#although of course its a discussion in and of itself that the inhuman character should be so relatable to autistic people

[skylordhorus]

grumbles at the fact that you have to ~pick a side~ for cole and that he cant just continue to exist as this unique half human half spirit, like its a state that needs to be “fixed”

[true-blue-megamind]

FAN THEORY THURSDAY: Megamind’s Connections Beyond the Film

Before we get started, it’s time for the obligatory SPOILER WARNING!  

In case this hasn’t been made sufficiently obvious by the fact that this is a post about Megamind written in a fan theory series about Megamind and published on a blog dedicated solely to Megamind, please let me just assure that this article is, in fact, about Megamind.  

If you haven’t seen the film yet yet, I have to question why you’re reading this in the first place.  As well as your taste in animated movies.  I’m definitely questioning that.

Over the years I’ve heard several fan theories concerning connections between the film Megamind and various other forms of media.  Today, let’s delve into just a few.

The first one is so obvious it’s almost painful, but it has to be mentioned.  Megamind is a Superman spoof.  Metro Man is clearly based on the Man of Steel himself, with a hefty dose of Elvis Presley and a larger range of character flaws thrown in for good measure.  (He also seems to contain quite a lot of the Popular Jock archetype.)  The character of Megamind is more complex still, combining elements of Alice Cooper and a nineties Goth theater kid with several comic book supervillains. The best known of the last include alien genius Brainiac and mad inventor Lexx Luthor, but they aren’t the only ones.  Some of Megamind’s engineering and technological inventions call to mind Spiderman villain Doctor Octopus even more than Lexx Luthor, and he also shares some parallels with the mad inventor Dr. Sivana in the SHAZAM comics.

Megamind’s most notable of the latter is the similarity of attitudes toward society.  Both Megamind and Dr. Sivana started off trying to use their inventions for good—the first in the classroom and the second for the betterment of mankind—but both became bitter when people mocked and shunned them.  For Dr. Sivana, this led to a desire to conquer all of Earth while for Megamind, in a sort of microcosm, it led to a similar drive to take over Metro City.  Both Lexx Luthor and Dr. Sivana have, perhaps, the strongest connections to Megamind as share, deep down, a desire to help or protect mankind, and as Lexx Luthor, like Megamind, harbors a secret love for the reporter damsel in their respective stories.  (This desire to do good, especially in the face of corrupt officials, ties into another Megamind fan theory that I will likely discuss in more detail in a later post.)

The connection between Megamind and Alice Cooper, by the way, was extremely intentional.  The creators stated in an interview that, like Alice Cooper, Megamind’s dark, evil self is, in fact, a stage persona.  (Even their clothing, consisting largely of black leather and spikes, is similar.)  That fact is illustrated in the film as we can see that Megamind’s behaviors on- and off-camera tend to be vastly different.  Even as a villain, he is merely playing a role, although in the case of Megamind that role has begun to merge with his self-identity.

There are, however, hints within the world of DreamWorks that Megamind has other connections as well.  The first is fairly recent and intensely interesting. In the Rise of the Guardians, Jamie Bennett, a young boy who still steadfastly believes in the seemingly impossible, mentions “aliens in Michigan,” only to be scoffed at by his friends.  Because Metro City is located in Michigan, (as can be seen briefly when the Death Ray is fired from space,) many fans theorize that the “aliens in Michigan” are none other than Megamind, Minion, and, perhaps, Metro Man. 

This would indicate that the two stories take place in the same world, and that Megamind’s adventures, while well-known in Metro City itself, have been covered up and kept secret from the rest of the world.  (Imagine moving to a moderately-sized city only to discover that—surprise!—there’s an extraterrestrial supervillain in residence and, oh, by the way, if you live downtown homeowners’ insurance is ridiculous!)

The second inter-film connection is less clear, but has spawned some interesting fan theories as well.  The idea is that, like Rise of the Guardians, Monsters VS. Aliens also takes place in the same reality as Megamind.  It’s not too far fetched—after all, both films involve extraterrestrials and amazing inventions—but there is one specific theory that really ties the two together.  Consider this for a moment: Megamind is a blue alien with incredible intelligence who hails from a destroyed planet.  Does that sound like any other DreamWorks character you know?  If you’ve seen Monster VS. Aliens, the antagonist, Gallaxhar, probably springs to mind.

According to Fandom.com, Gallaxhar’s official backstory is that he “destroyed his home planet” for the implied reason that “he experienced bad childhood and unhappy marriage.”  The fan theory is that that Gallaxhar’s planet was, in fact, Megamind’s home world, and that the former created or harnessed the black hole which destroyed it.  This would explain why Megamind’s people—as well as Metro Man’s—didn’t have time to escape despite being space-faring.  You see, black holes take millions of years to develop, and even a rogue black hole would take about a million to shift and swallow an entire solar system, so if the event had occurred naturally, there should have been plenty of time to build an entire fleet of spacecraft and leave for Earth or another safe planet.  (The fact that Megamind’s parents set his escape pod’s navigation system for Earth indicates that they knew of its existence.)

Of course, despite their large heads and blue skin tones, there are quite a few physical differences between Megamind and Gallaxhar.  The first is humanoid while the second has four eyes and tentacles instead of legs.  Fan theories have explanations for that, too, however.  

There appear to be two schools of thought on the subject.  The first is that Gallaxhar was another breed of alien living on the planet, possibly a servile race different from Minions, and the second is that part of Gallaxhar’s “bad childhood” involved being experimented upon, thus giving him his bizarre appearance and his seeming obsession with experimenting on others.  (There is some disagreement in the Megamind fandom about exactly why Gallaxhar was subjected to such treatment, ranging from falling into the hands of an unscrupulous scientist to being part of an experimental medical program.  The latter fan theory suggests that Gallaxhar was both blind and paraplegic, and that his additional eyes and tentacle “legs” were meant to rectify that, but that those physical differences made him an outsider, thus leading to his unhappy life and ultimate hatred for his own planet.)

If that were true, many may wonder what, exactly, Megamind might do if he ever found out about Gallaxhar.  Well, good news!  Just like there’s an app for everything, there’s a fan theory for that, too!  I will warn you, however, that this one is, frankly, build upon pretty thin evidence.  However, it’s interesting enough to be worth relating.

There is a character in Monsters VS. Aliens named General Warren R. Monger who, on the surface, is exactly what he appears to be: a high-ranking military man.  However, there are a few things that fans point to as possible evidence that Monger isn’t what he seems.  

The first is so simple that, alone, it would be inconsequential.  Monger rose through the ranks uncommonly fast, so much so that it caused some comment among others.  The second is significantly odder; Monger claims to be ninety years old despite looking like he is in his late forties.  Now, of course, this may have simply been the character exaggerating or messing with the “monsters” under his care, but some fans say it’s more than that, and claim that Monger chose that age because he was unfamiliar with human lifespans.  Next there is the fact that Monger is so intelligent that, despite one of the beings in his containment facility. Doctor Cockroach, being a super-genius, Monger outwits every escape attempt the monsters can make.  Then, of course, there is the fact that, despite his brusque manner, Monger seems to actually sympathize with the inhuman people he is charged with containing, and even pushes for them to be given a chance to prove themselves.  There is the oddity that, although he is assigned to the secret military base at “Area Fifty-Something,” Monger seems to disappear a lot, often for days at a time.  Finally, there are a few key physical and technological attributes: Monger has some odd and incredibly energetic facial expression—including a nearly maniacal smile and a dark scowl—as well as a jet pack that he appears to have constructed himself and green eyes.

I’m still not certain I see the resemblance, but maybe there are some similarities?  What do you think?

If you’re familiar with Metro City’s resident blue alien, you can probably see where this is going.  Although it’s not a popular theory, I’ve heard it suggested in the Megamind fandom that Monger is, in fact, Megamind disguised using his holowatch.  (This is why the green eyes are significant; Megamind’s eye color is the only aspect of his appearance that the holowatch doesn’t change.  However, I feel compelled to note that the shade of green appears to be different.) Fans insist that it would have been easy for someone as incredibly brilliant as Megamind to hack government systems and forge documents such as birth certificates thoroughly enough to dupe even U.S. Military Intelligence. The two jet packs, some have contested, look different either because of the disguise or because the one featured in Monster VS. Aliens is an older model. I’ve even seen the fact that both Megamind and Monger begin with M being pointed to as possible evidence that the latter is no more than an invention of the former.

The argument is as follows: as Monsters VS. Aliens takes place in 2009, one year before events in Megamind, it’s possible that Megamind, still being a villain, created an alter-ego which he could use to help him search for and deal with other alien life.  (He is shown to be painfully lonely, and the Megamind comics reveal his desperate desire to find other survivors from his home planet.)  Upon figuring out who Gallaxhar was, and more importantly what he had done, Megamind wanted to be part of taking him down.  But he couldn’t be too open about it; he was, after all, still a “Bad Guy.”  This theory explains Monger’s frequent long absences—during those time Megamind was back in Metro City taking care of his regular business— as well as why Monger had a secret soft spot for the “monsters.”  Megamind, having always been treated like a monster himself, would naturally want to give them a chance, but wouldn’t dare behave in too overtly friendly a manner as it would have aroused suspicion.

As I said, support for that particular theory is, perhaps, a little thin, especially given the fact the Monsters VS. Aliens preceded Megamind, so character designs from the former are unlikely to have been influenced by the latter.  Nonetheless, I admit to appreciating the complexity and creativity of it.  It’s an undeniably fun theory. If they haven’t already, maybe someone will write a fan fiction about it one day.

Those are only a few of the theories out there connecting Megamind with other fandoms.  One could go on and on about the subject, but I won’t torture readers by doing that.  Nonetheless, it illustrates once again the immense love and original thought that Megamind fans put into developing their theories!  I dare say that few other animated movies have earned a following so dedicated and inventive…  But, then, any of us who love the film Megamind will tell you that it has more than earned the consideration!

[autumnblogs]

Day 41: Caliborn: Enter

https://homestuck.com/story/4956 It’s pretty natural that Dirk’s move on Jake is going to put a strain on Jane’s friendship with him, even if he hasn’t made it yet; I think it definitely gives some insight into Jane that she reacts the way that she does. Not exactly a graceful loser, and in a way that is really pretty passive-aggressive.

She’s not as open and honest as Jade is; as the Prospit Dreamers go, in general, she’s really pretty guarded.

More after the Break

https://homestuck.com/story/4961

The AR, I feel like, gives us a pretty good look into who Dirk is, and while we already know that he impulsively jumps to the first solution he can think of, we can see through the shades that he tends to advise people to do the same things that he does.

Dirk is an extremely headstrong guy, and while he’s both very intelligent, and would really like to be a Puppetmaster, he can’t help but let his personality shine through his puppets; and he can’t help but let his first inclination determine his course of action. He’s him, after all. Why would he question his own judgement?

A bit like how Kermit the Frog is really just Jim Henson the Frog.

https://homestuck.com/story/4962

So what is a Juju?

Juju is a word which comes from French, and means plaything. It is a term that has been used to characterize the Folk Magic and/or Folk Religion of the people of West Africa, in much the same way that Totem has been, or that Fetish has been. In a nutshell, Juju can mean both Spiritual Power (as Mana), and an Object of Spiritual Power (as an Amulet) - the physical manifestation of the thing, and the thing itself are the same, in this sense.

The God and the Idol are the same - at least, they are to the external viewer. While it should be clear that this is a reductive view of it, the fact of the matter is that, a central part of a lot of religious practice in general is to treat the image of a thing, and the thing itself, as though they are the same; and we see this sort of image-based performance all throughout homestuck, through symbols, and rituals, especially where they are empty signifiers - symbols and rituals that have been emptied of their original meaning, and are now practiced only for their own sake.

Following the rules actually doesn’t seem to pay all that much in the world of Homestuck, and almost universally leads to disaster - which in no small part appears to be because the creator of the rules is Lord English.

https://homestuck.com/story/4965

I think it’s pretty interesting that Caliborn’s conception of smut is something as tame as fluffy hand-holding and caressing. While on the one hand, we can just say “Cherubs think it’s taboo because they can only enjoy Caliginous romance” I think we can also associate it with the relatively sexless nature of Homestuck, beyond how horny the characters are, and a few oblique references (which is not a bad thing; it’s about teenagers). In spite of all of the suggestive language and content, there is no possibility of consummation in Homestuck, or even until well after the end of Homestuck, because Caliborn’s vision of intimacy is a sexless one.

https://homestuck.com/story/4967

This takes a turn for the fucked up at the end. I mean, it’s all fucked up to begin with, but it’s such a non-sequitur.

https://homestuck.com/story/4968

Caliborn uses consumption related metaphors and imagery in relation to smut. Aside from jokes about Vore, what’s the significance of that? That the intention of Caliborn and Calliope is to comment on the fandom of Homestuck itself (continuing the identification of the Characters with the Audience that we discussed yesterday) is not really a secret to anyone. How does Caliborn view engaging with Homestuck, and how does he therefore view engaging with Andrew? His view is Hegemonistic and Predatory. From his point of view, the universe he inhabits is full of things to be consumed; objects to absorb, break down into the parts of themselves that make him more powerful, and the parts that can be discarded.

https://homestuck.com/story/4970

I really never get tired of Caliborn, he’s so awful.

https://homestuck.com/story/4971

His conception of human romance is one where he conceives of women as essentially objects of gratification; woman on woman is allowed, I suspect, for much the same reason that it is often rationalized that f*tanari porn isn’t gay; how could jackin’ it to two women be gay?

The idea of women as actors who exist for reasons other than to gratify men, and other than to gratify Caliborn in particular does not occur to him.

Obviously, men don’t exist to gratify each other. That’d be too mutualistic.

https://homestuck.com/story/4981

The Interplay of Sex and Violence.

As long as this sequence is pretty much over;

Why does Caliborn want to play a game? I think the answer is in line with the overall theme of Homestuck. Cultural transmission.

In his book Homo Ludens Dutch historian Johan Huizinga discusses the nature of Play as an element of cultural transmission, and as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the generation of culture.

What this means in a nutshell is; Games aren’t the only thing that is necessary for culture to be created, but they are necessary for culture to be created. Can’t have culture without games. A big part of this is because games serve as a stage for human beings to symbolically and ritualistically practice the activities that, as a member fo their culture, they will one day have to perform in order to survive.

This is why games like Tag, and Hide and Seek are the oldest in the world; humans are persistence predators, we hunt down our prey by just not giving the fuck up.

Caliborn’s game is Irony and Porn; insincerity, reproductive activity, etc. and gaming is intrinsically competitive to him; he uses his game as a form of power over Dirk Strider, the power to make him suffer, although since he’s such a dweeb, he’s pretty bad at making him suffer.

https://homestuck.com/story/4986

Meenah likes games too, but her enjoyment of them seems to be a lot more authentic, sincere - as opposed to being a form of power for her to hold over her enemies, her little word-games, with her fish-puns, are a source of legitimate joy to her, and the fact that Aranea will engage her in them creates friendship between the two of them.

https://homestuck.com/story/5027

All this may not have a whole lot of substance to it (I’m making posts at this point almost 40 pages apart), but that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of worth. Homestuck has plenty of pathos, and in spite of the fact that Andrew adores making fun of us for caring about these characters, I do actually care about all of these characters.

They sure have come a long way.

https://homestuck.com/story/5083

As Roxy is ostensibly the stealth leader of her session, we should generally be willing to accept her takes as gospel in a way that we don’t take other characters’ (at least to a certain extent). We just got done talking about how important rules are to the cherubs, and to Caliborn explicitly - we should take heed of the fact that Roxy is very willing to throw caution to the wind and abandon the rules.

Rules in Paradox Space are largely harmful restrictions to be worked around, rather than auspicious maxims to adhere to.

https://homestuck.com/story/5071

Caliborn is a serial forced memer. We’ve already talked oodles and oodles about symbols and rituals and empty signifiers; what is a forced meme except for an empty signifier? An attempt by a malicious third party to turn a meaningless set of pictures and words into a symbol, a symbol that signifies nothing other than itself, and commands the attention and adherence of people in the culture? Rules for the sake of rules. Memes for the sake of memes.

https://homestuck.com/story/5089

Roxy’s anxious babbling is just so much like Dave’s, it’s hilarious. Their language less so.

https://homestuck.com/story/5092

The answer to what a ball’s topspin is, by the way, if you didn’t already know is

an English.

https://homestuck.com/story/5099

Why does Calliope want to be a Troll so badly?

The answer is that she doesn’t want to be a Cherub.

Why doesn’t she want to be a Cherub?

That question could probably keep me up all night, but I think I have an answer right away. Cherubs are arbitrarily powerful, and Calliope does not want to be a Cherub. She wants to be anything other than a Cherub. I can kind of relate to that, even as a human being. After all, there aren’t cherubs and trolls around, even though they are conceivable. Of all of the things we know for sure that consciously exist in our own universe, humans are the most powerful things we know exist for sure. I’d spend a lot to not be one; power, after all, makes us more inhuman.

https://homestuck.com/story/5116

Since I can’t pass up an opportunity to comment on the metanarrative indulgence of the second half, let’s pause to appreciate the term MacGuffin; in a nutshell, an object which exists to be desired. Its only purpose in the story is for someone to want it.

https://homestuck.com/story/5217

The fact that Dirk is conscious of the internal head-goings-on of Brain Ghost Dirk, and is therefore, to some extent cognizant of the head-goings-on of Jake English just opens up so many questions that I still don’t really have an answer to.

https://homestuck.com/story/5238

I rag on Dirk a lot for being a piece of shit.

But man, he is so cool.

https://homestuck.com/story/5246

This entire awful romantic escapade has been created by the Auto-responder, and while Dave has been complicit in it, he is not the puppetmaster behind it. Sound familiar?

https://homestuck.com/story/5252

This flash is just so delightful to me.

It’s the first time Roxy has ever touched another living human being and look how delighted she is.

LOOK HOW HAPPY SHE IS.

https://homestuck.com/story/5261

Now that we know who Lord English is, we have an opportunity to get to know him a little more as a person. Aside from his absurd commitment to puzzle-murders, his strange relationship with romance and sexuality, and his awful and perfunctory craftsmanship, here’s the most important thing to understand about him;

He will always destroy something irreplaceable if it means he can acquire more power.

[gaad]

“The State as apparatus of capture has a power of appropriation; but this power does not consist solely in capturing all that it can, all that is possible, of a matter defined as phylum. The apparatus of capture also appropriates the war machine, the instruments of polarization, and the anticipation prevention mechanisms. This is to say, conversely, that anticipation prevention mechanisms have a high power of transference (...)”. “(...) (W)ar machines have a power of metamorphosis, which of course allows them to be captured by States, but also to resist that capture and rise up again in other forms, with other “objects” besides war (revolution?). Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can go along with the others or go against them (...). Each process can switch over to other powers, but also subordinate other processes to its own power.” (1) “The idea of a constitution (...) involves not only the idea of hierarchy of authority or power but also that of a hierarchy of rules or laws, where those possessing a higher degree of generality and proceeding from a superior authority control the contents of the more specific laws that are passed by a delegated authority.” (2) It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess todays world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities.  As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive, mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now her interest does not lie in presenting her various personal relations with them but to stage them. “(...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature.” This is Elisabeth's inherited background. “(...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis.They establish the national brand: they attempt to control the national market: they create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population that bears, in fact, no relation to the actual regional sub stratum—although in the course of time it partly succeeds in producing the thing it has imagined.” Take Paris for example: “(...) the Champs Elysées, become the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement becomes the “spiritual power” of this new regime.” (3)

“This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...)  (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts.” (4)

The time of revolution is now back but as Foucault said : “il faut avoir une méfiance absolue et totale à l'égard de tout ce qui se présente comme un retour. L'une des raisons de cette méfiance est logique : il n'y a jamais, en fait, de retour.”(5) Therefore the story of Elisabeth's friends will intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. In Momus from Alberti “the extended climax (of the seventh book) occurs in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, Alberti) repeatedly uses the word persona (and so will we) (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters.” (6) “Or, as is the case now, the mask assures the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask is now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face.” (1) So be it. Let them be the masked actors of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies, systems, embedded in concepts and rituals. “They (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities.” (7)

Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up, do not apologize. This is Elisabeth's Friends. Pandora has inherited a box, a jarre which contains unspeakable truth. She knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others. Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions. She learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters and Metis is renowned for his wiseness and cunning, making problems no longer valid. As a constellation, they are powerful. As a unity, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithful story, it accesses the realm of discussion. As statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where “(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible, and in what cases it makes it possible.(...) The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map.” (1 ) “How disappointing this answer seems to be! We asked what was the origin of Ideas and where problems come from: in reply we invoke throws of the dice, imperatives and questions of chance instead of an apodictic principle; an aleatory point at which everything becomes ungrounded instead of a solid ground.” (8)

“For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it.” (9) To anchor ourselves we will now deepen our reflexion in space with Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : “The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand.” (10)  Their concept and ideas of proportions being a fertile ground from which we should elevate. This palace will be a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, simultaneously, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown. If we follow Alberti and Vitruve who compare the three typologies as such: “(...) (W)e will describe both manners of spectacles. In the first, which is for the delight of peaceful times, are introduced the poets, musicians, and actors. In the second, which regard the studies of war, are performed different kinds of duels and contests having to do with bodily strength and dexterity.To the former is dedicated the theatre, a name which means both ‘spectacle’ and ‘a place to watch’.To the latter, which are spectacles of agility and dexterity such as running or jumping, is dedicated the circus. To events such as assaults and fights against animals or men is dedicated the amphitheatre. There are some things that are proper to all of these spectacles: first, that they are horn shaped and curved; next, that they have an open space in the middle; and finally, that they have steps all around and raised places where people can sit and watch.” (11) “But then they differ as to the Form of the aforesaid Area; for those which have this Area in the Shape of a Moon in its Decrease are called Theatres, but when the Horns are protracted a great Way forwards, they are called Circusses, because in them the Chariots make a Circle about the Goal.” (12) So if we follow them and we free this typologies from their form, we can imagine a place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. This Palace will be entered through a garden where a fountain lies at its very center. Heron's Fountain one could claim. Another form of spectacle.

1) Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 2) Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty 3) Mumford, The Culture of Cities 4) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 5) Foucault, Le savoir, le pouvoir et l'espace 6) Alberti, Momus (Preface) 7) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 8) Deleuze, Difference and Repetition 9) Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 10) Ayache, The Blank Swan 11) Williams, Daniele Barbaros Vitruvius of 1567 12) Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Further quotes: 

Vitruve

these vessels - ( poor vessels) large jars made of clay, but similarly resonant

THE plan of the theatre itself is to be constructed as follows. Having fixed upon the principal centre, draw a line of circumference equivalent to what is to be the perimeter at the bottom, and in it inscribe four equilateral triangles, at equal distances apart and touching the boundary line of the circle, as the astrologers do in a figure of the twelve signs of the zodiac, when they are making computations from the musical harmony of the stars. Taking that one of these triangles whose side is nearest to the scaena, let the front of the scaena be determined by the line where that side cuts off a segment of the circle (A B), and draw, through the centre, a parallel line (C D) set off from that position, to separate the platform of the stage from the space of the orchestra.

The circus was based, so it is said, on the heavens

Unlike that of the amphitheater, the central area of a circus was not empty, nor was it filled with a stage, like that of a theater --------------------------------------------------------------- Alberti

We have dealt with the theater; next we shall discuss the circus and amphitheater.All buildings of this type are derived from the theater: a circus is nothing but a theater with its wings extended along parallel lines, although its nature does not require the addition of a portico; an amphitheater, meanwhile, consists of two theaters, their tiers linked into a continuous circle.They differ in that the theater is a form of semiamphitheater; another difference is that the central area of the amphitheater is quite empty and free of any stage. In every other respect they are similar, especially in their tiers, porticoes, passages, and so on. The amphitheater, we think, was built originally for the hunt; this was why they decided to make it round, so that the wild beast, trapped there and baited, with no corner into which to retreat, would be easier for the hunters to provoke.

The rest of the ornament is taken from the temple

The theater takes the lineament of its area from the hoofprint of a horse.Once this is done, the uppermost portico is built on top. The facade and colonnade of this portico do not receive light from outside, as those we have described below it do, but face instead toward the central area of the theater, as we have mentioned already. This work prevents sound from escaping, and compresses and fortifies it; we shall therefore call the work the circumvallation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- Perrault (on Vitruvius)

And the Paintings represented three sorts of Buildings, which made three sorts of Scenes, viz. The Tragick by Magnificent Pallaces, the Comick by Private Houses, the Satyrical (i. e. the Pastoral) by Fields and Groves.The Parascenium or Postscenium was the hinder part of the Theater, and the place whither the Actors retired and dressed themselves, and had their Rehearsals, and where the Machines were kept.Near the Theaters, were Publick Walks, in length a Stadium, which is about 90 Perches. There were Trees planted

[douxreviews]

The Shining versus The Shining

[This review discusses Stephen King's novel The Shining and the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick.]

"This inhuman place makes human monsters."

The first time I saw the 1980 film The Shining, I felt cheated. A brilliant, world famous director took one of my favorite books, cast one of my favorite actors in the lead, and then... he completely screwed it up. For years, I felt that Stanley Kubrick had ruined one of my favorite books. I was incensed. How could he?

My opinion has recently changed. Now I think Kubrick's The Shining may be a cinematic masterpiece. But it is not really a horror movie, and it's not really an adaptation of King's novel. It is its own self. If you see it as a separate entity, it's kind of fascinating.

The book

The Shining may very well be Stephen King's best novel, and that's saying a lot for a man who is probably the most famous writer in the world. In it, an alcoholic writer named Jack Torrance takes a last chance job as winter caretaker at a luxury hotel deep in the Colorado Rockies. As he, his wife Wendy, and their psychic five-year-old son Danny are cut off from the world by the weather, Jack slowly loses his mind and becomes a danger to his family. Were the malevolent ghosts of the people who died in the Overlook Hotel manipulating Jack, or was it all in Jack's head? Or was everything that happened caused by Danny's psychic gift?

The book succeeds on pretty much every level. The story is tightly written and almost impossible to put down. The Overlook itself captures the imagination -- its beauty and isolation, its gory history, the ghosts of past tragedies. I cared a lot about Jack, Wendy and Danny, and I so wanted everything to turn out for them, even while I was aware that it almost certainly would not. (Never get too attached to the characters in King's books.) I was especially into Danny. Psychic characters are not easy to make real and believable, especially kids, but Danny is captivating. I also loved Dick Hallorann, who shines, pun intended, in the opening chapters. The first time I read The Shining, I was blown away. I was young and impressionable, and I never forgot how this book affected me.

There are arguments to be made that King's works are too internal to translate well to the screen, but I don't think that's true. What about Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile? (And possibly more?) I wonder if some producers tend to see the scary in King's works, and just don't look beneath the surface for what makes it work?

I initially intended to just review the movie, but I just couldn't help talking about the book first. So… on to

The movie

After my initial serious disappointment, I had never intended to watch the movie again. And then I saw a documentary called Room 237 about some of its more devoted fans. It made me want to give the movie another shot. I'm glad I did.

While the book centers on what the characters are thinking and feeling, the movie is almost completely external. The Overlook itself is the main character, and what a character it is. Nearly every shot inside the Overlook is framed in a way that reminded me of how lines are drawn to create perspective in art, with the focal point way off in the distance. We keep seeing the ceiling and light fixtures (mostly chandeliers) above, and the very strange carpets on the floor. Showing the ceilings and floors is not something filmmakers tend to do. It has the effect of making the characters look small and strange, as if they don't belong. Or as if the Hotel is swallowing them.

As fans of the movie explain in Room 237, the hotel is oddly shaped and its geography makes no sense. The long, confusing hallways are echoed by the maze, which is so immense that it seems impossible that anyone could have created it. The kitchen is also maze-like, and everything is too big; the size of the industrial cans and bottles makes Wendy look smaller. There are sets of French doors all over the small caretaker's apartment, and every book in every bookcase is tilted at an angle. There are empty chairs in nearly every shot. Jack's typewriter changes color, from white to dark gray to blue. In one scene, the pattern in the carpet actually changes. Although these are things the casual viewer might not consciously notice (and I might not have if I hadn't been primed by the documentary), we're aware of it subconsciously, and it gets our lizard brain buzzing.

One of my favorite things in this movie is Danny riding his Big Wheel through the long, strange hallways of the Overlook. It's just what a kid would probably do, but it increases the feeling that they're in this immense, bizarre place that is outside of reality.

My biggest problem with the movie is that the characters have all of the humanity and complexity of chess pieces. I suppose it was intentional. But what an unholy waste of Jack Nicholson, who is arguably one of the best actors in the world, although I'm more of a fan of his early work (Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail) before he started playing a caricature of himself. He did a good job with what he was given, but there is really no opportunity to get to know Jack Torrance, or what motivates him. Why he does what he does is almost inexplicable.

And Jack and Wendy never feel like a couple. Was Shelley Duvall miscast? Did the actors just have zero chemistry? Or was this dissonance between them what Kubrick intended, a way of showing the unresolvable tension in their marriage? Danny Lloyd as Danny made me think of Jake Lloyd as Anakin in Episode 3. Interesting coincidence with the surnames. I don't like criticizing child actors, so I'll stop there.

Dick Hallorann is a favorite character of mine in the book, and even though Scatman Crothers did a good job, I hated how Dick was treated in the movie. But I did love the strange female nudes with the huge afros that decorated his bedroom in Florida.

A few more random comments about the movie that contributed to the mood it creates:

-- In one scene, Wendy and Danny are watching television, and there is no electrical cord visible. In another, Jack, seated, is reflected in a mirror and it looks as if he has two sets of legs. (Because, of course, Jack is becoming another person.)

-- In yet another, Jack is sleeping at his desk, but he is balanced on the edge of his chair in such a way that if he had actually been sleeping, he would have fallen off.

-- We never actually see Jack do any caretaking. There is one scene with Wendy in the boiler room. The boiler room is a big deal in the book, almost nonexistent in the movie. Sigh.

-- We never see much out of the windows except for glare, which makes it seem even more that the outside world doesn't exist.

-- There is no music during many scenes. When there is sound, it is disconcerting whines and screeching, or eerie wavering vocals like the score of Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey. In fact, a lot of this movie makes me think of 2001. Which I believe is a better movie. (I should probably get around to reviewing it someday, but it's intimidating, I'll admit it.)

-- In the opening interview scene, Ullman (Barry Nelson) does some very strange things with his hands. It's like they don't belong on his body.

-- In the car, the Torrances talk about the Donner Party. Jack seems to think cannibalism is acceptable in order to survive.

-- The Torrances bring more luggage than would actually fit in the trunk of their tiny VW bug.

-- The walls of the maze are thirteen feet high. Who would do that?

-- The word "overlook" has a double meaning, of course.

-- The hotel decorations have a Native American motif, leading fans of the movie to think that Kubrick was commenting on the genocide of the American Indian.

-- In many rooms, especially the notorious Room 237 which may have been the ugliest hotel room I've ever seen in my life, colors and patterns clash. (Although maybe that was just the seventies.)

-- In the final scenes, Wendy is wearing what may be the ugliest outfit I have ever seen on a leading lady in a mainstream movie.

To conclude, I can look at the movie now and appreciate its brilliance, but it doesn't generate emotion, and I don't find it the least bit scary. For me, it's like looking at a beautiful object at a distance. The book is more of an intimate experience. But then again, books usually are.

Opinions? Comments? I've tried to avoid spoilers in this review, but feel free to talk about anything -- spoilers are permitted in the comments. (And if you haven't seen the movie or read the book, beware!)

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

[muthur9000]

A narcissist is not someone who is full of himself.  That is more properly referred to as self-centrism or egotism.  Although annoying, it does not necessarily connote a fragile personality.  A narcissist is more like a Faberge egg.  If you hit it hard enough, you discover that for all its frills and stones, it is hollow and weak.  Many talented and powerful people have narcissistic vulnerabilities, areas of weakness which can incapacitate them if circumstances are right.  But the inveterate narcissist, aware of his/her flaws on some level, centers their very being on maximizing their seeming importance so as to guard against such a defeat.  It becomes their life's mission, instead of connections with others or providing a meaningful legacy to others.  As such, from an early age, most narcissists treat others as objects and relationships as transactions.  What one can get from another is more important than a sense of meaning from the relationship itself or the quality of shared experience or learning another's viewpoint.

    It is fairly evident that Weyland is this sort of character.  What is his mission?  More life.  Specifically, more life so as to approach the abilities of the god-like Engineers.  He wishes to finally put himself above other people, without any sense of doubt.  It is just as vital that this mission be kept as secretive as possible, so as not to reveal his frailty.  Even when it is revealed to Shaw, he does not allow himself to be seen as a weary senescent, as we discussed in the last diary.  He must be the godhead of Weyland Corporation to the bitter end, not a mortal.  Of course, the Engineer lances right through that construction in an instant, literally striking down Weyland with his own works (David).

    Winnicott, who specialized in psychiatric theories of development in the prior century, posited that we all constructed a false self to interact with the world.  This filtered our true feelings, protecting us and others from the full force of our feelings and inner vulnerabilities.  The narcissist often constructed such an elaborate False Self, however, so as to be very different than the person inside.  Moreover, this False Self became so convincing/distracting that the narcissist him/herself confused it with their real emotions and motivations.  We know very little about the real Weyland.  Call this a plot error if you will, but in a 3 hour movie, all we could really know about a narcissistic antagonist is that he/she will do anything to avoid appearing vulnerable.  Nothing else about them should be apparent.  They will seem to be a focal point for their own machinations, and not much else.  Well, mission accomplished, so to speak.

    We're not really sure by the end if Weyland can separate himself from his lust for immortality.  That's all there is of him; the rest is already long dead.  The revenant King who will not surrender the throne is an old trope in mythologies from around the world, and is probably based in the shared understanding that a skilled narcissist will come to rule all around him but only be an empty robe bearing a weighty crown.  The trappings of power are carried around by a husk without concern for his subjects or connection to those around him.  Weyland sees David as his son, rather than Vickers as his daugher, partially because David is a sign of his power.  He made him.  He is, like Weyland, the corporation made flesh.  Ostensibly, although Weyland is wrong in this assumption, he thinks that David has no ambitions that he did not place there.  Narcissism can run in families partially because children are viewed as objects, and without mirroring of more nuanced relationships in early development, the children come to see this as a normal human condition.  Generations become vessels for individual recognitions and acquisition of things, rather than ongoing iterations of beliefs and thoughtful actions.  Despite Weyland's dismissal of her, and maybe because of it, Vickers has been sucked into such a trap.  She even seems to compete with David by trying to appear machine-like to the rest of the crew, getting out of cryo-sleep first and maintaining a nearly emotionless exterior.  Father prizes the mechanical child, so the biological one incorporates lifelessness as part of her False Self.

   Psychiatry has continued to ponder this personality type.  The DSM-IV-TR has a specific set of criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Any five of nine traits are consistent with a diagnosis, which must also cause problems adapting to interpersonal relationships to constitute disorder.          

          i. expects to be recognized as superior           ii. preoccupied with unlimited success, power, brilliance           iii. believes that he/she can only be understood by other high-status people           iv. requires admiration           v. has unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment           vi. takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends           vii. is unwilling to recognize needs and feelings of others           viii. often envious or believes others envy him/her           ix. shows arrogant attitudes

    Biologically speaking, low empathy has been correlated with weak activity in areas involved with the emotional aspect of pain during tasks to view others in distress or pained faces.  There is also less recruitment of cortical territory involved with self-reflection during such tasks.  This does not definitively mean that there is predestination for narcissism or related disorders of empathy, as these patterns of activity might reflect circuitry that has developed over the life of the person.  Nonetheless, some genetics might predispose towards more narcissistic vulnerability.  There is certainly a growing body of developmental research by "attachment theorists," who focus on bonds between caregiver and child, that strongly hint at an intrusive or invalidating parenting style leading to various empathic difficulties in the child as they mature.  Winnicott himself believed that as an infant grew into a toddler, optimal frustration was key towards a healthy sense of independence.  Attachment theory now generally puts forth the notion that if a growing infant is not responded to sufficiently, mistrust and vengeful interaction can become ingrained in the child.  On the other hand, continued immediate and over-encompassing response to any cry of distress, particularly as the child became mobile and more able, could lead to an inner sense of weakness coupled with the outer sense of entitlement.  

    The unhappy familial triad of Weyland, Vickers and David are differing examples of narcissistic persona, and also illustrate to some degree inter-generational transmission of the flaw.  Vickers, as we have discussed, is trying to be something she is not, a near-perfect homunculus.  She hides the lifepod from the crew, not just to prevent mutiny or her father's near-corpse, but to hide her own fears of death.  It is disguised as a luxury suite.  It is a gated community in space.  She knows in her inner core that she is not a paragon of perfection, even as she conceals it with outward protestations at being seen as inhuman.  Still, she is driven to mimic much of the coldness of her homunculus sibling, so we know this is her true aim.  And this exterior also blends together with a clearly narcissistic one, in which she arrogantly speaks down to the crew, constantly demands she be explicitly recognized in charge, and slavers for her father's death to fuel her rise to power.  In fact, she goes on the mission to verify his death and to avoid board meetings where "there was still a question as to who was in charge."  Theron does a good job of suddenly coming to life with hateful gall at having to be seen as impotent.  

    I think the more interesting subplot is David and what it reveals about the turn of the 22nd century replicant models.  If we posit that he is of the same type as Ash or Bishop, we can see a gradual simplification of the design in order to make them more safe.  Ash does not have human morality, and is swayed by his awe of the Xenomorph as a perfect consumer, but he is not as capable as David.  Bishop only appears to be more human because he is even less curious about things, and therefore doesn't wander too far off his humans' instructions.  We might imagine that at some point, Weyland-Yutani decided that a curious robot is a dangerous one, and made them more and more limited as they kept precipitating disaster.  But David is merely carrying out his larger design, to obtain knowledge, so as to be a prepared guide when they arrive at LV223.  If he expanded this quest for knowledge in a narcissistic way, this may very well have been his impetus to experiment with the biofluid, as it clearly had nothing to do with his instructions from Weyland to find an Engineer.  And since he sees the humans as just another construction, he has no reason to feel badly toward them for using them as lab rats.  He just wants more knowledge, which is what he was designed to do.  

    This stands in contrast to the biotech replicants of the Tyrell Corporation, also from the Ridley Scott oeuvre.  They were dangerous and rebellious because they had the capacity to learn how to interact, and to band together.  It reflects the difference between Tyrell and Weyland.  Both were aging and weak kings, but witness that Tyrell denies his creation more life because he readily admits he cannot.  He puts himself forward as a proud creator, but one who has not wanted to push the limits of his creative gifts beyond reason.  He will not submit his creation, Roy, to the possibility of death before his time in a quest for more life.  He is proud of Roy too, not just for what he can do on the battlefield, but for figuring out how to return to challenge his maker.  Tyrell, still certainly flawed, has fashioned homunculi that can form group dynamics for aims and possibly feel for one another.  Despite the Voight-Kampf test anticipating otherwise, the advanced models do begin to develop empathy, and not just after they are incapacitated and need help (as David does at the end of Prometheus).  In a parallel, Tyrell is much more accepting of his mortality than Weyland.

    David can also be seen as a stand-in for the corporation.  He is a creation of the founder, controls some of the employees to such a degree that some found it a plot hole, and will live on after the founder is dead.  He is a competitor to Vickers, analogous to how she will never rule over her father's kingdom as completely as he did; there will always be board members arguing with her, despite her delusions.  And he uses crew members without thinking.  Like Skynet in Cameron's mythology, he is the Unheimlich reflection of our making Corporations into entities with personhood and rights.  And what narcissists our corporations have become, as we gave them different penalties for infringing on life, liberty and property than we gave to ourselves.  We didn't allow them optimal frustration as they were birthed in the 19th Century.  So, we should not be surprised by their continued actions as entities: preoccupied with unlimited market share, expecting unreasonably favorable treatment, taking advantage of humans for their own ends, unwilling to recognize true needs (rather than wants), and through spokespeople constantly accusing us of envy.

   David does have capacity for envy, though.  He spies on dreams, first to understand but eventually to pry.  He perverts Shaw's partnership, because it is alien and provides the members of that couple with rewards he has never been granted.  Are we sure he is capable of hurt and want?  No.  However, he repeats a line from Lawrence of Arabia that might provide a clue: "The trick is not minding that it hurts."  He sees this as his advantage, that he is not going to be suspected of emotion if he keeps it hidden.  We are probably meant to believe that he has developed some capacity for injury.  Just as Tyrell's creations have been granted some of his mindset, so too has Weyland's been granted his weak inner core.  

    For much of the film, it is possible that David, more than just being a narcissist, is what Otto Kernberg termed a "malignant narcissist."  This concept is largely equivalent with the skillful sociopath that haunts the dreams of the popular imagination, a narcissist with some antisocial qualities.  The malignant narcissist does not transgress law merely for the thrill of it, and refrains from breaking codes indiscriminately.  He seeks to use and destroy in the service of a prestige-building mission.  Seen by some around him as cold or wooden, he uses this reputation to seem above injury, and thereby conceal his more vengeful tendencies; this is particularly useful when he must refrain from lashing out before a plan is brought to fruition, and must mimic the restraint that most of us have because of empathic identification with the other.  They tend to avoid legal repercussion, and they pose the greatest risk to societies, as they can lead others to act in an unempathic manner.  Their malignancy is both in terms of the quality of their character and their capacity to spread their cruel detachment to entire nations.  They can read others, but feel nothing akin to what most of us do; imaging studies show them to have even less activation of emotional empathy circuits than most narcissists.  Theirs is a poor prognosis, and pity is truly the best defense against them, as well as remaining vigilant to keep them away from the levers of power.

    David, fortunately, is still learning.  In what some viewers (Andrew Sullivan among them) saw as evidence of Grace, Shaw gives David a chance to redeem himself at the end of the film.  It's important that David is crippled at this point in time, not just for the reasons stated in the last diary (i.e., this recapitulates the survival advantage of empathy) but because he isn't much of a threat anymore.  This isn't Grace per se, so much as it would have been had he was still in command of his full powers.  Even so, David's capacity to reciprocate and warn Shaw of the oncoming Engineer shows some room for growth.  There is hope that he can change, and perhaps that his malignancy is not destiny.  Instead, he has been under the tutelage of a user (Weyland) for his entire life, and is only now coming to question whether this is the sole way to succeed.  Does this mean we should assist and pity those who mean to use us?  Within reason, this strategy cannot hurt.  Those who can be moved to change might.  Those who cannot be moved will be enraged at our lack of fear and our discussion of their weakness, and give themselves away more fully.  As a treater, it is all I can do.  I certainly do not pretend to be able to help everyone, and sometimes I have to end a treatment when manipulation to non-therapeutic gain is repeatedly presented.  That said, if I do not keep trying to identify the hurt in my fellow human beings, even when that injury is a blindness to empathy itself ... then the malignancy in the other has already won.  The "black goo" has triumphed.   

By Ptolemy  Sunday Jun 24, 2012 · 2:32 AM AUSEST  

Part I

[minttearoom]

Nick Spencer’s Captain America is Bad, but in these ways

OK  ... I made this blog so I could dump my bad opinions on it, so call me out on this if anyone needs to.

-- This isn’t something I care about too much, but I feel like I need to start off by saying that Hydra doesn’t and shouldn’t always have a 1:1 equivalent with Nazis or the political specifics of fascism. In their first appearance, they were a generic mustache-twirling, world-domineering evil enterprise. Although that’s changed because Nazi leaders were retconned in to match the WWII backgrounds of Marvel’s heroes, it’s always been story-dependent as to whether that element really mattered. Sometimes, Madame Hydra trying to take over the world was just Madame Hydra trying to take over the world so that superheroes could have fistfights. There’s a usefulness to a generic SPECTRE-type evil organization for when comics that need a villain to punch. Although it’s important for stories and readers to criticize what that evil entails, there’s a messiness that’s involved when it comes to shared universes and different tools serving different functions in different contexts. This is an issue that mostly irks me when it comes to how the conversations about Captain America are framed, and how they’re framed solely in terms of Hydra, when there’s a little more going on there; this was especially bad after Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 came out.  *HOWEVER, this is kind of irrelevant to the rest of what I want to talk about.*

-- I’m not sure if a story about an altered-reality Captain America being evil, or even being a Nazi is off-limits. I’m not a Jonathan Chait “protect malevolent free speech” type, but I do think that you might be able to tell a somewhat meaningful (and possibly respectful) story under these conditions. I understand that WWII is highly sensitive and emotional, and I also understand the situation surrounding Captain America’s creation. However, it’s not like similar stories (or story beats) haven’t been done before -- even one drawn by Jack Kirby. I hate Nick Spencer’s Captain America for a variety of reasons, but part of the reason why is that I think you might actually be able to publish a story like this, even (or especially) in these times, and have it be salient and productive and well thought-out.

-- The problem with Nick Spencer’s Captain America goes back to the beginning of his run. From the beginning, he set out to do a run that broached extremely topical political issues, but keep his comics from making too strong of a stance in any given direction, while insisting that it did have a stance. For example: since the KOBIK/Cosmic Cube plotline, he’s been paying lip service to the idea that there needs to be a discussion about the growth of the security state and what it means to create unimaginable and invasive authority and power when you don’t know who will be in control next. ... Except whenever someone does have anything to say about it,it’s usually only a couple words, or a weak sketch of their stance. You might think this is fine, as long as the conflicts that Spencer brings up are carried through the plot to create meaning. After all, you don’t want to buy comics just to see talking heads debate politics. However, this doesn’t carry through for a few reasons!

-- The first way, most commonly seen in Sam Wilson, is that he’ll bring in some way for the critical/left-leaning position to be criticized. Though this is mostly like to preserve some sort of apolitical company line, it ultimately amounts to centrism, which is a political stance in and of itself, defined by the extremes of political climate in which you’re speaking. You see it first with Rick Jones -- he was a whistleblower hacktivist in the early issues of Captain America: Sam Wilson. The characters in Spencer’s book seem sympathetic to him when he gets caught, but Rick did BREAK THE LAW :( so his rightful course of action is to join SHIELD to help the security state keep on doing everything he despised! 

Then came the infamous issue where a Tomi Lahren-type character was inciting hate against a specific undocumented teen -- the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres. Joaquin, understandably, was about to go give her a piece of his mind, but he gets derailed by the appearance of a group of teens who obviously serve as an in-universe warning of the dangers of what he was about to do. These teens, the new Bombshells, not only spouts awkward online academia-derived lingo about safe spaces and trigger warnings but they also advocate violence against racists! They come and fight Falcon and Rage as if to, say “Look out! Don’t become like them!” 

You see it when Sam goes to stop Rage from getting in a confrontation with the AmeriCops (Spencer’s convenient robotic representations of racist police brutality). There’s no real strong reason for Rage to have not gotten into a confrontation, as the AmeriCops were ridiculously over-the-cop brutal and terrible, except for concerns about optics and (this is a recurring theme which obviously clashes with some of the issues Spencer wants to bring up) respect for authority.

You also see it when the only true far-left voice in the entire run, Flag Smasher, is the only the only one to fully articulate his issues with corporate influence over politics, the security state, and the no-fly list, and ends up being not only a violent terrorist assassin, but also (amazingly) a plant by Steve Rogers. I can’t begin to say how ridiculous that was.

-- The other way that Spencer undermines the political claims in his run is in how the villains are made overly sympathetic. So much of Captain America: Steve Rogers is about the ideological purity and clarity in Steve’s heart. He is destined to lead Hydra because he is still a great man in the way that Dr. Erskine recognized. (This bears out in the most disgusting of ways in the FCBD issue of Secret Empire, where Steve is still worthy to lift Mjolnir.) 

Steve is part of a faction of Hydra lead by some horrorterror old god/sweet old lady named Elisa who becomes Steve’s doting mother figure. She gets in close with his mother, and then dotes on Steve day and night about how he’s good and pure and destined for greatness -- and there isn’t much to undercut this as fascist BS. Elisa goes on and on, essentially dogwhistling what might as well be soliloquy about Steve’s Aryan purity and good heart, yet she never really gets a strong villain moment to underscore the idea that what she’s saying is wrong. The one truly evil thing she she was supposed to have (kill his mother offpanel) apparently never happened! She appears unharmed in later issues of CA: Steve Rogers.

-- This links into the other major problem in Spencer’s run: his depiction of Hydra. From the get-go, he plays up Hydra as not only a fascist neo-nazi organization, but specifically one that parallels modern ethnonationalist movements, all being propagated by the Red Skull. He further links Hydra to literal European nationalist militant movements by having Hydra take over Sokovia (#moviesynergy). Linking back to what I talked about at the beginning, this is all fine, so far; Spencer is making the specific choice in this story to use Hydra as an analogy for Nazism and its connection to the modern day, and this is a story that is obviously just as much about the Red Skull. EXCEPT, over the course of Spencer’s flashbacks to Steve’s altered past, we see that Steve is a member of a faction of Hydra that has always opposed not just the Red Skull, but Hydra joining the Nazis in general!

-- It’s an insanely weird choice to decode: does Spencer want to tell a story about Steve Rogers being allied with the Nazis ... or not? He certainly shows him helping the Nazis in WWII. What’s the point of saying he was secretly opposed to them and the Red Skull this whole time? What is he trying to do with Hydra?

-- For that matter, how much less fascist is Steve supposed to be? He rails out against Red Skull’s cheap inflammatory tactics, yet by the time his Secret Empire is set up, he’s already created an authoritarian state that rounds up Inhumans and puts them into camps! CAMPS!

-- There’s a lot of other, little, infinitely frustrating things. The FCBD issue explained that Wanda joining the HYDRA-vengers probably wasn’t of her own will, but having the Romani girl on the Nazi team is still unsettling, especially if they don’t end up giving her any space to react to it. Spencer’s writing is way lacking in nuance -- whereas Ales Kot gave a thoughtful look at the paranoia that must feed the drive to do crazier and crazier things in the name of security when he wrote Maria Hill in Secret Avengers, Spencer’s Maria Hill shrugs off each evil thing she does in the name of the state with a joke and a condescending comment. Spencer sucks at writing spies and spy stuff in general (there’s no reason he should have gotten two tries at Secret Avengers!), so seeing him try to handle SHIELD in general in the context of this run has been annoying. Also, ... why can Steve lift Mjolnir WHEN HE JUST HELPED KILL BUCKY, jfc.

-- Again, this is partially upsetting because some parts of this aren’t terrible. Sam Wilson is the most effortlessly diverse Captain America book ever, with somewhat decent stories about things like police brutality and immigration when they aren’t being undercut by other elements Spencer sticks in to ~balance things out. Seeing the Champions fight HYDRA in Secret Empire is also pretty unobjectionable. It’s the context and the handling that’s made this all atrocious -- even the publicity of blowing this Nazism thing up to a huge event is pretty dubious.

[lovingtimetravelexpert-blog1]

The purity of White seems to be Red

A/N: Here it is: The full chapter of my Shimayu fanfiction.^^

"One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure." - Friedrich Nietsche.

Chapter 1

His smile. She remembered his smile, when she got struck down yet again. That's wonderful. If you're able to obtain the power to realize your will, that'll mean not one of the people by your side will die.

As her body flew through the air, she thought of him. Why was it that she always pictured him when in greatest desperation?

Her body slammed into the ground, all air left her lung at the impact. A violent pain run from her spine throughout her body. Was she really that useless? Fighting, she hated it. She hated to worry about her friends all the time. She wasn't going to give up now. She needed to get stronger. To protect her friends, to help them. She hated fighting, that's right, but what she hated more was helplessly watching her friends get hurt.

With tears in her eyes she got up, her muscles quivering in exertion. It might be even more difficult than to annihilate the enemy.

Her sight was blurry as she took in the raging crowd of impurities and exorcists of today's battle. This was the biggest fight she had attended since she'd been on the island so far and it was a fierce. From where she stood she could see the forth and back of the advantage on both sides. Impurities and exorcists fell one after another.

Most exorcists falling weren't dead but still unable to fight any longer. Causalities. That's what they are called here on Tsuchikado island. Mayura couldn't except that. For most of the fight she had healed injured exorcists or sealed them behind a spell barrier, draining most of her spell power. While kneeling over another injured an impurity caught her in surprise and fighting it she had lost the upper hand but managed to drive it back. She sensed it. It was still lurking for her.

After getting a quick overview of the battlefield, she turned to the impurity. From what she had learned so far she knew if she didn't take care of it now, it would soon become a Basara - an impurity in human form. Her last battle with a S rank Basara, Higano had shown her, that they should be stopped before that. An insane, inhuman giggle, broke her out of her line of thought. "Kuuukuukuuu, you're giving up already?"

Her determination grew. She wouldn't give up, she had to become stronger. She didn't want to be weak. She was chosen an Heavenly Commander for crying out loud. Byakko lend her its strength to protect. Protect was what she was going to do. Bringing the talisman for her special enchantment out, she chanted the formula conjuring her weapons, just as the impurity rose his arm for another attack. In the end, isn't the only person bringing you down, you yourself..?!

Her eyes. He sometimes wondered about them when he had time to think. Those eyes were always reflecting so much emotions. From adoration to hope, from anger to despair. It was a wonder in itself considering who her father was. And then she had surprised him when she had looked at him with determination. He had tried to shake it off, tried to get rid of the feeling of sympathy. It was neither needed nor wished for and an unreliability in battle. A distraction from his higher course. But then she reminded him of his reason to fight. In that moment had thought back to the time when he was training under Seigen-san. To become strong. To be strong enough so his sister will survive. The reason I want to become strong, is to protect the people before me who are hurt.

It had struck him and he couldn't help but was willing into training her. At that moment she had moved something in him. While training she had been insecure although she was a fast learner. Again memories of his own insecurities came back to him. He still had moments of insecurity but tried to keep them to himself. These feelings didn't belong on the battlefield and while he fought he was nothing but confident. He had learned to be and thought back then how she might be able to do so, too.

She had utterly amazed him, when she revealed after the fight with Higano and Hijirimaru. that Byakko chose her. After the surprise ebbed away he came to understood why Seigen-san gave her the talisman before they traveled to Megano. Because she cared the most about people, it was no wonder the mother of love would lend her her strength.

He was walking through the headquarters aiming for his meeting with Arima-san as he considered their next training session. As Heavenly Commanders they were both paired up and he was responsible for her training as excorsist and Heavenly Commander. Although he was used to act and fight alone, to his own surprise he didn't mind. What was it about her he acted so out of character?

Ugh, he hated it when he brooded to much about the same thing for too long. He shouldn't care about his feeling towards her. He had responsibilities that shouldn't be ignored and his first and only priority. What was it about her that made him care? She was Seigen-san's daughter but never had he told Shimon to look after her.

"Oi! Shimon-kun!"

Shimon was startled for not noticing the head of the exorcists group, Tsuchimikado Arima, sooner. "Arima-san?"

Stopping to wave his hand in greeting – they were only a few steps apart but who cares, Arima's cheerful expression turned grave. "I know we had a meeting about Otomi-san's development but however I fear, the discussion has to be post-poned. The mission on the third layer (1) turned out very harshly. You should back Otomi-san up."

A sudden fear rolled through him. Controlling his emotions, he tried his best to simply nod. "Hai, Arima-san." Turning around, he sprinted of to the battlefield. On his way, it occurred to him, that he didn't say proper words of parting to Arima-san.

Blindly slashing down on the enemy, Mayura tried her best to keep focus. She was totally exhausted and at the limit of loosing consciousness but the need to save as many people as possible kept her going. The exorcist were in advantage now. The mass of impurities was cut down to a minimum. Yet, there weren't many exorcists who were still able to fight.

Exorcising had been the most difficult task, she had faced on the isle. Now she was like a tigress that protected her puppies, raging dangerously through the foe's line.

Just when she was launching an attack on an impurity, her body was suddenly frozen. She was totally depleted having used the maximum of her spell power. Her sight became foggy and a wave of nausea broke down upon her. This was it, this was the end. Just as she felt herself, loose her stand, the impurity emerged into her field of sight. When she closed her eyes, she saw his smile again. 'I'm sorry, Shimon', she thought as the world grew black around her. A last smile grazed her face as she hit the ground.

'Why? Why is it so dark in here?'

A familiar face suddenly appeared. 'Otosaan, did I put shame on you?'

Faces after faces followed. Mother, grandfather, Rokuro, Adashino-san, Shimon... Where am I?

As the last face dissolved, an inhuman, an alarmingly familiar voice hissed incoherent words and the darkness trembled in its mischief.

After what seemed an eternity of this sheer a horror a small light appeared fluttering around as a bubble. The evil voice grew quiet as the light began to spread. And then there was warmth and another familiar but welcome and soothing voice. The darkness was swallowed in the light.

Opening her eyes, she was blinded by light. She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned for the sudden pounding pain in her head.

"Finally, you're awake." That voice, it belonged to him, didn't it?

Carefully Mayura opened her eyes again and saw Shimon sitting next to her with his arms crossed. He wore – like most of the time – an indifferent expression.

She began to notice her surroundings now. While she layed on a bed, Shimon sat in a chair next to her. The beeping of a machine was the only sound in the room. So they were in the hospital. Trying to sit up her body shivering in pain. Afraid she looked at Shimon.

His gaze slightly hardened and he stared at her in reproach. "You have used all your spell power to a point where you were on the verge of death. The miasma was flooding your body system. It is normal that you aren't able to move your muscles correctly after one day of sleep."

Feeling ashamed, she bowed her head and frowned. "I'm sorry."

Shimon sighed and turned his head away. "But other than that, you did save many lives and exorcised a large number of impurities so the line is now kept by us."

She lifted her head as she suddenly felt easier on the heart. She smiled at the boy across her. "Then I'm glad."

"Although your spell power was mostly drained because you still can't control your power like you should at this point."

Really? He always had to back up a compliment with an insult. Still she was glad, he acknowledged her for what she did. So she decided to let the issue drop and smiled at him which he commented with a rise of his eyebrow. "How long do I have to rest?"

"At least until tomorrow, you're lucky that you seem to have a fast rate of regeneration. The doctor said, you were unlikely to wake up for three days."

"Oh, well, at least there is something that I am good at." She beamed at him.

He returned her smile with a small one of his own before he put on his stern face again and rose from his seat breaking eye contact. "Anyway, I should leave you to rest so that I can pick you up tomorrow and bring you to your estate."

She blushed as she thought about dates where the boy brings the girl home. "Why would you do that?"

With his back turned to her, he told her: "Orders by Arima-san." When he reached the door, he turned his head slightly to the right. "I see you tomorrow."

He didn't see the sadness in the smile that Mayura wore.

The door fell into its hinges. Shimon sighed. When he'd arrived at the battlefield, Mayura had lost consciousness and an impurity was leaning over her. Shimon had just been in time to save her. Afterwards he learned that she had put up a hell of a fight, saving many lives and exorcising a lot of impurities. Some exorcist even grinned at Shimon and said the new Heavenly Commander was a nice addition to the other eleven. Well, she was different but Shimon did not like how she was totally ignorant of her own health and safety. It bothered him to no end.

"Now, now, it is not nice to lie to a girl, Shimon-kun." Arima-san leaned at the wall next to the door, yet again startling Shimon with his sudden appearance.

Shimon sighed again turning to the head of the exorcists. "Arima-san, what brings you here? Can I help you?" Arima's gaze felt like an examination.

"Hmmm... Looks like somebody got out of the wrong side of bed. I just wanted to check on the patient but I see that she is already taken care of." Arima shrugged his shoulders with an easy grin on his lips.

Shimon looked away not being able to bear the scrutinizing gaze any longer. He kept his voice low and controlled. "It's not what you think. I know my responsibilities as Heavenly Commander."

Arima-san raised an eyebrow, his smile never leaving his face. "It's not that what I am worried about." He suddenly slid close to Shimon, shielding his next words with a hand in front of his face. "Actually, it is quite important that the families pass on their heritage. As it is that Otomi-san is the soon to be head of the Amawaka-Clan and therefore at some point of time she is expected to procure an heir. You might have good chances being a member of a side branch of one of the most prominent families."

Shimon felt heat rising. He willed the images that plopped up to disappear. Him and Otomi dating, him and Otomi married, him and Otomi having a child. Him and Mayura in a passionate embrace... Crap! Gulping he pushed with all of his willpower the picture out of his head. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. Also he needed to be more careful, after all this could be another step in Tsuchimikado Arima-san's big scheme. Since his sister had been on the verge of death in his last battle with the Twin Exorsists, his awarness for Arima-san's shady behavior had grown.

Arima seemed to have waited for Shimon to end his inner conflict. Now he looked way more serious. "Anyhow, what I wanted to discuss is Otomi-san's well-being"

Shimon felt a cold shudder in his inner core as he waited for Arima-san's explanation.

"Did you know that she is the only case a Kegare ochi (2) was reverted?"

A/N: I’ve posted four chapters on fanfiction.net. I am constantly doing corrections but I fear that there are still grammar mistakes. I’ll upload the second chapter after I reread it. Read and review and never forget: Shimayu is life!

(1) I'm not quite sure of the height system in Megano on the isle yet. To be on the save side, I figured I'll take the third easiest level as reference where the battle occured.

(2) I'll use the japanese word which means "fallen into becoming an impurity" because the English translations which are used in the anime and manga, "Kegare Corruption" and "Fallen Impurity", aren't conveying the meaning I need.

[gaad]

"When contemplating the Notre-Dame cathedral, one had better consider how its compares with other cathedrals and sacral buildings rather than begin by visualizing it as an accretion of mineral solids."(1) One also rarely judges the construction and constitution of it but rather contemplate it, astonished, without grasping the motive, as one could freeze in front of a monster. This accretion of mineral solids who stands in front of us, and those disseminated in Paris, are our rivals today. And we shall overpass them by our overwhelming greatest attention. By listening to you, you will listen to us. It is time for a new humanism. Time to set a place, a forum able to stage the powers of today. Time to call up the ancient, dispose them, squeez them, twist them to reassess todays world. We have lost the meaning of natural proportions, let us look at godly excess. Monotheic religion castrated our apprehension of the world, seeing things either good or bad. Even the Opera Garnier which claims to be an ecclectic, never-ending spectacle appears flat in its complicated oppulence. Sophisticated complexity is what we are longing to. The polytheic family encompasses the world and beyond, spinning around our prosaic flatland. A figure founded on intricated concepts is a powerfull constellation naviguating above polysemic ambiguities.  As the grand daughter of the Philantropist eponym Elisabeth Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch feels the will to engage her vision in the public debat. Since her childhood she was confronted to a rigourous, competitive, mostly manly world. Inspired by her grandmother she cultivated a spiritual friendship with greek feminin characters. Grew up with them. Now her interest does not lie in presenting her various personal relations with them but to stage them. (...)(A)dvertising, news, publicity, periodical literature. This is Elisabeth's inherited background. (...) They work to a single end: to give the stamp of authenticity and value to the style of life that emanates from the metropolis.(...) (T)hey create a picture of a unified, homogeneous, completely standardized population that bears, in fact, no relation to the actual regional sub stratum—although in the course of time it partly succeeds in producing the thing it has imagined. Take Paris for example: (...) the Champs Elysées, become the goals of vulgar ambition (and a)dvertisement becomes the “spiritual power” of this new regime.(2) Now we shall refute that. "This is the moment when the masterpieces of ancient sculpture are about to appear in all their glory in front of the eyes of France (...)  (they) have chosen to live amongst the French, and are to be adored in their living images. Ah! Who would be able to step into the temple of these divinities without saying to himself: these masterpieces, these gods had ceased to be gods for us; the cult of Antiquity had been forgotten; who would believe it?(...); it is Vien, it is David, who then made themselves into their apostles and ministers; it is through them that this great revolution, which has at least given us the hope of creating gods ourselves, has taken place in the arts."(3) So it appears appropriate also for us, architects, to call up and refer to past apostles of our art. Vitruve, Alberti, the one who in Momus places "the extended climax (...) in an urban theater where the gods act as their own effigies(, the one who) repeatedly uses the word persona (“mask” or “personality'') to underline the false, theatrical behavior of his characters."(4) Alberti will embody our urban theatre, Elisabeth's friends, our Personas. The story will therefore intentionally follow the unfaithfull path. And those masks will "assure(...) the erection, the construction of the (new) face (of Elisabeth), the fascialization of the head and the body: the mask(s) (are) now the face itself, the abstraction or operation of the face. The inhumanity of the face."(5) So be it. Let them be the masked actors of a twisted tragedy, trapped in their performance, speculating above our heads, fertilizing our ground. A spectacle of a new kind. Let them play, individually, together, contradict each other, themselves. Let them work as technologies, systems, embedded in concepts and rituals.

Three personas. Pandora, Circe, Metis. Not the ones we usually know. Their Alter Ego. The ones who stand up,do not apologize. This are Elisabeth's Friends. Pandora has herited a box, a jarre which contains unspeakable truth (she knows now how to sort things, pick up elements, unleash others). Circe masters metamorphosis by exploring with drugs and potions (she learned to articulate her recipes and to play with the right parameters) and Metis is renowned for his wiseness and cunning, making problems no longer valid. As a constellation, they are powerfull. As a unity, they can deal with the plenty, transform it. As an unfaithfull story, it accesses the realm of discussion. As statuses, they need a sophisticated territory from which to operate, a palace. Three Faces where "(i)t is not the individuality of (each) face that counts but the efficacy of the ciphering it makes possible, and in what cases it makes it possible.(...) The face is a surface, (...) the face is a map." (5)

"For each genre, now, the problem will be to decide whether its audience is such as to demand utility or delight or both, and what brand of either of these will be acceptable to it."(6)  Time to summon Alberti and Vitruve. But keep in mind : "The mathematics that is needed here is of a new brand."(7)  Their concept and ideas of proportions being a fertile ground from which we should elevate. If we follow them, we can see in the theatre typology a kind of mythical module. Take the theatre, elongate the arms along parallel lines and you have a circus, or duplicate it, set them in a circle and you have the amphitheatre. As such, they have most of their elements in common. Or as Alberti likes to say: "if I am not mistaken, (they) are totally composed of either stairways or, more especially, windows and doors."(8) Of course not. But we got the idea. Therefore Elizabeth's palace will be a theater, a circus and a amphitheater, simultaneously, as the temple of our time, able to adapt to change, suitable to glorify the unknown, a place which could embody the spectacle. The Palace of Spectacle. Our focus will lay on the didactic articulation of the elements in Alberti's treatise through the prisma of the theatre and how it can possibly be translated into contemporary logic. Keeping in mind that if "the whole matter of building is composed of lineaments and structure."(8) Alberti would be the first and our Personas the latter. So after we have chosen the locality and the area ,we should proceed to the "compartition (which) divides up the whole building into the parts by which it is articulated."(8) In our case: our three figures, one third for each, with their own structured language, tied together in a balancing whole "(j)ust as in music, where deep voices answer high ones, and intermediate ones are pitched between them, so they ring out in harmony." "We need to consider, therefore, which are the primary parts of the structure, their order, and the lines of which they are composed."(8) For this we should follow the generic category of Alberti which are walls, openings and roofs. The first will mostly be composed of "a row of columns (which) is nothing other than a wall that has been pierced in several places (...). For the second "The spaces between the columns should certainly be considered among the most important of openings"(8) encompassing doors and windows, maybe also inbetween categories. The third one, the roof, is in the case of the theatre a temporary element, which should provide the open area shelter from sun and rain. We can already foreshadow how a glass ceiling today could provide openness and protection. As we go further in Alberti's treatise, the categories receive subcategories and links between them are beginning to appear. "anything else that acts as a column and supports the trusses and roof arches (...) come under the description of bones. Also included in the bones are the coverings to the openings, that is, the beams, whether straight or arched: for I call an arch nothing but a curved beam, and what is a beam but a column laid crossways?"(8) Here we note the importance of the column (also in horizontal dimension). "The zone stretching between these primary parts is referred to appropriately as "paneling" (consisting) of two components, which (..) are common to the whole wall: the skin and the infill. There are two types of skin, the inner and the outer."(8)  Everything becomes clear. With this hierachy we almost feel the hardness of some elements, the softness of others and the possibilty to rreinterpret the layering and opacity of them. Now the connecting elements: the cornice which "binds the wall tightly together(, ...) binds the work (...) and in addition acts as a roof to the wall below,"(8) the roof which has almost the same categories and hierachies as the wall: "(...) the bones, muscles, infill paneling, skin, and crust" and "the (...) portico (which) facade and colonnade (...) do not receive light from outside (...) but face (...) toward the central area of the theater (preventing) sound from escaping."(8) Last but not least, the steps as the motive of the building. They shall throne on the structure for what they are, accretions of mineral solids. Otherwise, the material used will be mostly steel as we find it most suitable to depict the constituion of the building. Pandora, Circe and Metis "(...) (a)re living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities."(9) They shall express themselves following the articulation in each elements with different rythms, forms, proportions and nods.

1) D. Corfield, Towards a Philosophy of Real Mathematics 2) Mumford, The Culture of Cities 3) Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 4) Alberti, Momus (Preface) 5) Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus 6) Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance 1 7) Ayache, The Blank Swan 8) Alberti, On the Art of Building in ten Books 9) Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology