#There are and have been elements ive seriously liked when ive snatched a book of hers off a library shelf

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

I hate my hangup with reading Wonder Woman comics bc I spent my formative years as a Greek myth lover and I know I'm not going to enjoy the feminist revisionism that seems to be the Greek Pantheon of DC

I want to read her stuff, but dear god I don't want how they write the gods in any story I've heard of

[aliceslantern]

Retribution, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 4

Newly a person again, Ienzo is weighed down by guilt and his humanity. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to atone... only to find unexpected solace in a familiar face. With more insight into the bonds between people than ever before, Ienzo reaches for a dangerous element from the past to help Kairi and Riku in their search for Sora. What is his life if it means saving another, brighter light?

Chapter summary:  Ienzo's attempts to regain his power go awry, leading him to a confrontation with Even.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Ienzo turned back to his work, again, with a fervor. Only this time, after dealing with all of Ansem and Even’s frippery, at night he tried to find places to train magic.

The greenhouse was out. Demyx was using that, and might see things he didn’t need to see.

The castle was huge. Plenty of nooks and crannies to squirrel himself away in, but Ienzo did not want to spend hours climbing or walking somewhere just to train for yet more time. He spent several days trying to subtly coax the entirety of Aeleus and Dilan’s rounds out of them; it needed to be off their radar, too. At last, though, he found it. It was a domed courtyard, perhaps fifteen meters in diameter, with several pillars; these pillars had lighted sconces. The ground had once been inlaid parquet, only it had been damaged and torn away in places. It was quiet, here, and there was potential for moonlight.

He dressed comfortably. He brought with him a small store of water, nonperishable snacks. Ienzo wasn’t quite brazen enough to try stealing ethers from Even’s stores; the man would no doubt notice they were missing. He’d have to make do for now until the next time he went to the market.

Ienzo sat cross legged on the ground. He tried to breathe and center himself, and once he felt he was sufficiently focused he summoned the lexicon.

It had once been named “Book of Retribution,” a name he’d not consciously chosen but had been inscribed in the front cover. He knew now that of course this was the very essence of his psyche; what else would a scholar, a researcher have other than a book ? He had no need for knives, swords, or instruments. Words could--and did--hurt just as much. They could break your heart.

Sticks and stones , he thought sourly.

But this volume? There was nothing written on the inner cover, just blankness, a generic paper print. There were some contents to this book now, from all his time spent reading in this life so far. So what was it? Was it nameless? Did it matter?

Friend, he thought towards it, help me.

Ienzo stood. His powers had been partially telekinetic, at least in regards to the lexicon. It might be easiest to start there. He held it out in his arms and tried to pull from within. He could feel the book trembling in his grip as he tried to lift it with his mind; instantly Ienzo felt a hot headache blooming, his heart rate increasing noticeably. Just fucking pick it up, he thought to himself. He let go with his hands, and it immediately fell to the floor.

He almost groaned out loud, but composed himself. He had to be calm. Try again.

He must’ve stood there for hours. It was unclear.

Every time Ienzo tried to get the lexicon to do what he wanted, it simply flopped to the ground. He could get it to do no more than tremble in his hands. The pain grew worse, and he grew dizzier, until his breathing was quite labored. The water and snacks only partially helped. He felt drained, depleted, in more ways than one, and to his shock felt frustrated tears building in his eyes.

Weak. Weak. Weak.

He walked back to the apprentices’ quarters and dropped into bed for a weary few hours of sleep before his alarm woke him.

---

These days took on a pattern. By day, he was Ienzo, a modest scholar of the heart, seeking to plumb the depths of Kairi’s. By night, he was closer to Zexion, struggling to reign in a power he’d once had like breath. He had no idea if he was making any progress or if he were simply hurting his body for no reason.

Because it was hurting. He was prone more than ever to headaches, to wooziness, and sometimes even in sedentary stillness his heart would race. He felt out of breath climbing stairs. The ethers he finally got his hands on did help, but only so much. It seemed like Even was right, about the entropy. Not to mention, magic burned ludicrously more calories for humans than Nobodies, and he struggled to keep up proper intake.

He couldn’t do nothing. What were some aches and pains compared to Sora’s life?

The weeks--or months? He wasn’t sure--seemed to drag on in this manner… Ienzo so slowly made progress, was able to lift and manipulate the book with relative ease, though it left him gasping for air. He would get used to it. He’d be sure of it.

That morning, he’d again been feeling dizzy, but thought nothing of it. He saw Demyx in the hall, on his own way to work. “Hey, Zo,” he said pleasantly. Ienzo had tried to be cordial, since his breakdown, had even responded to the other boy’s texts--but Ienzo had no time for friendship, and he thought Demyx knew that. “How’s it going? Haven’t seen hide or hair of you in forever.”

“It certainly is going,” he said vaguely. His vision was blurry, and he felt again his heart starting to skip, to race. It would pass. “I’m afraid I’ve barely had a moment to myself.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “But are you… doing okay?”

“Better than I was. Thank you for asking.”

“‘...Course.” He smiled a little.

“How’s your work?”

“Oh, same soup, just reheated, you know? But I honestly don’t mind. It’s just different enough every day. And so far… almost all the people I’ve met are nice. It’s… refreshing.” A wry laugh.

��I know I haven’t been--very warm--” A particularly sharp pain echoed through his head, and he touched it without meaning to.

“You’ve got a lot on your plate--Zo?”

He tried to breathe through the pain. His heart had leapt into his throat. He realized all this must be very visible because Demyx added,

“Hey. Zo?”

Ienzo tried to find the words to console him, but his knees were weakening.

“Zo? I… fuck.”

His consciousness cut rather abruptly, and from here there were only odd snatches of things. He was being carried, his face pressed against Demyx’s chest, the smell of laundry and something like salt and ginger. How odd… to be so vulnerable…

“I got your call--what on earth happened?”

“We were just talking and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes.”

More darkness, more lost time. Ienzo didn’t regain awareness all at once. He felt blankets, the distinctive pull of an IV, the smell of bleached linen. An ache, dulled by painkillers, nothing quite having straight lines.

“...My boy? Can you hear me?” A warm, dry hand against his.

His eyelids felt like lead, and a scratchiness of sandpaper.

��Let him sleep, Ansem. He’ll need it for the hiding I’m about to give--”

He either slept or was unconscious--it was hard to tell. But things were clearer once he opened his eyes.

He was not in his bedroom. He was in the med bay, where he’d tended to Even and Dilan as they recovered from their Nobodies’ wounds. While not as cold or as sterile as the Organization’s own ward, it was still quite jarring.

“Awake at last?” Even set aside the tablet he’d been holding and came over to the bed.

“Time for the hiding, then?” Ienzo asked dully.

“Do you have any idea what shape you were in when Demyx brought you to me?”

“I was simply unconscious.”

“Simply--” Even sputtered, his hands near his face, and Ienzo saw Vexen once again. “You do realize healthy twenty-year-olds don’t simply black out, yes?”

Ienzo sat up. He was still perilously dizzy, but less so. “Perhaps I was just ill.”

“None of this perhaps nonsense. I know exactly what you’ve been up to.”

His heart stuttered again, though this time from that familiar punch of caught.  

Even scowled and turned away from him. “Do you know what the ideal weight for a person of your size is?”

Ienzo was confused; not the lecture he’d been expecting about entropy and danger . “Well--yes--”

“Tell me.”

“What are you getting at?”

“What is a healthy body weight for a person of your height?” His lips were pursed.

“Between fifty-nine and eighty-one kilograms.”

“Do you know how much you weigh?”

“Even, I’ve no idea where you’re going with this,” he said honestly.

“Fifty-four. Fifty-four kilograms with a twenty-year-old’s metabolism.”

It started to click. Even didn’t know about Ienzo’s attempt to regain his power. He thought all these health issues were from-- He put a hand to his head. Ienzo knew the magic was causing him to lose weight. He didn’t think it was drastic or noticeable.  

Which angle to play, then? How did he get himself out of this? He did not want to confess to an issue he did not have, but confessing to use of power seemed infinitely worse. “Even,” he said tiredly. “You needn’t worry about my weight. At all.”

“Oh, but that isn’t all, Ienzo,” he said smoothly. “You think nobody’s noticed that your bed is rarely slept in? That your phone shows you active all hours of the day--and night? Not to mention you barely eat, barely drink water, that I’ve noticed, anyway, and I’m not the only one paying attention. The dehydration, the sleep deprivation, this…” Again he trailed off. “Your blood pressure, the ambient amount of cortisol in your blood… Ienzo, if you keep living like this, you won’t see thirty.”

Ienzo dropped his eyes.

“I don’t know how to impart the seriousness of your condition.”

“I’m not radically underweight.”

He groaned. “It’s not about your weight. It’s that you clearly are neglecting your own needs--and it’s catching up to you. And it will keep catching up to you unless you learn to take care of yourself.”

“I’m an adult, I’m perfectly capable--”

“Perfectly capable? Perfectly capable? You think losing consciousness for the better part of three days is a reflection of health ?”

Ienzo gritted his teeth. A rage began coiling in his stomach. “What does it matter?” he all but snarled.

“Child, I can’t make you want to live. But how else can I convince you that your body can’t, and won’t , react like a Nobody’s? It’s not a vessel, not a plaything. You can’t expect to work if you’re deteriorating so rapidly.” He softened just a touch; bizarre to see it happen. “You can’t expect to live, either.”

Ienzo didn’t know what to say. It felt like getting punched.

“I lost you once. I won’t lose you again.”

“Lost?” The claws were well and truly out now. For the first time Ienzo fully understood what it meant when someone snapped , despite having seen it and forced it on people countless times. It did feel like breaking. “You lost me?”

At his radical change in tone, Even’s eyebrows shot up.

“You…” He couldn’t find the words. “You took my father and you dumped him out, and then you had the nerve--the gall -- to lie to me about it. For years .” He was trembling. “You let Xehanort do to me what he would. You let me see and break those people. You.”

Even had turned very pale.

“And then--after all that--you let him take my heart. You think a kid could make that kind of decision? A fucking child?” Ienzo breathed hard. “I was just another one of your experiments, Even. That’s all I ever was. Admit it.” He’d never heard his own voice like this, rough and on the verge of a scream. “You, Aeleus, Dilan. You didn’t lose me. You threw me away.”

Ienzo didn’t know what to read into that expression--only knew that he’d never seen it before. “Ienzo…” He began tremulously.

“Everything I’ve done…” The guilt was almost stronger than the rage. “You gave me the tools. Why?”

“What?”

“Tell me why.”

“I never wanted him to hurt you. Never wanted you to have that life. But Xehanort… his hold on us… we were so convinced we could… change the world. He told me he wanted to make it better for people like you.” His eyes were pleading. “Seeing all your pain… I thought the darkness could heal. That it could help people. But it twisted me. Made it so much easier to put aside the human for the scientific… made my ends… worth their means. We were experiments too, Ienzo. Do you think any of us had a choice? It was give up our hearts… or become another subject in his plan.” He pressed one hand to his face, his eyes shut tight. “By the time I tried to get us out, it was too late… and being a Nobody cut all my bonds with others, especially you.”

The rage was cooling, hardening, and becoming something far more painful.

“Every time I see your face I think of it. What you could’ve done. Already, already you’re doing so much more good than I ever did.” He came closer to Ienzo. “I had hoped to raise you to be better. When Ansem asked me to help him care for you… you were already all but feral from his ragged childcare. I saw that you were… different, a brilliance I had hoped to nurture. But once the darkness came we exploited you. And I am so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The tears in his eyes were oddly cold.

“It pains me more than I can describe to see you struggle now, as a direct result of my actions. All I can do is hope I can make this place good enough, safe enough, for you to have the life you deserved.” His voice was unsteady. Ienzo had never seen Even cry; part of him didn’t think the man was capable. But the tears on his face were very real.

“...Even.” He felt his lip trembling in an attempt to hold it back.

“I do not expect to be forgiven. I hope that this guilt… will make me better .”

The apology rang dully in his ears. He feared he was breaking again, in a different way this time. Even sat on the bed next to him.

“Let me help you, Ienzo. You are no longer so alone. I wish to earn your trust again… should you so let me.”

It was this that did it, on top of his very exhaustion. Again the tears seemed to run from a deep, awful place in him; the abandonment and guilt and rage mixing into a slurry he couldn’t fight anymore. They broke out of him. He curled up. Despite it all, Even was here. He’d apologized, something Vexen never had done. He was… upset.

So gently, Even reached forward to embrace him. It had been years since he’d last been consoled like this, yet it was so eerily familiar. Even smelled the same, bleached cloth and powder. Ienzo found himself clinging to him. “Just cry,” Even said softly. “Scream, if you need. It might help.”

All Ienzo could do was listen, paralyzed again by his own emotions, but it felt… cathartic? Like the dark things were bleeding out of him, bit by tiny bit. He knew on a literal level it was probably humiliating, to be a grown man sobbing in his old guardian’s arms, but he felt less mortified than when he had broken down in front of Demyx. Even stroked his hair, another familiar gesture. Eventually, eventually… the sobs quieted, calmed, and he could breathe normally. Even got up and handed him a cool, damp cloth for his raw eyes.

“Is that better?” Even asked.

“How disgraceful this is,” he muttered.

“Your system is no doubt out of sorts--and so is your heart. Natural for it to need some kind of release.” He took off his lab coat; Ienzo noticed before he set it aside that the shoulder was quite damp, translucent, almost. “You should spend some time recovering. Sleeping, eating, getting outside.”

“What about Kairi?”

“Kairi and Sora would both agree that this isn’t worth the price of your health. Physically or mentally.”

“But with Aeleus and Dilan pulled away by rounds--” and Even and Ansem seething at one another, “--you’ll be--”

“We’re both grown men, Ienzo. I think we can set aside our differences for the time being.”

“What will I do if I don’t work?” It was more a question to himself than anything; Ienzo truly didn’t know. He’d been working and working for years now.

“Perhaps focus on your own studies? Or…” He considered. “We could have you on in a heavily reduced capacity, say three hours a day?”

Ienzo felt odd. Stripped bare. “This is so humiliating, for it to come to this.”

Even just sighed. “What else would have happened? It’s all you know--working yourself into the ground for things you care about. We raised you this way. But now your cause should be learning to be human. No more, no less.”

It was clear Even was right. If he were to do good, he had to be healthy. Dealing with these emotions and memories should be a priority.

“I’ll give you some medication to help you sleep,” Even said. “And the anti-anxiety. I’d like for you to try both, at least for a time. See how it treats you.”

“...Alright.”

[furnaceinthehayloft]

From 2009 through 2016, I took part in a series of great books seminars.  We met on Sundays. Here is how seminar works, mostly, in the sense that I mean it: there is an opening question, a reading list, a table and chairs, a great book, no food.  It meets regularly about once or twice a week. The opening question should be an honest question for whoever asks, as well as for the rest of the seminar and for the author of the text.   Often, a good opening question is one which the text seems to ask of itself.  For example, in Sophocles's play, Ajax asks "What joy can be in day that follows day, Bringing us close then snatching us from death?" In the seminar in which this question was asked, it developed that Odysseus moves side-to-side, while Ajax moves forward and backward.   This metaphor then formed the basis of our investigation.   The opening question is by no means the only question to be addressed, and many a great seminar veers immediately away from the opening question, never to return.  Yet, the seminar accepts the opening question as a a valid question, and it is understood that we rely on the space which this question creates.  Even a "bad" opening question still creates a space. A reading list is especially helpful when there is a large power disparity among the members, either institutional, intellectual, social, or what-have-you.  By removing the choice of what to read next, the reading list removes one of the primary active mechanisms of control.  A seminar with a lopsided power dynamic, willing members, and without a reading list may very likely turn into a guru-type situation.  In a setting in which not all of the participants are willing, as in school, without a reading list some of the people may try to use the choice of what to read next as a way to exert control and escape their imprisonment.   This is entirely to be expected; the student has made a wise choice.  If such a seminar is to persist, a reading list may be necessary. In the Sunday seminars we were largely unaware of such power disparities, so we often just decided each week what to read the next.  A seminar without a previously agreed reading list is sometimes called a "guerrilla seminar". The participants should try to finish the reading.  This is not always possible; sometimes, a seminar assigns itself something like 300 pages of Tacitus.  But what is it to read, and what is it to "finish" a reading?  A person who reads only "What joy can be in day that follows day, Bringing us close then snatching us from death?", or reads only "With the fundamental mood of anxiety we have arrived at that occurrence in human existence in which the nothing is revealed and from which it must be interrogated. How is it with the nothing?", or reads only "The valley spirit never dies; It is the woman, primal mother. Her gateway is the root of heaven and Earth.", and who really reads those tiny fragments, has read far more and better than one who wastes a lifetime staring at words without feeling. The table functions as a table, but also as a material object separating the participants, hiding their bodies and connecting them by means of a flat and empty space.  This is not strictly necessary but it can be a great source of comfort.  The table should not have a hole in the middle of it.  It should not be a ring of smaller tables.  Ideally it should be a nice table, but this is not always practical.  A few wooden tables pushed together does well. The chairs should be comfortable.  Many people habitually lean back or forward in their chairs during seminar, and this behavior should be accommodated as far as possible by the chairbler. A great book is a book on which a great seminar can be had (and a great seminar is one which can address a great book).  Such books are abundant, but some care is generally advisable in selecting a text.  A great book can accept any question, no matter how small, large, irrelevant, or just plain stupid.  This removes a lot of the pressure from the seminar participants.  A great book is resilient, fecund, and immaculately coherent.  In the ideal book, every element down to the etymology of each word is essential, irreplaceable, and interactive with every other element. Seminar is a serious study.  It is like being in a great library after hours.  We listen to each other and speak our best, while yet recognizing that the spirit which moves us to speak is not always under our control.  Eating at the table generally detracts from the study, as an ambiguous overlap develops with the much more common table-based social activity of meals.  (Revelations 10:9, “And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.”) A very hungry person could eat their lunch or dinner at the beginning of seminar, but they should apologize for their impropriety.  Some people think it's sometimes a good idea to have seminar while drunk, but I have generally been underwhelmed by the contributions of drunk or otherwise intoxicated people.  A seminar isn't a great place to have a party, but it can be loads of fun to have a party in which we have seminar, in the same way that people enjoy a party in which we play a sport. There are some schools which claim to have seminar 5 days a week, but I don't see how that is possible for a group which is taking the project seriously. The Sunday seminars met once a week, while at St. John's College they meet twice a week.   While the underlying behaviors were largely learned from St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM and Annapolis, MD, the practice and the formulation of these ideas was developed in the Sunday Seminar itself with Lea Brock and other collaborators.

In the fall of 2016 other participants in the seminar needed to begin meeting in a place which made me uncomfortable.  I expect one day again to take part in such work. Here is a more-or-less complete list of books which we read: 2009 1/22 Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel (Prologue-I5, I6-15,-28,-41,-58,II19) 2/26 Aristotle - Posterior Analytics (II19) 3/5 Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling (Preface, Attune., Praise; Preamble; Problema I) 4/2 Nietzsche - Thus Spake Zarathustra (Prologue-6, -14, -22) 4/23 (this is when I joined the seminar) Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (Preface-20, -39, -60, -85, -120) Summer 2009: ? Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground Baudelaire - "To the Reader", "The Enemy", "The Albatross" 10/4 Joyce - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (-2,-5) 11/1 Buber - I and Thou (I, II, III&PS) 11/22 Heidegger - What Is Metaphysics? Heidegger - On the Essence of Truth 2010 1/10 Husserl - The Origin of Geometry 1/24 Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (I -231,-463,-693,II) 2/28 Borges - Labyrinths (The Fictions, The Essays and The Parables) 3/7 Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude (-105,-207,-297,-422) 4/18 Trivers - On the Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism 4/25 Hearne - Adam's Task (-3,-6,-11) Summer of 2010: Shakespeare's Henries and Richards, Dogen, ? Aeschylus - Agamemnon 9/19 Aeschylus - Libation Bearers?, Eumenides Kafka - The Penal Colony Plutarch - Alcibiades Plato - Phaedrus 10/31 Kierkegaard - Fear & Trembling (same divisions as in 2008) 12/5 Rig Veda - selections 2011 1/16 Upanishads - Brihad-Aranyaka and Katha, 4th Brahmana 1-17, and Valli 1-6 (one class) Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea Kafka - A Hunger Artist 2/6 O'Connor - The Lame Shall Enter First Chaucer - Nun's Priest's Tale 2/20 Dante - Inferno (4 seminars) 4/3 Euripides - Alcestis (SJC alumni seminar with Mr. Lecuyer) Fukuoka - One Straw Revolution part 1&5 Trivers - On the Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism 5/1 Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey Plato - Ion 5/15 Kafka - Before the Law Summer of 2011: Tolstoy - War and Peace 8/7 O'Connor - Wise Blood (-6, -end) 8/21 Montaigne - On Repenting Chesterton - Ethics of Elfland 9/11 Nagarjuna - Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way Heidegger - What is Metaphysics? 9/25 Shakespeare - Othello (I&II, III-V) Plato - Lysis 10/30 Sophocles - Philoctetes Matthew 1-7 11/20 Euripides - Bacchae 12/4 Hesiod - Works and Days Ecclesiastes 2012 Straus - Persecution and the Art of Writing Klein - The Problem and the Art of Writing 1/29 Klein - History and the Liberal Arts Melville - Benito Cereno (2 seminars half and half) Tolstoy - Kreutzer Sonata 3/4 Kepler - excerpt (2 seminars) Newton - (Definitions, Axioms, Corollary II, Book I & Lemma I&II) 4/22 Trivers - On the Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism Hemingway - A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Fifty Grand Baudelaire - The Abyss, A Carrion, The Mask 5/13 Pascal - Pensees (self-selections) Summer 2012: Cervantes - Don Quixote 8/12 Euclid - Elements (I thru P24, -P48, II thru P6, II) Kierkegaard - Philosophical Fragments I&II 9/16 Euclid - Elements (III -P20, III -end, IV) Kierkegaard - Philosophical Fragments (all) 10/28 Euclid - Elements (V, VI -P16, VI -end) Shakespeare - Midsummer Night's Dream Dostoevsky - Bobok 12/2 Euclid - Elements VII 3 Poems - Millay's "Euclid Alone", Keats's "Ode", Hopkins's "Pied Beauty" 2013 Tolstoy - Hadji Murat (didn't happen) 2/3 Hopkins - 7 Poems (Lantern, Pied Beauty, Shocks of Wheat, Windhover, etc) 3/24 Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil (Preface and 1; 2; 3, 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9) Summer 2013: Tolstoy - Anna Karenina 8/18 The Secret Book of John Plato - Gorgias (-486e, -end) 9/8 Plutarch - Caesar Plutarch - Brutus Sophocles - Ajax 9/29 Hearne - How to Say Fetch 10/20 Faulkner - Go Down Moses, "The Bear" Plato - Cratylus Plato - Timaeus 11/10 Wilde - Picture of Dorian Grey (1st half, 2nd half) Faulkner - "Pantaloon in Black" 2014 1/12 O'Connor - The Life you Save could be Your Own O'Connor - Good Country People Heidegger - Building Dwelling Thinking 2/2 Plato - Theaetetus (2 seminars) Plato - Protagoras Plato - Parmenides 3/9 Tolstoy - Father Sergius Beckett - Waiting for Godot Pascal - Generation of Conic Sections 4/6 Borges - The Quixote of Pierre Menard Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy 5/4 Erwin Straus - The Upright Posture Goethe - On the Metamorphosis of Plants Summer 2014: Joyce - Ulysses 8/3 Kant - What is Enlightenment? Kipling - Kim (3 seminars) 8/26 Beowulf (2 seminars) 9/22 Dostoevsky - Notes From Underground (2 seminars) 10/19 Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye 10/26 Mann - Little Herr Friedemann 11/2 Achebe - Things Fall Apart (3 seminars) 11/23 Nietzsche - On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense 12/7 Plato - Symposium (2 seminars) 2015 1/11 Silko - Ceremony (2) 2/8 Schiller - "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man" 2/22 Shakespeare - Julius Caesar (2) 3/1 Jonas - "To Move and to Feel" 3/22 Shakespeare - Antony and Cleopatra (2) 4/12 Plato - The Sophist (2) 4/26 Woolf - To the Lighthouse (4)Summer 2015: Melville - Moby Dick8/9 Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (book VIII) (w/ SJC alumni chapter) 8/23 Ibsen - The Lady from the Sea 8/30 Melville - Bartleby 9/13 Chaucer - Canterbury Tales (Prologue; Knight's Tale 1&2; K's Tale 3&4) 10/4 Melville - Bartleby (w/ SJC alumni chapter) 10/25 Chaucer - Canterbury Tales (Miller's, Reeve's, and Cook's Tales) 11/1 Canterbury Tales (Man of Law's Tale) 11/8 Canterbury Tales (Shipman's, Prioerss's, and Chaucer's of Sir Topaz Tales) 11/15 Canterbury Tales (Chaucer's Tale of Melibee; Monk's Tale) 11/23 Plutarch - The Life of Dion (w/ SJC alumni chapter)2016 1/10 Chaucer - Canterbury Tales (Nun's Priest's Tale; Physician's & Pardoner's Tales) 1/24 Canterbury Tales (Wife of Bath's Tale; Friar's and Summoner's Tales; Merchant's Tale) 2/21 Canterbury Tales (Squire's and Franklin's Tales; 2nd Nun's and Canon's Yeoman's Tales) 3/6 Canterbury Tales (Manciple's and Parson's tales and Chaucer's Retraction) 3/27 Nietzsche - The Genealogy of Morals (Preface and Essay 1; Essay 2; Essay 3 (2)) 4/24 Heidegger - "The Origin of a Work of Art" (3) 5/15 Woolf - "The Mark on the Wall"

[metawitches]

The Passage and Deadly Class are tied for my favorite new shows of the season, and episode 3 of The Passage, That Never Should Have Happened to You, has only made me more excited about it. The way showrunner Liz Heldon and her team are perfectly balancing plot, character and world-building remind me of SYFY and Amazon’s The Expanse, one of the highest quality science fiction shows of this decade.

The Passage may not be a space epic, but it does tell an epic, sweeping story, just as The Expanse does, and it’s carefully arranging all of the necessary elements, while telling an exciting story. The set up for the long-term arc isn’t being rushed, even though in the present day, the end of the world is fast approaching. It’s an incredibly delicate balance to maintain, along with introducing viral vampires who need to be threatening, but not so camp that you can’t take them seriously. So far, based on the books, this adaptation is everything I would wish it to be. I’m just having a hard time not rushing them to the next part of the story!

In this episode, Agent Wolgast and Amy finally reach the Project NOAH compound, we learn more about serum viral #1 Shauna Babcock’s background, and Lila and Lacey attempt to follow through on their promise to let the world know about Project NOAH. Inside the compound, Fanning and Shauna make some plans, while Brad uses his FBI skills to investigate Project NOAH.

Recap

That Never Should Have Happened to You begins with a flashback to seven months ago, when Shauna Babcock was brought to the Project NOAH compound. Though she’s a death row convict, she’s also young, blonde and pretty, so of course her guards decide to rape her on their way inside. Shauna is handcuffed and can’t properly defend herself.

Clark Richards storms outside and fires his gun in the air, then chases off the offending guards. He strikes up a slightly flirtatious conversation with Shauna. She eventually relaxes, and trusts him enough to ask if whatever they’re going to do her inside will hurt. Shauna specifically asks Clark not to lie to her, but he does, and tells her it will be painless. Then he escorts her inside, out of the cold.

Currently, Clark is riding up front in the security van that’s bringing Brad and Amy to the compound. They are seated together in the back. As they arrive at their destination, Brad has Amy go over her instructions one last time:

Brad: “Tell me again, what are we gonna do?”

Amy: “We’re gonna get out of here.”

Brad: “How are we going to do it?”

Amy: “We’re gonna listen more than we talk, we’re gonna notice everything and we’re gonna be ready.”

Brad: “Good. And what are we not gonna do?”

Amy: “Panic.”

And we’ll remember our towels.

The moment they’re released from the van, Amy starts looking around and making connections. She and Brad are quickly separated, but Brad promises that he’ll find her. Amy notices the guilty look on Dr Major Sykes face.

The Project NOAH senior staff and medical teams meet to discuss the incident when Babcock ate Simmons for dinner in episode 2. As usual, Dr Pet is very confident in his expert opinion that she has no higher brain function, and is sure she chose to eat Simmons instead of Grey because of some relatively arbitrary factor, like preferring the way Simmons smelled.

Grey is at the meeting, too, and explains what happened. He suggests that Babcock left him alone because she knows that he belongs to Fanning– er, that is, he works with Fanning, while Simmons worked with her, and abused her the way he’d been abusing Grey. Lear has witnessed some of this behavior, and agrees with Grey, while Dr Pet is offended at the idea that there could be any rational thinking involved.

Dr Pet thinks they should treat Shauna like a zoo animal and euthanize her. Sykes and Lear feel that she’s still part human and part of the study, so they should hold off on such a drastic measure. Richards thinks about the lie he told Shauna, and the way she’s already gotten into his head, and orders them to euthanize her, using the justification that it’s a security issue.

Jonas doesn’t argue with Richards about Babcock, but does tell him that it won’t fix the real problem, which is the nightmares that at least half of the people who work on Level 4B are having. 4B is the floor where the virals are kept. Sykes thinks the nightmares are a normal reaction to the situation, and Pet laughs him off derisively. No one who’s having nightmares, like Richards, will admit to how serious they are, so the issue is put aside as another of Lear’s overreactions.

Amy trashes her room and won’t let anyone touch her, so Sykes is called in to deal with her. She gives Amy a speech that’s a combination of Brad’s sales pitches to the death row inmates and her own speeches to Lear: Amy is the most important girl in the world because she’s going to have save a lot of sick people and Nichole will make sure that nothing bad happens to her. She can trust Nichole to tell her the truth, and even to bring Brad back to her.

During the virals’ feeding time, Richards stands watching Babcock in her cell. He gives one of the guards instructions to prepare for her execution. They’ll gas her in her cell, then move her to another room while she’s unconscious, where they can put her under intense UV lights and fry her. Babcock hears the whole thing, understands what they’re saying and what it means for her.

When the blood pours into her feeding trough, she doesn’t move to eat it. Fanning joins her in the psychic plane, and notes that the renewed death sentence is a tough break. Impulse control is her greatest weakness. He’s there with a plan to help her, but she’s given up. She thinks her life is just a series of things that have happened to her and she can’t change that. He guarantees that it gets better, but she needs to listen to him and stick to the plan. She needs to show her history to Richards, and gain his sympathy.

Lear is observing the virals’ feeding time from the control room, trying to figure out why Babcock and Fanning aren’t eating. He realizes that they must be telepathically communicating.

Brad is being held in one of the common rooms in the main building, watching a TV tuned to the news. Sierra Thompson reports that Brad was killed when he murdered three people in the North Duluth sheriff’s station, where he tried to turn himself in.

It’s a zombie and a vampire story now.

Richards takes Brad into the main corridor of the hotel, where Sykes and Lear are already waiting to meet with him. Sykes tells him about the outbreak of bird flu in Asia, which will reach the US in 60 days or less, and how Amy fits into their attempts to develop a treatment. He sees through her justifications and asks why they aren’t in jail. Brad says that if anything happens to Amy, he’ll come after the three of them.

Richards tosses some threats around to convince Brad to go see Amy. Brad follows, but before he goes into Amy’s room, he has one more thing to say. He reminds Clark, who is his old friend, that he’s already sat helplessly by a hospital bed and watched a child he loved die, and Richards knew it. Brad won’t forget that Richards is putting him and Amy through this experience.

Brad discovers that Amy already has an IV line started in her arm and a chip in her neck. But she also shares the recon she’s done so far, and admits that she behaved badly so they’d bring him to her room.

Sykes follows Brad in, and opens a case with a giant syringe inside. Brad instructs Amy to look at him, not the syringe, as Sykes injects the serum into her IV line. While Amy’s receiving the injection, Grey is standing in front of Fanning’s cage. Fanning can tell Amy is receiving the serum. Grey asks what Fanning is going to do with Amy. He doesn’t get an answer. Yet.

Shauna concentrates on Richards, and figures out how to telepathically send her story to his mind. He spaces out each time she sends him another piece of her life story. She begins with Halloween 2012, when she’d made herself up to look like she’d been shot in the head and was having a friend photograph her. Her dream was to move to LA and do special effects makeup for films. She was saving all of her money for the move.

Shauna and some friends went to a bar, where a guy got overly aggressive with one of her friends. Shauna broke a bottle and sliced the guy’s arm to get him away from her friend, then she snatched some money from the cash register and they took off.

Richards comes back to reality, staring at the coffeemaker.

Amy and Brad are playing poker when a nurse wheels in a cart to check Amy’s vitals. Amy distracts the nurse while Brad steals a medication vial and a syringe from the cart. When the nurse leaves, Amy gets 3 of the 5 numbers in the door lock code. She also tells Brad that she heard a guy talking in the next room. She heard them call him “Anthony.” Brad realizes that Anthony Carter, death row inmate #12, is in the next room.

He gets Amy to bed, including a monster check in the closet and under the bed. Before he knows it, Brad’s waking up again, because Grey is standing in the room, staring at Amy. Brad chases Grey out of the room (giving Brad and Amy another chance to watch someone use the door code).

In the hall, Grey says that he just wanted to warn them that Fanning is going to come for Amy. Brad asks who Fanning is, what he wants, and where to find him. Grey says that Fanning is Patient Zero, he wants everything, he makes you do things and he’s on level 4B, with the rest of them. He tells Brad to get Amy out of there.

A pair of guards force Brad back into the room. He grabs a small flashlight from one of their back pockets.

The morning after the bar fight, Shauna’s mom is angry with her for having to bail her out of jail. Her mother tells her she’ll never amount to anything, there’s no point in her moving to LA, and she’ll just waste the money she’s saving anyway.

Shauna insists that she will make it to LA and amount to something. She goes to her room and hides her cash under the sink. Before long, her stepfather knocks on her door, and tries to intimidate her into letting him in. He says that she used to like him better. She’s able to force him to get out, but it’s clear he won’t forget about this.

Richards comes to his senses in Sykes’ room this time, with her asking what he was thinking about. He asks Sykes how Amy is doing. Nichole says that it’s too early to tell. They added a new prophylactic antiviral to Amy’s treatment that she hopes will help. But she’s worried that it won’t be enough. Clark reassures Nichole that he has faith in her.

Nichole asks if he’s thinking about Babcock’s execution, which is scheduled for midnight. He says that it shouldn’t be a big deal. They’ve already killed her once. Nichole wonders if they’ll be able to lead normal lives after this. Clark tells her it shouldn’t be a problem, since they’ve just been doing their duty.

Brad and Amy are sent into the hall while their room is searched (“room check”). Carter is also out in the hall, and is amused that Brad is now a captive. Brad asks what Carter knows about Fanning. Carter says that Fanning is in his head and in his dreams. “You’d best be on your toes, Agent Wolgast.”

Richards takes Brad for a walk and talk while Amy is sent back into the room. She writes a little note to Carter and sends it under the door that connects their rooms. He responds and sends it back.

Lila calls the prisons which originally housed the death row inmates to ask for information about each one. Each prison refuses to give out any information, until Lila gets to the prison that held Shauna Babcock. At that site, a woman named Darlene answers the phone, and tells Lila that despite the official story, Shauna didn’t die at the prison. She was taken away by federal agents.

Richards asks Brad to confirm some of the details of Babcock’s life, which he’s seen in the visions she’s planting in his head. Once he knows that what he’s seeing is the truth, Richards realizes the angry grudges against aggressive men she’s working with. “You know what I’m starting to think? Nobody gets over anything. They say time helps, but it doesn’t, does it. It’s just another lie.”

Brad wonders what’s up with Richards, who seems to be cracking up. After everything they’ve seen together, he wants to know what it is about this situation that’s tearing Richards apart? Richards tells Brad that he’s being dramatic.

Brad moves in for his real question: “Who’s Fanning? I know he’s Patient Zero. I know I didn’t bring him here and I know that he’s in people’s dreams. What the heck’s going on here and what did you put in that little girl’s arm?”

Brad demands answers, asking what happened to the other people he brought to Project NOAH and what will happen to Amy, but Richards has him dragged away.

Soon after Richards and Brad talk, Lear corners Grey about his dreams. Grey says they started around the time the second or third subject arrived. At first they were wispy pictures, then they got longer and more real as each new subject arrived, eventually becoming movies he couldn’t escape. Fanning started talking to him in the dreams after Babcock was brought in. His most recent message was, “We have work to do.”

Lila tracks down Sierra Thompson, the reporter who covered Brad’s supposed killing spree and death, and tells her Brad is still alive and part of a government conspiracy. Lila explains about the 12 death row inmates who also aren’t really dead, and who are all at the Project NOAH facility in Colorado. As proof, she gives Sierra the information to contact Darlene at the prison Babcock was removed from. Sierra says she’ll look into it and get back to Lila, if she thinks there’s something worth pursuing.

During the night, Brad sits awake, waiting for the right moment. He hears one guard take a bathroom break, and Carter ask the other to get him a drink of water, which means both guards are occupied. (The part with Carter must have been planned.) Brad tells Amy that he’ll be back soon. He’s going to check on the real monsters under the bed.

Brad uses the door code, then heads to the elevator at the end of the hall, where Grey is just getting on. Brad asks for level 4B. Grey tries to resist, but Brad takes out his stolen syringe, prefilled with what must be a sedative from the stolen medication vial, and injects it into Grey. Grey passes out.

When they get to level 4, Brad drags Grey to the retina scanner and holds his eye up to be scanned. He leaves Grey on the floor outside the locked door, but takes Grey’s security pass.

He enters into the area where the virals are held. It’s dark, so he uses his flashlight. The light shines directly on Tim Fanning’s face. Fanning is standing right up against the glass of his cell. Jonas comes through a door at the end of the hall, and says, “I guess now’s a good time to talk.”

He turns the surveillance systems off for 3 minutes. Brad has a brief freak out that he convinced all of the prisoners to take the offer to participate in the program, and now they’re monsters.

Jonas explains that they thought they could cure disease, create immunity, and grant functional immortality. Instead, they created a new species that they don’t understand. The virals seemed catatonic, but now he thinks they’re talking to each other.

When Brad asks, Lear says he doesn’t know what Grey means when he says that Fanning is coming for Amy. He shows Brad which viral is Fanning, and explains that he’s Patient Zero. All of the other virals were created using attenuated, genetically altered versions of his blood.

Brad asks why they don’t call them vampires, when they drink blood and burn to ash in the sun, the basic definition of a vampire. Lear gives a completely logical answer, and shows the downside of science at the same time, “Because we’re scientists, Agent Wolgast, and there’s no such thing as vampires.”

The world will end because the people who ran the facility couldn’t bend their egos and their prewritten rules far enough to allow for what was right in front of them.

Lear, who started the whole thing, is still the only one open-minded enough to understand what’s happening. He says that Fanning gains more power with each new viral that they create. Brad asks what Fanning wants. Lear figures that he wants what any prisoner wants: to be free. Fanning has 12 viral children who were death row inmates. They’ll have a powerful desire to be free.

Somebody didn’t think this whole thing through very well.

Lila returns to her hotel room, where Lacey is loading her guns. She asks if it’s a good idea for Lacey to use firearms while she’s on pain meds, but Lacey replies that she’s not taking the pain meds. She likes to feel it, so she can retain her anger at the people who shot her.

Sierra Thompson calls Lila to say she wants to meet to discuss the story further.

Richards watches Babcock as she’s gassed in preparation for her execution. Babcock looks betrayed when she realizes that he’s still going through with it. She shows him the rest of her story.

One day, she came home work and went to hide her pay with rest of the money she was saving for LA, but her savings were gone. She went to her stepfather and demanded to know where her money was. He tells her that he needed it for something, and she didn’t really need it anyway. Her mother took her stepfather’s side, and even told Shauna that he was a good man. Shauna told her mother that her stepfather had raped her regularly from the age of 8 until she was 16 and made him stop.

Her mother didn’t react when Shauna told her. She already knew, and thought Shauna had wanted it. She blamed Shauna for not saying no. In her rage over losing the money that equaled her dreams and discovering her mother had betrayed her so horribly, so many times over, Shauna took the knife her mother was using to chop vegetables and stabbed her mother in the stomach. Then she went to the living room and killed her stepfather.

While Richards has been seeing and feeling Shauna’s trauma, Shauna has passed out, been brought to the room with the UV light chamber, and had the lights turn on. Now she’s screaming and writhing in pain as the lights burn her.

Richards comes to his senses and turns the UV lights off. Shauna collapses and quickly heals.

Brad returns to his and Amy’s room and tells Amy everything is fine. He falls asleep, then dreams that he’s gotten out of bed and gone out into the hall. Fanning is standing at the end of the hall, silhouetted in front of the stained glass window. He says, “Word to the wise. Stay out of my way, Agent Wolgast.”

Then he lets out a giant, cat-like hiss, showing off his orange eyes and vampire teeth. Brad startles awake.

  Commentary

Clark Richards gets the name Clark from his grandfather, while Shauna gets her name from a stripper her dad knew.

Shauna describes herself as a desert rat from Las Vegas, who’s not used to the cold. Clark is from Philadelphia, where it does get cold.

Babcock’s murder of Simmon’s was the first time one of the virals killed a human at the Project NOAH facility. We don’t know if Fanning killed humans before they realized what had happened to him, when he was still free.

Simmons was Babcock’s first meal of human blood. Besides loving the taste, she enjoyed the feeling of control that the kill gave her, even though she was still imprisoned.

Fanning is training Babcock in the use of her powers, telling her that she’s more powerful than she knows, and she needs to use her power on Richards.

Someone needs to push Dr Pet too close to a cage.

The main corridor of the old hotel simultaneously looks like the corridors in the Overlook Hotel, from The Shining, that other horror story that takes place in the Colorado Rockies, and like the interior of the castles in Nosferatu, the silent film era adaptation of Dracula. Actually, the entire compound is reminiscent of both settings.

The Passage is exploring the rationalizations we use to justify our actions, and the motivations for those actions. These characters frequently lie to themselves and others, or simply don’t think things through so that they don’t have to face the truth. That’s been true of almost every adult character at some point, except for Lacey, who makes a point of facing the truth head on, and Pet, who’s ego makes him incapable of seeing the truth. His idiocy is all about narcissism and stupidity, rather than fear, anxiety or avoidance.

Sykes is the worst culprit, since she’s straight up left reality behind. She knows the truth about the serum, but is lying to herself about it because she can’t face the implications of the bird flu and her own mistakes if Project NOAH fails.

This episode highlights the differences between three different pairs- Brad and Clark, Fanning and Shauna, and Lear and Pet. How well they follow Brad’s rules for Amy (pay attention, don’t panic, etc) determines how well they understand the truth of their situation now. Fanning, Jonas and Brad all made huge mistakes in the beginning, before they had any way of understanding the truth. Now, they’ve learned from their mistakes and are paying closer attention, gathering allies, and being smart and strategic.

Images courtesy of Fox.

The Passage Season 1 Episode 3: That Never Should Have Happened to You Recap The Passage and Deadly Class are tied for my favorite new shows of the season, and episode 3 of The Passage, That Never Should Have Happened to You, has only made me more excited about it.