#different genres have different purposes and audiences. just because they can both be filed under lgbt does not mean that the same people

[gayvampyr]

why do people like to compare two entirely different forms of lgbt media like theyre equivalent

[tlbodine]

A Brief History of the Slasher

Is there a more iconic face for the horror genre than the knife-wielding psychopath? Many would say no. Although the tried-and-true slasher formula is so played out as to be a cliche -- and fresh examples played straight are tough to come by in the modern age -- for many, slasher films are the heart and soul of horror movies. 

How did that happen? What do they say about us on a cultural level? And where should you start when it comes to a formal study of the topic? Let’s delve deep and find out! 

Murder and mayhem are evergreen topics of fascination for humans, and we’ve been telling stories about murderers since Cain killed Abel. But these stories didn’t become what we would formally call “slashers” until the 1970s. 

So what is a slasher? 

Slasher films are defined by a few shared characteristics: 

A high body count (multiple victims) 

Murders are shown on-screen and often from the POV of the killer 

The murders happen one by one, incorporating pursuit, struggle, and finally death

The killer may have a supernatural influence, but it will have the physical appearance of a human (and may often simply be a human)

In almost every instance, the killer is portrayed as being insane or rendered deeply troubled by a past trauma which had triggered the murderous impulse. The killer is frequently dehumanized, and the victims are usually young. 

Slashers often adhere to their own sort of moral logic, more closely resembling Medieval morality plays than perhaps any other modern genre of storytelling. By utilizing a cast of archetypes, various virtues and flaws can be represented among the victims. 

These traits are what differentiate slashers from other murder-focused horror, thriller and mystery tales. 

Consider, for example, the narrative structure of an Agatha Christie murder mystery like And Then There Were None. In this book, a group of strangers are brought under mysterious circumstances to a remote location, where they are systematically murdered as an act of vengeance. In concept, this seems like it should be a slasher -- but its execution is quite different. In the book, the murders are a backdrop; the characters (and reader) are confronted with bodies rather than scenes of overt violence. 

The First Slasher

In 1974, two films came out that gave birth to the modern slasher. 

The first, released in October, was Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The second, released in the USA in December of that year, was Bob Clark’s Black Christmas. 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre tells the story of a group of friends who run afoul of a family of cannibals living in a rural farmhouse. Black Christmas is about the systemic murder of sorority girls during Christmas break. And both left an indelible mark on horror history. 

It’s important to put some context on the world these films were created in: 

The recent dissolution of the Hays production code meant that movies could be more graphically violent and morally depraved than ever before

The Vietnam war was raging, and for the first time in history, televised footage of the battle was piped into living rooms on the evening news

Multiple serial killers were active in the country, and their exploits also graced the daily newspapers and nightly news to sow terror 

Richard Nixon’s presidency was marked by an as-then unprecedented level of corruption and scandal

Gender politics provided both sexual freedom and career ambitions to a generation of women, and the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade case legalizing abortions played a massive role in both gender relations and the way we would think about life and bodily autonomy. 

The 1970s provided, in other words, a perfect storm of circumstances that collided to give birth to slashers, and neither Hooper nor Clark are shy about citing these as their inspiration. Texas Chainsaw was billed in theaters as a true story as an act of political defiance against newscasts that spread misinformation; Black Christmas is at its heart a film about abortion and a woman’s right to leave an abusive relationship. They were undeniably films of their time. 

Texas Chainsaw inspired a wave of sensationalist "ripped from the headlines" murder movies loosely based on real killers, such as Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977), which was based on the Sawney Bean legend or Charles B. Pierce's The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), which was based on the Texarkana Phantom Killer.

And Black Christmas, of course, served as the thematic springboard for a little film called Halloween.

Halloween and the Final Girl 

In 1978, a little-known small-time director named John Carpenter was hired to make a movie with the working title, The Babysitter Murders. It would be about -- you guessed it -- babysitters who got murdered. The idea was later adapted to take place on Halloween, likely for commercial reasons: People like watching scary movies in October, so setting a film on Halloween night would surely help with popularity.

John Carpenter certainly did not wholly plagiarize Black Christmas with his holiday-themed slasher, but the earlier film's influence is visible all the same -- from a shared lineage of "the call is coming from inside the house" babysitter folk legend, to the perspective work on establishing shots of the house and the ambiguously bleak ending.

But compared to Black Christmas, Halloween is horror with its edges filed down so it'll be easier to swallow. Both films have predominately female casts, but the sorority girls in Black Christmas have sexual agency and outspoken opinions that are nowhere to be found in Carpenter's work. In fact, Halloween so aggressively fails the Bechdel Test that it seems to do so on purpose -- there is not a single scene with two girls where they are not talking about a boy. And while Black Christmas deals with complex topics like abortion, domestic violence, and the unreliability of the police, Halloween simplifies its formula down to the utterly basic: Michael Myers kills because he is pure evil, and that is simply what evil does.

Despite its flaws -- or perhaps because of them -- Halloween became an immediate and enormous hit. It also introduced several clever storytelling techniques that were crucial to the advancement and development of the slasher genre:

The introduction of a Final Girl, the lone survivor who holds out against the onslaught of terror. (Carpenter denies that Laurie Strode’s virginal innocence has anything to do with her survival, but “final girl as virgin” would persist as a trope for a very long time) 

A masked killer. Although we’d seen masked murders in many films before (I’ve talked in the past about the trope of the mask-wearing murderer, and the way it is both thematically and logistically useful in storytelling: https://tlbodine.tumblr.com/post/189658195609/the-masked-knife-wielding-psycho), the “look” of Michael Myers is so iconic that it inspired a need for future killers to have a similarly thoughtful design, decking them out almost like comic book superheroes. 

Franchising opportunities. Although earlier movies had spawned sequels, Halloween exploded as a franchise thanks in large part to the iconic design and the simplistic good-vs-evil storytelling formula. Future slashers would latch onto this killer-centric franchise formula for over a decade. 

Halloween became the most profitable independent film, holding the record for 16 years, which goes to show just how successful the formula truly was. 

The Golden Age of Slashers 

As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s, the advent of VHS and Betamax formats created a market for low-budget straight-to-video films. Because slashers are so cheap to make (you don't need any famous actors, can film entirely in one location, and practical effects can be as simple as a few gallons of stage blood), they were ideal candidates for the job. On the big screen, horror was enjoying an unusually high level of popularity, a proven money-maker, simultaneously commercial and subversive in a decade of opulence and social conservativism.

So onto that stage walks Sean S. Cunningham's gory slasher, Friday the 13th, where a group of teenage camp counselors are brutally murdered, frequently wile having sex. The film spawned a widely successful franchise, which swiftly began borrowing elements of Halloween -- a silent and indestructible masked killer, a signature musical score -- to become a pop culture mainstay. The 1983 Robert Hiltzik film, Sleepaway Camp, cashes in on the "death to camp counselor" plot in the same way that Fred Walton's When a Stranger Calls touched on babysitter murders in 1979.

A whole slew of less-successful films would follow, most of them lost to the history books but still living in dollar-bin DVD collections. Some, like Prom Night and My Bloody Valentine, would earn a cult following. One noteworthy cult favorite is Slumber Party Massacre, directed and written by women (Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown, respectively), which turns some slasher tropes in their head.

A glut of films, most of them instantly forgettable, led to a decline in slasher popularity -- until Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984.

Cracking Wise and Slashing Teens 

A Nightmare on Elm Street introduces Freddy Krueger, a different sort of horror villain than audiences had seen before. Krueger is a supernatural killer who stalks his victims in their dreams, bringing a fresh supernatural twist to the slasher genre. And, unlike Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, Freddy is anything but silent. Thanks in part to the charisma of lead actor Robert Englund, the character's darkly comedic personality became utterly riveting.

Plenty of dream-related horrors would follow, none of which would make much of a splash. But one film franchise did latch on to a similar formula: Child's Play, directed by Tom Holland in 1988, introduced another supernatural wisecracking killer in the form of Chucky, a murderous doll possessed by the soul of as serial killer.

These major film franchises -- Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Child’s Play -- would go on to spawn numerous sequels and become such a thoroughly pervasive part of pop culture that you can find their likeness everywhere. But despite the many imitators, there was little in the way of innovation in the genre until the mid 90s. 

Do You Like Scary Movies? 

Wes Craven toyed with the idea of self-referential horror in New Nightmare, a Freddy Krueger film that was itself a meta-analysis of Freddy Krueger films. But he would revisit the idea with far greater success in 1996 with Scream. 

Created by horror lovers, for horror lovers, Scream is designed to be the most quintessential slasher film ever created. Relying on a hip, young cast to draw in a fresh audience, Scream works by combining nostalgia, meta-analysis, humor, and buckets of blood into a single film. The opening scene is a direct homage to When a Stranger Calls, and the masked killer is a deliberate call-back to earlier films. 

Unsurprisingly, Scream was a huge hit that ushered in a brief but furious wave of slashers, like the star-studded I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Urban Legend (1998), and Scream itself had several sequels and even a TV series. But the 1990s were something of a dark era for the slasher film, seeing the release of some spectacularly lackluster franchise installments. One exception to that was the fan-favorite Freddy vs Jason, which pits the two killers against one another -- a delightful premise, but one that had strayed far from the slasher roots. 

Modern Slasher Films 

The 1990s slasher reboot was short-lived and mostly forgettable, and by the 2000s filmmakers had mostly turned away from the genre entirely, except for a slew of nostalgia cash-in reboots of every popular franchise. 

The one exception was meta-analysis -- building on Scream, these films began to deconstruct the genre in a way that would combine horror, humor, and criticism. 

The Final Girls (2015), directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, takes this sort of meta approach. The Cabin in the Woods (2012), directed by Drew Goddard but bearing the fingerprints of co-writer and producer Joss Whedon, takes it to even further excess, providing both a thorough deconstruction of horror gropes and an entirely new mythos to give it a fresh framework.

But the problem with deconstructions is that, once a few truly successful ones have been made, it becomes essentially impossible to create the original thing in earnest anymore. And so the slasher as a sub-genre has reached its bloody end. 

Where Did All The Slashers Go? 

With dozens of slashers spanning more than 40 years of film history, it’s pretty hard to create something new with the format. Which is not to say that people aren’t still making them -- they are -- but there is less room to innovate within the notoriously rigid and simplistic slasher formula. 

Culturally, we’ve moved on a lot from the 1970s as well. For one, serial killers are no longer the threat they once were. Babysitters and camp counselors are rarely teenagers, either -- in fact, teens aren’t leaving the house as much in general. And a rise in information technology, communications and surveillance has made it harder to isolate victims and commit murders over a long period of time -- our mass murders tend to happen in shooting sprees instead these days. For another, that same information technology has made us extremely jaded and hard to impress with gore. 

The 2000s delivered violence at levels utterly beyond anything in history. The rise of the so-called torture porn -- a genre that dispenses with the stalking and killing of multiple victims in favor of lingering on the painful mutilation of a small handful -- delivered gore unlike any seen in earlier slashers. Cable television series like The Walking Dead deliver graphic violence with unprecedented regularity -- you no longer need to pick up a “video nasty” to indulge in some gruesome gore. 

And, well, unfortunately, the internet has made it easier than ever to see real violence, from terrorist beheading videos to medical gore to live-streamed murders. 

Gore for gore’s sake is simply not as compelling in the 21st century, and that takes away much of the slasher’s appeal. 

Slashers have had to morph and adapt to find a foothold for survival. In the 2000s, we saw their metamorphosis in real time: From torture porn to home invasion to a cornucopia of more innovative horrors dwelling on fears both large and small. 

We’ve probably seen the last of masked knife-wielding, babysitter-killing psychos...but the horror genre is richer for it. 

[joonsmagicstudio]

Meet Me Where The Waves Touches The Sky: how are you?(II)

Note: I put a keep reading break but I am unsure if it is working, if there is no keep reading link then please let me know! I do not wish to bother anyone with long posts.

Story Description: We all have our issues, but some of us are sub-consciously pushing it away without realizing how deep under water we are. You don't realize the things around you aren't what used to be until you meet a celebrity struggling to live. Like the hypocrite you are, you help others without helping yourself first. But no one told you about helping others gives you this exhilarating feeling of being a saint. So for how long are you going to keep being a saint in a doctor's coat?

Genre: Angst, fluff (if you squint) and smut.

Pairing: You x Namjoon

Trigger Warning: It revolves heavily around suicide, depression and death. Please don’t read it if it is a sensitive topic for you. Also keep in mind it isn’t like ‘13 reasons why’. It takes place in more of an adult setting hence mature. It also has mature (+18) scene, alcohol consumption and occasional use of foul language hehe.

I am writing about suicide, death and depression not because I romanticize it or engage in it for others to partake. It is strictly for the purpose of writing a story to convey a message beyond these three words.

Story masterlist is here: MMWTWTTS

It had been a week since the café incident and you had forgotten about it already as you were busy going through profiles of mentally ill patients at your desk in your office. There was a soft knock at your door and you said come in, the receptionist from the counter stepped inside.

"Miss Y/L/N, there is a man asking for you. He had your business card and said that he could come by anytime." The receptionist told you, uneasiness was clear as day on her face. She couldn't see his face that was covered by the mask, sunglasses and cap but he seemed persistent on getting her to go and talk to the doctor. He even handed her the business card he received which finally urged her to move.

"Why are you so uneasy?" You set your files down on the table, uncrossing your legs and looked at her properly.

"N-nothing- he just looks skeptical, he is wearing a mask and a cap along with a long coat, so I just got a little suspicious." She replied, her eyes slightly wide with fear, but the mention of the outfit triggered something perhaps it was Namjoon that you met last week, you weren't too sure.

"I think I know that man, please send him in and also please bring 2 cup of coffee with a slice of cake please." You put the files back into the drawer and stood up.

"Yes of course, and what type of cake, Miss Y/L/N?"

"Just a simple vanilla cream cake would do." You walked over and sat down on the couch you always sat when you talked to patients.

"Right away, Miss." The receptionist bowed and left the room with a resonating click of the door.

Few minutes later the door opened, revealing the receptionist who held the plate of 2 coffee and a slice of cake, behind her Namjoon was there, dressed up exactly as the receptionist had described. The receptionist set the food and drinks on the center table and left quietly, closing the door behind her.

"So you came, please take a seat." You directed Namjoon who shyly stood by the entrance to the seat across you, "Please be comfortable, I ordered coffee and cake for you if you were hungry or thirsty."

Namjoon nodded his head in a silent way of saying thank you as he took off his coat, mask and cap and hung it on the coat hanger near the door before taking a seat. Now you couldn't help but admire that this man was none other than Namjoon and he looked a lot better than he did in the photos. However, what concerned you was the dark baggy eyes he had, dull skim that lacked proper shine, his face wasn't joyous as it was in the photo. He seemed...exhausted.

You decided to dive straight into business, "Let's start off light. Tell me your real name. Not your celebrity name but your real name. Keep in mind that this isn't a place where the audience is watching you. You don't have to act professional. Just be you." You wanted him to feel at ease, to confess, to feel like he wasn't being watched anymore, he seemed hesitant though, it was clear that he was so used to being a celebrity that he forgot what it felt like to be normal. Few seconds passed by in silence, Namjoon didn't reply, he simply stared at the floor so you took the initiative. You stood up and picked up the coffee that was for him and placed it in his hand before grabbing yours and sitting back down.

"It's okay, you aren't on camera." You spoke softly as you sipped your coffee. A common problem you noticed in all celebrities that they all got used to being a different person in front of cameras, they let cameras control their life. They let the cameras create a personality for them that they had to maintain. After all they had become business products of their company for the cameras.

"It's Kim Namjoon. That's my real name." He finally spoke up on hearing that there wasn't any camera anywhere, you took a mental note that the word camera affected him just like you had expected.

"Well Namjoon, it's nice to meet you. I'm Doctor Y/L/N." You gave him a moment before you moved on asking the next question, "How are you? Just be honest and tell me how are you feeling right now?"

Now to any one, 'how are you' would be the stupidest question, but the thing is that no one takes a moment to think how they are truly feeling, most of them just say that they are fine as they were trained to say that. They say that they are fine, when they actually aren't, when they actually are feeling the furthest away from fine. They want to spill, but they just cover it up with saying that they are fine since its too much of any effort to explain it or the other person wouldn't understand or even worse, they don't care. It's only a matter of time before it becomes too painful for them to say that they are fine.

Namjoon hesitated, you could see he wasn't fine, he was actually taking a moment to think, taking a moment to think where he should start off with. "I'm tired." He looked straight at you, his eyes reflected how much he had been holding in. He had been holding out for too long.

"You are tired of what?"

"Everything...Everything." Pain seeped through, tears slowly filled his eyes. He was cracking, it was hard for him to hold it back now. It was only a matter of time before he broke down completely. His hair that was once in a neat style had started falling down onto his face. You set the coffee down and moved to sit next to him. Most of the time, when a patient was going to break down, you would have handed them tissue papers, but you didn't do that, you had this feeling that it was much more than just breaking down, he looked like he wanted someone to hold him tight as he felt like falling apart. You were breaking a rule of not touching the patient but you couldn't give a shit right now, not when he was this close to breaking down. You really didn't expect him to break down easily, normally it take much more time for them to really unwind. You guessed he had kept a lot of things bottled up.

Truth be told, he reminded you of someone when you first saw him in real-life. They didn't look alike but it was just the way he carried himself that was similar. Always taking the burden of everything is what they both seemed to do. That is why you felt more drawn to Namjoon, more willing to push things out of boundary and all because you felt the need to.

You gently placed an arm around his shoulder and brought him into a long hug where he rested his head underneath your chin, a comforting one and you felt hot wet patches on your blouse, soft muffled sobs leaked out, he had broken down completely. Even though you didn't know what it felt like to be a celebrity, but you knew what it felt to be tired of everything, being tired of everything meant that you just wanted to close your eyes and forget about everything. You just wanted to be back at home, in your bed and not worry about anything. Being tired of everything meant that you wanted to let go of everything. You wanted to go home and have someone tell you that you worked hard today. Sometimes, you wanted to disappear.

"You are tired Namjoon, but did you know that you worked hard today. You did your best." You mumbled softly, stroking his back in a comforting manner. Namjoon felt vulnerable, he felt comfort for the longest time. He felt home, he felt like he could finally be loose. It was comforting for him to have someone who wasn't related to his work, related to popularity, even though you were someone he barely knew, he felt like you knew his darkest secret and that he could be comfortable with you. Those words you had said, 'You worked hard, you did your best.' Brought comfort to him, he had wanted to hear those words with true feeling, not the ones said automatically from his members, managers and all those people he worked with. God, he wished he could be in this moment for a long time.

"You know it's okay to close your eyes. Sleep. No one is here to tell you what to do anymore. Work doesn't matter here. You can be normal here." You gently pulled away and cupped his face to face you, his eyes were red and puffy, tears streaks across his streaks were fresh. You picked up a tissue paper from the tissue paper box underneath the center table and gently wiped his face clean of tears. You couldn't help but sigh and pull him into another comforting hug. Out of all the patients you had spoken with, he was the one that just needed someone to hold him. To tell him that everything was okay. That he could be free.

After a while you felt him go soft, his breathing had become stable and sobs weren't heard anymore. He had fallen asleep, he must have been so tired of everything to just fall asleep. So you gently rested him on the side of the couch, placed a pillow beneath him so he wouldn't wake up with neck pain. You stood up walking over to a cupboard in your office that contained blankets, being a psychiatrist, you needed to have certain things like a teddy bear, blanket, medicine tea bags or comforting things to comfort a patient. You grabbed the blanket quietly and placed it over him so he would stay warm. You looked at him for a while, he did look peaceful, free of any stress while sleeping, you almost wished that you could just take him away from this stressful celebrity life.

You checked the time, it was afternoon, almost an hour has passed since he came and you still had more files to look though so you closed the blinds in the office to that light wouldn't disturb him, you then switched on the dim table lamp and continued working, silently, so you wouldn't stir him from his slumber.

It was funny, funny that within just 2 meetings, an hour or a little more of meeting each other, you already wanted to shield him from the harsh things in the world. You wanted him to be happy even though you barely knew him, even though the two of you were from different worlds you just wanted to fix him.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Colonialism

You back into things sometimes.

One of my many guilty pleasures is old school pulp, which I first encountered with the Doc Savage reprints in the 1960s, then old anthologies, then back issues at conventions, and now thanks to the Internet, an almost limitless supply.

And to be utterly frankly, a lot of the appeal lays in the campiness of the covers and interior art -- brass plated damsels fighting alien monsters, bare chested heroes combatting insidious hordes, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Once past age 12, I never took these covers or the covers of modern pulps such as James Bond, Mike Hammer, or Modesty Blaise seriously; they were just good, campy fun.

While my main focus remained on the sci-fi pulps, I also kept an eye on crime and mystery pulps, war stories, and what are sometimes called “sweaties”, i.e., men’s adventure magazines.

Despite the differences in the titles and genres, certain themes seemed to pop up again and again.

Scantily clad ladies, typically in some form of distress, though on occasion dishing out as good if not better than they got.

Well, the pulps that drew my attention were the pups made for a primarily male audience (though even in the 1930s and 40s there were large numbers of female readers and writers in the sci-fi genre).  Small wonder I was drawn to certain types of eye candy; I had been culturally programmed that way.

That’s a topic well worthy of a post or two on its own, so I’m putting gender issues / the patriarchy / the male gaze aside for the moment.

What I’m more interested in focusing on is the second most popular characters to appear on the covers (and in the stories as well).

The Other.

The Other comes in all shapes / sizes / ethnicities.  Tall and short, scrawny and beefy, light or dark, you name it, they’ve got a flavor for you.

“Injuns” and aliens, Mongols and mafiosi, Africans and anarchists.

Whoever they were ”they ain’t us!”

Certain types of stories lend themselves easily to depicting the villainous Other.

Westerns, where irate natives can always be counted on to launch an attack.

War stories, where the hero (with or without an army to help him) battles countless numbers of enemies en masse.

Adventure stories, where the hero intrudes in some other culture and shows them the error of their ways.

Detective stories, where the Other might be a single sinister mastermind but still represents an existentialist threat.

And my beloved sci-fi stories?

Why, we fans told ourselves our stories were better than that!  We didn’t wallow in old world bigotry, demonizing blacks and browns and other non-whites because of their skins.

Oh, no:  We demonized green skinned aliens.

Now I know some of you are sputtering “But-but-but you wrote for GI Joe!”

Boy howdy, are you correct.

And boy howdy, did we ever exploit the Other with that show.

I never got a chance to do it, but I pitched -- and had Hasbro accept -- a story that would have been about the way I envisioned Cobra to have formed and been organized, and would focus on what motivated them.

They were pretty simplistic greedheads in the original series, but I felt the rank and file needed to be fighting for a purpose, something higher to spire to that mere dominance and wealth.

I never got to do “The Most Dangerous Man In The World” but I was trying to break out of the mold. 

For the most part, our stories fit right into the old trope of The Other.

Ours were mostly about the evil Other trying to do something nefarious against our innocent guys, but there’s an obverse narrative other stories follow, in which our guys go inflict themselves on The Other until our guys either come away with a treasure (rightfully belonging to The Other but, hey, they really don’t deserve it so we’re entitled to take it from them), or hammer The Other into submission so they will become good ersatz copies of us (only not so uppity as to demand equal rights or respect or protection under law).

These are all earmarks of a very Western (in the sense of Europe and America…with Australia and New Zealand thrown in) sin:  Colonialism.

Now, before going further let’s get out terms straight.

There’s all sorts of different forms of colonialism, and some of them can be totally benign -- say a small group of merchants and traders from one country travel to a foreign land and set up a community there where they deal honorably and fairly with the native population.

The transplanted merchants are a “colony” in the strictest sense of the term, but they coexist peacefully in a symbiotic relationship with the host culture and both sides benefit, neither at the expense of the other.

Oh, would that they could all be like that…

Another form of colonialism -- and one we Americans are overly familiar with even though there are all sorts of variants on this basic idea -- is the kind where one culture invades the territory of another and immediately begins operating in a deliberately disruptive nature to the native population.

They seek to enslave & exploit or, failing that, expel or eradicate the natives through any means possible.

It’s the story of Columbus and the conquistadors and the pilgrims and the frontiersmen and the pioneers and the forty-niners and the cowboys and the robber barons.

It’s the story where different groups are deliberately kept separate from one another by the power structure in place, for fear they will band together and usurp said power structure (unless, of course, they band together to kelp make one of ours their leader, and build a grand new empire just for him).

It’s the story where our guys never need make a serious attempt to understand the point of view of The Other, because they are just strawmen to mow down, sexy lamps to take home.

I think my taste in sci-fi and modern pulp writing in general started to change around the mid-1970s.

Being in the army quickly cleared me of a lot of preconceptions I had about what our military did and how they did it.

The easy-peasy moral conflicts of spy novels and international thrillers seem rather thin and phony compared to the real life complexities of national and global politics.

Long before John Wick I was decrying a type of story I referred to as “You killed my dog so you must die.”  Some bad guy (typically The Other) does a bad thing and so the good guy (one of ours -- yea!) must punish him.

Make him hurt.

Make him whimper

Make him crawl.

Make him suffer.

The real world ain’t like that.

Fu Machu falls to Ho Chi Minh.

As entertaining as the fantasy of humiliating and annihilating our enemies may be…we gotta come to terms with them, we gotta learn to live with them.

That’s why my favorite sci-fi stories now are less about conflict and more about comprehension.

It’s better to understand than to stand over.

. . .

The colonial style of storytelling as the dominant form of story telling is fairly recent, dating only from the end of the medieval period in Europe and the rise of the so-called age of exploration.

This is not to say colonial story telling didn’t exist before them -- look at what Caesar wrote, or check out Joshua and Judges in the Old Testament -- but prior to the colonial age it wasn’t the dominant form of storytelling.

Most ancient stories involve characters who, regardless of political or social standing, recognize one another as human beings.

And when gods or monsters appear, they are usually symbols of far greater / larger forces & fates, not beasts to be subdued or slain.

Medieval literature is filled with glorious combat and conflict, but again, it’s the conflict of equals and for motives and rationales that can easily be understood.

It was only when the European nations began deliberately invading and conquering / dominating foreign lands that colonialism became the dominant form of storytelling.

It had to:  How else could a culture justify its swinish behavior against fellow human beings?

Even to this day, much (if not most) popular fiction reflects the values of colonialism.

Heroes rarely change.

Cultures even less.

We’ve kept The Other at arms length with popular fiction and media, sometimes cleverly hiding it, sometimes cleverly justifying it, but we’ve had this underlying current for hundreds of years.

Ultimately, it hasn’t served us well.  

It traps us in simplistic good vs evil / us vs them narratives that fail to take into account the complex nature of human society and relationships.

It gives us pat answers instead of probing questions.

It is zero sum storytelling: The pie is only so big, there can’t be more, and if the hero doesn’t get it all, he loses.  (John D. MacDonald summed up this philosophy in the title of one of his books:  The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything.)

It’s possible to break out of that mind set -- The Venture Brothers animated series brilliant manages to combine old school pulp tropes with a very modern, very perceptive deconstruction of the form -- but as posted elsewhere, imitation is the sincerity form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness, so while I certainly applaud The Venture Brothers I don’t want to encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

Because they won’t.

They’ll pretend they will, but they’ll veer off course and back into the old Colonialism mindset.

We need to break out, break free.

Here in the U.S. it’s African-American History Month.

The African-American experience is far from the Colonialism that marks most white / Western / Christian storytelling (and by storytelling I include history and journalism as well as fiction; in fact, anything and everything that tells a narrative).

It’s a good time to open our eyes, to see the world around us not afresh, but for the first time.

Remove the blinders. 

I said sometimes you back into things.

Getting a clearer view of the world I’m in didn’t come from a straightforward examination.

It came from a counter-intuitive place, it found its way back to the beginning not by accepting what others said was the true narrative, but by following individual threads.

It came from Buck Rogers and the Beat Generation and Scrooge McDuck and the sexual revolution and Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance and the civil rights era and Dangerous Visions and the Jesus Movement and Catch-22 and the Merry Pranksters.

It came from old friends, some of whom inspired me, some of whom disappointed me, and yet the disappointments probably led to a deeper, more penetrating insight into the nature of the problem.

This Colonialism era must come to a close.

It can no longer sustain itself, not in the world we inhabit today.

It requires a new breed of storytellers -- writers and artists and poets and journalists who can offer 

It’s not a world that puts up barriers by race or gender, ethnicity or orientation, ability or age.

There’s ample opportunity for open minds.

All it asks of us is a new soul.

  © Buzz Dixon

[dotthings]

This felt a bit like a classic Twilight Zone episode, mixed with TFW 2.0 feelings all around.

I jotted notes and stuff. Feelings and thoughts and milkshakes.

Running with the Twilight Zone structure and style here, Cas would be the character who figures out something’s just not right and things unravel around him and he’s slowly freaking out and has to get others to wake up to it and stop whatever’s happening. The eps this most reminds me of are things like “The Monsters are out on maple street” or “It’s a good life.”

Starting from the top -- so Jack doesn’t seem right. Nope. Sam’s not okay either, and as I figured already from the promo clip, yes it turns out he’s got a raging case of PTSD from the bunker crew he led all being slaughtered. While the characters weren’t designed to stand out to audience individually (except, perhaps, Maggie, and she wasn’t much developed), they meant something to Sam. Not in the sense that he got deeply close to them. As I pointed out earlier in the season, the bunker crew is a bit like the cantina crowd in Star Wars. They’re there for world-building. They'd all have good stories of their own given a chance to tell the tale but that’s not what they are in the main story for. And Sam cares but isn’t really part of them. He’s a leader who hasn’t formed deep personal bonds. 

But they were important to Sam, and Sam’s carrying a lot of guilt and trauma over their loss, which is why he blows past Dean’s protests that he’s tired and needs rest, they all need rests. Okay so everything I thought might be going on with Sam before this ep gets vocalized by the end of it, more on that in a moment.

That scene in the bunker kitchen is so...organic and domestic. I love that SPN is a monster-killing show. I’m a fan of genre shows and watching characters whose lives are strange and dangerous and how they cope with it and watch after each other, but the domestic grace notes are an important part of grounding it and making these characters seem real. This scene in the kitchen between Dean and Cas, with Sam blowing through it, was so good. So with Sam not in a frame of mind to understand Dean’s needs for rest or wait for him, and Dean needing to stay at the bunker to rest, and both Dean and Cas worried for Sam, and all of them worried for Jack, Cas basically steps into the role of family organizer, figuratively scooping them up under his wings because someone has to try to sort out this chaos and keep it together and try to make it better. So he volunteers to go on the hunt with PTSD fixated overly-driven Sam, assigns Dean to talk to possibly-soulless Jack and figure out what’s going on, tells Dean to get the sleep that he wants “’til the cows come home.”

I love that Dean says “they’re both full of crap” about Sam and Jack’s assertions of being fine. And then Cas, once he’s in the weird town with Sam, “yeah I know, everybody’s good,” Cas says grouchily. Cas is so DONE with everyone’s pretending-to-be-okay shit.

“Was it Scanners 1, 2, or 3?” I’m betting this wasn’t a Metatron pop culture upload. Oh guess what, Dean and Cas watch horror movies together. File this with the conversations and things we now Dean and Cas do together we don’t get to actually see. I wonder when their horror movie marathon was. Just after Mint Condition? Which expressly showed how great it is having a friend who’ll watch horror movies with you? Some other time?

The reveal that Cas reads the Saturday Evening Post after everyone else is asleep in the bunker is a small thing but it’s so damn good, it gives us another glimpse into what the heck Cas does while he’s not sleeping because he doesn’t need to sleep.

Sam and Cas weirded out together is adorable, as is their surprise milkshake date. 

“I think the snake is sad.” Is Jack projecting onto the snake? Assigning his own feelings of hollowness and loss from his soul being eaten away onto the snake who just lost its original owner? 

Dean trying to figure out how to talk to Jack is awkward af and endearing and Dean seems so very relieved when Jack picks the angel food cake over the devil’s food. Dean, I’m pretty sure things don’t really work that way and Jack’s choice of snack food isn’t the solution but I am appreciating the reasoning behind Dean’s relief. He knows angels are mostly dicks but hey, Cas is a thing in his life, and Jack picking angel food over devil’s food (Satan), Dean takes as an optimistic sign. Cas over Lucifer. Oh, Dean.

So. Much. Floral. And citris. Imagery. In this strange little town Sam and Cas are in. Sam holding that little rose teacup. Yellow tulips on the woman’s dress. Paintings with oranges and lemons. I think the set designer’s choices were are because citrus and flowers are generally bright, sunshine-y, "happy” things usually.

LOL Cas thinks Sam has beautiful hair. Well, he's not wrong. 

Sam’s brainwashed altered persona is disturbing yet Jared is adorable so it’s weirdly adorable but disturbing and please make it stop this isn’t Sam make it stop.

“You will snap the hell out of it!” “I don’t wear a hat.”

Grumpy Cas incredibly put out and grumpy over one of his best friends in literally the history of the universe being brain-snatched by this stepford town is a delight. 

As I said about structuring--things are unraveling around him and Cas is not a happy camper...so he deals with it. Much like he steps in and organizes Team Free Will 2.0 so everyone is looked after in different ways as needed, Cas takes charge of this case when Sam gets brainwashed. He is a competent hunter, abd he is a badass. What was that some have been saying about not seeing enough BAMF Cas? He can handle himself in a fight just fine. Albeit, his powers don’t seem to be as strong as in some previous season but I am more and more convinced this is purposeful because we know Heaven’s batteries are dying because the angels are and that’s bound to affect Cas’s power levels. So he has angel powers and he’s extra strong and self-healing and doesn’t need to eat or sleep but he’s also not the mega power we’ve sometimes seen. It makes sense.

Jack still doesn’t seem at all right and yet he seems to have a trace of a soul. He doesn’t want Sam and Dean and Cas to worry. Sam and Dean are his human role models (and no, this wasn’t Jack ommitting Cas--Cas isn’t human. We know Jack thinks the world of Cas). Which is sweet but at the same time uneasily reminds me of soulless Sam who observed Dean and then would say what he thought was expected to pass as normal. Jack latching onto Sam and Dean as models for how to act like he has a soul isn’t the same as really having one, and it’s not the same as early Cas, with all his confusing emotions broiling inside of him, adopting the Winchesters as an emotional compass and guides for how to human emotion. Jack’s going with Donatello (who is also soulless) WWTWD--What Would the Winchesters Do--literally just a plan to mimick them instead of Jack learning and feeling it himself.

“Maybe I don’t know what nothing feels like.”

Cas threatening to rip the info from the girl’s mind doesn’t seem like something he was actually going to carry out. That was a bluff, I’d say. Cas we’ve seen in the past is great at bluffing and does a good peacocking routine, a show of power. Not that he couldn’t rip the info from her. Maybe he would, at great need, to save Sam, and she was acting guilty. But I’m not sure. 

“I won’t hurt you, Sam.” Of course you won’t, Cas. We been knew, sweetie.

So first Cas organizes and tucks Team Free Will 2.0 under his wings, so to speak, then he takes over the case when his parter Sam gets sucked into the happy vortex of brainwashing, and then Cas fights off like 4 people at once including Sam, who is very tall, without harming Sam, and then Cas talks Sam down from brainwashing and from killing him with an angel blade. Interesting parallels back to Dean and Cas’s fight in The Prisoner, but with differences. Because hey, ding!, these relationships are different. It’s not about the strength of the bonds, but they are different.

“I know what it’s like to lose your army. I know what it’s like to fail as a leader but you can’t lose yourself. You have to keep fighting. You can’t lose yourself. Because if you lose yourself you fail us. You fail all of those that we’ve lost. You fail Jack. You fail Dean.”

There’s so many things all at once in this scene and Misha is so good here. There’s a bit of a nod back to the “believe in us” concept from Prophet and Loss. I appreciate that SPN didn’t go for a simple, Sam regrets talking Dean out of it. Because much as I am all for Winchesters protecting the world, as I’ve pointed out already, I didn’t feel Sam was the least bit in a heedless frame of mind where he wasn’t thinking of the risks to others, and Dean was so extremely fatalistic, accepting the fate literally written down for him, it just didn’t feel right. I don’t think SPN is saying it’s right to be punished for hope, that Sam should suffer, gee that’s what you get for wanting a little more time just to find a better way, not let the world burn, not screw everything else, just a shot at finding some other way. But in the story they are telling, there is a cost for that hope and that’s heartbreaking. Also I don’t feel Dean’s plan was risk free either. It really was a lose/lose no win situation and that is the point. They have Dean free of Michael, they are free of Michael it seems, but now look, Jack is a mess. And so it goes.

As Cas did in Prophet and Loss, reaching out to Dean in a less overt way than Sam (but not unimportant), Cas is a voice of hope again. Urging Sam not to give up, and echoing what Cas said earlier this season about valuing yourself, the core self “without all the bells and whistles.”  So there’s an important note for Sam here, and for Cas. S14 keeps having Cas vocalize on so many things it’s really important for Cas to say, about himself, but he does it via helping others. Cas has given advice to Jack, to Dean, and to Sam this season that indicates Cas listens to his own advice and has reached some insight about these things. Not only is Cas reassuring Sam, it shows that Cas understands despite his losses and failures, he’s worth not giving up on, and there are others who need him who are affected if he gives up. So Cas, having realized this, offers it to Sam in Sam’s moment of need and Sam drives the angel blade into the floor instead of into Cas (a familiar move), and shakes free of the brainwashing.

And Sam and Cas. Back in S9, Cas commiserated with Sam’s feelings of failure then too, and branded himself an even bigger screw up than Sam. SPN has shown for a while that Sam and Cas care about each other and have quite a few points in common, but it’s been a somewhat underdeveloped bond, and a little inconsistent. They’ve often bonded over their shared love of Dean, but we also have seen them caring for each other in their own right. I like their friendship. I appreciate that SPN shows that the relationships are different, and that Sam’s feelings for Cas aren’t the Sam as Dean’s, but I do think the Sam and Cas bond has been a bit neglected. So to land here, with a really big moment of connection for them over their particular shared traumas and specific senses of failures, is great to see. If we’re told they’re family, we should see it on the screen. Cas specifically was the person Sam needed right then. Just as Dean needs more than just Sam, Sam needs more than just Dean. 

Moment to appreciate the absolute miracle Mishalecki in S14 is because anyone else remember when Misha and Jared could barely get any scenes filmed there was so much messing around and Jared loves to mess with Misha, and a director had to yell at them at one point to get serious scenes filmed between them. People used to say Mishalecki was the enemy of Sam & Cas scenes. Here we are, years later, they not only filmed this immensely dramatic key Sam & Cas scene together, but did it with Jared on top of Misha, pinning him to the floor. I don’t know how they got this filmed. But they did it. Think of the gag reel. And we got a wonderful Sam & Cas scene.

Cas takes a very proactive role in this ep which is also great to see, and it’s a really interesting note on his character development to see Cas in this role of the family member holding everyone else together, knowing the right words, watching after everybody, competently handling the case temporarily solo, saving Sam, watching after Dean and Jack.  

However, notably it’s the young woman who actually saves the whole town by tapping into her own (genetically inherited) powers and taming her toxic, brainwashing father. Seizing back not only her own agency but for an entire town. There’s a Jack parallel on the tip of my brain here. The power is inherited from the parent, but what the offspring does with it is their choice.

“Yeah, I told him about the cardigan.” So Cas called Dean and told him about what happened...another Dean and Cas conversation we know took place we didn’t get to see first-hand. They talk way more than we are shown, more than we know. Unlikely they talk about the...stuff they actually need to but we keep being shown how much a part of each other’s lives they have become. They watch movies together, they talk all the time, they’ve had countless bunker kitchen talks. Cas is there. He’s been there for a while.

“I hate this place right now. Everywhere I look I see them.” That sound you heard was my heart shattering, and I’m not surprised Sam feels that way. He’s living in the place where he saw his whole team slaughtered. That’s...a lot to shoulder. But the bunker is also his home. What does a person do when their own home has been tainted by that kind of trauma (people suffer from home invasions, traumatic events, in their own home...how do people regain their sense of safety?) “this is my home. This is our home...I just need some time.” Again my heart shattering for Sam. Because he means that, yes that is home and I think Sam, as Dean did openly in SPN 300, is good with his life and who he is. But there’s no quick fix for that trauma. Sam’s not only dealing with guilt and grief and trauma, but his sense of home has been violated by what Michael did. We also know unpleasant things have happened in the Impala. Blood and trauma and fear. The Impala, like the bunker, has been home and shelter and safety, but like the bunker, has been the location of traumatic events in their lives (and who knows what kind of scary moments Sam and Dean had in that car when they were children). Yet their sense of home prevailed for the Impala and I think it will for Sam with the bunker too.

Okay. So. It seems like Jack’s soul really was fully gone already after all because he kills the snake to send its soul to Heaven to reunite with its original owner and that isn’t compassionate it’s murder and Jack thought that was a really good idea.

[rockmywings]

Korean Crime TV Series Review#2: VOICE (보이스)

THE MAIN CHARACTERS TRIO:

Lead Male (Moo Jinhyuk “Mad Dog”): A veteran detective from Serious Crime Unit, being demoted as a leader of Golden Time Team under Emergency Call Department. 

Lead Female (Kang Kwonjoo “Kang Center”): A profiler who has super hearing ability, The chief of Emergency Call Department.

second lead male Main Antagonist (Mo Taegu “Mr. Mo”): CEO of Sungwun Express, an upper-classman. Psychopath.

PLOT:

Main: To catch the criminal who has murdered both Mad Dog’s wife and Kang Center’s dad and who also committed several crimes. 

Sub: To save a life who is in crucial danger from their emergency call.

OFFICIAL ENGLISH TRAILER:

REVIEW BY GENRES:

1) Various Crimes: There are Serial Killer, Kidnapping/Abduction, Child Abuse, Gangster, Illegal Immigrant, Stalker, Human Organ Trafficking, Corrupted Company, Corrupted Police--so complete. The series touches from individual crime to organizational crime, from marginal society to upper-class community. And the gruesome of crime scene places us in reality how horror the real crime is, why they are deserved to be censored in blur like News do on TV Channel (although it’s bothersome to me who use to see gore scenes in The Walking Dead and violence in any US Crime TV Series). I like how Golden Team looks so smart along with Kang Center herself as the profiler and with a hacking skilled officer to get any information. Though, there’s one staff whose multi-language ability is seriously wasted because what she did most times are similar to the hacker, as she also seeks information through internet. However, because our protagonists come from Emergency Call Center, we see how Serious Crime Unit are always outsmarted, making us wonder if they’re a bit competent in investigating while this one should be their expertise. For example, there’s no forensic or CCTV investigation ever shown here but somehow it makes sense because all of the victims who died here are under the main antagonist’s control who could ask to be covered while Golden Team successfully rescues all victims who made the emergency call.

2) Horror Elements: A part of the success of any popular scary movie is the perfect killer. There’s no other character more interesting in the show rather than the killer himself and I can guarantee Mo Taegu would steal your attention in every of his appearance. Let me explain it: A man wearing a black raincoat with face covered behind hoodie but his devilish grin is walking closer in calm steps, a sinister voice with a gravel-like quality of his jaw cracks then strikes the fear of a tormented fresh-faced woman before brutally murdering her--that’s your first impression of him. But, it wasn’t just a typical random unfortunate person whom a serial killer encounter in the dark street with certain modus operandi, nope!! More the killer is introduced, you realize he’s a type who could appear right in front of your door or behind the window creepily, making a hiss like a dinosaur to enter your room whether he decides to kill or just intentionally scare you--we’d find he did it at least 4-5 times in the series!!! (and my fave is when Kwonjoo met his eyes behind the lookout lens of her door) And behind the mask, there’s a rich, smart, and classy-typed businessman wearing an elegant suit with charming face who enchants everyone--so charismatic. Well, there is one episode that doesn’t really makes sense when he’s brutally murdering Madam Fantasia off-screen. The body is nowhere to be found in the building while he clearly didn’t have enough time to hid it in his car unnoticeable, laundry his suit (I mean, look at how much the blood he spread on floor and wall while he killed her not under his raincoat), peeking on Kang Center who has arrived 10 minutes after the phone call only to see her reaction finding his crime scene, then come back to meeting room he left before. But fuck off the logic, once again, this is horror show; let’s enjoy every killing scene of every bone he’s crushing using his kettlebell, or grotesque art of blood he painted on the wall citing Bible quote, or when he keeps the body wrapped in his house then doing bloodbath like Elizabeth Bathory, it’s all horrifyingly entertaining. Don’t forget that his victims also made a bad move tropes to meet him and give us a death flag. As if it wasn’t enough, Taegu also has some hallucination things, how creepy it is when he stared at the policeman in the car like a supernatural horror and when he’s being murdered on his mind like a zombie scene. Although those all aren’t enough to scare me, I’m sure there are some audiences who maintain to keep watching this show with eyes peeking behind their fingers but you can’t leave it yet to see who he’d murder next and who’d be survived. You’d be surprised when it reveals he commits more crimes through his company and more number of murders he had done for years with many different sizes of his weapon that will freak you out!! And with high status to work with gangster and a certain police to cover it all whom he could just eliminate as his next murdering target if he wanted, I’ll say “Welcome to Sungwun City, Mo Taegu’s World.” He is too complete to be a psychopath, an extremely powerful evil case with intellect brain to know what he does. He could be starring his own horror movie if Voice ever made a prequel. Maybe the only thing he hadn’t done yet (or ever shown) is cooking and eating the victims' meat LOL. But seriously, as the citing bible, doing bloodbath, and keeping body or organs, comes from nowhere (that is kinda different persona from the mysterious killer in eps 1-3); the writer even can add if he was ever cannibal too.

3) The high suspense in every episode: While the main villain is horror enough, the co-villains in some emergency cases also could raise the suspension that makes you hold your chair and grit your teeth. This was the most exciting thing because you could see desperate emotions of the victims transported through the call and how The Golden Team is rescuing them, battle in countdown timer minutes by minutes, second by second. Even after the first two cases that you become to feel every rescue is predictably success, you won’t lose the suspense. Voice is directed in plot-driven like a formula one’s car and once you’re seated there, you can’t stop ‘til finish line. My fave case is the child abuse, we feel so pity and hopeless because the one who makes a call is a little boy hiding in washing machine and bleeding. The least suspense is the rescue of bus passengers as the last rescue case in eps 15, probably I’ve been pretty surfeited of the repetitive rescue (but the case is important to show how crazy Mr. Mo runs his business).

4) Full Packed Action: Well, a premise of a lead male seeks revenge for the murder of the person he loves is cliche and standard in action movies; this how Mad Dog vs Mr. Mo’s confrontation has been lead since the series prolog, we know their final battle should happen. Jinhyuk himself wouldn’t be called “Mad Dog” without reason if this genre were absent. Look how his action is performed throughout the series, especially when he beat up all the gangsters in the meat house—so intense and brutal!! Don’t ever ask his nonstop energy, this is how action genre treats the main hero. Then, I expect a same intense hand in hand combat scene as to how action movie’s climax battle should be handled, main hero and main villain are equal although it’s predictable who’d be the winner in the end. Both Mad Dog and Mr. Mo are canonly brutal, you can see the same of them staring terrifyingly and intimidating when they talked to Nam Sang Tae in different scenes; you see how strong they are. Instead, we just get a short gunfighting?! I don’t complaint the gunfighting, but I mean, can they also make a duel with Jet Kun Do vs Tae Kwon Do as the two actors have the martial art skill for real? The director could make they ran out of bullet, then fight brutally, then the cops stop them to arrest him. It’s a wasted potential because the director even had given Mad Dog’s fight against a South East Asian assassin for two episodes! However, Taegu’s ending in the rooftop scene is still satisfying. Maybe the concept of Mad Dog vs Mr. Mo kinda like Batman and Joker. Despite being evil, of course Joker is powerless compared to Batman’s strength if he ever challenged him in combat. The purpose isn’t about which one is stronger. Same as Joker provokes Batman, Taegu also enjoys provoking Jinhyuk to kill himself even by telling him how he killed his wife, to prove he’s just another monster like him. And although we see how Jinhyuk doesn't hesitate to shoot Taegu four times in the rooftop brutally, he didn’t kill him at the end as he pities his enemy. But audiences would know later how it punishes Taegu in a very cruel way unexpectedly compared to what if he just died in Jinhyuk’s hand as he wishes. And of course, he deserves it.

5) The Drama is about The Victims: As well as how the credit title is presented, it tells us that this show is about the victim’s voice in asking help that used to be abandoned by slow police procedural--including our hero and heroine’s beloved one. But not only that, the profiler’s approach to seeking the Criminal’s motive then trying to calm them, making them tremble, and feeling sympathy really reminds me of Criminal Minds; criminals can be born because they were a victim too in the past--trust me, even you’d pity Taegu in the end!

6) Almost Zero Romance: 

Tbh, I don’t like the cliche that the lead male and lead female eventually hook up in the end (although I’m okay with the possible idea) so I’m glad it doesn’t happen with Voice. Even though they start to work together as a team professionally, they didn’t have to fall into an affair like duo Mulder and Scully of The X-Files. Their relationship is amazingly platonic ‘til the end as you watch them developing trust, teamwork, bond, and care to each other. 

If there’s any romance ever sparking, two Kwonjoo’s staffs in Emergency Call may be hinted. The woman is cool at first while the guy is cheerful and kind of a flirt. An obsessive fan of him is even jealous of her. But as I said, it was just hinted. Their occasional heartwarming interaction may be made for taking a break in all suspense and violent cases. It wasn’t out of place since it’s just a little and eps 9 could give you space to breathe. 

Well, this one depends on interpretation, but Taegu seems to have special attraction/interest of Kwonjoo sexually (of course, in a sick mind only psychopath could describe), for example when he stalked her, caressed her bed, stared at her picture, gave her a gift, happy when she found him, claimed that both of them are different from common herd, and show a disappointment that she doesn’t like it. On her profiling, Kwonjoo said why he’s “soft” at her probably because she reminds him of his mother, the only person he genuinely loves. Their chemistry is something the audiences not expecting before, especially in the rooftop scene as their climax. But I'm sure no one complaints [laughs].

Nah, the only true romance no one can’t debate is Jinhyuk’s love for his deceased wife; how he’s broken, how’s he seeks revenge, and then how he finally let it go.

OTHER POSSIBLE FLAWS:

Voice is an easy story and predictable with those action, suspense, and horror elements (although there’s still a twist); the ending is also clear, not open. The main mystery isn’t something that makes you heavily think to guess who is the culprit or suspect someone. Well, it’s enough to thrill for half series because once Taegu’s character is introduced at eps 8, the focus itself actually isn’t about a conspiracy behind the police/prosecutor institution like TvN Signal or TvN Stranger since the mastermind is the person outside it. Some audience may be fooled or even disappointed about it but I’m not (once again, I said Taegu’s character as psychopath fits more in horror tropes). The procedural pace, the variety of crimes, and the plot-driven won’t make you bored that you probably forget to ask for character development and question the logic; though, sometimes the running clock is too long to make us question if the run really happened just in 5 minutes. 

The lead female’s super hearing ability is the reason why all the emergency rescues success where the title “Voice” comes from, it’s full an entertaining fiction, we know real life isn’t like that. Still, it isn’t without flaw; for example, she could amazingly hear the boy’s slow tap behind the wall through communication but she failed to hear the hitting sound Taegu made when he’s smashing Daeshik’s head in the basement right when she’s entering his house. And her ability might be useless if the criminals were smart enough to make sure there's no cellphone being kept in their victim's pocket to be able to make contacts.  

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Voice is definitely my fave Korean TV Series so far. It isn’t perfect but somehow I don’t feel this is a Kdrama at all. Look at those three main characters: 

The nuance I feel around the lead female’s department and how she handles the cases is almost like when I watch US TV Series of Police Procedural Dramas (many felt like Criminal Minds mixed with 9-1-1), 

the lead male’s fighting scene is like The Raid, Bourne, or John Wick (also the Surim-dong case reminds me of NCIS: New Orleans’s case “Clearwater”),

the main killer’s approach is like Wes Craven’s SCREAM and his personality is like American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. 

With these references, I don’t recommend this series to those who can’t stand to watch gruesome violence. The age rating in Korea's Standard is 19+ and if it was measured to my country's rating standard (Indonesia), it'd be 21+.

I haven’t mentioned yet that the actors and the actresses, both leads and supporting, are amazing. I don’t watch much Korean entertainment (movie and show) so this is the first time I’m introduced to them all, and suddenly both Jinhyuk’s actor (Jang Hyuk) and Taegu’s actor (Kim Jae Wook) are added to my fave list for me interested to watch their other projects. I also like the veteran actress who plays a granny in Surim-dong incident; she could act as three different characters!

I’m looking forward to Season 2 aired on 11th August 2018. Now, without Jinhyuk and Taegu’s characters anymore as their confrontation story is over; I wonder if this time The Golden Team somehow ever fails to save a life like TvN Signal and have kind of a sociopath as main villain like OCN Tunnel. Who knows? I still can’t imagine someone more psycho and charismatic than Taegu yet haha. And with a different director, it’s probably not horror as season 1 anymore, but more thriller. But most importantly, I want to see and know more about the heroine, Kang Center, she’s at least need character development since she was the core of “voice”.

[jensaudiencestudiesblog]

Blog Post (3P18) Entry 2: Effects of Media

William J. Brown (2015) coined the term ‘four processes of audience involvement’ to distinguish media interactions between a ‘mediated message’ or ‘mediated personae’. In doing so, Brown (2015) began to describe media personae as the personalities we see on television and feel connected to. It forms a relation between us as the viewers and those who present their ‘personae’ to us. This causes us feelings of connectedness and enjoyment as their media personae is there for the purpose of entertaining us. Brown (2015) includes significant models of media personae as any public figures which does not include television stars, but strong forces of influence upon us such as politicians or athletes. This blog post will address each process of audience involvement that Brown (2015) has introduced.

Transportation 

The process of transportation represents the emotional investment one feels of a particular storyline, perhaps in a show or a film. This may include the characters or just the story plot itself (Brown, 2015). Furthermore, the meaning behind ‘transportation’ is that the audience members place themselves in a position to feel more connected to the characters or narrative, as if they are placed into the screening itself. This often happens regarding film sequences or television shows. Personally, I have seen many series where I identify and connect with the characters from the beginning of the series all the way to the very end. One example that I could reflect on while thinking of transportation was from the Twilight Saga. I connected to the drama and romance genre that the film was made to be as it kept me engaged throughout the entire saga and I grew to learn more about the characters whilst their connections among one another flourished. Specifically, I personally strongly identified with Bella Swan, who is the main character. Bella forms two relationships with both Edward Cullen, a vampire, and Jacob Black, a werewolf who are both in opposition with each other. This obstacle itself makes the saga engaging and allows people to favor certain characters. For instance, throughout the four years in which the saga premiered for, Twilight fans began a trend of “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob'' which had become so advertised that it sold merchandise that was written on t-shirts or at book fairs. Additionally, I would often see Twilight fans wear their merchandise at the movie premieres of the Twilight Saga. I believe that this example itself strongly represents the relationships that the audience forms with the characters and how emotionally invested they become in the series. Furthermore, I identified most with Bella and Edward’s relationship as the Saga had begun with a stronger story between the two of them, and that he brought her into an extremely different lifestyle in a family of vampires. This made me part of “Team Edward” rooting for the Saga to end with the two of them continuing their on-screen romance. 

Parasocial interaction

Parasocial interaction was described by Horton and Wohl (1956) as “imaginary interaction between a television viewer and a television personality” (Brown, 2015, p 262). Parasocial interaction occurs when a relationship shown on TV involves stronger and more intimate feelings of the television viewer (Horton, and Wohl, 1956). As Brown (2015) mentioned other platforms of visual communication technologies that may cause PRS (parasocial relationships) to evolve, I reflected on celebrities who have struggled with a fan of theirs, or complete strangers, who have idealized the celebrity and would form a connection where they feel that they know them personally. To illustrate, YouTubers are a prime example of individuals who have gone through obstacles of this specific issue. YouTubers are known for being very open with their life as it is something that comes with their public career. Further, this has become dangerous because there are viewers who become so engaged in their lives where they constantly keep up with them to the point where they can find out where they live and become a stalker. Some of these stalkers would pretend as if they are in a relationship with the YouTuber. This is how the Parasocial Interaction goes beyond just an engagement or fandom and is psychologically assessed as Brown (2015) explained, as it further becomes an ‘attachment’ or forms into imaginary romantic relationships, or in this case, unhealthy obsessions.

Identification 

The third process is called ‘identification’ and it was coined by Freud and Laswell between 1922 and 1989. The term was later refined by Kelman (1958, 1961) who described identification as “a process of social influence” by which consists of objectification of one by a person who wants to adopt similar values or attitudes (Brown, 2015). In addition, identification is based upon the influence one has under a certain individual. This often happens with media personae, without personally knowing the individual, and is solely caused by a desire to be like them, which involves the changes of one’s behaviors and attitudes in their authentic self (Brown, 2015). An example of identification is a recent public example of a TikTok star and a YouTuber, who both evidently embody singer Ariana Grande, by dressing like her, wearing the exact same makeup style as Ariana Grande and talking like her as well. As the TikTok star Paige Neimann has gained much recognition over her TikToks, she has been interviewed for this strong identification that she has portrayed to the public and recognized by Ariana Grande herself along with many other public figures. Youtuber, Gabi Demartino, has also been publicly recognized for her embodiment of the singer that she was asked to be in a music video of Ariana Grande. Both identifications became a satire joke of the audience members of all three public figures. 

Worship 

‘Worship’, the last process of audience involvement, is considered the most intense process according to Brown (2015). This process is similar to the identification process, although it has three levels which more clearly defines the concept. The three concepts are the following: 1) low-level worship, which begins with the simplistic social values of celebrities that are followed and keeps the fan engaged; 2) the medium level, which is shaped around more intense feelings which cause a romantic parasocial interaction towards the celebrity; and 3) the mild pathological dimension, which is essentially explained as ‘celebrity worship’. This is where the obsession leads further into being abnormal or harmful towards the celebrity themselves (Brown, 2015). The worship process allowed me to reflect on an example that was presented on Dr. Phil of famous singer Kib Moore, where an obsessive fan had filed divorce papers with her husband after attending a concert of his and immediately falling into an extreme case of obsession with the singer. This follows the third stage of worship, as this celebrity obsession became detrimental to her own marriage.

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11 Things From Die Hard That Haven't Aged Well | ScreenRant

In 1988, Die Hard hit theaters and introduced audiences to the everyman hero John McClane for the first time. Not only did it turn Bruce Willis into one of the most bankable action stars of the decade, but the movie also changed the landscape of action movies forever. Modern action movies owe a lot to Die Hard, and the genre would be very different without it.

RELATED: 10 Things In Sci-Fi Movies You Didn’t Know Were CGI

But since it was release during the tail end of the ‘80s, it goes without saying that not everything about McClane’s time in The Nakatomi Plaza aged well. None of these outdated elements can reduce the movie’s status as an action-packed masterpiece, but they do offer new points of view to consider. Here are 10 things from Die Hard that did not age well.

10 The Die Hard Clones

When it first came out, there was nothing like Die Hard in cinemas. So it’s not surprising that every studio wanted its own Die Hard after seeing how much money McClane’s violent Christmas vacation pulled in. This was done by replacing the variable in the simple equation “Die Hard in an X.”

RELATED: 5 Reasons We Need To See Lethal Weapon 5 (& 5 Why We Don’t)

Some of the most noteworthy knock-offs include: Cliffhanger, Passenger 57, Sudden Death, and Under Siege. The imitation game persists even today, as seen in the disposable Lockout, Olympus has Fallen, and Skyscraper. By no fault of its own, Die Hard itself has become a cliché.

9 The Sequels

The only thing worse than the Die Hard clones are its sequels. While the first two are still enjoyable even if they somewhat diminish the original’s impact and McClane’s everyman status, the fourth and fifth movies tanked the franchise’s reputation beyond repair.

RELATED:Jack Nicholson’s 10 Most Iconic Roles, Ranked

Live Free or Die Hard was a watered down bore that misunderstood everything that made McClane and Die Hard iconic, while A Good Day to Die Hard was just a horrible waste of time. There are rumors about a sixth installment, though whatever good faith the series once had is now gone following the fifth movie’s abysmal reception.

8 The Director’s Legacy

With Die Hard being only his third movie, director John McTiernan seemed set for cinematic greatness. This would’ve been the case if not for his arrest.

When filming the Rollerball remake, McTiernan hired a private investigator to find some dirt on his producer. This landed him in court, where he was charged for invasion of privacy and perjury. He served a 12-month sentence and was released in 2014 before filing for bankruptcy. McTiernan’s legal problems derailed his career, effectively blacklisting him from Hollywood despite directing classics such as Predator and The Hunt for Red October.

7 Yippee-ki-yay, Motherf****r

Die Hard would be nothing without Willis' gloriously improvised line “Yippee-ki-yay, motherf****r.” McClane’s badass catchphrase is something that’s perfectly ‘80s, but it was an outdated reference even back in 1988.

The phrase hails from old-fashioned Western movies, where cowboys would yell it out loud or sing it over a campfire with some friends. Unless they’re directed by Quentin Tarantino, cowboy movies are generally considered passé or niche today. Most newcomers would associate the words “Yippee-ki-yay” to McClane rather than one of the many cowboys John Wayne portrayed.

6 Hans Gruber

A hallmark of American action movies from the ‘80s is the classy villain, preferably of European descent. Hans Gruber isn’t the first but he may very well be the template for the nefarious European who pulls the strings in these kinds of movies.

Cunning, cultured, and educated, Hans represents the smug elite that the blue-collar hero McClane must bring back to Earth by either punching him or dropping him off a building. Hans isn’t a bad villain by any measure, but copying his style today could date a movie by almost 40 years.

5 Argyle & Theo

There was a time when all African American characters talked in the same hyperactive and exaggerated manner, littering sentences with slang and using curses or slurs as punctuation marks. Die Hard is guilty of implementing this stereotype not once but twice, doing so through McClane’s driver Argyle and Hans’ tech wizard Theo.

RELATED: 10 Weird Secrets Behind Disney’s Peter Pan

Though both characters have their own moments beyond harmless comic relief, they share the same talkative shtick and job of annoying their bosses. If Die Hard were a radio play, the two would almost be indistinguishable from one another.

4 Richard Thornburg

In ‘80s media starring law enforcement, the press is usually more immoral than the terrorists and mass murderers. The exploitative and self-absorbed TV anchor Richard Thornburg fulfills this role in Die Hard, arguably getting worse in the sequel.

Since Die Hard was made during a culturally conservative time when the idea of law and order was put on a pedestal, it’s unsurprising that investigative journalism – which provides checks and balances – is depicted in such a negative light. Say what you will about the media, but Thornburg’s outdated characterization is both flat and mean-spirited.

3 Holly Gennero

Every ‘80s action hero needs a love interest, and McClane has his ex-wife Holly. As expected of her role, she chides the male lead for being too manly before falling for the same traits later. Long story short, she still needs a man despite her self-proclaimed independence.

While Holly’s role as the mediator between the hostages and terrorists did age well, she doesn’t do much else besides praise McClane when he’s off killing bad guys. Granted she is a hostage but this only reinforces the readings that view her as a glorified damsel in distress.

2 John McClane

Like the cowboys Hans compared him to, McClane is a hero who belongs in a bygone era. The cowboy cop is an obvious male power fantasy, but what’s more interesting are the aged conservative values McClane represents.

RELATED: Everything We Know (So Far) About A Quiet Place: Part II

McClane validates older men who refuse to get with the times, scoffing at modernity and solving problems through practical old-school know-how. Additionally, he embodies the heroic father figure who protects his defenseless flock. A patriarch who, curiously, only seems to find purpose in times of crisis. McClane’s example aged so poorly that the only innovation made was giving aggressively protective dads a beard.

1 Al Powell’s Backstory

McClane’s only ally is the unlucky but dutiful cop Al Powell, who feels guilty for shooting a kid after mistaking a toy gun for the real thing. Al’s arc concludes when he pulls the trigger again, getting over his rookie mistake instead of realizing the gravity of killing a child.

While not really Die Hard's fault, Al’s backstory aged the worst because of today's many similar shooting incidents and authorities’ inaction. The case of Tamir Rice from 2014 is the same as the kid in Al’s story but with none of the histronics, as Tamir’s death was tragically senseless.

NEXT: Die Hard: 10 Craziest Action Sequences, Ranked

source https://screenrant.com/things-die-hard-movie-havent-aged-well/

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Transitory - Trinity Ch.10

Genre: Casefile | Fandom: The X-Files x The Fall x Sreetcar | Rating: Mature | Setting: Circa 2012. Canon compliant | Chapters: 3/6 of Part 2

Trinity Part I

Chapter 1 - Perfume || Chapter 2 - Impression || Chapter 3 - Connection Chapter 4 - Delusion || Chapter 5-  Confrontation || Chapter 6 - Post Mortem

Trinity Part I

Prologue - Purgatory || Chapter 1 - Animosity || Chapter 2 - History

This chapter is rated teen+ for a little sexual content. Also it’ angsty AF. sorry!

TRINITY: PART II CHAPTER III - TRANSITORY

Scully wakes up on hotel-crisp sheets after not nearly long enough. Her mind is racing but her body tells her it’s not morning yet. The clock is showing 11:15pm and she’s only been asleep for around four hours, the remains of a room-service salad drying out on the desk. Stella Gibson, with her brusquely dismissive, “You’ve been up at least 36 hours. Check yourself in, the Bureau will cover the bill, and we’ll discuss what happens next in the morning,” is staying two floors up.

The end of the afternoon had passed in a hurry of meetings and memorandums, an updated file  arriving from the morgue complete with forms declaring that Scully’s late night examination had been totally by-the-book defusing Stanning’s fury from apoplectic to merely seething. He was biding his time, Scully could tell; smarting because Blanche Dubois had refused to speak to him when she’d finished with the sketch artist, affronted when Stella had gone straight to AD Gilmore to request approval to involve the Miami field office in their hunt for Jane Doe, his macho bravado growing louder with every small step the women of the taskforce took forward without his input. And it wasn’t that they sought to exclude him, Scully had realised as the day wore on, it was quite simply that he wasn’t willing to listen or participate until it suited his purpose.

When the police artist had come into the situation room with an e-fit sketch from Blanche’s description, Stanning had stood right next to them as Stella listed the databases she wanted it run against, he was well within earshot of Scully’s suggestion that they also check it against hospital staff records in the cities of interest. Short of profound deafness, there was no way he could have missed Scully’s subsequent explanation that most intravenous drugs capable of killing with the required speed and subtlety are controlled substances. and that access to such drugs makes it possible their perp is a medical professional of some sort. Scully could even have sworn that Agent Stanning had nodded his approval to extend their search parameters, but by the time they reached the last meeting of the day, Scully’s reiteration of those same suggestions to the gathered taskforce had been met with a unsubtle, definitely not under-the-breath, “Would be great if your little consultant would run this stuff past me before sharing with the room,” to Gibson, standing stonily at his side.

Scully suspects that Stanning’s hostility towards her has a lot more to do with Stella Gibson than Scully herself, but she hasn’t had a chance to ask what might be at the root of it. Things between her and the British detective have thawed as the day has worn on, the previous night’s unpleasantness put aside for now in the interest of furthering the case; Blanche’s clear preference for Scully has changed the landscape and they are both still adapting, Stella has made space for Scully’s ideas and investigative victories despite her instinct to hold all the cards. It’s imperfect but it is working.

Tomorrow will be another rebalancing, and in the honesty of midnight darkness Scully prays that she will be asked to stay, that Stella’s initial promise of partnership will be renewed and the day will carry her to the morgue to assist with processing, or to a crime scene, anywhere where she can work, help and be useful in the search for the truth. This case has burrowed its way into her mind and she feels that familiar itch of unfinished business, of injustice, her mind rejecting sleep in favour of going over the evidence. After all, the structure and strictures of investigation, of neatly typed reports and linked evidence is a much kinder and more familiar cause for insomnia than the choking misery of Mulder’s absence which has become her frequent bedfellow these last few months.

Trying not to count back the nights where she’s reached for him and found only a cold pillow, Scully flicks on the TV, hoping for some numbing background noise. Instead, she finds her own face.

The photograph is old, maybe as much as a decade. She vaguely remembers having it taken for a hospital ID on a day when her hair was at an awkward in-between stage after being on the run, and next to Stella’s pristine police portrait she looks like the scruffy younger sister. Clicking on the sound, she catches the end of a report identifying her as a possible consultant and speculating as to what could have brought two women from such wildly different backgrounds on to the suspected serial case. When they cut back to the anchor, Scully recognises one of the men from from outside the station, and she realises that, in absence of any official statement to the press, she and Stella are likely the closest thing anyone has to a story. She only hopes that- and then in a flash Mulder’s face is on screen, and it’s too late, the potted official history of their partnership laid out for the late-night news audience with the standard side order of ridicule and sensationalism. She feels a pang then, for the old days where they’d have laughed off the bad press over bad coffee, the marks on each of their bodies reassuring them that the truth they sought was valid and important, their scars an armour of proof that only the other could see or understand. It’s a fond memory, and it gives Scully the excise she has been pretending not to be waiting for. If her involvement has made the news, there is a chance it will make it to Mulder. She has to call. She pretends her heart isn’t racing at the thought of hearing his voice.

Scully calls their landline on autopilot. It’s the closest phone to Mulder’s desk and she knows that is likely where he will be. Late night calls are a staple of their relationship, or at least they had been back when they still talked, miles of telephone wire condensing to nothing under the magnetism of their connection, his voice in her ear more intimate than the touch of any man who had come before him. Even at the beginning, his sincerity, his fervour had stripped away her cynicism, if not her scepticism, and left her open and vulnerable to everything he was, everything that they became… everything they have lost.

He picks up on an inhale but says nothing, forcing her to break the silence. Again.

‘Mulder, it’s me.’

And she wishes she could see his face, because his ‘Scully?’ is a question she doesn’t know how to answer. It’s not a ‘Where the hell are you and why have you got my phone?’ It’s not a ‘Why haven’t you come home?’ It’s ‘Why are you calling me Scully?’ and she doesn’t know how to answer him.

She’d planned to tell him that she was assisting the FBI, not to worry and sorry she’d snuck out but he seemed busy. She’d thought perhaps she’d tempt him into the case, saying, ‘Please if you have any “Mulder hunches” call me because this guy is a sick fuck and I want to catch him’ and meaning, ‘I miss you. I miss us.’ But now frustration and loss and rage are fighting in her throat and, ‘Mulder I love you; why don’t you see me slipping away?’ is tangled up in, ‘Did you even notice I was gone?’ and ‘Why the hell haven’t you checked your phone in two days? I could have been dead in a ditch and you wouldn’t know, wouldn’t even care, you self-involved bastard!’

In the end, nothing comes out. And that’s what she tells him.

‘It’s nothing Mulder. I’m fine, I was just... Don’t worry.’

And he tells her goodbye and puts the phone down and Scully feels, just for a second, like she is nothing. That it has all been for nothing.

Mulder’s phone is heavy in her hand, one more thing of his he seems content to live without, and Scully lets it drop to the bed and get lost in the dark. He’d sworn they wouldn’t get lost in the dark, but it’s not the first promise he’s broken.

Determinedly swinging her legs out of bed, Scully drags workout clothes out of her luggage and pulls them on, transplanting the energy of her anger, the tension of her hurt into her muscles and as soon as her sneakers are laced she’s out of the door and headed for the health club. She skips the elevator, jogs down the ten flights of stairs and thanks God and whoever signs off Stella Gibson’s expenses for the Hilton and their 24/7 fitness centre.

The gym is empty and the music is off, but that suits Scully fine. She picks a treadmill by the window overlooking the pool for the distracting chlorine-fuelled fractals the water casts on the walls and ups the incline until she can feel her thighs start to burn. Mulder likes to run outside, to escape, but for Scully running has always been a form of punishment, penitence for that extra dinner roll, her legs pounding Hail Marys into the conveyor until her lungs burn and her mind empties. It’s not about getting anywhere or away from anything, it’s about staying the course. Tonight she will run until she forgets to feel hurt by what she’s left behind, until she forgets to be afraid of what comes next.

Ten minutes in and movement below catches the edge of her consciousness, figures intruding on the edge of her pool-rippled blank space. She keeps running, keeps gazing but they do not retreat, and Scully finds herself leaning in, observing the people below from her vantage point as if through a microscope.

There’s a familiarity to the arch of the woman’s back as she slips into the spa tub in a seal-black line. There’s a recognisable arrogance to the way she rises up on her knees and leans into her companion, to her dedication to her own pleasure as she slips the straps of her bathing suit down her shoulders in a public area, not caring who might be watching the sensuous skid of fingers down her now naked back. It’s not until the woman throws her head back, her lips tight with pleasure, that Scully realises why the stranger seems so familiar.

It’s Stella, her hair slicked back and dark from the pool. She seems as confident here, half naked and straddling someone in an empty jacuzzi, as she had in the boardroom. Scully hits the emergency stop on the treadmill, meaning to rush away, ashamed of her accidental voyeurism but as she is about to step back the scene below her changes. Stella rolls away from her partner to recline against the edge of the pool, and as she settles in a languid pose, somehow both soft and hard in one liquid pose, she looks up and notices her audience.

Scully freezes, still poised to run but now there’s a dare in Stella’s eyes, a wicked invitation to stay a little longer, to see how far things go, and Scully finds herself starting the treadmill again, a low setting, no incline, a feeble excuse to spectate Stella’s conquest.

Without relinquishing eye contact, Stella slides over to reclaim her partner, pulling them into her lap and arching her neck to give them access to the ivory swoop of her skin. A slight smile curves her lips when Scully eventually realises the body draped over her colleague is that of another woman. Scully is not surprised, there have been moments where Stella’s glance has skirted the edges of seductive, and remembering them now, wondering if she encouraged them, pins Scully more firmly in the sweet place between fight and flight. She runs harder, looking for another explanation for the heat rising in her cheeks and settling in places she will not acknowledge when Stella’s fingers dip playfully under the edges of the other woman’s bikini. She should leave. She doesn’t want this. Does she? Scully has never been a voyeur but the adrenaline coursing through her body from the exercise and the taboo of what she is watching is intoxicating. And so she keeps jogging, keeps making excuses and chalking up her shortness of breath to exertion.

A quarter mile later and the dark haired woman’s hands have vanished from view, the unfocused blue of Stella’s gaze giving Scully a pretty good idea of what they might be doing, though from her vantage point all she can see is bubbles. For a mad moment she considers going downstairs, some insidious voice in the back of her mind telling Scully that Stella wouldn’t mind, but even this much, even dragging her own lower lip into her mouth as Stella’s eyes finally snap shut and biting down to feel the corresponding tightness in her nipples and between her legs feels sinful. It’s a mix of sexy and sordid that without Stella’s gaze to hold her in place feels overwhelming, and as reason crashes in on this early hours insanity, Scully leaves. She doesn’t glance back to where deft fingers have now vanished inside bikini bottoms and definitely doesn’t acknowledge the ache between her own legs until she has reached the safety of her room.

Locking the door and dimming all the lights, as if that can hide the shameful desperation of her desire, Scully strips off and lets the shower head and her fingers finish what started ten floors down. It’s a technique she’s perfected in the months spent waiting for Mulder, a quick release so she can go to bed satisfied if not sated.

She remembers the first time, she’d put it off for weeks, unwilling to accept that yet another of their connections had failed, until her body was screaming to be touched, and then finally, desperately, Scully had crawled onto Mulder’s side of the bed, head deep in his pillow, and she’d touched herself pretending it was him. Afterwards she cried herself to sleep with loneliness of it, waking up alone with the evidence, before relocating to the shower where at least it felt more like an emotional ablution than a last resort. She tells herself the same thing now, that it’s a natural urge, a hormonal release, and has absolutely nothing to do with whatever devilish desire had kept her watching downstairs, and that the uncharacteristic act of watching has nothing to do with what is missing at home. Scully’s almost convinced herself of both lies by the time she crawls back into bed, and she drifts off to dreams of running, of following Mulder down a dark and endless tunnel, calling out for him to wait and then looking back to see Stella Gibson chasing behind, face bright with freedom and laughing as the gap begins to close.

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For Tuesday, September  11

1. Find five publications that serve a similar audience, as close to each other as possible – and document them. They can be all print, all print, or all print+ digital, just don’t mix and match (comparing digital-only to print-only for example). You can take pictures using Scanner Pro or take screenshots using a chrome plugin.

2. Think about what makes them different from each other. What’s the difference between logos? Layout? Space around things? Type choices? Content choices? Color choices? Think about what signals it as being for that particular audience or purpose. 

3. Start a new document in InDesign that is 16 pages long, with facing pages. On the first page, say what is the same about them all. Then, lay out the images that show what the differences are, and your analysis of those images. Images should be on the left hand page, analysis on the right hand page. You can key them (number them, for instance) but don’t mix them up like a science fair project board. It’s up to you what you want to focus on, but one possible layout could be:

first page: overall description about the genre pages 2–3: differences in the covers pages 4–7: photography choices, rules, style pages 8-9: Headline text pages 10-11: Body/paragraph text pages 12-13: Other text elements pages 14-15: Use of color page 16: blank, your name and date

4. Get used to the tool. Find out how to do what you don’t know. How can you work faster with key commands? Will renaming your files help you find them faster?

5. Read What is Graphic and Communication Design? then the introduction and Chapter 1 of Post-Digital Print (PDF link in right column). Post a quote from the reading to your blog and a short response. 

6. Read Can you Spot the Deceptive Facebook Post? 

Some show notes from today:

- Publishing and design are both hard to define and are continuously negotiated. When we use either term, it can be understood very differently by different audiences. 

- Work in duplicate with Google Drive or Dropbox. This will put a folder in your Finder that looks and works just like everything else but is sync’ed to their servers. To add Google Drive to your machine, go to the gear icon > Drive File Stream for Mac. I recommend also backing up periodically to an external drive + AWS or other digital deep storage so that you can keep your shared files on Google or Dropbox under 2GB. 

- I also recommend using a single password app (I use 1Password) to keep you sane. In addition, wherever you can, use 2-factor authentication, especially for any emails you use as usernames for logins. 

- Readdle’s Scanner Pro is probably the best money I ever spent on an app. Endlessly useful. 

- On Adobe: All the programs were made separately, and have their own histories. Photoshop: image manipulation for tone and size (no File > new); Illustrator: Vector drawing with or without incorporating type; InDesign: Layout, typesetting, multiple page documents. PDFs as exported files readable by browsers, Preview, and Acrobat, while , .ai, .psd, .indd are source files.

- Photoshop sees your picture as a bunch of sequential boxes, where each box has a color value. Grayscale saves one color value, RGB three, and CMYK four. File sizes correspond with the number of color values times the number of boxes or pixels (pixels across x pixels down is the correct way to refer to a bitmap file, no inches, etc.). DPI or PPI is just how many boxes per inch when printed, like thread count.

- Illustrator is for drawing vectors. Vectors record the location of points and the character of lines between them. You can make a vector as large as you want since it’s all relative (not made of boxes). While Illustrator can do other things, it’s really only good for drawing and defining vectors.

- InDesign is for laying out images and text. It can be used for single-page documents or multiple-page documents. It moves fast and it’s precise because it doesn’t save the images, it just references them. It’s also the only professional tool for type and print production, in part because it’s very strong when it comes to setting and using styles.

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11 Things From Die Hard That Haven't Aged Well | ScreenRant

In 1988, Die Hard hit theaters and introduced audiences to the everyman hero John McClane for the first time. Not only did it turn Bruce Willis into one of the most bankable action stars of the decade, but the movie also changed the landscape of action movies forever. Modern action movies owe a lot to Die Hard, and the genre would be very different without it.

RELATED: 10 Things In Sci-Fi Movies You Didn’t Know Were CGI

But since it was release during the tail end of the ‘80s, it goes without saying that not everything about McClane’s time in The Nakatomi Plaza aged well. None of these outdated elements can reduce the movie’s status as an action-packed masterpiece, but they do offer new points of view to consider. Here are 10 things from Die Hard that did not age well.

10 The Die Hard Clones

When it first came out, there was nothing like Die Hard in cinemas. So it’s not surprising that every studio wanted its own Die Hard after seeing how much money McClane’s violent Christmas vacation pulled in. This was done by replacing the variable in the simple equation “Die Hard in an X.”

RELATED: 5 Reasons We Need To See Lethal Weapon 5 (& 5 Why We Don’t)

Some of the most noteworthy knock-offs include: Cliffhanger, Passenger 57, Sudden Death, and Under Siege. The imitation game persists even today, as seen in the disposable Lockout, Olympus has Fallen, and Skyscraper. By no fault of its own, Die Hard itself has become a cliché.

9 The Sequels

The only thing worse than the Die Hard clones are its sequels. While the first two are still enjoyable even if they somewhat diminish the original’s impact and McClane’s everyman status, the fourth and fifth movies tanked the franchise’s reputation beyond repair.

RELATED:Jack Nicholson’s 10 Most Iconic Roles, Ranked

Live Free or Die Hard was a watered down bore that misunderstood everything that made McClane and Die Hard iconic, while A Good Day to Die Hard was just a horrible waste of time. There are rumors about a sixth installment, though whatever good faith the series once had is now gone following the fifth movie’s abysmal reception.

8 The Director’s Legacy

With Die Hard being only his third movie, director John McTiernan seemed set for cinematic greatness. This would’ve been the case if not for his arrest.

When filming the Rollerball remake, McTiernan hired a private investigator to find some dirt on his producer. This landed him in court, where he was charged for invasion of privacy and perjury. He served a 12-month sentence and was released in 2014 before filing for bankruptcy. McTiernan’s legal problems derailed his career, effectively blacklisting him from Hollywood despite directing classics such as Predator and The Hunt for Red October.

7 Yippee-ki-yay, Motherf****r

Die Hard would be nothing without Willis' gloriously improvised line “Yippee-ki-yay, motherf****r.” McClane’s badass catchphrase is something that’s perfectly ‘80s, but it was an outdated reference even back in 1988.

The phrase hails from old-fashioned Western movies, where cowboys would yell it out loud or sing it over a campfire with some friends. Unless they’re directed by Quentin Tarantino, cowboy movies are generally considered passé or niche today. Most newcomers would associate the words “Yippee-ki-yay” to McClane rather than one of the many cowboys John Wayne portrayed.

6 Hans Gruber

A hallmark of American action movies from the ‘80s is the classy villain, preferably of European descent. Hans Gruber isn’t the first but he may very well be the template for the nefarious European who pulls the strings in these kinds of movies.

Cunning, cultured, and educated, Hans represents the smug elite that the blue-collar hero McClane must bring back to Earth by either punching him or dropping him off a building. Hans isn’t a bad villain by any measure, but copying his style today could date a movie by almost 40 years.

5 Argyle & Theo

There was a time when all African American characters talked in the same hyperactive and exaggerated manner, littering sentences with slang and using curses or slurs as punctuation marks. Die Hard is guilty of implementing this stereotype not once but twice, doing so through McClane’s driver Argyle and Hans’ tech wizard Theo.

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Though both characters have their own moments beyond harmless comic relief, they share the same talkative shtick and job of annoying their bosses. If Die Hard were a radio play, the two would almost be indistinguishable from one another.

4 Richard Thornburg

In ‘80s media starring law enforcement, the press is usually more immoral than the terrorists and mass murderers. The exploitative and self-absorbed TV anchor Richard Thornburg fulfills this role in Die Hard, arguably getting worse in the sequel.

Since Die Hard was made during a culturally conservative time when the idea of law and order was put on a pedestal, it’s unsurprising that investigative journalism – which provides checks and balances – is depicted in such a negative light. Say what you will about the media, but Thornburg’s outdated characterization is both flat and mean-spirited.

3 Holly Gennero

Every ‘80s action hero needs a love interest, and McClane has his ex-wife Holly. As expected of her role, she chides the male lead for being too manly before falling for the same traits later. Long story short, she still needs a man despite her self-proclaimed independence.

While Holly’s role as the mediator between the hostages and terrorists did age well, she doesn’t do much else besides praise McClane when he’s off killing bad guys. Granted she is a hostage but this only reinforces the readings that view her as a glorified damsel in distress.

2 John McClane

Like the cowboys Hans compared him to, McClane is a hero who belongs in a bygone era. The cowboy cop is an obvious male power fantasy, but what’s more interesting are the aged conservative values McClane represents.

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McClane validates older men who refuse to get with the times, scoffing at modernity and solving problems through practical old-school know-how. Additionally, he embodies the heroic father figure who protects his defenseless flock. A patriarch who, curiously, only seems to find purpose in times of crisis. McClane’s example aged so poorly that the only innovation made was giving aggressively protective dads a beard.

1 Al Powell’s Backstory

McClane’s only ally is the unlucky but dutiful cop Al Powell, who feels guilty for shooting a kid after mistaking a toy gun for the real thing. Al’s arc concludes when he pulls the trigger again, getting over his rookie mistake instead of realizing the gravity of killing a child.

By no fault of Die Hard, Al’s backstory aged the worst because of today's many similar shooting incidents and authorities’ inaction. The case of Tamir Rice from 2014 is the same as the kid in Al’s story but with none of the histronics, as Tamir’s death was cruelly senseless.

NEXT: Die Hard: 10 Craziest Action Sequences, Ranked

source https://screenrant.com/things-die-hard-movie-havent-aged-well/