#tortured pop culture metaphors | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sophieinwonderland · 2 months ago

Text

The Plurality of... The Exorcist

Trigger Warning: Discussions of real life torture and child murder.

I'm going to tell you something horrifying.

Something to fill you with dread.

Someone you love isn't who you think they are. They have others hiding inside them. There is something else there who takes over their body. An other.

And this other could be dangerous. They can look like the person you know, they can control them, they can lie and pretend to be them.

This is the horror of The Exorcist. This is the horror of... plurality!

The Exorcist

For those who don't know what The Exorcist is, let me first welcome you out of the fallout shelter you've been hiding in for the past 50 years. Turns out, the world wasn't destroyed by nuclear war and everything is okay! 👍

The Exorcist is one of the most iconic and influential horror movies in history. Even if you haven't seen it, you've probably picked up the general idea of what it's about from pop culture.

This classic horror movie centers around a girl named Regan who becomes possessed by a demonic entity.

She communicates with this entity first through a Ouija board. It's later implied that she might have some sort of internal communication with it as well but this isn't elaborated on much at all.

Regan isn't the main character of the story. This isn't a story about the horror of being possessed by a demon. It's a story about the horror of having your daughter possessed by a demon, and of being the exorcist whose faith is tested by the demonic spirit.

A good example of this is an infamous scene where the possessed Regan is seen... let's say "impaling" herself with a cross, saying "let Jesus fuck you," while covered in blood. This is most iconic for the way she twists her head 180. This scene is shown from the perspective of the mother, depicting how horrifying of a sight it is to walk in on.

The movie doesn't much care about what it's like for Regan to be possessed or the pain being caused to her.

We don't know much about what was going on in Regan's head while possessed because the movies doesn't care about Regan. It cares about how her personality changes affect those around her. She's almost more of a plot device than an actual character.

By the end of the movie, the demon is exorcized and Regan is saved, successfully being returned to a single person in one body as God intended.

There are plenty of analyses of why this movie is problematic from a feminist perspective, such as the personality changes and the "let Jesus fuck you" scene being metaphors for female sexuality and puberty, but I don't know that it's ever been approached from a plural perspective before.

That's what I'm here to change today!

The Horror of Plurality

Plurality, is an umbrella term for multiple self-conscious agents sharing a body. These can be psychological in origin like alters in dissociative identity disorders or tulpas in modern tulpamancy. Or it can be spiritual in nature, as seen in many cultures with non-pathological possession states. A spiritual medium who regularly communicates with the same spirit, and allows that spirit to possess them, could be considered plural for example.

This umbrella term didn't exist when The Exorcist was made. And it wouldn't for another 20 years after.

However, plurality as a concept has existed for a long time in different forms. Spiritual possession states have existed for centuries as a form of plurality across the globe, and Multiple Personality was well-known even if it wouldn't be put into the DSM as a diagnosis of its own until 7 years after The Exorcist was released.

In fact, in the film, there's even a scene where Regan's mother says her daughter is acting like she might have a "split personality." This is quickly dismissed in the film, stating that there have been less than 100 cases in history. And the doctor acts as if it doesn't really exist.

Regan's mom: Did you see or not? She's acting like she's fucking out of her mind. Psychotic or split-personality or...

Doctor: There haven't been more than 100 cases of so-called split-personality Mrs. MacNeil.

(I kind of want to smack him...)

This was the early 70s when this was actually true. Not because dissociative identity disorder is actually a super rare disorder, but because DID was often misdiagnosed as other disorders. We now know much better, and DID is estimated to affect 1%-1.5% of the global population.

The idea of "split personality" isn't really explored much more in the film beyond it just being stated that it's rare and she shouldn't look further into it.

And yet... the movie does use language that seems to be based on multiplicity, with one character even describing how there appears to be at least 3 "personalities." (Only to be rebutted and told that it's only one demon. I could go on a side tangent about how that's a pretty weird conclusion when the only biblical example of demonic possession is Legion who were thousands of demons possessing one person... but that's a rant for another day.)

To what extent this possession relates to multiplicity as it was understood at the time isn't clear, but one thing can't be denied. And that's the fact that the horror in the movie is based on this innocent girl having someone else inside her and no longer being recognized by her mother.

Regan's mom: You show me Regan's double, same face, same voice, everything. And I'd know it wasn't Regan. I'd know in my gut. And I'm telling you that 'thing' upstairs isn't my daughter.

The horror of The Exorcist and similar possession stories, even if the word wasn't used at the time, was coming from the idea of the girl being plural. The fear that maybe hiding beneath the skin of this cloistered youth...

Is an unholy fiend...

(Art by Igor Kieryluk)

Why Possession Stories are Problematic.

Like I mentioned above, this is a story focused not on Regan, but on her mom and the exorcists. Regan doesn't really matter besides being the healthy girl who develops a condition and needs to be cured through ritual torture.

Okay... maybe that's not totally fair. The most they really do to Regan is chant at her and throw some water on her. Even if the demon is screaming in agony, that wouldn't really be considered torture, would it?

I mean, unless you're a young neurodivergent child with sensitivity issues who would be traumatized by having people shout at you and douse you in water. And if they do scream in agony because you shouted at them and threw water on them, then I guess that proves that they were a demon all along?

Look, I am not saying that the characters within the fictional movie did not have legitimate reason to know that this girl was possessed by a demon. I mean, she flew!

Of course, within the fictional context of the exorcist, Regan is possessed by a literal demonic entity who has not only hurt Regan but has murdered other people.

What I do want to get across though is that a lot of horror is built on the fear of the other. And the other in The Exorcist are people who are plural and people displaying symptoms of mental illnesses.

A popular topic is coding in fiction. This was originally used to point out how many characters, especially villains, are queer-coded. Meaning they commonly incorporate queer stereotypes without being explicitly queer. But this also happens with mental illnesses. For example, it's been pointed out how a lot of robots and aliens in fiction end up being autistic coded. The very tropes that are used to define robots in fiction are also tropes that are associated with autism and other neurodivergences. And they very often play into a narrative of wanting to be more "human," which really translates to "more like a neurotypical."

Likewise, the tropes of the demonic possession in the exorcist are associated with plurality and mental illness. The similarities aren't lost on the movie either. Much of the film is trying to figure out if this is a brain issue or psychosis, and again, the possibility of multiple personalities is brought up.

The comparison was made by the movie.

If we can acknowledge how often robots in fiction are autistic coded, then I think that we also need to acknowledge that the possession in the movie is plural-coded, and more generally, neurodivergent-coded.

While you can argue that the movie was not explicitly about dissociative identity disorder or plurality, the fear it encouraged and played off of was a fear of anybody with multiple selves.

And this is a fear that has endured for generations.

Pluralphobia: The cultural impact of the exorcist

The exorcist redefined what horror was. In media, it created an entire subgenre unto itself of these exorcism movies. Even if a movie isn't really about the exorcisms, many horror movies and shows about spirits will include at least one exorcism scene.

We can also see this in television, such as CBS's Evil, which follows a group of assessors for the Catholic Church, some of which end up involving exorcisms of possessed people.

On that note, when you watch The Exorcist, you might notice that exorcism is spoken of as this very hidden practice that's barely talked about within the Catholic Church. And from what I've gleaned of historical sources, this seems to be pretty true. The Catholic Church didn't talk a lot openly about performing exorcisms prior to the movie's release.

They were trying to move away from the more mystical aspects of their religion in the public eye, to appear as a more rational religion for a more rational age.

The movie popularized the real practice of exorcisms. It increased demand for these rituals. It caused parents to start legitimately believing that their children were possessed by demonic entities.

And while you might think that people would move on from exorcisms in the age of the internet, this hasn't been the case. It's actually only been increasing.

In 2005, the Catholic Church had 12 people who specialized in performing exorcisms in the United States. That number was 175 as of 2023.

And this culture has already affected actual plural systems. I have spoken to plenty of plural systems who have described having people believe that they were possessed whenever they describe their headmates and being plural, and some who have even been told they needed an exorcism or had exorcism pushed on them.

Countless more plural systems hide their plurality out of fear that this might be how they would be perceived if they were out as plural publicly.

And a lot of this modern religious pluralphobia can be traced directly to this movie. When somebody writes a book called "The Exorcist Legacy, 50 Years of Fear," this isn't an exaggeration.

The Exorcist created a fear of the demonically possessed, and its impact still reverberates through our culture more than 50 years later.

And sometimes, the results of the fear of the demonically possessed can have disastrous results.

The exorcism of Anneliese Michell

The year is 1975. The exorcist was released two years ago in 1973. The German dub was released in 1974.

A German woman by the name of Annelise Mitchell has just been approved by the local bishops to undergo an exorcism.

She has been diagnosed with epilepsy and psychosis but past medical treatments haven't worked for her. She has started hearing voices and has become convinced that she is possessed by demons.

Over the course of the next year, Anneliese underwent 67 exorcisms.

In audio recordings, Anneliese speaks in a "demonic" voice that is very reminiscent of the voices used during the possession in The Exorcist, and claims to be possessed by such figures as Hitler, Judas, Cain, and Nero.

youtube

During this time period, not a lot was known about dissociative identity disorder, how to recognize it, or how to treat it.

Perhaps, if given another decade, when it was more well-known and more doctors were willing to diagnose it though, Anneliese could have been diagnosed with DID and successfully treated for it.

DID often can present as demonic possession. There's even a whole section in the DSM section on DID that discusses this.

What happened instead is that she starved herself during the exorcisms, saying she wasn't permitted to eat. She died of malnutrition, and her body was found with its knees broken.

Unlike the exorcism in the movie, the exorcism of Anneliese was a long and brutal affair which saw her condition worsen to the point where she died.

To be perfectly fair, I have never seen anyone confirm that Anneliese or her family saw The Exorcist before this incident. The fact that she started being exorcized two years after the movie's release and a year after the movie's German dub could be a total coincidence that didn't play into it at all.

And if there was a connection, that's not to blame the filmmakers for their movie. There isn't any way that they could have predicted the type of cultural impact it would have. But the truth is that fiction can affect reality, and sometimes in ways that we don't intend it to.

Anneliese was a real human being who died because she and her family and priests became convinced that she was possessed by demonic spirits in a post-Exorcist world, and they responded by trying to get rid of those spirits.

This exorcism later inspired more movies in the same exorcism genre like The Exorcism of Emily Rose...

Which sensationalizes the story and plays into the ambiguity in a way that leaves the door open to people thinking that maybe both the fictional Emily Rose and the real woman she was based on actually were possessed by a literal demon.

What happens when plurals come out to a world where Exorcisms are becoming more prevalent? Is the real horror yet to come?

I believe that we stand on the edge of a major change in the world in terms of the visibility of plurality.

But with increased visibility, comes increased dangers as well.

History hasn't been kind to marginalized communities that step out of the shadows.

What happens when the plural community comes out? When it can't be ignored any longer by mainstream society. What type of opposition will we face? Obviously, I have no doubt that many of the attacks will be ableist in nature. They will call plurals crazy, they will use associations with mental illnesses to discredit us and deny us rights.

I have no doubt that we are going to see Fox News and other far right media outlets attacking plural systems for our plurality in various ways, much as they have done to queer people. There's even a pretty large overlap between the plural and queer communities, so they can use much of the same attacks against us. Already, we see pluralphobic rhetoric adopting queerphobic talking points, such as people accusing systems of "grooming" people into believing they're a system, which was popularized by the Right in recent years to use against trans people.

But there's another concern I have that I want to give voice to here.

That we might see religious fundamentalists begin attacking us on the basis of demonic possession.

This has already started happening.

Earlier this year, there was an incident where a right-winger infiltrated a panel at a gender conference that was focused on plurality. While the panel discussed plurality, the conservative claimed she felt a dark energy come over her, and had to leave the building. She later claimed that she felt the presence of a demonic spirit there.

I won't link to that because the panel was never intended to be recorded, and the speaker was not out as plural and did not want to see the video get promoted further with their face revealed, potentially outing them if it gets back to people who might recognize them. You can find my past discussion of this incident here.

But this isn't the only such incident we've seen recently. In a similar vein, conservative pundit Rod Dreher also wrote an article on tulpamancy, where he suggested that tulpas could be demonic spirits.

This could be the beginning of conservatives ratcheting up fear of plurality. This could be the beginning of a new wave of pluralphobia.

Especially with conservatives increasingly seeing their support of conservative candidates as spiritual warfare in a battle against literal demonic forces.

What if the legacy of The Exorcist is creating a culture of fear around those who are multiple? A culture that is still in full force over 50 years later and gaining ground?

The Nightmare Scenario: A Reign of Christian Nationalism

Let me tell a story. A story of one possible future, a worst case scenario for plurals.

The plural community grows ever larger online as more people realize they're plural. More studies are conducted into plural systems leading to more support from psychiatric institutions. Plural awareness continues to spread through college campuses and institutions and educated Left-leaning spaces.

This is something I believe is going to happen within the next decade. It's also something that conservative pundit Rod Dreher fear-mongered about in his blog post.

And for far-right Christian nationalists, this is an opening. Because the acceptance is primarily coming from left-wing spaces, this becomes a divisive partisan issue. Christian nationalists will jump at the chance to craft a narrative of plurality being used to open children up to possession by demonic forces.

Conservative pastors play TikTok videos of plural systems switching as examples of possession. This makes its way into right-wing media outlets to boost it 100 fold.

In the minds of Christians who have grown up on horror movies like The Exorcist and all that it spawned, who have been fed a myth in their churches of demons waging spiritual warfare against them, they will all too happily buy into the lie that plural systems are an extension of this. That we are the demons they have been warned about. The evils they have been taught to fear are no longer hiding but are now openly encouraging their children to embrace demonic possession.

This might sound farfetched to the nonbelievers and sceptics who think it would be silly to convince a large portion of Americans something like this, but belief in demonic possession is already pretty high, with 51% of people saying they believe in demonic possession according to one YouGov poll, with 20% undecided.

Less than a third of Americans were hard non-believers in demonic possession.

So how difficult would it be to convince a large portion of the other 71% that the people saying they are multiple people in one body are actually demonically possessed?

During the resulting hysteria, we see a massive surge in demand for exorcisms. The number of Catholic exorcists in America ends up increasing from its current 175 to over 500 and they still can't keep up with the demand caused by this right-wing hysteria.

And this is where the real danger comes in. Because I actually believe that the Catholic Church learned from what happened with Anneliese Michell. I think that their own trained exorcists are going to be heavily regulated and will be far more responsible to avoid causing another massive scandal that will blow back on a church already marred on controversy.

No, the real threat is going to come from unsanctioned exorcists. People who haven't gone through the proper training and don't care as much about safety.

In 2020, a 3-year-old girl named Arely Proctor was believed by her family to be possessed. They carried out an exorcism on this girl for over 20 hours that ended with her strangled to death.

Was Arely's murder an isolated incident? Or is it a canary in the coal mine?

For the purpose of the scenario, let's assume it's the latter. That this is the result of our culture's growing obsession with exorcism, an obsession that started with The Exorcist 50 years ago.

And as the plural community and Christian nationalists clash, the result is a wave of incidents of child abuse through unsanctioned exorcisms. The happier cases end with kids being removed from their parents' custody after suffering abusive rituals. The more tragic cases end like Arely and Anneliese.

Keep in mind that the victims won't necessarily be plural. Other neurodivergents will be affected. As will those who stray into the heretical by the Christian nationalist standards. Anyone even perceived as being possessed will be at risk. But it will be the hysteria around plurality that pushes this into overdrive. This will be the inciting incident for this dark future.

If this comes to pass... How can we, as plural systems, even hope to fight back against that?

If one horror story can change the world... Then maybe we need to tell better horror stories...

Luckily, this hasn't happened yet. It remains a story. Purely fictional, much like The Exorcist itself is.

But the thing about stories, which I hope to have shown here, is that they have power. There is power in stories to change the world. For better or for worse. Every new horror story about possession by evil entities further builds onto The Exorcist's legacy, encouraging fear of people who are more than one.

But positive plural representation like Moon Knight helps normalize plurality, and stories like IF can normalize imaginary friends and, by extension, tulpamancy.

And horror can be used the same way.

Horror has always been built on the fear of the other.

This is why the tropes are so often ableist or racist or xenophobic. Throughout history, horror has unfortunately been used to cause harm to marginalized communities. Because often what people are afraid of are the people who don't think like them or have a different culture than they do.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You could subvert the classic possession and exorcism conventions. Tell a story of someone sharing a body with friendly spirits where the horror comes not from the other headmates but how the culture around them reacts to them. Position the exorcists and those pushing for exorcism as the monsters trying to banish the good helpful spirits or headmates.

Or maybe the protagonist isn't the "possessed", but the headmate who is being locked in their mind, only getting fleeting moments of freedom as the host becomes convinced by those around them that the headmate is a demonic entity that needs to be eliminated.

Tell horror stories that build sympathy for the possessed or those who share a body with them. Sympathy for the discrimination they endure. Sympathy for being treated as if there's something wrong with them. Sympathy for being othered. Because there is a horror in that too. A horror in being the other, being the outcast.

If you are plural, you can pour your own experiences into the stories you tell. If you're not plural, you can learn about plurality from plurals and how to tell more inclusive stories about plurality.

Ultimately, what you need to remember is that in this world, there is no power greater than the power to tell stories. Stories shape who we are. They shape our cultures. They shape our fears. And they shape our future.

I don't think anything demonstrates this better than The Exorcist, with the way it managed to change the world, for better or for worse.

So let's tell a better story.

Even if your story won't be the next Exorcist, maybe it can be a story that inspires it.

One more thing you can do...

Vote.

I'm sorry to ask this of you. I know that politics can be exhausting and you probably didn't click on this for politics. But Christian nationalism is increasingly on the ballot. It's a threat to plural systems. It's a threat to queer people. It's a threat to women's rights. It's a threat to religious minorities.

And because they also know the power of stories and try to restrict access to stories they don't like, it's a threat to our very ability to tell stories.

If you are reading this post when it was made, the 2024 election is in a week. You can still make a difference. And if you're reading this in the future, hopefully we defeated Trump and Christian Nationalism in the battle for President. But the war is far from over. Winning one fight isn't enough. Maintaining freedom requires constant vigilance. There will be more elections coming up, and we'll need your help with those too. And even if we did win the Presidency, there will be other fights we didn't win. There will be states that have elected Christian Nationalist governors, judges, and state legislatures. States that are pushing laws actively restricting the rights of queer people. States that are placing hard restrictions on abortions and birth control, banning books with LGBTQ themes while mandating the Bible be put into schools.

So please vote. Not just in this election, but the next election too, and the one after that and so on. Because as the saying goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

And to those that have voted or will, thank you for standing up for our Democracy and our futures!

Conclusion

When I do these Plurality of... posts, I generally like to talk about the story itself and the plurality featured in it. With The Exorcist, I don't think there was a lot to say about that.

It is a sort of plurality. And it's an extremely problematic portrayal. But what's more important about the Exorcist wasn't its story or its characters, but its cultural impact.

While that cultural impact has actually been pretty bad for plural systems, IMO, it proves something that I think is all too easy to forget.

We all have the ability to change the world through the stories we tell in ways both large and small.

If there's one takeaway I want people to have from all of this, it's this:

Your stories matter. Your vote matters. You matter.

And if we want to make the world a better place for all plurals, and for all people in general, then we're going to need people like you to tell your stories and share them so that the stories that spread aren't just the most harmful ones.

By telling your stories, you can make sure that the stories people hear about plurality aren't just the ones that demonize plurals.

Oh, and...

Happy Halloween!

For more of my discussions of plurality in creepy media, be sure to check out The Plurality of… Bill Cipher. Alternatively, for a plural story that does deal with discrimination for being plural, see The Plurality of… The Hybrid Chronicles: What’s Left of Me, where I discuss a novel set in a world where people are born with two souls. As always, thanks for reading.

37 notes · View notes

topperscumslut · 5 months ago

Text

it’s funny to me that half of the songs on my album (and honestly some of the best ones) focus on parallels and comparing the people from my life that the songs are about to pop culture figures, either celebrities, fictional characters, or historical figures

so here’s basically the cheat code to half of my album, what the songs mean, who and what they’re about, and what i reference in the lyrics

No One Like You is still prolly the most insane song I’ve ever written, it’s about hooking up with my ex from high school and EVERYTHING, down to the title, is a reference to him playing Gaston in high school theatre

Sycophant is about me cutting off my ex best friend, and was written around the release of the TBOSAS, wherein nearly the entire song is a metaphor that also fits the roles of Sejanus Plinth and Coriolanus Snow as well as me and her, respectively

Crowned Hearts was largely inspired by a real family that survived the Titanic that I’d learned about after having recently visited the Titanic museum and getting randomly assigned the boarding pass of the wife/mother, only to find out she shared my birthday and died in my hometown in the same hospital i was born in, that she’d been a member of the local theatre AND the country club I’d gone to with my high school ex, and had a very similar personality and interests to me. Crowned Hearts is about my at the time recent ex who helped me find her (and her son’s) grave, after we broke up i then proceeded to WRITE this song in 45 minutes flat AT her grave, wherein her and her first husband who she survived the Titanic with represented us, with the new guy i was starting to fall for that i worked with representing her second husband, who she also worked with

and finally, Torture Me is about a night i spent with my situationship/friend/fwb/failed talking stage (the aforementioned coworker), and verse 2 is almost entirely about how we happened to only watch Matthew Lillard movies together AND how he looked like Matthew Lillard when he was younger, making Matthew a sort of inside joke of ours (not in a making fun of him way, just constantly joking about how funny it was how relevant he was to our friendship) and a HUGE motif of this guy ANY TIME, no matter how subtly, i mention Matthew Lillard in a song

(also my latest song, Best for Last, which isn’t part of my debut album cuz it’s doesn’t fit in the Heart of a Siren, Soul of a Bard vibe and/or timeline, is ENTIRELY based on the Matthew Lillard motif and is actually ABOUT me meeting Matthew and titled after something he said to me personally, and about growing apart from this former situationship. definitely a deep cut, im really excited about this one.)

7 notes · View notes

dreamsinmytotebag · 2 months ago

Text

Poetic references in pop culture

After having discussed poetry and songs and lyric poetry, we can see how certain poetic elements have seemed to find their way in pop culture. The target audiences for poetry and pop culture might have been considered to be different in earlier times but now they tend to overlap. What earlier used to be limited to the field of literature is now, often used as an aesthetic in films, music, etc. I also feel that, while it expands poetry as a domain and exposes new people to it, it also, in some ways, loses its value when it is brought down to stand as a mere aesthetic that people use as captions for their social media posts. Nonetheless, we get to see poetry making its cameo in pop culture many a times.

Starting with something very closely linked to poetry- songs and lyrics. Many artists and songwriters tend to have a poetic style of writing. Now, of course, not all lyrics and songs can amount to being termed as poetry, but some can. Hozier would be my first prime example for this. His deep and poetic lyrics tend to reflect a strong sense of writing, which at the same time also get entangled with the aesthetic of pop culture. The deep complexities and metaphors, and euphemisms in his lyrics may not be understood by all which can make the listeners interpret their meaning in some other way. Songs like “Cherry Wine” and “Eat Your Young” talk about social issues but due to their interpretation in pop culture, their meanings have come down to revolve around the subject of love and relationships. While, at the same time, there is no denying that Hozier also makes love songs. However, a song like “Eat Your Young”, which serves as, what some might say, a “protest song”, based on political greed and the exploitation of younger generations, should not be reduced to merely having a sexual connotation to it. The song also references the classic Anglo-Irish writer, Jonathan Swift and his essay, “A Modest Proposal”, a famous protest against the British treatment of Ireland. This shows how poetry can get lost while serving to the whims and the fancies of pop culture. I also happened to stumble across this one blog on Tumblr, which adds more to this Hozier argument. I’ll attach a link for a clearer understanding.

Taking up a few more examples from music, particularly pop music, only recently we saw Taylor Swift release her 11th studio album, titled "The Tortured Poets Department”. Now the name in itself carries the essence of poetry. As a fan, of course my opinion would differ from the critiques or someone who’s not a fan, nonetheless, I enjoyed the album while also being aware of its different aspects that I did not enjoy as much. Particularly talking about “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” I clearly saw more of the poetic edge to the album here, rather than on the standard version. Swift is inarguably one of the best songwriters of all time and there have been instances where she has written actual poems, or has poems turned into songs. Her other albums, particularly, “folklore” and “evermore” also carry the poetic side of Swift. Lyrics like,

“Now you hang from my lips, like the gardens of Babylon.

With your boots beneath my bed, forever is the sweetest con”

-Ivy, evermore

“Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong, but my beloved neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like the perfect place to cry

I’m signing off but not without my muse, no, not without you”

-The Lakes, folklore

…carry a heavy whiff of poetry and a poetic style of writing. When songs with such lyrics are consumed by a wide audience, the audience naturally looks into its deeper meanings. In reference to Taylor Swift and her widely spread fanbase, Swifties, who are known to speculate her work with full intensity and dedication, will of course be opened to a whole new world of poets and poetry through their consumption of pop culture. Taylor Swift also has quite a few self-written poems, namely, “Why She Disappeared”, and “If you’re anything like me”.

Speaking of pop artists and their poetry, we can not move on without mentioning Lana Del Rey. Apart from her complex lyricism, Lana, also has a poetry book called "Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass”. Lana Del Rey is not only celebrated as an artist, but has developed a whole aesthetic around her, which her poetic footprints follow. She has a huge impact on pop culture and is known to bring in a whole Sylvia Plath vibe to her work. People usually draw comparisons between the two. One of my favorite poems by Lana Del Rey, would have to be “Sportcruiser”:

“All of this circumnavigating the earth

Was to get back to my life

Six trips to the moon for my poetry to arise

I'm not a captain

I'm not a pilot

I write

I write”

Apart from music, poetry has been reflected in films as well. For an example, I would like to mention my favourite movie of all time, “Dead Poet’s Society”. From a dark academia aesthetic to Walt Whitman references, and the famous “Oh Captain! My Captain!” line, draws in interest from poetry and literature enthusiasts. I personally, started exploring Walt Whitman after I watched the movie. Shows such as “Dickinson” which revolves around the life of the famous poet, Emily Dickinson, also bring poetry to pop culture. Such shows also help bring out the sides of poets and their work which could not be revealed back in their times due to the society’s conservative nature.

Apart from movies centred around poetic or literature themes, many shows or films reference poems or poets in dialogues, arising the viewer’s curiosity. The movie “Maurice” has a dialogue, “I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.” which references the famous poet/author, Oscar Wilde, particularly dealing with the theme of homosexuality. Adaptations of classics, such as “Pride and Prejudice”, or “Little Women” also finds literature being introduced to pop culture. However, at the same time, such adaptations can also sometimes misrepresent these classics, which is usually called out by the literature enthusiasts, showing an interaction between two crowds and an integration of literature into pop culture. One of the recent examples, we can find is when Netflix announced the adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. (my favorite book of all time) Like many other, I, too, was disappointed to find out about the queer erasure done by Netflix by establishing a familial relationship between two characters: Dorian and Basil, who clearly have a romantic one in the original story, in the book.

Moreover, ever since social media came into the picture, poetry has been widely spread across pop culture. With poets like, Rupi Kaur, making their debut on talk shows like, “The Tonight Show With, Jimmy Fallon” and going on tours and various poetry related social media accounts taking over, the extent of integration of poetry with pop culture has been quite large and has changed the way people consume and create poetry, with specific emphasis on spoken poetry. What’s most interesting to note here is that the impact of this integration has not been one sided. Pop culture too has been shaped immensely through the introduction of poetry and other literature related themes, especially in the way it references, creates, and presents its content.

3 notes · View notes

setokaibapetty · 7 months ago

Text

Fic Friday 5 + 1 Roundup: Kidnapping

Way back in May of 1932, there was an incident you may have heard of - the Lindbergh baby. It's still May for a little bit so I thought to round up some stories that include kidnapping (with happier endings).

I Left the Cameras Running (AO3) - "Todoroki Touya did not intend to become famous. Or an actor. Or a famous actor. But sometimes the stars align just right for you to give a huge metaphorical middle finger to your evil dad in a very public way while laughing your ass off and rolling around in a literal pile of money because you took your first paycheck to the bank and had them give it back to you in the smallest notes possible just to make your childish roll-around-in-a-pile-of-spite-money dreams come true."

Lines Crossed (AO3) - "Training Camp AU. When the League of Villains starts working on converting Bakugou the night he arrives rather than two days later, Dabi has a crisis of conscience. (An unexpected buddy fic between a reluctant vigilante!Dabi and a twice-kidnapped!Bakugou)"

so you have a bad day (AO3) - "Shang Qinghua is not stupid. It does not take a genius to know what it means when you ask a servant where your lord has left to and they readily supply the name of an exclusive brothel in between the two realms. Especially when it's after your utterly disastrous first time together. So he goes away for a bit to clear his head. And promptly gets kidnapped."

The Second Son (AO3) - "With Brucie Wayne on a solo backpacking trip to 'find himself' in the Himalayas (and Batman off-world and out of communication) an unknown rogue has decided to take the opportunity to kidnap all the Wayne children at once."

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Time Travelers (AO3) - "Mace's morning starts with far too much paperwork. Being kidnapped at blaster-point is honestly an improvement."

Bonus: We All Wanna Party When the Funeral Ends (AO3) - "OC!Arla saves herself from Kyr'tsad with a bunch of other kids, incite a minor revolution and start a criminal group ft angst, co dependency, alexa play despacito, canon typical violence, hallucinations of your presumed dead brother, torture, manipulation, found family, slight world builing, sad bitch, bad bitch spotify playlist, pop culture references, and My Chemical Romance."

1 note · View note

w-k-smith · 4 years ago

Text

Especially since the first episode of Loki dropped, I’ve been thinking a lot about how prevalent the “Bureaucracy Gothic” vibe has been in pop culture recently.

In Loki, this complicated hierarchy with outdated office furniture and a business casual dress code and cranky supervisors and annoying training materials....has a death grip on reality, and eerily, seems to derive authority only from itself.

In Umbrella Academy....well, ditto, practically.

In Good Omens, angels and demons have been operating on rules and tallies and sometimes the honor system for so long that many of them seem to not think about God very much at all. Like bored employees whose manager is out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and who act like dicks to customers because they think there won’t be consequences.

In The Good Place, corporate machinery grinds on without any thought to whether the system is working or whether any of it is fair. And in this case that apathy leads to most people getting tortured for eternity.

So, like, why is this stuff all over the place?

Is it because Western culture has become so wrapped up in this kind of capitalism that we have to picture Cosmic Authority as working the same way? Especially when artists are deliberately disconnecting the story from explicit religious beliefs (though, yeah, a lot of examples are in a Vague White American Christianity color scheme). Do we spend so much time using this system to judge and value each other that we think that’s how we are ultimately valued and judged?

Is it the opposite? Are the artists in question so nihilistic and filled with dismay for society that, to them, the only way this being part of some kind of “plan” would make sense is if God/”God” is an out-of-touch Chairperson of the Board who has delegated morality to burned-out middle managers?

Is it just for the absurdity of cramming profound spiritual questions into mundane packages? Kind of along the same lines that it’s funny to see a big dog try to sit on a small pillow.

Because, in my experience, when secular art is directly depicting God/gods/the afterlife/the divine/etc. it’s usually actually about something very human. Like class warfare. Or abandonment issues. And when secular art actually wants to talk about Blah Blah Bible Jesus Magic, it tends to drape a metaphor over the stage. Like aliens. Who decided aliens were going to be a stand in for God. I’m not saying I don’t get it but when did it happen.

What makes Bureaucracy Gothic harder to figure out is, it’s kind of doing both of those things at the same time.

In the meantime, am I going to re-read The Screwtape Letters again? Yeah, that’s a strong maybe.

#loki #loki marvel #loki laufeyson #The Umbrella Academy #good omens #the good place #marvel #marvel meta #loki meta #meta

1K notes · View notes

nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 2 years ago

Note

Top 10 favorite movies?

1. A.I. Artificial Intelligence, because it was the movie that convinced me that I should read Ray Kurzweil's autobiography -- and because I am a sucker for any story that is basically "everybody in a space mission dies, except the scientists, because they had a good faith discussion and worked together and did the right stuff"

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey because of its visual and sound effects, and the eerie sense of being "lost in time" that I have never been able to recapture since I saw it

3. The Man Who Knew Infinity because of the similar sense of "loss of control/loss of personal identity" it evokes

4. Apollo 13 for its ability to evoke a sense of overwhelming danger

5. Alien, because it was the movie that first suggested to me that the idea of a movie from the point of view of an extraterrestrial species encountering humans could be more than "cool aliens with laser guns"

6. A Clockwork Orange, and not just because it was the original movie about a superintelligent computer making a criminal's life hell; the visual and sound effects were just great, and the "befriending, befriending, and then gradually destroying your character by breaking down his self-image with increasingly outlandish violence and torture" setup was a great one, and not one I've seen since (yes, I know it's a "genre"). (Note: I am aware this is not a really original answer for me. I am not saying "these are the only good movies." It is just that Clockwork Orange, Alien, and 2001, the three big examples of this sort of thing in my mind, are just so... striking? They're not just "interesting," though they are; they're striking in a way that's so memorable I still get the sense of the feeling they evoke sometimes without even realizing it.)

7. Bridget Jones' Diary, and especially the last ten minutes of the movie -- in this way I kind of do count it as an "adult" movie? The way it portrays young love as a "transitional" state -- which is not actually a good or healthy state, or one anyone really wants to spend much time in. As with many movies and TV shows these days, a lot of the film revolves around a "transitional state" or period that seems to be really important to people -- but where we spend far too long on it, and also the way it is used as a metaphor for other, bigger life concerns is just not satisfying or satisfyingly complicated. (See also: a lot of pop culture these days. There's something off about making "transitioning to adulthood" your major social problem, but also your major thematic focus, for the sake of making the characters in the plot feel more "real." This happens to a large extent in Bridget Jones.)

8. Good Will Hunting, because it's the opposite of the previous point -- it portrays an experience so good that it becomes our only access to anything else like it. (In this way, it's something of an anti-Alien.) It's not about the "transitional state of adolescence," it's about the actual, deep connection to reality we feel as adults. And the way the whole movie revolves around Will Hunting's experience of that, which comes across at the end as "oh shit, I realize that all along I was only using my skills to impress a bunch of nerds who were never going to notice me anyway." (It's not a story about having any "life skills" that are needed for life outside the nerdy subculture -- it's a story about realizing those life skills.)

9. American Pie because it's a ridiculous movie and I liked it as a child

#a bias to interpret ambiguous information in a threat related manner #armadyllo --moment #armadyllo-moment

25 notes · View notes

romancemoving · 3 years ago

Photo

AND THE REVIEWS ARE IN FOR ROMANCEMOON! COMING SELECTIVELY TO A THEATER NEAR YOU.

❝ at its best / worst, the hallucinatory idiocy of this blog inspires open-mouthed horror at what happens when an ill-conceived premise leads to even more jaw-droppingly misguided execution. contrived and bloated with old pop culture references, i had to set my computer on fire and divorce my wife due to my frothing hatred of the writer and the blog they’ve crafted. my family is ruined. thanks for nothing! ❞ — michael mcmichaelson, the new yorker.

❝ in the end, though the metaphor of an emotional torture chamber of the self as a sparkly, glowing ode to 90s anime and other decades is an interesting one to explore, that is not the analysis at the heart of this blog. i told the blog owner this. she proceeded to call me a twatfaced shit-for-brains, called my mother a clown car coochie havin’ bozo, and then blocked me. what an asshole, i can’t believe it. ❞ — lisa clancy, the chicago tribune.

❝ idk i liked it. reminded me of a wong kar wai film but with a laugh track hahaha. i just really like pretty colors and old japanese pop music. anyway r any of you ladies lookin to send me some feet pics? are any of you selling nfts of your feet pics? pls respond. can i ask that in this post?❞ — sexydickman666, reddit, r/movies. he was banned shortly after.

#( 🌙 OOC! RULER OF THE VOLCANIC DIAMOND PLANET. ✨ )#indie oc #/ im not tagging shit else im TIRED.#/ anyway lol.

33 notes · View notes

sailorvinus · 4 years ago

Photo

AND THE REVIEWS ARE IN FOR SAILORVINUS!

❝ at its best / worst, the hallucinatory idiocy of this blog inspires open-mouthed horror at what happens when an ill-conceived premise leads to even more jaw-droppingly misguided execution. contrived and bloated with old pop culture references, i had to set my computer on fire and divorce my wife due to my frothing hatred of the writer and the blog they've crafted. my family is ruined. thanks for nothing! ❞ — michael mcmichaelson, the new yorker.

❝ in the end, though the metaphor of an emotional torture chamber of the self as a sparkly, glowing ode to 90s anime and other decades is an interesting one to explore, that is not the analysis at the heart of this blog. i told the blog owner this. she proceeded to call me a twatfaced shit-for-brains, called my mother a birdbrained bozo, and then blocked me. what an asshole, i can’t believe it. ❞ — lisa clancy, the chicago tribune.

❝ idk i liked it. reminded me of a wong kar wai film but with a laugh track hahaha. i just really like pretty colors and old japanese pop music. anyway r any of you ladies lookin to send me some feet pics? can i ask that in this post?❞ — sexydickman666, reddit, r/movies. he was banned shortly after.

#( 🌙 OOC! RULER OF THE VOLCANIC DIAMOND PLANET. ✨ )#indie oc #anime rp #/ support my tacky but really sick as fuck brand.

36 notes · View notes

mmikmmik2 · 3 years ago

Text

(W spoilers)

The Gaia Memories of the main Sonozaki family members work really well. The memories as we're initially introduced to them are a great fit as a metaphor for their toxic family dynamics, and as we learn more backstory they become more fitting as part of Terror's preparations for the Gaia Impact.

I like the imagery of Taboo as ambiguously both punished and punishing. Her design evokes to me a lot of different ideas - someone being tortured or burned for witchcraft, a real witch on the attack, a magical effigy that functions as both a dangerous weapon and the thing that is being abused... Meanwhile, Clay Doll's only ability seems to be taking a lot of punishment and putting herself back together afterwards. It reflects the dynamic Wakana reminisces about when she "meets" Philip, where Saeko would both receive abuse from Terror and dish it out to Wakana, and Wakana didn't really have an outlet. Also, Saeko kind of looks like a rag doll to Wakana's clay doll, because both of them feel so powerless.

Terror is... very on the nose, in a good way. A tyrannical, manipulative, and dangerous father, so of course he's Terror. He's literally and figuratively inflicting terrible memories onto people that consume them with obsession and trauma, so of course he's Terror. He's the source of the poison slowly eating away at the Sonozaki family, the destroyer of Philip's childhood, so of course he's Terror.

Terror's design evokes the pop culture understanding of human sacrifices that took place in some Mesoamerican cultures. It's the idea of authority figures using human suffering to achieve some kind of connection to/message to/relationship with the divine, which again suits his character on a very literal level. It also brings me to the next theme uniting Terror's key Memories: ancient cultural connections to supernatural forces and/or the Earth itself.

Clay Doll isn't any old clay doll - she's a dogū, a kind of clay figure created by the inhabitants of ancient Japan. From a quick read of some of the sources online that seemed halfway credible, archaeologists don't know a lot for sure about dogū, but they're likely connected to agriculture and ritual, and their name in Japanese literally means "earthen figure". Clay Doll is a powerful and iconic connection to the very beginnings of Japan and to the land under her feet.

One theory about dogū is that they were used as effigies. A lot of different cultures have used dolls and figurines in sympathetic magic ("poppets"). So, given that Taboo looks a bit like a doll (with the stitches, and the way her fire hair also kind of looks like straw or the ends of corn husks), that's another way Taboo and Clay Doll are counterparts. But in this case, Clay Doll wins, because that connection to the Earth is so powerful in W lore and in Terror's eyes. Taboo doesn't really have anything like that.

That explains why "Nazca" - the Nazca lines are another example of an ancient culture connecting to the literal physical Earth, possibly for ritual or religious reasons. That's why Nazca was such a key Memory to understand/upgrade that Terror entrusted it to his poor gullible son-in-law, and that's why claiming Nazca over Taboo was a late-season upgrade for Saeko.

Obviously Terror never picked out a Memory for Philip because that's not how his plan worked, but if he had... I think "Pillar" could be a good fit. From the Wikipedia page for hitobashira ("human pillar"):

Hitobashira was practised formerly in Japan as a form of human sacrifice. A person was buried alive under or near large-scale buildings like dams, bridges and castles, as a prayer to the gods. It was believed this would protect the building from being destroyed by natural disasters such as floods or by enemy attacks.

#obligatory reminder to never use my stupid blog as a source for information about history or other cultures

5 notes · View notes

knightotoc · 3 years ago

Text

I really liked this book! It's indulgently weird and nasty, and the melodrama and absurdity also made me laugh. It reminded me of the New Testament, Majora's Mask, and, uh, Tarzan.

I've seen a lot of Jesus metaphors in pop culture, and Remina is as boldly on-the-nose as things like Narnia and Man of Steel. But while Narnia is straight apologia and MoS is clumsily stealing a Jewish metaphor, Remina serves Christ for the freaks. It goes hard on the torture (I had a hard time with that part, tbh), as well as the daddy issues, the followers-turned-traitors, and the cosmic anomalies that also marked the end of Jesus' earthly life (loved that shit). Remina takes the Gospels the same way Tommy does, but backwards and in heels.

The Biblical reference that impressed me the most was Simon of Cyrene: a random guy who gets pulled into the brutality for no reason at all. He's an entire Station of the Cross, but I can't think of any other Christ metaphor that even includes him. This book loves that guy.

The Majora's Mask similarity is also obvious: a celestial object with a creepy face hurtles toward the planet. Remina leans more scifi, in a way which allows for clever thought experiments (if something is moving at light speed, then you wouldn't see it coming until it's too late), but still requires much suspension of disbelief (how did they survive that?!). Both stories depend on ambiguity and subtext, and both care more about resolving their themes than their mysteries. The moon is a lonely child; the hellstar is an obsessed fan.

Neither Junji Ito nor Legend of Zelda pull their punches: the cosmic horror DOES destroy the planet; the peoples' fears ARE perfectly justified; and some of them ARE really shitty about it. Ito's apocalypse just has a lot more writhing bodies.

And the Tarzan thing is that most of the action consists of badass dudes hurtling through wild environments and impossibly swinging through the sky, all with a babe slung over their shoulder. I do wish poor Remina had a bit more guts herself, but at least all her real friends are secretly martial artists.

#remina #hellstar remina #junji ito #knightotoc book review

17 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 4 years ago

Photo

Life Detained.

The Mauritanian director Kevin Macdonald talks with Jack Moulton about researching Guantanamo Bay’s top secrets, Tahar Rahim’s method-acting techniques, the ingenuity of humanity during the pandemic, and his favorite Scottish films.

“You’ve got to understand that for a Muslim man like Tahar, this role has a much greater significance than it does for you or me.” —Kevin Macdonald

It’s not uncommon for a director to release two films in one year, but Academy-Award winning—for his 1999 documentary One Day in September—director Kevin Macdonald is guilty of this achievement multiple times. Ten years ago, he released his first crowd-sourced documentary Life in a Day and the period epic The Eagle within months of each other. A decade on, he’s done it again.

The Scottish director (and grandson of legendary filmmaker Emeric Pressburger) released both his Life in a Day follow-up and the legal drama The Mauritanian this month. The latter tells the story of Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi (sometimes written as Salahi), who was held and tortured in the notorious US detention center for fourteen years without a charge. The film, adapted from Slahi’s 2015 memoir Guantánamo Diary, features Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley as his defense attorneys Nancy Hollander and Teri Duncan, with Benedict Cumberbatch, who also signed on as the film’s producer, playing prosecutor Lt. Stuart Couch.

Benedict Cumberbatch as prosecutor Lt. Stuart Couch in ‘The Mauritanian’.

The Mauritanian also introduces French star Tahar Rahim to a global audience, in the role of Slahi. “The ensemble is excellent across the board,” writes Zach Gilbert, “while Tahar Rahim is best in show overall, bringing honorable heart and humanity to his role [of] the titular mistreated prisoner.”

Much of the story is filmed as an office-based legal thriller involving thick files, intense conversations, and Jodie Foster’s very bright lipstick. Macdonald expertly employs aspect ratio to signify narrative shifts into scenes recreating Slahi’s vivid recollections of torture and his achingly brief conversations with unseen fellow detainees.

Qualifying for this year’s awards season due to extended deadlines, The Mauritanian has already earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Rahim and Foster respectively. Slahi remains unable to travel due to no-fly lists, but he was a valuable resource to the production, providing an accurate and rare depiction of a sympathetic Muslim character in an American film.

It was the eve of Life in a Day 2020’s Sundance Film Festival premiere when we Zoomed with Macdonald. Behind him, we spied a full set of the Italian posters for Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic Blow-Up. As it turns out, he’s not a fan of the film—only the posters—so we got him talking about his desert-island top ten after a few questions about his new film.

The attention to detail on Guantanamo Bay in The Mauritanian is impressive. There are procedures depicted that you rarely see on-screen. How did you conduct your research? Obviously Guantanamo Bay is a place which the American government spends a great deal of effort keeping secret. It was important to Mohamedou and me that we depicted the reality of the procedures as accurately as we possibly could. That research came primarily from Mohamedou who has an incredible memory. He drew sketches and made videos of himself lying down in spaces and showing how he could stretch half his arm out [in his cell]. There are a lot of photographs on the internet of Guantanamo Bay which are [fake] and others are from a later period because the place developed a lot over the years since it started in 2002 and Mohamedou was able to [identify] which photos were rooms, courtyards and medical centers he had been in.

Director Kevin Macdonald on set with Jodie Foster.

How did you approach creating an honest representation of the graphic torture scenes, without putting the audience through it as well? Whenever films about this period are [made] they’re always from the point of view of the Americans and this time we’re with Mohamedou. You can’t underestimate the fact that there have really been no mainstream American cinematic portrayals of Muslims at all, so in portraying a sympathetic Muslim character who’s also accused of terrorism, you’re pushing some hot buttons with people. It was important that those people who are uncomfortable with him understand why he confessed to what he confessed.

Everything you see in the film is what happened; the only difference is that they weren’t wearing masks of cats and Shrek-like creatures, they wore Star Wars masks of Yoda and Luke Skywalker in this very perverse fucked-up version of American pop culture. Obviously, we couldn’t get the rights to those. Actually, I don’t feel that it is graphic. There is more violence in your average Marvel movie. It’s psychologically disturbing because you’re experiencing this disorientating lighting, the [heavy-metal] music, and he’s being told his mother’s going to be raped and he’s flashing back to his childhood. To be empathizing with this character and then to see them to be so cruelly treated is so deeply disturbing.

How did you prepare Tahar Rahim for his convincing portrayal of such intense pain and suffering? Tahar went through a great deal of discomfort in order to achieve it. He felt that to give a performance that had any chance of being truthful, he needed to experience a little bit of what Mohamedou had suffered, so throughout the movie he would insist on wearing real shackles which made his leg bleed and give him blisters. I would plead with him to put on rubber ones and he would say “no, I have to do this so I’m not just play-acting”.

He starved himself for about three weeks leading up to a torture sequence—he had lost an awful amount of weight and he was really unsteady on his legs. I was very worried about it and I got him nutritionists and doctors but he was determined to stick with that. You’ve got to understand that for a Muslim man like Tahar, this role has a much greater significance than it does for you or me. He felt a great weight of responsibility to do this correctly, not just for Mohamedou, but he was speaking for the whole Muslim world in a way.

Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley as defense attorneys in ‘The Mauritanian’.

What compels you to study this period in time? Mohamedou was released a couple of weeks before Trump came to power in 2016, so the story is still ongoing for him. He’s still being harassed by the American government and he’s not allowed to travel because he’s on these no-fly lists. I didn’t want to make a movie that was saying “George W. Bush is terrible”. We’ve been there, we’ve done that. This is looking back with a little bit of distance and saying “here’s the principles that we can learn from when you sidestep the rule of law”—what it takes to stand up like Lt. Stuart Couch did when everyone else around you is going along with something that’s really terrible.

You see that around Trump with the choices within the Republican Party to stand up and say they’re going to sacrifice their careers to do the right thing. It is a hard thing when there’s this mass hysteria in the air. The basic principles that the lawyer [characters] are representing is not about analyzing and replaying what happened after 9/11, they’re directly related in a bigger way to the world we all inhabit.

Did anything surprise you in how your subjects for Life in a Day 2020 addressed the pandemic? One of the most affecting characters in the film is an American who lost his home and business because of the pandemic, so he’s living in his car. He seems very depressed when you meet him for the first time, then later he’s telling us there’s something that’s giving him joy in his life. He brings out all these drones with these cameras on them and puts on this VR headset and loses himself by flying through the trees. I thought that was such a great metaphor for the way that human ingenuity has enabled us to survive and thrive during the pandemic.

I get the feeling of resilience from [the film]. This is a more thoughtful film than the original one. I see this as a movie of [us] being beware of our susceptibility to disease and ultimately to death and mortality, [and] how we’ve found these consolations as human beings. To me, it’s a really profound thing. It also speaks to the main theme of the film which is how we’re all so similar, same as The Mauritanian. It’s confronting you with all these people and saying we fundamentally all share the basic things that underpin our lives and the differences between us are much less important than the things we have in common.

Let’s go from Life in a Day to your life in film. What’s a Scottish film that you love but you feel is very overlooked or underrated? That’s really hard because there aren’t many Scottish films and there aren’t many good ones. Gregory’s Girl is the greatest Scottish film ever made—it’s the bible for life for me. That’s very well-known, so I would have to say Bill Forsyth’s previous film That Sinking Feeling, which was self-funded and made on 16mm black-and-white. It has some of the same actors and characters as Gregory’s Girl in it. Or my grandfather Emeric Pressberger’s film I Know Where I’m Going! which is a rare romantic comedy set in Scotland.

John Gordon Sinclair and Dee Hepburn in Bill Forsyth’s ‘Gregory’s Girl’ (1980).

Which film made you want to become a filmmaker? I think it was Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line, which is one of the top five documentaries ever made and in my top ten desert-island movies.

What else is in your desert-island top ten? Oh god, don’t! I knew you were going to ask me that. I’ll give a few. I would say there would have to be something by Preston Sturges—maybe The Lady Eve or The Palm Beach Story. There would have to be a film written by my grandfather, so probably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which is the best British film ever made. There would have to be Singin’ in the Rain, which is the most purely joyful film I’ve ever seen. There would probably be The Battle of Algiers, which I rewatched recently and was an inspiration on The Mauritanian. Citizen Kane I also rewatched in anticipation of watching Mank, of which I was very disappointed. I thought it completely missed the point and was kind of boring.

Which was the best film released in 2020 for you? I thought the Russian film Dear Comrades! was really stunning. It was made by a director [Andrei Konchalovsky] in his 80s who first worked with Andrei Tarkovsky back in the late 1950s. He co-scripted Ivan’s Childhood. I would love to make my masterpiece when I’m 86 too!

Related content

Films with Muslim characters

Movies that pass the Riz test

Scottish Cinema—a regularly updated list

Follow Jack on Letterboxd

‘The Mauritanian’ is in select US cinemas and virtual theaters now, and on SVOD from March 2. ‘Life in a Day 2020’ is available to stream free on YouTube, as is the original.

#kevin macdonald #michelangelo antonioni #scottish film #scottish director #emeric pressburger #the mauritanian #jodie foster #tahir rahim #tahar rahim #french actor #guantanamo bay #muslim representation #muslims on film #benedict cumberbatch #guantanamo diary #life in one day #life in one day 2020 #life in one day film #letterboxd

8 notes · View notes

nobody-wants-ice-cream · 5 years ago

Text

Everything Wrong With The Umbrella Academy. Episode 2, Run Boy Run.

Link to the first episode!

Same disclaimer as last episode: This is all in good fun! I wanted to do a really nitpicky re-watch of the series and found some really cool and interesting things I didn’t notice before. This is meant to have a Cinema Sins-esque tone. However, I did take off a lot more sins than Cinema Sins would have because I do genuinely like the series and the people that made it possible. So all of the good things got one sin off and all the bad things got one sin added. This is a really long post, so grab some popcorn. If there’s anything that I missed, feel free to add it!

Run Boy Run

Grace started the Herr Carlson record before the kids even arrived. How are they supposed to learn if they miss the first few seconds of it? What is the point of the record if they’re not even around to hear all of it?+1

The kids all have their hands on the chairs except for Five, showing that he will do something out of the ordinary. -1

Diego is causing property damage to Reggie’s chairs and Reggie allows this. Be consistent, show! Is Reggie lenient or strict? You could make the argument that Reggie doesn’t care about the chair because he’s rich. In that case, sinning for capitalism.+1

Klaus is already into drugs at the age of 13. We can see him rolling a blunt, and doing it quite well, presumably. +1

Ben is straight up allowed to read at the table. So then what is the point of the record if the kids don’t have to pay attention to it? +1

The kids expressions when Five stabs the table. The ones that we see are pure gold. Especially Klaus’s. Well done Dante Albidone. -1

Diego’s side eye when Five starts arguing with Reggie. This is the perfect expression for “my sibling is about to get in trouble”, so props to Blake Talabis. -1

Vanya’s side eye is also good. TJ McGibbon did well. -1

We see Five jump faster than a bullet, but he’s significantly slower when jumping across the table. +1

Reggie is a dick to Five, who just wants to explore his powers. We know that it’s dangerous because we see Five getting stuck, but Five doesn’t think that that is really a possibility. Reggie only talks in confusing ice and acorn metaphors. +1

Five’s face when Reggie presents the ice and acorn metaphor. -1

Vanya and Allison both give Five a look in this scene. This is what makes Five hesitate. Two of his siblings tell him it’s a bad idea, but he does it anyway because he’s a stubborn bastard. +1

Grace’s face drops when Five starts running out the door. Allison and Vanya also look absolutely horrified. -1

“Run Boy Run” is a little on the nose. Especially once you remember that The Boy is Five’s hero name in the comics. +1

No one cares that a 13 year old popped into existence out of nowhere when Five starts traveling into the future. +1

Easter egg! There is an ice cream cart outside the academy. If you’ve read Dallas, you know why I think that’s significant. Also, it happens to be my icon. -1

Five’s look of complete disbelief and horror when he is faced with the apocalypse for the first time. -1

“Vanya! Ben!” This has created a lot of curiosity in the fandom. In the comics he left before they were named, but in the show it looks like he chose to keep Number Five. Why? +1

The apocalypse looks very believable. -1

Title screen umbrella! -1

The awesome scene with Ellen Page and Aidan Gallagher continues in the next episode. -1

Where would Five have heard that rumor about Twinkies having an endless shelf life? It’s not like he was very exposed to pop culture as a kid. +1

Vanya doesn’t keep her Violin in the case. She leaves it proped on a chair, which is basically begging gravity to come and fuck up your instrument. +1

Five plays the pronoun game and doesn’t tell Vanya about Dolores. +1

The last thing Five heard for 40 years was Reggie’s stupid metaphor. That’s a sin for the metaphor and a sin for Five’s pain and suffering. +2

Vanya gives someone with a thirteen-year-old’s liver a few shots worth of hard liquor in a tall glass. +1

“You think I didn’t try everything to get back to my family?” This quote is Five at his core. It shows his exact motivation. Aidan Gallagher really could have screwed up with this line because it’s so raw, but the delivery doesn’t suck. Well done. -1

Is that liquor real? Aidan Gallagher’s face suggests that it is and he only takes two sips of it. Also, Five takes a sip when it’s just a bit, pours more, then takes another sip, and doesn’t drink any more of it. Sin for showmakers possibly giving a kid real alcohol and sin for Five only taking a sip after pouring a lot out. +1

However, if the alcohol is fake, which I really hope it is, sin off for Aidan Gallagher’s acting. -1

Five expects Vanya to believe his crazy apocalypse story. I had a hard time believing it when we were shown flashbacks as the audience. It wasn’t until they brought in the Commission that I actually believed it. If Five had explained the Commission, just like he did to Luther, then Vanya would have had an easier time believing him. +1

Vanya calls Five crazy and then expects him to not be hurt and want to stay in her apartment. +1

Vanya takes the pills after an emotionally charged scene. Pills-foreshadowing. -1

Five’s hands are shaking when he’s looking at the eyeball. This shows both his uncertainty, with this being his only clue, and shows that he is unwilling to leave his sister again even after she called him insane. -1

Mary J. Bilge. -1

The Lunar Motor Lodge has rates by the week, day, and hour. The Commission is super sleazy for putting Hazel and Cha Cha in a place that also rents by the hour. +1

Hazel and Cha Cha are an underrated duo. The “It smells like cat piss” dialogue is honestly really funny. -1

Obvious villains are obvious. I know they’re meant to be obvious, but it doesn’t change the fact that a show with a lot of subtlety just kind of thrust Hazel and Cha Cha in there with no subtlety at all. +1

Hazel stores the briefcase away and throws a screw, foreshadowing that this will be an important detail later. -1

No one, including police, notices the blinking and beeping, neon green tracker. +1

Patch is sort of right. Five made a jump in the middle of two of the local hires, which caused them to shoot each other. -1

“The guy had an eclair and the kid had coffee”. Patch’s side eye says that she thinks Agnes is getting her story mixed up. If we didn’t see what happened, then the audience wouldn’t believe Agnes either. Great acting Ashley Madekwe. -1

Agnes doesn’t stay in the back room. She crawls out so her head can dramatically pop up over the counter after Five leaves. This is a stupid decision on Agnes’s part.+1

Agnes is seen handling American money. Somehow we as a fandom didn’t notice this. Klaus also uses American money to buy drugs later in this episode. Sinning the showmakers not specifying which state at the very least, but reluctantly because I know that’s a reference to the comics. +1

“What other detective”. Camera cuts to Diego exiting Griddys. -1

Diego is a vigilante. What he is doing impedes the law. In this instance, we want him to stop Patch’s investigation because we know that the answer leads back to Five, which would be bad for the plot. However, Patch’s annoyance suggests Diego has done this to her before. How many murderers have gone free because Diego intervenes in Patch’s cases? +1

Diego did not consent to being searched and having his personal belongings taken. +1

Ebay exists but there is no internet or smartphones. What? +1

Diego thinks that this looks like a botched robbery. No way in hell does this look like a robbery of a doughnut shop in any universe. A bank robbery, yeah sure, but not a doughnut shop. What kind of doughnut shop has the kind of money that requires multiple guys with very large weapons, Diego? +1

The way Patch is described to Five by Diego in a later episode does not match the personality she actually has. +1

A whole crowd of people had nothing better to do than to watch the cops investigate a murder scene in a densely populated city. +1

Is Luther hitting his head after he wakes up a character choice? He does it again with the model airplane. After the low ceilings on the moon for four years, you would think that he would learn to duck. +1

Emmy Raver-Lampman gives an amazing performance when talking to Luther about Claire. -1

Allison has multiple posters of herself in her room. I am sinning for her younger self’s narcissism. +1

However, this narcissism goes hand in hand with Allison as a character. Props to the set designers for making these posters and hanging them up. It adds detail to Allison’s room and really shows who she was as a character. -1

“When Claire was little I used to read her books about the moon. I’d tell her her Uncle was living up there” Allison doesn’t remember that Luther was on the moon and therefore shouldn’t know about her divorce in the first episode, but says this in the second episode. +1

Luther looks so genuinely happy at being Claire’s personal superhero. -1

The ghosts torturing Klaus. +1

That fucking animal print thing Klaus is wearing. +1

Robert Sheehan is very, very attractive. This makes up for the monstrosity Klaus is wearing. -1

“You know you talk in your sleep.” “Oh there’s no point. You’re out of drugs” I love Ben as a character so much. -1

“Shut your piehole, Ben. Said with love” smooch. I love this line. -1

“I’ve got a crazy idea. Why not try starting your day with… a glass of orange juice or some eggs”. Justin Min’s delivery of this line kills me every time. -1

Pogo is really vague about why the papers in Reggie’s box are important. If he said something about the papers detailing the Academy’s powers in explicit detail, Klaus would have tried harder to get them back. +1

We don’t see Klaus pull out the Red Journal in episode one. +1

“Liar” “Drop dead” “Low blow”. This is an iconic interaction for a reason. -1

Pogo knows that Klaus can talk to ghosts, but remains offended when Klaus tells a ghost to shut up. +1

“Really awful, terrible, depressing times” Reggie is a dick to his children. +7

Vanya sleeps with the door to her bedroom open, even though we saw her close it. So she must have gotten up to open the door and didn’t notice Five was gone. +1

Where did Five go all night? Did he sleep back in the Academy? It couldn’t have taken him this long to get to the MeriTech building, so what happened to him? He changed to a clean uniform, so presumably he went to the Academy, but why did the show vague this? Did he walk into a department store and buy/steal a clean shirt?+1

Only the plot relevant person notices Five. The front desk girl doesn’t question why he’s there. And that is her literal job. I would know, I run the front desk at a medical office. If you don’t greet the patients then you’re not doing your job, front desk girl.+1

“Must have just [click] popped out.” iconic.-1

Five decides that violence is the best course of action to get the information he needs, directly contradicting “I know how to do everything” +1

The 1938 fingerprints may be Five’s. However, police usually discard this kind of evidence because there is a very reasonable doubt. Not to mention that anyone could have touched the knife. It’s a public place. Forensic evidence is not as reliable as it is portrayed in the media. +1

Diego is an asshole to everyone, but especially to Patch. She’s right, Diego is obstructing justice. How many murderers have gone free because Diego interfered in an investigation? +1

Diego’s boiler room is way too big to be a boiler room. +1

Luther’s reflection in Diego’s mask shows that Luther wants to know what it would be like to be number two instead of number one. Luther can’t lead for shit and subconsciously wishes that he didn’t have to. -1

With an aerial shot of the Academy from the outside, we can see that Reggie never bothered to take the laundromat sign off the mansion or that Reggie sold ad space on the mansion exterior. +1

Reggie is a dick to animals. See: the animal skeletons and the taxidermy. +1

Part of the mansion is painted an ugly neon green for no reason. +1

“Sorry I left without saying goodbye”. The “both times” is unspoken. -1

Vanya apologises for calling him crazy and being dismissive, but still suggests he needs mental help. He does, but maybe suggest it later when he isn’t convinced you think he’s insane? +1

Five lies to Vanya about something stupid. If he said that he was having Klaus help him with the apocalypse, I don’t think she would have minded. +1

Why does Five have so many toys in his room? Including a baseball? +1

Klaus comes out of the wardrobe as loudly as possible. The mansion does not have sound proofing (see: I Think We’re Alone Now dance party). There is no way in hell Vanya didn’t hear him. +1

This is the last time Vanya and Five interact. +1

Five’s room is more childish than a thirteen-year-old’s room should be. It honestly looks like he was the favorite because his room has so many toys in it. Like Reggie wanted to win his favor or something. Sinning for the weird set design choice and for Reggie being an asshole. +1

The fake circumstances in which Five was born in their cover story gives me immense joy. -1

In one camera angle, if you look carefully they cut two takes of “what a disturbing glimpse into that thing you call a brain”. In the one where we can’t see his face properly, Aidan Gallagher is openly smiling. Corpsing. +1

Robert Sheehan is funny. -1

Syd the tow truck guy doesn’t really look like Sean Sullivan (actor that plays adult Five) enough for Cha Cha, a trained assassin, to not see that he isn’t their mark. +1

Hazel eating a sandwich in this scene. Also the “Italian for dinner line”. -1

And Cha Cha sees the differences between Syd and Five later! +1

“Time travel’s a bitch” “Especially without a briefcase” There's other time travel methods than briefcase or being Five? Elaborate. +1

Patrick is a dick to Allison. We understand why later, but really Patrick, you’re going to be an asshole when her father just died? Don’t get me wrong, Reggie abused the hell out of her, but still! Patrick should have let Allison talk to Claire. +1

Vanya tries to comfort Allison even though she knows nothing about the situation other than that it happened. She’s never even met Patrick! +1

Allison is clearly trying to get away from this conversation with Vanya, but Vanya presses on. +1

“Well if I wanted advice, Vanya, no offence, it wouldn’t be from you”. This is why Vanya doesn’t take Allison’s advice about Leonard. Also, Allison is a dick to Vanya. +1

This scene with Allison and Vanya is interesting. Allison is projecting her pain and taking it out on Vanya, who really should have seen and heard what happened enough to leave her alone. Both of them are the bad guy here regardless of how you slice it. I am sinning the show for this moment because they really tried to villainize Allison for this scene, but she does have some well thought out points and is in an emotionally compromised state. Or in other words, the fight between Allison and Vanya is stupid. +1

Grant/Lance/whatever gave Klaus and Five valuable office time. Doctors do not have time for this sort of crap. Shouldn’t this guy have patients? +1

Aidan Gallagher looks to the actor playing Grant/Lance/whatever as if he’s waiting for him to say his line. I see this all the time with younger kids in theatre, but they can get away with it if their character has a reason to look at that character. That being said, Five would have no reason to do this.+1

The sound effect that plays when Klaus slaps Five is really out of place. +1

Seeing Robert Sheehan slap Aidan Gallagher. -1

Klaus pauses as if he’s listening to Ben before he picks up the snowglobe. -1

The snowglobe. Robert Sheehan pretending to be Klaus pretending to be Five’s crazy dad. Acting. -1

Five looks like a proud grandfather when Klaus gets Lance to show them the records. -1

Five doesn’t pay Klaus for that brilliant acting. Also, how was Five planning to give Klaus $20. He doesn’t have any money nor do we ever see him with money. Five is a cheapskate. +1

Klaus calls Five “old man”. I thought that was just a fandom thing lmao. -1

“You must be horny as hell”. Great Klaus line, but super weird that he’s saying it to someone that looks thirteen. +1

Klaus is wearing the shirt that goes with his nicest outfit underneath Reggie’s pinstripe suit. -1

“Goodbye Dolores”, a song from the soundtrack, starts playing when Five starts talking about Dolores. This is good placement of that song because we later learn that he left her in the apocalypse when he left to work for the Commission. -1

Five is a dick to Klaus. Klaus is really trying to connect with his long lost brother, but Five jumps away. +1

That taxi driver doesn’t freak out and cause a car accident when a random kid appears in his car. +1

Also, how did Five pay for that taxi? Did he jump out of the moving vehicle too? +1

Leonard is so obvious from the start. So charming that he’s slimy. +1

Vanya can’t see this and is actually attracted to him. This may go back to that conversation with Allison when she asks if Vanya has ever been in a relationship. For all we know, the answer is no. +1

Leonard took three years of German in prison. I don't think American jails are that nice. +1

Leonard picks up another person’s instrument without their consent. As a musician, this is very, very painful. +2

Diego is paranoid, but also observant as fuck. -1

But how did he get his weapons back from the police? Are knives open carry in whatever state this is in? There are some states where Diego’s harness would be legal so it’s possible. I’ll have to look into this. Sinning the show for being vauge as fuck. +1

Luther didn’t notice the boiler room door open. +1

Diego throws weapons on his siblings. +1

Reginald Hargreeves died March 21st. The funeral is on March 24th. This is way too soon. It should have been a week or two not two days between the date of death and the funeral. Especially considering Luther suspects Reggie was murdered. And if you say that Reggie, Pogo, or Grace bribed them, then I’m sinning for bribery.+1

Diego eats a raw egg. Salmonella headass. +2

David Castaneda eats a raw egg. Why did you make him do this? It adds nothing to the character other than making Diego look dumb as hell. +1

Vanya interrupts her student while he’s playing and doing well. Whenever my teacher does that I get a minor heart attack. +1

Leonard is already lying to Vanya. He manipulates her by saying his Dad was into music and that's why he’s taking violin lessons. +1

An actual place named “Bricktown” in a place called “The City.” Sigh. +1

It is four o’clock when Leonard takes his lesson, but then after the lesson we cut to night time. What happened in those couple hours, show? Are you really saying that these characters did nothing interesting for all that time? +1

Emmy Raver-Lampman clearly isn’t smoking. Which is fine because she’s a Broadway actress and needs her voice/lungs for that part of her career. It’s weird because it shows that Allison isn't smoking. +1

Pogo scolds Allison for her language. Allison is an adult, Pogo. +1

Klaus made a drink at a young age and Reggie didn’t stop him. Or talk to him. He recorded Klaus drinking, but didn’t care. +1

The showmakers show us Allison’s face for dramatic tension instead of showing us the tape. This was a good choice and I feel it helped the narative.-1

They show a sign “Gimbel Brothers Seniors Tuesdays 10% Off.” after Five walks by. -1

The most awkward and dopey smile in existence when Five finds Dolores. -1

They play “Goodbye Dolores” after he finds her. That could have worked if they transposed it to the major key. Hello Dolores. +1

“Goodbye Dolores” transitioning into “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen. -1

This action sequence is great. -1

Hazel’s wrist splint. -1

Five cuts Cha Cha with a trowel. -1

The dual screen thing is cool. -1

Five literally jumps over a stand and somehow doesn’t get shot. Hazel and Cha Cha have Stormtrooper aim. +1

How did Hazel and Cha Cha leave? You would think the police would notice someone leaving through the back. +1

Similarly, how did Five and Dolores get out of this? Did he wait until he could jump and teleport outside the store? Can he teleport that far? +1

How did Diego get another police scanner so quickly? Unless that’s the scanner Patch confiscated? +1

“I gotta show you something” +1

Once again, Five should be a lot sweatier. What are these magic, sweat absorbing things you can buy in a department store and where can I buy them? +1

Five sees an eyeball and immediately picks it up for no reason. He doesn’t even know that’s Luther’s body yet. He just picked up an eye for no reason. +1

Five as a thirteen-year-old boy saw his siblings' dead bodies. Sinning for trauma. +1

Aidan Gallagher portrays this trauma well. -1

Overall Review:

I love this episode and had a hard time finding things wrong with it. I genuinely like this episode and I think that it could have stood alone as the pilot.

Some acting things I noticed, David Castaneda, John Magaro (Leonard), and Ashley Madekwe were the standouts this episode. All three brought something interesting to the table this episode and I look forward to re-watching their scenes. I wish Madekwe and Magaro all the best as I know that they probably won’t be returning for season two.

The plot thickens! Hazel and Cha Cha were introduced in a very obvious way compared to the subtle way they introduced Leonard. There is a reason I adore this episode, and it’s not just for Klaus slapping Five (though that is part of it).

Total: 52

Sentence: We saw Diego eat a raw egg. That’s punishment enough for this episode.

#The Umbrella Academy #all in good fun #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #Allison Hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #eudora patch

91 notes · View notes

ineffable-dads · 5 years ago

Note

Obviously this wouldn't happen but what if Isabelle dated an angel or demon

Okay, I really cannot emphasis how much this would not happen. At least with my interpretation of the Good Omens universe (and how much I love Peter). HOWEVER, this is a fun thought experiment, so let’s do it.

(This also turned out way longer than I meant it to so, have fun)

If Isabelle Dated a Demon…

The demon in question would first be there to corrupt her soul, pure and simple

Beelzebub knows they can’t get to Isabelle directly, so they play the long game of waiting until she dies and claiming her

The demon has to disguise themselves to blend in with humans, which is a bit of a trick since Crowley has been the only one consistently Earth side in over 3,000 years

The demon would also have to make sure they never came in direct contact with Aziraphale or Crowley because if they did, Aziraphale has a store of water pistols filled with Holy Water just waiting to be used

So sneaky manipulation from the side lines it is then

They take the form of a human male, since from their research Isabelle seems to have a preference for those

His plan is to watch her, figure out her movements, and put doubt and fear into her mind

It will take years, chipping away at her soul piece by piece. That’s the price of real quality craftsmanship, but he’s been looking for a chance to prove himself and now is his opportunity

The problem is, having two supernatural entities as parents makes you rather attune to things that aren’t suppose to be there and Isabelle spots him immediately, demanding why he’s following her

He lies, obviously, demons lie after all, and says something he thinks human males usually say, he thought she was cute and wanted to ask her out

To his complete and utter surprise, she says sure

He’s in too deep now, and they meet for lunch the next day

He’s extremely awkward and literally has no idea what he’s doing; this was not part of a the plan at all, what do humans even do on dates?, what are dates? what is even happening?

Isabelle picks up on this internal screaming quickly, and takes pity on him asking him simple questions about himself

He starts telling he the truth, not the whole truth, just bits and pieces: he’s away from home for the first time for a job, he doesn’t have any friends in the city, and no he hasn’t been on a date before

She tells him she’s living with her Dads again after being away from home, she’s not sure what she wants to do with her life now, and she too doesn’t have many friends

He notices when he talks to her, he starts making a strange noise with his mouth, he’s seen Hastur do it after a good torturing, laughter if he remembers right, but it’s different from that kind of laughter; it makes his insides feel bubbly, he wonders if it’s this new food he’s consuming

He finds himself asking to see her again, and she says yes

They meet quite often after that

The demon tells himself he’s just getting closer to her to make the corruption easier, it’s what he tells his superiors when he makes his reports, but somehow corrupting her always slips his mind whenever they meet

He likes her morbid sense of humor, she likes how he doesn’t think she’s weird

They bond over not really knowing where they stand in the world; him from not being sure if he meets the expectations of what he’s been told to be his entire existence, her from always feeling like an outsider half in the supernatural, half out

Both of them layer these feelings in metaphor, but they are each still seen and recognized

Of course, everything comes to a head when she invites him to meet her Dads

It can’t be avoided, it was inevitable really, he’s got a plan

Before the meeting, he walks into A. Z. Fell and Co.

Aziraphale and Crowley know what he is in an instant

The prepare themselves for a fight, but are taken aback when the demon literally falls to his knees and pleads for them to let him speak

He tells them both everything, his mission, meeting Isabelle, and new feeling in his chest he can’t put a name to

Aziraphale feels it, knowing exactly what it is before Crowley puts it into words; “You’re falling in love.”

The demon asks for permission to be with Isabelle to which they both respond, it’s not up to them, he has to tell Isabelle the entire truth and then let her decide

He does as he told, finds her, and tells her everything

Once he’s done, she becomes very quiet

He can feel it, the anger, betrayal, the fear, and the doubt; all the things he was meant to corrupt her with, he feels sick

She asks him to leave, she needs time to think

He does and he lets her

He doesn’t bother checking into the head office, he can’t risk going in there now, he’s not that good of a liar

Somebody will come for him, he might have a chance if Aziraphale and Crowley put him under their protection, but he can’t ask that of them, not if he broke their daughter’s heart

He lives on edge for over a month; he wonders if this is what humans feel like all the time, in constant fear and knowledge of their imminent deaths

Finally, he gets a phone call

He meets Isabelle in the park; she tells him her Dads told her what he did, she tells him they don’t trust him, not completely, but they do trust that he loves her

She tells him she’ll give him a chance

The demon agrees; it will be a long road, and it can never be the same as it was, but it’s still a chance and they’re both willing to take it, together

If Isabelle Dated an Angel

Slight difference circumstances for meeting Angel boy

He’s heard about Aziraphale; the angel who walked into Hellfire and walked back out again, the angel who question the Great Plan, the angel who fraternize with a demon for over 3000 years and never got caught, at least until almost the end

He’s curious about this Angel and the Demon he associates with

He wonders what’s so special about the Earth, that the Angel of the Eastern Gate would defy the Great Plan to protect

So, ever so curious, he takes the back exit down to Earth to take a little look ‘round

His first stop is to Aziraphale’s bookshop, obviously

He’s got to know what’s so special about books that Aziraphale would make it his cover for so long

When he walks in, he’s surprise to see a young woman standing behind the desk

She’s human, as far as he can tell, probably one of those assistants he hears other humans fire to help run things

He asks if she has recommendations for books, to which she promptly replies, no

He’s rather taken aback, and so decides to take a look around himself

He notices her following him around the shop, making a point to say “that’s not for sale” every time his hand starts to go for a book

He starts to wonder if this really was such a great cover after all, when the Angel himself appears along with the famous Demon associate

Both Aziraphale and Crowley go stiff and immediately place their bodies between him and the young woman

Aziraphale asks, very calmly, what he happens to be doing in his shop

The angel blinks, and it takes him a minute to realize why Aziraphale is so on edge

“Oh, I’m just here for the books,” he promises. “I understand they help a great deal in understand human culture.”

He tells them about his interest in humans, and the Earth, and about them in particular

Both Aziraphale and Crowley seem unsure, but the young woman speaks up for him

She hands him a small pile of books ranging from history to poetry, and tells him they’re a good place to start if he wants to learn properly

She also introduces herself as Isabelle, and she looks forwards to meeting him again

They do meet again, and again, and quite a bit after

Once he finishes a books, he comes back to the shop to find Isabelle with a new pile of essential reads

They discuss what he’s learned, he asks questions about humans and she does her best to answer them

He can’t stay all the time though

He does have to pop back up to heaven, and do his daily round until he can sneak out the back again

He starts sneaking back even when he hasn’t finished a book

He finds he likes talking with Isabelle, not just about human beings, but about everything

He tells her about Heaven, the rules, and why he finds it so odd they’re pretending like the failure to end of the world didn’t happen

He often wonders if that means there is something wrong with him, that’s maybe he is thinking about it too much and he should just let it go

Isabelle doesn’t think so though, she says she likes that he’s curious, she says she likes that he’s not one of those “stuck up pricks”, and she likes how he’s brave enough to rebel in his own small way

He hadn’t thought about it like that before, and he does feel a little braver after that

He starts to notice things he likes about her too; he likes how smart she is, he likes how she never tells him his questions are dumb or obvious, he likes the sound of her laugh, especially if he’s the one to cause it

Azirphale and Crowley quickly catch on to what’s happening to the poor angel, even if neither he nor Isabelle can see it themselves

There could be a happy ending to this; Aziraphale and Crowley are proof of that, but it will hurt

Heaven will figure out what’s happening sooner or later and then the angel will have a choice to make: stay in heaven, or fall to Earth

But as the angel and demon look upon the angel and human, they both understand; they decion has already been made

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #ineffable dads #isabelle crowley #isabelle asks #good omens oc

30 notes · View notes

lilnasxvevo · 5 years ago

Text

I wanna talk about what I learned today!

So the thing about...antiviral medication is that it is not as easy and well-understood as antibiotics, where if you come to a doctor with what they reasonably suspect is a bacterial infection and you’re really sick they’ll be like “take this specific antibiotic here is your Rx now get the fuck out.”

Antivirals are really really hard to develop and there are not a lot of breakthroughs, and it is not scientists’ fault or anything, it’s just a really complex thing. Antibiotics work by either killing bacteria, just walkin’ up and stabbing them or whatever, or by stopping the bacteria from reproducing. Antivirals are hard because they aren’t allowed to just walk up to viruses and stab them, because viruses work differently from bacteria in the body and it is very hard to find a way to attack viruses that also doesn’t hurt the cells of the body the virus is in. (Have you seen the Jimmy Neutron episode where--you know what nvm.)

My current understanding (I just started learning about this today so please take this entire post with a LARGE GRAIN OF SALT) is that it is also harder to do research on viruses than bacteria because you can absolutely grow bacteria in a petri dish but viruses don’t really do the virus thing unless they’re on a living host.

So what research into developing an antiviral drug or other treatment for a specific virus means is that scientists have to Do Science and this means things like “just throwing everything we can think of at this virus and seeing if it destroys it” (and this takes a very long time) or the kind of thing Folding@home is doing where it runs a bunch of simulations on different parts and functions of the virus and tries to find weak spots. If you want a tortured pop culture metaphor, it is like if in Star Wars they knew the Death Star had a weakness but they didn’t know where it was so they just have to keep poking it with a stick in different places until they’re like “A-HA!”

The website of Folding@home has a lot more information about that kind of thing and also some more pop culture references--namely, there is a really weird spike on the novel coronavirus’ structure that scientists have nicknamed “the Demogorgon” because it undergoes a “dramatic opening motion” in order to latch on to another cell, and some nerds at Washington University St. Louis were like “I think that looks like that one thing from Stranger Things.”

So what Folding@home does is they poke things with a stick through simulations. They have been doing this for a while so they have some pretty good ideas where to look, but the looking takes a very long time.

(It takes less time if everyone downloads Folding@home to their computers and lets it use your computer’s idle processing power when it’s plugged in and charging to be part of a network of computers that each runs one smaller simulation and that together basically form one supercomputer. Understanding the virus more completely and more quickly can only ever be a good thing, so seriously--download it!)

1 note · View note

krahka · 5 years ago

Text

The KleskizhAUs and their Poetic Styles

Under read more because lomg

SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous Sith Juggernaut. Excessively proud of his Sith ancestry but also ridiculously light side and somehow doesn’t see this as a problem. Loves lightsabers, loves the Empire but is a little less clear on whether he likes the Empire as an institution or the Empire as the people, and hint, it’s the people, he’ll pick the people if he had to.

Poetry: ALL CAPS HAIKUS FREE VERSE ASTRONOMY METAPHORS EXTREMELY VIOLENT REFERENCES TO ANCIENT SITH HISTORY BEAUTIFUL WORDS BEATEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIS HEART OF DARK PASSION

DS!SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous and awful Sith Juggernaut. Believes himself morally and genetically superior to all others. Delights in toying with his inferiors, especially in breaking their hearts with his charm and facade of kindness.

Poetry: Flowery and romantic and flattering. More or less copies of ancient Sith poems, but with the words changed a bit. They’re mostly for showing off how cultured he is and how much he loves you babe, so he doesn’t put in much effort.

ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage. A scion of the Direnni but not on great terms with his family due to his allegiance to the Aldmeri Dominion and his marrying a Bosmer because of Spinner shenanigans. Ambassador of the Queen and definitely not one of her Eyes nosir. Got pressganged into the Buoyant Armigers after impressing Vivec by exemplifying all of hir favorite virtues and vices just by accident.

Poetry: Sonnets. Ballads. Sexually explicit but it’s so purple that you can hardly tell just how sexually explicit it really is. Mostly about his own adventures and the people he knows. Melodramatic as fuck. The stuff he wrote when Vivec specifically was taking an interest in him is his best work, since he starts getting more experimental and tones down the silliness without losing that red hot emotional core that really elevates the verse to something that so many people try and fail to replicate in the future that it’s become its own genre.

DS!ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage what dabbles in necromancy. Believes himself the rightful king of all of High Rock with the Bretons as his rebellious subjects. Allied with Mannimarco because he promised him that when Planemeld happened, he could have his ancestral holdings all to himself, with all the people there living only to glorify him. The kinda guy you end up killing in the Daggerfall Covenant quests or in a Balfiera focused dungeon DLC.

Poetry: Pretty similar to light side ESO!Kleskizhae, but if he thinks you didn’t appreciate his work he’ll torture you until you do. Try and critique it and he’ll just plain murder you and raise your corpse to grovel for his forgiveness and admit that you were wrong. Also his poetry is his annoying boss mechanic somehow. Didn’t read the books in his dungeon? Too bad because that’s how you defeat him.

GW2 Klejskizae

Norn Herald. Skald, champion of Wolf, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers. A Delight unto all people of Tyria! Your new best friend who is not using your friendship with him to learn your secrets! Come and listen to him channel the spirits and the Legends next Dragon Bash!

Poetry: Actually more into prose. Veddas. Stories about heroes, exaggerated for effect. Tales that he keeps in his mind that he tells differently each time he’s asked to tell it, depending on what he thinks his audience needs to hear. The poetry tends to be more personal, often taking the form of prayers to the Spirits that are between him and them. Also will write songs, also about heroes, with calls to action for the Pact.

TES!Specifically Klejskizae

Nord Skaald. Traveling yeller. Delighter of audiences all throughout Tamriel. Follower of the Old Ways. Probably also in the Blades.

Poetry: SCREAMING TAVERN SONGS. Great heroes, sometimes gets kicked out of taverns in Skyrim because he’s performing songs about non-Nord heroes but how can you not be excited by EVERYONE

SWTOR!Specifically Klejskizae

Mandalorian what will scream battle poems in your ear as he faces you in glorious hand to hand combat. Has some very weird ideas of what being Mandalorian is, but they’re closer to reality than his Sith version’s ideas of being Sith.

Poetry: You thought Sith Kleskizhae’s poetry was gory and violent? You haven’t heard Mando Klejskizae. They are ridiculous. Everything ends with lovers embracing for the last time as they die in battle and their death is described in excruciating detail.

FFXIV Kleskizhae

Ishgardian adventurer. Dragoony Bard. Got kicked out for being way too scandalous for the theocracy and for talking too much about how he thought that maybe we should just smooch the Dragons?

Poetry: The poetry isn’t why he’s not liked back in Ishgard, though that poetry was a means to transmit his unpopular and scandalous ideas and activities. The poetry specifically is why he’s distrusted in Gridania after he met an elemental and challenged it to a rap battle and it went very poorly. (Kleskizhae won and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or that that’s not the point and there is no winning because he definitely won)

West Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sort of into the whole BoS thing of keeping dangerous tech out of people’s hands but also he’s into protecting people in any way he can, since they must protect those who will inherit the past, yes? That is what we’re doing, right? Right?

Poetry: He found a book of poems about Arthurian legends and they changed his life, as did Grognak the Barbarian which he’s sure is in the same canon. He’s also read a bunch of Shakespeare and only sort of understands it. So yeah, sonnets that are Shakespeare ripoffs. Casting modern topics into medieval terms. Sometimes it’ll get weird and his BoS worldview will come in and make them anachronistic but it’s unintentional because he just wants to write like the knights of yore.

East Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Enclave soldier, later deserter once he sees that oh shit killing everyone wasn’t supposed to be what they were going to do! He wasn’t listening to the quiet part! Ends up aiding synths because it pisses off the BoS and also saves lives. Still believes in America but it’s one that maybe never existed.

Poetry: The Enclave did preserve a lot of good American literature in their databanks, though they’re kinda sketchy about distributing it to their soldiers since even before 2077 they realized that a lot of the American canon contains like, anti-war, anti-corporate ideas and they couldn’t have that in their new society. He read Leaves of Grass once and it blew his mind. He might just surrender to the Brotherhood if they let him have access to their books, because he needs those. But also he might not because they would probably kill him and he’s also spending his post-Raven Rock time helping synths out of the Institute and that’s something they’d kill him for. And probably also kill a lot of other people if they realized that the Railroad had ex-Enclave in there. And the Institute doesn’t care for the humanities, which is why they had to create machines to teach them how to be human and then proceed to do such terrible things to the humans they’ve created; because they are less machine than they are and they resent them for it.

Modern Vlogger Klaus K. Zheng

Relationship advice vlogger, specifically as a counter-voice to all those shitty misogynist PUAs that are targeting lonely straight men. Also here for the lonely women and the lonely queers since he’s a queer man himself.

Poetry: He’s got a Master’s in Poetry and he feels it was time well spent, even if he didn’t care as much for academia as he did for the writing and the reading. One of the rewards for donating to his Patreon at a higher tier is a short poem written just for you about whatever subject you wish. (Assuming that it’s not extremely objectionable. He’ll gladly write poems about all sorts of sex acts, but he won’t write one about the virtues of white power.)

HZD Kleskizhae

Carja Warrior. Participated in the Red Raids because that was what the will of the Sun was but he couldn’t take the violence and the genocide and ended up joining with Sun-Prince Avad to overthrow the murderous king literally as soon as he could. Has been on a tour of goodwill ever since.

Poetry: Overuses the words “glinting”, “scintillating”, “resplendent”, “radiant”, “brilliant” and other words that mean A LOT OF LIGHT because he’s really into writing ridiculous songs about the Sun. A lot more personal and emotional than a lot of Carja poetry, since it’s more about love than about praising the Sun or the King. It’s a new dawn, and what the world needs is love’s shining rays to heal her wounds. With the help of some Oseram who wanted to promote the newly invented phonograph, manages to become the first real pop star after the apocalypse.

DA Kleskizhae

Tevinter Battlemage. Was sent off to the front lines against the Qunari to keep from embarrassing his family and his master. Accidentally ended up embarrassing them anyway.

Poetry: So he’s really into bringing up the Old Gods in his poems. He doesn’t worship them, he’s a good Andrastian, but you know how in the Renaissance everyone was a huge Greeceaboo? Yeah, it’s like that.

WtA Klaus K. Zheng

Fianna Galliard. He’s a werewolf poet who sings ballads of his pack’s glorious battles and lifts their spirits in the name of Gaia and Stag!

Poetry: He’s got a soft spot for dirty limericks. All of the Kleskizhaes will make improv poems upon request when they’re drunk enough but Fianna!Klaus is the master of the drunken on-the-spot poem. Like they get way better when he’s drunk and they’re improvised, as opposed to the usual thing where they’re charmingly bad.

VtM Klaus K. Zheng

Toreador. Got the vampire bug some time in the Victorian era, I dunno if he was actually British or what.

Poetry: Lord Byron himself once called his poems “a bit maudlin.” His sire was certainly fond of his work, but if he had more time in his peak living creative years he would have probably been a better known figure in the Romantic movement. As it is he’s fairly irrelevant and forgotten by all but a few intense scholars of the period, and even they consider him a minor figure.

Shadowrun Klaus K. Zheng

Elven Street Samurai. Just wants to make the world a better place through the power of love and also katanas. Probably unfortunately involved with Aztechnology which is gonna end badly for him probably.

Poetry: Machines and corporations have not yet conquered the metahuman soul, and that is why he writes. Has been banned from a couple of Runner BBSs for constantly posting about his latest runs in the form of epic poem, and that’s not what these boards are for, @GLORIOUSSAMURAI, please turn off your caps lock

Star Trek Kleskizhae

Romulan Tactical Officer. Fought in the Dominion War, joined the Romulan Republic after Romulus asplode, because they wouldn’t let him quietly desert and because he believes in the true Romulan spirit that can never be repressed!

Poetry: He’s trying to revive ancient pre-Awakening Vulcan poetic traditions whilst failing to recognize that lots of it doesn’t work in the modern Romulan language. He’s always been super into poetry but after the destruction of Romulus, he becomes obsessed with writing the perfect series of poems to describe it for the future, so that people will remember what it’s like long after everyone who remembers it is dead. He hasn’t been successful yet and it’s upsetting him but he can’t just not do it. He owes it to the dead.

Bionicle Kleskizhae

He's a proud Skakdi warlord of Fire who is trying his best to unite his proud and noble people against the wicked deprivations of the Makuta and might also be in the Order of Mata Nui because sometimes Kleskizhae is a spy? But always he is very loud.

Poetry: Extremely long and elaborate war chants with 40 verses that he’s trying to get his guys to chant into battle but no one else but him can remember it all and he keeps adding more verses. But also he’s written love poetry that’s gone all the way around Greg and made romance canon again! He’s done it! With the chiseling of the tablets he’s made love real!

#oc: kleskizhae #all screaming together in perfect harmony #long post

11 notes · View notes