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keanuquotes · 1 year

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Alexandra Grant is shedding new light on her relationship with boyfriend Keanu Reeves!

The accomplished visual artist, 50, attended the Los Angeles Beverly Arts Icon Awards on Friday sans Reeves, 59, and when asked if it is harder or easier to tackle red carpets alone, gave a thoughtful answer.

“The good news about falling in love as an adult is that I had built my own career by the time that my relationship had begun,” she tells PEOPLE. “I feel very confident in the relationship on the red carpet. I feel confident on it alone.”

"It's interdependent and independent in the best ways,” she adds.

While Grant, an honoree at the ceremony, hit the red carpet solo at The Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, she has been photographed at several events with Reeves since the pair made their public debut as a couple in 2019.

When asked how she and the John Wick star — who started off as friends and collaborators — interact with each other’s professional environments, Grant began her response by recalling a moment she felt stuck creatively.

“In a moment of frustration in my life, I once said, ‘Sometimes I feel like a Maserati stuck in traffic,' that I have this big engine, but, for a variety of reasons, that I couldn't ever go,” she tells PEOPLE. “And I know a lot of people feel frustrated in their lives, that they're not able to run their engine.”

She adds: “I think every creative person feels that way.”

“What I love about Keanu and our exchange is that we're pushing each other to build new roads,” she says. “Seeing the other person's problem-solving is inspiring, like, ‘Oh, well, okay, this one, that's a cul-de-sac. How do I try this other thing?’ ”

“He's such an inspiration to me,” she continues. “He's so creative, he's so kind. He works so hard.”

Grant also shares that “storytelling is at the heart” of what both she and her actor boyfriend do.

“My work is much more of a private performance, but I have a text that I interpret in the studio into a painting, into an object,” she says. “He takes the text in private and then turns it into a performance in public. There's a relationship. We're both at the heart readers and researchers. We both care about people and we care about characters.”

Grant went on to compare her and Reeves’ creative worlds using a metaphor.

“I think there's a lot of similarities,” she began. “Sometimes I feel like, to make a film, as we're seeing now in the strike, that it's a cruise ship. Everyone is dependent on everyone else. You can't go off and— being an artist, maybe at the beginning of my career, I was in a kayak on the sea of creativity. Now maybe it's a small speedboat, but it's still a lot more nimble.”

“I think that is very inspiring for him,” she said of Reeves and the “cruise ship”-like nature of making a movie.

She continues, “To make a film, you require hundreds of people. To be an artist, you don't. You require one. You require a community to get the work into the world, but not to actually make it. I think part of the inspiration is the differences of scale.”

According to Grant, her art has “absolutely” changed since she began dating Reeves in 2019.

“I had a studio visit a few years ago, and this very kind, very high-level person said, 'I can see that your work has gotten happier,’ ” she remembers. “That's real. We're all human beings. We're animals. We're expressing from where we are and certainly feeling happier. I think the work is happier.”

Both Grant and Reeves dedicated their Friday nights to art. The Matrix star had to miss the ceremony to perform with his band Dogstar, according to Grant.

“I'm really proud,” she says. “I am a huge Dogstar fan. I had the great pleasure of going to their first public show and because I've been listening to the latest album for quite some time, I was one of the only people in the audience who knew all the lyrics. That was really cool. It's fun. It's beyond fun.”

She continues, “I was dancing to all the lyrics and then I looked around and I was like, ‘Nobody has heard the album except for me and a few people.’ It's been a real pleasure to see the guys come back together, to be so creative and supportive of one another.”

Grant says she is “so proud” and “happy” for Reeves’ alternative rock band, which reunited this year for the first time in 20 years.

“I'm glad they're able to do it,” she says, adding that she thinks it’s “really great that Keanu has the ability to pivot to being a musician” amid the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

“They had been playing music and rehearsing and they had already recorded most of the album before the strike,” she adds. “What it opened up was more time to go on the road.”

#Keanu Reeves #Alexandra Grant #Art #artists

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animebw · 1 year

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Short Reflection: Winter 2023 Anime

Is it just me, or did this season of anime kind of blow? Yes, anything would be a step down after the absurdly stacked Fall 2022 roster- and in fact, two of my favorites this season were continuations of shows I already liked from fall (Blue Lock and MHA)- but man, there was just a stench of failure around so much of Winter 2023′s offerings. Not just in how many of them turned out to be disappointments, but in how many of them didn’t even get to finish in time! Barely a week went by without another show suffering long delays, production after production crumbling under the weight of mismanagement and corporate apathy that doesn’t care how many animators are worked to death for an inferior product as long as they can make some extra cash from rushing it out early. I mercifully managed to avoid all the victims of these delays (well, almost; RIP Kubo-san Won’t Let Me Be Invisible), but even existing in the same space as them felt like it took a toll on everything else. This was a rough one, folks. But there were still some gems worth highlighting, so after spilling my thoughts on Onimai, Trigun Stampede and MHA Season 6, here are my thoughts on the rest of the anime I managed to finish this season!

(Also no Vinland Saga review yet cause I’m waiting for the season to be over, but spoilers, it’s still really fucking good. You’re shocked, I can tell.)

Tokyo Revengers Season 2: 1.5/10

You know what? I give up. I gave Tokyo Revengers every opportunity to finally pull itself together and turn into a good show. But not only did it drop the ball so hard the shockwave registered on the Richter scale, it felt like it was actively going out of its way to suck as hard as it could. Every single plot thread in season 2 is bungled so horrendously, from Takemichi’s increasingly unforgivable stupidity to the insulting cul-de-sac fights that change nothing about the status quo to the truly infuriating mishandling of every female character (Hey, I know, let’s give Yuzuha a panty shot while she’s being beaten by her abusive brother! Great idea!), that there is no possible way this show can ever recover. Even if the next season is somehow a masterpiece that fixes all the series’ issues- which it won’t be, let’s be honest- it won’t change the fact that Tokyo Revengers has established a new low for lazy, intelligence-insulting storytelling in shonen. The only reason it managed to get so popular is that it keeps making you think it’s about to do something really cool and meaningful with its high concept. But at this point, it’s all but proven that it never will. Fuck this show, fuck the manga it’s based on, and fuck everyone who accepts this barely-animated hackjob slop as anything close to acceptable entertainment.

The Fire Hunter: 2/10

Between this and Mars Red, I’m really starting to hate studio Signal MD. They’ve got a habit of turning fascinating highbrow fantasy premises into some of the dullest, sloppiest, most poorly produced pieces of pretentious dogshit that think they’re high art imaginable. And this one’s directed by Mamoru Oshii! He’s supposed to be a veteran director who knows his shit! How did he turn out such a colossal flop? Almost nothing in The Fire Hunter works on an audiovisual level; the animation is embarrassing, the direction is incomprehensible, the editing is somehow even worse (I have never seen such poorly timed painterly insert stills), and the whole thing is smothered under a droning soundtrack that drowns every scene in the same overbearing, tuneless sonic dead air. Even the best script in the world couldn’t survive this cataclysmically bad production, and suffice to say, this is very far from the best script in the world. It’s equal parts mind-numbing exposition, dull narration, and pointlessly mean characters with no interesting internal struggles or worldbuilding to justify the air of arrogance about the whole affair. The Fire Hunter desperately wants to convince you it’s art, but it’s just crap. Skip it.

To Your Eternity Season 2 (2nd Half): 3/10

I’ll give it this: the second half of To Your Eternity’s second season is unquestionably better than its first. Not a very high bar to clear, I realize, but after the utter slog that was Bon’s introductory arc, it’s good to have actually interesting things happen for a change. Unfortunately, for all the fresh air the siege of Renril brings to the proceedings- new characters, new kinds of stakes, a bonkers re-imagining of what Fushi’s powers are even capable of- it’s nowhere near enough to save this show from running itself into the ground. Whatever magic To Your Eternity once had is well and truly gone, buried under a flood of terrible production compromises and questionable story choices that have lead it down a path it can never recover from. No matter how much future arcs might try to turn things around, they’ll never escape the lesson this show has somehow forgotten it used to preach: when something dies, it can never truly return. To Your Eternity is dead. It’s over. Let it rest in piece while it still has some faint shred of dignity left.

Giant Beasts of Ars: 3/10

Did someone open a time portal to 2006? Giant Beasts of Ars feels exactly like the kind of original fantasy anime that studios were pumping out two decades ago- and unfortunately, that’s not a compliment. It gets off to a good start with a strong introductory episode that sets the tone well for a fun magitech adventure with some giant monster fighting, but the second that adventure gets under way, pretty much everything goes to shit. The characters are bland. The world itself is dull and uninspired. The action is lifeless thanks to a weak production that can’t give these fights the oomph they need. And the plot escalates from understandable low-key stakes to some of the most asinine “suddenly we’re fighting god now” swerves I’ve ever seen. Seriously, the way this story loses all sense of scale in its final episodes as it barrels head first toward a climax left me stunned in disbelief. Never mind the fact it ends on an asspull cliffhanger that’s almost certain to never get resolved because nobody’s going to want a second season of something this limp and underbaked. What a waste of time.

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: 3.5/10

I was really excited at all the fantasy anime coming out this season. After being swamped in the isekai sewers for so long, it was such a relief to see the industry remember they could tell stories about actual fantastical worlds and not just, you know, reskinned Dragon Quest knockoffs. So imagine my how immeasurable my disappointment was when one by one, all these promising series let me down. Kaina’s Naussicaa-inspired world of snow seas, giant spire trees and steampunk skiffs navigating an allegorical prayer for co-existence with nature and rejection of militarism should have been an easy slam dunk, a new Miyazaki for a modern landscape. Unfortunately, as beautifully realized as the world is- Polygon Pictures is no studio Orange, but their impressive background art and environmental storytelling continue to make a strong case for CG anime- the writers forgot to populate that world with anyone worth getting invested in. The characters are the stockiest of stock archetypes, photocopies of photocopies of tropes that have already been worn to the bone by decades of misuse and overuse alike. If you’ve seen even one generic fantasy anime, chances are you’re already sick of these characters, and there’s nothing fresh or particularly meaningful here to make up for the lack of originality. Don’t get me started on how poorly the princess is treated, yegh. Is it too late to unplug the concept of fantasy anime for a few years and hope it recovers some steam before we plug it back in?

High Card: 3.5/10

There is no excuse for High Card being as lame as it ended up. A Kingsmen-style goofy gentleman spy action comedy written by the author of Kakegurui in which secret agents in dapper suits fight with the power of magic transforming playing cards? And the entire world is themed around cards and card games (the country is Fourland, the spy organization is Pinochle with its office on Old Maid street)? This should have been a camp masterpiece every bit as delightfully unhinged as Kakegurui. This should have been the most gloriously Anime Bullshit (affectionate) experience of the year. But instead, it was mostly just Anime Bullshit (derogatory). It takes so little advantage of its concept, wasting episode upon episode on trite plotlines and cliche developments, jumping between so many tones and focuses without ever settling on a single one. I came here to see Twink Bruce Wayne summon bazookas out of thin air with the power of Instant Interdimensional Marketplace, not slog through the umpteenth iteration of “the stoic katana girl needs to open up to her male colleagues” or “tragic little sister with an incurable illness.” The bouncy ED, which sees the main cast all singing together in the car, was the one consistent bright spot, and even that started feeling more and more like an insult as time went on. If only the rest of the show were as loose and freewheeling as those painfully short 90 seconds per episode promised.

Don’t Toy With Me, Nagatoro-San Season 2: 3.5/10

Look, I’m no prude. I’m not above trash. Nagatoro’s first season was far from a masterpiece, but it had enough actual charm and character depth that I didn’t mind coming along for the ride. But the thing about trash is that just like every other show, you still have to do it well. Nagatoro wasn’t ever entertaining because it was a shallow wish-fulfillment rom-com for masochists, it was entertaining because it found something recognizably human in spite of being a shallow wish-fulfillment rom-com for masochists. And sadly, whatever spark made that first season work didn’t survive the transfer to OLM studios. There are fun moments here and there, but the overall package is just too half-hearted to care anymore. Not even the introduction of Nagatoro’s sister keeps the proceedings from feeling increasingly mindless. What’s the point of this show, really? What does it offer that I can’t get better elsewhere? Because if the only appeal is the teasing gimmick, well, Teasing Master Takagi-san is right there, people. You could be watching an actual good show about a girl mercilessly teasing her crush instead of this flavorless assembly-line mushburger of an anime. Just saying.

The Tale of Outcasts: 4.5/10

There’s something strangely endearing about The Tale of Outcasts, despite its many flaws. Does it read like every thirteen-year-old girl’s embarrassing stash of unpublished Ancient Magus Bride fanfiction? Yes, unquestionably. But you know what? There are far worse things to be. Maybe it’s the isekai exhaustion getting to me, but there’s something so refreshing about a cringey wish-fulfillment fantasy adventure populated by stock archetypes and hacky plotting that’s actually, like, wholesome? That feels like it was made out of genuine amateurish love for Victorian splendor mixed with demon furries instead of incel resentment that the world isn’t catering to their every whim? Yeah, it’s still cringe, but it’s charmingly cringe, not revoltingly cringe. I still can’t really recommend it unless you’ve got a real soft spot for deep-voiced daddy beast people who can be your angle or your dveil, but out of all the bad shows I kept up with this season, this was the one where I never minded clicking on that next episode button, and that’s gotta count for something.

Urusei Yatsura (2nd Half): 5.5/10

I think it takes a change in mindset to really appreciate Urusei Yatsura. True to its 70s roots, this is not an anime to watch for a constant sense of forward progression. This is a show to be enjoyed as a reliable weekly comfort, 25 minutes of mayhem every 7 days with a familiar cast of characters bouncing off each other endlessly. If you come in looking for a tightly woven narrative that’s always driving toward a forseeable endpoint like most modern anime confined to single cours runs, you’re likely to be disappointed. But if you let yourself just enjoy the chaos and don’t worry about what might come next, I think you’ll find a lot to like here. If nothing else, I appreciate Studio David sticking to that old-fashioned spirit. But I have to admit, I might’ve preferred a more streamlined adaptation that doesn’t waste a second of runtime. What can I say, I’m used to modern anime pacing. Or maybe I’m just annoyed by yet another instance of a tomboy character who wants to be more feminine. Which, you know, not Ryunosuke’s fault that particular trope has gotten so beaten to death these days, but still. Sometimes making changes for modern times isn’t such a bad thing, you know?

Revenger: 6/10

So y’all hear about this Gen Urobuchi guy? Apparently he was pretty famous back in the day or something, IDK. He’s been plugging away at his goofy Taiwanese puppets show for the past few years and slapped his name on the story concepts of a few high profile projects for extra buzz, but now at last, he’s returned to grace us with a full story and script from his own hands! ...and apparently from 17 years in the past as well, because from what I’ve heard, Urobuchi originally wrote Revenger back in 2006, well before the one-two-three punch of Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass that would make him a household name. And boy does it definitely feel like a trial run of those shows. Not that it’s bad by any means; it’s slickly produced, the cast has good chemistry, and the Booch is clearly having fun coming up with creative ways for evil bastards to be mercilessly slaughtered. But that’s really all it is, with little of the staggering depth and emotional complexity that would later earn him a place among the greats. It’s a first draft of basically all the thematic ideas he’d later perfect: the corruption of systems of power, the failure of blind heroism, the necessity of finding hope even in the darkest corners of the earth. I still recommend it for any fans of creative edgy violence, but don’t come in expecting another Madoka. It’s a bite-sized snack of an Urobuchi show, not the main course. And I’m totally fine with that; it’s entertaining enough on its own modest merits to be worth a look.

Play It Cool, Guys (2nd Half): 6/10

Yeah, I knew this one was gonna grow on me. There’s nothing like a really good low-key deadpan comedy to put me in a good mood at the end of a long day. Really, I think Cool Doji Danshi’s secret weapon is how much it appreciates the mundane awkwardness of everyday life. I have been in many situations much like its titular characters, little moments of confusion where the pieces don’t quite line up how they’re supposed to and before I know it I’m putting my umbrella in the fridge because I momentarily mixed it up with the groceries. And also like its title characters, I’ve learned just how damn important these moments are to my life. None of us are perfect meat machines 100% of the time; in many ways, our clumsiness is what makes us human far more than our accomplishments. And there’s something so wonderfully comforting about watching these boys (and men) come to appreciate their own imperfections much as I’ve done of myself. We need more shows that celebrate that simple silliness as well as this one does. So if you’ve been looking for something to lift your spirits in this increasingly grim world, I cannot recommend this show enough.

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale: 6.5/10

Do my eyes deceive me? A non-isekai, shoujo oriented fantasy that’s all about slavery being a bad thing? Stop the presses, we’re defying all the norms over here! Between this and the new season of Vinland Saga, it feels like we’re finally starting to push back on the noxious floodgates that Shield Hero pried open, and I could not be more thankful for that. Now, is Sugar Apple Fairy Tale a perfect depiction of the dynamics of slavery? Fuck no, it’s a young adult wish-fulfillment romance about a hot sulky fairy boy falling for the woman that was once his owner, this thing’s as problematic as an Antebellum-era Uncle Tom’s Cabin ripoff. But at least it’s actually trying to say something about the effects of dehumanization on a societal scale and how it manifests, and I’d argue it succeeds more often than it trips over itself. Plus, how fucking great is it to have an actual shoujo romance again? Set in a charming fantasy world with some actual originality? Sugar Apple Fairy Tale’s not perfect, but its charms are evident of a trend I hope to see countless other shows follow. The more fantasy anime looks like this instead of The World’s Strongest Necromancer is Reincarnated With a Cheat Skill In Another World Harem (I just made that title up, but admit it, you weren’t sure at first), the better off we’ll all be.

Ippon Again: 6.5/10

We seriously need more good female-centric sports anime. The guys have been dominating the field with their shounens and seinens while the girls are forced to subside on moeblob table scraps more concerned with being cute than actually telling a compelling sports narrative, or else being handed the absolute bottom of the production barrel (cries in Farewell My Dear Cramer). Ippon Again isn’t gonna right the ship all on its own, but it’s a damn good first step. The characters feel like believable teenagers, their judo matches are given genuine weight and strong animation, and while it suffers from some tired sports anime cliches, it always executes them with heart firmly on its sleeve. At its best, it captures the same freewheeling adolescent spirit that defines the likes of A Place Further Than the Universe, and I don’t say that lightly. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s a damn good time with no caveats, and hopefully it’ll only be the first of many great lady-centric sports anime to come.

Tsurune Season 2: 7/10

If you’ve somehow forgotten about the first season of KyoAni’s pretty boys doing archery show Tsurune from back in 2018, well, I don’t blame you. As a testing ground for the studio’s rookie talent to take their first crack at putting their own show together, it was by far the studio’s most workmanlike production, an all-around solid experience but lacking the insane polish and panache that defines the KyoAni brand. But my god, what a difference five years makes. Tsurune’s second season isn’t just a massive upgrade on the production front, it’s a complete overhaul on the show’s entire look and feel. It’s sweeping and elegant, it’s vibrant and explosive, it’s as expertly poised and shimmering as a bowstring drawn at dawn right before it releases a brilliant arrow. This show has gone from KyoAni’s simplest looking show to one of its most richly cinematic, complete with earthier color tones and revamped score from Fruits Basket composer Masaru Yokoyama. Yes, it’s ultimately still just a show about pretty boys learning to shoot bows well as they overcome their issues together. But with such a massive step up in its look and feel, it’s officially become just as much appointment viewing as any KyoAni masterpiece.

Blue Lock (2nd Half): 7.5/10

Now that’s more fucking like it. Last season I bemoaned the lack of edgy death game nonsense I was promised in this edgy death game sports anime, but once we reached the second selection, Blue Lock kicked into high gear and made good on its premise at last. Betrayals! Allies turned enemies! Enemies turned allies! Overcharged homoerotic rivalries and break-ups alike! Overdramatic shonen boys trying to crush each other underfoot to grow stronger! Self-actualization through rejecting the power of friendship and embracing the power of “Fuck this guy!” This is everything I wanted when I first learned about Blue Lock’s premise, twisting the classic shonen sports formula into an equally blood-pumping tale of clashing egos and selfishness as everyone fights to become the best player by embracing their worst selves. It might have taken a hot second to get there, but now that it’s arrived, this show has become some of the most deliriously entertaining chaos you’re likely to find in the genre. Well done, you mad genius.

Buddy Daddies: 8/10

Man, whoever’s making the decisions on what shows PA Works produces is really on a roll lately, huh? It takes a real genius to look at premises like Ya Boi Kongming and Akiba Maid War and see an opportunity to create something truly special. But even that pales in comparison to the brilliance behind Buddy Daddies, a.k.a. “Hey, so this Spy x Family show is about to take over the world, right? What if we made our own version of that, but mix in the homoerotic buddy-cop energy of Tiger and Buddy to make it stand out?” That’s the kind of galaxy-brain thinking that’s rapidly making this studio a personal favorite of mind. And it’s that kind of confidence and pure solid storytelling chops that make Buddy Daddies just as entertaining and endearing as its most obvious inspiration. It’s not exactly the same- it’s set in modern day, it’s more focused on the child-raising than the assassin stuff- but it’s every bit as good at nailing that specific sweet spot of deliciously entertaining spy action, wholesome family hijinks, and the bittersweet space in between trying to reconcile those two worlds. Heck, Miri’s a way more realistic four-year-old than Anya ever was; you can tell the writers really did their research on what it’s like to care for a child that young. The year’s still young, but I think this show is already a strong contender for the feel-good masterpiece of 2023. Just don’t go in expecting the hot guys to kiss, because you will leave disappointed if you do.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady: 8.5/10

We’ve done it, folks. We’ve finally cracked the code on how to make modern isekai great. Step One: Center it on a female protagonist with an actual personality instead of an empty self-insert male-patterned cooler full of stale oatmeal. Step Two: Make your story all about subverting the exhausting masturbatory self-centeredness of vanilla isekai in favor of a symbolic or literal revolution to give power back to all lovers of fantasy instead of pandering to maladjusted thirty-year-old manchildren. Step Three: As part of that progressive reinvention, make it GAY. AS. FUCK. The Executioner and her Way of Life was a strong step in the right direction, but as good as that show was, there was clearly still room to push things even further. But now, at last, that potential has been fully realized by the stunning tale of a reincarnated princess and a genius young lady coming together to revolutionize the world. Folks, MagiRevo fucking rules. The main leads are wonderful separately and even more wonderful together, the production is strong enough to carry the story’s soaring ambition, and it’s a genuinely powerful exploration of the harms caused by archaic systems of patriarchal power, and how difficult it is- but also how necessary- to change what’s been leading a society down the wrong path for so long. And while it drags a little in the midsection, it all culminates in a spectacular final act and a final episode that had me sobbing in my seat for 25 straight minutes. This isn’t just the best isekai since Re:Zero, this is a triumph of queer fantasy carving its own revolution through a genre that’s desperately needed it for far too long. So come join me and raise your banner with Anis and Euphie, because their journey deserves all the attention we can give. I promise, you won’t regret it.

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javic-piotr-thane · 1 year

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Torchwood: Among Us Part 3, VORTEX June 2023

[putting the actual article under a readmore because it contains spoilers for the first boxset! and also because I want to be kind to y'all's dashes lol]

APOCALYPSE NOW

To British television viewers, Janet Ellis is a familiar and beloved face. Best known as a presenter on Blue Peter and also as the mum of pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor, it shouldn’t be forgotten she was once a guest star in Doctor Who when she played Teka in The Horns of Nimon. And now, she’s coming face to face with the Torchwood team playing a character named Janet!

Torchwood: Among Us 3 features a quartet of adventures with How I Conquered the World, written by Ash Darby, Tim Foley and James Goss; Doomscroll by Ash Darby; Heistland by Tim Foley and The Apocalypse Starts at 6pm by James Goss.

The team, with Yvonne Hartman (Tracy-Ann Oberman), Ng (Alexandria Riley), Orr (Samantha Béart), Mr Colchester (Paul Clayton) and Tyler Steele (Jonny Green) are surviving against the odds as it seems that the whole world has been turned against the organisation. But who is behind this? It’s time to find out.

How I Conquered the World has been co-written by the three writers of this set. Writer James, also the producer of the series, explains: “Episode nine is where we find out what set Torchwood up and why it did it. It ties into all of the stories so far in the season. Who turned a cul-de-sac into killers, who was persecuting Colin, who was behind Voloshnik and what Bilis was doing in the Torchwood Hub? It’s also a story about our lives now, and how, if we really are angrier all the time, where does all that anger go? It’s an interesting piece of storytelling and features some use of artificial voices, which is curiously rewarding and sometimes hilarious.”

Co-author Tim was delighted to work on a collaboration for the first story in this set. He says: “Oh, it was wonderful. Writing Torchwood is always a team sport. It’s great building a series like this together – I’ve had such a good time with James and Ash.”

The second adventure, Doomscroll by Ash, features a very recognisable world with social media influencers. James explains: “Episode 10 might be the one where Twitter goes, ‘I cringed so hard at this’! Something’s killing influencers and Torchwood have to stop it. It’s got a lot of very dark humour in it and truly disturbing situations. The cast are all phenomenal, delivering some lines that are probably unsayably weird. It might be the most relevant thing we’ve ever done, or it might be way off beam, or it might be the kind of thing you listen to in 2027 and go, ‘What’s an influencer?’”

The next story Heistland has been written by Tim. James says: “Episode 11 sees Torchwood Cardiff and their Icelandic equivalent carrying out two heists. Yvonne Hartman sets out to steal a crypto currency before an auction that could end the world. When it was scripted we were still getting our head around NFTs. Now it’s coming out after the bankruptcy of Sam BankmanFried and seems strangely wise. A lot of it is set in the French city of Carcassonne, which is beautiful and very dear to Tim’s heart. Clearly he thought, ‘Where’s the least likely place to base a crypto currency?’. It’s joyous to get Kai Owen back, and Rhys and the mysterious Kristin’s dynamic make me long for more Torchwood Iceland.”

Tim was delighted to be able to send Torchwood to Iceland. He agrees: “Absolutely! After we went there for Misty Eyes, James was keen we returned. It was fun to send Yvonne to France as well – gives a real international flavour to what we expect from ‘heist’ stories.” But has Tim actually ever visited Iceland? He concedes: “No! I’m a fraud! I do have friends from there though. I’d love to visit. And it was fun learning facts about the country. No trains in Iceland! Outrageous.”

Summing up the story, Tim says: “Yvonne performs a heist and Rhys tries to stop her! Or is it the other way around? I love writing for Rhys. Whether he’s barbecuing or making delicious sandwiches, I always seem to be feeding him. And giving him nice warm jumpers. That’s all I want to do for characters I love. And there’s something that happens in a turret that’ll get the listeners talking.”

The Apocalypse Starts at 6pm concludes the series and features the aforementioned Janet Ellis. James says: “Episode 12 was the most glorious, starstruck day in studio since we got Sir Michael Palin in! We had Janet Ellis, MBE, playing a national treasure called Janet. It’s essentially, ‘What if you found out the world was going to end during The One Show? How would they cover it?’ And the answer is this episode. It features riots, kidnapping, aliens and reasonable Christmas gifting tips. The regulars are all wondrous throughout, playing very different aspects of their characters, and, madly, Janet walks away with it.

“We were worried she’d push back on some of the lines, but she really went for it. If you’ve ever wanted to hear a Blue Peter presenter swear, then you’re in for a treat! Janet agreed to it because, of all wonders, she worked with Paul Clayton back in the day and he took her out to lunch and talked her into it. We don’t deserve that man.”

#torchwood: among us #torchwood #I'M!!!!! SO!!!!!! DAMN!!!!!! EXCITED!!!!!!!#will make a thoughts&feelings post about it in a hot minute

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daedalianpassages · 6 months

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At its best, astrology stimulates and nurtures our mythopoetic intelligence. It’s a psychological improvisation grounded in the language of the soul. Storytelling is its forte, the source of its energy. Those practitioners who understand its true value don’t use it in a quest for factual data and crisp answers and logical analysis. Psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, believed the search for meaning and purpose is the supreme goal of most human lives. Astrology provides its best blessings when it is in service to that imperative. How does the search for meaning and purpose happen? Where does it come from? A key component is the sense that each of our lives—yours, mine, our loved ones, everyone—is a long, interesting story composed of linked chapters. Most of us want to understand our destiny as an epic myth woven with plot twists and adventures. There’s no one right way to assemble our personal tales, no standardized strategy for creating our one-of-a-kind masterpieces. The process is unruly, accented with surprises, and often nonrational. We want there to be overarching themes that thread their ways from beginning to end, and we also want subplots, mysterious diversions, perplexing cul-de-sacs, and events that don’t make total sense but contribute to the artistry of the big picture. At its best, astrology serves this heroic fun. It’s a lyrical tool that helps us craft our epic histories and generate rich troves of meaning. Doctor Who, the science fiction character who stars in the TV show of the same name, offers sage advice: “We are all stories in the end. Make yours a good one, eh?” The wise use of astrology can help us do that.

Excerpt from Astrology Is Real: Revelations from My Life as an Oracle By Rob Brezsny

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seeminglyseph · 10 months

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Okay, because I suck at video games and didn’t have much for systems when I grew up I didn’t really play Metal Gear or know a lot about Hideo Kojima or his writing style, and I will admit. Could stand to interact with and learn to write more women, but he is steadily improving at that I think, and it’s not like it’s a Kojima exclusive problem when it comes to Video Games and Writing Women Characters. He actually writes women with stories, it’s just that his stories are fucking batshit so every now and then you sit there and go “yo wait hold on what the fuck???”

But from what I’m getting, listening to various explanations of the lore and stuff of his games (especially, currently, Death Stranding because I’ll be honest that game’s opening was dope as hell but I did struggle to stay engaged because my ADHD and inability to actually play games meant I was watching other people and that removed a lot of the engagement. I just cannot focus on something long enough to make the experience worthwhile.) is that a lot of his stuff feels like when you’re playing pretend with your friends as a kid, but then also applying the ability to create storytelling and literary devices like an adult who went to University.

Which is very very fun. Maybe literary is the wrong word, it’s more cinematic, but the lore choices and stuff is like. “Is that a biblical reference?” Along with some guy named “Die Hard Man” because he kept surviving things during the war, which tbh if I know nicknames correctly that guy would have gotten a nickname like “Roach” for that. You don’t get cool nicknames from your friends in the military, you get dumb nicknames. Even if Die Hard Man sounds dumb, I think it’s supposed to be cool. I think most military nicknames are insults. Honestly in general most nicknames are insults.

But Kojima works under the same mindset as I did when I in elementary school and played games with the other neighbourhood kids and said I was “Wolf because I was raised by wolves” because that was the level of creativity we were working with because I was fucking 7 and we were basically just riding our bikes in the cul-de-sac or however that’s supposed to be spelled and not actually knowing how anything worked. Because being a child in the 90s that’s kind of a normal activity?

I feel like that’s what Metal Gear Solid feels like, and Snake is just the vibe of “a cool animal name that can be a military hero.” Hell isn’t there a character in the first Metal Gear Solid that was actually raised by wolves? Like just, exploring concepts we all definitely thought were cool at one point or another and then finding ways to either play them straight or pull a full plot out of it, while also just going kinda batshit. I can appreciate that.

I think he needs to maybe meet some ladies that he finds as inspiring as the dudes he definitely maybe has huge fucking muse crushes on because I feel like that might be part of the problem, Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen and Guillermo de Toro have obviously like really inspired him as people, but like. Maybe the memes haven’t been as obvious about the women in his life, but that might also be why the female characters in his games sometimes fall flat? Though I have heard fantastic things about The Boss, and Bridget in Death Stranding is. Definitely notable and interesting and I think she’s supposed to be a complex villain? I think that’s a normal set of feelings to have for her?

Like he’s a Japanese director, wordplay is huge in Japan, and most Japanese names have meaning, especially in media. Those names are picked for a reason. Yeah Kojima definitely picks hammy names but they stand out in part because they’re in English. But he made military and post apocalyptic games with surreal and slightly silly tones despite serious topics, and naming conventions like this aren’t uncommon in Japanese media. They’re just extra hammy in English. And double extra hammy because Kojima is eccentric. But I feel like that eccentricity is necessary to keep games from becoming… the most boring grimy shit you will ever experience. I need inspiration and fun, and Kojima seems to inspire the whole industry to have more fun, and also wants everyone else to play. Which is why he has so many collaborators?

And he designs games to have teams working on them and with the idea in mind that the people working for him should always have work in the future, that was part of the Fox Engine and PT gambits? To keep his team employed in the future, not just himself?

This has been a very long rambling nothing, but while he costs a lot of money to create things, I think he also is like… actually interested in just… “let’s see what this baby can do, shall we?”

And I think we really fuckin need that in video games. Like damn. Yeah. Go ham dude. Figure it out, fuck Konami. Let’s play some games and get wild or something. Be weird.

#hideo kojima #I don’t know dick about shit but he seems cool

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deerydear · 1 year

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Sometimes random lay-people want to armchair-diagnose me with ADHD, or autism, or something like that....

(Don't most psychological diagnoses come out of someone in an armchair?)

Ok, My actual personal problem with this diagnosis paradigm is that it's so unfruitful.

It's like, "you are just like this because you are, and that's the end of it". There's no resolve to the story.

I live a mythopoetic existence.

Rather recently, I was reminded of a story.

When I was fourteen, I felt very similar to the descriptions of 'anti-social personality-disorder'. I felt that I had never felt true love [which wasn't true]. I felt that I was always using people, and that I saw the world in a rather ruthless way.

“People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.” --Katherine Applegate

Yet, manners and the order of social relations are often culturally-dependent.

In the world, I wasn't really judging myself using the full truth. I omitted kindness from my self-view...

I would return to Czesław Milosz's profile of his friend, Beta.

His attention is fixed not on man -- man is simply an animal that wants to live -- but on "concentration society." Prisoners are ruled by a special ethic: it is permissible to harm others, provided they harm you first. Beyond this unwritten contract, every man saves himself as best he can. We would search in vain for pictures of human solidarity in Beta's book. The truth about his behavior in Auschwitz, according to his fellow-prisoners, is utterly different from what his stories would lead one to suppose; he acted heroically, and was a model of comradeship. But he wants to be tough; and he does not spare himself in his desire to observe soberly and impartially. He is afraid of lies; and it would be a lie to present himself as an observer who judged, when in reality he, though striving to preserve his integrity, felt subjected to all the laws of degradation. As narrator, he endows himself with the qualities which pass as assets in a concentration camp: cleverness and enterprise. Thanks to the element of "class" war between the weak and the strong, wherein he did not deviate from the truth, his stories are extraordinarily brutal.

I had a habit of inflicting grief first, in order to intimidate people. I did not need to present myself as moral... and indeed I felt that I got a better social-standing by being a wolf in the woods.

Recently, I was reading an article on the neurobiology of opiate addiction. It mentioned anti-social personality-disorder briefly so:

As well, the cognitive deficits model of drug addiction could explain the clinical observation that heroin addiction is more severe in individuals with antisocial personality disorder—a condition that is independently associated with PFC deficits.

This brought to mind my old ruminations.

I found my cul-de-sac of diagnosis transformed into a road through the art of storytelling:

"The story of our relationship to the earth is written more truthfully on the land than on the page. It lasts there. The land remembers what we said and what we did. Stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land as well as our relationship to land. We need to unearth the old stories that live in a place and begin to create new ones, for we are storymakers, not just storytellers. All stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old. One of the ancestor stories, that waits for us to listen again with new ears, is the Mayan story of Creation.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"It is said that in the beginning there was emptiness. The divine beings, the great thinkers, imagined the world into existence simply by saying its name. The world was populated with a rich flora and fauna, called into being by words. But the divine beings were not satisfied. Among the wonderful beings they had created, none were articulate. They could sing and squawk and growl, but none had voice to tell the story of their creation nor praise it. So the gods set about to make humans. The first humans, the gods shaped of mud. But the gods were none too happy with the result. The people were not beautiful; they were ugly and ill formed. They could not talk —they could barely walk and certainly could not dance or sing the praises of the gods. They were so crumbly and clumsy and inadequate that they could not even reproduce and just melted away in the rain. So the gods tried again to make good people who would be givers of respect, givers of praise, providers and nurturers. To this end they carved a man from wood and a woman from the pith of a reed. Oh, these were beautiful people, lithe and strong; they could talk and dance and sing. Clever people, too: they learned to use the other beings, plants and animals, for their own purposes. They made many things, farms and pottery and houses, and nets to catch fish. As a result of their fine bodies and fine minds and hard work, these people reproduced and populated the world, filling it with their numbers. But after a time the all-seeing gods realized that these people’s hearts were empty of compassion and love. They could sing and talk, but their words were without gratitude for the sacred gifts that they had received. These clever people did not know thanks or caring and so endangered the rest of the Creation. The gods wished to end this failed experiment in humanity and so they sent great catastrophes to the world—they sent a flood, and earthquakes, and, most importantly, they loosed the retaliation of the other species. The previously mute trees and fish and clay were given voices for their grief and anger at the disrespect shown them by the humans made of wood. Trees raged against the humans for their sharp axes, the deer for their arrows, and even the pots made of earthen clay rose up in anger for the times they had been carelessly burnt. All of the misused members of Creation rallied together and destroyed the people made of wood in self-defense. Once again the gods tried to make human beings, but this time purely of light, the sacred energy of the sun. These humans were dazzling to behold, seven times the color of the sun, beautiful, smart, and very, very powerful. They knew so much that they believed they knew everything. Instead of being grateful to the creators for their gifts, they believed themselves to be the gods’ equals. The divine beings understood the danger posed by these people made of light and once more arranged for their demise. And so the gods tried again to fashion humans who would live right in the beautiful world they had created, in respect and gratitude and humility. From two baskets of corn, yellow and white, they ground a fine meal, mixed it with water, and shaped a people made of corn. They were fed on corn liquor and oh these were good people. They could dance and sing and they had words to tell stories and offer up prayers. Their hearts were filled with compassion for the rest of Creation. They were wise enough to be grateful. The gods had learned their lesson, so to protect the corn people from the overpowering arrogance of their predecessors, the people made of light, they passed a veil before the eyes of the corn people, clouding their vision as breath clouds a mirror. These people of corn are the ones who were respectful and grateful for the world that sustained them—and so they were the people who were sustained upon the earth."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I reflected upon myself, in hearing of the people of Wood, and the people of Light....

I used to be one of the kids who wanted an excuse.

That was for a brief time. I don't really think I can justify it, because the structure was built on bogland. It all sank into the muck, years ago.

...but again, I see myself in the people who try to say that "there must be something going on with me".

I recently had met a sweet young girl who diagnosed herself with autism... (She said she learned about it on tik-tok.)

She was trying to convince me I secretly had this disorder, too. She was assuming I was autistic because I was "acting shy." She had no idea of my psychological makeup, my life in the past… anything. Just, "you're shy".

Maybe it isn't "autism". Maybe it's the same thing that happens to dogs if they aren't properly socialized with other dogs and people, in their childhoods.

They become 'gitchy'. They aren't sure how to react, because they lack experience in certain situations. Some dogs become aggressive. They may see their owner as 'the only safe person', and everyone else as a possible threat.

I grew up being raised with puppies. I remember my mom telling me about this --- why it was so important to take the dogs out for walks, to meet new people and animals. Maybe it is possible to change. Maybe it's "getting used to a set of circumstances", which can be adjusted. Can old dogs learn new tricks? That's up to you.

I just.... I really don't like this idea of "innateness". "There's nothing we can do about it, you'll be like this forever". That attitude.

Perhaps that is an assumption of culture. I admit to having spent an extraordinary amount of time keeping up with online discussions regarding 'social justice', the social conceptions of mental illness, psychology, psychiatry... the subject fascinates me.

I started reading the blogger's gazette when I was a young teenager. In some ways, I knew my rights and my boundaries... but there were other parts of my life that acted as blind-spots in my vision. If you've spent time searching the corners the same corners of tumblr as I, you have likely seen people accusing others of acting in 'ableism'. These accusations can range from serious to frivolous.

On the subject of 'behavioural therapies', I think it is a very complex and individual issue. On one hand, someone may benefit greatly from therapeutic treatment. The question on my mind: Is an individual person qualified to act as a therapist for other people? ---I say this not in terms of cold, heartless 'academic qualification'... but as someone's capability to relate to other people.

Who cares if a therapist has a 'license' if they are an ASSHOLE!?! Do you have God's license, or Caesar's license?

I like to read a lot of theory of psychology, because I can reflect upon my own behaviours and thoughts... without having someone else intruding upon my mind.

I can 'be my own therapist', in a sense...

Personally, I don't believe that I have a syndrome like ADHD, because I know how my mind works. I have a mechanistic understanding of why I do certain things. Teachers would try to quiz me on why I didn't do the busywork they handed out. They wanted to figure it out, but I just thought it was fucking stupid.... ---Having to fill out a sheet of paper to "prove you learned something that day".

I always have done well on tests. I remember everything.

It's evolutionary. It's adaption to circumstances... It's prioritizing what is and isn't important. The teacher is not God. The teacher does not dictate reality. Their job title is intended to be responsible for helping children realize their potential in this world! ---- NOT stifling a child with endless paperwork and stupidity...

Although...

Some people grow up around assholes. Maybe not just some people, but many people.... Maybe those assholes have a limited view of the world and 'how they think it's supposed to be'. It's nothing about "society" because you can always find people who aren't like them. Anywhere. I'm serious. Have hope. Open your eyes. Feel with the fingers of your mind... all the good in the world. Move your limbs around, get the blood flowing. You'll be able to feel again. Every person is an individual. Every group is made of individuals. Every person is made of cells. Cells are individual. Cells are made of organelles. These are individual. We can go up or down in scale, forever. Maybe up is down, maaaaan! I wonder if everything loops around, like the Ouroburos. ( ARE YA DIZZY YET?)

Are you going to center your individual conception of yourself around a suffocating system of thought? I almost typed, "center around a close-minded person", but I didn't because people can always change. A person chooses to culture a system of thought within themselves. They can allow new organisms to come in, or they can shun them. This is for better or for worse. It's like an immune system. Some organisms are helpful to their hosts. Some may operate detrimental to the superorganism. Sometimes, the immune system may mistake its own bodily cells for a threat. It may begin to attack them. That is how auto-immune diseases develop. Live and Learn... Learn and Live...

Some people don't know yet what in this world will make them happy. They have an idea, but it may not have been fleshed out with enough experience. We must have an abundance of patience in these times. If one does not hold fast, then they may end up starting down the wrong road, getting lost amongst the twists and turns the land takes.... What are you setting out to find? They would have to turn around and walk all the way back to the crossroads, to get where they really want to be.. deep down in their Heart of Hearts. Sometimes, we may come across other people who have taken these impatient turns. They may still be stubbornly plodding down their chosen avenue... They may call you stupid for waiting patiently. They may think they'll find it on their own. ....but perhaps... a Fool who persists in his Folly becomes wise. Perhaps it may be different than in the way he had pre-emptively plotted out and devised.... yet, nonetheless.... there may be happy accidents, in life. Fate can be funny.

I've been thinking about these dreams I've had. I've had dreams where I happen to be Will Graham, the detective.

Once... It was a warm summer day. I was sitting under a solitary, young tree in a park. It wasn't a sapling anymore. It was a young adult. On the lawn, school-children were practicing a dance performance for a show. They were shape-shifting Chimeras... and the dance looked like they became different fabrics billowing in the wind, as they changed from form to form. As they were in the midst of dancing, there was no distinction between one and the other. They looked like a larger shape. ---like one giant ruffling, billowing fabric curtain. Joined together. This reminds of the Stripes of Zebras in a herd... how I've heard a zoologist say it confuses the predators, that makes it hard to pick out a singular target.

I recognized these people as my class-mates from my younger days. They stayed young, carefree, and formless.... while I had taken on the form of an older man....

A detective, who gets inside the mind of sick people... A man who can see it all from the inside-out. His job is mapping it out -- how the criminal mind works.

I was sitting in the shade of the tree. I felt stuffy, like I was wearing heavy clothing in warm weather. Yet, I felt cold, under the shadow of the tree. The sun shined sweetly on the dancers, and I hid from it. I hid under clothes. I hid under an image.

Doctor Chilton just walked over to me, while I was sitting there, and he said,

"I'm glad you're watching the performance, but you look just about half-dead, Will Graham".

It was like Gravity was pulling me into Reality. It's like when someone dumps ice-water on you while you're sleeping, to wake you up.

youtube

Like a walk in the park..

Like the hole in your head..

Like the feeling you get when you realize you're dead, this time...

‘Why didn’t you give her a good shove?’ said Julia. ‘I would have.’ ‘Yes, dear, you would have. I would, if I’d been the same person then as I am now. Or perhaps I would—I’m not certain.’ ‘Are you sorry you didn’t?’ ‘Yes. On the whole I’m sorry I didn’t.’ They were sitting side by side on the dusty floor. He pulled her closer against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, the pleasant smell of her hair conquering the pigeon dung. She was very young, he thought, she still expected something from life, she did not understand that to push an inconvenient person over a cliff solves nothing. ‘Actually it would have made no difference,’ he said. ‘Then why are you sorry you didn’t do it?’ ‘Only because I prefer a positive to a negative. In this game that we’re playing, we can’t win. Some kinds of failure are better than other kinds, that’s all.’ He felt her shoulders give a wriggle of dissent. She always contradicted him when he said anything of this kind. She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated. In a way she realized that she herself was doomed, that sooner or later the Thought Police would catch her and kill her, but with another part of her mind she believed that it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse. ‘We are the dead,’ he said. ‘We’re not dead yet,’ said Julia prosaically. ‘Not physically. Six months, a year—five years, conceivably. I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you’re more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.’ ‘Oh, rubbish! Which would you sooner sleep with, me or a skeleton? Don’t you enjoy being alive? Don’t you like feeling: This is me, this is my hand, this is my leg, I’m real, I’m solid, I’m alive! Don’t you like THIS?’ She twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against him. He could feel her breasts, ripe yet firm, through her overalls. Her body seemed to be pouring some of its youth and vigour into his. ‘Yes, I like that,’ he said. ‘Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear...'

(pg. 170, 1984)

In 'this world' of waking-existence, I notice that on occasion I would regard myself as looking somewhat-similar to how I viewed Lecter. I would catch sight of my face under the light in the parking lot, at night.

Imagine a woman.

Anjelica Huston looks similar to how I did, in my eyes. I think she looks like my mom.

I had just been thinking of how it feels like I am playing-out different characters in the same story. Like actors on a stage, and we switch role assignments.

In the past, I had gotten too attached to the character I had been playing for a time, and I had been reluctant to switch over to a new one... This caused some ruckus. Karma? Seeking the opposite?

"The psychological rule says that when an inner Situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as Fate. That is to say, when the Individual remains Undivided and does not become conscious of his inner Opposite, the World must perforce act out the Conflict and be torn into opposing Halves." --C.G. Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomology of the Self

I kept wanting to make a seperation between "me" and "everyone else", but I don't think there can ever be such a seperation. It was unnatural, and it felt unnatural. I wanted a narrative that I could make up, and tell other people about "who I am"...

I am water.

I will always be so...

You can put me in one container or another, but I will flow out of it just as I flew into it.

The only way you keep the shape is if you keep it Frozen. Heat is literally Energy. If you keep Energy from yourself, then you will remain the same. You will not change. Is Energy constantly changing?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Koran frequently tells us that the life of this world is ephemeral, either in so many words, or in parables such as the following:

And strike for them the similitude of the life of this world: It is as water that We send down out of heaven, and the plants of the earth mingle with it, and in the morning it is straw that the winds scatter. (18:45) The Koran insists that dedicating oneself to straw is to squander away one's life and to dissipate one's human substance. People should not devote themselves to something that is utterly undependable. They should not act as if life's meaning is found in the affairs of this world, or as if experienced phenomena were anything other than the signs of God. Reality is not exhausted by what we see with our eyes. In short, the Koran says, do not be deluded by appearances: The life of this world is naught but a sport and a diversion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Reality is not exhausted by what we see with our eyes."

I was just thinking about this, the other night... My friend's kitchen has beautiful windows which have a holographic sheen upon them. So, the reflection of the white light of an electric light-bulb has a rainbow halo around it.

You see the distance between the Sun and the rainbow? Those are all the colors that you can't see with your eyes. They're right there, in front of you. Imagine how many things are in front of you, right now...

---------------------------

Birds can see more of the color spectrum than human beings. Dogs see a smaller amount. Snakes can see infrared light -- the radiation of heat.

youtube

"Most people can’t easily see light shorter than 380 nanometres because the lens of the eye absorbs it. If the lens is missing or removed, often due to cataracts, light below the violet range isn’t blocked and can be detected down to around 310 nanometres. Without the lens to focus light, these people are far-sighted and need corrective lenses to focus at short distances.

Insects can see ultraviolet light, and some other animals have vision in this range too.

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Here is a story from a man who began to see UV light after an eye surgery:

Bob Butler Llangoed, Anglesey, UK

"Some years ago, after being admitted to hospital with sepsis, I developed uveitis, an eye inflammation that could have caused permanent loss of vision. The lens of my right eye was removed and replaced with an artificial one. The new lens meant I could see better through this eye than I ever had before.

On leaving hospital, I decided I deserved a pint of bitter. Standing at the bar of my local pub, I noticed that their device for detecting counterfeit banknotes was emitting very bright bluish light. I mentioned this to the barman, who looked at me with a very quizzical expression but made no comment. I then realised that he couldn’t see the light: it was visible through my right eye alone.

It seems that the natural lens in the eye has a filtering effect as a protection against ultraviolet light. I owe the staff of the emergency eye clinic my thanks not only for saving my eyesight, but also for my ability to see UV light." "

There are sounds that dogs can hear, which vibrate very quickly and thus are very high-pitched.

youtube

[(24:12): I disagree that "it is more a matter of instinct, than that of artistic acheivement". Why would a mare choose one stallion over another, if not for her own search for beauty?]

I could do a whole commentary... I love these documentaries so much!

~~~~~~~

"Karma is multidimensional. Past lives are current. Stop fucking with the collective. Be better for all of “you” that’s out there. You all sow and you all reap. Hallelujah."

-- Amber Khan

------------

...... I find this dream written here to be so interesting.

I had the dream, many years ago.... The emotional impact of the real events hit me.... but I recently allowed the symbolic revelations to speak to me. They were always there, but I had chosen to distract myself within my Ego.

"omg, I'm this! I'm this! I'm that! Isn't that cool?"

I mean..... it is very cool..... but there are no happy endings, because nothing ever ends.

Where are you heading?

#the elusive i #dreams #Youtube

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steveskafte · 1 year

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KEYWORDS AND KINGPINS Most chronically online folks are intensely on the side of something, an idea they think is individual and independent, but sounds the same when they say it out loud. All those philosophies and causes have their own special keywords and kingpins, so you know where they're headed long before they get to the point. Some go the extra mile of bumper stickers, hats, or t-shirts. The most extreme will hang flags from their cars and homes. I've seen a lot lately with a simple two-word slogan, applying the old familiar suggestion to my country's current political leader. You know the sort. I've got no use for billboard people – they got too lazy to speak for themselves, so decided to let some mass-marketer do the talking. What can you offer that no one already knows? Your secret thoughts and feelings. No one writes a blog about my experiences, experts never gather to discuss my inner workings. They don't sell posters with my name plastered on it, so it's up to me to make myself known. Storytelling is such a primal human desire, probably the most basic social tool that we have over other animals. We can pull up a memory and tell each other all about it. You weren't there for yourself, let me take you. In conversation, writing, images of all kinds – there's an endless opportunity to get ourselves across. Do that well, and you'll find fine folks who return the favour. So that's why I find it so tragic, the endless repetition, quotation, verbatim borrowing of thought. I grew up in a quoting culture, surrounded by folks who always had a pithy scripture or talking point on hand. I rejected the cold nature of it, as if off-loading the conversation to some supposedly reliable source meant that we could skip over the struggle of compiling complex thoughts of our own. It's much more time consuming to absorb a thousand sources, sort them out in our brains, then spit out something new that none of them said on their own. But it carries a very real risk – at the end of the effort, we might believe something different. I was raised with seeing a changing mind as a threat. This created people who would hurtle down that cul-de-sac of certainty, be finally forced by circumstance to shift in some sense, but then continue through life with no hindsight. "I've always thought this way," they'd claim, and every time their minds changed, they'd claim the same. I've learned to happily catalogue my old ways of thinking, other side of the see-saw with some balance in the middle. I'm not worried about letting down the cause, because the cause is not my friend. It's a thousand strangers in the darkness, rattling away at dirty phones and keyboards. They've got a lot to say, but none of it comes from them. April 10, 2023 Annapolis County, Nova Scotia Year 16, Day 5630 of my daily journal.

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rhetoricandlogic · 2 years

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'Upgrade' takes a unique, fun path to the end

July 14, 20223:41 PM ET

Jason Sheehan

Blake Crouch has always been a dependable storyteller.

He spins out grounded, accessible tales with an admirable internal precision no matter the genre. He can do spooky. He can do spec-fic that shades over into near-future sci fi. He does disaster and mystery and procedurals that all feel effortless. Crouch's books are fun the way a summer blockbuster is fun. And on the page, he exudes the smooth, slick confidence of someone who knows exactly where he's going and just how to get there. Even his surprises seem like clockwork. They all go off precisely when he wants them to.

His newest, Upgrade, is no different. In it, he does the dependable science-fiction trick of imagining a future altered by one significant technology and a character significantly impacted by said technology, then mushing the two of them together to see what happens next.

Here, we have a mildly dystopian near-future world where gene editing technology has advanced to a point where nearly anything is possible. Want to make all malaria-carrying mosquitos be born male so the species dies out and the disease is eradicated? Done. Want to build a dragon from crocodile and Komodo genomes? There's a guy in Vegas already working on that — special order for a client, worth millions. But because nearly anything is possible, gene editing has also been outlawed. It's too dangerous. Too many mad scientists out there. That's ingredient A.

Ingredient B is Logan Ramsay — disgraced scientist, paroled felon, currently employed by the Gene Protection Agency, the federal law enforcement branch that enforces the laws against gene editing and goes after the rogue scientists, hidden labs and dealers in proscribed genetic material. Logan's mom was Miriam Ramsay, one of the world's most brilliant geneticists, now dead by suicide. Miriam is the reason all this gene stuff is illegal now in Crouch's world. Because Miriam was working on a gene project to make rice crops more hardy and accidentally caused a global famine that killed 200 million people. Logan was working with his mother. That's why he went to prison. That's why he is where he is now.

And when we meet Logan, he's just a regular guy. Or a regular science-fiction gene cop, anyway — barfing nervously before raids, running around in a HazMat suit saying things like I fastened the magnetic straps on my inductive body armor and took my weapon out of the go-bag. There's a specificity to Crouch's language that tends to take him down cul-de-sacs of jargon and gear-porn. He drops brand names and technical specifications the way other writers use commas. He obviously learned a fair bit about genetics while researching the details of Upgrade and he never misses a chance to talk about it. But it's cool. Much of the book happens in Logan's head (we see all of it through his eyes in a tight, first-person, single-narrator set-up) and I have zero doubt that he, the character, would totally talk that way — the kind of guy who couldn't cook you a burger in the backyard without explaining, in detail, the make and model of his grill and precisely why he'd chosen that one in particular.

Needless to say, Logan doesn't stay a run-of-the-mill gene cop for long. I mean, just check the title. The book is called Upgrade. And this Logan? He's going places. First, into the basement of a house in Denver in search of a clandestine lab on a bogus tip from the world's most obvious White Collar Bad Guy (they caught him in an airport wine bar, ferchrissakes), then to a hospital quarantine room when the otherwise empty basement turns out to contain a homebrew IED. Logan lives, seems to suffer no ill effects (other than being slightly blown up), is released, goes back home to his loving wife and teenaged daughter, but soon discovers that he's quietly developing...superpowers.

OK — not superpowers superpowers, exactly. Except that yeah, basically superpowers.

It starts with being able to read faster and remember things better. Then he beats his very smart daughter at chess (something he hasn't been able to do in years). And before you know it, his bones are getting denser, his muscles are getting stronger and the gene cops — the ones he used to work for — are throwing him in supervillain jail and accusing him of self-editing.

Now stop a second. Crouch could've just gone on from this point and told a dull, standard-issue technological superman story. Dude gets magical sci-fi powers, saves/destroys the world, the end. But what's interesting about Upgrade is that Crouch doesn't do that. Instead, at exactly this moment, we're introduced to Miriam Ramsay's other child. Logan's sister, Kara.

Kara the black sheep. Kara the soldier, the loner with her Montana survivalist cabin and bag full of guns and burner phones. Kara, who is also developing powers she can't explain.

Kara is the hinge point at which Upgrade pivots, becoming a kind of modern Romulus and Remus yarn about two siblings each given remarkable powers and asked to use them to repair a world dying from starvation, war, disease and climate change. By the time they're done, Logan and Kara will both be like gods walking in a world of mere mortals — each with a very different view of what must be done to save humanity, and at what cost.

Crouch doesn't linger. He knows how to do a chase, when to blow stuff up and when to bring the house lights down. Like I said at the top, he's walked similar trails before. He knows where he's going.

But what makes Upgrade special is that his path is unique. He takes turns that are unexpected, explores some stunning vistas along the way, and even if the endpoint is a little bit obvious, watching him get there can be a lot of fun.

Bloody, grim and occasionally pedantic, but still fun.

#Blake Crouch #Upgrade #mahreviews #long post

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neven-ebrez · 5 years

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15x01, a look at the future through the past

Back home! I watched the episode last night and rewatched it just now. I’m sorry to say that I was baseline bored on most levels but the second time through things felt better (yay!) even if the bland factor was still there for me personally (I’m bored with most ghost stuff from SPN these days). Imo the characters basically served the plot of 15x01 instead of the other way around which is very Game of Thrones-y and 1000% not what I’m here for but I won’t talk about the details of that because I’m sure no one wants to hear that and I’m also sure things won’t stay that way long so I’ll talk about some other things instead. There are some things I can tell are a thing but I don’t know exactly what the shows means in depicting them, and others where I’m more confident in my interpretation so here we go.

I’m like 99% sure the demon in Jack is actually Chuck and that he’s basically trying to maintain his torture (I mean... the guy admitted to being a torturer ffs) of the Winchesters with the best viewing seat possible as it were (he even tells Dean point blank he’s a “fan”). For some reason only Dean and Cas got the focus for this (torture) tho and not Sam. With Dean it was the demon reminding him of how dark and brutal Dean can be himself (via his time with Alastair). Dean blows that off pretty quick and isn’t too visibly effected, commenting that it was a long time ago. With Cas the torture came in the demon’s possession of Jack himself, Cas saying bluntly that he can’t even look at Jack and that demonic possession is basically defilement. Cas is clearly more effected and Dean’s harsh “Jack is DEAD!” tonally recalled S13 in many ways. Also oddly the demon admits Dean is gorgeous but not the same is said of Cas, with the demon insulting him instead. Two interactions. Two wildly different responses. It’s the demon putting Dean and Cas at odds without any interaction needed from them themselves, though the latter comes in spades and is the only focused on “true” conflict of the episode, set against soft Sam/Dean exchanges.

The blend of Cas’ angelic nature along with his human nature was also heavily, heavily highlighted in the episode. It was probably the most highlighted thing in fact. Cas smiting and healing. Cas shooting a gun and throwing rocks. Cas tells Dean he wouldn’t starve to death in the crypt (which, on a side note, has huge Buffy vibes for me, along with Belphogor (sp?) calling the Hell rip or whatever the “Hellmouth”). Cas can see the demon’s demonic face easily despite episodes like 14x01 (also written by Dabb) where he can’t see a room full of them (I think I argued back then that Cas was willingfully trying to ignore and was annoyed with his angelic nature). Cas’ angelic side gets another highlight when Sam accidentally shoots Cas and he doesn’t get truly injured. This particular scene seemingly serves no other purpose other than to highlight Cas’ difference (as non-human) in general. Emotionally tho, Cas’ human side is on full display. He’s worried about the town’s people. He’s annoyed with both Sam and Dean for different reasons at different points. Cas bodily removes the demon from sharing the same space as him because the demon upsets him. Cas can not even LOOK at “Jack” but Dean (and Sam) can. As I said, it’s similar structurally to how S13 handled Dean dealing with Cas’ death in comparison to Sam moving on from it. It functions to show that for Cas his relationship with Jack is different from Sam and Dean’s, however otherwise similar in the fact that TFW all see Jack as their child, their family. It’s exactly like how Cas is different to Dean as compared to Sam.

Back onto demon “B” whatever tho. Interestingly, we never see the demon smoke into Jack. Then he just “”happens”” to know every spell needed to help the Winchesters but for Dean and Cas two things are required for sacrifice/gathering. In each, one component is dead-like and protecting (salt, goofer dust) and the other channels life/creation (a heart and angel blood). Each time there’s a duality in play. Curiously Sam is not involved in any of this with the demon for whatever reason, making the demon (within the season’s structure as presented so far) a primary component of Dean and Cas’ differences. They are tests of free will for them specifically in a way. What will each person “freely” give/obtain for the demon? To me, it just all screams this thing/demon is really just God fucking with them in every way he can but while maintaining some ally aligned position physically. It’s Chuck’s literal MO.

Also. The show is back to Dean blanketly treating Cas like shit. Which we know happens in waves constantly but as a Cas fan it’s still annoying to watch for the umpteenth fucking time. And they haven’t even pinpointed the *exact* reason here for all the snapping (yeah, pacing, I know). The audience has to do some connecting the dots here I feel. They have to have a certain understanding of how Dean needs Cas. I *think* the takeaway is that Dean uses Cas as an emotional punching bag when he’s actually mad at himself and that instead of getting so angry with himself these days that Dean’s decided yelling at Cas is a better/healthier way for him to deal with himself. Which is absolutely unfair and devastating to Cas, but it’s what Cas (unfortunately) has become to Dean. It’s like when he told Cas he was dead to him at the end of S14 because of Jack killing Mary. Dean’s really mad at he, himself, for ignoring the warning that was always there. Not really Cas. But Dean has yet to apologize and/or rectify this. This is the (ongoing) problem for Dean and Cas. Point blank.

At this point if I was Cas I’d just leave and not come back. He doesn’t deserve the way Dean constantly treats him. Dean doesn’t “need” Cas like this but he’s become comfortable using him like this. This is so jarring from the understanding Dean shows Cas in late S12. And from the grief arc he has in S13, followed by the relief he shows when Cas returns. Dean never learns how to properly “claim” Cas, however. Looks like this time instead of killing Cas the show (like in S8) is gonna have Cas choose to stay away (after 15x03?) I guess, prompting Dean to do some reflecting or whatever following this (What is Cas to me? Why do I actually need him? How should I treat him?). But honestly I’m not thinking of the reflecting right now. Or the “after” or whatever. I’m just thinking about how shitty Cas is being treated RIGHT NOW and it 1000% makes me wanna just drop the show and not watch anymore until it’s over. I’m just not interested in torturing myself for months watching this slowly drag out but apparently I’m so masochistic and love Cas so fucking much that I will. GODDAMMIT

Onto “pipes” I guess. This is where I point out that I don’t know what the show is going for here but I’ll throw around some ideas. Pipes had a lot to do with the episode. Sam thinks he hears water flowing in a pipe in the crypt and they think they can escape through the sewers. Wrong. Later, Sam tells the sheriff that a pipeline burst near the town. Lies. And lastly there’s a plumbing truck outside the home where the clown ghost slaughtered the birthday party (uh... where’s the bodies btw?). So everywhere we have the imagery of pipes bursting and needing to be fixed. Which, water has nothing to do with Hell, not really. I guess the Hell “rip” is kinda acting like a burst pipe?? Water is usually associated with angels/Cas/change tho. My best guess is that it’s repurposed Michael imagery since good ol’ Bel-whatever let us know Michael’s cage door is busted open and he’s just sitting there for now apparently. I’m not confident in my interpretation here at all though. All I can tell is that busted pipes as imagery (something likely associated with lying/wrong) for something is a thing.

In general I’m going to say 15x01 didn’t even feel like a Dabb episode to me. I honestly wouldn’t have guessed he wrote it. Since I didn’t care about the random people under attack (women running and scared and not tougher is always a hard sell for me personally) I found myself frequently saying “why aren’t they doing _______?” a lot during the episode. Ghosts needing to run? Why? I mean, I get the show wanted to show how the magical border worked but this could have been done in many other more effective ways utilizing tension more. It almost felt like the show didn’t know what to do with its S1 self and so visually everything ended up looking so very incredibly cheesy and not just in the way the colors are no longer desaturated. It literally looks like the show can’t go back into what it was. We saw this visually with a sign that cropped up in several shots as Sam and Cas tried to get the girl and her mom to safety. It was a cul de sac sign.

Here’s a video on why cul de sacs as a design became popular. In short, following the rise in popularity of the automobile neighborhoods are designed for safe car use, above all else. They don’t want outsiders passing through and they want things to be slower. When cars got popular streets were redesigned away from the traditional city “grid” (where accidents happened at intersections most commonly) with features that instead had safety in mind. I choose to interpret this as a visual comment on the show’s design. The Sam n Dean show is like a city grid, dangerous, while the Sam, Dean, Cas, Rowena, and Jack show offers more “safety”. That’s why we get it framed like this imo, between Sam and Cas. Things looked one way before Cas, and another after. Things have changed from the grid and they aren’t going back, for a variety of reasons.

Since the episode title recalls the movie Back to the Future I thought we’d have more of a visual/dialogue tie in tbh. I’ll try to talk about what we thematically did tho. BTTF is a movie about a boy overcoming his impulsiveness to be an alpha male who isn’t scared. This wasn’t a goal of the boy himself necessarily but it was an effect had upon him just the same by the story and his experiences. The movie bookends on this character development. In between the movie is about the disconnect of generations, how kids don’t see their parents in the way they see themselves and vice versa. It’s also about trying to set right familial relationships into proper categories. Marty’s mom, Lorene, accidentally falls in love with her own son instead of Marty’s father, George. Marty’s existence is then threatened and he must spend the movie trying to understand his parents and help them fall properly in love, thus saving and changing himself and them. We only get shades of these themes in the episode, like when the demon (in Jack’s body) calls Dean gorgeous and it makes him uncomfortable. Divorce (unhappy marriage) is also touched upon with the sleepover/makeover girls. In BTTF Lorene and George do not have a great marriage as George lacks confidence but Marty’s interactions with George in the past help change this in the future and their family is much better for it.

We are told in PR that Dean’s “conditioning” and him changing from that is a big part of what SPN is and has always been about. This is similar to how Marty must learn to properly deal with bullies (as he sees his father as weak and overcompensates to distinguish himself from him) and not letting them have power over you. Chuck is like Biff in this structural comparison. Biff is someone we watch become depowered over the course of the movie and I feel this is similar to what the show will likely do regarding Chuck. I could go further in depth here but these are the general thematic points this episode alone addresses. Only with Marty’s character development does he stand to have a happy life with his girlfriend, Jennifer. Back to the Future ends with another call to adventure and its script is widely regarded as “perfect” by many. Quite the structural comparison for SPN to be making. We’ll see. We’re currently stuck in the past for now. Onward, to the future...

#spn speculation #15x01 #zerbe discusses things #final themes #duality #alchemy #narrative structure #back to the future #pop culture references #destiel for ts #if you squint #cul de sac storytelling #the spiraling narrative of supernatural #spn criticism

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baltears · 2 years

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every time i rewatch westworld i feel like i both pick up new details that do add up that i never noticed before and find at least three more things that aren't computing or don't seem to completely follow with previous continuity

#i love it so much and it's such a beautiful show but there are just. so many moving pieces #just 😤🙏 please know what you're doing jonathan and lisa... i trust you guys... i think...#seriously though lol my opinion kept flipping back and forth as i was watching it (as my bestie can attest as i kept telling her all of it)#between 'this is genius/s-tier writing' and 'this doesn't make any sense'#and to be TOTALLY clear there has to be a lot of good in the writing for me to have that high an opinion of it. so on one level i feel like #those instincts aren't wrong. there is a ton of truly groundbreaking and very beautiful storytelling going on here #but at the same time... it's extremely ambitious perhaps overly so and it's very hard to say #exactly how well they're keeping track of the different threads because they simply logistically cannot manage all of them at once #so some of them have to be put down to pick up others at any given time #idk. I'm just examining the character arcs again. william's in particular is so hard to parse but all of them have gaps here and there #or i guess. discontinuities.#and like william's my favorite character. i think about him a lot. and i still genuinely believe #that there are at least three discrete and very different reads of his character that could fit with the writing #it's still just impossible to say which one they intended or if they even had a clear vision to begin with #Sometimes i feel very sure that the show is going on its path to a predetermined conclusion. but sometimes I'm. less sure. lol #but i want to trust... i want to have faith that they trust me as a viewer to have certain instincts and to pick up on small things #and that they are remembering and planning to fulfill all of their. narrative promises #i don't want this show to be wasting time on cul de sacs and red herrings i would like for it to all make sense eventually #thematically at the very least

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lucemferto · 4 years

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I have to say that, while the inclusion and expansion of the lore of previously lesser involved streamers such as Ponk and Purpled, is on the whole a big positive, something that’s definitely suffering because of that is the “pacing” in the sense that there’s never really any downtime.

While Wilbur was still in charge, you could be comfortable with the knowledge that the only events that would ultimately end up being capital-C Canon were the ones he was involved in. The narrative arc of Season 1 – for better or worse – revolved entirely around the things Wilbur wrote. You can watch Season 1 without paying any attention to the Pet Wars or the Dreamon Hunters or, yes, even the Badlands and not miss anything that’s pertinent to Season 1’s plot.

That’s of course frustrating for people invested in these streamers, but it also gave the audience time to catch up on and disseminate what was going on in the story of Season 1.

With Season 2 and the more decentralized approach it took to writing, you get the feeling that you have to be on 24/7 if you don’t want to miss anything – and this can be very tiring for the audience. Especially as these plots are still highly interconnected – it’s not like with Marvel movies where each movie tells its own closed-off narrative – the Crimson subplot becomes the main plot of Season 3 and reiterates on stuff set up in Season 2.

This can be seriously disorienting for an audience that has only limited time on its hand (aka me – I’m talking about myself).

In the very least, lest you think that I’m only here to complain, Season 3 – so far – seems to do it better than Season 2. El Rapids, Quackity’s plan to resurrect Schlatt, Karl’s plan to replace Tommy as Vice-President, Eret’s Knights and Drywaters famously ended up being big plot cul-de-sacs that didn’t matter – and that’s not a diss on these storylines by the way! It just shows the danger of decentralized storytelling in a medium where a lot of it also relies on improv – if you’re not careful, you’ll end up juggling too many storylines and are forced to unceremoniously drop some.

And if stuff like that happens, people that were invested in these storylines, end up being rightfully frustrated – see the Niki incident.

Season 3 so far handles this stuff better overall. Everything is pretty well integrated into the Crimson storyline, the Snowchester storyline, the Tales-stories or Ranboo’s quest to become a Shounen protagonist. And most importantly, it actually seems like these storylines work in tandem and are coordinated with each other. But it also means that the chance for a Drywaters or Dreamon Hunters – which in the past you could safely ignore if you wanted to concentrate on the main story – doesn’t exist anymore. If you miss something than you have to catch up … and that’s time-consuming.

Hindsight is, of course, 20-20, so who knows if this impression holds up – I hope it will – but if Dream SMP wants to continue being engaging to viewers, I think it would be best do have some sort of hub or something, where everything storyline-relevant is gathered for easy-viewing. Because right now that’s fan-led and mostly scattershot. An official “Dream SMP” YouTube channel would, I think, really help make it so that fans can appreciate how coordinated and apportioned the story has become – and help everyone be up-to-date with what’s going on.

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rotzaprachim · 3 years

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Ok so! Flashbacks where it turns out a morally ambiguous character or enemy had saved a person‘s life ARE my kryptonite BUT considering the timey wimey nature of this series ... i’m pretty sure mor o corra (my deepest apologies to her name I’ve still not got the hang of typing fadas on mobile) and the New [redacted] set the things up purposefully to save Ronan’s life, almost certainly acting on information from the future! as with all time travel things it becomes very much a chicken or the egg thing of if they hadn’t gotten involved would his life have needed saving? maybe it would have anyway from the threats posed by Carmen + Parsifal + the moderators and the nightwash. anyway looking at the order of events

- ronan and Declan go to the fairy market for the painting of mor. Considering the way it seems to have resurfaced in DC coincidentally I don’t think there is any coincidence at all, although whether mor is specifically behind that one at all remains in the air. (I also think ronan will somehow return to this exact same fairy market later, possibly as bryde.)

- the Elevator door opens, ronan sees mor Up close to be able to ID her as Aurora (he thinks), runs after her but not before getting her card and learning she’s after bryde as well

- that night he dreams under the influence of the painting (side note: the painting seems to have some erotic effects, delcan notes it feels suffused with desire or something, ronans dream is incredibly suggestive) but bryde tells him that he’s stuck chasing rabbits between “the woman“ and bryde but they lead to the “same Warren.” The specific Matrix imagery is off the charts. Also greywarren? The next morning ronan has nightwash but goes to investigate mor ANyWay. - at the ruins of the hotel he immediately spots Aurora woman and a guy he thinks looks exactly like him! They are driving a WHITE SEDAN. They immediately drive off. as soon as they do ronan, despite the night the wash, chases after them. - Parsifal has a vision. He and Carmen go to the Carter hotel and go hunting. Parsifal‘s vision describes Ronan’s exact car And his driving patterns. (REALlY interestingly Parsifal says that “I saw him in a grey car. I... I saw him in a white car, too. I think the grey car is correct.” Probably he’s describing the new [redacted] in the White car, who apparently is a carbon copy of Niall down to the accent, BUT with what/who/who dreamed the new [redacted] up in the air it’s interesting Parsifal gets their whole identity so mixed up.)

- ronan blacks out while thinking of his mysterious Unclr and his parent stories. When he wakes up he’s been driven out of the city and seems To have been taken care of by someone who knows a LOt about the dreaming. - Carmen and Parsifal next resurface at a german pastry shop. the narrative tells us that “Farooq-Lane had arrived at the lone cul-de-sac in time to see what indeed looked like a charcoal-gray BMW parked in the exact middle of it, but before they could get close enough to get a plate number or see the driver, A LITTLE WHItE SEDAN (emphasis mine) had backed out of a driveway into the side of their rental car. The apologetic driver had waved frantically, working hard to dislodge his car from theirs, but by the time he’d managed to disentangle himself, the BMW was long gone. He’d babbled on in some foreign language that neither Parsifal nor Farooq-Lane got, but they figured out the gist: he didn’t have insurance, he was sorry, he was going now.”

so let’s unpack that sequence! ronan gets lead by mor and the new [redacted] on a chase scene for a white sedan while dealing with nightwash and blacks out. during that time, Parsifal has a vision that pretty clearly labels him or at least his car and he and Carmen take off. Carmen and Parsifal get within SpITtINg distance of ronan’s car, which, if they’d gotten any closer- literally just look up the lisence plate, it’s game over for all of them. But at that exact point a driver with a white sedan, the same car we know mor and the new [redacted] were in, blocks their way? thats a massive coincudence that save’s Ronan’s skin! it seems likely to me that mor and the new [redacted] set off on the car chase on purpose, knowing he would follow, to get him out of the way of Carmen and Parsifal. logically it seems like mor got in the car with him while he Was Falling apart and drove him out of town while the new redacted physically blocked carmen and Parsifal from goilong onward!

some further interesting Thoughts

- If that WAS the new [redacted] blocking them, it probably crosses my Niall is Carmen‘a father theory off the list because she’d be Seeing someone who looks like an exact copy of her father and not commenting on it, which feels unlikely

- I think that language neither Carmen or Parsifal can place is probably irish/gaelige, another interesting character note

- ronan has his blackout scene while thinking about his father’s storytelling and the particular theme of geasa. this whole sequence is a massive bit of trouble for mor and the new [redacted]- how far do their personal ties to him go or fit With that theme? - this whole sequence, like The fairy market, is messy as hell. How much prior knowledge do mor and the new redacted need to pull it off? Was it totally on The fly? Maybe???? But it seems like something they both new would happen, even if they both caused it By setting ronan on the chase from the fairy market to start with. But they even seem to predict the very volatile Parsifal‘s prophecy either before or as it’s happening, and manage to specifically ID and block Carmen as dangerous. they Seem to have been able to anticipate the visionary‘s exact prophecy and how it will affect ronan. given the aforementioned timey wimey nature of things, it seems likely that even if they are not form the future, they are acting on information from it. - Carmen and Parsifal have probably seen up close exactly what the new [redacted] and therefor Niall, Declan, and ronan look like, which may help her hunt them in later books.

#Sorry for this being so long for a fairy straightforward thing #I was working through my thoughts on it on the reread and then suddenly noticed the white sedan thing....#Call down the hawk reread #Mister impossible tinhatting #Mor o corra #carmen farooq-lane #Ronan lynch #Thoughts? Comments? Opinions? Anyone want to talk???#Going through this book like 30 pages an evening w a fine toothed comb has become my Hobby

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number5theboy · 4 years

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THANK YOU in season 1 they set up MULTIPLE times Five and Vanya’s different, more affectionate relationship so idk it just seems weird that they set that up and then in both apocalypses Five doesn’t really do anything? And I do understand the importance of Allison and Ben’s roles in stopping the apocalypse and exploring their relationship with Vanya but still they should have given Five a better role than “gets incapacitated with the others” or “just not there lol”

My gripe with Five’s non-involvment in the apocalypse storylines as soon as he has assembled everyone into place doesn’t necessarily come with his relationship with Vanya, although I do think that the writers looked at the dramatic and emotional potential of that relationship and did fuck all with it, in the end. It just comes down to the fact that the two seasons we’ve had so far have given the apocalypse the most weight in Five’s arc and then gave Five conclusions to arcs that were not in focus, and gave us no closure on the apocalypse arc. And they did that twice, and it feels so unsatisfactory from a storytelling perspective. Had they given him a fair shot at trying and had him fail in a way that is fair to the character they’d established, I’d be fine with it, but they didn’t. It’s exactly as you said, Anon, the exploration of Vanya’s relationships to Allison and Ben are important and I wouldn’t want them to be gone, but Five deserved to play more of a part than he did in his main arc of two seasons and something he has in-universe be chasing for 45 years.

In Season 1, they set up Five’s motivation clearly: he is here to stop the impending apocalypse. It’s why he has come back. And the emotional conclusion that we get by the end of Season 1 is his growth to detach himself from Delores, his coping mechanism he used to keep a bit of a grasp on his sanity during the decades in the wasteland. Important, but not really the focal point of his arc and motivation so far. And once the apocalypse business kicks back in, Five is absent during most of it, either saying goodbye to Delores or being stalled by the Handler, and once he is back, he completely fades into the background, which, seeing as he is at the event that causes what brought him so much misery for so long, should have some kind of impact on him. It was just a set-up with very little pay-off, and even the set-up for what I thought would come in Season 2, Five (and Allison) taking care of Vanya, helping her get her powers under control, and thus delaying the pay-off into Season 2 in a very interesting way, never manifested, which is a goddamn shame.

Fast forward to Season 2. The reset button is pushed, Five is in 1963, with the exact same motivation: stop the impending apocalypse, now with some more difficult assembling of his siblings. But Five does it, like he did in Season 1, they let him down, and as the apocalypse arc nears its conclusion in the FBI building, Five is written out of the plot entirely to be banished into the plot cul-de-sac that is the paradox psychosis going nowhere. Said plot cul-de-sac does nothing interesting, it does not explore Five’s character, is not used to have him confront his feelings about failing to stop the apocalypse the first time around (which, just to reiterate, is Old Man Five’s premier goal and the fact that he has no questions about anything that happened in 2019 even though he can see clear as they that he must have fucked up or he wouldn’t be looking himself in the eyes, boils my blood, it’s terrible writing). Once the plot cul-de-sac is done going nowhere, Ben comes through for the world like the champ he is, Five is reunited with his siblings and doesn’t mention the apocalypse again for the rest of the season. The pay-off we get this season around is to the running theme of ‘Five fucks up time travel every time he tries it’ or, more general, ‘Five fucks up everything he tries’, and even though the time-turning sequence is really cool and satisfying on a character level, it was not set up well and certainly took a backseat to trying to avoid the apocalypse, so the pay-off is much weaker than it would have been if that had actually been Five’s central problem and not Apocalypse 2: Nuclear Boogaloo. And to make matters worse, the pay-off gets weakened by the end of season plot twist which is another fuck-up in the timeline, and something Five is pretty clearly majorly responsible for, so success is fickle I guess, like it was in Season 1, where he got his family out alive just to see them die in an apocalypse ten seconds later.

It’s just a recurring theme that Five’s arcs are getting set up and not paid off, paid off weakly, or just explodes back into his face. The apocalypse, where he gets everyone together and then gets written out of most or all of the resolution. Great. The whole shtick with the Commission, that turned him into a monster? He kills the Handler and blows up the Commission, but oh no, actually neither of that had any consequences, and then in Season 2, he is barely responsible for taking them down and now the pencil pushers who let him rot in the wasteland for 40 years and whom he clearly didn’t like in Season 1 are now in charge of time. Cool. He kept fucking up his time travel and also generally everything he tried to touch? He gets to turn back time and become arguably the most powerful sibling out of the bunch, but also the timeline is fucked and he has erased his and his family’s existence. Sweet. It’s just.....unsatisfactory. And I’m not saying he should have come out on top in any of this arc (actually I am. Five deserved to tear down the Commission without looking back), but it’s all muddled and not really going anywhere. If you want to write a tragic character who is fatally flawed and always his own worst enemy, this is kind of not it. The catharsis that should be coming in never happens, and I wish it would.

#well this accidentally became a monstrosity #sorry about that #feel very free to ignore it #i just have gripes with the writing of this show again #and five is by no means the only who that has this happen to him #Negativity #Replies #Anonymous

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