#anyway i read about a case where a guy was abused by a priest and didnt remember until later and how that kind of memory works

[whatyoutaughtwasfear]

noooooo 50c public transport fares started this week and i didn't leave campus until like 5:20 so the ferry was PACKED and people were being LOUD and the driver was SHIT (took many tries to align to the dock at every single platform) so people kept FALLING OVER!! i was lucky enough to get a seat but it was OUTSIDE so it was COLD and DARK and i wanted to READ so it was lucky there was a light but it only came on when we STOPPED so i was using my phone screen to light my kindle but i had to keep pressing the button to turn the screen on and also i had my headphones on p loud bc the old people behind me were being loud and it was a sensory NIGHTMARE

[ananke-xiii]

Form and Void... Hands and Hearts.

Intro + the post before this you kinda need to read them all or it won't make a lot of sense lol

Dean and Crowley's relationship is not fun.

Full disclosure here: I have no problems in terms of shipping and having fun with the characters outside of what's canon but I personally don't see Dean's canon relationship with Crowley as "fun", it's not something that I particularly enjoy watching. Like, the actors are great etc. but the actual story makes me feel... uncomfortable. I actually find it sad that Dean's still attached to Crowley because, as much as I like him as a character, the King of Hell acts like a total predator towards Dean and this episode highlights this side of their relationship in uncomfortable ways. So be warned that things get a little ugly from here.

Let's see how food is treated in the episode: Crowley is presented as "Father Crowley" while he puts sugar in his tea and calls Dean "a rather scrumptious altar boy". The image I get from this is both that of the sugar daddy and, because of the religious references, of the scandals surrounding the Vatican and its priests (I'm trying to be as sensitive as I can but the show is really not and Crowley literally makes a reference to these events later on in the episode).

Father Crowley is a piece of shit.

He will later pull up in a van and kidnap young Amara with this line:

My, haven't you grown into a sweet young thing? Want some candy, little girl?

If we consider that Amara and Dean are connected (by the mark that's above Amara's heart and that was on Dean's right arm) Dean and Crowley's past relationship doesn't look so much fun anymore (well, it never was fun to begin with as I've written although the show did its best to make it look like it was fun with the karaoke, the cowboy hats and the sex. I mean, on paper it does look like fun if we can just forget that Dean was very much Crowley's guinea pig).

In case you were wondering, Dean and Amara are bound, guys.

Crowley here is the preacher/hunter of "The Night of the Hunter". He dresses like a priest but he's hunting for demons (yeah, I know, it's a clear reference to "The Exorcist" too). He happens to find "the child that eats the souls" and proceed to kidnap her. I mean, brrrrr.

And how does Dean feel about it? He still loves him! Poor, poor, poor Dean.

While Sam went for the heart of Poor Guy with the electrocution device, the angels went for Cas' heart (and other parts too) with the angel blades, Dean goes for Crowley's heart with Ruby's knife. Unlike Sam and the angels, he doesn't finish what he had set up to do.

Dean's knife is pointed at Crowley's heart but I'm bad at taking screenshots so this is what you get.

Instead, he pins Crowley's to the wall by stabbing his left hand (the hand of love and receiving) with an angel blade. Visually, it's quite similar (not the same, similar) thing that happened to Cas at the end of S10. It couldn't be more sexual (angels blades are the dicks, also interesting choice of weapon to stab Crowley: Cas' ghost in their relationship is ever present) and more problematic: in a heartbeat Dean goes from prey to predator.

They re-used this very explicit image in S12.

Just like Dean is bound to Amara, he's still bound to his former abuser Crowley. And, I mean, from a storytelling pov it tracks because Amara is very much Crowley's and Dean's baby ("You're very maternal, Dean"). Yeah, I can hear your "ewwww" from here knowing where they went with Dean and Amara but I didn't write the show, they did and I'm picking up the things they've put down. Anyway, Dean and Crowley's relationship will be over only once Dean's not bound to Amara anymore. Or, at least, it should be but like any love triangle writers liked to milk it unti it was dry, i.e. one of the three permadied. This is why, I think, we had the echoes of the same trite trope in S12 too and if you enjoyed it good for you. For me it was torture.

Demons would be the perfect angels. Sam too.

A SPN-related theory of mine is that demons would make perfect angels. Both demons and angels are cursed with the "I get what I want" mentality. Abbadon said it, Crowley says it again in this episode. It's a very angel-like mentality, however demons are unironically more likely to put in the effort, follow the guidelines, work behind the curtains. They would be perfect angels for Chuck.

Ironically this time, angels and demons have hardly ever gotten what they wanted (hello Castiel!). They all tend to work in a certain direction only for the result to backfire in the end or leave them dead. Which reminds of a certain character named Sam Winchester.

"Form and Void" is an episode that explicity parallels Sam to the angels and to Crowley. Sam and Crowley's parallels are my everything. Up until s8 they were quite obvious while after that they're in the story's backbone rather than clearly on screen. If you care, this is one of the reasons why Crowley and Lucifer's power struggle could've been way more interesting if they had thrown in Sam in some capacity instead of doing whatever they did with Sam in s12. *breathes and calms down*

The End (of this rambling post).

"Form and Void" foreshadows how S11 would end: dark and light becoming One. It's something that US tv shows (tended to) do a lot when they deal with Christian themes: when they're going a little over the edge and very close to blasphemy they pull a "Eastern Mysticism" card to signal that they were just kidding! In SPN they did the same thing to Jack in s15. When they deal with God they use buddhist concepts as a cop-out to avoid doing things that may upset Christian believers (and no, canon bisexual God is less of a threat than canon God's older sister who's more powerful, female-presenting and holding a huuuuge grudge or than having a world with no God, no Hell and no Heaven).

Hands and hearts are a huge motifs and they signal what the characters will be doing and/or their true intention/identity. In order to see this, though, one must pay appention to the scene shown at the very beginning of the episode, a scene from the movie "The Night of the Hunter". This specific scene tells us that what we see is the opposite of what the writers mean and that the core theme of S11 is not so much God vs The Darkness but rather love. This love, however, lies in cages protected by keys and it's secret and forbidden but, as that scene tells us, love's a-winnin'. To save the day and let Love still win we've got a giant plot-twist in the form of maternal love and the resurrection of Mary Winchester. The heart's needs are met, its wants are still unknown. You can't always get what you want... SPN really did believe that.

[cnl0400]

Nah don't worry, I really like talking about this game, so thanks for your thought :))

(Tangent 1#)

Most of my memories of S3 are of basically every character talking shit about Raphael, more in a "Man, this dude used to be insoportable to be around" (The only person with a favorable opinion of him was Belphie? lol). Anyways, it could be a case of "bait and switch" (considering what he says in his introductional video) but everytime I re-read it, it make me feel that the plan for him was to have a more antagonistic role, but anyways, I really like current Raphael so it's not like I would like him to be meaner or anything lol.

(Tangent 2#)

Ah... thats a really fun story (not really lol). It was the same reactions that the english fandom ("She's going to be a rival", "She makes me uncomfortable", "This game is only about the men", etc) but like, way more extreme lol, they even tried to review bomb the game to the point there was a time the OG had below 3 stars in the japanese playstore lol, I remember that even the official account made an apology? those were darker times, really;; at least judging at the end f the season and the birthday phonecalls, it looks like they might be dateable soon, or at least I hope so.

I also don´t think they cant fix this, I want to be positive but honestly, my bet is that they're going to ignore it or MAYBE they will make an small nod to it (something like a gag or a "well, that just happened" moment, I don't hope to much) but my biggest wish is that they dont make it worse, I'm not too sure if they're caplabe of that lol. I think the principal differences in speach is that Raphael has a very direct way to talk, and Michael is TOO formal (at least in those "???" cutscenes he appears), but yeah, maybe it got lost in translation.

(About Michael.....)

Yeah, everytime Luke talks about him he just sounds like the saddest guy alive lol still, I understand why a lot of people dislike him because of His very... Questionable choices (I almost wanted to kill him for this one lol) also because Is easier to push all this nasty flash into one person who can't really "defend himself" (I mean, he talks like one Time per season lol)

Still, I'm sure they are going with the "I had no other choice" type of deal, I really think he loves all His brothers dearly even If he commits mistakes, I don't think that justifies the war crimes but... Honestly I doubt Nightbringer Is going to have a war arc or something, I'm sure Michael didn't even think they would say yes (Him not knowing what to say when Raphael asked "what are you doing to do now" Is very telling lol, he didn't really think this through)

Him being an scapegoat of the fandom when everything goes wrong Is also very funny, I know people are starved for am antagonist but come on lol, a lot of Theories fell like they're picking at straws

Also yeah, I'm tired of this weird interpretation of him lol, honestly the weird religious trauma people put him feels very much like proyection lol, I know a lot of people want to be like Religión Bad™️ bit I mean, Michael doesn't strike me as this Evil Priest stereotype people want to put in him

Honestly all this religious trauma people proyect onto OBM it's something people proyect onto all the angels and it's so fucking tired lol, I'm tired of reading hc where Simeon Is characterized as this weird Christian hoy stereotype, same with Luke as this Christian brainwashed kid or Raphael as your most conservative aunt, it's very weird because I can't Remember one instance were the Celestial Realm Is described like that? I know OBM picks a lot from religious stories but I think OBM choses very liberaly about what to adapt or not (Like Solomon doesn't have 10000000 concubines for a reason lol) so the angels being all characterized as conservative christians always Will be funny to me I'm sorry lol

And I know Michael Is very sketchy sometimes, but honestly I can't see how someone can write him as being abusive at anyone, at that point just make an OC idk

I know a lot of people didn't read the later leasons where Michael appears but some people are very weird about him lol why do you wants this guy to suck so badly, a lot of people proyect a lot of weird stuff in this characters in general, but all the angels get some of the worst treatement by the fandom, like some random person wrote a HC with S1 in reference and everyone treated It like that's how he acts in canon........

No but fr fuck that Hard lesson, Raphael stans keep losing I guess 👎👎👎

[mordigen]

Wicca is a Sex Cult - you won’t change my mind. Pt 3

....

It took weeks of preparation - I was given homework to do to prepare myself. I was given a special diet to stick to and varying cleansing rituals were performed on me to purify my mind, body & spirit. All of these things made me feel more comfortable - it was being treated very much like a very important, spiritual ritual. It did not feel creepy or seedy. My - attendants? I guess is the best way to call them, 3 women of varying ages that were to be the “witnesses”, and were all very kind and caring and motherly. They answered any questions I had, they were supportive and encouraging. They made it feel very much like an exciting journey and the beginning of something wonderous and magical once I was officially a member. I was starting to become more resolute in making this happen. And not really second guessing myself anymore. I thought it was working - I was losing the strict, prude mindset my upbringing had chained me to. 

The day of I was led into a community-center type building, I have no idea if the coven owned this building - had rented it out for the day, or if it was, in fact, a public community center they were actually expecting to carry this out in. I’m not sure which one is more disturbing - but it was dark, they had it lit up with candles everywhere. Music was playing and a few people were singing and chanting. It was, really, very lovely and peaceful and soothing, though there were more people there than I thought there would be. Again - it felt very thoughtful and ritualistic and taken very seriously. They were all very much invested in this, and that made me feel better somehow - this wasn’t just a joke to them. (A performance, maybe...but not a joke) My 3 ladies allowed me to undress privately - something else that gave me great comfort, it made me think they don’t want nudity or sexuality just for the hell of it, but that this was, in fact, a very sacred ritual to them - and gave me a robe that had been painted in runes and sigils that were supposed to help consecrate the ritual and my body. They walked me out into the main room, they cast a circle with lots of flair and singing, and laid out a bed-roll like cushion in the middle. They draped it in white linen, said some incantations and saged it. They brought me into the circle and did their incantations, and saged me. Again - all very ritualistic and spiritual - seemed very kosher and serious - Until they got to the point where they unrobed me and actually laid me on the cushions.

I started panicking inside. The “Priest” came out from the other room carrying an incense burner, and chanting. What, I have no idea - it wasn’t English, it wasn’t Irish, it wasn’t French. Those were the languages I knew, so I knew it wasn’t any of them - sounded very much like Gregorian Chants. So perhaps is was Latin, or perhaps it was completely made up nonsense. I have no idea. But he was already very obviously aroused - I panicked even more. Even though I was trying to keep it inside, it was starting to be noted that I was panicking. One of the three ladies tried to calm me down, she was reassuring. But I can’t even remember what she was saying - I don’t think I was able to hear her even then. The “Priest” carried on with his incantations, a few people lit candles and sprinkled salt at intervals. The brought forth various branches that were supposed to signify different things - and then it was “time”.  I suddenly became very aware of the fact that he had no condom - and no inclining to be producing one from anywhere. I finally came back to my senses and actually asked / objected to this notion. One of the ladies told me that condoms were not used as it obstructed the contact between bodies becoming “one” and therefore lessened the spiritual connection to the God / Goddess being invoked in us. I. Flipped. My. Shit.

Let’s ignore for a moment that this ENTIRE THING is horribly wrong, and remember I was a young, dumb, easily influenced teen - but thankfully THAT snapped brain cells back into function, and rational, logical, objective thought back into me. No one had ever discussed this idea with me - hadn’t even mentioned it, let alone asked if it was something I was comfortable with or willing to go through. No discussion of any type of protection in the off change that I had agreed. I was done. I told them I didn’t want to do this. THEY FOUGHT ME.

Guys. GUYS. THEY FOUGHT ME. the *WOMEN* fought me. The “Priest” started getting angry and belligerent, and started making comments about being blue-balled. SO SPIRITUAL, mmmhmm. They did everything in their power to try to convince me to go through with it - the “Priest” started taking off his robe, AS IF HE WAS JUST GOING TO DO IT ANYWAY. I started yelling - that was the only thing that shifted their focus, they were now trying to get me to quiet down. Someone FINALLY spoke up and suggested that this wasn’t right, if I didn’t want to do it then I didn’t want to do it. The “Priest” stormed off angry, started cussing and yelling and throwing things. One of the ladies offered to ‘take care of him’  !! Yes. You read that right. Oh yes, this whole charade was SO SPIRITUAL guys. He was only worried about getting his rocks off. Don’t even ask me what everyone else was getting out of it - voyeurism ?  they get off on control and deceit??  I dunno. Don’t ask me - I will never fucking understand it.  I was humilated, and SO unbelievably ashamed. How could I be so fucking stupid, and easily manipulated, and so jealous of my friend to put myself in that kind of position???

It was only after they realized I had packed up and left did they send someone out after me .....TO MAKE SURE I WASN’T GOING TO TELL ANYONE. Not to make sure I was OK. Not to offer some sort of sorry-ass apology or excuse. No. To make sure I wasn’t going to narc them out. I was so ready to get out of there an never see any of them again, I  - like an IDIOT - agreed to not tell anyone. For YEARS.  (They did, eventually, all get arrested so don’t completely lose your minds, guys) 

You can tell me I just ran into a bad group of people - that not everyone is like that, and not every coven is like that. And while, yes, that may be true - I will explain why I take extreme issue with this: 

If it were just a few bad apples, then why did every group I encountered have predatory issues? Every-one. 

Even the groups I didn’t engage with, I couldn’t because I was underaged - specifically because of the sexual interactions. By their own admittance. What degree those interactions are? We’ll never know - but their is a greater, underlying, systemic issue when a group - or a faith - by doctrine - is so sexually oriented. Let’s take out the issue of minors - full grown ass adults can be manipulated and abused. So if you’re entire religion is based so heavily on illicit activities, there is a greater issue. If it is a *requirement* - that is a problem. And the only reason to have strict 18+ limits on a religion  is if it is a *requirement*. That is a cult. If it is simply one option amongst many, than to each their own - however you want to personally and privately practice, more power to you - but if it is only an option, then there is no need to preach or practice it in an entire public group setting, and then in that case no need to exclude minors.

Also, much later on we discovered that the “Coven” my friend was a part of was, for lack of better description, just a giant orgy. They pressured her into getting birth control so she could engage “unrestricted” in their activities. What we, the idiots, believed was so much power and strength and confidence we discovered later on that everyone else just called her a whore - because what this group had psychologically instilled in her was you get what you want through sex. They had oversexualized her and way too young, and impressionable age - So she had sex with anyone, and everyone, for whatever reason. She thought she was “empowered”, but even now - to this day (or at least, the last time I talked to her in our adult lives) I don’t think she fully comprehends what they did to her. She is absolutely not empowered.

Even to this day, this argument continues in the Pagan community. As recently as a month ago I was engaged in a debate about initiating minors. Sex is ALWAYS argued as being a part of the craft. Now, read me clearly - I am not discrediting sex magick, or anyone who decides to use it in their own craft, or anyone who decides to perform their rituals nude. If that is what feels right for you - do it. But there is a very profound difference between deciding what is right for you, and being told that *THIS* is *HOW* you *DO IT*. Do you know how many times I have heard that “Skyclad” is the *right* way to perform your magic? That is you’re not doing it, then your ritual or workings will be less affective? That you cannot properly attune yourself if you’re clothed?  The list goes on and on. Do you know how many times I have heard the Great Rite defended and heralded as the “most powerful” initiation ??? Or the most spiritual ritual ? That it has a solid and sacred place in the working, speaking of it in a manner as if it should be a goal for everyone at some point or another to engaged in this ritual at some point in their journey, or else they haven’t truly achieved....whatever it is they are touting should be achieved. Nirvana, enlightenment, higher vibrations....whatever. These arguments I have had as recently as yesterday. And continue to be regular topics of discussion and shaming - right on up there with cultural appropriation. 

And no - not everyone is going to behave this way or condone these activities, I am aware of that. There will inevitably be people out there who identify as Wiccan that will be adamantly against these things - but the issue with being either the rule or the exception is doctrine and dogma. And believe you me - this IS indoctrinated in the faith. This is Dogma. Read Gardener’s work - look at his beliefs. Follow his structure and rules. When it is expected of the followers. When it is a standard, or default. When it is a tenet of a faith - that is when it becomes a problem. That is when you start walking the line of a Cult. 

And It is these very teachings that are why this is so pervasive in our community. You see it blasted all over the blogs, in our circulars and magazines. Predators are so prevalent in our community, because this man - this cult - has not only normalized it, but teach it as a tenet of the faith. And Wicca itself has become so indoctrinated in the community, that people forget - EVERY DAY- That Wicca isn’t the ONLY path out there, and that their rules aren’t the ONLY rules. Raise your hands if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by the Three Fold Law.  Look how long it took me to figure out that wasn’t the only path out there? AND I had family that were pagans, and it STILL took me that long! Granted, I had the very wrong idea of what Wicca actually was from the get go, but I didn’t know how to distinguish it from anything else. I didn’t know how to separate it from paganism as a whole.  I luckily had family in the community who stepped in after my ordeal with the Covens - and not only helped me heal, and protected me - and were the catalysts in them being investigated and arrested. Luckily these people were able to actually step in and help straighten out things I had “learned”, and guide me in a real way. Not everyone has that, and now with the internet, there are even more avenues for newcomers and the innocent and naïve to be led astray. And they will take it as gospel - as my friends and I once did - because they are searching, and don’t know any better. And those are the very type that Cults prey upon.....and whadoya know, those are also the very same ones to fall into the Wiccan claws - that is a cult. 

People will also try to argue how...well, how big it is. Nothing that far-reaching or popular can be a cult. But I’d point you to a certain Big Blue building down in Florida and kindly suggest you find a new argument - that’s not flying here. Size nor influence matters. And no, that does not mean every single person that identifies as Wiccan is horrible or delusional or evil  or a predator - but as much as a few bad apples don’t make the whole batch bad; a few good apples in a tainted orchard doesn’t suddenly save the whole grove.

-M

[btssmutficslovingfan01]

Late Night Confessions...With Father Jimin (Chapter One)

𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺: 𝘈 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩. 𝘔𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦, 𝘈 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘯𝘶𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵?

𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓇𝑒: Romance, Smut, Forbidden Relationship

𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔(𝓈): Priest! Yoongi, Fake Priest Jimin, Nun! Reader, Accidental Murder

𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈: 2k+

𝒫𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: Jimin x Reader

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next →

 _____________________________________________

“It was an accident!” The man yells towards the fallen priest.

“Of course it was. An accident that you hit me with your car just as we were crossing the road.”

“But the horse came out of nowher-”

“Bishop Francis?” The distraught priest shakes the other man, and just as he reveals his lifeless body to the younger, thunder strikes. The man’s eyes are wide open, the sockets having a yellowish tint around them. The corpse is fresh but already rotting, enough to make anyone want to empty the contents of their stomach.

“It’s going to rain, get up.” The younger male helps him to his car, offering to drive him to where he needs to go.

“You did this. You killed the bishop, and now you must pay.” He coughs wretchedly, his stomach churning as he eyes the shorter male. He noticed he has a similar build as the previous bishop, and a similar face, if he didn’t know any better, he might have mistaken him for the head of the church. An idea begins forming in his mind.

“I know what I did was wrong, but forgive me, I was in a rush, running away from people who aren’t particularly fond of me…”

“Why might that be?” It is in the priest’s nature to listen to others and tell them how to repent.

“I stole his watch.” The priest turns to him in disappointment. “Don’t look at me like that, we’re close in age, I can tell. I was born in the year of the pig, when were you born?” He asks the distraught priest.

“Rooster.”

“Ah, only 2 years older than me?! Can I call you hyung?” The older man glares back at the younger one as he quickly focuses back on driving.

“Sorry father.” He murmurs to the priest. If it only went a different way, he wouldn’t have killed someone. He wasn’t a natural killer, it wasn’t in his blood. Heck, he’d never even hurt a fly. It was an unfortunate accident.

“Listen, I have an idea that may allow you some grace from murdering the most important person in the church.” 

“What might that be?” The priest begins digging through his large brown bag, and surprises the younger man by pulling out a robe and belt. The type that only priests wear.

“We’re gonna make you into half the man he was.”

“Half?” The thief steps on the break.

“No one will know, you guys are practically identical, physically. Now how good are your acting skills?” Oh dear, was this priest really gonna help him get away with murder?

                                       ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

“Reverend Mother, are we really going to send this...imposter to the church of St. Paul?” A nun wearing white goes cribbing to the head nun again.

“Sister Gertrude, now is not the time to argue. My decision is final. We will help that poor girl keep her cover, in case those bad men come to find her again. This is all to protect a child of God.” 

“But she isn’t even a real nun, we would be lying to the Catholic Church, and fooling everyone!” The reverend lights a candle and hands it to her student.

“No dear, we are helping a fellow nun. Go find Sister Rosemary and bring her to me. I will personally help her get...adjusted.” The nun coughs before sending the woman to fetch the other girl. 

“Hey, you fake nun, Reverend Mother Flora is calling you. Go to her, and don’t whine this time.” Sister Greta tidies her corner of the room, making sure there is nothing messy in sight. She turns her head and her smile fades when she sees Sister Rosemary’s pig-sty of a bed. Right in the middle is the woman herself, covered head to toe in her own clothes, wearing an uncomfortably tight nun’s uniform. The real nun is offended that such a person could fool the others in the convent so easily and even get a prestigious honor of moving to the Church and serving God through mass and other important things that nuns do. In the short time that she’s been here, she’s accomplished more than Greta, and that infuriates the nun. Sister Greta knows that envy is a disgusting thing, but she can’t help it, she wanted to go to the church to complete her special nun duties and appease everyone. Instead, it’s this mongrel that has reserved her spot in the church and stolen the spotlight for being the “best.” 

“I don’t wanna. But I guess I will, since I’m bored as hell—heck.” She catches herself before leaving Sister Rosemary to attend her meeting with the reverend.

“Sister Rosemary, so nice to see you again. Pray tell, are you ready to move to the Church of St. Paul?”

“Don’t call me that.” The girl hisses at her senior, anger boiling up in her veins. It was bad enough she had a bunch of bad guys chasing her on the orders of her dear brother. She just didn’t understand why he would condemn her like this, she just wanted to get away from her evil stepfather and his awful family. Not to mention away from the grips of her emotionally abusive brother–step-brother.

“Okay, Y/N.” The nun lets out a chuckle at her indifferent behavior. It had been a week but she was still the same girl she found hiding in the alley behind the convent. “You know your name is a dead giveaway, we need to keep your identity concealed.” 

“I really don’t wanna be anywhere near a church right now but I guess I have no choice, huh?” The Reverend mother nods, giving her a basket of flowers, and clasps her hands together. 

“It’s temporary, dear. But it’s hard to say how long you will be staying there, until the police get their hands on those people and you’re completely safe again.” 

“I may not seem like it, but I really wanted to thank you reverend mother. You’ve treated me the best, even better than my real mother ever did. Thank you, so much.” Y/N sinks into her arms, hugging her and burying her tear-stained face in the nun’s shoulder.

“It’s alright, dear. It is our job, after all.” The Reverend Mother strokes her back until she stops sobbing, and she sends her off to help prepare a meal in the kitchen.

“When will you be leaving, Sister Rosemary?” Asks another nun as Y/N walks into the room.

“Evening. When the sun sets, I will get in a car and be driven to the church.”

“It’s nice there, I wish I could stay there forever but they only accept a couple sisters there every year, and I heard you have to attend four masses each day.” The said girl groans and makes her way to the table, setting down a plate of fruits.

“It sounds exhausting.” Another girl says, much to Y/N’s dismay.

“Let’s just ignore the negatives, Sister Hilda always said to keep your chin up, and always be happy!” 

“Sounds like a depressed nun to me.” Y/N mutters under her breath. 

“Mmhmm! I always hear good things from the nuns there, but they are very strict.” Sister Riya warns.

“Sisters, time for lunch!”

Second Person POV

After supper, you find yourself packing and getting ready to leave the place that you found comfort in. Strangely enough, you found yourself growing attached to the abbey and the sisters in it. 

                                         ✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

“Father Yoongi, do you think we’re gonna pull this off?” The thief asks with sweat droplets trailing down his chin.

“Yes, Jimin. As far as God lets us. You can act well, right?” Jimin nods, running his fingers through his fluffy hair.

“I even look like a priest now, what the hell?” To his dismay, Jimin looked like a real priest. He would’ve never imagined ever being part of a church, at least before his parents passed away. He needed a better job anyway, being a thief wasn’t a choice, he had to make money somehow. He doesn’t know how it’s going to go anyways, he could be really good or bad depending on whether he gets caught or not. He knows some people in the church are super observant.

“Priests don’t curse.” Yoongi grits his teeth, making Jimin stand up straight.

“R-right.”

“Come with me, I’ll introduce you to the others. Except the archbishop, he’s too busy.”

“But aren’t I the bishop?” Jimin remembers when the priest told him he had murdered an important figure in the church, something starting with a “B.”

“Yes. I’m surprised you remember.” He takes him into another room, which looks to be a chapel. Inside, three priests stand at the altar, fixing the decor.

“Father Jin, have you replaced the flowers?” A tall priest stands at attention when he sees Yoongi.

“Yes, father Yoongi. I’ve replaced all the flowers in the church.”

“Is the clergy house clean?”

“Spotless.” Jimin looks back and forth, a bit confused as the other priests bow to him in greeting. He puts his hand up, like he’s seen bishops on the tv do when he was five. 

“Father Taehyung, have you marked the readings for today?” 

“Yes.” Jimin is left in awe as he discovers new things he didn’t know about the church before. Everyone has a job to help it work, together.

“Ahem, Father Joseph?” Another tall priest picks himself up, looking to have fallen asleep.

“Yes?”

“Do you take this job to be a joke?” Father Yoongi’s tone frightens Jimin. So far, he’s been calm but seeing him angry is kind of offputting.

“N-no sir.”

“Dismissed.” All of the other priests in the room gasp, as the other priest makes his away out of the room, removing his belt and holy robes. It looks as if he has been stripped of his rights as a priest.

“Did you just fire him?” Jimin whispers to Yoongi.

“Yes. Bishop Francis, you might want to go into the back and start blessing the water. We must change it.” Father Yoongi gives him his first orders. “I can’t come back with you since I’m busy but here is the prayer of blessing.” He gives him a small paper with the prayer and Jimin makes his way into the place where they prepare everything before the mass. He sighs, holding his right hand up and trying to sell it to the others. He knows he isn’t worthy to bless something because he is cursed, in his own ways. Just a day ago he was robbing houses and now, he’s dressed in holy attire and reciting prayers. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing here.

“Father Francis, there’s a new nun who says she was sent by the convent.” 

“No, you’re supposed to call me for that, I’ll take care of it, sorry Bishop Francis.” Yoongi glares at the other priest before dashing to the entrance to meet with the woman. Father Yoongi had been exchanging phone calls with the Reverend Mother, since the girl first assumed her identity as a nun. He didn’t know exactly what happened but just that she was in grave danger and the church of St. Paul was to aid her, until she was completely safe. And he was to let no one else know, just like how the Bishop’s identity is concealed from the rest of the priests. Yoongi is a little exhausted from keeping so many secrets, afraid that he might accidentally let it slip. 

“Hello dear, you must be Sister Rosemary?” You nod, a little bit uneasy.

“I’m the only one who knows who you are, so feel free to be comfortable around me. I promise I won’t hurt you.” While Father Yoongi speaks to you, Jimin watches you from the glass-stained windows as you stroll through the garden.

“I’m really thankful for this, but I’m still scared of getting my cover blown.” 

“Don’t be, our church will make sure you feel at home.”

“Please don’t do that. My “home” is scary enough, if anything I’d rather be here.” You explain,

“I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do to make you feel a bit safer, let me know.” You giggle at Father Yoongi’s efforts to help you fit in. You hate the feeling of butterflies in your stomach, and catching yourself as you stare at him a bit too long. He’s handsome, more handsome than your step brother, or the boy you liked in middle school. 

“Is there something on my face?” You shake your head as Yoongi points at his face.

“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Anyways, as I was saying, there are fewer nuns here so instead of going to a separate building, you will be staying in the clergy house, but you will have your privacy and your room will be off-limits to anyone else.”

“How many other nuns are here?” You ask, out of curiosity.

“About 3 others,” You nod, accepting that you might be doomed after all. Your brother will find you here and you will be torn from limb to limb, probably being chained up and beaten black and blue after. Probably. “Y/N?” He breaks your train of thought, snapping you back to reality.

“I’m sorry, Yoon-Father.” You look away, ashamed.

“You poor thing, just what did you go through?” You find yourself crying profusely, tears rolling down your cheeks. Hot tears, too.

“I kn-know we just met, but can I h-hug you?” You ask, feeling vulnerable again. As an 18 year old, this kind of trauma is something that cannot be healed. You’ve been suffering for seven years, since your mother married that man.

“Of course.” The priest opens his arms to you, and you gratefully accept, your heart beat increasing, your cheeks become red, and your eyes even redder. Jimin watches intently, his gaze burning holes into your back. You don’t see him at first, but you notice the movement in the window, and you break the hug first.

“Thank you.” You whisper meekly to him. 

“Would you like to see the room you’re staying in?” You nod, as Father Yoongi leads you into the church through the back door. “Ah, Bishop Francis, you were here?” He forgot all about his new problem, the man posing as the Bishop. The murderer.

“Who’s this?” Jimin peers down at you with an unreadable expression. You gulp, feeling a familiar heat in your stomach that you feel when your brother is near. He gives off the same vibes.

“This is Sister Rosemary, she will be helping with the services.” Father Yoongi leads her into the chapel, and ignores Jimin’s burning gaze. Did Jimin imagine it or did he see a priest hugging a nun in an intimate manner? Wasn’t physical contact forbidden in the church? If not, he has a lot to learn.

Later that evening, all the priests and nuns gather for the last prayer of the day, which is supposed to act like a sendoff of sorts, relieving them of their extraneous duties for the day. You found yourself liking it a lot more than you thought you would, and praying was actually making you feel better. Maybe it was the subtle glances of pity from Father Yoongi, or the calm gentle humming from Father Taehyung, or even the voice of Father Jin as he read the last gospel, but you felt a lot better, and at ease. Of course, the Bishop was looking at you the entire time, not even hiding his doubt one bit. He suspects you, and the only thing you can do is to evade it. Make him believe that you are a nun as well.

Jimin, however was not suspecting you of anything. His thoughts were fixated on when he was getting out of the church, before they found the body of the actual Bishop. Him and Yoongi had buried him, after all, but it was only a matter of time, before they condemned him.

After the prayer, Jimin remains in the chapel, his eyes closed as his mind wandered. It wasn’t just him, but you who decided to stay as well, praying for your wellbeing, and all the others who had helped you thus far. You look towards the Bishop, confused as to why he wasn’t the first to leave. Isn’t he the head of the church? After praying for awhile, you blow out the candles in the chapel, from the back to the front, finally reaching the dimly lit alter.

“Don’t blow those out, please,” You nod, as Jimin keeps his eyes shut. You take that as a sign to leave. “I hope you won’t make any of us stray away from God, we’re all men of the church, you know?” His comment makes you freeze in your tracks. What did he just say to you? And then you remember the incident in the garden. He must’ve seen.

“I know.” You simply reply, running to your private room and locking the door. You just wanted to sleep, but your mind wouldn’t let you. You’re in too deep. The Bishop doubts you, but you’ve barely said a couple words.

[ask-sakky-bear]

Journal Entry #2: Ghosts

The second installment for my podcast idea - this is a much longer read!

Also, I don’t recall if I mentioned this in my first post about it, but this is set in a Naruto Alternate Universe - modern setting, no ninjas, but supernatural things exist. That sort of things.

[Sooo, I lied, it’s 4:39 in the morning and I can’t sleep, so might as well do something useful. Without further ado:

Date: July 15th..er, 16th, 2015

Time: now 4:40 am

Subject: Ghosts.

I figured the best way to approach this was to start with the subject I know most about. Or, have had the most experience with, at least. I guess we should start with what a ghost actually is.

According to a quick internet search, a ghost, as it is commonly thought of has...surprisingly many definitions. That definition seems to include the concept of a disembodied spirit. Merriam-Webster, the world’s leading authority on all things needing to be defined, lists seven definitions for the noun “ghost” - only four of them I believe are actually relevant to this discussion:

 The seat of life or intelligence - the soul;

Spirit or demon;

A disembodied soul: especially, the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the “unseen world”, who appears to the living in bodily likeness; and

A faint, shadowy trace

Now, I also looked at a few other online and physical definitions, so no one can accuse me of not being thorough here, and they all say much the same thing. The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit, a “vague, shadowy, or evanescent form”, a spirit that haunts the living, etc, etc. So, everyone seems to agree with what they think a ghost is. They’re mostly right. Let’s unpack good ol’ MW’s definitions, first, to get a better picture of what a ghost is.

A soul.

...

Okay, to be completely honest with you, I really don’t want to unpack that one. There’s a lot of religious implications, philosophical debates, and shaky science wrapped up in that one word to include in this one entry. I might make a different entry in regards to that later, but for the sake of expediency and to stave off the migraine it’ll give me, I’ll just state this: One could consider the soul to be our consciousness, that...something, which makes us who we are individually. I think this is the simplest way to describe what I’ve encountered with ghosts. Anyway, I'm going to leave this bit for now and come back to it, as I believe it is important for our definition.

Second definition: I’m going to go ahead and explicitly state this on record that ghosts, spirits, and demons are not the same thing. Some might try to argue that a ghost is a type of spirit, but let me tell you, in my experience, they are very different entities and will get offended if you insist otherwise. 

You do not want to offend a spirit. 

Trust me. 

I’ll make further entries to explain myself later, but for now, that’s all I have to say. Back to the subject.

I believe the third definition is important to look at in defining ghosts, because it is the closest to the truth. Particularly in the aspects of “disembodied” and “unseen”.

Typically, a ghost does not have a physical body. This may confuse some people, if you take into account how many ghosts are able to interact with the physical world. I guess what I mean to say is that the body and ghost are generally two separate things, as a ghost can exist in cases where a body does not, be it cremated, or in various stages of decay. (Note: attention should be drawn to some instances where this is not the case; see for instance the entry on ju-on. End note). I am not quite sure what mechanism allows ghosts to physically affect the world around them, but perhaps future entries and study will shed some light.

I particularly believe that the lack of a physical body is what makes ghosts “unseen”. The limits of human physicality make it so that anything nonphysical is almost impossible to perceive. I say almost, because there have been several individuals I have met who exhibit the unnatural ability to see ghosts - myself included. So, to summarize here two aspects of ghosts that are important in its definition: a ghost is typically some disembodied entity that is unseen by most, but has the ability to affect the physical world.

Definition number four, and honestly, the most accurate depiction of a ghost: “A shadowy trace”. At the heart of it, a ghost is really just that. A trace. Or, to give a better word for it, an imprint. 

This is where I want to bring back in the early definition of a soul. Throughout our lives, we exist and experience the world. Our experiences shape who we are, how we think, and how we experience our experiences. I can’t say what exactly a “soul” as a single entity is or what happens to it after we kick the bucket, but I do know that occasionally a soul doesn’t disappear from this world. Like I said earlier: it makes an imprint.

How is an imprint made, you might wonder? Well, that’s where the whole thing with experiences comes into play. If you’ve lived a decently normal life and die without complaint, you don’t typically make a substantial imprint. Sure, I’ve come across the odd imprint of love for a place or person, but it’s usually not something pleasant that causes a ghost to form. Think murders, rights left unperformed, hating one's circumstances in life, that sort of thing.

As you can imagine, this tends to cause a lot of problems for the living. Oh sure, you usually come across the haunted house or temple, where you may get a whiff of cigar smoke or hear disembodied laughter in the room over. Those hauntings are pretty easy to get rid of - either you learn to ignore them or just have your local priest come round and say a few blessings. But sometimes, people die violently and suddenly and the emotions they feel at death are enough to make a stronger imprint. 

Those are your more..cookie cutter hauntings. And usually where I, or you know, an actual exorcist comes in. 

Like I mentioned before, I have no idea what allows these stronger imprints to actually interact with the living, but they can, and usually it’s not very pleasant.

I guess I should talk about how ghosts typically interact with the living, while I’m thinking about it. That’s a little tough to explain, from my experience. Actually, that’s a good way to explain it - an experience.

 Most people think that ghosts talk to people like how I’m talking right now. You know, straight, linear conversations. But that’s not the case. See, a ghost is just a memory the person leaves behind, hence an imprint, yadda yadda. Our only way to interact with them is to experience them. This usually takes the form of memories cropping up in dreams, unexplained scents/sounds, or a physical manifestation of the life or death of that individual. Above all, there’s the emotions that caused the ghost to manifest. Those are typically the worst, since they tend to cause personality shifts, paranoia, and the like.

Umm, maybe if I explain it like this, it’ll make a little more sense:

About 3 or 4 months ago, (Redacted) and I - sorry, my partner and I, came across a haunting. It was your typical set up - a family of four moves into a new house for surprisingly cheap and everything seems to be going okay. The neighbors are nice enough but a bit dodgy and uncomfortable with the house, like they know something unpleasant about it, but you write it off cuz this is a new leaf for you guys. 

Anyway, things are going fine for the first few weeks, when the weird things start happening. Footsteps from the second floor when no one’s there, feeling like something is in the room with you, an odd whiff of cologne that doesn’t belong to the husband, that sort of thing. They do the normal thing, find out that there had been a death in the house years prior and get a monk to come say a few blessings. Life goes on. Only, things start to get worse.

The most notable change was with the family’s youngest, a boy around 12. He was described to us as your typical introverted boy, shy but sweet and considerate. It’s usually like this, for some reason. Perhaps it’s the tendency to be on your own that draws ghosts to you like flies. Or maybe it’s something in your makeup that allows you to see ghosts and that in itself makes you introverted. I dunno. In any case, there’s a big enough shift in the kid’s personality to warrant alarm. The part that alarmed the mother the most, however, was the sudden...marks that showed up on the boy. Bruises that had no explanation and, the worst part, circular burns popping up in places under sleeves and pant legs. 

At first, the husband was suspected. Pretty logical conclusion, really, given all the signs. A husband in a stressful job, the boy suddenly becoming withdrawn, flinching from sudden contact, drawing images of a “monster” that supposedly came in at night to hurt him. Most of the child psychologists came to the same conclusion. A case would have been made, I think, if it wasn’t for two unexplained facts: first, the boy mentioned that there was an older figure who tried to protect him, though his older sister claimed she had no knowledge of anything bad happening, and second, the boy kept insisting that it wasn’t his father hurting him.

Most officers kept trying to explain these things away, but thankfully, the mother was introduced to me before any real litigation could happen and I was able to help. I do, however, want to take a moment to make something clear. I do not want to undermine the importance of social workers and the severity of child abuse. Not every instance of child abuse turns out to be a haunting, and I find these usually tend to be isolated incidents. The conclusions of the officers and social workers would have been correct in any other circumstance. The only reason litigation was withheld in this instance was because of the testimony of the young boy and my ability to sense the ghost in question.

Ah, crap, this is starting to get away from me. Um, alright. Long story short, there was in fact a ghost haunting the house, but only one, and that particular ghost was not the one harming the small boy, not intentionally at least. What had happened, apparently, was that the death in question had happened roughly ten years prior - a 15 year old boy was found hanging in his upstairs room. Ruled a suicide. The autopsy revealed what looked to be signs of abuse, but because the boy's father was some high ranking public figure, it was ruled as self harm in court. There was a lot of back and forth, but eventually, the father managed to get off on some minor charge. He paid a fine, got put on some watch list, was supposed to serve community service but got out of that, too. The suicide ruling stayed in place, however, and for the neighbors, that was the case.

Plot twist: that was absolutely not the case. Unsurprisingly, if I’m honest.

The real story, I was able to find out, was that the father had strangled his son in a drunken rage and then set the body to avoid guilt. While he was still incarcerated, he got away with murder, basically. From what I could tell, the teenager had been subjected to heavy abuse for most of his life, never really speaking up but also not being noticed, even though it was relatively obvious from the outside. His last moments...the boy really just wanted someone to notice what was happening, really. To notice and to hold his father accountable. I know this because I got to relive his last moments.

That’s what I’m trying to get at when I say you “experience” a ghost. I didn’t sit down and have a conversation with the ghost, asking for his backstory. I literally experienced it. I felt his memories as if they were my own, the pain and suffering that stood out to him the most, and of course, his final moments. That’s probably the scariest part about ghosts, if I’m honest. When you experience them, you often find yourself subjected to their final moments. Most people don’t survive them, actually. It’s hard to explain, actually, but sometimes when a ghost is formed, they pull in a manifestation of whatever killed them or caused their deaths. That’s what happened in this case - the boy’s father was such a huge part of the abuse and neglect in his life that the imprint included that terrible memory of his father, even though his father wasn’t actually dead. 

Well, it’s not like I have any other evidence to support what I’m saying. All I have is my word. That’s unfortunately the case with a lot of supernatural entities, sadly. You can’t really prove they exist unless you experience or meet them, so a lot of my work is carried out in secret. Or just because someone knows me and nothing else was working and...well, you get the idea.

Anyway, this is starting to get away from me again. And it’s really late. Early. Whatever, I’m tired in any case. This is probably not making any sense at this point. Then again, these are really just for me, so I guess it’s okay that they don’t make that much sense to anyone else. So let’s wrap this up; to summarize:

A “ghost” can be constituted as simply the imprint of a soul; the ghost is usually the imprint of a deceased individual, a memory so to speak that is formed by some fiercely felt emotion that occurred at death. They lack a physical body, which makes them generally “unseen” by most individuals, however, there are some that are able to see/interact more effectively with ghosts. 

How physical interaction is achieved and why some individuals are more susceptible to ghost encounters are questions I hope to answer in the future. My current theory is that in the “experiencing” of a ghost, the trauma is somehow transferred to the living individual - it is perhaps the strength of the negative emotion that has some affect on the living world. In any case, experiencing a ghost can range from something small and innocuous, such as disembodied sounds, smells, or emotions, to...fatal encounters...

Hopefully, recounting my previous missions that have involved ghosts will be more enlightening.

That’s really all I have on the subject at the moment, between my scattered notes, personal anecdotes, and...admittedly sparse book research. In the future, I’ll try to find better ways to actually test my theories and collect physical evidence of the things I come across. Definitely categorize the types of ghosts. I would also like to be able to incorporate anatomical drawings of some of the things I deal with, though many of the spirits tend to be...secretive. Well, that can wait for future entries. In the meantime, I’ll try to dig up actual physical books on these subjects. That is, if I can dig them up at all...]

[arecomicsevengood]

More Movies I Watched. Should I Just Join Letterboxd?

Is Letterboxd fun? Not really sure if anyone gets anything out of these posts being located here, but also not sure I have any desire to join a website I’m not sure anyone I’m friends with is on, don’t necessarily feel a yearning to be around more people with too many opinions, who are maybe trying to parlay their “expertise” into writing jobs.

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2020) dir. Celine Sciamma

I’m going to consider this a 2020 movie as that’s when its wide release was in the States; also, this movie’s great and if considered a 2020 movie is easily the frontrunner for best of the year. Well-shot enough I felt I was in good hands from the very first minutes, which feel vaguely reminiscent of The Piano (which I don’t remember super-well), this movie ends up also have a very intense relationship with music as well. This is a lesbian love story between a woman betrothed to be married to a man she’s never met and the painter who is making her portrait for the approval of said man. The painter is initially working on the portrait secretly, the film’s attention is tuned to the two leads’ furtive glances and studies of one another, the gaze intensely felt, but returned and mutual. Lots of great stuff, real delight taken in faces, the ability to change another’s expression by making them laugh. the power of music, the incommunicable aspects of subjective experience. I watched this director’s other movie, Girlhood, but don’t remember it, and this is a lot better. This is also a lot better than Blue Is The Warmest Color, where the only thing I remember is the long and graphic sex scene. This movie has no such scene. One of these actresses led the walkout when the French film industry gave Roman Polanski an award.

Summer Hours (2008) dir. Oliver Assayas

Just did an IMDB search and found out Assays cowrote a movie with Polanski a few years ago? That sucks. This one’s about an artist’s estate being sold off after a widow dies, as the kids need money. Plenty of nice bits about the subjective value of art and nostalgia. Assayas is not my favorite filmmaker by any means but he’s consistent enough. I guess Personal Shopper is my favorite of his?

Two Friends (1986) dir. Jane Campion

TV movie about two teenagers, told somewhat in reverse order for seemingly arbitrary reasons. Not great.

The Day Shall Come (2020) dir. Chris Morris

Beginning with like a series of “establishing shots” of Miami that eventually get to college kids partying is such a terrible way to begin a movie, really signals a degree of indifference to the language of film in favor of a a product of constant churn of content that “television” once served as shorthand for. Chris Morris comes from TV, of course, so I should know what I’m in for, and British comedy of a subversively-intentioned sort puts it in the wheelhouse of things I pay attention to anyway. That’s not to say I laughed at this thing, but I sort of observed it and its intentions — it never really wants you to be comfortable enough to laugh, and while the posture it takes to its black leads is sympathetic there’s still a feeling of anthropological indifference as part of its satirical thrust. Film comedies are meant to work in a theater because of the contagious properties of laughter, and when you lose that you end up with a thing that, even if I don’t want to subject it to “Hm, this seems kinda racist” thinkpieces that are the worst-case scenario, everything about the movie seems like the best case scenario is a reaction of “I see what you did there.”

Midnight Special (2016) dir. Jeff Nichols

Fits into the tradition of not-a-superhero-movie-but-basically tradition of Scanners and The Fury, but while those are basically the X-Men, this kid, kept from the sunlight because his dad think it will hurt him but really it’s good for him, is basically The Ray, of the 1990s Christopher Priest series I didn’t read consistently but liked a few issues of. The first half of this movie, spent speeding down streets at night, while some weird things happen, involving government agencies and a cult, is considerably better than the payoff, which is the child (a kid from Room and later, Good Boys) is an angel and is going to ascend to heaven. Part of it is so low-key and tense (but in a way where it feels like if it were on mute nothing would appear to be happening) and then the other part of it has these special effects that are fairly corny? So while the whole “indie guy makes a more mainstream movie” thing generates some interest, the idea of what constitutes a mainstream movie at this point in time (while also being a throwback in some ways to eighties Spielberg, or riding an It Follows/Stranger Things wave) means being forgettable.

Atlantic City (1980) dir. Louis Malle

This was a rewatch, which normally I avoid doing, but it turns out I had forgotten basically everything about this movie, besides vague memories of shots of stairwells, the sprawl of its plot, the roaming camera. That, still, is sort of the main thing to take away, because I love how the plot sort of swirls around this apartment building, and the streets of the city, the casino where Susan Sarandon works. She plays a woman whose husband left her for her sister, and they have rolled into the city with a large amount of cocaine. Burt Lancaster plays Sarandon’s neighbor, who lusts after her, but watches after another neighbor in the apartment, an old gangster’s ex-lover. Maybe I would suggest this as a good first Louis Malle movie to watch? Then you could watch Au Revoir Les Enfants, Murmur Of The Heart, Elevator To The Gallows, and My Dinner With Andre, and some of those are maybe better movies but this is arguably the most “accessible” in terms of its relationship to gangster/crime stuff while nonetheless feeling expansive and deeper than that. It relates to Burt Lancaster’s larger career but also has such a depth of feeling it’s not just a film history thing. Wallace Shawn has a cameo as a waiter also, it’s nice to see him.

Cat People (1982) dir. Paul Schrader

This movie’s a rewatch but I remember it being “watchable” but not really good, at least not nearly as good as the original. If memory serves, this has pretty much nothing in common with the original, but there’s a scene in the original that’s very memorable that’s reprised here. There’s a lot of gratuitous nudity in this one, and it even ends with a scene that seems perverse enough it should be memorable- Where Nastassja Kinski’s limbs are tied to a bed in a bit of bondage before she has sex and gets turned into a panther, so she can safely be put into zoo custody, but I didn’t remember at all on account of it feeling more perfunctory than indelible. Also I thought there was a scene where you see a naked man climb out of a cage at the zoo but maybe that’s in another movie too. Remember when Paul Schrader made a facebook post asking whose were the best tits in the history of art?

Affliction (1997) dir. Paul Schrader

When there was a little featurette documentary on Criterion Channel where Alex Ross Perry interviewed Schrader, Schrader cited Affliction as one of his best movies. Takes place in a snowy landscape reminiscent of Fargo and A Simple Plan, the vision of small-town life feels slightly familiar from Twin Peaks too — all of these things feel “nineties” in a way. About the cycle of domestic violence being passed on from fathers to sons. Stars Nick Nolte, with Willem Dafoe as his younger brother, who narrates intermittently. Mary Beth Hurt plays Nolte’s ex-wife, Sissy Spacek plays his current lover. James Coburn plays the abusive father but I kept thinking it was Rip Torn.

Rancho Notorious (1952) dir. Fritz Lang

Another solid Fritz Lang movie, that I believe was a favorite of the French new wave filmmakers? (Who didn’t like his German stuff for some bullshit reason.) This one’s a western. A man’s fiancee gets murdered, and he tries t to track down the guy who did it, in search of revenge. There’s a recurring bit of a song narrating his desire for revenge that’s pretty bad. It turns out there’s a large ranch, run by Marlene Dietrich, where criminals can hide out if they don’t ask questions of one another and give her a share of their haul. He forms alliances, does some crimes, gets his revenge, there’s some great technicolor shots of landscapes, it’s unclear how real his feelings are for Marlene Dietrich or if they’re partly put on to win her affections, I don’t think Dietrich is that appealing personally. The thing that makes this movie cool or interesting (and maybe makes it feel particularly American, but seen from an outsider’s perspective) is this sense of bonhomie that is maybe just a total front for long-standing resentment, with love as a conditional thing.

Slightly French (1949) dir. Douglas Sirk

I found this one pretty watchable. A rough-around-the-edges fairground actress is recruited to play a French ingenue in the press as part of a long play for a director to get his job back with a studio he was fired from after alienating the original lead actress and everyone above him. The director basically only cares about making movies, and is sort of a psychopath, but she falls in love with him. The director’s sister, who warns that she also has no feelings, ends up being paired off with the producer who competes for the star’s affection for a while. Written by a woman, and feels very psychologically insightful and unjudgmental about women’s tendency or willingness to fall in love with people who treat them poorly, and to allow for the movie/genre expectations to respect that choice as the right one.

A Scandal In Paris (1946) dir. Douglas Sirk

Apparently Sirk considered this his best movie. It’s before his melodrama period, and is based on a memoir, so there’s a bit of a biopic quality to it, though it does try to be fairly concise and well-structured. About a criminal who solves a crime he committed in order to become chief of police, ostensibly to become an even bigger criminal who pulls off a huge robbery, who then goes straight instead. The criminal is also a casanova type, who seduces a series of women and makes them fall in love with him and forgive him his crimes. I would probably have liked this movie more if it was a stylized seventies thing and/or liked the actors better.

Story Of A Cheat (1936) dir. Sacha Guitry

This movie’s wild! One of the best credit sequences I’ve ever seen, establishing a pattern that the whole thing will be told mostly via narration, and this narration goes on to tell so much of the story that the visual storytelling almost seems redundant, or illustrative of the text, in a way I’d never seen in a movie. It’s structured as a man writing his memoirs, and is more literal about that structure than we normally see. But then there are parts where his writing gets interrupted and these scenes use dialogue and employ elision to discreetly set up punchlines… Really cool. Criterion’s website says this was an influence on Orson Welles, and maybe they mean F For Fake?

The Immortal Story (1968) dir. Orson Welles

I hadn’t seen this one, despite being an Orson Welles fanatic, I guess because most people would not consider it a feature film, as it’s under an hour long, and made for French television. It’s not great, kind of feels like a long short film. Welles plays an old rich man who hates the existence of fiction so much he tries to make a story that’s basically a Penthouse letter become true, casting Jeanne Moreau in the role of the woman and a much younger man as the dude who has sex with her. Based on a story by Isak Dinesen, which I’m just learning now was the pen name of a woman.

If You Could Only Cook (1935) dir. William Selter

So I kept on watching Jean Arthur movies, binging them before they left Criterion Channel at the end of June. You would expect them to blend together, and maybe they will in time but having just watched this one it’s great. Totally absurd premise becomes legit funny. The master chef from History Is Made At Night here plays an Italian gangster. The two movies would be a pretty solid double feature, as both feature pretty involved, absurd plots, based around love stories, but also featuring this weird comedic element. This one features Jean Arthur as a down-on-her-luck woman who strikes up a conversation with a guy on a park bench, convincing him they should get a job together working as a butler and cook team. He is secretly rich, and gets lessons in being a butler from his butler, and falls in love with her, a week before he is scheduled to get married to a rich woman he doesn’t actually care about. This movie is just over seventy minutes long. I am pretty unfamiliar with the screwball comedy genre and really wonder how they play with a different lead actress.

The More The Merrier (1943) dir. George Stevens

This one’s great too. Super comedic, with sort of intricately choreographed visual gags, but then the romance culminates in a scene that’s wildly horny, bordering on the pornographic despite the absence of any nudity. That’s a seduction shot in close up, where a sort of oblivious and distracted conversation occurs absentmindedly as kisses move from hand to neck. Jean Arthur rents a room to a domineering older dude (Charles Coburn, the guy from The Devil And Miss Jones, who’s funnier here) who then rents half of his room to a man he thinks would be a good for her. Feels like a big part of the comedy in these is people being absolute nightmares who force other people into going along with things they absolutely hate, and as much as I hate the idea of being someone who can’t handle an old comedy because of my modern cultural mores, such scenes are pretty nerve-wracking to me. Still, there’s something to the storytelling in this, how the initial gags build on themselves when it’s just the two of them, then the introduction of the second man sort of continues the sort of jokes that were already being made, how the comedy sort of snowballs but then takes the shape of this very real romance.

The Impatient Years (1944) dir. Irving Cummings

This was originally conceived as a quasi-sequel to The More The Merrier. It is a weird one, with a vaguely comedic premise it takes a pretty emotionally intense first act to set up. The first half hour has these long dialogues filled with tension of people not really being able to communicate. It’s written by a woman and you can really tell, holy shit, it’s closely observed. But the whole premise is fucked! Begins with a court hearing for a divorce. Jean Arthur has been hit by her husband, and her father (Charles Coburn again) who witnessed it says he can’t recommend a divorce, because then the judge would have to give a divorce to all the couples who got married too quick before the man shipped off to war. A flashback structure shows him, freshly home, smoking cigarettes above the crib of the child he’s never seen before and pretty irritable. The father argues the issue is the married couple has forgotten while they’ve fallen in love. Coburn basically sucks too- he’s in all these movies as this railroading paternalistic figure, and apparently was in his real life a white supremacist? And while The Devil And Miss Jones shows him learning to not be a piece of shit, this movie basically takes his side and argues for him being right. The judge agrees with this plan that they should spend four days retracing the steps of when they first met, before he shipped off to work. And it works, they fall back in love in the movie’s second half. But basically Jean Arthur’s whole behavior at the beginning of the movie is predicated on her having the responsibilities of a mother? And the movie just sort of argues that she’s got to learn to be a wife too, and she agrees, pitching it as this sort of romantic thing, but the actual central cause of tension is never resolved. So this movie is flawed and kinda nonsensical, but it’s interesting, partly because the beginning is like Bergman-level brutal before the contortions of a plot push it into this unnatural light comedy shape.

Arizona (1940) dir. Wesley Ruggles

This one has Jean Arthur as the female lead, opposite William Holden, but is more notable for its scope as a Western. A pretty good example of the genre being about society in microcosm, being forged from this conflict between the wild and domestic spheres. Jean Arthur both brings this semi-feminist sense of freedom to all of her roles, and she also built up a body of work of populist politics and class consciousness. This one has her as a rugged individualist frontierswoman, who runs a series of businesses as a way to make more money and accrue wealth, which ends up being a good vehicle, from a storytelling perspective, to increase the scale of action consistently. The villain runs a series of scams/conspiracies to win a profit via dishonest means. This culminates with a wedding where the man leaves his bride immediately afterwards to murder the person who’s been trying to take over her property. Probably the best western I’ve seen where the threat of Native American violence is a major plot point. It does lack the sense of atmosphere and landscape I value in a western, favoring a more storytelling more focused on plot and characters. Ends with a scene where a dude gets married and then immediately leaves to go kill someone waiting in a bar for him. (I should try to track down the George Stevens western Shane, that also features Jean Arthur.)

Whirlpool (1934) dir. Roy William Neill

This isn’t as top shelf as the other Jean Arthur movies but it’s pretty good. A man goes to prison, fakes his own death for the sake of his wife so she’ll move on. Jean Arthur plays the daughter, who meets him once he gets out, but needs to keep him a secret from her mother, who has remarried but would probably wreck her life for the other man’s sake. This is a pretty weird movie, both structurally, and because the father-daughter relationship feels quasi-incestuous: She abandons dates with her fiancee to spend time with her father, etc. The movie handles it semi-innocently, but I guess I had just been hearing about how when things like this happen in real life, and adult children meet their parents for the first time as adults, there often is an irresistible desire between them. So the movie kind of feels like it’s basically about something super-fucked-up but is trying to depict it as innocent, but also just the raw emotion Jean Arthur displays as she cries when they meet for the first time is really intense! She doesn’t even show up until like 1/3 of the way through the movie but she gives it such emotional weight.

Party Wire (1935) dir. Erle Kenton

This movie’s charming and watchable but yeah not one of the better ones. It’s about a pretty interesting thing- In small towns in this era basically cheaper for there to be a telephone line everyone can listen in on. This ends up being a movie about small town gossip and resentment, where the villains are old women with too much time on their hands. It’s also about Jean Arthur being a wildly charming “real” person who wins the heart of a rich man who every woman is after, so while she’s good in the part there’s an element of formula executed better elsewhere. Here she has a father who’s drunk all the time, his alcoholism is a big running gag that gets a little exhausted. Also apparently there’s an app now that’s basically a party wire?

The Whole Town’s Talking (1935) dir. John Ford

Felt pretty ambivalent about this one too, which is more of an Edward G Robinson vehicle. This is meant to be a comedy, but I don’t really think the jokes come off that well, and the sense of reversals feels a little pat. Realized my best friend from high school looks sorta like Edward G Robinson now and worked out a way to remake it starring him. The Robinson version is about a guy who works as a clerk in an office, writes on the side, but learns he is the doppelganger of a killer gangster who just escaped from prison, who’s played by Robinson as well. This leads to his worldly coworker he has a crush on developing an interest in him, but also a lot of cases of mistaken identity with the police, who give him a note saying that while he looks like the person they’re trying to arrest, they’re not the same guy. The gangster then reads about this in the news and breaks into his apartment to get this “passport” from him. The remake I envision plays off of the fact that people are no longer famous for doing crimes enough to attract the attentions of a savvy young woman. But what if it was some dumb Youtube prankster, who is constantly committing crimes, that has the police after him? And then it’s basically the same movie.

Public Hero No. 1 (1935) dir. J. Walter Rubin

More of a heavy-duty crime thing, about the head of a gang busting out of prison, reuniting with his gang to do crimes, not knowing the cellmate he broke out of prison with is an undercover cop. Jean Arthur ends up caught in the middle, falling in love with the cop (not knowing he’s a cop) while being the sister of the criminal she hopes goes straight. She enlivens the movie quite a bit but it’s a  familiar enough plot to still come up a little bit short. Would maybe benefit from more atmosphere in the crime bits and less comedy bits about an alcoholic doctor slowing it down.

You Can’t Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939) dir. Frank Capra

Watched these for Jean Arthur, though they are classics for being Frank Capra movies, Jimmy Stewart movies, and sort of archetypal in their depiction of sincerity and the opposition of the rich and powerful. So that is to say that while my favorite movies I’ve watched recently have felt genre-less, or like they participate in every genre, these feel far more like you know where they’re going pretty much from the start: In the case of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington that’s partly because of things like there being an episode of The Simpsons that parodies/reuses it.

Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936) dir. Frank Capra

Also has Jean Arthur as the female lead, here playing opposite Gary Cooper. When they remade this as an Adam Sandler vehicle, Winona Ryder took the Jean Arthur role. Gary Cooper inherits money, comes to the big city, everyone wants the money, Jean Arthur writes news articles mocking him as a rube while slowly falling in love with his sincerity. In the end his decision to give the money to the poor outrages everyone in power and they try to argue he’s not mentally fit. All these Frank Capra movies are longer than the other Jean Arthur movies, (two hours, as opposed to an hour and a half) and also are not really focused on her, though she’s the best part of them.

Ball Of Fire (1941) dir. Howard Hawks

Billy Wilder cowrites this, and it’s maybe his best comedic script? Lot of good jokes in this, feel like this would’ve blown people away in 1941. Gary Cooper plays a naive nerd grammarian who in the course of realizing he needs cover modern slang for his encyclopedia runs into Barbara Stanwyck, as a gangster’s moll, hilarity ensues, they fall in love, both leads are great, supporting cast is big and funny, Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds plays a somewhat naive hayseed, the character here is similarly out of his element but it’s because he’s a big nerd, which is a lot funnier. Stanwyck’s world-weariness giving way to affection for a bunch of old people while continuing to use language they don’t understand and sort of run all over them as they fall over here is a great bit. Really well-written, there’s a Billy Wilder movie starring Jean Arthur (A Foreign Affair, from 1948) I haven’t seen but would like to track down. Sort of fascinating preoccupation with gangsters in these movies, but also positing innocence as a virtue, but in a way that runs counter to “virgin/whore” reductionism. I guess a lot of this comes about because it precedes the post-war mass migration of white people to the suburbs? Organized crime was a big part of people’s lives. I hadn’t seen any Howard Hawks movies until recently I think? Unless I saw one of his westerns or screwball comedies in college. He’s good!

The Sniper (1952) dir. Edward Dmytrk

This one’s interesting in terms of feeling very ahead of its time but also like it would never be made now. About a dude whose misogyny causes him to shoot women with a sniper rifle, the same rifle that apparently any ex-soldier would carry. Probably a pretty tough and upsetting watch, as it’s just about a dude being insane, hoping the police arrest him, and him having interactions with women where he very quickly becomes upset when they realize he’s weird, so he follows them with a gun. Director was blacklisted, the only real overt political sentiment is “get perverts and people who assault women serious mental health care after their first offense.”

[catalina-infanta]

Fantastic Beasts meets Star Wars

I was watching the Fantastic Beasts movies and one thing I love about those films is their use of the main character (the protagonist and Hero) being a bit different than the regular hero, and showing traits of someone with autism (he won't look other characters in the eye for long, his very specific interests of caring for animals to which he has developed specialized expertise, and his comments about how people “often don’t like him”). I, myself, love seeing heroes who aren’t your cookie cutter male alpha, punching people while making sassy remarks. I think Ben Solo/Kylo Ren kinda fits this mold too, as did Luke Skywalker. They just aren’t your usual alpha dog, they have emotions, they are real people.  

Yet, there seem to be some other trends where the writing of the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the Fantastic Beasts series are concerned. 

Black and White Thinking

One is the theme of black and white thinking as being portrayed as evil. Maybe this is even more pressing today. Of course, this is coming about out of Hollywood, as Americans are experiencing more and more the pain and dangers of bipartisanship within their government. Yet on the world stage, however (as I am not American) the insidious effects of how we consume media through computer and search engine algorithms (which gather information particular to our interests and worldviews) means we rarely leave our own information bubbles or read news with which we may disagree with. This is separating us further from others more and more, forming divides and even black and white thinking (us versus them) when we are unable to tolerate or understand other people’s opinions.

In the movies, these topics are being stressed with good versus bad, us versus them and with fascist, totalitarian thinking at play. Even visually this is being represented. For instance, the main villain of Fantastic Beasts, Grindelwald, is repeatedly wearing black and white. Conversely, however, the hero Newt Scamander is shown wearing colours, blue and yellow. And this is not the first movie to make colour an important feature in expression ideas about characters:

 This is showing Grindelwalds polarized, thinking of purebloods against those who are not is black and white (read: wrong). Indeed, in the films expresses this as flawed further when it has the main protagonist, Newt, express distaste at how American wizards cut interaction with muggles out entirely and see them as lesser beings, probably commenting on racism in America and its enduring systemic ills. 

Of course, we all know that black and white is traditionally part of the Star Wars good versus bad, but even this is changing, with Rey moving into greyer garbs from her earlier whiter clothing. 

Forbidden Attachments

Also, much like Jedi were forbidden from attachments, Muggle’s can’t be with magic folk in America (its illegal even). Much like dark force users were taught to fear the dark and stay away from light jedi. There is no middle ground, just bad and good, no learning from each other or expanding, just lines which cannot be crossed. So of course, where you have a plot like this which the writers think are constrictive or wrong, you have your main characters crossing this line (in the case of Fantastic Beasts, to show its wrong and backward, and in the case of Star Wars to show its worth expanding outward and understanding the other side, forgiving and letting those who have fallen back into the fold to repent and redeem and that even they can be good nd have souls worth loving). 

In Fantastic Beasts, one of the main love stories is one between Queenie and Joseph, a witch and a muggle. Like Rey and Kylo Ren, a lightsider and darksider union (we think..but c’mon its pretty obvious they are romantic!). So both movie trilogies have 2 protagonists who are braving this divide, but finding it casts them out, or jeopardizes their union. Rey and Kylo cannot bridge there divide (nor should they with how dark kylo is right now), and in Fantastic Beasts, (***SPOILER***) the American witch Queenie, in the end of the Crimes of Grindelwald has even joined the evil cause of Grindelwald because she (misguidedly) believes they can help her relationship with the Muggle Joseph come to be allowed. 

The Evils of Repression

So above we have two themes, black and white, polarized thinking as being shown as wrong, and main characters attempting to breach these divides between two worlds/belief structures through love. 

But there is one more similarity. In the Fantastic Beasts 1st movie, there is a dark phenomenon known as an Obscurial. According to Wiki fandom, an obscurial is a young wizard or witch who developed a dark parasitical magical force, known as an obscurus, as a result of their magic being suppressed (often through abuse or fear of showing their powers). According to Dumbledore, an Obscurial can possibly be healed by replacing their feelings of alienation with a sense of belonging. 

Repression has long been seen of as something akin to evil in western film and storytelling (often you see priests in TV and movies going through this, self-flagellating, or whipping themselves for their nasty sinful thoughts – and these characters tend to be evil, think of Paul Bettany’s character in Dan Browns Da Vinci Code, or the evil guy Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame). 

Something Star Wars has been dealing with since the advent of the prequel trilogy is this idea of repression leading to evil. One of Anakin’s, and I argue Ben’s, troubles was with the repression of their dark natures, or even repression of just their good emotions such as love for Padme or Shmi, causing them to become unbalanced and leading them to evil. I get it, if someone told me I couldn’t love I would grow angry too, and I am pissed with the Jedi – it seems Luke was too. 

The idea that balance is necessary in the Star Wars community is pretty self-evident though, so I wont take too much time explaining this. Ben and Anakin are emotional guys, constantly told to keep it all in, only let the light out, repress your feelings and any darkness that may be felt because that’s “bad” (Yoda’s advice to Anakin when he was fearing for Padme’s death to “rejoice for her” for becoming one with the force sucked, and we are meant to be frustrated by it, because I can't believe George Lucas would expect us to agree with Yoda and believe it was OK for Padme to die and that Anakin should just move on). Indeed, to repress and deny the good and bad inside us is damaging and something we should all avoid – this is the Jungian notion of accepting and resolving yourself with your shadow self, instead of ignoring it until it explodes, much as the Obscurials do when they cant hold it in any longer and they die at a young age. 

As a side note, I was really happy to see Credence didn’t actually die at the end of the first Fantastic Beasts film, because he was obviously an abused and unloved child looking for his parents (sound familiar? Rey?). Although sadly, I’m not sure he will survive the series of films now that he has joined Grindelwald, or that the writers care enough to give this character anything more than redemption equals death scenario and not bother to give him a happy ending or find belonging and peace. 

Conclusion and how these movies should wrap up

Anyways, I guess I just thought it interesting that both films were dealing with similar themes, probably because they are issues we are dealing with in society, but they are issues society deals with all the time in one way or another at all times but perhaps we feel they are more pressing today?

The importance of these themes to these movies, however, means they should be in some way resolved at the end of each series because they aren’t going to reinforce these notions by punishing the characters who act out of the bounds of societies black and white framework. 

With Star Wars, I think there will be a better way to look at how Jedi will go about their business in dealing with the dark side (i.e. with more understanding of what it is instead of fear and rejection), and how individual Jedi will deal with the darkness inside themselves in thier own personal journies to avoid the worst. This will hopefully include some resolution on how future Jedi will deal with attachment - rather than just repressing everything and forgetting about it. I dont think this is something that is valued today in the west, because no one wants to abandon those things about human life that make it most worth living.  

On that note, I also expect the two pairs of lovers of both Star Wars and Fantastic Beasts to be reunited, in order to visually and narratively show a change and love for the other side and repair the longtime split between the groups. Its more than just a sappy ending, it’s a metaphor for how we should think about the “Other” that we are told to fear or belittle by a society that has gone too far in its black and white thinking. So, Queenie should marry Joseph even though Muggles are thought beneath wizards, and Kylo and Rey should both come towards the centre and be together and find their belonging they so desire, thereby resolving their loneliness. (However, this is a whole other question of Kylo’s redemption, etc.). But the notion that Jedis shouldn’t marry be damned! And this is the PERFECT way to show that stupid rule was dumb and resolve the very thing Anakin struggled with in some way. And, for that matter, the notion that forgiveness shouldn’t be given to those who have erred or fallen by the wayside be damned! 

No, in the end, the lesson is that black and white thinking sucks, and love and forgiveness is what matters for those who find it in their hearts, to love, and not fear the other side is what our heroes are showing us, with a multitude of colour to express the variety of people, and emotions, that life can give us. 

[renlyisright]

Season 8 Episode 3 - The End

The end of the world has come. We are doomed, doomed! No one can stop it!

Or can she?

This episode was movie-long, or would be if movies weren’t so much longer these days. And all of it was battle. Battle, fighting, loud noises, battle. It was exhaustive to watch at the last 30 minutes, I have to admit, but it was earned. After teasing the monsters for so long and setting up the battle for several episodes, this was the time. The show has long since moved on from the battles being quick fades to black to spare the budget, so there’s been a lot of them lately. And now this Promised One should be the biggest of them all, with all the 80 minutes received for watching people die.

Oh, and there’s still three episodes, several villains and the whole game of thrones to go. After the end of the world. Life goes on, which I guess is a positive message?

The episode starts with a quick heads up of where everyone is, and where the armies are, ready to fight. The only thing missing is the enemy. It is out there, somewhere in the dark.

Watching into the abyss. Nothing watches back, or not?

A lone rider approaches, but it’s not a White Walker. Melisandre arrives from the night and gives Jorah cryptic orders. Jorah just rolls with it at this point, and Melisandre makes every arakh of the Dothraki burst out in flames. I have to say, those are some well trained horses. Then Melisandre moves inside the walls.

I feel like I’m hitting the same dead horse every time when I ask about how much does the Lord of Light see beforehand, and what his end goal is? Everyone being in his religion? And since no one can pray for him if everyone is dead, he tells his priests how to save the world.

But the light of the arakhs gives the Dothraki the courage to charge straight at the darkness, which could hold anything, starting from holes in the ground, and that’s the end of them. The greatest cavalry in the world, Dothraki on the open field, snuffed out just like that. And the battle has lasted for a minute.

So, Lord of Light, did you know that would happen? And you did it anyway? Because you needed them - and Ghost! - dead, for some future purpose? To make Jon suffer more? Otherwise the Night King wouldn’t have come forward? Is that what you are going to go with if someone asks?

What I have gathered is that this is not the usual theodicy problem of “If the God is all-powerful and all-good, why do bad stuff happen?” No one has said that the Lord of Light is all-good, he likes human sacrifice. He is also not all-powerful, as his arsenal seems to be “Tell people to do X, and what is going to happen if they do or don’t”, and some tricks with shadows, fire and resurrection. If he was all-powerful, I don’t think he would have the patience for any of that.

Of course, if you can see everything that people will do if you tell them X, then that is very powerful by itself. What have the other gods to offer? The Old Gods, if they are real and the reason Bran has powers, show what happens now or in the past. The Lord of Light can see the future. Or just calculate well enough as to guess mostly right every time?

Anyway, trying to figure out the motives and methods of an extranatural being, whose only interface to the story is through what the priests say, is a fool’s errand. But I don’t like it if everyone turns out to be a plaything for some mysterious thing who is never seen and can’t be punched in the end.

The first part of the battle ends abruptly, a quick breath and here we go for the next hour. On my first watch I couldn’t figure out what was shown in that very short glimpse of the enemy before the camera moved back. On pause I see that it’s a giant wight. It felt like a whole wall of the wights, which put in my mind a funny visual. Think about it, them standing on each other’s shoulders, and then the whole wall of them falling on top of the Dothraki when they come near. Splat.

As they say, what you can’t see is more scary than what you can see… or more funny in this case.

Jorah survived the first clash. Ghost didn’t. Goodbye Ghost, I enjoyed your constant companionship and presence just out of the frame. Maybe he didn’t die, but went there. Just out of frame, living happily ever after.

The dead come out of the darkness and instantly wreck all the defenses the defenders have, catapults, shield walls, everything. That was expected, considering how well shield walls usually hold in TV (maybe ten seconds). Everything becomes confused, Daenerys and Jon attack from above. Why didn’t they attack with the Dothraki? Well, when the enemy leader can one-shot your dragon you don’t go blindly to the enemy in the dark, showing right where you are with fire. Unlike Jorah and the Dothraki. That was very stupid.

Jon sees the White Walkers on the border of the Wolfswood, but before he gets to attack them, the winter arrives. The Night King brought it with him. The winds of winter wreck everything even further.

Nice, I wondered what the Dead can do against two dragons who can burn thousands of the enemy in a minute.

In the confusion of the storm of swords, Sam gets to see one of his last friends die. I was certain that Edd would survive. That’s what he does! He’s the grumpy guy who somehow turns up alive every single time, no matter how unlikely he himself deemed it. And he was a delight. But no. At the same time, Edd represented the last of the Night’s Watch. Jon has moved away to larger circles, and Sam, while still a brother, has been training to become a maester. Edd was the only named character still fully in the black, and after this episode the Night’s Watch is not needed anymore.

In this story, I mean. Is this the end of the White Walkers? Or will they return, one day, when the nights grow cold and the kings forget… Was the Night King the first Night King? And how much of the strength of the Walkers now can be blamed on Craster, who outright gave them more members?

The wildling population has been decimated, and decimated again, and after this night the Walkers are as well, so what is there to guard against anymore on the Wall? I can see it falling out of use if the people think that the Walkers are gone and the Lands beyond the Wall are now empty (and could use settlers from the South side of the Wall, if anyone wants to move there anytime soon). There’s also the matter of the spells in the Wall’s foundations. Can anyone remake them?

The dead’s tactic is to just run towards the enemy in absolutely no formation and then kick, bite and hit it with weapons until it stops moving. I’m sure that there are ways to counter that kind of attack, if it can also counter the enemy having no concept of self-preservation and there being a lot of them.

The retreat happens, with the Unsullied making sure that it happens in good order. I read a bit about Spartan upbringing, which was absolutely horrible, and surprisingly ineffective in action. It was good for propaganda and to make the enemy scared of you, but abusing people for their entire childhood did not actually a supersoldier make. But in this universe it does, and the Unsullied are the best at handling the situation of standing your ground when thousands of moving corpses are pushing your shield.

And then Grey Worm sacrifices them, or would have if they didn’t die already before the trench got lit. Melisandre prays the Lord of Light to light it, and he takes his sweet time with it. To make sure that as many of the Dead are in the trench as possible? Which means waiting until all the Unsullied on that side are dead. Hmm.

Poor Hound, the best weapon they have against the Dead is also the best weapon against him.

Bran goes to borrow the ravens, and locates the Night King. He is just ordering his forces to walk into the fire and stay there. Talk about lack of self-preservation…

It works, they get through and start to make a pile next to the wall.

The next ten-fifteen minutes are a blur of a battle. The wights attack and get further and further into the castle, people die a lot, named characters get to show their great skillz and so on.

In previous large episode-long battles there has been people on both sides whom we have followed and who have their own dreams and plans, and season-long arcs clash in the battle which determines how the rest of the show will go. Comparing them to previous large-scale fantasy battles I watched before this show was a thing (LotR, Narnia, Harry Potter), the difference was exactly that. In those the other side was made up of existential threat monsters, and the possible defeat meant that everyone is dead now and the story is over as everyone is dead. In previous seasons it was clear that some characters would die if they lost, but the show wouldn’t have been over

But this battle, this battle is exactly that. Which is why I had no doubt of its outcome. The Dead have to get defeated, the last episodes won’t be Cersei hearing that the North has fallen and getting on a ship to another continent. But many will die, like in the next scene, where Lyanna Mormont is guarding the gate when someone knocks on it.

They should really get a giant-proofed gate to Winterfell, this is a second time that one has wrecked it. Of course, if all the giants are dead and unmoving after this night, it doesn’t matter.

Lyanna gets a warrior’s death. Shame she doesn’t get to grow old, she would have been a good bannerman and a leader, by the Northern culture’s measures. But she had the choice, and she picked this death and protected her people. Hopefully it mattered, I don’t remember seeing any other giant wights after this one was destroyed so maybe this was the last one and the crypt isn’t breached or Theon smashed to the ground too early because of Lyanna. Thank you.

Jon and Daenerys climb over the storm, and the resulting view is very background-worthily beautiful. Westeros is beautiful when it’s not covered in blood and excrement.

Aaaand there’s the Night King with his dragon. He attacks, and is then gone again, baiting Jon and Daenerys to come back to the storm. They comply.

Arya sneaks around in Winterfell’s library and other rooms, hiding from the wights. The situation has very Battle of Hogwarts vibes. The enemy is in the place which has meant home and safety for this character (for Sansa the Boltons poisoned the place a lot but Arya didn’t see that).

She can’t hide from the forever, and when they hear her, it’s time for screaming and running. And running again. This castle is really big. Finally she gets to Beric and the Hound, and it’s time for a Last Stand.

If Joffrey had been a nicer kid he would have gotten a great sworn shield out of the Hound, he does take the job seriously when he actually cares. But the Last Stand belongs to Beric Dondarrion, he has the most experience.

All three get to the hearth hall, but Beric is too wounded to live much longer. His final death bought the life of Arya. And Melisandre comes to tell that this was why the Lord of Light brought him back so many times. “You’ve kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment”, Snape would say.

Arya gets the hint of what her role is according to the Lord’s plan. Nice callback to Syrio Forel. “What do we say to the God of Death?” And, as everyone has been saying, Death is what they are up against.

The Night King gets bolder. He goes to attack Winterfell himself. And gets immediately slammed by Jon and Rhaegal. And it’s the dance with dragons as the body of Viserion and Rhaegal go at it with claws and teeth.

The clash of kings ends as the Night King falls into the storm, annoyed. Rhaegal is hurt and goes to the ground, dropping Jon. No idea where it went after that. Daenerys finds the landed riders and starts blasting the Night King with everything she’s got.

Aaand… dragonfire can’t harm him. No idea if it would have worked with the regular Walkers, as in Hardhome that one Walker just walked straight over a regular fire. Anyway, now Daenerys gets to see how it feels when someone else does the same trick as her.

After being blasted by dragonfire, the Night King looks only annoyed. He has just two facial expressions, serious and annoyed. He was given simple instructions: Destroy humans, and now he just tries to do his job if people would let him.

Here’s Jon trying to get a final duel to determine the future of the world. Since the beginning he’s been the greatest swordfighter, who has practiced and fought with ser Rodrik, Allison Thorne, wildlings, Rast, Thenns, wights, White Walkers, Ramsay Bolton, more wights… and now when he meets the final boss face to face, one to one, on the apocalyptic empty battlefield… the boss doesn’t have time for this, he has his job to do, and he can pull thousands of new underlings to deal with Jon.

The feast for crows gets delayed, as the dead defenders rise for a second turn on the same map but on different colors. Now everyone still alive has many many more problems. And from the quick shots it can be seen that the named characters already are almost alone. How did they hold even this long? It’s because of the camera. When it’s not looking, everyone can relax. A long time ago Robert died off-screen but that hasn’t been a problem for characters for a long time.

The Walkers want to be a part of the victory and do some actual walking. And when they do walk, they do it very menacingly, so I understand why it’s their brand.

When the Walkers were seen for the first couple of times in the early seasons, they were usually shirtless. But since Hardhome they have used more clothes. Why?

It will stay a mystery, they won’t tell.

Tyrion spends a lot of time in the crypt thinking that if he just were up there seeing what was happening he would figure out something. Sansa thinks he would just die, and I agree with that, especially as he is so out of his depth nowadays. I didn’t figure out the twist of them being in the crypt and the enemy being able to raise the dead, as obvious as it is in hindsight. But Tyrion is smarter than me and he still missed it. And if I had thought of the possibility before it happened I would have waved it away thinking that the bodies must be too old by now to be of any use even if they could be raised. Well I would have been wrong, they are springy for their age. But Ned isn’t one of them, decapitation has been useful against the Dead. That’s perhaps a relief, Sansa wouldn’t want that kind of a reunion.

Daenerys rescues Jon but makes a rookie mistake of landing in the middle of an enemy-occupied battlefield. Drogon gets swarmed but gets off, without Daenerys. Luckily Jorah is savvy enough to know that Daenerys hasn’t yet not got herself into these situations every time she is in a battle, so he knows to be there to help her.

Music starts. First on piano, then other instruments join in. Last time that happened the piece was called “Light of the Seven”, and it ended with an explosion. So the end is near, the clock is ticking. 

The complete destruction of everything. Jon tries to get to Bran but the body of Viserion enters the arena. Now Jon gets to fight a dragon, on foot. You missed the big boss but here’s a dragon, you get to be a proper fantasy hero, just slay the dragon.

In the weirwood the wights stop attacking Theon, as the Night King has arrived. The rest of Bran’s defenders have died. Theon brought a small force of Ironborn to Winterfell, again, and they were no match for attackers, again. Theon has been deemed a failure and a loser by about everyone (including me back when he tried to be a villain but sucked at it), but he has succeeded in three things now: Saving Sansa, saving Yara, and now saving the world by holding the dead and the Night King back for long enough.

Bran comes back to his body to give comfort to this lost and found man. “You are a good man. Thank you.” Now was this Bran Stark who said that, or The Three-Eyed Raven Who Was Bran Once?

Theon takes his cue and tries once again. And fails. The Night King isn’t exhausted, and kills Theon with a simple stroke. And then it’s the end.

The Night King walks to Bran, and wants to show him how the fear is for the winter. He savors this final confrontation, which perhaps is allowed after so many millennia of trying. Similarly how this episode is the end of those eight and a half years the Others have lurked in my mind, ever since the first vision of them beyond the Wall. No wonder this is also my longest post yet. 

Just when everything was going well for old Nikey, Arya arrives out of nowhere, and goes all assassin on the Death itself. These blue eyes shut down now, and he becomes part of the winter landscape.

The Walkers explode as well, and the Dead fall. The sound of their screeches moves back to the songs and legends.

Epilogue: Now Melisandre is no longer needed for her Lord, so she gets to die. Of her own choice? Does she have any choice? She drops the necklace, and walks out of the castle, to be claimed by the ices of winter, with the fires of the rising sun harboring a dream of spring.

The End.

Or no, wait, there’s three episodes left.

Just how big casualties this battle had, anyway? Is there any sort of army left here for either Daenerys or Jon to challenge Cersei? Pretty much everyone in the end was completely swamped by the dead, it’s lucky there’s anyone left.

Stannis said once (only in the book if I remember correctly), that he used to think that he had to get the throne to save the realm, but then he realized that he had to instead save the realm to get the throne. And then he went and got himself stuck in the snow, because it seemed smart to him at the time.

Anyway, now Daenerys has saved the realm. The hole in the Wall and the giant pile of the dead bodies outside and in Winterfell (or a giant pile of burned bodies) should show to any doubters that it was real. How much of an opinion boost will she get from Cersei’s bannermen and allies for that? Or does it matter at all, as they seem to be happy being under Cersei even though she is, you know, Cersei. And blew up their religion’s most holy building.

So I don’t expect there to be any big riot that would topple her from the throne, the resolution (in the form of a big battle, of course) will happen long before the good people of King’s Landing can do that. I mean, they tried, in the form of the revolutionary High Septon, and it didn’t work.

I have become much more sympathetic to the old chap after his torturing, humiliation of prisoners and pressing for confessions are fading from memory, and Cersei’s reign is on the forefront. His end goal would have been breaking the wheel too, and seeing how the rulers’ main complaint of him was not that he was enforcing horrible laws in the name of his gods, but that he was applying those same horrible rules to them too (how dare he!)... yeah.

There’s not much room left in the show to build up for another Great Last Battle (and it would feel redundant), so Cersei, Euron and the future occupier of the Iron Throne have to be wrapped up without anyone spending a night wondering about the coming armies and the possible end of everything. After the Army of the Dead, how hard can it be?

[ecotone99]

[SF] The Road to Hell is Through Kentucky

“Criminal Record?”, asked a highway billboard of James as he drove by. It was only after he’d passed it and cranked the radio up contemptuously that the sign’s red-lettered answer registered: “No pardon - only job! Call us!” A moment later, he was coating his borrowed ride in limestone dust with a wide 180, moving the transmission to protest as he turned. He steadied, facing the sign’s rear in silhouette, as the early evening sun stung his eyeballs. He grabbed his mom’s sunglasses from the console and got back up to speed.

A text alert sang out from his days-old phone as he pulled up across from the billboard. Seeing its preview from his lock screen, he sighed at the thought of reading it all and turned the engine off. Hey James, your mom gave me your number. I knew you and Tim were close and it was good to see u today-

A message from another world. One where driving high was a fact of life, and if people perished, God must have needed another angel. He wondered why they didn’t speak of God’s need for their man-slaughtered victims too - wouldn’t they need less reforming in heaven anyways? At least Tim had only killed concrete, and himself, and good on him for avoiding the condescending treatment by dying. That, and Kentucky. If only James had had the privilege…

He called the billboard’s number in a hurry.

“New Pathways Employment Services - how may I help you?” the exotic-for-Kentucky woman chirped.

“Uh, hi, yeah, uh, I saw your billboard and called about work. I have a record.”

“Great! So, I just need some information from you. You’re calling from where, sir?”

“Kentucky. Richmond’s where I’m closest to for big cities-”

“Good, good. Just needing to know which office to transfer you to, you’re good to hold?”

James checked his battery. This new thing was a tank.

“Yeah. Can you not play music though?”

“I’m afraid that’s automated, sir. I’ve heard worse holding music myself, though. Good luck with the position!”

“Thanks. You t...fuck.”

James flicked the phone to speaker and let it sing jazz in the passenger seat where his suit jacket lay crumpled. Even the birds were quiet, like an audience of kids for a transistor radio ball game.

At least you got invited.

And at least he got to see Tim’s parents, who actually gave a shit that he was still sober and had bothered to come out.

“Hello?” a man asked from James’s phone.

“Oh, hi,” James answered, seizing the phone and switching it off of speaker. “This is the Richmond office for New Pathways?”

“It certainly is! I am the HR coordinator here. You’re interested in working for us?”

“Yes. I could use that, yessir.”

“Well - you’re in luck. We call ourselves research, but really, that does us a disservice. We got federal funding, we got pay for you, obviously, and we’re even helping out this beautiful country.”

“Amazing! So - what needs to happen on my end?”

“We would just have to meet up in person to go over a few things. Confirm your record - maybe a first for you - and make sure you are up to the task as a participant.”

“I’m up to anything. I need the work, obviously, but I’m also glad if other people can be helped.”

“So are we...so are we. And we will. How is tomorrow, the Monday then, for you, uh…”

“James. James Alexander.”

“Alright, Mr. Alexander. You name a time, and we’re over at 584 McArthur Road here in town.”

“I can do noon.”

“Beautiful. You have yourself a good night then, Mr. Alexander.”

“Night.”

The sunset was warm as James slumped in his seat to smile at it.

/

New Pathways’ office building loomed like a new law firm; the glasswork must have used up a small beach. James braced himself and walked through into its drafty lobby, where a young man in the middle of the lobby glanced up from his typing to ask James:

“How can I help you today, sir?”

“I’m here for a noon appointment with New Pathways, with your HR person.”

The secretary kept typing at half-speed with one hand and pushed a separate button with the other.

“I’ve let Mr. Wilson know you’re here. Would you care to take a seat, and grab yourself a water or a coffee if you’d care to? He’ll be down right away.”

“Yeah, sure, sounds good.”

The seating area was an island of clutter off to the side of the bare foyer. Its resident coffee pot was burned to a crisp, and the seating was sparse. Still, James helped himself to coffee and picked up an old Psychology Today to read in a patterned armchair.

“Psychopaths Among Us! The New Norm?” read its title on top of a photograph of a pretty woman holding a mask of her face. James cracked a smile. Happily, as the title story soon told him, there was no literal danger of increasing psychopathy among humanity. The more pressing challenge was children raised right acting wrong and not understanding what they’d done wrong quite well enough. The article’s last segment had a picture of a priest, sans mask, talking about the importance of community - though quickly clarifying that this did not need to come from a church. His unpictured fellow, a school principal, expressed the same sentiment.

“Mr. Alexander?”

James dropped the magazine to meet the HR person, who seemed younger than James even, and had an honest-looking face.

“Yes…” James stood for a handshake, “You’re Mr. Wilson, the HR guy?”

Wilson smiled.

“Something like that. It’s good to see someone reading those things. Are you a psychology buff?”

“I took some in college. I like how they can present it so simply, you know? It’s different from reading however many news articles on my phone that have different conclusions…”

“I hear ya...are you good with some stairs?”

“Lead the way.”

The second floor was denser, save for a couple expansive board rooms. Wilson led him to a modest office at the very end of the hall.

“Have a seat wherever you’d like!” Wilson said with a flourish, giving the option of two whole chairs. James sat down in the straight-backed one while his interviewer settled in behind his desk.

“So…” Wilson began with a smile, “I am so excited to have you with us. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions, but I felt like a brief introduction to what we do could be helpful to start - I’m guessing you saw the billboard?” James nodded.

“That’s quite an approach to branding. How many other desperate bastards have ended up in here?” That won him a laugh.

“We have had a few. Though - and this may sound like a lot at once - you seem more promising than most. That’s not me being intuitive or flattering you, full disclosure. We work with the criminal justice system and have read the basics of your case, as well as the kind of man you’ve been since.”

James bristled. “Well I’m glad at least you think I’m promising, based on that. No other employer has cared enough to see the change. ‘Recovered felon’ is really only a badge of honour in movies.”

“I know. Whereas for us, it’s a big deal.” Wilson clicked his pen and scribbled a note on a clipboard. “Have you ever heard of H-A-T-T?”

“That’s not a familiar acronym. Is that a therapy? A procedure?”

“Yes and yes. I’d be concerned if you knew it, so you’re likely not a liar. In short - it is about transference of feelings with a clear goal in mind.” It was James’s turn to laugh.

“You can do that? Chemically? That seems neurologically impossible and/or dangerous for both parties…”

“Don’t forget how we actually used to put people on antidepressants, James. The limits of what works and does not work are always changing...”

“Well, fuck me. That does sound useful. Outside of how it could be abused. Seems like a short walk to dystopia from a world in which that’s possible.”

“You’re not wrong.”

James eyed an old-school portrait above and behind his interviewer. There was a likeness there, though the painted figure had a chest full of war medals.

“Is that guy a relative?” James asked. Wilson smiled.

“He was my father.”

“I’m sorry...when did he pass?”

“Two years ago.” Wilson turned, pen in hand, and pointed at his Dad’s likeness.

“He’s maybe even worth discussing here. This is what I mean. People I’ve interviewed thus far wouldn’t even have asked that. How do you suppose someone who wears all those medals ends up dead in his 50’s? It’s not a trick question.” And still, there was no good answer to it.

“Is it stereotyping to assume he killed himself?”

“Yes...but as usual, you’re not wrong. He had a mini-Rwanda type situation back in Yemen, where there was ethnic cleansing happening and the UN were cowards.”

“Shit.” “Indeed. And he didn’t write a memoir or end up telling middle schools about it, he just ate a gun one day. Unnecessary guilt. Doesn’t much matter to the brain if it’s unwarranted, right?”

“Right.” The coffee was scalding. James set it down.

“And that’s kind of where this all started for me. I was so goddamn pissed that someone like him would die when other people can’t feel appropriately guilty for anything. Not that you’re one of those, so far as I can see.” Wilson stood up and went over to the window, overlooking an empty park and streets full of traffic. “And I figured, what if people were to feel what they were supposed to feel? What could that look like?”

“You have my interest peaked, at least.”

“And as it turned out - I’ve worked in ‘agencies’ for years - I wasn’t the only one with that idea. Scientists have been working on feelings transference for a while, and the possibilities are endless. They’ve gotten people who languished in therapy for years to feel less guilty about stuff that paralyzed them for years...” James grabbed a stress ball of the desk, and used it as prescribed for once.

“So this is early stages stuff then? I haven’t read one news article even about any of this.” Wilson turned around and came back to his seat.

“Those are the good results I mentioned. The others...complications are likely, if not inevitable. Just like how a kidney transplant can be worse than none, so, too, can poor matching be awful - for both parties.” The notepad went untouched. Wilson was zoned in like a goalie at match end.

“And, really, that’s where we get to your case. We can keep making efforts at better matches with our procedures, and we will. But there is a population of society with less to lose and more to gain on this stuff.”

“Talk about an ex-prisoner’s dilemma…”

“Only your outcomes here are better than the original prisoner’s dilemma, I swear. What if I told you you could make a guilty piece of shit feel guilty for what he did? Reform him, preclude him from recidivism and thus from modeling criminality to his kids and the whole bit? That’s within reach, James. That is precisely what we are researching.”

“Goddamn…”

“The downside, and there is a real one, is that you would have to feel terrible things. Experience terrible things. And that shame and guilt or whatever is appropriate for the offender would be siphoned out of you into them, if you were a match.” James’s stomach dropped and he scratched at his armrest.

“‘...experience’?”

“Through VR. Very good VR. It makes use of brain matter from the original offender, while the transferee wouldn’t get the VR - they’d receive the physiological results of your experience via intraneural transfusion. And to you, your crimes would be 100% real until the whole process was complete. There would be no sense of self or even free will, per se - just you doing awful things. You’d feel similarly to how you felt when you killed your friend three years ago, to a much greater degree. That’s how we would be using H-A-T-T in this instance.”

“Fucking hell. I haven’t been through enough already to pass it on to someone else?”

Wilson sighed.

“If only. There’s a critical difference between contrition which obviously transformed you to be better and the kind of precursors to contrition that another person would require. And with getting you to experience new things too, there would be no limit on how much we could incentivize someone else.”

“That’s fucked up.” Wilson laughed.

“And isn’t the status quo? Isn’t broken people going back to broken families and expanding them while blaming the system? Isn’t 15-year-olds in the suburbs acting like how only terribly traumatized youth used to?”

James leaned forward unwillingly from the growing sense of weight.

“I don’t know if that’s a burden I’d want to bear…”

“We have no evidence that you would need to bear it past the procedure, though. We have more research into healing than re-incentivizing people, for obvious reasons. And, also, I lied.” James shot up out of his seat -

“Wait, WHAT? What…”

“On that first billboard you must have seen. There is a pardon at stake here. Not a chance, not conditional, but the real deal. You, free, with the potential to be a social worker or psychologist or whatever you want. Just think of that.”

James slumped down and eyed his coffee, awash with ripples from his near-outburst.

“Who’s the worst person I would have to be? Don’t tell me I have to be a serial killer.”

“You do have to be a serial killer, yeah. The alternative would be getting you to commit a bunch of more minor crimes which wouldn’t hurt you in the same way. We couldn’t map those to objectively awful actions the same as we can with famous murder cases - any robber could have secret good motives, after all.”

James tried his coffee again. It seemed stronger and more bitter, somehow. The mug at least made pleasant chiming noises as he drummed on it with his fingers.

“So there’s no way I will remember being Ted Bundy or whoever. I’ll just be Ted Bundy, then end scene, and I am me again, and Joe Pseudo-Psychopath is now Joe Repentant?”

“That’s close to it, yeah.” James looked at Wilson Sr. for a while. He still looked happy in his portrait, noble and American.

“I can do it with conditions. If I’m going to be on anything other than general anesthetic, I need to be confined for a few days afterwards. I break out in track-marks from any drug.”

“Absolutely. We have safe housing and medical as well as security staff.”

“And I want updates on whichever poor bastard ends up feeling what I felt, even if I don’t get his name or anything. I do not just want to be a lab rat.”

“Of course.”

Wilson’s right hand clasped his left. He didn’t blink very often for someone who thought so fast.

“And I guess naturally this is an ‘I talk I die’ kind of thing?”

“Not quite, though you would end up back in prison with no one to believe you. We have you on that one breach that no one else knows about, and would not hesitate to share it with your parole officer.”

“...Where can I sign?”

submitted by /u/SurelyHecked [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2H5B6LZ

[thexspiderxqueenxjezebelle]

Adventure #2

So it's been a while since I've said anything. A lot has happened in the past couple of years. I got married to the wrong person, had a baby (she's beautiful and her name is Lily), moved to Canada, went to culinary school, got brutally abused, flew back to the US with my daughter (the govt of Canada paid for it and for his deportation trial. They really take domestic abuse seriously! Thank... Well, not God, but thank somebody), moved to Wisconsin, worked at a pet store, almost married my best friend of 10 years, got ghosted, died a little inside because I still love him (10 years is a long time to be friends with someone if you DON'T love them), moved back to MO, came out of the closet as trans, changed my name, went to a party, got wasted, attempted a one night stand with a stranger who turned out not to be one, woke up next to a friend I hadn't seen in ages, played a videogame, fell for him all over again, moved in with him, got engaged, and now I'm pregnant.

So there's a recap. There was some other stuff in between and if anyone ever reads these, is be happy to elaborate on some of it, but so far, no takers so it's just for me. We pick up this tale with the latest adventure;

How I stopped being Kat and started being Max.

I'd known for a long time that I wasn't different that other girls my age. It wasn't just the autism; that I could deal with. No, there was something more, something missing. I hated my name and I hated having the bits I have, but I loved fashion and being feminine, so I just thought I was confused (my father telling me this when I told him I was bi didn't help).

Skip to freshman year of high school. I dated a guy that everyone just called Farmer. His best friend hated me from the get go, and I couldn't understand why. See, Leo was trans and only very recently out. He wasn't even using that name yet. I asked him one day what it was like and how he knew, and he described to me every single feeling I had ever had about myself from his own perspective. As time went on, we grew to only slightly dislike each other, then one night confided in me and we became friends. Shortly after this, I was raped and Farmer blamed me. When Leo heard, he immediately came to me and helped me get over him. I cried in his presence for the first time that night and stayed his room in a huddled ball being held by the man who had hated me for more than a year until almost 3AM. We watched movies the next day and shared our mutual love of musicals. A Little Priest was always a favorite song and we would often waltz around his living room singing it. He became the Todd to my Lovett; the object of my deepest affection. Of course, I didn't let him know that. He was interested in a classmate of ours who had just moved from Florida and I could tell he was smitten aaand that his feelings for me were platonic, so I didn't press.

We went on like that for years, Leo and I. He was beautiful. His eyes were like stark blue beacons in the darkness that had always been my life. We wrote worlds and made messes and turned abandoned buildings into palaces. Then I met Raj. I knew Leo would never return my feelings and Raj was the domineering sort, so I gave in and married him. It was the biggest mistake I had ever made in my life. I had our daughter in August and four days after the cesarian, he forced us to board a grayhound and move to Canada.

I don't want you to think that I didn't love Canada. It's the home of my heart. I simply shouldn't have had to move so soon after a major surgery that also happened to be the birth of my child.

Anyway, Raj continued to be abusive and the final straw was the night he hit me in front of Lily. I didn't sleep that night, but pretended to while I lay next to him. In the darkness, I decided to leave. About a month later, Lily and I were on a plane to Madison, WI, where I thought he wouldn't find us. I was wrong.

Leo had become a trucker by this point and we started talking again when he had downtime on the road. My feelings had never diminished and one day, to my immense surprise, he jokingly said that I should have married him. In my shock, I admitted that I had wanted to for years and we made plans. I would move back to Missouri and go back to work with my former employer and would both save money to elope and buy a hobby farm. I had never wanted anything more in my life. Soon after, I found out that Raj had moved to Wisconsin, and I made arrangements immediately to move. When the day finally came, Leo told me for the first time that he loved me and that he wanted to be there for Lily. I was so giddy that even the ten hour drive through snow and the stay at a sleazy motel outside of KC didn't dampen my spirits. He said he'd come me as soon as he had a home day. I jokingly told him he owed me a kiss when he did.

Neither ever happened. I waited and our conversations grew shorter and fewer. I told him I understood he was busy. He apologized often. Then, one day, he stopped responding. He didn't call, he didn't message me, and he never came.

I lost myself. I cried for days on end. I waited patiently for a month, then that turned into two and soon enough, it was May. I decided to find a party hosted by one of my harmless exes and have a rebound to try to get myself over him. It was cruel of me, but at the time I didn't care.

I bought an enormous amount of alcohol and drank most of it while I was there. I vaguely recall flirting with one of his guests and agreeing to a fling. I don't remember much else after that, but the next morning, I woke up to him. His beautiful eyes greeted me warmly and I remembered them. Deep brown, like pools of molten chocolate. We had spent a summer together in the same live action roleplay group when I lived in Springfield. This was Talos. This was my beautiful elf boy and the first person I came out to. I told him about Leo and he held me. Such care and warmth had been missing in my life for so long and I couldn't bear to be alone, so he offered to come home with me. I agreed.

He spent a few nights at my house, never once leaving my side, and his kindness and care healed me in ways I can't find words to express. He helped care for Lily, and she grew less afraid of men. The day she spoke her first word, I melted. Without prompting or prior teaching, she crawled up to him and said dada. He smiled a mile wide at me and I let myself hope for the first time in almost a year.

He moved in, and the longer he was around, the more whole I became.

Several weeks later, he proposed under a waterfall. I was so happy I nearly tackled him into the river.

We had our difficulties. People who shouldn't have took advantage of us and he was injured while protecting Lily and myself from a crazed drug addict. We're still dealing with the trauma, but I know at the end of the day, we're both giving it our all. He's my partner and my solace, as I try to be for him, and we're expecting a child this March.

In spite of everything, I've never been happier, such as is the case when you stop letting life do the planning and spin your own tale.

Adieu, friends.

[arecomicsevengood]

Watching Movies In Self-Isolation, Part Two

L’Assassin Habite Au Rue 21 (1942), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Clouzot is better known for directing The Wages Of Fear (the movie William Friedkin remade as Sorcerer) and Diabolique, but this is the first movie he directed. It’s a pretty effective comedy, as well as an Agatha Christie style murder-mystery thriller. It’s really cool to watch these things that feel like they are just “movies,” before a bunch of genre conventions got built up and put in place. This one’s also eighty minutes long, super-short. The premise of the movie is there’s a serial killer on the loose, leaving a business card on every dead body. A dude passes along to the police that he found a stash of the business cards in the attic of a boarding house, so the killer must live there. A police officer goes undercover as a priest moving into the boarding house to investigate the residents. His wife, an aspiring singer, has made a bet with him she can solve the crime first, and in doing so become a celebrity that will be hired to perform places, so she also moves into the boarding house, partly to annoy him. The stuff at the boarding house is basically the film’s second act, while the first and third act are more typical murder-mystery stuff, although the tone of comedy is maintained throughout, despite all the cold-blooded murders.

All These Women (1964), dir. Ingmar Bergman. Kind of dumb sex comedy directed by Ingmar Bergman, but with gorgeous Sven Nykvist cinematography, bright jewel-toned pastels, and sort of theatrical staging in spots seeming to foreshadow Parajanov’s The Color Of Pomegranates or eighties Greenaway stuff. About a critic who visits the palatial estate of a famous cellist to write a biography of him only to find a harem of women; the whole thing unfolding from the cellist’s funeral a few days later. The winking humor is both music-hall bawdy but in a way that feels self-aware or “meta” in the context of a sixties film.

The Touch (1971), dir. Ingmar Bergman. Bergman’s one of my favorites, many of his canonized classics resonate deeply with me, but he was also astonishingly prolific, with a bunch of movies of his blurring together in my mind, and even more that I didn’t know existed, like this English-language one, starring Elliott Gould. Gould’s another favorite of mine, being in a bunch of great movies in the sixties and seventies, but damn, he’s unlikable here. Unlikable characters “hit different” in older material because I’m not sure if you’re supposed to sympathize with them according to the sexist cultural attitudes of the day. Here he’s “the other man” Liv Ullman is cheating on Max Von Sydow (RIP) with, but he’s pretty emotionally abusive, just a shit to her, extremely demanding of her in a relationship he did nothing to earn, though it does feel like the movie is kind of treating him as a romantic lead.

The Anderson Tapes (1971), dir. Sidney Lumet. This is heist movie, starring Sean Connery as a dude fresh out of prison, planning to rob his girlfriend’s apartment building, costarring Christopher Walken in his first film role. It contains all the plot beats of a typical heist thing, all the satisfying “getting the gang together, planning things out in advance, chaotic elements interfere” stuff but also a totally superfluous bit of framing about like constant surveillance, video monitoring and audio tape. All this dystopian police-state stuff seems, implicitly, like it would make a crime impossible to execute, the criminals are monitored every step of the way, by assorted agencies. But then the punchline, after everyone’s arrested for reasons having nothing to do with that, is that all this recording is illegal and all the tapes should be erased as the high-profile nature of the case makes it likely the monitoring agencies will get caught. Sidney Lumet directs a good thriller, even though I don’t find Connery (or Dyan Cannon, who plays the girlfriend) particularly compelling.

The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (1933), dir. Fritz Lang. I watched this years ago, after reading Matt Fraction praise it, particularly how skillful the transitions between scenes were, and I really enjoyed it, but didn’t remember much about it and was excited to rewatch it. It’s got a lot going for it: An exceedingly elaborate criminal plot whose only goal is to wreak chaos, low-level criminals caught up in something they’re morally unprepared to reckon with, a charismatic police detective interviewing a bunch of weirdos, Fritz Lang following up M by continuing to be a master of film and sound editing very early stitching it all together. The Mabuse character was previously the star of a silent film I haven’t watched, and here he’s mute, which is a clever choice I didn’t register until writing it out just now. He’s gone completely insane, but is nonetheless writing a journal filled with elaborate crime plots, and his psychologist is completely insane and following these directions, in a commentary on the rise of Nazism in Germany at the time.

House By The River (1950), dir. Fritz Lang. I watched this in the pre-Quarantine days, but it totally rules. Again, it feels sordid in part because of how old it is and my assumption you’re meant to identify on some level with the completely loathsome protagonist’s sexual desire and anger at getting turned down. It’s so creepy, he’s listening to the sound of his maid showering at one point. All the characters seem very fun to play, they’re all pretty cartoonish. This guy murder his maid, and then gets the idea that he should write a book about the murder when someone explains the idea of “writing what you know” to him, and he is then surprised when his wife reads the book and puts together that it’s a murder confession, saying something like “Really? I thought I disguised it pretty well.” The film functions as a dark comedy because every character is completely mortifying. Lang’s work becoming less ambitious and more reduced in budget during his time working in America is pretty sad but this movie feels legit deranged.

Midsommar (2019), Ari Aster. Heard good things about Hereditary, but haven’t watched it yet, having been put off by the plot summary of Aster’s preceding short film, about a kid who rapes his dad. This is like a longer version of The Wicker Man, basically, starring Florence Pugh, who I had heard was like the new actress everyone’s enamored with, but didn’t think was that compelling in this. A bunch of Americans go to a Swedish village, one of them (played by Chidi from The Good Place) has studied their anthropology extensively, but all are unprepared for the fact that their whole culture seems to revolve around human sacrifice and having sex with outsiders so they don’t become totally inbred. There’s a monstrously deformed, cognitively impaired child who’s been bred specifically so his abstract splashings of paint can be interpreted as culture-defining profound lore, which I took away as being comparable to the role Joe Biden plays within the death cult of the DNC.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2019), dir. Bi Gan. This got a lot of acclaim, but I am almost certain the main reason I watched it is because the director made a list of his favorite movies and included Masaaki Yuasa’s anime series Kemonozume on it. Does a sort of bisected narrative thing, where half of the movie is this sort of fragmented crime thing, a little hard to follow, and then you get the title card, and then the second half is this pretty dreamlike atmospheric piece done in a single shot, with a moving camera. I’m not the sort to jerk off over long shots, although I appreciate the large amount of technical pre-planning that goes into pulling them off. The second part is pretty compelling though, enveloping, I guess it was in 3-D at certain theatrical screenings? I’m a little unclear on how my fucked-up eyes can deal with 3-D these days and I was never that into it. The first half is easy to turn off and walk away from, the second half isn’t but I’m unsure on how much it amounts to beyond its atmosphere.

Black Sun (1964), dir. Koreyoshi Kurahara. This one’s about a Japanese Jazz fan and dirtbag squatter who meets a black American soldier who’s gone crazy and AWOL. He loves him because he loves Jazz and all Black people, but the soldier is pretty crazy and can’t understand him anyway. Jazz is, or was, huge in Japan and this is a cooler depiction of that fandom than you get in Murakami novels but it’s a fairly uncomfortable watch, I guess because the black dude seems so crazy it feels a little racist to an American audience? Maybe he wasn’t being directed that well because there would be a language barrier but it’s weird.

Honestly the thing to watch from sixties Japan on The Criterion Channel is Black Lizard (1962), dir. Umetsugu Inoue, which I watched shortly after Trump’s election in 2016, when all the Criterion stuff was still on Hulu, and it cheered me up considerably in those dark days. It feels a little like The Abominable Dr. Phibes, but with a couple musical numbers, and is about a master detective who thinks crime is super-cool and wishes there was a criminal who would challenge his intellect. Then the Black Lizard kidnaps someone. It’s a lot of fun, with a tone that feels close to camp but is so knowing and smart it feels more genuinely strange and precise. One of those things you get fairly often where the Japanese outsider’s take on American genre stuff gets what it’s about more deeply and so feels like it’s operating on a higher level. I really love this movie.

I had this larger point I wanted to make about just feeling repulsed by genre stuff that self-consciously attempts to mimic its canonical influences and that might not be all the way present in this post. Still, something that really should be implicit when talking about movies from the past is that they are not superhero movies, and how repulsed I am by that particular genre’s domination of cinema right now, and how much of cinema has a history of something far looser and more freewheeling in its ideas of how to make work that appealed to a broad audience, and how much weird formal playfulness can be understood intuitively by an audience without being offputting, and the sort of spirit of formal interrogation connects the films I like to the comics I like (as well as the books I like, and the visual art I like), this sense of doing something that can only be done within that medium even as certain other aspects translate.