#one of the things i find personally important when writing fragments story is to highlight that

[caracello]

one of the reasons i don't particularly want to use dg's semi-canon real name is it also kind of ties nicely into his story w fragment. both of them have a name and a 'normal' life they left in the past because of the hellwave. we don't know and we never will know if flynn and. whoever fragment was would have gotten along but because they met when they did and as who they are it worked.

[teriwrites]

2020 Writing Wrap-Up

Something that I do every year on the 1st is go back through absolutely everything I’ve written throughout the previous year and compile it into one massive word document. Everything from outlining notes to unfinished short stories to my NaNo project wind up in that file, where I like to read back and reflect on what I’ve gotten done through the year. 

Every year, I end up having written more than I expected, and this year was no different! 

Total for 2020: 203,119!

This is the first recorded year (I think it’s year 4 that I’ve done this for?) in which I’ve cracked 200K! It’s also the first year I’ve ever actually followed through on my resolution to share some of my writing online! So as rough as 2020 has been, I still somehow managed to break some personal records in writing. Which probably has everything to do with the fact that I joined this community earlier this year, and it’s been incredibly encouraging and supportive!

I also branched out a bit more this year in a few ways. I worked on some poetry and prose, which is not something I’ve put a lot of time into before so tends to be a challenge. It’s nothing that I’ll be posting anytime soon, but it was fun to work on in the moment, which is especially important in such a wild year as 2020.

One snag that I definitely hit was the fact that I have a lot more unfinished work than most years. A majority of the short stories I started working on never got finished. But I can’t even be too upset about that, because I totally loved being able to read back on even the fragmented pieces I ended up with. And while I do think a large part of that (for me) is discipline over inspiration, I’m willing to accept that, sometimes, things will remain unfinished. And it’s okay to stop working on them. 

My overall focus shifted a bit this year, too, which was interesting. I worked more on longer things than most years - started out the year by finishing my first draft of Castle on the Hill, continued making some edits and reworking its outline, did a large part of Beneath Alder Creek’s first draft in November. Right now, I’m working on what I expect to be a novella by the time I’m done with it. It’s a big contrast to the usual, short and snappy short stories that fill most of my previous wrap-up files. But I still definitely write those sometimes, and it’s nice to be able to try stretching and testing my own boundaries. 

This is the part of my wrap-up where I go ham throwing in some of my favorite out-of-context quotes from a variety of different things I’ve worked on. Some of them might be familiar, a lot probably won’t. I’m going to post it beneath the thing so this doesn’t become even more absurdly long!

Some of the ~highlights~ of 2020:

First Thoughts in the Morning: wow the sexual tension between me and the alarm clock right now. Later Reflection: wtf? (a literal note on my notes app that I included because I Cannot remember writing any of this and it made me laugh)

Edriele’s gaze trailed down to the woman’s armor, and her stomach twisted. “Where did you find your attire?” The woman glanced down in surprise, as though she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “It was fitted to me when I gained my ranking. I suppose it draws attention, but after my confrontation at… you mean to ask me whether I’m impersonating a Knight!” “The thought had crossed my mind,” the Sister replied dryly. (novella WIP)

“Do you need to make a stop at your house before we head to the chapel?” Leslie asked as they started off. “What for?” Winnie asked. Leslie looked pointedly at the tip of her galoshes poking out from beneath her dress. With another roll of her eyes, Winnie sighed. “Oh, I suppose so.” (Beneath Alder Creek)

When the third meeting for the Society of the Hidden Immortal Tribe was called for the decade, I knew heads would roll. Gathering the entire society together took months. Everything had to be hush-hush; that was the entire point of spreading ourselves out. Plus, every time a letter arrived in the mail, it was a reminder of the idiot who had decided we needed a name change. Everybody agreed that being deemed the ‘S.H.I.T.’ was humiliating, but nobody could agree on a better title, so it had remained the same for nearly a full century. That was the problem with living forever. You always had more time to make decisions, and, in the end, nothing ever got done. (S.H.I.T.)

When she leaves, I’m not sure I remember a word of what she’s said. But as the stresses of the semester wash back in, and my mind clears like being pulled out of a dream, I suddenly understand how one could crash upon the rocks without realizing they’d ever changed their course. (A Modern Siren)

When Georg arrived later, he found Klaus leaning forwards onto the table, staring vacuously at one of his textbooks. "Studying hard?" he taunted as he approached and dropped into the seat Ingrid had been occupying. "I talked with Ingrid," Klaus explained. Georg's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise, but he quickly recovered and looked pointedly at Klaus' posture. "Go that well, then?" "She said I'm arrogant and completely self-involved and that I never take what a girl says into account whenever I'm on a date." With a haunted gleam in his eye, Klaus stared up at his friend. "I think she's right." "Well then it's a good thing somebody pointed it out," Georg offered, and he turned to his work. (Castle on the Hill)

Takemoto Hana rested a hand over her face. She couldn’t see the swirling of darkness over her head, but she heard the whine behind its words. With a wry smile, she asked, ‘Do you not know how to brew tea?’ ‘Of course I know how to brew tea!’ The dark spirit’s voice boomed with a defensive defiance that rang false in the funny little woman’s ears.  (The Funny Little Woman)

“None of us want to be here right now,” Edgar called out to the hall. “None of us want to go back through the handbook and listen to the steps of proper etiquette in immortality. But it seems that, once again, it’s necessary.” “Dammit, Dave,” muttered the man next to me. I said nothing, but I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. Dave was… how do I describe Dave? To call him an idiot would be underestimating his craftiness. To call him a genius, I’d have to ignore all of his dumb antics. Cruel was too strong. Misguided was too innocent. Mischievous fit best, but even that fell short. Dave was a trickster god, if ever one existed. (S.H.I.T.)

Ridiculous, he told me with a self-conscious laugh of someone who didn't expect to be believed. I smiled, but I didn't join in. (The Little Roads)

“Hey, where did Alina go?” Lorelai asked. Zoe shrugged, but Jaiden cleared his throat. “I think you crossed one of her boundaries, Lo. She specifically asked not to involve her girlfriend in this, and then you did anyways. I know we needed the help, but friendships have to be built on mutual trust, my dude. You should’ve at least let her know your plan before you went behind her back.” The two women stopped and shared a look. “Hey, Jaiden,” Zoe asked. “Do you know the capital of Canada?” He shook his head. “I dunno, Ontario?” “Amazing.” (Mirror, Mirror)

"We had a bet going over whether you'd make it in time," Hans told him. "Did you win or lose?" Josef replied. Hans flipped a 5-Deutsche Mark coin over to Peter, who grinned as he pocketed it. "I'm glad you have so much faith in me." Josef's voice dripped with sarcasm. (Castle on the Hill)

Taliesin reached over his head and grabbed at one of the low-hanging bows, picking leaves from it. “I’m not sure.” Winnie stopped. “What do you mean?” “I mean that I don’t know.” (Beneath Alder Creek)

While she attended to these, the man beside her began to stir. Ella could see him out of the corner of her eye, attempting to push himself up into a sitting position. ‘You may want to lie back down,’ she told him, scrubbing uselessly at her skirt. The man continued to sit up anyways, pressing a hand against the side of his face. ‘Am I killed?’ ‘No, but your savior may be.’ Ella threw her skirt back to the ground. ‘When the Madame sees the state of me, I’ll be spending my future afternoons off making a new dress out of the fabric scraps.’ A frown crossed the man’s face as he considered her words, followed by a scowl of understanding. ‘You work for them. The bourgeoisie.’ (Cinderella)

Ingrid took the seat and began digging through her bag for a book. As she did so, she explained, "There were no other tables open in the building - even in the quiet section upstairs - so I figured that I would just ask the first person I recognized if I could sit with them, and well... here we are." "Don't worry about it," Georg answered when Klaus found himself dumbstruck again. "Just ignore the oaf, he'll leave you alone." Ingrid shot a grin at Georg, and Klaus suddenly wondered whether it was a good idea to have the two of them sit together. (Castle on the Hill)

Up ahead, I could see the glass walls of the bus stop. Usually, I waited for the bus leaning against the metal frame of the stop, leaving the seats inside open for children on their way to school. But the seats were empty now. I still avoided them. (Flo’s Magical Emporium: The Pandemic)

Now, I ask that you do not feel too much self-pity. For as easy an error as it may be to mistake a visiting aristocrat’s son for the hired help, the true talent in such a display causing his immediate departure lies within you alone. And to think that the meeting was the work of your father’s tenuous sway over the court! Well, I am sure the time away will do him some good, lest you begin to consider that you’ve ruined his position as well as your prospects. (Dearly Detested,)

Edgar was at the front of the lecture hall, and standing beside him was Dave, smirking as though at some private joke that only he was in on. He was wearing sunglasses, despite the dim lighting of the room, probably because he thought he looked cool. I rolled my eyes. What a tool. (S.H.I.T.)

 The work is different now. Countryside pathways winding through the forest lie forgotten for years without the familiar steps of a traveler. Off beaten paths in the city are never unknown for long, and sometimes streets that were once crossed by thousands a day fall back into obscurity. (The Little Roads)

“How much time will you give me to think on it?” she asked suspiciously, wrapping her arms around herself as though afraid they’d reach out to him if not kept in check. “You have all the time in the world,” the golden man said. “The boy’s, however, runs out with every passing second.” He extended his hand. (Beneath Alder Creek)

You ever met a rich person? Not comfortably wealthy. Not ‘my Uncle Kenny is a lawyer’ rich. Not even ‘widow answering the door to her manor on a hill dressed in fine silk’ rich. No, I mean proper, so-much-money-you-literally-can’t-spend-it-fast-enough rich. They say it isn’t worth Bill Gates’ time to pick up a $100 bill off the floor because he’ll have earned more in the time it takes to grab it. That kind of rich. They seem to be bred for times like these. Their houses are a source of endless entertainment – movie theaters, bowling alleys, personal gyms with a view of the sprawling landscape they overlook like cruel dictators. There’s no need for them to leave during a pandemic; they have access to the equivalent of a luxury resort most families have to save up month to visit. Necessities can be stockpiled in one of the useless extra spaces in the house. I mean, I once had to hide out in a luggage room for a contract. That’s right. An entire room dedicated to holding luggage, bigger than some of the apartments I’ve rented. I thought their residential labyrinths were my greatest source of grief. But social distancing? I’m one bad contract away from retirement. (Bounty Hunter During a Pandemic)

Shaking his head, Detlef pulled a new sheet from his notebook. “Look, I’m just saying, if we can get the satire right, we can be a modern Jonathan Swift.” “I don’t want to be a modern Jonathan Swift, I want to be a student actually passing his debate course!” Peter snapped. (Castle on the Hill)

Moonlight illuminated the German’s fair hair and pale skin, the effect more malevolent apparition than man. (Face on the Other Side of a Dark Window)

Back then, he’d been known for commissioning the exact same portrait of himself every hundred years, hanging them in a hallway in his manor and trying to pass them off as his line of ancestors to any of the locals. It had been a far less skeptical age, and Dave had earned himself a small band of worshipers before Jeff Goldblum himself had been forced to intervene. (S.H.I.T.)

Clara stood before the board of advisors assisting with her thesis. She was one, very intense paper away from her M.A., and she wasn’t about to risk it all by being too proud to ask for help. When she’d made the appointment to meet with them, she expected a series of questions surrounding her topic. Instead, they’d opened by offering her a job. “You want me to steal from the school?” Dr. Pye wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. Next to her, Dr. Pritchard said, “Don’t think of it as theft, dear. It’s merely redistribution.” Clara hadn’t amassed tens of thousands of dollars in debt to be lectured on the definition of robbery. “Either way, it involves me sneaking into the Chemistry department and taking a huge risk to get you some new toys to play with.” (Origins: The Ghost)

“Why is undermining Pryderi so important to Queen Ceridwen that she would risk breaking a timeless alliance just to dismantle them?” Her stomach twisted into a knot, protesting against the answer. “There are few members of the Dusk Court that we know by title.” A shadow passed over Enid’s expression. “The Lord of the Undernell is second only to the Queen.” “Great deeds build the reputation of one in their own court. Cruelty builds it in both.” Taliesin buckled under Winnie’s weight as she suddenly leaned against him. (Beneath Alder Creek)

“Why are all my friends so quick to endanger themselves?” I muttered as I packed up Midas’ crate. Natalie swiveled around from the candy aisle. “So you’re finally willing to admit that we’re friends?” “Save it.” (Flo’s Magical Emporium: The Pandemic)

[path-of-my-childhood]

Miss Americana Is A Coming-Of-Age Story, Says Director Lana Wilson

By: Madeline Roth for MTV Date: February 12th 2020

Miss Americana, which premiered last month at Sundance and is now on Netflix, charts the pop star's transformation from a people-pleaser who measured her worth in pats on the head to a 30-year-old woman who's stopped worrying and learned to speak her mind. Wilson told MTV News about the doc:

"When I started, there wasn't a set, 'This is the story,' or anything like that. I just started filming immediately after meeting her and then just filmed, filmed, filmed, and saw what emerged."

Wilson tells MTV News about how Miss Americana is a coming-of-age story, the delicate balance of portraying Swift's romantic relationship, the studio footage she left on the cutting room floor, and the now-infamous "cat backpack."

This film made me really excited to see what kind of artist Taylor Swift is going to be in her 30s, now that she's seemingly more comfortable speaking her mind and isn't as worried about being a quote-unquote "good girl." Do you see it as capturing a turning point in her life? Absolutely. I think it's a coming-of-age story about this woman at a pivot point in her life and career. Taylor went through all of this pain and then stood up and became the person she wanted to be, but didn't have the ability to be for so many years, because of the leash that she put on herself. To be able to take that leash off, I think it's really amazing for people to see that. It's amazing from a documentary director's perspective when you get to go with a subject who really changes in the time that you film with them. That's what I was lucky enough to get to see.

You do get that sense that she doesn't feel the need to constantly reinvent herself anymore. How do you think the film sets a tone or an expectation for her going forward? I think she's always going to artistically challenge herself no matter what. What I saw when I saw her writing songs, and even from the videos of her when she's 11 years old writing her first songs on the guitar, is that she's someone who is always going to write something she hasn't written about before and do something new and experiment. I do think she's more comfortable with who she is now, though. It's about her journey to self-acceptance. She's less focused on being the person other people want her to be and more focused on being the person who she wants to be and who she is.

You definitely saw that throughout the film. At the same time, I loved seeing those moments where she's insecure, like when she finds out that Reputation didn't get nominated for a Grammy or when she's criticizing the way her face looks while shooting the "ME!" video. She even says at one point that she feels like there's a better version of herself out there. Why do you think those moments are important to see as well? I think when you see any insecurity coming out of the mouth of a superstar, that's a really powerful thing. And in fact, how we deal with insecurity is really what defines our strength. Taylor writes so candidly in her lyrics about the hardest times and the times when things didn't go well. That's what her fans love her for. We all want to feel less alone, and that's one reason why people turn to art. It's great for people to see that their heroes are human.

I found it really effective how her ages showed up on screen throughout the film. It really made you realize that she was so young when all of these big, formative life events were happening to her. Why did you decide to highlight her ages like that? That was my editor Greg O'Toole's idea, and I thought it was brilliant. It changes the way you see everything. When we think about Taylor Swift, I think we tend to forget how young she was when she started. You feel that amazement of, "Wow! She was writing those songs at that age?!" But then there's also, "Oh my god, she had to go through that when she was a teenager?!" You see the good things and the hard things at once. It gives context, but it’s also this reminder throughout the film that this is a coming-of-age story.

Totally. When it came to portraying Taylor’s relationship with her boyfriend, that three or so minutes where he's shown backstage and then you see cell phone footage that looks like it was shot by him — I found that particularly moving and a nice way to acknowledge something that is an important part of her life but is also sacred and private. What kind of care went into achieving that balance? It really was a balance. Taylor's had so many relationships go through the public ringer, so it was important to respect her desire to keep her relationship private, while still acknowledging the important role that relationship plays in her life. I remember we had done the first rough cut and we had this whole section of her writing Reputation. She was like, "I do have a few videos on my phone that I think could capture the fact that while I was out of the public eye, it was one of the happiest times of my life." When I saw those videos, I was so moved by them. Especially by her singing "Call It What You Want" when she's in the slippers. I was like, "This is everything. This is all we need to know." It's really special. You don't even have to see her boyfriend's face; you could feel it.

I loved that scene and I loved the song choices in general. "Out Of the Woods," "Getaway Car," "Call It What You Want"... I thought it was really cool how you didn't just use "Shake It Off" and all the big hits. I so appreciate you saying that because not a lot of people have commented on that. I really did not want to do, "here's all of Taylor's greatest hits in the first 10 minutes of the movie," which you often see in this type of project. I wanted to use songs that were emotionally and thematically related to what was going on in the story at that time. With "Getaway Car," it's this moment of total freedom for her in the story of the film. Or "Clean," after the sexual assault trial, for example.

When you're making this kind of film and you're capturing Taylor during such a long stretch of time, how do you know when it's done? What was the moment when you realized you had enough of the story you wanted to tell? My sense was that we had to film through the Lover album release. I think you feel at that point in the film that Taylor isn't as concerned with what people will think of the album. It's more like, it was a joy for her to make and to put out into the world. She went through this period where she went away from the public eye, but she wants to keep entertaining people and making music, and nothing is going to stop her from that. I loved the idea of ending the movie with her walking onstage, and that idea of this bravery she's had since she was 12 years old, of walking out to perform. I wanted to end it with her going back out into the world again to face the public, but you have the sense that something's a little bit different about her now. That's the sense I hope the audience has.

Was there anything you had to leave out of the film that you were particularly bummed about cutting? There was so much more songwriting and recording in the studio. It's so special to see something come from just the seed of an idea - a fragment of a melody or a lyric typed in her phone - and get to then hear it as a finished song. That's some of my favorite stuff in the film, but there was a lot that we had to leave on the cutting room floor, heartbreakingly.

I'd imagine. Do you think that footage will ever be used for anything? I don't know. People have asked me about it, so it's giving me hope that maybe we could just release the 40-minute version of Taylor writing "Only the Young" as a standalone film or something.

Honestly, I would watch. A lot of people would watch! I think a lot of people would.

Last question: How long did it take for Meredith and Olivia to warm up to you? I don't know if they ever did, honestly! They're very cute and they're quite friendly. They're often hiding under things. They just kind of pop out from somewhere, so you do have this feeling of, "There are cats everywhere!"

I loved the screen time they got. Especially the cat backpack. I remember watching the cat backpack scene with one of my editors and I was like, "Is this too long? Are we spending too long on the cat backpack?" He looked at me and he was like, "Definitely not." And he was absolutely right.

[sadhoglet]

My Rules for Writing Poetry

Today I found the beginning of this list in my Google Keep notes from two years ago, and decided to finally finish it. I try to always follow these rules if possible. They’re not hard and fast restrictions, but I’ve found that they tend to make for better poems...well, at least poems that I am proud of and can live with.

Most of these rules also apply to prose.

Rules for Writing Poetry:

Always end your lines on an image, with a noun or a verb-- never an article, conjunction, adverb, or preposition.

Complete thoughts make stronger lines. Does the line sound good when read by itself? Does it make sense by itself? Does the enjambment of your line take on new meaning than it would otherwise?

Don't end every line in a period or a comma-- it's okay to lave a thought hanging as it runs into the next line. Incomplete images can carry over into the next line for dramatic effect (enjambment). 

Avoid adverbs as much as possible. 95% of the time, an adverb weakens your words, adding wishy-washy doubt when you need certainty and punch. Images work better when they fall into extremes. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate!

‎Poems need a beginning, a middle (a "turn"), and an end. It doesn't have to be a grand narrative, but it helps to think of your poems as small stories told to another person.

Poems look, sound, and read better when they aren't blobs of text. Your poem wants to be more than a single stanza. Don't be afraid to rearrange stanzas or lines, toy with chronology, or change the form in your search for the shape your poem is meant to take.

The average person should be able to read your poem out loud without difficulty or awkwardness. Fancy words are nice in moderation, but use them with caution. Simple is good.

Complete sentences are your friend. Use fragments only to indicate a shift in tone, a dramatic change, etc., never as the primary unit of the poem. A poem of fragments will feel disjointed and disorienting for your reader.

Read your poem out loud and take note of where you do or don't naturally pause-- are you splicing commas? Making run on sentences? I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure your shit sounds decent out loud. It’s one of the easiest, quickest ways to catch mistakes and improve your work.

‎If you want to write a fragment, odds are that you actually want to connect the thought with a comma, emdash or semicolon instead; learn to use them.

Avoid the Helping Verbs: "am", "is", "are", "was", "were", "be", "being", and "been" as much as possible. These verbs house no images, actions, or concrete details. During the editing process, make a sweep for any Helping Verbs, and replace those lines with solid, specific verbs instead.

When describing a smell, don't use the cop-out phrase "the smell of" or "the scent of". Everyone does that. Smells are the hardest thing to convey in writing, but you'll find a way. Think action and image.

If you feel stuck and don't know how to continue a poem, take each line and write another line in response to, or as an expansion of it. Write a one sentence summary of your poem and its essence. Highlight every noun and verb to better understand where each sentence or line is headed.

Poetry (and all writing) functions as an extension of your body. Indulge your senses to spark your imagination-- eat a mint, light a candle, take a walk, listen to music, lay in soft blankets, and so on.

Make yourself as comfortable as possible. If your chair hurts to sit in, or you're hungry, or your pen sucks, you'll have more difficulty focusing. It's okay to indulge in a $20 pen that writes more smoothly, or a notebook that doesn't strain your wrists. Eliminate as many small, negative physical sensations as possible.  

Avoid rhyming unless it's internal rhyme or slant rhyme. It worked a hundred years ago, but these days not so much, especially if you have to force it. Breaking free of forced rhyme opens your writing up to many more possibilities.

And finally, this one is a bit out there: Find your Source. Where does your writing, your art really come from? The Romantic Poets viewed poetry as half external divine nature, and half human, but that may not work for everyone. It helps to visualize your Source as a specific physical place, with a time of day, smell, sound(s), bodily sensations, etc. Mine is a small pool I once saw at Skyline Caverns in Virginia, the surface so still that it reflected the ceiling like a mirror. It's a place of soft, cool wind, yet warmth all over my body, focused on the right side, around my waist, arm, and shoulder. It's both in me and outside of me. This may sound weird but if you can find it, and better understand your own art, it really, really  helps.

Good luck out there! And feel free to shoot me suggestions for this list.

[soloplaying]

Bendy and the Ink Machine: "Dreams Come to Life"

Guess what I got my hands on!

My Rating: I'd say...about 3 out of 5 stars. Or a solid B/B-

I really wanted to like this book, and there were aspects that I did enjoy. It was a quick and easy read, the original characters were engaging, and the last 30-40 pages were great! Unfortunately, too much of the rest of it felt like an original coming of age novel had taken a wrong turn into a back alley where our favorite BatIM characters happened to be loitering, rather than a novel rooted in the source material. It was unfocused and, while neither side of the story was bad, trying to mash them together made the final product a bit unsatisfying.

(I probably don’t need to say this, but…spoilers below the cut.)

The Good, the Bad, and the Meh:

The Good:

Buddy, Buddy's family, and Dot. I liked the focal original characters, for what they were worth. The author did a good job of making the reader feel for them and put a lot of effort into making them well-rounded. We just spent way more time with them than necessary.

The Setting. Joey Drew Studios, Buddy's home, and New York as a whole. The story was descriptive in a very sensory way, really making you feel the heat in that long-ago New York summer and the visceral differences between Buddy's world and Joey's farce. This was also effective at highlighting differences between Buddy’s perceptions at the beginning and end of the book.

Joey. Joey is the one game character in the book that received a decent bit of exploration and development. Buddy's initial infatuation with Joey's empty promises and charisma giving way to cold facts and the creeping horror of realization about how twisted he actually is...that's interesting to observe.

Sammy, Norman, Tom, Allison, Henry. To be clear, Henry's not actually present. At all. But the few lines we get about him are almost as much as we get from the game characters that are working at the studio at the time of the novel. What tiny bits we get about them are nice, though! Especially Sammy and the final conversation between Buddy and Tom.

The Studio. It feels properly creepy and convoluted. Since Buddy and Dot spend a significant amount of time exploring it, the studio's atmosphere receives a lot more focus than many other parts of the plot. It doesn’t quite match the game studio’s layout, but that’s a nonsensical mess anyways.

The Meh:

The Ink Demon. I couldn't figure out whether to put this in the positive or negative bracket so I'm leaving it somewhere in between. "Bendy" is properly terrifying and twisted and there's something that hits you right in the gut when you find out it's locked up in a tiny room alone, howling mournfully, when Buddy finds it. Then it gets out and starts killing people and that sympathy goes away very fast. However, it doesn't really feel like the Ink Demon from the game. In the book, it acts like a beast when Buddy sees it but, when you actually stop to think about it, its actions don't make sense for an animal driven by instinct. What is it actually doing most of the time? This might be a sign that it changes between the time of the novel and the game, but its actions in the novel are so contradictory that I think it’s a mistake. So....it's good as a typical PG-13 horror monster, but it doesn't feel like the Ink Demon, or "Bendy", despite the descriptions.

The Subplots. The many, many subplots. Don't get me wrong, I like Buddy, but hyper-focusing on him so much was extremely detrimental to the rest of the story. He had about six different things going on in his life and the first person POV meant the reader was stuck with him for every second of it. This brings us to the biggest problem in the novel and the cons section.

The Bad:

Buddy's Story. Thing is, it isn’t bad. It's a coming of age story about an artistic kid from the wrong side of town trying to find himself in post-WWII New York. It just...has nothing to do with Bendy and the Ink Machine. Even when Buddy is hired by Joey, there's about one page of studio investigation for every ten pages of Buddy's personal life struggles. It felt like the author started writing the first plot then tried to cram Bendy and the Ink Machine into it later on. And it really feels like the author cares more about the coming of age novel than the Bendy/Studio stuff. Joey was a key figure in the book but it was less about his madness driving the studio to ruin and more about Buddy trying to find a role model/mentor and being let down hard. (All of this is until the last forty pages or so, until Buddy talks to Tom and Allison at the party. Then it FINALLY feels like a BatIM book.)

The lack of time spent with the BatIM characters other than Joey. I liked what little we got of them, but I swear there were maybe ten pages, combined, of their roles in a book that was almost 200 pages. That includes Norman, Sammy, Tom, and Allison. Sammy might have gotten a bit more simply because Buddy thought about him a lot, but he wasn't actually present any more than the others, he just got name-dropped more often.

The limited first-person perspective. There are plenty of cases where this is a good choice, but in this book, it was very restrictive. Buddy didn't know much, wasn't interested in knowing much, and didn't focus on the things that the reader found most interesting. We all understand needing to make money to care for our loved ones, but he’s working in an increasingly demonic (haunted?) animation studio. Focus, Buddy! Every time the plot seemed to be teasing something interesting, Buddy ran away from it and, since we were tied to him in first person, we never got to see what happened after he left. If we’d cycled between characters in first-person, that would have been a different matter…but we didn’t.

The lack of Bendy. And Boris. And Alice. Buddy wants to draw, clearly, but most of the time, he just talks about learning to draw and wanting to make cartoons. The subject matter doesn't seem to be important, so even though we're in Joey Drew Studios, Buddy rarely talks or thinks about the titular character beyond lines on a page. The entire book, 'Bendy' just felt like a name dropped every now and then, not the beloved 'dancing demon'.

Buddy's Fate. Getting turned into Boris, I can accept. It's the rest of it. The whole "I took off into the depths of the studio where not even Joey Drew could find me and I watched as it grew and changed, then I decided to write this for Dot.". What? WHERE did he stay? And WHY? Joey was still sacrificing people, and he did nothing to stop it? What was he eating, if bacon soup wasn't all over the place yet? How did he remain undetected in the pre-warped studio? He had family - did he not try to contact them? What about Dot? She still worked there and understood what was going on - he never tried to talk to her? Send her a note? ANYTHING? Why did he write the book AFTER the studio was abandoned? On the face of it, this is a weak resolution, but it's actually worse – all of this is completely out of character for the Buddy we've come to know during the novel.

The whole 'mentally turning into Boris' thing. I get that Buddy's writing a retrospective, but we get a few paragraphs of rambling about his mental state every five chapters or so and it's never consistent – Buddy’s voice is the same the rest of the time, no matter how much he says he’s slowly sliding into Boris. It just serves to remind the reader that they're reading a BatIM prequel. It would have been a better choice to put a longer introduction from his human perspective in the beginning and a fragmented, more 'Boris' follow-up at the end to show the degradation of Buddy's mind.

*Sigh*

It would have been so much better if the author had followed a character more invested in the studio instead of their own life. If it had to be an original character in the current book, it should have been Dot. Better yet, it should have been Tom or Norman – they are both well-known game characters who were personally involved in the horrors going on behind the scenes and Norman came to an end just as bad as Buddy's. Plus, they would have been more focused on the game characters rather than the original characters.

I got the ebook for about $5 and I don’t regret buying it, but I probably won't read it again.

In Short:

The last 30-40 pages were great and everything you could want from a Bendy and the Ink Machine novel. The rest of it read like the author was trying to Frankenstein together a coming of age novel and a short horror story without much success. Other than Joey, that is; the 'unscrupulous, delusional businessman who pushes too far' character fit well into both sides of the story.

[spamzineglasgow]

(REVIEW) All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything To Everyone, by Joe Dunthorne

Is it fiction, is it poetry, is it truth — what are the rules here? Kirsty Dunlop tackles the difficult, yet illustrious art of the poet bio in this review of Joe Dunthorne’s All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything To Everyone (Rough Trade Editions, 2018).

Whenever I read a poetry anthology - I hope I’m not the only one - I go to the bios at the back before I read the poems…it’s also a really strange thing when you publish a poem…you brag about yourself in a text that is supposed to sound distant and academic but is actually you carefully calculating how you’ll present yourself.

> It’s the middle of a night in 2019 and I’m listening to a podcast recording from Rough Trade Editions’ first birthday party at the London Review Bookshop, and this is Dunthorne’s intro to the reading from his pamphlet All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything To Everyone (2018). As I lie there in that strange limbo space of my own insomnia, Dunthorne’s side-note to his work feels comfortingly intimate because it rings so true (the kind of thing you might admit to a friend over a drink after a poetry reading rather than in the performative space of the reading itself). Like Joe, and yes surely many others, I am also fascinated by bios - particularly because I find them so awkward to write/it makes me cringe writing my own/this is definitely the kind of thing you overthink late at night. Bios also function as this alternative narrative on the margins of the central creative work and they do tell a story: take any bio out of context and it can be read as a piece of flash fiction. When we are asked to write bios, there is this unspoken expectation that we follow certain rules in our use of language, tone and content. Side note: how weird would it be if we actually spoke about ourselves in this pompous third person perspective irl?! Bios themselves are limbo spaces (another kind of side note!) where there is much left unsaid and often the unsaid and the little that is said reveals a lot. Of course, some bios are also very, very long. Dunthorne’s pamphlet plays with this limbo space as a site of narrative and poetic potential: prior to All The Poems, I had never read a short story actually written through the framework of a list of poet bios. The result is an incredibly funny, honest and playful piece of meta poetic prose that teases out all the subtle aspects of the poet bio-sphere and ever since that first listen, I can’t stop myself re-reading.

> This work is an exciting example of how formal constraints in writing can actually create an exhilarating sense of narrative liberation. I see this really playful, fluid Oulipo quality to the writing, where the process of using the bio as constraint is what makes the rollercoaster reading experience so satisfying as well as revealing a theatrical stage for language to have its fun, where the reality of our own calculated self performance can be teased out bio by bio. The re-reading opens up a new level of comedy each time often at the level of wordplay. I’ll maybe reveal some more of that in a wee bit.

> It’s a winding road that Dunthorne takes us on in his narrative journey where the micro and the macro continually fall inside each other. So perhaps this review will also be quite winding. Here is another entry into the text: we begin reading about the protagonist Adam Lorral from the opening sentence, who we realise fairly quickly is struggling to put together a ground-breaking landmark poetry anthology. His bio crops up repeatedly in varying forms:

‘Adam Lorral, born 1985 is a playwright, translator and the editor-publisher of this anthology.’

‘Adam Lorral is a playwright, translator and the man who, morning after morning, stood barefoot on his front doorstep […]’

‘Adam Lorral is a playwright, translator and someone for whom the date Monday, October 14th, 2017 has enormous meaning. Firstly Adam’s son started smiling.’

The driving circularity of this repetition pushes the narrative onwards, whilst the language is never bogged down: it hopscotches along and we can’t help but join in the game. Amidst a growing list of other characters/poets- that Adam may or may not include in this collection he seems to be pouring/ draining his energy into, with just a little help from his wife’s family money- tension begins to build.  

> Although Adam is overtly the protagonist in the story, to my mind it is, in fact, Adam’s four-week-old son who is the real heroic figure. Of course this baby doesn’t have a bio of his own but he does continually creep into Adam’s (he’s another side note!). He comes off as the only genuine character: there is no performance, no judgement, he just is. Adam is continually amazed by his son’s mental and physical development which is far more impressive than the growth of this questionable anthology. The baby is this god-like figure, continually present during Adam’s struggles, with the seemingly small moments of its development taking on monumental significance. Adam might try to immerse himself fully in this creative work but the reality of his family surroundings will constantly interrupt. This self-deprecating, reflective tone led me to think about how Dunthorne expansively explores the idea of the contemporary poet and artist identity through metanarrative. In Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2016), he writes ‘There is embarrassment for the poet – couldn’t you get a real job and put your childish ways behind you?’ In a recent online interview with the poet Will Harris[1], when asked about his own development as a writer, he spoke about how the career trajectory of a poet is a confusing phenomenon and I’ve heard many other poets speak of this too: there are perhaps milestones to pass but they are not rigid or obvious and, of course, they are set apart from the milestones of more ‘adult’, professional pursuits. I think Dunthorne’s short story accurately captures this confusion around artistic, personal and intellectual growth and the navigation of the poetry community, through these minute, telling observations and the rejection of a simplistic narrative linearity. The story doesn’t make any hard or fast judgements: like the character of the baby, the observations just are. Sometimes, it feels like this project could be one of the most important aspects of Adam’s life (it might even make or break it) and we are there with him and at other moments it seems quite irrelevant to the bigger picture, particularly as the bios get more ridiculous. Here, I just have to highlight one of the bios which perfectly evokes this heightened sense of a poet’s importance:

Peter Daniels’ seventh collection The Animatronic Tyrannosaurus of Guadalajara, is forthcoming with Welt Press. He will not let anyone forget that he edited Unpersoned, a prize-winning book of creative transcriptions of immigration interviews obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, even though it was published nearly two decades ago. His poetry has been overlooked for all previous generational anthologies and it is only thanks to the fine-tuned sensibilities of this book’s editor that has he finally become one of the chosen. You would expect him to be grateful.

> Okay…so I said above that there weren’t hard or fast judgements; maybe I should retract that slightly. The text definitely doesn’t feel like a cruel critique of poets generally (its comedy is too clever for that) but, yes, there are a fair few judgements from Adam creeping into those bios. I am so impressed with the way in which Dunthorne is able to expertly navigate Adam’s perspective through all these fragments to create this growing humour, as the character can’t help inserting his own opinions into other poets’ bios. Of course, we are also able to make our own judgements about Adam and his endearing naivety: shout out here to my fave character in the story, Joy Goold (‘exhilaratingly Scottish’) who has submitted the poem, Fake Lake, to the anthology. Hopefully if you’re Scottish, you can appreciate the comedy of this title. Adam Googles her and cannot find any trace of her, which feels perfect…almost too good to be true.

> Dunthorne plays with cliché overtly throughout the text. You could say all the poets in this story are exaggerated clichés but that certainly doesn’t make them boring: it just adds to the knowing intimacy that, yes, feels slightly gossipy (which I can’t help but enjoy). For example, there is the poet who has:

[…] won every major UK poetry prize and long ago dispensed with modesty […] Though he does not need the money he teaches on the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His latest collection is Internal Flight (Faber/FSG). He divides his time between London and New York because they are both lovely.

I am leaving out a fair bit of this bio because I don’t want to take away some of the joy of simply reading this text in its entirety but it is one of many tongue-in-cheek observations that feels very accurate and over-the-top at the same time (I feel like everyone in the poetry community knows this person). It is also even more knowing when you consider that Dunthorne actually has published a collection with Faber, O Positive (2019), a totally immersive read that also doesn’t shy away from poking fun at its speaker throughout. I always like seeing the ideas that repeatedly crop up in a writer’s work and explorations of calculation and cliché are at the forefront of this collection. I keep thinking of this line from the poem ‘Workshop Dream’:

We stepped onto the beach. The water made the sound: cliché, cliché, cliché.

Interestingly, there is this hypnotising dream-like quality to O Positive - with shape shifting figures, balloonists, owls-in-law – in contrast to the hyper realism I experienced in the Rough Trade pamphlet. However, like All the Poems, in O Positive, we’re always one step inside the writing, one step outside, watching the poem/short story being written. It’s this continual sensation of being very close to failure and embarrassment/cringe. (I can also draw parallels here between Dunthorne’s exploration of this theme and the poet Colin Herd who speaks so brilliantly about the relation between poetry and embarrassment- see our SPAM interview.) Failure is just inevitable in this narrative set up. It makes the turning point of the narrative- when it arrives- all the funnier:

As Adam typed, he hummed the chorus to the Avril Lavigne song–why d’you have to go and make things so complicated?–and smiled to himself because he was keeping things simple. Avril Lavigne. Adam Lorral. Their names were a bit similar. He was looking for a sign and here one was.

> If it isn’t clear already, this is a story that I could continually quote from but to truly appreciate the work, you should read it in its beautiful slim pamphlet format created by Rough Trade Editions. For me, the presentation of this work is as important as the form: this story would have a different effect and tone if it was nestled inside a short story collection. I think a lot of the most exciting creative writing right now is being published by the innovative small indie presses springing up around the UK. Recently I listened to a great podcast by Influx Press, featuring the writer Isabel Waidner: they spoke about both the value of small presses taking risks with writers and the importance of recognising prose as an experimental field, rightly recognising that experimental work often seems to begin with, or be connected to, the poetry community. Waidner’s observation felt like something I had been waiting to hear…and a change that I had noticed in writing being published in the last few years in the UK. I could mention so many examples alongside the work of Rough Trade Books: Waidners’s We are Made of Diamond Stuff (2019), published by Manchester-based Dostoyevsky Wannabe, Eley William’s brilliant Attrib. and Other Stories (Influx Press, 2017), the many exciting hybrid works put out by Prototype Publishing, to name just a few. There is also a growing interest in multimedia work, for example Visual Editions, who publish texts designed to be read on your phone through their series Editions at Play (Joe Dunthorne did a brilliant digital-born collaborative text with Sam Riviere in 2016, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, I would highly recommend!). But this concept of combining the short story with a pamphlet format, created by Rough Trade Books as part of their Rough Trade Editions’ twelve pamphlet series, feels particularly exciting to me and is a reminder of why I love the expansive possibilities of shorter prose pieces. Through its physical format, we are reminded that this is a prose work you can read like a series of poems without losing the narrative tension that is so central to fiction. The expansiveness of the reading possibilities of Dunthorne’s short story also reminds me of Lydia Davis’s short-short stories. Here’s one I love taken from The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Penguin Books, 2009):

They take turns using a word they like

“It’s extraordinary,” says one woman. “It is extraordinary,” says the other.

You could read this as a sound bite, an extract from an article, a writing exercise or a short story, the possibilities go on; there is a space created for the reader and consequently it encourages the unravelling of re-reading (which feels like a very poetic mode to me). Like Davis, Dunthorne’s work also highlights how seemingly simple language can be very powerful and take on many subtle faces and tones. I think short forms are so difficult to get right but when you encounter all the elements of language, tone, pacing, style, space, tension brought together effectively (or calculatingly as Dunthorne might say), it can create this immersive, highly intimate back-and-forth play with the reader.

> All The Poems Contained Within Will Mean Everything to Everyone. The title tells us there is a collection of poems here that are hidden: the central work has disappeared leaving behind the shadowy remains of the editor’s frustration and the marginalia of the bios. We feel the presence of the poems despite not actually reading them. The pamphlet’s blurb states that this: ‘is the story of the epiphanies that come with extreme tiredness; that maybe, just maybe the greatest poetry book of all is one that contains no poems.’ The narrative, as well as making fun of itself, also recognises that poetry exists beyond the containment of the poems themselves: it can be found in the readings, the performances, the politics, the drafts, the difficulties, the funding, the collaboration, the collectivity, the bios.

> A friend of mine recently asked me: Where are all the prose parties?…And what might a prose party look like? We were chatting about how a poetry party sounds much cooler (that’s maybe why there’s more of them). I think prose is often aligned with more conventional literary forms, maybe closed off in a way that poetry is seen to be able to liberate, but I think Dunthorne breaks down these preconceptions and binaries around form and modes of reading in All The Poems. I want to be at whatever prose party he’s throwing.

[1] University of Glasgow’s Creative Conversations, Sophie Collins interviewing Will Harris, Monday 4th May 2020 (via Zoom)

~

Text: Kirsty Dunlop Published: 10/7/20

[2studentsoforeignlanguages]

TEXT TALK NOVELS

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION

A Text Talk Novel or Cell phone Novels (Japanese: 携帯小説) it is a literary work written, as you can infer, on a cellular phone via text messaging. 

This phenomenon emerged almost 20 years ago and arrived in the English language world in 2008. It that way it began a new literary movement among thousands of young writers and readers all over the globe, first on Textnovel.com and now also on Wattpad.

We can say that this "not that new" literacy movement is a remarkably unique new form of writing, it is in fact, a fusing serialized online storytelling with a simple haiku-like poetic technique (a type of short-form poetry originally from Japan) and with prose narrative. 

When it comes to the structure of these cell phone novels, each page or chapter is usually averaging around 50-100 words, implementing white space, fragments, deeply personal thoughts or ideas, or emotions. However, there are no restrictions on genres, form, style, or content. 

THE ORIGINS 

A young man named Yoshi, who originated from Japan, started writing a novel in his mobile phone including short chapters that could fit in an email message. He sent it to his closest friends and then forwarded, suddenly, this novel became worldwide known. 

It is important to highlight that the different technological devices in Japan were more advanced than the Western counterparts back then. These tools were capable of 3G internet networks and email messaging and did not have SMS text limitations.

Since Yoshi’s “Deep Love” was known, more and more publishers and writers decided to embrace this new trend and as a consequence many Apps, as well as websites, were created in order to allow Japanese people not only to read them but also to publish their own stories online pen names and secret identities. 

Inspiring a new generation of amateurs writers, the majority of them were high school students expressing very personal, emotional, existential, and controversial topics that may be considered taboo in the Japanese culture, topics such as bullying, rape, abortion, friendship using a colloquial vocabulary.

These books have then accumulated millions of reads and readership, published into print form and made into films, TV drama, anime and manga, and so on. The top five bestselling books each year in Japan are often cell phone novels. Some famous examples are: “Koizora” (Love Sky), “Akai Ito” (Red String of Fate), “Kimi No Sei” (It’s Your Fault), “Moshimo Kimi Ga” (If You) and more: http://hakaiya.com/20101204/movie-12945

THE WRITING STYLE

The concept set off the combination of narration and poetry, creating short chapters using white space, line breaks, fragments, poetic devices, and focusing on sensory, emotional, or dialogue content, you will find many cliffhangers. Each chapter is less than 200 words and averages around 50-100. 

This type of style opens doors to creativity and imagination; it encourages young writers to reflect deeply about choosing the most accurate diction and layout and to think outside the box and at the same time to deliver the maximum potency in between the lines. In addition, it motives a haiku-style sentimental art form.

It actually allows writers to sound more sophisticated and literary beyond their age just by using their sensitivity and perception of their tiny moments in life. On the other hand, Text Talk Novels inspire to return to literature and poetry, even though its content is related to pop and youth culture in general. 

What is amazing about this literary written work it's the fact that by using and bringing apps and social platforms it is widespread easily and everyone could have access. Due to social media writing or reading small chapters could be done between classes, during commutes, or even when you are lying in bed.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE MOVEMENT

Steve, K.T., or Takatsu, in 2008 introduced the English cell phone novel. After some research and reading, he realized that there was no such thing as English cell phone novels, and seeing the potential of this literary form, he came across Textnovel.com (the first site in North America to recognize cell phone novels).Since there were not actual cell phone stories on the website, some Japanese cell phone novels were translated. 

Takatsu felt so inspired that he starts to experiment with his own original cell phone novel called “Secondhand Memories”. This novel became the very first English language cell phone novel in the West and in the world.

After publishing “Secondhand Memories” a lot of writers of all ages from all over the globe began to get involved in the community. After many years of work and leadership, these writers have been exploring and evolving the different possibilities and styles as well. Becoming more philosophical, artistic, and poetic or start to incorporate visual elements like changing fonts and sizes of fonts. 

In 2015, the community also expanded as the Wattpad Cell Phone Novel Network.

“The goodness of inspiration and connecting from art to heart, one heart to another, one life to another, is epitomized in the cell phone novel form, its deeply personal subculture and spirit, and its globalization.”-Takatsu. 

CELL PHONE NOVEL SAMPLES

Here are some samples from cell phone novels over the years.

Chapter 1, Secondhand Memories (2008) by Takatsu

It was July. She looked at me with a smile on her face. I smiled back. It was summer. School was off. I was in complete bliss. There was nothing better than this. With her beside me, nothing could go wrong. “Let’s go.” I heard myself say. She nodded.

Chapter 307, Secondhand Memories (2008) by TAKATSU

As we stood there, still in an embrace, all the color slowly returned to the world. The dark grey clouds above were scattering, golden sunlight released from Heaven’s gates above. Like honey, the grassy field in front of us turned colden, lit ablaze with vibrant color. The grass began to sway back and forth counting to a beat, dancing with the wind. I stood there, wide-eyed like a child in awe. Spring. Spring has come. Life. Life has returned.

Chizuru by EllieCue

Birds with the same feathers, flock together – I never knew what this adage means before. I mean, why do people group themselves according to “who” they are? Why can’t everyone just get along with each other? Like… …friends?

I hope you have enjoyed a lot reading about this  literary movement!

[meimi-haneoka]

Interesting facts from interview with CCS Clear Card producer Chiyo Kawazoe

The most recent issue of Animage, the 12/2017 one, features one interview with the producer of the upcoming Card Captor Sakura Clear Card anime, Ms. Chiyo Kawazoe. You probably remember her because she was attending the first world screening of Sakura and the two teddy bears OAD at AX back in July 2017!

This interview turned out to be as interesting as the one with character designer Hamada in Animedia!! I was able to read it, and while I’m not doing a complete translation, I will write here some interesting tidbits about the upcoming anime, including A MAJOR SPOILER about the gender of the Mysterious Cloaked Figure. I suggest you to skip the part surrounded by asterisks if you want to keep the surprise a bit longer.

First of all I want to thank @cutesxsherry for taking pics of the magazine for me the moment she had it in her hands! The article didn’t appear anywhere else as far as I know, so she really saved the day!!

Producer Chiyo Kawazoe starts the interview recalling the excitement of the audience during the screening of the Sakura and the two teddy bears OAD back in July at Anime Expo 2017, in Los Angeles. She says the venue was full and this encouraged her and made her very happy that the OAD was well received, especially after the long wait.

The interview follows with Kawazoe recognizing that “Sakura” is still a deeply loved work even 17/18 years since the end of the old anime, and she’s heard a lot of people saying “thankfully they’re the same”, referring to the staff and cast for the new anime. The Clear Card “stage” will be the same old Tomoeda city we knew and loved in the old anime, and she will do her best according to Sakura’s motto “Everything will surely be alright!”.

When asked what kind of concept the Official PV was based upon, Kawazoe says that she wanted to make Sakura interesting to the eyes of the people seeing her for the first time, showing her normal schoolgirl life but also that she uses magic, and make them wonder “That girl is cute, what kind of girl is she?”.

The new anime will be aimed not only to the old fans, but it will try to convey the feelings of the whole staff to the girls of the same age as Sakura ( ~12 ). We will be able to understand which specific feelings those will be, after watching the whole anime. Kawazoe says that if Clear Card will stay in our hearts even after it’s over, she’ll be happy.

To Kawazoe, the highlight of Clear Card is the fact that it will be based on the original manga, with Sakura’s battle costumes and Clear Card designs done by Mokona (CLAMP). She also says that they have plans for new battle costumes that never appeared in the manga.

She proceeds to talk about Akiho Shinomoto and Yuna D. Kaito, the new characters of this arc, with Akiho being “the key character that will get the Clear Card story moving” . There’s no way to know more than that from her, though.

When asked about the apparent similarity between Sakura and Akiho’s names, Kawazoe’s teasing reply is “Oh who knows about that, I’m looking forward to what is hiding behind that (laughs)”. She’s interested about wrapped-in-mystery Kaito too.

The next question is about how much Sakura changed, now that she’s a junior high schooler. Kawazoe says “The fact that she’s a junior high schooler might deceive people (in thinking she changed a lot), but since at the end of the second movie Sakura was in 6th grade , not much time has passed since then, so there’s no big change in her, physically. It’s just that her school uniform changed from the elementary school one to the junior high school one.” The thing that will change, however, will be the technological gadgets, such as smartphones to call eachother or sending messages. This is pretty much the only thing that will change, as they didn’t want to touch  the basic core of the character [Sakura], who is a girl very dedicated to everything she does.

BEWARE SPOILERS AHEAD

******************************************************************************************

Kawazoe then says: “This time the story starts with the Sakura Cards becoming transparent , triggered by the meeting with a mysterious girl in a dream”  For completeness sake, here’s the Japanese line:  今回のストーリーは、夢で不思議な少女に出会ったことがきっかけで、[さくらカード]が透明になってしまうところから始まります NOTE: This definition was reported THREE times in the body of the article, while in the caption under the screencap from the PV, it’s used a generic “mysterious person”.

******************************************************************************************

YOU CAN SAFELY READ FROM HERE

The story will develop around Sakura trying to find the cause of the Sakura Cards becoming transparent and unravel the whole mystery, and even though there are way too many things she doesn’t understands and should be feeling anxious about, she says “I will still live my everyday’s life as I should be, and in case something happens, I’ll try my best to do what I can”. Kawazoe thinks this is a very important lesson that Sakura is trying to convey to all of us.

Kawazoe talks about Tomoyo-chan…of course her basic personality won’t change, but she mentions that her equipment to take videos of Sakura will be super up-to-date!  She will of course shoot videos of Sakura anywhere, but she will also encourage her with her words when Sakura ends up in a bad situation. She will also carefully soften the atmosphere, blowing the anxiety away, when needed.

About Syaoran…she only says that, since he will look more cool, ”Female fans, please wait for it!“. She also says that she was very surprised to hear the female audience, back in April (at the Sakura Festival), cheering for Syaoran just as much as they did for Touya and Yukito…

The interviewer asks about Sakura and Syaoran’s relationship in Clear Card. Kawazoe replies: “Although their feelings are mutual, it’s not like those two prioritize love over everything. For instance, if there’s a person in need or a problem concerning the cards, Sakura would say "I’m sorry, Syaoran-kun” and run to that. That is to say, it’s not like there isn’t the classic “sweet and sour” love atmosphere between them, but Sakura draws strength from Syaoran to her heart, and Syaoran closely watches over her and assists her. Those two make us feel a wonderful sense of space”   NOTE: About that “space”, me and @rispen-hortensie have tried to better understand what Kawazoe meant with the words  素敵な距離感 , which I translated as “nice sense of distance” at first, but here’s her input that really clarifies the meaning : “It’s like she’s saying they’ve worked out a really healthy, admirable sense of boundaries. They aren’t clingy with each other, but they aren’t in danger of drifting apart, either. It’s hard to incorporate the word "distance” here because it almost always has a negative connotation when used to describe relationships in English.”

Kero will always be the same old Kero we know, with Aya Hisakawa (Kero’s VA) mastering his Osaka dialect and his ad-lib jokes.

Akiho and Kaito’s voices were chosen following the idea of bringing some freshness to a main cast composed by all the old voice actors. This is still part of the attempt to appeal the younger generation who asked for young voice actors. So they asked CLAMP what kind of voices they imagined for those two characters, found the candidates, and decided on Minori Suzuki and Natsuki Hanae after consulting with the director Morio Asaka.

The interview ends with Kawazoe saying that Clear Card arc will be enjoyable as an indipendent work even from those who never watched the old anime series of 18 years ago, provided it’s watched by Episode 1.

At the bottom of the second page, there’s a circle were they talk about the Release! and Secure! scenes: the wand release will be based off the old animation, but with some new parts, while the Secure! animation will feature crystal fragments dancing all around! Kawazoe is sure these scenes will get us excited!

Thank you for reading this loooooong post!! 

[her-culture]

19 Years, 19 Films

Works That Were Influential To Me As a Person and a Filmmaker

1997) Hercules (Wonder)

I remember wondering if there really were a bunch of colorful Gods and Goddesses above us after watching “Hercules.” At the time, I was not aware of Greek Mythology at all - and did not really become acquainted with it until high school. It made me more curious about the rest of the world, both on the ground and above it. Some of the most memorable films will always stick with us because they awaken a sense of wonder. Audiences tend to want or even need a fantasy to escape into. This amazement may in turn give them a more positive outlook on reality, or become a way to pique their interest in things they had never thought of before.

 1998) Antz (Personification)

“Antz” took me a few years to really grasp in its entirety because though it was presented as a fictional interpretation of how ants lived, it was replicating how our human society functions - maybe to suggest that people and insects share commonalities in terms of survival, or even to highlight how injustice can be wrong even in cartoon form. Even though the oppressed subjects were not human, that thought really rested in the back burner of my mind throughout the film. I saw the characters as relatable since they behaved and communicated like people actually do, which even involved causing pain to others. “Antz” really made me see how life can be unfair to many, but that it offers many opportunities for you to take control of your own destiny.

 1999) 10 Things I Hate About You (Emotion)

I was relatively young when I first saw “10 Things I Hate About You” so I didn’t necessarily understand all the mature content that accompanied some of the scenes, but I was able to understand the feelings of the characters very well - and not just in the basic sense like when they were happy, sad or mad, but in the more complicated sense when they were feeling vulnerable, hurt, joy, etc. From this film, I gathered that trusting people can be one of the hardest things for a person to do. Like Kat, I considered myself very antisocial, but because of a lack of faith in people, not just for the point of being rebellious. Like most viewers, that simple scene where Kat is reading the poem aloud made me tear up. The language was simple but it was what was going on behind the words that really struck me. This film definitely demonstrated how vast the spectrum of emotions really is. Sometimes we can’t always find ways to explain feelings, but people may understand what we’re talking about just by the way we show them.

 2000) Bring It On (Image)

Most would probably consider this film inappropriate for a ten year old to watch, but I was more than capable of handling its content. At first, I thought that “Bring It On” was just a comedy about cheerleading. Then it became clear that there were parts where the movie was mocking the celebration of arrogance, which made the film seem pretty deep. I had no idea during my first watch that what Gabrielle Union’s character was saying about the way the other team steals from her team had to do with how white people have historically taken things originally presented by people of color as their own. This image of women of darker shades being powerful, fierce and strong without any incorporation of stereotypes in their characters was nice to see. Winning the tournament wasn’t just about bragging rights, but also about making an example of those who steal other people’s moves and cultures as their own.

 2001) Training Day (Characterization)

Denzel Washington is a very influential actor in general, but I learned a lot in particular from his character Alonzo Harris in Training Day. Throughout the course of the film, Alonzo is training his protege Jake on how to handle unsavory characters of the world, only to later reveal that he is one of them. It’s not the easiest thing to create a character which manipulates the audience as much as the protagonist and that is what I admire most about this film. Many characters are shown as archetypes and are meant to have one distinct purpose to convey in the film, but the more impressionable characters are ones that play for two or more sides, since people cannot always be categorized as good and bad - most are in that grey area between the two. There is nothing wrong with making a likable antagonist.

 2002) Frida (Experiment)

Films based on real people in general can be a very challenging field to play on. In the case of the film “Frida,” I think it was a genius decision to use her background as an artist to help tell the story. Some would say that every film in a sense is experimental. I found this film to be such a wonderful blend of abstract and concrete scenes of Frida’s life. When dealing with the story of an actual person, keeping it factual is very important, but it would also benefit the story if you twist some of the events into something that is widely interpretable. It seems easier to do this when your subject is a very complex artist but I believe this can also apply to people who seem very straightforward. Play around with the fragments of details you are using to create a bigger picture. It is alright if not all things you include are clear right away or even at all. Human beings are messy, therefore their lives shouldn’t be painted so clean.

 2003) The Haunted Mansion (Representation)

Horror films of the recent past seemed to fall into a predictable mold for me, even the light scream ‘horror’ works produced by Disney. Though I never really liked movies based around frightening situations, I always felt that I would watch more of them if they featured characters that looked like me or anything different than the typical “supernatural disturbance in white suburbia” display. I watched “The Haunted Mansion” with my father many years ago. I wasn’t brave enough watch anything supposedly scary without my father’s presence nearby. Watching black people on screen without being too enhanced or stereotyped, facing situations they aren’t normally found in was very refreshing. Films starring black individuals don’t need to always revolve around the color of their skin, or the dangers of being black in a prejudiced environment. I loved that I could easily picture myself and even my family in this movie.

 2004) Mean Girls (Message)

During my first watch of “Mean Girls” many years ago, I can honestly admit that the deeper meaning behind this comedy wasn’t all that clear. Many films do have very deep messages hidden below the surface level, even those that were purposely meant not to be taken so seriously. After watching this film the second and even third time around throughout the years, I realized that this was such a creative social commentary. As a writer in various mediums, I am always tempted to wrap a serious topic in something a bit silly, not necessarily because I’m afraid to directly talk about an issue, but because sometimes it just makes the information more obtainable to people. I’ve noticed that a lot of screenwriters hesitate to write straightforward dramas because it may be overwhelming for an audience and they may not want the viewers to be completely sad or upset after watching the film. A comedy can be just as effective when it comes to bringing awareness and attention to many on a specific controversial issue - the bonus is just that people will laugh more while taking it in.

 2005) The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (Imagination)

I remember being super excited to watch this movie because it mirrored my desire to explore my dream world while I was awake. I even created and kept a dream journal after I saw this film so I could try to see if any of my random dreams had any common themes, traits or recurrences. Imagination is where most stories come from, even the ones that are true. This movie taught me that I have more power over what goes on while I sleep than I thought. There have been many occasions where the cure for my writer’s block was found within my dreams. Imagination is usually associated with kids, but it benefits us even as we get older. Your imagination is an unlimited world waiting to be visualized physically. Using mine to help create better stories has benefited me tremendously, especially with filmmaking.

 2006) Dreamgirls (Music)

One of the most influential films for me growing up was “Dreamgirls.” It inspired me to put deeper meaning into simple words the way people do when they sing them in a song. Music was a huge part of this plot, but even when music isn’t the main focus, it enhances everything about a particular scene or moment, especially when a character is in direct contact with a song or melody. Musicals make the audience very hyper aware of emotion. The moment you hear a song, you start making connections between it and everything that you see. Music is a character that plays a supporting role, and it wants to help the audience piece together these visuals and understand why that specific moment is significant. Overuse of music can take away from its impact in the film, so it is best to only have music come in when the moment calls for it. Is the silence creating a barrier between the audience and the scene? That’s when some music can form a connection between the real world and the one within a particular film.

 2007) Juno (Language)

I’m often overly aware of the language I use in my stories, because I worry that the audience might be thrown off if I go by exactly what feels natural, or what feels very abstract, but is done so for the purpose of creating emphasis on a subject. What I loved the most about “Juno” is that the language (passive aggressive yet bubbly) causes the audience at times to have to translate the dialogue in order to reveal what the character is actually feeling. When you don’t want or even don’t know how to visually show a certain feeling or thought, it’s best to have the character(s) come to it with words. Not only does this approach make the film more interesting to watch - it also adds a layer of aesthetic that will make the film stand out. Many classic films are unique because they have a trait that separates them from other movies, such as the way in which they manipulate language.

 2008) Slumdog Millionaire (Journey)

There is a common expression about the journey being more important than language and I find this very true, especially in the world of films. Once a destination is reached, not much else seems to stem from this except maybe that your character(s) might not exactly have found what they are looking for. Journeys are meant to be a period of tests and figuring out things that can’t be learned unless you have explored. In “Slumdog Millionaire” it’s shown from the beginning where he is, so the question becomes, how did he get there? Many people dislike the use of flashbacks in films but I feel that flashbacks are most effective when they increase a build up, or reveal something about the character you didn’t quite expect. When retracing the steps a character took, it is essential that you highlight only the moments that fill in large gaps and are hard to introduce into the plot any other way. Over time, the audience shouldn’t be able to see the character or characters, the same way they saw them in the beginning.

 2009) Precious (Raw)

“Precious” is the movie I’ve watched the most times in my life, more than any other. What keeps drawing me back is how it creates so much beauty out of so many ugly things that surround this character. We root for Precious not only because she is a dreamer, but because she survives her reality by reimagining it. I’ve learned so much from this film and I always discover something different during each watch, but one of the most valuable things I’ve learned is that rawness can be portrayed by more than just pain or extreme pressure. A raw depiction comes in the form of a strongly accurate feeling rather than a strongly accurate action. Precious is filled with a lot of hard moments as the audience grows to love her fighting spirit, but it is the moments where her spirit breaks that you find yourself forced to grapple with the same reality that she’s been trying to ignore. Occasionally you will have to let go of the safety net in a story. It keeps the character from falling and if we don’t seen the character at their worst, or most vulnerable, we cannot root for them to get back up or break free in some way. There are going to be times you need your character to have no control over themselves, have them be swept by the moment without trying to modify it in a way that makes it less unpleasant for both the character and the audience. Allow the rawness take over once in awhile.

 2010) Kick-Ass (Adrenaline)

Many viewers want to feel like they are moving even though they’ll most likely be sitting down the whole time. Excitement in the form of a mental adrenaline rush often happens in action movies where the audience is following characters in extremely and quickly escalating situations. People should not only feel like they are on the edge of their seats while they are watching, but also feel like they have joined in on the action. “Kick Ass” was a movie that made me feel as though I was being pulled into action with the characters. It is funny enough without being fake and serious enough without seeming too grounded in reality. Like many superhero films, these characters give us something to aspire to in terms of what could happen if we had super abilities. The characters are also relying on their own strength and that of other people without external powers. Not all movies with this content need to have lots of special effects in order to be effective at portraying very exciting fight scenes or other moments. Imagine that all you can use to help get your character out of a dangerous situation is what is on and around them - this will encourage them to use creative combat that can make an audience of average people think they would be able to overcome that obstacle as well. The viewers should stay energized even when the action simmers down for a moment. Leave the people watching anticipating the next chance they get to mentally join the battle.

 2011) The Help (Adaptation)

I hope to one day adapt a book or play into a film. My biggest concern with that has always been, how exactly do I write and show a piece that has already been published and do it justice cinematically? With the film “The Help,” I saw that one thing that makes this problem more manageable is to find the story within the story. Break apart the original source in a way that keeps the overall vision intact but adds an interesting perspective and/or twist to it. I appreciated that in this film, the main focus was on the events leading up to the making of the novel. When it comes to adapting any story that has already been fleshed out, I feel that it is up to you to retell it from a different angle, so it feels new even to the people who know the story well.

 2012) Beasts of the Southern Wild (Performance)

I remember watching “Beasts of the Southern Wild” for the first time and being so incredibly proud of Quvenzhané Wallis. Her performance as Hushpuppy was exhilarating to watch, especially knowing that this was her first major film. She is certainly a natural performer when it comes to portraying a child who has very little to hold onto except her imagination, which becomes our bridge into her vast world. Many directors may find that working with young children can come with many issues, but I would say that it is worth dealing with in the end when a child can so effortlessly show how to be imaginative in even the most dreary of circumstances. If you are patient enough with a child actor, especially one who has never acted in anything before, they may surprise you with a brilliant performance that not even you could’ve imagined.

 2013) Short Term 12 (Ensemble)

In my experience as a film watcher, most films have a clear star that either steals the show, or carries the whole film in a way that’s most engaging. It is not often where I find a film that has a group of actors which not only enhance the intrigue of the film but also equally carry its weight throughout the story. In “Short Term 12,” there is no doubt that Brie Larson delivers a strong lead, but without the assistance of the other characters (both supporting and minor), her characterization wouldn’t really keep us fixated on her for long. The film dives into the various relationships that caretakers share with the kids who enter the home and among themselves. There are clear moments where each character given a background story shines and where they share the spotlight. People tend to knowingly and unknowingly pick favorite characters in movies, especially when they see one they can relate to. For me, I adored some characters more than others, such as Marcus, a teen who was aging out and would soon be in the world on his own, but I couldn’t really bring myself to favor one over the other. It was like being given a package deal. Having a strong ensemble (with a wide range of different types of characters) is one of the many ways a film could make a longer lasting impression on audiences, especially those that are very diverse.

 2014) The Grand Budapest Hotel (Complexity)

I’ve recently started looking into more of Wes Anderson’s films after I saw “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” I was really shocked with how much I actually enjoyed this film. So much going on, especially within each scene, the whole film can be a lot to take in or enjoy. I’ve noticed that the key to pulling this off, at least in the case of this film, is having some sort of structure align all the commotion. It’s basically like having controlled chaos. The main actions in the scene are pulled into focus by smaller (but still relevant) actions which help build to a climax without looking abrupt or random. In this hotel, so much is going on (as a typical hotel) but as the main characters trickle in and out the frame, our attention goes from the seemingly mundane to something quite hectic. The quirkiness of all the characters becomes normalized almost instantly in comparison to the situation they find themselves in. The important thing in a situation like this if you want to go crazy with the set design and other elements, go all out, but do it in a way that cleverly serves as a guide into each scene that way the audience isn’t too overwhelmed with so much occurring at one time.

 2015) Room (Simplicity)

Most people like myself, have a hard time watching anything that takes place in one particular area for a while with no dramatic interruptions. It doesn't just have to do with attention span but also with expectation. Once we think we have figured out the next move in a plot, we gradually lose interest in seeing the reveal. With “Room” they are in a shed for a majority, or at least half the film. I believe that this stays interesting for that long because we are mostly looking at it from the perspective of Jack, a little boy stuck in there with his mom. To him, the shed takes on a whole universe so to us as the audience, we are looking at this universe in so many ways, trying to imagine what Jack sees. A lesson from this film is that capturing reality isn’t always focusing on what’s real and accurate, it can also be about how the characters within the world interpret the same place differently from others. The contrast and similarities between the perspectives can spark further intrigued while watching the film. So much is possible even with a simple setup.

 2016) Moonlight (Story)

Traditional Hollywood movies for the most part, have very clear messages. If a character doesn’t directly mention it in some way, we are shown what it is through a climax or resolving action before the end of the film. What stressed many people out about “Moonlight” was that throughout the film, we have watched this metaphoric water boil as Chiron’s life escalates with each given persona he takes on, but then we are left with no over flooding, or even a simmered result. His life when we last see him has gotten more closure, but it very unclear what the result of his newfound comfort would be, unless the audience were to interpret it themselves. I actually love this about the film. Sometimes a story isn’t meaningful because it gives us clarity, but because it gives us obscurity. “Moonlight” is a story that reflects human nature. Most of the questions you may ask yourself about the film probably have existential answers. Instead of dwelling so much on films having a specific purpose for being made, it is probably better to appreciate them for providing another way to interpret our own reality.

 2017) Get Out (Plot)

I have never been the biggest fan of movies in the horror genre. It’s usually the overuse of jump scares and gore that turns me away, along with the lack of POC playing important parts in the film. However, I’ve recently discovered that psychological thrillers might be a rising guilty pleasure of mine, since I saw “Get Out.” It’s a narrative that goes along with audience expectation, but also breaks it. This film incorporates the issue of race as a plot device. Blackness in itself becomes a character that we are following along with Chris. We assume only the worst automatically and are right to think so, but what I appreciated most about the role of blackness in this film was that it achieved a dynamic arch, meaning that it changed throughout the course of the film due to growth and newfound strength. The plot encouraged not only Chris, but his blackness to fight back. Even the other black characters who were taken captive were actively given opportunities to resist white supremacy from very subtle to extreme ways.

[kittypeas]

The Force Awakens and fairytales, part one: Snow Queen and Snoke

Thank you @ewa-a-nie-chce-spac​ for your encouragement and @shadowlass​ for inspiration :) I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a year, but recently few things happened that motivated me to do it:

Finally I had a chance to watch “Beauty and the Beast”. Well, I saw the animated version before but watching the new one only made me realize why I disagree so strongly with the conclusions of this fairytale. I was never a fan of this theory which highlights the parallels between Kylo and the Beast. Of course, there is some similarity in the outer layer and symbolism but the core of the story is totally different: while Beast is a proud and vain man and so his task in the story is to learn how to love another human being, Kylo is full of self-hatred and doubt and his main goal in this trilogy is learn how to love himself.

What is more, there are many fairytales that reflect more accurately the main motives visible in the Force Awakens. The two that, in my opinion, are the most fitting here are “Snow Queen” and “Prince Lindworm”. But let me say this: since I’ve become a part of this fandom I admired all those talented people who were creating amazing stores, drawing beautiful fanarts and those who put their extensive knowledge (from fabulously varied fields!) into use, writing metas. I also wanted to contribute and share those bits and pieces that I’ve collected during my studies. I decided to divide this post into two parts: the first one will be about the Snow Queen and I will discuss the similarities between the fairytale and TFA on the level of the plot and its symbolism. This one will be more like a summary. In the second part I will write about Prince Lindwom and more psychological stuff, like trauma, dissociation and archetypal defenses of personal spirit. However, I will focus on Kylo’s relation with Snoke in both parts, because I feel that there are still some things that need to be said.

I get a feeling that we forget about the fact that everything that exists and works for us somehow, is functional at least in some ways and as such it reinforces achievement of personal goals. This applies also to the dynamics of Kylo/Snoke relationship. In this respect TFA is very shallow, as it only shows the Resistance as good and morally right. But have you ever heard about people who were thinking that they are fighting on the “wrong side” of the war? Fortunately, fanfiction authors make up for this omission and write very interesting, nuanced stories. However, Snoke is usually described as this evil creature which does evil things only because he… likes evil things, I guess? He is corrupt, greedy and seeks power for the sake of power itself, which is psychologically improbable. He uses Kylo Ren as a tool and doesn’t hesitate to torture him on a whim, in which I don’t believe either because this is not how you get to rule the people. You do it by winning their hearts, and, even though there is this part inside Kylo Ren that wants to be humiliated as a punishment for “not being good enough”, I believe that this is just a reenactment of his relationship with his caregivers, and Snoke is just a parental figure whom Kylo willingly chose to perform this role.

But back to the issue at hand. Recently @forcechokehold​ asked a very interesting question that I think I have an answer for. Let me cite it first:

Do you ever think about how different Kylo Ren’s dynamic with his abuser/surrogate parental figure would have been if they were a female? Do you ever think about how that would have reflective on his relationship to Rey?

They were considering making Snoke a woman/female whatever-he-is and that bit of trivia reminded me of Eros’ relationship with his mother, Aphrodite in ‘Eros and Psyche’. The line “You have compassion for her” would have sounded even more possesive coming from a mother figure.

Actually the “Snow Queen” describes exactly the same scenario. “Snow Queen” tells a story in which Kay (similar to Kylo, isn’t it?) is abducted/seduced by cold and unfeeling Queen of the Icy North after a shred of ice wounds his heart. He forgets his family and lives with the Queen in her snowy castle. But brave Gertha, who used to be his friend, sets off for a journey to find him and even marches through endless winter with bare feet, determined to save Kay who, by that time, became Snow Queen’s servant, squire and, presumably, lover.

Sounds familiar?

Well it should! But first listen to read the story:

Everything started with the big mirror, created by the trolls. The mirror had this one peculiar characteristic that it showed the distorted image of both the world and the people living in it: everyone in it’s reflection seemed repulsive and ugly on the inside. Trolls lifted the mirror up above the ground, they were rising it higher and higher, to reflect the whole world in it, and they laughed so loudly and cruelly that the mirror slipped out of their hands and crashed into thousands of pieces that were swept by the wind. Some of them were used by people to make windows, and from now on they could not see friends through the glass. The smaller fragment were used to make eyeglasses, and everyone wore them saw only bad things. “In the evening, when the little Kay was half naked, he climbed to a chair by the window and peered through the crack in its frame. Several snowflakes fell, and one, the largest of them, lay on the edge of the pot.

The snowflake grew bigger and bigger until it was as big as a young lady, dressed in the most beautiful silk, made of millions of small petals, like the stars. She was so pretty and delicate, but she was made of ice, shining and glittering ice; Her eyes were staring motionless like two stars, but there was no peace in them. She nodded toward the window and summoned Kay with a wave of her hand. The boy was frightened and jumped from his chair...”

This last element is interesting. In some retellings the scene of the first real encounter between the Queen and the boy is changed to portray the abduction of a defenseless child. Just like people sometimes picture Kylo’s relationship with Snoke. Yes, the evil creature targeted this boy from the beginning of his life. Yet, in the fairytale, there was something in Kay that made him wait by the window frame and which allowed him to see the Queen. Similarly, it was something in Kylo that made it possible for him to hear Snoke, and something that made him obedient to his voice.

It is exactly at this moment in the Snow Queen fairytale - not earlier! – that Kay gets wounded by the pieces of mirror:

“It was one of the pieces from the magical mirror, and poor Kay was stabbed in the heart. It was no longer painful, but the splinter was still there, and his heart became hard and cold like ice.

Since then Kay's plays has become different. He made fun of Gertha and pulled out all of her flowers from the pots. The only thing that seemed to interest him was watching snowflakes, "look how funny it is!" He said, "much more interesting than real flowers. Those are as accurate as possible, they would have no flaws if only they did not melt!"

Kay, just like Kylo, believes that he only deserves respect, if he deserves admiration. His judgments are cruel to others and to himself, but the boy no longer tells apart his own thoughts from the Snow Queen's whispers. Finally, one snowy morning, when everyone plays in the city square, Kay sees there a beautiful sleigh. Without thinking he attaches his small sledge to it and is taken away:

“The big sleighs stopped, and the person who was driving them them rose from her place. She was a woman; Her coat and cape were made of snow, she was tall and slim and her face was shining bright. She was the Snow Queen.

"We were traveling fast," she said; "But it is frigidly cold. Come, come under my bear skin. " And she sat the boy in the sleigh next to her, wrapped him in fur, and he felt as if he were falling into a snowdrift.

"Are you still cold? She asked and kissed him on the forehead. Ah! The kiss was colder than ice, penetrated to the bottom of his heart, which was almost frozen like a stone. He thought he was going to die, but after a while it felt quite pleasant and he did not mind the cold around. (...) The Snow Queen kissed Kay again, and then he forgot Gertha, his grandmother, and all those he had left at home.

"There will be no more kisses," she said, "otherwise you would die." Kay looked at her. She was very beautiful; she was much wiser and had more wonderful face than he could have ever imagined. And she did not seem to be made from ice as he saw her before, when he was sitting by the window, and she was calling him to her; in his eyes she was perfect, he was not afraid of her and he told her that he could add and subtract in his head and do fractions and that he could tell how many square miles and inhabitants there were in different countries, She always smiled at him, and he then thought that he surely did not know enough, and he looked up into the wide expanse of heaven, into which they rose higher and higher as she flew with him on a dark cloud, while the storm surged around them, the wind ringing in their ears like well-known old songs.

They flew over woods and lakes, over oceans and islands, the cold wind whistled down below them, the wolves howled, the black crows flew screaming over the sparkling snow, but up above, the moon shone bright and clear—and Kay looked at it all the long, long winter nights; in the day he slept at the Snow Queen's feet”

The Snow Queen seems beautiful, clever and wise (“Supreme leader is wise!”), truly refined, and the most important of her assets is her cool intellect with which Kay wants to compete. While Gertha will ask the stream, the flowers, and the sun about Kay, he, during sleepless nights will stare at the empty face of the moon. And just like Rey is “the ray of sunshine” the junior novelization describes Kylo as follows:

“Ben had the wavy dark hair that Han remembered, now shoulder length. His mother's cheeks, Han's chin. Yet everything about him was narrow and stark, as if he had starved himself of nourishment. And his eyes were not the brown eyes Han remembered. They were dim and dark and terribly sad.”

Yet we must not forget that TFA is not only a story about Kylo but also about first of all about Rey who undergoes a certain transformation, just the way Gertha did:

Meanwhile in the fairytale the girls puts on her red shoes and sets off in search of a friend. On her way she visit the garden where the plants tell her fairy tales, she meets the crows that lead her to the palace of the young royal couple; Everyone is deeply touched by Gertha's story and everyone is helping her fulfill her mission the best as they can. The  most important part of her journey is the moment in which is attacked by thieves and becomes the property of a small robber girl, her alter-ego: "You will sleep with me today, with all my animals," said the little thief. They ate and drank and went to the corner where supplies and carpets lay. Beside, there were almost a hundred of pigeons sitting on the perches, all seemingly aslep, but they moved when a little bandit came. "All of them belong to me," she said, and grabbed the legs of one of the pigeons closest to her, and shook him, and he waved his wings. "Kiss him!" She exclaimed and shoved him in Gertha's face. "If they were not tethered they would fly away immediately! And this is my old reindeer, "she said and grabbed the horns of the reindeer, which had a copper ring on its the neck, to which the post was attached. "We must tie him, otherwise he would run away! Every night, I tickle his neck with my sharp knife, he is so scared of it! ", And the girl put a long knife through the crack in the wall and slid it over the reindeer’s neck. Poor animal began to kick, and the girl laughed and pulled Gertha back to bed. “Why do you go to bed with a knife? "Gertha said, looking at the knife with fear. "I always sleep with a knife," said the bandit. "You never know what can happen. Now tell me once more about the little Kay. Why do you travel accross the world alone? " The robber girl is uncouth and ruthless but courageous, with a heart that is capable of kindness. She is not entirely sure whether to help Gertha and many times threatens to kill her, but finally gives her a reindeer and supplies and lets her go to continue her search for Kay. Up to this point, Gertha was crying, waiting or wandering in her search almost aimlessly, just like Rey was hindered in her journey by hesitation and attachment to her past. Only after Gertha confronts the little thief, she can discover the strength to move through the snow to the Queen's castle. On the way she meets a Saami shaman (and Rey meets Maz). In fairytales the wizards are masters of craftsmanship and military arts (see: Yoda) and enchantresses are the ones who show you how to live: ... [the shaman said:] "I can not give her more power than she already has. Can not you see how great she is? You do not see how men and animals are obliged to serve her; How she travels the whole world with bare feet? This power does not come from the magic, it comes from her heart!..."

The girl has bare feet! In TFA, Kylo is a prince, wealthy and powerful, while Rey is only a desert rat from a desolate planet. (“somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you. You. A scavenger.) Yet she is the one who defeats him in the end! Similarly, Gertha does not look like a princess but it is she who succeeds to change Kay’s heart.

In the meantime Kay was thinking only about the task entrusted to him by the Snow Queen: from geometric pieces of ice he was creating new patterns, trying to make the word "eternity" - what could be more perfect than eternity? The queen told him that if he could handle the task and touch this ideal form, then "he would become master of himself", she would give him the whole world as a gift together with and a pair of skates. ..."It is true that Kay is staying at the Queen's palace and everything is to his liking in there. He thinks it is the best place in the world and the reason for this is the glass pieces - one in his eye and one in the heart "...

In this fairytale the traditional roles are reversed - Kay is a passive hostage, and Gertha is his savior. Similarly, in TFA, Rey is the true hero of the story but her destiny is intertwined with Kylo’s fate. Both “Snow Queen” and TFA describe an unhealthy relationship with parental figure.

The Snow Queen is a personification of Kay’s narcissism, just as Kylo’s attachment to Snoke is built on his narcissistic need for perfection and appraisal.  

An authentic relationship with another person can bring salvation. At the same time it is the source of hope and the cause of fear. Snow Queen and Snoke perform the role of guardians and persecutors who defend Kay and Kylo from dangerous and fear-inducing, vulnerable feelings in so-called “attacks on linking” (Bion), in other words, a perceived need to sever any attachment . It is visible when Snow Queen orders Kay to forget about his past, friends and family and also when Snoke “tells” Kylo to kill his father… But really no such thing happens, Snoke only warns Kylo that the meeting with Han Solo is unevitable and Kylo makes decision to kill him because, apparently, he thinks that this is the thing that Snoke wants.

Finally, the fairytale tells a story of true love and hope:

“Then it was that little Gertha walked into the Palace, through the great gates, in a biting wind. She said her evening prayer, and the wind dropped as if lulled to sleep, and she walked on into the big empty hall. She saw Kay, and knew him at once; she flung her arms round his neck, held him fast, and cried, "Kay, little Kay, have I found you at last?"

But he sat still, rigid and cold.

Then little Gertha shed hot tears; they fell upon his breast and penetrated to his heart. Here they thawed the lump of ice, and melted the little bit of the mirror which was in it.

Then Kay burst into tears; he cried so much that the grain of glass was washed out of his eye. He knew her, and shouted with joy, "Gertha, dear little Gertha! where have you been for such a long time? And where have I been?" He looked round and said, "How cold it is here; how empty and vast!" He kept tight hold of Gertha, who laughed and cried for joy. Their happiness was so heavenly that even the bits of ice danced for joy around them; and when they settled down, there they lay, just in the very position the Snow Queen had told Kay he must find out, if he was to become his own master and have the whole world and a new pair of skates.

Gertha kissed his cheeks and they grew rose, she kissed his eyes and they shone like hers, she kissed his hands and his feet, and he became well and strong. The Snow Queen might come home whenever she liked, his order of release was written there in shining letters of ice.

They took hold of each other's hands and wandered out of the big place.”

Will the new trilogy end the same way? How do you think? :)

[simontams]

HEY NAT NAT BEN BEN WHAT ABOUT TORCHWOOD 🔥🔥🔥

I feel personally targeted. And I want that in writing.

Okay here goes nothing. *Rolls up sleeves*.

Warning: Will likely evolve into a long, in-depth, Torchwood analysis

Favourite Character:

I’m half asleep as it is and you go and encourage me to talk about Ianto Jones, who is not only my favourite character in this show, but probably overall.

The question is, can I pinpoint why?

Can I articulate how much this character genuinely means to me without just giving up and keyboard smashing at like 2am?

Okay, to start with, he’s not in the first two series an awful lot, however much I try to convince myself otherwise, but the development he does get is credit-worthy. And I think from the start, I was won over by his priceless expressions, sarcastic humour and sweet demeanour. Yet, throughout my numerous rewatches, the occasional bleaker episode, and low-key audio addiction, I’ve learned that there is more than meets the eye and maybe that's what makes him so interesting to me- All characters have more to them that originally assumed but there’s so many aspects to Ianto’s personality that slowly reveal themselves that you cant possibly know everything. You keep on learning and wondering about his past, his motivations, his true feelings- I’ve seen on countless occasions people labelling him as overrated and simply seen as that outside innocent coffee boy (sure, its the button on the top), but I think his clear popularity could be because a lot of people, dare I say, relate to him?

One of my favourite things about the Doctor Who universe especially and, in turn, Torchwood, is that it is real, it has real characters who have real emotions and real flaws, which shouldn't be excluded as they only add to their human degree of complexity- what would the series be without returning home to a concerned Jackie Tyler for a cup of tea every once in a while? without seeing characters reach behind that innate curiosity at the science-fiction and occasionally express fear at what is uncomfortable and unknown?

Doctor Who is not about aliens, it’s about people- and Ianto Jones is no exception. And in some ways, he can be the most human of them all- his excitement and confidence when he’s viewed as Jack’s boyfriend, his maintained calm exterior that he chooses to present to the world, his friendship with Tosh and the others, his weird habits and his humour, right up until his brutally heartfelt death scene.

 Ianto Jones is one of the only characters that I am sure will remain this close to my heart, and I constantly switch between connecting to him and marvelling at how much more there is to see. Not to be too deep or over-exaggerated, but under everybody's excitable obsessions with TV shows, bands, books- there's something that genuinely helped them learn more about themselves and grow as a person behind it, they represent a certain time in that individuals life and that has to be appreciated- in the same way, that can be said for my attraction to Torchwood as a whole and towards Ianto as a character.

Second Favourite Character:

Now that we’ve accepted me as a high-key, over-the-top teenaged fan, hence somehow continuing reading, let’s move on to the impossible choice of, who do I prefer more: Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper or Jack Harkness? (I’ll mention my  Gwen angst later).

Firstly Jack, will always, in my eyes, be one of the most deep and fascinating characters from what I’ve seen of the franchise as a whole- the contrast between the self-assured and flirtatious alien, the darker side of his immortality, and even the earlier con-man interpretation of his endlessly gripping character. Some of my favourite aspects of him in Torchwood are when we see him through his own outlived eyes; his loneliness or anger or even fragility, the latter being especially in regards to his relationship with Ianto and his over-arching knowledge that nothing lasts for him. And while he will always be one of my favourite characters in general, this one is a close call and I regret to view him as anything less than such- but I’m gonna have to go with Owen.

But first, let me appreciate Tosh- underestimated, brave, intelligent and affectionate Tosh, who is so close to Owen in terms of my tribute, it was near impossible to choose between the pair- in fact it still is and if asked this another time I would probably change my mind repeatedly. She tries so hard to gain approval and security, she's just genuinely lovable...and she did good.

I know Owen- apparently I’m having an Owen day- is disliked by the best of us in season 1, and some still after, I mean he is outwardly an arsehole, he's even aware of such, and the way he treats others including Tosh is inexcusable- but it’s season 2 where I genuinely fell in love with him, if not, mid-way through the first season after seeing the affects of Diane’s departure and his more sensitive self. Because like I said before- these human qualities, however negative, only add to him as a character.

When all the ‘dying drama’ goes down we realise how truly fragile he is, and in Fragments we see this to an even greater extent pre-torchwood: he's had a bad time of it, to say the least. And I will place him in second place after Ianto primarily due to this drastic turn and the realisation that he is such a prime example of ‘messed up and imperfect yet completely misunderstood’ and deep down, one of the most sensitive and caring of the lot.

I especially love when he begins to open up to Tosh and the numerous scenes in ‘a day in the death’ such as running into the bay or Ianto telling him to not let himself get beaten after all he has done, and that's also why that is one of my favourite episodes- I love this side of his character and how it contributes to him on the whole.

Character I’m Most Like:

God. Okay.

I honestly think this has to be the shortest reply yet. And for all the explanations worth, it has to be Ianto. Owen is angsty as hell, Tosh is kind and smart, Jack is tired, above everything and Gwen is adamant and sociable-

Ianto is humorous and loyal.

-Yet, somehow has the potential to be all of the other things too, and at times, has been. Which only furthers my previous point of him being relatable to most viewers at certain times throughout because of that.

Favourite Pair:

Now we’re talking.

There’s a word, a cursed, ancient term that’s been floating around the internet for a while now....: Janto.

Typical romance story, boy meets boy, boy is immortal alien, boy falls in love with welsh nerd who looks good in a waistcoat, the usual, yet...

Next, the heavy stuff :)

Ianto has so much love to give and he chooses to give it to Jack. His last serious relationship ended in tragedy and he finds himself in a casual fling with this, said immortal alien guy, who’s also...his mysterious boss. He appears genuinely happy and confident for the first time in a while and his utter joy will purify souls for many years to come.

But it’s not that simple, is it? It never has been. Because it gets serious and they can escape into their own connection outside of their work and all the other crap the team go through. They begin to understand each other on a deeper level despite their differences- and it’s fated to end in disaster:  Ianto’s death.

One of the most heart-breaking yet beautiful and bittersweet factors of the show is this relationship. The most traumatic realisations? moments when Ianto acknowledges his mortality compared to Jacks curse to out-live everybody he loves (The dead line and Day 4, I’m looking at you). Maybe it’s on Jacks behalf that the extent and importance of their bond get highlighted- He unwillingly falls for Ianto and he in no way wants to recognize the unwavering sincerity of what they have, or at least publically, hence his hesitance when Ianto is proud to be seen as a couple at the beginning of Children Of Earth, because he doesn’t want to see something so good end and hurt him, again.

Also, the fact that their relationship is so private? It’s got a significant part to play when prompting the importance of what they have. Jack is characteristically flirty and outgoing, yet he keeps his feelings for Ianto close and guarded-  because they mean that much to him. All of their intimate conversations- they're alone. It just develops and adds meaning and weight to their taboo ending.

That inevitably brings me onto the unspeakable death scene. I can wholeheartedly say that I have never witnessed such an emotional scene where a character has been killed off? It just, it gets to you? and I probably don't need to say that twice.

I don’t even know what it is, and I don’t care about the ‘he should never have been killed off’ or ‘he died for nothing’, god I want him to live as much as anybody, but they did choose to kill him off- and it was art.

The entirety of COE was, it was horrific and too close for comfort and one of the best pieces of television that I will ever have the pleasure to watch. Because it is raw and it’s soulful and it’s real and it breaks you- and god I wouldn’t want one of my favourite characters to go in any other way than something with this level of reputation and emotion.

The way Jack falls onto the floor next to Ianto, the ballad of Ianto Jones playing, the bigger picture of the theme of the series, them out of their comfort zone, beyond their control, influencing this, the government officials overlooking such an intimate moment, the way Jack tells them 'not him’ (that’s where I loose it, god I’m choked up just thinking about it), after Ianto tried to be the hero and stand next to Jack and help him confront the mistakes of his past- showing him that he's there for him when others doubt him, showing him that he can change and resolve it with him by his side, yet seeing that their efforts do not directly succeed? its not showing Ianto died with no final influence, its to show the extent of the bigger issue, it is out of their hands and that's why Children Of Earth is so, for want of a better word, scary- Gwen relating this degree of destruction to the absence of our established hero, The Doctor- terrifying.

How Jack wakes up and sees Ianto, how the audience see this character they've grown to love, dead, how defeated Jack looks with the knowledge that he will have to move on and can’t do anything about what had happened- it is seriously too much and can anybody who is that deeply connected to a scene, really hate on it for whatever reason?

God Jack blames himself, God Torchwood was the death of me-

you know I watched Children Of Earth over the evening of Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning? I watched Ianto Jones die on Christmas day 2015. Yeah.

Least Favourite Pair:

What the ever loving shit is Gwack.

(I like how you tiptoed around this Evie, and I just-)

Okay. I don't like Gwen. 

Now hear me out, I don't like her in the first and second series. She was a cheat and I accept this as part of her character, and Owens, but it doesn't mean I have to ignore or like it- she also treat the others like they didn't understand, like they couldn't feel and aren't affected by what they see like she is when they've been through so much more in terms of their background- she is rash and selfish and Rhys deserved better.

There I said it- however, it is party due to the writing, she had a lot of potential but she can’t be treated as such a ‘nice’ or relatable character and role model, as the person who enters this alien world for the audience to relate to when she gets away with these things. But I’ll hold my hands up and says she grows up a lot come COE and in the books and audios.

Despite my feelings about Gwen- she has still got a boyfriend either way. No offence, meh, ish, but there is nothing between her and Jack romantically- if anything she merely represents the normal life that Jack cant have. The many, many, uncomfortable scenes when she stares at Jack while kissing Rhys, the flirting with who she thought was him on her wedding day, the part where he's teaching her how to shoot, its just that, its awkward and there's nothing to it. Why voluntarily choose to treat her as this person who uses people and makes excuses for herself when you can emphasise and focus on her other truly good qualities like her bravery?

Why dig for something that isn't there, they have a great friendship, why simplify that? he mentors her and she has Rhys, he has Ianto, there's so much depth to that relationship as I've been through, why choose to overlook it?

But ‘don't like’ isn't as strong a word as ‘hate’, I just don't understand why somebody would make it this hard to view her as redeemable- I know she is flawed, like the others- I just find it harder avoid and grasp why people want to  further those parts of her and view it in a positive light and accept or ignore her cheating.

Gwen, I can hesitantly can get on board with, she is still part of the show I love, and while I can’t admit forgiving her I can say that her character, in turn, deserved better and while I acknowledge the problems she has, I appreciate her in COE, etc, because she does begin to develop and prove herself a bit more.

Nonetheless, I will never ‘get’ Jack and Gwen, it just doesn't rub me up the right way and seems pointless, it seems like ‘bait’ that some fans have fallen for and for me, it takes away so much of all of the characters involved and I’d rather view them for who they are rather than hinting at a negative version of who they could be.

And I'm sorry but Gwen and Owen are just bad for each other- they both deserve better than that.

Owen and Tosh? Beautiful and they should have gotten that date, they know each other so well and their death scene- why is this show so traumatic. But don't even get me started on that one-

‘Because you’re breaking my heart.’

Favourite Moment (s):

To be blunt:

Day 4- Ianto dies, yes really, #1, sorry...yeah..

Forehead Kiss, Forehead Kiss, Forehead Kiss, Forehead Kiss, (Janto, in Adam)

A Day In The Death- Owen underwater, also in top 3...

‘No, ‘cause the phones aren't working’,

Captain Jack Harkness- Jack & Jack Dance, close second

‘Who’s for Chinese?’ ft. actually eating it and having a nice time Tm

When, in fragments, Owen first enters the hub and he is talking to Jack about how he's going to try to save as many people as he can but it'll  never be enough

I’m not sure of the episode, likely ‘A Day In The Death’, but Tosh and Owen have a talk, wait was it ‘Dead Man Walking?’...yeah it was...

Broken, audio- Yeah, that- the car scene where their relationship truly begins and ‘stop the car’, ‘my coffee.’

‘Space Pig, Yeah?’

Fragments- ‘Jones. Ianto Jones’. ‘Captain Jack Harkness’

Does the John Barrowman ringtone blooper count? ;)

Not to approach the unapproachable, and it's not my favourite ‘cause that's like twisted but- ‘the Steven thing’ deserves a mention just for the fact that Jacks expression will haunt me forever

‘The world’s always ending, and I have missed that coat’

Did I mention the entirety of COE?

A Torchwood Captain and an ex-time agent walk into a bar...

Virus short story, ending and the part where Ianto goes rogue and badass

The goodbye in COE- should have ended there, it lost its weight

Consider this: In the shadows audio- Ianto, he just-

‘The Sin Eaters’ audio, cat falls through lift, that's all you need to know really, isn't it?

‘house of the dead’ when its all over and somebody approached jack and he answers them but then they go away and he- ‘goodbye Ianto’

‘Gwen....mine’s got a bell’, ‘Jack and Coffee’, ‘Lost Souls, audio

Honestly I've probably forgotten moments that I mention 24/7 but these are the ones that come to mind

I warned you that it was gonna be an uncharacteristically long one

Rating:

10/10...

Did you expect anything else after all of that? For all its imperfections, this show will always welcome me back with open arms, I’ve taken so much from it and it will remain my favourite show along with Doctor Who itself.

Funny Story: 5am

I told you Evie, I did.

[nofomoartworld]

Failing to Distinguish Between a Tractor Trailer and the Bright White Sky

James Bridle, Untitled (Autonomous Trap 001)

Tesla customers who want to take advantage of its cars AutoPilot mode are required to agree that the system is in a “public beta phase”. They are also expected to keep their hands on the wheel and “maintain control and responsibility for the vehicle.”

Almost a year ago, Joshua Brown was driving on the highway in Florida when he decided to put his Tesla car into self-driving mode. It was a bright Spring day and the vehicle’s sensors failed to distinguish a white tractor-trailer crossing the highway against a bright sky. The car didn’t brake and Brown was the first person to die in a self-driving car accident.

Autonomous cars have since been associated with a growing number of errors, accidents, glitches and other malfunctions. Interestingly, human trust in these technologies doesn’t seem to falter: we assume that the technology ‘knows’ what it is doing and are lulled into a false sense of safety. Tech companies are only too happy to confirm that bias and usually blame the humans for any crash or flaw.

James Bridle, Autonomous Trap 001 (Salt Ritual, Mount Parnassus, Work In Progress), 2017

James Bridle, Installation view of Failing to Distinguish Between a Tractor Trailer and the Bright White Sky at Nome Gallery, Berlin, 2017. Photo: Gianmarco Bresao

James Bridle‘s solo show Failing to Distinguish Between a Tractor Trailer and the Bright White Sky, which recently opened at NOME project in Berlin, explores the arrival of technologies of prediction and automation into our everyday lives.

The most discussed work in the show is a video showing a driverless car entrapped inside a double circle of road markings made with salt. The vehicle, seemingly unable to make sense of the conflicting information, barely moves back and forth as if under the spell of a mysterious force.

The work demonstrates admirably the limitation of machine perception, the pitfalls of a technology which inner working and logic is completely opaque to us, the difference between human and machine comprehension, between accuracy and reliability.

I sometimes wonder how aware most of us really are of the impact that self-driving vehicles will have on our life: soon we might not be able to read maps not just because GPS have made that skill superfluous but because these maps will be unintelligible to us; we might even be seen as too unreliable behind a wheel and be forbidden to drive cars (we’ll have sex instead apparently.)

Taking as their central subject the self-driving car, the works in the exhibition test the limits of human knowing and machine perception, strategize modes of resistance to algorithmic regimes, and devise new myths and poetic possibilities for an age of computation.

It feels strangely ominous to write about autonomous machines on the 1st of May, a day celebrated as International Workers’ Day. After all, these smart systems are going to ‘put us out of job‘. And truck drivers, taxi drivers, delivery drivers are among the professions which will be hit first.

James Bridle, Untitled (Activated Cloud), 2017

I asked the artist, theorist and writer to tell us more about the exhibition:

Hi James! I had a look at the video and not a lot is happening once the car is inside the circle. Which is exactly what you wanted to show of course. But for all i know, the machine could have stopped to work just because it never worked as an autonomous vehicle in the first place and you could be hiding inside making it move a bit. Could you explain what the machine sees and what causes the car to stall?

The car in the video is not autonomous. My main inspiration for the project was in understanding machine learning, and the system I developed – based on the research and work of many others – was entirely in software. I kitted out a regular car with cameras and sensors – some off the shelf, some I developed myself – and drove it around for days on end. This data is then fed into a neural network, a kind of software modelled originally on the brain itself, which learns to make associations between the datapoints: knowing the kind of speed, or steering angle, which should be associated with certain road conditions, it learns to reproduce them.

I’m really interested in this kind of AI which instead of attempting to describe all the rules of the world from the outset, develops them as a result of direct experience. The result of this form of training is both very powerful, and sometimes very unexpected and strange, as we’re becoming aware of through so many stories about AI “mistakes” and biases. As these systems become more and more embedded in the world, i think it’s really important to understand them better, and also participate in their creation.

My software is developed to the point where it can read the road ahead, keep to its lane, react to other vehicles and turnings – but in a very limited way. I certainly would not put my life in its hands, but it does give me a window into the way in which such systems function. In the Activations series of prints in the exhibition, which show the way in which the machine translates incoming video data into information, you can see the things highlighted as most significant: the edges of the road, and the white lines which direct it. Any machine trained to obey the rules of the road would and should obey the “rules” of the autonomous trap because it’s simply a no entry sign – but whether such rules are included in the training data of the new generation of “intelligent” vehicles is an open question.

James Bridle, Untitled (Activation 002), 2017

James Bridle, Untitled (Activation 004), 2017

It is a bit daunting to realise that a technology as sophisticated as a driverless car can be fooled by a couple of kilos of salt. In a sense your role fulfills the same role as the one of hackers who enter a system to point to its flaws and gaps and thus help the developers and corporations to fix the problem. Have you had any feedback from people in the car industry after the work was published in various magazines?

The autonomous trap is indeed a potential white hat or black hat op. In machine learning, this might be called an “adversarial example” – that is, a situation deliberately engineered to trick the system, so it can learn from and defend against such tricks in the future. It might be useful to some researcher, I don’t really know. But as I’m interested in the ways in which machine intelligence differs from human intelligence, I’ve been following closely many techniques for generating adversarial examples – research papers which show, for example, the ways in which image classifiers can be fooled either with entirely bizarre random-looking images, or with images that, to a human, are indistinguishable. What I like about the trap is that it’s an adversarial example that sits in the middle – that is recognisable to both machine and human senses. As a result, it’s both offensive and communicative – it’s really trying to find a middle or common ground, a space of potential cooperation rather than competition.

You placed the car inside a salt circle on a road leading to Mount Parnassus (instead of on a car park or any other urban location any artist dealing with tech would do!). The experiment with the autonomous car is thus surrounded by mythology, Dyonisian mysteries and magic.Why do you embed this sophisticated technology into myths and enigmatic forces?

The mythological aspects of the project weren’t planned from the beginning, but they have been becoming more pronounced in my work for some time now. While working on the Cloud Index project last year I spent a lot of time with medieval mystical texts, and particularly The Cloud of Unknowing, as a way of thinking through other meanings of “the cloud”, as both computer network and way of knowing.

In particular, I’m interested in a language that admits doubt and uncertainty, that acknowledges that there are things we cannot know yet must take into account, in a way that contemporary technological discourse does not. This seems like a crucial form of discourse for an interconnected yet increasingly complex and fragmented world.

In the autonomous car project, the association with Mount Parnassus and its mythology came about quite simply because I was driving around Attica in order to train the car, and it’s pretty much impossible to drive around Greece without encountering sites from ancient mythology. And this mythology is a continuous thread, not just something from the history books. As I was driving around, I was listening to Robert Graves’ Greek Myths, which connects Greek mythology to pre-Classical animism and ritual cults, as well as to the birth of Christianity and other monotheistic religions. There’s a cave on the side of Mount Parnassus which was sacred, like all rustic caves, to Pan, but has also been written about as a hiding place for the infant Zeus, and various nymphs. The same cave was used by Greek partisans hiding from the Ottoman armies in the nineteenth century and the Nazis occupiers in the twentieth, and no doubt on many other occasions throughout history – there’s a reason those stories were written about that place, and the writing of those stories allowed for that place to retain its power and use. Mythology and magic have always been forms of encoded and active story-telling, and this is what I believe and want technology to be: an agential and inherently political activity, understood as something participatory, illuminating, and potentially emancipatory.

James Bridle, Installation view of Failing to Distinguish Between a Tractor Trailer and the Bright White Sky at Nome Gallery, Berlin, 2017. Photo: Gianmarco Bresao

James Bridle, Installation view of Failing to Distinguish Between a Tractor Trailer and the Bright White Sky at Nome Gallery, Berlin, 2017. Photo: Gianmarco Bresao

Your practice as an artist and thinker is widely recognised so i suspect that you could have knocked on the door of Tesla or Volkswagen and get an autonomous car to play with. Why did you find it so important to build your own self-driving car?

I think it’s incredibly important to understand the medium you’re working with, which in my case was machine vision and machine intelligence as applied to a self-driving car – something that makes its own way in the world. By understanding the materiality of the medium, you really get a sense of a much wider range of possibilities for it – something you will never do with someone else’s machine. I’m not really interested in what Tesla or VW want to do with a self-driving car – although I have a fairly good idea – rather, I’m interested in thinking through and with this technology, and proposing alternative pathways for it – such as getting lost and therefore generating new and unexpected experiences, rather than ones pre-programmed by the manufacturer. Moreover, I’m interested in the very fact that it’s possible for me to do this, and for showing that it’s possible, which is itself today a radical act.

I believe there’s a concrete and causal relationship between the complexity of the systems we encounter every day, the opacity with which most of those systems are constructed or described, and fundamental, global issues of inequality, violence, populism and fundamentalism. Only through self-education, self-organisation, and new forms of systemic literacy can we counter these currents: programming is one form of systemic literacy, demonstrating the accessibility and comprehensibility of these technologies is another.

The salt circle is associated with protection. Do you think our society should be protected from autonomous vehicles?

In certain ways, absolutely. There are many potential benefits to autonomous vehicles, in terms of road safety and ecology, but like all of our technologies there’s also great risk, particularly when control of these vehicles is entirely privatised and corporatised. The best model for an autonomous vehicle future is basically good public transport – so why aren’t we building that? At the moment, the biggest players in autonomous vehicles are the traditional vehicle manufacturers – hardly beacons of social or environmental responsibility – and Silicon Valley zaibatsus such as Google and Uber, whose primary motivation is financialising virtual labour until they develop AI which can cut humans out of the loop entirely. For me, the autonomous vehicle stands in most particularly for the deskilling and automation of all forms of labour (including, in Google’s case, cognitive labour), and as such is a tool for degrading individual and collective agency. This will happen first to truck and taxi drivers, but will slowly extend to most of the workforce which, despite accelerationist dreams, is currently shredding rather than building a social framework which might support a low-work future. So, looked at that way, the corporate-controlled autonomous vehicle and automation in general is absolutely something that should be resisted, while it fails to serve the interest of most of the people it effects.

In all things, technological determinism – the idea that a particular outcome is inevitable because the technology for it exists – must be opposed. Knowing where the off switch is a vital and necessary complement to the kind of democratic involvement in the design process described above.

The artist statement in the catalogue of the show says that you worked with software and geography. I understand the necessity of the software but geography? What was the role and importance of geography in the project? How did you work with it?

The question which I kept returning to while working on the project, alongside “what does it mean for me to make an autonomous car?” is “what does it mean to make it here?” – that is, not on a test track in Bavaria or a former military base in Silicon Valley, but in Greece, a place with a very different material history and social present. How does a machine see the world when its experience is of fields, mountains, and winding tracks, rather than Californian highways and German autobahns? What is the role of automation in a place already suffering under austerity and unemployment – but which also has always produced its own, characteristic responses to instability? One of the things I find fascinating about the so-called autonomous vehicle is that, in comparison to the traditional car, it’s really as far from autonomous as you can get. It must constantly return to the network, constantly update itself, constantly observe and learn from the world, in order to be able to operate. In this way, it also seems to embody some potentially more connected and more community-minded world – more akin to some of the social movements so active in Greece today than the atomised, alienated passengers of late capitalism.

James Bridle, Gradient Ascent, 2016

James Bridle, Gradient Ascent, 2016

In the video and catalogue text entitled “Gradient Ascent”, Mount Parnassus and the journeys around it becomes an allegory both for general curiosity, and for specific problem-solving: one of the precise techniques in computer science for maximising a complex function is the random walk. Re-instituting geography within the domain of the machine becomes one of the ways of humanising it.

I was reading on Creators that this is just the beginning of a series of experiments for the car. Do you already know where you will go next with the technology?

I’m still quite resistant to the idea of asking a manufacturer for an actual vehicle, and for now my resources are pretty limited, but it might be possible to move onto the mechanical part of the project in other ways – I’ve had some interest from academic and research groups. I think there’s lots more to be done in exploring other uses for the autonomous vehicle – as well as questions of agency and liability. What might autonomous vehicles do to borders, for example, when their driverless nature makes them more akin to packets on a borderless digital network? What new forms of community, as hinted above, might they engender? On the other hand, I never set out to build a fully functioning car, but to understand and think through the processes of developing it, and to learn from the journey itself. I think I’m more interested in the future of machine intelligence and machinic thinking than I am in the specifics of autonomous vehicles, but I hope it won’t be the last time I get to collaborate with a system like this.

Thanks James!

James Bridle’s solo show Failing to Distinguish Between a Tractor Trailer and the Bright White Sky is at NOME project in Berlin until July 29, 2017

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[justforbooks]

Our lives are a mess. Reading “The Blazing World” I’m reminded of a performance by the brilliant artist Bobby Baker I once attended. She delivered a monologue about her life that included a scattering of memories, disappointments, happy highlights and concerns about contemporary issues. With each subject she added dry ingredients into a pot collecting them all until it overflowed. She poured it over herself till her clothes, hair and face were completely soiled and a floury cloud floated around her head. She stared around at the audience solemnly proclaiming: “What a mess!” The sight was comical, but through the manner in which she delivered the monologue it was understood that her whole being had tragically unravelled. In a similar way, the life of this novel’s central character Harriet Burden (or Harry as many intimates call her) is a mess. The narrative reflects her state of mind as it is a loose collection of fragments: personal notebooks, statements from family, friends and an art critic as well as gallery show reviews. It is an assemblage which is incomplete, meandering and circuitous. But in its fragmentation it becomes a truer portrait of a person than any straightforward narrative could hope to represent. This account is a more meaningful reflection of the many facets of personality and the multi-layered ways in which a person can be viewed.

Harriet is an artist in her sixties living in New York City who is frustrated with the way female artists don’t get taken as seriously as men. She devises a grand artistic project to expose this prejudice and take revenge by exposing the art world’s sexist nature. Three living male artists are selected by her to present original shows as their own work when really Harriet is the true artist. Only after the third show does she reveal her grand prank through an indirect route by writing an article for an obscure art publication under the pseudonym of a fictional critic. With so much subterfuge going on, people naturally question whether Harriet has made all this up or if she’s created one of the most ingenious artworks of our time. The book begins with a preface from someone attempting to answer this riddle by compiling the various accounts about the late Harriet Burden into a somewhat chronological order. This may all sound exhaustingly convoluted, but it’s actually quite straightforward to follow the story once you get the gist. At it’s heart, “The Blazing World” is really about the more profound question of personality.

It’s as if “The Golden Notebook” were written by Susan Sontag, but of course the writing is totally unique and purely the innovation of Siri Hustvedt. It’s a brilliant assemblage of knowledge full of clever word play, innovative narrative technique, psychological insights and dramatic twists. It’s sparked by a feeling of real anger: about our complacency to accept things as they are when there has been so much hard intellectual work dedicated to progress. It’s a passion which burns on every page. Harriet is a voracious reader and thinker. Therefore, her notebooks are layered with a heady amount of references to great works by psychologists, artists, philosophers, writers, scientists and theologians. I love it when I finish a novel with a long list of books and authors that I want to look up and learn even more from. This novel has given me a list longer than most. But this isn’t a showy intellectual feat by Hustvedt. This knowledge is layered into her central character’s reasoning because it relates to the ontological issues which stir her heart and cause her to create such an elaborate complex deceitful artistic project.

Going even further, accounts from both Harriet’s friends and enemies offer counter arguments to the statements Harriet makes. For instance, the primary question at the centre of this novel asks if art by women is taken less seriously. On one side a psychoanalyst named Rachel said: “With almost no exceptions, art by men is far more expensive than art by women. Dollars tell the story.” Harriet echoes this thought when she says: “Money talks. It tells you about what is valued, what matters. It sure as hell isn’t women.” However, an art critic named Oscar states: “To suggest, even for an instant, that there might be more men than women in art because men are better artists is to risk being tortured by the thought police.” Whereas a bi-racial artist named Phineas muses upon the superficiality of the art in general world concluding that: “It was all names and money, money and names, more money and more names.” Later on Harriet suggests that the question of gender isn’t even her central preoccupation: “it’s more than sex. It’s an experiment, a whole story I am making.” Points of view jostle against each other until a multi-layered portrait of this and other questions are presented and the reader must come to their own conclusions.

The accounts which struck me the most in this novel are Harriet’s own recorded in her various notebooks. One of her preoccupations is her fight against time, against being marginalized forever as a footnote rather than having made a grand statement about life. She states: “I am writing this because I don’t trust time.” Her tireless efforts to create and communicate show how desperately serious she is about the issues she raises. Having spent her life living somewhat quietly as a wife and mother she has reached middle age and is now keenly aware that if she doesn’t make her statement soon time will defeat her. With great precision she observes that: “Time creeps. Time alters. Gravity insists.” The razor-sharp language used cuts right to the heart of what she means and is merciless in its exactitude. Through short dramatic fragments of memory she recollects scenes from her past: her father who didn’t want her, the discovery of her husband’s infidelity, the cruelty of schoolmates who misunderstood her and finally the pernicious betrayal which threatens to dismantle her grand artistic project.

There is plenty of humour to be found in this novel as well. The comedy is of a highly intellectual sort – plays on words and jokes that need a footnote about a French cultural theorist to fully understand them. But there is also humour of a more bawdy nature cutting down the ridiculous importance men place on their manhood “He worries over semen flow, a bit low, the flow, compared to days gone by. You’d think he had walked around with a volcano down there for years, conceited man” and a satirical humour that slices apart Harriet’s perceived enemies in a merciless way. Harriet pokes fun at the art world and its parade of ego-driven denizens, but somewhat sadly she finds little to laugh about in how seriously she takes herself. For it is perhaps the most important characteristic of Harriet’s personality that she takes the world so seriously and expects everyone else to as well despite her partner Bruno trying to tell her differently: “Harry’s magic kingdom, where citizens lounged about reading philosophy and science and arguing about perception? It’s a crude world, old girl, I used to tell her.” Because no one seeks to understand the world with as much intellectual vigour and passion as she does, she desires to take revenge upon the people who don’t take her or the world so seriously. The fact that she does this through an artistic prank so elaborate it can only be comprehended after her death is a tragic joke itself. What she really desires is recognition, not revenge. She daydreams that after her death someone will come upon her work and “nodding wisely, my imaginary critic will stare for a long time and then utter, here is something, something good.” The creation of any art is an act of faith that the artist's vision will be recognized and understood and influence the culture its a part of.

Siri Hustvedt is a supremely talented writer and this novel might be her great masterpiece. Feminism and experimental forms of narrative have always had a strong presence in her novels like “The Blindfold” and “The Enchantment of Lily Dahl” while in “What I Loved” she created a novel about the NYC art world and the breakdown of a family. “The Blazing World” seems to synthesize all her primary concerns and turns them into an astonishing story. The truth lies not in any one account in this collection of fragments, but in between the pages and how we construct an idea of Harriet/”Harry.” This is what novels artfully do for us when they are written as brilliantly as this book: give us an incomplete picture of the world to fill in with our own understanding of it. But in the end it's not the artist herself who really matters but the art she leaves behind. As Harriet notes: “I am myself a myth about myself. Who I am has nothing to do with it.” At a certain point personality dissolves and the integrity of the art work's ideas are what determine whether it will stand throughout time. It's my hope that this novel will survive to be read for centuries.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[mikeyd1986]

MIKEY’S PERSONAL BLOG 161, June 2019

Last Saturday night, I celebrated my cousin Nathan Dunkling’s 21st birthday at The Comic's Lounge in North Melbourne. Social gatherings like birthday parties can often be huge anxiety triggers for me but somehow my anxiety was under control tonight even being in a large group of people and inside a crowded live comedy venue. Yes it filled up very quickly which meant that the volume levels of conversation gradually rose up and it was very difficult to hear what was going on even at my own table.

Some of Nathan’s friends were sitting at my table and so it was hard for me to engage in conversation with them. Thankfully I had a solution to this, pulling out my phone and playing Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery to curb my boredom levels before the show actually began. Some people might pull out the “anti-social” card but I really don’t care as I see it as a coping mechanism and way of feeling comfortable when I can’t connect with the people around me. Plus waiting for our meals did take a long time so I didn’t have much else to do.

Finally around 8.15pm, the MC for the evening Josh Earl began his comedy routine whilst I began chowing away at my entree, salt and pepper calarami. I also ordered an Atlantic salmon for mains which was really delicious. There were four comedians in total including an American lady named Eve, an Australian named Claire and the main headliner Dave Thornton. Honestly it was a very hit and miss affair for me.  Plus I felt like there were too many breaks in between and it seemed to stretch the night out a bit too late for me (We were there for over 4 hours).

Admittedly, some jokes simply soared over my head perhaps because I missed the context of what they were talking about. Others I basically didn’t find funny at all. It’s not to say that I don’t have a sense of humour, more I can only stomach so many jokes related to Sex - poo, dicks, vaginas, masturbation, circumcision, vasectomies. Religion - Jewish people. Christian people, believing in God. Children - dealing with being a parent, being able to handle kids, changing nappies. I’ve pretty much heard it all. I think a lot of it depends on the delivery of the joke too. If it’s too forced, I’m most likely not going to laugh at it. Still it was an enjoyable night out and good value for money.

On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel room at Best Western Melbourne City Hotel - Formerly Pensione Hotel and had breakfast downstairs at Oliver's. Then we drove down to St. Kilda to visit the Esplanade Market and walked along the pier. Even though the air was fairly cold, eventually the sun broke through the overcast clouds and it become a lovely morning to check out the scenic views. I do get a little nervous when it comes to passing by stalls in a market which some sellers trying really hard to get my to buy something but it’s nice just having a browse and watching the people walking their dogs along the footpath.

On Monday morning, I had an appointment with my support worker Seb at Jamaica Blue Cranbourne. A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling pretty conflicted and disheartened about the service Mentis Assist was providing to me. There was a lot of being messed around with lack of communication and no confirmations being made over the past few weeks besides having one fill in support worker. Everything felt like it was in limbo. I sent a text message to Seb yesterday but I had no idea if he would even turn up today.

Eventually he did reply and things got back on track again today. What was alarming to me though was the fact that he wasn’t informed about what was happening with me over the past few weeks. Nobody at Mentis Assist told him that a replacement support worker would be organised for me or that my appointment would be switched to Tuesday afternoon. It was almost enough for me to pull the plug but honestly none of this is Seb’s fault, just the broken system that had left me hanging.

On Monday afternoon, I had my second last Creative Writing class at Balla Balla Community Centre in Cranbourne East. I have to admit that I was stuck in a rut of sorts after the last class and really struggled on the previous homework task of coming up with five different endings to a short story I began in Week 3. I was feeling a little uncertain about what I’d come up with but at least I gave it a go.

ENDINGS HOMEWORK EXERCISE

Ryan is determined to escape the trappings of his old life and even in these dire circumstances, he will make it to Fiji one way or another.

Ryan decides to build friendships with the locals in New Caledonia and eventually settles there.

Ryan sends a distress call back home to Australia in order to be saved from the ordeal he has been through. He managed to escape the plane crash with only minor injuries, however it has had a major impact on him psychologically. He makes contact with a counselor to find strategies to overcome his trauma.

Ryan ends up in a local hospital wired up to machines - life support, oxygen, heart rate monitor. The experience of the plane crash was too much for him and has taken a tool on him physically as well as mentally and emotionally.

Upon landing in New Caledonia, Ryan ends up getting himself captured by a tribe of warriors, clad with wooden spears and shields, deep inside the bushland. Will he manage to survive?

During today’s class, we looked into scenes vs. chapters, improving your draft, killing off your darlings and the habits of successful authors. Scenes are more complicated and more important than chapters. They are very specific building blocks within your story. They also need tension and conflict. Each scene can be divided into two parts: ACTION (Goal, conflict, disaster) and REACTION (Reaction, dilemma, decision).

Chapters are arbitrary divisions within a book. They impose order and create a certain sense of structure. Chapter breaks are more about pacing and must be placed strategically. They leave readers with a question or a reason to know more. Scene structure has nothing to do with chapter breaks.

Improving your draft. Your first draft is the writing equivalent of running a marathon. You need to take a step back, question the structure and the characters, ask whether all the characters want the same thing, does the story contain enough conflict. After draft two and beyond, you need to be a little more critical with your work. Hire a professional editor and get your manuscript copy edited. Then finally have the manuscript proof read.

Killing off your darlings. Cut out any elements that doesn’t serve to further the work as a whole, in order to enhance the story. Darlings can be words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs or characters. The main benefits of killing off your darlings are: it strengthens your characters and plot, improves the overall quality of your writing and refines your self discipline. Things to cut: weak characters, extraneous plot lines, backstory and prologues.

The habits of successful authors include write everyday, finish your stories, learn the rules, break the rules, create their own inspiration, don’t slack off on the hard stuff, follow their hearts and not the market, develop a thick skin, set their stories free, love what they do, write with joy and embrace fragments of writing.

On Monday night, I went to my Boxing small group fitness class with CinFull Fitness. Tonight was a very small group with just myself, Rodney Sack and Ben Milton. We each got our measurements taken before we actually started. It’s been something of a fleeting thought for me, particularly the scales and weighing myself. It’s not longer been an unhealthy obsession. In fact, I hardly ever weigh myself at all these days. I used to get really fixated on THE NUMBER but now I’m able to let it go more easily considering it’s not a true representation of how “fat” or “overweight” I am. There are so many other factors that go into it like muscle mass and water weight.

Tonight’s class consisted of drills and partner work, push ups, plank holds, ground and pounds, sit up punches, V-ups, Russian twists, star jumps, walking lunges and squat holds.

Being paired up with a hard-hitter like Rodney certainly got me out of my comfort zone. I was a little nervous about not being able to handle it (and be accidentally punched in the face) but I wasn’t going to let that fear stop me. I needed to release all of those negative labels that have been given to me in the past (weak, slow, incapable, incompetent, useless, a loser). I’m not any of those things. Sometimes I really do surprise myself in being able to overcome a struggle such as physical fatigue or being out of breath. I know that I’m not as fit as some of the others but that fact shouldn’t stop me from participating in the class.

On Wednesday morning, I attended the funeral of Rita Hartney at Tobin Brothers in Berwick. I knew Rita from a few years ago when she began hosting her radio program Hot Topics With Rita at Casey Radio - 97.7FM as well as her motivational talks and appearances at places such as Balla Balla Community Centre and U3A Cranbourne. She also ran a short course called Speaking Before The Public which helped me work on self confidence and oral presentation skills. It was only a few weeks ago that I learned of her decline in health and subsequent passing on Facebook.

After signing the guest book and taking a copy of Rita’s book It’s Time For Women to Take Control, Mum and I made our way into the main service room which was packed with Rita’s family, friends and other guests. We were really lucky to find a couple of spare seats to sit down in. It was a really beautiful service which highlighted the many strengths and achievements that Rita had gained over the years. She really had a significant impact on many people’s lives.

The speeches were both funny and moving, painting Rita as a strong, determined woman trying to make her mark in a male dominated world. The music selection was very fitting as well, reflecting Rita’s colourful and flamboyant personality. Songs included Elvis Presley’s Devil in Disguise and Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman.

Attending someone’s funeral seems to give me a gentle reminder about how precious life truly is. That you really do need to be grateful for what you have and make every moment count. It also forces me to think about my own funeral. Not just the kinds of arrangements that I will have but questions like: Who will be attending? What will I be remembered for? What kind of mark will I leave behind? I never used to be this philosophical about funerals until more recently when I realised how important it is not to let my life go to waste.

On Thursday morning, I decided to take myself off to Casey Smiles Dental Clinic after experiencing more annoying dental pain, this time on the right hand side of my mouth. I was really hoping that the pain would subside with some simply remedies but after having a restless night with this agonizing toothache, it was time to face the music and the dentist once more.

The good news was that I didn’t have to get my x-rays done like last time as they were already on my patient record. It was also easier to explain to Dr. Mohamed where abouts the pain was coming from and not simply guess which tooth it was. He gave me two options: first would be to exact it like last time, which would be easier and more cost effective. The second option was to have a root canal done in order to potentially save the tooth. However, he warned me that he could cost me up to $1500. So obviously I went with option one.

Thankfully the process was a lot quicker this time around. There was a young female dental assistant doing some training and learning about all the different surgical instruments and how to use the suction hose. It provided a nice distraction for me. Dr. Mohamed reminded me to keep breathing as he applied pressure to the decayed tooth. It was over and done with within a few minutes. The anesthesia needle probably hurt more than the actual tooth removal did. Plus it only cost me $160 as it was a basic tooth removal and it didn’t need to be surgically removed like last time.

https://caseysmiles.com.au/dr-mohamed-massaud

[googlenewson]

What causes a person to become radicalized?

This was the subject of a fascinating talk delivered by Tamar Mitts, an assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, at a “data science day” hosted by the school on Wednesday. Mitts studied the efficacy of Twitter-disseminated propaganda supporting the self-identified Islamic State, or ISIS, in 2015 and 2016. To avoid the “obvious ethical issues” which attend to subjecting humans analysts to ISIS propaganda, Mitts said she used machine learning algorithms to identify and sort messages and videos into various categories, such as whether they contained violence. Then she parsed her dataset to uncover trends.

Mitts’ results were a revelation. Even though people tend to associate ISIS propaganda with heinous acts of brutality--beheadings, murder, and the like--Mitts found that such violence was, more often than not, counterproductive to the group’s aims. “The most interesting and unexpected result was that when these messages were being coupled with extreme, violent imagery, these videos became ineffective,” Mitts said. In other words, the savagery for which ISIS became famous did not appeal to the majority of its followers; positive messaging found greater success.

There’s a caveat though: Anyone who was already extremely supportive of ISIS became even more fanatical after encountering a piece of propaganda featuring violence. So, while violent acts turned off newcomers and casual sympathizers, they nudged ideologues further down the path of radicalization. Extremism begets polarity.

In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Mitts’ research gains even more relevance. Tech giants are continuing to fail to curb a scourge of violence and hate speech proliferating on their sites. World governments are, meanwhile, passing ham-fisted policies to stem the spread of such bile.

Perhaps Mitts’ discoveries could help society to avoid repeating history’s darkest moments. My appreciation for her work grew after I finished reading In the Garden of Beasts, a gripping journalistic endeavor by Erik Larson, which details the rise of Nazi Germany through the eyes of an American ambassador and his family living in Berlin. Afterward, I watched a YouTube video--an innocuous one--recommended by the author: Symphony of a Great City, a 1927 film that documented the daily life of ordinary Berliners at that time. It amazes me to think how, within a few years, these souls would come under the sway of Hitler’s bloodthirsty regime.

While the Internet makes zealotry easier than ever to incite, today’s tools also make it easier to study.

Robert Hackett

@rhhackett

robert.hackett@fortune.com

Welcome to the Cyber Saturday edition of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily tech newsletter. Fortune reporter Robert Hackett here. You may reach Robert Hackett via Twitter, Cryptocat, Jabber (see OTR fingerprint on my about.me), PGP encrypted email (see public key on my Keybase.io), Wickr, Signal, or however you (securely) prefer. Feedback welcome.

THREATS

Marred-a-Lago. The U.S. Secret Service apprehended a suspicious Chinese woman who attempted to enter President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The woman, Yujing Zhang, was carrying four cellphones and a thumb drive infected with malware. One of the stories she spun: She said she was there to use the pool, though she had no swimsuit.

Verboten. German chemical giant Bayer said it contained a cyberespionage intrusion by suspected Chinese hackers. The company discovered the computer infection early last year and then quietly analyzed and monitored the intruders before booting them from the network last month. "There is no evidence of data theft," the company said.

Thrill of the chase. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, highlighted the importance of digital security in his annual letter to shareholders this week. "The threat of cyber security may very well be the biggest threat to the U.S. financial system," he wrote. "[T]he financial system is interconnected, and adversaries are smart and relentless - so we must continue to be vigilant."

Show me the money. The city of Albany, New York, and iced tea-maker Arizona Beverages were recently hit with ransomware attacks. Norsk Hydro published a video featuring interviews with employees who grappled with a recent plant-crippling ransomware attack. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had to change the way it conducted cyberattack investigations after wrestling with the SamSam ransomware campaign, which affected cities such as Atlanta and Newark.

Bezos vs. Saudis. Gavin De Becker, the investigator hired by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to find out who obtained private text messages and photos relating to his extramarital affair, said he has concluded that "the Saudis had access to Bezos' phone, and gained private information." A spokesperson for Saudi Arabia told CNN that the kingdom "categorically rejects all allegations that it is involved in any fashion in the apparent dispute."

The Russian equivalent of Jedi mind tricks: "combat parapsychology techniques."

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ACCESS GRANTED

Creepy crawlers. Meet Eva Galperin, a hacker-activist who studies commercial surveillance software, so-called stalkerware, as head of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's threat lab. Now Galperin is calling on Apple and antivirus companies to protect people from these privacy-infringing tools, as Wired's Andy Greenberg writes. More extremely, Galperin is asking government officials to prosecute executives at companies that sell this kind of software.

Over the last year, Eva Galperin says she's learned the signs: the survivors of domestic abuse who come to her describing how their tormentors seem to know everyone they've called, texted, and even what they discussed in their most private conversations. How their abusers seem to know where they've been and sometimes even turn up at those locations to menace them. How they flaunt photos mysteriously obtained from the victim's phone, sometimes using them for harassment or blackmail. And how none of the usual remedies to suspected hacking--changing passwords, setting up two-factor authentication--seem to help.

The reason those fixes don't work, in these cases, is because the abuser has deeply compromised the victim's phone itself. The stalker doesn't have to be a skilled hacker; they just need easily accessible consumer spyware and an opportunity to install it on their target's device. An entire industry of that so-called spouseware, or stalkerware, has grown in recent years, one that Galperin argues represents a deeply underestimated scourge of digital privacy.

FORTUNE RECON

A British Spy Agency's London HQ Operated in Secret for 66 Years. Turns Out, It Was Right Next Door. by Phil Boucher

Domestic Terrorism Is on the Rise. But How Prepared Is the U.S. to Counter It? by Natasha Bach

Proposed Law Would Require YouTube and Netflix to Do More to Protect Kids Online by Danielle Abril

If the Full Mueller Report Is Released, Here's What You'll Actually See by Renae Reints

Who Should Own Your Health Data? by Erika Fry

Mark Zuckerberg Has Made the Case Against a Fragmented Internet. Here's the Case for It. by David Mayer

How True Crime Podcast 'The Murder Squad' Will Crowdsource Investigations by Dan Reilly

ONE MORE THING

Xinjiang jail. In this chilling multimedia piece, The New York Times takes viewers inside Kashgar, a Chinese city that the Communist Party has effectively transformed into a gigantic prison. Residents are required to keep software on their phones that monitors calls and messages. They are forced to stop at checkpoints to have their faces and ID cards scanned. Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous and neighborhood watches grade people based on their "reliability." As the Times writes, this dystopia is "as much about intimidation as monitoring."

from Fortune http://bit.ly/2Ulj9l1

[bookedsuccess]

DAY SIXTY

Summary by Sam T Davies

The Book in Three Sentences

A copywriter is a salesperson behind a keyboard.

Copy should be urgent, unique, ultra-specific and useful.

Your performance as a copywriter is based on sales generated, not originality.

The Five Big Ideas

For copy to convince the customer to buy a product or service it must get attention, communicate and persuade

“The word free is the most powerful word in the copywriter’s vocabulary.”

Four out of five readers will read the headline and skip the rest of the ad.

“When writing testimonial copy, use the customer’s own words as much as possible. Don’t polish his statements; a natural, conversational tone adds believability to the testimonial.”

Ask yourself, “Who is my customer? What are the important features of the product? Why will the customer want to buy the product? (What product feature is most important to him?)”

The Copywriter’s Handbook Summary

“A copywriter is a salesperson behind a typewriter.” – Judith Charles

For copy to convince the consumer to buy the product, it must do three things:

Get attention

Communicate

Persuade

Your headline can perform four different tasks:

Get attention

Select the audience

Deliver a complete message

Draw the reader into the body copy

“The word free is the most powerful word in the copywriter’s vocabulary.”

Powerful attention-getting words:

How to

Why

Sale

Quick

Easy

Bargain

Last chance

Guarantee

Results

Proven

Save

“Grade your performance as a copywriter on sales generated by your copy, not on originality.”

“When you write a headline, get attention by picking out an important customer benefit and presenting it in a clear, bold, dramatic fashion. Avoid headlines and concepts that are cute, clever, and titillating but irrelevant. They may generate some hoopla, but they do not sell.”

“According to David Ogilvy, four out of five readers will read the headline and skip the rest of the ad.”

“Ogilvy recommends that you include the selling promise and the brand name in the headline.”

“Remember, as a copywriter, you are not a creative artist; you are a salesperson. Your job is not to create literature; your job is to persuade people to buy the product.”

“When writing testimonial copy, use the customer’s own words as much as possible. Don’t polish his statements; a natural, conversational tone adds believability to the testimonial.”

The “4 U’s” Copywriting Formula

Urgent. “Urgency gives the reader a reason to act now instead of later. You can create a sense of urgency in your headline by incorporating a time element. A sense of urgency can also be created with a time-limited special offer, such as a discount or premium if you order by a certain date.”

Unique. “The powerful headline either says something new, or if it says something the reader has heard before, says it in a new and fresh way.”

Ultra-specific. “Boardroom, a newsletter publisher, is the absolute master of ultra-specific bullets, known as ‘fascinations,’ that tease the reader into reading further and ordering the product.”

Useful. “The strong subject line appeals to the reader’s self-interest by offering a benefit.”

“When you have written your headline, ask yourself how strong it is in each of the 4 U’s. Use a scale of 1 to 4 (1 = weak, 4 = strong) to rank it in each category.”

Questions to Ask Yourself

Who is my customer?

What are the important features of the product?

Why will the customer want to buy the product? (What product feature is most important to him?)

11 Tips for Writing Clear Copy

1. Put the Reader First

“Think of the reader. Ask yourself: Will the reader understand what I have written? Does he know the special terminology I have used? Does my copy tell her something important or new or useful? If I were the reader, would this copy persuade me to buy the product?”

“One technique to help you write for the reader is to address the reader directly as ‘you’ in the copy, just as I am writing to you in this book. Copywriters call this the ‘you-orientation’”.

2. Carefully Organize Your Selling Points

“When you write your copy, you must carefully organize the points you want to make.”

“The headline states the main selling proposition, and the first few paragraphs expand on it. Secondary points are covered later in the body copy. If this copy is lengthy, each secondary point may get a separate heading or number.”

“The organization of your selling points depends on their relative importance, the amount of information you give the reader, and the type of copy you are writing (letter, ad, commercial, or news story).”

“Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. And then, tell them what you told them.” – Terry C. Smith

“Before you create an ad or mailer, write down your sales points. Organize them in a logical, persuasive, clear fashion. And present them in this order when you write your copy.”

3. Break the Writing into Short Sections

“If the content of your ad can be organized as a series of sales points, you can cover each point in a separate section of copy.”

“If there is no particular order of importance or logical sequence between the sales points, use graphic devices such as bullets, asterisks, or dashes to set off each new section. If you have a lot of copy under each section, use subheads (as I’ve done in this book).”

“Paragraphs should also be kept short. Long, unbroken chunks of type intimidate readers.”

“When you edit your copy, use subheads to separate major sections. Leave space between paragraphs. And break long paragraphs into short paragraphs. A paragraph of five sentences can usually be broken into two or three shorter paragraphs by finding places where a new thought or idea is introduced and beginning the new paragraph with that thought.”

4. Use Short Sentences

“(D. H. Menzel) found that sentences became difficult to understand beyond a length of about 34 words.”

“To make your writing flow, vary sentence length. By writing an occasional short sentence or sentence fragment, you can reduce the average sentence length of your copy to an acceptable length even if you frequently use lengthy sentences.”

“Train yourself to write in crisp, short sentences. When you have finished a thought, stop. Start the next sentence with a new thought. When you edit, your pencil should automatically seek out places where a long string of words can be broken in two.”

5. Use Simple Words

“In advertising copy, you are trying to communicate with people, not impress them or boost your own ego. Avoid pompous words and fancy phrases.”

“Small words are better than big words whether you’re writing to farmers or physicists, fishermen or financiers.”

6. Avoid Technical Jargon

“Don’t use jargon when writing to an audience that doesn’t speak your special language.”

“Don’t use a technical term unless 95 percent or more of your readers will understand it.”

“Don’t use a technical term unless it precisely communicates your meaning.”

7. Be Concise

“Unnecessary words waste the reader’s time, dilute the sales message, and take up space that could be put to better use.”

“Rewriting is the key to producing concise copy.”

“Avoid redundancies, run-on sentences, wordy phrases, the passive voice, unnecessary adjectives, and other poor stylistic habits that take up space but add little to meaning or clarity.”

8. Be Specific

9. Go Straight to the Point

“If the headline is the most important part of an ad, then the lead paragraph is surely the second most important part.”

“Start selling with the very first line of copy.”

“The finished copy should sell from the first word to the last.”

10. Write in a Friendly, Conversational Style

“People enjoy reading clear, simple, easy-to-understand writing. And the simplest, clearest style is to write the way you talk.”

“John Louis DiGaetani recommends this simple test for conversational tone: ‘As you revise, ask yourself if you would ever say to your reader what you are writing. Or imagine yourself speaking to the person instead of writing.’”

11. Avoid Sexist Language

“Copywriters must avoid sexist language. Like it or not, sexist language offends a large portion of the population, and you don’t sell things to people by getting them angry at you.”

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“Ending a sentence with a preposition adds to the conversational tone of the copy.”

“Sentence fragments help keep your average sentence length to a respectable number of words. And sentence fragments can add drama and rhythm to your copy.”

“Beginning a sentence with and, or, but, or for makes for a smooth, easy transition between thoughts.”

“An occasional one-sentence paragraph provides a change of pace that can liven up a piece of copy.”

“Highlighting and underlining can make words and phrases stand out in print advertising and promotion as well as in schoolbooks. Many readers skim copy without reading it carefully, so an underline or highlight can be useful in calling out key words, phrases, paragraphs, and selling points.”

“One of the most effective techniques for writing subscription copy is to present the publication’s content as a list of bulleted items, e.g., ‘7 ways to reduce your heating bill this winter.’”

“Be specific about the problem; be vague and mysterious about the solution. Plus, do it with a twist, hook, or unusual angle.”

Before you release copy to the client or the art department, ask yourself these questions:

Does the copy fulfill the promise of the headline?

Is the copy interesting?

Is it easy to read?

Is it believable?

Is it persuasive?

Is it specific?

Is it concise?

Is it relevant?

Does it flow smoothly?

Does it call for action?

“The first step in writing copy that sells is to write about benefits and not about features.”

“A feature is a descriptive fact about a product or service; it’s what the product is or has. A benefit is what the product does; it’s what the user of the product or service gains as a result of the feature.”

“According to AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action), the copy must first get the reader’s attention, then create an interest in the product, then turn that interest into a strong desire to own the product, and finally ask the reader to buy the product or take some other action that will eventually lead to a sale.”

“In ACCA (Awareness, Comprehension, Conviction, Action), consumers are first made aware that the product exists. Then they must comprehend what the product is and what it will do for them. After comprehension, the readers must be convinced to buy the product. And finally, they must take action and actually make the purchase.”

“The copywriter creates a picture of what the product can do for the reader, promises the picture will come true if the reader buys the product, proves what the product has done for others, and pushes for immediate action.”

“The Motivating Sequence”

1. Get Attention

“This is the job of the headline and the visual. The headline should focus on the single strongest benefit you can offer the reader.”

2. Show a Need

“The second step of writing copy that sells, then, is to show the reader why she needs the product.”

3. Satisfy the Need and Position Your Product as a Solution to the Problem

“Once you’ve convinced the reader that he has a need, you must quickly show him that your product can satisfy his need, answer his questions, or solve his problems.”

4. Prove Your Product Can Do What You Say It Can Do

“It isn’t enough to say you can satisfy the reader’s needs—you’ve got to prove you can.”

5. Ask for Action

“The last step in any piece of copy should always be a call for action.”

“False logic, a term coined by my friend, master copywriter Michael Masterson, is copy that, through skillful writing, manipulates (but does not lie about or misrepresent) existing facts. The objective: to help readers come to conclusions that these facts, presented without the twists of the copywriter’s pen, might not otherwise support.”

“According to Reeves, there are three requirements for a USP (and I am quoting, in the italics, from Reality in Advertising):

Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Each must say, ‘Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.’

The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer.

The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

“One popular method is to differentiate your product or service from the competition based on a feature that your product or service has and they don’t.”

“Malcolm D. MacDougall, former president and creative director of SSC&B, says there are four ways to advertise seemingly similar products:

Stress an underpublicized or little-known benefit.

Dramatize a known benefit in a compelling fashion.

Dramatize the product name or package.

Build long-term brand personalities.

“Study your list of product features and benefits. Then look at the competition’s ads. Is there an important benefit that they have ignored, one you can embrace as the Unique Selling Proposition that sets your product apart from all others?”

“The secondary promise is a lesser benefit that the product also delivers.”

“Your copy should reach prospects on three levels: intellectual, emotional, and personal.”

To reach your prospects on all three levels—intellectual, emotional, and personal—you must understand what copywriter Michael Masterson calls the buyer’s “Core Complex.” These are the emotions, attitudes, and aspirations that drive them, as represented by the BFD formula, which stands for beliefs, feelings, and desires.

Beliefs. What does your audience believe? What is their attitude toward your product and the problems or issues it addresses?

Feelings. How do they feel? Are they confident and brash? Nervous and fearful? What do they feel about the major issues in their lives, businesses, or industries?

Desires. What do they want? What are their goals? What change do they want in their lives that your product can help them achieve?

“Before you write your copy, it’s a good idea to review the reasons why people might want to buy your product.”

22 Reasons Why People Might Buy Your Product

To be liked

To be appreciated

To be right

To feel important

To make money

To save money

To save time

To make work easier

To be secure

To be attractive

To be sexy

To be comfortable

To be distinctive

To be happy

To have fun

To gain knowledge

To be healthy

To gratify curiosity

For convenience

Out of fear

Out of greed

Out of guilt

“The more expensive a product is, the more copy you generally need to sell it.”

“Copy that sells the product directly off the printed page or screen (known as “one-step” or “mail-order” copy) usually has to be long, because it must present all product information and overcome all objections.”

“People who are pressed for time, such as busy executives and professionals, often respond better to short copy.”

“Products that people need (a refrigerator, a fax machine) can be sold with short copy because . . . well, the prospect has to buy them. Products that people want but don’t have to buy (exercise videos, self-help audio programs, financial newsletters) must be “sold,” and require long copy to do so.”

“Short copy works well with products the prospect is already familiar with and understands.”

How to Write Persuasive, Fact-Filled Copy for Your Clients

Step 1: Get All Previously Published Material on the Product

“You should spend a lot of time printing out and reading the client’s Web site, or at least the pages pertaining to the product you are promoting.”

“By studying this background material, the copywriter should have 90 percent of the information he or she needs to write the copy.”

Step 2: Ask Questions About the Product

What are its features and benefits? (Make a complete list.)

Which benefit is the most important?

How is the product different from the competition’s? (Which features are exclusive? Which are better than the competition’s?)

If the product isn’t different, what attributes can be stressed that haven’t been stressed by the competition?

What technologies does the product compete against?

What are the applications of the product?

What problems does the product solve in the marketplace?

How is the product positioned against competing products?

How does the product work?

How reliable is the product? How long will it last?

How efficient is the product?

How economical?

How much does it cost?

Is it easy to use? Easy to maintain?

Who has bought the product and what do they say about it?

What materials, sizes, and models is it available in?

How quickly does the manufacturer deliver the product?

If they don’t deliver, how and where can you buy it?

What service and support does the manufacturer offer?

Is the product guaranteed?

Step 3: Ask Questions About Your Audience

Who will buy the product? (What markets is it sold to?)

What exactly does the product do for them?

Why do they need the product? And why do they need it now?

What is the customer’s main concern when buying this type of product (price, delivery, performance, reliability, service, maintenance, quality, efficiency, availability)?

What is the character of the buyer? What type of person is the product being sold to?

What motivates the buyer?

How many different buying influences must the copy appeal to? (A toy ad, for example, must appeal to both the parent and the child.)

“If you are writing an ad, read issues of the magazines in which the ad will appear.”

“If you are writing direct mail, find out what mailing lists will be used and study the list descriptions.”

Step 4: Determine the Objective of Your Copy

This objective may be one or more of the following:

To generate inquiries

To generate sales

To answer inquiries

To qualify prospects

To generate store traffic

To introduce a new product or an improvement of an old product

To keep in touch with prospects and customers

To transmit news or product information

To build brand recognition and preference

To build company image

To provide marketing tools for salespeople

Here are 10 criteria that an ad must satisfy if it is to be successful as a selling tool:

The headline contains an important consumer benefit, or news, or arouses curiosity, or promises a reward for reading the copy

The visual (if you use a visual) illustrates the main benefit stated in the headline

The lead paragraph expands on the theme of the headline

The layout draws readers into the ad and invites them to read the body copy

The body copy covers all important sales points in logical sequence

The copy provides the information needed to convince the greatest number of qualified prospects to take the next step in the buying process

When you sit down to write your ad, ask yourself: “What do I want the reader to do? And what can I tell him that will get him to do it?”

The copy is interesting to read

The copy is believable

The ad asks for action