#its not really possible to write a decent horror in a few thousand words but i tried

[broodmother]

fill for @kyluxcantina ; a writing warm up that got out of hand. ~4000 words, sfw, modern au, warning for mild horror. ao3 link.

Our family tree has some twisted roots. 

It was raining outside, the sort of lukewarm squall you could only get in summer storms when the air felt so thick you could almost scoop it up in your hands. The persistent thrum of fat-bellied raindrops on the open window was oddly comforting, a white noise that blanketed everything but the clinking of porcelain as Hux unwrapped coffee cups from sheets of old newspaper and put them away, and the breeze that came in with it was just cool enough to wick away the worst of the humidity.

Hux stopped, leaned against the sink with a half-wrapped cup in hand. He thumbed the chipped lip of it as he looked out of the window, watching the sea of spanish oaks that stretched out for acres in front of the house bob and sway gently. It was secluded, moreso than Hux would have liked, but it was beautiful even in the thin yellow light of the storm - he could only imagine what it would be like in the fall. He smiled to himself; he hoped this would be good for them.

“Penny for your thoughts,” came a voice in his ear and strong arms snaked around his waist. His smile widened as he leaned back against Ben’s chest.

“It’s nice here,” he said.

“Anywhere’s better than that apartment,” Ben said as he hooked his chin over his shoulder, and Hux hummed in agreement. He was silent for a moment, and they swayed together like the trees, “I’ve not been here since I was a kid. It feels weird to be back, especially since it's been lying empty for so long.”

Hux turned around in Ben’s arms, still holding the cup. He smiled up at him, “We’ll make it feel like a home soon enough.”

“Home’s wherever you’re with me,” Ben said as he leaned down to ghost his lips against Hux’s; Hux turned his head to the side with a laugh and nudged his chest.

“Calm down, Nicholas Sparks - home’s going to be wherever these boxes get unpacked. I do hope you’re not expecting me to do it all?” he said. Ben wrinkled his nose but untangled himself from Hux anyway, “That’s what I thought. The plates are still out in the hallway, go earn those kisses.”

--

It took days to unpack all the boxes, especially since having a place of their own - a real place, not some shitty studio apartment with a reeking garbage disposal unit and a leaky shower - had put Ben in some kind of mood. A good mood, mostly, a playful one, but sometimes a little more withdrawn than usual. One moment they’d bickering over which side of the room to put the sofa on, then they’d move to abandoning it right in the middle in favour of fooling around on it a little - and then just as suddenly, Ben would get up and walk out like someone had called his name. He could disappear for hours. Hux knew better than to go looking for him.

It had been his grandfather’s house, so Hux supposed moving into it after a surprise inheritance had him feeling thoughtful. Besides, he’d always been prone to his funny moods - that was just a fact of life when it came to loving Ben. He just wished he would help a little more with the unpacking. It felt like it took twice as long as it should have. He could never figure out where to put what, especially since they had so much space to fill, and Hux kept getting confused about what he’d unpacked already, no matter how methodically he did it - he’d put away the towels in the linen closet, then go back to the bedroom to find them neatly stacked on the bed right where they’d started out.

--

Ben kissed the side of his neck, following a line up to his ear; he drew the lobe into his mouth, bit gently in that way that made Hux shiver every time. He was standing like he had been on the first day, at the kitchen sink with Ben’s arms around him, cup in hand - one that he was washing, this time, not putting away.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Hux said, even as he turned his head to the side to offer more of himself to Ben. He kept his eyes fixed on a spot on the tree-obscured horizon.

“When it stops raining,” Ben said, the words slurred by his skin. It had been raining for days. Home-making was good for the soul but Hux wanted to get out, wanted to feel any fresh air but the breeze that crept in through the open window. He gripped the edge of the sink.

“A drive?”

“Sure,” Ben said. Hands found his hips, pulled him flush against him, “When it stops raining.”

--

It was an old house - an old, old house - though Ben couldn’t say exactly how old. He just knew it had been in his family for generations, and frankly, it showed. The hardwood flooring had warped all throughout the house, the doors and window frames too. Some were jammed open, some were jammed shut; there were whole rooms he couldn’t get into because the door wouldn’t budge no matter how hard Hux rattled the handle.

Combined with the fact that so much of the house had been extended over the years - wings added, rooms spliced into rooms, staircases built and then blocked off - it was like a damn maze. There were even occasions when Hux would open the door to a room and find himself somewhere completely unexpected, even weeks after he was certain he had memorised the floor plan. He was sure the bathroom had been second on the right. Third on the right? No, it was first on the left - but since when?

“You’re just not used to a big old place like this yet,” Ben had told him when he brought it up, bright and faux-breezy over dinner one night, “You’ll be turned around for a while, don’t worry about it.”

Hux rolled the stem of one of the few wine glasses to survive the moving process between his fingers with a mild hum. He didn’t remind him he’d grown up in a house even bigger than this one, and he’d never once lost an entire floor before.

--

The kitchen was by far Hux’s favourite room in the house. It was huge, nearly the size of the entire apartment they had shared before moving. It had old, cracked terracotta tiles and sprawling gas range with blackened cast iron pots hung all in a row above it. Hux had never been much of a cook but he was willing to learn now he had such a playground to work with.

There was also a pleasant atmosphere to the room, something warm and almost airy, which was a nice respite from the rest of the house. He had an office somewhere upstairs but he still ended up working in the kitchen more often than not.

“What’s in there?” Hux asked one afternoon. He was sitting at the kitchen table, pen in hand; Ben was getting a beer out of the fridge. He glanced over at where Hux was looking: a door on the far side of the room, set back slightly in an alcove of its own. It was neatly - but thoroughly - boarded up. It wasn’t the only room in the house like that, so he hadn’t been too curious about it at first, but he spent so much of his day sitting facing it that he was beginning to wonder.

Ben twisted the cap off his beer and looked away; he shut the fridge door hard enough to make the bottles inside clink, “Basement.”

“Why is it boarded up?” Hux pressed.

“Black mold, I think,” Ben said, and Hux turned in his seat to look at him in disgust.

“Black mold? Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he said sharply, his brow dipping, “We’ll need to get someone out, we can’t have black mold right under the kitchen. I’ll call them first thing in the morning.”

“Don’t,” Ben said with a forcefulness that took Hux by surprise, “I mean-- don’t waste your time, it's not that serious. It’s been boarded up since before I was born, I think it was more of a precaution than anything else. If it was dangerous, grandpa would have sorted it out before-- well, before.”

Hux held Ben’s gaze for a second, then nodded and turned back to his work, his lips thinned in displeasure. Ben didn’t speak of his grandfather often, but he seemed to have had a great influence over his life. He knew he was practically an intruder in his house, or at least that’s what he felt like at times. He didn’t want to provoke Ben further, but he still didn’t care to be snapped at.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ben said, giving Hux’s shoulder a squeeze, “But do me a favour - don’t go down there, okay? It’s not worth the risk.”

Hux only grunted in response, wanting the conversation to be over already. Ben squeezed harder, forcing him to look up. He had a strange expression on his face, something hard behind his eyes that made Hux want to shrivel up.

“I mean it. Promise me you won’t go down to the basement.”

“I promise,” Hux said through clenched teeth. Ben smiled and immediately let him go. He pressed a kiss to the crown of his head like nothing had happened and left the room, beer in hand.

Hux stared holes through the basement door, his shoulder aching. The kitchen felt colder than it had before.

--

It was raining again. In fact, it seemed like it had not stopped in the weeks and months since they had moved there. What had been comforting white noise had became an incessant, irritating drone. He was so sure if it didn’t stop any time soon, the house would be washed right into the forest and down the valley; he wasn’t convinced that would be a bad thing.

Hux lay in bed, watching the shadows crawl across the ceiling. He hadn’t slept well in days; Ben tossed fitfully beside him, but then again he had never been an easy sleeper.

“You awake?” he asked, voice thick with sleep as he reached out for Hux, “What’s wrong?”

“What did your grandfather do?” Hux asked.

Ben knuckled his eyes and blinked in the darkness, “Uh, doctor, I think. Something like that.”

What use was a doctor forty, fifty miles out in the middle of nowhere?

“What happened to him?”

The silence that followed was weighty. Hux turned his head to look at Ben, even if he couldn’t see him.

“I don’t know,” Ben said.

“What happened to your parents?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said again.

Hux looked away. Ben eventually fell back asleep, but he didn’t. He just lay there and listened to the rain.

--

Hux began opening all the doors he could in the house. Every corridor he walked down, every room he passed through. Airing it out, he told Ben when he pried. Trying to get rid of that damp smell.

He looked at Hux like he was crazy when he asked why they were always all closed again come morning. He learned to stop asking, but he never shut a door behind himself again.

--

“Where do you go?” Hux asked.

Ben didn’t respond at first, just went on unbuttoning his shirt. He tossed it at the laundry basket and missed; Hux knew he’d be the one to pick it up later, “What do you mean?”

“When you’re gone, you’re gone for hours,” Hux said. He should have been getting undressed for bed too, “Where do you go?”

“For a walk,” Ben said, not missing a beat this time, “To clear my head.”

Hux watched him as he wandered into the en suite bathroom. He left the door open as he turned on the tap and began to brush his teeth. Hux wanted to get up and slam the door, to call him a liar, to smash their alarm clock they never set against the wall. He wanted to take the car keys and leave. He wanted to swallow down the wave of nausea that rose up in his throat.

“You’re never wet,” he said. Ben looked at him with a questioning grunt, like he hadn’t heard him right, “When you come back. You’re never wet.”

Ben frowned, then laughed around his toothbrush, “It’s not always raining.”

“It is. It is always raining, it never stops fucking raining here,” Hux said through his teeth. Ben’s smile slipped.

“What is it you’re accusing me of, exactly?”

“Where do you go?”

Hands curled into fists. Ben spat into the sink and shook his head like he was going to drop it, but he couldn’t. He turned, braced himself against the doorframe and leaned into the bedroom, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you need to stop this. You need to stop doing this.”

“Why won’t you answer the question,” Hux said. There was a quiver in his voice that he hated; his breath felt so thin and insubstantial as it caught in his throat. Ben took a step towards him but he didn’t flinch, just lifted his chin, kept his gaze hard and steady even if his hands shook.

Ben’s shoulders dropped. He threw his hands up in disgust and turned away from Hux, “I’m sleeping on the sofa tonight. Sort your head out.”

--

It was warm, warmer than he thought it would be, almost like being in a shower just before the hot water ran out. Hux closed his eyes and tilted his head back, turned his palms to the sky, let the rain soak through him in seconds. The ground beneath his bare feet wasn’t sodden like it should have been, but the grass was soft and sweet-smelling.

“Hux!”

He walked towards to the treeline; the shining wet leaves nodded in the breeze, calling him closer like beckoning hands.

“Hux, get back here!”

He turned to look over his shoulder at Ben, standing in the frame of the back door, the kitchen light behind his head. He was wearing the same hard expression as before. Hux didn’t saying anything.

“It’s raining, you’re going to get sick.”

He glanced back at the trees. There was a tightness in his stomach that he couldn’t explain, a lead weight on his chest; he had the strangest urge to start running. He could make it to the treeline before Ben caught him, he knew he could, and then he’d be lost to the forest.

“Hux, come back inside,” Ben urged again. There was something slanting and desperate in the fringes of his voice, “You’re not wearing any shoes.”

The feeling - the instinct, primal and sharp-toothed - stretched out, taut like a bow-string until it snapped, guttered and died. The moment to escape passed and Hux began to walk towards the house. Ben was waiting for him with dark eyes and warm, dry hands. He brushed away the water that clung to Hux’s lashes, brushed his lips across his closed mouth. He took him by the arm and led him upstairs where he pulled him out of his wet clothes and laid him on the bed, and fucked him like he loved him. Like he was worried about him.

Ben cupped Hux’s face in his hands when he kissed him again and made him promise not to leave the house again. Hux couldn’t remember what he said.

--

Hux closed the lid of Ben’s toolbox and tested the weight on the hammer in one hand. Satisfied, though he didn’t know by what parameters, he climbed up onto the edge of the kitchen table and smashed the lightbulb hanging above it with a single sure-armed swing. He didn’t flinch away from the powdery shards of glass, but he was careful to avoid the worst of it as he climbed back down, hammer still in hand.

He stared up at the empty light fixture and wondered if he should do the the rest of the lights downstairs, but he decided against it. He wasn’t sure if  he had the time; Ben had disappeared nearly an hour ago and he didn’t know when he would be back, so he turned his attention to the basement door.

The nails were surprisingly easy to pry out of the planks, like they were loose. He put each one in his pocket so he could replace them without losing any. Too many nooks and crannies in an old house for a dropped nail to roll into and get lost, and then where would Hux be if Ben noticed? He would notice, of course. He always did.

Hux pried off the last few boards with his hands and dumped them in a pile behind him. He considered doing the same with the hammer too, but didn’t. He didn’t know if he needed it but its reassuring heft made him feel better. The door didn’t creak when he pulled it open, nor did the top step when he tested his weight on it. The thin light from the kitchen barely penetrated the heavy, close darkness; beyond the first three or four steps, it was very nearly pitch black.

The air was stale and still as it rose up to meet him. There was something rank in it, something rotten that the damp and the dust couldn’t hide. Hux desperately wanted to turn heel and close the door behind him, to board it up and be done with it - but he had to know. There was something wrong with the house, and he had to know what. It had resisted his every effort to make it a home, and he had to know why.

His knees felt weak as he descended the staircase, but he steeled himself. He tightened his grip on the hammer, and held his phone as a makeshift flashlight in the other. The light swept across the packed earth floor, the featureless stone walls as he reached the bottom of the staircase. He turned, and there in the middle of the room was a table.

It was old, wooden, heavily varnished, unremarkable aside from leather straps at either end. The stench of rot was stronger as Hux approached, and he found himself rooted in place. The light wavered as his hands began to tremble. It wasn’t varnish - it was blood. Blood, blackish and flaky, caked every surface of the table. It had ran down the legs in rivulets, soaked into the dirt; it had stained the soft underside of the the leather straps, left them stiff with gore.

He pressed his mouth to his wrist in an effort to stop himself from retching as he circled the table, unable to look away until his foot hit something. He pointed the light down: it was a metal lock box, blue and rusted. Hux stared at it, willing it to disappearing, willing the soiled earth to open up and swallow it because god, he didn’t want to know what was inside it.

He crouched and picked it up, sat it on the table. It was lighter than he thought it would be; he hoped there wasn’t anything in it at all. The old padlock broke with one half-hearted knock from the hammer and Hux flipped the lid open before he could lose his nerve. Inside were photographs - dozens of them, maybe more. Some were old, black and white; others were more recent.

Most of them were of Ben. Ben as a child, grinning at the camera with a gap where his two front teeth should have been. Ben on a tire swing, bony knees smeared with dirt. Ben kneeling beside a young woman who was propped up against a tree, her hair covering her face as her head drooped to her chest. Ben - a youth now, maybe twelve or thirteen - standing at the basement door, his hands shiny and wet with something blackish as he held them out proudly. Ben, still so young, leaning against the very table Hux stood beside then, his hand resting on the bare, bruised ankle of someone not wholly in the picture. He was undoing the leather strap, or maybe tightening it.

Hux’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest as he fumbled his way to the most recent photo, unfaded, uncreased. Ben was a man in it: his hair was cut shorter than he liked to keep it normally. Hux remembered when he had cut it like that, just after they had moved into the apartment together. He remembered how he teased him, saying it made his ears look even bigger than usual. He had called them his love handles, and Ben has laughed even while he sulked.

He was laughing in the photograph too, the corners his dark eyes creased just the way Hux liked them. Oh god, he was still so beautiful even with a hunting rifle across his lap and a man at his feet, naked, face-down in the wet grass; he had his arm around an older man, slight and wispy haired, his face badly scarred. He was in the background of almost every photo in the box, right from the very oldest. Ben’s grandfather.

“You’re not supposed to be down here.”

Dread washed over Hux at that moment, and he turned his phone towards the stairs; he could just about make out Ben standing halfway down the stairs. He began to shake his head, unable to find the words.

“You promised me,” he said, taking another step down. His voice was choked, cracked, heavy with hurt, “You promised me you wouldn’t come down here.”

Hux had broken the light in the kitchen so he had an excuse to come to the basement, claiming to be looking for the fuse box. That wasn’t going to work, not after what he had really found.

“I didn’t see anything,” Hux said, trying to sound calm even though he was sure he would shake apart, “We can go back upstairs. We can-- we can board up the door again. I didn’t see anything.”

“He told me I was too soft on you. He told me you would let me down. This was your chance to prove him wrong, this was your test and you failed,” Ben said. The tears on his cheeks glinted dimly in the low light, and that scared Hux. He had never seen him cry before, not even in anger.

“I’m sorry, Ben,” he said. His voice was tight, trembling with the effort to keep his composure, “I’m sorry. We can pretend--”

“I loved you,” Ben said, “You were always my favourite. I loved you the most.”

Fear turned to ice in his veins; Hux tried to steel himself, tried to stuff down the bile rising in his throat.

“You don’t have to do this, Ben,” Hux tried, one last desperate appeal, “I love you too.”

Ben lurched towards him then, and Hux made a desperate grab for the hammer on the table; his fingers wrapped around the smooth hand just in time for Ben to grab his wrist and slam it against the table, causing him to drop it. In a panic, he swung his other hand at him blindly; he managed to smash him in the side of the head with the heel of his phone, but it did nothing. Less than nothing. It slipped from his fingers as Ben grappled him to the ground, the light guttering and dying. Hands curled around his neck - hands that he had held, hands that he had kissed and loved. Hands that had hurt. Hands that had killed. They began to squeeze.

[hartsgold]

𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨. 𝐕𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐨. 𝐎𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫.

𝚖𝚢 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗. 𝚒 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚕𝚊𝚗, 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚕. 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚛𝚑𝚎𝚊, 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚝, 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢.

i’ve been working as a researcher at the institute for four years now, and am familiar with most of our significant contracts and projects. most reach dead ends, predictably enough, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are - and i always emphasize there are very few genuine cases - tend to resist easy conclusions. when an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the archives.

now, the institute was founded in 1818, which means that the archive contains almost 200 years of case files at this point. combine that with the fact that most of the institute prefers the ivory tower of pure academia to the complicated work of dealing with statements or recent experiences and you have the recipe for an impeccably organized library and an absolute mess of an archive. this isn’t necessarily a problem - modern filing and indexing systems are a real wonder, and all it would need is a half-decent archivist to keep it in order. my predecessor was apparently not that archivist.

from where I am sitting, i can see thousands of files. many spread loosely around the place, others crushed into unmarked boxes. a few have dates on them or helpful labels such as 86-91 G/H. not only that, but most of these appear to be handwritten or produced on a typewriter with no accompanying digital or audio versions of any sort. in fact, i believe the first computer to ever enter this room is the laptop that i brought in today. more importantly, it seems as though little of the actual investigations have been stored in the archives, so the only thing in most of the files are the statements themselves.

it is going to take me a long, long time to organize this mess. i’ve managed to secure the services of several researchers to assist me. I plan to digitize the files as much as possible and record audio versions, though some will have to be on tape recorder, as my attempts to get them on my laptop have met with… significant audio distortions.

that’s probably enough time spent making my excuses for the state of this place, and i suppose we have to begin somewhere.

𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚢 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗, 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚕𝚊𝚗.

𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙨: photography / texture art / tma s01e01 blurb & transcription. 

Hello! If you’re reading this, welcome to the hell that is The Seiros Archives. I’m hoping to make this as comprehensive a series translation as possible without integrating too many spoilers/telling the stories of characters that aren’t mine (save Sothis and Rhea, who seemed lore-mandatory additions). For example, I don’t have a character to fulfill [Gertrude/the past Archivist’s] position, simply because I can’t think of one and would prefer not to kill anyone off that might want to use this as an AU base. (Feel free to, btw! Just let me know/tag me in your verse thoughts, I’m so excited to read ‘em!) 

Spoilers below. Additionally: please peruse the Wiki pages with caution. There’s a trigger list for TMA episodes/general content warnings located here. 

Essentially: 

The Seiros Archives is an institution that’s existed for two centuries, currently under the jurisdiction of one Rhea, who claims to have come into control of it within the last decade or so. Obviously, this is not true. Rhea’s been alive since the founding of this institute, as she had it built order to resurrect Sothis/The Beginning/The Beholding, [her mother]. 

Sothis is both a God and not. In TMA, Gods are also known as ‘The Entities’, or The Fears. They are described, on the wiki, as such: 

The Entities are various aspects of an amorphous force of fear that exists next to reality. Their influence upon reality manifests as supernatural happenings - all supernatural phenomena in the world are simply extensions of them. These phenomena can take various forms such as people, animals, monsters, books, objects, or places.These entities do not simply feed off of our fear, rather they are our fears made manifest. “These things... these forces, they are our fear. Deep fears. Primordial. Always looking for ways to grow and spread.” Not all their actions inspire fear, they are simply a part of the process, a means to an end. (cont. This link includes a list of the Fears and should be read with caution, as there is some horror imagery, etc.)

In this verse, I’m going to conflate Sothis with The Eye, or The Ceaseless Watcher. She is an Entity of Fear manifested specifically as “being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.” I think her relationship with being able to control the flow of time and know results of the past and future translate well here. It’s terrifying to consider someone who Knows what might happen in the far future can directly alter it as well. 

Let’s say that Sothis’ “death” in this verse was a failed “Ritual” of The Eye. Centuries ago, Rhea attempted to bring her mother’s Entity to full power above all the others. 

Rituals are ceremonies held in order to empower The Entities. “Most entities have their own ‘ritual’, a symbolic act that, if completed, will allow the entity to merge with reality, changing the fabric of the world as it exert its will and nature upon reality. These rituals have the potential to bring other closely-tied entities along with it. It requires centuries for each Entity to build up the power needed for its ritual, and if it is stopped, it cannot try again until it rebuilds that power base. No ritual has ever succeeded” (x). 

When Rhea’s Ritual for The Eye was thwarted, the Entity lost a great sum of its garnered power. I imagine she was an Avatar of the fear, and her connection with her mother was severed to an extent. As a result, she began to construct the Seiros Institute as a means of rebuilding power for the sake of The Eye. 

Avatars are essentially vessels for spreading the influence of The Entities. “Some humans can become attached to an Entity and become empowered by it, gaining supernatural abilities related to their patron, but losing some or all of their humanity in the process. Most people fall to the powers through love or fear, though it can happen for other reasons such as debt. Avatars and agents of a power retain their agency but can become physically dependent on it, suffering withdrawal effects, including death, if they go too long without feeding the entity that empowers them” (x). 

People influenced by, or who encounter Avatars are often Marked by them, and other Entities alongside their Avatars can sense this fact.

In building The Seiros Institute, Rhea hopes to give Sothis enough power through a ritual to “merge with reality”/live again/to be able to communicate with her once more. 

The former hired Archivist stopped countless Rituals of The Entities, and was eventually killed as a result of attempting to quell Rhea’s efforts.

There are tunnels underneath the institute in canon, which I’m going to say is the equivalent of the Holy Tomb. 

Characters, once employed by The Institute, are unable to quit/be fired. Literally. This is a canon mechanic, where they can’t even say the words. 

TL;DR: This is set in a modern Fódlan. I imagine it as something of a large city interconnected with several other neighboring states, such as Almyra, Brigid, Dagda, etc. 

Are there tense relations between these places? Of course! Is The Empire probably allied with a different Entity and is aggravated that Rhea is doing what she’s doing? Very likely! Are Those Who Slither In The Dark likely allied with one as well, or are experimenting on people in the attempt to complete a Ritual? Why Not! 

The Entities create very viciously real manifestations of their respective fears, so people have supernatural encounters of all kinds. Vampires––weird lore, but yes. People being replaced by doppelgängers––Oh, Yeah. Circus people who steal voice boxes and dance around with mannequin limbs? Uh huh. Worms? Don’t forget the worms. As weird as you can think of it! 

So this modern Fódlan is rife with the eccentric and the supernatural. At the moment, The Seiros Institute is simply an academic place set on recording and understanding those supernatural occurrences! 

I’m setting Khalid as the current archivist because he seems the appropriate “linchpin” figure that Jon is in the main series, having been marked by several Entities. As the most knowledge and balance-hungry of the Three Lords, he fits the part. Obviously there’s something to be said of Byleth’s potential role as an Archivist, but the Archivist does a lot of talking, much like Khalid. He also interacts with everyone giving statements to the Archive, and I think Khalid’s canonical tendency to disarm others in exchange for secrets and stories is par for this course. 

Nonetheless, if you do want to use this AU as a base for your Byleth or any other character, please don’t feel restricted by anything! 

Whether your characters are employed by the Archive, is an Avatar for a Fear, or is simply terrified by whatever the fuck is going on here, please feel free to get in on this! Write it with me! Ask me any questions you might have and I’ll do my best to spoil myself on this wonderful podcast further so I can answer you to the best of my ability! [I’m about 75 episodes in right now, but am content to spoil myself, truly...] So please hit me up anytime. I’m really excited about this and would love to plot things out with you! 

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 10/13/20: FREAKY, THE CLIMB, MANK, HILLBILLY ELEGY, AMMONITE, DREAMLAND, DOC-NYC and MUCH MORE!

It’s a pretty crazy week for new releases as I mentioned a few times over the past couple weeks, but it’s bound to happen as we get closer to the holiday movie season, which this year won’t include many movies in theaters, even though movie theaters are still open in many areas of the country… and closing in others. Sigh. Besides a few high-profile Netflix theatrical release, we also get movies starring Vince Vaughn, Margot Robbie, Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Mel Gibson and more offerings. In fact, I’ve somehow managed to write 12 (!!!!) reviews this week… yikes.

Before we get to the new movies, let’s look at a few series/festivals starting this week, including the always great documentary festival, DOC-NYC, which runs from November 11 through 19. A few of the docs I’ve already seen are (probably not surprisingly, if you know me) some of the music docs in the “Sonic Cinema” section, including Oliver Murray’s Ronnie’s, a film about legendary jazz musician and tenor sax player Ronnie Scott, whose London club Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has been one of the central cores for British jazz fans for many decades.

Alex Winter’s Zappa is a much more satisfying portrait of the avant-garde rocker than the doc Frank Zappa: In His Own Words from a few years back, but I was even more surprised by how much I enjoyed Julien Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, because I’ve never really been a Pogues fan, but it’s highly entertaining as we learn about the chronically-soused frontman of the popular Irish band.

I haven’t seen Robert Yapkowitz and Richard Peete’s in My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton, a portrait of the blues and folk singer, yet, nor have I watched Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider’s Los Hermanos/The Brothers about two brother musicians separated from childhood after leaving their native Cuba, but I’ll try to get to both of them soon enough.

Outside of the realm of music docs is Ilinca Calugareanu’s A Cops and Robbers Story, which follows Corey Pegues from being a drug dealer and gang member to a celebrated deputy inspector within the NYPD. There’s also Nancy (The Loving Story) Buirski’s A Crime on the Bayou, the third part of the filmmaker’s trilogy about brave individuals in the Civil Rights era, this one about 19-year-old New Orleans fisherman Gary Duncan who tries to break up a fight between white and black teens at an integrated school and is arrested for assaulting a minor when merely touching a white boy’s arm.

Hao Wu’s 76 Days covers the length of Wuhan, China’s lockdown due to COVID-19, a very timely doc that will be released by MTV Documentary Films via virtual cinema on December 4. It’s one of DOC-NYC’s features on its annual Short List, which includes Boys State, Collective, The Fight, On the Record, and ten others that will vie for juried categories.

IFC Films’ Dear Santa, the new film from Dana Nachman, director of the wonderful Pick of the Litter, will follow its Heartland Film Festival debut with a run at COD-NYC before its own December 4 release. The latter is about the USPS’s “Operation Santa” program that receives hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa every year and employees thousands of volunteers to help make the wishes of these kids come true.

Basically, there’s a LOT of stuff to see at DOC-NYC, and while most of the movies haven’t been released publicly outside festivals yet, a lot of these movies will be part of the doc conversations of 2020. DOC-NYC gives the chance for people across the United States to see a lot of great docs months before anyone else, so take advantage of some of their ticket packs to save some money over the normal $12 per ticket price. The $199 price for an All Access Film Pass also isn’t a bad deal if you have enough time to watch the hundreds of DOC-NYC offerings. (Sadly, I never do, yet I’m still a little bummed to miss the 10Am press screenings at IFC Center that keeps me off the streets… or in this case, sitting on my ass at home.)

Not to be outdone by the presence of DOC-NYC, Film at Lincoln Center is kicking off its OWN seventh annual “Art of the Real” doc series, which has a bit of overlap by running from November 13 to 26. I really don’t know a lot about the documentaries being shown as part of this program, presented with Mubi and The New York Times, but check this out. For just 50 bucks, you can get an all-access pass to all 17 films, which you can casually watch at home over the two weeks of the fest.

Okay, let’s get to some theatrical releases, and the one I’ve been anticipating the most (also the one getting the widest release) is Christopher Landon’s FREAKY from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures. It stars Kathryn Newton as Millie Kessler, a high school outcast who is constantly picked on, but one night, she ends up encountering the serial killer known as the “Blissfield Butcher” (Vince Vaughn), but instead of dying when she’s stabbed with a ritual blade. The next morning Millie and the Butcher wake up to discover that they’ve been transported into the body of the other. Oh, it’s Friday the 13th… oh, now I get it… Freaky Friday!

Landon is best known for writing many of the Paranormal Activity sequels and directing Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Msore importantly, he directed Happy Death Day and its sequel Happy Death Day 2 U, two of my favorite Blumhouse movies, because they so successfully mix horror with comedy, which is so hard to do. That’s what Freaky is all about, too, and it’s even harder this time even though Freaky has way more gruesome and gory kills than anything in Landon’s other films. Heck, many of the kills are gorier than the most recent Halloween from Blumhouse, and it’s a little shocking when you’re laughing so hard at times.

Landon does some clever things with what’s essentially a one-joke premise of a killer in a teen girl’s body and vice versa, but like the Lindsay Lohan-Jamie Lee Curtis remake from 2003, it’s all about the talent of the two main actors to pull off the rather intricate nature of playing humor without losing the seriousness of the horror element.

It may not be too surprising with Vaughn, who made a ton of dramas and thrillers before turning to comedy. (Does everyone remember that he played Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho and also starred in thrillers The Cell and Domestic Disturbance?) Newton is a bit more of an unknown quantity, but as soon as Tillie dawns the red leather jacket, you know that she can use her newly found homicidal attitude to get some revenge on those who have been terrible to her.

In some ways, the comedy aspects of Freaky win out over the horror but no horror fan will be disappointed by the amount of gory kills and how well the laughs emerge from a decent horror flick. Freaky seems like the kind of movie that Wes Craven would have loved.

I’m delighted to say that this week’s “Featured Flick” is Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin’s indie comedy THE CLIMB (Sony Pictures Classics), a movie that I have seen no less than three times this year, first when it was playing Sundance, a few months later when it was supposed to open in March… and then again last week! And you know what? I enjoyed it just as much every single time. It’s an amazing two-hander that stars Covino and Marvin as best friends Mike and Kyle, who have a falling out over the former sleeping with the latter’s fiancé, and it just gets funnier and funnier as the friends fight and Kyle gets engaged to Marisa (Gayle Rankin from GLOW) who hates Mike. Can this friendship possibly survive?

I really had no idea what to expect the first time I saw The Climb at the Sony Screening Room, but it was obviously going to be a very different movie for Sony Pictures Classics, who had started out the year with so many great films before theaters shut down. (Unfortunately, they may have waited too long on this one as theaters seem to be shutting down again even while NYC and L.A. have yet to reopen them. Still, I think this would be just as much fun in a drive-in.)

The movie starts with a long, extended scene of the two leads riding bikes on a steep mountain in France, talking to each other as Kyle (once the athlete of the duo) has fallen out of shape. During the conversation, Mike admits to having slept with Kyle’s fiancé Ava (Judith Godréche) and things turn hostile between the two. We then get the first big jump in time as we’re now at the funeral for Ava, who actually had been married to Mike. Kyle eventually moves on and begins a relationship with his high school sweetheart Marisa, who we meet at the Thanksgiving gathering for Kyle’s extended family. In both these cases, we see how the relationship between Mike and Kyle has changed/evolved as Mike has now fallen on hard times.

It's a little hard to explain why what’s essentially a “slice of life” movie can be so funny. On one hand, The Climb might be the type of movie we might see from Mike Leigh, but Covino and Marvin find a way to make everything funny and also quite eccentric in terms of how some of the segments begin and end.  Technically, it’s also an impressive feat with the number of amazing single shot sequences and how smooth some of the transitions work. It’s actually interesting to see when and how the filmmakers decide to return to the lives of their subjects – think of it a bit like Michael Apted’s “Up” series of docs but covering a lot shorter span in time.

Most importantly, The Climb has such a unique tone and feel to other indie dramedies we’ve seen, as the duo seem to be influenced more by European cinema than American indies. Personally, I think a better title for The Climb might have been “Frenemied,” but even with the movie’s fairly innocuous title, you will not forget the experience watching this entertaining film anytime soon.

Maybe this should be called “Netflix week,” because the streamer is releasing a number of high-profile movies into theaters and on the streaming service. Definitely one of the more anticipated movies of the year is David Fincher’s MANK, which will get a theatrical release this week and then stream on Netflix starting December 4.

It stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who has allowed himself to succumb to alcoholism but has been hired by Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to write his next movie, Citizen Kane, working with a personal secretary Rita Alexander (played by Lily Collins). His story is told through his interactions with media mogul William Hearst (Charles Dance) and relationship with actress and Hearst ingenue and mistress, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).

It I were asked to pick one director who is my absolute favorite, Fincher would probably be in my top 5 because he’s had such an illustrious and varied career of movie styles, and Mank continues that tradition as Fincher pays tribute to old Hollywood and specifically the work of Orson Welles in every frame of this biopic that’s actually more about the troubled writer of Citizen Kane who was able to absorb everything happening in his own Hollywood circles and apply them to the script.

More than anything, Mank feels like a movie for people who love old Hollywood and inside Hollywood stories, and maybe even those who may already know about the making of Welles’ highly-regarded film might find a few new things to appreciate. I particularly enjoyed Mankiewicz’s relationships with the women around him, including his wife “Poor Sarah,” played by Tuppence Middleton, Collins’ Rita, and of course, Seyfried’s absolutely radiant performance as Davies.  Maybe I would have appreciated the line-up of known names and characters like studio head Louis B Mayer and others, if more of them had any sort of effect on the story and weren’t just

The film perfectly captures the dynamic of the time and place as Mank is frequently the only honest voice in a sea of brown nosers and yes-men. Maybe I would have enjoyed Oldman’s performance more if everything that comes out of Mankiewicz’s mouth wasn’t an all-too-clever quip.

The film really hits a high point after a friend of Mank’s commits suicide and how that adds to the writer’s woes about not being able to save him. The film’s last act involves Mank dealing with the repercussions after the word gets out that Citizen Kane is indeed about Hearst.

Overall, Mank is a movie that’s hard to really dig into, and like some of Fincher’s previous work, it tends to be devoid of emotion. Even Fincher’s decision to be clever by including cigarette burns to represent Mank’s “reels” – something explained by Brad Pitt in Fight Club – just drives home the point that Mank is deliberately Fincher’s most meta movie to date.

You can also read my technical/crafts review of Mank over at Below the Line.

Ron Howard’s adaptation of JD Vance’s bestselling memoir HILLBILLY ELEGY will be released by Netflix into theaters ahead of its streaming debut on November 24. It stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close, but in honesty, it’s about JD Vance, you know, the guy who wrote the memoir.  The film follows his younger years (as played by Owen Asztalos) while dealing with a dysfunctional white trash family in Middletown, Ohio, dealing with his headstrong Mamaw (Close) and abusive mother dealing with drug addiction (Adams).  Later in life, while studying at Yale (and played by Gabriel Basso), he has to return to his Ohio roots to deal with his mother’s growing addiction that forces him to come to terms with his past.

I’m a bit of a Ron Howard stan – some might even say “an apologist” – and there’s no denying that Hillbilly Elegy puts him the closest to A Beautiful Mind territory than he’s been in quite some time. That doesn’t mean that this movie is perfect, nor that I would consider it one of his better movies, though. I went into the movie not knowing a thing about JD Vance or his memoir but after the first reviews came out, I was a little shocked how many of them immediately went political, because there’s absolutely nothing resembling politics in the film.

It is essentially an adaptation of a memoir, dealing with JD Vance’s childhood but then also the past that led his mother and grandmother down the paths that made his family so dysfunctional. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the older Vance and his future wife Usha (as played by Freida Pinto) earlier in their relationship as they’re both going to Yale and Vance is trying to move past his family history to succeed in the realm of law.

It might be a no-brainer why Adams and Close are being given so much of the attention for their performances. They are two of the best. Close is particularly amusing as the cantankerous Mamaw, who veers between cussing and crying, but also has some great scenes both with Adams and the younger Vance. The amazing special make-up FX used to change her appearance often makes you forget you’re watching Close. I wish I could say the same for Adams, who gives such an overwrought and over-the-top performance that it’s very hard to feel much emotionally for her character as she goes down a seemingly endless vortex of drug addiction. It’s a performance that leads to some absolute craziness. (It’s also odd seeing Adams in basically the Christian Bale role in The Fighter, although Basso should get more credit about what he brings out in their scenes together.)

Hillbilly Elegy does have a number of duller moments, and I’m not quite sure anyone not already a fan of Vance’s book would really have much interest in these characters. I certainly have had issues with movies about people some may consider “Southern White Trash,” but it’s something I’ve worked on myself to overcome. It’s actually quite respectable for a movie to try to show characters outside the normal circles of those who tend to write reviews, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie might be able to connect with people in rural areas that rarely get to see themselves on screen.

Hillbilly Elegy has its issues, but it feels like a successful adaptation of a novel that may have been difficult to keep an audience invested in with all its flashbacks and jumps in time.

Netflix is also streaming the Italian drama THE LIFE AHEAD, directed by Edoardo Ponti, starring Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, who happens to also be the filmmaker’s mother. She plays Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor in Italy who takes a stubborn young street kid named Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), much to both their chagrin.

I’ll be shocked if Italy doesn’t submit Ponti’s film as their choice for the Oscar’s International Film category, because it has all of the elements that would appeal to Oscar voters. In that sense, I also found it to be quite traditional and formulaic.  Loren is quite amazing, as to be expected, and I was just as impressed with young Ibrahima Gueye who seems to be able to hold his own in what’s apparently his first movie. There’s others in the cast that also add to the experience including a trans hooker named Lola, but it’s really the relationship between the two main characters that keeps you invested in the movie. I only wish I didn’t spend much of the movie feeling like I knew exactly where it’s going in terms of Rosa doing something to save the young boy and giving him a chance at a good life.

I hate to be cynical, but at times, this is so by the books, as if Ponti watched every Oscar movie and made one that had all the right elements to appeal to Oscar voters and wokesters alike. That aside, it does such a good job tugging at heartstrings that you might forgive how obviously formulaic it is.

Netflix is also premiering the fourth season of The Crown this week, starring Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and bringing on board Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Emma Corin, Helena Bonham Carter, Tobis Menzies, Marion Bailey and Charles Dancer. Quite a week for the streamer, indeed.

Another movie that may be in the conversation for Awards season is AMMONITE (NEON), the new film from Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), a drama set in 1840s England where Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning, a fossil hunter,  tasked to look after melancholic young bride, Charlotte Murcheson (Saoirse Ronan), sent to the sea to get better only for them to get into a far more intimate relationship.

I had been looking forward to this film, having heard almost unanimous raves from out of Toronto a few months back. Maybe my expectations were too high, because while this is a well-made film with two strong actors, it’s also rather dreary and not something I necessarily would watch for pleasure. The comparisons to last year’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (also released by NEON) are so spot-on that it’s almost impossible to watch this movie without knowing exactly where it’s going from the very minute that the two main characters meet.

Winslet isn’t bad in another glammed-down role where she can be particularly cantankerous, but knowing that the film would eventually take a sapphic turn made it somewhat predictable. Ronan seems to be playing her first outright adult role ever, and it’s a little strange to see her all grown-up after playing a teenager in so many movies.

The movie is just so contained to the one setting right up until the last 20 minutes when it actually lives the Lyme setting and lets us see the world outside Mary’s secluded lifestyle.  As much as I wanted to love Ammonite, it just comes off as so obvious and predictable – and certainly not helped by coming out so soon after Portrait of a Lady. There’s also something about Ammonite that just feels so drab and dreary and not something I’d necessarily need to sit through a second time.

The animated film WOLFWALKERS (GKIds) is the latest from Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, directors of the Oscar-nominated Secret of the Kells (Moore’s Song of the Sea also received an Oscar nomination a few years later.) It’s about a young Irish girl named Robyn (voiced Honor Kneafsey) who is learning to be hunter from her father (voiced by Sean Bean) to help him wipe out the last wolf pack. Roby then meets another girl (voiced by Eva Whittaker) who is part of a tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.

I have to be honest that by the time I got around to start watching this, I was really burnt out and not in any mood to watch what I considered to look like a kiddie movie. It looks nice, but I’m sure I’d be able to enjoy it more in a different head (like watching first thing on a Saturday morning).

Regardless, Wolfwalkers will be in theaters nationwide this Friday and over the weekend via Fathom Events as well as get full theatrical runs at drive-ins sponsored by the Landmark, Angelika and L.A.’s Vineland before it debuts on Apple TV+ on December 11. Maybe I’ll write a proper review for that column. You can get tickets for the Fathom Events at  WolfwalkersMovie.com.

Next up is Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s DREAMLAND (Paramount), starring Margot Robbie as Allison Wells, a bank-robbing criminal on the loose who encounters young man named Eugene Evans (Finn Cole) in rural Dust Bowl era North Dakota and convinces him to hide her and help her escape the authorities by taking her to Mexico.

Another movie where I wasn’t expecting much, more due to the generic title and genre than anything else, but it’s a pretty basic story of a young man in a small town who dreams of leaving and also glamorizes the crime stories he read in pulps. Because of the Great Depression in the late ’20, the crime wave was spreading out across the land and affecting everyone, even in more remote locations like the one at the center of Dreamland.

The sad truth is that there have been so many better movies about this era, including Warren Beatty’s Bonnie and Clyde, Lawless and many others. Because of that, this might not be bad but it’s definitely trying to follow movies that leave quite a long shadow. The innocent relationship between Eugene and Allison does add another level to the typical gangster story, but maybe that isn’t enough for Dreamland to really get past the fact that the romantic part of their relationship isn’t particularly believable.

As much as this might have been fine as a two-hander, you two have Travis Fimmel as Eugene’s stepfather and another generic white guy in Garrett Hedlund playing Allison’s Clyde Barrow-like partner in crime in the flashbacks. Cole has enough trouble keeping on pace with Robbie but then you have Fimmel, who was just grossly miscast. The film’s score ended up being so overpowering and annoying I wasn’t even remotely surprised when I saw that Joris-Peyrafitte is credited with co-writing the film’s score.

Dreamland is fine, though it really needed to have a stronger and more original vision to stand out. It’s another classic case of an actor being far better than the material she’s been given. This is being given a very limited theatrical release before being on digital next Tuesday.

This might have been Netflix week, but maybe it could have been “Saban Films Week,” since the distributor also has three new movies. Actually, only two, because I screwed up, and I missed the fact that André Øvredal’s MORTAL was released by Saban Films LAST week. Not entirely my fault because for some reason, I had it opening this week, and I only realized that I was wrong last Wednesday. Oh, well.  It stars Nate Wolff as Eric Bergeland, an American in Norway who seems to have some enigmatic powers, but after killing a young lad, he ends up on the lam with federal agent Christine (Iben Akerlie from Victoria).

This is another movie I really wanted to like since I’ve been such a fan of Øvredal from back to his movie Trollhunter. Certainly the idea of him taking a dark look at superpowers through the lends of Norse mythology should be right up my alley. Even so, this darker and more serious take on superpowers – while it might be something relatively unique and new in movies – it’s something anyone who has read comics has seen many times before and often quite better.

Wolff’s character is deliberately kept a mystery about where he comes from, and all we know is that he survived a fire at his farm, and we watched him kill a young man that’s part of a group of young bullies.  From there, it kind of turns into a procedural as the authorities and Akerlie’s character tries to find out where Eric came from and got his powers. It’s not necessarily a slow or talkie movie, because there are some impressive set pieces for sure, but it definitely feels more like Autopsy of Jane Doe than Trollhunters. Maybe my biggest is that this is a relatively drab and lifeless performance by Wolff, who I’ve seen be better in other films.

Despite my issues, it doesn’t lessen my feelings about Øvredal as a filmmaker, because there’s good music and use of visual FX -- no surprise if you’ve seen Trollhunters -- but there’s still a really bad underlying feeling that you’re watching a lower budget version of an “X-Men” movie, and not necessarily one of the better ones.  Despite a decent (and kinda crazy) ending, Mortal never really pays off, and it’s such a slog to get to that ending that people might feel slightly underwhelmed.

Seth Savoy’s ECHO BOOMERS (Saban Films) is a crime thriller based on a “true story if you believe in such things,” starring Patrick Schwarzenegger as Lance, a young art major, who falls in with a group of youths who break into rich people’s homes and trash them, also stealing some of the more valuable items for their leader Mel (Michael Shannon).

There’s a lot about Echo Boomers that’s going to feel familiar if you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring or the heist movie American Animals from a few years back, but even with those similarities, Seth Savoy has a strong cast and vision to make more out of the fairly weak writing than another director might manage. Schwarzenegger, who seems to be pulling in quite a wide range of roles for basically being another generic white actor is only part of a decent ensemble that includes Alex Pettyfer as the group’s ersatz alpha male Ellis and Hayley Law (also great in the recent Spontaneous) as his girlfriend Allie, the only girl taking part in the heists and destruction. Those three actors alone are great, but then you add Shannon just doing typically fantastic work as more of a catalyst than an antagonist.

You can probably expect there will be some dissension in the ranks, especially when the group’s “Fagan” Mel puts Lance in charge of keeping them in line and Allie forms a friendship with Lance. What holds the movie back is the decision to use a very traditional testimonial storytelling style where Lance and Allie narrate the story by relaying what happened to the authorities after their capture obviously. This doesn’t help take away from the general predictability of where the story goes either, because we’ve seen this type of thing going all the way back to The Usual Suspects.

While Echo Boomers might be fairly derivative of far better movies at times, it also has a strong directorial vision and a compelling story that makes up enough for that fact.

In theaters this Friday and then On Demand and Digital on November 24 is Eshom and Ian Nelms’ action-comedy FATMAN (Saban Films/Paramount), starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus and Walton Goggins as the hired assassin sent to kill him by a spoiled rich boy named  Billy (Chance Hurstfield) who unhappy with the presents he’s being brought for Christmas.

While we seem to be surrounded by high concept movies of all shapes and sizes, you can’t get much more high concept than having Mel Gibson playing a tough and cantankerous* Kris Kringle (*Is this the week’s actual theme?) who is struggling to survive with Mrs. Klaus (played by the wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste from In Fabric) when they’re given the opportunity to produce military grade items for the army using his speedy elf workshop. Unbeknownst to the Kringles, the disgruntled hitman who also feels he’s been let down by Santa is on his way to the North Pole to fulfill his assignment.

You’ll probably know whether you’ll like this movie or not since its snarkier comedic tone is introduced almost from the very beginning. This is actually a pretty decent role for Gibson that really plays up to his strengths, and it’s a shame that there wasn’t more to it than just a fairly obvious action movie that leads to a shoot-out. I probably should have enjoyed Goggins more in a full-on villainous role but having been watching a lot of him on CBS’ The Unicorn, it’s kind of hard to adjust to him playing this kind of role.  I did absolutely love Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the warmth she brought to a relatively snarky movie.

I’m not sure if Fatman is the best showing of Eshom and Ian Nelms’ abilities as filmmakers, because they certainly have some, but any chance of being entertaining is tamped down by a feeling the filmmakers are constantly trying to play it safe. Because of this, Fatman has a few fun moments but a generally weak premise that never fully delivers. It would have thrived by being much crazier, but instead, it’s just far too mild.

Malin Åkerman stars in Paul Leyden’s CHICK FIGHT (Quiver Distribution) as Anna, a woman unhappy with her life and inability to survive on the little money she makes at her failing coffee shop. When Anna’s lesbian traffic cop friend Charleen (Dulcé Sloan) takes her to an underground fight club, Anna her trepidation about joining in, because she has never been in a fight in her life.  Learning that her mother has a legacy at the club, Anna agrees to be trained by Alec Baldwin’s always-drunk Murphy in order to take on the challenges of the likes of Bella Thorne’s Olivia.

Another movie where I’m not sure where to begin other than the fact that I’m not sure I’ve seen a movie trying so hard to be fun and funny and failing miserably at both. Listen, I generally love Akerman, and I’m always hoping for her to get stronger material to match her talents, but this tries its best to be edgy without ever really delivering on the most important thing for any comedy: Laughs.  Sure, the filmmakers try their best and even shoehorn a bit of romance for Anna in the form of the ring doctor played by Kevin Connolly from Entourage, but it does little to help distinguish the movie’s identity.

Listen, I’m not going to apologize for being a heterosexual male that finds Bella Thorne to be quite hot when she’s kicking ass in the ring. (I’m presuming that a lot of what we see in her scenes in the ring involves talented stuntwomen, but whoa! If that’s not the case.) Alec Baldwin seems to be in this movie merely as a favor to someone, possibly one of the producers, and when he disappears with no mention midway through the movie, you’re not particularly surprised. Another of trying too hard is having Anna’s father Ed (played by wrestler Kevin Nash) come out as gay and then use his every appearance to talk about his sex acts.  Others in the cast like Fortune Feimster seem to be there mainly for their bulk and believability as fighters.

Ultimately, Chick Fight is a fairly lame and bland girl power movie written, directed and mostly produced by men. I’m not sure why anyone might be expecting more from it than being a poorly-executed comedy lacking laughs.

And yet, that wasn’t the worst movie of the weekend. That would be Andrzej Bartkowiak’s DEAD RECKONING (Shout! Studios). Yes, the Polish cinematographer and filmmaker who once made the amazing Romeo is Bleeding, starring Gary Oldman and Lena Olin, has returned with a movie with the onus of a premise that reads “a thriller inspired by the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.” No, I did not make that up. It mostly takes place in Nantucket, Massachusetts, which I guess is sort of close to Boston, but instead it focuses on the relationship between teens Niko (K.J. Apa) and Tillie (India Eisley), the latter whose parents died in a plane crash that might have been caused by a terrorist. It just so happens that Niko’s brother Marco (Scott Adkins) is an Albanian terrorist. Coincidence? I think not!

Once you get past the most generic title ever, Dead Reckoning is just plain awful. I probably should have known what to expect when the movie opens with Eric “Never Turned Down a Job” Roberts, but also, I strong feel that Scott Adkins, better known for his martial arts skills, is easily one of the worst actors ever to be given lines to say in a movie. And yet, somehow, there are even worse actors in this movie. How is that even possible?

Although this presumed action movie opens with one of three or four fight sequences, we’re soon hanging out on the beach with a bunch of annoying teenagers, including Tillie, who is drowning the sorrow of recently losing her parents by literally drinking constantly in almost every single scene. When she meets the handsome Eastern European Niko, we think there’s some chance of Tillie being saved, but it isn’t meant to be.

Part of what’s so weird is that Dead Reckoning begins in territory familiar to fans of Barkowiak’s movies like Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave and Maximum Impact but then quickly shifts gears to a soppy teen romance. It’s weird enough to throw you off when at a certain point, it returns to the main plot, which involves Adkins’ terrorist plot and the search by FBI Agent Cantrell (played by James Remar) to find the culprit who killed Tillie’s parents. Oh, the FBI agent is also Tillie’s godfather. Of course, he is.

Beyond the fact that I spent much of the movie wondering what these teens in Nantucket have to do with the opening scene or the overall premise, this is a movie that anything that could be resembling talent or skill in Barkowiak’s filmmaking is long gone. Going past the horrendous writing – at one point, the exasperated and quite xenophobic Cantrell exclaims, “It’s been a nightmare since 9/11... who knows what's next?” -- or the inability of much of the cast to make it seem like anyone involved cares about making a good movie, the film is strangled by a score that wants to remind you it’s a thriller even as you watch people having fun on the beach on a sunny day.

Eventually, it does get back to the action with a fight between Cantrell and Marco… and then Marco gets into a fight with Tillie’s nice aunt nurse Jennifer where she has a surprisingly amount of fighting skills. There’s also Nico’s best friend who is either British or gay or both, but he spends every one of his scenes acting so pretentious and annoying, you kind of hope he’ll be blown up by terrorists. Sadly, you have to wait until the last act before the surfboards are pulled out.  (Incidentally, filmmakers, please don’t call a character in your movie “Marco,” especially if that character’s name is going to be yelled out repeatedly, because it will just lead to someone in the audience to yell out “Polo!” This is Uwe Boll School of Bad Filmmaking 101!)

The point is that the movie is just all over the place yet in a place that’s even remotely watchable. There even was a point when Tillie was watching the video of her parents dying in a car crash for the third or fourth time, and I just started laughing, since it’s such a slipshod scene.

It’s very likely that Dead Reckoning will claim the honor of being the worst movie I’ve seen this year. Really, the only way to have any fun watching this disaster is to play a drinking game where you take a drink every time Eisley’s character takes a drink. Or better yet, just bail on the movie and hit the bottle, because I’m sure whoever funded this piece of crap is.

Opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Manfred Kirchheimer’s FREE TIME (Grasshopper/Cinema Conservancy), another wonderful doc from one of the kings of old school cinema verité documentary filmmaking, consisting of footage of New York City from 1960 that’s pieced together with a wonderful jazz score. Let me tell you that Kirschheimer’s work is very relaxing to watch and Free Time is no exception. Plus the hour-long movie will premiere in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema, accompanied by Rudy Burckhardt’s 1953 film Under the Brooklyn Bridge which captures Brooklyn in the ‘50s.

Also opening in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema Friday is Hong Khaou’s MONSOON (Strand Releasing) starring Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) as Kit, who returns to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time since his family fled after the Vietnam War when he was six. As he tries to make sense of it, he ends in a romance with Parker Sawyers’ American ex-pat and forms a friendship with a local student (Molly Harris). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to watch this one before finishing up this column but hope to catch soon, because I do like Golding as an actor.

I shared my thoughts on Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s FIREBALL: VISITORS FROM DARK WORLDS, when it played at TIFF in September, but this weekend, it will debut on Apple TV+.  It’s another interesting and educational science doc from Herr Herzog, this time teaming with the younger Cambridge geoscientist and “volcanologist” to look at the evidence left behind by meteors that have arrived within the earth’s atmosphere, including the races that worship the falling space objects.

Opening at the Metrograph this week (or rather on its website) is Shalini Kantayya’s documentary CODED BIAS, about the widespread bias in facial recognition and the algorithms that affect us all, which debuted Weds night and will be available on a PPV basis and will be available through November 17. The French New Wave anthology Six In Paris will also be available as a ticketed movie ($8 for members/$12 for non-members) through April 13. Starting Thursday as part of the Metrograph’s “Live Screenings” is Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher’s Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists from 1980. Fischler’s earlier doc Frame Up! The imprisonment of Martin Sostre from 1974 will also be available through Thursday night.

Sadly, there are just way too many movies out this week, and some of the ones I just wasn’t able to get to include:

Dating Amber (Samuel Goldwyn) The Giant (Vertical) I Am Greta (Hulu) Dirty God (Dark Star Pictures) Where She Lies (Gravitas Ventures) Maybe Next Year (Wavelength Productions) Come Away (Relativity) Habitual (National Amusements) The Ride (Roadside Attractions, Forest, ESX) Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix) Transference: A Love Story (1091) Sasquatch Among the Wildmen (Uncork’d) All Joking Aside (Quiver Distribution) Secret Zoo (MPI Medi Group/Capelight Pictures)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, I think you’re very special and quite good-looking. Feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[marypsue]

fanfic: First 5 prime numbers!

why would you force me, a writer and known dumbass, to try to remember math stuff

2) What fandoms do you write for and do you have a particular favourite if you write for more than one? 

I was going to be extremely witty and paste in screenshots of the list of fandoms on my AO3, but tumblr is having a breakdown and won’t let me, so I’ll just go with the short answer: lots. 

There are different things I like about all of the different canons - and fandoms - that I’ve written for. I love cheesy jokes no matter where I go, but I also like the rich mine of angst and garish darkness that the Lost Boys have to offer. I love the fairy-tale structure and the heady romance of Labyrinth, I like how I can basically just write original fiction when it comes to the X-Men and it’s probably canon to something somewhere, and I appreciate the challenge of trying to nail the tone of RAM while still keeping the depth of character and the core of sincerity and emotion that I’m gonna end up bringing to anything I write about. (And also, projecting. Did I mention projecting?)

ROTG in particular stands out for the sheer creative freedom the fandom encouraged - we made up an AU where several different versions of the main villain (English movie, Finnish dub, book, concept art) lived together and attended the same university (along with multiple versions of the other characters) and it was sheer unadulterated crack. We wrote mythos. We wrote an expanded steampunk Treasure Planet universe full of high tragedy and classic-children’s-lit drama. We wrote poetry. We wrote ambitious crossovers and extraordinarily complex backstories for characters who ended up being Not That Deep. We wrote ridiculous comedy nonsense. We wrote so much fluff. My partner @gretchensinister created an entirely original fantasy alternate world and wrote a high fantasy novel inspired by the characters, which she’s planning to turn into an original series (speaking of, I will always shamelessly plug A Draught Of Light. If you liked A:TLA, you owe it to yourself to read it, and you don’t need to know anything about ROTG to enjoy it. In fact, you might enjoy it more not knowing anything about ROTG, though a few inside jokes might go over your head).

With that said, though, I think I have enjoyed writing for Gravity Falls the most. Partly it’s because of the skills I developed working in the other fandoms, so that now I feel confident enough in my work that I can stop worrying so much about making it good and just have fun with it. Partly it’s because the tone, the mood and the theme, of the series align with my interests and my values so well. It’s the kind of story that I would like to write, it’s the kind of story that I wish I’d written, and I love all of the characters so much but also can relate to so many of them, that getting to expand on it and play in its universe is just a treat and a joy. I may have found my forever fandom.

(The rest of this is going behind a cut for length because it turns out all of my answers are like this.)

3) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I…don’t get reader inserts. Especially the ones that include the little (y/n). (Partly because it jolts me right out of a story, partly because for the first while after the trend started, I was reading them as ‘yes/no’ and was extremely confused.) I understand that the intent is to create a story where the reader can easily imagine themselves as the protagonist, but…you have to give that protagonist some traits, and have them make choices, and in order to do that you have to give them some sort of a personality, and then 1) not every person who reads it will be able to go ‘oh yeah, that’s me’ and 2) you’ve got an original character anyway! 

I saw a post recently where someone had drawn a picture with the caption “this is what (y/n), the reader of my story x, looks like” and listed a set of personality traits/likes and dislikes, like, at that point…just give them a name! They’re an OC! 

With that said, though, like self-inserts, reader inserts are fun (for people who like that sort of thing) and harmless, and I really hope nobody’s being a dick about them. Fandom should be fun, and even if I don’t get that thing you’re doing for fun, that doesn’t mean you’re Doing It Wrong.

Also, I fucking love making up OCs, and if allowed, I would do nothing but that all day.

5) If you had to choose a favourite out of all of your multi chaptered stories, which would it be and why?

Oh, this is cruel. I should not have done this. 

So, there are a lot of them. Apparently some people don’t spend all their free time coming up with bullshit ideas that spiral wildly out of their control into full, developed narratives that require tens of thousands of words to fully express? I bet those people have cleaner bedrooms than I do. Also probably more money.

Again, I’ve gotten better at this with lots of time and practice, so a lot of my earlier stuff is less well-executed than I’d want it to be. There are still ideas that I like, and stuff I’m proud of finishing, but I wouldn’t say they’re favourites, because the execution is less skillful and less polished than some newer things. With that said, though, I still have a big ol’ soft spot for Northern Lights, which was my indoctrination into the genre of ‘wildly self-indulgent crossovers and rampant canon revisionism’. Same with It Was A Dark And Stormy Night, the first multi-chaptered thing I ever finished. You can see the seeds of some classic Mary tropes in it, including ‘what if we just took all the female characters who were mentioned once and develop them into fully-realised people with important roles in this story’, as well as some tropes that have since fallen by the wayside (I do not do nearly as much with fairy tales as I did when I was a teenager).

Dreamland deserves a shot at the title, as do Reincarnation Blues and Raising Stakes. But purely for scale, ambition, and how closely the execution matches the ideal version that exists only in my head, my absolute favourite multi-chaptered fic has to be Hive. I’ve been trying to write decent horror for eleven long years and Hive makes me feel like I’ve finally nailed it. 

7) When is your preferred time to write?

Preferred time to write is from midnight to 2am. 

Best time to write is literally any other time than that, probably. 

(I’ve read all the science and the thinkpieces. I am aware that the only reason 2am seems like such a good time for creative work is because you’re tired enough that your internal self-regulation is low and your inner critic is silenced, and also because it’s often the only time when we sit down and let ourselves focus on the work with no distractions - because there aren’t any. I’m working on introducing this environment into the rest of my day so that I am not in a permanent state of sleep deprivation. Funnily enough, writing in a dimly-lit room and working on a dimmed computer screen really seems to help.) 

11) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Not that I can remember.

To be fair, I have received very few criticisms after posting that were about writing issues rather than matters of personal taste (and most of those have been along the lines of ‘so uh, I know you knew mentally what was going on in this scene, but the critical piece of information never actually made it to the page’). But…I also…take long enough to work on things and have so many damn things on the go that once something is posted, it’s posted, and I have to make a promise to myself to never touch it again, otherwise I would spend all my time nitpicking and never finish anything. If somebody’s noticed a legitimate issue or possible improvement, it is incredibly likely that I will go ‘oh dang why didn’t I notice that’ and then mentally file it for use in future stuff. I’ve only ever taken one fic down, and most of the edits I do after the fact are for tagging or author’s notes.

I did amend the ending of Any Misery You Choose, but that was less because I got criticism (people were actually incredibly nice about it!) and more because I was extremely dissatisfied with how the original ending turned out, because I hadn’t adhered to the plan I myself had made, because I was rushing to finish the damn thing. (Protip: don’t do that.)

(please, please, please let these actually be the first five prime numbers)

[mingmingexpress]

Kang Daniel | Haunted House

Rating: PG-13 (for slightly vulgar language and disturbing imagery)

Word Count: 2,104

A/N: @deepdickdaniel suggested to me a while ago that I should try writing my own fanfics, and as you can clearly see, I’ve decided to take her up on her offer. I initially said this was specifically something for her to enjoy, but the more I typed, the more I realized this was actually for my self-indulgence. Either way, I hope you guys enjoy!

You hated haunted houses. Preying on your fear of the unknown. Terrors hiding in every corner. You just couldn’t understand how people could be so willing to subject themselves to such things. Masochists, you called them.

Yet here you were, visiting your local carnival with a group of friends, the very last stop being the haunted house attraction that’s opened up for the month of October. Why exactly did you agree to this?

Oh, that’s right. Your stupid pride. A couple weeks earlier, you and a “friend”—you doubt you can really call them that, considering they made you do this—made a bet to sit through what the Internet called “the most horrifying fright fest in the state”. If you won, they’d be your personal servant for a day; if they won… well, they’d simply be content with the knowledge that you weren’t as tough as you made yourself look.

Honestly, the bet was too good to pass up anyway. Forget having your timidity lorded over for eternity, that’s beside the point. Your best friend, in a stroke of luck, had won tickets to a concert for a group you’ve been dying to see in person, and while they’ve begged to take you along (and not their insanely embarrassing mother), you’ve remained hesitant since you were tasked of babysitting your younger sibling on the same night.

Maybe this was a sign, you told yourself. It was meant to be! Regardless, you were getting increasingly tired with these unfounded claims you were, as they so charmingly worded, “a chicken.”

So back to the present. You’d started the afternoon off with some booths: shooting water into moving targets, throwing rings onto glass bottles. Heck, your skills managed to snag you a gigantic plushie of a dog—the person manning the place insisted it was a Samoyed. You then proceeded to race your friends on a go-kart track, barely managing to finish third. Wonderful. Everything seemed to be going well.

“Is something wrong?” Suddenly, you’re snapped back into reality. You look around, quickly realizing the voice belongs to Daniel. “You haven’t had a bite since we sat down.” You look back down at your food. He wasn’t joking. Your burger, along with a side of fries, remains untouched, your hands balled tightly on your lap. You barely even register it’s already lunchtime.

Daniel rests his head on his palm, looking at you concernedly. “Are you still worked up about this bet?” he asks, moving his other hand to your shoulder. Being the worrywart you are, you’d gushed to him over the phone a few nights prior about how much you were secretly dreading going to a haunted house. That entire conversation, he stayed silent, only making the occasional noise to assure you he was listening.

“I can come with you if you want,” he said after your rant was over.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly ask you to do something like that,” you protested. “Besides, they’d make it look like I brought you along because I was scared.”

“Don’t be silly. A plus one you were allowed, so a plus one you shall bring. Besides”—he paused, as if to find the right words—“whatever troubles you may have, I want to be with you 100%.”

Suffice it to say, your heart melted that night. And so, you brought him along, praying that his presence would help tide you over.

“I’d be faring a lot worse if you weren’t around,” you admit. “Maybe it’s because of my baby sibling, I don’t know, but I always try to be brave wherever I go.” You let out a long sigh as you loosely play with one of your fries. “I’m being really stupid, but—”

“Stop that,” Daniel barks, quickly taking your hands in his. “You aren’t being stupid. Putting on this tough face, it just shows how much you want to be able to protect others.” You look into his eyes. They shine with so much sincerity. “If that’s not inspiring, then I don’t know what is. And hey, if you ever feel vulnerable”—laying your hands back down, he gently caresses your cheek—“just remember you have me.” God, you are so lucky to have this man. If you weren’t out with him in public, you probably would’ve squealed your head off.

With your fears moderately assuaged, you and Daniel spend the next several minutes feeding each other your food. You can faintly hear your friends pretending to throw up behind you, but you’re simply too happy to care.

“Alright, everyone!” someone eventually exclaims as you and your friends finish up. “We’re all filled up, the sun’s setting, what better way to end the day than with some scares.”

You gulp. This is it. If there was ever a need to be brave, it’s now. You look at Daniel. He looks back, that soft smile of his ever present on his face. Honestly, as long as he stays at your side, you feel everything’s going to be okay. Taking his hand and squeezing it tightly, you cautiously walk with the rest of the group to the haunted house.

It’s just as horrifying as you thought it was. Split into two sections, the haunted house is actually both a winding hedge maze and a decrepit, old building. Fog emanates from within the intricately designed set, colored either a deep red or a sickly green with the help of stage lights. Every now and then, a bloodcurdling scream is let out, followed by a maniacal laugh. Jesus Christ, they must’ve spent a whole lot of money on this. No wonder it’s so popular.

“How spooky,” that friend says to you, wiggling their fingers for dramatic effect. “If you’re too scared, it’s not too late to back out now.”

“You wish,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “This is gonna be a piece of cake, right, Da—” You stop short when you turn to look at your boyfriend. You thought he was being unusually quiet, but now you see why. He’s giving what looks like the thousand-yard stare, his face as pale as a sheet. You then notice he’s holding onto you exceptionally tight. Like, really tight. If he put any more force, in fact, it’d probably start to hurt. And are his lips… trembling?

“Daniel?” your friend calls out, waving their hand in front of his face. “I feel like I should ask if you’ll be okay.”

“What?” Daniel finally snaps out of his haze, immediately putting on a grin. “Oh, yeah, this is nothing.” His eyes meet yours, and you can see they’re full of fear.

“If you say so,” your friend mumbles, walking off to join the others. When they’re out of earshot, you clasp Daniel by the shoulders.

“Daniel, now it’s my turn to ask you. Are you sure about this?” you ask waveringly. “Listen, none of it means anything to me, and I don’t wanna make—”

Daniel puts a finger to your lips. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” He looks to the haunted house again, and his face drops. “Just don’t let go of me, okay?” He wraps his arm around you, trying to remain confident. “We’re gonna win that bet.”

You’re still feeling a little apprehensive, but it barely matters anymore as the two of you make your way toward the haunted house. As agreed, you would be the first group to enter, a safeguard to make sure you didn’t “cheat.” The man guarding the entrance is wearing a tattered hooded robe, its right sleeve blowing freely in the wind to imply a missing arm. Despite his foreboding appearance, his uncharacteristically bright and sunny temperance before letting you in is almost a refreshing reminder that this whole setup should be nothing more than a fun carnival attraction. Well, emphasis on the “should.”

With bated breath, you and Daniel take your first steps into the hedge maze. You were told the path should be fairly straightforward, but you still have trouble walking through the thick fog, even with all the stage lights. You’ve once again noticed Daniel has reestablished his grip on you, clutching your arm like an anxious child does on his first day of school.

You start off decently enough, and you almost begin to believe you can survive this nightmare unscathed, when suddenly clawed black hands shoot through the hedges in an effort to grab you. Your eyes instinctively widen in terror, and you’re about to let out a scream, but Daniel beats you to it, swiftly ducking his head down into your side. You try to calm him down, but you’re barely able to maintain composure yourself, your head darting left and right in trepidation.

Continuing further down, grotesque creatures try to scare you at every corner, and what you can only assume are the remains of their previous victims are scattered across the bloodstained grass. Daniel can barely see anything with his face buried into your shirt, but his cries for help only continue to grow louder.

“Lord, have mercy,” he repeats, hugging your waist like it’s a lifesaver. “I don’t wanna die tonight.”

All this time, you thought you’d be the one who would need protecting, the typical damsel-in-distress finding safety in her knight in shining armor. Yet, the scene currently playing before you paints the opposite picture: Daniel has quite clearly become that damsel. But despite your initial fear and confusion, you feel something else welling up inside you.

Determination. A determination to face the horror head-on. A determination to get your boyfriend out of this hell. A determination… to be brave.

So with your chest puffed out and Daniel securely in tow, you quickly proceed through the hedge maze and into the building portion of the haunted house. Apparently home to a satanic cult, you’re greeted by maniacal followers, mutilated sacrifices, and vengeful spirits. On any other day, you would probably be screeching your head off, and let’s be real, you can’t help but let out the occasional shout, but Daniel’s helplessness has inspired within you a strength you didn’t know existed.

Before you know it, you’ve finally made it to the exit. Letting out a breath you feel you’ve been holding in since the very beginning, you look down at Daniel, still bent over whimpering. Honestly, he’s kind of adorable like this.

“Daniel, we’re out,” you say. His grip loosens, and he slides down onto his knees. “Are you okay, babe?” His body is shaking, but as he lifts his head, you realize it’s because he can’t stop laughing. Dear Lord, it looks like you’ve broken him.

“There you two are,” a voice calls out from behind you. Your other friends have also managed to escape, most of them now talking amongst themselves. “Damn, I should have never doubted you. You really are a badass.” They motion to Daniel. “I could barely even hear you with this guy begging for his life.”

“What can I say?” you brag. “I scoff at the face of danger.”

“Well, looks like you win,” they reply, bowing dramatically. “So what is it that requires your services, Your Highness?”

A grin forms on your face. “Wow, I think you should do that more often.” They groan. “But I’ll tell you what I want tomorrow. I mean”—you slowly pull your boyfriend up from the ground—“Daniel and I have had quite the evening.”

“As you wish. Far be it from me to interfere with the lovey-dovey couple.” They make a finger gun and shoot you a sly wink. “Come on, guys, let’s leave these two alone. Talk to you tomorrow!”

Once everyone has disappeared from view, you hold Daniel’s hands together in yours. He gives you a comforting smile, but all you feel is this overwhelming rush of guilt. “I am so sorry,” you stutter. “You must’ve been mortified. I should’ve never—”

Daniel suddenly pulls you into his embrace, his warmth encompassing your body. “I told you I’d be fine.” He kisses you on the lips. “And it was worth it.” After what seems like a blissful eternity, the two of you break apart, and you let out a small chuckle. “Now why are you laughing?”

“Because I felt your heartbeat just then, idiot. It’s pounding like crazy.”

Daniel blushes, scratching his head in embarrassment. “Okay, I’ll admit I’m still a little shaken up.”

“Well, how about this?” You slowly brush your hand up his arm. “We get pizza, go home, and watch Interstellar on Netflix. I’ll let you cuddle with that plushie I got earlier.”

“That sounds great, but… I think I’d rather cuddle with you.”

“Deal.”

[j-kaiwa]

Discussion Article March 30th

Intolerant Anti-Bully laws are killing Freedom of Speech

Only July 4, the United States will be celebrating Independence Day, the birth of our nation. Unfortunately, the greatest freedom provided us by this new democracy has been dying and few people seem to be aware of it or care about it. And many others are even cheering it on.

The democratic world has made "tolerance" its number one social goal. Nevertheless, this goal has been elusive, as victimized groups continue to lobby for laws that remove the stigmas against them, and educators, social scientists and parents continue to proclaim the horrors of bullying. Despite decades of diversity education, members of the various races congregate largely with their own kind in our schools and neighborhoods.

The truly ironic thing is that the most essential element of a tolerant society has been with us for the past two centuries, as it is also the central element of democracy, but we are slowly but surely killing it. That element is in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is called Freedom of Speech. We need to be allowed to say what we want, as long as our words don't cause tangible harm to people's bodies or property, or society will stagnate and we will be prisoners in our own skulls, only permitted to say things that the authorities approve of. Without Freedom of Speech, we would never solve problems that require abandonment of current ways of thinking. Without Freedom of Speech, the government could be as despotic as it wishes, killing off any protestors without impunity. Where the concept of Freedom of Speech is absent, people believe they are entitled to kill others who say things they find offensive. Without Freedom of Speech, we would literally be living in the Dark Ages.

We Americans love to call our Constitution the greatest political blueprint ever created. It was formulated by wise, educated, brave men who studied philosophy and spent a great deal of time hashing out the principles for a system of government that maximizes human freedom and well-being. But the ultimate freedom, Freedom of Speech, is now dead.

Do you think I am exaggerating? Perhaps. But only a drop. Who teaches Freedom of Speech anymore? It is ignored from grade school through university. And if it is taught, is it ever given more than brief lip service? Is more than one paragraph ever allocated to it?  Are its meaning, purpose and practice discussed? Even many journalists today, who owe their professions to Freedom of Speech, do not believe in it because they don't study and understand it.

As I repeatedly demonstrate at my seminars, in my videos and in my writings, Freedom of Speech is the key to peace among people. It is a wonderful principle not only for running a country. It is also a wonderful principle for interpersonal harmony. And though it is a wonderful psychological and moral principle, it is never taught in courses in psychology or morality.

Not only is no one teaching Freedom of Speech anymore, that precious freedom is being slowly but surely killed. It is being murdered by the growing social movement that has successfully brainwashed virtually everyone into believing that the solution to human emotional misery is to create, by force of law, a society in which no one says anything anyone else finds offensive, in which there is no stigma, and in which there are no imbalances of power. There is not one social movement in the history of the world that has enjoyed such unanimous support as the anti-bully movement. Not one religious or political group has criticized it, despite its being contrary to the basic philosophies of most religions and political groups. Not one psychological organization has criticized it, despite the fact that it violates the principles of almost all major schools of psychology. Neither the American Civil Liberties Union nor any other rights-advocacy group has criticized it, despite the fact that anti-bully laws violate the most basic democratic right, Freedom of Speech. Even organizations that are dedicated to promoting Freedom of Speech have failed to criticize this anti-free-speech movement.

The number one tool of science is logical thinking. 2,400 years ago, Aristotle said, "One thing no government can do, no matter how good it is, is to make its citizens morally virtous." Simple logic will lead anyone with a basic understanding of human nature to realize that a society in which everyone is always nice to each other is impossible. It has never existed-and will never exist-because it can't exist. Only in Heaven, if such a place exists, is such a society possible. And logic will lead thinking people to conclude, as Aristotle and our Founding Fathers did, that the attempt to create such a society by force of law can only cause more harm than good. But the social sciences, in their zeal to protect the feelings of people, have thrown logic out the window and are unwittingly creating a less tolerant society. We are in effect teaching: It is very important to be completely tolerant of everyone. And if anyone shows you any kind of intolerance, we will have no tolerance for them!

Ironically, some of the most intolerant, offensive people you can find are ones who most forcefully insist that we need to create a society in which no one is intolerant or offensive. As I am wont to say at my seminars, few people get insulted as much as I do. I have given seminars to tens of thousands of people, and I get evaluations at the end of the day. It never ceases to amaze me how nasty mental health professionals and educators can be! Thanks to my website and blog, I receive letters from people all over the world. Because I am the world's most visible critic of the anti-bully movement, I am also the world's leading recipient of the vitriol of anti-bully zealots. Many angry emailers naively accuse me of having no idea of what it's like to be bullied. They should read my email! They should read the threatening letters sent to Cross Country Education for daring to sponsor my seminars! They should have been there to witness the vicious attacks against me at a few of the presentations I have given in schools! They should read some of the nasty comments to articles about my work on the Internet! Very few people get bullied and cyberbullied as much as I do! (And i haven't tried to get any of my bullies punished!)

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." ~Voltaire

Freedom of Speech requires me to respect your right to say what I don't like to hear--even to publicly insult and humiliate me--just as it requires you to respect my right to say what you don't like to hear. And just because we have ideas that are unacceptable to each other, it doesn't make us enemies. You may be giving me the best advice in the world but I don't realize it and find it offensive. Should you be prevented from, or punished for, saying it? We are supposed to love each other despite our opposing ideas. When I recognize your right to say things I don't like, I don't get angry at you for saying them. You, in return, respect me for acting respectable. Furthermore, since I don't get angry at you, you cannot have the pleasure of getting me angry, so you don't seek to torment me with words. All wise people throughout the world understand this. It is the most basic ingredient of peace.

Unfortunately, because Freedom of Speech is no longer taught, and our citizens have been indoctrinated with the very opposite, many people today cannot tolerate criticism, insults, or views opposite to their own. And that's why bullying has becoming a more serious problem during the very period that we have been trying hardest to get rid of it. Especially during the ten years since the Columbine massacre, the anti-bully movement has been teaching us that no one has a right to say anything to us that can cause us emotional or psychological distress. So when people say things that are offensive to us, we feel totally justified in getting angry, thinking self-righteously, "You have no right to say that!" and the situation escalates as they become even meaner back to us. And when we try to get them in trouble with the authorities, that's when they really want to kill us!

So that this won't be just theoretical, I would like to present you with a couple of recent examples of intelligent, educated people who would like to deny me Freedom of Speech.

I received the following email from someone identifying him/herself as Real Person, who had apparently read my article, The Psychological Solution to the Stigma of Obesity, and didn't like it. The article is written respectfully and is based on ideas that any decent Cognitive Behavior therapist or Rational Emotive therapist would whole-heartedly advocate. (I just reread it, and I happen to think it is quite good. I believe it will help any obese person who is willing to face reality.) The subject line of the email was, Sometimes the freest speech is silence. What this writer obviously wants, as you will see, is my silence, not his/her own, God forbid.

And the greatest freedom is to not have to listen to you! You know nothing. Some cute slogan and a soapbox and you're off... There needs to be an anti-bullying movement in every heart, everywhere! It's called common decency and respect for others. With your help, and the idiocy of bureaucrats, people have divorced their own actions from any sense of responsibility. Who are you to say that the stigma of obesity isn't worse than the obesity itself? Cruel words lead to cruel actions. It's just too bad that the gentlest souls far too often direct those actions toward themselves. Then idiots like you turn around and blame them. Do the world a favor and just shut up. Listen for a change. You might be surprised at what you haven't heard.

This person insists there must be decency and respect for everyone. Except, of course, to me, because she doesn't agree with me. She doesn't question her right to be as nasty and insulting to me as she wishes.

I received the following comment to my blog entry, The "Perfect" Anti-Bully Law, from someone identifying herself as Jeannette:

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You have either no understanding or no experience - probably both - of any kind of bullying behaviour that reaches deeper than mild irritation. There are few people for whom the usual daily small and sometimes painful lessons of childhood - do not give them sufficient life skills to deal with the kind of bullying your 'booklet' describes. I checked out your infallible rules. Complete nonsense....I have listened with too much patience already to voices like yours, who recommend these simplistic solutions - ideas from people who - on finding themselves in any similar situation - would have not the slightest idea of any way to cope, and would be brought down very low by it....If you have never experienced that - you may not hope to understand how your article sounds, like nonsense, to anyone who has.

You have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt to harrass those who try to protect the lives of children and adults from one of the most pernicious ills of our time.

This intelligent writer believes that since I am criticizing the failing anti-bully movement, trying to wake the public up to the folly of anti-bully laws, and providing free advice that has helped countless people throughout the world successully deal with bullying, I am somehow "harassing" her. Have I ever done a thing to stop her--or anyone else--from trying to protect children from each other? It is not I who is fighting for laws that force us to think or behave in a certain way.

She says I "have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt..." Absolutely no right whatsoever?! How about the First Amendment?! But Freedom of Speech is dead, and even the most educated people today have forgotten it. These anti-bully activists who are so dead set against nastiness have no hesitation to be nasty to anyone they don't agree with. Only one point of view is permitted today. The only Freedom of Speech we have today is to say things that the anti-bully crusaders approve of. Three cheers for the demise of democracy!

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If you haven't already viewed these videos, I invite you to see the power of Freedom of Speech in action. Two of the three sample videos from my Victim-Proof Your School program that can be viewed on my website demonstrate the power of Freedom of Speech to stop bullying. In each video scene, I first try to deny the other person Freedom of Speech; the second time I grant them Freedom of Speech.

The following is a scene in which a student is cursing a teacher: How Should Teachers Handle Being Bullied

The following is a medley of scenes of people calling me idiot (it would work with any other insult): The Idiot Game

I hope you are getting an increased appreciation for Freedom of Speech. If society were to spend a fraction of the time and effort teaching the meaning and practice of Freedom of Speech that it does fighting for anti-bully laws, we would achieve a greater reduction in bullying and a greater increase in tolerance and harmony than we can ever hope to achieve through the most intensive anti-bully laws!

[mrtroy]

Little Things Revisited: Embracing the Sweat Stains

This week marks the five-year anniversary of publishing my book, Little Things in a Big Sky. I’ve finally started to go back and read it for the first time! Ha. It’s been really interesting to reflect on that time in my life and read through what I was thinking, how I thought about things in general, and to notice changes in how I think now, and also in how I write now.

When I say I’m reading the book for the first time, that refers to reading it after the editing process ended. When I was working back and forth with the editor, I would of course read what I wrote and make comments on what I was okay with changing and what I wasn’t. But, since the book has been finished I’ve never actually read it. Hopefully after five years, I’m finally ready to do so!

The process of writing a book – especially the way I did it – is mentally taxing. Being that Little Things is a collection of short stories, I essentially wrote one story a day for about 60 days in a row. Most of the stories are around a thousand words in length, so I wrote 60,000 words in 60 days. Most days I would write and re-write that day’s story and then outline, or at least jot down some ideas for what I thought I might write the next day. After those 60 days were up and I felt like I had a good solid core for the book, I edited it back and forth with the editor for about three straight weeks – roughly 2-3 hours each night.

By the time the whole process was complete, I was fried. I was doing this after work each night, and I remember most nights falling asleep in what seemed like seconds after my head hit the pillow.

By the time the jacket artwork was done and everything was worked out with the publishing platform, truthfully, I really had no energy left to actually read the book.

As I started to get feedback from those who had actually read it, it made things even harder. Objectively, the book isn’t all that great, and most of the feedback was nice, but there were twinges of honesty in people’s well-intended critiques. I respect that – and actually prefer it that way – but it didn’t make it any easier to want to go back and read my work.

So now, I finally am, and I’m going to react to it here.

--

In my efforts to read Little Things for the first time, I pulled up my original source file from when I wrote it. Because of the way I wrote it – daily, when time allowed – the original source file is actually a Google Doc. I did it this way so I could write on the go. On my phone if I wanted to take a note, or even on other machines when I traveled. It worked well.

For some reason when I saved the final, final Google Doc, I saved it in reverse order to how it appeared in the book. The last page was first and the first page was last. I have no idea how I did this, and don’t consciously remember doing it, but as I opened the file for the first time since December of 2013, there was the last section of the book on page one of the doc. Strage, but true, apparently.

Five years is a strange amount of time to go back and reflect on writing. I write a fair amount, and do so in a fair amount of formats. I’ve started writing three other books since publishing this one, and between three those three have about 80,000 more words of ‘other book content.’ The point here: As I read my words from 2013, I knew they were mine – they definitely sound like me – but I only vaguely remember writing them.

Here’s the last story from Little Things in a Big Sky:

Embracing the Sweat Stains - 11/15/13

I’ve been thinking for about a week about how I want to end this book. The rest of the book has been written on successive days - the Afterward will explain that - but when it came time to write the last story, I needed some time.

I’m not always one who waits before I express my feelings and in many instances that hasn’t always worked in my favor. In the moment, it’s easy to say something that isn’t necessarily that well thought out.

But at the same time, if I think about things too long I over analyze them to the Nth degree.

So, in many ways, this process has been an evolution and a compromise. Writing every day, but not publishing or sharing any of it for months. By the time anyone reads these words, it will have been three months since I started writing. While that might not seem like a long time to you - and in terms of publishing a book it’s no time at all - to me, that may as well be an eternity.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed about myself during this process is how much I have grown to love sweat stains.

Yes, you read that correctly. I have really grown to love sweat stains.

Let me explain.

The groundwork for this love was laid when my brother was in middle school track and field. Loosely speaking, he ‘ran’ track, and his event was the hurdles if I remember correctly. I admired my brother for joining the track team. He is three years younger than me, but in many ways has always been an inspiration to me

For a long time, I’ve had a fear of getting involved in activities. For whatever reason, I have a hard time ‘just going for it.’ I think it’s probably due to over analyzing things and being worried about a negative outcome, rather than expecting a positive one. I’m working on that now, but back when my brother was in middle school the thought of my joining a sport or activity I had no previous experience in was as foreign as could possibly be.

I was so proud of him for joining track and I gave him even more credit because he was so, so bad at it. We’ve laughed about it since then and he excitedly reminds me that he beat a kid once. He’s not referring to a match race, or a rival, or anything like that. All that means is that one time, in one race, he finished ahead of one kid.

It was after a feat like this that he was able to proudly wear his track team shirt. I love shirts like that. On the front they have the school name and which sport you’re associated with and on the back is some team slogan or team saying. We’ve also laughed in the present day about the fact that this middle school track shirt’s slogan was ‘Pain is temporary. Pride lasts forever!’

The hilarity of these words is never lost on us. Of course the Madison Jr. High track team didn’t come up with these words. I’m sure they’ve been used for generations to inspire world-class athletes to train and compete at the highest level.

The fact that my brother - many things, but not a world-class athlete - owned a shirt with this saying on it is just too funny.

As someone whose reluctance to try things kept me from joining many teams, I have always thought these shirts were so cool. More than anything in the world, I wanted a shirt with a cool slogan on it.

I was in high school at the time my brother was running track and I remember that one of our teams had a shirt that said ‘Sweat is Pain Leaving the Body.’

I don’t remember which team it was, and the overly cliche-ish nature of the statement insures that it could have been just about any team. Heck, I’m sure the debate team could have sweat quite a bit outlining some very painful point-counterpoint arguments…

I remember seeing this shirt and wondering how it applied to me. Despite being decently athletic and having been active most of my life, I never really sweat.

I caddied for ten summers in the sweltering Chicago heat and despite nearly passing out from heat exhaustion on Men’s Guest Day in 2000, I barely sweat at all.

To me, sweating was something that old men did.

That day in 2000 when I almost fainted, I was caddying for Tom Garvin. Tom was the former CEO of Keebler and if the man knew anything better than making cookies and biscuits, it was sweating. Actually, he was a huge fan of track and field as well, come to think of it...

The more I caddied, the more I noticed that old man sweat is super gross. I’ll never forget caddying for a man named Wil Gillet who very politely asked me to loop a washcloth around my front left belt loop. I was fourteen at the time and didn’t think much of it. I did as I was told and tried not to lose his golf ball in the tall grass.

About twenty five times during that particular round of golf, Mr. Gillet asked me for the wash cloth. He’d wipe his brow, his face and his neck and then he’d hand me back the washcloth to store in my belt loop.

By the end of the round Mr. Gillet had sweat completely through his golf shirt and his shorts. What started as little dabs of sweat underneath his nipples connected with an ever-expanding circular pool of sweat that started at his belly button. The lower back sweat then made its way around his hips and connected to form a salty suit of armor that may have been able to repel an entire Roman Army.

But it didn’t repel me. I faithfully stood by his right hip and he grabbed for the washcloth on my left hip. Walking down the eighteenth fairway I started to look to my right to see what time the old clubhouse clock said it was. The clock was rarely right, but I was still too young to know that yet.

I never got to read what time it was because Mr. Gillet needed his sweat rag.

“Hey, boy!” he said. Old man golfers often referred to their caddies in this way. Trying to remember the name of one hundred caddies is much harder than remembering, ‘Boy,’ so I was often just ‘Boy’ or ‘Sport’ or ‘Pal.’ This may sound disrespectful, but it rarely was. For his part, Mr. Gillet was one of the kindest men at the club and someone that I would enjoy getting to know over the coming years.

What I did not enjoy was his final request for his washcloth.

“Let me get that rag one more time,” he said.

He was a few yards away and up the fairway a bit, but he wasn’t walking back towards me. So, to my horror, I had to toss him the washcloth.

Right before you toss a washcloth, you have to grab it a little bit more tightly so that it doesn’t fly out of your hand as you swing your arm back to execute the throw. In this case, doing so caused sweat to come pouring out as my strengthened grip wrang the cotton fibers to the point where the cloth could no longer contain all the electrolytes the old man had lost.

I almost puked, but Mr. Gillet was thankful.

“Thank you, son” he said. “It sure has been a hot one out here today!”

Yes, yes it had and I was ready for it to be over. What I wasn’t ready for was the washcloth, as it came hurling back my way from up the fairway. Mr. Gillet had tossed it back to me and in my state of unawareness it had landed on my left arm and was slowly sliding towards my left hand. My own saliva curdled in the back of my throat.

I let the rag sort of just settle on my hip and then I picked it up like an investigator might pick up an exhibit of evidence from a crime scene and put it on Mr. Gillet’s golf bag. This round was over. I wasn’t going to be needing it anymore.

So to say I was glad that I wasn’t much of a sweater growing up would be an understatement.

I’d see people at the gym and out running and they’d be sweating profusely. I never thought much of it. I was thankful I wasn’t a sweaty person, but figured it was just good genes or something.

And then it happened.

I started to sweat. A lot. I’m not sure exactly when it started, but it did and it was a problem.

All the sudden all my undershirts were heavily stained yellowish brown, even in the neckline area. Really, I thought to myself, my neck is that sweaty that it stains through my shirts?

I haven’t changed deodorants. I haven’t changed my diet. I haven’t gained a lot of weight. But nonetheless, I’ve turned into a sweaty mess. It’s rather off putting.

It culminated this week.

I’ve been noticing lately that I’ve been working out with my t-shirts tucked into my sweatpants. I swore I’d never be that guy, but it’s as if all the sudden I’m this middle-aged dork that can’t help himself. I never recall tucking my shirt in, but it always seems to happen.

The tucked in shirt keeps the fabric in much tighter order than if left untucked and thus sweat collects in the same concentrated areas.

You can see where this is going.

I now get nipple spots like Mr. Gillet. And belly button pools. And the little trail that connects the two. I came back from a run the other night and I could barely look at myself.

My shirt was dorkily tucked into my pants, which were hiked up unnecessarily high above my hips. The pool of sweat that had formed around my belly button kind of looked like the state of West Virginia and I could feel a small amount of sweat accumulation up near my collar bones. My hair was actually dripping with sweat and my glasses were so filthy I probably could have used a pressure washer to get them clean.

The next night, while coaching basketball practice, the same thing happened. I was running with the kids doing a defensive drill and I just started to gush sweat. I looked down at my light blue shirt and saw that it was drenched through.

At first, I was embarrassed. This type of thing happens all the time in gyms, but never to me, so I didn’t know what to do.

I felt self-conscious as I quickly hurried to put my jacket on. I walked to my car carrying my basketball and my whistle. The cool air on my moist neck made me uncomfortably cold, but a strange feeling began to come over me.

Two minutes later I sat in my car. Sobbing. To add to my sweaty mess I was piling tear after tear onto my blue shirt.

These were not painful tears, though. These were tears of joy. I looked down at my sweat-stained shirt. It was gross. I was so gross it was almost intolerable.

Our team colors for the basketball team are light blue and white. As I looked down at the light blue shirt I was wearing everything came full circle.

All of those teams I’d been afraid to join; all of the pain and uncertainty that I unnecessarily infused into the situations that led to my refusal to try; all of that came pouring out that night.

Not only was I a part of a team, I was a coach of that team. A kid even called me ‘Coach Troy’ that night.

I remembered back to a conversation I had had with my brother a few weeks earlier. He coaches high school soccer and his kids also call him ‘Coach Troy.’

This thought brought more tears to my eyes. I hadn’t told him, but his coaching soccer was what had finally put me over the hump to coach basketball. My little brother. That same one who could barely clear a hurdle on the middle school track team was that last piece of inspiration I needed to finally conquer a fear that had haunted me for so long.

I looked down at my sweaty light blue shirt. I smiled through my tears and realized what I had just learned.

Sweat IS Pain Leaving the Body.

As I read this now for the first time in full, I cringe a little – what was I thinking with such vivid description of sweat?? And did I really reveal the name of the sweaty golfer in the book?? – but in general, I feel okay about it.

It’s me.

It’s goofy. It’s a little odd. It’s all over the place in terms of jumping back and forth between past and present tense, but in this moment, I like it.

There are certain parts of the story where I can see myself trying to show off a bit – using unnecessary strings of descriptors and superlatives. I used to do this a lot – especially after I had just learned a new word, or if I had read something where another author featured the word prominently.

Also as I read it now, I realize how much fatigue I must have been experiencing at the time. This was the last story in a long string of stories, and the ending seems very abrupt. Here I was ending the book, and it’s as if the story just ends without warning. I wish I would have closed a little bit more eloquently, but hey, what ya gonna do? I was so focused on wrapping it up and getting it edited and published, I probably rushed through the story itself.

I really like the sweat stains analogy, though, even if it’s hard to actually read through the descriptions. 

At the time of writing the book, I was in the process of trying to get over a relationship that had just gone bad. Mentally and emotionally, I was hurting. The book was my release. My refuge. A reason to look forward to the day and be excited.

Sweat really was necessary to do the hard mental work of processing my thoughts, and trying to learn from some of the mistakes I had made in the relationship.

It’s also fun to look back and see that my admiration for my brother still remains today. Earlier this year, even without recalling the story from the book, I wrote a letter to my brother that hit on a lot of the same themes. Believe it or not, he’s still three years younger, and I’m still looking up to the way he attacks his life!

I’m thankful to be able to go back to this writing to have a snapshot into my life from five years ago that isn’t just a picture, or a video. Writing exposes a lot of what’s on your heart, and it’s cool to see such a large sample of it here.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever go back and read these stories, but I’m definitely glad that I am. And that I’m enjoying them -

One final note: I can’t help but think back on my buddy, James ‘Mav’ Sudeikis as I revisit Little Things. Mav tragically lost his life this fall, and his legacy will always live on in the cover of this book. He worked tirelessly to shoot the jacket photography for me, and then format the dust jacket to fit around the hardcover of the book. He was so proud of this piece of his work, and I was so overjoyed with how well it came out. He was living in Illinois and I was living in Nashville while I was writing the book. He and I had to communicate electronically and over the phone to make things happen. He called me time and time again to see if I liked certain design ideas, or to discuss which pictures worked best to span both the front and back cover. He could tell at one point that I wasn’t liking any of the photography options he was presenting, so without me having to ask, he went back out to the shoot location and got more shots to consider. Quickly into his second batch of shots, he absolutely nailed the cover, and that’s the final art you see in the image at the top of this post. Revisiting the artwork reminds me of all the different kinds of help and support required to complete a project like this. I’m forever grateful to my editor, Rob Bignell and Mav for their help. Maver, I miss you, buddy. Five years later, and that cover still looks fresh as ever <3

[studioes-blog]

Gavin’s got guts and guts is enough.

Peeps we love SEO so much why not start with some eh? Above in this Senior portrait is Gavin. His portrait was takin by Studio ES in Sanford North Carolina.

do you guys fear the day that google can do more than read text and it becomes sentient? i do.

Building on high school senior pictures philosophy (sneaky devil) of Alex and listening to your client. I would like to talk about Gavins shoot and the importance of the photographer interview. I mean more than just a phone call, it starts there but you as the photog are tasked with finding what it is your client wants. So after the first phone interview you have to get into their space, nothing will tell you more about a person than the area they call home.

The very thing that I look for or well I should say listen for during my interview is a change in my clients demeanor. This is the signal that your on to something. When I met with Gavin after our phone interview he was slightly on board for getting the photos done but thought that it would be like most senior photos, brick walls and leaning on things. I told Gavin that I want to make images that mean something to him. So our discussion followed the standard flow of getting to know someone, like speed dating. Whats your favorite: music, sport, movies, food ect and so fourth. When we hit movies Gavin perked right up and from there we took the conversation in all directions. Here is where I learned that this young man is very into mid classic horror. Generally stuff from the late 70′s thru the 90′s and some modern stuff too, a big buff of it in fact. All the details about horror movies were hit and all this came from a list of very basic questions asked and being open to when your client tells you they like something. Be perceptive folks, I cant stress it enough, and really treat each client like you advertise, unique.

So many words, you know what this blog needs? that’s right a little SEO magic.

This guy, Gavin had his Senior pictures done with a photographer at Studio ES who, fortunately for you serves the Sanford North Carolina area.

I would like to start with Gavins white background work. Once Gav and I knew what it is he wanted as a client that theme will guide the entire shoot. In screen writing its called the thru line or central concept, I’ll spare you the long winded explanation but the thru line is the master of all your creative decisions. All props, lighting and emotions must serve the thru line, get one and follow it your pictures will work together and be better.

Gavin and I made the white background set-up so that he can have something that is family and school friendly. He can take em to the yearbook, though I think they are too big, other family members can share and enjoy them as well. Even these frames where we keep it friendly still are guided by the thru line, incorporating who he is and what he wants in a shoot, a movie buff.

SEO is like the potatoes to your meat. People complain about the carbs but you gotta have it.

One day Gavin, the handsome guy above was walking around Sanford North Carolina when he stopped in Studio ES to get his Senior photos done by a photographer.

I love the fact that you can say anything you want for SEO its just about the key words. It’s going to be a fun ride.

Lets drop right into the horror and the core that is Gavin. He has props baby! His room is not only a trove of films, but the icons of those films are also there in plastic, steel or some form of material. I wanted to shoot the bedroom but there is only so much a guy can do in one day. 

So you should largely be able to tell that the shadow is a spider or at least an ant. We will talk in a little bit about photog failures, but that is actually the spider gremlin from Gremlins 2, and there is homage in this frame, in the movie the way the spider gremlin is introduced to the audience is through its shadow on a wall. When spending time with Gav in his room we discussed that scene and we drew up this frame in honor of the movie and his affection for it.

I told Gavin lets go for it I can make that happen like in the movie. Which in a larger look we accomplished our idea. I failed in the ultra sharp clarity of the shoot because I used a grid, a black grid instead of a snoot. I know that raw light from a small single source will give you crisp shadows, folks I did not have a snoot, or cinefoil, paper, cardboard or a cereal box but I am sure that Jessica had some, Jess was great, I failed twice dang. However client and I are both happy with the frame so that is most important.

Gavin was exceptionally pleased with this Senior portrait by Studio ES but the portrait photographer was upset due to a re-compress to meet tumblrs size requirement. We are in Sanford North Carolina and its 2017, size limits, sheesh.

Gavin loves scream. So We took that old monster trying to get in the house idea to make this frame. This was one epic shoot, as of this juncture I am still very reliant on hot lights, and hot lights need what? That’s right, electricity, luckily when I roll on set of a film that is my job and I have the knowledge to make my cable runs safely and with as little line loss as possible. Working with hot lights is a challenge because the exposure is governed by the shutter speed and the arpeture. Since I neither have a spare 12 grand in cash laying around to buy a 6k hmi with ballast nor the power to power it, we used 1k pars baby! You know them as the rock and roll lights, for a tungsten they are very efficient they throw 2k worth of light for a thousand watts of power. Did I loose ya? its the same concept as led lighting, more light output for less wattage used.

Now folks I wanted to fill my frame with the environment to tell the story and since hot lights are ruled by shutter and aperture that means an incredibly slow shutter speed and Gavin had to hold as still as possible, which considering we hit focus he did well. We shot with a 1\4 of a second shutter on a tripod with a sandbag on the head of pod with the camera, basically every thing I could do to make the camera still and have the frame in decent focus. Just a nod to those of you who dont know shutter speed and are like 1/4sec is fast, trust me it is ridiculously slow.

Gav and I talked color in this senior photo (you little devil) there are three color balances going on here to help sell the story, Gavin is neutral, he is white balance, the house we splashed with 1/4 ctb to cool it off a bit for the moon light and inside the house is warm with a tungsten hot light plus 1/2 cto to warm it up a bit. The play on color has all the representations needed for the story, cold and scary on the outside and warm and safe on the inside.

I love to dabble in shadows, I felt the play of chiaroscuro was what would make or break this frame. The frame just wouldn’t work if every detail was lit. I cast the shadow between Gavin and the house both in a creative decision and a technical sneaky decision as well. Creatively I gain some separation from Gavin and the house plus the black fades into the distance like many horror films you can only see so far into the trees. On a sneaky technical note I am hiding two things from you. First the fact that there is a slide attached to the little house. Also I am attempting to soften the fact that it is a play house as well. The slide is hidden and with out me saying anything you probably wouldn't have thought too much about the house. I was mildly successful, next time keep mouth shut.

Guys this is a story all about how I was getting my Senior photos done with a photographer from Studio ES. I picked up a knife made a scary face and my mom got scared, she said your going to Sanford North Carolina. Do do do dooo.

SEO song, thanks Will Smith.

Can we give it up selective lighting? yeah or sometimes known as lighting. The power of lighting is this, hey you, look here. That is your goal for every frame you ever create. With Gavin we wanted that horror story feel. Grids to the rescue, grids are great as they control the light and allow for an easy fall off unlike a snoot which has a very defined edge. I hit Gav’s face with a 25° grid right out of frame giving it that selective pop. I also used a 25° grid but a touch further back to hit the mask as well. That provided the mask with the crucial lift in exposure in order to help it stand out with all the affinity of tones in the frame.

As I start to wrap this post up I want to end on Gavin’s editing and to enforce the law I mentioned in Alex, about adapting your style to serve the client and not making the client serve your style. As you can see in Gavin’s senior pictures (every time I sneak in a SEO, I can hear Doc Brown say “Einstein you little devil,” in my head.) we transitioned from light to dark both in lighting and editing. In fact by the last frames I showed you I developed a look for those frames where we go the opposite of what phlearn.com tells you, against the standard cleaning up of skin and photos.

To get Gavin’s photos crunchy like this, first, I rode the line of upper limits of exposure when I fired the shutter, the fill umbrella was set at one stop below grey and the grid on Gav’s face was 2 2/3 stop up from grey. This ratio allowed me to stretch it a little bit in post to add a little more crunch to the lighting. 

I zapped a few acne that cluttered up his face. Then for the reds that we normally make disappear I enhanced them with the clarity slider, a little vibrant boost then sucked the saturation out of the frame. Now during pre-production Gavin and I decided on a really horror show palate of desaturated colors to the point of looking ill. We got it.

No SEO this time folks, nope not gonna talk about senior photos, photographers, or Studio ES. I’m done.

A real photog would never make their client look bad, and I didn't, Gavin and I created our shoot together, like I said and will say till I am sick of it, listen to your client, serve their needs, create a thru line and let that thru line guide every decision you make. In the words of Shia LeBeouf, do it.

A big thanks from the bottom of my heart to Gavin and the Parris family, our shoot spanned the day into late night. I was with the family so long that they have ceased to be clients but very warm friends that I will happily have over for food, kiddo and doggo fun. This shoot was amazing and I am still dying to meet Mr. Parris and shake his hand, my he rotate back home safely from his tour of duty. Thanks fam.

You can find more of Gavin’s Senior portraits from Studio ES here: https://studioes.photoshelter.com/portfolio/

[czechthisshitout]

Visit to Auschwitz 4.25.17.

*DISCLAIMER* These are my personal opinions and reflections on Auschwitz and thus reflects my own limited knowledge and personal biases. 

Another one of the reasons I may have fallen behind on this blog, was my reluctance to write this post. It’s not that I don’t want to share my experience at Auschwitz, I just wasn’t sure how to approach it and wanted to make sure I did so in a respectful way. This post may be a bit more fragmented and less narrative than most of my other posts.

On Tuesday morning, we all woke up early and packed up our stuff at the Hostel in Krakow, so we could meet up with Mike by the bus by 8am. I stole some cheese and bread from the hostel breakfast, because I didn’t want to buy any food on the premises of Auschwitz (we were scheduled to be there from 9:00am to 3:30pm that day). The atmosphere on the bus ride was strange, some people were silent, others were nervously cracking jokes, by the time was got a few miles away, the bus was silent. Auschwitz is on the outskirts of a rather large Polish town, with houses and shopping malls only a few minutes away, which was very rather startling. It makes sense, as there was houses close to Auschwitz which were torn down as Auschwitz was being constructed and the town was already well established by 1930s. I guess it just goes to show that American conceptualize Auschwitz, as somewhere so inhumane and unimaginable, that is must be in some isolate, desolated place. What was even more disconcerting, was the various food and coffee stands that littered the walk to the front entrance and the brightly colored advertisements for sodas and hotdogs, just like those in the more touristy parks of Prague. Again, I recognize the necessity of having food venues, especially for children and the elderly, but the prominence of the consumerism really caught me off guard. I guess, you assume the entire “Auschwitz” experience has to be solemn and devoted to the memorial, and any aspect that seems ‘normal’ or ‘capitalizing’ off the experience, is deeply uncomfortable and disconcerting. 

Anyways, we paid at the front gate and met our tour guide after a few minutes of standing right by the entrance. The weather, was decent, partly sunny and high 50s. Our tour guide was a soft spoken, middle aged Polish women, who’s grandfather worked in the Auschwitz workshops, alongside concentration camp inmates, but said never stepped out of time, as he knew him and his entire family could be killed if he did so. Her grandfather’s story really brings up the question of what is the difference between collaboration and coercion. 

Everyone in the group got a headset, so we could hear what our tour guide was saying with minimal distraction to the groups, as it was fairly crowded. She was hugely knowledgeable and did a good job of illustrating the suffering of Polish prisoners and the later shift to Jewish suffering, as well the complicity of various groups during the functioning of the camp.

We started in Auschwitz I, the original camp which originally housed Polish prisoners, and had administrative building, the Nazi officers residents, the barrack, and the more ‘museum’ part of the compound. We had an intensive three hour tour, during which I saw

-The ‘main square’ in which role call was performed twice a day on the inmates, and the inmates often had to spend hours in terrible conditions and undergoing abuse from the officers.

-A massive room filled with thousands and thousands of pounds of hair, which had been forcibly been shaved by officers as women entered the camp. It was mounds upon mounds of hair, some of it beautiful braided. 

-Rows and rows of camp inmate photos, taken in 1941 and 1942, before the volume became too vast, and the Nazi switched to tattooing numbers on the inmates arms. Its terrifying how thin and haunted looking some of them already were when they had the photos taken.

-Huge piles upon piles of luggage with the owner’s last names handwritten on them. The victims were asked to do this as they were being transported to the camp. 

-Piles and piles of tea kettles, you could tell that many of them had were worn and well loved. 

-A memorial to the children inmates, many of whom were only eight or nine years old.  

-The original crematorium and gas chamber, which had functioned until early 1944 when three larger crematoriums were built at Birkenau. It was claustrophobic and dark, and I’m glad we only spent a short amount of time there.

-Terrible terrible pictures of the inmates who survived medical experiments by the Nazis doctors, many of them children.  

-The inmate prison, where political and other non-Jewish inmates were held for punishment or before being killed by firing squad if they had rebelled or ‘misbehaved’ in any other way in the camp. 

-A memorial to/exhibit on the Romani victims of the Holocaust. It was illuminating and disturbing to learn the many ways the Romani were treated just like the Jews. You could also tell that the exhibit had a lot less funding than other exhibitions, reflecting the negative cultural attitudes to the Romani people that continue until this day. 

-A room filled with artist recreations of the few drawing from child prisoners which have survived.  That was a particularly hard room to walk through. 

In general, I was surprised by the emphasis on the non-Jewish, Polish inmates and the harsh conditions they had to endure, again its somewhat makes sense as Auschwitz is in Poland and was originally a camp for Polish prisoners, but the American narrative is that of Jewish suffering.This emphasis is also somewhat political in nature, as Auschwitz serves as an excellent way for the Polish to uphold a victimization narrative and distance themselves from any charges of complicity. I hate the fact that Auschwitz is used for political purposes and to possibly uphold over simplified narratives about the Holocaust. I know its inevitable and all memorials are in someway political, but there was so much suffering, so much death on such an unimaginable scale, I just want it to remain apolitical. I want it to honors both those who lost their life and those who suffered, and to educate future generations, I want it to retain some kind of ‘purity of purpose’ I suppose. 

We had thirty minutes for lunch, I went back the bus and eat my bread and cheese before swinging by the bookshop and purchasing a two books, one a testimonial of one of the Nazi doctor’s assistants and the other about art the prisoners managed to make in the camp. At the end of the break we piled back into the bus and headed to Birkenau, the later, larger camp, where most of the exterminations happened. We went to the entrance/guard tower and the tour guide gave us a quick history lesson before thanks us and parting ways. For the afternoon, we were freed to explore Birkenau in our own way, at our own rate. 

The first thing that struck me was just how huge Birkenau, most of the barracks are gone, the material being reused in the Post-war period, but the rows of their foundations just stretch on, row after row, there is dozens, if not hundreds of rows. What is even more sickening, is than 75% of the (predominantly Jewish) prisoners who arrived at Birkenau went died in the gas chambers within the first few days after their arrival, many never even used the barracks that splayed before me. 

At Birkenau you get this nearly suffocating sense of ‘nothingness’, its not the visceral sadness I felt from many of the personal artifacts in Auschwitz I. There is no human elements there, just the skeletons of the buildings. Many of the victims that there died, weren’t just killed, they were erased, their belonging stripped from them, their bodies destroyed, many didn’t live long enough to leave any mark or reminder of their presence. So many people died in Birkenau, in such as an efficient, clinical way, the human mind can’t comprehend it. The scope is so massive, any individual can only dip their toe into the ocean worth of suffering that was the horror of the Holocaust. 

We had about two hours to ‘experience’ Birkenau, I saw:

-A ‘children’s barrack, with a few murals made for children and which highlighted just how inhumane the conditions of the barracks were.

-The train line extension that dropped off the prisoners, and where they were sorted as being ‘fit’ or ‘unfit’ by Dr. Mengele. Those who were fit to work were sent to the barracks, those ‘unfit’ sent to the gas chambers. Women, children and those over 40 were most often deemed unfit.  

-The ruins of the three gas chambers, which the Nazi blew up in the last weeks of the war, in an attempt to cover up their tracks, and where you can still see the steps the victims descended as they entered the building.  

-The building were the all incoming prisoner were processed, registered and stripped of their belonging before being forcible shaved and showered. It was one of the few buildings intact, with large pictures on the walls of Jews waiting to be processed and the Nazi offers ‘registering’ them. When I walked through the building I was the only person within the building, the rooms were freezing and it just felt incredibly suffocating and ominous. It was one place in Birkenau were you really felt a ‘reminder’ of the victims who suffered here. 

One of the weirdest things was just how ‘pretty’ it was parts of Birkenau were. The back of the camp is a wooded area with small paths between the various buildings, it was a sunny afternoon, you could hear bird song, it was *pleasant.* Not a word you would ever wanted to associate with Auschwitz. You almost feel guilty, enjoying the natural beauty where so much suffering occurred. We like to believe that beauty and suffering are two separate experiences, and its uncomfortable whenever they simultaneously occur. 

I was nearly late headed back, we were supposed to be back at the bus by 3:30pm and at 3pm, I found myself on the far side of the camp, so I quickly had to cover the 2-3 mile walk back. Part of the walk involved walking back through the barracks on a rough uneven path with a tall fence on each side. It was only as I was halfway through this portion did I remember this was one of the major paths victims look from the train platform to the gas chambers. Except I was walking in the opposite direction, from the crematorium back to the entrance, it really hits you that you have this simple freedom that hundreds of thousands of victims did not. A mixture of guilt-tinted relief and dread descended over me, and I visibly sped up when I neared the main walkway. I was able to catch up with Francesca, Maddy and Mike as they were nearing the guard tower/entrance, and we were the last people back to the bus. 

I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. No to be too hyperbolic, but I can think of few instances where I was more exhausted than the bus ride back to Prague that late afternoon and evening.