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notebooknebula · 3 years ago

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The Reality of Real Estate Investing with Dave Seymour & Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority

https://www.jayconner.com/the-reality-of-real-estate-investing-with-dave-seymour-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority/

Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority has a very special guest, Dave Seymour.

They discuss the reality of real estate investing. The nit and grit of the business. The struggles and lessons that need to be learned in order to achieve success in the real estate business.

Plus, Jay and Dave also talk about the best way how to grow capital!

All these and more in Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner.

After 16 years as a firefighter and paramedic, Dave Seymour launched his career, rapidly becoming one of the Nation’s top real estate investors. Within his first few years, Dave had transacted millions of dollars of real estate and had become one of the Nation’s leading experts in both residential and commercial transactions.

His unabridged passion for business and real estate put him on the radar of the A&E Television network as well as multiple television organizations like CBS, ABC, CNBC, Fox News, and CNN. New York Times reported that Dave Seymour’s series “Flipping Boston” posted the highest ratings ever for the A &E Network at the time of airing.

Dave has been sought after as a “tell like it is” mentor and motivator in the real estate world with a track record of unmatched success everywhere he reaches. Dave is well-known for doing business alongside investors on their very first real estate deal as well as guided some of the largest investment firms in the nation through complex transactions.

Timestamps:

0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money

1:06 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now” –https://www.JayConner.com/Book

2:16 – Today’s guest: Dave Seymour

4:27 – The Secret Origin of Dave Seymour

8:10 – Dave talks about when he started his real estate business.

10:10 – Early struggles and best lesson learned by Dave Seymour.

14:18 – What niche in the real estate business that you focused on?

16:49 – The best way to grow capital.

21:07 – Dave talks about his reality tv show “Flipping Boston”

24:06 – What does the law of reciprocity means to Dave Seymour?

26:54 – How does the law of reciprocity apply in real estate investing?

28:22 – Books recommended by Dave

29:04 – Dave’s parting comments: “ You don’t have to know everything. Educate don’t speculate”

30:39 – Connect with Dave Seymour – https://www.FreedomVenture.com

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book

Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

iTunes:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-jay-conner/id1377723034

Listen to our Podcast:

https://realestateinvestingdeals.mypodcastworld.com/11213/the-reality-of-real-estate-investing-with-dave-seymour-jay-conner-the-private-money-authority

The Reality of Real Estate Investing with Dave Seymour & Jay Conner

Jay Conner (01:44):

After 16 years as a firefighter and a paramedic, my special guest launched his career, rapidly becoming one of the nation’s top real estate investors himself. So within his first few years as a real estate investor, he had transacted millions of dollars of real estate and had become one of the nation’s leading experts in both residential and commercial transactions.

Well, his unabridged passion for business and real estate put him on the radar very, very quickly in the A&E television network, and other multiple television stations and organizations like CBS, ABC, CNBC, Fox News, and CNN. Well, the New York Times reported that my guest’s series titled, “Flipping Boston,” posted the highest ratings ever for the A&E Network at the time of airing. Well, my guest has been sought after as the tell-it-like-it-is motivator. Well folks, my guest, friend, and fellow mastermind member is Mr. Dave Seymour. So welcome to the Private Money Academy Podcast, Dave!

Dave Seymour (03:39):

My Lord, I was looking around to find the guy that you were just describing.

And then I have one of those moments, “Oh, it’s me.” Yeah. I’ve kicked some butt and taken some names in my career. God bless you, man. It’s a pleasure to be with you, dude. It really is. Thanks for having me on.

Jay Conner (03:59):

Well, I’m excited to have you on Dave. I mean, you have got quite the story. I mean, there’s not many of us guys and gals out here that have had the trip and the journey that you had. So, yes, we want to hear all about “Flipping Boston” and being on the A&E Network. But before we get to that, you got your seatbelt on? You ready to go?

Dave Seymour (04:22):

I’m ready to rock and roll, brother. I’m ready. Let’s rock and roll. You got it.

Jay Conner (04:26):

Well, tell us, how did you get started in real estate?

Dave Seymour (04:29):

Yeah. Great question. It’s always a good opener. It’s like you said, I was a firefighter and a paramedic for many years. I’m actually an immigrant to the United States of America. Don’t tell anybody. It’s a secret. I came from London, England back in 1986. I became a naturalized citizen. Absolutely loved what I was doing, but the challenge was, I wasn’t very financially literate back then, Jay, and I suffered the consequences of financial illiteracy and I got hurt pretty badly during the crash of 2008-09. I was a firefighter paramedic. I was working construction. I was working retail security. I was working about 120 hours a week and I couldn’t make ends meet. And I very quickly realized that what I was doing wasn’t working. I was following the herd as I call it, 401-Ks, et cetera, et cetera. Debt was bad.

Saved money. I mean, all of the misnomers that I was given from years of education. But anyway, I found myself in 2008 losing my primary residence, a pre-foreclosure scenario cost me a marriage, Jay, and it was a serious side to all of this stuff, relationship-wise. It wasn’t easy to be a father to my son or a husband to my wife when I was working that many hours, I was out of the house. And it’s funny, man. I look back at it today and I have a bright smile. At my lowest, lowest point, I always kind of looked north for some help and guidance and I’m screaming and shouting at my God. And I’m like, “What did I do wrong?!” I didn’t lie. I didn’t cheat. Didn’t steal.

I worked hard. I was a man among men. Worker among workers, and yet everything had turned to crap. And I’m shouting at my God and I’m like, “Help, help!” Those that seek shall find, right? And in that moment of clarity or insanity, depending on how you want to look at it, a commercial came on the radio and it was, “Teach me foreclosure.” I was in my pickup truck. “Teach me foreclosure. Free one and a half hour seminar coming to your neck of the woods. Do you want to be a real estate investor? Do you want to learn how to do transactional deals with no money down, no credit?” And I’m like, well, I got no credit. My credit score is like 2. I’ve got no money. I’m losing my house. But I believe that it worked, Jay.

That was what was important. Like I had faith that real estate was a vehicle to wealth because I’d seen it, working on the construction sites, the investors showed up. They didn’t have any dirt on their boots. They were driving nicer cars. They got shiny white teeth. They were smiling. I wasn’t. So that was how it started, man. I went to a seminar. I’m a product of real estate education and training. And I took to it like a duck to water. I had no way to go but up really, was the answer to it. And I put one foot in front of the other. Worked with my now-wife, Mary Beth, for the 3-day class, and invested $27,000 on her credit cards. She was my first private lender, go figure, right? My wife. It’s the truth. I looked at her and I said, “What do you think?” It was $27,000 for like 5 classes.

I said, “What do you think, baby?” Then she goes, “I don’t know, what do you think?” I said, “I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing. You know, the cost just keeps going up. The emotional costs, the physical costs.” She said, “Go get ’em!” She said, “I’m proud of you. I love you. I support you in anything you want to do.” And I looked at her, I said, “I’m so glad you said that. We’ve got to use your credit cards, mine are maxed out.” That was the truth and that’s how it all began. So yeah, kind of a long story, short, short story long, however you want to put it, but that was it.

Jay Conner (08:09):

So what year did you start your education and when did you go full-time real estate investing?

Dave Seymour (08:19):

Yeah, I started my first classes in late 2007 and 2008. Like the foreclosure crisis was just beginning to ramp up. And I started learning how to do short sales and distressed assets. And 18 months later, I quit the fire department and I say, “I quit.” I didn’t really quit. I retired. And the reason I retired was it got to a point where it cost me way too much money to go to work. It is as simple as that. I had made enough noise and grabbed enough attention in those 18 months that I was in the process of doing the TV show, “Flipping Boston.” I had surrounded myself with different people. I learned about internet marketers and the different ways of lead generation and attraction and execution and contracts and money. And I was like, all in man. I was like, where am I? Where has this been my whole life? You know, I’m like, I’m alive!

And that was it. That was how it started.

Jay Conner (09:22):

I experienced the same exact thing when I got into real estate investing. It was like, “My lands, where has this been all my life?” And my very first real estate investing seminar that I went to, I had already been doing this business for 6 years. My lands, don’t start out that way, get your education first. But I was cut off and lost my lines of credit in January of 2009. And that’s what triggered me to go to my first educational seminar to learn about private money. And that’s what got me going, this world of private money. So you got in there 18 months after getting your education. You retired from the firefighting and paramedic world. What were some of your early struggles when you started out and what are the lessons you learned from them?

Dave Seymour (10:18):

Yeah, that’s a great question. The biggest struggle I ever had was with my own head. Growing up a blue-collar guy now moving into a white-collar world. It was very hard for me to believe early in my career that people would sell assets to me for a discount. It was about self-worth, like I did a ton of personal development as part of my business development. Believing that I was worthy, believing that I had something of value, which was my education, which was the way that I looked at a real estate transaction. And as you do it, here’s the key. I think Jay, and I don’t know if you agree with this, I anticipate that you do, but as long as I was always in motion, in forward motion, as long as I was putting, honestly, my very best effort with one foot in front of the other.

If I was removing the negativity around me, the people who said, “You can’t.” I loved it when somebody said I can’t because I’d immediately turn it to, “I can.” And I just execute. And I just somehow succeeded. So it was about working on my mind first. A guy said to me, “Dave, there’s 6 inches of detrimental thinking that lives between your ears.” He said, “Only you can control that. Only you can. Are you wealth? Are you confidence? Are you joy? Are you value?” He said, “Because if you believe you are, then that will resonate to the people around you.” And I started looking at opportunities where I could bring massive value. And it wasn’t money-driven, Jay. It wasn’t money. Money was the by-product of service first. Helping a distressed homeowner. Looking after your contractors and treating them like equals, not like they were lesser citizens or whatever. Leaving my pride and my ego and pocket it to one side. Stepping into every relationship with everybody being at a hundred. And losing points rather be at zero.

I’d always have to gain points. You know what I mean? I bought an attitude of gratitude to everything that I did. And I just kept going, man. There’s a book out there. It says, “Six inches short of gold, or six feet short of gold.” And the idea is, is it just that one more phone call? Is it just that one more author? Is it just that one more relationship? Are you gonna quit before it’s time to succeed? And what happens is, 90% of our competition, if not higher, quit. And that’s why guys like us succeed because we stay the course. We have the tenacity, we have the drive, we have the faith, the belief. And again, surrounding myself with like-minded people who wanted to do what I was doing and that overcame any hurdle. There aren’t any hurdles. They’re just little blips along the radar. It’s as simple as that.

Jay Conner (13:13):

Well, what you just said, Dave, is one of the reasons that you and I resonate so well with each other and that is, it’s never about the money for the long-term. Making a lot of money can be a motivation for somebody in their short term. But you know, it’s been my experience over all the years of being in business. Whenever I got involved in an activity or an opportunity, and the only interest that I had in that opportunity was to make money, I never succeeded. I never succeeded. And it all comes down to what you just said, having a servant’s heart. I know you gotta love Zig Ziglar like I love Zig Ziglar, right?

Dave Seymour (13:54):

Right on my wall, right there. “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar, it’s right there on my wall, brother.

Jay Conner (14:07):

That’s it, that’s it.

Dave Seymour (14:13):

Look at that, I’m getting goosebumps on my arms.

Jay Conner (14:13):

Mine are standing up on my neck. So, as far as your real estate investing journey, what have you focused on? Fix and flips? Wholesaling? What niches of real estate have you really been involved in and like, just knocked it out of the park?

Dave Seymour (14:34):

“Yes” is the answer to all of them. Yeah. Look, here’s the thing. As you become more intelligent in your industry, you see more opportunities. So, the TV show, “Flipping Boston,” pigeon-holed me as the grumpy construction guy who just got it done, which is all BS, it’s reality TV, right? But the reality of it was, I really did buy houses with my partner, we really did renovate them, fix them, sell them, and make a profit. Wholesaling is easier money. It’s just great negotiation skills, understanding the mechanics. I think the biggest disservice in the education space is that people say, if you just learn how to be a wholesaler, then you’ll make quick money. Well, that’s garbage. You gotta know how to be a rehabber so that you can be a great wholesaler, right?

If you don’t understand the mechanics, the numbers, the time, the ARVs, et cetera, et cetera. So I’ve always been in that field. Always, always will be in that field. Although it’s not my focus so much today. Along the way, buy and hold, get some cash flow coming in, get some appreciation, let the tenant go to work and pay down your debt service for you, thank you very much. Treat them like the gold that they are. Don’t be a slum landlord, give them clean, decent, affordable housing, give them a response immediately when they need you, if you can, to make sure that you build that relationship with them. They’re the most valuable asset that you have as a real estate investor, is your tenant base. And then today, we level up. It’s always a case of levelling up. I can’t sit still. It’s my A.D.D. DNA. And today we’re in the commercial real estate space. I run a $100 million private equity fund that invests in multi-family assets in the Sunbelt. And we just started our build-for-rent strategies where we’ve got 6-acreage plots in Florida, another 8-acreage plots in South Carolina and Atlanta. And now we’re going to be building houses for the folks who want to rent and not own. So there’s a trajectory, Jay, which part of that do you want to address for us?

Jay Conner (16:44):

Well, you’ve done it all and it’s just part of ascending up the ladder. Now you just mentioned that you’ve got a pretty large fund for the commercial projects. So like myself, you know a whole lot about growing capital, attracting capital. I mean, both you and I could talk a long time about that, but let’s just stop here for a moment. Tell us from your experience, what’s the best way to grow capital?

Dave Seymour (17:14):

So look, there is an absolute learning curve, right? So when I was doing single-family buy fix and flip, attracting an investor, first of all, who understood the business, was critically important. So you could do that through show and tell. This is what we paid for it. This is what we did to it. This is how much we made. And this is what our private lender made on it. Protected, secured, and insured. 8% interest. Interest only, blah, blah, blah. You know the pitch, right? And that becomes word of mouth. So, my portfolio attracted that retail investor. I’m not going to lie, Jay. I’m going to be truly transparent. It can be hard work. It could be heavy lifting sometimes with the retail investor. We use the term, “If it feels like I’m pushing a donkey up a hill, then I got to stop doing it.”

Right? So how do I get attraction? How do I get motion? Repetitive actions? It’s by being successful. The very first private loan I took was $35,000 from a lieutenant at the fire department. And I said, “So, Mike, could you give me $35,000? I’m going to put you in a third lien position on this property. But I’m going to give you your $35,000 back in 3 weeks plus an additional $5,000.” I knew I could do it because the property was on the contract. We just needed this money to squeeze roots at the finish line. So I give him his money back in 2 weeks and he’s ecstatic. And he said to me that day, “Dude, that was a great deal!” I said, “Thanks, Lt. I appreciate it.” He said, “If you ever,” magic words, “if you ever need money again, you come to me first.”

“And if I don’t have it, I know somebody who does.” And what he was referring to was his father because his father was a retired chief. So, the first one is always the toughest one. But once you’ve got traction underneath that, it becomes a system. It becomes repetitive and it creates its own motion. Today, I’m in a different sandbox altogether. Today, I attract capital through the portfolio. I attract capital through family offices, institutional capital. How would you like this for a problem, Jay? You ready? I have 18 months to put together a half a billion dollar portfolio because I’ve got an arbitrage trust company that’s ready to take it out at a full cap on the buy-side and an 8.5, 9% cash on cash return. So, there’s a guy waving a half a billion dollar check in my face and he’s like, “Go find me the real estate. Let’s go!” So, it’s interesting because the first guy that I learned commercial from was a very, very cool gentleman. His name’s Dave Lindahl. He’s in Massachusetts.

Jay Conner (20:12):

Yeah, Dave’s a good friend of mine.

Dave Seymour (20:14):

Okay. So DL said to me, “Dave, it’s just zeroes. More zeroes on the way in, more zeros on the way out. Just run the deal the same way.” And I never forgot that. So yeah, that’s how we raise money today, man.

Jay Conner (20:30):

That’s awesome. Before I get to my next question, let me ask you this first. So everybody’s dying to hear the short story summary of your television stardom of the A&E show “Flipping Boston.” So take a moment and tell us about that. Well, before you tell us about reality TV, I tell people whenever the ask me, “Jay, tell me about all these flipping shows.” And I’ll say, “The only thing real about reality TV is none of it’s real, except Dave Seymour’s Flipping Boston because he actually did have to do all that.” But anyway, take a moment and tell me and the audience about that reality TV experience.

Dave Seymour (21:12):

Look, it’s a blessing and a curse, depending on how you want to look at it. The blessing was the national exposure. I don’t know about anybody else. I didn’t get rich off of a TV show. I think it was $15,000 an episode at the end of our career there. Here’s what the benefits are. The exposure. It put me on the Today Show multiple times. It put me on the Rachel Ray show multiple times. It allowed me to be recognized as a national expert and a pundit on CNBC and CBS and other networks. So that was the caveat to it. The nitty gritty of a real estate transaction being filmed for a TV show. If it’s a half an hour TV show like these fix and flippers, these shows on HGTV, you know what I mean?

If it’s a half hour show, look, man. Paint and carpet, paint and carpet. You’re not making 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, a hundred thousand dollars on paint and carpet, okay? So stop it. Be serious. They’re creating a TV show. You know, with us up here in New England, my inventory’s some old, old ladies, man. I mean, 1890, you know, 1880. The oldest lady I ever loved was 1892, I think she was born. And she was an old school in Newburyport that we turned into a couple of high-end condominiums. But we really did rip the houses apart and put them back together again. And the thing is, I will always give kudos to my ex-partner, Pete, on this, was he ran the numbers as if there was nothing special about the exposure or anything else. Like the numbers were real. The real numbers in, the real numbers out. The profit, whether it was a skinny margin or a better margin, he stayed true to the numbers.

Look, can you flip a house in 3 weeks and make 40, 50 grand? Maybe. You can flip a contract and make 40 grand. And you can do that in 24 hours if you know what I know, right? So, reality TV had to create a story, had to create a show. And I allowed a goofball like me to have some fun. I’d break the fourth wall all the time. The fourth wall is the camera. I got to break it all the time, just not talking to the camera. You know what I mean? They’re like, “You can’t do that.” And I’d say, “Keep it in there. It’s good.” So yeah, if you’re watching those shows, watch them for the show value, do not watch them for educational value because if you’re watching for educational value, you’re going to get your butt handed to you. We’ll watch them for show value and I’ll enjoy the pretty ladies. Enjoy the drama. Oh my God, the pipes burst! Let’s go to commercials. Right? You can play all of that as silly games if you’re hunting. It’s a show, come on now.

Jay Conner (23:58):

I love it. Thanks for telling it like it is, Dave. After all, you are known as the “tell it like it is guy.” So both you and I, Dave, are big believers in the law of reciprocity. So 2 questions. Tell everybody, what’s your definition of the law of reciprocity? And how does it apply to real estate investing?

Dave Seymour (24:20):

Yeah, that’s such a good question. Look, man reciprocity, they actually did, like the intelligence psychoanalyst kind of guys and girls looked at reciprocity, and it’s part of our DNA. And our DNA says as homo sapiens, that if I do something for you that is perceived to be valuable, you in return will do something back for me. But don’t bring value to someone with an expectation of value. Just give because giving is good, right? Start there. Our rewards are coming from high up above. They’re not always coming in the paycheck. You know what I mean? So reciprocity is just going out and being of service, I believe. I know a guy, who I see as the ultimate in reciprocity. I know a guy who’s financially stable. This guy has a couple of boys. They’re now 11 and 9 years old.

And what this man does is he takes his children to Walmart the last 2 weeks before Christmas every year. And he will put down $5,000 at the layaway counter and tell the lady behind the counter, “Pay down $5,000 worth of layaways, whatever comes up on your screen until those layaways are all paid off.” And he just shows his sons that. That’s reciprocity, this man. And I’ve had many, many, many conversations with him. And he says, “Reciprocity has put me in a position to be financially free.” And the Law of Reciprocity says if I want to keep something, I have to give it away. Say that again. If you have something of value, if you’re going to keep it, then you have to give it away. Pass it on, is what we use for terminology. So that’s my definition of reciprocity. And here’s the other thing, man, when it comes to charity and giving them philanthropy, don’t do it to get recognized, do something good for somebody else and then keep your mouth shut. Because that I believe is the definition of humility, which works side by side with reciprocity. So that’s just my own philosophy on it. And it’s served me pretty well.

Jay Conner (26:37):

It reminds me of what Jesus told the Pharisees when they’re out there praying in the public square, their arms lifted up and leg Jesus said, “Go pray in your closet and shut the door,” right? I love it. How does the law of reciprocity apply in real estate investing?

Dave Seymour (27:00):

Look, through coaching. Through passing it on. Through being humble. Okay? There’s a lot of ego in our industry, Jay. Let’s just be honest about it, right? “Look at me, I’m the best. I’ve got a private jet. I’ve got a big house,” you know, all of that stuff. I don’t believe that encompasses reciprocity. Reciprocity is an opportunity to give somebody a hand up, not give somebody a handout, right? When you’re in a position to share knowledge, knowledge is only powerful if implemented, right? So that’s what I like about real estate reciprocity. And then we get to pass that along to our clients. To a homeowner in distress with whatever that situation is and the reciprocity in there works along the way of, “You know what, that person knows somebody else.” And my reputation will always walk before me. Unfortunately, bad news travels faster than good news. We all know that. And if you make loud, good news with clients and let them speak your words afterwards, then reciprocity and momentum follows afterwards. So that’s how I look at it, brother, right or wrong. It’s certainly good.

Jay Conner (28:21):

I love it. Dave, what book have you gifted to other people more than any other book?

Dave Seymour (28:28):

It’s “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne. Law of attraction. And then my good friend, Jack Canfield’s “Secrets of Success.”

Jay Conner (28:38):

Oh yes. My wife, Carol Joy, and I went to see him. I’m looking at the certificate up here. We went to Jack Canfield’s first event of his, that was The Breakthrough to Success. And I got so excited. I went back and paid the big bucks and got certified to teach Jack Canfield stuff because I just love it. Dave, I have just loved having you here on the podcast as we wind down. Do you have any parting comments or final advice that you would like to share with the audience and then be sure to tell the folks how they can get hold of you.

Dave Seymour (29:13):

Yeah, for sure. It’s always interesting how you wrap up a conversation. For me, I think about the people who listened to us, Jay. What do they want? What are their needs? How can we serve them best? And I know it sounds kind of kitschy, but I always say, “To thine own self, be true.” Is what you’ve been doing working? Be honest with yourself. And if it hasn’t, it’s okay to do something different. You don’t have to know everything before you do anything. Take the first step. Educate, don’t speculate. And find the people that are doing what you want to do at the highest level possible. Do your due diligence and then step into action. A lot of fantastic people sitting on couches, wishing and wanting and dreaming. But then there’s a smaller population of guys like us who are out there actually doing it, right?

Not just teaching it, but we’re actually out there doing it as well. So step into your own greatness. And if you want to connect with us, if you want to learn anything about what we do at Freedom Venture Investments, I know Jay’s got a website that he can send you to there. I’m old school, brother. You could pick up the phone and call us at (781) 922-4418. One of my team members will pick up the phone and connect to me if that’s possible. I try to be as available as I can. So I just want to keep it moving forward, brother. I’m the opposite of stale.

#Jay Conner #Private Money Lender #Real Estate Business #Real Estate #Real Estate Investing #Real Estate Investor #Real Estate Profit #The Private Money Authority #Flip Your House

18 notes · View notes

the-nysh · 4 years ago

Note

Hey! I just wanted to say that I love your writings and character analysis! :D. Do you have more examples of garou being an empath?

Oh! 😳 Thank you, ah you probably saw some of those recent posts about it, yeah? :O Are you looking for more story examples or older posts previously written more in depth? Cause I think this one went into most detail before, but also oddly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever used that precise term (diagnosis?) for him either, hmm mainly because I’m no clinical expert he most often practices avoidance - both with his feelings and in forming relationships with others, in favor of focusing on his goals instead. (Familiarly, he’s that lone wolf introvert who isolates himself out of having to deal with such socially difficult situations.)

So other than Tareo, we haven’t really seen him...allow himself many other opportunities to empathize or connect with others yet (even when he has the potential & capacity for it, which I feel Garou has some of what Bang lacks and needs most to improve his teaching method, in that regard). Also because whenever he finds himself caring too much (like about Bang, whom he still closely emulates, so you can interpret Garou’s ‘absorbency’ trait as a symbolic manifestation or another side to him being an empath, heh :P) he gets pissed at himself for feeling that way, cause it interferes with his goals and how he thinks he should act & behave instead. :’)) So here he is, getting pissed whenever he runs across or experiences injustice (compelling him to act on emotion, instinct, or gut intuition which he can hastily misjudge), but then also getting pissed at himself when he doesn’t fully understand why he’s upset, or when he feels it goes against his ‘image of a monster,’ only to forcefully push those feelings aside and once again avoid thinking about them any further. Ohh!!! lol someone help him always suffering a cycle at conflict with his own feelings...

But! Saying all that, I feel the first instance that closely represents this, as part of his origins to show he was always empathetic like this, comes from when he stood up for the other kid getting hurt by Tacchan:

“That’s dangerous; I feel sorry for him!” Getting upset for the other kid’s pain (already knowing this game’s behavior is wrong for the violence inflicted & injustice suffered) and instantly stepping in to break it up. (Driven to help out only for the other kids to turn on him as the next easy target...)

This also ties into why he relates most to the fictional representations of monsters on tv; he sees himself in their shoes and sympathizes with their pain and situations too, so to speak. Not because they’re ‘evil bad guys’ per se, but rather cause they’re the unpopular ‘outcasts’ like him, who have dreams and aspirations to live too, but get unfairly targeted, outnumbered, humiliated, and crushed underfoot by.....the representations of those preaching ‘justice’ (like Tacchan above). When what Garou clearly sees, feels, and takes from this, is the unbalanced injustice suffered by those in these designated ‘monster/villain’ roles instead. (Counterpoint: these fictional roles he saw in cartoons, or reenacted in games, were not accurate to real monsters & heroes, but that’s Garou’s other struggle he comes to realize as he experiences more of the real world...) Another way of looking at it: when the favored/popular/strong group deems another marginalized group as ‘bad’ or undesirable, it absolves them of any guilt and their capacity & kindness to care, giving them the freedom to enact violence on them (ie bully the weak) without shame. For ex: ‘oh you’re a [insert any dehumanizing label here] monster? Prepare to be dogpiled and eliminated in the name of performative justice! :3′ I’m getting ahead of myself, but does this not ring a bell to anyone familiar with online cult movements? Which is precisely the unjust behavior Garou hates.

So another instance of him stepping in to inadvertently help a stranger in distress, as another victim to what he hates seeing (with the excuse ~they just happened to be in his way~) was when he stomps over to break up a fight between an old man and a rowdy drunk outside the dine n dash restaurant. He could have ignored it, walked on by, or gone to another place to eat, but nooo; seeing this behavior still pissed him off enough to intervene and deescalate the fight by scaring off the aggressor.

With non-strangers, naturally we see most examples of Garou’s empathetic side with Tareo, cause Garou sees much of his bullied past-self in him, and he can’t help but care and react to his similarly felt distress even if Garou is very tsundere denying how much he cares; remember his ‘I didn’t come here to save you’ blatant lie line? Yeah; no one else made a beeline responding to Tareo’s cries for help, heh.

(As covered in the other posts you’ve seen) he sensed and understood why Tareo was upset without him even having to fully explain it. Since he empathized enough with that familiar frustration (peers messing with him) to step in and help out with advice. Which was a gracefully ineloquent way with words, but hey he tried the gesture actually calmed Tareo down and got him to stop crying. :’)

Likewise, later witnessing Tareo suffering from the bullies pissed him off for reasons Garou can directly relate to (they were even calling Tareo a monster!) so once again, he’s compelled to step in, break it up, and deescalate the behavior.....then waltz down there to check in with how Tareo’s doing.

Offering another “I feel sorry for you.” :’) Which he plays off as more detached pity before he whoaaa, quickly turns around to leave with a ‘tch, go home’ once Tareo speaks. :’D (Like he can’t emotionally handle facing this, even turning his back when Tareo thanks him for helping him twice now since the shed scene.) But, we know there’s empathy felt for Tareo getting picked on, which drove Garou to act and intervene on his behalf here, BECAUSE..!!! Look what drives that evidence home:

Ohoho...probably one of his biggest telling moments! 8′D Recognizing what’s on Darkshine’s face now (while rendered overpowered & unable to fight back)...is the same he remembers relating to in Tareo, cause it’s similarly what he’s felt and suffered before in his past! :O Ahhh!! Making him go ‘oshit, wait...NO,’ as he realizes this is what he hates; ‘this isn’t what I want to do or who I want to be,’ and forcefully stops himself (he breaks up his own fight) before soon barreling over as the pain and consequences of everything finally catch up to him.

So...! Based on his track record, and provided he’s not off on his lonesome anymore or unable to interact/socialize with anyone in the near future, then he’s highly likely to add on more examples of such moments. Especially whenever he witnesses what he hates seeing (similar cycles of what he’s felt in his past, attuned to the same injustice suffered by others that he’s already experienced himself) that he can’t help but intervene & act on their behalf. Even when it gets emotionally overwhelming (for him to get upset with himself and want to avoid it as much as possible) or in direct contrast to the person (ie closed-off ‘monster’) he’s trying to be, ever at conflict with the inner empathetic kid he always was. :’)

#opm #garou #meta #Anonymous #replies #long post #yohoho it's a good and interesting interpretation of him so i couldn't help but indulge #(and once again this gets way longer than i intended aaaa)

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gayenerd · 4 years ago

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I just realized I didn’t post that 2007 Rolling Stone article I posted about here.

Billie Joe Armstrong

The Green Day leader talks Bush, Britney and being a middle-aged punk for our 40th anniversary.

DAVID FRICKE

Posted Nov 01, 2007 8:19 AM

You have two young sons. What kind of America will they inherit?

This war has to finish before something new blossoms. There's no draft — that's why none of the kids give a shit. They'd rather watch videos on YouTube. It's hard to tell what's next — there is so much information out there with no power to it. Everything is in transition, including our government. Next year, it's someone else in the White House. There's no way to define anything. It's Generation Zero. But you gotta start at zero to get to something.

Is there anyone now running for president who gives you hope for the future?

Barack Obama, but it's a bit early to tell if this is the guy I like. I get sick of the religious-figure thing. People don't question their rulers, these political figures, just as they don't question their ministers and priests. They're not going to question George Bush, especially if he goes around talking about God — "I'm going to let God decide this for me. He's going to give me the answer." The fear of God keeps people silent.

When did you first vote in a presidential election?

In 1992. I was twenty. I voted for Clinton.

Did you feel like you made a difference?

Yeah. The Eighties sucked. There was so much bullshit that went along with that decade. I felt like Clinton was a fresh face with fresh ideas. There were times when he was dropping bombs, and I'm thinking, "What the fuck are you doing?" But he became a target. We have this puritanical vision of what a leader is supposed to be, and that's what makes us the biggest hypocrites in the world. We got so inside this guy's sexual habits. Now we have a president going around, killing in the name of what? In the name of nothing.

What did you accomplish with your 2004 anti-Bush album, "American Idiot"? He was re-elected anyway, and the war in Iraq is still going on.

I found a voice. There may have been people disenfranchised by it. People have a hard time with that kind of writing: "Why are you preaching to me?" It does sound preachy, a bit. I'm a musician, and I want to say positive things. If it's about self-indulgent depression or overthrowing the government, it's gotta come from my heart. And when you say "Fuck George W. Bush" in a packed arena in Texas, that's an accomplishment, because you're saying it to the unconverted.

Do you think selling nearly 6 million copies of that album might have an effect on the 2008 election? A kid who bought it at fifteen will be voting age next year.

I hope so. I made it to give people a reason to think for themselves. It was supposed to be a catalyst. Maybe that's one reason why it's difficult for me to write about politics now. A lot of things on that record are still relevant. It's like we have this monarchy in politics — the passing of the baton between the Clintons and the Bushes. That's frightening. What needs to happen is a complete change, a person coming from the outside with a new perspective on all the fucked-up problems we have.

How would you describe the state of pop culture?

People want blood. They want to see other people thrown to the lions. Do audiences want rock stars? I can't tell. You have information coming at you from so many areas — YouTube, the Internet, tabloids. Watching Britney Spears the other night [on the MTV Video Music Awards] was like watching a public execution. How could the people at MTV, the people around her, not know this girl was fucked up? People came in expecting a train wreck, and they got more than they bargained for.

She was a willing conspirator. She didn't say no.

She is a manufactured child. She has come up through this Disney perspective, thinking that all life is about is to be the most ridiculous star you could be. But it's also about what we look at as entertainment — watching somebody go through that.

How do you decide what your children can see on TV or the Internet? As a dad, even a punk-rock dad, that can make you conservative in your choices.

I want to protect them from garbage. It's not necessarily the sex and drugs. It's bad drugs and bad sex, the violence you see on television and in the news. I want to protect them from being desensitized. I want them to realize this is real life, not a video game.

The main thing I want them to have is a good education, because that's something I never had. Get smart. Educate yourself as much as you can, and get as much out of it, even if the teacher is an asshole.

Do you regret dropping out of high school?

Life in high school sucks. I bucked the system. I also got lucky. My wife has a degree in sociology, and there are conversations she has — I don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. College — I could have learned from that.

But I was the last of six kids. At that point, my mother was fifty-eight, and she threw up her hands — "I'm through with this parenting thing." Also, I could not handle authority figures. But I wouldn't say I'm an authority figure for my kids. I provide guidelines, not rules.

What is it like being a middle-aged punk? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

It's about the energy you bring with you, the pulse inside your head. I want to get older. I don't want to be twenty-one again. Screw that. My twenties were a difficult time — where my band was at, getting married, having a child. I remember walking out of a gig in Chicago, past these screaming kids. There were these punks, real ones, sitting outside our tour bus. One girl had a forty-ouncer, and she goes, "Billie Joe, come drink with us." I said, "I can't, I've got my family on the bus." She goes, "Well, fuck you then." I get on the bus, and my wife says, "Did that bitch just tell you to fuck off? I'm gonna kick her ass right now." I'm holding her back, while my child is naked, jumping on the couch: "Hi, Daddy!" That was my whole life right there — screaming kids, punks telling me to fuck off, my wife getting pissed, my naked son waiting to get into his pajamas.

There's nothing wrong with being twenty-one. It's the lessons you learn. At thirty, you think, "Why did I worry so much about this shit?" When I hit forty, I'll say the same thing: "Why did I worry about this shit in my thirties?"

What have you learned about yourself?

There is more to life than trying to find your way through self-destruction or throwing yourself into the fire all the time. Nihilism in punk rock can be a cliché. I need to give myself more room to breathe, to allow my thoughts to catch up with the rest of me.

Before Dookie, I wasn't married and I didn't have kids. I had a guitar, a bag of clothes and a four-track recorder. There are ways you don't want to change. You don't want to lose your spark. But I need silence more than I did before. I need to get away from the static and noise, whereas before, I thrived on it.

Are you ready for the end of the music business? The technology and its effect on sales have changed dramatically since Green Days' debut EP — on vinyl — in 1989.

Technology now and the way people put out records — everything comes at you so fast, you don't know what you're investigating. You can't identify with it — at least I can't. With American Idiot, we made a conscious effort to give people an experience they could remember for the rest of their lives. It wasn't just the content. It was the artwork, the three acts — the way you could read it all like someone's story.

Is music simply not important to young people now the way it was to you as a kid?

People get addicted to garbage they don't need. At shows, they gotta talk on their phones to their friend who's in the next aisle. I was watching this documentary on Jeff Tweedy of Wilco [Sunken Treasure]. He was playing acoustic, and he ends up screaming at the audience: "Your fucking conversation can wait. I'm up here singing a song — get involved." He wasn't being an asshole. He was like, "Leave your bullshit behind. Let's celebrate what's happening now."

We need music, and we need it good. I took it very seriously. There's a side of me where music will always send chills up my spine, make me cry, make me want to get up and do Pete Townshend windmills. In a lot of ways, I was in a minority when I was young. There are people who go, "Oh, that's a snappy tune." I listen to it and go, "That's the greatest fucking song ever. That is the song I want played at my funeral."

Now that you've brought it up, what song do you want played at your funeral?

It keeps changing. "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie. "In My Life," by the Beatles. "Love," by John Lennon.

Those are all reflective ballads, not punk.

I disagree. They are all honest in their reflection. The punk bands I liked were the ones who didn't fall into clichés — the Clash, the Ramones. The Ramones wrote beautiful love songs. They also invented punk rock. I'd have to add "Blitzkrieg Bop" to the list.

What is the future of punk rock? Will it still be a voice of rebellion in twenty years?

It's categorized in so many different ways. You've got the MySpace punks. But there is always the subculture of it — the rats in the walls, pounding the pavement and booking their own live shows. It comes down to the people who are willing to do something different from everybody else.

You are in a different, platinum-album world now. What makes you so sure that spirit survives?

I'm going on faith — because I was there. Gilman Street [the Berkeley, California, club where Green Day played early shows] is still around. And that's a hard task, because there is no bar — it's a nonprofit cooperative. It's like a commune — this feeling of bucking the system together, surviving and thriving on art. Punk, as an underground, pushes for the generation gap. As soon as you're twenty-five years old, there's a group of sixteen-year-olds coming to kick your ass. And you have to pass the torch on. It's a trip to have seen it happen so many times. It gives me goose bumps — punk is something that survives on its own.

#article #interview #articles #billie joe armstrong

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melchron · 4 years ago

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Nightmare Time Episode 3 Thoughts

I usually save this for the end of my thoughts but I have to say this now. OMG MATT DAHAN!!! I WILL NEVER NOT BE IMPRESSED BY HIM! Usually with the episodes I catch 1 or 2 motifs but I swear I caught everyone this time. And they all fit so well. My attention was evenly split between the music and the story this time. It was so freaking good. Matt deserves all the awards like omg.

I think this is the least laggy the theme has been. Good job going all out for the last one!

I said to my mom "Did Shashona record this video?" and she did!! Great cinematography Shashona!!

I also pointed out the Tim's daddy mask. I said "Aww he's wearing a mask for his son!". I guess my mom got confused and forgot Tim's name because she thought I was talking about Dylan's (nonexistent) son.

THE DRILL PRESSES!!

LEX AND ETHAN

I kind of already knew this but I love that Ethan knows cars. I just likes that he has a hobby.

Lex cares about Tom so much I love it.

WHY DID JANE TRY TO KILL ETHAN?!?!?!? TOM DOESN'T WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO HIM!!!! DID SHE HAVE SOME PERSONAL REASONS LIKE WHY!?!??!

That Lexthan interaction was so cute. I love how he saw she was super sorry and scared and he just stopped being mad and comforted her. They are so cute I can't handle it!!

KENDALL!!! Ok so through out this whole thing I know everyone was excited for their favorite character to come back but I really just wanted to see Kendall again. I guess after BF I assumed we would never see her again because I couldn't see them working with children becoming a normal thing. But when the original cast announcement came out I got so happy to see her name. So I was super excited to see her.

Her covering her hair with a beanie looks better than the wig

UNCLE PAUL I'M SOFT I CAN'T HANDLE THIS!!!!!

Cineplex Teen is like Larry from tawog. I guess we should start calling him Obnoxious Teen then. Until we get a name.

I love that Tim immediately likes Becky. Wish I could say the same for my stepparents.

Santa Claus Is Going To High School bb. Also I want to hear the rest of that song. Also also how many wigs does Lauren own?

TONY GREEN

Why must they make love to this movie everytime? Can't we simply just watch it and make fun of like normal people? That way Tim can enjoy it too.

Good for Jane for making sure her son doesn't have to eat disgusting school lunch. She gets good mom points.

Aww Becky reassuring him he's not a Dummy

Becky is like really horny this episode. Honestly Tom's into so go ahead girl

JAIME IS JANE

OK OK OK SO Jane said they were driving home from her parents house. Which means they were still alive when Jane died. That was only a year and a half ago so the Perkins parents might have died more recently than we thought. It's like Spring of 2019 right? So Jane died around Fall 2017. I don't remember if this was said in the show (it probably was and I'm saying nothing new) but I think Black Friday takes place about a year after her death. Tgwdlm took place October 2018. They have to have died only a few months before then. How long had Emma been in Hatchetfield before tgwdlm? Maybe there is a possibility we can see a flashback of an interaction with her parents depending on how long it's been. Also that means Emma lost her whole family in the span of a few months omg. And Tim lost his mom and his grandparents in that time. I want to see how they grieved with all of that. Also I know I'm crossing universes here but Emma also almost died the same day Jane did. Some strange force must really have it out for the Perkins family. Good on Emma for surviving like a champ.

Ok so I thought they went scouting for girls because Jane didn't want the man she loved to have to devote the rest of his life to a car. I thought she was trying to help him move on. She was getting good lover points but those have since been redacted.

Jane is definitely bi and I love that for her. I don't care if she tried to kill her new crush. It was new enough for it to mean nothing.

GREENPEACE GIRL

Tom does look like a creep ngl

Jane reminds us she's a car a lot. Like girl we get it.

No. No. No. NO NO NO NO NO NO NOPE! We're not talking about it. I don't want to. I stared at James the whole and honestly same dude. I saw Nick in my peripheral vision and loved/hated that he was laughing. RIP to me watching this with my mom. RIP to Kendall. Actually rip to everyone who had to sit through that. RIP to Jaime and Dylan for having to perform that. RIP to the cursed rehearsals. Matt and Nick seriously took the time to sit down and write that. What the heck you two?!? This made me more uncomfy than the entirety of mamd and Ted's character combined. I wish I was exaggerating. Maybe this was just me but it felt longer than it needed to. The relief and worry I felt when Tim walked in is a feeling I can not explain. Glad he was clueless.

Tim sweetie I love you but SHUT UP

Jane is crazy and Jaime is doing such an amazing job at portraying that.

Yes Tom. Because grave digging is way crazier than possessed cars.

I asked my mom why the didn't just go grave digging for Jane's body but my mom said the body is probably all rotted and gross so that explains that.

Why didn't Becky just go inside? If she went far enough I doubt Jane would have been able to hit her even if she managed to break into the house. Also let's assume Becky's house had an upstairs. There, perfect safety.

Did Becky seriously die in the same woods as Stanley?

Ok so I thought the tree thing was a reference to little Irish girl Becky from the Black Friday sk10 stream. But now it seems like something more serious and bad happened so I'm curious.

DID JANE GET TOM ARRESTED?!?!? It seemed like she could drive herself at that point. Why not let him get out and get Becky yourself? Is this that self confidence thing Tom talked about?

Is she really about to have her son be obsessed with Ms. Becky for the rest of their lives or is she gonna tell him?

This next episode made me physically jump twice. I say literally a lot but I promise you I'm using it correctly when I say I literally jumped.

KENDALL'S SINGING

I saw the thing about the ukelele being a bday gift from the cast so this was super sweet

Ok personal time. My grandmother's name is Pamela and my mom decided to permanently cut ties with her a few months ago due to her abusive behavior. Me and my sibling are still allowed to talk to her whenever we please but we haven't seen her as much as we used to. I got kind of scared watching this with my mom because I was scared this would trigger something. She didn't say anything and I didn't want to bother her about if she was fine so I didn't say anything. Anyway this just kind of hit different for me.

JAIME'S RANGE OMG

"I want to be alone with my man." Ms what are you about to do to your Tv?

DON'T GIVE HER BEER

Duke seems chill. I like him.

LEX AND ETHAN GOT ARRESTED!?!?!? FOR SELLING HER PILLS!?!??! THAT SHE TOLD THEM TO SELL!?!?!? I HATE HER!!!

Does Ms. Foster have a type or is being male good enough?

Hannah's 14? I thought she was the same age as Tim. I could have sworn in the BF commentary track they said she was 9 or 10. Did my brain make that up?

How does Kim change her hair so quickly? She did this in episode 2 too? I could never. I am very impressed.

Curt and Kim talking over the phone while standing shoulder to shoulder was funnier than it should have been

Ms. Holloway is cool. YAY MOSTLY GOOD WITCHES

How does Ms. Holloway know? I need a backstory please!!

Ok so I saw Jon in his cape and thought he might be the with. But then I saw James in his cape I y'know stopped thinking that. Anyway I'm obsessed with Jon and James in capes. Kind of wish Corey had one too.

OH I JUST THOUGHT THIS AS I'M TYPING NOW ok so that tree she was talking to at the beginning was one of the tree people. I'm embarrassed it took me this long to realise it.

Hannah is way too calm about these talking trees and sometimes spider ladies. I respect that.

There was a lot of black and white theming in this episode. More than normal. It makes me more curious about what exactly Hannah's connection to it is.

Hannah almost died in her own mind. I was kinda hating Ms. Holloway in this moment because she forced Hannah to go into her mind. But I know she had to so I'm cool with her again.

THE STARLIGHT THEATER

Did she really say just don't be scared next time? Like miss some actual advice would help.

CAN MS. HOLLOWAY'S MIND LEAVE HANNAH ALONE?? Like I know you didn't get the reaction you wanted out of her but you're seriously gonna give up and go for a little girl instead. Pathetic.

"What's shakin', Banana?" That was the first time I jumped.

WIGGLY

What exactly is that 6-legged girl? I wish we had a visual. Also how couldn't Ms. Holloway help her? What was her issue? Npmd you got anything for me?

Wiley. Just seeing him come up. That was the second time I jumped.

Also everyone already said this but props to Joey for his commitment. Shaving in between episodes like omg sir you didn't have to go all out for this. But you did and I appreciate you for it. Also HE KEPT THE JACKET?? WHAT!??! Just fully committed to this character go off Joey!!

Usually I would laugh at stuff phasing through the green screen but this just made it creepier.

HOLLOWAY AND WILEY/WILBUR BACKSTORY PLEASE

But also I love how the script had him listed at Wilbur above his lines. I remember Nick called him Wilbur once in the commentary track (possibly by accident) but it's nice to have it in cannon. I don't remember I any of the characters called him Wilbur because I'm so used to seeing Wilbur and Wiley used interchangeably but this was just nice to have canonized.

DUKE PAY ATTENTION!! FREAKING USELESS RIGHT NOW!!!

Dang Wiley she was already being choked in the physical world you didn't have to choke her in her mind too calm down

YAY MORE DOLLS

NICK I WAS KIDDING ABOUT AN APOTHEOSIS DOLL

Is the mouth one (I see we've named him Nibbly. Good because his full name is too long to type out) gonna be the npmd villain? The pick color theme seems cool.

ANGELA'S TRANSITION THOUGH!!! Omg she switched roles seamlessly. And her voice too!! Go off Angela.

MARIAH IS WEBBY

This is random and unrelated but I never noticed how big Mariah's eyes were before.

So Webby and the Doll Gang are all siblings? I find it interesting that the were described to all where black. And Webby's color theme is white. Like how the good and bad ukeleles were white and black. This might sound really dumb see as we don't have a 100% accurate visual of the black and white but I wonder if Webby ever left would it be 100% black? Like if Wiggly went through the portal would it become a little less black? Does this make sense? Also I'm starting to see the black and white as less of a bad place. Its starting to see more ominously neutral.

Hannah's favorite show is He-Man no I do accept criticism.

Ms. Holloway is a nerd. She saw Hannah make the reference and was like "Huh. I f she likes He-Man maybe making this hat a reference will make her like me." She would only know if she watched the show. But then again she seems to be stuck in the 80s so maybe she just thinks that's what's popular with the kids.

MS. HOLLOWAY PLEASE GET LEX AND ETHAN BACK

AND ANOTHER GREAT SONG TO END IT OFF

This episode was......a lot. So much happened. Loved all of it. I am scared of Nick and Matt's minds but also incredibly grateful for them. As usual everyone's acting was top notch.

I love this episode.

Also I'm just gonna say it. Jon ruined Nick's season one reveal.

#starkid #nightmare time #nightmare time spoilers #jane's a car #the witch in the web #Hatchetfield #mel thinks thoughts #melchron the good book

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heartslogos · 3 years ago

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outtakes [11]

Keqing looks up from the empty pizza box she was breaking down when the silence goes on too long. Everyone is looking at Ganyu, who’s staring at a very bland, tasteless, but inoffensive generic canvas painting on Keqing’s wall. The previous apartment owner had left it behind and for the lack of anything better Keqing hasn’t removed it.

“What’s wrong?” Keqing asks. She lost track of the conversation somewhere in between trying to sort out the trash of their pizza delivery — there’s still a whole two boxes of pizza left, not to mention the chicken wings, the giant container of salad that’s still got a good third of its contents left, and the extremely dark looking chocolate cake that came with the meal set. She has no idea where these people put it. Keqing thinks she’s a good eater, but the amount of food some of them are putting away is truly mind boggling.

“One of the new interns at our firm made a mistake today,” Yanfei says, “Nothing too bad. Nothing I couldn’t fix, you know? It was a pretty common mistake. All rookies make it at least once. It’s a learning experience. Anyway this poor kid took it hard — one of those ones. You know, where they gotta do everything perfect the first time around or they’ll be super ashamed like they’ve somehow brought dishonor to the entire ancestral line? So I was trying to comfort them by telling them about some of my mistakes. But like. These kids see me every day and they know I’ve made the occasional mis-step so it doesn’t mean as much. So I told them about this one time that the illustrious chief secretary of the Qixing — “

“It wasn’t me.” Ganyu interrupts. Keqing’s eyes flick to the other woman, who is still staring at the wall. Keqing thinks Ganyu is in shock. “Yanfei. That wasn’t me.”

“Ganyu, you’re only human,” Xingqiu says, putting a consoling hand on her shoulder. “Everyone makes mistakes. And it was truly harmless one. You don’t have to be so — “

Ganyu turns to look at Xingqiu, eyes firm and shoulders squaring. “It wasn’t me.”

“What wasn’t you?” Keqing asks.

“Apparently when Ganyu was still new to the Qixing she took some ambassadors from Fontaine to the wrong building and almost got them arrested for suspicious behavior,” Hu Tao answers, picking out another chicken wing. “Who could blame her? The Qixing buildings are like a spirit maze. Who are you lot trying to keep trapped in there, huh?”

“It. Wasn’t. Me,” Ganyu insists, head slowly turning. “It was Yanfei. Her firm was representing a foreign case and sent her as one of the lead assistants. She took the group from Fontaine to our immigration center instead of our general business building.”

Everyone turns to look at Yanfei.

“In my defense, it was also during the time when the Qixing was doing the whole renovation project of their buildings. I got a little turned around." Yanfei sticks her lower lip out at Ganyu. “Don’t be mad at me. A-yu. What’s the harm? If I told them the story with me as the person in it they wouldn’t care. If the story has you in it then it’s suddenly alright! It makes them feel better that even someone with your track record can make little silly mistakes like that. And the poor little intern reminded me so much of you I thought it would help them relate more. I would have said it about Keqing but she’s been working as Yuheng for so long that it wouldn’t make sense for her to be escorting people from Fontaine around the Qixing buildings.”

Ganyu puts a hand over her eyes, but the tension is already releasing from her shoulders. “Yanfei."

“Alright, alright. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. From now on only the most flattering stories will be told about you, alright? If I ever need to comfort an intern or a junior member I’ll tell them stories about Xingqiu instead. Eat some more. It’s your favorite dressing.” Yanfei immediately goes to put more salad onto Ganyu’s abandoned plate.

“Why would you tell them stories about me?" Xingqiu asks, taking another piece of pizza with white sauce. “I don’t do anything important enough that it would matter.”

“It’s cute how you say that but we all know so much better,” Keqing retorts. “You play yourself down too much. It’s suspicious.”

“I’m wounded.”

“Good. Poor Chongyun can do with you being knocked down a peg or two on occasion."

"Poor didi,” Hu Tao nods in agreement.

Xingqiu turns to Hu tao, “You told him he’s the youngest? I was saving that for a special occasion. I was going to spring it on him when he was least prepared. Maybe use it to distract him from an argument.”

“You’re terrible,” Yanfei says. “He loves you so much.”

Xingqiu preens and Keqing pulls another bottle of tea out of the refrigerator.

“Back to the real reason I called you over,” Keqing says, “Aside from making me order a ridiculous amount of take out.”

“It wasn’t because you missed our wonderful company?” Hu Tao pouts. “Why do we always need a reason to see each other, huh? Life is so short we should see each other just because we can.”

“Do not start trying to sell us end of life plans,” Xingqiu warns, pointing his fork at Hu Tao. “Do not.”

“I don’t need to sell to you; I already got your plans drawn and paid for. I’m just trying to impress upon you in case you remember certain significant others or family members who haven’t gotten their affairs in order. You want to handle this ahead of time before it becomes a pressing need, you know. The last thing anyone wants is to be in the middle of grieving or going through a heavy loss and — “

Keqing presses the cold bottle to the back of Hu Tao’s neck, causing the woman to yelp.

“I called you here because I’m getting rid of some of my old camping gear,” Keqing says, “It’s not too badly used and some of it was pretty expensive. So I thought some of you might like to go through it. I texted Xinyan and she already passed on it. Xiao-ge has most of the stuff I have and he’s…particular about his equipment.”

She pauses. “I would have asked Chongyun but I figure Xingqiu’s got the better eye and if I had both of you over you two would argue about everything. Mostly because you like to be a contrary jerk.”

“I’m hurt. Is that any way to talk to a dear friend?”

“Who’s a dear friend?”

“Xiangling would probably be able to use whatever you’re getting rid of,” Ganyu says.

“Xiangling probably has more gear than I do,” Keqing replies. “And it’s much more…hard core. Xiangling doesn’t joke around about camping and outdoor activities. I think she got approached for her own TV show once. Come on, I have it all in the next room.”

“And what spurred this inventory clean out?” Xingqiu asks, standing up and stretching his arms over his head.

“Your camping equipment list is already so short, please tell me you aren’t turning into a complete survivalist,” Hu Tao says. “Are you just going to go out in the wilderness with a knife and some rope now? What are you trying to prove?”

“My parents bought me new equipment for my birthday,” Keqing replies. “And I feel silly having duplicates. It’s too much.”

“Act like a rich kid for once would you?” Yanfei elbows Keqing lightly. “Oh, hey. I’ve been looking for this kind of fishing pole. Never mind, don’t act rich. I’m nabbing this.”

#heartsfic #genshin impact

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theconfusedartist · 4 years ago

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this goes a few places but i’ll try to stay on track

honestly, I’ve been thinking about this but like...

i kinda wanna write the arc in which the phantom thieves become better friends to the MC?

maybe this is a bit far fetched but like, the way the phantom thieves treat the main character isn’t the way you’d treat someone you care about. and like. this isn’t even coming from a place of me hating them either, bc i really really like all of them and i’m glad that they all get to move on and forward with their lives

like, the entire game the MC goes through making deals, shady connections, and dubious places to make sure everyone has what they need, whether its for weapons, items, or a shoulder to cry on, the MC is always there for them. and. i know that this is, in a game and narrative point of view, for the sake of getting the game rolling so the player can get supplies and doesn’t have to worry about waiting on other characters for things needed to assist in palace infiltrations. like, i get what it serves in a story sense, and why it needs to happen in a game sense

however

whenever i think of persona 5 as a writer, trying to write from the POV of the the MC, the phantom thieves, or any of the other confidants, it just kinda...hits me? the MC is a 16-17 year old that has managed to convince all these people that he has whatever they need to continue on with their work/life/well-being.

and for some, this makes sense, like Mishima and Shinya make sense bc in Shinya’s case its an older kid helping a younger kid with a bad parental situation using means that would keep him from getting arrested (which is when most people stop trying to help, for fear of retaliation from the parent) and with Mishima it makes sense bc he worships the phantom thieves to an unhealthy degree, while also keeping their image in his hands, and is also their only means of communicating with the outside world as the phantom thieves bc to do so otherwise would compromise their identities (not that yelling out their plans in the middle of a train station wouldn’t compromise them as well, but y’know) and that is dealt with by Mishima gaining confidence and learning how to be the hero he idolizes not only for others in distress but also for himself and continues to pursue his own creative pursuits

like, for all the phantom thieves, i have no real problems with their confidants

the only real issue is that, at rank 10, all of them declare that they’ll be on the MC’s side and help him through thick and thin. except.....they never do. and it’s not like it has to be big either, I’m not asking for any big dramatic scene either, just basic shit. like, you know what makes the MC a good friend? he reaches out, makes sure to listen, actively does what he can to help, and works with them to help them get through their problems. none of the other thieves do this, not once. and if you wanna make the argument that they all heard him out about his record, yes, that IS a great thing and i’m glad that they recognize that it was wrong.

but when i think of the rest of the game, i just think of them never talking to the MC. not even in the sense that the player has to see the conversation play out or anything, after all when you go on hang out spots with confidants but not for a link, the game says that the MC got closer to the character and you have the chance to give and exchange gifts. i really really REALLY liked that feature bc it makes it feel like the others are trying to get to know the MC and give him something he’d like.

however.

if they want to be good friends, they should also be able to do things that aren’t related to the phantom thieves. Haru, i give a(only a bit though) pass bc she joins the group so late that theres no way she’d know about all the ins and outs that the MC has to take care of as the leader, and by the time she would even get the chance, she’s dealing with her father, then the plot, then the final and Final bosses. she would’ve had no time to really learn the dynamics of the phantom thieves or the metaverse (and this is blatantly shown right before they first enter Okumura’s palace and right before they steal the treasure) and is rarely ever afforded that chance to bond with the group in game save for banter in mementos. not to mention, she actively gives some of the best boosting items in the game and also does her best to connect with the MC through their own shared similarities (Leblanc and her grandfather’s shop, always having to act a certain way for fear of reprisal, not knowing what she’s supposed to do but needed to act more mature as people don’t see her as a child but rather as a thing/tool for their benefit) that i didn’t really see in any of the other social links with the phantom thieves.

again, this isn’t saying that the thieves are being bad friends on purpose or that they’re going out of their way to be The Worst(tm) but if they’re going to claim that they want to help through thick and thin then why don’t any of the others ask about the MC? the only time i ever recall them asking the MC about things they like/dislike is during the summer Leblanc hangouts and it’s only about a specific topic. (examples being: Yusuke asking if they should make plans to go to France or buy a TV, Ryuji asking about the MCs favorite sports and preference in manga character tropes, Futaba asking if the MC ever built a laptop or dealt) i know this is a rpg, so i’m not expecting anything specific to come from the MC as the player is able to hc whatever they want about him, but even the game going ‘x asked me about y issue’ would’ve been enough. it doesn’t have to be detailed, i just want examples of the thieves that claim to be his friends asking about his hometown, his family, how the MC is doing bc rarely is that ever asked, or if the MC needs help.

like, yes, the praise about how cool and strong and awesome you are is great but if the MC has been running around Tokyo for a solid week talking to all these people, working multiple part time shifts for money, and doing xyz just to make sure the phantom thieves are operational then i (as a player) would also like that same sort of thing if this is supposed to be a team. honestly, though, it was fine for the most part bc the game was still really fun and hanging out with them (over all the other confidants like (Kawakami, Ohya, or Chihaya) is a gdamn BLESSING GOD dealing with them is stressful tbh) is honestly the highlight of the game for me bc they’re so colorful and full of life that i didn’t even really give too much thought about this save for once or twice, and that was only AFTER the interrogation room

why? bc up until this point, i had no reason to think that the phantom thieves were doing anything than what they said they would: sticking through thick and thin and lending their support. i simply attributed those moments that weren’t in the game to back up this claim as being shown during the non-confidant level up hang out times, that the things i talked about before were just not being shown to the player explicitly but it was still happening behind the scenes. but the interrogation scene with Sae kinda made that....fall flat on it’s face.

i mean, hear me out. even if, and that’s a BIG IF, there was absolutely no other way to get the police off their back, no other way to handle the assassin that was coming for them, and no way to do anything outside the metaverse.....................why was there no one there to make sure that the plan worked? like, there’s a camera inside the cell, so Futaba at the VERY LEAST should be able to tell whats going on inside, right? and even if you wanna tell me that somehow the cops were able to put that on a server that Futaba couldn’t access that still brings me back to the same point at before.

the phantom thieves, when explaining to Sae how they got their plan together, also have this nice little image of them going to the (was it the real or the fake one?) interrogation room and making sure that they COULD actually carry out their plan.

so. if they went to the physical place to make sure their plan could work, knew exactly where the MC was going to be and when, and knew there would be cameras, why did none of them have some sort of a back up plan set up? not even just in case?

like, i know that the ‘bad ending’ is the MC telling Sae the others’ identities and then dying but, the dude is drugged out of his mind! he’s been getting beaten for hours, if not an entire day, then interrogated by Sae! even if the MC had sold them out, it would’ve been a case of giving a drugged confession, bc the MC wouldn’t have been in his right mind.

yes, as a player, you can say no. as a player, you can easily say, ‘why would i give up my friends?’. it makes no sense as a player to let the characters who you’ve spent at least 40+ hours up to the wolves. but the MC? who is drugged out of his mind? who has been beaten bloody and knows that nothing he says is going to get them to stop? who then has to deal with Sae interrogating him and constantly reminding him over and over that if he doesn’t give her what she needs, he WILL die? yeah, of course the MC is going to say no, but if he did I wouldn’t hold that against him bc he’s not in the right state of mind at all. not only that, but then someone who was supposed to be a friend and ally is coming in to kill him, and the only thing to keep that from happening is starting up the metaverse and making him think he shot the real deal.

but even with that, what? did the thieves test out what would happen if someone shot what they think is that person in the other world while that same person is sitting in the same spot, at the same time, in the same conditions? bc if they didn’t, then why were they so sure this plan would work? and if they DID then why was there no one there to make sure the plan worked?

seriously, have someone hide out in the metaverse, right? then when the assassin comes in, that person can then verify that the MC isn’t fucking dead

what part of leaving a friend to act as a decoy, leaving him to deal with a police force that they have already been informed is corrupt and willing to do whatever they have to in order to get a confession (the same person that has already been brutalized by the police mind you!) by himself, to then ALSO deal with being interrogated, and then pray that the plan they came up with (that they also have no intention of making sure it worked) to deal with the assassin goes as planned, then ALSO HAVE TO PRAY that HOPEFULLY Sae decides to help him flee incarceration.

do you see my problem here? what part of any of this plan is solid? what part of any of this plan isn’t cruel? like, even with all the exceptions i was trying to give them, this is not acting as a good friend. hell, this isn’t even how you should be acting as a good ALLY, forget a friend.

and afterwards, the whole ‘yeah we’re so great we tricked akechi!’ doesn’t even feel like a good thing bc the MC can say he doesn’t remember anything and Sae can follow up saying that he shouldn’t have to remember what happened to him and

none of the thieves say a word. it’s just. glossed over.

like nothing ever happened

the bruises are gone somehow. the concern never appears. the thieves never ask.

welp! back to palace infiltration!

like?

what about that is being a good friend? and here’s what gets me: in the aftermath were the MC isn’t supposed to go outside bc ppl might see him--he’s still the one getting all the supplies.

what the hell? isn’t this the ‘thin’ they were talking about? hell, at this point i’m not even asking for them to talk about how the MC is feeling, i’m just saying they should be carrying at least some of the load if he is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OUTSIDE

like what?

honestly, i wanna remake this post bc i ended up just making a bunch of word vomit but like. it is what it is

i love the phantom thieves but goddamn they are not very good friends. i don’t think they’re trying to be bad friends on purpose but they definitely are

#honestly #i think i need to rewrite this post #with like proper grammar and capitalization #listen #i can like characters #and also point out that #the power of *friendship* only works if you've been good friends #and persona is all about friendship #but the more i thought about that friendship #the more shallow i realized it was #and that's sad #bc the phantom thieves are some of my fave characters #but like it is what it s #persona talk

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kirliancamera1 · 4 years ago

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Rede Vamp Brazil (https://redevampirica.com) interviews Elena Alice Fossi of Kirlian Camera (English text attached hereunder) 🔥🔥🔥

Question 1: Be very welcome to AcessoRedeVamp, it's a true honor to realize this interview with you Elena Alice! You are a great singer and more every time we see you on stage your performance transmits great emotion and this electrifies all of us! You tell a real story with your performance and this is amazing and rare these days! At the same time, we perceive an expressive revolt against an old world and its stagnant postures. How have you handled 2020?

*** EAF – First of all, I wanna thank you for your words. Being able to communicate with the people who follow us is the most important thing to me. Singing becomes ephemeral if doesn't convey a message. Also for this reason I consider that the stage is the base of a musician, so you can imagine how I miss it. In this sense, it can be said that the category we belong to is very unlucky, not only because it's forced not to work, but rather 'cause concerts are pure lifeblood for a musician's soul. In any case, both Angelo and I can't stand self-pity people, so we immediately jumped into new musical projects, putting top concentration on composition. At any rate, we couldn't be simple observers of an event on this scale, so right from the beginning we tried to dig deep, looking for, and comparing news, data, statistics, whether they came from mainstream channels or from alternative sources. In Italy, for example, the economy has been torn to pieces and furthermore, the same politicians who mourn the dead on TV... cut so many funds for health facilities for a long time, so they may be considered taking part in such a mess. This situation has created a real drama, especially for families who have lost their loved ones without even having a chance to say goodbye one last time. But, it's also true that the worldwide exploitation of this pandemic has given us, we citizens, an opportunity to wake up. No need to use words such as anarchy or rebellion to understand that the old world is showing all kinds of holes. "Divide et impera" is the motto of several governments, so we citizens must not fall into the trap of making war on each other, each nonsense comes up! This is the time to show ourselves united. And, most of all, it’s time not to turn ourselves into servile dogs of a “Power” becoming more and more antidemocratic.

Question 2: Do you feel that the marks left by the year 2020 will bring some effective changes to this "abstraction" called humanity? Will there be a "new normal" or will we just return to an average 2019 when this whole pandemic passes?

*** EAF - If I’d been told about what we have experienced for almost one year, I’d have thought it was a joke, bullshit. But unluckily this is not the case. Such an event has brought much grief and is ruining the economic system of many nations, as already said. But in addition to the injury, here it comes the insult from the absurd and chaotic dictates imposed on us. I'll give you some examples of what's happening here in Italy. “Don't go out after 10 pm”. While people keep on getting sick or even dying, here comes the policeman with a ticket 'cause you left home for a goddam moment. I have this picture on my mind, of a person in pajamas, carrying the garbage bag full of stinking mussel shells at less than one hundred meters from home in a totally deserted night. At that point a flash on him. It’s the police who writes a ticket to that dangerous criminal. And then, for everyone's sake, the Christmas mass was moved from the usual midnight to 8 pm. How the hell can you think it's not a mockery? And... the last “gag”! Before Christmas, our Minister of technological innovation made an appeal to telephone companies so that video calls were free on Christmas days... But what year does she live in? But... is she not able to understand that in Italy almost everyone has either unlimited gigas or wifi? Nothing changes if the telephone companies for a couple of days give us video calls because we already use free services such as Whatsapp, Skype, Zoom, Telegram, and so on and so forth... Ok, in a vain attempt to avoid death, they are putting us in an induced coma! Seriously, all this offends our intelligence! And, when you realize you are inside a joke, you don't like to discover you're the main character, do you?! So, to answer your question, I couldn't foresee how a post-covid society will be reshaped, but the severe weakening that now is burdening us will have some major impact, no doubt. Currently, most folks are obsessed with fear, so are unable to reflect on the consequences of unconstitutional actions such as those foolishly propagated by many States. Furthermore, the pharma companies, the giants of the online shopping industry and many other powerful satanic puppet masters who are used to appear as philanthropists are ready to get their hands on everything, well pleased with the next “big reset”. So, after the pandemic, things will change a lot! For sure, from a human point of view, the feelings will be devitalized.

Question 3: Hologram Moon is a great name! Evokes conspirations like what really is the moon and this strangeness opens a vast creative field to find answers or even new questions... please tell us a bit more about this album, his name, songs...

*** EAF - "Fake is your face" is one of the phrases that most resonate in me when I sing "Holograms", or when in “Lost Islands” the old world said “Goodbye”! It's as if you had to face a new reset, as if you discovered everything you've always believed is swept away in an instant. There's the awareness that in the face of a new and suffocating truth, when the sky collapses, only true love can resist and guide you. In this sense, the final track of the album, “Travellers’ Testament” is a real stone on my heart, as it describes a fantastic journey to a planet. The astronaut is now impatient to fulfill his dream, but he will never arrive on that planet. The landing will take place on a space station. The moon landing's been questioned over and over again and certain evidence of the fact's inconsistency eventually seems credible. But we cannot say what reality is in any scientific way, especially when we're already prepared to believe a reassuring source. This is a simple starting point to embark on our history. More than finding answers, our sacred duty is to open the door to new questions, ask doubts, not take anything for granted. “Hologram Moon” is a purely poetic vision, but also a way to question everything. The mind can atrophy very easily. Habit, for example, can be complicit in this and the so-called comfort zone can be just complicit as well. The hypnosis that we suffer every day without realizing it, also grinding so many and bad TV shows, and so on... So, let's remain thinking and dreaming! This is a message from us.

Question 4: How was the experience of working with Covenant's Eskil Simonsson on the beautiful "Sky Collapse"?

*** EAF - We had come across Covenant several times before doing this collaboration; on festival occasions, in the dressing rooms... But it was a chaotic situation, so... we gave each other a fleeting smile, a kind greeting, but nothing more. Then, when Angelo and I wrote “Sky Collapse”, we immediately thought that a deep and sincere voice like Eskil's would add something precious to the song. Even before recording the two-voice song, we met at a charity festival. We had called him as a guest just to sing this song together, which was yet unreleased. He made himself available immediately. It was a nice gift for us and when the moment came, I think that on stage you could feel my strong emotion all the way down the hall!

Question 5: Well, I think now we will have our fan moment! Let's talk about some Kirlian Camera songs that our DJs and the audience of the REDE VAMP love it? Do I speak the name and may you tell a little about the meanings, influences, or a curious story?

*** EAF ***

>>> NIGHTGLORY. It refers to the triumph of the night, perhaps as a momentary spiritual retreat. I'm talking about that precious moment that regenerates your very existence into yourself. The music of this song was born in a symphonic form, very different from how Nightglory was then arranged. This is a song and an album that has been appreciated by many people only after some time, partly because of a promotion that described the album as the most commercial in our history, which is absolutely harmful and misleading. Invisible Front and Eclipse were even more listenable, for example... Sometimes words spoil your work. It would be better to listen to music only, ignoring its promotional presentation. Fortunately, Nightglory has recovered over time till becoming one of the most requested live songs of ours.

>>> BLACK AUGUST. In this song there are various hints coming out from a dark moment in my life, I mean a period that risked devouring me. Wounds that take time to heal. Sky Collapse can be considered the final act of that period, even if the music of the two songs sounds very different, as you know. Black August blends various stylistic dimensions in a single “body of music”, so many didn't know how to label it at the time, as it effectively goes running free, out of the box. A very atypical song that has gained some actual success despite its distinction, which has also brought us closer to fans of dark metal and so-called electronica.

>>> HELLFIRE. I chose this piece to add an echo to the dark period I was talking about above, in order to exorcise all that negativity, so we went to deal with a theme showing gospel traits but containing some demonic references in the lyrics. Then I didn't know THE 8th PRESIDENT was waiting for us at the SCARLET GATE OF TOXIC DAYBREAK, with his COLD PILLS! A wordplay whoever is following us will understand!

>>> K-PAX. I wrote this piece in a night when everything seemed dreamy and I almost didn't realize where I was anymore. No, I wasn't under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but all my memories were mixing in tremendous chaos that needed to reinvent itself and turn into an immaterial fog, in a light but lost dream. Angelo literally translated the music and melodies I had written on the staff, giving both them and my voice the perfect terms to guide the journey. In fact, it's not a complete and static text, but a sequence of dreamy and painful phrases at the same time. I felt that Angelo listened to me attentively since he knew how to translate my notes so perfectly into written sentences as if he were sending me back into my music. It was magical and at K-Pax Angelo and I discovered the other life of ourselves, bringing to light so many breathtaking emotions and it was just the departure, after the suffocating mists of Still Air, an album we love, and the crepuscular decadence of Stalingrad Valkyrie.

Question 6: There is a cover of Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd from Kirlian Camera that is a true work of art. The Mad World cover performed by Spectra Paris is fascinating. Are there more covers from other bands that you would like to record?

*** EAF - Well yes, there are ideas, but we prefer to evaluate which are the best. Meanwhile, I tried to produce a version of a Johnny Cash song and I made Angelo interpret it: I really like the result. It may be used by Stalingrad Valkyrie.

Question 7: I love your lyrics! What can't Elena be missing when creating new lyrics or musical arrangements? Are there any poetry, films, books, comic books, or other influences?

*** EAF - Mostly everything happens unconsciously. You don't know how many times I realize why I wrote a certain phrase only after a song was released! But I can say that my imagination works mostly by processing images. So, the movies are very helpful in this. Similarly, Angelo and I tap into imagery that could be part of the quantum physics new era, where multiverse and multidimensionality are both playing an important role. This world appears like a really tiny thing when compared to everything else.

Question 8: Elena, I read in an older interview about a "Young Ladies Homicide Club" I found an undeniable reference to the films Noir and the figure of the characters called "Vamp" and all the charm and spectral magnetism ... but I was a little curious. .. what is this "Young Ladies Homicide Club"?

*** EAF - Let's say I imagined an unreal club created by apparently dead or so to say "disappeared" models in order to get rid of fashion people who were acting a bit too naughty! The work to clean up that world wouldn't be lacking, as, after all, it happens in all professional areas. As for myself goes, I gladly opted in a flash and without second thoughts for singing and making music, leaving everything behind, buying a couple of synths and a decent microphone, which I then enriched with various electronic devilry, kicking away possible easy money, foolish nights, cocaine, heroin, stereotyped relationships, and absurdly worshipped wines! Every so often I like to play with the ridiculous and grotesque ghosts of some fashion designers, photographers, and evil spirits, then going to recreate noir stories in which everything happens. I also drew some digital comics with a noir-glam flavor, a few years ago... It was a fun pastime, while with Kirlian Camera I'd been exploring deeper and more fundamental universes.

Question 9: Is there more news on the way for the incredible Spectra Paris and also for Stalingrad Valkyrie? May you talk a bit more about them?

*** EAF - Stalingrad Valkyrie is a project I am very fond of, in a special way. So I insisted on getting it back to life after a period of hibernation which lasted too much in my opinion. "Martyrium Europae", the most recent album, proved me right, even if it’s not a commercial project. Well, it seems our listeners have appreciated the attempt to combine different musical sources in a unique style, certainly linked to the more symphonic and dramatic Kirlian Camera pages, but also quite free to express itself on his own, trying to avoid the most standard patterns of neofolk, progressive and industrial, without on the other hand completely ignoring their now distant origins. So, in its small way, the new album turned out to be a success and I'd really like this project to keep on living with further fresh ideas. We're currently working on a new chapter that will be released on vinyl and some digitals, which contains previously unreleased songs and versions.

Question 10: Elena, our Rede Vamp is a platform about Cultural Vamp and Vampires production ... and there is a question that our interviewees never escape. Is there a character or perhaps a vampire story that you never forgot?

*** EAF - Needless to say the vampire who most impressed me over time can't be anyone other than... Angelo Bergamini!!! Not many know that Angelo was the leading actor in a short film entitled "Himre Bakai", shot in the late nineties or so, directed by Antonio Bocchi, the later owner of the dark-electronic project Lux Anodyca and author of detective books. I don't think the film is regularly available or downloadable at the moment, but I know it was also screened at the time in various festivals and reviews, also getting some good feedback! Angelo (Himre) and Antonio told me that one day the film "will see the light ”, but at the moment... he lies in the dark, by the book, of course!!!

Question 11: Elena, thank you so much for your time and generosity! You and Kirlian Camera have many fans on our events and radio shows, please leave a special message for our audience! Are there plans for a new gig in Brazil after all this pandemic?

*** EAF - While it's true that we've never been able to play in Brazil so far, I'm sure your Land is actually right for us, 'cause I can feel that's full of feeling and passion, so we'd love to perform for you very much, 'cause in spite of the fact it's so far away, I feel a deep affinity and a certain familiarity with your world. And while we wait, confident that sooner or later we'll succeed in our aim, I wanna greet all those who had the kindness to listen to me, with a quote from the American scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

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alarawriting · 5 years ago

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Sleepless

I have strong opinions about Nancy Kress’ Beggars series. They are not positive opinions.

There was an experiment, to create children who would not need to sleep.

Some people think such an experiment would create supermen, geniuses who would, for some reason, be unaging. Logic says otherwise. Sleep performs a function.

If you were such a child who does not need to sleep, what would you be?

You do not sleep.

You do not dream, and lacking dreams, you lack superstition. You don’t believe things just because you’re told them or because there seems to be some correlation; you need cold hard evidence.

This does not make you a brilliant inventor or a hard-nosed business person. What it makes you is a victim of analysis paralysis. Without hard facts to back you up, you can’t guess what might be true. When there’s a controversy and there’s evidence on both sides, you don’t know what to believe. You don’t accept things as true just because your parents say them, so you’re lucky to be alive after all the times you burned yourself on a hot stove or stuck a fork in an electric socket or jumped off a building because you wanted to confirm that what people had told you would happen actually would.

You’re good at debunking. You’re brilliant at finding bugs in code. You can find the flaws in a scientific study, and your merciless lens turns on academic and corporate research alike. But you can’t make anything. You don’t believe in anything you can’t prove, so fiction falls flat for you – it’s unreal – and you’re not terribly empathic, because human emotions from other humans who aren’t you is a thing you can never empirically prove. You aren’t creative – you can’t come up with inventions, you can’t innovate a brilliant new coding algorithm or prove a mathematical theorem no one has ever done before. You’re just very, very good at finding the flaws in other people’s creative products.

The autistic community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you are not autistic; you are something else. Your parents, wealthy captains of industry, are disappointed; they expected you to use your extra time in a way they would appreciate. They didn’t expect someone rigid, unyielding, someone who would demand proof of everything and whose analyses could easily disprove all the lies they used to convince themselves they were good and deserving people. You end up becoming a socialist because all the evidence suggests that, of the many ways humans can organize the distribution of resources, it’s the one with the best track record of causing less misery than the alternatives. You mock people who confuse socialism and communism. You are not above trading on your parents’ names and money to have a public voice, and you’ve become famous for your ability to debunk bad science.

You will not revolutionize the world, but you have a third more time than other people and you were born with money (the experiment that created you was quite expensive). You contribute to the betterment of humanity, in your way.

After the first generation of your kind are created, there are no more; wealthy capitalist parents do not want socialist children who can only tear down flawed structures built by others and cannot build anything themselves. Your own children, for those of you who have them, may or may not share your mutation. Eventually your condition is classified as a disorder, after your parents’ wealth has mostly run out late into your lifetime and the world has forgotten they respected you once. Humanity goes back to ignoring you and listening to superstition and tribal beliefs… because the ability to derive a pattern from a very small amount of data is the root of both superstition and innovation, and innovation turns out to be too important to give up superstition.

You do not sleep. But sleep performs the important function of re-organizing the memories acquired during the day and correlating them with each other, prioritizing some and storing others away in cold storage or even deleting them. This function was too important to do without, so your brain was re-engineered to do it while you are awake.

This means you’re dreaming, in a way, all the time, while you’re wide awake. It makes you very creative, but very unfocused. Some of your cohort actively hallucinate, but you can all generally tell the difference between the dream-things you see or hear or feel and reality; it’s just that the dream-things are vivid enough to capture your attention, most of the time. It’s a good thing there are self-driving cars, because you probably are not safe to drive yourself.

You are not a hard-nosed business person. Some of your cohort do come up with brilliant ideas for business, and because you have rich parents, they are able to get those businesses started… but all of you are too unfocused, too distractible, too deep within your own creative minds to be good at following the bottom line. Most of the businesses either fail or get sold to other companies run by people who can actually do business, but don’t have great ideas. Most of you go into art of some kind. Writing, visual arts, comic books, music… a few do movie or film, but none of you are at your best in collaboration.

The ADHD community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you do not have ADHD; no human could maintain a tight focus when ghostly images and snippets of dream are constantly playing in their minds. Because your family is wealthy, you get a personal assistant who helps you with the paperwork parts of your artistic career, and you get a publicist when you’re still very young, and the fact that you don’t sleep means you make the news just by existing. So your artistic career is successful, and your work is well-known, but artists don’t generally get rich; you live off your parents’ money until you get sick of their snide condescension because the ability they paid millions of dollars to infuse you with has a downside that means you will never be what they wanted you to be. Then you downsize your life expectations by a lot and live modestly off your successful art career. It helps that you can be very prolific, because a third of your life has been given back to you for conscious activity.

Some of the children of your cohort inherit the ability. Some don’t. Parents tend to fawn on the grandchildren who are pure human, Sleepers rather then Sleepless, because they’re the ones who could possibly inherit business empires. That’s fine. You try your best to raise your children not to compete with one another on the basis of whether or not they sleep, but kids will be kids and not all of the siblings get along.

After the first generation of your kind are created, few others are made; most wealthy parents want a child who can be good in business rather than a child who can be a brilliant artist, but there are those who like the feather-in-cap of famous, respected children who will be known for their creativity, so a small trickle of kids like you are born every ten years or so. When it happens it generally makes the news. You reach out to those kids when they turn thirteen to offer them your knowledge and life experience. When you encounter parents who have tried to cut their children off from your community out of religious belief or misguided belief in their own ability to mold and shape children, you bring child abuse charges against them. You’re not good with the paperwork but you are good with influencing public opinion, and most of you still have assistants or interns who can handle the paper part.

You don’t regret what your parents gave you, even if they do. It’s a good life.

You do not sleep. Where other people have a third of their life where the energy hog that is consciousness is shut down, and therefore the body has more free energy to carry out tasks like growth and immune response, you don’t have that. Your consciousness is always on, always consuming 80% of the free energy your body has.

You’re thin. You can eat anything you want, but it burns off of you because your body needs so much energy. You are often tired. You can’t sleep to replenish your energy; you can rest, unmoving, but consciousness is still on even if you’re meditating or vegging out in front of the TV. When you get sick, you stay sick for a long time. You get sick a lot. It’s not enough to consider a chronic illness, but it drains you. It makes it hard for you to hold down jobs, because you don’t sleep but if you feel too miserable to go to work it’s just the same as if you slept through your alarm and never went in.

You have more time than chronically ill people; there are advantages to having 8 extra hours in a day. Most of you live off your parents’ money and do things like volunteering and activism when the work that needs doing are things like stuffing envelopes or reaching out to people on the phone, or you became independent contractors so you could make your own hours.

You take your vitamins, you eat healthy, you exercise when you have the strength for it. Maybe it helps a little bit; you can’t really tell, but it makes you feel like you’re doing something to improve your life.

Your parents sue the people who created you, because seriously, wasn’t “people who live an extra third of their day need more energy to survive” predictable? They lose, because they signed a lot of waivers. You didn’t sign any waivers, so some of you try suing, and win.

No more are created after your original cohort, largely due to the lawsuits; no one’s willing to make more of you. It’s just as well. You make the best of your life, but to be honest, you long to be able to sleep – to engage in a kind of rest where you aren’t bored, and your mind invents interesting stories to show you, and when you get up you actually feel rested and energetic? (People who sleep tell you that that second part doesn’t happen. You retort that that’s because they don’t sleep enough, and if you had the ability to sleep, you wouldn’t waste it by staying up late and waking up early!) You wish for that with all your heart, but you can’t have it, and you know it.

By the time you’re in your forties, the activism of you and your cohort has gotten your condition declared a disability, and many of you have been campaigning for disability rights for years, since you recognize the similarities with your situation when people suffer fatigue disorders or other vague and amorphous conditions that make them tired all the time. So when some of your children are born as Sleepless, you’ve changed the world to make it easier for them to maximize their own capabilities, and they get a little more done than you were able to do. And really, isn’t that what we all want for our children?

You do not sleep, and it’s perfect. You were re-engineered for a faster metabolism so that you can supply enough energy to your body and brain for the extra hours of consciousness. Your brain was re-engineered so that you don’t need to go offline and have fifteen minutes of dreaming every hour and a half for eight hours; you just need to enter an optional, meditation-like rest state for one or two hours every five days or so to get the same results. You are every bit as creative and every bit as capable of focus and have every bit as much energy as the average Sleeper, but you have eight more hours a day to do it in (except for every five days, when you only get six or seven more hours. Still a huge advantage.)

Your parents are wealthy – no one who didn’t have millions of dollars to spend on a designer child was able to make their child a Sleepless – so there are no barriers to your success. You get your education completed early because you had extra time; you developed friendships with children older than you, because those were the ones who were awake later in the evening; you learned how to make use of solitude, and all but the most introverted of you can spend most of the daylight hours interacting with people and still get a lot done at night. Whether you choose to be a scientist, an inventor, an artist, or an entrepreneur, you do well. Your parents’ wealth and your fame for being born as an exotic designer child amplifies your ability to do whatever you want.

With so much success and so much extra time and so much experience socializing, most of you find relationships and have kids before you’re 30. Some of your kids have the trait, some don’t. You try, as best as you can, not to favor the Sleepless children over the Sleepers, but it’s hard not to be frustrated at the lack of productivity your Sleeper children have.

It’s when your cohort is in its 30’s and 40’s that you learn what you really bequeathed your Sleepless children, and what your parents bequeathed to you.

A faster metabolism burns out a body faster. In your 30’s you look 30 but the aches and pains and development of chronic illnesses like diabetes are accelerating faster than they do for Sleepers of equal socioeconomic status. In your 40’s the decline accelerates; you look 50 at 45, 60 at 50, 70 at 55.

Members of your cohort start dying of old age in your 50’s. You realize you aren’t going to make it to 65, and that your Sleepless children, already in their 30’s, have much less time than you or they or anyone thought they did. In the end, you didn’t get more time than anyone else; you just got to take it all at once instead of spreading it out over time.

Many of your parents are still alive, the excellent health care that the wealthy can afford keeping them going at 80-something. You’re rapidly catching up with them, and the best medical care in the world can’t stop it. Some of you rant at your parents, or sue the company that made you, but you don’t. How could anyone have known? It didn’t happen to animals in testing, but rat lives are so short to begin with, perhaps it disappeared into data noise. You know your parents only wanted the best for you, just like you only wanted the best for your children. You reconcile with your Sleeper children, who are a trifle embittered at what they see as the favoritism you showed their Sleepless siblings, because you’re dying and they still love you even if you weren’t the best parent you could have been. Your parents apologize to you, and you forgive them. Your Sleepless children visit you constantly, knowing that you are their future, that what’s happening to you is what lies ahead for them.

You’re 62 when you die, after many surgical interventions and a decade of the best prescription drugs money could buy. The creation of more like you is made illegal a year later, but not before every parent rich enough to do it has had a Sleepless child for the past six decades.

While so many of the wealthy are dealing with the impact of Sleepless shortened lifespans and how very many of the wealthy are affected by it, society finally passes laws that redistribute income in a way where very likely, no one in the future will be able to afford a designer child for several million dollars anyway, even if it hadn’t been made illegal. Out of so many personal tragedies, the standard of living rises and the general health and happiness of the population improves. If you were still alive, you might have considered that a positive legacy.

#nancy kress #response fic #libertarian science fiction is often not very good #alara gets salty about published novels

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kariachi · 5 years ago

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Been looking forward ot this one y’all- The Greatest Lake, which supposedly contains not just Hex (easily one of the funnest of the reboot’s villains) but also Kevin (who is, of course, the perfect being)! It’s bound to be wonderful, with a combo like that, and we’ll finally get an answer to the age-old question-

Does Hex go in the fucking pit

Another Kelly Turnbull episode! Which, again, means this is gonna be a good episode for story and visuals! I swear this woman is a fucking goddess.

You should’ve known better to cannonball around Ben, Gwen, we had a whole episode about this

Max has rented a speedboat for the sake of aquatic athletics

Attack of the killer lake. And here I thought you only had to worry about that if you were a Saturday

Erie’s gotten more handsy since I was last out there

Ben: Some bad guy must be trying to make me look bad at kneeboarding! Gwen: Yeah, that’s why you suck

Hi Hex

He’s not even paying attention, he’s busy reading

Hex: Stop bothering the beachgoers, we’ve got work to do Water Spirits: Sure boss

The Sword of MacGuffin. Of course. Of course that’s what he’s looking for. I love this show so much you guys.

Hex: *sees Ben* I see not even the sanctity of the Canadian border can stop your incessant pestering!

Just jumping straight to annihilation today

Welp, Hex having to choose between having an elemental army or blasting the Tennysons into the stratosphere

Hex: Fuck it, I got work to do and elemental armies to lead, my apprentice can handle this

Ben: “What kind of loser would actually wanna work with Hex?“ Kevin: “Hey!”

My son, y’all

Look at him

He’s got a matching hood and everything

And floaties

Floaties my son can’t even float

Dear gods save me this is too adorable

I mean he has a hood to match Hex’s that’s so fucking cute!

Even the Forever Dipshit didn’t even fucking bother to get him into the aesthetic! Of course I suppose Hex and Kevin’s aesthetics are easier to make work together

I swear Hex if you fuck this up I will have your head on a pike as a warning to any other adults that might run into Kevin, even if we’re mostly out of them

My booooyyyyy

Have I mentioned one of the floaties is a fucking giraffe one I mean my god

When you have to mute the show otherwise you will be overwhelmed because your son is on the screen and you are dying

Oh my fuck Kevin accusing Ben of being jealous that Hex took him under his wing lords preserve me

The thing is it’s not even like there’s nothing for Hex to build off with him I mean we all saw what Charmcaster was able to do with his poetry, if he can learn to make that shit work for himself he’ll be a true fucking terror.

Hex: “Not ‘intern’, apprentice. We’re sorcerers, not cubicle dwellers.”

How did these two even meet? How did this happen? How long has it been happening? Inquiring minds need to know

Oh look, a vaguely greek temple in Lake Erie.

Hex: “I haven’t had a plan work this seamlessly all summer. I’d be moved to tears if this eyeliner were waterproof.”

“Mr. Goth Wizard, sir?” my fucking god this child is too precious. Don’t fuck this up, Hex, for all our sakes!

Hex, leaving Kevin, quote, ‘in charge of destroying the Tennyson whelps’ while he heads for the temple so he can get this sword

Kevin is actually listening to what he’s told without the need for putdowns or belittling or any mouthiness on his part so far. This either a bad sign for how he’s taking the way these adults have been treating him so far or a good sign of how his time with Hex has been going

Hex: Have them destroyed by the time I get back Kevin: Don’t you wanna test the sword out in them? Hex: No, I want you to do as you’re told

And there we go, I’ve been here long enough it’s all a spiral from this point.

Kevin: *grumbles about how he better be learning some damn good magic to be putting up with this shit*

1) Ben picking Rath to fight in a lake. Because this child. 2) My son has spells. This is either going to be awesome or sad

Oh thanks show, cut to Hex why don’t you

The spell on the door takes so much mana to take out that the damn thing tried to eat Hex

And Max and Gwen have taken advantage of Kevin being distracted with Ben to take out Hex’s elementals

Hex is, how you say, not pleased

I really don’t know what he expected, given he can’t handle the Tennysons, but sure, your apprentice is gonna do better

Kevin is just having too much fun messing with Ben

I cannot help but feel, Hex, that you could’ve handled this whole mess smarter. Step one: I’m fairly certain apprentices aren’t supposed to be thrown out as a distraction while you go around doing magic without them

Kevin pls do not call your teacher a loser while he is in the area, given your track record...

Oh gods, he’s claiming Hex promised him the sword if this all works out and just, it ain’t

“You know he doesn’t care about you right?” Ben, honeybunch, I hate to have to actually say it, but so far with Kevin? Nobody fucking does. Like, that’s not even an armor-piercing question, that’s like stepping out and going “you know the sky’s still blue, right?” The closest we came to a non-Tennyson giving a rats ass about Kevin was Vin, and then he turned out to give more of a damn about having the approval of other adults than the did any child. Fucking Max is the most stable adult figure in his life by far and it’s not exactly a high bar to reach. Every other adult didn’t care about him, every single one, and if you’re gonna be trying to get through to Kevin with revelations then you may wanna figure that out!

*deep breath* I’m calm. I’m chill. I’m calm.

Kevin throws Ben into Hex on accident, not gonna end well

Oh lords Kevin’s not even using spells he was taught, he’s testing new material on Ben because of course he is

Although can we discuss the fact that he was doing well with it? Which means either he’s been practicing it on his own time or he’s got a natural talent for this shit, and given what his poetry did it could go either way

Oh lords ‘The Ancient Magi Code’ and talk of how he’s supposed to fucking follow it includes being expected to follow Hex’s instructions to the letter. Because we’ve all seen how well Kevin takes orders. I mean lords he was already getting aggravated about it earlier, even as he did it. He’s been positively behaving by his own standards.

And lo, arguing breaks out between the teacher who’s really not that good at it and who is very tradition focused, and the student who is very much an independent soul who doesn’t take orders well and needs a more... positive approach.

Welp.

Can we just discuss the growth, the difference between Kevin here and Kevin when he was working with the Forever Dipshit? There’s actual concern about having fucked up here, for one, which he never showed with regards to FD despite the fact that one tried to kill him at one point for not following orders exactly. Just, if nothing else it’s a good indicator of the difference between his relationships with the two, where one is a teacher and semi-reasonable at least while the other was just, a complete piece of shit. I mean Hex taught Kevin magic and practiced it with him, promised him a fucking sword, while FD just gave him a tv dinner and a bad attitude

“-unabashed, unrepentant incompetence!” Goddamn, Hex, breathe! Also the boy ain’t incompetent he’s just fucking 11. That’s at the low end for apprenticing, even historically, and you’ve also got the fact that he’s an independent little sod and that you’ve been treating him more like a minion than an apprentice today (it’s a big difference). This is a fuck-up, and the arguing back is annoying, but still the situation with him is manageable.

My poor son did not expect major consequences, such as being dropped as an apprentice and losing the fucking shit that was helping him use magic period

Hex, fucking done, is getting that fucking sword if it kills him so he can have one fucking success this summer

Kevin, as always, does not take such insults lightly. Cue ‘out for blood’ face

Ben: “I can’t stand you, and even I thought Hex was being a real jerk back there” Kevin: “Yeah, I was doing a pretty good job kicking your butt before he distracted me”

All said while the Tennysons are picking up a Kevin out of the lake. I swear this is just the only way this boy knows to interact with people

Okay I paused after Hex fucking unveiled the temple again sent the whole groups crashing to the bottom of the lake as an offhand consequence and y’all the look on my boy’s face when he hears Hex growling about needing that damn sword. The fucking sad puppy eyes!

Look at that face!! My poor baby! He is so sad and so hurt!

Ben and Kevin, working together to kick Hex’s giant water elemental’s butt

Oh my fuck mutual transformation sequence. wtf is this Sailor Moon?

Kevin, noticing Ben has armored aliens now: Bitch!

The problem, is that much as I try I can’t mention everything. There’s so much good

Kevin, as Bootleg: Get out the boat, I’m hijacking it Gwen: No Kevin: Okay *hijacks it with them inside*

Gwen: *incredible excited to now have a boat with a canon because Kevin is awesome like that* Max: *concerned about whether Boatleg meets safety standards*

“Useless child. I can retrieve the Sword of MacGuffin without his assistance.” I don’t believe anyone was claiming otherwise, Hex. Although I think you’re going to find it difficult to do with him actively working against you. I’m afraid they’re his only settings

Max, on the giant water elemental: Maybe it just needs a friend and a big hug Kevin: Unlikely

Gwen, coming in with the plan to save the day

Even as a boat Kevin is a very agile little thing

Here lies Hex, dead of lake

Oh my gods dark magic is against the rules of the lake

Kevin: That was probably my only chance to use a cool cursed sword. Thanks a lot, Tennyson. Ben: Bitch!

Ben making the valid point that Kevin was at real risk of having to suck up to Hex for the next several millennia

The fucking cop telling Hex to get with the century and invest in some waterproof eyeliner

This just in, both boys are equally shit at kneeboarding.

10/11, Hex doesn’t go in the pit, but he may wanna be careful the next time he shares an episode with Kevin

#achi liveblogs #ben 10 2.os #he was actually one of the better ones sadly enough

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sacredlettersspn · 5 years ago

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Letter #1: Fear (Pilot, 1x01)

Welcome to the first letter of The Sacred Letters of Supernatural. I’m glad to have you here with me on this journey. I want to take a moment to say thank you to those who have already shown their support for the project on Tumblr and Twitter. You gave this project the kickstart it needed to get off the ground. And for those who will be jumping on board now and in the future, thank you.

I also want to thank the people over at Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, the podcast which inspired this project. I hope to take the inspiration and love for Harry Potter that you show through your podcasts and channel that into my love for the show Supernatural. I also hope to take this project and make it my own while learning from the work put into Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.

As I begin my work on this project, I find myself wishing I had a text to hold. There is something special about holding a book in your hands as you read from it, something about feeling the physical object in my hands helps me learn. But Supernatural is primarily a visual and auditory experience and I think there’s something special about that, too. We can see more details, see how characters react in body language and tone of voice. The set design, lighting, and color choices can clue us into what’s happening on screen. We don’t get internal dialogue or exposition of a character’s introspection on television, but I think many of the visual and auditory aspects make up for that.

So with that being said, let’s begin the first Sacred Letter of Supernatural.

I want to start with a personal story. When I was a young child, I did not like Chinese food. I wouldn’t eat it. When my dad tried to convince me to try Chinese food as a child, it would usually result in tears. It wasn’t until years later as an adult that I learned that when I was about four years old, I had Chinese food for dinner and a stomach bug the same evening. You maybe can see where this is going? My parents’ bed sheets were ruined, let’s just say that. But that moment, the feeling of that memory, stayed with me many years even though I couldn’t remember the actual incident. This aversion was something my dad didn’t understand. I remember very vividly sitting in a Chinese buffet with my plain chicken, french fries, and a few vegetables. My dad is trying to make me try various different foods. I keep saying no and become so upset at the pressure to “just get over it,” I cry in the restaurant. To my dad, Chinese food was just chicken or pork with noodles, rice, and vegetables. It was delicious. To me, Chinese food was the reason I had become violently ill, and my body couldn’t forget that. The body’s memory of fear can be a powerful force in our day-to-day lives.

By now, you may have guessed our theme for today’s letter: fear. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines fear as “an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.” I also like the definition given by Google which defines fear as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” I like how the second definition highlights the idea that fear is tied to our own beliefs that something is dangerous. This says to me that some people can believe that something is scary and experience fear, while others do not see the same danger. Like in my story about having this fear of Chinese food, I expected it to be dangerous while those around me did not. They couldn’t understand my fear.

But I think we can understand the fear that’s happening in the pilot episode of Supernatural. For the fandom, this episode is iconic. We will likely never forget the visuals and lines of dialogue, many of which are echoed in episodes fifteen years later, but I’ll still give you a quick recap of what happens in this episode.

The year is 1982, and we are introduced to the Winchester family on the night that their mother, Mary Winchester, dies. She is murdered by a mysterious figure who breaks into baby Sam’s nursery. When Mary goes to check on Sam, she interrupts this figure and is attacked. We see some of the ordeal, most poignantly the image of her stuck to the ceiling, stomach cut, and flames igniting around her. Her husband, John Winchester, sees her on the ceiling as well. John knows something is not normal about the way she dies.

When we fast forward twenty-two years, Sam has been in college and is living with his girlfriend. He seems to be enjoying life. But he hasn’t talked to his family in four years. Unexpectedly, Dean shows up, tells him that their father is missing on a hunting trip, and Sam agrees to help Dean find their father. To track his whereabouts, they listen to a voicemail in which John says something bigger is happening, something dangerous.

On the search for their father, they are led to a potential haunting where several men have been reported missing on a stretch of highway over the years. John had been on the case before he disappeared. The boys find out which motel John was staying at and find his room, but are caught by police and Dean is arrested. However, they are able to figure out that the ghost they’re hunting is a Woman in White and Dean’s arrest leads them to John’s journal where John has recorded everything he knows about the supernatural.

The boys end up getting rid of the Woman in White, and they find out where John wants them to go next. However, Sam insists on being back home for his law school interview the next morning, so Dean takes him home. When Sam goes inside, he lays down in bed, looks up, and finds Jessica on the ceiling like his mom. The ceiling catches on fire around her. She can’t be saved. The episode ends with Sam and Dean outside of their car, the 1967 Impala. Sam says, “We got work to do,” before slamming the trunk full of hunting supplies shut and leaving with Dean for the next case.

Moments of fear are littered throughout this pilot. Given that the genre of the show involves ghosts, monsters, and demons, it makes sense that fear would be an integral part of each episode. But I want to focus on a key scene of this episode and how fear plays a special role in defining the Winchesters’ lives.

The opening scene of the Winchester family tucking in for the night is heartwarming. Everyone smiles at least once, John and Mary are doting on their children, John appears to be an involved, helpful father as he helps tuck the boys in for the night. There is a lot of focus on Sam. We get this shot of just Sam in his crib, laughing, playing with his feet, a shot of Mary kissing him goodnight, and a shot of John specifically saying, “Sweet Dreams, Sammy.” It sets up an expectation that Sam is the main focus, if not the main character, and it adds to the sweet feeling I get while watching this scene.

But there are hints that something isn’t right. The opening scene of this episode is an exterior shot of the house at night with shadows of tree limbs crawling up the side of the home. The limbs are moving unnaturally. There’s suspenseful music playing. You know something is wrong and your fears are confirmed when the mobile in Sam’s nursery begins moving on its own, the clock stops at 8:12pm, the nightlight flickers, and the baby monitor in the parents’ room makes odd, high frequency noises. When Mary wakes up, John is not in the room. Mary sees John standing in Sam’s nursery, with more lights flickering in the hall. While Mary does not seem to be afraid, the viewer by now knows that she should be afraid. And that moment comes soon enough when she hears the tv on downstairs, and sees John asleep in a chair. She runs back upstairs to Sam with who she now knows is an intruder. We don’t see what happens between Mary and this mysterious figure, but we hear the screams and we see what happens next. John runs upstairs, finds Sam alone in the crib, and thinks everything is fine until he notices the blood dripping from the ceiling. That’s when he looks up, sees his wife on the ceiling, a slash across her stomach. He falls to the ground, looking up at the ceiling with horror as fire bursts around his wife and Sam begins to wail.

What strikes me about this whole first scene is how much we don’t see, and we can only notice what’s missing after having watched this show for its many seasons. We don’t see what happens to Sam, so we don’t know the reason for the man visiting his nursery. We don’t see Mary’s interaction with this man. John doesn’t even see the man. He only sees his wife on the ceiling, dying. And that’s why this scene is so horrifying to me. It turns the world of the Winchesters upside down, ruins every good thing we saw in their warm, family interactions, and it leaves us with many more questions than answers.

The reason the scene works as being scary is because it leaves much unknown, and fear festers in the unknown. It seems that some of the most scary moments in life are when big, important questions are left unanswered. When you’re at the doctors waiting on potentially bad news, when your life plans are derailed because you didn’t get that job or that person left you, or when you see horrendous acts of violence on the news and you can’t fathom why humans would treat each other this way. When we are left to grapple with life’s big, important questions without anyone who can give us definitive answers, it can be terrifying.

I believe the person who is trying to handle the biggest questions in this episode is John Winchester. He sees and remembers the most from the night Mary died, and therefore he has the most questions and a lot of weight to carry. Sam will never remember this night and Dean was too young to realize what was happening. None of them saw Mary on the ceiling except John, and he alone carries that image, that burden. John had just experienced an unspeakable tragedy.

The thing with tragedies is that even though they can often be explained in some way, humans still have a hard time grappling with the aftermath. While some may move on, many others become stuck in grief for extended periods of time, possibly for the rest of their lives. This is what happened to John. He didn’t have a “natural tragedy” to deal with; there was no hope for a natural explanation. And now, the world was no longer safe to him. There were new, unexplainable threats that could take his family away from him at any moment. I can imagine he felt alone in his knowledge of these threats and I can imagine that he felt completely powerless in that situation. That feeling of powerlessness, coupled with fear of the unknown, can make humans do dramatic, unhealthy things. John Winchester was no different.

A sense of control is really important for humans. We all need to feel that on some level that we are able to choose a direction for our lives, and that our choices will directly affect our environment. So, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that John’s actions after this night were an attempt to regain control after an event that shook his foundation. Thinking about John in this way helps me see his actions in the rest of the series as his way of trying to gain back a sense of control in his world. He wants to control the thing that scares him, much like I think we eventually see Dean doing. John’s fear led him to do many things that the fandom has deemed unforgivable. Whether or not you sympathize with John Winchester is entirely up to you and is influenced by your own personal experiences, but I think we can all relate to the feeling of fear in the face of the unknown, and the utter powerlessness we can feel in uncertain times.

Lectio Divina

The next segment of this letter is where we use a practice to analyze a part of the episode. We will be using “Lectio Divina,” a Christian spiritual practice for reading scriptures that involves interacting with the text on four different levels. I am following Harry Potter and the Sacred Text’s use of this practice and adapting it the best I can to the visual format. Normally, you pick a scripture or a line of text to analyze. I randomized numbers between 1 and 42 (the amount of minutes in the episode), and picked the first full line after the minute mark I was given.

Line: “That’s cus you’re out of practice… Or not.” -Dean Winchester (7:00)

Now we analyze this line on the four levels of Lectio Divina : literal (narrative), allegorical (metaphors and symbols), reflection (how do I connect to it), and invitational (what is the text asking of us or teaching us).

Literal: What’s happening on a literal level in this scene is that Dean has broken into Sam’s house, Sam has snuck up on him, and they’ve just fought because Sam didn’t know who was in his house. Dean ends up pinning Sam to the floor, saying that he was able to do so because Sam was out of practice. “That’s cus you’re out of practice.” But when Sam promptly flips him over, pinning Dean to the ground, Dean proudly but surprisingly says, “Or not.” The scene comes across as a little heartwarming, a little funny. The two seem like natural brothers.

Allegorical: To me, this is a scene about returning. Here we have the loyal child who has stayed with his father and continued the “family business” confronting what I think of as the prodigal son. You can see the tension between the brothers play out in the fighting. But this prodigal son story is not the same one that we’re used to. This isn’t the prodigal son coming back home because he realized he was wrong. Sam left something horrifying. He left for safety and found love, a career, and independence. But despite his reasons for leaving, there’s still tension when he returns. Stepping away from your family, a friend group, a job--that’s never easy even if you have strong convictions about your reasons for doing so. There are relationships there, shared experiences, and bonds. So, I think there’s a sense of betrayal from Dean’s perspective, an invisible contract that Sam broke. Then Sam and Dean have to confront all of these feelings and experiences again. I'm impressed with the way Sam and Dean handle it. Dean could have grilled Sam about why he left, made him feel bad, or approached with a hostile attitude, but he very much is happy to see Sam and wants his help. Sam ends up helping Dean even when there’s a possibility of Sam confronting his father, and Dean risks being rejected to ask for Sam’s help. They’re each risking the status quo of their lives and making themselves vulnerable to one another by reaching out and deciding to take on this task together.

Reflection: Watching this exchange between the two of them, it reminded me of when I used to play soccer as a kid. I played for about four or five years and like to think I developed a few skills. One year recently, I was playing soccer with my younger siblings on Father’s Day and I could tell that I was out of practice, but dribbling, kicking, stopping the ball -- those movements still felt natural. I was even able to give pointers to the kids. I hadn’t touched a soccer ball in years, but that knowledge is still stored in my brain.

I think that, in the same way, Sam was forced to play out his own muscle memory while fighting with Dean, and through that, is forced to acknowledge once again the reality of his childhood and his family, of what lives in the dark and why he ran. In one fell swoop, Dean shoves that all into the forefront for Sam. A few years of building walls of safety around him and now Sam is vulnerable again, using his fighting skills to protect himself when I imagine he had begun to settle into a “normal” life.

Invitational: There’s a question that jumps out at me after spending time contemplating this scene: how do you have the courage to confront burned bridges with other people? I don’t have a clear-cut answer but I think it takes some courage and understanding on both sides. There should be a realization from both parties that each person assumes some responsibility for what happened between them, and for this to happen, there needs to be a cool-down period and opportunity for forgiveness. Forgiveness is rarely easy. I can think of situations in my own life in which forgiveness seems impossible, and maybe it isn’t always an option. But for those situations in which time can heal, I think repairing a burnt bridge can be worth the effort. I see this play out between Sam and Dean. Dean has to overlook his feelings of abandonment by Sam, see the decision from Sam’s perspective, and practice some forgiveness. Sam has to have hope that he will be accepted by his family again and courage to face the people who feel hurt by his actions. I think there would be a lot of fear on both sides: fear of another fight, fear of rejection. But Sam and Dean are able to put aside their own fears and their own hurts for the sake of family and the bond they share. So maybe one thing this scene is asking us to do is to practice forgiveness despite our fears.

Thank you all for reading the first ever Sacred Letter of Supernatural. I hope you enjoyed our exploration of the theme this week. Before I finish this letter, I would like to end with a question for the audience. This question is for personal evaluation, but if you would like for your answer to be featured on the blog or to contribute to a discussion, please send your answers to my Tumblr inbox.

This Week’s Question:

How do you recognize when you’re afraid and how do you make decisions in the face of fear?

#pilot 1x01 #fear #season 1

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polygarnstars · 5 years ago

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part 1: 4, 12, 15, 18, and 19

If you think I’m going to have common sense and not answer all of these in a single post, I have Bad News lmao

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you? Smart, mostly. “Gifted”. This very much Did Not Last lmaoooo

12. name of your favorite playlist? I literally never make playlists I’m a stupid fuck who uses their spotify premium to skip freely through all my thousands of liked songs on shuffle until I find something I want to listen to lmaooooo (Having said that: Rey and I put together a playlist for some characters we were entering a contest to win last fall which I titled Story and Song after the TAZ arc and also because we wrote Way Too Much for it and I’m Very Proud Of That)

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment? Okay upon reading this I initially genuinely couldn’t remember any of the books I read in school because for the last several years of my schooling I just fuckin Sparknotes and TV Tropes-ed everything lmao... having said that, I do remember enjoying Maus! It was neat having a graphic novel assigned amongst all the “literary classics” that I couldn’t sit through a sitting of without falling asleep, and it may be the furry in me but the depiction of the characters/people as animals was Good :0c See, if all history was depicted with methods like this, I’d maybe actually be able to remember it ghfdjhgjfkdl

18. ideal weather? Depends on the day, but generally: Between like 65-80°F, not humid, not a lot of wind, and either sunny, partly cloudy, or drizzly but not outright storming. Basically decent temperatures without feeling like I’m walking through soup because of the humidity and weather that’s not completely gray and boring. Aka what Maine basically never is lmaoooo

19. sleeping position? I change positions every five minutes I swear to god (don’t take that out of context gfhdjbhvjd). Usually with at least one arm draped over a pillow that is Definitely Not Being Mentally Portrayed As A Character I Like To Supplement The Fact That I Did Not Get Enough Affection To Be A Functional Adult As A Child ghfdjknbhgfjdk

21. obsession from childhood? bold of you to assume i don’t still obsess over nintendo games (and just video games in general tbh)

23. strange habits? OKAY I COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING FOR THIS AT FIRST BUT I HAVE ONE NOW: MIDNIGHT FRIES

28. five songs to describe you? Speeding - LightsDaydreaming - ParamoreMusic - Mystery SkullsNo Lullaby - SIAMÉSLonely Dance - Set If Off+Bonus because it came up on Spotify while I was shuffling for songs for this and it’s a Mood: Pineapples Do Not Belong on a Pizza - Vargskelethor

29. best way to bond with you? I don’t know I usually just scream about ocs or video games with people and suddenly it’s been a year??? @riskreyes how has it been a year since we started talking but also how has it only been a year??? Wild bvhfdjkbhvgfjdk

30. places that you find sacred? Lmao I’ve never had anywhere like that really. Need a goddamn lock on my door :p I guess... the woods by my house? As a little kid before things got shitty my neighbor’s cousin or niece or something would go out there wandering around catching frogs and stuff in the spring or almost falling into the frozen streams during winter. When things started to go to shit in my life as a teenager I would hide out there to get away and nobody would find me. I haven’t been recently but the last time I did my friend and I walked along the train tracks and dove off into the woods by the side to avoid the amtrak coming by, it was great lmao. Uhh, other than that... I dunno, Boston and New York and New London all make me feel good to visit. Probably mostly because during those trips I don’t feel trapped in a dying land like Maine feels like bgvhfdjkhvgfjd

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? ......my entire wardrobe is my work outfit, excessive graphic tees, and jeans. So uhh... I dunno. I guess my NWTB shirts are pretty rad, I’d kick a dude’s ass wearing Nate’s merch

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? if i have to see another ad for some fuckin branch of the us military while i’m just out here trying to watch people play video games i swear to god-

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? Oh boy I don’t know how weird these are but do you want a list??? I can give you a list hang on- In 4th grade we had a day of class where we all just had a party and ate chips and salsa and stuff because the pats won the super bowl and our teacher was Obsessed- In middle school my math class started working out of college textbooks, which is a bit much when you’re 11, advanced classes or no. Yet somehow none of the other students had any problems with this- Also in middle school, the school counselor really wasn’t very Good at his job so I usually just ended up playing Rock Band in his office instead of talking out any of my Many, Many Problems. I played the drums, for the record- Also in middle school, one time I straight up fell down a flight of stairs? Like, a full flight of stairs. Fuckin somersaulting down the stairs. The binder I was carrying broke open, papers went everywhere, my arm got cut open somewhere along the way and started bleeding. I get to the bottom, the other students are staring at me in horror, aforementioned counselor fuckin steps out of his office which is, of course, right at the bottom of the stairs, all concerned because what the fuck a kid just fell down the stairs, right? And so I, laying on the floor disoriented and laughing, declare, and I quote: “That was fun, let’s do it again!”- THE MOTHERFUCKING MAC AND CHEESE MUFFINS IN HIGH SCHOOL. Macaroni and cheese baked into the sweet batter of a muffin. I refused to touch the stuff but a friend of my did and it was bad enough he had to go to the trash can and fucking empty his stomach in it.- SAID FRIEND ALSO MANAGED TO GET A CARTON OF MILK THAT EXPIRED A MONTH BEFORE SCHOOL STARTED AT THE START OF ONE OF OUR YEARS IN HIGH SCHOOL and if I didn’t trust cafeteria food before that sealed the deal on me Never Trusting It Again- OH BUT SPEAKING OF CAFETERIA FOOD one time in the old school before the renovation, in like freshman year I think? I laughed so hard a piece of spicy chicken strip flew up my windpipe and got stuck in my nose and it was too big for me to snort out so I had to suck it back down and for the rest of the day all I could smell was burning- ON ANOTHER FOOD RELATED TOPIC down in the library I was on my iPad and 3DS because I had Long Since Given Up On School and some asshole dudes threw a rotting orange at me and it splattered all over the screens of both? So I picked up the remains and chucked it back at them and yelled “Do you wanna fucking NOT?” and they all ran off. The librarian heard me yell and saw me throw the orange back at them and she just didn’t give a fuck lmao- The librarians at my school were cool as shit really during one of our years we had to do x hours of volunteer work so I did some adjustments to the library catalogue for mine but the thing is I was fast enough at it that there really wasn’t enough to fill up my required hours so instead of giving me more to do they just sort of let me and my friends hang out playing Yu-Gi-Oh and called that good lmao. (For the record I only had one starter deck so I let my friend pick half of the cards and I would use the half she didn’t want. I managed to fuckin WRECK her with throwaways it was Iconicque)- OKAY ONE LAST LIBRARY STORY on the last day of finals I was hanging out in one of the smart tv rooms in the library right? My last finals weren’t for a few hours and lord knows I wasn’t gonna study, ADHD ass couldn’t do that and I’d already given up on school lmao. So I fucking... I brought my Wii U to school, hooked it up to the smart tv, and just started playing Splatoon there in the library. One of the librarians walked past to check on everyone, stopped at my room, watched me play for a minute (I noticed her and just sort of nodded and waved like ‘Sup’ so she Knew what was going on), and then just LEFT. Like, she didn’t give a fuck. Shoutout to the librarians, the Chillest- ALRIGHT LAST STORY LAST STORY I straight up never got all the credits I needed to graduate lmao. I was missing half a credit but they let me go anyway and to this day I cite the reason as being my high scores on the SAT/PSAT? I was the first student at the school in like, a decade, to have gotten an award from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation for my performance on them, and I guess they must have thought that me failing to graduate on time would look bad on them because, uh, yeah, it would, if people found out their teachers couldn’t handle a ~smart kid~ to the point that they did poorly enough to not even graduate with the rest of their class nobody would be willing to send their kids there lmao. And that’s the story of how I graduated when I wasn’t technically supposed to!!!

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? That’s a good fuckin question hey shit memory what was that thing that made us laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe again?...Don’t remember? Yeah I thought so lmaoI dunno, probably a joke in some let’s play? Or... god. Now that I think about it was probably the Slicer of T’pire Weir Isles moment actually. Holy shit, that was good.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried? That I’ve ever tried? Jesus, I dunno, I have issues with texture more than flavor. I Refuse to eat my mother’s stuffing because it’s literally just soggy ass bread. In terms of pure flavor alone? Her shepherds pie. It’s just... there is no flavor. It’s like eating cardboard. I’m begging you, De, use seasoning. If I ever have to eat shepherds pie that just tastes like tin from canned peas and vague hints of unseasoned beef again I’m going to go on a murderous rampage.That said? F in the chat to Cameron for that mac and cheese muffin. Rest in pieces

73. favorite weird flavor combo? GVFHDJBVDN JUST GONNA MAKE ME SHARE THE DILL PICKLE/CHOCOLATE PUDDING PACK COMBO FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE HUH

93. nicknames? Gar, Garn, Lane, Bill, Master, Pants, Shortpants. The first three are self-explanatory, first two are shortenings of my name and then my masc/surname. The latter four come from usernames of mine - Bill from Bill Ciforce (If you stack a Bill Cipher on top of two other Bill Ciphers, you get the Ciforce), Master, Pants, and Shortpants from MasterShortpants in reference to one of Link’s nicknames in Skyward Sword

95. favorite app on your phone? Does the internet app count? No? Lmao. Spotify I guess :p Need me some Tunes

#if you're on a version of the site that readmores don't work on i'm sorry #long post #ask game thyme

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lloydskywalkers · 6 years ago

Text

two a.m. tea

This is for the wonderful @kipskiff , who recently did some fantastic art of Lloyd and Nya and Pixal getting tea at two am together, which is a concept I really wanted to write something on, so here we go! This is...technically an AU, because Lloyd and Nya know about Pixal before season 8, but you know what it’s a good AU that should be canon, because I love these three.

Nya is a lot of things, but one thing she definitely isn’t is blind.

(…most of the time.)

So when the new Samurai X crops up, in her armor, and promptly refuses to answer any questions about their identity, Nya spends a week or two flailing about before she gets serious. If someone’s got her mech, no matter how well-meaning their actions seem (saving Lloyd definitely won them points, but still) Nya needs to know who it is. It’s just a safety thing, and with their track record, it’s better to be safe than ambushed and nearly-slaughtered by someone they thought they could trust in the middle of the night.

So Nya cracks down and really starts studying the new samurai, mentally cataloguing the way they talk and how they choose to fight, what weapons they’re picking and the mannerisms they use, and eventually she’s able to pin down who it is — she’s promptly torn between utter shock and wondering why she didn’t think of that earlier, but she thinks she handles it pretty well.

Ironically, Lloyd figures it out five minutes before she does. (Or at least she thinks he does — he looks suspiciously calm about the whole thing, and he’s been the most unconcerned from the start. And he does have a track record with figuring out the identity of Samurai X, so…)

At any rate, Nya’s pretty sure that her and Lloyd are the only ones to have figured out Pixal’s secret, so by the time they all head off on their Find-Master-Wu missions, it’s easy enough for Nya to stop back into town every once in a while and meet up with them for tea at the hole-in-the-wall shop in the rougher part of town that Lloyd picks out for them.

He claims it’s where his uncle used to go sometimes, but Nya’s still too suspicious that Lloyd never entirely outgrew his past to believe that. He also claims that it’s the only place in town to get a decent cup of tea at two in the morning, which Nya is much more inclined to believe.

“-and then he tried to run, likely because he realized he was outmatched, but he must have forgotten we were on the twentieth story, because he tripped over his own feet and ran straight off the edge of the building, still clutching the money as he went.”

Nya grins as Pixal continues to detail her story to them, her eyes lit up brightly as she gestures, looking as enthusiastic as Nya’s seen her. Lloyd is listening in rapt attention, laughing at all the right parts as he sips at his own cup of tea — which very likely has too many sugars in it to be healthy, but what can you do. He’s in his new gi, the bright green one with the stitching she’d seen him working on a while back. It looks nice — it kinda makes Nya want to change up her own gi design, actually, she’s been feeling blues lately, for some reason…

She spares a brief glance at her current outfit, and shrugs. Sweat pants are comfy, and it’s not like she’s here to impress anyone, anyways. It probably looks pretty funny, actually, Lloyd in his gi and Pixal in her armor, then Nya seated between them looking like she just rolled out of bed.

“I like your glasses, by the way,” Lloyd mentions to Pixal, after they’ve finished with her story (she caught the guy about three flights down, which is less than Nya would have let him fall for).

“Oh!” Pixal’s hand drifts to the large-rimmed glasses she’s wearing. “Oh, thank you, I had forgotten I still had them on.”

“I told you they looked good on you,” Nya says, with an air of satisfaction. “You should keep ‘em.”

“Really?” Pixal says, hesitantly. “But I don’t really need them. My eyesight is perfectly fine.”

Nya shrugs. “Kai doesn’t need hair gel.”

“Jay doesn’t need ten blue jackets,” Lloyd chimes in.

“Cole doesn’t need sleeves.”

“Nya doesn’t need Starfarer socks.”

“Lloyd doesn’t need seven of those extra soft blankets.“

“Yes I do, there’s seven nights in a week,” Lloyd defends.

Nya shakes her head. “The point is, you might not need them, but you can want them. And if you want them, wear them! Simple as that.”

“Oh,” Pixal says, turning this over in her head. She finally nods. “I will keep them, then.”

“Nice!” Lloyd raises his teacup. “To Pixal’s glasses, then.”

“Hear, hear,” Nya clinks her cup against his. Pixal looks slightly confused, but she clinks her cup against theirs nonetheless. Lloyd snickers, and Nya leans back, sipping at her cooling tea.

“So, how’s it been on your side?” Nya asks Lloyd, nudging him.

Lloyd’s expression falls a bit, though Nya can tell he’s trying to look content about it. “Oh, it’s good,” he says, his cheer sounding forced. “There’s, um. There’s some late nights and stuff, but it’s not…it’s not bad, or anything. It’s good. Good times.”

Nya trades looks with Pixal.

“That was a terrible lie,” Pixal says, turning back to him.

Lloyd buries a hand in his hair, leaning back. “Ugh, fine. It’s a little lonely, that’s all, okay?”

Nya’s heart dips, and she bites her lip. It’s been lonely on her side, too, traveling the countryside by herself, but Lloyd has always taken that sort of thing harder.

“You know you can call us whenever, right?” Nya reminds him. “And Pixal’s here too, if you wanna talk to her,” she adds, as Pixal nods.

“Yeah, I know, it’s just-“ Lloyd sighs. “I dunno, it’s harder to enjoy stuff when it’s just you,” he mumbles, shifting his teacup in a circle on the table. “And like, I love protecting the city, but it’s a little more difficult to do it on your own.”

“I actually miss the guys and their dumb catchphrases, too,” Nya admits. “It is less fun on your own, huh.”

Pixal looks between the two of them. “I’ve never been part of that,” she says. “So I cannot empathize, I’m afraid.” She sighs, brushing a tuft of silver hair from her face. “I do wish to experience it someday, though,” she says, quietly.

“You should join up with us, then!” Lloyd says, eagerly. “When the guys get back, you can be on the team too-“

“Lloyd,” Nya says, quietly. Lloyd looks at her, then at Pixal.

“O-only if you want to, that is,” he says quickly, deflating a bit. “If you wanna…reveal yourself, and stuff. It’s up to you.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Pixal says, smiling slightly. “I’ll consider it. But in the meantime-“

The TV in the shop corner suddenly scratches, warbling out the tinny alert of a news update as a reporter’s harried voice comes through.

“-violent activity in the northwest city quarter again as another bank is hit, suspected to be attributed to the recent rise in biker gangs. Police are on their way to the scene as we speak-“

“In the meantime…” Nya mutters. She meets Lloyd’s eyes, then Pixal’s. She carefully sets her cup of tea down. “Anyone up for a little team bonding right now?”

Pixal and Lloyd look at each other. “Yes,” Pixal replies enthusiastically, standing. “Let’s go kick butt!”

Lloyd’s face splits into a grin. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” he says, shooting up from his own seat. “Let’s show these guys who’s boss. The uh - the bosses. Multiple bosses, ‘cause there’s three of us.”

Nya snorts, but she stands as well, shouldering her katana as she does. Looks like she’s fighting crime in sweatpants tonight.

“Was that too assertive?” Pixal whispers to Nya, as they trail out of the restaurant.

“Nope!” Nya grins proudly. “You’re doing great. Kicking butt is the number one ninja requirement.”

“Oh, good,” Pixal says. “Samurai, as well?”

“Pix,” Nya says, slinging an arm around her shoulder. “Here’s the thing you gotta remember. Ninja kick butt. Samurai? They do it better.”

*********

There wasn’t really a conscious choice, per say, to split their team up like they did — a lot of it ended being convenience, timing, Jay and Cole arguing so much nobody else wanted to deal with them, and that sort of thing — so it’s not like it was a purposeful decision that Nya and Lloyd got stuck on solo missions.

Well, just Nya gets missions, really. At least she gets to travel, and stuff — Lloyd is stuck babysitting Ninjago City on his own, which is slightly funny and even more concerning, because Lloyd should not be babysitting anyone when he’s the one that needs babysitting.

(Look, Ninjago City has never claimed it was “perfectly fine” after taking a crowbar to the head, then tried to double-flip over to the next building and ended up nearly cracking its skull open on the dumpster it fell into instead.)

(Lloyd has…a questionable track record, that’s what Nya’s trying to say.)

So it’s more than a little relieving that Nya knows Pixal is there to keep an eye on him.

“-I mean, what if she hadn’t been there, Lloyd?” Nya says accusingly, as Pixal carefully wraps Lloyd’s wrist from where she sits across the table from them. “What were you gonna do? Take another twenty fists to the face?”

“Id wasn’ twen’y fisds,” Lloyd mumbles into the napkin he’s got pressed against his nose, which is just barely not broken.

“It was certainly close,” Pixal pauses and frowns, studying Lloyd’s wrist before continuing to wrap it. Nya gives Lloyd a pointed glare, and he wilts into the booth.

They’ve chosen a 24-hour breakfast diner this time, one of those ones that looks like it’s been there since the dawn of time and will likely be there until the end of the world itself. The circular lamps that hang above their table cast them all in an odd yellow lighting, that makes Pixal’s hair look almost blond, and the bright green in Lloyd’s eyes look like it’s glowing. The linoleum floors beneath their shoes are cracked, the walls of the diner coated in plaster layer upon plaster layer that’s been half-heartedly hidden behind old music posters — and this one old picture Lloyd likes that’s got a cat eating a bunch of pancakes.

It’s around four in the morning when they meet there — because that’s when Pixal yanked Lloyd out of the drug bust — so their only other companions in the joint are heavy-eyed truck drivers and half-conscious people who are probably regretting hitting up as many bars as they did. It’s nice, though, because the employees seem like they’ve served hell itself with a bored expression, so no one really looks at the two ninja and a samurai crammed into the vinyl booth twice.

Lloyd pulls another bloody napkin away from his nose, making a face as he replaces it with a new one. “I’m fine, ‘kay,” he says, voice muffled as he winces, trying to stop the blood flow. “Id’s nod a big deal. I had id handled.”

“I hope that isn’t what you all consider ‘having it handled’,” Pixal says, gently tying off the bandages around Lloyd’s wrist. “There. All done. Ah, I believe that ice helps alleviate the pain, if you wish to…?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd flashes Pixal a small grin — Nya cringes at the blood on his teeth — as he takes the napkin-wrapped ice from her and sets it against his wrist. “D’anks, Pixal.”

He finally pulls the napkin away, prodding cautiously at his nose before deciding it isn’t going to bleed anymore. Nya gives him another pointed look, and Lloyd sighs, gathering up the bloody napkins and walking them over to the trash can.

“Thank you, seriously,” Nya mutters while he’s gone, rubbing a hand across her temple. “I was so far out, I don’t know what I would have done…”

“Of course,” Pixal says, patting Nya’s hand a little awkwardly. “I will always help Lloyd if he needs it. And I promised you I would keep an eye on him, right?”

“Yeah,” Nya smiles at her. “Thanks. You’ve been stellar.”

Pixal smiles lightly, and takes another sip of her tea. She immediately wrinkles her nose. “This is…not as good as the other place.”

Nya makes a face at her own cup of tea, which is sitting untouched. “Yeah, it’s not the best,” she says, braving another sip. Ugh, nope, hasn’t gotten any better in the last five minutes. “We’re kinda just here for the food,” she says, apologetically.

Pixal shakes her head. “That’s perfectly fine,” she says, as Lloyd ducks back into the booth with them. “Food is good as well.”

She’s spoken not a moment too soon — a yawning server makes their way to them, flipping at his notepad apathetically.

“You gonna get anything to eat?” he asks, sounding like he couldn’t care either way.

“Hi, yes,” Nya speaks up, before Lloyd can. She cuts him a you’re grounded look, which Lloyd sinks lower into the booth at, sulking. “I’ll have the biscuits with a side of bacon. Pixal?”

“I’ll have the, um, biscuits as well, thank you,” Pixal says.

The server nods, scribbling away. He looks back up. “Anything else?”

Nya is highly aware of the plaintive looks Lloyd is giving her.

“…and we’ll also take two chocolate-chip pancakes, extra whipped cream please,” she sighs. Lloyd beams.

Geez, it’s like watching a puppy, she thinks in amusement, studying him. A puppy with hair that probably needs to get cut pretty soon, she notices, watching the way the blond locks now fall into his eyes.

Lloyd remains oblivious to her stare, too busy stacking the little syrup containers into a geometric-shaped tower.

“You better not be using all of those,” Nya says, narrowing her eyes.

Lloyd shifts. “Of course not,” he scowls, but she notices that he very visibly moves the syrup packets closer to him. Nya snatches at them before he can all but sweep them into his lap, and a muffled battle over the packets ensues, with Nya emerging victorious and Lloyd left with a mere two small packets.

Lloyd gives a miserable sigh.

“Here,” Pixal says, sliding the five — five?! — packets Nya had somehow missed over to Lloyd. “You can have mine.”

Lloyd lights up. “Thanks, Pixal!” he says.“You’re my favorite sister tonight,” he says, shrewdly glaring at Nya.

“Excuse me for not wanting you to go into cardiac arrest at the young age of thirteen,” Nya grumbles.

Lloyd turns pink. “I am not thirteen-!” he yelps — and immediately claps a hand over his mouth as his voice cracks. Nya bursts into snickers as Lloyd sinks back into the booth, pulling the neck of his sweatshirt up over his scarlet face.

Oh, Kai’s gonna be so mad if he gets back and Lloyd’s gotten over his awkward voice-crack stage without him, Nya thinks.

Pixal, however, isn’t snickering, or even smiling bemusedly like she normally does when she doesn’t get something at first. Instead, she’s staring at Lloyd with an odd look on her face, almost like surprise.

“Pix?” Nya asks, her laughter dying off. “Everything okay?”

Lloyd looks up as well, emerging from his sweatshirt a bit, rubbing at his bandaged wrist as he does.

Pixal shakes her head. “Yes, I just-“ she blinks, staring at Lloyd again. “You…you called me your sister.”

Lloyd turns a bit pink again. “Oh, uh, yeah,” he says, hesitantly. “Is that - was that okay? I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, or anything, I just-“

“No, no, that is not it!” Pixal says, hastily. “I just — I didn’t think you…saw me that way.”

Lloyd’s still pink, but he looks a little less hesitant as he shrugs. “Well, yeah, you’re family, right?” he says, in that innocent way he has, like it’s obvious.

Pixal blinks rapidly, but the start of a smile edges its way up her face. “Oh,” she says, looking down as if to blush. “Right.”

Nya feels a grin edge up her own mouth, watching the happy smile that plays across Pixal’s face as she sips at the tea, Lloyd digging in to the pancakes beside her, still sniffling occasionally but otherwise happy.

Fine, Nya decides. She’ll let him off the hook for this one.

*******

The next time they’re able to meet up is barely in passing, crammed into a tiny shop Pixal spots on the riverfront while on patrol one night. Between the three of them they’ve been hopelessly busy — Lloyd and Pixal have had their arms full looking out for Ninjago city lately, crime having picked up drastically. They keep talking about this new bike gang that’s been showing up, which is apparently giving them both a lot of trouble and a few killer headaches. Nya would offer to take a look into it, but she’s supposed to head out for the rural villages later this morning, and it doesn’t sound too concerning. Lloyd and Pixal assure her that it’s probably just a gang on a vicious streak, that’s all.

They can handle it, that’s the message Nya’s getting. She’ll take their word for it, for now.

The riverfront shop is right where the nicer quarter meets the rougher edge of town, and that’s illustrated in the shop’s decor, gold-trimmed wallpaper run with cracks, the dark wood tables nicked and dented with scratches and scrapes. It’s got a nice view of the river, though, and the tea’s pretty good, so they decide it gets a thumbs-up in their slowly growing list of places to get tea without being immediately recognized.

They get there in the early hours of the morning again — the sun is just peeking over the horizon by the time they start on their tea. Lloyd’s finishing up telling them about Jay and Cole’s last check-in, laughing as he recounts Jay’s reaction when he realized the monastery they’re checking out is on top of the mountain, not at the bottom.

“And how are Kai and Zane?” Pixal asks as he finishes, visibly hiding her interest.

“They’re good, too,” Lloyd says, brightly. Nya knows it’s because he got to talk on the phone with Kai last night — really talk with Kai the other night, which is always good for the both of them. “I think they’re hitting some of the southern villages, Zane was talking about wanting to double-check on some rumors there about crime and stuff.”

“That sounds like him,” Pixal says, fondly. “Thank you,” she tells him.

Lloyd nods, stifling a yawn as he does and rubbing at his eyes. The gesture makes him look younger, but not by much. He’s looking older every time she sees him, Nya thinks with a pang, baby fat almost entirely gone, his voice pitching deeper by the day. Lloyd doesn’t seem to think much of it, but it pulls at Nya’s heart — Lloyd’s been the family baby for so long (he always will be, regardless), and it’s hard to think that he’s actually capable of doing something like growing up. He’s been living on his own, too, so he’s more independent than Nya remembers him. What’s next? A girlfriend?

Nya wrinkles her nose. She can’t imagine Lloyd dating anyone (much less anyone deserving him, at that, but she’s a bit biased).

But Lloyd isn’t the only one to have changed. Pixal looks different too, her hair pulled into a new style today, glimmering little earrings flashing when she moves. She looks like she’s finding out who Pixal is, something Nya had suggested several cups of tea back, and there’s no bittersweet edge in her happiness as she notices that.

“And there’s still no news about your uncle?”

Nya blinks back to the present at Pixal’s question — it’s something she’s been wondering herself.

Lloyd shakes his head. ��Nothing,” he says, looking troubled. “I haven’t even heard from my mother yet.”

Nya twists her teacup in her hands, eyebrows furrowing. Misako doesn’t have…a great track record, but she’s at least been steady at letting Lloyd know how and where she is. The radio silence is probably concerning.

“Hey, I’ll keep an eye out for her while I’m traveling, okay?” Nya says, reaching out and briefly squeezing his hand. “I’ll let the guys know, too.”

“Thanks,” Lloyd says, with a weak smile. “Appreciate it.” He glances over at Pixal. “We’ve got the city in the meantime. We’ll make sure it doesn’t burn down while you’re gone, or something.”

“With Kai abroad, I think we’ll have even better chances,” Pixal says with a hint of a smile, and Lloyd snorts.

Nya chews on her lip as she watches them. Lloyd doesn’t just look older, he’s quieter now, too, more subdued. It’s making her heart hurt — and weirdly, making her feel even more protective. Like she needs to stay here for a little longer, keep a closer eye on things, instead of setting out just yet.

Or maybe she’s just tired.

Nya watches him spoon sugar into his cup, and feels a slight flare of relief. At least he’s not totally grown-up.

She glances at her watch, and sighs. Lloyd notices the action, and his face falls a bit. “That time already?”

Nya nods, heart sinking. “I wish I could stay longer,” she says, regretfully. “I mean, there’s another bus I could take this evening, but-“

“Nah, you don’t wanna get stuck in rush hour traffic,” Lloyd says, with all the wisdom of someone who’s spent too much time on the Ninjago streets.

Pixal nods, looking serious. “They’ve closed a few roads for construction, too. You won’t get out for ages.”

“Alright, alright, I see how it is,” Nya grumbles, draining the rest of her tea. “I’ll get out of your hair and let you two get back to running the city already.”

They both burst into protests, and Nya laughs, half-heartedly swatting them away as they embrace her. She lets them hold on for a second longer than usual, though, and perhaps holds on a bit longer herself.

It won’t be that long, she tells herself. Things can’t change that much more any time soon, anyways.

********

It’s a while before they’re able to meet after that, to the point that they almost forget entirely about their late-night tea meet-ups. They spend a good deal of time with each other in the early days of the Resistance of course, plotting against Harumi and Garmadon and trying to piece themselves back together, but they’re far too heartsore for any real conversation, and it’s hard enough getting Lloyd to eat or drink anything during that time.

But they make it through — battered and bruised and slightly worse for wear, but they make it through alive and unbroken. So by the time they’ve made sure all the Sons of Garmadon have been rounded up, and the guys have talked themselves into what’s probably much-needed sleep (Nya hasn’t seen Kai with dark circles that bad in ages), their spirits have picked up enough that they don’t sit in completely depressed and despairing silence at the coffee shop they find that’s miraculously still open amidst the chaos.

They do, however, spend a good few minutes sitting around in utterly exhausted silence, slumped around the battered table.

Nya’s not entirely sure why they’re even here — they haven’t even changed from their Resistance clothes yet, much less slept or showered. And they need it. Nya’s uniform has tearing holes that stretch over her left shoulder and lower arm, and Lloyd’s green uniform is colored black in places where it’s been charred, sporting as many, if not more tears than hers is. Pixal’s armor is dented and dirty, and she’s got her own charred spots from when she crashed the mech into Garmadon.

It’s not like they were trying to escape the recently-returned guys, either — in fact, the only reason they’re not currently with them is because they’re all dead asleep at the moment.

Something, Nya supposes, none of their trio really want to do at the moment.

Lloyd finally stirs, giving a low moan as he stretches, wincing as his shoulder shifts and rubbing briefly at it. Pixal stares into her tea cup as if it holds the answers to the universe, her eyes glassy-looking. Nya herself is about two minutes from face-planting into unconsciousness in her own tea, so she clears her throat, wincing briefly as she speaks up.

“Anyone want food?”

“Mm,” Lloyd hums absently. Pixal shrugs.

Nya tries again. “I was thinkin’ noodles.”

Lloyd gives a loud, sudden snort of laughter, closing his eyes and rubbing his hands over them. “Anything. Anything other than noodles.”

Pixal looks up, less groggy as she smiles ruefully. “I think we’ve had enough of those to last us a lifetime,” she says.

“We’re probably indebted to Skylor for a lifetime,” Lloyd mutters into his hands.

“Nah, those were all on the house,” Nya says. “We can put it on Garmadon’s tab if we want, though.”

Nya wants to bite the words back as soon as they escape her mouth. Bringing up Garmadon is exactly what she’d reminded herself not to do, an error matched only by mentioning Harumi.

Lloyd just lowers his hands though, shaking his head wryly. “Maybe,” he says, quietly. Pixal trades a look with Nya as he goes quiet, and Nya is considering changing the subject to something drastically different when Lloyd speaks up again.

“I think he only eats souls of the innocent right now, though.”

Nya gives a loud snort as Pixal breaks into quiet giggles. Lloyd just grins, an exhausted, weary grin, but one of the more genuine ones Nya’s seen in the last month.

Nya cuts her laughter off just as she feels it turning hysterical, threatening to turn into tears, and Pixal’s dies off soon after. They fall back into silence, but it’s more companionable this time, less horribly tired.

“Thanks,” Lloyd suddenly whispers. Pixal looks up at him, but neither of them really need to ask what for.

“For everything,” he continues, after the beat of silence. “I owe you guys.”

“We only did what you do for us,” Nya says. “Besides, we gotta stick together, us three.”

“That’s what family does,” Pixal adds, and Lloyd gives her a smile that’s only slightly edged in pain.

Their conversation dwindles off again, leaving only the sounds of people crowding the streets outside, sirens and construction and large trucks moving by. The sounds of life are loud in comparison to the unnatural, terrified quiet of the last few weeks, but they blur into a comforting sort of white noise with the soft piano music of the shop. Nya feels her eyes drift shut, bone-deep exhaustion leaving her feeling almost weightless.

“Hey,” Lloyd suddenly says. “D’you think I can still get my car back?”

Nya blinks up at him, opening her mouth then closing it. Pixal frowns, tilting her head.

“Did you get a parking pass?” she says. “I heard they’re strict about that at Kryptarium.”

Lloyd’s the first to give in, bursting into infectious giggles, so terrible as the joke is Nya follows right after, her loud laughter joining Pixal’s. It’s laughter edged in exhausted hysteria and the suppressed emotions of the past weeks, and this time Nya does let a few tears fall, but-

It’s real laughter, the kind that reminds Nya that they’ve won, and that gives the shop a pretty high spot on their list from that alone.

The tea’s not half-bad, either.

#ninjago #lloyd garmadon #nya smith #pixal #my fic

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an-ephemeral-blog · 5 years ago

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What’s standing in the way of women’s soccer?

When chants of ‘equal pay!’ ring through soccer stadiums, men jump on Twitter to explain why, despite performing better internationally than the men’s team, women soccer players don’t deserve equal pay because they don’t earn as much revenue.

Over the past two months I’ve become a big NWSL fan. It’s very different from being an MLB fan, my only previous experience of passionate sports fandom. There are a lot of things I take for granted that a professional sports team has, which NWSL teams do not have. These things absolutely affect revenue, either directly, or by lowering the quality of play or the experience of watching games. Here’s a list.

1. NWSL stadiums are less accessible than MLS and other stadiums.

My local team, the Washington Spirit, plays at the Maryland SoccerPlex. To get to the Plex, if you don’t have a car, requires an hour-plus train ride to the end of the metro and then either a 25+ minute car ride or a 45+ bus ride. I have multiple friends who’ve expressed interested in going to a game but balked when they found out how long it would take to get there. Another friend had to cancel because she was working late and couldn’t finish by 5:30pm, which was the time she’d have to leave to make it to a 7:30pm game.

As a trial run, the Spirit are playing a game tomorrow at Audi Field, home field of the MLS team DC United. Audi Field is about 30 minutes away from downtown and is easily accessible via Metro. Correspondingly, the Spirit is on track to more than triple their season record at the Plex. They may even sell out Audi Field. Surely if they can sell out Audi Field, they deserve to play in it?

Which brings me to the next item on the list...

2. NWSL stadiums are smaller than MLS stadiums.

The Spirit’s plex sells out at around 5,500 tickets. For tomorrow’s Audi Field game, they’ve currently sold over 16,000 tickets.

Sky Blue’s regular park also holds about 5,000 fans. When they played a game last weekend at Red Bull Arena, aka the stadium of their local MLS team, they nearly doubled attendance at 9,000+ tickets sold.

I don’t know the breakdown for every team in the league. I do know that Orlando Pride, despite having access to a great stadium, tends to draw fewer fans do to their lower quality of play. (They’re second to last in the league.) On the other hand, the Portland Thorns already share a stadium with their MLS neighbor team, the Timbers, and also boast the biggest and loudest fanbase in the NWSL. Portland recently set a league record with 25,000+ tickets sold to a game.

Items #1 and #2 combine to make clear that to grow as a league, NWSL teams need to play in larger stadiums that are easier to access. (This doesn’t even take into account how stadium facilities might impact quality of play. Some NWSL teams don’t even have showers in their locker rooms!) Owners and league managers need to invest in securing these spaces for teams, even if they might not be profitable at first. The experience of Sky Blue and Spirit suggests that managers won’t have to wait to reap the benefits.

3. NWSL games are often scheduled simultaneously, decreasing viewership.

With only nine teams in the NWSL, there are four to six NWSL games each week. Given this small number, you’d think they’d all be on at different times, right?

Nope. Every week, there’s at least one pair of games scheduled against each other. Often there’s two. If you don’t have the ability to tape games, you’re forced to miss at least one game every week. As I have taken to tweeting despairingly at the NWSL each time this happens: whyyyyyyyy.

Schedule creation is complicated, and there are more factors that go into it than I know of. But one key element is when teams even have their field available. Most teams don’t own their own fields, and have to work within a restricted subset of dates and times. To the extent that this contributed to overlapping games, it’s yet another way that issues securing good stadiums get in the way of fans supporting their teams.

4. NWSL teams have a lower quality of commentating.

Complaining about the announcers/commentators on NWSL matches is a sport of its own. Announcers regularly mispronounce players’ names and sometimes misidentify them. They repeat facts and stories, and use the same turns of phrase over and over until you can’t help but twitch every time you hear them say “she sprays the ball out wide” or “the ball found it’s way to...” The last Spirit game I attended, I sat in front of a woman who, after Elise Kellond-Knight left with a pulled hamstring, briefly explained to her friends why women were more likely than men to have hamstring injuries. (It has something to do with women having more developed quad muscles, which puts the opposing muscles, the hamstrings, at greater risk. This also leads to increased ACL injuries among women.) This random stranger had more interesting commentary than any of the people I’d heard on TV. But why are these announcers so bad? The answer’s easy: NWSL announcers are barely paid. They make $300-$400 a game, with no travel or lodging expenses paid, which means unless you live in Fort Lauderdale where the announcing is recorded, you have to pay to announce. I don’t know how much MLS announcers make, but I bet it’s better than that.

5. NWSL teams have a lower quality of refereeing.

Oh boy. Okay. There have been some issues with NWSL refereeing lately. As national team star Ali Krieger put it:

We’re putting a good product out on the field and every year we’re getting better and the referees seem like they are not. So, I beg the NWSL — just the standard needs to be higher. It’s just unfortunate that you feel like the referee is ruining the game. They are taking the fun out of the game because they are not good enough.

How could we raise the standards of referees? Well, they could stop treating the NWSL like a training ground for MLS:

There are five tiers in the U.S. Soccer refereeing program. The top-level, called “FIFA,” is the highest tier. These referees can officiate in FIFA-sanctioned matches.

”The second tier is “P.R.O.” These referees can officiate MLS matches and are selected by the Professional Referee Organization.

The next tier down is called “National,” and these officials are certified by U.S. Soccer. These referees can officiate USL Championship and NWSL matches. And therein lies the problem.

The NWSL will never have officiating as good as the MLS as long as this remains US Soccer’s official policy. It doesn’t get any clearer than that.

6. NWSL games are not marketed as well as they could be.

I won’t pretend to understand marketing, but I know that it’s hard for people to go to games they don’t even know about:

[Portland Thorns defender Meghan Klingenberg ] couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed when she saw Fox discuss the U.S. Men’s National Team’s run at the CONCACAF Gold Cup during halftime of the Women’s World Cup final Sunday, rather than preview the upcoming games in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).

“I love Fox. I think they did a great job. They gave the Women’s World Cup the attention that it deserves, but I wish we mentioned the NWSL more. [...] We need that to be put into the consciousness of the general public. We need ESPN to talk about the NWSL year-round. We need beat reporters in every single city that has an NWSL team. We need investment in advertising and marketing, in ground support, in make sure that people know that there’s a freaking team in their area.” [source]

It seems that marketing is another area in which US Soccer is underinvesting in women:

[Soccer United Marketing, the commercial arm of Major League Soccer] handles deals for MLS and the U.S. Soccer Federation but not the NWSL, even though U.S. Soccer runs the NWSL. This fact has long been lamented by the women’s soccer community.

The NWSL marketing team needs the resources to at least let people know that their teams exist and their games are happening. But beyond that... the NWSL is full of charismatic stars, both current and potential. Let’s give them the spotlight.

7. NWSL salaries are, for all but the biggest stars, below average income.

No one goes into women’s soccer for the money, even if a few of the game’s biggest stars have managed to get some lucrative sponsorships. The league guarantees a minimum salary of $16,538, barely above the poverty line, and caps max salary at $46,200, a bit belong the mean American income.

Talented young women who are making decisions about where to go to college and what to do after college need to take this into account. If they have dependents, family members with health issues, or significant debt, they simply may not be able to afford to play soccer professionally.

This impacts the number of women available to play professionally as well as their ability to nurture their own talent by investing in themselves via special camps and training. For every Megan Rapinoe or Alex Morgan or Crystal Dunn who has made it to the NWSL there’s someone equally talented who stopped playing in high school or college because law school or medical school or learning to code seemed like a more financially viable career path.

In other words, for all the strides women’s soccer has made over the last twenty to thirty years, the NWSL still selecting from only a fraction of the potential talent pool.

I’ve been an NWSL fan for less than two months, so I’m surely missing other ways that women’s soccer has been under-invested in. But the seven issues outlined above should be enough to convince you there’s a problem.

Saying that people just don’t want to watch women’s soccer isn’t merely an oversimplification - it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The whole point of investment is you take a risk now to reap a payoff later. The NWSL needs US Soccer and the wider sports community to invest in them, and given time, everyone will benefit.

You know what keeps ringing in my ears? Research that shows that men are judged on their potential, while women are only judged on their performance. The NWSL has the potential to be a thriving league with the revenues and fan enthusiasm of the MLS. The question is whether women’s soccer will be given the support they need to deliver on that potential.

#soccer #nwsl

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chaniters · 6 years ago

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Fallen Hero AU Fanfic Ranger Adventures 2

Second part to the new AU fanfic. Herald and Argent investigate some murders with the aid of the LDPD. I’m so starved for new scenes of these two. Made up a lot of stuff for Argent’s backstory hope you people like it!

Los Diablos Confidential

Outskirts of Los Diablos. Noon.

"So, are you going first, or should I..."

Argent shrugged, ignoring him.

"But I'd really want to know.. are we going to do good cop or bad cop..."

She groaned just a bit.

"So what do you think ...?"

She stopped and turned to him.

"Shut! Up!. I have the same information as you! Also I have no clue yet! Why don't you save the questions until AFTER we talk to the police ?"

"Oh.. yes.. sorry. I'm just nervous." Herald smiled at her. It was a charming smile. Infuriating. She would probably had done better with any of those alcoholic, depressive, moody male detectives from one of those old noir flicks any time of the day as her partner. Or better yet one of those alcoholic, depressive, moody female detectives in the modern noir flicks.

But no. She had to get the pretty boy instead. Steel and Sidestep had to be busy in some stupid political circus they had no business being part of anyways. And Ortega had to go handle another theft by the Crumpler on the other side of town.

Who even was that clown...? The Crumpler... What kind of shit-for-brains villain leaves crumpled notes of their next plan at every scene?!

She took a few long breaths "Look... Just... try to listen and follow my lead ok?. That's how i learned anyways."

Herald nodded and followed in after her.

She just moved on. She should have definitely dragged Sidestep here with them . He wasn't fast enough to dodge her without his suit. She could have just taken him by the neck, then rattled him in front of the witnesses for a few minutes until the telepathy trick was done, and the case would be solved.

The crime scene had been cordoned by police already. A small, semi-abandoned park with a playground and a basketball court. Five corpses, covered.

"Anderson" she said in an almost undecipherable low growl as she noticed the black LDPD homicides detective in front of her.

She turned with a blank expression that turned into a smile just a little too quickly. "Ohh hi Angie! I'm So happy to see you. You don't call, you don't text.. i'm starting to think you've forgotten about your old girl... And you must be Herald ... You know Angie, you never introduced your boyfriend to me"

"Ex boyfriend" Herald clarified

"Oh oh... that's right she dumped you too! And on Tv as well! We should definitely have a chat someday" she approached and whispered in a more serious tone "I mean it"

"Right.. ehrm.. hi! I didn't know you two knew each other"

Argent wanted to face-palm... of course he didn't know...

"Oh, she didn't tell you about me ? you know, Argent and I had a bit of a thing together... dated for two years of my life if memory serves me well..."

"Waaait... are you the woman in the police video where the..." he stopped as Argent gave him the EYE.

"Ohh you know about me! I’m the very same one! I became famous thanks to your ex here. I broke up with her and she trashed the entire restaurant and I had to fend her off with my police baton. But you shouldn't look at the police footage... It's the cellphone videos that made me famous. Did wonders for my career. So I had to do desk-work for almost a year, while seeing posters of you and her on the highway on my way to work every day! Everyone loves you two, right? Anyways, she let me off easy. I saw the pictures of YOUR breakup... She got you good, so many bruises. Oh wait, you'r not going to get back together ?" She smiled letting the venom in her words float in the air.

"Ahh..." Herald was more or less speechless, as the verbal slashes from Lillian didn’t seem to end

"Enough!" Argent interjected. "If you have things to say to me, i’m right here!”

“I know you’r here, but i want him to know because you are a fucking menace Argent! A disaster waiting to happen!”

“Lilian.. just do your stupid job for a change and show us the scene"

"I think I prefer Andersen. Lilian is for people i trust. So. Come see the corpses already, “LADY” . " She said, uncovering the bodies without much warning

Herald took a step back. Argent almost did too. She had seen many corpses in her career, but this was something new.

Entire sections of them where missing, as if someone had drawn a circle and took from them whatever was inside. Perfect round cuts. Maybe a laser?

"What the hells is this?" Herald managed to word out.

"Oh i asked the same thing you know? We've identified this one... she pointed at one of the corpses ... as Terry Morales, aka "Little C-Bone" gang leader. And these other ones, are.. ehrm.. were his gang"

"What... " Argent studied the inexplicable wounds "What happened to them?"

"That's a good darn question. I'm dying to know myself."

"Is there video on those cameras?" Herald pointed at a small Coffee bar next to them.

"I hope so. My partner went there to get the recordings... also, he owes me coffee, that must be what's taking so long"

They waited for a few awkward minutes in silence, with Herald standing in between them, clearly wishing to be anywhere else.

Eventually, Lilian's partner came back with the footage.. and coffee.

"Thanks Robert." she said, taking the memory card and plugging it on her vehicles video display.

Robert shook Herald's hand then gave Argent a "You touch my partner i kill you" look.

"Let's see what we've got in here...."

Lillian played the video in fast forward, stopping at the relevant parts.

1:36 AM A car stopped by the park.

1:49 AM A young white man approached the car. There was a brief conversation. The figure inside the car gave him a small bag trough the window.

1:55 AM The car left. The young man sat on a bench. He opened a bag and looked inside. He walked out of the frame for a moment.

2:03 AM The man returned, and sat on the bench again. He opened the bag and took something that looked like a some sort of small gun. He then rolled up his sleeve and shot it at his exposed arm.

2:09 AM The man started shaking as if having seizures, and fell down on the floor

He stayed there for 2 hours.

4:12 AM The man stood up awkwardly. He stumbled. Fell, and stood up again.

4:15 AM A group of five approached him. They pushed him and surrounded him. Started kicking him. On was trying to look in his pockets. Then ... black spheres appeared on the screen, increasing in size and floating in the air. They covered part of the assailants.

Footage showed one of them trying to pull his arm from inside one of the spheres, but he couldn't... Their victim stood up and was covered in a dark halo. Then the spheres disappeared... along with part of the muggers. Blood covered everything.The man seemed shocked. He just started running out of the image.

"So we've got ourselves a new miracle drug user" Anderson pondered. “Another Boost”

"That was just self defense" Herald pointed out

"Yeah. But he still killed five people. And there's no telling if he can even control those ... things... he created. We need to find him. Fast." Argent pointed out.

"I'll run the plate numbers..." Lillian rewinded the footage to the moment the car stopped. She entered the number in an app. "Here.. got it. Registered to one Adrien Courtis"

"See if we can get an address.. . hm.. wait do you have the syringe?"

"Yes. On both accounts.. It's not a syringe.. It's actually one of those.. what did you call it Robert?"

"Jet Injector" Robert answered. "I don't know who uses them nowadays."

"Can I see it?"

"Here. Can you make anything of it?"

She examined it closely with her special sight "There's a serial number on the inside of this thing, and the manufacturer... can you run those?"

"Sure let's see.." Lillian entered the numbers.

"FarmaCore bought a few hundreds of these last year" It was easy to track down items bought by official companies. "This serial numbers matches their stocks"

"How about we split efforts?" Robert Suggested "Lady Argent and I can go to FarmaCore, Anderson and Herald can check this Adrien's home."

Lady Argent and Anderson didn’t disagree.

.............................

Late afternoon

"So.. huh.. you and Argent" He had been driving silently for a few minutes. He didn't really know how to handle this.

"Relax... I.. I’m sorry. I’ve got nothing againt you... That's the result of so much time thinking what would i tell her if i met her again. I'ts not about you. "

"Oh. Well she does sometimes draw the worst in people..."

"She does." Anderson sighed. "What's your story? How did you end up with her ?"

"I didn't... it was for the cameras actually"

"Oh." She seemed to ponder upon learning that "That makes sense. Didn't think you where her type the first place. I mean.. I thought guys in general were not her type."

"Heck if i know what her type is."

"Ha! True that..."

"IT's not like i'm one to ask. I don't have any luck anyways... all my crushes end up with someone else. Or beat me to a pulp."

"Yeah.. I read about Locust. Dating the Handyman now ?.. Isn't he too old for her?"

"You know... I never told this to anyone but.. the hero community is... just weird. They just change partners like it was socks... They even turn Supervillains and then fight their former flings. I hate it..."

"Sidestep and Charge you mean?"

"Yeah. That’s how how fucked it is from the inside"

"Well, I did taste it... and it burned."

“Tell me about it.”

Herald parked the car perfectly in a small lot, close to the apartment building. He wasn't really used to driving, but that didn't meant he was bad at it.

The super let them in the building, and they knocked at apartment’s door.

"LDPD, open up" Anderson announced, badge in hand.

There was no response.

"Hey look" Herald pointed at a window on the corridor. Someone running trough the fire escape.

"Dammit. Let's get him!"

Anderson went down the stairs, while Herald jumped, floating to ground level.

The man ran as fast as he could, but he didn't count on flying pursuit. Herald descended on him like a Hawk, pinning him onto the ground.

"Stay still!"

"No! Let me go! Let me...! They'll kill me!" the man struggled with all his strength.

"Stop it! We'r not going to kill you..." He stood up and started dragging him back to the patrol car.

“Look out!” Adrien screamed

Bit it was too late.

Something just hit him squarely on his chest, sending him flying backwards. He spun in the air, narrowly avoided crashing onto the ground, hovering, and turned back to see what attacked him.

"hAhahaHAa..." A massive figure was holding Adrien with huge clawed (hands?). It's face had something resembling a smile with teeth the size of fingers. "aaaArEee yOoUuu loooOokiiInG FoR thIIiiiIsss oOonEee? yYyooUu CAn haAaaveeE HiiIm" The voice was truly out of this world.

It closed it's claws with one movement, cutting trough flesh and bone alike.

Herald could only watch as the still screaming remains of Adrien touched the ground.

"What in the hells... ARE YOU??" He asked, astonished

The beast emmited a guttural howl, and charged at Herald. However, he was prepared, and evaded the claws, spinning once more, taking advantage of it's impulse, and sending it flying behind him. Still, the creature managed to stand up faster than he anticipated, and got hold of him , slamming him against the ground.

"Aaack!" The thing stood with all it's weight above his right arm, not letting him stand. It raised a claw to finish him off as he struggled...

BLAM!

THe gunshot hit the thing chest, and made it recoil, but it didn't fall. It just turned with a shriek, and charged in the direction of his new assailant.

Herald realized what was happening, and took flight once again. He intercepted the (Monster?) lifting it from the ground before it could get to Anderson, flying up, then down, driving it into a brick wall at full speed, with enough strength that he could hear cracks from it’s bones.

The wounded creature didn’t stop, however, and tried to slash him again, but he dodged and sent a fist onto it's face, knocking it backwards. He silently thanked Sidestep for the long hours of training.

Anderson stepped in and shot at it several times, until there were only clicks of the empty chamber.

The creature stumbled onto them, bleeding profusely. Then it fell, and stopped moving.

"Are you ok?" Anderson asked

"It's nothing i just... " And then he noticed the bleeding scratch marks at the sides of his chest, where the thing had grabbed him, tearing his nanosuit as if it was paper "Oh shit..."

"I'll call backup.. in the meantime.. let's take you to a hospital"

.................

Meanwhile...

"Wherever did you find this?!" The scientist was besides himself. "It shouldn't be out of this facility!"

"So it DID come from here?" Robert confirmed.

"Yes... YES. It's... it's experimental" Dr. Patton spoke, minding his words as Ellison glared at him.

"Enough mystery. What's in it?" Argent asked.

"As you know, our company provides all manner of services. We provide what the public needs... and also carry classified research programs. We can't provide more information at this time." CEO Ellison explained.

"Could this act as a hero drug?" Argent frowned. "You could at least tell us that right?" She really had a short fuse for these types and she was at her best behaviour today.

Patton glanced at Ellison, who nodded after a few seconds.

"Yes.. it could.. lead to several.. powerful mutations. Yes, yes, it could be considered a hero drug."

"So you sell on the streets now?" Robert accused

"We would never..." Ellison started.

Argent's phone rang. Not a ringtone she had heard in a long time.

"Yes... Lillian?" She listened for a few seconds "What? Is he allright...? Crap. Oh... I see. I'll be there first sting after I finish here... " She turned to Ellison. "Do you know an Adrien Courtis?"

"Can't say I do" Ellison stated blankly.

"He had a security pass for your facilities on him. I mean on his remains. He's just been murdered by some manner of super-powered creature after him. Tore him to pieces. Then it almost killed our partners. You wouldn't know anything about that either, right?."

Ellison sighed and typed a few things on his computer.

"Ahh.. here. Adrien Courtis" He turned the screen to them, showing his file as a low level employee.

"What can you tell me about this Dr. Patton?"

"Oh.. he's on the project.. He must have stolen the injector!"

"I see. Mystery solved then" Ellison turned off his computer. "A rogue employee stole experimental drugs from us, sold it, then got killed, most likely by the Cartel for selling on their turf... Tragic.. but developing these technologies always comes with great risks"

"You honestly expect us to believe there's nothing more going on? Tell us what's in the fucking injector" Argent exploded walking right to his face, this time showing her claws.

"I hope you come with a court order tomorrow morning if you'r so keen on knowing. Also, you'll speak to my lawyers from now on. This meeting is over. Get out before i call security." he spoke with a smile right to her face.

She didn't move for a few seconds, until Robert put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back gently.

She finally walked out with him.

"He knows much more i bet" Robert said as he lighted a smoke while they walked to the car.

"Let's get to the fucking hospital. If something happens to them i swear I'll strike that smug grin off his face and kill him"

“What about the new boost?”

“I’ll call Steel. We still need to find him...”

____________________________

My Fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

#fallen hero: rebirth #alternate universe #lady argent #herald #fanfiction #Fallen hero

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scripttorture · 7 years ago

Text

Effective investigation: strategies that actually work

In modern popular culture torture is consistently linked to interrogation: to getting information from a prisoner.

Now I’ve written several times why this trope is not only wrong but also harmful and is used in the real world to justify torture. O’Mara and Rejali also cover this in depth over several hundred pages for anyone who wants more information.

I often get asked for realistic alternatives: what does actually work? How can characters, bad or good, actually go about gaining information in a realistic way?

This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list, and I feel I should state that I have no practical experience of interrogation. Hopefully though it can serve as a starting point that will help you think about how characters come by information in your stories.

The first important point is that interrogation generally isn’t very effective.

Very little useful information comes from interrogation of suspects when compared to all the other sources of information police and intelligence agencies draw on.

There are a several reasons interrogation isn’t hugely useful including:

· Human memory isn’t that good. Even well meaning people who want to help forget important details.

· People are much better at lying than detecting lies. Even people who describe themselves as good at detecting when someone is lying do a very poor job.

· Memories are easily modified in stressful situations. Even someone who isn’t trying to can plant suggestions leading to false memories, directing the interrogation in a particular direction without even realising it.

Some useful information does come from interrogation (and I’ll come back to how to handle it in a moment) but, realistically the following are more important sources of information in any investigation:

Physical forensic evidence

This doesn’t just mean things like hair samples and DNA. Computer records, credit card bills, surveillance camera footage, library records and letters can tell you an awful lot about a person. Reading a character’s emails or letters and keeping track of their bills can reveal a lot of plot relevant information such as whether two characters are in contact or why a character might be desperate for money.

Gathering this sort of information takes a lot of time and hard work. It’s not as simple as collecting evidence, such as a piece of hair or a computer hard drive, the information has to be analysed and interpreted correctly.

The hair could be DNA tested and cross referenced with a database or simply identified as human and of a particular type and colour. (Identifying it as human is important, I know at least one forensic tech who was handed cow hair and told it was definitely from a suspect)

The computer hard drive would need to be poured over file by file. It’s not quite enough to suppose character A could access character B’s emails, A has to have the time and inclination to read the damn things.

An important point to consider is how dedicated your characters are. Careful collection and examination of evidence is probably the best way of finding something out. But it requires patience, hard work and a lot of time.

There’s a reason police work is a full time job and there’s a reason a lot of people in professions like policing might think torture is easier. Gathering and analysing evidence is hard.

It’s worth considering whether your character has the resources and inclination to go down this route before you decide to use it.

Observation

This is the stake-out scene from every police movie and tv show. It’s having one character physically following and watching another character for as long as humanly possible, recording everywhere they go and everything they do.

It means finding out where a character lives, watching them at work, noting where they eat lunch and who with. Finding out where they go in their free time and how often. When they go to bed. Who they visit. How long they do it for. The minute detail of everything someone does in their day recorded for a period of weeks or months to build up a picture of the person.

If that sounds creepy that’s because it is.

This is a very time consuming strategy. It requires a lot of focus and patience and dedication or the ability to hire someone who has those qualities. It’s simpler than systematically gathering physical evidence and it’s easier to do discretely.

Informants

This is probably the simplest major method of gathering information. It can be as complicated as the Soviet Union network of paid informants or as straight-forward as people coming forward and volunteering information.

This is incredibly important to police investigations. Information from voluntary informants led to the capture of the London tube bombers in 2005. The suspects were identified by their family and neighbours who went to the police.

This sort of informal reporting doesn’t just occur in police contexts. From a writing perspective the way I tend to think about it is in terms of crossing societal lines.

Every culture and subculture has ideas about what is and what is not acceptable. Every group has an idea of what’s ‘going too far’.

You might be writing a story set around a violent, criminal subculture where theft and murder of other adults are the norm. But the same characters who wouldn’t dream of reporting an enemy for killing another adult might feel differently about the murder of a child.

A religious character might excuse their priest’s affairs, but report anything they’d see as desecration or blasphemy.

A scientist might ignore a colleague harassing their lab assistants but report data fraud.

Think about what matters to the characters and you’ll be able to tell when they’d freely volunteer information.

If you can’t think of anything emotional that would cause them to inform remember that your characters could pay informants. And then consider how many people who really need some cash might be in a position to watch or steal from other characters.

Cleaners, drivers, people who deliver supplies- anyone who would be on a low wage, have regular contact with the character but only a superficial relationship could be a very valuable informant.

Interrogation

At the time of writing there is really not enough systematic research on effective interrogation. As a result I’m going to try and concentrate on things we’re reasonably sure help rather than getting bogged down in academic discussions about what might be useful. Those discussions are interesting but not much help to writers.

1) The first important point is that interrogation takes time.

If a character is volunteering information that probably won’t take as long but somewhere in the region of 3-6 hours would still be reasonable. A witness to a crime or victim would probably need time and reassurance in order to tell the authorities what they know to the best of their ability.

Someone who isn’t really willing to talk (for whatever reason) will need much longer. A day is actually unusually short. Weeks or even up to a month is not unreasonable. Timeframes are going to vary depending on the characters and the situation the plot has put them in but I think it’s important to remember that interrogation isn’t quick and it isn’t simple.

2) Interrogators and characters being interrogated should speak a common language.

It sounds simple and obvious but if the characters can’t communicate effectively interrogation is almost certainly going to fail.

Using translators does not seem to be as effective as using people who speak the language but there haven’t been systematic studies of speakers vs interpreters as far as I know.

3) Good record keeping is essential for effective interrogation.

That’s straightforward in a modern setting with recording equipment but less so in a historical one.

Having a record of everything the suspect character says when interviewed means that everything they say can be analysed by multiple people, can be cross checked against what they said previously and can be stored in a legible format in case it’s needed later.

Checking what a suspect character said today against what they said yesterday or even last week helps investigators to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Lies are difficult to keep consistent, especially over longer periods of time. Inconsistencies can be helpful and consistencies can help highlight areas investigators should look into in greater depth.

Having multiple people able to analyse information also helps hugely, each individual brings their own specialist knowledge to the investigation. Which can be as simple as recognising a local’s nickname (and so correctly identifying them later) or as complex as analysing how a suspect claims they made a bomb and recognising that that process wouldn’t work.

4) Even someone who genuinely wants to help will forget details and get things wrong.

That isn’t unusual and it certainly isn’t a sign that the character is unwilling or being deliberately unhelpful. In fact a story that sounds too detailed and too precise might well be a sign of a pre-scripted and pre-rehearsed lie.

5) Very very few people refuse to talk.

Whether they talk about anything helpful is of course another matter but the stereotype of a tough criminal sitting completely silently and staring down a cop is incredibly rare in reality.

A smart interrogator will try to get their suspect chatting in the hope that some useful information will come out.

Let’s say one of our characters is suspected of being part of a larger conspiracy of some kind. And he won’t chat about any of the ‘interesting’ material the cops have found in his house, but he’s happy to talk to the interrogator about the local football team.

The interrogator might notice that he seems to go to watch the local team regularly and that he goes with the same set of friends. Friends who might not be part of this conspiracy but might have heard something useful from the suspect.

A smart suspect will try to keep up a conversation peppered with misleading hints and misinformation.

6) Have the interrogating character establish a friendly rapport with their interviewee.

It is easier to talk to someone who comes across as friendly, interested in what you have to say and broadly sympathetic to your position.

It is much more difficult to talk to someone who shouts, screams and acts in an aggressive and confrontational manner.

The interrogator’s job is primarily to make it easy for the suspect to talk. Everything else follows from that.

A polite, engaging, sociable character who can keep calm under pressure would be a good pick. Someone who can be ‘friends’ with anybody.

Let me stress that this can be extremely difficult. We’re talking about a character who can walk into a room with the worst possible criminals and try to make friends with them; a character who is successful at doing so. Don’t be afraid to show the kind of toll that takes on the character.

7) Don’t let suspects talk to each other before hand.

I’ve discussed elsewhere why solitary confinement is harmful- keeping characters completely isolated might well impair their memory of events.

But allowing characters to talk to each other before their interrogated also affects memory both for characters who want to mislead interrogators and for characters who want to help.

Essentially we edit our memories all the time. Discussion of shared experiences with other people is a major trigger for natural alternation of memories.

Four witnesses of the same events who don’t talk to each other in advance will give four different but broadly similar accounts.

If the same witnesses talk to each other before they’re interviewed they might well all report the same inaccuracies.

8) Have interviewed characters tell their story backwards.

This is a pretty simple memory aid that makes it easier for interrogators to spot inconsistencies in a story. These inconsistencies don’t necessarily indicate a lie but they highlight areas a character might be unsure of or might have inaccurate memories of.

For instance if a character witnessed a car crash they might be instructed to start their account from the moment the ambulances arrived at the scene and work backwards from there until they reach the moments just before the crash.

This technique can also help remind characters of additional details as they tell the story.

9) There is no reliable way to tell if someone is lying by looking at them.

Even people who judge themselves as ‘good’ at detecting lies perform poorly in tests.

There are no reliable ‘tests’ for lying. There are no working lie detector tests and based on how complex an action lying is short of literally reading minds I don’t think it would be possible.

The only reliable way to tell if someone lied is to double check everything they said.

10) Body language is not a reliable indicator of a character’s guilt or innocence.

A lot of people still believe that it is and there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with your characters believing that- but I’d advise caution.

An interrogator character might recognise that a suspect character is nervous, but to instantly ‘know’ why they’d need to be psychic.

The vast majority of people who conduct interrogations in real life have little to no formal training. In the USA (2013) the average was between 8-15 hours of the full training program. Consider how many hours you’d spend on a year long full time education course and you’ll get an idea of how little training that is.

We are what fills in the gap.

People with almost no training look to our portrayals of tough, aggressive interrogators who ‘always’ get results and, consciously or not, those portrayals influence them.

The truth is interrogation isn’t a great way of getting information and interrogators are only human: they don’t have a supernatural insight into the suspect or crime.

But we tend to write them as if they do. Personally I think that’s part of the problem- We focus on interrogation because of its dramatic potential. That focus warps how both the public and people involved in investigations view interrogation. It places too much focus on a comparatively poor information gathering technique and leads to assumptions that interrogators are capable of more than they realistically are.

Trust, human interaction and treating other people as human is important. Anything that undermines that undermines interrogation.

Edit: Since I’m seeing some response in the comments from people who don’t quite see how bad portrayals of torture in fiction can affect real life, I’m linking back to this older Masterpost- Accurate Portrayals of Torture in Fiction are Important

Disclaimer

[Sources: Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation. Harvard University Press, S O’Mara

Torture and Democracy, Princeton, D Rejali

The work of E Alison and L Alison, discussed in this newspaper article and listed here on their University home page papers are behind a pay wall (one specific to interviewing terrorists can be found here).

New Scientist 2015, article on evidence based policing]

#tw torture #tw police brutality #interrogation #effective interrogation #effective inevstigation #Masterpost

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