#like are we talking politics or cannibalism where is the line drawn

[simplyghosting]

So apparently I have a career readiness/social media project where I have to talk about all my social media accounts and what I post and I’m not sure my professor is going to believe me when I tell them that this is literally the only social media platform I have. 

[leahazel]

More about my morally-grey heroines and their messed-up relationships

I wanted to elaborate on this post I wrote about D&F and BFS, but it turns out that adding readmore links to reblogs is a PITA, and I just now that this is gonna turn into a fucking novelette. 

So here we go.

Time to go into some detail about this!

Let’s define our terms:

“Decline and Fall” is my 120K+ series of loosely chronological, interconnected short fics, set in a tiny fandom for a visual novel that’s been in alpha development since 2015. For the record, the word count disincludes unfinished drafts, and stories that I’m holding back because they’re based on canon spoilers.

“Blood from Stone“ is my 100K unfinished Skyrim WIP, which began as a response to a kink meme prompt, and is not so much a rarepair as a non-existent one.

Both of these stories centrally feature young female protagonists and their sexual relationship with a much older man. Both heroines are... “grey” to say the least.

Let’s compare our fandoms, shall we?

Skyrim is a juggernaut fandom for a super-popular RPG which is part of a 30-yo franchise. The setting is moderately dark and casually sprinkled with murder cults, cannibalism, secret police death squads, and the prison industrial complex. The player character can be a thief and a murderer and everyone just learns to be okay with it because the only alternative is a fiery apocalypse. They also rob graves for the lulz.

Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem is a pinkie-toe-sized fandom for a hybrid RPG and dating sim where attractive young people flirt and date for the purpose of brokering world peace. The setting is one where you can actually broker world peace effectively. The player character can perpetrate a fair amount of proxy violence, but maintaining a good reputation dishonestly is legitimately difficult.

Now, let’s compare our heroines:

Corinne is a 24-year-old bounty hunter who became a folk hero, a soldier, and a cult assassin. She’s living alone and working for a living since she was 18. She’s never been in love, but she’s had multiple sexual and romantic relationships in the past. I deliberately wrote her as being very sexually confident and self-assured. She also has combat training, magical training, her special Dragonborn powers, and an incalculable amount of social clout. By every metric, she’s a powerful character. Though she can talk her way out of a tight spot (all my favorite characters can), she can also fight her way out.

Verity is (at the beginning of D&F) not yet 18 years old. She’s a princess from a very conservative kingdom who was raised to become a barter bride in a diplomatic marriage. The values that were passed to her were duty, tradition, and absolute obedience. Her primary skills are social, charisma, eloquence, and persuasion. Then she was dropped into the deep water of a diplomatic summit and had the weight of future history put on her shoulders, without ever having been taught how to make her own decisions or live with her regret.

To sum up, we have one hyper-competent, confident, and independent badass, universally recognized as powerful and dangerous, and then we have someone who’s basically a deconstruction of a traditional fantasy princess.

Okay, what about the more specific setting within the game world?

BFS is set in Markarth, arguably the most corrupt city in Skyrim, and the site of a localized war, on top of the 2-3 other wars that Skyrim has going on. The city is controlled by the cartel-like Silver-Blood family, and their enemies are swiftly and brutally eliminated. The rule of law is a joke. When the player character arrives at Markarth, they witness a chain or murders and are drawn into a conspiracy that sees them sentenced to life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. The ruling elite suppress the native underclass by a variety of inventive methods. The roads into the city are controlled by the remnants of a violent but failed uprising, and this uprising is actually the origin story of Skyrim’s entire civil war storyline.

D&F is set in Revaire, explicitly the most violently war-torn of the seven kingdoms. Once the epicenter of a conquering empire, it was a country full of arts and culture, until a bloody coup slaughtered the entire royal line and instituted a new and more brutal regime. The new regime is on shaky grounds and foresighted people predict its imminent fall to rebel forces. So much, so canon. In D&F, I made a point of developing the new royals and their small coterie of supporters, as well as illustrating their constant struggle to conceal how widely reviled they are by the populace, and most of the former nobility. Their apathy to the plight of the common people is underscored in contrast to Verity’s compassion, which is ridiculed as a sentimental feminine affectation.

I’m attracted to certain themes, as you might have noticed.

Now, we get to talk about love interests.

Thongvor Silver-Blood is rather anemically characterized in Skyrim’s canon, so much of the information that I include in BFS is inferred. From his limited number of dialogues in the game, we know that he’s politically ambitious, a Stormcloak supporter, easily angered, and that he has one legitimate friend in the city. Like most Skyrim characters of his age bracket, he served in the Great War. He’s defined by his relationship to his generational cohort. In BFS, he’s def8ined in contrast to his brother. Thonar is comfortable being thought of as a villain. Thongvor still needs to believe that he’s the good guy. And I’m gonna get more into that in later chapters, too.

As a love interest, he’s initially in awe of Corinne, and always genuinely adoring, but more than a little jealous and possessive. BFS is not a story about love redeeming bad men (don’t get me started), but Thongvor shows different sides of his personality to different people, and the side that Corinne gets to see is much nicer than what most people do.

Hyperion Asper is a character of my own devising, whose existence in 7KPP canon is purely implied. We know his children, Jarrod and Gisette, and we knew that he organized a coup to seize the throne. I posit him as a tyrant and unrepentant child-killer (not directly stated in D&F, at least not yet). He’s ruthless and manipulative and his sole purpose is maintaining a sense of personal power. I structured him as the bad example that Jarrod tries -- and fails -- to live up to.

As a love interest... look, he’s a man who’s cheating on his wife with his son’s wife. He seduces Verity and manipulates her, and takes a special delight in pushing her buttons. All his compliments to her are mean-spirited and back-handed. He’s also jealous and possessive... which is especially pathetic, since he’s jealous of his own son, whom Verity doesn’t even like. His rage is a constant implied undercurrent in the narrative.

And the relationship dynamics themselves?

Corinne kisses Thongvor, proposes marriage to him, and then sleeps with him before riding off into mortal danger. She’s fond and affectionate, but she shies away from intense emotions, whether negative or positive. Since they spend most of their time apart, their marriage has been defined by Thongvor yearning like a sailor’s wife, while Corinne ran around doing violence and crime. They only just had their first fight. It will change when they get to spend some more significant time together... but on the whole, their marriage is fairly happy, and the emotional dynamic favors Corinne -- so far. It’s not a pure gender reversal, but that element is definitely dominant.

Hyperion starts seducing Verity on their very first meeting, and relies on a combination of magnetic attraction and Verity’s inexperience in life to keep her coming back, against her better judgment. Their relationship is mutually defined by a combination of attraction and resentment of that attraction. The danger of the situation is an essential element, to the point where it’s hard to imagine their affair would survive without it. It’s a puzzle and a battle, a source of fascination but not of comfort. There’s lust involved, and curiosity, but not a shred of love or even like. The closest thing to genuine affection is when Verity briefly imagines that there could be a version of Hyperion she actually liked, cobbled from his various, hidden good qualities. Any trappings of a genuine relationship are deliberately discordant.

I have tried, more than once, to imagine an alternate universe in which these two could be happy. It can’t be done. they are a study in dysfunction.

So where’s the similarity, with all these differences outlined?

Corinne’s choice to marry into the Silver-Blood family makes her complicit in their rule of the Reach, corrupt and reactionary as it is. Her reluctance to accept being called by their name reflects a reluctance to confront unpleasant truths that’s fundamental to her character. Choosing to be one of them affects and will continue to affect how other people see her, mostly negatively, and mostly without her being aware of it. Being Thongvor’s wife has gained her enemies. The fact that she doesn’t share his more reactionary views is something that they’ve both chosen to elegantly ignore, but the rest of the world won’t be so generous.

Verity’s choice to marry into the Revaire royal family makes her complicit in their violence against the forces rebelling against them, albeit in a more subtle way. Her personal dislike of Jarrod and the fact that their marriage was purely political will not absolve her in anyone’s eyes. Neither will her compassionate and charitable character, which can only be seen as a fig leaf to the Revaire royals’ general brutality. She has lost at least one good friend -- who will never see her the same way, since she chose to throw her lot in with his enemies. She will go down in history as an Asper wife -- but if she’s lucky, not just as that.

Both Corinne and Verity choose to accept some of the violence of the system that they live under, in order to serve their own lofty, long-term goals. Both of them are more image-driven than they care to admit, and though they are genuinely caring and compassionate, they will readily sacrifice compassion in service on their goals. They are queens (or queen-like figures), one-degree-of-separation members of the ruling class, implicated but not directly in control.

And their relationships serve to highlight what they are willing to accept, even though it goes against their conscience.

Is there a conclusion to be drawn here?

Sort of. I want to write about power, compromise and complicity. For whatever reason, it turns out that yw/om relationships are... a really good vehicle for exploring that. I can’t really explain why that is, just yet. I just... have had these thoughts floating, unstructured, in my head for months on end. I needed to get them out on paper, and give them some semblance of order.

I don’t even know why anyone but me would read this, as long and meandering as it is. But having it accessible might be of use to me.

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Highlights - “How We Get To Peace” (5x08)

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait for this highlight post. I was out of town visiting family for a week and didn’t get a chance to rewatch the episode until today. And, unfortunately, I am about to be swapped for the next ten days (at least) so you can probably expect the 5x09 highlight post to be pretty late, too.

... And the 5x10 recap.

But anyway - super excited to get into this episode! Hope you enjoy my thoughts. :)

Feel free to read up on the previous posts in this series here. 

“I’ve seen the horrors we inflict on each other in the name of survival, colonel. God knows I’m as guilty as anyone, but we’re on the brink here - on the edge of an abyss I’ve stared into before - and I can tell you, having sacrificed the few to save the many more times than I care to admit, eventually, the few becomes the many. The ends don’t always justify the means and if you don’t know that by now, after everything you’ve been through, then you’re just as bad as Octavia, and we’re already lost.” 

At first I was a bit thrown by Kane’s speech here because Charmaine’s move was, objectively, very politically savvy (and it seemed a little out of place, considering Kane was the one who implied that if Charmaine got rid of McCreary she wouldn’t have to be concerned about resistance anymore but whatever) but - in retrospect - I do see the value in it. It seems to reflect what Bellamy and Clarke do later in the episode to Kara Cooper (which was honestly SO fucked up guys, like, holy shit). And the line was well delivered too. Very dramatic.

I kind of like this Vincent guy. Hm. Seems too nice to be a cannibal/serial killer. Speaking of which, are we ever going to see him snap? Maybe in 5x11 ... and that’s when we’ll get Abby telling the story of what happened in The Dark Year. :o I’ve cracked the code fam

Echo suggesting that they kill Zeke made her more familiar to me. Her character arc seems pretty on track (based on this episode) with what I have already speculated and I expect that we’re going to see her facing some issues with her old methods soon (maybe next episode?). I did like how they have set up her character arc in this episode.

I’m really enjoying that they have Indra teaming up with our mains this season. It’s an interesting dynamic, to see her interacting with characters besides Octavia and Kane this season and I am really enjoying it.

LEMME TAKE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT ZEKE PUTTING HIS HAND IN FRONT OF RAVEN PROTECTIVELY K

Listen, I know that their relationship has no base to it and they barely know each other and their connection doesn’t even really make sense *realistically* but I really, really LOVE Raven and Zeke’s dynamic. Lindsey and Jordan have fantastic chemistry and they look so good together and Zeke and Raven’s personalities/intellect complement each other so well. Also, this is a television show so lack of development DOESN’T MATTER, especially considering Zeke hasn’t killed Raven’s family or ex boyfriend or anything which - if you ask me - is a definite bonus! I just loved that little detail of him looking out for her, despite being angry (and having every right to be) because he feels protective of her and can’t really explain why just yet.

Also, I am in no way delusional enough to believe that the writers intentionally paralleled Bellarke and Zaven in this episode but this moment was visually extremely reminiscent of Bellamy jumping in front of Clarke in 2x09 ... so that’s a plus.

Everything involving Raven and Abby in this episode was just the most gut-wrenching, fam. Raven’s concern over Abby being threatened by Diyoza and her determination to protect her and Abby lying was just ... a Lot. It shows how far gone Abby is and added some new stakes to her addiction. I think it was important to show how Abby and Raven’s relationship will be affected by this.

“Your mother would be proud, Monty.” I wonder if anyone has told Monty this before, and how much he probably needed to hear it. In all that had happened, I forgot that Kara Cooper and Monty come from the same station on the Ark, and that they have probably even known each other for a long time. I never would have guessed that I would love seeing them interact so much but their scenes in this episode were so cute? Cooper laughing at Monty’s jokes about getting lit was the scene I didn’t know I needed. Leave it to The 100 to humanize the Worst character in the episode they get killed

THE ORIGINAL MURDER TRIO IS BACK AND AT IT AGAIN

I have to admit, in a kind of sick way I liked that we had Monty, Clarke, and Bellamy back at their old shenanigans again? Like, this felt like an indirect callback to Mount Weather, where they all committed mass murder together. This time, they’re trying to prevent that from happening again. It’s weird to see how their old allegiances and perspectives have shifted from that moment - and yet, they all continue to cooperate with each other.

“What’s one more, right? We’re all murderers.” OOF MONTY I FELT THAT

“We’re talking about taking one life to save hundreds.” “Really? Then let’s kill Octavia.” I literally yelled DRAG HIM at my screen when he said this lmao. Monty had ALL the lines in this episode. Like, damn, I love that he is questioning Bellamy and Clarke’s decisions in this, how they just revert so easily back to their same old methods. It’s refreshing to see.

 And also, he’s RIGHT. What Bellamy and Clarke are doing is so fucking twisted. They are literally killing someone in the most grotesque manner and framing them for something they didn’t even do all in order to avoid killing someone else - the person who forced her to commit the atrocities she has in the first place. Let’s face it: Cooper is easy to hate but the only reason she is the way she is is because of the system that Octavia created, the game Octavia forced her to play. And yet, they won’t kill Octavia, because of their own selfish wishes. It is absolutely fucked up and I am so glad that Monty called them out on their bullshit.

I really loved Murphy looking at Clarke’s drawing of him and Emori chained to the rocket from 4x08. It was a nice detail (and parallel to Season 4′s corresponding episode) and callback to include. Here’s hoping that we get to see *cough* other characters looking at pictures of themselves that Clarke has drawn. You know ... no one in particular.

“Tell me what we’re looking at.” 

“I don’t think we’d see it the same way, but all right. That’s where the trading post will be. And next to it will be a farm, and a workshop, and a mill ... And a real medical center, for Abby. To the south, there’ll be homes dug out of the ground to preserve the trees, and at the center, there’ll be a well, a place for people to gather, talk, debate ideas.”

“And a school with a playground where kids can blow off steam and bitch about their teachers and kiss under the bleachers. My kid.”

LET ME TALK ABOUT THIS SCENE !!! I LOVED THIS SCENE. 

I think this is the very first time (with the exception of Briller and the chickens) where any character has explicitly voiced their greatest wishes for the future, how it looks in their mind. And it’s so fucking tragic because you can just visualize it so clearly, but it feels so far away. That future doesn’t seem possible. It’s so melancholy and I love how Ian and Ivana delivered their lines in this scene.

Also, soft!Charmaine is EVERYTHING. Her line about the school and the teenagers “bitching” and making out and doing regular teenage thing was just so ... normal, it was honestly startling to think about. That’s the life that the hundred should have had - that they’ll never get now. I love the baby storyline so much (and I never thought I would like a pregnancy storyline but I do) because it humanizes Diyoza in so many ways. 

The music in this scene was gorgeous and matched the tone so well, I honestly started tearing up a little bit don’t @ me. I have a really big feeling that this discussion will come up again - either because we’re going to see this vision completely destroyed, or because we’re going to see it come to fruition. With the space travel theory, I do kind of wonder if we might get an “epilogue” of sorts for the people who stay behind on Eden, where we see Kane and Diyoza’s vision has come true (and maybe they’ll both even be there). It would be like a farewell to the characters who remain on Earth. I think it would be beautiful. (But that’s all assuming that the space travel theory is correct.)

As mildly annoying as it was that Kane literally named Diyoza’s baby for her (wtf Kane???) I did appreciate the symbolic purpose of naming her child “Hope”, especially considering the episode title “Pandora’s Box”, in which hope (aka. Kane/Baby) was the last out of the bunker and then flew away with Eligius. It’s a nice follow up to that little piece of mythology.

In a way, Kane, Abby, and Charmaine are delivering Hope (literally and figuratively) to the people. Which is also why I believe that they may all remain behind in Eden at the end of this season as we see our mains (ie. Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, etc) take off into cryo sleep, officially saying goodbye to all of them forever. (Goddamn I’m already crying and the season finale hasn’t even aired yet? THe fuck)

Also side note to talk about how vindicating it was when Kane was judging Charmaine the entire episode about her damn notebook (”names of the people you killed?” stfu) and it turned out to just be a goddamn list of baby names and defense strategies. Sit the fuck down, Mark.

I present to you: the creepiest fucking shot this show has done. And yet, I really liked it? Showing Cooper’s reactions by shooting through her helmet was a really well done creative choice. It was so trippy and it made her death feel so visceral and real. It honestly kind of sickens me to watch this scene, tbh.

On another note, I cannot BELIEVE how many stomachs Jason has forced me to watch explode this season .. the audacity ...

Emori establishing healthy boundaries is ... EVERYTHING. It’s so important for the writers to have addressed the toxicity in their relationship in this way. 

“Trouble in paradise?” I kind of love that McCreary says this to Memori because it is exactly what Murphy said to Clarke and Finn in 5x06 after the massacre. That’s some sweet kind of karma right there

Everything about Raven and Abby in this episode was absolutely devastating. Lindsey and Paige both killed this scene - the emotions were so real. Lindsey did such an amazing job portraying Raven’s hurt and rage - I could feel her emotions so viscerally. 

“Don’t you talk to me about pain.” If anyone deserves that line, it is Raven. She has been through hell and back and has had to be so strong for so long. I really liked that line.

CLARKE SITTING ON BELLAMY’S BED IN HIS TENT. Man, I would LOVE to see how that scene went askskqisks

Also, Clarke comforting my poor baby just like old times ... *sigh*

Although I have some reservations with the dialogue in this scene, I do appreciate the sentiment. Despite everything that has happened, Bellamy and Clarke still have such an understanding of each other. They forgive so easily - it’s practically second nature at this point. While I hated how Jason Rothenberg-y Bellamy sounded when he called Clarke a “mama bear” it IS nice that he is acknowledging the role that Madi plays in Clarke’s life. I feel like he finally is starting to understand just how crucial she is to Clarke, and recognizing that he felt the same way about Octavia. It gives them something new to connect over. Also, I’ll never turn down Bellarke being soft with each other.

Plus, have you ever seen a softer smile than Clarke Griffin’s? Cause oh boy am I not over that. She looks so fucking bashful when she looks up at Bellamy I can’t deal gotDAMN

“The worms were already loaded in the rover, so. What was Cooper doing there?” Marie’s delivery in this episode was SO good. God, she’s so creepy and she’s Killing It.

“Careful, big brother, or I’ll think you helped her and we’d have enough prisoners to settle this in the ring.” LISTEN. I WANTED THE EVERLARK AU SO FREAKING BAD CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT NEW MEANING THE WORD “TOGETHER” WOULD HAVE HOLY SHIT

But also, Bellamy’s desperate looks/protests were A Lot in this scene. He really can’t fathom losing Clarke again. His and Clarke’s tragic looks towards each other just really fucking hurt - they’ve been here before. And last time, they didn’t see each other for six years. 

“Keep Madi safe. Promise me.” “I promise.”

GOD. CLARKE LITERALLY JUST GAVE HIM FUCKING CUSTODY OF HER CHILD UMMMMM HOW ONE DOES FUNCTION??? She trusts him so much i’mma cry. Also, his called out promise. He sounds so wrecked, but he needs her to know that he will keep Madi safe, needs her to have that comfort, just in case he never sees her again. Don’t Touch Me.

“Did he hurt you?” Protective!Zeke is always a plus but I’d be lying if I said that this scene didn’t immediately remind me of Bellamy asking Clarke the same damn question in 1x10. God, these unintentional Blarke parallels are really coming for my life huh

“Have you ever loved someone so much that no matter what they do to you, or themselves, you take it?” “Mom or dad?” “Mom. Drank herself to death.” I loved that Raven has finally found someone she can open up to. Feels Good, feels Organic. But also this scene came for my LIFE it was so angsty and so good. Raven breaking down absolutely ENDED me (and Zeke comforting her ... someone call 911). I really loved how they made the parallel between Raven’s mom and Abby - it just made the previous scene all the more devastating. So often it feels like the writers on this show forget about these characters backstory and I’m so happy to get these little callbacks every once in awhile.

“The answer is yes.” The fact that Raven and Zeke have this new unexpected thing to relate about is A Lot. I felt this scene deep in my bones. 

Plot twist: Abby dies because she is eaten by Vincent, and her withdrawal symptoms are just a red herring to keep us on our feet. ;)

“So much for The 100.” Hello, favourite line of this episode. Y’all have no idea (NO IDEA) how much it means to me to hear a reference to the heart of this show again, especially from Bellamy. He hasn’t forgotten, but it appears that Miller has. Wow. I felt that one.

“I can’t let you kill Clarke, O.” NO YOU CANNOT

“Here we go again. Pleading for the life of a traitor ... who you love.” DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS LINE HONESTLY Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW WHY IT ENDED ME

BELLAMY’S FUCKING FACE JOURNEY HOLY SHIT. THEY FOCUS ON HIS FACE FOR SO LONG AND YOU CAN JUST SEE - YOU CAN SEE - HIS INTERNAL STRUGGLE. GOD.

I totally overlooked this the first time I watched it but I love how Bellamy tells Octavia that HE made a deal with Diyoza. Clarke has already been sentenced to death and still, he’s protecting her. He won’t let Clarke get hurt for the deal she made - instead, he takes the blame. I just love him a lot fam.

Bob and Marie’s acting in that final scene was SO FREAKING GOOD. Both of them killed it. It was so devastating. 

“My sister, my responsibility.” While I was predicting before that this line would happen if Bellamy had to kill Octavia, the fact that it came back in the same context (with Bellamy having to protect others from Octavia, rather than the other way around) was so perfect. I love when writers take old lines and give them new meanings and that’s exactly what they did with Bellamy’s old mantra. It was so powerful.

AND HE DID IT ALL FOR CLARKE. HE CHOSE FUCKING CLARKE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY???

So. 

That was a wild ride.

Hope you enjoyed reading my take on 5x08 and my favourite parts! Looking forward to the next episode in a few days. See ya then! 

[inaneinthenextplane]

American Amnesia: A Case For Why Trump’s Administrative Evils Do Not Make bush Good

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/357109-poll-dems-have-favorable-view-of-george-w-bush

It's come to my attention lately that my fears have been verified, that a bunch of nice celebrity guest appearances and speeches condemning the obvious evils of white supremacy has worn away at American contempt towards one of their most vicious and prolific abusers. The news cycle has noticeably begun to handle this assassin of American moral character with kid gloves and in the ire & fire of public outrage against out current manchild-in-chief, his image has been successfully re-rehabilitated.

This is not okay.

Lets just go over some things this man has done:

The authorization of military force that has been used for years well into the Obama and now Trump administration to 'fight the war on terror' was tasked originally with hunting down Osama Bin Laden and deconstructing Al Quaeda, both of which were adequately accomplished. This same declaration fresh after 9/11 has been used to justify the executive branch occupying the countries of Afghanistan, Niger, Iraq, Libya (during the ousting of Ghaddafi), and many other countries. Normally wars have to be authorized via a congressional declaration of war, but the lawful lawlessness of every executive branch in the use of military force since Could Not have happened without this man.

This man also capitalized on 9/11 to push through the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, an act which has effectively suspended habeus corpus & our fourth amendment rights, allowing the government clearance to access our personal information via a rubber stamp covering large swaths of many millions of Americans or if just suspected to be an enemy of the state.

The deployment of the Cuban naval station Guantanamo Bay as an extra-judicial prison designed to hold (largely foreign) captured enemies of the state in cruel conditions, & often subject to periods of torture during interrogation, began in 2002 not long after this man was elected. Part of Obama's path to the whitehouse was the broken promise of closing this HellHole, which stands in opposition to anything we ever say about human rights on an international stage.

This man was the progenitor of the drone program which left mechanized aerial warfare to what are fundamentally death machines in the sky. A military tactic we've used for taking out targets of interest, & that has resulted in the murder of many thousands of people unrelated to threats to our national security, for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time & they are used to murder doctors, rescuers, and mourners after the job is sloppily done

https://www.salon.com/…/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_…/

I normally hate a lot about Salon.com, but Glen Greenwalds article & the information presented in it can be corroborated by many sources.

The double-tap drone strike designed to hurt civilians is a war crime, it threatens our safety on the world stage, and it is us allowing our government cannibalize any sense of honor we hold claim to.

Footage of helicopters killing 10 men in a street of Baghdad (including two journalists for Reuters) were leaked by the private Bradley Manning to Wikileaks and published under the title 'collateral murder'. A van stopped to assist the wounded and was fired upon, two children were wounded and their father was murdered. Nothing happened to the people who committed this act.

Private Manning was imprisoned under conditions of solitary confinement, subject to torture & humiliation, and was essentially until the ass end of the Obama administration thrown away for life for bringing to light this and other leaks to inform the American people of a war crime committed by their government.

During the election that 'won' him the presidency, the state of Florida (then governed by Jeb Bush) purged 50,000 black votes in an election that was critically close in terms of delegates. The supreme court would decide the outcome of the lawsuit that would follow, filed by Al Gore, two court judges both having been appointed by this mans father George H.W. Bush. Not to mention, this man attempted to appoint his own personal lawyer as a SC justice.

This man infected the educational system of the United States with curriculum centered around unscientific ideas such as intelligent design in direct opposition to evolutionary biology, abstinence only sex education which resulted in continued upward teen birthrates, and with the institution of No Child Left Behind the emphasis on education was placed upon student performance on standardized testing. This resulted in failing students dropping from public school, low scoring schools being punished in terms of funding, and the general destruction of well rounded educations designed in part to teach critical thinking skills.

This man carpet bagged someone whose primary experience was in the Rodeo Show business to be the head of FEMA who would then oversee a failure to appropriately respond to the disaster of hurricane Katrina. Chaos would ensue in New Orleans & it was a dramatic blow to American confidence in disaster repose.

This man withdrew from the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gasses & undermined American regulation on the environment by defunding enforcement agencies, & disbanding a pledge to tax carbon emissions. This has set the United States back basically a generation in terms of the environment on top of what we now have with Trump.

This man had the audacity to cut funding for veterans he was sending out to war, gutting services to them by billions of dollars.

In fact, this man so skyrocketed the use of mercenaries that at the height of the Iraq war there were more private military contractors in Iraq than actual army soldiers. These mercenary companies like Blackwater would be implicated in various war crimes, where civilians would be, again, slaughtered by men who would face no fucking punishment or trial.

This man used false evidence through then defense secretary Colin Powell to justify an illegal war in the face of UN opposition, implicating Iraq in the events of 9/11 and as having amassed weapons of mass destruction with intent to kill Americans on the US mainland. Also using the testimony of an acrimonious political prisoner of Saddam Hussein code-named 'Curveball' to implicate the regime in Iraq further in falsified WMD claims.

This man had twice as many CIA (not FBI) agents fighting the failed war on drugs than he did tasked with even investigating terrorism.

This man was the first president to initiate 'free speech zones', not content to just monitor our speech but to tell us how we were allowed to protest and where.

This man assaulted abortion rights for women, defunding family planning institutions designed to help those who needed abortions. An actual ban was instituted on stem cell research, which set medical research back for years (they even made a South Park episode about it). He opposed gay marriage and continued DACA, maintaining the homophobic-ally motivated national ban on same sex marriage.

the bright side of his being president was the fact that he decided to leave when he had to.

This man was a national embarrassment, his capacity for constant gaffes even created the popularization of the 'bushism', these brought us humiliation whenever we made the mistake of turning on the news-you could look them up but I'll link here a compilation that demonstrates his capacity to fuck up worse than even Trump https://youtu.be/Be6tunbRcs8

This man is now LIKED BY THE MAJORITY OF DEMOCRATS & I know what this is, this is that Democrats are typically younger and don't remember what went on. And hey, nobody has to agree with me that as far as impact on social/economic/legal/foreign issues his administration is worse than currently is Donald Trumps by miles, & definitely the Obama administration.

But he's not 'good'. If there is a hell, this man is as good as there already. The evil shit that he was up to, I mean, you just aren't informed to me if you have a positive opinion of him at this point. I question your political judgement in all things if you like the shit was doing, or think at all that some bullshit speeches taking swipes at the man that tossed his brother around like a RagDoll compensates for the institutionalized suffering of human lives & the environment committed by him. I don't even think you can have sincerely held liberal or even libertarian principles if you like him, he appeals to a very authoritarian and ultra-conservative side of politics and exercised those tendencies in the ugliest of ways. He is a war criminal who should remain shunned by all media circles, & you should be distrustful of Anyone who gives him a platform in the media.

I don't even capitalize his name when I type it, this man is and will always be george w. bush to me. This borderline illiterate moron with his entire family dynasty has ruined much of what actually made our country great.

I don't normally like to make posts this long and drawn out in details, but I just found out about this & its verified my fears about the re-calcification of positive sentiment towards bush in the mainstream media, & this is just intensely demoralizing for me on a visceral level. I am frustrated with the political amnesia of my countrymen, and also their underlying lack of political principle. I don't want to harp too much on this but let this post be a testament to the fact that I have no tolerance for this man & neither should any of you Even if you have political beliefs aligned with him on some of the social issues or on things like taxes, (which I didn't even mention the bush tax cuts) but there's probably like a thousand ways this guy could have fucked up in a single year I could talk about.

Bottom line: things are ugly right now.

[furnissisobel-blog]

The tickled cow

List of Components:  Identity Correx Doordrop or Press Ad Social media presence Menu design  An tone of voice for the photography used

 Presented to us by CHS the Brief was to create the identity for a restaurant and grill called The Tickled Cow. The restaurant was planned to open in 2017 and was aimed at range of target audiences from young families to ‘hipsters’, this presented particular problems to overcome as appealing to everyone is difficult to achieve. The ‘owner’ of the restaurant already had a design for the interior of the restaurant as well as an atmospheric plan; this meant that the identity and branding had to reflect this. We completed the project in groups of three; this allowed us to create all of the necessary components in the week we were given. Within the week we were also given two sessions of meeting with CHS, one of was a face to face and the second, was an online email ‘date’. On both of the occasions we were able to show any of the work we had done and receive feedback. The live brief was leading up to a pitch on Friday, which was run by CHS and offered a chance to present our identities and concepts as well as, seeing peers work.

We got handed the brief in a presentation led by the company CHS. CHS is an independent communications and content design agency based in Christchurch in Bournemouth. In recent years they have won many awards, and with clients like LV, Barclaycard, B&Q they have a strong client list to back them up.

When we first got the brief we sat down and started breaking down the booklet brief we had been given. We ignored certain aspects of the brief for that moment and instead started focuses on what the brand stood for in order to get an identity that was more than just looks. We found that establishing an idea for the company helped get all three of us thinking the same and helped throughout the process it allowed us to refer back and stay on track. By creating a system it combined all our different styles into a connected, joined identity. The ideals we came up with were also reinforced by a combination of things we knew we didn’t want the brand to be. This mostly included the image of a manly masculine grill, we summarised this into the traditional image of a grill logo ie the type face Rock Well surrounded by the two thick lines.

Our research led to looking into the history of grilling and bbq-ing, we looked at it popularity in the 1950’s as a way of finding a meaningful Logo. The traditional circles and thick lines were therefore something we played with. The origins of the BBQ were something that we also wanted to initially explore, we thought it could allow us to move away from traditional grill themes and open the concept up slightly. Although cooking on fire has been around for hundreds of year and has no origins we roughly remembered that the style of BBQ we are familiar with comes from the Caribbean area, we were interested therefore to explore this further. On exploring the origins we found that the word is one of only a few that we use from that culture, another being Cannibalism. The stereotype of a happy easy life really suited the idea of a Tickled Cow. We thought by the incorporating the warmth and colour of the Caribbean we could stand out among the other business.  After playing around further we decided that a Caribbean theme may be off the table due to the nature of interior design.

We still wanted to explore grilling so started to look at the actual process of grilling. The steps of brushing marinade on the meat and then sealing the meat on the grill are things that are unique to grilling. We started to explore these processes as techniques for creating the logo. We used a large loose brush pen to make marks with ink. The brush pen gave textured effects that we all really liked. We then scanned in the mark and began to stylize them. We chose to reflect the recognisable lines of the grill by putting the lines in similar pattern, short and diagonal. The font we chose to go underneath the lines was a san serif thick type face. We wanted it to be sans because we wanted to be contemporary and clean, the heaviness was to counteract the weight of the lines. This idea was one that we liked although we thought it was a safe option.

We began to break down the target audience and what is popular among the age group. The trend that we began to notice was the resurgence of old traditional skills, among this was the popularity of lettering. The juxtaposition between the verb tickled and the image of a heavy solemn Cow make using a hand drawn font an ideal situation as it allowed us to mix both styles. We actually settled on a hand written font that looked less scriptural and more handwritten. I much preferred this use as I felt it appealed to a wider audience.

Our third option for the first of the meetings with CHS was inspired from a doodle that one of the group members had done. It was a single line drawing and we felt it was the most contemporary idea out of the three. Initially we tried to fit the logo and the mark together. This led to a design that had a large amount of lines and no feel structure, we therefor started to separate the mark from the logo and use them independently. One design, that we all really liked, which came out of the merging of logo and mark was one where we created the name of the restaurant in the shape of a cow. CHS really liked the contemporary illustration. Like us they felt that separating them from the logo might help create a more adult feel to the restaurant. They also were keen to inject some humour, this was something we hadn’t really thought about.

Humour was something that we hadn’t really considered until they mentioned it. We then began to think about how we add humour. To do this we began thinking about what we find funny, Fred and I are big lovers of puns. The amount of food on the menu gave us a good starting point; it allowed us to create individual branding elements that could still be part of a set. The puns were a really successful part of our branding; they set the tone for the restaurant. The tone, funny but more a smirk/ inside joke than ‘on the floor’ was something we thought worked well on the door drop and website and so we were keen to put in our menu. Putting it on our menu was more difficult as we had to make sure the information was really clear. As our menu fitted on one side we had a large amount of space on the rear.  This space was empty space that we had decided to not put any information so we decided to therefore use it for the puns.

We noticed that when people were seated and reading a menu they rarely looked at the back of their own menu, they were either reading the menu or it was down on the table. What we did notice however, was that people did see the back of other people’s menus. Whether that be the person they were eating with or other in the restaurant. Using this information we therefore started to play around with putting text on the back. We wanted to almost create a silent conversation with the menus. We chose to write puns that focused on ordering food.

When we started to design the correx we wanted to use the puns again. The correx was placed on the road and would be seen by people in cars, when designing it we decided that we wanted something with very little text on it. The puns were easy to transport onto the correx however we wanted to shake it up and move it away from phrases and instead we looked at songs. We chose to pick a memorable song ‘don’t go breaking my heart’ and change breaking to bacon. When we showed it people they agreed that the song was really catchy and something that stuck in their head all day.

Overall I was happy with most of the outcomes of The Tickled Cow, the menu was not completely to my taste. I really liked the puns on the back and the structure of the food however the chubby hand written text was not something I would not ordinarily do. It was great to work with illustrators and it created a logo that was much more hand drawn than I’m used to. Equally the project really helped me explore colour within branding. One of the team members loves bright colours and so it was great to see how she used colours successfully and how it could be adapted to be an asset. The feedback from the project from CHS was really good, they really liked the puns, especially those on the back of the menu. It was great to know that we were on the right track and that it was inventive and unique.

    Evaluation of D&AD

From the given selection of D&AD briefs I chose to work on the Pearson Brief. The brief, to create an educational tool or service for education in 2027, sounded really interesting and a good challenge to work on. The openness and problem solving aspect is something that I really like as I feel that idea generation is where my strength lies rather than in illustration or in aesthetics. Working in schools was also a major draw for me as it meant that I had a lot of people to talk to as well as experience. The scope of the project was a little daunting as there was no starting point or area to explore. They did mention about technology and it’s use within education so this did give me the medium of the outcome.

The obvious thing to look into initially was the predictions for education for 2027, education is predictably unpredictable, it is a focus point for each political party and so it often a reflection of the elected party and so predictions about education can only be based on technological advancements. Figures however, like the amount of additional school children and universities point towards a huge increase in the amount of students and the scale of teaching. As well as researching predictions I began to ask colleagues about what issues they and their students faced within education; there was a range of ages from a 23 year old NQT, a 26 year old who had been in the profession for two years as well as, a number of people who have had a career in teaching, ranging from 30s to 70s. This research became a starting point of things to look into. Most notably mentioned was the; the support for teaching within education, personalised learning for students aimed at different learning styles, the lack of creativity, and the commercialism of education caused by data driven policy. The lack of support for teachers was something that initially caught my eye and I began looking into how the expansion of education by 2027 would affect teaching staff. Current figures show that although the amount of students is increasing the amount of teachers joining and staying in the profession is actually dropping. Currently is has an unnoticeable but as the amount of students expanded it is something that will definitely become a problem.

It is estimated that by 2027 we will need an additional 30,000 teaching in compulsory education alone in order to cope with an additional million children, currently however there are xyz amount of teacher leaving each year and figures estimate that this will only increase. In relation to NQT data shows that xyz of xyz will leave with three years, it’s here therefor that I initially wanted to focus. Upon further research it became clear there was little out there for teacher by way of personal support, sites like sprinkle – aimed at primary school teachers – offer resources but nothing else. 

From my information research I began looking into websites and design research. Pearson already offer a number of website aimed at children, most noticeable Bug Club, a reading website for primary school children, in terms of feasibility it showed that a website would fit in with the branding. The Pearson identity colours of blue and green exhume calm and so this really fitted in with my ideas of a website too. When looking at websites I knew that I wanted each web page to fit onto a single browser, they would create more of an app than a page. The increased use of mobiles and tablets to view websites also presented to me that the website would have to work on both a regular desktop screen as well as the smaller pages. The portal for the MyAub app provided a lot of inspiration as well as the theme that window 10 uses. By having a homepage which encapsulates each available page into a box the both designs help create the illusion of a base application rather than a webpage. This was something I definitely wanted to experiment with. I didn’t want the page have to many clicks however, and research has shown that having to do more than three click will put of viewer, MS Windows’ ‘live apps’ therefore really took my attention as it allowed the viewer to preview and interact with the separate pages.

What I created was a site which I named PaperClip. The website a support network for teaching, offering a single site where quality resources, professional development events, a forum, updated relevant news, and links to mental health sites can all be found. The name came from the idea of group all the necessary pages are grouped together in one document. The humble paperclip also reflected the way a lot of the teachers felt, stretched and trying to hold everything together. The font for the logo was formed from the unfolding of a paperclip. The type is san serif and features all the curves of an unfolded paperclip. I wanted the website to be very serene and calm, I therefore kept it really simple, just using a limited palette as well as keeping text to a minimum The colour schemes, of blue, grey and white, also reflected the relaxing nature of the website. The paperclip icon was placed as an extra within the website, with the font taking up the top 6th of the screen. I never wanted it to be specifically associated with the site.

In my crit Rich suggested that the concept didn’t look far enough into the future and didn’t fully make use of all the technology that could exist in the future. He argued that websites were becoming dated and people would be unlikely to use it in the way I had. This was a bit of a ‘spanner in the works’ and halted the whole project as I was a bit lost on where to go.

After the crit, and after the Christmas beak I had a tutorial with Laura. The tutorial was very much about starting again with the idea. I looked back over my initial research, seeing if there was something that may fit Rich’s vision more. The amount of students in education in 2027 and the pressure that would put on class sizes was something I had briefly looked into and so I chose to pick this topic back up to explore. In order to start afresh I looked at a different age group, drawing on my personal experience I chose to pick the university students. The university culture has always had strong connotations with lectures and so, there were natural links to the effects that an expansion of class sizes would have on lectures.

Lecture theatres and the formalities of lectures have not changed much since education began. Although they have picked up technologies like microphone, smart projectors and remotes the actual room still look recognisably the same. This therefor seemed like a good place to experiment with. One point that a tutor made was the difficulty that lecture pose, both to staff and to students. From the point of the lecturers teaching a hall of 100 can be difficult as there as there is no room for personalisation. The students often have a varied passion for the topic and it can be off putting to lecture when students visibly don’t want to be there. From the student’s point of view the method of copying down notes from a slide whilst also taking notes from a speaker can pose a challenge, it also is not a true reflection of how all people will learn. Whilst I was in secondary school we would have lectures and classes in a variety of different spaces, ranging from an onsite theatre with comfy seats and, state of the art sound system as well as huge projection screen, to an outdoor amphitheatre which we used in the summer. Lectures in unexpected spaces then became an idea. This would be university lectures in cinemas, on the beach, in woods and parks, however I began to think about how popular these really would be, there are issues with students not turning up to lectures ordinarily and so I had to ask myself would be willing to travel to other locations. In response to these issues with attendance I started to look at how this could be overcome. My initial idea the ability to watch your lectures on your laptop/tablet, in the past I have had teachers offer online Skype calls the morning before exams or in half terms. These are really successful and made me think about whether it would work on a regular university platform. Remembering how the brief talks about the international unity that technology presence I started to think about expanding the platform. Initially I thought about within universities, many universities offer the abilities for their students to attend lectures from across the university however students often aren’t aware when these are on or can’t get away. I felt that it the concept could work across a university then it could be expanded to global collaborations. I loved the idea that a student could attend a lecture in Hong Kong from their bed in London. Being able to view infinite lectures from across the globe means that students can really get passionate about a topic, and have equal education opportunities. The data could also be fed back to the universities and used to shape course modules.

My outcome to this concept was a website called Unified. Unified, standing for universities unified, presented a partnership between universities, allow their students to access lectures from across educators. The website acts as an archive, sorted by topic, university, date, and lecturer a student can such through all recorded lectures. The online lectures could become an addition to standard lectures or become a staple method of delivery; its use would be down the educator. When designing the branding I chose to not use the Pearson blue branding. Instead I chose a bright red. The bright red is a lot more energetic and strong, it offers a confidence that I felt that the blue lacked. The supporting dark grey offers stability and professionalism, backing up the authority of the site. Equally I felt that by putting the logo in a thick san serif created a brand that was confident. I created two main versions for the website, a standard desktop size and a mobile sized one, this was to reflect the ways I felt students would watch the videos.

The crit presentation was a lot more successful than that of the previous one, Rich and Laura both like the concept although they questioned about copyright and the effect it would have on lecturers. I started to look into the Ted Talks, a website which shows factual talks. The site would only be accessible through a university account and even then it would be made up of university who had agreed. Realistically no student would share the videos outside of a university context and universities would also benefit from the both the data and, it’s students being passionate and knowledgeable – which ultimately would result in better essays and high grades.

I really liked the project, if I had more time I would have like to have worked more intensively on the branding as it was a bit rushed. Creating an advertising campaign would also be high up on the things to do, both posters and a video aimed at universities. The websites were a bit rushed and there were a few issues with the site map…or lack of it. If I did it again I would think more about a landing page and sibling pages as the site was slightly too simple. If I was to enter this into D&AD I would like to show it in the form of a video. I think by showing it in motion the audience would get a better feel of how it is meant to look, and digital aspects of the concept really lend themselves to a animated presentation.