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glitterytidalwavedragon · 4 years

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Expanding into my other Fandoms (I’m gonna have to take a stance) Read the whole thing please.

One of my oldest and most beloved anime is Inuyasha. As of late I have been binged watching the hell out of it as I am getting my BFF into different anime shows. We are really close to entering the Yashahime part of the series, and she asked if I planned to write fanfiction involving the one character which made me even watch the show as a 10-year-old.

Sesshomaru

The first episode I ever watched involved this aloof, entitled dog fighting his brother over the sword in their father’s grave. Specifically, it was part 3 of that whole episode series were Kagome pulled out the sword. I at the time had 3 dogs of German Sheppard/wolf hybrid, they were MASSIVE dogs, fell in love with the big white fluff that was Sesshomaru’s demon form. I use to sneak staying up and watch the show faithfully to see the goodest boy as it was only on at 11pm EST on adult swim. Which meant it was bad and I was breaking the rules, I felt like a rebel.

Now I hesitated answering that question. She has no idea of what is in Yashahime, she is being careful not to spoil it so I told her I didn’t know. Recently, to find out what the feel is for Sesshomaru content, I looked into the tag on tumblr…

OH MY GOD.

Sesshomaru’s tag is FLOODED with hate. Like every four post, there is hate, distain, and attacking happening. As someone who watches Yashahime, I quickly knew why.

Sessrin.

Even now I sigh. And I sigh HARD. I am not for, nor am I against the Sessrin train. Same for the Sesskagu train. I think both sides need to look at things on a logical prospective. I plan to do just that. I know I will get hate from the either side and maybe some support as well. But if I am going to do anything in this fandom (as I like doing ships and reader inserts) it will come up.

So, like my Kaiba post, and my Sebastian Heel post, I will use my research skills as well as my COLLEGE DEGREE WHICH HAS BOTH ART AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY labelled on it to explain why this progression in the story is normal to anti-Sessrin fans and why this isn’t a crime by story standards nor should we look at it as a crime.

AS WELL

Explain to Sessrin fans why it is so weird for non-shippers to see it play out and why so much hate formed.

As I let out another sigh, we shall begin. Let’s start at an historical prospective. (Links at the bottom).

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING! I’LL BE ABLE TO TELL!

I will start with the information I can access right away.

While finding charts on the life-span of common folk in 1590’s Feudal Japan is rather difficult, Ancient.edu states that the average lifespan was about 50. To put this in perspective, the average lifespan of Europeans at the time was somewhere between 40-45 with the latter being rare. Since most of us reading are not from Japanese descent, I will through Europe in this first.

If we look at the same time frame of 1590, we are looking at most of Western Europe had now entered the age of Renaissance. According to sources from Learning Resources in association with the National Gallery of Art, marriage was not what TV drama’s from HBO or Hulu depicted. By today standards they would be a crime, as the average age for marriage of an adult female was age 14…

The reasoning behind the young marriage age had multiple factors. First being, females were considered an adult once they were menstruating. Birthing also proved to be fatal, and since the lifespan was at best 40 and 45 if they were lucky, there was really no room to wait. Also Europe at the time had became hugely focused on making sure blood lines were legitimate, meaning to ensure the girl was a virgin, the moment she was able to reproduced she was married off. Those they married were not young teenagers either. Most marriages, a man would be in their thirties, and had probably multiple wives as women died more than men when not counting the battle field.

To make matters worse for the Renaissance Lady, these marriages would leave many young males unable to marry and if their husband died in battle, well, unfortunately they were not seen as desirable. This was due to the idea of a ‘free woman’. Should the girl not have a father, brother or uncle to return to as they too died, a widow had her freedom. But that freedom came at a cost. She would be assumed to have slept around, and in many writings, such as the Canterbury Tales, where Geoffrey Chaucer writes about a Window on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land survived her five husbands and the men in her family. In short, she was made to be a slut and to be looked down upon as no man controlled her.

The point of talking about Europe is because that is something most of us Non-Asian or Japanese people consume and like to paint in large romantic brush strokes of knights and magic. Honestly, reading G.R.R.Martin Song of Ice and Fire, he uses this model as we see the Queen of Dragons, Danny start off at age thirteen shortly after she had her first menstruation.

Now let’s look at Feudal Japan.

As stated before, the lifespan was around 50 years. In some populations, this was even shorter. Nagaoka, Hirata, Yokota and Matsu’ura’s on demographic data at the Yuigahama-minami area in Kamakura, Japan and found both male and female remains that suggested life expectancy to have ended around age 24-25. This was largely due to living conditions and public health. In areas like these, it would make the most sense to marry and repopulate quickly as the expectancy of life was half the national average at the time.

To my frustration, I could not find a clear marriage age for Japanese women at the time of the edo period. HOWEVER, where there is a will there is a way. I took a look at famous Lords or Daimyo’s of the time. The average age of marriage of their wives was between 12-14. Much younger than I expected, but it made sense considering this is a time where war ran the show and marriage was strictly about political gain. One of these Daimyo’s was Masamune Date, who was also 13, but then as he got older took concubines who became considerably younger than him as he became older. The goal was to have as many children as possible for hires and for political marriages to gain power.

Now lets look at Inuyasha the MANGA

Lets get the manga timeline proper here. The whole adventure took place in 11 months, a month shy of Kagome’s 16th birthday. Doing a few estimations, Rin would have travelled with Sesshomaru about 8-9 of those months. But before we get into the relationship, lets look at something the ANIME made a huge mistake with in the beginning and tried to fix as the story went on.

For some reason I could only fine gifs for the Early appearances of Sesshomaru so bear with me.

Early appearances in the manga

^ He was so fickle and a trickster then...

Now early apperances in the anime.

Later appearance in the manga

Laster appearance in the anime

Notice the issue here?

Sesshomaru was CONSIDERABLY younger looking in the start of the manga. In the anime, he started off looking like an fully adult male. But as the anime went on, they tried to make Sesshomaru look younger with subtle changes to his jaw line, eye size, and his height. Yeah, his height had changed. They made him shorter.

While in the manga, we see this young-teen looking demon, slowly mature over 11 months to look like he is in his later teens and by series end, closer to being in his late teens or twenty. Yes, art changes over time, but the anime went a reverse route. I can only guess they spoke to the author of Inuyasha about her ships, as they did Drama CDs, and realized the mistake that was made in making him more mature than he was.

You can’t tell me he doesn’t look closer to his manga self in the final act, because he does.

Since we are on the topic of the anime, lets be clear. The anime timeline and manga timeline are very different. The story in the anime (in the English) suggests that OVER a year has past since Kagome started her journey. They try to fix this in the final act, but it was still so muddled as previous seasons are to be taken as cannon. This could have been due to an translation error in the early production when the anime no longer had anymore manga material to reference. But whatever the case, for English viewers the time the group spent together felt much longer.

So now we come to the heart of the issue.

Because of the mistakes of the anime, a lot of anti-sessrin see the relationship as father daughter. I’ll be honest, watching the anime and solely the anime as a teenager and as an adult (as the manga was on hold for a very long time due to author’s health. I was in college when it finished.), I too thought it was just a father-daughter relationship and Jaken the nanny who got punched all the time. In fact, the English took hard liberties with Kagura, as the English dubs often do with characters, and made it very clear her feelings for the demon lord and Sesshomaru very much recognized them (though he never responded). Even in her death scene, it felt as if he was saying good bye to a friend more than love interest. But who really knows, as there are things that point otherwise. When another demon mock’s Kagura’s death, Sesshomaru gets super pissy.

The manga did also play with this fact when it came out in English, idk if the wording or message is different in the Japanese. Translation errors happen a lot even in todays releases, look at Kuroshitsuji. So of course most anti-sessrin’s did not see this coming in Yashahime when Rin was named mother. In fact it felt like a betrayal as we were sure Sesshomaru had no romantic feelings.

Then there was the Kohaku/Rin mashup that was hinted left and right. The English anime, with its overly dramatic and blunt emotions made it appear one way. That in the end the two kids would probably be married. Then the anime as a whole made Sesshomaru older than intended. I can see why and understand how this became a problem.

On the other side of that coin.

If you followed the dub, seen ‘Swords of an Honorable Ruler’ and read the manga… Sesshomaru was not fatherly to Rin at all. In fact, Jaken picked up all of that leg work. Rin worried for Kohaku, but clearly loved Lord Sesshomaru. Sesshomaru cared about Kagura but he almost CRIED when he lost Rin.

We have to remember that Sesshomaru and Rin’s relationship must have been very hard for the demon. While we never see his mental process expect for a few rare times, we have to remember he hated humans. In the movie, he blamed a human for the early death of his father, Sesshomaru killed without mercy. It made sense that he wouldn’t be fatherly to Rin as her just being there should have caused countless inner conflicts. Hell, he even says his father’s weakness was humans, and look who picked up that trait.

Sesshomaru was designed to, someday, walk in his father’s footsteps. So sess/rin, not a surprise. Also when you see it in a historical perspective, Rin having kids around age 15-16, makes sense. In fact you could argue he waited too long for the time period.

We also need to look more at the manga when concerned with Yashahime. 8-9 months is all Rin travelled with him and he was like hold up, and left her at the village because he KNEW she needed to come to her own conclusion. That no matter what she picked he would live with and protect her. Unconditional love on his end. She cannon wise spent YEARS living with humans and MONTHS with Sesshomaru. Again, by manga standards of cannon.

Now I can already hear the screaming about age and what not. Some sources say Sesshomaru is over 900, by the rule of thumb, if we look at anime and movie releases, we have Sesshomaru being over 500 with no define age and Inuyasha around 270 years old being more pinpointed due to the movie. Just by going by ANIME CANNON. Kagome and Inuyasha, you have a 15 year old with a 270 year old man. If you say being pinned to the tree doesn’t count, then you have 220.

Also, here is something very interesting. In the episode where Inuyasha meets the unmother, he tells her, thinking it was his mom, she died when he was very small and we have flash backs later in the series of him being small running from demons. Demons clearly age much slower than humans, even half-demons. Inuyasha can be 270 but mentally and physically be 15, the same logic works for Sesshomaru, who in the manga is not much older than Inuyasha.

In the manga, there wasn’t any grooming, in the anime, there was a ton of mess-ups but no grooming.

Would this fly in todays world? HELL NO! NO, its gross, she’s a kid. Stop.

I know any fanfic I write will lean heavily on the side of father/daughter because that is what I grew up seeing on the screen. I can’t think of Rin as an adult because years of seeing her as a cheerful little girl. It’s like seeing G.O.T Arya about to have sex for the first time in season 8… I remember when she was a kid on the show. It was way to weird and I had to look away until it ended. But that’s my 2021 mentality.

But Inuyasha is not taking place in 2021. Feudal Japan is a whole other era with its own beliefs, morals and way of life. Those who understand this have nothing wrong with them. They just understand history.

Also, just to bang some nails in…

Anyone remember Bleach? Remember the MOST accepted couple was Ichigo and Rukia…. Rukia who was hundreds of years old and Ichigo who was 15… or Ichigo’s mom who was a teenager and his dad also hundreds of years old.

Most of this also boils down to Sesshomaru being a dude. As in reverse roles in animes its accepted and they don’t have the same historical context. Inuyasha is based off of historical context of Feudal Japan.

We need to stop spreading hate. We can’t accept some forms of literature because its European fantasy but bash other fantasy based literature for doing the same thing.

Sure, its weird for those who were use to seeing the father/daughter dynamic. Yes, there are extreme sessrin fans who post really questionable illegal content when they decide to leave Rin as an 8-year-old…

But this wasn’t ever meant to be perverted. The story was meant to make sense on a logical and historical base.

I hope everyone takes the time to read this. I love Inuyasha, I love Sesshomaru. I am just sick of seeing so many people fighting over what should be the revival of a beloved series. While yes, there is still room for sess/rin not being a thing, until it is stated otherwise, why hate each other? This fandom will only lose people by doing this. Calling people names or accusing them of illegal endorsement can hurt someone these days over social media.

Tumblr allows you to block tags. You don’t have to read anything or watch anything you don’t like. We gain nothing from attacking each other but can lose so much by doing so. Fanart, really good fan fiction, friends, ideas, sharing fond memories. Both sides have the right to feel as they feel, but no right in hurting each other.

A fandom is meant to bring people together. Not start a war…

Thank you.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.20402

http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-2/essays/husbands-and-wives/#:~:text=Marriage%20not%20only%20reflected%20order,to%20ensure%20the%20bride's%20virginity.

https://www.ancient.eu/Canterbury_Tales/

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1424/daily-life-in-medieval-japan/#:~:text=Just%20as%20Japanese%20people%20today,in%20Western%20Europe%2C%20for%20example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_Masamune

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megohime

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365days365movies · 3 years

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May 4, 2021: The Host (2006) (Recap)

NO NOT THAT ONE

Stephanie Meyer goddamn sucks. I realize that I’m not exactly the first person to say that, but she’s terrible. Not only is she not a good writer, but she also has some very disparaging views about science fiction and its fans, which led her to make her own science fiction book and film. ANd yeah...it’s terrible! No surprise there.

So, no, not the 2013 critical and commercial flop known as The Host. No, this post is about 2006′s The Host, AKA Gwoemul, AKA 괴물. I haven’t ventured to far into the world of Korean cinema, and with this film, my repertoire includes only the films of director Bong Joon-Ho. And if that name sounds familiar...it should.

Bong Joon-ho DESERVEDLY made headlines last year when his film became the first non-English language film to win for Best Picture, and the first time Asian writers won for best screenplay! His Oscar speech in accepting best director is genuinely one of the best and most sincere speeches I’ve ever heard from a director, and I love the dude.

Oh, and if you’re wondering which film it was, then, like me, you also really need to watch Parasite. And because I’m terrified of spoilers, I’m not gonna look for GIFs of that movie. Instead, I’ll put in a GIF of one of my favorite sci-fi films, and the only other Bong Joon-ho film I’ve seen.

God, I love Snowpiercer. And if this is anything like that, I’m probably going to love this movie. Now, I don’t really know much about this film, other than the fact that it’s a monster film. And if there’s any science-fiction subgenre more iconic than monster films, I don’t know it. Well...OK, aliens, robots, and more, but monster films are still a big part of the genre. But where does that begin? Is it here?

Definitely an argument you can make, since Frankenstein’s Monster is a creation of science gone wrong, from the book to the movie. Fun fact, Mary Shelley based it on a real-world experiment by Italian physiologist Giovanni Aldini, who used a corpse to illustrate the connection between electricity and muscles. Neat, huh? So, yeah, that’s a solid launching point.

But that’s more of a horror story. What about something a little more monster-y? Well, from the UK to Japan we go!

OHHHHHH YEAH, THAT’S THE GOOD STUFF

Toho’s 1954 film Gojira is one of the most classic monster films ever made, and singlehandedly launched the kaiju genre in Japan. And it’s really well-known that it was made as a response to post-World War II tensions about nuclear warfare. Which, in Japan, is kind of understandable, no? But nothing demonstrated the destructive power of science more than that moment in history.

So, Godzilla arrives. And the US also makes more monster movies, most of which take place in contemporary settings, making many of them lo-fi sci-fi. Now, some dipped into horror or fantasy, but the science fiction roots were there. Which eventually would bring us full circle to films where monsters were made and go loose. You know, like this:

It’s a franchise that defines the ‘90s, and lab-grown monster movies exploded around that time as well. At the same time, environmental concerns REALLY started to build by this point, and those concerns leaked profusely into film all over the world. And by the time we get to 2006...well, let’s get into it, huh?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

In a mortuary, a U.S. military doctor (Scott Wilson) instructs his assistant (Brian Lee) to dump bottles of formaldehyde down the drain of the facility, which goes directly into the Han River. The assistant protests, but the doctor insists, despite the risk of polluting the river. AAAAAmericans.

In the river about two years later, two fisherman see something strange looking in the river. Then, four years later, in 2006, a suicidal man is about to jump into the river, when he sees something dark in the water below.

Later that year, we meet Park Hee-bong (Byun Hee-Bong) and his son Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho), who run a food truck and snack bar near the river. Gang-du’s not exactly a hard worker, to his father’s chagrin. His daughter, Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), is a student who comes home from school, where her drunken uncle Nam-il (Park Hae-il) comes to her chagrin. She and her father watch TV, where his sister Nam-joo (Bar Doona) can be seen competing in archery.

As he’s bringing food out to customers, he joins them in observing something strange and massive hanging off of the bridge. And at this point, I would be running the fuck away. Literally, the news just said that there was a body found with the legs missing, and these people are throing cans at it after it plunges into the water. One girl asks if it’s a dolphin. Mother...HAVE YOU SEEN A DOLPHIN BEFORE?

NOT THIS

Yeah, this thing just comes bounding along the shore, slapping people into the water with its tail, and batting aside others. Doesn’t look like its actively killing anybody yet, but it’s definitely hurting people at least. That is, until it goes into a trailer where a bunch of people have gathered, and appears to eat a bunch of them. So, yeah, dangerous.

Gang-du, to his infinite credit, actually attempts to confront and hurt the creature, with the help of Donald White (David Joseph Anselmo). And it works, but at the cost of the creature aggro-ing onto him. Back at the snack truck, his sister’s lost the title, much to the chagrin of Gang-du’s daughter and father. She goes outside in frustration, only to be thrown into the midst of the chaos with her dad. He grabs a girls hand in the chaos, only to find that it’s a different child entirely. And...unfortunately...

The creature grabs her with its tail, and leaps back into the river, disappearing. Fuck. Poor Hyun-seo, and poor Gang-du. Gang-du IMMEDIATELY goes to get her back, jumping into the river, but the creature takes her across to an island, out of reach. That night, an impromptu funeral is held for the victims, at which Hyun-seo is being honored as well. There, both Gang-du’s sister and brother also attend, and all four of the break down dramatically and publicly.

Nam-il blames his brother for letting her die, which is unfair, but understandable. The family eventually calms down and discusses the circumstances of Hyun-Seo’s birth and death, both of which were accidental. As they do, a man in a protective suit comes out, and asks who was at the river incident. Nam-il protests this, and asks what’s going on. The man doesn’t explain, and the room is instead gassed, as everyone is ushered towards the entrance.

In the process, Gang-du (stupidly) reveals that he was hit by some blood splatter. He’s immediately stuffed in a bag and kidnapped by the authorities. Meanwhile, the news reveals that the creature is carrying a virus, and anyone who has been in contact with it has been infected. Because of this, the entire family is taken to a quarantine hospital, which oddly has very few actual quarantine procedures in place. And additionally, Gang-du is feeling a bit itchy.

That night, in the hospital, Gang-du gets a call on his cell phone! It’s Hyun-seo! She’s alive! And she’s trapped, in a sewer somewhere near the river. Meanwhile, a group of men in protectve suits are outside patrolling the river. One man finds money on the side of the road, and goes to pick it up, only for the men to be attacked by the creature. But it’s then that we discover that the creature is not killing or eating people, but simply taking them own to its lair. Also in said lair is Hyun-seo, trapped and with a now dead phone.

The next day, the family tries to get an officer to look into the call, only for the officer to be, frankly, an absolute piece of shit to this grieving family. Gang-du tries to explain, and his explanation is ENTIRELY RATIONAL, but the officer and doctors are absolutely terrible about it.

Because nobody’s listening, the family manages to escape from the hospital in order to try and save Hyun-Seo, and they hop into a van, taking it and running. This is a good place to mention that, despite this being a monster movie, it's also...weirly funny sometimes. Like, that whole scene is pretty great. After bartering with a group of gangsters for supplies (and after Hee-bong basically gives away all of his credit cards), the group manages to get a map and a new car. But they pretty quickly get stopped at a checkpoint into the city, and are nearly caught, but manage to escape and get to the riverfront. Once there, they begin searching the sewers to find Hyun-seo. And I gotta say; this may be an extremely dysfunctional family, but they’re a devoted family all the same.

Of course, that eventually gives way to arguments within the sewer itself, but that’s interrupted by a noise heard somewhere around them. They fire at it, using weapons obtained from the gangster but conclude that it was nothing. What it actually is is two brothers, older Se-jin (Lee Jae-eung) and younger Se-joo (Lee Dong-ho), homeless kids who are foraging the sewers in the abandoned city. But, of course, they eventually run into the creature, which attacks them. Meanwhile, an asleep Hyun-Seo dreams of dinner with her family, only to be woken up by the arrival of the creature, who deposits the bodies of the two boys in the sewer with her. Se-joo has survived, but Se-jin hasn’t, sadly.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family is gathered at their snack bar for the night, and prepares to set out or the morning. The to younger siblings appear to not give a single shit about Gang-du, but Hee-bong attempts to set them straight, talking about how he blames himself for the way Gang-du is now. However, the two just fall asleep during his speech. Poor Hee-bong. Also, he can apparently identify Gang-du’s health condition based on his farts because they spend so much time together, it’s dumb, and funny.

Also, poor the rest of them, because Gang-du wakes up to see the creature just waiting outside, watching them. Hee-bong fires at it, but the creature attacks and knocks over the bar. However, Hee-bong manages to hit it directly in the head, knocking it off, but not killing it. The family goes out to finish the job, but it runs away before they can kill it. They run after it, and are almost completely out of bullets. Hee-bong volunteers to go after it himself, but in the process...

Hee-bong doesn’t make it. The creature kills him, and the commotion attracts the military to their location. Gang-du is again captured, while Nam-il and Nam-joo escape, only to later be separated regardless. Meanwhile, the virus kills Donald White, the sergeant from earlier, and it continues to spread across Korea. To kill the creature, the government plans to release a chemical into the river called Agent Yellow, which feels...controversial.

Nam-il meats a colleague, “Fat Guevara” (Yam Pil-sung), who is easily able to provide a location for Hyun-seo using the number, which the cop earlier insisted was nearly impossible to do. Plus, both the sergeant and Gang-du encountered the creature together, and he seems to be just fine. Which probably means that something very wrong is happening now. Even worse, though, is the fact that Guevara’s appeared to trap Nam-il, as a massive reward is sought for his arrest. A gang of people surround hi, with the plan to capture him, but he VERY cleverly escapes by causing an electrical short, and AFTER having found Hyun-seo’s location! Nice, man! He takes off, now knowing exactly where his niece is.

Nam-joo, meanwhile, is literally living inside of the snack bar, and she gets a text from Nam-il with her location. He tags out, and she tags in, running to the location where the call came from. But she immediately runs into the creature, which knocks her down and unconscious. She manages to call Gang-du, who is currently about to be sedated. Now knowing where his daughter is, he tries to escape, only to be tackled by the doctors. He tells them where she is, but they don’t appear to listen. More importantly, the anesthetic doesn’t appear to work, much to the confusion of the doctors. Something is verrrrrrrry wrong here.

An American doctor (Paul Lazar) comes, and asks what’s wrong, and he tells him exactly what’s wrong. However, despite his words SEEMING to be heard, they once again call him crazy and delusional, and decide to give him a lobotomy to isolate the virus once and for all, like FUCKING ASSHOLES. Turns out that the virus? Yeah, it doesn’t exist whatsoever! It doesn’t exist even a little bit! Which means that this entire thing is a wild goddamn goose chase for a virus that DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST!!!

And the best thing is that Gang-du, despite not actually knowing English, still understands the words “no virus”, and know he fucking knows! However, because he knows, they now have to give him a lobotomy. Fuck me, man. Panicking, he cries for them to stop, and cries for his daughter, who’s still alive in the sewer.

Speaking of, Hyun-seo and Se-joo are bonding in the sewer, as they work to make a rope from things they find there. But in the process, they’re attacked by the creature, who know is actively eating the bodies, and presumably other people. Whoof. They manage to escape, but barely.

Back with Gang-du, who’s just gone through the lobotomy, which...hasn’t worked at all. Holy SHIT. Not sure what the hel is UP with this dude, but that’s a question in and of itself. He escapes by taking a nurse hostage, threatening them with a syringe of his blood, full of a virus that doesn’t exist!

Nam-il wakes up at the same time, not accompanied by a homeless man (Yoon Je-moon), who agrees to take him to the bridge to find Hyun-seo. In the sewer, the two kids have survived, and the creature appears to be asleep. Like a GODDAMN BOSS, she runs up the creatures back, and jumps onto a rope that she had made, and that was hanging far out of her reach. Unfortunately...the creature catches her with its tail. Fuck. It sets her down, and...lets her go? But as soon as she runs, it attacks bother her and Se-joo.

Just then, Gang-du gets to the lair, and uses the rope to climb down. Below him is a pile of bones, and no kids to be seen. The creature goes by, and Hyun-seo’s hand is dangling out of its mouth. And once again by coincidence, that’s when Nam-joo wakes up and reunites with her brother. The creature runs to the waterfront, only to be greeted by...a crowd? They’re gathered there to protest the release of the dangerous chemical into the river.

It all collides at once. The creature swims towards the crowd, Gang-du runs towards the creature, Agent Yellow is released over them both, causing the creature to faint. Gan-du runs up and grabs the bodies of his daughter and See-joo from its mouth, apparently too fucking late. Shit, man. This would’ve been avoided if they just HELPED him. Fuck. He carries her body away as more chemical is released onto the flailing creature, and the chemical causes everyone else in the area to violently hemorrhage as well. Meanwhile, Nam-il and Nam-joo arrive to see their deceased niece, grieving all over again. It’s...fuck, man, it sucks.

And Gang-du is fucking PISSED NOW. He grabs a street sign and attacks the injured creature, fueled by pure rage. Nam-il joins in with Molotov cocktails as it runs away. The homeless man douses it with gasoline, and that makes it easier for Nam-il to set it on fire...until he drops the bottle. And then, Nam-joo uses it to light an arrow on fire, hitting the creature with it, and setting it ablaze. It runs to the water, only for Gang-du to stab it through the head with the street sign, finally killing it in revenge for his father and his daughter. Fucking bad-ASS. And also quite tragic, given the circumstances.

And despite the tragedy, there is one happy circumstance: Se-joo lives! In fact, Hyun-seo died saving his life, like the real goddamn hero of this story that she is. Fuck. That’s terrible, but I’m happy that her sacrifice wasn’t in vain. From here, we fast-forward to the winter, where a clean-shaven and well-kept Gang-du is is now caring for Se-joo. The news is on in the background, but the two ignore it, happily eating together after the ordeal they’ve been through.

Whoof. That’s The Host, or Gwoemul! And yeah, that’s one hell of a movie, I tell you what. For a monster movie, it’s quite dramatic, and they don’t try to humanize the monster AT ALL. And honestly, I really like it! A Pyrrhic victory at the end, but nothing wrong with that! I’ll elaorate a bit in the review! See you there!

#the host 2005 #bong joon-ho #song kang-ho #byun hee-bong #park hae-il #bae doona #go ah-sung #gwoemul #괴물 #science fiction may #sci-fi may #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #korean cinema

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lastsonlost · 6 years

Link

Aziz? redemption ?

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

God, I love being white,” said Louis C.K.

“Here’s how great it is to be white,” the comedian went on: “I could get in a time machine, and go to any time, and it would be fucking awesome when I get there. That is exclusively a white privilege.”

The bit, part of his 2008 special Chewed Up, was emblematic of C.K.’s approach: poking fun at the inequalities of American society, while simultaneously acknowledging the ways they benefited him.

Contrast that with a set he performed in December 2018, a little over a year after he admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent. During the December appearance, apparently at a comedy club on Long Island, C.K. joked that Asian men are “all women” and poked fun at school shooting survivors and gender-nonconforming teenagers, according to BuzzFeed News.

“They tell you what to call them,” he complained of teens who use the pronouns they/them. “Oh, OK. You should address me as ‘there’ because I identify as a location. And the location is your mother’s cunt.”

Imagine thinking the best way to resurrect your career after admitting to sexual misconduct is to mock trans people and Parkland gun violence survivors.

2018, during which his standup special and the wide release of his film I Love You, Daddy were canceled, seems to have wrought a change in C.K. Where once his comedy offered a fresh look at established power structures, he now seems set on ranting about kids today and their pronoun choices.

Fellow comedian Aziz Ansari has followed a similar trajectory. He once decried sexual harassment in his act — and addressed the issue in a nuanced way on his show Master of None. But in 2017, a woman told the website Babe.net that he had pressured her for sex — Ansari said he had believed everything that happened between them was “completely consensual,” and that he was “surprised and concerned” by her account.

After the incident, his comedy took on a different tone: In a fall 2018 appearance, he made fun of online debates about cultural appropriation and complained that nowadays, “everyone weighs in on everything,” according to the New Yorker.

The bigotry in C.K.’s set is disturbing, especially coming from someone who seemed at one time to have a relatively clear understanding of how power works in America. But what is also striking about C.K. and Ansari’s post-#MeToo material is its banality. Before they were publicly accused, these men wrestled with thorny questions of identity and power in ways that, while not always satisfying, were usually thought-provoking. After the allegations, they began parroting tired complaints about political correctness.

Of the many people accused of sexual misconduct as part of the #MeToo movement, C.K. and Ansari seemed like they might be uniquely equipped to reckon with the allegations against them, perhaps even adding something to the public conversation around #MeToo. Instead, they have retreated into boring and offensive stereotypes, perhaps playing to those who never thought they did anything wrong.

We’re all worse off for their decision, missing out on the art C.K. and Ansari might have created if they’d been willing to really face their accusations, and robbed of the opportunity to see two intelligent and thoughtful men really wrestle with the implications of #MeToo. In a time when more and more of the accused mull their comebacks, it’s natural to wonder what real redemption — complete with an acknowledgment of harm and a commitment to atonement — might look like. Apparently, Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari will not be the ones to show us.

Louis C.K. used to talk about violence against women. Now he makes fun of genderqueer teens.

Before #MeToo, Louis C.K. was beloved by many for his often self-lacerating comedy. In his standup and on the autobiographical FX show Louie, he portrayed himself as a sad-sack weirdo disturbed by his own sexual urges — he once called himself a “prisoner” of “sexual perversion.”

C.K.’s work could be offensive, as when he complained that he missed being able to use a homophobic slur (and claimed, unconvincingly, that the way he used it had nothing to do with homophobia). But some hailed his comedy as feminist, and he showed a remarkable ability to mine humor from the dangers and biases women face — a difficult feat for a male comic.

“How do women still go out with guys when you consider that there is no greater threat to women than men?” he asked in a 2013 special. “We’re the number one threat to women! Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women.”

But C.K. was also the subject of long-simmering sexual misconduct rumors — and in November 2017, four women told the New York Times that he had masturbated in front of them or asked them to watch him masturbate (a fifth said that he masturbated while on a phone call with her).

In a move that remains unusual among men accused as part of #MeToo, C.K. admitted to the allegations against him. “These stories are true,” he said in a statement to the New York Times.

“I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want,” he added. “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”

But as many have pointed out, the listening didn’t last very long. C.K. was back onstage in September 2018, less than a year after his pledge to step back. In an October appearance at the West Side Comedy Club in New York, he addressed the fallout from his sexual misconduct revelations, saying he’d been to “hell and back” and that he’d “lost $35 million in an hour.”

While many were critical of C.K.’s comeback attempt, West Side Comedy Club host AMarie Castillo told the comedy website LaughSpin that the comic “was so genuine and reflected on how weird his year was” in his October appearance. “Sounds to me he is owning up, acknowledging, and trying to figure it out,” she said.

But in a December set, he didn’t sound much like someone trying to figure anything out. In audio posted on YouTube, apparently from an appearance at the Governor’s Comedy Club on Long Island on December 16, C.K. poked fun at gender-nonconforming youth, Parkland school shooting survivors, and Asian men, among other groups. (The club was unable to confirm to BuzzFeed that C.K. was there that night, though multiple people posted on Instagram that they had seen him perform there.)

“You know why Asian guys have small dicks,” he said at one point, according to Patrick Smith and Amber Jamieson of BuzzFeed. “’Cause they’re women. They’re not dudes. They’re all women. All Asians are women.”

C.K. also said he thought it was ridiculous that the term “retarded” was now viewed as inappropriate, Smith and Jamieson reported. When some listeners appeared shocked, he responded, “Fuck it, what are you going to take away, my birthday? My life is over, I don’t give a shit.”

C.K. has not responded to a request for comment from Vox.

Aziz Ansari once included a sexual harassment storyline on his show. Now he’s complaining about Twitter outrage.

Ansari’s comedy has always been more lighthearted than C.K.’s, but he hasn’t shied away from difficult topics. In a 2015 Netflix special filmed at New York’s Madison Square Garden, he asked women in the audience to raise their hands if they’d ever been followed by a “creepy dude,” according to Eren Orbey at the New Yorker.

“Yeah, that’s way too many people,” he said when hands went up. “That should not be happening.”

The second season of his Netflix show, Master of None, also included a storyline about sexual misconduct. Ansari’s character, Dev, teams up with celebrity chef Jeff Pastore (Bobby Cannavale) for a show called Best Food Friends. But Dev is forced to make a choice when a female crew member reveals that Chef Jeff repeatedly harassed her. The episode, which aired before #MeToo gained steam in fall 2017, felt true to life, as Isha Aran pointed out at Splinter, “from the fears victims face in going public to the misogynist skepticism they’re met with when they share their stories.”

But in January 2018, a woman going by the name Grace told the website Babe.net that Ansari had repeatedly pressured her for sex while the two were on a date. She called it “by far the worst experience with a man I’ve ever had.”

“We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual,” Ansari said in a statement on the allegations last January. “The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned.”

“I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture,” Ansari concluded, presumably referring to #MeToo. “It is necessary and long overdue.”

By fall 2018, however, his tone sounded different. In a Connecticut stop on his “Working Out New Material” comeback tour, he complained about Twitter users debating whether a teenager’s prom dress constituted cultural appropriation, according to Orbey.

“Everyone weighs in on everything,” he said. “They don’t know anything. People don’t wanna just say, ‘I don’t know.’”

He also decried “the destructive performativity of Internet activism and the fickle, ever-changing standards of political correctness,” according to Orbey. He compared left-wing Twitter users to Trump supporters (“at least with the Trump people,” he said, “I kinda know where they stand”) and accused them of competing with one another in a game of “Progressive Candy Crush.”

“One might have hoped that, nearly a year later, [Ansari] could find a way to reckon with one of the movement’s messiest lessons: that even men who wish to serve as allies of women can, intentionally or not, hurt them in private,” Orbey wrote. “Instead, like other men who have reëmerged in recent months, he seems to have channelled his experience into a diffuse bitterness.”

Ansari has not responded to Vox’s request for comment.

If C.K. and Ansari can’t reckon with the allegations against them, can anyone?

Allegations of sexual misconduct against C.K. and Ansari hit fans hard in part because of the thoughtful nature of their comedy — these were supposed to be the good guys.

The accusations prompted fans and critics to reevaluate both men’s work. At Splinter, Aran notes that despite its sexual harassment storyline, Master of None’s second season displays some underlying misogyny. Dev’s relationship with love interest Francesca, in particular, sends the message “that a woman’s initial reluctance can be chipped away at, that indifference is a wall to be torn down.”

C.K., meanwhile, had been telling masturbation jokes for years. As Melena Ryzik, Cara Buckley, and Jodi Kantor reported at the New York Times, “he rose to fame in part by appearing to be candid about his flaws and sexual hang-ups, discussing and miming masturbation extensively in his act — an exaggerated riff that some of the women feel may have served as a cover for real misconduct.” His film I Love You, Daddy, which was initially scheduled for release in November 2017, dealt with a relationship between a famous filmmaker and a 17-year-old girl.

And C.K.’s December set does recall some of his earlier work — the man who complained about teens today and their pronouns is clearly the same one, for instance, who expressed nostalgia for a time when he could use homophobic slurs without being criticized.

Still, C.K. and Ansari were somewhat unusual as male entertainers willing to delve into issues of power and privilege and talk about the ways men hurt women.

That’s what makes their current material so surprising. Ansari and C.K. aren’t just avoiding the subject of #MeToo — they’re going in the opposite direction, complaining about political correctness and outrage culture when their comedy once sent the message that women were absolutely right to be outraged.

Their new work is reactionary — crude jokes about Asian men wouldn’t be out of place at a Trump rally — and it’s dated. C.K.’s complaints about they/them pronouns aren’t just offensive; they’re also tired, well-worn platitudes parroted by everyone from psychologist Jordan Peterson to TV host Piers Morgan. C.K. may think his new material is edgy, but his rant about young people today sounds like it could come from Grandpa Simpson.

Some have speculated that C.K. is consciously courting a more right-leaning audience with his new material after losing the trust of his previous fans, and it’s certainly possible that he and Ansari are pivoting to please the people who were eager to explain away the allegations against them — those who think sexual misconduct only matters if it rises to the level of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, or who believe that men who are accused deserve swift and unconditional forgiveness.

Whatever the case, the trajectories of C.K. and Ansari are doubly disappointing — first, because men whose work had a feminist bent were accused of hurting women, and second, because they let those accusations destroy the nuanced social awareness their earlier work displayed. Apparently, C.K. and Ansari were only interested in challenging the status quo when they remained unchallenged — once women spoke out against them, they performed the comedic equivalent of packing up their toys and going home.

That’s sad for all of us. We don’t get to see the comedy these men could have created if they’d wanted to face, rather than flee from, our current moment in history. And we don’t get to see two thoughtful entertainers bring their talents to bear on a project that matters to all of us — figuring out what it should look like for men accused as part of #MeToo to apologize, atone, and move forward.

Ever since the #MeToo movement gained mainstream attention in 2017, there’s been a lot of talk about what accused men can do to redeem themselves. Now, more than a year in, it’s certainly possible to imagine some of the accused truly reckoning with their pasts — Dan Harmon’s apology for sexually harassing a writer on his show offers a view of what that might look like. But it’s hard to hold out much hope for such a reckoning on a large scale when two men who seemed like they, of all people, might be able to look deeply at their own behavior have instead chosen to pander to those who would excuse them.

______________________

AZIZ DIDN’T FUCKING DO ANY GOD DAMN THING WRONG!!!!!!

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pandachamp · 6 years

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AVENGERS 4 TRAILER ANALYSIS

Whoop Whoop! The new Avengers trailer just dropped this morning at 7am (USC) and I couldn’t be more excited!

To prove how much of a fanatic I am about the MCU, I made a scene by scene analysis of the one minute trailer. Be aware of the long post ahead, we’re diving in deep.

So I split up the analysis by three things. I put a voice over as stand-alone quotes right above the shot it correlates to. Every time there is a shot change, I put a new dash. Whenever the scene itself changes (ex. from Space to Earth) I write down the new area we are watching. Keep in mind that sometimes the shots and scenes of trailers do not occur in order. (But I’m sure ya’ll know that)

Trailer Watch:

Scene: Tony and his recording to Pepper in the cockpit of a ship

-Tony’s iron man head is ruined. It is the right side of his helmet. This isn’t accurate to what we see in Infinity war. You can find the youtube video I watched to find this out here. Tony had his helmet smashed off. The left side of his face was open and the right side was still intact before Thanos hit him across the head the whole thing came off. Soooooo, either Tony has another suit with him (wouldn’t surprise me) and then got into a separate fight, or I got it wrong and that was not the last time we see the Iron Man suit in Infinity War. EDIT: I rewatched it since I posted, the helmet is not ruined, it is meticulously taken apart. What if Tony was trying to give power to the ship through the Iron Man suit? That power is going to run out ‘tomorrow’ and the ship will then have no power to give them oxygen.

Tony VO “This thing on?”

-The interior of the ship he is on is similar to ones from the guardians of the galaxy. Making me think he is on their ship.

“Hey miss Potts, If you find this recording…”

- He is wearing a black tank top and his triangle arc reactor is showing through the shirt. He looks physically exhausted and tired. The last outfit we see him in on Titan was a zip-up sweatshirt, but I don’t expect that to be the only thing he had on him.

“Don’t feel bad about this. Part of the journey is the end. Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds.”

- Honestly, I thought the ship in space was Falcon. I got excited for a hot second there. It is not. Then my brain started working again ‘you really think Falcon would be in space? Did you forget that Sam was dusted too?’ Thanks, brain, I really needed to remember that Sam got dusted. Thanks.

“Food and water ran out four days ago. Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning. That’’ be it.”

- Tony’s outfit is different. He now has a red long-sleeve shirt on. He is standing and looking out the front of the ship. There is something blue and bright on the right bottom corner of the screen, but it doesn’t seem artificial, maybe there is a bunch of bright nebula’s. Speaking of Nebula, we haven't seen her on this ship yet.

“When I drift off I will think about you. It’s always you.”

-my heart

-the ship’s screens in the background seem to be disrupted. There is something else that is wrong with the ship.

Scene: wherever Thanos is

- his armor is off and hung like a scarecrow. His hut we see at the end of infinity war is in the background. The landscape is hilly and looks like it could even be earth. (Dear Lord I hope not)

Natasha VO “Thanos did exactly what he said he was going to do…”

- We see the gauntlet. It is wrecked. It looks just as burned as it did after the snap in infinity war.

- The plants Thanos is walking in are not from earth. He is on a different planet. I can’t tell where he is walking to, but he is going toward the sun. It’s all quiet and peaceful, just like he wanted.

Scene: Avenger’s compound

- A sky view of the compound. It is completely empty, there’s hardly as much movement in comparison to other scenes. Thanos really did do it.

“He wiped out…

-Cap is crying. I am crying. We all are crying. I miss him too, Cap. I miss him too.

“Fifty percent of all living creatures.”

-50% of living creatures! Not just humans! This means that there are fewer animals too. Do plants count?

- Next, we see Bruce standing in front of a screen showing missing avengers. We see Scott Lang as the main face he is looking at, but a smaller screen also shows both Shuri and Peter Parker as MISSING. Shuri got dusted as well! He looks at Scott and puts his hand in his face.

- We then get another shot at the compound. This time it looks like a hanger for maybe the quinjets? Nonetheless, it is empty.

Steve VO “We lost. All of us”

- Thor is 1. In human clothing (and man does he look good) 2. Sitting solemnly against a background that is pretty indistinguishable. At first I thought it was the Asgardian cells, but then I remembered that he was last on earth. He is most likely at the base with Cap and Nat. He looks defeated. He had him. He had the power to kill Thanos! He didn’t truly avenge Heimdall’s and Loki’s death. He truly has nothing more that he could lose.

Scene: Tony and Nebula’s spaceship

- We see Nebula for the first time in this trailer. This is most definitely the ship the Guardians we’re using in the last film. She steps around the corner and is either going toward the cockpit or away from the cockpit, I can't distinguish. She is very slow in her movements, pausing and looking down. (Could this be that she just saw Tony die??) She looks defeated. Does she need the same amount of food and water and oxygen that humans need? This makes me wonder about how much of her is a robot.

“We lost friends. We lost family.”

- Nebula’s hand is sliding off Tony’s shoulder. I didn’t see any movement from Tony. With the wording that goes along with this scene, we are led to assume that this is when Tony dies. ... NOT ON MY WATCH MARVEL!

Scene: In Chinatown or in an actual Asian city.

- We see a hooded figure wiping blood off of this weird looking sword thing. Honestly, at first, I thought they brought daredevil into Avengers. I knew they wouldn’t, but I had no clue who this was.

-Nat stands behind this hooded figure who is standing over the body of a man in business apparel and two other men in the background in white clothing. The guy at the hooded man’s feet is most likely the boss and still looks alive at this shot. The hooded man begins to remove his hood and then a mask. It shows unruly hair and I was freaking out thinking it was Klaw. Who else has hair like this?

“We lost a part of ourselves”

-IT'S FREAKING CLINT. But is it? Or is this is new alter ego Robin? Robin is the alter ego of Hawkeye but Robin only came after a bad event. I'm betting he lost someone in his family if not all. Think about it. In infinity war, Nat said that Clint chose to be with his family instead of fighting Thanos. What would push Clint to leave his family again and become this vigilante-esque man? IF HIS FAMILY GOT DUSTED. Clint ‘loses a part of himself’ and becomes Robin, the bad-boy alter ego of Hawkeye.

“This is the fight of our lives”

Scene: Nat and Cap are dressed and ready to go into action and standing in the quinjet.

-Cap brings out his compass with the picture of Peggy. My goodness the love that this man has for her is crazy. I know that there are people who low-key ship Cap and Nat (I was even on board for a bit), but I don’t think anyone should be with Cap unless it’s Peggy. Those two were meant to be together, but sadly, time kept them apart. RIP Peggy Carter.

- Nat to Cap “This is going to work, Steve.” Cap, “I know it is.” looks over to Nat “Because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it doesn’t” Okay, guys! There’s a plan! There is no indication of what they’re doing or where they’re going but at least there’s a plan!

At this point, we get some Bomb™ music and the wonderful intro to the title of this movie AVENGERS: END GAME

“Hi, uh, is anyone home?”

-okay wait hold up. WHAT? Isn’t that Scott’s voice?

Scene: The Avengers compound. Looking at a screen (the same screen that showed Scott as MISSING)

“This is Scott Lang. We met a few years ago at the airport in Germany? I got really big.”

- Steve and Natasha were surprised with this video on the screen. Steve stands up, confusion on his face. Wait, he’s alive? He asks “Is this an old message?” Nat then stands up.

“Ant man? Ant ma — I know you know who — I know you know that.”

Nat says “That’s the front door”

- In the background of the security footage, we see that Scott came up in this great looking van. So now we have both Scott and Clint coming back to help out the team. Did Scott also lose his daughter?

“That’s me. Can you buzz me in?”

End of Trailer!

AND IT COMES OUT IN APRIL GUYS I’M SO EXCITED!

#avengers #captain america #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #avengers 4 #trailer #nebula #tony stark #iron man #thor #bruce banner #avengers endgame #analysis #im so excited #scott lang #ant man

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insomniac-arrest · 7 years

Text

The Omnipotence Theorem: Chapter Two

words: 2k

genre: cold war, sci-fi, wlw original

summary: a group of scientists tries to unlock the secrets of telepathy as cold war pressures mount and a fever rises in the belly of the Pentagon

Chapter One X

Ao3 – Wordpress

Chapter Two

“Red,” she blinks, “blue.” She takes a breath, “green.” The lights flash behind her eyes, “red, again.” A doctor was frowning at her through his mask and it’s all Cindy can do to keep her eyes straight ahead. A crown of wires whizzed around her head and she feels more like a rat running through an electro-shock maze than a team player.

She blinks her eyes and feels a pulse in her temple, the wires sent a little spark of electricity through her. She doesn’t flinch, Cindy holds herself still.

Two steady blue eyes stare back at her. “Green.” She says softly and the scientist next to her keeps scribbling things down.

Cindy imagines the notes on his pad absently: ‘candidate 5- sleep deprived?’ ‘Has not guessed a single color right,’ ‘forgot to brush my teeth this morning,’ ‘look at the cans on candidate 4.’

‘Still haven’t brushed my teeth.’

Perhaps she should be more charitable with him, she barely remembered his name after all. But he was breathing on her and he, nor anyone else, had asked her if she needed to pee in the last four hours.

And for the record, to hopefully be documented, preserved and studied with the rest of the paperwork. Cindy really really needed to pee.

“Blue.” The woman across from her forms the words with a soft curve to her mouth, like she was kissing a cloud with her palette. Cindy looks down at her lap.

The doctor on the other side of the room clears his throat, Cindy forces herself to look back up and look at candidate five in the face. Louise gives her a curious look but pronounces the word ‘yellow’ like she was going to take it out to lunch.

Cindy takes a deep breath and tries to be more charitable again, Louise was from Minnesota, things were different there.

She thinks about the wonders of what must be Minnesota as she looks the other woman in the eye and little buzzes go through her forehead. Connecting the left and right brain synapses, stimulating the cerebellum.

Activating neurotransmitters between two totally different individuals.

“Red.”

She hears a deep sigh behind her and Cindy feels the buzz of the machine, a wall of wires and transmitters and entire processing system, power down. The fritzing, whirring sounds slowly tapers off as Cindy exhales.

The little electric pulse in between her ears stops and she takes that as a sign to pull out the pads on her temples.

“Let’s break for lunch ladies,” the doctor says behind her and Cindy takes the opportunity to not look any one in the eye again. It was the little pleasures.

She stretches and flattens out her skirt as she plans to go dart to the restroom as fast she can.

“Be back by half past one.” The doctors weren’t looking at her, but stood in her way as they reminded her of their Very Important Work. “I know sir,” she nods at the man she wished at least try out a toothpick or flossing one of these days.

She passes the next military scientist and hopes Doug was bumbling about somewhere, Doug always let her pour over the numbers once she was free and walking around again.

Cindy darts over the woman’s restroom (newly installed) as she hears a pair of footsteps trailing her, she looks over her shoulder to nod at Louise.

“Be right back,” she says with a wave.

“I’ll save you spot in the cafeteria.” The woman must have an iron bladder, Cindy shakes her head as she watches the other participant retreat. Cindy ducks into the small sterile gray restroom, there were still urinals in the corner from before the room had been ‘repurposed.’

She sighs heavily in relief and tries not to touch the bruised areas around her forehead before she’s done.

“Red, yellow, blue, green,” she snorts and picks at her nails, looking at the walls as she finishes.

The underground military facility felt and tasted like a knock-off brand of seltzer water, sparkling and vaguely unpleasant. The ruling design theory was functional and grey, grey like the inside of a dying man’s mouth, grey like storm clouds that make your chest rumble. Grey.

It was being sucked into an entirely different world, and needing to pee most of the time you were there.

Cindy washed her hands and was pleasantly surprised by the pinkness of the soap, it was the little thing.

She takes a deep breath and spends some time fixing her hair, she wasn’t sure she was going to miss the sun or personal space. But it turns out some part of her was attached to both those things.

She relishes her time alone in the restroom before one of the cleaners steps in and they nod at each other before Cindy heads out.

“Red,” her heels click on the cool floors like a bad joke, “green.” She passes several brass with papers and whispers between them, there were other experiments going on in this same facility. They were just the only ones trying to unlock the powers of bad hotline psychics.

Cindy was so close to rolling her eyes into a coma as she thinks about it. She concentrates on the smell of stew and white bread as she enters a bustling cafeteria, a small Asian woman waves at her from the corner.

She waves at the table of women and waits patiently to be walked, fed, and walked again to a little rectangle surface. Everything was made of boxes and squares and more rectangles, it was like a geometry sex dungeon.

She crosses off the last part in her mind and lets the thick stew pour onto her plate, she inhales deeply. The food at the very least wasn’t bad.

“Cindy,” one of the girl’s was grinning as she waved her over.

She shuffles over through the other long school tables to where the four other woman sat. There were roughly eight of them living down there in total, not counting the cleaning staff that came down regularly.

Cindy wasn’t sure if they bunched them all together to increase ‘telepathic potential’ or just out of convenience, either way, she kept telling them they needed a bigger sample size anyway. They told her they had been doing these same things on men for 3 years now.

At least it was equal opportunity brain rot.

Cindy sits down delicately as her skirt sweeps under her, “Martha,” she grins with a nod, “Tric.” Martha was a friendly girl from South Florida with a psychology degree, as most of them did. Tric was a secretary that got stuck down there with them.

“See,” the women slicked her beehive black hair back, “it’s unrealistic, no one wants to shave that much muff.” She shoves a magazine under her nose and Cindy politely pushes it back.

She was currently browsing a playboy she found in one of the restrooms like it was a Sears catalog. “It looks like a terrible tiny mustache.” Tric was squinting her eyes, “The things they do to these women, jeez.”

Cindy doesn’t look down at the naked woman on the magazine, “Stew is nice and warm today.” “Is it a Tuesday?” The frazzled Mrs. Catherine at the end had her notepad out and was calculating something. The days of the week next to the months next to an astrology chart.

She had a degree in communications and math.

“God, someone tell me it’s a tuesday,” she chewed on her bottom lip, “it’s been two hundred fifty two days, Venus is in retrograde…” She was mumbling to herself, she was also candidate number one and the first one they dragged into The Depths (as Cindy was calling it) to see if their tickers could talk to each other.

“Did you see Dr. Stevens today,” Martha beamed at her, “he sure was handsome with those new glasses.” Cindy wrinkled her nose as she tried to remember which one that was, “I’m sure he was.” She reassures as she organized her plastic spoons and forks on her trey.

“Don’t bother Cindy with that sort of thing,” And there she was Louise.

Louise was seated two spots away from her, wearing her regular fleece pink sweater with a baby blue skirt. She always had the look of someone who rather be knitting or talking about the different shades of sycamore trees.

A sweet girl with bright eyes and soft round everything from her personality to everything else.

Though, of course, Cindy always had the temptation to give her a Catholic Speech on numerous things, and Cindy wasn’t even Catholic.

“She’s a woman of science,” her lips turned up, “She’s already married.” They tittered around her and Cindy’s not sure if she should be relieved or offended, it felt like the time for a Catholic Speech about teasing. And smokey eyes and long lashes and whatever else the Minnesota girl was doing.

“No wonder my son has hang-ups, none of these women got any marks on ‘em,” Tric took another long drag of her cigarette and Cindy sighs.

Louise delicately continues her meal and Cindy couldn’t guess what she was thinking if she tried. And she’d been paid to try.

It had been one week in The Depths of the Pentagon with several hundred scientists, but Cindy had barely got to touch a spreadsheet. The fairer sex was meant to be tied into whirring machinery and watch the own gears in her head wear thin.

She keeps these complaints all to herself as Martha talks about getting cookie dough here for the winter season and Tric compared the January and February centerfolds. Miss Catherine went into the depths of her paperwork, submerging into the relative position of Uranus.

Cindy wondered at what point she might start to gradually grind herself down into a distilled crazy paste, but she had a vision that it wasn’t going to be as interesting any of these women.

Louise quietly talks about her new knickers with Catherine until the other woman gets her tarot cards and takes out the hanged man.

“I’m not sure if I really need another one of these Miss Cathy,” she laughs hallowly and Catherine gives her spooked fish look.

“It’ll increase your chances.” She whispers in the way that would make Edgar Allan Poe write poetry.

“Right right, of cracking the case.” Louise grinned, “Don’t worry miss Cathy, we are on it!” More tittering.

Catherine slips her another card, “hide this under your pillow.” Louise was smiling but her face was slightly paler, she had been dealing with these women a lot longer than Cindy. She just mildly turns her face away and gets re-engaged with the very rosy Martha talking about the letter her sister sent.

Cindy watches this all go by like a film of someone else’s life, not for the first time she wondered if she made the right decision. Or if there was one.

She moves the rest of her stew around the plate moodily before throwing the rest of it away and following the other woman back to the test rooms. The giant wall of machine was already getting warmed up again and Cindy could see someone waving.

“Oh thank God,” Cindy murmurs and jogs up to a portly middle-aged man. “Doug,” she greets, “Good to see you.” “What? Yes.” Dr. Doug Johnson had slight hearing problems from his time in the war, but was an overall agreeable figure.

Cindy almost bounces, “I was hoping to get a peek at any data before the next session starts.”

He nods back, “yes, yes, I did appreciate your last observations on some of the wavelength fluctuations.”

Probably just anomaly, but Cindy doesn’t say that out loud. She nods as they let her into the backroom, she can feel Louise looking at her curiously again from behind her. She doesn’t quite look over her shoulder.

“Progress is slow, but we think if we keep up the transcranial stimulation with the right locations, we’ll be getting you all to be reading morse code to each other in record time.” He was beaming with his gapped front teeth and round cheeks.

Cindy is more grateful than the time she got her period during her ‘fear of immaculate conception’ phase of teenagehood.

The cool military fans blow against her face, keeping the test samples and piles of paper dry and clean. Cindy turns toward the analysis, gingerly picking up the spreadsheets as her mind swims, the points read off their electric current stats.

“Would that mean we should start shaving our heads?” Cindy asks hoarsely before frowning, “it might open up more vectors of magnetic connection with the machine.” She blinks, it made more sense to have multiple stimuli around the cranium. She glances at him to see if he was listening.

Doug Johnson laughs slightly, “we did that with the boys, but got similar results.” He winks, “plus, I’m not sure if all the ladies would be as willing as you to let go of those pretty locks.” Cindy blew air out of her nose but just nods stiffly, she surveys the data points quickly as she considers the different existing communication pathways they could be using. They seemed to be hooked into the right sectors, but perhaps the wrong surgical connectors.

She opens her mouth briefly, “could I take these to my room tonight?” Doug flattens his mustache out, “I think I’d get in a little more trouble if I let these out of the room.” He hums and adjusts his glasses, “besides, they're not too different from the last ones.” She frowns again and puts them down, the clock was almost at exactly one thirty. Doug pats her on the back, “you’re a great asset Ms. Jabiyev.” “Thank you,” she feels her stomach bottom out and she follows him out of the back room, Louise waves at them warmly as they come back.

“See anything worthwhile?” She grins, “any changes?” Cindy just shakes her head, “nothing to report on.” “That’s a shame,” Louise clicks her teeth, “but I have a good feeling about today.”

“That’s our Louise.” Dr. Johnson laughs and pats Louise also on the back before disappearing into another one of the rooms where one of the other pairs was.

Cindy eyes him before she feels a slight nudge on her ribcage, she turns around to see Louise’s bright blue eyes staring widely down at her. She was a good head taller than Cindy.

“Did you sweet talk him into that back room?” Her full lips were in that same elegant curve.

She shrugs, “I listened to him talk about his kids for two hours and he seemed to warm up to me.” Louise chuckles, “they musta hired you for your listening skills.” Her eyes twinkle and Cindy finds her somehow mildly more round and tolerable.

“That, and my exceptional ability to sit in chairs.” Cindy says dryly because no one else was around.

Louise lets out another laugh, “you don’t say, is it in any way connected to your above average ability to say colors out loud?” Cindy covers her mouth to laugh slightly, “I was color naming champion at my college.” Louise slaps her knee, “you are a delight miss Cindy!” She snorts before grabbing Cindy’s shoulder, “no wonder you could sweet talk Mr. Doug.” Cindy glances down at Louise’s dove-white hands before looking back up, “I wouldn’t call it sweet talk,” she catches her breath, “More like… psychology. Nice things.”

Louise nods and Cindy looks down at her shoes, she jumps when she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. “Tell you what.” Louise says, “I was a psychology major myself,” she says with her chest puff out, “if we put our heads together we’re bound to make that data sing.” Cindy cocks her head to the side, “you want to see it too?” Louise bites her bottom lip and turns back to the room as it opens, “better than sitting on our bums and having ‘em shock us day in and out.” Cindy exhales, “I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking that…” Louise squeezes her shoulder and they hear the machine ding as it finishes warming up. “Some time then.” She enters the dim whirring room again and sees the next new doctor preparing the electro-helmet that attached at her temples. She stares wearily ahead, vision blurring together as she watched Louise be plugged into the exact same machine across from her.

Sometimes they did the experiment with a sheet obscuring each other, sometimes they thought eye contact helped. Cindy personally thought it was better double-blind, but no difference had been recorded yet.

The heat of the computer electroencephalogram (EEG) bathed the left side of her face, preparing to translate and stored their thoughts. A piece of paper is put in front of Cindy.

“Now, you know the drill miss Jabiyev, concentrate.”

Cindy looks up and makes steady eye contact with Louise, she turns her thoughts into a pointed dagger trying to stab out into the darkness. A little prickle goes through her skull again and she can feel the electric currents working through her. Toward her.

She takes a deep breath and the light blinks for them to start.

“Yellow.” She says dryly as Louise's mouth stays a shapeless flat line. She concentrates, “Blue.”

#science fiction #original writing #wlw #sapphic #lesbian story #the omnipotence theorem #tot

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martianarctic · 4 years

Text

The Factory Window

Agent: Andrew Swan

Interview record: Pinetree-443 incident. Witness #2. January 3rd, 2021. Interview #1 of /. Location: Regional office, Lance Barrow Memorial Federal Building. Investigator Remarks: None.

It happened when I was really young, still a teenager, late teens, 18, 19. I have never told anybody about it before now. It is only known by one other person, he was with me, a friend of mine. I lost track of him after high school and searching his name on the internet yields nothing, even though he has an uncommon name. No one from school that I am still in touch with has spoken with him for decades.

I remember that day really clearly, even though it was almost [REDACTED] years ago at this point. It takes [REDACTED] hours to drive to the town. There were, and are still people there, gravitating to the kind of things that remain after a factory closes: Elementary schools, grocery stores, and hospitals. But everything and everybody is falling apart. Driving mostly old cars. The streets are stuck in [REDACTED] years ago. Everybody looks dead behind the eyes. Talks to you like you’re an invader into their daydream.

The factory is on the water. It closed in the [REDACTED], so when we went there it had been closed for about [REDACTED] years or so. It was a… real weird building. Designed by some famous midwestern architect, in the years they built up this town, they didn’t spare any expense. It’s built solid, so its still standing today, and will still be standing in 20 more years.

But, my point is, the building is big. It’s four interconnected corners, each like 10 stories high, and then a center that goes up 25 stories. Blocks. Windows are cut into the stone, but they are narrow- all around, about as wide and tall as a man. You can see out from them, but no way can you see in, except, at night, you can see if somebody is standing in one because the glow of the slit is different, warped kinda, just enough to know it doesn’t look like the others.

Sneaking in isn’t hard. Nobody’s patrolling it, I mean, I guess the cops drive by every day but there’s never anybody here so it’s the kind of thing very few of the cops would actually ever do. Despite this, you park your car in the trees that are overgrowing the parking lot, so nobody can see. The parking lot itself is cracked and weeds and bushes and even a few trees are growing up from under it.

There are entrances to the building all around it, but they are boarded up so the only way to get in is to go between two of the big blocks. These were meant to be the main entry ways, so back when the factory was open, you’d walk down one of these to get to work. There were probably a ton of people here all the time. Men, women, white, black, Mexicans, Asians- all Union members too.

I should mention two points here of interest. First, its very hard to find anybody who worked here. Nobody has done too deep of a dive on it, there’s a few youtubes and that’s it. Here’s what I know about that.

This section of the interview has been redacted.

And when you do, they’re… well, they’re all the same type of person, they all just kind of stare off into the distance. They are often very intelligent, quizzical kind of people. Not the first thing that jumps to mind when you think of factory workers. But its impossible to get them to answer anything directly. They acknowledge that you said something, but then they go off on a different tangent about something really esoteric and weird, but never the factory.

Which leads us to the next point of interest, which is that nobody actually knows what this factory made. Most people theorize that they are some kind of component to something very large and complicated so naturally one thinks that they were a defense contractor. However, defense stuff is usually air stuff and this stuff is way too heavy to fly in anything normal.

So, most people theorize that its some kind of hardware for power generation, nuclear or hydro power generation. Perhaps during the [REDACTED], in seeking energy independence, they anticipated some massive swell of interest in nuclear or hydro power generation and then the oil industry fired back. But that is also a stretch, because a factory this size producing that much hardware would have to have it go somewhere and honestly, again you tubers did the work and figured out that they made enough shit for 1000 nuclear plants when there only were ever 57 in the united states. Kinda the same story for hydro. Similar numbers.

Anyway, trees and bushes and tall weeds choke down each of these entrance paths. Here and there you see a drinking fountain, garbage can, bench- poking up through the foliage. It was around 1PM when we arrived so the sun was breaking through the clouds. We were in rain gear, we knew it could rain that day.

And boy it sure did- rain started up about when we got inside. After the entrance chambers, the first thing you go through is the offices. They were built into the 10 and 20 story walls that made up the structure. Furniture is still in them. Great stuff- but heavy as hell.

Anyway, the entrance chambers have these high 40-foot vaulted ceilings and stairs that take you to the first 4 floors. We crunched through the weeds that followed us in, and the crackles of dead foliage and the clatter of a kicked stone echoed. We heard the rain start falling outside. You can imagine how this place would have sounded any day of the week- just a bunch of people coming and going, starting and ending their days. We entered the first floor offices, which start just past the stairs.

So back to the offices, with the vintage furniture- they are rusted and warped a little bit, but I think with some effort they could be refurbished into what would be considered high-end pieces today. Millions of dollars worth by my reckoning. Remember, the place closed in the [REDACTED], and by that time, most companies as large as this one, if in fact it was even a business, had already gone computer based in some form or other. But there’s no computers, they never switched to any substantially digital document or process management infrastructure. There’s not a computer more complicated than a basic calculator in there.

Oh yeah, glad you asked. Another weird thing about this place- is that there’s no record of them ever having filed articles of incorporation or partnership in any state let alone ever issuing any kind of stocks or bonds. The size of the factory alone, estimated to have costed over a billion dollars in 2020 dollars, and they never borrowed any money or sold any equity stakes, at least not to anybody in the united states and not through legal channels. So we’re not even sure this was a business. At least, again, in the opinion of youtubers, since there’s no professional investigative interest on this place, until now.

So one of the things to do in this place is take a look through some of the paperwork in these offices. I feel like I don’t need to tell you that none of it makes any sense. At first, all of it looks completely normal. Memos, letters, ledgers, blotters, and they look pretty much like what you’d find in any corporate office this old. But at least somewhere in a normal business’ records, you find at least some mention of customers. Zero zip, in this factory. Products are mentioned, but they are always by cryptic item numbers that can be endlessly cross referenced but never defined.

That was not what we were here to investigate, however. And I think that’s why you called me in, maybe, but what we were there to investigate, I don’t know if you know this or not but I am about to become your star witness. #1.

If you go through the offices enough, keep moving perpendicular to the halls, through the doorways, you eventually get to the factory floor. On all sides, the walls are filled with offices that look out onto the factory floor. Above, a bunch of industrial track lighting underneath mostly broken glass skylights.

No walkways- those are all interior. This made the only possible avenue for suicide to be to jump through your office window out onto the factory, which would have been very tough, since the windows both didn’t open and also the glass was filled with chicken wire. I obviously have no idea if anybody ever did it since at least from the standpoint of personnel this would not have been discussed and if it was documented we haven’t ever found anything.

So, depending on which of the quads you are in, there’s significant differences between the factory segments. This one is mostly flat, but some of them go really vertical with these processing machines that go both up and down in addition to left and right. Here, this one, there’s conveyors that move across work stations, if you unwrapped these, they’d probably be over 20 miles long. Whatever they assembled here was small. The other quads definitely handled much larger products.

This segment probably had the most workers, also. We don’t know much about the unions that worked here but we do know that most of the shop stewards worked in this quad. Their workstations, you can see, have a lot of extra seating, space and document capacity. Here is something a little strange, nobody except youtubers and urban explorers visits here, and they are usually pretty good about not taking a ton of shit, but the union leader’s shop areas have been absolutely gutted of anything resembling a paper record or document. Somebody came for that shit.

As you can imagine, we have theories on this. We think that the shop steward’s records are probably the best place to get a list of names and addresses and any info by which we could track these people down and somebody already got it. The other quads had union leader’s workstations as well and also those are devoid of any actual recordkeeping paperwork. In one quad, several of them were burned.

We didn’t dally long in the quads, we went right for the center building, which is only accessible through the corner of the quads. Through a layer of offices, then just doors. The rain was falling outside of this one- we put up our hoods and made sure our camera bags were covered and went outside.

The courtyard is actually in the middle of the central building. 20 story high walls up around us, with the slit-like windows looking out. We’re looking out from a corner: the corners are where you enter from the outside, and then large entranceways on the edges of the square are the entrances to the central building. The water is falling down trees that have overgrown, tall, tall weeds. Broken up here and there by obstinate patches of concrete that form paths. We travel along one of these to roughly the middle of the whole complex. Look up see this is why were here. We look up.

One of the slits, up half way about from the north wall, it’s lit up. You could see a golden glow coming out of it because of how dark the rainclouded sky was. And it ain’t a normal window-slit. Its warped because something is in the window. We don’t think it’s anything moving, because it always stays the same.

So the last group to explore that we know of, they had pointed out that this light was there. Other explorers that went before them didn’t see it, so the earliest this light could have turned on was, if you believe them, [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] months.

Anyway, we counted what floor it was as best as we could and walked for that entrance and walked in, took off our hoods. The central building entrances are more conventional with elevator banks and security desks. We walked past the elevator banks for the stairs.

The stairs are eerie because of all places here, this is the one where, if you could time travel back to [REDACTED], it would look exactly the same. Light comes in through windows at each landing and there’s very little clutter. Actually people so infrequently come up these stairs that there’s very little dirt.

We got to the 18th floor- this was where we believed the light was on. It was also facing in towards the courtyard, so that meant the office was somewhere on the south side of the hallway. We checked our compasses and saw that was to the right if we turned right, and to the left if we turned left. We also figured it was to the right of the stairs. We went in.

The hallway was dark enough that if we could have seen straight down it, we would have been able to tell which office had a light on, except that most of the office doors were closed. As we walked down the hall, we looked in those offices that were open. Furniture still there in most of them, which made the offices that were completely empty really stand out. It would be weird if these offices seemed like no one had ever worked in them but what was weirder was that it seemed like all of the stuff had been removed from them. Shadows on the wall indicating where a chair might have scuffed against, parts of the carpet that seemed less worn than others.

We got to where we had to start opening the doors on the left. We did it quickly. One of us opened while the other covered with, yeah a firearm, you don’t go urban exploring in [REDACTED] without one. I was the puller when we got to it. The door handles were all were pretty much ice cold to the touch so when we got to it, I knew. This one was warm. I looked back to make sure he was still there, he gave me a nod. I pulled on the handle and the door came open.

This section of the interview has been redacted.

#shortfiction horror scp abandonia creepypasta halloween

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lonespektr · 4 years

Text

Starting back Vikings again randomly........

blue eyes still hasn't fucked that priest

When's he gonna bang the priest, he doesn't like his new wife 🤷🏾‍♀️

Rollo needs a win/ cmon lady archers

Stop listening to random men, every main character gets bad advice from randos

Very deliberate word choice

Blue eyes is do butthurt his boyfriend is not coming with him priest is literally staying for you, you blockhead

Men are idiots

Tomgirls trying to sit still and look pretty when they clearly want to punch people

They keep using attempted rape for her power ups and they could do literally anything else

Glad the mrs is back

She's worried about jr but it looks like he can fight brother still absolutely in love with the mom cause she's a bad bitch

But he would have cheated too soo 🤷🏾‍♀️

He's big but it doesn't look like he hits hard, he's moving frantically, he doesn't lean into his hits??

The bows are used in short range i feel like it's that accurate??!!

Nobody is hyped the mrs is home and i feel like that was a wasted opportunity

Priest is attracted to bad people

Everybody got a shower

Who ever is subing the sound effects is a fucking poet Every grunt has a adjective

Always gotta upstage your brother just fukkkin relax

He's rejected the sacrament dunt dun dun!!!

Cheese and crackers woman how many boys you churnin out

What's the science? Boys are faster swimmers so short vagina?? I forget

She's gloating

Yea no shit. He don't even like that other future telling bitch

Rollo just stick with old girl u are bad at politics

This is a very sexual prayer priest

You tryina get what by the holy spirit??!! Save that for blue eyes

Thorvard big as fuck

That boy ain't got no right being that big his parents is normal sized

If i wanted to say it in private i wouldn't fucckkin come down to long house

Who's fuckkin army is that , just her homies?? She got warrior homies?

Ah she just wanted to threaten the general community that if anything happen to hey son it's they ass

Yea those'r just her homies

Another sexual assault threat but in an unexpected turn is events his kinsman ain't down with that shit and backed her

Infamous wings pf the vikings

More sexual assault threats

Whoever is writing these subtitles is a fucking legend

Priest new boyfriend is in wooing his old boyfriend's ex wife and he has to be an awkward translator

Wack what a serious waste of ambition

Them two rando little boys already died they really gotta take the one bitch was leadership vibes

She threw away throne thrown for dinner snot nose kids

He play too much, but they are great together

Preist done diddled that brown hair plain and not blue eyes

Vikings does appear to have a strict all rapists must die policy (marital rape excluded- even that's appears to have consequences)

Surprised they let siggs go but i think she landed a better role, shes a bigger actor then all em

I still don't know which god he was supposed to be. Guess i gotta brush up on my norse history

What's rollo gonna go without his political advisor

That guy coulda had a bigger role but this was 6+years ago and he was not as big then so..makes sense

Preist talking shit about women knowin damn well he just left a perfectly boring one to be with sky eyes

Hypocrisy , ungrateful ass volunteer to help the mother of your child

Screw everybody and they mama, leave yo wife month at a time with no backup booty

Why you only slept with yo wife once? 🤨

Seer tied of yo ass

Sky eyes just move to Paris with the preist

They are doing a sharp turn with him that is uncharacteristic, they haven't done a power corruption thing or anything to transition him from opportunist to greed

Also wtf boo /This is your earldom ??? You just gon stand there?

Still holding with the rapist get stitches law

Burning cross bit heavy handed

Bjorn tell your wack ass absentee father to back your mom

Yea we have been here before, cause your dad keeps fucckin up, you forget last time you left with her cause you knew he was wrong

Blue eyes has become a kind of apathetic shell without preist and wifee no1

Um wtf was that with the 👀

Just fuck already

Can the women have a story not around babies

Where rollo headed?

This is evidence of a turning point we should have gotten a half step before this

Except she was taking care of the one kid you ignore and you know damn well that priss don't do no work and her servants watch her kids anyway

Lol whut person or persons unknown, but you have evidence?

King got plans on plans on plans

Do they just not know what to do with the preist anymore??

Hey least he said it

That was the least intimate interaction he's had with anyone

Disrespect on disrespect

I think they are going to do something stupid with her 🙄 looking forward to that

Woah full stop yikes 😬

Another unforced error. I knew they were gon do some dumb shit with her, no he actin stupid too

This really there seasons about an unrequited love story

It gets boring when the main character is white male tyrannical and off his rocker - when he's not a zealot

Mentally ill opportunist are not very complelling

I'm annoyed blondie is really confessing to a man who has been treating her like shit for the past decade because a first good decade

Unforced errors and making her stupid is something shows love to do with women

But they gave her so much pride it doesn't make sense

I thought maybe they all knew, but it's just bjorn

Blue eyes was hoping for a confession

Why do you tear me away from myself

Trojan horse is the only thing that ever made sense with impregnable walls even with that hint he still couldn't figure it out, he had to almost die

Rollo is out here now? Why doing what?

I mean tbh is a really good idea to get away from your brother

Oh so the King isn't a complete idiot, just a coward

Another betray your brother situation 🙄

Just let rollo needs live

All our protagonists are isolated

He still didn't get that confession

Oh he just said it

What was the point of that Christian coming to visit?

Lit of obsessive unhealthy male relationships

Floki/Ragnar

Althestan/Ragnar

Ragnar/ rollo

How would rollo even convince the remaining vikings to go against their own

Now we must be subjected to this embarrassment

Co Earls, this guy is a not confused about his endgame

He should have just married her when she asked

There is one asian

If this the season where the non whites enter? They should have done that in Paris

He's an absentee father but he's annoyed his kids are stupid

Floki bb hella cute

It's odd the show has isolated everyone

He's such as gaslighter

The only stable relationship is the ones between the mentally unstable people

The two best pairings were both uneccesairly antagonistic towards each other

What's rollo doing

Le sigh she's smiling because she thinks he backed her , finally someone did she deserves to be supported

But he only backs himself

Time inside learning could be useful for him

Even rollo is not this stupid soooo 🤷🏾‍♀️

Blue eyes mad that his wife doesn't give a shit about him, knowing damn well he don't give a shit about her

Rollo 👏🏾 isn't 👏🏾 stupid👏🏾

He also wouldn't ally himself with strangers 🤷🏾‍♀️ it's a repeat pattern of making the wrong allies but this don't make sense

Hopefully bjorn gets more interesting

Or another woman character not attached to a damn man comes in

1 poc is already gettin eyeballed by ol blue eyes

What old lady would be concerned with getting revenge on is wessex king who raised her new settlement to the ground

There's that projection again blue eyes

The rollo situation is getting close to puppy punching

He looses his accent a lot

Blue eyes has odd codependencies

Man has no loyalists but strong affections that look like loyalty from afar

Why are they all obsessed with this fucking guy

Predatory men who pretend to be small and unassuming to trick women

She choked those words out, I wonder how many takes they made her do before they went with that one

This descent into madness isn't nearly as entertaining as they think

That's the first time he's called her by her first name

Curious move bjorn /curious situation they pulled moms into

They make women look stupid by having them smiling the whole time while men who are being equally deceived look suspiciously but they are tricked just the same

Once again he just identifies foreigners as roadmaps to conquer new lands

Gaslighter all these men are gaslighters

All these braids and this is the first time i've seen one of the man brushing they hair

It's going to be four full seasons of wounded mentally ill drug addicted blue eyes??

there it is, that was his dream, not the crazed ambitions of winning for winnings sake

Opportunistic and talented or rather lucky is different than tyrannical and that's what they are playing him as with no foundation

I know she tired of these dirty whites raggety ass wash rags she want a real bath with soap

Random edge play over the top hair cutting symbolism

That bb old enough too...ok

The girls were ready. And he even ain't mad because she told him straight up she was going to kill him

She doesn't want to remarry, she's better boss ass bitch but it's fucked up she can't just have a decent man partner and equal but these men are trifling they may as well get her a girlfriend

Is the seer dead?

It's 13 right?

Heavy handed women freedom theme happening

#vi #kings

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abadoodlesss · 7 years

Text

Sometimes The Job’s Worth It - Chapter Four!

Read the previous chapters here

Next Chapter

Summary: Castiel comes at the request of Dean to try and rid Jane of her unpleasant memories, much to Sam’s dismay. Family fighting and some poorly chosen words lead to lots of complicated, possibly dangerous, situations.

Jane stared at the man before her. He was an intimidating figure, almost matching the height of the oldest Winchester. He held eye contact with Jane, seemingly staring into her soul with his piercing blue eyes.

“An angel?” Jane repeated, in a bit of disbelief. Castiel looked like a regular man to her, nothing like what she expected angels to be. Where were the flowing white robes? The long hair? The beautiful wings? Then again, she pictured demons to have red skin and horns protruding from their heads. That depiction couldn’t have been further from the truth, so who was she to be deciding what an angel should look like?

“Yes, I am Castiel, an ang-”

“We got that part already, buddy.” Dean said, patting a hand on Castiel’s shoulder as he walked over to Jane. “Jane, this is a friend of ours.” Dean continued. “He can...uh, help you.”

“With what?”

“We’ve noticed you’ve been acting a little strange.” Sam said, trying to put things lightly, coming to his brother’s side.

Jane mentally kicked herself. Of course they noticed! You’ve been acting like a psycho since you’ve met them! She thought to herself.

“What do you mean?” She asked, feigning ignorance.

“Kid, we know something's up.” Dean said flatly.

“Whatever’s going on, we want to help you.” Sam offered, aggravated with Dean’s lack of sensitivity.

“I appreciate that you’re concerned but really, nothing’s going on.” Jane lied, opening her Snickers as she climbed on the bed to watch whatever was playing on the small television.

Dean sighed. He knew what Jane must be upset about it, it was obvious. She had lost everything she had less than a week ago and all she had gained were the Winchesters. It wasn’t an easy situation to be in, unfamiliar and awkward not even mentioning dangerous. She was also obviously hurting, she lost her parents. Dean knew exactly what it felt like. He wished he had someone to comfort him in those times, but now here was Jane, turning away the help he wished he had gotten.

“If you’re sure.” Sam said, interrupting Dean’s inner monologue before the frustrating thoughts could start pouring out.

“I am.” Jane said, turning to the three men, having forgotten Castiel was even there.

“Jane,” Dean started, taking a seat on the bed by her feet while avoiding Sam’s hand that tried grabbing him away. “We just want to help. Talking things out can-”

“I’m fine.” She said curtly, not bothering to look his way.

“Kid-”

“Dean, I don’t need your help.” She snapped, glaring at him for a moment before returning her attention to the TV.

Dean puffed out his chest, ready to start a real argument but Sam grabbed onto his upper arm, dragging him off the bed.

“So my assistance is no longer necessary?”

Sam opened his mouth to confirm but Dean had other ideas.

“You know, Sammy and I haven’t been to a bar in a while. You wouldn’t mind watching Jane if we head out for a bit, right?”

Castiel looked at Dean slightly confused. He knew enough about Dean Winchester to understand he was plotting, but to what the actual plan was, Cas was oblivious.

Dean grabbed his car keys, whispering to Cas as he passed “Figure out what’s going on with her.” They gave each other a nod before Dean called, “Let’s go Sam.” storming out to the Impala.

“So you’re an angel?” Jane asked, sitting with her legs crossed, staring at Castiel who hasn’t moved since he arrived.

“Yes. I am an angel of the lord.”

After a silent moment, Jane blurted out a burning question. “If you’re an angel….where are your wings?”

She was timid to ask, but her curiosity was much stronger than her fear.

Though Jane’s family had never been particularly religious, she was (almost) positive angels didn’t run around the mortal world in trench coats, so why was Castiel like this? She had heard of fallen angels however, cast out of Heaven for pissing off the big man upstairs. Did they lose their wings when they came crashing down from on high? She shuffled further back on the bed when that idea surfaced.

“They aren’t visible to your human eyes.”

“Now that just sounds like an excuse.” Jane joked, but Castiel didn’t seem to get it. “So how do you know the Winchesters?”

“I was the angel that raised Dean from perdition.”

“What’s perdition?”

“The eternal state of punishment you know as Hell.”

Jane looked at Castiel wide-eyed. A few thousand questions railed into her mind.

Hell is real? Dean went to Hell? Why? How? When? Again: Hell is real?!

Castiel was able to read Jane’s mind without really using his powers, her confusion was evident on her face. “Dean died many years ago and went to Hell. I brought him back as he was desperately needed.”

“Dean died?”

“Many times. Sam has as well.”

Jane had more questions but they were clouded by this new revelation that Hell was real. She was always hopeful that you went somewhere after you died but the thought that there was a Hell gave her chills. She had heard that a single sin could get you into Hell, which is why you had to go to confession and pray for forgiveness often, neither of which had her parents ever done since she was born. They must have accumulated a fair amount of sins in their lifetime that hadn’t been forgiven. Jane cringed at the idea, going to hug her knees as a chill ran up her spine.

Castiel watched the girl intently. It felt wrong to read the young girl’s mind, especially when he found her thinking of something so personal and heartbreaking, but he had to. Dean asked him to help this girl and if she wasn’t going to say what was wrong verbally, he had to result to an alternate plan.

“You’re thinking about your parents.” Castiel stated bluntly.

Jane’s eyes darted over to his figure without turning her head away as she held her knees to her chest tightly.

“It’s normal to miss them.” He offered when she refused to speak. “You’re allowed to be upset.”

“I wasn’t asking for permission.” She said coldly, instantly regretting it. “I’m sorry it’s just- it’s more than that. You don’t get it.” Jane said, waving him off before things got too sentimental.

“I don't. But you could explain it.” Castiel tried but to little avail. “You’re hurting. It’s natural to want to talk about it.”

Jane hated that he was making these assumptions so easily. She hated the way he said them as though he were reading facts out of a book. She hated that he was right about each one. Still, she remained silent, continuing to bottle up the thoughts threatening to pour out.

Castiel resulted to tapping into her thoughts to try to gain any helpful information but was only met with a swarm of repeated thoughts filling the girl’s mind. He stared at her incredulously, shocked at what he was hearing. “You feel at fault.”

“Aren’t I?” She spoke in a soft voice, unable to look at the angel. “I hid and-” Her voice cracked as she rested her head on her kneecaps, squeezing her eyes shut to trap in her tears.

“You couldn’t have done anything.”

“I could have tried. I just hid in the bathroom and prayed for someone else to fix everything.”

“I know.” He said. “Your prayers were heard, but there wasn’t anything anyone could have done.” Castiel offered. Jane’s head perked up at what he had said.

“You heard me praying?” She asked, narrowing her eyes as she stared up at the angel.

“Yes, angels are able to hear all prayers and-”

“All the angels heard me and did nothing?” Jane continued, her voice holding a tone of disgust as she got up and made her way over to Castiel. “You heard me crying and pleading for help and you ignored me? Why? How could you just leave me there like that?”

“You have to understand-” Castiel started, backing away from the girl as she closed in.

“What? That there was nothing an all-powerful being like you could have done to help?”

“There are some matters in which angels cannot interfere.”

“Why? Was it some sort of fate that my entire family had to die?”

“It’s not our place. If direct orders aren’t given-”

As tears welled in her eyes, Jane swung out her hand, slapping the angel across his face. Not bothering to stick around for his reaction, she ran out of the motel room.

Dean downed another shot, slamming the glass down onto the table.

“You want to take it easy there?” Sam asked from across the table, nursing his first bottle of Bud Light.

“I don’t get it Sam. There is something wrong and we just want to help. Why wouldn’t she want that?”

“People have different ways of coping.” Sam said but Dean didn’t accept that answer.

“She shouldn’t have to go through it alone.” Dean grumbled.

“I agree, but you have to think about it from her perspective.” Sam started, knowing he was asking a lot of his brother to think logically, especially when he was angry. “She lost her family and doesn’t know us very well. Besides, I still don’t think getting Cas involved is a great idea. We can comfort and support Jane but erasing her memories? That’s not how you deal with-”

Dean didn’t care to hear the rest, he was already making his way to the bar to get himself another shot.

He knew Sam was right. He always is. But hearing the truth about the situation is only more frustrating. Dean couldn’t help everyone. It was always hard to accept that not everyone can be 100% fixed but it didn’t make him feel any less shitty.

Dean downed three more shots, letting out a groan as the last one slid down his throat.

“Rough night?” A voice called.

Dean turned to meet a tall Asian woman. She was dressed in a tight red dress and matching heels with her hair in light waves. She was beautiful, charming Dean with her warm eyes.

“That obvious?” Dean asked with a chuckle as the woman sat beside him.

“Well I don’t know how much I can help, but I can at the very least get your next drink.” She said with a seductive smile.

“No objections here.” He said as the woman order the two of them drinks. “I’m Dean.”

“Christine.” She said with a sweet smile.

The two kept chatting, drinking and getting to know each other. She was flirty, Dean dare admit as flirty as he was.

She was in the midst of tying a cherry stem with her tongue when Dean’s phone started ringing. Pulling it out of his pocket and seeing the caller ID.

It was Jane.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Christine joked.

Dean pressed decline and threw his phone down. “No, no she’s- she’s my little sister.”

“What are you guys fighting about?”

“Are you a mind reader or just very good at guessing?” Dean asked with a laugh.

“You hit decline pretty quickly, seemed odd.” She defended. “Whenever I’m avoiding someone, especially that quickly, it’s normally because we’re fighting.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t exactly know I’m- well I’m not really mad at her it’s just-”

“Complicated?” Christine finished for him.

“Exactly.” He said with a smile, keeping eye contact with Christine as they each took a sip of their drinks.

His phone started ringing again.

Jane.

Declined.

“So where were we?” He asked, leaning closer to Christine. A sultry smile tugged at her red painted lips.

His phone started ringing again. He had half the mind to just hit decline a third time but guilt tugged at his gut.

“I should probably answer, just to make sure she’s alright.” Dean said, going for his phone.

Christine grabbed his hand. “She’s sixteen years old, she’s fine to stay home alone.”

Dean ripped his hand away from Christine’s. He never told her Jane’s age or that she was even home alone. Dean quickly accepted the call but Christine slapped the phone out of his hands, letting it fall to the floor. She covered the phone with her foot, driving the heel of her stilettos into the phone’s screen, cracking more than just the glass.

Dean looked up at Christine to see her pitch black eyes.

“Dean!” Sam yelled. He had his phone in hand, talking to someone.

Dean turned to grab onto Christine but she had disappeared. There was no time to care, something was wrong with Jane. He scooped up his broken phone before running with Sam to the Impala.

Jane rubbed her bare arms as she let out a shiver, watching the cloud of her own breath drift up into the starlit sky. Another shiver had her wishing for a jacket, but in her anger induced exit, she forgot to grab one.

She had run out of the hotel room after slapping Castiel. Where she was going, she didn’t know, nor did she care. She needed to clear her head and walking was always the way she had done it.

Her anger was quelled rather quickly, her adrenaline being replaced with nerves. The road she was on was dark, devoid of any cars, of any houses, just open fields that turned into woods further back. She was totally alone, vulnerable, jumping at each slight sound.

Her phone battery was running low as it was wasted on using her flashlight to navigate the maze of streets.

Before her phone could abandon her, found Dean’s name in her contact list. It rang four times before going to voicemail. She was almost glad for didn’t know what she was going to say.

Hey, I got upset, slapped your angel friend and now I’m alone and cold on some dark road in the middle of nowhere. Can you come get me?

It would only annoy Dean and that’s the last thing she wanted to do, but she had to call someone. Sighing, she pressed his name again, and again it went to voicemail. One more time.

Three rings and her phone died, displaying a blinking empty battery.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Her best bet was to turn around and hope she could find her way back, so that’s what she did.

A single street light was lit and in the amber glow stood a man, staring at her.

Maybe wandering around is my best bet. She thought, turning back around to continue walking aimlessly away from the motel when she crashed into someone.

“Hiya Janie.” Called the tall Asian woman in a very skimpy red dress she bumped into. The woman blinked her kind eyes to reveal the black eyes of a demon.

Jane took off sprinting in the direction of the creepy man under the streetlight only to find he wasn’t there, rather right beside her already clutching her arm.

“Let go of me!” Jane cried, trying to rip her arm away to no avail.

“We’re going to need to take you with us. There’s a very special someone who would like to meet you.” The woman said with a wicked smile.

Jane was relentlessly struggling against the demon when a familiar low rumble of a car stilled the group, blinding them with its headlights as the Impala turned onto the road.

“What’s going on?” Dean asked as they sped down the road in the Impala. Sam was on the phone currently, not answering any of Dean’s questions. “Sam?” Dean called. Ignored again, Dean groaned and grabbed the phone away from Sam.

“What’s wrong are you okay?” Dean asked into the phone.

“I am fine, it was only a small slap.” The gravelly voice of Castiel answered.

“Cas? Where’s Jane?”

“She ran out of the hotel room after slapping me across the face.”

“Where is- Why did she slap you?”

“I may have chosen a few incorrect words when trying to provide comfort.”

“Do you know where she is?” Sam called.

“Yes, but I’m afraid she won’t listen to me.”

“You’ll have to go anyways. I think there’s demons after her.”

“She’s on Shaker Road, approximately 2.6 miles away from the motel.”

“Alright, we’ll meet you there Cas.” Dean said, hanging up the phone and tossing to his brother as he slammed on the gas pedal.

We’re coming kiddo.

#ooo cliffhanger!#dun dun dun #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural imagine #winchester sister #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #sam and dean #castiel #demons #supernatural

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pass-the-bechdel · 7 years

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Nikita season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (twenty-two of twenty-two!!!)

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

36.02%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twelve. That’s over half the season, so I’m not gonna bother listing them individually. Because I am lazy.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty. Four who appear in more than one episode, four who appear in at least half the episodes, and two who appear in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixty. Thirteen who appear in more than one episode, three who appear in at least half the episodes, and two who appear in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Generally high, and consistently flirting with higher rankings rather than tempting lower ones (average rating of 3.13).

General Season Quality:

Has a few of the typical teething issues of a new show, but fewer than I expected and with a very solid upward trend in quality and narrative drive. Even when they turn in a slightly weaker episode on entertainment, they don’t lose their grasp on the broader story at work, and that makes for a highly engaging and thrilling product.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Huh, I totally thought they were gonna clock in better on the percent of female characters, considering how often they achieved 40+% across the season. Oh well. Maybe next time? In the meantime, you can’t do much better than 100% on the Bechdel, especially not when your passing it as often per-episode as they have been, and extensively across scenes rather than just singular call-and-response exchanges. I wondered at first if I the exclusion of the exchanges between Nikita and Alex via the shell were gonna cripple the show’s Bechdel (though Alex’s simulated voice and Nikita’s dictated responses make it feel more like they’re having a spoken conversation, ultimately it is purely text-based and does not count), but as it happened they did more than ok outside of that anyway, and I am glad for it.

As far as things to be glad for in this show, the Bechdel passes are relatively small-fry. At this point I am already feeling very confident in the reasons why so many people recommended this show for review, and The Powers That Be will have to have made some pretty serious changes to their formula for them to throw me off heartily enjoying future seasons. I mean, they could definitely piss me off in a huge way with just a few key alterations, and I won’t pretend my cynical self would be the least bit surprised, but we ain’t there yet. Right now, I come to praise Nikita, not to bury it. I come to praise its title character, a strong woman without the cliches: she needs no man but that doesn’t mean she refuses to have one around (or to enjoy his company if she so pleases); her approach to men does not in any way define her as a person. She’s physically powerful but not preternaturally unbeatable; she is not portrayed as weak or inept when she is bested, physically or mentally. She’s a tough-as-nails spysassin, but she still has emotions, is in touch with said emotions, and is not implied to be compromised just because she has healthy emotional responses. That one is kinda especially huge to me, that she is allowed to be a fully-rounded and mature human being without the narrative trying to work it in around her history, as if it requires explanation. Covert assassins really exist; spies really exist. Foster kids, drug addicts, and death-row killers really exist, just like compassionate, attractive women with a vast array of skills and smarts really exist, just like (and the entertainment industry especially hates to admit this one) Asian women really exist. And people who are various combinations of these things exist too! They’re real things that actually happen! It’s even technically possible that someone just like Nikita is really real, because female Asian spysassins are people too, and they all have histories and feelings because, yeah. Human individuals. That thing. I’m so accustomed to television creators thinking they have to explain how a woman can possibly possess multiple human traits at the same time and be a believable part of the universe they’ve made (in which the male characters are wish-fulfillment-fantasies whose best-ness goes unquestioned for realism for the duration of the tale), I was not prepared for this show to be so comfortable with portraying Nikita’s wholeness. I am really, really happy about that.

There are other factors worthy of discussion in terms of praise, but I’m going to hold whatever more detailed assessment of other ladies for future seasons, knowing that the likes of Alex and Amanda will both be around, and up to all sorts of shenanigans that I cannot presently predict ant therefore may eagerly wish to talk through at a later date. At this time, however, I must note some of the less-loved aspects of the first season, which I perpetually put off discussing in the episode reviews with the promise of finally acknowledging them now. Firstly, I must register my displeasure at the killing of my delightful Jaden, for whom I had such high hopes of a turnaround. I guess I should give them kudos for playing to those hopes by having Jaden become friendly with Alex at last riiight before smelling a rat and getting herself shot, but I am still pouting over the missed opportunity to maintain Jaden as an antagonistic agent-in-the-field, or to drag her (probably unhappily) onto Nikita’s side of the conflict. Just, y’know. Jaden. Being not-dead.

That my girl was killed by none other than nightmare-next-door Nathan just adds insult to injury. What the fuck was Nathan, besides obviously the worst mistake of the season? The reason I kept holding off on commentary for him was that I was waiting for the big reveal that never came - his most believable moment was the dream Alex had where she told him the truth and he turned out to be a Division plant working with Jaden. As an - apparently - ‘regular’ person, Nathan was a nonentity, just some rando who conveniently lived across the hall being single and age-appropriate for Alex, some rando who insistently pushed his way into Alex’s apartment ‘to help with the groceries’ on her first day and then proceeded to insinuate his way into her life and home on various other occasions. And we’re supposed to believe that Alex just like, instantly fell in love with this guy? That his lack of boundaries from the moment they met didn’t set off every finely-tuned alarm bell in her head - not just the ones Division installed, but also the ones dating back to the day she was sold into sexual slavery, and perhaps even one or two that her father helped her build before that when he was teaching her survival skills?? Alex, being exactly who she is, knowing what she’s gotten into with Nikita (and what happened to the man in Nikita’s life when she was with Division, seriously these lessons are all so recent), Alex somehow doesn’t break the guy’s face when he first makes a grab for her groceries, and instead she magically falls in love with this charmless creep despite the danger??? They pay lip service to the ‘dilemma’ of wanting to be ‘normal’ in spite of the all-too-present jeopardy, but even if Nathan were not just a plank of wood with eyes drawn on, I wouldn’t believe that Alex fell that hard and fast that she couldn’t bear to be without him, that she dreamed of marrying him and starting a family (!), and that she actually jeopardised EVERYTHING by telling him about being A. GOVERNMENT. ASSASSIN. Nathan is only in five episodes - one of which is not ‘him’ so much as it is the cutesy dream-version of him - so there’s next to no development of the relationship, just this kind of lazy shorthand where ‘conventionally attractive white girl meets conventionally attractive assigned-male slice of plain white bread’ can only mean one thing: romance. Not buying it. Not for a second. Not even in a ‘we all make mistakes and sometimes human drives are irrational, etc, etc’ kind of way. I really, really hope that Nathan is finished now. I guess only time - and some more seasons - will tell.

#Nikita #Nikitatv #Bechdel Test #female representation #full season review #Nikita season one

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queen0fkingss · 7 years

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So a friend of mine lost a bet and had to write a smut piece with terms that our other friend came up with. Here is the final product.

It was what you could call a romantic night in Venice, Italy. The night was young and the moon lit up the sky, almost as if it were Day. It was 2079. The future. Along the paved cobblestone roads was a couple, two "men "walking hand in hand. The Black Power Ranger (literally the black one) looked at his companion Rick Grimes. He had a chiseled face, almost as if it were crafted by god, and a short but sturdy beak. It turned the Black Ranger on very much. Ricks hair was not actually hair but feathers, silky brown feathers that lightly blew in the breeze. Ricks legs were mechanical stubs, pumping out steam with each step. The Ranger loved his Grimes to death. The black Ranger wasn't so different. His arms were mech and his body was covered in white feathers, spursly growing in different places. "I see you looking at me. Is something the matter, my love?" The Ranger smiled and shook his head. "Not at all. Just admiring the view." He said, a deep seductive tone dripping from his words. Rick stopped walking and looked straight at his lover. "Oh, what do you-" Rick squaked. It made the Black Ranger laugh. Because he was part Chicken, sometimes Rick had chicken like tendies. He's cluck or make other chicken related sounds randomly. "Excuse me" Rick blushed a little, "but what do you mean?" "I mean that sexy ass face of yours." The power ranger pulled his boyfriend into a kiss, lips and beak colliding. The couple began to make out on the street, under the Venice lights. Cars went by and people passed, not noticing the two lovers. They pulled apart and stared at each other, lust filled in their eyes. Rick cleared his throat then grabbed his lovers hand, slowly moving it so it cupped his crotch. "I got stuff...thangz...if you wanna see." He said, letting the Ranger softly squeeze his now growing bulge. "I'm so ready." The Black Ranger replied. The two ran off into the city, finding a suitable hotel for the night. (Part 1) Master Splinter watched as the strange couple entered the hotel room next door. They nibbled at each other's necks and whispered things in their ears. It made him jealous. The Rat wanted a relationship like that, but his crush Beetle Borg didn't like him back. Being the old perverted rat he was, he snuck into the two men's room and watched as they prepared for a hot night. Rick took off his flannel, his hairy chest defining those rock hard abs of his. The Black Ranger ran his hands up and down his chest, feeling the stiffness of the built muscle. "Damn baby!" He cried out. Rick smirked, than began clucking. The man slowly unbuttoned his jeans and underwear and pulled them off revealing his member at full attention. "Like what you see, Blacky?" He asked, touching the stiff stick. The Ranger nodded his head than began to strip as fast as he could. His robotic arm ripped off his pants and showed his soft dick. Rick laughed. "Why aren't you hard? Do you not want to do this?" He asked. The Ranger shook his head. In the blink of an eye, Blacky had Rick on the bed, bent over. The Ranger began to strain all the muscles in his body, channeling something. "It's morphing time!" He screamed, the soft dick becoming a long hard staff. After that, the two fucked. Splinter couldn't help but feel so aroused by the young lovers. He touched himself a little until, heavy robotic breathing was heard behind him. "Beetle Borg!" Splinter exclaimed, scared as to why the robot was here. "I could not help but notice you coming into the room. I decided to follow you." Splinter blushed, his dirty brown fur showing tints of pint. "But why?" He asked, afraid. "Because I love you." All barriers fell down as the robot and the rat began making out with each other. It really wasn't special, as it could be realistically interpreted as a person just licking a metal bucket for a long time...but they still kissed. Beetle borg pushed splinter back a little, thinking he could pin the man. Wrong. They fell out of the hotel closet and (part 2.5) They fell out of the hotel closet and onto the floor of where the Ranger and Rick were fucking. "Oh shit! There's a rat!" The Black Ranger said. He was in the middle of the thrust when the other pair fell out. Rick and Blacky stared at the two on the floor, startled. Then Rick smiled. "You guys wanna have a gangbang?" (End of part 2) Beetleborg and Splinter were brutally fucking each other on the floor, while Rick was caressing The Rangers leg. "Are you sure you want to do this? I don't wanna hurt you." He said lovingly. "I'm sure. I wanna be all yours." Rick smiled then kissed his lover passionately. He then forced the Black Ranger onto all fours. His fist entered the Black Rangers back hole, slowly pushing in further, making the man moan loudly. Splinter and beetleborg walked over and began face fucking the Ranger. He was in heaven and he couldn't ask for anything more. After a long night of fucking everything in sight, the four man layed together, spooning. Splinters tail rubbed Beetleborgs leg as Rick and Blacky cuddled. Rick began to squeak loudly before literally laying an egg. 'This is the life.' The power ranger thought. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Black Ranger woke up on the street. His cardboard bed was cold and someone had stolen his shopping cart. The man sighed sadly. Ever since the Asian took his place as the Black Ranger, his life went down the drain. As became poor and homeless, he began having these dreams with those three other men. They were wild and exotic, and somehow he loved having them. The Black Ranger thought deeply. His life was nothing more than wet dreams at night and dumperdiving in the day. Tears began to fall from his eyes as he pulled out a needle from under his cardboard bed. He tied up his arm, making the vein pop out. He then flicked the needle a few times before sobbing. "It's Morphine time!" He yelled saidly as he injected the Opiate into his bloodstream. That was the end for the man. (End of the story) I've never been more ashamed of myself when writing this. I hope your happy with it. 😂

#//nsfw #tag later

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dorkforty · 8 years

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So I got a little carried away this time.

I had planned for this sixth installment of the Fantastic Four Re-Mix (previous chapters may be found at the link) to zip through several storylines in short form, to get my remaining ideas out of the way so I could go into the big finale in the next chapter. But then I started writing, and my quick synopsis for Arc Thirteen started sprouting ideas and details. One thing lead to another thing, and that thing lead to yet another, and another, and that fourth thing circled back around to make me see the first thing in a new light, so I re-wrote and added more details that lead to yet still more details, and… The next thing I knew, I had eight single-spaced pages (close to 5000 words), just for that one storyline.

I could go back and edit, I suppose, but… I don’t wanna. I like it as-is. It’s a tightly plotted thing, with dialogue, back-story, and scene descriptions that sometimes launch off into flights of super-heroic purple prose that I’d be embarrassed to have written in a less ridiculous setting. But this is a story about monsters and mutants, populated with Mole Kings, Sorcerers Supreme, lost Atlantean royalty, and a metric ton of obscure Asian super heroes that I pulled out from the dark recesses of the internet in a single feverish burst of research. It is sprawling and self-indulgent, and epic in a way that I don’t think previous installments of the FF Re-Mix have been. So I’m afraid you’re stuck with it.

First, though…

Hi! Hello! And welcome to the Fantastic Four Re-Mix! If this is your first time reading these posts… Well, hell. Hit that link above (or this one right here) to go back and see what this mess is all about. Briefly, it’s just me getting some fictional baggage out of my head, and rebooting the Fantastic Four from the ground-up. The FF is my favorite super-team of all time, and I evidently have a massive number of stories I’d like to tell about them. So these are those. Got it? Good.

Also before we get started, there’s a small mess to clean up from our last installment. After I posted that one to the site, I discovered an editing error that had omitted an entire section on the sub-plots that were supposed to be running through the Inhumans storyline. So before we continue on, I’m going to include that section here…

ARC TWELVE ADDENDUM: SUB-PLOTS

(Note: In the spirit of excess that this installment has embraced so fully, I’m expanding on these scenes from what I had written last time out. When you’re on a roll, you might as well go with it…)

Sexy Thing

Frankie Ray and her best frenemy Tura meet Alicia for drinks, and we learn a bit about Tura and Alicia’s past relationship. Tura gives her crap for “playing for the other team,” but Alicia says she’s always been a switch-hitter, and sees no reason to stop now. Frankie, meanwhile, wants deets on Alicia’s sex life with Ben. “He’s just so big, and the rocks… I mean, how does it work?”

Alicia pauses before speaking. But she’s a little drunk, and no shrinking violet even when dead sober. So she dishes.

“Well… The rocks… don’t go all the way down.” (Pause to let that sink in.) “So we’ve got that going for us. But, yeah. It can be a challenge, y’know? There’s things we just can’t do, and…” (shrug) “I’ll be honest. The chafing gets pretty bad sometimes. But overall… it’s good, you know? It’s really good. And I’m…” (lop-sided smile) “…equipped to deal…? With the size difference?”

Frankie’s eyes get big. “Whoosh. More power to ya, girl.”

(Note: This isn’t just salacious detail – though I did think it was high time we got back to salacious detail on the sex life of the Thing. Still, the information that the rocks don’t cover his entire body will actually become a plot point in the next story arc (it may also, if you’re reading between the lines a bit, say something about how much control Ben actually has over his appearance as the Thing – even if it is subconscious). Of course, Alicia’s confession that she has the capacity to have sex with a giant – especially after establishing that Sue very much didn’t – also plays into the on-going sub-plot about the possibility that Alicia’s a shape-shifting Skrull. Which brings us to…)

Puppets and Masters

Alicia’s father Phillip Masters (The Puppet Master, who has already been revealed as a Skrull agent) uses his fame as a puppeteer to arrange a meeting with the anti-Skrull demagogue Gabriel. Though Masters is a B- or C-list celebrity at best, that’s the only kind of celebrity endorsement Gabriel can get. But we also learn that he really agreed to the meeting because he’d like Masters to convince Alicia to float the idea of the FF appearing with Gabriel on television to discuss the Skrull threat. Masters tells him that his daughter is strong-willed, but he’ll see what he can do. But mostly, he just keeps Gabriel talking, so that his psycho-active clay (which he uses to make his puppets) has time to bond with Gabriel from its hiding place inside Masters’ briefcase.

The Temptation of Frankie Ray

After their night out with Alicia, Tura puts the moves on Frankie in the car on their way back to the racetrack. Frankie rebuffs her… but only after a couple of passionate panels. And honestly… Who could resist this?

(Note: The above scene should fall somewhere after Johnny’s attraction to Crystal becomes obvious. But more on that below…)

Love and Beauty

Alicia gets a visit from one of the Men in Black (two mysterious agents who’ve been interviewing people who know the FF for several issues now). It’s the white-haired Man in Black this time, and he asks some pointed questions about Ben’s erratic public behavior, and about why she’s attracted to a man most people would say was a monster. The conversation gives Alicia a chance to expound on her sense of aesthetics, how her curiosity about the way things look – she’s blind, remember – translates into desire. She’s attracted to beauty in whatever form she finds it, and what she “sees” when she touches Ben is beautiful to her. Moreover, what she sees inside him is beautiful, as well. He’s troubled and imperfect, but his flaws only put his kindness and heroism into sharper relief.

The Man in Black nods and smiles, seeming pleased. For the readers, however, her attraction to non-standard (even non-human) beauty could once again play into the suspicions that she’s a Skrull. But her feelings for Ben also seem genuine, which may muddy the field a bit. If she is a Skrull, is she one that’s going to betray her own kind for love?

(Note: At this point, the differences between the two Men in Black are becoming apparent. The dark-haired one seems to not like the FF, and tends to take everything he hears in the worst possible light. The white-haired one, while still asking hard questions, is pleased to hear about the good in Our Heroes.)

Political Doom

This covers a few different scenes, to be spread out over several issues. The Latverian rebels, using weapons given to them by Doom, take control of the southern province of Rotruvia, and declare themselves a sovereign state. Afterward, Doom meets with Namor about the possibility of Atlantis sponsoring their call for aid from the UN.

Meanwhile, with Our Heroes…

The Inhumans arc (as well as this week’s follow-up) will be narrated with excerpts from Lands of Confusion: Exploration Under Duress, by Susan Storm.

One of the big issues, starting with the Microverse arc and continuing on through this week’s storyline, is the question of how much the rest of the team can trust Reed. Or, more precisely, how much Sue can trust him. She still feels lingering resentment over Veronica, the ex-wife Reed never told her about. So when he overcomes Maximus’ charisma in the Inhumans arc and breaks from Sue and Johnny (who were still taken in by him), she takes it personally. Even after they escape Atillan, Sue and Johnny aren’t entirely convinced that they were on the wrong side of the fight.

Also in the Inhumans arc, we saw Johnny getting close to the Inhuman princess Crystal, which only makes sense. She’s a beautiful, intelligent young woman with a heart of gold, and her inherent nobility appeals to Johnny’s more heroic side in a way that the vivacious but (let’s face it) slightly amoral Frankie Raye never will. After Johnny’s moral crisis in the Microverse war, Crystal is exactly the kind of woman he thinks he needs. And Johnny seems handsome and exciting to her, just the sort of thrillingly unpredictable man she’d like to run to while escaping her arranged marriage to Triton.

But there’s something else to remember about her: while Crystal may just be entering adult life by Inhuman standards, that means she’s 70-year-old royalty from an alien culture who was, before she met the FF, slated to become the queen of Inhuman Hell. And as we go forward into the new storyline, that will begin to become apparent…

ARC THIRTEEN: HOT PURSUIT

After the intrigues of the last few arcs, this one’s going to be centered a lot more on action, as the Inhumans Karnak and Gorgon…

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…pursue the team out of Attilan to bring Ben back to stand trial for (the Inhumans believe) killing a ship full of Inhuman scouts during the Thingbeard Incident.

(Because, again… I can’t post this picture often enough.)

One other important thing about this arc: I decided to take inspiration for the current run of stories from another of my favorite Silver Age series: Doctor Strange. At that strip’s height, Steve Ditko plotted out an incredible series of cliffhanger adventures that linked together into an epic that ran for over a year, building on established characters and situations while still expanding the character’s universe, building to ever-greater heights that culminate in a battle between the Dread Dormammu and the living embodiment of everything(!). It’s exciting, bravura storytelling, and I wanted to emulate it here. This really started with the introduction of Medusa in the Frightful Four arc, straight on into the Inhumans arc, and running into this one. Will it go even longer? Read on, and find out…

ONE: THE CHASE BEGINS

An initial encounter with Karnak and Gorgon establishes the chase, and the danger: while the FF could most likely defeat their pursuers in open combat, Karnak’s ability to find the flaws in things enables him to plan devastating surprise attacks. So uncanny is their ability to find and attack the team, no matter how many miles separate them, that it makes them seem more threatening than they really are, and sets Reed to wondering how they’re pulling it off.

He’s got other distractions, though, thanks to Karnak’s psychological warfare. He and Gorgon very much play “bad cop” here, implacable minions of evil king Black Bolt, driving a wedge between the Storms (who were taken in by Maximus’ manipulations) and Reed (who saw through those manipulations). It also makes Sue suspicious of Crystal (a member of Black Bolt’s court), which further splinters the team because of Johnny’s growing affection for the Inhuman girl.

Karnak’s most dramatic psychological warfare tactic, however, is against Ben. In their initial encounter, Karnak punches the Thing square in the chest, putting a large crack in Ben’s rocky hide. While it was just a test-blow for Karnak, something to help him determine the limits of his foe’s toughness, he plays it as if he thought the attack would have split Ben open like a gutted fish. It doesn’t help matters that the crack slowly grows larger as the arc goes on, audibly cracking every time Ben exerts himself. This makes him hesitant in general, and over-protective in future encounters with Karnak.

And not without reason. Because we see Karnak, in several sequences over the arc, figuring out how to actually crack Ben open with a single punch. (Note: good opportunity for some trippy visuals here.) The real key, of course, is Alicia’s earlier confession that the rocks “don’t go all way down.” So while Ben’s protecting his chest, Karnak will eventually figure out that the place to strike is actually the groin.

At any rate. This initial encounter happens while the team is still in Triton’s realm (the Under-Sea), just after Triton leaves them, but before they enter the cave system he’s lead them to. So after a few pages of action, Triton returns to order Karnak and Gorgon off. They refuse, in defiance of Triton’s sovereignty, and the team escapes into the underground while their pursuers battle Triton behind them.

TWO: MOLES

Next, still traversing the caves, the team runs afoul of the MOLE KING, who has moved to his Asian home beneath Bangkok since his initial encounter with the team. There’s some monster-fighting…

…and we get to see the somewhat disturbing “do what thou wilt” society Elder’s outcast Mole People have built for themselves underground. We also meet the Moloids, a native subterranean race that serve as slaves. The Moloids subsist on a diet of pale fungus that the Mole King hordes to further control his underground slave-race. Not that he needs it; they worship him like a god due to his ability to control the monsters. He just limits their food supply because it pleases him to do so. (Scene: the FF break open the fungus vault, hoping to free the Moloids from Elder’s control. Instead, they attack the team for daring to interfere with their god’s plan for them.)

This whole situation breaks down when Karnak and Gorgon attack again. How did they get past Triton? Karnak hints that they won the fight, and have claimed the Under-Sea for Black Bolt. Crystal’s not buying it for a second, and neither is Reed (and they’re right). But things swiftly become too chaotic to give it much thought. Reed pits Elder and the Inhumans against each other, and the team escapes again as Karnak and Gorgon are tied up fighting the mole-monsters.

THREE: THE TOMB

Emerging from the underground miles off the coast, the team finds itself at the source of the Mole King’s strange menagerie of creatures: MONSTER ISLAND! They run afoul of bunches of bizarre Kirby creatures, and discover the source of the island’s strange mutations: a volcanic core composed of an unknown radioactive element. In trying to collapse the cave mouth behind them (thus thwarting Karnak and Gorgon’s pursuit), they unwittingly free the greatest monster of all:

FIN FANG FOOM! He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains, and Whose Back Scrapes the Sun! Though he’d been trapped in peaceful slumber for centuries, something recently changed. He awoke one day in frozen agony, paralyzed as his flesh began to bubble and boil. And when the boils burst, they birthed monsters. These are the creatures, these SPAWN OF FOOM, that roam Monster Island and serve the Mole King underground, and they’ve continued to be born to this day.

(Scene: as FOOM tells them the story, he pops a boil on his shoulder in demonstration, and a massive, half-formed fetal monster falls, wet and dying, to the ground.)

FOOM thanks the team for freeing him, and in repayment, he deigns to let them live. The rest of humanity, it seems, will not be so lucky. His revenge for his years of torment will be genocide. The FF try to stop him, of course, but they’re badly outmatched, and he slips into the ocean, headed for the Chinese mainland.

FOUR: Pacifica

Giving chase, the team encounters a group of Atlantean soldiers under the command of NAMORA…

…Namor’s long-lost cousin, another human/Atlantean half-breed and a hero of the Pacific campaign in World War II. Namora rules Pacifica, a splinter kingdom that separated from their Atlantean cousins when Atlantis chose to hide from the world. The Pacificans moved halfway around the globe, with the intent of helping the Japanese rebuild after Hiroshima. An unexpected problem arose once they’d settled in, however: Monster Island. Post-war atomic tests caused strange mutations, Namora tells Our Heroes, and the monsters haunt the Pacific to this day, searching for prey. Devoting themselves to protecting the world from these creatures, the Pacificans live on a constant war footing, and (Reed surmises) suffer from more than a little PTSD.

Geographical Note: Back in the Atlantis arc, I said that Attuma’s people came from the Mariana Trench. Which I, mistakenly, thought was in the Atlantic Ocean at the time. Now I know better.

Just goes to show that research matters…

Reed explains (Reedsplains?) the truth of Monster Island: the atomic tests didn’t cause mutations. They affected that strange molten core above the TOMB OF FIN FANG FOOM, and caused the monsters to be birthed from his flesh. The SPAWN OF FOOM have plagued the Pacificans for decades (a span of time that seems “recent” to the immortal FOOM), and now the real cause of all their woes is headed for China.

Namora and her men join the hunt for FOOM, and they all fight him briefly in Taiwan, where he’s stopped for sustenance (they find him eating people like candy). But then Karnak and Gorgon attack once again, and FOOM decides that his little snack has fortified him enough to get him to the mainland. He wouldn’t want to spoil his appetite for the feast, after all…

FIVE: SPLITTING THE PARTY

Kind of a complicated issue here, with numerous small scenes moving the story forward. But we pick up where the last issue left off, with…

The Settling of Petty Concerns:

The team faces off against Karnak and Gorgon on the beach in Taiwan, filled with fear and resentment, and uncertain of the outcome. Gorgon blusters and Karnak taunts, still playing the villain, still working the psychological edge. They care not for human matters and human death. If FOOM wants to eat humans, let him! He’ll find Attilan no easy prey! This sets off Namora, who joins the face-off on the side of the FF. She doesn’t care what issue all these surface-dwellers have against each other, but if these two new interlopers are going to interfere in the chase for FOOM, she wants them dead. It looks like it’s about to go down when, suddenly, Crystal intervenes.

She tells (no, ORDERS) Karnak to drop the act. This is not the kind man she knows, the patient teacher who reveals his students’ shortcomings only to help them grow past their faults. And Gorgon is no lumbering monster! He’s a poet and a lover of animals, enemy only to the cruel. And cruelty is what they’re showing these fine people, these heroes, devoted to learning and the protection of the weak. A far greater threat than some centuries-old crime looms over them all now, a threat to all life on Earth, and as members of the Family Royale, the best Inhuman society has to offer, they had damn well better lend a hand to ending it.

Shamed, Karnak and Gorgon bow to Crystal’s superior morality. Their issue with Benjamin Grimm is not settled, he says. But if this FOOM is as great a threat as Crystal says, they can do no less than to follow her example.

Namora, exasperated, rolls her eyes. “If you’re done with all this idiotic posturing, can we please get back to saving the world?”

The Plan:

Karnak, though he caught only the briefest glimpse of FIN FANG FOOM, believes that fighting the monster is futile. His weaknesses are few, and inconsequential. The forces they have arrayed against him now could do little more than slow the beast down. They need more power to defeat him.

Reed agrees, but thinks that, more crucially, they need better intelligence. Someone put FOOM to sleep before, and they must discover how to do it again.

Namora says that she can help with both those things. She’s been working in the Pacific for 70 years, and has allies all across Asia. Allies she can gather quickly to fight the beast and, perhaps, to give them more information.

So they split up. With Ben piloting the Fantasticar, Reed and Karnak go to gather information. To aid them in this, Namora pulls forth a medallion in the shape of an eye, and calls on THE ANCIENT ONE, Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme!

Yeah, but… Never mind Ditko’s usual Ayn Rand crap. Once he hears their problem, the Ancient One tells them to meet him on Monster Island.

Meanwhile, Namora leads everyone else in the fight against FIN FANG FOOM, gathering allies along the way. To aid in this, Karnak reveals how he and Gorgon had been tracking the FF so easily: he produces a whistle to summon LOCKJAW, the Inhumans’ teleporting dog, who will happily follow the commands of Crystal and Gorgon.

Raising the Alarm:

Namora’s team heads out across across Asia, gathering a mismatched collection of heroes, villains, and everything in-between (Namora doesn’t care much about such fine moral distinctions). These characters won’t get much more than cameo appearances in the big fight scenes, but since I fell down the rabbit hole that is researching funnybook characters on-line, and did it for a full three hours, I figure I should at least give you a list of names and descriptions:

The Red Ghost (Considering that Russian communism is long-dead, I figure that a modern-day Red Ghost would probably be Chinese. And as long as we’re making changes, let’s make him female, too. Get a little gender parity up in this Asian Sausage Party. Like the original, she’s a government spy with the power of intangibility. Unlike the original, she has another, secret power to be revealed later.) Sunfire (Japanese pop star super hero, with flame powers!) The Silver Samurai (Troubled warrior with a laser-powered sword!) The Mandarin (Chinese megalomaniac, with ten rings of power!)

The Yellow Claw (Chinese crime lord!) The Jade Claw (Daughter of the Yellow Claw – and his greatest rival!) Jimmy Woo, Agent of SHIELD (Head of SHIELD’s Asian office!) Xorn (Mutant holy man with a sun for a head!) Colonel Fang (Lycanthropic Chinese military hero!) Chen Lu the Radioactive Man (Scientist hero of Red China!) The Iron Monk (Invulnerable Tibetan Holy Man!) The Monkey King (Trickster hero of legend!) Darkstrider (An eight-limbed Korean Spider-Man!) Khrag Thung the Enlightened Vengeance (Tibetan Ghost Rider!) Go of the Radiant Light (aka Go-Devil, a Japanese schizophrenic torn between good and evil!) Mystical Lao-Tse (Chinese sorcerer!) Fat Cobra (The Super-Sumo!) Brother Power and Sister Sun (Solar-powered leaders of a Vietnamese religious cult!) Red Ronin (Giant robot piloted by Japanese boy hero Rob Takaguchi!) The Head (The severed head of a genius, with a weaponized flying life support system!)

(Yes, all those guys are existing Marvel characters, albeit with a tweak here and there to make them fit the tone a bit better. But I figured you had to see The Head to believe it. He was a World War II villain who fought the Young Allies.)

At the Tomb of Fin Fang Foom:

Meanwhile, the fact-gathering team meets on Monster Island, at the TOMB OF FIN FANG FOOM. Reed takes some readings of the strange radioactive element, and Karnak recognizes it immediately: it’s irradiated Terrigen. Karnak speculates that the Terrigen may have lain dormant until the atomic tests. The Inhumans themselves have to activate the stuff after they mine it, and they use mild doses of radiation to do so. This gross over-exposure, however, may have caused it to birth monsters. He doesn’t understand how this batch could have been here, though. His grandparents’ generation mined out all the local Terrigen deposits more than 400 years ago, and now have to travel the globe to find it.

Before they can explore the implications of that, however, the Ancient One arrives, mystically teleporting in from afar. He apologizes for the delay, explaining that he thought it best to collect a friend:

AGED GENGHIS, a man older even than the Ancient One himself! Genghis seems distracted. Lost in thought. “A very wise man,” the Ancient One says. “In his day. He taught me everything I know. But he had the misfortune to discover the secret of immortality.” When asked why that’s a misfortune, the Ancient One seems startled. “Ah! Yes. I forget sometimes. You are men of miracles, men of science. But you see… Immortality has its limits. Aged Genghis endures, but the human mind can only hold so much time, so many memories. And he’s lived so very long. Longer than any other human being in history, I suspect. So now he’s senile. And quite mad. But if anyone knows the story of FIN FANG FOOM, it is him.”

(Note on Aged Genghis: He swings unpredictably from comedic to scary, cheerful to grumpy, addlepated to deadly serious. And though he’s supposedly a senile old hermit who has no contact with the world outside his cave, his speech is peppered with modern phrasings and slang, much moreso than the Ancient One. He’s in the background of every panel, usually levitating, hovering in mid-air with his legs in the lotus position, not seeming to really pay attention to his surroundings. But before every new revelation or turning point (even in panels that cut to other locations), he makes a small mystical hand gesture that goes unnoticed by everyone else (and maybe by the reader as well). It may be something he does in his madness, or he may be shaping events with magic on a deeper, more subtle level than even the Ancient One can perceive. He takes a particular liking to Ben.)

“I know this place!” Aged Genghis suddenly exclaims. “This is where Tensu buried the dragon!”

Pressed for details, he can’t remember much. Only that they fed the dragon something to make it docile. “Something Tensu made. Clever, clever, that Tensu. Mostly, it was those mushrooms. The ones I had to go underground to find. Deep down where the mole-men live. They weren’t happy to give up their food, oh no indeed.” (Close in on his face, which suddenly looks hardened and dark.) “But I can be very persuasive.”

Reed knows immediately what he’s talking about: the Mole King’s fungus-horde. And something else clicks into place: if the mushrooms could be used to make FIN FANG FOOM docile, surely they could be used to command his Spawn. Another good reason to control the Moloid food supply.

And luckily, the Ancient One knows who Tensu is: an ancient being now known as Dragon Tensu, a dragon trapped in human form. Truly immortal, and with a dragon’s gift for memory. The Ancient One has only met him once or twice, but he thinks Tensu will help them… if they can find him.

So they split the teams again. Karnak whistles for Lockjaw, and travels to where Namora is gathering her forces to meet FIN FANG FOOM at the coast. There, he recruits Sue and the Red Ghost for a stealth mission back to the Mole Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Ben, Reed, the Ancient One, and Aged Genghis search for Dragon Tensu.And at the coast, the fighting begins. FIN FANG FOOM ravages the mainland, even with the full might of the the Asian super-powered community arrayed against him. It’s clearly a hopeless battle, one that can only buy time for the others…

SIX and SEVEN: THE LONGEST DAY

These two issues will jump back and forth between the three missions, but I’ll handle each separately here, for matters of simplicity.

The Mole King’s Larders: The Mole Kingdom is still in disarray after the fight with Karnak and Gorgon. Three of the mole-monsters lay dead in the central square, Moloid slaves out butchering the corpses. Whether for food or easier disposal, it’s hard to say. But the chaos means that things aren’t very well-guarded. So, as Sue makes them all invisible, they head directly for the larders. The Red Ghost passes through the walls and starts handing mushrooms out to the others. Unknown to them, for every one she collects for the mission, she’s collecting another two for the Chinese government, passing them along via her secret power: the ability to open up holes in space, ala the Spot.

Thaaaat’s right. Respect, bitches!

She lets the others know when the Larder is empty, and Sue seems confused. There were a lot more mushrooms in there than this when the FF opened it earlier. Assuming that the Mole King moved the rest, and hoping they have enough, they prepare to leave. And that, of course, is when the Mole King confronts them. Karnak explains what’s happening on the surface, but Elder doesn’t believe him. It looks like they’re going to have to fight their way out, but Karnak, ordering the other two back into the Larder, delivers a kick to the entrance, bringing down tons of rock to block passage. They’re sealed in, but it gives Karnak time to summon Lockjaw, and they’re gone. The Mole King rages behind them, gathering an army of Moloids, and calling for a mole-monster known only as The Mountain…

The Search for Dragon Tensu: Reed and his team retreat to the Ancient One’s Sanctum Sanctorum high in the Himilayas, where he works a complex spell of location. “If a dragon does not wish to be found, it is not an easy thing to pry him out of hiding.” (Note: good opportunity for some crazy Ditkoesque imagery as he works his magic.) The spell succeeds, and they find Tensu in Hong Kong, where he lives a life of opulent seclusion among that city’s sea of humanity, admitting only the occasional petitioners of favors, people who seek the miracles of Dragon Tensu.

(Tensu is such an insanely obscure character – appearing in, as far as I know, only one eight-pager from the Timely era – and being a very different character than the one I’m writing, besides – that I don’t have a picture of him. So I’m gonna suggest you just picture Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China, and have done with it.)

Tensu greets the Ancient One with a sort of distant respect, but obviously sees Our Heroes as little more than another set of humans coming to him with their petty concerns. He either doesn’t recognize Aged Genghis, or pretends not to.

The Ancient One explains the issue to him, and Tensu flies into an arrogant rage, angered that some foolish mortals have undone his hard work (See? Now the Lo Pan thing is easier, isn’t it?). Ben cracks a joke about his attitude, and Tensu declares their audience with him over. And that’s when Aged Genghis walks up and slaps him. “Get over yourself! All you did was mix the damn potion! I’m the one who gathered the ingredients! The one who tricked the dragon into drinking it! I even picked the location of his tomb! And WHY?” He starts poking Tensu in the chest, and the Dragon suddenly seems cowed in the face of the old man’s assault. “Because YOU. WERE. LONELY!”

And so the truth comes out. Tensu, trapped in human form and outcast from other dragons, conjured up FIN FANG FOOM for companionship. FOOM was tiny at first, no bigger than a finger. He rode in Tensu’s pocket, and learned from Tensu’s wisdom. But over time, he grew. As Tensu’s arrogance and power increased, so did FOOM. Eventually, he was a giant. Seven stories tall. All of Tensu’s power and pride, given physical form. He ripped it all away from his creator, and set off to conquer the world. That’s when Tensu, diminished, sought the aid of Genghis, then Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. Together, they laid their plans against FOOM. Tensu had made him indestructible, to protect his tiny, weak companion from harm. But now that he was a giant, that invulnerability made him unstoppable. So Tensu concocted a potion to control him, Genghis tricked him into drinking it, and Tensu ordered him to sleep, far away from people, where they thought he would never be disturbed.

Appropriately shamed, Tensu agrees to help.

Front Line Combat:

As all this quieter action’s going on, Namora leads the assault on FIN FANG FOOM. We’ll see this in short scenes of escalating desperation, FOOM laying waste to the Chinese coast, and advancing toward Hong Kong in spite of the heroes’ attempts to stop him. He’s constantly eating people, as well, scooping up soldiers and civilians alike in great handfuls, whenever he gets the chance. Namora takes notice, and comes to believes that he needs to eat to replenish his power. And she’s right. FOOM has radiation sickness from his time under the Terrigen Core, and is eating prodigious amounts to fight off its effects. It won’t kill him, but he needs food to keep his power levels up. So Namora calls for an evacuation in advance of his assault, getting as many people out of his way as possible, and her team falls back. In response, FOOM simply goes back out to sea to eat a few whales, and resurfaces in Hong Kong harbor, replenished. Issue seven ends with a desperate last stand in an abandoned Hong Kong, as FIN FANG FOOM rises from the depths.

(Like this, but less… Turtle-y…)

EIGHT: FOOMWAR!

The Double-Sized Conclusion!

It all comes together in Hong Kong. Karnak’s team delivers the mushrooms to Tensu’s sanctum. The potion is mixed, but Tensu warns that they may not have gathered enough mushrooms to make it effective. Karnak and Sue turn to confront the Red Ghost about the shortage at the Mole King’s Larder. But she’s gone.

Meanwhile, the Battle of Hong Kong has begun. Namora and her allies, desperate and exhausted, fight a losing battle, and are on the verge of defeat when Ben pilots the Fantasticar on a suicide dive directly into FOOM’s face. There’s an explosion and a scream from FOOM. The Fantasticar, wrecked, goes bouncing off to crash in the street below. The demoralized super-army looks on in horror. But when the smoke clears, they see Ben standing in FOOM’s screaming mouth, holding it open by the teeth. Reed, wrapped around Ben’s waist, tosses the potion bottle down FOOM’s throat and Ben leaps away to land safely on the street below.

FOOM staggers in disbelief, choking and clutching at his throat. The Ancient One, Aged Genghis, and Dragon Tensu materialize in mid-air, before his blinking eyes. Tensu speaks. “Hello, old friend. I believe you’ve caused enough trouble for one day. Time to rest.” He smiles and waves his hand…

And FIN FANG FOOM laughs.

The potion didn’t work! FOOM shouts in triumph, and swats the three sorcerers from the air. The fighting starts over again, the exhausted heroes having lost hope. All seems lost.

But then there’s a rumbling from below, and up, through the streets of Hong Kong, toppling buildings in its path, THE MOUNTAIN emerges from the depths! The Mole King and an army of Moloids ride its mighty back as it rises. Up, up… Taller than the city! Taller than FOOM! It towers over the great beast, its every movement a creaking, crumbling roar!

Then the Moloids, in numbers too vast to count, go running up its back, off the cliff of its brow, onto FOOM’s head… and into his waiting maw. FOOM laughs in triumph again, these tiny creatures like lemmings, feeding his strength! Feeding his power! Feeding his… Then his rant trails off, and his eyes grow cloudy. Something’s wrong. The Mole King steps to the edge of the Mountain’s brow, smiling. “Hello, my friend. My name is Rupert. But you can call me…” (the smile twists) “Master.”

Down below, Reed puts it together. The mushrooms allow control of FOOM, and the Moloids eat nothing but the mushrooms. So Elder fed him Moloids until he choked on them. And now… The Mole King controls FOOM!

Thinking quickly, Ben gets Red Ronin (the giant robot) to throw him to the top of the Mountain. Flying through the air, fist-first, shouting…

…he damn near takes Elder’s head off. The Mountain, not much of a thinker left to its own devices, withdraws below. Ben leaps off before it goes, but the Mole King goes down with it.

Back on the streets, FOOM still stands, dazed, waiting for instructions. Dragon Tensu, bloody but unbowed, appears at his feet. “As I was saying, old friend. It’s time for you to rest, now.” FIN FANG FOOM sits, obedient, and gazes upon Tensu like a loving hound.

The crisis over, we end with a series of epilogues:

The Pacificans aid the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong in rebuilding after FOOM’s assault.

The Red Ghost reports to her superiors on the mind-control potential of the subterranean mushrooms, and tells them where they can find more. In the background, we see three caged apes…

Dragon Tensu and his allies return FIN FANG FOOM to his tomb on Monster Island, and order him to sleep. The Ancient One sets wards on the volcano to ensure that he’s not disturbed again.

The Inhumans remove the Terrigen core from Monster Island, taking it back to Attilan for study, ensuring that no more monsters will be birthed from his flesh.

Jimmy Woo directs a SHIELD operation to cordon off Monster Island, keeping the curious out, and the monsters in.

Namora, suddenly freed from the responsibility of protecting the world from Monster Island, ponders what Pacifica will do next. Perhaps it’s time, Reed suggests, to contact Atlantis.

Johnny works to repair the Fantasticar, which is already starting to pull itself back together.

The Inhumans prepare to leave with the Terrigen Core, but Crystal elects not to go with them. Karnak acquiesces to her desires. Her wisdom, he says, has proven itself superior to his own.

Then Karnak turns to thank the FF for their role in the crisis, apologizing for his earlier manipulation of them. He takes special care to thank Ben, offering him a handshake. Ben hesitates, nervous, then accepts.

Karnak: “You are a mighty warrior, Benjamin Grimm. A worthy adversary, and a great ally. It has been my pleasure to work with you through the recent crisis.”

Ben (smiling): “Y’know, I had you all wrong, Karnak. Yer a soldier. Ya had a job ta do, and you were doin’ it. No shame in that.”

Karnak (smiling): No shame, indeed. There is, however–”

Ben’s smile becomes frozen. He coughs blood. Then his face splits in two.

Karnak (face now impassive, and splattered with Ben’s blood): “…much shame in this.”

We pull back to see that, while shaking Ben’s hand, Karnak has issued a ONE-INCH PUNCH just below the belt, and Ben’s rocky hide has split down the middle. He falls to the ground, unconscious, his outer shell of rocks falling away on both sides. Beneath is a bloody mess.

Before the rest of the team can react, Lockjaw teleports Karnak and Ben away. As they fade out, Karnak’s voice informs the team that they have earned the right to attend Ben’s trial in three days’ time, and offer whatever defense they can…

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

NEXT: Time Travel! Treachery! Doom Triumphant! And… THE TRIAL OF THE THING!

Fantastic Four Re-Mix, Part Six: Hot Pursuit! So I got a little carried away this time. I had planned for this sixth installment of the…

#Aged Genghis #Alicia Masters #Clobberin Time #Crystal #Dr Doom #Fantastic Four #Fantastic Four Remix #Fin Fang Foom #Gorgon #Jimmy Woo #Karnak #Mole Man #Monster Island #Namora #Red Ghost #Red Ronin #The Ancient One

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Am I an American?

President Trump’s tirade against four minority congresswomen prompts the question: Whom does he consider to be American?

11:15 AM ET

Ibram X. Kendi | Published July 16, 2019, 11:15 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted July 16, 2019 |

Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University

I live in envy. I envy the people who know their nationality. All the people whose nationality has never been a question in their mind.

I can imagine the woman staring at her reflection in the Volta River who knows she’s Ghanaian, like her ancestors who liberated their people in 1957 and chose the mighty pre-colonial Ghana as the name of their new nation. I can imagine the woman flying into Frankfurt who knows she’s German, who knows she’s arriving back home. I can imagine the man working on his antique car outside his home in Biloxi, forehead covered by the prized blood-red baseball cap he purchased at a rally back in November, a man who has never been told, “Go back to your country!” If somehow someone did tell him, it would confuse him as much as it would the Ghanaian or German woman. It would be like someone driving by his house and shouting at him, “Go back to your home!”

That he is at home, that he is in his country, is as much a fact of his existence as the tool clenched in his hand, as the sunrays shooting past the Mississippi trees hovering above his sweaty hat and its four beaming white words.

Nothing is more certain to him than that he is an American—and that I am not. My living here, being born here, and being a citizen here—none of those fine details matter. To him, to millions like him, to their white-nationalist father in the White House, I am not an American. They want me to prove, like all the Barack Obamas, that I’m really an American.

This blend of nativism, racism, and nationalism is central to Trumpism, to their worldview. They view me as, they disregard me as, an illegal alien, like those four progressive congresswomen of color. I am tolerated until I am not. I can dine on American soil until I demand a role in remaking the menu that is killing me, like those four progressive congresswomen of color.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to get in line to be a Democrat, in the way I’m told by moderates away from Capitol Hill to get in line to be an American. I hear the moderate message of compliance, of assimilation, of being happy just dining. And I hear the message from the man with the blood-red hat defending the moderate and giving me an ultimatum.

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Donald Trump tweeted Sunday. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough.”

But Pelosi and her moderate lieutenants do not desire this type of defense, this white-nationalist brand of American exceptionalism. They quickly and rightly stood up for the Americanness of these four women. “When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries,” Pelosi tweeted, “he affirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again.” They quickly and rightly classified Trump’s MAGA attack as “a racist tweet from a racist president,” as the assistant speaker of the House, Ben Ray Luján, tweeted.

But their defenses and affirmations of my Americanness—that my black, Puerto Rican, Somalian, and Palestinian sisters are indeed Americans—did little to quiet the question screaming in my soul for an answer. And I suspect in the souls of millions more.

I can’t stop the screams. Am I an American? It is a question I have never been able to answer.

I can’t stop the shouts: “Go back to your country!” It is a statement I have never been able to answer.

Is this my country? Am I an American?

Ocasio-Cortez—like Trump, like me—was born in New York City. Tlaib was born in Detroit, and Pressley in Cincinnati. Omar’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia when she was a child. They are all U.S. citizens, like me.

“WE are what democracy looks like,” Pressley tweeted. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

But they are not white like the Slovene-born Melania Trump. Is an American essentially white? I do not know. I do not know if I’m still three-fifths of an American, as my ancestors were written into the U.S. Constitution. Or fully American. Or not American at all.

What I do know is that historically, people like me have only truly been all-American—if all-American is not constantly being told to “go back to your country” or “act like an American”—when we did not resist enslavement on a plantation, or in poverty, or in a prison with or without bars shackling our human potential and cultural flowering. Perhaps we were Americans when we did not resist our bodies being traded, our wombs being assaulted, and our bent backs and our hands being bloodied picking and cleaning and manufacturing white America’s wealth.

Perhaps we were Americans when we did not resist how the self-identified white allies were trying to civilize us, telling us to slow down, telling us our anti-racist demands were impractical or impossible, instructing us how to get free. We were rarely told to go back to our country when we did kneel, when we did not kneel, when we did as told by the slaveholder and the abolitionist, by the segregator and racial reformer, by the American mentor telling us to pull up or pull down our pants.

Am I an American only when I act like a slave?

What Trump told those four congresswomen is hardly unorthodox for a U.S. president if we extend recent memory backwards. In 1787, the year the U.S. Constitution was drafted, was also the year that Thomas Jefferson published his influential Notes on the State of Virginia. Enslaved Africans should be emancipated, civilized, and “colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper,” he wrote.

Colonization emerged as the most popular solvent of the race problem before the Civil War, advocated by nearly every president from Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln. Slaveholders increasingly desired to rid the nation of the emancipated Negro. And moderate Americans increasingly advocated gradual emancipation and colonization, telling the anti-racists that immediate emancipation was impractical and impossible in the way that anti-racists are told immediate equality is impractical and impossible today.

At the founding of the American Colonization Society in 1816, Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky, the future presidential candidate and “Great Compromiser,” gave voice to what we now call Trumpism, the savaging of people of color and the countries of people of color to hold up white Americanness.

“Can there be a nobler cause that that which, whilst it proposes to rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not dangerous portion of its population, contemplates the spreading of the arts of civilized life, and the possible redemption from ignorance and barbarism of a benighted quarter of the globe!”

The moderate strategized then, as the moderate still do now, based on what was required to soothe white sensibilities. As the clergyman Robert Finley wrote in Thoughts on the Colonization of Free Blacks in 1816, through colonization, “the evil of slavery will be diminished and in a way so gradual as to prepare the whites for the happy and progressive change.”

Some black people advocated back-to-Africa campaigns or relocated there, convinced American racism was permanent, convinced they could create a better life for themselves alongside their African kin. But many, perhaps most, black people resisted colonization schemes from their beginning. This is “the land of our nativity,” thousands of black Philadelphians resolved in 1817. Still colonization recycled through time, on the basis that the black race could never “be placed on an equality with the white race,” as Lincoln lectured a delegation of black men on August 14, 1862. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison corrected Lincoln: “It is not their color, but their being free, that makes their presence here intolerable.”

President Andrew Johnson did everything he could to keep us slaves. His successor, Ulysses S. Grant, tired of alienating racist Americans from the Republican Party every time he sent federal troops to defend our right to live, vote, thrive, and hold political office from Ku Klux Klansmen led by men such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, whom Tennessee honored with his own day on Saturday.

In the so-called Compromise of 1877, northerners retained the White House in exchange for allowing racist southerners to treat us like anything but Americans over the next century. Or were we Americans all along, despite what the lynchings and pogroms did to our bodies, and what Jim Crow did to our political economy? Or did we become Americans through court rulings and congressional acts in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s? Or were we still not Americans in 1968, when the Kerner Commission’s study of America’s racial landscape concluded, “Our nation is moving towards two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”

Were the two societies—instead of black and white—the American society of legal patriots and the un-American society of illegal aliens? Did the Latinx, Muslim, Asian, and black immigrants who arrived in the United States since the 1960s join the people of color and anti-racist whites in the un-American society? Have people of color been allowed to enter American society and become Americans when they submitted to racist power and policy and inequality and injustice—when they became “my African American”? Have rebellious “un-Americans” of color been demonized as criminals and deported back to our countries or to more and more prisons like Angola in Louisiana?

AM I AN AMERICAN?

Blood-red-hatted segregationists say no, never, unless we submit to slavery. Assimilationists say we can be Americans if we stop speaking Spanish, stop wearing hijabs, cut our long hair, stop acting out against them—if we follow their gradual lead.

Anti-racist blacks have divided over this question as fiercely as segregationists and assimilationists. I am an American, and because I’m an American, I deserve to be free. I am not an American, because if I were an American, I’d be free.

“I, too, am America,” Langston Hughes wrote in perhaps his most famous poem, first published in 1926.

“I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American—and got sense enough to know it,” Malcolm X orated at a Detroit church on April 12, 1964.

Both ring true to me. I do not know whether I’m an American. But I do know it is up to me to answer this question based on how I define American, based on how I am treated by America. I don’t care whether or not anyone thinks I am an American. I am not about persuading anyone to see how American I am. I do not write stories that show white people all the ways people of color contributed to America. I will not battle with anyone over who is an American. There is a greater battle for America.

Maybe that is the point. Maybe I had the question wrong all along. Maybe I should not live in envy; I should live in struggle. Maybe I should have been asking, “Who controls America?” instead of “Am I an American?” Because who controls America determines who is an American.

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apprxmtn · 5 years

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this is a draft i found on my college wgs.111 wordpress, dated may 4, 2016, that i suppose i was too afraid to post, and i guess i keep all my writing on tumblr, and no one will read this, so

on street harassment:

this is just a lot of personal thoughts sorry

---

i stayed quiet during the discussion on street harassment - it's not something i've personally experienced often, so i wanted to respect the space and experiences of those who were sharing. personally, i feel that a non-threatening tone and respect for someone's space make the statement more of a compliment than harassment, but i also believe that men should understand and respect that some women are not comfortable being approached by any men due to past experience and real danger, and that sure it sucks for them, but if they care that much about being able to compliment women on the street, they should be also working to eradicate misogyny and rape culture amongst their peers. i do believe street harassment is a serious issue that reflects a widespread culture of men feeling entitled to women's bodies. the following is just a reflection of my experience alone (not a reflection of all of my thoughts on street harassment).

as a not-particularly-attractive-but-still-feminine-looking person, the feminist movement's rhetoric surrounding street harassment - "every woman has a story of harassment!" etc - has really alienated me and is one of the myriad reasons i decided to identify as nonbinary, because so many of these "universal women's issues" just don't apply to me. i actually considered interning for hollaback last year, but didn't feel comfortable working on street harassment when i wasn't even attractive enough to be harassed. (not to mention hollaback's myriad other issues - the video we watched, the boston chapter actually separated from them and formed a new group (the safe hub collective), the head of hollaback has been criticized for the way she treats employees and the organization... anyway.) the face(s) of the feminist movement itself even seems to often be these conventionally attractive women that make me feel unwelcome or inadequate as a feminist activist. and i do think there's some merit to this concern - conventionally attractive people are more likely to be listened to, and of course this distinction is worse for women than for men.

i think the feminist movement has been particularly vocal about these issues that affect conventionally attractive women the most. street harassment is about power, but it is also about men finding a woman attractive, as the poor "men's justifications" we saw in class show. on the flip side, the fat and body positive movements have been vocal about the issues that affect fat women - the inverse, rather than "compliments", fat women have spoken out about on-face insulting street harassment, often the insinuation that she is taking up too much space and doesn't deserve to be in public, eat certain things, or dress a certain way. women or feminine-coded people like me who aren't really on either end, i find, are sort of invisible, both in the movement and in real life. in my experience, i have quite often felt literally invisible. people have looked over and through me, walked into line as if i wasn't there, etc. for context, i'm not exactly a quiet person but i am pretty shy in public and in large groups. but this experience isn't something i've seen other people write about - i haven't seen any thinkpieces about daily experience by average-looking women. perhaps there's something to be said about women being either objects of desire, objects of ridicule, or invisible - but i don't know, because i don't know if other women have this experience, because no one talks about this.

to be honest, the four (exactly four, all within the ages of 18 and 20) times i have been harassed or politely approached by men on the street, part of me has always appreciated it. as someone who has struggled with body image and general appearance for years, it is actually nice to know that someone out there finds me to be attractive. in the cases where i've been yelled at (2/4), i've been like, wow that's totally rude and misogynist, but hey at least i look good today? in the cases where i've been politely approached (2/4), i almost wish we'd kept talking. there's this sort of romantic-narrative-trope of two people meeting in a cafe, finding each other mutually attractive, and then finding true love or even just a fling or whatever, and i know women who have met and casually/seriously dated men they met at parties, concerts, etc. for once, i really want to have a relationship with someone where there's mutual physical attraction - despite finding the men i've been involved with fine as people, that has literally never happened to me. there's also this common argument where men are like "ugh, women have it so easy! they can literally have any guy they want" which really only applies to conventionally attractive women, which again, makes me think that ordinary-looking-women are just invisible in men's eyes and minds. one guy i was briefly involved with literally told me that women have to meet a "certain standard of attractiveness" to be dateable - but that standard must have been pretty low, because he also told me i should lose weight.

i know this sort of sounds like me whining that i can't find a boyfriend, but i have been in a very happy relationship (and an open one, so...) for over two and a half years now. that isn't the point of this. the point of this is (yes, partially a rant, but mostly) to point out the diversity of women's experiences that are often overlooked, but could provide for some rich analytic material and reveal something about our culture - orrrr to ascertain that maybe i'm the only one who feels this way.

i don't know. i guess i just want to see if anyone else has felt this way, because in all my years of trawling the feminist-leaning interwebs i have never, ever seen anyone write about this experience.

addendum: like i said, i can count the times i've been harassed or even politely approached by men on the street on one hand. in fact, i can write them all down for you, in detail.

the first time was the summer after my senior year. i had just turned eighteen and was sitting outside of starbucks by my high school (in a rich, predominantly white and asian neighborhood). if i recall correctly i was wearing a cardigan, a bland top, and shorts. when a man (probably around thirtyish years old) came up to me. he asked me what kind of ipad i had (i had been working) and about how it worked, as he was interested in buying one. then he complimented my nail polish (?! of all things), said he had seen me while working, and that i looked "all hipster and stuff." he asked how my summer was going, i told him i was going off to college, he said "oh so you're eighteen?" and i confirmed. (that should've been the warning sign, but this had never happened to me before!) after a couple more minutes of small talk, he said he lived about 20 minutes away and asked if i wanted to hang out sometime, and i said i was pretty busy for the rest of the summer getting ready for school and catching up with friends, he said alright well nice talking to you, and left. it was overall a very polite, if not pleasant, encounter.

the second time was in my second week of college. my friends and i had just gone to a waterfight on the charles as part of rush week, and as our clothes were soaked in nasty charles river water and literally attracting flies, we all decided to take our shirts off. two guys and i were walking back by the train tracks, and an old man (probably one of the homeless ones that lives behinds simmons?) yelled "hey, where can i get some of that?" to my friends' credit they quickly grabbed me, one of them held my hand in a fake-boyfriend act and we sped away. i would definitely file this encounter under harassment, but given that i was actually walking around in a bra, which isn't socially acceptable (another conversation in itself, obviously), i don't consider it to be evidence of an "everyday" phenomenon or even particularly unwarranted.

the third time was the fall of sophomore year, in the harvard yard starbucks. i don't remember what i was wearing, but i was on my way to a meeting for work and it was october, so it was probably fairly professional and covered-up. i was waiting for my drink, when the guy next to me tapped me on the shoulder, and said "excuse me? i just wanted to tell you you're really pretty." taken completely aback, i awkwardly said, "uh, thanks? i mean, i'm like five feet tall, so not much to work with?" he didn't really respond or try to engage me in further conversation. i don't think this was harassment at all, and in fact, i really appreciated it and it made me a little happier for the rest of the day, and i wished we had kept talking. i still think about it sometimes, and i'm like, damn, a stranger thought i was attractive once, so it's possible! anything can happen!

the fourth and final time was in a metro station in downtown LA, the summer before junior year. it was summer in LA and ridiculously hot, so i was wearing a tank top and short shorts, and sandals with a .5-inch heel. as i was walking across the fairly empty bus circle, someone shouted, "damn look at those legs!" i looked around and saw another man, but no other women. i was really confused because, again, i'm five feet tall (maybe the 0.5 inch of heels helped?). i'd definitely classify this as harassment, but personally, i didn't feel in danger as i was on my way to a crowded subway station, and actually part of me took it as a compliment, because for years i would wear jeans in the hottest of los angeles summers because i was so self-conscious about the way my legs looked.

#rambles #ignore thx

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abassi-okoro · 6 years

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I’M NOT RACIST BUT . . .

I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a white female and considering the latest social unrest here in the states, we began the discussion about racism. The one thing I’ve learned being a black man involved in discussions with white people on racial disparity is that every white person has denied whole heartily being a racist or at the very least, being “prejudice.” Now let’s get technical for a moment. Racism is an industrial and institutionalized system of oppression based on the rules or illusions of power. It’s a system built upon one system which is build upon another that is governed and guarded by people in key positions to open and close certain doors of achievement for certain individuals. Not every white person has that power. In fact, your average white American is not privy to that type of power and wouldn’t know how to use it if they had it.

However, they do directly and indirectly benefit from other whites possessing and using that power. We call that today, ‘White Privilege.’ But this is not the same as prejudice. You do not need to have “power” to be prejudice because prejudice is nothing more than an opinion. It’s a bias. You can be biased towards anyone and anything. You may be a Republican and because you’re a Republican, you automatically hate Democrats. You don’t hate Democrats based on what they are, you hate Democrats because you’ve been conditioned to accept what you think YOU are (whether you truly understand it politically or not). That’s called “Biased Classification” or “Selective Class Bias.” You may be heterosexual and because you’re heterosexual, you automatically have homophobic feelings towards people who are homosexual. You may not know anything about that person only that he or she is a homosexual and that’s enough data for you to form a negative opinion of that person. That’s how prejudice works. It’s an opinion or bias not based on reason, logic or actual experience. So by definition, not all white people are racist but by definition, all white people do have prejudices because to not have a biased opinion (whether conscious or unconscious) is an impossibility.

When it comes how whites view blacks, there’s Racial Cognitive Dissonance. Racial Cognitive Dissonance is an uncomfortable sense of discord, disharmony, confusion, or conflict experienced by people in the midst of change in their cultural and racial environment. It’s usually due to holding two contradicting perceptions or beliefs. For example, when it comes to racism and race related issues, white people will say one thing and do another or will make grandiose claims of helping to end racism but will then turn around and debate the validity of racial claims made by black people. If a white person says, “It’s so sad that the black fella got killed by the police BUT . . .“, that is racial cognitive dissonance or having a double conscience. It’s when people try to find excuses to not drop or give up their prejudices all together. All of this falls under the umbrella of White Privilege. White privilege can best be described as the epistemological solidification of white normalcy among and within the majority of the Western white populations. Peggy McIntosh, the first author to aptly define and articulate a definition of white privilege, states that:

Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when [white people] work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow ‘[people of color]’ to be more like us.

This creates a model where white people will generally feel uncomfortable when their ideas about race conflict with their emotions like compassion and sympathy and so they will find a need to rationalize that inner conflict. A common example is when a white person is un-apologetically racist, but has friends who are black. This happens more often than you’d expect. White people learn to think of the black people they are friends with as “exceptions” to their prejudice beliefs, so then they can continue to stereotype every other black person who they don’t know. This is the white person who believes that all blacks are thugs and criminals and yet has that one black friend that he thinks he can trust. If you should ask him how his prejudice makes any kind of logical sense considering that he has a black friend, he would say something like this; “Oh, well my friend is a good black person” or “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about all the other blacks.” I’ve even heard white people try to justify the use of the word ‘Nigger’ by redefining the term and claiming that “Nigger” means an “ignorant person” and that white people can be niggers also. Or my personal favorite . . . “there’s black people and then there’s niggers. The black folks who are good, hard-working, honest people are the black people and the ones who are lazy and good-for-nothin’ are the niggers!” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to listen to this crazy rhetoric from white people.

Perhaps the biggest and most obvious contradiction or dissonance is that of when you speak to the average white American – they claim that they’re not racist or even prejudice and they want to work towards racial solidarity yet, popular culture in the United States continues to be saturated by racial stereotypes and racial prejudice. Black men are still seen as criminals, black women are still seen as angry and over-sexual, Latinos are still seen as thieves, Asian men are still seen as technological but socially awkward, and Arabs are still seen as terrorist and everyone who isn’t white is seen as “minorities.” But let’s be fair, being biased is not a crime. In fact, being biased is somewhat natural but what’s not natural is being biased by the belief in stereotypes and especially with the wealth of information at our fingertips in today’s society. There’s no excuse to be racially ignorant believing any and every narrative that comes your way without personal investigation. At the very least . . . do a quick Google search. It would save you much embarrassment.

I was asked once, “why is so damn difficult to talk about race with white people? Must they debate everything?!”

A person will only debate a topic when he does not believe or agree or subscribe to the topic being discussed. If white people are debating race issues then it would occur to me that they do not believe that race is an issue or that certain components of the topic are less of an issue than others. Fair enough but many white people do not believe that racism is as big of a problem as black people and the media are reporting and so not only will they accuse the media of sensationalism but they will try to convince black people that it’s all a figment of our imagination. Consider this . . . If a Jehovah Witness knocks on my door and begins speaking about their beliefs and I feel compelled to debate those core beliefs then that must mean that I do not agree with their belief system or else I’d have no reason to debate. So it’s obvious that the white people who are busy arguing and debating with black people about racism are doing so because they do not truly believe it’s a problem. And THAT’S the problem! But how can you expect for white people to see racism and discrimination as a problem? If you do manage to convince whites that racism is a serious problem, they might see it as an exclusive problem to the black community but also believing the issues with race can be eradicated if black people would simply adjust their behavior. After all, racism is a false concept to them that they often try to explain away with as little accountability as possible. This is why they have a hard time “seeing” racism.

Wealthy people have a hard time seeing why a poor person is living in poverty and they will always have a complacent and condescending tone about their beliefs and while trying to explain their position on poverty. You’ll usually hear something from rich people along the lines of, “you have both your arms and both your legs. You’re just as capable as anyone else, you have just as much opportunity as anyone else. Look, I did it. You’re just being lazy.” Black people hear that same self-righteous arrogance from white people when we discuss racism. White folks will say something along the lines of, “Oh please. I work just as hard as you, I don’t get any handouts because I’m white, you have the same opportunities as I do, I don’t have white privilege, you’re just pulling the race-card. You have Affirmative Action, I didn’t have help. What about black-on-black crime?”

You can’t fix what you deny exist. Whites have a difficult time identifying prejudice or any of the types of racism, even subtle racism. There are four types of subtle racism that whites have a difficult time recognizing but practice more than they know;

Symbolic Racism: Symbolic racists - rejects old-style racism but still expresses prejudice indirectly (e.g., as opposition to policies that help racial minorities).

Ambivalent Racism: Ambivalent racists experience an emotional conflict between positive and negative feelings toward stigmatized racial groups.

Modern racism: Modern racists see racism as wrong but view racial minorities as making unfair demands or receiving too many resources.

Aversive Racism: Aversive racists believe in egalitarian principles such as racial equality but have a personal aversion toward racial minorities.

Most so-called “decent” white folks who feel strongly about equal rights may still practice one of these four forms of subtle racism. The most common of the four that I see with even my white friends is that of Symbolic Racism. I had a conversation not too long ago with a white male who rejected any type of racism but then insisted that Affirmative Action should be eliminated so that no one (black or white) benefits. His sentiments according to him represented “leveling the playing field.” However, he failed to understand that the you cannot level the playing field when one side doesn’t have an organized team. You can not balance a society (already dominated by one group) by stripping away certain programs that brings the downtrodden up to a level where they need to be in order to compete successfully on that field. He also failed to understand the reason for such government aided programs in the first place (to help compensate for 399 years of the brutality of free slave labor that financed this country.) He also believed that if whites couldn’t use the “N-Word” then no one should. I tried to explain to him how privileged and narcissistic that was to think that if something is off-limits to whites then it should automatically be off-limits to everyone.

Another white friend of mine about a year ago seemed very compassionate towards how blacks were being treated and would often respond on social media with an array of, “Oh that’s so sad, it’s horrible what happened to that poor man, I’m so angry” and so on. She didn’t seem to have a problem with my race related discussions until one particular discussion had me pointing the finger of accountability at white people, in which most of the time, that’s necessary. Suddenly she didn’t agree with what was happening to blacks. Suddenly, I was called a “racist” for recognizing racism and suddenly I was at the receiving end of another white lecture on if black people would just stop discussing race so much then racism would just magically vanish. I alone was even accused of being the source in which racism is perpetuated in this society by not “giving it a rest!” I didn’t realize I had so much power. That’s Ambivalent Racism and that’s when a person is in constant conflict with themselves emotionally, bouncing back and forth between what’s right and their own self-identity and racial pride while still having racist undertones in their belief system and views.

A few years prior, a white blogger named Patrick K., stated to me that black people perhaps do experience “some” racism but a lot of it we “bring on ourselves.” He went on to state that it’s the way we dress and it’s the fact that we don’t have adequate black leadership and he even had the audacity to claim that “Black-on-Black crime” makes white people not want to give us the benefit of the doubt. However, there were three major problems with his perspective. 1. Black men in three-piece suits are also racially profiled and killed by white police officers. 2. There hasn’t been adequate white leadership in this country since John F. Kennedy, and 3. eighty-four percent (84%) of white people murdered are murdered by other whites. In fact, whites kill more whites each year than blacks kill each other, and white people commit more crimes than blacks (2 to 1 in arrest, forcible rape, larceny and homicide). Yet, he used popular stereotypes (not facts) to form his bias without reason or personal experience. That’s Modern Racism!

While recently speaking with a white woman, she made the statement, “I just wish everyone could stop this madness.” She seemed exhausted by the constant hammering of race and conflict in our society and especially after the latest incidents of police brutality towards black men. She’s not alone in her wishes however, shortly after exhibiting signs of compassion towards black men, she made the statement, “if black people would just not get so antsy when pulled over then we wouldn’t have so many dead black people.” I noticed that she placed the accountability of police brutality on the victim and not the perpetrator. It happens with rape victims as well. The accountability for action always seems to fall on the one who suffers. “Maybe if she had dressed more appropriately, maybe if she wasn’t behaving like a whore, maybe if she didn’t walk home alone.”

We live in a world where we put more focus on telling women how NOT to get raped than telling rapist NOT to commit the act. Similarly, we tell blacks HOW to act when dealing with a racist system as opposed to dismantling the racist system. But what do you expect? We’re a nation that spends billions on modern medicine to get rid of the symptoms and not the illness. This white woman went on to present a laundry list that was reminiscent of the Jim Crow Rules of Engagement. Her list was not only ridiculous but it was painfully obvious that it was from the mindset of a white person with a mystical and animated perception of racism and discrimination. Perhaps she meant well but here’s the question,

Why should we have to navigate through the terrain of racism and prejudice by being “careful” not to do this and not to do that while white people with their privilege sit back comfortably dictating to others how to live within their deadly system that they would rather ask us to tolerate than to help destroy?

That is Aversive Racism! I have had white friends practice all four forms of subtle racism (right to my face) and most are completely unaware of it. They think they’re being helpful, they think they’re doing their part, and giving great advice. They do not believe that they are saying anything wrong and this is precisely why people will turn and say, “I don’t like talking about race with black people because I can never say the right things.” And because black people recognize subtle racism and sly remarks and passive aggressiveness – it doesn’t register to us that white people are actually trying to help. And we don’t fall for it. When white people become passive aggressive, we don’t fall for it. When they become arrogant in their comments or conceited, we don’t fall for it. When they adopt a “savior” mentality or parental attitude by lecturing black people, WE DON’T FALL FOR IT! And so when we don’t take white people’s sympathy, their response is to write us off as being, “too sensitive” or “too angry” to listen to their reason. It never occurs to them that they’re wrong. They just believe that they’re right and that black people are too delicate to listen to them tell us how to deal with the racism that they created in this country.

It’s white people’s inability to fully understand the dichotomy of racism and their inability to comprehend a basic racial and cultural concept that doesn’t include “white-thinking” and without an inflated sense of white self-importance.

In other words, white people have a hard time processing a reality that doesn’t center around them. They have been convinced that they are the center of the Universe. The quicker they realize that they are not, and the sooner they realize that even with good intent they are still biased and prejudice then the sooner we can sit down and discuss these topics without anyone feeling the need to “lecture” or debate or become arrogant and narcissistic. If you’re white and you really want to have a discussion about racism . . . first realize that you just may be racist yourself regardless of how much you deny it. We will still work with you if you have some prejudices. We can get over that because we have plenty of prejudices about you. We really don’t like you much either but we are tolerant of white nonsense.

- Abassi Okoro

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chefgrillfood · 7 years

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The forests of Russia’s Far East evoke a strange feeling, one that most Europeans have not been forced to consider for centuries. It is the sensation of being watched; of unseen menace lurking between the trees. Ultimately, it is the realisation that you are among predators, and being contemplated as either a rival or prey. A loud roar echoes around as we tread through a valley of volcanic rock formed between a dense canopy of Mongolian oak and Korean pine. My guide, Pavel Fomenko, hands me a flare with the instruction to use it should a bear approach.We creep forward, crunching over fallen leaves while our other guide, the hunting inspector for Primorsky Krai province, Alexander Korneev, peels off into the undergrowth. Ravens shriek about the treetops. If the birds are up, Fomenko warns, it means something has disturbed them. We arrive at a clearing scattered with clumps of fur. A few metres away lie the remains of a black bear, buzzing with flies. This is what we have been searching for: the recently dispatched supper of an Amur tiger. They call this boreal wilderness the taiga in Russian, forests sprawling hundreds of miles from the North Korean border up towards the Arctic. They are home to a vast collection of flora and fauna and, above all, predators. An estimated 95 per cent of the world’s population of Amur (or Siberian) tigers live here. Up to 10ft long, larger, heavier and stronger than their Asian cousins, they are the undisputed rulers of the forest; their orange, black and white pelts enable them to move like ghosts between the trees. Alexander Korneev, hunting inspector for Primorsky Krai province Credit: Olya Ivanova We have been tracking this particular tiger, Vladik, since my arrival in the Russian port city of Vladivostok three days earlier. A young male around four years old and weighing more than 22st, he first drew attention to himself in October 2016 after wandering into Vladivostok’s concrete suburbs and provoking a storm of publicity. Eventually he was caught and taken to a tiger rehabilitation centre, before being released this May in the Bikin National Park, wearing a GPS collar. Since then, however, Vladik has been steadily heading south, back towards Vladivostok, covering around 450 miles and killing 10 large animals en route, including bear, deer and wild boar. Fomenko, who is WWF Russia’s head of rare species conservation, fears that if Vladik continues this trajectory he will end up once again too close to a town and have to be recaptured and sent to a zoo. ‘Vladik is a lovely tiger with all the rights and ability to live in the wild,’ he says. ‘I worry about him and all of Russia’s Amur tigers. All of the time.’ The Amur tiger is that rarity, an endangered species whose population is increasing. In the 1930s, numbers fell as low as 20 animals, threatened to the point of extinction by poaching and logging. In 1995, there were 330 to 371 adult tigers. In 2015, after a survey of 60,000 square miles of the tigers’ habitat, the number had risen to 540 in the wild (including some 100 cubs). The success story (albeit one cautiously told) of Amur tigers is at the forefront of the WWF’s mission to increase the world’s tiger population in the wild to more than 6,000 by 2022, the next Chinese year of the tiger (up from the 3,900 counted in 2016).That figure would mark a huge step forward in achieving global security for tigers, whose populations were decimated by 97 per cent in the past century. Much of the progress in Russia is down to men like Fomenko and Korneev, who have spent decades on the front line fighting poachers seeking tiger skins and body parts to supply the voracious Asian market. Like rhinos, tigers are valued for bogus medicinal properties. The taiga, Russia’s forests, are home to the Amur tigers Credit: Olya Ivanova One of many prevailing myths is that if you poke a tiger whisker into a decaying tooth it will stop it aching. The stakes are high. A poacher can pay fines of up to one million roubles (£13,000), while those caught killing a tiger also face 15 years in prison. As a result, poachers are willing to fight to the death. Fomenko can recall at least three occasions on which armed poachers have tried to kill him. A few years ago, Korneev, whose brigade catches around 120 culprits a year, was seriously injured after being run over by a poacher on a snowmobile. When he first started as a hunting inspector 13 years ago, Korneev tells me, even to find a tiger paw print was big news. ‘Now I see the actual animal three times a year,’ he grins. The most recent sighting was four days previously when he spotted a tiger stalking a family of wild boar over a ridge. It paused, contemplating him with unblinking amber eyes before bristling and slowly beginning to advance. To ward it off Korneev fired his hunting rifle into the air. As the report cracked through the stillness, the tiger melted into the forest. The first time Pavel Fomenko met a tiger, it ate his dog. He tells me the story during lunch one day when we are sitting by a fire in the forest eating cheese and bread, and drinking smoke-infused tea boiled on the open flames. He was barely 20 at the time, out hunting with his dog, Amba, when it suddenly started barking at something rustling in the bushes. ‘I was inexperienced and didn’t realise what was happening, and suddenly this tiger pounced in front of me.’ Fomenko’s weather-beaten face takes on a rueful expression, ‘I loved that dog.’ A great bear of a man prone to long philosophical soliloquies in-between explaining his scientific studies of the tiger, the 54-year-old is a hero in the Tolstoyan mould. Not least in his connection to the land. A watchtower used to keep track of illegal poaching and logging Credit: Olya Ivanova Fomenko spends weeks at a time in the wilderness away from his wife Yulia and two sons, and regards his time there as spiritually cleansing. He grew up in a coal-mining town in south Siberia where, like his father and grandfather before him, he worked in the pits. He recalls operating a digger and looking up at a distant forest on the horizon: ‘All the time I knew I was doing something wrong.’ Fomenko decided, instead, to study ecology at Irkutsk Agrarian University. After graduating, he moved to Primorsky Krai to continue his studies as a biologist and work as a wildlife game manager. Like some 90,000 others in the province he is a proud hunter and would supplement his income by shooting sable (a small mammal similar to a pine marten, prized for its fur). He still hunts today and says, ‘Many people do not understand hunters are the true friends of nature.’ Amur tiger Fomenko revels in such contradictions and insists numerous times while we’re together that he doesn’t even like tigers. ‘For me, the tiger is an umbrella. I can protect everything using money intended only for tigers and can conserve the forest where they live. So thank God we have our tigers.’ Fomenko joined the WWF in 1994. The Soviet Union had been dissolved three years earlier and with it state funding for nature protection disappeared almost overnight. Chinese prospectors quickly moved in. ‘Everything was targeted, from timber to frogs and, of course, tigers,’ Fomenko says. ‘And so people started to kill.’ But in recent years the tiger protectors have found themselves a powerful ally: the Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has come to regard the Amur tiger as a potent symbol of national pride. The Russian government has agreed to restrict logging in Amur tiger habitat and a presidential order in 2011 banned logging of Korean pine (although, over the past five years enough illegal wood from other species was logged to fill 400 miles of railways carriages). Pavel Fomenko, WWF Russia’s head of rare species conservation Credit: Olya Ivanova At the same time, it has has also increased penalties for poaching and possession of tiger parts. Putin nowadays rarely wastes a photo opportunity with a tiger, and a few years ago state media reported he had personally immobilised one with a tranquilliser dart as it charged towards a nearby camera crew – although no footage of the deed exists. Fomenko only raises an eyebrow when I ask him what he thinks. My visit comes a few weeks before the first snowfall of the year in Primorsky Krai. The silver birches, bent almost double under the weight of last year’s drifts, stand testament to the severity of winter here, when temperatures of -30C are not uncommon. In late autumn, the mercury hovers around freezing in the day and well below at night. On one such cold afternoon I meet Alexander Primenko who lives in a small clearing in the forest. The 65-year-old has stayed here alone for the past seven years and is part of a network of so-called ‘watchmen’, established to stay in the forest throughout winter to keep a lookout for poachers. Three tigers roam the forest close to his home and that morning we’d set camera traps nearby – tying them to trees on known routes. We manage to capture an image of one of the beasts. We also come across a paw print in the mud, the size of two fists and unmistakably belonging to a tiger. Being a watchman is a dangerous occupation. The left side of Primenko’s face carries a livid scar from a bear attack five years ago and his nostril is torn in half, whistling during the several shots of home-brewed liquor he drinks in my presence. ‘It was only a scratch,’ he says. He grew up in a village 120 miles from here, which is now all but abandoned. After his wife died of cancer a decade ago, he decided to move into the forest and live self-sufficiently as a watchman helping to save the tiger. He keeps chickens and bees, has a small generator for electricity and a wood-fired stove. In total, he has lost 14 dogs to tigers over the years and points out the empty kennels where a tiger recently broke in and ate three. A camera trap to follow the tigers’progress is set by Alexy, Alexander Korneev’s son Credit: Olya Ivanova ‘I see it like paying rent to them,’ he says. ‘The only feeling I have for the tiger is one of total respect. When you hear the roar, the noise is loud enough to split your head from your ears.’ A four-hour drive away I meet another watchman, Alexei Mitusov, 57, who also lives alone but with a stack of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie books to see him through the winter. ‘The tigers are always present, even when you don’t see them,’ he says. ‘To me, the tiger is the owner of the forest and I am his guest.’ As well as tackling poachers and loggers, Fomenko has placed great emphasis on conserving tigers’ habitat and prey. Over the past decade, three major national parks and other protected areas have been established, encompassing a land mass spanning almost 4,000 square miles and around 20 per cent of the tigers’ range. He also works closely with the 90 or so privately leased hunting estates in Primorsky Krai, 10 of which have now been transformed into what Pavel calls ‘model estates’, where tigers, and the animals they feed on, are thriving. Increasing their food in the forests means fewer tigers are wandering into villages. But, still, 40 conflicts are recorded each year, resulting in mauling and occasionally death. At present, roughly one person is killed by a tiger every two years. The most recent came this October when a 43-year-old man was mauled to death gathering pine nuts in Khabarovsk region, which neighbours Primorsky Krai. If caught, Fomenko says, the maneater will most likely end up in permanent captivity. Tiger ‘prison’, he calls it. With the vast majority of Russia’s Amur tigers that come into contact with humans, though, capturing and rehabilitating them before releasing them elsewhere in the wild is key to the national strategy. Not far from Vladivostok is a specialist centre for tigers that have come into conflict with humans. The team fight to keep the habitat safe for the animals to live within Credit: Olya Ivanova Established in 2012 with support from the government and various wildlife groups, so far 10 animals have been released from here back into the wild (including Vladik). The work is overseen by Ekaterina Blidchenko, a 30-year-old zoologist from Moscow. When I visit, there are two cubs, Saihan and Lazovka, who were bought here the previous winter. Blidchenko explains that the tigers are kept in sealed pens away from humans and slowly taught how to fend for themselves with live prey released once every five days. She shows me a recent CCTV recording of the tigers taking down a deer. One of the cubs lies in wait while the other chases the deer towards it. At the moment of impact the tiger leaps from its hiding place and catches the deer head on, grabbing its body and mauling its head. The deer is dead in a few seconds. It is both shocking and deeply impressive. ‘I love all predators,’ she says. ‘Sometimes they are prejudged by the people who live close to them but I don’t think this is fair. The tiger is part of our legend and fairy tales. If you start to look deeper, you see they are afraid themselves – more frequently than we can imagine.’ For days, we wait for news of Vladik’s latest movements. He’s passed through numerous villages and crossed the Trans-Siberian railway. If he moves any closer to Vladivostok he will have to be caught. One morning towards the end of our trip, Fomenko receives a phone call. Vladik has turned south-west, away from the city, over a vast plateau leading towards the mountains of the Chinese border. A broad smile cracks across Fomenko’s face. Vladik is safe – for now. http://ift.tt/2kgOt3l

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