#they always argue that resistance to it is 'just like when the camera was invented' like no bitch it is not!!

[fourgottencoast]

'generative ai is here to stay so get over it and accept it' what happened to 'ai is the aesthetic of fascism'? the slave labor? the environmental costs (and the racism/classism that goes with it- data centers destroying ecosystems and the local- usually poor/majority nonwhite-towns' health)? the pollution of the internet with misinformation? its use in mass-denial of healthcare claims? the scraping of people's labor without consent to be regurgitated for cheap, and the real people being fired en-masse in favor of new shiny cut-corners? the nsfw deepfakes of nonconsenting adults AND CHILDREN? the propaganda? its use in modern-weaponry and surveillance??

'no ethical consumption under capitalism' UR NOT EVEN TRYING!!! utterly spineless!!

[artaacari]

Fox, Turtle and Secret

My piece for The DjWifi Zine with amazing @celticwolf55 art.  We all made a little dream come true!

Author – Arta Acari Translator – SNL Beta – EnberLight and Pilot Illustration – CelticWolf55 *** AU: Genderswap. Renard = male!Rena Rouge. Cuirassette = fem!Carapace.

This was their place. They came here to rest after battles with akuma and invented legends to explain their absence to their relatives. Here they took care of each other if the battle ended in an unexpected way. Here they watched the events in the city, when new, unfamiliar heroes appeared – sometimes friends, and sometimes enemies. No one knew where Renard and Cuirassette had gone. They were seen in the most famous hotel in Paris, but before someone could point a camera at the heroes, they quickly disappeared from sight. Within a few hours, a red tail and emerald shell flashed at the top of the Eiffel Tower. One day, Renard was spotted wearing a black shirt that was too big for him, but successfully concealed the transformation. His partner skillfully knew how to merge with the shadows, eluding the most persistent villain. Where did the heroes replenish their strength? When asked directly about it, Renard made a habit of laughing it off. “When I was choosing a place, I just pointed my finger at the map of Paris,” he said. During the battles, he offered even stranger ideas, so the option could not be refuted in any way. Perhaps only hope that the most desperate pair of heroes have found a refuge for themselves, avoiding any hints as to their secret identities. “This is the place where we feel good,” answered Cuirassette. In the presence of her red-haired partner, she spoke little. They understood each other at first sight, finding solutions even in the most desperate situations. Therefore, Cuirassette will never betray Renard. Wherever he lured her... But what if a pair of heroes, endowed with cunning and caution, changed cover every time? Therefore, the villains could not figure them out, and the partners had to rely only on the hero communication system. But then, sooner or later, the resourceful heroes would have to repeat the choice, because you can't go into the apartment of the first city dweller who comes across. Even if it's a dedicated fan of the heroes. While friends were building theories and villains helplessly shrugging off their hands, Renard and Cuirassette felt safe. Let them find a way to hide from the whole world by accident. *** When it happened they were arguing. As always. “What will you change if you put yourself under the spell?” Cuirassette insisted. She looked up, watching his dark eyes narrow in displeasure. Renard was very tired, but stubbornly refused support. He was eager to fight with all his might... But there was one "but" that he could not overcome. “Who will stop the villain?” he asked. He almost growled, realizing that his strength really might not be enough. And if it were not for the calm gaze of Cuirassette, who believed in him, Renard would have already rushed to the city engulfed in magic. “We need a plan. A simple illusion is not enough to deceive akuma,” she said. He twitched his fox ears in displeasure. What's the plan when it all sinks like a rock? They must start with this, and not try to save the situation. “Don't be angry with me, but I have to do something,” Renard said. And he took a flute in his hands. Scratches were already visible on its striped body, and silver metal glittered through them. Just what he need the final illusion to be? “No!” Cuirassette almost screamed. Desperation told her what to do. She put her hands on his chest, ready to hold her partner for as long as she could. Renard gasped in protest, raising his hand to stop her, but never finished the movement. He just watched in disbelief as a bright spark flared up in his miraculous. “Cuirassette, what did you just do?” he asked, almost believing the impossible. She was confused and lifted her hands, the bracelet on her wrist also glittering. But as soon as the contact ceased, the glow went out. “Something is wrong. Let's not risk it!” she asked. Cuirassette was not afraid. There was nothing in this world that could defeat her willpower. Not when it came to the guy who changed her life. “But we don’t know what it was!?” objected Renard. Curiosity was already seizing him. He clutched the amulet in a black hand, but felt nothing – no warmth, no threat. “We have gone far from the villain. And we have not yet tried to work with our miraculous like this, at the same time. This might be our chance,” he said enthusiastically, remembering the Guardians' explanations. And his eyes of two colors at once seemed so bright that Cuirassette simply could not help but succumb. Even if it will add problems for them, they will get out together. This was not the first time they had been in trouble together. She sighed heavily and rested her hand on his chest, next to the miraculous. Renard hugged her to encourage her to be closer to him. To the power that united them both. The miraculous glowed brighter, feeling each other. It seemed to the heroes that they closed their eyes only for a moment, but this insignificant moment of time was enough for the world around them to change. The shifting illusion has finally found its absolute protection. *** A place where they will be alone. Where relatives, acquaintances and akumas will not find them. A place that they themselves created. It was worth breaking the rules a little for that. “Do you know what this is?” Cuirassette asked and smiled. She understood that soon they should return to battle. The spell only hid them from the whole world for a while. But every moment spent here seemed to be the most vivid impression. “It was said about this in the Book of Miraculous!” recalled Renard. “Fox Miraculous and Turtle Miraculous become stronger if their owners are united...” Cuirassette tilted her head with interest. “What unites?” she asked. “This is our secret!” answered Renard. He was just happy. Yes, they got a very short respite, but along with it, a secret that can change everything. “Renard!” “You can guess if you want,” he said. She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know what I want?” she asked. “I know.” They stood very close, holding on to the invisible border of a shaky illusion. Renard only needed to reach out to grab his partner in his arms. Cuirassette smiled without resisting at all. She lifted her head, looking into his eyes, also shining with red sparks. And while the illusion dome flickered around, Renard kissed his girlfriend exactly as she wanted. This is their secret.

[jerkbitchidjitassbutt]

Moments (Part 13)

Characters: Jensen x Reader; Jared Padalecki; SPN Cast members

Anon Request: Hello, I was wondering if i could request a Jensen x Fan Reader fic were they meet at a con. There they keep running into each other. Thank You.

Summary: Attending a convention has always been a dream - and that dream is now a reality. Little did you know a clumsy run-in would lead to meeting one of your favorite actors. Who knows what the weekend will hold.

A/n: As always, thanks to my sweet betas, @winchester-writes and @our-jensen-ackles-love. Masterlist is attached in a reblog if you’d like to catch up! W/C: 2500. Warnings: none? Jensen and Jared being adorable. Also, this gif is lethal.

I consider this an AU, as Jensen is single in this fic. This is completely a work of fiction, and I wouldn’t want his reality to be any different, this is purely for entertainment.

“His eyes are blazing with light, more light than all the lights in every city in the whole world, more light than we could ever invent If we had ten thousand billion years.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

Y/f/n followed you down the stairs as you hastily jumped from step to step, hurrying nowhere in particular rather quickly.

“I mean is this insane?” you asked her as she trailed behind you. “This is fast… like really fast. Should I already be saying shit like that? That I’m in love with him?”

Almost tripping, she tried her best to keep up with you, “Well, yeah… its fast.”

You halted immediately, “What?!”

She almost ran into you, taken aback, “I mean—yeah, Y/n. Its fast, but that doesn’t mean it's a bad thing. I know you’re in love with him, its written all over your adorable face.” She giggled, squishing your cheek teasingly. “And look, you don’t have to do anything until you’re ready, okay? You don't have to ‘go public’ or whatever.” She continued, using air quotes with her hands, not unlike Jared’s exaggerated ones. “But I think this is good for you. You’re obviously head over heels for him, and he’s crazy about you.”

You breathed a sigh of relief. She was right, and you knew it. This is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you, but what’s life without a little crazy?

The two of you went to stand in the lengthy line for your J2 photo op among the 200 others who had purchased tickets. Y/f/n simply stood beside you and held your hand as you took in all of the noise and excitement around you. A group of girls in their early 20’s that were about 5 feet in line ahead of you were gossiping about the photo snapped of you and Jensen. They giggled and zoomed in on the picture, making assumptions of whom it could be; another famous actress, some random hookup… the speculations went on and on. In this moment, instead of panic, it made you giggle. It would be hard to suspect that the person in the photo was a regular con-goer like themselves, so you willed the blush away from your cheeks as they went on to discuss the remainder of their photo ops.

Funnily enough, you hadn’t had anyone recognize you or Y/f/n from the photo you took with them at lunch yet, but you weren’t arguing too much about that either.

Y/f/n and you chatted about what you would do for lunch and dinner that afternoon on your breaks between panels as the line progressed until you were close enough to make the turn into the ballroom that had been transitioned into a make-shift photo studio. There was a large backdrop that shielded the actors from prying eyes in the hallway and another behind them that was grey, black, and white. Tables were placed around the room for people to set their bags and cell phones and one that held bottles of water and snacks for the actors. A handler instructed you and Y/f/n to place your stuff on the table and present your ticket and soon you were almost in view of the man that hounded your every thought.

He was still clad in his blue and white plaid, but the lighting of the room and the dark backdrop made his tan skin almost glow and his eyes shine. He kept scanning the line in front of you, almost as if he was searching for someone. When he met your eyes, you knew he’d been waiting for you.

He gave a slight smile, one that made the dimples in his cheeks visible through his light scruff and his lips plump further. A giddy twist of your gut sent a shade of rose to your cheeks when he didn’t move his eyes from your form for a solid thirty seconds—which doesn’t sound like a lot, but under the gaze of Jensen Ackles, its an eternity.

The handler was showing another group to the photo area: a young couple with an adorably chubby infant wearing an “SPN Family” onesie. Jared clapped his hands and jumped up and down at the sight of the youngster and went to coo over the baby immediately and asked how old she was.

But it was Jensen who spoke up, “Okay, who gets to hold the baby?!” he asked in a deadpanned, serious expression. “It better be me.” He stated, pointing to himself.

“Nuh uh! I wanna hold her!” Jared pouted, stomping his feet.

“Why don’t you both hold her?” the mom said, solving the issue in a very mom-like manner.

You watched as the boys argued for a moment over how to hold the giggling baby. She was old enough to hold her head up, so the boys stood next to each other as the dad placed the baby in their arms. Jensen held the majority of the baby’s weight, wrapping his arm around her stomach, while Jared supported her head and bottom as the parent filed in around them.

You smiled as they all cheesed for the camera, the photographer doing his best to make the baby look at him instead of staring at the two giants holding her. A flood of warmth coursed through you at seeing them interact with the little girl, trying to make her giggle and smile before handing her back to her parents.

“Damn…” Y/f/n said beside you, rubbing her chest dramatically out of breath. “Why do they have to look so sexy holding a baby? My ovaries are gonna explode.”

“Right?” you giggled, knowing that it took a whole damn lot for Y/f/n to be excited about babies. She loved them, but they scared her—she insisted that their heads would fall off if you didn't support them correctly. You tried to explain to her that that wasn’t how it worked, that they wouldn’t literally fall off but you did have to be careful, but she denied it.

Jensen must’ve seen the interaction, because when you glanced back over to him he had a smirk on his face and that one eyebrow was raised, as if he knew that him holding that cute little chubby adorable baby would make your insides go to mush.

After every photo that took place before you made it to the front, he’d meet your eyes until he had to greet the next fan.

When you and Y/f/n finally approached, Jared’s face lit up, “Hi, guys!” he exclaimed and wrapped you both in a hug together.

You waited for him to release the two of you, but when he didn’t you saw that he was teasing Jensen, not letting either one of you go and sticking his tongue out to his friend. Y/f/n giggled—audibly giggled, which she didn’t do very often—as you pried your neck from Jared’s chest to peer at Jensen who had his arms crossed and was glaring at his friend. Jared turned his back even more to Jensen, tugging you both along with him. The photographer snapped a picture and you saw a flash, but then Jared released you so you could both hug Jensen.

Y/f/n gave him a side hug and poked him in the side, making him jump a little and point his finger at her in warning. When she retreated, he held his arms open for you and you didn’t miss a beat before waltzing into his embrace. It wasn’t too showy, but he held you close enough to whisper, “Hey, baby” into your ear and effectively rendering you speechless.

The photographer asked how you’d like to pose and Y/f/n detailed exactly what you had planned out weeks ago. Jared stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, while Jensen did the same to you, each of you resting your hands on their biceps. Jensen’s hand enclosed over yours that lay on his arm, entwining his fingers with yours and he brought his face lower so that you could feel his scruff against your cheek. Jared mimicked his stance and you all smiled as Chris, the photographer—who you just happened to follow on instagram—took the picture.

Jared hugged you both again and winked at you as he went to talk to Chris, seemingly giving you and Jensen an extra couple of seconds together as he tried to shield you from those in line.

Jensen hugged Y/f/n again and grabbed your hands quickly. “I’ll see you again in a little while, okay? I’ve got to have lunch with the rest of the cast after this, but I’ll make sure to have a few moments at some point set aside for you. They’ll all help me.” He winked.

“Its fine, Jay. I know you’re busy, babe.” You replied, not missing the excitement on his features at your use of a pet name. “But, real quickly… I wanted to tell you something.” You whispered.

“Okay. What is it, sweetheart?” he said, trying to hide the nerves in his voice. He may have thought you were going to tell him that this was too hard, or that you didn’t want to take it any further than this weekend.

“I wanted to say that…” you took a deep breath and looked into his eyes, smiling, “I’m ready whenever you are.”

Jensen beamed, “Really?”

“Yeah, Jay… really. I’m in.”

He simply took you into his arms and squeezed you into his chest where you could feel his heart pounding. He couldn’t resist placing a kiss to your temple before watching you walk towards the exit, his stare never leaving yours until you were out of sight.

You left the room feeling confident and happy, following Y/f/n out of the hotel to a sub restaurant down the street. Over your turkey sandwiches and chips, Y/f/n was fully enthralled in talking about all the ifs-ands-and-buts about your potential relationship after you confessed to her what you’d told Jensen at the photo op. She was ever encouraging that you could make it work, but promised that she’d be the stalker who followed you if you ever moved away from your shared hometown. The thought of how you’d manage such a relationship plagued you for about three minutes until you had to return to the convention hotel. You ate quickly and caught the remainder of the casts’ panels before the short intermission ahead of the J2 panel.

Jensen texted that he could sneak you and Y/f/n into the green room for a few minutes and told you to meet Cliff outside. When you told her, she immediately dropped the earrings she was eyeing at one of the vendors’ shops in the hallway and dragged you to where Jensen had instructed you to go. You hiked up the end of your dress to keep up with her while trying to keep your feet in your sandals; she was just as excited to see the remainder of the cast as she was for you to see Jensen again.

Cliff shuffled you in discretely, opening and closing the door quickly as you entered. The same cast members that you had dinner with the night before were seated around the room chatting and singing random tunes with one another. Bri and Kim gave you both hugs, Rob and Rich nodded towards you and Rob kissed the back of Y/f/n’s hands.

Suddenly, you saw Jensen coming toward you from across the room. He silently grabbed your hand and led you to the corner, away from the others who simply smiled and turned in the opposite direction, giving you your privacy.

You only had time for a quick embrace and a short exchange of words before Cliff was peeking in the door, warning that they had two minutes until they had to be on stage. He asked where you were seated and said he’d look for you from the stage. Jensen apologized that he had to go so soon, giving you a sad smile and a swift kiss, but it was enough to make your mind numb.

It was strange how simply everything fell into place. Y/f/n was acting like a part of the group and that she’d known them for years, and it was alarming how easy it was to feel whole again when his lips pressed to yours. It was already a comfortable existence… and it felt amazing.

He blew you a kiss as he retreated with Jared, who flailed excitedly and breezed himself with his hands, Jensen simply laughing as he fell out the door, with Rob and Rich closely behind them.

The cast offered for you to stay with them and wait, but neither one of you could bear to miss the panel, so you went into the large ballroom and fell into your reserved seats in the copper section. It wasn’t long before R2 were on stage, hyping up the crowd before introducing the main actors of the show that a ballroom of people were screaming for. They emerged, wearing large grins and waving to the crowd and high fiving the band.

They took their respective chairs and goofed around for a bit, making inside jokes and whispering to each other before addressing the fans waiting in the wings to ask questions.

The first few were directed at both actors, asking about their favorite monsters to hunt and what they believe the brothers would do if they ever retired.

You and Y/f/n name were laughing and having fun at the panel when a young girl, around her early 20’s, was handed the microphone.

“Hello there!” Jared spoke, turning in his seat to face her—which, of course, he had turned backwards.

“Hi.” She replied meekly.

“What’s your name?” Jensen asked.

A bit of static flowed through the speakers before she responded, “Caroline.”

“Hi Caroline. How are you today?” Jared smiled at the young girl, who was obviously nervous.

“I’m doing well.” She mused. “Its my first convention.”

The crowd applauded as both Jensen and Jared welcomed her.

Jensen spoke into his microphone as the crowd stopped cheering, “What’s your question, sweetheart?” You smiled at the drawl of his voice and how gentle he was being with her.

“Well, my question is for Jensen.”

Jared made ‘phew’ sound and dropped his microphone in his lap.

Jensen’s eyes seemed to scan the crowd momentarily, looking toward where you told him you’d be seated. How you wished he could see you, but with the bright overhead lights, it was doubtful that he could pick you out of the crowd. Something told you, however, that he was looking in your direction on purpose, hoping to catch a glimpse of you in some fashion. To give it a fighting chance, you told Y/f/n that you were going to run to the restroom quickly and ventured to the end of your row, keeping your stare toward the stage. It looked like Jensen spotted you as a discreet smile crept to his lips.

You turned to retreat down the aisle to the exit, peeking behind you once or twice at the stage as Jensen encouraged Caroline to ask her question.

But it was her question that stopped you dead in your tracks.

“It’s… it’s about a picture.”

[trinuviel]

Winterfell’s Daughter. On Sansa Stark (part 7)

I’ve previously written a series of metas on Sansa Stark’s narrative arc during season 1 of Game of Thrones (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6). In this post I’m taking a look at her story in season 2. Sansa Stark is one of my favorite characters and in this respect season 2 is hard to watch because so much mental, physical and sexual abuse is heaped upon the poor girl. Yet despite her hardships, Sansa also shows that she’s both courageous, compassionate and kind. She shows us that she is strong - a strength that is mental rather than physical since she is not trained to fight like her sister. Sansa’s resilience lies in the strength of character.

Sansa refuses to be broken by the malice of the Lannisters. She fights back in her own way. Her resistance is a passive one but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a form of resistance. She doesn’t physically or verbally attack her captors. Instead she deploys her courtesy as an armour and she also employs a subtle and snarky wit as well as a strategic form of flattery to manipulate Joffrey. Those who are clever can see through her ploys yet cannot really reproach her since her statements seem flattering on the surface. She shows the audience that she is more clever than people initially assume.

COURAGEOUS AND KIND

Season 2 of Game of Thrones opens with a tourney in King’s Landing in honour of King Joffrey’s nameday. However, this tourney is a far cry from the chivalric pageantry that characterized the Hand’s Tourney in the previous season. In fact, Joffrey’s nameday tourney looks more like gladitorial combat, an exhibition of lethal bloodsport for the king’s amusement. Joffrey revels in the fact that people are killed for his personal entertainment - people getting injured and killed is amusing to him. Indeed, any kind of abuse is amusing to him but he particularly enjoys causing Sansa pain, whether it is physical or emotional pain.

After a particularly lethal fight where a man dies, Joffrey goads Sansa for a response to the violence. Here we see Sansa tonelessly “parroting” Joffrey’s words back at him – a subtle form of passive resistance. She outwardly complies but refuses to express any kind of emotion. From Joffrey’s face it is clear that he finds Sansa’s icy politesse frustrating. He wants to revel in her fear but she doesn’t allows herself to show any feelings and neither does she talk back at him, which would give him an opportunity to have her punished.

However, things come to a head when on of the contestants, Ser Dontos, arrives late and drunk. Joffrey pounces on the opportunity to have another person abused for his personal entertainment by having his Kingsguard force wine down Donto’s throat. Sansa’s reaction is immediate and purely instinctive as she blurts out “You can’t!”. 

This kind of instinctual outburst is dangerous for her. The last time she impulsively contradicted Joffrey, she earned herself a beating. Joffrey reacts angrily to her outburst – as he doesn’t like to be told no.

Joffrey: What did you say? Did you say I can’t?

She quickly realizes her danger and tries to salvage the situation.

Sansa: I only meant it would be bad luck to kill a man on your nameday.

Joffrey: What kind of stupid peasant’s superstition…

Sandor Clegane: The girl is right. What a man sows on his nameday, he reaps all year.

Sansa’s attempt to appease Joffrey may not be particularly inventive and you could argue that it is only the Hound’s intervention that saves her from a beating. However, she does manage to stop the abuse of Dontos.

Joffrey: Take him away. I’ll have him killed tomorrow, the fool.

Sansa: He is a fool! You’re so clever to see it. He’ll make a much better fool than a knight. He doesn’t deserve the mercy of a quick death.

This is the most important part of this entire scene. At this point, Sansa has managed to save her own skin (with some help from the Hound). Most people would have kept silent (as does the rest of the courtiers). Yet Sansa does not avert her eyes or keep silent. Indeed, keeping silent would probably have been the less risky option for her at this point.

Instead, Sansa decides to try saving the life of Ser Dontos. She notices Joffrey calling Dontos a fool and she then proceeds to plant the notion in Joffrey’s head that making a knight a fool is a much more humiliating punishment than death. This is an impressive piece of quick thinking and subtle manipulation. Sansa strokes Joffrey’s ego and gets her way. She saves a life – and she does so at a certain risk to her own person because she could easily earned herself a beating if Joffrey had reacted aversely to her suggestion. Sansa is actually very brave here. Many people confuse bravery with fearlessness but that is not the case! You can only be truly brave when you’re doing something despite your fear! Sansa is sticking her neck out for a stranger, knowing full well that her intervention may backfire, which could end up with her getting hurt once again. Yet she still intervenes on behalf of Dontos.

Sansa is brave here and she is compassionate, which is a testament to her fundamentally kind nature – even in adversity.

Tyrion arrives. He extends his condolences to Sansa on the death of her father. We get a profile shot of Joffrey and Sansa; she opens her mouth in order to answer Tyrion. However, before Sansa gets to speak, Joffrey reacts badly once again and throws a strop.

Joffrey: Her loss? Her father was a confessed traitor.

Tyrion: But still her father. Surely, having so recently lost your own beloved father, you can sympathize.

Joffrey turns to Sansa to gauge her reaction to Tyrion’s words. She sits with her shoulders slightly hunched, which indicates her fear. Her response will most definitely influence her treatment by Joffrey so she calibrates her answer carefully.

Sansa: My father was a traitor. My mother and brother are traitors, too. I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey.

This particular line becomes a sort of litany for her during her time in King’s Landing, always delivered in a toneless voice. Anyone with half a brain can see that she is being disingenuous but Joffrey is both stupid and vicious. I would argue that this kind of performance constitutes a form of passive resistance on Sansa’s part. She knows she cannot speak her mind openly. It will only earn her a beating. However, whilst she is outwardly complying, her wooden “performance” makes it clear that she isn’t honest.  She is speaking under duress and anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see that. She makes a performance out of the duress she’s under and this is part of how she authors her resistance with the very means that she has at her disposal.

SCAPEGOAT

Sadly, Sansa is not always able to save herself from physical abuse. However, that doesn’t mean that she’s weak or stupid. Sometimes she is just helpless in a certain situation, like when Joffrey decides to use her as a scapegoat for Robb Stark’s military victories.

The crossbow scene in ep04 is just such a situation. Sansa’s brother Robb has won yet another victory over the Lannisters and Joffrey decides to vent his anger on his helpless hostage. Once again, Joffrey’s sadistic nature is on full display, only this time it is not disguised by a socially acceptable scenario such as the nameday tourney in ep01. 

The scenes begins with low-angle close-up of Joffrey aiming the crossbow directly at the camera. In cinema and television, the camera acts as the eye of the audience so in this shot we, the audience, are directly confronted with Joffrey’s threat of violence. We are, so to speak, on the receiving end of Joffrey’s malice here.

However, this shot is followed by a point-of-view shot from Joffrey’s position, showing the audience what he’s looking at: a blurry outline that quickly is resolved into the figure of a kneeling Sansa Stark. These two shots sets the stage for the following confrontation.

These kind of shots create a POV structure where the audience is invited to inhabit both positions. It is a bit unnerving in this particular instance since we are not only invited to step into Sansa’s shoes with the first, establishing shot but also into Joffrey’s shoes with the second POV shot. However, the first shot establishes the primary POV: that of Sansa Stark - under the threat of lethal violence and it most certainly her POV that we are expected to empathize with (especially since Joffrey is such a sadistic piece of shit).

Enraged by the Lannister losses on the battlefield, Joffrey has created a mockery of a “trial”, complete with Lancel Lannister spouting an absurd accusation of sorcery and cannibalism on the part of the Northern army. All of this is accompanied by the horrified gasps of the surrounding courtiers.

Joffrey: You are here to answer for your brother’s lastest treasons.

[...]

Joffrey: Ser Lancel, tell her of this outrage.

Lancel Lannister: Using some vile sorcery, your brother fell on Stafford Lannister with an army of wolves. Thousands of good men were butchered. After the slaughter, the Northmen feasted on the flesh of the slain.

Then Joffrey quite literally threatens to kill Sansa as a “message” to Robb Stark. Fortunately, Cersei still has some influence over him so instead he decides to “punish” Sansa by having his Kingsguard beat her up.

Joffrey: Killing you would send your brother a message. But my mother insists on keeping you alive. Stand. So we’ll have to send your brother a message some other way. 

Joffrey: Meryn. Leave her face. I like her pretty.

This is where things get really nasty. Sansa is literally being beaten up by a grown man wearing armour. She is punched in the stomach by a man wearing steel gauntlets and then beaten with the flat of a sword! Even that is not enough since Joffrey orders her stripped in public.

Joffrey: If you want Robb Stark to hear us, we’re going to have to speak louder.

This scene makes me recall a conversation between Eddard Stark and Jaime Lannister in season 1 where Jaime tells Ned that 500 hundred people stood silently by and watched Rickard and Brandon Stark die on the orders of King Aerys II. The present situation is not nearly as dire but the circumstances are rather similar: an audience stands silently by whilst a king has one of his knights abuse a teenage girl. Lancel Lannister can’t even bring himself to face the abuse that he himself has played a part in, as you can see in the picture below.

I’m also reminded of another scene from season 1 where Sansa raises the subject of the deaths of her grandfather and uncle to Septa Mordane, who doesn’t want to discuss such “unpleasant” subjects with her young charge.

Septa M: They were killed on the orders of King Aerys, commonly known as the Mad King.

Now another innocent Stark is tortured on the orders of a mad king in the very place where her close relatives were killed on the orders of a mad king. The spectre of Mad King Aerys is indeed invoked in this scene when Tyrion remonstrates with Joffrey.

Joffrey: You can’t talk to me like that. The king can do as he likes!

Tyrion: The Mad King did as he liked. Has your Uncle Jaime ever told you what happened to him?

Sansa is very fortunate that Tyrion intervened when he did because Ser Meryn Trant was about to use his sword on her again and it looks as though he was about to do her serious harm.

Many people often fail to realize exactly how dangerous Sansa’s situation really is in King’s Landing. Joffrey is both vicious and stupid. He detests Sansa and he is dangerously unpredictable. He could very easily have her killed in a fit of rage before anyone would be able to intervene. At present, he still listens to his mother on this particular subject but he might not continue to do so because he has such a volatile temper. Furthermore, a situation like this could very quickly spiral completely out of hand and Sansa might get seriously hurt or even killed. 

Neither should we minimize the severity if the physical abuse that Sansa suffers here. A grown man is beating up a teenage girl and he’s not pulling his punches. The book makes this abundantly clear:

Boros slammed a fist into Sansa's belly, driving the air out of her. When she doubled over, the knight grabbed her hair and drew his sword, and for one hideous instant she was certain he meant to open her throat. As he laid the flat of the blade across her thighs, she thought her legs might break from the force of the blow. Sansa screamed. Tears welled in her eyes. It will be over soon. She soon lost count of the blows. (ACoK, Sansa III)

When Tyrion escorts Sansa out of the throne room, she is both terrified and very likely in a lot of pain. Yet she schools her countenance so that she reveals neither pain nor fear. It might not be much but it IS a small act of passive resistance. They might abuse her body but she won’t let them kill her soul.

She uses her ladylike manners as her armour. Standing tall, she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin and leaves the place of her abuse and humiliation with all the grace and dignity of a queen. She cannot stop her abusers but neither can they deprive her of her dignity.

Joffrey absolutely hates that about her - he enjoys her pain and he wants to revel in her fear. Tyrion, on the other hand, seems rather impressed with her.

To be continued...

(GIFs not mine)

[toomanytentacles]

JON BON BRADY, an essay

This is the text of the recorded essay presented by Elbee Bargeron on Episode 43 of the Splathouse Podcast. Click below to hear the episode https://soundcloud.com/user-616846084/splathouse43-double-feature-suburban-commando-1991-the-brady-bunch-movie-1995

Has anyone given much thought to actor Jack Noseworthy lately? Back in the 90s, he was kinda a big deal breaking out in a starring role on MTV’s teen sci-fi series DEAD AT 21 — but what many critics can agree on is there was another role that solidified him as a bonafide movie star: his turn as angry grunge rocker Eric Dittmeyer in 1995’s THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE. It was a role that, to some, may seem static or insignificant, but in reality, directly led him to probably the most noteworthy Noseworthy appearance of the decade. So, as much of a cinematic masterpiece as THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE so obviously is, we don't dare stop there. Because within the same year, Jack actually reprised the role with a sinister twist in the most unlikely of places, the music video for Bon Jovi’s single, “Always.”

Caution: all of what I’m about to tell you is true.

Now we all know the story of Bon Jovi — after the success of two studio albums and extensive touring, the boys found themselves fatigued by being so beloved by everyone all over the world, and took a bit of a hiatus in the late 1980s — only to come back triumphantly a few years later with newsworthy short haircuts and a much more “mature” sound — and acting as inspiration for MTV’s “Unplugged” series along the way. They released one more studio album followed by a greatest hits record which featured a lot of their hits and a new single they would soon call a hit, the song “Always.”

Jon Bon Jovi knew he had a hit song on his hands with “Always,” and as such, knew he needed a hit music video to go along with it. He wanted something...edgy. Hot. And Sexy. Jon conceived a video so steamy that his band mates cautioned against it. After all, MTV had previously banned their video “Living in Sin” for being too explicit. But, Jon argued, after he basically invented the highly successful “Unplugged” for MTV, they pretty much were obligated to show anything he wanted, and production went forward.

So Jon was a big fan of The Brady Bunch, and you can read all about that in his memoir ROCKY ROAD: THE JON BON JOVI STORY AS TOLD BY ME, JON BON JOVI that I’ve so kindly provided for you in the footnotes (footnotes have been lost). So when THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE debuted, Jon was taken aback. He, like everyone else who saw the film, became immediately enamored with it, and recognized the brilliance of its one true star, the incomparable Jack Noseworthy. Jon saw a bit of himself in the character of Eric Dittmeyer, and thought him a perfect fit for the message he was trying to convey with “Always” — that love is passionate and violent, and the crazy things we do for it could potentially haunt us. Essentially, this was the logical progression of the character — Jon knew this, and now he wanted the rest of us to know it.

The premise of the “Always” music video is cut and dry. Our bad boy hero Noseworthy aka Dittmeyer is sulking alone in his room remembering a lost love. He holds a photograph of her in his hands, and we can see from his forlorn gaze that he is heartbroken. But -- there’s more to it than that. The nuance displayed in the first 25 seconds of this video is crucial; not only is Dittmeyer sad, he seems stricken by grief -- a grief that is possibly (probably) brought on by guilt. We’re transported from his bedroom to his memories, starting with the day the photo was taken.

At this point, we would be remiss to mention the rest of the now legendary cast featured in this now legendary music video. Carla Gugino, fresh from her role in a film as equally great and universally adored as THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, the Pauly Shore vehicle SON IN LAW, plays Dittmeyer’s girlfriend; and newcomer Keri Russell -- who up until this time had only been cast as adolescent girls in projects like HONEY I BLEW UP THE KIDS and BOY MEETS WORLD, and who was looking for a way to break out into more sophisticated entertainment -- is Carla’s roommate. Rounding out the cast is indie darling Jason Wiles, who -- hipsters, take note -- also starred in projects by both Robert Rodriguez and Noah Baumbach during this time, making him the perfect choice for Dittmeyer’s baby-faced rival. Clearly, Jon Bon Jovi’s casting choices were -- as many critics agreed -- inspired.

But, back to the video. Here we are in Dittmeyer’s memories, reminded of what a rebel he is as we see he and Carla making out in his classic Oldsmobile 88 convertible while speeding away into oncoming traffic. Both of them fit the cliche of “young and free,” a love that makes everything else in the world irrelevant. But a love so hot can burn out fast, so we know we must be in for a tumultuous ride with this couple. Dittmeyer enjoys photographing his girlfriend, but what he really loves is taking video of her. Carla is an attractive and empowered young woman, so she has no problems dancing and acting sexy for her boyfriend, and no doubt does she find this kind of play enticing. They fall into bed together with the video camera still recording -- a fact cleverly made apparent to us with a full zoom to the camera lens sitting idle on the arm of a chair.

The story progresses quickly as we are now treated to a memory of the couple attending a rave party together, both of them dressed in scandalous outfits and moussed hair; they get down and dirty with each other on the dancefloor, and when they return home -- still fueled by the drugs they have undoubtedly consumed -- they unknowingly awaken Keri who had fallen asleep on the couch. The couple retreat to Carla’s bedroom as Keri stretches and flips on the television. And here’s where Bon Jovi decided to make it interesting: Dittmeyer’s video camera, still running, is connected to the living room TV. So when Keri sleepily turns on the television, she is shocked fully awake as she sees her roommate initiate sloppy sex with her boyfriend.

We can pause for a moment and reflect a bit more about Jon Bon Jovi’s vision for Eric Dittmeyer. According to his memoir ROCKY ROAD THE STORY OF JON BON JOVI AS TOLD BY ME JON BON JOVI, Jon knew Dittmeyer was a sleaze, and wanted to echo that in this video. We noted before that Jon had seen a bit of himself in the character, which means that Jon definitely had some demons he needed to deal with. Dittmeyer, as it turns out, had been, and seemingly always would be a two-timer. We can support this with the following evidence: Dittmeyer didn’t “accidentally” leave his video camera running. There had always been sexual tension between he and Keri --  we know Dittmeyer’s type has to be women with long curly hair, proven by his interest in Marissa Ribisi’s character in THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, so no doubt could he resist the allure of Keri “soon-to-be Felicity” Russell. He knew that if Keri saw how great he was in bed with Carla that she wouldn’t be able to turn down a future tryst with him. And ya know, it worked.

Carla is outraged when she returns from the grocery store and sees a live display of the two of them canoodling, again, on the living room TV. She throws the bag of groceries at them in the bedroom and runs out, leaving the apartment and running down the street. Enter Jason, an artist friend of theirs -- and just maybe one of Carla’s old flames -- who sees her on the street and invites her up to his loft. He has her pose for a painting, they both remove their shirts, and we cut to the next morning when Carla wakes up alone in his bed. She’s feeling guilty and calls Dittmeyer to pick her up, but when he arrives all hell breaks loose when he realizes she’s slept with Jason: he throws a tantrum of gigantic proportion, throwing furniture and destroying the painting, but the worst is still yet to come. Carla tells him, effectively, to talk to her hand, and tries to leave the building. But Dittmeyer has already tritely made up his mind that if he can’t have her no one will, and uses what we can only assume is paint thinner to set off a fiery explosion that kills Carla but he’s able to walk away from entirely unscathed.

We now leave Dittmeyer’s memories and return to the beginning of the video where he is staring at Carla’s photograph. He’s missing her greatly, and his guilt manifests as he hallucinates her standing in his doorway. He reaches to her but she fades away, a literal ghost that lives only in his mind.

Jon Bon Jovi married his high school sweetheart Dorothea in 1989, and although they share a love that won’t ever die, we can’t help but wonder who Jon modeled this destructive love story after. Why would Jon feel such a connection to a sleaze like Eric Dittmeyer? Frankly, it’s a love tryst with himself. Jon laid out an entire chapter in his memoir ROCKY ROAD THE JON BON JOVI STORY AS TOLD BY ME JON BON JOVI on how he had been secretly obsessed with Shakespearean tragedy in his youth, but had to cover that with a tuff persona to remain cool to his New Jersey heavy metal friends. He loved those tragic characters because they had flaws, and he respected them for that. So, along came THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE -- a Shakespearean tragedy in its own right -- and the character of Dittmeyer spoke to him on a whole other level. He was a rocker, just like him. He drove a convertible and had a bad attitude, just like him. He was into girls with long curly hair, definitely just like him. And Jon felt none of his Jersey friends ever understood him or his passion for art and culture, just as Dittmeyer’s friends never fully understood him.

When Jon asked Jack Noseworthy to meet with him about the role, he was nervous and excited. He didn’t want to let on how much he needed Jack to be this character again, to act out his own youthful grief and regret using Jack as a surrogate. Jon wanted validation after so many years hiding his love for high art beneath tight pants, superfluous scarves, and feathered locks -- and besides, he had already hinted at a more sensitive side of himself when originating the intimate acoustic concert series “Unplugged” for MTV all on his own and by the way, gave it away for free -- so when Noseworthy agreed to reprise this character, Jon was ecstatic. They conceptualized the character together -- it was actually Jack who came up with the idea for Dittmeyer to destroy Jason’s painting of Carla, a symbol of Jon’s regret of hiding all of his delicate emotions from his more macho friends. It was, in a word, cathartic.

So, thanks to forgotten actor Jack Noseworthy, THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, and the video for “Always,” Jon Bon Jovi was finally given the intellectual credit he always wanted and deserved. Rest in peace, Jon. We’ll always love you, forever and a day.

[mosylufanfic]

Sidekicks

Killervibe Fanfic Week! Monday June 18th: Role Reversal

@killervibedaily

I thought this was a pretty fun prompt, and of course, the first thing I thought of was Cisco Frost and Caitlin Vibe. That would have been pretty neat! But then I started to wonder what they would be like with swapped personalities, and that notion wouldn't let go. So here you go.

Sidekicks

Francisco Ramon had pulled his hair back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, one so secure that the wind whipping down the runway didn't budge a single strand. Barry wondered if it gave him a headache. Maybe that was why he had such a dour expression.

He shoved his thick-framed glasses up his nose and studied Barry like he was a bug. "We've theorized that you were moving so fast, it only appeared that the world was slowing down. That's what we're testing now." He glanced back at the other two people from Star Labs. "Dr. Wells will be monitoring your energy output, and Dr. Snow, your vitals."

"And what do you do?"

"I build the equipment, of course," the other man said. He held up a black circle with a lightning bolt on it. "This is a two-way headset that I've modified, with a camera attached. It's designed to combat battlefield impulse noise."

"Or a sonic boom," Barry suggested.

"The speed of sound is three hundred and thirty-two miles per second. It's unlikely."

Okay. Fine then. He took the black circle in his fingers and studied it. "I like the lightning bolt."

Francisco rolled his eyes and took it back. "That was Caitlin."

Caitlin herself strolled up. The wind tossed her pink-streaked braids and set her bright blue dress and man's trench coat flapping  She grinned at Francisco. "Are you complaining about my lightning bolt again?"

"It's pointless," he grumbled, yanking the helmet off Barry's head.

"It keeps it from being boring!"

"It doesn't need to be exciting, it just needs to work."

"It can work and not be boring," Caitlin said, pulling a gummy bear out of her pocket and popping it in her mouth. The three or four charm bracelets tangled around her wrist jingled.

He grumbled under his breath and took the helmet back to the table where Dr. Wells sat.

Caitlin rolled her eyes and muttered, "Stick in the mud." She turned back to Barry. "Okay. Let's get you synced up and see what you can do."

"You're a doctor?" he said doubtfully as she jabbed at the various sensors on his chest with purple-glittered nails, then tapped her tablet. "Like, really a doctor?"

"Nah, you got me. I printed my M.D. from the Internet." She ate another gummy bear. A stray sunbeam bounced off the pink sequined heart on the front of her dress and momentarily blinded him.

"Wait, what?"

"Yes. I'm a real doctor. School loans and everything."

"It's just that you're not - uh."

"Very professional-looking?" She flicked the pink-striped braid back over her shoulder. "Oh, I know. And I did spend a lot of years conforming. Pencil skirts, little pearl studs - " She shook her head so that the mess of metal that swung from her earlobes jingled cheerfully. "- neutral nail polish, that kind of thing."

"What happened?"

"The same thing that happened to you." She made a note in her tablet. "My once-promising career in bioengineering is over, my boss is in a wheelchair for life, and the explosion that put you in a coma also killed my fiancé. So, I figure I've got fuck-all to lose by wearing leggings with cats on them to work."

He glanced down automatically. Not only did her leggings have cats, they were also floating in outer space.

He looked back up, and she smirked at him. "Cute, huh?"

He smirked back. "Bet your co-worker over there loves that."

But instead of agreeing, she said, "Look, Cisco's kind of a stiff. I'll give you that. But he's the most brilliant, inventive mechanical genius you'll ever meet. Ever. And he's there when you need him."

Probably with a judgemental frown. Or a lecture. "Cisco? He said to call him Francisco."

"Yeah, you should probably stick to that for awhile, until he decides to let you in."

Barry looked over his shoulder at the scowling young man, working on his machines. "I'm not holding my breath."

"Give him some time. Let him warm up to you. In the meantime, don't push it."

Barry decided it was unlikely. "Do you think I can break the speed of sound?" It felt possible to him, with the lightning crackling in his blood.

"Tell you what,"  she called over her shoulder, already on the way back to the RV. Her heavy Doc Martens splashed through a puddle. "If you do, I'll give you a gummy bear."

When Cisco drifted into her lab, she didn't look up as she asked, "So, what do you think of our speedster?"

"So he runs fast. It's scientifically intriguing, but functionally pointless."

"You're just annoyed because the blowback landed you on your ass out there." She lifted her head and grinned at him.

He scowled at her in a way that as good as admitted she was right. "Really. What can he do with that ability?"

"What can't he do with it? He makes Usain Bolt look like a grandma in a walker. Fastest man alive!"

"This is real life, not a comic book."

"You could fool me, lately." She looked up. From this angle, she could see one of the "teeth" that curved over Star Labs, broken in half by the explosion nine months ago. "Maybe a superhero would have stopped this from happening."

She wanted to bite her own tongue off when she heard the words slip out. Wincing, she turned to look at Cisco.

He'd taken off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "We didn't need a superhero. We needed better engineers."

He always looked younger with his glasses off. She suspected that was why he wore them, and why he tied his hair back so tightly.

"Hey," she said. "How many times do I have to say it? That - " She gestured up at the broken tooth. " - was not your fault. Ronnie was not your fault."

"If I'd done better - if I'd made a different choice - you would still have him."

"Maybe," she acknowledged. "And if I hadn't asked him to come along, he wouldn't have been here that night. And if his mom had never flirted with his dad at the roller rink in high school, he wouldn't have been born."

Cisco gave her a long suffering look.  

"My point is, you can what-if until the cows come home, but this is the world we live in." She bit her lip, thinking of the engagement ring entombed in her jewelry box at home. But that hurt, a knot right under her breastbone, and she said, "Speaking of that, do you ever wonder about those cows? I mean, what are they doing out so late? Probably up to no good. Bovine delinquents."

Cisco's mouth quirked up at the corner, and she felt a flush of triumph. She didn't get a smile out of him very often. "Your shoe's untied," he said.

She glanced down. "Oh, yeah. I'll get them in a moment. I'm almost done with these samples." She didn't want to have to put on a new pair of sterile gloves after she'd handled her dirty shoelaces.

He nudged her wheely office chair over to her. "Put your foot up."

She raised her brows, but propped her foot on the seat. He leaned over, took her loose laces, and retied them. Double-knotted, of course. He gave the toe of her boot a quick pat and straightened up. "There," he said. "I imagine it's not very sterile to trip over your shoelaces and faceplant into your lab bench, either."

She settled her foot back on the floor, feeling a flush creep up her face. "Not particularly, no." She focused on her samples again.

When she had them all prepped and set up for the morning, she looked over at him. He was fiddling with her shelf of beakers, turning them all so they faced the same direction. "Hey," she said. "What are you thinking about?"

"Air friction," he said, brows drawn together in concentration.

Her hands paused. What had she thought he was going to say? I'm thinking about the way I look at you sometimes, when you don't think I notice? I'm wondering if you ever look at me that way?

(The answer was yes, but it wasn't an answer she was ready to give. Not yet.)

"Of course you are," she said, stripping her gloves off and chucking them toward the trash can. She started to put everything else away. "What else?"

"We clocked him at 220 miles per hour today. He only ran about a mile, but what if he does longer runs? The effect of air friction would be considerable."

Caitlin considered it as she hoisted herself up on the counter. She leaned over and pulled open a drawer, plucking out a mini Krackel bar. "His skin should be okay - he's got that healing factor - but his clothes, his shoes? Yeah, they'd be pretty thrashed, I'd say."

She unwrapped the chocolate bar and bit in half. With her mouth full, she rummaged through the drawer for a moment and then held out a piece of candy. Dark chocolate with almonds.

He started to tell her he didn't snack between meals. She knew it, she could hear the words practically gathering up on his tongue. But he took the candy bar and unwrapped it carefully, biting off the corner.

The only reason she didn't throw all the dark-chocolate-with-almonds away when she filled her chocolate stash was because they were his favorite. Weirdo, she thought fondly.

"Since you brought it up," she prompted. "I'm guessing you got something in mind for air friction?"

"I have been working on that heat-resistant material."

"The fire suit?"

"The fire suit."

She played with the wrapper from her candy bar. "Just for proof of concept, of course," she said innocently.

He shot her a look from behind his glasses, but before he could say anything, the door to the cortex thumped open and Barry's voice called out, "Guys? Hey, where is everyone?"

She called out, "In here!" and Barry appeared with two large boxes in his arms.

"Hey," he said. "You guys got some time to talk?"

"I was about to go home for the night," Cisco said coolly.

"But we can make the time," Caitlin said, giving him a warning look. He pushed his glasses up in a gesture of annoyance, but didn't argue.

"Great," Barry said, thumping both boxes down on the table and pulling files out. "I've been going over unsolved cases from the past nine months. There's been a sharp increase in unexplained deaths and missing people. . . ."

Caitlin listened as Barry explained what he wanted to do. Superhero, she thought. He wants to be a real-life superhero.

She looked across the table at Cisco. He had his arms folded tightly, his hands gripping the opposite elbows. His face looked blank as he stared down at the files scattered over the table. Unexplained deaths, missing persons, general weirdness. They all knew that Central City had gotten much weirder lately.

If all of them, or even some of them, were due to the particle accelerator explosion, then that was even more that they needed to atone for. But if Barry's idea panned out, maybe they could actually start on that instead of marinating in regrets.

"I can't do it without you," Barry finished up. He glanced at Caitlin, and then looked longer at Cisco.

When Cisco lifted his head, though, it wasn't to return Barry's gaze. Instead, he looked up at her. Anybody who didn't know him wouldn't have been able to see the mix of emotions bubbling in his eyes. Uncertainty, hope, wariness, excitement.

She knew him.

She tilted her head and raised her brows. He let out a little sigh and pressed his lips together. She smiled at him.

"If we're going to do this," he said slowly, as if the words were being pulled out of him, "I have something that might help."

FINIS

[shirlleycoyle]

Why the Plastic Packaging You Hate So Much Is Still Here

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Throughout my childhood, I have lots of memories of getting gifts—often of the handheld, gadgety variety—and not being able to use them right away, because I couldn’t open up the package.

It was like a prison of plastic that surrounded the Tiger handheld game I just received—a well-formed blister of flexible, but thick plastic that prevented me from playing Aladdin, or opening up that pack of batteries I needed to get my Game Boy going. Pressed together in a tight, impenetrable clamp of two sheets of thick, clear plastic—literally a sandwich of fossil fuel byproducts—you basically had no choice but to use a blade to open it, with the plastic unable to be reused again.

In many ways, these products are prime candidates for blister packaging. They’re fairly small in size; they’re not cheap, but not expensive, either; at their heart, they are impulse buys.

The reason why this toy is still sealed is because the poor kid couldn’t figure out how to open it up. Image: via eBay

Blister packaging, which relies on molded plastic, was not at its heart an anti-consumer mechanism. In fact, one of its primary use cases was specifically intended to help consumers. In the 1960s, blister packs became a key element of delivering medicine to consumers—with oral contraceptives, which needed to be taken on a timed cycle, one of the first successful products to use foil-backed blister packs.

These pharmaceutical packages are fairly common today, and make it easier to properly measure dosage.

But how did packaging companies shape the plastic in such a way that they could create the blister? In many ways, it comes down to the unique properties of plastic, which vary based on type. 

1872

The year that the German chemist August Wilhelm von Hoffman invented an early form of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. Despite his early work, the resulting material was unstable, and was perfected by two later inventors—Friedrich Heinrich August Klatte, a fellow German chemist who came up with a PVC production process in 1913 that used sunlight for polymerization, making it easier to produce; and Waldo Lunsbury Semon. In 1926, Semon, an employee of the tire manufacturer B.F. Goodrich, stumbled upon a plasticized version of the polymer that made it flexible but inert. (The product Semon developed is still sold today under the Koroseal brand name.) Together, these innovations allowed for the creation of what is one of the world’s most common materials, a material at the center of the kinds of packaging that make you want to tear your hair out.

Pharmaceutical blister packs are close cousins of the kind that annoy people in retail settings. Image: Efraimstochter/Pixabay

Generally, plastics are susceptible to two types of phenomena, depending on the variant: Thermosetting, in which plastic becomes stronger when it gets hotter; and thermoforming, in which plastic becomes more malleable with heat.

Thermoset plastics were the most popular type around when plastic first went mainstream; bakelite, a common early type of plastic that has become collectible in recent years, is a thermoset, and it has tended to be used in heat-resistant settings.

But thanks to heat, thermoformed plastics (of which PVC is a prominent example) tend to be much more flexible and moldable, which makes them well-suited for packaging. It was these qualities that made them useful for “blister”-style packaging, which refers to the fact that there’s an object inside of the molded plastic lump, just as there’s something inside the blisters you get when you take a 10-mile walk.

Add a little bit of heat in the right spot and you can mold a sheet of plastic any which way—and ensure that plastic perfectly matches the shape of whatever piece of junk you’re trying to sell.

It’s in this spirit that new forms of packaging emerged that took advantage of these properties—first, medical packaging in the 1960s, and then starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, blister or clamshell packaging.

Clamshell packaging in particular is an interesting case. It’s the kind that people think of when they think of packaging that turns into a strugglefest. Commonly, an inventor named Thomas Jake Lunsford gets the credit for this type of packaging, which involves putting the product and any manuals or promotional materials in the middle of two plastic halves. Previously, most packaging of this nature had a cardboard back half which was easier to remove, but effectively allowed for the destruction of the package just to use it.

This clamshell packaging patent is not as annoying as the one used on the Tiger electronics toy above. Image: Google Patents

I’m not totally convinced he deserves the blame, though, because if you look at his invention, it’s fairly innocuous compared to the clamped-down experiences that most people associate with wrap rage, and most importantly, Lunsford says in his patent application that his design is intended to be reusable—something most clamshell packs assuredly are not.

It may be a case where Lunsford built something with good intentions only to see later inventors develop those goods with bad intentions.

1982

The year in which a number of Tylenol packages at a Chicago-area grocery store were tampered with, leading to seven deaths. The infamous incident led to a serious rethink of packaging by consumer goods companies, which responded to the incident by heavily investing in new methods of securing their containers, in an effort to meet Food and Drug Administration guidelines created after the incident. One such tamper-evident approach involves putting a thicker form of shrink-wrap around the lid of a bottle or can; another involves adding a piece of foil to the lid. The idea, essentially, is to ensure that you know if someone opened the container before you did. Blister-packaged pills were ahead of the game on this by two decades.

The tri-fold clamshell is designed in such a way that it can be stocked somewhat normally on a store shelf. Image: Alibaba

Five variants of blister packaging, and what makes each of them “special”

Face-seal blister packaging. Perhaps the most low-end of the common blister packaging types, this essentially involves a sealed piece of plastic on top of a piece of paperboard. This is used for cheap or light items, mostly, like lip balm.

Trapped blister packaging. In this case, the barriers of the plastic blister sheeting are located between two pieces of paperboard, allowing for more design options on the packaging. You might see this used by memory card manufacturers like Sandisk.

Clamshell packaging. Probably the kind you think of when the concept of blister packaging comes up, this product variant is known for its thick packaging and tough seal, which can be difficult to remove depending on the production process. As mentioned above, old Tiger Electronics games came in this format (among numerous other things) but the company has notably simplified the format for its recent revival.

Tri-fold clamshell. When the product is particularly large or unwieldy—think a computer mouse, webcam, or similar piece of technology equipment with an uneven shape—it might use this format of clamshell, which adds a double-hinge style at the bottom of it so it can stand on its own—which also, by the way, allows it to be set on a shelf without the need for an extra hook.

Skin packaging. Used for foods such as steak or other types of meat, this packaging type uses a vacuum seal on the product so that the plastic totally surrounds it. The plastic is usually thinner than what you’ll find in a blister seal, and unlike the other types, it may not use a paper card at all. While a different process from blister sealing, one might argue it actually looks more like a blister than traditional blister packaging does.

“It was very annoying. When you are buying something that is really expensive, you don’t expect it to be hard to take out of the package.”

— Reena Russell, a consultant for the energy industry, expressing her frustration with plastic blister-style packaging in a 2004 Wall Street Journal article. (As noted by the headline, “The Puncture Wound I Got for Christmas,” the package actually injured her.) Part of Russell’s frustration is that the packaging, designed as an anti-theft mechanism, had gone upmarket, and was now being used for higher end products—in Russell’s case, a handheld Palm computer. Perhaps because of frustrations like this, many modern smartphones and similar computing devices don’t actually come in blister packs anymore. (OK, maybe burner phones do.)

Amazon has pioneered a concept called “frustration-free packaging.” Image: josemiguels/Pixabay

Why opening a package from Amazon sucks a lot less than opening a blister pack

While I can’t guarantee this will be the case every single time, one thing that you might have realized in reading the prior section is that you’ve probably run into hard-to-open blister packaging less in the past few months than you might have previously.

And the reason has everything to do with why blister packaging sucks so much.

See, the reason why blister packaging, or clamshell packaging is so annoying to open is because it’s designed as a theft deterrent device of sorts.

For retailers, shoplifting is a legitimate concern. Last year, the National Retail Federation found that theft, fraud, and other losses caused by retail shrinkage cost the industry more than $50 billion dollars in 2018 alone. 

Obviously, retailers are always looking for ways to prevent shoplifting and other forms of shrinkage, and while putting cameras and RFID sensors everywhere is fairly effective, a more old-school approach that is commonly seen today involves making the packaging really annoying.

Lots of examples of this dynamic exist. For example, part of the reason why the record industry tried making longboxes the primary receptacle for compact discs, despite the size being unnecessary, is that it made the discs harder to steal.

If you go to a Target or Walmart, you will most assuredly run into clamshell or blister packaging, especially for high-value goods. Image: jeepersmedia/Flickr

There are a few ways to prevent things from being stolen from a store, but the most notable include making a package an unwieldy size, making it hard to hold onto, and making it hard to open without a lot of work.

Blister packaging does all of these things. It’s harder to shove in your pocket, you need tools to open the packages up, and if it’s been tampered with, it’s obvious.

The problem is that what makes something hard to steal also makes it a challenge to open for legitimate customers. It turns a normal consumer experience into something hostile. And it creates an opportunity for someone to disrupt the status quo.

This is where Amazon comes in. There are a lot of things that one can criticize Amazon for, but one of those things is not the concept of “frustration-free” packaging. Introduced way back in 2007, the company pioneered the idea that, if you’re getting a packaged shipped to your home in a box anyway, there is no need for the consumer-hostile packaging. In fact, they make it easy to open up the thing you just bought in many cases.

Recently, the company has been doubling down on this idea, pushing the companies that sell products through the service—most of the global economy, essentially—to follow its lead.

“At Amazon, it’s our mission to be the world’s most customer-centric company, and we continue to raise the bar by providing customers with what they want: minimal, protective and functional packaging,” the company stated in a document acquired by Packaging World.

Now, there are concerns about waste and sustainability driving some of Amazon’s work on this issue, but not to be lost is the raison d’être for this effort in the first place: the brick-and-mortar retail industry’s natural reliance on frustrating packaging design. Amazon turned a longstanding frustration that consumers had with brick-and-mortar stores into a competitive advantage.

Granted, they have their own issues with theft—porch pirates have been enough of an issue that Amazon has invested heavily in a home security camera business in part to help track such theft.

Amazon is a controversial company that uses controversial tactics and controversial means to get ahead. But at least they make it easier to open up the things we bought … right?

Blister packaging is annoying, it potentially creates threats of injuries, and thanks to Amazon, it might actually encourage people to use online shopping over brick-and-mortar retail.

But these things may not even be the worst elements of blister packaging. In truth, it might be the fact that it’s very tough to recycle.

There are a few reasons for this. For one, many blister packs don’t have their plastic resin identifier code labeled on the packaging, which makes it difficult for recyclers to figure out what it is. For another, the type of plastic used has a bad chemical composition for recycling, which makes it a bad idea to put in the bin.

“You absolutely want to make sure that you never ever put PVC into your recycling bin,” said Steve Alexander of the Association of Plastics Recyclers, in comments to The New York Times last year.

An example of PulpWorks’ plastic-free taken on blister packaging. Note: No blisters! Image: Handout photo

The problems with recycling have helped encourage the creation of alternatives. One of those alternatives is called PulpWorks. Rather than covering the object in hard-to-bust-open plastic, the design of the packaging purposely leaves a portion of the object visible, while surrounding the object with biodegradable materials of the kind used in many egg cartons. It solves the theft-risk problem through design, not simply by covering the whole thing with a non-reusable plastic shell.

Paul Tasner, the co-inventor of the product, noted to The Wall Street Journal in 2014 that the design was inspired in part by irony.

“My wife and I were always complaining about opening those things and then one day she brought home the tool to seemingly end all of that difficulty,” Tasner told the paper. “It was a special set of shears designed specifically for safely cutting open blister packs and clam shells. However, in a completely absurd twist, the shears were actually packaged in a blister pack.”

Plastics have played a key role in the modern world we have today, in ways big and small. But really to solve the intertwined problems of packaging and theft, we need more clever thinkers—so that the next time a poor kid gets a Tiger Electronics game, they can actually open up the box.

Why the Plastic Packaging You Hate So Much Is Still Here syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[atlas-affogato]

Two Idiots In Love

I would like to thank @speedygal for encouraging me to write this. This fic would not exist were it not for your incredible support. May I now present, my first ever Star Trek fanfiction.

Two Idiots In Love by AtlasAffogato

Spock lowered himself onto the couch with a sigh. His wrinkled hand grazed over the cover of the well-used book he held. It’s brown leather was cracked and faded from hundreds of hands skimming over the surface. Spock sunk back into the couch and made himself comfortable, something that was hard to achieve in his old age. Fingers traced along the edges, before he flipped it open with the care that one might take with a new born baby. The first yellowing page stared up at him. TWO IDIOTS IN LOVE (JIM & SPOCK) His lip twitched up in a ghost of a smile. He remembered when they first got this photo album, all those years ago.

- “Oh come on Spock, we need a place to keep all our photos.” Jim whined, pulling the photo album off the store shelf. He started flipping through the empty pages. “Once again I must tell you that keeping photographs is highly illogical considering that I have impeccable memory.” Jim threw him a look over his shoulder. “Yes, well I don’t so I’m going to continue to take pictures.” _______ Jim flipped open to the first page and pulled out a permanent marker. “What should we call it?” He mused out loud, tapping the marker against his chin. Spock, who sat across the table, suggested, “It does not have to be over complicated Jim. Jim and Spock would suffice.” Jim nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He scribbled down their names. Just then, McCoy appeared behind Jim with a tray of food. “What’re you doing?”He sat down on Jim’s right and took a bite out of his apple. Jim flashed the doctor a smile. “We’re making a photo album.” McCoy peered at the paper and shook his head. “Nah,” he mumbled around his apple. “That’s not right.” He snatched the marker out of Jim’s hand and wrote TWO IDIOTS IN LOVE above their names. He pulled back, but then as an afterthought but parenthesis around their names. McCoy gave them both a quick smirk. “I fixed it.” He took another bite of his apple.-

Spock found himself missing Doctor McCoy more often these days. The house had been quiet ever since Jim passed, and thoughts of their days in Starfleet arouse frequently. He gazed down at the album. It was old fashioned, and there were many better ways to store images, but Jim had insisted on a photo album from an antique shop, claiming that he was “just behind the times like that.” He flipped open to the first picture. It was an image of Jim holding a tribble close to his face, gazing at the creature lovingly. It was from their time on shore leave; a merchant was selling them and Jim could not resist.

- “Jim I do not think-” “Oh relax Spock, it doesn’t bite.” Jim plucked a tribble off the table and lifted it in his hands. The small creature cooed at Jim, snuggling down on to his hand. A wide grin split across Jim’s face. “Spock, take a picture.” Spock considered arguing, but the loving expression Jim wore could not be resisted. He pulled out a camera and snapped a picture of Jim with the tribble. Jim glanced up at Spock. “Come on Spock, hold it.” Spock shook his head. “Jim, I do not think that is wise.” Jim rolled his eyes affectionately, and placed the tribble in his hands. Spock opened his mouth to argue, but he found himself unable to speak when faced with this adorable creature. The tribble snuffled a bit, shuffling on Spock’s hands. A small smile creeped up on Spock’s face. He looked up at Jim. Jim was watching him, affection written across his face plain as day. Jim did not look away or blush when caught watching, only chuckled and pulled Spock into a side hug. He delicately pulled the tribble away from Spock and set it back on the table. “See?” Jim kept one arm locked around Spocks. “What did I tell ya?” He grinned at Spock and pulled him into a chaste kiss. “I told ya you would love tribbles.”-

Spock traced Jim’s face with a loving hand. How he missed Jim. Gaining a grip on his emotions, Spock flipped to the next picture. And barely contained a laugh. The next image had a young Spock sitting in a chair, frowning deeply, as Doctor McCoy shaved his head.

- “How did you even get gum in your hair?” McCoy asked, expecting the back of Spock’s head. “An adolescent spit his gum at me on my walk back to the ship.” Spock stated with thinly veiled malice. Jim was stuck between feeling bad for Spock and laughing his head off, so he stayed in an awkward limbo of biting his lip and smirking. “Well,” McCoy sighed. “I can’t just cut out a chunk of hair, you’ll look ridiculous, although you don’t have much trouble with that.” Spock gave the doctor a look that clearly said that he was not amused. McCoy continued. “I’m going to have to buzz it all off.” Spock stared at McCoy with wide eyes. “Excuse me Doctor McCoy, human pranks elude me.” McCoy shook his head. “This isn’t a prank Spock. I thought we could use a hair product, but with your Vulcan heritage, I’m afraid the acidity of human hair products would burn off all your hair. Better to cut it.” Spock looked away, instead opting to stare at the floor. “Are you going to be okay with that Spock?” Jim asked in a gentle tone. Spock looked up, and nodded. “Yes. We have no other option.” Jim nodded and grabbed a chair. “Here. Sit here.” Spock obeyed and sat in silence as McCoy shaved his entire head.-

Spock winced. He had hated his hair buzzed, and it was obvious to everyone how much he despised having a buzzed head. He remembered walking onto the bridge for the first time and hearing Sulu choke on his drink. It was awful for months until it finally grew back to the standard length. Spock was happy to turn to the next page. The next page held pictures of the entire bridge team, Doctor McCoy, and Mr. Scott eating ice cream that Uhura had made. They were all laughing and smiling, chocolate covering faces.

- “When did you learn how to make ice cream?” Jim stared, dumbfounded, as Uhura scooped him homemade chocolate ice cream. She rolled her eyes. “It’s not that hard. And I used a machine anyways, which comes with instructions and recipes. All I did was put in ingredients.” “Still,” Sulu murmured, chomping down on ice cream. “It’s really impressive.” Jim took his bowl and sat down at the table in Mess that he always occupied. McCoy sat next to him, pouring chocolate syrup into his ice cream. Chekov sat on McCoy’s other side, who was shoving his face full of vanilla ice cream. Spock sat across from Jim and watched as he shoved spoonful after spoonful down his throat. Spock arched an eyebrow. Uhura sat next to Spock, across from McCoy and peered at him. “Do you not want any Spock?” Spock turned to face her. “I’ve never consumed ice cream, and do not wish to start now.” The entire table went silent. Everyone turned to stare at Spock. “You’ve NEVER had ice cream?!” Scotty exclaimed. Spock blinked. “Ice cream is a human invention and having been raised on Vulcan I can not say that I have ever eaten ice cream.” Uhura shook her head and stood up. “Nope. I’m not letting you get away with this. You are eating ice cream.” She walked over to the counter and filled another bowl with chocolate ice cream. She snagged a spoon from a drawer and set both in front of Spock. Spock gazed up at her, but she just crossed her arms and stared back at him. Spock looked down the table to see everyone watching him expectantly. “I do not wish-” he started, only to be cut off. “Eat it!” “Don’t give us any of that, Spock!” “It’s really good, just try it.” Spock stared down at the bowl, and picked up his spoon. He didn’t move. “Eat, eat, eat, eat.” Jim started up a chant, soon followed by McCoy, Scotty, and everyone else.Uhura started banging on the table. “EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT.” Spock held up a hand, signaling for them to stop. He lifted his spoon and scooped some ice cream. He brought the spoon to his lips and sniffed it. Having no scent, Spock was wary, but he ate it anyways. The entire table cheered as you downed his first spoonful. “Well?” Jim asked expectantly. Spock swallowed before responding. “It is much colder than I was expecting.” “Do you like it is the question.” McCoy stated. Spock nodded. “Yes, it is quite tasty.” He took another bite. Satisfied with his answer, everyone returned to their ice cream with warm smiles. They continued on for a few minutes until Spock stifled a whimper, moving the ice cream around in his mouth before swallowing. He closed his eyes and shook his head, hoping to disperse the awful feeling in his head. “You okay Spock?” Jim inquired. Spock shook his head, eyes still squeezed shut. “No. It seems that I have a headache, but this is unlike any headache I have had in the past.” Jim laughed. Spock frowned and opened his eyes. “I do not believe that this is any laughing matter, Jim.” Jim laughed again and McCoy chuckled. “The Vulcan’s got a brainfreeze.” McCoy laughed. This concerned Spock. “Brainfreeze?” That did no sound pleasurable in the slightest. “Yeah.” McCoy waved his hands around as he spoke. “It’s when you eat ice cream too fast-” “How do I get rid of it?” Spock interrupted, holding his head in his hands. McCoy chuckled. “Put your thumb on the roof of your mouth.” Spock threw him a look that said he didn’t believe him. “It works, believe me.” Not knowing what else to do, Spock stuck his thumb on the roof of his mouth. Which, surprisingly, did work. Once the headache had withdrawn, Spock removed his thumb from his mouth. “Thank you Doctor McCoy.” McCoy nodded back at him, and they continued to finish their ice cream.-

Spock smiled, fully this time. That was a great day. Throughout their marriage Jim had always insisted that they kept their freezer stocked with gallons of ice cream. Spock gazed down at his friends once more and shut the book. He had not been expecting the flood of emotions upon opening the book. Spock leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. After everyone has gone, he remained. Without friends, without a husband. Without youth. Spock shifted into a more comfortable position and took a deep, rattling breath. No more time spent alone. Spock relaxed and let nature return him to the ones he loves.

[thisgirlhastales]

Keith works out, Lance ogles happily, Pidge tries to analyze the nature of their PDA ... she swiftly regrets all the things.

Some very kind people have sent me some very kind asks and made me feel better about being sick lately — and suddenly, my fingers were doing a thing on the keyboard? This thing, specifically? Just, everyone is so very nice, and I hope you like this silly little one-shot about silly space boys :) (Special shout-out to the anonymous person that called out this idea before I posted! Such amazing psychic powers! :D)

******

“But seriously, if my calculations are correct — shut your mouth, Lance, they are always correct — then Keith is initiating fifty two point seven percent of the times you make me want to invent brain bleach.” Pidge pauses to push her glasses up her nose. “Keith, care to offer some insight into this?”

“No.” Keith resumes lifting weights. Really, discovering the Castle’s weight room was one of the worst things that could have happened to Lance — now his boyfriend split his free time between training simulations and tossing around heavy things/running on treadmills. 

The Red Paladin had become a gym rat. The Blue Paladin was not surprised.

Also, Keith didn’t need more muscles, as Lance didn’t need that kind of heart attack. Even if watching those biceps strain was ... nice.

“My boo is just too hot to trot for my banging bod,” Lance says proudly, flexing his own (not quite as big but still very impressive) biceps.

Keith stops lifting weights so he can face palm. Pidge stares up towards the heavens in supplication.

“That’s going in my notes as one of the top five worst things you’ve ever said. Maybe top three.” Pidge actually takes out her computer to write it down.

Keith, with his face still buried in one hand, points with his other and says, “I don’t know if I can kiss that mouth at all today. That was horrifying.”

“Fifty two point seven percent, querido,” Lance cheerfully reminds him. “Ain’t nobody buying what you’re selling.”

Keith shoots Pidge a despairing glance. “I mean, was the pining that bad, really? Would it be so terrible to go back to that?”

Lance has taken a seat directly across from Keith, lifting a set of weights (they were barbells with rocks on either end — Coran had said something about how one could alter the density, thereby making them heavier/lighter, but Lance had immediately gotten distracted by challenging everyone to a weight lifting competition and somehow it ended with Hunk bench-pressing Lance and Pidge, and Shiro trying to throw Keith over their heads? Lance still doesn’t quite understand what happened there).

“I feel like the reason Keith is macking on me in public more is because he’s kinda into the fact that he can,” Lance explains, grunting a little as he tries to mimic Keith’s moves. “I mean, the pining was so real — he had been staring lingeringly at me from afar for so long, and now it’s like, free pass to grope all the time.” Lance winks at Keith, who is venturing to peek at him from between his fingers. “Because you do. Have a free pass. To grope. Put your hands any —”

“I know.” Keith lifts his weights with relative ease, a small smile pulling on his lips. “And yeah, Pidge. Maybe that’s part of it.”

“Part of it?” Lance asks, somewhat breathlessly as he switches arms since his right one was starting to ache from the effort. “Dude. All of it. Your thirstiness is not to be denied.”

Pidge rolls her eyes, jotting down a few more notes from her perch on the jungle gym (like, with actual vines for swinging and bouncy giant lily pads — Lance could not get over how cool Alteans were). “Believe it or not, I actually came to that conclusion on my own — Keith is now thirty six point four percent more affectionate with everyone, not just you, Lance.”

“That’s ... really sweet,” Lance says, feeling vaguely proud of both himself and Keith. The idea that he’s making Keith more willing to show his love to the rest of their space family ... It’s a little humbling, and a lot of awesome. He can feel his cheeks heating up.

The weights Keith had been lifting are now on the floor as he walks over to Lance, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. Lance is grinning at the flash of a still slightly soft tummy (Keith has muscle definition, but there’s a small bit of cushiness around his middle that Lance really loves). Lance stops grinning when Keith suddenly drops into his lap, straddling him on the bench without any warning.

“You’re forgetting something key, Pidge,” Keith is saying, glancing over his shoulder at the Green Paladin, who is looking annoyed and amused in equal parts.

“All right, enlighten me.” Pidge grimaces. “With as little trauma as possible, if you please.”

“I think I’m gonna expire in a minute here, Pidge, mi hermanita querida, would you please spare me the humiliation and not witness this? Keith, whatever it is that you’re thinking —”

Keith covers his mouth with one hand, and Lance tries to speak past it, yelling his objections into the palm of a fingerless glove.

“See, notice how he can still talk?” Keith tilts his head in Lance’s direction, speaking with infuriating calm. “It’s a bit of a problem sometimes. But —”

The hand is gone. Lance is pissed off enough to start shouting, “Hey, you jackass, wail till I —”

Keith’s lips are on his. His mouth falls open automatically, and Lance sort of loses the thread of ... reality. Pidge whips them both in the head with a towel, which is when his wondrous boyfriend pulls away, leaving Lance gaping, licking his lips, and contemplating if he should still be irritated.

“Efficient, no?” Keith asks, his dark eyes glinting.

Pidge is glaring at him. “Except for the brain bleach aspect. Which I am going to go work on now. With Hunk’s help, he is one hundred percent behind me on this. There are cameras in here, by the way, not that that’s ever stopped you ...” She gets up and walks out, though not before ruffling Lance’s hair and saying, “You’re such a goner, hermano.”

When she’s gone, and Lance is left with nothing but a smug Red Paladin sitting on his thighs, he huffs, jabbing at Keith’s chest. “So you’re kissing me to shut me up most of the time?”

“Not most of the time,” Keith admits, his smirk easing back into a smile. “But Pidge would have probably gagged if I told her the main reason.”

“It’s not the ‘can’t resist my stellar good looks’?” Lance pouts. “That’s a little disappointing.”

Keith presses a quick kiss to his mouth. He’s flushed from exercise, but Lance swears his cheeks get a little bit darker as he speaks, “It’s because half the time I think I’ve made up this whole stupid thing, okay? We got together at a freaking ball. There was a duel involved. And dancing in fancy suits.” Keith waves his hands around for emphasis before crossing his arms. “And we still argue like ... It’s fine, but it feels like before sometimes, so I just ... need to make sure it’s not. Like before.”

Lance follows these words until he understands where they’re leading and then ... He’s blushing, and smiling, and pulling Keith in closer. “You ... you need to make sure this is real. That you didn’t ... dream it. Because ... I’m that good of a dream, huh?”

Keith groans, burying his face in Lance’s shoulder. “Crap. Okay, backtrack, I never said anything, especially not that stupid, sugary pile of —”

“No, no take backs!” Lance sings. “I ... sometimes have the same problem. So, uh, a good chunk of my forty seven point three percent contribution is exactly that.” He smiles up at Keith once the Red Paladin pulls back and sits up straighter in Lance’s lap.

“Yeah?” Keith leans down, his eyes fluttering shut.

“Yeah,” Lance whispers against his mouth ... which is when a painfully loud alarm goes off, and they are simultaneously soaked in freezing water as sprinklers kick in. Lance shrieks. Keith falls backward off his lap to the now slippery floor.

“You have rooms. Go get in one!” Pidge yells over the Castle comm.

“Please!” That sounded like Shiro’s voice, a little distant from the microphone.

Lance is laughing and shivering, and Keith is back to being mortified, but they adhere to Pidge’s wishes (who knew what she might pull next? Lance wouldn’t put it past her to space them at this point), and take off running. Keith yanks Lance into the gym’s showers.

“No cameras in here,” Keith says, raising an eyebrow. “And I need a shower anyway.”

Lance is rendered speechless. He wonders if this counts as part of Keith’s fifty two point seven percent of PDA. He wonders if Pidge is all-knowing. And then there’s a shirt coming off, and warm water pouring from a shower head, Keith kicking off his shoes from inside the cubicle. Lance can’t think as Keith’s hands reach for his shorts … and then pause.

“Yeah, so you just wait right here — you can take your turn when I’m done.” Keith grins and slams the shower door in his face.

Lance wonders if there’s a way to flush a toilet on a space castle to turn the water into a frigid torture. He says as much out loud, kicking lightly at the door.

Keith is laughing, and Lance may or may not adore that sound more than any other in the universe, except for his mom’s affectionate scolding ... So, he decides to wait until the Red Paladin is done and then do his best to up his percentage. Forty seven point three percent simply will not do, Lance thinks to himself with a goofy smile.

******

Random one-shot after Objects in Motion? I think so :) If y’all wanna read about the ball, duel, and dancing, head over there. Thank you to all the wondrous people who have been so awesome to me! You’re all way too amazing for words, but I hope you guys enjoy these above words as a random “thank you!” :D

Edit April 2020: Now posted on AO3 :)

[janvba2film-blog]

Post T: Creative Investigation - First Draft

Essay – Is Wes Craven an Auteur?

In this essay I will be evaluating whether Wes Craven is an auteur by analysing his works in accordance to the late Andrew Sarris’ three premises: technical competence, distinguishable personality, and interior meaning. The three works I will be analysing are: his debut film The Last House on the Right (1972), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and Scream (1996).

Firstly, I will be evaluating the use technical features used in my three focal films as technical competence is the first premise of Sarris’ of auteur theory. This includes the microtechnical and narrative features used by a director in a film to make it personal to their style. It is the opinion of many Craven fans that the man has re-invented the horror genre. According to Eli Roth in the documentary Scream: The Inside Story, “Wes Craven has influenced horror in the 70s, with ‘Last House On the Left’, in the 80s, with ‘Nightmare on Elm Street. You cannot overstate how incredibly influential Wes Craven has been to the horror genre and has continually made horror movies for different generations that feel so contemporary”. Such praise from a contemporary horror director indicates the influence Craven has had in the genre. After all, without predecessors like Wes to develop the genre what could contemporary directors work on?

‘The Final Girl’: “the one girl in the film who fights, resist and survives the killer-monster. The final girl…dominates the action, and is thus masculinised. [In] the slasher film like…Nightmare on Elm Street [1984] …the final girl becomes her own saviour.” - Christine Gledhill in The Cinema Book. Wes has used this common horror trope in several different ways across my three films. In The Last House on the Left, it appears Wes will use this technique, until he kills off his two female leads, a sort of red herring. As Jon Towlson’s Subversive Horror Cinema puts it, “Part of the film’s power is to create empathy between the audience and the villains, which makes it impossible for us to view them - despite their sadism - as inhuman. Conversely, the film shows the process by which normally empathetic people, such as the Collingwoods, can demonize others in order to justify acts of vengeance.”. This technique had not been used in a film before, so for Wes to use it in his debut film shows he is a strong contender for auteur status. He uses this same red herring again in A Nightmare on Elm Street, having Tina die early on only to be replaced with Nancy. However, as the Renegade Cut describes it in his video in which he compares the movie against the horror tropes listed in Carol J. Clover’s: Men, Women, and Chainsaws, “Nancy is the final girl, but she is not only the final girl. She is the character with whom the audience identifies”, in which he points out that Nancy is more than a trope, as many films have utilized female leads; she is a 3D character with relationships with people who are not just people in the film but actual characters with real connections. And finally, the technique is used again in Scream when we believe, then megastar, Drew Barrymore would be the protagonist, only for her to be tormented and killed in the opening 13 minutes of the film. The use of the trope does not end there, however. During Sid’s phone call with the murderer she says: “What’s the point? They’re all the same; some stupid killer chasing some big-breast who can’t act, running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It’s insulting!” This is a reference to The Final Girl, a common horror trope. What makes this better is that when she is chased she does this herself. Obviously an argument which rises from discussing the use of tropes is that Wes is just a genre director, as opposed to a genre director, but Robin Wood argues, in an analysis of It’s a Wonderful Life and Shadow of a Doubt taken from Film Genre Reader III, “No critic, obviously, can be free from a structure of a structure of values, nor can he or she afford to withdraw from the struggles and tensions of living to some position of “aesthetic” contemplation”. This tells me that, despite being an individual filmmaker, people are still confined to some aspects of the process such as genre, indicating that Wes may still be a contender for auteur status.

Much of the evidence I am about to use was obtained through the careful eye of the creator of this source - Cristobal Olguin. (2017). Scream - Manipulating Expectations. He mentions how Wes creates tension to play with our expectations through the use of framing as she opens the closet after walking down the stairs, as it offers a prime opportunity for a jump scare, but does not act upon it. Furthermore, the camerawork of the shot following her to the couch (having the camera follow her) pays homage to the POV shot of killers popularised by other slasher movies.

Another use of misdirection is how the shot of Ghostface’s shoes in the bathroom stall is emphasised because he is wearing the same type of shoes as the police chief, which were emphasised while he put out a cigarette in the station.

The author states that the film sets Billy up as the murderer in the first 30 minutes, but uses other micro-technical techniques to make you question whether he is. For example, the use of emphasised scissor noises when the principal picks a pair up, the way Dewey holds up his flashlight to his face after asking to go for a walk alone with Gale Weathers in the forest. Billy’s position as the killer is disguised as a red herring but there is plenty of evidence to suggest he is from the start. When Billy is talking about his and Sid’s relationship a low angle is used and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ is playing in the background, which is appropriate as Ghostface dawns a Father Death costume. The same is true for Stu. After Stu jokingly says, “I’ll be right back”, Randy responds with “You see, you push the laws, you end up dead. Okay. I’ll see you in the kitchen with a knife”. The next time we see Randy alone, Ghostface is creeping up behind him after exiting the kitchen, holding a knife. Another use of clever subtlety is how Billy and Stu are first seen wearing similar grey tops; grey is an unemotional colour thus conveying that they have been in cahoots since the beginning. When Billy enters through Sid’s window after she is chased for the first time, he enters wearing the same grey sweatshirt and a black jacket, accompanied by low-key under-lighting, which is a common technique used to portray antagonists. To mislead the audience into believing that Billy is innocent, he wears white tops (signifies innocence) and blue (conveys trust and loyalty) over-shirts, much like he did when we first saw him. This all stands as evidence to suggest that, despite Craven not writing the film, his use of microtechnical features and directing still present him as a contender for auteur status.

Distinguishable Personality is the second of Sarris’ premises and is important when considering what makes an auteur’s films individual and easy to separate from the rest.

Despite Wes’ use of microtechnical features and interior meaning in his debut film, I feel it important to mention that the film itself is not very highly rated. “The Last House on the Left was Craven’s debut film, it’s a notorious and quite shocking film but one that’s not actually that good. The film’s biggest flaw is the woeful misjudgement of the tone as the film’s jumps from the torture and humiliation of the girls in the woods to a pair of bumbling cops falling off a truck that’s full of clucking chickens”. I think it is important for a director to be able to balance social commentary with appropriate filmmaking techniques, which makes me question Craven’s auteurship. Conversely, according to Sarris: “directors, even auteurs, do not always run true form”, implying that an auteur will not always make a great film. Another factor to consider about the film is that, according to The Mary Sue, “the film is an acknowledged loose remake of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring”. I see no reason for this to interfere with Wes’ status as auteur, however, as established auteurs, such as Kubrick and Hitchcock, have adapted pre-sold works into films. Considering it is listed as a “loose remake” it appears that there are barely any similarities due to Craven projecting his own personality onto the film.

Another great example to analyse is Wes’ work on A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels. The film has spawned 6 sequels, two spin-offs, and a remake. Wes worked on 3 of these: the original, Dream Warriors, and Wes Craven’s: New Nightmare. Firstly, it is important to discuss his work on the original, or rather the influence others had on him. According to Never Sleep Again, the producer, Robert Shaye, was important to the ending to leave audiences with a hook so sequels would be in the forefront of people’s minds. This ending was extremely confusing and ambiguous to many, and detracted with the empowering ending which left Nancy a hero. Furthermore, he sold the rights to New Line Cinema, just so they could afford the budget for the first film, which, in the eyes of many (myself included), derailed the series, causing the search for artistic value to be replaced with money-potential, which has led to the poor critical reception of many sequels. All except the ones that Wes was involved with. After the failure of the sequel, Wes was brought back on to refocus the series. This tells me that Wes can be considered an auteur as the universe which he created could not work without him. However, his script was altered by Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont, who are now established horror writers. According to Russell, the script was originally a lot darker until they altered it, but this upset Craven as, according to him, “The fact that they made Freddy more and more jokey took him farther and farther away from that child-molester thing that kind of sticks to you in a way you don’t like”. Freddy was made to be more jokey and full of quips later in the series, which admittedly made him less threatening. In fact, it became apparent that the series started aiming their films at kids, thus making him even less imposing. This further supports my point that without Wes’ guidance, the franchise quickly declined in quality. This implies that his exposure to the horror genre for so long has made him, at the very least, a strong contender for status as a genre director.

Finally, I must comment on the fact that Wes did not actually write Scream; Kevin Williamson did. This creates quite a dilemma as André Bazin argues that “a director must at least co-write their films to be considered an auteur”. However, it could be argued that Craven was a perfect choice for the post-modern film due to his experience on the 7th installation of the Nightmare series, Wes Craven’s: New Nightmare. This film was extremely meta in its approach, having the cast members of the original film play themselves in a film ending with the “script within a script” trick. According to Paul Wells, as read in The Horror Film, Scream is undoubtedly a postmodern horror film, however, to him he feels strongly that by becoming self-referential post-modern horrors “abdicate [their] political responsibility to reflect upon, critique, or challenge its surrounding (and non-generic) culture”. If considered true, this contrasts very much with Wes’ earlier style, instead “Becoming preoccupied with genre conventions rather than external anxieties”. However, in Scream: The Inside Story, Wes specifically stated that we need to “stop externalising our anxieties”, and to look at ourselves.

Interior meaning is important when comparing auteurship by Sarris’ premises, as the depth at which microtechnical and narrative techniques are utilised by a director to convey meaning elevates a movie beyond simple entertainment.

Sexuality - There are several instances of sexuality present in my focal films, one of which is the use of on and off-screen rape in The Last House on the Left which is most likely involved due to the influence of William Cassey’s behaviour during the My Lai Massacre, in which he murdered 22 people and raped several women, as many of my sources have stated the subtle social commentary on the Vietnam, which I will expand upon shortly. Another theme in the film is puberty is mentioned in the film. When discussing the “I’ve changed this winter [...] My breasts filled out!”. This is important because it reoccurs in all three of my focal films, showing it to be of important to Wes as a director also present in A Nightmare on Elm Street. As the Cracked article Why the Nightmare on Elm Street Series was Deeper than You Thought points out, “The viewer is even present for a scene representative of Nancy's first period. As Nancy lays in the bathtub asleep, Freddy's clawed glove breaks through the surface of the water between her open legs. This isn't just one of the most intense scenes in horror history. It's clear foreshadowing of all the trouble that's about to happen between your legs.”.

The article rightly points out that Tina is the “You’re not cool unless you’re making out” friend (i.e. she is sexually active and is trying to pass that behaviour on to her less-developed friends), which is amplified by her loud coitus session with Rod contrasting with Nancy, who sleeps in a separate room to her boyfriend, with a crucifix above her door. The article also mentions how Freddy’s head poking through the wall is akin to a condom, signifying the looming presence of sexuality. More so, the use of the phone with the tongue emerging from it is significant as it Nancy reacts to it with disgust, “exactly how everyone still trying to understand puberty reacts when they first hear about tongue kissing”. It also ties in to the use of dangerous sexuality in the film, which is Freddy and his sexual urges.

Doctor Brickman, in her book New American Teenagers, contributes to this idea as “Nancy and Glen, who never consummate their relationship despite plenty of opportunity, can be understood better as brother and sister than as boyfriend and girlfriend, which, of course, would not preclude sexual desire”. Much like with his debut film Wes explores dangerous sexuality as well. According to a Craven in Never Sleep Again, they were required to “soft-pedal the sexuality” (i.e. Freddy’s sexual preference for children) of the movie due to multiple paedophile cases occurring at the time. Later, Heather Lagnenkampf states: “Nancy and Freddy’s relationship has always had a sexual component”, which she said about ‘Lust’ being written on the wall in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Finally, in Scream, sexuality is used more like a subversion of the horror genre than a thematic motif. When Randy lists the fact that “You can never have sex” as a rule to surviving horror, shots of Sidney and Billy having sex quickly follow this line.

One frequently occurring use of interior meaning relates to the use of social commentary in his films. This is the example that makes me want to consider Wes as an auteur. When reading Jon Towlson’s Subversive Horror, I found that this film has several instances of subtle social commentary relating to Vietnam, mainly the US’ reaction at the time. He wanted to show them the atrocities of the Vietnam war using the on-screen rapes and murders committed by William Casey. Not only that but he was heavily inspired by two photos which came out of the war: the image of children running after being struck by Napalm (which inspired Mari’s rape because of how disgustingly intimate it was) and the 1968 photo of the execution of Vietcong soldier Nguyem Van Lem - “That methodical execution style was translated right to the shooting of Mari at the lake”.

“Although the Vietnam footage was censored, Craven felt that it was candid about violence in a way that Hollywood cinema was not. Craven […] objected on moral grounds to the sanitization of violence by Hollywood, and saw it as part of the ideological apparatus that enabled the State to condition Soldiers for warfare. “The more you can know about violence, the more you can walk away from it and not be attracted to it.” Craven stated in 1999.”. I find this truly fascinating as Craven took the position he had to elevate his film above simply “a horror movie”. Lastly, So The Theory Goes states: “One of the more prominent themes within Craven’s work is that of the psychological idea of the villain. His films tend to subvert the idea of the villain/hero leading the viewer to believe they are completely aware of a situation before abruptly leading us in a different direction. One of the clearest examples of this can be seen in his directorial debut The Last House on the Left where our initial antagonists are Krug et al. However, by the end of the film, we see Mari Collingwood’s parents take on this role.”. This is obviously very representative of the sort of message Wes was trying to send to the American audience.

This established a common theme in Wes’ films: incorporating real-life inspiration into his films. Through Never Sleep Again, we learn that the story of the film was inspired by Asian teens dying without observable cause in their sleep. Apparently, they refused to go to sleep but their parents refused to listen and sent them to sleep anyway by using sleeping pills, a common piece of mise-en-scene used in the franchise. This attitude is carried over into those of the parents in the franchise. What’s more, Freddy was based around a man who persistently stared at Wes through his bedroom window one night. Wes described him as “enjoying putting fear into him”. It seems this was well translated into the film as Freddy has more of a quirky attitude and plays with his victims. He was named after Wes’ childhood bully, and his jumper came from an article Wes read stating that those two colours were the hardest for the human eye to pair together. Finally, the glove was based on a claw of a predatory animal as it is significant. While Wes was inspired by real-life events, he did have to adapt them using his vision as a director/screenplay writer. To even further support my point, Scream was based on the infamous Florida Killer. Between November 1989 and August 1990 Danny Rowling murdered 5 students and was dubbed the Gainesville Ripper. However, it is very important to note that Wes Craven did not write Scream, Kevin Williamson was responsible for that.

Is Wes an auteur?

To conclude, I must say that I do not believe him to be an auteur. He may pass Sarris’ premises, but only on a basic level. As So The Theory Goes states in their article Auteur: Wes Craven, “Wes Craven’s general style of filmmaking is visually similar to a number of horror film-makers. The conventional use of camera angles, editing to create scares and using lighting to enhance a scene are all evident within his work. However, […] his understanding of the genre and the conventions have allowed him to use them to his advantage”. Instead, I would consider him a horror genre auteur, having only one exception from the trend: the 1999 musical-drama Music of the Heart, as well as what Alexandre Astruc describes as a ‘camera-stylo’, which defines a director who uses the camera to tell a story. We have seen from analysing Craven’s work against Sarris’ first premise that he is technically competent for the most part, but nothing has ever stood out in his filmography that we haven’t seen before.