#hmmm this turned into a lot of critical role references

[grigori77]

Critical Role, Campaign 3 Episode 72

Mortal Kombat? Oh dear ... what will Sam do for THIS promo? Are we safe? Oh yeah, Mokap WAS just a dude in a Mocap suit, that was so embarrassingly true ... guest characters? Hmmmm ... oh, this is going so badly ... Sam: "There is no winner so I will get the prize!"

Ooh, nice accidental Ace Ventura reference, Laura! XD ... cue numerous enjoyably lowbrow jokes ...

The pixie frogs, of course ... Matt: "You befriended some, and invited others to shit upon you." Oh yeah ... dear gods that really did that, didn't they?

Chetney: "You're really just making up the rules there. They're not backed up by science ..."

I'm sorry ... BEEF serpent? You sure about that?

They won't want money, no ... Ashton: "Laudna, what do ghosts want?" Laudna: "Closure." Hmmm ...

FCG somewhat blsnks on how a compass works ... or was it Sam himself?

Travis ' map nonsense ... LOL

Ashton: "I feel like there are THE SEEDS of a decent plan in here ..."

Oh shit, IS Ratanish still in the Hole? Yeesh ...

Questioning corpses? Oh ... OH!!! Speak With the Dead? Yay! I love this spell ...

Ashton: "You can stitch a skull onto a dead rat and THIS is a problem?"

Oooooh ... spooky stuff ...

Deception check? Okay ... 21? Blimey, Laura!

Thul's still at the Key. Okay ... Travis losing it over Matt having to hold that ridiculous face ... XD Unity? What ... "keep them scattered"?

Whoa ... they're REALLY gonna try interrogating Ratanish? Okay ...

Oh boy, here we go ... yuck ... Matt goes HARD with this description ...

Another deception check ... 21 AGAIN?!!! Fuck ...

Old fashioned communications ... so THEY'RE having the same problems with Sending and stuff? Okay then ... "The Moon Folk have kept eyes as well"? Interesting ... bollocks, that's a question! Damn it ... ask about the monk snd the wizard! Damn it! Tell us about Beau and Caleb!

"Mzin pit entrance"? Hmmm ... agh, he's getting wise ... Insight check! Whispers! Aaaaaah!

FINALLY!!! But his head's off so it's quite the anticlimax ...

100 strong Reilorans loose ... hmmmm ...

Ratanish teeth? Fearne's getting her creepy Baba Yaga thing on again.

Chetney's incantation ... XD

Oh, here we go ... it's going all first POTC movie here ... oh okay ... is this the Black Pearl slouching out of the mist? Or maybe the Flying Dutchman?

Eagle's Splendour? Cool ...

Aaaaaah! Ghost pirates! Creepy!

Holy fuck, it really IS the cursed crew of the Black Pearl ...

Roll initiative? Crap!

Battlemap time! Yay! OH MY GODS!!! AND a ghost ship! Awesome!

Orym's up first? Nice ... go off, wee man! Badass! Damage, too! Nice ...

Ashton Rages! Oooh ... he's see-through! Okay ... takes a swing! Boom! Rocking up two big hits! Nice ... falls in the water? Wait ... EHAT did he just do? That's so cool ...

Uh-oh ... what's happening? Wait ... A PISTOL?!!! How the fuck? What ... AN ICE GUN?!!! Are you kidding me?

Minor Illusion? Hmmm ... a deception check? Okay ... 21! Nice, Travis! Oh bollocks, against a NAT20?!!! Ouch ...

Chetney: "They don't leave ... (Scottish accent) survivors!" XD

Form of Dread! Yeah ... and FIREBALLS!!! Nice ... wow ... that's A LOT of fails ... 26 fire damage! Fuck ... Laudna is ANNIHILATING these guys!

Shadow Cant? Ooooh ... and a NAT20!!! Whoa ...

Oh ... Parley? Or maybe not ... hmmm ...

Command From the Grave? Ooooh ... AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! No! Not Imogen! Phew ... Nice save ...

Spinning rocks ... okay ... very Magneto! Nice, Imogen! Boom!

There's one in the crow's nest? Hmmm ... oh fuck, what's THIS thing? TWO crossbow shots? Damn ... Nat20! Ouch ... crits on BOTH Chetney znd FCG! AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! Oh fuck, that's NASTY!!!

Fuck ... the dead are getting back up? CRAAAAAAAP!!!

Yes! Punch a ghost! Very Beau of her ...

All this Cold damage is SO not fun at all ... fucking undead!

Coin flip? Hmmm ... oh I know what he's gonna do ... Turn/Destroy Undead! Yes! About time! Go, Letters! Wait ... LAUDNA'S afraid of FCG now? Ah shit ... that's problematic ...

Fuck ... and there's NO FIX for this situation, either ... crap.

Do something FLAMEY Fearne! Burn these arseholes! Fire Shield? Not quite what I expected ... oh, resistance to Cold damage? That's okay ... she's running to Laudna? Oh, okay! Mirthful Leap! Yay! 9 on athletics? Crap ... and now she's blocked ... she sends Mister instead, then ... Dimension Door Laudna? Maybe not ... no, just shooting shit fire instead ... bah, and it's a miss! Crap ...

Orym starts running under legs znd goes straight for the ship, then uses Seedling to drag himself onto it! Nice! Whoa ... crazy skeleton girl! Eep! Oh ... what, a rewind? Hmmm .. and now I'm just lost ...

Okay, attacking instead! Let's go! Goading Attack! Yes ... "A flea"? Really? I mean it's not THAT dissimilar, but still ...

Ashton is going after Laudna? Okay ... I mean OF COURSE he is ... oh my gods is he just headslapping her? Wow ... but yeah, that works ...

Oh yeah, she's pissed ... FCG: "Respect the gods!"

Imogen! No! Aaaagh ... and on Orym ... another Crit? Ouch!

Wolf Chetney gets hit breaking off but he's just BOOKING IT for the boat too ...

Laudna's going for it too ... and pretending she's still afraid? Nice ...

Imogen casts Shock Flare? Ooooh ... 2d6 Lightning damage ... 12 each! Nice ... one down! Yeah ... and she damn near drops in the Hole too ... whoops!

Gah ... the Sniper again! Crap ... shooting for FCG ... and it's a hit! Noooo! Ouch ... oh shit, he's DOWN!!! Fuck ...

Second shot at Orym ... oh thank FUCK that's a miss ... phew ...

They're coming for Imogen ... and just FALL IN THE HOLE!!! Nice ... XD

Creep little skittering halfling zombie ...

Fearne casts Cure Wounds at on FCG ... 8 points, and HE'S UP!!! Yes ... and she's STILL pissed at him for what he did to Laudna ... only can't rips for a bonus action? No joy ... just going for the boat, then ... oh, Fire Shield causes damage if they hit her? Nice ...

Mister shoits flame at the fucker next to FCG ... 13 damage! Nice ...

Orym uses the stuck bolt to swing around and ACROBAT himself into his foe ... that would have be so nice if they hadn't rolled better ... nuts ...

Reckless Attack! Yeah, Ashton ... BOOM!!! Smash that fucker to pieces ... Teleport? What? And a Wormhole Strike on the Sniper? Oooooh ... lots of damage maths, nice ... 23 points and it gets shoved hard ... and it DROPS onto the deck! So that's MORE damage ... another 15! Nice ...

Right back to FCG? Ashton's really shifting this fight ...

The whirlpools can MOVE?!!! What the fuck?

Orym gets SHOVED ... oh, nice save! Stabby instead ... oh, that was SO disappointing ... phew ...

Wolf Chetney CLAWS his way onto the ship ... atracks the Sniper and tries to drag the crossbow out of its hands ... and he rips it away! Nice ... he chucks it into the water! Yeah ... oh ... these things don't have blood? No Curse of Bloated Agony ...oh, he can use HIS OWN blood? Oh, well THAT works ...

Spiderclimb! Yay! She's on the boat! Is she going to parley? No, she opens her ribcage, puts his hand in it ... what the hell is she doing? Oh, she's APPEALING to him, one undead to another? Interesting ... the Strife Emperor? What?

Well, at least that means he's still distracted ... and TAKING HIS TURN to continue the parley ...

She's offering up Chetney's cursed sword as a bonus? What?

What even IS this out-of-context conversation about?

Is Imogen close enough to the ship? I'm sorry ... "cheese wiz"? What? Going for Orym's attacker ... oh NICE SAVE!!! You go, girl! 29 points of Psychic damage ... oh they are DONE!!! Nice ...

FCG prone and under attack again! And he's OUT again! Fuck! And a death save already? Wait ... he's using his FLASK as a dice tower? Seriously?

Fearne is IN one of the whirlpools ... oh nice, she's out! Okay ... and she doesn't know if FCG's out again ... okay, she's GOING BACK to him again ... a SECOND Level Cure Wounds ... 13 points znd he's up AGAIN!!!

Orym does a jack rabbit kick and boots this thing RIGHT OFF the ship, goes after the one attacking Chetney ... 17 points of damage! Nice ... and it's down again ...

Ashton dies a reckless on the little shit attacking FCG and ANNIHILATES the fucker. Then teleports onto the ship ...

Chetney gets his sword out, and it gets chatty on him again ... oh, he's just trying to PERSUADE the captain instead? Hmmm ...

Oh shit ... Chet didn't know she offered up the sword too ... awkward ...

Another persuasion check? Hmmmmm ... roll good, Marisha! Fuck ... 10? Shite ...

Wow ... he's giving it up? Oh yeah, cursed sword is NOT HAPPY and neither is Chetney ... but at least the captain accepts ...

And they got their ride!

Time for a break ...

Laudna (waving like a queen): "We're friends now! We're going for a ride!"

Fearne doesn't like having GUILT. That's hilarious. XD

Oh yeah, actually technically they are kind of pirates themselves, actually. Yeah. They're smong peers! Woedders? Cool. Keith? No ... KYLE ... hmmm ... "I've been with you for a hundred years!" XD

Chetney's staying as a wolfman cuz he doesn't trust this lot. I don't blame him.

How does an undead die MORE, Fearne? I'm curious.

Oooh, SAM gets a Whispers ... and it gets weirdly flirty ... what the fuck? XD

He sounds honest. I THINK we can trust him ... Laudna's trying to get snippy about it ... oh, okay, they're shaking on it? This is getting weird ...

Laudna SCARES Chetney back into halfling form. Wait ... is he trying to trick them with the fake? Crap ... the sniper's a bit too sharp for him.

Okay, they hand the real one over, and ... yeah, that's that. And they're going to let them off in one piece too, apparently.

No food on board ... I mean really, what were you actually expecting?

Hunter's Bane ... but I mean what is he REALLY trying to find out?

So the ship's is a total wreck? Sounds about right ... and it's SAILING ITSELF!!! Oh boy ... proper ghost ship here ...

Oh wow ... is Fearne FLIRTING with the captain now? Really?

The Solstice has had NO EFFECT on them? Now THAT is interesting ...

The Strife Emperor is Betrayer God ... okay ... not sure if that's a good thing for us, then. He might be more on Ludinus' side ... or maybe not ... hmmmm ...

Clearly he doesn't like question ...

Interesting ... he's looking to strike up a BOND with Chetney's sword ...

Find out what the boots are about? Hmmmm ... FCG's not sure he can do that. But he has time ... oh, there's a card! Double speed for ten minutes? That's not bad, actually ... oh yes, Ashton could FUCK SHIT UP with those ... oh, Rollies with Chetney ... okay ... oh, that's it. They're Ashton's, then.

The ship is literally REPELLING marine life ...

Ashton's going up to the crow's nest to talk with the navigator. She carved her own eye out? To make a point? Wow ...

Woedders: "Anger's good. It makes things happen."

Oh ... the mention of Ruidus gets her attention ... she hasn't seen it in weeks? Well it is STUCK in position now ...

The others are going exploring ... oh, it is FREEZING down here. Okay ... oh, so when they sleep they LITERALLY just fall apart. Charming ...

"Is it warmer in the hole?" Oh boy ... this conversation is getting dirty ...

The Whitts Twins ... oh, the halflings? Okay ... so they just like go gamble? For no real purpose any more. Not that there's any reason to.

No natural threats to the ghost ship on the High Seas, then ...

Sanjay? Okay ... ooh, he's a fancy one, clearly.

"Who hasn't heard of Scanlan Shorthalt?" Cute ..

Beads of Love ... ye gods ...

A pile of Kyle ... XD

Oh, the guns are NEW acquisitions? That's interesting ... Percy's legacy has spread FAR ...

Is FCG really suggesting they try a thief-off with Fearne? Really?

They're trying to introduce Rollies to them now ...

Oh no, Marisha, please don't ... oh, it's sll getting a bit meta all of a sudden ... Matt: "And that wax the last anyone saw of Bells Hells."

And now they're playing Rollies ...

Ah, secrets ...

Wow, this is spreading now ... and now they're addicted to Rollies, that's hilarious and adorable ...

And that's it for the night. Yup ...

[majestic-salad]

new gw2 elite specializations

Guardian: Gundian. You get a pistol, you can now defend people by shooting the offending party before they reach you. Virtue of Gun was added, which allows you to give your allies small guns every few seconds.

Revenant: oh no I mist. You went to the mists and all you got was this lousy rifle. also the new legendary stance is Tybalt Leftpaw and you can only get this specialization if you’re order of whispers. 

Warrior: Hurr Durr Durr Pistol. Lots of adrenaline and already a stack of weapons? what do you need? a gun. congratulations you are now a raging idiot with an intelligence of 6 in armour that’s heavier than the iron legion. with a gun.

Engineer: Bad News(tm). Everyone has been stealing your beautiful handmade weapons for all these years. time to steal theirs! You gain a staff, because you are now a magic class. except you get no magic powers. so I guess it’s time to tie your pistol to your staff and create a Not Rifle(tm) which allows you to hit people with a gun from far away. By swinging your staff at them.

Ranger: Hunter. Bows are old and nobody uses those anymore mom, can I please get a rifle? yes! you can now get a great rifle so you can go hunting for sport with your lovely pet! your rifle only shoots tennis balls though, but I guess your dog is happy with that?

Thief: Epic Sax Guy. You get a warhorn. okay guys someone has to be the bard and since mesmer is super scary I guess it’s going to be you. if you get caught stealing you can now play some nice jazzy tunes and hope they hire you for fancy noble parties. You gain new skills such as ‘memes’ and ‘please get out of my house, oh my god no put the gun down’. maybe better to stick with deadeye. your elite skill is now turning into a dinosaur. 

Elementalist: Toph. You gain a new element to attume to: metal! you gain access to fun new spells such as ‘pistol’!* you can now combine the elements to make special weapons, like: fire gun, water gun (fire extinguisher), air gun (fart noises) and earth gun (just throw a rock at them, it’s fine).  *note that if you use this spell when attuned to an element other than metal, stuff might get weird

Mesmer: Shame. Do illusions bore you? Are you tired of having to look at yourself all the time? People keep wanting you to make portals? ‘who’s on chrono, where’s the portal, why r u such a noob? no-one asks how is the mesmer. you are now this meme.  sometimes it’s just tiring to do magic all the time. You gain a rifle. just a normal one, no magic this time. if someone asks for a portal once more...

Necromancer: Life needs things to live. You now have to make a list of targets to work out during the game. you get one rifle(tm) that jams every now and then, but good luck anyway. oh and if you don’t keep hunting down that list you might die, just so you know. You do get a nice new shroud though! oh,, that looks a bit scary,, darling take the mask off D:

aka I had an idea at midnight last night, what if everyone had a gun.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

it wasn’t power i coveted; it was acceptance.

Titans 3.06

y’know, i was just thinking the other day that 1.06/1.07 and 2.06/2.07 were the best episodes of their respective seasons, so i have great hopes going in to this one. fingers crossed!

as always, typing this up as i see the episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. oh! um... that was a Cold Open, all right. *nudges* get it? cold? because it’s snowing? and two people got murdered in cold blood? eh?

... oh, i’ve just started.

1.5. i wonder if “i want to be sipping pina coladas on a beach with you” is the new “i’m just one day away from retiring.” i was so on edge after that--i kept expecting that car to explode. even so, the way they died wasn’t an anticlimax: brutal, and quick. 

1.75. so i’m assuming that’s the titular lady vic! this show better bring up why this doll was important or why these two cops needed to be killed, and not leave it to the ether like jericho’s little mindscape jaunt in 2.08 (i’m still dying to know what that was about???)

2.

i love how deliberately unappealing wayne manor is. 

(sorry for the pic quality. i don’t have hbo max! ssshhh.)

2.3. i love the many references to “home” and “our house” when they’ve been here for less than a week and saw one of their friends get blown into pieces. i mean, i unironically love it: home is where family is, after all!

2.5. i’d like to say that kom is playing some sort of long game here, especially given the build-up we had last season and some of the more niggling details this season: why did kom choose now to use her bond to lure kory when she’s been on earth for months? why did justin call kory now, just around the time that she started getting kom’s visions? and what about kom’s ability to exactly imitate other people? hmmm.

2.75. the reason i wrote i’d like to say is that i’ve made the mistake of assuming plot complexity where there is none; i was so invested in the jason todd orchestrated his own death theory for instance, when it turns out that oops! ra’s al ghul just happened to leave a little lazarus puddle in gotham, and oh yeah! scarecrow just happens to have a network of henchmen working for him on the outside and a fully functional laboratory and a weapons cache fit for a new supervillain in the basement of the high security psychiatric unit/prison that he’s in! 

(no i’m not bitter, why do you ask)

2.8. iiiii don’t know what to say about the implications of sex slavery being a thing on tamaran, so i’m not going to say anything at all. for now.

3. gotham, six years ago... wasn’t it five years before s2 that jericho died and the titans disbanded? and when was the flashback from 1.06 where dick let zucco die? i think it was after the events of 2.08: jericho? i can’t seem to find any transcripts or reliable information online, so i’m going to have to rewatch 1.06 at some point. 

(i love the old-fashioned batman music in this heist scene)

3.5. “security is a joke... it’s my way of keeping my dad on his toes”. what you’re an ethical thief now, like an ethical hacker? i don’t think that excuse is going to sell, barbara, on the day you do encounter a decent security system and your father is forced to arrest you.

(then again, gotham’s security is piss-poor. did you know that you could just walk into arkham asylum without any official clearance, ply one of its most dangerous inhabitants with contraband, and said inmate could get away with having an entire laboratory and weapons cache--NO I’M NOT GOING TO LET THIS GO)

3.8 so that flashback between dick and barbara was really cute! and also illuminating:

a) dick sounds so light, so... um. look. i have some apologies to tender to mr thwaites, because while i’ve always thought he does a fine job as dick grayson, i’ve never been terribly fond of his cadence as he delivers dialogue. it’s often monotonous, i thought, but then again, he’s usually delivering exposition or dealing with one soul-crushing crisis or the other. so i was pleasantly surprised to hear dick sound so carefree and alive in his conversation with barbara, laughing frequently, his emotions so bare and bubbling to the surface. it’s really a fantastic contrast to the traumatised and world-weary dick grayson that we see now, even more so than the costume department just bunging a backwards-baseball cap on mr thwaites’ head and hoping that will convince us of his relative youth. 

b) and god, when he wakes up from that memory, all alone in his bed, bleeding from bullet holes in his shoulder (bullet holes that are--in a somewhat convoluted way--barbara’s fault)? yikes. it’s great. you have my apologies, mr thwaites!

c) can you imagine dick just... crawling back to wayne manor, trying not to be seen by anybody, shedding his suit and just... collapsing onto his bed without even tending to his wound? the sheer emotional and physical exhaustion of it? 

d) it’s so interesting to see how barbara and dick approach the idea of legacy--a big theme on the show!--in this flashback. barbara is the one bucking the idea that she should follow in her father’s footsteps, while dick seems pretty content with the batman-and-robin setup, and even tries to get barbara to join their team (robin-girl. pfffft). obviously after this several traumatic things happen wherein dick ends up questioning and then resenting his role as robin, his relationship with batman or even returning as a vigilante at all. and barbara... ends up replacing her father as commissioner. it’s tragic, really. 

e) the dynamic between dick and barbara in the flashback reminds me of how it was between dick and donna in 1.08 and even between kory and dick in early s1. it’s like having an older, strong-willed woman by his side means he gives over the steering wheel for a while and lets himself... unspool, a little bit. it’s kinda endearing.

also:

*pinches his cheeks*

3. you know, we talk about dick and Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and that’s definitely valid, but here gar seems to me the embodiment of it, with all the emotional gardening and firefighting that he’s expected to do. he’s kind of the guy expected to keep his shit together and take care of everyone else while they are falling completely to pieces, unable to carve out time to process his own trauma. he’s also picked up dick’s and kory’s tendencies to bottle up their struggles and shun appearing vulnerable, and he’s struggling in the shadow of both dick and kory undergoing acute crises, his best friend (and frequent confidante) on the other side of the world, and seeing hank die, utterly helpless to stop it. 

i’m glad that he got a chance to tell dick even a smidgeon of what he really feels, and i hope this is at least a semblance of a wake up call for dick to actually sit down and work with the people he repeatedly calls family.

3.5. it’s heartening to see that dick immediately makes it his priority to go talk to gar. but don’t blow off kory in the process, man!

4. i’m really loving this dynamic between kom and conner--i get the idea that both of them consider each other as Unknowns, alien two times over. but conner’s only ever known the titans, who embrace being different, and kom’s only ever known... well. 

anyway, kory is Really Stressed, and honestly? #relatable. 

when you’re forced to bring an estranged family member to hang out with your friends...

4.5. i love that the titans are spending so much time in the kitchen. a real family!

5. jonathan crane is a creep and i absolutely cannot stand him.

5.25. how did he get a whole lab setup (in the basement of a hospital...?) with a bunch of whitecoats to work for him? how did he just waltz into the viewing room of an operation theatre when he’s one of the most wanted men in gotham right now? why is jason wandering around maskless when--presumably--as the adopted son of the most famous person in gotham he’d be a tad more recognisable than your average joe?

why do i expect this show to answer anything anymore?

5.5. that’s not necessarily a criticism, mind; i’ve said since season 1 that titans is very comics-like in this aspect, all about the Aesthetic and the splash-page splendour rather than the niggling unimportant details of how or when the characters got to said location. like. the camera gliding over the operation being set-up, lady vic bursting in and doing her murder dance (imagine the luck of the poor intern who chose this day and this surgery to assist) and jason, shocked and slack-jawed, framed by blood.

5.75. it’s a sobering reminder for jason that, though he chose this path in order to gain control over a world that seemed like it was rapidly spinning out of his grip, he’s only succeeded in handing over even more control to a man with an agenda that is very clearly not aligned with his own. he’s in too far to stop now, though.

5.9. i have a lot more thoughts about jason! saving it up for the end of this recap, though.

6. more kitchen time! i better see dick do some cooking soon...

(”our kitchen”! it still delights me! kitchens are So Important)

6.25. so much of dick’s issues have revolved around his relationship with bruce, so it’s completely understandable that in the wake of a huge crisis where bruce literally asks dick to replace him and be a “better” him, dick would default to all the worst things he learned from the man. and i’m glad kory’s having none of it, but come on, guys. the woman’s literally fetched her fratricidal sister out of a hole in the ground with no idea what said sister is going to do next and experiencing a burgeoning sense of guilt far, far beyond her history with the titans, and dick’s too far into his autocolonoscopy that he can’t see that she needs help.

6.5. “he services your urges”--well, as far as we know, kory is the last person he had sex with...

7. “i hope [gar] isn’t angry with me...” SIR! i thought you’d already spoken to him! smh, as the kids say. kory wouldn’t be needing to reassure you if you just took the effort to build two way emotional relationships with the rest of the team. @superohclair​ was taking about dick’s relatively low emotional intelligence? i agree.

7.5. “i got my own problems [...] you and barbara? fix it.” YOU TELL HIM, KORY

8. man i really like this weird, sad tension between dick and barbara--this sense that both of them are approaching the other based on how they remember them and are ultimately disappointed by the truth. barbara thought she could trust dick to... well, be a better batman, but dick has not only failed at that in her eyes, but repeatedly undermined her while exploiting the authority that she gave him. in dick’s eyes, this is nothing like the barbara that he knew, rebellious and ready to do whatever it takes to find something. 

like. this show sometimes really hits me in the chest about the ways it shows kids grow into adults and into caretakers, and the way it’s stop-start, the ways nothing can happen at all for a long time and then it’s Crisis Central all at once and there’s no space to breathe. the weird sort of sadness that comes with nostalgia. 

8.5. oracle name drop! i agree with barbara, any system that can just randomly tap into gotham phonelines is a monster.

8.7. (i don’t know if it’s my imagination, but is dick holding himself... differently in this episode? like that wound is definitely bothering him, and he’s running on fumes)

9. man, that was a really sweet scene between kom and conner. “feeling alien in your own world”... “not quite here nor there”

honestly this team runs on conner and gar’s faith in their value as a family, and it’s a sign of conner’s generous heart that he extends that opportunity to blackfire. this arc of maturation for him, where he’s now able to consciously choose which parts of himself he can use to do the thing he wants to so--save people--has been so fulfilling to recognise. this baby’s grown with the titans! and what he’s learnt is that people can get fucked up, but the titans is a place where they can be fucked up, and grow.

MY MAN CONNER

10. oh man i’m drinking in the gar-dick interaction in this episode like i’m three days into the desert and it’s the only source of water for miles around!

a) gar is absolutely not dealing with dick’s bullshit this episode and I LOVE IT. it’s such a far cry from the man who was idolising dick/robin back in s1 and expecting him to solve all their problems. dick is fallible, dick is fucked up, but he Tries His Best and that’s ok.

b) dick, huffing and puffing through that vent, unable to put any pressure on his left shoulder, trying to have a heart to heart with gar... fuck i love this asshole. 

c) bruce took in a kid who was suffering... “and made him into a weapon”. well. i absolutely agree with dick that it was bruce who put these kids into these horrible situations with him and they came away with a bucketload of trauma to add to the one that they already had. but we know that bruce was really trying with jason, and at the end of s2, dick was coming to acknowledge that bruce had offered him something that wasn’t just darkness. jason’s death and bruce’s reaction to that shattered that fragile progress.

d) “gotham got to me too.” i feel more sympathetic towards dick running off on his own than most, and it’s not just because i’m an unapologetic stan.  we’ve seen before that dick... devolves when overwhelmed, and he lashes out and makes ill thought out decisions and just Does Not Deal. it happened after hearing the news that deathstroke had returned in s2, and it didn’t help that everyone around him was reeling at the news, either. this time, however, he has his salvation in his family, and despite some stupid decisions like running off and kidnapping supervillains without telling his team, he’s been really on the ball this season. thinking clearly and logically, holding it together and working on a plan, thinking two steps ahead of the villains... yes.

e) gar needing to believe that jason isn’t beyond redemption... there’s a lot of blood on his hands, too, from when he was manipulated by cadmus last season. it makes sense why he’d relate to jason’s predicament, and i hope dick picked up on that.

f) my head just added a plaintive ow after dick jumped feet first into the storage room

i need, crave gifs of this scene!

11. *sits on hands* i’m going to talk more about red hood, i promise!

12. more gar and dick! is it my birthday??!!

(actually, according to the tamil calendar, it is my birthday! my “star” birthday)

12.5. excellent. dick using some implausible training that bruce taught him to solve a mystery? passing some of that knowledge onto gar? that proud smile when he sees gar perfectly execute moves that he taught him? MY HEART IS EXPLODING

13. aw, i love flashback!dick and barbara, they’re so cute <3

13.25. why does it not surprise me that the way he proposes a relationship to barbara is by saying “we make sense”? this guy can deduce exactly who was present where and what weapon they were holding from a garbled audio recording but other times he’s utterly clueless, and that’s a consistent character beat right from s1

13.5. so.... that’s why lady vic has it out for... barbara....? i don’t get it. it’s flimsy. but hey! the fun thing about titans is that i don’t have to get it. the payoff has nothing to do with the plot.

14. i can’t believe that barbara fell for that, but at least that wheelchair fight looked awesome, so.

15. oh yeah, i forgot that red hood bullied the mob into helping him and scarecrow... at least that explains the whitecoats and the elaborate set-up.

15.5. honestly i love how this dynamic between kory and kom is developing, though i wish more of the team would pay attention to it. time to call justin, i think!

16. i wonder what happened after that second flashback where barbara got hurt during that heist. did she give up on doing any more (maybe jim caught her)? was it because dick was called away by bruce and then the titans and got caught up in his own issues? maybe barbara froze him out because she wasn’t looking for the relationship that he was looking for? maybe the idea of doing that with someone turning into batman-lite was just... unappealing? scary?

whatever it is, it doesn’t look like dick ever processed the end of that relationship. it’s very intriguing to see where their dynamic goes next.

17. so.... what, did vic deliver some fear toxin to barbara? i... what?

17.5. and i TOLD YOU that they would never explain that doll or why vic attacked those two cops at the beginning! oh, titans. never change. 

18. did jason just randomly have tim’s restaurant burgled? god, i’m feeling a bit nauseous... are they going to kill tim’s father?

18.25. i feel like the rest of the season is going to wrestle with jason’s culpability in the horrible stuff he’s doing and i’m already seeing that prospect divide fans. on one hand, his story is taking a lot of oxygen away from other equally interesting story arcs, and he’s done some truly awful things, like indiscriminate murder, threatening to kill children, blowing up hank, and potentially killing tim’s parents. 

there’s something to be said for the kind of hold that crane has over him, and the so-called ‘anti-fear’ drug that he keeps plying jason with--he’s alone, drugged almost constantly (to the level of dependence), fresh from the trauma of being bludgeoned to death. he hasn’t conquered fear; he’s ruled by it. on the other hand, given that he’s the one character on the show given an obvious and identifiable ‘mental illness’ arc (maaaaybe dick too), one can argue that it’s irresponsible to show this progress into such violence: jason was vulnerable because he was struggling, and that left him vulnerable, but it took only a push before he became a fucking serial killer.

but that could mean we underestimate the degree of that vulnerability, and the mechanics of this universe where he fell into the clutches of the one supervillain perfectly designed to exploit that vulnerability. that helpless spiral into further and further self-destruction is all too real. it’s valuable to know that someone who has sunk that low can still seek help--actual help--and get it. 

18.5. i don’t know. it’s not a question i’m going to resolve at the end of an overlong recap at 1 in the morning. i don’t believe it’s even a question that titans can resolve. but i am interested in where they’re going next with jason.

19. this episode was genuinely great! i’m pumped for the rest of the season!

[bewareofthorns]

❝ Hearts starve as well as bodies. Give us bread, but give us roses. ❞ 

SARAH JEFFREY? No, that’s actually ROSE GRANGER-WEASLEY. A SEVENTH YEAR student, this GRYFFINDOR student is sided with MCGONAGALL’S ARMY. SHE identifies as CISGENDER FEMALE and is a HALF-BLOOD who is known to be COMPETITIVE, STUBBORN, and CRITICAL but also RESILIENT, CAREFUL, and COMPASSIONATE. { A, 19, EST, SHE/HER }

MY INTRO

You know your place.  

All your life you’ve been what other people have wanted. From the beginning, your parents needed you to be the perfect daughter, and so you became one. Years later, when your brother needed you to be a perfect sister, you took that on as well.

You didn’t really know it meant then. Back then, the ribbons in your hair and the perfectly-pleated skirts were fun. As your mother straightened your hair and made sure you were the picture-perfect daughter she had only ever known you to be, you thought it would always be this easy to make everyone happy.  

But since then, the demands have only multiplied. At Hogwarts, your teachers expected you to be as smart as your mother, as brave as your father. Your friends expected even more. You were meant to be the life of the party, the head of the class, a role model, a rule breaker— a dizzying swirl of paradoxical things that you could barely keep straight.

You were meant to be everyone’s dream girl.  

And, for better or worse, you’ve made sure you were.

Maybe it was the fact that you never wanted to back down from a challenge. Maybe you just hated to disappoint. But when they came asking for Good Rose, for Smart Rose, for Kind Rose, for Perfect Rose, you gave them what they wanted. You let them take the part of you that they wanted most.

Of course, that ribbon in your hair seems a little childish now. There’s a war on, after all. And, though you’ve spent your whole life trying to solve everyone’s problems, this one seems a little out-of-your-reach, so to speak.

But maybe that’s the thing- you’ve known your place from the beginning. You are Rose Weasley. And that means, you’ll be anything they need you to be. You’ll be the reinforcements, the recruiter. You’ll be the shoulder-to-cry-on, the soldier, the spy, the saint. You’ll be a martyr even— if they ask.

It’s okay.

For other people, sometimes, decisions are hard to make. For other people, it would be normal to be afraid. But you’re Rose Weasley – and that means you’re perfect.

Even if you’re not.

- 

rose is… hella competitive, hella pushy, hella intimidating.

but also she’s hella compassionate, hella kind and hella !! a mess ! even if she doesn’t look like it at first glance. 

FIRST OFF, you don’t need to ask. her OWLs were phenomenal. when she got her results back, her dad promptly framed them in the kitchen— and he (still!) will talk about them to anyone who asks.

thankfully, she doesn’t really talk about that. 

it’s a point of shame—to be honest. how much she had to study for them. how gaunt she looked after the exams were over, the way she cried in the girl’s bathroom for hours after her last one. studying never came as easy for her as it did her mother, so it seemed. and there was so much pressure to do well– to do better. and so-  she did. but at what cost. 

former president of the debate club, former prefect 

look, one of these she couldn’t carry out because she got a promotion. and the other, she resigned in disgrace. she’s head girl now. so figure that one out. 

did she get into a HUGE argument with another member of the debate club????? hmmm maybe u know… snatch this plot up boiisss

current president of s.p.e.w., HEAD GIRL!!, member of the dueling club, also taking way too many classes at the NEWT level  

probably gives your character too many detentions

very!! very !! family-oriented. to the point where, when she originally went to hogwarts, she had trouble making friends and just breaking out of that bubble. 

now that’s she’s here and established herself— she’s been known to tell off her family members in public and loudly. unfortunately, she’s also been known to shoot a few curses on anyone who gets on the wrong side of them.

hugo? her entire world? her wittle baby brother? she literally asks someone about him every single day, bc what if ! something is going on with him ! that he doesn’t feel comfortable talking to big sis about !

according to most anyone, is literally perfect. 

probably takes notes with like seventeen highlighters and a speciality quill and has perfect handwriting. used to let anyone borrow her notes, but ever since the Permanent Ink Spill (Never Let ___ Borrow Your Notes Without A Copy)Incident  of 2021– there’s a cover charge for a look. 

at the same time though, like– she stopped liking strawberry-flavoured bertie bott’s beans in second year because of the Accidental Nausea Charm And Proof Of Aversive Conditioning’s Effectiveness Incident and hasn’t gotten the courage to tell anyone that it’s no longer her favorite, bc of the whole scared of letting people down thing. A MESS.

have people in her family literally… picked out… every single strawberry or (vaguely pinkish) bean and given it to her before. has she just smiled at them and pretended to enjoy it. 

you might notice that everything in Rose Weasley’s life that is eventful becomes An Incident. 

1. she does remember all of them. 2. they do all have names like the ANCAPOACE and the  PIS(NL_BYNWAC) that she refers to them by in her diary. 

b a r e l y talks to people who disagree with her ideology. imo– this makes her prime target to be swayed to opposing factions but U DIDN’T HEAR THAT HERE. 

kinda lowkey NAIVE AS HECK. literally tell her, u like her for her… for one second and she’ll melt. like. not saying u should, but like. she’s spent all of her time living for everyone else. convince her to be her own person while really ??? convincing her to do things for you?? gross. ew.aka i love angst and im ashamed. 

also tell her she’s doing something wrong. omg like she turns completely flustered, incapable of responding. embarrassed? angry? she’ll try and curse you when she comes to, but she’s going to be so mortified. 

always wears the charm bracelet that was given to her at birth. magicked to expand to always fit her wrist. she changes the charms that dangle off of it every so often and has amassed quite a collection of charms.

her favorite charm is the lightning bolt that she got in remembrance of harry. harry was her favorite uncle. she misses him a lot. not that she talks about that. 

least favorite charm is the one that’s been on it since she got it– its broken and charmed and yet, someone put a permanent sticking charm on it. she’s tried to get it removed a couple of times, to no avail. 

??? is this… a mystery… i’m dying… to… try n plot out… what!! no ;)))))

was adopted. believes that doesn’t really matter. doesn’t know her biological family. i don’t think anyone outside of ron and hermione knows that. anyone alive, anyways. sometimes-- things are more than they seem. would love to do a plot abt this. y’know. 

[glitterandrocketfuel]

YBC Hot Takes: Death Valley

This one took me a while! As the story comes closer to the final confrontations, the plots are getting more complex, and more characters make their appearance as Patrick works through the understanding that "solo career" doesn't mean you're only answerable to or influenced by yourself.

Sacrificed in a crime of passion and despair by a demonic Patrick caught in brainwashed hallucinations, Joe takes a journey to the underworld, while Pete and Andy are stymied by the authorities and rescued by a mysterious double-agent. 

Death Valley - When you Walk Through Hell, You Come Out On Fire

Cutting off your creative instincts isn't as easy as depriving it of oxygen. Creativity is an extremophile, and it can survive in adverse conditions because humans are stubborn that way, and creative humans, even moreso. Let's go down into the Underworld below the cut to learn what happens when the Devil meets Joesus...

Patrick's Creative Spark is set free to ascend to the Good Place. But wait--not quite--because while Patrick thought he'd severed that part of him, these ties run deep, and they constantly renew themselves. The kid-herald (fan) hijacks his elevator to heaven and the room is filled with ruddy, infernal light as Joe is pulled down and away from the light.

Cut back to the real world. The first symbol we see is the heavy-looking, official-looking ring of (jailer's) keys on the hip of a (gatekeeper) cop. All the tools of an arrest--the fingerprinting, the mugshot. Yes, we can giggle at the sloppy way they hung the height chart because we all know Patrick is not that tall, but then again, this is a distorted point of view where all your vital statistics are scrutinized and over-analyzed and under the microscope and let's not forget how Celebrity makes those in its spotlight Larger Than Life (including their shortcomings and weaknesses).

The clumsy hook that his Confidence (Pete) jury-rigged onto the stump of his hand is forcibly removed (his tool is taken away, as incomplete a substitute as it was) and his still-wounded stump is fingerprinted. Ridiculous on the surface, but underneath, this is a sort of bastardized stigmata exposed to be poked and prodded and manhandled by the gatekeepers as he is incarcerated and categorized and chained.

In the dark and shadowy interrogation room, his Integrity and Confidence await cross-examination from the gatekeepers. Locked away from the outside world, where their freedom is curtailed by the gatekeepers and dependent on how they interact with those gatekeepers. As they're trying to make a case to the skeptical inquisitors, the zombie-like, broken Patrick (devoid of his Creativity and cut off from his Integrity and his Confidence) shuffles in chains towards the holding cell where the gatekeepers lock him up into a little, pre-defined prison box and leave him there.

Meanwhile, Joe has descended into a hellishly-lit room filled with all sorts of distracting temptations of the senses--scantily-clad dancing girls in high heels, ostentatiously-decorated walls and luxurious furnishings, and refreshments served with cleavage and a smile.

I feel like it's important to note here that Joe is extremely happy having a frosted donut and more interested in a swig and a smoke than, say, motorboating the generous and available cleavages here.

It's one of the consistent trademarks of the Fall Out Boy video aesthetic that these guys are Awkward Around Girls and in point of fact, the women in their videos, even when they're cast in objectified roles, are never themselves objectified, and almost always, the hallmarks of objectification are trope-subverted and played for laughs, gender-flipped, or lampooned outright.

Just as he's partaken, Joe looks up to see the rock god of sinners himself, Tommy Lee, descending the stairs.

Here we can say that Joe turned his focus to his metal band during the hiatus and all the trappings of Hell resemble the 80's metal aesthetic (right down to the donuts as an obscure Van Halen/David Lee Roth reference), but since this is about Patrick and his walk through the Valley of the Shadow of I Miss My Band, Joe as Patrick's Creative Spark, cut off from Patrick himself, wounded by rejection and criticism and failure, has gone to ground in the underworld.

It's important to note here that in most mythologies, the Walk Through the Underworld is not, in fact, a final destination, but rather the journey that must be taken by a god or hero in order to unlock their greatest powers to their full potential. And indeed, it's a walk down a dark tunnel to meet the scariest devil in the underworld--your own bad self.

Tommy Lee, rock legend and fallen god is Joe's future metal self, distilled into the base elements of rock and roll, recursively defined in human shape. Tommy Lee is what happens when there's no direction, no boundary, no guidance placed on that creative urge, where it follows its distractions, sometimes to dizzying heights, but sometimes getting lost in itself until it becomes self-indulgent and inwardly directed and exists only to serve its own ego (kiss the ring, Joe. Get the tattoo that shows the blind/dead smiley with the horns instead of the crown and pyramid).

Back in the jail cell, boxed in by the industry gatekeepers who penalize you when you don't fit into the neat little boxes, Patrick's a caged animal, observed through a small mirror (reflection) by another, unseen inmate for the briefest of moments.

His Integrity and Confidence are not giving the answers the gatekeepers want, and they're getting angry. But a small ray of hope comes in the form of a cryptic note slid under the door, referencing she who wears the crown but is no princess.

In terms of the Parts of Patrick, Patrick is hemmed in by the expectations of the industry, the pressures bearing down on him over performance expectations, and a dwindling financial investment (he said he was never in danger of going broke, but we all know that if you've ever been poor in America, you never really shake the feeling that you're always one disaster away from going right back there).

He's stifled (choked) his Creativity and it's gone to ground in a self-indulgent downward spiral.

His Confidence and Integrity aren't enough to impress the Gatekeepers, but they aren't out of the game entirely. It turns out that the industry has chewed up and spit out others.

Patrick's core selves can learn from their forebears by listening to a woman who wore a crown, but was never a princess. Ladies and gentlefans, I'd like to introduce you to Queen Courtney Love. If anyone had reason to want to torch the music industry and fans, it's the Widow Cobain, the Scarlet Woman, the Trash Queen who took the haterade spewed at her by an industry and a public that blamed her for a tragedy that wasn't her fault, and not only did she accept it, she wore it like a crown. Through it all, she made music of it, mocking the celebrity culture, mocking their caricatures of her and playing so far into the trope that she came out the other side.

Seriously, Hole put out amazing girlpunk and made such great videos and so much of it was underrated and overshadowed by Courtney Love's tabloid drama (echoing the situation of someone else we know, hmmm?).

In this interpretation, though, Courtney severed from her other Selves and failed to reunite. Much like Patrick, she became a slave to the Cult and eventually, its leader. Her Spark, the part of her that was never spoiled from the outside, is instead working to sabotage the cult from within and reaching out to other sparks like Confidence, but she really connects with Integrity--of keeping yourself in the face of the caricature everyone else throws back at you (this is an important internal step for Patrick as he leaves behind the particular malleability of youth in an industry that has no use for malleable grown-ups).

Pete and Andy arrive at the mystery woman's garage (band) hideout. She reveals the extent of the conspiracy that took hold of Patrick and her status as a double-agent in the anti-music cult. She instructs Pete and Andy in the cult's inner workings, gives them targets, then arms them (with really crazy-cool instrument-weapons). As she's pondering the reach of the cult, Andy returns for a stolen moment of affection before departing once more.

Back in the Underworld, Patrick's Creativity is indulging in all the vices including the perception-altering (and let us all just love these little muffins because in the middle of all the gyratin' wimmin, Joe exchanges his best smoochies with his French bulldog).

He's jamming with the Prince of Darkness and shredding with the rock god and plumbing the intricacies of an unbridled, unbound state of existence. Two charming ladies are particularly attentive when Joe takes his unholy communion and descends further into distorted perception. In this tableau thus far, the party has been Joe, Tommy Lee, and a lot of ladies, with a few Men In Suits looking on from the balconies. But one of Joe's ladies gives a Look that can't be accidental and the situation changes.

Into this altered-state of decadence come the sobering (literally, maybe?) Men In Suits. One of whom trades a girl a hot dog (What kind of Hot Dog Hell is this? Nevermind, we're just going with "it's Fall Out Boy"). The change in atmosphere reveals the ladies to be heralds hovering protectively around Joe as he begins to sober up while the party takes a subtle turn.

Meanwhile, Patrick's cell is approached by the gatekeeper again, only this time flanked by two familiar Vixens, one bearing Patrick's hook. As his cell is opened, his Creativity is dragged back out of the Underworld by the heralds.

Patrick is terrified of the Vixens, but the gatekeepers and Vixens are working together--both seek to turn Patrick into a tool for their own ends, and as long as he's separated from his soul-parts, he's powerless to do anything to stop them.

Patrick's Confidence has been armed with knowledge of the moving parts (and let's be honest--Pete has always been very cognizant of the moving parts of fame, celebrity, attention, and buzz, and how they affect your reception and others' perceptions) and the weapon to cut through the bullshit.

His Integrity has Connected with a kindred spirit that provides him with a roadmap that just might lead him out of the darkness.

Finally, having spent enough time down there licking its wounds and dulling its pain, Patrick's Creative Spark is called out of the Underworld. He has seen his own indulgences taken to the extreme--he's been warned--but by the same token, that time spent away from the slings and arrows of the world has allowed his Creative Spark to emerge with new perspective and even greater power for having walked through Hell and come out on fire.

[carolinus-rex]

TAGGED BY: @koffiehuis-love​ thnx <3

TAGGING: hmmm @loevinde​ @stclhjerte​ @danishlxw​ @mr-puffinwhisperer​ @quietnorthernwind​ @holgerdanske​ idk?? my nordic peeps in general and who ever wants to do this~

NAME: Val (kyrie)

STAR SIGN: Virgo

HEIGHT: 180 cm

MIDDLE NAME: Eva Maria

PUT YOUR ITUNES WMP ON SHUFFLE. WHAT ARE THE FIRST 4 SONGS THAT POPPED UP?

“Ready As I’ll Ever Be” Varian, Cast – Tangled The Series

“My Shot” Lin Manuel Miranda, Cast – Hamilton the Musical

“Målløs” Skei & PT, Serlina

“Bloodstream” Ed Sheeran

GRAB THE BOOK NEAREST YOU AND TURN TO PAGE 23. WHAT’S LINE 17?

( I have to write down this whole page cause it’s hilarious )

     Her eyes widened. “This is mine? You’re giving this to me? This is so cool.”     “It’s a tranquilliser gun.”      Her face fell. “Oh.”       “It’s still cool,” he insisted. “But I’m going to need it back afterwards. It’s a part of a set. I have the other one, and I like to keep them together. It’s already loaded with a single tranq dart, so all you have to do is point and pull the trigger. The dart is loaded with enough sedative to bring down a––”      “Small elephant?”      He looked at her. “What?”      “You know. In the movies, if they’re going after something dangerous they always say their tranquilliser darts have enough sedative to bring down a small elephant.”     “What does people have against small elephants?”     “Well, nothing, but––”     “There’s enough sedative in these darts to bring down a werewolf, which is exactly what we’re hunting. Why would we want to bring down an elephant when we’re not hunting elephants?”      “It’s just something people say in movies.”     “If we were hunting a were-elephant, I would understand the reference.”     “There’s no such thing as a were-elephant.”      “Of course there is. There are were-practically-everythings. Weredogs, werecats, werefish.”     “There are werefish?”     “They don’t generally last very long unless they’re near water.”     “I don’t believe you. I’ve fallen for this too many times in the past.”     “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started across the road.     She followed. “Oh, don’t you? You’ll insist they’re real and I’ll eventually start to doubt myself, and then I’ll ask Are there really werefish? And you’ll look at me and say, Good God, Valkyrie, of course not, that’d be silly, and I’ll stand there feeling dumb. Just like with that colony of octopus people.      “The what?”     “You told me once that octopus people were real.”     “And you believed me?”     “I was twelve!” From the amazing Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked by Derek Landy

EVER HAD A POEM OR SONG WRITTEN ABOUT YOU? LOL no, why?

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PLAYED AIR GUITAR? …don’t really do that. I’ve done an air violin however.

WHO IS YOUR CELEBRITY CRUSH? It’s always changing but atm I’m all over heels for Matthew Mercer.

WHAT’S A SOUND YOU HATE + SOUND YOU LOVE?

Hate: Loud chewing. Burps. People cracking their knuckles (honestly it brings me physical pain to just hear it).

Love: Heavy rain accompanied with thunder. Schnauzer barks.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS? I’d say spirits and certain energies that could be described as ghosts? I find it more complicated than just ‘ghosts’.

HOW ABOUT ALIENS? It’d be naïve to think we’re the only one out here. I don’t think however we would be able to make any contact.

DO YOU DRIVE? Yep. My work consists of at least 7 hours of driving every day.

IF SO, HAVE YOU EVER CRASHED? Nope. But with my company car I backed into a truck who snuck up behind me even if I had indicated clearly I had no intention of entering the gate and backing around to drive back the way I came (it’s this gate to a warehouse where they store Spendrups beer and soft drink).

WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ? Um. I’m reading four books right now. Court of Thorns and Roses, Skulduggery Pleasant: Resurrection, Blood of Elves, The Dark Artifacts: Lord of Shadows. Last book I finished however? Skulduggery Pleasant: The Dying of The Light.

DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF GASOLINE? Not directly but if I’m working with my car then yes.

WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU SAW? Hm…good question. I see a lot of things when I’m just up late. Last one I actively watched was The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies for the second time. I love it but I get so annoyed on how they decided to end the film.

WHAT’S THE WORST INJURY YOU’VE EVER HAD? I think…when I almost tore some ligaments in my foot and I couldn’t walk for a month or so. Oh and one time I got a rope caught under my armpit as I fell and it tore my skin right open, leaving massive burn-ish mark from front to the back of my shoulder. Wasn’t pretty. It burned all night and I kept crying and sweating and tried to lay a cold wet piece of cloth over it. I was 12 I think.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OBSESSIONS RIGHT NOW? Critical Role. Just, what I generally talk about and fangirl over. I have plenty of other things close to my heart but they’re a bit on hold as I have my new child to look after.

DO YOU TEND TO HOLD GRUDGES AGAINST PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE YOU WRONG? You’d imagine I’d do, cause I used to, but generally these days I’m too tired to even bother. If you wronged me I probably will just turn around and don’t look over my shoulder. I have little energy these days and honestly, I’ve matured quite a bit not to hold onto grudges. Even the first person to really fuck me up mentally I’m generally “meh” when someone mention them.

ARE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP? Nope, never been, not actively looking. Happily dating plenty of fictional characters tho, RIFP.

[royalalbertamuseumblog]

International Day of Women and Girls in Science

By: Kelsie Tetreau 

February 11 marks the International Day for Women and Girls in Science, a day that recognizes the critical role women and girls play in science and technology communities. The Royal Alberta Museum is fortunate to have some incredible female scientists on staff. For example, the Earth Sciences team of ten staff includes eight amazing female scientists!

RAM Earth Sciences Team pointing at all the glass ceilings they’re breaking: Back (L-R) - Matthew Bolton, Chris Jass. Middle (L-R) – Alwynne Beaudoin, Diana Tirlea, Christina Barron-Oritz. Front (L-R)- Amandah van Merlin, Emily Moffat, Katherine Bramble, Melissa Bowerman. Missing: Shauna Coombs

Today, we would love to introduce you to three of them: Melissa Bowerman, Diana Tirlea, and Diane Haughland of the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI). (Note: ABMI is an arms-length, not-for-profit organization that partner with the RAM on research).

What do you do here at RAM?

Melissa Bowerman: I have been leading the Geology Program at the museum for 10 years as the Assistant Curator of Geology.  

Diana Tirlea: I am the Assistant Curator for Quaternary Environments. My roles include maintaining the labs and equipment, providing access to the Seed and Pollen Reference Collection to the public, conducting research using pollen and macrofossils to reconstruct past landscapes and making this accessible to the public through publications, presentations and outreach.

Diane Haughland: As the ABMI Lichen specialist, I do research on lichen ecology, taxonomy, and biodiversity monitoring methods. My team of four wonderful women is responsible for identifying 15,000-25,000 lichens each year collected by the ABMI. I also train field technicians, teach, and supervise graduate students.

What first made you interested in science as a career?

Melissa Bowerman: A museum program! I attended a program at the former Edmonton Space and Science Centre. I believe the program was called the Challenger Program and it let students take on roles in a space flight scenario. It was a remarkable experience that sparked a life-long interest in space and science.

Diana Tirlea: Growing up I enjoyed being outdoors, learning about the different animals and plants I encountered. I was an observer and I saw beauty in the world, tiny and large things. My passion for knowing and learning about my surroundings led me to pursue a science career.

Diane Haughland: I was more of an artsy kid; up until high school, I equated science with anatomy and medicine. As an undergraduate, I discovered botany and ecology, and that metaphorical light bulb went off. Already an avid hiker and camper, they brought extra layers of meaning and joy to my outdoor adventures.  Asking curiosity-driven questions that have conservation implications? I was hooked.

Diana Tirlea hard at work, both in the ground and in the lab!

What was your education and career path that lead you to your current job?

Melissa Bowerman: I completed an undergraduate degree in Geology at the University of Alberta. I was fortunate to gain abundant field experience early in my career – in places like the Canadian High Arctic, the Canadian Cordillera and Hawaii. I went on to complete a master’s degree investigating the metamorphic history of the Canadian Shield in northern Manitoba. I also spent time working for a mining exploration company on projects in the Northwest Territories and Yukon before landing at the Royal Alberta Museum. This job turned out to be a perfect opportunity for me to combine my love of teaching with my passion for science.

Diana Tirlea: My career path was definitely not straightforward. A big part of my career development was obtaining a broad range of experiences and skills through volunteering, working, taking courses, completing an internship and connecting with people in the science field.

I started my education at MacEwan College intending to complete my pre-veterinarian courses. I decided I preferred animal biology and completed a major in zoology at the University of Alberta. Between my 3rd and 4th year at university, I completed an 8-month internship working on wetlands and plants. After completion of my undergraduate degree, I took a few years off to work as an environmental consultant. I returned to the U of A to complete an MSc in Ecology, where I focused on reconstructing changes in past environments using pollen analysis and pigments. After completing my MSc I worked as a vegetation ecologist until I began working at the Royal Alberta Museum. The skills I have developed through my education, volunteering and work experiences and through the many individuals I have networked with contributed to success I have had at my current position.

Diane Haughland: As an undergraduate, I was determined to be a veterinarian. After job shadowing a vet, discovering ecology, and with the encouragement of professors, I instead pursued science through a Master’s degree. After teaching at a university, I wanted to be better at asking ecological questions, experimental design and statistics so I went back for a doctorate. My PhD was in the science of biodiversity monitoring. While I worked with birds, soil mites, mosses, and plants, it was the lichens that grew on me. I worked hard to grasp their taxonomy and that skill set helped me secure my position, as Lichenologist for the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI).

 What is the coolest thing you have had the opportunity to do in your career?

Melissa Bowerman: The hottest thing I have done in my career is get up close to lava not once, but twice. While watching lava flow in Hawaii, I was surprised to discover lava makes noise - it crackles and pops. Flakes of glass popping off the surface of the lava causes the sound. I was desperate to interact with the lava but the only thing I had in my pack was carrots. I can confirm – carrots burst into flame in lava.

Diana Tirlea: Hmmm, it is hard to pick just one thing. It ranges from “big” cool thinks like coring peatlands, helicopter rides (to study site), and rehabilitating bald eagles, to “small” things like finding preserved seeds from melting glaciers! It is also very awesome to share my research work and experiences with people and meeting interesting and passionate researchers at conferences.

Diane Haughland: Do I have to name just one? I love the travel – to explore ecosystems with other nature nerds, whether it’s in southern Alberta or on another continent is awesome.  To hike, quad or helicopter into sites that few people have seen is humbling, and to see them from a different perspective. For example, I introduced a long-time rancher to the dozens of hidden lichens living literally beneath his feet. I’ve helped discover new species to science, and designed survey methods for province-wide monitoring.  The challenges are never-ending, and that’s really the coolest part of my job.

Diane Haughland and her lichen-y friends.

Tell me about a time you had an opportunity to share your knowledge and contribution to the scientific community?

Melissa Bowerman: I cherish every opportunity to teach students in the field. Geology is a subject best taught outside and on the rocks. The backdrop of the Rockies makes for a fine classroom.

Diana Tirlea: Recently I presented to a plant study group on how we can use pollen and seeds to reconstruct past landscapes. We discussed different features used to identify pollen and seeds and we examined seeds under a dissecting microscope to look at differences in size, shape and morphology. Following this presentation, two people contacted us to discuss or use the RAM Seed Reference Collection (over 2260 specimens) to identify their samples.

Diane Haughland: I was part of the ‘provocative speaker series’ at a Telus World of Science adults-only event, “Dark Matters: the Science of Sex”, where I compared lichen sexuality to the wonderful variety in human relationships. For communicating with other scientists, publications are critical. They can be a lot of work but science is often advanced through incremental progress – it’s nice to contribute one of those increments.

Do you notice a shift in equality and parity for women in science?

Melissa Bowerman: Most geology classes at the undergraduate level are split evenly between men and women but that balance does not happen as often at advanced career levels. I have witnessed progress in the short span of my career and I hope to see more.    

Diana Tirlea: There seems to be a lot more women in science now; however, there is still a real lack of women represented in executive positions. However, there are many opportunities for women and girls to enter a science career today, including many internships and summer job opportunities for women. In addition, many science careers and organizations support women with families, including stay-at-home opportunities such as preparing scientific reports or editing journal articles.

Diane Haughland: The statistics show that more women are entering science, but the science shows that there are still (often unconscious) biases against women, particularly as they progress in their careers.  Focusing on that can be counterproductive, which is why I’ve learned to focus on the process, skill development and critical thinking. I encourage my students to use all resources available to them to ensure they are confident in their contributions.  We’ve come so far in the last 50 years and I’m optimistic our realized opportunities as women will only increase.

Melissa Bowerman examining a pumice deposit in Hokkaido, Japan

What is your advice to young girls interested in pursuing a career in science?

Melissa Bowerman: I do not subscribe to the idea of being naturally good at a particular subject. If science is your passion, hard work is the ticket to success.

Diana Tirlea: To help determine your career path, explore your interests through volunteering, working and interviewing people from different organizations. Do not be afraid to change your career path based on your experiences (e.g., volunteering).  Some careers may seem exciting and interesting, but you need to experience them beforehand. For example, I love working with small specimens (e.g., seeds) and microscopes and I can do this for hours. By networking, having many different experiences and connecting with people in your field of interest, you can align your passions and your individuality with your career. This will lead you to personal and professional success!

Diane Haughland: It’s cliché, but do what you love and do it to the best of your ability. Define your own balance. I love my work and I spend more time on it than I’m paid to, but that’s because the work is the reward. Realize you don’t have control over whether you get a certain job, but you do have control over how you spend your precious time.  And take care of yourself, always.

[notesomi-blog]

‘mother!’: The Most Ambitious Movie of the Year

mother! | 2017 | Director: Darren Aronofsky | Country: US

Warning: Full Spoiler Review

I’ve been eagerly anticipating this latest Darren Aronofsky’s movie called “mother!” ever since I saw its first poster. It shows Jennifer Lawrence’s character in a white dress holding her bleeding heart (literally). I was transfixed by its aura of beauty meets horror. This poster alone can be interpreted in some ways. Then months later, the official trailer finally arrived. I watched it with sheer delight because the tone of this movie―from the confused female character to some of the surreal imagery―reminded me a bit of “Black Swan”, Aronofsky’s much lauded psychological horror movie. I also got some “Rosemary’s Baby” vibe from it. So I was excited to find out that some of the promo posters look like some homage to “Black Swan” and “Rosemary’s Baby”. By then, I thought I had figured out what this movie is about. Man, how wrong I was.

The story of “mother!” revolves around a couple who lives in a secluded house. The husband, who’s much older than his wife, is a poet facing writer’s block and in need of greater inspiration. His house was destroyed by fire and he had lost almost everything until he met his wife. His wife was the one who helped restoring his house from scratch. “We spend all our time here... I want to make it paradise,” she said. Their seemingly serene life was disturbed when an old man suddenly came to their house one night. This stranger’s arrival was only the beginning of stranger things to come.

From its promo materials, I was pretty sure that the story of “mother!” would be revolved around some cult or satanic theme, hence the “Rosemary’s Baby” vibe I felt. As I said before, I was wrong. I still can feel the similar atmosphere though, mainly through the perspective of the paranoid main female character. But this movie as a whole is more than just a paranoia-filled offering. The whole concept is so ambitious that I needed some time to wrap my head around it after the movie ended.

First, let’s talk about the title. It uses exclamation point after the word “mother” and I feel some aggressiveness from it. There are, indeed, a lot of aggressive acts against the mother character throughout the movie. Who does mother refer to anyway? Yes, mother is the main character played by Jennifer Lawrence. Now, the mother in this movie isn’t supposed to be seen from the maternal context, because this character is actually the personification of... mother earth? At least that was what I can assume after finished watching this goddamn movie. My expectation was destroyed. This is not a psychological horror a la “Black Swan” or paranoia-filled horror a la “Rosemary’s Baby” as the promo materials suggest. Those promo materials were deceptions, guys. But hell, I was sure glad that this movie turned out to be something entirely different.

There were some moments throughout the movie where I uttered to myself, “Is this thing actually about the...? Hmmm... never mind... let’s keep watching.” And the other time, I was like, “Holy fucking shit, what is this?” My mind was going places and I felt like I need to replay some of the scenes immediately. By the end of this movie, I was thinking that maybe it is about the birth and death of planet earth, going in circle. I also have suspicion about the role of some of the characters and realized that they don’t have an actual name. So I started to pay attention to the credit title. Then realization dawned on me and I thought to myself, “Is this true? It’s actually about the Bible? OH MY GOD yes I think it is.” In the credit title, the character of Javier Bardem is written as Him, with capital H, whereas the other characters are written all in lowercase. My suspicion is true. He is the personification of God. That’s why the title, “mother!”, is also written all in lowercase. Goddammit! Then my mind replayed some of the scenes and started to connect the dots. So Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer’s characters are Adam and Eve, and their two sons are Abel and Cain? Are the frog and the spray of blood some cues for the ten plagues? Okay, I won’t go far from this scenario because I think that’s not my place and I just don’t have the knowledge for it. I don’t know if Aronofsky has actually crammed all of his interpretation of the Bible into a two-hour giant metaphor... I mean, movie. If that is the case, it means that he has made a movie adaptation of the Bible. That is one big ambition, sir.

Despite that metaphor thing, Aronofsky also infuses some criticisms into “mother!”. One of them is about the violent human behaviour towards environment, or should we call it mother earth? As I mentioned before, Jennifer Lawrence’s character can be interpreted as the personification of mother earth and there are various aggressive acts against her by almost all of the characters throughout the movie. Those acts were some of the reasons why this movie was quite uncomfortable to sit through.

For me, the casting of Jennifer Lawrence is spot on. I felt that her physical appearance here is accentuated, from the choice of her outfits to the way the camera frames her figure. Before calling it objectifying, note that it’s in line with the concept of the character. Mother earth is supposed to appear attractive, almost bare so everyone can see her whole beauty. I think Lawrence fully embodied this character. Most of the time, the camera frames her face in close-up, so we can see her facial expression clearly. She appears innocent at first and becomes more bewildered when random people start to flood into her house. Her face says it all. I’ve been a fan of her since I saw she her breakthrough role in “Winter’s Bone” and I think mother is her bravest role yet.

Another criticism that is infused by Aronofsky into this movie is about an artist’s obsession and relationship with his art. He also depicts how fame and idolatry can be destructive. All of them are presented in such extremity, particularly during the last half of the movie. It becomes more and more fucked-up towards the end.

All that aside, there is one particular plot point that struck me the most: the intrusion of personal space. I can relate so much to the mother character when she feels disturbed by the arrival of strangers into her house. As an introvert, I highly value my personal space and I can be extremely uncomfortable when some people invade it without invitation. I feel you, mother earth. I guess “Intruders!” could be a more appropriate title for this movie, no?

In the end, I think I understand the polarizing nature of “mother!”. This movie surely has potential to offend some people. For the other people, may they be amazed by its big ambition and bold narrative. I, myself, fall into the latter spectrum. I believe that this movie will spark some conversations and it deserves to be talked about for years to come.

Let’s give props to Darren Aronofsky and all the team involved who have pushed the boundaries and presented one of the most ambitious movies of the year. They prove that Hollywood’s major studio still has some guts to bring interesting “left field” concept to life. Cinema has limitless possibilities and a lot of potential to be explored after all.

[samleheny]

The good that can come from this crappy Ghost in the Shell remake

I’m a big Ghost in the Shell fan. I love cyberpunk, transhumanism, Eastern design sensibilities, all that good stuff. It’s no surprise I didn’t expect this Hollywood remake to be any good, nor that critics so far are pretty unanimously reporting that it isn’t, nor that I’m not interested enough to find out for myself and send the message “Yes Hollywood, my curiosity will get the better of me and you will end up getting my money regardless of whether or not you did a good job”. Whatever. The word is it’s visually engaging but that the action is dull and it’s emotionally and philosophically desolate (the very latter is a death knell for any GitS project as far as I’m concerned). I’m less sad that it had to happen to this franchise in particular and more so because I yearn for those days when Hollywood sci-fi knew how to be both thrilling and intellectually stimulating at the same time. Now days it’s one or the other, or sometimes neither. But I’m trying to look to the good, and I think there is some good. About this whole white-washing controversy of casting Scarlet Johanson as Major Motoko Kusanagi. We all should understand that people are less pissed off about the particular instance of casting a white person in the role of an east Asian character than they are about the larger issue it points to. No movie executive at any point sat down and said “This 1995 Mamoru Oshii classic is brilliant! But it could be even better... It could be... white!” No, they just wanted a big star in the lead role and they valued that more so than artistic authenticity, which only becomes a practical issue when one realises that when it comes to big names in the English language film space, the only actresses of Asian ethnicity with that kind of ticket selling star power are... um... Lucy Liu, and... uuuh... ...that’s about it I guess.

How did we get here? The implications aren’t nice to think about unless you want to make unfounded claims that “Dude! White people and a smaller contingent of black people are just genetically more inclined to pursue a career in acting! I know science, I have the best science!” But the studio has actually bent over backwards to try and placate an internet crying bullshit. Do you think just five or ten years ago said studio would have given a shit what we thought on the matter? Probably not. Reports were that they at one point considered ‘yellowing’ Ms. Johanson up in post production, but quickly decided away from that, since unless you’re Cloud Atlas, that’s only going to make things worse. The solution they actually attempted in the end is a bit more... amusing.

I’m going to spoil the twist of the movie here. So they ended up renaming the character Mira Killian for this adaptation, perhaps reasoning that it’s slightly less damning to rewrite the character then to have people sitting in the theatre shuffling uneasily in their seats, subconsciously wondering “Why does seminal Japanese heroine Motoko Kusanagi look remarkably like white as hell Scarlet Johanson?”. This time around she has amnesia and can’t remember who she was before having her brain put into a prosthetic body. I’ve seen people in forums already taken to referring to the character as “MINO” (Motoko In Name Only).

The twist? Turns out she really is Motoko Kusanagi, and her brain was put into a Caucasian body and she was renamed by your standard big evil corporation, robbing her of her past and identity. ...Wait, what? You can see what they were going for, attempting a clever meta-narrative, shaking a finger at the internet and saying “Isn’t it what’s on the inside that counts?”. But it just amounts to the studio basically calling themselves out for their casting inflexibility. The evil corporation taking a Japanese character and dipping her in Caucasia being noticeably, almost deliberately analogous to what the film makers did with the character in the first place. Are they trying to tell us they know they did wrong by vilifying themselves in their own movie? Drawing attention to the issue, without actually doing anything about it?

To be fair, it isn’t a bad idea for a story, in the abstract. Highlighting things like race as being rendered truly tertiary and unimportant by cybernetic augmentation separating the identity and the flesh further apart then ever before in the human experience. But it’s depressing that they didn’t write that first and then reason “well that means we perhaps need an actress who doesn’t match Motoko’s traditional appearance.” But instead only conceived of this plot point as a way of retroactively justifying their casting choice. Just like it’s all well and good to talk about how The performance is what matters, and if race really shouldn’t separate us, then why do we insist a character’s ethnicity must remain rigidly consistent across the various reimaginings? But as soon as it’s the other way around, and a historically white character is being reimagined as black, or Latino, or what have you, then that philosophy gets switched out for a very different one. One that says race isn’t important, but race issues are, and when the western and usually Caucasian perspective already dominates huge chunks of the international pop culture, then it’s good, perhaps even necessary for concessions to be made to welcome people of other backgrounds into that dominant culture (a philosophy I find much more agreeable.)

Because this was never about white or Asian or American or Japanese or Japanese specifically or will any East Asian actress do? It’s about sharing the spotlight. Hence why taking one of the few international properties widely recognised and celebrated outside of its country of origin, sucking out the ground breaking Eastern philosophical tones, and bolting Scarlet Johanson onto the project because ‘She’s so hot right now!’ may not be a travesty or the end of the world, but it’s a disappointing waste of an opportunity. It feels like taking gruel from hungry orphans and feeding it to Bill Gates.

Plus... you know. A lot can be forgiven if the end product turns out really really good.

But the good in all this? Well like I said: even if their efforts just made the situation all the more laughable, they did go through pains to try and placate the backlash, which means they do care. Okay. Yes. The thing they care about is protecting a brand’s profitability in the face of an audience whose wallets are proving harder to seduce than anticipated, but now as opposed to yesteryear they might see that issues of diversity in the arts shouldn’t be shoved off to the side just because we gotta get dat sweet Scarlet Johanson money!

Because the cash-cow of Hollywood now, for better or worse, is the nerd. And nerds by definition care a lot about the minutiae. But perhaps more importantly than that, Hollywood is increasingly aware that the future looks a lot less western and a lot less white than the present. Why do you think Marvel is introducing all these Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, Mixed race, Gay, Asian, etc, characters into the comics? It’s because in ten years, when they still want to be making big superhero blockbusters, they’ll need new characters to replace the expired contracts of Captain America and Iron Man, etc. And they figure it behooves them to build into their future a lot more appeal for the increasingly diversifying movie going public.

I believe (with no small amount of chagrin) that we’re only going to see more and more adaptations of classic anime. Hollywood has a horrible track record with them of course, but consider that Hollywood is increasingly interested in courting the ever growing Chinese market, and making more films with Eastern themes, settings, and styles is a pretty good way to accomplish that. And consider also that there’s nothing the Hollywood genre-film machine fears more than spending money on new and untested ideas. With both of those factors in mind I think the solution for Hollywood will become obvious in time if it isn’t already, and it involves a crappy Akira remake, a crappy Sailor Moon remake, a crappy Evangelion remake, and crappy Studio Ghibli remakes (Oh you don’t think they'd dare? You wanna make a wager?). Japan is, after all, the most successful entertainment producer on an international scale outside of the English speaking countries. (Hmmm, possibly after France. Vivendi has its tendrils all over the place.) I don’t look forward to it, because I don’t look forward to a lot of remakes, because I find the current landscape of aversion to new ideas and forced franchise perpetuity incredibly depressing. But as far as learning how to do a better job of adaptation in the future, for once the studio didn’t just notice the backlash to white-washing a beloved foreign classic, they actually fretted over it. And perhaps they will next time. And with the memory of this “MINO” character fresh in their minds, hopefully they’ll have those frets before making a casting choice. At which point I hope the solution will be as obvious to them as it was to the fans.

Live action Akira will probably happen (it already almost did, and they wanted to move it from Neo-Tokyo to Neo-Manhattan) it will probably suck despite being a big blockbuster, but at least there’s a better chance now it will be a blockbuster that could be the breakout role of some talented young Japanese American somewhere who doesn’t otherwise have much hope of being offered a role as the latest superhero. And some young kid from Asian immigrant parents might see him on the silver screen and feel impassioned.

[mexcine]

Split (2017) review

I’m not an actor, but I imagine there are certain parts actors must love to play: drunks, crazy people, and people with multiple-personalities.  These roles, they are like candy to them!

           I wonder if the initial conversation between James McAvoy and the producer of Split went something like this:

Producer: James, we don’t have much money to pay you, but you’re going to love this movie.

JM: Go ahead...

Producer: Get this, you play a character who has 24 different personalities! You get to act like a little kid, a flaming gay man, a woman, a psycho...

JM: I’m interested, keep going...

Producer: And you get to take off your shirt and show your muscular body—don’t worry, we’ll CGI it, you won’t have to work out—but you do have to shave your head.

JM: Hmmm...

Producer: Best of all, you get a whole scene where you do a wacky interpretive dance to “Frogbass” by Snails!

JM: Sign me up!

           Split is an entertaining thriller, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, which has recently made a lot of money in the USA (in, admittedly, a slow time of year).  Obviously made on a low budget ($10 million, which is “low” by Hollywood standards), it’s consistently interesting and although the conclusion leaves a little something to be desired (to be discussed below, although I’ll avoid overt spoilers), all in all this is a slick piece of work that delivers more or less what it promises.

           James McAvoy, surprisingly, isn’t the whole show, but he’s a big chunk of it.  He doesn’t get to bring all 24 of his character’s personalities to life, but he ably creates half a dozen of them in some detail, with minimal props and makeup.  Mostly, McAvoy does it with his acting ability: his voice, his body, and his attitude. There are a few moments where things get a little confusing (deliberately and otherwise), but on the whole McAvoy rises to the challenge and provides a solid basis for the film’s “hook”—the multiple-personality thing is a gimmick, of course, but McAvoy makes it believable.

           There are really only 4 other performers of significance in the picture, and only two of these have much screen time: Betty Buckley (hard to believe she was the nice, sexy gym teacher in the 1976 version of Carrie and now she’s playing grandmotherly roles) as Dr. Fletcher and Anya Taylor-Joy (who looks familiar but isn’t, since I’ve never seen her in anything else) as Casey.  Their characters play off of McAvoy’s, but they aren’t merely foils, and in fact have substantial footage without him.

           The plot: students Casey, Claire, and Marcia are abducted by a man and taken to an underground facility.  They discover the cool abductor, Dennis, is just one personality in the man’s body: he’s also gay fashion designer Barry, 9-year-old boy Hedwig, and British woman Patricia (we later meet, in fleeting fashion, history professor Orwell and another woman, Jade, and are told the total number of Kevin’s alternate personalities is 23).  His real name is Kevin, and he’s being treated by Dr. Fletcher.  Dr. Fletcher believes individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder may actually change their physiology from “alter” to “alter,” citing a case where some of a blind person’s alters regained their sight, while others remained blind.  She is aware of Kevin’s various personalities, but when she’s told that a new alter—The Beast—has emerged, she’s uncertain as to whether it exists or not.

           Claire and Marcia urge Casey to help in their escape attempts, but she demurs.  In flashbacks, we learn Casey was sexually abused as a child by her uncle.  Claire and Marcia are placed in separate rooms for their misbehaviour.  They’re told “The Beast” will soon be here, and they’re “sacred food” (sounds ominous, doesn’t it?).

           Eventually, Dr. Fletcher becomes suspicious and the last 15 or 20 minutes of Split gets more frantic and wild, if slightly ridiculous.  Without going into any details, I’ll simply say that I was picking up a sort of “X-Men” vibe at the end—maybe it was prompted by the presence of McAvoy (the coincidence of the “Beast” name is just that, the characters aren’t related)—and there’s a final scene which (maybe) sets up a sequel to both Split and Unbreakable.  Oh noes, another movie series is born!

           This last-minute left-turn aside (although to be fair, the idea of The Beast is set up very carefully throughout the film), Split is a reasonably grounded psychological thriller.  There has been some criticism of the picture for its negative image of Dissociative Identity Disorder, but there’s no suggestion in the script that individuals with DID are inherently evil, that they must have at least one “bad” alter, or anything of that sort.  Kevin’s personalities—referred to collectively as “The Horde”--have come to believe that DID represents a higher stage of human evolution, which is at least partly supported by Dr. Fletcher’s research. However, the ability to in some fashion control one’s physical nature via the power of the mind is morally-neutral and it does not necessarily follow that these people are evil (the protagonist of Unbreakable and, for that matter, the good “mutants” in the “X-Men” series are examples of this).

           For most of its running time Split doesn’t deal with these issues, and is content to be a well-executed but standard cat-and-mouse game between captor and captive. After their initial enthusiasm for—and attempts at—escape, Claire and Marcia don’t really do much (and are off-screen in fact) for a long period of time, then suddenly become frantic about finding a way to get out.  Were they asleep?  Casey, on the other hand, periodically tries to cajole Hedwig, the “youngest” and least sophisticated alter into freeing her or at least into making a mistake that will allow her to flee, and also takes other steps towards gaining her freedom. Since her flashback scenes center around deer hunting, I was waiting for Casey to use some of the wilderness skills she learned as a little girl, but this never happens (and the flashback scenes turn out to have served another purpose--to explain her current behaviour and, ironically, to save her life in a different way at the end).  There are some loose ends and plot holes, but they’re not egregious.

           Overall, Split is quite satisfactory for what it is, a glossy, effectively-directed thriller built around a gimmick that is validated by an excellent starring performance by James McAvoy.

[fromtheringapron]

Coliseum Critique: WWF Rampage ‘91

It’s so easy to write off the WWF Coliseum Home Video releases of the ‘80s and ‘90s as merely products of their time because, well, they are. And truthfully, it’s tough explaining their appeal to anyone who wasn’t fortunate enough to have them on the shelves of their local video store back in the day. But thanks to the WWE Network finally caving to years of demand, they’ve been uploaded for critical reappraisal. That they’ve been so requested by fans suggests they’re were more than just a fad, and I’ll be exploring why with the Coliseum Critique.  

I chose to start with WWF Rampage ’91 because, um, The Rockers teaming up with The Big Bossman? Count me the fuck in. In all seriousness though, I feel like this tape is pretty exemplary of the Coliseum Home Video library. There are a bunch of random matches strewn together, with some silly segments sprinkled in between. That may not seem like much in a time where big matches are given away for free on Raw every week, but matches between two name talents didn’t happen all the time on TV back in ’91 so something like Road Warrior Animal vs. Paul Roma is made to feel all the more special and important. It’s almost like not showing all of your roster on TV every week to the point of overexposure can actually work in getting everyone over. Hmmm.

Anyway, let’s get down to it. I’ll be structuring these reviews a bit differently than my regular ones and I’m honestly still figuring out how to do that so bear with me:

Golfing with Sean Mooney, Gene Okerlund, and Bobby Heenan: This is a series of segments shown between each match, but I think it’s best to keep it as one entry because I’m lazy. It’s not a proper Coliseum Home Video release if Sean Mooney isn’t hosting it. It’s hard to describe the appeal of Mooney, but I do think it has something to do with the fact he seems like your average newscaster who just so happens to be thrown into the wacky world of pro wrestling and deals with it accordingly. He’s also not unlike Julie Chen on Big Brother in the sense that his awkward, stilted manner of talking actually enhances his charm.

He’s joined by Okerlund and Heenan at a golf course, which is apparently located in Stamford, CT and is probably just Vince McMahon’s backyard. The segments are mostly just Heenan being incompetent at golf despite Okerlund’s attempts at giving him lessons. That’s another thing about Coliseum Home Video. You’ll get these random segments that have nothing to do with wrestling, but are nonetheless a delight. It’s just a hoot seeing larger-than-life characters try to do everyday stuff.

Intercontinental Championship Match: Mr. Perfect (champion) (with The Coach) defeated The British Bulldog via disqualification: Perfect and Bulldog wrestled each other a lot on the house show circuit in the spring/summer of ’91. Mooney keeps calling Perfect “The Flawless One” on commentary and it annoys me a great deal. Stop trying to make fetch happen, Sean. This match also gives us a rare look at Perfect’s short-lived manager The Coach, who is such a downgrade from Heenan and is super unnecessary. Since they’re setting up Bret Hart as the top contender for the IC title by the time of this match, he shows up in Bulldog’s corner mid-match but winds up causing Bulldog to get disqualified when he attacks Perfect. If I were Bulldog, I’d actually be pissed at Bret for costing me the title. He really couldn’t rise above his tiff with Perfect to help his brother-in-law win the title? I guess Owen was right; Bret is too damn selfish.

The Texas Tornado fought The Warlord to a double count-out: This takes places in Madison Square Garden. The Warlord’s look is amazing, sorry. Seriously one of my favorites. I know some people mock it, but I dig the Phantom of the Opera meets Star Trek vibe of it all. You know who doesn’t look amazing? The Texas Tornado, who is wearing years of drug use on his face by this point. I’d say more but HOLY FUCK JIM NEIDHART IS ANNOYING ON COMMENTARY. I have no idea why they thought his work in 30-second Hart Foundation promos would translate into hours-long television broadcasts, but this match takes place smack in the middle of that experiment. As for the match, both guys get counted out of the ring, but Neidhart’s commentary caused me to nearly blackout so I kinda feel like I missed most of it.

Road Warrior Animal defeated Paul Roma (with Hercules): Different MSG show, same annoying Neidhart commentary. What’s really distracting here though is that the order of the classic red/white/blue ring ropes has been switched up, with blue as the top rope instead. It’s amazing how just swapping the red and blue ropes can suddenly make the WWF look like a knock-off indy fed. Anyway, Roma and Hercules flip a coin before the match to see who will wrestle Animal but since this is Power & Glory post-WrestleMania VII, they’re already losing either way. No idea of Road Warrior Hawk’s whereabouts during this match, but I’m guessing it’s due to an injury, drugs, or the classic wrestling mix of both.

The Big Bossman & The Rockers (Shawn Michaels & Marty Janetty) defeated The Mountie & The Nasty Boys (with Jimmy Hart): One of the coolest things about Coliseum Home Video is that you’d sometimes get these ultra rare team-ups you would never see on television. The Rockers teaming up The Bossman is a prime example, so my enjoyment of this match largely coasted on that basis alone, or maybe it’s just because Shawn wears one of those silly Rockers hats to the ring completely stone-faced. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk it about it before, but The Mountie’s entrance music is incredible. It’s like an aerial shot of the Canadian Rockies put to sound. Just beautiful. On a grim note, it’s taken me forever to realize the Bossman is wearing the Confederate Flag on the sleeve of his shirt. And here I thought he was problematic for killing Al Snow’s dog and ruining the funeral for Big Show’s dad.

The Dragon defeated Demolition Smash: Simply referring to Ricky Steamboat as “The Dragon” does not feel kosher in any way, but that’s what the WWF wants us to roll with. Like, I get they wanted him to appeal to younger viewers, but didn’t he already do a pretty a good job of that in his first run just by being Ricky Steamboat? The funny part is that The Dragon was actually my introduction to Steamboat, as I owned his Hasbro figure growing up. This is from the same MSG show with the messed-up ropes. Again, distracting. Watching Demolition Smash here all by himself makes me deeply sad. He’s stripped of everything that made Demolition the top tag team in all of wrestling just a year prior. No Axe, no Crush, no Rick Derringer entrance music, no S&M masks. Even Mr. Fuji has bailed on him. No wonder why he turned to a life of Long Ranger masks and stealing people’s stuff. The poor guy had nothing.

The Barbarian (with Bobby Heenan) defeated Jake Roberts via count-out: My mind drifted during this match, admittedly. I will say The Barbarian’s look is also amazing. They really did a good job of making sure both former members of the Powers of Pain look like total badasses. This takes place during that special time where Earthquake murdered Jake Roberts’ pet snake Damien on TV. Quake gets involved in the match here to continue the feud, although when he came to ringside I started thinking what it would’ve been like if he were managed by Heenan instead. Like, I imagine Heenan would’ve quickly picked up a guy whose raison d’etre was once to put Hulk Hogan permanently on the shelf, yes? The downside is that we’d be robbed of those amazing promos where Quake is bouncing around with Jimmy Hart shrieking in the background. Anyway, The Barbarian holds a victory over Jake Roberts. How about that?

Greg Valentine defeated Haku: This is from the other Rampage event, broadcast exclusively in the UK a month after WrestleMania VII. Vince McMahon and Roddy Piper are on commentary for this. I don’t really have much to say about the match, other than Greg Valentine as a face is super weird. It’s such a contrast to his “grumpy bus driver” aesthetic.

Power & Glory (Hercules & Paul Roma) (with Slick) fought The Orient Express (Kato & Tanaka) (with Mr. Fuji) to a double count-out: Okay, this is the random ass shit I want out of a Coliseum Home Video release. You see, kids, a classic Coliseum Home Video match isn’t a showcase of technical expertise or a high-risk spotfest. Rather, it’s the matches that make you stop in your tracks and say, “Um, what?” That’s simply the Coliseum Home Video way, and a generation of fans accepted it.

Heel vs. heel matches are already pretty rare for this time period, but what also makes this match a bit of an odd duck is that both teams were on their way out by the time of this video’s release. The Orient Express never got that huge of a push, but Power & Glory look like a shadow of the fresh-faced tag team they were just a year prior. Hercules in particular looks like he’s aged 10 years, and I could probably write up a separate entry on the dreariness of Herc’s final months in the WWF alone. It’s appropriate that this match ends in a draw considering both teams are going absolutely nowhere. And, wow, two Paul Roma matches on this tape? Coliseum Home Video, you sneaky temptress.

At Home with Paul Bearer: I love skits like this. It’s fluff, yes, but it’s also character development just for the sake of it. This honestly would’ve freaked me out as a kid, especially the part where a human corpse falls out of Bearer’s closet. Bearer shows us his cocktail bar where he makes his favorite drink, a Bloody Mary except we’re supposed to believe it’s actually blood from a dead person named Mary. He can also make a Bloody Jane, Cindy, and Tom. His favorite book is Death of a Salesman which, I mean, cool if you like it, Paul, but I’m personally not an Arthur Miller fan. He’s also apparently inherited the Macho King’s throne after Randy Savage retired from that role. I’m kinda disappointed we didn’t get to see the rest of his home. What’s his bathroom look like?

The Ultimate Warrior defeated The Undertaker (with Paul Bearer) via disqualification: The Warrior/Taker feud is proof that you can go totally out there with a storyline and still have people invested in it. I mean, I’m pretty sure the basis of the feud is that Taker tried to murder the Warrior by locking him in a casket, which in turn triggered Warrior’s claustrophobia (there is a lot of attempted murder in early ‘90s WWF, if you pay close attention). Warrior then sought guidance from Jake Roberts, who trained him by burying him up to his head in a grave and later betrayed him by leading him to a room where he was bit by a fake cobra in a box. Um, okay, not sure how they’re getting from point A to point B there, but whacked-out shit like this is why I watch wrestling.

It also helps that I actually dig the Warrior/Taker pairing because I think the characters compliment each other quite well, with Warrior’s frenetic energy contrasting nicely to Taker’s cold, emotionless demeanor. One thing that surprised me about this match is that Warrior gets his ass kicked for much of it. Taker is really being made to look like a legit threat around this time, which sets him up perfectly for Hogan later in the year. He gets some of Warrior’s face paint on his gloves, which Lord Alfred Hayes on commentary seems to mistake as human skin on commentary. That’s a tasty visual if there ever was one.

And with that, the tape reaches its conclusion!

What I’ve Learned: Coliseum Home Video releases were a great way of developing characters without worrying about putting them near a wrestling ring or wasting any precious television time. In retrospect, they also serve as a nice history lesson as to what the feuds and roster were like at the time of the video’s release, and this particular tape gave me plenty of insight into the state of things in the spring/summer of 1991. Yes, the matches are randomly strewn together, and they wouldn’t be able to pull it off successfully today, but it’s a nice reminder of a time where booking made matches between wrestlers on the lower end of the card still fresh and important. Other things I’ve learned: Bret is too damn selfish, the works of Arthur Miller aren’t interesting, The Bossman isn’t quite as reputable a policeman as everyone thinks, The Barbarian and The Warlord are the fashionistas we’ve always needed, and Jim Neidhart should stay far, far away from the commentary booth.

[artsinsociety-blog1]

Interview Transcript: Merryn Stanger

Interviewer: Kate Armstrong Interviewee: Merryn Stanger Mode: Skype Date: January 12 2017

Begins: 11:45 January 12, 2017

KA: Thanks for agreeing to this interview Merryn and thanks for making the time to Skype with me

MS: No problem, I have a wine so I’m ready to go..

KA: Okay perfect! Haha, so I’m going to ask you a series of questions influenced by my research. Both the research and this interview are leading up to an exhibition which I already explained you in our previous correspondence,

MS: Yes…

KA: I chose a text as the starting point to my questioning it’s called Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, don’t know if you know it… but it’s a collection of writings edited by...Judith Rugg and Michèle Sedgwick. It’s actually a course text and I found it really interesting as a whole and later, after you introduce yourself I want to reference an essay by Jane Rendell called CRITICAL SPATIAL PRACTICE: CURATING, EDITING, WRITING... Okay so first, can you give us your elevator pitch - who are you, what do you do?

MS: Ok sure, I’m Merryn, Stanger and last year, or 2 years ago; 2015 I graduated from an Arts Administration Master at COFA in Sydney. Since then I have worked as an invigilator at the COFA Galleries and as a research assistant at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and I was also teaching curatorial techniques at Sydney University for some classes in their Department of Architecture, Design & Planning and I also curated an exhibition for them.

KA: Perfect, thank you - so let’s get started with Jane Rendell and her essay CRITICAL SPATIAL PRACTICE: CURATING, EDITING, WRITING in which she suggests that there is a stigma around multi-model and interdisciplinary exhibitions; she says they can be viewed as ambiguous. This lead to me to question how a curator actually makes sense of or clarifies disparate elements of a show and how or maybe IF your role is making the incoherent, coherent.

MS: Well, and I take this opinion mainly from my studies; the role of the curator isn’t to make things coherent. The curator should be the *mimes quotation marks* invisible hand - there is a theorist whose name I can’t bring to mind, but you can look it up later...

KA: I can look it up after...

MS: yeah, do - well yeah the concept is that the ‘curator’s touch’ should be seen in an exhibition but you should never see the ‘hand’ let’s say. The role isn’t to be didactic but to present an opportunity for the audience to engage and interpret. The curator’s roles isn’t to impose their thoughts on the audience it's to guide them I guess…

KA: Right, so with this idea of non-didactic methods in mind….can you talk a bit about the role of text in exhibitions? Should text be displayed with works or…

MS: Okay, this is a really big debate actually its always the discussion in contemporary curation, how much should you influence or even guide the audience as a curator...I mean it’s kind of what we were just talking about, you have the mid 20th Century curators like Clement Greenburg who were way more prescriptive but the more contemporary trend is for the curator to be heard but not seen like I said before. So it’s the same concept for text, if you’re including an essay of text, even a short amount, it can influence the way the audience reads the artwork. I guess in some cases it’s necessary to include dense text, like wall plates or explanations and other times I think it’s kind of industry habit...okay, an example...When I was working at the Art Gallery of New South Wales the Asian art galleries, you know on the top level at the far end…

KA: Yeah…

MS: well they have really in-depth wall texts and have lots of explanatory text, whereas the 19th Century collection doesn’t have much,

KA: Oh, really?

MS: Yeah yeah, I mean, it’s always a bit like that...

KA: So you’re saying that the AGNSW think that their public know less about Chinese art? I mean they feel they have to aid in the translation process - this is really interesting for our exhibition, because you know as it’s about cultural translations

MS: Oh yeah, of course…

KA: So do you think that's the deal,

MS: What, that people know about 19th century art? Hmmm I think it’s a general assumption that Australians have more knowledge about Western Art…

KA: It is also a value judgment as well as an assumption?

MS: Yeah, perhaps….I mean in school in, curatorial studies we focused a lot on the Western Canon. We did discuss people like Edward Said and Orientalism but there was a general, I don’t know, bias toward Western Art...

KA: But do you think that major schools like COFA focus on the West because in the industry there is an audiences driven demand or institutional demand….or….?

MS: Well, i can only speak for an Australian perspective but yeah, maybe both...but I’d say it is a cultural bias, a general social bias…that maybe isn’t reflected on as much as it should be. But I do think a change is coming, slowly but it’s coming...You know, some of my classmates did a course called Aboriginal Perspectives; I couldn’t get into it as I’d already done too many electives and I wasn’t even allowed to audit it, anyway….now, it’s part of the Post-Grad program as a required subject...

KA: But wait, before it wasn’t?

MS: Haha, yeah...no…

KA: Oh wow, but you did post-colonial studies?

MS: A bit, in the class - wait, let me get something…

(Merryn leaves the interview, returns with a book)

...this is the program of the class, well, it was called ‘Queering the Canon’ but when I’m looking…(flips through book) Yeah, okay it’s more like Gender and Marxism, there is one class on Orientalism...but yeah, anyway it’s kind of lumped in with the other constructs.

KA: Do you think it’s also reflected in the programming that works with gallery shows - like do non-western shows require more didactic programming?

MS: Um….not sure, do you mean to be more politically correct or?

KA: No more like, well I went to see Ben Quilty speak about a piece he created for an Indigenous Artists show at AGNSW and he spoke very didactically and the talk was part of a really extensive educational program...I don’t think you’d see this at a 19th century collection show….?

MS: Hmmmm, I guess different programs are created for specific audiences and perhaps the people going to see your classic representations of the Western Canon are more into classic un-provocative programming, hehe...not sure

KA: Ok cool, well following on from that, talking about adjacent programming, I want to ask you about the exhibition catalogue?

MS: Oh yes, I love exhibition catalogues…

KA: I thought so…

MS: Haha, I have so many!

KA: Oh perfect, so as someone who likes and reads catalogues can you talk a bit about their function?

MS: Well for me, the catalogue is the perfect place for the curator to explain their curatorial premise. You know I was saying about the curator being the invisible hand - you don’t want to impose your ideas on audiences, but the catalogue is almost a separate but connected space where you can really tell the story of the exhibition. I’m always unsatisfied when I go to an exhibition and the catalogue is just, name, title, date of all the works and a picture, it’s such a missed opportunity for the curator to tell their story and have a voice - it should be more informative and subjective…

KA: And is it fair to say it’s almost a legacy of the show and it’s concept…?

MS: Yeah for sure, I mean I collect catalogues and yeah, they become not only like a souvenir but a timeless extension of the exhibition.

KA: Lovely, so they have a real place in the curation of a show

MS: Absolutely

KA: Great, well I’d like to move on to discuss the most recent show you did which is coming back to the idea of interdisciplinary exhibitions...it was for Sydney Uni right?

MS: Yeah, it was a show for Sydney University Department of Architecture and Design and it was held in conjunction with a Design conference put on by a well known guy from the design world, John Alsop...he’s from the Design Computing world, it’s a bad name for what he does I think, because it’s more like wearable tech and gadgets, but um the show was called ‘Web Directions’

KA: ...and it was held in a gallery?

MS: No, no, it was held in a public space in the foyer of the conference and had all sorts of different things in it, lots of apps and there was a drone for farmers to track sheep - that sounds a bit boring but it’s actually really interesting and got lots of funding because you know these farmers in the desert have to use helicopters to track their flocks but this device makes it much easier...But anyway yeah all of the works were around the theme technology for social good, so they had to have an aspect that benefited wider society - like one guy had this cute backpack that worked as an indicator for your bike and was controlled by your iphone, like on the handle bars. Yeah. There were lots of different items - including portfolios and posters.

KA: So there were a lot of variables; various items, lots of different sizes, participation, opportunities for people to linger to read or even watch a video; also the fact that it was in a thoroughfare….I mean, I’m interested in how you controlled the flow, the interaction of people in the space, is it even possible?

MS: I have some really great resources on this that I’ll send you, about how to create space and define the actions of audiences. There is this American theory that in Australia is actually the opposite, it’s that people by nature turn right when entering a gallery space, because by habit they vear right, like on the road or using escalators…

KA: Oh yeah it’s like when you go to Europe and go to pass someone in the street and you habitually step to the left and they step to the right and...haha...you end up crashing

MS: Haha, exactly, yeah you really have to think about the use of space fairly subconsciously actually because well, people using it are everyday people. There are a set of let’s say ‘manners’ or an etiquette that can be followed, like how big text should be and how far away viewers stand from the wall but it’s all developed around human behaviour. Also talking about wall text and the correct number is in the slides i’ll send you but there's also a certain number of words that people are willing to read standing at an exhibition before they tune out...so that's also interesting to note and I guess also where the catalogue in the format of a book becomes useful...we’re used to reading long texts in the pages of a book.

KA: Yeah, that's true.

MS: So yeah there is a lot of human nature and common sense that goes into designing exhibitions

KA: ...and then, how do you, for want of a better word…’control’ viewers, like if you have video and books and texts and spaces that will encourage loitering and other spaces that require traffic flow…

MS: Well first you consider the elements and try to space them accordingly, like separate all the apps and all the films so they are not all together, and then well, you obviously would try to keep thoroughfares clear and the works that require more hang-time in areas of less activity. It’s difficult, I like to work with a working floor plan with multiple options and trial them in the space. It’s best to access the space to see how it operates, for instance I went to visit the foyer when it was both in use and not, to see where people naturally gravitated and what the actual user experience was.

KA: So you mocked up a floor plan or a diagram?

MS: Just a simple floor plan, well a few and then by hand sketched out where things could go.

KA: And if this was a public space, how did you go about security or artworks and tech?

MS: Urgh, security is so difficult, especially when you don’t have resources - for this design show there were so many apps on display we ended up having to sign-out ipad mini’s to the designers who wanted to show their apps and they had to take responsibility for them, they had to hold them the entire time.

KA: Oh wow, so you didn’t have holders? Like at the apple store or something?

MS: No...well the line-up changed so many times that by the time everyone confirmed what they needed it was far too late to work out specific security for the space and the risk was fairly high being a public venue. I mean when I was working at the College of Fine Arts Galleries it was located in the University and they had so many resources to be able to make the specific holders out of that plastic stuff, what is it…?

KA: Plexiglass?

MS: yeah right, so they’d make special holders,

KA: A frame?

MS: ...with yeah a frame over the top and the Ipad behind all screwed in with a hole for the on/off button and the cord plugged in all the time underneath. They made them for all the shows. I think if you’re at a gallery with resources it’s fine but generally it’s difficult and expensive…

KA: Like how expensive?

MS: Well we got quoted $2000 for that Design exhibition and that was before everyone decided to have iPads, so yeah it’s pricey.

KA: Okay well we’re nearing the end of the interview, but I have one more question, a bonus question that’s a little more off-the-beaten-track…

MS: oh good, ok…

KA: I was reading an article on news.artnet.com about the relevence of curators and how there is a trend away from using the work curator; pepole are instead using ‘Exhibition Organisor’ or just ‘Organised by…’ Do you have a comment about this…?

MS: Yeah I do, I actually was discussing this with my boyfriend just the other day, about how the word curating is so grossly overused. You know, you have people who ‘curate’ instagram feeds and community curators and curated collections of things...but you know where the word curator comes from? Fom a Latin word which means to take care of, so it’s a position of custodianship or someone who is the keeper of a collection. I think originally many art collections were held by churches too and so the word also has religious connections, or connotations. It’s not a word that just means organising, so yeah maybe these people are organising exhibitions but gallerists are closer to being curators in the true sense.

KA: So there’s a place for both?

MS: Yeah for sure, but maybe it’s better, Instagram feed organiser, haha…

KA: oh for sure. Well thank you so much for this Merryn, I really appreciate it and your insights have been very useful.

MS: Thanks for asking me!

Ends 12:22 January 12, 2017