#if everyone owned slaves why did you still find relevant to show a black man owned slaves first? 👀

[papirouge]

It's 2023 and people are unironically still thinking "the White man stopped slavery 🥺" is a flaming gotcha

[dalekofchaos]

JJ Abrams inability to understand Finn

Finn being the one Stormtrooper who could break away had a lot of potential. That potential died within minutes.

The death of Slip, one of his comrades that turned him... That made him torn apart, so he refused to kill the villagers... But then, he kills other stormtroopers without hesitating, without any remorse? I get they were on the run, but this is so tone deaf.

Then JJ Abrams made him the comic relief by drinking the space cow water and making bad jokes. You can argue that Rian did it worse, but JJ still made him the bumbling sidekick and even made him the janitor. All the while JJ PROMISED John he was the new star of Star Wars.

But Finn’s time as a Stormtrooper doesn’t really make sense when you think about it and his defection ultimately doesn’t matter. Let me explain.

Finn is not affected despite a life of conditioning and indoctrination. Finn is a character who was raised as a Stormtrooper, but there doesn’t feel like any indoctrination to begin with. Finn’s defection could’ve been a great story but it is never brought up again. What was life like in the First Order? But instead, his Stormtrooper past is never brought up again. When he throws away his armor on Jakku is when any exciting character development is thrown away, too. His past as a Stormtrooper is barely mentioned and is hardly relevant. For someone who’s kidnapped as a child, why does he act so "normal” when he escapes the First Order? People that escape cults and child soldiers have difficulty adjusting back into normal society. Why is he never affected by his supposed “indoctrination” why are there no signs of trauma or PTSD? Why doesn’t he hesitate to kill his FO brothers and sisters? It honestly feels like it didn’t have any impact on the story whatsoever.

Finn seeing Han Solo, Chewbacca and Leia has no effect on him. Finn was taken and raised by The First Order. He should be raised to hate Han, Luke Leia, Chewbacca and Lando. Hell, he doesn’t even know what Wookies are. He knows what Raftars are, but not Wookies? You’d think that growing up with Imperial Indoctrination, he’d be raised to believe that Wookies were their slave race, but no. He was indoctrinated as a child, so Finn should be taught from childhood to adulthood that Han, Luke and Leia are terrorists and war criminals who destroyed over 20 years of peace and would be taught that Luke, Han and Leia are responsible for genocide(you know that “I had friends on that death star” joke) so he is taught to hate them from birth and to kill them on sight. But he wasn't....he even says Han is a war hero....what kind of fucking indoctrination do you call this?

Has no problem killing his brothers and sisters. Seeing Slip die was the breaking point. He was so affected by his friend's murder that he swore he would never kill The First Order again. Finn is meant to show that Stormtroopers are human....only to show that they are back to being cannon fodder. The message they were trying to tell was dropped immediately. Finn defects because his Stormtrooper friend is killed. So what does he do? Kills more of his old Stormtrooper friends! Throughout the entire trilogy they don't acknowledge or care about that "Stormtroopers are human and could leave like Finn" they don't give the other child soldiers a chance to break free, everyone else is just disposable as Red Shirts.

Jakku is his first mission. Really? You expect me to believe a life time of serving The First Order and he only has his only mission that conveniently is the mission where he decides to defect?

Poe killing Slip is never brought up again. Just think, the very person he is saving is the very person who caused his break down on Jakku. Not once is it brought up. You'd think Hux or Phasma would've used it against Finn. Just imagine, Finn finds out and we have tension and animosity between Finn and Poe. It gives us the possibility of Finn going back or Finn forgiving Poe. None of that is presented. It's just never brought up again.

Finn and Kylo’s tension and animosity is never brought up again. After the massacre of Tuanul and Finn’s refusal to fire, Kylo stares at Finn. Then Kylo immediately knows that Finn was the one who helped Poe escape. Then Kylo screams traitor at Finn. Originally I thought this was because Finn was the awakening that Kylo and Snoke felt and my theory of the Knights Of Ren being Force Sensitive Stormtroopers, this is why Kylo saw his defection as a betrayal. But Finn and Kylo never share the same screen again. Really....the easiest thing they could’ve done was make the Force Bond be between Rey, Kylo and Finn. If you have to have a force bond. Make it between all three of them. Finn and Kylo are obvious foils. Finn was taken from his family against his will into the First Order and realized on his own that murder was wrong. Conversely, Kylo willingly ran from his family into the First Order and consciously uses murder to gain power. As Kylo kills his father, Finn becomes a Resistance hero. Their storylines and development are inversely proportional to each other- when Finn moves toward the light, Kylo falls further toward darkness. Finn is the humanity Kylo rejected when he chose to kill his father.  Kylo is the darkness Finn could have succumbed to but ran away from. So why not have them being connected by the force. Keep the dynamic with Rey and Kylo, but with a force connection established between Finn and Kylo, we could have Kylo wondering why Finn would desert The First Order, while Finn wonders why Kylo betrayed his family, the Jedi and joined The First Order. Kylo wanting Rey AND Finn to join him in bringing a New Order to the galaxy. They reject. But just imagine Rey, FInn and Ben  unite to end Palpatine. The Trinity in the Force. I just....they did nothing with Finn and Ben’s staredowns/animosity. Seeing the three main characters in this trilogy  first become enemies, then allies and finally friends who unite and bring down the Emperor would’ve been great. But no, instead we get nothing to resolve their differences.

A defecting Stormtrooper was ruined when we have him be revealed as the janitor. Instead of a battle hardened Stormtrooper who breaks free after realizing what he's doing is wrong, we get comedic relief: he drinks dirty water made for animals, and he acts funny. But what truly sealed away his fate was the moment he uttered the word “sanitation” We know most FO do Sanitation as jobs, but the way JJ wrote the movie made everyone think that’s all Finn did and only did it as a joke. There are some serious racial undertones with writing Finn as a janitor. People saying Johnson’s depiction of Finn was racist, but JJ was the one who ultimately decided that the one Stormtrooper with a face, who just happens to be black, was a Janitor.

His defection has no impact on the rest of the trilogy. As soon as we meet Jannah, I was like "holy shit, his defection finally inspires something???" and...it did not. His defection was taken from him. Finn refusing to kill for The First Order got copied on to a bunch of other Stormtroopers. Don’t get why we couldn’t at least have had Jannah mention they were inspired by Finn. Finn’s defection from the First Order ultimately meant nothing in the end and that is just depressing. Finn doesn’t even get to have what made his character great mean anything. There is no Stormtrooper Rebellion nor is Finn a symbol. Finn’s defection is forgettable….that’s the final insult degradation of Finn’s character

Bad enough he doesn't even come off as someone who's been indoctrinated for his whole life. He declares Han as a war hero, he doesn't know about Wookies(you think Imperial indoctrination wouldn't brainwash him into thinking Wookies are their slave race???) in fact none of the Rebel heroes are terrorists that destroyed 30 years of peace in Finn's eyes. Finn doesn't have any problem adjusting, he instantly acts normal upon defecting to the good guys. I thought it would've made for a good story to see Finn struggling with indoctrination(even attempting to shoot Han and Chewie) resisting with conditioning and programming and ultimately Finn overcomes it and chooses what's right. Instead "haha silly man drinks cow water, haha he falls down and Rey kicks his ass. Haha he knows about raftars but not wookies. Oh you better talk to Rey or woman will find out they always do. He wants to run away, isn't that funny? Haha he's not a battle hardened soldier, he's a janitor, isn't that funny?" Apparently comic relief and wanting to run away was more important to overcome than over a decade of indoctrination and conditioning.

It bothers me that the first time we see Finn is when he’s compassionately holding his fallen fellow trooper, but then TROS shows him mowing them down with Poe without even the tiniest flicker of hesitation or reluctance. And With Poe, the person who killed Finn’s squad mate. This is never brought up again or resolved.

“Like all of them I was taken from a family I’ll never know and trained to do one thing” But JJ wrote it that he can run through the halls of a FO ship blasting troopers the same as him without any hesitation, nice one JJ

Like I understand they had to fight their way through the ship to rescue Chewie, but they could have given Finn a tiny second or flicker of doubt and remorse and it would have instantly give a load of character depth and emotion. Hell show Finn running into Zeroes and they have a confrontation and Finn makes the same decision on Jakku. He lets Zeroes go and we see Zeroes leading a squad of Stormtroopers against The First/Final Order and they all throw their helmets to the ground and declare themselves for Finn the "Phasma Slayer"

Like everyone thinks that Finn was ruined by Rian Johnson, but at least he never had Finn mow down his fellow child soldiers. Hell, he was even pleading with the one Stormtrooper not to turn them in or kill them, DJ was the one going for his gun but Finn simply talked to him. In that one deleted scene. He showed more compassion for a fellow Stormtrooper in a Rian Johnson directed scene than he ever showed in both JJ Abrams movies. Yet JJ is the guy who “gets” Finn.

When I first learned about Finn and that he was a stormtrooper, I was excited. I really wanted a character with a different perspective/moral conflict like that in the movies. And I really wanted them to explore the PTSD and trauma of being indoctrinated your whole life as a child soldier. But they just wasted his potential.

It just comes off as

"Hi I'm Finn. I don't want to kill people, and my best friend was killed by The Resistance. So let me free that Resistance pilot and kill more people to escape with him." That's totally how character development works.

Finn’s defection ultimately means he’s good, his past doesn’t matter and it doesn’t affect him and we can’t see his slow process of fighting and resisting years of indoctrination and programming, his defection does not inspire Jannah, the millions to billions of potential people like Finn and Jannah do not matter and they are all expendable and canon fodder. The potential of the Stormtrooper Rebellion was wasted. JJ Abrams did not understand his own character and reduced him to a meme who just screams “REEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYY”

What Finn should have been.

Finn becoming a Jedi and leading a Stormtrooper Rebellion would’ve saved the Sequel Trilogy. I really wish Finn got to lead a full on Stormtrooper Rebellion in Episode IX. I think it was a perfect ending arc for him after where his character went in TFA and TLJ.  Sometimes a few pictures say it all...

A Finn who was able to resist Stormtrooper programming because he was force-sensitive and went on to become a Jedi himself and force the First Order to crumble from within by encouraging the other Troopers to rebel would have actually made for an original Star Wars plot that wasn't just a rehash of the OT.

To Explain how this Stormtrooper Rebellion could work, let’s go from the beginning.

In the TFA novelization, it’s stated that Hux ordered that  Finn's mutiny is to be hidden from the rest of the Stormtroopers out of concern that the potential mutiny within The First Order  and for others to start catching ideas like "independence" and "individuality. The vibe I get is Phasma would want it to be personal. Hux wanted it to be a quiet execution. And Kylo being the dramatic slut that he is, would want it to be a public spectacle. From this post it’s clear The First Order would prefer quiet executions to deal with traitors and deserters. Hux is all about control, of himself and others, while Ren is just an asshole who wants to destroy the things which make him upset. He wants to put the fear of the Force into people while Hux just doesn’t want them thinking anything other than the thoughts he put there.

Finn had to fight against one of his friends in his unit, FN-2199 or “Nines” as Finn called him. Nines was unaware of why he defected and I’m sure Phasma fed Nines lies, so Finn was forced to fight his own friend. How much do you wanna bet that Finn will be forced to fight the last member of his squad, Zeroes?

As for Finn’s time in the First Order, he was one of their best Stormtroopers and one of the elite. Highly valued by Phasma and Hux, yet his defection shocked them.

Phasma’s alternate death scene

I will never understand why this was deleted. Finn calls her out about her betrayal of lowering the shields and when this information is revealed, the Stormtroopers near her look suspicious and it looks as if they are going to turn on her. Phasma like the ultimate survivalist she is kills them with no hesitation. Finn cuts her hand off and blasts her into the abyss, giving Phasma a more deserving and better send off. Seriously, this is way better than their actual confrontation.  What I really like about this scene is its direct connection to The Force Awakens plot point and that it acknowledges Phasma's survivalist attitude which was introduced into her novel.

Now finally to the Rebellion itself. This all ties into it. Hux hiding it from those who needn’t know, Phasma’s killing everyone who dare believe her treachery, Kylo’s tyranny as the Supreme Leader and Palpatine’s return will all lead to Finn leading a Stormtrooper Rebellion. I think Finn will possibly use his force sensitivity and letting everyone in the FN corps feel what he felt when he could not bring himself to pull the trigger. What he felt when Starkiller Base committed genocide and what he felt when he stood his ground and fought Kylo Ren. This will inspire everyone to rebel, the first one to throw off his helmet will be Zeroes and everyone follows through. Humanizing Stormtroopers and having one become a hero is was a stroke of genius, but the way they did it in Episode 7 made it seem like Finn was the ONLY good Stormtrooper, which has to be an impossibility. If one Stormtrooper can suddenly switch sides, what's to say that others couldn't? TROS fucked up by not showing the fall of the First Order, I personally think that Finn should’ve convinced all (or most of) the Stormtroopers to turn against Pryde and Hux, leading to a cool final scene where the First Order is ultimately destroyed by their own henchmen. That would be cooler and more unique, I think, than fucking space horses, idiotic and incoherent Star Destroyers with Death Star lasers, another Resistance vs. First/Final Order space shootout, or Rey and her possible Jedi apprentice army taking them down. 

The children the First/Final Order abducted and trained against their own will finally taking back their narrative and fighting back against their oppressors. The First Order will be burned down from the inside, and I think that’s beautiful.

But as the Stormtrooper Rebellion happens, just imagine if Finn got to stand alongside Rey and Ben. Just imagine if all 3 were bonded by The Force. The 3 main characters of the trilogy. It began with Rey and Finn being at odds with Ben and it ends with Rey, Finn and Ben united against Palpatine and together they end the Sith and bring balance to the force. 

This was the best possible way you could’ve utilized Finn and JJ Abrams squandered it. He’s not a Jedi, just hinted at being force sensitive and we don’t even get an ending of Rey beginning to train Finn. Finn doesn’t lead a Stormtrooper Rebellion, he just takes a group of already deserters and leads them on space horses while running on the surface of a Star Destroyer(yes it’s just as stupid as it sounds) Finn is not a symbol to  the Stormtroopers, hell Finn doesn’t even inspire Jannah. Finn doesn’t save his fellow brothers and sisters, he kills them off like they’re canon fodder. Finn doesn’t get to be the catalyst in destroying the very people that took him away from his family or even free his brothers and sisters. Finn gets nothing, like at all. JJ Abrams failed Finn more than Rian Johnson ever failed Finn and JJ is the one that John Boyega and the fanboys thinks that “gets” Finn

[moviemunchies]

The Patriot is a weird movie that has somehow grown on me? I think it’s a good movie, but I don’t know if it’s a great movie, and it’s about as subtle as a brick to the face. I wouldn’t say it handles the subject matter very well, cutting a few corners to make the story work. 

So The Patriot tells the story of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), a South Carolina...farmer? Plantation owner? Whatevs. He’s a widower with several kids and a veteran of the French and Indian War, so despite the beginning of the American Revolution going on, and his oldest son Gabriel (Heath Ledger) joining the Continental Army, he advocates a peaceful solution to the conflict with Britain because he doesn’t want to be drawn into another war. But when a British dragoon leader Colonel Tavington (Jason Isaacs) shows up and shoots his son, Martin joins the war effort, and attacks the British in a brutal guerilla campaign leading a group of local militia.

If you’re from South Carolina, you’ve probably heard about this movie quite a lot, in part because it takes place and was filmed there, but especially because the protagonist is heavily based on American Revolutionary hero and militia leader Francis Marion (and some other South Carolinians from the time but they didn’t have a cool nickname so that’s the one we usually go with). It’s not precisely an accurate depiction of Francis Marion’s life by any means, other than he was a guerilla militia leader in the Revolution that hung out in the swamps. For starters, Benjamin Martin’s anti-slavery, which is not quite the attitude Francis Marion held towards the practice (but fellow SC native and Revolutionary hero John Laurens certainly did!); his plantation is staffed entirely by freedmen--a facet of the character that even Mel Gibson felt was a bit of a cop out, avoiding a chance to do a warts-and-all look at American history. Admittedly, this is a bit much to ask of the movie, I think. And Roland Emmerich, probably. 

Still, it’s a bit jarring to have a subplot about one of the militiaman, a black man, finding out that the Continental Army will free any slave that fights for the Revolution for a year when that’s not really a thing that happened at all. And Francis Marion wasn’t nearly as great of a guy as Benjamin Martin; although that may be exactly why there’s a fictional stand-in instead of the actual historical figure in the lead role.

There is often a conversation about the atrocities that the British (mostly Tavington, if we’re being real here) commit during the course of the film. Yes, he’s based off of the real British officer Tarleton, who is infamous in American history for being vicious and giving no quarter. And yes, atrocities happened. And to be clear, in-film, Cornwallis and other Redcoats call out Tavington on his brutality throughout the film, to the point that none of the Brits seem particularly torn up when he dies at the end. But burning a church full of people is a _Nazi war crime._ There’s no record of the British doing anything like that during the Revolution, and so people accuse this movie of demonizing the British. But while the British didn’t do this to American colonists, similar atrocities were committed against the Irish a hundred years before. So no, the British didn’t do this to _US_, but they did do it at some point. That probably doesn’t justify its use here in this movie, but I feel like it’s all important to keep in mind.

This all leads me to the idea of _The Patriot_ not as a history--it’s Hollywood, of course it’s not--but as a sort of mythologized version of the American Revolution. Maybe that’s a weird take, and that might make some people turn off from this movie, but for me it works. I guess that I haven’t been one of those “This movie’s inaccurate, so it SUX!” people for a long time.

The hero of our movie isn’t a man who wants to go to war--he does everything he can to try to avoid going to war, to convince his neighbors that war is not in their best interests, even though he believes in independence for the American colonies. It’s not until the war refuses to leave him alone, and begins to harm his family, that he fully commits to fighting the injustices he sees being perpetrated. Yeah, it’s kind of American _Braveheart_ but is that really a bad thing? As long as we know that’s what it is, I don’t think it is. If there were people out there who took this movie seriously, I don’t know that I’d be as lenient, but I have yet to meet someone whose opinion of history was seriously influenced by this film. Which is probably for the best.

I do understand though that the Plot kind of feels like it’s making the main character way too important to the war effort. It makes it seem as if Benjamin Martin is the only officer in the Continental Army who actually knows what he’s doing against the British. And while I like the character and his arc, I do think it’s a bit silly the way it frames the story in a way that would lead one to think that he’s fighting this war by himself. It’s not fantastic when a story dumbs down the rest of the Good Guys in order to make the Hero stand out--there are ways of accomplishing that without making everyone else incompetent.

And I’ll admit that the story’s structure is a bit… weird, I think. Sometimes Tavington just does terrible things, and I don’t know what this contributes other than adding angst. Towards the end of the movie, he gets information from some colonials before locking them in a church and burning it, but it’s not as if we see him do much with that information. It’s not really Plot Relevant. It just provides motivation for Gabriel to go after Tavington and shoot him with what should have been a fatal shot, and get killed, and give Ben MOAR ANGST. Of course it’s better to show the war as something that has casualties and consequences, but I felt that there were better ways to do it than this.

But this movie is telling an almost mythical epic story set in the American Revolution. Benjamin Martin isn’t a real person; he’s a legendary hero vaguely based off of a real hero. And in epics, seemingly pointless terrible things happen to the hero all the time to make his life suck. And like I said, this is a war movie (albeit, in an 18th century war), made before a lot of the discourse about Fridging came into public forums. Yeah, bad stuff happens, and it doesn’t always seem to make sense--that’s war. And the audience getting invested in the story, and being bothered by character deaths; well that’s kind of the point of character deaths in the first place, isn’t it?

Also it’s kind of an awesome historical action movie--I really like this period in history, because it’s a point where firearms have become commonplace, but haven’t yet become practical enough to completely replace melee weapons in battle. So we’ve got Benjamin Martin taking out Lobsterbacks with muskets, knives, and a tomahawk. It’s great, I love it. This is a huge part of why I love Assassin’s Creed III so much.

Maybe this movie isn’t that great, and I’m just projecting on it because of the lack of good American Revolution movies in the last twenty years…

I dunno. Decide for yourself. It’s a worthwhile watch. It’s got problems for sure, but I think it’s probably one of Roland Emmerich’s greatest films (maybe not a high bar), and a great film on its own merits. 

[Also you know Logan Lerman is in this movie? Yeah, Percy Jackson. He’s the youngest son in the family. And Adam Baldwin is a loyalist officer, which is so off from how he’s usually portrayed it’s weird.]

[silenthillmutual]

Danganronpa 1 & 2 characters as High School “recommended reading” books I actually read

Makoto Naegi

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee when i read it: 5th grade for fun, 10th grade for English class did i like it? well enough yeah content warnings: thematic & period-typical racism, ableism, and sexism about: Recounts a summer in which Scout and her brother, Jem, watch their lawyer father defend a black man accused of raping a white woman in the south while balancing raising them alone. Other stuff happens, but that’s the most important plot thread.

Sayaka Maizono

Medea by Euripides when i read it: i don’t remember, maybe 9th for drama, 12th for English? did i like it? yep! content warnings: child murder, infidelity, some pretty brutal other character deaths, sexism about: Medea, who has sacrificed everything to be with her husband - even committed treason - has been left by the man so he can move on to woo and wed a princess. And she loses her shit.

Leon Kuwata

The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn by Mark Twain when i read it: 11th grade did i like it? yeah! content warnings: thematic & period-typical racism (use of the n-word), domestic abuse, classism iirc? about: After his abusive dad comes back and demands money under the threat of death, Huck Finn runs away with a fugitive slave down the Mississippi River. Being Mark Twain, it’s a comedy, although Huck’s father is genuinely kind of frightening and his friendship with Jim is kind of heartwarming.

Chihiro Fujisaki

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley when i read it: 10th grade for fun, 12th grade & freshman year of college for class did i like it? I’ve got mixed feelings; i love the book, hate most peoples’ interpretations of it. content warnings: character death, incest (depending on the version of the novel you read), unethical doctors, neglectful parents about: Thinking he knows better than literally anyone else he’s ever met, Victor Frankenstein decides it’s his birthright to play god. He robs graves to build the perfect body, and then, once he’s successful, flips his shit and refuses to acknowledge any part he played in the creation, wrecking the lives of like everyone he knows.

Mondo Oowada

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton when i read it: like 6th or 7th grade, for fun did i like it? i loved it! content warnings: abuse, thematic classism, character death about: Honestly the most obvious choice to make for Mondo. Ponyboy Curits, a greaser, recounts the last few months of his life in which, after being repeatedly harassed and then nearly killed by gang of rich kids, his friend Johnny stabs one to death. In order to keep Johnny out of prison and Ponyboy out of a boys’ home, the two run away. Considering Ponyboy is also being raised by an older brother, this totally fits Mondo.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

King Lear by William Shakespeare when i read it: twice in college (discliamer: as an english major i had to taken an entire course on shakespeare, so he shows up a lot here between that and having done theatre) did i like it? no content warnings: a surprising amount of gore for a stage play, including a guy getting his eyes gouged out and someone getting beheaded iirc about: The king’s getting up in years, so he’s hoping he can drop the workload off onto his three daughters while remaining the figurehead. His youngest, Cordelia, who he loves best, refuses to kiss his ass by saying that he’ll still have power over her once she’s married, and this pisses him off so he disinherits her. Then her sisters, annoyed with their father and his favoritism, decide that with Cordelia out of the way they can now do basically whatever they want and determine to make his life hell. Since he named them Goneril and Regan, I don’t blame them.

Hifumi Yamada

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer when i read it: college, but i wanna say i read some of the stories in it for English classes in high school? did i like it? some of the stories i did yeah content warnings: varies from story to story, but i remember unsanitary, drunkenness, and infidelity about: The overarching “plot” as such is that a group of people are making a pilgrimage to Canterbury, and decide that to pass the time they will tell two stories each. Each story is told in-character, and whoever tells the best story has to...buy everybody dinner, or something? I don’t really recall. It’s a comedy, but it’s also unfinished because Chaucer bit off way more than he could chew.

Celes Ludenberg

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe when i read it: 11th grade did i like it? probably, i’m a fan of Poe content warnings: drunkenness, murder about: This one got memetic on tumblr for a while, but essentially this guy decides to get revenge on an old friend of his for some kind of sleight by getting him drunk during Carnival, leading him into the basement, and burying him alive. Poe isn’t one to go soft.

Sakura Oogami

“A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? no content warnings: objectification, something akin to torture about: A family finds an old man with wings lying face-down on the ground and decide to keep him like a pet. People see him and assume he is an animal, and the family decides to start charging admission like their own private sideshow, while onlookers abuse him. One of those extra depressing stories that makes you wonder why the hell you had to read it for class.

Mukuro Ikusaba

The Crucible by Arthur Miller when i read it: the first time, probably in 6th or 7th grade, and then several more times after that for a variety of other classes. it’s a theatre and English class staple.  did i like it? when taken in context, yes. but i’m also fucking sick of reading it. content warnings: infidelity, paranoia bait, period-typical racism & sexism (takes place during the Salem Witch Trials) about: The plot is a witch hunt, in which a girl who had an affair with a married man claims to have been taken over by the spirit of the devil and that all her friends and a variety of other townsfolk have too. It follows the trials as they try to determine who is and is not guilty, who will repent for their sins, and thematically is about puritanical hysteria. It’s about the Red Scare of the 50s, surveillance, the Hollywood Blacklist, propaganda, and tyrannical government. Naturally, teachers fail to provide any context for the play that actually makes it relevant or interesting. Compare to modern day callout/cancel culture. 

Kyouko Kirigiri

12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose when i read it: 10th grade (although i’d already seen the movie) did i like it? yes content warnings: thematic classism & xenophobia about: The jury of a case in which a teenager is accused of murder convene to determine their verdict. All but one man believe him to be guilty. The rest of the play covers his attempts to sway his other jurors into at least casting aside their prejudices to view the case impartially.

Byakuya Togami

The Federalist Papers when i read it: summer before 12th grade for AP Gov. yikes. did i like it? oh god no. i had to have my lawyer dad explain it to me. content warnings: legalese and it’s boring as fuck about: i mean it’s just a bunch of essays to promote ratifying the the constitution. I don’t even remember if we read all of them. that’s how bad my retention of the subject is.

Toko Fukawa

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? kind of? content warnings: bugs, emotional abuse, depression about: A man awakens one day to find he has transformed into a giant cockroach. It’s a metaphor for his depression and what a burden he feels like to his family. If you read anything about Kafka’s life, you’ll understand why he was depressed.

Aoi Asahina

Hamlet by William Shakespeare when i read it: i’ve forgotten when my first time was because i’ve had to read it so constantly. if i had to wager a guess, i’d say middle school, though i’ve read it for fun, for drama class, and for English class. did i like it? yes content warnings: character death, suicidal ideation, incest vibes (depending on your interpretation) about: Hamlet, not over the early death of his father, is enraged that his mother has married his uncle. He’s really bringing everyone else down about it, and then he starts to see his father’s ghost on top of it all. No one’s sure if he’s just mad with grief or if the ghost is for real, but he starts making life for everyone else difficult when he decides to try and expose his uncle as his father’s murderer.

Yasuhiro Hagakure

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller when i read it: 10th grade i think? did i like it? if i believed in book-burning, this would’ve been the first turned to ash in my trashcan content warnings: infidelity, mediocre white men with narcissism, suicide, not sure what else about: An aging father who thinks he was robbed of success by circumstances refuses to face facts that he is a loser by projecting his failures onto a son that now hates him and thinking real big of himself for a wash-out.

Junko Enoshima

Othello by William Shakespeare when i read it: college did i like it? it’s my favorite Shakepseare play, actually! content warnings: thematic racism/xenophobia/Islamophobia, domestic abuse, character death about: A tragedy centering around the planned downfall of Othello, Moor of Venice. He’s relatively well-respected for his heroics and generally being a pretty cool guy, but for whatever reason, Iago wants to see him suffer. And when I say “for whatever reason” - it’s because Iago never gives a consistent one, but at the end he admits the entire thing has been his orchestration and he’s had no issue exploiting peoples’ bigotry as a means to an end. One popular and pretty text-evident theory is that Iago is in love with Othello. But - causing a ruckus, bringing society to its knees, and torturing a man just for shits n giggles? Getting it all done by sheer power of charisma? That’s all Junko ever does.

Monokuma

1984 by George Orwell when i read it: 10th grade for fun, 12th grade for class did i like it? yes but i don’t recommend it. i like tedious shit. content warnings: paranoia bait, sexual themes, torture, probably other stuff i’m forgetting about: Classic dystopia lit in which the government controls the flow of information to the degree of creating its own language (”newspeak”) to explain the technology used to survey its citizens and distill history-changing propaganda. Especially relevant in an era of “fake news.” Where Big Brother Is Watching comes from. Extremely difficult to get into.

Hajime Hinata

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck  when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? yeah content warnings: ableism, implied domestic abuse, character death, animal death, era-typical sexism (1930s) about: Very desolate and depressing novella about the futility of the American Dream to “make something of yourself”. Two farmhands, Lennie and George, arrive at a California farm seeking employment. They just want to earn enough money to open up a farm of their own - a rabbit farm - and things are all downhill from there. Well-written and one of Steinbeck’s shorter works.

Twogami

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald when i read it: 11th grade did i like it? yes! i loved it. but in the way that you love sleazy tabloid rag stories. content warnings: infidelity, car accidents, character death about: Stupidly rich people in New York in the 1920s being fake as hell. It’s about excess and decadence and the idea of having a rags-to-riches story, and it’s very homoerotic.

Teruteru Hanamura

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? one of my top faves tbh content warnings: alcoholism & drug usage, thematic classism & racism (ie that’s the point), sexual themes, violence, non-graphic suicide (like literally the last sentence), character deaths about: You know how 1984 is a very pessimistic dystopia about government surveillance? Brave New World is like “what if everything was a utopia because of government interference?” It’s easier to get into than 1984. It’s about a man from the upper echelon of society discovering the dirty secret of how society is able to able to function the way it does, an outsider into his world to shake things up.

Mahiru Koizumi

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen when i read it: i dunno, summer between 9th and 10th grade maybe? did i like it? yes! i loved it. content warnings: there are a couple of guys who are sort of gross but there’s nothing that bad in it about: An upper-middle class family - more the mother than the father - trying to marry off the eldest of their five daughters. It’s largely character-driven and most of the plot focuses on Jane’s relationship with Bingley, Elizabeth’s relationship with Darcy, and the problems witch judging people based on first impressions.

Peko Pekoyama

Call of the Wild by Jack London when i read it: 9th grade did i like it? fuck no content warnings: graphic animal violence. if there’s other stuff i forgot because i fucking hated this book. about: I think it’s something like a dog getting lost in Alaska and has to learn to be a wolf in order to survive? It’s incredibly brutal and is one of those media where just reading it makes you feel cold. 

Hiyoko Saionji

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? not really content warnings: man i don’t know, but it’s by Tennessee Williams so there’s probably alcoholism, daddy issues, and homophobia about: An overbearing mother embarrasses her son and disabled daughter when an old school friend comes to visit...I’m not sure if there’s more of a plot to it than that. Like most Williams works, it’s largely character-driven.

Ibuki Mioda

If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino when i read it: college did i like it? this is one of those rare exceptions in books where i read it, because i remember having a visceral reaction to it, but i can not for the life of me remember a single damn thing about it other than how stupidly difficult it was to read.  content warnings: it’s metaficiton. about: You are the protagonist. I genuinely can’t explain anymore than that.

Mikan Tsumiki

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams when i read it: 9th grade did i like it? not really, but i’d be willing to reread it content warnings: domestic abuse, rape about: Unstable Blanche DuBois goes to visit her sister, Stella, and meets her appalling husband Stanley. All Tennessee Williams plays seem to have a theme of family tragedy in them, with this being probably the most bleak example. 

Nekomaru Nidai

The Odyssey by Homer when i read it: 9th grade, then again in college for a classics class did i like it? yeah content warnings: your usual classical Greek-variety nonsense, including character death, infidelity, and partying. about: Odysseus attempts to make his way back home after the Trojan War, and has a time of it. Having pissed off Poseidon he’s gotten off-course and gotten lost another ten years, and had a whole slew of other adventures trying to make it back home and save his wife from the harassment she’s been getting since his disappearance.

Gundham Tanaka

The Tempest by William Shakespeare when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? not especially content warnings: thematic colonialism & racism...not sure what else but it’s hard as fuck to read. try reading it out loud & acting along to it. about: I didn’t totally get it but there’s something about a wizard having been banished and now people are coming back to find him for some reason? the people who exiled him & his brother & daughter have crash-landed on his island and now he might get his revenge. Thanks, TVTropes! All I remember is discussing in one class about how The Tempest managed to predict the “finding” of America and how the English would treat the native peoples. It’s a “romance”, which in that day and age meant it was about magic. Influenced some science fiction works like Brave New World (the title of which comes from a line spoken by Miranda). I should probably reread it.

Nagito Komaeda

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger when i read it: 8th grade for fun did i like it? yeah content warnings: implied pedophilia. i’m sure there’s other stuff but i don’t remember it well enough. about: Perennial troublemaker Holden Caulfield is kicked out of boarding school, and takes a hell of a long time getting home from the place as he complains about his declining mental state, hypocrisy, and loss of innocence. It’s one of those books you either really love or really hate, and has been repeatedly challenged because Holden swears too much and might be bisexual.

Chiaki Nanami

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw when i read it: 12th grade, i think did i like it? yes content warnings: classism about: A linguistics professor makes a bet with a friend that he can take any lower-class citizen and teach them to speak formal English, well enough to pass them off as aristocracy to other rich people. It’s the plot upon which the musical My Fair Lady is based, although it was intended as a deconstruction of the kind of plot whose trope it now codifies.

Sonia Nevermind

“Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl when i read it: 10th grade did i like it? yeah! content warnings: infidelity, character death about: A guy comes home and tells his heavily pregnant wife that he’s been having an affair, and he’s leaving her. She doesn’t take it well. I won’t spoil the rest of it, as it’s a short story, but it’s fun to keep in mind that it’s be the same guy who wrote classics such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Kazuichi Souda

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare when i read it: 8th grade for a book report and then again in....i don’t know. i’ve had to read it a lot. did i like it? sure, it’s got some pretty great insults content warnings: men being douchebags including stalker-y behavior, and a woman falls in love with a man who has a donkey’s head (it doesn’t last) about: Hermia & Lysander are planning to run away to get married because Hermia’s father doesn’t approve of Lysander, and she’s trying to dodge the affections of Demetrius - the man to whom she has been betrothed, because he’s an ass who, among other things, slept with her friend Helena and then ditched her. Which Helena is still hung up on, even though he’s a gross creep. At the same time, a group of actors are trying to get together a play for an upcoming royal wedding, and the King of the Faeries is trying to win back his wife. This all connects because a faerie decides to fuck around.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier when i read it: college, for an independent study did i like it? yeah content warnings: graphic violence, i think some homophobia? about: Kids and staff at a private school take a candy sale way too damn seriously. There’s basically a mafia at the school and some sort of weird popularity contest and hazing going on. 

Akane Owari

“The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell when i read it: 9th grade did i like it? i guess so content warnings: human hunting about: A man finds himself shipwrecked on an island, and is then hunted for sport. No, really.

Monomi

East of Eden by John Steinbeck when i read it: technically i’m in the middle of it right now, but that counts, right? did i like it? so far, i guess i do, but it’s mainly i care character who comes up later. couldn’t give less of a shit about adam trask, full offense content warnings: period-typical sexism & racism (set around the turn of the 20th century and published in 1952), implied pedophilia (that gets incredibly glossed over), ableism about: A combination of heavy-handed religious allegory (Steinbeck really just can’t cool it with the Cain and Abel theme naming) and family tree history. Follows the Trask family through Adam’s childhood, tumultuous relationship with his brother, even worse relationship with his wife, and horrible parenting of his children. The end (which is what the film adaptation covers) is more centered on his son Cal Trask grappling with the idea that he might be evil because of his genetics, or something. I think that’s an argument you could make of Monomi, being related to Monokuma (or at least, how i’m sure she’d feel).

[ava-candide]

Here’s your problem. You are in charge of Poldark, one of the UK’s most successful TV series of the past five years. A huge hit in the US, the show made its leads, Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson, stars overnight. Last year’s fourth series was watched by 6m UK viewers at the height of a World Cup summer. (The final series of Game of Thrones, by comparison, reached just 3.39m viewers, and most soaps average 5m.) The series is based on 12 hugely popular books, of which you have adapted just seven. So there are five further novels to plunder. But...

“The first seven books are set in the 18th century and finish at the end of 1799,” explains the writer Debbie Horsfield, whose problem this actually is. “But then Winston Graham stopped writing — and when he came back for book eight, The Stranger from the Sea, he left an 11-year gap in the story and changed almost everything. We leave Ross in series four a frustrated MP. When we meet him in book eight, he’s basically a spy for the British government. Dwight [Enys, the doctor] is helping George III with his madness. Graham doesn’t really explain how any of this happened.”

None of this would matter if the latest TV adaptation of the books, like the 1975 version, simply gave up at the end of the first seven. There is, however, an informal agreement between cast and creative team that — if everyone is still around and available in 10 years — they will reunite to finish the final novels. “There’s nothing on paper, but everybody has said yes,” Horsfield says. “Why wouldn’t we?”

So she set about trying to fill in that 11-year gap for the fifth and perhaps final series, and turned, as the show has often done, to the ferociously radical politics of the time. There she found a real-life Ross Poldark in the shape of a radical war hero who had married one of his servants — Colonel Edward “Ned” Despard. (It’s tempting to say that desperate times call for Despard measures.)

“The parallels between him and Ross are quite astonishing,” Horsfield says. “They were both military men — Despard was a hero of the American Revolutionary War and his wife, Kitty, was originally a Jamaican servant in his kitchen. I asked Andrew Graham whether his father had based Ross on Ned, but he hadn’t heard of him. Despard’s history doesn’t end well, so it seemed that he could become the ‘There but for the grace of God’ figure for Ross.”

Vincent Regan, who knows how to buckle a swash, with roles in the BBC’s The Musketeers, Troy, 300 and Clash of the Titans, brings a rugged determination to the role. He roars his way through the first two episodes like a force of nature, and in this Horsfield has stayed true to the real-life Ned. After the American Revolutionary War, he was made superintendent of what became Belize, until he fell in love with Catherine (Kitty) and set out to give freed slaves the same rights as white settlers. This did not go down well in London — Despard was recalled and jailed. When he was released, he joined the London Corresponding Society, a radical organisation inspired by Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, and agitated for the end of slavery.

“Ross was clearly an abolitionist, and there has always been a political thread running through Graham’s books,” Horsfield notes. “Period dramas shouldn’t be clean, neat and tidy — they should matter as much as contemporary stories.” To illustrate this, she sketches out what seems at first an improbably modern storyline: Luke Norris’s character, Dwight, the troubled Royal Navy doctor, develops a form of PTSD treatment for the villainous George Warleggan, played with chilling power in this series as a man driven literally mad with grief at the loss of his wife, Elizabeth.

“Graham mentions in passing in book eight that Dwight went to France to study with a Dr Pinel,” Norris says. “He was a real historical figure who pioneered humane ways of dealing with mental health issues, at a time when we locked people in Bedlam, plunged them into icy water, whipped them, beat them, locked them in cages, sedated them and purged them to rid them of demons or animal spirits.”

“It made sense,” Horsfield adds. “By book eight, Dwight has become the go-to expert on mental health, being called in to consult over George III.”

We forget there was a strong possibility of an English revolution at that time. There were serious food shortages and measures to suppress any kind of dissent, including trade unions. “The beauty of the novels is that the dashing Byronic hero makes thrilling drama out of the dullest school history lessons,” Horsfield says. “Ross opposes the greed of bankers and wealthy industrialists, so it made sense for him to have served with Ned, and for Ross and Demelza to be caught up in the story of Ned and Kitty.”

The idea of a radical mixed-race couple cutting a swathe through London at that time is almost certain to incite adverse comment. In fact, there were black Londoners in Roman times, the first settled black community in the capital was in the Elizabethan era, and by the time Despard was recalled to England, about 2% of London’s population was black.

It’s also true that in the early 19th century, the British secret service was headed by William Wickham, a civil servant busy infiltrating radical groups such as the London Corresponding Society. By gradual steps, Horsfield leads Ross and Demelza through the first two years of the missing 11, gradually wrapping Ross in the plots and skulduggery of political espionage.

For Turner, the arrival of Poldark’s old commanding officer provided a couple of welcome changes. “It was nice that Ross finally had a friend,” he says with a grin. “I got on great with Vince — he was an English actor doing an Irish accent, and I’m an Irish actor doing an English accent, so we do good impressions of each other.

“And it felt like there was a lot more action in the series, with Debbie given free rein. There’s much more sword-fighting, that’s for sure. We’ve had pistols, riding and swimming in previous seasons, but you can’t beat fighting with real steel swords. You can’t fool around with them. You just have to commit and go for it, and hope everything will be fine.”

Turner famously does his own stunts, except in the scenes where Poldark gallops along the cliffs. “For insurance reasons,” he points out hastily. “But they put me on a horse on the first day of shooting, back when I was such a young and innocent man. I was pretty nervous, I was on a horse and Debbie says I was quite fierce...” He pauses. “But I think I was a little bit nicer than that.”

He will miss the show, he admits. “We had pretty much the same crew for the entire job, so it was like a proper family, and I’ll miss everyone a lot. You hope to keep in touch — you tend to with the actors, but not so much with the crew.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Turner found his final day of shooting very emotional. “It’s always been amazing working alongside Eleanor, we get on great, and the last day was just the two of us doing some bedroom scenes,” he recalls. “That was quite lovely, and it seemed to make sense that it was just the two of us. It was poignant to leave things there.”

Leave them there? What about the talk of reuniting in 10 years? “I wouldn’t rule it out,” he says, then tacks a little to the left. “I mean, I wouldn’t rule anything out. That’s for other people to decide. It depends if it’s something the audience wants to see.”

Horsfield can’t see why the audience would have changed by then. “When I started this adaptation, people were asking how I was going to make it relevant for now,” she says. “But you don’t need to update it, because the concerns of the time and the concerns of Winston Graham are still the concerns we have now.

“Things actually don’t change. We all want to find a sense of community and not be exploited. That Europe, surveillance, terrorism and immigration are still hot topics may be a shame, but it’s really no surprise.

“If we are to come back in 10 years, dealing with mental health and continental politics — I mean, you’d be crazy to say that they won’t be hot topics in 2030. Constant conflict around the same ideas may be depressing for me as a person, but as a drama writer, it makes my job a whole lot easier.”

[scripttorture]

So. I have this story where MC is a slaveborn, was bought by a powerful man at the age of 7. This man basically planned on training him as a soldier - in the long run - to use him for his State-sponsored PMC's dirtiest missions, the ones where there's high mortality risk and the actions must not be linked to the company, etc. Training is harsh and brutal, it's full of horror and humiliation and it does involve torture, because they are trying to make MC "resistant to pain and interrogation [1/6]

byenemies" (I know it doesn’t work that way, but these individualsare torturers themselves, they believe in these methods.) This beingsaid, in my story this man kind of succeeds in coercing andbrow-beating MC into compliance and deference (meaning that he’ll endup doing a host of shitty things for the PMC), he convinces MC he’snothing more than a property, a tool to be used in various ways forthe efficiency and safety of the city, and so on. BUT. What I’mtrying to do here is [2/6]presentingthis kind of mental process as a result of *abuse* (and pre-existingabuse also, i.e. being born in slavery), not *torture.* I mean, Iwant to make it clear that MC’s personality, identity and willpowerget gradually crushed because of his terribly young age (and the factthat every tie he had previously with family and friends getssevered, much like it happens to actual child soldiers) that makeshim prone to manipulation (not as in ‘brainwashing’ but as in'gaslighting and [3/6]weaponizationof guilt complexes and a lot of nasty stuff that actually mighthappen even in a more common scenario like domestic child abuse’),because he’s put in a do or die situation where he has no choice butfollow through with orders otherwise he dies, until he actuallystarts internalizing the whole situation and it slowly becomes dailyroutine. I guess that what I’m asking is: how does this sound to you?How can I write it effectively so that it’s blatantly clear thattorture/pain [4/6]arepart of MC’s ordeal but they’re not the reason he ends up obeying?Because I know that torture doesn’t change hearts and minds, I don’twanna paint that picture. It has to be more about surviving andadapting and believing in something because it feels there’s nofuture - and no past - beyond that. (I want to reassure you that Ihave already picked symptoms for MC and that during his time as thisman’s slave he’ll never stop trying to enact passive resistance, eventhough actively [5/6]hedoes what he’s told and he kind of believes he has no right to deemit bad and he deserves it etc. I mean, this is not going to be just astory about a broken victim who does nothing but be his Master’s toy– it’s going to be a story about finding awareness, finding thestrength to fight back and break free and oppose to this wholesystem. It just starts, and for a very large swathe stays, in a worseplace.) [6/6]

Hi.I’m the anon who sent that 7-part ask about the enslaved boy boughtby a PMC. I re-read my words and I realized there was room formisunderstandings: when I said “who planned on using him aschild soldier” what I actually meant was “he started totrain MC very harshly since he was 7 and MC did take somewhat distantpart in military actions during his childhood as part of a'observe&learn’ process, but he wasn’t scheduled for active dutyon his own until he was a teenager. Just to be clearer!

Thank you for the clarification but just to be 100% clear that is being a child soldier according to the legal definition.

 Child soldiers are not always used for front line active combat. Sometimes they’re used as messengers, cooking or cleaning staff, to transport equipment or a variety of other things that aren’t active combat. But all of these count. Whether a child used by an army fights or not they are a child soldier.

 For the purposes of story telling it is a useful distinction to make. I understand exactly why you’ve made it. But keeping the legal definition in mind helps because it broadens the scope of sources you can use.

 If you were ruling out accounts by child soldiers age 7 before, on the grounds that they were probably fighting- You’ve now got a whole new host of things that apply.

 I put together a list of books and other sources on child soldiers in this post here. You might find them useful.

 You might also get something from Kara’s books on modern slavery. I’d suggest Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective as the most relevant simply because it covers a broader range then his other two books.

 You’ve given me a really helpful level of detail here and before I go any further I wanted to thank you for that.

 It’s clear that you know you’ve picked a difficult plot. But everything you’ve describe sounds possible to me.

 I think a lot of the difficulty with these plots is wrapped up in that: ‘possible’. There’s a strong tendency for authors to treat these extreme scenarios as black and white.

 They ‘heroically’ resist (to the point they’re unaffected) or they’re ‘broken’ and become a passive object. Too often we write about these scenarios as if they can produce one definite, sure-fire outcome.

 The truth is messy. Compliance is part of that mess.

 Because it’s possible but it’s never certain. And it’s often narratively tempting to cut out the complexity, to make things nice and simple and easy to write. Which does everyone a disservice.

 I’ve read anecdotes from a few anti-slavery activists describing how some slavers hire fake aid workers/anti-slavery activists to try and make their victims too scared to seek help. And it does intimidate some victims, but some still try to escape and some still succeed.

 And you can show those different responses here.

 Your main character complies but in the kind of setting you’ve described he’s far from the only slave. And since the MC is in this situation for years he would meet others, he’d hear stories. You can establish that his response is not the only response by mentioning others as background details.

 Here are some possibilities.

Seeing other enslaved people physically resist or attempting escape.

Hearing rumours about successful escapes.

News stories or rumours about attacks on slavers.

Rumours about anti-slavery activists.

Fleeting contact with anti-slavery activists.

 Those probably all sound a bit obvious so let me put them in context with some summarised anecdotes.

 A lot of the women Kara interviewed as part of his work on modern slavery described seeing escape attempts. Most of these stories ended with the victim being caught by slavers, tortured and killed. This was often done in view of the enslaved women in an attempt to intimidate them.

 In most cases the enslaved women didn’t actually see the escape attempt itself and weren’t always aware how many other women were held. Which means that the slavers were creating a sort of pattern; the majority of escape attempts the women heard about ended in them watching the person who tried to escape die.

 When enslaved black people in the American south were fleeing north a lot of southern slavers responded with rumour campaigns. They told slaves that the people who successfully escaped were worse off.

 I haven’t read enough of those rumours to say if there was a pattern to them. But the ones I remember were addressed towards specific, undeniable escapes. They (completely falsely) said things like, the escapee was homeless, jobless and isolated. They described them starving and begging for food-

 This was all designed to discourage escape attempts by creating the impression escapees were worse off then slaves.

 One of the things that seems consistent about historical slavery in the Caribbean and Brazil is how goddamn paranoid white people were. There was a massive and pervasive fear of uprisings and also smaller scale violence such as poisonings.

 The impression I get is that slavers were so afraid of this and talked about it so often that it would have been impossible for slaves to be unaware of these fears. This might not have been helpful to anyone actually planning something but it can be used in a story to add to that background impression that other responses are possible.

 All of these are things that can be worked in with short scenes or a few sentences.

 Once you have that background of other possible responses you can start weaving them in with the reasons why this character isn’t acting in those ways.

 Personally I think that part is the harder task.

 I tend to emphasise that people in highly abusive situations are still making choices. I believe that is true. But these are not free choices.

 It’s a lot easier to falsely position something as a free choice (and hence attach blame) or falsely position the character as completely controlled (and hence defined by the abuser). I think a lot of well meaning authors fall into one trap or the other. Recognising it as you’ve done is essential. But- keeping that balance is always going to be hard.

 A lot of this will come down to execution and how the piece comes across to individual readers. Whenever that’s the case I recommend finding people to read over your stories and check that the scenes are working the way you want them to. I’ve found face to face writing groups very helpful. If that’s not an option for you then a good beta reader (or several) is the next best thing.

 But back to the question of writing coercion. Let me put in some examples of how that constrained thought process could be used for your story.

 The character’s seven at the beginning. Let’s say that he’s young the first time he sees an escape attempt. It’s well thought out and planned, it involves multiple people. He’s told he can’t come because he’s too small and too slow, he’ll slow everyone else down. But it’s exciting seeing this, for a moment he looks up to these people more then anyone else in the world-

 And then they get caught. And he sees them murdered or tortured for attempting to escape.

 He gets older. Life is horrible and hard. But he keeps hearing stories about how much worse it is if you get away.

 I’m not sure whether you’ve got a more urban or rural setting here but either way you can come up with horror stories about exposure, lack of food and lack of clean water.

 As an example of each- In the winter in some Russian cities someone who collapses at night can just end up covered in snow, frozen solid and not found until the spring (that’s an urban legend I’m unsure how true it is). In rural Europe ripe deadly nightshade berries look almost like blueberries and can be found in a lot of hedges. They taste sweet and the poison only kicks in hours later. In parts of South America fresh water pools can hold a brain eating amoeba, there’s no treatment or cure for it. The organism gradually eats you away.

 These sorts of stories mix in with the reality of being enslaved: the exhaustion, the hunger and the way that hunger and exhaustion can combine to produce intense apathy. When doing anything is difficult then actually acting on ways to escape can become too hard, too triggering, too risky.

 Someone new sneaks into the compound and tells stories about how they’re going to help people escape, who wants to come? And may be the MC wants to, he thinks about it. But fear can paralyse and he doesn’t know if he can trust this stranger.

 A few days later the stranger vanishes and everyone who said ‘yes’ to them is publicly punished. Not making the attempt starts to look like wisdom.

 Bring up the legitimate fears anyone trying to leave an abusive situation has when they’ve spent their life dependant on the abuser.

 How is he going to eat? Where is he going to stay? How will he ever get the money he needs to survive? What happens if he gets ill or injured, who would possibly want to take care of him? If he fails won’t it make things worse? If he succeeds won’t people come after him? What if he’s caught again? What if running away just puts him in the hands of another abuser? What happens to the people he’s grown up with if he escapes? Will they be punished in his place?

 Whenever people ask why victims ‘don’t just leave’ they ignore these questions. And they are real questions.

 Show that. Mix practical assessment of his chances with a paralysing stream of anxiety based around all the ways every single step of an escape could go wrong.

 Show how goddamn scary the unknown and lack of support (of everyone he’s ever known) can be.

 If you’re worried about readers interpreting this as due to pain or torture rather than deep, practical fears- Well this character is enslaved for a very long time. Much longer then the modern average (across types of slavery it’s around four and a half years, for debt bondage it’s a little over five). He’s not going to stay in one constant emotional state for that entire time.

 If you’re leaning in to depressive symptoms and the apathy things like starvation can cause then you can use torture and it’s aftermath to show a sudden, shocking surge of anger, aggression. You can show it sparking, however briefly, a will to rebel.

 Even without that symptom set I think you could use it in this way. You could have him actually acting a little and getting half way through escape preparations before bottling a couple of days later.

 Wrapping this up-

 It’s clear you’ve put a lot of thought into this story. You’ve read up at least a little on the subject matter. You’re concerned about doing it justice. That’s completely understandable.

 Don’t let your concern or the fear that you might do a bad job paralyse you.

 Write.

 You’ll make mistakes in the process. That’s OK. Writing is a learning process and the beautiful thing about it is that we can always go back and correct our mistakes.

 You’ve set yourself up for a long and difficult project. But it is achievable. Break it down. Tackle it a little at a time. Take breaks. Seek advice from other writers.

 You can do this.

 I hope that helps. :)

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[almond-assistant]

A very long rant and my opinions on neofeminism

Keep in mind that these are very opinionated, and I really don’t wanna fight with you. I’m only posting this so people know where I stand with this stuff, and so they know what kind of person I am.

Inequality: (the fake scenario here is metaphorical and also taken from a youtube video) Imagine there was a short person and a tall person, and there's a wall. In order to see over it, both people are given a stool of equal height to stand on. The tall person is still taller, and can see farther. Instead of giving the taller person a shorter stool, or a short person a taller stool, how about we give nobody a stool. Instead, give them equal materials to build their stool. Equal opportunity does not mean an equal outcome.

Wage Gap: That thing? It's non-existent; women are actually 'out-earning' men, according to literally every governmental source. And if the wage gap existed, it'd be illegal, considering women recieved equal rights in America in 1972.

Transphobia: Trans people are propped up and given all sorts of support in society! I remember at one point I considered myself transgender (I'm still queer-identifying fyi), and I was treated just as well, if not better, than most kids at my high school. And you know how you guys are so "supportive" of trans-men? Well, guess what. By not grouping him in with the cis men, you are therefore being transphobic by invalidating his identity, implying he is not like the cis man, as he would like to be seen as. Do you call a trans guy a rapist, like a cis man? No. Do you consider him sexist, like the cis man? Of course not! Even if he is, you wouldn't DARE accuse him of that! Right? Because he's an owo smol trans flower boy. By rubbing it in everybody's faces that you/someone you know is trans, you are therefore negating the fact that they'd like to be treated like a cisgendered person in the first place. Same goes for trans-women. FYI, I completely support real trans people!

Transtrenders: Super transphobic! If you want to be babied and called uwu smol then go join the adult baby community. You want to be queer? Just don't label yourself trans! Want attention? Go join a fucking talent show or something idk. Don't have dysphoria? What's the point in calling yourself the opposite gender? I don't get that. Wanna be a futa catgirl? I... I don't even know. Please stop that. Sexualizing trans/intersex people is transphobic. Trying to fit in? I get that. I did that. But please, please. don't rub it in everyone's faces. I actually DO have a bit of social dysphoria, but I used to make it a bigger deal than it should've been.

Patriarchy: I agree that patriarchy doesn't work. But, patriarchy is also basically gone, so I don't agree that it's this really big deal you guys make it out to be. On the other hand, matriarchy doesn't work well either. It takes both genders for lots of things to run smoothly. There are highly positioned women and men. That's what makes systems work, including reproduction and all that jazz. So basically, men are in fact needed. Stop treating them like shit. If you got rid of men, we'd go extinct. I know there's this thing with women's bone marrow or whatever, but that's not really relevant, and it isn't even guaranteed to work. By separating women from men, you are therefore being sexist, because equality doesn't have anything to do with gender. It's like if x=y, then y=x, y=y, and x=x. If x and y was female and male, or literally any gender, this would be the goal of feminism by definition. Without the belief that women are currently in a lesser position in society, neo-feminism falls flat. Speaking of which, you always focus on women, why aren't you including all of the other "genders"? Isn't that a bit sexist of you? Society is giving women everything they don't deserve. That's not equality. And yet you still think women are opressed.

Rape Culture: And before you rush to the comments with "You don't know what it's like to be sexually harassed!", I do, and that's why this topic ticks me off so much. Anyway, by labeling all men as rapists, you are therefore being sexist. And, even though you guys say men/boys can't be raped, they have been, and can be. Males are actually sexually exploited more than women. Furthermore, women can be rapists. Consent doesn't apply to just the woman. If a woman wants to have sex with a guy and he says no, yet she forces him to, it's still rape. Legal sexual interactions require both parties involved to give consent. I read a post on here that said something to the effect of, "If you don't have sex with a fat woman, you're raping her". That... boggles my mind.

Ableism: I have mental illnesses too, so this also pisses me off. I mean, I get that some people are wheelchair-bound or don't have the same mental abilities as a neurotypical person. I think it's great that we're helping to accomodate these people! But when you call everything that could even possibly leave out someone other than the neurotypicals ableist, it's frustrating. Literally anything could be ableist or classist. Eating pizza? No, this is ableist because some people have diabetes and can't eat certain things. Running gear? Ableist. Some people have to use wheelchairs, either because they were born paralyzed in the legs, or because they're too obese to move. Brain exercises? No, get that out of here. That's offensive to people with autism or the like, because their brains don't work like that, and it implies they're not good enough. therapy? Kill it with fire. You're saying we neurodivergents are not ok? It's like you don't care about people that want to get better. There's such thing as a target audience, so now let's see.. Pizza? Oh! That's for people who want a quick, cheap, and easy meal! Running gear? That's meant to interst people who enjoy being fit and maintaining their cardiovascular health. Wheelchair-bound folks have specialized exercises for keeping their muscles healthy. Running would not be as effective of a way for them to do that. Brain exercises? For people who want to keep their brain sharp and improve certain areas where they might have weaknesses. Again, people such as my brother (who has medium-high functioning autism) can have special exercises provided to them. But when companies manufacture products that leave out the neurotypical person, nobody thinks twice. So much for equality.

Fatphobia: I do agree that this one exists, although I've never experienced it myself, since I myself have problems gaining weight and keeping it on. I'm actually guilty of fatphobia, but hear me out. I don't mind if you're overweight, as long as others don't have to make special accomodations at no cost to the one being accomodated. If you're 500+ pounds and/or you need a wheelchair and two seats on a plane, I'm calling you out. There's no way you could be that fat without doing it to yourself or having a disability. I don't mind these things if you do have a disability, I understand you couldn't control it then. But if you're just sitting in your bed all day stuffing your face with cheese curls, you have no right to whine about fatphobia, as you could've easily prevented it. Mental disorders such as depression or anxiety that may lower your motivation so low that you don't care, I also get, since I've been in that situation plenty of times. Regardless though, I will not say you are beautiful. This is my personal opinion, and I know others may find obesity attractive, or even erotic (which is in itself fatphobic), but I do not. There are people who don't actually find it pretty, but still say it is. Please stop that. Speak your mind, yo. It's kinda sad that others shape your views, and if you don't agree entirely with the flock, you're not one of them, yknow? That's like... a cult or something.

Classism: I'm soft on this one, since I've been in and out of financial stability throughout my childhood and it sorta fucked me up. But again, calling everything classist is just not right. Songs about fancy cars and diamonds are praising the lush life, not making lower classes feel bad. If anything, those songs help them work harder to achieve their own dreams and have their own great life. But again, it's all about the target audience.

Racism: Racism was originally based off of fear and confusion. Other races had never seen a different skin color than their people's, and thought they were a different breed or species. The reason europeans and americans viewed africans as animals, is because they didn't know what else they could be. African society wasn't as developed, and the African people exhibited very primitive behaviors, as opposed to the educated caucasian. After a while, the african people taken to other lands as slaves, started to dislike that life and form their own opinions and values. The white people learned that the Africans were just humans of a different color, and eventually softened up a bit. But they couldn't abandon their ways of life, so the slaves slaved on, and the rich got richer. These values passed through generations, and eventually someone said, "Stop, these are people too, let's set em' free.". Though, yes, some families still teach their children to be racist, they don't imprison them anymore. Schools do a very good job of describing the treacheries of racism and slavery so it doesn't happen again. Most of my friends (and my boyfriend who I love so so much) are of color, in one way or another. Shit, I'm like, an eighth native american. I do consider myself white though, I'm Norwegian and Irish, for the most part. But I'll still honor my roots. Anyway, even modern racism is still based on fear. Islamophobia stems from terrorism, Black violence comes from stories of gangs and police shootings, and lots of other xenophobia stems from stereotypes. I'm completely against racism, trust me. But when you separate white from black and call white people scum, and call people of color 'strong, independent', and discard white people, it's kinda confusing. Racism applies to race, and caucasian is a race. Get it together.

Cisphobia: That exists. Cisgenderism/Heterosexuality are still identities, whether you want them to be or not.

Sexualities: Cool, You like people (Or you don't, if you're ace/aro). I know these sexualities were shunned before but most people are really accepting now! Just not the weird demonsexual things. Some people don't understand that too much. I sure don't.

Genders: Same as sexualities, don't get too crazy and people are cool w/ it.

Mogai and Neopronouns: Shit, get them out of here. You're making actual LGBT+ people look like a joke.

Anything I didn't mention that you'd like to hear my opinion on? Leave an ask! All interaction is welcome, though not all is wanted. Regardless, I'll try to be kind to you. I really have no reason to be rude to you if I don't know too much about you.

-Kevyn (almondassistant)

[nsschaintale]

LINE 7: GLAMOROUS TO THE CORE

UNDERTALE

LINEAR TEMPORAL

LINE 7: GLAMOROUS TO THE CORE

Hiro had started to explore the lobby of the hotel. Other than the bright floor and the statue, Hiro met a small pink and blue origami monster who says that MTT Resort is Hotland's biggest apartment building-turned-hotel. It prides itself in providing a good stay, whether someone stays there for a night or already lived there, even when it's passed through. The front desk is manned by a blue monster with a hand for a head, and he spotted three monsters loitering before an elevator. One is a worried green dragon on the phone telling someone that he might not get home, a white feline monster wearing red shoes on her front paws, glasses, black hair, and has a black briefcase by her, and a black one-eyed slime monster who's outraged at the situation. The elevator before them was apparently in use, but from the sound of the complaints from them, it was like this for a good while. Down the right hall are a set of four doors. One asked for Sea Tea, one asked for a Cinnamon Bun, one didn't specify anything, and one was locked from the inside. Hiro wasn't able to provide the items as he used most of them previously, so he moved on as a green janitor monster was mopping up his own dripping slime in vain. As he was about to head out the doors with the CORE sign above them, he heard a cough ring out from the shop on the right of the Core entrance. There's a sign that showed a burger next to the letters MTT above the double doors. He walked inside to see a standard burger shop with the only employee smoking behind the counter. The employee was an orange cat person wearing a red and yellow uniform with a paper hat of the same colors, and the name tag showing “Burgerpants” on it. He was leaning on the counter, smoking his cigarette and looking bored as usual. On the menu, there was a Starfait, a Glamburger, a Legendary Hero, and a Steak Shaped Like Mettaton's Face (yes, that's what it's called). Hiro only had enough for 3 Starfaits, so he bought those, getting inwardly startled by Burgerpants's “joyful” reaction.

Burgerpants (has a pained smile): Thanksy! Have a FABU-FUL day!!!

Hiro decided to try and ask about the hotel, but ended up getting various pieces of advice, from not ending up like him to never interacting with attractive people. Case in point: the two girls who asked him to sneak some Glamburgers for them. He was caught by his boss on his way to meet them, leading him to drop the burgers and his pants, earning him the nickname. Burgerpants dreamed of working with Mettaton, but not in this manner. He wanted to be an actor, but ended up working at the restaurant. Even though he had some troubles with the robot, Hiro asked why Mettaton was bad, and Burgerpants called this place a labyrinth of bad choices. Even when the staff tries to change something to work better, Mettaton rejects the idea, citing that it's not how it worked on the surface. This confused Hiro as he knows the monsters hadn't been on the surface, so how would Mettaton know? Hiro certainly didn't know. He's just a kid. When the cat mentioned how humans were always eating hamburgers made of sequins and glue, Hiro felt disgusted at the thought. Burgerpants questioned how people find the robot attractive, when he's literally a rectangle. He did at one point buy a kit online that makes people more rectangular, but it didn't work. Hiro was curious about what Burgerpants would do if he was freed. The cat told him he was probably going to be stuck at this job forever, but the one thing that keeps him going is that if Asgore gets one more Soul, everyone can leave for the surface and he'll find a second chance for himself.

That worried Hiro.

He's still not sure of what to think of Asgore. After that enlightening conversation, Hiro was curious about the two chicks Burgerpants mentioned. He didn't go down the alley before when he met Sans, so he headed back out. There, he met two monsters; an alligator with blonde hair, pink eyes, and wearing a pink longsleeved top with blue and yellow stripes, and a purple cat with black hair that has blue tips, a gold earring on her left ear, and wearing blue overalls that have yellow fur lined on the straps. Their wares were interesting. Junk food, a gun, a cowboy hat, and a key. Again, Hiro only had enough for some stuff, so he only bought the junk food. When asked about Burgerpants, the girls called him a creep, even though Catty thought he was kind of cute. She didn't have any real standards. They thought he'd be okay if he treated them with respect. He seemed to blame them for the way he acts, especially when they asked him for the Glamburgers. Bratty was going to share them, but Catty wasn't planning to. Bratty and Catty were their names, and they're best friends for-EVER! Looking over the  items, Hiro had asked where they got their stuff.

Catty: We got them from the garbage!

(awkward pause)

Bratty: It's GOOD garbage.

Catty: It's like, really good garbage.

Hiro was not so sure about the junk food now. They apparently got their garbage from the garbage store, but mostly from Waterfall. Catty exclaimed that she found a gun in a dumpster. Hiro wondered if it belonged to anyone who came before him, which is possible since he did see some trash fall into the area. When he asked about Mettaton, the girls were crazy about him. They both claim that he's their robot husband, either being already married to him or planning to do so. He just doesn't know yet. Hiro wasn't sure if Mettaton is husband material considering the few run-ins he had with the robot, but the girls mentioned that they heard rumors about him being made by Dr. Alphys was his idea. Afterwards, he acted like she was an old friend. They weren't friends anymore, unlike these two. About Alphys, she used to live on their street and was like a big sister to them, if she takes you on trips to the dump. She showed them the coolest places and always collecting some weird cartoons. Then she became the Royal Scientist and they haven't seen her in forever. They mentioned Alphys had always thought Asgore was a super cutie, so they thought she made Mettaton to impress him. A robot with a Soul was something that was possibly relevant to his hobbies. Soon after, Asgore made her do the science stuff, but apart from Hiro, nobody's seen anything from her. She likely just stays in her lab all day. When asked about Asgore, Bratty called him a total goober and Catty says he's a big, fuzzy, goofball.

More descriptions of Asgore that confused Hiro.

They mentioned how he was nice and they love him. So much so, they're both hyped for the destruction of humanity. Disturbed, Hiro left them with that thought and mulled over what happened. The more Hiro hears about Asgore, the more he wonders why Toriel made him out to be so bad. It's clear that everyone but her loves him. Did the king do something to draw Toriel's hatred to him? He'll find out soon, he feels. For now, Hiro decided to talk to Burgerpants about  Bratty and Catty. Hiro told him the girls talked about him and that he should stop acting like they owed him, and if he wanted to be friends with them, he should see through their perspective. Burgerpants felt pity for Hiro, thinking he got brainwashed. Friendship was a hot person's way of making someone their slave, according to him. He then wanted to know what time they wanted to hang out. Hiro went back to ask them and Catty said he should go look for junk with them. Bratty was worried, but Catty thinks it'll be fun. She felt that that kind of person would want to hang out all the time once they join up. Catty wondered if she felt bad for him, and thought about how cool they are compared to him. They'd be saving his life with their friendship. Bratty was still unsure, but once Catty mentioned Glamburgers, Bratty asked if he was free after work. Hiro soon realized he's being a messenger between Burgerpants, Bratty, and Catty. He told Burgerpants that they want to hang out after work, and the cat got excited, thanking him and asking Hiro where they wanted to go.

Hiro: To the garbage dump.

Burgerpants eventually accepted it. After playing messenger for the trio, Hiro found that the relaxing atmosphere of the hotel filled him with determination. He looked past the front desk towards the doors with a flashing sign saying “CORE” above. With some resolve, Hiro pushed forward. Once he stepped out, he spotted two shadow figures heading into an opening ahead on the opposite end of the bridge. Before moving past the flanking bushes, his phone rings.

Hiro: Hello? I just saw two shadows ahead of me.

Alphys: Huh? Who are they? N-Nobody else is s-supposed to be here. Oh well! We can't worry about that now! (hangs up)

Hiro entered the area and it looked far more advanced than any other area he went through. The floor is mainly blue with some glowing circuitry lines in intricate designs in different areas. Two paths flanking the elevators led to a different exit, and before he picked one, his phone soon rang again.

Hiro: Alphys, I'm here.

Alphys: I see you! Ready? This is it! Take the elevator up to the top of the CORE!

Hiro (goes up to the elevator, but finds it's not working; answers his ringing phone): Ah, the elevator's not working.

Alphys: What?

Hiro: I'm pressing the buttons, but it's not opening.

Alphys: ….The elevator should be working... W-Well then! Go to the right and keep heading up!

Hiro: Okay! (follows her instructions, but ends up in a dark room with blazing fire below) Uhhh....

Alphys: Now just keep heading up!

Hiro: I can't! There's fire here!

Alphys: ... That pit...isn't on my map. Forget it! Let's try the left side!

Hiro left the room and went up the left path. He saw three red-tipped blue columns flanking the path.

Alphys: Okay, you should be able to make it through here!

Hiro: All right.

As he headed up, the two shadow figures he saw before quickly approached him.

Hiro: Ah!

Alphys: W-Watch out!

The area went grayscale and a battle ensued. Hiro soon faced against a magician type monster that popped out of its hat along with two floating spheres. Its hat covered its eyes, didn't look like it had arms as its coat bellowed and its boots floated underneath it. His options were Talk, Stare, and Clear Mind. Hiro decided to clear his mind and thought of pollen and sunshine. Hiro soon had to dodge flying crosses, but got hit once. The Madjick, as it was called, flaunted its orbs menacingly. Hiro then tried talking to it, but was interrupted as it chattered to itself. Hiro managed to dodge the orbs, then Madjick whispered arcane swear words at the boy. Hiro soon spared it, clearing the room of gray and answering his phone.

Alphys: Th-That was close... Wh...Why are there so many monsters here?

Hiro: Maybe they work here?

Alphys: Ah... I mean... It's no problem, r-r-right? W-w-we've just got to keep moving forward! (becomes silent then hangs up)

Hiro: …?

Hiro soon enter the next area and ahead of him is a barrier and a long glass-floored bridge lined with the laser nodes. Three sets of three light bulbs with three different colors are seen on the light-stripped wall before the switch. He noticed that he could see the various inner parts of the bridge as the lights flickered in various patterns and some spots have a sort of wear with some gray panels and purple insulation worn or broken off, exposing the wires underneath.

Hiro: It's that barrier... (answers his phone)

Alphys: Looks like you can't proceed until you hit the switch. B-But, those lasers will activate when you do. Um, looks like they'll come in this order. Orange, orange, blue. Got it, move until the third one!

Hiro: Okay. (hits the switch, then moves forward) Oran- (sees the colors being blue, blue, then orange) BLUE?! (gets hit by the blue laser, dodges the lasers that followed, stopped on the second blue one and dashing through the orange one) I.. (picks up the call) Alphys!?

Alphys: Oh my god... Are you hurt? I...I'm sorry, I.... I gave you the wrong order. (slight panic) E-Everything's fine, okay? Just keep going to the right.

Hiro: Okay... Is she all right...?

Hiro made his way through the corridor, spotting even more panels broken off and the triple set light bulbs on the wall, passing them by before he arrives at a T road with the bottom pointing north. Seeing the state of the area made Hiro think that the Core hasn't been fixed up for some time.

Alphys: A crossroads... (clicking and papers shifting are heard) Uuuh....uhhh.... Tr...Try heading to the right!

Hiro: Okay. (moves ahead; his phone rings) Hello?

Alphys: W-Wait! No, I think you should h-head up!

Hiro: Ah, I guess?

Hiro moves up into another area. He soon runs into a shadow figure again, and meets a monster called Knight Knight as the area went gray. She was a giant kneeling monster with a face that occupies most of its torso and is occasionally tapping her large mace on the ground. Checking his options, all Hiro could do is Talk and Sing to her. He remembered singing with Shyren, so he tried that, noticing the monster getting sleepy. The monster looked drowsy, but she managed to rain meteors and Hiro got hit by one. Hiro dodges them this time after singing again, lulling the monster into a deep sleep. Once she did, he took the chance to spare her.

Hiro (answers the call): I ran into more monsters...

Alphys: Sorry, I...I...I thought that... Let's try the right.

Hiro: Okay... (returns to the crossroad and heads to the right; sees a long corridor with the laser nodes moving their blue and orange lasers across the way) Ack, it's lasers again.

Alphys: M... More lasers... Okay, I...I won't mess around this time. I'll just deactivate the lasers and let you through. (clicking and tapping is heard, then stops)

Hiro: …..? Alphys?

Alphys: They're... They're not turning off... I can't turn them off, I....

Hiro (worried): What are we gonna do?

Alphys: I-I-It's okay! I have this under control! I'm going to turn off the p-power for that whole node. Then you can walk across. (turns power off in node) Okay, go!

Hiro: I'm moving now! (moves across)

Alphys: W-WAIT! STOP!

Hiro (sees the lights flickering and stops as the corridor gets filled with blue lasers; a blue laser appears and points at his side): Aaaah....Alphys...

Alphys: Th-The power... (heavy tapping is heard) It's turning itself back on. D-Damn it... Th-This isn't supposed to...

Hiro: I can't move...

Alphys: I...I'm gonna turn it off again. When it turns off, move a little then STOP. Okay? Y-You won't get h-h-hurt.

Hiro: All right.

It was an excruciating trek across the bridge as Hiro was guided by the lights to stop and move. He did take a chance to hang up as he needed to focus on the path ahead. Once he made it, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and answered Alphys's call.

Hiro: I made it!

Alphys (slightly more panicked): Yes! S-See? I've got everything under control. Everything's under control! (hangs up)

Hiro (stares at his phone before hanging up): Uh….? Hm. (leaves the area)

He makes it to a crossroads where a Save Star is waiting. The area was more lit up from the light below. Hiro look down to see flowing glowing liquid that he was unsure of what it was made of, so he moved on to the star, answering his phone as he approached it.

Hiro: Ah, I'm at another place with more roads. Where should I go next?

Alphys: Okay! Y-You should... (rustling sounds) You should.... I don't know? (rustling stops) This doesn't look like my map at all..

Hiro: Ah, uh... (looks around) Um, there's a star and four paths and-

Alphys: I'm sorry... I...I...I have to go.

Hiro: Alph- (gets hung up on; stares at his phone) …..I hope she's okay....

After pocketing his phone, he touched the star. He could smell something in the air. He's heard of the ozone layer in one of his classes, and this scent made him think of it for some reason. Either way, it filled him with determination. Two signs with green light lettering are seen on the wall flanking the northern path. The left sign shows “North, the warrior's path. West, the sage's path. Any path leads to The End.” The right one shows “East... The End.”

Hiro: Wow, that's easy! I'm gonna go this way!

Hiro departed down the eastern path. The path led through a large area of liquid and past several mechanical chrome pillars that have several red lights flashing on them. He soon came to another crossroads with two signs and an electrical barrier. These signs show “To the East! This is The End.” and “ I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through.”

Hiro: Hmn, I don't think I can wait. I'll go up more. (leaves, doesn't notice the barrier vanishing)

He kept going north to find a T-road, so he kept going to see what's up there. He found himself in a room with just a trash can inside. He decided to look inside and found 100G in it, digging it out and leaving. He went to the left this time, coming across a sign showing “Traverse the northern room, and The End will open.” Hiro was curious about the other end, so he went left to find another T-road and went north. Another room with a trash can present had a Glamburger in it. Hiro was unsure of it, but it's wrapped up, so he felt that it should be okay. Hiro went back to where he was and made his way on the long bridge, only to be ambushed by what looks like an armored Whimsun called a Whimsalot and a spikier Froggit with a small crown called a Final Froggit. The options for Whimsalot were Terrorize, Console, and Pray, and the ones for Final Froggit were Threaten, Compliment, and Mystify. Hiro decided to compliment the Froggit.

Hiro: I like your crown!

The Froggit understood him perfectly and lowered its ATTACK. Despite that, Hiro didn't do well in the fight, flailing around and getting hit by flies and butterflies. There was a strange smell lingering around that was like nightshade and bleach. Hiro turned to Whimsalot and used Console.

Hiro: Um....I think what you're doing is all right?

Whimsalot: Ah...I've made my peace.

Hiro got surrounded by butterflies and couldn't really dodge the flies, leaving his health at 1. He quickly ate a Starfait, healing himself back to 19. Against, he got surrounded and took hits. Afterwards, he noticed the Whimsalot locking eyes with his, so he prayed. This caused the monster to remember its conscience, leading it to not want to fight any longer. Hiro spared the monster and focused his attention to the frog. With only Final Froggit left, Hiro was able to dodge the flies easily. He saw a look on the monster's face like it knew why it's here. Hiro decided to try mystifying it and did something mysterious. Upon seeing this, Final Froggit recognized that it had more to learn from this world. Suddenly, a small white frog appeared, hitting Hiro at first, but he was able to avoid it. Hiro soon spared it and the battle ended. He noticed he was running out of items to use, so he went back to the hotel and Snowdin to buy more, dropping by Sans and Papyrus's place and seeing Undyne and the tall skeleton hanging out by the mailboxes. Hiro waved at them as he went back to return to the Core to continue onward. Again, he was ambushed by a Madjick, but also a Knight Knight. He knew what to do with them. Shocking to Hiro, he managed to dodge the spheres and crosses that appeared. He sung Shyren's song again until the knight fell asleep. While she slept, Hiro dodged Madjick's sphere, sparing Knight Knight in the process. This time, Hiro messed up and ran into the crosses. Hiro glared at both orbs, causing them to freeze, and thus giving him an opportunity to spare Madjick and leave the battle. Not a few more steps ahead, and he ran into Final Froggit, Whimsalot, and a new monster that similar to Loox called Astigmatism. Astigmatism's options were Don't Pick On, Pick On, and Challenge. Hiro didn't want to challenge nor pick on it. Hiro realized too late that he forgot to heal and died in the battle, surrounded by butterflies and running into a bubble stream. Hiro woke up at the Save Star and realized he had to fight Knight Knight and Madjick again.

Hiro: Agh....

This time, he was bombarded by meteors which threw him off from his last attempt. After sparing them, he went back and saved before facing the three monsters that he lost to. Hiro remembered Astigmatism saying to pick on it, so he did, sparing it afterwards. He did the same methods on the frog and bug monsters, but did horribly worse, dying again. It really was a nightmare. He even noticed the eye monster saying not too pick on it, and died again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Until finally, Hiro managed to beat them. Ahead of him was a switch on the wall. He figured it was for the exit and clicked it. After that, he went back to the star, saved, and moved on. He went down the path that mentioned the east being the end and followed it, leading to a bridge where he ran into an Astigmatism. He picked on and spared it with ease. Hiro reached an area where the elevator and an entrance similar to the one he went through before the first set of lasers is seen.

Hiro (saves then stands before the winged entrance): This gotta be the way to get to the castle. (nods) Right, I'm getting determined!

Once he went through, he was confronted by none other than Mettaton.

Hiro: Not you again...

Mettaton: OH YES. THERE YOU ARE, DARLING.

Hiro: What's it this time?

Mettaton: IT'S TIME TO HAVE OUR LITTLE SHOWDOWN. IT'S TIME TO FINALLY STOP THE “MALFUNCTIONING” ROBOT. …..NOT!!! MALFUNCTION? REPROGRAMMING? GET REAL. THIS WAS ALL JUST A BIG SHOW. AN ACT. ALPHYS HAS BEEN PLAYING YOU FOR A FOOL THE WHOLE TIME.

Hiro: Eh? Really...?

Mettaton: YES. AS SHE WATCHED YOU ON THE SCREEN, SHE GREW ATTACHED TO YOUR ADVENTURE. SHE DESPERATELY WANTED TO BE A PART OF IT. SO SHE DECIDED TO INSERT HERSELF INTO YOUR STORY. SHE REACTIVATED PUZZLES. SHE DISABLED ELEVATORS. SHE ENLISTED ME TO TORMENT YOU. ALL SO SHE COULD SAVE YOU FROM DANGERS THAT DIDN'T EXIST. ALL SO YOU WOULD THINK SHE'S THE GREAT PERSON...THAT SHE'S NOT. AND NOW, IT'S TIME FOR HER FINEST HOUR. AT THIS VERY MOMENT, ALPHYS IS WAITING OUTSIDE THE ROOM. DURING OUR “BATTLE,” SHE WILL INTERRUPT. SHE WILL PRETEND TO DEACTIVATE ME, “SAVING” YOU ONE FINAL TIME. FINALLY, SHE'LL BE THE HEROINE OF YOUR ADVENTURE. YOU'LL REGARD HER SO HIGHLY, SHE'LL EVEN BE ABLE TO CONVINCE YOU NOT TO LEAVE....OR NOT. YOU SEE, I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS PREDICTABLE CHARADE. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO HARM HUMANS. FAR FROM IT, ACTUALLY. MY ONLY DESIRE IS TO ENTERTAIN. AFTER ALL, THE AUDIENCE DESERVES A GOOD SHOW, DON'T THEY? AND WHAT'S A GOOD SHOW...WITHOUT A PLOT TWIST?

(door shuts behind Hiro; knocking is heard)

Alphys: H-Hey!!! Wh-Wh-What's going on!? Th-Th-The door just locked itself!

Hiro (looks back): Alphys!?

(the area lights up in red with five red spotlights surrounding Mettaton with one white spotlight focused on him)

Mettaton (holding a microphone): SORRY, FOLKS! THE PROGRAM'S BEEN CANCELLED!!! BUT WE'VE GOT A FINALE THAT WILL DRIVE YOU WILD!!

(the floor raises up, then rises higher as Hiro falls to his knees)

Mettaton: REAL DRAMA!! REAL ACTION!! REAL BLOODSHED!! ON OUR NEW SHOW...”ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOT!”

Hiro was thrown into a battle with Mettaton, his soul becoming yellow again. His only option was Burn, so he tried that. Considering how he often runs into fire recently, he felt that it was what he'll do if it continues in this manner.

Mettaton: YES, I WAS THE ONE THAT REARRANGED THE CORE! I WAS THE ONE THAT HIRED EVERYONE TO KILL YOU! THAT, HOWEVER, WAS A SHORT-SIGHTED PLAN. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE A HUNDRED TIMES BETTER? KILLING YOU MYSELF!!

Hiro: Then that person Muffet mentioned was him... (waits for the attacks to come, but nothing happened)

Mettaton: LISTEN, DARLING. I'VE SEEN YOU FIGHT. YOU'RE WEAK. IF YOU CONTINUE FORWARD, ASGORE WILL TAKE YOUR SOUL, AND WITH YOUR SOUL, ASGORE WILL DESTROY HUMANITY.

Hiro was caught off guard with some falling blocks, which he started blasting away. Hiro decided to try and spare the robot, but Mettaton ignored his attempt.

Mettaton: BUT IF I GET YOUR SOUL, I CAN STOP ASGORE'S PLAN! I CAN SAVE HUMANITY FROM DESTRUCTION!

Hiro spotted some robotic arms descending and shot at them, forcing them to pull back from him.

Mettaton: THEN, USING YOUR SOUL, I'LL CROSS THROUGH THE BARRIER...AND BECOME THE STAR I'VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF BEING! HUNDREDS, THOUSANDS...NO! MILLIONS OF HUMANS WILL WATCH ME!

Two arms and a line of blocks with a bomb in the middle fell. Hiro shot the arms and a block, but he runs into one by accident.

Hiro: Ah!

Mettaton: GLITZ! GLAMOUR! I'LL FINALLY HAVE IT ALL! SO WHAT IF A FEW PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE? THAT'S SHOW BUSINESS, BABY!

Hiro (gets a call from Alphys): Alphys, help!

Alphys: U...Uh.... I can't see what's going on in there, but.... D-D-Don't give up, okay!? Th...There's o-one l-l-last way to beat Mettaton...It's...um...it's... This is a work-in-progress, so don't judge it too hard...But you know Mettaton always faces f-f-forward?

Hiro: Yeah!

Alphys: That's because there's a switch on his backside. S-S-So if y-y-you c-c-can turn him around... um... And, umm... press th-th-th-the switch... He'll be... um.... He'll be... Vulnerable. Well, g-g-gotta go!

Hiro: Ah. I guess it's my chance to make him move. But how? (notices the Burn option changed to Turn in yellow; selects it) Uuh, hey, there's a mirror behind you!

Mettaton: OH??? A MIRROR??? RIGHT, I HAVE TO LOOK PERFECT FOR OUR GRAND FINALE! (turns around and exposes his switch) HMMM... I DON'T SEE IT... WHERE IS IT....?

Hiro (flips the switch): Got ya!

Mettaton: DID YOU. JUST FLIP. MY SWITCH?

Suddenly, Mettaton was shaking violently as Hiro backed far away, worrying the robot would soon explode. Light bursts from the metal body until the whole area was engulfed in it, yet the only sound that was heard was....

OH~ YES~

Hiro: Oh...whoa...?

A pair of spotlights descended and focused their light within a cloud of smoke, a humanoid figure stood among it. Its voice had a familiar robotic tone in it, but it seemed more...human..?

???: Ohhh my. If you flipped my switch, that can only mean one thing. You're desperate for the premiere of my new body. How rude... Lucky for you, I've been aching to show this off for a long time. So... as thanks, I'll give you a handsome reward. I'll make your last living moments.... (a flash of light reveals a male android) ABSOLUTELY beautiful!

Hiro was stunned in seeing this android, even more so when he finds out it's Mettaton, but with an EX on the end of his name. Mettaton had taken the shape of a man with short black hair, most of it covering his right eye, a metallic section on his left cheek, large shoulder guards, arms similar to the ones he had as a robot, holes on the right side of his chest that may be the speaker, a dial on the left side, a chassis containing a white soul, black skintight pants, and high-heeled boots.  The boy watched as the android made various poses in place and noticed a line graph on the upper left corner that shows a yellow line, a cyan line, and fluctuating purple line, and the words “Ratings 3001”. His options are Pose, Boast, and Heel Turn. Hiro had watched the android doing many poses, so he tried one out dramatically, raising the ratings to 3101.

Mettaton EX: Lights! Camera! Action!

Hiro saw six legs appear, descending towards him. Hiro shot two grey ones to move them and went between moving ones, hitting on the right. He saw green words pop up and the ratings had 50 more points. Hiro posed again, raising the score 3311.

Me. EX: Drama! Romance! Bloodshed!

Bombs appearing between little umbrella-carrying Mettatons threw Hiro off as he shot the ones on the right side. A bomb explodes, catching him off guard. Hiro ate a Starfait, which the audience loves and received 300 points, the score being at 3756 now.

Me. EX: I'm the idol everyone craves!

Six legs and some boxes appeared, drawing Hiro's attention as he shoots the legs and boxes. Hiro didn't notice a leg and it hits him, making the score bump up to 3826. Hiro decided to do a boast.

Hiro: Your attacks won't get me! I won't get hit at all!

Me. EX: Well then! Smile for the camera!

Hiro saw the ratings gradually rise as two arms and four Minitons (as Hiro decided to call them) descend. He managed to survive, and the ratings hit 4151. Hiro dramatically poses again, bringing the score to 4251.

Me. EX: Oooh, it's time for a pop quiz! Have fun with that on-screen keyboard... This one's an essay question!

To Hiro's surprise, a blank screen and grey keyboard popped up in front of him with the Essay Prompt: What do you love most about Mettaton? Hiro was unsure before putting his answer: His style and legs. Hiro threw in the legs part because he's been seeing them a lot in this battle, not because he liked them. Apparently, the mention of legs raised the number to 4601.

Me. EX: That's right. Legs was the correct answer! (saves the answer for future use)

Hiro (confused): Oh...I guess?? That was right?? (strikes a pose again, seeing the number bump to 4701)

Me. EX: Your essay really showed everyone your heart. Why don't I show you mine?

The door of the chassis opens and Mettaton's soul came out. Several pulses of electricity sparked out along with some Minitons blowing heart kisses at Hiro. Hiro tries his best to dodge the onslaught, but still gets hit by them. Even the violence contributed to the score as it rises to 4856. Seeing his health running low, Hiro eats a Glamburger. Because it was on brand, it jumped the score to 5356.

Me. EX: Ooooh, I'm just warming up!

Hiro manages to dodge all of the Minitons and their hearts. The score rose to 5416 now. Hiro hadn't noticed before, but the area had a peculiar smell wafting in the air. He soon realized it was coming from Mettaton. Hiro made another dramatic pose, making the score hit 5516.

Me. EX: You got some pretty lovely poses! But how are you on the dance floor!?

Hiro: Not that great...

A spotlight focused on Hiro as a disco ball  hangs above him. Hiro shoots at it, noticing it changing the lights from white to blue. He keeps going as he noticed Mettaton's poses seem to be a little faster than before. The impromptu dance-off brought the score to 5526, with Hiro ending it in a pose, raising the score again to 5626.

Me. EX: Fabulous! Can you keep up the pace?

Hiro: Yeah!

The disco ball descends again, but the lights move faster. Hiro messes up his shot once, but he quickly regains control, ending the dance with 5666 points while posing again.

Me. EX: Lights! Camera! Bombs!

Hiro: Not again!

Hiro sees his battle field become thinner and four bombs and blocks appear. In his attempt to shoot them, one set hits Hiro while he was caught in the explosion. The violence bumped the ratings to 5856 before Hiro's pose made it 6006.

Me. EX: Things are blowing up!

To Hiro's dismay, more bomb blocks fall. He somehow only got hit once, bringing the score to 6136. He eats a part of a Bisicle, which he noticed it didn't bring the descending score up.

Me. EX: Time for our union-regulated break!

The words “Happy Break Time” flashes on Hiro's field.

Hiro: Just like Napstablook... (notices Mettaton posing at a rapid rate) I'm gonna pose, too! (poses with style)

Me. EX: We've grown so distant, darling... How about another heart-to-heart?

Hiro sees the soul coming out again and shoots at it. 4 waves of boxes pulsing in and out from the android's soul along with sparks, and Hiro manages to dodge everything surprisingly well while shoot the dancing bot's soul, raising the score to 6496. This caused Mettaton's arms to fall off, startling Hiro as he poses to bring the score to 6596.

Hiro (panicking): M-Mettaton, your arms fell off!!

Me. EX: A..Arms? Wh...Who needs arms with legs like these? I'm still going to win!

Hiro didn't do well this round. He was hit by several blocks and bombs, and just when he thought it was over, there was a strange feeling in the air.  Like time was being rewound. Suddenly, the blocks and bombs that went by him came back up, causing him to jump between the spaces he shot out. The ratings sat at 6816 because of this.

Hiro: That was close! What was that feeling..? It feels...

Me. EX: Come on...!

Again, the record/rewind stage appeared before Hiro. He did a little better this time, now that he got the gist of this stage. His score rose to 6996, but this is where things took a heel turn for the worse. He's run out of items.

Me.EX: The show...must go on!

Many blocks and bombs fall, causing Hiro to try and shoot at them. Hiro was hit a few times blasting the bombs away, his score hitting 7136 and jumping to 7286 after he poses.

Me.EX: Dr...Drama! A...Action!

The blocks and bombs fall again faster, and Hiro was hit a few times again. The ratings were at 7446 when he poses again.

Me. EX: L...Lights... C..Camera... Enough of this! Do you really want humanity to perish!? ….Or do you just believe in yourself that much?

Hiro: I don't want that, but I do believe in myself!

Hiro was becoming weary, which caused him to mess up the bomb block section. The score rises to 7576.

Me. EX: Haha, how inspiring! Well. Darling! It's either me or you! But I think we both already know who's going to win. Witness the true power of humanity's star!

Mettaton's soul comes out again. Hiro had to dodge more sparks as he shot away at the soul and the two bombs that revolved around it. Once done, Hiro saw half of his field flashing with a warning.

Hiro: What's that- (sees a row of legs jutt out at him; dodges away) AH! (hears the warning behind him and moves away as more legs appear) Gah! This is crazy!

Hiro had to deal with the soul sparks and kicking legs twice more before he saw Mettaton's legs fall off and the ratings hitting 7696. He poses in front of the limbless android, adding 100 more points and making it 7796.

Me. EX: ….then.... Are YOU the star? Can you really protect humanity!?

Hiro: I don't know. Maybe if I tried hard enough?

In his thoughts, Hiro is caught off guard with the soul shooting sparks at him while he shoots at it. Mettaton remained silent during the exchange. Hiro was so worn out from the battle that he didn't realize the disco ball came out and he panics. Some sparks and Minitons came out and hit Hiro as he desperately tries to shoot and dodge them. With no more items left to use, he was left at 2 Hp. With the last of his power, Hiro poses with all his might. The audience screams in adoration, but it wasn't enough. He was completely worn out to the point where he couldn't see the bombs nor recognize that it was the rewind stage. He shot at one, causing it to explode on him and making him literally go out with a bang. He soon wakes back up at the save star outside of the elevator. Even though he usually gets healed and refreshed at these points, Hiro still felt the remnants of exhaustion from that battle and lays in his spot for a while. It was during that rest when he remembers that feeling from being rewound in the fight.

Hiro: That was weird. It was like.....a tape rewinding? Oh... Is that what happens when I die? I redo stuff? ….. (puts his hands on his head) My head hurts....

Deciding to not think more on it, Hiro rested a little while longer before getting up and reentering the room where Mettaton is waiting. Hiro was not much in the mood to hear Mettaton's monologue and tells him about the mirror again.

Me. EX: CLEVER. VERY CLEVER.

The battle ensues again. Poses, bombs, and bolts fly as Hiro danced and fought his way against Mettaton. He stopped caring about the ratings as he needed to concentrate. Despite doing much better this time around, he ran out of items and was back on his last two HP again. And once again, with feeling this time, Hiro poses with his might. The battle was soon cut off as Mettaton sees the ratings skyrocket past 10000.

Mettaton (excitedly): OOH, LOOK AT THESE RATINGS!!! THIS IS THE MOST VIEWERS I'VE HAD!!! WE'VE REACHED THE VIEWER CALL-IN MILESTONE! ONE LUCKY VIEWER WILL HAVE THE CHANCE TO TALK TO ME...BEFORE I LEAVE THE UNDERGROUND FOREVER!! LET'S SEE WHO WHO CALLS IN FIRST! (phone rings) HI, YOU'RE ON TV! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ON THIS, OUR LAST SHOW???

???: …..oh.......hi....mettaton....

Hiro: Huh? This voice...

???: ….i really liked watching your show...my life is really boring....but...seeing you on the screen...brought excitement to my life...vicariously. i can't tell, but...i guess this is the last episode...? i'll miss you...mettaton......oh.....i didn't mean to talk so long....oh......

Mettaton: NO, WAIT! (tries calling back) WAIT, BL.. (hears a click) ..H....THEY ALREADY HUNG UP. …. I'LL TAKE ANOTHER CALLER!!!

As soon as he opened the phone lines, calls started pouring in as the viewers voiced their joy in watching Mettaton on TV and the sorrow they felt at the thought of losing him.

“Mettaton, your show made us so happy!”

“Mettaton, I don't know what I'll watch without you.”

“Mettaton, there's a Mettaton-shaped hole in my Mettaton-shaped heart....”

Mettaton (saddened): AH... I...I SEE...(grins solemnly)...EVERYONE... THANK YOU SO MUCH. … DARLING.

Hiro: Yes?

Mettaton: PERHAPS.... IT MIGHT BE BETTER IF I STAY HERE FOR A WHILE. HUMANS ALREADY HAVE STARS AND IDOLS, BUT MONSTERS...THEY ONLY HAVE ME. IF I LEFT....THE UNDERGROUND WOULD LOSE ITS SPARK. I'D LEAVE AN ACHING VOID THAT CAN NEVER BE FILLED. SO... I THINK I'LL HAVE TO DELAY MY DEBUT. BESIDES. YOU'VE PROVEN TO BE VERY STRONG. PERHAPS...EVEN STRONG ENOUGH TO GET PAST ASGORE.

Hiro: …

Mettaton: I'M SURE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO PROTECT HUMANITY. HA, HA... IT'S ALL FOR THE BEST, ANYWAY. THE TRUTH IS, THIS FORM'S ENERGY CONSUMPTION IS....INEFFICIENT. IN A FEW MOMENTS, I'LL RUN OUT OF BATTERY POWER, AND...WELL.

Hiro: Oh no! Will you be okay?

Mettaton: I'LL BE ALRIGHT. KNOCK 'EM DEAD, DARLING. AND EVERYONE.... THANK YOU. YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT AUDIENCE!

With Mettaton's parting smile, a bright light flashes in the area then fades. Once Hiro lowered his arms to look around, he saw the stage had return to normal and Mettaton's resting form on the ground before him. Before he could make a move, he hears the door opening behind him.

Alphys: I...I managed to open the lock! Are you two... (runs in; stops in shock) Oh my god. (rushes over to Mettaton) Mettaton! Mettaton, are you.... (checks him over, sighs in relief) Thank GOD, it's just the batteries. Mettaton, if you were gone, I would have.... (trembling) I would have.... (silent, then shakes her head) I m-mean, h-hey, it's n-no problem, you know? He's just a robot, if you messed it up, I could always...j-just build another. (becomes silent again)

Hiro: Alphys?

Alphys: Ah....I'm...fine. Why don't you go on ahead? I....I just need a moment.

Hiro: Okay....

Hiro took a look at Mettaton's broken body, and got a quick vision of a more deadly version of him. Strangely, despite this towering version with its flowing cape, laser eye, and deadly gun arm, that Mettaton was shot down in one hit. Hiro shook that vision away, and departed the room exhaustively. As Hiro made his way down the corridor, he was caught up by Alphys as she apologized for before.

Alphys: L-Let's k-keep going!

(silence)

Alphys: S-So you're about to meet Asgore, h-huh? You must be...Y-You must be... Pr... pretty excited about all that, huh?

Hiro (frowns): Not really.

Alphys: Oh.. (twiddles her thumbs) A-At least you'll f-f-finally... You'll finally get to go home!

Hiro (smiles): I'm more excited about that! (arrives at the elevator; pushes the button and is about to enter) Here I go.

Alphys: W... Wait!

Hiro (notices Alphys standing some distance from him): Yeah?

Alphys (smiles nervously): I mean, um... I... I was just going to..….um...say goodbye, and.. (her smile slowly drops; faces away from him)

Hiro: Alphys?

Alphys: ...I can't take this anymore. (turns away) I...I lied to you.

Hiro: About what?

Alphys: About....A-About how to l-leave here. R-Remember wh-when I said that with y-your human soul, you c-can pass through the b-barrier...?

Hiro: Yep.

Alphys: A....A human soul isn't strong enough to cross the barrier alone.

Hiro: It isn't?

Alphys: N-No.... (looks down at her feet) It takes at least a human soul...and a monster soul. (silent; turns to him) If you want to go home.... You'll have to take his soul. You'll have to kill Asgore. (walks away then stops) I'm sorry.

As Alphys ran off, Hiro stood before the open elevator in shock. He has to...kill Asgore? He had no intention of killing anyone in the Underground, nor anyone ever anywhere. Besides, Hiro's never killed anyone before in his life.

…...

Right...?

TO BE CONTINUED

[joannalannister]

What do you think it is about ASoIaF that inspires people to the extent that we see in the fandom? I mean, there are tons of incredible people like you analyzing writing for it; you have websites and podcasts and essays written and complex theories and whole books published devoted wholly to the series. I have never seen this level of devotion before. It's incredible, but there are so many amazing books out there; why these books?

Hi! Well, to be fair, I think there are a number of other SF/F franchises that are as popular, if not more popular, than ASOIAF, and that inspire this same kind of devotion. But why ASOIAF? idk why anyone else feels the way they feel, but I can tell you why I love ASOIAF. GRRM wrote in one of the autobiographical sections of Dreamsongs:

By the time we got to Weathertop, Tolkien had me. ‘Gil-Galad was an elven king,’ Sam Gamgee recited, ‘of him the harpers sadly sing.’ A chill went through me, such as Conan and Kull had never evoked.

I knew exactly what GRRM was talking about, because I’ve felt it too:

“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”

There’s poetry in GRRM’s writing, there’s rhythm and flow and a sorrow that makes me ache:

He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.

That’s the thing about ASOIAF – GRRM makes you feel it. (How many anecdotes have you read of people throwing their books across the room in rage and horror and despair after the Red Wedding? I’ve read quite a few.) GRRM is able to inspire such strong emotion in me. 

I was saying earlier today how I don’t really have any other fandom besides ASOIAF; I just don’t care. Like, all y’all talk about how easily y’all fall into ~feelings~ and characters and ships, but that’s not me. I watch or read the thing, I’m entertained for a while, it’s fine, and then it’s over; that’s it. (Honestly, some of y’all have wanted me to get into your other fandoms and it’s not that I don’t want to have fun squeeing with y’all, but I don’t know how. idk how y’all care about so many books and tv shows and movies, idk how to care like that.)

So the remarkable thing about GRRM, at least for me, is that he makes me care. ASOIAF matters, because GRRM literally spends years on characterization and worldbuilding and themes, all while telling a damn good story. 

If you watch GOT, you can see the skeleton of GRRM’s story, all the plot points GRRM is trying to hit, but the meat of that story, which comes from characterization and themes, has been boiled away. The result is that there’s nothing left to sink my teeth into, nothing to savor. (I think GRRM would approve of my food metaphors.) GOT has no emotional resonance for me, whereas ASOIAF is all about the emotional journey we’re undertaking. I’ve referenced Stephen King before, and I’ll do it again - it’s not about the endgame, it’s how we get there. The journey, not the destination. That’s something ASOIAF stresses - it’s the journey that matters, because we’re all headed for the same destination, after all; valar morghulis. GOT hits plot points like an arrow to a target. GOT is about the destination; ASOIAF is about the journey. 

ASOIAF emphasizes themes that I love:

identity

choice

justice and vengeance, and the complex nature of each

heroes and villains and what does that even mean

moral ambiguity

human heart in conflict with itself

body as battleground

the horrors of war

the importance of family, and how family means different things to different people

love and hate

truth and falsehood

what does it mean to be a true knight

exiles, outsiders, underdogs

faded glory

life and death and decay and rebirth

Romanticism in the classical sense of the word

the long autumn

the weight of history, the people who came before and those who will follow after 

duty and honor, and how they can be in conflict

disillusionment

sacrifice

light and darkness

what is a monster

empathy versus dehumanization

freedom versus constraint (think of the anti-slavery narrative and how that is relevant throughout the story, in every pov)

HOPE (”MEN STILL SANG, EVEN IN THE MIDST OF BUTCHER AND FAMINE”!!!! SLAYS ME!!!)

a love and celebration of humanity

an exploration of the human condition and what it means to be human (“see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone"), of isolation and loneliness and *sigh, where are you twow and ados* reunions and fellowship

feminism

beauty, appearances, outer beauty vs inner beauty (GRRM’s love of BATB comes in here)

These are themes that transcend the fantasy genre, something “old and true” that speaks to us, that are timeless. 

And I love the motifs GRRM uses to convey these themes - towers, and swords, and bodies and body parts (the Hand of the King, hands, tongues, fingers, noses, genitals), and white knights and black brothers and shadows (living shadows!!!) and birds and the long seasons and gah, I love it all, I love how GRRM uses all of this kind of imagery to explore ASOIAF’s themes and ask deep questions and inspire such passionate thinking (just throw the words “jaime” and “hand” and “redemption” at the fandom if you don’t believe me about passionate arguments)

And I love the thesis of ASOIAF, to hold fast to your principles and to do the right thing, even when doing the right thing is hard and when you won’t be rewarded for it - to stand against dehumanization in all its forms. 

And the characters, the characters, the characters!! I honestly think GRRM spends years on these books because he puts his own blood, sweat, and tears into them to bring them to life, as if they were truly his own children. He works so hard on characterization. 

And sure, the major characters are great, but I’m thinking of the minor characters especially, the ones that, if ASOIAF were a 1990s tv series that ran for 10 seasons, these would be the characters that would appear for one episode. 

Take the Widow of the Waterfront in Volantis. She cut that slave tattoo out of her, she cut off her tears. “Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon.” It’s haunting. Why read fantasy, if not to meet people like the Widow, and Chataya, and Arianne, and everyone else? But GRRM makes meeting these people worthwhile, he makes them memorable, he makes them distinctive, and they all give ASOIAF such a rich flavor. 

And ok, I admit I’m definitely part of the classic Tolkien school of fantasy lit where you Must Have Maps. If I crack a new fantasy book and it has a detailed map, that is already +1 in my book, because it tells me two things: first, we’re going on An Adventure, and two, the author at least tried to worldbuild. 

Good worldbuilding is super important to me, and GRRM is a great worldbuilder.  There’s a sense of something waiting over the next hill, and the next, and the next. It’s someplace different, someplace full of wonder, someplace grander than the place I call home. The clothes are different, the customs are different, the flora and fauna are different, and I want to see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, taste it. And GRRM doesn’t let me down, tbh. Reading ASOIAF is a sensory feast. (And man ok, slightly off topic, but if y’all ever read The Armageddon Rag, GRRM can make you hear that shit, I mean, really hear it, GRRM is amazing.) In ASOIAF, you can feel the silk of the gown Viserys gives Dany, and you can smell the western market and flea bottom, and you can hear the men selling fresh rats on the streets of King’s Landing, and oh god, the drums, BOOM DOOM BOOM DOOM, of the Red Wedding, and the tinkling of Jinglebell’s sad little bells, and Patchface’s creepy song, and the taste of the weirwood paste, bitter and sweet and like the last kiss his mother ever gave him, oh god. (And do you know how many lemon-flavored deserts I’ve had, chasing after Sansa’s famous lemon cakes, let’s not talk about it.) 

Reading ASOIAF is like going through the wardrobe - what’s not to love? I want to go somewhere else, and GRRM delivers. Why read fantasy, if not to gaze up at new stars, and trace out new constellations, and marvel at the way humans everywhere try to push back the darkness by telling themselves stories, be it the story of Orion or of the Ice Dragon up there in the heavens. 

GRRM does such a good job on the worldbuilding that we can seriously have super lengthy academic discussions on politics and economics and warfare and geology and all that other stuff that people do in real life. 

But it’s not just the depth of the worldbuilding, cuz that wouldn’t be enough by itself. GRRM doesn’t just go through the motions, he’s not just hitting targets - he makes you earn it. For example, Stannis really wants to be King, and it’s not enough to just try to storm king’s landing. Why do you want to be King, Stannis? the books ask, and we find out it’s because he has a duty to the people, so he goes to the wall. What did it mean that Tyrion was Hand in ACOK, what did he accomplish, what did he learn, and will he be Hand again in a future book? What do those vows of knighthood mean, and is Brienne the only one true to them? What of Sam, failing to release the ravens at the right moment? When the time comes, will Sam fail again, or will he release the ravens at the critical moment next time, and how much more meaningful is it, when we saw fail the first time? 

In short, I’m devoted to it because GRRM’s devoted to it. He’s a master of his craft, and it shows. I’m only responding to it. 

(Honestly, he never should have allowed an adaptation until this was all over, and then he could have adapted the episodes himself. The best GOT episodes were the ones written by GRRM.) 

[chrismotionless]

Official Graveyard Shift Lyrics

Rats Well Mrs. Pharmacist / I insist / fix me up with something quick I’ve been a bad little boy and I think i’m getting sick Sick to the bone / slave to the flesh Better put on my Sunday’s best       I’ve been bad little boy… little boy

I’ve got a dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty little secret And I’m not not not sure that I wanna keep it So we feed ourselves lies to submit to the shadows Cause we just wanna dance under our pretty perfect halos

Everyone’s got a secret Whats yours? whats yours? Don’t be shy, i’ll never repeat it  

Oh Mrs. Pharmacist / if I resist / lock me up and bind my wrists You’ve been a bad little girl…. little girl.     Close your eyes and listen close I know just how much you love it If you speak you lose your turn So shut your mouth before I fuck it

Everyone’s got a secret Tell me all about yours

Love. Hate. Oh how we play the game Cold soul No sense of self control Love. Hate. Unsure to pass or play Cold soul / now  we’re out of control

Roses are red, and my heart is black We creep about the floor to indulge like Rats Enraptured, we walk to nurse our obsession Cause the roles that we play are paved with cruel intentions

Well  Mrs. Pharmacist… If you insist

I’ve got a dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty little secret And I’m not not not sure that I wanna keep it So we feed ourselves lies to submit to the shadows And I just wanna shake you by your little perfect fucking halo

Everyone’s got a secret Whats yours? whats yours? Don’t be shy, i’ll never repeat it.

Queen For Queen If you wanna soar with vultures, you’ll have to swallow bone The saint charade is over / plastic royalty exposed You wanna play the victim, to preach upon your throne                                   No semblance of virtue as your relevance erodes

We go queen for queen  and move just like this

When you fall down Will you back out As you crawl through life with no crown? Though you preach love, you package lies Just a pawn in a kings disguise

I never said I’m perfect, there’s a guilt behind these eyes So check me If it helps you fall asleep at night

Your skeletons are building / your closet’s getting tight Are you the prey or spider in the web of all your lies?

When you fall down Will you back out As you crawl through life with no crown? Though you preach love, you package lies Just a pawn in a kings disguise

Don’t stop breathing in the chemicals You don’t know humble… though you play the role Pockets of evergreen are your amphetamine Please stop feeding what you can’t control

YOU’LL FALL. You’ll bend, you’ll break, (you’ll) trip over your “fame” Be careful, or you’ll run your mouth off your face

Necessary Evil (Feat. Jonathan Davis) Strip off the weight of morality, and check it at the door I’ll show you the worst in me …what i’ve become   Blow out the candles I need not a wish For I am everything Now crawl to my boots and lick Kneel before me

Imma have my cake and fucking eat you too.

It’s my party and i’ll die when I want to, die when I want to, die when I want to The monster you’ve made is wearing the crown I’ll be the king and you be clown I’ll take the blame (and) parade it around. You’ve made me the villain you can’t live without.

Reciting violence like poetry No you can’t sit with us Too fashionably plain   Now say my name Forget everything you think you knew of who I used to be I look much better as… as the enemy

Imma have my fucking cake and eat yours too.

I want you low I won’t let you die (I’ll) keep you alive Just to remind you of what you are not

It’s my party and i’ll die when I want to you wanna see me fail, but I won’t die for you.

Soft You’re mine motherfucker

Let me begin with envy’s a sin You’ll have to find new words to invent Cause I’ve heard your broken record, and i’m not impressed

I love when you talk, I just use it to drive me I won’t let your judgement define me I’m not broken, so don’t fix me I want you to hate me

Tell me what you’ve lost Hang me on your cross If you’re so wise, then why are you so Soft? Do you leave your “throne” as you cast your stones?               I’m above living under your microscope

I’m insane, I’m “insane in the membrane” I wanna fuck your face with a switchblade I’m not broken, so don’t fix me I’ll leave you behind me

Internet killed the video star

Cry baby cry baby, did I just hear you whimper? Cry baby cry... Suck my middle fucking finger

Cry baby / Cry baby What have you done lately? Cry baby / Cry baby   What have you done?

Tell me what you’ve lost. Demonize my flaws Do they call you when dumb needs a mascot? Do you leave your “throne” as you cast your stones?               I’m above living under your microscope

You dilate / god of your existence Begging me to listen while you “pray” Swallow in vain / sliver spoon religion Closer from a distance

You’re mine motherfucker

Untouchable They try to bend / they try to break me by design But I am the nightmare that will haunt you in the light

If it’s war that you want… then I’m ready to play And the world’s gonna know my name

Through everywhere that I go Every failure I’ve owned Every crack in my bones I’m Untouchable Like a sleeping grenade Built to blow you away Pull the pin… I explode I’m Untouchable.

Born of the ground I dug myself out from the dirt With every scar I will avow to shake the earth

Unless it’s blood that you want.. then get the fuck out my way Cause the world’s gonna scream my name

I will never be silenced I will eclipse the pain

You can’t let it go       (It’s) the price that we pay But I own the grave from which I came You reap what you sow We don’t bleed the same   Cause I own the rights to my own fate And i’ll sleep a king on my deathbed

Through everywhere that I go Every failure i’ve owned Every crack in my bones I’m Untouchable Like a sleeping grenade Built to blow you away Pull the pin… I Explode I’m Untouchable.

Every mile from home Every failure I’ve owned Every crack in my bones I’m Untouchable Like a sleeping grenade Built to blow you away Pull the pin… I Explode I’m Untouchable.

Not My Type: Dead As Fuck 2 She’s got no soul / heart black as coal She’s from Hollywood Forever / dug her out of a hole And here we go again / spinnin me in her web She said “there’s just no rest for the queen of the dead”

Another trick to treat with candy apple dreams Gonna rot her teeth cause i’m so sweet One lick to rule them all They crumble as they crawl

She loves me cause I like to give head like a zombie (I) eat eat eat till her insides are on me She loves me cause I give head like a zombie (I) eat eat eat and nobody’s gonna stop me And in the glow of the pale moonlight She goes for a spin on my haunted hayride Tried out the living but I don’t believe the hype   Cause if she’s got a pulse, then she’s not my type.

She’s got a temper in stock / made of hemlock Uses absinthe as a lip gloss Death hawk / fresh New Rock’s                               She’ll use your corpse as a catwalk

She’ll use your corpse as a catwalk Plays truth or dare in the mirror Uses absinthe as a lip gloss Undead, but won’t shed a tear

She’s my graveyard baby She’s my……

She loves me cause I like to give head like a zombie (I) eat eat eat till her insides are on me She loves me cause I give head like a zombie (I) eat eat eat and nobody’s gonna stop me And in the glow of the pale moonlight She goes for a spin on my haunted hayride Tried out the living but I don’t believe the hype   Cause if she’s got a pulse, then she’s not my type.

D- E - A - D   If she’s got a pulse, then she’s not my type.

The Ladder Tragedy / a poisonous lover You infiltrate to destroy Vanity / a cancer unforgiving A charlatan with poise  

Fool me once / enough is enough Was I more than a step on your way up? Hollowed out /  I’ve no semblance of love Now you’re just somebody that I used to fuck.

Lest we learn / the tables turn / so i’m betting out / I’m betting out. You can be the prey in your masquerade, but i’m getting out / i’m getting out There’s nothing left to repair

Ravenous / self righteous and lurid But how much more till you break? Scavenger / so fucking undeserving You slither in just to take what you can take

Counterfeit / I’m calling your bluff Was I more than just a step on your way up? Now you’ll burn and you’re flesh out of luck Now you’re just somebody that I used to fuck

Lest we learn / the tables turn / so i’m betting out / I’m betting out. You can be the prey in your masquerade, but i’m getting out / i’m getting out Against insight I fed your source of revenue But now, it means nothing to me to mean anything to you

Open grave /  I was too blind to see That “love”, spelled to you, is “F A M E”

You fuck your way up the ladder Going down on your way to the top Do your arms ever tire? Or do they heal while you climb with your mouth?  

Delete Everything Sever the yearning / you can keep the fucking ring Delete Everything You can keep the fucking ring

Nothing left to repair.

Voices Voices in my head again Trapped in a war inside my own skin They’re pulling me under.

I’ve swallowed myself but the fever remains I’m numb to the pleasure but still feel the pain       If I showed you my soul, would you cover your eyes? If I told you the truth, would you dare me to lie?  

I keep it all inside because I know that man is every thing but kind

Voices in my head again Beating me in a war I can't win   I can hear them now Trapped in a game inside my own skin And I don't know myself anymore They're pulling me under Voices

As I walk through this valley of shadows and death I curse not the “wicked”, I praise not the “blessed” If I told you the truth, you’d beg me to change If fear were a currency, you’d own the bank

I don’t want to live so calloused and frozen / ugly and hopeless I don’t want to live forever, I just want to live right now You can’t take me from me

I keep it all inside because I know that man is everything but kind

LOUD (Fuck It) You gotta be loud / You gotta be rude / so the world can hear you You gotta be crass / You gotta be cold / it’s everything we know Turn it up turn it up now

Another day, a double shot of hate Drink it up like gasoline Underpaid, you graduate, to build somebody else’s dream

With a noose as a tie… do you fantasize of a much different life?   The fix for who they want you to be / directly streamed to your TV

And when they turn their backs on you…

You gotta be loud / You gotta be rude / so the world can hear you You gotta be crass / You gotta be cold / it’s everything we know Turn it up turn it up now Loud / Rude / When nobody hears you You gotta stand up / You gotta commit Say “Fuck It”, make the best of it

A broken home you’re trying to mend You’ve got one day left to pay the rent We’re not sure, but we believe in the lie… that it’ll all be fine, when we die

It’s so easy to grant the mirror power to control what you want to erase                       Don’t become another victim / “Put a smile on that face”

You gotta be loud / You gotta be rude / so the world can hear you You gotta be crass / You gotta be cold / it’s everything we know Turn it up turn it up now Loud / Rude / When nobody hears you You gotta stand up / You gotta commit Say “Fuck It”, make the best of it

The money’s in the treatment, baby, not in the cure So they fuel your pain with fear and shame and then hand you a brochure The money’s in the treatment, baby, not in the cure So they build you up to watch you fall and then beg for an encore

What are you waiting for?

570 Burn it down / brick by brick / Made in 2006 Lost and found / losing grip /  I needed this Question me not, for I gave up everything Forget me not, cause I’ve not forgotten what this means

Strip me down, tear me apart, you’ll find one theme left No sign of stopping till my veins rust Strip me down, tear me apart, you’ll find one thing left I fucking know where I came from

..And nothing can replace those lessons learned as I stood with my brothers on the side of the road No longer haunted by the skeletons No longer haunted by the past

For so long, it’s all i’ve known I’m crossing over the undertow For so long, no one was listening Determined to make their deaf ears ring

Miles repeat / my worst enemy... is me. But then four soon became six… to shatter the canvas Handed nothing / loss pulling the strings Outlived the dead trends / united by distance

I’ve been to hell and back, with no promise of return So I made friends with fire, to keep from getting burned No money, no sleep. dedication 10 years on the road this is sacred And when i’m facing a wall, I do not quit ...Cause if you mean it, you will make it.

Pulled apart in a world so demanding I’m still here, still standing I’ve sweat blood from Stockholm to Scranton Still here, still standing.

You can always rinse the surface, but the stain will remain

For so long, it’s all i’ve known I’m crossing over the undertow For so long no one was listening I did my time 

You live / you learn / you defy the terms, but this house will be my home Beguiled / betrayed / it’s the price we pay, as trust will be our tomb

If you mean it, you'll make it.

Hourglass I’ve watched the whole world drowning in chemicals Dissociative / but it takes it’s toll Can I surpass time, or would I start to rust? Depreciating / collecting dust

And I fear myself as I fall away   In a cold deluded sense of fate When the nightmares come, and the doubt sets in Will the fever break, or will I burn from within?  

It’s too late to feel, I’ve lost my breath With the hands of time around my neck Am I more than the pen that wrote the past? Or am I just the sand enslaved by the Hourglass?

Will I live again, or will I fade to black?     Dehumanizing / when the heart attacks       Will I expire before my dreams unfold? But if the futures so bright, the path should glow

As the walls melt and the light fades I’m letting quicksand take me

If you look beyond the blindfold You’ll find the hole in my soul One fear, one mind, no hope, no time If you look beyond the blindfold You’ll find the hole in my soul

I’m on the edge of my seat Holding out for a sign Trying to rewrite the storyline

It’s too late to feel, I’ve lost my breath With the hands of time around my neck Am I more than the pen that wrote the past Or am I just the sand encased in the Hourglass?

Fear is not my fate

Eternally Yours Blow the bridge to the past / wipe the fingerprints Melt your heart encased in wax / steal it with a kiss Our fate engraved / scar enslaved / as we mutually destruct Repose, my love, i’ve sinned enough for the both of us

In the name of love….. I’m ready to bury all of my bones I’m ready to lie but say I won’t So tell me your secrets / and join me in pieces To rot in this garden made of stones Eternally yours

I feed like you taught me and selflessly swallow We coalesce in darkness, so selfishly hollow Examine the wreckage / writhing in tempo Invisible anguish casting a shadow  

and in the name of love…

I’m ready to bury all of my bones I’m ready to lie but say I won’t So tell me your secrets / and join me in pieces To rot in this garden made of stones Eternally yours

As we rest in pieces, though I know not your name I would suffer forever to absolve all your pain

And in the name of love

I’m ready to bury all of my bones I’m ready to lie but say I won’t So tell me your secrets / and join me in pieces To rot in this garden made of stones Eternally yours

I’m ready to bleed to make amends And sleep in this dirt we call our bed So tell me your secrets / and join me in pieces To fall and rewrite the bitter end Eternally yours

I’m more than willing to rot in hell with you.

[philaprint]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: "Get Out" and the Everyday Horror Story for Blacks

MARCH 12, 2017

By Tre Johnson

Hollywood has been producing black horror films for awhile now. The 80s and 90s were replete with films with a horror bent. 1985 gave us “The Color Purple” monster “Mister”, a monster the movie positions as an almost tireless, ageless evil who terrorizes the women around him. Spike Lee pulled off horror twice; 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” felt like an urban “Twilight Zone” tale, where Bed-Stuy had everyone cooking underneath a magnifying glass, the setting gradually slimming down from a neighborhood to a pizza store murder. Two years later, he did 1991’s “Jungle Fever” where everyone was predator and prey, falling for the incurable desire for two white substances: women and crack.

There’s been lighter fare too, but even they have preyed upon psychological fears. Movies like 2014’s “No Good Deed” or 2015’s “The Perfect Guy” might be called thrillers, or 2009’s “Obsessed” another horror masked as thriller all playing different notes on the real-world fears of heterosexual black women finding “a good black man”, and being wary about who you do and don’t let into your home. In real life this has been a horror story for the black community; 1.5 million black men have been swallowed by everyday monsters like imprisonment or murder (Chicago recorded its 700th murder in December) or unemployment; nearly 50% of black men aged 20-24 in Chicago are unemployed. All of these films have origin points that can be traced back to the original horror story of slavery, and its likely why a lot of black people, even as Hollywood has continually held up films like “Birth of a Nation”, “12 Years A Slave” and “Amistad” as works of art, have often talked about avoiding or being weary of these same films. They are too real, too scary, and too relevant.

Now we have “Get Out”, a film by Jordan Peele that’s a welcome reversal on many of these narratives. While on the outside “Get Out” is about many of these same issues—the film touching on everything from the criminal justice, black bodies and the ever-simmering tensions of black-white relations—it’s actually squarely preying on white liberalism, a group that often views itself as harmless when it comes to racism and bigotry. This point comes across in many parts of this movie, which on the surface is about what happens when a young interracial couple, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams), travel to her parents’ home for the weekend.

“Get Out” has several set pieces worth discussing, but the film’s garden party scene might be the most essential, the gathering of Rose’s parents’ friends and acquaintances for an annual get-together in loving memory of her departed grandparents. Earlier Rose’s father offers a popular assurance and validation when he proclaims that not only was Obama the greatest president he’s known, but he would’ve voted for him a third time. As Chris wanders from couple to couple, we want a gauntlet with him that’s likely familiar to plenty of black folks traversing white spaces. There are the soft come-ons about your appearance (“aren’t you a handsome one” one partygoer remarks as she delicately squeezes his arm); the desire to validate blackness as a commodity (“black is in again”, intones another attendee as he curries favor); or as a means of intellectually engaging him, Chris is asked in front of a throng of the white guests to speak on the progress of African-Americans; have things gotten better or worse? As he makes his way through the crowd, you experience a lot with Chris: the exhaustion of literally navigating white spaces; the delicateness and calculations of how you choose to respond to commentary intended to be innocent and well-intentioned but ultimately still steeped in ignorance and, at times, fetishization.

The scene features Lakeith Stanfield, “Darius” from Atlanta and his inclusion in this particular section of the movie serves a couple of purposes. His presence actually evokes a call-back to Atlanta’s “Juneteenth” episode, which in many ways saw the realization of this movie’s social scene. As a collection of Jack-and-Jill styled fanciful black people mingle about the sprawling mansion of a high-minded black woman and her awkwardly liberal white husband who aggressively displays how “down” he is to everyone around him, especially Earn, who the husband likely senses is skeptical about his authenticity. The two parties present inverses of one another; as Earn and Chris both get sized-up, evaluated, chastised and patronized as much for what their blackness is and for what it isn’t, there’s the illusion of a gateway being opened to another world. Atlanta’s “Juneteenth” represents the illusion of a black bourgeois that feels like they’ve “made it” and the implicit message that they, if not have become “white”, have certainly escaped being “black”. On the other side “Get Out” has a phalanx of white people yearning for the cool side of the pillow of blackness; wanting to retain the power of their whiteness while acquiring aspects of blackness a la carte.

This sort of racial power bartering is the underlying horror at the heart of both pieces, as both make the case that one of the greatest fears of wading too far into a white world is the loss of identity, something made clear with Chris’ relationship, to blacks living in the suburbs, to a change in dress and language, to maintaining a sense of village or community whenever you come across another person of color—that silently telegraphed, telepathic two-word message we transmit in those moments: “you good?”. “Get Out” unearths this uneasiness, neurotically aware of a white culture that’s quick to consume aspects of the black culture, and the movie gets a lot of mileage out of the issue of appropriation as it looks at the most obvious ways that white mainstream culture steals things: entertainers, artists, athletes, and bodies. The black victims in “Get Out” are analogues for all these situations and it’s worthwhile to consider the real world examples and implications when it comes to this sort of continued white theft. There are the obvious ones: Three years ago on an MTV stage, Miley Cyrus, twerked on stage surrounded by black women props; months later, Macklemore wins over Kendrick Lamar at the Grammys.  

The movie also adds to the ongoing paranoia about black mobility and identity. Several times in the film, the issue of staying black is a literal and metaphorical dilemma. Chris’ decision to be with Rose, their decision to go to her parents’ house in the bucolic suburbs, and the roles of the landscaper, housekeeper and Andre (Stanfield) are all familiar echoes about the recurring nightmare of losing your black self in white settings and culture. It’s a familiar question of trespassing and authenticity that shares roots both historical in the “paper bag” tests and passing, and pop cultural, too.

“Get Out” was obviously made decades later, but “Chris” would have been the perfect role for a 90’s-era Will Smith to have played. As an actor whose work during that period often negotiated outing race and class identities in unpredictable spaces, this film would have been a natural inclusion to his resume then. In 1993’s “Six Degrees of Separation”, Smith plays the lead role in the true-story film of a black gay con artist who worms his way into a New York area white high society, by pretending to be the son of “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” actor Sidney Poitier, likely in-joke for the con artist and certainly for an audience that gets the messages and paranoia in “Get Out”.

What makes him especially relevant to this film though is his six-year run on “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” from 1990-1996. The entire series was about Will’s struggle to maintain his particular blackness in a community where he felt everyone around him had already been snatched, from rigid, authoritarian Uncle Phil, to Valley Girl Hillary, Smith navigated a fun house of black misshapen mirrors. The pinnacle was his sometimes foil; Ribero’s “Carlton”, the Tom Jones swaggering, uptight cousin was an everyday mirror that terrified and tortured Will with its galling feeling of whiteface at times. Much of the series positioned Will not only as a fish-out-of-water but an exorcist of sorts, too; constantly using his values, his culture, and his body to wake up the Banks family. To Will, his family wasn't just strange; they appeared to be brainwashed and inadvertently, the show took on this racial dilemma too, body-swapping the darker-skinned Janet Hubert-Whitten’s “Vivian Banks” for the fairer-skinned Daphne Maxwell Reid midway through the series to play the same character. That sort of swapping set-off age-old concerns and injustices around the penalties of being black in issues that “Get Out” also provokes discussion about: colorism, opportunity, mobility, and acceptance. Smith’s first movie after the “Fresh Prince” was 1997’s “Men in Black”; a sci-fi action series where he and Tommy Lee Jones took on cases to reveal the true identity of people living amongst us by using a device armed with a flash.

Yet our most complex example of this negotiation and the vampire-like nature might be the ongoing vexing saga of Rachel Dolezal, whose presence and journey serves as an embodiment of the angst, anger, and anxiety that “Get Out” is about. In Rachel, there’s everything ranging from appropriation to passing, privilege to theft, politics to intimacy. Her decision to identify as a black woman is steeped in a racially political American context that has a sordid history around whites finding ways to comfortably and conveniently adapt blackness as it suits them. Her own story is one of continued consumption; from altering her appearance, to her academic and career decisions, to most recently, her official name change: she is now “Nkechi Amare Diallo”. It’s Nigerian in origin. Her story is an example of both how true life is stranger than fiction and also how art imitates life.

Both Diallo and “Get Out” tread into the uneasy way we mine our racial traumas into devices and identities, becoming keys to get to the other side. Catherine Keener puts Chris under by first empathizing with and then manipulating his emotional trauma around a very personal loss, and the tumble to the sunken place becomes something Atlanta, “Jungle Fever”, Rachel/Nkechi, Kanye, “Do the Right Thing” and even the currently running Kalief Browder documentary “Time” all share in common: when you tumble into that dark space, no one can hear you scream.

https://www.philadelphiaprintworks.com/blogs/news/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-get-out-and-the-everyday-horror-story-for-blacks

[jb-blaq]

Luke Cage is the Voice of this Moment in African America.

By Jre Best

July 20th, San Diego Comic-Con, 5:45 pm, I am in the audience of the “Luke Cage” panel. Cheo Hodari Coker The showrunner for "Luke Cage" says "The world is ready for a bulletproof Black man" and when he said that I knew that we were in for something special September 30th, 2016. The Netflix "Luke Cage" series is possibly the most relevant television series of this decade so far, it is a show that not only captures black culture but discusses the problems within black culture with a level of intelligence that I rarely see. It's a show with a lot on its mind and a lot to say and tries to say it in the most entertaining way it can, making a modern-day blaxploitation television series. Does this approach work? Did it strike a chord with audiences? Did it get across its point clearly? That's what I'm going to be looking into.

A little context "Luke Cage" is based on the Marvel comics character of the same name more specifically the comic book "Luke Cage Hero for Hire” from 1972 which was where he first appeared. This was Marvel's way of capitalizing on the blaxploitation genre of film which was at an all-time height at this point. The premise of the series was simple Carl Lucas was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. At this prison he was subjected to cruel and unusual experiment that left him with bulletproof skin. After breaking out of jail he forms the Heroes for Hire if you need a job done and had the cash to pay for it then you go to  Luke Cage. It was a fun and clever premise for the time, unfortunately, it didn't last too long with the series being canceled a year later. Then the series was revitalized and just called Heroes for Hire where it starred Luke Cage and fellow superhero Iron Fist, who also has received his own Netflix series. Nowadays this book is known for being a cult classic and rather important to the comic book industry known for its culturally relevant storytelling. Unfortunately, at the time Blaxploitations hay day had passed and started becoming derided by so-called “enlightened film press” As seen in Williams, LA and Carmona, George article in the New York Amsterdam News. So heroes for hire and Luke Cage faded into the background only really being brought up to be laughed at as a silly some might say offensive figure. It took a long time for mainstream culture to come to terms with blaxploitation movies and the conversation about these films is still going on today but generally, nowadays people agree that there was a lot of value in these seemingly schlocky films. This widespread reappraisal mostly happened around the early 2000s, documentaries like “BaadAsssss Cinema” and tribute films like “Undercover Brother.” This was also the same time when Marvel felt it would be good to bring back Luke and in a big way not only was he a supporting cast member in a critically acclaimed series called Alias but also was moved to Marvel's premier team the Avengers, eventually coming to lead his own Avengers team. Nowadays Luke Cage is one of Marvel's most respected and beloved black superheroes. So when Marvel decided it was going to start making Netflix series based on some of its street-level superheroes it was no question that Luke was going to get one.

With such an important and interesting character as Luke Cage who was going to make the show? Enter Cheo Hodari Coker the man behind Southland Tales one of the most beloved and well-written television series of the  21st-century. Coker was brought onboard to run "Luke Cage" not only because of his history as a showrunner but also because he had a pre-existing love for the character and knew that you could do a lot with the show. Coker was determined to make sure “Luke Cage” felt as authentic as possible even saying in an interview with the Philadelphia Tribune that it’s important that Luke Cage isn’t "a hero that happened to be Black, The same way I'm not a showrunner that happens to be Black." "Luke Cage" couldn’t have come out at a better point in time not even two years away from the infamous Ferguson riots and the mass reporting on police shootings of unarmed black men, “Luke Cage” came in and became the hero that the black community needed at that time. Speaking from my own experiences it was scary even for someone who lived in a place that seemed as safe as San Diego it was still a scary time, the community was angry and scared. And Coker knew that making a show about a bulletproof black man at this point in time was a big deal. 

As for the show itself it delivered. "Luke Cage" is a show that gets black culture. I watch a lot of TV & Movies, I read a lot of comics, and due to the states of those industries most of the media I consume is made by white people which isn't a problem at all but I've always felt a sort of disconnection from it; there's something about the way the characters talk they don't feel relatable to me. In the same way, I find there's a disconnection when I'm talking to white people as opposed to say, my family. But with "Luke Cage", I don't get that. I often say everyone in "Luke Cage" is someone I've met before. This is because "Luke Cage" is one of the few western tv shows where the characters don’t speak “proper English” they speak in AAVE or African-American Vernacular English. AAVE is commonly misunderstood as slang AAVE is actually the evolution of the specific type of English Africans slaves used when they were brought to America. Most fail to understand the difference and simply have their black characters lazily speak in ridiculous and vapid slang. The use of AAVE is a big part of the reason "Luke Cage" is so good at representing black culture.

Bulletproof. Bulletproof Skin isn't something special in the realm of superheroes, it isn't even special when compared to superheroes on TV or film. It's usually among a heroes least impressive abilities so why is it so important in Luke Cage? To understand why Luke Cage having Bulletproof Skin is so important you need to know the history not only of police brutality but of America's relationship with the gun. America's one of the youngest first world nations out there. The United States didn't exist before firearms, more importantly, we wouldn't be an independent country without them. Guns whether you like it or not are a part of the American identity. But the slaves that these Americans owned, the gun wasn’t a symbol of power, how could it be? It was just another tool for oppression. Quick long range death that guaranteed that even if you were a fast runner there was still no escape from your enslavement. Even when slavery was abolished and torture devices like the cat-of-nine-tails or the tin mask faded away the gun remained. Guns have never stopped being a symbol of oppression for African Americans. Gun violence from Law Officers on people of color has never not been an issue in America as seen in Katie Nodjimbadems article “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” but in recent years the media increased their coverage of stories like the shooting of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and now people are angry again and want things to change. Things like Black Lives Matter have started and people aren't afraid to talk about this anymore. Here comes Luke Cage a character whose defining trait is that he is a black man that cannot be shot down, is getting a show released on the biggest streaming platform on the planet (Netflix) backed by the biggest entertainment company on the planet (Disney) the timing couldn't be more perfect. Samantha Blackmon shines a light on Lukes clothes in her essay “Be Black for Me: Lincoln clay and Luke Cage the Heroes We Need” she points out that Luke is commonly dressed and dark hoodies which resemble the clothes that Trayvon Martin was shot down in. This is not some coincidence, the image of a black hoodie riddled with bullet holes is use time and again in "Luke Cage" all this culminating in the sequence Bulletproof Love. A little context Luke Cage is being assaulted by a police officer well he's heavily injured, he doesn't want to engage the cop but he is forced into throwing the man into a nearby car and injuring him. Footage of this is captured and goes viral, along with Diamondback the main villain killing a cop while impersonating Luke. In one day Luke goes from Harlem's hero to public enemy number one with the entire Harlem City Police Department after him. Later on, Luke Cage ends up running into and saving Method Man from the Wu-Tang Clan and Luke gives him his hoodie which just so happens to have bullet holes in it at the time, what first seems just like a cute cameo becomes a whole lot more. We follow Method Man to a radio show where he talks about his experience running into Luke Cage. He defends Luke's character describing him as a hero and when the host of the show ask Method Man to end the show with a freestyle he raps Bulletproof Love. It's a song all about Luke Cage describing him as the hoods superhero someone who stands not only for himself but for his community of Harlem. And as this song plays we see a montage of the police in pursuit of Luke but unable to find him because the people of Harlem start wearing all his previously cast aside bullet-riddled hoodies in an effort to protect Luke. The hoodie has become a symbol of Harlem’s hero. It's a sequence that is great not only because of the context of the show around it but also because of the then current day. After the 24-hour news cycles covering all these police shootings, a song that acknowledges the love shared between the black community. Something saying that things will be okay, it made me cry the first time I saw it. That's why Luke Cage being bulletproof is so important.

Unfortunately, the thing that's probably the biggest mistake of "Luke Cage" is also the thing most people were looking forward to and that was the commentary on police shootings and gun violence within the black community. Besides the bulletproof sequence, and a few bits in the latter half of the show it's hard to even say that it fumbles the police brutality angle and more so doesn't want to talk about it. Except for flashbacks of Luke being treated unfairly in prison most of his interactions with police officers are peaceful, there are dirty cops but they're under the employee of the real villains of Cottonmouth, Black Mariah, and Diamondback. Not that it’s necessarily a flaw that the police are depicted mostly in a positive manner but to come out of the time that it did with the premise that it has it seems like an immense missed opportunity to not comment on the then current events more. These events are probably the reason this show got so much marketing and attention on it in the first place. But that's not the only flaw. Luke Cage's main ability is that he is bulletproof this is important to his character and to what he means, while the "Luke Cage" show does not choose to talk that much about police brutality it does have a lot to say about gun violence and it does it very well. Which is why it's so unfortunate that one of the biggest twists in the shows and the main plot element is that one of the villains Diamondback creates a gun that actually can pierce Luke Cage's skin. The metaphorical meaning of that is zero; what does this represent? Nothing, it comes off as cheap only there so there can be some suspense that Luke Cage might die at some point during the series. It doesn't work and these two issues are the biggest problems in "Luke Cage".

Despite these issues I love Luke Cage, It's a bright and bold television show that takes all the elements that informs and inspires it and presents them proudly. This show is destined to become one of those classics in the realm of African American entertainment that captures it's moment in time so well it's surprising. As I'm writing this we are only two weeks past the premiere of “Black Panther” Marvel's first film starring a black main character, the most successful blockbuster with a majority black cast and the first Hollywood feature to embrace Afrofuturism as its defining aesthetic. And we are only one week away from A Wrinkle in Time premiering in America the first film directed by an African American woman to have a 9 digit budget. We're entering into a new era of media. Stories told by African-Americans about African Americans are finally being put on the same global stage as everybody else. And Luke Cage is a part of that movement a little bit of the future that we got in the present. Sweet Christmas.

Work Cited 

Blackmon, Samantha. “Be Real Black For Me”: Lincoln Clay and Luke Cage as the Heroes We Need.”CEA Critic, vol. 79, no. 1, 2017, pp. 97–109., doi:10.1353/cea.2017.0006]

Coker, Cheo Hodari, et al. Luke Cage, Season 1, Netflix , 30 Sept. 2016.

L A, Williams, and Carmona George. “Cage Match: Does the Comics' 'Luke Cage' Jibe with TV's?” New York Amsterdam News, 6 Oct. 2016, pp. 1–1.

Lisa Respers, France. “'Marvel's Luke Cage' Is Music to Cheo Coker's Ears.” Philadelphia Tribune, 4 Oct. 2016, pp. 4B–4B.

Nodjimbadem, Katie. “The Long, Painful History of Police Brutality in the U.S.” Smithsonian, 27 July 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-painful-history-police-brutality-in-the-us-180964098/.

Sliva, Tylah, and Emerson College. “What's the Difference Between Slang and AAVE?” Study Breaks, 5 July 2017, studybreaks.com/culture/aave/.

[onthemazewall]

We Can All Win

I recently for read Frederick Douglas’ first autobiography. It was the most disturbing book I have read in a decade. I thought I knew slavery, but reading it I realized it contained horrors beyond even my imagination and he wasn’t even the worst kind of slave. The book taught me why we use the term ‘people of color’, which I initially thought sounded really stupid, but I now understand is a good catch all, especially since ‘colored’ was specifically for people who were of mixed European-African descent, and why ‘mulato’ is a dirty word, the only time I saw it used in the book was at a slur when a slaveholder screams at Frederick “You yellow bastard! You mulato!”, and confirmed what I knew that n-r has always been a filthy word connoting the the contempt of the speaker for the person upon whom this appellation is being used. The book also got me used to very long sentences again. Reading passages of it, I felt the need to compulsively go and consume food, thankful that I have enough to eat or walk around my house being thankful that I have enough clothes to wear and proper shelter. What struck me most was how relevant it still is today. The passages about him being a city slave in Baltimore, how his lot in life was little different than the poor white boys struck a cord. He talked about how at least for them, when they reached their majority they were free to choose their own paths in life, but as poor children, they differed little. The hostility of the white workers towards Frederick was an obvious manifestation of a zero sum mentality, that they in no way could let him succeed for fear that it would be to their detriment. When at the end of the book Frederick escapes to Rhode Island, he talks with wonder of how he had assumed the price of abolition would be everyone would have less and be poorer, but instead everyone white, black and colored made their own prosperity. In fact, New Bedford had more wealth than Baltimore, but was built on the backs of everyone’s labor, not simply a class of people profiting off the backs of the enslaved. This morning my father sent me a Ted Talk by a geneticist about the grayness of morality. The man is clearly an expert in his field, but this was not it and to me the lecture amounted to a defense of the Confederate states and slavery. Essentially his argument was that people did not know it was wrong. That religion, institutions and family indoctrinated them in the acceptability of slavery. They knew. When you’re starving, freezing, torturing people, you know it’s wrong. At one point Frederick says "...that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes-a justifier of the most appalling barbarity-a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds- and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.” Furthermore their argument that Africans were destined to be slaves doesn’t really hold water, when you consider how many of these people had European blood: mulato, quadroon, octactaroon, they kept people in bondage when they were only up to 116th African. The one drop rule shows what flimsy facade that argument was. Especially when you had freed Africans living in the same areas as the plantations. One of the most pivotal points in the book was when Frederick first moves to Baltimore and his then sweet mistress teachers him to read. Her husband is horrified and rightly says that if you teach a slave to read, he will educate himself and become unsatisfied with his station in life. This is exactly what happens. The admittance that knowledge will create unrest is proof enough that they knew the bondage they were keeping these people in was wrong. Frederick notes that slave holders on the farms and plantations encouraged their “chattel” to be debauched and unproductive on what little holiday time they had, because they wanted to use it as proof that Negros were lazy people. They provided excessive amounts of alcohol in hopes of getting them all extremely drunk and claiming that their enforced labor was protecting them from their own dangerous proclivities. It was a disturbing book, it was not a fun read, but it also showed that the same mentality that created and entrenched slavery still exists in the United States today. The zero sum mentality that there must be losers to create winers is a cancer of society. Don’t let anyone use slavery as an example of moral relativism anymore than you would the holocaust. It was wrong and they knew it. Moreover, next time someone is saying that universal healthcare and education are impossible, that a progressive tax on the rich to even the playing field is a bad idea, that people have to lose for others to win, that that’s slaveholder talk. I have moved to a country where there are rich and there are poor, but the poor people all have somewhere to take a shower and get cancer treatment and royalty are down to earth enough that their kids still have playdates with the children of blue collar workers. It’s like board games: there’s a genre called cooperative board games where everyone works together for the desired outcome; we can all win.

[joannrochaus]

What Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece says about abortion

Today is National Sanctity of Human Life Day in the United States. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation designating January 22 as the first such day. (January 22, 1973, was the day Roe v. Wade legalized abortion-on-demand in all fifty states.)

Since that time, Presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump have issued similar declarations. Presidents Clinton and Obama did not.

Forty-six years after Roe v. Wade, we’re still debating abortion in this country.

Last Friday, the March for Life 2019, described as “the world’s largest pro-life event,” was held in Washington, DC. Vice President Pence and his wife made an appearance; President Trump spoke to the group via video.

The next day, the 2019 Women’s March gathered in our nation’s capital to advance several agendas, including the protection and expansion of abortion rights. The day after, thousands of churches across America observed Sanctity of Life Sunday. They prayed for an end to abortion, advocated adoption, and supported the sanctity of all human life.

Since 1973, nearly sixty-one million babies have been aborted in America, more than 54,000 so far this year.

Americans are confused about abortion

The logic against abortion seems simple. Ronald Reagan: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” Pope Francis states the case succinctly: “The right to life is the first among human rights.”

And yet, public sentiment on this issue remains confused and conflicted.

Last July, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey found that 71 percent of Americans (including 52 percent of Republicans) say they oppose reversing Roe. That’s a record high since NBC/WSJ began polling on this issue thirty years ago. Only 23 percent thought the ruling should be overturned, a record low. Another recent poll found that Planned Parenthood is the second-most popular institution in America, following only the FBI.

However, a survey earlier this month reported that three in four Americans support substantial abortion restrictions. Seventy-five percent (including 60 percent of Democrats) say abortion should be limited to–at most–the first three months of pregnancy. Fewer than a third want the Supreme Court to allow unrestricted abortion. And a majority of Americans oppose any taxpayer funding for abortion.

Why women choose abortion

How can those of us who support the pro-life position persuade those who do not? It’s not enough to proclaim the biblical teaching that life begins at conception. Pro-choice supporters either don’t know what the Bible says, don’t care, or don’t consider its position relevant to this issue.

We need to respond to the arguments that do persuade them. For instance, “Shout Your Abortion” founder Amelia Bonow recently released a video promoting abortion to children. In it, she tells the children about her abortion and explains: “I feel like if I am forced to create a life, I have lost the right to my own life. I should be the one to decide if my body creates a life.”

Here’s the point: from the moment of conception, her body has already created a life.

Reports indicate that women choose abortion for these reasons (in order, beginning with the most popular): they’re not financially prepared; the pregnancy is unplanned; her partner is unsupportive; she needs to focus on her other children and/or her educational or vocational plans; and she wants a better life for her baby than she could provide.

Would a mother put a newborn child to death for any of these reasons?

It seems clear that the women in these surveys do not see their unborn child as a child. That’s the point we need to find persuasive ways to make.

Convincing our culture that an unborn baby is a baby

Ronald Reagan testified: “I believe that until and unless someone can establish that the unborn child is not a living human being, then that child is already protected by the Constitution which guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all of us.”

How can we help our culture see the wisdom of his words?

First, ultrasounds are an option. A recent study showed that some women who were uncertain about having an abortion declined the procedure after viewing an ultrasound of their unborn child. (Those who were already determined to have an abortion were unchanged in their decision.) Unfortunately, ultrasounds do not make clear for everyone the humanity of an unborn child.

Second, scientific evidence that life begins at conception is increasingly clear. As one mother notes, “When you’re seeing a baby sucking its thumb at 18 weeks, smiling, clapping,” it becomes “harder to square the idea that that 20-week-old, that unborn baby or fetus, is discardable.”

Third, the evidence from later-term abortions is obvious. As President Reagan noted, “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.”

For mothers who believe their unborn baby is a baby, we need to encourage adoption services or provide resources to help her raise her child. We must be pro-life, not just pro-birth.

When the elderly Elizabeth met the pregnant Mary, she told her, “The baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44). Both of their babies were miracles. But God loves every human as much as he loved their babies (Matthew 19:13-15). Including you and me.

“Like a slave in the womb”

On this day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day in America, let’s hear from his niece, Dr. Alveda C. King: “Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.”

Strong words, but true.

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, explained her pro-life passion: “The fight for the right to life is not the cause of a special few, but the cause of every man, woman and child who cares not only about his or her own family, but the whole family of man.”

Do you agree?

NOTE: For more on this crucial subject, please see my paper, Abortion and the Mercy of God.

The post What Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece says about abortion appeared first on Denison Forum.

source https://www.denisonforum.org/columns/daily-article/martin-luther-king-jr-s-niece-says-abortion/ source https://denisonforum.tumblr.com/post/182216386147

[denisonforum]

What Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece says about abortion

Today is National Sanctity of Human Life Day in the United States. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation designating January 22 as the first such day. (January 22, 1973, was the day Roe v. Wade legalized abortion-on-demand in all fifty states.)

Since that time, Presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump have issued similar declarations. Presidents Clinton and Obama did not.

Forty-six years after Roe v. Wade, we’re still debating abortion in this country.

Last Friday, the March for Life 2019, described as “the world’s largest pro-life event,” was held in Washington, DC. Vice President Pence and his wife made an appearance; President Trump spoke to the group via video.

The next day, the 2019 Women’s March gathered in our nation’s capital to advance several agendas, including the protection and expansion of abortion rights. The day after, thousands of churches across America observed Sanctity of Life Sunday. They prayed for an end to abortion, advocated adoption, and supported the sanctity of all human life.

Since 1973, nearly sixty-one million babies have been aborted in America, more than 54,000 so far this year.

Americans are confused about abortion

The logic against abortion seems simple. Ronald Reagan: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” Pope Francis states the case succinctly: “The right to life is the first among human rights.”

And yet, public sentiment on this issue remains confused and conflicted.

Last July, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey found that 71 percent of Americans (including 52 percent of Republicans) say they oppose reversing Roe. That’s a record high since NBC/WSJ began polling on this issue thirty years ago. Only 23 percent thought the ruling should be overturned, a record low. Another recent poll found that Planned Parenthood is the second-most popular institution in America, following only the FBI.

However, a survey earlier this month reported that three in four Americans support substantial abortion restrictions. Seventy-five percent (including 60 percent of Democrats) say abortion should be limited to–at most–the first three months of pregnancy. Fewer than a third want the Supreme Court to allow unrestricted abortion. And a majority of Americans oppose any taxpayer funding for abortion.

Why women choose abortion

How can those of us who support the pro-life position persuade those who do not? It’s not enough to proclaim the biblical teaching that life begins at conception. Pro-choice supporters either don’t know what the Bible says, don’t care, or don’t consider its position relevant to this issue.

We need to respond to the arguments that do persuade them. For instance, “Shout Your Abortion” founder Amelia Bonow recently released a video promoting abortion to children. In it, she tells the children about her abortion and explains: “I feel like if I am forced to create a life, I have lost the right to my own life. I should be the one to decide if my body creates a life.”

Here’s the point: from the moment of conception, her body has already created a life.

Reports indicate that women choose abortion for these reasons (in order, beginning with the most popular): they’re not financially prepared; the pregnancy is unplanned; her partner is unsupportive; she needs to focus on her other children and/or her educational or vocational plans; and she wants a better life for her baby than she could provide.

Would a mother put a newborn child to death for any of these reasons?

It seems clear that the women in these surveys do not see their unborn child as a child. That’s the point we need to find persuasive ways to make.

Convincing our culture that an unborn baby is a baby

Ronald Reagan testified: “I believe that until and unless someone can establish that the unborn child is not a living human being, then that child is already protected by the Constitution which guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all of us.”

How can we help our culture see the wisdom of his words?

First, ultrasounds are an option. A recent study showed that some women who were uncertain about having an abortion declined the procedure after viewing an ultrasound of their unborn child. (Those who were already determined to have an abortion were unchanged in their decision.) Unfortunately, ultrasounds do not make clear for everyone the humanity of an unborn child.

Second, scientific evidence that life begins at conception is increasingly clear. As one mother notes, “When you’re seeing a baby sucking its thumb at 18 weeks, smiling, clapping,” it becomes “harder to square the idea that that 20-week-old, that unborn baby or fetus, is discardable.”

Third, the evidence from later-term abortions is obvious. As President Reagan noted, “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.”

For mothers who believe their unborn baby is a baby, we need to encourage adoption services or provide resources to help her raise her child. We must be pro-life, not just pro-birth.

When the elderly Elizabeth met the pregnant Mary, she told her, “The baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44). Both of their babies were miracles. But God loves every human as much as he loved their babies (Matthew 19:13-15). Including you and me.

“Like a slave in the womb”

On this day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day in America, let’s hear from his niece, Dr. Alveda C. King: “Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.”

Strong words, but true.

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, explained her pro-life passion: “The fight for the right to life is not the cause of a special few, but the cause of every man, woman and child who cares not only about his or her own family, but the whole family of man.”

Do you agree?

NOTE: For more on this crucial subject, please see my paper, Abortion and the Mercy of God.

The post What Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece says about abortion appeared first on Denison Forum.

source https://www.denisonforum.org/columns/daily-article/martin-luther-king-jr-s-niece-says-abortion/

[tasnimkwritersdiary]

GENRE FICTION COMMENTARY

"A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger." (King 1985)

In class, we learned that short stories don't need to be super dramatic. They can be about something slight, and that revelation somehow changes things. You can describe it as seeing a story from the corner of your eye, rather than a full picture. 

The four genres we are currently studying within this module are Crime, Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and some sub-genres that fall in between.  

Fantasy is a part of speculative fiction, and elements of fantasy can even be found in early texts such as The Epics of Gilgamesh (Gilgamesh 2100 BC). Common conventions of the fantasy genre include the use of magic and supernaturalism. Fantasy often relies on the reader to suspend their disbelief, and put aside what they know to be ‘real' in order to fully submit to the world of the story.  

Favourites such as Lord of the Rings (Tolkien 1954) are often associated with fantasy, however, contemporary fantasy also includes dystopian literature, which is hugely popular right now. For example, The Hunger Games (Collins 2012) and The Maze Runner series (Dashner 2013) are popular YA fantasy which have achieved commercial success.

There are also many sub-genres of science fiction, such as punk (steampunk, cyberpunk etc.), Hard vs. soft sci-fi, post-apocalyptic fiction, which were outlined in Jim Clark's lecture. Whilst world building can be very technical within this genre, it is important not to use too much jargon or unnecessary information about your world, as it can take away from the readers belief (Novum), e.g. time travel.

Isaac Asimov, the writer of I, Robot, believes that ‘Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology.' (Asimov 1981).

We are learning about horror right now, however, I have written horror before. Some elements of horror stories are a dark mood and atmosphere, exploring the darker side of humanity, unexpected incidents, violence and gore, etc. In addition to this, Gothic horror is often very sensual.

It is important to consider that genres are constantly evolving, and elements of the genres mentioned are constantly in flux. What is popular right now may not be popular in a few years, or on the hand, it could have a cult status like Dracula (Stoker 1897).

The trouble with genre is that it can be restrictive or formulaic for writers whose ideas may not fit neatly within the confines of a certain genre, in which case writers can consider their work as literary fiction. When showing our writing to publishers, it may be off-putting for them if our work isn't easily marketable. 

On the other hand, fitting within a genre can also be useful when categorising a book in a bookshop or online. It is easier for target audiences to find our books if they fit into a genre, but they can equally get lost amongst of other books within that genre.

In her book ‘Writing short stories', Ailsa Cox writes that ‘The short story is a protean form, encompassing infinite variations, and just like the novel, shading into other genres' (Cox 2016).

My short story is about a twenty-five year old man named Saeed, who is being held captive in a small, bare house in an unidentified location. This first-person narrative voice follows the reader through his daily routine of eating, sleeping, writing etc. His compulsive habits frame him as a strange character, but I want the reader to feel sympathetic of him. He describes his parents as mute but menacing, claiming that he would be instantly killed if he ever tried to escape.

My story falls within the crime genre and is a psychological thriller. Writer David Lyons, who recently held a workshop with us regarding psychological thrillers and their current popularity, gave us an insight into some common features of this particular sub-genre. Crime fiction often deals with mystery, suspense, tension etc. Psychological thrillers deal with all of these things too, however, they often focus on the mental state/mind frame of the narrator more so.

I am currently writing the second draft of my short story. Taking into consideration the elements of a short story, I am now working on further developing my characters, theme, setting, conflict, plot, and P.O.V. All of these elements are important in my eyes, but because I'm using an unreliable narrator as the protagonist of my short story, P.O.V. is the most challenging element. I am trying to keep my character believable and relatable, without making him predictable or dull. His strangeness is what causes intrigue, and will hopefully keep the reader wanting to know more about him and his situation.

The conflict begins as an external one, with man vs. man (his parents who he believes are holding him captive), but ends up being an internal conflict all along (man vs. self).

The unreliable female narrator is massively popular right now, with novels such as Gone Girl (Flynn 2013) and Girl on the Train (Hawkins 2015) having major success and even becoming award-winning films. However, Stephen King is arguably the king of psychological thrillers when it comes to literature.

In light of the times up movement, author Stephanie Merritt wrote an article on how the ‘cult' of the unreliable narrator must be stopped. She writes that ‘writing a woman who is off-kilter… might inadvertently reinforce a stereotype of neurotic women, slaves to their biology' (Merritt 2018). Whilst I don't believe that the problem is that severe, I do see a pattern in the unreliable female narrator, and understand how it can feed into the stereotype of the crazy, untrustworthy woman.

With women's experiences with sexual predators being in the limelight right now, is it clever to portray women and their testimonies as untrustworthy? I believe in considering real-life situations in my writing, which is why I decided to use a male unreliable narrator. Rather than having ‘Girl in captive' which sounds more like the titles that are already on the market, I am naming my short story ‘Man in Captive'. 

This was more common in the 90's/00's with books/films such as Fight Club (Palahniuk 1997), and The Talented Mr Ripley (Highsmith 1999), both of which were highly popular. The character of Tyler Durden in Fight Club has some similarities with my character, in the sense that they can both be seen as cynical characters facing the unfamiliar, and the fact that they are both unreliable but this isn't revealed until the end.

The relevance of my short story within this current political and social climate is that it does not add to the masses of books written from an unreliable woman's point of view. In addition to this, it also normalises the idea that men also suffer from mental health problems, and that not all of these illnesses manifest in the same way.

When comparing the novels mentioned about with my short story, they have some similarities. For example, this quote from Fight Club, "Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head." (Palahniuk 1997) carries the same sentiment as one of my narrator's lines ‘We're all one bad day away from driving off a cliff'. Pessimistic narrative voices are also common in many psychological thrillers, but not all.

I've also taken the idea of captivity, where in many films and books, girls and women are held captive rather than men. The idea that it is an adult man rather than a child, is again, uncommon. 

In regards to structure and plot, I did a lot of reading and research around short stories and how they differ to structuring or plotting a novel, but this quote by author Isobelle Carmody sums up what most texts explained. 

‘Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression’ (Carmody and McNab 2013).

As evident earlier on in my writer's diary, my initial ideas were too complicated. They had too many characters and too much action. The subtlety and unique nuances that make a short story a genre in its own right, rather than a condensed novel, were being lost beneath huge plot lines and complicated structures.

In order to capture a moment in time, I start my story eight months into the captivity of Saeed. I have two current versions of my story, one written as a diary. I'm not sure which one I will submit yet. 

I also have currently written two endings to my story. In the first ending, there's a frantic knock on the door, and behind the door are his parents, who embrace him. Behind them are the police. He's been missing for eight months and his parents tracked him down through his Amazon account deliveries, where he ordered food and other necessities in bulk before his captivity. It turns out that he had been holding himself captive. He says he doesn't recognise these people posing as his parents, but they show him pictures. He doesn't trust them and lashes out. The short story ends with him in a psychiatric ward. He doesn't understand why this woman who calls herself his mother is crying.

The second ending is more subtle, where he hears a cat meowing outside of his front door. Knowing that his parents would be angry if he touches the door handle, he hesitates. But then he remembers back to his childhood when he used to have a black cat, so he opens the door and steps out. The cat is in the front driveway. He takes his first step out of the house, picks up the cat, and goes back inside. He opens the curtains, opens all of the doors, and it is revealed that there are no parents holding him captive. The story ends there.

I favour the second ending more, however, I am still receiving feedback from my tutors and my writing group.  I agree that ‘A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it' (Poe 1846), and the second ending aligns with the strange mood of my short story more, rather than the first ones dramatic ending.

I also considered Freytag's pyramid (Freytag 2004). For example, in the second ending, the exposition is setting the scene of a day in the life in captivity for Saeed. The inciting incident and rising action are very subtle, along with the climax, where he hears the cat and opens the door. The falling action is the internal battle between whether he should leave or not. The resolution is open-ended, as we don't know what happens after he opens the door. In a way, the resolution is his decision to open the door.

Looking back, I probably should have decided on whether to write diary extracts or not or which ending to go with, before writing them both. However, writing two versions of my short story, as well as alternative endings has allowed me to experiment more with short story writing, and gain a better appreciation to find just the right balance of everything when writing a short story.

In the current world where twitter fiction, fifty-word stories, even six-word stories are popular, I believe that it is a great time to write a short story. It is something that people can read in a few hours on their day off, or on a very long lunch break. 

I could self-publish my short story on Amazon, or use my social media accounts to share my story with people who are already familiar with my writing. There are publications such as Ambit Magazine and Dark Lane which I could submit my work to, however, many places that take submissions often ask for specific genres or word counts, so I will have to make sure that I fit the criteria. For example, Dark Lane specifies well-written, literary ‘weird' tales, and they dislike blood and gore (Dark Lane 2018).

I will consult with my writer's group and lecturers to figure out which would be the best route for me, however, I am still looking into magazines that take short story submissions. I could even ask to publish the opening of my story in the CovWords magazine, and then post the rest on my blog so people can read it for free. As a novice writer, this may be a good way to receive feedback on my writing from readers before submitting to publications.

REFERENCES

Anthology Submissions (2018) available from <http://darklane.webs.com/anthologysubmissions.htm> [2 March 2018]

Asimov, I. and Zimmerman, R. (1981) Asimov On Science Fiction. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday

Carmody, I. and McNab, N. (2013) The Wilful Eye. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin Children’s

Collins, S. (2012) The Hunger Games. New York: Large Print Press

Cox, A. (2016) Writing Short Stories. 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge

Dashner, J. (2013) The Maze Runner Files. London: Random House Children’s Books

Freytag, G. (2004) Technique Of The Drama: An Exposition Of Dramatic Composition And Art. 2nd edn. Sacramento: University Press of the Pacific

Flynn, G. (2013) Gone Girl. London: Phoenix

Hawkins, P. (2015) The Girl On The Train. London: Doubleday

Highsmith, P. (1999) The Talented Mr. Ripley. London: Hutchinson

King, S. (1985) Skeleton Crew ; Different Seasons. London: Little, Brown

Merritt, S. (2018) The Cult Of The Unreliable Female Narrator Must Be Stopped | Stephanie Merritt [online] available from <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/19/cult-women-unreliable-narrators-literature-film-feminism> [2 March 2018]

Palahniuk, C. (1997) Fight Club. London: Vintage Books

Poe, E. (1846) The Philosophy Of Composition [online] available from <https://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/philcomp.htm> [2 March 2018]

Sandars, N. (2000) The Epic Of Gilgamesh. London: Penguin Books

Stoker, B. (2014) Dracula. New York: Penguin Books

Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954) The Lord Of The Rings. London: HarperCollins