#but thematically violation of the body I Guess

[wandringaesthetic]

I watched Requiem for a Dream this morning because of..... Reasons (I had it confused with What Dreams May Come and when I realized it was not that film, I was like "well this is still the one that music comes from let's give it a watch")

Here is my review:

In one scene Jennifer Connelly wears a black sweater dress with cut out armpits that is really cool

[grandhotelabyss]

I guess they're about to learn this the hard way on Wikifeet, but the only thing worse than reading philosophy is reading contemporary popular political nonfiction. The past's popular political nonfiction, if it's ripened into a classic, is fine to read—often better than philosophy, in fact, hence my elevation of Emerson and Chesterton over the philosophers. But trying to sift through present-day material for the gems is too much of an opportunity cost. I had the patience for it when I was a kid but not now. I read so many of the Bush-era political books, for example, and what do I have to show for it? When's the last time you heard anybody deploy an insight gleaned from the once painfully au courant Verso volume, Afflicted Powers? Ironically, given how things turned out for all involved, the best of the W. books were probably Mark Crispin Miller's Frankfurt-School-inflected Bush Dyslexicon and Cruel and Unusual.

Anyway, I haven't done an ad on Tumblr in a while, and in another Xeet Anna K advocates "grandiose narcissism," so please let me renew my recommendation to Tumblr's apparently substantial Red Scare contingent of Portraits and Ashes, a novel I wrote in 2013, which foretold the whole Red Scare sensibility. In my later material, though, I have moved on thematically. (A paid subscription to my Substack gets you access to a post containing pdfs of my three prior novels, including Portraits and Ashes, as well as to my serialized novel-in-progress, the occult-themed American epic, Major Arcana.) I wrote my last Red-Scare-ish story, "Sweet Angry God," in 2015, three years before the pod debuted. You can read that story for free here. The opening paragraphs:

Apparently it began with a hate fuck. There was a dirtball café, no doubt collectively owned, a few blocks from the art school. He worked there, and she had been watching him for some months, maybe even her entire sophomore year. The first time she went into the place she noticed him, how hateful and stupid he was. Some kind of percussion-heavy music rumbled over the speakers, hissing with analogue static. She thought she felt the tuba thrum in her throat. Above the music she heard him talk to his co-worker as his face glistened in the espresso machine steam. He didn’t look at her, not even when his dirty fingernails grazed her palm with the change. “No, Romanian. It was a group, yeah, I mean they allied with Hitler. Not saying I’m defending them, but, I mean. They were pissed off that their culture was being violated by the modern west. Yeah, they hacked people’s heads off. Limbs. Like werewolves, man. Okay, it’s fucked up. But today you just push a button. Is that better? This is their marching music.” She kept her eye on him after that. Maybe he was dangerous. She would look over her laptop screen when he came out from behind the counter to wipe down the tables. He stomped around in careless bursts, like a toddler. He had a pervert’s goatee and wore bowling shirts stained at the armpits. When she saw his sneakers, so old they’d become fashionable again, she understood what “down-at-heel” literally meant. His body looked sinewy, a bad cut of meat. Stupid-ass white boy. Sometimes she checked certain books out of the library to read in front of him, anything by or about men ready for violence. Marinetti, Mao, Fanon, whatever. His eyes were always elsewhere. Men ready for violence unmade and remade the world. She just lived in it. She wondered if he didn’t want to just live in it. Her sophomore-year final project she called Men Ready for Violence. Blood-spatter paintings were arrayed around a screen showing various armies on the march. Their choreography contrasted with the chaos of the red paint. She loaded the artist’s statement with jargon, quotations from Klaus Theweleit and Judith Butler, so that her teachers didn’t call a shrink or a cop. Everyone was polite about it, one professor even enthusiastic. Her classmates looked at her strangely. Especially the girls. Then the semester was over. One week left before she had to come home to mamá. She sat in the café reading Ernst Jünger. He wiped down her table while she was still sitting at it, his face vacantly smiling, the dirt-nailed knob-boned fingers sinking in the washcloth’s soft folds. One week. What would a Romanian fascist do? She reached out and grabbed his wrist hard. Her face must have looked like it couldn’t believe what her hand had done. Her nails were red-stained with oil paint. He was looking at her nails and then turned to look into her eyes. He showed smoker’s teeth.

How did I know in 2015 that this type of young woman, then still immersed in pop Jezebel-style feminism, would soon be getting into aesthetic fascism? Because I'm not a philosopher. I can't afford to let logical argument block the truth.

[rhulkamania]

the physicality of someone disabled and traumatized and violated is so, so tender. and something that needs to be handled thematically with extreme care. instead, bungie seems fascinated with furthering harm and extending the violation of the already violated.

which is both very odd, considering that they were nourishing an arc about collective healing and reflection. which is now pushed aside in favour of exploring physical harm and the unraveling, the regouging, if you will, of otherwise healing traumas.

I really, honestly, genuinely, and with heart do not want to see this. and even though I was expecting frankly very little, this has blindsided me. it baffles me that the physicality of a wildly traumatized character in chronic pain who constantly struggles with her body, its ability, what it symbolizes, the mere sensation of it, isn't considered with a little more care, a little more tenderness. but that the harm must instead be perpetuated and put on gross display......

I've been suggested that the supposed narrative probably concerns taking that which harmed you and fashioning a spear out of it, turning it back against your traumatizer, weaponizing yourself and your wounds. which does align with previously explored ideas and could be a powerful narrative in itself. but I wish it could be done in a way that didn't open up a pit of dread and apprehension in my stomach.

I guess I don't want to see more harm. no matter what sort of blunt force object it might be fashioned into. it's already too much

[headspace-hotel]

re: the locked tomb thing, yeah, it can be an intensely triggering series. I personally love it, but I can see that reaction. I know that some people, myself included, have read/reread and think that maybe Harrow wasn’t actually behind all of the bad things that happened to Gideon—definitely some of them, but it’s later revealed that another character on the Ninth has at least once taken extremely drastic actions not just without Harrow’s orders but in direct violation of them, resulting in the death of someone she didn’t actually want harmed at all.

That said, Ianthe is all of the things you’re struggling with but turned up to like 15 or 20 on a scale of 1-10, especially in the second book, and fucked up power dynamics are kind of a Major Theme.

So, not a recommendation for you to keep going or anything, just an anecdote as to why some of us like Harrow—I can’t really tell you why people like Ianthe, though, she’s straight up awful, imo

I think a lot of my problem might have been that I went in with the expectation that it was going to be a fun morbid romp, because...well, not just Tumblr, but everything else i'd seen about the series, down to the quotes on the cover, portrayed it as dark grungy fun, like the kind of dark that doesn't take itself too seriously, and is tempered by humor. Which left me really blindsided by how despairing and claustrophobic the tone actually was.

I just remember that by page 100 or so Gideon hadn't taken a single action that she wasn't directly coerced into and I was just like...I don't have the patience or the emotional resilience to read 100 more pages of a character being emotionally abused and forced to just take it while not having an independent plot of her own apart from that?

Like I guess the codependency aspect fascinates some people, I don't know what specifically people like about the series generally? And like, if thematically you're kind of wrapping two characters up in each other on a deep level, intertwining their identities, I understand why that's a compelling thing.

But if you're putting a character in a situation/plot where she can't move in any direction except toward her abuser, and where it's made abundantly obvious that the plot will not permit her to escape this person or demand to be treated better by this person because they're the body around which her story is forced to revolve, it's...for me, intolerable.

The coerciveness is more of a Doylian than Watsonian thing, you know? Like, there's no chance anything will get better for the protagonist (or that she will get to...Be??? a protagonist???) because you, the author, locked her into this fatal orbit.

[professorspork]

today in the Andromeda Galaxy, *screaming*

so like listen. I had this whole PLAN for this post, about how the Brandeis motto is taken from Psalms 51, “truth, even unto its innermost parts,” and how my Ryder reflects that. I had a lot of last little errands I wanted to run before starting the endgame of the next big phase of main plot, and over and over again-- telling Maariko the angara astronomer that it was exiles who destroyed his stuff and hurt people, even though it turned him against humans as a whole; siding with Sid over Addison that we should go public with the fact that the Nexus was backing the Three Sabers even though it makes us look sus as hell; convincing the angara historian on Voeld that he shouldn’t whitewash the fact that the angara cooperated with the kett during early first contact-- I stubbornly insisted that what’s TRUE matters a heck of a lot more than what’s “convenient” or “inspiring.” I told the same to Keri, later on. 

but then like. WOW DID A BUNCH HAPPEN, the latest of which REALLY DOESN’T FIT WITH THAT WHOLE THEME.

so we went to Khi Tasira, and I brought Jaal and Peebee with me because of course I did. (in my defense, Big Kett Offense + Giant Remnant Place = perfectly good reasons to have them as my party, but lbr I probably would have taken them anyway). AND WHO BOY WHAT REVELATIONS. the Scourge is the leftovers of a superweapon explosion that went off here in a galaxy-wide terraforming accident! makes sense! we still need another widget because of course we do! and the big one: THE ANGARA WERE DESIGNED AND MADE. (sidebar: after that reveal, they had the sweetest little conversation of Peebee assuring him if he wanted to talk she’s there for him, and he was like “why because now I’m a remnant curiosity? ... SIKE lol ur FACE” and I just. don’t understand. why I’m not allowed to date both of them.)

once again, I cannot emphasize enough how much better and more thematically resonant this game would be if Ryder were quarian and instead of the human ark we were from the quarian ark. like, the parallels! the depth and nuance! the hard questions! it’s a bummer in general that they decided no quarians in Andromeda, but this really just does seem like an obvious and illuminating solution to so many pitfalls and half-problems. it makes me so frustrated.

checking on everyone after, I was really touched by Liam’s take, which is ‘fuck the people who made the scourge, minefields make life unlivable for civilians.” he’s such a good egg. Gil’s gonna co-parent with Jill, which is incredibly sweet. and Jaal was dreamy as all get-out, what with his “There's a peace in knowing that though the universe is beyond your understanding, it doesn't need your understanding to function” and his “I’m not broken, I’m excited” and his “this changes nothing except ourselves.” IF NOTHING WE DO MATTERS THEN ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHAT WE DO. he told me i made him feel safe, which is just. that’s some top-tier shit right there, and thank goodness, because later on bioware would TRULY TRY MY PATIENCE (lol spoilers). also he sent me an email with the subject line “from your romantic friend Jaal�� which is just. my heart. i can’t.

so that was all great! i was having a good time!

and then I went to the Nexus and gave my next interview with Keri, and she was like “hey come cheat on your boyf at the bar with me.” and I was like well I’m sure not doing that but I do have to complete the mission so I guess I’ll have another agonizing conversation like I did with Vetra where I let her down easy. ONLY THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED, BECAUSE THE GAME DID NOT GIVE ME A WAY TO TURN HER DOWN. LITERALLY ALL DIALOGUE OPTIONS WERE CONSENT TO CHEATING SEX. WTF??????? i really feel some kind of way about that, and like I get that I didn’t have to flirt with her and I guess I could have just not gone to the Vortex, I don’t understand the utility of a side romance you’re locked into. it made me feel super gross, and both violating and violated.  NOT EVEN PLAYING FIRE CHESS WITH DRACK, KESH AND VORN COULD CHEER ME UP.

Jaal tried to lift my spirits by choosing me over a fancy new job with the Resistance, but I couldn’t really get into it seeing as I was wracked with guilt over being forced to bang someone else. but he invited me to a date on Aya, so I went there and talked through all the angarans’ existential crises over the new ~revelations.

and then-- MY FAULT, REALLY, I COULD HAVE PICKED THE NO-SEX OPTION BUT AGAIN I WAS MOTIVATED LARGELY BY GUILT-- I had to endure the world’s most off-puttingly milquetoast Obligatory Act Three Side Boob (or as Helen calls it, the “pre-climax climax”). only IT WASN’T SIDEBOOB, IT WAS FULL ON BOOB. BOOBS LIKE A CHEST PLATE. IMMOVABLE, GRAVITY-DEFYING BOOBS. SOME MATRIARCH BENEZIA BADONKERS I HAVE BEEN CARRYING AROUND APPARENTLY. THAT STAND STRAIGHT UP EVEN WHEN RYDER IS SUPINE, AND ALSO I FEEL WEIRD THAT JAAL IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTOOD ORAL SEX WITH HUMANS????

I’m disappointed. which I figured would be inevitable given how poorly I think Bioware handles romance in general, but I was really hoping Jaal would be an exception because the only reason I romanced him at all was because his unique quirks took me by surprise and felt consistent and well-rounded. like! he’s so sweet and fuckin weird! where was any of that???  and then he called me TEMPTRESS in his follow-up email which I uhhh did not love.

luckily I was able to get the taste out of my mouth by having movie night with the crew my whole family, and Kallo reminded me why he is in fact my stealth fave. the body language in this scene was a surprise, but not an unpleasant one-- Cora leaning on Liam’s knees! Peebee cuddling Kallo! Helen said if I hadn’t romanced anyone I would have fallen asleep on Drack and that is Good, Actually.

only thing left is the end game! we’ll see how it goes. 

[vivace-joyous]

The Umbrella Academy 1x01-03

okay, so I have been watching this new show cause y’all know I love me some group based narratives. And the premise feels very fun with lots of ways they can play around with it. It’s like Sense8 if Sense8 focused more on worldbuilding and constructing an overarching narrative to connect all the characters too. However, I find these two shows to be inverses of each other even though their premises are similar thematically. UA and S8 (how I will abbreviate them) seem to excel and stumble in a complementary fashion. Before I get too deep in what I mean, I should talk more about just the UA itself and my general impressions over the first 3 episodes.

OVERALL, it’s enjoyable. I feel like the world building and the over arching plot are the two main elements propelling me through the series. Which like... GOOD! That’s what is supposed to happen when watching a show. If you don’t like the story, watching the show feels like a task. But I am genuinely intrigued by the mystery of the show and what will happen next. Five: “The world will end in 8 days.” Vanya “I’ll put some coffee on then.” Solid way to end a pilot and leave me wanting more. Not just for the next episode, but that is a great way to kick off the first season. BOOM! The Hargreaves have to band together and stop the world end of the world. I just appreciate this because it gives a solid foundation for all other storylines to center around. It is something your brain can stay conscious of throughout each episode and I feel that is such a strong element and important element for a tv show to posses to be good. 

Continuing with the writing, I think so far the pace is decent and the writing is competent from episode to episode. The less important, character-driven storylines are given weight but never take too much focus from the main plot. The dialogue is passable. It doesn’t have a very distinct personality to itself though. If the character is not eccentric themselves, then they probably won’t ever say anything interesting. Which ugh ehh. I just wish the dialogue called more intention to itself because that way the writers could infuse more character moments in fun little quibs. However, it does its job so I can’t complain. 

But I will complain about the use of flashback in the show. The flashbacks feel more used to quickly establish something that is happening in the present day storyline than really be anything more than that. Which is.. like technically okay and the POINT of a flashback. But it is so cliche and I believe there are other, more unique ways to deliver information than just cutting to a flashback. Granted, I do love seeing then team as young teens fighting crime. That’s super cool and I wish the show showed more of that. Cause MY GOD does this show need some more ACTION scenes in it. 

I feel like my biggest problem in the first 3 episodes is that the action feels second to the drama and that totally needs to be reversed. I’m so sorry, but outside of whatever Five is doing, all the other individual character storylines are so fucking boring. I don’t care what any of them do when it doesn’t relate to the main plot. I think that’s why I like Diego’s character cause his whole thing is ABOUT the main plot. I mean, I feel like the show will deliver in terms of action. It’s clear that more insane elements will get thrown in and the filmmakers do like the demonstrate the special powers in fun ways. So I am excited to see what action scenes will come up. I just think overall the show needs more cause the melodrama kinda sorta makes the episodes drag. Like, why is Diego constantly in his fight clothes but he has only been in 2 fight scenes? And Five has like what 3 or 4 in just the first 3 episodes? 

And MY GOD DO I HATE HOW THIS SHOW IS SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!! UGH the cinematography is fucking crap. I hate how it is lit. I hate how the director decided to compose the shots. I hate how there appears to be this like.... haze fliter???? on everything??? Like every scene looks cloudy. It’s like supersaturated. I don’t like it cause 1) I feel it does not help the tone of the show. I feel like we shouldn’t take everything so seriously and have more fun with the premise. But this smoky haze filter makes everything more somber and I think it bumps with most of what actually happens on the show. And 2) it genuinely makes it harder to make out expressions in the actor’s faces. Ugh fire the DP. They are doing a terrible job. 

Let’s talk about the individual characters:

1) Luther. Hate him. Boring white man. Why is he “the leader of the family” after the dad has passed? Like he has not a single interesting aspect about himself. I am honestly so bored every time he talks. And it doesn’t help with the fact that the actor’s head is way too small for the illusion they are trying to create for the character. It’s like “Yeah, let’s put a stale ass, tiny ass white man head on this GIANT 7 foot muscle clad body. He just looks bizarre cause his face says “5′11″ and toned” but his body is that of a bodybuilder. I just wish they found an actor who is just massive like that already for the show. The ridiculous costume they have him in honestly takes me out of it for a bit. And it doesn’t help that they actor isn’t really trying to do anything with the character. Luther says lines. Luther is strong. That’s about it. I will say that despite him being “Number 1″ and “the leader of the family” the show hasn’t given him that much screen time and we still don’t know much about him at all. Which I really appreciate cause it is giving a lot of other (more interesting) characters necessary focus and thus makes getting through Luther scenes that much easier. I don’t know need to learn more about it. Just have him be strong in a corner. 

2) Diego. MY FUTURE HUSBAND!!!!!! HE IS SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!! I WILL SUCK THE SOUL OUT OF HIS DICK AND ASS HE IS SO FINE OMG yeah badass martial artist who throws knives and has a bit of an anger management problem. I am SMITTEN! I mean eww why the fuck does he have to be straight and keep hitting on that one detective. Honestly, ugh I hate that he is straight. It’s boring and unoriginal. It would have been neat for him to be asexual. He is good looking so people assume that he would be a lady killer. But he is WAY too obsessed with fighitng crime that he literally doesn’t pay attention to his own sexuality. But WAHTEVER! The queer character has to be the eccentric one with the drug problem alkfhadlskfadslkfbdskh ANYWAYS I like hos Diego adds a healthy amount of doubt amongst the group. In terms of constructing group dynamics, he is a lancer AKA the one always playing devil’s advocate. I think he adds a valuable perspective to the team and it will be interesting to see how the family will solve problems with integration of Diego’s help. I don’t like how the show handle showing the relationship between Diego and Mom/ Grace. But I will dive more into that when I talk about the flashbacks.

3) Allison. My god is she boring. But like, in the perspective in how she is an actress, yet doesn’t act like an actress. I mean, yes some actors can act like “normal people” but like... most actors don’t. I say this as someone who lives in LA and knows actors. They have BIG PERSONALITIES. They like to be KNOWN! However, Allison just feels way too subdued and “normal”. Like, okay she must have pursued an acting career of her own violation. So she must be a person who loves attention and strives for their chance to be in the spotlight. Everything needs to revolve around them. But that’s not Allison. She isn’t really anything. She is concerned about her daughter... if feel like that’s the only real thing we have learned about her so far. I wish her narrative had an angle about her being attention seeking. During the scene when all the siblings were reading Vanya’s autobigraphy, the voiceover cut to Allison when the VO mentioned attention seeking. Which, if that is an aspect of Allison’s character, then SHOW it to us. Have her do SOMETHING besides give creepy incest bedroom eyes to Luther. 

4) Klaus. Finally, an interesting character! His powers are unique yet have a direct influence on how his personality is shaped. His is a drug addict because dead people are constantly trying to talk to him. Kinda sorta metaphor for the mentally unwell and how they abuse drugs because “It makes the voices go away”. They just have a lot of things they can do with him and the writers know this. They obviously have some extra fun when writing him. I just wish the other characters were a lot more sympathetic towards him. Like.... maybe try and talk to him about his drug problem? Rather than patronize it literally every single time you talk to him. SERIOUSLY every single scene Klaus is in with one of his siblings, they always HAVE to mention his drug problem AND THEN scold him for it. Like............ that’s not very constructive? Like at all! But I guess that’s just how some families are to one another. Also, it is very interesting to see how they are handling Robert Sheehan’s performance in UA compared to Misfits. In Misfits, he has a tendency to devour each scene he was in, to the point where he felt like the central character of that show. But Nathan was such a great character, that often times you didn’t mind how he would steamroll over others because it was done in such an entertaining way. But in the UA, the director’s have chosen to use Robert Sheehan’s signature eccentric style to flavour the scenes, rather than change the tone of the scene altogether (unlike how they used Nathan in Misfits). Anyways, I am most intrigued to see what they will do with his character. 

5) Five. I don’t have too much to say about him because I feel like there is a lot more to be discovered about this character. Overall, I like the concept around the character and tbh he gets some of the best scenes in the first 3 episodes. I am truly impressed with the actor portraying this character. I think he is doing quite a great job in giving us the nuances of the character. A 58-year-old trapped in the body of a 13-year-old. Like, I get that. I see that. It works and I am here for it. 

6) Ben. WOW so the one Asian one is dead and barely gets any lines. Ugh okay. Really REALLY want to learn more about him. Really intrigued with how he died to begin with. Hopefully the show shares this story element in an interesting way that connects to the main plot in a way other than just thematically. 

7) Vanya. I.... I wanna hold my tongue about her. Cause she is obviously the audience perspective character for this world. So there isn’t much to say about her besides her being a tool to help the audience get integrated into the show’s world. I just... I gotta wait cause I feel like they are going to do something cool with her character and I don’t wanna make any.... undeserved assumptions. I just want more from her which like... I guess is a good thing? 

[hillbillyoracle]

Why I haven’t been posting lately...

I’m putting what I wrote for a reddit post warning people away from my landlord beneath a cut. It’s been pretty hellish and I’ve been scared/nervous to talk about it but I want people to know what’s going on isn’t small. 

In addition to what I wrote below, we realized the stairs aren’t well constructed after I fell down half a flight of them on Monday evening - in bare feet (no socks) on hardwood flooring. The ledges bend in different directions and I slipped/tripped on one that wasn’t level. The whole right side of my body is a series of black and purple bruises, my feet and hands got scraped up by baseboards that didn’t seem to get sanded. I’m still recovering. 

More below the cut:

TL;DR: What we’ve dealt with since moving into a [landlord redacted] place:

- They were hard to get a hold of and now they won’t respond at all

- Multiple code violations they either didn’t fix or placed the onus on us to arrange for

- Zip Code is wrong on the lease which made getting our drivers licenses and such a pain

- Charged us for rent we already paid multiple times; put notice on door

- Charged us for HOA fees incurred before we moved in

- Maintenance guy is incredibly incompetent and condescending

- They’ve failed to do anything about the roach infestation

- They started up a construction project next door that’s active 12 hours a day

Other than what we’ve seen personally:

- They have code violations on record with the city

- The owner's twitter features the line “It’s all about whose ox is getting gored” - guess his tenants are the ox.

- He weirdly almost gloats about kicking people out and upcharging the next tenants

More Info:

We had to move very quickly and weren’t able to research places as well as we would have liked. So I’m writing this to make it easier for other folks to know what they’re getting into with them. If you’re okay with all of this, then by all means, I support you renting from them. But it was certainly too much for us and I wanted to spare other folks what I could.

I’m actually afraid to share this as I wouldn’t put it past them to be retaliatory, to make a up a reason to kick us out over being more public about what they’ve done. Tried to put it on a throwaway but alas.

I think the best summary of both [landlord’s] property and their service is what my partner said - “It’s not really living, it’s surviving, and that’s not really what I look for in a home.”

So many things have gone wrong at this place that I’m going to go thematically rather than chronologically. Which is wild given that we’ve only been living in the place for three months.

The workmanship in this place is horrible. There are shelves falling out of the wall. The dishwasher leaked and then the maintenance guy “fixed it” by having it overflow through the sink which leaves a bunch of crud in it. They didn’t even both trying to make the basement floor remotely level so our washer and dryer are on stilts – the best fix we can manage right now. Every now and then they come off them and rock around which I’m sure isn’t great for the machine.

They got the zip code wrong on the lease which has caused problems trying to get identifying documents switched over and other things switched over. Small but important. Since they’re nigh impossible to contact (see further down) we’ve mostly not bothered trying to get this sorted with them but it’s been a real pain.

When we moved in, we paid 6 months ahead. A mistake, yes, we know. But they kept trying to charge us for rent we’d already paid. We contacted them three times about the charges on the account and still they packing taped a failure to pay rent notice on our door.

They’ve continually tried to charge us for things we do not have to pay. They tried to charge us for a fee they incurred before we moved in and when we pointed it out to them they did not apologize. The second time they did it they didn’t contact us at all and we had to repeatedly check to see if it’d been removed.

We figured out this was because the yard crew kept pulling our trash can out and not putting it back so we asked them to stop yard services - which we never signed up for. We had to ask them 4 separate times and even then we only got them stopped when we paid for a lock and put it on the back gate and the mower came to talk with us.

The maintenance guy is not only very incompetent but completely condescending. He was two hours late and gave no heads up. I had to call to get any updates. When I tried talking to him about it when he arrived, he walked in essentially said that he’d done nothing wrong and walked away while I was in the middle of a sentence. He would not tell me what was going on and flat out ignored my questions. Our dog is epileptic and was getting nervous with all the strangers and loud noises so I decided to take him away from the apartment for a while. I tried to find the man and again was ignored. Once he realized I’d left he called to yell at me for leaving.

When we moved in they pointed out that they were aware that the basement electrical outlets were not up to code and gave us a number of an electrician to call. We called him and never heard back. Our basement is still not up to code.

They also pointed out they knew our backyard was a flood risk and said they’d be sending someone to fix that. They never have. It’s basically a pond out there when it rains and it’s filled with mosquitos.

We asked about bugs well before we moved in. We were assured they’d send someone to spray. We contacted them multiple times about it. They eventually sent their maintenance guy who left us with a couple roach traps and some spray that did nothing. Our kitchen, even after a month of keeping everything spotless is still infested. He said that the root of the problem was the abandoned house next door and he couldn’t do anything about it.

We found out two days later that the house was not abandoned and they owned it so they could do something about it. Because they began very very loud construction without any notice, construction that was happening for 11 hours a day. When we contacted them initially, they were very condescending, saying it was just because it’d been unoccupied for a while and we weren’t used to the noise (we’ve both lived in shared housing for almost a decade at this point) but said that they’d limit the hours to business hours Monday – Friday. But then without contacting us further and ignoring all our calls and emails – they continued to work 11-12 hours a day. I still cannot understand why they promised it at all and then turned around and go against it. It’s just spiteful.

They’ve ignored all of our emails for 2 weeks straight. We cannot get in contact with them.

A person we’ve never interacted with from their company called us to ask about our dishwasher, meanwhile they’d ignored 5-6 emails we’d sent trying to get more information about what was happening. What a blatant way to say we don’t care about you, just our property.

I am disabled, I do what work I can out of my home and my partner works from home several days a week. This has forced me to basically live somewhere else in order to sustain any kind of income and has taken a major toll on my health. Even if I did have a 9-5 job, I’d still be dealing with this an hour before and two to three hours afterward. When I am at the house I’m getting up early and staying out late just to not have to deal with the noise.

In trying to find out what I could about them more recently, I found that they have at least one code violation they were found guilty of and had to pay the city.

We also found that the owner of the company has a twitter in which he kind of weirdly gloats about kicking people out of their homes and doing very little work so that he can charge people more money. His bio features the line “It’s all about who’s ox is getting gored” – guess the ox are his tenants. I’m now very very skeptical of his “trouble tenants” as I wonder if they didn’t refuse to pay for a place he wouldn’t fix and he kicked them out, “upgraded” the place, and upcharged the next tenants. He brands himself as an entrepreneur and adding value but I can tell you this house is made to sell, not to sustain actual human life in them.

A warning to women and queer people: I would especially advise women and queer people away from this company. They’ve been really weird about my partner and I living together. We told them when we moved in we were a couple and yet weirdly we just get referred to as roommates or just grouped together under “ladies”. It’s really uncomfortable. With the maintenance guy being as patronizing and horrible as he was, I wouldn’t want another woman to have to go through that but it’s whatever you’re comfortable with in the end I suppose.

So that’s what I’d want people to know about doing business with [landlord]. More power to you if you want to but I would never ever recommend them to anyone.

If you know of anything we can do about this, let me know but I'm not hopeful.

Editing to Add Some Pictures

We could post a lot more but I feel like these sum it up for right now: https://imgur.com/a/uzXQPzM

[semi-imaginary-place]

code vein has a demo woooo! character creator here i come! (i have 0 interest in actually playing this game).

i went and spoiled myself because i was curious about worldbuilding. soooo its a double apocalypse... neat. but before operation queenslayer, the horrors were never eliminated. and louis mentions that they are still in the city. so they didn't even fix the first apocalypse before starting another.

where are people getting fresh food in a ruined city? i see no agriculture.

this vestige system. that means all these people the memories belong to eventually got turned into revenants

who is sybil? is that the player character's name since you get the queenslayer blood code upon seeing the pc's memories of killing the queen

lol they are trying so hard to write a silent protag so the role of main character went to louis. this is louis' story and we're just along for the ride.

but does the successors going insane stop their function of isolating the relics? it seems like it doesn't. by accepting the queen's blood do you mean neutralizing it? or would collecting the relics just revive the queen in the pc's body?

oh when the succesors become lost they break the seals and rampage. they really should have made the seals impenetrable from both the outside and inside and independant of the sucessor's sanity. well i guess it was a slapdash measure

im watching this in youtube no way im playing this game lol

ok so she's just a giant wolf monster thing now.

wait... if nicola and aurora both frenzied, why didn't they break out and revive the queen like everyone's been saying.

oh the nicola copies. bit that doesn't explain aurora. ok this nicola part is the best written thing in the game i've seen so far.

oh so there is a successor maintenance system

totally should have just stabbed mido in the back at the first chance'

miguel got abandoned by the narrative lol

big robo-catgirl gf vibes here

hm im confused. so mido made eva frenzy early but also made her into a full successor?

if the bor parasite can be killed why cant the lost? i mean sure i'd be harder, would have to contain them and destroy every cell within that space, but possible.

wouldn't removing the 3 added relics or doing what the player character has been doing for the other successors they've fought like nicola or aurora also keep silva sane and able to maintain the barrier? you all really do need to come up with a permanent solution to the Lost and the Queen because the current system is only held together with tape and determination

oh io. her life was just starting...

yeah code vein did better than i expected, i cant speak on the gameplay or pacing but the story was good. not sure i'd class it as excellent or best story but it is solidly done.

something in particular that i like is that minus 1 dude the major characters that you fight or that are against you are not only not evil they're all well intentioned. this entire game is paved with good intentions from the queen cruz to the researchers aurora and karen to silva's barrier and government. good intentions are not enough and yet it is also the human will that allows people to push through and achieve the miraculous. cruz wanted to help everyone but that wasnt enough to stop her frenzy. karen and aurora wanted to help people and save humanity yet they helped create the berserk queen, revenants, the lost, and enabled a hell of a lot of human rights violations, silva brought order to vein but it wasnt enough for society to start fraying and the levy to push people to extreme measures. and each of the successors fought did so to protect something yet they all become a danger to all people.

the whole game runs on good will and sacrifices.

man i really like all the endings. like, they are all thematically appropriate. the visuals of your party sacrificing themselves as successors and await sleeping for the cycle to repeat is very good.

[sg2tiger]

Alright, Bern’s game.

Let’s not mince words - I basically already know the answer to the only question Bern’s asking. Not only is it sort of thematically obvious, but it’s been nearly 7 years since EP8 came out - I’ve seen both fanart and manga caps depicting the happy family in the middle of their killing spree. I already know the culprits are Kyrie, Rudolf, and Battler. Just like that Bern’s entire game is solved.

But that’s not any fun, is it? After all, this is truly my last chance to experience a (mostly) brand-new Umineko scenario that I’ve never read before. My last chance to sort of recapture that feel of the Good Ol’ Days trying to theorize and solve a gameboard mystery. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I decided my challenge would be, instead, to explain the howdunnit without violating the red truth or the newly-introduced purple statements.

First Twilight

Six bloodied bodies are found in the dining hall. They are: Eva, Hideyoshi, Rudolf, Kyrie, Rosa, and Genji. The children examined their own parents’ corpses, while Dr. Nanjo and Kanon examine Genji’s. Furthermore, we are told by Dr. Nanjo in purple that the method of killing is such that anyone could verify with certainty that they were dead at a glance.

Battler’s family are the culprits. Conversely this means nobody besides Battler’s family is among the culprits, and thus their purple statements can be taken as truth. This includes Nanjo’s purple given above.

Battler is among the culprits, so that automatically invalidates this statement. Ergo, Kyrie and Rudolf were not dead. No one else checked their corpses. Kyrie and Rudolf killed the other four and bloodied themselves, playing dead and hiding among the others.

Since the dining hall was locked when it was first discovered, at least one culprit had to stay behind and lock the door from the inside. Rudolf and Kyrie locked the door before playing dead. The windows are also irrelevant due to Bern’s new rules for this gameboard, and since the servants are not among the culprits (for once!!), the master keys are also irrelevant. 

Second Twilight

As we know, everyone on this island is really bad at sticking together in crisis situations, so they inevitably split up to take a break. Natsuhi and Krauss are the only ones who fail to return after a long time, and are, inevitably, found dead in Natsuhi’s room.

The door is locked when they arrived, as stated by Jessica in purple. The door is then sealed immediately after the survivors exit using Erika’s famous duct tape seals. Then the dining hall, and finally the two doors to the mansion, are sealed in the same fashion, before the party heads to the guesthouse.

I was initially stumped by these reds - in particular, the fact that the seals would not be broken for the duration of the game. This would render Kyrie and Rudolf trapped and unable to act, yet most of the subsequent murders were stated to have been impossible for any of the cousins (including Battler) to commit. 

That’s when I went back, reread, and noticed the order in which the rooms were sealed. With that in mind, the solution becomes easy.

One of the two parents - let’s say Rudolf - entered Natsuhi's room and killed both her and Krauss. The culprit remained hidden inside the room when the survivors examined the corpses. Thus, when the room was sealed, the culprit was sealed inside. Hope there’s something good on TV at least, Rudolf, because the culprit is now unable to act for the duration of the game.

But that’s okay. Having snuck out of the dining hall before it was sealed, Kyrie exits the mansion and goes to hide in the guesthouse. Remember that the guesthouse is where everyone was staying - it’d be a hassle to call a servant to lock and unlock the front door whenever they moved from there to the mansion. Thus we can say almost certainly that the guesthouse was unlocked even before the survivors headed over there. Kyrie slips into the guesthouse while Battler and the others are sealing the mansion with duct tape, and then hides. 

When the remaining party moves over to the guesthouse and locks the door behind them, the culprit is already there. Since she left the dining hall and mansion before they were sealed, the red is not invalidated. Since Rudolf remains sealed inside Natsuhi’s room, that red is not broken either. All seals remain intact.

Finally, if Rudolf killed the four in the dining hall and then killed Natsuhi and Krauss, he would have killed six people. The red did not say when they were killed, or in which room, so this should be valid.

Fourth Twilight

After moving to the guesthouse, our Idiot Family decides to...split up again, I guess? For some reason? It’s literally just not explained.

Bern voice: don’t worry about it

Anyway, Shannon - and thus Kanon - slip out for some unexplained reason and go outside. Shannon is found dead, so Kanon disappears as well. No one has an alibi for the small window of time during which she disappeared, as stated by Jessica in purple. 

Originally I was going to pin this on Kyrie, but I was reminded that a culprit is a murderer. Thus, in order for Battler to be a culprit and lie in purple (required in order to have Rudolf and Kyrie moving about), Battler needs to dirty his own hands. This is the only crime Battler should be able to commit without violating any reds or purples, so Battler killed Shannon. 

...my alternate theory was on Battler’s level of bizarre, twisted, but technically not in violation of the colored statements logic in which all three of them helped each other out in the dining hall, effectively all dirtying their hands simultaneously, and also collectively counting as ‘the culprit’ who killed 6 people. But then I remembered that he had no alibi for Shannon’s - and only Shannon’s - murder, so there was no need for that kind of wacky truth. As to be expected...it’s Bern’s game, after all, not Beato’s. It should be solvable without twisted logic.

Fifth and Sixth Twilight

The survivors retreat into the guesthouse and lock everything up tight. We’re reminded of something we should already know in purple - there are no hidden doors. Even so, Kumasawa and Gohda end up being killed. 

We’re told that, due to the large amount of blood that’d inevitably stain their clothes, none of the cousins or Nanjo could have possibly killed these two (didn’t stop Erika in EP6 but it’s in purple so I guess that’s the story we’re going with). This omits Battler as a suspect - however, Kyrie was already waiting in the guesthouse. When no one was paying attention, Kyrie entered (or perhaps was already waiting in) the servant room and killed them both, then hid herself once more. Since she was already in the guesthouse since before they locked it up, the state of the locks is irrelevant.

Seventh and Eighth Twilight

Nanjo is found dead in the guesthouse lobby. Again, we’re told in purple that none of the cousins could have killed him.

Kyrie killed Nanjo. It’s the same as before - she was already hiding in the guesthouse, so the fact that it’s still locked is irrelevant. 

Frustrated, Jessica runs out into the rain to scream at the hidden culprit (as one does, if one is an Umineko character), and is summarily killed. We’re given more purple - none of the remaining three could have done it. Maria couldn’t kill anyone. George couldn’t kill an adult...but he could (and probably would) totally kill a child (you know, for kicks). 

Kyrie killed Jessica. She could have simply followed after Jessica opened the door and ran out, while Battler ensured that George and Maria searched for her in the wrong place - giving her plenty of time to finish the job and hide once again.

...

I was told that the game effectively ends at this point, and did not continue onto the next chapter until I had finalized my thoughts.

Ultimately it was a fun throwback to the Olden Days of Umineko theorizing, even if it was rather short and simple.

[ofwolvesandshatteredshields]

Why Monster Gabe Is Good

So monster Gabe is popular and I am Fuckin Psyched about it not only because of the awesome designs that come out of it but also because thematically it is excellent. I wrote a whole-ass series based mostly on these themes so if you’ve read that then you can probably skip the following BUT

I wanted to go through a couple of the tropes that often come with monster Gabe and talk about why they are Very Good

1. Monster Gabe lacks control over his own form

In many creators’ incarnations Gabe can’t retain a humanoid shape when he doesn’t consume enough energy (or souls, I guess, if you must lol) or when he is experiencing particularly strong emotions. How did this happen to him? Not totally clear in lore, but he certainly didn’t do it to himself; best guesses point to Dr. Ziegler infusing him with some faulty nanotechnology at some point. This fundamental alteration of his own body was done to him by someone else, and he did not choose to be flipping back and forth between phases of matter constantly, nor any of the other inconvenient drawbacks that come with his new body.

2. Monster Gabe is usually to some degree grotesque in appearance

Too many eyes, too many teeth, flesh dripping off of him, etc etc etc. The “grotesque” part can be debated according to personal preferences but he is always obviously Not Human.

So...

When Gabe starts out, before Overwatch is official, he’s part of the experimental Soldier Enhancement Program. He becomes the leader of the strike force that defeats the Omnics and saves the world. When he is passed over for the strike commander position, he is stung because he wanted to keep on helping people. 

Gabriel Reyes loves Overwatch. Gabriel Reyes loves saving lives and risks his own life to do so (even when he was young—see the SEP). Presumably in Blackwatch (all those allegations about how Overwatch was committing human rights violations) and certainly in Talon, he is now killing instead of saving. 

This is not who he is, or was. He has lost control of his trajectory in life, just like he lost control over his own body; and he is unrecognizable to himself in deed, just like he doesn’t recognize the monstrous face he sees in the mirror. 

Personally, I’d say the physical stuff and his mental state feed off of each other in one big vicious circle, but maybe that’s just me B)

[kidsviral-blog]

Gabrielle Union: “People Want To See Themselves Reflected On TV”

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/gabrielle-union-people-want-to-see-themselves-reflected-on-tv/

Gabrielle Union: “People Want To See Themselves Reflected On TV”

The Being Mary Jane star talks about life as a jobbing actor, the theft of her nude photos, and her “lesbian short film”.

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Everett Collection/REX USA

It’s hard to believe it, but Gabrielle Union has been on our screens since the early ’90s: There she is in Family Matters (1993), for example, plus Moesha (1996), Sister, Sister (1997), and even, as a young Klingon warrior, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1997). In the late ’90s and ’00s, she made the leap on to the big screen by starring in teen classics She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Bring It On, and hasn’t stopped working since.

Universal Pictures

Touchstone Pictures/Buena Vista Pictures

  Now she’s back on the small screen, starring in BET’s Being Mary Jane. Of the feature-length pilot episode (created and written by TV veteran Mara Brock Akil), the San Francisco Chronicle said “the script is good enough to bring out the best in this cast”, and the Los Angeles Times called it “thematically ambitious”. The show is now on its second season, and last month was renewed for a third.

Union plays the title character, a TV news anchor in Atlanta trying her best to make the multiple strands of her life — work, family, and love — come together. Mary Jane is a complex woman: For every good decision, she makes at least two bad ones. The entirety of her Season 1 love life, usually caught between the push and pull of Andre (Omari Hardwick) and David (Stephen Bishop), was an object lesson in “How Not to Go About Your Love Life”.

But there is humour and humanity in her alongside the usual TV tropes of “career woman” and “Single Black Female” (which was the show’s original title). As the lead — and a black female lead is an occurrence that will hopefully be happening more and more in this post-Shonda Rhimes world — Union is in almost every scene, a formidable task that she seems to relish.

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Akil Productions / BET

Ahead of Season 2 starting in the UK (at 10pm on March 9 on BET), BuzzFeed had a quick conversation with the star about fame, life as a jobbing actress, and the diversity hurdle Hollywood is still struggling to clear.

So what’s new in Being Mary Jane?

A lot of changes at work. Talk Back [the news programme Mary Jane presents] is taken in a new direction and she’s given a pretty big opportunity… Niecy [Mary Jane’s niece] moves in with her, and of course she’s on her second child with her second babydaddy with no job, no education, so there’s the fun of that. Niecy also has a new love interest — or a returning love interest, I guess…

Frenemies: We explore friendships that are not quite healthy — or equal.

And there are two new love interests, plus David. So she’s trying to figure out what’s happening with David, and get over his Season 1 finale bombshell and try to process that.

Akil Productions/BET

Akil Productions/BET

  You’ve been working for such a long time. Do you still see yourself as a jobbing actress? What’s it like being famous?

I think as a black actress — because our road isn’t as easy as it appears — like, the jobs just aren’t sort of lined up like how you with see some of our white counterparts, who have, like…80 jobs. (laughs) Like, “I’ve finished this and then I go here, then there’s this, and…” their schedule is filled? It’s not exactly like that for us. So each job feels like a) a revelation, and b) you’re so freaking grateful, and then the worry starts: “OK, when, if this job ends, where does that leave me?”

But fame is something different. So being famous doesn’t necessarily translate to work. Those are two different things. Being famous is a weird thing, just… Today, we got in the car and the driver, I mean I have an alias, it’s kind of funny, and it in no way sounds like me. So he is looking for this weird name and I get in the car and he’s in the driver’s seat and I’m in the backseat. And he’s like (mimes awestruck, open-mouthed silence) but for a full minute. For a long time.

What was your face doing while he was staring?

I was just like, “Hey, how are you?” you know, whatever, and he’s like, “I know you!” but then he pulled it together.

Those are the moments where I feel like, “Oh, OK, shit. Yeah. I guess.”

And it’s funny, because oftentimes, the studios in the States, they’ll be like, “Oh, you don’t need to do any foreign press because your movies don’t do well over there.” And so for the longest, when I would come to the UK, or throughout Europe or Africa, or Asia, I’m assuming because “our movies don’t do well”, no one will know who I am. But from the first time I came to London, it was, “Gabrielle Union!” (points) I was like, “Wait — you haven’t seen my movies, though!” And they were like, “What?”

And somebody took me to Piccadilly Circus, where they sell all the bootleg movies, and all of our movies were doing brisk business! We didn’t know that. We didn’t know that by hook or by crook, our movies are being seen, and we’re known. Every time you’re kinda like, “Nobody’s going to know who I am,” and then they do.

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Kevin Winter / Getty Images

How do you think Hollywood’s relationship with black actors has changed over the course of your career?

It goes in waves. It’s almost like the colours of fashion week, and someone will be like, “orange is the new black!” or “green is the new black!” So, some years we’re in and some years we’re not. Right now we’re in. But it’s because of the success of the Shonda block.

You know, not everyone includes Grey’s Anatomy, but it has an incredibly diverse cast. With the success of Grey’s, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder — and in the States, they come on in that order — she has a whole block of television that has done extremely well. And people want to replicate that success. So there has been more work.

Somebody asked, “Do you feel like it’s your time?” and I’m like, “I think it’s always been our time, we just didn’t all have the same watch.”

But I think finally TV and film are catching up with the diversity that is the global community and the fact that people want to see themselves reflected on TV. As many gains as African-American actresses have made on TV this season — and the last couple of seasons — where are our Latina actresses, where are our Asian, our Middle Eastern, our Native American actresses? And where is the diversity within those groups? We still have a ways to go. I don’t want to get too comfortable and pat myself on the back. There’s more to do.

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Kevin Winter / Getty/BuzzFeed

What’s been your most challenging role? Is it Mary Jane? Is she the one you take home every night?

I think, with Being Mary Jane, the way we shoot it makes it an incredible career challenge. We shoot almost 10 pages a day, which is unheard of. The average is four, four and a half. You usually shoot one episode in nine days.

We shoot two episodes at a time, in about two weeks. It’s a lot of pages. And Mary Jane is in most of the scenes. So just the sheer volume of work a day makes it incredibly challenging. I don’t have a choice but to take it home with me because I have to prepare for the next day. So it’s… The physical toll of what we are actually doing is very challenging.

But probably, Cadillac Records was often the most challenging. Very rarely do I get those kinds of roles, and that was really a challenge. We shot that movie in a very short amount of time but I loved it.

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Akil Productions/BET

You were recently a victim of the theft and leaking of nude photographs of female celebrities. You called it “a violation and a crime”. What do you think can be done?

Y’know, I don’t know. I wish I had a better answer. I’m not that tech-savvy to understand what can actually be done. As they were explaining it to me, for every new roadblock they put up for hackers, they’re working just as hard to get around it and to create other ways in. So, for sure, it is a sex crime; there’s no other way to look at it. Um, it was a theft. It was, you know, probably a few things, and it’s happening globally.

And that’s just pictures of you know, a naked body. All of your information — your credit, everything you could possibly want to keep near and dear and secure — is vulnerable. You look at what happened with Sony. I probably don’t have as many firewalls to protect my stuff as they do to protect those movies, and people easily got around that. All of your data. Your financial history… I’m glad it was just my boobs, you know what I mean? Like, your financial history is your footprint, is your fingerprint. You destroy that, you take that away from somebody, you’ve literally taken away their life. I mean, that’s how serious it is. So much of how we live and how we are able to live, our opportunities, are all somewhere online. Somewhere. So, they just did something yesterday, trying to regulate the speeds and all of that…

So I’d like to think that if you can regulate internet speeds, you can criminalise this sort of behaviour and be a little bit more — or a lot more — active in prosecuting and finding these hackers that are doing so much damage. And it’s not just about nude pictures, that’s just one aspect. Protect us. You know? Protect us. As consumers.

You want our money? Protect us.

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Union in Ava DuVernay’s short film The Door. Brigitte Lacombe For Miu Miu

I wanted to talk about Ava DuVernay and the short film she directed you in, The Door, which I loved…

(interrupting) Thank you! OK, so I have a question for you, which has become my new “what colour is The Dress?” Did you see that? What do you think?

It’s black and blue…

OK, thank you! It’s just the three of us! Did you think my character in The Door was a lesbian?

No, I did not. I didn’t assume any sexuality.

It’s about 50:50. It’s clearly… Because you never see “the guy”. You don’t really see who she’s with. But people are like, “It was such a strong, feminist, lesbian…” I was like, a what? (laughs).You don’t really see who she’s with! But there’s no men in the film! Which, I guess people assume, because if there’s no men involved, it must be a lesbian film. So now, I’m like, “Did you see my lesbian short?”

Season 2 of Being Mary Jane starts at 10pm on 9 March on BET.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/bimadewunmi/gabrielle-union-interview