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77-fxes · 1 year

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The Switchover: Sam Wilson

It's astounding that before The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson had appeared in six movies in one way or another. It doesn't really seem like that. Sam's presence has generally been unassuming yet comforting; throwing in a wisecrack or a friendly word f encouragement--often to Steve Rogers-- while generally being of good support in a fight. But outside of The Winter Soldier, there has been little in the way of character exploration, and next to nothing exploring Sam's experiences as a black man in the military.

It's here where Marco Spellman began his writing journey with the character. What he decided to do was what all the best Marvel products tend to do; take the most uncomfortable thing about a story and then make the story about that uncomfortable thing. In this case, I believe Spellman and the creative team realized that previous film making teams had yet to deal with Sam's internal ideas about race or politics as a black military vet and decided to make his struggle to take up the mantle about that.

Of course, the obvious and understandable reason that these aspects of Sam hadn't been explored were because those previous creative teams were overwhelmingly white and wisely decided not to depict something that they couldn't understand (though I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that talented black writers are definitely around in Hollywood., so...). It's also obvious as to why the subject would be central to his taking up the mantle; taking on the symbol of a country that has historically and is currently oppressing people who look like you and share a similar background.

The first uncomfortable bit about this is that Sam has already been a representative of the US as a member of the military. Moreover, Sam's career in the military pre meeting Steve seems pretty much amicable and by the time Winter Soldier came around, he was counseling vets and didn't have much criticism for the military in terms of race or otherwise. It's easy to imagine that someone like this might be actively trying to hide their blackness or code switch, but Anthony Mackie's portrayal is unapologetically black, at least in the way that he carries himself. Mackie gives Sam the kind of 'blue collar black man' vibes that remind me of my dad, a contractor and carpenter. These are the dudes who are used to taking pride in working hard, helping others, taking care of their responsibilities, and 'not getting into political arguments.' Like my dad, Sam is the kind of guy who can get along with a lot of different white people without feeling the need to be inauthentic, a useful skill as a black man in a military world where power is almost certainly dominated by white men who may be likely to be very comfortable being 'colorblind' and who would like to avoid race at every corner. There is, I'd imagine a ton more to unpack there and undoubtedly people closer to that experience who could do so, but those seem to be the basic outlines of who Sam is and how he's navigating a system that is definitely not designed for his benefit (I'd suggest Nicque Marina's excellent YouTube channel for greater insights on Sam's journey from a black vet's perspective!).

To me, this is where Sam's journey is interesting beyond deciding to take up the mantle. Once Sam has decided to become Captain America, he now has to engage with his blackness on a political level. I believe that this is part of his reticence to take up the mantle in the first place, with his exchanges with Isaiah Bradley acting as a prime confrontation with this discomfort. Particularly, Sam's plea for Isaiah to 'help him understand' Isaiah's experiences and refusal to take the shield in Episode 5 ("Truth") is met with Isaiah's very true observation 'that 'You understand, every black does. In this statement, I think Isaiah deftly shatters Sam's comforting self-image as a 'non-political black man' who doesn't really get politics. Sam understands enough, he's probably spent his whole adulthood having few safe spaces to admit it and definitely feeling that it's more advantageous not to say anything, but he definitely understands. He understood at the loan office earlier, he understood when the cops stopped him, he understood when John just assumed he'd be his sidekick. But he knows that to acknowledge it means to take a stance that could make him dangerous to power structures.

By the end, I think he gets halfway there. He's able to identify as Captain America on his own terms and deal with problems in a way that he wants, even if it's not what those in power want, and gets to top it off with a quintessential Sam speech that assumes the solutions to problems as making systems work better, even if they are inherently oppressive.

This is where Sam's second character trait invites further challenge. Sam's way of helping people and making the world better focuses on person-to-person, hands on help. Like his interactions with the boat and in his hometown, Sam likes to take problems as they come and come up with pragmatic solutions. It's not about changing the system, it's about helping people benefit from it, usually through collective community action or direct confrontation of an individual villain. This goes hand in hand with his desire not to look at his blackness from a political standpoint, it gets in the way of his collective, ground-level solution making. I would also imagine that as a trauma counselor, his advocacy takes the form of pragmatic solutions for those in need, and is less about highlighting the lack of government support for veterans as a policy priority more broadly.

I don't think this is a problem; Sam is a good man doing good work for so many people based in compassion and understanding, it what makes him such a good Captain America in the first place. However, I think that the increasing forces of military, government, and economic oppression characterized by organizations like the GRC, Damage Control, and the Western powers depicted in Wakanda Forever puts Sam in a world of people who have no intention of contributing to collective action for the good of those who are oppressed. The system that they're creating is specifically designed to consolidate power, to steal resources, and oppress those with power to challenge it. They offer no middle ground and in order to help those in need, to be a symbol of hope and compassion, Sam will have to take a political stance through his actions based on the political experiences as a black man. The thing that Isaiah knows that Sam understands is that a black man, you never get to choose when your blackness is politicized, and it therefore cannot be avoided. I hope this is something they touch on in the upcoming movie as I believe Sam is definitely up to that challenge and Mackie could really bring something strong to that struggle.

#sam wilson #captain america #falcon and the winter soldier #isaiah bradley #blackness #military #ptsd #geopolitics #racism #new world order #wakanda forever shuri #captain america winter soldier

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merryfortune · 3 years

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Alexithymia

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Ship: Ryoken/Spectre

Rating: T

Word Count: 2,799

Tags: Canon Compliant, Knights of Hanoi as Found Family, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Abandonment Issues, Attachment Disorders, Selective Mutism

Synopsis: Ryoken becomes worried for Spectre when his behaviour deviates, and even regresses, after the defeat of Bohman.

Ryoken was relieved to log out from the Link VRAINS after Playmaker had won against Bohman. He had been relieved to simply have been revived, standing in the plaza with Spectre by his side, smiling as people’s very souls were restored to them after being taken for the Neuron Link but being able to breathe air – even heavily recycled, air conditioned air – of the office filled him with relief and gratitude.

Ryoken got up from his seat and Spectre finally opened his eyes. Ryoken wanted to pounce on him with a hug as soon as he did that, but Spectre was fussy, always had been and Ryoken thought he always would be. So, he gave Spectre a moment and then he looked towards Ryoken. There was an indescribable emotion on the blue surface of his iris; his lips twitched.

“We did it.” Ryoken said. “We lived. The vast majority of the Ignis have perished; the Light Ignis’s faction is a threat no more. We did it.”

“Yes, congratulations.” Spectre’s voice sounded indescribable.

Ryoken beamed. “I’m so happy right now, thank you, for everything, all your efforts.”

He couldn’t contain himself. Yes, the issue of the Dark Ignis remained but for now, now was a time of victory and celebration, no matter how small or what ills were to follow. Ryoken sat down next to Spectre and hugged him. Spectre stiffened as the touch, as Ryoken’s arms came around him and held him. Ryoken sighed. Spectre flinched.

“Please, sir, stop…” Spectre murmured.

Ryoken receded slightly and he gazed up at Spectre who looked most uncomfortable, even frightened, by his embrace.

“Are you alright…?” Ryoken asked and he swallowed a lump in his throat.

“It hurts.” Spectre admitted in a tiny voice. “It hurts when you do that.”

He wanted to get away so Ryoken let him. Ryoken straightened up and the atmosphere turned awkward. Ryoken hadn’t thought that he would be squeezing Spectre so hard that it would hurt, and it wounded him that he had yet neither said a word. There was silence save for the whirring of the air conditioner on the far wall. Spectre pointedly looked the other way, but he could feel when Ryoken stole looks at him.

“Are you okay?” Ryoken asked again.

Spectre attempted to reply but his words came out a stutter, confused and agitated until he finally gave up and changed the subject. “You said Playmaker defeated Bohman but what of you? What happened after I-” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“If you can stomach it, I’m sure the Lieutenants may have recordings of the duels that took place after your loss.” Ryoken said.

“I would rather hear it from you first.” Spectre replied with a terse exhale.

“Of course, as you wish.”

Ryoken then went on to explain the events which followed after Spectre’s loss. Some of it made him laugh, some of it harrowed him, but there was an oddness to his reactions, a certain detached callousness, which Ryoken couldn’t deny despite how much he wanted to. He wasn’t certain but he could tell. Something about Spectre was off but he couldn’t confirm it until later. When their conversation finished up, they were both famished, and the Lieutenants had returned so they had a meal together.

The fridge had been stocked up with the best and even though the kitchen was tiny, there was an atmosphere of celebration. Aso, Kyoko, and Genome: they all agreed that with the vast majority of the Ignis terminated, it was time to take the victory no matter how meagre. Spectre merely sat and watched. It was eerie and yet, the Lieutenants hardly seemed to notice but its not like Spectre was a big personality. He was a small one. A wisp of the thing and right now, he just wanted to sit at the dining table chair and watch with a rather blank expression.

Ryoken kept reminding himself to keep glancing towards him, keep checking on him but he couldn’t bring himself to ask for Spectre’s opinion on things. He was reasonably certain that even if he were to ask, then he would merely be stalled out or lied to. He could forgive Spectre either way for that, those were two cores of his character, after all, but Ryoken still cared for him very deeply.

“Thank you.” Spectre said when Kyoko put a plate of food in front him. He didn’t smile.

“Your welcome.” Kyoko replied but she glanced at Ryoken, she had noticed as well.

No one in this so-called household was a gourmet chef but if there was anyone who came close, it would have been Spectre. He cared deeply about his produce and how it was treated, he wanted it to be certain that they were treated with care and respect, so he typically produced the best meals. Not for this luncheon, at least.

Everyone sat at the table and thanked each other for the meal, for surviving, and so forth. The Lieutenants ate ravenously and at the other end, of both the table and the spectrum, Spectre barely ate with Ryoken truly in between. Spectre finished first and then retired to his bed on the yacht; no one stopped him. So, no one did the dishes, either, since after eating, everyone wanted to sleep.

Ryoken left his plate and crockery on the sink then slunk off. He and Spectre shared a twin room and he was quiet as he entered it. There wasn’t much space physically between the two beds since it was kind of cramped on the yacht, but it felt a lot bigger as Ryoken’s eyes settled on how defensive Spectre seemed, lying on his side with his back to the door. Ryoken’s anxieties just worsened.

But it was nothing compared to when he managed to confirm and get a better grapple on what Spectre was feeling at present. Or if he was even feeling anything at all.

The following day, they all woke up at weird times, feeling groggy and bad so Ryoken, against everyone’s wishes, they wanted to lie low and eat some more, and maybe do the dishes if they were feeling really daring but he convinced them otherwise. He returned the yacht to the marina and at dusk, he dragged everyone off the yacht and sent them on their ways. To do anything for an hour and then they would be back.

Ryoken was hoping that even Spectre would go off and do his own thing but very sullenly, he insisted that he would prefer to shadow Ryoken, so he did. So, Ryoken donned the choice of doing something that he thought Spectre would like, even for a little while and he figured there was no choice more obvious than walking along the pier, they had planter boxes and sculptures and similar. He thought surely that would perk Spectre up, even a little, but he was wrong. Really wrong.

Spectre followed at a few paces and Ryoken couldn’t bring himself to grab Spectre’s hand and all but make it a date. But Ryoken was afraid that he might hurt Spectre again, like when he had hugged him yesterday. He stood in front of one planter box and looked out to the water which shone with the oncoming hues of dusk. He pointed at the flowers. He thought they were pretty, all their tiny buds and the wiry stems of a grey-green.

“Hey, Spectre, can you tell me any fun facts about this variety?” he asked. He thought that they were peonies, but he wasn’t sure.

Spectre caught up and he instead mumbled, “I don’t like the crowd here.”

Ryoken glanced around. There were less people here than he thought; maybe they were all crammed inside the bars and restaurants along the pier. But he nodded. He knew that Spectre had never been overly fond of public places and big crowds and all their social batteries were running on empty. It was understandable; it was also excusable.

“Okay,” Ryoken replied, a little downhearted and rejected, “let’s go home.”

“Thank you, sir.” Spectre sounded a little bit happier.

Ryoken had wanted to linger longer along the pier but if Spectre wanted to go home, then they would both go home. They walked back and again, Spectre remained a few steps behind Ryoken. Normally, he didn’t mind, but it felt more indicative of something else given the events of yesterday.

At dinner, Spectre hardly ate again and was the first to retire to bed, Ryoken gave him the space he clearly wanted by washing the dishes but the repetitiveness of cleaning up today and yesterday’s meals, gave him too much time to be inside his head worrying about Spectre. After finishing up, wiping down his hands, Ryoken retired to his and Spectre’s room. He saw that Spectre was sleeping on his side again. It was still unusual, he tended to prefer to sleep on his back and it made Ryoken wonder, was he actually asleep?

So, he prompted him, “Spectre?”

“Yes, sir?” he replied tiredly.

“Are you sure you ate enough today?” Ryoken asked. “There’s snacks in the pantry if you want them.”

“I’m quite right, thank you for your concern.” He sounded scripted.

“Why is that?” Ryoken asked and he already feared the truth, should he elicit it at all.

“It’s simple.” Spectre scoffed. “Losers don’t eat.”

There it was. Ryoken was surprised that Spectre had said that at all, but he was glad to be told the truth, no matter how terribly electrifying, like a live wire come loose.

Ryoken settled on the bed. He wondered if now and here the right time for those sorts of conversations. He stole another look at Spectre. It was obvious he just needed time to lick his wounds and have some space. Ryoken closed his eyes and held the sheet up right, lying the other way to Spectre.

Dealing with him had been easier when he was a child. When he didn’t know all their tricks. When he had come to the mansion, and when the Lieutenants had actually managed to speak with one of the good doctor’s darling test subjects, it became increasingly obvious that there was something wrong with this child’s psyche. And that aberration had already been there long before he had been their test subject in the Hanoi Project.

Ryoken recalled that he would sometimes be schooled by the assistants in order to coach Spectre, engage him in therapy play and the like. Ryoken helped to teach Spectre his own emotions and the like, playing in very staged games and the like but at least in the moment, Spectre had never noticed because he had never really played with another child before. Eventually, once he had gotten good at it, they started him on identifying emotions and the like in other people and for better or worse, he had gotten very good at that as he had a naturally calculative mind.

But they weren’t children anymore and for better or worse, though he would deny it, possibly, Spectre had agency and, no doubt in his mind, Ryoken was both therapy and better than therapy. He would never own up to what he was feeling until he had repressed it and gotten better at masking and mirroring – like he had done in the Link VRAINS, Ryoken realised now. He knew there had been something a little too good about how Spectre had smiled there, in a cascade of glowing, golden specks. He had smiled a little too wide. He just wanted to be praised for going through the motions, following Ryoken’s sincere and earnest grin. So happy to be alive.

A few weeks passed like this. A sort of in-between where the pallor of awkwardness had receded slightly so Ryoken tested his waters again. It occurred to him that maybe the Earth Ignis, who was now wholly and utterly gone, had been holding up more of Spectre’s emotions than either of them had ever realised. Of course, there were other possibilities too. Maybe it was just a depressive slump, maybe it was something else with its roots in Spectre’s childhood and infancy, but either way, they to get back into the network and continue their mission. The Dark Ignis was still at large and therefore, still posed a threat and had to be eradicated. Yusaku was the only thing that stood between them and the final bout of their goal.

However, more mundanely, Ryoken hoped that exposing Spectre to people he knew, even if he wasn’t particularly close to them or even liked them, might inspire a change in him. Ryoken had been observing Spectre and he had taken to routine again, that was good. Getting up early, going to bed late, and doing all the errands and the like in between but he hadn’t absorbed back into his hobbies or the like which was worrying.

At least he came along with Ryoken on that particular mission. Ryoken wouldn’t have forced him if he said no as it wasn’t his thing at the best of times and in consolidation, Ryoken didn’t drag it out either. He said his hellos, he asked about the Ignis, he did his best to ignore Takeru who was hanging out at Café Nagi as well.

But it was just him who had said his hellos and said his bit. He had been hoping that Spectre would say something – anything, even just a hello – but alas. He just stood behind him at a few paces with a grumpy, scrunched up sort of expression.

They returned to the yacht not long after. Ryoken picked up two iced teas for them elsewhere, one for himself and one for Spectre, because Spectre wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, and especially not from Café Nagi, and whilst he didn’t really want it, he appreciated it. But both the one-use plastic drinks ended up on the table and they retired to their room together.

They sat on the edge of their bed; their feet almost meeting in the middle, but Spectre had angled himself away from Ryoken because regardless of if Spectre wanted it, Ryoken wanted to confront the weirdness between them.

“I’m sorry.” Ryoken started.

“Don’t.” Spectre intoned sharply but oddly disappointed.

“I noticed your mutism flared up around Playmaker and Soulburner earlier…” Ryoken said, and also at the iced tea kiosk but he didn’t mention that.

“Yes…” Spectre murmured.

“I just want to know,” Ryoken said, “is there anything I can do for you? I’m just really worried about you.”

“I know…” Spectre murmured. “I’m just having a hard time collecting my thoughts as of late.”

“I can tell.” Ryoken replied.

Spectre hazarded a smile because he knew that’s what Ryoken was likely probing him for.

“If you think of anything, anything at all, I want to help.” Ryoken said.

“I’d like to hear it.” Spectre blurted out suddenly, eyes watering. “I want to hear you say you won’t leave me behind or abandon me, please.”

Ryoken blinked. He was surprised but he also wasn’t surprised, so his expression softened.

“I won’t ever leave you behind, I promise, you mean the world to me Spectre, if I were to abandon you, I would be abandoning my whole world, please believe me when I say that, I love you.” Ryoken replied and then he realised what he had said. “You don’t have to say it back to me, don’t feel pressured, please.”

“I love you too.” Spectre said in a tiny voice and he smiled. It was small and twitchy and even a little uncertain but Ryoken knew it was genuine.

Ryoken smiled. “Can I hug you?” he asked. “Please.”

Spectre flashed him a look that made him look very fawnish and hurt but he instead said, “No.”

“Oh.” Ryoken murmured. Not quite a gasp but he couldn’t be surprised. It was Spectre’s decision; he would respect it even if it made his heart flutter.

“I want to hug you.” Spectre said with clarification, but he still carried this odd look about him.

Spectre got up and he sat next to Ryoken. His heart hammered in his chest. Ryoken felt similarly. Spectre hefted his legs up and he cuddled in, holding Ryoken at the bottom of his waist. He had this very petulant look of dislike on his face, but he closed his eyes. He listened to the swift beating of Ryoken’s heart. Ryoken smiled and put his arms around Spectre.

“Does it hurt?” Ryoken asked in a quiet voice.

“No, it doesn’t.” Spectre replied as a whisper.

Ryoken wanted to reply but he was fairly certain that his gladness was already conveyed as Spectre continued to settle. He didn’t seem all that uncomfortable anymore so Ryoken patted his back, stroking him gently.

#respectfulshipping #yugioh vrains #vrains #yugioh #ryoken kogami #kogami ryoken #spectre (vrains)#specter (vrains)#writing tag #i teared up twice: once whilst coming up with the idea and once whilst writing it #so im hoping that it elicits the same/similar reaction in anyone who reads it #i also hope i've respectfully portrayed the disorders i've written spectre as having too....

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auxiliarydetective · 3 years

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1, 5 und 6 für die fanfic writer questions?

~ sehr-wohl-die-herrschaften ✨

You didn't specify for what story, so I'll be answering this for my ao3 Harry Potter fanfiction. Sorry not sorry, even though this is a D3F blog. I'll try my best to answer the question for D3F too, but I can't make any promises that they'll be good.

This will be a long post, so I'm placing a cut.

1. If you had to create a soundtrack for your story, what songs would you choose? Why?

Okay, das ist meine Lieblingsfrage aus dem gesamten Post, also THANK YOU SO MUCH! Tatsächlich plane ich das innerlich schon ein bisschen mit, während ich schreibe, wenn ich mir Playlists zusammenstelle.

Die Drei ??? - Auxiliary AU: Aus irgendeinem Grund habe ich Jelena schon immer mit Billie Eilish verbunden. Keine Ahnung warum, aber das hat sich einfach in meinem Kopf so festgesetzt, und weil die Geschichte aus Jelenas Perspektive ist, wird also mindestens ein Billie Eilish Song vorkommen. Womöglich ist der erste Song von ihr, an den man bei Jelena denkt "bad guy", oder "you should see me in a crown" oder etwas Ähnliches. Gute Idee, aber nicht ganz. Billie Eilish steht bei mir oft eher für Jelenas emotionale Seite. Also wäre ein Lied im Soundtrack "i love you". Ich glaube, die Titel erklärt den Sinn dahinter schon ganz gut. Andere Lieder wären "Woman" von Kesha, "Brother" von Kodaline und "Chasing Cars" von Snow Patrol. Ein sehr obscures Lied ist das "Whack World Medley" von Citizen Queen. Keine Ahnung wieso, aber die Vibes stimmen irgendwie. Natürlich wären auch ein paar russische Lieder drin. Angemessene Covers von Kalinka könnten sowohl als Hintergrundmusik zu einem kleinen Kampf, als auch die Musik von einem Flashback sein, je nachdem welche Stelle man nimmt. Es gibt aber ein paar perfekte Lieder, die definitiv rein müssten. Pianistec auf YouTube hat die Drei ??? Intros gecovered. Perfection. Eins davon ist sogar auf Spotify. Sollte in jede D3F-Playlist rein.

Harry Potter time! Obviously, Harry Potter already has a soundtrack. But that would take away all the fun, so... First of all, "Woman Like Me" by Little Mix. It fits the sassy personality and later persona Asteria takes on. Fitting to that, "Teen Idle" and "Oh No!" by MARINA. You can interpret your own reasons into that. "Battlefield" by SVRCINA for Deathly Hallows. "Line Without a Hook" by Ricky Montgomery for the relationship between Percy and Asteria, but it's not meant in a romantic way. "The Night Is Still Young" by Nicky Minaj, maybe for a victory party after a quidditch game, or just for a nice evening with Fred and George. "8TEEN" by Khalid for... something. Just. I like it. "High Enough" by K.Flay for something that I can't tell you what it is without throwing spoilers everywhere. Let's just say the kind of twisted vibe is fitting for it. Could be more twisted. It gets more twisted if I tell you that the song would not be about a person in that case. It wouldn't be about a twisted version of being in love, but about an obsession. A mania even. That's why it fits. Arctic Monkeys in general also would fit the story. "Judas" by Lady Gaga. "Everything At Once" by Lenka. It sounds innocent, right? Well, in this case it's about wanting to be perfect for everyone at once. "Mr Loverman" by Ricky Montgomeryfor Asteria's heartache in later years of the story. "Positions" by Ariana Grande and "Detention" by Melanie Martinez for the vibe. "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" for a cheesy slow dance between Fred and Asteria because obviously they would. But THE most important song of all, which is why I saved it for last: "Arsonist's Lullaby" by Hozier. No explainations given, you'll have to read and find out yourself.

5. What makes your main ship so compatible? Or, what makes them so incompatible? What do they see in each other?

Mein main ship im Auxiliary AU ist tatsächlich Peter/Jelena, auch wenn das eigentlich gar nicht so rauskommt. Peter und Jelena passen zusammen, weil sie sich ergänzen. Man könnte auch sagen, Gegensätze ziehen sich an, aber sie haben auch was gemeinsam. Peter ist ängstlich und vorsichtig. Jelena ist ziemlich rücksichtslos und aggressiv. Man könnte meinen, dass das absolut nicht zusammen passt. Tatsächlich sorgt das aber für eine relativ gute dynamic. Wenn Peter Angst hat, passt Jelena auf ihn auf und wenn Jelena etwas Unvorsichtiges tun will, hat Peter vergleichsweise gute Chancen, sie davon abzuhalten. Peter bewundert Jelena für ihren Mut, macht sich aber auch ständig Sorgen um sie, weil sie so unvorsichtig ist. Jelena findet Peter richtig liebenswert, wenn nicht fast schon niedlich. Sie hat es sich als Ziel gesetzt, ihm endlich mal die Aufmerksamkeit zu geben, die er braucht, und sich um ihn zu kümmern. Deshalb sieht man die beiden oft zusammen und Jelena hält seine Hand, wenn er Angst hat. Das geht mittlerweile schon längst ohne Kommunikation.

Actually, the story doesn't have a main ship. Or at least it's hard to name one and I don't want to say something wrong because I don't want to claim knowing anything about what polyamorous relationships are like and what you call which kind of relationship. Essentially, Asteria, being the main character, is in a relationship with both Fred Weasley and Oliver Wood, though she only starts dating Fred when Oliver has already graduated and the two of them are just friends. I guess I'll answer the question for both relationships and try to keep it short.

I'll start with the relationship that has been going on longer, which is Oliver/Asteria. Oliver loves Asteria for her sense of right and wrong and for the fact that she might just be the only person on the entire planet not to get annoyed or bored when he rambles about quidditch for hours on end or spends a lot of time training or at practice. He's amazed with her understanding for his passion. Asteria, on the other hand, thinks it's exactly his passion that makes him so wonderful. He's not afraid to show it to literally everyone. She also thinks it's adorable how he gets so excited over it every single time someone mentions the subject, no matter how many times he's talked about it before. She never gets tired of listening to him. Another big reason for her to love him is how he reacted to her illness (I won't say here which illness, read yourself). She just thought it was the sweetest thing ever. He also makes her feel safe, which is rare.

Now, Fred/Asteria. A dangerous relationship. A Weasley and a Malfoy. Both of them know that and it's a big factor why others might deem them incompatible. But, actually, they go very well together. Fred and George are the biggest pranksters of the entire school, everyone knows that. Asteria, on the other hand, is a trickster. She breaks almost as many rules as them, but she does it very sneakily. Nobody has ever caught her. Asteria is amazingly good at lying and deception and she enjoys tricking people. So while Fred does the big pranks that are just for fun and sometimes also for revenge, Asteria tricks people mostly for revenge or to follow along with her view of right and wrong. Fred admires Asteria's abilities when it comes to rule-breaking and trickery, but also her craftsmanship and inventive mind. He's essentially forgotten that her last name means that they should be enemies and has completely detatched her from her parents in his mind. Something else he appreciates is that Asteria grounds him and gives him advice when he's about to do something that he'll most likely regret in the future or that will have major consequences. Asteria admires Fred as a person, but also for what he represents through his family - love, acceptance and protectiveness. The kind of family Asteria wishes she had. Fred cheers her up when she is down and makes her worry less. Unlike Oliver, he doesn't make her feel safe. At least not in the same way. But that's exactly what she loves about Fred. He's unpredictable and wild, something that Asteria's childhood was very much lacking. He's supportive of everything she does that other people would call her mad for. Whatever "crazy" or "stupid" thing she wants to try, he does it with her or has already done it and can show her how to do it right. But no matter how dangerously crazy their adventures get, he watches out for her. They're a chaos couple, but also very intimate. Lots of people are confused that their relationship can be both chaotic and calm at the same time.

6. How do you feel the environment your character(s) grew up in shaped them as a human? How does the environment they’re in now shape them currently?

Jelenas Vater ist sehr streng und emotional eher distanziert. Das hat sie natürlich beeinflusst. Einerseits hat sie es sich zum Ziel gesetzt, Regeln zu brechen. Sie ist ein Rebell, weil sie diesen Käfig, in den ihr Vater sie gesetzt hat, hasst. Gleichzeitig hat sie aber ihre emotionale Distanzierung von ihm. Als Kind hat sie natürlich immer noch versucht. Kinder sind eben deutlich emotionaler. Aber spätestens mit dem Tod ihrer Mutter war ihr Vater emotional gesehen nur noch eine Steinsäule und Jelena ist selbst emotional kalt geworden. Sie ist es einfach nicht mehr gewohnt, mit irgendwen über ihre Emotionen zu reden. Musik ist ein sehr großes Medium für sie was das angeht. Es hilft ihr, die ganzen aufgestauten Emotionen einfach rauszulassen. Ihr extremer Beschützerinstinkt und die Einteilung von Leuten in Gut und Böse kommt vom Tod ihrer Mutter - und womöglich aus Filmen, die sie in der Richtung nach dem Tod beeinflusst haben. Schließlich ist es in Filmen normal und sogar gut, dass der Hauptcharakter böse Menschen bekämpft, verletzt und womöglich tötet. So ähnlich verhält es sich mit Jelena. Sie selbst zögert nicht, jemanden zu verletzen, wenn er ihr oder anderen droht. Aber wehe jemand kommt ihren Freunden zu nahe. Seit sie mehr Zeit mit den Jungs verbringt, hat sie sich definitiv zum Besseren verändert. Sie hat endlich jemanden, mit dem sie über ihre Emotionen reden kann - zumindest theoretisch. Die Jungs haben es auch geschafft, sie zumindest etwas aus ihrem aggressiven Kampfmodus zu holen und ihr dabei geholfen, den Tod ihrer Mutter endlich richtig zu verarbeiten.

Growing up a Malfoy will always shape a character. But that's especially the case with Asteria because of her illness and the fact that she's two years older than Draco. This means that she was born during the First Wizarding War. Her illness was clearly visible and known at birth, so she immediately became an unwanted child. This was always a big factor in her childhood at Malfoy Manor. She was locked in the manor for most of her childhood and whenever she went out, she had to take potions to make her appear normal. Still, she had her parents' blood purist beliefs, so she thought this was the right thing to do, even if she suffered under it. However, she soon breaks out of these prejudices during her first two years at Hogwarts, seeing with her own eyes that blood status does not matter. Hermione finally gives her the final push in her third year. Now, Asteria has practically turned fully against her parents and is taking Draco with her, even when he is still mostly trying to keep up his snobbish bully persona. This position of hers becomes stronger and stronger as she becomes close friends with Fred and George and starts dating Oliver. It's hard to say where "growing up" ends and where "currently" starts, so let me just say: Asteria is under constant influence from the outside and inside, wether she wants it or not, especially with Voldemort's return. Things spin wildly out of her control.

#ask game #fanfic writer ask game #fanfiction #die drei ???#die drei fragezeichen #peter/jelena #jelena charkova #peter shaw #harry potter #hp #harry potter fanfiction #malfoy family #harry potter oc #hp oc #fred x oc #oliver wood #fred weasley #oliver x oc

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laemony · 3 years

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What I’ve read in 2020!

Welcome back to this thing I started in 2017 and still don’t know WHY it should matter!

2017 2018 2019

This year has been a shit show but I must admit I’ve read quite a lot (who knew that staying at home with nothing else to do, except watching the world burn, could lead to this?!) Anyway! This is it, enjoy!

WAR AND PEACE, L. TOLSTOY – biggest book I’ve ever read in my life, I don’t know how but it’s never boring, I loved the characters and I adored the historical knowledge; the two subjects mix, when people are at war they miss peace, and when they are at peace they miss and look for war; it’s full of time skips in a very Russian fashion… only thing it bothered me, in my edition at least, all the paragraphs written in French didn’t have a translation, I hope I didn’t lose too many infos lol 8,5/10

PERSUASION, J. AUSTEN – this book! A surprise, a revelation, a discovery! Brilliant! Funny! Lovely! Anne’s expressions of her family are hilarious; one of my favourites so far, even if “lost love who is not as forgotten as you thought they would be” sounds way too much like the story of my life 10/10

THE YEARS, V. WOOLF – it felt lonely, yet lively; a bit hopeless, but not too sad; the chatter, the teasing, is all very familiar, as if she wrote about my own family; simple in its day-to-day life; felt like autumn (if it makes sense????) 8/10

THE DEAD SOULS, N. GOGOL – ridiculous characters, ridiculous conversations, I loved the ironic way it depicts Russian society and its people; the last chapter is a mess, I couldn’t imagine how it could end and to be honest I still have no idea 7,5/10

THE PROCESS, F. KAFKA – no time-line; not a single emotion, not from the characters neither from the author; a cold, indifferent depiction of a series of facts, which are everything but clear; not an inch of silence, just words; it tired me out, I just needed a bit more silence 5/10

THE WHITE GUARD, M. BULGAKOV – I simply love how he writes (wrote??) and his characters are always so unique and interesting; I adore the references to Tolstoy and Dostoevskij; this book has more of a painting than a book; it’s an impressive recount of a fundamental historical moment; the end is not clear but beautiful 9,5/10

THE HANDMAID’S TALE, M. ATWOOD – I thought I wouldn’t have been able to stomach it, and then I found out that there’s a right way to tell a story about violence and she mastered it; cruel people are just that, no craziness, no dark past, just thirst for power and the confidence of knowing what’s best for everyone; it gave me chills, it made me angry; I love how she writes, it’s the first time a first person pov doesn’t make me want to tear my eyes off my face… people who watched the series: do you know what’s the real name of Offred? I need it 10/10

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, J. AUSTEN – as usual, her books must be read in one breath; Jane and Charles’ story is my favourite; I love Mr Bennet as much as I can’t suffer everyone’s sisters (except Miss Darcy of course); it has an amazing mix of characters, I absolutely love the drama that follows Mr Darcy; I honestly expected a more dramatic confession at the end but it was great 9/10

NOTES FROM A DEATH HOUSE, F. DOSTOEVSKY – a bit too auto-biographic for my tastes, but I adored his depiction of a humanity which is often forgotten; it’s very disturbing in its actuality if you stop to think about it; he never tires himself saying that those “criminals” are also and foremost human beings 7,5/10

ASYLUM, P. MCGRATH – the first part is fast-paced, it leaves you breathless and with an anxious need to keep on reading; then it started to be a little more psychological and it kinda bored me; I liked the narrator very much, it was really disturbing 7,5/10

DOCTOR ZIVAGO, B. PASTERNAK – every Russian book I’ve read gave me a glimpse of Russian history and culture, yet they’re all different and I think that’s often underappreciated. Now, this book. This book is, simply put, breath-taking. The landscapes are immense and colourful, the talent of this man is unparalleled; it has a devastating end, it’s a book I’ll probably read over and over again just ‘cause reading it is “such a sweet sorrow” 10/10 (this rec is shorter than what it should have been in my mind, but I’d probably end up talking about this book and only this book so that’s it, it’s called self-control)

EMMA, J. AUSTEN – at first I was annoyed by Emma’s character, but then she proved herself so oblivious it started to become pretty funny; I can’t get over how much people talk in this book, the irony is SO on point, I love it; I probably like it more than Persuasion, because there are so many twists that the ending left me really surprised for once. And let me tell you, Jane Austen is THE BEST at depicting insufferable people 10/10

UNO, NESSUNO, E CENTOMILA, L. PIRANDELLO – look at me, reading Italian literature, world must be ending… to be honest? I don’t remember much of it? And I didn’t take notes as I usually do? I must’ve been bored out of my mind… I’ll give it a 6/10 on trust alone because I know Pirandello is great lol

HIS DARK MATERIALS, P. PULLMAN – finally got to this and it left me pretty confused; the first book is great, I loved the characters and the scenery, but in the other two I felt like too many things were left unexplained and Lyra’s character too lost some of its greatness; the end brought very little clarity, if at all, and of course I hated it with a passion; I don’t think he expressed the maximum potential of the world he built, but I liked it alright 7,5/10

1984, G. ORWELL – saying I was disappointed might be an understatement; I like how it’s written but the story in itself is frustrating, frankly boring, and disappointing, especially the end; you don’t build so much tension just to end it like that! Tho, maybe that’s exactly what he wanted to convey; everything is pretty much hopeless, made me angry 7/10

CARRIE, S. KING – first of his book I’ve ever read, AND I LOVED IT; it’s not a style I like very much, letting us know how it will end since the beginning, but it was great, magnificent, empowering; I don’t know if I’ll ever have the patience to read the others (they’re all so big) but this certainly got me curious 9/10

JACOB’S ROOM, V. WOOLF – confusing, very confusing, more confusing than anything of hers; of course it’s very beautifully written, but I have no idea what happened there 6,5 maybe 7/10?

THE WITCH, S. JACKSON – my personal Halloween challenge begins with this; short, CREEPY, VERY CREEPY, to the point (what point?); absolutely loved it 8/10

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, S. JACKSON – listen, creepy houses are my jam, they’re the best; my first impression of the characters went like this: they’re all batshit crazy, I love them; it honestly gave me nightmares; I wish I would’ve read it in English tho 8/10

THE ABC MURDERS, A. CHRISTIE – the queen of plot-twists herself, she never disappoints; not my favourite, mind you, but it was great how she built the story of the murderer just to… well, you’ll have to read it 7,5/10

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, E. A. POE – I love when short stories such as this leave so much space around them to build whatever plot your imagination can come up with; it’s great, even left like it is 8/10

THE PENELOPIAD, M. ATWOOD – whatever guys, this woman has the ability to write the worst things in such a delicate way simply out of this world; I ADORE HER 9/10

THE UNCOMMON READER, A. BENNETT – hilarious from start to finish, kinda frustrating in the way only royal etiquette can be; I love how the Queen relates to others and I adored her inner monologue; the end is brilliant and the whole book (more or less 100 pages) feels like a breath of fresh air 8/10

THEATRE

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, W. SHAKESPEARE – funny, brilliant, it became one of my favourite comedies (and there aren’t many of them) 8/10

CYMBELINE, W. SHAKESPEARE – nice little thing, with all the ingredients of a tragedy but with a happy ending; for a moment I thought it would end in a King Lear’s way, glad it didn’t 7,5/10

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, W. SHAKESPEARE – the first of Shakespeare’s plays that I didn’t like at all, and I think the reasons are pretty clear to whoever has read it; it kinda felt “out of character” for him, but maybe I’m just an ignorant 4/10

POETRY and LETTERS

ARIEL, S. PLATH – raw, powerful, sad, everything I expected of it, I also have the best edition ever, she’s great 8/10

POEMS FROM THE MOOR, E. BRONTE – the talent, the power of this woman; I’ll cry the loss of the Gondal’s saga for the rest of my life 8/10

LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET, R. M. RILKE – amazing, the thins this man could write even in such a trivial thing as a letter, I love him 10/10

MARINA CVETAEVA – I must admit, I like her prose better than her poetry; her letters are heart breaking yet so full of enthusiasm you can’t help but feel for her; also, she loves Boris as much as I do, her letters to him are my favourite thing in the world 9/10

BORIS PASTERNAK – this man was the best present this year could give me, do yourself a favour and go read him 10/10

SPECIAL MENTION: THE SECRET HISTORY, D. TARTT – I may have a problem with her books, but I’ve started this in January and never got the patience to finish it; chapters WAY too long, characters that are so insufferable they can’t be real; pretentious, boring… I can’t give it a rating because I didn’t finish it and I’m not a monster, but the bar is very low

This is it I guess! I hope I gave you a little bit of entertainment, this is something I usually do for myself but I’m glad to share with you every year. I wish you a better end of 2020 than the whole, stay strong and stay safe! A virtual hug to everyone 💚💚💚

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nofacenocaseblog · 4 years

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𝗗𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 #3: NARCOPISOS Inc. /Barcelona narcopisos, a necessary evil

The 3rd episode of Dope Stories is the most in-depth investigation of the series, so much that it took me nearly 3 years to gain the trust and respect of my contacts and more importantly, to get relevant insights about the local drug market and its players to show, under a different angle than mainstream media, what’s happening behind the closed doors of the Ciutat Veilla’s narrow streets.

Playground 1 - Raval, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

“Drugs are ruining our neighborhood! “, “Narcopisos are disrupting the real estate market!” , “ We don’t feel safe!”…

Those are the slogans or headlines you see in the media or written on banners hanging from people’s balconies.

“Narcopisos are filthy and dangerous!”

But are they though?

FOREWORD

Before getting started, I wanted to write a few words about Barcelona. After living more than a decade in New York, my wife and I moved to Catalan capital for about 4 years. After reading this article you might think that I m not particularly fond of the town and its inhabitants. I won’t lie, we didn’t receive the warmest welcome, especially from Catalans. This said, the town and its vibe are unique and galvanizing. Very much like Marseille (my hometown), Barcelona is an harbor city with the port/marina right in the center, meaning: lots of traffics, smuggling, immigration, corruption, drugs etc… There is always “something going on”, if you catch my drift. Shady, nasty, funny, ugly, beautiful, vulgar, the cast of “pirate-like” characters gravitating around the city center is fascinating.

Occupied - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / Nikon 3200

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been drawn toward the forbidden, the danger, the illicit, the hidden, the bad... To my eyes, “ugly” has always been more interesting than “beautiful”. Barcelona is not a dangerous city but you need to keep your guard up: pick pockets roaming the subway, gypsies asking for money on La Rambla (the city’s most touristic avenue) while releasing your back pocket from your wallet, junkies selling stolen goods or begging for change for their next fix #nextfixandchill , black people selling fake airmax on the Barcelonetta marina, drunken street fights in the early hours of the morning... Tragicomic scenes are unravelling before your eyes in an surreal backdrop: Gaudi’s most beautiful “psychedelic” buildings (Sagrafa Familia, casa pedrera, Palau Guell...) in a jungle of gothic buildings ending on a fisherman village overseeing a beautiful beachfront promenade ending with the native “star’chitect” Bofill’s famous W...

Poolside - Barcelonetta, Barcelona / 2018 / iPhone

Ok, enough with the touristic tour, time to get real!

Stairway to Hell - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Embark on a descend to the heroin inferno that became Raval. From the fields of Afghanistan to the bloodstreams of Spain...

La Ruta [Spanish for “the route”]

19,414 Pakistanis live in Barcelona, 6,600 of them are established in the neighborhood: El Raval (1) meaning more than 30% of the total community. El Raval has always been my favorite barrio in town. With 47% of immigrants (2) , the mosaic of faces, cultures and shops you encounter is dazzling . Going back to the Pakistani population, I used the word “established” for a specific reason: they actually own many of the businesses in Raval: barbershop, cheap bars and restaurants, wholesale shops, import/export businesses, money transfer services (Western Union, Moneygram), food and grocery shops... I’m not accusing here the Pakistani business owners of backing the drug traffic but they basically created a web of small businesses in a tight net community with their own language, making it hard for the authorities to see through this social fabric potentially sheltering illegal activities.

Why the Pakistani population is subject to speculation and doubt from the local authorities? The answer is simple: Afghanistan. Afghanistan is by far the biggest producer of opium in the world. According to the US military, 90% of the world's heroin is made from opium grown in Afghanistan. It makes up 95% of the market in Europe (3). The country has been the leader in opium poppy production since 2001. Based on the 2014 report from the UNODC (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime), Afghanistan not only grow opium but also process heroin in several laboratory as well as morphine (easier to produce from raw opium by adding calcium oxide and ammonium chloride). From Afghanistan, several routes are used to smuggle their prime commodities: the Balkan route has been the primary route but things are changing and the Southern route has become more and more used. Afghanistan share 2,400km of border with Pakistan and over 50% of illicit afghan opiates are trafficked through Pakistan which enjoys a a strategic location making it a perfect dispatch zone with readily accessible by land, sea (Gwadar and Karachi seaport) and air ways .

The same UNODC report also indicates that the majority (37%) of the heroin seized in Pakistan was en-route for Europe..

*** Read and/or download the full report here ***

By the way, let’s not forget that Barcelona is also one of the Camorra’s stronghold. And with Russians and Albanian mafias also present on the territory, Spain -where no powerful local crime syndicate operates and laws on prostitution and gambling are “blurred” to say the least- has become one of organize crime’s favorite playgrounds for money laundering, drug smuggling, human trafficking, gambling and prostitution... Nothing really happens here without their “green light”, but that’s another story (5)

Back to our Southern route, once the product reaches Barcelona, it becomes very hard to pin point. Narcotics coming through the Balkan route also ends up in Barcelona but in different “retailers”’ hands: Romanian family-based clans, based mostly in Besos (a run-down project in the heart of Poblenou) and occupying one single narcopisos in Raval (they have moved 3 times over the 4-year period of my “investigation”) but known to have the purest and most processed Caballo sold in town.

El Caballo [Spanish for “the horse”, street name of heroin ]

[WARNING] Most of the photographs of this post are uncensored, quite graphic and… of poor quality…. my bad, I took them. But I had circumstances: hidden cellphone, no flash, illegal activities going on, indoor, with very little to no light… Shots are not the best (no pun intended) but you’ll step right into the infamous narcopisos you’ve heard of or read about. And not once they’ve been searched and trashed by the police like you’ve seen in the press but while they are in full operation. Raw, those images might be quite shocking to some of the readers, but take the emotion out of he equation and you’ll come to realized that, for lack a better choice, narcopisos are a necessary evil. My intention here is not to start a polemic nor come out as a provocateur but to shed light on a real issue, still happening, involving real people, slowly dying, failed by a syste unable -or unwilling- to help them.

Gears - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

El Raval

1989, US superstar Keith Harring is in Barcelona for his exhibition on La Rambla. After speaking with an old friend of him from New York living here for awhile, he decided to paint a mural, his way to to show his love for and connection with the town. The next day, Harring chose the wall in Plaça de Salvador Segui in Raval. He was warned that the area was one of the most dangerous areas in town. Back then, in the 80’s the Spanish government had the genius idea to decriminalize the use, but not the supply, of hard drugs and did not implement any proper treatments to sustain this measure... Spaniards have ignored the issue and it sparked a heroin addiction epidemic that saw HIV rates soar (2a).The artist was attracted to the neighborhood and decided it would offer the perfect canvas for his message about the dangers of drugs and AIDS. At first it was supposed to be a temporary mural but in the end, up to this day, you can still enjoy Harring’s mural behind the MACBA museum. Below is a photograph I took of what became now hot-spot for skateboarder and cool bars

Tricks - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

Beside its bad reputation, Raval has always been a magnet for artists and “cool kids”, misfits and outcasts but more recently the new kid on the block is named gentrification… in other word: Fun is over. Well… not quite yet. In Barcelona, everything moves slowly, gentrification included. The result is a mix of fancy hotels, art galleries, designer boutiques... mixed with prostitutes and their lovely clientele, dealers, junkies, businessmen, families of tourists wandering the streets… a fascinating mix of characters with theatrical scenes playing before your eyes: hustlers trying to rip off tourists, white collars finding themselves buying bad cocaine from a kid in a narrow, sketchy alley… the show is in the street, but not only.

The Narrows - Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / Nikon 3200

What businesses, in Barcelona, are open 24/7, have no vacancy, a steady stream of customers and a product that sells itself? The answer: Narcopisos Inc.

The phenomenon of the Narcopisos emerged in 2016 (a year after I moved to Barcelona) following Spain’s property crash. Foreclosed or unsold apartments, owned by banks and investment funds were left emptied, abandoned, in a country in full housing crisis... It wasn’t long before the vacant spaces started being squatted: some by respectable families, in need of a place to live, some by drug dealers using them as selling point and shooting gallery. A place where you can get a cheap fix in a relatively clean room.

Ritual - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Helped - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Thanks to my various contacts, I had access to different types of narcopisos, but from crack to dope houses, most of them were operating the same way: - a cctv video surveillance in place at the street level or someone looking out for the cops. - a room with junkies to confuse police upon arrival and make it look like they are actually squatting the place - 1 to 3 dealers serving customers one a the time. - An exit back door (if available) in case the police knocks on the front door. - One or two rooms for users. - Hourly cleaning of the premises to make the place look “decent” and “squatted” in case of a bust - Little quantity of drugs at the time, no more than 10 grams of each. - Open 24/7 - Re-up every hour or so - Single use paraphernalia available to the users - In some cases, Narcan at hand (medicine used to reverse the effect of an OD).

Cleaning Session - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

My connections in the Pakistani community took time to build but strengthen throughout the years to reached a level of trust where we came to split the bread at several occasions… no seriously, we actually got invited in their Halal “canteen” in Raval where only Pakistanis could enjoy their local cuisine, a unique experience… They also gave me access to two of their stash houses: located in legit apartments, in proper buildings, on the outskirt of Raval, close to Sant-Antoni, less prone to police check. No users there, only wholesalers, dispatching heroin to “representatives” of each narcopisos at below retail-price: between 20 and 40 euros the gram depending on the quantity purchased.

Going back to the narcopisos, some were run by junkies (where the product was often cut from the bash they were getting from the stash houses), some by pakistani or afghan immigrants, with decent quality product, some by Catalan families, living there for decades under stabilized rent and with their own connection and product of fluctuant quality. Last but not least, one narcopiso was occupied by the Romanian clan mentioned earlier. Below are some photos of one of their spot at 22 Carrer d’en Roig, later busted and walled by the Mossos d’esquadra (Catalan police)

Romanian at work - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

Boss - Career d’en Road 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2016 / iPhone

If narcopisos was selling both crack and heroin, two rooms were at the disposal of users, one for smoking their bottles or pipes and the other room to shoot up or smoke heroin on tiny pieces of foil.

Sterile hospital-like garbage disposal were available for discarding the used paraphernalia.

Bloodstream Hunt - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

#NextFixandChill - Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

Everything is provided to avoid the spread of disease and the use of the drug in plain sight in the street therefore reduce public disorder.

Not that dealers became humanitarian all of a sudden, but kicking customers with their (illegal) purchase out in the street expose them to being ratted on or worst, having an overdose in plain sight attracting the police and paramedics... either way, it’s not good for business so narcopisos’ “managers” rather keep their clientele indoor until they’re done using and good to do.

Now, there is another type of business in Barcelona dealing with drug users and addiction: it’s called Centre de Dispensació de Metadona - Centre d'Atenció Primària Casc Antic (the methadone clinic in short....).

* They’re not open 24/7 but rather in the morning only * It can take up to 2 weeks to see a doctor in order to enroll in a Methadone Maintenance Treatment -MMT (true story...when a single day can be the last one for a heroin addict living in the street) * Last but not least, since the doctors and nurses’ work schedule is way more important tthan their patients’ care, some centers give up 3 to 4 days worth of supply of methadone at once to heroin users so the health workers can have their days and weekends off. The result of this amazing system: the methadone is sold in the street by users so they can buy their heroin and/or in certain case, the methadone is saved up (for rainy days) and the patient keeps using heroin instead. Yes, the patient: let’s not forget that those “filthy junkies” actually are patients (even if they’re hardly seen as such in those centers), suffering from a disease called addiction, or substance abuse disorder if you prefer the american way of calling it, and in need of medical care but what can I say... old habits die hard (both way...).

Patients taking methadone to treat opioid dependance must receive the medication under the supervision of a practitioner. After a period of stability (based on progress and proven, consistent compliance with the medication dosage) and only then, patients may be allowed to take methadone at home between program visits... but not in Barcelona.

Methadone substitution as a treatment of opioid addiction does not function as much to curb addiction as to redirect it and maintain dependency on legal channels. Methadone has been designed that way, as a lifetime treatment whereas alternative palliatives such as Buprenorphine are not even considered by doctors when those therapies would be more efficient in certain cases: with users who do not shoot the drug for example, or with users wishing to quiet and get sober... but let's be honest here, sobriety has never been the objective of those methadone programs. The real goal of this public service is not to cure addiction, but to make sure junkies don’t use, steal, rob and/or commit act of violence in the streets to feed their habits

The patient here is not the users but the society. Those centers aren’t trying to help the user quit his habit, but to make sure the society doesn’t suffer from it. Good or bad, Narcopisos are curbing down the spread of diseases, cleaning up the streets from users as they offering temporary shelter to their customers and operate around the clock.. It seems to me that their function is almost... complementary if not necessary.

So before eradicating narcopisos from the face of Raval, let’s pause and look at the alternative: junkies buying and using drugs in the streets of the city center, in the worst sanitary condition possible with no regard for the residents around.

Mañana

So what’s next? Keeping those illegal activities going on? Certainly not.

But before jumping the gun and closing it all at once, better get ready for the alternative because drug addiction will not disappear with the narcopisos. In my last article, I speak about users stigmatization and how society still struggles to see addiction as a disease and not a will power issue, turning the blind eye to a sheer amount of studies and discoveries explaining how heroin addiction, over time, modify the pathway of your brain frontal lobe and affect your decisional power, making it hard -to not say impossible- to say “no”.

Don’t take me wrong. It would be naïve to think all users roaming the streets are here trying to quit and become their better self. Most of them have no intention to do so. I’m not here to judge nor take side. But in order to find a solution to the narcopiso situation, I would like to introduce Barcelona to his neighbor: Portugal.

Portugal had one of the worst heroin epidemic in Europe back in the 90′s and after the failed many “US war on drug”-type of approaches. They finally shift approach and started treated drug addicts as patients who needed help, not as criminals” says Goulao, the architect of Portugal drug policy. After the decriminalization and treatments, they planned to open “supervised drug consumption facilities” Naina Bajekal says in her 2018 article in the Time “where drug users can consume drugs in safer conditions with the assistance of trained staff. Such facilities have been running in Europe since 1986, when the first was opened in Berne, Switzerland.”(5)

The result? Evidence (6) shows these these type of sites save lives, reduce public disorder, and curb the spread of diseases.

Does that sound familiar? Yes, that's right, the first of the two businesses we spoke about: Narcopisos Inc.

Purgatory - Carrer d’en Roig 22, Raval, Barcelona / 2017 / iPhone

For No Face No Case: Dope Stories chapter 4, we’re going to Italy. Don’t worry, it won’t be another mafia-related article explaining how the N’Drangheta and Camorra became the most powerful crime syndicates in the world, you can watch that on TV. Called “Il Racconto dei Racconti” (Tales of Tales in english), the article will keep it real, street style: short stories from North to South: Torino, Milano, Genoa, Roma, Napoli... Stay tuned for some dope stories on how drugs are sold, used and abused in the Renaissance country

References (1) https://www.barcelona-metropolitan.com/featuresx/report-barcelona-pakistani-community/ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Raval (3) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47861444 (4)https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/07/inenglish/1544171107_204329.html (5) https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ (6) https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/

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shitty-check-please-aus · 4 years

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2020 Books Read So Far

Note: Most of these are audiobooks (listening to books counts as reading books and if you disagree I’d ask you to consider why you believe that), books I started and didn’t finish will be listed but not reviewed, and all my opinions are extremely subjective. I’m putting this on this blog because I want to and I think it’ll help me keep track of what I’ve read if I write it down in a couple places.

Some notes:

I’m surprised that most of these are nonfiction! I don’t usually think of myself as a nonfiction reader.

Having audiobooks has made me way more productive as a reader, since I can read while I’m doing repetitive tasks at work, when I have to stand on the bus, when I’m running, etc.

Naked, by David Sedaris

3/5, the audiobook was “unabridged selections” which means “we didn’t edit the individual essays but you’re only getting half the book”– it would probably have been a 4/5 if it was a whole book. I liked that Amy Sedaris was reading parts of it, but that’s because I like her more than I like her brother. This is sort of an example of the difference between “comedic” and “humorous,” because it’s definitely the latter.

Read it if: you want to read something pretty fucking weird.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell

4/5, I saw this recommended a lot when Hamilton first came out so it’s been in the back of my mind for a good while. The book had a great cast, and having different people reading the historical quotes was an excellent touch!

However, I think Vowell’s conversational style is a little jarring here sometimes. It’s like “wait, why are you talking about Bruce Springsteen, I’m not that familiar with his work but he definitely isn’t from Revolutionary War times.” I got her book Assassination Vacation at a used bookshop recently as well, and both books suffer from post-2016 hindsight, where she’ll say something about how incompetent and foolish the politicians of her time are, and I just have to snort to myself and say “Sarah, you’re going to lose your goddamn mind soon.” That’s a bit of an unfair reaction, but it’s hard to avoid having it.

I was also, maybe unfairly, expecting to learn more than I did. The problem is that I know a Lot about the Revolutionary War, and from the introduction I thought we’d hear more about Lafayette’s later life (my knowledge drops sharply after about 1810). The book basically ends after the Battle of Yorktown, though.

Read it if: you have not seen/listened to both Hamilton and 1776, or if you want to read a summary of the Revolutionary War with a focus on one French captain.

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

3/5, honestly maybe a 2.5/5. Okay, so. Either I know a lot more about American History than I felt like I did or this is again a very surface level thing. Part of it is because she spends 123 pages on Abe Lincoln. There are 255 pages total. 2/3 of the states I’ve lived in are Indiana and Illinois, two states that fight about claiming Lincoln as their own, and I’ve been to D.C. 4 or 5 times, so I feel like I know enough about Lincoln. I know about John Wilkes Booth, and his brother Edwin who saved Lincoln’s son’s life, and the death train that took Lincoln’s body around the country. I did enjoy learning about the doctor who was probably conspiring with Booth and how he ended up saving tons of lives in prison when there was a yellow fever outbreak (also to be briefly unbearably nitpicky: I think she might have mixed up dengue and yellow fever? She calls yellow fever “breakbone” but I can only find instances online of people calling dengue fever that. Maybe they called them all breakbone in the late 1800s. If anyone reading this is an epidemiologist, let me know).

It was interesting to hear that Charles Guiteau, killer of President Garfield, was part of the Oneida cult. I’m trying to think of anything notable she said about Leon Czolgosz, killer of President McKinley. I guess she talks about how people assumed he was a foreigner because of his name, but I already listened to “The Ballad of Czolgosz” in Assassins, so I knew “Czolgosz, angry man, born in the middle of Michigan.”

This one is from 2005 so the politics stuff is a little more interesting, since at the time I was busy learning multiplication and spending one entire baseball season learning about baseball and following my team (they won the world series, I have excellent timing). I will say that in 2005 we did have Google, so I am again annoyed with some of her asides and personal anecdotes. Look, if you go to the Hemingway house and you don’t know there will be cats there, that’s on you if you don’t bring your Claritin. Hemingway is associated with only two good things, six-toed cats and Daiquiris.

She also does not acknowledge that the parties basically switched platforms? Lincoln’s Republican party is not today’s Republican party, in fact kind of the opposite, so it’s weird that she starts the book with a dedication that’s like “to my lifelong Democrat grandpa, he’d be pissed I dedicated a book about 3 Republicans to him.” I guess she does sometimes say stuff like “how did Lincoln’s party become Reagan’s” (paraphrase), but she doesn’t actually get into it.

Speaking of Democrats, she literally spends more time talking about Pablo Picasso than she spends talking about JFK. She doesn’t explain why she didn’t talk about JFK, but it seems bizarre to me to write a book about American assassinations and to leave out John Fucking Kennedy. Literally I’ve talked more about JFK in this section than she did in her assassin book. It’s not until page 253 that JFK gets a full paragraph. There are 255 pages total. Truly, if she’d taken a paragraph to be like “I’m focusing on the presidents who were elected before 1900″ or “the presidents whose immediate families aren’t still alive” or even “I didn’t want to travel to Dallas for research” or SOMETHING to explain why she left out JFK, I would have understood it more instead of flipping through the pages wondering what was going on.

Read it if: You do not listen to too many history podcasts and you didn’t read the Wikipedia page for the musical Assassins. And I guess if you don’t want to acknowledge that JFK did also get assassinated and that was kind of a big deal. Actually just listen to Assassins instead.

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

5/5 as a mystery, 0/5 for its original title (not gonna say it here but if you’ve ever googled the name of HP Lovecraft’s cat, it’s along those lines). Less than 6 hours, narrated by Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, fairly ideal as an audiobook. I am 95% sure I’ve already read this, because I spent the summer before I started high school reading every Agatha Christie book in the library (I do not have a list of all the Agatha Christie books in my library the summer of 2010, so there is some question).

Read if: you want to hear the guy from Downton Abbey deliver the line “I’m not a complete fool!” in a tone that makes it sound like “I’m not a fucking moron!” Sidenote: Can anyone tell me if Brits say “solder” by pronouncing the L that I’ve always heard as a silent L? Or if Dan Stevens just fucked up that one word?

Over The Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, by Jonathan Van Ness

4.5/5

This was a super enjoyable audiobook! It’s a testament to JVN’s considerable charisma that this book is full of him giving people in his past who would rather be anonymous Russian names, and it doesn’t get grating (as a Marina, however, I was shocked to not hear my name at any point; most of the other Marina’s I’ve met in my life are Russian). JVN has had a wild ride in life, and it’s a really raw, honest story of how he became who he is. I will say that if you are interested in reading this, please look up the trigger warnings; there are a lot of things that could be triggering to people.

I feel a little bad at how much more I liked this one compared to Tan France’s memoir, but I also feel like whoever was ghostwriting that one did a bad job at making Tan seem... not extremely defensive, cocky, and prickly (it seems that JVN did not use a ghostwriter; Tan’s on the other hand, let the phrase “I’m proud to be a petty bitch” make it into the final proof several times). Also JVN advocates going to therapy in his book, while Tan kind of says that you should only go to therapy if you have no friends or family or life partner to talk to, which I fundamentally disagree with. I don’t know. I also feel like, if I were to get a makeover from the Fab 5, Jonathan would love my hair (I have great hair) while Tan would say that I’m dressing too old for a 24 year old and then take me to fucking Lane Bryant or Torrid (I wear a size 16 US so IRL options are limited).

Read if: You like Queer Eye or Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Medallion Status, by John Hodgman

4.5/5

I really like John Hodgman’s podcast, and I got to ask him a question at an event he did at the Field Museum and he was very nice, so I went into this inclined to enjoy it.

And I did! I had a good time reading it. I read it the first week of January and now it’s the second week of February so I have already erased much of the book’s content from my mind, but he somehow made the perspective of being a formerly kinda famous person really interesting. I would also recommend Vacationland, particularly if anyone wants to write an au where Nursey, as a New Yorker, has a vacation home in Dex’s town in Maine. That’s right, I brought it back around to the topic of this blog. And that would be a fucking fantastic au.

Read it if: you like memoirs! it’s a good one.

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

Gonna give this one a 3/5 for performance, because Dan Stevens (again, because I liked his narration in the other one) does a really annoying American accent for a few characters, and an extremely bad Italian accent for another. I’m starting this review only a few hours in, so if it turns out that the Italian man is not Italian, I’ll revoke my criticism. Still a 5/5 mystery, though. I did have to stop many times when they were talking about Istanbul to go over to Spotify and play “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants.

Books abandoned in 2020 (so far) (no real spoilers, I didn’t get more than a few chapters into any of them):

The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren

I got to a point where the main character was telling a lie that would put her newly accepted job into jeopardy, and it stressed me out so much as a relatively new hire that I stopped listening for the day and started another one, and then the week had passed and then the library took it back. I think I’d enjoy it more if I was reading it physically and I could control how fast I got through awkward parts (I am practically allergic to secondhand embarrassment). The performance was good and I did get a hankering for cheese curds.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

I had like three audiobooks checked out at the same time, and even though this was again an abridged version, I just didn’t have time for all of them. My mom has a physical copy, I’ll borrow that at some point.

The Witch Elm, Tana French

This is one I may revisit someday. The main character is kind of an asshole, which is the point of his character I think, but it made it hard to get into the story. It’s also a 22 hour audiobook, which is kind of insanely long. Additionally, the narrator has a very slow way of talking, but if I tried to speed up the rate of playback I had trouble understanding his accent (I think I just have trouble processing really fast speech in general as well, but I would’ve had an easier time understanding someone with the same accent as me). Anyways, someone put a hold on it at the library and then I didn’t check it out again.

#long post #off topic #Marina Reads #edit: put under a readmore bc I forgot to earlier

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exploringbrazilianculture · 4 years

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Exploring Brazilian Culture!

Below excerpts represent a virtual study of Brazilian culture by Columbia College Chicago (CCC) undergraduate students enrolled in the Humanities, History and Social Science (HHSS) Dept. online course: HUMA121 “Latin American Art, Literature and Music” .

This virtual showing on tumblr is hosted by CCC students enrolled in this HHSS Dept. course with its instructor, Jesus Macarena Avila. This investigation began with a study on Tarsila do Amaral and her involvement with the cultural movement: Antropofagia.

Amaral with creative intellectuals like Oswald de Andrade and Anita Malfatti advocated a new ideology, the Manifesto Antropofago.

This investigation was only enhanced by the course's online contributors and guests: Dr. Roberto J. Tejada and Ariani Friedl. Dr. Tejada's expertise of Latin American art history and knowledge on Amaral's cultural production.

Dr. Tejada gave cultural and historic interpretations of Amaral's paintings like "Carnaval em Madureira" (1924, oil on canvas, 76 × 63.5 cm) showing the Afro Brazilian influence on the work.

Below are students' comments on what was learnt from Dr. Tejada's lecture:

"The speaker Dr. Roberto J. Tejada did an amazing job really helping me comprehend what was going on, and the different and creative ways with the European side and the afro American side were trying to solidify the culture and understanding of one another’s history."

"Amaral is also well known for creating the work of 'Anthropofagia', according to Dr. Tejada, in which its 'main intention was to create a mythic space in a language of painting through using bold colors and unusual forms, in order to create a vision specific to Brazilian history and attending to contemporary human geography/landscapes'."

"Dr. Tejada gave a great explanation of Amaral’s painting Anthropofagia. Made in 1929, its intention was to create a mythic space in painting using non-contemporary forms and vanguard themes to connect to Brazil's history of violent colonialism."

"Some background information about that Dr. Tejada touches on the fact where many Brazilians might have come from. The government encouraged immigration for the most part from Europe. Around the year 1888, the population contained many white Brazilians but also as well many black Brazilians.

Brazil was also one of the last countries in Latin America to abolish slavery. So even from then on racism was something that was influencing many policies (specifically Immigration policies), systems created in Brazil, etc."

"Dr. Tejada made a good point when he stated 'the word itself, signifies the Tupi language and enhancement, it seems to serve the undeniable presence of indigenous people. The indigenous culture is elevated and given importance just as any other subject European painters would put forward’."

And Ariani Friedl (above) representing Chicago's annual cinematic program: Mostra Brazilian Film Series gave an insight to this year's film programming.

Friedl was recently interviewed by Illinois Latino Voice's TransLatinx artist, Jesus "Jesse" Iniguez, this is an excerpt:

Jesus "Jesse" Iniguez: Due to the national Shelter in Place order, how has Mostra become more accessible to a wider audience this year?

Arian Friedl: Due to the pandemic and the impossibility for us to have a MOSTRA in person, we decided, as many other organizations, to present our MOSTRA XI virtually. This has been a completely new field for us and we have had to learn a great deal of new techniques and ways of doing a festival.

JJI: As with previous festivals, What film(s) are this year’s highlights? What are the themes or concepts being featured for Mostra Brazilian Film Festival 2020?

AF: As you know, MOSTRA present Brazilian films with social conscience and every year we bring films which address different aspects of Brazilian culture, environment, social issues, history and others. This year we will be featuring films related to our political history, environment, gender and race issues and others.

JJI: Thank you so much for your time during our “new normal”. You can find Mostra’s film listings on their official website: http://mostrafilmfestival.org/xi/

Below are student/instructor film review excerpts:

"Amazônia, o Despertar da Florestania", Dirs: Christiane Torloni & Miguel Przewodowski, Documentary/1h 46min/2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"How has Brazil dealt with nature and its natural resources in the early 20th century? What state is the Amazon Forest in? Based on interviews with specialists from the most diverse areas and the rescue of historical figures, the notion of forestry is discussed: the citizenship of the forest, a term necessary to reflect on Brazilian identity.

Although dramatic, sometimes bordering on desperate romanticism, the questions raised by the documentary Amazônia, the Awakening of Forestry are treated with the necessary urgency and a very welcoming tone by the actress, environmental activist, and now even filmmaker Christiane Torloni.

In her directorial debut, Torloni accesses something profound, mystical, and sacred, but no less concrete or vivacious: the surreal power of the Amazon rainforest – and the risk of its disappearance.A documentary film of a conventional format like this only works with the cast's quality and constitution.

A movie like this is only as good as the level of testimony it collects and makes available to the viewer. Fortunately, there are media personalities of weight, prestige, and intelligence, from the fields of art to sciences. All are coming together to trace and unravel the devastating panorama in which we find ourselves as a society." -- E. Reynaga

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dvm-VH1L8k

"Açúcar", Dirs. Renata Pinheiro & Sérgio Oliveira, Fiction/1h 30min/2020 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Açúcar is a surreal but haunting portrait of an aging sugar cane plantation. It centers on the main character, Bethânia Wanderley (played by Maeve Jinkings), a last remaining family member of a historic Brazilian plantation family. She tries to repair the old mansion and thinking of new crops to revive the plantation industry.

Although this is a fictional tale, it does reference actual facts about slavery in Brazil (being the last Latin American country to abolish slave ownership). As the story progresses, Bethânia begins to see or "hallucinate" things around the old mansion, is it the Wanderley's past with slavery? Or is it the local people, descendants of slaves plotting to get the aging land back? Is it this about “revenge” or reclaiming human rights?

It's beautifully photographed against a sugar cane landscape referencing Afro Brazilian beliefs in Orixas and body possession. Directors Renata Pinheiro and Sérgio Oliveira has won awards for their own films and this feature is a collaborative work at re-looking Brazil's slavery and the history of plantation families." -- J. Macarena Avila

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQBfzNZMags

”Mormaço", Dir: Marina Meliande, Political Drama/1h 36min/ 2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Mormaço combines different genres, fantasy, political, drama, etc. using visuals to make social commentary about 2016 Rio de Janiero's Olympics. That year, many resident areas were displaced to create attractions for tourism for the Olympics.

This feature is a dazzling, but slow burner story using different genres based on true events surrounding the 2016 Olympics when one of the hottest summers faced Rio de Janiero's area.

It centers on a public lawyer, Ana representing residents being threaten to move. The residents have regular meetings with Ana to prepare to lobby against the city government. Then Ana develops a unknown medical condition that starts a metaphorsis that only complicates her life." -- J. Macarena Avila

"After viewing the film I did some research and learned from an article titled 'Film Mormaço Interweaves Fiction and Reality to Retell Story of Vila Autódromo Evictions' that these events in the film are based on historical events that actually occurred.

The article also states that Mormaço 'makes use of actual footage of these events.' Many of the scenes illustrating war and protest are primary sources that I found very interesting.

Knowing this about the film made me want to watch it a second time to catch all of these primary footages. Mostly because of how seamless the transition from historical footage to current footage. Overall, I felt the film was not only entertaining but also informational." -- J. Heflin

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FwSanEqppds

"Deslembro", Dir: Flávia Castro, Drama /1h 36min / 2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Quickly summarizing this movie, it’s about a girl named Joanna, who lives with her mom, stepfather, and two stepbrothers in Paris. Her parents announce that they would be moving the family to Brazil and it is very clear at the beginning of the movie how Joanna feels about the decision. Of course, the move is inevitable and the rest of the movie is located in Brazil.

The move to Brazil allows Joanna to be able to explore new things, like the world of literature, her first love, and she awakens politically. Being in Brazil seems to bring up a whole bunch of old disturbing memories from Joanna’s childhood that have something to do with her fathers’ disappearance which then leads Joanna to have a slight hope that her father may be alive.

Leaving this paragraph on a cliff hanger just in case anyone ends up wanting to watch it. I believe that this was a very well written and portrayed movie. It caught my interest because it just seemed relatable. Something realistic, unlike this other movie that I was interested in watching which seemed more fiction based." -- Y. Contreras

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4qFP5cbmyEg

"Mulher Que Sou" (15m), Dir: Nathalia Thereza (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"The film 'The Woman Who I Am' follows a single mother who is in search of a new beginning away from what appears to be the rural lifestyle she once lived. We immediately begin the story following our main character, Marta, who is traveling alongside a mountain by bus before abruptly switching to a highway where she continues her travel into the city. Later, as she is searching for apartments we are introduced to her daughter who she consults with during this process.

This establishes for the audience their relationship with one another but also theimportance of and emphasis placed on the value of listening to her daughter and including her in this journey. While the prevailing theme of this film, I contend, was identity, we also can identify themes of femininity, single motherhood, modernity, and beauty all woven into the dynamic of Marta’s character.

These intersections help us to understand and even challenge the ways in which we often place mothers in society, especially those that are single or value women past a certain age, questioning their worthiness to be called beautiful" -- G. Paredes

"Oddly enough, the Woman I am was probably my least favorite out of all the films I watched at Mostra. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed the film and thought it was pretty good, but it had a lot of potentials that was wasted. There were scenes where the dialogue was too rushed and others where nothing was happening for a particularly long time.

One thing I don’t like is that they didn’t show you some things. For example, the characters would be talking about something off-screen, and the way they were talking about it, you would think it would be some, what of a big deal. They didn’t show the thing in that scene and I thought they were leaving it to be some sort of reveal later on in the film.

But it never gets mentioned again and the audience never gets to see what the characters were talking about. In my opinion, it would’ve been fine not to show it if it was a quick mention but the character made it seemed like it was kinda important.

A reason I did like the film’s 'secretness' is that it captured what the film was supposed to be about: a mom and daughter moving on from their past to a new beginning." -- K. Williams

View this short here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=05-F8PDvxdY

"Azougue Nazaré", Dir: Tiago Melo, Fiction/1h 22min/2018 (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"The film Azougue Nazaré was a drama film released in 2018 directed and written by Tiago Melo. The film is about the start of a new destructive supernatural phenomenon and different spiritual ideologies that collide within this community.

The film touches on religious topics and events in Latin American and was very informational and entertaining. I felt that this film was well put together and although I was not used to many of the different rituals and traditions are shown in the film.

It was very easy to follow along and even relate some of these traditions to ones in my culture. I usually would never go for a film that has to do with religious topics but the film’s artistic values and images caught my eye." - J. Heflin

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NFxE51n0IQo

"Quebramar", (27m), Dir: Cris Lyra (Portuguese w English Subtitles)

"Going off of Mostra Festival’s description of the film, Breakwater (Quebramar) is a movie about a group of girls from São Paulo who takes a vacation to a remote island for the New Years. While on this vacation, the girls hang out, form a connection, build a safe space, and discuss with each other their experiences being in a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

The things that caught my attention most about this movie and made me want to watch it were the categories 'LGBT' and 'black perspective' because those both relate to me. The movie was filmed in the style of a documentary, though I couldn’t really find any proof it was.

If the film was scripted, then I have to give a huge round of applause to the actresses because they delivered them seamlessly and made it feel natural.One of my favorite things about the film is how casual it was. It was a feel-good film where everyone was having fun, bonding, and really supporting each other." -- K. Williams

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xNDquFNV9dQ

"Sem Asas", (20m), Dir: Renata Martins

"Sem Asas, or Wingless in its English translation, is a short film about a boy with a longtime interest in flying discovering he 'can'. I watched this movie because it was under the category 'black perspective' but I enjoyed it so much because it broke a lot of basic representation the media gives us.

The film mainly centers around the boy but also features his parents. I mention this because the movie really focuses on this family’s strong bond. That’s one thing media rarely gives movies, films, T.V, and etc that focuses on black representation. There’s always one parent (usually the dad) missing or dead and if both parents are there, the marriage is toxic and on the verge of breaking.

This family however is very close and from what the movie showed us very healthy. They help each other out when asked, joke around, lightheartedly tease each other, and were overall worried for each other. Another thing this film didn’t do that most media does was only make it about struggle.

I won’t lie the Black community does have a lot of struggles and situations it has to deal with but those things are usually the only thing media recognizes us for. While the representation of that is important, it starts to build an image in your head when that’s pretty much the ONLY time you see yourself and your community focused on in media.

Yes, there is black on black violence, broken family, major poverty, and many other things but that’s not all the black community is. I think Wingless did a good job of portraying this."-- K. Williams

View trailer here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPkWmJvC-Tc

This for educational purposes and co-hosted by

Friedl's video introduction (created/produced by Sara Vianni) to enrolled students in the HUMA 121 course, "Latin American Art, Literature and Music".

youtube

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gothytrash · 4 years

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rules: tag people you want to get to know better!!!

tagged by: @transseven (kinda im just bored and wanna do it)

your name and what you would’ve named yourself: finn...and i named myself that:))) i considered kalen and max also but finn felt right. might fuck around n change it again tbh

astrological sign (sun/moon/rising if you know them): virgo sun/libra moon/aries rising

when did you join tumblr and why: 2012 maybe?? i was a ~hipster aesthetic blog~ until i became the mess i am today

top 5 fandoms: i dont consider myself really IN any fandoms but,,,mortal kombat, overwatch, polygon, animal crossing, and unus annus are things im really into rn!!

top 5 films: i really dont watch movies much um....jawbreaker, my neighbor totoro, howl's moving castle, spirited away, clueless, pretty much anything ghibli or disgustingly 90's

go-to song when you want to feel something: i have a playlist that is all megan thee stallion for when im extra mentally ill and need to feel like a bad bitch again

what’s your religion or faith if you have one: i don't feel strongly about any really?? i used to relate to wicca when i was younger until i realized a lot of it is stolen closed practices and cultural appropriation and it just didnt feel...right i guess?? im actually a very spiritual person in private though u might not guess it from the everything about me!! im just still not sure if there is a religion i would feel totally comfortable in, although buddhism has always intrigued me!!

a song that makes you feel seen: dog teeth by nicole dollanganger ... teen idle by marina ... vienna by billy joel ...

if you could have any career: i'd love to perform, idk what but i just wanna create for people!!! even as a youtuber, a streamer, or more original performing like in a band or doing drag i just..love to be seen and make people happy:)))

do you have a type: um not really??? hot alt queers to the front of course, and i prefer someone else to be able to take the lead in most things, but that rarely factors into my attraction. if u cute u cute and i will kiss u

what does my heart/soul yearn for: to feel cared for:))) to be a first choice:))) independence:)))

if you had to describe yourself in 5 words to someone: blunt, compassionate, easygoing, impulsive, ditzy

favorite subjects in school: music, english, and forensics

where does your soul feel the most at home: anywhere there is fresh air and some peace and quiet

top 5 fictional characters: mileena, yuri, dva, kuromi, howl

top 3 moments in a show that made you ugly cry: FUCK um. many moments in the promised neverland i cant even pick one so just the show as a whole....the abortion scene in sex education......and also all of your lie in april just so much of it

earth, the sun, the moon or the stars: the stars

favorite kind of weather: that time in either fall or spring when its perfect sweater weather, the sun is shining but the breeze is cool enough that u don't sweat at all, and it stays that way until the sun goes down:') and everything smells so nice....it's different for spring and fall but they both smell lovely

top 3 kins: mileena, yuri, and kuromi

favorite medium of art: to do? graphite or digital bc im bad and must erase a lot! to enjoy? all of it literally all art makes my heart go whoosh

introvert/extrovert/ambivert: ambivert

favorite literary quote: i had to search so hard for this bc i couldnt remember it all but my fave book in my early teens was across the universe by beth revis and i always really liked this quote idk why: " I stare at the stars... And even though there are so many and they look so close together, I know they are light years apart. The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but they are so distant, so very far apart, that they cannot feel the warmth of each other, even though they are made of burning. This is the secret of the stars, I tell myself. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you."

some of your favorite books: i dont read as much as i used to so most of the books i loved are young adult books but: the crank series by ellen hopkins, the painter from shanghai by jennifer cody epstein, every day by david levithan, i am the messenger by marcus zusak

if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?: i want to travel as much as possible, but i think i'll always wanna come home to canada. maybe not where i live now, but canada just feels the most like home and id love to live somewhere beautiful here

if you could live in any time in history when would it be?: i mean i guess my gay ass is in the most ideal timeline right now, but bigotry and such out of the picture i would have fucked w the 70s so hard....big hair big shoes and just not giving a fuck??? gimme

if you could play any instrument masterfully what would it be?: guitar or piano are obvious choices but tbh id be an iconic saxophone player

if you have one, what mythological god or goddess do you have a connection to?: artemis and apollo were the first deities i was drawn to when i started my craft and figuring out religion and such, but recently i have been very drawn to persephone and dionysus??

lastly, favorite recent selfie from your camera roll: (i never take selfies this is the most up to date pic i have and its bad but oh well)

i'm not gonna tag anyone bc i dont have friends but pls do it if u wanna!! i wanna know yall better!!!

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