#and there was that really bizarre thing he had with Lorraine who was a lot like him but that doesn't count | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

angelliev · 4 years ago

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Lover Boy - JJ Maybank x OC - Part Five - Heaven is with You

Word Count: 3.4K

Summary: It’s the masquerade ball. Secrets are spilled. Aria will share a passionate moment with JJ and a heartbreaking one with someone else. Some people will put on a mask to hide their lies, while others with take theirs off to show their true self.

Warnings: Smut, angst, cursing, alcohol/drugs, mention of abuse and pregnancy.

A/N: Sorry I didn’t post yesterday guys! I was visiting family for the weekend. I hope you enjoy reading this one. I was definitely having difficulty writing because not only was it hard to decide what I wanted to do with the story, but I was also trying not to cry while writing this one. I hope you enjoy! (Not my GIF. credits to the owner. I don’t own the show or any of the characters.)

Lover Boy Series Masterlist

The hot sun beams down on me as I stay afloat in the pool. I am forever grateful for air conditioning. I don’t know how people do it. I’d melt away in the heat. I’m sitting by the edge soaking in the coolness of the water. I attempt to relax while soaking in the sun, trying to tan a little bit.

My grandmother Lorraine, comes outside. “Aria, what are you still doing in the pool? Come dry off and get ready.” She hands me a towel. “Where are we going?” I asked. “We’re going out for brunch, then to the spa and the tailor to pick up your dress. Now get out.” She demands. Lorraine Prescott is a lot like my father. Demanding and manipulative. Always getting what she wants.

“Thank you, but I think I’ll have to pass, I’m not going this year.” I decline. “No, you’re going. It’s the masquerade ball, you’ve gone every year and now you’re going this year, end of story.” She protests. “They do it every year and it’s not going to make a difference if I’m not there.” “Yes, it will. Your father is a very important guest, making you a very important guest, and it would be insulting for you not to go.” She argued. “I’m not going.” I still protest.

“Aria, get out the god damn pool you’re going! You’re such a fucking brat! Is it too much to ask for you to be a good daughter for once?” My father finally snaps and throws a plate on the ground, in result shattering it everywhere. I huff and pull myself out of the water. I couldn’t even look him in the eye without any trace of hatred in my own. He can just be so horrible sometimes. “Was that really necessary Claude?” My mom comes out very annoyed and angry which is very rare. I could see the guilt on my father’s face when he realized what he had said and done. “Aria, I’m sorry I didn’t mean any of that. I overreacted.” He apologized, but I didn’t care. “Your apology means nothing to me.” I spat and stomped away.

The whole day out was a drag. Lorraine was the phone the whole time and Jennifer was talking nonstop about her conceited self. She was mostly bragging about her perfect boyfriend Rafe Cameron. Lorraine is very fond of the Camerons, so it pleased her to know that her lovely granddaughter was dating someone of high class. When I get home and shower, I fling myself on the bed not ready for the night. My laptop starts to ring, alerting me that someone wants to FaceTime. I was more than happy to see my beloved’s face when I answered. JJ didn’t bother to wear a shirt as per usual, so I had to face the camera away from the door to make sure his face wouldn’t be seen if someone decided to barge in.

We talked about the usual stuff for a while. “God, I miss you so much babygirl.” His eyes turn dark as he eyed the silk robe hugging my body. The things I’d do to have him over he right now. “Me too lover boy. It’s a shame. I had a special surprise for you. I guess I’ll have to wait till next time.” I tease. “Oh yeah? What’s next time?” He asked. “My parents are flying to Las Vegas for a convention. My sister and her friends are taking a girls trip to Boston. So,” I begin to undo my robe, exposing my naked skin to him, making him smile and bite his lip. “We’ll have the place to ourselves. We can be as loud as we want.” “Mm, babygirl you’ve got me hard just thinking about the things I’m gonna do to you.” “I just can’t wait.” I can practically see the wheels turning in his head.

“Touch yourself for me babygirl.” He said with such lustful eyes. I couldn’t help but smile as I lay down and begin to rub figure eights on my clit. I then insert two fingers, letting them curl and thrust within me, chasing a high only JJ could give me. When I glance at the screen, his hand is running up and down his thick shaft. “Baby, I want you inside me so bad.” I cry. “Soon babygirl. Just imagine it’s my fingers curling inside you right now.” I let my mind race to the thought of him fingering me. God, I loved how his lengthy finger were always able to reach that sweet spot inside me. I just want to be engulfed in him. I just want him to kiss me with his undying passion and love for me. I just want to make love with him till I die. I just want him. Just as I’m about to bring myself to orgasm, a knock erupts on my locked door, the handle begins to jiggle.

“Why is this door locked? You know the rules!” Yelled my father. I let out an annoyed sigh before screaming into the pillow, sexually frustrated. “I’m getting dressed! Just give me a second!” I yell. “I got to go baby. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” I quickly shut the laptop and wrap my naked self in the silky robe. When I open the door, my father seems annoyed. “Why the hell aren’t you dressed?”

“I just got out of the shower and did my hair and makeup.” I say. Before my father could scold me anymore, my mother comes to my rescue. “Honey, I got this.” She says shooing him away and closing the door. “I can’t wait to see you all dressed up!” She’s referring to my spaghetti strap rose gold dress and matching color mask. I was a little astonished with the whole outfit. Normally, I don’t enjoy getting all dressed for events like these, but I sort of fell in love with this dress. I guess it sort of reminded me of the sundress I wore the night I lost my virginity to JJ.

“You look so beautiful sweetheart!” My mother gushed as she gazed at my appearance, kissing the top of my head. She has always been so sweet and kind to me. She’s always played with me as a child. Always encouraged me to pursue my dreams. Always accepted me for who I am. She has always had a warm heart and a kind soul. I wish my father was a lot more like my mom. “Thank you, mom. I love you.” I hold her hand. “I love you too, sweetheart. Now let’s go. You look like an absolute princess.” She compliments as she guides me out of the room.

Before I head downstairs, I head into one of the guest bathrooms, looking for a hand lotion. Without any luck, I open up the cabinet under the sink, and am still not having any luck as I’m rummaging around. Just as I’m about to ditch the idea, I found something much more interesting. My hand grips the Ziplock bag. I was taken by surprise as I scanned its contents. One positive pregnancy test and an ultrasound picture. I didn’t hesitate to take it out to examine. The fetus is tiny, so it couldn’t be that old. When I looked up at the patient’s name, my eyes nearly popped out of my sockets. Jennifer Prescott. I had to blink a few times to make sure it was real, thinking that the name would change, but it obviously didn’t.

“Aria come on!” Yells Lorraine. “Coming!” I frantically shove the evidence to the back of the cabinet before running downstairs, nearly face planting. “You okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” Lorraine said. I just simply stared at Jennifer’s belly with wide eyes, still in shock. She just gives me the weirdest look as my eyes continued to stay glued to her stomach. “I’m fine. Just kind of spaced out.” I lied, finally getting a hold of myself. I sat uncomfortably in the car the whole way there. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My picture-perfect sister pregnant? With Rafe Cameron’s baby? Are you shitting me? I didn’t have time to be bored at the masquerade. I just stood there like a fucking statue, earning a few bizarre looks from guests.

“Can you at least look like you’re having fun?” Asked Lorraine. “What?” I asked cluelessly, still gazing at Jennifer and Rafe. Does he know? Does anyone know? She just lets out a frustrated sigh. My father and a stranger approaches us. “Hello, I’d let to introduce you ladies to Francis Kline. Francis, this is my mother, Lorraine Prescott.” They two exchange handshakes as I sip awkwardly on my sparkling cider lost in my own thoughts. “And this is my youngest daughter, Aria Prescott.” I didn’t even hear my name or notice the hand extending in front of me, until my dear grandmother stomps on my foot. “Oh, hi. Nice to meet you.” I say quickly before sipping again. “Likewise. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Instead of shaking my hand, he lifts it up to his lips before planting a kiss. This caught my attention making me choke on my drink, and earning a glare from both my father and grandmother. I quickly snatch my hand away from him.

“Are you alright miss? Is something wrong with the drink? I’ll have it taken care of right away.” He tries to take the glass from my grasp. “No! I mean no thank you.” The three are staring me down, making me nervous. “I have to pee. Like really bad. Like peegasm bad. Excuse me.” I say very quickly and high with a charming attitude before walking away with speed. On my way to the bathroom, I grab a bottle of champagne. After ten minutes of searching the empty halls, I still can’t find one fucking bathroom.

Before I can turn the corner, a hand clasps over my mouth and pulls me into a dark space. I let out a voiceless scream and start flailing. “Babe it’s me! JJ!” I recognize the voice and stop flailing. The light turns on giving my eyes no time to adjust. “You scared the shit out of me!” I slap his shoulder and take off my mask. He laughs. “I can see that. What’s with the champagne?” “Oh, I was about to get wasted. Want to join?” I ask popping it open and making a mess. “You had me at wasted.” The two of chuckle. “So, what brings you here Mr. Maybank?” I asked with a horrible British accent. “I couldn’t help but notice my lovely girlfriend walking alone. Thought I keep her company. Plus, I missed her so much.” He mocks my funny accent. “Well, why don’t you give this lovely girlfriend a kiss?” He just chuckles before pulling me close and laying one on me.

“By the way, who’s room is this?” I asked after pulling away. “Rafe Cameron’s. Which reminds me,” He answers with a devilish smirk and leads me to the balcony. I am introduced to a beautiful scene I thought you’d only see in movies. Candles are lit, the sofa is covered in rose petals soft jazz plays in the background, and there’s a beautiful view of the ocean.

“Are you trying to seduce me Mr. Maybank?” I ask, still in trance. “Perhaps, is it working Ms. Prescott?” He lays kisses on my neck which I expand, giving him more access. “Yes.” I sigh and finally find his lips in a passionate and loving kiss. His tongue lips my bottom lip, and I gladly let it slip into my mouth. God, I could kiss him forever.

He pulls away to rip off his clothes. I do the same, kicking off my pesky heels and long dress. My body shivers when a brisk breeze attacks my skin leaving goosebumps, but I don’t care, because I know things about to warm up soon.

A moan escapes my mouth when his bare skin touches mine as we lay on the large outdoor sofa. “I still can’t believe your mine.” He says. “Always have been. Baby, I was made for you.” I declare. This makes him smirk as he removes my panties leaving me completely naked. Instead of immediately plunging in, his mouth attaches to my breast, his tongue swirling around my bud. His hand finds my wet core. “You’re so wet babygirl. Were you as hot and bothered as I was?” He asked looking up at me. “Yes. Baby I want you so bad.” I begin to ramble. “What do you want babygirl?” “I want you inside me! I want you to fuck me till I can’t walk! Please, I want you so bad it hurts!” God, I sound so desperate, but I don’t care. He’s the only person in this world I’d get down on my knees and beg for.

“Don’t worry babygirl. Daddy’s going to make you feel all better.” That name was always a turn on for me, always making me more excited if that was even possible. He teases my drenched pussy with his tip as he watching me writhe under him. “Daddy please. Please fuck me.” I plead once more. He smirks. “That’s a good girl.” A blissful sigh escapes from both of us as he enters me, the two of us finally connected, not an inch of him is left exposed. He stays still for a few seconds, enjoying the silky warmth of my walls that hugs his thick dick so tight. “God, you’re going to be the death of me babygirl.” He says before pulling out, only to shove himself back in.

We don’t even bother to hold back our moans. I just lay back and let the pleasure engulf my every thought. Time is irrelevant as he continues to slam into me, not holding me back, missing the comforting feeling of me being around him. My eyes were glued to the starry night sky above. I can’t help but think how erotic all of this is, as my boyfriend fucks me under the stars. I completely let go as the two of us drown ourselves in this euphoric warmth, until we both fall into pure bliss. I could have sworn I could saw stars in his ocean eyes when I gazed into them. It was then when I realized that I wasn’t lost in the starry sky, I was lost in his blue eyes.

We lay there together listening the wave as JJ smokes his weed. The two of us remain silent as we simply watch the sky. “Do you ever wonder what’s up there?” JJ asked out of the blue. “Where?” His words made no sense to me. “Heaven. What do you think is up there?” I give it some thought before answering. “You.” I answer. His brows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean.” “I mean that if I were to go to heaven, I’d see you. There’s no such thing as heaven if you aren’t there with me.” When I glance over at him, I could’ve sworn I seen tears welling up in his eyes. “Do you mean that?” He questions. “Every word.” He places a soft kiss on my lips. “Aria, I” He’s interrupted by the sound of a door slamming shut. I turn to see who the intruder was.

There stands Jennifer with a face painted in shock. My heart stops for a moment before dropping to my stomach. I quickly cover my naked self with the blanket and quickly grab my dress. “I should’ve known you were hooking up with him, after all you’d open up those legs to anyone, you fucking pogue slut.” She spat and turned to walk away. “Wait!” I ran in front her, the straps on my dress falling, as I blocked the exit. “What are you doing?” I ask desperate for an answer. “To tell mom and dad. I’m curious as to what he would say when I tell him that his youngest daughter is fucking some pogue. JJ Maybank of all people.” Fear started to kick in. What I said next was unplanned. “And I wonder how he’s going to react when he finds out about your pregnancy.” JJ, Jennifer and I all freeze when the threat slipped from my mouth

I can practically see the panic wash over her body as it shakes. “And don’t try to lie to me. I found the test and ultrasound photo. I know all about it, and I won’t hesitate to tell dad.” “Just wait!” She shouts, desperation laced in her voice. “Don’t tell dad or Rafe. At least not now. Please, I’m begging you. They’d kill me.” So Rafe doesn’t know. “You haven’t told Rafe?” I asked astonished, but then again, I wouldn’t either. “No. It’s complicated.” Her lip begins to tremble. I have never seen her so scared or lose her cool. She’s always so calm and collected. “Well uncomplicate it for me.” I demand. A moment of silence takes over the room. JJ looks down at his blunt with a questioning gaze.

“Rafe’s not the father.” She says. “What?!” Both JJ and I exclaim collectively. “Wait, I’m confused. So, who’s the father?” I asked, feeding my curiosity. “Andrew Coleman.” She sighs. “Who the fuck is that?” The name has never crossed paths with me before. “He’s a lawyer. He lives in Boston. I’ve been seeing him for almost three years now.” The news came pouring out of her mouth. Words can’t describe the astonishment that courses through the room. “That’s why you keep going to Boston. To see him.” She doesn’t even respond as I finally connect the pieces. “But what about Rafe?” The question made her snap all of the sudden.

“Who cares?! I hate him! He could go to hell for all I care! I can’t stand him! He deserves to die! After everything he has done to me! He’s a violent and abusive asshole! He beats me, cheats on me with my best friend, and expects me to fuck him! And you know what the worst part is? Everyone thinks he’s some kind of perfect golden boy, but they’re all wrong. He’s the fucking devil and I wish I put a bullet through is head when I had the chance!” Every word that escaped her mouth had rung through my ears. She slides down to the ground as she sobs, her walls finally fall.

“Why didn’t you tell me this Jennifer? Why didn’t you ask for my help sooner?” I ask tears welling in my eyes too. “Because when I told dad that Rafe was abusing me, he called me a lying slut and said he’d kill me if I messed up my relationship with Rafe. He cares more about him than his own daughter, and I’m no better than him. I took out all my anger on you, because I was jealous.” Her confession felt like a punch to my stomach. “Why?” She just looks up at me.

“Because you got to live a life of happiness. With real friends and apparently a boyfriend who doesn’t hit you, while the man I love lives all the way in Boston. I should’ve been a better sister to you, but instead I lashed out at you all the time making your hate me, and for that I’m sorry.” Her words were genuine as she cried. I began to cry too.

“You’re my sister. I could never hate you. You might get on my nerves sometimes, but I could never forget the times you were there for me. Like when you carried me home after I broke my ankle after falling of my bike, or the time you stood up for me when that bully was throwing rocks at me. That’s the real sister I know. I just wish you told me all of this, so I could help you.” She hugs me tight and suddenly. It took me by surprise at first. I can’t remember the last time I shared a hug with my sister.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve to have a sister like you. I treated you so horribly. I just want to make things right. Please forgive me. I can’t live with you never forgiving me.” She sobbed louder. “I forgive you, but I need you to let me do something. Both her and JJ looked at me waiting for what I said. “Let me help you leave the Outer Banks.”

#jj maybank smut #jj maybank #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank fic #jj maybank x oc #obx netflix #lana del rey

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thedemonandthedead · 4 years ago

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OC: Belliah Edith Price

Introduction

Name: Belliah Edith Price

Also Known As: Bell, Wabbit/Rabbit, Ghost Girl (derogatory)

Titles: None

Birthday: February 18th, 1960

Astrological Sign: Aquarius

Nationality: British

Species: Half-Blood Witch

Blood Type: B-

Sex: Female

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Orientation: Bisexual

About Her

Personality:

Belliah is a goth little shit, to sum her up quickly. She's bossy, she's weird, and she's nerdy, but she's also loyal to a fault and bakes a mean brownie. She's a good friend to have, if not a bit frustrating with her conviction that she's right about what needs to be done at nearly all times. She means well, though, and at least for the most part her... "suggestions" are decent. If you do befriend her, she'll throw down for you at the drop of a hat, be it with magic or just plain fists.

Occupation: Tailor, Student

Likes:

- Bones - Books - Clothes - Magic - Tabletop Games

Dislikes:

- Wasps - Anyone saying anything even remotely rude to her sister - Garden Gnomes - Bullies (Teeth-punching levels of hatred) - Manual Sewing

Hobbies: Tailoring and making clothes, articulating skeletons, studying, playing Dungeons and Dragons, reading, acting, playing violin, singing.

Fears: Wasps, her mother and sister dying, ending up alone, the house burning down, the theatre burning down, just kind of fire in general.

Strength: Quick thinking and split-second decision making.

Weakness: Highly vulnerable to appeals to emotion

Talents: Transfiguration, sewing

Appearance

Height: 5'9"

Cup Size: B cup

Skin Tone: Pale AF

Eye Color: Red

Hair Description:

- Color: White - Highlights: N/A - Length: Long in the front, very short in the back - Style: Straight-edge fringe and the rest vaguely resembling a lop-eared rabbit. - Worn: Down, or with a crown braid on special occasions

Extra:

- Scars: Lots of small ones on her arms and legs from various scraps and scrapes - Piercings: Three in the right ear - Tattoos: None - Facial Features: Soft cheeks with occasional acne and big, wide-set eyes that droop a bit. Short nose with a flat bridge. - Scent: Some sugary perfume that smells a bit like honey - Other: Bottom heavy. Wide hips, not much up top. Fond of dress robes that accentuate this.

Picrew: [x]

Faceclaim: Nastya Zhidkova

Relationships

Father: Belial Everleigh

Mother: Edith Price

Siblings: Edward Everleigh, Samantha Price (adopted)

Relatives:

Family Line of Work: Mother: Theatre, Father: Department of Mysteries

Family Background:

Belial and Edith met in a muggle cult run by an errant wizard using some very strange magics. Belial was investigating; Edith was a member. They were both extremely young at the beginning, and they ultimately worked together to bring down the cult and return the members to a normal life. They also fell in love, but it was the odd sort of love between two viciously independent people with very different life styles. Despite seeing each other very little, they remain in love to this day, and have in their few ventures together, produced two children that they've chosen to raise separately.

Best Friends: Eric Gaudreau, Amir Laghari, Samantha Price

Friends: Lorraine Selwyn, Ruby Silvervine

Love Interest: Severus Snape

Enemies: Vivienne Burke

Education

School: Hogwarts

House: Hufflepuff

Best Core Class: Transfiguration

Worst Core Class: Herbology

Favourite Elective: Care of Magical Creatures

Quidditch: Spectator

Extra-Curricular: Chess Club

Magic

Wand:

- Length: Eleven-and-a-Quarter Inches - Flexibility: Flexible - Wood: Hazel - Core: Unicorn Hair

Pets: Lucifer the ????

Boggart: A huge swarm of wasps

Animagus/Patronus: Jacobs Sheep

Amortentia: Petrichor, Dusty Storage Rooms, Cooking Tomato Sauce, Lilacs

Affiliations/Alliances

Home Town: Plymouth

Residence: Hogwarts / Her mother's home

Loyalty: She is beholden to no one but herself

Organizations:

Band: White Dragon, White Dragon, Hufflepuff, Chess Club

Extra Information

Quotes: "Better to fight for something than live for nothing."

Theme Songs:

Fairy Paradise CocoRosie

Roll a D6 SirConnorAnderson

The Bard's Song The Blind Guradian

March of Mephisto Kamelot

Spooky Scary Skeletons (Remix) The Living Tombstone

Living Dead Girl Rob Zombie

Freaks Timmy Trumpet & Savage

Gimme Chocolate BABYMETAL

Daddy PSY

Macaron Ashikubi

Sugar Tunes Balan

Fuck You Lily Allen

Food: Pasta with red sauce

Drink: Rootbeer

Color: Red

Animal: Spiders

Flower: Daffodil

Season: Fall

Bio Belliah is, by her own reckoning, the bastard child of a wizards mistakes. Whenever she pries for details on the identity of her father, her mother turns into some sort of sphinx, speaking in riddles through coy smiles. When she was small, she used to spend long nights fantasizing about a king in a far off castle, called home to rule, leaving his true love behind, or a dark sorcerer running from a love that couldn't be. The day Hagrid brought her a very interesting letter, she was shocked to find out that the last one was hovering somewhere around probable. She grew up in the care of her doting, muggle mother. She was, until the age of nine, an only child with a remarkable propensity for accidental mischief. She was far more alarmed by her emerging magical talents than her mother was, but the cool indifference with which Edith put out suddenly appearing fires soon wore off on Bell as well, and incidents at school became less and less frequent. Still, though, her classmates viewed her as somewhere in between amazing and the literal devil, in part because she looked really weird, and in part because that one time Theo knocked her over his leg just broke for no reason. Those that fell in between the two extremes mostly just laughed at her speech impediment. Edith gently guided her daughter through the turmoil towards becoming a level-headed person, and Bell, over time, gained a few very close friends and the ability to pronounce R's correctly. Most notable of these friends was a young boy named Samuel who she'd been in class with since pre-K. Well before Belliah was personable, they were inseparable. Sam spent every possible moment he could with Bell and Edith, sleeping more often on their couch than he did his own bed. Sam's mother had died when he was very young, and he didn't like his father much. Belliah had no context for the situation, but Edith sure did. It took her a few years to piece together the necessary evidence before she went to war to seize custody of the young boy, who was being heavily abused by an otherwise neglectful father that blamed the child for the death of his wife. At the age of eight, Samuel became her legal brother. Both of them were absolutely over the moon about this development, but it fairly quickly became evident that Sam had developed some fairly severe PTSD and the same gently guidance Edith had given her own daughter wouldn't be sufficient for her new son. So, the three of them delved into the heavily stigmatized world of mental health services to seek a better life for him. Belliah, more than any of them, developed a deep fascination with the science of psychology. Determined to help Sam, now that she understood what he'd been through, she came home every weekend with stacks of books from the library on psychology and related subjects. She became a sort of make-shift therapist to both him and anyone she perceived as needing such a thing, and it was more or less appreciated. By the time she got her letter, she was an expert at conflict deescalation, and Sam had fallen gracefully into their family. The final hurdle in his treatment was addressing the fact that he wasn't mentally a "he" at all. Edith, who'd handled much weirder with little more than a shrug, switched pretty immediately to accepting her adopted son as her adopted daughter. Belliah took a bit longer to wrap her head around the concept, coping by reading a shit ton on the subject. She quickly found modern literature on gender dysphoria to be fairly insulting at the best of it. After that, she spent a lot of time at school beating the shit out of anyone who was mean to her sister for any reason at all. It was a brief period of violence and strife, but the dust settled with some ruffled feathers and some rearranged friend circles within a few months. When not at home or at school, the two of them are most likely to be found at the local theatre, where Edith works as a production manager for all of the community stage productions. She's worked there for a great deal longer than Belliah's been alive, and she frequented as an actress well before that. As such, a young Bell spent a great deal of time toddling around the backstage amongst vivid characters, stored set pieces, and a plethora of costumes. Her favourite of the regular members was, when they first met, an impressively goth teen. Her proper name was Rebecca, but she introduced herself as Azazel, and despite that fact that these days, she's in her thirties and not so outlandish, she's still referred to by the whole of the troupe as Auntie Azazel. Similarly, Bell is mostly called Wabbit at home. Growing up watching her mom in plays got her extremely interested in participating in them herself. She was five when she was given her first speaking role, which she took to with vast enthusiasm. Her mother pegged her white haired child with a speech impediment for the perfect role: the white rabbit, in a stage rendition of Alice in Wonderland. The in jokes from that particular performance have stuck just as well as the nicknames. Belliah had been the one to answer the door for Hagrid. He'd addressed her by name, which confused her a bit, as most of the bizarre looking people that showed up at their door were looking for her mum. Never-the-less, she'd dutifully lead him into the kitchen, where Edith was making some tea and Sam was working on her homework. After the initial shock of a half-giant showing up in their house with a letter for her daughter, he was invited to sit at the kitchen table and given some tea and biscuits. Through all the awe and wonder at this revelation, she couldn't avoid punctuating the conversation with giggles at the sight of Hagrid sipping earl grey from a normal sized tea cup. Edith remained nonplussed by the existence of magic, and mostly just observed the conversation with a warm smile. Belliah asked as many questions as Hagrid would let her. Sam listened raptly, stirring her tea and staring, maths work well forgotten. The same night, after Hagrid was gone, she made a promise to Sam to get her a body she'd be happiest in. After being sorted into Hufflepuff, she set off to make good on that promise, pouring everything she had into transfiguration and potions. She's also discovered that the field of psychology doesn't have a magical equivalent at all, and thus found her second life's goal in founding psychiatric medicine in the wizarding world. On her first train ride, she sat with a second year Ravenclaw named Eric, who took her under his wing and introduced her to wizard chess. She found it only slightly more entertaining than she did it's non-magical equivalent, but she's become fairly decent at it over the years, given that Eric's the captain of the chess club and convinced her to join up. In return, she taught him to play Dungeons and Dragons, though the two of them have had issues keeping a steady session going in the business of the school year. She had a great love of fantasy growing up, and it evolved into a deep seated love of finding the parallels between muggle myths and fiction and the reality of magic. As a result, she does very well in History of Magic, though she's just as subject to the droning tones of Professor Binns as everyone else. She's friendly enough, but she's a bit of an acquired taste for a lot of people. Her tendency to psychoanalyze people compounds with the bossiness she inherited from her mother to make friendship with her being a lot like having a very nagging mother who happens to be the same age as you. It does, however, come with the perk of getting free snacks pretty much whenever you want them. Hufflepuffs in general are known for always having food on them, but Belliah spends a lot more than the average amount of time in the kitchens. She's formed a fairly deep friendship with one of the house elves, and she likes to visit the lot of them and make sure they know their work is appreciated, which they always have mixed reactions to.

Picrew: Here

Template: Originally by PunkPrincess9493 on DA, has since been removed.

#OC #HP OC #Belliah

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briangroth27 · 5 years ago

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Annabelle Comes Home Review

Annabelle Comes Home is a respectable and dependably spooky addition to the Conjuring franchise. It isn't the scariest—none of the spin-offs have been able to touch The Conjuring 1 or 2 yet—but this is my third-favorite film in this ever-growing horror shared universe and I had a lot of fun watching it!

Full Spoilers…

It was great to have Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) back in more than just stock footage, even if they still had reduced roles. I’m glad they touched on the real-life questions surrounding the veracity of the Warrens’ investigations: that’s a good aspect to mine for drama, both for them and for Judy (McKenna Grace) with her peers at school. As far as the Warrens go, it’s hard to play that real-life public scrutiny any further than they do here: there’s no question whether ghosts are real in the movies since we can plainly see that they are. This film finds the Warrens in a more traditional horror setup, with them out of the house and the terrors affecting the teenagers left home alone, but the movie’s creators found the right balance to keep them recognizably “the Warrens” while also exploring that setup. Plus, Farmiga and Wilson are both so good in these roles that it’s nice to see them in whatever new situations the writers can cook up! This setup offered a peek into their home life when they’re not on an investigation and brought a little more variety to this cinematic universe’s offerings. The one thing I would’ve liked from Lorraine and Ed this time was a discussion about whether or not they should continue keeping their haunted vault room in their house with their daughter. They have to decide that they will, given it still exists in the Conjuring films, but I would’ve liked to hear the thought process behind keeping it. Did they have second thoughts at all? Do they just trust that the kids have learned their lesson? Did Judy reassure them that she’d be fine, either through her actions here or with a newfound strength uncovered by the film’s events? Might they even use the archives room to train Judy in the use of her paranormal sensitivity to some degree? (Probably not, given that would mean intentionally exposing her to dangerous demons).

Like the Warrens, the rest of the characters were very likable and engaging. I greatly appreciated that the kids at the center of this film weren't the typical dumb teenagers messing with haunted things for fun or because of carelessness, but were instead aware of and at least a little respectful of the power of the Warren's archives. They were also capable in their own right (at least, as much as they could be in the face of this sort of danger). Judy's struggle with her burgeoning paranormal powers was well-handled and this was one hell of a first experience! The fallout at school from the questions about her parents' honesty was both a smart place to plant the seeds for the movie's main plot and to explore the unexpected (and until now, unexplored in this series) effects on Judy. I wonder if they’ll take liberties and have Judy grow up to follow in her parents’ footsteps someday, because Judy going from scared, lonely kid to opening herself up to the supernatural to save her friends was a great arc that could easily build into a new sub-franchise (particularly as we haven’t seen Lorraine’s early experiences with her supernatural abilities at an extended length). Grace did great with that transition and she was also really good at playing the more everyday character beats like Judy’s conflicting hesitancy and eagerness to open up to a new friend (Katie Sarife) despite pretty much everyone she knew thinking she was a freak (a very relatable tween/teen struggle). That development was a nice, grounded parallel to Judy’s sensitivity to the supernatural. I liked the idea that there would logically be good ghosts out there in addition to the demons the Warrens investigated, just like not all people are bad. That bit of wisdom was a cool moment for Judy’s babysitter and (initially) only friend Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to help Judy on her journey, giving Judy the courage to lean into her abilities to help save the day.

Mary Ellen was a refreshing change of pace as a responsible babysitter who truly cared about her charge. I liked her friendship with Judy and their scenes together felt totally natural and lived-in, as if their hangouts had been going on for years. I also enjoyed her displaying no hesitation to trying to put an end to the ghosts once she knew what was going on. Iseman’s acting and Mary Ellen’s writing also made good use of the push and pull between her responsibility to take care of Judy and Daniella’s intrusion into both the Warrens’ house and her romantic life. Mary Ellen’s awkward flirtation/burgeoning romance with Bob (Michael Cimino) was cute and the film included just enough of it to sell their mutual attraction and chemistry, while keeping it at a realistic level for teens who knew each other but didn't really hang out (so there was no "it's totally love already!"). The one beat that rang a little false for me was Mary Ellen and co. going “We’re totally fine!” at the end of all that terror: that was a touch too glib IMO, but as teens trying to save face in front of their peers—especially the guy she liked—it still worked. Besides that, I’m glad the horrors here weren’t just laughed off and there was an honest discussion with the Warrens about this being a serious incident.

Mary-Ellen's friend Daniella gets that talk and it was a nice show of responsibility that she’s the one who pushed Lorraine to call her out on her mistake. Throughout the movie, she was well-drawn not just as a dumb teen looking to stir up some ghosts for laughs, but as someone who had real pathos in wanting to see her dad (Anthony Wemmys) again. While you’re spending the movie thinking that she should absolutely not be exploring the vault and trying to contact her dad, her performance and the writing make it totally understandable that she would. I bought her sadness and guilt and thought she walked the line between accomplishing her agenda and genuinely caring about Mary Ellen and Judy very well. I also liked that she truly seemed interested in Judy as a person, even if she was also using her to see her dad again (if only she’d just asked Judy which artifact could help her!). All three of the central girls have a similar complexity to their characters, pulled between what they want and what’s been forced on them (Judy’s powers and the isolation caused by them and her parents’ reputation), what they’ve been hired to do (Mary Ellen, though she would still be Judy’s friend; her arc has the least tension), and what they’ve convinced themselves they have to do (Daniella seeing her dad again, which makes her a nice foil for Judy in that the paranormal is what she’s seeking but her pull away from it comes from befriending Judy). That’s a cool common building block to these characters that immediately makes them multi-dimensional, a state that’s only further enhanced by the actresses’ performances. Ben was fun as an awkward teen with a crush, and I liked that he wasn’t too toxic, like you might expect from a high school boy in a horror movie. Another refreshing twist (and a bonus gift stemming from the public scrutiny about the Warrens’ cases) was that all the kids readily accepted that ghosts were real rather than having to go through the motions of beginning to believe in them.

While this was entertaining, I’m over Annabelle as an antagonist at this point: she was fine here, but the other ghosts definitely felt like more of a threat and stole the show while it felt like the doll didn’t do much of anything (even though it was the object pulling the other ghosts to the house). I wouldn’t mind if this were the last Annabelle movie, as it seems like they’ve said all there is to say about the doll. They also included a nice full-circle tie back to Annabelle Creation with a brief vision of her human self (Samara Lee), making it feel even more like this is the last one. Thankfully, there was a sizable monster mash of new ghosts here too! While I would’ve liked some more focus on each of them (a longer haunting act would’ve been nice), I liked what we got and there was a solid variety to the types of scares they generated. The Ferryman was scary and I liked the mythology behind him as well as his appearance. The the coins hitting the floor and rolling in to view to herald his approach were really creepy-cool, and the rules about him appearing in the dark vs. disappearing in the light were used against and by him really effectively. At one point I was hoping the “werewolf” case would be the basis of Conjuring 3 since it seemed like an original take on both a possession and a werewolf movie, but I guess not. Still, I liked that they got some classic werewolf imagery out of the Black Shuck (Douglas Tait) when it ripped up the car. The Bride (Natalia Safran) and the typewriter brought a classic ghost sensibility to the mix and the Feeley Meeley game was bizarre even before it was haunted! The movie definitely left me wanting to know more about the other ghost artifacts in the Warrens’ vault, especially the cursed samurai armor and the future-telling TV. Maybe they could make a web series or something exploring the cases that brought the vault objects to the Warrens’ attention!

Annabelle Comes Home has a strong cast with well-written and atypically alert characters facing a good variety of specters. The pacing’s solid: they take their time introducing us to the characters, which helped generate fear for them when they were put in danger and made the film feel like a throwback to 70s horror, which is fitting given the film’s setting. It also helped to defuse any knee-jerk “this is a real dumb plan” reactions to Daniella trying to contact her dad because she explained her mission enough for me to be invested in it (giving her such a strong a need to see him also avoids any “this is what you get for being stupid” reactions when her quest puts everyone in danger because I felt sorry for her). Jump scares don’t bother me—they’re fun too!—and this movie definitely has some effective ones along with the creepy visuals (like the denizens of a graveyard (Sheila McKellan and others) approaching the Warrens’ car that only Lorraine can see). The paranormal attacks seemed more intense overall in the Conjuring films and Annabelle Creation, which are probably the three scariest entries in this franchise so far (though I liked this one and these characters better than Creation’s). The music, both the score and the 70s songs, was well used to creepy effect.

This movie might not have been necessary, strictly-speaking, since we already saw Annabelle get loose in the first Conjuring, but it was definitely a lot of spooky fun! It's a solid haunted house flick with a strong cast and that’s exactly what it needed to be. It’s also a good ending to Annabelle’s spin-off trilogy and got me ready for the next Conjuring with the focus shifting back to the Warrens (and maybe Judy this time?). You should definitely check this out!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

#annabelle comes home #the conjuring #annabelle #mckenna grace #madison iseman #katie sarife #Vera Farmiga #patrick wilson

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ships-sailing-in-the-night · 7 years ago

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Lucifer Interview w/Joe Henderson

In Part 2 of our exclusive interview about Season 3 of LUCIFER(Monday nights on Fox Network), executive producer/showrunner Joe Henderson talks series mythology, the addition of Tom Welling to the cast as a series regular, and more.

What will Tom Welling be doing as LAPD lieutenant Marcus Pierce?

This man is so talented. Here’s what I love about Pierce. We haven’t had an authority figure on our show. Our characters run around, they solve cases, but no one’s come around and said, “How are you guys doing this? What are you doing?” So when Lieutenant Marcus Pierce shows up, he’s like, “Wait, what exactly is going on?” Ella [the police coroner played by Aimee Garcia] and Dan [the police detective played by Kevin Alejandro] and Chloe [police detective and Lucifer’s true love, played by Lauren German] and Lucifer [played by Tom Ellis], they’re getting along now. There will always be fights, but there’s a rhythm. This is the character who comes in and blows it all up.

This is the character who comes in and goes, “What are you guys doing?” And to have a character who can be – “antagonist” is the wrong word, because he’s just trying to figure out how this stuff works. He’s just trying to lead the precinct. But to have someone who’s coming in, going, “How do we run this well when you guys are doing this crazy stuff,” that’s a fun toy to play with. And Tom Welling is such a joy and such a nice dude. And he just immediately melded with the cast in a way that was a relief and a joy.

Pierce has got an eye on Chloe, or at least will eventually. So what’s fun is, you’ve got the super-handsome dude showing up, and then you’ve got the Devil showing up, and then you’ve got the thing of like, “Oh, hey, you’re the big guy coming in, swinging his everything.” And Chloe might be frustrated at first, but in Season 2, we pushed the will-they/won’t-they of Lucifer and Chloe. In Season 3, we really want to explore a love triangle. Pierce is a tough guy, but a good guy. Lucifer is a lech, but a good guy. We want to play, Pierce is much more Chloe’s rhythm. He’s a cop who believes in the rules implicitly. He can be very difficult in very different ways, but he much more follows Chloe’s moral path than Lucifer does. So who do you choose? And really exploring that duality is a lot of the fun of the season. We will definitely get into more mythological stuff as we go on, but right now, the idea was, really explore a love triangle in this police world.

How much is Season 3 going to be procedural, and how much is it going to be serialized?

We are going to try to replicate the formula of the last year, which is, every episode will have a serialized element, we will always have a case of the week, and honestly, I like the cases, because Lucifer makes every case about himself, so every case is an opportunity for Lucifer to explore whatever he’s going through. The fun of it is, is the case appropriate, or is it not, but does Lucifer make it about himself anyway? So that’s the fun to me.

Are we going to get any more mythology this season as far as how angels and demons work?

To me, our show always has to be balanced. And I love the mythology – I’m a mythology guy, always balance the mythological with the case. So there will always be a case of the week, but there will always be mythology. For example, I may have slowly snuck in one of my favorite characters from LUCIFER, who will be slowly seeded into the season. Will we see this character? Maybe, maybe not, but we are laying the breadcrumbs. There are mythological elements that will always be on the show. We have a demon from Hell. We are not going to run away from that. We have a character who can go to Hell at times. These are our toys, but we try to use them carefully, we try to use them when the characters demand it. That’s both the fun and the challenge of our show, but we will never walk away from the mythology. That is what makes the show sing.

Last season, Lucifer’s therapist Linda, played by Rachael Harris, ended up in trouble and it looked like she was going to lose her license. Is that storyline continuing into Season 3?

I love Rachael Harris, and I love what she’s done with the character. And the first two seasons, Linda was very much the bouncing board, like, let’s use her to dig into other characters. But very slowly, we tried to also dig into Linda and show the cracks. And her near-death experience will be our beginning to really show the cracks and really dig into the character of Linda. One of our big goals in Season 3 is to learn more about who Linda is, but also break her apart a little bit and put her back together, because Rachael Harris is such a good actress. Also, that character is so rich. So many times, you get the therapist who lets everyone bounce off them, but their story could be the most interesting one. You just don’t know [that], because they’re always listening. And it’s time for her to stop listening, and time for us to start listening to Dr. Linda. And that’s one of the things we want to do.

Any thoughts of bringing in Peter Bogdanovich as Linda’s shrink, the way he played the therapist for Lorraine Bracco’s psychiatric professional character on THE SOPRANOS?

Oh, my God. You have no idea how many times we have wanted and discussed bringing Peter Bogdanovich in. Peter, if you’re listening or reading, please call us. How great would it be to do something like that? We’re a phone call away.

And is Amenadiel, Lucifer’s angel brother played by D.B. Woodside, going to continue to pine for his ex-lover, the demon Maze, played by Lesley-Anne Brandt?

These are great questions. So Amenadiel’s arc in the last two seasons was very much a challenge of faith, and very much, he failed, because he didn’t believe his Father [God, had confidence in him], and then his Father proved that actually, Amenadiel was his favorite son. So Season 3 is all about Amenadiel going, “You know what? I got test after test – I failed it. I’m not failing again. Now I’m going to stand up, now I’m going to prove that I am actually deserving of this.” Season 2, we deconstructed Amenadiel. Season 3, it’s all about him proving why he should be the favorite son, but we’re going to make it really, really hard on him.

And is LUCIFER ever going to mention the son of God who was apparently here and left after thirty-three years?

[laughs] We are taking a page from the comic book [LUCIFER is based on a series of comics by Mike Dringenberg and Sam Kieth, which itself is a spinoff of Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN [graphic novels], which is, do not open that can of worms. Mike Carey actually wrote a forward to one of the comics, where he very smartly said that if you bring up Jesus, it just unravels everything on your mythology, but if you don’t bring him up, you’re fine. So we’ve just come to the philosophy of, we’re just not going to deal with that right now. If we ever find a way to do it, we’re interested, but right now, we’re telling our Old Testament story. That’s not to say he didn’t exist – obviously, he did, [as illustrated by] Father Frank and other things, but it’s not a story we’re telling right now. The comic book was very smart about it, and we will follow their lead.

SUPERNATURAL has gone twelve seasons with God and Lucifer as sometimes onscreen characters and gotten around that issue, so …

Right? And by the way, we should all be so lucky and do it so well. We shouted out to SUPERNATURAL, who shouted out to us. I don’t know if you saw, but they have Mark Pellegrino, who plays Lucifer, a couple years ago, they did a shout-out to us

SUPERNAURAL’s Lucifer had a line about, “What am I gonna do, go to L.A. and run a club?”

That was very nice of them, I really appreciated it.

Even though you are shooting Season 3 in Los Angeles, you actually shot several episodes earlier this year in Vancouver that haven’t aired yet. John Billingsley was in one of them

Yes. First of all, John Billingsley was amazing. So what happened was, we thought we were doing eighteen episodes, and then we found out we were doing twenty-two. They [Fox] said, “Listen, we only want to make the eighteen-episode arc, but we want to order more episodes, and if we find room in our schedule, we’ll air them in the spring, but more likely, they’ll air in Season 3.” So those four episodes are airing in Season 3. so we have these four episodes, and we’ve laced them through the top of Season 3. Towards the end, we knew they were going to be in Season 3. So what we did is, we wrote the episodes early, and we made them standalone stories. For example, the third episode to air [in Season 3] is one of our stand alone, but I doubt you’ll be able to tell, because it’s a Maze-centric episode that really starts off her story for Season 3, because we knew this would be one of the things we’d be doing. John Billingsley is in Episode 2:21, which is airing early in Season 3. It might be one of the best episodes we have made. That is our weird, slightly bizarre TWILIGHT ZONE episode. And he’s fantastic.They have some L.A. shoot in them, because while we shot in Vancouver, we also shot L.A. splinter. So we have an episode which is a flashback episode, when Lucifer first came to L.A. And a very big amount of it is in L.A. That was part of our challenge for the first two seasons is, we always shot some in L.A., so you’d be like, “Wait, I thought this was Vancouver, but that’s definitely L.A.” That was the challenge and fun of the show was, we would try to get a scene or two per episode to make you feel like you were there. But now, this season, every shot, you are there.

Which studio are you shooting at?

We are on the Warner Brothers lot. We are in the largest soundstage on the Warner Brothers lot, and it is awesome. It is so exciting, there is a single soundstage which has the Warner Brothers logo – that’s ours. We are proud to bring production back to L.A. I’ve never shot on the L.A. lot before – I could not be more thrilled.

What else should we know about LUCIFER Season 3?

Here’s what I would tease. Lucifer got his angel wings back. He doesn’t like that. If Lucifer is told to go left, he goes right. If he has angel wings, he re-embraces his Devil side. So the fun of it is, Chloe’s been a good influence on Lucifer. And he’s getting nicer and nicer, and part of him wonders, is that part of the reason that Dad [God] gave me these wings back, assuming it’s Dad? Maybe it’s time I go in the other direction. So we’re going to see the Devil re-embrace a bit of who he used to be, and we’re going to play with the toys that we already have.

If it’s not Dad, is there somebody else it might be?

In Lucifer’s perspective, it’s always Dad. But someone knocked him over the back of the head. Someone on Earth did this. So in the premiere, the question is who. And that becomes the big string that we pull at the top of the season. So that’s the big examination – “I know it’s Dad, but was it Amenadiel? Was it someone else? Or, if it wasn’t Dad, was it something darker?” We [Henderson and fellow executive producer/showrunner Ildy Modrovich] are on Season 3 of a show that we love. We have almost the exact same writing staff that we had – even though we’re redoing our crew, we have the exact same cast that we had. We have hit our groove in a way that makes me so happy. So right now, all we’re focused on is getting this show done, and honestly, I love it so much.

This interview was conducted during Fox Network’s portion of the Summer 2017 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour. (x)

#lucifer spoilers #lucifer season 3 #deckerstar #lucifer on fox #joe henderson #tom ellis #lauren german #aimee garcia #rachael harris #db woodside #kevin alejandro

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ubuiltatimemachineoutofadelorean · 8 years ago

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Back to the Future Is A Damn Perfect Movie By Germain Lussier and Charlie Jane Anders http://io9.gizmodo.com When people talk about the best, most perfect movies ever made, we all know the usual suspects: Citizen Kane, Chinatown, Casablanca. And I feel like Back to the Future should absolutely be on that list. The way this film is structured and feeds story to the audience is so seamless, it’s basically a clinic in how to make a movie. First of all, it’s amazing to realize that the entire Back to the Future trilogy is basically a character-based saga. With the possible exception of the dystopian alternate timeline in the second movie, this series keeps its stakes very low and personal for Marty McFly. Throughout all three movies, his main goal is to ensure his own continued existence, but also to save his family—and to a large extent, a lot of the “action” in these films is in the service of character development. The narrative payoff is always in the form of the main characters changing. And just consider how much information the movie packs into its opening minutes. The movie starts with that famous long take inside Doc Brown’s bizarre lab. Immediately you have an idea of who this guy is: He’s a bit cuckoo. But there’s more too. There’s foreshadowing, in the form of a man hanging from a clock that looks like the end of the movie, as well as plot development, with the newscaster telling us about the stolen plutonium. We’re then introduced to our main character, Marty McFly, and the shot ends with a skateboard hitting the plutonium, an act that tells us a ton about this wild kid and this person whose place we’re in. That’s all in THE FIRST SHOT OF THE MOVIE. The scene continues and we get a bit more of who Marty is. He’s a rocker, kind of a rebel—and Michael J. Fox’s twitchy, squinty-eyed performance does a great job of selling Marty’s insecurity and constant state of hapless panic to the audience. And then Doc calls and sets up their first meeting, which will happen later in the film. Next we find out the clocks are slow, which means Marty’s late for school. So where does he go next? School, perfectly moving the story forward, while also telling us he’s not exactly a model student. Huey Lewis and the News’ “The Power of Love�� kicks in as Marty rides his skateboard on the back of a few cars through the center of Hill Valley. This scene gives us a more of an idea of who Marty is and also introduces us to an area we’re going to get very, very familiar with over the next three movies. The scene also features a glimpse of Goldie Wilson as mayor, another bit of foreshadowing. Marty arrives at school and we meet his girlfriend, Jennifer. She’s totally on his side and tries to sneak him into school safely, but they run into Mr. Strickland. He over heard Marty talking about “Doc” Brown, and starts to bad mouth him. We haven’t seen Doc yet, but we already know a lot about him and what people think of him so we’ve formed a mental image. Strickland also tells Marty he’s a slacker like his father, something we’ll come to learn more about later in the movie. He says that “No McFly has ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley.” That, in a way, is hinting at what happens in the third movie more than anything, but also is about how his father will change over the course of the movie. Strickland, a character we’ll also see later, then mentions Marty’s band, which transitions us right into the next scene. Marty’s band, The Pin Heads, is auditioning for the dance. Jennifer watches on proudly—but they’re rejected, something we already know is a McFly trait. It also puts a cap on a storyline set up in the previous scene. The rest of the school day is then skipped, probably because nothing happened of significance, and we go to Jennifer and Marty walking through the town square again after school. This scene is absolutely stuffed with information, but also pushes the story forward. Marty and Jennifer discuss the band audition. He says he doesn’t think he’s ever going to get to play in front of people, which of course happens later, and that he can’t handle rejection. In that instance Marty quotes his father, something that will becoming immensely important later in the movie. While this is happening, we see a table with the “Save the Clock Tower” flyers, and the conversation ends with them standing on a bench with that same clocktower in the background. So even if you don’t know how important that structure is yet, subconsciously, you are already figuring it out. As the dream Toyota 4x4 drives by, something that also pays off later, Marty and Jennifer discuss him lying to his mother. He says he thinks she was “born a nun.” Later we’ll learn Lorraine’s lack of experience wasn’t due to a lack of desire, so Marty saying this is actually setting up and confirming his mother’s regret-filled life. That’s heavy. Just as the couple is about to kiss, the clocktower lady interrupts them. She drops a ton of important exposition about the history of the structure, which we don’t yet realize is crucial, and hands Marty a flyer. That flyer is arguably the most important thing Marty gets in the movie, but he needs a reason to hang onto it, right? Well, Jennifer writes her grandmother’s number on it as she leaves. He looks at her longingly, and just as they kiss, “The Power of Love” reprises, bringing us right back to the first scene of the movie. That’s the first 12 minutes of Back to the Future. Twelve minutes. Every single action has a purpose, every piece of scenery has a reason. The dialogue sets up plot, moves the narrative, character is built throughout—and we still don’t even really know what the movie is about. You could write a whole book analyzing the way this level of filmmaking precision continues throughout the movie. Not just from scene to scene, but shot to shot. But you didn’t come here to read a book. So here are a few of the bigger highlights. Lorraine talks at the dinner table: As the 1985 McFlys sit around the table for dinner, Lorraine lays out the entire second act of the movie. She talks about how she was with boys and how if her father had never hit George with the car, none of the kids would never be born. Which almost happens. She then goes on to reminisce about the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and, the brilliance here, is the script makes what feels like exposition to the characters absolutely crucial to the movie. We’re learning what Lorraine was like as a teenager, we’re setting up several plot points that’ll get picked up again later—and it’s all being delivered as if some drunk old lady is just telling her favorite story, which is in keeping with this version of Lorraine. She asks George if he remembers that the dance took place the night of that terrible thunderstorm. Check. Asks him what he was doing in the middle of the street, check, and, in a very melancholy way, says she knew she was going to spend the rest of her life with him. Check. George, in this timeline, ignores her, and both of their attitudes in this scene serve as great jumping off points for the changes that happen to each character. He’ll come to appreciate her, and she’ll come to be happy. The Einstein Experiment: When Marty finally meets the Doc and sees the DeLorean, he’s very confused. So are we. But after Einstein travels into the future one minute, Doc Brown explains everything about the car in perfect detail: the Flux Capicator, the time circuits, 88 mph—and it’s all given urgency by the fact we, along with the character, just saw something amazing for the first time. Eventually, he starts to remember how much has changed in this area. That leads him to talk about how Old Man Peabody used to own all of this land and he had a crazy idea about breeding pine trees. It’s basically just a man going off on a tangent, a telling character trait, but it’s also information that gives the following scene more creditability. Marty soon arrives in 1955 on the Peabody’s land and destroys one of his pines. This comes back at the end as the name of the mall has changed from Twin Pines, to Lone Pine. But wait there’s more. Before Doc is gunned down, he mentions the plutonium needed, check, and how, by traveling into the future, he’ll be able to see who wins the next 25 World Series. Part II will let us know about one in particular. The Photo: Once in 1955, Marty has to convince Doc that he’s telling the truth about being from the future. One of the examples he uses is a photo from his wallet of he and his siblings. His sister is wearing a shirt that says “Class of 84.” Doc waves it off, saying its obviously a fake because it cut off his brother’s hair. So, buried in this desperate plea between our leads, is our first clue that bad things have already been set in motion. A few scenes later, when Marty tells Doc he’s already seen his parents, Doc remembers the photo and we remember what he said about it. Marty’s brother is now missing his head and the film has just set up, and solidified, its own internal ticking clock. Clock motif achievement unlocked. Marty has until this photo disappears to avoid being “erased from existence.” There’s Marty’s secondary goal for the movie, while Doc works on the primary one. The Diner Scene: When George first asks Lorraine out in the Diner, it sets off a fantastic action scene that’s filled with moments that work so well because they’ve already been hinted at. We know Biff likes Lorraine along with George. We know Biff and Marty already have some beef. Once Marty challenges Biff and rushes outside, we already know the area quite well as the movie has taken us through it numerous times. Marty’s skateboarding skills have already been established, as has the fact that Biff isn’t a great driver. Everything down to Lorraine calling Marty a “dream” has been set up beforehand, giving what’s an otherwise crazy scene that much more grounding. It goes on from there too. The scene ends with Lorraine saying she’s going to find out where Marty lives, perfectly leading into what’s next. And who could forget this entire scene is replayed later in 2015? Doc’s Plan: Speaking of the next scene, that next scene in Doc’s house basically resets the movie. We’ve been following George and Lorraine around and may have forgot about the primary story of getting back to 1985. Doc, thankfully, hasn’t and lays out his role in the third act for us, using a model. Just then, Lorraine arrives and her honestly telling Marty what she wants in a man not only gives Marty the idea of how George can win her over, it lets us know why she and George are so, so much more in love in the new 1985 at the end of the film. It’s because, through Marty, George has reached his full potential, as has Lorraine. The Dance: The narrative drive at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance is almost unfair, it’s so perfect. Marty and Lorraine arrive. She’s drinking, which she does in the future, and Marty scolds her about it. Since Biff got his car wrecked in the skateboarding scene, he has a reason to take out Marty. And because Marty isn’t actually being in the car, this gives George the opportunity to finally stand up to Biff—which, in turn, makes Lorraine fall for him. And that should be the end of it, but it’s not. The film adds complication after complication at the end to raise the stakes exponentially. Lorraine and George are together, but because Marty got taken away by Biff’s goons, Marvin Berry hurt his hand. Marvin’s hurt hand means that the dance is going to end, so Marty’s parents won’t kiss and Marty will disappear. Marty then has to finally step up and play in front of people, a goal mentioned almost 90 minutes prior, in order for his parents to kiss and make things okay. Which he does. But, of course, things aren’t okay. Doc has problems with the wire, Marty has to save Doc, and then once that’s all figured out, Marty’s 1985 is totally transformed. And then there’s that amazing ending. In Back to the Future, there’s not a single wasted scene. Not a single wasted word of dialogue, action, or piece of set dressing. It’s all there in service of one of the best, most well-structured stories of our time. And that’s why we still celebrate it today. Also the best trilogy. And the Back to the Future trilogy is also arguably the best movie trilogy ever, because it avoids the “third movie” problems that other movie trilogies tend to have. Back to the Future Part II manages to be two sequels in one, exhausting the two most obvious ideas for a second and third movie—going forward 30 years instead of backward 30 years, and revisiting the events of the first movie. And because Back to the Future Part II manages to cover so much ground in terms of obvious sequel territory, it leaves the field open for Part III to do something completely, amazingly different. Part III avoids all of the usual traps of trying to “top” the first two movies, but it also stays tightly focused on the town of Hill Valley, and the relations between the McFly family and the Tannen gang. Instead of doing a “bigger and better” sequel or spinning off in some other direction and going to visit King Arthur or whatever, Part III gives us a sweet, character-based story in which the focus is as much on Doc falling in love as it is on Marty’s problems. The other thing that’s great about the second and third BTTF movies is the way that they build a character arc for Marty that’s barely touched on in the first movie—in the original film, his main superpower is running away, usually on his skateboard. But his triumph in the first movie is getting his teenage father to stand up to Biff. But his biggest challenge, as a character, in the next two movies is not learning how to stand up for himself, but rather getting over his fear of being seen as a coward. In Part 2 we see how peer pressure (and the kneejerk reaction to being called “chicken”) have ruined Future Marty’s life, and in Part 3 Marty sees for himself the tombstone he’s going to have if he keeps being prey to these tendencies. So while the first movie is more about Marty engineering a massive change in his parents’ characters, the second and third movies are all about Marty himself having to change. And in their own way, the sequels are just as great an accomplishment as the first Back to the Future.

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huahsu · 8 years ago

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I have always found Isaac Hayes’ twelve-minute version of “Walk on By” entrancing. It carries a sense of tragedy that the lyrics don’t warrant--and it’s irrationally long. At some point I learned that Hayes had recorded it after taking a year-long hiatus early in his career. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination--which he almost witnessed first-hand--had drained him of any desires to create. It’s not that I began hearing Hot Buttered Soul as an elegy but it made sense to me that this album full of unusually long, meandering, beautifully redemptive songs had been produced under such awful circumstances. And then I remembered that a sample of “Walk on By” (and Hayes himself) provided the spine for “I Can’t Go To Sleep,” one of the Wu-Tang Clan’s most paranoid songs. Ghostface sobs; the record gets spun back, violently, as though trying to return to sometime else; Hayes is spectral, a guiding star. And there was King, too, in RZA’s half-lunatic, half-prophet verse: I can't go to sleep, I can't shut my eyes They shot the father at his mom's building seven times They shot Malcolm in the chest, front of his little seeds Jesse watched as they shot King on the balcony Exported Marcus Garvey cause he tried to spark us With the knowledge of ourselves and our forefathers Anyhow, both are songs I listen to on MLK Day (now that it’s way too creepy to listen to Bill Cosby’s “Martin’s Funeral”). Here are a few pages of a talk I gave like ten years ago where I tried to enunciate that sense of history and aspiration that I heard in “Walk on By”: *** "Walk on By” is the lead track off Isaac Hayes’ 1969 album Hot buttered soul. There is something unnerving about how long it is, by how it manages to be so deeply anguished and pained, yet how it manages to avoid feeling overwrought. There are no wasted gestures over the course of these twelve minutes, nothing that doesn’t sound completely and utterly essential to the full logic of the song. Perhaps this is why “Walk on by” has been sampled so frequently by hip-hop artists big and small, for it expresses so much in its shuddering organ riffs, swan-like glide of strings and shrapnel blast of guitar.

In the late 1960s, Hayes was a highly successful songwriter for Stax, the famed Memphis soul label which was the only real challenger to Berry Gordon’s Motown empire. While the label was never, like Motown, black-owned, Stax was a beacon of multiracial cohabitation, at a time when such a thing was still unusual, from its staff to its integrated backing bands, and they all toiled away in a tough, tough town.

On the afternoon of April 4, Hayes, who was primarily a songwriter, was on his way to the Stax studios to work on a Sam and Dave recording session. He had initially planned on fetching Sam and Dave’s sax player, who was staying at the Lorraine Motel, on the way to Stax. But at the last minute, his wife needed to use their car, so he called a cab instead and instructed the sax player to do the same and just meet him at the studio. Hayes heard about King’s assassination in the cab on this way to the studio. When he arrived, he heard the news. Devastation. That night, a curfew was imposed in Memphis, but those who were already at Stax were allowed to work through the night.

For his part, Hayes lost his ability to work at all. “It affected me for a whole year,” he later explained to the historian Rob Bowman in Bowmans’ remarkable Soulsville USA. “I could not create properly. I was so bitter and so angry. I thought, What can I do?”

Hayes took an indefinite hiatus, toying with the idea of retiring altogether. In 1969, after thinking about how becoming a successful artist would empower him to make a difference, he returned. But he did not pick up where he had left off, with the tepid jazz-inflected soul of Presenting Isaac Hayes, his 1968 solo debut. Rather, Hayes’ comeback album reimagined the process and craft of soul music, as well as the possibilities of the soul economy. Stax, as with all soul labels of the time, relied upon the seven-inch vinyl single. Soul albums were generally cobbled-together collections of previously released singles.

Hayes shuddered at the idea of constraining his craft to the two to three minute song form and he created an album which flaunted the convention of the single. Released in the summer of 1969, Hot buttered Soul featured Hayes and the Bar-Kays on only four tracks: an eighteen minute version of Glen Campbell’s 1967 hit “By the Time I get to Phoenix,” a twelve-minute version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Walk on By,” a nine minute track "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic” and a five minute track by his musicians called “One Woman.”

Hayes explains: “When I did Hot Buttered Soul, it was a selfish thing on my part. It was something I wanted to do. I didn’t give a damn if it didn’t sell because I was going for the true artistic side, rather than looking at it for monetary value. I had an opportunity to express myself no holds barred, no restrictions, and that’s why I did it. I took artistic and creative liberties. I felt what I had to say couldn’t be said in two minutes and thirty seconds. So I just stretched (the songs) out and milked them for everything they were worth.”

In a very basic way, “By the Time” and “Walk on By” were characteristic of the trends of the time—most soul records at the time featured cover versions of songs one might today consider schmaltzy or safe—anyone who has browsed sixties albums knows of the ubiquitous funky cover of “Wichita Lineman.” But Hayes’ choice to make half of the songs on his comeback album these covers was bizarre, as was their expansive sitcom-length. What Hayes and the Bar-Kays did to these songs was an act of creative destruction. The songs were torn apart, note-by-note, limb-by-limb, and in place of the quotidian pop heartbreak of “Walk on By,” we are left with a nine minute exorcism that smolders and writhes, an epic mourning of a lost love supreme.

Hayes explains: “What it was, was the real me. I mean, okay, the real me had written those other songs but they were being written for other people. As for me wanting to express myself as an artist, that’s what Hot buttered Soul was. Although I was a songwriter, there were some songs that I loved, that really touched me. I wanted to do them the way that I wanted to do them. I took them apart, dissected them, and put them back together and made them my personal tunes. I took creative license to do that. By doing them my way, it almost made them like totally different songs all over again.”

Again, Hayes describes the songs as attempts to communicate something about form. These songs were a radical departure from mainstream R&B at the time, and Hayes essentially created the idea of the modern soul album, the hourlong statement of purpose-slash-dream world, with Hot Buttered Soul. These liberally defined “covers” swabbed these safe recognizable tunes in a historical moment of depression and longing, of a profound kind of heartbreak far grander than what most young lovers might recognize.

Drawing back, Hayes’ statements nest within a larger context of black and white ownership, for mere days before King’s assassination, Stax had been finalizing a deal to sell its assets to a Los Angeles corporation called Gulf and Western, which already had diverse holdings in the film and music industries. In the aftermath of King’s assassination, Hayes observes that he became more “rebellious. I was militant. When Dr. King was killed I flipped and I just did a lot of reevaluating…” Hayes spearheaded an effort to hire more local African Americans and to improve the working conditions of longtime Stax employees.

And implicit in all of this, I think, is a rejection of the trajectory of pop music as it then existed. The final instrumental breakdown takes five minutes—as long as two sturdy pop singles—and Hayes’ own vocals are probably the least memorable ingredient of the song. Instead, one is stung by Michael Toles’ savage guitar in the first ninety seconds, and haunted by the way Marvell Thomas’ triumphant, almost rapturous organ solo over the song’s last five minutes tries unsuccessfully to vanquish the song’s darkness. The song ends with a whimper, Thomas seemingly collapsing at the keys and Willie Hall banging out a stiffly efficient drum break that rattles to a weary close. The history of culture is made solid through objects, records, books, speeches, but the image of a band in a recording session, that vision of democracy, of a struggle triumphant, is where the recovery of King began for Hayes--when depression was not a force that crippled but rather one of possibility, a pause for patient yet forceful deliberation. Over the previous twelve minutes, Hayes and the Bar-Kays had poured themselves into the moment, and “Walk on By,” was an act of formal resistance smuggled within a safe pop title, changed everything. It imagines the possibility of resolution, partly because the song is allowed the space to meander and veer off path, to deal with both the beauty and hostility of the moment. There is the logic of the music itself—the interlocking of notes, the tightness of the rhythm section, the texture of the melody. And then there is the sense one gets, as a listener or as someone who has played in a band, that everything just feels right.

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echoslammin · 6 years ago

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Press Start 2018 Letter

Dear Press Starter, Thanks so much for checking out this letter! Video games have been my favorite hobby for as long as I can remember, and I’m super excited to participate in an exchange revolving around them.

General Information: DNW: Body waste kinks, futa, bestiality, character bashing, inflation kink, vore, unrequested pairings as the main focus. Likes: Any kind of AU, friendship, worldbuilding, smut, canon-appropriate pop culture references, humor (all kinds - characters poking fun at each other or snarking, running gags, memes, etc. Seriously, if you've ever wanted to experiment with bizarre crack, I'd be happy to be your guinea pig). I also *love* metafiction and nods to quirky game mechanics and canon in-jokes. Most of my favorite works tend to be character studies and fluffy romance, but I definitely enjoy darker stuff as well. If you have an idea that doesn't exactly match with my likes/prompts, please feel free to go with that! Art likes: High contrast, portrait-style, characters posing in different outfits or showing off abilities, couples being cute together Video likes: Shipping montage, parody/humor - fake trailer, meme vid etc. (I would prefer it if you used in-game footage only). Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) - Any Character You can probably guess from my username who my favorite hero is! That said, you definitely don't have to force yourself to make something about Earthshaker or any character in particular (I like everybody in the tagset). I would definitely appreciate worldbuilding for this request, especially if it references abilities, item builds, or strategies. I'm more familiar with the Allstars version of the game, but I do play DotA 2 as well, so if you're more familiar with that, feel free to go by the new lore. Some of the changes did weird me out a little, like how Rylai and Lina became sisters and Mirana went from "priestess" to "princess." Other than that, I don't really mind. Prompts: -Shipfic for any of the following: Crystal Maiden/Invoker, Crystal Maiden/Drow, or Drow/Mirana. For the first two pairs, I imagine there could be some sort of common ground given their shared proficiency in ice magic, and for Drow/Mirana I like the idea of a contentious rivalry between two skilled archers. -Something meta-ish about the teams squabbling over how to spend resources at the beginning of the match. (Of course Crytal Maiden still gets stuck with buying the courier). -Anything referencing some of the weird mechanics of the items in this game. Ex: How the heck do Tangoes work? What does a tree even taste like? -Anyone remember the song "DOTA" by Basshunter? Anything referencing that song or the music video would be hilarious. Dungeon Fighter Online - Any Character

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I originally started playing this game as a part of my ~research~ for a King's Avatar fanfic, and now I'm seriously hooked. Playing it really makes me feel like a kid again and makes me so nostalgic for old school 2D dungeon runners like Diablo 2 and Ragnarok Online, and I absolutely love the dozens of subclasses and their flashy skills. (I am a big fan of ridiculous rainbow-colored animations that take up your entire screen).

Prompts: -I love the idea of a female slayer interacting with a female priest. They both have a history of abuse at the hand of authority figures (the slayer by the De Los Empire and the priest by the False Prophet) and have some parallels in the theming of their subclasses. It would be really cool to compare and contrast the Slayer as a Dark Templar or Demon Slayer with the Priest as an Inquisitor or Mistress.

-Any kind of worldbuilding about Arad and Empyrean would be cool as well as any exploration of the backstories of the main player characters/NPCs. What does the daily life of a dungeon fighter look like? Are they actually having fun running into Hell all the time or is it just a terrible grind? (Yeah, I love meta stuff).

I generally like player characters to be referred to by their class only (as in being called just "the slayer" or "the priestess") but if there are specific names you prefer, feel free to use them. Master X Master - Any Character RIP dead game. This was basically NCSoft’s version of Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm, and boy was I sad when the servers closed down in January. Flashback to last summer: The English version of MXM debuted with mild hype, and everyone's guild was named after one of the teams from The King's Avatar. This was a really fun MOBA with some very cool characters concepts and mechanics. So much lost potential :(

Prompts: -Anything Lua x Sizuka! These two were everyone's starter Masters, and it really amused me how they played off of one another in story mode with Sizuka's seriousness contrasting with Lua's overeager attitude.

-I loved Lorraine and her flashbang camera! Something about her combat paparazzi Master abilities would be awesome.

-For Vita, I would be amused by anything referencing "Upside Down" (aka MXM's meme song that people played on the lobby jukebox nonstop)

Liar! Uncover the Truth - Any Character

I'm a huge fan of this mystery/romance app with its feisty heroine and the quirky Liars she has to unmask before finding her Mr. Right. If you're interested, I maintain a sideblog dedicated to it over @whoistheliar (Warning for spoilers at the link). Kazumi and Haruichi are my favorite love interests, but I would definitely be happy to receive something revolving around other characters. I love how MC isn’t a blank slate and is very much her own character. She can be quite a mess at home and has a lot of insecurity about her humble background, seeing as she’s originally from a small country town (IIRC one of Joe’s side stories mentions that she’s from Akita prefecture).

Prompts (just suggestions - please feel free to go with your own ideas!):

-Scenes from the Ayumi/MC route that Voltage is never going to give us.

-Out of all of the Liars, I felt that #8 was the most outright malicious. I wasn't convinced by the ending of his Lover's Route, and I would be curious to see something showing his mindset and feelings towards MC at the end of the game.

-It seems that people are really divided when it comes to the guy who ends up being "Mr. Right." Some see him as the most precious cinnamon roll, but I've also had people tell me that he comes off as a creepy stalker. I'm pretty sympathetic towards him myself, but I'd love to see your own take on him, whether romantic and sentimental or super dark.

-I really feel like the 9th Liar got the short end of the stick in the main story. His interactions with MC kept getting interrupted by unnecessary drama, and it felt like they never got the chance to really get to know each other. Fix-it fic with them ending up together would be great. BTW, I would love it if Rumi showed up - she was truly the savior of his route, imo.

I generally prefer for MC to be left nameless, but I do feel kind of bad for being so demanding about it in the past, so if there's a name you prefer, please feel free to use it.

Liar! Office Deception - Any Character

I love the Liar! sequel every bit as much as the original game. Workaholic MC is amazing, and you can bet that I'm super thrilled that Voltage is going to be releasing Office Deception Lover's Routes in the future.

-Post-game or redemption story revolving around any of the Liars, with the exception of the 2nd, 3rd and 5th. Ideally, this would end on a positive note with them being able to have a reciprocal friendship/romance with MC.

-Office Battle! I was so amused by the Star Wars parody that kept popping up throughout the story and how everyone seemed to be totally into it except for MC, who's just completely out of the loop. Maybe one of the Office Liars tries to teach her about the series or something like an Office Battle AU that's basically Office Deception in space?

-Narration of some part of the game from James' POV. I love MC's cat and found it hilarious how she kept spoiling him at home while being so disciplined at the office.

-The 9th Liar did some horrible things to get what they wanted, even putting the 8th Liar in the hospital. I’d like to see something that shows some of their inner conflict once they realize they're hurting someone that has actually become a friend to them.

Thanks so much again, and hope you have a great exchange experience!

#exchange letter #fandom exchange

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: Mourning eBay’s Days as the Internet’s Kitschiest, Most Surreal Mall

Screenshot via eBay

Artists, bohemians, obsessive collectors, and idlers have long frequented bazaars, curio shops, yard sales, and other offbeat emporia in search of the Marvelous, as the Surrealists called it, hidden in the everyday.

In the late 1920s, cultural critic Walter Benjamin had the arcades of Paris — glass-roofed pedestrian passageways lined with shops, which sliced through city blocks. Turn-of-the-century forerunners of the department store, the arcades were slipping into decrepitude by Benjamin’s day; T.J. Clark, the art historian, memorably described them as “dusty covered shopping streets with greenhouse roofs, most of them built in the 1820s, which still dreamed on in the Jazz Age, cluttered with stores specializing in trusses and life-size dolls and used false teeth.” Regarding the arcades with a Freudian as well as a Frankfurt Marxist eye, Benjamin saw in their battered mannequins and rickety zoetrope theaters the urban unconscious laid bare. “Dada was the mother of Surrealism,” he wrote in his unfinished magnum opus, The Arcades Project. “Its father was the arcade.”

Truth be told, the Surrealists preferred “Les Puces,” as the flea markets on the outskirts of Paris were called. Andre Breton, the group’s self-appointed leader, wrote in his novel Nadja that the market at Saint-Ouen was “an almost forbidden world of sudden parallels” and “petrifying coincidences,” where unexpected encounters with dreamlike objects lurked around every corner.

EBay, the first e-commerce site, was until recently the web’s kitschier, crummier answer to Benjamin’s arcades or Breton’s Saint-Ouen. In its early years, its hit-or-miss search engine was conducive to close encounters of the absurd kind. Stumbling around the site, you’d find yourself in some obscure corner, staring in slack-jawed amazement at William Shatner’s kidney stone (auctioned off in 2006 for $25,000) or a Lilliputian suit of armor handcrafted to guinea-pig proportions, guaranteed to keep the dauntless rodent “protected and secure in all situations.” Unlike its sleeker competitor, Amazon, whose algorithms ensure you only see things like those you’ve already seen, eBay seemed, for a while, to facilitate chance meetings with the offbeat and the downright bizarre.

Screenshot via eBay

Lists of the most curious, absurd, abject, and grotesque eBay auctions have taken their place in the folklore of consumer culture: the grilled cheese sandwich miraculously emblazoned with an apparition of the Virgin Mary, which sold for $28,000; four golf balls (not just any golf balls; they’d been surgically removed from the belly of a python, who’d mistaken them for hen’s eggs); your advertising slogan tattooed, for $10,000, on some cash-strapped woman’s forehead; a corn flake shaped like the state of Illinois; a Dorito shaped like the pope’s miter; the meaning of life, on offer from a seller who claimed to have “discovered the reason for our existence” and was “happy to share this information with the highest bidder” (which he did, for the dispiritingly small sum of $3.26).

These days, eBay’s corporate overseers are dedicated to remaking public perceptions of the site. “The business is very different than I think people historically thought of it,” said Devin Wenig the company’s CEO, in a 2014 interview. “Over 70% of what we sell is new, fixed-price; the distinct minority are auctions, the distinct minority are consumer-sold used goods. EBay is the world’s largest mall. We are in essence an enormous mall that holds 25 million sellers, reaching 145 million consumers every month.”

Screenshot via eBay

All true, no doubt. Still, the metaphor falls short of most users’ experience of wandering around the site. If eBay is a metastasizing megamall, it’s one where slick, name-brand storefronts sit cheek-by-jowl with halfhearted garage sales, “junk drawer lots” of worthless oddments, and the sort of Weird Stuff, Really Weird Stuff, and Totally Bizarre Stuff (actual eBay categories) that wouldn’t be out of place in a wunderkammer curated by John Waters. Shatner’s kidney stone (and Justin Bieber’s hair clippings, and Justin Timberlake’s half-eaten French toast, both of which have also been auctioned off) are not-so-distant cousins of the religious relics given pride of place in Baroque curiosity cabinets. Likewise, the perennially popular category, Things That Look Like Other Things — the corn flakes, Doritos, and other humble objects that, if you squint hard enough, seem to resemble famous people, places, or things — have their parallel in the “figured stones” treasured by premodern collectors of curiosa, surreal minerals “in which cats, dogs, fish, and humans were ‘sculpted by nature,’” as the historians of science Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park write in Wonders and the Order of Nature.

While the look and feel of its archrival Amazon is all efficiency and buttoned-down professionalism, eBay, with its sleeve-tugging sellers and fannish communities of obsessive collectors, retains a flea-market raffishness. Some of its shadier sellers — traffickers in animal specimens of dubious legality, dealers in fine-art “originals” of questionable authenticity — have a whiff of the carnival midway about them, if not the black market. Robert Hughes’s characterization of Les Puces in The Shock of the New fits eBay to a T: “It was like the unconscious mind of Capitalism itself: it contained the rejected or repressed surplus of objects, the losers, the outcast thoughts.”

Screenshot via eBay

EBay may be “the world’s largest mall,” but it’s one where a click of the search button can take you to what feels like a trailer-park version of a Moroccan souk or one of those last-chance moving sales where a house disgorges the lives of its inhabitants onto the front lawn. Auctions of “consumer-sold used goods” may account for a “distinct minority” of the site’s listings, but they’re still a presence, hawking their wares in typo-ridden, semiliterate come-ons, luridly tricked out in a variety of eye-jangling colors and typefaces. Wenig envisions eBay reborn as a virtual-reality department store in which “shoppers browse merchandise via augmented reality, a flavor of VR that lays computer graphics over the real world.” He hopes to harness AI to intuit what you want to buy before even you know you want to buy it.

In a world where algorithms guard against experiences that don’t fit our past preferences, some of us yearn for the delights of getting lost. Disorientation is the equivalent, in space and time, of the visual defamiliarization that was the 20th-century avant-garde’s job description. Yet the code behind our online lives is designed to thwart disorientation. On Amazon, helpful suggestions swarm like gnats on every page, lists of “featured recommendations inspired by your browsing history” and items “customers who bought this item also bought.” But what about those of us who can’t be defined by our browsing histories because we rejoice in the wrong turn that takes us outside our comfort zones? Even more confoundingly, what about those of us who aren’t here to fill our shopping carts but rather to drift, to idle, to consume only images? The flâneur regards the world with a camera eye, as Susan Sontag notes in On Photography: “The voyeuristic stroller … discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, he finds the world ‘picturesque.’”

Screenshot via eBay

Of course, the cyberflâneur I’m eulogizing has been dead and buried for a while now. Evgeny Morozov, a critical observer of digital culture, performed last rites for the type in a 2012 New York Times essay, attributing the species’ extinction, as I have, to the commodification of our online lives and the ever-smarter algorithms that shape our experience of the web. “Transcending its original playful identity, [the internet is] no longer a place for strolling — it’s a place for getting things done,” Morozov wrote. “Hardly anyone ‘surfs’ the Web anymore. The popularity of the ‘app paradigm,’ whereby dedicated mobile and tablet applications help us accomplish what we want without ever opening the browser or visiting the rest of the Internet, has made cyberflânerie less likely.”

The terminus of this trajectory is the technology blogger Robert Scoble’s ghastly vision of the web as one-stop shopping for couch potatoes — “The new world is you just open up Facebook and everything you care about will be streaming down the screen” — which, as Morozov notes, is the exact opposite of flânerie. “The whole point of the flâneur’s wanderings,” he emphasizes, “is that he does not know what he cares about.”

All that said, the passing of the old eBay — for some of us a cheesier, Tron-like update of Benjamin’s arcades — is worth noting, I think. It’s the last nail in the cyberflâneur’s coffin. Ironically, it was the arcade itself that foretold the flâneur’s passing. The bustling outdoor marketplace tamed and sealed in a vitrine, it paved the way for the department store, which would put “even flânerie to use for commodity circulation,” as Benjamin wrote in Reflections, in Marxist Jeremiah mode. “The department store is the flâneur’s last practical joke.” To Benjamin’s jaundiced eye, the arcade marked the historical shift from a culture of production to a culture of consumption.

Screenshot via eBay

Meanwhile, back in downwardly mobile working-class America, the smell of economic desperation wafts off all those eBay listings for yard sale detritus and swap meet “collectibles.” This is the America of the padlocked factory and the moribund Main Street. It’s hard to have a consumer culture when you’re all out of consumers. Behind the site’s newly renovated front page, past the established merchants selling “new, fixed-price” goods, the hand-me-down myths of postwar America — middle-class dreams of job security and a decent wage, the virtues of conspicuous consumption and the disposable lifestyle, the equation of net worth with self-worth — are on the block at Buy It Now prices.

Perversely, Benjamin’s flâneur may be reborn in the dead malls that dot the Rust Belt desolation between the coasts. Across the country, zombie malls totter on, their escalators running, their Muzak humming, their anchor stores gone, nobody home but a few forlorn tenants clinging to life. Increasingly, as online “everything stores” like Amazon and eBay kill off brick-and-mortar retail and the service jobs it generates, the ghost mall is becoming a distinguishing feature of the heartland. Pioneered in the mid-1950s by Victor Gruen, an Austrian-born architect who dreamed of importing the community vibe of the European arcade to America’s suburbs, the shopping mall’s final role is that of tombstone of runaway consumption, cenotaph to sprawl.

In Autopsy of America, an essay in guerrilla photojournalism, Seph Lawless documents this phenomenon. Prowling abandoned malls slowly being reclaimed by weeds and vermin, he captures images of trash-strewn food courts, frozen escalators, and mannequins seen through dust-streaked windows, their jaunty poses mocking the runaway consumption postwar America was built on.

Here, in the haunted arcades of Trumpland, urban explorers are the new flâneurs.

The post Mourning eBay’s Days as the Internet’s Kitschiest, Most Surreal Mall appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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knickynoo · 5 years ago

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A McFly Family Dinner

Buckle up, kids, because my brain is about to dump a whole lotta words out on this here blog post.

When I watch a movie, I love to closely examine little details. Look at all the pieces that are woven together to create characters and the world they live in. And when I see a particular scene that I think was put together really well, I like to ramble about it on tumblr. Well, the other night, I was thinking about the dinner scene, particularly the way that it’s able to add to Marty’s characterization. I know what you’re thinking. “But wait, Marty only says 3 words in that entire scene!”

Exactly. And it was a great choice on the part of the filmmakers, because it accomplishes the job of showing us how much this environment is able to impact him (vs.when he’s in other environments), as well as implying what he might experience as his “norm” in his home.

As dysfunctional as the McFly family is, at least they seem to make an effort to eat dinner together. It’s certainly an uncomfortable dinner though. George is glued to the TV & his notebook, Dave rushes off to work, Linda is doing her hair, and Lorraine is beginning (or continuing) what is probably a long night of drinking. And what is Marty doing? Sitting very quietly. What?? When does Marty ever do that?

Prior to this, we spent part of the day with Marty. We saw him destroy the amp in Doc’s house, watched him confidently skateboard to school, and saw how in love he is with his girlfriend. Following him to dinner is probably a great opportunity to listen to him banter with his family, right? We could really get a feel for how he relates to each individual member!

Well...that doesn’t happen, but I think it’s through Marty’s silence that actually speaks volumes. He has a single line in the entire sequence (”Uncle Jailbird Joey?”) and the rest is just demeanor and body language.

First, let’s revisit the scene that just happened prior to this one, where Marty walks in to see Biff bullying his father. Marty is likely used to this. His father doesn’t stand up for himself. Never has. But what about Marty? Does George ever stand up for him, his own son?

Considering George is behind Biff during this scene and says nothing, no, probably not. And it’s one thing to not defend yourself, but to not defend your own kid when your supervisor turns the bullying on him? Needless to say, no matter how much he may love him, Marty most likely doesn’t consider his father someone he can look up to or depend on. Just like how he is at the dinner table, George is probably oblivious to most of the goings-on in Marty’s life.

What about his mother? Oh, you mean the depressed alcoholic who only addresses Marty in the scene so she can criticize Jennifer? Yes, it obviously is used to set up how Lorraine “supposedly” was as a teenager, but it also provides a glimpse of what Marty’s relationship with her is like. Does Marty try to reason with his mother? Defend his relationship or attempt to explain why Jennifer is important to him?

No. He gives her a glance and then kind of shrinks away, none of the stubborn attitude or hotheadedness that we’ll later know to be part of Marty’s personality anywhere in sight. Maybe he’s simply learned that trying to reason with his mother when she’s drinking doesn’t work. Who knows? The point is, we see someone who probably does his best to go unnoticed while at home, restraining himself emotionally (& physically-Marty is usually always moving/fidgeting) so that he can sit silently through dinner and not make waves.

I think the entire scene works well at doing what it set out to.Showing us all the dysfunction and pointing out how this type of environment impacts Marty. It’s enough to take a boisterous, inquisitive, chatty kid and reduce him to little more than a prop sitting at the dinner table.

It’s become familiar to him. His father is in his own world and his mother is an empty shell. There’s no support here, so why bother trying to engage people who are so wrapped up in their own issues that they can't see much else?

It's got to be such a bizarre, lonely, environment to have grown up in, and for as enthusiastic and fun-loving as Marty seems to be, this sequence is a little reminder that he's got to feel sad a lot in this house. (And if you're aware of an early draft of the film, you know just how sad Marty was originally portrayed as. So much so that his being accidentally sent back in time was the result of a very dark route they had planned for his character.)

So where does that leave Marty? When his own father tells him it’s better not to get his hopes up, and his mother can’t stand his girlfriend, and he’s told at school he’s nothing but a slacker who will never amount to anything? Who can he possibly turn to in order to get that encouragement, and to be seen, and told that he’s capable?

...oh yeah.

#I told ya'll to stop me from writing this & you didn't #you ENCOURAGED it & brought it on yourself #the ramblings of a sleep deprived mind #back to the future #bttf #marty mcfly #michael j fox #doc brown #christopher lloyd

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insert-witty-comment · 8 years ago

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(Continue from Part 1)We are now in Part 2, and Nichols takes over the writing. A guy named Stan Campbell claims that he “programmed” the Montauk Boys. You remember them, right? They were the kids who were kidnapped due to their Aryan bodies and sent hurtling through time. Now, that was pretty dumb, but can it get any dumber?“Back in the early 1970's, the Montauk group became interested in programming children. According to legend, gray aliens picked up about fifty kids and delivered them to Montauk. They would then be programmed and separated into three groups: ages 6-12, 13-16, and 16-22.”Yes.Yes it can. So we’re dealing with, what, three alien races now?The first group was split into two subgroups if they survived the “processing”; one was given to the “grays”, and the other was “programmed” and placed back in their families. Supposedly, they were programmed to be sleeper agents for the government to activate at any time with a hypnotic command “so that they band together into vigilante squads and go after government enemies” and is this really where The Division came from? Seriously?The second two groups were also meant to infiltrate society, and were also split into two subgroups. One was meant to serve as mindless assassins to murder a specific target, and the other was meant to form satanic cults that would accomplish… something. I don’t know, it doesn’t really seem like the Church of Satan is doing so well, nowadays.So apparently this had been going on for some time at good old Brookhaven National Labs. Apparently the aliens were also harvesting the boys’ fear somehow. Alas, even Nazi-run plans to create prepubescent Manchurian Candidates in association with gray aliens fall victim to affirmative action, as some darker haired and even (gasp!) darker-skinned boys were also included. So I guess we shouldn’t rule this out as a possible Stranger Things plot point!Oh, who am I kidding, of course we should.The book then goes into excruciating detail about how the “reprogramming” process went, and I will not be retyping it here because it’s horrible. My apologies to all the S&M pedophiles and Business Insider writers reading this.Chapter 10 discusses the guy who spilled all of this; “Stan Campbell”, which is a fake name meant to protect his identity. Nichols met him at a 1991 lecture by Elaine Donald, a civil rights advocate speaking on behalf of- nah, I’m just kidding, she’s another damn psychic. Anyway, Nichols offers to drive Campbell home. Campbell accepts, and reveals the following;“…he let loose, describing problems as an abductee, problems with the Government and consequent legal difficulties. He had been accused of embezzlement but didn't remember doing it. Although here called opening bank accounts and getting money from somewhere, he wasn't sure exactly what he'd done.”I think I might have an idea as to what “Campbell’s” true identity is.So Campbell had another conversation with Nichols later, revealing even more information. Nichols deduced that he had been “violated” and describes him thusly;“He was paranoid, his mind was weak and he virtually had no will of his own.”This only reinforces my hypothesis.Under hypnosis, Campbell reveals that he was abducted by government agents riding in UFOs. Then came this bizarre series of events;“Eventually, Stan started to remember activity with the CIA. In the early 1980's, he had received a phone call at 3:00 A.M. with someone requesting that he apply for work at the CIA. He was told to report to a specific place and fill out application forms. Subsequently, he was requested to go to the New York Institute of Technology and take a test. He was contacted again and told that he did extremely well on the test. Then, he was told to report to a particular hotel (I recall it being The New Yorker) under an assumed name and that there would be a room waiting for him. He gave a false name, was given a key and went in and waited. Stan said the room was suspicious because it was next to a utility closet and there was a mirror on the wall next to the closet. He was fairly sure that there were cameras and surveillance equipment behind the mirror. After a while, the phone rang and a lady came up and gave him a battery of psychological tests. He returned home and was eventually contacted again. He was told that he'd done very well on the tests and that he had to report to the final testing section. This unit was in Virginia in a town I remember being called Crabwell Corners. There, he went to a Holiday Inn. He was sure it wasn't open to the public because it always had "no vacancy" signs yet there were any never people in it. Each room had car keys and other things that went along with it. Stan was given another fictitious name and told to go to a room on the second floor and wait. A number of people came in and did more tests. During the tests, he was sent from one room to another. The whole experience was very strange and he didn't remember half of it. The "testing" was odd, to say the least. He remembered waking up stark naked with his rear end up in the air. A lot of times different parts of his body would hurt. Three out of the four days he was there, his anal opening hurt. This was about all he remembered. He was eventually told that the testing was complete and that he should go home and wait for further instructions.”Ah, the days before Internet applications.So after getting shoved into the trunk of a limo and then being electrically shocked in the navel while an alien watched at an old castle (seriously), Campbell recalled that he had been diverting funds to the “carry on” of the Montauk Project in the Alsace-Lorraine Mountains in Europe.Chapter 11 is called “The Devil’s Chapter”. Nichols brings Campbell to Cameron and discovers that he’s under the influence of several aliens. Somehow, Cameron managed to break the aliens’ influence over Campbell, who proceeds to recognize Cameron. Apparently he was one of the directors at Montauk, having had “some psychic resonance” with Cameron and he was in charge of breaking and reprogramming the kids. So I guess this guy is the equivalent to Martin Brenner (you might want to go back and read his whole recruitment process again with that in mind; it’s kind of hilarious). He even describes how he shoved some of the boys into a small, dark “five sided” room deep underground. He also used cages made of chicken wire.So after describing some body horror involving the kids and being electroshocked, Campbell describes… this;“The next thing he saw was a rectangular opening appearing above the table where they had done the programming. He was sucked right up into the rectangular opening and found himself dressed in early Jewish robes about the time of Christ.”No…They’re not…“The next thing Stan knows, he's in the time of Christ. His mission, as he remembers it, is to go find Jesus and do two things.”You’ve got to be kidding me…“First, he's supposed to remove a sample of blood and then he's supposed to kill Him.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Well, I was wrong. Against all odds, these two managed to top themselves.We’re not even halfway done, by the way.“He finds Christ and Christ greets him in a most surprising fashion. He said that He knows what Stan is there for and He even volunteers to give him the sample of blood. But, Christ indicates that He is not ready to die yet. He tells Stan that he will not be able to kill Him. Operating on his orders from Montauk, Stan then reports emptying a revolver into Christ without phasing Him.”“The whole experience might have lasted for ten hours in terms of Montauk time but Stan felt that he had been in the time of Christ for about two months. We believe that Stan may have somehow become Judas or walked into his body. Somehow, it seemed that he assumed the identity of Judas, betrayed Christ and arranged for His death as reported in the Bible. Again, this was all on order from Montauk.”…..Do I really need to comment on this? I think it speaks for itself.“None of this is terribly clear. It is also highly controversial from a religious point of view.”NO SHIT.“Stan reported that he brought a vial of blood from Christ back to Montauk. He didn't want to give it up and continued to hold on to it. Then, he felt a burning and the blood "went through him" like an exorcism. He was subsequently sent through a portal to Mars and told to hand over the blood to Christ who he would find on Mars. Stan then emerged out of the underground on Mars and saw a mountain range. Near a mesa, in the corner of a group of rocks, stood a tall thin figure who looked like Christ in robes. He walked over and nervously extended the blood to the robed figure. As the figure accepted the blood, he looked up and Stan now saw the face of Duncan Cameron, masquerading as Christ. Duncan stood there frozen for a number of minutes and Stan took off. The time context of this is not known but we guess that it is late July of 1983 because of some incidents that Duncan has additionally reported on.”No, dear reader, you are not hallucinating. I would like to remind you that many people treat these books as indisputable, hard truth. I would also like to remind you once again that Duncan Cameron was the guy that Eleven was based off of. Please keep that in mind while you read this;“Stan then went back to the Martian underground, popped into the vortex and returned to Montauk. There, he was told that they wanted the blood because it could be mixed into Duncan's bloodstream in such a manner that Duncan would have the same DNA blood coding as that which is on the Shroud of Turin. This could then be used as an argument (quite falsely) that Duncan is the second coming of Christ. Whether the exact details of the incident are accurate, this aspect of the story rings true because Duncan's training (in his current body, born in 1951) had groomed him all along to be the Antichrist… According to what we've been able to put together, Duncan had been trained to be the Antichrist.”Wow.Just… wow.“What apparently happened during this ridiculous and perhaps unprecedented manipulation of time is that the powers at Montauk were trying to usurp the very power of God. Christ, as the representative of God, got the last laugh. His blood was wanted for diabolic purposes, but He reversed the entire process. The blood ended up having a cleansing effect on Duncan and changed his entire personality. Before that incident, Duncan was conceited and arrogant. Afterwards, he became quite a nice person. His first order of business was to meet with a cabal of people at Montauk who would sabotage the project. An arrangement was made to release Junior and the Montauk Project became inoperable. Although it is still active in some form today, the Montauk operatives are not believed to have anywhere near the capability they had in1983… The important point is that it indicates the Christ consciousness prevailed and saved us all from possible manipulation by the Montauk Project. Mankind can be saved from devastation and there are higher forces at work that we can align ourselves with.”So a cabal of time-traveling-weather-controlling-mind-controlling-teleportation Neo-Nazis using the power of the Force with the assistance of three alien races were personally defeated by Jesus Christ Himself and the Demogorgon’s inbred cousin from the Pacific Northwest.This. Fucking. Book.……………………………………………………………………………………….Moving on…Oh yeah, there’s more. Only in the world of Peter Moon and Preston B. Nichols is an appearance by our Lord and Savior not the climax.So after that, Campbell was accused of embezzlement by the “Charles Food Company”, which Nichols claimed is a Mob-run organization that assisted the Montauk Project by grabbing kids off the street. They got involved with Campbell because after Jesus kicked the Project’s ass there was still a whole bunch of kids left over. The government kindly set up a trust fund for them, but it ran out of money (this is the most realistic part of the book). So they assigned Campbell to manage it. The Company would put the money in his account while he managed it, but he utter messed it up so the Company ended up suing him for embezzlement in 1988 for $400,000 ($4,616,000 in today’s money). Over the course of legal proceedings, Campbell was being stalked and harassed by government agents, which lead to Nichols delivering this bit of helpful advice;“At this point, I began to threaten over the phone (which I know to be tapped) that if Stan was locked up, I would go and prove the Montauk Project as much as I could and also go public on my involvement in the Moriches Bay UFO crash (I helped to shoot it down when I worked for BJM by jamming its drive with the appropriate frequencies — a whole other story).”Nichols… you broke me. You don’t have to keep coming up with means to test my sanity.So after a whole bunch of legal drama, Campbell was sentenced to thirty-three months in federal prison. In order to prevent him from being brainwashed while in prison by making several public appearances and by having a psychic safeguard his mind.In Chapter 13, Peter Moon approaches Elaine Donald, the psychic who introduced Campbell to Nichols.“Elaine said that all the things that Stan came up with were under the influence of the drug Prozac and that he wanted nothing to do with Montauk… It was all pure hallucination and/or delusion.”Oh my God, a voice of sanity! There’s still hope!This hope is immediately crushed when it is revealed that Campbell was brainwashed in prison. Sigh easy come, easy go.Chapter 14 is all about Alien Treaties.Are you really surprised by this point?“The first treaty between aliens and the U.S. Government was supposedly signed in 1913. I don't have any information on it other than it involved World War 1.”I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments as to what exactly this treaty could have entailed.“The second treaty was signed somewhere around 1945 to 1947. This was supposed to be an alien technology exchange of some kind. Rumor indicated this exchange was with aliens that referred to themselves as the ‘K Group’… The K Group had been alarmed by the dropping of the atom bomb and wanted the world to disarm from nuclear weapons. They apparently feared what mankind might do. There was an agreement that nuclear devices would be abandoned in return for other technology. Of course, this treaty was not adhered to by the humans and the K Group totally abandoned us.”Well, Klaatu, barada, nikto, K Group.“The third treaty happened when the Regelian grays came and contacted the Government. These grays said they could help us, but they wanted us to help them as well. They desired certain technology. According to what I'm told, this treaty was agreed upon sometime between 1951 and 1954. We are currently under this treaty although the grays have violated it from time to time.”Why am I not surprised.Chapters 15-18 just describe how humans received transistors courtesy of the Orions and K Group. There isn’t much of interest here, other than the Roswell crashed UFO (got to work that in!) carrying human body parts and President Truman haggling with aliens.We have reached Part 3, and Peter Moon takes over once again. Chapter 19 is literally about Moon and Nichols arguing over the movie rights to the book. Again, there’s not much of interest except for whatever reason, Moon immediately assumes that the studio executive he negotiates with is an alien.In Chapter 20, Nichols receives a bunch of transistors containing original alien tech from “Orion Diversified”. Moon then meets a doctor referred to as “Dr. O” who allegedly came up with a way to treat AIDs, but is being suppressed by The Man because…. I have no fucking idea.Moon then gives this interesting piece of information;“And for those who do not know, anyone in the New York area who deals in the carting industry had better be approved or sanctioned by the mob. If you don' t believe me, try opening up a competitive business and see what happens.”We’re almost in the home stretch and I am way too tired to research this, so I’ll just take Moon’s word for it and assume that the garbage men are all mobsters from now on.Moon then describes how Nichols was approached by a government agent who offered him another job because apparently the government is still trying to time-travel. Nichols declined. In response, Dr. O implies that he was a part of the Project as well, and reveals that he has figured out a way to reverse aging. Moon leaves us with this quote;“Immortality and time travel might be fun, but they also require a lot of hard work.”Couldn’t have said it better.Chapters 21-23 are just about Moon and Nichols traveling around and talking to people. They first met von Neumann, who was the guy who sold Nichols the receiver at the end of the first book. He only gives a few cryptic statements. Then, the duo visit Klark, the guy who introduced Nichols to von Neumann. Klark is apparently holding pieces for Nichols to build a time machine with. He also wants to aid in the next book, and then use the profits from it to build a time machine. Well, you better use the money I gave you for these books well, Klark. They then visit a woman named Helga Morrow, whose father worked at Montauk. His job was to train psychics to communicate with astronauts and figure out a way to integrate aliens into human society. Oh, and when Helga was born, this happened;“During the gestation process, her mother's gynecologist, a noted spiritualist by the name of Dr. Haase, inserted a mysterious metallic rod into the womb in order to enhance the I.Q. and psychic ability of Helga. She was a government experiment! To this day, you can see what appears to be an antenna structure in X-ray pictures of her head. This is part of what makes her an acute sensitive and psychic.”I’m debating whether “taking copious amounts of LSD in isolation tanks while pregnant” or “jamming a metal rod in a fetus’s head” is a dumber explanation for psychic abilities. Regardless, her father had disappeared shortly after being involved with Montauk and she has been looking for him since.Chapter 24 deals with a woman who claimed that her father was involved with the Philadelphia Experiment. This woman was one of a set of triplets, and is referred to as “Baby A”, and her sisters are referred to as “Baby B” and “Baby C”. Apparently, their father was the one manning the controls for the experiment at Norfolk. Oh, and Babies A and C were created from alien DNA. Because of this, they are psychic.Well, I think this explanation may take the gold.Oh, and apparently mind-control experiments were being done in Sembach, Germany as well.Chapter 25 is about the filming of the documentary. While doing this, our heroes find out that Montauk was covering up the disappearances of the kidnapped kids because “Montauk is a tourist town and shocking news does not make for more people and good business.”I beg to differ.When the camera crew arrived at Camp Hero, there was a mysterious hole in the side of the transmitter building. They enter and describe the interior;“Perhaps the biggest find during this period was a house next to the officers' lounge. The upstairs contained the oddest "military" decor you've ever seen. One room was loud paisley, another tiger striped, and one was painted like confetti. There was a fourth room that was painted black and white in the strangest pattern arrangement. I first speculated that it might have been a base whorehouse.”Well that’s nice. So after a hard day of time-traveling and torturing children, base personnel had a means to unwind. I wonder if they let the aliens use it too.So after attempting to record some “hues” coming from the base, the filming wrapped up, and you can watch the whole thing in all of its early 90’s VHS glory here. However…”Before the documentary shooting began, Duncan's readings said it must all be completed before the 18th of January (1993) or there would be danger. His information was very specific. Further readings indicated that four aliens from the Andromedan galaxy had entered the underground base and caused some sort of etheric distortion in the electromagnetic field over Montauk. They apparently caused an explosion in the entire underground and caused untold damage to the current Montauk operation. The Andromedans are believed to be benevolent and were willing to sacrifice their lives to sabotage the Montauk underground.”I am so happy that I have long ceased to care about pointing out how absurd this. So Nichols went back to the base to get some more footage and got accosted by a couple of state troopers. Nichols actually managed to win a lawsuit (which I can’t seem to find any record of) against them. Security was now significantly tightened at the base.Chapter 26 is where we learn that the Montauk Manor is haunted by ghosts (yes, ghosts), because it was built on top of a Native American burial ground. Well, nice to know that Moon is a Kubrick fan. Oh, and also a “coven of witches” meets on the base grounds to perform rituals. And there’s apparently “many” covens on Long Island. I never saw any sign of witches anywhere, but fine.Chapter 27 begins with a discussion of a man named Kenn Arthur who Moon met at a Psychotronics meeting;“Kenn was extremely cynical about Preston's story and would sometimes makeup the most hysterical jokes about it. However, he would be the first to admit that he is obsessed with pessimism about anything. As time went by, I would make little discoveries that indicated that a project really did exist. He'd laugh it off in one way or another.”Hey, I think I found my “past incarnation”!“As time went by, the main thrust of his communication was that Preston's story was an elaborate hallucination.”Yeah, tell these lunatics off, Kenn! I’m beginning to like this guy!“He said that the true story is far more bizarre than anything Preston could possibly put together.”God damn it.So, Arthur explains the “true” story behind where the Nazi gold came from (if you forgot about that, I don’t blame you). It did not come from a seized train in France, but instead;"In 1945, the Nazis, convinced the Third Reich was about to fall, sent a U-boat to Montauk containing riches seized during the invasion of France with instructions to bury them underground inside twelve metal shell casings. The German sailors followed orders and buried the treasure at Camp Hero with a large rock nearby to be used as a landmark. After the war, the money and jewels were to be used for bribes, false passports and safe passage to the United States and South America for high officers of the Reich."Oh yeah, that’s much more plausible.So apparently the Germans handed off the money to the government in exchange for immunity and “many ended up owning barber shops on Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens.”Sure, fine, whatever. I’ll assume that all the barbers in Queens are Nazis from now on.Chapter 28 starts off by claiming that there is a series of catacombs under Montauk, with entrances under the Montauk Manor, Camp Hero, and of course, Mark Hamill’s house. Apparently they were funded by the German Kaiser in the early 1900s to reach “Inner Earth”. They also connected to another mansion that served as a boys’ military academy that was shut down for several health and safety violations. Moon concludes that this academy was a cover for the kidnapped boys from the Project.Chapter 29 deals with a woman referred to as “Madam X”. She explains that there are 12 different “mystery schools” monitoring Cameron. What’s a mystery school?“Also known as secret societies, these are organized groups that have been around since time immemorial. Their names sometimes change with the winds of politics but throughout history there have been many branches. The Illuminati, Knights Templars, Masons and Rosicrucians are just a few samples of organizations that have been identified as mystery schools. While the aforesaid are well known throughout history and are at time considered notorious, there are others that work more secretly in an effort to balance what the others have done.”Well, I guess The Secret World can be seen as a documentary, then.“The Order of Melchizedek, the Magi and the Order of the Seven Rays would all fit into the latter category. I don't know the full organizational charts and interrelationship of all the groups. That is a job for conspiracy theorists.”Oh look, Moon is trying to distance himself from conspiracy theorists. Cute.“Since the beginning, the twelve major mystery schools have been concerned with the balance of good and evil or light and dark. It is in this realm with which we can identify the Antichrist. The Antichrist is important because it is the focal point of what Montauk is about.”Yep. The “focal point” of the infamous Montauk Project, the thing that our beloved show was based off of, was summoning the Antichrist.Moon… Nichols… whoever’s writing this… what’s going on up there?I mean… no sane person can come up with this. I’m genuinely kind of concerned for their mental well-being. The rest of the chapter is basically just an explanation of Crowley’s theories that the “Christ” and “Antichrist” must be kept in balance.Chapter 30 is about Jack Parson’s magical experiments with his pal L. Ron Hubbard in 1946, in which he performed the “Babalon Working” ritual.“It involved creating a Moonchild which was the raising of the Antichrist as was explained in the last chapter. Parsons also viewed this experiment as reversing the stagnant and unbalanced patriarchal power structure of the Piscean era. He was also a big fan of womankind and in this work he sought to bring out the Goddess energy that had been repressed for millennia.”And what is a “Moonchild”?“There are differing views. Cameron explained to me that she's uncomfortable with the word. She said that every time one has sex, a thought form is created. This is sometimes called a Moonchild. The thought form will go out and do the bidding of the magicians involved (sex partners).”All the more reason to use condoms, then.So how did the actual ritual go?“Parsons and Cameron gave their sexual energy with Hubbard overseeing the operation and using his astral vision. It was an exhaustive operation which was designed to open an interdimensional door for the manifestation of the goddess Babalon (which means understanding), the Mother of the Universe. She would appear inhuman form, and many to this day consider that Cameron is indeed the incarnation of Babalon.”And what did this accomplish?“According to the accounts of many others, Parson (along with Hubbard and Cameron) succeeded in creating a rift in space-time (not unlike the Philadelphia Experiment). A doorway to "the other side" or another dimension was created. It was after this operation that UFO sightings began to be reported en masse. The famous Roswell crash occurred in 1947, prior to the death of Aleister Crowley. Whatever happened during the Babalon Working, there is extremely wide acceptance in both magical and scientific circles that something of an extremely profound nature occurred that had an extreme interdimensional effect. Besides the massive UFO sightings that followed, there was also the National Security Act and the formation of the CIA.”In case you ever wondered how the Central Intelligence Agency was formed, there’s your answer; it involved magical sex-spirits. Also I thought Cameron kicked off the UFO wave when he shut the defense system off on Mars in the last book. I really don’t want to know what it says about me that I’m paying more attention to the continuity of these books than the authors.“It is also noteworthy to point out that, according to Cameron, both Parsons and Hubbard were never the same after the experiment. Both would have many struggles and Parsons would be officially assassinated six years later. Ironically, the Capitol building in Washington. D.C. was stormed by UFOs within a very short time after Parsons died.”We’re almost done folks, just hang in there a little longer.So essentially the Babalon Working is a way to achieve CHIM and obtain the power of God. I’m sure this gives the guys over at r/teslore boners, but what the hell does this have to with Montauk?Well, Chapter 31 reveals the Jack Parsons was the guy who ran the entire Montauk Project. Maybe. Or maybe the Montauk Project was just a synchronicity with Parson’s work. It’s not really clear. Also, “JPL” actually stands for “Jack Parsons Laboratory” rather than “Jet Propulsion Laboratory” (that’s an ego trip if I ever saw one). And L. Ron Hubbard was a wizard.Moving on.In Chapter 32, Moon learns that Parsons and Hubbard were censored by Crowley due to their interest in Chaos Theory. Yes, Chaos Theory, the thing Jeff Goldblum refused to shut up about in Jurassic Park.By this point if a T-Rex suddenly appeared in this book and murdered everyone, I would not even bat an eyelash.So apparently in 1943 Crowley did a ritual in England that caused a “line of rough water” to appear and point toward Long Island. And he also used magick to aid Rudolf Hess’s attempted peace mission. And he created the Loch Ness Monster. And he was looking for a powerful magical item called “The Book of Desolation”. Also, interestingly enough, he discusses the Upside-Down;“Amado explained to me that most people misconstrue spanning the distance to mean going from the physical plane to the astral plane. This is not correct. The world we live in is here and now, like Zen masters teach. This is our "reality" in which we exist. But the world "there" is a different reality into which we may wander on occasions. Spanning the distance means to go from "here" to "there". Between the two worlds is a transformational state.”Or least I think it is. Look, I’m just trying to justify the colossal amount of time I spent writing this by actually connecting it to the damn show somehow.Chapter 33 is where Moon explains something that I’m sure has been scientifically proven; sterility in twins indicates a virgin birth.What, you didn’t know that? Come on, it’s common knowledge!“A virgin birth refers to interdimensional mating and results in what is called a Moonchild or Sexchild. This is also a sterile birth, and the sterility results from the interdimensional mating.”“On a physical level, a virgin (or even any other woman) can be impregnated and not know how. This is the result of a latent male protein from the father that resides in all females but cannot be found unless it is triggered. It is in fact an acid that acts just like a sperm and penetrates the zona pellucida, a protective body which contains a sack. The zona pellucida is very hard to penetrate. If it wasn't, any old sperm or perhaps anything else (like animal sperm) could come in and be a candidate for gestation.”“Normal pregnancy occurs when the native (or psychic) intelligence in the cell receives a message that a sperm is out there waiting to enter. If the proper biological conditions are present, the sperm is permitted access. In the case of a virgin birth, the protein is activated to act like a sperm and "fools" the zona pellucida into thinking it's a sperm. A child is eventually born with the gestation period usually lasting ten months.”“The protein referred to above is located in the body's original cells which are eight in number and located at the base of the spine. This is the root of "kundalini" and is the first physical base of life where spirit first united with matter. These eight cells are juxtaposed in a geometrical fashion that consists of two pyramids. Four cells make up a pyramid or tetrahedron. The other four make another similar pyramid. The two tetrahedrons then interlock upside down to each other. If you were to take a two dimensional side view, this cell structure would look like the Seal of Solomon, more popularly recognized as the Star of David. This geometric structure contains all the wisdom of the universe and can be tapped either psychically or electromagnetically. (This is also the exact point where Montauk boys have had incisions for abduction purposes). This tetrahedral structure is what is penetrated by the magician when a Moonchild is created. His own consciousness or psychic/sexual energy (which is electromagnetic in nature) is taking the latent protein within the center of the tetrahedrons and is awakening the kundalini within the zona pellucida. A magical child is thus created.I am so fucking done with this book.The gist is that this method ended up creating Christ and the Antichrist, and Parson ended up creating the Wilson twins (and by extension Cameron the Antichrist) through this method because I guess he was Darth Plagueis all along.I have never been more relieved to see the word “Epilogue” then I am now. Moon talks a bit more about Parsons and Crowley, and the book mercifully ends with this message;“New information about Montauk, its ramifications and other projects continues to come in. There is no shortage of excitement or lack of avenues to pursue in our quest for understanding the universe(s).”“We will talk to you again later.”Great, thanks for reminding me that there’s fifteen books left.Thus concludes *Adventures in Synchronicity”, a book that took another book that was already completely insane and then injected it with two shots of pure LSD. If you managed to survive reading this with your sanity intact, then I applaud you.The purpose of these commentaries was to inform all of you guys and gals of the origin of Stranger Things. Well, I accomplished that part. The second purpose was to formulate a prediction for Season 2. So, based solely on this tomes of madness, here are my predictions:Jonathan is going to drop dead of a heart attackHopper is going to spend the entire season in a courtroom fending off a lawsuit from conspiracy theorists he arrested.Nancy is going to become a born-again Christian and reject both Jonathan and Steve in favor of a magical wino fisherman.Brenner is going to survive, and will end up working out of a mob-owned ice cream truck.Lonnie is going to use the money from his lawsuit to build a time machine.Steve is going to join the Sea Org.Mr. Clark is going to remember that he was an employee of the Brookhaven Hawkins National Laboratory, and then write seventeen books about it, inspiring a generation of conspiracy theorists.Mike, Dustin and Lucas are going to embark on a Goonies-style hunt for Nazi gold, but will get abducted by aliens and be reprogrammed as sleeper agents/hitmen.Will is going to be the host for the Antichrist.Eleven is going to be revealed as the literal Second Coming.It will be revealed that Aleister Crowley saved Barbara at the last second, faked her death and trained her to be a Time-Lord.Mark Hamill will have a cameo.Well, that’s it for this one. Check in on the Hawkins Book Club next week, where we’ll take a look at Pyramids of Montauk: Explorations in Consciousness.Thanks for reading, and until then, Stay Strange.The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time Overview via /r/StrangerThings

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