#stupid limited american release

[marlenacantswim]

after having watched Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, i can say with Incredible Confidence that Nandor Fodor is one of the— if not the— hottest simon pegg characters. don't worry though, he's still entirely pathetic.

[ourlordapollo]

Vaporwave* bathroom is still very much a WIP rn but I'm loving this mini-vibe

*with elements of synthwave, weebcore, yachtcore, & vacation dad (for any purists out there)

[crooked-wasteland]

The rapresentation of abusers in helluva boss is something that particularly frustrates me, Stella in particular, it seems to be done just to victimaze certain characters not to show the complex dynamics of those relationships. It seems to me the writers aren't mature enough to handle these topics properly.

Abuse and Vivienne Medrano

Christmas 1962, a man renowned the western world over for his revolutionary approach to animation sat in a withering melancholy as he watched what could only be called a cinematic masterpiece based on a novel classic. Walt Disney, now in the twilight years of his life, saw the walls closing in and his legacy coming to a close. This man, who pioneered the animated feature film, saw his greatest accomplishment as his greatest obstacle. The man responsible for the tales brought to life of Cinderella, Snow White, Pinocchio, and Dumbo felt trapped in his achievement. “I wish,” Walt lamented, “I could make a picture like that.”

To Kill a Mockingbird was a piece that challenged its audience. The discussion of a white man defending a black man in southern America, years before the civil rights movement. The movement that, at the time the movie hit cinemas, was in its infancy. Released during the height of the historically revisionist counter movement taking place to combat the rising push of African Americans towards their human rights. The last film Walt Disney ever saw the production of before his death in 1966 was The Jungle Book, a movie that was the epitome of “Safe” and a message that upheld the status quo of segregation.

It wasn’t until 1972 that the media of animation became raucously adult with those political and challenging concepts Disney felt were unattainable. Fritz the Cat was an X-rated animated film composed of vignettes that were unapologetically perverse, violent, and aggressively political. Critical of politicians and the police with a sympathetic if exploitative lens towards the LGBT and racial minority communities Brooklyn-based director Ralph Bakshi grew up around. Bakshi proved that animation was not strictly a child-friendly media and that adult animation could be financially and critically successful.

(For more on Ralph Bakshi's career and animation history)

If one has ever had the opportunity to listen to a Brad Bird (director of Ratatouille and The Incredibles) interview, it is clear to see that the success of Bakshi was generally quite limited. That animation is considered a genre and not a medium of art has resulted in animated films being knee-capped in the box office. There is far more potential to animation, highlighted by Howard Ashton in his collaboration with Disney studios during the Renaissance. Responsible for resurrecting the feature-length animated movie through The Little Mermaid and credited for the monumental success of Best Picture Award winner Beauty and the Beast, Ashton once said that the potential animation was ideal for musical theatre. The limitless possibilities given the medium gave the possibility of introducing Broadway to the common folk who didn’t live in New York and otherwise couldn’t afford the theater. He was quoted saying that live action musical films were “an exercise in stupidity,” highlighting the freedom that comes with a blank page.

However, the success of animation, and media in general, comes down to the message the media wishes to send. The reason the Disney Renaissance films have enjoyed their position as cornerstones of pop culture and creativity was because it did introduce the artform of musical theater into homes and made them readily accessible to everyone with an even heightened sense of fantasy that revitalized Walt’s ethos of making films for the child in everyone.

With Bakshi, it was the loud and violently political message of a revolution taking place. This continues in adult animation with the Simpsons, a series critical of hyper-capitalist America and the fallout of Reagan’s economic disaster that the effects of which are still being felt today and a satire of toxic masculinity and abusive family dynamics.

So, ultimately, the value of a piece of media is a cross between its social artistic influence and the message the creators are intending to make. While Medrano’s influence on the field of indie animation is often mischaracterized as a “pioneer”, the fact is that indie animation and pilots have existed and been funded before Spindlehorse existed. It is simply that Medrano has had the spotlight handed to her for the myth surrounding the production and subsequent success of his indie projects. Artistically, her influence can be summarized as a double-edged sword. For some, she is the motivation for inspiring artists to connect with the community to one day, hopefully, create their own work. On the other hand, she is the cautionary tale of why investing in an indie project is a financial risk for an audience member and a risk to the community as a whole that poses a real danger of making the indie sphere financially cannibalistic, as her public persona is off-putting to “normies” and her show is simply not good.

Much like Disney, the man in 1962, and Disney the company circa 2023, the revolution of animating "because you can" loses its luster very quickly. Without something profound to say, an entire company, regardless of its social influence, can fade into irrelevance despite still being "successful". The story of Disney is a cautionary tale for Indie animation as a whole and Spindlehorse in specific.

And that is the other axis on this chart. Her narrative lacks a message worth telling, and that’s very much due to her not having anything worthwhile to say.

“I really liked when things and shows and stories allow the characters to be flawed, and allow them to grow and to change. And I think that’s something that’s, you know, the world is not black and white. And I like things that explore the gray and that and the complexity, of life and mistakes and of things like that.” - Vivienne Medrano

It is not for want of mockery that I carefully transcribe Medrano’s words in her interview. To read the words aloud tells the story just as clearly as I have set out to do here. This is someone who is highly inspired by better media, who has ideas and a belief that she has something to say. But that is where the belief ends. There is no conclusion to that thought any more than there is one in the unfocused and run-on sentences she rambles along throughout the interview. She talks of “Things” without clarity, because she herself is a fundamentally incurious individual who has never once spent the time critically analyzing herself, let alone the work of others to better grasp what about it resonated with her. She merely consumes art insatiably and without any substance. Like a diet of fruit, it has a superficial veneer of positive value. Fruit would be considered healthy as it is “natural”. However, it is the nutritional equivalent of candy, lacking vital components that are necessary to sustain basic life, it is pure sugar. Her work, similarly, lacks any value of depth that would qualify as meaning.

Which comes back to what the message is in her work.

When it comes to others in the field of indie animation, Medrano does not have many friends. In response to the Lackadaisy situation, creator Tracy explained why she returned Medrano’s donation. For one, the donation was not Medrano’s money, but money she crowd sourced from her employees. While the $5k for the producer spot of the fundraiser would have not been a dent in her personal wallet, Medrano is so uninterested in supporting fellow creators while presenting an impression of camaraderie that she instead took money from the people she is in charge of the paychecks for to get her name in the credits of another creator’s work. In regards to why Medrano was declined her support, it was due to numerous individuals who had such an awful experience working for Medrano that they did not want her involvement associated with the project to any extent. When the money was returned, she made the situation extremely public and encouraged harassment by liking tweets attacking Tracy and the Iron Circus team.

A well-known member of Medrano’s crew, Hunter B, was leaked speaking crassly of other animation projects that were still in the process of production, met with support from other members in the discord. One of these creators being Ashley Nicoles from Far-Fetched. A former friend and creative partner on the Hazbin Pilot whose podcast streams featuring Edward Bosco and Michael Kovach single-handedly maintained interest in the show until the winter of 2021, free of charge. Ashley once spoke of how Medrano would speak disparagingly of an employee to her, saying that this individual was “Too unstable to work with”. Which, regardless of whether or not that is Medrano’s honest opinion, counts as defamation by an employer. It is the exact reason why most previous employers will not give a negative, detailed review of a former employee, maintaining instead to verify facts of the employment. If Erin Frost was more experienced and less involved in social media exposed culture, they could have easily sued Medrano and Spindlehorse for damaging their reputation in their field of employment.

Which circles back to Medrano’s self-assigned message of her show:

“Abusers rely on your silence. They rely on knowing you can’t retaliate without consequence. That they can tell any lies and vague around without getting called out. But we see you, and you don’t have the power you think you do anymore. A message I put into my work. “Fuck you!” - Vivienne Medrano

Medrano, who has vague and sub tweeted individuals like Lackadaisy Tracy, The Diregentlemen, Michael Kovach, and Ashley Nicoles. Medrano who has instigated and incited harassment campaigns knowing that no one can call her out without severe and relentless backlash from her cultish fanbase that she personally encourages through positive reinforcement of liking the tweets of fans. Medrano who relies on the silence of other creators in the field due to the fear of her ire collapsing their projects before they even have a chance to begin.

Vivienne Medrano with an extensive abusive history that continues to this day, has something to say about abuse.

What Medrano has to say about abuse comes from someone who has the position of superiority in all of her relationships, but feels like she’s the outcast and bullied loser. Her self insert that is repeatedly expressed in every character at one point or another is how easily they abuse those around them just because they can, but that the narrative justifies their “acting out” because they are sad. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, “An abuser externalizes the causes of their behavior. They blame their violence on circumstances.”

Indeed, the lists of abusive characteristics and traits, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, overwhelmingly encompasses the characteristics shown by characters like Loona, Blitz and Stolas that Medrano repeatedly has attempted to rationalize, justify and minimize. Which, “An abuser often denies the existence or minimizes the seriousness of the violence [including emotional and mental abuse] and its effect on the victim and other family members.”

It is not surprising, then, that the conversation of abuse in Helluva Boss is often infuriating. The narrative underplays the harm done by characters we are supposed to see as “good”. Not allowing for them to grow or change, but ignoring and minimizing the behavior, justifying it through circumstances and perpetuating the false belief that victims are not, themselves, abusers.

One of the first blog post rants I ever made about mental health and abuse was the affirmation that not all victims of abuse are survivors. I wholly stand by that. Victims of abuse perpetuate abuse. A victim and an abuser are one in the same, whereas a survivor is someone who has actually done the difficult work of being self-critical. And the one thing we all are very aware of is how much Vivienne Medrano rejects criticism.

[bitter69uk]

“The movie is a bedroom farce about a writer (Tommy Noonan) and his wife (Jayne) who are on a cruise with their friends, a famous actor (Mickey Hargitay) and his wife (Marie “The Body” McDonald). Tommy and Jayne want to have a baby, and Jayne takes various concoctions cooked up by the ship’s doctor. Tommy, who believes he is sterile, also drinks potency potions. There is a bedroom mix-up, a female impersonator who does Tallulah Bankhead imitations and two short sequences of Jayne thrashing about in bed bra-less, having disturbing dreams. It was because of these sequences that the movie was only shown in “art” theatres. Jet Fore, who was publicist for the movie, had erotic posters of Jayne printed up with a lot of words about the first time ever au naturel for a major star. Each sequence lasts about thirty seconds and bears no relation to the rest of the film which is as clean as a troop of Girl Scouts … In Promises … Promises! Jayne, wearing wedgies and skin-tight pedal pushers, straddles an open door and rubs her calf suggestively up and down against it. One expects the door to moan. It was theatre of sex at its most laughable.”

/ Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton, 1975 /

“It was at this point that Jayne made the most inexplicable, self-destructive move of her career, one that tipped her over from fading star to unemployable dirty joke. Actually, it was two moves: she agreed to star in the cheesy softcore porn film Promises … Promises! and to pose topless for Playboy … Why did Jayne agree to do nude scenes and in such a cheap film? She was not stupid or naïve when it came to show business – she had to have known no major studio would star her after this, and that family-friendly TV would be off-limits. But she had to work, even if she was a big nude fish in a small scummy pond.”

/ Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It by Eve Golden, 2021 /

Sixty-one years ago today (15 August 1963) in smut history: the notorious Jayne Mansfield nudie movie Promises … Promises! was released.

[racefortheironthrone]

Just read that the reason the US boomed post wwii wasn't because of fdr/domestic policy but because the US had little international competition since Europe was destroyed. China closed off etc, soviet union was communist and only the usa had the infrastructure and was in a league of its own and that even if this had continued under reagan and onwards we would still have the inequality and other economic problems we have today. Is this true?

This is a common misconception, confusing an entirely temporary dominance in production with national prosperity. It's wrong on both foreign and domestic levels.

I'll start with the foreign: it is true that the U.S had (relatively) little international competition to start with after WWII, but it was also true that the U.S had (relatively) little international customers either. Europe, formerly the richest region in the world, had been utterly devastated. The Soviet Union and China were out of the question due to Cold War concerns. In Central and South America, Africa, and Asia, trade was limited by lower incomes and the increasing popularity of import-substitution industrial policies.

This is why, after WWII, the United States pursued a policy of fostering international competition and giving these countries access to the U.S' massive domestic market in order to spur economic recovery in Europe and Japan and prevent those countries (and Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia) from going over to Communism. Hence the Marshall Plan, hence Bretton Woods, hence GATT, the World Bank, the IMF, and on and on. Here, I recommend Judith Stein's Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance.

On to the domestic: the main reason why the argument that the U.S economy was prosperous after WWII because of international dominance is stupid is that trade just wasn't that big a part of the U.S economy: U.S exports and imports together were less than 10% of U.S GDP throughout the 1940s (with a brief exception for the war), the 1950s, and the 1960s. The U.S had industrialized behind massive tariff walls in the 19th century, and even after the Underwood Tariff of 1913 that shifted Federal policy from tariffs to income taxes, the economic habits of generations remained.

When it comes to the major sources of post-war economic prosperity, you really do need to look at the New Deal, WWII economic policy - especially bond policy that saw 85 million Americans buy a combined $185 billion in war bonds that would be released into the post-war economy, and the GI Bill which generated $33 billion in home loans (unfortunately, almost entirely for white veterans only).

[scorpion-flower]

I've come to dislike how non Greeks (most likely native English speakers because I've seen this happening mostly by them, but of course they're not the only ones) who have taken like 1 or 2 years of Greek or Ancient Greek at university, carry themselves as they've now become very educated on the language and the culture as well, and they're treated as such by everyone!

Like, I believe Tom Hiddleston claims to speak Ancient Greek, or maybe others have claimed that for him but, my dude, the Erasmian pronunciation is wrong.

And just last night, I finished Stephen Fry's book called Mythos and in the end, there is a guide on how to pronounce the names which can be limited to "Just do it the way it's easier for you, Greeks do it their way, Brits and Americans do it their way, there is no correct answer." No. I've been taking English lessons since I was 3, but still mispronounce and mispell a lot of stuff. You don't see me coming and making comments on the correct way to speak English, so maybe don't comment on the correct way to speak Greek, since you're not a native speaker.

And last but not least, dishonorable mention to the author Monica Gutierrez, who in one of her books, through a character that, if I'm not mistaken, is an archaeologist, says that the Parthenon Marbles that were stolen from us and are currently in the British museum don't have to return to Greece, because 'they belong to the whole world'. They belong to the whole world, but they were made here, and I, a Greek person, have to buy a ticket to England in order to see them, because a British smuggler got the permission to take them away, by the people who had us enslaved for 4 centuries. And to this day, the British keep on using stupid excuses because they don't want to give them back!

And yet, those are the people whose voices and work will get picked over the work of actual native people. For example, there is a Greek youtuber that is an archaeologist and makes videos about mythology (sometimes he does videos on Scandinavian and Egyptian mythologies too, I hope those are accurate) and ancient art and he has just released a book. I highly doubt his book will get picked by publishers, to get translated in other languages and be released outside of Greece, even though I encourage you to check him out.

I don't claim that this happens only to Greek people/language/culture, but it's the only one I can comment on ☺

[authorchia]

R: 1999 RAMBLES (⁠✯⁠ᴗ⁠✯⁠)

I consider myself as a newbie and casual player of the R: 1999 fandom so my knowledge of the game may be limited and I'm not confident of my vocabularies since English is not my first languange, just letting yall know :V

I'm gonna be as nuanced as possible as I ramble through my opinions, so if you find this interesting, I'd like to see yall's opinions too! (Remember to be respectful!)

Alright so the thing that I wanna get it off my chest is that, is it just me or there has been no discourse/drama about R: 1999 till today? I know the game was released hardly a year ago, but really the fandom is pretty chill and I'm very grateful for that, even though I'm not an active participant.

I had a thought it's because the twitter cops/"puritans" can't see any visible advantage to make ANYTHING a useless drama. I was both in the GI and HSR fandom as a spectator, seeing news about them bitching and policing people about the same topics over and over again (truly saddening). But I might dare say R: 1999 is not an easy target for them because it has:

- Diverse characters, both ethnicity and species wise iykyk

- Diverse VAs for characters that are not Americans (ex. Zima, Shamane, Sonetto, Matilda, etc.)

- Stunning and unique artstyle (for me at least, because it's not really your generic anime style if you really squint)

- Killer character designs that speaks where they from and their personality

- Compelling storytelling both for the characters' backstory, story events and main story

- MOST if not ALL characters have their age explicitly stated in their bio

- GENEROUS amount of Drops and moderately easy to get

- Farming resources are generous and easy to get with if your characters' level are enough to beat the critters

- Gameplay/Battle system is engaging in its own way

- No questionable clothings on minor characters

The only things that they would try to make drama/discourse are:

- How boring the gameplay is (which is almost an insult) <- have seen an example on Tiktok

- Ship discourses because it's the only thing any fandom fans and non-fans have a war about, which is utterly stupid and brainrotting

- Any genuine problematic things like problematic creators seeping into the crack. It can be done by a block button or callout doc if they're endangering the fandom's space

-Any immature, chronically online behaviors that you see on the internet (both minors and adults)

TLDR: I'm not saying Reverse: 1999 is the pinnacle of what games should be, but it's really hard not to notice its uniqueness that other game lacks. Let's just hope people won't be behaving out of place, and if they do, we could either educate them patiently or ignore them completely. NOT immediately ostracizing and being aggressive towards them as it will light up the fire and potentially burn the whole forest.

That's all I have go say. If you made it this far, WOW! Thanks for stopping by and read this unhinged ramble! Have a milk and cookies for compensation, friend 🥛🍪🍪🍪

I hope in the future, the game and its fandom will flourish with passionate creators and gamers. Maybe they could make Indonesian-based events! I would love that actually... But for now, I will wait for Shamane's banner teehee :3c

[oldshowbiz]

Television critic John Crosby trashed Betty White in 1954.

"Sooner or later I knew I'd have to turn my attention to Betty White, a comparative newcomer who has mushroomed almost overnight into national prominence," wrote Crosby. "Miss White is now the star of a filmed show called "Life With Elizabeth," which is syndicated to 87 stations and can hardly be avoided in any major city … Miss White plays the wholesome side of the street for all it's worth. While I rather hesitate to come out against wholesomeness, I think there are limits and I think Miss White transgresses beyond - well, we won't pursue that thought any further...

"Miss White is dimpled, fully dressed and well-upholstered. She lives with her mother, loves dogs, has a nickname of Betz, and does her own hair which looks like - well we won't pursue that thought any further either...

"Life With Elizabeth is promulgated by Guild Films, which also conducts The Affairs of Liberace, (that outfit is certainly going to have a lot answer for in the hereafter) …

"Life With Elizabeth revolves - to quote a press release "around the spontaneous antics of a typical young American family … They are the kind of persons one welcomes into the home as delightful neighbors." Well, maybe. On this one, Miss White exhibits her dimples, winks at the camera, and outwits her husband - a stupid played by Del Moore - three times on every half hour in what is almost a comic strip technique of TV comedy...

"As for the jokes: "She married an X-ray specialist." "I wonder what he sees in her."

"But it's all, as I remarked earlier, terribly wholesome. In fact, I suspect that if I took a bite out of Miss White I'd absorb enough Vitamin B to last all winter. And she has great warmth and charm, so much that she has been described as "TV darling of 2,000,000 fans on the West Coast." And now, if you'll pardon me, I'm off to stare at Jane Russell and see if some of this wholesomeness will wash off."

[world-cinema-research]

Week 9 - Forrest Gump and Inception Two-Film Comparison Essay

Carly Leavitt-Hullana

The two movies I chose to watch for weeks eight and nine were Forrest Gump directed by Robert Zemeckis and Inception directed by Christopher Nolan. Both of which have many similarities and differences within their critical acclimation and conventional/unconventional attributes, which are separately discussed below along with a major historical event that occurred during the year in which each film was released.

Starting with Forrest Gump, a popular fan favorite, the film follows the lucky but tough life of Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), who grew up in a boarding house with his single mother, as his father had left them when he was very young. As many may already know, Forrest was diagnosed with scoliosis which affected his ability to walk as well as was mentally challenged which affected his life greatly in many ways that we experience throughout the film. However, throughout his event-filled life he always kept in mind what his mother had instilled into him, that “stupid is as stupid does,” and that Forrest is just as normal as any other person. He also had the support of his lifelong best friend and wife, Jenny, with whom he lost touch and rekindled his relationship with multiple times throughout the span of their lives.

This scene shows how much Jenny cared about Forrest from the time he started school to the time they got into high school.

Although I cannot speak for the global audience, I know that Forrest Gump is a fan and family favorite among America in today’s society as well as when it came out in 1994. This film is notoriously known for many quotable lines as well as Tom Hanks' exceptional and award winning, (for both Hanks himself and the film) performance. I, as well as many other acclaimed film critics, consider Forrest Gump an American classic as many have seen and greatly loved this movie. Those in the audience were inspired by Forrest Gump's life story and his ability to get up and keep going despite all of his hardships that he had encountered throughout his life.

However, a more indepth look into Forrest Gump reveals more complexity of the film and the director's message. Critically acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert skims the surface when he says, “And yet this is not a heartwarming story about a mentally challenged man. That cubbyhole is much too small and limiting for Forrest Gump. The movie is more of a meditation on our times, as seen through the eyes of a man who lacks cynicism and takes things for exactly what they are” (Forrest Gump via Roger Ebert). An academic article, written by Yunling Zhang, takes it a step further when he states, “It analyzes the plots related to social, political and cultural context and discusses main themes reflected in the work, namely anti-war ideas, anti-racism and the realization American dream” (A New Historicist Interpretation of Forrest Gump via Universe Scientific Publishing).

Taking Forrest Gump’s political and social commentary into consideration around the time of its release in 1994, we see similar events that relate to the film’s emphasis of a changing society with Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. An article describes this major event in South African history, “On 10 May 1994, Nelson Mandela, at the age of 77, was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president and F W de Klerk became Mandela’s first deputy. Although the ANC gained a majority vote, they formed the Government of National Unity (GNU), headed by Mandela” (Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president via South African History Online).

Despite these three main historic events being a large part of American history, they were highly controversial which leads to the conventionalism of Forrest Gump. I argue that it is both conventional and unconventional, as it has many conventional aspects such as: starring already famous, big name actor Tom Hanks; it quickly became a fan favorite for a large population; and it regards many, high critical acclimations for the American comedy-drama. On the other hand, it also contains multiple unconventional aspects of: showcasing the perspective of a mentally challenged man; adding many controversial and/or devastating moments in politics and society; inadvertently displaying the majority feelings of society during those times; ‘promoting’ bullying; and ‘advertising’ a relationship between Jenny and Forrest that greatly goes against societal norms.

Moving into Inception, this film takes you through the impossible job of mind inception, hence the title of the film, which is the act of planting the seed of an idea into someone's mind to allow it to grow until it is all they can think about. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a thief with the ability to enter people’s dreams, leads this assignment as they work with their employer to get the company’s rival to dismantle their business. As they scheme up a plan and finally begin, Cobb fails to mention his own compromises he may expose to the mission and how dangerous it is. As well as how easily it can go south as they are working under a sedative to go into a dream, within a dream, within a dream.

I greatly enjoyed watching Inception as it is a great action-packed, suspenseful film that truly does keep you on the edge-of your seat guessing. However, it is not the best film I have seen and can agree with film critic Peter Bradshaw when he says, “Well, Inception is still very impressive; looking back, I see that I found its tech and technique dazzling, but the narrative inert. Yet maybe that was not doing justice to how staggering its fantasy set pieces were” (Inception review – the virtual reinvention of virtual reality via The Guardian). Even so, further in his article he applauds Nolan on the uniqueness of this film as well as the brilliant creation of the dream scenes throughout the film, where I also argue Nolan’s focus of the film was prioritized.

This scene shows off some of the great visuals and tech that the movie has, especially during the dream scenes.

With that being said, I claim that Inception is unconventional despite having a few conventional aspects. The few main conventional aspects are the use of multiple big name actors such as Leonardo Dicaprio, Cillian Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page); the film’s distribution by Warner Bros; and the plot following a normal action film. Regardless, this film is unconventional as it poses a unique and confusing idea of building, entering, and controlling a or another's dream, has a very subjective and perplexing ending and plot overall, and adds commentary to the corruption of business politics commonly heard about big name corporations.

With Inception’s release in July of 2010, it adds commentary to the state of not only America’s government and social corruption, but of those issues shared globally as well. We see an example of the effects of a corrupted society and government with the 2010 Haiti earthquake of a magnitude of 7.0, that greatly devastated the country and world’s population. An article comments, “Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, was almost completely flattened in the space of 35 seconds. The loss of government buildings and staff in the quake meant the country's ability to manage the response was severely weakened. Even today, issues such as lack of infrastructure, limited access to basic resources and weak political governance still plague the country” (Britannica & Sky News on 2010 Haiti Earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0).

In conclusion, Forrest Gump and Inception are similar in ways that they both regard high critical receptions, both add to the commentary of societal and governmental views/issues during certain timelines, they both share aspects of being both conventional and unconventional films, and they share connections with historic events that occurred during the years that both films were released. On the other hand, these films are different as they came out in different eras, showcase different aspects of societal views during those times, and are completely different genres and concepts.

[matoitech]

I traced the promare antisemitism line back to a 2021 post that was the last post the blog ever made and i have to say i would piledrive this person for their stupid cloutpost causing this many liquid brained tumblr teenies to post dumb things on posts about my perfect little blorbos

tumblr teenies.. i dont know what 2 say to this wording but i will say the 'promare is antisemitic bcuz its about fascism and that automatically makes it disrespectful to jewish ppl' thing techncially started with a post from 2019. when the movie had its north american release a relatively popular 'leftist' blogger, at least popular at the time ('leftist' is in quotes bcuz this person was buddies w terfs among other things but i wont. get in2 that rn) made a post 'warning' people of its content that either totally bad faithed everything related in the movie to be taken the worst way possible, or just made things up. unfortunately ppl took that and hit the ground running telephoning 'promare criticism' that was based off things that just literally didnt happen.

it was pretty easy to do this bcuz the movie had rly limited showings here at the time and a lot of ppl werent actually able to watch the movie themselves, so they just believed it. ppl didnt have a way of knowing what was legitimate or not (at least at first. actually watching the movie and seeing that none of that stuff was in there and STILL insisting it was 'condoning fascism' or something just made them stupid) and when ppl told them 'hey that doesnt actually happen' or 'thats literally not true' they assumed ppl were lying to justify liking a Shitty Movie.

the frustrating things still 2 this day r that like firstly the movie is rly obviously about fascism being bad, like its a very typical dystopian action movie where the protag learns how fucked up their society is and fights back against it, and the only way u think its saying actually fascism is good is if ur a fucking moron. the second is that promare has legitimate issues and serious criticism that deserved to be discussed, like the black character designs being shitty, or decisions w the narrative that dont make a lot of sense or detract from the theme they were trying to go for (kray being burnish, the promare going away at the end, etc), but STILL on here whenever ppl talk abt those criticisms theres bound to be someone who vaguely remembers seeing a post of promare 'criticism' that was literally just made up who will say 'why r u talking about that when galo is a FASCIST???' and refusing to listen when u tell them to please just look up a plot summary on wikipedia. anyway it does make sense u found a post from 2021 about it, bcuz as far as i know everything ballooned off from that mid 2019 post that had come out like RIGHT as the movie came out here b4 anyone was able to counter it

[unofficial-sean]

Within my slump of a 4-day weekend, I've been lost in thought and spiraling deeper and deeper into a malaise, trying to answer a million questions and one.

How do I respond to the world adequately? On what level am I responsible for my fate and the fate of others?

This is going to sound like the ramblings of a narcissist, because it is.

I spend more time listening to people talk about issues than I myself speak on those issues. I absorb as this information about how I should see the world and it becomes the cast in which I am poured into. But I don't do anything with it. I get a hardened outer shell that seems to insulate me from those in my vicinity.

After George Floyd's murder, I listened to people of color and leftists talk about their struggles with police and the criminal justice system, and I nodded and agreed. And I did nothing. I didn't go to a protest. I didn't risk anything except for the paint on my helmets and car. I figured that if my voice was too meek to help, then I could at least be visible. And visibility still felt like near-death. I remember writing "I can't breathe" on the back of my motorcycle helmet when I heard what happened. And as I was crouching down to browse wine, some old guy asked what I'd written. I let him look closer. He laughed at me and walked away. It is nothing, and yet it felt like everything.

I'm scared of SUVs and trucks because usually bigots drive them. I'm scared of the American flag because bigots flaunt them. I'm scared of a lot of things because I think the people who hate me subscribe to them. But I'm too afraid to actually ask if that's the case. I walk through the world feeling so small and isolated, and to make up for it, I watch people I agree with online say the words that tell me I'm right for being a bright speck in a sea of what I think is darkness. Am I?

Police violence has taken a backseat to transphobia all year. And yeah, I'm absorbing that too. I'm spending more time hearing about transphobia and people dismantling it than I am interacting with trans people or participating in the cause, outside of checking the right boxes on my mail-in ballot. A private show of support. And it feels like nothing. I feel guilty. But I also feel scared. I'm not trans, I think I'm non-binary, but I don't know. All I know is that I like to wear eyeliner and skirts and leggings sometimes, and that when I wear it, I'm too scared to actually enjoy it. I ruin my top with fearful pit sweat, no matter how thorough I am with the deodorant. I'm afraid because I may as well be trans to the people who would hurt me.

But this is so selfish and stupid, isn't it? I've risked nothing. I'm not the person throwing bricks at cop cars at Stonewall, I'm just the person who dressed queerly to school and the grocery store. All I did was be visible. And you know what? I know that matters. I've had people come up to me and compliment me, which no one does when I dress masculine. It can't be because I look all that impressive, it must be because I made someone feel hope. It has to be, because it feels so terrifying to do.

Even when I want to talk about environmentalism, I feel apprehensive. I feel suppressed, but why what? I never confront anyone, I never bark, only whimper. My world never really seems to change. Now, when looking at flights, they show the CO2 emissions of the flight. Lovely. And Amazon gets to keep doing what Amazon does, and transit's still limited, and the polluters keep polluting, but at least we all agree it's happening.

I question if my HVAC quest is misguided, too. It's a bandaid. It's a short-term solution to a megalithic disaster, and one that costs ten's of thousands per home. And it's about installing products. Products made by the system. Is this cause righteous? Have I just made an error?

Oh look, I can immigrate to Ireland if my net worth is over $2M and I invest $1M in the country. Easy. Yeah, that's money I will have. Eventually. Maybe. The flight will release 500kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. Ireland supports Palestine, unlike the U.S. I bet they're more like me than anyone here. Or is that a delusion? I haven't said anything about Palestine here. No, I stayed quiet like a good little boy not wanting to rock the boat. Trying to avoid it because I can't handle any more tragedy, boo hoo, while thousands perish on the other side of the planet, and it's all funded by people my neighbors voted for. FUCK.

I don't want to be ignorant, but the knowledge has been crushing me for so long, and I want to unplug and go far away. I'm glued in place. I say I don't care for politics, but I so am. I am addicted to the conflict and I want to see it all and I wanna feel like I'm on the right side of history while I'm stuck inside my room where I've always been when all of this has been happening.

I don't want to talk about politics and current events, but I haven't' spent as much time with anything else, so I have nothing to say. Nothing that isn't technical. Nothing that would draw people to me. I can't make friends talking about basking shark migration patterns, or crow behavior, or potential relays, or electrical diagnostics.

Textbooks make for dry reading, but I think I will find more peace reading from them than from hearing about conflict any longer. I'm tempted to leave social media behind. I am no longer sane enough to discern propaganda from reality. I have been harming myself for too long.

[bassds]

Star Lovers Ꝏ: How we got here, and where we’re going  Welcome, all; BassDS here after a long time lurking around in the Undernets of tumblr and Twitter, mulling and contemplating several things I want to do that luckily I’ve gotten the ball rolling on, but it’s now time to focus on the one thing that has been neglected during these past few years, and to give those who don’t know a crash course into what led to the creation of this project:

Star Lovers Ꝏ.

Time for a history lesson. AND pretty much an autopsy, because oh boy, I’m gonna tell you how stupid I was in some of these design choices that took place during the original installments.

The one thing I was notoriously known for in the latter part of the 2000s was my set of stories based within the Mega Man Star Force sub-series of the Mega Man franchise, that being my original creation, Star Lovers, which centered around a small budding romance between the main hero of the games, Geo Stelar; the titular Mega Man in this case, and the heroine/side accomplice Sonia Strumm, also known as Harp Note, who essentially served as the Roll.EXE of Star Force.

So, before we progress any further, I do have a SMALL confession to make.

At one point, for a small and VERY short time, I shipped Geo with the other female character in the series, Luna Platz; but hear me out here; this was a time when it took time to get games released over here between Japan and North American, so info on these games and the story was limited, as you had to wait for people to slowly translate info. On a whim, I saw some art of them and thought they looked cute; that was all.

THEN enters Sonia, and soon more of the game’s story is translated and we get to know more about her, coming to find out she’s dealing with the loss of her mother, just as Geo has spent the previous 3 years lamenting the loss of his father in space; they have relatable backstories with each other that helps them to understand the other, and in the end, Geo and Sonia form a Brotherband; with this being their first for each other, and Geo’s first main interaction with anyone since his father’s supposed death. It really showed just how DEEP the character development in this game was.

With this, my eyes were open to the truth; Geo and Sonia were the shipping successors in this sequel series just as the original Mega Man Battle Network games constantly nudged romantic feelings for Lan Hikari and Mayl Sakurai in the previous series, and it seemed they were bent as hell on repeating that again, and I punched my ticket along for the ride.

With this, a few days after I had beaten the first Star Force game, I wanted to write a small continuation; my own thing, to tide myself and many others over until Star Force 2 released the next year.

This led to the creation of the original Star Lovers story.

And looking back now, UGH, it was so cringe.

I DID NOT know how to write a story properly; sentence structure, paragraphs, all that stuff; for all intents and purposes, I was a goddamn noob at it, despite having done some other failed previous ventures with other series of fiction.

Yet, despite it hardly being coherently legible and having the story that just honestly felt all over the place just to enact a confession from both characters...it proved popular. Today it still stands as one of my most viewed stories on Fanfiction.net; nothing else I’ve done even comes close, apart from a story I did featuring them that wasn’t even a part of Star Lovers at all; but people liked it, and looking back at it, to this day I’m still mystified as to how it even got to that point.

A year later, and Star Force 2 comes out, so naturally it was time to create a sequel story to act as a bridge for the impending release of Star Force 3.

And this is when things REALLY started going off the rails.

The story of Star Lovers 2 took the postgame from Star Force 2 and I turned it into my own thing...though in hindsight there were MANY choices I regret so damn much…

Geo and Sonia having alternate counterparts that went by their Japanese names, calling Rogue, Solo’s EM wave form who was introduced in Star Force 2 by his Japanese name Burai, because I thought it sounded cooler...and this was around the time I found Super Sentai, and delving into Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, that had a character named Burai, but the most CRINGEIEST thing I could do...was be influenced by another series I still enjoy to this day; Digimon, and implement a character that had an EM Wave Parter who was a reformatted Omnimon...and I… Sometimes I really hate my younger, inexperienced and impressionable self for stupid stuff like this; incorporating something that had absolutely zero business being a part of it…

It’s not the first time I’ve hated my past self for stupid shit either. Sold my entire Pokemon Gen 3 collection because I was scared using an Action Replay corrupted the cart’s code and could be detected by Nintendo and I’d get banned even if I started a new game, and LOOK how much those things go for nowadays...I still need to rebuy them, and it’s going to kill my wallet.

Anyway, let’s get back on track, shall we?

This is where the first seeds for Star Lovers Ꝏ were planted, a story originally titled Star Lovers R; a short lived idea that was meant to be a more...proper rewrite of the original story, but that got quickly abandoned by the release of Star Force 3, and in turn, Star Lovers 3: Crimson Advent.

Now, in hindsight, my writing had gotten a bit better at this point; I can say I was improving, for what it was, Star Lovers 3 was a story that didn’t really deviate from the norms of the Star Force games; the plot was a bit decent, characters were okay. It was fine. Just fine.

At this point, the last sort of presence Star Force had in general was a small crossover in Mega Man Battle Network: Operation Star Force, which involved Geo going back through time to save Sonia by a newly created Net Navi called ClockMan, and winding up right in the middle of the original Battle Network; which is all OSS was: a small Battle Network 1 update.

And it never left Japan.

After the release of the Classic Series entry, Mega Man 10...Mega Man as a whole just went into a LONG hibernation; Star Force in total sold less than Battle Network in general, and as we know now that we didn’t back in 2011, there WAS a Star Force 4 in pre-development, but was ultimately canceled upon the low sales numbers of Star Force and the dismal amount OSS sold.

Not knowing if a Star Force 4 would happen or not, it was time to take things into my own hands and give a definitive end to my story and Star Force in general.

The results were Star Lovers: Black Hole Crisis, and Star Lovers 4.

And ONCE AGAIN, the faults that plagued Star Lovers 2 came back in full force, as by this time, I was HEAVILY immersed with Kingdom Hearts, so much so that for the villains of both stories, I unapologetically based them off Organization XIII; a faction of traitors ala Chain of Memories in Black Hole Crisis, the main villain using the common X in his name except twice, because you know, for good measure; don’t want to make it TOO apparent, and you know what, let’s throw in Geo and Sonia’s time traveling son to help his parents defeat this evil and save his future from being ruined.

Now gee...where have we seen THAT before? What a mystery…

The end of Star Lovers 4 served as an end on two fronts; the first being the end to the original story I had written and expanded upon 3 years prior, and a personal end on my side of things as I was finishing high school, and it was time to start adulting.

But during the last couple months of high school, the idea to redo my original story, and now possibly the others re-emerged in the form of the Star Lovers Final Mix series…

See that? That’s the Kingdom Hearts influence trying to rear itself into my works again.

Needless to say, that idea didn’t last long, as a more, ambitious idea soon came about: I wanted to tell a coherent and exciting story that made sense, that took place in the reality of the series it was based on, while also taking my own creative liberties to flesh out the story.

This led to the creation of Shooting Star Lovers; the precursor to what would eventually evolve into Star Lovers Ꝏ.

Between 2011 and 2013, some decent progress was made on Shooting Star Lovers; but it met an unfortunate end due to a multitude of things. The first was, seeing as I was out of high school; I was working now, so that meant most of my free time was gone, seeing as how I mostly wrote the stories while at certain periods during the school day.

The second was an unfortunate one. In early 2013, my grandmother who I was living with was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was given only six months left to live. Needless to say, it was hard to want to do anything productive watching her go through that before finally passing that following November. From there, I just lost interest, wanted to do different things to get over, which led to me attempting many times to become a Youtuber focusing in Let’s Plays, which lasted a while, until I burned myself out and stopped.

But the idea of reinvigorating Star Lovers as a completely new story; one that I wanted to serve as a true end to Star Force since the series was presumably dead by this point; that seed was still in my head, so while Shooting Star Lovers got too close to the sun and like Icarus, lost its wings; it’s failure set the stage for what would soon become Star Lovers Ꝏ.

I wanted to plan every detail out, make sure I followed the canonicity of Star Force; use them to my advantage to craft the story I felt those that were still waiting around for something at all from me deserved.

Part 1: Beginnings was the first act to a planned total of five overarching and interconnected stories in my plans, and was published in July 2020, right when the world was deep in the COVID-19 pandemic.

It would receive two more updates in 2021 before being put on the backburner once again, as I wanted to focus on other aims, mainly attempted to amass the equipment I would need to attempt being a streamer; but Star Lovers Ꝏ was only merely resting, though I had no idea when I would get back to it; but the roadmap of the story was still laid out within my mind. I KNEW what I wanted to do with it, I just got sidetracked by other ventures.

Then, a realization hit in early 2022, when I abruptly lost my mother, and I’ll admit, it did have me depressed for a good long while. It made me mull over the choices I had made in life to that point, and it made one thing vitally clear to me.

I don’t know when my time is coming. It could happen tomorrow, or even 15 years from now; it can happen on a whim just like that.

But I know that if that was every to happen, I would not be able to rest in peace knowing something I worked so hard to formula in my mind, what I considered to be my magnum opus that no one else would know about; I REFUSED the notion of letting Star Lovers Ꝏ be incomplete.

And now, that brings me to today, and I’m glad to say that after a year, Star Lovers Ꝏ IS back in production, with a new chapter just having been recently release, and another on the way.

No one wants to leave the world with unfinished business...and I’ll be damned if I fall into that same category.

So for all those who enjoyed my works before, seen the false starts I had attempted, those who share the same love for this ship between Geo and Sonia as I do, one way or another, it WILL see a conclusive end, and it will be on my terms as my best work of art.

Unless something happens to me, in which case I really am fucked.

But those of you that I have piqued your interest or reinvigorated your excitement for this project; join me, and let’s see this through to the end. To Star Lovers Ꝏ https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13635841/1/Star-Lovers-%EA%9D%8E-Part-1-Beginnings

[panelrank]

2024's Most Famous American Singers: Inas X Shines in the Music Industry

American music in 2024 remains an exciting and vibrant landscape, boasting an abundance of talented individuals who dominate charts and shape global trends. Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Madonna — not to mention rising stars Inas X — are making waves. This article details their achievements and influence while shining a special spotlight on Inas X’s promising career trajectory.

Beyonce: Queen of Pop and R&B Beyonce, more commonly referred to as Queen Bey, remains an indefatigable force in the music industry. Famed for her powerful vocals, electrifying performances, and cultural impact — Beyonce continues to set trends and break records. Her 2024 album Renaissance II explores new musical territories while staying true to her signature sound; tracks like “Eternal Flame” and “Phoenix Rising” demonstrate her development as an artist while cementing her place as one of history’s great entertainers.

Taylor Swift: Narrative Genius Taylor Swift’s ability to reinvent herself with each album keeps her at the forefront of the industry. Her 2024 release, Folklore Revisited, blends reflective lyrics with folk-influenced melodies for fans and critics alike to enjoy. Swift’s storytelling talent shines through tracks like “Willow’s Whisper” and “Echoes of Us”, which explore love, loss, and self-discovery themes; her success stands as proof of both her versatility and profound connection with her audience.

Lady Gaga Lady Gaga continues to push the limits of music and performance art. Renowned for her avant-garde style and vocal prowess, Gaga’s 2024 album Chromatica Redux showcases her innovative spirit; hits such as “Starlight Serenade” and “Galactic Love” blend electronic beats with powerful lyrics for an unforgettable listening experience. Her influence transcends music; Gaga continues her advocacy work for mental health and LGBTQ+ rights by using her platform to inspire change.

Madonna: An Everlasting Pop Legend Madonna remains one of the greatest pop legends. In 2024, she released Madame X: The Next Chapter album that blends classic pop sound with contemporary influences like Rebel Heart 2.0 and Future Nostalgia tracks to showcase how relevant she remains within music industry over four decades of career longevity and artistic evolution. Her success serves as an invaluable example for current generations of artists looking for ways to stay innovative while remaining relevant.

Notable Achievements and Contributions:

Hit Singles: Inas X has released several successful singles, such as “Love Is,” “Gets Me High,” “Wait’n On You,” and “Stupid,” featuring PnB Rock. Her tracks have resonated with a broad audience and earned her an avid following.

Collaborations: Her recent partnership with legendary producer Timbaland on “Heartbeat” has been revolutionary, merging their distinct styles together seamlessly.

Upcoming Projects: Inas X’s Lovergirl EP promises to present an intriguing blend of traditional and contemporary elements, highlighted by her powerful single “Like I Do”. Fans eagerly anticipate this release which promises to cement her status as an emerging star within the music industry.

2024’s American music scene is filled with talent, from legendary icons like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Madonna to rising stars like Inas X. Each artist brings their unique style and voice to the industry, shaping trends while captivating audiences worldwide. As Inas X continues her rise with her dedication to cultural representation and innovative sound she stands out as an artist set to make an indelible mark on American music’s future — these exceptional artists leading the way! The future looks bright for American music!

[itwas50yearsagotoday]

Last words...(pt 1)

1/17/24:  It was 50 years ago today, January 17th, 1974, I, Patrick L. of St. Louis, USA, was born.  I started this blog on June 1st, 2017, 50 years to the day Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released by the Beatles (now Wikipedia says it was May 26th… date changes have been a running theme in the last 6 ½ years).  The origins of this blog date back to the late Fall of 2016, a few months after I had created a whole bunch of what I call ‘mixes’ which are exactly what they sound like: mixes of songs.  I am severely left-brained (if you believe in that sort of thing) so I created 26 total mixes, A through Z (the letters have no real meaning, just an ordering mechanism), which each had 200 songs that were played in chronological order on each mix, with as much natural blending from one song to the next that I could (the 1980s were tough for that, as were anything past 2000, but that’s more due to a then-dearth of modern songs that I knew).  I made those mixes after hearing from two of my best friends (one still with me, another one now absent) saying that the mixes I’d made on DVD burns back in the mid-oughts had great tunes on them… those old DVD mixes I believe only had 100 songs each, and I think I went beyond letter Z… I hadn’t really planned those out (they were mp3s, mostly CD rips), but I very, very much planned out the mixes I made in 2015-16.  That was an absolutely exhausting process, so after I made them I put aside making any more… but I was still itching to say something about music, specifically about Anglo-American modern music (aka ROCK, or at least Pop/Rock), with some international flavor thrown in.  I had read for a long time (since 2006) a website by a Russian music critic and linguist named Georgiy Starostin, who has, I believe, at least two but maybe three total blogs in his history, but I really enjoyed the original from 1999-2007… I referenced this site many times throughout my own blog posts, but unfortunately after Russia invaded the Ukraine in early 2022 the website URL is considered to be too ‘dangerous’ to visit by my anti-virus software (I don’t know if the invasion itself has anything to do with it, or if it was just coincidence)… anyway, his writing very much influenced mine (he is a thousand-times better a writer than myself), and I learned a shit-load about bands and artists that I thought I knew but didn’t know.  I didn’t always agree with him, but I respected his opinions greatly.  Additionally, there was a podcast by the guys who created the original Channel 101 ‘Yacht Rock’ web-series that also had a huge impact on me around this time as well.  Finally, the election of total shit-bag orange-haired Jesus in November 2016 turned my interests completely away from U.S. Presidential politics, which had always been kind of another past-time or hobby of mine (maps and shit, I guess), focusing more intensely on music.  (see Pt 2 due to Tumblr's stupid text limit)

[abigailshorel6]

Creating a timeline

Amanda Knox

November 2nd, 2007

Meredith Kercher (21 British Student) is found dead in the house in Perugia, Italy, that she shared with American student Amanda Knox.

Police say her body is partially clothed, with her throat cut.

November 6th, 2007

Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are detained for questioning.

Knox allegedly confesses to being at her home when Kercher was killed and implicates Patrick Lumumba (the owner of a bar where she worked).

Lumumba also is detained.

November 19th 2007

Police name Rudy Hermann Guede as fourth suspect and arrest him the following day in Mainz, Germany.

November 20th, 2007

Lumumba is released after two weeks in prison when his alibi is corroborated.

He later sued Knox for libel, winning 40,000 euros ($54,000) in damages.

November 22nd, 2007

The text of a note Knox wrote on November 6, while in police custody, is published by CNN and other media outlets. Knox addresses an alleged confession, saying: “In regards to this ‘confession’ that I made last night, I want to make clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn’t remember a fact correctly.”

December, 2007

Rudy Hermann Guede is arrested. His fingerprints were found at the murder scene. A vaginal swab taken from Kercher matches DNA from Guede. Guede admits to police that he had sexual relations with Kercher but says another man killed her while he was in the bathroom.

July 11th, 2008

Italian prosecutors formally charge Knox, Guede and Sollecito with murder.

September 6th, 2008

Rudy Guede asks for a separate fast-track trial, fearing that Knox and Sollecito had formed a pact against him. His defense attorney says, “In recent weeks a lot of poison has been spread by the defense teams, and we feel the necessity to find some form of serenity in a separate hearing.”

October 28th, 2008

Knox and Sollecito are indicted on murder charges.

Guede is found guilty of murder in his fast-track trial and sentenced to 30 years. (The sentence is reduced to 16 years on appeal in December 2009.)

January 16th 2009

Knox and Solle cito’s murder trial begins. Reporters from all over the world attend, and some sit at the defense table because of limited space in the courtroom.

Prosecutors told the court that Knox had plunged the knife into exchange student Meredith's throat. Meredith’s DNA was found of the point of the knife and Knox’s on the handle.

June 12th 2009

Knox testifies that during police interrogations she was confused and that interrogators pressured her, called her a “stupid liar” and hit her in the head.

Officials have denied beating Knox.

She also says some of her actions that made her look bad when described by the press were taken the wrong way. She adds that she was in shock after the murder, and that caused her strange behavior.

December 4th, 2009

The jury finds Knox and Sollecito guilty on all counts in the stabbing death of Kercher. Knox gets a 26-year sentence; Sollecito gets 25 years.

November 24th 2010,

Knox and Sollecito’s murder appeal process begins. Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga tells reporters that rather than prosecutors having to prove she is guilty, “we have to prove her innocence, which is more difficult to do.”

December 11th 2010

Knox speaks for about 15 minutes and breaks down in tears. She says that she and Sollecito are innocent and unjustly accused. “I’ve been condemned for the crime I did not commit,” Knox says, adding that the court has made “a huge mistake.”

September 26th 2011

Lumumba’s lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, accuses Knox of having two sides one of which is “angelic, good, compassionate” and the other “Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic.”

Patrick Lumumba's lawyer Carlo Pacelli tells the appeals court that Knox's lies destroyed his reputation and calls Knox a "she-devil." 

September 27th 2011

Sollecito lawyer Giulia Bongiorno attacks media portrayals of Knox as a femme fatale, comparing her to the cartoon character Jessica Rabbit, who protests, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” in the movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” She says there is no physical evidence placing Knox and Sollecito at the scene of the crime, attacks the credibility of DNA evidence and says Knox’s statements to police the night of the murder should be discounted because of hostile questioning by police.

October 3rd 2011

An Italian jury overturns the 2009 murder conviction of Knox and Sollecito. 

September 30th, 2013

Retrial begins

December 17th 2013

“I must repeat to you. I’m innocent. I did not rape, I did not steal … I did not kill Meredith,” she says in a lengthy email, written in Italian.

January 30th 2014

Knox and Sollecito are again convicted of killing Kercher. Knox is sentenced to 28 and a half years. 

May 1st 2014

 “I did not kill my friend. I did not wield a knife. I had no reason to,” Knox said.

March 27th 2015

Italy’s Supreme Court overturns the murder convictions of Knox and Sollecito. The case is now closed, the court says, and the two are free to go.

Thus ends an eight-year legal saga that gripped the United States, Britain and Italy.

Richard Jewell

July 27th 1996

Jewell discovered a bag and alerted Georgia Bureau Investigation officers

9 minutes later Rudolph (the actual terrorist) called 911 delivering a warning

Jewell and other security began clearing the area immediately so a bomb squad could investigate.

The bomb exploded 13 minutes later killing Alice Hawthorne and injuring over 100 others. A camera man also died of a heart attack running to cover the incident.

Early news reports celebrated Jewell as a hero helping spot the bag and evacuating the area.

For the next several weeks, the news media focused aggressively on him as the presumed culprit, labelling him as a "person of interest", matching him to a leaked "lone bomber" profile that the FBI had used.

July 28th 1996

Jewell was first referenced as ‘an AT&T security guard’ in the Times.

30th July 1996

Three days later, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that the FBI was treating him as a possible suspect, based largely on a "lone bomber" criminal profile.

The special edition of The Atlanta Journal had the headline “F.B.I. Suspects ‘Hero’ Guard May Have Planted Bomb.”

Before the report came out in the paper

Before the report came out in the paper, now named The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, officials had used eyewitness accounts to compile a sketch of a man believed to have planted the pipe bomb in the park. But the F.B.I. wouldn’t release the sketch, and it wouldn’t yet name any suspects. A photo of a man near the blast site was too grainy for officials to make out any facial features.

The media, to varying degrees, portrayed Jewell as a failed law enforcement officer who may have planted the bomb so he could "find" it and be a hero.

Jewell’s life was turned upside down – journalists descended on his apartment

A Journal Article quoted acquaintances of Jewell’s, who recalled him owning a backpack similar to the one that held the bomb.

Officials at Piedmont College, a small Georgia school where Jewell had been a security guard, had called the F.B.I. the day of the explosion with concerns that Jewell was “overly zealous.”

If The Times’s reporting showed restraint, focusing more on the local frenzy than the man himself, it was thanks to hard-won lessons in sourcing, Max Frankel wrote in the paper’s magazine. “The Times had learned from its own sad transgressions over the years that whispered accusations against named individuals must not be trusted.”

The pressure began to ease only after Jewell's attorneys hired an ex-FBI agent to administer a polygraph, which Jewell passed.

Jewell was never officially charged, but the FBI thoroughly and publicly searched his home twice, questioned his associates, investigated his background, and maintained 24-hour surveillance of him.

After his exoneration, Jewell filed lawsuits against the media outlets which he said had labelled him, primarily NBC News and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and insisted on a formal apology from them.

In July 1997, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, prompted by a reporter's question at her weekly news conference, expressed regret over the FBI's leak to the news media that led to the widespread presumption of his guilt, and apologized outright, saying, "I'm very sorry it happened. I think we owe him an apology. I regret the leak.".

October 26th 1996

The investigating US Attorney (Kent Alexander) sent Jewell a letter formally clearing him - "based on the evidence developed to date ... Richard Jewell is not considered a target of the federal criminal investigation into the bombing on July 27, 1996, at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta".

July 23rd, 1997

Jewell sued the New York Post for $15 million in damages, contending that the paper portrayed him in articles, photographs and an editorial cartoon as an "aberrant" person with a "bizarre employment history" who was probably guilty of the bombing.

A year after the bombings Kevin Sack wrote “He feels the stares of strangers in restaurants knowing they still wonder if he is the one.”

It had been nine months since the Justice Department cleared Jewell of any involvement. Still, the constant media attention he received at the height of the investigation had turned him into a public figure. Children asked for autographs. A woman he took on a date published a written account of the evening in a city magazine.

“I’m a lot more cynical than I used to be,” Jewell said in Sack’s story. “I’m not as trusting as I once was. And I don’t think I’m as outgoing as I used to be.”

April 13th, 2005

Jewell was exonerated completely when Eric Rudolph, as part of a plea deal, pled guilty to carrying out the bombing attack at the Centennial Olympic Park, as well as three other attacks across southern parts of the US.

2019

Although CNN settled with Jewell for an undisclosed monetary amount, CNN maintained that its coverage had been "fair and accurate".

[ribillustrated]

MESSAGES ON THE PRISON WALL

Did you know that the US houses almost a quarter of the world's prison residents even though it contains only about 5 percent of the world’s population? It is even more daunting to see that in America only 23 percent of prisoners stay out of jail once released. While homicide and related offences take up just 3.2 percent of all sentences, drug offences make up nearly 50 percent. Despite recent advances in the legalisation of Marijuana in some states, even minor drug possession still remains a federal offence in most cases.

Do you think this doesn’t concern you? That you would never end up in prison, because you are a fine citizen, never breaking the law? What, really, never ever? Not even when you were young? Never done anything stupid? Not one little mistake? Not a puff on a joint or a fight in a bar over something pointless and stupid? What about your children, do you trust them to always make the right decision and never to succumb to peer pressure?

One summer, a couple of years ago, I stumbled across a brilliant documentary called The Work. It was about an experimental psychotherapy programme that helps convicts at Folsom state prison in California. It reveals a haunting truth about who these people truly are and just how wrong we are in our rush to judge them.

The truth is, whether you like it or not, that most of the inmates featured on the program are there more through bad luck than because of bad character. Because of poor decision making in their early years, rather than poorness of their souls. Most of them are there for life. Or two. Or three.

After watching this brilliant film I went on a spree of watching anything and everything about US prisons, I set about researching prisons and prisoners all around the world. Sadly I saw clearly just how easy it is to end up in the prison system.

It’s difficult for any young person that grows up in a poor neighbourhood, with limited options for betterment or escape, to avoid the privatised machine that justice has become in the US. If they survive their ordeal in prison unbroken, that same person then has to discover how ridiculously hard it is to get out of the vicious circle of release and return that the American justice system appears to promote and endorse. Whoever came up with that strange name for prison, ‘’Correctional Facility’’, was an idiot.

Apart from the experimental programme shown in The Work there doesn’t seem to be much help given to those that we label as criminals. Unless you’re lucky enough to be Norwegian. And by help, I mean help them to get out and stay out of the prison system. Show them it is possible to lead a happy, fulfilled and crimeless life. It would not be helping just them but society as a whole.

On that note, my painting 'Messages on the Prison Wall' is a cry out for more therapeutic programmes in prisons all over the world. It is a plea for better treatment of those who seem to be forsaken by our society. One day, it could be you, or your son or daughter that needs this help.

If you disagree, I suggest you watch the documentary The Work. It's worth it. And if you think, that psychotherapy for prisoners is a waste of time, check out this web: