#just remembering that thing about how a generation's horror tropes reflect that generation's fears. just thinking about that a little bit.

[futuresoon]

lately i've been watching severance late at night and then going to bed and listening to sayer, and i gotta say. i gotta say. we sure do make a lot of art about dehumanization under capitalism. we sure do make a lot of it. i'm sure that doesn't mean anything though

[astrabear]

I posted 810 times in 2022

That's 489 more posts than 2021!

363 posts created (45%)

447 posts reblogged (55%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@fruityculture

@raedear

@astrabear

@beepbeepsan

@ongreenergrasses

I tagged 684 of my posts in 2022

Only 16% of my posts had no tags

#ask game - 102 posts

#my fic - 100 posts

#the old guard - 96 posts

#the old guard fanfiction - 35 posts

#life of a writer - 31 posts

#nicolo di genova - 22 posts

#andromache the scythian - 19 posts

#yusuf al kaysani - 18 posts

#nile freeman - 18 posts

#quynh - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#obligatory clarification that i don't think there's anything inherently bad about putting on different accessories and making them kiss

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I really enjoyed Our Flag Means Death and I'm glad a second season has been confirmed, but as an Old Guard fan it has been hilarious to see the OFMD crowd acting like waiting an entire ten weeks for news of a sequel was torture. You are a child, an infant. Your impatience is thus infantile. Our fandom has forgotten more ways to yearn for updates than entire stan armies will ever learn.

218 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

#4

Thinking about “We all remember what it was like.” They all remember, even Nicky and Joe who came into immortality together. After almost a thousand years, Nicky still remembers the confusion and fear and alienation, enough that it makes finding this new immortal their most urgent task.

My favorite fic treatments of their first deaths really lean into this. Not just surprise or awe, but horror. Going a little bit out of their minds, begging to die and stay dead, because that’s what humans do, that’s how the world is supposed to work. I feel it viscerally, imagining the terror of finding yourself so profoundly apart from everything you’ve ever known to be true.

And the only other person who’s in it with you is the enemy you were trying to kill. This is the real impediment to replicating their dynamic in an AU. Anyone can run the enemies-to-lovers course. But enemies to “I still hate you and I don’t understand you but you are the only solid ground in this terrifying new reality and I think if we don’t hold onto each other we’ll lose everything” to lovers is pretty hard to capture in any other setting. 

282 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

#3

unofficial poll time

You are reading fanfic. The source property is set in the present day. The fic, maybe because it’s an AU or the canon just works that way, is set in a noticeably different historical period. Which of these answers most accurately reflects your feelings? (choose all that apply)

A. I like it when the writing style (both dialogue and narration) is period-appropriate, or at least a general approximation thereof.

B. I like the dialogue to be period-appropriate, but it’s fine (or even preferred) for the narration to feel more modern.

C. I don’t care either way, as long as there aren’t glaring anachronisms.

D. I prefer that both the dialogue and narration are similar to what I’m used to reading and seeing. So not modern slang or anything like that, but I don’t want it to be jarringly different.

E. I like it when the characters speak the way I’m used to them speaking, even if it’s not period-appropriate.

F. I simply don’t read fics set in past eras.

G. The only thing that matters is that it’s well written.

H. English is not my first language, so old-fashioned phrasing and vocabulary is more difficult for me to read.

I. I actively dislike attempts at period language unless the writer has done enough research to do it correctly.

J. I honestly couldn’t tell you in advance what kinds of things are likely to throw me out of the story, I just know that there’s a potential for it to happen.

K. I read fic because I like the characters and tropes. I don’t pay attention to writing style.

L. Other (in tags)

Please share and answer in the tags. This is very relevant to something I’m working on and I’d like to get some outside perspective.

315 notes - Posted June 13, 2022

#2

The violence at the end of the episode was upsetting, but I tell you, what has stuck with me in the days since I watched it was "Which one of you gonna fuck me?!" It haunts me. Deeply shocking, viscerally repulsive, absolutely heartbreaking... and just the tiniest bit funny. It's like a gut punch every time I think about it.

I think a very young Claudia is much better suited to a written format. A five or six year old actor can't give the kind of performance that's required... and some things just wouldn't be right to do with a child actor of any age. But a 19-year-old playing a character who's physically 14 opens up so many tragic, horrifying possibilities.

And Bailey Bass is so good. I can't get her face out of my head. "And after forty years... still little boys?" God, there's just so much going on. And you feel all of it.

388 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The tough thing about boundaries is that it’s not enough to state them, you have to enforce them.

I think some folks see “setting boundaries” as a kind of magic talisman to influence other people’s behavior. “I’ll tell you what I need or can’t accept, and you will act accordingly.” And sometimes that’s what happens, and that’s great! But if the other person disregards your stated boundaries, it doesn’t mean setting boundaries didn’t work.

Because boundaries aren’t about others’ behavior, they’re about your own. If the other person’s behavior doesn’t change, then yours has to. “Please don’t discuss [x topic] with me” is a request. “If you continue to talk about [x topic] then I will end this conversation/hang up/leave” is a boundary, which you must then enact. The point is less about stopping the other person (although that’s ideal) and more about protecting yourself. And you have to be committed to protecting yourself, because no one else will be.

You have to be so committed that you’re willing to tolerate other people being hurt or angry or uncomfortable. You have to accept that some relationships might change. You have to hold onto the idea that it’s all right for them to change, because the way they were before was hurting you, and you deserve to not be hurt. You gave them a choice: maintain a relationship or keep doing the thing that hurts you, and they chose to keep hurting you, so if the situation is now awkward or unpleasant that was because of their choice. Enforcing boundaries means deciding that if someone is going to feel bad here, it need not be always and only you.

There is no magic formula that will make other people treat you kindly and respectfully. But you can learn to treat yourself with kindness and respect. That’s what enforcing a boundary is.

9,690 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[sssrha]

WangXian wouldn’t have been very functional pre-Wei Wuxian’s resurrection

So I was talking to @litescheme on Twitter and I decided to pour my heart out about how I hated the general fandom consensus that Wei Wuxian going to Gusu when Lan Wangji asked him to would have solved all of his problems, primarily because the idea of just straight up going to Gusu is incredibly flawed. Lo and behold, they agreed wholeheartedly. We had a great discussion and now I’m here to relay the discussion onto Tumblr in essay form uwu.

(By the way, this is based mostly on CQL with a good bit of novel added in, as well as a few hints of the donghua.)

Part One: “Come back to Gusu!” is a great romantic notion but a terrible plan of action.

First of all, one must ask the question: what on Earth was Lan Wangji’s game plan with the whole “Come back to Gusu!” thing? I think we can all agree that most of the Lan Sect hated Wei Wuxian - by the end, at least. Lan Xichen certainly had less than charitable feelings toward him. With such a hostile environment, the only way I can see Wei Wuxian surviving within the Sect is while being forced into a Madam Lan-type situation. I find that prospect more reminiscent of a horror movie than a heartwarming fic about healing.

Luckily for us, we can safely say that canon Lan Wangji would not have done that! Due to certain childhood trauma, Lan Wangji definitely would not have forced Wei Wuxian to do anything, go anywhere, or stay anywhere that he didn’t want to. That isn’t even touching on how much Lan Wangji genuinely wanted Wei Wuxian to be happy, and forcing Wei Wuxian to do anything had generally been proven to not make him happy. Good on him!

The next point: why would Wei Wuxian have gone to Gusu in the first place? Even while ignoring WangXian’s rampant misunderstandings, Wei Wuxian always actively had a reason to not go to Gusu. During the Sunshot Campaign, he was a major player and commanded a huge amount of power that probably aided the Sects greatly. During his stay in the Burial Mounds, he had a community of war prisoners to protect. How could he go to Gusu?

I’ve seen fics where Lan Wangji ensured the safety of the Wen Remnants, and while I absolutely adore the trope, I really don’t see that happening with canon Lan Wangji. First, I don’t think he’d grown as a person enough to fully rebel against his Sect until Wei Wuxian was in immediate danger, and second, I straight up don’t think that he had the sway to. Pulling that kind of stunt implies a good deal of political power within the Sect...and also implies that Lan Wangji would have had enough power to escape a punishment which he clearly never thought he deserved. However, I could be wrong on this point! Politics has never been my forte. 

Also, I don’t think anyone can bank on the Lan Sect accepting the Wen Remnants. After all, the Lan Sect participated in the First Siege of the Burial Mounds and thus, presumably, also the slaughter of the Wen Remnants.

Upon further reflection, I figured that the only time Wei Wuxian might have actually gone to Gusu was that brief period of time after the Sunshot Campaign and before he met Wen Qing. However, for him to agree, I figured that three things had to happen:

Wei Wuxian had to understand that Lan Wangji wanted to help him, not hurt him.

Wei Wuxian had to come to the (false!) conclusion that Jiang Cheng no longer needed his help or support at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian had to accept that he was worth saving in the first place.

(The concept came pre-set with some delicious Yunmeng Bros angst because Jiang Cheng would almost certainly take Wei Wuxian (permanently) going to Gusu the same way he took Wei Wuxian taking the Wen Remnants to the Burial Mounds: a betrayal, a promise broken. Emotionally, of course. There definitely wouldn’t have been political pressure closing in from all sides the way there was in canon.)

I was going to expand on that concept, but then I hit a bit of a hurdle: I genuinely did not, and still do not, see any reason for Wei Wuxian to actually go to Gusu. At that point, Wei Wuxian was doing everything he felt he needed to: he protected Jiang Cheng because Madam Yu told him to (and because he genuinely cared for him, but Madam Yu’s command was his driving force) and he only left Jiang Cheng when Wen Qing - someone he perceived himself owing a greater debt to due to the golden core removal - came along. When looking at it from that regard, I don’t think Wei Wuxian would ever see a reason to go to Gusu.

So, even after clearing up the miscommunication, Lan Wangji would have to present a good reason for Wei Wuxian to listen to him. 

I don’t think Lan Wangji going up to Wei Wuxian and saying, “Please come back to Gusu, I want to protect you,” would have worked. Considering how prideful Wei Wuxian was back then - with a good bit of it justified when you consider the fact that he killed a large amount of people in a single night during the Pledge Conference (though the exact number is never actually confirmed as far as I remember) - I don’t see Wei Wuxian taking the implication that he needs protection very well. No matter how many good intentions Lan Wangji had, he would have ended up offending Wei Wuxian at that point.

Another route Lan Wangji could have taken: “Please come back to Gusu, I want to play Cleansing for you.” Again, I don’t think this would have worked. (At least, that was definitely his stance in CQL and Wei Wuxian still didn’t do anything.) In Chapter 78, Wei Wuxian mentioned that the Sound of Lucidity had no effect on him. The Sound of Lucidity is, presumably, one of the Song(s) of Clarity, of which Cleansing is the most powerful. Lan Wangji used the Sound of Lucidity at the Pledge Conference after the battle had started. I don’t exactly know why he didn’t use Cleansing when it was more powerful... Either way, after he played the Sound of Lucidity, Wei Wuxian said, “You should’ve known since long ago—Sound of Lucidity is useless to me!” Thus, Lan Wangji asking him to go to Gusu so he could play Cleansing probably wouldn’t have seemed like an especially compelling reason to Wei Wuxian.

After some thought, I figured that post-resurrection, Wei Wuxian agreed to stay with Lan Wangji in the Cloud Recesses after the mystery was solved because:

He was not as prideful as pre-death Wei Wuxian.

He saw no reason to go back to Lotus Pier since Jiang Cheng made it very clear that he was unhappy with him.

He managed to process and confess his feeling to Lan Wangji, who did the same.

Pre-death Wei Wuxian has none of this. Basically, Wei Wuxian at that point had no reason to go to Gusu for anything other than a short visit.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but this entire time I’ve been ignoring not only the reality that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship pre-death was...very bad, but also something else very important: the Stygian Tiger Seal. 

The Stygian Tiger Seal was, of course, stupidly powerful, and Wei Wuxian only kept it because it would take too much time and energy to destroy, and it was meant to deter anyone from attacking him since he already knew that so many people were against him. One of his main fears was someone else - someone with impure motives - getting their hands on it, so of course he was paranoid wondering who would try to steal it from him. Lan Wangji asking him to go to a place where Wei Wuxian would be surrounded by people who hated his form of cultivation? Yeah, that didn’t sound that great. 

(Also, can we please take a moment to appreciate this excerpt from the novel: “The Stygian Tiger Seal’s powers were considerably greater than what he had imagined. He originally wanted to use it to assist him, but its powers were almost exceeding him, its creator” (Chapter 30). Almost. He said the Seal was not as powerful as him! The Stygian Tiger Seal was, indeed, strong, but he was more so! I see a lot of fanfics paint the Stygian Tiger Seal as what made him so terrifying and...it was certainly a part of it, but he did most of it on his own! Ah, we love terrifying main characters~)

Now, I’ve acknowledged the existence of WangXian’s miscommunication, but I’ve never actually addressed it. So, here it is: I do not think Lan Wangji confessing to Wei Wuxian (even before his stint in the Burial Mounds after the Bloodbath at Nevernight) would have gone well. In Chapter 2, there is this excerpt: “Wei WuXian’s eyebrows twitched. Not only a lunatic, a homosexual lunatic as well.” This requires a bit of interpretation because it’s not exactly clear what Wei Wuxian’s eyebrow twitch means, but I’ve always interpreted it as annoyance - or even disgust - at the addition of “homosexual” to Mo Xuanyu’s profile. I’m not saying that Wei Wuxian was necessarily homophobic before the entire events of the novel, but I sincerely don’t think Wei Wuxian would have appreciated Lan Wangji - or any other man, for that matter - confessing to him. If even (immediate) post-resurrection Wei Wuxian had that attitude, I can imagine what would have gone through pre-death Wei Wuxian’s head. 

So, Sunshot Campaign, post-Sunshot Campaign, and Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian would all definitely not go back to Gusu, nor would they appreciate a confession from Lan Wangji. That leaves the question: what about pre-Sunshot Campaign Wei Wuxian?

Part Two: Why I really don’t think WangXian would have worked out pre-Sunshot Campaign.

From here on out, “Wei Ying, come back to Gusu!” is no longer relevant because, well, Lan Wangji never said it before the meeting in the supervisory office. (And I think I’ve made my point regarding that as well as I could.)

Starting with Cloud Recesses-era Wei Wuxian...I think that, out of all the different versions of Wei Wuxian, he would have been the one of the two most-likely to get together with Lan Wangji (pre-resurrection, of course). Even then, I don’t see that high a likelihood of that actually happening. Why? Repression! Fuck both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were so deeply repressed at that point! Lan Wangji was obviously more aware of his feelings, and Wei Wuxian...I don’t know, I haven’t read the novel far enough to actually have this be a legitimate interpretation, but looking at CQL, I don’t really think Wei Wuxian was in love with Lan Wangji at that point (but I don’t have much evidence to back that up other than my a-spec radar...).

And even if they did somehow manage to overcome their repression - and actually both had feelings for each other in the first place - they were still teenagers! Fifteen at the beginning, I’m pretty sure, and fifteen-year-olds are decidedly bad at maintaining any sort of relationship. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that WangXian was probably legitimately incompatible at that point. Lan Wangji still lived and breathed the rules and Wei Wuxian didn’t give a fuck about them. To maintain any sort of long-term relationship, they’d have to simultaneously undergo a whole novel of character development...which is doable! But! I don’t exactly see it as plausible.

Then, of course, Wei Wuxian got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses and WangXian didn’t see each other until two years later, at the Discussion Conference in Qishan. I don’t really see long-distance relationships working out very well in ancient China, so I can’t imagine them properly maintaining their relationship throughout that. And, of course, Lan Wangji’s rage after Wei Wuxian pulls his forehead ribbon was also due to his repression. Considering how short the Discussion Conference seemed to be, I don’t think there was much room for a relationship to develop. 

At the Indoctrination Camp, Lan Wangji had a whole swarm of things to worry about other than his (frankly painful) pining for Wei Wuxian so, again, I don’t see a romantic relationship developing at that point in time. 

A time-frame that I think can be uniquely isolated as a very possible place to develop their relationship would be while they were trapped in the cave with the Tortoise of Slaughter. Mostly before they killed the beast, though, since afterward, Wei Wuxian had too much of a fever for any romantic shenaniganry. My reasoning is that the cave was the first time since Wei Wuxian’s punishment in the Cloud Recesses that the two of them were forced to spend a long stretch of time together, and thus could potentially open up to each other. I remember in the anime that Lan Wangji sheds a few tears as he mentions that the Cloud Recesses had burned, that his brother was missing, and that his father was...dead? Severely injured? One of those two. He was back in business-mode pretty soon afterward, but if Lan Wangji could have been persuaded to open up a bit more by an persistent and concerned Wei Wuxian, I can see a slow confession being teased out of him - there was certainly enough time!

Then again, them getting together would only happen if Wei Wuxian were both comfortable with the idea of gay men and willing to accept that he was, in fact, attracted to Lan Wangji, and if Lan Wangji were willing to let go of the rules enough to be comfortable with Wei Wuxian’s naturally rebellious nature.

After that, WangXian doesn’t meet again until the supervisory office, and I’ve already talked about all of that.

In conclusion, “Come back to Gusu!” was sweet but misguided and WangXian wouldn’t have effectively happened pre-resurrection.

Now, what does that mean for you? ...Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. This doesn’t mean I’m forsaking all fics where WangXian gets together pre-resurrection (in fact, I absolutely love them!) and I’m definitely not trying to say that my interpretation is the only right one. I’m not trying to police what everyone thinks and decree that all fics where Wei Wuxian is open about liking men are wrong or any crap like that. Those fics are great and I love them! These are my (and @litescheme’s) thoughts on the matter that I (we) wanted to spill out into the greater world! You can agree, you can disagree, you can ignore me (us) entirely! But if you read through this meta, then I’m assuming that you found the concept interesting. That is all I was going for!

(Well, that and trying to thoroughly debunk the notion that Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian getting shoved into seclusion in the Jingshi by an apologetic Lan Wangji would be in any way “healing” or even “good” for Wei Wuxian, because honestly? Fuck that.)

Ahh, thanks for reading!

[schrijverr]

The Media in a Quirk Society

An essay or more a thought piece about how the media adapted to the appearance of quirk. How genres changed and how the media influences and is influenced by society.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: none

~~~~~~~~~~~

Something that makes me so very curious is how media must have developed in the BNHA universe after the appearance of quirks.

We hear almost nothing of media other than the news within the universe itself. For now it escapes me if All Might Cartoons are actually mentioned in the show or something of fanfiction. But another fanfic phenomena are pre-quirk movies, aka movies of our time.

The latter is a thing we must agree on, since there was a time before there were quirks wherein movies were made. This also implies that the pre-quirk superhero genre has existed (think MCU or DC)

I want to examine how that must have changed with the appearance of quirks based of what we’ve seen in the show.

When we see the beginnings of a quirk society, we meet AFO, who rises in the chaos and especially the scene where he takes and gives a quirk stand out the most. Quirks weren’t excepted yet, especially visible quirks, while at the same time a quirk means power. We also know the hero profession rises here, because it was too much for just law enforcement.

So we have these components, which all make for really great stories… in hindsight.

After the fact there must have been many stories about a lone police officer, becoming a hero as he saw the force around him crumble. Or a weak person, suddenly developing a powerful quirk that helps them get out of an impossible situation. Or maybe even about someone who feels they are deformed and shunned from society by their quirk and how they overcome it.

But at the moment it was happening there was still a lot of resentment about quirks and people who had them.

When quirks first entered the stage, people who had them plunged the world into chaos or had to hide like the man who goes to AFO to get his quirk removed.

I can imagine that if movie productions could continue in those turbulent times they would focus on the normal guy, still fighting against a suddenly super-powered villain or a quirkist (as I shall refer to it) take on a person who gets a quirk and turns evil.

Or they might even ignore the whole quirk situation in general with a new genre that can be boiled down to ‘No Quirks – AU’ wherein the movie is based in pre-quirk times. This genre would have a lot of nostalgia at first, probably, trying to call upon how simple life was when villains weren’t terrorizing the streets and heroes were just a funny thing of TV.

Maybe it will develop later.

Maybe it will become how difficult it must have been back then with no simple quirk solutions to problems. It might even turn into a genre about invention, mostly, with a fascination in the public of how things that run on quirk-solutions now, could have been solved by a quirkless scientist in the before times.

But back to the developing genre that is set the BNHA real world. Wherein quirkless people might have gotten a center stage in the early years, before quirks became so entrenched in society that quirkism developed against what used to be a majority.

I can picture a young Midoriya watching old movies wherein the quirkless protagonist was the hero against the evil quirks, telling himself that one day that could be him.

However, with the rise of heroes the media attention probably shifted.

The manga/anime describes it as ‘ordinary civilians with their own Quirks decided to take matters into their own hands to bring order to society, and thus the first "Heroes" appeared.’ as it says on the fandom wikia.

This shifts the narrative of quirkless hero against the chaos of quirks, to brave citizen stands up using the power they’ve been granted. Maybe they gave it religious undertones or maybe it was the story of taking the moral high ground and doing what was right for your country and neighbors.

In those early days you probably have more stories reflective of the pre-quirk fictional heroes, wherein the main character has to hide that they’re out there every night breaking the law to bring order.

It can be that at this time the narrative that the police is just the ‘villain taxi service’ starts to originate among bitter storytellers, who have seen the police fail where heroes did not. Though this would be more older filmmakers after this era is over, who start this. When heroes have become accepted, but they still remember how bad the police reacted before.

But on the topic of heroes becoming accepted, that must have been a civil right movement, a right that had to be debated with villains reflecting how bad an idea public quirk use could be.

You can see in the ‘Liberation War Arc’ how something like that could have played out and how it makes for interesting media entertainment as it is a story arc in our world, meant to amuse. Mixed with the fact that the first heroes created order in the chaos, there must be a ton of movies following activists or a hero not only having to fight the villains, but also the system.

And then over time heroes morphed into what they are now.

Hero became a profession and quirks the norm. After a while, just focusing on quirks got less interesting and using quirks as just a backdrop became more interesting.

Sure, you still had the hero genre and with actual figureheads these can range from documentaries to inspired by real life movies or just fictive fights with characters that are obviously based off a real hero or just the real hero. Especially when heroes became depended on their popularity, there must have been plenty that signed an acting contract in the hopes of getting their name and image out there.

With Midoriya’s comment about Todoroki having the backstory of a protagonist, it is clear that the hero genre is far from forgotten.

However, the “normal” genres also developed with society and with quirks becoming normal and no one truly aching for the before times, they must be set in the BNHA world we know.

The tropes we know (and maybe love) will get a new twist to fit this society or maybe disappear completely. New stereotypes and assumptions based off quirks appear, even quirkism might become prevalent in media, teaching kids that those without quirks are freaks or weak and weird.

In my mind I picture a movie trailergoing “She has a water quirk, he has a fire quirk. Will they fall in love despite their different personalities?!?” or “When his family is murdered, he must track down the killer with only the quirk as clue. Will he find out what happened on that faithful day or will the path this sends him on be the last of him???”

The horror genre will also be transformed with the fear of people misusing their quirk being a big thing in society.

As for fantasy, this genre will change with super-powered people being the norm, you can have to get more creative to make it truly fantastical. World building, visually, will be more important to distinguish it from our world, creatures too since there are literally people with bird heads, for example, walking around.

Not to mention the potential of quirks being hereditary that can be used in dramas where the partner has cheated or as plot point as grant reveal of a main character being related to one of the antagonists or even in gang movies as them training together to use their quirks and them all being the same. That would make for a cool visual tbh.

Disaster movies also will be different than they are now. With protagonist who can have quirks that work against them in their situation or if it’s a more hopeful movie how they work together, piling together their quirks and other skills to survive.

And the crime genre will be so intrinsically tied to hero society and with the police being seen as kinda useless, it will be so different than how we know it now. Did crime become part of the hero genre? Is this a piece of cop propaganda left wherein the police tries to save their reputation? I don’t know, but I wanna think about it.

It’s just interesting to me how in a world where the super is normal, media has adapted and this has been keeping my mind busy over the past few weeks.

The transformation in society of quirks as something dangerous that needs to be stopped, to a few brave people standing up for what’s right to finally the commercialization of heroes so that they can keep doing their job.

You see these changes, that’s unavoidable.

Media is such a powerful tool and it’s hardly referenced within the source material (which I understand because there are already so many movingparts), but with the fall of hero society it is interesting how all that propaganda for heroes might disappear back to when quirks first appeared and how the cycle may start again.

~~

A/N:

There are probably so many genres and other stuff thatI haven’t considered, so tell me your thoughts about the media in BNHA!

((also I didn’t want to dive in how racism, homophobia, ableism will develop with quirks and notions people will have about them. It is important to think about, but I do not think that I am the right person to talk about it. If anyone does, tag me or comment the link, because I will 100% read it))

[tlbodine]

Why Isn’t “Mass Shooter” a Modern Horror Monster?

Horror reflects the anxieties of the culture that produces it. In the 1950s, we got monster movies about radiation-mutated creatures and invaders from beyond the stars, mirroring our Cold War Science fears. 

In the 1970s, as “Women’s Liberation” and birth control went mainstream, we see an influx of horrors settled on childbirth and children and family dysfunction. 

And as the 70s bled into the 80s, while real-world serial killers were leaving behind trails of victims, the masked psycho was dominating the field with countless slashers. 

But now -- throughout the 2010s -- mass shootings loom large our our collective American consciousness. Hardly a week goes by without hearing of one somewhere, and they inspire fear and terror. Yet we haven’t seen them show up to dominate horror media in the way serial killers do -- what’s up with that? 

Horror-media discussion about gun violence under the cut! 

Before we get started, a caveat: There is media about school shootings. It’s just not usually horror. Most, as you can see from IMDB, is family drama: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls070532039/

And none of them are really particularly mainstream, not in the way we associate with slasher films. 

So what’s the difference? Why is a killer with an axe more compelling as a film monster than a killer with a gun? 

Some hypotheses: 

Primacy: Because mass shootings are frequently in the news/public discussion, it’s always “too soon” - the real-life horror is too horrifying for entertainment. Sounds good on paper, but why isn’t that true for slashers? Those movies were popular when serial killers were at their most active. 

Politics: Perhaps political motives are influencing the market. Since gun control is a contentious topic, maybe some powers are motivated toward censorship. But wouldn’t that also censor the family drama type movies? Why would it focus on horror especially? 

Logistics: It’s just really hard to make a good horror movie about a mass shooting. Guns kill people pretty quickly and indiscriminately, so you lose the mounting suspense and intimacy of a killer with a knife and other similar horror/slasher conventions. 

This last point, I think, bears some further consideration. The more I think on it, the more it seems that the things that make gun violence especially horrifying in real life are also things that make it very hard to put in a horror story: 

Mass shootings happen, obviously, in mass. Most horror formulas require characters to be isolated and picked off one by one. 

Guns kill people in ways that are impersonal and swift. If you’re killing a stadium of people with an automatic weapon, it’ll take just a few minutes. You can’t stretch that out into a long, lingering torture sequence or whatever. 

Gun violence is indiscriminate. Wherever a crowd gathers, a shooter can start killing people. There’s no space for, say, the “horror rules” re: jock, slut, virgin, etc. because morality doesn’t play into it. 

A killer methodically making his way through a sorority house, killing its members one by one lends itself more naturally to suspenseful storytelling than a gunman opening fire on a crowd. A killer leaving clues and taunting detectives lends its own narrative structure. 

In that regard, it’s pretty obvious: We cannot make a slasher-style film or a torture-porn film about a gunman. It just won’t work. 

But perhaps we’re looking at it all wrong. What if we viewed the mass shooter not as a serial killer, but as a force of nature? The disaster movie genre has ample cross-over with horror, and the general formula would work well for a mass shooter: 

Introduction to a wide cast of characters as they maneuver into a vulnerable position

The disaster hits, and we move between individuals affected by the calamity, watching their initial reactions 

In the ensuing chaos, characters attempt to escape further danger

The danger passed (for now?) some characters manage to survive, now irrevocably changed

Whether the disaster in question is an earthquake, a sharknado, or a school shooting, that formula should work. The key to success lies in the pacing and the large cast, allowing you to stretch out a relatively brief event into a detailed and tense narrative. 

So why haven’t we seen that? Outside of, like, one made-for-TV movie I recall watching in the 90s, this presumably straightforward premise hasn’t gained much traction. 

The Making of Monsters: Signs and Signifiers 

Perhaps the real reason we haven’t seen a lot of horror stories about mass shootings is because there is already so much mythology and symbolism tied to these sorts of narratives, and that symbolism is at odds with the creation of movie monsters. 

Guns carry a tremendous amount of cultural significance and baggage, at least in the United States. It’s why they’re so politically contentious. And when something is already heavily laden with symbolic meaning, it’s hard to turn that symbolism into something else in a way that will stick. 

Point #1: Guns are a great equalizer. Unlike a knife or sword, skill doesn’t matter all that much when it comes to killing somebody with a gun. You don’t have to be strong or fast or have a ton of training. You just have to point it and pull the trigger -- if you do that enough times, and at a big enough target, you’ll probably hit something. This means that anyone can kill someone with a gun: a skinny nerd, a young child, a petite woman. Guns are the thing that give you, the underdog, a way to compete against them, the big strong enemy. 

This leads to Point #2: Good Guys With Guns(tm). As absolutely anyone who has been on the internet for five minutes after Any Sort Of Bad Event will tell you, Bad Things can be stopped by Good Guys With Guns(tm). And while you can debate the merits of armed civilians protecting a group from harm against an active shooter, it’s impossible to deny that, historically, good guys have been armed. Police, military, armed militias, frontiersmen, etc. carry weapons. Which means that “guy with a gun” does not immediately translate, visually or thematically, as “threat” in the same way as wielding a butcher knife in a non-culinary context. A guy with a gun could, at a glance, be a good guy. A guy with a big knife is obviously a villain. Similarly, the Good Guys With Guns(tm) bleeds over into the horror genre. What would the zombie apocalypse be without headshots? How many horror franchises could have been cut short if someone had just shot the killer? 

Finally, Point #3: Guns in media have special powers. Gun mythology in film and television is well-developed, with its own set of tropes and expectations. In movies, pointing a gun at someone will automatically make that person comply with whatever you ask them to do -- we even have vernacular about this, “nobody put a gun to your head” -- as if the gun were somehow more powerful than a simple threat and could in fact control behavior. Often, people who are shot in television politely fall over and die quietly; it’s a civilized end, without all of the screaming and thrashing (never mind where they’re shot or what that would would do in real life). And there are so many types of gun. We have a whole video game genre dedicated to it -- collecting guns, learning their various abilities, applying them situationally to achieve various goals. With so many established tropes, writing anything with new tropes and rules runs the risk of generating confusion, disbelief and even hostility in an audience. 

So, with all of that in mind, it starts to become clear: 

Writing a horror story about gun violence is difficult because guns carry so much mythic significance, and it’s impossible to write about them metaphorically while keeping it clear what that metaphor is. 

If I write a story about an atomic-powered lizard who destroys a Japanese town with radiation, it’s easy enough to see that it’s a metaphor for nuclear warfare. But there is no similarly straightforward metaphor for gun violence readily apparent. 

But it’s tougher even than that -- because guns themselves aren’t the only thing to have been mythologized. 

The Myth of the Lone Gunman 

Remember: Guns are the great equalizer. 

This knowledge sits in the foundation of storytelling, not just in the fiction we make up but in the way we build narratives around mass shootings in the real world. There are certain tacit assumptions we make about gunmen that may or may not be accurate.

We have a certain narrative framework in place to explain school shootings, for example: The awkward, isolated young man who is bullied until he finally snaps and goes on a killing rampage. 

Never mind that this narrative is not wholly supported by facts. It may be true in some cases, but certainly not all. And yet, go back up to that list of mass shooter movies on IMDB and look again at what the majority of them have in common. 

This is problematic because, from a mythic perspective, people who are bullied and then stand up to their oppressors are heroes. 

In Carrie, when Carrie White destroys the school after being humiliated on prom night, we’re on her side. It feels good to watch her kill all those people who were awful to her. It feels just and righteous and imminently satisfying. 

When Spartacus leads a slave revolt, we cheer. When Daenerys Targaryen kills all the masters and uses their heads as mile-markers, we feel triumphant. When Arthur Fleck shoots the smug talk-show host on live television, we think, Well, he had it coming. 

Oh, sure. We pay lip service to being horrified. And these dark heroes might die at the end, receiving some karmic retribution for the price of their revenge. But can you say, truthfully, that you have ever once watched a story about an underdog killing his bullies and felt sorriest for the bullies? 

So: This is the problem with our cultural narrative about the school shooter. Purposely or not, it puts the shooter in the role of hero. 

And not only is that irresponsible, it’s just downright inaccurate. 

When Stephen Paddock opened fire on a concert and killed 58 people, he was not firing back at his oppressors. 

When Omar Mateen shot up a night club in Florida, he wasn’t getting revenge against his bullies. 

When Adam Lanza slaughtered 26 people at an elementary school -- 20 of them young children -- he obviously was not giving his victims what they deserved. 

In the real world, mass shooters might be motivated by political ideology and a desire to promote fear -- ie, terrorism. They might be unhappy with some aspect of their lives and decide to “punch down” at a vulnerable group in the worst possible way. They might be looking to become the heroes of certain media narratives, to secure some kind of fame or notoriety. They might want to kill themselves in a way that hurts a lot of other people at the same time. There are lots of reasons why people might commit mass murder. 

But the important thing is that the victims are, overwhelmingly, not bullies and oppressors. They are people. Just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because mass shootings aren’t really about personal vendettas; they’re about mowing down a bunch of strangers in a few minutes at an impersonal long range. 

So here’s my final thought on the topic: We SHOULD tell horror stories about mass shootings. 

It’s a topic that’s timely, and it’s a scenario that’s frightening. There’s no reason not to tell these stories. But to make it work -- on a logistic and socially responsible basis -- we need to change our treatment. 

Going back to the “disaster movie” idea: It’s time to treat mass shooters in fiction as forces of nature, as oblivious and blindly destructive as a hurricane. It’s time to center the focus on the victims. Never mind the killer and what led him to this moment. Let’s take a minute to think about the people caught in that situation -- the people who fear for their lives, who try to help one another, who fight or flee or hide once the first shot is fired. Let’s write about the moments of humanity shared by two strangers crouched behind something while shots fire all around them. Let’s write about the horror of having your perfectly normal, mundane day suddenly and irrevocably shattered by a stranger with a gun. 

There is horror there, real horror, that can be mined and cultivated and turned to art. And it seems to me that embracing that, and shifting the cultural narrative away from valorizing the lone gunman, would be good for art and society. 

Are you ready to tell that story? 

I am. 

[sydney-briar-is-alive]

Our Super Fun Cultural Dark Age. Some questions about what I’ve been soaking up.

-By a Sponge.

Fairy tales are interesting because they are originally cultural artifacts. Have you ever read Homer’s Odyssey or Iliad and noticed the language of the text? If not, give one a go!

 A diversion further into why you might ‘give one a go’.

 Secondhand bookshops are brimming with Homer. I mean that. Brimming. They’re practically paved in it. You’d be doing them a service. Most translations use very simple language (more accurate to the original text), honestly Harry Potter uses more complex language and if you don’t like it you can just close the book. So, you can’t have much of an excuse, eh?

 *Thank you*

 Welcoming one back to the actual direction of the writing.

 Now then, regardless. Back to the actual point. They are full of ceaseless references to gods, divinity and praise to ‘Pallas Athena’ and such. I mean, these people probably had Athena bless their milk and Weet Bix every morning. These days, it might seem a bit much to many readers, myself included (pressed wheat scraps are blessing enough). However, these works are cultural artifacts, and as readers we can learn something from the interpretation of the time depicted. They offer a breath of fresh air from dusty old artifacts and lists of statistics from ancient bureaucracies. They give us clues into how actual, regular people, actually thought day to day. How their brains worked.

 Broad, sweeping generalisations aside-

 Generally, in pre-revolutionary France, it’s safe to say a great many people were hungry and angry with the unfair Ancient Regime. Therefore, the French versions of Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, told at the time were fatalist lessons. Pitting peasant guile against cruel and greedy hoarders of food, rather than treasure or power. Whereas in at the same time in Germany, the same stories were often told as cautionary tales, depicting the horribly violent fates of greedy peasants stealing and the scamming powerful forces around them. The French of the time clearly had a hero of sorts, however the Germans did not. There are possibly hundreds or maybe even thousands of versions of Little Red Riding Hood alone all around the world and all through history all with their own twists and conclusions relevant to the time and place.

The Brother’s Grim famously travelled around assembling these stories from Europe into definitive, marketable versions. More or less standardising fairy tales into the ones we know today. What this means however is that- and be warned, I’m about to make some broad sweeping generalisations! It means that more or less every human culture has had the same stories. From Ancient China to Rome, there was a culturally relevant ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ or ‘Hansel and Gretel’.

This is important to understand because these days, typically when fairy and folk tales are reimagined for an adult audience, they are taken in one of three directions.

 1. Just how lovely and shiny must it be, to not be a dark age?

 The first direction is retelling a familiar story or set of tropes and putting it into a more contemporary setting, such as, high fantasy or outer space. Media that does this is very well known, popular and recognisable. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Snow White and the Huntsmen, or Maleficent. Typically, these stories are written to appeal to a wide audience and follow particular tropes and ideas, making a big splash at the box office. They need very little introduction, so, that’s it really. Moving on.

 2. Some might say analytics is just punching yourself in the gut, over and over again.

 The second direction is in my opinion more interesting, the self-referential, deconstructive direction. As it typically targets a more niche audience, allowing for a more unique perspective and viewing experience. Media like Pan’s Labyrinth, American McGee’s Alice and Jin Roh: Wolf Brigade. All these reinterpret themes into a more contemporary context, keeping their value as cultural artifacts and ‘true’ fairy and folk tales. While I am not arguing that Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings are not an important part of our culture. They serve a moral and idealistic fantasy that offers an escape to the reality of the world. Rather than interpreting that reality into a fantasy setting. This isn’t to say one is better than the other, this is merely to highlight why one is a more valuable item to our history and culture.

This direction confronts the elements of society and culture that create fairy tales, they are simply a more direct line to the value of the stories. Perhaps then they are not the same, perhaps by doing away with a lot of the symbolism they are no more than blunt instruments? Perhaps it is not fair to lump any media like this together, as each is deserving of its own fresh analysis (I did however warn you about broad, sweeping generalisations). The same can perhaps be said for all of this. Finding the line that separates any of these things is probably more personal and this is all very subjective. So, bearing this all in mind, I will introduce the final direction.

 3. Doctor Frankenstein, and how I learned to stop worrying and fear humanity.

 The ‘Horror’ genre. Now, I will not allude to my warning of broad sweeping generalisations a third time. So by ‘Horror’, I will let you use your own opinion, informed or otherwise. Typically many cultural fears and taboos are explored through horror entertainment. In many ways this is the natural progression of the fairy tale. What makes a horror film scary is relative to what you as a person are afraid of. Films like Dawn of the Dead and It Follows are not particularly scary on their own. But the cultural baggage that follows them is. They pray on our insecurities, which is why different parts will be hilarious and terrifying to different people. The same is true for fairy tales, to a starving person, a Witch living in a house of gingerbread, who lures children in to cannibalise them is probably terrifying. To a starving hungry peasant your entire existence is a battle against a cruel system that starves you and exploits you. So, maybe it is in this way, fairy and folk tales are perhaps better viewed as horror stories?

 That was a question. But you should probably just go on.

 Each of these three directions are a part of our culture and so then a part of us. We need them all to keep our identities. However, the investment in escapist storytelling is an unfortunate trend. This habit of converting important artifacts into objects of escapist fantasy is perhaps damaging to us. It’s in a way a form of censorship and it impacts everyone’s own identity in some way. By not spending time and money on a more balanced approach to storytelling, but rather focusing on a more focused one. It can damage the storytellers themselves. For example, Disney’s company image often directly clashes with this and while they produce many technical and visual masterpieces. Personally, I don’t see them as particularly focused on preserving or analysing culture. Rather creating fantasies based off false, hyper real cultures. The more media a company like this produces along this line, the more normalised its direction becomes. Thusly, the more obscure silenced the other directions become. And while it is important to remember, there will always be demand. But there may not always be works of quality to satisfy that demand.

 In conclusion: squeezing the sponge.

 In many ways this is a very subjective line of thought and please treat it as an attempt to question rather than to answer. I am just trying to have a conversation and I hope this perspective helps you understand what you are soaking up a little bit better. As it has for me! If not, I hope it none the less makes for an interesting read (I have tried to make it fun, honestly). 

To summarise. Paranormal Activity is more of a modern fairy tale than Maleficent. And Pan’s Labyrinth, while certainly using an archaic formula. It is perhaps better viewed as a brilliant satire in a classic formula than a modern fairy tale. The Avengers, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings are culturally significant and incredible works of fiction, but offer little to society as a hole aside from first class, prime cut, rib eye escapism (that is not to say they cannot have great personal meaning and value). Lastly, history is more than dusty old ruins and bones. It’s more than lists and battle statistics. History is people. It’s us. And if our stories and artifacts reflect us. I think it’d be shameful to be remembered for an age of escapism.

  A final thought-

To all of this, a quantity of pot might beg a question:

Does this then mean we create reality, based off a fear of ourselves?

I don’t know and I haven’t bothered to ask the question, sorry. Perhaps ask your neurologist?

[mindseyeinkarnate]

Portraits of a Serial Killer - “The Cell” turns 20

I've often reflected how the influence of Art is a key component missing from Modern Horror. The Xenomorph we all know and fear came from the painted nightmares of Swedish surrealist H.R. Giger, the Screamer is said to have influenced the Ghostface Killer mask.  For a further rundown of art's musings over the genre, I would highly recommend 2017's Tableaux Vivants for a look at 60 such portraits and the films they inspired.

In the summer of 2020, The Medium video game appears to correct that oversight with the recent trailer dropping, adapting Polish painter, Zdzislaw Beksinski's frightening paintings.  In the same season of the same year is when The Cell celebrates 20 years (8/17/2020).  This film appeared to feature as many artistic influences as possible into its near two hour runtime.

The sight of chains freaked me out upon watching my first Hellraiser movie, so the sexual perversion of their use in this film did little to alleviate such apprehension, especially as they pulled so tightly to suspend human flesh in the air. Despite a previous scene showing the villain having drowned his victim, this was the true introduction to his villainy - the former showed what he did, that latter why he did it.  Even re-watching this film so many years later, I had to look away from the screen, recoiling from such a grisly display.

Typically, in Horror or any film that assumes a particular aesthetic, it is color that makes the impression to set mood.  Instead, the use of white in this film, from the K9 to the bleached state of the victims is used to ghoulishly haunting effect.

I remember critics remarking that because of Vince Vaughn's comedic history they couldn't take him seriously in this role and relegated his involvement to stunt casting. I take the opposite stance since, for me, every role after this film simply serves as a reminder that he starred in The Cell.  I've always felt that comedy actors do well in dramas - see Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting" - and I thought that Vaughn did a serviceable job in this film, never distracting from either tone or plot.

I was happy that they just dove into the mechanics behind entering one's mind as an accepted reality, that they didn't get bogged down in techno babble or exposition of the technology.  There is a time and place for the virtual journey into the cerebral frontier, such as The Matrix or a good adaptation of the Lawnmower Man, but for the Cell, I'm happy that they focused more on the story and not so much the science.  The suits do look like Twizzlers, but it was made by Eioka Ishioka (who passed away in 2012), the same costume designer as Vlad Tepes' suit from Bram Stoker's Dracula.  I do like that the two participators are suspended in the air while their minds are linked.  It's an eerie callback to the killer's suspension from chains for sexual release. Also, it does give the technology that space age feel as though they are in a weightless environment.

Since the 90's, special effects have been criticized as dominating films to the point Stephen King is quoted as remarking that "story supports effects instead of effects supporting story". Similarly, an argument can be made that at times The Cell becomes too indulgent with its usage of famous art that serve no plot function, e.g. the Horse Split, the Three Women of Odd Nerdrum's Dawn painting, Mother Theresa and her Hallmark card, etc.  As the director is quoted as saying "The thing about this film is it’s an opera, and there is no such thing as a subtle opera.”  I don't believe that the script was penned as an excuse to pack in as much gallery portraits as possible or is an hour and fifty minutes of a music video.  I just wish the director would've used each art piece he seeks influence from to develop the story or the character.  The imagery doesn't always portray the killer's psychology or the psychologist's therapeutic technique.  If he wasn't going to utilize subtlety, he should have implored restraint.  He later added "Anyway, I missed the whole plot, just been talking visual all along, ah, where are we?”

Once in the killer's mind, his depiction as the master of his domain is a hauntingly accurate depiction considering the previous scenes of suspension rings in the back of his body, which unwittingly foreshadowed to the audience his royal appearance to come.  Even the name, King Stargher, is a daunting title for a movie monster.  When rising and descending from his throne, the violet robes receding from the walls and tracing along the room is hypnotically unnerving.

As tiresome as the "we're still in the dreamworld" trope can become (The Matrix, DS9 Season 7 episode 23 "Extreme Measures"), this film not only flips it when the psychologist realizes that she's "already in", but does so in a cleverly visual way.

King Stargher

Horned Stargher

Court Jester/Vatican Clown  

Serpent Stargher

It is interesting to think that a single actor would assume many distinct monstrous characters.  Unlike a Freddy Kreuger or a Pennywise that turn into manifestations of their victims' fears, the figures that Stargher assumes are all avatars of his own warped psyche, his own inner turmoil.  Vincent D'Onofrio really does put in his all with this role.  He's soft spoken and understated when he needs to be and malicious and heartless when the scene demands it.  Along with the visuals of the film, D'Onofrio's performance is worth the price of admission.  It's a shame that his acting as well as the movie's stunning artistry are what have gone overlooked all these years.  Speaking of...

One invalid criticism that has been levied against the film is its attempts to persuade the audience to sympathize with the killer.  My intention with the following statement is neither to flaunt my Horror insight nor to divide the lines between fans within Horror and those without.  Having said that, even as an adolescent seeing this movie in theaters, I at no point felt remorse for the serial murderer and I chalk up this long-held misconception to a bad read on the film.

So off-base is this "critical analysis" that it can't even be regarded as a Jekyll & Hyde dynamic.  The villain is not split down the middle between binary good and evil, where both halves are at war over his soul, or the repressed impulses of his Dark Passenger are manifesting in a heartless butcher.  If there is any distinction, it is between who the antagonist was when a victim as a boy and what the man became as an adult victimizer.  If anything it is the good that is repressed, not the evil.  Furthermore, along with using the film's plot to force Alice down the rabbit hole of the Mad Hatter's mind, this film does address the nature of evil.  When referring to Stargher, even Jennifer Lopez's character remarks "The Dominant side is still this horrible thing".  The Vince Vaughn detective states "I believe a child can experience 100 times worse the abuse than what Gish (a different killer) went through, and still grow up to be somebody that would never, ever, ever hurt another living being."  Thus, these serve as acknowledgement that the abducted criminal is firmly in the driver's seat to the point of its reference as a "thing" and a condemnation of what the killer has become, respectively.

Along with exploring the psychology of the killer, the film does not qualify the villain's innocence, it questions it.

The critics probably missed that pesky detail that would've debunked their headline before they pressed a single word of their denunciation.

These same professional critics wouldn't give a second's hesitation towards throwing Horror under the bus and condemning Scary Movies for inspiring violence if it meant their jobs were only the line, yet they would balk at the notion that continued mental trauma and physical abuse can cause psychopathic behavior.

There are classics and icons worth praising for their plot and performances, respectively, and then there are some Scary Films that Horror Fans view with the understanding of their heavy material and without your typical fanfare because they're a hard watch.  I can see where people would be fans of Hannibal Lecter not because they or the film glamorizes cannibalism, but because of Anthony Hopkins' acting chops (excuse the pun).  Conversely, John Doe, the serial killer of Se7en, has and will likely never enjoy such admiration because of the cold purity of his calculated evil.  The 2 decade critique of The Cell's villain portrayal is a dark cloud that has unjustly hung over its head.

The motif of "the eyes of a killer" was something applauded in Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, yet ridiculed in The Cell 9 years prior?

This film's premise and the fact that it wasn't fully effectively executed makes it primed for a remake.  Hollywood needs to be issued a Cease and Desist order of such wholesale dependence on Remakes in general, let alone in the Horror genre.  When you consider that so many remakes can't outdo the original and even tarnish the films they attempt to emulate, why not fix the problems of a film that went wrong and take the credit when you get it right?

[geejaysmith]

Wolf 359: A running list of things I have a heightened appreciation on second listen, pt. 2

Part one here. 

SEASON 3:

Pan-Pan: Still a little miffed they didn't explicitly do the "we have to huddle to conserve body heat" trope. Yes, it's corny, but also shut up, let my touch-starved space disasters cuddle.

So Eiffel stopped Hera and Minkowski arguing in season 1 to address an emergency, and now with Eiffel absent, the team starts arguing again. The fact he doesn't exactly have much Pride In His Own Self-Sufficiency to get in the way of "hey! Guys! Remember, imminent death? More important priorities happening?" tends to defuse situations like this aaaaaand now he's absent.

"Cutter will send a squad of psychos to come up here and kill us faster!" ...she's not wrong.

"Pick a corner and relax! Hop to it!" I just like this line delivery.

"The entire station is a SPACE YUKON and this thing is overheating!" I know, it's like it's symbolic or something.

Episode 29: "we all feel responsible for losing Eiffel and are lashing out because we're scared and sad and grieving and fear getting backlash while we're vulnerable if we admit we need help, and we don't know what to do but keep going because the alternative is breaking down and possibly never getting back up again." Alternatively:  "It's Metaphors All the Way Down."

Mayday: Eiffel's frustrated screaming.

Brain Ghost Minkowski showing up like "Yeah, we know I'm a hallucination, or Weird Alien Shit, or maybe just a clever metaphor representing the abstract process of thought, but who gives a crap, this is more interesting than listening to you talk to yourself for an entire episode."

BGM: Hi, I'm your thought processes externalized using a face and personality that you subconsciously think you need to hear from in this situation, possibly because you think so little of yourself you need to hear it from somebody else first. Eiffel: Oh hey cool, this is just like this one web comic I kept up with sometimes back on Earth- BGM: Not another word.

Eiffel getting slapped by Brain Ghost Lovelace, who is a projection of his thoughts.

What is that whispering in his head that reminds him of the Hermes' name supposed to be anyway? Score one for my Weird Alien Brain Shit theory. Having Lovelace's alien juice in your system comes with such fun side effects.

"I dunno, I only know what you know." "Shut up, don't go meta on me." / "Hilbert wouldn't know that word! He's never even heard of Empire!" Yeah, toldja: it's Brain Ghosts.

Brain Ghost Hilbert may represent the realist in Eiffel and the brutal, calculating reality he doesn't want to confront, but Brain Ghosts Minkowski and Lovelace are his cooler head and ingenuity, working him through staying calm and devising a way to survive, and Brain Ghost Hera, who appears when Hilbert tells him it's hopeless, telling him that against all the odds he will be okay, is his stubborn determination to never, ever quit. They're all his determination to live when Doug might want to just stop trying. They're the better parts of himself, reflected in the voices of his friends.

And Hilbert. But I digress- HOLY FUCK, I just realized the brilliance in the one-two punch of the Brain Ghost Brigade contrasted with the previous episode's Stress Fracture Argue Crew, it's The Sound And The Fury all over again.

Paging the Wolf 359 incorrect quote blogs: "Save my friends! And Zoidberg Hilbert!"  

Sécurité thru Don’t Poke the Bear: Maxwell! I've missed you! (':

"And I build pretty awesome battle drones on the weekends." ...Does Maxwell have her own souped-up version of one Jamie Hyneman's Blendo?

Eiffel, realizing he's starting to sound like Minkowski: My god, what have I become.

Eiffel mumbling to himself in general. "This is hell and I'm in it."

Is it just me or is Kepler's pig story not as agonizingly drawn out to listen to the second time around?

A Matter of Perspective: Funzo: 12 different board games, three of them TCGs and maybe at least one TTRPG, all tossed in a blender, because Pryce and Cutter are psychopaths.

The Funzo manual is the size of the actual Bible and don't try to convince me otherwise.

How into the game the girls all get.

Headcanon: Minkowski and Lovelace are both the types to get stupidly competitive over any kind of game regardless of their initial level of investment.

Eiffel keeps a photo of (it's implied) him and his daughter taped to the underside of his console...

"He looks so... happy." shUT UP

"I had no idea Eiffel had a-" daughter. Was it "daughter" you were going to say Minkowski. Well, no one else knew you were married til you brought it up, so turnabout's fair play.

"You think you know me? You know the artist formerly known as Warren Kepler, you've met my job. Aside from that, there's no one left for you to know." In light of the series finale, I, uh... I don't if I like this, Scoob. Also, stop reminding me all these people are human persons underneath all the desensitization to horror and violence.

"Happy birthday, Eiffel." They remembered! Hope this one is less traumatizing than the last, Doug.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" "Lovelace."

"Long Story Short, that's the last time I saw Maxwell's feet" wh. What. What happened involving Maxwell's feet. What's. why-

And to make a long story short, that's where my "Maxwell has hands for feet" headcanon came from.

Need to Know: Minkowski's dreams, apparently, include both creating musicals and commanding a deep space mission. She's gotten the latter way the hell off the bucket list, somebody with actual songwriting skills want to get in and write the former with me?

Lovelace overindulging on painkillers for her broken arm after losing Officer Fisher... "It was a difficult time." ):

Aaaand serious implications of the above are immediately headed off by Lovelace quacking aggressively at Jacobi.

Fire and Brimstone: where is my fanfiction about Lovelace overseeing Minkowski during her solitary confinement?

The Backstory Episodes: Zach Valenti wrote all the backstory episodes! I just find that kind of sweet.

Once in a Lifetime: Small detail I only noticed on my second listen, after a fanfic put the thought in my head: Minkowski's parents are only referred to in the past tense. Oof.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We had a hiccup in staffing for this upcoming quarter."  So... according to the wiki's timeline, the launch for the second Hephaestus mission was some time in late March 2013. The beginning of this episode (and Eiffel's) states it takes place in 2013, with 3 months of training, meaning they were probably brought on board in January and the whole thing moved *ridiculously* fast. Everything points to them wanting to get people up in space as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, giving the newcomers no time to think it over or do additional research. Once they start the training program, they're probably too busy to look further into Goddard's deep space missions, and are likely in an environment where Goddard Futuristics can cut them off from other information sources. The people they select are relatively isolated (Minkowski and her husband being an exception) - the easier to make them disappear. Even Lovelace has been stationed at "a lot of very isolated, very quiet outposts", the implication being her superiors wanted her somewhere out of the way. Kind of makes me wonder about the rest of the Hephaestus 1.0 crew...

Greensboro: Nice ominous foreshadowing you've got there vis a vis Captain Lovelace and "are you an alien?"

Decommissioned: "We're not about to force anyone to do something they don't want to do!" ...Marcus Cutter deserves to have his trousers ablaze constantly.

All Things Considered is still a bit confusing (because I somehow keep listening to it while doing something else) and I'll need another listen to figure out what probably actually happened, but it is also hilarious.

"Eiffel had engaged the machine, but that's why I build in extra safeguards. My mistake, clearly, was to assume that would be enough to stop the slapstick routine."

“All Things Considered”: Did you have fun with this over-the-top romp of hilarity and and hijinks, dear audience? Good! Because that was us burning off our comedy quota for the rest of the season. Get ready for six whole episodes of nonstop emotional gut-punches!

MEMORIA.

Just... Memoria.

Putting this quote here because of Reasons: "Three years... Three and a half years... I've had this thing in my head breaking me, and making me think it was all my fault, that there was something wrong with *me!*"

So Memoria is still one of the best episodes and the last five minutes fuck me up in a special little way.

Time to Kill: "Or the one outside is the real Jacobi... and the alien is already in here with us." The funny thing, Maxwell, is that you were half-right and didn't even realize it, and you *were* just speaking to Lovelace.

So... do alien duplicates only get reloaded from the singular "snapshot" of the person, or does getting flare-scanned once give them a continually updated source of info? What I'm getting at is: if another Jacobi shows up post-finale, would he need to be filled in on events between his horrible, terrible death and the present?

Persuasion: Maxwell switching to First Name Basis to get Jacobi to be honest with her.

I always forget until the scene after that Hilbert is totally setting up the Space Telephone to manipulate her, but of all the ways he could've gotten Minkowski around to "we are disposable and need to act *now* before these people decide they're done with us", it still kinda touching that this is the method he chose.

Desperate Times/Desperate Measures are just a blur of "oh god oh god oh god" and it's just as nailbiting the second time around. One thing I love about this podcast is how comfortable it is with (for its medium) long stretches of silence, which can feel a LOT longer when you have no other forms of feedback except dialogue to know the first gunshot was just a warning.

So you really *do* feel Minkowski breaking out into laughter when Eiffel tries to invoke Air Force code is a release of the tension that's been building for multiple episodes. Like he's finally gotten through to them just how far this has all gone and how much further it could still go. I keep saying this: when the situation starts to threaten violence, he's got an amazing gift for keeping the rest of the crew in touch with their common humanity when the rest get far too used to a world that runs on self-interest and subterfuge. Hell, he even gets Hilbert and *Kepler* opening up over the course of the story (presuming Kepler is being honest when he talks about being a shell of himself, but even though he was trying to manipulate Eiffel, that doesn't exclude there being a kernel of truth in those words).

Speaking of Kepler: he's definitely riding the adrenaline high of the situation and it turns him into a monster with a manic streak. It makes Jacobi's and Maxwell's relative calm all the eerier by contrast. Those two really do make you forget that all of this is... pretty horribly routine for them.

Until they meet their match, that is, when the women of the Hephaestus refuse to stand down, and each of them is unspeakably badass in their own way. What Kepler didn't account for is that they're ready and willing to die together rather than sacrifice one another for their own survival.

Although again, the irony of the situation is that just dropping the station into the star could have let them avoid, /gestures at season 4. BUT I'm not gonna rain on the Badass parade here.

Bolero, aka "The podcast kicking me in the feelings while I'm down."

The way Minkowski orders everyone else out of the room before Brain Ghost Lovelace conversates with her.  ...did she pop up in the middle of that conversation, I wonder? And all this when psi-wave radiation is spiking, apparently. Coincidence?

Oh come on Hera, war is no reason to end a friendship- Look, I came here from Metal Gear. I see folks dunking on Hilbert and I'm just over here like "he's still not as revolting as Huey Emmerich."  

Listen I've seen enough of Warren Kepler and Marcus Cutter in this fandom to know y'all aren't above liking a bad guy, you just prefer the ones who're having fun with it.

"You're gonna come to my funeral! And you're gonna like it! ...I mean you're gonna feel really sad! And cry! And stuff! GOT IT??" Ah, good ol' Eiffel.

THE COMPUTER ALSO HAS BRAIN GHOSTS

"If I'm not your doctor, then what are we?" "We're... complicated?" Listen, Eiffel, if you're not careful, I'm going to start shipping you and Hilbert ironically For The Lulz, and we all know where shipping things ironically always leads.

Errybody gets brain ghosts this episode. Again: I accept that this is a device that's more interesting than an alternative method of expressing these same ideas, but the ambiguity of a Watsonian explanation (is it all in their heads? Do they really see an apparition of some kind?) lets me do my Weird. Look, I once wrote in a joke in a fic about Death from Discworld complimenting a Quirky Miniboss Squad member from Metal Gear Solid 3 on his taste in interior decorating arena design, and that spawned entire subplots in projects for two different fandoms, and eventually roped in a third fandom to elaborate further on their now-intertwined cosmology. Do not underestimate how much I can give myself to work with.

The last ten minutes of Bolero also fuck me up in a special way, partly because We Are Dealing With the Hard and Unavoidable Fact of Death but also the aliens are about to throw a curve ball that'll... alter that last part a little.

Like, words cannot describe the "Dead Man's Curve in the wet" hard right turn of going from being in mourning for several beloved characters (including my favorite) to SURPRISE, SHE'S BACK! I love it.

I'd have to check the scripts to be sure exactly because some words got lost in Lovelace's respiratory spasms but I do like to imagine the her head wound closing up in front of a horrified Eiffel and Minkowski, with a side order of glow-y shit. I've drawn too many Homestuck god tier revivals I guess.

Update: I DID check the recording script's stage directions to see just how disgustingly physical the whole event is and okay, so no weird glowing shit (I reserve my right to depict it that way anyway) but I'm delighted to report that the gross anatomical-ness I was picturing? It's worse! It is so much worse!

The goddamn AGONY that is the Special Episode being TWO HOURS LONG when it comes right after the BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SERIES.

You have NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TEMPTATION IT WAS TO SKIP THIS AND COME BACK TO IT LATER

LOVELACE 1.0 I LOVE YOU BUT ALSO I WANNA TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO FUTURE-YOU RIGHT NOW

Change of Mind: love the framing device placing this episode as within Lovelace's mind during her successful cranial reconstruction saving throw.

"Buncha nerds, gonna crash my-"

Just how familiar she is in this place, with these people... Hera was installed in her sister's grave (as another post put it), but Lovelace lives in the gutted cadaver of her home.

Zach Valenti's Lambert voice *does* sound like a bad Minkowski impression.

"I have a physicist to put the fear of *me* into." That's my girl. She kind of was more of an ass pre-Total Party Kill, though? Like come on, Isabel, how necessary *is* all this arguing with Lambert?

Fourier's voice is very nice, also. Very soft, very easy on the ears.

I'm now appreciating how it sounds like Fisher is the older and calmer mediator among the crew.

Also the image of Isabel just floating out in space and listening to some chill tunes is sooooo good.

Hey Doc, did it turn out Fisher was too perceptive to live. Was getting caught outside in that meteor shower really an accident. Hey. Hey Hilbert. Answer me. 

Also goddamnit, has EVERY character in this series has read Harry Potter?

Did the Fishers always differentiate each other by audio channel? I had to rewind the scene when I realized Lovelace's questions in my right ear weren't getting an answer.

"Say you're a big pink elephant!"

*gunshot* *gross biological dissolving noises* WHY

"Just because somebody made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be - you can be more!" I wrote this line down prior to the end of the episode's confirmation that it's a Big Thematic Point.

Aaaand we're back to the framing device, and with that, season 3 wraps. Or maybe season 4 kicks off? Either way, hell of a way to kick it off.

Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs had a hand in writing this episode? Aw... that's sweet...

So, yeah, headcanon: Alien resurrection does the weird glowy thing to close any obviously fatal maladies, then the gross biological viscera part kicks in, hence Lovelace sounding like she's trying to hack up her lungs as soon as she starts using them again.

Listen, sometimes the gross biological viscera parts are my favorite parts, okay? Okay.

[oneweekoneband]

Today’s first guest post is by my friend and fellow The Singles Jukebox contributor Vikram Joseph.

Counting to 15, 20, 30… - Delayed Queer Adolescence and the Songs of Troye Sivan

- Vikram Joseph

On a humid early August evening a few weeks ago, in one of those converted warehouse bars endemic to inner north-east London, I was chatting over drinks with a guy I’d once dated and had last seen in 2014. There was a lot to catch up on, and the conversation ran unexpectedly, rewardingly deep. It became clear that, though we’re both well into our adult lives by any conventional measurement, we’d each changed and grown significantly in the intervening years in a way that films, books and the media seem to suggest happens in your late teens. The idea of delayed adolescence being a common trope for queer people came up, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. Why do those formative years of growth and the exploration of self-identity seem to happen later for us? Is it a delayed phase of development, a prolonged phase, or both? And how is this reflected in the way we interact, the spaces we choose to spend time in, and the art we consume?

***

A recent viral tweet:

“Gay culture is your life being delayed by 10 years because you didn’t start being yourself until your mid-20s.”

At the time of writing, this tweet has 117,000 likes.  Clearly, this is a phenomenon which touches nerves across the spectrum.

To the extent that we can “know” a pop singer through their songs, it seems like Troye Sivan – still just 23, and releasing his second album – has done his growing fairly early on. In just a few years, we’ve heard him go from singing about tentative gay crushes to the fully-realised queer euphoria of his newer songs. And yet, the concept of protracted, stuttering adolescence is crisply, poignantly refracted through his music, and I feel that a lot of his immense appeal to queer people far older than himself can be attributed to this.

***

HEAVEN “The truth runs wild, like kids on concrete.”

“Heaven” deals with the internal struggle for self-acceptance – by no means unique to LGBTQ+ people, but one that everyone who’s grown up on that spectrum will understand intimately, in the form of coming out to yourself. “Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven?” Religion is a useful allegory here, but ultimately a distractor – the duality Sivan is really concerned with here is about happiness. For a lot of us, coming out for the first time feels like a crossroads, where we have to make a choice between one kind of happiness and another, and “Heaven” captures this (false, but very powerful) dichotomy beautifully.

Sivan’s first album, Blue Neighbourhood, hangs heavy with the imagery of suburbia. It’s rich, relatable visual and psychological territory, exemplified in decades’ worth of teen TV dramas and coming-of-age films. Many of us will recognise it as the backdrop to the fraught intensity of that long, tangled conversation with ourselves; the feeling of being on the brink of everything and the precipice of nothing, the intoxicating, paralysing combination of anticipation and dread. Sivan deals with this at 15; for me, I was 20, during university Christmas holidays, back in the dull hum of suburbia. Maybe there’s something about it that gives us the emotional space to plumb the depths of those brave new ideas. “Heaven” conjures this musically as well as lyrically, with a tense two-chord shuffle, close, muffled production, and Betty Who’s guest turn evoking a better angel from the future, reassuring us, beckoning us towards the light. If I’d heard it at 20, or earlier, it would have destroyed me; it might even have accelerated my own journey.

Sivan sings about “counting to 15”, the age at which he came out to his family. There’s something that invariably surprises straight people, when I’ve tried to explain it to them, but will come as no surprise at all to anyone else, and it is this: coming out never stops. Every new environment presents a decision to make and a challenge to face; and while it gets easier (and can often be an incredibly liberating experience), it’s never a formality. The subtler aspect to this is that there is no end-point to coming out to yourself, either. Accepting yourself as a gay person is just the beginning; there follows years and years of figuring out what that means. And I think this lies at the heart of delayed queer adolescence. These are questions of identity that are near-impossible to figure out alone, and many of us aren’t surrounded by other people with the same questions until much later – either due to geography, or opportunity, or not realising how badly we need to be, or maybe all of the above. And so “counting to 15” (or however old we are when we get there) is a countdown to the real start of our lives, rather than to any sort of conclusion.

***

TALK ME DOWN

“You know that I can’t trust myself with my 3 a.m. shadow.”

Queer mental health remains poorly understood and inadequately talked about, both in the mainstream press and in medical circles. Working as a doctor, I’ve witnessed the stigma towards LGBTQ+ patients from other medical professionals – rarely overtly hostile, but often casual, unthinking and pernicious. The mental health charity Mind believe that 42% of gay men, 70% of lesbians and 80% of transgender people experience mental illness; the statistics for gay men are almost certainly an underrepresentation, as men in general are less likely to report symptoms.

Early on in his powerful book “Straight Jacket: Overcoming Society’s Legacy of Gay Shame”, the journalist Matthew Todd runs through an harrowing litany of case studies of young gay people who have lost their lives to suicide, violence and addiction. He then explores the factors behind this, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the gay community, and hones in particularly on the near-universal gay experience of shame (in its many forms) during our formative childhood and adolescent years as a key determinant of depression, anxiety, poor body image, low self-worth, and harmful patterns of behaviour.

On the gorgeous, shimmering ballad “Talk Me Down”, Blue Neighbourhood’s emotional centre of gravity, Sivan sings (possibly from a friend or partner’s perspective) about dark thoughts, struggling for self-acceptance, and, implicitly, ideas of suicide. The accompanying video is high melodrama, but then, so is coming to terms with your sexuality. “I know I like to draw the line when it starts to get too real / but the less time that I spend with you, the less you need to heal” cuts to the heart of the conundrum most young gay people face – desire, and a need to be open and liberated, versus deeply-ingrained feelings of guilt, fear and shame. In his book, Todd argues that these are socially determined but can be overcome, but it’s hardly surprising that it takes a long time to get there – and hence, “normal” emotional development is a protracted experience.

***

YOUTH

“What if we’re speeding through red lights into paradise?”

It’s easy to forget that there are very few conventional pop songs on Blue Neighbourhood. “Youth” (and “Wild”) are probably the closest, but while it might be tempting to read “Youth” purely as a love song, I think its real core lies in escapism, another trope prevalent among (although, clearly, not unique to) young gay people. The imagery is wild and fantastical – “trippin’ on skies, sippin’ waterfalls” – and I distinctly remember writing similar (albeit much worse) songs at 15 or 16, cosmic love songs to no one in particular about things I knew nothing about.

Todd’s “Straight Jacket” has an interesting chapter on how he believes escapism informs archetypal LGBTQ+ tastes in pop, musicals, science fiction, horror and drag. I don’t always agree with the specifics, as I think we’re a broader church than he implies. But it’s hard to argue with the queer impulse for escape, particularly in our years of self-discovery, into spheres where our possibilities are limitless, our own selves freer and more confident, and our fears diminished. It’s maybe a symptom of that delayed development, of more years spent in limbo.  When I listen to “Youth”, it gives me a clean hit of that feeling, particularly in the bridge, with “the lights start flashing like a photobooth” simulated by pulsing, strobe-light synths.

***

MY, MY, MY!

“Let’s stop running from love.”

Bloom, Sivan’s second album, finds him confident, assured and in love. It’s a big step, though not a quantum leap, from much of Blue Neighbourhood, and I’m interested in the in-between.  “Running from love” perhaps gives a little away. It’s hard for us to know how to approach dating, love and sex. Certainly, queer people might feel unconfined by traditional heteronormative conventions or ideals, but equally many of us crave what our straight friends and families have. (It’s important to note that, of course, it’s not one or the other.) I think “running from love” speaks to a queer (and perhaps more universal) anxiety – after what feels like forever waiting for opportunities that feel tantalisingly out of reach, embracing a singular, tangible thing at the expense of all other potential things is terrifying.

Still, this is a dizzy, ecstatic, seductive love song.  The expression “my, my, my” can seem trite in a pop song, but Sivan sells it as breathless disbelief.  Some things are hard-earned.

***

ANIMAL

“No angels could beckon me back.”

And so we come full circle. The religious imagery is no coincidence; on Bloom’s stunning closer, the gorgeous, hazy reverie of “Animal”, we understand the heaven the Troye Sivan managed to reach.

It takes some of us a long time to get there, and the destination is different for all of us. I’m currently reading Michael Cunningham’s classic queer novel “A Home at the End of the World”, in which the character of Jonathan, at 27, tries to navigate the differences between the sort of settled, faintly bleak domesticity of the kind his parents have lived (“the fluorescent aisles of a supermarket at two in the afternoon”) and the often lonely, unfulfilling search for a different kind of home and family in the city (gay literature is fascinatingly fixated on homes and families, albeit often unconventional ones). It resonates with me. As queer people, the usual rules don’t have to apply – the expectations of one milestone and then the next, the pragmatic retreat back into suburbia at 30 – and that presents a different set of challenges.

I believe it’s a double-edged sword. Queer adolescence might be delayed because of our differences in the world, but equally, we are different because of that delayed development.  It informs the way we experience life. Beautiful art is created because of those differences; hell, we might even be lucky enough to create some ourselves. And so, way beyond 15, most of us are still counting, still trying to understand, still discovering ourselves and each other, searching for logical families and people to grow with. No angels could beckon us back.

[elsewhereuniversity]

You want some real-world college weirdness? Have some real-world college weirdness:

So this a true story, at least as far as I can remember. It’s been a while since my school girl days at a to be unnamed liberal arts college in New England (look, that’s just because I don’t like to put too much self-identifying information out there, honestly it’s easy enough to guess and I’m happy to tell if anyone cares to know, but whatever).

Past the school grounds, looming over the forests that surround the athletic fields there was an old abandoned psych hospital. It was closed in the ‘90s and after the abandonment some film (the name of which currently escapes me) was set there. Naturally there were also a great many utterly tasteless stories about the hospital. Most of them were about the poor conditions, but there’s such ableism to making mental illness the subject of your horror and having personally dealt with mental illness for quite literally most of my life I just don’t have the fucking patience, you know?

Anyway, it was generally accepted that the forest surrounding the grounds was an unmarked graveyard. One of my house mates actually did a project on the subject way back in first year. Now when I was a first year the buildings had been marked for tear-down, but students would still sneak up there to look around.

I remember quite fondly the spring afternoon I went up with a friend of mine. It’s actually one of my happiest memories. It was warm and bright out, the trees were just starting to green and the daffodils were in bloom. While we were friends even then we were not yet close. I think of this is one of those reckless, careless little adventures that roots a friendship. I had just finished studying for a midterm and was skipping morning class to go up to the hospital (I had a Medieval history midterm that afternoon. I did just fine, in case you were wondering).

The friend in question had already explored the main building, though we were unable to enter. Demolition had started and the grounds were swarming with construction workers. Instead we went around to one of the newer wards, found a gap in the fence and just went on it. We spent the morning walking through the halls (often having to skirt big ol’ holes in the floor) and taking pictures; she with a camera, I with my crappy flip-phone (Smartphones were not yet a thing, I am really old).

On the way out we walked on one of the old abandoned roads to get back to campus when we saw this huge black dog. We didn’t get a good look at them, it just stopped and watched us for a bit before wandering off. I wanted to continue down the path and look at it, but my friend isn’t overly fond of dogs (and was somehow convinced it was actually a wolf. Looked more like a black German Shepherd to me, but whatever, she was the bio major) and was concerned for our safety so we turned back. Probably for the best really.

Now that was waaaaaaaay back when I was a lil’ first year. The next time I went to the old hospital I was a senior. I was not planning on returning. It was a beautiful day and the leaves were all rust and ember and amber colored and the sun was that rich orange you only get on late October afternoons. So I decided to go for a walk down in the woods.

I walked down over the river (pausing on the bright red bridge to admire the reflection of the leaves in the rippling water), all the way to this big hill by the stables. Hospital Hill, we called it, and it was The Place to go sledding. No idea what they’ll call it now that the hospital is gone. Let’s hope it’s something poetic.

Anyway I decided to climb the hill to get the woods just beyond and as I crested the ridge I found a path. Perhaps it’s because I had only been up there when there was snow on the ground, but I had never noticed this path before. It was narrow, cement, and in a state of great disrepair with all sorts of dry leaves and green weeds caught in the numerous cracks.

I remember standing there and thinking about the beginning of every horror movie I had ever seen and every urban legend I had ever heard. I thought about how it was a strange path going into the woods late one October afternoon. I thought about how I was alone. And then, as I so often did when confronted by very reasonable thoughts (and still do truth be told) I completely ignored them, shrugged my shoulders, and made my way down the path and into the woods.

The path grew wider but no more smooth as I went along through the trees. I noticed a few signs reading “No Trespassing” (though I had to go round the front to read them) but ignored them. I have no excuse, I was just young and foolish (as opposed to now when I am old and foolish). As I walked I realized that the path was part of the hospital grounds and soon came across some construction. The main building was already down. No idea why it took almost four years, but there were rumors that it was hard to find workers due to the area’s history.

In any case it was still a fine afternoon and I was enjoying the air, the trees, and reminiscing about the spring morning back when I was a youth. And as I walked I noticed that the trees were growing closer together and I was starting to come by a few of the remaining original buildings. These looked like small houses, I imagine for administrative purposes.

I was admiring the changing sky when I realized it was nearing sunset and I should think about heading back. The sky was still light but the shadows were no longer that dull copper color they become in autumn, but were turning blue with twilight. They were also becoming deeper between the trees and in the hollows of those old buildings.

Rationally I know what happened. I know I was in a scary place, all alone and my mind had a lifetime of cultural cues out of which to make monsters. Rationally I know and I knew this. But goddammit if every single one of my tingling nerves and upright hairs didn’t give the slightest of damns.

Because now I was sure I could see movement flicking at the corner of my vision, now I was sure I could see weight to those shadows, now I was sure I could hear movement and faint laughter coming from the buildings.

I picked up my pace.

And I as I walked I thought to myself “Okay self, no need to freak out. Best case scenario it’s just some kids hanging out. You’ll ignore them, they’ll ignore you. Worst case scenario it’s the cops and they’ll arrest you for trespassing, though more likely just escort you out.” And then the I revised that thought “No. Worst case scenario it’s an angry spirit coming to drag you back to it’s underworld home never to return.”

At this point the beginning of ever single scary story I had ever heard started to run through my mind.

“Okay,” I said to myself “okay, look, you’re not in heels, you’re not the head cheerleader, and you’re not running blindly through the forest only to occasionally shriek and/or look behind you, you’re okay trope-wise.”

But god, I could fucking feel something watching me as I walked away. I at least had the sense not to look back. I considered running. But then I remembered that bit from the Last Unicorn, you know, “You must never run from anything immortal; it attracts their attention.” No idea if I was dealing with something immortal but I’ve always found it useful advice when trying to escape notice. I ignored by fear and marched forward at a brisk stroll.

I followed the path.

The sun had definitely begin to set and the forest was all blues. The path petered out and turned to dirt, or at least somehow or anything I found myself on a normal hiking trail. At this point I was started to worry about where I was and how I could back before dark. The path was winding and I had no idea when it would open up into the town. I was getting worried I would have to retrace my steps. I did not want to pass those buildings in the twilight. It was just about when I was considering how fast I could make it back to Hospital Hill when I saw something moving towards me. I stiffed up and waited. It was just a jogger wearing one of my school’s sweatshirts. She nodded to me as she passed and it was a few minutes more before I came out above the athletic fields. Only then was I willing to look back into the trees.

They were dark now. Night was rising from the forest earth. It was very deep and very quiet and very beautiful.

I made it back to the dorms without incident.

But you know, I still have occasion to think about that path, that evening. There’s a part of me, a not-insignificant-part of me that wishes I had explored, that wishes I had stayed to see what was there. Perhaps that black hound would have come from the shadows to greet me. Perhaps it would have lead Elsewhere. Perhaps I could have experienced something truly wonderful. And yes, I am thinking of that Lords and Ladies quote.

I still like to go on walks through the woods, I do so several times a week. Though I no longer go at night. That’s more because I’m in a city and well, there are plenty of mundane reasons not to go wandering through a city park at night. But I still wonder sometimes about that path. I wonder if I’ll ever see it again, now transposed from its home. A path for a place that no longer exists. I wonder what I would do if I saw it again. I wonder if I would follow it.

You know, I suspect-even after all these years-I suspect I would.

x

[jakob2hakim-blog]

The Hero we Need: Examining the necessity of Deadpool through the lenses of Post-modernism

Deadpool [2016] is the story of a man who is trapped in the shackles of love, but fears his disfigured appearance will destroy his opportunity to be reunited with his partner. However, Deadpool is not a simple romantic drama. Despite certain pieces of misleading inexplicit marketing, it is the story of a good-for-nothing anti-hero who fights for retribution against those who have wronged him. While both are true, they negate an integral concept present throughout the film: Post-Modernism. The titular character is extremely aware of his own intertextuality in regards to reality, and in response, demonstrates a carefully crafted remix of today’s culture and intrigue. Unequivocally, his depiction within the film exemplifies a paradoxical mindset of interpreting his celebrity status as well as the constantly self-reflective world of entertainment. Specifically, Deadpool illustrates a clear focus on the philosophical representation of cultural identity, which is portrayed through Post-modern elements that enhance the success of it’s narrative: feminism, monstrosity, hybridity and lastly, metafiction. Without it’s inclusion, the film falls into a deep orifice already consumed by the growing saturation of overused superhero movie tropes. Thus, it’s necessity and importance is exemplified by it’s lasting relevance and it’s ability to aid in the cultural longevity of the genre.

Over the course of the film, Deadpool shines strongest when accompanied by female companions. Throughout the narrative, the depiction of female characters promote prevalent concepts of feminism, and as a result, aid the audience in relating to them past surface level qualities. Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Colossus’s X-Men trainee) demonstrates relatable qualities present in modern teenage females, thus creating a female supporting role whose strong personality is entirely independent of the male characters. It allows her to exemplify post-modern societal self-reflections. Negasonic is shown not to be “tied down by sexist comic book tropes” (Truffaut-Wong) unlike the more icon female superheroines. She exemplifies the qualities that most feminists seem to crave from a female hero: she is “not a superhero's girlfriend, she's not the female version of a male hero [e.g. Batgirl/Supergirl], and she doesn't have to seduce anyone to show off her powers” (Truffaut-Wong); Negasonic being one of the most powerful characters within the film. In addition, Angel Dust, while only a secondary antagonist, is given a relatively realistic personality, and is allowed to be more then a female companion on the villains team. She is shown to have incredible super strength, and is more then a match for any of the male characters. Furthermore, Wade’s living companion, Blind Al, acts as comedy relief without being at the expense of her gender. Al’s humor lies in the juxtaposition to Wade and her’s oddly functional relationship.

Wade’s girlfriend, Vanessa, is introduced as a promiscuous–attractive–woman within the first few moment of their initial encounter. A patron at the bar––Buck––walks by and slaps her butt commenting, “I’d hit that”. Almost spontaneously, Vanessa establishes dominance in the situation, grabbing Buck by the balls and subsequently stopping Wade before he gets a chance to demonstrate his machismo. She retorts, “Say the magic words fat Gandalf”, while also causing him great pain. The sequence is representative of how society tends to objectify women based on appearance. On the other hand, Vanessa proclivity to be self assertive clarifies that she is not a damsel in distress and can handle herself. This once again is touched upon later in the film during her kidnapping by Francis and Angel Dust. Afterwards the audience is introduced to her profession: prostitution, but instead of shaming her, Wade jokes about how awful her childhood must of been, furthering their playful banter without degrading her. They continue their conversation, eventually leading to the bedroom, where during the sex montage, “between Wade and Vanessa, [she] takes control more than a few times” (Truffaut-Wong). Overall, she is depicted as a love interest who inspires Wade to grow and develop as a person, while being presented as his equal. In essence, Deadpool’s depiction of feminist concepts, demonstrates how gender equal portrayals in cinema enhance narrative while also contributing to it’s cultural relevance.

“Did I say it’s a love story? No, it’s a horror movie”. Significantly, Wade’s desire to repair the damage done to his face is the driving force throughout the film, and is the main incentive for most of the shenanigans that ensue (post flashbacks). His physical deformation being related to monster ideology, and the representation of cultural environment and inner self loathing. Early within the film’s narrative, Wade states, “[He’s] just a Bad guy paid to fuck up worse guys”. In his case, a blatant disregard for conventional societal norms, general perversion, an immorality complex, and his existential nihilistic outlook, ultimately culminate in his eventual physical mutilation. Wade’s corporeal representation is a manifestation of his views on life it “incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy” in turn giving him new “life and an uncanny independence” (Cohen). Notably, the process leading to his monstrous mutation dates back to one of the classic monsters, Frankenstein. Francis, an independent mad scientist/mercenary for higher and resident bad guy, is the means by which Wade will be transitioned into his new life as a monster (i.e Doctor Frankenstein giving life to “The Monster”). The outcome of Francis and his employers desire to create “super-slaves”, causes Wade to learn he must escape the confines of society’s intentions. However, before confronting the reality of his new circumstances, his fear of the unknown leads to an attempt to retreat back to his previous life. When he returns home to visit Vanessa after the mutation, he is feared by the passer-byres in the streets commenting, “God, he’s so fucking ugly” and “that must have hurt”. Overwhelmed with the resounding newfound judgement, apparent due to his appearance, he encounters vulnerability; Wade no longer has a place in the world he was once apart of. While seeking acceptance, he comes across Blind Al. Lastly, the character of Blind Al is equivalent to the blind old man in “Bride of Frankenstein”, and the parody of the character in “Young Frankenstein”. Wade is accepted refuge by the only person who would take in something so hideous, a blind woman. Al cannot judge him purely by visuals as she cannot see. Importantly, Blind Al subverts expectation by being just as awful and foulmouth as Wade is, depicting two monsters who don’t follow what culture has pre-ordained. As the film progresses, the presence of monster ideology on impacts Wade’s journey of self-discovery as he continues his quest of redemption and acceptance.

Importantly, Deadpool is clearly self-aware (being rooted in metafiction), and hybridizes much of today’s pop culture–becoming bricolage–to provide a meta commentary on the entertainment industry as a whole. Within the seconds of the start, the song “Angel of the mourning” plays a ironic juxtaposition of image and sound” (Film Theorists). Following suit, the opening title’s display a Post-Modern, self referential mocking of the movie and people within the film. A few examples are: “Some Douchebag’s Film, Staring God’s Perfect Idiot, Hot Chick, The Comic Relief, A CGI character, Written by the real heroes here, and Produced by Asshats”. As the camera continues it’s sweeping pan, a business card foreshadowing the strip club later seen within the film, and a reference to Hello Kitty in the form of lib balm (a nod to the only twitter account the movie follows). The inclusion of these meta jokes at the forefront demonstrate the metafictional elements that would remain prevalent throughout the movie. Additionally, the audience being introduced to the film in this manner are forced to question how far will the film push the boundaries of reality and their suspension of disbelief. While the opening credits continue to play, the camera establishes Deadpool, the film’s semi-heroic protagonist, with his crotch and butt sitting on a thugs face and another shot showing him childishly poking another thugs eyes. Unlike most modern day superhero films, this unconventional introduction to the “hero” undercuts most traditional superhero depictions, rejecting stereotype while also addressing the ludicrousness of his own actions and morality. After establishing the general premiss, the film decides to show just how far their fourth-wall breaking will go. During the first scene Deadpool’s actions and reactions to the environment depict the character’s own self-awareness: He plays with the car rear windows, steals a brochure for a “haunted Segway tour”, and accidentally flings gum at the camera lens, then proceeds to smear the gum off. Through these simplistic actions, he informs the audience about the absurdity of his reality, and of the journey we are about to embark with him. He then joins the Indian cab driver in the front seat, Dopinder:

“Dopinder, I’m starting to think there is a reason I'm in this cab today”, Deadpool remarks.

“Yes, you called for it remember?”

“No my slender Brown Friend, Love is a beautiful thing. You’ve got to hold onto love, tight, and never let it go…Don’t make the same mistakes I did, Got it?”

Through this quick exchange, the movie purposely presents obvious, expository dialogue in order to undermine, and mock the manner in which screenwriters attempt to conceal exposition. Comparatively, Wade addresses the viewers commenting:

“You’re probably thinking, My boyfriend said this was a superhero movie, but that guy in the red suit just turned that other guy into a fucking kabab. Well, I may be super, but I am no hero, and yeah technically this is a murder. But some of the best love stories start with a murder, and that’s exactly what this is. A Love story”

He is referencing the marketing and the present preconceived thoughts on superhero and juxtaposing that to the narrative in which he (and the movie makers) want to tell. While the love story is at the core of Deadpool, it presents the traditional qualities in humorous, occasionally unexpected circumstances to separate it’s self from the over-saturated genre.

Additionally, a more transparent sample of it’s mockery of conventional story-telling tropes would be the conversation between Wade and Weasel at the bar. After informing Wade about a strange man looking to speak to him, he comments, “That guy over there came in looking for ya. Real Grimm Reaper type. I don’t know might further the plot”. The meta commentary on standard narrative allows the film to indulge in it’s own short-hands towards progressing the plot, and to allude to the serendipity of the moment. Altogether, these examples portray the film’s cynicism towards traditional narrative conventions, the standard of the moviemaking market, and to provide a scapegoat for it’s formulaic structure.

In particular, there are countless references to Ryan Reynolds. Within the first 5 minutes, a People magazine of Ryan Reynold’s declaring, “Sexist Man Alive!” is displayed on screen, and at another point in the movie Wade commenting, “you think Ryan Reynolds got this far on his superior acting method?” Similarly, the appearance of a Green Lantern-esque superhero trading card, and Wade stating “Don’t make the suit green, or animated!” before Francis’s experiments, allude to Reynolds past superhero movie endeavor, which experienced an overwhelmingly negative response from both audiences and critics.

Notably, much of Wade’s dialogue is a remixed reference, occasionally originating from sometimes obscure vintage pop culture. After being handcuffed by Colossus, Deadpool says, “Dead or alive you're coming with me!” The line is a Robocop quote. Remarkably, both Robocop and Wade have similar origins (both being saved from death and demand justice and revenge against those who’ve wrong them). Within the same scene, he breaks the fourth wall asking the audience, “You ever see 127 hours? Spoiler alert”. Wade then proceeds to reenact the moment when James Franco’s character amputates his forearm. He pays homage to the intense imagery within the James Franco movie, providing a humorous contemporary twist and relevancy to both films. An obscure example, “time to make the chimi-fucking-changas”, is a reference to a 1980’s dunking donuts advertisement (Film Theorists). In a like matter, he refers to the recruiting agent from the experimental program as “Agent Smith” of The Matrix franchise. Moreover, visual and sometimes dialogue related gags expand upon Deadpool’s self cognizant nature. For instance, Wade wears a Rent t-shirt after discovering he has terminal cancer; it’s inclusion alluding to the musical about people coping with terminal disease. Through these iconographies, Wade expresses himself through a form of short term nostalgia that resonates with viewers on a subconscious level forcing them to relate whatever he references to him (directly or indirectly). Significantly, film’s inclusion of pop culture references plays into the current internet humor mentality growing within our society, thus maintaining a constant state of relevancy among its viewers.

The strongest points of reflection within Deadpool come from moment’s where it questions the continuity and actions the superhero genre. For example, when Colosus tells Wade that he is going to take him back to the professor, he replies “McAvoy or Stewart? these timelines are so confusing”. The introspective comment on his reality also relates to the viewers own questions regarding the complexity of the X-men movies. How does the audience themselves keep track? Through this remark, it subverts the need to think too logically about the chronological placement of the films within the X-men Franchise (Film Theorists). During the climax of the movie, Deadpool verbally acknowledges the “Superhero Landing” and the absurdity of the pose. Interestingly, its continued iconography within pop culture help illustrate the film’s sardonic view on the cliché of the genre, but simultaneously, it points out a paradoxical fact that they too are guilty of. A great example of the scope of Wade’s self awareness of his reality come from the remark, “It’s funny that I only ever see two of you. It’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford another x-man”. This snarky comment is very significant as it references the infamous budgetary cuts that plagued the film before and during shooting. Similarly, Francis and Wade’s banter within the testing facility recounts another contemptible decision:

 “…Or I’ll sew your pretty mouth shut” threatens Francis.

 “Oh… I wouldn't do that..” advises Wade.

The line, originating from the cumulative disappointment regarding the inaccurate treatment of Deadpool in X-men Origins: Wolverine, depicts cultural reality’s influence on the media. At the end of the film, Colossus attempts to reason with Wade so that he’ll spare Francis’s life. However, during his monologue, Wade gets bored and shoots Francis’s in the end. In a matter of speaking, he demonstrates our culture’s childlike short attention span, and the constant need for vindication and closure. By killing Francis, the film subverts expectation in regards to the manner in which varies from the tradition moral codes taken by common archetype superheroes, clichéd valuable lessons they learn from taking morally conscious paths.

Finally, Deadpool’s incorporation of ironic distance and intertextuality solidify it’s place in post-modern filmmaking, while also exemplifying the necessity for innovation within the genre. Without a change to the status quo, the familiar becomes increasingly boring. As a character, Deadpool satirizes the good natured self-sacrificing hero with a selfish, revenge filled, self absorbed, anti-hero jackass. He understand’s the cultural body because he is a reflection what it encompasses. Overall, Deadpool succeeds at prolonging the life expectancy of the superhero genre, not because of it’s story, but as a result of demonstrating an understanding of exactly what entertainment our society desires in a post-modern era.

WORKS CITED

Cook, Tommy, and Kevin Winzer. Why DEADPOOL May Be the BEST MOVIE EVER! | Film Legends. Performance by Jacob Salamon , Youtube, The Film Theorists , 15 Apr. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7pH6jhJnoo.

https://www.englishwithtuttle.com/uploads/3/0/2/6/30266519/cohen_monster_culture__seven_theses__3-20.pdf

Harmer, Natasha. “Deadpool; Pastiche at Its Finest.” Films and Things, 3 Mar. 2016, natashaharmeryear1.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/deadpool-pastiche-at-its-finest/.

Sunnar, Max. “How Can Deadpool Be Viewed as A Postmodern Film? by Max Sunnar.” Max Sunnar, Blogger, 23 Mar. 2017, maxsunnarmedia17.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-can-deadpool-be-viewed-as.html.

Taggar, James. “How Can Deadpool Be Viewed as a Postmodern Film?”JamesTaggarMediaA2Blog, 2 Feb. 2016, jamestaggarmedia17.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-can-deadpool-be-viewed-as.html.

Truffaut-Wong, Olivia. “9 Feminist 'Deadpool' Moments, From Negasonic's Appearance To Vanessa's Sex Positive Attitude.”Bustle, Bustle, 29 Feb. 2016,

Truffaut-Wong, Olivia. “9 Feminist 'Deadpool' Moments, From Negasonic's Appearance To Vanessa's Sex Positive Attitude.” Bustle, Bustle, 29 Feb. 2016, www.bustle.com/articles/144905-9-feminist-deadpool-moments-from-negasonics-appearance-to-vanessas-sex-positive-attitude.

https://www.englishwithtuttle.com/uploads/3/0/2/6/30266519/cohen_monster_culture__seven_theses__3-20.pdf

Staff, Looper “Deadpool Is a Superhero Movie Game-Changer.” Looper.com, Looper, 15 Feb. 2016, www.looper.com/10082/deadpool-superhero-movie-game-changer/

“Posts about Deadpool on Thinking Philosophically.” Thinking Philosophically, 26 Aug. 2017, philosophymuze.wordpress.com/tag/deadpool/.

[the-busy-ghost]

Since you're talking about Halloween, out of curiosity: do you have a favourite Scottish ghost story/ myth/ &c?

Wow ok well er the capital for a start is just ghost city in itself and that’s pretty cool, and usually I’m ok with that because they add to the aesthetic (some favourites include ghostly drummer/piper under the Royal Mile; Major Weir, and Christian Nimmo) but the story of Angus Roy used to scare me shitless when I was a kid (I have since got older and recognised the deeply unfair stereotype of this ghost story, and the fact that it never said he’d hurt anyone but you know, I was seven so).

However from outside the capital, the Sluagh still scare me a bit. I mean, in my old house, I had to sleep with the west window open, but still sometimes feel uneasy about that. Which is a bit stupid but they’re kind of one of those inexplicably frightening phenomena, as is Am Fear Liath Mor- where no matter how nice it is to be alone in moors or mountains sometimes you get struck with this kind of weird terror. Is it ghosts? Is it just some weird primal horror of nature’s strength? Both are scary when they want even if they’re mostly benign.

So basically most ghost stories I’m cool with and love hearing but am not terribly scared by, but sometimes a healthy dose of fear makes them better. I mean I’ve often said since I’d like history I’d rather chat to a ghost than run from it, and I also keep accidentally doing really Goth things like volunteering in graveyards, but still sometimes the fear is still there and makes those stories doubly worth telling.

On the ghostly myth front I could go on for ages- I’m not big into witches by comparison with a lot of people on this site, but I do love generally “weird” often ghostly women stories (and I maintain the importance of distinguishing between the two; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again weird sisters does not necessarily equal witches). The Weird Sisters aesthetic is pretty cool, so are stories of the Bean Nighe and glaistigs and even vulgar ones like the Gyre Carlin, and of course the progenitrix of many of those legends the Cailleach.  I think their slightly ambiguous though sometimes malevolent and sometimes even more rarely benevolent quality more appropriately reflects the spirit of Hallowe’en than straight up scary stuff.

And lastly Alexander Skene’s fatal ride across Loch of Skene. Combines all the best elements of “Wicked Laird Dances With the Devil and Screws Up’. Ghosts of the Killing Times are also pretty good. And there’s one I only vaguely remember about some witches and a ghostly hand and a wife-beating laird getting his comeuppance but can’t remember exactly how it went. And of course the one about Lady Seton taking a bone from an Egyptian excavatioin and then getting haunted the shit out of, but that’s partly because it fits one of my favourite tropes of ‘Colonial era British people mess with stuff they shouldn’t and it goes badly wrong’. 

Ok so this went on a bit long. But yeah, I have a lot of favourites, but mostly chose to go with the few that are actually scary to me in some way- though in fact you’d find more of those in Tasmania (had a book of Tasmanian ghost stories as a kid, SCARED ME FOR YEARS. That wee island has a lot of very intense ghostly stuff). 

Ok i’m finished now. Yourself?

Edit: Damn I forgot Crathes Castle. All of it, but especially the Green Lady, because when you find an actual child’s skeleton at the scene of a rumoured haunting, that’s some messed up shit.

[krys-does-otome]

Bae in Review: Kei Okazaki, Collar x Malice

This guy... oh this guy...

He was a whirlwind from start to finish. A thrill ride that I seriously wasn’t expecting, since this was my first route in Collar x Malice.

Those that follow me on twitter can attest to how much emotional turmoil this guy put me through, from when I started live-tweeting the game, to the end of his route, which I’m still scratching my head at.

For those that want the long and short of this review, here’s two screenshots from my twitter with a first impression and the last impression (for his route)

And after the ending:

More in-depth thoughts below the cut, plus spoilers. Be wary of the spoilers.

-----

Oh, god where do I even begin with this guy...

He started off like a dog that kept following Ichika around, seemingly harmless, maybe a tiny bit cute because he napped on Ichika’s shoulder and walked her home, several times, slept in the oddest places, giving him a hapless appearance (he’s got a sleeping mask in his pocket, for goodness sake).

Yet, with all of his seemingly harmless behavior, I just couldn’t help but feel this underlying mistrust. We knew subconsciously that he wasn’t watching over Yanagi and his group because they needed protection, especially during this troubling time where more important people needed protection rather than a bunch of former cops.

Still, despite how much I’m complaining about him, I had fun on his route, admittedly.

I have a soft spot for guys that hold your hand and walk you home at night.

Terrible, I know.

But that ending tho, oh, the ending...

I still don’t know if that was the good ending, but getting the ending credits and the after credits scene, a trophy, and his short story, all seem to be good signs.

But dear God did that ending nearly give me a heart attack.

Some context: I was playing the route, quick saving every now and then, as you do, in case you get an answer wrong or whatever, normal gaming stuff.

I could have sworn I got every indication that I was filling up Okazaki’s affection meter.

Yet, several times I checked, I still only had three boxes filled. Trust meter had every box filled when I completed the earning trust stage of the route. 

When I was getting closer and closer to end of his route, I was getting nervous as not all of his affection boxes weren’t completely filled. This wasn’t helped because I had already gotten my first bad ending, where we stupidly chase after Sanjou in the park and end up getting Okazaki killed and breaking my heart in the process.

So, I had a grim outlook as the ending drew ever closer, not all the affection boxes filled and one bad ending under my belt enough to put the fear of God in me.

Things took a turn for the worse when Ichika pushed Okazaki out of the way and was shot.

If I didn’t have any self-composure, I’m sure I would have screamed. My worst fear was coming true. My very first route in this game and I was getting my second bad ending. I didn’t know what I had done and where I had gone wrong, I was panicking. My nerves aren’t helped by Ichika saying she loves Okazaki with her dying breath, Okazaki screaming at her to not die, everything hurts and I wanna cry.

And then... 

The ending credits roll.

I stop, confused.

So... not a Bad End? 

Maybe it’s a Normal End, because my affection wasn’t completely filled, for some reason? 

It wouldn’t be the first time I got the normal ending before the good ending (See: Lupin from Code: Realize)

The ending credits seem pretty cheery, showing the normal stuff after completing a route, all the cute moments between bae and heroine. I’m still holding my breath, trying to figure out if this was a normal ending or a good ending.

Then, the after credits scene, showing us a hospital room.

BABY GIRL ICHIKA IS STILL ALIVE, THANK GOODNESS! ALL OF THAT HAD GIVEN ME A HEART ATTACK!

Okazaki is understandably pissed at her, but now they are free to be cute and grow old together, ending with a kiss cg.

It was entirely too long and sweet to be a normal ending, so I’m assuming this is his good ending?

Peeps are more than welcome to correct me if this isn’t it, but it feels like a good ending, plus I got a trophy for clearing his route and got his short story, so I assume I’m done, unless I wanna go back for other bad ends (at a much later date, I need space to breathe after this route.)

Overall, definitely a whirlwind romance if there ever was one.

Pros and Cons PRO: This boy loves his physical affection. He loves holding hands, hugs, and cuddling in general. CON: Once he has a hold of your hand, be prepared to be dragged everywhere by the hand. And I do mean EVERYWHERE.

PRO: He speaks his mind. CON: He speaks his mind, especially the first thing that comes to mind.

PRO: He will protect you, no matter what. CON: The jealousy, oh the jealousy... if you so much as look at another man, especially if he can interpret them as competition, God have mercy on both of your souls.

PRO: He’s good at sports and activities that can be useful in protecting someone, like Kendo and Jujitsu. CON: He’s pretty much useless for anything else. Especially domestic activities like cooking or cleaning. His roomba ran away from home, after all. PRO: He likes movies and novels. CON: His entire DVD and book library consists of horror and only horror.

PRO: He knows some pretty awesome calming methods for relaxing and sleeping. CON: This guy can fall asleep in about 3 seconds. And he can sleep just about anywhere, including and not limited to public parks, back alleys, and your living room floor. (He’ll steal your pillows too, the fiend).

Bae Rating: 7/10. The unwavering devotion and his sweet moments make up most of the score, but this boy dragged me through hell and back by the hand and I’m still trying to catch my breath. If I could interpret some of his actions in a way, he’s got some very subtle yandere tendencies, and that’s something that I just don’t go for. It’s not favorite character type, so I might have a bit of a bias, but a character type/trope isn’t enough to completely ruin a route for me, especially if the route is well-written and enjoyable. If he wasn’t my first route, I might have enjoyed him more if I had been playing the game longer, before starting his route. 

But, he had his sweet moments and I don’t regret doing his route. He was definitely a fun ride while it lasted.

Up next, continuing on in Collar x Malice, I plan to do Mineo Enomoto’s route next. I’m thinking of turning this into a series, to review and reflect on the baes that I’ve completed routes for.

If anyone has any special requests for baes for me to review, here’s the most up-to-date list of games and routes I’ve completed thus far: Butts Touched Master List

Have a good day, lovelies, and remember to touch all the butts.

[elsa12tmnt]

Undertale Ship Month - Frans

AU where Sans remembers other timelines. Sorry that this is so short.

Sacrifice for the Cause (Frans Oneshot)

 Sans considered himself an abnormal monster. Well, truly, it was in one respect. He had a freak ability that he shouldn't have possessed. He knew he shouldn't. It was cruel to bestow upon someone, especially without reason. How could it be given to someone without determination? It shouldn't have been possible. Yet it was.

 He had the ability to remember different timelines. When the world got reset, when the word got destroyed, when the world got SAVED, he remembered it all. It was such a secret, private piece of himself that he never shared it with anyone, for fear of being considered crazy. That had happened in the past.  But, as of now, no other being knew of his ability. Well, that excluded Frisk of course - his anomaly.

In all honestly, Sans would rather not refer to them as such, but the name, unfortunately, fit. Through the years, he had experienced horrors in between resets from Flowey the flower, though he could never track him down as the guilty party. At that time, Flowey was "the anomaly". Now, that life goal – finding him – had closure. He knew who was responsible now, and, thankfully, Flowey would never again be a concern. Now, it was much different. The thing that caused him anxiety had changed. And it all started when Frisk fell into the Underground. The first time, that was.

 Sans felt that, now, the purpose of his existence was to stop the dreaded True Reset from happening ever again. As he had mentioned once to Chara (another phenomenon that Frisk had explained to him) ever since they had fallen, he was dedicated to keeping them happy. Happiness meant contentment. Contentment meant no reset. He knew all too well that when Frisk felt heartbroken, depressed, and lonely, they wouldn't cut. They wouldn't cry. Then would reset. It was how they coped.

 Sans considered himself successful at his job. Currently, he was maintaining a record of 5 years with no reset. Seeing Papyrus, Alphys, Toriel, Undyne, Asgore, and the others so happy on the surface was rejuvenating, and kept him going whenever he was unsure of himself and his capabilities. The harder things to recover from had always been moments when he had to abandon his own preferences, and wants for his life, so Frisk could continue to be satisfied with the surface. That particular day, he was at Grillby's, reflecting on a horrible turn of events. Actually, it was more like grieving over it.

 The previous year, Frisk had asked Sans out on a date – a serious one. He felt nothing romantic towards them, but because of his job, he was stuck with it. The relationship came with a gigantic price, however. Even since Sans and Toriel had gotten to know each other through their exchanges across the Ruins door, he had developed feelings... for the goat mom. Up above ground, they had teased and flirted with each other. It had been one of the few things that gave him pleasure as he coped with the stress he faced on a regular basis. That is, until Frisk asked him out. Of course, he could not tell them no.

 So when the couple announced their "status", Toriel had a bone-chilling conversation with him. "Sans, I..I just wanted to let you know," she had said, "that I am sorry. For being a fool." He had been surprised. A fool to what? "This whole time...," she said, tearing up, "I had...romantic feelings for you."

 "Tori..." He had started to respond, but the shock of the moment, the happiness, the disappointment, the anger at himself for missing his chance, kept him silent. "I was planning to ask you on a proper date soon enough, and well, I guess I assumed..." She had drawn in a long breath, fighting back wells of tears, "that our age difference would not have been an issue for you. But, it seems that you are attracted to a much, much, younger generation." Her head had hung, and her voice had been filled with sadness.

 Regret. Sans had been full of it in that moment. He loved Tori; he couldn't bear to break her heart this way. When she had said much, much, younger generation, she meant it in all extremes. Toriel was a boss monster and, therefore, lived for much longer than anyone else. Of course this would make her feel the way she had felt. Sans felt extreme guilt for being the cause of her spilled tears.

 "If it weren't for you being my friend, and Frisk being my child," she had bravely continued, "I could see myself fighting against them for your attention, but... given these circumstances...it would most definitely be wrong of me to do so." Sans' gaze and hers met. She sadly smiled. "Well, I guess it wasn't meant to be." At those words, Sans' heart broke in two.

 "Although it pained me to tell you about my feelings towards you, I felt you should know." She turned in the opposite direction. Sans had so badly wanted to outstretch his hand to her and tell her this was all wrong, he didn't love Frisk, but he couldn't. He was forbidden to do so. "Good luck, Sans. May the two of you be happy together." She had walked away after that final comment.

 That moment had hurt Sans. It left a scar, that, for him, served as a reminder of who everyone was at the mercy of. Frisk. Despite his pain and heartbreak, he was still expected to function as normal, as well as play the role of half a happy couple. It truly had knocked him down. But that was not the horrible turn of events. No, the turn of events was much worse.

 Six months after that disastrous conversation, Toriel and Asgore had rejoined as a couple.

 Sans was full of general frustration. With what, or whom, was he frustrated with however? Better phrased, who was to blame for his predicament? Sitting on the bar stool, he tried to figure out the answer to that question. He couldn't blame Toriel, nor Asgore – neither had know about his interest in Tori, or were even allowed to, he realized. Though he could easily blame himself, for not stating how he felt, and going out with Frisk, Sans believed that that was not right, either. He knew his anomaly too well – when they felt a lot of negative emotion, well... To put down Frisk's request at a date was to put monsterkind at risk of being trapped underground again. The timeline being reset was something Sans could not stand to let happen. If it wasn't one of those three, then who was responsible?

 Sighing, Sans checked his phone for a message from Frisk. He had been waiting at Grillby's originally because they had asked him to meet them there. For what, they hadn't said. It had been 10 minutes since their most recent text, and, concerned that perhaps something upsetting had slowed them while on their way, he sent a quick message. "Hey kid. You all right?" Luckily, Frisk took the majority of his check-ins as part of the concerned boyfriend trope. Before dating, Sans would have to be more subtle when trying to find out what was bothering his anomaly.

 Quickly, a responding message popped up on his screen. "Yeah. Just got trapped in the snow for a bit. I'm almost there." Sans, thankfully, sighed in relief. The kid was good. For now, everyone was safe.

 After Sans ordered a meal – what he recalled to be Frisk's favorite – and a side of fries, Frisk arrived. He turned to look at them, as they took the seat next to him eagerly. Their eyes were shining with happiness as they looked at him, but as usual, their mouth barely stretched into a smile. In all the 5 years he'd know Frisk, and possibly including the 14 years in which he didn't, they had never been known to move their mouth very much to show any kind of emotions. Unless Frisk was extremely sad, or angry, or happy, their mouth stayed in its usual straight line. Despite this, Sans was at ease when he studied Frisk's expression. "hey, kid," he greeted. Their face seemed cheerful enough.

 Frisk thanked him for the food, and took a couple bites. After about a couple seconds, their eyes went dull. Frisk turned to Sans, and he noticed the rapid change. Sans was immediately concerned. Did something happen? Would he have to defuse another one of their situations? What was making them upset?

 Frisk said to Sans, quietly, "Sans... I have... something I want to ask you." They hung their head. "I've been wondering if, well, how..."Frisk swallowed nervously. Suspicious of the question, his eyebrows raised. What are you thinking, kid? Spit it out, he thought.

 Frisk looked up at him again, drawing a breath. "I want your honest opinion Sans," they said. "How do you feel about me?" Feel about you? Feel about you? Sans was shocked by the question. Hadn't he put excessive effort and time into pleasing this kid, romantic or not? Hadn't he done everything he could to make his anomaly happy with how things were? Yet, somehow, it hadn't been enough for them?

 "I mean, I asked you out on a date last year because... when you're around me, somehow, life is just... better. Everyone, everything, just seems happier and more alive. Except for... well, you yourself."

 You yourself? You yourself. Sans was slightly offended by that statement. His eyelids drooped; his eyebrows dropped. However, that was nothing compared to Frisk's next, sassier remark.

 "See, what I'm saying is," Frisk added, "is that when it comes to love and showing affection, it doesn't really feel genuine on your part." Sans was silent as a stone; his face had "hardened" after hearing this. Frisk's face, however, had softened instead. The young adult's eyes gleamed with slight amusement as Frisk said their next words: "Sure, everything around you is good and fine, but you seem to lack a little, oh, what's the word... passion."

 Suddenly it hit him. As hard as taking a brick to the face. It hit him who. Was. Responsible. For his predicament. Who was truly at fault. Not Asgore. Not Toriel. Not even Sans. Rather. Frisk. When he had this epiphany, deep inside Sans, stirred anger. He tasted hatred on his tongue, as blazing as fire. He was furious with them. Why should they demand so much of his time and energy? Why should they force him to give up the love of his life, and then expect a genuine romantic relationship? At that moment, Sans thought, Frisk doesn't deserve love. Especially not mine. Frisk deserves hate. My hate.

 "you wanna know my honest opinion of you, kid?" His eyesockets went dark. "i absolutely detest you. ever since you fell, i’ve made it my job to keep you happy, satisfied, content... all so you wouldn't feel pathetic and reset to deal with your stupid problems, yet, what do i get in return? pain, sorrow, a forced relationship. how cruel. and then, let's add, your complaints that i'm not doing enough for you. well, kid, i don't owe you a single thing! you should be thankful i promised tori i'd spare your SOUL, otherwise you’d be dead where you stand, kid!"

 Short of breath, he paused. Frisk's eyes were wide and full of fear. Hurt. They were clearly shocked. Sans realized what he had said. What he had done to Frisk. And now, the price that would have to be paid.

 Well, here come the reset. He sighed, mentally preparing himself for it. He closed his eyes...

 But it never came. Instead, he heard Frisk say, "Is that really how you feel about me?"

 Sans' eyes opened in surprise. Of any possible response, the one he had least expected was that question. But. He felt everything was going down the toilet anyway. He knew his anomaly. Frisk wouldn't be able to handle the tension and would reset shortly. "yeah. that's pretty much the whole truth right there," Sans said, defeated.

 Frisk was pensive for a moment. Then, they smiled. Sans was beyond confused and puzzled; he was plain incredulous. What could he have said that made them, of all things, smile?

 "If that's true, then...I want to say... thank you." "For what?" "Well, for everything." Sans' eyesockets widened, genuinely surprised by this comment. Frisk then shocked him even more. Their eyes lit up as they...grinned. A true grin. Unlike their usual strained stretch of the lips that, for them, was a symbol of pure joy, this was a traditional grin, so wide that part of their teeth were visible. Sans was so surprised to see this he nearly fell off his stool. Randomly, the thought that a true smile could enhance someone's looks struck him.

 Frisk continued to talk. "If you trying to stop me from true reseting, and all the while, hating me, is really the reason why I felt so...happy for the past five years, well..." Frisk looked a little shy. And slightly guilty. "I owe you a huge debt. These past years have been, by far, the best of my entire life – or maybe better said, existence." They giggled. Giggled? That was wildly out of character for them.

 "Speaking seriously, however..." Rapidly, their expression went back to standard. A small part of Sans felt disappointed. Frisk sighed. "It must've been horrible for you – torture even – to have to go through that. And, despite how you feel about me, I care about you, Sans. So, I want to pay you back. With a promise. Well, if you're willing to take it, of course." Their eyes traveled to look downward, face full of sorrow and shame. Not wanting to hurt their feelings further, curious to know what the promise was, and, secretly wishing for them to smile again, he said, "go ahead kid. i'm all ears, i guess."

 Frisk took a deep breath. They raised their left hand and, making eye contact with Sans, said, "I, Frisk Dreemurr, solemly swear... that from here, on out..." They swallowed. Whatever they were going to say next must have been difficult. Yet, they were determined to spit out the words to their promise. "...to never reset, again. Most of all, I promise Sans..." Their eyes flickered up at him. Sans was already caught off-guard by the first promise. What was Frisk going to say next? "...that he will never more have to change the world around him to keep me happy. I free him from those obligations. Instead, I swear to handle my emotions in a more...healthy manner. If necessary, I'll tell him everything. Like a confidant."

 They dropped their hand and placed both it and its counterpart in their lap. "That is, if you're OK with that..."

 Sans grinned. He gave them a huge hug. Frisk went wide-eyed, but they happily accepted. A wave of relief and happiness flushed over them both, and they held the hug for a moment. Then, it broke. Frisk gave Sans a "smile" – their typical smile, that is – and said, "Oh, and if you're not comfortable with us being together, we can break up if you want. I know you said you hated me, and it might be easier for you if I give you space and stuff..."

 Sans considered this for a moment. Would he really be gaining anything by accepting that offer? Well, no. Not really. Toriel was lost to him forever, simply another man's woman. And today's revelations about Frisk's character had been a huge surprise to him. And anyway, besides Flowey, the only person in the world that understood his ability to remember past timelines was Frisk. Would anyone else ever understand, or even believe? Maybe it wouldn't hurt to get to know them a little better this way, as part of a relationship.

 "nah, kid. that's ok. i don't really hate you anymore anyway, not after that promise you made. i was just upset," he said. "besides, what better excuse to support you than doing my job as a boyfriend?"

 Frisk's eyes brightened. "R-Really?" Quickly, the eyes went serious again, as if to disguise their feelings about his answer. "Oh, OK. If that's what you want." Sans couldn't help but let out a small chuckle.

 As Frisk got up to leave, Sans said, "Wait." Frisk focused their attention on him, eyes awake. Sans felt a bit nervous about what he was going to ask. "umm, well. i've been thinking of you as my anomaly for a while now, since i was, y'know. looking out for you and stuff. and you're an anomaly in the time space continuum." He blushed, but Frisk's acceptance of it put him at ease. And hey, he finally admitted the truth to himself. "heh. would you mind if i...called you that ever?"

 Frisk gave a gentle smile. "Of course not Sans. That's OK with me." They got up, placed money on the counter top for the meal he had bought them, and left Grillby's. Sans sighed. He felt much better about his situation with Toriel. He could get over it entirely soon enough. With some help of course. From his new datefriend.

 Sure, it would take some work, and some getting used to. And yeah, sure, technically, they had been dating for six months already. But Sans felt that, with time, he could learn to love Frisk. And the most exciting part was that, starting today, he could truly start his life on the surface. After all, Frisk promised.

[njawaidofficial]

Here’s How Teen Shows Like "Degrassi" Try To Get School Shootings Right

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/23/heres-how-teen-shows-like-degrassi-try-to-get-school-shootings-right/

Here’s How Teen Shows Like "Degrassi" Try To Get School Shootings Right

Degrassi: Next Class

Netflix

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon remembers the day executives at the WB informed him that the third season finale of his wildly popular show, about a vampire hunter and her supernatural friends, would be delayed. It had been four weeks since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — an attempted bombing and mass shooting that killed 15 — sparked a nationwide debate over gun control and the effects of violent entertainment. The episode’s plot included a school explosion and a scene in which armed students attack the mayor, so out of sympathy for victims and fear of copycat killings, the network broadcast a rerun instead. Another Buffy episode from that season, called “Earshot,” featured a suspected school shooter, and its airdate was also rescheduled.

Whedon understood the decision. “I was like, We shouldn’t say boo about it because of course they should [postpone],” Whedon told BuzzFeed News in a recent interview, recalling the “horror” and “sense of hopelessness” he felt in the aftermath of Columbine.

It wasn’t the last time an episode of a teen series would face controversy following a school shooting. Four months after a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, Glee aired an episode in which students go on lockdown after hearing gunshots. While co-creator Ryan Murphy praised it as “the most powerful, emotional Glee ever,” some Sandy Hook parents criticized the episode for coming “too soon” after the tragedy. (In the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, Murphy found himself in a similar situation, deciding to tone down the graphic visuals from an episode of his show American Horror Story: Cult that featured a mass shooting scene.)

After last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Paramount Network delayed the premiere of Heathers, a television series remake of the 1988 cult film about a pair of teenagers who murder their classmates. “Out of respect for the victims, their families and loved ones, we feel the right thing to do is delay the premiere until later this year,” the cable network said in a statement.

The premiere of the TV show Heathers has been delayed after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Paramount Network

School shootings aren’t going away, and the conversation over how they’re portrayed on television isn’t either. While politicians and cultural critics, including President Trump, have criticized Hollywood for “glorifying violence,” showrunners and directors told BuzzFeed News they think carefully about how they’re depicting shootings.

Whedon, a vocal NRA opponent who says he’ll attend this weekend’s March for Our Lives in Washington, DC, said “actual deadly accessible guns are the issue,” not the entertainment industry. Still, he decided not to prominently feature the use of firearms on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, unless they were in the hands of villains. “When we were making Buffy, we actually had a chance to say, ‘Oh, we can actually take a very hard stance here,’” Whedon said. “It’s not a cop show. We’re not wed to the idea of the shootout in the alley.” Throughout the show, Buffy refuses multiple times to use a gun against her enemies. (“These things? Never helpful!” she says about firearms in a Season 6 episode.)

@joss / Twitter / Via Twitter: @joss

In the aftermath of Columbine, Whedon didn’t think his show would provoke copycat killings, because the weapons were portrayed in a negative light. In the episode “Earshot,” Buffy finds a classmate assembling a rifle in the school’s clock tower. She believes he is going to kill their fellow students, but it turns out “the school shooter angle in the episode was a red herring,” Whedon explained. The boy actually intends to kill himself, but Buffy talks him out of it and immediately dismantles his weapon.

But Whedon acknowledged that viewer reaction is hard to predict. In the 2002 episode “Seeing Red,” Buffy is shot and beloved character Tara Maclay is killed by Warren Mears, a misogynist outcast. At the time, Whedon assumed that a bad guy using a gun couldn’t lead to copycat behavior. “He represented the worst in everything, so I didn’t think people were going to be like, Hey, let’s jump on that bandwagon!” Whedon said. But that was in 2002. Now, given the frequency of mass shootings across the country, he isn’t so sure: “But god knows what I’ve learned lately is that bad examples don’t seem to throw people off.”

Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) confronts a student with a gun in the episode “Earshot” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The WB

Asked what advice he’d give to someone writing a school shooting storyline today, Whedon stressed respect for the characters and for the gravity of the situation: “If you’re in the head of a person who’s trapped in a classroom, if you don’t let genre tropes outweigh the physical and mental experience of the people you’re filming, then you have a shot at saying something useful.”

For Whedon, the Parkland students turned activists call to mind some of the messages he was trying to convey in his work: “I spent most of my career writing about teenagers who would lay down their lives for each other and would stand up to all injustice, and I thought I was writing fantasy.”

Similarly, Linda Schuyler and Stephen Stohn — two of the Canadian showrunners behind Netflix’s Degrassi: Next Class — said they find the Parkland survivors “deeply moving” and plan to incorporate elements of their activism into the forthcoming season of the high school series. The two said it’s “highly likely” they will explore a school shooting, too.

“It’s something that’s happening with greater frequency, and it’s happening to teenagers … and our attitude on the show has always been, whatever is out there affecting our young people, we should be talking about it on Degrassi,” said Schuyler.

The pair previously tackled school shootings in the first season of Degrassi: Next Class and in an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation. “Time Stands Still,” perhaps the best known episode of the show, saw Jimmy Brooks (played by now-rapper Aubrey “Drake” Graham) shot by a troubled classmate. When crafting the story around that episode, Sohn said they were “very concerned” about the possibility of inciting a “copycat situation,” but pursued the storyline to portray how access to guns, coupled with an environment of bullying, “can be a pressure cooker for some of these kids to explode.”

Jimmy Brooks (played by now-rapper Aubrey “Drake” Graham) is shot by a classmate.

DHX Media

“We do not want to glorify things, and we don’t want to sensationalize them,” Schuyler said. When writing the aforementioned school shooting episodes, the showrunners consulted with Barbara Coloroso, an expert on bullying and an author who published a book on the issue soon after the Columbine massacre. They also spoke directly to teenagers with the goal to write material that would resonate with and accurately reflect their young viewers. “Hopefully as storytellers, we are being respectful enough to all sides of the story,” Schuyler added.

Jimmy Brooks (Drake) is paralyzed after being shot by a classmate on Degrassi: The Next Generation.

CTV

Although Schuyler and Sohn feel it’s their duty to tackle issues that teenagers go through, they have no plans to portray anything “overtly political.”

“The mandate of our show is to sort of take what’s happening in the environment politically and make the political personal,” said Schuyler. “We wouldn’t address gun control per se, but we will look from a particular character’s point of view at how damaging the misuse of guns can be and how damaging it can be when bullying isn’t dealt with at an early stage.”

Some showrunners and producers looking to portray gun violence and mass shootings have turned to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and often works with television producers and writers to create storylines for shows like ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Wife.

Dr. Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone) consoles a young boy who accidentally shot his playmate on Grey’s Anatomy.

ABC

For Avery Gardiner, copresident of the Brady Campaign, it’s just as important to depict the everyday shootings that occur across the United States — and not just high-profile mass shootings.

While ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy featured a storyline about a mass shooter who murders two of Dr. Meredith Grey’s colleagues, a 2016 episode centers on a young boy who accidentally shoots his playmate after finding the weapon in his mother’s drawer. It was a plotline the Brady Campaign consulted on. And immediately following the episode, actor Ellen Pompeo urged the importance of keeping guns unloaded and properly stored, away from children, in a PSA. The collaboration wasn’t without criticism. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action condemned the Grey’s episode and the anti-gun messages “permeating television programming and film,” writing: “Thankfully, the episode was immediately followed by a Brady Center ad, alerting viewers to the fact that the preceding program was intended as propaganda.”

Gardiner also stressed the need for shows that depict the reality of how shootings affect the families of victims. Shows like The Chi, a Showtime drama created by Lena Waithe about life in Chicago’s South Side, for example, portrays the factors that might lead one to turn to guns — and how deaths resulting from gun violence affect victims’ loved ones.

“The realities of that violence and how it tears communities apart is something that Hollywood should be showing on TV,” Gardiner continued. “It’s an American problem that we need to be solving.”

LINK: How One New Netflix Series Shows Teen Gun Violence Is Bigger Than Just Parkland

LINK: Survivors Of The Florida Shooting Will Hold A Nationwide “March For Our Lives” To End School Shootings