#Iron Pour 2009

[tryst-art-archive]

April 2009 Photos, pt. 1

There was an event involving fire and hot metal (which I think has been discontinued for safety concerns since) at my bestie's college and most of these photos are from that.

[plaguedocboi]

Waterfalls! These gorgeous, powerful features of nature have been oddly lacking in my past lists, I think in part because their danger has always seemed more “obvious” to me. But doing the research for this list has reawakened my phobia of the water. Some of the later entries (numbers 9 and 10 especially) brought back anxieties that I thought I had gotten over long ago, but it was kind of thrilling. Like watching a particularly scary horror movie. Let’s get into it!

1. Underwater Waterfall, Mauritius

No, it’s not really a waterfall. It’s just an optical illusion caused by sand falling off the island’s slope down into the deeper water below. But it looks cool and scary, and the drop-off is 2.5 miles deep so that’s pretty impressive and I think it deserves at least a mention.

2. Blood Falls, Antarctica

There’s nothing particularly dangerous about this one, it just looks incredibly creepy. Obviously, it’s not actually blood, it’s just water that’s very rich in iron. But the really fascinating part of this waterfall is that its source seems to be a subglacial lake that contains a unique microbial ecosystem which has been isolated for two million years! These microbes are like nothing else we’ve ever observed in nature before. They live in an incredibly cold and extremely saline lake, and metabolize sulfur and iron ions with no oxygen present. They are being used as a model to study what life on ice-covered alien planets could be like.

3. Khone Falls, Laos

This waterfall is not nearly as famous as some of the others on this list, which is surprising because it’s the widest waterfall in the world, with an average width of six miles! Although not particularly tall, it is the second most powerful waterfall in the world, more than double the power of Niagara Falls! The Khone falls divide the Upper and Lower Mekong river, making travel by boat between the north and south impossible. What makes it kind of unsettling to me is that during the rainy seasons the falls are basically swallowed up by the river, turning them from a spectacular waterfall to a series of massive rapids.

4. Huntington Gorge, Vermont

When water levels are low, this river is a popular and scenic swimming spot, and the canyon has an almost otherworldly quality with its unique bends and overhangs. Unfortunately, these very features are what makes it so dangerous. Much like the infamous Strid, the gorge is full of holes, steep drop-offs, and powerful currents hidden beneath the water, which can suck people in and trap them against the cliff walls. Over fifty people have died here since the 1950s, and many more have been injured. With proper precautions, one can safely explore the gorge and swim in the river, but don’t forget that this water has swallowed up many people before you.

5. Victoria Falls, Zambia

I’m sure most of you already know about Mosi-oa-Tunya, more widely called Victoria Falls, as the largest waterfall in the world. Formed as the Zambezi river pours into a series of massive gorges, this curtain of water spans nearly a mile and falls 300 feet with such force that columns of rising spray can be seen for miles around. Despite this, the pools around the lip of the falls can be relatively tame, and locals have fished while balancing on the edge of the cliff for generations. The safest and most famous of these fishing holes is the Devils Pool, which allows you to literally swim right up to the edge of the world’s biggest waterfall. The pool is actually very safe when the correct precautions are taken, and I can only find one death attributed to the pool specifically, when a tour guide in 2009 fell while trying to help a man who had slipped and was dangling off the edge (and, honestly, I was expecting a lot more deaths given the amount of clickbait articles advertising it as the most deadly swimming hole in the world). Although that was the only death from the Devils Pool, there have been many other deaths at Victoria Falls, mostly tourists who underestimate the power of the river or get too close to the edge. So if you ever visit this spectacular waterfall, please observe it from a safe distance and follow all the rules.

6. Huka Falls, New Zealand

This is not a traditional waterfall, but rather a series of small waterfalls along a narrow stretch of the Waikato river, creating an incredibly turbulent chasm that ends in a whirlpool. The 300-foot wide river is funneled into a 50-foot wide stream, causing a torrent of water that flows at a rate of 58,000 gallons per second. Obviously, this is not an area that you should get in the water, but not everyone takes that advice. There have been multiple deaths at this waterfall, and a few narrow escapes, including two swimmers who, incredibly, survived after trying to raft down the falls on pool toys. Please, for the love of god, don’t do that.

7. Niagara Falls, US/Canada

These falls are the only place on this list that I’ve visited, and I can tell you they are certainly an incredible sight, but also rather intimidating due to their sheer size and power. These three massive waterfalls are fed by the Great Lakes and, combined, have nearly 700,000 gallons of water thundering down every second. There is also a permanent whirlpool in the river that has existed for over 4,000 years and reaches depths of 125 feet! Besides being huge and awe-inspiring, these waterfalls are known for their appeal to daredevils who have gone over the edge in barrels or, in one case, a giant rubber ball. But these famous success stories are punctuated with tragedy. Roughly 20-30 people die at Niagara Falls every year. Most of these, sadly, are suicides, but others are failed attempts to replicate the successful daredevils of the past, and others are accidental. An estimated 5,000 bodies were recovered at the bottom of the falls between 1850 and 2011.

8. Murchison Falls, Uganda

Also known as Kabalega Falls, this is the worlds most powerful waterfall. Formed as the Nile River flows from Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert, this waterfall is so strong it literally causes the ground to shake around it. Here, the Nile is constricted from a river nearly 400 ft wide to a passage only 20 ft wide, creating an incredibly turbulent and violent tunnel of water that tears its way into the pool below at 79,000 gallons per second. And this is no ordinary pool. Waiting below the falls is the highest concentration of large crocodiles observed anywhere in the world, waiting for any dead or stunned animals caught in the falls to wash into their lair. Although the waterfall and surrounding park are now a beautiful tourist attraction and wildlife refuge, the history of the falls includes tales of human and animal sacrifices, thrown in alive to appease the gods that some believed resided beneath the raging waters.

9. Bath Fountain, Jamaica

This is just a random little waterfall along a hiking trail, but the video triggered some intense bathophobia in me for the first time in a while. Like, I was scared to get in the shower after watching this. Proceed with caution:

10. Kipu Falls, Hawaii

This one scares me because, despite my research, I can’t actually figure out what the hell is happening here. Multiple people have died here; all tourists, all drownings, all of seemingly very unclear causes. Kipu Falls is a beautiful and popular swimming spot, and locals frequently dive off the top of the falls with seemingly no danger. However, five deaths over the course of five years from 2006-2011 challenged its reputation of being a safe swimming hole. All the articles I could find seem to repeat the same information; there is no current in the pool and the waterfalls are not especially powerful. Despite these established facts, all five deaths were the same. Someone jumped in, surfaced, and then were dragged back down to the bottom of the pool and held there until they died. This has resulted in a lot of speculation, including everything from a hidden whirlpool current to evil spirits. I’m just. Really unsettled by the lack of information on this one. Every article I found was published in 2011 and I couldn’t find any updates, which hopefully means people aren’t still dying here, but… what the fuck???? Was going on????? Sorry guys this one might not be as dangerous as some of the others but it freaks me out a lot so it’s getting a higher rating. I want to know what’s going on but I’m sure not going to investigate it myself.

[archivist-crow]

Odds and Ends:

FIRE IMMUNITY

In August 1929, the New York Times carried the amazing story of Lily White, a young woman whose clothing continually, unexplainably, caught fire. It didn't matter if Lily was at home in her village in Antigua, West Indies, or walking down the street; her dresses would burst into flames and fall off, leaving her naked, but unharmed. Bedsheets would burn around her while she slept. Lily came to depend on hand-me-down garments from her neighbors to stay clothed.

In 1882 the Michigan Medical News carried an account of twenty-four-year-old A. W. Underwood, who could start fires with his breath. Underwood submitted to a rigorous examination by Dr. L. C. Woodman, who became convinced of the genuineness of Underwood's talent and wrote: "He will take anybody's handkerchief, hold it to his mouth, rub it vigorously while breathing on it, and immediately it bursts into flames and burns until consumed. ... He will, while out gunning, lie down after collecting dry leaves, and by breathing on them start a fire."

In the 1820s, in the United States, slave Nathan Coker, driven desperate by hunger, discovered his fire immunity. Finding the kitchen empty, Coker said he "shot in, dipped my hand into the dinner pot, and pulled out a red hot dumpling." Drinking cold water gave him more pain than drinking boiling coffee. Coker eventually became a blacksmith and demonstrated his talent to the town. An iron shovel, heated to white hot, was placed under Coker's feet. He stood on it while the shovel cooled. Next, Coker took the shovel, reheated to red hot, and licked it until it turned black again. Finally, some squirrel shot was melted, and the blacksmith poured the molten metal into his hands and then swished it in his mouth, until it had solidified. Coker had no burns.

August 23 is the festival day when the ancient world celebrated Vulcan, the god of fire.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

[industryinsightsandanalysis]

Global Bentonite Market to witness high growth by 2027|UnivDatos Market Insights

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Market Overview

Upsurging demand of steel from end user industries like automobile, construction, transportation, energy, and packaging would result to rise in demand of iron ore pellets which are used in manufacturing of steel. Further, sodium-activated calcium bentonite is used as a binder in iron ore pellets and is known to increase strength of both wet and dry iron ore green pellets. Owning to increased demand of iron ore from steel industry would result to higher demand of bentonite for iron ore pelletizing thereby helping the market grow at a considerable rate.

For instance, global production of crude steel in 2018 was 1,825,486 thousand tons which grew to 1,875,155 thousand tons in 2019. As per, The World Steel Association forecasts that steel (apparent steel) demand will grow by 5.8% in 2021 to reach 1.874 billion metric tons, after declining by just 0.2% in 2020, as the overall impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the sector turned out to be less than previously foreseen.

COVID-19 Impact

During the Covid-19 pandemic in the early 2020, majority of the countries and region witnessed a country wide lockdown. This has impacted the overall demand for oil and gas. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, globally a decline of almost 9% in the overall demand of oil and gas was witnessed in 2020 for the first time since the global recession of 2009. Majority of decline was witnessed in the industrial sector, where countries had imposed shut down of manufacturing facilities to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

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Global bentonite market report is studied thoroughly with several aspects that would help stakeholders in making their decisions more curated.

By Product, the market is primarily categorized into:

Based on product, the bentonite market is segmented into sodium, calcium, and others. Among these, sodium bentonite is likely to showcase substantial growth during the forecast period. Increasing adoption and ownership of cats in developed nations like U.S. and European countries would increase the demand of sodium bentonite owing to its pet litter applications. For instance, around 42.7 million US households owns Cat as per the 2019-2020 National Pet Owners Survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association.

By Application, the market is primarily studied into:

Cat Litter

Civil Engineering

Drilling Mud

Foundry Mud

Iron Ore Pelletizing

Refining

Others

Based on application, the bentonite market is divided into cat litter, civil engineering, drilling mud, foundry sands, iron ore pelletizing, refining, and others. Among them, iron ore pelletizing and drilling mud hold a considerable market share. Bentonite exhibits good strength along with high hot and dry strength which helps in preventing molds from breaking or cracking during the pouring or cooling process in the foundry industry. Owing to high strength resulting from its property to absorb and then release moisture, bentonite is used in iron ore palletization.

Global Bentonite Market Region Segmentation Includes:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

MEA

South America  

Based on the estimation, North America accounted for considerable market position in the market in 2020 and is expected to demonstrate significant growth during the forecast period (2021-2027). Large and increasing oil & gas activities resulted in the increasing demand of bentonite in the region.

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The major players operating in the market includes:

Bentonite Mineral Performance LLC

Black Hills Bentonite LLC

Minerals Technologies Inc.

Imerys S.A.

Wyo-Ben Inc.

Tolsa S.A.

Laviosa Mineral Solutions SpA

G & W Mineral Resources

Ningcheng Tianyu Chemical Co. Ltd.

Kunimine Industries Co. Ltd.

Competitive Landscape

The degree of competition among prominent companies has been elaborated by analyzing several leading key players operating in the Global context. The specialist team of research analysts sheds light on various traits such as Global market competition, market share, most recent industry advancements, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, or acquisitions by leading companies in the Global Bentonite Market. The major players have been analyzed using different research methodologies for getting insight views on market competition.

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What are the latest trends, new patterns, and technological advancements in the global bentonite market?

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[poeta-nascitur-non-fit]

6/26/2024, pt II

I've been reminiscing quite a bit about where I was in my life in 2009, 2015 and 2020. Youth. Youth would be overrated if not for the fact that you can collect a lot of interesting memories and stories from that time period. Having a vivid and nearly perfect photographic long term memory makes all of that feel like it was just yesterday, too. He always tells me that "nostalgia is a liar," and while I get where he's coming from, I don't think that's always true, that nostalgia doesn't mean much at the end of the day, because it's something we only idealize in retrospect but lose sight of the whole picture, only seeing the good and repressing the bad.

He also tells me that those good memories and special moments were less about the other people involved and more about the good energy I put into making those things happen. I don't know, I don't think all of those experiences were entirely me. Despite how much he hates on my exes for being shitty people, he just couldn't possibly know the whole story, why those experiences happened with the people they happened with, because he has never met them, and he is not me. Some of those people did end up being shitty people in the end, but people are complicated, and they weren't always shitty. Am I supposed to just write all of that off entirely? That's what he would prefer, I think. Jealousy strikes once again.

Reading through his blog and seeing him revisiting memories of some of this exes and writing about looking them up on social media makes his stance fairly ironic. Granted, those posts were written years ago, but I really do think that it's just an innate thing for people to be nostalgic from time to time, and if only I were in his head, I bet I could say with almost 100% certainty that he still gets nostalgic even now, too. And... there's really nothing wrong with that.

I *do* understand his BPD jealousy, of course, because I also have BPD, and years ago when I had no idea how to cope with it at all, my jealousy nearly drove me insane. Speaking for myself, I am glad I eventually learned how to be rational and work through all of that. I *had* to learn how to cope, because otherwise, I would've become one of those 1 out of 10 BPD casualties.

Anyway, I'm kind of burying the lede...

It's probably time for me to revisit old photographs, old writing, old blogs. Some of my most creative pieces came from those years. I don't know how feasible it is, but I would love to tap into that nostalgia and bring it up to date with who I am now, so to speak. I want to find myself again. What drove me then? And how can I recapture it? Can I build on that for something even better now? Where would I start?

Too tired to delve into all of that this morning.

It stormed before sunup. I laid in bed, window open, nodding off on Vicodin, listening to the pouring rain and the wind whipping through the trees. Few things are as relaxing as a summer downpour. Vicodin itself is one of the exceptions, though.

Time for sleep.

[buxberg]

La carrière de DiCaprio a commencé par le tournage de plusieurs publicités

Il fait ses débuts au cinéma avec un rôle dans la série télévisée "Parents" (1990).  Après que DiCaprio est apparu dans des rôles de camée dans des séries telles que "Lassie" (1990), "Roseanne" (1991) et plusieurs épisodes de "Santa Barbara" (1990).

Déjà en 1998, Leonardo a joué dans les films "The Man in the Iron Mask" et "Celebrity", et en 1999, le film "The Beach" est sorti.

En 2002, DiCaprio a joué dans les films "Gangs of New York" (réalisé par Martin Scorsese) et "Catch Me If You Can" (réalisé par Steven Spielberg).  Les deux films ont été très bien accueillis par la critique.  La photo "The Aviator", sortie en 2004, a valu à Leonardo une deuxième nomination pour "l'Oscar". En outre, l'acteur a reçu le diplôme de Chevalier de l'Ordre français des Arts et des Lettres.

 DiCaprio continue de travailler avec Martin Scorsese et en 2006 sort le film The Renegades.  La même "Bloody Diamond".  Pour ses rôles dans ces films, il a été nominé deux fois pour le "Golden Globe", en plus, le film "Blood Diamond" a également été nominé pour le "Oscar".

 Ces dernières années, il a joué dans des films tels que "Body of Lies" (2008), "Road of Changes" (2009), "Island of the Damned" (2010).

[xxcrowx]

Home my fingers still sting from roofs of projects the peeling paint from metal ladders, smell of iron, blood, that pours from drunken orifices in the trough of tracks, feeding muddy dust to rats

the wailing of train cars rutting against the rails the third one that my mother warned me of, sparking with blue, blue like the bars of the playground i would run away from, to chase basketballs, and bouncy balls into the street. I cried when that playground changed it’s colors and put up fences so we could not run in circles

I cried when the bakery I ate cupcakes from shut their doors

All things change here, the weather of 2009 the deep winters I carved snow out of

the blizzard that never returns up the avenue, those waves of snow I watched with my father, that fright churning into fire in my stomach, a fire I took and turned into music

bass strings I strangle myself with in dark rooms illuminated by phone light, illuminated by moving bodies, by sweating out memories of scraped knee by the grocery store and damp heat hugging me when I enter dank subway station station full of shiny black, trash cans I empty myself in, friends that forced canned margaritas down my throat

I thanked them.

I thanked the man by the escalator who asks me for change, I thanked the worker fixing the ticket machines

I did not thank the cop who stopped me at the turnstile, but he let me off easy, wind, freshened by tunnels created by the skyscrapers on 5th avenue,

my first taste of sugar in a dark bar bathroom, that girl from providence, another, from portland, who I met at the circle of concrete dead of winter, in washington square park

splattered by rain, I would roll my joints under a broken umbrella, outside my high school begging for someone to kiss the softness of my body to be loved in this dark place in this dark room surrounded by heat, this knitted quilt of people in this dark, this dark that streetlights cannot chase, this dark, only I can love, this dark that is all my own, my heritage is a mere cousin i cling to

but this city, this city is my sister, my other, my strength, and my tears, my tears, my tears.

[filmmakerdreamst]

Could you Handle 'Life With Derek?'

Life with Derek was a Multi-Cam Comedy that aired on the Canadian Family Channel and later on Disney Channel from 2005–2009. The story followed fifteen-year old Casey McDonald as her life turns upside down, when she’s forced to go from being a popular A+ student at an all-girls private school, to living with a middle class family in London, Ontario when her mum remarries.

There she has to adjust, with her younger sister Lizzie, attending a public school where no one cares about their grades as much as she does, making friends with her next door neighbour Emily and living with her new step dad and three new step-siblings. One of whom is Derek, the most “popular boy” in her year, who challenges her on his turf, and turns out to be as self absorbed and spoiled as she is.

The episodes follow Casey’s counselling sessions with school counsellor, Paul Greebie as he helps her adjust to her new living situation; but at the heart of it, they importantly follow Casey’s battles with her step-brother Derek, to take control of the house, their younger siblings, their school and their world.

Life with Derek as a TV show was many things. A Sitcom. A Character Driven Family Drama. A Brady Bunch Remake. But its undoubtedly best remembered for the series-long slow burning subtextual “love affair” between the two eldest step-sibling’s, Casey and Derek.

In the mid 2000’s, when Life With Derek was on air, I was ironically in a similar position as the main character, Casey. My dad was going out with someone whom had a daughter my age — who I called my “step-sister” — that I clashed with a lot because we were both spoiled by our parents. Eventually I was forced out of my own home into another house (though I never had to change schools) with my younger sister whom was also called Lizzie. Let’s just say my “step-sister” and I - even though I cared about her - never really got along.

I vividly remember watching this show around that time because I did have cable at my dad’s house, but not weekly. I remember getting confused at one point because I could sense something was off about it. For example ‘hang on — why are they standing so close?’ and ‘Oh God why is he looking at her like that?’

My “step-sister” loved Disney Channel and I loved CBBC (good old British grit) so every time I finished watching something like Dick and Dom in the Bungalow, she switched to Hannah Montana. And it always felt like a packet of sugar poured itself onto the screen. It could have been something to do with the fact that CBBC had a range of different shows with multiple genres, and Disney just had Sitcoms/Comedies. Regardless, I could never fully get into those shows until years later.

I began to be interested in Life with Derek, when I watched a video on YouTube in 2015, describing “multi ships”, one of which was Casey and Derek. I got intrigued by this because it’s not every day that you hear of a teenage girl having a rather complicated relationship with her step-brother, coming from a show aimed at children which normally portrays those kinds of things as “cookie cuttered” and “safe” - not that it’s a bad thing.

I then fully binged watched the whole show in four days and thoroughly loved it. There was hardly anything sugar coated about it, which was to be expected since it was Canadian. It definitely helped that it didn’t have a built-in laugh track (even if it had heavy sound effects).

What I loved most about the show — besides it being one of the first family shows around that time that frequently pushed the message “you don’t have to be blood to be family” without glamorising the subject. Coming from experience, I know how messy that ‘Blended families’ subject can get. It showed how generally uneventful; how real relationships have a general lack of any real drama, unlike how regular TV Shows portray them.

The first season mainly consisted of the culture clash between the two families. The fight over rooms, space, possessions, etc. Casey’s family was upper class and Derek’s wasn’t, which made for an interesting dynamic on screen. It didn’t shy away from the fact that their whole situation was forced and not this ‘picturesque ideal’ that the Brady Bunch had audiences in the ’70s believe. But it wasn’t overly dramatic either.

There was no gimmick, like most Disney shows had around that time. Even Lizzie McGuire, that was considered the most realistic show on Disney, had gimmicks to an extent. Nothing really happened — other than events that happen to regular families all the time. There was no magic or goofy characters or stereotypical teenage archetypes really. Or even when there were, they always felt developed enough that they felt real. It just relied on the layered characters and domesticity to make it entertaining.

My favourite character was Casey. She had such an interesting character arc for a family show. I loved that she was able to be a multitude of things at once, more than her usual ‘Character Type’ would allow. She could be loving. She could be manipulative. She could be selfless. She could be dramatic. She could make exceptions for herself. I loved how she had no desire to be popular until she was peer pressured into having a boyfriend, which resulted in her losing who she was. When she broke up with her boyfriend in order to find herself, she was back to normal but she wasn’t the same person as she was before. But it was still considered important that she had those experiences, in order to grow as a person. I always thought if this show was made today, she would have an ‘Anxiety Disorder’ Diagnosis.

This was also the first time I learned terms such as ‘merged family’ or ‘blended family’. Often, shows like this play it safe and have the other half of the family change their last name or we never get to see ‘the other parent’. A couple of my favourite episodes were when we got to see Casey’s dad or Derek’s mum.

“It always seems like the kids (in other ‘blended family’ shows) don’t actually know their new step-family very well, which would be strange in the real world. Usually the two families get to know each other pretty well before the parents marry. The parents never seem to have shared custody arrangements either. The kids spend all their time at the same house, which is also strange. Life With Derek was actually more realistic than most of the “step-family” shows in that at least the kids’ other parents were talked about and seen on the show. Most of these shows act as though the other parent doesn’t even exist” — SqueakyPickles

The most interesting aspect of the show was that the step-family wasn’t a family right off the bat. They started off being very awkward and confrontational, until eventually, as they got to know each other individually, grew to be a family. The progression felt natural. For example, it wasn’t like the Brady Bunch where the blended family was called ‘The Brady Bunch’ from the first episode. They earned their nickname ‘The Mcdonald-Venturi’s’ over time.

I loved all the familiar dynamics that the show presented to the audience especially the friendship between the middle step-siblings, Edwin and Lizzie — who were able to find their voice and stop being at the beck and call of their older siblings because they gained perspectives from one another. The sibling relationship between Derek and Marti was also a favourite of mine. How Derek’s demeanor immediately softened and took care of his little sister when she needed it the most. I loved the nicknames they both gave each other.

But even when the family was established in the narrative, it still wasn’t portrayed as ‘perfect.’

For example, In ‘Home Movies’ (my all-time favourite episode of the show) Casey is making a documentary about her blended family, in which she wants to paint a perfect picture of how “two families who worked together, overcame adversity and bonded into one big happy family” but when she comes to film the documentary, her family is behaving all over the place. When she comes to interview Derek — about how having a new family has benefitted their lives, he frankly replies ‘No. This family is a mess.’ and just tells her how it is. This would never happen if this was an original Disney show. At the end of the episode, we get to see the finished film — that Derek edited when he became her partner — pretty much confirming what Derek said, that their family is full of chaos, but they’re always there for each other when it matters the most; which is the epitome of what the show is about.

However, on the other hand, I felt the creators of Life with Derek were making two different shows at the same time. There was the family-friendly comedy of Nora, George, Edwin, Lizzie and Marti. And then there was Casey and Derek, who almost existed in a show of their own — and is the only thing that people focus on when talking about Life with Derek in today’s world.

Now I’ve seen siblings in Film and TV, where the casting is a little too good, that it comes off as more ‘Belligerent Sexual Tension’ than innocent sibling rivalry. Life with Derek took that concept and dialed it up to fifty.

“Because it was always at the back of their minds, and the fans were so into Casey and Derek being a couple, Seater noted how actors always want to find subtext in their lines and give fans what they desire.”

Because of Michael Seater’s and Ashley Leggat’s chemistry (also them adding subtext to their lines) and Writing Fumbles here and there, it came across more as a show about two teenagers fighting an attraction while being in a sibling relationship — than a show about a power struggle between two step-siblings who eventually become family.

I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of when the ‘step-sibling or sibling love affair’ trope is used in fiction. There are exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, as I’m sure this goes for a lot of people, I find it unnecessary and a way to cause drama for no reason.

I however found Casey and Derek’s controversial, messy relationship very authentic and honest. And I think it’s because it came naturally. It didn’t feel forced or scripted. Also, It really didn’t help that they sometimes felt more like two teenagers randomly living in the same house, than new step-siblings. I almost thought the nature of their relationship was the result of their parents’ total obliviousness towards their children, since they got married and moved in with each other after a few months of going out.

I enjoyed watching their interactions where they would be antagonistic towards each other, but strangely inseparable and borderline obsessive at the same time. How they claimed to ‘dislike each other’ but yet, they would always be in each other’s faces.

“Leggat pointed out how Dasey was just like the experience of simultaneously hating and loving someone, since the stepsiblings rarely got along, but did prove to be there for one another when it really counted.”

Though it was stated they were ‘different’, they really were each other’s mirror image in a lot of ways. Which was unabashedly the strongest part of the series. Derek is shown to be a slacker; breaker of the rules. Whereas Casey is shown to be pretentious with quite the ego. So the audience never feels like the other is better, and they can often benefit from each other and help the other one out when it really matters.

Throughout the series, they both date a number of people. The most prominent ones being in Season Three. They both help each other out with these relationships too. Casey helps Derek with his communication in starting a new relationship with Sally. And Derek inadvertently helps Casey sort her feelings out when she loses herself to her relationship with Max. But none of these relationships prove to be as important as theirs.

“Casey and Derek mean more to each other than any of the people they date. In fact their love/hate relationship is the core of the series.” — Daphne Balloon (Series Creator)

Bringing back to “Real relationships having a general lack of any real drama” In most TV Shows (even in shows aimed at children) there’s usually a love triangle, a weird back and forth dynamic and in the end, there’s a big kiss and they ride off into the sunset. But in real life, and in this show, there is a lot of uncomfortable sexual tension there, but there is no ‘romance’ between the two of them. They gradually become friends over the course of the series.

Half of the tension in the show comes from them being teenagers with dominant personalities, living in a small space together against their will. And the other half, there’s an underlying threat that they both might like each other — which they don’t like at all.

“In fact, Seater revealed he thinks the duo should’ve ended up together on the show, and perhaps they did — in some kind of Twilight Zone parallel universe, that is. Leggat explained how it just made sense for Casey and Derek to be together and is “a natural progression for them.”

The infamous scene in the finale was as close as one could get to a confirmation of that, which was coincidently a trailblazer for many shows/films aimed at a slightly older audience.

Although Casey and Derek’s “love affair” never became canonical throughout the show’s run for obvious reasons, by the time it ended, it was hard to read their relationship as anything other than an unrequited love story.

“..But this was the Disney Channel, and even though Life with Derek wasn’t exactly a Disney Channel original in the way that Lizzie McGuire, That’s So Raven, and Even Stevens were, there was no way The Mouse would sanction a show with a step-sibling romance. So, of course, that Pornhub friendly plotline never transpired, and the series ended with Casey and Derek both getting into Queens University in Ontario, Canada, and living happily ever after. Whether they had sex or not was entirely up to the fanfiction writers.” — Ashley Reese

Even though the actors may have played into it — especially in the later seasons — really this seems to be a case where ‘relationships’ just kind of evolve on their own.

Though the show’s entirety — other than one aspect — seems to have faded from people’s memory and doesn’t get as nearly enough credit as it deserves, Life with Derek is still the most chaotic family show I have ever watched and remains my guilty pleasure to this day.

- Could you Handle 'Life with Derek?'

[tryst-art-archive]

April 2009 Photos, pt. 2

More of that fire & molten metal event.

[seashellsoldier]

“A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear” by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

This is undoubtedly the most entertaining book I’ve read in years. Not that libertarianism isn’t hilarious on its own ridiculous footing, but every attempt at some microcosmic utopia fails miserably. Free Town probably earns second prize in crackpot ideas though, just behind Jonestown. “Get yer gov’ment out of my taxes!” “Get yer gov’ment out of my Medicare!” “Get yer gov’ment out of my unemployment insurance . . . those COVID relief checks . . . my potable water . . . the electrical grid . . . fire departments and hospitals and community centers . . . school systems and healthcare and libraries . . . game wardens . . . and bridges . . . and roads . . . and dams . . . and get yer g’damned gov’ment out of my guns, Guns, GUNS!!!!” (To libertarians, it seems, everything can be resolved with guns.)

“The creation of America’s first Free Town was so ambitious in scope that it seemed doomed from the start, and indeed, almost every such population-level social experiment in history has failed spectacularly. Most efforts at planned communities involve artificially populating an uninhabited place, like a stretch of desert or an island—as in 1972, when a Nevada millionaire and his libertarian friends declared independent ownership of an island off the coast of New Zealand (a claim that was promptly quashed by the New Zealand military).

The building of utopias is limited by the rarity of visionaries with deep pockets. Building a new community from scratch requires millions or billions of dollars to create an infrastructure and overcome the challenges preventing people from living there in the first place. Henry Ford, whose assembly line kick-started the automobile revolution, learned this the hard way when his planned Amazonian utopia, Fordlandia, succumbed in the 1930s to the threats of rainforest blight, cultural clashes, and an unhelpful Brazilian government.

The four libertarians who came to New Hampshire had thinner wallets than Ford and other would-be utopians, but they had a new angle they believed would help them move the Free Town Project out of the realm of marijuana-hazed reveries and into reality.

Instead of building from scratch, they would harness the power and infrastructure of an existing town—just as a rabies parasite can co-opt the brain of a much larger organism and force it to work against its own interests, the libertarians planned to apply just a bit of pressure in such a way that an entire town could be steered toward liberty” (p. 48).

New Hampshire really is a microcosm of Caucasian America’s problems, fueled by Ayn Rand’s Galt’s Gulch rose-filtered parable, and the Free Town Project a fringe of that, with Free Town having a fringe of their fringe, and a fringe of that fringe’s fringe on downward into those who wet-dream of 1790s’ live-off-the-land pioneering colonialism.  

“For Grafton’s Free Towners, Rand’s vision of a market-driven society was what kept them privatizing and deregulating everything they could. For seven long years, they joined thrift-minded allies in issuing vociferous challenges to every rule and tax dollar is sight; one by one, expenditures were flayed from the municipal budget, bits of services peeled away like so much flesh”</i> (p. 125). The results are predictably ruinous. Infrastructure fell apart; crime went up; disputes, blame, and tribalism poured from social media feeds into the streets; and all the while, the bears foraged throughout. <i>“What seemed clear was this: in a town that refused to allow the government to protect it from bears, vigilantism seemed the only option. Just as libertarians wanted, it was every man, woman, and bear for themselves” (p. 234).

BBQ BEER FREEDOM

From Ruby Ridge to the Capital Hill insurrection, ignorant flag-waving yokels have screamed for their moronic “freedom” from the chains of civic responsibility, the duties of citizenship, and simple Christian moral accountability. “Freedom. Freedom! To the obedience-averse libertarians, the clarion call was—ironically—irresistible, a liberation-tinted tractor beam that drew them deep into Grafton’s wilds.

Those who moved to Grafton under the banner of the Free Town Project between 2004 and 2009 were free radicals, unbounded to existing living situations, because they had either too much money or not enough” (p. 78). It’s better to watch your neighbor’s house burn down than fund a local fire department.

Now of course if governments big and small managed their budgets better, libertarian-bashing would be an easier argument, Charles Koch, Roger Stone, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump and their ilk be damned. It’s almost impossible to count how many hundreds of billions—maybe even trillions—of dollars get wasted every year, from healthcare to the military, grift and graft, bridges to nowhere, etc., food and electricity and potable water, subsidies for monolithic industries year after year and decade after decade, and tax breaks/shelters/loopholes for the filthy rich and their corporations, while our physical and human infrastructure continues to suffer and degrade year after year and decade after decade. Our plutocratic priorities are backwards (unless you’re a plutocrat), and finding an unbiased assessment of waste in the US, for me, is challenging. Ugh, I digress.

This really is a funny book; I laughed out loud often at the author’s wit and sarcasm. Hongoltz-Hetling’s literary voice harkens back to the glory days of A Prairie Home Companion, and this cast of characters fits perfectly into the good-natured buffoonery of such backwoods stage-play. These aren’t your Nazi-saluting gym rats cosplaying Call of Duty soldiers with their American flag capes and InfoWars codpieces. These are “rugged men” (and some women) who languish (not unlike Ted Kaczynski) in the woodland fortresses of their own Fantasyland, armed to the hilt and proud of it, and they have apparently been infecting the entire state with their wingnuttery. If New Hampshire tries to “secede from the Union”, I say let ‘em. “From my cold, dead hand!”

(shrug) “OK.”

The bears, of course, have a serious role too, and Hongoltz-Hetling gives them pleasant prominence.   Patrick Blanchfield reviewed this book for The New Republic as well, highlighting the problems of New Hampshire overall (https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project): “The bear problem, in other words, is much bigger than individual libertarian cranks refusing to secure their garbage. It is a problem born of years of neglect and mismanagement by legislators, and, arguably, indifference from New Hampshire taxpayers in general, who have proved reluctant to step up and allocate resources to Fish and Game, even as the agency’s traditional source of funding—income from hunting licenses—has dwindled. Exceptions like Doughnut Lady aside, no one wants bears in </i>their<i> backyard, but apparently no one wants to invest sustainably in institutions doing the unglamorous work to keep them out either. Whether such indifference and complacency gets laundered into rhetoric of fiscal prudence, half-baked environmentalism, or individual responsibility, the end result is the same: The bears abide—and multiply.”

Another imploding social experiment, but it will surely not be the last. “I have no doubt that Grafton will make the news again, in some wild, unpredictable way. The soil there may be rocky, but it’s fertile ground for dreams, and humans will always be drawn to places where they can slip off the radar of communal oversight and nurture their own private worlds” (p. 316). This nation as a whole needs serious course-correction, and such Petri dishes like the Free Town Project show symptoms of a sick society desperately grasping for alternatives. The fabric is frayed, fraying further, possibly deteriorating for certain circles, and I wonder if it can ever be sewn into the beautiful tapestry it could possibly be.

[alystayr]

Playlist musicale 2021 (1/2)

Liste des chansons (playlist 2021 - part. 1)

Mise à jour : 30 juin 2021

playlist 2020 (part.2), playlist 2020 (part. 1)

playlist 2019 (part.2), playlist 2019 (part. 1)

playlist 2018 (part. 2), playlist 2018 (part. 1)

playlist 2017 (part. 2), playlist 2017 (part. 1)

playlist 2016 (part. 2), playlist 2016 (part. 1)

playlist 2015

0-9 #

A

AC/DC - Demon Fire (2020)

Bryan Adams - Summer Of '69 (1985)

Alabama Shakes - Hold On (2012)

America - A horse with no name (1971)

Angèle - Balance Ton Quoi (2018)

Archive - Fool (2002)

Jean-Louis Aubert - Bien Sûr (2019)

Asaf Avidan - Different Pulses (2012)

B

George Baker - Little Green Bag (from Reservoir Dogs) (1969)

Band Of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You (2007)

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever (1967)

Jeff Beck (feat. Imogen Heap) - Blanket (2007)

Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive (from  Saturday Night Fever) (1977)

Chuck Berry - Darlin' (2017)

The Black Keys (cover John Lee Hooker) - Crawling Kingsnake (2021)

Black Pistol Fire - Morning Star (2016)

Black Pumas - Colors (2019)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - What Ever Happened To My Rock And Roll (2001)

Black Sabbath - God Is Dead? (2013)

Blind Melon - No Rain (1992)

Blondie - Heart Of Glass (1978)

The Blue Stones - Black Holes (Solid Ground) (2015)

The Blues Mystery - Back to the Dirty Town (2013)

Blues Traveler - Run-Around (1995)

Blur (Feat. Phil Daniels) - Parklife (1994)

David Bowie - Survive (1999)

Jacques Brel - La chanson des vieux amants (1967)

Brigitte - Battez-Vous (2010)

C

Francis Cabrel - Peuple des fontaines (2020)

J.J. Cale - Durango (1997)

CAN - Vitamin C (1972)

Cats on trees - Sirens call (2013)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Distant Sky (2016)

Tracy Chapman - Give Me One Reason (1995)

Joe Cocker (cover Randy Newman) - You Can Leave Your Hat On (from  9½ Weeks) (1986/1972)

CocoRosie - Did Me Wrong (2020)

Cœur de pirate (feat. Loud)   - Dans la nuit (2018)

Leonard Cohen - Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (1967)

The Cranberries - Animal Instinct (1999)

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son (1969)

Sheryl Crow - If It Makes You Happy (1996)

D

Eddy de Pretto - Bateaux-Mouches (2020)

Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club (2021)

Depeche Mode - Freelove (2001)

Détroit - Null And Void (2013)

Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene (1988)

Dire Straits - Expresso Love (1980)

E

Eels - Earth To Dora (2020)

Eminem  (feat. Anderson .Paak)   - Lock It Up (2020)

Endless Boogie - The Artemus Ward (2013)

F

Piers Faccini - Foghorn Calling (2021)

Mylène Farmer - Fuck them all (2005)

Léo Ferré – Les anarchistes (1969)

Feu! Chatterton - Monde Nouveau (2021)

Foo Fighters - Walk (2011)

Maxime Le Forestier - Saltimbanque (1975)

Foster The People - Sit Next to Me (2017)

Franz Ferdinand - Michael (2004)

Fugees - Ready or Not (1996)

G

Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street (1986)

Serge Gainsbourg - Requiem Pour Un Con (1968)

France Gall - Evidemment (1987)

Genesis - Invisible Touch (1986)

Girls in Hawaii - Found in the Ground (2002)

Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (2005)

Jean-Jacques Goldman - Comme toi (1982)

Grand Corps Malade & Louane - Derrière le brouillard (2020)

Juliette Greco - Le p'tit bal perdu (1961)

Greta Van Fleet - Age of Machine (2020)

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (1987)

H

Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around The Clock (1954)

PJ Harvey - Dress (1992)

Murray Head - Say It Ain't So Joe (1975)

Heartless Bastards - Revolution (2020)

Bernard Herrmann - Taxi Driver (theme) (1976)

The Hives - Hate to Say I Told You So (2000)

The Hollies - Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress) (1971)

Hollywood Undead (feat. Hyro The Hero) - Comin' Thru The Stereo (2021)

Romain Humeau - Echos (2020)

I

IDLES - Mr. Motivator (2020)

Interpol - Stella Was A Diver (2002)

Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name (1982)

J

Michael Jackson - Black or White (1991)

The Jesus And Mary Chain (Feat. Hope Sandoval) -   Sometimes Always (1994)

Quincy Jones - Soul Bossa Nova (1962)

K

Kaleo - Backbone (2020)

Kansas - Dust in the Wind (1977)

The Killers - Caution (2020)

The Kills - The Search For Cherry Red (2020)

Kings Of Leon - The Bandit (2021)

Kiss - Heaven's On Fire (1984)

Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way (1993)

Kyo - Le Graal (2014)

L

Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You (1970)

Liars - Sekwar (2021)

Limp Bizkit (Feat. Lil Wayne) - Ready To Go (2013)

Louise Attaque - La plume (2000)

M

Mad Season - Wake Up (1995)

Manu Chao – Clandestino (1998)

Laura Marling - What He Wrote (2010)

Memphis Slim - Born With The Blues (1972)

Metronomy - Walking In The Dark (2019)

Mickey 3D - La mort du peuple (2005)

Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner (1977)

The Mission - Wasteland (1986)

Moby - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? (1999)

Mogwai - It's What I Want To Do, Mum (2021)

Moondog - New Amsterdam (1997)

Morcheeba - Sweet L.A. (2018)

Motörhead - Till The End (2015)

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours (2005)

Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (2006)

N

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999)

Nirvana - All Apologies (1993)

Noir Désir - Aux sombres héros de l'amer (1989)

Claude Nougaro (cover Chico Buarque) - Tu verras (1978)

O

Oasis - D'You Know What I Mean? (1997)

Of Montreal - The Past Is A Grotesque Animal (2007)

The Offspring - Why Don't You Get A Job? (1998)

P

Panaviscope – Sham (2020)

Pigalle - Dans La Salle Du Bar-Tabac De La Rue Des Martyrs (1990)

Pink Floyd - Us And Them (1973)

The Police - Synchronicity II (1983)

Pomme (cover Mylène Farmer) - Désenchantée (2020/1991)

Iggy Pop - Dirty Little Virus (2020)

Portishead - Chase The Tear (2009)

Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still (2017)

The Pretty Reckless - My Bones (2021)

Q

Queen - The Miracle (1989)

Queens of the Stone Age - Go With The Flow (2002)

R

The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldier (2006)

Rammstein - Du Hast (1997)

Chris Rea - The Blue Cafe (1998)

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Suck My Kiss (1992)

Lou Reed (cover The Drifters)  - This Magic Moment (1995/1960)

R.E.M. - What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (1994)

Renaud - Mistral gagnant (1985)

Rival Sons - Too Bad (2019)

The Rolling Stones - Star Star (1973)

Royal Blood - Typhoons (2021)

David Lee Roth - Just Like Paradise (1987)

La Rue Ketanou - Le Capitaine de la Barrique (2014)

Olivia Ruiz - De Toi A Moi (2003)

S

Santana (cover  Fleetwood Mac) - Black Magic Woman (1970)

Shocking Blue - Venus (1969)

Simple Minds - Mandela Day (1989)

The Sisters of Mercy - Emma (1987)

Slayer - Raining Blood (1986)

Sasha Sloan (feat. Sam Hunt) - when was it over? (2020)

The Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm (1993)

Patti Smith - Rock N Roll Nigger (1978)

The Smiths - Barbarism Begins at Home (1985)

Sonny & The Sunsets  - Too Young to Burn (2009)

Regina Spektor - One Little Soldier (from Scandale) (2019)

Spoon - The Way We Get By (2002)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Backstreets (1975)

St. Vincent - Los Ageless (2017)

Stereophonics - Bust This Town (2019)

Sub Urban - Cradles (2021)

Superbus - Mes Défauts (2010)

James Supercave - Better Strange (2016)

Taylor Swift (feat. Bon Iver) – Exile (2020)

System Of A Down - Spiders (1998)

T

Téléphone - Au coeur de la nuit (1980)

Têtes Raides - Tam Tam (2007)

Charles Trenet - Je chante (1937)

Tool - Schism (2001)

Tina Turner - The Best (1989)

U

U2 - Angel Of Harlem (1988)

V

Van Morrison - Country Fair (1974)

Laurent Voulzy - Rockollection (1977)

W

Tom Waits - Wrong Side Of The Road (1978)

Weezer - Beverly Hills (2005)

The White Stripes - Hotel Yorba (2001)

Amy Winehouse - Fuck Me Pumps (2003)

Woodkid - In Your Likeness (2020)

Wovenhand - Crook and Flail (2016)

Shannon Wright - Division (2017)

X

Y

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (2009)

Yes - Roundabout (1971)

Z

[cwmoonglum]

The Atomic Death of the Moon

20/05/07 – The Moon is on Fire. Atomic death pours from the skies. Sneaking onto the family computer at 7.30am per my orders, I find my email inbox flooded with furious diplomatic cables. My real life friend, fresh from holding Stalinist show trials of those who objected to a recently ratified treaty, is facing fresh calls to resign. In the parlance of the day; the moon is closed.

In 2007, adolescence was being revolutionised by access to an internet much more anarchic than today's. Youtube was only two years old, music was something to be downloaded illegally via megaupload and imageboards proliferated. Within a year 'Anonymous' would announce its opposition to Scientology in the much touted Project Chanology; a celebrated mainstream debut that often overshadows its precursor events. Anonymous – a loose alliance of mainly teenagers drawn from across the constellation of imageboards – had been conducting 'raids' for years prior to Chanology. From the occupation of Habbo Hotel with offensive statements and racial caricatures to the scripting of endlessly self-replicating cubes and storms of horse dicks that would crash Second Life servers, the absurd and often cruel humour of the group was stamped across the internet. Anonymous were the degraded Situationists of the commercialising internet, squeezing jouissance from the newly colliding social groups of odd hobbyists, lonely eccentrics and baffled normies.

 With widening internet access yet many people connecting via low powered computers, a market emerged for browser games. In these, roleplaying and metagaming were as compelling as in narrative games. One such game that persists today,Cyber Nations, found itself targeted by Anonymous. A political simulation game where players controlled their own nations, the gameplay was itself was fairly monotonous, but the wider system of alliance forming resulted in elaborate treaties, wars and diplomacy that was truly gripping. On Cyber Nations, Anonymous went under the banner of /b/ (named for the 'random' board on, amongst others, 4chan), and spent 7 months growing itself. With a loose governing structure, /b/ existed mostly on the sidelines before it was dragged into Great War III, a multi-faction conflict that was to have been non-nuclear. However, two rogue actors within /b/ launched nuclear weapons, causing both the mass of members to follow suit and the nominal leader of the alliance, Furseiseki, to disband it. Now pariahs, /b/ spammed the Cyber Nations forums with all manner of shock images to disrupt the game, culminating in a DDoS attack and hack where the home page was defaced and the game's source code stolen. Cyber Nations was down for a number of days, and upon restart my own nation, designated as part of /b/, was stomped into the ground by furious players. The 'disbandment' section on /b/'s official channels read 'many lulz were had, but now we're off TO THE MOON.' Opened to public beta in February 2007, Lunar Wars was a political simulation game that took the broad strokes of Cyber Nations and refined them. Developed by Alessandro Bassi ('Sandro') as a way to teach himself web development, it swiftly attracted players, and offered a new theatre for Anonymous following the dissolution of /b/. I joined up as a junior diplomat for the Elitist Lunar Superstructure on 18/04/07.

The ELS was more disciplined than /b/ from the start. Allied nations were assigned squads to cooperate and trade within, and all announcements were handled through the ELS forum and emailed to members. A greasemonkey script (in 2007, we all used Firefox) was thrown together to assist players. Guides on increasing power quickly were disseminated. Notably two of the admin/developers for the game, skaladis and owl, were ELS members and the recruitment drive across various imageboards was persistent. The IRC channel was anarchic as usual, but diplomats and the leadership convened within a private channel to guide policy. Eph, the alliance leader, designated myself and select others to open lines of communication with smaller groups within the game. Of course, enemies from the days of Cyber Nations had come to the moon.  It seems strange now that 4chan is so identified with reactionary politics, but in these games Anonymous enjoyed bullying the sad little men who named their nations things like 'Wolf Reich ov Iron' and roleplayed as Nazis in their alliances. In Great War III, /b/ had been opposed to Nordreich ('German Nationalists'), and FAN (Federation of Armed Nations), and these groups reemerged on the moon. Leftwing alliances like the Red and Black Block or Union of Lunar Socialist States (ULSS) tried to combat the Nazis on the moon, but the appeal of roleplaying internecine Left political conflicts was limited. To actually wield power capable of slapping down the fascists often meant joining with apolitical, carnivalesque groups like Anonymous. As fun as dunking on fascist cosplay was, however, the real enemy was FARK.

In the ecosystem of the 2007 internet, imageboards were not the only hangout. There were also humour sites like YTMND (You're the Man Now Dog), Something Awful and FARK. The content filtered through to everyone, but allegiance to any one site was performatively over the top. It was as good an excuse as any for enmity.

As a junior diplomat for ELS, I handled treaties with various smaller alliances, most notably the aforementioned ULSS which had been captured by my friend in early May 2007. The tension was mounting palpably across the lunar community as treaties were signed and mutual defence agreements entered into. Something like the network of alliances that ensured the nightmare of World War I was formed, overseen entirely by spotty teenagers and shitposting idiots. Notably GOONS, formed by SomethingAwful forum members, had joined with ELS; FARK was left out in the cold, and allied with FAN. On the night of 19th May 2007 as I stretched my allowed time on the family computer, diplomatic channels became frantic as spies within IRC channels let FARK/FAN know of a planned attack, per ELS internal communications;

GOONS is likely to be attacking FAN within 48 hours. We will receive target lists of anyone GOONS has trouble with. Do not fire counter offensives on FAN unless necessary (problematic targets, etc.)

FARK retaliated by launching the SHIT HITS THE FAN war, beginning perhaps ten minutes after my parents told me to turn the computer off and go to bed. Tossing and turning, I considered diplomatic avenues to strengthen the ELS cause. However as I finally fell into an uneasy sleep the metagame overtook the roleplaying.

For a while now Sandro had been teasing the existence of Galava, a new, more complex browser game with a medieval setting that further developed the gameplay of Lunar Wars. Given that the moon had only been open for a few short months, the kids who had wasted the back half of their school year building alliances on it were grumbling that Lunar Wars was being abandoned before it had even exited beta. The two ELS-allied admin/developers, skaladis and owl were similarly irritated. According to a post by Arciel, head admin of the Lunar Wars forums;

owl had not only given herself nukes; she had given herself and ELS members 9001 nukes each, in reference to a meme. The balance of the game was completely upended; by the time I awoke and booted up the dusty Dell in the spare room Sandro had locked the game. In private conference, Eph and the leadership decided to disband ELS. I was appointed interim Chief Ambassador for the continuity faction, but within a scant few hours I had come around to the joke. Emails continued to go out to rally the faction, but Anonymous' attention, and my own, was shifting elsewhere. The next time I encountered the group, the kids who shut down Habbo Hotel were going up against Scientology.

My friend lost his leadership position in the ULSS after the coup he helped lead was put down. He's involved in actual Leftist politics now, though he's not a Stalinist. In October 2007 Galava was released, and I received an email via the ELS list;

I didn't join. The internet got less wild, more scary. Megaupload was taken down in 2012 and Anonymous initiated a DDoS attack on Universal Music Group. 'Youtuber' became a job, and 4chan birthed the alt right. Both Galava and Lunar Wars continued until October 2009. For me and many others, though, it ended in the atomic fire of 9001 hacked nukes. Anything else was epilogue. The tribute page for Lunar Wars sums it up perfectly;

[althazar]

Voici une liste de citations qui ne laissent AUCUNE PLACE au doute ou a une quelconque ambiguïté, quand à la manipulation derrière cette PANDEMIE... Il y a des personnes qui semblent particulièrement crasses à la compréhension... résultat d'un long (trop long) endormissement devant leurs postes de télé...

L'INDIVIDU EST HANDICAPE, EN SE RETROUVANT FACE A FACE AVEC UNE CONSPIRATION SI MONSTRUEUSE QU'IL NE PEUT CROIRE QU'ELLE EXISTE.

J. Edgar Hoover(1895-1972)

« Une population totale de 200 à 300 millions d’individus,

une baisse de 95% du niveau actuel serait l’idéal »

Ted Turner, fondateur de la chaîne de télévision CNN

« Nous irons ensemble vers le Nouvel Ordre Mondial,

et personne, je dis bien personne ne pourra l’empêcher. »

Nicolas Sarkozy, le 16 janvier 2009, à l’occasion de la présentation des vœux aux corps diplomatiques étrangers.

« La dépopulation devrait constituer la plus haute priorité de la politique étrangère des Etats-Unis vis-à-vis du Tiers Monde. »

Henri Kissinger, cité par Leuren Moret sur http://www.rense.com/general59/Kissingereugenics.htm

« Nous sommes à l'orée d'une transformation globale.

Tout ce dont nous avons besoin est une crise majeure appropriée,

et les nations accepteront le Nouvel Ordre Mondial. »

David Rockefeller, le 23 septembre 1994

« Il faut prendre des mesures draconiennes

de réduction démographique contre la volonté des populations.

Réduire les taux de natalité s'est avéré impossible ou insuffisant.

Il faut donc augmenter le taux de mortalité.

Comment ? Par des moyens naturels : la famine et la maladie. »

Robert Mc Namara :

ancien président de la Banque Mondiale, ancien secrétaire d'État des U.S.A., c’est lui qui ordonna les bombardements massifs du Viêt-nam. Il est également l’un des instigateurs du P.E.V (Programme Elargi de Vaccinations), programme qui a été initié par l'OMS en 1974, dans le but de vacciner le maximum d’enfants dans le monde.

"En politique, rien n'arrive par hasard. Chaque fois qu'un évènement survient, on peut être certain qu'il avait été prévu pour se dérouler ainsi."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Président des Etats Unis de 1932 à 1945

"Le monde se divise en trois catégories de gens: un très petit nombre qui fait se produire les événements, un groupe un peu plus important qui veille à leur exécution et les regarde s'accomplir, et enfin une vaste majorité qui ne sait jamais ce qui s'est produit en réalité."

Nicholas Murray Butler

Président de la Pilgrim Society, membre de la Carnegie, membre du CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) (un des organes principal du Nouvel Ordre)

"Nous sommes reconnaissants au Washington Post, au New York Times, Time Magazine et d'autres grandes publications dont les directeurs ont assisté à nos réunions et respecté leurs promesses de discrétion depuis presque 40 ans. Il nous aurait été impossible de développer nos plans pour le monde si nous avions été assujettis à l'exposition publique durant toutes ces années. Mais le monde est maintenant plus sophistiqué et préparé à entrer dans un gouvernement mondial. La souveraineté supranationale d'une élite intellectuelle et de banquiers mondiaux est assurément préférable à l'autodétermination nationale pratiquée dans les siècles passés."

David Rockefeller

Président et fondateur du Groupe de Bilderberg et de la Commission Trilatérale. Président du CFR.(Council on Foreign Relations)

Propos tenus à la réunion du Groupe de Bilderberg à Baden Baden en 1991

"Quelque chose doit remplacer les gouvernements, et le pouvoir privé me semble l'entité adéquate pour le faire."

David Rockefeller Interview dans Newseek en février 1999

"Nous aurons un gouvernement mondial, que cela plaise ou non. La seule question sera de savoir si il sera créé par conquête ou par consentement."

Paul Warburg

"Nous sommes à la veille d'une transformation globale. Tout ce dont nous avons besoin est la bonne crise majeure, et les nations vont accepter le Nouvel Ordre Mondial."

David Rockefeller

"La direction du Bureau du Président a été utilisée pour fomenter un complot pour anéantir la liberté des Américains, et avant que je ne quitte le Bureau, je dois informer les citoyens de ces conditions."

John Fitzgerald Kennedy dans un discours fait à l'Université Columbia le 12 novembre 1963, dix jours avant son assassinat

"Le but des Rockefeller et de leurs alliés est de créer un gouvernement mondial unique combinant le Supercapitalisme et le Communisme sous la même bannière, et sous leur contrôle. (...) Est-ce que j'entends par là qu'il s'agit d'une conspiration ? Oui, en effet. Je suis convaincu qu'il y a un tel complot, d'envergure internationale, en planification depuis plusieurs générations, et de nature incroyablement maléfique."

Lawrence Patton McDonald

Congressiste américain tué dans l'attaque d'un vol de la Korean Airlines. Message public diffusé en 1976

"Le monde est gouverné par de tout autres personnages que ne se l'imaginent ceux dont l'oeil ne plonge pas dans les coulisses."

Disraëli (1804-1881), Ministre des Finances Britannique de la Reine Victoria, dans Coningsby, page 183

"Tous les êtres humains trébuchent un jour sur la vérité. La plupart se relèvent rapidement, secouent leurs vêtements et retournent à leurs préoccupations, comme si de rien n'était."

Winston Churchill

Premier Ministre de la Grande-Bretagne de 1940 à 1945 et de 1951 à 1955.

RENSE.COM

Kissinger, Eugenics And Depopulation

[buxberg]

La carrière de DiCaprio a commencé par le tournage de plusieurs publicités

Il fait ses débuts au cinéma avec un rôle dans la série télévisée "Parents" (1990).  Après que DiCaprio est apparu dans des rôles de camée dans des séries telles que "Lassie" (1990), "Roseanne" (1991) et plusieurs épisodes de "Santa Barbara" (1990).

Déjà en 1998, Leonardo a joué dans les films "The Man in the Iron Mask" et "Celebrity", et en 1999, le film "The Beach" est sorti.

En 2002, DiCaprio a joué dans les films "Gangs of New York" (réalisé par Martin Scorsese) et "Catch Me If You Can" (réalisé par Steven Spielberg).  Les deux films ont été très bien accueillis par la critique.  La photo "The Aviator", sortie en 2004, a valu à Leonardo une deuxième nomination pour "l'Oscar". En outre, l'acteur a reçu le diplôme de Chevalier de l'Ordre français des Arts et des Lettres.

 DiCaprio continue de travailler avec Martin Scorsese et en 2006 sort le film The Renegades.  La même "Bloody Diamond".  Pour ses rôles dans ces films, il a été nominé deux fois pour le "Golden Globe", en plus, le film "Blood Diamond" a également été nominé pour le "Oscar".

 Ces dernières années, il a joué dans des films tels que "Body of Lies" (2008), "Road of Changes" (2009), "Island of the Damned" (2010).

[thewhumperinwhite]

Guardian Angel, part 4

Part One / Part Two / Part Three

(I’m gonna make a masterpost for this one later today cause I’ve got.... Some Plans for this one)

@whumpitywhumpwhump

TW for: religion/Christianity, including probably some mild blasphemy; mild body horror (reanimated corpse); referenced seriously ill parent.

----

The priest seems like a nice enough guy, based on the not-even-two-minutes of interaction Karim has had with him. He’s also looking at Karim with deep concern and not moving from his seat in the front pew, so at this moment he’s Karim’s least favorite person on earth.

“I can’t tell you why I need it,” Karim says through gritted teeth. “I just need it. It’s an emergency.”

The priest’s frown deepens, and Karim fights back a frustrated groan. “What emergency are you having that you think holy water will help with?” the priest says, in the kind of calm voice you use for children you think are idiots.

“None of your business,” Karim snaps, because he’s way, way too stressed to come up with a convincing lie, and not crazy enough yet to think this guy with his carefully-ironed cassock and his uber-sensible wire-rimmed spectacles will believe the truth.

The priest sighs and removes the glasses, slowly, like a teacher who thinks you’re making them tired on purpose.

“Young man,” the priest says. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t bless water and just give it to you. The Church sanctions the use of holy water for a limited number of purposes. Now.” He looks at Karim with an over-exaggerated kindly-old-man expression. “I’d be happy to accompany you and help you with whatever emergency you’re facing.”

Karim scowls, and points behind him toward the back of the sanctuary. “You can’t pretend it’s a, a controlled substance or something, you’ve got a big bowl of it just sitting back there.”

The priest looks over Karim’s shoulder. At the end of the sanctuary’s center aisle there’s a big glass bowl nestled in the top of a carved wooden stand. He looks back at Karim, looking patiently disapproving in a way Karim hates down to his bones. 

“The font is intended to remind parishioners of their baptism when not in use,” he says, a bit more severe, and then his face softens and he turns to face Karim fully, folding his hands in his lap. “Young man, I’m happy to help, if something is frightening you. I understand there are many things you might wish for holy protection from. Tell me, what is it that’s got you so upset?”

Karim stares at the man for a second. Then he says, “Oh, fuck this,” and turns on his heel to run.

By the grace of God— who he can apologize to later, if he thinks of it— the bowl that comprises the top of the font isn’t secured to the bottom, just like he hoped. It’s heavy, but now that he is actively sprinting out of a church he’s filled with enough adrenaline that the weight seems very manageable. A little of it slops over the front of his hoodie when he spins to shove the door of the church open with his butt, but it’s still more than half full by the time he skids to a stop next to his mom’s car, awkwardly repositions the bowl— it’s way too big to hold securely, but by some miracle he doesn’t drop it, maybe that means God is fine with it after all— and pulls the car door open by shoving the toe of his sneaker under the handle and yanking it towards him.

“What the Hell are you doing?” the priest squawks from behind him, and Karim laughs hysterically.

Whatever else this is, it’s a much better distraction than stealing his mom’s car ever would have been.

Art half-sits up in the back of the car, his eyes widening when he sees Karim holding an entire baptismal font balanced on his knee. “The fuck are you—?”

“What do I do with it?” Karim yells, because they don’t have time for this.

Art blinks at him at the same time that he hears the church door slam behind him, which means the priest is only the length of the parking lot away now.

“Wh— fuck, here,” Art says, and he leans forward, grabs the edge of the bowl with his good hand, and tips the bowl toward himself. Karim follows his momentum, pouring the entire contents of the font over Art’s ruined arm and leg, and incidentally also soaking the rest of him and practically flooding the backseat of Karim’s mom’s car, which he doesn’t have time to think about at the moment.

Karim slams the back door, turns, holds up the empty font, and sets it down on the asphalt next to the car, and blurts, “Thanks Father!” before he spins, throws himself back into the driver’s seat, jams the car into gear and peels out of the parking lot literally as fast as the car will go. He looks up once to see the bewildered form of the priest, holding the bowl and staring after them, and then he grips the steering wheel hard, feeling laughter bubble unstoppably up out of his chest. He can feel the hysterical edge to it, but he doesn’t try to stop it; this is the best he’s felt in—well, in six months, at least.

He hears Art laugh, too, from the back, though he mostly sounds confused, and meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, grinning. “Did it work?”

Art laughs again, breathing hard, and his answer sounds a bit strained. “It’s— in the process of working.” Karim can hear some deeply unpleasant cracking sounds from behind him. In the rearview he can just see Art stretched out on the back seat, his neck a tight painful arch, exposing his scarred throat. “Fucking— hate this part,” Art mutters.

Karim catches his breath, though his stomach hurts pretty bad from laughing. “You need me to pull over?” he says, trying to watch the road while also craning to see if he can see what’s happening any better in the rearview.

“No no, it’s—ah—it’s fine. I’m—” Art laughs, bitterly. “Used to it.”

Karim frowns at the rearview, where he can see Art’s eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain, and once he’s put another three blocks between them and the church, he pulls into an empty parking lot and turns around in his seat.

“Jesus,” he says, wincing back immediately.

Art’s leg seems to be almost done knitting itself back together, but Karim does get to see about three seconds of the bones snapping back into place. Art collapses back against the seat, panting.

“God,” Karim says. “I’m— um. I’m sorry, dude. About hitting you.”

Art waves his newly-repaired arm dismissively, then lets his hand drop onto his forehead, where Karim can see the cracks where he hit the windshield have closed up, too. 

They’re a bit harder to see, now, lit by street lights at an odd angle, but it doesn’t look like the scars on his throat and arms have gone anywhere.

“‘sfine,” Art says breathlessly. “You’re lucky it was me, actually. Would’ve killed anybody else.” Pushing his hair out of his face, he cracks one eye to squint at Karim. “What the fuck were you going so fast for, anyway? And is this— what, Farah’s car?”

Karim jerks backward hard enough to honk the horn with his spine, making them both jump badly. “You know my mom’s name?” he blurts. That’s the most terrifying thing Art has said so far.

Art raises an eyebrow at him, like that’s funny. “I know Farah, yes,” he says, smirking. “You could not pay me to try and steal her car, to be honest. What the fuck—is—” He trails off, the smirk sliding off his face, and he sits up, running his hand through his hair and no longer looking at Karim. “Wait,” he says, apparently to himself. “2009. Shit.” Then he turns his head and looks at Karim like Karim has just turned into a hurt puppy before his very eyes. “Your father,” Art says quietly, and Karim feels his stomach muscles tense painfully, like he’s waiting for a blow. “I’m sorry. I forgot about that.”

Karim looks at the dead boy, and his ears immediately start to buzz a little.

“Is that why?” Art says softly, looking at Karim with his dead eyes full of pity. “Are you—”

“No,” Karim snaps. Art blinks, surprised, and Karim shakes his head, stiffly. “That’s not what we’re doing. I don’t know you from shit, and I’m not talking about this.”

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting—more pity, maybe, or else a fight—but Art nods immediately, saying “Okay, right, yeah, absolutely,” so fast he trips over the syllables. Karim watches his shoulders relax, like he’s grateful for the out, and it soothes a little of the knee-jerk that was building bitter at the back of Karim’s throat, too. “Absolutely, dear, whatever you need.”

Karim breathes out, trying to come down from his immediate defensive position, and then he shakes his head, slowly. “Hold on,” he says. “Hold on, you—you noticed the year right off,” he accuses, frowning at Art, who jumps guiltily. “I said it was 2009 and you—swore, or something, like you knew it was bad. You must have known about,” he swallows hard, makes it come out, “about m-my dad from the beginning, or… you…”

He trails off. Art is looking away, chewing on his cracked and colorless lower lip. When he looks back at Karim, his face is hard to read—somewhere between discomfort and nervousness and maybe guilt, too.

“What?” Karim says, alarmed.

“It’s, um. It’s gonna be kind of a big year,” Art says.

[filmmakerdreamst]

Could you Handle ‘Life with Derek?’

Life with Derek was a Multi-Cam Comedy that aired on the Canadian Family Channel and later on Disney Channel from 2005–2009. The story followed fifteen-year old Casey McDonald as her life turns upside down, when she’s forced to go from being a popular A+ student at an all-girls private school, to living with a middle class family in London, Ontario when her mum remarries.

There she has to adjust, with her younger sister Lizzie, attending a public school where no one cares about their grades as much as she does, making friends with her next door neighbour Emily and living with her new step dad and three new step-siblings. One of whom is Derek, the most “popular boy” in her year, who challenges her on his turf, and turns out to be as self absorbed and spoiled as she is.

The episodes follow Casey’s counselling sessions with school counsellor, Paul Greebie as he helps her adjust to her new living situation; but at the heart of it, they importantly follow Casey’s battles with her step-brother Derek, to take control of the house, their younger siblings, their school and their world.

Life with Derek as a TV show was many things. A Sitcom. A Family Drama driven by characters. A Brady Bunch Remake. But its undoubtedly best remembered for the series-long slow burning subtextual “love affair” between the two eldest step-sibling’s, Casey and Derek.

In the mid 2000’s, when Life With Derek was on air, I was ironically in a similar position as the main character, Casey. My dad was going out with someone whom had a daughter my age — who I called my “step-sister” — that I clashed with a lot because we were both spoiled by our parents. Eventually I was forced out of my own home into another house (though I never had to change schools) with my sister Lizzie who was also five years younger than me. Let’s just say my “step-sister” and I — even though I cared about her — never really got along.

I vividly remember watching this show around that time because I did have cable at my dad’s house, but not weekly. I remember getting confused at one point because I could sense something was off about it. For example ‘hang on — why are they standing so close?’ ‘Oh God why is he looking at her like that?’

My “step-sister” loved Disney Channel and I loved CBBC (good old British grit) so every time I finished watching something like Dick and Dom in the Bungalow, she switched to Hannah Montana. And it always felt like a packet of sugar poured itself onto the screen. It could have been something to do with the fact that CBBC had a range of different shows with multiple genres, and Disney just had Sitcoms/Comedies. Regardless, I could never fully get into those shows until years later.

I ironically began to be interested in Life with Derek, when I watched a video on YouTube in 2015, describing “multi ships”, one of which was Casey and Derek. I got intrigued by this because it’s not every day that you hear of a teenage girl having a rather complicated relationship with her step-brother, coming from a show aimed at children which normally portrays those kinds of things as “cookie cuttered” and “safe”- not that it’s a bad thing.

I then fully binged watched the whole show in four days and thoroughly loved it. There was hardly anything sugar coated about it, which was to be expected since it was Canadian. It definitely helped that it didn’t have a built-in laugh track (even if it had heavy sound effects).

What I loved most about the show — besides it being one of the first family shows around that time that frequently pushed the message “you don’t have to be blood to be family” without glamorising the subject. Coming from experience, I know how messy that ‘Blended families’ subject can get. It showed how generally uneventful; how real relationships have a general lack of any real drama, unlike how regular TV Shows portray them.

The first season mainly consisted of the culture clash between the two families. The fight over rooms, space, possessions, etc. Casey’s family was upper class and Derek’s wasn’t, which made for an interesting dynamic on screen. It didn’t shy away from the fact that their whole situation was forced and not this ‘picturesque ideal’ that the Brady Bunch had audiences in the ’70s believe. But it wasn’t overly dramatic either.

There was no gimmick, like most Disney shows had around that time. Even Lizzie McGuire, that was considered the most realistic show on Disney, had gimmicks to an extent. Nothing really happened — other than events that happen to regular families all the time. There was no magic or goofy characters or stereotypical teenage archetypes really. Or even when there were, they always felt developed enough that they felt real. It just relied on the layered characters and domesticity to make it entertaining.

My favourite character was Casey. She had such an interesting character arc for a family show. I loved that she was able to be a multitude of things at once, more than her usual ‘Character Type’ would allow. She could be loving. She could be manipulative. She could be selfless. She could be dramatic. She could make exceptions for herself. I loved how she had no desire to be popular until she was peer pressured into having a boyfriend, which resulted in her losing who she was. When she broke up with her boyfriend in order to find herself, she was back to normal but she wasn’t the same person as she was before. But it was still considered important that she had those experiences, in order to grow as a person. I always thought if this show was made today, she would have an ‘Anxiety Disorder’ Diagnosis.

This was also the first time I learned terms such as ‘merged family’ or ‘blended family’. Often, shows like this play it safe and have the other half of the family change their last name or we get to never see ‘the other parent’. A couple of my favourite episodes were when we got to see Casey’s dad or Derek’s mum.

“It always seems like the kids (in other ‘blended family’ shows) don’t actually know their new step-family very well, which would be strange in the real world. Usually the two families get to know each other pretty well before the parents marry. The parents never seem to have shared custody arrangements either. The kids spend all their time at the same house, which is also strange. Life With Derek was actually more realistic than most of the “step-family” shows in that at least the kids’ other parents were talked about and seen on the show. Most of these shows act as though the other parent doesn’t even exist” — SqueakyPickles

I loved all the familiar dynamics that the show presented to the audience especially the friendship between the middle step-siblings, Edwin and Lizzie — who were able to find their voice and stop being at the beck and call of their older siblings because they gained perspectives from one another. The sibling relationship between Derek and Marti was also a favourite of mine. How Derek’s demeanor immediately softened and took care of his little sister when she needed it the most. I loved the nicknames they both gave each other.

The most interesting aspect of the show was that the step-family wasn’t a family right off the bat. They started off being very awkward and confrontational, until eventually, as they got to know each other individually, grew to be a family. The progression felt natural. For example, it wasn’t like the Brady Bunch where the blended family was called ‘The Brady Bunch’ from the first episode. They earned their nickname ‘The Mcdonald-Venturi’s’ over time.

But even when the family was established in the narrative, it still wasn’t portrayed as ‘perfect.’

For example, In ‘Home Movies’ (my all-time favourite episode of the show) Casey is making a documentary about her blended family, in which she wants to paint a perfect picture of how “two families who worked together, overcame adversity and bonded into one big happy family” but when she comes to film the documentary, her family is behaving all over the place. When she comes to interview Derek — about how having a new family has benefitted their lives, he frankly replies ‘No. This family is a mess.’ and just tells her how it is. This would never happen if this was an original Disney show. At the end of the episode, we get to see the finished film — that Derek edited when he became her partner — pretty much confirming what Derek said, that their family is full of chaos, but they’re always there for each other when it matters the most; which is the epitome of what the show is about.

However, on the other hand, I felt the creators of Life with Derek were making two different shows at the same time. There was the family-friendly comedy of Nora, George, Edwin, Lizzie and Marti. And then there was Casey and Derek, who almost existed in a show of their own — and is the only thing that people focus on when talking about Life with Derek in today’s world.

Now I’ve seen siblings in Film and TV, where the casting is a little too good, that it comes off as more ‘Belligerent Sexual Tension’ than innocent sibling rivalry. Life with Derek took that concept and dialed it up to fifty.

“Because it was always at the back of their minds, and the fans were so into Casey and Derek being a couple, Seater noted how actors always want to find subtext in their lines and give fans what they desire.”

Because of Michael Seater’s and Ashley Leggat’s chemistry (also them adding subtext to their lines) and Writing Fumbles here and there, it came across more as a show about two teenagers fighting an attraction while being in a sibling relationship — than a show about a power struggle between two step-siblings who eventually become family.

I admit, I’m not the biggest fan of when the ‘step-sibling or sibling love affair’ trope is used in fiction. There are exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, as I’m sure this goes for a lot of people, I find it unnecessary and a way to cause drama for no reason.

I however found Casey and Derek’s controversial, messy relationship very authentic and honest. And I think it’s because it came naturally. It didn’t feel forced or scripted. Also, It really didn’t help that they sometimes felt more like two teenagers randomly living in the same house, than new step-siblings. I almost thought the nature of their relationship was the result of their parents’ total obliviousness towards their children, since they got married and moved in with each other after a few months of going out.

I enjoyed watching their interactions where they would be antagonistic towards each other, but strangely inseparable and obsessive at the same time. How they claimed to ‘dislike each other’ but yet, they would always be in each other’s faces.

Though it was stated they were ‘different’, they really were each other’s mirror image in a lot of ways. Which was unabashedly the strongest part of the series. Derek is shown to be a slacker; breaker of the rules. Whereas Casey is shown to be pretentious with quite the ego. So the audience never feels like the other is better, and they can often benefit from each other and help the other one out when it really matters.

“Leggat pointed out how Dasey was just like the experience of simultaneously hating and loving someone, since the stepsiblings rarely got along, but did prove to be there for one another when it really counted.”

Throughout the series, they both date a number of people. The most prominent ones being in Season Three. They both help each other out with these relationships too. Casey helps Derek with his communication in starting a new relationship with Sally. And Derek inadvertently helps Casey sort her feelings out when she loses herself to her relationship with Max. But none of these relationships prove to be as important as theirs.

“Casey and Derek mean more to each other than any of the people they date. In fact their love/hate relationship is the core of the series.” — Daphne Balloon (Series Creator)

Bringing back to “Real relationships having a general lack of any real drama” In most TV Shows (even in shows aimed at children) there’s usually a love triangle, a weird back and forth dynamic and in the end, there’s a big kiss and they ride off into the sunset. But in real life, and in this show, there is a lot of uncomfortable sexual tension there, but there is no ‘romance’ between the two of them. They gradually become friends over the course of the series.

Half of the tension in the show comes from them being teenagers with dominant personalities, living in a small space together against their will. And the other half, there’s an underlying threat that they both might like each other — which they don’t like at all.

“In fact, Seater revealed he thinks the duo should’ve ended up together on the show, and perhaps they did — in some kind of Twilight Zone parallel universe, that is. Leggat explained how it just made sense for Casey and Derek to be together and is “a natural progression for them.”

The infamous scene in the finale was as close as one could get to a confirmation of that, which was coincidently a trailblazer for many shows/films aimed at a slightly older audience.

Even though Casey and Derek’s “taboo love affair” never became canonical throughout the show’s run for obvious reasons, by the time it ended, it was hard to read their relationship as anything other than an unrequited love story. Even though the actors may have played into it — especially in the later seasons — really this seems to be a case where ‘relationships’ just kind of evolve on their own.

I do however think that it was a mistake that Disney aired the show on their network, since the “age group” the channel generally attracts (2–10 years old) is younger than Family Channel’s audience. Hopefully it was tame enough to brush off and didn’t have any real consequences for a lot of children watching.

Though the show’s entirety — other than one aspect — seems to have faded from people’s memory and doesn’t get as nearly enough credit as it deserves, Life with Derek is still the most chaotic family show I have ever watched and remains my guilty pleasure to this day.

- Could you Handle 'Life with Derek'? by Ellie Hersey