#j. slater (interactions)

[offier]

@slateir: we all do things we desperately wish we could undo. / for Joey!

about the past & regret / accepting

While the end of the Shadyside curse might have let everyone else move on, if anything, Joey's gone even further into his own spiral. How could he pick himself out of that, knowing what he knows now? That he had helped make his brother into a monster when it had never been Tommy's fault. So as much as he wants to be there for his sisters, he's been even more shut down than before.

"This goes a bit beyond that, Reese," he mumbles back in response, already starting to pouring a drink. He felt he'd need it, knowing well enough that Reese wasn't going to just drop it.

[junjiie]

silly little game ignore if you want — assign each of your moots and idol and a song!

OMG AN IDOL AS WELL?!? we're ab to have sm fun.. Thank U 4 This. also ermmm to moots i hvnt interacted w much this is j based on ur silly vibes Soz.....

@wave2love ( karma ). you dont even know how long ive been waiting to scream this for real. for an idol i'd say karma is either mingi from ateez or jisung from stray kids and for a song.. maybe 3005 by childish gambino?? bc ily bsf Wjnk 😉

@mins-fins ( isa ). ISA ISA ISAAA for an idol its hueningkai from txt FS. perhaps jeongin (skz) too though.. and for a song imo isa is really trix by slater!!! but also mayb take me home by pinkpantheress too!? isa isa isaaa ☹️

@so2uv ( sol ). SOL . sticking w my hongjoong (ateez) = sol agenda here IT MAKES SENSE TO ME!!!! but again the jaehyun (nct) is jumping out a little too. Here damn 😒 ANW FORA SONG im thinking massa by tyler, the creator or song about me by tv girl.. they j fit u in my head

@hyeoniez ( flori ). flori!!!!!! i think mayb jeonghan from svt for an idol?!!? Hmm idk. ur like a little bit silly and evil occasionally and that is so good for u bsf. Real. anw for a song its semantics by chloé silva 0 questions asked. ITS SO U IMO WHATTT

@jinkiseason ( elif ). oh erm Heyy.. for an idol sehun from exo (partly bc of the pfp and partly bc his ig feed (and him in general!?) is so unhinged and idgaf and crazy and silly and those r the vibes i get from them) and for a song wolf by exo (see unhinged idgaf crazy fun argument above). GUERAE WOLF NAEGA WOLF AWOOOO 🗣️

@samudan ( zai ). Hei . Ermm . purely vibes watch me do this in 0.2 seconds.. for an idol xiaojun (wayv/nct) and for song nemonade by p1harmony!!! i got some lemons 4 u 부숴 네 기준 기준....

@cinnajun ( cinna ). lowk scared asl but Hii 😓 UMMM for an idol let me blindfold myself and spin a wheel.. ten (wayv/nct)??!??? U SEEM RLY COOL IDK.. and for a song ermm sugar rush ride by txt (also a massive stab in the dark. Yasss! 👍)

OK DONE THATS IT TBIS WAS FUN THANKNU ABAIN!!!!

[qiallosa]

I WOULD SHUN THE LIGHT , an independent , highly selective , private multimuse writing blog as curated by cody ( she / her , twenty4 , est ) featuring both canon and original muses based in various media. highly divergent and headcanon based / influenced , very rarely fandom based. DO NOT FOLLOW FIRST. muse list below the cut.

⁰⁰¹ˑ RULES ⁰⁰²ˑ SPOTIFY ⁰⁰³ˑ PINTEREST ⁰⁰⁴ˑ INTEREST TRACKER ⁰⁰⁵ˑ INTERACTION CALLS ᴮᴸᴼᴳᴿᴼᴸᴸ @c4mblls ( kripke era based supernatural original character ), @stabfranchise ( scream based multimuse ), @4muck ( seasonal multimuse ).

TELEVISION.

ALARIC SALTZMAN. supernatural hunter & college occult studies professor , the vampire diaries universe. michiel huisman. request only. anti j plec. DUMON SOYLEMEZ. vampire bad boy , the vampire diaries universe. alperen duymaz. always active. anti j plec. ETHAN CHANDLER. bloodthirsty werewolf & gunslinger extraordinaire , penny dreadful. josh hartnett & jensen ackles. request only. FINN MIKAELSØN. the daggered original , the vampire diaries universe. matthew czuchry. always active. anti j plec. HENRIK MIKAELSØN. the fallen but never forgotten , the vampire diaries universe. louis partridge. semi active. anti j plec. MIECZYSLAW ' STILES ' STILINSKI. the nogitsune host , teen wolf. thomas weatherall. semi active. anti j davis. PUGSLEY ADDAMS. the mortal at nevermore , the addams family & wednesday. xolo mariduena. always active. SALEM SABERHAGEN. familiar to the anti christ , the chilling adventures of sabrina. emilien vekemans & joshua colley. request only. SEFA SOYLEMEZ. the heroic vampire , the vampire diaries universe. deniz can aktas. always active. anti j plec. ZIYA SOYLEMEZ. the mysterious ' uncle ' , the vampire diaries universe. sukru ozyildiz. always active. anti j plec.

FILM.

ASHLEY ' ASH ' WILLIAMS. the reluctant hero , the evil dead. bruce campbell. always active. SAMUEL ' SAM ' MCDONALD. the werewolf expert , ginger snaps. kris lemche & logan shroyer. semi active. THOMAS ' TOMMY ' SLATER. boring virgin boyfriend , fear street. mccabe slye. semi active.

LITERATURE.

DORIAN GRAY. immortal playboy , penny dreadful & the picture of dorian gray. jonathan bailey & reeve carney. always active. JONTHAN HARKER. the reluctant vampire hunter , dracula & penny dreadful. ben barnes. always active.

FAIRYTALES.

ADAM ' THE BEAST ' DUBOIS. the narcissistic prince , descendants & beauty and the beast. louis partridge & michiel huisman. request only. EUGENE ' FLYNN RIDER ' FITZHERBERT. the isle thief , descendants & tangled. jacob elordi & milo ventimiglia. request only.

VIDEO GAMES.

ETHAN WINTERS. the father , resident evil. milo ventimiglia. always active.

COMIC BOOKS.

BRUCE WAYNE. the batman , dc comics. jensen ackles. semi active. JASON TODD. the red hood , dc comics. drew starkey. semi active. JOHN CONSTANTINE. the hellblazer , dc & vertigo comics. ebon moss bachrach. always active.

[jcmarchi]

Julie Shah named head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/julie-shah-named-head-of-the-department-of-aeronautics-and-astronautics/

Julie Shah named head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Julie Shah ’04, SM ’06, PhD ’11, the H.N. Slater Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics, has been named the new head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), effective May 1.

“Julie brings an exceptional record of visionary and interdisciplinary leadership to this role. She has made substantial technical contributions in the field of robotics and AI, particularly as it relates to the future of work, and has bridged important gaps in the social, ethical, and economic implications of AI and computing,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer, dean of the School of Engineering, and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

In addition to her role as a faculty member in AeroAstro, Shah served as associate dean of Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing from 2019 to 2022, helping launch a coordinated curriculum that engages more than 2,000 students a year at the Institute. She currently directs the Interactive Robotics Group in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), and MIT’s Industrial Performance Center.

Shah and her team at the Interactive Robotics Group conduct research that aims to imagine the future of work by designing collaborative robot teammates that enhance human capability. She is expanding the use of human cognitive models for artificial intelligence and has translated her work to manufacturing assembly lines, health-care applications, transportation, and defense. In 2020, Shah co-authored the popular book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots,” which explores the future of human-robot collaboration.

As an expert on how humans and robots interact in the workforce, Shah was named co-director of the Work of the Future Initiative, a successor group of MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future, alongside Ben Armstrong, executive director and research scientist at MIT’s Industrial Performance Center. In March of this year, Shah was named a co-leader of the Working Group on Generative AI and the Work of the Future, alongside Armstrong and Kate Kellogg, the David J. McGrath Jr. Professor of Management and Innovation. The group is examining how generative AI tools can contribute to higher-quality jobs and inclusive access to the latest technologies across sectors.

Shah’s contributions as both a researcher and educator have been recognized with many awards and honors throughout her career. She was named an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in 2017, and in 2018 she was the recipient of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Academic Early Career Award. Shah was also named a Bisplinghoff Faculty Fellow, was named to MIT Technology Review’s TR35 List, and received an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award. In 2013, her work on human-robot collaboration was included on MIT Technology Review’s list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies.

In January 2024, she was appointed to the first-ever AIAA Aerospace Artificial Intelligence Advisory Group, which was founded “to advance the appropriate use of AI technology particularly in aeronautics, aerospace R&D, and space.” Shah currently serves as editor-in-chief of Foundations and Trends in Robotics, as an editorial board member of the AIAA Progress Series, and as an executive council member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

A dedicated educator, Shah has been recognized for her collaborative and supportive approach as a mentor. She was honored by graduate students as “Committed to Caring” (C2C) in 2019. For the past 10 years, she has served as an advocate, community steward, and mentor for students in her role as head of house of the Sidney Pacific Graduate Community.

Shah received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering, and her PhD in autonomous systems, all from MIT. After receiving her doctoral degree, she joined Boeing as a postdoc, before returning to MIT in 2011 as a faculty member.

Shah succeeds Professor Steven Barrett, who has led AeroAstro as both interim department head and then department head since May 2023.

[nqvbleble]

Digital Facets: The impact of Snapchat filters onto the world of beauty filters on Instagram and Tiktok

The introduction of Snapchat filters was the turning point in the history of digital self-expression. Introduced in 2011, these filters first provided users with entertaining overlays and effects to improve their images and videos shared within the app (Statista, 2022). However, it was the introduction of face recognition technology in 2015 that truly transformed the landscape of Snapchat filters (Lee & Sung, 2016). This technology allows users to apply filters that dynamically change their face characteristics in real time, such as adding animal ears and noses or smoothing skin. Snapchat filters immediately became a cultural phenomenon, with millions of users worldwide seeing them as a creative and enjoyable method to enhance their look in images and videos.

Snapchat filters had an extensive impact in the world of beauty filters, shaping beauty standards and trends on other social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. As Snapchat users became accustomed to seeing themselves with digitally enhanced features, they developed a yearning to emulate these changed looks. As a result, Instagram and TikTok added their own versions of beauty filters to their platforms, allowing users to improve their look right within the applications (Statista, 2022). These beauty filters provided a variety of effects, mostly focus on smoothing skin and erasing facial imperfections, as well as applying cosmetics and adjusting face proportions, similar to the features popularized by Snapchat filters. The incorporation of beauty filters into Instagram and TikTok helped to normalize digitally changed looks, establishing modern beauty standards and influencing how users present themselves online.

Research has shown that beauty filters have an adverse effect on users' self-image and physical satisfaction, particularly among young women (Tiggemann & Slater, 2014; Perloff, 2014). Exposure to idealized pictures on social media has been linked to increased body dissatisfaction and low confidence. The availability of extensively filtered photographs may contribute to excessive beauty standards, forcing users to set themselves up to impossible aspirations and be dissatisfied with their natural appearance. Furthermore, the normalization of digitally changed appearances on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok may contribute to a society in which authenticity is overwhelmed by digitally modified images. As a result, though beauty filters empower users with a method of creative expression and self-improvement online, they raise crucial considerations regarding the impact of digital technology on body image and self-esteem in today's digital age.

References:

Lee, J., & Sung, Y. 2016, 'Exploring the Impact of Snapchat on Self-Presentation and Social Interaction', Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19(6), 336-340.

Tiggemann, M., & Slater, A. 2014, 'NetGirls: The Internet, Facebook, and body image concern in adolescent girls', International Journal of Eating Disorders, 47(6), 630-643.

Perloff, R. M. 2014, 'Social media effects on young women’s body image concerns: Theoretical perspectives and an agenda for research', Sex Roles, 71(11-12), 363-377.

Statista 2022, 'Number of daily active Snapchat users worldwide from 2014 to 2022', https://www.statista.com/statistics/545967/snapchat-app-dau/.

Statista 2022, 'Number of monthly active Instagram users worldwide from January 2013 to September 2021', https://www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/.

Statista 2022, 'Number of daily active TikTok users in the United States from January 2021 to March 2022', https://www.statista.com/statistics/1095186/tiktok-us-dau/.

[linhmeee]

WEEK 3: HOW TUMBLR IS USED BY DISENGAGED AND UNDERPRIVELEGED GROUPS?

Direct comparisons between Tumblr, Reddit, and Instagram may be difficult because each platform has an own user base and set of features. Based on the data at my disposal, Instagram has a greater user base than Tumblr and Reddit. But every platform has a particular function and supports various kinds of interactions and information. Tumblr is renowned for emphasizing creative expression and blogging.

The site is useful for communication study because it provides a large amount of room for users to add textual context to the selfies they submit. Hashtags are widely used to create communities, and shared blogs may be handled collaboratively with others (Renninger, 2015). The visibility of posts within these hashtags is independent of the number of followers, the user’s usual participation within the community, or the number of reactions to the post, thus allowing for a wider range of voices to be heard (Renninger, 2015). Users have the opportunity to like, comment, or reblog content to interact with the post and its creator. These interactions are summarized in a single notes number. Tumblr prevents trolling and bad replies by concealing the more detailed reactions below the summary (Cavalcante, 2018).

Tumblr, which was founded as a hybrid of social networking sites and conventional weblogs, creates the foundation for a vibrant and varied feminist community. Conversely, women who share sexually suggestive photographs on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram typically face backlash and become targets of victimization and "slut-shaming" (Miguel, 2016). Tumblr distinguished itself from these platforms until its policy change in 2018 due to its acceptance of NSFW (Not Safe for Work) content (Renninger, 2015; Tiidenberg & Cruz, 2015). Therefore, in light of earlier studies highlighting the drawbacks and hazards, the general concept of #bodypositive—creating diverse feminist spaces that enable women to discover their own beauty—had a lot of promise on Tumblr until 2018 (Cohen et al., 2019; Maddox, 2019; Sastre, 2014). Furthermore, Tumblr was seen as a platform for "emotional authenticity" and was utilized to create counterpublic spaces for progressive and underprivileged groups (Hart, 2015; Cavalcante, 2018).

Tumblr's role in activism and awareness cannot be overstated. Underprivileged groups leverage the platform to raise awareness about social issues, disseminate information, and mobilize support for various causes. It serves as a powerful tool for grassroots activism, enabling connections among like-minded individuals passionate about creating change. The visual nature of Tumblr makes it an ideal platform for artistic expression. Individuals from disengaged or underprivileged backgrounds can showcase their creative talents, whether through illustrations, photography, or writing. This not only provides an outlet for expression but also offers an opportunity for recognition within the community.

Identity exploration is another vital aspect, with users openly discussing and affirming their identities, including aspects related to gender, sexuality, and race. For marginalized groups, Tumblr becomes a space for self-discovery and acceptance, fostering conversations that may be stigmatized in mainstream society.

References

Cavalcante, A 2018, ‘Tumbling Into Queer Utopias and Vortexes: Experiences of LGBTQ Social Media Users on Tumblr’, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 66, no. 12, pp. 1715–1735.

Cohen, R, Irwin, L, Newton-John, T & Slater, A 2019, ‘#bodypositivity: A content analysis of body positive accounts on Instagram’, Body Image, vol. 29, no. 29, pp. 47–57.

Hart, M 2015, ‘Youth Intimacy on Tumblr’, YOUNG, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 193–208.

Hillman, S, Procyk, J & Neustaedter, C 2014, ‘Tumblr fandoms, community & culture’, Proceedings of the companion publication of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing - CSCW Companion ’14.

Maddox, J 2019, ‘“Be a badass with a good ass”: race, freakery, and postfeminism in the #StrongIsTheNewSkinny beauty myth’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 1–22.

Miguel, C 2016, ‘Visual Intimacy on Social Media: From Selfies to the Co-Construction of Intimacies Through Shared Pictures’, Social Media + Society, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 205630511664170.

Renninger, BJ 2014, ‘“Where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind” : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment’, New Media & Society, vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 1513–1529.

Sastre, A 2014, ‘Towards a Radical Body Positive’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 929–943.

Tiidenberg, K & Gómez Cruz, E 2015, ‘Selfies, Image and the Re-making of the Body’, Body & Society, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 77–102.

[theultimatefan]

Back to the Future, Shatner, Fillion Q&A’s Highlight FAN EXPO Portland Programming, February 17-19

From celebrity Q&As to industry, cosplay, gaming, anime and entertaining, informative sessions from all areas of pop culture, FAN EXPO Portland presents its collection of nearly 150 programing panels and meetups during the event, Friday through Sunday, February 17-19 at Oregon Convention Center. There’s truly something for every fan and every taste every hour of the show into the evening throughout all three days of the convention, right until Sunday’s 5 p.m. finish.

FAN EXPO Portland celebrity guests like Back to the Future stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Tom Wilson;Ron Perlman (“Sons of Anarchy,” Hellboy; Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead, “Burn Notice”), Carl Weathers (“The Mandalorian,” Rocky); Gates McFadden (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”), Anthony Daniels (Star Wars franchise) and others will conduct interactive sessions with fans, headlining the thorough slate.

There are dozens of informative, entertaining panels by superstar creators as well as cosplay, gaming, trivia, film, horror and other pop culture themed sessions. Fans can review the entire event schedule at https://fanexpohq.com/fanexpoportland/schedule/. Most panels are free with event admission, and dates/times are subject to change. Just a few of the highlights include:

Friday:

12:50 p.m., Opening Ceremonies, show entrance

4 p.m., Feeling Super: Mental Health in Pop Culture, Room B121

4 p.m., My Name is Zuko: Conversation with Dante Basco, Secondary Theater

4:30 p.m., Why Portland is Weird and Why we Love it, Room B120

5 p.m., William Shatner – Where No One Has Gone Before, Main Events Stage

6 p.m., Anthony Daniels – Don't Blame Me: I’m an Interpreter, Main Events Stage

6 p.m., Women in Horror, Room B117-118

7 p.m., Portland Horror Film Festival Sneak Peek 2023, Secondary Theater

7 p.m., Sean Chandler Speaks! How To Grow A Nerdy YouTube Channel, Room B110

7:30 p.m., An Evening with the Cast of Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Tom Wilson, Main Events Stage

8 p.m., Drink and Draw with Joe Wos - Presented By Wacom, Mox Boarding House, 1938 W Burnside, Portland

Saturday:

11 a.m., Mind the Gap: A Cosplayer’s Guide to Awesome Seams on Eva Foam Projects, Room B111-112

11 a.m., It’s Too Early for an Anime Panel, Room C123-124

11:30 a.m., Haunted History of Oregon & the Northwest with Rocky Smith, Oregon Ghost Conference, Room B120

Noon, Black 2 Da Future, Room B117-118

Noon and 3 p.m., Cosplay Red Carpet, Cosplay Area

Noon, Nolan North is so Tired of Climbing, Secondary Theater

1 p.m., Animation Showdown: X-Men vs. Batman, Room B117-118

1 p.m., Plus Ultra! The My Hero Academia Voice Actors Panel with Justin Briner and David Matranga, Secondary Theater

1 p.m., Old School Spirit Communication with Paranormal Experts Aaron Collins and June Lundgren, Room B119

1:30 p.m., Katee Sackhoff – From Starbuck to Star Wars, Main Events Stage

2 p.m., Matthew Lewis Blows it up. Boom!, Secondary Theater

2:30 p.m., Carl Weathers – From Rocky to the Mandalorian, Main Events Stage

3 p.m., Lea Thompson’s Enchantment Under the Sea, Secondary Theater

4 p.m., Bringing the Backstory with creators Jeff Davis, Nikolas P. Robinson, Adam Ross and Danger Slater, Room B119

4 p.m., Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with Anson Mount and Ethan Peck, Secondary Theater

4:30 p.m., Ron Perlman – Do it for the Club, Main Events Stage

5 p.m. Real Life Sci-Fi: Creating Tomorrow’s Tech Today, Room B119

5:45 p.m., Ethics of AI Art, Room B120

6 p.m., The FAN EXPO Portland Cosplay Exhibition, Main Events Stage

Sunday:

11 a.m., Jodi Benson – Don't Be Such a Guppy, Secondary Theater

11 a.m., The Force Experience + Kids Lightsaber Training, Family Zone

11:30 a.m., Learn to Draw Forest Friends – Cartoon Academy with Joe Wos, Family Zone

11:30 a.m., Nathan Fillion – I'm Just a Good Man, Main Events Stage

Noon, Billy West – Happy Happy Joy Joy, Secondary Theater

Noon and 2 p.m., Hogwarts Sorting Ceremony, Family Zone

Noon, Kickstarters and Comic Publishing, Room A105-106

Noon, Star Wars and Conflict Resolution, Room B121

12:30 p.m., Bruce Campbell: Who’s Laughing Now?, Main Events Stage

1:30 p.m., A Conversation with Filmmaking Legend Sam Raimi, Main Events Stage

2 p.m., Spy X Family X Anya X Yor! Voice Actor Q&A with Megan Shipman and Natalie Van Sistine, Room C123-124

2 p.m., The Super Powers of Bats, Room B121

2:30 p.m., Kids Cosplay Contest, Cosplay Red Carpet

3 p.m., Monsters Are Metaphors: How Horror Performs "Cultural Shadow Work," Room B119

3 p.m., Making History with Pop Culture, Room B121

Tickets for FAN EXPO Portland are on sale at http://www.fanexpoportland.com now, including individual single day, 3-day and Ultimate Fan Packages for adults, youths and families. VIP packages (now sold out!) include dozens of special benefits including priority entry, limited edition collectibles, exclusive items and much more.

Portland is the second event on the 2023 FAN EXPO HQ calendar; the full schedule is available at fanexpohq.com/home/events/.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 25, 2021

Confidence can be automatically integrated across two visual decisions. Aguilar-Lleyda, D., Konishi, M., Sackur, J., & de Gardelle, V. (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 47(2), 161–171.

From statistical regularities in multisensory inputs to peripersonal space representation and body ownership: Insights from a neural network model. Bertoni, T., Magosso, E., & Serino, A. (2021). European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(2), 611–636.

On the effect of neuronal spatial subsampling in small‐world networks. Bonzanni, M., Bockley, K. M., & Kaplan, D. L. (2021). European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(2), 485–498.

Multiple cannabinoid signaling cascades powerfully suppress recurrent excitation in the hippocampus. Jensen, K. R., Berthoux, C., Nasrallah, K., & Castillo, P. E. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(4).

Release probability increases towards distal dendrites boosting high-frequency signal transfer in the rodent hippocampus. Jensen, T. P., Kopach, O., Reynolds, J. P., Savtchenko, L. P., & Rusakov, D. A. (2021). eLife, 10, e62588.

Environment-based object values learned by local network in the striatum tail. Kunimatsu, J., Yamamoto, S., Maeda, K., & Hikosaka, O. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(4).

Dissecting the Roles of Supervised and Unsupervised Learning in Perceptual Discrimination Judgments. Loewenstein, Y., Raviv, O., & Ahissar, M. (2021). Journal of Neuroscience, 41(4), 757–765.

Molecular mechanisms within the dentate gyrus and the perirhinal cortex interact during discrimination of similar nonspatial memories. Miranda, M., Morici, J. F., Gallo, F., Piromalli Girado, D., Weisstaub, N. V., & Bekinschtein, P. (2021). Hippocampus, 31(2), 140–155.

Human subjects exploit a cognitive map for credit assignment. Moran, R., Dayan, P., & Dolan, R. J. (2021). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(4).

Prioritization in visual attention does not work the way you think it does. Ng, G. J. P., Buetti, S., Patel, T. N., & Lleras, A. (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 47(2), 252–268.

Linking metacognition and mindreading: Evidence from autism and dual-task investigations. Nicholson, T., Williams, D. M., Lind, S. E., Grainger, C., & Carruthers, P. (2021). Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 150(2), 206–220.

Neural mechanisms of visual sensitive periods in humans. Röder, B., Kekunnaya, R., & Guerreiro, M. J. S. (2021). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 120, 86–99.

Orientation Effects in the Development of Linear Object Tracking in Early Infancy. Tham, D. S. Y., Rees, A., Bremner, J. G., Slater, A., & Johnson, S. P. (2021). Child Development, 92(1), 324–334.

How do stupendous cannabinoids modulate memory processing via affecting neurotransmitter systems? Vaseghi, S., Nasehi, M., & Zarrindast, M.-R. (2021). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 120, 173–221.

Theta power and theta‐gamma coupling support long‐term spatial memory retrieval. Vivekananda, U., Bush, D., Bisby, J. A., Baxendale, S., Rodionov, R., Diehl, B., … Burgess, N. (2021). Hippocampus, 31(2), 213–220.

Layer 6 ensembles can selectively regulate the behavioral impact and layer-specific representation of sensory deviants. Voigts, J., Deister, C. A., & Moore, C. I. (2020). eLife, 9, e48957.

Using pharmacological manipulations to study the role of dopamine in human reward functioning: A review of studies in healthy adults. Webber, H. E., Lopez-Gamundi, P., Stamatovich, S. N., de Wit, H., & Wardle, M. C. (2021). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 120, 123–158.

Data-driven reduction of dendritic morphologies with preserved dendro-somatic responses. Wybo, W. A., Jordan, J., Ellenberger, B., Marti Mengual, U., Nevian, T., & Senn, W. (2021). eLife, 10, e60936.

Dysfunction of Orbitofrontal GABAergic Interneurons Leads to Impaired Reversal Learning in a Mouse Model of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Yang, Z., Wu, G., Liu, M., Sun, X., Xu, Q., Zhang, C., & Lei, H. (2021). Current Biology, 31(2), 381-393.e4.

Speed modulation of hippocampal theta frequency and amplitude predicts water maze learning. Young, C. K., Ruan, M., & McNaughton, N. (2021). Hippocampus, 31(2), 201–212.

[paradigmsofbrittaperry]

a favorite thing of j/b is how they weren't supposed to have intimacy; not when they were "not dating", and not later; and nobody is really privy to their relationship with each other, but people and themselves and the writing like to pretend they aren't close and they had never been close, but there are little things that show they were, that they shared moments we don't know about, that they know little things about each other that nobody else did. i don't know, i just love it.

it's like they and sometimes the group or the show or the fandom tried to downplay or deny their connection, and they just... can't really do it? because it's a big part of their characters, and their arcs, and their relationship is just so instinctual, natural, organic. ugh. i miss them

same!! I have such a soft spot for their entire season 1 arc because it’s Jeff realizing that he wants to pursue a genuine friendship with Britta and her slowly realizing that she wants more and them becoming better friends throughout all of it. like the moment in Interpretive Dance where Britta realizes that she’s jealous of Slater and Jeff’s relationship and wants something like it with him?? that’s the moment I knew I was ruined. they’re the second closest pairing in the study group (Troy and Abed being number one ofc) because they spend the most time together and know each other the best because they’re so similar. and you’re so right about everyone downplaying their connection. the show stopped giving them moments together sometime around season 5, (which is funny since in season 4, Britta was dating Troy, but had more genuine moments with Jeff. like were the writers all on the same page. did anyone even know what was happening.) but their connection is still there despite everything!! I miss them too and I’m 100% positive that a Community movie would only make that worse since D*n’s too much of a coward to let the two of them interact.

[mycrazystrangeworld]

It has been a long hiatus, though to me it didn’t seem to be one. Time flies. June and July have flied by so fast, and I can’t keep up, shit things happening one after the other, and I’m still coping… But it’s a process. I’m functioning now enough to write and interact on this blog.

As I promised, this first post is a list of June releases (from June 3rd) and the reviews I found about them until now. You’re all welcome to let me know if you have a review that I forgot to add.

Since July is also over, I’m also sharing this month’s books and reviews.

As always, updating is constantly happening, if you know about a book or have a review, just let me know! 😉

Welcome back on Swift Coffee, everyone!

For the newbies (welcome 😘): if you don’t yet know what this is all about: I’m posting a list every Monday of the books that get released during the current week. I also include other people’s reviews about them! I try to do a blog hop from time to time and spread the word about this feature, but I obviously can’t find every review that’s related, so a sign that you have one would be very much appreciated! Every review is eligible that is written about a book published on the week in question, even if it was written before said week!

So… one question remains:

Would you like to join the ride?

It’s very easy!

These are the rules:

To be featured, you don’t have to do anything else, but to leave a comment below this post, or contact me by any other way, and let me know you have a review. A link to it makes it easier, but if you only say your review comes out on x day of the week, that’s okay as well, I’ll watch out for it! Following me is not a must, but I appreciate it very much, if you do! 🙂

I continuously update this post according to your infos/comments, and I share it again every time I’ve made an update.

The book you reviewed don’t have to be from the list here, if it’s not listed, but published this week, I’ll add the book, too!

You can also send me a review for next week, because these posts are scheduled! 😉

Books Published in June:

‘After the End’ by Clare Mackintosh mystery/thriller

‘All the Missing Girls’ by Megan Miranda mystery

‘A Merciful Promise’ by Kendra Elliot mystery/romantic suspense

‘A Nearly Normal Family’ by M.T. Edvardsson, Rachel Willson-Broyles (Translation) mystery/thriller

‘Ayesha at Last’ by Uzma Jalaluddin romance

‘Beyond Āsanas: The Myths and Legends behind Yogic Postures’ by Pragya Bhatt, Joel Koechlin (Photographer)

‘Bound to the Battle God’ by Ruby Dixon fantasy/romance

‘Briar and Rose and Jack’ by Katherine Coville middle grade

‘Bunny’ by Mona Awad horror

‘City of Girls’ by Elizabeth Gilbert historical fiction

‘Close to Home’ by Cate Ashwood M M romance

‘Dear Wife’ by Kimberly Belle mystery/thriller

‘Dissenter on the Bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life and Work’ by Victoria Ortiz non-fiction/middle grade

‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ by Taffy Brodesser-Akner contemporary

‘Five Midnights’ by Ann Dávila Cardinal horror

‘Fix Her Up’ by Tessa Bailey romance

‘Fixing the Fates: A Memoir’ by Diane Dewey non-fiction

‘Ghosts of the Shadow Market’ YA fantasy

‘Gun Island’ by Amitav Ghosh cultural/India/historical fiction

‘If Only’ by Melanie Murphy

‘Just One Bite’ by Jack Heath mystery/thriller

‘Like a Love Story’ by Abdi Nazemian YA/LGBT

‘Magic for Liars’ by Sarah Gailey fantasy/mystery

‘More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)’ by Elaine Welteroth non-fiction

‘Mrs. Everything’ by Jennifer Weiner historical fiction

‘Mostly Dead Things’ by Kristen Arnett contemporary/LGBT

‘Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune’ by Roselle Lim contemporary/romance

‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ by Ocean Vuong poetry

‘Rapture’ by Lauren Kate YA fantasy

‘Recursion’ by Blake Crouch science fiction

‘Searching for Sylvie Lee’ by Jean Kwok mystery

‘Somewhere Close to Happy’ by Lia Louis romance

‘Sorcery of Thorns’ by Margaret Rogerson fantasy

‘Storm and Fury’ by Jennifer L. Armentrout fantasy

‘Summer of ’69’ by Elin Hilderbrand historical fiction

‘Sweet Tea and Secrets’ by Joy Avon cozy mystery

‘Teeth in the Mist’ by Dawn Kurtagich horror

‘The Accidental Girlfriend’ by Emma Hart romance

‘The Bookshop on the Shore’ by Jenny Colgan contemporary/women’s fiction

‘The First Mistake’ by Sandie Jones thriller

‘The Friends We Keep’ by Jane Green women’s fiction

‘The Friend Zone’ by Abby Jimenez contemporary/romance

‘The Girl in Red’ by Christina Henry fantasy/horror

‘The Haunted’ by Danielle Vega horror

‘The Holiday’ by T.M. Logan

‘The July Girls’ by Phoebe Locke mystery/thriller

‘The Last House Guest’ by Megan Miranda mystery/thriller

‘The Most Fun We Ever Had’ by Claire Lombardo contemporary/literary fiction

‘The New Achilles’ by Christian Cameron historical fiction

‘The Red Labyrinth’ by Meredith Tate fantasy

‘The Resurrectionists’ by Michael Patrick Hicks horror

‘The Rest of the Story’ by Sarah Dessen YA contemporary/romance

‘Ollie Oxley and the Ghost: The Search for Lost Gold’ by Lisa Schmid middle grade

‘The Space Between Time’ by Charlie Laidlaw

‘The Stationery Shop’ by Marjan Kamali historical fiction

‘The Summer Country’ by Lauren Willig historical fiction

‘They Called Me Wyatt’ by Natasha Tynes mystery

‘This Might Hurt a Bit’ by Doogie Horner YA

‘Time After Time’ by Lisa Grunwald historical/science fiction

‘Waiting for Tom Hanks’ by Kerry Winfrey contemporary/romance

‘We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir’ by Samra Habib non-fiction

‘We Were Killers Once’ by Becky Masterman mystery/thriller

‘Where The Story Starts’ by Imogen Clark women’s fiction

‘Wicked Fox’ by Kat Cho YA fantasy

‘Wild and Crooked’ by Leah Thomas YA contemporary/LGBT

‘Wolf Rain’ by Nalini Singh paranormal romance

Reviews:

‘Sorcery of Thorns’ by Stephanie at Between Folded Pages

‘The Rapture’ at Book Bound

‘The Resurrectionists’ by Jen at Shit Reviews of Books

‘The Haunted’ by Kris at Boston Book Reader

‘The Friends We Keep’ by Vicky at Women in Trouble Book Blog

‘This Might Hurt a Bit’ by Amanda at Between the Shelves

‘Wild and Crooked’ by Amanda at Between the Shelves

‘The Haunted’ by Mandy at Book Princess Reviews

‘We Were Killers Once’ by Vicky at Women in Trouble Book Blog

‘Five Midnights’ by Sian at Sci-fi & Scary

‘Wolf Rain’ by Corina at Book Twins Reviews

‘Just One Bite’ by Berit at Audio Killed the Bookmark

‘Where the Story Starts’ by Anjana at Superfluous Reading

‘The Red Labyrinth’ by Anjana at Superfluous Reading

‘Fixing the Fates’ by Anjana at Superfluous Reading

‘Gun Island’ by Anjana at Superfluous Reading

‘If Only’ by Anjana at Superfluous Reading

‘Sweet Tea and Secrets’ by Rekha at The Book Decoder

‘Storm and Fury’ by Claire at bookscoffeeandrepeat

‘The New Achilles’ by Zoé at Zooloo’s Book Diary

‘Time After Time’ by Ashley at Ashes Books and Bobs

‘Recursion’ by Lilyn G at Sci-fi & Scary

‘The Space Between Time’ by Rekha at The Book Decoder

‘The Rumor’ by Vicky at Women in Trouble Book Blog

‘The Search for the Lost Gold’ by Lilyn G at Sci-fi & Scary

‘They Call Me Wyatt’ by Jen at Shit Reviews of Books

‘After the End’ by Linda at Linda’s Book Bag

‘Beyond Asanas’ by Shashank at Wonder’s Book Blog

‘The July Girls’ by Nicola at Short Book and Scribes

‘We Have Always Been Here’ by Kristin at Kristin Kraves Books

‘Close to Home’ by T. J. Fox

‘Dissenter on the Bench’ by Taylor at Tays Infinite Thoughts

‘Bound to the Battle God’ by Corina at Book Twins Reviews

‘Briar and Rose and Jack’ by Briana at Pages Unbound

‘Teeth in the Mist’ at Lori’s Bookshelf Reads

‘All the Missing Girls’ by Celine at Celinelingg

‘The Holiday’ by Zoe at Zooloo’s Book Diary

‘The July Girls’ by Joanna at Over the Rainbow Book Blog

‘More Than Enough’ by Jessica at Jess Just Reads

‘Somewhere Close to Happy’ at Jess Just Reads

‘The Accidental Girlfriend’ by Tijuana at Book Twins Reviews

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Books Published in July:

‘Along the Broken Bay’ by Flora J. Solomon historical fiction

‘A Stranger on the Beach’ by Michele Campbell mystery/thriller

‘A Whisker In The Dark’ by Leighann Dobbs cozy mystery

‘Dark Age’ by Pierce Brown science fiction

‘Depraved’ by Trilina Pucci romance/erotica

‘Deserve to Die’ by Miranda Rijks thriller

‘Drummer Girl’ by Ginger Scott YA romance

‘False Step’ by Victoria Helen Stone mystery/thriller

‘Girls Like Us’ by Cristina Alger mystery/thriller

‘Gods of Jade and Shadow’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia fantasy/historical fiction

‘Good Guy’ by Kate Meader romance

‘Gore in the Garden’ by Colleen J. Shogan cozy mystery

‘How to Hack a Heartbreak’ by Kristin Rockaway romance

‘Last Summer’ by Kerry Lonsdale contemporary

‘Life Ruins’ by Danuta Kot audiobook/mystery

‘Lock Every Door’ by Riley Sager mystery/thriller

‘Maybe This Time’ by Kasie West contemporary

‘Never Have I Ever’ by Joshilyn Jackson mystery/thriller

‘Never Look Back’ by Alison Gaylin mystery/thriller

‘Nightingale Point’ by Luan Goldie

‘Reclaimed by Her Rebel Knight’ by Jenni Fletcher historical romance

‘Resist’ by K. Bromberg romance

‘Salvation Day’ by Kali Wallace science fiction

‘Season of the Witch’ by Sarah Rees Brennan YA fantasy

‘Sisters of Willow House’ by Susanne O’Leary

‘Spin the Dawn’ by Elizabeth Lim fantasy

‘That Long Lost Summer’ by Minna Howard

‘The Betrayed Wife’ by Kevin O’Brien mystery/thriller

‘The Bookish Life of Nina Hill’ by Abbi Waxman contemporary/romance

‘The Chain’ by Adrian McKinty thriller

‘The Gifted School’ by Bruce Holsinger contemporary fiction

‘The Golden Hour’ by Beatriz Williams historical fiction

‘The Guy on the Right’ by Kate Stewart NA romance

‘The Last Book Party’ by Karen Dukess historical fiction

‘The Marriage Trap’ by Sheryl Browne thriller

‘The Merciful Crow’ by Margaret Owen fantasy

‘The Miraculous’ by Jess Redman middle grade

‘The Need’ by Helen Phillips horror/thriller

‘The Nickel Boys’ by Colson Whitehead historical fiction

‘The Rogue King’ by Abigail Owen paranormal romance

‘The Seekers’ by Heather Graham mystery

‘The Silent Ones’ by K.L. Slater thriller

‘The Storm Crow’ by Kalyn Josephson fantasy

‘The Wedding Party’ by Jasmine Guillory romance

‘Three Women’ by Lisa Taddeo non-fiction/feminism

‘To Be Devoured’ by Sara Tantlinger horror

‘Truly Madly Royally’ by Debbie Rigaud YA romance

‘Under Currents’ by Nora Roberts romance

‘War’ by Laura Thalassa fantasy/romance

‘Whisper Network’ by Chandler Baker mystery/thriller

‘Wilder Girls’ by Rory Power YA horror/mystery

A fantastic review of…

‘Reclaimed by her Rebel Knight’ by Demetra at Demi Reads

‘The Merciful Crow’ by Clarissa at Clarissa Reads It All

‘The Bookish Life of Nina Hill’ at Flavia the Bibliophile

‘The Merciful Crow’ by Kaleena at Reader Voracious

‘The Guy On the Right’ by Astrid at The Bookish Sweet Tooth

‘False Step’ by Jordann at The Book Blog Life

‘The Guy On the Right’ by Angela at Reading Frenzy Book Blog

‘Reclaimed by Her Rebel Knight’ by Joules at Northern Reader

‘Depraved’ by Demetra at Demi Reads

‘Never Have I Ever’ by Steph AT Steph’s Book Blog

‘Reclaimed by Her Rebel Knight’ by Jennifer C. Wilson

‘That Long Lost Summer’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘Sisters of Willow House’ by Joanne at Portobello Book Blog

‘A Whisker in the Dark’ by Berit at Audio Killed the Bookmark

‘The Rouge King’ by Ashley at Falling Down the Book Hole

‘Good Guy’ by Astrid at The Bookish Sweet Tooth

‘Drummer Girl’ by Astrid at The Bookish Sweet Tooth

‘The Need’ by T. J. Fox

‘The Seekers’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘The Silent Ones’ by Steph at StefLoz Book Blog

‘Resist’ by Tijuana at Book Twins Reviews

‘Reclaimed by Her Rebel Knight’ by Jess Bookish Life

‘Sisters of Willow House’ by Joanna at Over the Rainbow Book Blog

‘How To Hack a Heartbreak’ by Corina at Book Twins Reviews

‘Somebody Else’s Baby’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘Life Ruins’ by Amanda at mybookishblogspot

‘The Miraculous’ by Chris at Plucked from the Stacks

‘The Betrayed Wife’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘Salvation Day’ by Lilyn G at Sci-fi & Scary

‘The Marriage Trap’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘The Chain’ at Jess Just Reads

‘To Be Devoured’ by Sam and Gracie at Sci-fi & Scary

‘Truly Madly Royally’ by Olivia at The Candid Cover

‘Season of the Witch’ by Jill at Jill’s Book Blog

‘Gore in the Garden’ by Rekha at The Book Decoder

‘Never Look Back’ by Berit at Audio Killed the Bookmark

‘Wilder Girls’ by Kathy at Pages Below the Vaulted Sky

‘Deserve to Die’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘Sisters of Willow House’ by Shalini at Shalini’s Books and Reviews

‘Sisters of Willow House’ by Berit at Audio Killed the Bookmark

‘Nightingale Point’ by Amanda at mybookishblogspot

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 16%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

See these beautiful covers? *.*

Which are your favorites?

I’m so happy to be here with you bookish guys again!!

Don’t forget to let me know if you have a review!

Oh, and in the near future comes another post with the releases of the beginning of August! You can send me reviews for that post, as well.

Have a wonderful time!

Hugs 🙂

I’m back! – A Master List of Book Releases of June and July + Reviews! It has been a long hiatus, though to me it didn't seem to be one. Time flies.

[offier]

@lcveblossomed: “ do i look like the kind of person who could give advice ? ” (alice to joey)

unsolved starters / accepting

Joey responds with a scoff, "Do I look like the kind of person who asks for advice?" Normally, he'd steer clear of the survivors from Nightwing, but...well, he's not exactly sober when he approaches Alice. "I don't know, I just...you were with him when it happened, right?" He's not sure what he wants from this conversation, but he can't help but ask.

[luimnigh]

A Review of: The Umbrella Academy (Season 1)

You know, if I’m going to have this basically-a-blog, I might as well put it to use, right? Always wanted to do reviews, let’s give it a shot.

The Umbrella Academy

Developed by: Steve Blackman and Jeremy Slater

Based on the Graphic Novels by: Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá

Starring: Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Mary J. Blige, Cameron Britton and John Magaro.

Score: 7/10

Watch If You Like: Dysfunctional Families, deconstructions of superhero tropes (aimed mainly at the X-Men, but there’s some shots at Batman there too), quirky comicbook stuff.

Content Warnings: Semi-frequent Gore, Child Abuse, Torture, Domestic Abuse, use of Stuffed Into The Fridge, Bury Your Gays and Not Blood Siblings romance.

Spoilers below the cut.

So, yeah, this show. Binged it in a few days a couple days ago. It’s pretty okay. Definitely some things in it that would turn a lot of people off. Not fantastically well-written, but competently.

It follows the six surviving members of the Umbrella Academy, a school/teenage superhero team from the early 2000s as they deal with the loss of their leader/adoptive father. He was an abusive asshole, so they mostly don’t miss him besides the Golden Child of the group, Luther.

As they grew up, the kids all went their separate ways, and their father’s death brings them all back together. Initially there are only five of them, but then Number Five, a member of their team that went missing in their teenage years, appears out of a time portal. He’s there to save the world from an upcoming apocalypse, though he only initially confides this in Vanya, the families’ only non-superpowered child. While this happens, Luther attempts to lead an investigation into their father’s death, as he suspects foul play.

The Good:

Fun character interaction.

Decently well-developed characters.

Not one, but two enticing mysteries that intertwine and clash at points.

Good, clear rules to the setting that develop as it goes on.

Quality jukebox soundtrack with some interesting choices.

Decent depictions of various types of abusive relationships. 

The Bad:

The aforementioned fridging of Detective Patch in Episode 4, solely to give personal motivation to Diego.

...motivation which he drops at points to serve the plot. There are several moments that will leave you scratching your head and wondering why the characters are either going against character or forgetting to use their powers.

Torture is used an effective means of information gathering.

There’s a developing romantic relationship between a pair of adoptive siblings, which is a little creepy. 

Klaus’ time travel jaunt to acquire a dead mlm love interest feels kinda rushed, plus even if the Dave is dead before we meet him, it still counts as Bury Your Gays. You could argue that Klaus’ power (speaking to the dead) kinda negates that, but he never interacts with Dave post-death, despite that being a major motivation of his character. C’mon, not one quiet moment before the end with the two of them interacting?

Ending on a cliffhanger. I know you’re a Netflix show and you’re guaranteed two seasons, but because your cliffhanger is a time travel trip, you leave us with absolutely no closure. 

So yeah. Definitely not for everybody, but if you can get past it’s flaws, it’s a fun little show with some room to improve.

[brunapiedade]

Project 3 Refletion

After the presentation I took some time to reflect on my work. 3D modeling is not an easy medium and for a week’s project I believe i achieved good results. When it comes to combining he realities of digital and physical, it takes quite a workload to successfully achieve. I am increasingly more interested in this concept of “remixing” technologies and art forms to create a world of mixed realities.

After some self reflection I can say that in these past 2 months the amount of hours per day in which I have no connection at all are far scarce that they were last year. From the moment we wake up to the moment we sleep we are always connected. In the past this kind of connection has usually been met with negative connotations as many of us would hear reprimands from our elders with the classical interjections “you spend too long glued to that screen”. However with the global pandemic we have turned this once negative outlook into a necessary source for interpersonal connection, education, entertainment and even work. 

Mixing the realities could be considered escapism but it can also be integration. Immersing ourselves fully into the digital world we now live in everyday life by bringing elements of the digital sphere into the physical realm with the help of AR technologies, Mapping and 3D printing, we can integrate elements from the digital sphere with the physical realm and blur the lines that separate us from this world that lives inside our pockets.

MR specifically can be a powerful tool of learning and professional training, in ways that VR alone could not. By remixing the realities we can make both students and audiences engaged in the experience, as well as develop their learning through interaction. (Pan, Z. Cheok, A. Yang, H. Zhu, J, Shi, J. ,2006)

This developing medium can benefit us both in academic and scientific ways but also in creating new art experiences and new ways to conduct immersive narratives to the audience. 

Slater,M and Sanchez-Vives, M.V. ,present multiple uses for VR technologies that can evolve the human experience and learning to new levels, from Science,Education and Surgical Training to social and cultural experiences, the uses are limitless and possibly what an optimized future might strive for. References:

Slater, M. and Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2016) ‘Enhancing Our Lives with Immersive Virtual Reality’, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 3. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2016.00074.

Pan, Z. Cheok, A. Yang, H. Zhu, J, Shi, J. (2006) 'Virtual reality and mixed reality for virtual learning environments', Computers & Graphics, 30 (1), pp. 20-28. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2005.10.004.

[bluewatsons]

Robert Bennett, The Psychopharmacological Thriller: Representations of Psychotropic Pills in American Popular Culture, 37 Literature & Medicine 166 (2019)

Psychotropic medications have increasingly become a staple of modern life, with one in five adults now taking some kind of psychiatric pill. Consequently, our voracious consumption of psychotropic pills has begun to raise significant questions about how psychopharmacology radically transforms—modifies, manipulates, molds, and manufactures—human identities one pill at a time. Moreover, this biochemical micro-engineering of the human self has begun to emerge as one of contemporary culture's major preoccupations as new narratives—in memoir, literature, television, film, and popular music—have begun to explore not only mental illnesses themselves but also the medications we take to treat those illnesses. In this newly emergent genre, which I call the psychopharmacological thriller, new narrative techniques are being developed to probe the inner neurochemistry of the human brain, how medications alter that neurochemistry, and the wide-ranging questions raised by this brave new proliferation of psychopharmacology in everyday life.

With today's pharmacology, no one needs to suffer with feelings of exhaustion and depression.

—Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), The Sopranos

Nothing a little lithium couldn't cure.

—Lisa (Illeana Douglas), Stir of Echoes

Widely praised as resembling "nothing else on television," HBO's The Sopranos (1999–2007) narrates the infamous deeds of a notorious mob family whose lives overflow with murders, drug deals, carjackings, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, gambling, and prostitution.1 And yet, the series does not open in medias res, during a ruthless firefight between heavily armed hitmen or even in some seedy New Jersey strip club, but instead with Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) simply walking into a nondescript psychiatrist's office, seeking professional help for a recent panic attack (fig. 1). No oneoff gag or mere comic juxtaposition between grisly mob violence and touchy-feely psychoanalysis, as in the films Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002), Tony's "talk therapy" sessions with Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) arguably provide the series' central narrative framing device, using the analyst's chair to reveal the depths of its protagonist's character, to explore his broader relationships with family and friends, to simultaneously dissect both criminal and suburban life, and ultimately to probe the very psyche of America itself. In the end, Tony Soprano may be just a run-of-the-mill gangster, but as an analysand he is almost unparalleled in American culture. Not since Woody Allen's Alvy Singer (Annie Hall 1977) has a character been so thoroughly—and entertainingly—psychoanalyzed on screen.

Figure 1. Opening scene of The Sopranos. Tony Soprano visiting his psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. The Sopranos, HBO, season 1, episode 1, 1999.

The Sopranos' grand psychoanalytic narrative, however, is itself shadowed by a second psychopharmacological one. For Dr. Melfi treats Tony not only with talk therapy but also with psychotropic medications, most notably Prozac. So in certain respects the series plays itself out on a subterranean level, through a biochemical subplot, maybe even as what could be termed a psychopharmacological thriller. Always in the background, this subplot is constantly exploring how the complex psychology of the human mind interacts with the hardwired biochemistry of the human brain. From this psychiatric perspective, The Sopranos is not simply a psychoanalytic exploration of the ideas inside Tony's head, or even the feelings inside his heart; it is also an examination of what's inside his medicine cabinet. In the very first episode Dr. Melfi throws down a psychopharmacological gauntlet, brazenly declaring that "with today's pharmacology, no one needs to suffer with feelings of exhaustion and depression."2 And thus begins the unfolding battle between the Don's deeply troubled, but not so easily cured, psyche and the shrink's vast, but less than invincible, arsenal of psychotropic medications. As in many other texts about mental health, however, this psychopharmacological subplot, the drama of Tony's pills, often seems to pass unnoticed.

The near invisibility of Tony's pills is commonplace in critical discussions of how cultural texts represent mental health. While Glen O. Gabbard and Krin Gabbard's Psychiatry and the Cinema, David J. Robinson's Reel Psychiatry: Movie Portrayals of Psychiatric Conditions, and Danny Wedding and Mary Ann Boyd's Movies & Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology all develop excellent analyses of how mental health and psychoanalysis have been depicted in cultural texts, especially in film, much less attention has been paid to how cultural texts represent psychiatric treatment with psychotropic medications. For example, Wedding and Boyd's Movies & Mental Illness includes only a few short paragraphs on medications per se, rarely making anything more than brief, sporadic comments about how the character "Mr. Jones did not respond to treatment with Haldol" or the film I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can (1982) "demonstrates some of the problems associated with overreliance on Valium" before generally concluding that the "treatment most often used" in films is "individual psychotherapy."3 Likewise, Gabbard and Gabbard's Psychiatry and the Cinema chronicles more than 400 films which depict psychiatrists treating individuals with various psychiatric problems, developing in-depth analysis of portrayals of psychoanalysis but saying very little about medication. And Robin-son's Reel Psychiatry repeats this pattern: It contains exhaustive analyses of how films represent everything from schizophrenia, Cyclothymia, and PTSD to Somatoform disorders, Borderline Personality Disorder, and dissociative amnesia, but it offers few insights about Valium, Thorazine, or Prozac. Similarly, Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin's The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You includes short descriptions of how numerous mental states—from clinical anxiety and depression to quotidian apathy and stress—are depicted in literature, but few entries on how treatments of these conditions are also depicted. As self-proclaimed bibliotherapists, Berthoud and Elderkin contend that literature can insightfully depict, and even help to cure, various psychological conditions, but their comprehensive treatment of 751 books says next to nothing about how these books portray psychiatric medication.

In contrast with the well-developed literature on depictions of psychology, critical evaluations of pharmacology are just beginning to emerge. Lorenzo Servitje's recent (2018) Literature and Medicine article, "Of Drugs and Droogs: Cultural Dynamics, Psychopharmacology, and Neuroscience in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange," and Isabelle Travis's "Is Getting Well Ever an Art?: Psychopharmacology and Madness in Robert Lowell's Day by Day" stand out as two of the few articles to explore how the relationship between neuroscience and psychopharmacology plays out in works of art. For example, Servitje develops a new reading of A Clockwork Orange which demonstrates how "psychopharmacology plays a central role in the novel's plot," while Travis points out how Lowell's poetry describes himself as both a "thorazined fixture" and "tamed by Miltown," thereby demonstrating how he conceptualizes his psychopharmacological treatment as something of a "chemical straightjacket."4 My own study Pill (Bloomsbury, 2019) is arguably the first book-length exploration of how a wide range of cultural texts depict not only mental health conditions but also their treatment with psychotropic medications.

Although largely absent from the critical conversation about film, these psychotropic drugs are now widely discussed in the medical community. They play a prominent role in current discussions of mental health—from Allen Frances's cautionary Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life to Peter R. Breggin's outright anti-pill diatribe Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy, and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the "New Psychiatry." And certainly, there have been many personal memoirs of people's firsthand experiences with psychiatric medications—from Lauren Slater's Prozac Diary (1998) and Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation (1994) to Stephen Elliott's The Adderall Diaries (2009). Nevertheless, very little mention has been made of how these medications are also represented in fictional art. This is in spite of the fact that psychotropic medications have played a role in literary and cinematic texts from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) to The Sopranos, and they are now beginning to play an ever-increasing role not only in real life, but also in contemporary memoirs, literature, films, and television shows about mental health.

Consequently, in our brave, new psychopharmacological age, more careful attention needs to be paid—both in life and in art—to the neurochemistry of the brain and how that neurochemistry is altered through psychotropic medication. For, as Nikolas Rose argues, it is "now at the molecular level that human life is understood, at the molecular level that its processes can be anatomized, and at the molecular level that life can now be engineered."5 Moreover, the recent emergence of new cultural depictions of psychotropic pills and their neurochemical impact on characters' brains—the emerging genre of the psychopharmacological thriller—has begun to refocus cultural inquiry on this molecular level, essentially providing a new model of human subjectivity located more firmly in the hardwired neurocircuitry of the brain than in the more humanistically oriented softwiring of the mind or the psyche. As Hilary Rose and Steven Rose explain, the brain has increasingly been redefined "as the centre of the self" and "persons" increasingly "reduce[d]" to their "neurons" and "synapses," transforming selfhood into what Fernando Vidal describes as "brain-hood," the "brain-self," or the "cerebral subject."6 Consequently, these new psychopharmacological thrillers increasingly depict how we are fast becoming Jean-Pierre Changeux's Neuronal Man or Joseph LeDoux's Synaptic Self.

If only it were as simple as Dr. Melfi suggests. If only Tony's suffering was "nothing a little lithium couldn't cure," as Lisa Weil (Illeana Douglas) remarks in Stir of Echoes (1999), then all he would have to do is swallow the right pill and out would come the cure, kind of like inserting a dollar bill into a Coke machine, which is essentially what Dr. Melfi's pharmacological model of the human brain implies.7 There would be no need for psychopharmacological "thrillers": no need to depict the excruciating biochemical battles raging inside human brains or the tremendous lengths to which health care professionals go to try to treat mental health disorders. The Sopranos itself might not have even needed a second season, or at least not one that included Dr. Melfi. Instead of ending Tony's suffering with modern pharmacology, however, Dr. Melfi seems only to drag him deeper into pharmaceutical quicksand, prescribing him Prozac in the first episode and Xanax in the third. By the twelfth episode, the emerging mob kingpin is taking lithium, too, and when Dr. Melfi asks him if he is "still taking the lithium," he replies, "Lithium, Prozac. When's it gonna end?"8 (fig.2).

Tony is already onto Dr. Melfi's pharmacological game, and when lithium itself produces adverse side effects, causing Tony to hallucinate a beautiful woman named Isabella (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), one begins to wonder if Dr. Melfi isn't curing Tony so much as she is pulling him down a psychopharmacological rabbit hole, turning his medicine cabinet—and his mind itself—into a psychotropic funhouse. David Healy's 2012 warning against "pharmageddon," Allen Frances's attempt to "save normal," and Peter Breggin's condemnation of toxic psychiatry have all articulated powerful critiques of the overuse and abuse of psychiatric medications in the treatment of mental illnesses, and Tony's rapidly lengthening psychotropic rap sheet seems to lend credence to their concerns about overmedicalization.

Figure 2. Tony Soprano's medicine cabinet. The Sopranos, HBO, season 1, episode 12, 1999.

But The Sopranos is only one example of the proliferating psychopharmacological thriller, in which not only a character's mental  illness but also how that illness is treated with psychotropic medications occupies a central place in the text. The rising popularity of this genre is evidenced by the recent memoirs, novels, films, and television shows which explicitly explore the complexities of mental health disorders at least partly from the perspective of the psycho-tropic medications used to treat them; examples include the pitting of Prozac against depression (Prozac Nation memoir 1994, film 2001), Valium against borderline personality disorder (Girl, Interrupted memoir 1993, film 1999), pentobarbital against dissociative disorder (Frankie and Alice 2010), or Thorazine and insulin against schizophrenia (A Beautiful Mind biography 1998, film 2001). Characters' diverse battles with lithium alone occur in Mr. Jones (1993), Pi (1998), Garden State (2004), Premonition (2007), Michael Clayton (2007), The Silver Linings Playbook (novel 2008, film 2012), Homeland (2011–), and Infinitely Polar Bear (2014). Sometimes these psychopharmacological plots play out subtly, as when anonymous psych nurses dispense undefined pills to long lines of generic patients suffering from unspecified maladies (as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975), or characters with unmistakably disturbed minds take repeated trips to the medicine cabinet to self-administer some unnamed, but clearly psychotropic, medication (as in Donnie Darko 2001). Whether or not these texts specify the precise nature of each pharmaceutical conflict, taken collectively their point is clear: The psychotropic meds dispensed on any given day, day after day, play a central role in shaping the inner psychological conflicts faced by those who take them, as their psychologies and their biologies interact to play out grand psychopharmacological dramas. In each case, the biochemical conflict between a protagonist's troubled mental state and the psychopharmacological tools used to treat it ends up shaping its characters, its plot, its imagery, its emotional conflicts, its dramatic tension, and at times even its metaphysics.

And, pace Dr. Melfi, psychopharmacological thrillers almost invariably emphasize the complexities, rather than the certainties, of treating mental health disorders, depicting psychotropic medications as imperfect at best. In fact, in most cases today, both for real and for fictional patients, psychiatrists now routinely treat mental health disorders by prescribing complex combinations of medications, or psychotropic "cocktails," rather than a single pill. These cocktails are rarely static, too. Psychiatrists frequently adjust diverse amalgamations of prescriptions and dosages while their patients struggle for years, if not entire lifetimes, to manage their conditions. In Side Effects (2013), for example, Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is treated with Wellbutrin, Prozac, Effexor, and Ablixa, and in Gothika (2003), Chloe Sava (Penelope Cruz) is treated with Elavil, Mallorol, and Haldol. In The Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) and Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence) swap stories about being on lithium, Seroquel, Abilify, Xanax, Effexor, Klonopin, and Trazodone—a not implausible course of treatment which vividly illustrates how the simple isomorphic one-toone correlation between a single disorder and a single medication is now more the exception than the rule.

It is hyperbole, of course, but Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff), the protagonist of Zach Braff's Garden State, reveals a kernel of truth—arguably more truth than Dr. Melfi's boast—when he extends modern pharmacology's proliferation of psychotropic medication ad absurdum. Waking from a disturbing nightmare of a plane crash to find himself in a near catatonic state in a white-on-white bedroom, clearly evoking images of an asylum, Largeman lethargically rises from his bed to face his own reflection in an oversized, double-mirrored medicine cabinet which, as he slowly peels it open, reveals behind his reflected face a wall of no less than 45 prescription pill bottles. A far cry from Dr. Melfi's "no one needs to suffer," Largeman's medicine cabinet throws down its own countergauntlet, calling modern pharmacology's bluff, which—for all of its bewildering array of new designer psychotropics—still offers far fewer and less simple solutions than Dr. Melfi claims. Few images display these complexities, if not outright failures, better than Largeman's oversized, overstuffed medicine cabinet (fig. 3). 

Figure 3. Andrew Largeman's medicine cabinet. Garden State, dir. Zach Braff, 2004.

What we see in Largeman's medicine cabinet has become a major preoccupation of contemporary culture: How are we to deal with the brave, new world of modern psychopharmacology, a world in which human identities are increasingly bio-engineered one pill at a time, titrated gram by gram like the soma-addicts of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?

To Medicate or Not to Medicate: The Psychopharmacology of Nonadherence

I'd like to say one thing about lithium if you don't mind. Nobody even knows if it works.

—Cam Stuart (Mark Ruffalo), Infinitely Polar Bear

In many respects, Maya Forbes's heartwarming Infinitely Polar Bear (2014) exemplifies the psychopharmacological thriller in its simplest form, depicting—in a primarily realistic manner—Cam Stuart as an endearingly manic, happily married father of two whose life begins to unravel largely due to his struggle with bipolar disorder. In fact, Cam is literally introduced in terms of his illness as his daughter's voice opens the film, "My father was diagnosed manic depressive [i.e. bipolar] in 1967. He'd been going around Cambridge in a fake beard calling himself Jesus John Harvard."9 And, at least initially, Cam is depicted appealingly; he may be a little impulsive and quirky, but he is also fun and carefree, even ecstatically joyful, sucking the marrow of life. Consequently, his family accepts, even embraces, the eccentricities of his condition.

The film quickly shifts, however, to emphasize the darker side of Cam's illness and the serious strains it puts on his family. Keeping his daughters home from school so that they can help him "celebrate" his recent firing from his job, Cam remarks unequivocally that "Mommy's going to be so happy that I kept you out of school"—only for his bold declaration of manic freedom to be immediately followed by mommy's attempt to flee their home precisely to escape Cam's madness. When Cam rides up on a bike in nothing but a red bathing suit and a red bandanna, in winter weather no less, he does little to help his cause, sealing his fate perhaps with his hysterical outburst: "I am a man. Men like to live free. That's what we do, Maggie. To hunt and mate. That's what we do. That's why we have balls." By nightfall the police have been called to transport Cam to a psychiatric hospital, and, lovably eclectic as he may be, the film quickly reveals that behind his family's "happy" façade there is "more to it than that. There always is."

Ultimately, however, Infinitely Polar Bear isn't just about Cam's illness; it is equally about lithium, the medication that he uses to treat it, about the decisions that he makes regarding whether or not to take that medication, about the medication's side effects, and even about questioning—perhaps unreliably—the reliability of lithium itself. For while the film clearly, and correctly, suggests that lithium does mitigate, though perhaps not entirely cure, the complex condition of bipolar disorder, it never reduces lithium to a mere panacea: It never boasts that "no one need suffer" if they would just take their lithium, nor does it suggest that bipolar is "nothing a little lithium couldn't cure." On the contrary, the film repeatedly emphasizes how Cam's medication itself produces diverse side effects, constantly needs to be adjusted, and must be accompanied by careful stress and anger management, sobriety, and a healthy daily routine. Add to this the fact that many of Cam's most endearing qualities—including his creativity, his joie de vivre, his charisma, and his compassion—are perhaps difficult to disentangle from his illness and hence subside, if not disappear altogether, when he does properly take his lithium, and the situation quickly becomes murkier. Lithium does not simply cure Cam: It also makes him disappear. Every gain in stability is seemingly counterbalanced by a loss of some treasured part of himself: his spontaneity, his love of life, or his expansive sense of freedom. Given the complexity of Cam's condition, then, it is perhaps not surprising that he frequently lapses into nonadherence to his lithium regimen. It is hard for Cam to fully cure, or even manage, his illness without feeling like he is sacrificing a piece, even the best piece, of himself, making his cure at times seem worse than the illness itself. Consequently, he generally resents and resists taking his lithium, reluctant to even want to "cure" himself.

It is Cam's daughter, however, who first places Cam's medication at the front and center of the narrative, offering a variation on Dr. Melfi's "no one needs to suffer" when she suggests to Cam that if he will "stop drinking and take [his] lithium then mommy would let [him] come home." And while she correctly sums up the core of Cam's predicament, his struggles with bipolar disorder, lithium, and sobriety are depicted as interconnected trials which are far from simple. For if the plot of Infinitely Polar Bear pits the love of family, including mentally ill family, against the toll that mental illness takes on families, then the film's psychopharmacological subplot pits the power of lithium against the refusal to take it, its adverse side effects, ill-advised forms of self-medicating, and even the possibility that it simply might not work. Lithium, then, together with Cam's adherence or nonadherence to taking it, provides the film's principal barometer of Cam's progress as a character—as a husband, as a father, and as a person. When he takes the lithium he is generally more stable, though admittedly not his most vivacious self, but when he stops taking it he unravels, even explodes, though perhaps with what Jack Kerouac describes as the terrible beauty of the "mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."10 So while lithium indisputably helps Cam manage his condition, his attraction to his other manic side frequently prompts him to refuse to take his medication. One can judge Cam's refusal as irrational from the outside, but the film repositions the viewer on the inside to see how it might feel to be forced to take a medication that so alters your personality as to make you feel like you are not yourself anymore. Perhaps the film ultimately comes down in favor of adherence, but it never ignores, or even minimizes, its costs.

Cam's nonadherence comes to a crisis when he calls Maggie at five in the morning to tell her that he stayed up all night making his daughter a flamboyantly eclectic flamenco skirt—"the most glorious skirt I've ever known," according to his daughter. When Cam adds that he doesn't need to go to sleep because he isn't tired, Maggie asks him point-blank if he is taking his lithium. He replies, "Actually, I haven't taken my lithium since you left. I find that if I take small, steady sips of beer all day I stay on even keel." So Cam is not only nonadherent to his prescribed medication, but he is also self-medicating with alcohol—a dangerous one-two punch for someone with bipolar disorder. But the central conundrum of the film is starkly presented by the fact that it is the same manic qualities, the very manifestation of his illness itself, that enables Cam to be a good, even great, father, to stay up all night frenetically sewing a fanciful and beloved dress for his daughter, while at the same time compromising both his own health and the stability of his family. Ultimately, the same things which make Cam lovable are not easily disentangled from the ones that make him mentally ill: However useful lithium may prove in treating his illness, it cannot navigate the complex biochemical networks of Cam's brain sorting out the good from the bad and stacking them each in neat little piles. Consequently, Cam's adherence or nonadherence to his lithium regimen is not presented as a choice between good and evil, between health and illness, but rather as—at least in part—a balancing act, a necessary evil, a pyrrhic victory, or even an unwinnable catch-22. Sitting at his sewing machine at 5:00 in the morning sans lithium, we see Cam simultaneously at both his best and his worst with his most loving and most unstable selves fusing into one.

Ultimately, however, Cam ups the ante, not just refusing to take his lithium, but boldly declaring that lithium itself doesn't work: "I'd like to say one thing about lithium if you don't mind. Nobody even knows if it works or what the long term effects are on one's body. The same goes for Haldol, Thorazine, Valporic Acid, and all the rest of their so-called treatments." Here the plot turns from a narrative largely about the dilemmas of nonadherence to an outright anti-psychopharmacological diatribe, turning Dr. Melfi's "no one needs to suffer" on its head and leaving modern pharmacology without any cures whatsoever. While rejecting medication altogether is not an outright impossibility for some, Cam has proved time and time again that refusing lithium as a treatment is ill-advised for his own personal situation. And yet, even after declaring himself "nothing more than a Guinea pig," Cam still returns one last time to his medicine cabinet—for his family if not quite for himself—to reluctantly take his daily dose of lithium, narratively paving the way for Maggie to decide that she can leave their daughters with Cam in Boston when she goes to take a job in New York City, keeping the family, if not the marriage, intact. Thus, the film plots its final twist, inescapably intertwining Cam's family troubles with his difficulties taking his lithium. But if Cam has proven himself both an unreliable parent and habitually nonadherent, his final trip to his medicine cabinet suggests that he remains capable of progress: He has not ultimately given up on medicine altogether.

Here we should pause to read the profound ambivalence—which permeates the entire film—into this final look into Cam's medicine cabinet (fig. 4). His final dose of lithium represents less some Melfiesque psychopharmacological conquest than just one small step in an ongoing, never-ending daily struggle, a reminder that Cam needs to return every day—difficult as it may be—to renew his daily sacrament of lithium. Cam may not have given up entirely, but his last trip to his medicine cabinet represents less some final cure than a quick stare into the existential abyss opened up by the complex, unresolved interplay between the biochemistry of his brain and the psychotropic medications that he uses to control it. A victory for a day perhaps, but Cam's Sisyphean struggles with both his illness and its treatment remain far from over, and his continued dependence on his medicine cabinet represents just the first and most obvious symbol of that.

Managing Side Effects: The Psychopharmacology of Carrie Mathison's Mad Genius

So what do we do?

Up her lithium. Start giving her clonazepam.

—Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) and Maggie Mathison (Amy Hargreaves), Homeland

It is the Showtime television series Homeland (2011–) that best demonstrates how the simple mental health narrative, a more or less realistic portrayal of mental illness, can be extended into a full-blown psychopharmacological thriller. A thriller in the fullest sense of the word, Homeland's plot involves the inner workings of CIA espionage, Islamic terrorism, drone strikes, torture, money laundering, rogue hitmen, illicit affairs, and a "turned" American marine who has converted to Islam and become a suicide bomber hoping to assassinate the Vice President while having an affair with an intelligence analyst—all amidst a full panoply of double and even triple agents. At the center of all this stands Carrie Mathison (Clare Danes), a high-level CIA operative specializing in post-9/11 anti-terrorism in the Middle East. Carrie, however, is also bipolar, a condition that she treats with lithium—and clozapine, clonazepam, nortriptyline, Seroquel, and ECT (Electroconvulsive "Shock" Therapy). Consequently, the crux of the narrative arises from this disjunctive confluence between Carrie's intelligence work and the diverse ways in which her work is complicated—sometimes aided and other times frustrated—by both her bipolar condition, which itself flares in and out of control, and the medication that she uses to treat it. Ultimately, then, Homeland triangulates a three-fold plot which interweaves high-wire national security issues, a realistic depiction of Carrie's mental illness, and a surprisingly wide-reaching examination of the psychopharmacology of her convoluted medicine cabinet, a medicine cabinet which can almost be seen as a primary character itself.

Figure 4. Cam Stuart reluctantly returns to take his daily dose of lithium. Infinitely Polar Bear, dir. Maya Forbes, 2015.

In the simplest sense, Danes's portrayal of Carrie plainly depicts the complex realities of bipolar disorder and its medical treatment, and Danes has been highly praised for the verisimilitude of her performance. As an actress, she has garnered the entire gamut of television acting honors, including multiple Emmys, Golden Globes, and Satellite Awards as well as a Screen Actors Guild, TCA, and Critics' Choice Award. In addition, her performance has also been recognized by mental health advocates such as Courtney Reyers, the publications manager for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), who describes Danes's performance as "one of the best jobs of portraying mental illness in modern television today with compassion, clarity, and responsibility attached."11 Similarly, Dr. Ellen Leibenluft, Chief, Section on Mood Dysregulation and Neuroscience (SMDN) and Co-Chief, Emotion and Development Branch (E & D) at the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), concurs that Danes's character is "extremely well played" and a "very good portrayal of mania."12 From a psychiatric perspective, then, what stands out most about Homeland is both Danes's ability to realistically portray the heightened intensity of bipolar states and the series' broad recognition that however debilitating Carrie's illness may be her illness is nonetheless an integral part of who she is. It even earns her praise from her boss, David Estes (David Harewood), when he tells her she is a "bit of a folk hero among some … analysts."13

From a psychopharmacological perspective, Carrie's illness is accurately portrayed as deeply intertwined with the medications that she does (or does not) take and with how well those medications are working on any given day—with the centrality of Carrie's medication being circuitously revealed by the fact that viewers are actually first introduced not to her bipolar illness itself but to her medication. Early in the first episode, "Pilot," long before any mention is made of Carrie's mental health issues themselves, she agitatedly reaches into her medicine cabinet to remove what appears to be an ordinary bottle of aspirin (fig. 5).

Yet when Carrie dispenses the medication, the pill's oblong shape and slightly off-greenish color immediately reveal that this is not aspirin, a fact soon confirmed by Carrie's co-worker, Max (Maury Sterling), who when he inadvertently discovers her medication describes it as "what she hides inside her aspirin bottle instead of aspirin."14 And the episode returns to the same trope a third time when Carrie's other co-worker, Virgil (David Marciano), does a little sleuthing and discovers that Carrie's pills are actually clozapine, an atypical antipsychotic clearly indicative of a serious mental health condition. It is only at this point that Virgil finally confronts Carrie, asking her point-blank if she is "crazy."15

Forced to confess, Carrie admits that she has a secret "mood disorder" that nobody at the agency can know about.16 Note, however, that Carrie's illness is inferred backwards from her pills, rather than directly observed from her behavior. Add to this the fact that Carrie returns to her medicine cabinet two additional times during the episode, making five distinct references to her medication compared to a lone reference to her illness itself, and it is almost as if the episode is suggesting that you can begin to reveal characters' inner lives, at least if they are mentally ill, by simply ascertaining what is hidden—and in this case doubly hidden—inside their medicine cabinets. And, in the psychopharmacological thriller at least, this claim proves largely true. Carrie's clozapine is just the tip of the iceberg, the first thread that begins to unravel her broader story, and hidden inside an aspirin bottle her medication provides a telling metaphor for the larger secret bipolar life which she hides from the CIA. We all have little secrets, but Carrie's secret is not just her bipolar condition but also the medications which she uses to treat it. Virgil is just the one who lets the pill out of the bottle.

Figure 5. Carrie Mathison's clozapine hidden in a nondescript aspirin bottle. Home-land, season 1, episode 1, 2011.

Sure, plenty of clues are dropped, obliquely hinting at the possibility of Carrie's bipolar condition: She is full of constant nervous energy, practically frenzied; she is emotionally high-strung, if not outright volatile; she rates high on both impulsivity and insubordination; Virgil describes her as "intense"; her closest confident, Saul, admits that she can be a "little obsessive"; and her boss wants to know if there is "something" wrong with her, complaining, "It's not her resume I have a problem with; it's her temperament."17 She also repeatedly engages in clearly reckless behavior: dangerously rushing into an armed Iraqi prison, illegally wiretapping Nicholas Brody's (Damian Lewis's) house against the explicit orders of her superior, initiating a promiscuous relationship, and betraying Saul, her best friend, and thereby jeopardizing his thirty-five-year intelligence career—all in the first episode. By the sixth episode she has already knowingly started an affair with a suspected terrorist.

There is even a vague suggestion that Carrie has some uncanny intuition or alternative rationality, ingenious perhaps but bordering on paranoia. When she tells Saul that "no one expects a thing," he replies, "Except you," correctly pointing out that she is literally the only analyst who is even remotely, but correctly, suspicious that Brody is a terrorist.18 Carrie, however, sees signs of Brody's possible terrorist connections everywhere—both where they are and where they are not—and yet, Carrie's bipolar illness itself cannot yet be openly read and deciphered; it will only be revealed later in retrospect or inductively inferred from her medication. Carrie's actual behavior reveals nothing more conclusive than a hunch that "something" might be wrong, a something that Carrie has managed to hide, from the CIA no less, for more than a decade—only to finally be outed by her pills. Both her illness and its psychopharmacology are quickly becoming her destiny as her clandestine aspirin-pill bottle betrays the bipolar spook.

Through the next couple of episodes Carrie's pharmaceutical activities continue, haunting her as she repeatedly returns to her medicine cabinet, searching—often with noticeable agitation—for her clozapine-in-aspirin-drag. The second episode, "Grace," for example, ominously opens with Carrie clearly taking her last pill, suggesting the precariousness of her pharmacological situation, a precariousness replicated by her psychiatric care. Needing to keep her condition, like its medication, under wraps, Carrie's sister, Maggie, doubles as her off-the-books psychiatrist. With her aspirin-pill bottle and her sister-psychiatrist Carrie's medical care is practically as black ops as her day job, and the instability of this situation is further illustrated when Maggie informs Carrie that she can only provide her with seven pills at a time because she has to raid her own samples to get them, thereby jeopardizing her license. Playing the role of sister-shrink, Maggie keeps tabs on Carrie, repeatedly reminding her to take her meds and chiding her for refusing "to go to regular therapy and get treatment."19 Carrie may take her medication—for the moment at least—but, like Cam, she does so precariously, often resenting her meds and systematically resisting the wider range of therapeutic measures at her disposal. Moreover, Carrie also has the "same illness" as her father, suggesting—again plausibly—an additional hereditary component.20 Carrie may have managed to keep her demons at bay, to hide them from the CIA even, but her bipolar mind is still a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.

And in the eleventh episode, "The Vest," it finally does. Shell-shocked by an explosion from a terrorist bomb, Carrie is thrown into a full-blown manic episode, putting her bipolar condition on open display. Initially hospitalized for her physical wounds, Carrie's highly erratic behavior immediately suggests that she is experiencing mental health problems as well. Saul quickly realizes this when he greets a frantic, irrational, and wildly gesticulating Carrie demanding that someone give her a green, not a black or a blue, pen. "My kingdom for a fucking green pen!" Carrie exclaims before barging headlong into her far-flung theories about the "methods and patterns and priorities" of Abu Nazir's latest terrorist plot.21 Rapidly spiraling out of control, Carrie's hyperactive manic mind quickly spins a paranoid plot, insisting that there are "many, many, many more" facets to be explored; describing Walker, a marine-turned-terrorist, as "just a part, a piece, a pixel, a pawn" in Nazir's much larger plan; and imploring that the agency immediately "code … collide … collapse … [and] contain" her newly perceived threats posthaste.22 By the time that Carrie protests that we've got to go "to work; we've got to hop to; we've got to haul ass to Langley," it is clear that Carrie isn't going anywhere near Langley.

In fact, by the end of the episode Carrie loses both her job and her security clearance, defeated by her mental illness. Meanwhile, Carrie's visibly pressured speech and divergent, almost delusional, thinking—all brilliantly portrayed through Danes's frenzied acting—indicate that she is in a manic state, bordering on paranoia and psychosis as she cryptically warns that "Nazir's movements in green, after fallow yellow, always creeping towards purple are methodical, meaningful, momentous, and monstrous."23 Anything but methodical herself, Carrie is forced to confess that her psychiatric caregiver is actually her sister, who quickly arrives to consult with Saul. When Saul questions Maggie, "So what do we do?" Maggie replies, "Up her lithium. Start giving her clonazepam," throwing us back into the jaws of the psychopharmacological thriller: it's bipolar vs. lithium, the mind vs. the medicine cabinet, the spook vs. the shrink all over again.24 Meanwhile, her doctor prescribes her Ativan, and down the pharmacological rabbit hole we fall once more: clozapine, lithium, clonazepam, Ativan. The pharmaceutical rap sheet grows; the dosages increase. Where will it end this time?

Carrie's medicine cabinet is not the only touchstone object for this psychopharmacological thriller plot. Much like the depiction of John Nash's insanity in A Beautiful Mind, Homeland also depicts Carrie's descent into mania through the evolution, or better the devolution, of her own manic corkboard. Throughout the first ten episodes we are shown repeated glimpses of this corkboard which she uses to organize the most critical information pertinent to her current case. In the first episode, well before Carrie has become manic, this corkboard is presented as coherent and well-organized (fig 6). It can be read, much like a book or a graph, coordinating information in recognizable sequences, hierarchical patterns, and easily visible sections.

Over the course of the series this corkboard is routinely reorganized, waxing and waning a bit in complexity and occasionally even being wiped clean to start over. But for all of this variation the corkboard's fundamental principle of rational order is preserved, offering a window into the analyst's mind at work. In episode eleven, however, after Carrie becomes manic, the growing disorganization of her corkboard, like John Nash's, reflects the unraveling of her mind. The very picture of a mind turning insane, Carrie begins hastily scribbling cryptic, color-coded messages on piles of papers and files scattered willy-nilly across her furniture and floor. Disheveled and disorderly, the proliferating and seemingly random piles of paperwork reflect her increasingly paranoid attempt to find the most subterranean, clandestine connections between anything and everything else. The rapidly escalating disorder of her corkboard provides one of the show's principal images of her bipolar madness. And yet, there is method to her madness: Her wildly chaotic thinking leads her to perceptive new insights about her current case.

Only Langley never gets the memo. No sooner than Saul reconstructs Carrie's manic timeline does the Director of the CIA Counter-terrorism Division himself show up to remove it. Stripping Carrie of her job both for improperly using classified documents and for her mental instability, Estes orders Carrie's room to be cleared, her "very important," "very meaningful" manic corkboard to be dismantled, and her office at Langley to be emptied.25 In a fit of emotionally distraught manic rage—later cleverly spoofed by Anne Hathaway on Saturday Night Live—Carrie vainly attempts to defend the fruits of her madness (fig. 7).

Now that Carrie's bipolar disorder, like her clozapine before it, is finally out of the bag, she admits that she has been bipolar since college, when she "wrote a forty-five-page manifesto declaring [she'd] reinvented music." As Carrie recounts, "The professor I handed it to escorted me to student health. It wasn't even his class."26 And yet, the conundrum posed by Carrie's corkboard—like that of Cam's flamenco dress—is not whether or not Carrie is bipolar—she clearly is—but what exactly to do about it. And here is where the pharmacology of Carrie's medicine cabinet comes most strikingly into focus: Somehow Carrie needs to medicate herself just enough to keep sane, but not so  much as to squash her uniquely manic talents as an analyst, making taking her meds unequivocally less a cure than a balancing act. "Up the lithium," Maggie, the sister-shrink, warns. "Maggie upped my meds, I shouldn't have let her," Carrie retorts, with her also bipolar father sympathetically complaining as well that Carrie's "lithium levels are too high."27 The show returns to the balancing act theme more explicitly in "Super Powers" (season five, episode three), when Carrie deliberately—and under the supervision of her boyfriend, Jonas (Alexander Fehling)—stops taking her medications in order to try to self-consciously access the inner super powers of her bipolar mind to help her figure out who is trying to kill her. Initially, this seems to work as Carrie begins to see visions and make connections between aspects of her past. The blurry, surrealistic cinematography, however, reveals how her visions quickly turn to hallucinations and delusions, causing Jonas to force her to resume taking her medication. This scene portrays how "balancing" one's manic illness/gift with one's medications is potentially possible but never simple or easy.

Figure 6. Carrie Mathison's pre-manic corkboard. Homeland, season 1, episode 1, 2011.

Figure 7. Carrie Mathison unsuccessfully fights to defend her reconstructed manic corkboard. Homeland, season 1, episode 11, 2011.

By the seventh season, Carrie is outright titrating her brain's neurochemistry with an ever-expanding personal apothecary. With her lithium starting to lose its efficacy after years of prolonged use, Carrie once again starts veering off into mania, so she starts taking the sedating antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) to calm her frenzied mind. At the same time, however, she wants to keep her mind sharp, so she simultaneously takes a series of cognitive enhancers: She has a prescription for Adderall (amphetamine/dextroamphetamine) in her medicine cabinet, and she buys methylphenidate (generic Ritalin) and Strattera (atomoxetine) on the street out of the back of a dealer's car. Now armed with an antipsychotic in one hand and a phalanx of stimulants in the other, Carrie revs her mind up and down, constantly shifting gears in the never-ending quest of achieving an equilibrium that will keep her mental acuity at its feverish hypomanic apex without spiraling out of control into the abyss of outright clinical mania. With this push-me, pull-you neurochemical juggling act, Carrie does not so much manage her illness as exploit it—together with the diverse medications she uses alternatingly to treat it and to self-consciously exacerbate it—in hopes of ultimately profiting from her disorder itself. Like Kanye West's description of his bipolar condition in the song "Yikes" (on his 2018 album ye), Carrie also often sees her "bipolar shit" not as a "disability" but rather as some kind of "superpower."28 Taking (and not taking) pills simply enables Carrie to attempt to regulate this superpower without letting it spin out of control.

Throughout the entire series Carrie repeatedly plays this psychotropic game of balancing her meds except when she ups the ante even further. By the end of the "Marine One" episode, for example, Carrie begins losing her psychopharmacological battle, so she turns to heavier artillery, choosing to begin electroconvulsive "shock" therapy (ECT). Electrodes strapped to her head, Carrie bites down on the rubber gag, beginning a six-week, biweekly program of treatment. Like lithium, clozapine, clonazepam, and Ativan before it, ECT helps, but does not cure, Carrie's bipolar disorder. For the rest of the series Carrie wanders in and out of various manic states, alternating between periods of adherence and nonadherence to her medications. By the first episode of the third season Carrie's father discovers that she is off her meds again, having turned instead to alternative treatments: running, yoga, and meditation. Almost immediately, Carrie begins to become unstable and reckless, going to a reporter to reveal agency secrets at which point the agency retaliates by committing her to a psychiatric hospital, keeping her on a twenty-four-hour hold, and forcing her to go before a competency hearing. When off her meds Carrie rages until restrained and returns to scribbling frantic notes. Back on her meds she apologizes contritely, and once more we seem to be on the nonadherence merry-go-round.

This time, however, is different. Now Carrie's precarious psycho-pharmacology enters into the plot itself (much as psychopharmacology thickens and complicates the plot of Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects 2013).29 Knowing that Carrie is willing to do just about anything to get released from the hospital, and that the agency has betrayed her by publicly announcing her illness—not to mention exposing her tryst with a terrorist—Leland Bennett (Martin Donovan), a D.C. lawyer with ties to Iranian terrorists, exploits Carrie's illness, attempting to recruit her into double agency by securing her release. The plot twists again when it is revealed that Langley itself had already exploited Carrie's illness, designing her mental breakdown itself to present the façade of weakness, so that the CIA could use Carrie as a triple agent to infiltrate the Iranian terrorist circles who were attempting to recruit her. At this point, Carrie's illness is no longer simply a realistic portrayal of mental health but rather a plot device which enables Carrie to plausibly play the role of triple agent. The plausibility is made possible through her illness—and her deliberate decision not to take her medication. Her illness and its treatment literally become her cover for further espionage.

Psychopharmacology returns with a vengeance in the show's fourth season when Carrie's medicine cabinet makes another appearance as the site of a terrorist act itself. In the fifth episode, "About a Boy," Dennis Boyd (Mark Moses), the husband of the ambassador and a recently turned secret agent for the Pakistani ISI, breaks into Carrie's apartment and photographs the contents of her medicine cabinet: lithium, clozapine, clonazepam, and now nortriptyline (fig. 8).  Recognizing that such medications would indicate that Carrie is "at least bipolar, possibly beyond that," Dennis designs a dastardly act of psychopharmacological terrorism.30 Replacing Carrie's medication with phenethylamine, a psychedelic drug also known as 25I, he hopes to induce another debilitating bipolar episode which will get Carrie released from her position as the Station Chief in Islamabad. And initially his ruse works: Carrie is thrown into a dangerously psychotic state which causes her to stumble incoherently through the streets of Islamabad at night before she is luckily rescued by the forces of Nimrat Kaur (Tasneem Qures), an officer in the ISI. At this point Carrie discovers the deception and is cured when she returns to taking her prescribed medications, but not without the series first introducing new possibilities for psychopharmacological terrorism. We have come a long way since Carrie's first trip to the medicine cabinet, but her pills—and the psychopharmacological spy-thriller possibilities that they open up—have dogged us all along the way, with the spy using her manic mind itself, carefully titrated by a plethora of pills, to spy; using her illness and her refusal to take her medication as a cover for her spying; and now having the pills in her medicine cabinet spied upon in return.

Figure 8. Psychopharmacological espionage. Homeland, Showtime, season 4, episode 5, 2014.

In the final episode of season seven, "Paean to the People," Carrie's pill bottle makes one more appearance, arguably its most dramatic yet. Having been captured while on a covert mission in Russia, Carrie is held captive by Yevgeny Gromov (Costa Ronin), a senior operations officer in the Russian GRU. Yevgeny, however, discovers that Carrie is taking psychiatric medication and correctly intuits that withholding her medication will literally drive her insane. Deprived of her medication, Carrie does descend into insanity, and the episode ends seven months later with a stark, raving mad version of Carrie being returned to American control in a prisoner exchange. No longer properly titrated with psychotropic pills, Carrie's brain becomes completely untethered as her bipolar condition overwhelms and destroys her. Once again, however, Carrie's pills themselves take center stage, serving this time as the plot device which enables her captors to control and punish her. With this final plot twist, Homeland once again demonstrates its willingness to go far beyond mere verisimilitude in its portrayals of mental illness: Pills—or their denial—literally become a site of espionage and an instrument of torture, the psychotropic equivalent of psychological waterboarding.

Representing Madness: Pills, Psychoses, and the Psychopharmacology of the Supernatural

Well it is a little odd that the prescription was for lithium … because that's probably the best thing for you right now.

— Dr. Norman Roth (Peter Stormare), Premonition

Mennan Yapo's Premonition (2007) offers yet another example of how the showdown between mental illness and lithium can be extended into a complex psychological, even metaphysical, thriller. In fact, it is not even clear whether the film's protagonist, Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock), has a mental illness—and hence is hallucinating—or whether she is caught in some kind of larger science fiction timewarp. Not unlike Donnie Darko (2001), another psychopharmacological thriller in which a character's experience of time travel is made understandable by the fact that he is taking psychotropic medications, Premonition presents itself, on the surface, as simply a supernatural tale. The story of Linda's deteriorating marriage is interrupted when a sheriff appears at her door to inform her that her husband, John (Julian McMahon), has died in a car crash, but this tragic event is complicated when Linda begins experiencing her life achronologically, skipping forward and backward in time as the story alternates between days occurring before and days occurring after her husband's accident. Consequently, the day after Linda finds out about her husband's death she wakes up on the day before his death to see him downstairs drinking coffee. Dazed, Linda returns to her regular life assuming that her husband's death was just a bad dream. But when events from the first day start reoccurring, and then she continues to jump forward and backward in time, she begins questioning what is and what isn't real.

Taken at face value, this story is simply a supernatural narrative, an inexplicable tale of time travel. On the third day, however, this science fiction narrative is abruptly transformed into a psychopharmacological thriller when Linda wakes up to find a spilled bottle of lithium in her bathroom sink (fig. 9).

Having skipped across both the first day of her husband's death and the second day of his miraculous return, Linda now finds herself a few days later preparing for her husband's funeral. The presence of the lithium in her sink, however, complicates the narrative by raising the distinct possibility that Linda is actually mentally ill and hallucinating the entire thing, including both her husband's death and her own time-travelling, or perhaps that her husband has died, and her grief has produced a psychosis that is causing her to experience the event within a fractured chronology. While it is principally the achronological framework of the narrative plot which suggests Linda's madness, the fact that key sequences are filmed with slightly blurred vision and voices—to suggest that Linda might be experiencing hallucinations or other sensory impairment—heightens the possibility that Linda is, in fact, mentally ill. Ultimately, the film's psychological tension holds the viewer in suspense, not knowing whether the medical or the supernatural explanation is correct, but the presence of this second psychiatric possibility renders the supernatural narrative both palpable and plausible, extending the viewer's willingness to suspend disbelief about an alternative metaphysical world and enticing the audience to consider that the mentally ill may experience life in just such a jarring, non-linear manner. Juxtaposed in such close proximity, the psychopharmacological and supernatural narratives lend each other a compelling cohesion and coherence that either one alone might lack.

Moreover, the presence of the lithium in Linda's sink raises a secondary medical subplot: Now Linda not only needs to ascertain whether or not her husband has died, but she also needs to figure out who prescribed her the lithium and why and how it might be affecting her perception of events. Once again, however, Linda's illness is inferred backwards from her medicine cabinet: her diagnosis from the lithium found in her sink and her psychiatrist, Dr. Norman Roth (Peter Stormare), from the name on her pill bottle. After Linda's initial attempt to call her psychiatrist proves unsuccessful, he subsequently shows up at her doorstep. Linda, however, cannot remember him—because she has not yet experienced the day on which she first meets him—and the doctor is forced to restrain, sedate, and hospitalize her, once again reinforcing the probability that some kind of prior or subsequent mental illness might explain Linda's abnormal experiences. The only question is which came first: the tragedy or the psychosis? Maybe this is not a supernatural, but a psychopharmacological, thriller after all, and Linda's medical experiences might further corroborate this. It is not at all unlikely that a mentally ill person might completely misperceive, misunderstand, or misremember the medical help that they are given. The fragmented manner in which Linda misperceives and misunderstands her medical care itself, then, adds another layer to the text's attempt to—perhaps—portray a psychological breakdown.

Figure 9. Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) finds lithium in her sink. Premonition, dir. Mennan Yapo, 2007.

Over the second half of the film, Linda battles, simultaneously, with both her abnormal, non-linear experience of time and with her medicine cabinet, her days bouncing back and forth achronologically as she fights to piece her life, her diagnosis, and her prescription back together again. One day she frantically ransacks her medicine cabinet unsuccessfully searching for the lithium she has yet to be prescribed. Another day she contemplates taking a handful of lithium tablets only to ultimately decide to wash them down the sink—thus explaining how the lithium got into her sink in the first place. One day she finds Dr. Roth's phone number in her waste basket; the next day she tears his phone number out of the yellow pages and throws it away. Another day she goes to see Dr. Roth when he makes her original prescription for the lithium, which he believes is the "best thing" for her right now, but this comes after she has found the lithium in her sink and after Dr. Roth has already carted her away to the hospital.31 At one moment, she fills her hand full of lithium tablets, threatening to overdose and perhaps suggesting that taking her lithium is causing her hallucinations; the next moment, she throws the entire handful down the sink, refusing to take her prescribed medication at all and thereby suggesting—even more plausibly—that not taking her lithium is causing her psychosis. Consequently, at the same time that Linda is piecing together her fragmented life, she is also struggling to understand the illness that she may be suffering from and how and why it is being treated.

Ultimately, this psychopharmacological dimension of the text plays a crucial role in complimenting its science fiction time travel narrative. After all, the only non-supernatural explanation given in the film is that Linda might be psychotic because she is suffering from some kind of mental breakdown, and the more that the film interweaves its explicit depiction of time travel with repeated images of lithium, psychiatrists, and psychiatric wards, the more likely this natural psychopharmacological interpretation seems plausible. That we are first introduced to Linda's possible illness through a depiction of a bottle of lithium being flushed down the sink—the very image of medical nonadherence—offers perhaps the most compelling evidence that Linda's problems are more psychopharmacological than supernatural.

It is not so much the lithium itself—but rather the fact that the lithium has been discarded untaken—which most definitively points to a terrestrial interpretation of the film's seemingly supernatural events. Certainly, a traumatic event can produce a mental breakdown which—especially if untreated—can lead to psychoses and hallucinations not dissimilar from Linda's experience of time travel. Consequently, Linda's untaken lithium, sedation, and hospitalization are all events which can actually explain—in a way that time travel cannot—the events depicted in the film. The thrill of Premonition is ultimately that it never definitively answers the question of whether Linda is mentally ill or a time traveler. Still, the presence of the psychopharmacological lithium subplot renders the time travelling all the more meaningful in that it provides a context in which such experiences are possible at the same time that the time travelling provides a compelling, accessible, and accurate metaphor for what it might actually feel like to experience a mental breakdown.

Given this context, this final image of Linda tossing her lithium down the drain is telling (fig. 10). If, in fact, Linda is a time traveler then discarding her lithium is, of course, a moot point. Neither lithium nor any other psychotropic medicine can do her any good. If, on the other hand, however, Linda is simply experiencing a psychotic episode—either in response to her husband's death or as a psychotic delusion of his death—the fact that she is deliberately nonadherent to her prescribed medication raises a red flag, signaling that she could very well be experiencing her world as if caught in a time warp with her refusal to take her medication further compounding her condition. That such episodes can indeed be triggered by traumatic events such as the unexpected death of a loved one only adds one more layer to the possible verisimilitude of what otherwise appears to be mere science fiction fantasy.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the growing accuracy of recent psychopharmacological thrillers illustrates how mental illnesses and their treatments are beginning to be depicted more realistically in the popular media. The emerging genre of the psychopharmacological thriller, therefore, suggests how art can teach us powerful lessons about illnesses and their treatments, illuminating issues ranging from the reasons behind nonadherence and insightful illustrations of the psychodynamics of mania to the possible side effects of treating mental illnesses with psychotropic medications. Health care professionals have a lot to learn from these texts, including both diagnostic measures and a greater sympathy for the suffering of their patients after seeing their conditions depicted in the mirror of art.

But the psychopharmacological thriller also extends far beyond mere verisimilitude. Writers, filmmakers, and other artists have begun to use mental health scenarios and their treatments with pills to devise new narrative possibilities: the character of the chaotic but lovable or insightful manic, the dramatic battle between illness and medication (or between adherence and nonadherence), science fiction analogies for abnormal psychological experiences, the manic mind as genius, mental illness as espionage cover, or the medicine cabinet as terrorist target or instrument of torture. In each of these examples, art does not simply illustrate the nature of medicine, but medical conditions and practices provide new material for the artistic imagination itself, extending the tradition of the medical drama—from M.A.S.H. to Grey's Anatomy or even Scrubs—in ways that go beyond the mere treatment of medicine as subject matter to intertwine the medical and the artistic in new ways.

Figure 10. Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) tosses her lithium down the sink. Premonition, dir. Mennan Yapo, 2007.

At the center of this all often stands a simple pill—or say a handful of 300 mg lithium capsules—which dramatize the complex ways in which the lives of the mentally ill are powerfully transformed by the complex biochemistry of not only their minds but also their medicine cabinets. Their central moral perhaps being that psychotropic medications should not be seen as some kind of psychopharmacological Coke machine—where you simply plop in a pill and out comes a cure—but rather as the site of an existential crisis, a Sisyphean struggle, or at times even a Pandora's box. If there is true verisimilitude to be found in the psychopharmacological thriller it is this: Psychotropic medications frequently play a vital, but also complex and uncertain, role in individuals' quotidian struggles with mental illness. Far from being a panacea, they often catalyze a long and unpredictable chain of events which meanders or tacks—more than simply leads—toward some elusive, if not illusionary, final cure. In their complexities and even their contradictions, psychotropic medications mirror nothing so much as the convoluted illnesses they are designed to cure.

Notes

1. Nussbaum, "Long Con."

2. Chase, Sopranos. Season 1, episode 1.

3. Wedding and Boyd, Movies, 53, 19, 172.

4. Servitje, "Of Drugs," 102; Travis, "Is Getting Well," 320.

5. Rose, Politics of Life Itself, 187.

6. Rose and Rose, Can Neuroscience, 6, 10; Vidal, "Brainhood," 6–7.

7. Koepp, Stir of Echoes.

8. Chase, Sopranos, season 1, episode 12.

9. Forbes, Infinitely Polar Bear. All subsequent quotations from the movie are to this 2015 DVD.

10. Kerouac, On the Road, 5.

11. Reyers, "Homeland."

12. Quoted in Nazareth, "From One Extreme."

13. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 4.

14. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 1.

15. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 1.

16. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 1.

17. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 1.

18. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 1.

19. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 2.

20. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 2.

21. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11.

22. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11.

23. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11.

24. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11.

25. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11.

26. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11.

27. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 1, episode 11; Season 2, episode 1.

28. West, "Yikes."

29. Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects offers another excellent example of a film in which psychopharmacology is both central to the film in general and used specifically to develop the plot in a complex way that extends far beyond mere verisimilitude portrayal of a character taking pills.

30. Gordon and Gansa, Homeland. Season 4, episode 5.

31. Yapo, Premonition.

Bibliography

Bennett, Robert. Pill. New York: Bloomsbury, 2019.

Breggin, Peter R. Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy, and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the "New Psychiatry." New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.

Changeux, Jean-Pierre. Neuronal Man: The Biology of Mind. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Chase, David, creator. The Sopranos. HBO, 1999–2007. DVD.

Elliott, Stephen. The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2009.

Forbes, Maya, dir. Infinitely Polar Bear. Sony Pictures Classics, 2015. DVD.

Frances, Allen. Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

Gabbard, Glen O., and Krin Gabbard. Psychiatry and the Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Gordon, Howard, and Alex Gansa, developers. Homeland. Showtime, 2011–present. DVD.

Healy, David. Pharmageddon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin Books, 2011.

Koepp, David, dir. Stir of Echoes. Artisan Entertainment, 1999. DVD.

LeDoux, Joseph. Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. New York: Penguin, 2003.

Nazareth, Monique. "From One Extreme to Another: Homeland's Portrayal of Bipolar Disorder." TV Worth Watching, December 14, 2012. http://www.tvworthwatching.com/post/Homeland-Bipolar.aspx.

Nussbaum, Emily. "The Long Con." New York Magazine, June 14, 2007. http://nymag.com/news/features/33517/.

Reyers, Courtney. "Homeland: An Upfront Look at Bipolar Disorder." The Conversation. September 27, 2012. https://morethancoping.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/homeland-an-upfront-look-at-bipolar-disorder/.

Robinson, David J. Reel Psychiatry: Movie Portrayals of Psychiatric Conditions. Port Huron, MI: Rapid Psychler Press, 2003.

Rose, Hilary, and Steven Rose. Can Neuroscience Change Our Minds? Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2016.

Rose, Nikolas. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Servitje, Lorenzo. "Of Drugs and Droogs: Cultural Dynamics, Psychopharmacology, and Neuroscience in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange." Literature and Medicine 36, no. 1 (2018): 101–23.

Slater, Lauren. Prozac Diary. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

Travis, Isabelle. "Is Getting Well Ever an Art? Psychopharmacology and Madness in Robert Lowell's Day by Day." Journal of Medical Humanities 32, no. 4 (2011): 315–24.

Vidal, Fernando. "Brainhood: Anthropological Figure of Modernity." History of the Human Sciences 22, no. 1 (2009): 5–36.

Wedding, Danny, and Mary Ann Boyd. Movies & Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.

West, Kanye. "Yikes." ye. Def Jam, 2018.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Prozac Nation. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.

Yapo, Mennan, dir. Premonition. Tristar/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2007. DVD.

[forcomputationalbasedtheory-blog]

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON VIRTUAL REALITY AND THE LOSS OF IDENTITY

Andi Wang, Yiyan Lin and Lola Mercadal

Is Virtual Reality real?

“There is an apple in front of me. I can see it, but I can’t touch it I can interact with the apple. I have an avatar that I can control on the screen. That avatar is a virtual projection of myself. It can pick up the apple, throw it around the virtual room, or eat it. But I can’t touch it and interact with it using my own physical hands.”

As philosopher Philip Brey points out with this analogy, virtual objects exist in some form: they are not a product of our imagination, but their existence have a distinctive metaphysical quality. He argues that our perception of reality can be categorized by objectivity and subjectivity in relation to ontology and epistemology. In order to explain this, he analyses the essence of what he calls ‘institutional facts’ referring to social constructs such as marriage, property and money. Brey argues that these only exist in our collective minds through an agreement upon a constitutive rule. They don’t have a physical existence. In principle, we can project the same social reality over anything, including the representations and simulations that exist within virtual reality.

If we consider the virtual world as part of our reality, how does an avatar affect our persona? According to David G. Myers, our sense of identity is what helps us organize our thoughts, feelings and actions. In a virtual world the users can freely explore many facets of their personalities in ways that are not easily available to them in real life; they are free from social constructs and expectations which can have consequences in an individual’s identity development.

Researchers at University College London and University of Barcelona have used virtual reality to help patients with depression proving that VR can re-train the brain and change the way you interact with the real world. Therefore, it would be naive to say that one can decide when and how our brain is going to be modified. In fact, a study by Frederick Aardema et al shows a great increase in dissociative disorders as a result of exposure to VR. It causes a lessened sense of presence in objective reality.

This project is an experimental study exploring the use of virtual reality and how it affects or modifies the perception of the self. Eight volunteers participated in the experiment; the exercise involved three different Virtual Reality immersive encounters. As our volunteers were in the game, we found ourselves analysing their body movements converting the exercise into an observational study. It was curious to observe the volunteers during the experiment; it seemed like their mind was leaving their body. They wouldn’t respond to any of our questions during the experience although they could hear us. Although the games were stimulating there was very little movement; instead of moving their arms they would only discreetly move their hands. During the interview, when asked about the loss of identity or presence all agreed that more time spent in the VR world was needed. However, almost all of them agreed that there was a separation between their persona in the real life and their persona in the virtual world. The language they used was also remarkable: all the volunteers talked about being in the game when they were referring to the experience.

The aim of this project is to raise awareness on the dangers of over using VR. With this video, we hope to invite to reflection on the naivety that most VR users have regarding the fragility of their identity.

Reference

Black river studio (2017). Conflict0: Shattered. [online] Available at: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1397570263626312/ [Accessed 12 Dec. 2018].

Red Bull (2016). Exploring the Forbidden Skyline in Virtual Reality | Introducing the Cast of URBEX. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1-Sy4VbZ74&t=48s [Accessed 12 Dec. 2018].

Mooovr (2015). [Extreme] 360° RollerCoaster at Seoul Grand Park. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lsB-P8nGSM [Accessed 12 Dec. 2018].

Danaher, J. (2017). The Reality of Virtual Reality: A Philosophical Analysis. [online] Ieet.org. Available at: https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/Danaher20170918 [Accessed 12 Dec. 2018].

Hillis, K. (1999). Digital sensations : Space, identity, and embodiment in virtual reality (Electronic mediations ; v. 1). Minneaplis: University of Minnesota Press.

Tham, J., Duin, A., Gee, L., Ernst, N., Abdelqader, B., & Mcgrath, M. (2018). Understanding Virtual Reality: Presence, Embodiment, and Professional Practice. Professional Communication, IEEE Transactions on, 61(2), 178-195.

Slater, M. (2018). Immersion and the illusion of presence in virtual reality. British Journal of Psychology, 109(3), 431-433.

Pritchard, S., Zopf, R., Polito, V., Kaplan, D., & Williams, M. (2016). Non-hierarchical Influence of Visual Form, Touch, and Position Cues on Embodiment, Agency, and Presence in Virtual Reality. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1649.

Peperkorn, Diemer, & Mühlberger. (2015). Temporal dynamics in the relation between presence and fear in virtual reality. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, 542-547. Coyne, R. (1994). Heidegger and Virtual Reality: The Implications of Heidegger's Thinking for Computer Representations. Leonardo,27(1), 65-73. doi:10.2307/1575952

Jones, J. (2012). The Wordsworth Circle, 43(4), 259-261. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24065370

Wennberg, T. (2018). Virtual Reality—Virtual Brain: Questioning Reality. [online] Leonardo Volume 51 | Issue 5 | October 2018 p.453-459. Available at: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/LEON_a_01554 [Accessed 12 Dec. 2018].

[aion-rsa]

The Umbrella Academy Review (Spoiler Free)

http://bit.ly/2UGi03k

Netflix's The Umbrella Academy is an admirable attempt to bring the comic to the small screen that ultimately misses the mark.

Books

This Umbrella Academy review does not contain spoilers.

Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's The Umbrella Academy, which opens with the spontaneous birth of 43 superpowered babies right at the moment a wrestler elbow drops a giant space squid in the ring, might be unadaptable. Despite its best efforts to capture the delightful weirdness of the comic as well as expand on some of the storylines only hinted at in the book, the new Netflix series is ultimately too grounded and sluggish to really keep us invested. The series never quite finds its rhythm until the very end and is surprisingly dull throughout, especially in the first few exposition-heavy episodes. 

The Umbrella Academy is the story of the Hargreeves orphans, a super-powered group of kids mysteriously born at the exact same time in different parts of the world, who are trained by their cold and manipulative adoptive father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, to save the world. Originally a famous superhero team of seven -- Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Number Five, Ben, and Vanya -- the family slowly begins to decay as the years go by. One sibling dies during a mission while Number Five capriciously travels far into the future against his father's wishes, never to be seen again. Most of the others eventually pack up and leave the Academy when they're old enough.

When the series begins, it's been 12 years since the team was together. But when Sir Reginald suddenly dies -- seemingly of natural causes, although Luther (Tom Hopper), the loyal leader of the team, is not so sure -- his adult children are forced into a nightmarish family reunion and back into old habits. As you would expect, things do not go well. 

It should be said up front that viewers expecting an action-packed superhero romp or something akin to Netflix's Marvel lineup will be sorely disappointed. The Umbrella Academy is not that kind of show, trading in the action sequences (of which there are very few) for slightly long-winded family drama. Of course, this won't surprise fans of the Eisner-winning series, itself a deconstruction of iconic superhero teams such as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and most importantly, DC's Doom Patrol, one of the comic's major influences. While the Netflix series does an admirable job of trying to captivate its audience with this particularly dysfunctional family of super-weirdos, it does so at the expense of its pacing. The Umbrella Academy is incredibly slow. 

The show's biggest problem is that it tries to stretch the book's six-issue first volume, "Apocalypse Suite," into 10 50-minute episodes, with bits and pieces of the second arc, "Dallas," thrown in. It's clear two or three episodes in that the show doesn't have enough material to keep things moving to the end, so showrunner Steve Blackman (Altered Carbon) and writer Jeremy Slater (Fantastic Four) crafted new storylines and expanded others while also remixing a few of the comic's character arcs. Unfortunately, these "bonus" scenes and new subplots rarely work. At times, they're actually detrimental to the characters. 

Further Reading: Gerard Way on Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion

This is largely the case for protagonist Vanya Hargreeves (Ellen Page), who is inexplicably thrust into an unnecessary romantic subplot. In the comics, Vanya is an outcast, neglected by the emotionally abusive Sir Reginald and sidelined by her narcissistic siblings. When her father dies, she's lonely and without a support system, harboring a quiet animosity towards her brothers and sisters, who are too busy dealing with their own drama to notice her. They've never let her in, even with her father removed from the equation. So when Vanya makes the choice to leave the family behind and go her own way, it's not really all that surprising.

The show, on the other hand, puts Vanya in an awkward relationship in order to flesh out another major player from the comics. The problem might be that the show never fully commits to the relationship, spoiling a big twist before we're ever really even invested in Vanya's love life. In the end, Vanya's story feels diluted by the additional subplot.

It's all in service of getting this show, which could have easily been two or three episodes shorter, to the finish line. Other annoying additions include a murder mystery surrounding Diego (David Castaneda), the family's robotic caretaker Mom (Jordan Claire Robbins), and their super-intelligent chimpanzee friend Pogo (Adam Godley); and an extended look at time-traveling assassins Cha-Cha (Mary J. Blige) and Hazel (Cameron Britton), who also falls victim to a strange romantic storyline. In the case of the murder mystery, the family members search for Sir Reginald's missing monocle -- which might provide evidence of foul play in connection to his death -- but it never really goes anywhere. To make matters worse, the show basically gives up on the yarn in the third act, giving the audience the answer with a few lines of exposition.

Meanwhile, troubled, drug-addicted Klaus (Robert Sheehan) gets much more screentime than comic fans might expect, and Sheehan is excellent in the role as if it were written for him. But too often, perhaps inspired by Sheehan's outrageous performance as Nathan Young in Misfits, the character is played for laughs. The result is a joke that begins to feel repetitive. Klaus is nowhere near this dim-witted in the comics. One thing that does work in Klaus' favor is his ability to communicate with the dead, which adds a horror element to the show. When Klaus learns to finally use this power to his advantage in the climactic battle, I absolutely cheered.

Further Reading: The Umbrella Academy Cast on Creating a New Kind of Superhero Show

While all that's going on, knife-wielding Diego, the rogue of the family, also gets a love interest, and it's by far the least interesting love story of all. Why Blackman and Slater felt that the only way to explore many of these characters was through romance is beyond me. In Way and Ba's comic, introspection doesn't come from the romantic, but through the familial ties that bind. For example, in the comic, Diego has to figure out a way to work with Luther, an altruistic hero who is sort of incompetent at being the team's leader, and while at first Diego despises his brother, they end up growing together. In the third arc of the comic, it's Diego, a loner by nature, who has to convince a depressed Luther to get the team back together. 

It's clear that everyone involved with this adaptation has real love for the comic, from the way it accurately recreates the young Umbrella Academy's costumes to the camera angles that recall the work of film auteur Wes Anderson, who is a clear influence on both the book and the show (you could almost imagine this as Anderson's very own take on the superhero genre, with all of the beautiful shots and retro zaniness). Blackman and his crew really took the time to make the show look and sound great -- one particular shot of helicopters flying over Vietnam comes to mind -- but it also feels like they don't fully understand what makes Way and Ba's fast-paced, minimalist, vignette-heavy family drama so effective. 

Despite my complaints about Vanya's extended storyline, I'm happy to say that Page's performance as the timid and anxious main character of this family tragedy is top notch. She makes the best of every scene she's in, even when her romantic counterpart isn't quite up to the task. Page is subtle in scenes with her over-the-top siblings, layering in claustrophobic loneliness over her deep-seated anger at being the sister everyone always ignores. I loved watching Vanya absolutely lose her shit later in the season, and Page has already given us so much by that point that it's impossible not to sympathize with her character, even as she takes a dark turn that she may not be able to return from.

Number Five, played by Aidan Gallagher, who's spent most of his career on Nickelodeon kids shows, is also a highlight. Gallagher is well-cast and is able to convey the wisdom beyond his years necessary for the role of a 60-year-old hitman trapped inside the body of a 10-year-old (although he's slightly older than that on the show). He rarely cracks a smile as the self-serious Number Five, or partake in his family's childish shenanigans, but when he does let loose, it's entertaining and very funny.

Further Reading: Everything You Need to Know About Avengers: Endgame

This trigger-happy hero-turned-assassin is also one of the few characters who benefit from an expanded storyline. The show dives much deeper into Number Five's backstory, giving us colorful pieces of his backstory the comic never has. Along the way, we learn much more about the secret organization Number Five worked for before rejoining his family in the present day. His interactions with this faction of time-jumping assassins are among the best in the entire series. Here, the show doesn't rely on romance to flesh out a character and it's really refreshing. 

Surprisingly, Luther and Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) get the least to do. While at the forefront of the comic, Luther takes a backseat to the characters the people behind the show are really enamored with, like Vanya, Klaus, Number Five, and Diego. On the show, Luther is a bit more bumbling and I had a hard time believing that any of these characters would actually follow him into battle, but there are some high points for him, too. His story is one of self-discovery, as he steps out from under his father's shadow for the first time (this is a man who's never had a drink or done a drug or rebelled against his dad), and it's in Luther's search for clarity as an independent adult for basically the first time that this character shines.

Allison is in the middle of losing a family, even as she regains another. "Hotel Oblivion," the current comic's third arc, begins to explore why Allison, who can alter reality at will by telling lies, has become alienated from her husband and daughter. The show expands on that, showing what created the rift, and it perfectly fits the character. 

As the credits roll on an enjoyable final episode, it's hard to call Netflix's The Umbrella Academy a success, but like its troubled family of freaks, it's not a lost cause. There are parts of the series I really liked -- the latter half of Klaus' arc when he's given a bit more depth, a hilarious showdown involving an ice cream truck, and a character's complete infatuation with the torso of a mannequin -- that hint at a freshness that could set it apart from other superhero TV and movies. The Umbrella Academy is at its strongest when it commits to the weirder elements of its story and world, such as the aforementioned talking chimpanzee, and does itself a disservice by trying to ground its characters in needless romance and the menial. Like Vanya herself, there's potential here, the show just needs to go off the deep end first.

John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9. 

2.5/5

Netflix

The Umbrella Academy

Gerard Way

Review John Saavedra

Feb 4, 2019

facebook

twitter

google+

tumblr

from Books http://bit.ly/2REizIM