appreciation, respect, and for our continued partnership. To you, brothers: Leonardo” Leo had been staring out towards his father. Knowing that his dad was here to see the progress that he and his brothers had made in keeping the city safe, and in working together as a team based on everything their father had ever taught them, this was one of the greatest honors he could ever truly receive. He then looked up at the chief as he heard her announce his name and he shot her an appreciative smile, displaying how thankful he truly was for this experience. “Raphael” Raph shot a similar smile towards the chief and then shone this smile towards the crowd, specifically his human family. It all started with April, and then Vern came along and helped them (no matter how ‘macho’ he tried to be) and then came Sam and Jay, and now even Casey seemed to care and want to help lookout for the group, and Raph would be a total liar if he said he didn’t feel any type of bromance with the hockey maniac that had joined their group.   “Donatello” Donnie had been watching his brothers as their names were called and was grateful just to see the two of them calm and at peace for once. While he was excited to receive this honor, right now it was his brothers that were all on his mind. Family always came first, and to see his oldest brothers so happy meant more to him than any key to the city ever could. He then turned in time to see his youngest brother have his name called, and he chuckled at the way his baby brother reacted. “Michelangelo” Mikey had been staring at all his oldest brothers the way Donnie had. As a younger brother, all he could ever want was for his oldest 3 brothers to feel happy and at peace, so seeing their reactions made his heart happier than anything else. However, he was still the baby brother, so of course his reaction was still very comical compared to Donnie’s more mature and nonchalant glanced smile to the crowd. Mikey heard his name and he whipped his body forward and his hand shot up to give a quick wave to the all those watching.

“Uh, last names?” the chief whispered to the brothers. Each of their faces went blank as they realized they had never EVER thought of this, and they also began to wonder how the heck they had never once thought of this. Donnie was about to make a comment when they all heard someone coughing, and possibly trying to speak from the crowd. “cough, cough, ama, cough, toe” Sam coughed. “I’m sorry?” the chief questioned. “Ahem” Sam said, lightly beating her hand to her chest to make it seem like she was actually coughing. “I said their last name is Hamato” she said as she held her arms down below in front of her waist and twiddled her thumbs. She then turned towards Splinters direction, as if gaining his approval. “Right Sensei?” Splinter stroked his furred beard between his claws. “Hmmm Hamato, as in the great ninja Hamato Yoshi…yes, that seems like a nice last name for our family. It blends together quite well.” He then noticed Sam giving him a thumbs up with a large smile on her face, and the old rat couldn’t help but laugh as he shot her a thumbs up in return.

“In that case, to the Hamato brothers, congratulations” the chief announced as a round of applause pursued for the brothers. People then began to disperse and talk amongst each other. Sam was smiling and watching over the brothers, who were now excitedly talking amongst each other, as she felt a light nudge in her right side. “Well, looks like someone had to copy me, huh?” April teased. “Psh, you named all of them, it’s only fair that I get to give them one last name to share” she said as she nudged the woman back. “She’s got a point” Casey added. April then teasingly shot him a confused look. “Okay, who’s side are you on?” she asked. Sam noticed the obvious fliting going on between these two, so she turned to talk to Jay, only to notice that he was talking to Jade and Vern, so she decided it was time to move forward and congratulate her brothers. She took a few steps forward and hopped up onto the small stage. She then paused for a moment before deciding which brother to stand by and from which direction, trying not to obviously walk right over towards him first. She then shook her head, deciding that it didn’t matter if she walked towards him or any other brother, they were all family and that’s what mattered. “Wooooooooooow” she said as she leaned in close towards Leo’s chest, “these things really shine.” Leo gently pushed her back as he laughed. “Thank you for respecting me by not touching the key, but you’re invading my personal space.” “Dude, personal space doesn’t exist within this family” Sam teased. Leo shrugged. “Fair enough” he said as he threw his arm around her, although he did so in a way where Sam now had an arm basically covering her head so that she couldn’t stand up, similar to what he’d do if he were wrestling Mikey. “Okay! Okay I get it!” she said through laughs. Leo turned to face her once he let go. “Hamato Leonardo. I like it. It rolls off the tongue well” he said with a smile. “Right?! Like they all sound good when pronounced it the English format-” “English format?” Mikey questioned. “Yeah, like first name then last. Michelangelo Hamato. It sounds good right. But when said like how names are pronounced in Japan, last name then first, so Hamato Michelangelo-” “That sounds badass!” Mikey stated with wide excited eyes. Sam snapped her fingers and then pointed at him. “Exactly!” “What made you choose that name?” Donnie asked. “What, you don’t like it?” She groaned as a means to tease him. He chuckled in response. “Actually, I love it. It sounds perfect. I’m just curious why seaside.” “Why what?” Raph asked. “That’s what Hamato is known to stand for” Sam responded. “But I chose it more so because of who the name belonged to rather than its meaning. The Hamato clan was known to defend and protect each other until their final breath. They were true warriors who honored the codes of the ninja, but also strongly believed in protecting one another. They lived in the shadows, but they made sure the rest of their clan was their waiting for them when they came back. They didn’t go behind each other’s back and they didn’t betray each other. They were a true family” she said with pride. “Awww look at you getting all mushy” Raph said as he ruffled the girl’s hair, in which she playfully scowled at him in response.

“Oh that’s Sam alright” Jay said as he hopped up onto the small stage. “She has more emotions bottled up in here than she lets on” he said as he rubbed his knuckle against the top of her head. He then faced the four brothers. “Alright so I have three comments and questions for the four of you. First of all, congratulations Mr, Mr, Mr, and Mr. Hamato” he said as he waved his arm in front of him and then bowed. “Second. I wanted to ask this in front of all of you so that no one is keeping secrets from anyone, but this mostly pertains to you” he said as he now pointed straight at Donnie. “Me?” Donnie asked, pointing to himself. “Yes. So, there’s a project that various scientists in the NYFS are working on and we were curious to know if you’d be willing to join us. Now that the Mutanimals live in the sewers they’ve been exploring and found an awesome underground space that we can use for this project. Don’t worry, it’s nowhere near your lair, and the few guys working on this project have already seen all of you before and have sworn to keep their mouths shut. What do you guys think?” Leo paused for a second. He wanted to trust and assume this would all be safe, but he also needed to take precautions both as leader and also as the ‘always worried older brother,’ Leo looked at Jay and then back towards the rest of his brothers. “We all go and check it out the first time to see what precautions you’re taking and to meet the people you’re working with, and also to learn more about what this project is. That will determine whether he officially participates or not.” Leo then turned and faced Donatello. “Fair?” he questioned cautiously. Donnie nodded with a smile. “Fair.” Jay clapped and rubbed his hands together in excitement. “Awwww this is gonna be awesome! Alright, final comment. PLEASEEEEEE RSVP as soon as possible whether you guys are attending or not. We’re still trying to figure out how much food we need and we don’t know whether or not we’ll be sending plates up to you guys or not so once you know for sure please contact me” he said, holding his hands in front of him as if he was praying for their cooperation. Leo chuckled but shot him a puzzled look. “Um, sure. But what are we RSVPing for exactly?” Then the brothers paused as they began to realize what Jay was talking about. “Wait, you don’t mean what I think you mean!” Mikey exclaimed with a huge smile on his face. “But, how? No way!” Raph stated. Jay’s eyes were wide and his jaw dropped low. “Wait, are you guys serious?” he asked as he looked at the mix of puzzled and thrilled faces in front of him. “SAM!” While Jay had been talking to the boys, Sam had momentarily gone over and talked to Casey and Jade, but she was now returning to the stage as she heard her brother shout her name and then frantically wave her over. “What’s up?” Jay stood there with one arm crossed over his stomach and the opposite knuckle resting on his chin. He then stood in front of Sam so that she was turned so that her back was to the guys as he spoke to her. “Sam, you told the guys they’re invited to the wedding, right?” Because Sam was facing Jay she couldn’t see the jumping Michelangelo, the jaw dropped older duo, and the smiling-arms behind his head Donatello. “Of course I did!” Sam stated, waving her brother away. “Really? Tell me how they reacted” Jay said. “Well…they…huh” Sam said with her arms crossed as she looked up towards the sky as she tried to remember what she told the turtles…only to realize that she had not, and that meant they were all reacting right now behind her. Her eyes widened as she spun around and stared at the now calm brothers after getting their excitement out. “Awwwwww you boob you did that on purpose! You didn’t even record their reactions for me” she pouted. “Well that’s what you get for keeping us in the dark!” Donnie teased as he slapped his hands down on her pouting shoulders as he stood behind her. “I didn’t mean to” she mumbled, “I’ve just been very busy lately.” “So, what else haven’t you told us?” Raph asked. “Oh! Did she tell you she got accepted to Blair?” Mikey asked. This time Sam was able to see the boys animated reactions. Of course, right after they decided to tease her as much as possible. “Great, so that means we’re stuck with you for the next four years?” Raph asked. “Oh you’re stuck with me way longer than that!” Sam exclaimed. “Right, I keep forgetting you’re the headache that just keeps coming back over, and over, and over again” he said, rolling his wrist. “Exactly! Now even the strongest pill can get rid of me” Sam said with a beaming smile. “Man you suck at updating people on important info” Leo mocked. Sam opened her mouth to defend herself, but then gritted her teeth together. “It’s definitely not my strongest quality” she said, scooting back a bit in embarrassment. “Soooooo we’re going right?” Mikey asked his brothers. “How exactly will all of that work?” Donnie asked. “So we have two way mirrors that will cover the top pews, that way you guys can sneak in and no one can see you, and then the church we’re holding the wedding at has this huge back room where we’re holding the reception” Jay informed them. “We’ll have the few people who have actually met you guys keeping you up to date on what’s happening, and yes we’ll feed you” he said as he stared straight at Mikey. “Yeah, exactly as I told all of you” Sam said, before she was playfully shoved by all four brothers. “We’ll be there” Leo said to Jay. “WE WILL?!” Mikey basically shrieked. “Yes, we will. But only if you behave” Leo said as he now pointed his finger at his youngest brother. “What? I’m always…uhhh never mind” he backed off as he saw the glares from his three older brothers.

Just then Chief Vincent returned back to the stage to talk to the brothers. Sam and Jay walked back over towards the small crowd and continued to mingle with familiar faces. Of course, Sam was eavesdropping as best as she could even from the further away distance where she was currently standing. “I think you should give people more credit” the chief said, “they’ll accept you now.” ‘They already did, it’s your guys who didn’t’ Sam thought to herself. “You’re probably right” said Raph’s voice, “but uh, I think we’ll stick to the arrangement that we already had.” Sam smiled to herself, happy to hear that she would still get her quality time with the brothers. But then her face became more sunken and serious. ‘Wait…why am I so happy to hear that? I want them to be able to share their uniqueness and quirky abilities with others someday. What the hell?’ Sam thought to herself. “If you ever need us, April knows where to find us” Leo stated calmly. Sam didn’t know it, but the reason Leo had only mentioned April’s name was because he wanted to keep Sam away from having to talk to the cops (unless she was in danger of course) as much as possible based on everything that had recently happened. “Really? You could live a normal life, like the rest of us” the chief stated with enthusiasm. This made Sam role her eyes. Of course she wanted the turtles to experience all that life had to offer, but she also loved how different they were. But then she heard Raph say: “Normal? What fun is that?”

Sam then turned around when she heard this and stared at the brothers, but she did so at an angle so that she could see them as she stared through the crowd of people, but from their angles they could not see her (or so she thought, since one of them wearing orange had been keeping his eyes on her in secret the entire time without her knowing). The chief chuckled. “Well based on what I already know, you four have had some interesting adventures. So I can understand and respect you choosing your lifestyle over ours. Besides, it seems you found some great family members even if you do spend most of your time underground.” The boys smiled as they each looked out in the same direction that the chief now was at the family they had within the crowd. Mikey however was the only one that noticed Sam spin around once she saw the brothers gaze wash over the crowd. He chuckled. “Yeah, our extended family is pretty great” he said in a relaxed tone. The chief stared back at the turtles one final time. “Any last requests for the night before we all head home?” she asked. The brothers looked at each other and noticed that Leo kept looking back at the towering monument behind them. “You’re allowed up there you know” the chief stated with a smile. Leo whipped back around. “We are?” She nodded. “I just have to tell the officers that guard this monument so that they know not to leave until you come back down.” “Whoaaaaaaa. Thanks!” Mikey said enthusiastically. The chief laughed. “My pleasure. I’ll be right back.”

At that moment, Splinter joined the boys on stage. “My sons, I’m so proud of each and every one of you” he said with a heartwarming smile. “I’m so happy, yet so sad to see each of you grow and mature the way you are” he said genuinely. Mikey shot him a confused look. “Why would you be sad dad?” The old rat chuckled. “Simple. This means you are no longer the baby boys that I have watched over all these years” he said as he placed his hand on his youngest sons shoulder. The four brothers smiled. “Dad, you know we’re always gonna be around no matter how old we get, right?” Leo reassured with a smile. “I know, but all parents feel this way as they see their children grow over time. BUT, tonight is a time for all of you to celebrate together. I on the other hand am going to head home. Don’t do anything crazy now” he said with a playful glare towards his sons. “Pffff what, us?” Raph teased. “As if.” “Wait, who are you leaving with? You’re not heading home by yourself” Donnie stated. Splinter shook his head. “Do not worry my son, I’m heading home with our human companions since it seems they’re all leaving now as well.” The group looked over and saw their human friends walking over to say their final goodbyes. While April, Casey, Vern, Jay, and Jade all said goodbye to the oldest three brothers, Mikey pulled Sam away from the group to talk to her. “Okay what’s happening?” Sam asked a little more awkwardly than she meant to. “You’re leaving?” he asked as if he had just been punched in the gut. “Only for 8 years.” “WHAT?!” “I’m kidding!” she laughed as she pushed his shoulder. “I’m just heading home with Jay so I can help him and Brenda plan their upcoming wedding since important planning was put on hold due to this crazy alien invasion that happened a few days ago. You should have been there for it, it was all over the news!-” “Why are you heading home?” Mikey said, interrupting her teasing. She shot him a confused look. “I just told you, to help with wedding-” “But you can do that any day. Why tonight?” he asked timidly. Sam could sense that her friend felt hurt, as if she was ditching him to go hangout with someone else and like she was avoiding them. She smiled and began to talk in a more serious tone. “Look, when I still had my siblings, there were times where we would all hang out as a family while also inviting all are friends that were as close as family, but there were also times where we wanted people to respect our need to hang out with those that were just family. Sometimes siblings have to just focus on each other. That doesn’t mean I’m going away, it means I’m respecting that you guys need time where it’s just you. Plus, I know I’m the greatest tomboy out there, but brothers still need times to just be themselves. Just like how there were times I wanted to be alone with my sisters, no matter how different Amber and I were from the other two” she said with a light laugh. Mikey shot her a genuine smile. “You look out for us too much” he teased, although this type of teasing had sincerity to it. Sam looked him right in the eye and smiled. “Well that’s what happens when you have four new younger brothers that take over your life.” As she spoke, Mikey could sense from the sparkle in her eyes alone how much he and his brothers truly meant to Sam. He hoped that she realized that they all felt the same way about her. “Now come on” she said as she spun him around and began to pull on his arm, “let’s get back to the group before they start getting suspicious.” “Heh, okay” he said, although in his mind he was thinking ‘suspicious of what?’

Once the two joined the rest of the group Sam updated them that she would be heading home with Jay and Jade (who was also involved in the wedding) to help with wedding planning. The remaining three brothers teased her some, but they didn’t need her to go into full details about why she was truly leaving. They all knew her well enough to know where her mindset was at.

With that, the human group began to head out. Splinter went with April, Casey, and Vern, and Sam went with her older brother and Jade. As the group was beginning to board the ferry to head back to Battery Park, they all turned around to see the four boys cheering from the top of the statue of liberty. “Man they’re fast” Jade said with a smile. “They’re also just insane” Jay teased, knowing his Sensei could hear him. “I’d defend them, but they all have their interesting moments. But you didn’t hear that from me” the old rat teased. Sam laughed and then looked back up at her four turtle brothers. She was happy to see them united as a group once again, and although she had just stated to Mikey that she knew they needed time to hangout by themselves, she’d be a liar if she wasn’t hoping that the time she would get to hang out with them again would come by soon. ‘Then again, a small, extremely short break from these guys wouldn’t be horrible, especially after those weird random thoughts I had about him the other night’ she thought to herself with a shudder (to which she informed a suspicious Jay that it was just the breeze from the cold night’s air). Minutes later the group arrived back at the port where Sam decided that once she met back up with her brothers, everything would be back to normal…she hoped.

  Random info: so I listen to a wide variety of music and many times I listen to songs that motivate me to plan out and come up with ideas for future and current events throughout the series. If anyone is interested, I would highly recommend listening to the song Beautiful Creatures by Illenium. Like if you listen to the lyrics you can twist them so that it fits the lives and goals of the turtles, at least those are the images I’ve been picturing as I listen to that song (that and the vocals and more techno instrumental sound is insanely addicting). But seriously I could see this song being a perfect way to end a TMNT film as the credits come up. Kind of like how at the end of Out of the Shadows they had a new remixed version of the 80’s theme playing while those cartoon images of the cast were played along the with the cast’s names, I could see this song being used for something like that and being the perfect end to a TMNT movie.

[sleepyskunk]

Deconstructing the 2017 Movie Trailer Mashup

Why deconstructing a mashup? Because these videos are often perceived as a random mess of pretty images from movie trailers. While that’s absolutely true, there’s an opportunity to explore themes and also pay a few obscure tributes to elements that don’t belong in the video itself but that are generally widespread within pop culture. These montages have been going on for a few years now, and it’s hard to edit the footage in a way that won’t feel reminiscent of one of the many great retrospectives put out by other talented editors in years past. I have to say that trying to build a narrative with all that footage has now become more enticing to me than to highlight the moments that made the year in cinema within their proper context. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Someone on Reddit commented: “starting off with GEOSTORM, that’s a bold move!” and it didn’t even cross my mind. The shot was exactly where I wanted to go right off the bat - a blend of childlike wonder and eerie caution reminiscent of earlier Tim Burton films. The track was composed for a television spot called “A Wonderful Day” from IT and it showcases major Danny Elfman influences. Thus, this was my small tribute to the Burton/Elfman collabs happening under snowfalls like EDWARD SCISSORHANDS or BATMAN RETURNS. I loved the contrast in dialogue from PERSONAL SHOPPER which was such an under-appreciated indie film this year. Every mashup has its horror section, but I am gently sneaking you in by the supernatural door this time around. It’s just innocent enough to deceive those who hate horror.

Childlike wonder flawlessly captured in one shot, from the lens of Matt Reeves. I can’t say I connect emotionally with his APES movies, but the quality control on every frame, CGI or otherwise, it pretty much above and beyond all industry standards. That facial expression is exactly what I needed, you can tell she’s not too sure whether she’s safe or not but without feeling properly scared either. This is like the part in the original POLTERGEIST where kitchen chairs are moving on their own and the family still thinks it’s kind of fun. Kind of.

KING ARTHUR is the best type of release when it comes to trailer mashups because 1) it had a fantasy undertone 2) it was tracking poorly and 3) it went way over budget. Big studios know months in advance if they have a major bomb on their hands, and they have two choices at that point: either stop spending a penny on it and dump it for a quick theatre run and VOD release (more common if the movie didn’t cost that much) or, like in this case, spend extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad. Those extra millions go towards CGI money shots like the one above, which is really meant to make the marketing more attractive and oh dear lord, did KING ARTHUR have some last minute money shots to offer or what? It was a joy to pick and choose from its nine trailers.

This is where I put my cards on the table, whimsy never happened and I am taking you all to creepytown. That shot from ANNABELLE: CREATION is one of the many that upstages the featured evil doll in that wonderful movie and the film’s cinematographer Maxime Alexandre reached out because he was happy so much of his work was featured. You never know in front of who your videos can end up and industry people are keen on celebrating the year in film, especially if their own works are included. This is just a top notch unsettling shot clearly inspired by THE SHINING (the girl’s dress and the way her arms look lifeless.) On a side note, I always manually add all sounds including that floor cracking. If anyone reading this is starting off editing mashups, I promise you one thing: using professional, isolated, studio-recorded sound effect packages such as BOOM library is much superior to the original trailer track (unless you get a clean sound within the trailer.)

Another random insight (if you’re interested in making your own movie mashups) is to try as much as possible to avoid that one marketing shot everyone recognizes. You can revisit a memorable moment but going straight to the most oversold shot of a film hurts you. While you’re eager to make everyone relive the most epic imagery of the year, some value gets lost when a studio bombarded the same shot over and over and you go for it. Two quick examples: Giant hologram JOI pointing at Ryan Gosling in BLADE RUNNER 2049. I wanted that moment, but the original side-scroller shot was so overused that I went with her from a closer angle (see video thumbnail). Another example is that uncomfortable sniffle from Daniel Kaluuya in GET OUT which I favored over the super overplayed mouth open crying paralyzed shot from every marketing piece. In both cases, I assume you know which shots I am referring to without having to show them. Trying the alternative makes us relive the moment without its obviousness. It gives that other shot they didn’t choose its moment to shine (and more often than not, it’s just as effective.)

Someone’s not getting much sleep. A CURE FOR WELLNESS is a gorgeous-looking film no matter what you think of its bizarre plot points. I spend much of the first segment flirting with the creative key points from IT. One I tried to play around with is the idea of Pennywise as a half-real/half-fiction monster, and how similar to Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET his realm of terror extends. A few winning concepts in both films: 1) He isn’t real but he can really hurt you so you have to stay on your guard at all times and 2) Only a select few have been cursed with having to deal with him, adding a psychological layer to an already spooky premise. Dane Dehaan looks like a kid from Derry, or Elm street if you prefer, whose mental focus seems affected by the fact that he saw something, and his friend saw him too. Meanwhile, I throw in a completely out of context quote from Vanessa Redgrave which ties in that mysterious “sickness” from Verbinski’s film.

A shot from PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN from a trailer edited by Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr. for Annapurna Pictures where he works as an in-house editor now. In 2015, I talked about Gen Ip’s storytelling approach and last year I praised Matt Shapiro’s famously epic crescendos, so this year, let’s talk about Kees a little bit because I find all their influences fascinating. My first observation is how far his much-adored Cinema series has taken him, and that one of the top production houses in the business (if not the top, sorry A24 and Fox Searchlight) hired him so he could bring his own distinct style onto their major features. The whole trailer mashup craze started off only a few years back and so many editors were recruited right off YouTube to turn their passion into a livelihood down in Los Angeles. I can think of at least six editors whose names you’d recognize and who are now living the dream, and I consider this to be really inspiring because none of them initially got into it thinking something like that was ever possible. (side note: I also moved to L.A. and was poached by a trailer house but prefer to keep things on the low-end until it’s been long enough. I wouldn’t want to jinx it.)

The second observation about Kees is how much influence he’s had on every mashup that gets uploaded on a daily basis every December (me included) - I will link his Cinema series below. Instead of pairing clips into a horror bit, an action bit, a laughing and dancing bit, a kissing and crying bit, Kees was always out to create new feelings and nothing ever seemed more important than proper flow. Many shots would pop-up that you would never expect thematically, images of moving objects like a breaking glass transitioned with a girl’s hair waving through the wind (also see the lie detector in the previous shot.) He would connect nature documentaries right along with major superhero blockbusters and the movements flowed so perfectly that nothing ever felt out of place, quite the contrary. He was the best shot curator we’ve ever seen, and the order in which he put them together was beyond logic and predictability. Imagine “One Perfect Shot” but with 275 perfect shots back-to-back. If you want a prime example of what I’m referring to (random objects and flow), check out 2:49 - 2:52 from his Cinema 2011 (links below). Kees set the bar so high that attempting an end-of-year mashup certainly felt foolish at times, but hoping to improve made the editing process all the more inspiring.

CINEMA 2008 | CINEMA 2009 | CINEMA 2010 | CINEMA 2011 | CINEMA 2012 

So apparently, they have the internet and flat-screen TV’s in RINGS but landline phones are still a thing. Quite frankly, I haven’t seen RINGS and I bet it’s aggressively ordinary, but how retro horror is that shot? Paired up with the voice of THE SNOWMAN saying “Mister Policeman” it’s a throwback to Nancy being terrorized by Freddy in the original Nightmare of Elm Street (minus the tongue.) I was also pleased with the aesthetic of HAPPY DEATH DAY, clearly the product of horror fans who grew up during the low-budget slasher craze of the early ‘80s. It’s got MY BLOODY VALENTINE written all over it (meanwhile their poster was paying homage to APRIL FOOL’S DAY.) Retro horror, in all its disturbing practical gore glory! Rick Baker, Tom Savini, how much we missed you in our modern times where only a few major productions have enough VFX money to escape the uncanny valley (and even then... *cough* JUSTICE LEAGUE.)

I always tend to edit right on tempo, which means switching shots at the exact moment the music beat tells you to. But over here, I thought this elevator drop from FLATLINERS looked so frenetic and out of control that I started it half a second before as if the beat couldn’t keep up! Like in cartoons when the car accelerates so fast that it takes off but their eyeballs are standing still for a little fraction. This whole mashup sequence is meant to be a little cartoony and tongue-in-cheek. To anyone who found this to be disturbing (and yes, I heard from a few viewers who said it was too much) I must admit that it wasn’t my intention. I won’t apologize for my work, people choose to watch if they want to or not. But if I really tried my best to scare the crap out of you, I can assure you THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE wouldn’t have made the cut.

Now channeling a CHILD’S PLAY vibe thanks to this retro television shot from the highly underrated BRIGSBY BEAR. A kids program works well as an element of fear because it’s supposed to be a safely protected zone of positivity and care, just like a doll or a clown for that matter. Once that turns on its head and begins to attack, you basically have nowhere else to hide. It also makes for great contrast, and Andy Muschietti must have had an absolute blast this year incorporating this component into his remake of IT. The bear costume was one of the many shots that wasn’t from a horror movie and yet I used to great effect in this section. I know there was a new CHILD’S PLAY movie this year but sadly, it didn’t hold a candle to the Hitchcockian original.

“At the end of the day, people are out for themselves.” That’s not true, and only people who are out for themselves could believe that. Because if you’re weighing low on the morality scale at some point in life, you still wanna go to bed thinking you’re a good person. So if you can’t justify what you did, the best logical next step is to convince yourself that human nature is to blame, that everyone else would have done the same as you. Ask people who were charged with insider trading on the stock market, they’ll always say “everybody was doing it.” I could refer to a certain World War to keep hammering that point but instead, I’d like to point out the interesting contrast between this and Part 3. I try to disprove that very statement by showing in the finale that everything we do that matters is for others, and others are the only thing that matters once everything else has come and gone.

The KING ARTHUR studio spending extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad money shot festival continues. EPIC! In fact, that shot is so gorgeous, you could place it anywhere in any mashup ever and it would probably work.

Having a bit of fun giving a more literal visual cue to IT’s “We all float down here” with Guillermo Del Toro’s hypnotically beautiful THE SHAPE OF WATER. However, it’s not the tudum tssshh, get it? movie connection that works here. It’s the underwater sound effect and the incredible sound mixing by trailer house Buddha Jones so that Georgie’s voice seems to come from the bottom of the ocean. This is likely the best sound work you’ll hear in the entire mashup, and I didn’t mix it, the editors behind that teaser trailer did. In fact, their work was so effective at scaring people that it earned twice the amount of views on YouTube than what Avengers: Infinity War received. A fact Kevin Feige will likely never admit.

That moment when you realize your manic pixie dream girl wears white socks! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've used vulgarity in the past but not every year, depends whether it brings value. Some of you may remember “Game on, c***suckers” from KICK-ASS 2 in 2013 or “Nap time, motherf***ers” from COOTIES in 2015. Perhaps there’s another guilty pleasure at play here, however, which is that feeling of pure creative freedom. As mentioned earlier, not everyone digged the horror undertone of this year’s Part 1 and that’s okay because it went exactly where I wanted to go and no compromise was made. No client notes. No studio revisions. No censor beeper (which makes it worse because we seek to find out what the word was.) If you get into professional careers that are creative in nature, you’ll find that teamwork, compromise, and not taking anything personally are all essential components for success. But when the movie trailer mashup comes around, I report to no one. And that moment from THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI is one I wanted included as soon as the red band trailer came out.

This shot comes from a small movie you should seek out called MY NAME IS EMILY starring Evanna Lynch (aka Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies.) The film was directed by Simon Fitzmaurice who was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS) a few years ago, the debilitating disease for which the viral ice-bucket challenge was based on. He wrote the screenplay for this movie while his body was entirely paralyzed, and the only way he could communicate with the cast and crew while shooting the film was through eye gaze technology. There was a documentary following his brave journey that played Sundance called IT’S NOT YET DARK. Check it out if you need some real work ethic motivation and want to feel truly inspired about overcoming challenges. Much better than THE DISASTER ARTIST which is a spoof about a millionaire with no talent who mistreated the people who worked on his film. Okay, it’s still very entertaining and James Franco is hilarious but I don’t get a ‘never give up’ vibe from it, more like ‘maybe this isn’t for you.’

With the second segment, I was going for a British Gangster film vibe, hence the music cue Main Offender by The Hives. No movie captured that feeling better than Ben Wheatley’s FREE FIRE this year. I find the criminals in British movies are equally as clever in their quips as they are dangerous and often have the appearance of fair, well-behaved citizens until they have a reason to go mad. Jon Hamm’s performance in BABY DRIVER was also a textbook definition of that archetype, because all the build-up scenes where he acts friendly and discusses music with the titular character only bring an element of surprise at the end of his arc (spoilers: he’s not that nice in the end) I am aware that BABY DRIVER takes place in America but it’s directed by a Brit so it counts!

If Kubrick only knew his famous jump cut from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY that connects a flying bone to a space shuttle would lead to this fifty years later. What a shit show jump cuts have become! But they’re fun, and let’s be honest here: 7 minutes of serious quotes about life would get a little heavy. The way you edit jump cuts is the same way to solve a puzzle with over a thousand pieces. Extract dozens of short action clips onto your timeline and try to make them fit with one another over and over until you’re entertained. I mean, the music stays the same in the background, all I am doing here is deciding which projectile this pair of underpants from CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS will become. The answer was a tranquilizer from the underground mall chase sequence in Bong Joon-ho’s excellent OKJA. Maybe we should try one really long domino of jump cuts one day. Should take forever to edit, but how much fun would it be?

Did you know that Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander was a professional ballet dancer before she started acting? Work ethic applies in everything you do. When you hear about successful actors, you often discover people who are world-class at delivering under pressure and dedicating themselves to their craft with an insane amount of work. Acting is hard and yet so many people think they can do it, which makes it even harder. At least ballet puts constraints right off the bat, you need flexibility and a specific body frame. Part 3 is about finding your passion AND putting in the work. Just finding your passion is hard! It’s not always the bottomless pit one could hope for, especially when it becomes a real job with hours upon hours of work. Many people don’t even know what their passion is, they know what they’re good at but don’t love it. “Without your passion, it’s very hard to find our place in the world.” I don’t think you need your income to come from your passion in order to find said place, but I wish everyone that many of the limited hours they have each day goes towards their passion, and not towards something that feels like a waste of time. Wanting to wake up has everything to do with what happens after your first cup of coffee. Put your time towards something meaningful to you, even if it’s only on evenings and week-ends and you’ll never make a penny from it. If you love animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you love to travel, just GO!

But what happens when your family conflicts with your passion? Would you leave them behind to pursue your dreams? We all remember the tragic scene from DEAD POETS SOCIETY where a young scholar gets forced by his father to become a doctor instead of his passion and commits suicide. And then we have this year’s COCO, Pixar’s big comeback, where music is prohibited in Miguel’s family but it’s all he dreams about. But that conundrum doesn’t even have to be confrontational in nature. What if you wanted to work in a low-paying field like online journalism because it’s what you love but your single parent (who always took care of you) became sick and needed you to take care of their treatment. What happens then? What comes first? I humbly try to answer that later in the segment, of course.

We always told you Daniel Radcliffe... you’re special. That’s why you have a scar on your forehead that looks like a bolt... Just kidding, poor guy. I look at Mark Hamill in THE LAST JEDI and keep thinking that if studios are still a private enterprise in 40 years, some new Harry Potter movie will come out in which an old bearded Radcliffe will be teaching at Hogwarts. (PS: he keeps making bold choices, so much so that I am willing to watch anything he’s in.)

A man’s reach... (or woman, btw) should exceed his/her grasp. Words from a poem by Robert Browning, suggesting that, to achieve anything worthwhile, a person should attempt even those things that may turn out to be impossible. The downside with attempting the impossible is two-fold, however. 1) You may spend your life trying and never succeed. 2) If you do get there after so much sacrifice and effort, the world will expect you to do it again, or to keep doing it at the same level or better. If you won a Gold medal at the last Olympics, what are the expectations for the upcoming Olympics? That’s where passions and dreams enter a darker road, one many people choose to avoid altogether. But whatever happens, it’s worth the risk as long as you have the one thing along the way that’s a hundred times more important. And that thing is...

...people who love each other! Look at this guy, he just figured it out!

Kate Mara in MEGAN LEAVEY really seems to be the one thinking out loud in this shot while we hear a quote from THEIR FINEST. I had a blast with the Freddy Krueger references earlier but this is my favorite part. Audiomachine make the best tracks to bring that crescendo to its proper peak. You can say this part of the mashup is more in my comfort zone. And the influences from Kees that I discussed earlier can be felt here. Some shots of objects and landscapes that aren’t thematically connected but keep a nice flow. I also handpicked the best cinematography of the year all at once here. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was a damn pretty movie, then SHAPE OF WATER, then THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS, then OKJA. Every shot looks like a million bucks. Notice the use of paper, letters and ink. I want to see you again, a character from EVERYTHING EVERYTHING writes on a sheet.

Family comes first is nice, but along with family comes conflict and distance at times. Things we said that we regret. Times we let each other down, or weren’t there when we needed to. All the papers dropping from the bridge, all the shots that refer to letter writing, that’s where I was going with that. Not always obvious because it moves so damn fast which is why I do this deconstruction blog post every year!

The final big lift from Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! Also, the first frame I added onto my AVID timeline. This is how I organize my work basically. I pick the right songs, then I identify the exact moments in that song where a big moment should happen - if you use trailer music, it will be crystal clear what those are. And then I try money shots in each of these spots over and over until one really, really fits. Then, I ask myself how did we get here, how can I get to that point? And build around these big moments. The second shot I added into the mashup was the little girl in Part 1 under the bed who points to another version of herself sleeping in her bed and says “Shhh! That’s not me.” I put that in right when the music stopped, it became a big moment, and then I built around it in order to get there. Every editor works differently, but I am just sharing how I personally prefer to do it. Back in 2012, the first clip I added onto the timeline was “I have an army. We have a Hulk.” from THE AVENGERS which means I’ve been editing this way for five straight years.

Those letters of reaching out to people you care about. Apologies or wondering how they’re doing. Flying everywhere around Winston Churchill (that’s my dog’s name, he’s a Pembroke Welsh Corgi!) I guess you should always be the one to reach out in difficult situations with important people. The mistake is to not reach out, or convince yourself that they were dragging you down and you’re better off without them. That’s rarely the case, and you’ll never get over them when you know that’s not the case. Maybe they will reply someday, maybe they never will. But you swallowed your ego and you decided to give it one more shot. That’s the bravest thing we can do in this life, and I hope you’ll see it that way if the time comes. Happy New Year! Achieve your passions, take care of the ones you love and make it a wonderful day! (Halle Berry: “Aaaarrh!")

- Sleepy Skunk

[bloggerthannothing]

Book #5: The Moral Animal

Flammable undiagrammable sentiments pass between animal beings 

Hard to explain but it’s plain that I love you for psychological reasons

-  I Love You for Psychological Reasons, They Might Be Giants

I.

The Moral Animal, by Robert Wright (1994), is a book that evokes a wide variety of emotions. It tells you that love and friendship and altruism are real and are written into our collective soul, but that these wonderful things were built to serve ultimately selfish ends.

Put more plainly, The Moral Animal is a book about evolutionary psychology. It explains love, marriage, family, friendship, altruism, and morality as byproducts of natural selection maximizing the inclusive fitness of genes. 

If that spooks you, don't worry, Wright has noticed the skulls here. In the early twentieth century, a Darwinian view of human psychology and society ("Social Darwinism") was used to justify poverty and genocide, because those who were poor or sick or a minority were thought simply unfit to survive, and ought to be weeded out by the Benevolent Invisible Hand of Nature. 

Wright takes great pains to stress the extent to which this book and Darwinism in general do not support Social Darwinism. He goes over the naturalistic fallacy: that what is true in nature does not tell us what is good or moral. He stresses, again and again, that whatever the "natural state" of humans is, it has little bearing on what our values should be. 

That's not to say the influence of evolution is unimportant. We have to understand reality as it is now in order to make it how we want it to be. To the extent that egalitarianism, liberty, and kindness are unnatural, we want to know why and how, so that we can more effectively bring them about.

Even further, Wright finds that evolution created humans to be heavily adaptable to circumstances. In a lot of ways, a belief that evolution built human psychology only increases the relevance of environmental and social interventions to avoid things like crime and poverty. 

With all of that said, let's begin.

II.

The book is divided into four sections. The first deals with romance, sex, love, and marriage. 

The fundamental insight that this section revolves around is that the optimal reproductive strategy for female organisms (here used to mean "organisms that have egg cells") is different from that of male organisms (here used to mean "organisms that have sperm cells"). This is because of a biological asymmetry between the investment required in offspring production by each sex. 

Egg cells require far more investment - in mammals, think of the weeks or months that pregnancy takes. Sperm cells, on the other hand, only need to fertilize an egg cell, a process which might take a male fifteen minutes (or less). As a result, male organisms have way more potential offspring than a female organism.

From an evolutionary perspective, this means that the best strategy for a female organism seeking to maximize its inclusive genetic fitness is to invest many resources in the raising of few offspring. Conversely, the best strategy for a male organism is to create as many offspring as possible. 

With this fact in mind, Wright looks at codes of conduct that arose around male and female sexualities. He finds that a variety of cultures came upon similar ideas: that males generally put a lot of effort into having sex with a wide variety of women, and try to avoid commitment to any of them, and that females put a lot of effort into discerning which males will stick around to help raise the offspring. [1]

Wright also puts forth the idea that genetically optimal male jealousy and female jealousy are very different. Male jealousy would be built to avoid spending resources on offspring that are not the male's, and so focus its anger at sexual infidelity. Conversely, female jealousy would be built to avoid the male spending resources on other females and other females' offspring. For this reason, female jealousy would place its ire on emotional infidelity. 

Something like this would explain why so many societies place value in young females' virginity. In the past (and in the present) males tended to wield disproportionate political and societal power, and got to decide the rules. So of course they would make rules that are in their own interest, such as "any woman who secretly has sex with another man will be shamed and outcast". [2]

Nothing in the process requires anyone to consciously decide to maximize inclusive fitness; they're just following mental processes which evolved to do that in the ancestral environment of small hunter-gatherer societies. Humans are adaptation-executors, not fitness-maximizers.

But doesn't the existence of monogamy contradict this idea? Why would a bunch of males agree to only reproduce with one female each, when it's in their genetic interest to reproduce with as many as possible?

Wright's answer is that monogamy emerges in less-stratified societies, where rich/high-status men don't have enough power (social or otherwise) to monopolize females. In other words, monogamy is a compromise between men to distribute reproductive opportunity somewhat evenly.  In highly unequal societies, males who can do so are more than willing to have as many wives (or female sex partners) as possible, hence polygyny. 

Another product of this insight relates to competitiveness. For a male, competition can be the difference between having 1 kid and 10 kids. The difference between maximum and minimum genetic payoff would be smaller for females, due to the larger investment required in each offspring, so we'd expect to see a lower propensity for competition. This isn't to say that they'd have no propensity for competition - females still competed in the ancestral environment - just that the optimal amount of effort to put into competition would be lower for females than for males. 

III.

The second part of the book deals with family and friends, and why natural selection would cause us to care about them. The answer for family is "kin selection", and the answer for friends is "reciprocal altruism". 

Kin selection makes sense once you realize that evolution works at the level of the gene, not at the level of an individual organism. A gene is naturally selected to favor its survival, not necessarily the survival of the organism carrying it. As long as more copies of the gene get made and propagated in the end, the success of any organism in particular is negotiable. 

Because siblings have a high level of genetic similarity to one another, it makes sense for genes to "want" an organisms' siblings to survive and prosper. Thus, we get love between siblings, which causes people to act in ways that increase the chance of siblings surviving and, eventually,  reproducing. 

This line of logic takes you surprisingly far. Wright examines insect colonies which act like perfect hiveminds, where the good of the group comes before all, and finds that members of these species have an unusually high level of genetic similarity to their siblings. Thus, it benefits genes to encourage acting "selflessly" with respect to individual organisms, because from the gene's perspective, two organisms with the exact same genes are identical. This is why some ants are content to spend their lives literally being a door - if a gene causes one in one hundred copies of the gene to sacrifice itself to let ninety-nine copies of the gene survive, that's a big net gain from the perspective of the gene. 

Okay, what about friendship? Why would we form bonds with people who have little or no genetic relationship to us? Because we can benefit from it, of course. Helping other people can cause them to help you in the future. Most people intuitively run something like the "tit for tat" strategy: initially be helpful to others, and then treat them as they treat you. If someone rips you off, you're not going to be inclined to be helpful to them later on. If someone does you a good turn, you feel a need to pay them back somehow. Reciprocal altruism. 

In the 1980s, Robert Axelrod ran tournaments simulating iterated prisoner's dilemmas between agents running a variety of different decision algorithms. The "tit for tat" algorithm did the best, indicating that short-term selflessness can easily translate into long-term self-interest. 

From this perspective, "friends" are people we have entered into long-term iterated prisoner's dilemmas with. We expect them to cooperate with us, and they expect us to cooperate with them. Because of non-zero-sumness, both friends can expect to gain in the long term even if they lose out on individual choices. 

Our genes, Wright proposes, eventually noticed this fact and inclined us to cooperate with others. 

IV.

The third part of the book deals with status, signaling, and self-deception. 

The previous section on reciprocal altruism elided an important distinction. From the perspective of the gene, the active ingredient in reciprocal altruism isn't actually doing the reciprocating. The important part is making other people think that you will do the reciprocating, and thus convincing them to cooperate with you. 

The more expensive cooperating is, and the easier it is to fool other people, the greater the incentive to appear more selfless than we are. As long as other people believe that we are selfless, then they will cooperate with us. This is the evolutionary origin of lying, stretching the truth, embellishment, and so on.

But our genes are in competition with other genes. A gene that lets its host organism get taken advantage of by liars wouldn't do very well. So genes started to evolve mechanisms for lie-detection, and an arms race began between liars and lie-detectors.

What's the most convincing way to lie? To believe what you are saying. Natural selection would have the end result of people preferentially believing things that favor their own interests. In other words, involuntary self-deception.  Example: rich people seem to genuinely believe that lower taxes are for the best.  Whether or not that's true, it's certainly in their interest to believe it. That makes it easier for them to convince others. 

V.

As conceived of by Wright, 'social status' emerged as a shortcut for organisms to avoid costly fights for which the outcome is already known. If A will beat B in a fight and take all of B's food 80% of the time, then it is in both of their interests to skip the actual fight itself and just have B give A 80% of their food. Each party ends up with the same amount of food, on average, but both parties save the time and energy they would have spent fighting. Imagine this process occurring between dozens of individual organisms, all living in the same "community", and a sort of collective "social status" emerges.

Of course, for us humans, social status is much less about physical power and more about social power and access to resources. Despite this, the underlying mechanics remain the same: a brief period of conflict to estimate the "strength" of the other person, and then an assignment of relative "status" that allows both of you to skip the conflict and accept some unequal division of resources. Those resources can be basically anything, as long as it would have helped you in the ancestral environment. From this, we get behaviors such as self-interested groveling to or the domination of others, depending on whether they're above or below you on the totem pole respectively. 

You might wonder how this inequality can coexist with the ubiquity of Tit for Tat in human psychology. Isn't Tit for Tat all about fairness? Not exactly. It can still be in the interest of someone (or their genes) to accept a deal where the other party gets 80% of the payoff and they get only 20%, as long as that 20% is better than whatever they would get otherwise. If engaging in conflict risks long term injury or death or permanent consignment to a low caste, then that safe 20% starts to look pretty good. 

And if status is so important, we should have a lot of mental machinery put into acquiring it.  As Wright puts it, the main purpose of friendship is mutual aid in status competitions. This makes a surprising amount of sense: think about common story tropes. What could be more villainous than a street rat who, after years of living hand-to-mouth with his tight-knit gang, gets a lucky break into the upper class, only to forget about and forsake his companions? 

From natural selection's point of view, we would want to discourage that kind of behavior as much as possible. Dante put traitors in the deepest layer of hell. We want maximum trustworthiness (from others) in iterated prisoner's dilemmas. 

This is where moralism comes from. Our vocal cries about treachery, our indignation, is a social signal to others that "hey, we can be trusted not to defect, we hate defectors, come cooperate with us!"

And of course, things we say are more convincing if we really believe them. This is how the moral animal came to be. The animal who sacrifices itself for others, who holds honesty and selflessness in the highest esteem, who always seeks (or appears to seek) their own betterment only to serve the common cause of humanity.

V.

After internalizing the book's thesis, not being an evil sexist-racist-whateverist Social Darwinist almost seems like the easy part.

I mean, how do you live your life knowing that the things you care about the most, each grimace and muttered curse under your breath, your own most intricate and private agonies, were all crafted for the primary purpose of getting you to acquire social status and resources to further the interests of your genes? What the fuck do you do with that?

…

The final section of the book is about morality. What it means, what it can mean, to be "moral" in light of all this.

Wright's answer, like Darwin's, is simple: happiness is good, pain is bad. Whatever trickery is going on behind the scenes of our minds, this basic insight remains. 

Yes, we only came to care about morality because of genetic self-interest. But we actually do care about it. We can come to reflective equilibrium regarding our "implicit values," and pursue whatever values that reflection produces. The only other options are explicitly pursuing natural selection's values (an evil idea if there ever was one) or total nihilism. Taken to its logical conclusion, the happiness-good-pain-bad principle implies something like all-consuming egalitarian utilitarianism. Universal love as preached by Jesus, Buddha, and cactus people. 

This runs contrary to the traditional notion of retributive Justice - people who commit horrific crimes ought to be punished, right? 

Sort of. This inherent value of justice evolved because it generates game theoretical deterrence of non-optimal behavior, but individuals often pursue Justice past the point of rationality into senseless cruelty. Wright says we ought to focus on the empirical reality of deterring and preventing crime, over our moral notions of "retribution."

VI.

The last pages of the book deal with determinism and its consequences. Not just genetic determinism, as you might think, but all determinism. As Wright puts it, whether it is our genes or our childhood or our socioeconomic conditions or random noise or some combination of it all that decides our actions, the end result is the same: very little of our good or bad actions can be attributed to "free will" with a straight face.

If a murderer's rage, a cheater's urges, and a thief's greed are all understood to be mechanical outcomes resulting from biochemistry and game theory, then surely we should not judge those people. We ought to pity them as victims of their circumstances, and work to create a society where those circumstances come about less often. 

...but there's a problem. "Creating a society where those circumstances come about less often" involves judging people! The whole point of this book is that we're often subconsciously checking to see what we can get away with, how harshly we will be judged for acting selfishly in certain ways. So if we actually took Wright's initial advice, and avoided social judgement of others, and cooperated with everyone all of the time, then we'd get a bunch of stealing and cheating and everything would be terrible.

So we have to continue to socially sanction people, to muster up anger and indignation for game-theoretic reasons, while also knowing that empirically, they're about as morally responsible for what they're doing as a boulder is for rolling down a hill. Wright realizes the magnitude of this challenge, but he has no silver bullet to overcome it.

I'm not any more sure about the question than Wright was, but I think efforts to teach everyone about the game theory behind our intuitions about the "morality" are a major step in the right direction. 

I can't find it now, but I remember a few years ago, there was a website that had a whole interactive set up which let you see for yourself how tit-for-tat and cooperation can be in everyone's best interests, even selfish individuals. Perhaps enough projects like that, over the course of a couple generations, can craft us a "public conscience" which is as merciful as it can afford to be, but no more, and as Just as it needs to be, but no more.

For our sake, I hope so.

VII.

Here's a  collection of random related thoughts and facts. 

-Is being an effective altruist who values all humans equally an escape from the selfishness of genes?  Maybe not. The relevant equation for "organism-level altruism" of a gene is C vs B * R: cost of altruism to the organism giving it versus benefit times the genetic relatedness of the organism receiving it.

The point of effective altruism is that you can get way, way more B for a lower C, if you direct your attention far away. And this definitely lowers R - I'm barely related to some random person in Japan or India or Mozambique. But R is not zero. In fact, all humans share a ton of genes.

So perhaps effective altruism isn't an escape from the genetic-self-interest calculation behind altruism - it's just an unusual way of maximizing it.

-Darwin spent several years being really into barnacles.

-A big prediction of this book is that people learn fast/slow life strategies based on their early developmental environments, but this recent study finds evidence against that.

Relatedly, my general "feeling" about this book is high confidence in the importance of a Darwinian perspective on psychology, paired with a deep skepticism of psych studies in general, especially mid-twentieth century ones. I'm concerned this puts me in the hypocritical position of "thinking this stuff is correct and important while not strongly supporting any particular predictions it makes," but I don't have anything better. 

Footnotes

[1] If true, all of this would predict that males (AMAB people) would tend to have a lower level of "romanticism" (because romanticism was less often in their interest), and that females (AFAB people) would tend to have a lower level of sexual desire (because frequent sex was less often in their interest). And recently identities like "asexual" and "aromantic" have become more popular. Do we see the expected trend? 

According to the abstract of this paywalled paper which was the first google result I found, the asexual identity was more common among non-men (predicted by this theory), although there wasn't a significant difference in reported romanticism (not predicted by this theory). Perhaps people who are nonstandard enough to know about and decide to use those labels are nonstandard in other ways, so this isn't  rock solid evidence of anything.

[2] In reality, the chain of logic is a bit more complicated. In full, it is: Males who acted according to a certain form of "male jealousy" would be more reproductively successful, and so this jealousy becomes widespread in humans. Then, males who have social power would want to enforce rules that conform to their beliefs in the injustice/immorality of female infidelity.

Even more precisely, it's not that "jealousy" evolved due to "jealousy genes". It's really "genes would spread if they tended to build brains with mental architecture that tended to develop specific kinds of jealousy". (This level of imprecision and variability is one reason that Darwinism is not nearly as morally threatening as you might expect; general trends leave a lot of room for individuals to vary.)

[apexart-journal]

Tasha Dougé, Day 11

Hello Day 11!  Growing up, it was not uncommon for me to listen to the radio in the morning.  When I was younger, it was Lite FM, 103.9 or WBLS.  Junior HS/High School, I would listen to Hot 97, KTU or Power 105.  Today, I listened to Radio Aporee.  On Day 3, while in Staten Island, I was supposed to listen to a local station.  Ironically, the station didn’t work while I was in Staten Island.  All I heard was static.  Fast forward to today, that wasn’t the issue at all.  I heard a lot.  Ranging from folks ordering their breakfast or their lunch to history about Frankfurt, I heard it all.  At one point, I didn’t know what I was supposed to be hearing.  Was this a joke like a performance or was this a real radio station?  Turns out both were true.  The platform is a collection of sounds provided by artists, phonographers and other folks.  The sounds come from all over the world.  The particular area is indicated by a different color dot on the map.  I loved this part that is written on their site, “In addition to aspects of collecting, archiving and sound-mapping, the radio aporee platform also invokes experiments at the boundaries of different media, and public space. Within this notion, radio is both a technology in transition and a narrative. It constitutes a field whose qualities are connectivity, contiguity and exchange. Concepts of transmitter/ receiver and performer/ listener may become transparent and reversible.”  I know I’m not supposed to be doing art things or thinking art-ish, but I will admit that this had my art senses tingling.  I may or may not refer back to this new resource for my own practice.  You will just have to stay tuned.

After listening to other parts of the world, now it’s time for me to listen to my own city.  For this venture, I headed over to Grand Central station.  From there I walked East on 42nd, cut through Tudor City (yes a city in a city), worked my way up to 50th, then went West until I reached Madison to loop back to Grand Central.  Aside from the sights, never have I thought to listen to my city. I hear her all the time (like it or not), but I never listened.  At the corner of 42nd and Lex, my walk started with a smile from a cyclist as bright as my hair.  I looked up and realized that the Chrysler Building was literally right there.  Thinking about the Empire State Building, I thought to myself that I need to book a tour.  Not just for the Chrysler, but for a lot of other NYC sites.  Our gems are not just for tourists, they are part of my birthright too.  With my appreciation of my city growing, I took my first steps on this listening tour.  Almost immediately, my ears are accosted by the bombarding bellows of a least five car horns.  Underneath my feet, I could hear and feel the rumbling roar of the silver snake aka the train.  That is the NYC that I know all to well.  But then, I adjusted my audio dial and turned up the volume so I could listen to the soundtrack of NYC.  It really is a profound and complex soundtrack.  Here are some of the things I heard: bus engines, dog collars clanking, water droplets colliding with the pavement, high powered air conditions, tires rolling on asphalt, people talking with different accents, ringing of bike bells, cars speeding down the FDR, sounds of construction, car doors slamming, Hip-Hop blasting out a car window, plastic bags rustling, someone sniffling, car driving over sewer lids, the wind tickling the trees, me stepping into a puddle, a sweet kissed planted a grandmother’s cheek, birds flapping their wings as they take flight, and so much more.  

I have to say the birds were going in.  Maybe it is tied to my time with Birding Bob, but the birds chirping seemed to be amplified and it was sweet music to my ears.  Visually, the walk was great because I discovered some new nooks and new eateries to try out.  However, this exercise really illuminated that the sounds of NYC make up the score of my life.   Rather they are the track that continues to play as more beats and elements get layered on.  And I like the sound of that.  What came up next blew my mind. 

The Church of Scientology.  There I said it.  I don’t know how else I could have introduced this leg of the day.  When I hear the Church of Scientology, cult comes rushing to mind. Yet, someone could very much say that about Catholics/Christians and other religions.  Hence why I posted two pictures of the church.  The first as a reminder not to be afraid of anyone.  I mean it isn’t like I could have disappeared on site...Right?  I am joking.  I told myself to go in as I do with anything else and that is with an open mind.  I was slated to be there for 30 mins.  This is how it went.  I went in and I was greeted by Nick.  I told him that I was interested a tour.  He said okay and instructed me to sign in, take my temp and put on a pair of gloves.  Then he directed to go up the stairs where someone would guide me through the tour.  Once upstairs, I started to read the placards because the woman was finishing off a conversation with someone else.  I read that the founder, L. Ron Hubbard was a humanitarian and wait for it... an ARTIST!  I didn’t see that one coming a mile away.  He said, “A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreams by artists.”  Okay okay.  This was not going how I imagined.  My curiosity was piqued.  The woman walked up and introduced herself as Nicole.  We chatted a bit and she asked what brought me in.  I told her that I was a visitor to the space looking to get more info.  She guided me to a video that broke down the fundamentals of the church.  It went through the 8 dynamics of Scientology, what Dianetics is, what the symbols in the logo mean and so on.  The video talked about the tone scale and showed the auditing process.  I loved the tone scale and I could get down with 8 Dynamics, but the auditing part resembled a lie detector type situation for me.  Nicole asked me thoughts.  I shared them and then she asked me what I knew of Scientology.  I told her Scientology was Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Leah Remini’s exit.  I told her that I have never met Scientology in human form (up until meeting her), and that to me it was building that was shrouded in mystery.  In their creed, it is mentioned that everyone is equal (and you know the spiel).  So I asked what is the church’s stance on Black Lives Matter issues and police brutality because I have yet to see a Scientology table at a rally.  She mentioned a lot of the community work they do and that they are not in favor of violence against anyone, but that they are more focused on doing the actual work rather than being seen.  I understood that point because I talk about performance with my friends and peer often.  She asked me if there was a Dynamic or area of myself that I wanted to improve.  I hit her with words like alignment, discernment, purpose, harm reduction and also added intentional adaptation from Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategies.  In a nutshell, I mildly stated that I am good.  I did get a demo of what an auditing session would be like.  If you haven’t guessed it by now, then let me tell you.  30 mins rapidly turned into an hour and thirty-three mins!!  Am I a convert, NO.  Did I walk away from my visit with some newfound knowledge, I sure did.  That experience was another affirmation that you can find gems where you least expect it.  Like Marlys, never lose your curiosity.

Last, and surely not least, it is time for Game Play.  I have no idea, but let’s go.  In this game play, 4 people (including me) acted out characters through this interactive process.  The scenes are going to provide input for an actual game!! My main character was the youth.  I chose the name Hydriel (Hydro + Ariel) for my character.  Hydriel is a 15 yr old budding cartoonist that uses she/they/Hy pronouns and has an imaginary friend named Octavia Butler.  We each also had to play the role of the “visitor,” an alien coming to Earth for a brief vacay.  The visitor’s name was dumb long and so eventually, it boiled down to Sunny P.  P stood for Phallus.  I also played a badass grandma.  She went by the name GramZee and was the burlesque queen.  PERIODT.  Improving with strangers and getting to chat with the game makers (thornygames.com) was a good time.  This was my first time doing anything like that.  I am looking forward to seeing the final outcome.  This is Hydriel/GramZee/Sunny P.  saying good night.

[zygomatic-process-2018]

A note about friendships

Today I am reflecting quite a bit on friendships and how hard it can be to recognize that endings of friendships aren’t always your fault. 

In 2009, I found a support group that I needed at the time. I found people who were helpful and I made some seemingly strong friendships. I was a part of something that not only made me feel better, but also a place where I could help other people. I felt like I had found my place in the world and I felt that I was surrounded by like-minded people. 

In 2010, as life would have it, I found someone who I was romantically interested in, as so many frequently do that were in my position. Life was great, I was surrounded by mutual friends, I thought I was being supported by this support group, and that the friends I was making would be lifelong friends. 

In 2012, that relationship ended. Sadly, that relationship was with a Sociopath. For anyone who isn’t aware of what a Sociopath is, here are some bullet points for you: 

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Manipulative and Conning They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

Pathological Lying Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Incapacity for Love

Need for Stimulation Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

Irresponsibility/Unreliability Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

This person believed it was ok to continue a sexual relationship with someone behind my back because “they had been friends since high school.” They would consistently lie and say that they weren’t with this friend, but then I would find out that yes, this person was there alone with this friend. “I swear, we didn’t do anything, I don’t know why you’re so worried.” I believed this person, that nothing was going on. After all, it isn’t right to ask your partner to leave a life-long friendship right? In this support group, honesty was a huge part of the culture, so I was naive enough to believe that this person was being honest...because we all HAVE to be honest right? LOL

When asked to at least meet this friend, I was met with aggression. When I finally did meet this friend, this friend was very rude, stand off-ish, territorial and pretty intolerant of me being in their house. I was ignored while there with them, and the two of them continued on their day as if I didn’t exist. I got the impression that I wasn’t wanted there, but my partner told me I was crazy for thinking this way. In fact, my partner continuously told me I was crazy and I believed them. 

I would speak of my concerns and express my uncomfortable feelings. I was then met with a barrage of inappropriate comments such as, “Why are you so self-conscious? It’s not my job to fix your self-esteem.” This was then followed by the grabbing of my stomach fat, telling me I needed to lose weight, making fun of my acne and calling for their best friend to “come look at how gross this is.” 

This person also knew what buttons to push. At the time, I had wanted a partnership with someone. I would have liked to do things together without this person’s best friend, but that never happened. In fact, I actually believe this person treated their best friend as a girlfriend, which was later confirmed in writing after we broke up for the last time. This person would brag about how thin their best friend was, how beautiful she was, how I wasn’t as great and that I should be more like her. At one point they had matching sweatshirts. I know this sounds lame, but considering I wanted a partnership, I was upset. I felt like this person would purposely do things like that to upset me, and then have ammo to say, “See she is crazy. She’s upset about a sweater.” No, actually I was upset that I didn’t have a partner and the partner I did have was basically dating their best friend. <--Best friend had no idea, so not to blame here. 

It was a bunch of justification for poor behavior, but because we were surrounded by mutual friends and the same support group, I stayed. I stayed because I followed direction from people I trusted, I felt that maybe I was crazy and this person was right. Maybe I did have low self-esteem and needed to fix it; as if that would be the key to happiness. I didn’t leave. I believed what they said and followed their lead. 

What was really happening behind my back was normal Sociopath behavior. My “loving partner” was exploiting me, sharing things with mutual friends that were one-sided; they would only say half truths, and not what happened to provoke the story in the first place. I was made out as a bad guy. I HAD NO IDEA! This person had no problem living with me, using me to provide food/shelter while they “looked for a job” and was doing terrible things behind my back. 

When the decision was made to break-up, I was courageous enough to do it. We broke up...for a week. My partner came back, crying and apologizing for everything. They would change, I believed it. It only took a few months to realize that this wasn’t working. Continuous damage to my character was done, as this person used the break-up as an opportunity to exploit me. Even my dog was afraid of my partner, and every time my partner’s hand went up, Riley thought he was going to be hit. That was the last straw. Riley is my son, and if he’s acting this way, something is wrong. Riley isn’t afraid of anyone, and this was very telling considering my partner was basically a stay-at-home parent for my dog. 

Once we broke up, I continued going to the support group. Sadly, everyone chose sides and it wasn’t mine. I didn’t understand why people believed my partner. I get it that my partner was charming, always had a smile on, and was “cool” <-- by cool, I mean this person wore new clothes, had a Neff hat and a fun pair of Ray-Bans. My friends decided that “cool” was better. They wouldn’t even check on me and I thought we were friends. 

My former friends wouldn’t even look me in the eye anymore. If I was  around, they would leave. I would hear them say nasty things about me within ear shot and laugh. I was isolated, and all I did was protect myself and my dog in the only way I knew how. I felt rejected, and the place I went to for support was no longer safe. I would talk to other members about it, and no one believed me because I was the crazy one right? I felt like I couldn’t say anything to them, or I would look even crazier. That’s the way Sociopaths work. 

The worst experience is when a friend Shane came up to me and informed me that he had been at a fundraising event with my former friends. He told me that they were all standing in a circle, and out of nowhere, my former partner made fun of a very vulnerable situation I shared privately. It was something that was completely inappropriate to share. If I had wanted that information shared, I would have shared it right? Instead, my private matter was a joke to my former partner and my former friends. Luckily, Shane was a solid guy and told me. He wanted me to know that these people were terrible behind my back. I didn’t need the info, I already knew. 

I left the support group and found another one. Over the years, I have watched this former partner of mine go through relationship after relationship doing the same things they did to me. This is the cycle: 

-Ex became bored in the relationship, and hits up anyone for sexual attention. I know, because the day I got engaged, guess who hit me up. THAT’S RIGHT PEOPLE, THIS PERSON CAME CRAWLING BACK. Never thought that would happen right?! Well I knew it was coming because I know this person’s tricks. I GOT THE RECEIPTS FOR YOU DOUBTERS. 

-Ex’s current partner has no idea, so they are oblivious to the BS. I debated on telling the current partner and sending screenshots, but as we all know, this wouldn’t help anyone. I left it alone, because I knew she’d be a victim soon enough. 

-Ex breaks up with current partner for whomever they have hit up for sexual attention. There is usually overlap there that no one talks about. It’s not always overlap by physical touch, but definitely by text/email/social media as evidence has shown. 

-Ex and new partner move in together, get 2 dogs and 1-2 cats. I SWEAR TO GOD, THIS IS THE EXACT THING THEY DO IN EVERY RELATIONSHIP. For me, it was Riley, Brooklyn and George Castanza (cat), The next person got a golden, a german, and 2 Russian Blues. In the current relationship there are 2 dogs and 2 cats. Side note: When I was out of town for work, my partner left George Castanza in the alley because they “didn’t want to clean the litter box.” This cat was 6 months old. 

-This person also likes to buy every partner the same jewelry. It’s usually a silver heart necklace. Same design, change length, everything. It’s like a signature of a serial killer or something. We all get the same scars AND the same jewelry; how thoughtful.

-Ex is also obsessed with attention, so they flaunt ALL of this on social media. This is a strategy to show the world “how great their life is” and to show the previous partners “how much better off they are” until the cycle starts again by hitting up the previous ex or high school partner. 

-This person also likes to do at least one photographable activity a few months after the break-up to show the world, “See, it’s all good. We’re friends now.” Mine was K-ROQ Weenie Roast, the next one’s was a trip to Chicago with a “pal.”

I have watched this happen for years. I have also watched close friendships of theirs dissolve as the charade only lasts so long. 

At the end of the day, this is what I have learned: 

-There are circles to friendships. First ring is a tight-knit group of 2-3 people, second ring are fun friendships but not intimate, third ring are associates, fourth ring is everyone else. 

-Don’t believe everything you hear. If someone is talking trash about another person, straight up ask what their part is. What was the actual story from start to finish? Call people out on their BS. If you’re only hearing how terrible someone is, you’re only listening to half the story. 

-There are 3 sides to every story: your side, my side and the truth. 

-Sometimes you just have to be ok with cutting ties with people who hurt you, even if you rely on those people for support. 

-Forgiveness exists, but if you’ve done me wrong you will never be inner circle again. Trust is not easily given back, especially with poor behavior done on half truths. 

-Follow your heart, not your head. Intuition is key. 

[askwwwwd]

WHAT WOULD WONDER WOMAN DO?...about the lack of truth in society? (Originally published March 1, 2018)

Christie Marston, granddaughter of Wonder Woman creator is quoted saying that, “Wonder Woman is about two things: Love and Fair Play”. Last year I wrote a “WWWWD about the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump” article which weighed extra heavy on one of her primary messages: Love. It’s been just over a year since his inauguration, and after a cyclone of events, I have no choice but to now focus on her secondary message: Fair Play. Why, you ask? Because over the last 60 weeks there has been a barrage of behaviors encouraging inequality which has included (but is not limited to): name calling, bullying, taunting, intimidation, misinformation, misrepresentation, and just plain ole’ lying coming from the current Executive Branch of this White House administration. It has has both disappointed me and hurt me in multiple ways. I am disappointed because I initially embraced with a open heart, gave the benefit of the doubt, and based my stance on Wonder Woman’s first message (love). As as minority, it has hurt me to see an attempt to retract civil rights, religious groups overtly legally assaulted, and minorities (including many of my own) vilified (often via dog whistle politics). Yet, of all the behaviors, it’s the blatant lying and endorsement of easily provable lies, which has stood out to me as the most problematic.

Truth is a through line which operates as a foundation that unites us. It’s a cohesive material for societal unity and productivity, but over the last 2 years the idea of truth has been corroded, and incendiary behavior has been glorified. At this very moment someone is reading this and pontificating how invalid it is to claim that anyone in power has purported lies, even as evidence exists proving that lies have been purported. Truth plays one of the most important parts in the equation for ensuring fair play. “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.” Yet, as we know, all men are not treated equally, and this unequal treatment is reinforced. Since the birth of our great nation, we can trace how the inequalities to which we give merit are often based on misconception, perception, assumption, and preconceived notions; A lack of facts and/or truth.

Seeing this happen with such alarming frequency over the last year, and seeing an entire branch of the Government in support of it, has created an internal conflict for me. I want to support and I want to walk the path of love, but I am torn. Why does history keep repeating itself? What can I do to help in the efforts to ensure Fair Play for all? And how can I walk the path of the warrior of peace? Today, I plan on taking a very good look at why we as humans operate on perception, assumption, and preconceived notions, and how we can correct it by asking what, for me, has become ‘the age old question’. It’s time for me to ask, ‘What Would Wonder Woman Do’ about the lack of truth in American society?

NO ONE CAN RESIST THE GOLDEN LASSO

First off, let me address what many who are reading this column for the first or second time might be thinking, which is that Wonder Woman and politics don’t mix. This is false. The truth is that Wonder Woman was born out of politics. She was conceived in 1941 during World War II as a piece of psychological propaganda to assist humanity in course correcting from the atrocious hate and oppression of the time, and was even based off many of the inequalities of the time; Specifically those suffered by women. Love and Fair Play were the messages Wonder Woman brought forth as a necessary antidote needed back then. It would seem they are needed again, and more than ever before. The division in culture and polarization of sides, has required her equally binary message. A vital and absolutely necessary element for us to again course correct in our current era. But how do we include them? Well, we must first have truth. As the bible says, “...you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32). Truth and authenticity are a catalyst. An access to power, if you will, which seems to also be a biblical idea, and has transcended the centuries.

As a psychologist, Dr. William Moulton Marston must have been tapped into this idea, as the Amazing Amazon seemed to often utilize truth as a kind of weapon in her fight against hate and oppression during the Marston adventures; Mostly retrieving essential information during brief interrogation to aid her in apprehending villains. As a graduate student at Harvard, he began introducing some of his theory about truth, and became the forefather of the lie detector. So, it’s not surprising that many of Diana’s stories included this and sometimes visually reflected the process used in his systolic blood pressure test machine. I can only guess all of the aforementioned is why the lasso’s power, which was originally that of compulsion, was naturally associated with and evolved to also be a lasso of truth.

There really is something spiritually foundational to the human experience about truth as an access to power. I’ve been so happy to bear witness to so many Wonder Woman writers and artists explore this idea. George Perez , Phil Jimenez, Gail Simone, and Greg Rucka are those that immediately come to mind. In Rucka’s run, aptly titled “Lies & the Truth”, there are two scenes that perfectly illustrate this. The first is a scene drawn by Nicola Scott where the truth was a basic and there was actually space and room for compassion and fairness. This is an immaculate depiction of the exact representation our heroine brings forth. It’s what Wonder Woman is about. It is her message. It is who she is as a character. Her ability to use truth as a tool for love’s healing, unification, communion, and ability to open the door for providing fairness. It’s power is unmistakable and it’s concept has always been an essential component of the Wonder Woman mythos. But how do we emulate her example?

LASSO THE TRUTH

There is one truth to which I’m very present, and it is that lying originates from one place: us. Due to human nature, we as individuals are the author of lies. The genesis of a lie is on the individual level. However, they become potent on the collective level. It’s through the process of agreement reality which spreads lies in virus-like fashion, and gives them the power of creating chaos, division, and inequality. Therefore, I believe that if we can learn to correct a lie at it’s inception, which is on the individual level, we will almost self-innoculate. My theory is that this is cone by following Wonder Woman’s child-like inquisitional example of ‘Lassoing The Truth’ in ourselves.

In similar fashion that Phil Jimenez’s Wonder Woman was forced to be authentic while wearing the lasso, we must develop ways to detect the lies within ourselves. Lie detection seemed to be one of Dr. Marston’s specialties, as some of his most popular professional psychological work revolved around the topic. I think that it’s important to note that WMM III observed that lying puts stress on the body. So it would be easy to conclude that being truthful was healthier. Since Marston began his work as a Harvard graduate, I thought it might be interesting to look at another Harvard graduate’s work, who’s work paralleled his, focusing on how humans “short circuit” reality based on the assumptions and beliefs we develop; Basically how we create lies. I’m talking about Chris Argyris’s Ladder Of Inference. The Ladder consists of seven steps which may happen thousands of times a day, and examines how we (in the blink of an eye) process experiences. I’ve ordered the seven steps into 3 sections with corresponding advice on how we might follow Wonder Woman’s example and lasso the truth in ourselves. I hope you enjoy!

FACTS:

STEP ONE in the Ladder of Inference is where we first take in the facts of a situation. It’s where we get the raw data and observations of our experiences. I put this step in a category all by itself because it’s after this first step that we begin to veer off course. However, if we had not abandoned facts in the first place, which are the foundation of truth, then we probably would not need to move to the next step.

Truth, like love, can be a powerful weapon and force, which can even turn the tide of a war. Screen capture from Wonder Woman courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

In her early adventures, Wonder Woman’s need for authentic and accurate information in her fight against hate and oppression was invaluable, and we saw in the Wonder Woman movie starring Gal Gadot that this idea hasn’t changed. Yet acquiring factual information is not often an easy task. Being in a brand new and strange patriarchal society, I am sure Diana would often want to reject the atrocities she perceived around her. Yet she continually chooses to understand and accept what is going on around her. She stays true to the circumstances. If she didn’t then she wouldn’t be able to properly affect change. Staying true to the circumstances is not an easy task, but it is one that we can replicate even without gods given powers. Therefore, to me this reminds us that we must follow in her footsteps of ALWAYS sticking to the truth.

FABRICATION OF FICTION:

Next four steps in the Ladder Of Inference (2, 3, 4, & 5) are the parts where we begin to filter and fabricate from the experiences that we have. STEP TWO (Ffiltering) is where we, based on our preferences, tendencies, and many other aspects that we believe are important, we filter specific information and details from our experiences. In STEP THREE (Assign Meaning) is where we begin interpreting what our information is telling us, and assign meaning to the information that we have filtered through. STEP FOUR (Assumptions) is where we blur the distinction between what is fact and what is story and develop presumptions. In STEP THREE (Conclusions) is where we have emotional reactions due to the conclusions we have developed based on our assumptions.

Since all of these steps have to do with bias, I clumped them all together. During the early Marston adventures, the golden lasso was often utilized to get people to obey commands in an effort to help them become better. In Sensation Comics #19, Wonder Woman herself falls off course and is prey to falling off course. The magic lasso is used to bring her back to her senses and get her back on track. To me, this illustrated how we as humans can do our own course correcting. ‘Habitualizing’ following the path of truth, can help us bypass the human need to (often inaccurately) assign meaning, make assumptions, and draw conclusions. Therefore, I see the second lesson is that we must learn objectivity.

FOLLOW BLINDLY:

The last two steps (6 and 7) in the ladder have to do with how we exist in the world around us. In STEP SIX we (including the person or people involved in our current experience) adjust our beliefs about the world around us. Then in STEP SEVEN (take action) based on our adjusted beliefs, we take actions.

If you haven’t based things on fact, and aren’t objective, then these two last steps can have the consequences which lead to us acting upon our personal assumptions and conclusions, or following blindly without the truth. During many of her early adventures, Wonder Woman is seen questioning people in

counseling (‘tell me your story’), investigatory, and interrogatory fashions. Following others blindly didn’t seem to be how she operated. I believe this is because she had a strong core and center. Matter of fact, she even reveals at one very early point that the secret to her strength lies in her confidence. Christianity refers to truth as piece of the Armor of God, sometimes called The belt of Truth, in Ephesians 6:10-18. I find it to be no coincidence that, in the New Testament, truth is depicted as a belt which girds your center, or ‘hara’ as it is called in some Martial Arts, the cradle of the Soul. It is the intersection of mind and body. Therefore, I believe that this brings us to our last and final lesson. In order to have confidence, we must truly Know ourselves.

CHANGE OUR MINDS, CHANGE THE WORLD

Over the past year and a half, I have seen many in society willfully ignoring facts, and still presenting them as a true story. This is what lying is, and It leaves us powerless, creates conflict, and corrodes the cohesive material needed to unify us, which is truth. After reaching into Wonder Woman’s mythology, I found her golden lasso to be a metaphor for how to emulate her example. We must follow in her footsteps and lasso The Truth, specifically in ourselves, because that is the birthplace of all lies. Each one of us are a part of the global society, and share the responsibility of adhering to the ideal of truth. Therefore, Wonder woman’s example can only exult and heal us.

Lassoing the truth in ourselves can be difficult, because it requires a level of vulnerability. But as Marston observed, lying actually puts stress on the body, while being vulnerable, truthful, and authentic allows us to operate in better health, and is an access to incredible power. In a sense, learning this tool is a kind of rigorous Amazon training. Work and training is not an easy path, but the rewards are well worth it. If we practice always sticking to the truth,

practice learning objectivity, and practice knowing ourselves, we will be lassoing the truth in no time! Additionally, the faster that we as a society learn being truthful, the sooner we will see our collective consciousness unify and grow along with our increased productivity. So go out and develop your own practices for sticking to the truth, being objective, and knowing yourself. Share your practices with your friends. It’s how you will lasso the truth, and I truly believe it’s what Wonder Woman would do. And as George Perez’s Diana said, “Remember your power!”. With it, we truly can change the world.

[adventk-blog]

                                             — ARE YOU WHO YOU WANT TO BE, 

       introducing JUNG SOOJUNG, a MUTANT, under the moniker of KRYSTAL — and currently a believer of NEUTRALITY. age ( twenty-three ) and gifted with the abilty of SUPERNATURAL COMBAT, they are currently working as a GUN RANGE INSTRUCTOR.

WE ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN STORIES,

— youth, her father was in career military at west point, new york. her father was brilliant, in the sort of way that propelled his career. her father was haunted by demons and the battles they brought with them, opened the door and ushered them in to join their small family. her father was rigid with paranoia that never left him. and her father was the reason that her parents’ marriage was circling the drain by the time she was six. it was an interesting childhood, but it was normalized. krystal grew up learning what to do in the worst case scenario, dinner conversation often merged into quizzes on survival, on fighting.

when she wanted to take dance classes with her best friend in elementary school, that idea was replaced with taekwondo. when she got older enough, father-daughter bonding time consisted of him taking her to the gun range and learning how to shoot. it wasn’t a case of her father wishing for a son out of their only child. instead, there was fear behind those decisions, a fear krystal could never really figure out. but she always knew he loved her, that he was attempting to give her the tools to keep her safe. it was just over inflated, perhaps propped up by experiences of his past that he couldn’t shake off.

— teens, rebelling to krystal was dichotomous in nature. impulses and hormones mixed together to create an ambiguous way of lashing out. at thirteen, krystal put her foot down and argued until she was red in the face so that she could sign up for gymnastics. her mother sided with her, and the subsequent argument, backlash was so much larger than it should have been. krystal was brought up with rules and plans, but there wasn’t cruelty. instead, there were formulas to follow, and goalposts to reach that were set by her father and consistently moved higher. so she sparred, and learned how to handle weapons, knew what to eat if she ( for whatever reason ) got stranded in the woods. a detailed plan, though what was looming in the horizon was unknown to krystal, and unknown to her mother.

his paranoia only seemed to grow worse over the years, and krystal’s reaction to more rules falling down on her head at fifteen was to sneak out and attempt to have a life of her own in secret. slinking through the neighborhood, collecting friends, and pushing each other around in shopping carts in an abandoned parking lot. sips of stolen drinks and parties in basements while whoever’s parents were away for the weekend. krystal managed to balance the duality of her life well enough. besides, she’d already been taught how to pass a lie detector test. assuming a blank-faced expression and pretending all she cared about was competitions and tournament for her father’s chosen hobbies was easy enough. living with him was harder.

loud rants and ramblings turned into regularities, overreactions provoked from things that seemed to only make sense to him. strict turned into controlling, and their home adopted a tense atmosphere that seemed strangling on the best of days. it created tension, more than there already was. the last straw for her parents’ failing marriage seemed to be when her father stepped down from his position with the intention of moving them away to an isolated location in the woods with the idea of living off the grid.

krystal was seventeen when her mother decided that simply wasn’t an option for her, and she took krystal with her to move to korea and live with relatives while she dealt with divorce proceeding from across the ocean. where safety was almost guaranteed.

back in america, she was on the verge of being an outcast, though it was tempered with complaints and her willingness to sneak out of the house late at night, to slip out of the confines placed on her. in korea, this trend continued due to her very recent move, an upended life into a new culture where she was perceived as slightly different. pronunciation that was accented, even if she did grow up bilingual. but she tried to take it in stride. it became a little harder once her mutation started to appear, bubbling and simmering underneath her skin like a bomb waiting to go off.

she thinks that maybe she inherited her unnaturalness from her father, maybe there was something trapped in his mind fighting to come out. maybe he never got the chance to solve the puzzle and it overwhelmed him.

it took a little bit of time for krystal to piece together that she was a mutant. an other. fighting at the dojang she joined became easier, to the point where she knew she count best opponents she shouldn’t have been able to. perform feats that she shouldn’t be physically capable of. krystal at least had enough sense not to let these newfound peculiarities show when she was around others, but she experimented when she found herself alone. it took a little longer before krystal recognized that she could branch away from taekwondo if she so desired. that the art of other fighting styles seemed to be wound through her musculature, imprinted into her brain. a few more years and she figured out this apparent ability stretched out to include weapons as well.

a knife in her hand now felt like opportunities. maybe that was what her father had always been trying to impart on her.

— present, upon graduation from high school, krystal seriously entertained the idea of moving back to america for university. she was close to doing so, but she fell to her mother’s appeal and opted to stay nearby in incheon instead. she didn’t go to a particularly grand or expensive university, enough to where the settlement from the divorce was able to cover a large chunk of the tuition and krystal only had a small pile of debt to her name. which was for the best considering she couldn’t manage to land a decent job after graduating, even with the bland business degree she’d gone for.

criminal justice was considered briefly, but her mother was adamant on distancing them both from her father’s legacy and so she applied around until she found a job at a shooting range. her father managed to wind her up in enough of his fear that it turned into a habit and krystal had opted into getting her gun license, especially after the knowledge of her powers had fully dawned on her. that and experience meant she was able to work her way up from an employee to an instructor. it doesn’t cut the biggest paycheck, and krystal lives in a cramped officetel, but she makes due.

there are worse fates for mutants, of this she is aware. but she hasn’t yet had a chance to completely figure out the politics behind it all, and she isn’t really forced to at the moment either. her powers are subtle enough to hide, even if she’s not adverse to wield them if she deems it necessary. the concept of segregation to her appears more complicated than most make it out to be, but in a world where humanity likens her kind to a threat and forces her to lock away pieces of herself that she’s still figuring out…well, she can’t condemn those who are fighting for it.

THERE IS FLESH AND BLOOD BEHIND THESE TALES,

the way that krystal was brought up reflects the person that she grew into. she was raised to have a rough exterior, to be wary, to expect the worst. pessimism is a friend to her at this point, something she’s relied on over the years. she’s learned that to be too trusting is to be naive, and so she’s not eager to give it out without a reason for her to do so. she’s as observant as she is cynical, ingrained over years of being trained to expect something she was persuaded into believing was coming.

it’s all converged in a gruff exterior. cheshire grins and skin overlaid in metaphoric nails. there wasn’t much for krystal to be growing up besides tough, and so that was what she became. unrelenting and blunt, put her on a warpath and she’ll do nearly anything to meet her goals. she’s resourceful, and there’s an edge of charisma that feels more sharp than welcoming. it props up words that she doesn’t always think through, when she lets her anger get the best of her.

she doesn’t see the world in black and white, but she tries to live her life decisively, even if she doesn’t know if what she’s doing is right. it helps that she lives independently, is willing to take the world on her own shoulders and buckle underneath the weight of it if it means she doesn’t need to ask help from the people around her. she’d sooner walk through fire than allow someone to watch her break, and she’d sooner break herself than let someone else do it to her.

AND EVEN MONSTERS CAN LEARN TO WEEP.

supernatural combat —

the manual,

from the outside looking in, krystal’s mutation seems subtle. but underneath skin and interwoven between muscle and bone is power that pushes her to unnatural heights.there’s more than mastery in her form, there’s an innate ability and functionality that oversteps the scope of possibility. to her, combat seems pre-programmed. it doesn’t take much to adopt to a new fighting style, to figure out the intricacies smoothed out for most in years and years of practice.

a battlefield becomes a chessboard, and there’s an unflinching ability that’s driven into her, that’s able to adapt and morph with whatever unknown or unorthodox methodology is placed at her feet like a bomb waiting to go off. everything is packaged up pretty in a box, with a brutal bow adorning the mess that is krystal. she knows what it takes to survive, and she knows how to take it a step past that, and then another. her power isn’t particularly flashy. there isn’t an array of sparks or scales that climb down her spine. but in its subtlety there is power. mutations can be awe inspiring and vicious, but a bullet can deliver someone to a grave just as well as magic can.

the technicalities,

supernatural combat revolves around one central idea, namely, combat. the feats that can be attained under this mutation are not within the realms of human ability, and the fighting skills of said individual aren’t naturally possible and therefore cannot be replicated unless by a mutant of similar skillset or other extenuating circumstances. the combat skills housed under the framework of this mutation encompass both offensive and defensive, and extend to components such as the individual’s speed, strength, precision, reflexes, technique, analysis, and all other aspects of practical fighting. it should be noted that these variables are elevated in conjunction with combat only, in an effort to mutate the individual into mastery of said area. this does not extend into scopes such as: super strength, super speed, advanced analytical prowess, and so forth. rather, these are akin to reflexes that are triggered when the individual is placed into a combat-like setting.

APPLICATIONS :

subsection a: attack prediction,

in many romanticized renditions of fighting, the act is likened to a dance. both partners are in tune and play a part in its creation. however, an individual is capable of prediction within the confines of combat due to ( 1 ) analytical capabilities in use being able to determine what the next logical step is in conjunction with ( 2 ) an innate knowledge of fighting. armed with these two variables, the individual is able to make reflexive judgement calls on what an opponent’s next move is e.g. determining that weight shift and specific muscle tension are indicative to the type of attack and how it may occur. these conclusions are not predictive or telepathic in nature. rather, they are deductive and lead to further instinctive actions of the individual.

subsection b: weapons proficiency,

an extended arm of combat is the weapons that are used in it. the individual has a natural affinity towards weapons, and they are quick to learn and adapt with these tools. proficiency is contiguous here to general mastery. said individual has a very small learning curve before they are acclimated to weapon use, and are able to wield them in combat where such weapons and potential use are able. a contingency in weapons use is that the individual must have access to any and all weaponry. the individual is not able to conjure or craft, they simply possess the ability to wield them knowledgeably.

LIMITATIONS :

clause 1: invincibility,

while the individual may be perceived by those who are untrained as invincible, they are not. enhanced defensive measures in the form of combat-related skills ( e.g. blocking, dodging ) do not equate to defensive measures in the form of indestructibility. said user can receive damage, and sustained damage can lead to mortal-leaning consequences such as, but not limited to: injury, loss of consciousness, or death. furthermore, supernatural combat is in no way preventative of pain. faced with too much pain, and the individual way be forced to disengage from combat in an instinctual reaction.

clause 2: intent,

supernatural combat is limited only to combat, and additional components of what complete the definition cannot be dismantled and used in others contexts. for instance, speed used inside the realm of a fight to outmaneuver an opponent cannot be retranslated to encompass other uses of speed in daily life. the individual cannot make use of, say, heightened travel time. rather, when intent is sensed (via adrenaline in the context of a fight), the mutation triggers use of multiple facets that connect and form what is known as combat.

clause 3: human limitations,

the human body is capable of withstanding only so much before it reaches a breaking point. the individual is not exempt from such a breaking point. injuries sustained will remain, and can lead to death in extreme circumstances. thus, the onus is on the individual to use other such skills to avoid this if and when possible. however, avoidance is only a strategy and probability would state that injury is bound to happen. under these conditions, the individual’s body would need medical attention and a normal allotment of time to heal. in addition to the above conditions, if the individual is injured, this may further hinder their abilities in combat and may lead to weaker, less focused fighting technique. a scenario being: if the individual has a broken wrist, they would not be able to use that hand in combat due to lack of control and additional pain, however they could certainly attempt to grit through it under the assumption that their peak capabilities are not being met.

clause 4: preparedness,

the individual must be able to have access to certain tools if such a power require them under subsection b ( weapons proficiency ). this power is dependent on using weapons, but the individual cannot draw them from a faraway location and/or summon them if they get knocked away. since said power is balanced on the skill and knowledge to use such weapons, it is the individual’s own responsibility to come armed in a situation where combat is present. if the individual fails to do this, subsection b is rendered useless.

clause 5: capability,

being able to predict when an attack is coming does not necessarily equate to the individual being able to deflect or deal with it. similarly, if there is some force that overshadows the capabilities of what the individual is equipped with they may be overpowered or put in a disadvantageous situation. for instance, in a scenario where an opponent’s strength is tenfold that of the individual’s, then predicting and blocking them would be rendered useless and the individual could be knocked aside. the burden of how the combat should be further played out to the individual’s advantage ( if at all possible ) would then rest solely on their shoulders.

THREAT LEVEL TWO.                            03+ BRWN, 05+ RSLNC, 02+ INTLCT, 02+ WLLPWR, 08+ FGHTNG, 04+ SPD