#so please please please don't feel bad about it. you helped progress the story emotionally.

[ask-the-puppet-and-the-puppeteer]

< Previous | First | Next >

[aihoshiino]

I saw recently you said that you dont like the current version of akane, and I honestly agree. But what are your reason you dont like post tb akane

Hello anon, sorry for the wait!!! I have actually been pecking at the response for this all week because it ended up dovetailing into some of my broader thoughts and issues with the manga using my feelings about Akane's characterization as a sort of lens/jumping off point. I hope this is still interesting to read even though it took forever to answer lol.

I also want to note that the bulk of this post was written before chapter 128! Some of my issues that are mentioned in this post did get sort of poked at and paid some lipservice in a way that makes me hopeful we'll get some improvement on this stuff as the movie arc progresses. Think of this as 'my pre-128 thoughts' if you come across it in like a post chapter 130 world in the distant future. It's also uh fucking long (it was over 2000 words long when I stopped counting.....) so enjoy this mini essay???

To get my most neutral thoughts out of the way up front, Akane is a character I really like in LoveNow! I think the arc she's given is compelling and her struggles feel super real. The gradual peeling back of her outer layers and the reveal that she's just as damaged by the industry as the people around her was really good and my only real major problem with LN is that I felt like the aftermath of her suicide attempt (at least, emotionally speaking) was glossed over a bit too quickly for my liking. On top of that, I like a lot of ideas about TB Akane on paper and I'm not inherently against any of the things that get put on the table in relation to her. My issues are more to do with the ways Akasaka executes said ideas and – imo – fails to capitalize on a lot of the interesting potential that a character like Akane presents.

I think this issue partially stems from the fact that Akane and Memcho were (iirc anyway) not actually originally intended to stick around with the main cast past the LoveNow arc. Memcho didn't really have a personal arc during LoveNow and during the rest of the manga, she sort of has a "flat" arc, so I think she makes the transition a lot more gracefully. Which is not to say Memcho herself is a flat character lol! Rather a 'flat' arc is when a character doesn't necessarily have some major change in themselves, but their intrinsic traits/beliefs/etc help to advance the arcs of characters around them; sort of like a mentor type character, if that helps.

Akane, by contrast, had a pretty dynamic character arc that felt as though it was intended to be relatively self contained and conclusive but with Akasaka's plans changing behind the scenes, Akane has ended up sort of outlasting the arc she was originally set up to have. That's not to say a character can't still be relevant after their arc is done or that a character needs an active ongoing arc to work within a story but there's a lot of things about the way that arc is simply not resolved that bug me – for example, the arc wrap makes a big point of saying that Akane will probably have to deal with ongoing online negativity for the rest of her career but this never comes up again even in places where it really should be relevant. I also just personally am not a big fan of how quickly and completely Akane's suicide attempt gets swept under the rug and is literally never addressed again once LoveNow wraps but that's more of an issue with OnK's bad habit of dropping loose threads a whole than it is something specific to Akane.

As for the rest of it… uh, this might be a bummer to see in the main tag if Akane is your Oshi no Girlie so I'll put the rest of my thoughts behind a cut. Akane enjoyers, please feel free to pretend I'm just talking about my favourite ice cream flavours or something. Or even go get some ice cream yourself and say it's on me. I don't care if it's October, ice cream is a forever food!!!

SO… To get the most immediate and shallow points off the table first, I just find the character design change between LoveNow and TB Akane really jarring lol. Like, I guess it's not necessarily impossible for her hair to have grown down to her chest in the time between LoveNow and when she pops back up but that combined with the changes in how she starts being characterized really just widen that gulf. The only time she ever really feels like LoveNow Akane to me again is when she takes Aqua to see a 2.5D play and is just so happy afterwards that he enjoyed it – that's cute! That's charming! That's the Akane I liked a lot in LoveNow and I feel like we don't really see her again after that but it's hard to put my finger on what feels so off. It's kind of just Vibes.

Getting into more serious, structural stuff a big part of why I feel post-TB Akane falls flat for me is simply that a lot of the interesting things Aka put on the table for her during LoveNow have been swept away and ignored. There are so many things that could be done with Akane as a character that are absolutely screaming out with incredible thematic potential but Akasaka hasn't really taken advantage of any of them. At the worst points of the manga, it feels like she's being used as a blunt force tool to make the plot go at the speed Akasaka wants it to progress and this has resulted in Akane spending a good chunk of the story doing literally nothing on-panel that doesn't revolve around Aqua in some way. Everything else – her rivalry with Kana, her passion for acting, her relationship with her family and her manager – is paid the barest bits of lipservice if it's even acknowledged at all but when you really get down to the nitty gritty of what Akane meaningfully engages with and achieves in most arcs now exclusively has to do with Aqua.

It's not inherently a bad thing for a character to be motivated by outside factors or for their actions to be driven by devotion or even hatred for somebody else – Aqua himself is a good example of a character whose arc is driven by both of these things, as his devotion to Ai and hatred for the man who hurt her are the main external things driving him through pretty much the entire story so far. But Aqua also has things going on outside of this – other important connections and relationships, feelings and conflicts and motivations that make him feel, imo, more well realized. Not only that, but his arc has a very well conveyed and easy to understand "want vs need" conflict, of his continued pursuit of revenge having clear and tangible friction with his emotional need to let go of his past trauma and move on.

Akane has, since Tokyo Blade, been sorely lacking in a lot of these areas. Her acting career progresses entirely offscreen with no apparent conflict or effort on her part and she has absolutely no strong or meaningful connections to the cast outside of Aqua and arguably Kana, but they haven't really had any sort of meaningful or meaty interactions since way back around, what, the mid-70s, in chapter terms? Not only that but her existing relationships have largely been completely put to the wayside, too. LoveNow establishes her as a person who cares deeply for the people who care for her – her mom, her manager, her friends on the show. Akane felt so bad about people saying bad things about her mom and her manager online – not even harassment actually directed at them, or that we have any reason to believe they saw or received! – that it contributed to her suicide attempt. Contrast this to when she is literally about to walk off and attempt a literal actual fucking murder and all she's thinking is "aqua… let's have crepes together… let's be together forever…". No consideration for her parents, who are about to go through unimaginable pain, or the promising acting career she's about to destroy? Nope! Akane revolves entirely around Aqua now. It feels insulting!

I don't even necessarily hate or even disagree with taking Akane in the direction of her fixating on Aqua in response to him saving her and feeling like she has to cling to him and throw away her life to 'save' him in return. I do think the story is purposely portraying this as an unhealthy fixation and does not want us to uncritically celebrate this aspect of their relationship but I also just think the story kind of fails to really examine Akane to the logical conclusion of that flaw.

In general, Akane is one of those characters who like… I don't quite know how to express this feeling so forgive me if I go in circles on this topic a bit, but there are occasions where Akane will do or say something genuinely shitty or deranged or display a pattern of behaviour that speaks clearly to a flaw of hers in ways I want to be on board and engaged with but as time passes, it becomes clear that the narrative does not actually see anything wrong with what just happened and so it never gets addressed or meaningfully engaged with. There's a lot of little bits like this (can we talk about how Akane leveraged her suicide attempt against Aqua as a manipulation technique in TB and this never comes up again?? lol???) but the thing that really truly sticks in my craw is the way Akane is repeatedly depicted as continuing to use her fake 'Aikane' persona (as conveyed by the star eyes) during her acting career and starts getting famous at least partially because of it.

This is going to sound really dramatic but as someone who deeply, deeply cares about Ai and is so, so compelled by the tragedy that was her exploitation in life and death – this is so horrifying! This is Akane directly profiting off her exploitation of Ai's image. This is Akane digging up Ai's corpse so she can rip out her guts and parade around wearing them. It is absolutely baffling to me that the story at no point pauses to at least acknowledge that this is another way in which Ai is being exploited even in death – that even now, almost twenty years later, she cannot ever escape or be left to rest in peace as a human being.

Honestly Akane's relationship to Ai is SUCH a mountain of missed opportunities it makes me kind of crazy. Like, we get some wishy-washy stuff about ~Ai's emotions that were revived in her~ but seemingly the only thing done with that is to give Akane a cheat code to magically know things about the mystery she should have no reasonable way of deducting. But like - if Akane really does understand Ai so completely and it's so empathetic that she can Sherlock scan the emotions of a dead woman she had never met then why does she never, you know… express any kind of opinion on her? What does Akane think of Ai? What does she think about the way Ai was exploited and abused by the very industry Akane is trying to break into? Holy shit! It should be SO obvious to draw a parallel between Ai's death at the hands of a ex-fan and Akane's suicide attempt driven by fan harassment. But Akane just… never talks about Ai or even really treats her like a person even though she apparently downloaded Ai into her brain by reading Wikipedia really hard.

It's frustrating because there SHOULD be a really great thematic idea here - other characters often treat Ai as this inscrutable enigma but with Akane, there was the opportunity to make a point that Ai was just a lonely, messed up person and that if Akane can come to understand and connect with her post mortem then the people in her life absolutely could have put in the effort to understand and connect with her while she was still alive. The story failing to have Akane treat Ai even the slightest bit like a person ends up making her feel really callous in a way that was clearly not intentional and is, as a result, frustrating to read. This also comes into play in the ways she's so tunnel visioned on Aqua. Like, there's just something really darkly funny about Akane acknowledging how insanely unimaginably tragic the horror of Ai's death is and the way the people closest to her were robbed of the opportunity to publicly heal and grieve and then she just... totally fails to acknowledge Ruby also experienced this life altering trauma? LIKE

"your little sister is on her own, though"

To be clear, Akane being callous and kind of tunnel-visioned is not in of itself something I have a problem with. As a Category 5 Women's Wrongs Enjoyer (my list of favourite fictional women includes Monika DDLC, Akane Shinjo and Junko Enoshima lol) so I actually think Akane having those sorts of nastier flaws or at least having blinders up that make her behave in such a way that contrasts her actually heart would be so good and juicy! It would be a really good opportunity to dig into ideas of like... someone can go through something horrible that negatively impacts them and maybe even makes them behave in poor and destructive ways, but just because someone isn't a 100% pure and sympathetic 'perfect' victim doesn't at all take away from the fact that they were victimized and they still deserve to be helped and protected. But because the story seems to be largely unaware that Akane comes off like this, it fails to be meaningfully engaged with which, again, makes it frustrating to read.

I do have hope that a lot of these issues will be resolved, though! The AquAkane breakup finally forcefully ripped her out of the role of 'Aqua's Perfect Girlfriend' and while she's still orbiting him a bit more than I necessarily would like, chapter 128 has already done a lot to address some of these issues. Even stuff as small as Akane talking to Memcho and Kana and not really having any page time with Aqua and her acknowledging that both Aqua and Ruby (with particular emphasis on Ruby, it seems!) are both still suffering in the aftermath of their childhood trauma. It's small, but a lot of my issues with Akane were of the 'death by a thousand cuts' variety so even having them addressed in these passing ways does a lot to help.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I eventually come around on Akane and end up liking her a lot more. I've sort of had similar feelings about characters in works I like before – off the top of my head, I remember really disliking Naoto from Persona 4 when I first played the game because the section of the story she's associated with has some really bullshit pacing and Naoto is used in some really awkward ways by the narrative that made me associate those feelings of frustration with her. I felt similarly about Megumi from 13 Sentinels where I felt like some of the beats in her story dragged down both her arc and the arcs of the characters associated with her and really disliked her as a result. Upon revisiting both games though, I was able to properly separate my feelings of frustration with the narrative from the characters themselves and ended up coming around on both of them in a huge way.

Once Oshi no Ko wraps and we can see what Akane's arc looks like in its entirety, I fully expect to have a similar turnaround on her. I don't expect that she'll ever be one of my favourite characters but once we can see the totality of her character arc and the full scope of her role in the story, I expect to find more appreciation for her. Right now, though, while I'm still sort of stewing in disappointment, hope, expectation and frustrations it's hard to fully come around on her.

[mantra4ia]

Debris 1x13 "Celestial Body": rewatch Reaction'd, questions and comments

So if all those people are experiencing emotional convergence, who are they converging from? Who's sending the emotional signal that the debris is channeling, or is it the debris manifesting it's "consciousness" in a way that we can understand it by way of human conduits?

Maddox is clearly trading debris pieces with Irina (perhaps the piece that he took out of storage off the books), and Irina is on the phone with presumably her handler/ boss to negotiate this trade. She gives him lateral (which I assume means latitudinal) readings and then he asks for longitudinal readings which we don't get to hear. They are: Lateral 105, 112, 115, 120, 113, 110, 109

What's the significance of these measures? Latitude goes from 0° to 90° from the equator, so that doesn't track unless the scene is cut wrong and they're meant to be longitudinal (E/W) readings, which go to 180° relative to the prime meridian. That would make more sense, because after Irina is done with the first set of readings, the unknown caller on the phone says "drop to level two for vertical" and latitudes are North/South.

If we're talking Western longitudes, notable landmarks include: Denver, Salt Lake City UT / Phoenix AZ / nearly Sedona AZ - aka where the telesphere went, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe/ Nevada border, Great Salt Lake, Alberta-Saskatchewan border, and the Utah-Arizona border.

Or perhaps they're not part of terrestrial measurement at all. The act of "lateral reading" could just mean verifying your sources/accuracy as you go, where as vertical reading is reading for content first to see if something is worth evaluating for sources.

However, if they are part of coordinates, then is the fragment that Maddox is trading with Irina a legitimate "mapmaker" piece like George previously said Influx was seeking? Ya know, when he lied to his daughter. Can a mapmaker piece track moving/animate debris akin to the telesphere? Are those black dust cloud beings George is running from made up of animate debris?

Bryan: After becoming a parent you're in a heightened emotional state, emotionally raw.

George: Higher highs, lower lows, the joy of having a child, the postpartum depression, and the fear of getting it wrong.

Me: Are we in a pensive, self-reflective mood, George? Are you practicing your pub trivia Bryan, delivering exposition, or are you speaking from personal character experience? Seriously, how would you know?!

John Noble as Otto, man why does he always make such a good villain?

What is with the cryptic vagueness when Maddox tells Irina, "You know I can't let you leave with that case right? I mean you know that. There's another door for you Irina, one that only you can go through." They seemed almost on good terms in a previous episode, like friends or something more in a past life "nice car, i almost left / no you didn't", he wouldn't kill her, would he? Or is it more like a code between them, a sort of "I'm being watched, take the back exit"?

Hey, so why is it that sometimes George's eye seems opaque and damaged from the debris implant, but then when he's talking to Finola after he distracts Bryan while being Debris whisperer, his eye seems fine? PS: I googled Tyrone Benskin just to see what he looks like when he's not playing George Jones and I didn't know he's a former member of Canadian Parliament. Don't trust the government, eh?

George: "You're such a compassionate person, you always have been. So much of your mother in you." That's the second time that Finola's mother has been mentioned in the series, back from the pilot. Is it a coincidence that the first piece of debris that chose to interact with Finola resonated her mom? More than just Finola's desire being reflected by the debris, but the debris emoting it's first impression of her as someone compassionate that it can trust?

It also raises my heckles that George repeats, almost word for word, something that Finola said in episode 3. "If we can't help people, we do not deserve this debris / if we don't use this debris on these people, we are not worthy to have it." Are father and daughter that ideologically similar, or has he been spying on her progress this whole time, or both?

George: "I took my life to allow myself a rebirth, I paid the price. I want you to know that not one day goes by that I don't think of you and your sister. I want you to know this." This coincides with my initial impression that George staged his death to get away from Orbital after he assessed how his research was being used/abused.

George: "You never wanted to go into the pool, I had to throw you in, and you kicked and screamed, but you always did better that way." Immabout to throw you George, just keep talking!!!! I'm sorry, this charicature of absentee father reminiscing about the good old days really ticks me off from personal experience.

Also, as a person with a disability, I am not particularly pleased with the use of Dario as a plot device instead of a thoughtful character with a backstory at this point in the show for 13 whole episodes now. Pretty pissed off actually, so they better do something phenomenal and pivotal with Christian Rose (Dario) in season 2 [maybe have his character interact with debris in a similar way to Caroline]. But that's another rant about ableism in screenwriting for another angry day....

George: "A telesphere was born yesterday. It came from a pocket dimension inside Orbital. I think it's birth may have triggered the debris." This is perhaps the one-ish episode that I find George remotely interesting and also infuriating, particularly because of the way he speaks, like he's finally taken off the guise of the old, well-meaning eccentric and turned into a sharp, cunning, and at times calculatingly ruthless individual. I find it peculiar that he says a telesphere is born. Makes me think that the debris is not just part of a spacecraft, but a hybrid of the beings piloting that craft.

I get tremendous satisfaction from Finola head-butting people. This should continue.

I'm not familiar with all of the work of JH Wyman to know if this is a running theme or an ongoing joke. But does he keep his writing staff in a constant state of starvation? Is that why pieces of debris are called "Nachos", and why Influx has "Beans" to shield them from debris side effects, and why Bryan is always eating junk food? Should I be worried about the writer's room and start sending them healthy snacks?!? Just give me an SOS in the credit roll.

Speaking of: is the "Bean" that Finola ingested a piece of debris? Similar to the pieces of debris that fused with Anson Ash? Will it impart some physical benefits to her moving forward?

"I won't lose you again...you belong with me." What are you talking about George Jones, you made the conscious decision to leave your family. You didn't lose Finola, she lost you. In this version of reality at least. Or (unscripted backstory) did Jones and his wife separate prior to her death / was Finola brought up mostly by her mother? That doesn't seem the case if she was buying her father birthday presents and took it upon herself to settle his affairs after his death.

Why do the Influx Operatives Otto and Anson have tattoos on their hands, but not Loeb? Is he like the low end of the totem pole FNG who hasn't earned his stripes, hence why Otto gives him s***: aka "Careful you cretin. All the finesse of a butcher."

What is the hierarchy of Influx anyway? Despite being an anti-government "for the people/ elevate the human consciousness" organization they do still seem to have a governing hierarchy and Otto and George seem to be on the same level, pretty high in rank / they talk with confidence to each other like they go back a while.

What is that weird thing that Otto does with his hands to Bryan's head? What are all the weird things Otto does, including his massacre at the petrol station? Ick.

Why is it that Leob and George are freaked out by the black smoke (debris particle?) man, but Anson and Otto aren't? They seem to see them(?), but don't overtly react.

Bryan: "It seems like we're entering some kind of new phase." Gee where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah, the story of "Blackwater grandfather" and the black wind that they're still teasing endlessly while refusing to tether it into some kind of world building lore. Agggghh!

Lololol, Bryan and Finola's dynamic even in the midst of a very serious episode makes me laugh. "Devon Reese / two e's? / Two e's!" "This one smells like baby diapers. Almost as bad as the tech section of the plane/ You mean your section of the plane. / Almost." That zinger 👍

Paraphrasing Bryan: "[recapping, recap, and did I mention recap]...something about George doesn't feel right." Personal pet peeve: I HATE IT when episodes have intentional explanatory lines like this to point out the fact that we as audience are privy to information that the main characters aren't. Not only does it make the main characters seem less intelligent, it breaks the fourth wall a little bit and gives the impression that the audience, which is ahead of the plot, is not as intelligent and needs a reminder that we're ahead. Lackadaisical writing drives me nuts!!! I can't outright say that it's "bad" dialogue, but it's not a choice I would make if I wanted uninterrupted viewer immersion.

Finola: "My instincts are good" Me: You are an emotionally intelligent decision maker with gaping personal blind spots.

George: You belong with me, your father.

Finola: My father died six months ago, and you are not him.

Me: Chef's kiss 👏👏👏

Otto: "It would never have worked out with that girl [Finola], not in any iteration." Definitely makes me lean towards the fan theory that the alt!Finola in (presumably) suspensia in Sedona Arizona got plucked from another reality.

Surprisingly, the ending credit roll has no voiceover as all the previous episodes of the season have. Disappointed that there's no potential teaser to a season 2 if the show gets renewed. But I find it curious that the extras who were demonstrating emotional convergence were credited as: chess board persons. Not sure if that's relevant, but I definitely feel like this show is playing games with me and my emotions.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/8/2020: PELICAN BLOOD (2019)

If you are reading this and the present date is between October 8 and 11 of 2020, please consider buying a virtual ticket to see Katrin Gebbe’s PELICAN BLOOD, available on demand through the Nightstream festival:

https://watch.eventive.org/nightstream/play/5f6e7e78d6a9bf0036613fa3

I am about to discuss this movie and its conclusion in great detail, but it would be much better for a person to come to it in innocence--not because it’s so reliant on anything as gauche as surprise, but because it is so thoroughly excellent that wading through a movie review first would be like letting your dinner grow cold. And, it simply deserves our support.

When I saw PELICAN BLOOD last year at Fantastic Fest, it became one of my favorite movies before it was even over. I might admit that this was sort of a match made in heaven, as this movie checks almost every one of my personal boxes, but I don’t think my assessment of its value is a simple matter of personal prejudice. I’ve been haunted by it all these months, and deeply worried that somehow I might never see it again. When I discovered that it had landed on Nightstream, I was over the moon.

This is writer-director Katrin Gebbe's second feature, a fact that will astonish you when you see it. Last Blogtober, I wrote about her first feature TORE TANZT, which has the troubling english title NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN. That intense indie drama concerns a born-again christian punk who wishes for an opportunity to prove his devotion to god, and finds it in the form of a family that invites him in off the streets, and then proceeds to torture him. That's an oversimplification of what actually occurs, but it is a film that's hard to be brief about. It's cheap and a little rough around the edges, but it is deliberate, intense, and difficult to forget. (In fact it's supposed to be based on a true story, although I haven't managed to pick up that trail) When I first saw it, it certainly made me wonder what else that director might be up to, and I was astounded when I found out. 2019's PELICAN BLOOD emerged six years after TORE TANZT, with little in between besides a television episode and a segment in the anthology THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL, and yet Gebbe's artistic evolution is dumbfounding. Her themes are all unmistakably present--faith versus doubt, mystical versus metaphorical experience, and physical martyrdom--but exploded into a grand, elegant psychodrama that holds the viewer captive every minute of its two hours.

Celebrated german actress Nina Hoss plays Wiebke, a stable owner who trains police horses to tolerate the frightening conditions of a riot. She lives at the edge of her pasture, raising her tween daughter Nicolina (Adelia-Constance Giovanni Ocleppo) on her own. Wiebke has a talent for healing the wounded, or perhaps it's more of a calling; she raised Nicolina, a bulgarian orphan, into a bright, balanced, emotionally available tomboy, and the two of them joyfully anticipate the arrival of Nicolina's new adoptive sister. When little Raya arrives (Katerina Lipovska), she first presents as sweet, even solicitous, needing only a mother's love to fully bloom. However, as soon as she determines that she is welcome and wanted, she undergoes a disturbing transformation into a violent and unpredictable creature, possessed by an abject hatred. Wiebke recognizes that her new child is seriously traumatized, which activates her sense of purpose, and she pledges herself fully to the child's recovery--despite the admonishments of Raya's daycare, her doctors, and virtually everyone around them, that the little girl is beyond all but clinical help, and even that promises no guarantee of salvation. Refusing to give up, Wiebke makes a series of increasingly dangerous personal sacrifices in Raya's name, until finally she finds herself at the doorway to what some consider another world, but what is to others only madness.

Gebbe won Best Director in the main competition at Fantastic Fest, and it would have been a crime if this were otherwise. Her control over what are essentially forces of nature is humbling. Extracting a profoundly moving drama from a cast of adult actors is challenging enough on its own, but to get these terrifyingly convincing performances from children, evoking deep trauma and physical violence to self and others, is another level. As if this weren't enough, Gebbe adds animals into the mix, giving the story of Raya a parallel in the troubled career of a police horse who is considered a lost cause by all but Wiebke. The training scenes in which Wiebke guides the volatile animal through fire and smoke, while her own lifeforce is being progressively depleted by her new child, are as harrowing as anything having to do with parenthood, and Wiebke seems to take the horse just as seriously as her child. Friendly single dad Benedikt (Murathan Muslu) tries to flirt with the trainer by remarking on her unusual career, but she spits bitterly, "The horses are not the problem," giving us a glimpse of the philosophy that drives her.

Another of my favorite german films is Werner Herzog's 1976 short NO ONE WILL PLAY WITH ME. This funny and poignant story involves a bullied and neglected little boy, and it is preceded by a card displaying the adage "There are no bad children, only bad parents." This is the principle that drives Wiebke in work and life: Those who are seen as failures, have been failed by others. One has the sense that Wiebke sees herself in these wretches. She has no partner, and balks at questions about her relationship history, shying from physical affection even with people she knows and likes. A tell-tale scar graces one cheekbone; when she finally begins to welcome the benign Benedikt's advances, he strokes it instead of kissing her, acknowledging that he can see who she really is.

Wiebke tries to extend this same empathy toward Raya, refusing to let the child bait her into wrath and rejection. However, this show of pure faith and tolerance does not work, and the right approach becomes less clear as Raya begins to blame her mounting acts of vandalism, arson and assault on an evil entity that controls her will. A psychiatrist aprises Wiebke that this is the "magic period", in which the child uses magical thinking to divert feelings of guilt and responsibility. But, after a fashion, Wiebke begins to sense this malevolent presence as well. Is this etheric intrusion real? Or is she beginning to empathize with the child--with the experience of grappling with a damaged part of yourself--to the point of dissolving boundaries?

The title of the movie refers to a fable about a pelican whose chicks die, and she resurrects them by feeding them her own blood. This is a clear metaphor for Wiebke's trial with Raya, that becomes shockingly literal when, after endangering her home and relationships by prioritizing the new child, Wiebke places her own health on the line by taking an unregulated drug to give herself a bizarre advantage. When Wiebke discovers the shocking nature of Raya's original trauma, she experiments with the radical idea of treating the girl like a little baby, hoping to start from square one with her capacity to be mothered, and in the service of this dreadful proposition, Wiebke starts taking a lactation-inducing pill that proves to be an immediate risk to her health, and puts her in an even more perilous position with Raya.

Although it focuses on a preternaturally devoted mother, PELICAN BLOOD recalls what makes movies like HEREDITARY and WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN so potent. We have the idea that in becoming parents, we are perpetuating our own essence, extending our history and celebrating the precious connection of blood, which is supposed to impart an automatic same-ness. Unfortunately, this only shakes out to arrogance for many, denying the quirks of psychology, chemistry, and the unique impact of trauma--even if minor, or explainable as something benign--on a mind too young to fully comprehend the nature of the experience. Even without abuse in the home, anyone can have a child less like themselves than they could have ever imagined, for reasons beyond their own control. In all this, the child is innocent, and it is the duty of the parent to prioritize the child's feelings, over the vanity of wanting an heir to your own best qualities. Wiebke sacrifices not only her vanity, but potentially her very life, to show Raya love. When this blood sacrifice does not work, Wiebke finds herself facing the realm of alternative belief as a last resort.

The introduction of PELICAN BLOOD's folk horror element can seem a little left field, if you haven't noted the clues scattered throughout the film. Before the revelation of Raya's boogeyman, Wiebke begins to discover evidence of an old pagan tradition still being practiced around her proverbial neck of the woods. Soon, she tentatively entrusts herself and her child to a local witch, who puts them through a harrowing exorcism. Though the process is uncertain at first, its impact forces Wiebke into a direct acknowledgment of the entity harassing her daughter. And ultimately, it awakens in Raya a capacity for love.

While the reality of the supernatural in PELICAN BLOOD remains in question, I think the effect of this ambiguity is specifically meaningful. I usually scoff at any type of "was it all a dream?" nonsense, as this is a tactic employed by directors who think their greatest accomplishment should be getting one over on the audience. I don't see any inherent value in simply reversing the apparent meaning of things, just to make people feel stupid--and worse, this has trained modern audiences to try to defensively predict the least likely ending to any story, instead of just engaging with it emotionally as it plays out. For this reality-bending trick to be worth anything, one must be able to answer questions like, IF this was all a dream, THEN what meaning is added to the story?

In PELICAN BLOOD, the unresolved question of whether magic is real is of great relevance to the whole concept of belief. Human beings crave extranormal experience; we're deeply attracted to tales of ghosts, UFOs, mythical creatures, and parapsychological abilities. Even the skeptics among us enjoy arguing about these things, and many regular folks without eccentric interests read their horoscope "just for fun". Most telling of all is the enduring popularity of stories about the strange and unusual, which require no particular belief system from the audience; the fantasy of this extra dimension to our mundane lives is just so satisfying. Despite all the pleasure we get from these ideas, though, we tend to cling first and foremost to objective truth; we tell ourselves that if there is no "proof", then an outrageous thing cannot exist. But, this is actually contrary to many of our lived experiences. On the basest level, we delight at videos of insane parkour stunts, at the same time that we say these guys are "like" superheroes, but are actually just guys. My question is, what's the difference? If a person can achieve physical feats that most of us can never imagine attempting, then what difference does it make that this person was not bitten by a radioactive spider? If a fortune teller in a carnival is so good at "cold reading" strangers that she gives the effect of being able to read minds, then what is the appreciable difference between a carny and a "real psychic"? If a faith healer "just convinces" someone to become free from a chronic ailment, and the patient goes on to live a happier life, who cares if no "real magic" was in evidence? What is the difference between exorcism and hypnosis, if the end result is the same for a seriously disturbed child and her mother? The only difference appears to be some material confirmation of specific mystical forces and substances--which, admittedly, would be exciting on its own--but this would still only be an alternative version of the events that led up to the same "miraculous" result. We only worry about the existence of God and magic because our definitions of these things tend to be limited to what we think of as literal and scientific. But, if the correct effects manifest themselves, then all that is purely cosmetic. Belief is real. Faith works.

[gamer--grill]

Catherine: Full Body game review. Spoiler alert!

Catherine: Full Body is a recreation of the original game Catherine made in 2011 by the game company Atlus, the same creators of the Persona games. It's a very story oriented platform puzzle game and follows the story of a man who's questioning his life and relationships.

Plot

So the story follows a man named Vincent Brooks, age 32, as he struggles with his hesitancy to commit to his girlfriend of 5 years Katherine and with the terrifying nightmares that plague him. At the very start of the game we meet Rin, formaly known as Qatherine, as she's running from her stalker in the streets. Vincent saves her and finding that she has amnesia and doesnt know anything about herself, she gets a job at the Stray Sheep playing piano, she is also Vincent's new neighbor.

2nd, we meet Catherine, a young, sexual blonde who comes into the Stray Sheep and has a drink with our protag. Vincent gets drunk out of his mind and in the morning he wakes up with Catherine naked beside him. He freaks the fuck out and here starts the love square as he struggles to hide his infidelity from both Katherine and Catherine while dealing with his growing affections for Rin.

Gameplay

The real meat of this game is in the nightmare segments. Every night you're transported to a world where you have to climb a tower of cubes before they fall out from under you and you become a heaping plate of sheep meat. And what they don't tell you about the puzzles is THEY ARE HARD, OH MY GAWD! If you play on hard or even normal be ready to throw your controller out the goddamn window and question your life choices bc if puzzles aren't for you then you're gonna have a bad time.

The game's puzzle segments have improved greatly with an additional difficulty setting called Safety where it's impossible for you to die, there's no timer so the floor doesn't fall out from under you, and you have an auto play and skip options so if you're feeling lazy you can have the game play its self or just skip the puzzle entirely. There's also a back camera so if you need to climb to the back of the puzzle you can actually see what you're doing instead of scrambling around like a sheep with its head cut off. The trap blocks are also disabled in Safety mode. After you get to the top of each block tower you'll come to a platform where you can save, talk to people and buy items that help you climb (they bring down your score of you use them fyi.) After that you'll get into a confessioanal booth where you'll be asked a question where you'll have to answer either 1 extreme or the other. This is the main thing that will determine the outcome of the game. This game has multiple endings and depending on what you choose that will decide the ending that you get and the paths you take. There's a total of 14 endings in this game including alternate endings that are exclusive to Catherine: Full Body so this game makes up for its relatively short play time by having high replay value. They've also added new questions to the game so it won't be the same questions that you answered if you played the original Catherine.

There's an option called Remix where there's entirety new kinds of blocks in the puzzles to deal with, I didn't play that but it looked intersting.

Other than the nightmare parts of the game, you spend you're time at the Stray Sheep drinking, talking to you're friends, bar patrons and Rin. You freqently get txts on your phone from all 3 of the girls and unlike the original game you get phone calls now and pics from all of the women, not just Catherine 😈😈. The best thing about the bar is that it's entirely optional. There's no extra fluff you need to slog through. You can just skip entirely passed it if you don't feeling like drinking or talking but it's all so atmospheric that you'll want to do it. Plus drinking more helps you move faster during the puzzles so bottoms up, bitches. 🍸🍺🍻🍷🍹🍶

Character's

I'm only gonna cover the love intrests bc they're the only ones who matter really.

Qatherine (Rin)

Oh. My. God. I can't even begin to tell you how good her story is. Her genuine innocence, kindness and sincerity help Vincent greatly as he deals with the traumatic nightmares and his relationship problems. Early on we can really feel the affection that he has for her and it seems completely natural that they would fall in love. In fact later in the game he kind of admits that he did fall in love with her. This is how good it was, when I messed up and didn't give the right answers for her path to be unlocked I was so pissed off when the cutscene finally came that I would have shouted at my screen if my dad hadn't been sleeping next door to me. Rin also has a unique place in the game. Unlike the other 2, she actually appears in the nightmares and helps you by playing her piano. That added comfort she gives Vincent really adds to her relevance and pefectly supports the way to a loving relationship should you choose to persue one. She's the most fulfilling love option. She's also not human. Or a girl.

Katherine

Katherine is already your long time steady gf when the game begins. Mature and sensible, she almost resembles a mothering role with the protag. She's always worried about him and his drinking habbits and how clean his apartment is. But she's not without her soft side either. She brings him cake and wants to persue a deeper commitment with him. She's very smart and ambitious but also quite understanding when it comes to Vincent's bumbling clumsiness. She truely wants the best for him and their relationship. This is expanded by the memories that are shown to you about their early relationship when they first fell in love. Which didn't happen in the original game. She represents the security and familiarity that comes with having a long time relationship.

Catherine

Catherine isn't actually a human at all. She's a succubus who was brought to specifically temp the protag into a steamy affair. She's described as "his dream girl" and represents the fantasy and freedom that people secretly crave. She's appears unassuming and innocent on the outside but is actually very shrewd and aggressive as shown when she beats the shit out of Vincent in the bathroom of the bar if you choose to break up with her. She also threatens to kill you early on if you cheat on her. She's very emotionally vulnerable and actually falls in love with the protag as the game progresses. If you break up with her she'll beg to stay with you, stateing that "I just wanna be your girl." And that she's ok with you marrying some one else. Then she cries. Then beats you up. It's all very hilarious and strange. Also no one else can see her except Vincent which leads to chaos near the end of the game. Her endings are actually pretty nice so give her some consideration.

Graphics

As this is a ps4 game, it goes without saying that the graphics are better than the original. The cematics really have the polished Persona 5 look to them. The colors are super bright and vibrant it's like a feast for your eyeballs, I just love it. When you do get a loading screen, which isn't often, you get blasted with that signature vibrant pink and the title screen has a whole new look to it. The style is there and I am here for it.

Interesting stuff

These are just things I personally found awesome.

In the begining, the hostess Trisha (she explains the whole story and presents it to you as a soap opera) aknowleges that this game is the new better version of the first.

The cubes with faces on them open their eyes when you stand in front of them.

When you reply to txts in the bar, you don't have to cycle through options anymore, just scroll and select.

There's Persona music on the bars jukebox including the opening song to Persona 5

There's Persona 5 Easter eggs. Just look around. 😉

There's a rich Muslim dude who you get to talk to on the platform after you climb the puzzles so if you're concerned about "representation" it's there.

Overview 8.5/10

Catherine: Full Body is an intersting, unique and stylish game that brings a fresh new concept to gaming and I really recommend it. It's strange and it does what it does and it does it well bc it's not trying to please or pander to anyone. The story is good and the style is showy and I love it.

I hope that you enjoyed this review and that your gamming experience is a little better.

[darrowsrising]

You know, I will just throw questions back at you if you don't mind because I can finally scream with people! Tell me about your favorite RR characters aswell, please? ♥

I never mind people asking me things about RR. I love this series with my heart and soul and everything in between. Also, stop apologizing to me about long posts regarding RR, I love them and I have lots of long rants to confirm that.(don’t search for them, they are full of spoilers…and my distaste for Dancer and Roque!) Also, I’ll try not to spoil the fun for you…

Darrow:

My absolute favourite. I love him to bits, he’s my precious, murderous baby! I’d start a #DarrowDefendingSquad or a #DarrowPreciousMurderousBabyBoy, but that’s not my style. Or his style for that matter. He can take care of himself, 75% of the time…the other 25% is not really up to him (it’s a combo of his friends and pure luck).

Jokes aside now, Darrow’s feelings and realness always got to me. When I started reading Red Rising I was 17 and I was recovering from a very bad…burnout (I went to see a psychologist and she told me that I was hurting emotionally from many bad things happening at once, but it wasn’t like…depression or anxiety per se). His feelings, whether it was rage or kindness or anything in between, were so valid to me. He reminded me that it’s perfectly alright to have confidence in yourself, to go after what you want, to be proud of yourself, to love again (friends, lovers, whatever) and many other things. I was at my lowest then and he showed me that ambition is not a dirty word, that confidence in yourself isn’t a bad thing and even if these things intimidate the people around you, they are valid and you shouldn’t be ashamed of despicting such things.

That made me relate to him a lot. I still find myself (whenever I revisit the books) being like “mood” or “same” or “that’s my boy” or “my pride and joy” or “Hail Reaper” at many of his thoughts, actions and one liners. I will always love him, although he is very thick headed sometimes and that’s annoying.

Mustang:

She is my favorite female character. I love the fact that despite growing up with Nero au Augustus as a father and Adrius as a twin, she is still kind. She is also fair, open-minded and highly intelligent. And strong in more ways than one. I love that she is multi-faceted (although haters think she is bland and 2D…Pixies, where? Did we read the same books?) and despite her family and the way she was brought up, she finds it hard to pretend and is mostly genuine (unless she has a plan). I love how she doesn’t give (to use Sevro’s terminology) two squirts of piss over the title of heir of House Augustus, although she’s more than capable to fill in the spot. But she’s more concerned with making the world a better place (she is a Reformist and although the story follows Darrow more, that is a big deal giving that she tried to make laws to help other Colors including the banning of the Board of Quality Control). I love how she is a logical person, yet she sacrifices a part of herself for her family, because she is human and bound to do illogical things. I love how, despite loving her family so much, she often goes against them, because it’s the right thing to do. I love how she is underestimated and she just spits (not literally) in their faces. I just love how she is a fighter, a politician, a leader, because we rarely see females like that. 

Sevro:

Sevro is a breath of fresh air. He is who he is without warning labels and apologies. He is a survivor, a loyal friend (very rare kind), a badarse. He is amazing. His existence is a defiance and I love it, although that resulted in a lonely childhood. I love him to bits tho, because he also shows how good it is to be yourself and like yourself despite everything. He is very sweet despite being a hard arse and his insults always leave me very impressed. It’s obvious that at the Institute, he just wanted to survive and get a modest job (like Fitchner - thing which Fitchner probably encouraged), but he started to see Darrow and his behavior with the others and he wanted to make friends. And when Darrow became his friend - his only real friend until then - it made him want more, dream for more. And I just love that. I love how Sevro evolved and how he protects his friends - Howlers included. The only thing I’m not a fan of is his hygene…and his pornographic collection of holoFilms.

Victra:

Victra is a warrior, an heiress and a business woman. She kicks arse, takes names and simply slays. I love that there is more to her than meets the eye (although I don’t trust NerdsTM to appreciate her like she deserves). I love how bad arse and loyal she is. I love how she enjoys life and all it entails. I love that she lets herself be vulnerable in public and it makes her courageous. I love how open she is about herself, yet she is still mysterious. I love the fact that she never lies and she loves jade jewelry and displaying her scars like jewelry and the smell of the air before the rain hits the ground. 

Fitchner:

I feel like Fitch is way too underrated. He was fairy chosen to be Rage Knight -  a position Lorn filled which only makes it legendary and harder to get. He beat Proctor Jupiter and Tactus’ eldest brother - which I hope is Tharsus, because Apollonius is in my graces atm. Not only that, he created the Sons of Ares, he lead them and infiltrated into the Society’s highest ranks to destroy it from the inside and build something better. It was his plan, his sacrifices, his dream. There would be no Rising without Fitchner. Not even Sevro, but hey, it’s not like the guy would say something like “The entire world should thank me for Sevro - he came from my sperm, ok, my swimmers made the little Goblin. You’re welcome!”…when we all know Sevro’s enemies would rather curse Fitchner’s balls for helping create their doom…

Getting back on track, Fitchner was the okay-est Proctor and one of the best characters.

Adrius: (no, it’ not an unpopular opinion, here we love Adrius)

I believe Adrius is the best villain hands down. There are no excuses for his actions, he is a genocidal maniac with daddy issues. He looks at people like they are objects, not human beings, he has no compassion and has no knowledge of empathy. And I love him. I give him sympathy, because he is a monster, but he was made that way. Although he displayed terrifying behavior from a young age, his fall towards evil could have been avoided if his father gave two (2) fucks about him. I love his relationship with Darrow and how they were rivals, then sort of allies, then…you’ll find out. I just love how Adrius was written. He is really great as a villain. I hate what he did to Darrow, tho. When he killed Nero I was happy for him, but no one touches Darrow, so that was his worst move ever. Like…Pixie, you just signed your death warrant, stay away from Mustang’s Bitc- Boo!

The Telemanuses: 

All of them are amazing! Much love to all of them! They deserve the world! I include Niobe, Thraxa and Xana, but that’s all I’m going to say, because you need to read for yourself to believe me.

Cassius: (long stoty, because i didn’t really like him at first)

You know what? I disliked Cassius as much as Darrow did first time he saw him…too annoyingly perfect. And after what Darrow endured it felt like a disgrace to see an entitled little Pixie dance his way on marble corridors at the expense of so many Colors. As the story progressed, Cassius’s entitled arse didn’t improved and the most annoying part was him bragging about the death he claimed. I know he did it to make people talk and find out who killed Julian, but that doesn’t make him right. The 49 other people killed in the Passage were just as innocent as Julian. He made the death of the person he killed sound cheap. Even Antonia had more respect towards that. And Titus made it worse, but that gets off tracks. I understand his pain. If someone would have killed my sister in the Passage, it would have sworn revenge too. But the painful thing is that Cassius saw only Julian’s death, Julian didn’t deserve to die. But that is also true for all the other people who got murdered in the Passage. They didn’t deserve to die either, but you don’t see anyone going at Mustang or Sevro with blood oaths to murder them. The whole system is fucked up and must be changed. Killing Darrow might be a thing of honour, but honour doesn’t bring back Julian.

The fact that he lied to everyone that Darrow was killed by Adrius to claim his spot as Primus of Mars wasn’t good publicity either. And then, he got to be even more of a Pixie in Golden Son. But it was Mustang who convinced me to give him a chance. Because she was the one who revealed that Cassius is conflicted, that he regrets losing not one brother, but two. That he suffers, but tries to do his duty to his family and honour them. Bit by bit, I was open to seeing Cassius from this perspective, so I gave him lots of benefits of the doubt. Until he killed Fitchner and all I wanted was to see his head on a spike turned ugly by gore and maggots. Then Morning Star happened and I went from: fuck Cassius (and not in a nice way) to Bloodydamn finally, Pixie, you made me so proud. Then, we got Iron Gold and man, if something happens to him I’ll kill all the Gold families of the Rim and then that bitch of a ward. 

I really love his character development. I can see that mine is an unpopular opinion everywhere in this fandom, given that even the author has a soft spot for Cassius (not that that stops him from making Cassius suffer even more), but yeah…that is the story of how I got late to the “We love Cassius” party. I’m being short on the good details, because I don’t want to spoil you, but I hope you understand.

Holiday and Orion:

They are amazing human beings and although they are side characters I love their contribution to the series. I love their personalities and talents and their overall no nonsense attitude. 

I’ll stop here, before we go off charts. Here are some honourable mentions in no particular order: Aja au Grimmus, Ragnar Volarus, Theodora, Matteo, Mickey, Tactus au Rath Valii, Lorn au Arcos, Apollonius au Valii Rath, Alexandar au Arcos, Rhonna of Lykos, Diomedes au Raa, Trigg ti Nakamura, Volga Fjordan.

[musictatertot]

Walking a mile in their shoes (Yang)

A previous post about Ruby and her character development up until the episode "So That's How it is" has lead to this! Yang is absolutely fascinating!

Let me know if you guys noticed anything I missed or if you think I have misunderstood/misinterpreted something (highly likely).

Yang Xiao Long

Out of every character in the show right now, Yang worries me the most. Her character development has been spot on and completely realistic, but not particularly in a good way. At least, not for the situation she is in.

Yang has been through some shit. Not even just recently, but her whole life. The feeling of abandonment that has followed her her whole life has never really gone away. In fact, it's only grown stronger.

In the first three volumes Yang was bullheaded, stubborn, energetic, and a large positive influence on her team. She had always been Ruby's cheerleader, pushing her to be more confident in herself and go for the gold! She was the main support pillar of Blake, working closely as her partner to make her feel safe and listened to. Those first three volumes we didn't really see many interaction between her and Weiss, but just because you aren't actively working to help someone doesn't mean you are not helping at all. Weiss is from a very tense, closed door kind of home. Yang, for all intents and purposes, was the Sparta kick to all closed doors she had never known was possible. Watching someone with that kind of confidence can be extremely inspiring, and I believe that might have been a strong portion of the respect the two clearly had for each other throughout those first three volumes, as shown in the two vs. two battle in the tournament.

Then Beacon fell and everything went wrong. Cinder was right to have them take out Yang the way they did (those rat bastards. I still love them as character portrayals but damn them!). Yang was the unshakeable foundation. She held absolute belief in herself because she had worked her damned hardest to be able to feel that way. She made sure her team, her family, saw her as someone they could depend on. Someone who was strong enough, and good enough, to defeat anything in their way.

Mercury and Emerald took that from her. I know we all place pretty much all of the blame for Yang's emotional turmoil right now on Adam (and rightfully so that dick) but I don't think we should forget that directly before that she had already been shaken down to her core beliefs. For a moment there, her whole team had been against her. Not aggressively, no, but it was clear that they were horrified by her actions (false as they were but no one had known that yet).

Suddenly her role was gone. Ruby looked at her as though she were the one that needed supporting. Blake, for a heart wrenching moment, believed she could become a cruel person. And Weiss...

Weiss actually surprised me. For all of her troubles with Ruby and Blake before I had expected at least a small confrontational remark. Nothing major, she had clearly already grown and opened up some by that point, perhaps just asking her why she did it. Instead she was completely supportive of Yang, immediately believing that she had a reason for what she had done and that the reason was valid. I knew she had grown but at this moment I realized how much. Good job Weiss.

I think that was a strong starting point for the supportive relationship (romantic or platonic, I just love the interactions and really, really want to see more so you can choose for yourselves) that they begin to develop in the fifth volume.

Weiss withstanding, Yang was still at a loss. Then she hears about her mother from Qrow. I won't say it was a wrong call, I don't have enough experience with either of their emotional states to say if it would have been better to remain silent or not, but it is factually accurate to say that Yang was in a very emotionally vulnerable state when she got the news.

Mentally vulnerable, mentions of absent mother thus bringing a strong reminder of those heavy abandonment feelings, Beacon falling, loosing an arm (another huge part of who she is) and then Blake leaves.

If the tournament had gone well, or at least Yang had been left alone, I feel like Yang would have reacted a bit differently about Blake's disappearance. She still would have been upset, absolutely, but the strong stab of betrayal she had felt would have been lessened. At least, I believe so. Too much had happened, she couldn't think about why Blake had left. Only that she had.

Thoughts of abandonment had already been on her mind. The situation exacerbated that and tore what little mental defenses she had left down. Losing her arm was, no doubt, an extreme blow to her core. The mental manipulation just added twice the impact.

(I actually think she should be equally, or maybe even more so in some cases, vengeful towards Emerald and Mercury, but I can see how the actual physical trauma has overwritten what they did in her mind a fair bit)

As such, I was supremely impressed when she was able to pull herself up again, and in such short time too! I know it was months covered in the fourth volume, but things like that can take up to years to even to begin making strong progress in. She wasn't completely stable, of course not, something like that doesn't just go away (and CRWBY you are gosh darn amazing for keeping that in mind you loveable masterminds) as shown by her shaking hand in tense situations and outbursts of anger whenever she is questioned but she was taking strong steps forward. She was trying, and really, that's all I wanted for her.

Honestly, I think at this point she has genuinely moved on from the trauma of what Adam has done to her (not the feelings they inflicted, but the trauma of it), taking that pain to make herself stronger, but she is still struggling immensely with what Mercury and Emerald did to her. This is especially worse because I don't think she even realizes that there is a problem that needs to be addressed (Jinn, can we please have some more questions please? We need a therapy circle, stat).

There are a lot of different ways to process trauma. It all depends on the person and what works for them! For the trauma with Adam Yang has turned her pain and fear into vengeance and anger again. Awesome for her, she's moving forwards! Unfortunately, by not paying attention to the mental attacks she suffered she is using those same tactics against those without fully being aware. In volume five it was not quite as noticeable, a few moments here and there (shouting at Ruby and Weiss, losing her cool when asking about her mother being turned into a raven), but I especially noticed it in her character songs. Especially "Ignite".

Yang's songs have always been about self assuredness, fighting, and unwavering confidence. These were still there, and I loved it.

There was also a lot more... aggression. "I Burn" as well as "Armed and Ready" were about fighting and fighting back against an oppressive force. "Ignite" was a bit more brutal. Slowly but surely her actions are taking on more violent means. She has always been a fighter, so violence is par for the course, but the line in particular in "Ignite" that caught my attention was "Didn't mother warn you, now she's going to mourn you". Several other lines follow this thread and I can clearly see that her anger and bloodlust is on the rise.

Not necessarily a bad thing, when fighting enemies. Not a great thing when it is directed at the people closest to you as well.

I adore Yang, but I am growing increasingly worried about her more constant bouts of anger. They are valid reasons for anger, but she is losing the restraint she once had. My main case in point is when her, alongside Weiss and Blake, turned their weapons on Qrow.

Weiss and Blake I can understand. They don't know Qrow. All they know is that he is extremely loyal to Ozpin so of course they would be wary of him approaching Ruby when she stands against him.

Yang, however, knows better. She's known Qrow even longer than Ruby, and his actions were clearly pacifying. Standing between him and Ruby, sure. Letting him know you stand with her, even if he disagrees. Pointing her weapon at him, that's too much. That is a reaction without thought, which is becoming more common.

I also find Yang acting more and more like, well, a rebellious teenager. Teenagers go through a hormonal period where it is literally almost impossible to see things from a point of view different from their own, particularly when they are upset. Everyone has it at different times in their lives ranging from preteens to even their early twenties, but it is still a process of growth. It is very egocentric, very normal, and a very bad time for it.

Yang has no patience anymore. She is acting hypocritically more and more often. Being angry at Ozpin for hiding things is natural, and I expected it. But the amount of anger she held and self righteousness she showed was at odds with her own secrets regarding Raven. Protecting her mother is something I empathize with, but Raven is also a Maiden. If you're going to get mad at someone for hiding things about the fight you are in, you should be aware enough that you are doing the same. She is not; this the teenage egocentrism.

Even during Jinn's story about Ozpin's past, Yang's expressions were more often anger than anything else. And not really anger at anyone other that Ozpin. She can not break herself from her original thoughts that he can not be trusted, regardless of his reasons.

I am especially worried about her thoughts on her mother now. Because she did not trust a word her mother said, but as it turns out not everything she had said was a lie. This, almost scarily often, had the ever present thought of "what else was she right about". Now I am worried that her mind will make that emotional leap of distrusting Ozpin so much that she believed everything her mother said. She still is angry and hateful for the abondment but now there is a valid reason for it. Her mother abandoned her for a reason, and that reason is currently locked away inside a lost farmer boy.

Im hoping Weiss or Ruby is able to get through to her. I wish it could be Blake, but with the previous abandonment and Yang's feelings about it I don't think she will really be willing to listen to what Blake has to say while her emotions are still high. Ruby has a very special connection to her and has the best luck of making her step back, but I think Weiss has the best chance of making her reflect. Speaking from experience it is kind of hard to take when you get a younger sibling's criticism for you choices. It's both a matter of pride and a matter of you, being the oldest, are supposed to be taking care of them and showing them the best way. I hope it will be Ruby who makes her take a step back, Weiss who makes her reflect, and Blake who listens and supports thus bridging the gap between them and restoring that trusting relationship Yang desperately needs.

I love Yang. I hope she looks in and works to help herself soon, before she does something she will regret.

[dxmedstudent]

*sensitive content* Do you know anyone who were sexually assaulted? A few days ago on holiday I was ( I don't know whether it was attempted or an actual rape) he essentially penetrated but not completely because I started crying. I said No beforehand to sex but was willing to do other stuff (I was also very drunk) and don't remember much of the night. I don't know what to think or how to react to the entire situation because I've never been in such a situation since I've been blessed. Part1

My friends feel guilty and tried their best to stop me going but I was stubborn and hence really really blame myself. They still feel guilty and don't know what to say or how to talk to me about it and i just feel so alone. I'm relieved he didn't completely go in but still feel taken advantage of and hate that i have to live with this for the rest of my life. I want to think I can move on from it and heal from it completely but reading stuff online, apparently this is permanent.

**WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL ABUSE**

I’m so, so sorry that this happened to you. It shouldn’t have, and it’s not fair, and it’s not right. And there will only ever be one person to blame for this; the person who sexually assaulted you when you were, as you say, very drunk, and made it clear you didn’t want penetrative sex. Many, many people experience sexual assault over the course of their lives; the figure is something like 1 in 4 women. We ALL know lots of people who have been sexually assaulted. It’s just not something most people talk about, so it’s not very obvious. It comes out when people trust you, and when they feel ready to share their stories. There are lots of stories out there we never hear because people are afraid of judgement or abuse if they share their experiences. A lot of us are taught to blame ourselves, and I don’t feel that I have any authority to order you not to, when that is the first thing most of us do whenever anything bad happens to us, even when we are victimised by others. But you are not to blame, and I don’t think it’s fair or kind to you if you blame yourself. There will be a lot of feelings for you to unpack, and it may take a while for you to really understand how you feel about it all. That is not unusual.It’s not 100% true that things feel the same forever; our feelings are complex and evolving, and we all process trauma differently with time. We can’t undo what happened, and many events, including assault can have a big impact on us; I don’t want to minimise that. But what happened to you was very recent, and it’s hard to tell how it will affect you in the future. But things can and do get better.  I recommend seeking help; counselling or therapy can be an important part of working through difficult feelings. Every person deals with things differently, and so there’s no one answer for ‘how will this affect me in the future’. You don’t have to go it alone, though. It’s OK to take someone with you, if you need to.

Everyone is different, being sexually assaulted can affect people in different ways, and there’s no ‘right’ way to deal with the fallout. You’re not ‘weak’ if you go to pieces. When people we trust mistreat us, it can make us feel that it was our fault, and hurt our minds as well as our bodies. That’s why therapy or counselling (or medical treatment, if there’s PTSD, depression, anxiety) can be really helpful. Please don’t suffer alone. You are more than what happened to you, and you are worth fighting for. You are not dirty or broken or damaged because of what happened; the only person sullied by such an act is the rapist. To answer your question, one of my best friends was emotionally and sexually abused by her then boyfriend, before I knew her, and it left a lot of scars for her to deal with for a long time. But she’s made a lot of progress in terms of how she processes what happened. It doesn’t make what happened OK, and she is still sometimes triggered by stuff, and still has a lot of things to work through. But she’s better than how she was, and she doesn’t blame herself any more. I know people who were abused by partners who went on to have new partners and loving, mutually fulfilling consensual sex, it doesn’t define your body or your sexuality, or your future relationships. Depending on what happened, and the fallout, recovery can sometimes be more difficult and there are all sorts of factors that go into how people cope afterwards. Everyone is different. I’m glad that your friends are trying to help, though it’s clear that it’s a very hurtful situation for you, and therefore it’s hard for them to know what to do/say.  It can help to talk to people you trust/love about it. Sometimes talking to parents, to friends, to people we trust helps. And usually those people try hard to support us, perhaps not perfectly, but they do their best. However, sometimes people aren’t very understanding or kind about people who have been victims of sexual assault. No matter what anyone says, it was never your fault, you weren’t asking for it, and you aren’t alone. I don’t know if you’ve considered seeking legal advice; I don’t know whether I can ever recommend going to the police, because the way that victims are treated by police varies so much in different countries, and sometimes it’s not the best option for victims at that time in their lives. If you are somewhere where there’s a realistic chance of them helping, it might be an option for you to consider, and evidence usually has to be collected as soon as possible. However, going to the police is also a very draining process and lots of people can’t countenance it at the time. I also want to remind you that, perhaps further down the line, it would be a good idea to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, even though things didn’t happen for very long; it’d put your mind at ease from that point of view.

I really hope you feel better, soon. I hope you are surrounded by people who understand and support you, and I hope the hurt fades. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’d be happy to hear from you. I’m so sorry, anon, you deserve so much better than what happened to you.

[blackxwolfy]

Day 8 of the rest of my life

Damn I swear I never thought it would come to this. I would never have imagined it, or even thought it possible, even for a second. How is it possible? I never thought our story would be over, but it is. I thought and hoped we would last forever. I didn’t see this as our future. I still believe we are soul mates. Losing you feels like losing a part of me. I will always love you, miss you, want you! I'm already trying to deal with hurt feelings and bouts of anger. I care about our relationship. Otherwise our argument wouldn't have mattered to me and I wouldn't be taking the time to write this. I can't help but remember all the good times we've shared. I've treasured our talks and how we have discovered our many shared interests. I've surprised myself by being able to express my love for you easily. In a significant way, you taught me how to say those three important words that I had once thought I would never be able to say sincerely but they were and are sincere. As our relationship has progressed and become more intimate, the word "love" has become a natural part of my vocabulary but you broke me, you broke us. I can't say it more plainly than that. I feel as if I had been punched and knocked over and I fell down emotionally. Please say it was just a poor choice of words or bad timing or unintentional or something ! I don't think you can imagine how much it hurt me, but I don't want to continue feeling this way. Please help me understand what happened so we can put it behind us and move forward. I need hope. Why can’t you be that person to me? Why can’t you let me love you? If you won’t let me love you, at least let me hate you completely. I can’t go on loving and hating you at the same time. The tension inside me is building, and I’m feeling like I’m about to implode ... 

I cant take it anymore ..

[verdigrisprowl]

Ignored

Set after this thread. Prowl and Tarantulas have a rather unpleasant conversation about the state of their relationship, and particularly Tarantulas’s insecurities therein; and Prowl is honestly too exhausted and shaken from Bonecrusher's breakdown to contribute much of value. Some small progress is made, but nobody leaves happy.

Tarantulas

No ping, no greeting - just a comm.

«Did I mention the glitch isn’t in the boot sequence? Because it isn’t. I need the rest of the coding. Please.»

Prowl

Straight to business, huh?

Well. Probably for the best, wasn’t it? Certainly more efficient that way.

Prowl sent about two-thirds of the rest of the coding, and none of the actual avatar data. Parts of the coding were highlighted.

«This is all that I activated before I had to shut it off yesterday, and it still caused the leaguers to show up. So the problem is somewhere in here. Since the open portal isn’t persistent—otherwise, they could just walk back out, or other people would walk through—it’s going to be something that activates once during the boot-up rather than something that remains active and is referenced persistently, so those are the parts I’ve highlighted.»

Tarantulas

A few seconds of dead silence, then: «...You didn’t need to do that. Primus, you could have just sent me the whole program instead of chopping it to bits and feeding it to me piecemeal. Why are you so intent on - on -»

Prowl

«Why do you need the whole program when I can tell you, with 98% confidence, that the problem you need to find is in this portion?»

Tarantulas

«Because you're keeping things from me and coddling me, when you could just trust me and let me handle the problem myself!» Tarantulas spat the words bitterly. «But no, you want as little to do with me as possible, I get it. You're dead set on shutting me out, Primus damnit.»

Prowl

A moment—a long moment—of silence.

«... You're mistaken. And I'm—confused.»

Tarantulas

«If I'm so mistaken, then prove me wrong. Give me evidence to the contrary, because all I'm seeing now is you blatantly, repeatedly, and dismissively rebuffing and ignoring me whenever it suits you, in favor of literally anything else.» And by "anything" he mostly meant "Soundwave."

Prowl

«I...» Helpless silence. «... When? I don't... I know I missed that you were trying to get my attention at the movie. But... when else? What did I do?»

Tarantulas

«Don't give me that. Not only did you quote-unquote "miss" my multiple attempts at getting your attention - you obviously did not care once both Soundwave and I pointed it out. In fact, you had the bolts to push me away, and then fled when I rightfully got upset about it. And no, this isn't the first time this has happened, though I'm loathe to go drudging through old memories that'll only raise my ire even more. If you absolutely must have receipts, I will do it though.»

Prowl

«... I did miss them. I completely missed them. And I am sorry I missed them. I am. But it wasn't deliberate, and I do care that it bothered you. I...» He falters for a minute; but then forces himself to continue, "I was tired. I know you're sick of hearing that. But being tired means being too—too mentally addled to pay attention to already sub-normal tactile input, or however you were trying to get my attention—were you talking to me, too? I don't know. I honestly don't know.

«Yes, I left—I was making you upset and you were becoming irate, of course I left, I was hardly in a mental state to—undo whatever the hell I did.» He isn't in a mental state NOW to undo whatever the hell he did. He still hasn't slept. He's so tired.

«I have no idea what that means.»

Tarantulas

«I know you were tired, you don't have to tell me a million fragging times. That doesn't forgive it, when you just up and leave instead of at least - at least telling me what's going on! Just a tiny sliver. You're shutting me out. And don't tell me you simply didn't have the energy - I just know you were talking with Soundwave the whole fragging time over comms, by the way. Don't try to hide it.»

Prowl

«I know you know. I know. And I don't want or expect you to forgive me for it. I just— I want— I want you, to...» He sighed, and rubbed his face. Words, words. Say it correctly this time. «... I'm not telling you I'm tired because I think, that... gets me out of trouble, or something? If I'm in trouble. I don't know if I am and that's not what I care about. I keep saying it because I'm... trying to... I want you to understand that, I haven't... I haven't looked at you and decided that you aren't worthy of my attention. At no point did I make a decision that I don't feel like acknowledging you. I thought... I don't know. I thought that might help.» It just sounds stupid now.

Silence. "… when you just up and leave instead of at least - at least telling me what's going on!" Was that Tarantulas saying he wants Prowl to explain why he up and left? Or, if Prowl explains why he up and left, will Tarantulas get mad at him for making excuses? Dammit. He rubs his optics. «Okay. I'm going to— I don't know if you're implying that you want me to explain why I up and left, or if explaining why I up and left will come across as making excuses, and I'm—» Scared of getting it wrong? Scared he's going to make Tarantulas more angry or upset in the process of attempting to undo whatever damage he'd caused? Trying to talk around what felt like a knot of wires in his vocalizer trying to short-circuit his voice? «... I'm going to wait until you clarify it, so I don't mess up again.» Coward.

«Yes. I was speaking with Soundwave. I've— I haven't been hiding that. I said I...» He falters, and trails off. Tarantulas doesn't want to hear him repeat himself.

Tarantulas

Tarantulas felt a rush of emotion - he wasn't sure what - boil over in his chest. «It - it wasn't even intentional, is what you're saying. So you're saying you didn't have to decide I wasn't worth your attention. It may as well be automatic by now. Hyah.»

Whatever emotion it'd been, that flash, that rush - it was immediately doused and drowned out by what Prowl said next. "... so I don't mess up again." That - that could mean so many things. What should Tarantulas say to that? What could he say?

«I would like to know why you left, yes.» At this point Tarantulas wasn't sure he'd like it, but he felt he needed to know.

Prowl

«N...» How does he say no to that? Everything about the denotation was wrong; but the words themselves were, in a literal sense, correct. It wasn't intentional; he didn't decide Tarantulas wasn't worth his attention; he did, automatically, not have the capacity to recognize that somebody was physically poking at him. These were correct facts. They were all wrong but they were correct facts, and how did he get around— How was he supposed to— He jammed the heels of his palms against his optics.

«... I...» ... He couldn't explain why he'd left, could he? Because he'd already explained it once. «... You don't want to hear me repeat myself.» He can only say any given thing once, or Tarantulas will be upset that he's repeating himself.

... He has to wonder if it's deliberate. If Tarantulas decided to reject or ignore the first time Prowl tries to explain himself, demand an explanation, and then express rage when he hears the same explanation a second time. What's the objective? Is cutting Prowl off from re-sharing the truth he shared the first time intended to force him to change his story until it becomes one Tarantulas accepts? Is it to shut him up entirely?

Was all of this deliberate?

Tarantulas

Dead silence hung between them for a while. Prowl hadn't said anything truly substantial, but somehow his lack of words seemed to speak for him. Either that, or Tarantulas's mind filled in the gaps for him instead.

«I - I don't. I really - I really don't, if the answer's going to be the same again and again. Because right now it just - it just sounds like - I know you've claimed that you care, that you're sorry, but -»

Tarantulas didn't feel it. He didn't see it. It didn't click. And the more Prowl floundered, the more Tarantulas felt like pulling away.

Prowl

«I don't—I don't know what I did. You said I've—done this before, but refused to tell me when or how—you said you'd—get mad if I asked, and—I don't want that, so I can't ask—you get upset when I explain myself because, I guess because it's not good enough, or else you ignore the explanation—then you get upset if I—try to clarify that explanation—because then it's either 'repeating myself,' or it's—it's whatever worst possible interpretation you can spin, and I can't correct it, because correcting it is repeating myself—but if I don't explain, you're upset because I didn't—I—what's the corner you're trying to back me into, Tarantulas? Where are you trying to make me stand? I'm—bad at picking up hints, I don't—I don't know where you're trying to make me stand. I'll stand there, just show me where.»

Tarantulas

«I'm - I-I'm not -»

Tarantulas may have felt emotionally doused before, but he was definitely drowning now. There was too much. Too much to parse. And if this was what Prowl was thinking - well, nevermind that, Prowl was wrong. Tarantulas wasn't trying to back him anywhere. He wasn't.

«You won't believe me if I say I'm not trying to manipulate you right now, will you. You can't - you can't take me at my word. Because - I don't make sense, do I. I see. That's fair. That's entirely fair. I'm - I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Prowl, I - I'm sorry.»

Prowl

Silence.

Then, thickly: «Then—if you're not—then—what am I doing wrong? I'm—going by the rules you established—don't ask about whatever else I did, don't repeat myself—it's not working. I'm making it worse.»

Tarantulas

«You're - you're not. It's -»

This wasn't going well. It hadn't been going well, not since the end of the movie, when Prowl had shown up at Dancitron. And that, even then, didn't feel like the start of it. Tarantulas couldn't possibly pin it down.

Especially now, he suddenly felt as if... he'd broken Prowl. As if he'd been holding something gorgeously, intricately fragile in his paws and twisted his wrist just so and shattered it. This was Prowl, Primus damnit. Prowl. And Tarantulas was doing this to him. He was throwing awful scathing words at him and hoping they burnt him like acid, as if Prowl deserved that. As if -

No. Tarantulas shouldn't get carried away. Prowl was waiting on the line - and hadn't he asked Tarantulas not to go silent unexpectedly without giving word of what was going on? Tarantulas had just broken something; he shouldn't make things worse by frightening Prowl more.

«I'm still here.» A shaky pause. «You're not doing anything wrong. You're just - doing what I told you to do, which makes it my responsibility. Not yours. I'm -sorry.»

Prowl

His fingers dug into his helm as he waited for Tarantulas to say something—he was still on the line—just say something. His shoulders sag when Tarantulas finally speaks again.

«... Then what should I do?»

He's messed up so much lately—he messed up with Bonecrusher, he messed up with Mixmaster, he messed up with Hook, and not only did he mess up yesterday with Tarantulas, he is continuing to mess up right now, and furthermore he has apparently been systematically messing up with Tarantulas for a long time without even realizing it. How much has he done wrong that he needs to undo? «I just want to get this right.» He's bound and determined to get it right.

Tarantulas

«So do I.» Tarantulas's voice was weak now, nervous. «I - don't know what to tell you. Apparently my directions before were faulty, so I'm probably not the best one to say where we ought to go from here. I feel like - like if you were smart you'd probably just hang up on me, but like I said, don't listen to me, I'm - I'm not the authority here.»

Prowl

«I—That's—what I tried, when—» No. He'd said that already. «... I need to... I can't say anything if I can't repeat myself. I'm—sorry.»

Tarantulas

«You can, if you have to. Screw the damn rules. I... I didn't even mean them as rules anyhow. I didn't.»

Prowl

A deep vent. «That's why I left. You wanted to know why I left. I was—trying to be smart. I knew you were upset. I—knew that I'd make it worse. I'd upset you more—like I'm doing now. So—better to leave. Correct? Less suffering.»

Tarantulas

A sound that was almost a whimper. «No, Prowl, no, no. That's - you can't know you'd've made it worse. You definitely made it worse by leaving, I can tell you that much, I - can't you see? Can't you see what I'm even upset about?» Choked desperation was sneaking into his voice. «It doesn't make any sense to leave if you've been - if I feel ignored. It just - reinforces the fear. Prowl, I need an antidote, not hospice. Not abandonment, not - leaving. Don't leave. Please, never just up and leave me, Prowl.»

Prowl

«... I know leaving made it worse. But that harm is—is finite. It happens and then it stops. When I stay—and try to do something, it just keeps getting worse. Like now. Last conversation wasn't as bad as this one.

«I can't promise I'll never—never leave a room until you're ready for me to go. That's too much from me. That's past what I can offer. To anyone, ever.»

Tarantulas

«It may be finite, but it's so deep, Prowl, and it doesn't stop. At least a conversation still has the potential to get better, doesn't it? To mitigate. To soothe. Repair, what have you. Leaving just - breaks it. Severs things, and never cleanly. I - personally, I'd take the chance. The chance that things could get fixed. Instead of the 100% rate of failure that leaving incurs.»

A pause. «That's... not exactly what I'd ask of you, Prowl, it's more like... don't up and leave me. Don't leave me hanging. You can go without my permission, I'm not going to take that from you, Primus, but - please, at least just...»

Prowl

«The potential to get better?» A choked, bitter laugh. It doesn't actually sound like a laugh. «You don't see me have many conversations, do you? A one hundred percent chance of a twenty percent mood drop is better than a ninety-nine percent chance of an eighty percent mood drop.

«What would you have done if—I'd said I was leaving, so I didn't make it worse? Try to talk me into staying, and be even more upset when I didn't? Convince yourself I thought I'd make it worse because—I really don't care? Nothing I said came out right—everything made you more upset—an explanation for leaving would be no exception.»

Tarantulas

«That's selfish. Assuming - assuming you always know what's best for someone else? Assuming you even know it's a 20% mood drop, or what its distribution or duration is? You have no idea, Prowl, you have - n-no idea.» Back in his lab, Tarantulas was clutching at his chest with a paw.

«I - I don't know what I would have done, but now? Now, I would take you seriously. I would honor your decision. I - don't really have any other choice, do I.» After a moment, another mumble trailed along. «...I don't... have the right to ask anything more, hyah. I'm... barely a friend, much less a datemate, or...» A heavy sigh. «What am I even thinking.»

Prowl

«I never assume. I calculate. And I—I know, my ability to calculate people, is subpar. I know the numbers are incomplete—and inaccurate. But—they're the only numbers I have. I can't run calculations with formulae I don't possess.

«"Now" doesn't matter. "Now" isn't yesterday. Your answer now is different than it would have been yesterday, because—because all this just happened.»

A shocked silence. «... No. That's... Why do you... What did I do, to—make you think—»

Tarantulas

«If your calculations are incomplete and inaccurate - isn't that assuming? Can't you - can't you just ask?» Tarantulas rubbed at his face, his paw trembling slightly. «And hypotheticals aren't useful, not like this. This - this changes things. You can't extrapolate from a point that's not in the same dimension.»

All of that flew from Tarantulas's mind as Prowl broke the silence with his last words. Prowl didn't think the same - but what did he think? What did those clipped phrases even mean? Tarantulas didn't want to hope too much.

«I - I don't know. Not you, you didn't do anything, it's - it's just how it is. Unless that isn't how it is, but I-I just feel like - I feel -» Tarantulas's shoulders were trembling now too. «How could you ignore one mech and engage like that with another and say you hold them on remotely the same level? And after all we've been through lately - the, the fights, the punishments, everything -»

Prowl

«No. It's not. There's a higher probability I'll be wrong, but at—at least I'm trying to be right. Asking doesn't work. Ask "will you be mad if I say this," then you have to say whatever it is you're asking them about. You have to decide on your own. Ask someone social questions and they get mad at you because you should have already known the answers, and they resent you for not knowing them well enough to already have the answers.

«If I didn't do something, then you wouldn't feel like this.» Cause and effect. Someone's always at fault, and it's usually the person who doesn't know what he's doing. «Because he was—» Prowl chokes on the words. No, no, no. That's Bonecrusher's business. That's only Bonecrusher's business. «Because I was there on business. I've—I've already said that. If that wasn't good enough for you the first time, I don't—know why it would be now. But it's true. I wasn't there to socialize.»

Tarantulas

«Ask them after the fact. Ask me how I felt when you left me at Dancitron. Ask me what it felt like when - when you hung up on me this-or-that time, or gave up on a situation, or refused to speak to me. Ask me, and I'll tell you, and you can use that data. Please.»

Hhh. Tarantulas had forgotten Prowl had said he was there on business... but... «...That doesn't negate the rest of what I said though, it's - why would I feel any other way about... H-how can I even put it? You don't... don't trust me. I - you - say you do love me, and I - I believe you, but I don't understand how that's possible without the trust, and where that even puts us. It's, it's...»

Anxiously Tarantulas scrambled around, searching for fragments to maybe, just maybe, support what Prowl was saying-but-not-saying. (Anything to rid himself of the thought that Prowl was just using the word "love" to bend him to his will.) The crawling under his plating abated a little when he realized - Primus. Well, part of it was right there in front of him, wasn't it. As pitiful as it sounded, the fact that Prowl was still talking to him after all, and hadn't left... he did care at least a little then, didn't he?

Prowl

A harsh, broken laugh. «Oh, that goes well. "Remember when we fought last night? The whole time—I have no idea how you felt. Could you tell me?" If you— When you ask that, people don't answer. They just hurt again, because—you should have known already. You should be able to, to, to—to look at them and know, automatically, like telepathy, how they feel. Because everyone else can do that. Everyone else except you. Tell someone you don't know how they felt, they don't—they don't assume you're missing a sense that everyone else has. They assume you don't care.»

... How does Prowl answer that? No, he doesn't trust Tarantulas. He wants to. But how can he? When Tarantulas is still lying to him? Prowl doesn't even know how often he lies, only that he caught him once recently. How many times has he missed?

«... Love and trust are separate functions.» What else can he say? «I don't— I don't like it.» He would far rather that love were impossible to feel without trust. «But they are. And, here we are.»

Tarantulas

«I'm talking about me, Prowl, me, not just any mech! I - I'm not sure exactly how to patch whatever missing sense it is, but it's - if I'm telling you to ask me, you might as well fragging try!» A small crack in Tarantulas's voice. «If you do care - that's, that's what you should do. Just listen to me, damnit.»

Tarantulas took a shaky moment to dwell on that though - separate functions? Really? They seemed inextricably bound together to him, unfortunately so. How could someone hold true affection for someone they couldn't rely on, someone who constantly broke their trust? Tarantulas had already accepted that he was an untrustworthy person, that much was true. How could Prowl love someone like that? What sort of distorted attraction must that be?

«...I don't - I just don't understand. I -» Momentarily Tarantulas choked. Maybe he should just shut up. Give up. Quiet down. It wasn't really his place to question Prowl's words, was it? «N-nevermind.»

Prowl

«... I thought I was listening. That's what I'm trying to...» Well, obviously, it isn't working, is it? «Then—how do you...» An irritated huff at himself. «I can't ask that—you've been telling me how you feel, right now. I'm going to—I sound like I—like I'm not listening. Just—know that I am listening, but—tell me how you feel.»

If Tarantulas didn't understand, how in the world was Prowl going to explain? «... Does—"nevermind" mean you don't want me to ask how you feel?»

Tarantulas

«You keep trying to explain, you - you interpret, you analyze, you do all sorts of things besides actually - actually...» A deep vent. Prowl was asking now, wasn't he? And he said he was listening. Well then. Where should Tarantulas even start?

It seemed like a million orns before Tarantulas was able to gather his thoughts again, but eventually... «N-no, Prowl, I want you to ask. The 'nevermind' was with regards to - other things.» A pause. «What I feel... I...

«When you left Dancitron, or - any of the times you've pushed me away, shoved me out. It's awful, Prowl, it pains me, nearly physically. And I know - outwardly I'm often frustrated, I'll admit, but - the hurt of it takes a second to kick in, like a sudden energon blade in my side. And then it lasts, and Primus almighty does it fester, too. Hours, days - however long, until you let me back in. Because if left to myself with no input, shut off, ignored - what else can I do with the pain but speculate why you decided to inflict it? Why I wasn't worth sticking around for, wasn't worth - worth including?» Tarantulas left off with another shaky vent, but the pause did little to help. Just - get this over with.

«...And you know what I think of, during those times, Prowl? What I feel then? I feel - so small. Sometimes - boxed, scolded, ignored, and... This might not make any sense, but most of all - inconvenient. As if your affection for me may be there, but it's misplaced, an irritant, a bother. You've got so much better... so, why? Why should you want this too? You don't need this.» A weak, tittering laugh. Really, Prowl, who in their right minds would even want an awful, untrustworthy, over-emotional, half-alien monstrosity in the first place? Not that Tarantulas was going to say that much aloud, but still.

Prowl

«... It's n...»

No. Tarantulas just said he doesn't want Prowl to explain. So don't explain.

What does that leave for him to say? Tarantulas doesn't want apologies unless they meet his criteria, and Prowl's too tired to figure out if any apology he could make could meet Tarantulas's standards. I don't want you to feel that way was just—worthless. It didn't do anything. It was little better than a whine. What's left for him to say? What options does he have?

«... Is that rhetorical?»

Tarantulas

After all that, Tarantulas couldn't help but laugh a little more. All that, and that was the question Prowl went for.

«You know, I'm not sure. If you do have an answer for it, go on - go right ahead. I - I want to hear it.»

Prowl

Dammit. «I—no. I was...» He was hoping the question was rhetorical, but obligated to check in case it wasn't.

This. This is why Prowl can't ask questions. This is why Prowl can't check and confirm. Because things like this happen. If he hadn't checked, the question would have been rhetorical. Because he checked, it no longer was rhetorical, and now Tarantulas will be hurt by a lack of an answer—and Prowl can't give an answer.

«I can't answer questions like that. I'll make it worse.»

Tarantulas

«But that means you have an answer. Are we really going to play that game, Prowl?» A sort of despair tinged Tarantulas's vocals. «So you're dead set on reinforcing restless ignorance instead of admitting a painful truth? Just - out with it, Prowl, I'm - I'm tired of this.»

Prowl

«I...»

Silence.

He can't even get his words to— Where did his vocalizer go? Function, dammit!

«N—» FUNCTION! «N—no, the truth isn't painful, but I c—I can't—I can't say it. I can't say—good things. They sound wrong. I ruin them. I can't.»

Tarantulas

Tarantulas wasn't sure whether to put his helm in his paws again or get up and start pacing. Why. Why did Prowl have to do this. Even if he didn't mean to, Prowl knew exactly how to twist Tarantulas's spark in the most bittersweet ways.

«You - you haven't even tried yet. Give it a chance - I'm asking you. Please. It's - I'm - I'm not a mind-reader either, Prowl. If you don't say it, I can't possibly know what it is in the first place, regardless of how it's delivered.»

Prowl

«I can't.» That was one thing he knew was true—one thing he could say confidently. His spark sputtered, his arms shook so hard he couldn't keep holding his hands to his face, his fuel tank threatened to turn inside out, at the mere thought of doing otherwise. «I can't. I can't.» Maybe if it had been any conversation but this one. Maybe if he'd had time to prepare—if it had been his choice—if he wasn't already so exhausted and nervewracked he felt like he was falling apart. But if he even tries to open his mouth to say what Tarantulas wants the best he might get to come out is a croak. «I can't.»

Tarantulas

Four times, Prowl had said it. Four times, an assertion that he couldn't say what he actually thought - felt? - and each time he asserted it, Tarantulas felt worse and worse. Not worse for himself, though. Worse for Prowl.

Since Tarantulas was hovering somewhere between crying and sighing, he just let the silence hang there for a bit. What could he even say? He'd let Prowl know how he felt, and now Prowl couldn't answer.

«...When - when do you think you could, maybe? Ever?»

Prowl

«I d...»

... Say something. Say something. Anything. Please say something. Don't make Tarantulas think you abandoned him again. Don't make him feel inconvenient. Don't make him feel like a burden. Say something. Just say something. Please say something. Please.

His processor fans were so loud he couldn't hear the outside world, and his head was still hot. He fumbled under his shin armor for his cache of magnets—he needed something else to focus on. The conversation was a labyrinth and he kept getting turned around and ending up farther from the exit, he can't keep going like this or he's going to fry his processor. He needed to refocus and try again—and fast.

It took him four times to get something out from under his armor. It was Tarantulas's magnets. Prowl stared at them.

And then, in a fit of uncalculated desperation, seized a snapshot of the magnets in his hand, HUD and all, and sent it to Tarantulas. There. A picture. A reason for Prowl to want Tarantulas. It's the smallest and least important reason but it's a start. Tarantulas's magnets in Prowl's hands, Prowl's HUD covering them with the arcing lines of magnetic fields and calculations about their strength.

Just, pay no mind to how fuzzy the edges of the picture are. Or the low fuel warning. Or the desperately low energy warning. Or the angry exclamation-point-in-a-triangle Processor Meltdown Imminent warning. He didn't have time to take those off the HUD.

Tarantulas

How could Tarantulas possibly ignore those? It took him a moment to fully register what the image was in the first place because of all the interference. In fact, the meaning behind the magnets was all but lost on him for now.

With a start, he leapt out of his seat, nearly yelling into his comm unit. « Prowl! Prowl, that's not 'tired,' that's - you're going offline you idiot -»

But what could Tarantulas do about it? Prowl probably wasn't going to listen to him if he told him to refuel and recharge - Tarantulas wasn't even sure Prowl could do it for himself at this point. And Tarantulas was forbidden from coming over, full stop. He could still try to go and face the consequences later, but -

Immediately Tarantulas shot a slew of pings at the Constructicons' communal commlink, attaching Prowl's HUD snapshot to the barrage. As much as he hated it, they'd have to be his first go-to here.

Prowl

The first thing Tarantulas got from the Constructicons was «FRAG OFF!»

The second thing Tarantulas got was «Seriously, frag off!»

Tarantulas

Nope, definitely not fragging off. Tarantulas still had Prowl on the other line, too, but had him muted now.

«Do you WANT Prowl to go offline? Primus, go get him a cube, please, or - is there something else you can do, maybe? I -»

Prowl

«If Prowl wants to fuel, he can fuel himself! He's been refusin' to eat. That's on him.»

«He knows how to feed himself and initiate a defrag.»

«Torque off, bug. We're dealin' with our own scrap, we can't deal with Prowl's too.»

Tarantulas

Refusing to eat? Dealing with their own scrap? What in the pits was going on over there?

«Why is he refusing to eat!? And why don't you care that he's on the edge of a meltdown - I - I've never even seen that warning before!» Alright, time to start pacing frantically. «I will come over if you all aren't going to help with this. Is that what you want?»

Prowl

«We don't know, he ain't tellin' us! He just stopped!»

«It means yer overwhelmin' him! That's what it means! Meltdown warnin' means leave boss the frag alone!»

Tarantulas

Tarantulas skidded to a stop. Wait, meltdown - a sort of mental meltdown? Was Tarantulas actually the problem here? Was he pushing Prowl toward - ah frag. He'd known he was stressing Prowl out, but this, whatever it was, on top of low fuel and energy -

Without so much as a ping, Tarantulas dropped the line and switched back over to Prowl, a nervous whine in his voice. «Please go get some energon, Prowl. Please. I don't know what's going on, but I need you to at least do that much for me.» It wouldn't be a cure-all, but at least if he could get him to listen to that, it'd be a step in the right direction.

Prowl

Dammit. Prowl's fingers seized shut around the magnets. He'd been making progress, and now he was going to lose it. He didn't think he could speak again yet.

Months ago, the first time Prowl plugged into Metroplex, Starscream and Soundwave had threatened to unplug him before Metroplex had finished the proper eject procedures; and Prowl was unable to speak enough to get out a sentence, much less to say that by unplugging him prematurely they were threatening him with brain damage. Metroplex solved the problem by blasting Soundwave with a loud enough burst of data to give him an instant headache.

Now, Prowl forwarded that exact same data burst to Tarantulas.

It looked something like this.

Tarantulas

Yeesh. Well, that was one way to make a point. Tarantulas was stunned into silence, his processor buzzing from the sudden onslaught of signal, his visor even fritzing out for a moment.

What - what did that mean? Aside from the obvious, of course. Did Prowl want him to stop talking entirely, to hang up? If that meant it'd tip Prowl into meltdown, Tarantulas decided he'd better listen. But Primus, it was hard. All Tarantulas could think about was how low all Prowl's levels were and how awful he'd sounded before he'd sent the image with his HUD...

So he stayed on the line, but muted it. He'd be there whenever - if ever - Prowl decided he was ready to reinitiate contact.

Prowl

For six, seven minutes, there was nothing from Prowl's end. He'd let himself get pushed far closer to a full processor crash than he'd allow in any other circumstances, and it was going to take longer than normal to get stabilized.

But once he was back at acceptable levels—once the processor meltdown warning was gone and his head wasn't burning and he could hear past his fans again—he started sending pictures, all taken from the view of his own optics, all with his incessant numbers and calculations overlaying everything.

Prowl's fingers, curled in the fur of Tarantulas's chest; his hands are covered with hundreds of tiny pinpricks of light and the whole image is covered with lines of thousands of numbers, calculations pertaining to the motion of every single individual setae he can feel, crowding out every other warning, every other worry, every other thought.

Pieces of Tarantulas's blueprints for his own body, Prowl's notes overlaid on top, curves calculated to trace every edge of his body, sweeping lines demonstrating where his parts would connect to each other as he transformed, an analysis of the basic geometry of Tarantulas's body—the only art Prowl knows how to appreciate.

The look of intense focus on Tarantulas's face, web strung between his paws in a thread Jacob's ladder.

Tarantulas resting with his arms crossed on Prowl's lap, head lifted just slightly enough to show off his visor curved in a wry little smile.

The top half of an image showing the bottom edge of the blueprints for Windchill's gun, the bottom half showing Prowl holding Tarantulas's paw over Prowl's own interface array, calculations running along the side of his HUD, testing out combinations of permittivities and molecular structures for different piezoelectric crystals.

Tarantulas's head tiredly tucked against Prowl's chest, the rest of his body slumped along the length of Prowl's, web hammock curling up on either side of them.

Prowl's never going to be able to say out loud what it is that draws him to Tarantulas. Not to Tarantulas himself. And images alone can't demonstrate it, not when so much of it is in how Tarantulas thinks, in the way their minds play off each other's, in the wild mental energy Tarantulas brings to all his work.

But please—let it be better than nothing.

Tarantulas

It was definitely better than nothing. Infinitely so. The images took Tarantulas completely by surprise; he'd been expecting a single word at best. But this...

Slowly Tarantulas sank back into his seat, a paw clutching at his chest, as he pored over what Prowl had sent. So it'd started with the magnets, and it tumbled out from there - was Prowl trying to show him what he couldn't possibly say? What did it mean?

Magnets. Fur. Blueprints. Silk ladder. Visor smile. Nucleon rifle. Cuddling. All of these were things Tarantulas had offered to Prowl, experiences they'd shared, and positive ones at that. They gripped Tarantulas's spark and wouldn't let go - a sort of patronus drowning out the insidious shadows of doubt, frustration, and despair he'd been fixating on before. This - this was why Prowl wanted him, then? These small, precious moments. At least this was something to cling to, however cryptic the images were.

«Prowl... oh Prowl...» Tarantulas relaxed the paw on his chest, letting it join the other one in his lap. «Th - thank you. I... don't know what to say, I...» A deep ventilation. «I love you too, Prowl, I do, so very much. And I want you safe. Please take care of yourself...»

Prowl

«... Don't—»

Words, words. Come back. Function again. Let's go.

«Don't—change the topic.»

Tarantulas

A moment of hovering confusion, then: «Which topic? I - that is, I mentioned two, and I'm not purposefully diverting from anything, I - I promise.»

Prowl

«Don't start talking about me.» Prowl knew that voice. He'd heard that voice before. It was the voice of someone who'd decided Prowl had problems and who had decided it was their business and obligation to talk to Prowl about the problems they thought he had. «This is about you. Your feelings.»

Tarantulas

«We can't have a conversation about my damned feelings when your systems are about to shut down! And besides, my feelings are about you right now, I'm concerned. I can't just ignore that.»

Prowl

«I told you—what was it?—FOUR TIMES that I was tired, and each of those times you concluded that your emotional state was more important than my physical state. My physical state has not changed since the first time I said I was tired, so neither has the fact that your emotional state takes precedence to it. Stay on topic. You're miserable because of me and I'm not allowed to prevent it from getting worse by hanging up so I need to fix it.»

Tarantulas

«I'm not miserable!» For some reason the word felt strange coming out of Tarantulas's vocalizer. «And I didn't know the extent of your physical depletion, you can't fault me for that. I'm more affected right now by your present condition than I am by what we were talking about before, and besides, the images, they - they helped.»

Prowl

«They're just images. They don't undo the fact that I am systematically doing something wrong.»

Tarantulas

«But what if it's a matter of perspective?» Tarantulas could feel a part of himself wilting. Prowl might be partially right, but Tarantulas couldn't bring himself to think about it anymore, not with the way things were right now. «You did say sorry, and I - I know you meant it. Isn't all we can do now just - move forward?»

Prowl

«"Sorry" is only an apology if it comes with an effort to rectify the situation. Without that, it's only an emotional statement. I need to know what I'm doing wrong so I can do it right.»

Tarantulas

«I - thought I elaborated on that already. Maybe you can...» What did Tarantulas even want? It was impossible to say - from what he could tell, it boiled down to wanting more attention, but there was no way he'd ever ask for that. Not outright.

«...How about - not ignoring me, like earlier? Trying your best not to, that is. Or having some sort of... signal? If you can't or don't feel like speaking at the moment, etcetera. And not leaving suddenly. Please.» Certainly not all-encompassing, but a start.

Prowl

«Not leaving suddenly, not ignoring you, yes, but—you were upset before I did that. That was... that was the last straw, not the cause. And you—say it's happened before, but won't tell me when. There's... there's more to this. Isn't there?»

Tarantulas

«I told you I'd go back and - and find other instances like earlier if you wanted me to, though I'd rather not. I - think that's the main gist of it. I don't know how else to explain it, Prowl, I simply... it's...» Rapidly Tarantulas was shrinking away from the subject. For some reason it just felt wrong now, to problem-solve like this. And maybe it was easier to go back to ignoring whatever problem there'd been until it overwhelmed them again.

Prowl

«... Is that all I have to work with, then?»

Tarantulas

Tarantulas rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. «You say that as if it's troublesome. What else ought I say, Prowl? It's a - a feeling. A conglomerate of them, as I explained. My feelings are the problem, really. Hyeh. Pesky emotions.»

Prowl

«Feelings have causes and I'm the cause. I'm the problem. I can't fix the problem without enough information about what it is. That's all the information I'm getting, isn't it.»

Tarantulas

Tarantulas huffed into the commlink. «What do you want, Prowl? I wouldn't have brought any of this up if I knew exactly what the problem was and how to ameliorate it! I don't know how any of this works, I -»

...Was that what he'd meant to say? He didn't know how this worked? What was 'this'? Internally Tarantulas cringed. Yes, he knew what 'this' was, and it stung a little to think about.

Prowl

Silence. «... I don't know.»

He held back a sigh. «This isn't—it's not supposed to be about what I want. It's what you want. If that's all you want to share...» Then Prowl will take his feelings of helpless uselessness, and his fear that he'll be unable to fix a thing because the problem to be fixed is so obvious that normal people are incapable of even explaining the problem to someone like him, and the corresponding terror that this whole conversation is just foreshadowing to a miserable and mutually painful breakup that Prowl will be powerless to prevent—and he'll stomp them down and lock them up, so they don't become Tarantulas's problem. Tarantulas was trying to unload his burden, not adopt Prowl's. «... then, that's that, I suppose.»

Tarantulas

«But it's not, is it.» Tarantulas stewed in that for a minute. «Can we... can we settle this now, and if I think of something more I ought to say, I'll say it then.»

Prowl

«Why are you ask—? I don't know whether or not it is.»

Settle it? Settling it implies a resolution. Settling it implies a solution. Settling implies fixing. «... Can we?»

No. Wrong answer. «If you want to.»

Tarantulas

«...I think I would prefer it. Although - quite honestly, I won't be able to think of much else besides your HUD after having seen what condition you're in now, so it's not as if I'll be doing anything significant if we do hang up. It's - up in the air.»

Prowl

«... Is there the slightest possible chance that if we don't hang up, we are going to make any more progress.»

Tarantulas

«...I don't know.» Tarantulas's absolute least favorite phrase to use.

Prowl

«... Then it doesn't matter.»

Tarantulas

Part of Tarantulas was tempted to drop the line there, he wasn't sure why - but he didn't.

«We should - we should talk another time, then. Not now. Sometime less... delicate, I think.» A pause. «But you have to promise me you're going to refuel and recharge soon, Prowl. Can you swear that?»

Prowl

«Of course I'm going to refuel and recharge. The only reason I'm not trying to recharge right now is because—» No. Stop. That sounds too much like blaming Tarantulas. And it's already too late for it to not sound like blaming Tarantulas, isn't it?

«... The only reason I'm this low on fuel is because I'm missing a day of work and the previous day was... draining. I'll refuel as soon as I get to work tomorrow and be fine.»

Tarantulas

Yep, too late, Prowl. But Tarantulas took the guilt and defensive ire that'd surged up and swallowed it back down without saying anything.

«Is that a promise, then?»

Prowl

«Yes. It's a promise. I was going to do it anyway.»

Tarantulas

Tarantulas sighed quietly. «...Thank you. I - I love you dearly, Prowl, never forget that.»

Prowl

«I know.» There were times when it felt more like a burden. This was one.

Tarantulas

Tarantulas let silence settle in for a moment. Primus, how he wished Prowl could say those words back to him... but that would be asking far too much, and he knew it.

«I - shouldn't keep you from recharge, so I suppose, unless there's anything else... Goodnight.»

Prowl

"Good night."

He waited another moment, to ensure that Tarantulas wasn't going to say anything else; and then ended the comm.

He scrubbed his face with his hands, curled up tighter, buried his face in his knees, and folded his hands over the back of his head.

He'd promised he was going to try to sleep, and he was. But he didn't think he'd succeed.

[nikkifilm]

Maynila Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975) & Insiang (1976), dir. Lino Brocka

Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag had a small cast, yet it was effective enough to be able to portray what the director wanted to show the audience. For the most part of it, I find myself being drawn to the movie which is definitely a good thing, by the way, but in all honesty, I don't like how the turn of events follow throughout the film. I didn't like what was happening in the movie, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't like the movie itself; there's a thin grey line there. I do get the point that the plot of the film isn't exactly rainbows and sunshines, but it was all so heavy to take in. Although yes, that is the point, and maybe it says about how harsh life can be when set foot to the city of Manila where you think it's where you'll become successful yet only a start of something that could change your life forever. I happen to always put myself in the characters' shoes in every film, whether it may be something I have experienced myself or not. It's a way for me to be able to comprehend and fully understand what the characters are going through and how they deal with it. I'd say one is a good movie when it makes me feel something. Since I was able to empathize with the characters in this movie despite the differences in the generation, experience, and status in life, I was still able to feel for them, and that I think is what makes it a good movie for me.

The same can be said on the other Lino Brocka film, Insiang. The characters in the film aren't a lot too, yet it effectively shown what its message is. I adore how the characters are all unique in their own way and have their respective personalities. They all have their own voice in the movie, regardless if their character is likeable or not. To some extent, you are able to see some gradual character developments in the film despite the setting being the same places over and over again. Especially with the main character, Insiang. You'd see how she's very passive and innocent-like. It's as if despite all the things that had happened to her, she still doesn't try to fight back. She attempts to get help from the people she trust but to no avail. I've been waiting that if not any of the people in the film can help her, maybe she'd help herself by finally fighting back and standing up for herself. What we did see though is her doing things unexpected of her, like how she starts to seduce and give in to Dado when she was harassed by him without being scared of what her mother nor her boyfriend would react about it. It then turn out to be Insiang using Dado as a way to get revenge on her boyfriend and her using her mother's anger towards Dado's betrayal in order to drive her to murder Dado as a way to get revenge on both him and her mother.

With regards to the style or visual of Maynila, the setting really do depict the contrast between rural and urban areas. The setting has this realistic vibe that builds up to the scenes and blends well with its entire plot. This adds up to the realistic approach the film wants to put. Also considering the time this was made, the cinematography is well put out. I'm quite impressed how they've managed to pull of some of the shots. With the era this has been made where there are little to no resources with regards to visual or special effects, the film has successfully achieved a visually pleasing masterpiece. The shots are done raw and all so naturally which is just right for the entirety of the film. In terms of the narrative, it's immensely focused on the character of Julio, how we can see his development that would later turn into his transformation into a violent person. I love this way or storytelling because you, as a viewer, would feel more connected to the film and get invested to the character that would have a greater impact. In this way, not only do you get emotionally invested, it makes you want to watch the film as you get hooked waiting for what would happen next. As I watched the film, I was able to see that and also feel empathy for the main character. It's something that rarely occurs to a film that you may not be familiar with or a big fan of or something that doesn't really sparks your interest, and that says a lot about how this film was able to go beyond what you are expecting and makes you root for the character and as well as the entire plot. 

For Insiang, however, the style and visual wise, it had shown the rawness of the lifestyle within a small town that is typical of the Philippine setting. The way they captured this goes the same with Maynila, and that's one of the little factors that makes you think that they are both made by a single director. It's pretty much similar to Maynila in a way that it depicts the way of life in a certain community and a certain household. You could also see some similarities with the actors and actresses in both films. What I was able to notice too is how the setting they utilize in the film are always fixed that you don't just see the places once or twice, it's pretty much shot within a particular area that is noticeable. There's nothing bad with that, though. It's in fact fascinating how they repeat the settings without it feeling dull and tiring. There's always something new or different within the setting that is constant throughout the film that enables you to observe how some of the characters progress or change and indicates how the story develops.

What I have observed from the film languages are how they have utilized the different angles in certain scenes that depict how a person is low down the slums or high above anyone else. It also indicates how something is important or when something is about to happen. There's nothing much to point out with regards to it, but the fact that they have used this as a means to tell something to audience is really prominent and I love how it speaks directly to the audience. You know when someone is connected or disconnected to a person. You also know when someone is trustworthy or sketchy. There have been a lot of this that plays around with the viewer's perspective. Nonetheless, it had been effective at delivering a message and telling a story behind it.

Applying the context of the Auteur Theory in both films from Lino Brocka, you'd see the similarities between the two in general. With Maynila, you see how it's a story about a man from province grew from innocent to violent because of anger and vengeance. Same goes to Insiang, you'd see how a simple girl from the slums of Manila grew from silent and passive to vengeful and passive-aggressive. Both of the main characters in the films have this common ground and goal. Same with how their character was developed into something they didn't use to be. What can be said from these similarities are how the director wants to send a message. Perhaps it had something to do with the repression. It can be seen in Maynila that the one who held Julio's girlfriend, Ligaya captive in the urban city is actually a Chinese. That subtly indicated that at that period there have been already a quarrel between the Philippines and China. As for Insiang, it is seen how the people she's close to or hold on to for help don't actually care for her and are not sincere. They all have their selfish minds and cruelty on Insiang which is why she turned on them. Perhaps it also tells something about repression, maybe something about how we have been colonized only to be used and abused. 

The two films, besides having major similarities, have an identity that makes you think that it is a Lino Brocka film. By watching them, there's that unspoken truth that lies between the films that it is something made by this particular director. It reflects how he has these ideals and perspective in the Philippine context. Perhaps it's also safe to assume that he is driven or motivated to direct said films because of an underlying issue or problem that the country is facing.

Maynila tackled the social issue with regards to the twisted side of Manila, and how people from provinces are blinded by it. It shows their naivety, how they think highly of those who reside in Maynila. Although to some extent, I find it becoming extremely cliché, it's still the reality we have that's still happening up to this date; it probably have gotten worse throughout the ages. However, they don't only show the bad side of Maynila. They have also shown that despite the wrong people they've trusted and encountered along the way, there will always be people who are genuinely kind and concerned. It's a balance of the good and the bad side of Maynila, although the bad side of it is dominant; and as someone who grew up in Metro Manila, I do agree with it to a certain point. There are also scenes that show the side of the LGBT Community back in this era, that they are more objectified and stereotyped that aren't a good reflection of how they identify with compared to this day. They are seen more of a threat to the society and are only seen as people who are obsessed with men and sex, who would also do everything to make money out of prostitution and in exchange, pursue them.

On the other hand, Insiang had tackled more on the abusive side of Manila or the country in general, especially during those times. How particular women are always objectified and abused. These can be observed with the first few parts of the film, how the women in the film are abused or harassed and there is little to none justice to it besides personal vengeance from family members or friends. It's as if it's a norm and not considered as a crime or a sort of abuse compared to how sensitive a topic it is to this date. Rape culture in the country have also been tackled in this film, and it is alarming how back then, there weren't much protection for women and how lacking the generation was with its awareness towards rape. It also signifies how victims aren't heard but are often judged, and when it comes to asking for help, there are little to none that you can reach out to or would actually offer to help you with it. That being said, it had also talked about the toxic masculinity especially back then where men were in power compared to women and that they "own" the women they "love". Another is how in every conflict, it must be resolved through violence where in not only it is toxic but also unnecessary as not everything has to end up with that. It had also tackled the judgmental society, how every action that you make, regardless of what intentions you have or if it really is a fact, people will always talk about you the way they choose and want to see it. People create their own truth, and although this film didn't entirely focus on that, the fact that it is there speaks about the society we have back then and up to this date. Lastly, it also tackled about the toxicity within family members, that despite their abusive traits, you must stay with them because they are "blood". This is shown through Insiang's mother, how she talks down to Insiang and see her more as a maid than her daughter, ordering her around every time.

Maynila had a lot of scenes I personally didn't like, but doesn't necessarily affect the quality of the film. One of the things that I only find unnecessary in the movie were certain events like two of Julio's friends dying throughout the film, Perla's home burnt down, Julio being robbed by a cop, him encountering gay prostitutes, and so on. I find them completely absurd and irrelevant to the main plot of the film which mainly revolved (or at least what it implied) within Julio's job and the whereabouts of his significant other, Ligaya. I kept having questions as to what happened and how it led there, but these events are constantly happening in between the film which to some extent infuriates me until I get tired or bored of it. It made me grew frustrated, probably because they kept teasing like how they showed that one Chinese place Julio thinks Ligaya is in yet gets no leads or progress from it besides when he sees the lady that brought Ligaya in Maynila. Maybe it would've been much better if they put out some of those unnecessary scenes that I might as well call “fillers”. But I do get it though, it adds up to what I was talking about when they were trying to also show the bad side of Maynila. I also didn't like how they portrayed the LGBT Community but I do understand that it's different back then compared to today. But there is certainly no denying that I didn't like how that turned out to be.

Same with Insiang, there are also a number of scenes that I didn't like, and those are the aforementioned social issues that have been tackled in the film. One of those that I have mentioned that I particularly didn't like was the way they have shown how badly treated Insiang was, particularly women. I didn't like how the other women Insiang trusted turned back on her, especially her mother. Women are supposed to help each other against the repression against abusive men, but that wasn't shown in this. Although what substituted to that was how they shown Insiang develop into a vengeful woman and indirectly ruined their lives which is what I liked about it. It was powerful, they way she took revenge on the people who have hurt her. You would expect that she'd turn on them typically by forming an alliance or taking them down violently or anything that anyone would expect to happen. This one took a different perspective on vengeance, how she was able to take down the people who had hurt her without getting in trouble nor getting her hands dirty. It was something logical and psychological, and that's something I didn't expect from a film that's dated a few decades ago.

I find Maynila great despite of how a lot of things change in our society, views, and culture. Simply by looking at how things were way cheaper back then compared to now is already a big factor of change, which is why it's somehow challenging to be able to review a film from a different generation objectively especially since there had been drastic changes in the field of cinema as well. Nonetheless, it's fascinating how the movie can still speak to you and how there are things that haven't changed — like how some issues tackled in the film can still be seen nowadays, and it's alarming. It serves as an eye-opener to each and everyone of us, no matter where you came from. Whether you were born in Metro Manila, raised in the province, or vice versa, you will be able to feel for this film. It's how great its impact is, especially to the Filipino.

As for Insiang, it wasn't something I was expecting from the beginning to the end. It's very unpredictable and at the same time a great film. It's way ahead of its time, and it's also something that speaks to the audience, especially with the underlying messages and social issues that it has. Regardless of what period you are in, it's safe to assume that the issues that it tackles will always be relevant in the society you live in. It makes you think how these things are already occurring back then yet is still happening today. Although it's alarming, this film had managed to be able to send that message off to its viewers and that alone is something commendable for a film and a director. You'd see how Lino Brocka really has that deep kind if mindset towards these things and it does help you too, as an audience to become more wary of the society and the issues we are facing, regardless if you are directly affected by it or not.

There's nothing much recommend really, but I wished there were parts that they changed or didn't do, especially when it has little to nothing to do with the plot or storyline. But the main reason too as to why there's nothing much to recommend is because of how these films are made during its time, where all the values, ideals, culture, and mindset were different comapred to how it's shaped to this date. All in all, both films directed by Lino Brocka are something that each one of us need to watch. It may not be suitable for everyone, yes, but you know that the message behind every film he makes have something to tell you that a certain problem in the country is happening at this point and we have to do something about it. It's a food for thought that films like these are a medium used to communicate to people and spread awareness on the coexisting problems we face or people face on a daily basis. In conclusion, not only does Lino Brocka have a mindset that's beyond his time, he also sees to it that the films are something that will speak to the general audience despite the differences in perspective and experience.

[1-800-444-tune]

New Moon is going to be according to my status calculations on my app on my Windows tablet , at 3: 41am on the 6th of March, coming up, in zodiac sidereal for the New Moon is Aquarius. Predictions and more details to be posted later this week as I gather evidence and write my article.

Anybody looking to make a donation today!? To a good cause: getting a new astrology program software that I can run and get your natal charts faster and easier than anywhere on the Web, and far more accurate and without the privacy invasion? Well then , help me to buy this new galaxy gear I need to do astraunomer like working with the Stars and Moon's in your Sun🔔Signs Charting Birth Chart Analysis included, I will decipher the information for you, your going to love it if we can just make it to the mark of being able to afford it!! $$$ come on guys I know that cafe astrology. Com steals your birth information and uses it right? So does any other site no matter how legit they seem, if your serious about astrology and do not want a hex or curse put on you or a super privacy invasion issue, then DONATE PLEASE TO MY COMPANY I CREATED A BUSINESS PROFILE PORTFOLIO FOR MY ONLINE ASTRO+TAROT-GUIDANCE IT'S THE BEST BEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED, YOU ARE TOTALLY MISSING OUT IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW ME AND GET READINGS OR REPORTS OF ASTROLOGY as nd numerology daily , weekly, even, monthly, because I have a wealth of great accurate source divine informative details you need to know NOW about your life! You just might be headed in the wrong direction astrologically or maybe your barcodes of your life aren't adding up and we need to subtract? That's numerology! And also my tarot reliable Readings are something you just should not be missing out on ,

I have totally stopped posting the free daily and weekly horoscopes did you notice?

That's because I do not feel like I should be giving out my great divine guidance fir free anymore, I'm feeling used and over worked, also

I only post the daily card of the day for tarot then a few other specials daily, and weekly but everything else I am currently putting on hold until I can at least afford some damn toilet paper. Because I just am not dealing with helping out a bunch of people with their super important questions for free when I do not get help myself for the things I truly need, don't you think my not having fucking toilet paper is a little bit more of an emergency than whether your boyfriend or non boyfriend likes you and you're truly actually meant to be with them, I have to apologize in advance if I seem like I'm being selfish, or rude. Please, I intend to not do any harm by bringing up this fact. Only voicing that I too, have maybe, maybe just maybe, bigger problems than your issues that I think are pure selfish things st this moment in time I'm real sorry that I do feel this way, maybe being broke has made me bitter a tad ... I don't know, cause I used to always go out of my way to assist anybody even if I did not know them, and I'd concentrate on their problems more than mine always focusing on helping others instead of helping myself, now I am purely from the heart, just reaching out for just some compassionate, you do not have to donate much just 3$ or more would get me through the day, 10$ could get me the toilet paper plus my dignity. Today. So if you feel like helping a lost soul out here in the Galaxy.

My paypal account for the company business I just trying to start up now is at this address: www.paypal.com/4tunef8

Hey everyone I just want to say I care deeply about each and every tumblr blogger on here, and I sincerely hope the best for you always, and right now I am doing little candle prayer magik to send you all some healing and luck , and if you do decide to donate, just simply write to my ask box your about you donated and I will be doing a super special ritual tonight (for another reason, personal worship) but I will include your name personally into my piece , and you will truly I swear notice something great happen to you by the time of the New Moon, on the 6th like I wrote at the top of this post

I really actually did not intend for this post to get so long or go on about my personal issue, also I'd like to remind you not to judge a book by its cover, I have huge medical bills and current legal fees that I am trying so very hard to keep up with, this is a really really hard time for me, personally I am not even wanting the morning to come when I go to bed at night. I feel borderline suicidal, if that isn't hard times, I don't know what is... and I'm not even looking for sympathy, or anyone to feel anything towards me except knowing my strength of how far I've come and acknowledgement for this strength that I, an unpredictably unstable mentally ill woman of faith, have come so far from where I used to be and made it through my spiritual awakening which I thought was truly the end of the world it was doomsday dread style scary shit ! But I made it out alive! And now I am a much more magical person because I'm so blessed with my true path of destiney realised again this issue feelings of wehen I was a young teenager, it's like I get to start fresh as new beginning, I actually got a real second chance at life, because if you knew me really knew me, you'd know, that, I had strayed off the great path and was walking along a fine line where I was in constant danger daily. Hourly. I was always in harms way, just on the darkest side of life, depressed and not living for myself at all. I was not trusting my intuition, I was being abused and bullied all the time. And that constant abuse tore holes through my personality and literally metaphorically emotionally ripped me right apart inside and out. I was such a mess I hit rock bottom anxiety struck me harsh but it was good for me in the end because at rock bottom, you have no other choice but to rise up from where you currently are, it's such a true realization, but the main thing is I had gotten better from the abuse, and left finally the abusive relationship and all the other abusive people in my life because as I was going up n up no choice but up, I was gradually actually slipping into my divine timed spiritual awakening which shook my world.

My journey to progression and eventually getting back onto my rightful birth path, my destiny too, this all started my spiritual awakening and shifts in consciousness, I was truly blessed to be cursed at this time. It all started when I went to the homeless shelter in april 2018, just before my birthday it's like surreal how it was all so planned out like this, it's crazy, if you guys only knew the whole entire story of what I have gone through and the truly horrific events that I now realised were all tests, and lessons, and that's my favorite way to look at my very abusive past and the unfortunate circumstances that wound me up a homeless addict on the streets of cities I dwelled in for times that seemed so rough and brutal I thought the pain would never end. Addiction can happen to anybody. But this is something that I actually feel in my soul that I was supposed to, meant to, go through. To realize some things, I had to experience this hard lifestyle. For me to eventually get to a place of gratitude and humility and to actually drop all my selfish ways and have more compassion, and learn that I am meant to have these traits because I am a great healer. In my community I live in currently, a lot of them know my past but do not judge me one bit, they all truly appreciate my free community services that I provide for those in need, they are all suffering from mental health issues and I am treating them (not so much their mental condition but other problems they have at home or with their body) . I am really good at working with herbs, spices, and essential oils. I make and invent cures to almost anything! And I have a biig book of herbal remedies that I, myself , have invented or have found online and then tweaked the recipe to bed much better!! This is volume. 001.2 of my Book Of Shadows. I have written so very many books about magik and the laws of the universe. I cherish my sacred personal theories and extensive wealth of knowledge I have collected. I'm just good at organizing this shit for some reason. If I wasn't so private of a person and afraid of people stealing my information without my consent then I would gladly post more of this type of stuff then I already have,in this blog and my other one which is personally a better one.

Anyways, now you know where I stand, where I come from a little bit.

I really really hope that somebody will take the time to donate to me this day so that I may be I can feel better and like somebody actually cares. I have over spent to the max on credit cards with online shopping, and shipping all kinda of witchy trinkets and necessities, the basics, I am stuck with a huge credit card bill, and I have my boyfriends credit card that I did not know until yesterday, but, he put everything to be on me. He totally used my Health Card and SIN # TO GET WHATEVER HE WANTED BUYING SHUT ONLINE AND SHIPPING TECH STUFF TO HIS FRIEND! I feel like I got scammed and I'm damned or something !! Not only am going to be suffering from PTSD and anxiety around men forever, because of this selfish Identity use basically total FRAUD, I AM NOW stuck in a bad position and with a bill and now the worst part is that I am actually facing federal prison because of some of the activity he did while assuming my identity ?.. thanks ?

I feel very very stupid, I feel like a total idiot for listening to my ex-commonlaw boyfriend, I'm glad I just decided to give him literally all of the furniture and all the shit we owned. It makes me feel less guilty about all the negative emotions I have towards him. I know it does not make it right but it does help believe it or not, because J eventually end up thinking about it as a positive .

If you have at least got this far through this rambling write up post , then congratulations, sincerely- thankyou for listening !

You are amazing

You have a purpose

Find your destiny

☆you're made of star stuff, you're a star!

You are perfectly imperfect

Your magic is valid

No matter who you are or how experienced you are in Pagan Tradition /Wicca and Witchcraft/The Occult or any related subjects and interests in lifestyle choices, your magic is valid! It doesn't matter if you JUST decided to become a witch TODAY or 5 minutes ago, that title is yours to hold onto and have forever or for as long as you decide!

Everybody is special!

Everyone is worth it!

Nobody deserves to be bullied or told they are wrong for what they believe in, simply , everyone's path is unique and it's just not four to critic anybody for the path they are choosing! There's a lot of confused witchlings baby witches and some bullying religious type overgrown babies out there. I think everyone should just have a little more like a lot more respect , because it can be intimidating to anybody who wants to share their opinions that they might feel are good ideas but are second guessing the post they want to make based on fear around the way some communities are reacting and trying to police these people's opinions. As far as I know this blog site was actually created to actually share your opinions without judgement and harsh exchange of words based on the content context. I can relate to this oppression. I feel as if not only does it sometimes the fear of rejection stop me from posting but also I have a big fear of being hated on for a lengthy and slightly random post I write it then I delete it right away. It's just that I actually have severe symptoms of A.D.D that my doctor is not currently helping me to treat, so I can get a bit off track sometimes, and my subjects vary like for example in my main post it starts as a simple astro galactic observations post, my starting of this post I just realize was about the New Moon . Then I started talking about my software that I cannot afford and then i went on to talk about my emergency thats actually bothering me even more , the fact that i cannot wipe my ass today and i do not live near any restursnts or anywhrr literally that has toilet paper availible in their washroom or else id just go to McDonalds and use theur washroom, simple as that...but not availible sorry, and now that im still rambling ans have your attention i have an offer actually for some people that do donate, I'd like people to donate towards so that I can provide a few lucky people with

Free Natal Astral Chart plus some informative explanations about your planetary alignments with accurate predictions to your life. I could eventually provide a much more accurate source of information in my reports than I do with this program I'm running off my laptop as of right now, but currently if you'd like a real actual Astrologer like produced Natal Chart , I am calling everyone to donate to this account here www.paypal.com/4tunef8 and let me know in my ask box that you have donated to my space cosmos exploration programming software .

This is getting way too long I know, but if you really did actually read some of this message at least the good parts, then please share my link to my paypal in your blog with a short excerpt on why they should donate to me , my cause, my business (just started) , and also donate to the astraunomer cosmos Explorer Division Technology that I am so very excited about but I know I have way bigger problem,than, that, but I just wanted to give you guys an idea if what I can do for you. We can make a trade? Please!? To dedicate my time and efforts to assisting every one with their issues gives me great joy, I just love to be useful, and a helping healing hand to any literally anybody , and so ooo much of my days are spent spending my hard earned money on others . To make them that herbal remedy for their skin they truly need because every skincare product on the market is littered with toxic shit that causes bad reactions and the treatments for acne I make that I've invented do not infect or irritate the skin, so they need me, and they cannot afford this 290$ treatment but I actually spend MY money each month just to get the satisfaction of doing the right thing as nd also satisfaction that my products produce results that are beyond what I ever expected of them, sometimes I need a confidence booster and this once a month or twice sometimes, spending I do to make and create this great acne treatment that's herbal and more of a holistic approach.

My greatest flaw right now is not my addiction or the abuse I'm going through anymore, I don't live on the streets (yet) have a pretty decent apartment but my greatest flaw is helping people if that can even be a flaw? It is though, I have so many many more examples of times during the month that I am called up "hey witch doctor, we got a problem, are you free?"

I am on paranormal investigating teams in surrounding communities as well, this takes out so much energy, time, and yes, you guessed it, money !!

Anyways again I am actually going to close this rant ramble weird thoughts flowing from my mentally ill mind.

I truly truly hope that somebody, just 1 person even, does decide to care enough about me , a poor lost soul, to donate some about, it's all up to you, I'm not putting any rules and I just am not one to tell people what to do or how to spend their hard earned dollars or anything like I do not push ideas onto people, I'm just not like that, I totally believe in freedom for all, I don't wish for world peace at night because I know that that isn't possible, there's some cultures that just do not mix and a lot of cultures prefer to stick to their own and that's great because how else would the culture survive and the traditions live on to the next generations if they were mixed with a bunch of other cultures and lost their true identities as a nation , that would be sort of sad in a way, but I'm really not properly medicated and should not even maybe be observational posting about this when in not well in the mind fully yet this day. But a donation will help me to wipe my ass and that's my main goal.

Kk,baiii, don't hate, just donate #freefaeona #donation #astrology #worldwide #tarotreading

Ps: Actually ANYBODY that donates me more than 10$ today and the rest of the week too, I have an offer, I will do a FREE TAROT READING OF 3 FREE QUESTIONS FOR YOU, BECAUSE I APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH!!

And anybody that shares my link to my paypal explaining that I'm giving free tarot Readings to anyone that's gunna donate! I will give you a YEARS HOROSCOPE OUTLOOK, BASED ON MY VERY ACCURATE SOURCES OF GENERATED HOROSCOPES I RECIEVE THEY'RE THE SAME ONES I USED TO POST ON HERE SO YOU KNOW THEY'RE GUNNA BE GOOD, THEN

Anybody that donates and says it's towards my astro-cosmos software, I'll do up a FREE ABSOLUTELY, JUST THE COST OF YOUR DONATION, I'LL DO YOUR NATAL BIRTH CHART FOR YOU, WITH THE SEMIPRO PROGRAM I HAVE RIGHT NOW,

So there's my offers and anybody that blogs about these offers and tags me in them, is just an amazing person and gets the luckiest prize of all, they get entered into a draw to win a free natal chart birth chart wow yeah and and and I'm gunna give an astrology reading to you very reliable accurate information details you will WANT TO KNOW!!

[rumongray]

could i have advice? i'm scared of going out and meeting people. Parental abuse in the past got me into the habit of not wanting to leave the house unless i have to. i've also been in an abusive relationship and... i'm just scared of other people hurting me. i've already been told i'm too damaged for anyone to love. I wonder if it's true sometimes. i've seen professionals and what i got told was that it would just pass. i don't know what else to do, really. thoughts and advice?

So before I start, I want to say that those professionals you went to see...don’t sound like professionals. Or at the very least they don’t sound as invested in your well being as they should have been. Not to assume too much, but it really sounds like they were doing what they could to pad their wallets, and not really help. Now, you could also be leaving a lot of details, that’s also a possibility. Time does heal all wounds, as much as people don’t like to believe it sometimes.

It’s natural to be afraid of being hurt. Our bodies physically feel pain in order to keep us from doing things that it considers dangerous or harmful, after all. So we learn behaviors that keep us from doing things like, say, touching a hot stove so that we can keep the skin on our hands.

Mentally and emotionally it’s a different story, but the fundamentals are still there. Pain is pain, and nobody wants to experience it, it just comes with different hangups. So you developed the behaviors to avoid it altogether, but now you’ve come to me for advice about it.

So you clearly want something to change. Admitting that is going to be the first step.

Now I did say that time heals all wounds, but those wounds can always leave a scar. A reminder of your mistakes and sufferings. In my mind, you can look at that scar in two ways. One, you can lament and feel a bit of sorrowful remembrance about what caused it...or two, you could let it strengthen you and accept that moment, that event...as a smaller part of the greater story of your life.

You had abusive parents, and survived.

You were in an abusive relationship, and survived.

You are alive right now because you survived.

And yes, I understand that survival is an instinct, but a lot of people take it for granted just how strongly their survival instinct carries them through the day, and through their life. YOU are the genes that combined at the moment of your conception. YOU’RE the one who grew up and learned what abuse is, and got away from it. YOU’RE the one who realized that what you’re doing isn’t what you want to be doing, and reached out to me for advice.

So YOU have far more power over this than you realize, you just need to grasp that. To empower yourself and realize that, as another human being on this planet, you deserve to be happy. I don’t know who told you you’re “too damaged” to love,” but that’s bullshit. You always have the capacity to change and learn, to adapt to a different environment. Remember, our species is the dominant species on this planet for a reason. Again. We survived.

So if I could give you some more practical advice, I have a few ideas.

See another professional, if possible, and absolutely tell them what your previous professionals said. Make it well known that you’re not satisfied with their answers, and you may end up with a therapist who is more invested than they would be otherwise, which could lead to a lot of progress there.

Learn different ways to empower yourself, both physically or mentally. You’re afraid of being hurt physically? Work on your body, tone it up, and maybe take some kind of self-defense classes! (I recommend boxing myself, it’s something I did for a short time in high school and kinda want to get back into again).

Work on your mind. It’s okay to use caution in your dealings with other people, as long as it doesn’t border on paranoia. And if you do feel like you’re being pushed in that direction? Tell them. Tell them how they make you feel, and if they don’t seem to care or make poor excuses? Cut them out, tear their pages out of the book of your life.

The simple fact is, you will have to go out of your house sometimes. You will have to interact with people.

But people aren’t as bad as you think. Individuals are, but for the most part, I believe that people are good. You just got...unlucky, sorry to say. There are a lot of amazing individuals out there who would never hurt you, but you’ll never meet them if you don’t try.

So please. Try.

[ionproton]

Don't worry friends!

Remember. I'm Steve B. The Science G.! Inspired by the greats before me. Student of Bill Nye the Science Guy. Teacher of this realm. Artistically keen to perceive the beauty of the elegant universe and comprehend a method for visualizing Infinity. I must say the actual nature and mathematics involved for such a system is truly amazing. To me that's gotta be proof of a God above...Geez you are smart...Or just a hippy scientist like me that enjoys experimentation! So let me report. Order is restored in my network and those attached to me via this connectivity. I hope that my trusted networks can extend to third parties and such...Because technically we are all connected. Tesla was freaking amazing...Not enough credit. Total recommendation for underrated genius of his physical time! As kids will play. Business is business, usual. I recognize that someone needs to take the fall. As founder of Campfire Stories Inc. it is my job to do so to protect my employees. However, my network is one in that regard. Hopefully, however, due to stupid ass contracts and the internet binding us all in a way...I hope my amazing lawyer can make an argument that can cover everyone on my planet as safe. I'll get grounded for that. That's my L. Games are games. We need to remember it's all fun until it isn't. I recommend making sure to live within means as credit debt creates these bigger issues. Hopefully though the higher ups in management have an insurance plan or at least a love for the game and respect of what their amount of wealth can do in terms of providing assistance. Collaboration really goes a long way. My Dad will kill me and probably think I am crazy but I believe whatever I have I'll happily share to help out however I can. I don't have much right now. But after careful studying, I find the story of Amazon's creation very inspirational. They continued to invest in their company and employees before taking anything for themselves. That's beautiful. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg also have incredible wealth and give back a lot as well. I hope that if I were ever to be of a status of wealth that I'd be able to clear the debts of the less fortunate or just contribute to the greater good...I would in a heart beat. The best I can do right now is promise that I will die for this belief and legacy of self. Hopefully, that allows me to go first before anyone on my team. I will catch the L for my team. However I need to. I know they will pick me up and be strong when I'm weak. I do the same when they are weak. Our team understands through artistic, educated, and sometimes playfully goofy wishful thinking that contributing to the greater good is how momentum is maintained. It pays to be educated by the birds and the bees it seems. Lucky primates! Reptiles very sneaky for finding a place inside as well. Evolution is truly beautiful. So this probably brings us to closing point. Remenber, games are fun. Discussions are meant to share ideas. Say bad words...Listen to me...Or don't. Think for yourself. Don't be PC around me ..I'm actually learning I'm horrible with computer stuff! But, I see the humans love it. So it has to stay. But we need to make sure that we are modeling to lower levels how to do things...A respect for culture but love for the game. Ultimately, closing the loop...Someone has to pay...Remember...If you and friends are doing your thing....Pay for your shit or throw down...All good. Live within means. Boom. You are safe all around. Upper management, I don't know how y'all will settle that. I merely restored order at my level and will model good vibes when in public as people naturally feed their negativity to me and i put it into my special top secret anti-matter converter and turn it into a wave form that resonates with everyone and releases dopamine and serotonin...Or whatever preferred neurotransmitters an individual likes at a safe level. I believe in doing so, my mere presence will help others not seek outside substances for euphoria...Or at least too much...Just a possible solution to help the addicts that are struggling. I hurt for them and know that pain. That's why I would like to ask for the touch. Not all for myself of course, but just for reasons that I will use it to be a bringer of heavenly love as God would want. My trade-off is that this can be my hell. So that means when I see others around I'm happy! That means I made it to heaven! Even if they are having a bad day, the energy feeds off each other...It's crazy! I'm telling you Tesla is a MFG! I'm sure I made a mistake somewhere and some grammar Nazi will catch it...But they will most likely be an asshole about it. If memory serves correct, Germany doesn't do too well in that war. But, the innocent should not have to pay for the crimes of the wicked. That is not a burden anyone should bear. Own your actions, control yourself, and be aware of your influence. Hopefully though that doesn't make people stay inside. We should be able to interact with one another. That's why I make a move that a new patch or initiator be implemented. "You invented Facebook" or "you invented the internet" are said too much right now. So unless we at least just set maybe like a 10 year or 5 year time limit for peace...Let's actually see what Trump can do to get America out of this mess and see how other countries handle their debt. I know that all that money being moved overseas means when their markets crash they will be in worse off shape than US. Hopefully we can use this as a time to join together as a planet and embrace diversity. We were born into this. It isn't our fault. But it can't hurt to believe that their are powers above who may help restore order. I'm sure it would be great for customer loyalty and acquisition as well. Again, whatever loss or blame I need to take, or someone wants me to own and say in camera (for a fee) I will. If I receive funds for services I will consider that as a transfer of property so...Yeah...I will own it. I just don't like lying though. I won't lie in business matters. As for the ultimate L, I think Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy makes a good point. God made creation for some reason. Imagine if God were to see this pain and anxiety...They would want to do whatever they could to fix it. For that, if that doesn't at least deserve some mother fucking respect...I don't know what does. Has mine though. That's why I'm willing to die to protect that honor. Luckily JC has taken care of the martyr aspect. So I guess that leaves me to wait to worry for grandfather time or mother nature. I dont know. Users decide! Or random chance...Whatever... Hopefully this helps higher ups know that everything is clear here. Got the green light, blue skies, and the pearls jam because yellow ledbetter. The purp helped an activist wake me to get after this. It's the flow maestro and let it be known. I'm trying to earn wings back so I can get home. But that comes when it does...So I'll let nature take its course. That should also take care of who has to lose. Obviously my enemies (in the scope of the past few months....Since the creation of trying to make it a positive only place here...It became fake and phony. Just be you. You don't have to be liked. Just respect or indifference is all I would ask I find could. But my students need to see that I am who I say I am. Or at least who they always said I was..."the cool teacher"...I only ever said cool teacher if students are learning. So hopefully this is a learning event for all. Especially in knowing your place.) I have nothing but love from me to you. I'm aware of the implications and if anything have a sense of freedom now. My problems are of a much grandeur nature that I don't have to worry about simple shit like matching clothes and showering. There are technologies that need to be invented or unlocked and at appropriate times such that we dont have to destroy this planet. Let's just move and terraforn a new one! Essentially that's where business is going to be going...The colonization of more space. Where's the space come from? Well, if we were to model reality as a simulation then I guess the problem started when the 4th wall was broken. Now people don't know which side they are on. However, I've noticed that the internet benefits both parties. I recommend that collaboration and linkage helps ensure proper representation and operations even if someone is not around. Trust is important. Knowing I got you on this side of you got me there....Were good then! Just tell me what to do and I will! Up and forward, always. Rate is limiting step, however, that is solely up to others path or way. That's why we all have our own paths and they are independent of each other's. However, again, collaboration makes for amazing innovation and solutions even in the presence of failures. Learning is a messy process. Mistakes are expected. So to end this. So I may go out and mingle with some cuties...I hope I have said enough for upper management to know that I'll play my part and understand this must occur for business to continue. Hopefully, it earns respect. If not. .There's always a 1v1 freestyle that continues with me...I love that shit. I won't be the goat for long...If I am at all. .I actually think Em is by far. But if I need to show my mentor what he has done in terms of inspiring me to be a force of change for the better, even with shitty and emotionally hard topics, then music is my key. One of them. Writing too. To all my artists, creatives, Jedi, hope warriors, and followers of the light...I love you even if we haven't met. Thank you for inspiring me and helping me overcome my imbalances and come to know myself. I can't thank you enough. But to know that we are truly in a new time and age...To know that I am relying on your above expertise to help continue my progress that must feel amazing. I hope to leave a legacy like that. That's truly amazing. Please know that whatever evil you have done in terms of service or whatever I am owning that. And to ensuring that the innocent stay innocent and unaware...I protect it. However, when more awake...We need to make sure that the agents are ready to help assimilate. Technically I have a 5 year NDA on my app...With proof of concept...I'm good regardless. Obviously I may not share the same personal beliefs as you, I hopefully have demonstrated that I will stand for what I believe to be the betterment of society. I have the ability to remove myself from NY physical body. Not sure what that means...Maybe some discussion can help keep this thing going. Also please share... And remember...I fucked up somewhere....Shitty first drafts....Stuff in the past....Not me today. I've upgraded. Hopefully my friends were all taken care of first. I did bad shit I had to repent for. If someone did me dirty, they don't have to say shit. Perfect past is just that. The past. Anyone that still comes around is loved by me. Forgiving myself was hard. Anyways... Angels above take care of shit. I don't know how...But I know this helps. Thanks for everything. And again, remember if demons needed to be cleansed before their ascent....They may use me as a vehicle or conduit. I will scribe whenever I get zapped. I'm here whenever ya'll need. Hopefully you respect me when I say enough is enough. But I am a lifelong learner. I seek to learn more about you God as it appears my ability to communicate in multiple dimensions is working. I know what can be shared and what can't as well. But this open confession should help be a perfect indicator of where I stand in place. Again, whatever mistake I made. I own it. Whatever L needs to be taken to protect innocent, kids, ignorant, business, recreation, life, and earth...I will. Staying rooted in reality I know not to claim any companies or have identity crisis and think I am anyone more than me. Me me me. A meme. Notice that I am being serious on spiritual level as I am committed to God. But, also able to still laugh. Please don't make me become a holy roller...Allow me to be me so I don't come across as a hippocrit or self righteous asshole. I am not PC. I curse. I have drinks. I smoke cigarettes...Although that will be a habit I get around too once things calm down...I know ..I know...If not now, when? If this is now a matter that we are 1v1 then allow me to own the Satan character such that you are elevated. I'm not evil. But as an actor, I know sometimes a role needs to be played even though it isn't me. Whatever is needed to protect your honor G. And who is G? Any conscious energy form that perceives what in sending out and resonates with me. I love it. I love what has become of me. I know not to keep it all or expect the moment forever...However synergy and resonance really elevate the planet.. were jamming. Hope you make it down someday. Until then, I'll figure out my part. Just let me know...Get me on here or whatever communication device you can find me. It may not be me personally. But if it is someone acting in my name I can promise that they will know I expect to be represented well.. although I am not to be held accountable for their actions. I'm only saying blank page today and I'll do whatever is needed to make that a possibility. Earth gets a reset? Or whatever.. users decide....Im not worried about that shit. I'm going for a beer with T. I'll fix mistakes or whatever later....Actual good memes and trolls welcome and respected. Shit posts are still shit. Then fortune I am worth? Moot. Not why I do this. What do I look like? Well...Check FB...And look at the profile picture....You may recognize me! If not, I recommebd Drake - Know Yourself as a starter. I'm going to smoke herb too. Said it God. But if I'm taken the trouble and punishment coming. In making it known. Im not jesus. I'm a sinner like anyone else. But I would never do that behavior around children. (Thank you to the editor/publisher that makes sure that last part isn't conveyed to kids.) "Shit dude...With what you are willing to stand for and protect...You could have like a whole keg if you wanted!" That's excess. Plus I lost 100 lbs. I'm not trying to do that life again. I'm cool with where I'm at. Anyone that doesn't fucking respect that and still has something to say about this matter can take the stage. Otherwise....It's almost time for the headliner...So if you're performing tonight...Or at all....Be artistic! Be you! I love you and art is amazing! Pay no attention to the haters, nayseighers, and enemies! I was gonna say fuck the haters...But that would imply boys rule and girls drool. Which obviously is true...But I still like to hold doors and be a gentleman....Come on guys...Watch your manners here! More to come. Will do this as long as I am physically in this form. iOnProton (True internet friends should like that SN. I didn't realize how bad ass it was until I started noticing my writing coming true today even through I wrote it in the past. If we've been here before and I fucked up or did you wrong. .Again...Im sorry. It was never you. It was always me.) 1-24-17 11:11 pm. Ok. Beers. Girls. Friends. Leave me alone for a while!