#it's possible this was inspired by recent harrowing events

[xpao-bearx]

Okay S O--

I promise I'm updating my Moon Knight fic (Like A Virgin), but this is an idea that's been nagging me like Khonshu for a while now and I've finally decided to share it! But please keep in mind that it's just what it is: an IDEA. So I'm sorry if this sounds a bit messy/incomplete/all over the place (and there's a possibility that some things could be changed), it's literally just me rambling and I think it's actually a pretty interesting idea! And this turned out a lot longer than expected ;-;

At the moment, I also have no clue what I wanna do with this idea (or if I'll ever even do anything with it at all). But I, obviously, take all credit for this so please don't steal (or at least tell me if you got inspired and plan on writing a similar fic to this cuz I would totally read the F U C K out of it) 🙃

Anywhore--

So my idea is, basically, this: The story begins in Season 1 of Moon Knight and it mainly revolves around a romance with our one and only sassy baby boy, Steven Grant (and of course with some 🔥spahcy🔥 smut thrown in) ❤️

For Steven's love interest, I dunno if it would be an original female character OR a Fem!Reader situation going on, so for now we'll just refer to the love interest as MC (main character)

Now MC and Steven live in the same apartment building and are next door neighbours. They've also been dating for quite some time, but strangely enough Steven doesn't remember ever asking out MC.

Steven and MC are pretty much what is considered to be the "perfect couple". You can really tell that they love and care about each other a lot, but recently a rift has been slowly but surely growing between them. It all started when Steven has been mysteriously disappearing, sometimes for days on end with MC not being able to contact him and not knowing his whereabouts. It doesn't help that Steven doesn't know anything either which, obviously, is very concerning but MC really likes Steven a lot and (maybe quite foolishly) chooses to let the matter go. MC thinks that whatever the hell is going on, there is a good explanation for it and can be resolved once Steven is ready to open up.

But things only become much worse from there when Steven started to miss dates and other important events in his and MC's relationship. There are also some days when Steven acts very odd, being cold towards MC and acting as if he didn't even know who she is which obviously hurts MC especially when she continuously tries to help him and just wanting to figure out what's happening.

It eventually comes to a point when MC couldn't take it anymore so she goes to confront Steven about his behaviour. She is rightfully mad and confused, but nothing changes the fact that she's still very much in love with him and wants to properly work things out.

Once MC goes to Steven's apartment using the spare key she has, she is shocked to find a woman there (this is shortly after Steven is fired from the museum and he discovers Marc's things + the scarab in the storage locker). A frazzled Steven is shocked when MC suddenly appears, too, especially when the woman--Layla--introduced herself as his wife.

MC couldn't even say--do--anything, only staring at Steven with such hurt, angry, disappointed eyes before running out the door and out of the building. Steven chased after MC to explain, but he wasn't fast enough and the damage was already done.

Fast forward into Season 2 (I know at this point in time there's no S2 but just indulge me LMAO xD), MC is revealed to be living with a friend of hers as she picks up the pieces of her broken heart and starts anew.

But here's a lil twist: After the events with Harrow and the gods' Avatars died, MC became Hathor's (the goddess of love and music) new Avatar. I still don't know how this came to be, but just roll with meh 👍

While MC does her missions for Hathor, she eventually crosses paths once more with a familiar face who she is surprised to find out is Khonshu's (another god Hathor has quite smittenly told MC a lot about) Avatar--Steven.

Only... This isn't actually Steven, but a man who claims to be Jake Lockley.

Jake then explains to MC that Steven has dissociative identity disorder and that he, along with another man named Marc Spector, were alters in a system with Steven. Obviously this is a fucking LOT to take in, but MC eventually believes Jake and it made sense as to why Steven acted different sometimes when they were still together.

It is also revealed that Jake was the one who asked MC out and before Steven even knew her, Jake was the one who liked her first. But in an attempt to keep MC all for himself, Jake doesn't say the truth about Layla, of how she is now Marc's ex-wife since things never worked out with them and Steven is still very much hung up and in love with MC. So MC is kept in the dark about everything, still believing that Steven lied and cheated on her.

It is definitely weird meeting Jake, especially when Jake is extremely open about his feelings for MC and continuously attempts to go out of his way to find her and woo her (to no avail). MC knows that despite sharing the same body, Jake is an entirely different person. But it hurts a lot to just look at him since all she sees is Steven.

Overtime, however, MC gets over her heartbreak and realizes that she also has feelings for Jake and decides to say "fuck it" and take a leap of faith. At this point in time, MC is still under the impression that Steven is married to Layla (even though she hasn't seen the woman again at all). Deep down, MC knows that it's wrong, but she really does like Jake and believes that they both deserve to live their own lives and have a relationship with each other, even if it may be challenging to keep it a secret.

Once MC confesses to Jake, he realizes that what he's doing is wrong and if he truly cared about her, he needed to be honest. So Jake takes MC out on a date and plans on telling her everything, but before he had the chance to Steven suddenly gained control of the body!

Steven and Marc have both had suspicions for a while that there's a third alter and now it's been confirmed, along with the two of them being surprised and infuriated that Khonshu isn't actually out of their lives. But the more pressing matter is that MC was here, right now, with Steven, even though it shattered his heart to see her looking at him with those same pained, spiteful eyes that haunted him when she completely disappeared from his life.

But in a panicked rush, Steven told MC everything. Of how he didn't know he had DID before, about coming to terms with Marc's existence and Steven's own purpose, of how Layla was actually Marc's wife and they were now divorced, etc.

All of this was much harder to take in than when Jake told MC about their situation. Although, meeting Steven again made MC realize that she did still love him as much as she loved Jake. But that didn't erase the pain in MC's heart and while she was glad that the truth was finally out and all the misunderstandings were cleared up, MC just needed time. Time to heal, time to just really wrap her head around everything and determine where she stands in Steven and Jake's lives and where they stand in hers.

So that's what MC did. As much as Steven missed her, as desperate as he was to hug her and kiss her and just say that everything will be okay, he respected her decision. And he understood because he, too, needed time to get his and Marc's and Jake's shit together.

As time passes, MC and Steven meet again. And this time, they were ready to be together once more and for forever. Jake is there, too, and they all work together to navigate through their unconventional romance, but they don't worry too much because they know they will be alright. Because, just like the constellations in the night sky, their hearts had a special connection.

But as MC's love blooms with Steven and Jake, Marc is there. He's always there, like a dark shadow. Unlike the other two, Marc actively avoided MC and/or openly expressed his distaste. He didn't love Layla anymore, but the divorce really affected him as well as his perception on relationships. He just didn't want to suffer through that same heartbreak again, but this time he had a lot more to be protective over because he not only had to watch over himself, but also Steven and Jake. He absolutely would never forgive you and himself if you broke the boys' hearts.

Though let's just say, long story short, that you work things out with Marc and wormed your way into this lovable grump's heart 🥰

There are also two potential endings for this story. Ideally, of course, I LOVE a happy ending and I want them all to simply be lovey dovey (which they DESERVE). The other ending, ROUGHLY, is that some bad shit goes down and MC ends up having to sacrifice herself to keep the Moon Boys safe and she dies. This obviously completely fucks the boys up, so much so that they never fully accept MC's death while also losing their will to live and blaming themselves. As a result, during a mission for Khonshu, the boys are so out of their element that they end up being killed by their enemy.

B U T even tho me likes some good ol' angst, I could never actually go through it without a proper conclusion!! SO when the boys die, they meet and be with MC again who's been eagerly waiting for them at the Field of Reeds, truly for all eternity now and just U G H MY HEART 😭💔

Now that I've written this out, I'm SO fooken excited!! Though, as I said, this is only an IDEA (at least for now)

Buuut what do y'all think??? :3

[ledenews]

OCPL - Lunch With Baseball & Hot Dogs!

May 7 at Noon: Bloomered, Be-Whiskered, & Barnstorming! Wheeling Baseball Oddities Download the May-June 2024 brochure HERE. We will explore the strange world of Barnstorming baseball in Wheeling during the early Twentieth Century, when all manner of diverse and sometimes downright odd professional teams came to town to play the locals, often in front of sold-out crowds. Learn about women's teams who played long before Rose Gacioch and the All-American Girls Pro League, a hirsute team from Michigan with amazing talent, and much more. Presented by Seán Duffy. Watch LIVE on Facebook Watch LIVE on YouTube Facebook Event Library Calendar Get Your Hot Dogs Here! Q: What goes better with Baseball than Hot Dogs? A: Not much. That is to say: NOTHING. That's why Melissa from Midge's Kitchen will have her hot dog cart at the 16th Street entrance to the Library on May 7 in time for our Baseball Barnstorming Lunch With Baseball program! She has it all, from classic chili dogs to vegan options! See menu below. Plus, we'll be giving away vouchers for FREE dogs to attendees only. So come early and have a great day at the ballpark -- er -- Library!   May 14 at Noon: Following the Silence - Poetry with Marc Harshman In “Following the Silence,” Marc Harshman, Poet Laureate of West Virginia, offers up his newest full-length collection of poems and demonstrates his dependably keen observational skills that elevate landscapes and people into an almost mythic realm. In many of the poems there is, as well, a threatening presence from whose grim circumstances he wrestles, if not hope, glimmers of its possibilities. Marc Harshman is the author of 14 nationally acclaimed children’s books including FALLINGWATER: THE BUILDING OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S MASTERPIECE, co-authored with Anna Egan Smucker. His collections of poetry include WOMAN IN RED ANORAK, winner of the Blue Lynx Prize, BELIEVE WHAT YOU CAN, winner of the Weatherford Award from the Appalachian Studies Association , DARK HILLS OF HOME, , and his newest volume just released and from which he’ll be reading at OCPL is FOLLOWING THE SILENCE, Press 53, Winston-Salem, NC.  He has also just been named the Appalachian Heritage Writer for 2024 by Shepherd University’s Appalachian Studies program.  He holds degrees from Bethany College, Yale University Divinity School, and the University of Pittsburgh.  Appointed in 2012 by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, Harshman is the seventh poet laureate of West Virginia.   Facebook Event Library Calendar May 21 at Noon: SOURCE of Resilience: The Story of a Refugee Family from Ukraine More than two years after the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine by Russia, ten million Ukrainians still cannot return to their homes. The decision to leave Ukraine was a harrowing one for Roman and Olga Panivnyk. Torn between loyalty to their country, concern for Olga’s elderly parents and responsibility for their three children, they ultimately left to Poland. From there, the family was able to continue to Olga’s sister’s home in Pennsylvania. In this talk, Olya Panivnyk will recount their journey from Kyiv to Wheeling, share what was the SOURCE of their resilience along that journey, and describe how we may support those whom they left behind.Olga Panivnyk graduated from Dnipropetrovsk State University, Ukraine, with a major in International Business. She is the Founder of BeChange, Human Capital Advisor, Executive and Business Coach, Speaker, and Executive with 25 years of experience in HR, Finance, M&A, and Change Management in global FMCG, Manufacturing, and Technology businesses. She is a resilient Ukrainian who has recently started the North American branch of her coaching and consulting business out of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan area. Olga is proud to have a legacy of the business and HR leaders she has inspired and developed who are successful across multiple industries and geographies today. Facebook Event Library Calendar May 28 at Noon: Japanese Food Workshop Our friend Manami Kawazoe from the Japanese Outreach Initiative at West Liberty University returns to talk more about the Japanese style of eating and food. We will make mochi(rice cake) as a dessert. The traditional mochi is sweet red bean paste inside but ours will include chocolate and other flavored pastes. Facebook Event Library Calendar June 4 at Noon: A History of Cooey-Bentz Randy Cooey, W.R Cooey’s great grandson and Emeritus Professor of Economics at Bethany College, and Jeff Knierim, great-great nephew of Herman Bentz and the company’s president until it closed in 2002, will present the history of Cooey-Bentz Company. Founded in 1897, Cooey-Bentz was a landmark home furnishings business in South Wheeling, playing an important role in the fabric of the community. In addition to selling home furnishings, the company operated a funeral home that was sold to the Kepner family in the 1930’s. Although known for providing quality products and service to its customers, Cooey-Bentz is best remembered for its legendary Christmas window displays, “Toyland,” and of course, Santa Claus. Join Randy and Jeff as they reminisce about the “good old days” at Cooey-Bentz! Facebook Event Library Calendar June 11 at Noon: Bloomsday in Wheeling Patrick Hastings, English professor, author of “The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses,” and curator of ulyssesguide.com, who will be at the Library for Wheeling's first ever Bloomsday, a worldwide but Irish-centric celebration of the book and the genius of James Joyce. Ours will feature a virtual walking tour of Leopold Bloom's Dublin led by Mr. Hastings, dramatic readings, trivia, music, food, a final discussion of Ulysses, and more! Dress like it's 1904! And enter the James Joyce look-alike contest to win! Facebook Event Library Calendar June 18 at Noon: The Book of Quint with Ryan Dacko “1100 men went into the water…” So begins the haunting monologue by actor Robert Shaw as grizzled shark hunter Quint in the movie “Jaws,” in which he describes his experience as a survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in the dying days of the Second World War. The sinking left hundreds of crew members floating in the ocean. Most died from exposure and the worst mass shark attack in recorded history. As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the “Jaws” movie, host of the podcast “The Jaw Obsession,” Ryan Dacko has written the definitive prequel to the Jaws novel, telling the back story of Quint. Beginning with him adrift after the sinking, and following him first to San Francisco and then to Amity Island, we read of how and when he acquires his many scars, of how he comes to own his boat “The Orca,” and how he develops his technique for hunting sharks. Dacko is a US Coast Guard veteran, licensed underwater welder, and professional commercial deep-sea diver. He last visited our state in 2012 when he worked on a massive wind storm that took down power lines. “I loved the state and always wanted to go back,” he said. “This is a great opportunity.” Enter the Quint look-alike contest to win! Facebook Event Library Calendar June 18 (6:30 pm): Special Edition People’s University –Misconceptions About West Virginia Statehood WVU History professor Dr. Hal Gorby will discuss some of the common misconceptions about how West Virginia became a state. The program will cover some of the intense divisions among those involved. Facebook Event Library Calendar June 25 at Noon: Our Flag Was Still There: The Story of the Star Spangled Banner Our Flag Was Still There details the improbable two-hundred-year journey of the original Star-Spangled Banner—from Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key first saw it, to the Smithsonian in 2023—and the enduring family who defended, kept, hid, and ultimately donated the most famous flag in American history. Tom McMillan, former VP/Communications for the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, tells a story as no one has before. Digging deep into the archives of Fort McHenry and the Smithsonian, accessing never-before-published letters and documents, and presenting rare photos from a variety of sources, McMillan follows the flag on an often-perilous journey through three centuries. Our Flag Was Still There provides new insight into an intriguing period of U.S. history, offering a “story behind the story” account of one of the country’s most treasured relics. Facebook Event Library Calendar Download the May-June 2024 brochure HERE. Read the full article

[deathlessathanasia]

“In cognitive terms, divination exploits the human need to make sense of as many data as possible that are constantly fed into our brains. This ability to make better sense of the world than our animal competitors gave humans the cutting evolutionary edge. Recently, scholars have begun to explain religion in the same terms. To put it somewhat simplistically: to understand otherwise inexplicable (and therefore disturbing and frightening) data with which the human brain must deal, we assume that superhuman agents intervene in our lives. These divine agents act and react just like we do, but they are stronger, wiser, and better than we are. This theory explains why what to our modern rationality are random phenomena were understood as signs in ancient divination – mostly opaque signs that needed further interpretation but that certainly were not random. The shape of a sheep’s liver, the flight of birds, a chance uttering overheard in a critical situation, the constellation of certain planets at a given time, or the working of the brain during sleep were all taken as signs with which a divine agent announced future events or answered anxious questions in a crisis. When divination did not focus on random natural events, it created them in a ritual process. Throwing dice, drawing lots (helped by naive children or irrational animals), falling into a trance, viewing the chance patterns made by oil on a surface of water were randomizing devices that opened up a crack in the rational causality of daily life; through it the hand or voice of a superhuman being signalled an answer to the more or less pressing question a human might put before it.

Nothing of this was necessarily connected with Apollo; he was not the only oracular divinity in the ancient world. If one assumed that gods knew more than humans, then any divinity could reveal the future; the same was true for heroic seers, and perhaps even for all dead ancestors. Zeus was not only consulted in Dodona but also in his sanctuary at Olympia and, in the guise of the Egyptian god Ammon, in his oasis sanctuary of Siwa in Northeastern Egypt. . . . Hermes presided over oracles that were guided by chance, such as those relying on dice or a chance utterance by an unrelated passer-by. The Boeotian god or hero Trophonios received visitors under the earth; they arrived after a harrowing Underworld journey. The hero Calchas sent prophetic dreams to whoever slept on the hide of a sacrificial ram in his Southern Italian cave sanctuary.

But these cases pale in number, quality, and impact before the role Apollo played in divination. The god himself was well aware of it. When, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the new-born trickster Hermes tries to blackmail his older brother into granting him the gift of divination, Apollo flatly refuses: “It is divinely decreed that neither you yourself nor another immortal may learn it. Only the mind of Zeus knows the future, and I in pledge have agreed and sworn a mighty oath that I alone of the immortal gods shall know the shrewd-minded counsel of Zeus” (v. 533–538). Prophecy is Apollo’s, and Apollo’s alone. This became more and more pronounced over the course of time. In the second or third century CE, someone asked Apollon in Didyma why so many oracles in the past were inspired either by sacred springs or by vapors rising from the earth but had now disappeared. The god himself answered: Wide Earth herself took some oracles back into her underground bosom; others were destroyed by long-lasting Time. By now, there are left under Helios who sends light to the humans only the divine water in the valley of Didyma, and the one of Pytho under the high peaks of Parnassus, and the spring in Clarus, a narrow opening for a prophesying voice. (Porphyry, Fragment 322 F.)

Only the three major Apolline oracular shrines, Didyma, Delphi and Clarus, remained functional, out of a much larger number in the past. But already long before this date, almost all Greek oracular sites that had an international reputation belonged to Apollo, with the sole exceptions of Zeus’ oracles in Dodona and, later, Siwa in Egypt. And there was a host of minor oracular shrines of Apollo throughout the Greek world, sometimes known to us only through the text of an ancient author or the chance-find of an inscription. A single inscription provides the evidence that the sanctuary of Apollo in the beautiful sacred grove at Gryneion in the Troas functioned as an oracle in late Hellenistic times, and a single text tells us of an Apolline oracle in Hierakome (“Sacred Village”) in the Maeander valley: “There is a venerable sanctuary of Apollo and an oracle; the prophets are said to give responses in poetry of some elegance” (Livy 38.43, in an aside when describing a military expedition in the region). Minor oracular deities, such as the Boeotian god Ptoios, were identified with Apollo, as were indigenous Anatolian deities that had oracular cults.”

 - Fritz Graf, Apollo

[burstingsunrise]

hi molly💛 from the one hundred ways to say I love you prompt list, can i request “I bought you a ticket.” with lashton? thank you 💛

hi em!!! 💜 sorry this took me 900 years, but here, finally, is some wintery lashton for you.

words: 3734 tw: none

on ao3 here.

It’s abnormally dark when Luke wakes up. It’s not unusual for the sky to be dark – Luke wakes up a solid hour before sunrise. But where are the street lights that usually illuminate his bedside table through his blinds? It’s also really fucking cold. It’s been unseasonably cold out over the past few days, but Luke’s not shy about cranking the thermostat. Maybe he forgot to flip on the heat before he went to bed last night.

What time is it? He looks at his phone. 5:49. He flicks through his notifications, and he finally realizes why everything feels wrong. The power is out. He has a text from the energy company informing him of a blackout due to “unprecedented demands on the power grid.” What the fuck does that mean?

He tumbles out of the mess of blankets in his bed and peeks through his blinds. The street is completely dark, but the moon is still out, bright enough that he can see it – inches of fresh snow coating the ground. He flips to his weather app, which informs him the temperature is in single digits.

This just doesn’t happen in L.A. Wildfires, heat waves, earthquakes, sure. But below freezing temperatures and inches of snow? Not so much. He flicks back over to his text from the energy company and taps the link to get more information, but his browser just spins on the loading screen. That’s just great. He tries sending a text to Michael.

Luke: you have power?

Michael: no. fuck this. how are we supposed to get our mcr tickets?

Okay, so he’s got service but no data. Less than ideal, especially since, as Michael pointed out, they’re supposed to be trying for My Chemical Romance tickets later this morning. As if the odds weren’t already stacked against them enough just based on sheer demand, it looks like now they might not have a way to even try to get tickets.

Luke climbs back under his covers to warm up while he assesses the situation. No heat. No internet. No indication when he will have his electricity back. Fuck. What a great Monday this is shaping up to be.

The last thing he wants to do is go outside, but he can only put off walking Petunia for so long. With a heavy sigh, he slides out from under his covers again and opens the door to his closet. He’s hit with a blast of freezing air, and he quickly reaches in to extract a handful of the warmest things he can find by the light of his phone. He pulls on sweatpants and a hoodie and uses his phone to light his way to the living room.

“C’mon Petunia,” he calls behind him. “I know you don’t wanna, but we have to go outside.” He hears Petunia’s collar jingle as she jumps off the bed to follow him. He bundles up as best he can in his heaviest jacket, a hat and gloves, and they venture into the dark. Luke sucks in a breath when the cold hits his skin, unaccustomed to the bitterness and the way it steals the air from his lungs. It’s actually kind of beautiful to look at, though – his entire neighborhood is covered in a fresh blanket of white snow, lit only by the soft glow of moonlight bouncing off the snowy surfaces.

Petunia leads them out to the sidewalk and Luke smiles at the sight of her little pawprints in the snow ahead of him. They walk a bit further, and Petunia sniffs determinedly at a bush in front of the neighboring house. It’s dark enough that Luke doesn’t notice the figure ahead on the sidewalk until he’s just a few feet away.

“Crazy day, huh?”

Luke whips his head up, startled by the voice in the otherwise quiet early morning air. It’s a man bundled a bit more practically than Luke is, with an actual winter coat and scarf and boots. All the layers mostly obscure the guy’s face, but he sounds friendly, and apparently is better at finding humor in less-than-desirable circumstances than Luke is.

“Yeah,” Luke mumbles back.

“I’m Ashton,” the guy says. “New neighbor? Moved in last month.” Ah. Luke is familiar with the new neighbor. Hot Neighbor, as he has oh-so-creatively dubbed him in his mind. While this is their first official meeting, Luke definitely noticed Hot Neighbor moving in several weeks prior. Sweat was dripping down his face and neck, soaking through his flimsy T-shirt, as he unloaded boxes from a U-Haul trailer, biceps straining, and Luke hasn’t stopped noticing him since.

He’s watched Hot Neighbor gardening on a few occasions, which is fun because Hot Neighbor often gardens shirtless, even when it’s 50 degrees outside. Luke supposes it’s because of the sweat issue. He’s also watched Hot Neighbor unload groceries from his car, do yoga in his backyard, wash his car, and mow the lawn. He does most of those activities shirtless as well. Luke might feel bad about watching Hot Neighbor through the curtains, but honestly, how could he not? It’s basically porn.

“Yeah, um—” Luke’s words are creaky and heavy with sleep. He clears his throat. “I’ve seen you around. I’m Luke, and this is Petunia. I’d say welcome to the neighborhood, but…well.” He gestures at the snow and darkness surrounding them.

Hot Neighbor grins, and his hat droops over his eyes with the movement. “Nice to meet you, Luke!” Hot Neighbor – Ashton – is far too chipper given the circumstances. “I saw you out here with Petunia and figured I’d check and see if you’d heard the news.”

“I know we don’t have power, obviously. Is there more?” Luke asks, cringing in anticipation of the answer.

“They’re saying it might be days before we get it back.”

“Days? Plural?” Luke leans in, making sure he didn’t mishear Ashton over the swirl of the wind.

“Yeah,” Ashton says apologetically, shoulders shrugging around his ears. “Probably going to get pretty cold. This weather is supposed to last at least a week.”

“Shit.” Luke bounces on the balls of his feet to stay warm. The wind is starting to seep through his jacket, and his sneakers are soaking up snow like a sponge. “What does that mean?” It’s a rhetorical question; Luke’s trying to think through the implications of a situation he has never been in nor expected to be in.

Ashton answers it anyway. “Well, your house is going to get really cold, like I said. Need to be careful about the pipes bursting. Lots of stores and restaurants are closed because they don’t have power, and roads are terrible, so getting food might be kind of a pain for the next few days. And I guess you can’t really cook, unless you have a gas stove.”

Luke stares at Ashton with his jaw dropped, completely unprepared for the amount of terrible news he was just given. Anxiety is bubbling under his skin and he takes a few deep breaths to try to calm himself. They don’t feel right with the heavy, cold air. “I’m going to die,” he says plainly. “Petunia is going to die, and it will be my fault.”

Hot Neighbor – shit, Ashton – has the gall to giggle at Luke’s distress. And maybe it’s kind of a cute laugh, but Luke’s too distraught to appreciate it. He gives Ashton a dirty look and Ashton looks appropriately guilty. “Don’t worry, Luke. I’ll make sure you and Petunia don’t die. You have a fireplace? Gas stove?”

“No and no,” Luke says, wondering why Past Luke was so convinced he could never possibly need a fireplace in the L.A. climate. Past Luke was an idiot. A complete moron.

“Oh. That complicates things a little.” Ashton fusses with his hat, tugging it lower on his ears, then pushing it higher on his forehead. He seems to be wrestling with something, but Luke is cold and anxious, and he’s getting impatient to get back inside and try to figure out how he’s going to survive.

“I guess I should –” Luke gestures back toward his house and starts to spin on his heel.

“Wait.” Ashton’s voice stops Luke mid-spin. The heel of his sneaker slides out from under him on the slick ground, and he starts to topple over sideways. Suddenly Ashton’s hand is under his elbow, steadying him before he faceplants into the snow next to the bush Petunia just peed on.

“Holy shit,” Luke gasps, body flashing warm from adrenaline. “Thank you. I nearly cracked my face open.”

“We can’t have that,” Ashton says, eyeing Luke intensely as he slowly extracts his hand from underneath Luke’s elbow. “Before you almost smashed my lemonade berry shrub, I was going to say…I have a fireplace, and a gas stove. And I’m stocked on food and water. You’re welcome to come and stay for a bit if you need to. Petunia, too, obviously.” He nods at Petunia, now snuffling around Ashton’s feet curiously.

It’s a generous offer. Luke’s mind whirs, trying to weigh the pros and cons. On one hand, Hot Neighbor is asking Luke over to his house, a scenario which Luke has imagined many times, and in his imagination, Luke’s not just getting a cup of sugar from him.

On the other hand, Hot Neighbor – fuck, Ashton – is still basically a stranger, and Luke’s social skills aren’t exactly built to withstand awkward interactions with people he barely knows.

“Oh, thank you. I, er – I guess we’ll see how it goes? Might come by if things get dire.” Luke smiles broadly to try to offset the potential rudeness he didn’t realize might come across in his words until they were already out.

Ashton’s face drops slightly “Cool. Well. Just swing by if you need anything,” Ashton says, smile now recovered but voice hollow.

“I’m trying to get concert tickets!” Luke doesn’t know why he says it; probably a last-ditch attempt to salvage the situation enough that Ashton doesn’t think Luke hates him and would rather freeze to death than spend time with him.

Ashton looks at him, mystified, but with a gleam in his eye that hadn’t been there a second ago. “It’s just, My Chemical Romance tickets go on sale this morning?” Luke says. “And my friend Mike and I are trying to get tickets, and it’s going to be really hard, and…I just need to catch up with him. Figure out what our plan is for trying to get tickets now.”

“I love My Chemical Romance,” Ashton says, throwing his hand over his heart for emphasis. Luke files that away, a new fun fact for the Hot Neighbor folder in his brain. “Does your friend have power?”

“Nope.” Luke lets his dejected tone speak for itself.

“Shit. Sorry.” Luke shrugs. “Maybe you’ll be able to figure something out,” Ashton says, looking almost as helpless as Luke feels.

“Yeah, maybe.” Luke smiles at Ashton, a full-on smile to try to make up for being such an antisocial bummer, but it makes his teeth so cold he can only hold it for a couple seconds before he has to close his mouth. “It was nice officially meeting you, Ashton.”

“You too.” Ashton seems distracted, lost in thought for a moment, but he quickly recovers. “And seriously, come by if you need anything at all, or if you just need to warm up by the fire.”

“Thanks, I will.” Luke nods appreciatively and scurries back towards his house, eager to get out of the cold. For once in her life, Petunia seems equally enthusiastic about getting back inside, and she clips at Luke’s heels eagerly.

***

Much to Luke’s dismay, going inside isn’t the relief he was hoping for. It’s almost as cold in his house as it was outside. “At least it’s not windy,” he grumbles, toeing off his soaked-through shoes by the door. He screeches as he hightails it across the freezing cold laminate flooring to his room to get a pair of warm, dry socks.

Poor Petunia is shivering by his feet as he rifles through his sock drawer, so Luke digs out an old T-Shirt for her to wear. He’ll never make fun of people who buy sweaters for their dogs ever again. Once he and Petunia are both appropriately bundled, he gathers all the blankets he can find and piles them on his couch, then slides under the pile as gracefully as he can. Petunia nudges into his side, curling up in a ball in the blanket nest.

Okay. So now he’s sitting in the dark, shivering under a giant pile of blankets, with literally nothing to do. He calls Michael and they spend a few minutes trying to hash out a potential plan for MCR tickets, but neither of them comes up with any viable ideas. So much for hearing The Black Parade live.

Luke tries reading, his eyes straining in the dim light of the early morning. It’s too cold for his hands to grasp the book, and he’s getting a headache, so he gives up and throws the book across the room. He jams his hands under his blankets and closes his eyes, trying to fall asleep.

Maybe he sleeps a little bit, a few minutes here and there, but it’s still so fucking cold, he keeps waking up shivering. This is torture. He’s bored out of his mind and he’s freezing, and there’s no end in sight. He looks at the clock. It’s not even noon yet. Fuuuuuuuck. To add insult to injury, MCR tickets went on sale at 10. They’re certainly sold out by now.

“Hey Petunia,” Luke calls, smiling when Petunia’s head pops up from her own blanket nest. “Wanna bother Hot Neighbor?” She cocks her head to the side, and her mouth opens into a smile. Luke takes that as a ringing endorsement.

**

Ashton opens his door with a grin, and now that there’s daylight, and Ashton isn’t covered in layers of outerwear, Luke can see his fucking dimples and his fucking otherworldly hazel eyes, both features Luke hadn’t been able to make out clearly while he was perving on Ashton from his kitchen window. He’s wearing sweatpants and a hoodie and these absurd bright purple slippers designed to look like cowboy boots, and maybe Luke is in love. A problem for another time.

“It’s really cold,” Luke says in lieu of a greeting. He often gets called out for being dramatic, but in this case his teeth really are chattering against his will, and Ashton’s eyes fill with concern.

“Come warm up.” Ashton opens his door wide and gestures for Luke and Petunia to come in. Luke takes off his shoes but doesn’t bother to shed his coat. He can feel the heat from the fireplace before he sees it, and he blindly follows it down a hall and around a corner, tugging Petunia behind him. It’s probably rude to just let himself in like this, wandering a stranger’s house freely, but he’s too cold to care.

“Sit down by the fire,” Ashton calls from behind him. “There are tons of blankets on the sofa. I’ll get you some hot chocolate.”

Luke’s ears perk up at the promise of a hot drink, and he eagerly plops on the sofa in front of the fireplace, wrapping two clashing patterned fleece blankets around his shoulders. Petunia settles herself on the floor about an inch away from the fireplace, basking in the warmth with a series of pleased grunts. Luke smiles to himself, feeling his shoulders relaxing just knowing Petunia is comfortable again.

He sits quietly, burrowing his chin into his blankets and letting the warm air in Ashton’s living room slowly defrost him. Ashton’s house has windows and skylights, and even with the gloom outside, it’s a million times brighter than Luke’s house. Ashton bustles around the kitchen, putting on the kettle and opening and closing drawers. “You want marshmallows?” he calls.

What kind of magical fantasyland is Hot Neighbor’s house, honestly? Luke pokes his head out from his blankets. “Do I want marshmallows?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Ashton digs a bag of mini marshmallows out of the pantry and Luke watches as he dumps approximately half the bag into one mug, then counts out five marshmallows to place into the other. He picks up the mugs and comes over to the sofa, holding out the mug overflowing with marshmallows to Luke.

“Thank you!” Luke takes the mug eagerly and cradles it to his chest, savoring the warmth on his hands. Most of him has already warmed up after just a few minutes in front of the fire, but his hands are still ice cold.

“No problem. You earned it after spending all morning freezing your ass off.” Ashton sits down next to Luke, setting his mug on the coffee table so he can rearrange the remaining blankets into a cocoon.

Luke scoffs. “I don’t know about that. Kind of my own fault. I was severely unprepared for this situation. I didn’t even know it was supposed to snow.”

“When almost every day is sunny and 70 degrees it’s easy not to bother with checking the weather,” Ashton reasons, watching Luke happily licking up marshmallows one at a time with his tongue.

“I guess,” Luke replies, swallowing quickly so Ashton doesn’t catch a glimpse of partially chewed marshmallow goo in his mouth while he talks. “Still, though. We’d be in big trouble if we hadn’t run into you.”

“I’m glad you decided to come by,” Ashton says. “I’ve been meaning to come over and introduce myself properly.”

Luke laughs. “And now you’re going to get to see more of me than you could ever want.”

“Planning on moving in?” Ashton teases, jostling them a bit as he reaches to grab his own mug off the coffee table.

Luke blushes, burying his head back into his blankets. “I just mean that I can be pretty annoying. You’ll probably be sick of me before we even finish our hot chocolate.”

“Doubt that, mate.” Luke catches a quick flash of Ashton’s mischievous smile, and then before Luke realizes what’s happening, Ashton gulps down his entire mug of hot chocolate in one go and sets it down hard on the table, letting out a dramatic and satisfied “ahhhhh!” after he swallows.

“What the fuck?” Luke asks, genuinely delighted. He can’t quite figure Ashton out, but he is really having a good time trying.

“Finished my hot chocolate and I’m not sick of you yet,” Ashton says simply, a proud grin on his face. Luke’s chest fills with butterflies and maybe he’s reading this wrong – he barely knows Ashton, after all – but that’s not going to stop him from losing his mind over it, silently, while Ashton watches him drink is own hot chocolate.

“I hope it lasts, then,” Luke says.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Ashton says. “So, Petunia’s into the Backstreet Boys, then?” He cuts his eyes at Petunia, sprawled out on her side next to the fire.

The old T-shirt Luke had put on her is one of his prized thrift store finds – a Backstreet Boys Into the Millennium tour shirt, white and yet somehow completely free of armpit stains. Unfortunately, his shoulders outgrew the shirt about three years ago, but he can’t bring himself to get rid of it. His loss, Petunia’s gain.

“Yeah, she’s a big fan.” Luke pauses to finish his drink, then smirks at Ashton. “Don’t tell me you’re an *NSYNC kind of guy. Petunia might force us to leave, and I’m just starting to thaw out.”

“Obviously I’m not an *NSYNC kind of guy.” Ashton says, indignant. “I have taste!” There’s some awkward movement under his blankets, like he’s attempting to gesticulate wildly but has forgotten he’s trapped in the confines of a blanket prison.

Luke hides his smile behind his own blankets. “That’s a relief. I’m really enjoying your fireplace.”

“Just my fireplace?”

Luke raises his eyebrows and Ashton gives him a dirty look, then returns his gaze to Petunia. “How’s she feel about My Chemical Romance?”

Luke’s face drops at the reminder of The Great MCR Ticket Debacle of 2021. He sighs. “She loves them,” he says glumly.

“So here’s the thing.” Ashton looks away nervously, and Luke is worried that something is terribly wrong. He just has no idea what it could possibly be, seeing as he’s only known Ashton for half an hour, and all they’ve done is have a friendly chat and drink hot chocolate.

“I got a ticket to My Chemical Romance.”

Oh. That’s not a big deal really. But also… ”How?” Luke asks, rubbing his hands together to try to maintain the warmth from his mug.

“My friend Calum still has power. Had him get me a ticket.” Ashton’s talking fast, and fidgeting. He’s buzzing like he had a dozen cups of espresso this morning, which, maybe he did. Luke doesn’t know his life.

“Oh, cool.” Luke tries to disguise his disappointment, because he is happy for Ashton getting a ticket. He’s just also extremely jealous.

There’s a pause, and then Ashton looks at him, pursing his lips apprehensively. “I got you a ticket.”

“You…what?” Luke can’t react yet; he must be misunderstanding. There’s no way in hell he heard right that Hot Neighbor got him a ticket to My Chemical Romance. That’s just not the sort of thing that happens to Luke.

“I got you a ticket,” Ashton repeats, bolder this time. “I was hoping maybe you’d let me take you.” He smiles, tilting his head to the side. “As a date.”

“Hot Neighbor wants to take me to My Chemical Romance?” Luke says, too thrilled to be subtle. “Of-fucking-course I’ll go with you!”

“Hot Neighbor?” Ashton smirks, leaning in closer to Luke.

“I know it’s not very creative, but it gets the point across.” Luke pulls the blankets over his shoulders tightly across his chest and closes the gap between he and Ashton, letting their sides meld together. There are still half a dozen blankets between their bodies, but Luke swears he can feel Ashton’s warmth through them.

“I must not be very creative, because I’ve been calling you Hot Neighbor too,” Ashton says.

“Seriously?”

Wonders never cease. Luke’s going to fucking My Chemical Romance with Hot Neighbor, who thinks he’s a hot neighbor. Monday’s not looking so bad after all.

[a-room-of-my-own]

To track the ‘incel’ diatribes uttered and read by Jake Davison, murdering women can seem like the logical conclusion to their seething hatred.

The hours after a fatal attack on members of the public are harrowing. Confusion reigns, rumours swirl and anxious people try to contact loved ones to make sure they are safe. Last Thursday evening, as reports of gunfire and possible fatalities on a housing estate in Plymouth began to circulate, the question of whether it was a terrorist incident was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. When Devon and Cornwall police announced it was not terrorism-related, I wondered how they could be so sure – and their judgment has been called into question by everything that has emerged since.

We now know that 22-year-old Jake Davison was a misogynist who shot dead his mother, who had recently been treated for cancer, before taking the lives of four others. There are parallels between Plymouth and the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut in 2012, when Adam Lanza shot his mother five times before going to a primary school where he killed 20 children and six adults, all women. Not for the first time, the significance of extreme misogyny in the genesis of a fatal attack on members of the public seems to have been missed.

It is hard to see how Davison’s actions fail to meet the government’s definition of terrorism, which includes “the use of threat or action… to intimidate the public”. Examples include serious violence against one or more people, endangering someone’s life or creating a serious risk to the health and safety of the public: tick, tick and tick. But here is the get-out clause. The definition stipulates that terrorism must be “for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause” and it is often argued that even the most extreme misogyny does not meet that test.

It seems that its deadly interaction with other forms of extremism is poorly understood, something that struck me forcibly after the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017. Five years earlier, Salman Abedi was already showing signs of being radicalised, but the significance of his assault on a young Muslim woman at college was not recognised. Abedi punched her in the head for wearing a short skirt, almost knocking her out in front of witnesses. It was an act of staggering brutality, displaying a toxic combination of misogyny and allegiance to Islamist ideology, along with a low threshold for violence. Yet Abedi was not charged. Greater Manchester police dealt with the incident through restorative justice and Abedi owned up to anger management issues, avoiding a referral to the Prevent counter-terrorism programme. In what seems to be an example of history repeating itself, it has been revealed that Devon and Cornwall police recently restored Davison’s firearms licence, which he lost in December, after he agreed to take part in an anger management course.

Yet Davison made no secret of his seething resentment of women, posting hate-filled diatribes on YouTube. He compared himself to “incels” – involuntary celibates – angry young men who blame women for their inability to get sex and revealed an obsession with guns. In a video uploaded three weeks before the shootings, he came close to justifying sexual violence. “Why do you think sexual assaults and all these things keep rising?” he demanded in a 10-minute rant, claiming that “women don’t need men no more”. One of the questions Devon and Cornwall police need to answer is if they were aware of the content of Davison’s social media posts when they returned his licence.

In North America, incels have been linked with white supremacy, as well as being held responsible for the murders of around 50 people. In Canada, their ideology has been designated a form of violent extremism following an attack on a Toronto massage parlour last year in which a woman was stabbed to death by a 17-year-old man. It was the second such attack in the city in two years, after a self-described incel drove a van into pedestrians in 2018, killing 10 people.

In the UK, however, misogyny is not even widely recognised as the driving force behind violence against women. Time and again, we hear about men who supposedly “just snapped” and killed their female partners in what the police describe as “domestic” and “isolated” incidents. Not so isolated, given that 1,425 women were killed by men in the UK between 2009 and 2018, but we are expected to believe that such homicides could not be predicted or stopped. In fact, it is rare for a woman to be murdered by a current or former partner without a previous history of domestic abuse.

Hatred of women is normalised, dismissed as an obsession of feminists, even when its horrific consequences are staring us in the face. In June last year, two sisters, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, were murdered in a north London park by a teenager. Danyal Hussein, now 19, had been referred to Prevent after using school computers to access rightwing websites, but was discharged after a few months with no further concerns. What seems to have been missed is his virulent misogyny, which led him to make a “pact” with a “demon” to kill six women in six months.

Five years ago, I began to notice how many men who committed fatal terrorist attacks had a history of misogyny and domestic abuse – practising at home, in other words. No one would listen so I wrote a book about it, listing around 50 perpetrators who had previously terrorised current and ex-partners. It was published in 2019 and inspired groundbreaking research by counter-terrorism policing, showing that almost 40% of referrals to the Prevent programme had a history of domestic abuse, as perpetrators, witnesses or victims. Project Starlight has produced a number of recommendations, arguing that counter-terrorism officers need to look for evidence of violence against women when they are assessing the risk posed by suspects.

That is a welcome development, but we need to go further. We are all in shock after hearing about the horrific events in Plymouth, while the grief of the victims’ families is awful to contemplate. But Davison’s murderous rampage demonstrates that our understanding of what constitutes terrorism is too restrictive. Extreme misogyny needs to be recognised as an ideology in its own right – and one that carries an unacceptable risk of radicalising bitter young men

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

Real Dinosaurs Versus Reel Dinosaurs: Film’s Fictionalization of the Prehistoric World

by Shelby Wyzykowski

What better way can you spend a quiet evening at home than by having a good old-fashioned movie night? You dim the lights, cozily snuggle up on your sofa with a bowl of hot, buttery popcorn, and pick out a movie that you’ve always wanted to see: the 1948 classic Unknown Island. Mindlessly munching away on your snacks, your eyes are glued to the screen as the story unfolds. You reach a key scene in the movie: a towering, T. rex-sized Ceratosaurus and an equally enormous Megatherium ground sloth are locked in mortal combat. And you think to yourself, “I’m pretty sure something like this never actually happened.” And you know what? Your prehistorically inclined instincts are correct.

From the time that the first dinosaur fossils were identified in the early 1800s, society has been fascinated by these “terrible lizards.” When, where, and how did they live? And why did they (except for their modern descendants, birds) die out so suddenly? We’ve always been hungry to find out more about the mysteries behind the dinosaurs’ existence. The public’s hunger for answers was first satisfied by newspapers, books, and scientific journals. But then a whole new, sensational medium was invented: motion pictures. And with its creation came a new, exciting way to explore the primeval world of these ancient creatures. But cinema is art, not science. And from the very beginning, scientific inaccuracies abounded. You might be surprised to learn that these filmic faux pas not only exist in movies from the early days of cinema. They pervade essentially every dinosaur movie that has ever been made.

One Million Years B.C.

Another film that can easily be identified as more fiction than fact is 1966’s One Million Years B.C. It tells the story of conflicts between members of two tribes of cave people as well as their dangerous dealings with a host of hostile dinosaurs (such as Allosaurus, Triceratops, and Ceratosaurus). However, neither modern-looking humans nor dinosaurs (again, except birds) existed one million years ago. In the case of dinosaurs, the movie was about 65 million years too late. Non-avian dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago during a mass extinction known as the K/Pg (which stands for “Cretaceous/Paleogene”) event. An asteroid measuring around six miles in diameter and traveling at an estimated speed of ten miles per second slammed into the Earth at what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The effects of this giant impact were so devastating that over 75% of the world’s species became extinct. But the dinosaurs’ misfortunes were a lucky break for Cretaceous Period mammals. They were able to gain a stronger foothold and flourish in the challenging and inhospitable post-impact environment.

Cut to approximately 65 million, 700 thousand years later, when modern-looking humans finally arrived on the chronological scene. Until recently, the oldest known fossils of our species, Homo sapiens, dated back to just 195,000 years ago (which is, in geological terms, akin to the blink of an eye). And for many years, these fossils have been widely accepted to be the oldest members of our species. But this theory was challenged in June of 2017 when paleoanthropologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology reported that they had discovered what they thought may be the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens on a desert hillside at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. The 315,000-year-old fossils included skull bones that, when pieced together, indicated that these humans had faces that looked very much like ours, but their brains did differ. Being long and low, their brains did not have the distinctively round shape of those of present-day humans. This noticeable difference in brain shape has led some scientists to wonder: perhaps these people were just close relatives of Homo sapiens. On the other hand, maybe they could be near the root of the Homo sapien lineage, a sort of protomodern Homo sapien as opposed to the modern Homo sapien. One thing is for certain, the discovery at Jebel Irhoud reminds us that the story of human evolution is long and complex with many questions that are yet to be answered.

The Land Before Time

Another movie that misplaces its characters in the prehistoric timeline is 1988’s The Land Before Time. The stars of this animated motion picture are Littlefoot the Apatosaurus, Cera the Triceratops, Ducky the Saurolophus, Petrie the Pteranodon, and Spike the Stegosaurus. As their world is ravaged by constant earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the hungry and scared young dinosaurs make a perilous journey to the lush and green Great Valley where they’ll reunite with their families and never want for food again. In their on-screen imagined story, these five make a great team. But, assuming that the movie is set at the very end of the Cretaceous (intense volcanic activity was a characteristic of this time), the quintet’s trip would have actually been just a solo trek. Ducky and Petrie’s species had become extinct several million years earlier, and Littlefoot and Spike would have lived way back in the Jurassic Period (201– 145 million years ago). Cera alone would have had to experience several harrowing encounters with the movie’s other latest Cretaceous creature, the ferocious and relentless Sharptooth, a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Speaking of Sharptooth, The Land Before Time’s animators made a scientifically accurate choice when they decided to draw him with a two-fingered hand, as opposed to the three fingers traditionally embraced by other movie makers. For 1933’s King Kong, the creators mistakenly modeled their T. rex after a scientifically outdated 1906 museum painting. Many other directors knowingly dismissed the science-backed evidence and used three digits because they thought this type of hand was more aesthetically pleasing. By the 1920s, paleontologists had already hypothesized that these predators were two-fingered because an earlier relative of Tyrannosaurus, Gorgosaurus, was known to have had only two functional digits. Scientists had to make an educated guess because the first T. rex (and many subsequent specimens) to be found had no hands preserved. It wasn’t until 1988 that it was officially confirmed that T. rex was two-fingered when the first specimen with an intact hand was discovered. Then, in 1997, Peck’s Rex, the first T. rex specimen with hands preserving a third metacarpal (hand bone), was unearthed. Paleontologists agree that, in life, the third metacarpal of Peck’s Rex would not have been part of a distinct, externally visible third finger, but instead would have been embedded in the flesh of the rest of the hand. But still, was this third hand segment vestigial, no longer serving any apparent purpose? Or could it have possibly been used as a buttressing structure, helping the two fully formed fingers to withstand forces and stresses on the hand? Peck’s Rex’s bones do display evidence that strongly supports arm use. You can ponder this paleo-puzzle yourself when you visit Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition, where you can see a life-sized cast of Peck’s Rex facing off with the holotype (= name-bearing) T. rex, which was the first specimen of the species to be recognized (by definition, the world’s first fossil of the world’s most famous dinosaur!).

T. rex in Dinosaurs in Their Time. Image credit: Joshua Franzos, Treehouse Media

Jurassic Park

One motion picture that did take artistic liberties with T. rex for the sake of suspense was 1993’s Jurassic Park. In one memorable, hair-raising scene, several of the movie’s stars are saved from becoming this dinosaur’s savory snack by standing completely still. According to the film’s paleontological protagonist, Dr. Alan Grant, the theropod can’t see humans if they don’t move. Does this theory have any credence, or was it just a clever plot device that made for a great movie moment? In 2006, the results of ongoing research at the University of Oregon were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, providing a surprising answer. The study involved using perimetry (an ophthalmic technique used for measuring and assessing visual fields) and a scale model T. rex head to determine the creature’s binocular range (the area that could be viewed at the same time by both eyes). Generally speaking, the wider an animal’s binocular range, the better its depth perception and overall vision. It was determined that the binocular range of T. rex was 55 degrees, which is greater than that of a modern-day hawk! This theropod may have even had visual clarity up to 13 times greater than a person. That’s extremely impressive, considering an eagle only has up to 3.6 times the clarity of a human! Another study that examined the senses of T. rex determined that the dinosaur had unusually large olfactory bulbs (the areas of the brain dedicated to scent) that would have given it the ability to smell as well as a present-day vulture! So, in Jurassic Park, even if the eyes of T. rex had been blurred by the raindrops in this dark and stormy scene, its nose would have still homed-in on Dr. Grant and the others, providing the predator with some tasty midnight treats.

Now, it may seem that this blog post might be a bit critical of dinosaur movies. But, truly, I appreciate them just as much as the next filmophile. They do a magnificent job of providing all of us with some pretty thrilling, edge-of-your-seat entertainment. But, somewhere along the way, their purpose has serendipitously become twofold. They have also inspired some of us to pursue paleontology as a lifelong career. So, in a way, dinosaur movies have been of immense benefit to both the cinematic and scientific worlds. And for that great service, they all deserve a huge round of applause.

Shelby Wyzykowski is a Gallery Experience Presenter in CMNH’s Life Long Learning Department. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

[joneswuzhere]

hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

-  i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time.  and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go

[ampleappleamble]

—

Debriefing the Crucible Knights went about how Axa had expected it would. She and her companions had staggered out of Heritage Hill only to be immediately escorted back to Crucible Keep along with the little girl they'd rescued from her family crypt, the poor waif falling asleep on Edér's shoulders as they'd made their way through town. Once inside, they'd had their wounds tended to and their bellies filled as they recounted the events of their harrowing mission, repeating themselves over and over to one bewildered Knight after another. By the end of the evening, rumors, misinterpretations, and half-truths about the "end of the Curse of Heritage Hill" were all anybody in Crucible Keep could talk about– unless one preferred to gossip about the mysterious Watcher of Caed Nua instead.

Restful sleep was coming harder and harder to Axa, and the troubling trend had continued as they'd bedded down in the barracks that night. She'd woken the next morning feeling worse than she had when she'd laid down the night before, and her attitude had very much reflected it. She'd particularly let her ire show when her breakfast had been interrupted by a man who'd introduced himself as Penhelm, a name she recognized as the one belonging to the Knight that Osric had sent her after the day before, hoping she could recover his family's breastplate from the snooty little gossip.

"Is it true that you're not actually a Watcher, but merely a Cipher? Like the... others of your kind down at Hadret House?" Arrogance and curiosity mingled in his insufferable smirk as he spoke, not even having had the decency to wait until she'd finished chewing.

"That depends," she'd replied, her mouth still full of bacon. "Is it true you steal people's family heirlooms after talking shit about them and getting them kicked out of the service?"

Needless to say, she had gotten nowhere trying to convince him to do right by Osric. So on her way out, she'd passed through the scriptorium and, with a careful eye and a whispered word to Aloth, she'd left Crucible Keep that morning with Penhelm's soul lineage affidavit tucked away in her satchel.

She had been on her way to Hadret House to have the affidavit examined for authenticity, hoping to gain a bargaining chip that might pry the heirloom armor from the little bastard's hands, when a messenger had appeared at her shoulder, letting her know that her presence had been requested... at Hadret House. She'd almost laughed at the absurd coincidence– until the messenger told her exactly who had summoned her there, his tone low and reverent.

"Who is Lady Webb," she'd asked, "and what exactly does she want with me?"

The messenger had been young, with a casual, almost flippant air about him, but he had still had the good sense to lean close and keep an eye out for eavesdroppers. "You don't know her, milady? She's the directress of Dunryd Row, Defiance Bay's investigative peacekeeping force. No one's actually met her face to face, in... I don't know, a long time. But they say that despite her advanced age, her mind is a steel trap and her will is an iron fist. She and her Cipher operatives keep the city safe from threats that most kith are never even aware exist..."

Axa had listened, at first. She'd tried to listen. But as he'd spoken, as he'd thrust the wax-sealed summons into her hand, she'd found herself distracted by an all-too-familiar feeling. Something was pulling her toward Hadret House, something that had nothing to do with Dunryd Row or Ciphers or Lady Webb, and she'd turned away from the messenger in the middle of his speech to pursue it, helpless to resist.

He was there. Just outside of Hadret House, on the far side of Brackenbury. He was there, and she approached him–

–she approached him, any confidence she'd had before dissolving now in her sick stomach, trickling down her trembling limbs. She couldn't do this.

She had to do this.

He was already watching her, but the impact of his gaze was no less powerful than if he'd turned dramatically to face her. It was as though he knew what she was going to tell him already.

Of course he does, she thought. He knows all. He knows what I've done. What I–

"You look as though you've seen a ghost, dear."

Lady Webb chuckled in her throat, but her face did not laugh with her. "Although, perhaps you have. After all, you are the Watcher who wrested the ruins of Caed Nua away from poor, mad Maerwald, as well as the Watcher who ended the... 'curse' of Heritage Hill, if my reports are correct." The old, frail woman rose from her desk, crossed the room with a deceptive grace. "And they are."

Axa kept her head low, but lifted her eyes to meet Webb's gaze. "Why have you asked me here–"

"–You know why I have asked you here, child."  With anyone else, she would have felt that she was being chastised, but with him, she only felt kind, fatherly concern. "Your fellow missionaries have reported a change in your behavior recently. You neglect your duties, you are quiet and distant. What troubles you so to make you act this way?"

Tears stung her eyes. Her whole body quaked. Her breath caught in her throat. The quivering pit in her stomach broadened and her heart fell into it, and for a second she thought she might actually vomit, but instead it was her confession that flew from her mouth:

"Your Eminence, I... forgive me, but I wish... I wish to leave the order."

He folded his hands, frowning–

"You're not a stupid woman, Axa Mala. You should know why I've asked you here. Defiance Bay's concerns are my concerns, you see, and evidently, they are yours as well. But neither of us is overly fond of beating around the bush, so let's cut straight to it, shall we?" Lady Webb stopped at her bookshelf, turned to face Axa again, her keen eyes piercing the other woman's mind, her soul. "Why do you seek the Leaden Key?"

She had known, somehow, that Webb would ask her that, but it still took her by surprise. Nevertheless, Axa didn't waste time asking how she'd known. "I'm looking for someone. A man I saw in the ruins of Cliant Lîs. He... did something to me. And I need him to undo it."

The wizened old Cipher nodded at her, then, let her eyes slip shut, her face twitching–

–"You have been nothing if not an extraordinary asset to us," he said, slowly pacing as he spoke. "Your conviction in our cause has inspired your contemporaries to greatness, and together with them you have brought the light of redemption to thousands, if not more! What could possibly shake your faith in yourself like this? Your faith in us?"

Somehow, without her realizing, he had ended up crossing the room to stand directly before her. He looked into her eyes, worry and sorrow emanating from him. "What's wrong, Anthea? What happened?"

She squeezed her eyes shut but she still saw him in her mind, still saw the compassion in his eyes that a despicable sinner like her could never deserve–

Lady Webb opened her eyes, gasping softly.

"The gods are cruel," she murmured. "The man you seek is none other than the grandmaster of the Leaden Key himself: Thaos ix Arkannon."

The name echoed in Axa's head, the bearded man's masked face floating before her mind's eye. It felt like she'd always known him, or at least known of him, but only now could she put a name to the face.

"Thaos," she whispered–

"I cannot stay, Your Eminence. I'm... I'm tainted, wicked and weak." Anthea lowered her head, letting her tears fall to the floor. "I've done something terrible, something I can never undo, an unforgivable act of blasphemy. I fear– no, I– I know I am beyond redemption."

She curled in on herself, wracked with sobs, unable to continue. Shame and guilt burned her face, but she knew she deserved to burn for real, to burn forever. But even to cleanse her soul with holy flame would be too kind a mercy for a traitor of her magnitude. How could he, how could the gods ever forgive such a miserable wretch like her?

His hand fell onto her shoulder, steady and strong–

"He is a man unlike any other," Webb explained, her voice quiet and serious as she made her way back to her desk, hands folded behind her back. "The Leaden Key is an organization dedicated to obscuring, muddling, and destroying information, including any evidence pertaining to themselves or their activities. There's no way to be sure, but what little we've found suggests that they have supposedly existed for over two thousand years." She looked pointedly at Axa, one eyebrow cocked. "And it was Thaos who founded them."

"But that's impossible," Aloth blurted. "Even the longest-lived elves haven't even come close to..." He trailed off, twisting his fingers together anxiously, dropping his gaze to the floor.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Webb sighed, one drooping corner of her mouth briefly lifting into a smirk. "But when it comes to the Leaden Key, little is as it seems. If what we've managed to learn about him so far is true– and there's no guarantee that it is, but it's the best explanation we've got– he is one of Woedica's Favored, an agent of the Queen Who Was who has been gifted with the blessing of eternal life. In practice, this means that every time he dies, Thaos' soul is guided by Her hand to be reborn in an almost identical vessel, and once he reaches puberty, he Awakens to all of his past lives at once, in order to continue the work of his Mistress on Eora. So strong is his soul, in fact, that he can supposedly even project it out of himself and into others, crushing the will of lesser souls and usurping their bodies for his and his Queen's own ends." She regarded Axa with pity. "He is almost certainly the most dangerous, elusive, powerful man on the face of the planet. And while I can't deny being grateful for the company, you have my deepest sympathies that your path has also crossed with his."

"Why was he in Teir Nowneth the night the machine was activated in Heritage Hill?" Axa demanded, her head spinning. "What was he doing in Cliant Lîs? How did he Awaken me–"

–"So you have sinned," Thaos proclaimed gravely. "You have erred, stumbled on your path, and now you would cast yourself into the Void. Is that it?"

Anthea wanted to cover her face with her hands, wanted to run, to hide, but she could barely even find it in herself to draw the breath to answer him. "What I've done, no god could forgive me. Now or ever."

He brought his other hand around, then, gripped both of her shoulders firmly. "My child, my dear child, if you truly believe that then I have utterly failed you, as a teacher and as a leader. There is no sin so grevious that it cannot be absolved, no path so dark the gods cannot light the way to salvation! As long as you do not turn your back on Them, They will never turn Their backs on you."

She knew it couldn't be true. It was too good to be true, and nothing in her life had ever been half so good. Not since she was a child. But... would he really lie to her like that? He never had before. At least, she didn't think he had. Anthea slowly lifted her head to look at the man who would save her from herself–

Lady Webb sat back down, letting her chin hover just above her steepled fingers. "That's what I'd like to know. There's quite a lot I'd like to know about Thaos ix Arkannon and the Leaden Key, as I rather imagine you would, too. That's why I summoned you here today– to work with you, pool our resources, compare notes. The Key has been... active as of late, and where they go, you seem to follow, righting their wrongs. As you did in Heritage Hill." She smiled, her thin, red mouth like a slit cut into her face. "I'd like you to continue to do so, and to report your successes back to me. In return, Dunryd Row's resources shall be at your disposal should you need them, and with a bit of luck– well, a lot of luck, in truth– perhaps we two can corner him and get our answers at last."

There was something behind Webb's eyes, something mysterious and passionate and unrelenting that Axa couldn't quite place, but she knew instinctively that it wasn't for her. Whatever it was that drove this woman, whether it was a thirst for vengeance or a desire for the truth or a need for justice, the ferocity behind her eyes was only for Thaos.

She could respect that.

"Very well," Axa replied, "I accept–"

–"I... I want to believe that's so, Your Eminence," she stammered, "but even if it were, I don't deserve Their clemency."

"Some among the gods would see you punished, it's true," he murmured. "But the sting of the lash passes in an instant compared to the eternity afterward in which you shall enjoy the boundless mercy, the cleansing forgiveness, the all-consuming love of the gods. That is what makes one deserving– devotion. As long as you devote yourself to Them, They will return the faith you place in Them a thousand fold."

The tears fell afresh from her eyes, this time from sheer relief. Somewhere deep in her heart, she must have known he could make it all right, could show her the path to absolution. He always did. That was the real reason she had come here, wasn't it? What had she been so afraid of?

Thaos smiled warmly at her, his hands still gently clutching her shoulders. "Stay with us, Anthea. We need you. The gods need you. They have entrusted you with the truth of Their Word– will you return that trust?"

"I will," she whispered–

"Now, before you go– what was that bizarre display you put on just outside our door?" Lady Webb was already looking through another stack of documents, but she spared Axa a bemused glance. "It's not a good look, dear, standing around with your eyes glazed over and your mouth agog. You're liable to catch flies."

"I'm an Awakened Watcher," the orlan retorted curtly. "The memories from my past life tend to be a bit more vivid than the ones other Awakened kith might experience. And I don't exactly control what I see or when I see it."

The old Cipher shrugged. "I meant no offense. Only trying to warn you that you may have unwittingly broadcasted your whereabouts to someone who seems to have a bone to pick with you." She gestured vaguely toward the door to her office, and it swung open, an orlan man stepping in as though he'd been expected.

Webb looked at Axa the way a jaded teacher might at an impudent pupil. "Well? Show him the affidavit."

She blinked, and somewhat reluctantly, she reached into her satchel and produced Penhelm's affidavit, the one Aloth had pilfered for her at Crucible Keep. "Uh... Can you tell me if this is genuine?" she muttered.

The older man took it from her, looked it over briefly, and shook his head, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he handed it back. "Not at all," he pronounced. "Being perfectly honest, it's a rather shabby forgery, too."

Webb sighed, shuffling her papers. "Thank you, Kurren; you may go." The orlan gave her a respectful nod and left to return to his work downstairs as the directress of Dunryd Row grinned wryly at Axa. "Now you have your bargaining chip. Penhelm is waiting for you on the street outside. Do exercise caution, dear, and try to keep the blood off of my siding. We've only just had it repainted last month."

"Actually," the little woman smiled slyly, "I think I've got a better idea."

—

[things2mustdo]

When I ask myself what films in recent years have been my favorites, I find that the answers all seem to have a few things in common.  One, the movie must tell a compelling story; two, it must rise above its genre to make a larger statement about life or some universal idea; and three, it must be technically well made.  All great art—including film—can serve as a vehicle for the presentation of ideas, and the promotion of a certain virtue.  Although the mainstream American film industry has become more and more a sad repository of feminist cant and lowest-common-denominator commercial pandering, the foreign film world has undergone something of a renaissance in the past fifteen years.

The best films of France, Germany, Spain, and the UK are edgier, more intelligent, and more masculine than anything found in the US.  It was not always so.  But the work of great European directors like Jacques Audiard, Gaspar Noe, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Shane Meadows leaves little room for doubt that the true cutting-edge work is being done in Europe.  (Argentina deserves honorable mention here as having an excellent film industry).  The mainstream, corporate-driven US film industry has effectively smothered independent voices under an avalanche of political correctness, girl-power horseshit, chick-flickism, and mind-numbing CGI escapist dreck.

Movies that deal with masculine themes in a compelling way are not easy to come by these days.  Honest explorations of masculine virtues are repressed, marginalized, or trivialized.  One needs to scour the globe to cherry-pick the best here and there, and in some cases you have to go back decades in time.  Luckily, the availability of Netflix and other subscription services has made this task much easier than it used to be.  Access to the best cinema of Europe, South America, and Asia can be a great way for us to catch as glimpse at a foreign culture, as well as reflect on serious ideas.

I want to offer my recommendations on some films that I believe are an important part of the modern masculine experience, in all its wide variety and expression.  Out of the scores of possible choices, I decided to pick the handful of films that are perhaps not as well known to readers.  My opinions will not be shared by all.  I encourage readers to draw up their own lists of films dealing with masculine themes, and hope they will reflect on the reasons behind their choices.  Below are mine, in no particular order.  In italics is a brief plot synopsis, followed by my own comments.

1. Straw Dogs (1971).

A mild-mannered American academic (Dustin Hoffman) living in rural Cornwall with his beautiful wife becomes the target of harassment by the local toughs.  Things escalate to a sexual assault on his wife, and eventually to a brutal and protracted fight to the death when a local man takes refuge on their property.

Dustin Hoffman reaches his breaking point in “Straw Dogs”

This is a classic example of the type of movie that could never be made today.  Arguably Sam Peckinpah’s most daring film, it contains a controversial rape scene that seems to leave open the question whether Hoffman’s wife (played by Susan George) was a victim or a willing participant.  Faced with his wife’s betrayal, and continuing harassment from local miscreants, Hoffman’s character finds himself completely isolated and must learn to stand his ground and fight.

A chance incident later in the film sets the stage for a blood-soaked confrontation which is as inevitable as it is necessary. Peckinpah presents a compelling case for the cathartic power of violence, and the achievement of masculine identity through man-on-man combat.  It is a theme I find myself strongly drawn to. Controversial, powerful, and unforgettable, Peckinpah proves himself an unapologetic and strident advocate of old-school martial virtue.  We would do well to listen.  His voice is sorely missed today.  (Note:  avoid the pathetic recent remake of this movie).  Honorable mention:  Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) and Bring Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

2. Sorcerer (1977).

A group of international renegades find themselves down and out in Nicaragua, and volunteer for a job transporting unstable dynamite across the country to quell an oil rig fire.

Due to inept marketing when this movie was first released, it never achieved the credit it so fully deserved.  A motley group of international riff-raff (including the always appealing Roy Scheider) seeks redemption through a harrowing trial.  But will they get it?  Is it even desirable to escape one’s dark past?  The answers are complex, and director William Friedkin refuses to supply easy ones.  The characters in this film are doomed, and they know it, but they still hold true to their own code.  Which is itself honorable.  Consequences must be paid for everything we do in life, and often the price comes in a way never expect.  Dark, brooding, and humming with a pulse-pounding electronic score by Tangerine Dream, this film has deservedly become a cult classic.  The ending is a shocker you’ll never see coming.

Roy Scheider undertakes the most perilous journey of his life in William Friedkin’s 1977 masterpiece “Sorcerer”

3.  The Lives of Others (2006).

A coldly efficient Stasi (East German security service) officer (Ulrich Muhe) is enlisted by a Communist party hack in a surveillance program against a supposed subversive writer and his girlfriend.  But monitoring the writer’s life awakens sparks of nascent humanity in the Stasi man, and he eventually must decide whether to follow orders and destroy the writer, or to sacrifice himself to save him.

This German masterpiece was made with great fidelity to the look and feel of 1980s East Germany, and the results are evident in every frame.  It belongs on any list of the greatest films ever made.  The masculine virtue here is of a different type than viewers may be used to:  it is a quiet, understated heroism, the type of heroism that probably happens every day but is hardly noticed.  There is no bragging here, no chest-beating, no big-mouthed bravado.  (In short, none of the wooden-headed caricatures that pass for masculinity in the US).  The ethic here is about love and self-sacrifice, the noblest and greatest virtues of all.

The ethos of self-sacrifice is now considered old-fashioned and almost a punch-line, but historically it was valued very highly.  It features in nearly all the old literary epics and dramas of Europe and Asia.  Actor Ulrich Muhe pulls off a minor miracle of characterization here with his portrayal of a Stasi man named Weisler, whose special wiretapping assignment against a playwright transforms him from heartless automaton into awe-inspiring hero.  The movie made me wonder just how many quiet, unassuming men there must be out there, whose toil, heroism, and sacrifice has never been, and never will be, acknowledged.  The ending is transcendently beautiful, and moving beyond words.

4.  Homicide  (1991).

A police detective (Joe Mantegna) is assigned to investigate a murder case.  The case awakens in him stirrings of his long-suppressed ethnic identity.  Unfortunately, he will eventually be forced to choose between conflicting loyalties.  And the consequences will be devastating.

No modern American director has probed the meaning of masculine identity more than David Mamet, and all of his films are meditations on themes related to illusion, reality, masculinity, and struggle.  Homicide, a nearly unknown gem from the early 1990s, is perhaps his profoundest.  Mamet knows that a man must make choices in his life, and for those choices, consequences must be paid.  And very often, we find ourselves derailed by the mental edifices we construct for ourselves.  The Mantegna character is led through a complex and increasingly ambiguous chain of events, only to find that at the heart of one mystery lies an even more inscrutable one.  Beware the things you seek.  You may not like what you find.

Joe Mantegna deals with the fatal consequences of his decisions in David Mamet’s “Homicide”

5.  A Prophet (2009).

An Algerian Arab is incarcerated in a French jail, and is drawn into the savage world of Corsican gangsters.  Forced to kill or be killed, he is drawn into a pitiless world that recognizes only cunning and brutality.  He finds himself straddling two realities:  the world of his own nationality, and that of the Corsicans.  And to survive and emerge triumphant, he must learn to play all sides against each other.

This film must be counted among the greatest crime dramas ever made.  You simply can’t take your eyes off the screen.  The lesson here is that a man must learn to survive on his wits, and do whatever is necessary to stay alive.  The Corsican boss whom Al Djebena (Tahar Rahim) works for is just about the most malevolent presence in recent screen memory.  Part of France’s continuing internal dialogue about its immigrant population, A Prophet is not to be missed.

Tahar Rahim learns a thing or two about Corsica in “A Prophet”

6.  The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005).

An intense young man (Romain Duris) works for his father as a real estate shark in urban Paris.  His “job” consists of intimidating deadbeat immigrant tenants, vandalizing apartments, and forcibly collecting loans.  He also plays the piano.  Eventually, he is forced to decide which life he wants:  the path laid out by his shady father, or the idealistic path of his own choosing.  He’s seeking redemption, but will he find it?  And at what cost?

Again, we have here the themes of redemption and moral choice.  Romain Duris has a screen presence and intensity that rivals anything done by Pacino in his prime, and some of the scenes here are fantastic.  (His seduction of his friend’s wife, Aure Atika, is one of many great scenes).  All men will be confronted and tested by crises and situations beyond their control.  How they respond to those situations will define who they are as men.  Duris’s character proves that redemption can be achieved, if wanted badly enough.

Romain Duris embodying screen intensity

7.  Red Belt (2008).

Martial arts instructor Mike Terry is forced, against his principles, to consider entering a prize bout.  He is abandoned and betrayed by his wife and friends, and must confront his challenges alone with only his code and his pride.

Another great meditation on masculine virtue and individualism by David Mamet.  In his own unique dialogue style, Mamet showcases his belief that, in the end, all men stand alone.  At the moment of truth, it is you, and only you, who will be staring into the abyss.  Our trials by fire will not come in the time and at the place of our own choosing.  But when they do come, a man must be prepared to hold his ground and fight his corner.  Watch for Brazilian actress Alice Braga in a supporting role here.  We hope to see more of her on American screens in the future.

8.  Fear X  (2003).

A repressed security guard (John Turturro) is searching for answers to who killed his wife.  His strange behavior and ticking time-bomb manner begin to alarm friends and co-workers.  One day he finds some information that may be a lead to solving the mystery.  This discovery sets him on the path to realization. Or does it?

I am a big fan of the films of Nicolas Winding Refn (The Pusher trilogy, and Valhalla Rising), and this one is perhaps his most penetrating examination of a wounded psyche.  It failed commercially when it first appeared, as many viewers were put off by his artistic flourishes and opaque ending.  For me, this film is the deepest study of grief and repressed rage ever committed to film.  All men will be confronted by tragedy, grief, and inexplicable loss during their lives.  How we handle it will define who we are.  The greatness of this film is that it explores Turturro’s claustrophobic, neurotic world in a deeply personal way, and at the same time suggests that he may actually be on to something.  This film covers the same philosophical ground as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, in that it hints at the ultimate ambiguity of all things.

John Turturro confronts the unrelenting darkness of his own psyche in “Fear X”

If you are a Netflix subscriber and watch movies frequently, as I do, you may find it useful to keep a notebook near your television and jot down the titles of movies you see, and a few notes about what you liked or didn’t like.  You’d be surprised how much you can learn from movies.  There are just so many good and bad ones out there that having some system for keeping track of them will be time well spent.

[intensivelinepadelrackets]

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[ofgoodmenarchive]

Blighted Empire: Ch. 3

A Light in the Dark

A hand was absent from his grip when Dorian awoke but he didn't panic- Evallan rose early at the best of times. Out on the field, he was likely on his feet as soon as possible and the reasoning behind this was no longer a complete mystery.

Rolling over, he absently touched the bedding left in a crumple next to him. Still warm. No other sign of the Keeper, but he'd left recently. Dorian supposed it was fine to doze- it wasn't morning, not really- and Evallan would not allow him to oversleep.

Sun crowning the sky and the innards of the tent baking, he was miserable for more reason than one when he truly regained consciousness. His skull felt it had been trampled on and his throat sore from a lack of hydration. No carefree lounging this time, his body cried out for water and air- and food, if there was any to be had.

Outside the tent were the remnants of a campfire- and Evallan still absent. He couldn't recall either of them building it, so he supposed the elf had, then allowed it to extinguish while he was gone. Below the peak the Keeper situated them on, Dorian could see figures beginning to mill about- preparing food, strapping armour to themselves or seeking out specific supplies from carts and tents.

If he watched for long enough he'd probably spy Evallan- but the pressure in his brain increased the more he squinted. Looking away, he caught sight of a flask seemingly left for him by the tree. He snatched it and gulped water almost violently, not stopping until it was drained and the container discarded in the grass.

After last nights events and suffering a torturous headache, he needed to get his bearings. His weapon was still at his belt but his cloak had slipped- he retrieved it from the tent, hood cautiously adorned. Prepared to escape from the noise, he strolled further up the slope, wondering what he might see from higher up. The scenery didn't honestly concern him- he was attempting to fathom the events of last night.

He hadn't imagined them, he was certain- Evallan talking in his slumber, his eyes aglow, visibly channelling something. Lightbringer, it had to be. Though it was foolish for the elf not to prepare for the eventuality of sharing a space with someone else- then again, maybe he had tried?

This was what he pondered as he made his way back to the tent, head still complaining and mouth screaming for fluids. This time as he approached Evallan was visible, sitting comfortably against the tree. A small wooden tray of food balanced on his lap- mostly apple slices, preserved meat and some bread. He pointed lightly towards a similar tray near the dead fire, a new flask accompanying it.

 “Andraste bless you, Evallan.” Dorian puffed wearily as he brought the container to his mouth. A second later he was spluttering- it tasted like he'd just bitten spindleweed!

 “This isn't water!” He choked, teary-eyed.

 “Hangover remedy.” Evallan didn't look from his food. “I am surprised last night did not teach you to smell a bottle before drinking.”

 “Duly noted,” Coughing a few times, he sipped more gingerly, face puckering. “But you said it yourself- Fletch was playing a joke on me.”

 “You must learn from it, nonetheless.” The Keeper popped another finely-cut piece of fruit into his mouth, response tepid. Dorian scoffed, though not seriously.

 “Well then! I'll be sure to!”

Gathering the flask and tray he settled next to Evallan, back against tree, almost shoulder-to-shoulder as they'd been the previous night. This caused the elf to halt, hand still poised half-way to his lips with an apple slice, eyes questioning though his face was lax.

 “You think I'm going to sit where you're casting cold, now I know where it stops?” Dorian chuckled openly, pressing his shoulder to Evallan's. “Does it bother you, Keeper?”

After a moment of eyeing Dorian with an expression that was peculiar but calm, he shook his head.

Unable to prevent the triumphant smile, he lowered his face to his tray and spoke to distract from it.

 “I don't know why I thought we'd be fed better on the road.”

 “I brought you an apple.” The elf pointed. Dorian couldn't remember anyone packing apples- and they wouldn't be so efficiently portioned. Evallan had to have found and cut them himself. He wasn't sure why but it gratified him to think about.

 “Thank you, Evallan!” His smile deepened “That's very kind.”

The Keeper bowed his head in acknowledgement, then busied himself with picking at food. Dorian was content to enjoy this peace for some time but eventually asked, tone non-threatening;

 “Do you know you talk in your sleep?”

Evallan unleashed a long but quiet sigh, straightening his shoulders- but not in avoidance. He confessed, tone sombre.

 “I am afraid I do more than that.”

 “Oh?” Dorian sensed much was to be conveyed. Though it was a slow process- the elf studied him, a vague and rare aura of helplessness tainting his usual solemnity. But he came to a decision.

 "I write, I speak to spirits, I even practise spells.”

 “Is this....a recent phenomenon?”

The Keeper's head bent in something akin to embarrassment.

 “It happened for some time when I was first bound to Lightbringer. Since I summoned her during the Harrowing, it has begun again.”

Dorian considered this, remembering what he could of their encounter.

 “So she's...stretching, I'd say.”

 “Yes.” He breathed out his next words almost harshly. “I must ask for your assistance....and your discretion.”

 “You can't have anyone seeing you like that, I assume?” That part at least was not something Dorian needed to be told.

 “They are already concerned. At the least, I would be subject to experimentation. I do not wish Lightbringer to suffer that indignity again.” He said it with conviction- desperate. Dorian knew he had to assist- however was required. He didn't hesitate to state as much.

 "What do you need of me?”

He was examined for a time in that typical stillness he'd oddly begun to feel comforted by- almost forgetting what they were speaking of until Evallan's lips began to move, their corners grim.

 “Lightbringer has no wish to be seen or cause disruption, but her awareness of the physical world and her actions within it are limited.” His features twitched, unexpected colour spotting the whiteness of his face. His hand angled up, opening and closing as if to grasp words that when they came, were forced out near inaudibly.

 “She only realised it was not safe because...you...”

Dorian's heart stuttered beneath his ribs and his own cheeks flushed- a reaction that made him feel utterly childish. Struggling to deal with the information and his ridiculous emotion towards it, he blurted in typical, sly fashion.

 “Are you asking me to hold your hand, Evallan?”

The elf's features blazed, brow furrowing- he made to pull himself up and away from Dorian and in response he clasped both hands over one of Evallan's and squeezed. As he did, he consoled warmly, rumbling with the occasional spike of mirth.

 “I'm sorry- I'm sorry!- Look!” He tugged the captured fingers so Evallan was forced to relax against the tree, pressing digits firmly against knuckles and palms, smiling. “It's fine- neither of us will burst into flame. You don't even have to be unconscious.”

The limb usurped by his own was thin and greatly calloused- an intriguing contrast. He inspected one rough patch with a fingertip, then dipped to feel at a nick of scar tissue, unconscious to his own actions. Not assisted by the fact Evallan did not stop him, seeming to ignore it as he stared resolutely at Dorian- though crimson-faced.

For the second time in twenty-four hours he found himself urged to kiss that stern mouth- and he wasn't even drunk! Thankfully, Evallan's voice distracted from the impulse.

 “I can entrust this to you, then? And you will keep it hidden?”

 “You can trust me, don't worry-” He lured Evallan's hands close to his chest and held them there, winking. “I'll protect you.”

This was finally too humiliating for the Keeper, ripping away and curling as he muttered in disdain- features no less overheated.

 “You do not have to phrase it in such a way.”

Now he admittedly underwent a flash of guilt- a flash, anyway. Evallan didn't seem to know what to do with Dorian's attention and Dorian for his part, was unsure what he even expected it would result in. People were often free with their affections in the tower- even if it had to be secretive, but this was clearly a part of Circle culture Evallan hadn't adapted to. He deigned to change the subject, dismissing the rest as a joke with his lazy manner.

 “You want this secret, and you're asking me, not Villyen, so I assume...”

 “I do not want him to know.” His head perked up from behind his knees. “Correct.”

 “Wouldn't it be better if he did?” He frowned. “He'd be more acquainted with the...nuance, of the situation.”

 “I do not want him to be afraid for me.”

 “Or to see you afraid?” He didn't mean to ask so sharply- but it was difficult not to point out the elf's choice of phrasing.

Evallan hesitated, but still answered.

 “Yes.”

Dorian couldn't fault him for that, really- and he appeared so meek in the cautious huddle he'd drawn himself into, he wanted to inspire confidence.

 “Well, he won't hear anything from me, nor will anyone else. And I'll ensure you don't go wandering about in your sleep. You can trust me.”

 “Thank you, Dorian.” He did seem encouraged- straightening somewhat, manner less strained.

Thinking to preoccupy with more talk, he inclined his head towards the Dwarven statue in the centre of camp.

 “So we're really going into The Deep Roads?”

 “You do not relish the idea?” Composure restored, Evallan finished his meal while they chatted. Dorian did the same though struggled to chew through the dried meat.

 “This is probably a terrible time to mention it,” Partially untrue- he hoped it might soothe the elf's nerves if he shared a humiliating personal fact. “But I'm actually quite claustrophobic.”

Evallan considered that a moment.

 “You are afraid of enclosed spaces, or spiders?”

 “Spiders is arachnophobia,” He couldn't help smirking, though without cruelty. “I'm afraid of small spaces, yes. Specifically of being crushed.”

 “That is very specific.” There was a curious note to this statement and though- probably out of politeness- he did not really question, Dorian still explained.

 “Other refugees came out of the Blight afraid of fire, or having nightmares of Darkspawn and Archdemons,” He chuckled ruefully. “Me? A roof fell on my head and I never quite recovered from the shock.”

 “It is not that strange,” He sounded near-sympathetic. “You associate the event with a greater loss.”

 “Well, either way!” He shrugged dramatically. “It might be a problem, so you know.”

There was an odd pause from the elf, not responding to Dorian but with a calculating gaze. Eventually the corner of his mouth gave off a spasm that Dorian knew signalled a restrained smile. Before he could wonder what the Keeper might be laughing at his voice broke the silence, battling to keep tone dry, hand extending.

 “Would you like to hold my hand?”

A sincere joke not dripping in ice was rare from Evallan- Dorian was immediately tickled. It was lucky he didn't have food in his mouth, he'd have choked as he slouched back against the tree and laughed without restraint.

 “Would you, Keeper? It seems only fair!” He blathered as he fought to contain himself.

 “It may raise some suspicion if I am seen holding the hand of a Templar,” The corners of his mouth were really struggling to stay flat, Dorian noted. “However, The Deep Roads are for the most part quite spacious. If we explore the smaller side tunnels, you should trail behind so as not to be too enclosed.”

 “Well I'll keep that in mind, if it becomes an issue.” Dorian tried his utmost to tear into another bit of meat.

They polished off their breakfast with sparse conversation and afterwards Dorian assisted Evallan in deconstructing their camp. Or to be more accurate, Evallan taught him how to dismantle the structure and attempted to inform him on how it would fit back together. Dorian did his best to process the information, out of depth as he was.

Though he had to admit, he didn't mind roughing it so far- but had no doubt that comfort would end where the Deep Roads began.

Everything packed, they descended to mesh with the other recruits once more. It was not so lazy now, there was a commotion as the last stragglers awoke. He trailed dutifully behind Evallan, mindful to not speak and with significant space between them. It appeared less that they walked together and more that the Keeper was supervised- Dorian imagined that wasn't unheard of since no one seemed intruded upon by his presence.

They were only in the camp long enough to stash their gear into a cart, then Evallan motioned for the wider slope the Dwarven sentinel indicated. Still keeping a slight distance, he shadowed the elf and only stopped upon spying two familiar faces.

 “Waiting for us, were you?” Dorian greeted- he saw no one but Elias and Fletch, so he thought it safe. Evallan didn't scold him, hovering near the trio in silent confirmation.

 “What, you think this joker gets anything done without me?” Fletch snorted, chin pointing out the tall elf who merely angled a brow in return.

 “And you'll need another mage still,” Elias straightened from the rock he leant upon. grinning. “Thought I'd wait for you here instead of being grabbed!”

 “Thank you, Elias- you are indeed my most considerate friend!”

The newly assembled party climbed together but soon the elf and dwarf were ahead of the Tevinter pair, muttering between themselves. It didn't look entirely serious- Fletch still burst into jeers every few sentences, but Dorian had the impression the dialogue wasn't for him. Likely they had not seen each other for some time. Besides, he could spot others at the summit, so it was less conspicuous of him to keep in stride with Elias.

 “Marcus thinks you've gone AWOL, you know.” Elias informed, clearly entertained by this. “Either that you've run off for a life of mediocre apostasy or that you high-tailed it back to the tower.”

 “Does he? Ha!” A broad grin spread over his features. “Let him think it!”

 “Meanwhile, let you not think at all.” His tone was still friendly but the criticism wasn't lost on Dorian.

 “Oh what trouble am I causing, really?” He rolled his shoulders. “I'm meant to be here, anyway! I'm still helping, just not precisely in the way that was implied.”

 “Let's just hope the Circle sees it that way if it turns into a mess,” Elias sounded more serious now. “I know you're bored, Dorian, but we have a good streak of not annoying anyone. Maybe don't end it?”

 “Why so concerned all of a sudden?” He was mystified, twisting his face as he interrogated. “You're the last person I'd think to complain at having a little adventure!”

His friend hesitated then, lines of apprehension ageing him by a few years. For once he didn't entirely resemble a clueless nug with straw stuck on its head.

 “Well...It's just...” Mouth warping, he settled on words with a small motion towards Evallan's rigid back. “He's a little strange, isn't he?”

He couldn't squash the urge- Dorian had to laugh- a raucous sound that bounced between the mountain walls. It was loud and abrupt enough the subject of their conversation craned his head around and sought them out. He didn't look angry- startled, perhaps. Dorian restrained himself while dismissing Elias with a wave of his hand.

 “I happen to like that about him, you know.”

 “Andraste have mercy!” Elias shook his head. “Of course you would!”

But Elias yielded for now. They regrouped without another mention of Evallan.

READ MORE ON AO3

[dramioneasks]

Hello! Can you recommend any fics like Sex and Occlumency? I particularly love how soft Draco becomes in that one and how he’s the only who recognizes and understands Hermione’s need to work they unresolved trauma. Thanks! I love your blog so much

Trust the Magic by CordeiliaOllivander - M, 17 chapters - When Draco Malfoy discovers that Hermione Granger is his soulmate, he feels like nothing in his life could possibly be as wrong as this. Hermione feels that the last person she would ever love is Draco Malfoy. When he shows up unexpectedly explaining that their meant to be, will they both see that they’re just two broken halves that can only fix each other?

Out of Darkness By: DirtyCavePainter - M, 38 chapters - Three years after the war, Hermione is a broken woman. Draco is a healer with an exclusive private practice that specializes in women. Draco has fought off his darkness, while Hermione is struggling with her own. Will they succumb to the darkness that threatens to pull them both in? Or will they find light in the darkness?

Now That I’ve Found You by foxygirl5665 - T, WIP - Hermione Granger goes back to England, after two years in Australia, with every intention of mending her broken heart and wash her hands of any kind of man. It won’t last long though, because Draco Malfoy knows exactly how to glue the pieces back together and steal it from her. Or maybe she gives it to him willingly. Dramione, Modern-Muggle AU.

Room To Breathe by Unlikelyshipper - M, WIP - Hermione Granger cannot leave her bedroom. She can’t concentrate. She can’t cope. As she struggles to leave her dormitory and live her life, Hermione becomes aware of the burdens other people are carrying after the Battle of Hogwarts. EWE.

Not Alone By: TheDragonQueen706 - M, 30 chapters - With the holidays approaching, Hermione finds that she doesn’t want to spend another one alone or any other day for that matter. Working for the Ministry of Magic has only suppressed the loneliness she feels;but recent events at work cause her to see a certain blonde haired Auror differently than she ever thought possible, despite all the history they share.

Alone by AlyssaGrayy - M, 16 chapters - Inspired by ‘Broken’ fanfiction by inadaze22. It’s five years after the battle of Hogwarts. Hermione broke off her engagement with Ron and left for Italy five years ago, without explanation. Now Hermione has come back to London, and in her loneliness finds an unexpected companion in Draco Malfoy.

Static By: galfoy - M, 21 Chapters - The Order rescued Draco and Lucius Malfoy after Lord Voldemort turned on them. All the safe houses are full, and Hermione Granger is the only one who can take them in. Will she agree after having suffered a drastic nervous breakdown?

My Insides are Copper by realjane - M, 28 chapters - When her childhood nemesis comes to her rescue, Hermione is forced to confront past trauma–and the consequences of a war with no clear winners. The “Brightest Witch” no longer, Hermione finds herself immersed in a crisis of purpose, which is both hindered and healed by the presence of Draco Malfoy.When he sees her for the first time in ten long years, Draco is forced to reckon with past deeds he has long worked to forget. Despite having one foot planted firmly in the muggle world, and a tarnished heart, Draco finds something in Hermione that has evaded him his entire life: hope.Ten years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione and Draco meet by chance in Muggle London. Mutual curiosity sparks an unlikely magnetism between them, but neither of them are the children that they once were. The nasty boy is gone, and in his place is a man left almost passionless. The passionate girl has been culled by the isolation of infamy, and in her place is a woman without much left to give. They’re both missing an essential piece: an anchor.

Beautiful Things Can Come From The Dark - M, 17 chapters - He finds her, broken and bleeding, and it will change everything. A rape aftermath story told from Draco Malfoy’s POV. DHr

Broken By: inadaze22 - M, 36 chapters - He felt something close to pity for the woman in front of him. And while that disturbed Draco to no end, what really disgusted him most of all was the harrowing fact that someone or something had broken Hermione Granger’s spirit beyond recognition.

- Lisa

[science-jules]

Could COVID-19 be the climate change tipping point we so desperately need?

These days, confined to our homes, our daily routines are likely to consist of a great deal more screen time than usual, so you’ve probably seen the hopeful tweets: the water in Venice is crystal-clear for the first time in years! Shaky iPhone footage shows that wildlife has started to return to places they haven’t been seen in some time! Some of these obviously have nothing to do with a “healing planet”, and many of these have been debunked: the clear canal waters in Venice are really the result of sediment settling due to the absence of water traffic, and many of these “returning” species had always been present in these areas if one knew where to look. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that there has been a significant decrease in global emissions, which have reportedly decreased by 25% since the start of the year in China, 20% in Spain and Italy, and as much as 50% in New York City alone. This is a good thing—but how optimistic ought we really be? 

In my last blog post, I talked about the concept of “social tipping points” and how experts say we are in desperate need of a dramatic shift in social attitudes towards climate change if we have any hope of saving the planet. Is this global pandemic the kind of tipping point in favour of climate change these experts were talking about?

It is tempting to compare the attitudes towards the onset of this global pandemic to the those concerning the onset of climate change. Consider, for instance, that for weeks we were assured that there was no need to cancel vacation plans, conferences, and ceremonies, stating that simply being mindful of one’s surroundings and washing one’s hands frequently would be sufficient to protect against the virus.  Then as warnings and harrowing anecdotes from scientists and medical professionals from Wuhan and around the world started to pour in at an intensifying rate, immediate school, university, and business closures were enforced across the country in a matter of days. Each day, it became evident that an incremental approach was not working: gatherings of 150 people or more were not recommended, quickly dropping down to 50, then only 5. The entire joint border between the Canada and the US is now shut down for the first time since the Canadian Confederation in 1867. We are witnessing what a global emergency really looks like. 

Similarly, while the climate has been changing for some time, the warnings of many climatologists have come and gone for years without making major waves until very recently. Many people are starting to come around to the notion that this is a significant global issue requiring immediate action with more frequent catastrophic weather events, devastating wildfires, species loss, and marked environmental change. The speed and extent of the global response to COVID-19 have made some hopeful that we could see this kind of rapid action toward climate change if the threat it poses was treated as urgently. 

However, many argue that the rapid global response to COVID-19 is no model for climate action. Still others caution that the response to COVID-19 was so sweeping and immediate because people understand that these lifestyle shifts are temporary, and that a “return to normal” is expected once the virus is contained or a vaccine becomes widely available. Contrastingly, climate action requires sustained, multi-generational change commitment to drastic lifestyle changes at the population level. Some are optimistic that this pandemic will inspire these changes, though many are apprehensive about this comparison, stating that pandemics and recessions are “hardly formulas activists should cheer, much less try to replicate”. Further, experts warn that while global carbon emissions will certainly decline this year, they might rebound significantly in future years, as evidenced already by the sweeping relaxation of environmental regulations on fossil fuels in China and the US in an effort to ease future economic recovery. 

There are others that maintain that the kind of response we’ve seen to COVID-19 will be critical in the future with respect to climate action. The notion that climate change and this global pandemic go hand in hand is not novel: the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Inger Anderson, has stated soberingly about the pandemic: “Nature is sending us a message,”. According to Anderson, the way humankind has been exploiting our global resources greatly facilitates the spread of pathogens from wildlife to humans. Amy Turner of the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law has expressed that we are at an inflection point in the sense that we’ve seen such sweeping global action around the pandemic, adding “We also have the opportunity to reset the economy in a way that mitigates climate change”. In Canada, the federal government has been looking into investing in climate goals as a way to stimulate economic recovery: “When the recovery begins, Canada can build a stronger and more resilient economy by investing in a cleaner and healthier future for everyone,” said Moira Kelly, a spokesperson for Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. 

It is still not clear what the coming months have in store for us. This draconian reality we now find ourselves in could not have been foreseen even a few months ago. This is unprecedented, not only because of the universal nature of this threat but because, like climate change, it isn’t one that we can see. As we’ve seen, it is incredibly challenging to get people to unite against a threat that people don’t generally take seriously (or worse, one that many believe they are invincible to) until it is much too late. Hopefully, this pandemic will inspire more confidence in scientists and medical professionals as trust in many worldwide political figures fades with their struggle to manage this sweeping global crisis. Understandably, it is problematic to talk at length about the potential silver linings of this pandemic when it has brought so much grief, hopelessness, and uncertainty. But it has also reminded us of our unending capacity for generosity and compassion in trying times and what is possible when we take care of one another. This will be a critical perspective to have in the fight for climate action.  

[weirdlandtv]

READERS’ MAIL

I receive quite a few messages from readers every day, so occasionally I have to answer them all in one go, otherwise I’ll fall too far behind. So here goes...

Have I heard any Lana Del Rey songs? Not consciously. Maybe if one featured in a film or something. I’ve heard her name though; next time I come across her I’ll pay more attention.

@commitdefenestration Have I seen the video of Brigitte Bardot kissing a seal pup? You mean that footage of her visit to Canada in 1977? Oh yeah. She was one of the first celebrities, if not the first, who put animal rights on the map. I hope to see the day that fur gets banned. Obviously if you love animals you don’t want them to get tortured in harrowing ways.

Do I like the B-52s? I only know two songs by them, so I’m not sure.

What do I think of Jayne Mansfield? No opinion honestly. She existed and made some movies, but if she hadn’t existed or hadn’t made any movies, my life would be exactly the same.

Am I male or female? That one again, eh?

What do I think about the recent allegations against Michael Jackson? I’m committed to the belief that he’s innocent. That belief is the result of my having followed the history of the allegations against him, past and present, through the years. When I hear that some radio stations are banning his music, I shake my head. None of this all matters in the long run.

Do I have any favorite books? When I was in my 20s I tried to read every classic in existence, “Don Quixote”, “Lolita”, “Paradise Lost”, Homer’s “Odyssey”, et cetera, but these days I don’t really go there anymore. Generally I like biographies: Rasputin, Jesus, Hitler, Disney, Roald Dahl, Napoleon, Jim Henson, Steve Jobs, whoever. When I read a biography I get very immersed in it and read a lot of stuff around it, always looking up things online: photos, locations, birthplaces, faces, articles, and for a few weeks I become a specialist on the subject, the world’s leading authority, the foremost expert—then, once I’ve finished the book, I forget nearly everything except a few random facts and quotes. (However, I’m an enthusiastic re-reader.) I like books that explain the history behind a phenomenon, company, event; books on art and design, and music; and the unusual. And everything by Dutch author, Harry Mulisch (1927-2010).

What year was I born? You can guess...

And lastly...

What do you really think of the cinematic works (and especially the fantasy adventures) of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, respectively? Also, what are your favorites among all the works of Lucas and Spielberg themselves? Just asking.

When I grew up in the 1980s, Lucas and Spielberg were gods. They could light up the night skies, which suddenly were teeming with stars and spaceships and distant worlds that beckoned. It’s sometimes said that Star Wars killed cinema, but it saved a generation: because of the genre in which they operated, the works of Spielberg and Lucas beamed out hope, possibilities, exploration, adventure, magic, the power of imagination and dreams. They inspired. Kids in the 1960s had The Beatles, we had Lucas and Spielberg; and it felt like they had a hand in everything that wowed us on the screen, on TV, and in toy stores; and in a way, they did.

The best thing Lucas has ever done of course is the STAR WARS trilogy. Ever since the prequels, efforts have been made to diminish his contribution to it, but he was always the guiding force: Star Wars didn’t come from a studio, not from a group of executives in a room, but from his rogue imagination (and then it became bigger than that).

My favorite Spielberg film has to be E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. The film itself was like an alien friend to me when I was a kid, a benign presence, both loving and spellbinding. Spielberg has a reputation for producing schmaltzy endings, but when his sentimental finales are justified and not just dutifully tacked on, they make for very powerful cinema. I like the Indiana Jones trilogy (not the fourth one), and SCHINDLER’S LIST, his monochrome monument to the evil that men do. Another personal favorite is DUEL, his version of David and Goliath. Like the shark in JAWS is more than a shark, the truck in DUEL is more than a truck: it’s a force of evil, a roaming demon that attaches itself to an ordinary guy. You can view DUEL as a petty feud between two drivers, or as a clash between good and evil, or both; it’s a simple road thriller that, by the power of suggestion, invites all sorts of theories and interpretations. The tank truck has to be one of my favorite movie villains.

And that’s it for now. I might do this more often; most of the messages I receive are sent anonymously and I don’t always want to reply to all of them separately.

[rigelwrites-blog]

Lorelai: Discussion and Review

The Cat Lady, from the basis of my personal perspective, was a brilliantly haunting, poignant experience that tactfully and cleverly explored grim, deeply philosophical concepts such as death, grief, self-harm, depression, and suicide. It adroitly cultivated its atmosphere to effectively and realistically convey the overhanging bleakness of Susan’s life while avoiding miring the narrative in unnecessary, ostentatious darkness. In many ways, it seems Lorelai has managed to emulate the harrowing realism of its predecessor, while similarly employing abstract imagery to establish and amplify the palpable emotional tone. The expression of this profound pathos and visual symbolism was augmented through variation in both the color palette between settings and the intensity or saturation of certain hues, particularly red. More specifically, I appreciated the implementation of softer, warmer tones to embellish the wistful filter overlaying Lorelai’s joyous memories with her father, which contrasted the harsher colors and shadows denoting her stark reality. Additionally, it was devastating to see Miranda’s death even though it had been unfortunately rather likely, considering that, when someone’s thoughts are as despairing and volatile as hers were, it’s exceptionally dangerous to be left alone with them.

Beyond the seemingly implied, deeper connection between The Queen of Maggots and Lorelei, I wonder if the Queen selected Lorelei in particular as the executor of her will as a result of Lorelei’s tenacity and her embodiment of a true “survivor”. In a sense, an individual with an indomitable spirit, who essentially represents the refusal to capitulate even amidst confrontation with the vilest of circumstances, would harbor the insatiable desire to protract their life and quell any lingering regrets, thereby rendering them susceptible to the tantalizing bargain offered by the Queen. Lorelei cannot expunge the compulsion to protect her sister from the maleficent hands of John and finally secure freedom for them both, and, consequently, she acquiesces to the Queen, just as the demonic woman likely anticipated she would.

Concerning the characterization of Lorelei and Zack, I personally found them to be just a bit too calm when conversing in Zack’s apartment in consideration of the traumatic, ineffably disturbing situations they recently endured and witnessed. Perhaps their somewhat relaxed and even flirtatious attitudes at this particular moment could be attributable to difficulties in processing the reality of what transpired, as well as the immediate need for the distraction and comfort of each other’s company and congenial, flippant conversation. Regardless, I still would have preferred some additional development for these characters during their quiet scene together, particularly through the presentation of their respective emotional responses to the profound stimuli of facing death and irredeemable wickedness. Further intimate moments between the two could have sufficed to augment the audience’s personal connection and understanding of these characters and the true depth of their personalities.

In a way, the chapter with Al was rather reflective of the anxiety mini-game from The Cat Lady, which externalized the precarious balance of Susan’s mental stability by demonstrating the pronounced repercussions incurred from her cumulative experiences of various stressors. For Al’s circumstance, it seems that the nature of Lorelai’s sudden influence over him serves as the sole determinant of the fragility of his resolve and represents the dangerous tenuity of the line existing between redemption and regression. Essentially, Lorelai was imbued with the ability to either inspire Al to surmount his depressive state and become a survivor like her, or, shatter his attempts at remediation and force him to submit to his pernicious tendencies, just as her stepfather and mother did. Though Lorelai is supernaturally capable in this situation and can affect both Al’s surroundings and his mind, I consider some of her whispered sentiments to be rather emulative of intrusive thoughts that, in their injuriousness and pessimistic cruelty, oft hinder the path towards sustained progress.  

In addition to their literal meaning as a method of transportation and escape, trains have also been rather metaphoric in this game, seemingly representing a more symbolic journey or liberation from the debilitating circumstances and mentalities that have entrapped both Al and Lorelai. Lorelai is impeded in the forward momentum of her life by her corrosive home environment, and, as potentially implied through the imagery of a train battering through her apartment building as it speeds along, she is a survivor who fights for her future, regardless of what she must do or destroy to progress. Conversely, it seems in Al’s negative route that he himself was an obstacle in the track towards betterment and, in his inability to move forward, he was left behind, his journey coming to an abrupt end.

In general, the quiet moments and honest discussions on the intricacies of depression in The Cat Lady were more resonant with me personally than the situations that Lorelai is subjected to. That being said, the conveyance of the harrowing events of this game and their emotional undertones was beautifully accomplished. Additionally, the lingering possibility of redemption or progression for these characters certainly contributes much appreciated instances of warmth and hope to an otherwise rather dismal, grave story.

In consideration of the dialogue and visual representation of the Queen, it seems certain interpretations of The Queen of Maggots and her symbolic significance can be discerned. Essentially, imagery appertaining to mirrors or facing one’s reflection, prevalent in the final confrontation between the two Lorelais, appears to infer that the Queen herself is a physical manifestation of the darker, pernicious, yet oft concealed inclinations that all of humanity experiences to variable degrees. In a sense, the Queen and her machinations are also rather representative of the external or environmental stressors which trigger the emergence and outward expression of these negative attributes. In the context of the game’s universe, the “thorns” of the Queen’s corruptive influence ensnare the frail, suggestible minds of her victims, translate their desperation into capitulation, and, eventually, induce dire, grim consequences. These ramifications often involve considerable anguish for the individuals trapped in the vicinity of someone else’s destruction, thus, the cycle of trauma, mental devolution, and death exists in perpetuity, thereby fulfilling the monstrous Queen’s insatiable need to consume, like a true maggot, the corpses of the pained, lost, or damned. Lorelai can perhaps be interpreted as a symbol for the transcendence of these tribulations, as it appears she ultimately overcomes both her stepfather and the Queen herself regardless of the route, though the lingering grasp of the Queen and the regression she represents restrains Lorelai and somewhat limits the extent of her personal progression in the “bad” endings.

With respect to the overall impression Lorelai imparted upon me, I suppose I feel rather ambivalent, as certain scenes and elements were beautifully portrayed while others seemed to be a bit lacking in substance and depth. There are indubitably positive attributes to be enumerated, particularly the depiction of alcoholism and the generally inspiring message underlying the narrative and its culmination. It’s certainly quite appreciated and somewhat aberrant for a game to conclude with an accurate presentation of the mundanities and natural oscillations of highs and lows which define the course of an average life. As explored thematically throughout the extent of this game, grief, devastation, and turbulence are immutable inevitabilities of human experience that necessitate solidity of the will and persistence to healthily overcome. Though the path towards self-betterment, redemption, and contentment is sinuous and occasionally regressive, the cumbrous journey is undoubtedly worth the tribulations and set-backs we endure along the way.

As I’ve already expatiated on my interpretation of Lorelai’s purpose as a representation of resilience and pertinacity in spite of horrific circumstances, I’ll instead delve into a few of the aspects and sections of the game that I consider to be a tad weak. I mentioned earlier on that certain conversations seemed somewhat out of place and irreverent in contrast to the depravity and disillusionment the characters had recently experienced. The tonal shift was quite rapid, and, consequently, these individuals were deprived of the opportunity to emotionally respond or effectively contend with the actualities and implications of their harrowing situations. Overall, it seemed there was some misappropriation of time and focus throughout the game, as certain characters such as Maria, Zoe, and the other nursing home residents were granted comparatively considerable portions of the narrative despite, ultimately, having little significance to the overarching plot or Lorelai’s personal development. In general, ancillary characters and sections are beneficially employed to showcase facets of the protagonist’s personality and facilitate their growth, or, further the conveyance and clarity of the main theme. Outside of Al, Chapter 2’s characters were essentially forgotten about and devoid of greater purpose and detailed exploration, retrospectively rendering this chapter slightly hollow and empty. I was anticipating the replication of Lorelai’s experiences with Al in future chapters where these discarded side characters would be more effectively anatomized.

Concerning Zack and Lorelai, I still somewhat maintain my aforementioned perspective on the extent of the development and depth provided for them individually and as a couple. To me, it seemed their interactions were a tad flat and shallow with respect to the subject matter discussed and the depicted intimacy of their personal, emotional connection. Zack, himself, appears to have no demonstrable or notable personality arc beyond the rather commonplace, archetypal neighbor who finally acquires the ability to articulate his love when faced with the prospect of imminent death.

I’m a bit more equivocal when analyzing Lorelai herself and, by extension, the overarching structure and flow of the narrative itself. I suppose the greatest issue I encountered when recollecting the events of the game is the limited internal elasticity and growth that Lorelai seems to experience between the beginning and end of her journey. Though her circumstances and surrounding environment are improved substantially, her inner personality, beliefs, inclinations, and desires remain rather immutable and unchallenged by her experiences with the Queen. Regardless of your choices in actions and dialogue, Lorelai is generally the same person and an uncompromising “survivor” in the end, varying only in the amount of regrets and lingering difficulties she faces. However, Lorelai can potentially express wildly variable opinions throughout her time in the afterlife on the basis of your direction, for instance, she can harbor little sympathy for the frustrated mother in the AA group and the alcoholic Al, resolutely deciding that his life is irredeemable and should be sacrificed for the sake of her own desires. Alternatively, she can help him and defy the Queen, though the significance of this choice is rather undermined considering Lorelai suffers no evident consequences from her insubordination. I suppose I would have preferred greater divergence in the endings to reflect the pronounced dissimilarity in her perspectives and submission to the Queen’s will. Even in the positive, “golden” route, I believe Lorelai’s characterization and progression would have been a bit more realistic and dimensional had she initially lacked empathy and compassion for others who cannot as easily combat or surmount their debilitating situations. Lorelai’s unwavering strength and tenacity are not ubiquitous traits, and it would have been interesting to explore her process of recognizing and accepting the innate heterogeneity of human resolve and mental stability. Perhaps she could have accomplished this through her experiences delving into the specific circumstances of her assigned “parasites” and witnessing the true fragility of the boundary between recovery and capitulation.  Conversely, the negative route would demonstrate the ramifications of austerity and the unwillingness to understand or forgive the flaws and injurious behaviors of others, instead electing to acrimoniously judge and consequently punish the people she gains influence over.

An evocative experience, nonetheless.

[thesweetblossoms]

Twelve Ways To Stop Fretting

🌴I often fret ceaselessly and needlessly about the future, rethinking unhelpful habitual thoughts, grappling with the same issues, and squandering valuable time and mind space in activities that not only do not provide any peace, but tend to agitate and deepen stresses and anxieties. Of course, the concerns range from the casual, such as what to wear to a new job, to the more existential, about whether I am fulfilling my potential and progressing incrementally, towards my layered dreams with my slow simmering efforts; recently, I have been worried about whether I would be able to devote sufficient time to my businesses, if I am also working long hours as a staff attorney at a law firm. Thus, here are a few ideas about how to approach a change, to confront an uncertain future, to duel with hastening hours, and to forestall the rough blades of doubt.

1)New Experiences: Because we cannot foretell the future, we dwell in a realm of possibilities, chances and surprises, thus one way to eliminate unwelcome worries is to be open to the unknown and to appreciate the unfolding, being aware of the nuances that may bring us moments of illumination, such as discovering a new route with prickly pair cacti, dropping date palms and cloud scaling desert willow trees, or the joy that comes with the opportunity to frequent a charming coffee shop with a decadent chocolate croissant, or even the task of choosing a daily attire, to boost feelings of wellness and comfort of a job outside of home.

2)Novel Insights: Be vivacious whenever you feel uncertain, rather than forlorn, because it is through the unknown that we are given clear sight into the wheels churning, the planets tilting, the new poppy seeds unfurling and how our own lives are steadily moving on a course that surges recklessly, between shoals of contentment and abstract rocks of chaos, because, between every awakening and every nights final snubbing of the candlelight, reveals more about the music of family, the valuable gift of lyrical leisure hours and the blue sky moments of heady enlightenment. For it is only through upheaval, changes to routines, modifications or habits and reframing of customs that we come closer to the truth.

3)Relationships: We shouldn’t hesitate to confront the new opportunities and experiences that befall us, because these are often accompanied by novel and intriguing encounters as well as chances to meet new people and develop friendships. For when we are taking a risk, changing course, or experimenting with altered methods of conducting our lives, we float into a stream swimming with potential new memories, possible friendships, and a mine of inspiration from meeting and conversing with different minds, personalities and temperaments. For when we don’t know what the future brings us, we often fill up the space with the worst imaginings and the direst outcomes, but rather then fret, we should contemplate the magical elements of not knowing who will cross our path, how they might change an aspect of our lives, or a way of thinking, or how they may improve our experience of reality.

4)Adaptability: Many of us worry, because we hate to be jarred from routine, from our well honed habits and the peace that arises from a steady and contented ritual that eases us through the seasons. Yet, by worrying we are inhibiting the adventurous spirit and the courageous instincts that we also possess in equal quantities. Thus, instead of doubting the unknown, we should utilize its cryptic nature by enhancing and polishing our ability to adapt. By taking a moment, to think and strategize about how we may grow through periods of discomfort or annoyance, of how we may challenge our behaviors and deep seated fears, we may move towards better incarnations of ourselves. We may adapt in small or new ways, perhaps continue highlighting a personality trait such as gregariousness, while tempering an inclination to be less private, or to overcome a fear of driving in town, or a phobia of transversing great distances too far off lands. Each day we might attempt to scale the barriers, by channeling our best tools, our most potent skills and our latent talents, and incrementally alter ourselves.

5)Positive Thinking: A light hand creates the most beautiful paintings, the same principle may apply, such that, the lightest thinking creates the most beautiful reality. Thus in all our rumination, our puzzlements, or bewildering half dreams, our misty morning meditations, we should err on the side or positivity, by perceiving every element in the best light. We can continue this positive trend and encourage it to seep, like dew on blossoming lilac bushes, into every element of our story by having confidence in yourself and the universe as well as an unmitigated curiosity about the unfolding of events. For any situation, after its initial explosive or even subtle entry, may provide us with emotions, answers, thoughts, inspirations and ways of thinking that we have previously not accessed or been aware of, that may reveal tentative secrets about the world around us and that could help us string together a narrative of events that makes sense only with the alchemical element of time, or it could even ensure that we act the most beneficial way to unsure favorable and happy outcomes.

6)Analyzing The Situation: A creative way to address your worries, anxieties, sadness, regret, ennui or melancholy is to create your memoir, either in your mind, or by writing, creating videos, photography and art, for each is a token of the moment that assists us in comprehending situations within the passage of time, as even the most troubling elements, often carry detectable nuances, as when we read memoirs, and notice how certain events or choices shape and alter the course of a persons life. By thinking about the future in a certain, knowing way, almost taking for granted that you will age and write your memories down, you may practice the art of hindsight even in the present moment. My favorite part of reading autobiographies, is the countless renditions of writers rising about harrowing circumstances, cruel cultural constructs or the pervasive evil of human nature, to reveal the ultimate victory of light, truth and courage. Thus, a certain degree of detachment and the steadfast employment of the power of multiple perspectives, helps us to react to events in a way that ameliorates its most haunting effects.

7)Nothing Lasts: If we remember the heartbreaking, temporary nature of life, even when we are sad, we realize how futile it is to waste even a quarter hour of the day in unhappiness. The universe is in constant flux, with the fall trees turning shades of copper, crimson and aubergine, with the chill setting into to the once balmy clouds, with candles lit and spluttering out, with the years passing steadily as a lighthouse on a thunderstruck, isolated island, with reunions coming and going, with milestones won and lost. So let go of the current distresses, for it will, also unequivocally pass away.

8)Experiment/Discover: There is so much to reality that is yet to be understood, for their has been no cure for pain, just as there has never been a thorough theory of love. So what if we could explore any situation as a momentous chance to gain jewel like insights into the mechanisms that abound around us, perhaps, contemplate the wonder of how our intuition already knows before a loved one rings, of why some trees have lived for centuries yet they have never swam in the sea, or of why candlelight, music and dancing, rinses away even the most stubborn stains imprinted into the threads of our hearts, or of why we never know ourselves no matter how much we search, or of why beautiful poetry can reduce us to tears. We should make use of champagne, or gardening, or an art as a portal to channel bliss, to see what elements align with how we hope things will turn out, realizing that maybe thinking about it in a particular, incanted light, is a secret charm, a tonic to clear away cloudy windows that reveals what we need may already be in our presence or in our repertoire. Use the worrisome aspect to discover new ways to deal with issues, unravel expedient methods to handle onerous tasks, or unveil how to manage time in a way that deliberately moves us nearer to the nebulous realms of our most coveted desires.

10)Focus On Rewards: Rather than fretting, we should focus on the future where the results of our actions manifest themselves in the clearest light. Whether in business, where long hours of effort, planning and diligence may create value for others, and later, provide revenue, or at a job, where after completing assigned tasks you are able to also share your skills and talents with the larger community for an income, or by writing or creating art that helps to ease the stubborn wounds of pilfering time, or by planting a garden with prolific wild poppies, zinnias and marigolds, it is only with patience and diligence, that we are granted the initial blooms and the first fragrance of success.

9)Gratitude: Even if initially it seems that hindrances and detours seamlessly appear whenever we move towards a certain vision, instead of lingering on the unsavory elements that rob us of our mind space, time and energy, we should tabulate our blessings, for they are just as plentiful and almost as ubiquitous, landing softly into the newly inked lines of our story, like a butterfly on a luscious frangipani blossom. By being grateful, we dwell in the space of opportunities, of pragmatism, of hacking time and energy, of doing what is needed to take us to the next step, for often, it is through change and upheaval of routines that we enter a chamber of new possibilities and happy chances.

11) Dance: Whenever you fret, do something active, take a walk, yoga, dance, work out, get up to look at the stars, or water a plant, by moving away, even an inch from our coordinates upon earth, we are also creating distance from a negative thought. I also have a theory that it is impossible to worry and dance at the same time.

12) Focus On Wellness: When we feel overcome with dread, or lapse into the eerie corridors of anxiety, we should refuel our quest for wellness. It is often challenging when we are stressed to think about our bodies and minds and to give it the priority it needs to help us through the most tiresome situations, yet, by drinking plenty of water, by making sure you sleep as much as possible, by meditating, eating healthy fresh fruits, seeds, nuts, vegetables and grains, by taking time for a facial, massages, skincare and working out, we are primed to confront whatever the next day may bring. 🐝