#not only trying to figure out what the symbols represent (doesnt look like 1 2 3 etc) but also what Value they are

[risingsunresistance]

i think more worldbuilding should include more numbering systems. like obviously when creating a fake world or language our first thought is to take the basic 0-9 and make a representation of those, but does it actually make sense for your people here to be using base 10? what about base 2, base 16, other systems we use and systems we dont commonly use? what would make the most sense in the context?

[camelely]

13rw S4 Fix

 So i did one of these for last season and I think now that I’ve had some time to think about S4 I’ll do the same. While last season I thought the issue was one character being overused. But here it seems like there were multiple smaller things that could have improved the whole season Again I’m keeping the same basic plotline and characters :) 

1) Winston 

Have Winston stay at Hillcrest. Him moving to Liberty did nothing for the main plot and he was basically a red herring through most of it. Let him try are befriend the characters from the outside. He can learn about Jess from Bryce’s trial and the news coverage and then try to befriend her at Monet’s. This is where he meets and later starts to date Alex. Since he doesn’t go to liberty school Alex sees him as a sort of escape and lets him in. Clay and Ani dont tell everyone about him because they dont know he is trying to get close to them. It makes them seem less like assholes and more like people. They don’t mention his connection to Monty because they dont realize how close he is getting to answers. Clay can still suspect he did the graffiti, after all it was a break in and a non student could have done that. Plus Estella is another red herring in the school. She serves that purpose so let Winston be the outsider looking in. His arc would still be about knowing a different Monty and not knowing who is was at Liberty but now he is literally the outsider who didn’t really get Monty, rather than it just being a figurative thing at the prom. You can still have the prom scene it would just be entirely imagined rather than the half imagined thing they went with. I think they overused the people talking to ghosts thing so here it would be a  fantasy of Monty and the relationship they had rather then a representation of what could have been. However I don’t think this would have retracted from the point. Also play him up, he is a sympathetic antagonist and it sucks how much he is sidelined for Diego. I didn’t hate Diego but Winston and him basically went through the same arc. They were pro Monty and ending up dating a member of the group, couldnt believe that member was involved and then learned something about Bryce and Monty agreed to move on and just did. All while saying they will alway care for that member of the group. It was an unnecessary rehash. Having WInston be the outsider looking in and Diego the insider looking out also lets their characters compliment each other. They should still work together, just have Winston contact him looking for Monty’s friends. It’s simple. 

2) Tyler and Tony 

Oh Tyler. The character who seems to be in the middle of everything despite never doing anything himself. I didn’t mind his arc of helping the cops find the guys who sold the illegal guns. But Tony’s suspicions, eventually leading to Clay and Tony finding out the truth and just moving on never really go anywhere. I think  it would be cool if Tyler tells Tony, despite the cops telling him not to tell anyone, because he trusts Tony. But Tony, who has had bad run ins with the cops, thinks it is a bad idea. He doesn’t want Tyler taking the deal. Tyler says its the only way the guns wont be traced back to them but Tony thinks teh cops are planning to double cross them to mind out more about Bryce and Monty. At the same time he starts getting close to that cop that takes him boxing and helps him get into college (i dont remember his name for the life of me lol). Tyler sees this as being hypocritical and pulls away. Tony still suspects Tyler is behind the lock down because he is pulling away and Tony is getting paranoid. The rest of their story can still be the same but this way they can show Tony’s paranoia and his loyalty. 

As for Tyler and Estella, It was fine. The scene of them in the bathroom was really powerful, being in the bathroom with a de la cruz and becoming comfortable because isnt her brother was really nice. This could even be another reason Tony and Tyler fight. Tony can be paranoid that Tyler is trusting her too quickly and think she will turn on him. 

3) Jess

Her arc with the principal, being scared and agreeing with the security measures before she sees them in action was really interesting. Focus more on it and less on her manipulating Diego. I did like parts of that arc for her so I don’t want it completely gone but I do think focusing on her working with the principal would have been cool. I would call more attention to her first meeting and her agreeing with the measures and slowly show her change her mind and start to turn against them. Maybe even have an early scene of her and ANi talking about it and have Jess admit she feels safer. Move the creepy cop trying to pat her down to the second or third day. So she can have a moment where they make her feel safe before the negative experience. I loved the protest and a bit better build up would have made it amazing

Her arc with Ani. They fought over Bryce... It should have been a conversation. Not a moment where Ani judges Diego and then they argue. I still think this arc should have been Chloe and Jess and should have been in last season. But they had the opportunity to include Chloe this season and just didnt. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the Zach section but I think Chloe should have been at Prom and the moment between the Ani Jess and Chloe should have been then. It would be right after Jess and Ani made up and would have been cool. 

I don’t think she should have had scenes where she saw and talked to Bryce. Yes it created some powerful moments but they could be reworked. Have WInston use his wealth to commission a positive thing in the paper about Bryce and Monty and have her talk to his idealized photo of Bryce. I will mention it in the Clay section but her hallucinations detracted from his journey with mental health. 

4) Clay

Okay two thing here the first is his arc with mental health, hallucinations, and blackouts. They used it for drama and I wish they hadnt. It should have been about him healing. I didnt mind the way they handled the realization for clay that it was him doing everything (Did they explain the symbol he kept drawing because I missed it if they did? or i just forgot because it was that forgettable lol) but I think the whole thing could have been handled a lot better and a more educated fan then I can provide a better explanation for what exactly was off about it. I will say the the therapy sessions were repetitive and I know thats realistic but for a tv show its boring. The scene were Clay goes to his home was weird and low key scary. I understand the purpose but  I wish he had called him and asked to meet at his office instead. A more likable and relatable journey for Clay with his mental health would be really good for a show that was accused of glorying suicide (personally i dont think it did. My inbox is open if you wanna talk though :))

The second thing is the phantom phone caller. I hate this trope so it might just be me but this is so stale. There are exactly two ways it could go. The person could know everything and be a real problem or the person could be fishing for information and not be a real problem. The whole thing was predicable since Winston had red herring written all over him, Estella was barely developed, and on this show it is always the football guys. Instead let the pranks be smaller and less crazy. Like these boys had to coordinate a lot to mess with Clay. There should be more than one prank and end with a Monty doll and Clay holding a knife to set up the camp episode. But they should be pranks, not the phantom caller psychological torture bs. The blood shower can also happen just on a different day. Clay can be confused about what is real and what isnt making him even more worried about his blackouts and again assuming the mental health arc is handled well, the pranks can be a real part of it. Dumping him in the pit on the camping trip also seemed kinda attempted murdery so maybe do something like tie him to a tree of the path or in a small dirt ditch not a rocky pit where if he hit his head or fell weird the team would all be murderers. 

5) Alex

His arc with Charlie was one of my favorite stories this season. I was also not bothered by him getting close to and exploring his sexuality with Winston and Zach. I’m in the minority but I’m glad Zalex wasn’t made canon and Zach was used to be an effective (kinda) ally and good friend. Plus this way Zalex can live on in the fandom untouched or ruined by the writers interpretation. 

They should have given us Alex in therapy. He tried to kill himself had a traumatic injury, an arc with steroid abuse, and an arc about killing someone. All of which were forgotten this season. All the other characters seemed to be dealing with Bryce and Monty, why not focus on Alex? Even if it isnt in therapy just let him exist in his feelings.

6) Zach

I have one major issue with Zach’s arc, the lack of Chloe. She was the reason he almost killed a man. Let them date, let him start to spiral while dating her. She doesnt know what he did. Have them grow apart on screen but her still connecting to him and not wanting to give up on him. They should go to prom together. I know the hooker was supposed to represent Zach turning into Bryce with the hookers and the drunken sex/potential rape  and cocaine. But Chloe fills the same comparison. He brings cocaine she is not okay with it, He tries to convince her to have sex in the back she is not having it. Maybe he tries to convince maybe it becomes a bit worse than that but she breaks up with him at prom and leaves early. She sees Bryce in him, she doesnt have to say it but you can see it on her face and she walks away when her mind and heart tells her to this time no making excuses. Boom Chloe actually has an arc. As for Zach this is a big wake up call for him he sees what we had become. I know it is later in the actual show but I think it should be in the prom episode so he can have a better conclusion in the finale, like the other characters. The whole season was a downward spiral and I wish we got to see more of him pulling himself out of it. If the whole finale is him getting better even though he wont be all the way done he will be in a better place up the end.

7) Justin

Okay the hard one. I think the writers really wanted to kill him. I mean a fan favorite, who did bad things, and the death would be in the series finale. this is a tv writer’s drug of choice. So I’m gonna do a fix where I still kill him first then to the ideal version. Ok so first Justin dies. No HIV/AIDS. It was out of nowhere, unneeded, and seemed a bit insensitive. If you want it to be related to his drug use, make it so he got a bad batch when he relapsed. Or maybe organ failure. If it doens’t need to be drug related it can be an accident or someone he knew on the streets getting revenge, like that drug dealer we spent time with last season. Or if Justin helps Tyler put the gun salesmen behind bars then have it be retaliation for that. He can still go to the hospital and have goodbyes but it wont be an aids diagnosis and death in the same episode. I know they had signs in earlier episodes but the timeline is still really fucked up...

An ideal ending would have him live. He can still pass out at Prom. The diagnosis can be a combination of stress and withdrawal symptoms.He can be the red herring for the person in the coffin. If Justin lives he can represent hope. He can show the audience that you can get better and things can work out. Even if you are sick and think you will die you can do better be better and live in a better world. Plus I love him and really wanted him to be happy. The message would be you can get out of a bad situation and wold have ended a sad series on a positive note. Even if you are a bad person. Even if you have bad circumstance. Even if it feels like the world is against you, it can get better if you put in the effort. Which felt like the message the show was going for in eariler seasons by showing the people on the tapes doing better but abandoned this last season.

So who would I put in the coffin. Ani’s mom. Now I know she wasn’t a well liked character and her mom wouldn’t have the same audience or character reaction Justin’s death did. But this version isn’t about making the audience sad. Ani would finally have a plot that was really about her, her mom died, Bryce’s mom basically wants to provide for her. And she isn’t sure what to do. Justins funeral felt like it was overshadowed by graduation anyway. Now Ani’s moms absence and the funeral being overshadowed both make sense. She is going to college and doing what she can to honor her mom. And the death of a parent causes Clay to immediately appreciate his own family more. The theme in the first season with Clay was appreciating and acting on his feelings for Hannah before she was gone. Ani’s mom dying is a reality check for him and he know the most important things are his family and friends. Justin’s arc was about finding a family and he did. The core of the show is about family, friends, and the importance of  a strong support system. And starting it with a mother grieving her daughter and ending it with a daughter grieving her mother would be a cool full circle moment.

This post is really long so if you read all the way down Thank you! :) 

[axelmcsm]

for ryssel, pike and cosmo: basics 2, 5, 7, 8; appearance 4; personality 2, 4, 6, 8; background 3, 5; relationships 1, 2, 4, 5, 7; fun facts 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15

THANK YEW PEEPAW

-

RYSSEL:

b2: “ryssel” comes from “russell”, which comes from “rus”, which just means red! aiden named him that for his eyes, they’re a brownish-red color that leans more on the red side

b5: the day after founding day! not too hard to forget

b7: he’s just a crafter/human! nothin much there

b8: sword. he luvs swords .

a4: he carries himself extremely confidently. think early s1 aiden, just .. not an Asshole , and you got ryssel! like father like son

p2: entp! he likes new things and new challenges

p4: oh jeez. he’s a tad bad a builds, which is embarassing for him bc of his parentage, and is .. horrendous with redstone. fighting/writing is more his thing, although he wish he could be a bit more like his dad

p6: he’s got adhd, dyslexia, and autisim! got the adhd from aiden, and dyslexia and autisim from cosmo. he also smokes, and does a lot of bad things for him that slip under aidens radar - ryssel never tells aiden about this stuff because he doesnt want his dad to feel like he “failed” as a parent, but really aiden would try to help rys out if he knew

p8: not .. Stellar manners, again think early s1 aiden. puts his feet on the table (saw his dad do it as a kid, so he did it), and other stuff like that, also a tad rude although he doesnt mean to be. he has a lot of scabs from picking at his skin

ba3: hes part of beacontowns guard (implemented after creeks first death + blitz’s first attempt at assassinating jesse) and is gabriels apprentice! he’s also part of the “neo blaze rods” consisting of him, shiloh (gill and mayas daughter), alora (creek and axels daughter), micah (olivia and petras son), and auburn (aloras twin)! he considers himself the leader but shiloh and micah are really the ones in charge

ba5: beacontown, in the trainee dorms and technically with aiden! aidens place is a block or two away from creek and cosmo’s places / bad luck alley, near the aquatic district, and it’s a nice place! made of spruce wood and cobbestone and stuff like that. the trainee dorms next to the order temple are like apartments, each trainee has their own, and they can choose to share with a friend if they’d want. ryssel doesn’t share with anyone- he’d share with shiloh, but she shares with alora cus theyre gfs, and micah and auburn dont train in the guard.

r1: yeah! rys has a lot of pals. hes got shiloh, the winters twins, micah, radar, and a couple of the other guard trainees that i need to figure out names for. he considers shiloh to be his best friend- shes like a sister to him !

r2; kinda awnsered in ba3!

r4: he looks up to gabriel as a mentor, but especially looks up to aiden- he wants to be just like him, and aiden .. doesn’t want that. he’s flattered, and gets why a son would want to be like his dad, but he’s scared of ryssel making the same mistakes he did when he was 18

r5: ryssel doesnt “hate” anyone, but he really dislikes byrd, another trainee at the guard. however their relationship is . Very Complicated and byrd makes ryssel feel all sorts of things he doesnt understand

r7: hes great with kids! shilohs younger siblings love him :) hes pretty good with animals too

ff3: SWOOOOOOORD and cigs . and flint and steel

ff5: fetal. fucked up like his other parent

ff7: english and sign ! hes . trying to learn sign at least , he wants to learn it to try and be able to properly communicate with auburn

ff8: FUCK !

ff9: PUMPKIN he loves pumpkin scented candleS

ff11: hawk! hawks represent rash action and Well

ff12: jocks . so sorry everyone

ff15: nope !

-

PIKE:

b2: depends on which of his names youre talkin’ about!

yarrow: “Yarrow can represent both war and healing.”

temporal: “relating to time.”

pike: “Pike is a symbol of magic, supernatural help, for example [...] the pike - angry and violent predator, so often seen as the personification of greed, avarice, deceit, and prudence.”

b5: he doesnt know :[

b7: he’s an enderman! hes an empath and can teleport, although his teleporting is very poor due to his cracked pearl. it weakens him horribly and he doesnt do it often

b8: his claws!

a4: hes slouched over and has a resting bitch face a lot of the time. he generally looks very threatening, hence why his meetings with his friends always went well /s

p2: infj

p4: hm. being social /j

p6: schizophrenia, ptsd, and autisim

p8: his manners are what youd expect of a former high-ranking enderman, although as he stays out in the overworld that starts to change

ba3: beacontown, just as a normal citizen, but after s2 he goes back to the end and is bought back to his role as one of the pillars- but, he’s revoked of his duties, and replaced by myrtle, who’s made into the fourth pillar and given the duty of being an ambassador

ba5: the end, and he lives in a tower with the rest of his family. his room isnt huge, its his old room from when he was a hatchling/wyrm, but its messy and covered in pillows/blankets with bookshelves and lanterns all over

r1: yeah! the main gang (aiden, cosmo, creek, axel, petra) are all his friends, but he considers creek hs best friend. hes also close with tide!

r4: he looked up to aether, but .. yknow

r5: blitz . thats it

r7: good with animals, and only kids hes good with are myrtle auburn and alora

ff3: bowtie :)

ff5: sleeps like a dog curled up in a ball

ff7: sign and enchantment/endinese

ff8: bitch !

ff9: pine . reminds him of the cabin

ff11: a little cliche, but wolves! they represent guardianship and loyalty

ff12: loners/misfits .. hence the title of misfit mania

ff15: yes ! most endermen follow the religion of the ender dragon/aether and do their best to be balanced, since in legend aether destroyed the incarnate of chaos, and they get hostile at anything that seems like a threat to them

-

i will be doing cosmo later cus.. sleepy

[frangipanilove]

TRUNK RESURRECTION; PART 2

In part 1 of the Trunk Resurrection post I discussed how TPTB are careful to take any oppertunity to make creative choises that points to TRUNKS is any shape, form or fashion. Car trunks and tree trunks. Human torsos or elephant trunks, it doesnt matter. If it’s a trunk, it can be used by TPTB to say something about TRUNK symbolism.

In Part 2 I’m going to try to explain why this is so important for TD.

ETA: here’s a link to Part 1:

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/611940721067474944/trunk-resurrection-part-one

I’ve already mentioned that many of us, myself included, believe that after “Coda”, a situation somehow arose,  where TF had to leave Beth behind. It wasn’t by choise, we imagine that it was a matter of survival. The general consensus is that they were surprised by a massive horde, and couldn’t get away fast enough. They had to leave Beth in order to survive themselves, and they put her in the trunk of a car to protect her from getting eaten by the walker horde.

Like I mentioned in part 1, when Beth and Daryl hid from the horde in the trunk of a car in 4x12 “Still”, it was a forshadow of how she’d later be hid in the trunk of a car to avoid getting eaten. And similarly; when we watched the sequence of the abandoned cars from 5x10 “Them”, it served as a callback to events that happened off camera in those missing 17 days.

In “Them”, we watched Maggie find a car with a locked trunk. She located the keys and got it opened, and inside she of course found a beautiful, tragic figure. TPTB at one point confirmed that the Trunk Walker was supposed to represent Beth, and it’s one of the most haunting scenes of the entire series in my opinion.

And as I explained in Part 1 of this post, there is no shortage of exemples where TPTB use every trick in the book to bring attention to a trunk in some shape or form.

In Part 2 I’m going to analyse the symbolism around about seven specific instances where CARS and TRUNKS were front and center, both in a symbolical sense as well as in a literal sense.

And I’ll start with Officer Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 1: OFFICER LICARI’S DODGE MAGNUM: THE ORIGINAL BLUE TRUNK



The reason I call this a Blue Trunk doesn’t have much to do with the actual color of the car, even though it’s dark blue or maybe back. When I say BLUE TRUNK, it has to do with the fact that it’s a car that belonged to the Grady cops, specifically it belonged to Officer Licari. Therefore, it’s a “Blue Trunk”.

The Blue Clues ultimately points to some sort of police reference. Because Beth at one point wore the Sheriff's hat and was named «The New Sheriff In Town», she’s a part of the Blue Clues. In fact, you could probably say she’s in the center of it.

But there are also other police officers worth taking notice of, and like I said,  Grady cop Licari is one of them. I’m going to explain why shortly, but first let’s revisit a scene from 5x15 «Try». Daryl and Aaron try to catch Buttons The Horse, but they fail miserably. Buttons falls prey to a walker horde, and gets eaten in the most gruesome way. Daryl and Aaron can only watch in horror.

However, as they were trying to save Buttons, TPTB served us up a few very suspicious scenes, such as the one where Aaron trips over a ram (!) that’s laying on top of a walker. If that doesn't seem super random to you, then I don't know what will. And it gets crazier. The walker manages to grab a hold of Aarons foot, almost managing to bite it, but fortunately, Daryl comes to the rescue. And Aaron gets free.




Now, a few things about this scene. I will get to the foot/boot part of it later. It’s obviously something we’ve seen time after time, season after season, and I believe I have a pretty decent interpretation of the foot/boot symbolism. But first things first.

That ram struck me as possibly the pinnacle of randomness! Even for a show that likes to put random details into random places, the ram from 5x15 was just too wild to not be significant. You just KNOW it hides massive clues.

And it did.

If you remember back to 5x7 «Crossed», we saw a close-up of the back of Licari’s Dodge Magnum as Rick chased after Officer Bob.

And there it was! The logo of the Dodge car brand is a ram! Their signature model is even called Dodge Ram!

The logo specifically sits on the back of the car, on the trunk, you could procably say, even if its not called that of this particular car. The whole sequence with the walker trapped under a ram that grabs Aaron’s foot, specifically points to the back of Officer Licari’s car.

That’s not the only suspicious thing about that car, @twdmusicboxmystery​ has written several posts about the cars at Grady, their licence plates and other weird coincidences.

https://twdmusicboxmystery.tumblr.com/post/127651055999/getkath-twdmusicboxmystery-the-foreshadowing

https://twdmusicboxmystery.tumblr.com/post/142791336629/the-aftermath-of-grady-and-evidence-for-it

Also, in 5x7 «Crossed, Sasha and Tyreese actually discussed Sasha’s sorrow over losing Bob right in front of the trunk/back of Licari’s Dodge Magnum. In fact, it is not entirely unrealistic to speculate that if Beth was left in the trunk of a car, it could actually be that she was left in this specific car, Officer Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 2: THE JEEP CHEROKEE FROM 6X6 «ALWAYS ACCOUNTABLE»

In 10A, we watched a scene where Carol and Daryl were throwing acorns on a can. Carol found a «double-capper», and gave it to Daryl for luck. And look, I’m trying to stay out of ship wars. I’m a Bethyler and a Carol fan simultaneously, and while I’m aware that these acorn scenes have become significant for C@rylers, I respectfully want to offer my interpretation of it. It involves Beth (no surprise there). It also ties into the tree/three/trunk symbolism. I’ll explain how below.

Remember back to s2. Sophia was missing, and Daryl refused to give up on finding her alive. He took Andrea out to search for her in the woods, and while they were walking, he shared a story from his childhood. As a child, he lived under tremendous parental neglect. His father was gone, partying with some waitress, and Merle was doing another stint in juvie.

Daryl somehow got lost in the woods, and was gone for nine days before he found his way back. And he was fine, so in Daryl’s mind there was no reason Sophia couldn't also be fine. The only injury he sustained during those nine days was a rash due to wiping his ass with Poison Oak.

The interesting thing with this scene is that it’s the first time we get an «oak» reference. We get it in combination with a «missing/lost/gone girl reference, and interestingly we also get it in combination with an «ass» reference (Toilet Paper Theory, but that’s a post for a different day). What we actually can take from this, is that the acorn as a symbol is synonymous with the Cherokee Rose from season 2.

Remember the legend of the Trail Of Tears. The Cherokee Rose grew where the tears of the mothers had fallen, to provide «faith and hope» to people who had lost their loved ones. Daryl gave Carol a Cherokee Rose, sitting in a beer bottle, to offer her “hope and faith” that they’d find Sophia. Let’s break down the different parts of the symbolism here. The Cherokee Rose. The beer bottle. The Poison Oak. The acorn.

Acorns grow on Oak trees, so obviously they are synonymous. The beer bottle represents the beer/bear symbolism, which points to Beth through the Ursa Major/Ursa Menor symbolism (or the Big and Little Dipper if you will). I’ve talked a lot about that in several other posts.

In 6x6 «Always Accountable», we saw a Cherokee Rose growing on the back of a mossy walker. Daryl was able to kill it, and perhaps the sight of the Cherokee Rose inspired him to do the right thing by returning the insulin to Tina, Dwight and Sherry.

And it was an amazing thing to see another Cherokee Rose so long after the first one, and here's how we can tell that it is about Beth; it’s about hope and faith in that one day you’ll once again see your missing loved ones that you’ve lost along the way.

Both Sophia and Beth are part of «the missing girl» theme. We know what ultimately happened to Sophia, but we never saw what ultimately happened to Beth. The Cherokee Rose from 6x6 «AA» is as much a beacon of hope to us, the audience, as it is to Daryl.

But what most people don’t realize, is that there was a second Cherokee reference in that episode. Not a Cherokee Rose, but a Jeep Cherokee! And it ties right into the Trunk Theory. At one point we see Sasha and Abraham crouching besides a car, having a discussion on Daryl’s whereabouts. Their choice of words are important in order to properly understand this scene, pay close attention! Abraham says he believes that Daryl has abandoned them, because that’s what he did earlier in the episode. Sasha argues that he came BACK. He RETURNED!

It’s important that they’re having this particular conversation in itself, but the real significance is WHERE they’re having it: Besides the Jeep Cherokee!

The Cherokee Rose symbol was always there to give hope and faith to people who had lost loved ones. It’s not some token of love between Daryl And Carol. It’s something that represents hope and faith after having lost people. And in this particular case, the «hope» presents itself as «the trunk of a car»! It ties right into Team Delusional’s theories of Beth somehow surviving in relation to the trunk of a car. It represents “resurrection”!

So the initial Cherokee Rose in a beer bottle from s2 was always about Sophia and the missing/lost/gone girl symbolism, the Cherokee Rose on the walker’s back from 6x6 «AA» was about Beth, and we know that because of the convo Abe and Sasha has having while sitting next to it. They talk about getting left behind, about Daryl coming back, RETURNING, and finally, we see how Abe asks how they are gonna find Daryl. Sasha replies that they're not! They're gonna let Daryl find them. Then she plants her BOOT in the mud, the camera lingers on it for a moment. Then she says «Daryl is a tracker», they’re gonna let him track them down. And we see her boot print in the mud. I’ll talk more about that boot print later.

And we do know that the Trunk Survival theme applies specifically to Beth, because we did see her hide in a trunk with Daryl in «Still». We also saw a Beth-walker in the trunk of a car in 5x10 “Them», that was confirmed by TPTB to represent Beth. The “trunk theme” is inextricably linked to Beth. And here we also see it along with a Cherokee Rose and a Jeep Cherokee. And Sasha’s boot!

As far as the Cherokee Rose as a symbol is concerned, remember that Daryl placed a Cherokee Rose on Carol’s (EMPTY) grave back in season 3. Daryl believed that Carol was dead, lost somewhere in the tombs of the prison.

From a symbolism standpoint, the important thing is that the Cherokee Rose delivered on its symbolical promise. Its purpose is to provide faith and hope for people who has lost loved ones. In the case of Carol from s3, she was eventually found alive. And that’s why the Cherokee Rose is an important symbol for TD. Thats why it’s interesting that there was a Cherokee Rose in 6x6 “AA”, and that a Jeep Cherokee was involved in a scene where Abe and Sasha were talking about “being left behind”. And ultimatly, when Sasha placed her bootprint in the mud next to the car, it was a direct reference to the trunk/baggage compartment of the car! I will explain the boot/trunk connection shortly, but keep it in mind until then!

And the acorns? They represent Daryls convo with Andrea from s2, when they were out searching for a missing/lost/gone girl. Daryl’s Poison Oak story is evidence  that surviving being «lost»  truly is possible! When Carol gives Daryl the «double-capper acorn» in «Bonds», they’ve just had a conversation about Connie. And Now Connie (and Magna) is the Missing Girl, but most likely she’ll be OK. No way to tell for sure, because the symbolism is about being lost/missing/gone. Daryl was lost as a child and he turned out fine. Sophia resurfaced as a walker, but she resurfaced. Carol was found alive when she went missing in the tombs. Henry became a beheaded walker, but at least he wasn’t lost, never to be seen again. We don’t know yet what will happen to Connie, and Beth is still missing. But the acorns are synonymous with the Cherokee Rose, and represents «Hope and Faith.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 3: SILVER WING/MERLE HAGGARD In 5x4 «Slabtown» we heard Dr. Edwards say that he’d found a patient under a bridge along with a Merle Haggard tape and two packets of Bisquick. Then, in 6x10 «The Next World» we see two posters of a fictional brand of cigarettes; «Silver Wings».

«Silver Wings» is a well known Merle Haggard song, and therefore it’s natural to think of the two posters as Merle Haggard references, and that they tie into the MH reference from «Slabtown».

(Also, there was another Merle Haggard song, «Mama Tried»  being played in FTWD 4x2 «Another Day At The Diamond», and I’ll do a separate post on that one day. Hopefully.)

6x10 starts off with Daryl and Rick leaving ASZ to go on a scavenging mission, hoping to score some food, (and toothpaste, on Michonne’s request). They find a food truck in a Sorghum barn, but they also find a Jesus. Not Christ, but Paul Rovia. But for symbolism purposes, that works wonderfully.

As they leave ASZ, TPTB give us an excellent shot of the back of the car they’re driving. It’s definitely a Chrysler. We see the back of the car a few times, we also see how they stop and reverse the car, driving back into our view. An interesting creative choice by TPTB, where everything is about the back of the Chrysler. Or the trunk...

Why am I going on about the back of this particular Chrysler? Because the logo of the Chrysler brand cars are affectionately called «Silver Wings»...

And the logos are typically located on the back of the car, such as in this shot from 6x10:

We see the silver wings on the trunk of the car.

Also worth mentioning is that due to unforeseen events involving meeting Jesus, Jesus strealing their food truck, and other complications, the Chrysler got left behind. They planned to go back for it later, but it’s certainly interesting what type of car they eventually chose to ride back to ASZ in, with an unconscious Jesus in the back seat. According to the page walkingdead.fandom.com they chose to return to ASZ in a Jeep Cherokee..

A Jeep Cherokee....with Jesus in the backseat...

Oh, and in Part 1 I explained how the symbol “tree” in certain ways refers to the Cross of Christ, and therefore ultimately means “resurrection”. The symbol “tree” is of course also synonymous with the symbol “trunk”, both in the sense of “tree trunk” and in the sense of “car trunk”. We see an interesting illustration of that in 6x10, when Daryl says he rather would’ve left Jesus (Paul Rovia, not Christ) up in a tree, than bringing him home to ASZ. That is literally TPTB confirming the tree = cross connection. “Jesus up in a tree” is a TWD translation for “Cross of Christ”. And by confirming the tree = cross connection, they are at the same time confirming the trunk = resurrection part of the equation. And now is a good time to remind y’all of how Beth is a Christ figure!

TRUNK RESURRECTION 4: RICHONNE’S ROMANTIC ROADTRIP IN 7X12 «SAY YES»

In 7x12 «Say Yes», Rick and Michonne are out scavenging for guns. They come across an overrun carnival, and it is here they have the peculiar «Something serious happened here, these are serious rounds, there might be serious guns here» convo.

In an attempt to get guns off of zombified soldiers, they decide to use a car. And here is where symbolism galore ensues. First, Rick tries to remove a soldier-walker that’s jammed through the windshield. Grabbing his foot, his whole boot with foot comes off.

Later, when they try to push the car to where they’d ideally want it, Michonne must suddenly seek shelter from a walker accidentally shooting around him at random. She dives into the trunk of the car for protection, and as such survives the random bullets.

I’m not the first to point out this sequence. It was always obvious to TD that this was symbolical, and TD has always interpreted it as a representation of how things went down post-Coda. They eventually get out through the sunroof. I don’t have much to add to it, except one thing: the meaning of all the weird foot/boot references we’ve had over the years. Hang on, I’ll get to that in a minute...

TRUNK RESURRECTION 5: THE GREEN JAGUAR FROM 8X11

In my «Morningstar» post, I elaborated on episode 10x11 a little, and how tremendously important I expect it to be for symbolism reasons.

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/190946439370/episode-10x11-morningstar-sirius-the-star-that

(At the time of posting this, I haven’t actually watched it yet, as TWD airs Monday nights here, and it’s still only early afternoon.)

One of the reasons I expect it to be huge on Sirius symbolism, is that Noah’s t-shirt, with the “one one” text, kind of pointed towards it. And while it primarily pointed towards 8x2 and the Blue Heron painting, there was a huge symbolical takeaway from 8x11 as well. I didn’t know the full magnitude of the symbolism back then, but it’s becoming increasingly clear what an important episode 8x11 was.

It has perhaps gone somewhat under the radar, the symbolism in it is the kind that is slowly starting to shine as the seasons progress and we’re given a larger part of the picture.

We remember how Dr. Carson and FG escaped from the Sanctuary, and FG was in a less than stellar condition. He suffered from some kind of infection, and Dr. Carson was seriously concerned that he’d maybe end up loosing his eyesight. They find this dilapidated cabin in the woods, and go in searching for antibiotics.

Which they find, so FG only loses one eye, and this is how he becomes a Sirius figure.

Episode 8x11 turned out to be a virtual treasure trove of symbolism. The radio equipment (a Sirius reference due to the connotation to Sirius Satellite Radio), the «Sirius piggy-bank» parallel to the Sirius piggyback from «Alone». I talked about these things in in my recent post.

But there’s more.

In the opening minutes of the episode, we watch a walker, stuck in an animal trap, clawing his way towards the broken down car in which FG and Dr. Carson are sitting.

This episode is symbolism galore from the get-go. Guess what kind of car they’re driving?

A green Jaguar. And during the opening minutes we view the car from the walker’s point of view, and what we see, is the trunk!

Jaguars are cats, remember, and cats have nine lives. That’s the symbolic takeaway. The trunk represents survival through the nine lives symbolism. The trunk represents the way many of us believes Beth most likely survived. She was put in a trunk, which protected her from the approaching walker horde. When they went back to get her, she was «just gone». And this episode, 8x11, is filled to the brim with Beth-specific survival symbolism.

There’s the radio equipment, representing Sirius The Dog Star, the star that disappears from the night sky for some time but returns before dawn.

There’s the Sirius piggy-bank.

There’s the ham radio references (a reference to violet the pig, explained in more detail here:

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/183736635005/sirius-and-the-north-star-or-pigs-feet-and-frosty

There’s a suspicious clock! I’ve discussed it with fellow theorists, and they’ve come up with a few great interpretations. However I do feel like its significant that the hands of the clock points towards the 6 and the 3, which could indicate that it’s a reference to Glenns death fake out episode 6x3.

The clock appears as they find the antibiotics thas FG needs, and Dr. Carson says “This man saved your life!”, referring to the dead man that presumably lived there before. The potential 6x3 reference of the clock and Dr. Carsons statement suggests that the symbolic takeaway is something to do with survival.

And this is all related to Beth because she’s in the center of the Sirius symbolism!

A 6:30 clock was pivotal in Noah’s t-shirt theory, which ultimately pointed towards 8x2 (when we found the Blue Heron painting), but because of the «one one» text written on Noah’s T-shirt, I was aware that it could potentially also point towards 8x11. You could say there’s a 6x3 reference in both ends of the Noah's t-shirt theory. There’s a  6x3 reference in the episode that introduces the theory, and there’s a 6x3 reference in the episode that fulfills and bookends the theory.

There’s even a couple of «serious/Sirius» mentions. They’re sitting on the trunk of the green Jaguar while Dr. Carson examines FG’s eyesight. Dr. Carson is “Siriusly” worried.

We've seen Jadis paint a blue cat. Jaguars are cats. Cats have nine lives. We’ve also seen her sculpt a large replica of the Jaguar logo cat. There are plenty of blue clues around Jadis, and Jadis/Anne was the one who ultimately saved Rick. And the symbolism around Rick is symbolism we also see around Beth, so if Rick is alive, so is Beth.

The fact that the Jaguar is green just ties even closer to Beth, because her last name is Greene! And Beth is part of the “blue” symbolism because “blue” ultimately refers to police. Beth is part of that because she’s the New Sheriff In Town.

Ultimately, this episode tells us that the Sirius symbolism is still in play because FG becomes a one-eyed Sirius figure. It confirms that “radio” still is a Sirius symbol, there’s a Sirius mention as FG and Dr. Carson are sitting on the trunk of the Jaguar (”Sirius” reference in combination with “nine lives” reference). There are also plenty of references to «Alone», through» the animal trap callbacks. And keep in mind; Beth got her boot caught in an animal trap in «Alone». Dr. Carson got his foot caught in an animal trap in 8x11. Il’l get to the “boot” symbolism shortly, it’s important, so keep it in mind.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 6: THE FORD MUSTANG ON THE HIGHWAY IN S2

When Sophia went missing 2x1,  they prepared some foods and drinks for her on the hood of a Ford Mustang in case she made it back after they’d moved on to the Greene Farm.


She didn’t come back, but if she had, she would have found everything she needed to survive, along with a sign saying «we’ll come back every day». If she’d made her way back there, she likely would’ve survived. That Ford Mustang represented her way to survival. It was a «missing girl survival-kit». Unfortunately Sophia didn’t survive, but the Ford Mustang represents the first time we see the entanglement between the “horse” symbolism, the “car/trunk” symbolism and the “missing girl” symbolism.

Symbolically, there are a couple of interesting things happening here simultaneously. 
It’s a car, and it has a trunk, so there’s that. 
The name of the car, «Mustang», refers to a species of wild horses, that are known to be fast, smart and difficult to catch.


It’s a yellow car. Remember Beth’s yellow polo shirt, that covered her upper body/trunk? A very weird sentence to write, but 
I explained in Part 1 that TPTB use anything that has a connotation to the word “trunk”, also the human torso/trunk.

Remember the keychain from 5x10, the one that has a yellow seahorse on it? It’s a reference to Sophias “survival kit-car”,  the yellow Ford Mustang
. It’s a reference to Buttons  The Horse from 5x15 that died horribly. However, there was a ram involved that scene, and symbolically the ram ties Buttons to Sophia’s survival kit-car, via the trunk of Officer Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

When Buttons The Horse died, symbolically it’s ok because the ram points to the trunk of Licari’s Dodge Magnum, and trunks ultimately symbolize resurrection.
 “Horse” symbolism is tied to the “resurrection” symbolism through the “trunk” symbolism. It’s complex because it’s so intertwined, but that is how it works. And speaking of horses; remember this sign?

Right next to it, Morgan found a horse!

This all calls back to the yellow Ford Mustang that was equipped to help Sophia survive, and to the yellow seahorse keychain in the shape of a “3″, that eventually unlocked the trunk from 5x10 “Them”. The message for us is one of “survival”, or “resurrection”.

TRUNK RESURRECTION 7: THE JEEP CHEROKEE FROM «CODA» AND “SLABTOWN”.

Because yes! There actually was a Jeep Cherokee in 5x8 «Coda» as well! We didn’t really see it much, it was basically just sitting there in the parking lot outside Grady the whole time. There was that one scene in «Slabtown», when Beth and Noah almost succeeded in escaping. Beth is running full speed towards freedom, then slows to make sure that Noah is following her, and as she slows, we get a glimpse of this black Jeep Cherokee with a white cross on the back window, sitting next to Licari’s Dodge Magnum.

That Jeep Cherokee was there during «Coda» as well, and whether or not it is the actual car they left her in, it is undoubtedly a reference to the Cherokee Rose in the beer bottle from season 2, the one that symbolized “hope and faith”in the search for Sophia. It was a reference to Carol’s EMPTY grave from season 3, and because we see another Cherokee Rose in 6x6 «AA», along with another Jeep Cherokee, we can assume that the Jeep Cherokee from «Slabtown» and «Coda» are also there to provide faith and hope!

We can see it in the bottom left corner of this heartbreaking shot that ended the episode.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN “BOOTS”, “PIKES” AND “TRUNKS”

In the “Tree Trunk Theory”,  I’ve explained why the words «cross» and «tree» are so intertwined. As I mentioned, it originates from the earliest written versions of the New Testament, and the fact that they were written in Greek. They used mainly two words for “cross”. One was the greek word for “tree” (and by extension “wood”), and another word they used was was «stavros» which literally translates to «pike»! “Wooden pike”.

Isn’t that just fascinating? While we know absolutely nothing about where Henry was buried, we know that the pike where his head was found has become his «grave marker», his “cross”. Not in a literal sense, but that’s what the pike represents to everyone. To us, the audience, and to Carol and the rest of the characters . The pikes are reminders of the gruesome killings of these innocent people.

In 10x5  something interesting took place. We saw that the border pikes had been moved, and Carol was not particularly happy about it. She was not on her best behavior. She was reckless and egotistical, something which almost caused her to step right into a bear trap.

It was a big, powerful trap. I could have taken her foot off, but fotunately Daryl came to her rescue.

Now, I’ve written plenty on why Bear symbolism is linked to Beth (it’s through the Ursa Major/Menor star constellations, or as you say in North America, the Big and Little Dipper). Also, I’m sure every member of TD remembers vividly how Beth got her ankle caught in a smaller animal trap in 4x13 «Alone». And I'm sure every member of TD took notice of the bear trap in 10x5. We all recognized it as a Beth symbol.

So what did Daryl do, after saving Carol from getting her foot hacked off by the bear trap?

He set off the trap by putting the pike through it! The wooden pike, the pike that is a symbolism synonym for «cross»! The wooden pike that acts as a grave marker for Beth-Proxy Extraordinarie; Henry.

And here comes the juicy part.

In US English, it’s normal to refer to the rear storage compartment of a car as «the trunk»

However, in other parts of the English speaking world, such as for instance the UK and Australia, the appropriate term for the baggage compartment of a car is actually….

The «BOOT»!

With that in mind, think back to some of the numerous foot/boot/dismembered limb symbolism we’ve seen so consistently over the years on TWD and even FTWD. I’ve mentioned a fair few of the exemples in this two-part post, but there are of course too many to recount.

Think of Beth getting her BOOT caught in the animal trap in 4x13 «Alone». Think about Rick pulling off the foot (with the BOOT) of the soldier in 7x12, and Michonne jumping into the trunk to escape the walkers. Think of Jadis stripping Rick naked save for his boxers/trunks, and then stealing his BOOTS. Then think of Daryl, setting off the bear trap around the pike that represents the Cross of Christ, that represents death and resurrection. Think back to «Crossed», when FG escaped his church and got his BOOT pierced by a nail! He was symbolically crucified in that scene. It was a stigmata reference! On the wall behind him there was written «You'll burn for this», which in terms of plot referred to how he saved himself at the expense of his parish. But on a symbolical level, that marked FG as a future Sirius figure (burn/fire is a Sirius symbol because Sirius means «scorching/glowing»). And sure enough, in 8x11, an episode that was foreshadowed by Noah's t-shirt, FG lost his eyesight on one eye, making him a Sirius figure like the one-eyed dog from «Alone» and the «dog with a star in one eye» from Robert Frost’s poems.

Take a look at the “boot” symbolism we’ve seen over the years with fresh eyes, imagine what a scene means if the feet/shoes/boots we see are references to the trunk that Beth was placed in, the trunk that means “resurrection”, the trunk that is synonomous with “tree trunk” and therefore “cross”, as in “The Cross Of Christ”.

Need more evidence? Here we have a scene from “Consumed”, where Carol has an unfortunate encounter with a 1995 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon. It’s a car that has wooden panels on the sides, and they’re popularily called “Woody Wagons”. After she has been run over by the Grady cops, they place her on a gurney and puts her....in the back of the car! The wood reference of a Woody Wagon represents the wood/tree/cross and therefore “resurrection”. The back of the car, where Carol was placed, of course represents “the trunk”. This whole scene represents how even a dramatic accident like Carol’s can end with “resurrection”, if the proper symbolism is applied.

And finally there’s this:

This is of course Morgan, from 5x1 “No Sanctuary”. I’m sure it’s obvious where I’m going with this. It’s a tree. With an X (a cross). We actually see...guess how many...yes, three (3) tree crosses.

We also see Morgan in 5x8 “Coda”, literally seconds after we’ve watched Beth “die”. And we also see the same X (cross) on the threes in “Coda”.

It is resurrection symbolism on top of resurrection symbolism.

[boratanical]

loona x their relationship with color

a lot of loona theories dealing with color talk about how the colors relate to each other rather than how they represent the member so heres a more in depth look into the color’s psychology ! a lot of times, colors will have different associations based on individual experiences and that plays a big part in loona !

heejin - bright pink 

bright pink is known to be vivacious and stimulating. bright pink is a more rich hue of the usual pink and we can relate that to heejin’s song being vivid - a song about color and standing out. the mv is filled with very vibrant colors 

hyunjin - yellow

yellow has dual associations - positivity and loyalty compared to cowardice and caution. in japan (aka hyunjin’s country), the color yellow stands for courage. in her mv around you, the mv and song talk about how shes trying to find courage to confess to her crush but she constantly cowards away from doing so. even though at the end she doesnt have the courage to approach her crush, she seems hopeful that one day she’ll be able to do so. yellow is a great representation of hyunjin’s duality in which despite her shyness/cowardice, she continues to build confidence and hope  that one day she can do it - her storyline shows the positive and negative meanings of yellow

haseul - green

green is the most common color in nature and is often associated with rebirth . the thing is that despite her color being related to nature, her mv is at iceland aka a place with no nature. in the beginning of let me in, haseul says “Deep in my heart, in that dark place/You suddenly entered / Awakening my world” which can mean that Iceland is what her heart originally was before a person (i guess a lover) enters her life and helps her be born again - so maybe after this lover enters her life her heart becomes green (”is now being colored with you”) aka reborn ? also green is the color of hear chakra and it represents a bridge between the physical and spiritual world so maybe its not even a lover but rather another distant version of herself (which is repetitive in loona) is being discovered and shes becoming one with herself ?

yeojin - orange

orange is known to be energetic and it draws attention, just like our maknae !!!! its also known to be a flashy color and give a childish appeal. in yeojin’s mv later, it is similar to hyunjin in which it shows duality of her color. positive associations include being sociable (her multiple suitors) and negative associations include being self indulgent (scenes where multiple items/gifts are shown). another thing with orange is that it helps lift up personal limits, similar to how at the end of the mv she gives the frog a kiss on the cheek despite saying how they shouldn’t rush . 

vivi - pastel rose

pastel rose / light pinks are mostly associated with love and romance. lighter pinks are known to have a calming effect and be associated with feminine qualities like softness and nurturance. vivi has the most wholesome mv out of all of the girls in which she is softly crushing on a boy. 

loona 1/3 

hyunjin, haseul, and yeojin have citrus colors while heejin and vivi have shades of red. overall the colors complement each other. 

kim lip - red

just like her debut, kim lip and red are often associated to have power, energy, and are known to attract attention. in fact, red is said to be the most attracted color (like how eclipse is considered to be the  most popular solo). red accents on neutral backgrounds are a way to attract attention (which her mv happened to do) and red also symbolizes sophistication which kim lip is often associated with. 

jinsoul - blue

blue is a color favored by many people too (just like how jinsoul and sitr are popular). people who are associated with blue often have a need to feel unique and authentic - like how sitr was unique to all of the other loona solos due to edm elements. blue is also known for its ability to relax and stimulate a person at the same time and is called a calm authority which can be seen regarding to the structure and sound of sitr. sitr mentions how at first things are out of control until “You have spread blue” and then they become “standing on top of this night” so maybe the lover/another version of herself in this instance takes over jinsoul similar to how haseul gets taken over by green - but in jinsoul’s case the blue helps her gain authority 

choerry - purple 

purple is a balance between red and blue - it has the stability of blue (the fun meoldy) and the energy of red (the beat drop after the chorus). the color is known to create a unusual atmosphere and be unique and observant ( like how choerry and mirrors - a weird way of communication and she has to constantly look for/in mirrors). a lot of words that are associated with purple appear in lcm’s lyrics - magic ( Love cherry magic ), imagination (ah ah, Imagine ah ah), special (Our special days start today). also, purple does not appear in nature a lot so anything thats purple is often associated with being rare and delicate - this is the opposite of lcm mv bc at the end everything becomes purple which could represent how shes in paradise because in no other natural way would a purple landscape exist 

oec 

red, blue, and purple will cause irritation and arrogance if too much of the colors are present aka the produce are strong effect - similar to their girl crush image

yves - burgundy 

burgundy is a combination of red (vivi / i know a stretch) and purple (choerry). its a sophisticated color and people who like the color often considered what others think about themselves. they have unconventional thinking and have a desire for being unique. burgundy ppl also are known to be introverted so maybe at the beginning of new yves was alone until she meets a lover/another version of herself that allows her to open up more and gain confidence (The look of you when i open my eyes/ So bright that i couldn’t dare to approach / My heart that wants to be like you / Gets colored, filled with you) . also, burgundy lacks a sense of fun/energy that pink has - so maybe instead of a different version of herself like haseul and jinsoul have, vivi is what brings a new self out of yves. yves later on is seen to have a god figure (with the members and orbits) and burgundy is known to represent high social status !!!

chuu - peach

peach is a charming color (just like chuu). it helps bring courage to yourself (chuu eventually taking a bite out of the apple to be with yves) and help others not to be afraid (helping gowon have a revelation). negative associations include relying to heavily on others and fear of being alone, which we see in heart attack where chuu constantly wants to be with yves. just like how yves has an actual person (vivi) to bring out change, chuu has yves and she ultimately changes her (”Dipped you inside my white heart, and made it red” - burgundy has red in it so yves turns her heart to a lighter shade of red since her heart is originally white which can result in a muted color like peach or even a similar color to yves’ lover which chuu wants to be)

gowon - eden green

in the first part of one and only, gowon is seen to be in the dark/hiding but she eventually becomes one with herself/has love for herself and she becomes overall lighter. similar shades to eden green like aquamarine and turquoise are associated with a release of guilt. in gowon’s case, she feels held back until she eventually comes to turns that only she can make herself better and this can represent her release of guilt (the guilt of  holding herself back?). other meanings of the colors include being able to heal through play, being childlike, and being denied what we want because we dont work hard enough. based on her mv, maybe gowon felt like she wasnt trying hard enough to improve herself which resulted in a guilty feeling and eventually she realizes that only she can cause improvement in her life and she eventually becomes healed and can now enjoy herself. or rather then not working hard enough, shes trying to protect herself from getting hurt (another association to the color) and as a result she shields herself away from everything. once she connects to her spiritual self (turquoise is known as a color that connects to the spiritual world), she can finally enjoy herself. some other fun stuff is that turquoise represents friendship (yves, chuu, and gowon running together at the end of the mv) and that burgundy is considered the opposite color of aqua and that burgundy is used to balance out aqua (yves going to gowon and crowning her).  

olivia hye - gray/silver 

gray is a cool, neutral balance color that represents a lack of emotion. its associated with loss, unsettling feelings, and being timeless (”They say that time heals / Even those words became pain for me”  but if gray is timeless that means olivia hye doesnt have time to heal oooh snap) . gray is also a color that represents conformism - having no personality (which is seen in love4eva). people who like gray often try to protect themselves from the world around them and prefer a safe and balanced existence. silver has a mature sense of justice and often reflects energy back to where it came from  - we can see scenes of the egoist mv being bright pink (known to be a fun color but is reflected back to represent anger for olivia aka the first betrayal) and for some of olivia hye’s scenes in love4eva turn red (olivia hye suffering from the other girls leaving her aka the second betrayal) - this is why an individual’s experiences are significant in the portrayal of color in their life!! 

yyxy

all of the girls’ colors are a combination of colors which could symbolize how 1) they need each other to be who they are or 2) their fates are intertwined 

[prolapsarian]

Conversation with David Panos about The Searchers

The Searchers by David Panos is at Hollybush Gardens, 1-2 Warner Yard London EC1R 5EY, 12 January – 9 February 2019

There is something chattering. Alongside a triptych a small screen displays the rhythmic loop of hands typing, contorting, touching, holding. A movement in which the artifice strains between shuddering and juddering. Machinic GIFs seem to frame an event which may or may not have taken place. Their motions appear to combine an endless neurotic repetition and a totally adrenal pumped and pumping tension, anticipating confrontation. 

JBR: How do the heavily stylised triptych of screens in ‘The Searchers’ relate to the GIF-like loops created out of conventionally-shot street footage? DP: I think of the three screens as something like the ‘unconscious’ of these nervous gestures. I’m interested in how video compositing can conjure up impossible or interior spaces, perhaps in a way similar to painting. Perhaps these semi-abstract images can somehow evoke how bodies are shot through with subterranean currents—the strange world of exchange and desire that lies under the surface of reality or physical experience. Of course abstractions don't really ‘inhabit’ bodies and you can’t depict metaphysics, but Paul Klee had this idea about an aesthetic ‘interworld’, that painting could somehow reveal invisible aspects of reality through poetic distortion. Digital video and especially 3D graphics tend to be the opposite of painting—highly regimented and sat within a very preset Euclidean space. I guess I’ve been trying to wrestle with how these programs can be misused to produce interesting images—how images of figures can be abstracted by them but retain some of their twitchy aliveness. JBR: This raises a question about the difference between the control of your media and the situation of total control in contemporary cinematic image making. DP: Under the new regimes of video making, the software often feels like it controls you. Early analogue video art was a sensuous space of flows and currents, and artists like the Vasulkas were able to build their own video cameras and mixers to allow them to create whole new images—in effect new ways of seeing. Today that kind of utopian or avant-garde idea that video can make surprising new orders of images is dead—it’s almost impossible for artists to open up a complex program like Cinema 4D and make it do something else. Those softwares were produced through huge capital investment funding hundreds of developers. But I’m still interested in engaging with digital and 3D video, trying to wrestle with it to try and get it to do something interesting—I guess because the way that it pictures the world says something about the world at the moment—and somehow it feels that one needs to work in relation to the heightened state of commodification and abstraction these programs represent. So I try and misuse the software or do things by hand as much as possible, and rather than programming and rendering I manipulate things in real time. JBR: So in some way the collective and divided labour that goes into producing the latest cinematic commodities also has a doubled effect: firstly technique is revealed as the opposite of some kind of freedom, and at the same time this has an effect both on how the cinematic object is treated and how it appears. To be represented objects have to be surrounded by the new 3D capture technology, and at the same time it laminates the images in a reflected glossiness that bespeaks both the technology and the disappearance of the labour that has gone into creating it. DP: I’m definitely interested in the images produced by the newest image technologies—especially as they go beyond lens-based capture. One of the screens in the triptych uses volumetric capturing— basically 3D scanning for moving image. The ‘camera’ perspective we experience as the viewer is non-existent, and as we travel into these virtual, impossible perspectives it creates the effect of these hollowed out, corroded bodies. This connects to a recurring motif of ‘hollowing out’ that appears in the video and sculpture I’ve been making recently. And I have a recurring obsession with the hollowing out of reality caused by the new regime of commodities whose production has become cut to the bone, so emptied of their material integrity that they’re almost just symbols of themselves. So in my show ‘The Dark Pool’ (Hollybush Gardens, 2014) I made sculptural assemblages with Ikea tables and shelves, which when you cut them open are hollow and papery. Or in ‘Time Crystals’ (Pumphouse Gallery, 2017) I worked with clothes made in the image of the past from Primark and H&M that are so low-grade that they can barely stand washing. We are increasingly surrounded by objects, all of which have—through contemporary processes of hyper-rationalisation and production—been slowly emptied of material quality. Yet they have the resemblance of luxury or historical goods. This is a real kind of spectral reality we inhabit.  I wonder to myself about how the unconscious might haunt us in these days when commodities have become hollow. Might it be like Benjamin’s notion of the optical unconscious, in which through the photographic still the everyday is brought into a new focus, not in order to see what is behind the veil of semblance, but to see—and reclaim for art—the veiling in a newly-won clarity. DP: Yes, I see these new technologies as similar, but am interested in how they don't just change impact perception but also movement. The veiled moving figures in ‘The Searchers' are a strange byproduct of digital video compositing. I was looking to produce highly abstract linear depictions of bodies reduced to fleshy lines, similar to those in the show and I discovered that the best way to create these abstract images was to cover the face and hands of performers when you film them to hide the obvious silhouettes of hands and faces. But asking performers to do this inadvertently produced a very peculiar movement—the strange veiled choreography that you see in the show. I found this footage of the covered performers (which was supposed to be a stepping stone to a more digitally mediated image, and never actually seen) really suggestive— the dancers seem to be seeking out different temporary forms and they have a curious classical or religious quality or sometimes evoke a contemporary state of emergency. Or they just look like absurd ghosts. JBR: In the last hundred years, when people have talked about ghosts the one thing they don’t want to think about is how children consider ghosts, as figures covered in a white sheet, in a stupid tangible way. Ghosts—as traumatic memories—have become more serious and less playful. Ghosts mean dwelling on the unfinished business of the past, or apprehending some shard of history left unredeemed that now revisits us. Not only has no one been allowed to be a child with regard to ghosts, but also ghosts are not for materialists either. All the white sheets are banished. One of the things about Marx when he talks about phantoms—or at least phantasmagorias—is much closer to thinking about, well, pieces of linen and how you clothe someone, and what happens with a coat worked up out of once living, now dead labour that seems more animate than the human who wears it.  DP: Yes, I’ve been very interested in Marx’s phantasmagorias. I reprinted Keston Sutherland’s brilliant essay on how Marx uses the term ‘Gallerte’ or ‘gelatine’ to describe abstract labour for a recent show. Sutherland highlights a vitalism in Marx’s metaphysics that I’m very drawn to. For the last few years I’ve been working primarily with dancers and physical performers and trying to somehow make work about the weird fleshy world of objects and how they’re shot through with frozen labour. I love how he describes the ‘wooden brain’ of the table as commodity and how he describes it ‘dancing’—I always wanted to make an animatronic dancing table.  JBR: There is also a sort of joyfulness about that. The phantasmagoria isn’t just scary but childish. Of course you are haunted by commodities, of course they are terrifying, of course they are worked up out of the suffering and collective labour of a billion bodies working both in concert and yet alienated from each other. People’s worked up death is made into value, and they all have unfinished business. But commodities are also funny and they bumble around; you find them in your house and play with them.  DP: Well my last body of work was all about dancing and how fashion commodities are bound up with joy and memory, but this show has come out much bleaker. It’s about how bodies are searching out something else in a time of crisis. It’s ended up reflecting a sense of lack and longing and general feeling of anxiety in the air. That said I am always drawn to images that are quite bright, colourful and ‘pop’ and maybe a bit banal—everyday moments of dead time and secret gestures.  JBR: Yes, but they are not so banal. In dealing with tangible everyday things we are close to time and motion studies, but not just in terms of the stupid questions they ask of how people work efficiently. Rather this raises questions of what sort of material should be used so that something slips or doesn’t slip—or how things move with each other or against each other—what we end up doing with our bodies or what we end up putting on our bodies. Your view into this is very sympathetic: much art dealing in cut-up bodies appears more violent, whereas the ruins of your abstractions in the stylised triptych seem almost caring.  DP: Well I’m glad you say that. Although this show is quite dark I also have a bit of a problem with a strain of nihilist melancholy that pervades a lot of art at the moment. It gives off a sense of being subsumed by capitalism and modern technology and seeing no way out. I hope my work always has a certain tension or energy that points to another possible world. But I’m not interested in making academic statements with the work about theory or politics. I want it to gesture in a much more intuitive, rhythmic, formal way like music. I had always made music and a few years back started to realise that I needed to make video with the same sense of formal freedom. The big change in my practice was to move from making images using cinematic language to working with simultaneous registers of images on multiple screens that produce rhythmic or affective structures and can propose without text or language.  JBR: The presentation of these works relies on an intervention into the time of the video. If there is a haunting here its power appears in the doubled domain of repetition, which points both backwards towards a past that must be compulsively revisited, and forwards in convulsive anticipatory energy. The presentation of the show troubles cinematic time, in which not only is linear time replaced by cycles, but also new types of simultaneity within the cinematic reality can be established between loops of different velocities.  DP: Film theorists talk about the way ‘post-cinematic’ contemporary blockbusters are made from images knitted together out of a mixture of live action, green-screen work, and 3D animation. I’ve been thinking how my recent work tries to explode that—keep each element separate but simultaneous. So I use ‘live’ images, green-screened compositing and CGI across a show but never brought together into a naturalised image—sort of like a Brechtian approach to post-cinema. The show is somehow an exploded frame of a contemporary film with each layer somehow indicating different levels of lived abstractions, each abstraction peeling back the surface further.  JBR: This raises crucial questions of order, and the notion that abstraction is something that ‘comes after’ reality, or is applied to reality, rather than being primary to its production.  DP: Yes good point. I think that’s why I’m interested in multiple screens visible simultaneously. The linear time of conventional editing is always about unveiling whereas in the show everything is available at the same time on the same level to some extent. This kind of multi-screen, multi-layered approach to me is an attempt at contemporary ‘realism’ in our times of high abstraction. That said it’s strange to me that so many artworks and games using CGI these days end up echoing a kind of ‘naturalist’ realist pictorialism from the early 19th Century—because that’s what is given in the software engines and in the gaming-post-cinema complex they’re trying to reference. Everything is perfectly in perspective and figures and landscapes are designed to be at least pseudo ‘realistic’. I guess that’s why you hear people talking about the digital sublime or see art that explores the Romanticism of these ‘gaming’ images.  JBR: But the effort to make a naturalistic picture is—as it was in the 19th century—already not the same as realism. Realism should never just mean realistic representation, but instead the incursion of reality into the work. For the realists of the mid-19th century that meant a preoccupation with motivations and material forces. But today it is even more clear that any type of naturalism in the work can only serve to mask similar preoccupations, allowing work to screen itself off from reality.  DP: In terms of an anti-naturalism I’m also interested in the pictorial space of medieval painting that breaks the laws of perspective or post-war painting that hovered between figuration and abstraction. I recently returned to Francis Bacon who I was the first artist I was into when I was a teenage goth and who I’d written off as an adolescent obsession. But revisiting Bacon I realised that my work is highly influenced by him, and reflects the same desire to capture human energy in a concentrated, abstracted way. I want to use ‘cold’ digital abstraction to create a heightened sense of the physical but not in the same way as motion capture which always seems to smooth off and denature movement. So the graph-like image in the centre of the triptych (Les Fantômes) in this show twitches with the physicality of a human body in a very subtle but palpable way. It looks like CGI but isn’t and has this concentrated human life force rippling through it. 

If in this space and time of loops of the exploded unstill still, we find ourselves again stuck in this shuddering and juddering, I can’t help but ask what its gesture really is. How does the past it holds gesture towards the future? And what does this mean for our reality and interventions into it. JBR: The green-screen video is very cold. The ruined 3D version is very tender. DP: That's funny you say that. People always associate ‘dirty’ or ‘poor’ images with warmth and find my green-screen images very cold. But in the green-screened video these bodies are performing a very tender dance—searching out each other, trying to connect, but also trying to become objects, or having to constantly reconfigure themselves and never settling. JBR: And yet with this you have a certain conceit built into the drapes you use: one that is in a totally reflective drape, and one in a drape that is slightly too close to the colour of the greenscreen background. Even within these thin props there seems to be something like a psychological description or diagnosis. And as much as there is an attempt to conjoin two bodies in a mutual darkness, each seems thrown back by its own especially modern stigma. The two figures seem to portray the incompatibility of the two poles established by veiled forms of the world of commodities: one is hidden by a veil that only reflects back to the viewer, disappearing behind what can only be the viewer’s own narcissism and their gratification in themselves, which they have mistaken for interest in an object or a person, while the other clumsily shows itself at the very moment that it might want to seem camouflaged against a background that is already designed to disappear. It forces you to recognise the object or person that seems to want to become inconspicuous. And stashed in that incompatibility of how we find ourselves cloaked or clothed is a certain unhappiness. This is not a happy show. Or at least it is a gesturally unsettled and unsettling one. DP: I was consciously thinking of the theories of gesture that emerged during the crisis years of the early 20th century. The impact of the economic and political on bodies. And I wanted the work to reflect this sense of crisis. But a lot of the melancholy in the show is personal. It's been a hard year. But to be honest I’m not that aligned to those who feel that the current moment is the worst of all possible times. There’s a left/liberal hysteria about the current moment (perhaps the same hysteria that is fuelling the rise of right-wing populist ideas) that somehow nothing could be worse than now, that everything is simply terrible. But I feel that this moment is a moment of contestation, which is tough but at least means having arguments about the way the world should be, which seems better than the strange technocratic slumber of the past 25 years. Austerity has been horrifying and I realise that I’ve been relatively shielded from its effects, but the sight of the post-political elites being ejected from the stage of history is hopeful to me, and people seem to forget that the feeling of the rise of the right has been also met with a much broader audience for the left or more left-wing ideas than have been previously allowed to impact public discussion. That said, I do think we’re experiencing the dog-end of a long-term economic decline and this sense of emptying out is producing phantasms and horrors and creating a sense of palpable dread. I started to feel that the images I was making for ‘The Searchers’ engaged with this. David Panos (b. 1971 in Athens, Greece) lives and works in London, UK. A selection of solo and group exhibitions include Pumphouse Gallery, Wandsworth, London, 2017 (solo); Sculpture on Screen. The Very Impress of the Object, Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal [Kirschner & Panos], 2017; Nemocentric, Charim Galerie, Vienna, 2016; Atlas [De Las Ruinas] De Europa, Centro Centro, Madrid, 2016; The Dark Pool, Albert Baronian, Brussels, (solo), 2015; The Dark Pool, Galeria Marta Cervera, Madrid, 2015; Whose Subject Am I?, Kunstverein Fur Die Rheinlande Und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 2015; The Dark Pool, Hollybush Gardens, London, (solo), 2014; A Machine Needs Instructions as a Garden Needs Discipline, MARCO Vigo, 2014; Ultimate Substance, B3 Biennale des bewegten Blides, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, (Kirschner & Panos solo), 2013; Ultimate Substance, CentrePasquArt, Biel, (Kirschner & Panos solo), 2013; Ultimate Substance, Extra City, Antwerp, (Kirschner & Panos solo), 2013; The Magic of the State, Lisson Gallery, London, 2013; HELL AS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013.

[comicteaparty]

February 14th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on February 14th, 2019, from 5PM - 7PM PST.  The chat focused on Earth in a Pocket by Jabbage.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Earth in a Pocket by Jabbage~! (http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

perhaps not a full scene, but im really fond of this page in general http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/comic/2019/01/22 where the socio economic development stuff is broken down. theres just something so elegantly simple about how its shown. not to mention i appreciate the injection of humor, because i think it makes everything really grounded.

Delphina

The badger page is perennially endearing (http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/comic/2018/08/11), but I also like the most recent one where Little One is encouraging Halisi to be proactive and set up some long-term solutions for herself: http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/comic/2019/02/05

RebelVampire

im really curious why she thought of badgers at all. unless she had the badgers badgers mushroom song stuck in her head. XD

Delphina

@Jabbage please make that canon

Jabbage

makes it so

(Hi! I'm going to be here for a little while! :D)

RebelVampire

thanks for coming, Jabbage!

Jabbage

I figure that if you're on a road trip with a small child who is prone to ask a billion questions, eventually you're going to end up talking about badgers

Delphina

I just really appreciate how even after all she's been through, Halisi still has so much love and passion for her studies, and it's what she reaches to when she's looking for ways to console Little One and solutions for herself.

Kabocha

Hmmm, my favorite scene probably was the Witch bottle explanation http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/comic/2018/08/15 It was a good bit of information I hadn't really been aware of :D I also just... enjoy her interactions with the little jellyfish - even though she's in a bad spot, she's still taking time to tell him stories.

RebelVampire

i like the element of logic there is to it too. like she's not panicking, but using what she loves to calm herself down in a way. and i think thats a really great showcase of her character without needing to be told shes like that.

its a characterization via the action versus the telling

mathtans

Here for now, the little one seems extra fussy tonight. Yes, I call my baby daughter the little one. So comic was a bit surreal.

RebelVampire

hi math!

at least your little one isnt old enough to ask yet "are we there yet?"

Kabocha

Right? I mean, she could have just given in, accepted that she might die here... But nah. And she's still kind, even though this entire situation is awful

mathtans

The Witch bottle thing reminds me, I liked the way the art moved through the centuries on that one page, but with people who looked kinda similar. I thought that was clever.

True. Little one could save us some time by specifying what her issues are though. ^.^

RebelVampire

ironically though another of my favorite scenes is the one where halisi sets up the signal and kind of ditches her new jellyfish child to just go despairingly collapse in front of it. i like this brief moment of her giving into despair cause theres something really raw about it. like at first she doesnt say anything even, and i think it makes it really powerful because the silence just adds this immense weight to the sorrow. you know shes super suffering for that moment and feeling the weight of everything finally hit her.

Delphina

Yeah, the comic does a good job of showing a lot of conflicting emotions(edited)

mathtans

Yeah, honestly the very opening was a heck of a kick in the pants. Like, I have no idea what I'd do in that sort of situation. It's very problematic.

RebelVampire

yeah theres def a lot of stressful situations. but i kind of appreciate the lighter moments. like her trying to start a fire but ultimately failing. i mean its kind of scary and sad for her survival, but the way its handled is still pretty funny

also that moment where shes trying to fix the machine at the beginning and it just flat out basically bursts into flames XD

Jabbage

I'm pleased to hear that! I'm always aware that it could be quite a bleak story, but I want it to ultimately feel hopeful and positive, so the silly moments are important for that!

kayotics

I also liked the badger scene, but I think the scene that had the most prominence for me is when she finds out that someone else landed on the planet 80 years ago

i think that scene really set in how dire her situation is

khkddn

the portrayal of emotions really is great. it's really interesting to see someone going through such a crisis and only surrounded by beings who can't relate at all

Delphina

Oh god yeah, and the aliens just going "Something happened to the human we don't know what cause death isn't a thing that happens here???" was scary.

kayotics

"it's hibernating!"

G (Title Unrelated)

I felt something in the scene right after where they tell her dad "we haven't heard from her yet"

Delphina

collective tentacle shrug

kayotics

yeah i really feel for her dad

this isn't a scene, but I appreciate that all of the characters are middle-aged or older

RebelVampire

agreed. but i appreciated the realism of the ppl on the other line being like "meh its probably fine my dude" to the dad. cause that really uses reader knowledge to an advantage to create sympathy for him. because we know its not fine, and that he is right to worry. and that makes it sad hes the only one worried in that moment.

G (Title Unrelated)

Yes I agree

kayotics

Also agreed. It's a good example of dramatic irony

RebelVampire

although i like the most recent page with the followup where hes basically enlisted an army of students to find her. abuse of power, probably. but makes him the sweetest dad? yes.

QUESTION 2. Much of the comic revolves around Halisi telling stories based on things in her pocket. Which of Halisi’s stories impacted you the most and/or taught you something new? What do you think is to be gained from Halisi telling these stories to an alien race with no real connection to humanity? How do you believe the stories and knowledge she has might help contextualize her current situation for her? What, to you, does it mean to have “Earth in a Pocket?” Further, if you were in Halisi’s position, what objects would you pick in 10 seconds to represent the sum of human existence? Lastly, what other cultural or past history aspects do you think Halisi might bring up? How might they be contextualized to add a new viewpoint to Halisi’s situation?

Delphina

I liked the Dancing Plague story a lot http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/comic/2018/08/06

RebelVampire

this is the point where i say the witch bottle scene. I think it was beautifully illustrated, and as a story it was not a cultural thing i was aware of. but i like how suitable and unsuitable it was for the situation. but overall it just made me think about humans are weird and can make fear out of nothing at all if the minds decide it to be so.

unless the plot twist is there really was a witch in that bottle

ive always found the dancing plague fascinating because again, humans be weird. minds play tricks.

khkddn

the witch bottle scene is kind of like a story about the power of storytelling, pretty fitting i think

the idea of a witch meant so much to people, like how halisi's stories mean so much to the jellies

G (Title Unrelated)

so she's got a single seed, too, which is also super symbolic

kayotics

I really like the agriculture story, because, like it was mentioned before, it was very concise, but also it shows a lot about Halsi's personality and what she thinks is important about understanding humans on a basic level

mathtans

Back. Know what you can't do when you have a little one? Have a life sometimes. >.<(edited)

G (Title Unrelated)

I wonder what kind of seed it is

RebelVampire

oh man what if the seed wasnt even food. like she winds up growing a rose bush or something XD

mathtans

I was going to say, one of my fave moments was actually comedy, when Halisi first goes off with the inhabitants, thinking about ditching them, and they're all "we can see the thoughts".

RebelVampire

i appreciate the jellyfish didnt just ditch her at that point. cause i would not be as forgiving as them XD

mathtans

And yeah, the hope and sudden crash of the human who was there before was powerful too.

Delphina

I hope it's like... a nice fruit tree. She seems like she could use a nice fruit tree.

mathtans

The framing of the witch bottle scene was cool too. With the whole "not helping me be less afraid" thing (and asking for that term).

kayotics

i just really like the little jellyfish aliens, because they're written in a way that's much less human-centric. I like aliens that are just kind of weird for being weird and don't follow human conventions.

mathtans

Though props for the "pot-reon" in the agriculture bit too.

RebelVampire

yeah im really appreciating the jellyfish for that reason. theyre a nice blend between humanistic traits while still being super alien. its always nice to see when theres kind of a basic gap of understanding where the way each species thinks is quite different

anyway, for me personally though, while she does literally have some of earth in her pocket, i think earth is more about the stories that have traveled with her. because oral traditions reach immensely far back and is the main platform by which we teach and learn about ourselves as a species. so imo they are more representative of humanity than the objects. thus how she can fit earth in a pocket, even though she doesnt need the pocket.(edited)

G (Title Unrelated)

Yeah, I think you nailed it!

mathtans

Also, random question/thought. Halisi didn't have to dig too deep to get "well" water (I liked that one too)... yet was able to bury a guy? The water must be specific to locations or something?

Agreed on the alien-ness people have been speaking about.

G (Title Unrelated)

I mean it's an alien planet

mathtans

Good point about the traditions, Rebel. She's her own pocket.

It helps that she mostly just has to think things rather than even speak them aloud too.

Jabbage

AHAHA yeah, I realised that after drawing it. It's on a list of things i might tweak one day, although I do also like the idea that it is just an alien planet and it's strange and unpredictable like that. So much of our own planet would seem strange and random if we didn't understand a little bit about it's geology, the water cycle etc.

kayotics

on that note i like the idea of halsi going around trying to find ground that doesn't immediately fill up with well water

"okay let's try this spot. Hm, nope, that filled up. can't bury him here"

G (Title Unrelated)

haha!

RebelVampire

yeah it didnt particularly stick out to me just cause i wrote it off as like a change in elevation or something like that. but basically alien planet does alien things XD

mathtans

Fair point.

Could just drag dirt over from another place too, though I guess it would be raised more then.

kayotics

I think if it needs to be tweaked in the future, Jabbage, you could always just change it to a mound rather than a hole. same concept but it avoids going below the dirt

mathtans

Fixes the w"hole" thing.

G (Title Unrelated)

also digging a hole IS hard work

Jabbage

Yeah, or using rocks

kayotics

digging is a lot of work

mathtans

Also whistling while you use rocks, to get rock music.

I'll stop.

kayotics

if she plants that seed she may have to make a mound for that too, it would probably get too waterlogged otherwise

mathtans

I wonder if the soil has the right nutrients.

RebelVampire

yeah i was thinking that too

that her next challenge is finding a not well spot for that seed

cause unless its a crop that specifically needs to be waterlogged, shes gonna have a bad time

mathtans

The jellyfish said the mushrooms could talk, right? Maybe they know a place.

Does rice have seeds?

G (Title Unrelated)

I think if the planet has breathable air it might have a similar balance of elements and whatnot to earth?

kayotics

i think most rice is planted from splitting an existing plant, but i'm sure there's a seed that starts it all

Delphina

What do the jelly aliens taste like

kayotics

DELPHIE NO

Delphina

MAYBE THEY GROW BACK OR SOMETHING

Jabbage

Whether or not the mushrooms can talk is a fun thing that's not really ever going to get expanded on, but which I had in mind for how the jellies work. I figure that they don't have many ways of getting external sensory information about the world - no eyes, ears, sense of smell etc. They are psychic though, they share thoughts and ideas and information about the world. I figure that the mushrooms have some kind of consciousness and run through the planet, and the jellies can draw from that somehow to orientate themselves and know what's going on

G (Title Unrelated)

that's what I kinda assumed!

I mean, that is basically how forests work on earth. XD

RebelVampire

so basically the mushrooms can function as gps

Jabbage

@Delphina ~ I mean I'm sure Big One has some spare limbs... ~(edited)

mathtans

Oh, wow. Cannibalism-like issue didn't occur to me.

Jabbage

Me neither honestly

mathtans

I think the jelly was a bit broken and said she'd regenerate over time...?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. Story wise, the comic deals with Halisi crash landing on an alien planet and all but being stranded. Do you believe Halisi will learn to farm with the little she managed to salvage and find a way to survive? What obstacles might prevent such an excursion on the planet? How will Halisi deal with the obstacles? Further, how do you think Halisi will deal with managing her mysterious illness, and what is she sick with for that matter? How might her actions be hindered or helped by the native alien life? In what ways do you think her actions will change how the alien life lives their own lives? Finally, do you believe that Halisi will be rescued at some point? If so, how will this come about?

mathtans

I like the mushroom consciousness idea.

RebelVampire

i do think the jelly child said as such.

G (Title Unrelated)

Q3: These are... all questions I have, myself. XD

mathtans

That illness thing is probably the immediate concern. Withdrawal itself is an issue, whether the pills were life saving or not

G (Title Unrelated)

I was wondering if they were antidepressants or something

RebelVampire

yeah for all the optimism in this plan, the pills are gonna be problematic. but i did wonder if they were antidepressants

khkddn

the flashback scene after she takes her last pill makes it seem to me like she was waiting for medical test results

kayotics

it's also a future time, so it could be a pill that prevents a life threatening disease from spreading.

mathtans

That's a good thought. The whole not accomplishing anything in her life is pretty bleak. Maybe that's a symptom.

G (Title Unrelated)

oh I didn't realize that scene was about her somehow

kayotics

my hope is that she's rescued well before she even needs to worry about this single plant producing any viable food options, since even if the plant grows, it's not likely going to sustain her

G (Title Unrelated)

yeah exactly

RebelVampire

not to mention depending on what plant it is it could take forever to grow. plant growth really varies a lot from crop to crop

kayotics

as for the pills, it seems like her illness has a vague timeline. Like a degenerative disease or something cancerous.

G (Title Unrelated)

P.s., I want some rainbow space maize.

RebelVampire

yes i second this

rainbow space maize for everyone

mathtans

It's a maize-ing.

khkddn

a few pages after she takes the pill she wonders "why are red pills better stimulants" and the pill she took was red. but then again if it were antidepressants i would expect a flashback that looked more like a therapists office than a doctor with results

Jabbage

Oh gosh I don't want to interrupt all the amazing discussion about Halisi's mysterious malady but I was so pleased to find out that there's actually multicoloured corn like that

I thought I made it up for a gag but it's reaaaaaal

kayotics

i have the link, if you'd like it

khkddn

oh i love the corn page

kayotics

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-rainbow-corn-is-the-coolest-way-to-eat-your-veggies (rainbow corn)

mathtans

It wasn't too corny.

kayotics

Honestly? corn, rice, and wheat would all be things I'd say should be brought to an earth colony.

G (Title Unrelated)

yeassssst. XD

unless there's naturally occurring yeast.

Man, we don't even know what it would be like to visit another living planet

RebelVampire

if we have rainbow corn, clearly were meant to go into space right now.

thats a good catch with the red pill, @khkddn

i actually hadnt paid attention to the pill color

mathtans

As to the question of Halisi being rescued, I foresee two possible outcomes. First, that she's found still alive, and she's learned enough about the planet natives to further space research or something, or second, that she's found dead, but the natives were so taken by her stories that her name will live on forever in the history books of first contact.

G (Title Unrelated)

I didn't associate the pill color musing with her situation but maybe it IS related!

RebelVampire

though i leave it open shes on some sort of mental health related medicine, i do feel its more likely its a degenrative disease of some sort. cause it makes her wanting to go to space make more sense. cause i feel its one of those things where youd be more willing to do it if you knew that you had a shorter time than most to live

math no, that second one is too dark

XD

although not implausible

khkddn

if halisi is not reunited with her dad at some point i'll be so sad

or at least they speak to each other

Delphina

Yeah, I'm just gonna say I don't think Halisi's gonna make it back to Earth. I think we're probably looking at a "she finds peace and purpose with the remaining time she has" situation.

RebelVampire

im gonna believe in the rescue efforts cause her dad seems to be a determined dude. and tbf they probably know her flight path so unless she was super duper off course they can probably guess a reasonable area she might be.

mathtans

I don't know that it's necessarily dark... it's kind of a happy end, just not for Halisi.

Also, maybe the pills help her speak. But that's a thing she won't need with the jellys.

I do think that receiving a message from an 80 year old spacecraft is probably something worth investigating.

RebelVampire

thatd be mighty convenient. tho in some au shed get so used to the psychic stuff shed go back to live among humans and be like "oh shit thats right they cant just see my mind pictures"

mathtans

That's an interesting point, about readapating to civilization.

Crazy theory time: Eating the mushrooms constantly ends up turning her into a jelly-creature. When the humans arrive, they won't recognize her.

RebelVampire

i do think shell have some affect on the jellies though. cause i think at the very least shes gonna teach them the important of oral traditions and theyll start telling their own stories and collectively grow as a species. i think shes really setting the jellies on the path for this.

LOL

i was thinking earlier about what if the mushrooms are semi psychic cause thats what happens to the jellies when they die

they dont die and just come back as the mushrooms

mathtans

Ooooh, that'd be an interesting twist.

Like maybe Halisi gains some psychic powers too.

(Though we may have ended up back at cannibalism...)

G (Title Unrelated)

not to shoot down anyone's fun speculation, but it doesn't seem like that kind of story, tbh. XD

kayotics

haha

we don't even know if the jellies can die i mean, I'd think they would, since they apparently come into existence somehow

mathtans

Also they haven't overrun the world.

kayotics

maybe theyre very slow at growing

or they just become the water

G (Title Unrelated)

slow-growing seems very likely

mathtans

I figure before they die they just kind of stop transmitting. Maybe run off somewhere. So no one is aware.

(Maybe they're like lemmings?)

G (Title Unrelated)

(that is not how lemmings work, sorry. XD)

mathtans

(I would worry if lemmings could read my thoughts.)

G (Title Unrelated)

(the suicidal lemmings myth was created by disney)

mathtans

shakes fist at mouse

G (Title Unrelated)

(or did you mean something else lol)

mathtans

I free associate. I mean what you want me to mean.

RebelVampire

yeah ive been wondering if the jellies are immortal. although ya know what, we have immortal jellyfish on earth so thats not that ridiculous to imagine.

kayotics

man, jellyfish are messed up

mathtans

There can be only one! hands out swords

kayotics

i can only imagine that the Jellies in earth in a pocket feel the same too. I was able to touch the bell of a couple at an aquarium once and man, that was a weird feeling

G (Title Unrelated)

I've been watching PBS Eons on youtube, I wonder if they've done one about the origins of cnidarians yet...

RebelVampire

honestly im putting money on immortal just cause they didnt even know what death was. unless they do die and just dont understand the hibernating jellies are never coming back

QUESTION 4. One topic resounding throughout the comic is humanity connecting to the past while also embracing the future and expanding. In what ways do you think reconnecting with humanity’s origins have changed Halisi on a personal level? How might they continue to change her? Why do you think Halisi so strongly believes in bringing the past to humans as humanity expands into space? In what ways do you think she’ll think it will help humanity as a whole? How might Halisi’s experiences on this new alien planet change the way she thinks about humanity’s past? How might it change how she conveys humanity’s past to other humans? Overall, what do you believe the story has to show us in regards to balancing the past, the future, and why both are needed?

G (Title Unrelated)

immortal jellies make for a good contrast to Halisi's fears of her own mortality

mathtans

They can be injured though, like the one who had a thing fall on it. It'd suck to be immortal that way.

RebelVampire

that is true. and contrasts like that are good.

Jabbage

(imma point out, Little One also notes that they're going to get better one day, although Halisi is a bit incredulous about that)

mathtans

The connecting to the past thing makes me think of that society. Which didn't seem to have a lot of members. Also, it took them, what, ten years to decide on things? (I was amused by "say that to my face" because, um, I think that's what the person is doing.)

Delphina

Totally saying, if I had a bunch of tentacle arms that would grow back and my weird human buddy was dying, I'd let her eat a couple to survive.

G (Title Unrelated)

I assume their tentacles don't have stingers. XD

RebelVampire

for me itd depend on how fast theyd grow back. cause if i had to spend like 500 years waiting for tentacle arms to grow back, that doesnt sound pleasant

mathtans

If so, they must have turned the stingers off to crawl around on her.

RebelVampire

they probably wouldnt have stingers cause their planet seems peaceful. like none of the jellies are like "oh no predators who will destroy us" so theres no need for their evolutionary track to lead to stingers in so far as i can see

kayotics

in response to the question: There's a lot of parallels to humans expanding to other planets and our own planet's history of colonization. There's a lot of cultural pain that comes with leaving your home and leaving your country (whether by force or by choice), and reconnecting to that cultural heritage is something that decedents often go through to feel like they belong in the world. I can see that being a driving point for delivering some of these artifacts to other planets.

G (Title Unrelated)

IRL Jellies mostly use their stings for catching prey?(edited)

Delphina

Do we even know if they feel pain?

mathtans

Wait, do they eat?

khkddn

they seem to have difficulty understanding when a human is unhappy or feels pain

kayotics

they might not need to eat in the same way

they might just kind of absorb what they need

Jabbage

I'm not sure it's going to come up specifically, but I think they probably dont' feel pain like we feel it? Just because i don't think they have the same sensory capabilities. Little One is frustrated that they can't move around as fast as the others, but I don't think they're in pain as such

G (Title Unrelated)

yeah. I was thinking about the Question and I think... it's interesting how it's framed as this thing where they've decided the colonists NEED this, but like, they can't agree on what's actually important

mathtans

Maybe Halisi will make a tiny scooter for Little One.

G (Title Unrelated)

I think it's the stories, not the objects, that are important.

And like... All stories are important???

RebelVampire

i think that is true, that all stories are important. cause stories are subjective and whats personally important to one person isnt important to someone else

kayotics

i think a few cultural trinkets to go with the stories can help, like... like I remember being a kid and my family having a christmas wooden carousel from germany or something, which is where my family emigrated from, so it was like "oh that's my people" I think having something to connect to some of the stories is important.

RebelVampire

thus why its worth preserving them all and no agreeance is needed really. because any single story can have an affect on someone

Jabbage

@kayotics I really like your point about our history of colonization, and it's something that I've tried to be careful with and approach thoughtfully, because I think that IS a driving factor in Halisi wanting to share people's cultural heritage with them. One of the things that sparked this story is thinkign about how current issues with repatriating cultural objects and deciding who has control over them would translate into a world where we don't even all live on the same planet any more

Delphina

The beginning showed that humanity has VR technology to "experience Earth", but it's several very comfortable degrees apart. I like that normally, being so advanced would make the hardships of the very distant past feel less real (just vaguely amusing/educational) But having Halisi have to figure out how humans lived and survived kind of brings that back and grounds her in a way that establishing Cookie Cutter Terraform Colony Number 14792 wouldn't.(edited)

So in that sense, the physicality of it is important

RebelVampire

i do think @kayotics has a point. especially in this story because of that vr scene where they were touring the roman thing. cause its not like they dont already have stories and ways to view historical things. and the actual objects can really tie that together. but i also think the stories are just as important via the scene where theyre shown to be able to print 3d objects. in essence the object means nothing without the story, but the story is made more powerful by the object. its a symbiotic relationship in a way.

kayotics

I'm glad it's something you've thought about!

I can't help but think about how colonization has affected the planets that the humans have landed on, and how it'll effect the planet that Halisi has landed on as well, no matter how small.

G (Title Unrelated)

I was thinking about that, too!

mathtans

Maybe she'll want it purged from the records to preserve it. And since Dad was just using grad students, he can oblige.

Jabbage

I thought long and hard about what race to make my astronaut because when they were a random white academic, the whole thing had a very different feel. Landing on some planet and educating the rather silly native denizens. I also wanted someone who grew up around the earliest archaeology created by anatomically modern humans so it made sense to make her black and from South Africa anyway

but then I'm white and British and so... yeah, I've basically had a lot to think about and juggle on that one

mathtans

Jabbage: Well, damn. I hadn't considered that, but you make a good point.

At least she's not building churches and asking the jellys to worship.

Incidentally, speaking of growing up, I liked the flashback image with her and dad looking youthful.(edited)

RebelVampire

im interested in the idea of who has control over the cultural objects we deem important, especially in regards to technology. because the comic touched on it a bit with the 3d printing and it really starts getting into the ship of Theseus issues of identity for those objects

mathtans

"Fax me your statue. No, I'm not paying you for it, I'll display it on Planet X for the Xposure."

Jabbage

And is seeing a reproduction ever 'the same?;

Even if it's identical in every way?

mathtans

Probably not, which is why they haven't figured out teleporters.

kayotics

if it's identical in every way i feel like maybe it is the same

but... wait maybe not

mathtans

Just to sum, pretty grand scale for this one, and a powerful beginning. Here's to Halisi and the Jellies.

Sounds like a strange band name.

RebelVampire

see its a really interesting philosophical question to explore. is whether cultural significance relies on the exact object or if we can transfer that as humanity spreads into the stars

mathtans

(I wonder if we'll learn more about jelly civilization.)

G (Title Unrelated)

Also, what stories do we remember or forget...

kayotics

I feel like there's something to be said about the energy that we as humans put into things. Like there's something there in the reverence we give something. like when you see a giant statue that's been prayed to vs a huge statue to commemorate someone, those have different feelings.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Jabbage, as well, for making Earth in a Pocket. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Jabbage’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read and Comment: http://earthinapocket.spiderforest.com/

Jabbage’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/Y8Y8HEYO

Jabbage’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jabbageart