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This was literally all I could think during that scene.
#dead boy detectives#dead boy detectives spoilers#edwin payne#charles rowland#crystal palace#crystal palace surname von hoverkraft#makes more sense when you know her parents are neglectful performance artists#But still#she does not have room to talk shit about anyone’s names#glass houses#dead boy detectives fanart
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Why didnt the Bennets have a governess? Were they unable to afford one or was it not as necessary as Lady Catherine made it seem?
It’s not really said why they don’t have a governess--and to pay the salary for one person to see to the education of five girls would be relatively cheap for the Bennets to get their daughters educated as a package deal (but oh my god that poor woman would not be paid NEARLY enough for all that work,) so I don’t think it was a case of them being unable to afford one. But for female education, especially, families could really pick and choose what level of investment they wanted to make. Elizabeth admits that they had whatever masters they wanted (presumably for dancing/art/music,) and fancy-work could be picked up from female friends and relations, so it doesn’t seem as though they were entirely neglected by Mr. Bennet’s refusal to have them educated in accomplishments; but more that it was very self-directed by the Bennet daughters, and if none of them asked for a governess or bothered Mrs. Bennet to teach them things (and it feels unlikely she’d have the skills or will to do so in the first place, so I doubt any attempts went very far,) they could just...do whatever. Imagine if a house full of girls these days were home-schooled but allowed to set their own curriculum and nobody ever made them take any kind of standardized test.
Elizabeth has eked out her own education by reading--as has Mary, though with different results in what they do with that reading. Elizabeth’s is more for personal enjoyment and enrichment, and Mary’s is more along the lines of making her reading another ‘accomplishment’ to display in how she dispenses her nuggets of wisdom in a performative way for social cachet. Kitty and Lydia no doubt enjoyed their dancing lessons, and do that very well, but everything else has been neglected. The Bennet girls essentially have very little structure, and it is their parents’ fault for leaving their educations to their own wills (and young girls/teens are not very likely to get strict with themselves, especially to apply themselves to subjects they may not enjoy.)
There are probably families who COULD have reasonably well-rounded educations for their daughters at home and without a governess (Austen herself only briefly attended school before illness forced her to return home, and I’ve never heard that the family employed a governess, so her mother and father saw to all other aspects of her education, and encouraged her to read widely.) But without some adult to provide structure and encourage disciplined application to learning, it’s almost entirely up to chance whether a girl could scratch out a meaningful education for herself.
That being said, governesses and schools are hardly a guarantee that a girl will develop into an educated person--but then it depends on your definition of education. The famous dialogue about what makes an Accomplished Woman in Pride and Prejudice rather reveals a lot--the Bingley sisters were educated at a very fine ladies’ school in London, and while they have accomplishments such as the things Caroline Bingley lists, (and to master several languages and talents such as music and art is no mean feat!) the sisters are still not quite on Elizabeth’s level, where Elizabeth’s more self-directed reading has perhaps enabled her to better develop her own critical thinking skills and to think outside the box.
Then there is Mrs. Goddard’s school in Emma, which is an unpretentious place and a very good sort of school for what it is--but the text admits that it is not turning out any particular geniuses or artistic talents, but fitting its girls up to be reasonably appealing and capable managers of middling genteel households. But for all that, it’s described rather lovingly: “Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School—not of a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems—and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity—but a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute—and very deservedly; for Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands.” It reads as the next best thing to solid instruction at home by a capable and motherly sort of woman, so between this and Austen’s own education I think we can tell of her views on female accomplishments--a certain measure of flexibility and freedom is good for children as they grow, as well as a dignified simplicity which is in stark contrast to the sort of school the Bingley sisters attended in order to become the multi-accomplished beasts they are.
Almost every novel has something to say about female education--Mrs. Elton and Lucy Steele, I think, are school-girls in a similar vein to the Bingley sisters, and they have grown up to be two-faced and supercilious creatures. But then we have Mrs. Smith, who was at school with Anne Elliot, and is one of her truest friends from the beginning. In Mansfield Park we see the difference between the Bertram sisters and Fanny, though they all share the same governess. In these contrasts we can tell that the manner of a girl’s education is as much about developing her social persona in many ways as it is about giving her skills to befit a genteel woman, and the differing notions of what Society thinks an accomplished woman ought to be. Some of Austen’s least ‘educated’ characters are also some of the sweetest and kindest, whose seemingly inborn good sense carries them through difficulties; and some of those who have had a high degree of professional investment in their formal educations have turned out to be the meanest and/or most useless of women.
To bring it back to the Bennets and Lady Catherine, it’s almost certain that Lady Catherine is inquiring about their education and whether or not they had a governess in order to be a snob as well as nosy about Mr. Bennet’s income--hiring a private tutor for one’s child was basically the most expensive educational option available--and while Elizabeth is well-aware of the particular defects in how education has proceeded in her own family, she knows that is more due to her own parents’ lack of structure and discipline, rather than something which could have been fixed by the hiring of a governess. Even if they had one, it seems unlikely Mr. or Mrs. Bennet would exert themselves to make Kitty and Lydia mind the woman and apply themselves to scholarly things. (Other novels make it clear that girls ill-disciplined by their own parents can pretty much get away with murder when it comes to disobeying or ignoring their governesses.) Of course Elizabeth isn’t going to give Lady Catherine the ammunition of admitting that her parents dropped the ball, but she goes as far as she can to defend the general practice of at-home education without a governess, because many families did so (Austen’s included) and their daughters turned out just fine with a little genuine effort, thank you very much.
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Diverse Perspectives | Discussion 3
I sent some questions to @jasperwhitcock for her perspective as a POC woman and daughter of an immigrant.
[ It is required to participate and watch/read these discussions, in order to follow me. Participate or get tf out. We aren’t performative in my lil’ area on Tumblr.
This discussion isn’t representative of an entire population or meant to be super professional. It’s to share different perspectives and also is an opportunity for me to practice what I preach: intersectionality. If you’d like to participate in this series please send me a pm or an ask and I’ll get back to you ASAP. We can do a written, audio, or video interview.]
As a mixed person, do you feel isolated from your community?
J: If you mean community as in the community I currently live in, I’m fortunate enough to live in a very diverse place. Surrounding the city of Houston, there’s a lot of prejudice integrated into a lot of the suburban neighborhoods, but in terms of the city itself, I think the POC communities really uplift and support each other. I’m a concert photographer when there’s not a pandemic, and I’ve always appreciated the way latinos and black artists are respected in the indie community. Houston’s a very rap/hip hop/R&B city, so black artists are especially celebrated. There’s also great latinx bands that I know, latinx venue owners/employees, and latinx brands connected to the indie community. We’re very well represented in this area.
If you mean community as in the latinx community, I wouldn’t say isolated, but depending on the day, I might say that I can feel distanced at times. This isn’t particularly due to the latinx community itself, so much as it may be a distance that I create in my head. As a mixed person, I think there are times where you can feel confused on where you belong. I’ve brought up the quote before from the Selena movie, where Selena’s father Abraham is speaking on the potential difficulty of Selena being accepted in Mexico because of the fact she is Mexican American: “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans, both at the same time! It's exhausting!” It can be difficult at times to navigate your sense of belonging when you are in between two cultures because you want to recognize that you may have privileges someone of full Mexican descent may not have, but at the same time, your life is still very much defined by being Mexican and having Mexican blood while living in America too. You’re definitely not absolved from having latin experiences. Latina stand up comedian Anjelah Johnson made a joke in her stand up about there being a Latinx hierarchy. She said that Spanish speaking latinos are better than the rest of us who are not fluent in Spanish (such as herself), and it was funny because sometimes you do feel that that can be true. My tías will always ask me why I’m not fluent in Spanish, and my mom will be like “yeah, why don’t you?” and I’m always like… because y’all didn’t teach me! My parents speak Spanish to each other at home. My father is not only fluent in Spanish, but his Spanish is oftentimes superior to a lot of Spanish speakers according to my mom and my tíos. He used to teach English in Mexico, so there is no reason that my sister and I shouldn’t have been perfectly bilingual. The reason they didn’t teach us as children is because they didn’t want us to be speaking Spanglish. (Spoiler: it happened anyways). Around white people, I definitely feel that I am not a white person. I feel very much latina in a group of white people. But then around latin people, I sometimes feel white enough to feel a sense of shyness. I definitely feel more at home with latinx people, but overall in both groups, I definitely feel that I am mixed.
It doesn’t happen often, because I think although the majority of latinx people have pride in their background, the hyperawareness of our identities right now is relatively new, but there have been instances of latinx gatekeeping the latin identity. Growing up, I didn’t think about what I was labelled as or think about how my family structure is different to other families. I didn’t consider how in some areas, it is an abnormality to have an immigrant parent or a parent with an accent. I definitely noticed that my family was different, but I didn’t understand why until much later. My mom, her sisters and brothers, and my primos… They don’t live their lives with the awareness of being defined as Mexican immigrants. Of course, they again have pride in where they came from. They live as Mexicans and engage in Mexican culture, but overall, the way the youth today has really grasped onto the labelling of our identity is kind of a new thing. There are some young latinx people who do try to quantify and measure whether or not your experience is valid. I know it comes from a place of protectiveness of their own experience, but it’s ridiculous to gate keep because something that really characterizes latin culture is our warmth, our sense of family, our willingness to embrace other people as part of that. If you’re of latin american descent, you have a place in the latinx community.
Since your parents don’t have college degrees, do you believe college is important and/or necessary?
J: I think it depends! I think a lot of immigrant parents really push for their children to get a college education because they see that as opportunity, particularly when they did not earn college degrees themselves. I think college can be important depending on what you want to accomplish, but I also think it’s not completely necessary. For my career path as a photographer/videographer, I chose not to do college. I do think I would have enjoyed college because I like learning, but because it was something unnecessary for my job, I couldn’t justify the time invested or putting my parents into a difficult financial situation. Especially because my college education would have overlapped with my sister, and I saw how difficult it was to juggle handling my sister’s student loans. For my sister’s career path (she is studying to be a nutritionist/therapist to help teenagers with eating disorders), college was necessary.
Your Mom has been stuck in the US, unable to return to Mexico for awhile, has your Mom’s experience with immigration changed your views in some way?
J: As context, my father lived in Mexico for a decade and married my mom in Mexicali. They hadn’t planned to move to the United States, but when they came to the US to marry here so that she could have citizenship and be able to visit his family, there were complications that made it to where she couldn’t leave the country. Luckily, the time she was unexpectedly stuck in the United States didn’t last super long! Long enough to become comfortable enough to decide to settle down in California, but we have been able to travel to Mexico often. I think it really highlights how unnecessarily complicated a lot of the processes regarding immigration are. The people in the country who are very malicious about undocumented immigrants love to jump to saying, “well, why can’t they just become an American citizen?” when the reality is that every process in place has a lot of complications. Not everyone has access to the resources to be able to make these transitions happen smoothly. Also, the time it takes to acquire your visa is not an overnight thing. People severely underestimate the difficulty involved.
What do you think about the “hard-working immigrant” stereotype?
J: I hate the idea that immigrants work hard because they’re low-skilled, but I do love that there is a lot of pride in how motivated immigrants are. It’s always been a ridiculous claim that immigrants are taking American jobs. Immigrants work the jobs that the majority of Americans have no interest in doing, especially the people that make this complaint. For a country that prides itself on working to make your dreams come true, Americans neglect to recognize that immigrants have a drive that most Americans don’t have.
Which parent do you feel more connected to? Your Mother who’s an immigrant or your Father who was born in America?
J: I really do feel that I am a coalescence of both my parents, so I think I feel equally connected to each of them. I feel a very strong emotional connection and concern for my dad because his mental health suffers a lot. His mother had bipolar depression at a time where mental health was even more stigmatized, and she endured a lot of ridiculous, merciless treatments that are no longer utilized today. When he was nine years old, his mom committed suicide, and this was an event that really defined his life forever. I think that kind of heaviness passes down through your family. When my dad is not doing well, I feel really imbalanced and emotionally impacted even if I’m not home to witness it. It’s kind of like that idea of an invisible string tethering you to someone, and it’s a weight that I carry always. However, overall, he’s a very positive person. When he is going through his kind of manic highs, he’s a lot more of what I recognize of who my dad is. He’s creative, a musician, and deeply caring for other people. His mother’s death has empowered him to really try to make a difference and “paint a picture of a better tomorrow.” I’m a lot like my dad in personality, but in disposition, I’m so much like my mom. She’s tough and outspoken at home, but in public, it takes awhile for her to open up. My mom’s very selfless, kind, and very much shy and quiet. She definitely exemplifies a lot of the sacrifice that you see many immigrants make. I do like both sides of my family, but I definitely feel more at home with the Mexican side. My dad’s side is loud, vivacious, and very much funny, but I feel extremely shy around them. My sister and I have always felt a tiny bit left out. I think they’d be hurt to know we feel this way, but I definitely don’t think they do anything to intentionally enforce this division. But I think it developed because there is a bit of a cultural disconnect between my aunts and my mom. It’s also very interesting to me that when they first met my mom, my mom didn’t speak any English. It’s fascinating to consider how it might change your perception of someone to go from not being able to communicate with them to watching them learn your language. My mom enjoys the time that we do spend with my dad’s family, but she’s kind of the odd one out in that her humor isn’t the same and her experiences are so different. I think that my dad’s sister and brother’s families were able to connect in a stronger way, so sometimes my mom, my sister, and I feel just a little isolated. In those moments, I feel the most aware of my Mexican background. With my mom’s side of the family, it’s a lot more comfortable. My dad’s able to develop his humor in a way that translates well into Spanish, so he fits in very easily.
You’ve lived in a “Blue/more liberal” state and a “Red/more conservative” state, which state has affected you more?
J: Definitely the red state. Seeing how intensely and ridiculously conservative some southern people are has really radicalized me in a way. I feel overwhelmingly liberal because there’s a defensiveness that develops when you’re in a space like this where you have this intense disbelief that people hold the ideas that they do. Especially because in Texas, black and latinx culture is a major contributor to southern culture. There’s a lot to be said about how black culture shapes the south, but because I’m latina, I’m focusing on latinx culture with this question. White conservatives want our food, they want our work, but they don’t want us. I don’t understand how anyone can be all #TacoTuesday one day, and then the next, be anti-immigrant. If you really want Mexicans out of your country, then maybe you should start living your life without any Mexican influence. Stop eating Mexican food. Clean your own pool and mow your own lawn. It’s ignorant to speak down on immigrants when their life would be so altered to be rid of immigrants. They rely on immigrants. Their lives are shaped by immigrants and built by immigrants.
(I had to chime in here: )
Are you proud of your parents?
J: Absolutely. As a young teenager, I had a lot of problems with my parents. I think I still have issues I’m working through as a result, but now that I’m older, I really do feel a deep sense of admiration and respect for them. Growing up really makes you view your parents differently and understand them as people rather than just as parents. I held onto a lot of anger and resentment, but I’ve come to truly see how they really did do their best. They’ve worked very hard, and I think not having everything that kids around me did really helped me grow into a more grateful person.
Have you faced discrimination for your race?
J: Of course, but in all honesty, it really rolls off my back. I think hate that is personally directed at me doesn’t bother me, but the discrimination that does affect me is anything directed or related to my mom. I remember my parents had a customer who made a really ugly complaint to my father about my mom’s english. My mom essentially handles most of the written communication with their business, and she still speaks and types in broken english often. The majority of my parents’ clients are latinx, so it’s typically not an issue, but it’s unbelievably offensive and ridiculous the assumptions people will make about your intelligence based on your english. The customer had no idea that the woman she’d been communicating with was my father’s wife rather than just an employee. It’s really sad how someone can see someone as unworthy of respect until they’re tied to a white man, and then they’re suddenly apologetic. This is another extremely mild example, but I’ll get a few laughs when I mispronounce something or don’t know how to say certain words. People always find it funny as though it’s embarrassing –– and it definitely can be –– but people forget I learned english from a woman who speaks two languages.
As the child of an immigrant, how has the anti immigrant talking point affected your mental health?
J: I think the toll the anti-immigrant bias in the United States has on immigrant children is a relevant conversation to have, but I think I’m very lucky in that I feel very tough in the face of that ignorance (which is not to say anyone whose mental health suffers as a result is not tough!) If anything, I feel pity for the people who are so hateful that they see other human beings in such a derogatory and entitled way. Similar to what I said before, my outrage really comes from a place of defensiveness for others. The talking point doesn’t hurt me, but it hurts me that people can speak about my family and my community the way they do. It hurts me that there are other immigrant children who have to work as hard as their parents to make their sacrifices worth it, and people are so insensitive as to not respect that. I’m pretty strong, but it does break my heart when my people are disrespected. If someone were to say something to me, that’s fine, but if i saw someone mistreating a little mexican lady in the store… I may be 5’3 but that don’t mean I won’t come for your ass. Okay, in all honesty, I’m really not a violent person. I’m more of a rise above kind of person because the hate someone has in their heart is not worth our time, but some people do need a chancla thrown at them to learn some respect.
In your opinion, in what ways does the Latinx community need more support?
J: I think because the latinx community is so much so composed of hard workers, people really need to support latin businesses more. That’s a direct way to impact latin lives. There’s an abundance of latin small business owners in every category. So many white kids love going to Cozumel for Spring Break and love wearing sombreros on Cinco De Mayo, but then the rest of the year, they have no care or respect for the authentic culture. For every dollar a white man makes, hispanic women still make statistically less than white women, asian women, black women, and native women. We gotta back up these businesses. Choose local taco shops or restaurants over chains. Choose online shops and Mexican boutiques over fast fashion. And this applies to everybody. We can always support black business or asian businesses over large competitors. It really does make an impact. I also think a lot of latinx children need access to better mental health resources. I’m lucky in that because my father struggles with mental health issues, mental health in my family wasn’t exactly a taboo, but in a lot of latin families, mental health is something that is hard for older parents to validate. Latin children need those resources. A simple google search of “latin mental health resources,” bring up a bunch of organizations that you can support. I think every POC community needs to be boosted right now because although we’ve been under attack, conversations about minority communities are being had by white people right now. We have their attention, and we do need their support to enact change because they have the power as the oppressor. We need to be going to bat protecting black people right now because of the insane damage the community has been enduring at the hands of police, and we need to be protecting immigrant children from what’s happening to them at the border. I know the election is extremely controversial right now, but I would urge anyone who has the ability to vote to really consider the importance of doing so. People love to be cynical about how our votes don’t matter, and I understand that cynicism, but a lot of immigrants don’t have the luxury of voting when the results of the election will directly impact their lives. I hate that there is no option of a president that will perfectly support POC communities, but there are options whose party is far more aligned with supporting and protecting POC communities than Trump is. Trump spews hate and fuels racism and prejudice. He calls Mexicans rapists and black protestors thugs. He encourages the blaming of the coronavirus on the asians in our country. He does not need any help winning the election. We need to get this hateful man out, and I strongly encourage anyone who can vote to do so.
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Let’s have a discussion! Did you learn anything new from this conversation?
Let me know here.
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To close out each post, I’d like to write a lil’ paragraph about the person I talk with:
I’m so lucky to have you as a friend darling. You always bring a smile to my face when we chat. You’re funny and so smart. I admire you deeply for being able to share your perspective in a clear way. Thank you for putting up with my 2 am messages lol 🖤🖤🖤🖤Your continued support makes me feel safe and very, very, loved. I hope I encourage the same feeling with you.
You’re the best babe,
-Faithxx
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No, Alina Isn’t Crazy
Let me explain...
When Alina was first introduced, I thought she was the character that made the least sense as an actual person rather than as a trope-y “mad artist” archetype. But after the reveal of her backstory, I find her personality and motivations do make sense, especially when you consider the events of Alina’s Magical Girl Story from her perspective.
Indeed, since that story’s release on JP, she’s quickly risen to become my favorite new character from Magia Record. Hence why I’m posting this today - it’s another semi-Magia Rapport related post, haha. Alina is definitely my favorite of the Forest element characters, and perhaps this essay will show a little of why that is.
Provocative title and Magia Rapport aside, though, what’s actually below the "Keep reading” is a close read analysis essay, specifically focused on Alina’s MGS. (A lot of Holy Alina’s MGS serves to confirm and reinforce little points scattered throughout this too, but this post was long enough without it!)
Introduction
The theme of Alina’s own art might be “Alina’s beauty” and “life, death, and emotion/decay.” But I would argue that the theme of her MGS as a when taken as a short story is “voyeurism and objectification at the cost of self-identity.” Specifically, how Alina’s actions and personality are the logical conclusion to that concept taken to an extreme.
There’s one important truth to Alina’s world, and that is the idea that Alina’s art IS Alina. We see it at the start – when she says her art is what she enjoys and what she grasps with her own hands. We see it at the end – with her realization that her art’s theme is “Alina’s beauty.”
And at the end of the day, what MGS Alina most seems to want is to be left alone to do art, to be herself. But who is Alina?
Alina the Teen Prodigy
Unfortunately for Alina, her fame gets in the way of figuring that out. Such is the life of a teen prodigy. As perhaps can be expected, constantly parading children under a spotlight is a great recipe for turning out extremely high-strung kids with very warped self-esteem.
(See also: Nemu, but especially Touka.)
The exchange regarding the award here is a good illustration of that mindset. It might initially seem contradictory for Alina to work desperately hard to win an award that she later doesn’t want and claims she wasn’t aiming to win. But once being “gifted” becomes central to your identity, winning an award doesn’t feel good anymore. It feels more like running in place, just the bare minimum expected of you to maintain your identity as a genius. And Alina’s perfectionism means she can’t not hold herself to that standard.
Indeed, Alina is already showing signs that she’s struggling under the pressure and overexposure. Normally, Alina seems to love talking about art and her own works (as long as it isn’t about herself, anyway). Arguing with her teacher and running away are far more of a bother and interfere with her ability to get back to painting far more than a quick meeting would have been. Yet she curses at her teacher, bolts, and skips school rather than have to deal with the consequences of her fame again.
She’s irrationally lashing out, asserting her boundaries in whatever way she can. And with the way the characters react, this doesn’t even seem like the first time it’s happened, either...
Which suggests Alina’s problems with her fame also aren’t new. When we first meet her, Alina is already a lot closer to a breakdown than she appears on the surface.
Having natural talent from an early age, Alina probably hasn’t learned how to deal with failure without spiraling into a full blown identity crisis. As a perfectionist, she’s also hypersensitive to even the slightest mistake. And given that she’s been famous for a few years at this point, her acting out is practically expected.
Just given the setting that she’s a well-known child prodigy, it’s not surprising that Alina has all these traits.
Alina’s Adults Are Useless
What is a bit disturbing, though, is that adults around Alina aren’t any help in protecting her from her fame.
Indeed, from what we see, the pattern is the opposite - over and over, the supposedly “responsible” adults in Alina’s life say her visibility matters more than her consent. Her teacher pressures her into competitions she dislikes and then gets on her case when she pushes back. Her parents put up her whole life story, including photos of her as a kid, without Alina’s approval or even permission.
Jumping ahead, I think it’s rather telling that Alina manages to destroy all her art, commit suicide, and get rescued by a third party – and none of these adults even visit her. A popular theory is that Alina’s parents are travelling in a different country. But - did no one tell them? Did they not care? As it is, anything Alina does – even blatant red flags like destroying a classroom and her own art – is treated as just another work of artistic genius, to be advertised and exhibited.
(Because apparently nothing says High Art like creep shots of a teenage girl having a mental breakdown.)
Of course, Alina isn’t being neglected or abused like Sana or Yuma. Not even close. But she’s not in a great situation either. She doesn’t really have anyone she can turn to in a crisis. The adults in her life mostly use her for their own ends, reinforcing that her worth is in her fame as an artist, not her value as a person.
Alina’s Peers Aren’t Much Better
Then, on a more subtle level, there are Alina’s peers. Whenever she’s mentioned by people her own age, she’s either the subject of scary rumors or glowing admiration. Other kids know her as a celebrity name to be idolized or feared, not a person.
Before becoming a magical girl, the only person who actually makes an effort to befriend Alina is Karin. But even she is initially caught up in the aura of Alina’s fame and contributes to the swirl of gossip around her.
The result is a situation where everyone around Alina has their own opinion on who she is. No one seems to care or leave space for who Alina wants herself to be. And Alina, not having a social life to fall back on, is increasingly left with “genius artist” as the only means she has to interact with the world. It’s a self-reinforcing spiral.
The Critic’s Letter
First, what it’s not: this isn’t about Alina getting a bad review and not being able to handle criticism of her work. She’s already won the competition. And Alina is perfectionistic to unhealthy levels - she’s already her own worst critic.
Rather, the letter’s insinuations are both subtler and crueler. As Alina says, the critic isn’t concerned with her artwork - he’s commenting on Alina as a person. Thus, the critic’s words are the same pattern as before, now crystallized into its sharpest and purest form.
Alina’s internal sense of identity is precariously fragile. Meanwhile, Alina’s external identity is being used as a canvas for other people’s desires. Even though all Alina really wants is to create art for her own sake, other people obsess over and dump their own meaning (or lack of meaning) onto her works.
Once again, Alina’s art is conflated with Alina herself. The person is being evaluated as a piece of art.
As if that wasn’t enough, the letter’s final insinuation that Alina is losing her brilliance is a triple threat. If she can’t create great art, Alina loses the activity she enjoys most. She also loses the one thing she knows other people value her for. And worst of all, she loses the only touchpoint she has for her sense of self.
Cue existential crisis. Alina’s life is Alina’s art. Alina’s art is Alina life. Without one, she doesn’t have any concept of the other.
And in the light of all this, her suicide makes perfect sense.
Alina’s Suicide
Welcome to the literal and figurative objectification of Alina. Literal, in that she’s turning into a corpse. Figurative in that by putting her body up for display, she’s allowing people to voyeuristically consume it – an idea further reinforced by the “Kusouzu / Nine Phases” reference in the title implying a tinge of sexual objectification as well.
Now that she’s destroyed all of her previous works, the only thing Alina leaves her audience to look at is Alina herself. Filming her body as it turns from a person into a dead object was simply the logical conclusion to a life of being displayed, objectified, and overwritten by others’ perceptions.
But how does Alina feel about this ending?
The day of her suicide, Alina rushes around in a kind of manic euphoria. This isn’t especially odd. After all, it’s not uncommon for a suicidal person to outwardly appear happier before they make an attempt, as finally having a concrete plan of action can feel like a huge relief.
Dying means a solution to Alina’s worries about her talent fading. Dying also means an end to all the pressure, all the constant struggle of performing to ever-heightening expectations. Alina can simply abandon the cases and tools once she’s done with them - no need to stress about the future when she won’t have one.
Alina’s farewell, though, betrays darker emotions. It’s simultaneously deeply spiteful - “this is what you all wanted from me, are you happy now?” - yet also an admission of utter defeat. Alina is giving up her very humanity and selfhood to be evaluated as whatever her audience wants.
Throughout the story, everyone keeps telling Alina that her art is intoxicating, pulling the viewer into it… but the reality is the exact opposite. Alina’s art was just something Alina made for herself, and any intoxicating meaning was something the viewer injected into it.
And thus, Alina’s revelation. Alina’s theme is “Alina’s beauty” – both a rejection and an embrace of that objectification. Now, Alina has declared that her art loudly and unabashedly about herself, viewer projection be damned. And yet, at the same time, since “Alina” is what viewers are obsessed with seeing, then Alina will give them exactly what they want…
An Artistic Failure?
So then why does Alina consider her final art to be a failure? It fits well within the theme of “Alina’s beauty.” Indeed, her later works like “Humanity’s Implicit Reward” and even her swimsuit are arguably just softer variations of the “Alina’s body as forbidden yet alluring object for the viewer to consume” idea that is present here.
This suicide also seems to fit into the “life and death” motifs she has. It’s a twisted kind of resurrection - effectively, she’s killing herself as a human in order to live on eternally as a memorable piece of art.
Alina plans her final work directly because she thinks she’s dying as a creator. Rather than face her brilliance fading, she chooses to defy it by going out in a blaze of glory. And when put that way, it’s an exciting and fitting conclusion.
There’s just one little problem with that narrative...
While drifting between life and death, Alina realizes the critic was wrong. She had a theme all along. Alina’s brilliance wasn’t fading.
And thus, since she wasn’t a “dying artist,” her “going out in a blaze of glory” no longer holds any profound meaning. She’s just a silly teenager who got too worked up over a harsh letter.
The overall concept behind Alina’s last work wasn’t the issue. The failure was in the timing and execution, killing herself before such a thing had meaning and in a way such that her body would be found.
And so, I don’t think Alina has learned her lesson here. I don’t think Karin’s words have gotten through to her yet. If she concludes at a later point that her talent is truly is fading or that she’s lost her theme, I’d fully expect her to pull another suicidal stunt again.
Conclusion
So the good news: Alina lived! She’ll have plenty more chances to create art and figure herself out!
But the bad news: Alina’s revelation implies she’s now even more reliant on her identity as a genius artist.
And thus, like so many other characters, the end to Alina’s MGS isn’t really an ending. She hasn’t solved the problem at the heart of the crisis that led to her wish. Becoming a magical girl and discovering witches does nothing to stop Alina from falling into another identity spiral, nor has she left her suicidal tendencies behind.
Alina found her theme, but she still hasn’t found herself.
Misc Details
Some other neat miscellaneous details that fit with this interpretation:
I’m glad the English translation keeps at least a little of the quirky way Alina refers to herself. (That being said, in Japanese, it’s even more exaggerated - she doesn’t use normal first person pronouns at all, only using “Alina.” )
Because on the one hand, this is an obvious hint at her extreme narcissism: Alina’s sentences frequently emphasize her name.
On the other hand, it’s a great subtle detail to return to the theme of objectification. To put it another way, Alina refers to herself in third-person. That is, even when Alina is speaking about herself, she reflexively frames it from the point of view of another person. Because Alina is constantly having other people’s perspectives forced onto her!
Also, it turns out the pattern of others projecting onto Alina is present in her witch as well! “Old Dorothy” is a historical figure whose diaries have been analyzed by multiple different researchers. Some of them came to the conclusion that Dorothy was definitely a witch, others came to the conclusion she was definitely a normal, upstanding member of her community. The researchers got completely opposite results from the same exact diaries. So therefore - did they truly care about learning what Dorothy was really like? Or were they just out to prove their own theories?
(Two years in, Old Dorothy is even more fitting of a name. Doroinu basically predicted the entire fan response to Alina. Some people see her as an evil (w)itch, some people see her as a sympathetic figure - all from looking at the same text.
We’re even starting to see the “two sides” of Alina come up in the Main Story, with Karin’s subplot in Arc 2.)
Meanwhile, Old Dorothy’s form - a “paint tube” - carries both this “paint over with your perceptions” meaning while also suggesting the same story as Alina’s final piece in miniature.
Unlike Izabel, Alina’s witch form isn’t that of an artist. Because when Alina hits her lowest point of despair, she no longer considers herself to be an artist. She believes the only value she has left is to become literal materials to create art.
In other words, Old Dorothy is Alina turning herself into art again. It’s just rainbow paint this time instead of red.
Last but not least: yes, I am absolutely aware of the irony of this essay. Here I am rambling about how Alina’s story is all about her struggle to be herself while everyone seems determined to erase her in favor of their own projections – and yet a good chunk of this interpretation is probably my projecting on her. Whoops!
Still, even if you disagree with it, I hope this essay was interesting and maybe made you question some of your assumptions about Alina.
Thanks for reading!
#madoka magica#magia record#alina gray#magia record analysis#my ramblings#long essay#read more#tl;dr#alina is certainly exaggerated#but in her MGS she comes across as#a surprisingly believable gifted kid#going through a nasty identity crisis#exacerbated by her fame
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London, July 1943: Excerpt from a work in progress
After nearly twenty minutes, Foyle decides that he might as well walk.
A cab pulls up at the entrance to the Victoria Coach Station every few minutes, but the drivers favour passengers in uniform. Difficult to resent that in wartime, but it quickly becomes clear that they’re really looking for the Americans – ready, willing and able to pay twice the normal fare. There are throngs of them in London: on leave, newly returned from North Africa, giddy with the success of the Sicily landings. Foyle keeps looking for familiar faces but sees none.
It’s barely a mile to Charles and Pamela’s place, if he recalls correctly, and it’s a fine day. After almost three hours cooped up in the coach it’ll do him good to stretch his legs. He hasn’t brought much with him and his suitcase is easy to lift. He picks it up and sets out.
Travel remains slow and uncomfortable, as it has been for the past few years. The discomfort is as much psychological as physical. Posters with such inscriptions as Must you travel? and Is your journey really necessary? are still displayed at every station, and Foyle had weathered a few cold stares from passers-by as he entered the coach stop at Hastings.
But it’s Charles and Pamela’s twentieth wedding anniversary on Saturday, and it had been kind of them to invite him. He really doesn’t feel the need for a change of scene, as they seem to feel he must, but he is curious to know what London looks and feels like with no official duties to discharge, even in the midst of the war.
And the war is everywhere he looks. Westminster has been spared neither bombing nor the depredations of the war effort. The railings have been removed from the familiar public garden he passes as he walks north along Buckingham Palace Road, and the garden has been cut up into allotments.
Buckingham Palace itself, he recalls as he makes his way past it, was hit repeatedly in 1940; it’s hardly a moldering ruin, but clearly only stopgap repairs have been carried out, the King and Queen waiting out the shortage of manpower and materials along with the rest of the country.
And as he walks across the Green Park he sees that it’s the public garden writ large: stripped of ironwork, much of the land being used to grow food.
At length – it’s a longer walk than he’d remembered, after all – he reaches Arlington Street and the drive in front of Arlington House. In 1936 Charles and Pamela had given up the fine Georgian house in Highgate that they’d taken before their son Alan was born and moved into a large flat in this mansion block, just completed at the time in the height of modern style. The move was a practical one, they had said: the place was and is an easy walk from the Admiralty, where Charles’ duties were demanding increasingly long days, and their daughter Averill’s school – now evacuated to Yorkshire – was also fairly close by.
Arlington House still stands, but it’s sandbagged and most of its metal ornament is gone. Some windows on the lower storeys, Foyle observes, have been blown out and boarded up.
‘My name is Christopher Foyle – I’m here to visit Commander and Mrs Howard,’ Foyle tells the elderly porter, who looks him up and down in an appraising way.
‘Yes, sir. They’re expecting someone by that name,’ the porter concedes, sounding a bit skeptical. At once he adds, ‘May I see your identity card, please?’
Foyle had suspected, and still suspects, that Pamela was privately relieved at the end of the Howards’ conventional existence in the suburbs. As he waits for the lift he reflects, not for the first time, that it’s hard to decide which seems more unlikely: her decision to leave her earlier life of vaguely Bohemian gentility for marriage to a Naval officer, or Charles’ choice of her as his wife.
Not that they aren’t well suited. They were both born into well-to-do families whose fortunes had been made during the previous century from the more refined aspects of trade: fine printing and engraving in the Howards’ case, textiles for the Fourniers. Pamela’s parents, though tolerant of their daughter’s artistic inclinations, had put the kibosh on her youthful ambition to become a ballet dancer.
Of age by the time the last war began, she had joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, driving an ambulance between Calais and a point that was often unnervingly close to the front. After the war she’d been one of the countless women to whom marriage had seemed an unlikely prospect, if only given the small number of surviving men. Although she had no real need to earn her own living she’d found a position at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a Deputy Company Manager, the first woman ever to fill that role.
And then, one evening in 1922, she’d somewhat reluctantly accompanied her father to a banquet at Drapers’ Hall. There she had been seated to the left of 1st Lt Charles Howard, R.N., a junior executive officer in attendance to represent the office that supplied Naval uniforms, still a bachelor at nearly thirty-two. (Foyle has never been entirely clear about how old Pamela is.) They were married nine months later. The wedding was a spectacular business in a Regency chapel of ease in St John’s Wood; Andrew, five years old and saucer-eyed throughout his first visit to London, had been a pageboy.
The brevity of their courtship had caused some talk, according to Rosalind. Still, it was a conventionally appropriate match – but also, Foyle knows, a very happy one. Pamela found Charles bright, witty and kind as well as quite handsome. His determination to remain in the Navy – in the teeth of his family’s expectation that, as the only surviving son, he would return to civilian life and enter the family business – had struck a chord with her, even as the novelty of life as a mildly rebellious bachelor girl with a toe in the demi-monde was beginning to wear off. Charles’ sense of duty was counterbalanced, and his own long-neglected aesthetic interests reawakened, by Pamela’s creative impulses and artistic connections.
It is Pamela herself who answers the door of the flat and laughs gently when her brother-in-law is unable to conceal his surprise.
‘Jill was called up,’ she explains, ‘and there’s really no hope of replacing her. They’ve all been called up! Not to worry, though — I haven’t yet taken over the kitchen. Mrs Ellis is still with us, bless her, so we won’t starve! It’s awfully good to see you, Christopher, and I’m very glad you’ve come. It means a great deal to Charles, as it does to me.’
Rosalind and Pamela had taken to each other at once, and became quite firm friends, Foyle recalls.
Mrs Ellis brings in tea, apologises for its meagerness and withdraws to the kitchen.
‘Would you care for something a bit stronger than mere tea?’ Pamela enquires. ‘I can imagine that you might need it, after travelling in this day and age. There’s no whiskey of any description, I’m afraid, but we do have a bottle of rather good Portuguese sherry.’
‘Well, um, perhaps a very small glass. Thank you.’
Sounding less facetious, she asks after Andrew.
‘He’s, um, he’s well,’ Christopher replies. ‘Not that it’s easy on him – not that I wouldn’t prefer to see him in some sort of nice, safe job at a desk – but he holds up all right on the whole. How’s Alan?’
‘Happy as the day is long — adores the Royal Naval College, talks constantly about the Painted Hall, and is quite convinced that we’ll win the day just as soon as he’s on active service!’
‘That’ll be, um, another two years, won’t it?’
‘Quite right,’ Pamela says dryly. ‘A bit long to wait, in my opinion. He has a chit for the week-end. He’s asked after you.’
‘It’ll be very good to see him. What about Averill?’
‘I’m afraid not — she won’t be here, I mean. Keighly’s a long way off, fifteen’s a bit young for such a long journey on one’s own — as I see it, at any rate — and they’re keeping those girls busy year ’round there. We haven’t seen her since Easter — and we went there. Quite a trek in these conditions! But there’s some good news on that score — the school’s coming back to London in September. I don’t know that I was meant to tell you that,’ she adds, ‘but there it is.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘Charles and I have had a few conversations about that, I can tell you! But Keighly’s not all that far from either Bradford or Leeds, and they’ve both been Blitzed. I suppose that the governors think that they may as well take their chances! In any case the decision’s been made — and it’ll be marvelous to have her home.’
‘Of course. I understand you have a new job,’ Christopher adds.
‘Yes. I’m afraid I wasn’t much good at making Sten guns — they showed me the door, Christopher, to be perfectly honest! — so I’ve joined CEMA as a sort of manager-at-large.’
Christopher frowns, puzzled.
‘Seema?’ he asks. ‘Oh, the Committee, um... ’
‘Or the Council, as it is now, for the Encouragement of Music and Arts.’
‘That part of the Government?’
‘No, not as such. It was run strictly on private funds at first, but Parliament has awarded us a hundred thousand pounds per annum — and Mr Bevin absolutely loathes us!’ Pamela adds with great glee. ‘Some of the people we’ve reached,’ she continues, sounding more serious now, ‘have never seen a live performance of anything before — they’ve simply never had the opportunity — unless it was the village amateur dramatic society, I suppose. It’s truly wonderful, Christopher — we’ve had letters from people who tell us that we’ve opened up whole new worlds for them! War does break down barriers — as dreadful as it is to think of it doing anything beneficial!’
‘I’ve often heard – um, the young woman who was my driver – I’ve often heard her say much the same thing.’
‘Would that be Miss Stewart?’
‘Oh – yes.’
‘We’ve heard some very encouraging things about her.’ Pamela smiles and sips her tea. ‘As it happens, CEMA is looking for a regional officer for the Hastings area. We have someone in Brighton, but she has her hands full with that region — and she’s expecting a baby in January.’
‘This a paying position?’
‘Oh, of course! Not lavishly, I’ll admit — two guineas per week to start with, plus travel expenses.’
‘That isn’t too bad,’ Christopher considers. ‘If I can think of a likely candidate I’ll let you know.’
‘I’d be quite grateful for that.’
Modern as the flat may be, it has a hearth and a mantel, with a clock sitting atop the latter that now strikes the hour.
‘Charles promised to come home at a reasonable time today,’ Pamela notes. ‘Christopher, I ought to tell you that he left here this morning in — I was about to say “in a foul mood,” but “in a highly unsettled state” might be a better way of describing it.’
‘What about?’ her brother-in-law asks, trying and failing to picture this.
‘I don’t know! I can tell you what brought it on, though — a letter that arrived in the morning post. But I didn’t see it — not the letter itself, I mean — and Charles didn’t tell me what was it said. All I know is that it seemed to agitate him a good deal. He took it away with him. Well, when I say that I didn’t see it, what I mean is that I didn’t read it,’ she goes on. ‘Of course I didn’t. But I did see that it was typed — on rather better paper than one is accustomed to seeing nowadays, and that the paper was marked.’
Christopher smiles dimly.
‘I’m no longer with the police, Pamela,’ he reminds her.
‘Well, no. I know that, of course. But isn’t it interesting, nonetheless?’
‘Depends on what’s in it.’
When the door to the flat opens a few minutes later; Pamela excuses herself and goes into the hall to greet her husband. Foyle hears both of them saying his name, and Charles using the words apologise and upset. After a few moments the Howards return to the sitting room.
‘Christopher! Wonderful to see you! Thank you so very much for joining us,’ Charles begins, shaking his brother-in-law’s hand. ‘How was your journey up? We’ve been hearing the most terrible stories,’ he goes on. On the surface he’s the same as ever, but something has changed behind his kind eyes. Something has rattled him.
‘Oh, can’t complain,’ Christopher replies.
Charles asks after Andrew and – with a vagueness that seems almost deliberate, as though the subject were slightly too indelicate to bring up – enquires as to whether Christopher is keeping himself satisfactorily occupied these days. These subjects having been discussed, there is a short silence during which he looks first pensive, then determined.
‘Pamela tells me that she’s put you in the picture about my... well, my loss of an even keel this morning.’
‘Well, um, she told me that it occurred,’ Christopher replies.
‘Mm. There was a letter in the morning post that gave me quite a shock. As the day went on, though, it dawned on me that it concerns both of you as well,’ Charles continues, glancing at Pamela and then back to Christopher. ‘Please correct me if I’m wrong, Christopher, but I don’t believe that you ever met my brother – and of course I know that you never did, Pamela.’
‘Knew him only by reputation,’ Christopher affirms. Captain Nicholas Howard, 4th Battalion, Royal Surrey Regiment, had been killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
‘Yes. Well. It seems that there was at least one thing about him that I didn’t know either.’ Charles falls silent again, looking perplexed. He reaches inside his jacket, brings out an envelope and removes its contents, which he offers to his wife and brother-in-law. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you both simply read this.’
He watches for a moment as Pamela and Christopher stand side by side, each holding an edge of the letter paper, taking in its contents. Then he looks out of a window.
#foyle's war fan works#works in progress#christopher foyle#charles howard#an original character#a new one#please bear in mind that this is a draft#wip wednesday
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BLOGTOBER 10/8/2020: PELICAN BLOOD (2019)
If you are reading this and the present date is between October 8 and 11 of 2020, please consider buying a virtual ticket to see Katrin Gebbe’s PELICAN BLOOD, available on demand through the Nightstream festival:
https://watch.eventive.org/nightstream/play/5f6e7e78d6a9bf0036613fa3
I am about to discuss this movie and its conclusion in great detail, but it would be much better for a person to come to it in innocence--not because it’s so reliant on anything as gauche as surprise, but because it is so thoroughly excellent that wading through a movie review first would be like letting your dinner grow cold. And, it simply deserves our support.
When I saw PELICAN BLOOD last year at Fantastic Fest, it became one of my favorite movies before it was even over. I might admit that this was sort of a match made in heaven, as this movie checks almost every one of my personal boxes, but I don’t think my assessment of its value is a simple matter of personal prejudice. I’ve been haunted by it all these months, and deeply worried that somehow I might never see it again. When I discovered that it had landed on Nightstream, I was over the moon.
This is writer-director Katrin Gebbe's second feature, a fact that will astonish you when you see it. Last Blogtober, I wrote about her first feature TORE TANZT, which has the troubling english title NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN. That intense indie drama concerns a born-again christian punk who wishes for an opportunity to prove his devotion to god, and finds it in the form of a family that invites him in off the streets, and then proceeds to torture him. That's an oversimplification of what actually occurs, but it is a film that's hard to be brief about. It's cheap and a little rough around the edges, but it is deliberate, intense, and difficult to forget. (In fact it's supposed to be based on a true story, although I haven't managed to pick up that trail) When I first saw it, it certainly made me wonder what else that director might be up to, and I was astounded when I found out. 2019's PELICAN BLOOD emerged six years after TORE TANZT, with little in between besides a television episode and a segment in the anthology THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL, and yet Gebbe's artistic evolution is dumbfounding. Her themes are all unmistakably present--faith versus doubt, mystical versus metaphorical experience, and physical martyrdom--but exploded into a grand, elegant psychodrama that holds the viewer captive every minute of its two hours.
Celebrated german actress Nina Hoss plays Wiebke, a stable owner who trains police horses to tolerate the frightening conditions of a riot. She lives at the edge of her pasture, raising her tween daughter Nicolina (Adelia-Constance Giovanni Ocleppo) on her own. Wiebke has a talent for healing the wounded, or perhaps it's more of a calling; she raised Nicolina, a bulgarian orphan, into a bright, balanced, emotionally available tomboy, and the two of them joyfully anticipate the arrival of Nicolina's new adoptive sister. When little Raya arrives (Katerina Lipovska), she first presents as sweet, even solicitous, needing only a mother's love to fully bloom. However, as soon as she determines that she is welcome and wanted, she undergoes a disturbing transformation into a violent and unpredictable creature, possessed by an abject hatred. Wiebke recognizes that her new child is seriously traumatized, which activates her sense of purpose, and she pledges herself fully to the child's recovery--despite the admonishments of Raya's daycare, her doctors, and virtually everyone around them, that the little girl is beyond all but clinical help, and even that promises no guarantee of salvation. Refusing to give up, Wiebke makes a series of increasingly dangerous personal sacrifices in Raya's name, until finally she finds herself at the doorway to what some consider another world, but what is to others only madness.
Gebbe won Best Director in the main competition at Fantastic Fest, and it would have been a crime if this were otherwise. Her control over what are essentially forces of nature is humbling. Extracting a profoundly moving drama from a cast of adult actors is challenging enough on its own, but to get these terrifyingly convincing performances from children, evoking deep trauma and physical violence to self and others, is another level. As if this weren't enough, Gebbe adds animals into the mix, giving the story of Raya a parallel in the troubled career of a police horse who is considered a lost cause by all but Wiebke. The training scenes in which Wiebke guides the volatile animal through fire and smoke, while her own lifeforce is being progressively depleted by her new child, are as harrowing as anything having to do with parenthood, and Wiebke seems to take the horse just as seriously as her child. Friendly single dad Benedikt (Murathan Muslu) tries to flirt with the trainer by remarking on her unusual career, but she spits bitterly, "The horses are not the problem," giving us a glimpse of the philosophy that drives her.
Another of my favorite german films is Werner Herzog's 1976 short NO ONE WILL PLAY WITH ME. This funny and poignant story involves a bullied and neglected little boy, and it is preceded by a card displaying the adage "There are no bad children, only bad parents." This is the principle that drives Wiebke in work and life: Those who are seen as failures, have been failed by others. One has the sense that Wiebke sees herself in these wretches. She has no partner, and balks at questions about her relationship history, shying from physical affection even with people she knows and likes. A tell-tale scar graces one cheekbone; when she finally begins to welcome the benign Benedikt's advances, he strokes it instead of kissing her, acknowledging that he can see who she really is.
Wiebke tries to extend this same empathy toward Raya, refusing to let the child bait her into wrath and rejection. However, this show of pure faith and tolerance does not work, and the right approach becomes less clear as Raya begins to blame her mounting acts of vandalism, arson and assault on an evil entity that controls her will. A psychiatrist aprises Wiebke that this is the "magic period", in which the child uses magical thinking to divert feelings of guilt and responsibility. But, after a fashion, Wiebke begins to sense this malevolent presence as well. Is this etheric intrusion real? Or is she beginning to empathize with the child--with the experience of grappling with a damaged part of yourself--to the point of dissolving boundaries?
The title of the movie refers to a fable about a pelican whose chicks die, and she resurrects them by feeding them her own blood. This is a clear metaphor for Wiebke's trial with Raya, that becomes shockingly literal when, after endangering her home and relationships by prioritizing the new child, Wiebke places her own health on the line by taking an unregulated drug to give herself a bizarre advantage. When Wiebke discovers the shocking nature of Raya's original trauma, she experiments with the radical idea of treating the girl like a little baby, hoping to start from square one with her capacity to be mothered, and in the service of this dreadful proposition, Wiebke starts taking a lactation-inducing pill that proves to be an immediate risk to her health, and puts her in an even more perilous position with Raya.
Although it focuses on a preternaturally devoted mother, PELICAN BLOOD recalls what makes movies like HEREDITARY and WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN so potent. We have the idea that in becoming parents, we are perpetuating our own essence, extending our history and celebrating the precious connection of blood, which is supposed to impart an automatic same-ness. Unfortunately, this only shakes out to arrogance for many, denying the quirks of psychology, chemistry, and the unique impact of trauma--even if minor, or explainable as something benign--on a mind too young to fully comprehend the nature of the experience. Even without abuse in the home, anyone can have a child less like themselves than they could have ever imagined, for reasons beyond their own control. In all this, the child is innocent, and it is the duty of the parent to prioritize the child's feelings, over the vanity of wanting an heir to your own best qualities. Wiebke sacrifices not only her vanity, but potentially her very life, to show Raya love. When this blood sacrifice does not work, Wiebke finds herself facing the realm of alternative belief as a last resort.
The introduction of PELICAN BLOOD's folk horror element can seem a little left field, if you haven't noted the clues scattered throughout the film. Before the revelation of Raya's boogeyman, Wiebke begins to discover evidence of an old pagan tradition still being practiced around her proverbial neck of the woods. Soon, she tentatively entrusts herself and her child to a local witch, who puts them through a harrowing exorcism. Though the process is uncertain at first, its impact forces Wiebke into a direct acknowledgment of the entity harassing her daughter. And ultimately, it awakens in Raya a capacity for love.
While the reality of the supernatural in PELICAN BLOOD remains in question, I think the effect of this ambiguity is specifically meaningful. I usually scoff at any type of "was it all a dream?" nonsense, as this is a tactic employed by directors who think their greatest accomplishment should be getting one over on the audience. I don't see any inherent value in simply reversing the apparent meaning of things, just to make people feel stupid--and worse, this has trained modern audiences to try to defensively predict the least likely ending to any story, instead of just engaging with it emotionally as it plays out. For this reality-bending trick to be worth anything, one must be able to answer questions like, IF this was all a dream, THEN what meaning is added to the story?
In PELICAN BLOOD, the unresolved question of whether magic is real is of great relevance to the whole concept of belief. Human beings crave extranormal experience; we're deeply attracted to tales of ghosts, UFOs, mythical creatures, and parapsychological abilities. Even the skeptics among us enjoy arguing about these things, and many regular folks without eccentric interests read their horoscope "just for fun". Most telling of all is the enduring popularity of stories about the strange and unusual, which require no particular belief system from the audience; the fantasy of this extra dimension to our mundane lives is just so satisfying. Despite all the pleasure we get from these ideas, though, we tend to cling first and foremost to objective truth; we tell ourselves that if there is no "proof", then an outrageous thing cannot exist. But, this is actually contrary to many of our lived experiences. On the basest level, we delight at videos of insane parkour stunts, at the same time that we say these guys are "like" superheroes, but are actually just guys. My question is, what's the difference? If a person can achieve physical feats that most of us can never imagine attempting, then what difference does it make that this person was not bitten by a radioactive spider? If a fortune teller in a carnival is so good at "cold reading" strangers that she gives the effect of being able to read minds, then what is the appreciable difference between a carny and a "real psychic"? If a faith healer "just convinces" someone to become free from a chronic ailment, and the patient goes on to live a happier life, who cares if no "real magic" was in evidence? What is the difference between exorcism and hypnosis, if the end result is the same for a seriously disturbed child and her mother? The only difference appears to be some material confirmation of specific mystical forces and substances--which, admittedly, would be exciting on its own--but this would still only be an alternative version of the events that led up to the same "miraculous" result. We only worry about the existence of God and magic because our definitions of these things tend to be limited to what we think of as literal and scientific. But, if the correct effects manifest themselves, then all that is purely cosmetic. Belief is real. Faith works.
#blogtober#2020#pelican blood#pelican blood 2020#katrin gebbe#nina hoss#Adelia-Constance Giovanni Ocleppo#Murathan Muslu#Katerina Lipovska#drama#folk horror#witch#witchcraft#exorcism#possession
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The Best Films of 2019, Part VI
Yes, I know that it’s almost March. Thanks for taking the ride. GREAT MOVIES
22. Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)- To disrespect this movie is to disrespect the moon landing itself so... I do like listening to the Walter Cronkite snippets about "the burdens and dreams of all mankind" and smirking at the idiots who talk about "back when people just read the news without editorializing." 21. Waves (Trey Edward Shults)- I could have done with five fewer shots of people holding each other, and the foreshadowing could be more subtle, but, man, Shults takes some huge swings here, for a more powerful effect than either of his previous films had. It isn't often that a colorist gets a single card in the opening credits, but it makes sense for a film that stands out as much as this loud, woozy piece does. I don't think there's anything as present-tense this year as a character drunk-driving to Kanye West's "I Am a God." 20. Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)- The dissenters of Jojo Rabbit have been pretty uniform in their negativity, and I think their stance has to do with not wanting to be told what to think or feel. (Putting "an anti-hate satire" on the poster has to fire up those haters.) This movie is not subtle or ambiguous, but you know what? Casablanca is a pretty didactic movie too. Let me back up from the C-word. For me, the film's emotional scenes are better than its comedic scenes, but in either form, Waititi directly engages with a ten-year-old in a way that neither romanticizes him nor condescends to him. That's such an imperfect, transformative age in a boy, and not enough movies are willing to wrestle with how ugly it can be. Roman Griffin Davis is pretty good, but he's spotted by sincere, compassionate performances by Thomasin McKenzie and Scarlett Johansson. It's possible that Johansson has never been better. I totally understand why someone with her sex symbol baggage would resist playing mothers; if I've done my homework, this is the first time she has done it, even though she's a parent in real life. But her maternal scenes here are heartbreaking in their patience, particularly in a scene for which her character "plays" herself and her absent husband. Besides uncorking a more vulnerable part of herself, Johansson nails the performative aspect of being a parent, resisting the urge to make everything a lesson but wanting so desperately to be a positive example for a kid who needs one. 19. Honeyland (Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska)- I greatly prefer the term "non-professional actor" or "first-time actor" to "non-actor" because it's only human nature to act differently when being filmed. The second even a camera filming a birthday party captures you, you start to perform. But in handmade stone houses in rural Macedonia, the subjects are true non-actors. They have no affect because, in all likelihood, they have not seen a movie before. So the way that Hatidze lived over the course of the three years of this project--with purpose, focus, and wisdom--seemed new to me. Honeyland is the gift that I always hope for from documentary and (especially) foreign documentary: a slice of life that I never knew I needed. 18. Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell)- Andrew Garfield's Sam spends a lot of time on his balcony surveying his apartment complex, staring at a topless woman in a way that recalls Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, one reference point among hundreds. Sometimes he watches through binoculars, sometimes he watches through blinds--blind imagery that shows up over and over again in a movie about voyeurism. Anyway, this neighbor keeps parrots, who we're told as kids can "talk." Not that the animals have any conscious intention with their mimicking, but they replicate what they hear or are taught. The words are signified without any signifiers, so it's hard to even classify the noises as speech. Maybe those noises are everything--a tie to our species that reveals impressive intelligence--but maybe they're nothing--a silly hope of a world that seems less alone. And that subjective interpretation of code is the clearest metaphor in an otherwise elliptical, bizarre, sprawling, sui generis film. It's messy alright. Some of the threads lead nowhere, but in a movie about order and chaos, that's obviously the point. The scene with The Songwriter--barely any of the characters have names--is over ten minutes and might not have any narrative consequence. But in the moment it's earth-shattering and urgent. And maybe I'm the obvious audience, but I'm not going to complain about anyone taking a dance break for "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" 17. 1917 (Sam Mendes)- Weirdly enough, a Lauryn Hill line kept bouncing around in my head as I was nervously tapping my foot: "It could all be so simple, / But you had to make it hard." This is a direct story told with impossible technical aptitude. 1917 isn't saying anything new, but have you ever seen a plane crash ten feet away from the camera forty-five minutes into an unbroken take? No offense, but do you remember when we were all impressed that Creed had a five-minute fight in one take? Blimey. 16. American Factory (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert)- It's a rare documentary that makes its case so gracefully and so forcefully at the same time. The film ends so conclusively that it could be considered labor activism, but it's so fair that the union-busting schmucks are willing to joke around with the filmmakers without obfuscating at all. The obvious forebearer for this sort of boots-on-the-ground snapshot of American labor is Harlan County U.S.A., but American Factory is more staid and less concerned with setting because, you know, this could be anywhere.The Chairman is the best villain since Thanos, and as he looked back on his life while walking around his empty cabana, I had to squint a bit to make sure he wasn't purple.
15. Ad Astra (James Gray)- Ad Astra declares so that it can suggest. The opening crawl says that the near future is a "time of hope and conflict," but all we see is the conflict: the pirates on a borderless moon that we've ruined with Applebee'ses, the neglected wife leaving her ring on a table, the voiceover that declares, "I always wanted to be an astronaut...for all mankind and all." This film will take place in four parts--Earth, Moon, Mars, Neptune--and each part will offer unique obstacles to challenge our phlegmatic but confused hero. But all of that table-setting allows James Gray to explore. There's a scene in which the Roy character uses a belt to pull himself, one tug at a time, deeper into the unknown, and we see the action through the reflection in his helmet as we're watching his face. We're seeing through his eyes but at a remove, and in this moment we're watching him heave himself into emptiness, thinking that the more distant and lonely and absent he gets, the more of a man he becomes. We know that's not true, but we kind of think it is from the movies, and Ad Astra has a happy ending if only because it wants to disprove that notion. Lots of artistes talk about how they could, without compromise, make grand, big-budget entertainments if they only wanted to. James Gray did. 14. Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)- In a train on the way to her hometown, the protagonist Xiao casually tells a fellow passenger that she has seen a UFO. Although it comes up later in a sort of magic realism flourish, her statement seemed like a character moment for me. People who see UFOs are either guileless rubes or attention-seeking hucksters, and that's the dance of Tao Zhao's performance. Even after seeing the movie, I can't tell which one Xiao is. Often it changes in the course of a scene. The time when she shows the most agency, firing off her boyfriend's illegal gun to ward off his attackers, results in the time when she is the most helpless, being ordered around in jail. She might confess her ex-con status in a moment of vulnerability, then flake out at the next train stop in an attempt to seize her power back. (It's worth mentioning that there are lots of movies about flaky drifters who don't pay the tab, but few of them are about women.) Even the way that she holds her backpack--frontways--is street-smart and child-like at the same time. This is the second film that Jia has made with a triptych setting, (Mountains May Depart is slightly superior.) and he doesn't make the flash forwards obvious. He invites the performance's same sort of healthy confusion upon the viewer with the formal elements. I, for one, am willing to get probed by these foreign objects. 13. Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley)- I questioned a late moment in the film, one of the plottier ones in which Woody goes back to save another toy one more laborious time. When I sighed, my wife reminded me, "He never leaves a toy behind." Toy Story 4 is a dazzling upgrade in the series from a visual standpoint, (I gasped again at Woody lying in a damp, sunny patch of concrete.) but it's more of a reminder of the consistent character development and weight that have been blanketing us for twenty-three years. Pixar isn't reinventing the wheel because it is the wheel. Sure, the characters are too numerous and separate now. I miss the OG's Rex and Hamm. But for one thing, that rogue's gallery makes it funnier when, say, Buttercup pops up with a joke out of nowhere. And the new characters, particularly Forky the Nihilist, are so lovable that I wouldn't know who to trade. Toy Story 4 is probably the worst of the franchise, but that franchise--especially when its subtext seems to be questioning people who want to stop intellectual property from evolving--might be the best we have. 12. Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu)- In discussing the aftermath of an execution, Alfre Woodard's warden character Bernadine mentions the mother who will claim a prisoner's body, who will follow through with plans for burial. And I realized, to be honest, that I had never thought about how executed bodies are claimed and laid to rest, though obviously those sad practicalities persist. This whole film is a reminder of the numerous costs that arise from a system that is out of time and out of reason. To that end, every character is fully drawn with empathy. For example, the assistant warden, which could have been a nothing part, has ambitions and fears that give him an arc that shades the protagonist. The Richard Schiff and Wendell Pierce characters make the film about the compromised promises of retirement, but the assistant warden is there to tug us back into law enforcement. Neon ended up putting this movie on the awards circuit back burner, but Aldis Hodge deserves the world. Although the film piles on one indignity too many for my taste, drifting into miserableism, Hodge's performance has a rare possessive quality. Catatonic in his most crestfallen moments and antic when he clings to hope, Hodge drags the audience along with him. The character is quiet, but every word counts. 11. The Farewell (Lulu Wang)- I was not been more thoroughly charmed all year, especially by Awkwafina, who is a revelation in a tricky role. There are a few scenes that get comedic effect through repetition, and it's telling that the subtitles stop by the third or fourth run-through of a line. The movie assumes you're smart, which goes even further than its piercing emotion. Shout-out to Mr. Li, who made me crack up every time I saw him. The elderly sort-of-boyfriend is such a common figure in real life, but I'm not sure I've ever seen that character type on screen. I'm not sure I've seen any of this on-screen, and that's the reason the film exists.
10. Avengers: End Game (Joe Russo and Anthony Russo)- For a guy who grew up in the '30s, Captain America is pretty cool with gay people. 9. Gloria (Sebastian Lelio)- I saw Lelio's original Gloria, the one that he's remaking here, and it didn't do much for me, even though it hit some of the same beats as this one. I wonder what the difference could be...do you think the total commitment of one of the greatest actresses in the world matters? Lelio documents who this woman is to her children, to her mother, to her ex-husband, to her lover, to her co-workers, and it's by tracking the tiny compromises of those relationships that the viewer gets to see the fully realized her. The cyclical editing of those pieces--sing a disco song to herself in the car, rinse, repeat--ends up lulling the viewer into his role of seeing the complete Gloria. It ends up being a fun, absorbing process. I yelled out loud at Turturro for disrespecting my girl. Moore, who is in every scene, sells us on these different versions of the character through complete control of her instrument. She lets headphones slump along her body at work. She kneels down toward a street performer in a more maternal way than she ever presents with her actual daughter. She sits cross-legged with her best friend, as if they're little girls. I won't spoil what she does at the end, when she is at her most empowered. 8. Midsommar (Ari Aster)- I love this movie, but, boy, is it a friendship killer if you recommend it to the wrong person. Whether you liked Hereditary or not is a good predictor for your taste, but I think Ari Aster's follow-up is much better: Whereas the unpredictability of Hereditary makes the mysticism of its final fourth seem like a leap that you either accept or don't, Midsommar is driving so hard in one direction that its dread is even more pronounced. (The prologue is so masterfully deliberate and gloomy that it takes a long time for the film to get back to those depths.) For comparison's sake again, Aster was painting in the colors of hysteria and fractured relationships before, but the new film seems much more biting and vital in the way it depicts modern men and women. I'm thinking of the way Dani excuses herself at the risk of compromising her safety or rationalizes her boyfriend's forgetting her birthday with "Well, I didn't remind him." All of the characters become victims of a misinformed, selfish brand of multicultural tolerance that makes them rationalize evil instead of speaking up, and that acceptance serves the plot way better than the average horror movie's running up the stairs instead of out the door. For his part, Christian, who seems sympathetic at first, takes ideas, drugs, and even women for himself with impunity. (It's important that he's an anthropology student, and it's more important that his name is Christian.) When he colonizes his Black friend's thesis topic, it might seem like a tipping point, but he was one step ahead in using rules and approval for his purposes. None of the Americans bother to stop him, but that doesn't mean that no one stops him. 7. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)- "The sun shines on good and evil the same." In the baggy second hour of what might be Terrence Malick's most direct and linear film, martyr Franz Jagerstatter tosses off that line with grace and aplomb, at a time when most of us would have neither to spare. His captors are confused when he denies that his conscientious objection will make any difference in the war or when he doubts that he is more morally evolved than his countrymen. His refusal to pledge an oath to Hitler is a state with no outcome in mind, which the results-obsessed Nazis cannot understand. In that way he is the perfect Malickian hero, which means he is the perfect Heideggerian hero: a man who sees all planes of existence as equal--or at least equally unknowable to him. As a farmer, Franz observes and acts upon cycles, but he is smaller than Nature and the communion he finds with God there. So when he's torn from his family and daily life to be stuck in a prison, he is separated from that concord further and further. The key, however, is that he is no more or less powerful than before, and that knowledge is what gives him transcendental perspective. He is indifferent in the way that only a saint can be. Of course, what I'm describing also makes for a passive protagonist, which is why the cross-cutting to his wife Fani is so effective. She is the one who has to shoulder the burden of his ideals, and Valerie Pachner's stolid performance sells that sacrifice. The overall balance comes from the jagged but precise editing, and the production is all the more impressive for retaining the Malick style despite the absence of most of his regular collaborators. (This is the first time since The Thin Red Line that he hasn't worked with Jack Fisk, but there the production design is, crafting a 1940 Austrian town out of nothing and building a network of water symbolism that I don't understand yet.) In fact, the whirling steadicam and the avoidance of artificial light have more of a thematic purpose than ever if "the sun shines on good and evil all the same." Perhaps the greatest achievement of this film about unjust war is that it made me pray for Donald Trump today. Because if I want to be like Franz Jagerstatter, then I have to believe the light of God shines on him too. 6. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)- A third of the way into this imaginative, absorbing whodunit, I started to talk myself into the surface pleasures of cinema. "So what if it doesn't have much to say; look at these stars going for it with this spicy dialogue and these gleeful twists." Then the subtext asserts itself through a radiant Ana de Armas, and the subtext becomes the text in the final shot. Knives Out is the best of all worlds. Rian Johnson might be the first filmmaker for whom a Star Wars movie ends up being a footnote. 5. Everybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi)- There's a photograph hanging in the library (yes, the stately library) of the patrician family of my childhood best friend, and I'm in that picture. There I am, dressed a bit sloppier than everyone else, near the edge of the frame. Because I was there, as usual, and because they are kind. Everybody Knows is about one of those family friend outsiders, perhaps in a way that no other movie has been. When it's at its best, it's about what those marginal figures can and can't say, can and can't do. The film dips into soap opera territory, but only to sell its message of how secrets beget other secrets. For me, it's another Farhadi hit of approachable, modest conflict that bakes itself into an experience. 4. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)- The best divorce movie ever made--by the guy who wrote and directed the former belt holder of the best divorce movie ever made. These luminous lead performances aren't just about saying cutting, hurtful things or reacting to their child's preference for the other parent (or at least the other parent's toys). They're about the internal devastation of realizing you can never take back something you've said. Driver and Johansson each get a chance to sink into one of those moments, and they're joined by a head-tilting, blustery Laura Dern, who gets a Virgin Mary speech that won her an Oscar. And there are jokes! Underrated aspect of the movie: The son is kind of a dipshit. I like that he just hates math and wants to eat candy, as opposed to the cute prodigies we've seen before in this type of movie. They're fighting over a kid only a parent could love. INSTANT CLASSICS
3. Uncut Gems (Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie)- Howard the jeweler lives somewhere in upstate New York, but he has an apartment in the city. It's an apartment that is close enough for him to cab over to his mistress who lives there, but it's far enough away that his family wouldn't bother popping in for a visit. That sort of gap is present throughout Uncut Gems: Family members act differently in the Diamond District than they do at seder, and we first see Howard from the literally vulnerable inside of a colonoscopy, not the animated brio of his tightrope-walking exterior. Of course, the gem of the title is the ultimate division: something pure that the characters are searching for, untouched by the process that Howard, by definition, does. And the film is about how little he can abide by purity. Until now, The Gambler (1974) was probably the best film of this type, a snapshot of a cursed man who seems to be gambling with forces way beyond the game in question. But Uncut Gems is more pathological, more authentic, more intense, and more decisively realized. By focusing more on character than the Safdie Brothers' other work, it offers a unique depiction of compulsive behavior and implicates the audience in rooting for Howard's (technically unrealistic) parlay. By doubling down on his bets or re-uniting with his girlfriend, Howard thinks that he can reinvent himself and start anew. But like the legacy of the Chosen People the film depicts, like the lines on all of these great New York faces, some things are permanent.
2. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)- "It's what it is." You wouldn't blame someone if he saw the logline and lineup of The Irishman and expected GoodFellas. In fact, this one quotes Scorsese's signature film continually. Instead of slicing onions with a razorblade, old convicts pitch bocce balls. Instead of tracking sumptuously through the Copa, Scorsese's camera wanders through a nursing home. Instead of pistol-whipping Karen's neighbor for getting handsy, our protagonist curb-stomps a grocery owner for shoving his daughter. But there's a GoodFellas staple that is missing. The first fourth of that crime saga closes as Young Henry, played by Christopher Serrone, gets rewarded for staying mum in court. All of his partners in crime cheer him, and he is told that he learned a valuable lesson (in protecting the family and subverting the law). Then we cut to Adult Henry, played by Ray Liotta now, because Young Henry has learned everything he has to know. The Irishman has no such moment of elevation or revelation. Frank is, crucially, played by Robert De Niro over the course of decades because his fall from grace--if there ever was grace--is too imperceptible for any before-and-after divide. The lessons that he learns are just as corrupting as what Henry discovers: Power comes from insularity. Having power means you don't have to prove it. Organized crime, organized labor, and the political process are all the same thing. A code is all a man has, but all codes have limits. However, Frank's corruption, the selling of his soul, doesn't even bring an Asian-inspired chiffonier or a Janice Rossi sidepiece. Frank doesn't get rich; he jams his hands into a plastic ice bucket at the bar next to his couch. He doesn't get powerful; he has to kill because Russell is too prominent to be in the same town as a hit. He doesn't get glory; even a celebration held in his honor is just an excuse for more influential men to do business. Frank is a tool, and he is trapped in a fruitless silence, at best an accessory at meetings. (De Niro is doing quoting of his own. There's a lot of Jackie Brown's Louis in his shrugs and smirks.) As boisterous as Scorsese's films can be, he also knows how to use silence. Robbie Robertson's score is weak, but luckily the film goes without for long stretches, including a suspenseful car ride that begins with a treacherous hug and ends with a malignant secret. The best performance comes from Joe Pesci, probably because his stolid stillness matches the overall atmosphere. Of course, the quietest moments correlate to the loneliest moments: Frank touring a cemetery or sitting with a door half-cracked to a complicit viewer. It's the silence of deliberate toil. Like the mobster ripping up carpet in the lake house, Scorsese is on his hands and knees destroying his own myths.
1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)- Parasite is Bong Joon-Ho's masterpiece because it distills the worldview and passions that he previously flirted with into a condensed but elaborate statement. In the same way that Mean Streets is perfectly good but feels like a rehearsal for the slow boil of encircling gangster life in GoodFellas. In the same way that Hitchcock played with the impotent everyman voyeur in a confined setting but didn't perfect it until Rear Window. Like the examples above, Parasite, a true ensemble, is a case of the subtext becoming text. Back in his native country and language, working more or less with realism, Bong is free to take aim at class in a more direct but still wacky way. In all of its crowd provocation--there's so much pleasure in just a suspenseful winding down stairs--the film is destined to be a foreign film gateway drug. But really it just makes we want to take a half-star off my Snowpiercer review since I know Bong can do better now.
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TIFF 2018: Day 2
Films: 4 Best Film of the Day: Shoplifters (pictured)
Shoplifters: Japanese director par excellence Hirokazu Koreeda’s film, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, works in quiet subtle ways, that affect you without you quite knowing why, like watching a strewn pile of dead leaves skitter across an otherwise empty field. It opens with what appears to be a father, Hatsue (Kirin Kiki), and his adolescent son, Shota (Jyo Kairi), as they smoothly stake out and steal from a large grocery in Hokkaido. They work in such harmonic tandem, he blocking the clerk from view at key moments, his son slipping items into his backpack without hesitation, it’s almost like a military exercise. Bringing the booty home to the rest of their family, Shota’s mother, young aunt, and grandmother, Hatsue spies a forlorn young girl (Miyu Sasaki) stuck alone, cold and hungry while her parents are MIA. As if snatching a package of noodles off the shelf, he picks her up and takes her into their ramshackle but loving crew. In Koreeda’s world though, very little is directly as it seems at first. As we get to know these characters in more depth over time, their apparent relationships turn out to be something considerably different, and they become less easy to understand if no less endearing. The film works in small, carefully arranged scenes, which are artfully staged, fitting together like bits of an interlocking puzzle. Every member of this oddly concocted family are one kind of con person or another, whether they utilize hoary magic tricks, shoplifting strategies, or burying bodies under their small apartment.
Kursk: Submarine movies generally have only one direction to go, and that is straight down to the bottom. If the sub isn’t outright sinking, it’s threatening to, which, like your standard romcoms or slasher flick, puts into motion a whole bunch of predictable outcomes, depending on whether the director’s vision calls for dramatic pathos (the crew drowns) or joyful deus ex machina (the crew miraculously escapes). But here, director Thomas Vinterberg is working from a notorious chapter in Soviet naval history: During the latter years of the Cold War, one of their most sophisticated nuclear subs had an accident en route to a training exercise, leaving the majority of souls on board blown apart or drowned, and the survivors in a tight race for survival, only to have the military decide the crew’s fate based on international appearances. Given the nature of the form and the reputation of the incident, Vinterberg had no choice but to dig deeply into the crew members lives in order to connect the audience with these poor, doomed seamen. He gives us enough snippets of the homelife of the men — using the tried and true start-with-a-wedding maneuver — and one in particular, Mikhail (Matthias Schoenaerts), with his pregnant wife (Léa Seydoux), and young son, to invest us. He also utilizes other devices: In a moment of supreme irony, many of the ranking crew were forced to hock their naval watches in order to properly fund the wedding of their good comrade the night before their ill-fated launch, a deal that comes back to haunt them fiercely when things go to hell. The Soviets are shown to be blitheringly incompetent, with a much weakened and neglected military (early in the film, the sailors are denied their monthly wage again, hence the need to hock their timepieces), and the kind of insufferable pride that would allow such a thing to happen, bitterly resentful of any offerings of international aid, but in truth, they react no differently from any other would-be superpower. As much as we may want to be able to dump down on Soviet buffoonery, we have to accept we’d likely meet equal fate under similar circumstances. We’ll have to take cold comfort that the Russians, in drowning far below the surface, make for remarkably similar corpses to our own.
What You Gonna Do When The World’s On Fire? The way Italian director Roberto Minervini works is mysterious unto itself. Deeply embedding into a community – and he’s latched onto the deep rural south in recent films – he creates sort of docu-narratives, setting up scenes with real participants, and to some degree choreographing the action. The effect is like watching a drama of almost pure verité, with just enough elements of staging to meld the two forms together. This film, shot in southern Mississippi and Louisiana loosely connects several different character threads and situations: In one pairing, a couple of brothers, the youngest one healthily scared of a lot of things, try to steer clear of the trouble and violence that plague their streets; in another a regrouped “New Black Panther Party” takes to the streets and tries to effect radical change one protest at a time; a middle-aged woman loses her bar, and tries to go out on a high note; and a Big Chief goes through the laborious effort to put his elegant costume together in time for Mardi Gras. The connection is tenuous – beyond its attention to race and class, and the struggle it is for people to just get by under these murderous conditions – but Minervini’s cinematography (by Diego Romero) is so gorgeous, with its black and white compositions, that it hangs together stylistically in a way that makes the whole thing work. It’s hardly coherent, but as a sizable slice of life document, he captures something of notable significance.
Beautiful Boy: Timothée Chalamet, the young actor who was so beguiling in Call Me By Your Name, seems to have it all: Staggeringly good looks, fantastic acting chops, and a genial likability that translates perfectly to the big screen. In Felix Van Groeningen’s adaptation of the twin memoirs by Dave and Nic Sheff concerning Nic’s struggle with addiction, those qualities are perfectly turned on their head. Nic, too, seems to have everything going for him – loving, though divorced, parents (Steve Carell and Amy Ryan), a beautiful house up in the mountains above San Francisco, and a bevy of talent as both a writer and an artist. But the draw of “chaos” is too strong with him, and he turns to drugs to prop up his sagging self-worth nonetheless. Van Groeningen is hardly a moralist, nor is he any kind of romantic (as those who have watched the powerful but difficult The Broken Circle Breakdown can attest), so the film, which could easily have played like a standard redemption arc, becomes something a good deal more harsh and unfulfilling. If we cling to those narratives for fear of our own children plunging over those particular waterfalls, it’s just as important to understand the true extent of horror such a situation can produce. By the time Dave turns away his son, and gives up any sense of control of being able to keep him alive, we’ve come pretty much to the opposite pole from where he started. The most shocking element of the film isn’t any of the deprivation Nic forces upon himself, it’s the numbing effect he eventually has over his father. The performances are strong across the board, but Chalamet again proves up to the task of taking on remarkably nuanced and difficult characters and bringing them to full life. Because of Van Groeningen’s inherent coolness – the soundtrack, featuring everything from vintage Nirvana, to Sigur Ros, to acid jazz – and emotional distance, it’s nothing cathartic, just realistic – if highly privileged – people suffering continuous trauma.
Tomorrow: After an early interview, I plan to rush over in time to see the Welsh mystery movie Gwen; pop by Donnybrook to see my man Jamie Bell get his head dented in; go to a public screening of David Lowery’s The Old Man & the Gun in what may be Robert Redford’s last role before retirement; and close out the day by (shhhh!) watching a midnight screening of David Gordon Green’s updated Halloween re-conception.
#sweet smell of success#ssos#piers marchant#films#movies#TIFF 2018#toronto international film festival#shoplifters#what you gonna do when the world's on fire#kursk#beautiful boy#timothee chalamet#felix van groeningen#steve carell#Hirokazu Koreeda#Roberto Minervini#thomas vinterberg#Matthias Schoenaerts#lea seydoux#arkansas democrat gazette
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The Meaning Of Favorite Colors
Light Pink
Your personality strikes a balance between passion and gentleness. You are a nurturer, seneitive to others’ needs and possessed of a strong maternal instinct, and you want unconditional love and acceptance in return. You are romantic at heart, although you are not keen on grand display of affection - you prefer subtler ways of showing your feelings. Your sweet and freindly nature can turn toward naivety at times, and you can sometimes come off as a bit immature. You may tend to rely too much on others for support and help; you would do well to cultivate self-reliance. You also have strong organizational skills and you dislike violence of any kind.
Bright Pink
If you love bright pink, you are a free spirit who sees the world through a different lens than most people. You tend toward artistic pursuits. Friends see you as wacky and off-the-wall, but under the surface you are actually quite organzied. You love beautiful things, and you strive to create harmony in all situations and bring people together. You possess empathy and consideration for others and you would do well to choose a profession that makes use of this.
also associated with Libra
Red
Lovers of red freely share their feelings and opinions. You often act without much forethought, but this quickness stems from a deep desire to get things accomplished. You have great physical strength, a boundless supply of energy. Full of drive and determination, you are ssen as sort of pioneer among freinds and family; always up for an adventure, you are unafraid to try new things and blaze a trail for others.
also associated with Aries
Orange
You are the life of the party and truly thrive in social settings. Beneath this gaiety, you also crave the respect and admiration of your peers and feel a constant pressure to keep up with others. Orange is a compination of equal parts red and yellow, and your personality reflects this: you are assertive when you need to be (a red trait), butthis assertiveness is tempered by an innate friendliness (a yellow trait). You have a deep-seated need to challenge yourself in all areas of your life, and you take risks easily. Loyality is not your strong suit, as you are often looking for the next exciting thing,place or person.
Yellow
Your disposition fits your color - you are happy and sunny and people are drawn to you because of it. Yellows are creative beings and visionaries. You have big ideas, but follow-through is not your forte; you do best if you convey your ideas to others sho can carry them out. You can be very critical, both of yourself and others. Generally, your intellectual strength is superior to your physical strength, and you are able to make quick and reasoned decisions.
also associated with Gemini
Green
You cannot abide others telling you what to do - you need to be free to make your own decisions. As befits your color, you love nature and being outdoors, especially during the spring and summer months. You have a gentle, serene desposition and are not easily upset. Friends turn to you in times of crises, and you are always helpful to them, though you must take care not to be so charitable that you neglect your own needs. You tend to be more of an observer than one who acts, and you can fall prey to gossiping about what you have seen or become envious of others. Since blue (a cool color) and yellow (a warm color) combine in equal balance to make green, so, too, are you balanced in most areas of your life.
also associated with Taurus and Virgo
light green is associated with Pisces
Blue-Green
If you prefer teal,turquoise, aqua, or similar hues, others enjoy your company, finding you to be friendly and empathetic - you have the altruistic tendencies of a green personality with the deliberate nature of a blue individual. You speak directly and from the heart. You strive to create balance in your life, but you often feel unsettled and unstable under the smooth surface you display to the rest of the world. You fear being alone. You think clearly and logically and you are a good person to call on when things need to be organized. You lead by example and influence rather than by giving orders and being darconian.
Blue
You strive for perfection in all that you do, and you most always succeed. You are even-tempered and measured, and you think before you speak. You have high ideals and feel it is your duty to hold yourself to them. You can be very trusting once you get to know people, and likewise you have a deep need to be trusted. You possess a thirst for knowledge. You are solid and grounded in your manners and actions; in most cases, your conservative nature serves you well, although you could do well to take a risk every once in a while.
also associated with Libra and Aquarius
Indigo
Integrity is very important to you if deep, dark blue-purple is your favorite. You love traditions and rituals and go to great lengths to create them for yourself and your family. You possess a keen sense of injustice; if a friend or relative has been wronged, you will go to the ends of the earth to defend him or her. You are introspective and can be subject to mood swings. You rely on your intuition to make decisions. You are a consummate performer and love creating drama, which can sometimes get you into hot water. You have somewhat of a compulsive personality and can become easily reliant on vices.
Purple
You put others before yourself, and you enjoy being needed. This extends beyond your inner circle; you enjoy having causes to support and helping out those in need. You are free-spirited and open to all ways of seeing the world. You are intrigued by fantasy and the supernatural. You are most likely introverted, though not shy. And you can be mysterious; even your closest friends might say they do not really know you. The color purple is a mix of red and blue, and you are constantly trying to balance the red and blue aspects of your personality. This can lead to some inner conflict - part of you desires excitement and adventure, while another part of you craves stability. Mediation or other quiet pursuits can help with this.
also associated with Sagittarius
Brown
If you love brown, you are a grounded, stable sort. You have an even disposition and are the person your family and friends know they can always count on. The term “salt of the earth” was coined to describe you. Security in your work and family life is of the utmost importance to you, and you make a very good mate and parent. However, your need for stability can have a dark side: if you feel you are losing conrol of your situation, you can become quite unhinged.You are not flashy, but you do like simple, fine things. You are quite frugal with your finances.
also associated with Virgo and Capricorn
Black
You always seem to be in complete control of every situation, though your need to control my be hiding an underlying insecurity. When you have conflicts with others, your strong will rules the day and you usually get what you want. You crave power and prestige and are well respected by all you come into contact with, although you are often seen as intimidating. You hold your emotions inside and keep people at a distance. You would do well to bring some pops of color into your wardrobe and your home decor lest you get dragged down by the heavy seriousness of black; it will also make you more approachable. If you love black, it may also mean that you are still searching for your life’s true colors, and that this is just a phase to be worked through.
also associated with Scorpio
Grey
You fear chaos or tumult, outer or inner, and go to great lengths to maintain a calm and balanced existence, even if it means sacrificing your beliefs or desires. You do not like to call attention to yourself in any way. Though you may have strong opinions about matters, to express them would be to stray your neutral security, so you usually go along with the status quo. Your reliability makes you a solid partner and spouse and you can be lonely without a mate. Most of aall, you just want to live a quiet and contented life.
also associated with Capricorn
White
Just as white is the purest color in the spectrum, your home is always immaculate and ruled by simplicity; and your appearance is, without exeption, elegant and polished, not a hair out of place. You always think before you act, weighing every decision carefully. You can come across to new acquaintances as having a chilly, sterile manner, and friends and family often wish you would just let loose a tiny bit. White often corresponds to life transitions; if it is currently your favorite color, you are quite possibly in the midst of a big change or are ready to take your life in a new direction.
also associated with Cancer
Silver
Silver personalities are exceedingly creative. You relish change; for you, it keeps things fresh and exciting. You are an introspective sort, often expressing yourself best in writing, and you rely on your intuition to navigate the world. You can get yourself out of almost any conundrum by using your inner resources. Others find you wordly and sophisticated. When you dress up for a special occasion, you outshine everyone else in the room. However, you should take care not to lord your sense of superiority over others or look down upon those who are not as elegant or refined as you. You love modern and futuristic things, and you likely gravitate toward professions that have some sort of design element to them.
also associated with Cancer
Gold
You have a unique ability to make those in your presence feel relaxed, loved, and appreciated. You truly have a “golden touch” - you are quite successful in business and financial matters and you live quite well. This quality can have a negative side, since you love expensive items and spending money. If you do not exercise restraint, you may find yourself buying things you really do not need. You are a people person and enjoy large parties and loud, voluble gatherings. You are a natural leader, but you may have unrealistic expectations, biting off more than you can chew when it comes to work. Do your best to set realistic goals, lest you become overwhelmed and ovestressed.
also associated with Leo
source: The Golden Book Of Fortune-Telling
#aries#taurus#gemini#cancer#leo#virgo#libra#scorpio#sagittarius#capricorn#aquarius#pisces#zodiac sign#fun facts#horoscope#zodiac#astrology#facts#fact#weird#weird sign#zodiac signs
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Sun in Scorpio: You constantly strive to keep your self-control and to resist external pressures. Your phlegm actually conceals unusual intense emotions. A hidden force that gives you an inclination for struggles, for difficult or extremist causes, inhabits you. You may display a sarcastic and caustic mind, and in the worst cases, you may be destructive. But your resistance abilities prove valuable when the situation goes awry. Scorpio does not mind the sign’s “bad reputation”, moreover, he is proud of it, he claims it and he scoffs at it. Most certainly, he has nothing to do with ordinary mortals. You are very sensitive to power struggles. You try to use your adversary and to combine opposing elements. You resort to scheming and to manipulation. You use a person to hit another and you use the latter to charm a third party. Scorpio is a fine strategist, a born politician. Far from breaking him down, adversity stimulates Scorpio’s creativity. Better than anyone, you can handle crises that imply fighting spirit, subtlety in confrontations and challenge. You express your powers to their fullest, you master the art of straightening out endangered situations and you dramatically reverse the interests at stake. Moon in Scorpio: They have the ability to see through anyone right to their innermost feelings. Can be disturbing/intriguing to people. Emotional drama fulfills them. They want commitment. They may also expect their partner to give up something for them, fears betrayal. Can be jealous, possessive & self-indulgent. Yet they can be vulnerable, intelligent and ambitious. Creative. Selfless in love (to a fault). Mercury in Scorpio: passionate, outspoken, intuitive, and capable of sniffing out bullshit or seeing through a lie, observant, helpful, might seem skeptical. Tremendously favors success. Moral standards are questionable. Venus in Scorpio: You are at war with your need to love so fiercely it could destroy you, and need to guard yourself against the pain that your past lovers subjected you to. You carry all of them around like ghosts that won’t let you fully sleep at night, but this new person is better and more promising. Yet every time they go to kiss you, you flinch because the only physical contact you’ve told yourself is possible is a fist. Mars in Capricorn: subdued, enjoys work with reliability, materialistic, need recognition for their efforts, skeptical, guarded to a fault. High sex drive, they like their sex sensual slow & conventional, they'll give what they get, can repress sexual appetite. Jupiter in Scorpio: Jupiter in Scorpio strengthens your emotional realm and your instinctive capacity to have more lasting and deeper feelings. Your sensuality and your sexuality are favored by this configuration. You may enjoy strokes of luck in the areas of finance, speculations, investments, and inheritances. More than anyone, you can deal with mysteries and anything linked to the unknown. Tenacious, passionate, and agile character. Since one cannot bear any form of constraint, one is determined to struggle for freedom, one's own as well as that of other people. Youth is plagued by hardships, but the sufferings underwent in early life turn into a powerful spur to later become a brilliant champion of law and social reforms. One may also be an excellent acrobat. Saturn in Libra: Inferiority complex with relationships, feels unlovable, breaks rules they set themselves (causes problems for romance). Must learn to take responsibility for their actions. Prone to kidney, intestinal, lower back issues. Serves others tirelessly. Uranus in Sagittarius: Uranus in Sagittarius gives you the taste for feats and extraordinary adventures: as you are caught in the desire to discover, at any cost, you may become a hero, a conqueror, an explorer or, on the symbolic plane, a pioneer in such matters as philosophy, politics, economy or spirituality. Melancholic, accepting, and passive character. There is a strong probability that his wife abandons him. Instead of suffering in silence, he must make every effort order to win her back. For both genders, it is necessary to think thoroughly before getting married and start a family because this degree indicates that celibacy is more suitable. Neptune in Sagittarius: Nice, loyal, and reliable character. The hands are nimble, the legs, slender, and the general appearance, elegant. Success can be achieved in occupations requiring dexterity and precision such as fencing, music and all artistic disciplines, or prestidigitation. Owing to one's dedication and genuine kindness, one attracts many good friends. However, beneath warm and straightforward manners, one is very secretive. Pluto in Libra: Submissive, unambitious, and fatalistic character. One is resigned to follow the beaten path and to relegate personal aspirations on the back burner. For instance, one takes on the family business or embraces a career to abide by one's parents' wish instead of focusing on the matters one is really interested in. Artistic activities are a nice source of solace and contribute to counterbalance the dull routine.
North Node in Cancer - South Node in Capricorn: The constant fear or idea of lacking control in your life have you overtly exerting it in every facet you can find. Meticulously micromanaging and organizing won't always be the solution to your problems as anxiety may find you still continually running into yourself. Allow yourself to have time to attend to matters of the heart and try to rely on intuition as much as you fall back on logic. Some things are best unplanned. Chiron in Taurus: Feels a strong sense of neglect, whether it stems from emotional, material, mental or spiritual. Have cultivated their pain to a sense of comfortability that comes off borderline masochistic. Heals through the process of creating or building something. Ascendant in Leo (rising sign): A very lively and compassionate person, perhaps someone who is seen as dramatic or over the top. Underneath this you can be a bit cool and detached, never letting anyone get too close emotionally or know when they've hurt you. Great poker face. Magnetic & self-aware, always on stage (even when just relaxing at home), somewhat bossy, overestimate themselves, grand gestures very concerned with keeping appearances & etiquette, manipulative, power-hungry, cheerful, driven, luxurious, inspirational, and impulsive.
Midheaven in Taurus: You are a conservative person, hard-working, and in fact slow but... very strong. You amass possessions slowly but steadily. It would be very surprising if around your forties, or often earlier, you did not have a comfortable bank account and some piece of real estate, which are your sources of pride.
You are particularly drawn to all occupations related to nature, real estate, finance, music, the performing arts, and pleasure. Indeed, you are very suitable for working as landscape gardener, cultivator, horticulturist, forest ranger, banker, bookkeeper, carpenter, architect, hotelier, cook, restaurant owner, singer, musician, sculptor, dressmaker, or actor.
(Milkstrology & Astrotheme)
#Fazza#Fazza3#Faz3#Hamdan#Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum#Fazza Astrology#Hamdan Astrology#Crown Prince of Dubai#afangirlsguidetofazza
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I’m
Chester Bennington’s suicide has made me think a lot about my own attempts in the past.
Like a lot of people who gravitated to Linkin Park, and Chester in particular, I suffered from undiagnosed depression and suicidal ideation as a child. I had abuse in my childhood from a family member (though not to Chester’s degree). I never told anyone, because I was scared no one would believe me, so I held it in.
School was a hell I had to endure every day until the middle of 8th grade, when my depression spiraled. Years of bullying and not understanding why things were so hard for me study wise, I lost it. That was my first serious suicide attempt. I took a whole bottle of prescription strength ibuprofen and waited. I’m not sure if I passed out or if I just fell asleep, but I woke up and projectile vomited all over my bed. I didn’t feel that shame or the thankfulness that I had survived. I was pissed. I was pissed because not only did this not work, but now I had to completely strip my bed and throw everything into the tub until I could put it in the washer later. I ended up staying home from school that day, I mean, I was “sick”. It took an assembly about bullying and mental illness that happened at our school, a skit performed by a traveling anti-bullying project, to admit to my parents that I was depressed. But there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t think at the time.
My depression didn’t get any better, it just got worse. Some odd happenings went on in school which included an absolutely outrageous suspension and a teacher who hated the shit out of me because she got caught in a lie. And that was the point that I left public school and went into independent study. I actually loved it; for once school wasn’t hell, it was just challenging. But the help I got there as well as the help I got from my family, it worked great. Sure, I still had to do summer school every year, but it wasn’t that bad. I thought, “I can do this now, I’m ready.” So, I tried high school, but three months later I was back in independent study.
I thought I was prepared to handle the demands of a 6 period day, and maybe actually make friend’s, or at least catch up with the people I had hung out with since first grade. But I wasn’t. The reaction I got after returning was less like “girl where have you been?! We kinda missed you.” and was more like “oh you’re back? Wow. Okay. Hi. I guess.” That combined with the depression that never really left, and how exhausting going to class was, I couldn’t do it. I failed at trying to come back and experience high school. People who I had known called a few times, offering to take me to football games or other things, since being in independent study allowed me to have a parent school and all activities and classes were open to me. But somehow they neglected to tell me that they couldn’t go or changed plans until minutes before the events happened. And those were the times I wished I hadn’t survived. I hated feeling disposable, I hated feeling like no one cared about me. And they didn’t. I meant absolutely nothing to them, at least nothing more than birthday cupcakes and valentines cards and field trips when we were in grade school that my mom would help give kids that couldn’t afford it. But after grade school, I wasn’t worth anything, and it stung. But I tried to shove that down, along with everything else, and just concentrate on school. I managed to graduate on time with a 4.0 and walk with my class. It was bittersweet, but at least that was done.
All that was okay, I even managed to hold a job until after I graduated. I took a semester off and when I started college, things went sideways on me, as it usually does when mental illness rears its ugly head, and that led, eventually, to more self-harm and finally, to therapy. By the end of my first semester, I realized I couldn’t do this anymore, without help. It was hard to say, “look, I can’t handle this anymore. I can’t do this on my own, I’m crumbling.” But I did. When I made my first appointment, I didn’t experience the embarrassment at first, that came later. I was like, “fuck it, it’s either this or…it’s this.” I saw my first psychiatrist and after a couple of meetings, he dropped the bomb I was hoping to hear; a diagnosis.
I was bipolar. II to be exact.
After all these years, it had a name. Bipolar Disorder. It was scary but also a big relief, to know that all that inner turmoil I was going through wasn’t just my imagination, it was REAL.
It turns out, all this time, I had been exhibiting symptoms, even as a child. It all made sense, all the ups and downs and tantrums then crying spells, all the trouble concentrating and daydreaming in school. Everything clicked. And now I had to figure out what the fuck to do with this.
I started medication and went through every possible cocktail. I lost my first two psychiatrists to retirement and went through one therapist. Somewhere in there, a breakup happened that disturbed both the process and my recovery, and I went through another therapist until I found my current one. They say you should click with a therapist, that, even though it isn’t easy, that your relationship should help you work through whatever you need to work on. Easier said than done, but I’m more than happy with her.
I was still feeling the depression more than the hypomania, that visited every once in a while, the mixed episodes that visited far too often. But I was doing okay. My baseline wasn’t great, but I knew where it was, and I was doing as well as I usually did. Until everything went sideways again. In late 2015, I went through a horrible breakup. It was messy and painful and I lost it. Again. My therapist had suggested group therapy for me for years, but I didn’t like the idea of having to talk to a room full of strangers. But I finally went to group, and later, to IOP. The little bit of work I had been doing seemed to slide completely backwards. I was actively suicidal, and I tried.
I literally couldn’t take it anymore. I was so depressed and dealing with the breakup combined with other messy things going on and my down cycle, it just snowballed. I didn’t want to die, I don’t think most people to commit suicide do. I wanted to end all the pain and depression and just be able to BREATHE. I wanted to get away from my own head. So I took a mix of my meds and just passed out. It left me mostly drugged out but semi-conscious, hardly able to do anything other than just lay there. I couldn’t walk in a straight line if you paid me. But I was alive. Fortunately, or unfortunately. I was still around.
So when does Linkin Park come in? 7th grade. I saw “One Step Closer” on CMC (California Music Channel) before MTV or VH1 had picked them up. The DJ was a friend of a friend of Mike’s I believe, and played it even though CMC was mostly–almost entirely–hip-hop and r&b. At that time, the only thing outside of hip-hop and r&b that I was listening to was pop music that was playing everywhere else. Papa Roach slipped into the mix shortly, but that was it. Linkin Park wasn’t something I would’ve been interested in. At all. But I didn’t change the channel, I just watched that ridiculous video, and as weird as it was, I found myself really hearing the lyrics. I liked them. They were different.
Then ‘Crawling” and “In The End” came out, and I had never connected with lyrics on that level. Even though I was only 12-13, they still hit home. Hard. I didn’t know how to address what happened to me when I was younger, I still hadn’t told anyone. It haunted me, especially having to see the person. It was only once in a while, but it brought everything back like a freight train. Dealing with that and the painful reality of not having friends, of being constantly bullied, I was confused and hurt. I felt like I didn’t have a voice.
But “Crawling” became my voice. I knew what it felt like to literally be crawling in your skin, to hate seeing your reflection, to despise everything. I felt the endless discomfort and insecurity that was all consuming. Every single line in that song, I felt.
Linkin Park became the outlet I needed. I needed to be heard, I needed to be understood. I needed someone to LISTEN. But I didn’t have to explain anything, everything was there for me, in black and white. I saw my feelings, I saw what I needed. I saw it all. And I was grateful.
Unfortunately, I lost touch with them for a while. Somewhere after Meteora, I strayed. There was no reason other than new songs and artists came out and my musical interests shifted some. But when I found myself in a hole, they were there. They were always there.
In 2017, my musical taste still hadn’t shifted back to them, not completely. I hadn’t heard most of their recent things. But I got into Kiiara. And when I watched her video for “Gold”, on the side it recommended a Facebook live with Linkin Park and Kiiara which threw me a bit. That didn’t seem like a combination that would go well together. But I also saw the video for “Heavy” and I clicked on it. It was hard to watch and I cried the whole time, because 2017 had, up to that point, fucking sucked (and would, inevitably end up being one of the worst years of my life). My head was a mess, everything was heavy, and I wanted to let go. The paranoia and heaviness was everything I was feeling. Once again, they became my voice, and I fell back into them for a bit before drifting away again. I still held onto “Heavy”.
On July 20, 2017, I was packing for my family reunion. I saw that “Talking To Myself” had gone up and watched it, dancing to it as I tried to remember everything I needed with me.
A few hours later my mom called me into her room and asked if I remembered Linkin Park. Of course I did. Then she dropped my worst fear; Chester was gone.
I couldn’t speak for a minute. It literally felt like someone had punched a hole in me. I felt that in my soul, like something was ripped away from me. It was like I lost my breathe (and still haven’t caught it). Chester had brought me so much comfort and peace. He had helped me through times when I was actively suicidal. He helped me when I just needed to put words to my feelings. He did that. He made everything less heavy and helped soothe the hurt. Without him, I don’t know if I would be here, I truly don’t.
I immediately downloaded the new album and listened to it, crying the entire time. The person who had been my voice for so long was suddenly silenced. There was hurt and pain in listening to the music, but at the same time, it was strange comfort. Because, even though he wasn’t here, he would always be.
There was never anger on my side. I understood that feeling, I understood how being in that moment was. It’s horrible. But there was a strange sense of pride. A pride in that he was still here, he made it as far as he did. Most people would’ve completely given up years ago. But he kept going, he kept finding a way. A lot of it was obviously the support system he had, but a lot of it was support that we didn’t see.
We didn’t see every aspect of his life, but what we did see was someone who was both strong and vulnerable, someone who kept going, even when he didn’t want too. He didn’t give up. He was going to fuse his armor back together, he was going to pick himself up if he fell. And he did, he picked himself up until he couldn’t. We’ll never know what happened, what that final catalyst was, what those last moments were like. All we know is that our hearts are a little heavier and the world a little dimmer without him.
There’s now a tattoo on my arm of the Suicide prevention ribbon, and at the bottom are the flames that Chester had on his wrists, along with the words “One More Light”. It’s both to honor and remember Chester, but also to acknowledge my own struggles and remind myself to keep going, to remind myself that my journey isn’t over, that I still have growing and changing to do. It’s hard, when mental illness is there to tell you “NO”, to try and keep you from living, to keep you from enjoying life until you think you only have one choice. But I can’t do that. I owe it to myself and to Chester to keep trying. To hear my Battle Symphony, to not give up, fuse my armor back together and pick myself up.
You’ll always be missed and always be loved Chester. I hope you’ve found the peace you’ve always deserved.
(This is my journey. It’s not over, not by a long shot. I’m still growing and changing, I’m still trying to figure everything out. I have a lot of work to do, but I’m trying, and that’s all I can do.)
#Suicide#fuck depression#Chester Bennington#make chester proud#Linkin Park#tl;dr#makechesterproud#fuckdepression#take care of yourself#be kind to yourself
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CONGRATULATIONS, JEN!
You have been accepted for the role of ISLE OLLIVANDER. ”she was no earthquake, she wasn’t even a rock unless you needed someone to lean on” sold us one thousand percent. From start to finish this application was absolutely beautiful. We love all the way that you expanded on her personality, her values, and especially on her relationships. There’s a common misconception that kind, introverted characters are boring but your Isle’s quiet resolve, artistic empathy, and conscious effort to see beyond the blinders of her own privlidged upbringing are thoroughly and undeniably fascinating. We look forward to seeing how she grows into her own over the course of the game. Please look at the CHECKLIST for next steps. Welcome to Blood Royals!
♕ I: OUT OF CHARACTER ♕
NAME / ALIAS: Jen
♕ II: CHARACTER INFORMATION ♕
FULL NAME: Isle Hemera Ollivander
Isle – a diminutive of Elisabeth which ended up being something of a compromise between her half-German mother and British father when one wanted a classic name and the other wanted a name that would be remembered other than just her surname.
Hemera - the primordial Greek goddess of daylight and her mother’s name.
Ollivander - means ‘he who owns the olive wand’, suggesting a Mediterranean origin.
FACECLAIM: I’d like to change her fc to Laura Harrier please!
DATE OF BIRTH: March 14th, 1952, Pisces
Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back. Pisces is a Water sign and as such this zodiac sign is characterized by empathy and expressed emotional capacity. Ravenclaw Pisceans spend so much time dreaming or reading books of legends that it’s a wonder they ever come down to earth. Care must be taken that they do not neglect their material needs, including those that involve sleep, food, and drink. They are quiet students, not always the best in their classes, but tend to be brilliant at subjects which they are personally interested in. Shy and nervous, they are easily bullied or intimidated, and need some looking after by more assertive students.
HOGWARTS HOUSE & YEAR: Ravenclaw, 1963 - 1970. Isle was a hat stall, with The Sorting Hat torn between Hufflepuff for her soft heart and longing to belong, and Ravenclaw for her natural curiosity and fascination with just about everything. In the end it took her own decision into account with her hoping that a house that challenged her more might help her reach the heights her parents hoped for.
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Isle identifies as female and uses she/her pronouns.
SEXUALITY / SHIPS / ANTI-SHIPS: Panromanic, demisexual. Isle has an almost whimsical nature about her at times, the idea of romance something she holds very dear to her heart when it was always so lacking in her parent’s lives. Her soft heart means that she finds herself getting easily attached to people and she has more than a knack for finding something good and worth admiring in almost everyone she means. This means that she is almost constantly drifting in and out of love (in all its varying forms) with those around her but she can never quiet allow herself to be so free with intimacy when to her it should be something special and far from gratuitous.
My main ship for Isle would be her with chemistry (although the idea of her and Corban is so interesting to me and so much could be done with that. Opposites attract is my kryptonite so I have a lot to say but don’t want to babble or get ahead of myself XD I also think her feelings for Royalle could go either way as well) and of course that means that my anti-ship for her would be no chemistry.
OCCUPATION: Wandkeeper and assistant wandmaker to her Great-Uncle at Ollivanders.
ALLIANCE: Neutral. She’s doing her best to remain balanced between the two groups, avoiding too much talk of the war and its sides even if she is more sympathetic towards the Order.
POLITICAL VIEWS: Her parents are immensely proud of their pureblood status and what it means for them in their society and some of that pride rubbed off on Isle at an early age. It wasn’t until later that she started to question just what exactly made her apparently so much better than those who weren’t members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. But even now, their lessons are hard to unlearn and she finds herself having to apply compassion to ensure that she’s seeing the situation for what it is rather than what she’s told to see. But for the most part, Isle tries to distance herself from politics when it’s such a divisive subject and there doesn’t seem to be an answer that two people can agree on to any topic. So while The Order might tug on her heartstrings more, Isle is determined not to take sides when everyone she knows seems to be being pulled in different directions.
KNOWN FACTS:
Despite being something of a wallflower, Isle rather enjoys all the balls she’s encouraged to go to due to the fact the her natural delicateness lends itself rather well to being a good dancer.
While his uncle is renowned for his wandmaking skills, Isle’s father Gerrell Ollivander chose not to pursue the same career and instead forged a name for himself in the Wizengamot. His known to be a hard man to appease when he feels as though the law has been broken but there’s whispers that he is far more sympathetic to those who share the same level of blood purity as he does.
Her mother has one of the finest personal collections of wizarding antiques in Great Britain and perhaps Europe. It was a tradition started by her mother and some of the pieces date as far back as Medieval times. The collection is her pride and joy and it’s little secret that she speaks more fondly of it than her own daughter.
Isle is making something of a reputation for herself in the wand-making trade with her designs gaining in popularity with each one she completes. She might not be able to match the speed of her great uncle but the wands that she creates are so beautifully and intricately carved that it’s almost obvious that each is a labour of love.
BOGGART: Ollivander’s burning, all of her hard work and the one place she felt she truly belonged being taken away from her.
AMORTENTIA: first scent is warm, rich and comforting - hot chocolate with smooth undertones of hazelnut. She smells pine - fresh and clear - reminding her of cool autumn days and hours spent in amongst wands. The last scent is dark and smokey, heady and intoxicating, out of place yet soothing all at once. It almost makes her want to abandon the other two familiar scents altogether.
PERSONALITY TRAITS: At least four detailed personality traits
Trusting and naïve - her ability to seek and believe the best in people is both one of her greatest assets and biggest weakness. Gossip is something she hears but rarely pays any attention to, preferring to instead to make her own decisions about whether a person is good or bad. Despite being empathetic and sympathetic, she tends to take people at their word and at face value, making her very easy to deceive and lull into a false sense of security.
Adroit and hardworking - Her natural understanding of wands is perhaps something that it could be argued she inherited but Isle prefers to see it as a combination of natural talent along with her desire to learn as much about it as possible. Once she starts working on something, she’s almost always adverse to stopping until it’s finished and keeping people waiting. As far back as her time at Hogwarts she used to pour all her time and energy into studying and her own personal research with little concern for anything else. Even now she has a habit of losing herself in her work, time passing without her noticing and all other necessities forgotten about.
Compassionate and selfless - there’s no other way of putting it, Isle is just softhearted. Other people affect her deeply and she without fail will always want to help them with anything that’s troubling them. She will always make herself available to those who reach out even at the expense of her own time and even health. It’s where she feels most at ease around other people and she’d by far rather be the listener than the sharer.
Artistic and imaginative - her designs are truly something to behold, sketches coming to her at all times of the day and night as she find inspiration in the smallest, simplest of things. She has a tendency to be a dreamer, to let reality slip away just enough so that she’s living in the ideal world where tensions aren’t rising and everything is at risk.
Shy and unsure - while Isle doesn’t necessarily think lowly of herself and knows that she has her strengths, she struggles to believe that they lend themselves well to life or success in the society that she was born into. With her own parent’s disinterest, she feels as though everyone else might eventually come to the same conclusion about her and it makes her hesitant in conversation in the hopes to delay their decisions a little longer.
Curious and inquisitive: might have struggled to always perform well under the stress of tests but there’s no denying that the young woman still has a thirst for knowledge. It might not be for anything particularly academic but if it catches her interest then without a doubt she’ll have bought two books on the subject within the hour. She has an almost constant sense of wonder at the world and feels as though her interest curiosity will never be sated.
SPECIAL SKILLS: While Isle will be quick to claim that it’s nothing but a simple indulgence in her free time, she’s quite a talented piano player which dates back to lessons that her parents used to pay for for her and a love of music that quickly followed. Though perhaps not the most clinical with her technique, her light touch and the feeling that she pours into each piece make up for what she might lack technically.
BIOGRAPHY:
Born to two proud Slytherins whose ambition and need for advancement seemed to know no bounds, Isle never quite possessed the same iron-hearted will that they did. Instead she inherited her mother’s looks and took her father’s name but remained all together more soft than they had hoped for. A difficult childbirth meant that she was to remain sibling-less and though she never failed to do everything she could to please her parents and be the pureblooded princess they wanted her to be, they grew more and more disinterested and distant with every bird she tried to save or poor soul her eyes filled with pity for. Their high hopes would never be realised and for that disappointment alone they threw themselves into their work, leaving their daughter either in the care of family - mainly her great uncle where she spent hours enraptured by his work with wands- or the house elves.
With every year it became obvious that she’d never have the qualities needed to shake up society and progress to the very top. She was no earthquake, she wasn’t even a rock unless you needed someone to lean on. Instead the daughter of Hemera and Gerrell Olivander’s daughter was more like water, calming and soothing but with hidden depth most people never saw when her quiet demeanour was only the surface. But just as it became more obvious to her parent’s that she wasn’t what they’d wanted, Isle herself began to see that neither of them were truly happy. Their marriage was one of convenience, two like minds joining together to conquer what they could, and while they knew how to put on a good face as much as the next Pureblood, behind closed doors it was painfully obvious to her that even if they accomplished their goals they’d never be truly happy or satisfied. It seemed like a hollow way to live any way.
Vows were made to her younger self to not become the shadows of people that her parents were, to keep some sort of love and hope to light her life and prevent her from following the same path that they did. From the moment that she entered the Great Hall, Isle was almost convinced that she’d end up in Hufflepuff with her parents convinced of the same thing and almost despairing of the idea that their offspring had fallen so far away from them. Except she managed to surprise them all when her quiet intelligence and natural curiosity earned her a place in Ravenclaw. From that moment on her parents stood a little taller when they claimed her as theirs and began to take some sort of interest in her once again which she welcomed though was hesitant to let herself become too reliant on their attention.
The rest of her time at Hogwarts was characterised by her unassuming way of going about her work, the hours that she used to have to spend in the library to keep up with her peers mostly going unnoticed. She kept herself under the radar - despite her parents urging to put herself out there more - but still managed to garner herself something of a reputation for being the best listener and shoulder cry on, always more than happy to be there for anyone who needed her. But as her final year approached, she found herself worrying about what she would do with her future. It wasn’t until she spent the Easter break working with her uncle as she had taken to doing since she was fourteen while her parents jetted off elsewhere, that an offer was made by him for her to come and work with him after she finished her studies. With that weight off her shoulders Isle was able to focus on her final year and achieve the grades that she wanted. The day after her last day she had little hesitation in going to see her great uncle and she’s been working there ever since with long says surrounded by wood and cores only broken up by the events her parents still urge her to go to unless one of her friends pulls her away to have some fun every once in a while.
CONNECTIONS:
Royalle – the other woman is a force to be reckoned with and Isle almost envies her that ease within herself but she’s never been one for negative feelings so instead all she has for the other woman is admiration and a sense of love. While Royalle seems to rely on her for support, Isle relies on her for company, though she’d never voice it out loud. There are days when she doesn’t know what she’d do without the other girl who helps her feel more at ease in her own skin and she’s always thankful that she chose her to be her friend.
Corban - his reputation means little to her when she’s always liked to make her own mind up about people and never judge until she knows them. Almost deaf to the rumours, Isle is instead draw to him for reasons she can’t explain. There’s more to him than meets the eye, of that much she’s certain, and it peaks her curiosity and empathy enough that she’s been unable to forget their interaction even if she’s far too hesitant to think of starting up a conversation again.
Garrick Ollivander - he’s the man who gave her a place to feel as though she had some sort of calling in life. Something useful and endlessly engrossing so that she could make peace with the idea that she was never going to follow in her parents’ footsteps. But she’s still able to stick to her family’s roots, just not with the inheritance most expected but it’s a chance she’ll always be grateful for.
♕ III: FREESTYLE ♕
I’ve created a mockblog here that has a few of these things on it as well as a few inspiration posts!
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ey whats up im reworking some stuff about soul collectors again. this is just an infodump bc i want to get it out somewhere. read if ur interested i guess. subject to change
every living soul is assigned to a soul collector
most people don’t know about soul collectors at all
Antis generally at least have heard of them, even if they haven’t met one or don’t entirely believe in them - but it’s very rare for a human to even know about their existence at all. in some cases a soul collector might appear to someone in a dream or a vision, or may become involved in their lives as a kind of protector without revealing what they really are (shuri is a close friend and guardian to her souls; they are aware she is non-human and magical in nature but most of them don’t know what she really is. some soul collectors might appear in more subtle ways)
but among those who do know, it’s said that the people assigned to one soul collector or another always have some kind of connection to them in varying degrees. this is often less true of Antis - an Anti is always opposite to their Origin, and always has the same soul collector as their Origin, so this is not always accurate to them (but it can be, sometimes, in other unexpected ways. it’s in there, somewhere.)
for instance: those assigned to Rachna (”a Child of Rachna”) will often be adventurous and fearless to the point of recklessness; self-endangering, but unusually lucky (often due to Rachna themself intervening to protect their souls when it is not their time). A Child of Rachna may have very high potential - for good or for evil - very strongly prone to magic, and likely to live a long life despite often dangerous lifestyles.
(Canon Rachna souls: Johnny Steel, Lex Calamity)
--
a Child of Kadri often will have startlingly bright, gem-like eyes (though not always) and strong tendency for magic as well, but are known for very poor luck and high probability of shorter lifespans and particularly violent and/or sudden deaths - probably due to Kadri’s neglect toward her souls and lack of personal care. Very headstrong and persistent. May often have vicious tendencies and die young.
(Canon Kadri souls: Cherri Flintwitch, Laelia Thorne, Crow Hackett, and Milzi.)
--
a Child of Kalidasa will typically be an outcast; a lonely, solitary personality who is prone to poor health and/or mental illness. This is not a curse; Kalidasa is known for their love and compassion toward those suffering from illness or cruelty, and is therefore drawn to those souls most. (in other words- it’s more “Kalidasa is the most likely to protect you if you are suffering, because they relate and understand and love you” not “if you’re one of Kalidasa’s, you’re cursed to suffering”) Kalidasa’s souls often struggle with language and communication, but have the ability to see things others cannot (attention to detail, ability to see ghosts, visions of the future, premonitions, etc)
(Canon Kalidasa souls: Roach. I’m considering Kalidasa having accepted Cyril and Malkin’s souls from Kadri, as Kadri is negligent anyway and those two are more suited to Kalidasa than they are to Kadri.)
(It is also likely Nezu is a Kalidasa soul too, but due to certain...complications surrounding his parents, I’m not totally sure)
--
a Child of Shuri will often be kind-hearted and project an air of serenity. They are long-suffering and selfless, patient to a fault, frequently tending to be protectors of various kinds (parents, especially adoptive parents, teachers, doctors, etc). They also tend to be especially fond of/naturally protective of children.
(Canon Shuri souls: Dreyden Blazer, Skye Blue and his family, Seriki Gokyo, Jinx, and, oddly... Damian Nightfall.)
note about Damian and Jinx: Jinx is no longer the person she once was. Whoever she was when she met Damian died long ago. But she does what she can to protect the few people she can when an opportunity presents itself, and she is incredibly long-suffering. Damian, being an Anti, is violently different from kindly preschool teacher Skye Blue, but - although he would viciously deny it - he does still have some of those same traits in him, somewhere. He is known for helping and protecting other Antis in need at times (though often with selfish motives), and he does occasionally display a level of patience... but more the patience of a snake waiting for a chance to strike than anything else.
Damian also rarely harms children, though he claims this is because he can’t stand their shrill voices and finds it unsatisfying to kill something that was already defenseless.
--
A Child of Christopher will often be meticulous and cautious, though occasionally wildly unpredictable when their emotions run high. They have strong hearts for all people and a powerful sense of justice, and cannot stand for cruelty. They often will be advocates, protestors, and leaders.
(Canon Chris souls: Gavin, and Kayzee. kayzee missed out on the ‘caution’ thing, though.)
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A Child of Celina will often be very artistic and theatrical, wildly expressive (when given the chance) and nostalgic. They tend to be fair and compassionate, and are often mediators, counselors, artists, and teachers.
(Canon Celina souls: January)
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A Child of Venus is nearly always arrogant and short-tempered. They will often have very expensive tastes, and have a strong, impossible-to-ignore presence. Often make great performers, and throw the best parties - but are frequently tactless and rarely make close interpersonal connections.
(Canon Venus souls: Iris. Undecided otherwise, just a lot of ‘maybe’s. Clive and Mary are both ‘maybes’ - but Clive doesn’t really have the flamboyance and confidence, Mary doesn’t have the selfishness.)
--
A Child of The Great Mother could be anyone; she is known to accept any and all souls. But hers tend to be kind, warm, humble and compassionate, with strong connections to nature and music. They are often people of few words, but big hearts.
( Canon Mother’s Souls: Bee, Dan Macarthy, Katie Clark, and, surprisingly - Sage. Her Origin is a definite Mother’s Child, and as Sage is an Anti, it can be harder to see it in her- but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in there.)
--
bonus: other-universe OCs, If Soul Collectors Exist In That World
- Angela is a definite child of Celina. Niko and Manu are probably Kalidasa or Kadri, though Manu could very well be Rachna’s. Jasper is probably a Venus. Coleman would be Shuri or Chris.
- Zack is likely Rachna, Kadri, or Kalidasa - most likely Kadri’s, taken in by Rachna, to explain the multitude of reasons he’s lucky to still be alive. Carmella is likely Mother’s, or Shuri.
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Greater Dreams and Open Letters: Part 2
Greater Dreams and Open Letters: Part 1
A full year has passed since Shane Newville’s Open Letter to All Who Treasured Monty Oum. Many people want to forget this letter existed, and I don’t blame them. The amount of turmoil and conflict this letter brought forth was severe, traumatizing, even. People took multiple sides by supporting Shane, Rooster Teeth, or opting to wait out the storm. It was not a good few weeks to be in any fandom related to Rooster Teeth.
Ultimately, nothing happened. Rooster Teeth never acknowledged the letter’s existence. Total silence. People gradually forgot about the letter and standard fandom operations resumed.
Why bring it back now after so much strife? Good question.
In my previous post (linked at the top) I was quite clearly on Shane Newville’s side, and I still am. Time has passed since then, and I’m still searching for closure.
According to Wikipedia, Rooster Teeth was acquired by Fullscreen in early November of 2014, for an undisclosed amount under the guise of “gaining the resources and tools needed to compete against other producers”. When was the last time you heard of a company buy-out another for an “undisclosed amount”, especially from a company that prides itself with being open to its community? This lack of disclosure becomes an alarming trend, especially when Shane’s Open Letter gets involved.
February 2, 2015. People were told Monty Oum died from an allergic reaction during a simple medical procedure. It took 15 months to find out the “allergic reaction” was from a maintenance allergy shot. Why keep this information from the public? For the longest time, many people believed the reaction was caused by anesthesia, which would have made sense. But a maintenance allergy shot? Inside of a hospital? Where these procedures are performed on a regular basis?
He [Monty] had only gone in for a maintenance allergy shot— this sort of thing doesn’t happen. -Page 15, At the Hospital
Shane suspected something wasn’t right.
Rarely, a serious systemic reaction called anaphylaxis (pronounced an-a-fi-LAK-sis) can develop. Symptoms include swelling in the throat, wheezing, a feeling of tightness in the chest, nausea or dizziness. Most serious systemic reactions develop within 30 minutes of allergy shots. This is why it is strongly recommended you wait in your doctor’s office for 30 minutes after your injections. Your allergist is trained to watch for reactions, and his or her staff is trained and equipped with the proper medications to identify and treat them. -Source in reblog
I have to ask why this detail was omitted from Rooster Teeth’s original announcement of Monty’s death. When Satoru Iwata died later that year, the details surrounding his death were made fully available to the public. So, why not for Monty? Why omit so much? Did the full story make the circumstances surrounding his death suspicious? Was the vague report just a trap to stop people from looking into things further?
I was suspicious from the very start. Whenever someone neglects to tell the full truth, my trust in them drops significantly, and this was the second instance of omitting the truth in three months.
There are three major points in the Open Letter that I want to draw attention to:
In fact, throughout Volume 2 and up to his death, Monty was trying to figure out a way to take RWBY offsite to his own studio (likely somewhere in LA), with his own team (myself, Sheena, Kristina Haku Nguyen, Max Song, Ein Lee, maybe a few more animators, etc.) so we could craft it the way he intended it to be from the start.
[...]
Of course that was not exactly a realistic situation... at least not yet. But he wanted to do things his way. He did not like what was happening and where production was taking things as it continued to grow bigger and less efficient. -Page 13, A Small Team
After much discussion over coffee he came up with an awesome tool for Poser he called the “Pivot Tool”, where we could easily animate the change of weapon parenting from its holster, from one hand to the other, or both, etc. It would let us change between world and local rotation, and it had a builtin blur tool for weapon spinning. It was something we had been hoping to make for years and it was finally ready to go. However, for Volume 3 they decided we weren’t allowed to use this awesome tool because it “breaks” the new pipeline they implemented.
Monty also developed a facial rig to make all the new animators happy. Everyone else on the team came from the professional industry where they are used to using Maya and standard face rigs with little objects off to the side representing the eyes, brows, mouth, etc. Monty’s tool simulated those facial rigs that Maya animators were used to using because they kept complaining about how much easier it was to do in Maya. Unfortunately, no one got to use it because it was later decided not to be important enough, or something. So this tool went to waste. -Page 12, New Tools
Monty liked to create characters based on people that he knew. Winter Schnee was created in Sheena’s likeness, and it was his intention that she would also be doing her voice. Sheena is a great concept artist and had already crafted her design. This had been approved by Monty for Volume 3 back in December of 2013. Not only did Rooster Teeth take away any possibility of Sheena playing the part, the design was scrapped and recreated as what we eventually saw in Volume 3. -Page 18-19, Winter Schnee
These three points are some of the most important parts of Shane’s Open Letter.
The first point: Monty taking RWBY offsite with a small team, including his wife, Sheena Duquette. Ideally, Monty should never have considered taking production offsite if his current studio at Rooster Teeth wholly supported his workflow. The simple fact that he wanted to should speak volumes about what he thought of standardization. Not to mention that Rooster Teeth saw fit to ignore Monty’s workflow, which had worked for the company for years, in order to conform to industry standards.
The second point: New tools for Poser. I’m no animator, but I can understand how useful the tools Shane described could be when it comes to animating. The facial animation tool could be seen as an olive branch toward the standardization Rooster Teeth was undergoing. Many of the animators worked with Maya, which came with tools for facial animation, tools that Monty did his best to emulate. Unfortunately for Rooster Teeth, that meant sticking with Poser instead of converting to Maya, lest they invoke Monty’s wrath. Monty’s popularity meant that Rooster Teeth couldn’t say no in order to keep him from turning his fanbase against the company. How strange for Monty to fall into a coma less than a month after developing these new tools.
The third point: Winter Schnee and Sheena Duquette. For some unknown excuse, Rooster Teeth despises Sheena.
It was at some point in March that we finally had our first pre-pre-production meeting to start talking about how to move forward with the show. Right away, one of the producers made a strong statement that I did not like.
“Just so you know, Sheena has absolutely no business, whatsoever, with any part of RWBY.”
It was clearly aimed at me, the only one in the room who actually spent time with Sheena and Monty discussing RWBY. -Page 16, March
These people singled out Sheena, announced her alienation as their first order of business in their first meeting, and no one has any idea as to why. Monty approved of Sheena’s design of Winter Schnee back in December of 2013, and even wanted her to voice the character. Why would Rooster Teeth spend the resources to fully scrap a Monty Oum approved character design and defy his wishes? Why is Sheena portrayed as such a threat to them?
These points feel more like a motive than anything else.
Rooster Teeth wanted to standardize their work environment and alienate Sheena, for some excuse. Monty got in the way just by doing what he loved for the fans. How does a corporation deal with someone like this?
The thing is, Rooster Teeth might not have had a choice. It is completely possible that Fullscreen was the one to make the decision in the end.
RWBY was gaining popularity at an astounding rate. Fullscreen wanted to profit from its success, so they offered to buy Rooster Teeth and provide the “resources and tools” that would undoubtedly interfere with Monty’s workflow and original vision. Rooster Teeth couldn’t say no, but Monty would have rejected those “resources and tools” vehemently. As soon as Monty and Shane develop their own animation tools that likely emulated those provided by Fullscreen, Monty suddenly falls into a coma and dies ten days later.
Instead of having to deal with the crippling aftermath of Monty taking RWBY development off-site, he dies, Rooster Teeth and by extension Fullscreen get to enjoy a massive wave of monetary support on the deceased image of a Hero, and no one ever thinks to suspect foul play.
Coincidences don’t line up like this by mistake. Something rotten occurred at Rooster Teeth, and I would love to hire a private investigator to find out exactly what happened.
#monty#monty oum#shane newville#shane's open letter#sheena duquette#conspiracy#controversy#long post#this has been annoying me for months#I have never seen someone else suspect foul play#regarding monty's death#lettergate#has no one else suspected something might be wrong?#just me?#I'm hella nervous about posting this#I could just be completely paranoid#But I need closure dammit#rwde#two and a half years#I've thought about you every day#for two and a half god damn years
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BLOGTOBER 10/24/2018: HEREDITARY
I am not ready to talk about HEREDITARY. I tried it when it came out in June, and while I think I hit all the points that were important for mass audiences, I wasn’t really ready then either, to say what I wanted to say. It isn’t because it’s so unusually beautiful, which it is. It isn’t because it’s “the scariest movie ever made”, which it is not, although it intermittently reaches seldom-seen heights of horror. It also isn’t because, contrary to popular belief, it is deeply flawed, with certain understandable markers of being someone’s first feature. It is because it feels so profoundly personal to me, even while I know that this is a not-uncommon reaction to Ari Aster’s breakout debut. It doesn’t make me special that I would take this film about grief, guilt, mental illness, genetic disorder, and irresolvable family friction so personally, but as usual, I have something I need to say about it. My experience with the movie tells me something, not about why we need HEREDITARY, but why we need art.
(spoilers abound)
This story, about a woman who recently lost her seriously disturbed mother, and who subsequently loses her also-disturbed daughter to a car wreck caused by her teenage son, has been accused of emotional exploitation by some. HEREDITARY is aggressively harrowing, with interminably protracted suspense, teasingly dense shadows, and a constant unnatural drone that characterizes everything you see, however mundane, as malignantly abnormal. Most audiences may accept this kind of brutality when it is buffered by a fantastical metaphor, as with an EXORCIST or a SHINING. You can scare someone half to death, as long as you reassure them that whatever they’ve seen probably isn’t going to happen to them, even if it reminds them of something that did, or could. If you just make people feel bad, however, they may turn on you. This is Ari Aster’s big mistake, if you want to call it that; I know parents who refuse to watch the movie, due to its infamous scene of violence against a child. It’s easy to see why any reasonable person might want to opt out of this unusually shocking scene, in which young Milly Shapiro is accidentally decapitated while her teenage brother races her to the hospital, after having neglectfully caused her need for a hospital trip in the first place. But, I think it also calls into question the place for and purpose of the artist’s contract with the audience. This concept usually refers to the unspoken promise that a filmmaker makes to his viewers, that whatever happens in the movie, even if it is confrontational, will fall within the bounds of what the viewers basically expect when they buy their tickets. It means something like, when a family-oriented entertainment producer like Disney adapts a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, the audience won’t have to see the huntsman eviscerate an animal to get his ersatz proof that he has killed Snow White, and they won’t have to see Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters mutilate their own feet to try to fit the glass slipper. Part of the problem many people have with HEREDITARY is that Ari Aster’s contract with his audience is a little unclear. It blends psychodrama about irresolvable family issues that can hit way too close to the literal home for any ordinary person, with the unthinkable but entirely doable desecration of the human body, with outrageous supernatural horrors that, while scary as hell, can seem preposterous in light of the more terrestrial torments that have gone before.
To try to be more succinct, which is difficult with such a complex film, my own problem with HEREDITARY is that it contains metaphors for real-world elements that are already in the movie. To go back to the example of THE EXORCIST: Regan’s transformation from an innocent child into a vile self-abusing demon serves as a ready metaphor for puberty, mental illness, addiction, and really anything that turns your loved one into someone you no longer recognize. Writer Peter Blatty sets this up beautifully by using banal troubles like drafts in the house or parental antagonism as agents that weaken Regan’s defenses against the forces of darkness, just as they can weaken the average person’s defenses against depression or alcoholism--the things that warp them away from their best, or at least, most socially acceptable self. HEREDITARY gets itself into a sticky spot by giving Toni Collete a family history of emotional and physical violence, schizo-affective disorder, alienation, and neglect that is as convincing as can be, and then throwing a comparatively flimsy (however great-looking) metaphorical tarp over all that in the form of witchcraft and demonic possession. A similar problem occurs in Boots Riley’s otherwise excellent SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, where he stages the action in a world--our world, however surreally dressed up--that turns on an axis of slave labor, and then he concludes his story with an outsized metaphor for slave labor. I wouldn’t really kick anything in either of these movies out of bed, at the end of the day; I’m just saying that it gets a little awkward when you craft this grandiose metaphor for a legitimately terrifying real-world thing, while that thing happens to be standing right there in the room with the metaphor.
Anyway. It is interesting to note that while the movie seems to have hurt a lot of people’s feelings based on their own contemporary reality, its spiritual DNA has been active for hundreds of years. Witchery has been a handy metaphor for, or even out-and-out "explanation” for, mental illness in women throughout history. (Ok, so it’s been an excuse for LOTS of things that have happened to or around women throughout history, but I only have so much space!) In HEREDITARY, Toni Collette describes her recently deceased mother as being extraordinarily private, having “private rituals” and even “private friends”, which we soon realize were signs of her being a devil worshiper. However, in some ways, mother and daughter are not so different. Where the mother practiced dark arts, Collette is a successful gallery artist. Her hyperreal dioramas seem like metaphorical expressions of her feelings toward her insane and abusive parent, but as we find out along the way, they are entirely realistic descriptions of actual things that have actually happened in her life--including the notorious car crash, but also things like the mother trying to force her breast on her infant granddaughter, which we later learn was part of an effort to implant Milly Shaprio with a demon. Shapiro, who inhabits a Baba Yaga-like treehouse in the yard, is also an artist, crafting twisted-looking dolls out of refuse and carrion, and like her mother, she also has unwitting witchy inclinations, perceiving grim specters and ill omens all around. Notably, no one outside the maternal bloodline perceive these things, and it seems that male members only perceive them when being supernaturally attacked. While Toni Collete and Milly Shapiro both use handcrafted art to process the trauma handed down to them by their maternal ancestor, all three women participate (knowingly or otherwise) in an ancient artistic tradition that, for some, amounts to a legitimate religion--but for many others, especially in the modern world, it is a way of dealing with feelings of impotence and subjugation. A sense of disappointment, worthlessness, and damnation plagues the women at the center of HEREDITARY, whether it involves Toni Collette’s complaint that her family blames her for all of their misfortunes, or her accusing her teenage son Alex Wolff of failing to acknowledge his responsibility for his sister’s death, or his sister ominously remarking that her grandmother’s doting attitude disguised the matriarch’s attempts to control or deform her--”She wanted me to be a boy,” Shapiro mutters, and we’ll find out she specifically wanted the child to be a boy vessel for a boy demon (about which, more later). HEREDITARY depicts a family out of control, who cannot escape the fate that has been devised for them, but who have adopted some interesting, literally artful means of trying to synthesize feelings of power.
HEREDITARY begins to fall apart, not as much because of its indecisive attitude toward fantasy and realism, as because of its last act left turn away from its heretofore cogent discussion of the disenfranchisement of women, and the guilt women live with when they fall short of their clan’s desires for strong sons, good little girls, or perfect mothers who serve their people instead of serving themselves. Make no mistake: Alex Wolff, who delivers an above-and-beyond performance as an average young man who is alienated by his freak sister and unstable mother, is always at the center of the film. The guilt he acquires from being an unwilling murderer is as potent as anything I think I’ve ever seen in a movie. So, it isn’t that this male experience of disappointing your family, and also feeling victimized by their very existence, is absent from the first leg of the story. It’s that when the film finally tries to make sense of itself, by revealing that Toni Collette’s mother intended to offer one of her male progeny as a vessel for a masculine entity that would bring her great wealth...well, it sort of flies in the face of the psychological depths we’ve plumbed up to that point. For one thing, the movie’s title suggests a singular focus on the intergenerational passing-down of trauma and blame, and the collection of damaged women to whom we’re immediately introduced are obvious experts in this matter. It doesn’t quite work when the story vacillates between sympathizing with these doomed females, and then sympathizing with a young man’s fear and loathing of adult women, who he perceives as irrational and castrating. And how is it possible that the profound mystery surrounding the family’s progressive ruin is rooted in something as shallow as money? I tried to develop a theory that it works as the final insult of any familial loss--that death is incredibly expensive to manage, and inheritance can be just burdensome as it is a blessing--but I don’t know, there’s not enough on the table for me to make a meal out of.
Setting aside the idea of sacrificing your son to a money demon, though, one can say that even if HEREDITARY is a little unsteady in its construction, the individual components are solid. And here I don’t just mean compelling, but also, real. This is the reason I people are so bothered by HEREDITARY--that it tells the truth in a much more direct manner than most audiences expect of a supernatural horror film. While that may be an unwelcome experience, it may be more helpful to think of this unpleasantness as a gift that art can give us. This kind of nasty confrontation with trauma is important for an individual’s personal development, integrity, and self-knowledge. The more demandingly exhibitionistic a movie is, the better chance we have to untangle ourselves from the billowing curtain of metaphor and anthropological generality, and to be purified by the excoriating light of realism--not the artistic genre, but actual contact with reality.
Here we find my own big reveal, my left turn away from what my previous paragraphs have led you to expect. Let me tell you about my mother. My mother was an enormously popular person. Extremely sharp, funny, fashionable, cultured--all things that help keep one’s private persona in the shadows. A prolific artist, she created hyperreal paintings and drawings from miniatures, like toys and model train props, that represented an exaggerated simulation of reality. Much of her work was about female pageantry, social expectations of women, or the chintzy objects that littered the lives of 1950s and 60s housewives, like kitschy bric-a-brac and tawdry paperbacks. People absolutely loved her for her taste, her humor, her ability to express herself. She did not like me. This was so true that, even without a history of physical abuse, that her peers sometimes say things to me that reveal their awareness of the facts of our relationship, or lack thereof. I hear things like, “Your mother loved you, you know!”, in a tone of voice that suggests that they know this would be late breaking news, without ever having asked me how I feel or what I think. From the earliest age, I seemed to refuse to meet the expectations people have of their children: I hated to be touched, I cried endlessly, I quaked with anxiety and a nameless guilt day and night, I burned with an aimless anger. I could draw, and did so compulsively, but nothing nice or bright. I was acutely aware of sexuality, violence, vanity, and shame. I was no fun whatsoever. Later in life--very recently in life, actually--I discovered that I have two important, inherent qualities: One, that I have a genetic inability to process copper properly, a mineral that is psychoactive and can make you pretty unhinged in large quantities. Two, that I suffer from a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a range of mental conditions that have been historically ignored in women, largely because of misogynist prejudices that society holds about essentially-female dysfunctionality. Unfortunately for me, my mother died when I was a teenager, almost two decades before I would find out these things that might have made her more tolerant of me.
Fortunately, I guess, I think I know why my mother took such an exception to me, and it isn’t all about me. It’s about her mother. My maternal grandmother was also an artist of sorts, but more in terms of artifice. I haven’t decided whether it is fair for me to spill all of the details of a story that belongs to more people than myself, but I will go so far as to say that my maternal great-grandparents meted out trauma and shame in a manner that my grandmother allowed to contribute to her painful estrangement from her sister. For my purposes, what it really did was teach my mother that darkness--any kind of darkness, even darkness that belongs to you and you alone, that you have a right to, that should be yours to process as you see fit--is inappropriate. It is just as inappropriate in adults as it is in children, which she would see very clearly in her mother’s strict orchestration of their household into an unimpeachably pure, Rockwellian model of what an American family should be like. While my mother found her way into the revolutionary world of hippie rebellion and art-making, she never let go of her prohibition against sadness and rage, even in her own child, and I suffered from it until she suddenly, rapidly and gruesomely died of lung cancer when I was barely old enough to drive. Afterward, her mother obsessed over me in a way that was simultaneously scathingly intense and unmistakably impersonal. I looked like my mother, and my grandmother’s identity was rooted entirely in dominating a family, so she couldn’t do without me. I couldn’t let her know anything about myself; my feelings about horror, pornography, death taboos, sexual identity, and media that is out to hurt you, are what make up all that I am, and are the opposite of everything she believes in. With that weight on my back, I had to pretend that we had this archetypal American familial intimacy, even when I didn’t have it with my own mother, even when I hated being touched, even when I hadn’t learned how to receive affection. Early this year, she died at 90 years old from a misdiagnosed colon condition. As my family rushed to her side to say goodbye, we discovered that her shadowy sister had pushed her doctors into lifesaving measures that would have extended her existence into something so horrific that it would have stood up to the ugliest scenes from JACOB’S LADDER, had she not miraculously died before regaining consciousness. As perversely relieving as that was, my ears ring with the sound of her last phone call to me. Intended to be a heartfelt goodbye, it devolved quickly into the woman, completely possessed of her mental faculties, absolutely screaming for her life. It was a sound as chilling as anything from any of the sadistic movies I love so well, and I really heard it, in my real life.
This all would be enough to make me talk the way that I do, but it isn’t all. Recently, my father revealed to me some details of my mother’s struggle with cancer that I had never heard before. Although my mother had been told to go straight home and make her peace upon diagnosis, she and my father plunged full bore into magical thinking. They experimented with hypnosis, acupuncture, reiki, anything that might activate my mother’s internal ability to heal herself. Soon they found themselves in the office of a charismatic self-help guru-type in a neighboring city. Incidentally, this person is now at the center of an increasingly bizarre trial that is slated to begin this January, due to her authoritative involvement with a Scientology-like cult that allegedly maintains a secret inner circle of brand-wielding sex slavers. But anyway, back to my little memoir: It isn’t clear to me what she claimed was the scope of her powers exactly, but I know that she specialized in a form of “healing” that involved hypnosis and carefully selected words, I suppose not unlike a magical incantation. She said to my mother: “I am going to heal you.” The reason she said this so forcefully, was that my mother was the physical double of a previous client of hers; a client who died from the same specific form of lung cancer that plagued my mother; and who lived in the house we had moved into, only months before my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That woman died, we moved into her house, and by pure coincidence, my subsequently sick mother found herself in the office of the self-styled healer who had treated the previous owner of our new home for the very same illness. “God has given me a second chance,” the healer said, “and I am going to heal you.” My mother saw her for several months, until one day she arrived to find a third woman in the office. Astoundingly, the healer described the young coed as having supernatural gifts. The two instantly began terrorizing my mother, screaming at her and cursing her. My mother, sobbing hysterically, begged to know, “Why are you yelling at me?” and they replied, “WE’RE NOT YELLING AT YOU, WE’RE YELLING AT THE CANCER!” When he told the story, of course, my father accidentally said “demon”, not “cancer”, but in any case, they were trying to exorcize her. My mother never went back, and, some might remark, she died.
Naturally, I wanted to tell this story to anyone who would listen to me, as soon as I had heard it. It was one of the weirdest things I had ever heard, and it happened to my family. While some people’s jaw dropped in exactly the way mine had originally, I received some unexpected feedback, too. On some occasions, a dear friend would pause at the end of my story, make a calculated “surprise” sound, and then, very gently, explain to me that coincidences exist, self-hypnosis and group hysteria exist, and I shouldn’t take any of it too seriously. I found myself, not just disappointed, but embarrassed. I wasn’t trying to tell people that I believed my family was cursed by god or the devil, or that we had been molested by some evil sorceress. I was simply trying to say that, somehow...isn’t there some kind of spiritual truth to this? Isn’t it worth remarking on, that my life, my history, had congealed into such an incredible metaphor for itself? Isn’t it so much more compelling than any kind of fiction I could ever have written, any artwork I could ever have created in order to process the exact kind of trouble my family has suffered? Isn’t this just amazing, all by itself, without even the benefit of theatrical interpretation? Of course, the conclusion will be that I absolutely have to give this some kind of theatrical interpretation, or else I will go out of my mind. I’m close enough as it is. But, in some ways, I felt like this interpretation has already happened at the hands of Ari Aster, with his horrific fable about how inherited trauma among generations of women gives way to the machinations of a corrupt cult. People who know me well will realize that I’m still leaving out parallels between HEREDITARY and myself, in this already too-long piece of analysis. But I guess what I’m trying to say for now is that I need HEREDITARY, and we each need a HEREDITARY of our own to put our most unspeakable experiences on a pin, under a spotlight, inside a bell jar, to be examined from every angle and exactingly diagnosed, whether we like it or not.
#blogtober#hereditary#ari aster#horror#supernatural#witch#cult#toni collette#milly shapiro#alex wolff#gabriel byrne#anecdotal evidence#mental illness
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[Interview] 170511 Subin Interview for BNT International (English)
[Reporter Hwang Yeon Do] Dalshabet’s Subin is currently expanding herself from the nest of a girl group. The singer-songwriter reveals her facial expressions not as a girl group member, but as a solo artist.
Having lived in one house as the oldest sister, she played the opposite with the main role of Dalshabet’s maknae for 7 years. While starting to put out songs one by one touched by her own fingers some time ago, she has laid down the cute maknae image for a while and has started to reveal her own self.
Since being reminded of her recently released songs, with the words “The life of a singer followers her own song lyrics” might not be a myth, and a smile leaked out of her mouth. Because the meaning of the spinning lyrics contained in ‘Circle’s Dream’ that melt her character resembles her.
Turning 24 years old this year and she's already showing good results with her songs. They say the word is filled with angled and spiky things, do you need to live with them setting in your day? It’s easy to break out of only if you’re strong. Let’s try hearing the story of Subin, who comes out of an angled frame and is enchanted with aesthetics of flexibility.
Q. Tell your impression about your 3rd photoshoot with BNT. It is my third time to be making a pictorial for BNT alone, without the members. I'm very grateful to all the staffs who helped me and made the photoshoot fun.
Q. Your favorite concept. The second shoot. While the first and third concepts had a sort of sporty feel, the second one, for the second one, taken on a rooftop, something was newer and I think there was an atmosphere.
Q. Looking through your SNS, you often show your sense of style, what's the style you like the most? I try to have a little sense of style (laughs). I tend to like chic and light styles, so I tend to reduce accessories as much as possible and have a “point” item in just one place.
Q. Recent occupations? Recently I have been working on solo songs. Also, my younger sister majored in photography and I want to be working with her more often. The photo jacket that I released not so long ago was taken by my sister.
Q. Recently you have released a new single ‘Circle’s Dream’ in which you have participated directly in the lyrics, composition and production. The last solo pictorial for BNT was probably when I released my first solo album. It was a time when I had many concerns about the musical direction that I wanted to pursue. After looking back at the second solo album I did a while ago, I think I’m definitely grateful. Makes me very happy to be able to continue doing songs that I want to do.
Q. The ‘Subin from Dalshabet’ and Subin as a singer and songwriter are definitely different. Which one looks more like you? My image in Dalshabet honestly isn’t an image I had at all. At home I’m the eldest daughter with two younger sisters, and in Dalshabet I’m the maknae. So when doing Dalshabet activities, I try really hard to learn a lot of aegyo, be bright, and show a lovely image. But it’s either this image I tried hard to achieve or my own image. So I won’t be able to say which one is more similar to me, but I think I can say the music I pursue when I’m solo is closer to my character.
Q. Tell us about the opportunity to be a solo singer. When I was young, because my parents were a dual-income couple, I played the biggest role in the house. I pretty much raised my two younger sisters (laughs). I thought I had to be a good example as the eldest daughter, so I studied very hard. But when I became a teenager, I started to stress about these things. In rebellion against school stress, when school ended, I went to do karaoke at the arcade alone. At that time, the arcade was a gathering place (laughs). So secretly going to the karaoke room to sing was a great escape for me.
One time I spent all my money, so I couldn’t go to karaoke. I wanted to sing songs, but since I couldn’t go to karaoke, one summer I covered myself up with blankets so my voice wouldn’t slip out, and I sang. I did that, but I fainted. My parents were very shocked. Their child who usually studies hard was singing until she fainted, how surprised they were. At that time I confessed to my mom that I wanted to be a singer for the first time. Because of friends who studied a lot, my father objected a lot. But my mother understood my heart a lot, and instead of studying hard, I decided to make music. After that we went up to Seoul.
Q. Tell us about your former model activity experience and debut with Dalshabet. Before my mother brought me to Seoul she said she wanted me to take auditions in three places: SM, JYP and YG. She said that if I failed in those three places, I would give up cleanly. In my first audition I went to SM Entertainment and I was terrified when I saw how huge was the line of people.On the way back from the audition that day, my mother suggested that I should try a modelling career, instead of being a singer, and since I wanted to go to Seoul so much I agreed with her. At that time, I went to Seoul and attended the ESteem Academy audition and started my modeling activities. However, one day I had a strong feeling that I wanted to sing on stages instead of walking on the runway. After that, I actively started looking for a company and challenged myself on the path of being a singer.
Q. A lot of idols are disbanding. This year is it the ‘7 year curse’ for you? We always say it but there will be no disbandment. Whatever gossip happens, there will always be Dalshabet, the time is passing, so challenges arise in your field, but Dalshabet will still be together. It’s what we say among us, but even when all the members are married, we will do promotions together (laughs).
Q. Are there a lot of troubles when doing girl group activities? Of course, there are some difficult parts in this job. For example, I want to be free just like any other person in their 20's, but due to the nature of my job, I always have to be careful or it will turn into news. Also, as a girlgroup member, you have to diet all the time and you can't neglect your appearance to the public. My stress grows about things not being fixed when going deeper. Since the idol market is rapidly changing, I fear that many people will eventually forget Dal Shabet. There are definitely a lot of difficult parts, but I don’t want to complain about these kinds of things. Thinking I should overcome, doing these things makes me happy (laughs)
Q. When is the next album of Dalshabet being released? There aren't any specific plans yet, it would be nice if we could come back in the summer because we're a group that can match the summer concept very well (laughs).
Q. Which of the members do you think stands out more than the others? Of the members, I’m the best at showing maturity (laughs). I can say it’s unique, haha. It’s been a while, so when we’re by each other’s sides, I think our age shows more.
Q. If you could give a word to junior idols that are just starting, what would you say? The truth is, for an entertainment to have a career, they should be loved by the public. And you need to work hard to get attention. There are a lot of things you need to pay attention to, from fanservice to a performance speech. And living like this, sometimes you lose yourself. You need to try not to lose your original image, even if you have to change yourself a little.
Q. The idol system is tough. What does your family say about being engaged in this profession? I'm not a very smart person but I work hard and make a lot of efforts. I did it since level three of school days, during high school.
Q. When do you want to get married? I want to get married now. I'm so lonely. And nowadays I think babies are so beautiful. I want to have 4 kids when I get married (laughs). Many people say I’m young and have the whole world in front of me, and they ask why I want to get married. But I think you can be an entertainer even while being married.
Q. Which member do you think will be the first to get married? Woohee unnie. Woohee unnie is the one that talks the most about marriage among the members, so I think she has the tendency to get married before (laughs).
Q. Your love style. I love dating and I like to know the person for a long time. I'm always careful when I start loving someone, I have never tried dating easy. That time I did a bnt interview with the members, the members say that I receive the most ‘dash’, and I always hear that talk but don’t know anyone with ‘dash’. I’m so lonely, I’m going to die. (laughs).
Q. Your ideal type. My ideal type is a guy that is just like me (laughs). I want to meet a man who I can devote myself to love. I don't care about appearance. My eyes tend not to matter (laughs). Rather, I think being good-looking can feel burdensome. Won’t I be anxious?
Q. A celebrity you have become friends with lately. Solbin. She’s a really good friend to me. She's only three years younger than me, she has 'Bin' on her name just like me and we went to the same high school. One day, the Laboum members came to say hello to us and since then, Solbin have always greeted me with great enthusiasm, knowing that we went to the same high school. After that, we got to know each other quickly. I really like pretty women (laughs). A man hates another handsome man, but I do like women that are pretty (laughs). Solbin is pretty, have a good personality and I really like the friendship between us. I saw that they just got their first win on a music show. Solbin haven't contacted me yet because she doesn't have a cellphone, but I really want to celebrate with her (laughs).
Q. How you take care of your body. I'm learning to swim these days. With the body, skin etc., for outward appearance, I think the lifestyle pattern is the most important part. I want to maintain a consistent bedtime and wake up time, so I signed up for swimming in the morning. And there are benefits to swimming, so I can take pictures.
Q. I heard you did a yogurt diet once. At that time there wasn’t a diet I was trying. When it got difficult, I had quite a lot of body fat, I tended to have a lot of fat on my face. I definitely tried a variety of diets but apparently my body is very bad. So I tried eating all yogurt for dinner instead, but I felt our promotions were becoming very active. I think my temperament has changed a lot since then. My temperament is usually according to what I eat, so I got really stressed. During “Have, Don’t Have” promotions, I gained the most weight I had ever gained. I gained about 12 kg. After that, while producing the album called “Joker���, I went through hell, so I was really stressed, it went to my head, it became a situation where I couldn’t eat properly. At that time, I lost a lot of weight. Usually I don’t have an obsession with diets, but I do exercise earnestly.
Q. I heard you take off your underwear before sleeping because there’s a jinx. It’s uncomfortable when I wear underwear while sleeping, and my condition isn’t good the next day. When I wear underwear while sleeping, I think even my blood circulation becomes bad, and it seems like my face doesn’t really show the next day. My mood is to blame (laughs)
Q. Part of your body you're most confident. I have long arms. This is my strength and weakness. I resemble my dad, so my arms tend to be really long, but I can’t find decent clothes. This is an advantage when I dance. I think the lines or motion look really pretty. But actually the fans like my collarbone.
Q. Between girl groups, Sulli, Kang Jiyoung and Subin are considered the ‘three giant babies’. I'm always honored to be able to hear these words (laughs). Sulli, Kang Jiyoung and I share the same age. Is it not those two peoples’ responsibilities in their groups to be visuals? It is, and when I hear this kind of talk, I think I’m tied together with this people when I don’t deserve to be. It feels very good, haha
Q. How does it feel to live with your height? (laughs) When you’re tall, you can breathe the highest air first (laughs). These days there’s a lot of dust in the air, no matter what, I wonder if the higher air is a little cleaner, haha. And when we go overseas, I receive the dash that I don’t receive in Korea (laughs). Westerners don’t know that I’m an entertainer and talk a lot. When it’s like that, I definitely feel good. And the unnies are tall, so there are people who say it’s good, they say they are envious that I don’t have to shorten the length when I buy pants. And honestly that was news to me. I never imagined shortening the length of my pants, rather the length of pants is usually short.
When I was little, I was not a particularly large child. But when I felt into something, it’s a style that sees an end. When I started being a model, in the thought that your height must be at least 180cm, I went to a clinic to get acupuncture, and did body correction while taking medication. I also skipped rope 10,000 a day and bound my legs before I slept. At that time I was a middle school student but I grew about 10cm taller.
Q. People say you and Kisum look alike, what do you think? I like Kisum's face very much. With a clean and pure image, hasn’t it come to feel like her own charm? Of course I'm grateful for hear these words but in fact, I don't think we look similar. I wonder if Kisum also thinks like that.
Q. Other than being a Dalshabet member, what do you want to do? I can not release all of the lyrics I've written, and there are some beautiful written songs that I wanted to share. I also want to collaborate with my sister's work and maybe release a picture book with her.
Q. Aren't you interested in acting? I really want to act some day. On school I majored in Theatre and Film. If I have the opportunity some day, I think I would be ready to do it.
Q. Do you enjoy drinking a little? Share with us. When the members read this, they’ll hear and jump up (laughs). The unnies say I have the appeal as an image of someone who can drink well. Of course I tend to be strong with liquor. But I don’t tend to like drinking. Honestly I don’t even tend to drink well. One bottle of soju, two when I drink a lot. When I drink, I don’t get drunk, I go till the end, so when I go somewhere to drink, it’s not fun. When I go somewhere to drink, I’m the only one who doesn’t get drunk, so when we calculate my share, I must also take care of the drunk people. Out of our members, Ayoung is the one who drinks the best. But Woohee is the one who loves drinking the most (laughs). Woohee tends not to drink well, but really likes alcohol. It’s what she’s known for (laughs).
Q. Subin’s role model. Lee Hyori sunbaenim. Sunbaenim’s ‘I don't care’ give me such a cool feeling. I admire the loyalty of living without losing yourself. I want to live like that just like her.
Q. Musicians who want to work together. I want to work somenday with Solbin. I would like to former a female duo with her under the name ‘BinBin’, since our name end with ‘Bin’ or we could use our initials, ‘SB’. Would be interesting to be in a concept with her, I could write some fun lyrics.
Q. An entertainment show you want to appear on. I would like to appear on JTBC's 'Let's Eat Dinner Together'. I also tend to do aegyo to the elders, so I have confidence to eat a meal (laughs).
Q. Tell us Subin's goals for the future. I want to see Dalshabet as a big group. When we say we’re coming back, we receive a lot of people’s anticipation and support as one body, I hope we can become a group of the caliber that can sweep first place wins on music shows. Personally, there will be a variety of names, pretty, lots of money, act a lot, successful person, etc., but I just want to be a “great person”. I mean, no matter who sees me, they feel like I live a great life.
Interview by BNT International Translated by Dalshabet Global Take out with full credits | Do not re-post
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