#when in reality let's be real he's still a young boy in survival mode and his family got to run away - they got to leave in the night | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ifeveristoday · 4 years

Text

well, that escalated quickly

The first card of the Major Arcana, The Fool is generally a positive card indicating new beginnings. If it appears in your readings it could mean that you are on the verge of an exciting, unexpected new adventure. Your new adventure will bring you along a path which may require you to make a leap of faith but you will grow as a result of this new experience. This new adventure could be a literal new adventure, like travelling to a place you’ve never been before. The change this card can bring will usually be a welcome one. While the Fool is generally a positive card, its appearance in a reading can also indicate that you need to take the time to look before you leap. [x]

Even when reversed, the Fool is an indicator of newness; as well as the purity and open-hearted energy of a child. This is generally considered a positive card, with the caveat that it's important to take time to be sure that you are "looking where you're going." In reversal, The Fool can show that there is a need for a new beginning, but that there is some hesitancy about making it happen. [x]

When the Fool card is reversed, you are encountering an unfinished side of yourself, a part still caught in the shadows of ignorance or immaturity. An emotional reflex or psychological attitude could be holding you back from responding authentically and naturally.

Release yourself from any dogmas or taboos so your natural truthfulness and instinct for right action can be restored. [x]

Light some incense and find a crushed velvet vest and let’s get to issue 16 of Buffy.

Spoilers, as always underneath the cut. Also long and semi-rambly so if you’re new to this tumblr...yeah.

Short version: There’s a thing I’m not sure I like yet, the usual layer cake of THEMES and how it all ties together, and good character stuff.

Wow. So they’re really going there with Buffy and Evil! Xander. But it’s not like the comic hasn’t left crumbs of a potential -- something happening between them. Vamp! Xander’s first confrontation with Buffy was a crude sexual come-on, which she rebuffed very quickly, and then when he had his soul, there was an ambiguous hug between them in Hellmouth. Xander’s feelings about Buffy have always been pretty clear.

And while I’m not thrilled that in the year 2020 we still can’t have a platonic relationship between Buffy and Xander (like, I joke about this being a Point to the reboot that Joss insisted on, but of course that’s just speculation. But come on. He totally would), it’s not like the comic was not giving clues, clunky though some of them may be. Buffy’s Slayer dream of Vamp! Xander and Vamp! Her, Robin’s oddly insistent interrogation of Buffy’s feelings for Xander, the dinosaur gift of Zeppo, and Buffy’s own ambivalence toward Robin as a real potential boyfriend.

Issue 14 (which I still haven’t written a thorough post about) showcases (not explicitly written as such, but the characteristics are there) a PTSD-afflicted Buffy, who has lost both of her best friends in a matter of weeks. She’s not on good terms with her mother, Giles is still weird after his descent into magically induced MRA-ness and not exactly comforting her, and having to accept the reality of Kendra being a Slayer as well. There’s a lot of anxiety, jealousy, and survivor’s guilt thrown in there as well, and we all know Buffy’s favorite thing to do when she’s going through a lot of pain: ISOLATE HERSELF.

And then here’s Robin, telling her he’s on her side and is a friendly face and Buffy seizes that emotional life line and decides, well if I can’t like myself (this is referenced in Issue 15), Robin will do it for me. It’s a lonely, but understandable grasp at something normal and not...the reality of her present life.

Except Robin realizes he can’t be Buffy’s emotional support almost-boyfriend, and that Buffy has a martyr complex where she can’t be just the hero but also the villain in her own story - she takes on all of the fault but none of the help and love that does exist in her life.

He tells her that one of her problems is that she just doesn’t like herself.

And it’s a hard truth for Buffy to bear but she admits it.

Issue 16 dips into Buffy’s mixed up feelings re: love and connection and the thread that ties it together is the tarot card Jenny pulls from her spread to read to Dolly, her cat.

Best reveal of the reboot so far, no I won’t take any objections. Her cat! Is named Dolly! Possibly after Dolly Parton, stealth producer of BtVS!

Jenny, lone human adult voice of Reason, pulls the upside down Fool and I’ve included three meanings of it up above. The reason why I think it’s a common thread for this issue is because in Buffy’s slayer dream where she’s riding Zeppo the Symbolism? What Symbolism Dinosaur with Xander (with some terrible punning), Buffy says that they can’t let Zeppo drive, he’s too young and doesn’t know how to get to where they’re going. Xander replies, “Do you even remember where we’re going?”

And prior to this Buffy worries that they’re going too fast and to slow down.

This could signify a number of things - definitely new beginnings with Evil! Xander and the changed nature of his relationship to Buffy, Buffy’s personal fear that she doesn’t know what’s happening, only that it is too fast, and the fact they’re both so young. And for the moment, Xander will forever be this young. And with his reputation as being the ‘funny’ one, Xander could also be considered a Fool.

He’s in a state of being unfinished - he’s never going to experience the trials of regular adulthood, the personal milestones a human being has. And Buffy is unfinished in that she’s not done growing up, but she is also the Slayer, which requires a level of sacrifice that other girls her age wouldn’t experience.

Jenny pulling this card - well, there’s the unfinished nature of her relationship with Giles, they’re broken up but still pining over each other, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have stayed in touch with anyone in the Scoobies? And her only confidante seems to be her cat. Which, no judgement, cats are good listeners.

Dolly is also a good detector of Ye Olde Supernatural Bullshit, as she senses something bad behind Jenny’s all of a sudden visitor, and Hulk! Giles a few issues back.

It is of course, Xander, who is gleefully pleased that it was that easy to trick Jenny into inviting him in.

Fade into black- sort of, as the next step is Xander playing mind games via text.

Right after Buffy has her weird dinosaur dream, she tries to google meanings of it, as well as sending Willow texts in a long chain of non replied thread, updating her about what’s been happening in Sunnydale in her absence. I noticed she used a similar - “I’ll be here for you” in her message to Rose, and I think that’s Buffy’s way of changing. She wants to be there for her people, instead of avoiding them.

And she gets a text (Miss me?) from Xander, which prompts her to run to Giles and Kendra.

This is a neat(?) reference to how Xander got catfished by Drusilla when she texted him from Buffy’s phone. God, the way this sentence sounds out of context to an TV canon fan.

ANYWAY.

Buffy states that Xander died the night the Hellmouth closed, and they had a candlelight vigil and his parents barely leave the house - which makes me think while Hank Summers is a bastard in every ‘verse, Boom! has a good dad for Robin, Joyce and Eric for Buffy, and apparently good parents for Willow and Xander as well. Yay.

Kendra, who is more objective than Buffy and Giles can be regarding Xander, theorizes that Xander’s disappearance might not be death in a final sense, but rather his soul disappearing. Which causes the question, where has his body been this whole time? Also, I see that I Robot, You Jane easter egg, Jordie.

Setting Jenny’s house on fire, that’s what. Giles gets a similarly upsetting text on his phone, and they run to her house. Buffy and Kendra immediately throw themselves into save the cat (and Jenny!) mode and run into Evil! Xander. Quite literally - Xander grabs Kendra by the neck and throws her out of the window from the second floor - don’t worry, she survives.

We can’t be fridging the POC this early, after all.

Then it’s Xander and Buffy’s first glimpse of each other since Hellmouth, and standard enemy banter ensues - Xander says it’s just them and Buffy snaps that it’s only in his dreams. Then the staircase starts cracking due to the fire’s heat and Buffy’s thisclose to falling off when Xander grabs her, and in his human mask tells her that it could just be them together, if she wants it. Buffy takes Kendra’s advice to stop feeling and just think, and kicks Xander in a jump with both her feet aimed at his chest. Also she says she’d rather die than let that happen, which...I really hope aren’t famous last words.

The fool card flutters down and lands on Buffy’s forehead, reminding her that she’s on a rescue mission for Jenny. Who is nowhere to be found, but Dolly leaps into Buffy’s arms, and she carries her out.

Giles, Kendra and Buffy reconvene at Giles’s and try to figure out why Xander targeted Jenny.

Giles, who started the issue being a concerned mentor has grown smaller and less confident toward the end as he asks Buffy and Kendra to find Jenny. Buffy vows that they’re going to make Xander pay. Giles sadly agrees and then leaves to show Dolly the garden.

Let me pause a moment to cry about the fact that Giles is showing Jenny’s cat the garden.

Kendra and Buffy bond, sincerely, for the first time since Kendra made her appearance. Sister slayers, fuck yeah! Also, I love Kendra’s characterization and I hope she stays for a long time. And not die.

There’s a thawing there as each switch positions - Kendra tells Buffy it’s okay that she feels the way she feels, as Buffy tells her, no, she’s right, Xander isn’t the boy she knew, and to treat him like he’s just a regular vampire.

Then she admits she’s not sure if she misses Xander, or if it’s something else, to which Kendra replies, “I think when you know, you know.”

And Buffy asks her like her and Rose - and Kendra confirms it.

Just as Kendra’s words end the issue, Willow - who could be OG timeline Willow, or an Alternate Verse Willow, comes into the light and holds Rose’s hand.

DRAAAAMA.

So. Xander and Buffy heading toward something, Kendra/Rose confirmed, Giles has now adopted Dolly, Jenny’s status: Currently Unknown.

And Willow?

Though with the Fool, there’s that meaning of new adventures and travelling to a place you’ve never been before. That sums up Willow’s current journey so far.

#buffy comics #boom! studios #boom! verse #thoughts and reactions #spoilers #also i knew all those past tarot card covers and just the symbolism in the cards had to come back #unless it was all a neat coincidence

8 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 4 years

Photo

Survival Mode.

In ten recent coming-of-age films, Ella Kemp finds the genre thriving—and looking very different than the 1980s might have predicted. Film directors and Letterboxd members weigh in on the specific satisfactions of the genre, especially in a pandemic.

There have been jokes, some more serious than others, about the art that will come out of this time. How many novels about a fast-spreading disease are you betting on? Will Covid-19 be better suited to documentary or fiction? But the art I’m most looking forward to, and revisiting now, is the art made about teenagers going through it.

Physical school attendance, so central to the John Hughes movies of the 1980s, is up in the air for so many. Sports practice, theater clubs, mall hang-outs; the familiar neighborhood beats of a teenager’s life are more confined than ever. All of us have had to tweak our reality to make the best of invasive changes forced upon us during the pandemic. In a sense, it feels like we are all coming of age.

Teenagehood, though, is a particularly tricky time of transition, and we don’t yet know the half of how the pandemic is going to impact today’s young adults—and, by association, tomorrow’s coming-of-age films. But in the last two years alone there have been enough brave new entries in the genre, about young people so enlivening, that there’s both plenty for young film lovers to lose themselves in, and plenty for us slightly older folks to watch and learn from.

So I sought out ten recent coming-of-age films (and several of the directors responsible) to see what these stories teach us about teenagers, and how we might empathize with them. The list—Jezebel, Beats, Zombi Child, Blinded by the Light, Selah and the Spades, The Half of It, Dating Amber, Babyteeth, House of Hummingbird and We Are Little Zombies—is by no means exhaustive. But it allows us to look at several things.

Firstly, that the genre is thriving, considering these titles barely scratch the surface. Secondly, these ten films look a whole lot different than their 1980s counterparts. Six are directed by women. Four tell queer stories or, at least, feature queer characters in a prominent subplot. Seven tell stories about Black people, Asian people, Pakistani people. Only three are from the US.

And: they’re really good. They understand teenagers as angry, energetic, passionate, confused, desperate and deeply intelligent beings, echoing the nuances that we know to be true in real life, but that can often get watered down on the screen.

Blinded by the Light (co-written and directed by Gurinder Chadha) We Are Little Zombies (written and directed by Makoto Nagahisa) Beats (co-written and directed by Brian Welsh)

The protagonists in these first three films use music to feel their way through panic, brought on by both internal and external circumstances. Screaming another’s lyrics, furiously composing their own anthems, dancing along and sweating out their fear to the beat, the ongoing beat, and nothing more. It’s salvation, it’s release—when you’re left with your own thoughts, the only way to fight through them is to drown them out.

Music acts as a source of enlightenment in Blinded by the Light, directed by Gurinder Chadha (who made 2002’s coming-of-age sports banger Bend it Like Beckham). In Thatcher’s Britain, Pakistani-English Muslim high schooler Javed discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen, and his world bursts wide open. The wisdom and fire of the Boss helps Javed to make sense of his own frustrations; that the film is based on a real journalist’s autobiography makes it all the more potent.

Meanwhile, in Beats, a real-life law enacted in Scotland in the 1990s temporarily banned raves: specifically, the gathering of people around music “wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”. As the UK struggles to contain a youthful, exuberant new counter-culture, the central characters face what it means to enter adulthood. The answer to both: a forbidden rave.

“I have to say, there’s probably no such thing as teenagers without complicated emotions,” We Are Little Zombies writer-director Makoto Nagahisa tells me. The Japanese filmmaker—who loves the genre, known as ‘Seishun eiga’ in Japan—wrestles with the frustration and hopelessness of the world by giving his film’s four orphaned teens the tools, and the permission, to find solace in something other than their everyday life. Following the deaths of their parents, the quartet create their own catchy, cathartic, truth-bomb music; it’s an instant hit with kids across Japan, but the adults miss the point, of course—that the cacophony of superstardom is filling the silence of their mourning.

Nagahisa-san’s film is named after a fictional 8-bit Nintendo Game Boy game that the main character is addicted to. “I used to get through my day relatively painlessly by pretending I was a video game character whenever bad shit happened to me,” he explains. Teenagers “are constantly feeling crushed by reality right now… I want them to know that this is a valid way to escape reality. That reality is just a ‘game’. I want them to know they don’t need to face tragedies, they can just survive. That’s the most important thing!” Who else needed to hear that right now?

Jezebel (written and directed by Numa Perrier) Zombi Child (written and directed by Bertrand Bonello) Selah and the Spades (written and directed by Tayarisha Poe) House of Hummingbird (written and directed by Kim Bo-ra)

Our next four films turn to technology, mythology, hierarchy and education to animate their protagonists’ lives with a greater purpose. In Jezebel, nineteen-year-old Tiffany finds her way through mourning with a new job, earning money as a cam girl and subsequently developing a bond with one of her clients. There’s a magnetic aura, one that harnesses grief and turns it into something more corrosive as this teen puts all her energy into it. Similarly there’s mysticism in the air in Zombi Child, in which Haitian voodoo gives a bored, heartbroken teenage girl a new purpose as she searches for a way to connect with the one she lost—and with herself.

Selah and the Spades and House of Hummingbird understand the third-party saviour as more of a structure, that of a school or an inspiring teacher. Selah finds herself by doing business selling recreational drugs to her classmates in a faction-led boarding school. Nothing mends a sense of aimlessness like power. This same framework lets Hummingbird’s Eun-hee, a schoolgirl in mid-90s South Korea whose abusive family invest their academic focus in her useless brother, search for love and find connection in her school books—and from the person who’s asking her to read them.

The films on this list are not perfect; some might be criticized for specifically following a formula, the tropes of the coming-of-age film, a little too well. Jezebel lets its protagonist rise and fall with familiarity, while Selah suffers the consequences of her extreme actions, and even Eun-hee reckons with a few recognizable pitfalls. But still, the fact that these films exist is “innately radical”, says Irish writer-director David Freyne, whose queer Irish comedy Dating Amber is covered below. The filmmaker describes the coming-of-age genre as mainstream, but in the best possible sense: “It’s a broadly appealing film,” he says.

This is why, to see these stories reframed with minority voices, with queer voices, is so quietly revolutionary. “The more you see them, the more broadly we see them being enjoyed—the more producers and financiers will realize these stories don’t have to be niche just because they happen to frame a minority voice. Everyone can enjoy it.”

Film journalist and Letterboxd member Iana Murray, a coming-of-age genre fan, echoes Freyne’s thoughts. “Representation is absolutely not the be-all end-all, but I’d love to see more coming-of-age films that reflect my experiences growing up as a woman of color,” she says, before introducing what I’d like to call the Rashomon Effect. “I see it as like one of those films that tell the same events from different perspectives, something like Rashomon or Right Now, Wrong Then,” she explains. “A story becomes even more vibrant when told through a different set of eyes, and that’s what happens when you allow women, people of color, and LGBT people to create coming-of-age narratives.”

Dating Amber (written and directed by David Freyne) The Half of It (written and directed by Alice Wu) Babyteeth (directed by Shannon Murphy, written by Rita Kalnejais)

Which brings us on nicely to our last three: wildly different titles, each with young protagonists at war with themselves, trying to make sense of their bodies and minds as best they can. In this context, companionship is everything. Finding a platonic soulmate in Dating Amber, a sexual awakening in The Half of It, a first love to make a short life worth living in Babyteeth. Each film is directed with a verve and passion that you know must be personal.

The story of a frustrated boy in the closet in Dating Amber aches with care from Freyne behind the camera, while Alice Wu directs Ellie Chu, the main character in The Half Of It, with patience and the kind of encouragement that quiet girls who live a life between two cultures are rarely given. And with Babyteeth, Shannon Murphy returns Australian cinema firmly to the center of the movie map, with a quintessentially Australian optimism and sense of humor, which Ben Mendelsohn called “delightfully bent”.

These perspectives are specific to each teen, but the intensity transcends genres and borders. It manifests musically, verbally, visually, aesthetically. These teens connect with their favorite music and means of entertainment, but also simply to their favorite clothes and accessories—blue bikinis and green wigs, red neck-scarves and floaty white dresses. These details give the characters ways to reinvent themselves while standing still, which certainly feels apt for a life lived, for now, at home.

‘Pretty in Pink’ (1986), written by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch.

Many argue that the coming-of-age genre peaked with John Hughes, who defined the framework in iconic 1980s films that have his stamp all over them, whether he wrote (Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful) or also directed them (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles). Hughes’ world view was of a specifically suburban, white, American corner of the world, which he filled with misfits and ultra-hip soundtracks. “John Hughes was to the genre what The Beatles are to rock and roll,” confirms Letterboxd member Brad, maintainer of the essential coming-of-age movie list Teenage Wasteland.

After Hughes, the genre tumbled, Dazed and Confused, into the 1990s—notable voices include John Singleton with his seminal Boyz n the Hood, and Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and Good Will Hunting. This was also the decade of Clueless, which informed the bright, female-forward fare of the 2000s, like Mean Girls, The Princess Diaries and the aforementioned Bend it Like Beckham. The last decade has seen new American storytellers step into Hughes’ shoes, including Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird and Little Women), Olivia Wilde and the writers of Booksmart, and the autobiographical voices of Jonah Hill (mid90s) and Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy, directed by Alma Har’el).

It’s interesting to note—whether it’s the 1860s or the 1980s—that many coming-of-agers from the past decade take place in an earlier period setting. Social media has demanded the upheaval of entire lives, but it seems some filmmakers aren’t yet ready to grapple with its place on screen.

The audience, on the other hand, is far more adaptable. The way we’re watching coming-of-age films has shifted, and it’s more appropriate for the genre than we could have imagined. On the last day of shooting Dating Amber, Freyne recalls one of the young actors asking, “So, is this going to be on Netflix or something?” This is when cinemas were still open.

“That’s often how younger people are devouring content now,” Freyne reasons. His film, in the end, was snapped up by Amazon (a US release date is yet to be announced). “It’s creating a communal experience with the intersection of social media: live streams, fan art, daily messages… It’s made us feel incredibly connected, moreso than I think we would have got with a cinematic release.”

Streaming platforms also cater to one key habit of a younger film lover: the rewatch. The iconic teen films of the 80s embedded their reputations thanks to the eternal allure of the Friday night video store ritual, and constant television replays. These days, it’s only with a film finding a home on Netflix, on Amazon or on Hulu, that a younger person (or, in times of global crisis, any person) can both financially and logistically afford to devote themselves to watching, again and again, these people onscreen that they’ve immediately and irrevocably found a connection with.

It’s always felt hard to be satisfied with just one viewing of a perfect coming-of-age film—observe how many times Iana Murray has logged Call Me By Your Name. What is it about the slippery, universal allure of the genre? It’s possibly as simple as the feeling of being seen in the fog of intergenerational confusion. Says Nagahisa-san: “Grown-ups think of teenagers like zombies. Teenagers think of grown-ups like zombies. We’re never able to understand what others are feeling inside.”

“The reaction is always emotive rather than intellectual,” adds Freyne. “There’s something quite visceral and instinctive about coming-of-age films; it’s an emotional experience rather than an analytical one.” That emotional experience is tied up in the fact that we often experience coming-of-age movies just as we ourselves are coming of age, establishing an unbreakable connection between a film and a specific period in our lives. MovieMaestro Brad explains it best: “There is a bit of nostalgia in a lot of these films that take me back to my younger days, when life was simple.”

But that’s not to say only those coming of age can appreciate a coming-of-age film. On her favorite coming-of-age film, Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, Murray explains, “It doesn’t see coming-of-age as exclusive to teenagers, because that process of growth is really about transition and change.” (In a similar vein, Kris Rey’s new comedy I Used to Go Here, in select theaters and on demand August 7, meets Kate Conklin, played by Gillian Jacobs, in a sort of quarter-life-crisis, needing to grow down a bit in order to grow up.)

Natalia Dyer in ‘Yes, God, Yes’ (2019), directed by Karen Maine.

There is endless praise, conflict and wonder to be found in the ten films mentioned above—and all the ones we haven’t even gone near (Karen Maine’s orgasmic religious comedy Yes, God, Yes, now available on demand in the US, deserves an honorary mention, as does Get Duked!, Ninian Doff’s upcoming stoner romp in the Scottish Highlands). The thing about this genre is it’s raw, it’s alive, and it’s always in transition. Just when you might think it’s gone out of fashion, it emerges in a new and fascinating form. And yet, there are still so many filmmakers who haven’t tackled the genre. I asked my interviewees who they’d like to see take on a story of teens in transition.

“I’d love to see Tarantino’s take on a coming-of-age tale,” says master of the genre himself, MovieMaestro/Brad. Murray gives her vote to Lulu Wang, saying, “I love the specificity she brought to The Farewell, I think it would transfer well to a genre that needs to escape clichés.” Freyne, meanwhile, wants to see if Ari Aster might have another story about young people in him. Maybe something a bit less lethal next time.

Ultimately, “you write from empathy, not from experience,” says Freyne. I think the same goes for watching, too. It won’t be tomorrow, and it might not be this year, but eventually, the world will emerge from Covid-19. What will we have learned from the films that we watched while we were waiting? From the sadness, the angst, the determination, the rage and the passion?

Nagahisa-san already knows, and his advice is everything we need right now: “You don’t need others’ approval of who you are, as long as you understand and approve of yourself. Do whatever pops up in your mind. Live your life without fear or despair. Just survive.”

Related content

See where most of the recent releases mentioned here are virtually screening, in our Art House Online list.

Shannon Murphy talks to us about Babyteeth, and shares a list of her favorite Australian films.

Makoto Nagahisa’s 25 favorite teen movies

David Freyne’s 25 favorite LGBTQIA+ films

Growing Pains: The Ultimate Coming of Age Movie Challenge

(Happy) Queer Coming of Age Movies

Coming of age—but make it diverse

8 notes · View notes

sikereviewdotcom · 4 years

Text

strawberry shortcake s2 ep1 - horse of a different color

this one was suggested by someone who couldnt keep their mouth shut and not sing the strawberry shortcake intro theme in the middle of our economy class

no one wanted to hear that, but they went ahead and then i actually followed up on that train of thoughts i remembered about the fucking cartoons and i knew it pronto: its a must-see shit its like slightly above the level of magical school bus series, but the final rating is for the fin not the beginning so lets begin this horseshit:

were reviewing “horse of a different color”, it focuses indeed on strawberrys horse, honey pie pony (its her entire damn name, how sweet right? like all of them, i got diabete from this review but its the cost of maintaining this blog anyway, the kids are playing together on a that tree having fun jumping around like chimpanzees hooba hooba but sadly our filly quickly realizes she cant play king kong with them and keep falling on her ass,

yet since theyre all retarded or young (id say its a fifty-fifty case for them kinda normal ig, i mean they ARE literal 6yo) they try several ways of getting her up on that tree, not thinking how to get her down if they ever were to succeed (good for them: aint happening) its child labor too btw, from an horse still same deal what if honey pie fell down on them? crushing them corpses with her mighty pounds? the findus company would be delighted to hear such news, im sure its some quality (sweet ass) horse meat

once it all fails she understands a horse isnt meant to climb a tree, too big too fat its four legged, not even entertaining the relationship giraffes have with trees

but it aint over, then (after a talk with herself) hp hears the laughters of a bunch of kids which catches her attention, it always does who can ignore that sorta noise? although she aint annoyed by it shes just into the idea of riding a bike now, shes even gonna get a go at it oh yea thats it we finally found her human hobby gogdamn shes a backward furry

of course it fails aswell since she has no hand for the handle and shes heavy so i guess its the reason why she rides into w/e and cant stop? because otherwise she couldve also just.. actually it makes no sense does it? i mean she couldve easily stopped the ride actually how is that kid bike even holding her? ive never tried putting a pony on a bike for 6 y/o but i doubt about its capacity in not being crushed aswell as i doubt in the kids bones not being severely damaged after a visit under honey pies horsy buttcheeks

but all of that really makes her sad: she cant play with her human friends and shes the only horse around strawberry land or whatever see me tearing it for her, theres so much emotions in this episode especially after that filly trynna get kids to get into some horseplay horseshit like dude theyre only 6, lets go easy on them, might have a problem with the parents of the kids watching this episode no one even thought how fucked up this one part is? sure horseplay isnt only sexual or w/e but it still is the visual of 6yos on all four jumping around and neighing together with their ass a little bit too exposed wow im going on a dangerous road here? aint i? not gonna sue the writers im sure it was their subconscious speaking probably got issues from their childhood, eventually got them sorted out since 2004 what do i know? aside from me not caring

back on track : after seeing horsey being so sad the kiddos decide to get her a horse friend but where the fuck? they got no idea, they are proud nonetheless and go tell honey the good new until they are like “wait but we have no idea where to find horses!” ofc we get a big reveal, some serious strawberry shortcake lore: actually all the horses, ALL OF THEM FROM THE ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET are on one (1) single island: ice cream themed to diversify it all they are just chilling over there in ponyland and for some reason this one here got lost or idk guys she took the boat and checked the rest of the world out as an even younger filly, found strawberry and her friends and decided now she was a centaur slash humanrry furry human, idk you get it but shes their friend and so on to introduce the concept of an AWESOME island full of equestrian activity and ofc ice cream but its kinda lame because who cares? everythings already made out of food, also why isnt the ice cream melting? its one water? nevermind for the introduction as i was saying, hp sings an horrendous sounding song it deteriorated my ear drums they got pierced or something or maybe im exagerrating? either case horses cant sing:

so to the ice cream land they go, huh

of course it wouldnt be a big adventure without an almost broken bridge oh no whatever shall we do? could we possibly cross it safely? lets try it out guys: yay it worked good for us little stress and suspense it was wack how they got honey pie out of the hole her big ass hoove made im mesmerized by the power of friendship and sugar at this point, just in full awe for the rest of the episode probably over dosed on all the ice cream flavoured horseshit, i got some all over my mouth its dripping on my desk i gotta clean that later

next thing we know: horses its all this episode is about (aside from labor) but you see, so far hp would switch between normal human language and neighing well turns out her other fellow equines can only neigh and so they just neigh together while our english well-spoken mammal translates to the moronic kids who just smile smuggly

of course the animals are having a welcome party then, dancing around while the morons are just bored, harsh one being a cartoon character isnt it guys? w/e theyre gonna ask for honey pie to come back home now, convinced that her natural habit isnt her place and she loves them too much to just leave them and never come back and break any plans they ever had together- oh shit looks like shes leaving forever huh? what a plot twist mark that on the bitch quota for today

the first one to leave is the little boy btw, important thing to note: hes the biggest pussy he cant even face reality: oh no, no more pony back time before sleep thats quite a bummer, downer and man how are they going to survive now they got no animal to watch over them? jesus theyre soon, on the boat (idk where they got it from idk why suddenly theyre on a boat because then theyre once again gonna cross that bridge but ok) anyway yea theyre having a relationship crisis during that ship trip yada yada ah and the bridge, because (see i do not call them morons for now reasons obviously they deserve this title not only because theyre 6 but also because they are just daft:) they proceed, once in the middle of the bridge all 4 of them, to stop and wonder

“will the bridge be able to hold all of us? wont it break? damn i wonder if it will crack” and they talks without moving until vlam: a tree comes and breaks it (dont ask) so now theyre in trouble:

back to ponyland: bitch pie realizes how much she misses her actual friends and that she can speak english which her other horse friends cant do so she is special and probably abnormal, shes a big outcat of the pony society and has no other reason but to escape her incoming death sentence for fraternizing with the humans of course none of the second part is true, she just wants to see the kids again so she says asta la vista baby to the neigher team and runs away see, she hasnt taken the boat and yet also arrive to the bridge? why a boat sequence then? i will skip this for now but it WILL play in the rating, imagine im the parent of the youngster watching this crap and i have to endure it

if it sucks this bad and is this illogical i might just get bored and change the channel, idc my progeny aint gonna be watching this in either case, ill make them watch political debates then interrogate them on what they learned after what but it wasnt actual political debates just random furry youtuber venting with their fursona sprites animated and thats how you make your kids retarded, the kick of this joke is that i aint planning on getting any kids but totally gonna make them watch classics too such as the attack of the killer donuts as soon as they reach 6 so they wont be dumb and probably not getting diabete or w/e in their adulthood

then honey pie saves the kids btw all of them, heavy shit

and they all go back to strawberryland, happily after a big “wow i missed you sm, you are my real friends w/e if you dont look like me i aint speciest guys really!” theyre all vegan too btw so this works for them i havent watched enough strawberry shortcake episodes to know if they ever eat meat but i have doubts seeing how theyre into a very cannibalistic diet which include eating dessert when obviously thats what they are at least half part, this cartoon raises a lot of political questions it may have a deeper value than i first attributed to it

the end: another terrible song plays about horseshit and how tasty it is

thats all folks

so the rating: big 6/10, so you know 5/10 if its a decent kid show where im highly eager to click on the x and get back making jams but nah

surprisingly enough, i only wanted to stop watching half of the episode and not the entirity of it so credits for thats since im an adult and not a kid, imagining kids enjoyed this sweet childish cartooness or w/e now why +1? its because of how many political questions it raised, how it made me think about our society and cakes yknow its more than kids having a conflict with an horse it talks about veganism, specism, handicap, cannibalism, the management of the limited ressources were exploiting and so on yea really makes you think, its subliminal messages to make kids smarter: they watch their dessert-imbecile counterparts doing bs and then get it right irl: good ah- it also makes it better for you when youre watching this with your kid, you suddenly transcend to another level of spirituality, existential crisis activated or at least reasoning mode or w/e youre willing to name this the point is you arent bored still despite all of this i rated it quite low for such a serious kid cartoon what couldve possibly made me tic? 1) kids are morons and cant understand all of this, not clear enough for the targeted public 2) projection onto the characters/dialogues from the writers of their childhood traumas (the horse play event didnt go unnoticed, karren brown) 3) my little pony ripoff 4) its controversial, our society, especially in 2004 couldnt understand the depth of this shit and finally 5) i got so much ice cream flavoured horseshit all over my desk god help me this is so filthy what a fucking mess i would totally recommand it to anyone who feels like being blown away by the statements made in this work of art 6/10 but really we all know in the future, itll be a 9/10, some ahead-of-its-time-crap

tg, out

#strawberry shortcake #cartoon review #cartoons #sike reviews #child labor #pony labor #art #classic #diabete fuel #reviews

11 notes · View notes

chiseler · 4 years

Text

The Crowd Doesn’t Just Roar, It Thinks: Warner Bros.’ All-Talking Revolution

“Iconic” is a gassy word for a masterwork of unquestioned approval. But it also describes compositions that actually resemble icons in their form and function, “stiff” by inviolate standards embodied in, say, Howard Hawks characters moving fluidly in and out of the frame. Whenever I watch William A. Wellman’s 1933 talkie Wild Boys of the Road, these standards—themselves rigid and unhelpful to understanding—fall away. An entire canonical order based on naturalism withers.

To summon reality vivid enough for the 1930s—during which 250,000 minors left home in hopeless pursuit of the job that wasn’t—Wellman inserts whispering quietude between explosions, cesuras that seem to last aeons. The film’s gestating silences dominate the rather intrusive New Deal evangelism imposed by executive order from the studio. Amid Warner Bros.’ ballyhooing of a freshly-minted American president, they were unconsciously embracing the wrecking-ball approach to a failed capitalist system. That is, when talkies dream, FDR don’t rate. However, Marxist revolution finds its American icon in Wild Boys’ sixteen-year-old actor Frankie Darro, whose cap becomes a rude little halo, a diminutive lad goaded into class war by a chance encounter with a homeless man.

“You got an army, ain’t ya?” In the split second before Darro’s “Tommy” realizes the import of these words, the Great Depression flashes before his eyes, and ours. No conspicuous montage—just a fixed image of pain. Until suddenly a collective lurch transmutes job-seeking kids into a polity that knows the enemy’s various guises: railroad detectives, police, galled citizens nosing out scapegoats. Wellman’s crowd scenes are, in effect, tableaux congealing into lucent versions of the real thing. The miracle he performs is a painterly one: he abstracts and pares down in order to create realism.

Wellman has a way of organizing people into palpable units, expressing one big emotional truth, then detonating all that potential energy. In his assured directorial hands, Wild Boys of the Road sustains powerful rhythmic flux. And yet, other abstractions, the kind life throws at us willy-nilly, only make sense if we trust our instinctive hunches (David Lynch says typically brilliant, and typically cryptic, things on this subject).

I’m thinking of iconography that invites associations beyond familiar theories, which, in one way or another, try to give movies syntax and rely too heavily on literary ideas like “authorship.” Nobody can corner the market on semantic icons and run up the price. My favorite hot second in Wild Boys of the Road is when young Sidney Miller spits “Chazzer!” (“Pig!”) at a cop. Even the industrial majesty of Warner Bros. will never monopolize chutzpah. The studio does, however, vaunt its own version of socialism, whether consciously or not, in concrete cinematic terms: here, the crowd becomes dramaturgy, a conscious and ethical mass pushing itself into the foreground of working-class poetics. The crowd doesn’t just roar, it thinks. Miller’s volcanic cri de coeur erupts from the collective understanding that capitalism’s gendarmes are out to get us.

Wellman’s Heroes for Sale, hitting screens the same year as Wild Boys, 1933, further advances an endless catalogue of meaning for which no words yet exist. We’re left (fumblingly and woefully after the fact) to describe a rupture. Has the studio system gone stark raving bananas?! Once again, the film’s ostensible agenda is to promote Roosevelt’s economic plan; and, once again, a radical alternative rears its head.

Wellman’s aesthetic constitutes a Dramaturgy of the Crowd. His compositions couldn’t be simpler. I’m reminded of the “grape cluster” method used by anonymous Medieval artists, in which the heads of individual figures seem to emerge from a single shared body, a highly simplified and spiritual mode of constructing space that Arnold Hauser attributes to less bourgeoise societies.

If the mythos of FDR, the man who transformed capitalism, is just that, a story we Americans tell ourselves, then Heroes for Sale represents another kind of storytelling: one firmly rooted to the soiled experience of the period. Amid portrayals of a nation on the skids—thuggish cops, corrupt bankers, and bone-weary war vets (slogging through more rain and mud than they’d ever encountered on the battlefield)—one rather pointed reference to America’s New Deal drags itself from out of the grime. “It’s just common horse sense,” claims a small voice. Will national leadership ever find another spokesman as convincing as the great Richard Barthelmess, that half-whispered deadpan amplified by a fledgling technology, the Vitaphone? After enduring shrapnel to the spine, dependency on morphine, plus a prison stretch, his character Tom Holmes channels the country’s pain; and his catalog of personal miseries—including the sudden death of his young wife—qualifies him as the voice of wisdom when he explains, “It takes more than one sock in the jaw to lick 120 million people.” How did Barthelmess—owner of the flattest murmur in Talking Pictures, a far distance from the gilded oratory of Franklin Roosevelt, manage to sell this shiny chunk of New Deal propaganda?

How did he take the film’s almost-crass reduction of America’s economic cataclysm, that metaphorical sock on the jaw, and make it sound reasonable? Barthelmess was 37 when he made Heroes for Sale; an aging juvenile who less than a decade earlier had been one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office titans. But no matter how smoothly he seemed to have survived the transition, his would always be a screen presence more redolent of the just-passed Silent-era than the strange new world of synchronized sound. And yet, through a delivery rich with nuance for generous listeners and a glum piquancy for everyone else, deeply informed by an awareness of his own fading stardom, his slightly unsettling air of a man jousting with ghosts lends tremendous force to the New Deal line. It echoes and resolves itself in the viewer’s consciousness precisely because it is so eerily plainspoken, as if by some half-grinning somnambulist ordering a ham on rye. Through it we are in the presence of a living compound myth, a crisp monotone that brims with vacillating waves of hope and despair.

Tom is “The Dirty Thirties.” A symbolic figure looming bigger than government promises, towering over Capitalism itself, he’s reduced to just another soldier-cum-hobo by the film’s final reel, having relinquished a small fortune to feed thousands before inevitably going “on the bum.” If he emits wretchedness and self-abnegation, it’s because Tom was originally intended to be an overt stand-in for Jesus Christ—a not-so-gentle savior who attends I.W.W. meetings and participates in the Bonus March, even hurling a riotous brick at the police. These strident scenes, along with “heretical” references to the Nazarene, were ultimately dropped; and yet the explosive political messages remain.

More than anything, these key works in the filmography of William A. Wellman present their viewers with competing visions of freedom; a choice, if you will. One can best be described as a fanciful, yet highly addictive dream of personal comfort — the American Century's corrupted fantasy of escape from toil, tranquility, and a material luxury handed down from the then-dying principalities of Western Europe — on gaudy, if still wondrous, display within the vast corpus of Hollywood's Great Depression wish-list movies. The other is rarely acknowledged, let alone essayed, in American Cinema. There are, as always, reasons for this. It is elusive and ever-inspiring; too primal to be called revolutionary. It is a vision of existential freedom made flesh; being unmoored without being alienated; the idea of personal liberation, not as license to indulge, but as a passport to enter the unending, collective struggle to remake human society into a society fit for human beings.

In one of the boldest examples of this period in American film, the latter vision would manifest itself as a morality play populated by kings and queens of the Commonweal— a creature of the Tammany wilderness, an anarchist nurse, and a gaggle of feral street punks (Dead End Kids before there was a 'Dead End'). Released on June 24, 1933, Archie L. Mayo's The Mayor of Hell stood, not as a standard entry in Warner Bros.’ Social Consciousness ledger, but as an untamed rejoinder to cratering national grief.

by Daniel Riccuito

Special thanks to R.J. Lambert

5 notes · View notes

shaineybainey · 5 years

Text

Lab Rats Spin-Off, Reimagined

Okay, so picture it: Davenport never formed the Elite Force. Mighty Med was attacked, but Horace and Alan survived. Threats of various levels are popping up, not just in Centium City, but all over the world.

Help is needed, and a team is formed to investigate mysterious cases and hunt down superpowered lawbreakers - both from this planet and beyond.

This is an alternate version (and honestly, what I thought would have been more interesting to see) of a Lab Rats spin-off series. It’s geared more towards older teenagers and maybe early 20’s viewers? Think Agents of SHIELD x [insert your favorite crime procedural], but lighter and milder. The cast is diverse. Instead of one city and similar, repeating sets, the show goes to various countries all over the world.

Below is the cast of characters making up the team.

Agent Herman Delgado

Supervisor

played by Adam Rodriguez

Nicknamed “HD” by Leo, Delgado has been assigned by the covert international group to supervise the young team. He’s a seasoned agent with years of experience under his belt. He's tasked with relaying new assignments to the members, and during missions, he‘s there to guide them.

Though considered a ‘no-nonsense’ supervisor, Delgado truly cares about the young people entrusted in his care. His job prevents him from being with his family and having one of his own, so he’s spent years being by himself. Now, having the five in his care, having a semblance of a family, he’s thrilled. He’ll never admit it, but he’s glad that he’s not so alone anymore.

Skylar Storm

Team Leader

played by Paris Berelc

Skylar is appointed to be the leader despite not having her powers back (yet). Her team benefits from her quick thinking, level-headedness, and fair sense of judgment as it often diffuses high-tension situations and keeps them safe during dangerous missions.

If she’s to be honest, this new assignment is challenging. She’s so used to working alone that suddenly having to care for three then four others around her age is an adjustment. Still, in each week that passes she learns she can count on both Oliver and their new friends to have her back no matter what comes their way.

Bree Davenport

Recon Expert, Ocassional Co-Leader

played by Kelli Berglund

Bree didn’t want to accept the job in the beginning. Although she did sign the contract accepting it, she was that close to walking away. They’re deceptive, she thought, this unnamed organization, and she didn’t know if she could work with people like them.

Still, she stayed, because at the end of the day she knew that here she could do more good.

Being one of the only two superpowered members when they first started, Bree feels the weight of the job at times. Nonetheless, as things continue to shift and change for them, she realizes that things won’t be too bad as long as she’s with her team. She can lean on her little brother and her friends, just like how she could on Adam and Chase when she was still with them.

Leo Dooley

Hacker & Tech Expert, Linguist

played by Tyrel Jackson Williams

Out of the Founding Four, Leo is the most eager to start this new job clouded in mystery. He takes everything with a wide-eyed wonder, and he’s always ready to jump into action - which annoys his teammates at times. Though the most vulnerable out of the five due to lack of experience and abilities, he continues to be the most spirited and most motivated.

He also contributes much by providing the team with the gadgets and intel they need in their many assignments. Because of his diplomatic personality, the international group has opted to train him in speaking many languages - in both Earth ones and ones from other planets.

Oliver (Connelly)

Medical Resident

played by Jake Short

Guilt has been plaguing Oliver since reports of Mr. Terror attacking innocent people began sprouting like dandelions. He can’t shake the feeling that it was all his fault, and so out of that he agrees to work with the nameless organization.

He brings his medical expertise to the table, a knowledge that surprisingly extends in usefulness outside the superhero world. Because he also works with regular humans, he’s trained by the organization’s professionals on how to care for his teammates when they’re injured (and in this job, they do get hurt - a lot).

This doesn’t restrict him to his clinic and medical supplies, though. His list of abilities also makes him a valuable asset to the team during missions.

Ranavalova Girard

Ex-Assassin, Probationary Member

played by Tati Gabrielle

Ran never intended to become part of the team - or any team for that matter. The half-French, half-Malagasy is a trained assassin, bent initially on destroying the men and women that caused the death of her mother and destroyed her family. Her quest for revenge eventually put her in the path of the team. She proved to be the first real challenge to them due to her intelligence and skills. Eventually, though, they caught her.

The committee ended up offering her a deal: go to a max security prison for her crimes and lose her freedom forever, or join the team in relative freedom, helping them catch enemies who has hurt many individuals and families like the people she was going after.

Thinking that she’s got a better chance at escaping if she’s outside, she chooses the latter.

She doesn’t warm up much to the team even after a long while, especially as she senses the girls’ lingering distrust of her. Still, after a while, she learns to enjoy the challenging job. Though she doesn’t think the rewarding feeling stems from knowing she did a good deed, as Leo suggests (her gauge of good and bad had long been broken by life), she can admit that she likes how a good day’s work help her sleep a bit better at night.

The Atlas

The Team’s HQ

located somewhere in Alaska, USA

Named by Oliver and Leo, The Atlas is the team’s base of operation. The building itself is built with a cloaking device, among many other defensive features, to prevent the team from being discovered by their enemies. Underneath it is a spacious underground port that houses a jet and a few other modes of transportation such as a car and two motorbikes.

The main headquarters contains:

the Cortex, where the team convenes and is briefed on new cases;

a fully-equipped training area;

the Vault, which houses all the gear and equipment the members will need in their assignments;

the Observatory, Leo’s laboratory and ‘classroom’;

the Triage, Oliver’s domain, ‘classroom,’ and the team’s clinic/infirmary;

the Principal’s Office, aptly named by Bree, which holds items potentially hazardous items confiscated by the team, all awaiting recovery and transport;

a state-of-the-art entertainment room; and

various rooms for each of the members, all designed and equipped to have whatever the members will need.

When not on an assignment, Delgado stays here with the five.

What Else is Different?

Since Disney XD is primarily geared towards boys, I find that they often depict female characters in one of two ways: (1) tough and kick-butt objects of desire or (2) boy-crazy, generally crazy, high-maintenance ornaments. Sadly, it seems that Bree and Skylar fell into this limiting characterization. In this version, I want to expand on who they are as people, their capabilities untied to the stereotype subtly being introduced to children through the shows. This version will feature their strengths and their weaknesses, fully fleshing all of them out, and will show how circumstances and challenges realistically mold these young men and women still adjusting into adulthood.

Uh, the girls’ hairstyles ain’t finna be the long and super styled type they oddly always were in their respective shows. Like, they’re superheroes?? While they can have long and styled hair, it’s not really practical. Or at least, I’m convinced not all of them would choose long hair. Skylar would definitely cut hers short, just a bit above her shoulders. Bree would hold on to the long hair a bit, but then she’ll cut it shorter eventually. Ran has always been practical; she knows that hair can be used against her by enemies and can be an inconvenience. So, she’s never grown it out longer than a pixie cut.

THEIR AGES, Y’ALL. Disney is so obsessed with being young that they never let these kids age ㅠㅠ When it begins, Skylar is 17, Bree is 22, Leo is 19, and Oliver is 19. Ran will be 23 when she joins the team. These children will continue to add years to their age. Getting older is just reality and none at all a shameful thing.

Relationships. We’ll talk about that on another post.

All right, that’s it for now. We’ll add more to this universe later.

#Lab Rats #alternate universe #Lab Rats: Elite Force #fancast #is it even that???#Bree Davenport #Leo Dooley #Skylar Storm #Adam Rodriguez #Paris Berelc #Tati Gabrielle #Kelli Berglund #Tyrel Jackson Williams #Jake Short

15 notes · View notes

ivanoconnorhorrorbooks-blog · 6 years

Photo

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” Norman Cousins

Chapter 1

I stared out the window soaking up the majestic beauty of tall fir trees lining the old road. The Great Northwest Country provided shade from the mid-afternoon sunlight, blaring down from an unusually cloudless sky. A thick scent of pine filled the car, a smell usually noticed at Christmas time.

Douglas fir trees. The thought made me smile. It reminded me of watching Twin Peaks with my husband, before things went wrong. I’d been too young to watch the show when it first came out so we caught it just before the new series dropped on Showtime. I’d been taken with the charm, especially after growing up in Washington state.

Agent Cooper drove down a similar road in the show, heading to an imaginary town to solve a murder. He’d been drawn in by the natural beauty of the area, speaking into his tape recorder to remind himself to ask what they called the trees. I wished I had the same enthusiasm for my surroundings.

I honestly believed I’d reached the end of my story before it all came crashing down. Married to someone who seemed wonderful. I had just held a fantastic job with people I enjoyed working with. The next stage sat at the horizon, having kids but fortunately, we didn’t quite get there.

Henry, his friends called him Hank (or Shank during parties with drinking), couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering. I didn’t consider myself perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I never cheated on him. The thought of being with another man hadn’t crossed my mind. Our wedding vows meant something to me, even if he forgot them.

Hank claimed he still loved me, even the day after I caught him screwing a girl fresh out of high school. He told me how much he cared about me in the same breath he confessed having an affair with seven different women this past year. When I asked him why he did it, his shocked expression made me laugh despite the situation.

“They did things you wouldn’t,” Hank replied.

I had to weigh how much I wanted the gritty details of his wrongdoings against a need to know how I’d failed as a wife. Since the first stage of separation for me involved taking the blame. I didn’t know where this wrong-turn in my life came from. My mother certainly didn’t seem like the type of woman to accept responsibility for something like that.

It happened all the same.

“Sexual things?” I asked but immediately shook my head. “No, I don’t want details. I don’t want to know. But you could’ve told me about your fetishes before we took those vows. You could’ve asked some frank questions. Let me know what you wanted to keep satisfied before we joined our lives!”

Hank didn’t have an answer for me. He just said he still loved me and wanted to make it work. But I didn’t possess enough denial of reality to fall back in his arms. On the contrary, my fighting nature made me stubborn and far more harsh than was probably necessary.

He deserved it. My thought turned into a mantra, using it whenever I felt soft hearted about the process of the divorce. I seemed to be at loose ends. Where to live, furniture, career, family. All of it seemed so stable, then suddenly swept away. Hank’s shady activities ruined it all, and starting over from scratch made my head spin.

So I decided to put things off by visiting my father. I couldn’t call it going home because dad sold the place I grew up in. Ivan Peterson, the best selling horror novelist, no longer lived among the rank and file in some normal neighborhood. No, his work had done very well.

Two of his short stories were chosen for some terrifying films. Not a big success with the critics but the producers paid dad a fortune for the rights. The result of his success meant he bought a house on Lake Cavanaugh for just under one million. I visited during the house warming and couldn’t believe the step-up in wealth.

A tiny dock went right into the water from his private part of the beach. The house, a five bedroom oversized cottage, was built with that sort of Northwestern warmth typically reserved for log cabins out in the middle of nowhere. The chimney stonework was modern. A warm heat always radiated from the heavy steel stove, wood logs stayed piled high.

This was exactly like what I needed. A chance to recover from the blows life being thrown my way.

We lost mother several years earlier. Dad stayed quiet about how it happened but she was buried just after I finished nursing school. That had been a rough time, especially when dad started acting more strange about the situation. I had to contact the police to find Mother’s cause of death.

Which explained why dad didn’t want to talk about it. I knew I could be insensitive at times. During my evaluations as a nurse, it proved to be the biggest criticism. The fact I’d been so blind about how my dad dealt with mom’s death frustrated me. I’d hoped to have been far more observant, especially given my original career plan.

Long before I diverted my attention to nursing, I went to college for criminal justice. I even graduated from a fantastic school, the University of Puget Sound, and fully intended to join the police right after. Then I met Hank and he absolutely swept me off my feet.

Hank was charming and sexy, a real gentlemen when we started dating. I couldn’t deny our chemistry. I reserved a spot in the police academy but before I started, I fell hard for him. He’d expressed concern about my chosen career anyway and as things became serious, I swayed to his way of thinking.

I wasn’t asked out by the boys in high school that often. I didn’t blossom until my first year of college and by then, I’d been so used to being plain, hot was beyond comprehension. Nevertheless, I fell into it easily enough. My natural long blonde hair and slender figure seemed to be noticed more. Men weren’t hard to come by, not when they were always expressing interest.

Hank stood apart from other men because he put on a show of how much he admired me. It went beyond physical, at least I thought so. When we started dating, he focused on my intellectual qualities and we really talked. Not the sort of mundane drivel about our days at work or school, but about important topics. World politics, books…it was lovely.

So after a lifetime of wanting to work in law, I turned my attention to a nursing program. Hank worked in commercial real estate and when I got into the work force, we made a comfortable living together. Marriage followed, a mortgage then infidelity. It was as if Hank had a different checklist to follow.

Turned out his father fooled around on his mother so maybe the cheating gene could be inherited.

Being with Hank deadened my natural observation skills, my ability to assess a situation thoughtfully went into hibernation mode. Even after I caught him, it took a couple days to process what happened. Then, it all came back. Razor sharp focus returned as if it had been on vacation somewhere.

That’s when I found the strength to leave, to give Hank hell for what he’d done and ultimately, bury my feelings of betrayal and love beneath a demeanor of a tough exterior. Crying happened at the beginning. Anger took over. The trip to a cozier part of the world was meant to get my life back to the way I wanted.

Which meant getting back my original career choice. I’ve pursued law since I was old enough to talk about jobs.

I worried about seeing dad again. We hadn’t spent any time together since mom’s passing. He tended to keep our interactions to email and the occasional phone call. After my wedding, I assumed he didn’t approve of Hank but then, paranoia suggested he didn’t approve of me either.

He never said it verbally, but I believed he didn’t like the fact I walked away from my original dream. He spoke constantly against compromising. How he got along with my mom baffled me because relationships were about give and take. Growing up, they never seemed to argue but they held to old fashioned beliefs.

That meant any fighting happened behind closed doors. Just stay quiet enough that no one else would be dragged into their affairs. I tried to live by that idea but my passion tended to overcome subtlety. Hank and I got into some pretty loud arguments in our time together, the kind of fights that made the walls vibrate.

Our neighbors in our first apartment must’ve been thrilled.

I rounded the bend and the sight of the lake dragged me back to the present. All negativity faded in light of that beautiful landmark, the trees stretched out in all directions, the water rippled with a gentle breeze all presided over by fluffy white clouds far too happy to rain. I felt tears stain my cheeks just then, a second bout of crying I thought might happen.

I embraced it, letting emotion control me for several minutes. With only the sound of the road as company, I released the ache in my heart. Whether my makeup would survive the encounter was another story, Dad never seemed to notice such things.

His head lived in the dark clouds of horror stories and terror. Perhaps the events of my life for the past few months would inspire a new tale. The thought didn’t make me particularly happy. Despite an obsession with Hemingway, his writing reflected the Stephen King side of the house.

I always knew that if I ended up a character in one of dad’s stories, I must’ve done something truly wrong. So far, I’d avoided the grim fate. I hoped to continue the luck going forward. Maybe reconnecting would settle my mind about how the old man felt about me. It seemed a worthy goal as I started a new phase of my life.

***

#TheFinalLetters #IvanOconnor

270 notes · View notes

orcinus-ocean · 5 years

Video

youtube

Pit Bulls Unleashed: My dissection (part 1)

So, I said I was going to tear this documentary apart, and now I’ve finally got the time to do it. I quit watching after less than 15 minutes the first time because I thought “I need to make a review and write it as I watch”. So here you go.

(After a while I realized I would have to split it into several parts, because it’s already getting too long and no one would read any longer than this.)

Disclaimer about sensitivity: This film deals with the very real tragedy of a child being violently killed, and the trauma the babysitter suffered. I in no way wish to be disrespectful to this. I am not a parent myself, I have no idea what it’s like to lose a child, let alone in such a brutal way, and I have never been present for a brutal attack or death. That however, does not mean people in shock and grief know what they are talking about, and if I hear them saying false, misleading or ridiculous things, I will correct it, but that is all in the interest of getting to honesty and truth, not dancing on a poor child’s grave or their grief. So I don’t need comments telling me how insensitive I am.

The film opens with a real emergency call of a woman screaming about two pit bulls attacking a child, cuts to footage with blood in the snow, then cuts to the same woman saying to the camera that she would "never have imagined in a million years that my dog - my PET - would attack me, and kill a child".

It cuts to the child's father graphically describing the sight of his son after the attack, with a picture of the toddler before it happened.

Overall, with the choice of clips and music, I get a very “modern sensationalist drama-docu feel”, similar to Blackfish and Fatal Attractions.

The first scene depicts about 30 dogs (a dozen of which being "pit bull type dogs") from a shelter in California being welcomed in Calgary. The organizer of this move explains they are taking in dogs on “death row”, that no one has so far shown interest in adopting, and if they didn’t take them, the dogs would be dead. (Then the narrator says these airlifts are done by an “animal rights group” - I think he’s a bit confused about what that term means.)

It cuts to a promotion video showing the pit bull as a perfect family pet, as well as celebrities owning and promoting pit bulls, including Cesar Millan explaining how he raised his kids around pit bulls, and that he hasn’t had a negative story with them.

It then cuts back to the woman in the intro, Susan, saying she used to watch Dog Whisperer before getting "the puppies", and that the show and number of celebrities getting pit bulls was important in convincing her that the dogs were safe.

This is warning sign number #1 to me. They thought the breed must be fine, because "X celebrity has them". I've watched most Dog Whisperer episodes, and in every single one it says "don't try this at home", but I also know how much the average Joe doesn't understand at all what's going on in the show, and so they think they can deal with a dog and be more likely to end up being Mr Millan 2, than one of the horrible cases he deals with (and typically, the cases he works with did watch his show, they just didn’t get the message at all or misinterpreted it horribly).

I may be reading too much into it, but it feels like she’s blaming Cesar for her failure. Meanwhile, he has a vast pack of dogs, maybe half of them pit bulls, often with bad stories, and they never attack each other or a human. He said the breed is fine, he never said every single person can own them. He even lists them among what he calls the “powerful breeds” frequently.

It then cuts to big warning sign #2 for me, as the narrators say how Susan and her boyfriend “adopted two puppies” crossed between pit bull and staffordshire terrier. I couldn’t believe it when I first watched and I hope it’s taken out of context, because it shows puppies maybe 3, 4 weeks old in her arms, and being fed milk in a bowl.

Again, I hope this is out of context and it doesn’t mean that a person with perhaps no dog experience took in these young puppies without a mother, but what’s certain is they took two littermates (or puppies the same age), and raised them together.

That is a horrible idea, as everyone with dog experience knows. You never buy two puppies at once, because you can’t influence them as well as if you had them one-on-one, or only with older dogs. And if she really did take them at barely a month old, that is another huge alarm bell going off.

An animal taken prematurely from its mother will not be as mentally sound as if it had a mother. A human can never do the job as well as a mother of their own species. Let alone a human that perhaps never owned dogs before.

I’m already not surprised it went the way it did. And of course she’ll blame the dogs.

She goes on about how the dogs were trained, socialized with other dogs, how friends’ kids would come over, and that the dogs were loved. I don’t doubt this at all. But this is the common error people make - they think that in order for a dog to attack, they must be abused. So in her mind (perhaps), if the dogs weren’t abused, and they did attack, it must be the breed’s fault.

This is entirely false. All it takes is an owner who misunderstands and disrespects the animal’s nature, and with her ignorance displayed so far, that’s pretty obvious to me.

She sounds exasperated at the fact that the dogs were cuddling with her in her bed “that morning”, and it again cuts to the image of the toddler boy, Dax.

The narrator explains how, on the morning of March 6th, 2013, Susan was babysitting Dax as she had many times before, and it cuts to his dad, Jeff, describing his boy. The narrator then explains how that morning, Susan let the dogs out while holding Dax, and that within seconds, the dogs went “from pets to predators”.

"They just kept coming at us, and Dax... they pulled him out of my arms, and...“

I wasn’t there, no one but her was there, to my knowledge there is no footage of the event, but what I can guess at is that the two dogs - brought up together as puppies by an inexperienced owner, perhaps allowed to jump and lick and play very “rambuctiously”, because she thought they were “perfectly safe” (no dog is “perfectly safe”, unless it’s a 15 year old Chihuahua with no teeth), were running around, playing, engaging in normal predator-play fight behavior between each other.

Then they went over to Susan and Dax, and started jumping on her in a “playful” manner, and she held Dax back (again, this is all speculation), something people almost always do when holding a child and dogs interfere.

What happens then is as you move the child (same if you’re holding an object, like food), it becomes a target. As it moves away, the dogs want to follow, and have it more. Then the two of them would have been jumping on her, still in predator-play/fight mode, and it switched very quickly from play to reality, to adult predator mode.

I said it the other day in the other post, I’ll say it again, because people need to get it - dogs are not rational.

DOGS. ARE. NOT. FURRY. HUMANS.

In 2012, a case happened in Sweden that could have led to a death, but didn’t. Two Alaskan malamutes were out running in the forest, far away from their (irresponsible) owner. The dogs came upon a few women riding horses, and so chased the horses (prey animal). The horses bolted, and eventually, one of the riders jumped off as she could not control her horse, and the dogs proceeded to savage her.

She survived, but both dogs were killed. The owner faced no charges. Of course. It’s what always often happens. I was enormously frustrated at this, becuase most likely, there was nothing wrong with the dogs. Nothing at all.

They were just predators (malamutes have this stronger than many other breeds, and they are very large and powerful, but all dogs have it to some extent) running together in the forest (pack behavior, egging each other on to a state neither dog could have been on their own), they found large prey animals, they chased the prey animals, all these hormones would be coursing through their systems, preparing them for “the kill”, and then a human fell to the ground.

At that point, all rationality, all the years they’ve spent being loved by humans and perhaps never showing aggression even once, go out the window. The human is now just a piece of meat on the ground, a prey that has fallen. The dogs might have been completely normal, they just ended up in the wrong situation, because of a stupid, reckless owner, who went unpunished and could then go and just buy another two large, powerful dogs and set them loose in the forest and the same thing would happen again.

(Also in Sweden at the time, debates emerged about “Is the Alaskan malamute a dangerous breed?” Because apparently, there are “dangerous breeds”, and there are “safe breeds“, but that’s for later.)

Fredrik Steen, Sweden’s #1 “dog expert” said the following (translated by me): “We [in Sweden] romanticize dogs way too much. We forget that we’re dealing with predators, we don’t understand that basically all dogs are fully capable of doing this.”

Back to the film.

It cuts back to the original emergency call, with Susan screaming hysterically and crying for an ambulance.

Jeff explains how he was notified that Dax had been "bitten" and was taken to the hospital, and he thought "it's a dog bite, I was bitten by dogs before, how bad could it be?"

He describes that as he arrived at the hospital, he saw Dax being given CPR, and how his face was “just gone, from here - down, was just mangled”, and “there was blood everywhere”. The doctors could not save him.

I am making my own records from the list of “fatal dog attacks in the United States” on Wikipedia, and by March 6th, 2013, I find this, with more details of the attack than in the film:

When babysitter, baby in her arms she went out into her backyard let her two 45 lb. , they became "nippy", jumping up at the pair, so she batted them off. The dogs then attacked, and bit & scratched her, shredding her clothing and knocking her down, causing the boy to hit the ground, whereupon the dogs attacked him. The babysitter tried unsuccessfully to stop the attack, and redirect the dogs' attack onto her.

So I was right in my speculation that the dogs started by jumping and switched from previous play behavior to predatory behavior.

A neighbor heard screams but did nothing as he thought it was kids having a snowfight. She got the child away from the dogs and called 911 but left the baby unattended & totally naked on a cold hardwood floor. The boy was taken by ambulance to the hospital, and by helicopter from the hospital to a medical center later that day, where he was pronounced dead of dog attack. Before the attack, the veterinarian center where they had been spayed, neutered, and otherwise cared for had not seen them as dangerous, but one was described as "standoffish" while at the facility. The owner said she had got the three-year-old dogs as puppies and that they had never shown signs of aggression. After the attack, the dogs were euthanized and tested negative for rabies, and the authorities decided not to press charges against the babysitter.

They decided it was not her fault at all, while I often see these cases (again, in the list of cases in America) ending up charging the owners for “criminally negligent manslaughter” or similar things.

She went off completely free, despite it being her dogs, her responsibility, and she put the child in this situation. Maybe the dogs needed to be killed, I don’t know, but I think it’s a disgusting tendency (also seen in said list), where dogs are killed immediately, with no evaluation, but the owner goes free without any charges.

And as for what the film does, this is a very common tactic. A film brings up a highly emotional, devastating anecdote, and tries to use it as their #1 argument. And the thing is that it works, because humans are emotional beings. We’re not as irrational as dogs, but we’re still mainly guided by emotion.

If the film instead had said “in the years 2000-2015, X number of children were killed by pit bulls”, it wouldn’t at all have had the same effect as this one case did, showing it in such detail, talking about the boy’s personality and showing his pictures and footage. Documentaries on pit bull and “dangerous dogs” almost always do this.

While of course the long list of cases where labs and huskies (or other “non-controversial” breeds) kill children, are completely irrelevant. If they had made a documentary about “killer labs”, and brought up one of these cases in the same way, it probably wouldn’t have had the same effect, because the cultural narrative is that “pit bull = baby eating devil dog”.

The film explains the same thing, how Susan was found “not to be at fault”, and Jeff goes on to say how she didn’t do anything wrong, because “she didn’t abuse ‘em, the dogs were in good health”. This again. I’m finding it very difficult to be respectful right now, because grief doesn’t excuse you saying ridiculous, damaging things on TV.

I’ll repeat myself: You do not need to abuse, starve, beat or train a dog to fight in order for it to attack someone. Doesn’t matter if it’s a pit bull or another breed. All it takes is an owner disrespecting the predatory nature of dogs and being the type of person who would say “I would never in a million years have imagined this!”

If you say that, you are the problem, not the dog. However, pit bulls are large, powerful terriers with a very intact killing instinct towards other animals, and it makes it even more important that they aren’t placed with these idiot owners who think dogs are just living teddy bears/furbabies.

“They were good-natured dogs until the day they weren’t” Jeff says - spoken as a true ignorant person who doesn’t understand animal behavior.

Susan then says "Who wants to admit for even a second that their family pet could kill one of their family members?"

I do. No hesitation.

^ See this guy? This is my dog. Eight and a half year old Mallorcan bulldog, distant cousin to other bulldogs and mastiffs. People who see him would think he’s a pit x rottie mix. He’s bigger than a retriever, and a very serious guard dog. I raised him from a puppy, my first own puppy.

I trained bite inhibition with him from the start. He never bit a human in aggression, in fact after about 10-12 months of age, he never bit me even in play, unless I simply got in the way when he was chewing a stick or something. My mistake, not his. He knows not to ever bite people.

I trust him with my life, as a highly loyal guard dog, who loves us and takes his job very seriously. Does that mean I think he’s a “human”, my “furbaby” and that he could never act irrationally, or out of character? Absolutely not.

When he was living with my man and his family for a while, my sister-in-law had a baby. I told my man to not let Wikus (the dog) in the room with the baby for any reason. I don’t mean “unsupervised”, I mean at all.

He was six years old then, never showed aggression to a child in his life, in fact he lets neighborhood kids hug and pet him, under my strict supervision, and has been around my sister’s young kids, just calmly ignoring them. I trust him with me. I didn’t trust the people he was with, including my dear man, to read him right and be able to predict the situation. Wikus was fine with kids, but he had never seen a baby before, and I wasn’t there to judge the situation. (Also, Wikus was not himself while living there and started attacking cats, after years of being completely fine with cats when with me.)

I’m not going to be so stupid as to think “he’s a nice dog!” and leave it at that. Or feel a need to “prove” how “sweet” he is and let him nuzzle the baby.

So what do I do, briefly, do make sure my dog doesn’t hurt anyone?

It sounds nebulous and abstract, but I “respect him as a dog”. I realize he’s a 70 pound case of muscles and teeth, and could do terrible damage in the right (wrong) circumstances. I realize he has strong protective instincts of the pack and territory, and though he has never shown predatory behavior, he still has the wild dog or wolf inside, buried very deep down.

I obedience- and recall-train. I only have him loose when other people and dogs aren’t around.

If I thought he was dangerous, as a dog that might actually go after another animal or person (and you need to know this about your dog), I wouldn’t have him loose in an unfenced area at all. (This might sound confusing. If I thought he had a 1% chance of attacking someone, I wouldn’t have him off leash. I don’t think there’s a 0.1% chance even, but it still exists in all dogs. Not all dogs are equally dangerous, but the risk is never exactly zero.)

I made sure to socialize him with kids as a puppy, but in later years I’ve sometimes said no to kids asking to pet him, because while I can account for my dog, I can’t account for their behavior, and kids often don’t listen.

I do play tug-o-war with him, especially when he was younger, but it was always strictly structured and I needed him to have an “off-button”. As soon as I say stop, he stops, as soon as I tell him to let go (of the rope or stick), he lets go. If he has an object he wants (anything), he drops it when I ask him to.

Structure the walk. People let their dogs leave the house when over-excited, and that’s the mindset that sets up the rest of the walk.

Build a working relationship with the dog, beyond “he’s my baby and I luv him and he’s so sweet and would never hurt a living soul”, because you don’t know that.

Susan continues; “Who wants to for a single second think that that's possible? Think that that could be a reality? I know I certainly didn't. I never would have imagined in a million years before this that my dog, my pet, would attack me, and kill a child.”

I hate to say it, but she is exactly what is wrong with this breed. People who are this ignorant, this naive, and this careless. And then either they or other people go on to blame the breed.

Years ago on a dog forum, I saw someone say, and this may seem ridiculous to some, but I like it: “Better to think you have a lion on the leash and act accordingly, than to think you have a lamb.”

That is exactly what a lot of dog owners think, perhaps especially pit bull owners. They need to prove to the world that their dog is actually a lamb, and when this woman failed, she blamed the breed, she blamed people like Cesar Millan for speaking highly of the breed, she blamed everyone but herself, because it couldn’t possibly be her mistake!

I often hear the same from people campaigning against exotic pets. They’re a failed owner, and so the animal must be banned. “If I couldn’t do it, and I’m so awesome, then obviously everyone must be at least as crap as I was!” Extremely arrogant and naive.

Listen, mistakes happen. Sometimes tragic, fatal mistakes. I don’t want hate on her, I don’t want her thrown in jail, but I want her and others like her to take some responsibility. Because if they refuse to admit their own mistake, they are doomed to repeat it.

You can never make sure something like this attack never happens again, you can’t insure the world against mistakes and human error, but you can take actions to prevent a lot of them. And the first part of that is educating yourself.

Don’t be like these people.

Part 2

Part 3

#pitbulls #Pit Bulls Unleashed #documentary #dangerous dogs #pit bulls

82 notes · View notes

padasteph-nie · 6 years

Text

The Fourth Wall

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Vaewolves and Broken Glass

Characters: Stephanie (OC), Sam Winchester, and Dean Winchester

Pairings: Sam x Stephanie (still unofficial)

Word Count: 2,433

Warnings: Reality shifts and fight scene. Character injury.

A/N: I know what you’re thinking.. when is this going to end. Soon, very soon.

The Fourth Wall - Masterlist

Stephanie’s Point of View

We all loaded into the car, I took it upon myself to sit in the back. I needed all the solitude I could get. Sam already had his worried look on his face, and I knew that meant he was going to be looking back on me every minute or so.

I decided to go back over the photos first. I pulled up the picture of the house. I closed my eyes and I could see it plain as day. The tall, blue house was sitting on a corner lot. I tried to concentrate, blocking out the sound of the roaring engine in front of us. It didn’t take long before my mind sucessfully drowned out the sounds. I felt like I was there, in the picture. I walked into the back door, somehow knowing the front would be locked. I explored the place with ease, knowing each turn and where it would lead. I went up the stairs, two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a den. One room was definitely a kid’s room, and it was shared. I was beginning to think this house belonged to the people I didn’t recognize in my photo album. I went back down the stairs and into the dining room. I stood there, realizing how real this all felt. My head felt dizzy, so I shook it a little to hopefully lessen the feeling. When I set myself straight again, I noticed a family picture. It was definitely the people in the photos. Same guy; tall, blue-green eyes and a full beard. The two boys and…

“Stephanie, hey. Hey! Are you with me?” Sam’s voice woke me out of my trance.

Dean was staring at me through the rear-view mirror. “You just passed out. Are you okay?” His eyes went back to the road, but I could see there was deep concern in them.

We pulled into an empty lot, covered by trees. Dean shut his headlights off. “We are here already?” I felt like only a minute or so had passed, but it had been fifteen minutes.

Dean turned off the engine, “Stephanie, I don’t think you should come in.”

Sam looked at him like he was insane, “Dean, we can’t leave her out here alone. This place could be crawling with vaewolves.”

I looked at Sam, scared, but I knew Dean was right. “I’ll just stay out here and keep doing some research. I mean, let’s be honest, not one of us remembers me doing much hunting. How I’ve survived these last few hunts has got to be a miracle.”

Sam clenched his jaw, knowing we were right. It was obvious he didn’t like the idea. “Okay, but I’m keeping my phone on ring.” He checked his phone, “we have service out here. If you even feel uncomfortable in the slightest, call me. I won’t even answer, I’ll just come straight out.”

Dean got out and opened the trunk. I heard him rummage through it and load a gun. Silver bullets I assumed. He closed the trunk and came around to Sam, who was still sitting in the front seat, staring at me like a fragile, lost child. “She’s gonna be fine, Sam. She’s a hunter. She will call if she needs us.” Dean handed Sam a machete.

Sam sighed and opened his door. He reached back and pulled me to him, kissing me on the forehead. “Please be on high alert. Please?” He begged.

I nodded and watched as he got out of the car to join Dean. They headed off into the trees. I suddenly realized how bad of an idea this was. It was late evening, and the only sound was a light breeze blowing through the trees in the dark, wooded lot.

I needed to continue looking into all of this stuff, but I didn’t want to use my phone and draw attention to myself with the light. So instead, I cracked open the book. I observed the handwriting, cursive and, honestly, a little sloppy. I hardly ever wrote in cursive, except for when I was trying to make a journal pretty, or signing something. I’ve always hated my cursive writing. I found my marked page. It was dark, and I almost couldn’t see, but it was just light enough, and I began reading:

Sorry I haven’t wrote in a few days, I’ve just been really down. I’m not sure why this diagnosis is affecting me so much. I always wondered if something wasn’t right, but I’m so used to being me, ya know? Do you remember back when I had just graduated, and I went and seen that psychiatrist? Probably not, I only did two counseling sessions and that was it. But the psychiatrist said I had manic depression. At the time I thought that it was a mild form of depression, because I had only heard of major depressive disorder. So, I assumed if it wasn’t major, then it was minor. Well at my last appointment, when I was diagnosed, the doctor said manic depression is what they used to call bipolar disorder. So, this isn’t the first time I’ve been diagnosed apparently.

Anyway, I guess that doesn’t matter. It kinda sucks that we moved out here in the middle of nowhere after I found out. Don’t get me wrong, I love this tiny town, but the timing was off. I could really use a friend. I’m glad I have you, it’s a good escape from the real world. I’m actually really proud of this move. I finally got away from the hustle and bustle of being in a city where I was always expected to be directly involved with the family. My family is great, but I’m an introvert, which I’m sure you’ve figured out by now. I mean, you’re my main source of socializing. Like I said though, I love this tiny town.

Nothing makes me happier than taking my two boys outside on a summer day here. Right outside the back door is a small deck, and in the summer, Dustin likes to cook out and we eat on our patio set and watch the boys play. He is such a good dad, and husband. I still can’t believe I snagged this tall, blue-green eyed man. His beard is a little much at times, but I like more facial hair than not. But on days like today, I try to think of all this stuff. When I’m feeling like I don’t really care about my life, I try to think of my kids. They are so cute, and so young. We just put our oldest in Pre-Kindergarten this year. I don’t want to miss anything, ya know. I’m not even thirty yet. It’s amazing we’ve already bought a house. Five years ago, I would have been shocked to know we’d have two kids and live in this adorable, tall, blue house. Once we got the windows put in, the white trim really made it look nice. And in the spring, the little tree in the front yard blooms tiny pink flowers. I’m really lucky. I shouldn’t dwell so much on having a diagnosis, it doesn’t change anything. Thanks for this, I really needed to vent and get my mind on track.

I slowly closed the book, my mind was racing. I opened my phone and pulled up the pictures again. The man, tall with blue-green eyes and a full beard. The young boys, like I said, no older than six. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, but I was feeling nauseous. I went to text Sam but something else happened. I looked up and I wasn’t in the Impala anymore. I looked back down at my phone. Same phone, but instead it was opened to a text conversation I was having with someone named Dustin. It hit me, Dustin wasn’t a hunter that I met randomly and just kept his number for emergencies. Dustin was the guy in this story. Those kids are his kids, and that house is his house. I looked around me, I was back in that very house. I went into the dining room to find that picture. I grabbed it off the shelf it sat on, and I glared at it, in shock. There was a woman in the photo, I didn’t see her last time. This was the woman that wrote the books. It had to be her. The only thing was, she looked eerily like… me.

I dropped the picture, shattering it on the floor. I sat down, to prevent myself from falling. “Wake up, wake up!” I yelled to myself. I picked up my phone to call Sam, each ring making me feel more and more alone. I was hoping he’d come out to the car and get me out of this trance before it went to voicemail. He didn’t. The voicemail wasn’t even his… It was Dustin’s. “Wake up, please wake up.” I looked down at the shards of glass in front of me. I couldn’t help but think this was a way out. I needed to wake up. I picked up a large piece, and squeezed it tightly in my hand. I screamed and winced in pain, dropping the glass. When I looked down to view the piece of glass, I wasn’t looking at the carpeted dining room. All I could see were the floor boards in the Impala. “It worked.” But my mind went back to the pain, my hand was cut deeply.

I heard my phone go off, and I looked down at it. It was a message from Dustin, 'Please, don’t do anything else. I’m leaving work now. I’ll be there soon.' My mind was lost between two worlds. I examined my surroundings, and found that the back window of the Impala was broken. I couldn’t remember how. Was it me? Did I break the window? Did something attack me?

I decided it was better to find Sam and Dean, I’d be safer with them. I got out of the car, not even bothering to shut the door. I ran into the wooded area, and it wasn’t long before I found the nest. It was a house, and by the sounds of it, Sam and Dean were already in kill mode. I slowly approached the house, still holding pressure to my hand. I had to tend to the wound, I couldn’t walk in there fighting with my hands clasped together. I let go, watching the blood pool in my palm. I lifted my flannel to my mouth, bit down, and tore a piece of fabric off of it, and tied it tightly around my hand.

I circled the place, until I found a branch laying on the ground. I broke off a piece after jumping on it a few times. I was armed to my best and ready to join the fight. I crept up to the door and slowly opened it. There was blood everywhere, vaewolves laying dead, their heads cut off. All except two. Sam and Dean were each on one. Approaching the closest one with its back to me, it was the one Sam was fighting. It didn’t even realize I was behind it until Dean yelled, “STEPHANIE! WATCH OUT!” I turned around to a third vaewolf, and before I could swing the branch, it slashed its claws across my arm, and I fell to the ground in pain.

“NO!” Sam yelled, decapitating his vaewolf with one swift strike of his machete. Dean had already shot his and was after the one that had attacked me. Sam ran and slid to my side, “Hey, you okay? Let me see it.” I pulled my arm away from chest to expose the slashes across my arm. “We need to stitch these up!” he immediately got up and started to look for supplies.

“Sam, listen.” I winced, trying to sit up.

“No, lay down! Don’t move.” He demanded.

“Sam, I think I figured it out.” I tried to explain over his mindless rummaging.

“We don’t have time for this right now, Stephanie.” He walked back over to me, “We have to go back to the car, there are first aid supplies in there.” He lifted me up and pushed my arm against my chest. “Try to keep your arm there, it will slow the bleeding.”

“Sam, the book. The pictures, there is a link. The house is her house. The man is her husband, and the kids are her kids.

Sam kept leading me out the door and through the trees. “That’s impossible, how would you have real pictures of fictional characters?” He asked, not really putting thought into it.

“I don’t think they are fictional.” I waited for a response.

Sam stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me. “Where is the book?” He put his hands on my shoulders. Before I could answer he yelled at me, “WHERE IS THE BOOK, STEPHANIE?”

“Calm down! It’s in the car.” I replied. Sam took off running, and I followed as best as I could with my arm against my chest. “What’s going on? Why do you need the book?” Sam ignored the smashed window and the fact that the door was left open. He reached in, grabbed the book and walked around to the back of the car. He flung open the trunk, and opened the book, laying it flat in front of him. “What are you doing? Sam, I need to you to help me with my arm.”

Sam continued to ignore me and pulled out the box of our fake I.D.s and badges. He grabbed them out, a handful at a time, until he found one of mine. He laid it out next to the book. “That’s it!” He yelled. “Stephanie, what is the main character’s name in your book?”

I walked over to look closer at what he had found. I tried to remember, but I couldn’t recall her name. “I’m not sure. I don’t think she ever says.”

“I didn’t think so. She wouldn’t need to.” Sam pulled me against him and brought the badge to my view. “Look at your signature.” I looked at it, still missing what he was getting at. He reached down and grabbed the book, “look at the handwriting, Stephanie. That is your handwriting.”

I compared them closely and gasped. Just then, we heard footsteps coming from the trees. “Please tell me that is Dean,” I whispered. I turned to look at Sam and he was gone. It was like he dissipated on the spot. “Sam?” I walked around the car and hid behind the open door.

“Stephanie?” A voice called, “Oh my God, no. Please, Stephanie!” Before I could see who it was, I fell faint to the ground, broken glass shattering into smaller pieces beneath me.

@dstrehlo

@vampirebunni

@lefthologramdeer

@fluffy-metal-kitten

#The Fourth Wall #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural #fanfiction #series #my first series #sam #sammy #sam winchester #dean #dean winchester

3 notes · View notes

theteenagetrickster · 4 years

Text

21 Savage's R&B Love Affair Is A ReflectIon Of The Evolved "Gangster Rapper"

In November of 2019, artist 21 Savage spoke to hundreds of Atlanta students about the dangers of gun violence. The speech was part of Fulton county’s “Guns Down, Heads Up” program. An initiative to curtail the rising number of illegal firearms in the community. During a local news feature, he explained that urging area youth to be wise in not resorting to guns was his mission. However, his single “Immortal” which was released just 20 days prior had a different message. “Brand new Mac-90 with the drum attached, you a shit talker we got drums for that. Tryna fist fight boy you dumb for that. You gone catch a bullet in yo long for that.”

Can a hardcore rapper grow as a person, as a man, as a member of his community - yet still let his music promote the darkness of his past?

What happens when a man with a troubled past embraces his mortality and refuses to wallow in the same mentality that resulted in the very pain he once sought to escape?

Is society receptive to the duality of a black man finding the silver lining in his suffering, dealing with the convolution and weight of surviving life in the hood?

If you never cared to learn more about 21 Savage you may have these and other questions. Yet, given the effort, you’d quickly find that the man behind the microphone is more complex than can be understood simply by taking his music at face value. It requires a fair analysis of the environment in which he was born. The environment he references in music. Through his words, though sometimes corrupt, Savage has constructed a platform. In the 27-year old’s maturation, he continues to use that platform to make a change, perhaps the only way he knows how. This while still healing from a past that likely haunts him.

Patrisse Cullors, Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter presents 21 Savage with an award at the NILC Courageous Luminaires Awards, October 2019 - Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for NILC

In an interview with Genius, 21 Savage said, “Words are powerful. You have to be mindful of how you use them. I’m a rapper, so yeah, I’m going to rap about certain shit - but that’s entertainment. That’s music. That’s my past life. When it comes to what I’m doing in these streets as like a man. Fuck a rapper. Just me as a man and what I stand for, don’t throw dirt on that because that’s like a big accomplishment.”

21 Savage leaped onto hip-hop’s proverbial stage, the light finally shimmering on a sound once dimly lit in almost hidden crevices of SoundCloud. If The Slaughter Tape catapulted Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph onto that stage his soon-to-follow EP Savage Mode was the crowd surfing frog splash off of it. The hip-hop community had embraced him. Each project he’s released since has pitted him deeper and deeper into the modern-day pop-culture lexicon. The Slaughter Tape featured a hardcore, gritty production style, heavily fleeced with 808s and a dark ominous undertone. Listening to the early Savage catalog feels like you’re walking into the belly of the slums. His menacing voice and catchy ad-libs rattle your eardrums from start to finish as he uniquely tells his story.

Back in the early days of his emergence, 21 Savage was lauded for his hardcore street, oftentimes violence ladened lyrics. Praising the gang lifestyle and endorsing problematic behavior. Behavior young men feel forced into because of the realities of living in a socioeconomically challenged neighborhood. As time fell through the hourglass on 21 Savage’s career, his tune has started to shift. Both in his outward demeanor and in his music. Perhaps it even softened.

On his most recent album, I am > I was, he goes in-depth about the tumultuous relationship with his father, losing loved ones and the pain of heartbreak. As the title would suggest Savage’s second studio album signifies a turning point in his life. Seeking to be a better artist and a better man than he once was. For his endeavors in proliferation the rapper was rewarded with a Grammy nomination for Rap Album of the Year.

“I just feel like I’m becoming a better person. My music is just getting better. Learning the game better, learning how to move, learning how to create - everything’s just growing.”

“I might rap about a lot of stuff, but that’s just a reflection about what I’ve been through. But in real life, everything I do is positive.”

For someone who has been through so much, it’s great to see a man able to freely express himself. His ups and downs. Both his unrestrained joy and his pain. On a 2018 Breakfast Club interview, Savage admitted that “sometimes he cries” when reflecting on the passing of a friend. DJ Envy followed his statement up by saying “the fact that you said you cry is good because a lot of people will never admit that they cry.” The Atlanta-raised rapper then says “That Jeezy and Keisha Cole song, "Dreaming," I don’t care where I’m at if that song comes on I’m going to cry.”

It was here that we realized 21 Savage, like many of us, uses music to mend emotional scars - which would explain his love affair with singing R&B. Music often acts as an emotional ointment, just as 21 Savaged described in this interview. It helps us to process our traumas. For black people, music is sometimes the only therapy we ever had. In many cases, it is the only way we were able to process the things we went through. Have you ever been to a party or a gathering and that classic R&B song plays that calls up so many emotions? We, as African-Americans, don’t simply experience music - we escape into it. Losing ourselves in the words and the melody. Hoping for a momentary fix from reality. For black men, we deserve the chance to be free of the stereotypes that chain us to a nonexpressive mascot-like existence.

21 Savage at his "Hot Boyz" Birthday Bash, October 2019 - Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

In the same interview, Savage admitted that he had been to therapy. Imagine a 90’s gangster rapper talking about therapy in a radio interview. As we’ve become a more conscious and progressive community in hip-hop, much of the facade has melted away and we accept these men as human beings who have experienced real things that take a toll on them - not these beacons of hyper-masculinity. We see evidence of this in today’s “gangster rapper.”

Savage speaks on this candidly in his writings:

“I done did a lot in these streets and that’s facts. PTSD like I came from Iraq.”

“I lost all my friends countin' bands in the Bentley coupe

Diamonds on me doin' handstands, Rosé on my tooth

If she wanna dance, let her dance for the money, ooh

I don't need no friends if you really wanna know the truth.”

In the Summer of 2018 Savage began frequently posting himself singing on Instagram’s Story feature. He sang everything from The Weeknd to R. Kelly to SWV. Bellowing his heart out. The selection a testament to his wide range of musical tastes. This past Summer the rapper claimed “I’m singing R&B this time on tour,” in an Instagram post. Savage stated that singing clears his mind. So, these internet karaoke sessions may be part medicine, part liberation. Signs of his internal cultivation.

Men are freer now to express themselves. To be open with their feelings and show a softer side. 21 Savage is an example of this. We as a society have moved toward allowing men the opportunity to be human. To be tender and vulnerable creatures, while still endorsing their masculinity. Breaking down the barriers of masculinity has been tougher than knocking down the Berlin Wall within the tribe of hip-hop. Misconceptions of male identity have long contributed to a hyper-aggressive culture of male behavior. Many times men are incredibly pensive because they’re asked by society to partake in this play where their role is merely the beast. 21 Savage's exterior may present a hardcore gangster rapper. Now we’re seeing a softer side of Savage. Growth is the companion of time and 21 Savage isn’t the same person that scrapped and crawled his way out of the trenches. He’s a greater version of that.

21 Savage’s journey exemplifies the dichotomy that exists in rap. He wants desperately to help his community and his actions show that. But his music is still filled with violence and belligerence. The Grammy nominee’s infatuation with R&B is a sign that he’s torn about the content in his music. On one hand, it propelled him to stardom, on the other hand, it goes against the things he seems to stand for. But the stories in his music make up who he is. Without the horrors of his past, Savage may not be here to share the journey.

Savage takes his fandom of R&B to the next level by more frequently singing on his music, too. Issa Album explored this on tracks "Facetime" and "Special." In "Special," thanks to auto-tuning, he gifts us with a silky vocal arrangement. On his 2019 album, I am > I was, 21 Savage had a few tracks on which he sings in a contemporary R&B style. He later hopped on several prominent R&B remixes; Jhene Aiko's "Triggered," a song in November with Alicia Keys and Miguel titled "Show Me Love," as well as Normani's "Motivation." There may be more of an audience for 21 Savage ballads than there were for former generations of gangster rap. In what many call the golden era of hip-hop, for two decades, gangster rappers really carried the genre. But I would argue, few of the most influential artists in the past 10 years have been hardcore rap artists. Gangster rappers have had to evolve and adjust with the times in order to survive.

21 Savage isn't alone either. Other rappers known for abrasive style and content like NBA YoungBoy and Kodak Black are showing their more vulnerable sides nowadays. Last year Kodak released HeartBreak Kodak, a project filled with songs of love's enmity. HipHopDX called the album "808s & Heartbreak meets the trap." Needless to say, it was heavily R&B influenced. NBA YoungBoy made waves with his release of "Dirty Iyanna," Michael Jackon’s "Dirty Diana" reimagined. The track features YoungBoy singing feverishly in auto-tune under the iconic baseline. Social changes and advancements in technology have made creatives that never would’ve sung in generations past empowered to give it a shot.

21 Savage gives out a plate of food during his YMCA Thanksgiving Dinner, November 2019 - Prince Williams/Wireimage/Getty Images

It's a proverb of the duplicity that exists in hip-hop and the evolution of the "gangster" rapper. Savage has several different community initiatives where he focuses on giving back. From hosting charity dinners to giving away school supplies in his old neighborhood. After his run-in with ICE and threat of deportation, Savage is now even advocating for immigrant children. It also highlights the line between art and reality. To quote 21 Savage one final time, “This is art, so how the fuck you gone tell me how to express myself - it ain’t no right or wrong way to be a hip-hop artist.”'

If you liked this, check out:

This content was originally published here.

1 note · View note

senatorrorgana · 7 years

Text

Bundle - Two

a/n: i tried not to take too long with updating this, i don't know how many days it's been, but it's fairly close together i think? either way, hope you guys enjoy this.

pairing: rebelcaptain

rating: t

ao3: (x)

Cassian held Kestrel in his arms, returning from a mission earlier that day and unable to sleep despite Jyn being curled up beside him and letting him know he made it back safe. She was still fast asleep in bed, hoarding all the blankets and pillows to make up for his absence beside her while he sat in the corner by Kaytoo, the droid having gone into rest mode after Cassian insisted he’d be up with Kestrel for a while.

Sometimes he still couldn’t fathom just how something so tiny like his little girl could be a living and breathing thing. Kestrel was a few months old now, still too small and fragile for the harsh world they lived in, but she seemed to be fairing better in the cold corridors of Echo Base than most people. Kaytoo said it was because she was born here, that she was acclimating to the cold weather easier since this is the only environment she’s ever known; Cassian handled it fairly well since he grew up on Fest, and while Jyn was born on Vallt, she seemed to deal with the cold the worst out of all of them. Despite being so young and so small, she was going to be the strongest of all of them when she grew up.

“Cassian?” Jyn mumbled, breaking the silence of the room and stirring in bed.

Jyn sat up slowly, her hair a bit of a mess and the sheets all bunched up around her, Cassian couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“I didn’t hear her cry.” Jyn said, stretching a bit now and taking notice of the sleeping form in his arms.

“She didn’t. I couldn’t sleep and Kay needed a break to charge his batteries, I figured I’d spend some time with her.” Cassian shrugged.

“You could have woke me up.” Jyn offered. “I’d have talked if you wanted that, or just stayed up.”

“You need all the sleep you can get, you’re with this little one most of the time, Kay’s told me about her not wanting to sleep lately when she’s supposed to.” Cassian said.

“Did he also tell you that he thinks that it’s my rebellious genes that are making her do that?” Jyn asked with a smirk.

“No, he left that part out.” Cassian laughed slightly, trying not to disturb Kestrel. “I’ll have to tell him tomorrow though that I distinctly remember hating going to sleep when I was little, she probably gets that from me.”

“You still don’t like sleeping even now.” Jyn commented. “Put her back to bed and come over here. You need some kind of sleep, you have to go through that debriefing tomorrow, you’ll be dead on your feet if you don’t.”

Reluctantly, Cassian put Kestrel back in her crib as carefully as he could, she only gave a slight squirm for a moment before going still after Cassian pressed a kiss to her forehead. Making his way back across the room, Cassian sat down on the bed beside Jyn, her arms wrapping around his waist as she pressed her body up against his back, giving him a light kiss on the cheek.

“You were right, about asking Leia to take care of Kestrel if something happened.” Cassian sighed. “I’m sorry I left the way I did, I didn’t want to go out on that mission angry but I just ran out of time. I’m sorry Jyn.”

“It’s alright.” Jyn said. “I know you didn’t want to think about it, but we had to.”

“I know that now.” Cassian said, leaning into Jyn’s embrace just a bit. “But I wasn’t sure how that mission was going to go, the thought of leaving you and Kestrel here, especially after we fought - “

“Stop thinking about that right now.” Jyn ordered. “You’re fine now, you’re here in one piece, we’re okay.”

Cassian paused for a moment, taking in a deep breath before pressing a kiss to Jyn’s arm, the only part of her he could reach at the moment. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Jyn replied, pressing a kiss to his temple now. “Now come on, let’s get some sleep while we can, Kestrel will be up soon and you need sleep before they drag you into the meeting room again.”

Without anymore protesting, Cassian listened to Jyn, getting under the covers and pulling her close to him. When Jyn finally fell asleep before him, Cassian wiped away a stray tear after thinking about the horrible thought that haunted him the whole time he was away - if he’d died leaving things between them at an argument before he got to come home and apologize, before he got to hold her and kiss her one more time, before he got to cradle their daughter close to his chest one more time. He didn’t want that to ever happen again, he didn’t want to die without the two most important people in his life knowing how much he loved them, even if he was a kriffing moof milker sometimes.

Originally, Cassian had planned to ask Jyn to marry him today, he’d taken a few days to work up the courage to actually utter those words and brace himself for her more than likely saying no, Jyn didn’t seem like the type who wanted marriage, but he wanted to ask either way and hope for a yes. He certainly didn’t expect the Empire to find them and launch an attack on the base, his worst nightmare that kept him lying awake most nights, especially now that he had people to care about and fight for. Now the base was in chaos, alarms were sounding off and personnel were running all over the place, but the sound Cassian would remember the most was the sound of Kestrel’s cries, and all the cries of the children that had been unfortunate enough to be born on Echo Base.

“Cassian!” Jyn shouted, clutching Kestrel close to her chest and looking more panicked than he’d ever seen her in his life. “Cassian, we have to go, now! The base is gone, everyone is evacuating!”

“Chances of survival are still at an optimistic sixty percent if we leave immediately.” Kaytoo added as the ground shook. “Fifty-seven.”

“But the fight - “

“It’s gone, it’s all gone. We have to go somewhere, anywhere.” Jyn protested. “I’m not leaving you here to fight a losing fight, we need to go now. Kestrel needs you, I need you.”

Hearing his daughter's name brought Cassian back to the reality of everything, seeing her cry and wanting nothing more than to get her somewhere safe where he could hold her and tell her everything was going to be alright was all he wanted.

“Cassian! Jyn!” The familiar voice of Bodhi called out as he weaved through the running soldiers. “Come on, I have a ship loaded up, we’re getting off this planet with the other ships!”

Cassian stayed at Jyn’s side while they made their way through, Kaytoo guarding their backs from any parts of the base that threatened to fall on them as the structure of the base slowly declined with each shake of the ground. He didn’t even remember how they got on the ship, just that they did and the doors shut right behind them, Bodhi racing up to the front to co-pilot with a familiar face of a soldier named Shara Bey. The ship was full of other people who had families on the base along with Chirrut and Baze towards the front, he remembered someone telling him that they were headed to Yavin 4 to re-group, some other ships were going there while others head to other planets to keep the Rebellion spread out and hard to find again.

Once they were up in the air, Jyn was shaking like a leaf, Kestrel was quiet and calm now that the noise was over with, but Jyn could barely hold herself together after nearly escaping. Cassian carefully took Kestrel from her grasp to let Jyn collect herself, Jyn leaning against him and holding on, trying to keep herself from breaking down like some of the others around her - the others who weren’t lucky enough to escape with their whole family and didn’t know if they were alive or dead back on Echo Base.

They’d been on Yavin 4 for a week, enough time to regroup and help treat any wounds some of the survivors sustained. Jyn had some time to recoup and realize that they had somehow managed to survive that attack, and that Kestrel still had both of her parents. She didn’t even know that Shara had a kid until they reached Yavin 4 and saw a little boy with a head of dark curls run into her arms and head for Kes afterwards. She knew it was almost time for them all to go back, they’d made contact with other Rebel ships and were coordinating to make an attack on Endor, they’d have to go running back into danger, but this time she’d have to leave Kestrel behind completely.

Baze and Chirrut volunteered to stay back and keep Kestrel safe on Yavin 4, they would come back, at least Jyn hoped they would, which made saying her goodbyes to Kestrel that much harder even though the infant wouldn’t understand. By the time they boarded back on the ship, Jyn didn’t even know she was crying until Cassian wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead and wiping her tears away with his thumb.

“We’ll come back to her.” He promised her.

“I know.” Jyn lied to herself, it would be easier to believe they would make it back than accept the fact that they might not.

Cassian was quiet for a moment until he pulled away, looking her right in the eyes as if he’d just realized something.

“Will you marry me?” He asked her.

“Yes.” Jyn replied without hesitation.

For some reason, despite the very real fact that they might not come back, just knowing that Cassian intended to spend the rest of his life with her made her have just a little more hope, no matter what they were charging into now to go face on Endor.

They made it back, somehow they made it back. Cassian was a little worse for wear taking a blaster shot to the arm, and Jyn had her side grazed by another shot, but they were alive and back to their little girl they left on Yavin. It had only been a week and she already looked so much older to Cassian, something about Kestrel just looked like she had managed to grow in that short period of time and it pained Cassian that he missed it. He didn’t want to miss another moment of his daughter's life, and now that the war was over and his fighting was done, he had a life to live for, a woman to call his wife and a little girl to protect from the rebuilding galaxy.

“You always get her to go to sleep better than I can.” Jyn huffed, watching them from the doorway of their new home on the once Rebel occupied planet, not far from their newly made friends of Shara Bey and Kes Dameron along with their little son Poe.

“I told you she likes hearing songs, you never sing to her.” Cassian smirked.

“I’m a terrible singer, she’d probably cry if she ever heard me.” Jyn said.

“I like your singing.” Cassian said.

“I know you’re just saying that, but thank you anyway.” Jyn smiled as she walked over to the two of them. “We’re going to be alright I think.”

“I think so too.” Cassian nodded.

#rebelcaptain #therebelcaptainnetwork #my writing #rogue one #jyn erso #cassian andor

14 notes · View notes

nellie-elizabeth · 6 years

Text

Supernatural: Good Intentions (13x14)

Cas... oh my God.

Cons:

I could have used a bit more development of the apocalypse world. When Mary and Jack were taken in by Bobby to join a group of humans fighting for survival, I got really excited. But we don't take any time to get to know any of the other people at this camp. So when the angels attack and all hell breaks loose, we don't really have an emotional investment in anybody but Jack, Mary, and Bobby. It's a small thing that would have made a strong part of the episode even stronger.

Similarly, there's the stuff with Zachariah torturing Jack with false memories and all of that... I guess I just wish that all of these people popping up in the alternate universe felt more closely connected to the characters we knew back in earlier seasons. This Zachariah does not feel like another version of the same Zachariah. Ditto Michael. Ditto Kevin when we saw him a while back. Maybe it's a nitpick.

Pros:

But if we're starting with the apocalypse world story, I've got to say that on the whole, I was very happy with what we got. Jack is such a sweetheart, and it was nice to see him and Mary bond. Mary is very practical and resigned about what her ultimate fate is likely to be, but she hates that Jack will be put through such an ordeal. I love the fact that she's willing to do whatever it takes to protect him, and consequently protect the world she knows from the evils of the world she's trapped in. We also get some lovely development of Mary's character. We all know that the reason this apocalypse world exists is because Sam and Dean were never born and were thus unable to stop Michael and Lucifer the first time around. But what we now learn is the tipping point: in this reality, Mary decided not to make a deal to bring John back to life. After Dean's speech to Mary last season, and after everything she has struggled with, this is a big moment. She has blamed herself for the suffering of her children, but now she sees what the world would look like if she had made a different call. It doesn't absolve her of Sam and Dean's suffering, but it shows that where Winchesters and Campbells are concerned, there's always a greater cause.

Bobby is excellent. He's still pretty much Bobby-like, but he's a bit less acerbic and a bit more stoic and serious. It makes sense, given the world he lives in. I love the fact that he recognized Mary instantly, and remarks that Mary Campbell saved his life on numerous occasions. I'm just so tickled by the thought of a world where Mary didn't die young, even if the world she wound up in was pretty horrible.

Turning to the main plot... wow. This is where the episode really impressed me. It was heavily focused on Cas, in a way that pushed his character development in an interesting direction. The plot is fairly basic: Donatello tricks Cas and the Winchesters into thinking he's found out how to open a portal to the other world, sending Cas and Dean on a wild goose chase. He then goes crazy and attacks Sam, and we learn the truth: because Donatello is soulless, the angel tablet has corrupted him. Cas uses his angel powers to extract the real spell to open the portal from Donatello, leaving him brain dead. Which... is a concerning thing to do on multiple levels.

Cas has been through some serious shit, and I'm very pleased that we seem to be addressing that in some meaningful way. He talks to Dean about why he was brought back from the dead, and doesn't seem satisfied by Dean's adorable and love-struck response that Jack brought Cas back because "we needed you." We see that when Dean's life is threatened by Donatello, Cas goes into a whole different mode. He tells the prophet that he won't let anybody hurt the people he loves. And he... well, as he puts it, he does what he needed to do. Whatever it takes. Sam and Dean are a little bit concerned about this extreme turn, but surely they both must realize that they've done far worse to save each other in the past. I think there's this weird blind-spot they both have when it concerns each other, but with Cas they can see the unhealthiness of this attitude, even if Cas does have "good intentions."

There are so many layers here, as well. Think about it - Cas says that Donatello should be put out of his misery because he's soulless, but Sam once spent a year and a half sans soul, and it was Cas' fault, in some ways. Dean points out that Sam's soul ended up being retrievable, but Cas and Sam are right when they point out that the same is not true for Donatello. I'm not really sure what the answer is when talking about the morality of killing someone who doesn't have a soul. Donatello was soulless but not inhuman, if that paradox even makes sense.

Lots of good Cas and Dean content here. I loved their little adventure to kill the two warriors. Cas translating for Dean was pretty hilarious, as were the two warriors deciding that Cas and Dean are "equally pretty." I love that Dean checks up on Cas to ask how he's doing after returning from the dead, and I love that Cas is in a weird place because of it - as would make sense, given what he's been through. They both fight light bad-asses, and then we've got the scene where Dean is being suffocated by Donatello's magic, and Cas immediately rushes downstairs to get to him, touching his arm even as Dean is saying he's okay. Actually, just to spotlight that moment, it was really well-acted from all three of the boys. Sure, Sam and Dean nearly die on a regular basis, but for whatever reason I could really feel how scared they all were.

I think I'll wrap it up there. We're getting closure to the inevitable family reunion. All I can say is: maybe it'll stick this time? I understand that for various scheduling and contract reasons, characters like Cas, Mary, and Jack can't be in every episode. But can we please have a stretch of time where the five of them all live in the bunker together, and if we don't see them in an episode, we just hear about how Cas and Mary went off on a hunt as a favor to a friend, or Jack is busy with Cas practicing his powers back at the bunker while the Winchesters go on a hunt? Just... let them have domestic bliss, even if we can't see it very much? Please!

9/10

#review #supernatural #supernatural review #spn

0 notes

thedramafilesblog-blog · 6 years

Text

Appearing before The Dramacourt: Just Between Lovers Eps 11 and 12

***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***

Issues:

Whether Ma Ri’s story is compelling.

Whether Kang Doo’s strength is admirable.

Whether Kang Doo’s condition is more serious than we initially thought.

Whether Kang Doo set the “boyfriend” bar very high.

The Rule(s):

Very much.

Totally.

It seems like it is.

Very, very high.

Analysis:

RedRosette J: So as predicted, this week was an emotional punching bag. Going from extreme sadness in one episode to extreme happiness in the next. Episode 11 was extremely difficult to watch. At least for me it was. I had to pause it several times to take a breath and wipe away tears. Junho was amazing as the heartbroken Kang Doo saying goodbye to Grandma. It felt so real, so raw and the hurt was everywhere. I can’t think of anyone watching this who wouldn’t want to hug and console Kang Doo. Junho was so awesome that you didn’t need subtitles to understand Kang Doo’s pain (I was impatient so I watched it RAW). 5 stars to Junho!

Again, in these episodes the construction drama took a backseat as episode 11 dealt with Grandma’s death and immediate aftermath and showed our beloved characters mourning the death of their friend. Episode 12 switched gears as Kang Doo finally made the choice to be happy and live his life like Grandma wanted with Moon Soo. *insert endless cuteness*

OMG how sad is this?

Nooooo Grandma!!!!

*sobs*

Poor Kang Doo

Even in grief, things have to get done

BOO!

A very Grandma-like wake

All he needs is a hug honestly

Making deals on Grandma’s behalf like…

Throughout episode 11, Kang Doo struggles to reconcile his current way of life with what he wants for his life, all the while mourning Grandma’s death. Moon Soo gives him the space he needs to mourn Grandma, but all the while lingering in his vicinity to let him know that she’s there and that she’s not going anywhere. She’s honestly one of the better written female leads in a kdrama. She knows how he feels about her despite his attempts to push her away and even though it hurts, she knows not to take it seriously. Like when he uses Kang Han Na’s character to upset her, she knows he’s doing it to upset her. Moon Soo, too, intentionally flusters him by getting all up in his face because she knows the effect that she has on him and that he can’t keep pushing her away for much longer. Anyone looking at Kang Doo’s face can tell that he’s literally using all his resolve to stay away from her.

She knows how flustered he’s going to get LOL

Smart girl Moon Soo

Everyone knows he was trying to make her jealous

This is literally the one time she didn’t look like a total psycho

I also appreciated that Moon Soo’s circumstances at her work reflected a very real problem that women face in the workplace. If there is a situation where there may be a romantic entanglement in the workplace, it inevitably comes back onto the woman. The CEO having a crush on her ended up being more difficult for her because her co-workers started blaming her for getting assignments because she was having a fling with the boss. I love that Moon Soo stood up for her self when the Team Leader was passive-aggressively dropping hints that she seduced the Boss for her benefit. This type of work place harassment is not okay and good on Moon Soo for shutting that down! I just wish that the CEO guy could get his shit together and be a better boss and avoiding putting his employees in situations like this.

Setting things straight

Shutting down passive aggressive co-workers like…

The Director also got a good (and well deserved) kick in the ass when Ma Ri (I had to look up Noona’s name) shut his horrible attitude towards people down. I’m sorry but he needs to learn to respect people. Just because he’s the director of a large corporation doesn’t mean that he gets to stomp around and be mean to everyone. Him being an ass about Grandma was more than Ma Ri could take. Her shutting him down had a much bigger impact on him than Kang Han Na’s character saying the same to him earlier on in the episode. Regardless of who you are, the dead should be respected.

Nah fam….that’s not right

One thing that really resonated with me was when Kang Doo brings Sang Man with him when he goes off to pay the last of his debt. This gesture that means so much. Sang Man is essentially Kang Doo’s best friend and bringing Sang Man along to his most triumphant moment is a celebration (which probably explains the suit) and I totally understand wanting to do it with the person who’s seen you struggle through it all. And for Kang Doo that is definitely Sang Man. In more ways, Sang Man has been a constant in Kang Doo’s life with his unwavering, nonjudgmental friendship and I completely understand Kang Doo being grateful for it. Good and true friends are hard to come by and Kang Doo got really lucky with Sang Man.

#swag

Eating with your bestie is the best thing ever!

Issue 1: Whether Ma Ri’s story is compelling.

RedRosette J: Ma Ri’s (Noona) story is very compelling. Tbh, I didn’t expect them to go this route with her story of how she met Kang Doo, but I like that they did because it raises interesting views about both her and Kang Doo. Domestic abuse is a horrifying reality for some women and the fact that bystanders judge and don’t intervene as it is happening is even more horrifying. The fact that Kang Doo tried to save Ma Ri from this horrible situation is why she has so much respect for him and why they are so close. I also love that Ma Ri is able to laugh about it now because it shows how far she’s come and how strong she’s become. She’s now this powerful woman who essentially controls rich men and is never going to let any man control her again. Her past experiences also explain why she’s so hesitant to date someone now. It provides more context for her previous conversations with Grandma about dating someone. I admire what Ma Ri has managed to build for herself even though the rest of society continues to judge her for it. This drama is excellent at showing us character growth and depth.

Hearing truths like…

This is horrible

Seriously awful

Kang Doo to the rescue!

Bravest boy ever!

Issue 2: Whether Kang Doo’s strength is admirable.

RedRosette J: I think that Kang Doo’s strength and character actually makes him much more impressive than CEO Boss in so many ways. Not only has he survived such a traumatic experience and come out of it (mostly) well, he is also someone who goes out of his way to help and be there for the people he cares about. He gives his everything to the people he cares about. The fact that little Kang Doo intervened to save Ma Ri from her abusive ex-boyfriend speaks volumes about his character which sets him apart from the average person. He stands up for what is right and never lets his “disability” with his leg overcome him. With Grandma he fought to the very end to help her live and with Moon Soo, now, he’s trying to do everything he can to make her happy. That is really admirable. He’s selfless in a way that is so simple and he makes it seem so effortless. This kind of inner strength is really admirable and I think he’s the better man!

This hurt to watch

I was crying right there with him

It gets better Kang Doo…

Time heals all wounds

Finally rescued

When you finally pay off your debts

When the roles are reversed

Issue 3: Whether Kang Doo’s condition is more serious than we initially thought.

RedRosette J: I’m still really hoping that Jae Young discovers that those pills are vitamins and not actually painkillers! We discovered that the other guy had actually been dead for days next to Kang Doo in the building collapse. We don’t know whether he died after having the conversation with Kang Doo or whether Kang Doo imagined the whole thing. What we do know is that it had a profound impact on him to he point where he has hallucinations of this guy in his life now. I’m hoping that Kang Doo realizing that there was nothing he could do to save the guy will help him overcome the guilt that he lives with. Either that or the poor boy needs some real therapy. I really hope that the drama doesn’t go all gloom and doom and do something drastic like give Kang Doo a terminal illness or kill him off (DO NOT DO THAT. DO YOU HEAR ME? DO NOT!!) but at this point, things aren’t looking so bright on the health front for Kang Doo.

Get her those pills Moon Soo!

Hawwwt!!! ❤

Issue 4: Whether Kang Doo set the “boyfriend” bar very high.

RedRosette J: My favourite, favourite moment of this entire drama is when Kang Doo grabs onto Moon Soo’s hand and tell her that if she doesn’t walk away then, he’s not going to let go of her! *OMG SWOON* Let me just say, Kang Doo in boyfriend mode is the best version of Kang Doo. I LOVE the way he stares at Moon Soo like she’s his whole universe, goes out of his way to do things for her, and tries to be better for her. He took the bar to another level when he literally scaled her building to bring her ice cream when she was sick! It’s official. Nothing short of this is going to count anymore. And that kiss. Smooth boy, real smooth. I love the two of them being cute together and I really really hope we get more of it before the annoying construction drama starts piling on.

RedRosette J Aside: Here’s a montage of these two being cute.

Conclusion: Appeal Allowed.

Rating: 5 = KYAH! ❤ (As much as I cried in episode 11, episode 12 made me feel warm and fuzzy and everything about these episodes were amazing! I have no complaints!)

File No: Just-Between-Lovers-EPS-11-&-12 Appearing before The Dramacourt: Just Between Lovers Eps 11 and 12 ***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read

0 notes

readbookywooks · 7 years

Text

As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann’s “Forest Scenes.” “You must lend me these, Basil,” he cried. “I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming.”

“That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian.”

“Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don’t want a life-sized portrait of myself,” answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool, in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush colored his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. “I beg your pardon, Basil, but I didn’t know you had any one with you.”

“This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything.”

“You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,” said Lord Henry, stepping forward and shaking him by the hand. “My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favorites, and, I am afraid, one of her victims also.”

“I am in Lady Agatha’s black books at present,” answered Dorian, with a funny look of penitence. “I promised to go to her club in Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to have played a duet together,–three duets, I believe. I don’t know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call.”

“Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you. And I don’t think it really matters about your not being there. The audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to the piano she makes quite enough noise for two people.”

“That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,” answered Dorian, laughing.

Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candor of youth was there, as well as all youth’s passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. He was made to be worshipped.

“You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray,–far too charming.” And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan, and opened his cigarette-case.

Hallward had been busy mixing his colors and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry’s last [13] remark he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?”

Lord Henry smiled, and looked at Dorian Gray. “Am I to go, Mr. Gray?” he asked.

“Oh, please don’t, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky moods; and I can’t bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy.”

“I don’t know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. But I certainly will not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You don’t really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you liked your sitters to have some one to chat to.”

Hallward bit his lip. “If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. Dorian’s whims are laws to everybody, except himself.”

Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. “You are very pressing, Basil, but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the Orleans.–Good-by, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon Street. I am nearly always at home at five o’clock. Write to me when you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you.”

“Basil,” cried Dorian Gray, “if Lord Henry goes I shall go too. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask him to stay. I insist upon it.”

“Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,” said Hallward, gazing intently at his picture. “It is quite true, I never talk when I am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay.”

“But what about my man at the Orleans?”

Hallward laughed. “I don’t think there will be any difficulty about that. Sit down again, Harry.–And now, Dorian, get up on the platform, and don’t move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry says. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the exception of myself.”

Dorian stepped up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Hallward. They made a delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few moments he said to him, “Have you really a very bad influence, Lord Henry? As bad as Basil says?”

“There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral,–immoral from the scientific point of view.”

“Why?”

“Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly,–that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s [14] self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion,–these are the two things that govern us. And yet–”

“Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy,” said Hallward, deep in his work, and conscious only that a look had come into the lad’s face that he had never seen there before.

“And yet,” continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, “I believe that if one man were to live his life out fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream,–I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal,– to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man among us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame–”

“Stop!” murmured Dorian Gray, “stop! you bewilder me. I don’t know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don’t speak. Let me think, or, rather, let me try not to think.”

For nearly ten minutes he stood there motionless, with parted lips, and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh impulses were at work within him, and they seemed to him to have come really from himself. The few words that Basil’s friend had said to him–words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in them–had yet touched some secret chord, that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.

Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather a new chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! [15] They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?

Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood. He understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-colored to him. It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not known it?

Lord Henry watched him, with his sad smile. He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely interested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen, which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through the same experience. He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How fascinating the lad was!

Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that come only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence.

“Basil, I am tired of standing,” cried Dorian Gray, suddenly. “I must go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here.”

“My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can’t think of anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And I have caught the effect I wanted,–the half-parted lips, and the bright look in the eyes. I don’t know what Harry has been saying to you, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. I suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn’t believe a word that he says.”

“He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is the reason I don’t think I believe anything he has told me.”

“You know you believe it all,” said Lord Henry, looking at him with his dreamy, heavy-lidded eyes. “I will go out to the garden with you. It is horridly hot in the studio.–Basil, let us have something iced to drink, something with strawberries in it.”

“Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I will join you later on. Don’t keep Dorian too long. I have never been in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands.”

Lord Henry went out to the garden, and found Dorian Gray burying his face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him, and put his hand upon his shoulder. “You are quite right to do that,” he murmured. “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”

The lad started and drew back. He was bareheaded, and the leaves had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are suddenly awakened. His finely-chiselled nostrils quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.

[16] “Yes,” continued Lord Henry, “that is one of the great secrets of life,– to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. You are a wonderful creature. You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.”

Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic olive-colored face and worn expression interested him. There was something in his low, languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. His cool, white, flower-like hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between then had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life who seemed to have disclosed to him life’s mystery. And, yet, what was there to be afraid of? He was not a school-boy, or a girl. It was absurd to be frightened.

“Let us go and sit in the shade,” said Lord Henry. “Parker has brought out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must not let yourself become sunburnt. It would be very unbecoming to you.”

“What does it matter?” cried Dorian, laughing, as he sat down on the seat at the end of the garden.

“It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.”

“Why?”

“Because you have now the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing worth having.”

“I don’t feel that, Lord Henry.”

“No, you don’t feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it always be so?

“You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don’t frown. You have. And Beauty is a form of Genius,–is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won’t smile.

“People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

“Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years in which really to live. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left [17] for you, or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.

“Realize your youth while you have it. Don’t squander the gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar, which are the aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.

“A new hedonism,–that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to you for a season.

“The moment I met you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, what you really might be. There was so much about you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will last,–such a little time.

“The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as golden next June as it is now. In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after year the green night of its leaves will have its purple stars. But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we did not dare to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!”

Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the fretted purple of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion, for which we cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time it flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to and fro.

Suddenly Hallward appeared at the door of the studio, and made frantic signs for them to come in. They turned to each other, and smiled.

“I am waiting,” cried Hallward. “Do come in. The light is quite perfect, and you can bring your drinks.”

They rose up, and sauntered down the walk together. Two green-and- white butterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the end of the garden a thrush began to sing.

“You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,” said Lord Henry, looking at him.

“Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?”

[18] “Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”

As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry’s arm. “In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,” he murmured, flushing at his own boldness, then stepped upon the platform and resumed his pose.

Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair, and watched him. The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that broke the stillness, except when Hallward stepped back now and then to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams that streamed through the open door-way the dust danced and was golden. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.

After about a quarter of an hour, Hallward stopped painting, looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes, and smiling. “It is quite finished,” he cried, at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in thin vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.

Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.

“My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,” he said.–"Mr. Gray, come and look at yourself.”

The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. “Is it really finished?” he murmured, stepping down from the platform.

“Quite finished,” said Hallward. “And you have sat splendidly to- day. I am awfully obliged to you.”

“That is entirely due to me,” broke in Lord Henry. “Isn’t it, Mr. Gray?”

Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless, and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward’s compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry, with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colorless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become ignoble, hideous, and uncouth.

[19] As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck like a knife across him, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and a mist of tears came across them. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.

“Don’t you like it?” cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lad’s silence, and not understanding what it meant.

“Of course he likes it,” said Lord Henry. “Who wouldn’t like it? It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it.”

“It is not my property, Harry.”

“Whose property is it?”

“Dorian’s, of course.”

“He is a very lucky fellow.”

“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this–for this–I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!”

“You would hardly care for that arrangement, Basil,” cried Lord Henry, laughing. “It would be rather hard lines on you.”

“I should object very strongly, Harry.”

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. “I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.”

Hallward stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that. What had happened? He seemed almost angry. His face was flushed and his cheeks burning.

“Yes,” he continued, “I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I will kill myself.”

Hallward turned pale, and caught his hand. “Dorian! Dorian!” he cried, “don’t talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, are you?”

“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives something to it. Oh, if it was only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day,–mock me horribly!” The hot tears welled into his eyes; he tore his hand away, and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as if he was praying.

“This is your doing, Harry,” said Hallward, bitterly.

[20] “My doing?”

“Yes, yours, and you know it.”

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. “It is the real Dorian Gray,– that is all,” he answered.

“It is not.”

“If it is not, what have I to do with it?”

“You should have gone away when I asked you.”

“I stayed when you asked me.”

“Harry, I can’t quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever done, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and color? I will not let it come across our three lives and mar them.”

Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and looked at him with pallid face and tear-stained eyes, as he walked over to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the large curtained window. What was he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had found it at last. He was going to rip up the canvas.

With a stifled sob he leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. “Don’t, Basil, don’t!” he cried. “It would be murder!”

“I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian,” said Hallward, coldly, when he had recovered from his surprise. “I never thought you would.”

“Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself, I feel that.”

“Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself.” And he walked across the room and rang the bell for tea. “You will have tea, of course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Tea is the only simple pleasure left to us.”

“I don’t like simple pleasures,” said Lord Henry. “And I don’t like scenes, except on the stage. What absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after all: though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn’t really want it, and I do.”

“If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I will never forgive you!" cried Dorian Gray. “And I don’t allow people to call me a silly boy.”

“You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it existed.”

“And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you don’t really mind being called a boy.”

“I should have minded very much this morning, Lord Henry.”

“Ah! this morning! You have lived since then.”

There came a knock to the door, and the butler entered with the tea- tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a [21] rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn. Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray went over and poured the tea out. The two men sauntered languidly to the table, and examined what was under the covers.

“Let us go to the theatre to-night,” said Lord Henry. “There is sure to be something on, somewhere. I have promised to dine at White’s, but it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire and say that I am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it would have the surprise of candor.”

“It is such a bore putting on one’s dress-clothes,” muttered Hallward. “And, when one has them on, they are so horrid.”

“Yes,” answered Lord Henry, dreamily, “the costume of our day is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only color- element left in modern life.”

“You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.”

“Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the one in the picture?”

“Before either.”

“I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry,” said the lad.

“Then you shall come; and you will come too, Basil, won’t you?”

“I can’t, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do.”

“Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray.”

“I should like that awfully.”

Basil Hallward bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture. “I will stay with the real Dorian,” he said, sadly.

“Is it the real Dorian?” cried the original of the portrait, running across to him. “Am I really like that?”

“Yes; you are just like that.”

“How wonderful, Basil!”

“At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter," said Hallward. “That is something.”

“What a fuss people make about fidelity!” murmured Lord Henry.

“And, after all, it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. It is either an unfortunate accident, or an unpleasant result of temperament. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.”

“Don’t go to the theatre to-night, Dorian,” said Hallward. “Stop and dine with me.”

“I can’t, really.”

“Why?”

“Because I have promised Lord Henry to go with him.”

“He won’t like you better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own. I beg you not to go.”

Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head.

“I entreat you.”

The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them from the tea-table with an amused smile.

[22] “I must go, Basil,” he answered.

“Very well,” said Hallward; and he walked over and laid his cup down on the tray. “It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had better lose no time. Good-by, Harry; good-by, Dorian. Come and see me soon. Come to-morrow.”

“Certainly.”

“You won’t forget?”

“No, of course not.”

“And . . . Harry!”

“Yes, Basil?”

“Remember what I asked you, when in the garden this morning.”

“I have forgotten it.”

“I trust you.”

“I wish I could trust myself,” said Lord Henry, laughing.–"Come, Mr. Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.– Good-by, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon.”

As the door closed behind them, Hallward flung himself down on a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.

#DorianGray

0 notes

retracingpoliphilo · 7 years

Text

Voyage

Dear, Dearest, Beloved Reader:

This is still not the piece whose memory initially prompted me to dig back into this project (which probably will have to be (re?)constructed, not appearing to have been written - only imagined, or lost), but it is the one that is timely. I love the name that I picked then. So spot!

June 11, 2015 - Gaussian and the boys

July 25, 2015 - Gaussian and his mermaid

Two pieces that are part of single narrative, I just compiled and filled in the missing gaps of the vision I had then but did not write until synthesis now.

----

Stifling his anticipatory laughter, Gaussian crouched, enshrouded in the nyavek pelt, waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting boys as they trooped up the hill together approaching the ceremony camp.

Challenging them playfully in safe, secure, environments was the an important experiental step in them facing the formative insecure challenges of the wider world as they grew into adulthood.

As a young leader in the wild with young boys taking their first ritual lone wander, he is leading them into their first consciously faced journey of mind, untethering, viewing into the great unknown beyond - a significant formative ritual in the path of individuation and commonalization, when a (ship?/craft?/vessel?) translates in, close - too close, emergency failsafes overridden close. emergency - the craft had been struck in full-space - that plane that quantum ships travelled, weaving between realities. a young mind grasped, gasped, slipped - the young boys, already having let their consciousness drift beyond their bodies, couldn’t help but reach for her. Gaussian, too - but then, she was gone. Not slowly, fading - suddenly. grasping at their thoughts, and then, simply not there.

Gaussian determinated and called the boys back to the circle of selves, away from the waking dream of memory past and future. A true death, as had just been thrust in front of their minds, was not a thing to be untethered for the aftermath of. Grounding was what was called for now. ... the central proceedings of the yearly Pilgrimhajj and its myriad proceedings; come the the announcement of death and preparation for the giving of materials of life released - when! the discovery that one of the young boys had grasped her mind, was still grasping, through the melee, thus her sudden seeming dissapearance - she had been grasped, but by an unprepared, unknowing mind.

germ-line mods to be able to symbiote with the quantrees - the (plant being) that travelled the fractal ways. The boy was both too young to take healthfully the germline modification, and that aside, if he did it would likely sever the link the transit would be undertaken to salvage and redeem. So he needed a host. An increasingly uncommon occurrence, it was nonetheless an enmeshed reality, now to be addressed. Gaussian now found himself faced with a decision point of bifurcation with no clear preferred choice. His current individuated incarnation’s calling in this moment, versus his higher partnered calling. Seated in the security of trust and faith in his higher purpose, he faced what had been placed squarely in his path and made the decision he knew to be dharmic. He would himself accept the germline modification of not just passive transport, but of greater foster and nurture of unmodified life in order to travel in nurture and guidance of the young boy and his link to the lost consciousness, in service to both and the all everything greater.

He accepted this, knowing it would open rifts untold with his higher partner and within their shared mission of nativizing humanity on this newly opened world and fostering its life upwards - He on land in skies, she through land of seas. They had always known challenge would present itself to their mission here (as it does to all, in co-created formative growth), unknown of form until the moment of witness and point of decision. Returning directly to city from high ceremonies rather than trekking in husbandry alongside the land in the harvesting return of Pilgrimhajj, Gaussian tidied and packed up his life and prepared what he could of his projects for hibernation, all but that which he shared with her.

Then he put out to to sea to prepare, and for her. The only thing he knew to do now was to sail straight into the storm.

The sky had clearly been threatening the storm Gaussian now found himself battered by when he reached the harbor, run-skipping to his boat as the wind whipped up. Rumbling down the planking of his slipspace he had been fiercely grateful for the wind that was strengthening by the moment. His inners had been in a turmoil at the end of an overwhelming week that left him with a decision he didn’t want to make and no real choice not to make it. He had yearned for a good sound thrashing from the elements to overcome his senses; allow him to drop back to center and gain perspective on the crisis of the past zentagyc(zehntagcyc).

In the few moments when the storm calmed long enough for him to regain thought beyond survival mode, he remembered in that perpetual dance of forgetting/remembering/burninshing - how easily, naturally, it happens - the strength of the world around you. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been in some rough storms before, even one that broke his boat up and left him stranded on an atoll until he could bark himself up an adequate enough canoe to make land with human infrastructure. But, like with any extreme experience, the mind protects itself and quickly burnishes the resulting memory to a smooth pearlescent sheen. So he had forgotten how serious a real blow could be. He had certainly found center there, awhile back. And then he had raged at the universe. Finally, he had been browbeaten, and accepted - which was what he had really needed, though he had not set out in search of it. But now, exhaustion had set in and the storm had no end in sight.

Just as he was preparing to give in and hang his hope on the gods, she was there, adjusting the drag of the anchor into tune with the deeper currents and the swing of the wind, bringing about boat they had built together as teens so it ran as high as possible alongside the wind, cutting smoothly through the seas instead of smashing headlong into their walls. Watching her work, her singleminded attention to a task that formed the core of her being translating effortlessly into motion. And what motion! She moved with the beauty of heavenly bodies circling their shared center of mass, not an ounce of energy misplaced, every tendon and muscle fiber in harmony with the larger dance. Finally, the storm had spent its energy and began to weaken. But, at this (pause) in their own dance, where normally they would relax, momentarily, into each other, before (working, like a horse, being brushed down …) the boat down into a restful repose - instead, with a glance that said goodbye but only briefly met his eyes, she was gone, back over the gunwale, legs merging into tail waving goodbye, leaving the bedding of the boat to him.

So, she knew. Of course she did. And while she would always be there when he needed her, she hadn’t yet weathered the storm of her own emotions in regards to this, and so wasn’t ready for his.

Bracing his forearm across the water logged wood of the hatch opening, he leaned into the cabin and grabbed a blanket and the first print narrative his searching fingers encountered.

The Collected Children’s Fables of the Post Accelerando Hinter-Wilder. One of his favorites, and just the thing to soothe his struggling mind and spirit at this moment.

--- The Secret of the Double Shadowed Dark Dark ---

In the wilder of the Glacier-Waterton International Peace-Park, there was a neo-primitive wool-hamlet(/village). The closest approach of (modern?) civilization was a (1/4) mile high train and access piste. The Hamlet(/v), like any responsible civic entity, utilized the infrastructure and (impact) of the piste, shaping itself into a harmonious merging (at/of) the interface of wild and human artifice. The buttressing pylons of the sky-trail were worshipful monuments to trees, cast in (material? - the iron, granite and cedar timber of the region). The primary supports landed s a series of hills that gave the village extents it’s beautiful roll, and their sky framing pillar uppers and road bed served to harvest rainwater and have a pressurized central water supply for irrigation and ancillary needs. Having it’s fabric so integrated to the piste structure, it was inevitable that the shadows of the piste interacted strongly with the life of the city. {[(I have no memory now of what I intended the beginnings of this myth to/for)]} --- … ---

Sunlight broke over the horizon, stroking his eyelids gently to wakefulness. As he stirred he felt her head on his chest and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair and neck. Having crept into his arms under cover of his exhausted slumber, she felt his nuzzle and curled sleepily back against him and they both slumbered back down together for a bit longer before facing the day and conversations to be had.

0 notes