#a lot of these are directly from articles i& no longer have the memory access to so if yall wanna do your own research do that

[ladyimaginarium]

okay so. i'm& not even doing my& usual formatting w/ this. here's the statistics in relations to mmigw2s & other native issues i've& been meaning to post but couldn't for mental health reasons; the last few days have been really hard on me& and us& as a system collectively for trauma reasons. all of it is under the cut. nonnatives don't derail.

MMIGW2S Carrd

Land Back

Indian Residential School Survivors' Society

Google Doc of MMIGW2S/MMIP Resources Including Things For Settlers To Be Aware Of

Strong Hearts Helpline

Hope For Wellness Helpline

Idle No More: Defund The Canadian Police ( "Honor all of the lives lost to the Canadian State – Indigenous lives, Black Lives, Migrant lives, Women and Trans and 2Spirit lives — all of the relatives that we have lost. Use our voices for MMIWG2S, Child Welfare, Birth Alerts, Forced Sterilization, Police/RCMP brutality and all of the injustices we face. We will honor our connections to each other and to the Water, Land, and Sky" )

Violence Against Native & Alaska Native Women & Men (PDF)

Natives are killed in police encounters at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet rarely do these deaths gain the national spotlight.

For every 1 million Natives, an average of 2.9 of them died annually from 1999 to 2015 as a result of a “legal intervention,” according to a CNN review of CDC data broken down by race. The vast majority of these deaths were police shootings. But a few were attributed to other causes, including manhandling. That mortality rate is 12% higher than for African-Americans and three times the rate of whites. 

Natives more likely to be killed by law enforcement than other racial or ethnic groups

Natives are killed in law enforcement actions at a higher rate than any other race or ethnicity, according to CDC data from 1999 to 2015.

The data available likely do not capture all Native deaths in police encounters due to people of mixed race and a relatively large homeless population that is “not on the grid, and are thus horrifically underreported.

As November 1, 2021, there were 71 First Nations communities under drinking water advisories, 17 out of which had at least two water advisories in place.

97% of Indigenous peoples have experienced violence perpetrated by at least one non-Indigenous person.

Natives are the largest group per capita in the prison system and are more likely to be affected by police violence than any other racial group, The low proportion of Natives may contribute to a lack of media attention for cases of police brutality against them, this is affected by the portion of Natives living on reservations; however, media presence on reservations is low, which results in instances of police brutality against Natives going unrecorded.

An Indigenous person in Canada is more than 10 times more likely to have been shot and killed by a police officer in Canada since 2017 than a white person in Canada. Indigenous Canadians are 11 times more likely than non-Indigenous Canadians to be accused of homicide Indigenous Canadians are 56% more likely to be victims of crime than other Canadians. In 2016, Indigenous Canadians represented 25% of the national male prison population and 35% of the national female prison population.

Though Natives are killed by police at disproportionately high rates, their deaths are not widely known. Cheryl Horn said she thinks nonnatives don't know about brutality against Native people because they "don't experience the same trauma." Schools don't teach about Natives, we aren't in media, television, film or entertainment. For many, we are out of sight, out of mind, so, we don't exist. But the issue is that this invisibility could be a matter of life and death. It's because people aren't paying attention," she said. "This information is out there and readily available. It's time non-Native people start paying attention. So much of this nation's wealth has been built on the theft of Native lands and the enslavement of Black people.

Nearly 1 in 3 Natives (29.2%), over 1 in 4 African Americans (27.2%), 1 in 4 Hispanic/Latinos (23.5%), 1 in 10 Asians (10.5%) and 1 in 10 non-Hispanic whites (9.6%) live below the federal poverty line.

Suicide rates vary depending on region and tribal affiliation but rates are particularly high in the Southwestern United States, the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, and in Alaska, and in the Arctic. High suicide rates are often correlated with substance use disorder, alcoholism, depression, and poverty, widespread in many Native American reservations. Studies have shown that early substance use can lead to higher homicide and suicide rates among a population group. Risk factors for suicide often include a sense of hopelessness, alcohol use disorder, depression, poverty and a triggering conflict or event which can include conflict or loss. Among 77% of males that attempted or completed suicide had incomes of less than 10,000 dollars and 79% were unemployed. Native American youth also report higher rates of exposure to violence and sexual and physical abuse, both correlated to suicide rates. Other possible contributing factors include the mother's age at delivery, family conflict, and financial instability. Additionally 20% of all individuals who attempted or completed suicide had a parent who had also attempted or completed suicide.

In 2015 the National Congress of Natives found that an estimated 40 percent of women who are victims of sex trafficking identify as Native, or First Nations.  

Why seek Natives? “We’re associated with fetishes,” such as long hair, exotic looks that sex patrons perceive as Asian or Hispanic, Imus-Nahsonhoya says.”We could look like anything.”

Sex traffickers prey upon young girls and women they perceive as vulnerable. Labor traffickers look for boys and young men, as well as girls, to labor in oil fields, sweatshops, “man camps” and as domestic help. The high rates of poverty and hardship in tribal communities; historical trauma and culture loss; homelessness and runaway youth; high rates of involvement with child welfare systems, including entry into the foster care system; exposure to violence in the home or community; drug and alcohol abuse; and low levels of law enforcement all add up to a community rich in targets for traffickers. Imus-Nahsonhoya says that she learned most of what she knows about trafficking from survivors of this degrading and often dangerous life. “One trafficked woman showed me a list of services and her daily quota,” says Imus-Nahsonhoya. “From age 14 to 17, she had to make $600 a day. But she never saw a dime of that.” That’s why sex trafficking is said to be a $12 billion business.

One in three Native women will be sexually assaulted or raped in her life. Statistics say about 86% of these assaults are committed by non-Native men. While part of this is due to non-Native men preying upon Native women because they’re unlikely to be prosecuted because of tribal sovereignty policies and jurisdiction laws, how we’re viewed is also a factor. The over-sexualization of Native women objectifies us. When we are fetishized and exotified to the point that we lose our humanity, violence ensues.

Natives die due to police violence at a rate 12% higher than other populations. The suicide rate among Natives is the highest of all demographics in this country (22.1%, or 8 percentage points above the overall rate). Childhood poverty (29.2%), teenage pregnancy (29.4%), domestic violence (48% for native women, 41% for native men), and the high school dropout rate (10.1%, 2 full points above Hispanic youth and 4 points above black youth). Natives account for 2.3% of prisoners in this country out of a nationwide total population of approximately 5 million. I’ll let you guess who leads in homelessness.

The crude rates of suicide were highest for Natives, Non-Hispanic males (33.4 per 100,000) and, followed by White, Non-Hispanic males (29.8 per 100,000). Among females the crude rates of suicide were highest for Natives, Non-Hispanic females (11.1 per 100,000) and White, Non-Hispanic females (8.0 per 100,000). The status dropout rate varied by race/ethnicity in 2018. The status dropout rate for Asian 16- to 24-year-olds (1.9 percent) was lower than the rates for their peers who were White (4.2 percent), of Two or more races (5.2 percent), Black (6.4 percent), Hispanic (8.0 percent), Pacific Islander (8.1 percent), and Native (9.5 percent).

Many tribes have their own criminal justice systems, but a convoluted jurisdictional muddle  prevents them from holding non-Native offenders accountable. As a result, many non-Native offenders are virtually immune to prosecution and the lack of jurisdiction over nonnatives is particularly problematic, because:

• Approximately 2/3 of Native women who are sexually assaulted are attacked by non-Native men.

• 59% of Native women report being in relationships with non-Native men.

• In 71% of sexual assaults against Native women, the victim knew her attacker.

• The rate of interracial violence experienced by Natives and Natives is far higher than the rate experienced by Black or White victims.

Native and Native women experience assault and domestic violence at much higher rates than women of any other ethnicity.

• Over 84% of Native women experience violence during their lifetimes.

• Natives are 3 times more likely to experience sexual violence than any other ethnic group. Over half of Native women report having experienced sexual assault.

• 55.5% of Native women experience physical intimate partner violence in their lifetimes; 66.6% experience psychological abuse.

• 17% of Native and Native women have been stalked compared to white Americans, Natives are 2x as likely to die in a car crash, 3.5x more likely to die as a pedestrian, 2x more likely to die in a fire, and 3x more likely to drown (some credit alcohol as a primary cause of this, though access to emergency care is also a contributing factor), Indigenous people are 10x more likely to be shot and killed by police in Canada, 1 in 3 Native women will be assaulted in her lifetime, though specialized studies on more rural reservations/towns have shown that that rate can actually be 12x higher than that (this is due to a ‘culture of lawlessness’ made possible by lack of tribal sovereignty in prosecuting these cases & settler gov’t apathy on the issue, coupled by severe underfunding of community programming and law enforcement; not to mention of course the obvious sexualized racism and colonial sexual politics that inform the systematic rape of Native women at the hands of settlers).

Alaska Natives & Native Americans are 5x more likely to die of tuberculosis (in comparison to white Americans; this is due to low vaccination accessibility & inadequate health care, though there is also a history of purposefully giving Native Americans TB both in “the colonial period” and in residential schools)

Native Americans are more likely to commit suicide than any other ethnic/racial group in the US, though this rate can fluctuate based on demographics—young Alaska Native women, for example, are 19x more likely to commit suicide than any other women their age. (this is largely credited to intergenerational trauma, poverty, sexual assault, domestic abuse, limited health care & mental health services, chronic unemployment, incarceration, lack of opportunity, racism, cultural disconnect, & substance abuse)

American Indians & Alaska Natives have the highest rate of diabetes, out of all ethnic groups in the US; the Pima people have the highest rate of diabetes in the entire world (this is largely due to lack of ability to subsistence hunt and gather traditional foods, the foods that are made available through commod rations, and the lack of affordable healthy food available to low-income communities)

“We are the sickest racial, ethnic population in the United States,” said Irene Vernon, a professor at Colorado State University who specializes in Native American health.

Then there’s the issue of care. A large minority of Native Americans and Alaska Natives live on reservations in rural areas, mostly serviced by clinics, often a lengthy drive to a hospital, and usually strapped for funds. “The money we get for health is less than the money given to prisoners,” Vernon said. “It’s shamefully small, per person.”

More Native Americans die by injury by the age of 44 than any other cause, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Compared to white Americans, Native people are twice as likely to die in a car crash, three and a half times more likely to die as a pedestrian, twice as likely to die by fire and three times more likely to drown, according to the Indian Health Service. According to Vernon, alcohol likely plays a role, as does pure distance from emergency care. But scattered reports suggest a downward slide in the numbers, except for suicide and deadly assaults.

Violent crime on many reservations has skyrocketed in the last decade, even as its dropped across the country. too few tribal officers and federal police, and deeply underfunded tribal courts, have created a pervasive sense of lawlessness. For some tribal nations, brutal murders have become a normal part of life. Last year, the Department of Justice completed a two-year crime-fighting initiative on a handful of reservations modeled after the Iraq War surge. 

We are the victims of violent crimes at rates 250% higher than Whites.

• On some reservations in the United States, the murder rate of Native women is 10 times higher than in the rest of the nation.

• Native children experience PTSD at the same rate as combat veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Native and Native women experience extremely high rates of domestic violence, physical and sexual assault, and murder. Many women do not report violence for a variety of reasons. Many tribes have inadequate or no law enforcement to report these crimes to. In small, isolated communities, victims often fear retribution from perpetrators’ friends and family. Many Native women also never speak of their abuse because they see it as futile; they believe no one can or will help them.

American Indian and Alaska Native men also have high victimization rates. More than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native men (81.6 percent) have experienced violence in their lifetime (see Table 2). This includes 27.5 percent who have experienced sexual violence, 43.2 percent who have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, 18.6 percent who have experienced stalking, and 73 percent who have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner. Overall, more than 1.4 million American Indian and Alaska Native men have experienced violence in their lifetime.More than one in three American Indian and Alaska Native men (34.6 percent) have experienced violence in the past year. This includes 9.9 percent who have experienced sexual violence, 5.6 percent who have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, 3.8 percent who have experienced stalking, and 27.3 percent who have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner. Overall, more than 595,000 American Indian and Alaska Native men have experienced violence in the past year.

American Indian and Alaska Native men are 1.3 times as likely as non-Hispanic white-only men to have experienced violence in their lifetime. In particular, American Indian and Alaska Native men are 1.4 times as likely to have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner and 1.4 times as likely to have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime. The other estimates are not significantly different across racial and ethnic groups.

16.4 per cent of Indigenous people live in a home in need of major repairs compared to 5.7 per cent of non-Indigenous people and 17.1 per cent of Indigenous people live in crowded housing.

Indigenous children make up more than half of all children in foster care but only account for 7.7 per cent of all children 14-years-old or younger. Rates are higher in Manitoba, where advocates point to an over-representation of Indigenous children in the child welfare system as a factor in many of the social issues people face.

More than 237,000 people speak an Indigenous language. While the number of people who use one as their first language has been in decline, there has been growth in the number of Indigenous second-language speakers, the census said.

• High poverty rates, especially on reservations, can exacerbate domestic violence trauma.

• Alcohol and drug use on tribal lands is rampant and is associated with domestic violence perpetration. On one Montana reservation, 40% of reported violent crime involved alcohol or drugs.

• Although the federal government recognizes 566 tribes in the US, there are only 26 shelters nationwide providing culturally-specific services to Native and victims/survivors.

Although there is much popular and media attention given to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and justly so, the documented murder rate of Indigenous men in Canada is actually higher than that of Indigenous women. Both the Toronto Star and APTN have had stories reporting on Statistics Canada’s figures of Indigenous murder victims between 1980-2012. StatsCan documented 745 Indigenous female homicide victims and 1,750 Indigenous male homicide victims. That’s 14 and 17 per cent of all female and male homicide victims, respectively, despite the fact that, as of 2011, only 4.3 per cent of Canada’s population self-identified as Indigenous. The female figure of 745 Indigenous female homicide victims differs from the 2014 RCMP report of 1,017 murdered and 164 missing Indigenous women since 1980. (The RCMP has yet to provide such a figure for murdered and missing Indigenous men.) Regardless, these figures still show a disparity between Indigenous and settler Canadians’ experiences of violence. Such violence scars communities all across Canada. Lydia Daniels, whose son Colten Pratt has been missing since November 2014, told APTN that “we also wanted to make a statement that we also have murdered and missing men in our communities.” Sandra Banman, whose son Carl was murdered in 2011, stated “In balance and unity with our people, we also need to think about our men. We don’t love our daughters more than we love our sons, so when our sons go missing or are murdered, it hurts the families just as much.”

[willowgast]

hi! i’m very interested in history and would love to study it in college, but i don’t know what careers i could get with a history major besides being a teacher. are you planning on becoming a teacher, or do you have other career suggestions for those studying history? tysm if you respond!

so, here's a testament to how terrible i am at running this ramshackle blog - i just found this in my drafts after goodness knows how long and frankly i dread to count back and find out. but it is a very good question and i am very, very sorry for taking probably months to do this, and even if this no longer interests you (i apologise again) i'm going to post anyway in case it interests somebody else. going under the cut because this might become a tad long-winded - there's also a tl;dr at the very end of the post for those who don't want to sift through my stream of thoughts.

i am not personally planning on becoming a teacher, at least not in a high school level or younger - still have far too many Spicy Memories from that age to want to return to a school setting in any capacity. academia does appeal to me a lot more as an option - i'm loving my dissertation work and there are lots of areas within my broad field of medieval northern europe with room for fresh, new research. i could specialise in any number of areas, but right now what appeals to me most is literary history and archaeology. unfortunately, my course isn't running the archaeology paper it usually offers as part of the second year setup this year, so i won't get to try out specialising in it, but it's something that's grabbed my attention more and more over the course of my first year of study.

beyond remaining within academia or going into archaeology, i've also considered museum work and archival work. my interest in working in a museum has sprung from a similar place to my interest in archaeology - i've discovered that staying holed up writing at a desk all day, every day can be very draining and, more importantly, that working with physical, material history right in my hands and before my very eyes is Really Super Cool and Exciting. i would very happily look into options for working in a museum in curation or conservation, helping to preserve artefacts and make them accessible to the general public. archival work comes from a similar place, too - i guess it combines my interest in literary history with the feeling of intimacy and immediacy that comes with working with material history.

steering away from fields directly relevant to history, i'd also love to spend some time working in a library - any kind at all, from my local public library to something more academic. one of the papers i'm taking is palaeography, the study of manuscripts, which i've developed a much greater fondness for than i expected to when i started. it's made me really interested in working in an academic library that curates and cares for collections of older manuscripts, i guess like a crossover of a library and a museum.

there's a few areas too that aren't directly related to my degree, but are helped and supplemented by it - these are translation, publishing, and creative writing. languages and literature have always been my strongest subject in school, so it helps a lot for me that my course is interdisciplinary, combining study of medieval languages, literature, and history rather than being strictly a history degree. i maintain a good standard of french and german from when i studied them at school and i'm also learning danish, norwegian, and swedish on the side. the last three are mainly just for reading purposes as i sometimes get set academic articles to read in those languages, but i'd love to work and study in norway some day so i'm practicing norwegian to a more proficient/practical level. at some stage, probably once i've completed my degree, i'd like to save some money aside to take exams and hopefully get qualifications in some of those languages - probably german and norwegian - just to have some formal acknowledgement of my work to hand if i ever want to pursue any programmes or qualifications in translation studies. literary translation, working with creative literature rather than formal documents or academic writing, is something i'm very sure i would enjoy.

publishing is harder to describe, i guess. i have a small role as the editor of my department's silly little student magazine and i'd like to expand and apply to editorial positions at other, marginally more respectable student publications - it's certainly a role i'm enjoying a lot, although i haven't done much research into the professional publishing industry yet. it's on the backburner until i pull my life together enough to properly research career options there.

alternatively, the one thing that has always been my go-to dream job since i was a kid is just 'writer'. i love writing fiction and poetry, i have spent at least some of my free time each week writing whatever comes to mind for as long as i can remember. i have a big fantasy project on the go at the moment that i don't really talk about on this blog, but i do now have the beginnings of a world anvil page talking about it which is linked in my pinned post. i'm not banking on it or considering it as a very reliable option, but i will keep slowly and lovingly building it until it's ready to share, and then i'll simply see what happens next.

(if it took off though, i would drop everything else in my life like a hot plate and live out my silly little childhood dream to its fullest potential. tween magnus deserves some justice in this life.)

anyways - TL;DR now:

jobs i'm personally interested in:

academia/professional scholar

museum curator or conservator

archaeology

archivist

librarian

literary translator

something in the publishing industry idk

writer

general history-degree-related advice:

there are more options out there than just teaching which are directly related to the field of history. the more you dig into your area of interest, the more weird and whacky jobs you never expected to exist will crop up on your radar - i'm sure there are plenty of obscure things i've missed out here. unless you become a tenured professor or senior curator or secure a job at a particularly fancy/prestigious institution, none of these jobs pay particularly well, and academia especially is known for treating everyone who isn't a tenured senior academic like mud. therefore you pretty much have to be in these jobs out of passion rather than a desire to live comfortably and with above-average financial success. finally, most people i know at university, regardless of their field, aren't aiming to find careers directly relevant to said fields (apart from like, med students and lawyers and that kind of thing). especially in the humanities. none of us really know what we're doing. if you're comfortable studying these subjects for the pure passion and joy of it, fantastic, i'm right there the same with you - if you want something that has a more stable degree-to-career progression, humanities right now probably aren't top subjects. there's a whole ongoing cultural debate about how criminally undervalued humanities degrees and jobs are, and i hope that soon we'll see some tangible results from this - among them that all of the jobs i've listed above will be marginally better paid, and junior academics better treated within their fields.

history is wonderful. come join us. (also if anyone else doing humanities has points or advice that i've missed out, please feel free to add them, my scope of experience is still very limited)

[snlhostharry]

to be determined / one

harry styles x reader friends with benefits au

soon after moving to new york, you meet harry styles at a party. you convince yourself that there’s nothing between the two of you until it becomes too intense to ignore. if you keep telling yourself that he doesn’t mean anything to you, does that make it true?

a/n: hi everyone! welcome to my first harry styles series. This originally started as a challenge for myself to try and write a harry fic inspired by taylor swift songs so that’s where the chapter titles come from, it’s kind of become something bigger than that but I figured I would keep the theme anyway 

chapter 1: welcome to new york

The story starts in New York City. 

A place written about in countless stories, about love, about heartbreak, about giving up, about standing tall, and about putting broken hearts into drawers and slamming them shut. It’s easy to say that writing another story about New York is beating a dead horse, throwing characters into the same tired old setting and letting them live out the writer's wildest daydream. But it’s never been about the city itself, it’s always been about the people. Something about the city always manages to be the perfect stomping ground for people, for characters to find each other in a  whirlwind of A list parties and harsh billboard lights. 

Speaking of which you are suddenly very sick of said harsh billboard lights in the middle of times square. As someone who has read (and written) countless articles describing times square as a flurry of activity but also with some kind of inherent magical appeal, the center of everything it’s own small utopia, you know that everyone who wrote that had to be aware of their own bullshit. It’s a nuanced way of tourist trapping, smart, albeit annoying on a variety of levels. A gimmick to get wide eyed little girls to stand in the middle of chaos and think that maybe they could carve out a place for themselves here. 

You’re not trying to carve out a place for yourself, you’re trying to get to a stupid party. That and manage to not get any mud or other stains on this very nice dress you’re wearing. After what seems like forever of looking around and then suddenly looking back down at your phone just in case anyone wanted to even try to make eye contact with you, familiar faces appear out of the sea of people. 

You greet them with a look of disappointment, “Two questions: why did you want to meet here-” a tourist elbows there way past you mid sentence, inadvertently proving your point, “-and why aren’t we just taking an uber?” 

Molly, a tall black woman with objectively perfect hair (which is somehow gorgeous at all times), smiles and pats your shoulder like a kindergarten teacher, “I thought you would want to see Times Square.”

“I’ve seen it,” You shoot back, squinting again at the bright light coming from directly behind her head, and adjusting your jacket over your shoulders. 

She squeezes your shoulder quickly, “And also to teach you that any time someone asks you to meet them in Times Square  they’re fucking with you.”

“I figured you were fucking with me,” You tell her, “But thank you, god forbid the midwestern girl gets lost in Times Square waiting for someone to meet her who is obviously not coming.” 

Molly laughs, and so do you. She looks down at her phone briefly, and then back at you, “To answer your question, why would anyone ever try to get an uber in the city at seven?” 

You shrug, “What kind of self respecting party starts at eight?” 

Fletcher, who’s name admittedly sounds like it should belong to anyone but him, finally stops staring at the large elmo mascot a few feet away and jumps into the conversation. “The kind with an age range, twenty somethings to late thirty somethings, who no longer have the energy to go from nine to six am.” 

You sigh, “So boring then or-?”

“It’s about networking,” Molly says, “And also drinking, but mostly networking.” 

“One of those unique business opportunities where you get free food, and possibly run into celebrities, singers mostly.” 

You roll your eyes, “Wow you had me at various singers.” 

“Says the woman who did an interview series with Tik Tok kids who all live in the same house,” Molly snips, half joking. 

You shiver, half from the memories of that objectively terrible experience and half from a sudden breeze. Needless to say a significant portion of the reason why you’d left LA, was because their entertainment section was suddenly drifting away from profiles on actors and towards compilations of one minute videos made by sun tanned twenty somethings that somehow made them millions a year. That and after you’d spent two weeks semi living with ten of said twenty somethings for a story that had gotten a lot of buzz you never wanted to see anyone connected to the app ever again. 

You give Molly your best ‘I’ll kill you’ smile, “You have to decide what you’re going to make fun of me for, is it the midwestern thing or is it the Tik Tok thing because one of those involves you admitting that I lived in Los Angeles for a year which means I’m perfectly capable of handling Times Square in all of it’s elmo public urinating glory.” 

Fletcher looks again at the mascot who is not in fact publicly urinating, but honestly if it did suddenly start none of you would be surprised. 

Molly looks at you for a second and says, “Both,” She looks at Fletcher. 

He looks at you then back and Molly and nods, “Yeah. Both.” 

You roll your eyes, “So can we get going now or-?” 

The ride to the location Molly had all but refused to tell you was filled with talks of the impending deadlines on Monday for pieces that were anywhere from fifty to seventy percent finished. (your’s is at the lower end of the spectrum because there is only so much one person can write about an art installation that you found less insightful and more literal in the sense that the sculpture was literally just large amounts of clay pressed together in something that shouldn’t even be considered a shape with no metaphor or meaning behind it). 

Soon enough you’re standing in what looks like mostly a residential neighborhood, with one precariously nice building in the middle of the block. You turn to Molly, “What the-?” 

“Don’t finish that, just be patient,“ She interrupts as a response. “You are very impatient, you know that?”

“I’m a journalist,” You say, “I need to know all of the facts, including what the-” You take a breath, “-heck we’re doing in the middle of a nice little neighborhood, I was expecting something more Gossip Girland Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” 

“You’re definition of journalist is a lot looser than mine,” Molly says.

“Have you ever watched Gossip Girl? And isn’t Brooklyn Nine-Nine set in a precinct?” Fletcher adds. 

“No, and Jake and Amy live in an apartment.” 

“Beyond the fact that you’re a TV writer who has never watched Gossip Girl-” Fletcher sighs, even though you know he hasn’t watched it either beyond random snippets for a hit piece he wrote on it a few months back (not received well by the way), “The top floor of that building-” He points to the precariously nice building, “isn’t apartments its a loft, the floor is huge and only one house.” 

You squint your eyes, “You’re kidding.”

“And the rest are offices?” 

“How did they get zoning for that?” 

They both shrug at the same time. 

“Guys I want to know that if the police bust up this party, speaking of loose terms, I’m going to say that you dragged me here against my will.” 

“I always knew you had good survival instincts.” 

Molly turns to you, “Look when you’re getting special press access to the inside of the met gala you will be saying thank you Molly for bringing me here to catapult my career.” 

“I have catapulted my own career thank you, the Tik Tok thing-” You shake your head, “Nevermind can we go in and stop loitering, then we’ll really get arrested.” 

Party is a loose term but you learn that's not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not a rager with strobe lights and pumping bass but there is music playing albeit classical. People mill around at tables talking to one another, both twenty somethings and thirty somethings, you recognize a few faces from the media mostly. Fletcher was right about the food, and Molly was right about the drinks. You talk to a few people just to introduce yourself, a couple of them have heard of you, if only because your sudden cross country move to newspapers that aren’t necessarily competitors but might have a bit of a rivalry was something that people talked about. You’d made a couple thirty under thirty lists (no not the Forbes one) while in LA, which meant nothing to you if you were being completely honest but apparently meant things to other people which is fine.

When you’re finally exhausted at putting on a smile and nodding like you’re actively engaged in conversation and not thinking about something completely you hang out by the bar, not even drinking, just watching the room and all of the people there. You never wanted to get a reputation for being the quiet girl in the corner who just watched and listened because those kinds of people are always seen as weird or doormats or both but if you’re being honest this is where you’re the most comfortable. Making small talk just to get some opportunity down the road has never quite been your style. 

You turn to go and find Molly when you suddenly come face to face with someone you recognise right away. 

In that moment you realize that Taylor Swift was in fact onto something when she said, “Didn’t you flash your green eyes at me?” As weird as it is, the first thing you think when you meet Harry Styles is how that song is definitely about him, because those green eyes are striking and they are staring right at you. 

“Hi,” He says, quick to the draw. 

You take a step back just because of how close you are and say, “Hello.” 

He looks at you like he’s thinking about something, and then holds out his hand, “Harry.” 

“y/n,” You shake his hand. You recover from your initial shock quickly, and plaster on that fake conversation smile again, ready for whatever it is he wants to say, if anything. You came here to ‘network’ and you’re not sure what kind of advantage talking to Harry Styles could possibly give you, but for some reason you want to talk to him. 

“What brings you here?” He asks you. 

“My co-workers,” You shrug, “I would much rather be at home watching Succession on HBO and listening to the Beatles on my record player, like true people of culture would.”

He looks at you for a second, as you try to keep a straight face. Then he laughs, “Seriously?”

“Fuck no,” You say, “That’s my impression of the girl who meets Harry Styles at a party and has to convince him that she is not like all the other girls, she is the one for him.” You smile, “Was that good? Or should I try again?” 

He thinks about it, “I think you should try again.” 

“Because you think it’s wrong or because you think I’m funny?”

“What do you think?”

“Well if you think I’m funny, then I’ve already won, I’ve tricked you into thinking that I’m not like all the other girls with reverse psychology .”

“Are you screwing with me?”

“Of course I’m screwing with you,” You take a sip of your drink. “If I were home right now I would be playing Lizzo on my record player, and drinking something with a medically unsafe level of caffeine.” You pause, “What brings you here?” 

“Honestly,” He looks out over the room, “I thought that this was going to be a much cooler party. Instead it’s just a bunch of reporters, and editors and media people.” 

“Who are inherent mood killers?” You ask. 

He narrows his eyes at you, “Am I allowed to say yes to that?” 

“You can do whatever you want,” You tease him, “You’re Harry Styles, who am I to tell you what to say?” 

“I feel like it was a trick question, which means that you are also a reporter.” 

You laugh again, “That was funny, I’m going to write that down for my story. ‘Harry is genuinely funny which he tries to use to make up for the lack of small talk abilities’.”

“You’re screwing with me again.” 

“Of course I am,” You say, “I work in the arts section of the Times, well not the actual art anymore but the movies and television.” 

“TV critic?” He says, “So you’re harsh.” 

“TV critics are just harsh for attention, I don’t need to be because no movie snob or well meaning director is going to go to the Times to see what we thought of any given movie. I write honestly, sometimes under the influence of caffeine and try to contain my excitement at narratively unnecessary plot twists.” You explain, “That and I get paid to watch TV, and usually private screenings of movies.” 

He leans against the bar a sign that he doesn’t plan on moving anytime soon. You’re not going to say that you’re so awestruck by a celebrity that you have no idea what to say, or that he’s intimidating you but your hand shakes just a little as you clutch your fingers around the glass because he’s objectively attractive. Objectively attractive in the way that if he were on a dating app you would swipe yes and then put a lot of pressure on yourself to be funny and relatable even though you know that you don’t need him. 

“What did you think of Dunkirk?” 

“Oh!” You forgot that he acted, “That was before my time. I was working at the LA Times doing the music section then I think.” You know what he’s going to say next, “And before you ask yes there is a piece still posted of me reviewing your debut album. I think I reached out to get an interview with you, but I was suspiciously declined.” He looks embarrassed, “I was like under five years out of college I would’ve declined me too. They only gave me the story because it was the time where people weren’t sure that ex boyband members could make objectively good albums that meant something.” 

He tilts his head to the side for a second, “And? Can they?”

“I’m in no place to make a generalization,” You say, “But I think you did. Admittedly that album was something, very intimate.” 

“I don’t know if I should be taking that as a compliment.”

“I don’t want to give you a compliment because some people have a hard time with them, and this will get very awkward very fast. No shame, personally I have no mechanism to take compliments on my writing.” 

He laughs, “I think I can take it.” 

“Hmm.. okay,” You take another step back, “Okay are you sure you're ready?” 

“Yes.” 

“I think the entire album was very good, very unexpectedly good or at least I didn’t expect it to be. It was very open in that way that songs are vulnerable but still leave enough mystery that your fans don’t think you're a shitty person and I really like meet me in the hallway,” You say quickly, “In fact I listened to it just yesterday when I was working.” 

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and then fake sighs, “See I don’t think that counts because it was more of a backhanded compliment.” 

“What?”

“You said you didn’t expect it to be good, that’s not really a compliment then-”

“I was saying it pleasantly surprised me,” You say, throwing your hands in the air in mock annoyance. “You surprise me, Harry.” He doesn’t say anything, and for a minute neither do you, but you snap back to life just in time to say, “Is that compliment enough to embarrass you?” 

He shrugs, but you know he’s messing with you. “It’s something but I don’t know if it’s really doing it for me.” 

“You are impossible, just another out of touch celebrity, is nothing ever good enough for you people?” It’s by now that you realize that you inadvertently closed the gap between the two of you, and you’re standing very close. 

He seems to realize this at the same time as you, “I-”

“Are you going to ask me to have sex with you?” You deadpan. 

“What?” He looks offended for a second, “No.” 

“I had to ask,” You tell him, “It’s happened before.” 

“I was going to ask you for your number.”

“See usually when a guy asks me that they’re asking so-” 

“It’s not for that.” 

“Then what’s it for?” 

He looks at you with something in his eyes that you don’t know the meaning of, “In case you want to do an interview, so that they don’t reject you this time.” 

You know that’s not it, but you give it to him anyway because he’s Harry Styles (which yes is not a valid reason but this ‘party’ is very boring and this is the most interesting thing to happen to you in at least the past week). It takes you a minute to remember which one is your real number and which one is the fake number you give off if a guy is asking because he wants a booty call, but you eventually give it to him. Then you scurry off with a quick goodbye when you realize how late it is, and how you do have work to do. There’s a new episode of Big Little Lies out tomorrow and you don’t understand why but people are very into the show, and very into your episode recaps. 

You corner Molly away from some guy you think might have actually been able to get her press access to the Met Gala and remind her that she also has a deadline tomorrow. The two of you go off to look for Fletcher and find him very close to sealing the deal with an objectively pretty girl, but you politely remind him that he has work to do and is very busy. The girl looks sad but let’s him go without much whining. You would’ve understood if she tried to get him to stay with her, he’s a little bit shorter than Molly but to be fair Molly is above averagely tall, and is nice and fit and has brown curly hair which you know from personal experience is sometimes just kryptonite. (you’ve kissed Fletcher before, long story, and can also say he’s on your top list of good kissers as well right up there with a guy you hooked up with in LA only to realize later that he was Robert Pattinson). 

Somehow the three of you are only able to make it back to your apartment. So the night ends with Molly and Fletcher in the living room on the couch and in a sleeping bag respectively, and you are comfortably in your bed. Your phone sits on your nightstand, suspiciously silent. You’re not waiting for Harry Styles to call you, nope, definitely not. 

[blazehedgehog]

i bet you could do a kickass video on sonic xtreme

I dunno.

I talk big about Sonic X-treme, but the truth of the matter is I kind of stopped paying attention to a lot of it after a while.

For those who don’t know, here’s the whole story:

Around 2000 or 2001, I was deep in to, like, The Secrets of Sonic Team and other websites that covered lost beta elements in Sonic games. This was right after the big Sonic 2 Beta discovery, and the Sonic community was working overtime documenting all kinds of discoveries and lost stuff from every Sonic game ever made up to that point...

...except Sonic X-treme. That information was fragmented and spread across the internet and nobody really seemed to care. I saw a niche I could fill, so I started up a website and combed the web looking for every scan, screenshot and video I could find. I collected all of it at a modest website that was something like sonicxtreme.tk or sonicxtreme.cjb.net or whatever. One of those free domain URLs.

And once I’d collected everything that could be found on Sonic X-treme... that was, uh, it. It’s not like there was anything more that I could do. Once I had all the magazine articles and screenshots of the game, I had reached a dead end on what that website could accomplish. I had completed the known snapshot of what was Sonic X-treme. And so it sat for like, a year. Maybe longer. Just gathering dust.

By now, people at in the community were making efforts to contact the English-speaking members of Sonic 2′s development team. People like Craig Stitt, Brenda Ross, so on and so forth. The Sega Technical Institute folks. And it dawned on me: the entire development staff for Sonic X-treme was American, weren’t they? With Sonic 2, they were stuck talking to artists who were trapped in the tunnel vision of only working on small, specific parts of the game. Brenda Ross could only speak about the couple levels she worked on, y’know? They couldn’t interview the larger members of Sonic Team directly -- they were celebrities, which made them hard to contact, and on top of that there was a language barrier. There were a lot of hurdles to cross, and many of them were borderline impossible.

But with Sonic X-treme, everything was way more accessible and local. So I started skimming the magazine scans I had. Ultra Gameplayers had run a monthly feature called “White Glove Diaries” about the development of the game, speaking to people who were working on it, and it was the best source of information for the game at the time. Within moments, I had a name: Mike Wallis, the game’s producer. Inside of maybe thirty minutes and some skillful Google searching later, I had an email address. It really was that easy.

I tried to be as polite and respectful as I could; I asked him if he was the same Mike Wallis that worked on Sonic X-treme and wondered if he would be willing to answer any questions.

The first thing he wrote back to me was “How did you find me?” along with confirmation that yes, he was that Mike Wallis.

The second thing he wrote back to me was “Would you be willing to speak over the phone?”

And I panicked. This guy was, at least to me, a pretty big deal. I was still deep in my pit of despair, so the idea of interviewing this guy rattled me. I couldn’t do it. I posted on on the Sonic hacking community forum, relaying my inability to go through with this thing. Here I was on the cusp of a big breakthrough and I was acting like a deer in the headlights. Leaped before I looked and got exactly what I wanted, at the cost of now feeling deeply over my head. I was in no way mentally prepared for this.

Somebody on the forum stepped forward and said he’d do the interview for me. His username was Pachuka, and he was gaining notoriety in the Sonic hacking community. Pachuka seemed confident and knew his way around the important terminology, so I figured sure, he can do it. We talked over IRC, ran through some questions we wanted to ask, set the whole thing up for the appointed phone call. We were a team.

The call happened and Pachuka recorded the whole thing. Said he’d release the MP3 on his new website, The Sonic-Cult.

I was incredibly nervous even just listening to the MP3 of the phone call. They’d have to mention me, right? Acknowledge my existence? Talk about how I set the call up? It was hard not to feel incredibly self-conscious.

The call opened with Mike Wallis referring to my website. And Pachuka... had no idea what he was talking about. He never mentioned me by name, and barely even acknowledged that he knew me. Heck, Mike Wallis seemed to know more about me than Pachuka did, and I’m the one who set the whole thing up for him.

Looking back in retrospect, I probably didn’t do that much. From getting the idea, to finding his email address and sending the email, contacting Mike Wallis took what was likely less than an hour’s work, and I was mainly following the example of others in the Sonic community. But in the moment, it felt like I had done a lot. This was as much my discovery as it was anyone else’s. I was the only person who cared enough to set this up. I ran a whole website about this stuff -- the only website for it on the entire internet. And yet, Pachuka couldn’t even remember my username. I felt worthless.

From then on, the community treated this as Pachuka’s discovery. It was his interview. He made the discovery. His star rose, and I remained a nobody. No one cared about my site. Sonic-Cult is where you went if you wanted to learn the real deal about Sonic X-treme.

With Mike Wallis on the line, Pachuka started contacting more people from Sonic X-treme’s development. Soon, that lead him to Chris Senn, and the floodgates were blown wide open. Chris Senn was the key to everything.

I was never a part of any of those conversations. Not even once. The whole community took off without me and I was left in the dust. The handful of screenshots and magazine scans I had collected now looked absolutely pitiful.

I paid attention to the information that came out, of course. I was still interested in the game, and I mirrored what I could on my site. But on the inside, it was hard not to feel hurt. I never looked at it with quite the fervor I once had. It wasn’t mine anymore. I let myself get scooped and the door was slammed in my face without so much as a “thank you.”

After that, the magic and mystery of Sonic X-treme wore off pretty quickly for me. As more and more and more concept drawings and videos and music files and sprites and everything else burst out of Chris Senn, my interest began to wane. It stopped being special.

Petty? On some level, maybe. But for a brief window of time, Sonic X-treme research felt like my baby. I was the guy you talked to about that. Why bother keeping up appearances when somebody else was getting patted on the back and now one of the game’s developers was practically uploading the entire design document to the internet? They apparently didn’t want me involved, so I took a hike.

Don’t get me wrong: it was my fault. I handed this to Pachuka on a silver platter, and he ran away with it. It was a decision that haunted me for years. Made me start realizing I needed to be more confident and less shy.

I am in no rush to relive that mistake.

So when it comes to Sonic 3, I could recite a lot of that from memory. When it comes to Sonic X-treme, I remember the details of the Mike Wallis interview and some basics that came from Chris Senn, but a lot of the finer details of that weren’t really committed to memory, because I didn’t pay super close attention to all of it. And where would you even go to fill in those blanks? Last I checked, The Senntient website isn’t what it used to be.

So, again... I dunno.

[bluerosesonata]

The Legacy of Aika Village

[This will be the first of a few mini-articles I plan to post here, just about different things I’m passionate about. Please indulge me.]

This article originally was written back in early April- since then, Nintendo announced that the “Dream Suites” would be coming to the latest update of ACNH, as “Dream Islands.” As such, I thought it would be timely to finally post this.

Update: On July 2nd, the original creator of Aika Village made a tweet announcing their plans to remake Aika for Dream Islands in New Horizons! The legend lives on!

Image Credit: thumbnail from chuggaconroy’s playthrough of Aika Village on Youtube.

Animal Crossing And Horror: The Legacy of Aika Village

With a lot of the world in lockdown, Animal Crossing New Horizons has become a creative and social outlet for many, leading to a lot of people who never played Animal Crossing to engage with it for the first time. I’m sure most of you have encountered the various types of people present in the Animal Crossing community by now, but there’s a type of Animal Crossing players that a lot of people didn’t realize exist, and have existed, for a while now: The Horror Town Creators.

These players were the subject of a brief write up on Polygon by Patricia Hernandez [Hernandez, Patricia. “Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now a horror game, thanks to fans.” Polygon, 24 Mar. 2020. https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/24/21190826/animal-crossing-new-horizons-horror-game-decorations-scary-nintendo-switch-blood-spatter-pattern.], who posted an article featuring quotes and pictures of people creating horror themed towns and rooms in New Horizons, but only made a brief mention of the legacy of horror that many of these players are striving to recreate: The Nightmare Suites of Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

(These next few paragraphs are a bit of a self-indulgent aside, so feel feel to skip ahead.)

Horror gets a bad rap. Horror artists get comments like “lmao what SCP is this,”  “that’s fucked up,” or get flippant remarks about it all “looking the same.” Horror writers get made fun of for only writing “three types of stories.” Even the term “creepypasta,” which has evolved into shorthand for “horror stories independently published online,” still carries the stink of derision from the typo-filled, often poorly-written shock stories the term originated from. Despite this derision, horror, as a genre, is MASSIVELY popular (and profitable as well!). There’s an undeniable appeal to it.

More importantly, horror always finds a way to adapt itself to different mediums. As one can easily see by the success of horror podcasts like the NoSleep Podcast and The Magnus Archives, it isn’t even limited to a visual format! Like fear and dread itself, the horror genre crawls on, inexhaustible, undying, and ever-present, always returning to us in ways both novel and familiar.

Horror lovers are a tight knit, but welcoming, community, and that’s one of its biggest strengths and weaknesses.The biggest drawback is that a lot of really cool stuff produced will never be experienced, let alone documented, by people outside the community. And that’s what prompted this post. I was trying to explain the Dream Suite horror movement to my cousin, and despite my best efforts, didn’t find a lot of coverage about them, beyond the fact they existed. Worse, most of those were articles written five years ago. Even so, I’ll link to a few of them at the end of this post, as they’re definitely worth reading.

For me, I wanted to share my experience of the horror town phenomena with people outside the community. The Nightmare Suites movement was really something magical, and I know that I, personally, am still trying to recreate that magic in New Horizons. And hey, maybe once you’re finished reading this, you will too.

The Dream Suite

Before we can talk about Aika Village, we need to explain the feature that made this whole movement possible. In the 2012/2013 3DS game, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, there were two areas in every town: The village, and Main Street, which laid beyond the train tracks that ran across to the north of every town. Main Street was home several important structures, including the town shop, the Happy Home Academy, and the Post Office. Later on, more structures could be unlocked and built as public works projects, one of which was the Dream Suite.[“Dream Suite.” Nookipedia, 25 Apr. 2013, nookipedia.com/wiki/Dream_Suite.] 

As for how it worked, Nookipedia explains it best:

To begin a dream, the player must lie down on the bed and pay Luna 500 Bells. They may then choose to visit a random town, input the Dream Address of a specific town to visit, or search for a town. They may then choose to visit a previously visited town or a random town, or to input the dream address of a new town to visit. While dreaming, the player may walk around the town and perform actions just as they would in the real world, but their actions will have no effect on the town.

While dreaming, the bed will be on the dream town's plaza. Luna and Lloid stand near it until the player decides to wake up. Players can borrow tools like a shovel and axe from Lloid to use within the dream. If the player lies on the bed a second time, they will leave the dream and anything they have in their pockets will be lost.

The player cannot go to Main Street or enter any buildings with doors besides homes. Additionally, messages left on the bulletin board cannot be read; instead, the board displays the town's name and Dream Address…custom designs on display in the town, such as on the ground and in houses, will be visible. The player who uploaded the town can also be found walking about. When spoken to, they will say their recorded greeting.

In essence, the Dream Suite takes a snapshot of your town at the moment you ask Luna, the NPC running the Dream Suite, to share a dream- this includes your outfit, the way  you decorated your home, the items laying around town, etc.

The most important aspect of this feature, and the one that I feel had the most impact on the Nightmare Suite creation movement, was the method of discovery. If you didn’t know someone’s code, you would be sent to a random dream of a random town, from anywhere in the world- and this is where I feel my personal experience of being in the community departs from the articles that have already been written about the Nightmare Suites.

The Urban Legend of Aika

In the years leading to 2013, I was going through some rough shit. I won’t go into details here, but video games had become my entire life. Coming into the summer of 2013, I didn’t have any friends I kept in touch with, and I was “starting over” in a city where I knew nobody- things were looking up, but outside of tumblr, I didn’t have anything even resembling a social life. Animal Crossing: New Leaf was a stabilizing force of my life during this time, and really helped me. I had the Shampoodle haircut guide saved to the camera roll on my phone, for pete’s sake.

It was in the beginnings of my friendship with a group of girls (whom I sadly no longer even have contact with), where a lot of our initial bonding happened because of anime and RPGmaker horror games. We were sitting together in the campus dining area, me playing on my 3DS, when I first learned about the Nightmare Suites.

“Have you heard about Aika Village?”

I hadn’t.

“It’s this really creepy town in dream suites, I heard about it from a friend online.” Later that day, she linked me to a tumblr post compiling a series of codes leading to different “creepy dream towns,” the first one being simply labeled as “Aika Village.”

That dream village became a phenomenon: people would write up their interpretations and theories about it, and even lead to a few articles and videos on gaming sites like IGN and Killscreen, which is why I’m not gonna even bother going into the content of the village itself.

And So, The Dream Begins…

This, in my opinion, was the draw of the Nightmare Suites. Without a way to directly share codes from your 3DS to your social media, the discovery and sharing of Dream Towns was like that of urban legends- like virtually passing notes in class, or sharing scary stories that “totally happened to a friend of my cousin’s sister” at a campfire. It felt like a cool discovery- something exclusive and scary and weirdly intimate. They had a mystique to them, a mystery of who their creators were and what they “really meant.” But above all that? They were cool as hell.

The Nightmare Suites used the limitations of the game to try and create an unnerving atmosphere in ways that were reminiscent to me of the RPGmaker horror game subgenre, and for me, created a lot of memories of excitedly typing in my once a day dream suite visit late at night in my dorm. I never lacked variety- there were so many people either influenced or inspired by Aika to make a horror town that there are entire lists and tumblrs dedicated to collecting those codes. (I even played around with the idea of making my own horror town, but never found the right inspiration, instead dedicating my time to making themed homes and custom outfits based on different anime characters.)

The sad fact that so many of these towns have been altered or overwritten, if they’re available or accessible at all, is in itself, a part of their urban legend-like appeal. While many of us may never get to experience these towns, the stories about them endure, in lists on long-abandoned blogs and youtube videos from people’s playthroughs.

And that mystique is the real legacy of Aika; While the Nightmare Suites may be gone, the wonder and dreamlike memories many of us hold from our chance encounter with it will never fade. You could even say we’re a bit…haunted by it.

[thanatophobia-thoughts]

“Anyone else remember those so-called science documentaries we had to watch in school that were really just Creationist propaganda? Just me?”

Okay…let’s talk Surviving Death on Netflix. The tl;dr: this series is afterlife propaganda wrapped up in bad science, with no opposing opinions presented at all. It made me think of those terrible films I had to watch in various science classes about the beginnings of life and whatnot.

 This is going to be a long one, so I’m putting it under a cut.

The first episode was the one I had the most hope for. It discusses Near Death Experiences, and introduces various people who have had them, and then some scientists and doctors who have dealt with these people, this phenomena, or looked into it. This is, unfortunately, where it goes wrong – it brings in no dissenting voices. Every sceptic is a former sceptic. They lay out their reasons for why, of course, but there’s something about it that feels incomplete.

It tries to offer up some compelling evidence, of course. It indicates what people share in common – a warm, bright light, a feeling of being loved, and the sense of time distorting – feeling eternity in a second. These are shared across the board.

Then they bring up how some patients can indicate what was happening in the room when they would have had no brain activity. Such as what words were said, what actions were taken, things they couldn’t have known due to the lack of consciousness. Is that compelling? In some respects, yes. It’s a wonder how they knew this, and it’s unclear what anyone would get by falsifying this, as I doubt most end up doing TV interviews and getting paid for it – not to mention what the doctors and others who confirm their stories, get for this.

Do I have an answer for that? No, not at all.

It could be fraud.

It could yet be some aspect of a dying body that we don’t understand, and I am inclined towards that. That leaves open room for, yes, an aspect of a soul, consciousness, or something other. It also leaves room for a hyperawareness in the last moments.

However, how quickly they seem to think the brain stops having activity does give me pause. We know plenty about the brain, and brain activity is measured, but we also know cells and processes don’t stop all at once. I’m not convinced that the Warm Light, Time Distortion, Loving Feeling aren’t caused by this process. In fact, I’m fairly certain they are, because DMT is released as you die – the very same thing that is released when you dream.

Here is just one article on it, which admittedly has a low amount of participants:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424/full

I cannot explain how patients know about things happening around them, so that I will accept right now as something of a mystery until we understand it better. That’s what science is about: understanding things.

The next two episodes are about mediums, which, I’ll say it: they’re con-artists. I have been to enough Spirit-Mind-Body fairs (and still enjoy going to them for reasons outside of Mediums), have gotten enough readings, and watched my mom test enough people, to be fairly certain of this.

Mediums claim they can access the deceased person and provide messages to them, from the living, thus confirming an afterlife experience. Cold readers use obvious tricks: Use common names or no names, use things like ‘father figure’ or ‘masculine energy’ coming through, consider the age of the person you’re speaking with (when I was in my early teens and 20s, they always wanted to talk about my romantic life because young girls are always thinking about that, right?), and then they can usually draw the person they’re speaking with into giving them enough information that it seems like they know what they are saying.

There are also hot readings, where the medium has time to gather information on the person beforehand and can thus make it seem like they know a lot.

The show also did a séance with a “physical medium” – but the séance itself can’t be recorded, because of course, the ectoplasm that the medium would produce to create the physical sensations is sensitive to light. And did we mention the medium is in total darkness, and put away in a cabinet – tied to the chair, mind – but in a cabinet, out of sight, for the duration of the séance? Yeah, that’s not fishy at all. (And later they show her doing a non-physical mediumship and she’s not convincing, it’s very cold reading scenario).

Her Physical Mediumship was also questionable. She reached out to one of the people, Aman, and said there was someone on the other side for him that she couldn’t understand – she used the Hindi word for ‘Son’, beta. Aman then spoke to his father in Hindi, but RIGHT AFTER THIS, the medium suddenly knew exactly what his father was saying and gave the message without attempting to say it phonetically to the son. And the son believed this.

Also note, this man was signed up to take classes and such with her. She had time to research him and why he was there, so it is probable she looked up that one word to make a connection.

It also shows a medium speaking with a mother who lost her daughter – and of course, the message is to be expected for a grieving mother – “don’t blame yourself” “you couldn’t have done anything”. No details about how they died are offered, although they seem to know she “has an object” on her that’s important.

The following episode is then about signs, and how the dead communicate with the living – like sending a cardinal to them, leaving behind particular coins, having butterflies in weird locations, and things like that.

Basically, coincidences.

Of course, they all say you don’t know the difference until you experience it yourself. Here’s the thing: I have.

My cat passed away in in 2016, in the fall. A little after her death, there was a dead dove right besides the driver’s side door of my car. I had a pet dove once upon a time. This very cat got to the dove, in her locked cage, and killed her. There was a part of me that desperately wanted to believe, and clung to that feeling for a bit, but I know, the likelihood is it was an odd coincidence, a poor bird that hit the side of the garage my car is parked by, and slid down it to that position.

Signs are only just that – coincidences.

The next episode continues into the theme of paranormal investigators. It shows a duo going into the Morris-Jumel mansion, setting up recording devices, white noise makers, and motion sensors, and trying to communicate with the dead. They use the white noise makers because APPARENTLY the dead need background noise to be heard.

They APPARENTLY reach Aaron Burr. They only get his name, and then his footsteps. I’ll be honest – I didn’t hear ‘Aaron Burr’ at all in the recording, I think they just wanted it to be Aaron Burr. I’m also not convinced cat toy motion detectors are the best route. Those things light up for, literally, no reason.

It then goes into discussion of a polaroid camera, that took photos of light, that then became words and messages – which of course they can no longer replicate because the particular film doesn’t exist any longer. I don’t know enough about photography or photomanipulation, but my mother loves this stuff, and I know there are ways even polaroids can be manipulated to come out certain ways, so no, I’m not buying that, either.

The last thing it touches on are apparitions, like when you go out to look for someone, or think of someone, and at that same time they’d just killed themselves. That intuition that none of us really have a way to describe. It could be mere coincidence, though I imagine anyone with a mother who had that maternal instinct suspects it’s something more. I don’t have an answer for it, though, beyond mere coincidence. I am not convinced it happens often enough to be something supernatural.

Finally, we get to the last episode, which talks about reincarnation.

It looks mostly at children who believe they are reincarnated people, such as Marty Martyn in one case, and in “pre-internet” ages, or before they could reasonably know this information.

Their answers are compared and contrasted with the reality of those they believe they were reincarnated from, but in all the cases looked at, they begin to forget this other life’s existence around the age of 7. Some things stick, but not much.

This is another of those things I don’t have a good answer for – it’d be terrible to say it’s fraud on the parents’ part, coaching their kid on these things. It’s also hard to figure how the children, or even the parents, knew some of these things that line up fairly well.

I have my curiosities about Organ Memory. There is the possibility that if enough of the same material came together to form someone, theoretically, it could provide specific memories, but I doubt this entirely.

Some of it could be that the child was, somehow, exposed to a lot of this. Perhaps there was a documentary left on about the subject that they claim as their other life, perhaps they really are that good at googling at a young age – I’m still better than my parents at this, after all.

This is what the show fails to present, however: opposing views. It leads you in one direction, and even directly INSULTS those who don’t buy into this view. Do I know enough to answer these questions? No, I don’t. I’m able to say that.

I can suspect things like fraud or access to information. I can suspect coincidence, or even information we don’t yet have. I can hope there will be another series that focuses on the non-believer’s side, so that we get a fuller story.

Why do I think it’s important?

Because some of these quotes came from the series:

“For the believer, no proof is necessary. For the sceptic, no proof is possible.” (Attributed to someone else, but used as “proof”).

“I wanted to believe so I believed.” – a father grieving his daughter

“Sometimes we may not be able to say something here, but we’ll be able to say it somewhere else.” – a near death experience between a son and a father.

I find these quotes to be damaging. The last one in particular, because it tries to say it’s okay not to make these connections in life, it’s okay to wait until the next one. Please. Please don’t do this. Don’t believe this – and even if you do, don’t live like that. It’s not fair to those around you. It’s not fair to yourself.

The one who wanted to believe, well…that says it all, doesn’t it? He was looking for this, for comfort, and now he tries to see it. He’s living for a lie, and working his life around that. He has spent MONEY on learning how to contact the dead, on contacting the dead, and he lives his life around looking for particular signs. He has been scammed.

The first one is honestly just nonsense, though I can see why it gets to going around, especially in this time of COVID-19. It is hard to convince some people of things, and they will cling to their beliefs no matter what. I am not without bias – you can see I’m arguing this even with these so-called proofs presented to me, that there is no afterlife.

That said, that quote is just one of giving up.

They also do not say ALL about subjects, such as Franek Kluski, who supposedly made ectoplasmic wax hands, in environments where he could have easily hidden the wax hands already made, and where he’d been caught in a lie that involved “wax buttocks” when he was asked to have an ectoplasm face created (his own butt was burned), and who may have confessed to the fraud (this seems to be debated).

Overall, the Netflix series has an agenda, which is inherent in the title: it is here to convince you there is an afterlife. However, it’s science is questionable, and I think it could have done better by including actual opposition, not “former sceptics”.

[fortuitousmind]

Living Life in the Era of COVID-19: We’re Not Feeling too Hot

Check in on your friends. Check in on all of them, but especially the friends that you know struggle with mental illness.

I’m about to make myself incredibly vulnerable, but at this point I know I can’t be the only one feeling this way. This entry is moreso an avenue to vent than an informative resource. Things in my head are bad. They’re really bad.

They’re so bad that I was off of work all last week because I had some symptoms of illness and I still could hardly bring myself to show up this morning. I’m having a hard time convincing myself to make it in tomorrow. Being alone is hard. Being around others is scary. I’m worried about my family. I went through a bottle of hand sanitizer in six hours at work today. I’ve been having panic attacks because I’m terrified of getting sick. My lungs are garbage and my inhaler hasn’t been helping. I’m the only person at my apartment and if anything happens that causes my lungs to give up, nobody is going to know. That scares me.

At first I was indifferent about school going online, but I’ve started to realize everything that’s been taken from me. I have a lot of friends that I’ll probably never see again. I finally had a group of people around me who consistently worked to build each other up and genuinely just enjoyed each other’s company, and I’ve never had a steady group of friends in my life, and now we’re separated. A lot of us are seniors. I was looking back at all of the pictures I’ve taken in the past year and there are so many memories that I was ready to make more of.

On top of that, I can’t read on computer screens. I just can’t. I got a concussion the winter before last and it still hurts to read anything on my laptop. My eyes don’t focus on the words. Pitt shut down their printing services. If I can’t physically take notes directly on the article, I don’t understand what I’m referencing when I look over it again later. My memory has gotten so bad that my doctor referred me for a neurocognitive function assessment. I missed class the entire week before spring break because of my mental health. I have no motivation because my mental health is so taxing right now that I can’t put energy into anything else. My grades are going to suffer.

All of my mental illnesses are flaring up at once. I keep having panic attacks related to my PTSD that aren’t even touched by the medication I’ve been prescribed. I have constant anxiety about every single thing that’s happening all at once. I’m so on-edge that if more than one noise happens at the same time, my brain just shuts down from overstimulation. I’m paranoid from being alone. My depression is the worst it’s been in years (and I keep saying that, but each time it comes back I seem to slip further and further into the abyss). I need a medication change, but I don’t have a psychiatrist right now. I know exactly what dose of which medication I need because it’s been effective for me in the past, and I have an entire bottle of this medication, but I can’t get ahold of my PCP to ensure that she can refill it if I start it back up. I need therapy, but my therapist isn’t making appointments because she and her husband are both vulnerable to severe complications if they get sick. My chronic passive death wish has gotten more intense and is at the point where, if it gets any worse, I’m going to need more help than I can give myself. I don’t trust myself because my impulsivity has skyrocketed and nobody is here to check me on it. I’ve started falling back into the pattern of attempting to sabotage my relationships so nobody has to deal with me anymore because I’m exhausting myself with my own mind and am afraid of people abandoning me first. I haven’t been nice to my body either. I’m glad it’s still cold outside.

For a lot of people, myself included, being isolated at home alone can quickly become dangerous as we lose access to our typical mechanisms of care and coping, as well as our ability to reach out to others for help in ways other than speaking over the phone. One of my go-to safety measures is going to a friend’s house so I don’t lock myself in my room and so I know I’ll be in a safe environment. All of my friends are either working, sick, or hours away. I can no longer engage in the one thing that has never failed to guarantee my safety. I can’t distract myself by going to museums or walking around the city or hanging out in a coffee shop. I can’t get to the store to buy things that I know would significantly help me. Even if I could go to the store, I am paranoid and anxious and afraid of what could happen. I’m not supposed to hang around other people and my darkest moments have always been when I’m alone with my own mind.

I’m not sharing this for a pity party. I don’t need anyone to call the cops to come check on me. I have a lot to live for and so many things to do and so many people to help and so many places to go and so many concerts to see and so many dogs to pet (I would like to mention that the highlight of my day was my parents surprising my sister and I with a puppy. Our dog passed away last June), and I still haven’t hugged Harry Styles.

I just want people to know that a lot of us are struggling with a whole bunch of things right now. Remember to be kind. Remember to be loving and to spread the love. Remember that things will not be this way forever (although it sure does seem like it right now). It’s okay to not be okay, and we are all significantly less okay at this moment in time, and it’s okay to break down the wall and express that instead of hiding it away. I want people to know that they’re not alone in their struggles.

Some things I tell people I work with all of the time that I’ve been trying to remind myself of:

Things are not going to be like this forever.

Things are going to get better.

There are a lot of people who care about us.

We have to be patient with ourselves because we don’t all have control of our own minds.

We need to trust our instinct when our brains tell us we need some assistance.

It’s okay to need help.

We don’t need to go through this alone.

I am struggling, and I know I’m not the only one. Every time I look on social media, I am reminded of the state of the world and the fear and sadness that plagues it. I fall further down the rabbit hole of negativity and can’t pull myself out of it because it seems like it’s all that’s out there right now. Check on your friends. Check on your coworkers. Check on the people who can’t stay home. Check on the people who have to stay home. Check on yourself, too.

[fursasaida]

hello!when you're not busy/if you don't mind, could you pls recommend something to read on how human rights can sometimes get hijacked in propaganda? like for example how american conservatives can use religious freedom beat on other countries, how lgbtqa rights can get disingenuously used to push islamophobic agenda etc idk if this makes sense basically how human rights can be a complicated situated subject. sorry to bother you! you just seem to know everything ;_; pls feel free ignore this ask

Hi! I’m alive again.

Trafficking Women’s Human Rights by Julieta Hua

Human Rights, Inc by Joseph Slaughter

This is somewhat oblique but relevant: The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Rey Chow

Again, not directly about human rights but still illuminating: “Uncommoning Nature: Stories from the anthropo-not-seen” by Marisol de la Cadena (from the book Anthropos and the Material)

If I had my wits about me a little more I’d look for some shorter articles to suggest, because I know a bunch of academic books is kind of a steep hill to climb. But I don’t know when I’ll have the wherewithal to do that properly, so I’d rather answer you now. Feel free to send another ask later if you can’t get access to these, or if you need something a little less demanding!

The main thing to remember, I think, is that the concept of “rights” as abstract freedoms that are distributed equally and inherently across every individual is not universal. That is, a basic respect for people and their ability to live their lives is not the same as “human rights.” Human rights is a legal framework that developed directly out of both the Enlightenment and colonialism; the mission to bring “human rights” to the world is very often a reinscription of the colonial mission to “civilize” the world that Western Europe and the US engaged in. To be “included” in this system is also to be produced as a particular kind of (autonomous, socially/culturally un-differentiated) individual, which may not be what the people targeted by this mission want.

To take de la Cadena’s chapter as an example, the Peruvian state wants to “develop” the land of the Awajun Wampis mainly for its own profit; but part of why they see doing this as unproblematic is because they make certain assumptions about what is “good for” Awajun Wampis–jobs, money, infrastructure, connection to urban centers, etc. (To be clear, the point here isn’t that the state is fundamentally benevolent, but that the state makes assumptions about what “any rational individual” would and should want.) But all of those assumptions are based on the idea that Awajun Wampis see themselves as individuals with certain kinds of “interests” that are ultimately the same as those held by the individuals who make up the state. Meanwhile, Awajun Wampis see themselves as “being-with” the watercourses and land that make up their territory; they aren’t separable from those other forms of life. Or rather, to make them separate would make them no longer Awajun Wampis.  The “development” that the state wants to bring them would destroy that “being-with.” As one of the resisting activists quoted in the chapter says [paraphrasing from memory], “no one asked us if we wanted their development.” The point here is not that Awajun Wampis are pre-modern noble savages who ~respect the earth~. (That idea only makes sense from the same Enlightenment point of view that a) casts “The Earth” as something separate which it is moral to “respect,” and b) assumes that it is unusual or optional–even if charmingly or transcendently so–to respect this alienated other.) The point is instead that the idea of the individual as autonomous is a set of Enlightenment assumptions built into the very concept of “human” as it is generally used now in these discussions. As a result, the “rights” of human rights are devised in service of that kind of atomized individual. To be granted “human rights” is also to be folded into a system that quite likely deprives you of other things, not least other ways of being and understanding your place in the world.

In terms of how this is weaponized, I think a very telling example is how, after Ferguson, the current president of Egypt started making a lot of noise about how the US has no right to go around dictating human rights to other countries. Sisi fucking sucks, and his point was in service of bad ambitions (being left alone to continue repressing Egyptian society), but he was right that hypocrisy was evident. That moment points to how, again, because “human rights” is organized around an Enlightenment and colonial idea of “human,” certain kinds of people are always conceived as not quite ready for human rights, not fully deserving of them, or not yet having fully put them into practice. This can be weaponized in two different ways. One is to say that “because you (as a non-white people, or as people who don’t believe in property, etc.) are not doing human rights right, we have a higher right to force you to behave differently. In the name of rights! It’s obviously right!” This is basically the story of U.S. foreign policy when it comes to human rights. The other is to say “because you are not consistent with our notion of human, we have no obligation to respect your human rights.” This is what happened in Ferguson in the first place. These forms get used interchangeably according to whatever is convenient for those with the power in the specific situation, but the point is that “human rights” only means something if someone is outside it. That is, human rights is a project that requires some people to be deprived of it or not capable of practicing it in order to sustain itself; otherwise it has no purpose. (This is where the fact that it’s a legal framework comes in. Laws exist to curb contestation; they need an outside.) So “human rights” is very often a kind of fig leaf for what is really an exercise of power, just as the civilizing or Christianizing mission was for imperialism.

To be clear, this does not have to mean a total retreat to moral/cultural relativism. Recognizing that human rights is a specific and culturally-situated paradigm doesn’t mean you can’t say anything is ever right or wrong. It just means that you need to develop your moral framework beyond that one limited paradigm. You wouldn’t accept that your moral framework couldn’t extend beyond “whatever is currently legal in your town,” right? Human rights is one current legal and moral paradigm that has attained some international hegemony; looking past it doesn’t mean abandoning ethics or politics. You just have to think hard and critically about what the basis for your ethics and politics is.

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Quis Copyright Ipsos Custodes?

by Dan H

Wednesday, 06 June 2012

Dan rambles about copyright, DC, and the Watchmen Prequels~

Poking around the internets a couple of days ago I discovered the

following article

about the upcoming (or by the time this article is published, recently released) Watchmen Prequels.

I'm in two minds about this. Part of me says that this is a horrible shameless cash-in that pisses on the memory on one of the greatest graphic novels in history. Another part of me says that the first part of me is just being reactionary and fanboyish.

The Slate article I link at the top of this piece starts off with the oft-repeated observation that DC paid Siegel and Shuster $130 for the rights to Superman and went on to make a shit-ton of money out of the Man of Steel while his creators died in relative poverty. It also points out that the estate of Jack Kirby, who created most of the original Avengers saw nothing from the recent movie.

Now obviously there is a lot wrong with the comics industry. Comic book companies do treat a lot of their writers and artists like shit, and the comics fandom as a whole is as problematic as all fuck. But try as I might, I can't get angry about the fact that the rights to most comic book characters are owned by big companies, instead of by the people who created those characters for those companies.

Perhaps it's that my professional background is in Education while what limited creative background I have is in RPGs, so I'm very used to the idea that what I do in either my professional or my creative life ceases to be mine the moment I put it out into the world. If one of my D&D players wrote a book based on my campaign, I might expect a thank-you but I wouldn't expect royalties, and I obviously don't expect my students to cut me in on their future earnings just because I teach them things which help them get on in their lives (nor does it bother me that the various syllabus documents, schemes of work, and sets of revision notes I have produced as part of my work belong to my school and not to me).

Indeed thinking about it from the perspective of any industry apart from the creative media, the notion that somebody might deserve a share of the profits from a piece of work somebody else does based on work they did as part of their job ten years earlier is completely alien. It reminds me, tangentially, of that

SMBC

strip which suggests that the principle known in academia as “publish or perish” is known in the rest of the world as “do your job or get fired.” There's the same peculiar sense that something which is seen as the mother of all injustices in one industry is just par for the course in most others.

To put it another way, although like most human beings I'm prone to irrational and inconsistent ideas, I do make a vague effort to keep my beliefs consistent with one another. And I'm a big fan of Creative Commons, a supporter of fanfiction, and a strong believer in fair use and the value of transformative works. I am not sure that I could reconcile my belief that the Harry Potter Lexiconhad every right to compile information from the Harry Potter books into an accessible format, or that people have the right to write original stories using other people's characters and put them on the internet (fanfiction.net, for what it is worth, already hosts nine hundred and forty pieces of Watchmen fanfic), with the belief that it is unreasonable for the people who published the original Watchmen to publish sequels if they damned well want to.

I think what bugs me the most about this issue, and more specifically with the attitude that it is somehow self-evident that the person who “creates” a character is entitled to royalties in perpetuity, is that it seems grounded in a mindset with which I am all too familiar. I am, as I believe I have said in many previous articles, an overeducated underachiever. I am very, very good at coming up with ideas and very, very bad at following them through.

The reason people like me react so strongly to the story of Siegel and Shuster isn't that we have genuine sympathy for the hardworking Jewish immigrants who were screwed over by the cynical fatcats at DC, it's that we're all dreaming of the day when we will come up with that one “idea” that will make us millionaires without our having to do any actual work. We baulk at the idea of comic book companies making millions from an idea for which they paid $130 not because it was exploitative (although it probably was) but because we see no value whatsoever in all other work that went into turning a $130 character idea into a billion-dollar IP. This is particularly ironic since a lot of that work was, in fact, done by Siegel and Shuster themselves (and it was work for which they were in fact well paid, Wikipedia reliably informs me that while the pair were only paid $130 for the rights to Superman they were paid $75,000 a year to write Superman – and that was in the 1940s).

People like me love to pretend that ideas are all that matter, that because The Avengers was a pre-existing IP, that all the people who made the film had to do was show up and shuffle things into vaguely the right order. This is, of course, nonsense. Yes, The Avengers wouldn't have existed without Stan Lee or Jack Kirby, but nor would it have existed without Wayne T. Silva the assistant payroll accountant, or Nuo Sun the actor trainer, or Matthew Roper the set medic, or any of the literally hundreds of people who were directly involved in making the actual movie. Of course the original characters are part of what made the film successful, but so is the fact that the actors did their stunts right, or that the payrolls were correctly managed.

Valuable intellectual properties aren't created by individual geniuses – even when a single person owns the copyright the actual brand (and make no mistake about it, thats all a valuable artistic property is – a brand that people buy into and want to hear stories about) is created by a vast army of professionals. We might believe that Harry Potter was created by JK Rowling, but in truth it was partly created by Thomas Taylor (who drew the first cover for Bloomsbury), Mary GrandPre (who drew all of the US covers and seems to have created the distinctive “Harry Potter” font later used in the movies) and Daniel Radcliffe. Yes, the fact that JK Rowling started out as an unemployed single parent and is now one of the richest people in Britain makes for a lovely rags-to-riches story, but one could make the case that she is (in part) reaping the rewards of other people's work. Building a brand, after all, is the role of a corporate marketing department, not an individual artist.

To put it another way, Siegel and Shuster may have created Superman, but it was undoubtedly DC that turned him into a billion-dollar brand, and it is downright perverse to celebrate the success of that brand while at the same time condemning the company that created that success. Did the creators of Superman get screwed? I honestly don't know. Certainly DC negotiated a contract that was in the company's interests rather than the artists', but it is not inherently wrong to make a lot of money out of something for which you initially paid very little money. If DC had known for certain that the Superman property would make millions then it might have been immoral to encourage Siegel and Shuster to give up all rights to the character, but they almost certainly didn't. They took a punt on the property, and it paid off.

Of course money isn't the only issue here. Alan Moore is far more upset about control of his creations than anything else. But even this is a commercial issue. It's easy to be snooty about the way the comics industry exploits its IPs, but – well – that's kind of how they make their money. More than that, it's kind of what's good about the medium. As in, what's artistically good. If Superman had remained in the exclusive control of its original creators, it would still look

like this

. Batman, by a similar token, would still look

like this

. Enduring comic-book characters remain relevant to a modern audience precisely because they are continually created and recreated, and this is possible only because the rights to these characters are owned not by their individual creators but by corporations. This idea doesn't sit comfortably in the mind of the average comics reader, who I suspect likes to place themselves on the side of the artist (not least because so many of us believe ourselves to be artists), but the truth is that we benefit directly from the system being the way it is.

Which brings us all back to the Watchmen prequels. The instinctive reaction of, I expect, most of nerddom, will be to raise a hue and cry because blah blah capitalism blah blah integrity blah blah cash-in blah blah blah. Because apparently we've forgotten that doing new things with old characters is what comic books are all about. The question of whether they are actually any good or not will be entirely academic (as

this edition of Our Valued Customers

nicely illustrates).

The whole thing seems grounded in a kind of skeevy Great Man Theory. The prequels might be brilliant, or they might be terrible, but what people seem to be concerned about is the fact that they will no longer be the product of One Man's Genius, that the mere fact that the prequels will not be written by Alan Moore irrevocably taints them. The whole thing reminds me of the kerfuffle over the proposed (but I believe never realised) Buffy revamp, when people were up in arms about the idea of Buffy without Joss Whedon. Even more peculiarly, people were insisting that a de-Whedoned Buffy would be a terrible blow against feminism, despite the fact that the lead writer on the proposed revamp would have been an actual woman.

This last point – that taking a property away from its straight, white, male creator will be bad for women and ethnic minorities – was made quite explicitly in the Slate piece that inspired this article:

For example: Moore’s comics have often been concerned with feminism, and one theme of Watchmen is that the superhero genre is built in part on retrograde sexual politics and thuggish rape fantasies. And how does Before Watchmen address these issues? Like so. If this were some piece of fan fiction detritus—naked Dr. Manhattan, porn-faced Silk Spectre!—it would be funny. But given that this is an "official" product, it starts to be harder to laugh it off.

I'm not sure where to begin with this. The first thing I'd say is that I have no idea which version of Watchmen this person was reading if they (a) think that “naked Dr Manhattan” is in any way a deviation from the original text and (b) think it's remotely appropriate to describe the original comic as “feminist”. This is a comic in which the fact that Sally Jupiter had a relationship with, and became pregnant by, the man that raped her is the detail which convinces Dr Manhattan that humanity is beautiful and worth saving (this is a slightly uncharitable gloss to put on that moment in the comics, but only slightly).

The second thing I'd say is that I can't help but notice that the article not only assumes that you can deduce an entire comic's gender politics from the cover of one trade paperback, but also fairly deliberately chooses the only cover that could have remotely illustrated his point. You can look at all of the other covers

here

. Most of them don't feature women at all, but this is a consequence of there only being one significant female character in the original text, which is surely Moore's fault as much as anybody else's (and again, doesn't seem to say much for his “concern for feminism”). You might specifically want to take a closer look at the cover of the

Silk Spectre

prequel, which is not only a good not-especially-sexualised portrayal of the character, but which is also drawn by an actual woman.

I think what I find most ironic about the backlash against the Watchmen prequels is that it's grounded in the very same notions of heroism which the comic itself deconstructs. The only reason to believe that (as the Slate article puts it):

Rorschach and Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan have been raised from their resting place, and Moore—and the rest of us—now get to watch them stagger around, dripping bits of themselves across the decades, until everyone has utterly forgotten that they ever had souls.

Is if we accept that Alan Moore is somehow so uniquely talented that nobody except for him is capable of writing decent stories with those characters. As if somehow Moore's talent was so great that unlike Superman, Batman, the X-Men, the Avengers, or all of the characters he purloined for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen his creations would be uniquely tainted if they were touched by lesser mortals.

Perhaps even more tragically, this really does seem to be Moore's attitude. In

this interview

he makes a number of almost embarrassingly self-aggrandising claims about how uncreative, miserable and talentless pretty much everybody working in the mainstream comics industry is. He also, inexplicably, insists that his use of the character of Allan Quatermain in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is different from the Watchmen prequels because apparently nobody had heard of Allan Quatermain before he put him in a comic (whereas Dr Manhattan is – what – a literary icon?). And complains that the people who got his share of the money from the Watchmen and Extraordinary Gentlemen movies didn't ring him up and personally thank him.

Perhaps the most mystifying quote in the whole interview is the part where he claims that the people working on Before Watchmen are doing so because: “It will probably be the only opportunity they get in their careers to actually be attached to a project that anybody outside of comics has ever heard of”. Leaving aside the fact that one of the writers on the project is J. Michael Straczynski – who created one of the most respected (although perhaps also most overrated) works of TV SF ever made – what is Moore smoking if he believes that anybody outside of comics has heard of Watchmen at all other than as that movie that guy made in 2009.

The thing is, Alan Moore absolutely does have the right to be bitter and angry about this whole affair, because he did get screwed by DC. But whatever he might think, Watchmen is not some dazzling beacon that demonstrated to the outside world the true potential of the comic-book medium. It's an okay-but-slightly-dated long-form comic book which comics nerds (and only comics nerds) obsess about because they think it makes them look clever.

The Watchmen prequels are very likely to be dull and uninspiring, but that is because Watchmen is dull and uninspiring. And any spark or relevance they have for a modern audience will have come from the people who wrote and drew them, it will not have been reflected from Alan Moore's imaginary genius.

Themes:

Topical

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Comics

,

Watchmen

~

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Arthur B

at 14:31 on 2012-06-06I simultaneously have no sympathy for the "what about Alan Moore?" argument but also think

Before Watchmen

is highly likely to be an enormous waste of time.

On the first point, it's worth noting that originally Alan Moore

didn't intend to use original characters for Watchmen at all

. Moore wanted to use the characters from the Charlton Comics stable of superheroes, which DC had acquired after Charlton bit the dust. DC were like "ummmm... we'd prefer you didn't junk these characters, why not make some original ones anyway?", Moore acquiesced and cooked up the Watchmen we know and love as thinly-veiled re-imaginings of the Charlton chumps.

The important thing about this anecdote, vis-a-vis this discussion, is that

the entire concept of Watchmen came about as a result of the corporate ownership of characters created by people who were not Alan Moore, and Moore wanting to write a story very much at odds with the original intentions of the characters' creators.

So the idea that the

Watchmen

characters somehow get to be sacred and mustn't be tampered with when they owe their very existence to Moore wanting to tamper with other people's characters seems pretty hypocritical to me.

On the other hand, with respect to

Before Watchmen

itself, I can't see how it can really be very interesting.

Watchmen

was constructed like one of those really cool domino runs - the interesting thing is watching this very delicate setup collapsing as the result of one little push. Watching the dominos getting set up before the actual domino run is just going to be tedious and I'd rather not.

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Wardog

at 14:54 on 2012-06-06I'd have more sympathy for Moore in general if he was less of a complete dick...

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Arthur B

at 15:07 on 2012-06-06Theologically Moore says he believes that all fictions are real in some sense.

If that were the case it shouldn't matter that someone else is using those characters or messing with those stories because they were never Moore's in the first place, he just found them.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 16:01 on 2012-06-06

The whole thing seems grounded in a kind of skeevy Great Man Theory.

This is a bit of a tangent, and I apologize if it goes too far off course.

I've been thinking about the Great Man Theory as it applies to capitalism and entrepreneurship, especially the popular notion that all great successes in business are the work of individual (male) supergeniuses. An entrepreneur has a Great Idea that works and makes him billions, he becomes a cultural icon, and he can then do no wrong until he does. Women can't have Great Ideas, because barefoot pregnant make me a sandwich.

The other day I hear a guy bring up that Sheryl Sandberg is the real brains behind Facebook, for taking that slack-ass Mark Zuckerberg's idea and finding a way to make it profitable. Another guy loudly counters that Zuckerberg was the "visionary" who had the "great idea" for Facebook and therefore deserves 100% of the credit and fame he's received at everyone else's expense.

Now obviously Zuckerberg's role in Facebook was much greater than simply coming up with the original idea, and his role in creating and running the company shouldn't be downplayed. And the second guy is a bitter, thwarted misogynist anyway, so if Sandberg and Zuckerberg's roles had been switched he'd be championing execution over ideas. It just strikes me that an idea rarely, if ever, starts out as a Great Idea, and only becomes so in hindsight. If we're not used to thinking of women's ideas as potentially Great Ideas, we're never going to get to the point where women have a reputation for Great Ideas to point to. And of course nascent ideas are a lot harder to judge fairly and objectively than, say, job performance.

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James D

at 17:35 on 2012-06-06

The important thing about this anecdote, vis-a-vis this discussion, is that the entire concept of Watchmen came about as a result of the corporate ownership of characters created by people who were not Alan Moore, and Moore wanting to write a story very much at odds with the original intentions of the characters' creators. So the idea that the Watchmen characters somehow get to be sacred and mustn't be tampered with when they owe their very existence to Moore wanting to tamper with other people's characters seems pretty hypocritical to me.

While you have a point, I think it's oversimplifying to some degree. I'm pretty sure that, had Moore been allowed to use those old characters, they would have been significantly and obviously different from the originals. They would have been almost totally reimagined. With the Watchmen prequels, they're supposedly about the actual characters themselves, so what happens in the prequels may directly relate to what happens in the original graphic novel itself.

Even so, I really just don't see what the big deal is, to be perfectly honest. It'd be one thing if Alan Moore were some poor downtrodden author whose works barely got any attention beyond a small but loyal cult following, and then some huge corporate giant came in and swindled him out of his rights and completely ran away with the man's franchise in a way he never intended and never credited him with anything. But The Watchmen is a very, very well-known graphic novel. There have been numerous sequels written to the Oz books by a variety authors, yet nobody really bitches and moans about those because the originals are firmly understood to be the originals. The millions of Star Wars tie-in books, games, action figures, etc. don't somehow warp the quality of the original movies.

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Arthur B

at 17:49 on 2012-06-06

While you have a point, I think it's oversimplifying to some degree. I'm pretty sure that, had Moore been allowed to use those old characters, they would have been significantly and obviously different from the originals. They would have been almost totally reimagined. With the Watchmen prequels, they're supposedly about the actual characters themselves, so what happens in the prequels may directly relate to what happens in the original graphic novel itself.

Actually, as I understand it the point was to use established characters with an established history to sucker in readers with a cosy sense of familiarity before exposing them to just how vile the characters really are, so had that plan gone ahead I imagine it would have involved more than a few callbacks to the Charlton stable's original stories.

But it's impossible to say one way or another because DC didn't let Moore do it.

The millions of Star Wars tie-in books, games, action figures, etc. don't somehow warp the quality of the original movies.

Of course, in the case of Star Wars George Lucas has proved himself perfectly capable of ruining it all by himself...

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:09 on 2012-06-06

The whole thing reminds me of the kerfuffle over the proposed (but I believe never realised) Buffy revamp, when people were up in arms about the idea of Buffy without Joss Whedon. Even more peculiarly, people were insisting that a de-Whedoned Buffy would be a terrible blow against feminism, despite the fact that the lead writer on the proposed revamp would have been an actual woman.

Disregarding Buffy's feminism (I never interpreted Buffy as a show about feminism but rather about vampires, becasue I was 10) I don't think you can argue that it would have been different. Star Trek was very different after Gene Roddenberry's death to what it was before; which some people preferred and some people hated, but the difference is undeniable. So if you thought that Buffy was perfect just the way it was I can see the idea of someone messing it about might be upsetting.

Of course people ought to be honest and admit that they don't like the idea because they don't want their cherished memories polluted instead of trying to conjure politics, but that wouldn't sound as good in Slate.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:09 on 2012-06-06Sorry, wouldn't have been different.

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http://barefoottomboy.livejournal.com/

at 18:40 on 2012-06-06Not being overly attached to Watchmen (or Alan Moore in general), I may not be best placed to make this call, but I just can't get too worked up about the prospect of a prequel that isn't/might not be as good as the original. As James D says, the existence of (a) prequel(s) doesn't negate the existence of the original, or somehow retrospectively reduce its quality.

Not to say that all prequels/sequels/extensions/whatever are always a good idea, of course. But if you don't like them, there's nothing stopping you ignoring them and sticking to the originals you liked in the first place.

In terms of creators getting screwed over by copyright & the comic book industry, I really don't know enough about either to comment intelligently. Though I must confess that my immediate/gut reaction to Jack Kirby's *estate* losing out on a share of the profit of the Avengers film is "so freaking what? Why should I care about Jack Kirby's estate - what did they have to do with the creation of those characters?".

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Arthur B

at 19:29 on 2012-06-06

Though I must confess that my immediate/gut reaction to Jack Kirby's *estate* losing out on a share of the profit of the Avengers film is "so freaking what? Why should I care about Jack Kirby's estate - what did they have to do with the creation of those characters?".

We care because it's the 18th Century and people's copyrighted works aren't just meant to earn them money, it's also meant to be a way for them to provide for their wives and children.

This is

literally

the only reason why copyright has this weird "until the author's death plus X years" duration thing going on.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 20:25 on 2012-06-06You say that like its such a bad thing.

I must say I'm of the opinion that if you can live on unearned income you probably should- and free up a slot in the job market for someone who needs it.

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James D

at 21:15 on 2012-06-06

Of course, in the case of Star Wars George Lucas has proved himself perfectly capable of ruining it all by himself...

One might say the same of Michael Moorcock and Elric, or any number of other creators who went on to ruin their creations. Honestly, when it comes to shoddy sequels, I can't really think of any corporation that did as much damage to other people's characters as those two did to their own. There are plenty of shoddy corporate sequels out there, to be sure, but does Alien: Resurrection really tarnish Alien at all? I certainly wouldn't say so. It's much harder to be that sure about the Star Wars prequels, or Moorcock's ill-advised later Elric stories that he shoehorned into the original chronology, when new viewers/readers could very well go into those series and take them as a whole, without differentiating much between the old and the new.

An argument might be made that the comics industry is unfairly entrenched in the practice of forcing authors to sign the rights of their characters over if they want to be published, but as I mentioned earlier it's not like Moore and his family are starving while corporate fat cats reap the benefits of his ideas. It's not like they're spuriously attaching Moore's name to projects he has no part of. There may be an argument to be made here, but The Watchmen is hardly the ideal battleground for it.

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http://melaniedavidson.livejournal.com/

at 21:53 on 2012-06-06

He also, inexplicably, insists that his use of the character of Allan Quatermain in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is different from the Watchmen prequels because apparently nobody had heard of Allan Quatermain before he put him in a comic

I think it's funny that he chose probably the most obscure character for that example. Because even if Allan Quatermain was "almost entirely forgotten" (I don't know if this is the case even though I personally hadn't heard of him), the others are all from pretty well-known classics. I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

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Arthur B

at 22:07 on 2012-06-06

You say that like its such a bad thing. I must say I'm of the opinion that if you can live on unearned income you probably should- and free up a slot in the job market for someone who needs it.

The number of copyrighted works which actually still rake in a substantial amount of royalties decades after publication is amazingly small. I don't know whether the Tolkien Estate rakes in enough loot from LOTR for Christopher Tolkien and his extended family to sustain themselves without working - I suspect not given the drip-drip-drip of unpublished works coming out from those quarters. In fact, a hell of a lot of the beneficiaries of properties which still rake in mad loot after decades aren't estates or widows or orphans at all. It's the Disney Corporation and people like them.

An argument might be made that the comics industry is unfairly entrenched in the practice of forcing authors to sign the rights of their characters over if they want to be published, but as I mentioned earlier it's not like Moore and his family are starving while corporate fat cats reap the benefits of his ideas.

And of course anything we can say about the state of comics industry author contracts with regards to Watchmen applies mainly to contracts as they existed in the 1980s, when the rights were actually handed over, and offers us little insight into contracts as they exist now.

The situation in the 1980s isn't one I've investigated much, but today I'm really not bothered about it. We exist in an age when if a comic creator wants to publish their work online for everyone to enjoy, they can do so - and in fact make some money out of it. Enough to live lavishly? Probably not, but unless you're writing/drawing a big heap of stuff for DC/Marvel as well as your own personal pet projects you're not likely to be earning great cash from them either. There's no

reason

to even offer your all-original creations up to DC or Marvel in the first place unless think signing over your rights to them is a worthwhile price to pay to get wider distribution and a higher profile - and if you don't think that's a worthwhile price, don't sign the contract in the first place.

Conversely, if you want to write for DC and Marvel because you want to write stories using their characters, it's only fair that they should have editorial control over what you do and only fair that they get to play with any original creations you add to their universes. If you want to play in the big sandpit which is Gotham City (or wherever) it's silly to expect to be allowed to take your sandcastle home with you, and short-sighted to imagine that another kid won't kick over or improve your sandcastle once you leave.

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Dan H

at 22:44 on 2012-06-06

I think it's funny that he chose probably the most obscure character for that example. Because even if Allan Quatermain was "almost entirely forgotten" (I don't know if this is the case even though I personally hadn't heard of him), the others are all from pretty well-known classics. I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

That's a good point and one I'd failed to notice.

(Sorry, I have no comment beyond that)

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https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkWbOwQVOANXVz3Xs8lGIILC0qzTMuEKS4

at 13:13 on 2012-06-07

Leaving aside the fact that one of the writers on the project is J. Michael Straczynski – who created one of the most respected (although perhaps also most overrated) works of TV SF ever made

Wow, I didn't realise Jeremiah was so popular!

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Sister Magpie

at 02:54 on 2012-06-09

I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

I'm not that familiar with LoEG but the little I remembered from it was making me ask just this question!

I must say I'm of the opinion that if you can live on unearned income you probably should- and free up a slot in the job market for someone who needs it.

But what's funny about that is that it's actually not about giving all money to someone for having the idea. Once you're talking about the estate you're saying that it's somehow more ethical to pay someone for being related to the person who created the character than for being the person who had something to do with making the character famous.

I really think people's real fright when it comes to things like this is that someone's going to tell a story they really don't like that bums them out--and I can sympathize because I hate it when comics play around with backstory in ways I don't like. Luckily if a story sucks it usually gets quietly dropped from continuity anyway. (There's a name for it I can't remember, referring to a bizarre alien who visited the Flash...)

With Watchman it seems like it's got a lot to do with the importance that Watchman is supposed to have, even though it's not really that tremendous.

Also, not only is it ironic that Moore was originally planning to use someone else's characters for the story, but it's not like Moore hasn't made some major changes to other peoples' characters and left others to sort them out. For instance, by paralyzing Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke. I know he says he never knew it would be in continuity, but it changed comics--and not because of his story (which gets imo overpraised) but because other people came in afterwards with an idea for the character.

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Sister Magpie

at 02:55 on 2012-06-09Oh, p.s. That reminds me, thinking of the TKJ that yeah, I am really confused by the idea that Watchman needs to be kept in the hands of AM because other writers--especially female ones--will mess up all the feminism.

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Arthur B

at 13:14 on 2012-06-09

I know he says he never knew it would be in continuity, but it changed comics--and not because of his story (which gets imo overpraised) but because other people came in afterwards with an idea for the character.

I think it would be incredibly short-sighted for any comics author to say "but I didn't know that this idea I put forward in a

Batman

story would become

Batman

continuity!"

I mean, I see that you genuinely wouldn't know whether any particular story of yours would become key canon, get banished to the outer darkness of non-canonicity, or linger somewhere in between. But to not at least consider the possibility that DC might declare that something you have done should stick seems to involve wilfully ignoring how comics continuity works in the first place.

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Adrienne

at 23:09 on 2012-06-09Arthur B: Not so much so, actually. There's a lot of stuff done by the major comix houses that's very specifically pitched and written from the start as not-in-continuity. All of the

Elseworlds

from DC, and similar "What If..." stories from Marvel are in this category, as are the "Ultimate [Whoever]" stories by Marvel that explore alternate origins.

I grant that a VERY FEW of the Elseworlds stories have eventually ended up with bits in continuity (they apparently wrote a sequel series to Kingdom Come, and brought bits of that timeline into continuity. Which makes me sad, mostly because i think Kingdom Come was a remarkably self-contained and lovely piece of storytelling!) But if Alan Moore was told that Killing Joke was Elseworlds, frex, it would not at all have been an unreasonable assumption that nothing in it was going to ever be in continuity.

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Arthur B

at 23:32 on 2012-06-09

Not so much so, actually. There's a lot of stuff done by the major comix houses that's very specifically pitched and written from the start as not-in-continuity. All of the Elseworlds from DC, and similar "What If..." stories from Marvel are in this category, as are the "Ultimate [Whoever]" stories by Marvel that explore alternate origins.

True enough, though

The Killing Joke

wasn't, to my knowledge, promoted as being any of these (and as you point out, if an idea in an Elseworlds thingy gets popular enough then it'll snake its way into canon anyway).

As you say, if Alan Moore was told that

The Killing Joke

was an Elseworlds but then it wasn't promoted as one that'd be kind of sucky on the part of DC, but I don't see any suggestion that that was the case. On the other hand, I don't see that this is one of the reasons why he's upset with his treatment by DC in any case. Surely any comics author would be

thrilled

to have a plot element they introduced become a major ongoing thread in Batman continuity rather than something retconned away within a story or two?

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Sonia Mitchell

at 13:08 on 2012-06-12I have to admit to feeling that Watchmen is a bit of a special case, not because of merit (although I do like it an awful lot) but because it's *specifically* about how characters interpret the past. The story's present is not the key date; it's the lead-up to the Keane Act that the narrative really revolves around.

Which does kind of mean that any 'glory days' Minute Men [II] prequel is going to be dipping into the same timeline Watchmen covers in the narrative, which to me blurs the line between 'prequel' and 'reinterpreting a story which has already been told'. Watchmen showed us the Minute Men days from a number of perspectives - either the prequels will show more of the same old thing (in which case why bother?) or they'll introduce something which will specifically challenge the parent narrative.

I'm sort of intrigued to see what they do, and I do agree that Watchmen can bear to be challenged, I just don't think it's quite as clear-cut as some other prequels. Yes, plenty of comics and other stories have had backstory added later, but I don't think all that many of them were specifically *about* backstory.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 14:16 on 2012-06-13A thoughtful and thought provoking essay. Excellent stuff.

I wonder, though, if your focus on commerce and copyright doesn’t tend to swerve a bit around Alan Moore's concerns. I think that the argument is not that DC and the writers and artists involved can't produce Watchmen prequels but rather that, for aesthetic or artistic reasons, they ought to choose not to. And the question of who profits from the endeavour is, as far as I can see, neither here nor there for these purposes.

So Watchmen is, according to this view, a finished work of art, and by monkeying around with the characters and back story you monkey around also with the integrity of the work; you risk diluting its affect or altering its cultural resonance. You might legitimately argue that no amount of monkeying prevents Watchmen from continuing to exist as the thing that it is. However, there seem two reasonably valid counterpoints, both stemming from the basic assumption that art is rarely meaningful without context. First, as Sonia Mitchell very acutely pinpoints above, Watchmen is very much about time and continuity, the future and the past, and by filling in the backstory you almost necessarily, although perhaps in a limited sense, do damage to the extant work. Second, Watchmen speaks implicitly to comics as a medium, and part of its power may be that it remains separate from the usual retrofitting, rebooting, continuity errors and the associated slash and burn approach to narrative. These arguments still rather depend on a willingness to think of Watchmen as exceptional, I admit (although as far as US superhero comics go I think it takes a lot of work to say that it’s not).

What I suspect really gets Moore’s goat about this is the simple disrespect, in particular as evidenced by his fellow artists. Watchmen is his single best claim to cultural relevance and longevity, he has explicitly said he’d much rather they left it alone, and yet still a whole bunch of quite eminent comics dudes (many of whom seem to bang on about how much they like/admire/were influenced by Moore in general and Watchmen in particular) are happy to take a DC cheque to monkey about with a story which he feels is complete.

On Moore ‘the personality’ I tend to think that while he may be intemperate, a bit silly, creatively stalled and less unimpeachable on, in particular, gender politics than I’d like, he’s generally more consistent, principled, and intellectually interesting than his opponents.

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Arthur B

at 14:40 on 2012-06-13

What I suspect really gets Moore’s goat about this is the simple disrespect, in particular as evidenced by his fellow artists.

Again, though: is this really that different from Moore's original intention to take characters and stories from the Charlton stable and monkey around with

them

? The only substantive difference is that whilst we know Moore's feelings about

Before Watchmen

nobody seems to have asked the Charlton creators how they'd have felt to have their characters despoiled had Moore's original vision for

Watchmen

come about.

I have a simple stance on these things: if you don't want someone to slaughter your baby,

don't sell your baby to them

. If

Watchmen

really is Moore's best claim to cultural relevance and longevity*, then at least part of that is down to DC's promotion of the book as this big-time smart comic for smart people and in their efforts in keeping it in print.**

* I'd dispute this point too.

V For Vendetta

, surely, has attained a greater level of cultural ubiquity thanks to Anonymous.

From Hell

is arguably on a par with

Watchmen

when it comes to critical acclaim.

** I understand that Moore argues that DC swindled him by not letting

Watchmen

go out of print, thus ensuring that the "reversion clause" in his contract would never kick in (which would have caused the rights to revert to him and Gibbons). It's hard to say how truthful or accurate this statement is unless Moore or DC actually publish the contract. However, if that is the case it seems that Moore negotiated a contract with DC where they'd either have to keep his comic in print for perpetuity - which I would argue goes a long way towards reinforcing that cultural relevance and longevity shebang - or give the rights back to him. In other words, they have to do one of two things they wouldn't do for Joe C. Ordinarywriter, and they chose the first option over the second option. Who could blame 'em?

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James D

at 15:04 on 2012-06-13The difference between the Watchmen characters and the Charlton Comics characters is that they were conceived very differently. When DC discouraged him from using the Charlton Comics characters, he invented his own - not to be a series, but to be a one-off novel with a specific character arc for each that brings their stories to a close. Comics writers inventing series understand that their characters will be written by other people, and probably take great pains to introduce plotlines and conflicts that they know won't ever truly be resolved or will at least last a really long time - Batman vs. Joker, Darkseid's quest for the Anti-Life Equation, etc. Watchmen instead invents characters not for a series, but for a novel, and ends them decisively.

Had Moore used the Charlton Comics characters, it would have been clear that the Watchmen story was very separate from their original stories, and highly unlikely to be ever seen as 'canon' to the original series, especially since he permanently kills a lot of them. Instead, it would have been seen by those who knew about the characters as an ironic counterpoint to who they actually were - like if someone wrote a one-off graphic novel in which Batman and Superman were evil, or something. That's the difference as I see it.

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Arthur B

at 17:52 on 2012-06-13Well, Moore thought that there'd be scope for a prequel - back when the thing first came out he said he'd consider doing one if

Watchmen

did well enough.

Of course, that was under the assumption that it'd be Moore writing it rather than someone else, which he was always against. But again: if someone doing something with your characters is unacceptable, don't sign a piece of paper giving them the right to do that.

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James D

at 19:00 on 2012-06-13Yeah, no argument here. It's not like there weren't alternative comics publishers back then that might have offered him a better deal in terms of what rights he would retain, but that would probably have involved settling for smaller print runs, less distribution, and less money in the end too.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 12:38 on 2012-06-15

Again, though: is this really that different from Moore's original intention to take characters and stories from the Charlton stable and monkey around with them?

I think it’s pretty easy to draw distinctions (see eg James D. above), even if only of nuance, and I don’t, in any event, have much interest in asserting that Alan Moore is a paragon of moral and philosophical consistency (although he may very well be). However, I suspect that the extent to which you find the distinctions convincing and the possibility of hypocrisy forgivable will in the end align with how highly you rate Watchmen.

I have a simple stance on these things: if you don't want someone to slaughter your baby, don't sell your baby to them.

I wonder if this simplification obscures more than it illuminates. Selling a baby might well reduce the stake you have in its future, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have neither say nor interest in how the new owner treats it, and nor does it mean that they have no responsibilities towards it, particularly in a world where baby-sale is the standard means by which babies are encouraged to fulfil their potential. However, this just takes us into contract law, and as I say there’s no suggestion that DC are doing anything illegal.

If Watchmen really is Moore's best claim to cultural relevance and longevity*, then at least part of that is down to DC's promotion of the book as this big-time smart comic for smart people and in their efforts in keeping it in print.**

Sure, I suppose so - good work DC! But so what?

It’s not directly relevant to this issue, but I’ve always struggled with the characterisation of Watchmen as a smart comic for smart people, it strikes me as at its best if understood as a smart superhero comic for smart superhero comics fans.

You may well be right about V for Vendetta, and From Hell - it’s probably an indication of my age that I still think of Watchmen as a sacred cow.

I’ll set out my stall for what it’s worth (the paper it’s written on, ie): I don’t care very much about Watchmen prequels, although I’d prefer it if they didn’t make them and I suspect DC of being a creatively bankrupt shower; I don’t think the prequels will do harm to Watchmen but I do think there’s a genuine risk that they might; I don’t find Alan Moore’s response to the decision particularly edifying; but I think he’s earnt the right to the respect of his peers and to be heard sympathetically.

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Arthur B

at 13:25 on 2012-06-15

Sure, I suppose so - good work DC! But so what?

So then Watchmen as a cultural institution is not purely a product of Alan Moore's unfettered genius or Dave Gibbons' stylish art; it's also a product of the promotion that DC has provided it with and DC's custodianship over the franchise as a whole. DC has a stake in the thing's success, and has more than earned it with said custodianship, so the idea that DC has no place to decide whether or not a prequel series would be a good idea because AUTHOR UBER ALLES seems a stretch. You can quibble as to whether DC is

practically capable

of doing a good job or whether the particular writers they have are up to the task, of course, though the arguments Dan's objecting to in the article aren't about such specifics; they're about general, absolutist claims that the prequels

cannot possibly be good because Alan Moore isn't involved

.

You may well be right about V for Vendetta, and From Hell - it’s probably an indication of my age that I still think of Watchmen as a sacred cow.

I dunno, I can't think of

any

pop cultural work which I'd describe as a sacred cow these days whereas I was much more inclined to do so when I was younger.

I don’t find Alan Moore’s response to the decision particularly edifying; but I think he’s earnt the right to the respect of his peers and to be heard sympathetically.

I think he has the right to be heard but how sympathetic I hear him kind of hinges on how much what he says makes sense to me. If someone's talking whiny, self-serving crap then I'm going to call it that whether it's Alan Moore or Random McWebcomicartist.

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James D

at 14:19 on 2012-06-15

So then Watchmen as a cultural institution is not purely a product of Alan Moore's unfettered genius or Dave Gibbons' stylish art; it's also a product of the promotion that DC has provided it with and DC's custodianship over the franchise as a whole. DC has a stake in the thing's success, and has more than earned it with said custodianship, so the idea that DC has no place to decide whether or not a prequel series would be a good idea because AUTHOR UBER ALLES seems a stretch.

I think this is oversimplifying things. The roles Moore and DC fulfilled in the production of the Watchmen were totally different; as far as I know, DC had little to nothing to do with the creative aspect of the novel, and Moore's objections to the prequels seem to be purely creative in nature. If on the other hand the dispute were on the business side, that Moore didn't think Watchmen prequels would sell and DC did, the shoe would be on the other foot.

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Arthur B

at 14:31 on 2012-06-15Again, since Moore a) wanted to do prequels back in 1985 and b) has said he'd have gladly accepted DC's offer to do the prequels (which was going to involve giving him the rights to

Watchmen

back if he said yes!!!) if they'd offered in 1985, then it seems to me that the dispute is entirely on the business side and the complete collapse of Moore and DC's professional relationship (and more particularly, the fact that Moore would rather keep sulking than engage in any sort of constructive dialogue with DC, even one which would lead to him getting what he'd wanted all along).

Also, FWIW Dave Gibbons is 100% fine with the prequels, so at half the original creative team is cool with the project.

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James D

at 17:37 on 2012-06-15Ah, I didn't know Gibbons was down with them. That does change things a bit. Moore is pretty much handling the whole thing like a big whiny baby. If there were prequels coming out to a book I'd written and there was nothing I could do about it, the first thing I'd say was "let me do them." If he didn't have ridiculous demands, DC would probably jump at the chance to slap Moore's name all over them.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 09:39 on 2012-06-18

So then Watchmen as a cultural institution is not purely a product of Alan Moore's unfettered genius or Dave Gibbons' stylish art; it's also a product of the promotion that DC has provided it with and DC's custodianship over the franchise as a whole. DC has a stake in the thing's success, and has more than earned it with said custodianship, so the idea that DC has no place to decide whether or not a prequel series would be a good idea because AUTHOR UBER ALLES seems a stretch

.

Setting aside the perplexing CAPITALISED ALLUSION to the German national anthem (or possibly the Dead Kennedys), this is a fair point, although it seems designed to address a binary understanding of this dispute - I think everyone who has contributed to this thread has expressed a fairly mixed view, despite tending one way or the other. Meanwhile, the fact that DC are going ahead with this, in the face of Alan Moore’s explicit disapproval suggests that their interests are fairly well protected and represented. Your implicit notion that DC have earnt a right to a say in the artistic content of Watchmen (beyond questions of marketing, design and the commercially relevant business of protecting, managing and exploiting lucrative copyrights, I mean) is one that hadn’t really occurred to me, and that I instinctively don’t like, but I ought to go away and think about it properly. Thanks!

You can quibble as to whether DC is practically capable of doing a good job or whether the particular writers they have are up to the task, of course, though the arguments Dan's objecting to in the article aren't about such specifics; they're about general, absolutist claims that the prequels cannot possibly be good because Alan Moore isn't involved.

I’m not sure who you’re arguing with here so I’ll leave it.

I dunno, I can't think of any pop cultural work which I'd describe as a sacred cow these days whereas I was much more inclined to do so when I was younger. I think he has the right to be heard but how sympathetic I hear him kind of hinges on how much what he says makes sense to me. If someone's talking whiny, self-serving crap then I'm going to call it that whether it's Alan Moore or Random McWebcomicartist.

Quite a nice unintended irony here, but perhaps I’m just reeling from the old school ‘... yeah, I used to think that too … but then I grew up...’ dis. Is it possible, do you think, to imagine an

even older, even wiser Arthur

? I can just about manage it: he’s grizzled and twinkly-eyed, smoking a pipe, and, with a wry smile, looking down the years at his younger self’s righteous withholding of sympathy from both the mighty and the meek, his fearless enthusiasm for detecting 'whiny self-serving crap' in strangers, and his habit of slaying sacred cows while denying their existence.

JK! Before this degenerates into us chanting 'no YOU'RE immature!' at each other, I should also say, Arthur, that your precipitous enthusiasm for getting stuck in with the minimal possible delay is one of the things that make Ferretbrain fun for me, a fond reader.

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Arthur B

at 10:00 on 2012-06-18

Setting aside the perplexing CAPITALISED ALLUSION to the German national anthem (or possibly the Dead Kennedys), this is a fair point, although it seems designed to address a binary understanding of this dispute - I think everyone who has contributed to this thread has expressed a fairly mixed view, despite tending one way or the other.

Actually, it's a CAPITALISED ALLUSION to the extraordinarily pervasive idea that authors are an exalted form of being and anyone else's contribution to the success of a creative endeavour is secondary. Putting DC aside, I'd say there's a strong case that Dave Gibbons' contribution to the art, which extended to more than simply drawing stuff Moore described to him, is a part of the final package which can't be ignored, so Gibbons' support for the prequel project ought to be weighed against Moore's disapproval. And yet, so often in discussions about the subject Gibbons isn't even mentioned.

Is it possible, do you think, to imagine an even older, even wiser Arthur?

I can imagine all sorts of things, but winning an argument by hypothesising a version of your opponent who will agree with you is a strategem I hadn't even begun to conceive of. Bravo, I guess. ;)

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 10:16 on 2012-06-18Ha ha! Such a speedy reply, arguing so fiercely against points no one is currently making, is surely a nice intended irony!

I surrender the field to you Arthur - please continue to slag Alan Moore without any let or hindrance. I will instead exchange gentle, supportive imaginary emails with the imaginary future Arthur, who, you must concede, does at least seem like a jolly nice chap.

Good piece on the Soul Drinkers by the way.

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Arthur B

at 10:20 on 2012-06-18I anticipate being as confused by our future correspondence as I am by our present.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 19:50 on 2012-06-18

I will instead exchange gentle, supportive imaginary emails with the imaginary future Arthur, who, you must concede, does at least seem like a jolly nice chap.

Best. Flounce. Ever.

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Fin

at 23:51 on 2012-06-18and now for the moment when it's revealed that you've been speaking with your future self all along.

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Arthur B

at 00:08 on 2012-06-19/decodes lottery numbers from posts in thread.

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Ibmiller

at 18:44 on 2012-07-02So, anyone check any of these out? I'm currently following Silk Specter, Minutemen, and Nite Owl, and liking them. Because his Superman story left me cold and his Wonder Woman story leaves me furious, I'm giving Azzerello's Comedian and Rorschach stories a pass. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of those characters by themselves - seeing a young Rorschach with a Nite Owl is much more interesting to me.

[timeagainreviews]

The formation of planets and characters

Hey friends! First of all, I would like to say thank you for the positive response over my female Doctor article! I’ve been thinking I want to do more articles that aren’t reviews. I have a few in mind, but of course, in due time. And speaking of due time, this is well overdue! I think in some ways, I was staving off having to do “Marco Polo,” as it’s the first reconstruction. Ugh. I’ve also been kinda busy lately. I got a new sewing machine! Now to learn to sew…

Carole Ann Ford is an interesting actor. When I first watched the original Doctor Who, I found Susan to be rather grating. Her constant screaming and melting down was a source of frustration for me. But through this second watch through, I’ve come to see Susan as a sort of entry point. In a lot of ways, she’s a cypher through which the audience experiences the world of Doctor Who. But in many ways, she too is an enigma. Even her last name, Foreman, is a lie. Being both accessible, and aloof makes her as interesting (if not more) as the Doctor.

When I first watched "The Edge of Destruction," I was fresh off the rather over-long Dalek serial preceding it. The idea of a short two-parter was a welcome change in pace. What I was surprised to find, however, was something far more interesting than a 'short trip.' The Edge of Destruction was very possibly my first true favourite story from classic Doctor Who, and it was all because of Susan.

There’s not much plot to be had in the story. At the end of "The Daleks," the TARDIS console sparks, and everyone goes out like a light. The music is ominous and mechanical as we pan across the scene. Down on the cold floor of the TARDIS lies our friends, still unconscious from last week’s cliffhanger. Barbara wakes Ian and Susan, but the Doctor lies unconscious with a gash on his head. They all seem to have amnesia and are acting strangely.

This episode has two examples of some of my favourite early Who tech. The bandage Susan retrieves for the Doctor is infused with medicinal ointments. When the ointment has faded from the bandage, the would has healed. There’s something kind of wonderful about that. We also get a brief appearance from my beloved food machine. Susan uses it to get the Doctor a glass of water, one of two liquids the food machine is capable of producing. The other being milk. What kind of milk do they drink on Gallifrey? Is it Time Cow milk? Do their burgers regenerate?

This episode gives us a lot of the TARDIS, really. Part of what made early Who so great was that it yearned to establish things like a mythology and character development. They didn’t just want to put any crap on the screen to fill a time slot. There’s a real workmanlike storytelling happening here, and it shows. Something I’ve always felt was rather unfortunate is how little of a part the TARDIS actually plays in most Doctor Who stories. Most of the time, it’s simply a way to get the Doctor and his friends from place to place. In some ways, I understand this. You’d want to avoid any deus ex machina moments. However, the TARDIS could also be utilised in other ways, such as a setting, or like in "The Ghost Monument," where it becomes a sort of relic. There are many aspects of the TARDIS to explore, and this story does that. Part of the TARDIS that we’re shown is one we seldom ever see in Doctor Who- the sleeping quarters, where Susan is brought after being shocked by the TARDIS console.

It’s not just the crew that is acting strange, the TARDIS seems to be on the fritz as well. The doors keep trying to open and shut. The console is shocking anyone who gets near it. Barbara is tending to the now awake Doctor, while Ian takes Susan to rest. As I said, Susan really seems to carry this episode, and for me, it’s because she’s genuinely frightening at moments. Our lovable friend is growing paranoid. She seems to think some sort of alien threat is onboard. Brandishing the rather large pair scissors she used to cut the Doctor’s bandage, she stabs at Ian, narrowly missing him.

There’s a terrible nature to Susan’s demeanour. It’s hard to tell if this is how Susan would react to a real threat, or if her responses are equally as heightened. She stabs at the bed in a fit of rage and confusion. As a visual, it’s genuinely creepy. Ian stumbles his way into the console room to help the Doctor solve their dilemma. Susan has collapsed in a fit on her bed, dropping the scissors.

The three adults discuss various theories. Barbara wonders if it’s not some sort of person, or thing sabotaging the TARDIS. The Doctor calls this theory "ridiculous." The Doctor suspects it’s a mechanical issue. Since he can’t check the TARDIS console, he checks the fault locator, which may be one of the most on the nose contraptions in sci-fi history. It’s probably located right next to the plot device, you know, for navigation purposes. Barbara suggests she go check on Susan. Ian warns her not to alarm Susan about the idea of something being onboard. Susan overhears this. Already paranoid about the idea of an external influence, she squirrels away the scissors in her robe and returns to bed. Ian goes to help the Doctor with the fault locator, but its readings are normal. No fault can be found.

If I’ve not said how much I love Barbara already, let me do so now. She’s such a kind and caring person. She’s aware Susan is wary of her, yet she tends to her rather selflessly. She applies a damp cloth to her forehead hoping to soothe her. In many ways, Barbara has a very motherly strength that I find very endearing. Susan, however, is not buying it. She thinks Barbara and Ian are both lying to her. Everything about her demeanour is indicative of paranoia. She’s wrapped up in her robe like a cocoon, arms and legs crossed. She speaks directly in clipped sentences. In a lot of ways, I believe this may be some of Carole Ann Ford’s best acting in the role.

Barbara notices that the scissors are missing and asks Susan to give them to her, causing her to wield them once again. Susan demands answers, she knows they lied to her about the supposed alien onboard. Barbara manages to get the scissors from her. The TARDIS has become something foreign to Susan. It no longer feels like home. The shadows seem more mysterious and dangerous without the sounds of the TARDIS to accompany them. She suspects that perhaps the alien onboard has found a way into one of the people onboard. She runs out of the room toward the Doctor.

The Doctor and Susan discuss how the console only seemed to attack the two of them, adding to their paranoia toward Ian and Barbara. The Doctor is able to use the console to turn on the scanner. Oddly, it doesn’t shock him or render him unconscious. Hopefully, the scanner can show them their location, and maybe shed a little light on their current predicament. The image on-screen shows a peaceful meadow, but the Doctor claims it’s impossible. The doors begin to open and close again. A strange groaning, like a large beast, is heard as bright white light pours into the TARDIS.

Another location flashes onto the screen, "Quinnis of the Fourth Universe," an alien terrain rather unlike any meadow. The Doctor reminds them that this was a location they had visited several adventures ago. This is pre-Totter’s Lane. The TARDIS records their journeys into its memory banks. Another image appears onscreen, a planet in a galaxy which appears to explode in a flash of light. The Doctor believes Ian and Barbara have sabotaged the ship as a means to make him return them to 1963 London. He even goes as far as to accuse them of knocking Susan and him unconscious, which causes Barbara to go off on him. She’s had it with this old man’s attitude. As far as she’s concerned, he should be kissing their feet for all of the times they saved his skin. She storms away but is stopped suddenly as she screams in fright.

What happens next is genuinely confusing. As I watched this scene with my partner, we had no clue what was actually happening. Something about the ormolu clock onboard the TARDIS has changed, but it’s not exactly evident as to what it is. I actually had to look it up online. Due to the ornate design of the clock, and the quality of the picture, it’s really hard to tell, but something has melted the clock face. Whatever the force is, has also melted their watches, because… time? I guess? Barbara chucks her watch across the TARDIS in a fit. Poor Barbara, someone get this woman a Mai Tai.

During all of this strangeness, the Doctor comes back with some nightcaps for everyone. It’s not exactly a Mai Tai, but it’s a welcome respite from wall to wall paranoia. Barbara and Susan take their nightcaps and retire to bed. Ian staggers behind to admonish the Doctor for his treatment of Barbara, but the Doctor isn’t hearing it. What comes next is one of my favourite First Doctor lines. Ian tells the Doctor that he struggles to keep pace with him, to which the Doctor replies- "You mean to keep one jump ahead. That you will never be!" Basically, this is the Doctor’s essence rendered into a single sentence. Sadly, he’s chosen the wrong enemies in Ian and Barbara. It seems that as more of the medicine from the bandage on his head fades, the more of his cognition returns. But the Doctor says he needs sleep more than he needs to feel sorry.

Overhearing the Doctor and Ian’s conversation, Susan begins to feel guilty about her behaviour. She apologises to Barbara for the Doctor’s harsh words. Barbara seems to be okay with Susan at this point, but it’s evident she’s still angry with the Doctor. Soon everyone but the Doctor is asleep. It’s made pretty evident that the Doctor has drugged the Time Cow milk. With everyone asleep, he wrings his hands in a mercurial manner and goes off to fiddle with the TARDIS console, only to be choked by a pair of hands.

This is of course where the first episode ends. We’re led to believe that the hands are this supposed external antagonist, but they turn out to be Ian. The struggle is short lived as Ian faints and falls to the ground. Evidently, sleep is just not a thing that is not possible on the ship, as everyone slowly turns up. The Doctor is now sure it’s sabotage on Ian and Barbara’s behalf, but Barbara defends Ian. Susan, as if she hadn’t just apologised to Barbara is suddenly back on Team Doctor, but it’s just as short-lived when the Doctor claims he plans on treating the two as enemies. Susan begins playing the impartial detective. At this point, her logic is more reliable than the Doctor’s paranoia. Despite the fact that they couldn’t have done all of the things that have happened, the Doctor decides he must throw them off the ship.

Before he can do this, the fault indicator lets off a terrible alarm. It appears the entire TARDIS is out of order. While this is going on, Ian tries to strangle Barbara this time, which causes the Doctor to realise that he’s not acting within his right mind. If Ian and Barbara were working together, then why would he attack her? The combination of the sleeping drugs, and whatever is going on has made Ian delirious. He wasn’t trying to strangle anyone, he was trying to keep the Doctor and Barbara both from touching the console. This, mixed with the fact that the TARDIS is on the verge of disintegration has brought the Doctor back to his senses.

No longer believing there is an evil entity onboard, and that they haven’t crash landed, the Doctor must discover what kind of powerful force could push the TARDIS to the point of destruction. The force manages to push the column on the console up momentarily. The force could destroy the TARDIS if the column were to dislodge. What comes next is a rather confusing trail of logic. Basically, Barbara deduces that all of the strange occurrences have actually been the TARDIS’ way of alarming the crew that the fault is not within the machine itself, but in their own thinking. It’s one of the earliest indications that the TARDIS has a sort of mind of its own, something which even the Doctor has a hard time believing, but it turns out to be true. I particularly like this moment because it’s Barbara who figures it out, not the Doctor. It gives her indignation toward him even more gravity.

A faulty spring on the fast return switch has caused the button to stick, pushing the TARDIS further and further back through time, to the formation of a solar system. Since the fault locator wouldn’t see the pressing of a button as a fault, it didn’t show up on its readings. The TARDIS, however, is a thinking machine, and therefore was trying to speak to them in the only way it knew how. By showing them the sequence of the meadow, to a primitive planet, to an unformed planet, to a forming solar system, to a blinding flash was the TARDIS relaying the idea that they are fast heading toward a Big Bang level event. The TARDIS’s defence systems have been keeping it in a sort of time loop to protect them from the bang.

William Hartnell gets one of the best monologues of his tenure during this scene. The lights go dark as if the Doctor were the only person onstage. The camera pulls in on his face slowly as he waxes romantic about the formation of stars and planets. He delights at this celestial dance occurring as if the very cosmos flow through his blood. With a distant look in his eye, he’s almost eerie, but there’s an undertone of veneration that intimates a kind of natural endowment. The Doctor is more than a curmudgeon. There exists within him, a calling toward the vastness of the universe. This is an important moment for his character development because he’s not just irascible, he’s more than clever- he’s something special.

Conversely, Barbara is less than pleased with the Doctor. With the threat now out of the way, we’re given a moment for some character development on both her and the Doctor’s parts. Realising he’s been wrong, the Doctor apologises to Ian and Barbara, but Barbara isn’t as open to forgiveness. This causes the Doctor to have to swallow his pride and admit his wrongdoing. He gives her some warm clothes for their next adventure, adding that they need to take care of her as she’s very important. She appears to accept his apology as the two of them walk arm and arm out of the TARDIS into a snowy climate. Susan marvels at the enormity of a footprint left in the snow, which the camera holds on as the credits begin to roll. It’s all very ominous, as per usual.

Final Thoughts: My initial reaction to this story was enjoyment, and that hasn’t swayed much. It’s easy to get the feeling that most of the narrative choices were made because it was cheaper to film on a set they didn’t have to build anew, with no extra actors to pay. It’s the essential bottle episode, but I would say it’s an effective one. Two episodes are really as far as you can stretch this story, and it wisely doesn’t overstay its welcome.  There were a few unintended confusing moments, due to either bad effects or vague writing, but in the end, you come away understanding what’s happened. A lot of the serial hinges on the performances of the actors. Everyone, especially Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford elevated the script. I can’t imagine it’s very easy to maintain a performance that requires constant shifts in emotion, but they sell it. On a production level, they do a surprising amount with very little. In many ways, it’s early Doctor Who condensed. The basic fundamentals of filmmaking are on display- mood lighting, sound ambience, and performance. While the events of the story don’t affect much, the character development makes this serial a must watch. And at only two episodes, it’s not much of a sacrifice!

[ajatha9]

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** Research: The Trace and the Body by Susan Best

I read this article as part of my dissertation research. This entry in the exhibition catalogue for the 1999 Liverpool Biennale written by art historian, Susan Best, has proved to be a key reference point in terms of contextualised theory surrounding trace within art practice; mostly relating to Rachel Whiteread. Best also mentions Doris Salcedo’s practice in relation to the text.

I have highlighted the key quotes from the text that I felt relate most to this project and my evolving practice. These quotes dissect the material decisions of the aforementioned artists and aid my understanding of my unfolding ideas for this project. As I have previously explored Doris Salcedo’s practice throughout my research over the past few years, I do not feel it is necessary to critically analyse her practice once again. I have made a point to now purposely consider her practice in a more theoretical term than aesthetically.

I am currently considering the object as a token of trace and, by extension, the possibility of casting as a further token of such trace. This is of course incredibly prominent within Rachel Whiteread’s practice, with her often taking casts of the surfaces of objects or the spaces which they inhabit. Again, I have already critically explored Whiteread’s practice in previous research within my evolving practice and so I have focused my research into her work from a more theoretical perspective posed by art critics and historians. This line of inquiry has also naturally taken shape as Whiteread is a key artist in my dissertation, meaning that I will have a lot of gathered knowledge by the end of the modules.

Figure 1: Rachel Whiteread, Shallow Breath, 1989.

Page 172: “Things have an internal equivalent in me; they arouse in me a carnal formula of their presence.” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty

“Trace is more usually thought of as an indexical sign of an object: the footprint, the fingerprint, more distantly perhaps, the photograph, described so eloquently by Susan Sontag as “something directly stenciled off the real.””

“The result of the outer world touching some impressionable surface and leaving a legible mark.”

“Some traces, though not clearly visible, are nonetheless sensed. Like memories they are insubstantial or imperceptible markings, and yet they are able to insinuate themselves into the present through some unseen subterranean route.”

Page 174: Merleau-Ponty’s conception of the trace: “Something experienced by the body that can be externalised by the artist, an ‘inner form’ that is the result of a complex interlacing of body and world.” – Merleau-Ponty, M., (1968). The Visible and the Invisible. pp.130-55

“The trace, then, is something like a hinge between inner and outer experience: it is not simply an attribute of objects; nor is it an impression sealed up in the human subject. Rather, the trace is the play between subject and object, or more properly, the “intertwining” of the two.”

“Things, then, are no ‘re-presented’ internally. It is their presence that is felt, or rather their presence is aroused in the beholder, as once again, things already have some kind of nascent existence in the body.”

“We can accept fairly readily that traces are echoes of things, or even transmutations of them – ashes, dust to dust, there are many such fundamental changes in substance that bear witness to a thing’s life cycle.”“There is a complex weave of traces linking body and world.”A cavity has become solid, a volume has become a mass, space no longer contains objects, it is rendered as an impenetrable object.”

Page 174: “We have the profoundly disturbing sense of ourselves as cavities, containers with an interior space that could be inverted.”

“What we recognise, or find awakened, is our internalised spatial practices.

”“Its bleak environs comes instead from the very unsentimental recognition that the past has made possible our horribly disjointed present.” - Monika Wagner ‘Material’, 2001

Page 175:

“In Doris Salcedo’s sculptural works we are confronted by very fundamental homely substances – concrete, wood, steel. These cheap and ready-to-hand, everyday materials are the usual building blocks of the contemporary home, the means of our enclosure and protection from the elements, the housing for our bodies and their needs.”

Figure 2: Doris Salcedo, Untitled, 1989.

 Page 176:

Tenderness is evoked by a kind of memorialisation of the simple, everyday interactions of bodies with domestic furniture. The marks or erosions of day-to-day wear and tear, from opening, closing, touching and rubbing, are brought to life and made substantial.”

“In places the wooden grain of the old cupboards and chairs, worn down through years of handling, is built back up or restored by the stroke of cement.”

“Alongside this gentle action of cement, there is also a muffled sense of gradual suffocation.”

“The furniture is animated by this strange identification. No longer serving a useful function, it has become animate in its own right.”

“The objects enact a slippage between building, furniture, the body: between holding the body – its life, weight, touch – and being bodies themselves.”

“The relation between inside and outside is dynamic and changeable. In this openness to change, then, there remains the possibility of another vision.”

Figures:

1: BmoreArt, (2018). [Online]. Available at https://bmoreart.com/2018/11/rachel-whiteread-at-the-nga-a-challenge-to-patriarchal-institutions.html. [Accessed on 20/10/2020].

2: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, (no date). [No title]. [Online]. Available at https://www3.mcachicago.org/2015/salcedo/works/untitled-concrete/. [Accessed on 02/12/2020]

References:

Best, S., (1999). The Trace and the Body. The International Exhibition: Trace. pp. 172-176.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (date). cited in Best, S., (1999). The Trace and the Body. The International Exhibition: Trace. p. 173.

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[topromp]

Breakups vary in all shapes and sizes depending on your age, the length of the relationship, the type of person you were dating, and many other factors. But there’s one common theme: they suck. If there’s one question I see the most, it’s “how do I get over a breakup?” There are some good articles on how to do it, but I haven’t seen one that really hits the nail on the head and explains what to do from day 1 in order to get through a breakup.

Here are the 3.5 steps to take to get over a breakup and come out as a stronger, happier person.

Note: the time-frame for each step is put in brackets, but depends on the person and/or situation. Some people are quicker to “recover” than others, and relationships that last longer will generally require more time spent in each step. Adapt the time-frames accordingly.

Step 0.5- Realization/Acceptance (1-3 Days)

The absolute first step to take to get over a breakup is to realize and accept that it has happened and that your relationship is over. I’ve heard way too many stories about “half breakups” or breaking up for a day or two (or more) or not being on the same page, and these are all terrible situations to put yourself in. I’m not going to discuss whether you should try and “win the person back” in this post because it’s not the focus, so we will assume it’s in your best interest that this relationship ends.

Say this to yourself: my relationship is over.

Period. This might (probably will) sound depressing and you still might not be able to fully accept it, but if you don’t start believing it, at least a little bit, you will never get over a breakup.

The “good” part about accepting the breakup as a fact is that you have clarity. When dealing with difficult situations like these, for your own peace of mind, you should seek out clarity and certainty instead of confusion and “grey areas”. The sooner you can get it in your head that the relationship is over, the better. Trust me, it will help down the road to recovery.

Bottom line: if you know it is/should be over, it’s over.

Step 1- Mourning (1-3 Weeks)

Now that you’ve realized and accepted that your relationship is over, you need time to mourn. In plain English, this means be very, very sad. Again, how sad or emotional you get will depend on many factors, and naturally some will need a longer mourning period than others, but give yourself between 1-3 weeks to cry it out. Be alone if you need to, have your breakdowns, cry on shoulders, listen to sad music, eat tubs of ice cream, whatever you need to do.

The key here is to get all of that sadness out of your system. In the next few steps, you will work on building yourself back up into a happier, stronger person. But the reality is that you can’t do that if you’re still holding onto feelings of sadness. Sure, you will have times down the road where you feel sad, but that is sadness you can overcome. At this step, you want to get all that underlying, heavy sadness out of your system, so recognize it’s there, don’t hold back and let it all out.

Also keep in mind that you should go “no contact” with your ex. This will be the hardest stage to stay true to the “no contact” rule, but it’s also the most important time to stick to it. Remember, this whole process is aimed at getting over the person, so anytime you message, call, creep or stare, will only bring back memories and refresh your feelings towards them. Avoid at all costs!

Pro tip: any time you get a strong urge to message/call your ex, message or call a good friend or family member instead. Even if it’s just to whine and sob about your ex, you’re better off doing that than communicating with your ex.

You should also set a specific ending date for the mourning stage. For example, let’s say you had a ten month relationship that was pretty great, but ultimately didn’t last that long. Also, you know you’re the type who doesn’t need long to recover. So you pick exactly 1 week.

Or let’s say you just got out of a 4-year relationship with someone who you thought was “the one”, and you’re a very emotional person who doesn’t handle these things well. You may want to pick a date closer to 2-3 weeks away.

No matter what length of time or day you pick, put it in your calendar and get it in your head that starting on that day, your mourning is over and your recovery begins. I’ll never forget the exact day I started properly recovering from my first big breakup; it was a 3-year relationship that ended out of the blue and left me in shambles. But after a brief phone call about 2 weeks after the breakup where she made it clear things were over for good, I told myself that tomorrow was the start of my recovery and stuck to it. It wasn’t until that day that things finally started to improve and I was able to get over the breakup.

Pro tip #2: keep a journal. Yes, even if you’re a guy who feels like that’s too “feminine”. You are going to have a million thoughts and feelings going through your mind, and even if you have a great support system, sometimes it isn’t enough. At the beginning or end (or both) of each day, make a journal entry about those thoughts and feelings. It will help put your mind at ease.

Bottom line: accept the fact that you’re allowed to be sad, and get it all out of your system in a reasonable amount of time. Talk to family/friends for support and keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings.

Step 2- Recovery (1-3 months)

At this point, you’ve had a rough week/few weeks of mourning, but you got all/most of the sadness out of your system. This, in my opinion, is the most important step, and if done well, will set you on an amazing path to get over a breakup.

This stage is the complete opposite of the mourning stage. Instead of remembering the past and being sad, we’re focusing on ourselves and our bright future ahead. The hardest part about getting over a breakup is that there’s now a void in your life that your significant other used to fill – all the texting, hanging out, sleeping over, etc., is all gone, so you need to fill in that time. The key is to get active, get social, and keep busy.

Here are the best ways:

1) Do physical activities: No, I don’t mean start sleeping with other people (although they say the quickest way to getting over someone is to get under someone else ? ). Start going to the gym, or running, or going to yoga, or playing a sport, or going for daily walks, or a combination of a few of these. It doesn’t matter what it is, pick a physical activity or two that you enjoy and start doing them at LEAST 3 times a week.

Bonus points if you have a friend/friends to do it with or play against. The psychological benefits of being active and in good physical condition are endless, so this is very important. Also, you’ll probably have a lot of ice cream to work off from your mourning stage…

2) Start talking to more people: In the mourning stage, it’s completely fine to curl up in bed for days on end, not talk to people and not want to do group activities. But now it’s time to flip the switch – start going out for dinners with friends or family, start going out to other social-type gatherings, start going out to bars, etc. Even little things like hosting a board game night, or going out to see a movie with friends, or for an ice cream cone. Doesn’t matter what, just start asking people to hang out and/or accepting invites to everything that gets you out of the house.

Pro tip: if you don’t want to ask people directly to do things, ask your friends and/or family to invite you out whenever they want company for anything. Don’t force yourself into their plans, but a simple “Hey, I’m really looking to get out of the house more these days, so if you ever want some company with anything, please let me know” works great.

3) Cook more/eat healthier: Heck, this could even be a new hobby you try out for the first time, but start cooking (more). How often do you cook already? If it isn’t almost every day, then start cooking meals more often. Whether it be a brand new recipe for dinner, a simple, fresh sandwich for lunch or a healthy snack you’ve always wanted to make, go get some groceries and prep your own food. It will save you money, improve your diet and can be a lot of fun with some music or a podcast on in the background.

4) Re-start or pick-up a new hobby: Remember that thing you loved doing in grade school that you don’t do anymore? Or even high school or undergrad? Maybe it’s comic books, or painting, or sewing. Or maybe you always wanted to try woodworking or the piano but never got around to it. This is the perfect time. Pick one or two and dive into it head first. Start reading guides, going to classes, talking with people who have experience, visiting forums online, etc.

5) Read and Write: Stop reading Facebook/Instagram feeds and start reading books; fiction, non-fiction, self-help, personal development, romance, whatever your heart desires. Also, start (if you didn’t already in the previous stage) a journal. I found that especially when you have your ex on your mind or feel like you need to reach out to them, writing about your feelings or even a letter addressed to them helped bring me down to earth without the negative effects that actually communicating with them brought.

6) Rely on internet strangers: This might not be for everyone, but there are so many great online social communities and/or forums with people who are either going through tough times as well, or those who have been through them and are willing to be a support system. Post or reach out to fellow current or former broken-hearted peers and you immediately get access to free, unbiased people looking to chat and help one another. However, this isn’t for everyone, and you shouldn’t become reliant on it. This is for general chatting and support, don’t get caught up spending hours chatting with people online. Use it as a filler when not taking part in options 1-5.

Implement all/most of these things in your life, and you will automatically become busier, healthier and happier – a great start to get over a breakup. The recovery phase will last a different amount of time for everyone. Some people can get back to normal and into a good routine quickly, while others might not. Either way, focus on those activities (especially 1-4) and you’ll notice a gradual improvement in how you’re feeling day-to-day. Realize this will not be an overnight fix and you will have a bad day here and there. But if you stick to these guidelines, you will notice a gradual improvement over time.

Bottom line: stay busy by living an active, healthy life and you will slowly start to get over a breakup, day by day.

Step 3- Revitalization (Forever)

This is the easy and fun part. You’ve spent a few days accepting the breakup, a few weeks crying it out of your system, and a few months building yourself back up into a stronger, better person. There is no time-frame for how long recovery will take, but eventually, you will feel “normal” again and be ready to move on to bigger, better things.

This is the last step to get over a breakup. In most respects, it is very similar to step 2, with one major difference. While you are still living an active, busy and healthy lifestyle, you are ready to start “moving on”. Maybe it has already happened, or maybe you are busy with your career and not focused on finding someone else, but at this point, you are ready if the right circumstances came around.

Because of this, there isn’t anything specific to do except to appreciate that you made it through one of life’s greatest emotional difficulties, be open to opportunities and be excited for what you have ahead. Maybe you want to meet someone in bars, online, or in any other way, or maybe you still want to focus on yourself. Either way, the world is your oyster and you should move at whatever pace you feel most comfortable with.

Pro tip: Now that you were able to get over a breakup, it is a good time to reflect on it and learn from what went wrong. What truly caused the breakup? What things did you do that may have led to it, and how can you improve yourself for your next relationship? What qualities are you looking for in your next partner? No need to answer all of those concretely, but thinking about them will make your next relationship that much better.

One last consideration is “being friends” with your ex. Up until now, you should have avoided contact with them, but at this point, MINIMAL contact is completely fine. I know some former partners who ended up becoming friends, but I always avoided it. Not because they were bad people or because the breakup was nasty, but because I appreciated what we had in the past and didn’t want any potential of complicating things any more (or even worse, having one party develop feelings again).

So I keep communication to a minimum, such as birthday wishes and catch-ups every once in a while (maybe once or twice a year). Again, you may want or be able to include more communication than that, but I choose to focus on moving forward and avoiding any possible complications.

That’s it! For those trying to get over a breakup or anyone with a friend who is, I hope that this will give you or them a framework to use to get through it as quickly and positively as possible. For those who aren’t or haven’t yet, keep this post in mind and don’t forget to check back and/or bookmark the page for future use (apologies for the pessimism, but you never know when a rough breakup may hit!).

Thanks for reading! If you want even more content on how to get over a breakup, read our article on 7 easy ways to here!

The post How to Get Over an Ex: The 3.5 Steps to Get Over a Breakup appeared first on Top Romp.

[ledenews]

South Park Packs Promise in St. C.

The City of St. Clairsville features a number of outdoor amenities for residents and beyond to enjoy, all run by the town's recreation department. There’s Memorial Park, the rec center itself and the accompanying playground and amphitheater behind it, along with fishing opportunities at the reservoir. But the city owns another patch of property that used to feature small playground equipment and where a basketball court can still be found, in use—albeit one in serious need of repairs and upgrades. The South Park playground is located directly south of Clark Avenue between Clark and St. Clairsville streets. That patch of land belongs to the city, including the basketball court. A group of citizens, including Bill Brooks, whose property on the corner of Neff Street and Clarke Avenue butts up against the park, met Monday evening to discuss possibilities for the park. Around 6-7 people came for the meeting, along with city councilman Frank Sabatino and his wife. “We had a decent turnout,” Brooks said. “There were a lot of ideas thrown out and a lot of things that I didn’t realize about the park.” Brooks noted that he never noticed that there is a walking trail that extends back behind the basketball court and around the grounds through the woods. The path could be cleared further and make a short little loop through the wooded portion of the grounds. It’s obviously in use as dirt ramps have been built into the path to allow those riding their bikes along the path to catch air. The yellow outlined area shows where South Park is south of Clarke Avenue in St.C. The smaller green portion is land that belongs to resident Bill Brooks that he's wiling to let the city have/use to provide better use of the park. Needed Upgrades The basketball court is still used by neighborhood kids. But it’s in deteriorating condition. The court itself is uneven, has numerous cracks, and is no longer capable of hosting a competitive game. In the past, tournaments were held at the court. One of the backboards is listing forward, and the rim is slightly bent. Anyone serious about improving their game would be practicing on incorrect rim heights and angles. Plus, as stated, there’s no way play a full-court game. But the facility could be so much more. Brooks was there when the court was put in. He helped then recreation director Kevin Barr pour and frame off the court. The grass area used to feature smaller playground equipment. But when the years took their toll and rust set in, the city removed them without replacing them. Ideally, Brooks would like to see a few picnic tables included at the park, a swing set, and maybe even additional playground equipment. Those additions alone would make it more inviting for families with young children, or people in general, to come utilize the park for a nice afternoon. Fixing up the basketball court would likely be the biggest expense, but Brooks himself is willing to help out the plan. “I already said if we can get the ball rolling, I’ll donate two of those heavy-duty picnic tables out of my own pocket,” Brooks said. “Then people could sit down, have a lunch, and enjoy the park.” Brooks said in talks with members of a couple of churches, he’s heard the suggestion of possibly having teenagers from the church come down and teach younger children arts and crafts during the day. That would also necessitate the need of having tables to utilize. Traditional-style camping is also a possibility. Back along the path, there are a number of areas that could be utilized as primitive-style campsites with only a little effort to clear out each spot. A couple of fire-rings could be created with either rocks or bricks to add that amenity to each campsite or even one or two for all at the park to use. The same could be said for setting up a couple of charcoal grill stands, the kind seen at state parks in the area. “If a parent wanted to take their young kid out there maybe for their first camping trip, it’s close, it doesn’t cost anything, but they can go out there and set up and camp,” Brooks said. “There are a lot of possibilities.” The entrance of the walking path at the park The walking path is shown further back into the wooded area. Needing the City’s Go-Ahead Brooks noted no matter what the group would like to see down at South Park, it needs the city’s approval as the grounds are under rec department control. He also noted councilwoman Linda Jordan, who is council’s representative on the recreation board, will take the ideas to the board to see if there’s any funding or grants that can be applied for that could aid any ideas waiting to be implemented at the park. In addition to the above-referenced picnic table donation, Brooks is willing to put additional skin in the game, or, in this case, land—his land. A portion of Brooks’ property in the rear has what appears to be an old access road that he allowed the city to install to reach the playground better. On the opposite of that entryway lies the rest of his property, out where it meets Neff Street. He’s willing to allow the city to have that to allow better utilization at the park. Anyone wishing to get more involved or to help propose additional ideas, or ways to fund said ideas, is invited to come to the next meeting on June 7 at 7 p.m. at the park. Spots like this can had a makeshift fire pit added and can be utilized as primitive camping spots. Read the full article

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Download Windows 10 Iso Image For Mac

Next, download and launch the UNetbottin utility. Select the “Diskimage” radio button, click “” to select a bootable ISO image. After locating your Windows 10 ISO file, click on Open. Choose Type as USB Drive and select the device name of your USB drive (you probably would’ve noted it down earlier, so refer to that). Download: Mac OS Sierra 10.12 ISO and DMG Image Mac OS High Sierra 10.13 ISO or DMG Download only the stub installer means web installer is the main reason that only users may be downloading from the app store. How to Download Windows 10 Disc Image ISO Free from Microsoft You can download the Windows 10 disc image using any web browser from just about any operating system, we’re showing this on a Mac but you can download it on another Windows PC or Linux machine too. The file arrives as a standard.iso disk image file. 1 Download Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6) is the seventh major.

Windows 10 Iso File Mac

Windows 10 Download Iso

Download Windows 10 Iso File

This article will guide you on how to download Windows 10 ISO file directly from Microsoft without Media Creation Tool nor need a product key. After downloading the ISO file, you can use AIO Boot to create Windows 10 bootable USB, it supports multiple ISO files integration.

Media Creation Tool

By using the Media Creation Tool, you can easily download the official Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft, which also includes an ISO file containing both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

A 64-bit version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro on a disk image (ISO) or other installation media. Bigo download for mac. If installing Windows on your Mac for the first time, this must be a full version of Windows.

The Media Creation Tool will not directly download the ISO file, it will download the necessary files and create an ISO file for you. According to the information I found, it does not include the latest Cumulative Update updates. Downloading discrete files, plus the time it takes to create an ISO file, can take a lot more time than downloading ISO directly from Microsoft website.

Editions are included in the ISO file:

Windows 10 Home.

Windows 10 Education.

Windows 10 Pro.

Windows 10 ISO direct download

On the Download Windows 10 page, you can only download the Media Creation Tool if you are using an operating system that can run the tool. For other operating systems, they will allow you to download Windows 10 ISO files directly. We can use a trick that simulates the browser into a browser running on another operating system. For Windows 8.1, you can download the ISO file here without having to perform these steps.

Here are the steps to do this on Google Chrome and Firefox:

Visit the official Microsoft website here.

Opens the browser’s Console window. For Chrome, press Ctrl + Shift + J, for Firefox, press Ctrl + Shift + K.

Continue to press Ctrl + Shift + M. In this window, you will see a list of devices in the drop down list. For Firefox, select a device name under “no device selected“.

Press F5 to reload the page, now you can select the version of Windows 10 to download its ISO file.

With just a few simple steps, you can download the latest Windows 10 ISO file (currently Windows 10 April 2018 1803), original and official. Take another step if you want to download older versions and some other products. Copy the code below and paste it into the Console window, behind the “>” or “>>“, then press Enter.

You will now see more versions in the drop-down list including Microsoft Office. However, these versions may be older versions and many versions can no longer be downloaded. Previously, I was able to download the Windows 7 ISO file in this list, but now it’s no longer available.

For Windows 10 Enterprise and other versions not included in the list for free download, you can either search on Google or buy an MSDN account and then download the ISO. Good luck!

Skype for Business makes it easy to connect and collaborate with coworkers and business partners around the world: Start instant message conversations and voice or video calls. Skype for business 2016 app. Connect with your team anywhere using clients across Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android™, or bring remote participants into meeting spaces of all sizes with Skype for Business. How your phone number or email address is used. Microsoft will use your phone number or email address only for this one-time. Download Skype for your computer, mobile, or tablet to stay in touch with family and friends from anywhere. Skype for Business; Get help. Skype Support; Blogs; Community; About Skype; My account. Sign out; Download Skype. Skype for Desktop. Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. By downloading Skype. When you go to install Skype for Business 2016, you'll see this page, which indicates that you're only going to install Skype for Business: When you choose Install, the Office installer will start. It looks like all of Office is being installed, but it's only installing Skype for Business.

There are two different types of OS one is Mac OS X Lion 10.7 ISO, DMG and the other one is OS X mountain lion. So please don’t get confused in both OS.

Mac OS X Lion 10.7 is the eighth major release of Mac OS X is a completely different version from the for windows because it is a version that is totally based on the productivity suite for mac os x. This for mac is one of the best and successors of 2011 and it is followed by the for mac of 2007.

Mac os x lion was released in the month of June on the date of 22nd and in the year of 2011 in the Apple worldwide developers conference. It was announced to release officially in the month of July but due to there technicals problems and due to there technical errors they have to release it earlier.

Download: Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 DMG & ISO Image

License Official Installer

File Size 4.4GB / 3.5GB

Windows 10 Iso File Mac

Language English

Developer Apple Inc.

Tutorials: How to Clean Install Mac OS using a USB drive on Mac

On June 6, 2011, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, it was reported that the official discharge for Lion would be in July 2011. The particular discharge date of July 20 was not affirmed until the day preceding, July 19, by Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, as a major aspect of Apple’s 2011 second from last quarter income announcement.

Apple did not at first report any physical media circulation for Lion, for example, a lot of CD-ROMs or a DVD-ROM as utilized for past discharges. Rather, the working framework was said to be accessible only as a download from the Mac App Store for US$29.99. The main earlier form of OS X that underpins the Mac App Store in Snow Leopard, which suggested that any machines that help Lion at present running Tiger or Leopard would initially be moved up to Snow Leopard, instead of enabling an immediate move up to Lion.

System requirements

x86-64 CPU (64 bit Macs, with an intel core 2 duo, Intel core i5, intel core i7, or processor.)

At least 2 GB of memory.

Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later (Mac OS X 10.6.8 is recommended) .

7 GB of available space.

Airdrop is supported on the following Mac models:MacBook Pro (late 2008 or newer), MacBook Air (late 2010 or newer), MacBook (late 2008 or newer), iMac (early 2009 or newer), Mac Mini (mid-2010 or newer), Mac Pro (early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card and mid-2010 or newer).

Features

Server features

Mac os x lion

Wiki Server 3 – Making it easier to collaborate, share, and exchange information. Users can quickly switch between a server’s home page, My Page, Updates, Wikis, People, and Podcasts. https://wisekingnightmare.tumblr.com/post/643814876526084096/download-free-typing-games-for-mac. File sharing is simpler, and a new Page Editor is added for easy customization.

Web DAV File Sharing – Lion Server delivers wireless file sharing for clients that support WebDAV. Enabling WebDAV in Lion Server gives iOS users the ability to access, copy, and share documents on the server from applications such as Keynote, Numbers, and Pages.

Profile Manager – Profile Manager delivers simple, profile-based setup and management for Mac OS X Lion, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. It also integrates with existing directory services and delivers automatic over-the-air profile updates using the Apple Push Notification service.

Features of Macintosh OS X Lion

The principal variant of Mac OS X was Mac OS X Lion. Macintosh OS X lion – 1.2v3 depended on Rhapsody, a half and half of OPENSTEP from NeXT Computer and Mac OS 8.5.1. The GUI resembled a blend of Mac OS 8’s Platinum appearance with OPENSTEP’s NeXT-based interface. It incorporated a runtime layer called Blue Box for running inheritance Mac OS-based applications inside a different window. There was the talk of executing a ‘straightforward blue box’ which would intermix Mac OS applications with those composed for Rhapsody’s Yellow Box condition, yet this would not occur until Mac OS X’s Classic condition. Apple File Services, Macintosh Manager, QuickTime Streaming Server, WebObjects, and NetBoot were incorporated with Mac OS X lion 1.0 – 1.2v3. We couldn’t utilize FireWire gadgets in Macintosh OS X lion 10.7 iso/dmg.

Macintosh OS X lion 10.7 incorporated the new Aqua UI, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Tomcat, WebDAV bolster Macintosh Manager and NetBoot.

macOS x lion 10.7 is the most recent rendition of Mac with new highlights. Nonetheless, this refresh will keep running on Mac 2012 or later forms. On the off chance that you are running macOS X lion 10.7 or prior, you ought to probably move up to the most recent rendition of mac os x lion 10.7 from the App Store.

Downloading Mac OSX Lion 10.7 ISO/DMG

The main reason for which people preferred downloading apps from the App Store is that it would just download the stub installer (web installer) which is little in size. The real Operating System will begin introducing after running the stub installer.

In this article, you will most likely download MacOS X Lion 10.7 full installer. You can make a bootable USB from the given record and complete a new introduce just as update the present establishment of your Mac OS.

About Apple Security Updates

For their clients’ insurance, Apple doesn’t uncover, examine, or affirm security issues until an examination has happened and fixes or discharges are accessible. Ongoing discharges are recorded on the Apple security refreshes page. For more data about security, see the Apple Product Security page. You can encode interchanges with Apple utilizing the Apple Product Security PGP Key.

If the download fails

If so, the only thing you ought to do is to pause and retry later. Or on the other hand, change from a remote to a satellite web association. If it is the case that this doesn’t help, go to App Store > View My Account and restart the download from the Unfinished Downloads segment.

Alternatively, you can also download Mac OS X Lion 10.7 ISO/DMG from our website for free. The installation process will be similar to the installation process of the images downloaded from the app store.

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