#worst advent of modern bedding

[captainderyn]

There’s something sadly entertaining about me fighting for my life against the fitted sheet while also battling my first cold of the season that has knocked me on my ass.

It’s like a boss fight and I’m just here like (-10 constitution) (-20 strength: muscle aches) (-10 intelligence: just really fucking tired)

[blog-name-idk]

The Plot Twist | 01

Summary: Once upon a time you would have jumped at the chance to live the idol girlfriend life. The cameras, the action, the whirlwind romance. But what was once a dream has now become your worst nightmare, and you fully intend to fight the universe as it repeatedly conspires to set you up with your seven perfectly good soulmates from Bangtan Sonyeondan.

In which we punt Y/N into all the fanfiction tropes and you do your feral best to subvert the love story.

Because nani the fuck, you are The Plot Twist.

Pairing: OT7 X Fem!Reader

Genre: Soulmate!AU, crack, humor, idol!AU, light angst, slow burn, romantic comedy, just a fun silly old time

Rating: 18+

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

AN: Hello all!

This is a fic that is being co-written by @blog-name-idk and @eserethriddle (who also has their own crack/soulmate subversion AU which is INCREDIBLE and HILARIOUS go read it). The inspiration for this fic was that one meme about the anime protagonist avoiding their fate, and then it became a monster. We are having a great time writing this and we hope you enjoy it as well!

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Chapter 1: "What are soulmates, even?"

A prevailing belief amongst the aging population of overbearing parents is that an unattached woman, of average birth and social standing, professionally situated in one of the high-rise buildings in modern-day Seoul, must be in natural want of three things the very morning she turns twenty-five: an envelope of birthday money, a spa coupon, and a blind date prospect. Society’s elders allege that the advent of the twenty-fifth age prompts the rightful transition of the child-minded miss into a full woman, the barest hints of her girlish whims to be cast aside for her foray into the next, imperative stage of life.

Ha! Whatever the hell that next stage is, you have absolutely no care, no inclination to find out. Altruistic as they pretend to be, those very same elders are possibly bored, amateur matchmakers, or worse: aspiring grandparents.

You have your own priorities. You're living the good, simple life of binge-eating all the snacks you can now afford, buying questionable decorations for your single-bedroom loft, and, with undeniable consistency, sleeping in and gaming at ambiguous hours. Half-baked attempts at health fads and investments in miracle under-eye creams notwithstanding, you're barely halfway through your twenties but already living the dream!

Whatever that happens to you after this point? Unimportant. You have all the time in the world and your inner child to appease.

Heavy footfalls thump across the wooden floor of your bedroom, abruptly pulling you from the safehaven of your subconscious. The shrill, scraping noise of your floor-to-ceiling curtains being pulled open flag your internal alarm, but the matronly scolding that greets your senses, voiced in a too-familiar hometown dialect, subdues it just as quickly as it comes.

Burying your face into your pillow with a weak groan, you resign yourself to the loss of another wonderful morning spent in bed.

You should have known this would happen. As long as this woman breathes you will never know true peace.

“Eomma.” You scowl, throwing your blanket to the side as you sit upright on the bed. “This is exactly why I moved out.”

“Bah! Look at you!” your mother scoffs as she takes in your bedraggled appearance. “I booked you an appointment at The Deluxe and instead you want to waste it?” Busying herself all over the room, bending over and picking up litter – the remains of your night's valiant efforts – she crows, “And all these junk food wrappers on the floor! You pigged out, playing those games all night again!”

Well… yes, there was no denying that. It had taken you until early hours of the dawn (and three much needed, middle-of-the-night, rage-reducing convenience store trips) to reach your current savepoint in-game. Although it seems highly unlikely that your mother would be impressed by your latest feat at Super Mario – Kaizo, because somewhere inside you rests an unlovable, masochistic monster – you still cannot find it in yourself to want to change the way you had spent the previous night given half the chance.

Your mother, bless her old-fashioned heart, is simply predisposed to worry about your dubious gamer-slash-working-girl lifestyle, which, not only being within her rights, is also completely understandable! So as long as you kept up visible effort at maintaining the “beauty sleep and charm regimen” she swore by, she usually fell somewhere between unbothered and complacent.

But no. Not today.

"What did you threaten the landlord with to get the key this time?" you query under your breath, too quiet for her to hear. Sleep-addled as you are, you still have some sense of self-preservation.

It just… doesn’t help that your whole face looks as puffy as it feels. Judging by the tight set of your mother’s mouth also reflected by your bedside mirror, her slanted eyes pinned on you, you're sure she’s set to try and advertise the benefits of gua sha within the next minute.

Clearly, getting your own apartment had afforded you more freedom, but not the complete detachment you had been hoping for. And that was fine – every so often you do have the solo-living blues and miss her grapevine chitchat – it just isn’t apparent to you now in your half-comatose state, berated even before you have a chance to obtain caffeine.

Sighing in defeat, you move up and lean against the headboard. Your swollen eyes try to peek past the door frame, to no success. There’s an undeniably hopeful lilt to your voice when you ask, “So appa’s here, too?”

“Ha! That man drank himself silly, crying all night long!” At the mention of your father, your mother’s tone transitions from frenzied to fond, soft mirth dancing in the brown of her eyes. “‘Starting tomorrow she won’t be my girl no more,’ he’d said! It was a right mess! Your uncles had to help me carry him home…” she prattles.

Rounding the bed as she makes her way to you, she pulls you close to her chest, surrounding you with the comforting, familiar scent of her – and your – favorite laundry detergent and the faint smell of the kimchi she had for breakfast. She places a doting kiss on the top of your head then assures you in a rather soft murmur, “Sorry, sweetheart. He’s not here. He was so down he couldn’t even get out of bed, but he’ll call you later when he feels better, I’m sure.”

“Alright,” you concede, melting into her embrace and choosing to let her love bloom in your chest instead. Sometimes you complain about her lightning-fast mood changes from holy terror to loving mother, but after twenty-five years of being your appa’s girl, you figure you can give her this one morning. You snuggle into her. “Thanks for coming over, eomma. I can already smell the seaweed soup.”

“Of course, dear. I heated it up. Happy birthday.” She angles your face upward and pinches your cheeks.

You groan and paw at her to fight her off, but the playful moment is broken when she holds your face hostage and threatens very seriously, “If you don’t make it to the appointment, I’ll drive you to that speed-dating event in Hannam myself. I know for a fact they’re taking walk-ins tonight.”

“But eomma…” you whine, feeling like a fool for letting her motherly love lull you into a false sense of security, “I’m the birthday girl! Shouldn’t I get to decide my itinera–”

A familiar gleam flashes in her eyes and you immediately pinch your lips shut.

You may have gotten your father’s dimpled smile, but the stubborn fire in your spirit, the fierce glow of your gaze… These are the attributes that make you a famed corporate demon and Nintendo speedrunner.

These traits are also definitely, absolutely, undeniably from your mother. And alas, she has had more years and recognition in perfecting her technique.

With the Hyundai car keys twirling around her index finger, you just know she’ll make good on her threat. Your mother, dramatic as she can be, is bull-headed enough to follow through on every ridiculous warning she makes.

Another quality you yourself have inherited.

Glancing at the clock, you scramble off your mess of sheets and pillows and hastily set your feet onto the hardwood floor. Chuckling nervously as you avoid the course of consoles and controllers strewn about the room, you wonder aloud, for no reason at all, “The appointment has a fifteen-minute grace period… right?”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You don’t know what happened after stepping into The Deluxe, not exactly. Scrambling past the morning rush on foot, desperate to avoid all kinds of traffic in your anxious, sleep-deprived state, you barely even recall getting to the spa’s reception area in time.

Upon confirming your appointment, a chic lady handed you a satin robe and ushered you into a private room, pointing you to your assigned spa bed with a gentle, amicable smile. Hypnotizing oils and calming tones sang to your senses, beckoning you to slumber with the promise of warmth and safety. The moment the lights dimmed and the massage therapist placed her hands on you, kneading your stiff shoulders, total exhaustion had taken over and you’d blacked out. An instant, indisputable K.O.

When you woke up it felt like you had re-spawned. Misplaced and mistakenly rearranged, put back together in a whole different body. You weren’t even sure if a body spa was all that had happened… You wonder for a moment if you might have been secretly brainwashed and implanted with a trigger command to kill an unsuspecting prime minister somewhere down the line, but you figure the gods have something else planned for a plain shut-in like you. Surely something less cinematic?

Seeing your reflection in the mirror, your split ends gone and your hair somehow now highlighting your best features, your face made up… Well, now it's clear that a lot more had happened to you. Your skin feels creamy to the touch and smells like rich patchouli, your nails are trimmed and painted ballet pink. You doubt their in-house aestheticians had taken one look at you – dehydrated and soulless to the brim – and voluntarily offered their services… Perhaps your mother did splurge and book you the full blowout package.

In that case, considering the luxurious upkeep of The Deluxe, you send your mother a heartfelt message of thanks followed by a cheerful selfie before finally stepping out to stroll through the nearby streets of Yongsan.

Unlike your usual self, you actually feel good. Very, very good. Beautiful, and rested.

Who wouldn’t love turning twenty-five if this was all it entailed?

As you make your way across the uptown plaza, the phone in your tote bag vibrates suddenly, chiming its innocent, dulcet tones. You stop, retrieve the gadget, and stare at the institution-registered number on the display screen of your phone before clicking to accept the call.

“Hello?” you answer tentatively, hoping you're not about to get called for jury duty.

“Good day. Is this L/N F/N?”

“Yes, but who…?”

“I am Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin from the Ministry of Korean Domestic Affairs. I understand you turned twenty-five today, L/N F/N-ssi. In accordance with Republic Act 134340 promulgated January of this year, this is your mandatory communication from the Soulmate Registry Department. May I proceed with the orientation, or is this a bad time?”

“Huh?”

Did she just say soulmate…?

You blink once. Just ten meters from where you stood, a squealing toddler startles and chases away a flock of unsuspecting pigeons perched on the brickstone plaza, wings fluttering against air and cobble. The cacophony washes over you in a raucous echo.

You blink again, stupefied. “Sorry, what?”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

“I understand this must be confusing for you. Although our record here indicates that your parents are soulmates, L/N F/N-ssi?”

“M-My parents?” you stammer. There was that word again!

Despite your obvious bewilderment, Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin remains unfazed. Not missing a beat, she draws in a quick breath and launches into a clearly scripted monologue: “Historically speaking, the Soulmate Phenomenon was first observed to affect a significant percentage of the adult human population by sociological groups and academic societies. Throughout the years, in tandem with the discoveries of international research institutes and medical community programs based locally, the national government has authorized a domestic agency to advise the public on matters that directly concern their health, relationships, and cosmological well-being. The current research consensus theorizes this phenomenon to be amplified by genetics, meaning that those with parents who are soulmates are highly likely to experience the phenomenon themselves. On these grounds, to offer you a better civilian life, we at the Soulmate Registry Department would like to confirm if you, L/N F/N-ssi, have been experiencing symptoms relating to this phenomenon…?”

You don't reply, locked in a cage of dumbfounded silence. Junior Liaison Officer Choi Mijin simply continues as response, “If so, I am pleased to report that cosmic interference will now rise to thirty-eight percent, with a ten percent margin of error per day, per soulmate–”

“Cosmic interference?” you interrupt, still quite lost in disbelief. "Per soulmate? What?”

"It's possible to have more than one soulmate," replies the desk worker, matter-of-fact. In rehearsed evenness, she elaborates, "It is the department's official advice for soulmates to initiate friendship at first introduction. Otherwise, aggravated cosmic interference can be expected, and may even escalate to public duress."

“Aggravated…? Duress? Uh, give me a second.” You pinch the flesh of your arm. “Ow.”

Eventually, after getting some of your thoughts in order, you manage to ask, "But what if I answered that I wasn't experiencing any of the symptoms? That I don't have a… soul-mate?" The word slides weird and heavy off your tongue.

"Ah. In such cases, please do not be alarmed. The natural implication is that you may continue to live life as usual," the girl's tinny voice reassures. "If you do not have a soulmate then you will not be subjected to visual, somatic, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, or gustatory anomalies. This kind of life is plain, but also advantageous, in its own way."

…Too much. This is just too much.

“But what if I do? What if I do have a soulmate, but I don't want to acknowledge it? What if I want to keep my life as it is?"

Choi Mijin pauses, not having a prepared response for the first time.

"Hm? Let me look that up." After audible typing noises and the near-infinite scrolling of her computer mouse carrying over, she finally speaks again. "Hmm. Nah. Nope. Not in our F.A.Q.’s. I wouldn’t not advise against that, no.”

Those were so many negatives you don’t even know what had been implied in the first place.

“I could forward the call to my supervisor," Mijin suggests, trying to be helpful. “The average standby time is one hour and forty minutes. Do you want me to?”

Massaging your temple with your free hand, you attempt to ignore the blooming headache ruining your prior good mood. "I… guess not? I’m not experiencing anything, Choi Mijin-ssi. That just means I don’t have… a soulmate… right?”

Mijin makes a grunt of assent. "Correct. If you did have a soulmate, you’d have to submit forms DR-2a and FS-3c to our main office in Hongdae. There are housing subsidies, minimal tax deductions, and life insurance programs that can be applied for.”

You do not know what else to say. Of course bureaucracy would somehow be involved in the systematization of the soulmate phenomena. You clear your throat and settle for, “Ah.”

“For now, L/N F/N-ssi, your status with us is PR - Pending Registry. Please confirm your status with us in person within the year, else the aforementioned benefits are considered irredeemable. Late registration is prohibited by the Ministry of Korean Domestic Affairs. This is only to ensure civilian and public safety, you understand?”

“Um.”

You look down, stare at your sandaled feet.

You can feel your toes, yes. You're alive, yes. You look at your hands and see all five fingers.

This is real life, yes.

“Yeah, okay. I understand… I think. Hmm. Yes.”

“Great. And, ah, happy birthday. I guess. Twenty-five sure is… something.” Ever since the beginning of the conversation, it is only at this moment that the liaison officer’s tone betrays her professional disposition. Despite your inner turmoil, you do feel for the girl on telephone duty as she sighs and says, “I’m really not paid enough for this.”

The line goes dead, and you’re left to pretend your world has not just shot off its axis.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Kim Namjoon loves the chaos that is his fucking life.

It’s just. He constantly struggles to be the pillar of peace in the middle of it all.

"What are soulmates, even," whines Namjoon. "People who share the same taste in music? People who finish each other's–"

"–sandwiches?" Jeon Jungkook suggests, throwing a hopeful look at the snack in Namjoon’s hand.

Namjoon sighs in defeat and tosses the gremlin his sandwich. It’s gone in seconds.

No, really. Namjoon loves his life. Despite the near-chronic muscle ache and subtle paranoia that comes with baring his artistic, musical persona at a global scale on the daily, Namjoon still truly believes his life is wonderful. It’s meaningful, it’s spontaneous, and he never feels stuck. In fact, he gets to wake up assured that the world has something new planned for him. He gets to navigate life with a profound sense of purpose each day because he gets to rise from bed, head to the bathroom, take a look in the mirror and complain, “Which one of you did this bullshit?!” in countless, exasperated variations.

Because he is truly, utterly blessed.

Namjoon collapses against the plush armchair and rests his legs on the coffee table (yes, like a neanderthal), reinvestigating the faint bruising he’d found this morning on his limbs. Reaching over, he presses on his blemished skin and feels nothing.

“Taehyung’s been practicing cartwheels again,” he realizes.

The entirety of it had overwhelmed Namjoon, at first. Despite his height, he’d acted like a giddy kid about it, because nobody else in his family had – or even seriously regarded the concept of – soulmates. The library books he’d consulted said he was unlikely to experience the phenomena for himself, and so he’d thought what was happening to him was some type of ghost experience, shamanistic punishment, or hallucination that accompanied the grievances of becoming older. That his mind had finally reached its breaking point. Since he was, after all, for the past ten years, what people would refer to as, overworked.

Mm-hmm. Indeed.

From Ilsan to Seoul, desperate only to chase his dream and share his love for the written cadence, he’d found six of the most precious, talented, hardworking, beautiful people he would be happy to maim and kill each godforsaken already-late-for-our-schedule morning instead. It had been a running joke amongst the staff that the group only survived their initial years in the industry through their unmatched chemistry, but once the youngest of them all – Jungkook – turned twenty-five? Everything clicked.

The team wasn’t just a team.

Namjoon still thinks about it a lot. The evolutionary metaphysical logistics of it all. How, upon turning twenty-five, the human “cosmologically matures,” and with the prefrontal cortex of the human brain fully developed, its high cognitive reflex for recognizing patterns in daily life is traded for identifying patterns in the amalgamation of the universal consciousness instead.

It’s some high-level, fucked-up, oddly wholesome matrix shit.

Along with its regulations, the national registry for soulmates had only been established earlier this year. And though Namjoon would have appreciated any primer on the shared experiences he’d soldiered through with the boys, it was nothing short of a miracle that they had all met, grown, and gotten this far together since the beginning. In place of scars they had anecdotes of each other, kept and cherished all the same. Mountains of memories, good times and bad…

A decade. Ten years since they had shared their first greetings at a rundown garage, bright-eyed with the single aspiration of producing heartfelt, healing music.

Ten whole years.

The matter at hand is what happens now. With their original ten-year contract fulfilled, all the shows and radio stations only seem capable of talking about (read: dissing on) Bangtan Sonyeondan. So-called “experts” and industry seniors hinging on their disbandment. Like the seven of them had made it to the top, and now was high-time to let the accolades go and freefall.

Namjoon wants to scream and curse and tell them all off and yet…

All seven of them are at a standstill. One wrong move could push all seven of them off the ledge, off the pedestal of their own making. Their contracts are hybridized now, solo and group opportunities taken into serious consideration. Clauses had been inserted for mixed agency projects, brand endorsements, business ventures, and, most importantly, well-earned rest.

The immense physical and emotional battery of being in an idol boyband, the relentless media scrutiny, the hardship of being isolated and away from home – none of them wanted another ten-year repeat. The legal discussion of it had been fruitful, but in the aftermath the grueling effort had sucked the – bear with him on this – soul out of them.

And it wasn’t just Namjoon. At the latest dinner everyone had admitted to feeling… off. Petty bickering had been frequent lately, uneasy afternoons as well as uncharacteristic detachment. Moodiness. Namjoon’s afraid to put a name on it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Could depression be shared through their soulmate bond? God, Namjoon hopes not. So many things could happen, and this time, no amount of planning makes it seem possible to control. It feels like something else. Something familiar but new and oddly foreboding.

Well. Whatever the hell it is, Namjoon doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it one bit.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Instead of attending the blind date event for dinner, you find yourself standing at the porch of your parents’ diner instead.

Your father hurriedly shuffles to the doorway to usher you in, struggling to hide his excitement with the bogus scowl he plasters on his face.

“Young lady, why are you here?” he admonishes. Deciding to act preoccupied, he starts wiping down the tabletops, grumbling all the while, “Shouldn’t you be at that event in Hannam? Your mother said you wouldn’t have the time…”

You want to march over and hug your appa. You know what he’s really asking, why he’s glancing nervously past your shoulder. You’re here? Does that mean you’ve met the one who will replace me as your most important person? The government people nagged us about registering and they said in the future you might find yourself in this soulmate business too and you’re my little girl but… are you still?

You playfully nudge him by the shoulders with a bump of your own. “Naw, but don’t tell eomma I skipped it.”

Your father's lips twitch but then settle into a secretive smile. You both know that The Madame would drag you back by the scruff of your neck if she knew. And possibly send your father to the doghouse.

For some reason you can’t fathom, it frightens your mother to see you living the bachelorette life so well. Despite their being soulmates, her opinion is at complete odds with your father's, who basks in the joy of being the most important man in your life. And while you can kind of understand where your mother is coming from, chasing after boys… filling your heart with sweet nothings and butterflies… You’re not thirteen anymore. You're past that phase now. You know better than to put all of your romantic hopes and dreams into something that will inevitably let you down.

“Maybe that kind of thing isn’t for me, appa.” you admit. “You and eomma found each other, that’s good enough for me.”

Your father glances at you as he flips the store sign from open to closed, and says, solemnly, “Wildflower, you never know what the universe has planned.”

You take a deep breath, shoulders pinched. “But…”

“But what? But you don’t want love?”

“Appa…”

Your mother walks in through the backdoor. When she sees you next to your appa, her eyes shine with happiness.

They’re your eyes, too.

Your father hums. “Look at you. The best of both of us.”

Because It’s fine. You’re fine. You don’t need a soulmate. Your happiness couldn’t possibly be dictated by a cosmic phenomenon. Your life is beautiful, and simple, and enough. The things that you have, the love around you – they’re already more than what you deserve.

You pluck off a spare apron and help out with the rest of closing. Your father brings out his special blend of makgeolli and leaves you in-charge of hotpot prep for dinner. Drunk in just two bottles of soju, your parents compete about who had cooked the better seaweed soup, crooning absurd versions of the happy birthday song until you yield and promise to stay the night.

Chatting with them, laughing yourself to tears, you completely miss the double-decker bus that passes out front.

Unlike most city buses, this one has its exterior gorgeously laminated in purple, black, and gold. The vehicle is sleekly rendered with congratulatory greetings for the tenth anniversary of an all-male idol group, along with well-wishes of their fans upon the announcement of their individual pursuits as artists.

Your mother squints quizzically at the fan-made bus as it passes, an arm lifting to point it out to you. In her drunken haze though, she barely manages a garbled whine before her head bows and drops onto the table with a soft thunk.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

In the backseat of his custom-interior Palisade, Park Jimin groans, letting his face fall into his palms.

How is it even possible to get stood up at a speed-dating event? When he’d gotten there, everyone had already been paired up, and sure, work had held him up and made him late, but weren’t people supposed to turn up no matter what? Damn. Maybe the organizers were right. Maybe he is at the age and status nobody wants to be matched with anymore.

God, Taehyung is going to make so much fun of him for this.

The only silver lining is that this means Namjoon and Sejin can't chew him out for being "irresponsible" and "putting himself in danger." But come on, no one would believe that a member of BTS would have to resort to a speed-dating event. When he's bare-faced the worst that could happen would be for someone to say he kind of resembles Park Jimin. Probably.

Yes, he has six great soulmates he loves with all his heart. But he loves five of them like brothers. He does want something more, and it's gotten to the point where seeing an old man pushing his wife's wheelchair brought him to tears. Or as Jungkook would say – he wants a soulmate that makes his privates happy, not just his heart.

Is it that so much to ask for? He knows he’s already lucky. So lucky, far luckier than most of the world. He's blessed to have one soulmate, let alone six. The success of BTS wouldn't have been possible without everyone's hard work, but there are many groups that work just as hard and never see the light of day.

Maybe he just needs space. Maybe he should get his own apartment, spend some time outside of the house he shares with his six partners in crime. Somewhere he can just be Park Jimin, a boy looking for love, and not Jimin of BTS.

With a renewed sense of purpose, he grabs his phone and starts looking at listings.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Masterlist | Next

[caiminnent]

keep me (on fire) [kylux, rated T]

PROMPT(S): headache/migraine (@badthingshappenbingo, 13/25) & kylux advent on Twitter

SUMMARY: Armitage knew, when he agreed to follow his temporary co-lead Ben back to his tiny flat that first time, that whatever might occur between them would have a natural deadline. He's got no right to desire something more permanent.

None at all.

FANDOM: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

TAGS: Friends With Benefits To Lovers, Mutual Pining, Hangover, Getting Together, Insecurity, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

2.2K || ALSO ON AO3

He slowly comes to with a solid warmth crushing him half into a soft bed—two familiar things that aren’t supposed to be anywhere near each other.

He jolts awake.

For his part, Ben only rolls over from on top of him with a mumble and starts (or goes back to) snoring—like there’s nothing wrong in this picture. Like it is every day that he rubs himself all over Armitage’s not bumpy mattress and slobbers all over Armitage’s not rock-hard pillows and—and—

Oh stars, he brought Ben home.

Home. The most private of his personal spaces. The one-and-only-one-man’s land. Not even Phasma has been in his flat before; something dire must have happened for Ben to be given the privilege. Whatever that might be. He vaguely remembers sharing a taxi back from the New Year’s Eve party, an arm around his waist keeping him upright, warm breath next to his ear—

Fuck, even thinking hurts. The oblivion of sleep tempts him, the warmth of the bed pulling him in deep. He wants nothing more than to curl under the sheets until his brain stops trying to burst out of his skull and the universe is set to rights again.

Unfortunately, it isn’t all that’s about to burst.

He pushes himself up and out of the bed with a low grunt, a shiver passing through him in the winter chill. Not eager to bumble about for his housecoat, he throws on the first extra layer he can grab off the floor—namely, Ben’s giant jumper. Ben won’t need it under Armitage’s plush duvet.

Outside of the dark cave that is his bedroom, the hallway is lit with that eerie, foggy glow of dawn. These hours don’t find him awake often anymore. Resent as he may the loss of authority that came with a co-lead, having Ben to help shoulder the burdens and irritations of a high-profile project has made for a simpler, calmer life. In the safety of his thoughts, he can admit that once Starkiller is completed and Ben returns to the Coruscant branch where he belongs, their office will feel immensely empty.

He goes about freshening up almost lazily, brushing his teeth until his mouth stops tasting like he licked the floors of First Order clean. His stomach is churning, his headache—pulsing to the same rhythm as the ringing in his ears—reminding him how old he is getting for the scene. To hell with trusting Ben; he is sticking to his wine and the occasional two fingers of whiskey from now on.

It will be weeks before he can even think about having another drink, though.

Next stop: the kitchen. Taking two painkillers, dry, he sits at the kitchen table with a glass of water, sipping at it as the worst of his light-headedness abates. The room brightens around him, slowly and without mercy, a deep ache settling onto his bones as he remains in the same spot too long. His eyes close on their own accord once or twice—his chin dropping onto his chest jerks him awake again.

He isn’t avoiding sleep, exactly; it’s more that he is bloody dreading returning to the bedroom. Ridiculous, he is well aware. This was hardly the first time he’s woken up next to Ben; that it happened—presumably—without sex first or in Armitage’s flat, where Armitage can’t get dressed in the dark and slip out while Ben sleeps on, shouldn’t change anything.

Still, it feels too awkward—too intimate—now. If he returns to the bedroom, he is going to wake up in Ben’s arms, to Ben’s soft smile and mussed hair, and get ideas. Ideas that will haunt him every time he slides under and out of these same covers alone. The calendar already hangs over his head; does he truly need to torture himself further?

Besides, he made his bed, didn’t he? He knew, when he agreed to follow Ben back to his tiny flat that first time, that whatever might occur between them would have a natural deadline—in fact, that was a selling point back then. What right has he got now to sit here and pity himself?

Appalled, he drags himself up and over to the counter. Sleep is obviously off the table; he might as well make himself useful and put the coffee on. It should help with whatever part of his leftover headache is due to caffeine withdrawal.

Except that he can’t, he realises after everything is primed for it, since his coffee maker tends to screech like a hell beast and Ben is still asleep.

Hells. How can one man complicate another’s life so much solely by existing?

“You okay?”

Heart lurching, Armitage pushes away from the counter as if burned. Ben is standing just outside the kitchen with a hand on the doorframe, half-blended into the shadows in his customary black. His bed hair looks as horrible as Armitage imagined, although his lips are curled into a frown, lines visible between his brows.

A cruel, twisted little part of Armitage is glad to see Ben perturbed. It means he isn’t the only one.

“Yes,” Armitage responds belatedly, trying to rearrange his limbs into a semblance of comfortable, if not relaxed. He is still wearing Ben’s jumper, fuck. “Yes, of course. Just—making coffee.”

Ben hums, glancing down at the empty mug on the counter. “Is there enough for two?”

Armitage takes another mug out of the overhead cabinet in answer. Ben brushes against his back on the way to Armitage’s abandoned seat.

They don’t speak as the coffee maker runs—couldn’t hope to, over the sound of it. While companionable silence has never truly existed between them, they hadn’t had this sort of tension tainting the air since the first couple of months after Ben’s arrival, back when Armitage was still unwilling to cede any amount of control over their project. A feeling not unlike foreboding fills him, his limbs heavy with dread.

A crack runs down Ben’s mug—a shallow line on the outside, harmless beyond appearances. Filling them both, he passes Ben the intact one, leaning back against the counter with his hands hiding the defect.

Ben gulps down a good third of the scalding liquid as if dying of thirst before putting it down. Armitage’s throat burns in sympathy.

“Nice place you have here,” Ben says with a slight rasp to his tone, gesturing around with his free hand. “Very… austere.”

Armitage snorts. “You mean unlived-in.” He appreciates Ben’s attempt at tact; but he is under no illusions about the state of his home. The bedroom is where he sleeps and the kitchen is where he spends his waking hours while here; the rest of the flat might as well not exist.

“It’s a little sparse,” Ben admits. “Doesn’t look like you spend a lot of time here.”

It isn’t a question and Armitage doesn’t bother responding. Ben already knows the hours he keeps at the office—they leave together often enough for dinner and other after-hours activities.

Has he got enough food for breakfast for two?

Folding his arms over the table, “I thought you would come back to bed,” Ben says, an odd hesitation colouring the words. Something about the lines of his shoulders, drawn in deep as if trying to hide into himself, makes Armitage’s heart burn. “You were gone a long time.”

How long has Ben been awake? How long has Armitage, for that matter? “I couldn’t sleep,” he lies. “I didn’t want to disturb you with my tossing and turning.”

A corner of Ben’s lips ticks up. “I could help you sleep,” he says, an amused glint playing in his eyes. “Now that we’re sober.”

About that.

“Maybe later,” Armitage hedges, hiding behind his own coffee. It tastes as bitter and dark as his mood. “What happened last night anyway? I’m… missing a few details.” Most of the night, more accurately. Sharing a cocktail table with Ben; two rounds of some bright red concoction Ben swore he would enjoy; the shots; the foolish, foolish desire to impress Ben, who drank like alcohol disappeared in his body…

The bits and pieces he does recall after that point, he’d much rather not have.

“Not much happened. We had some drinks, we talked…” Ben shrugs a shoulder, stiff and jerky. “You got drunk faster than I expected; but you didn’t embarrass yourself or anything, if that’s what you’re asking,” he adds, sending him a quick smile. “You’re a pretty composed drunk, actually. I’m envious.”

That isn’t how Armitage remembers it.

“You said you wanted to go home, so I got you home. I was just gonna help you into something comfortable and leave, honest; but you asked me to stay.” Ben runs his teeth over his bottom lip. “I did.”

That much Armitage could piece together himself. Ben knows how Armitage safeguards his privacy; he wouldn’t have intruded upon it unasked. “And?” Ben frowns in confusion—as if Armitage doesn’t know him enough to tell when he is faking it. He pins Ben with his General Hux stare. “What aren’t you telling me, Ben?”

Flickers of emotions pass through Ben’s face—anger and despair and resignation before it settles on a careful blankness that trembles with all it’s trying to cover. “You said—you asked me to stay forever.”

Blood freezes in Armitage’s veins.

“And you know I’m a fuckin’ idiot,” Ben continues, running a hand through his hair. “And I was a little drunk myself, so I didn’t realise it was the drink talking.” He sends a cautious glance at Armitage. “I promised to stay.”

Forever.

Armitage must be a fucking idiot as well, because his heart soars at the sound of that.

He shakes his head to dispel the wistfulness threatening to blur his vision. “Well, we’d both been drinking. People say things they don’t mean while drunk.” Ben said as much himself. “I won’t hold you to your drunken rambling.”

“That’s just it, though,” Ben says quietly. His expression is difficult to make out; but the look in his eyes—soft and intense—makes Armitage feel paper-thin and seen-through, as if Ben can read every silly thought passing through his head. “I meant every word.”

A fist grips his throat.

He takes a deep, deep breath, his lungs sitting wrong in his chest. In Ben’s guarded tone is a question he doesn’t know how to answer. The thing about their arrangement—it works, because it is casual. Even Armitage can’t ruin something casual—even if it hasn’t been that way for him for quite some time. Even if he gets the occasional, fleeting impression that it might not be for Ben, either. With the days ticking by fast, trying for anything serious would have been like building a house on quicksand.

If he truly asks Ben to stay with him, forever, and Ben listens—they can’t keep it casual after that. That is uncharted territory. What if they start a—a relationship and they can’t make it work? What if Armitage fucks up? What if Ben hates him for it?

What if he becomes Ben’s biggest regret, too?

His palms burn sweetly—he grips the warm mug harder to keep from scratching at them. “I thought you hated Arkanis,” he says, disgusted with how feeble his voice comes out. “Would you uproot your whole life to live here?” Because Armitage asked it of him?

“It has its charms,” Ben says with a crooked smile. “And I uprooted my life when I joined Snoke’s company—got nothing tying me to the Core Worlds anymore. Arkanis is as good a country to live as any.”

Armitage begs to differ. “Would Snoke even let you off your leash permanently?” he asks, half-joking. Snoke’s reliance on his protégé is an open secret; Armitage can’t imagine he would be thrilled to have Armitage steal Ben away.

Ben’s expression smooths over again.

Ice slides down Armitage’s spine. “Ben?”

Ben shifts on his seat, rubbing at his stubble. “Snoke offered me a position here,” he practically confesses, not meeting his eyes. “He wants to build a weapons design department. Separate from engineering. If I said yes, you and I would be working alongside each other as heads of our offices.”

Armitage’s guts unknot. When Snoke mentioned it, he thought Snoke was going to throw three incompetent fools under a new name just to shut Armitage up about it. Under Ben’s lead, a design department would thrive. “What did you say?”

“Nothing yet. Wanted to talk to you first.” Ben flashes him a wild grin that rides the line between excited and panicked. “I mean, it would suck if I accepted the job and you were looking forward to having me gone after Starkiller, y’know?”

Yes, Armitage knows the feeling very well. The part that doesn’t fit is hearing it from Ben’s lips—Ben, who tends to exude an aura of confidence so thick, Armitage feels emboldened merely by standing next to him. Ben, who is quick to anger and quicker to smile; but never, ever to doubt himself.

Ben, who is watching him like his life hangs on Armitage’s next word.

Warmth that doesn’t belong in winter rising in him, Armitage smiles. “You should take the job,” he says, broken pieces slotting into place in his mind’s eye. Not the only one indeed. “Arkanis is a sight to see in the spring.”

[chiseler]

Ophelia By the Yard

Cobwebbed passages and wax-encrusted candelabra, dungeons festooned with wrist manacles, an iron maiden in every niche, carpets of dry ice fog, dead twig forests, painted hilltop castles, secret doorways through fireplaces or behind beds (both portals of hot passion), crypts, gloomy servants, cracking thunder and flashes of lightning, inexplicably tinted light sources, candles impossibly casting their own shadows, rubber bats on wires, grand staircases, long dining tables, huge doors with prodigiously pendulous knockers to rival anything in Hollywood.

Here was the precise moment — and it was nothing if not inevitable — when the darkness of horror film, both visible and inherent, leapt from the gothic toy box now joined by a no less disconcerting array of color. The best, brightest, sweetest, and most dazzling red-blooded palette that journeyman Italian cinematographers could coax from those tired cameras. Color, both its commercial necessity as well as all it promised the eye, would hereafter re-imagine the genre’s possibilities, in Italy and, gradually, everywhere else. 

When color hit the Italian Gothic cycle, a truly new vision was born. In Hammer films and other UK horror productions, the cheapness of Eastmancolor made it possible for blood to be red. Indeed, very red. And, while we shouldn't underestimate the startling impact this had, it was a fairly literal use of the medium. In the Italian movies, and to a large extent in Roger Corman's Poe cycle, color was an unlikely vehicle to further dismantle realism rather than to assert it. Overrun with tinted lights and filters, none of which added to the film’s realistic qualities, the movies became delirious. In Corman's Masque of the Red Death, we learn of an experiment that uses color to drive a man insane; it seems that filmmakers like Corman and Mario Bava were attempting the very same trick on their audiences.

The application of candy-wrapper hues to a haunted castle flick like The Whip and the Body adds a pop art vibe at odds with the genre, and when you get to something like Kill, Baby...Kill! the Gothic trappings are barely able to mask a distinctly modern sensibility, so much so that Fellini could plunder its phantasmal elements for Toby Dammit, fitting them perfectly into his sixties Roman nightmare.

Blood and Black Lace brings the saturated lighting and Gothic fillips into the twentieth century -- a sign creaking in a gale is the first image, translated from Frankensteinland to the exterior of a contemporary fashion house. A literal faceless killer disposes of six women in diabolical ways. The sour-faced detective remains several deaths back on the killer’s trail because the movie knows its audience, knows that it has zero interest in detection, character, motivation — though it’s all inertly there as a pretext for sadism, set-pieces of partially-clad women being hacked up, dot the film like musical numbers or action sequences might appear in a different genre. 

Since the 19th-century audience for literary Gothic Horror was comprised of far fewer men than women, would it be fair to ask whether Giallo’s advent might be an instrument of brutal violence, even revenge against “feminine” preoccupations? Consider 1964’s Danza Macabra, the film’s amorous vibes finding their ultimate source in that deathless screen goddess named Barbara Steele, whose marble white flesh photographs like some monument to classicism startled into unwanted Keatsian fever. Her presence practically demands that we ask ourselves: “Who is this wraith howling at a paper moon?” In other words, is it a coincidence that Steele’s “Elizabeth Blackwood” — a revenant temptress and undead sex symbol — hits screens the very same year as Giallo, which would transform Italian cinema into a decades-long death mill for women? 

The name “giallo”, meaning yellow, derives from the crime paperbacks issued by Italian publisher Mondadori. The eye-catching covers, featuring a circular illustration of some act of infamy embedded in a yellow panel, became utterly associated with the genre of literature. These books were likely to be by Edgar Wallace, the most popular author in the western world, or Agatha Christie: cardboard characters sliding through the most mechanical of plots; or classier local equivalents, like Francesco Mastriani or Carolina Invernizio. The founding principles laid down concerned the elaborate deceptions concealed by their authors, traps for the unwary reader, and the use of a distinctive design motif. The tendency of the characterisation to lapse into sub-comic-book cliché, the figures incapable of expressing or inspiring real sympathy, was, perhaps, an unintended side-effect of the focus on narrative sleight-of-hand.

When Italian filmmakers sought to translate sensational literature to the screen, they looked to other filmic influences: American film noir, influenced by German expressionism and often made by German emigrés (Lang, Siodmak, Dieterle, Ulmer); and the popular krimi cycle being produced in West Germany, mostly based on Edgar Wallace's leaden "shockers." These deployed stock characters, bizarre methods of murder, deceptive plotting, and exuberant use of chiaroscuro, the stylistic palette of noir intensified by more fog, more shafts of light, more inky shadows. A certain amount of fun, but different from the coming bloodbath because Wallace, despite somewhat fascistic tendencies, is anodyne and anaemic by comparison. No open misogyny, a sadism sublimated in story, a touching faith in Scotland Yard and the class system. In the Giallo, Wallace's more sensational aspects are adopted but made to serve a sensibility quite alien to the stodgy Englander: people are generally rotten, the system stinks, and crime becomes a lurid spectator sport served up to a viewer both thrilled and appalled. 

The Giallo fetishizes murder. But then, it fetishizes everything in sight. Every object, every half-filled wine glass and pastel-colored telephone, is photographed with obsessive, product-shot enthusiasm. Here, it must be emphasized that design implicates the viewer as the Italian camera-eye gawps like some unabashed tourist. Knife, wallpaper, onyx pinky ring — each detail transforms into an object made eerily subject: a sentient and glowering fragment of our own conscience, staring back at us in the darkened theater and pronouncing ineluctable guilt. And yet, for the directors who rode most dexterously the Giallo wave, homicide was something one did to women. Indulging in equal-opportunity lechery was merely an excuse to find other, more violent outlets for their misogyny. Please enter into evidence the demented enthusiasm for woman-killing evinced by Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, et al. — whatever trifling token massacres of men one might exhume from their respective oeuvres are inconsequential. Argento’s defense, “I love women, so I would rather see a beautiful woman killed than an ugly man,” should not satisfy us, and hardly seems designed to (also bear in mind Poe’s assertion that the death of a beautiful young woman was the most poetic of all subjects).

Filmmakers like Argento have no interest in sex per se. Suffering seems inessential, but terror and death are key, photographed with the same clinical absorption and aesthetic gloss as Giallo-maestros habitually apply to their interior design. Here, it must be emphasized that design implicates the viewer as the Italian camera-eye gawps like some unabashed tourist. Knife, wallpaper, onyx pinky ring – each detail transforms into an object made eerily subject: a sentient and glowering fragment of our own conscience, staring back at us in the darkened theater and pronouncing ineluctable guilt. That’s one important subtlety often lost amid Giallo’s vast antisocial hemorrhage.

Like a river of blood, homophobia, in the literal meaning of fear rather than hatred, runs through the genre. Lesbians are sinister and gay men barely exist. As we try to work out what in hell the Giallo is really up to, little dabs of dime-store Freudianism seem sufficient.

The filmmakers’ misogyny could be suspect, a sign of compromised masculinity, so they need fictional avatars to cloak their own feverish woman-hating. The subterfuge is clumsy at best, the desultory deceit embarrassingly macho. Giallo’s visual force, powerful enough to divorce eye from mind, is another matter, leaving us demoralized and ethically destitute; our hearts beating with all the righteous indignation of three dead shrubs (and maybe a half-eaten sandwich).

The Giallo is founded on an unstated assumption: the modern world brings forth monsters. Jack the Ripper was an aberration in his day, but now there's a Jack around every corner, behind every piece of modular furniture, every diving helmet lamp. Previously, disturbing events arose from what Ambrose Bierce called The Suitable Surroundings, or what the mad architect in Fritz Lang's The Secret Beyond the Door termed, with sly and sinister euphemism, "propitious rooms." There's the glorious line in Withnail and I: "That's the sort of window faces appear at." But now, in the modern world, evil occurs in the nicest of places, and tonal consistency died in a welter of cheerful stage blood. One needn’t enter an especially Bad Place to meet one’s worst nightmare, or perhaps better to say: the whole bright world qualified as a properly bad place. Imagine the pages of an interior design magazine invaded by anonymous psychopaths intent on painting the gleaming walls red.

Though the victims are overwhelmingly female and their killers male (Argento typically photographed his own leather-gloved hands to stand in for his assassin’s), when the violence becomes over-the-top in its sexualized woman-hating (like the crotch-stabbing in What Have You Done to Solange?), it’s usually a clue that the movie’s murderer will turn out to be female: a simple case of projection. Only Lucio Fulci, the most twisted of the bunch, trained as a doctor and experienced as an art critic, not only assigns misogyny to a straight male killer (The New York Ripper) but plays the killer himself in A Cat in the Brain. Though, in another self-protecting twist of narrative, all psychological explanations in Gialli are bullshit, always. Criminology and clinical psychology are largely ignored, and Argento has a clear preference for outdated theories like the extra chromosome signaling psychopathy (Cat O’Nine Tails). Did anybody use phrenology, or Lombroso’s crackpot physiognomic theories, as plot device?

A tradition of the Giallo is that the characters all tend to be dislikable, something Argento at least resisted in Cat O’ Nine Tails and Deep Red. With disposable characters, each of whom might be the killer and each of whose violent demise is served up as a set-piece, this distancing and contempt might just be a byproduct of the form rather than a principle or ethos, but it’s of some interest, perhaps mitigating the misogyny with a wash of misanthropy. A Unified Field Theory of Gialli would find a more deep-seated reason for the obnoxious characters as well as the stylized snuff and the glamorous presentation. What urge is being satisfied, and why here, now, like this?

Class war? Though prostitute-ripping is encouraged in the Giallo, most victims are wealthy, slashed to ribbons amid opulent interiors. Urbane characters who might previously have graced the sleek “white telephone” films of forties Italian cinema were briefly edged out by neo-realism’s concentration on the working class. Now these exquisite mannequins are trundled back onscreen to be ritually slaughtered for our viewing pleasure.

Victims must always be enviable: either beautiful and sexy or rich and swellegant, or all of the above, so the average moviegoer can rejoice in their dismemberment with a clear conscience. Mario Bava bloodily birthed the genre in Blood and Black Lace (1964), brutally offing fashion models in a variety of Sade-approved ways, the killer a literally faceless assassin into whom the (presumed male) audience could pour their own animosities without ever admitting it, with the female killer finally unmasked to provide exculpatory relief.

If narrative formulas absolve the straight male viewer, compositions have a way of ensnaring him. Beyond that omnivorous indulgence of sensation for its own lurid sake one finds in Giallo, there is a more gilded emphasis placed on Beauty (in the Catholic sense), and it is only the women who are mounted upon its pedestal. That these avatars of beauty are to be savored, ravaged, and brutalized — in that order — is what concerns us. But the sex and the suffering that captivates most sadists is never what registers; no, it is the instance of death, the terror that afflicts the dying woman’s face that resonates. Once again, physical interiors become a negative form of emotional interiority, rooms amplified for the sole purpose of grisly annihilations; a kind of heretical, strictly anti-Catholic transcendence through amoral delight in what otherwise falls under trivial headings, either “the visuals” or “color palette” – neither of which touch the essential nerve endings of Giallo.

Swaddled inside an otherwise hyper-masculine castle lies a windowless chamber with feminine, if not psychotic, decor. Before he tortures and stabs her to death, “Lord Alan Cunningham” (fresh from his sojourn in the asylum) brings his first victim to this pageant of off-gassing plastic furniture, the single most obnoxious vision ever imposed on gothic environs. Risibly overblown ’70s chic rules The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave with nods to Edgar Allan Poe, as the modish Lord juggles sports cars and medieval persecution. Laughs escape the viewer’s throat in dry heaves when each new MacGuffin devours itself without warning. Take “Aunt Agatha” (easily two decades younger than her middle-aged nephews) suddenly rising from her motorized wheelchair, clobbered from behind seconds later, her body dragged into a cage where foxes promptly munch her entrails. Nothing comes of this. The phony paralysis, the aunt’s role in a half-dozen mysteries, which include a battalion of sexy maids in miniskirts and blonde Harpo Marx wigs – all gulped, swallowed.

About the only thing we know for certain is that “Aunt Agatha” is gorgeous. Though, in the end, she’s another casualty of the same nihilism that crashes Giallo aesthetics headlong into Poe country. That is into “Lord Alan” and his gaudy room crowded with designer goods to be catalogued in a horror vacui of visual intrusiveness – a trashy shrine to his late wife, the titular Evelyn. If lapses of good taste define The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, they also reflect Giallo’s abiding obsession with real estate. After all, this Mod hypnagogia has to fill the eye somewhere. Why not bang in the middle of a castle? Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher features a wealthy aristocrat burying his twin sister alive, thereby entombing his own femininity.

Evelyn represents both Usher’s primary theme of the divided self and the obdurate refusal to learn from it. “Alan,” who emerges a moral hero in the end (after his shrink aids and abets his murder spree), remains just as ornery, alienated, and vainglorious as Giallo itself. We’re never told precisely what the film’s fetish objects are supposed to mean. And since the camera seizes upon each one with existential grimness, we’re left with a visual style that begs its own questions.

Function follows form into the abyss. One Ophelia after another dies to satisfy our cruel delectation, even as will-o’-the-wisp light, taken from the bogs and neglected cemeteries of Gothic Horror, finds itself transformed into a crimson-dripping stiletto.  Evelyn stands in for all Gialli, a genre which redefines film itself on the narrow front of visual impact: stainless steel cutlery and candy-colored light enact a sentient agenda as color becomes an instrument of hyperbolic misogyny that fills the eye and then some.  

As with certain other Italian genres, notably the peplum, smart characterization, solid performances and decent dialogue seem not only unnecessary to the Giallo but unwelcome (the spaghetti western, conversely, in which many of the same directors dabbled, seemed to demand a steady stream of good, cold-blooded wise-cracks). Argento, in pursuit of that “non-Cartesian” quality he admired in Poe, took this to extremes, stringing non-sequiturs together to form absurdist cut-ups, torching his stars’ credibility merely by forcing them to utter such nonsense. And this wasn’t enough: from Suspiria (1977) on, the psychological thriller (which the Giallo is a sub-genre of, only the psychology has to be deliberately nonsensical) was increasingly replaced by the supernatural. So that the laws of nature could be suspended along with the laws of coherent motivation.

In Suspiria and its 1980 quasi-sequel Inferno, the traditional knifings are interspersed with more uncanny events, as when a stone eagle comes to life and somehow makes a seeing-eye dog kill his owner, and there are also grotesque incidents with no relation to story whatever: a shower of maggots, or an attack by voracious rats in Central Park. The Giallo’s quest for a solution, inspired as it was by the old-school whodunits, is all but abandoned, replaced by the search for the next sensational set-piece.

Argento’s villains are now witches, but, abandoning centuries of tradition, these witches show more interest in stabbing their fellow women with kitchen knives than with worshipping Satan or riding broomsticks. Regardless of who they’re meant to be, Argento’s characters must express his desires, enact the atrocities he dreams of. And inhabit places built for his aesthetic pleasure rather than their own. Following Bava’s cue, he saturates his rooms in light blasted through colored gels, making every scene a stained-glass icon, no naturalistic explanation offered for the lurid tinted hues. Just as no explanation is offered for the presence of a room full of coiled razor-wire in a ballet school, or for the behavior of the young woman who throws herself into its midst without looking.

Dario Argento’s true significance, at least with respect to Giallo, was perceiving in the nick of time the almost incandescent obviousness of its limitations; that Italian commercial cinema’s garish, polychromatic spin on the garden-variety psychological thriller – departing from its forebears mainly in the rampant senselessness of its “psychology” – had Dead End written all over it. It could never last. On the other hand, Giallo does take a fresh turn with Argento’s Inferno, thanks in no small measure to a woman screenwriter who sadly remains uncredited. Daria Nicolodi explains that “having fought so hard to see my humble but excellent work in Suspiria recognized (up until a few days before the première I didn’t know if I would see my name in the film credits), I didn’t want to live through that again, so I said, ‘Do as you please, in any case, the story will talk for me because I wrote it.’”

Daria Nicolodi

Nicolodi’s conception humanizes (it would be tempting to say “feminizes”) Argento’s usual sanguinary exercises du style, while at the same time summoning legitimate psychology. This has nothing to do with strong characterization – indeed, the characters barely speak – and everything to do with the elemental power of water, fire, wind.… Inferno rescues Giallo by plunging it into seemingly endless visual interludes, a cinema that draws its strength from absence.

by The Chiselers

Daniel Riccuito, David Cairns, Tom Sutpen, and Richard Chetwynd

[epicstuckyficrecs]

Weekly Recap | December 23-29

Happy holidays everyone! 😃 

~

Complete

💙🎄 I Really Can't Stay (Baby, It's Cold Outside) by musette22/ @musette22​, paperstorm/ @paper-storm​ (Evanstan AU | 37K | Explicit): When a hot-shot New York lawyer gets stranded in a sleepy, New England town because of a snow storm right before Christmas, he thinks it might just be the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. Then, he meets a handsome, bearded stranger in a local bar, who slowly but surely teaches him the true meaning of Christmas is finding love where you least expect it.

honey, make this easy by steebadore (Shrunkyclunks | 7,9K | Explicit): Bucky likes the way he looks. His silk button up with the tiny gold polka dots feels soft on his skin and is tailored perfectly; no pulling at his chest or belly. His hair falls in shiny dark waves and his skin is smooth and dewy. He looks expensive. He looks taken care of. He looks like Steve’s.

🎄 Evanstan Round Robin 2019 by blackheadedseagull, Ediblecrayon, luninosity/ @luninosity, musette22/ @musette22, paperstorm/ @paper-storm , penbleedsamaranth (wintermint), TJ_Mason, wintersoldier1989, worrisomeme/ @worrisomeme, gingertintedglasses/ @murderonthemattress (Evanstan | 12K | Teen): In which Chris and Seb make plans for their first holiday season officially together…

💙🎄 A Political Holiday by crinklefries/ @spacerenegades, Deisderium/ @deisderium (Modern AU | 59K | Explicit): Bucky Barnes has to bring his Democratic Socialist boyfriend home to his rich, Republican parents, survive multiple awkward family dinners, drink an exceptional amount of boozy eggnog, and try not to scream. Not necessarily in that order. Well, maybe a little bit in that order. 

well i postdated the eulogy by mambo (Canon divergent | <1K | Mature): The Captain was always looking for a way to die. It never took. (💙 Part 6 of child of thanos)

WIP

💙 Wanna Feel the Heat With Somebody by 2bestfriends (ABO AU | 4/5 | 58K | Explicit): Bucky hasn’t exactly been a risk-taker in his life, but when you’re not only the baby of the family but also the only Omega, risks aren’t encouraged, either. So it comes as a shock to himself and his three older, overbearing sisters when he suddenly quits his shitty but reliable job of five years to accept the unsolicited offer from Stark & Rogers. He can’t help hoping this will be his chance to find his own way, for once. Too bad a certain cofounder’s scent has him trailing behind the tall, gorgeous Alpha like a lovesick idiot.

💙 four dreams in a row where you were burned by voxofthevoid/ @voxofthevoid (canon divergent, post-Endgame, 1945 alternate timeline | 8/? | 46K | Mature): When Steve uses the last of his Pym Particles to travel to 1944 and save his best friend, he doesn’t have a plan beyond leaving behind the battlefield and living his life alongside the people he loves. But the life that finds him is not the one he expects.

💙 Dear Mr. Postman by odetteandodile (Modern AU | 9/12 | 39K | Teen): “I’m um—your mailman,” Bucky says, lamely. Or—Steve and Bucky revive an old friendship, get married (but totally just as friends, for reasons), and navigate a few of the many trials of the heart that come with falling in love with your best friend. 

💙 Hours in the Day by hitlikehammers (PWP | 13/25 | 20K | Explicit): It’s not a dare, precisely. But it’s Tony saying it—talking about finally putting that serum to good use—and there’s enough of a taunt in it that they can’t just ignore it. Not that they’d want to ignore it. Not in the least. Or; testing the limits of supersoldier stamina (between the sheets) - A supersoldier-sexing advent calendar.

Re-read

Everything else is a substitute for your love by rightings (Modern AU, Roommates | 7K | Mature): Straight guy worries hes being homophobic to gay roommate, realizes he’s fallen in love with him.

the blood is the life by obsessivereader/ @yetanotherobsessivereader (Vampire AU | 3,3K | Mature): He can smell them when Bucky comes back to the apartment late at night. Different men, their colognes wafting off him as he lets himself in and walks past the living room where Steve’s always waiting. It may not be every night, but it’s at least two, or sometimes even three, times a week. Steve sits alone in the living room, the scent of cologne hanging in the air like an interloper in the apartment. He can’t help thinking Why not me.

i know you (i fucked with you once upon a dream) by obsessivereader/ @yetanotherobsessivereader (PWP, Dreamsharing | 3K | Explicit): Oh no. He’s dreaming of Bucky again. Of course it’s a dream. Why else would he be in Bucky’s bed. Bucky’s bed… Something about that detail niggles at him—

Home is a Feeling by cleo4u2/ @cleo4u2 (ABO AU | 2,5K | Explicit): Jesus, they'd bonded. He had bonded with a complete stranger over three days of incredible, mind blowing sex, and he'd never even gotten the Alpha’s name. Admittedly, he'd been a little distracted by the overwhelming urge to mate, but he still could have at least asked the guy’s name, right? Wrong.

[maychorian]

Weekly Voltron Fic Recs #56

We’re hitting the busy season at my job tomorrow, so I’m not sure when the next list will be. Happy New Year, anyway!

Rules: You can find past weekly rec lists here, and non-list recs in my general fic rec tag. Also follow @maychorianrecs for individually tagged posts, the easier to search and reblog. This is stuff I like, and I have a huge bias toward Lance, hurt/comfort, and general fluff, in that order. Gen unless otherwise noted. Please comment on the fics if you read and enjoy them!

Disaster Hearts by lieutenantshirogane Words: 719 Author’s Summary: After a mission goes wrong, Coran struggles to let go. Luckily, Kolivan is there to help. My Comments: Not a combo I had considered before, but it’s so good that I just had to read and rec this one. So good.

Bushel and a Peck by isabeau25 Words: 5,158 Author’s Summary: It’s not Hunk’s first job interview, but it might just be his favorite. Series Part 3 of The Five Lions Cafe My Comments: We’re coming up on the busy season at my job, and I was grateful for this spot of pre-emptive stress relief. It’s so lovely and relaxing. Read the whole series.

Cream Waterfalls and Violet Stars and All The Broken ThingsbyMashpotatoeQueen5 Words: 3,185 Author’s Summary: Coran had children once. (A fic about before and after, and the family that our favorite Space Uncle might have lost in his ten thousand years of slumber. Sad… but hopeful ending?) My Comments: Beautiful and haunting vision of Coran’s lost family and how he sees them in the new children he deals with every day. I love the idea of Coran as a family man, and this is a great exploration of that concept.

Shopping for Disaster by Engineer104 Words: 6,108 Author’s Summary: Allura just wanted something sparkly, and Pidge just wanted to get her ears pierced. And they will, after a mishap involving a kid, a Druid, and a Galra ship. My Comments: Bonding time with Pidge and Allura turns into an action/adventure with plenty of badassery from both. Very fun read.

Children of the Empire by foxysquid for Meteorysh Words: 10,147 Author’s Summary: Those who find themselves without parents can turn to Emperor Zarkon for parental guidance instead—but Thace would rather not. Shuttled off to a school for orphaned children, he has to adapt to a strange place, with no one to rely on. Fortunately, he may not be as alone as he thinks he is. Written for Galra Secret Santa, as a gift for meterorysh! There are also some accompanying illustrations, which you can find here. My Comments: Absolutely stunning. Achy and touching, fantastic worldbuilding and characterization. I felt so bad for tiny Thace, losing his parents and shipped off to a school where he had to guard himself every second of every day for fear of being outed as a traitor. The friendship with Ulaz and eventual conclusion were extremely satisfying. This read like the beginning of an original novel, one that I would gladly devour in like a day at a most.

Words of Good Cheer by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 31,364 Author’s Summary: 12 days of Advent fics for the winter season 1) The gang gets stuck in their cabin on vacation (Modern AU) 2) The lights and noise of the holiday party prove to be overwhelming for Shiro 3) Ryou and Lance attempt to make Hunk a treat. 4) Shatt - Shiro and Matt get their Christmas snuggle on 5) Shallura - Shiro shows Allura how to make snow angels 6) Sheith - Shiro falls through the ice on a snowy planet and needs to be warmed up 7) Alone at the Garrison over break, Keith and Shiro work together to ignore the holiday 8) Shunkeith - Sweet Tooth AU, Hunk has to stay over when they’re snowed in 9) Baby’s Ryou’s first Christmas 10) Old Friend’s Senior Sanctuary AU - Lance convinced Shiro to help make a 2018 calendar for charity 11) Ryou disappears on an ice planet and Shiro fears the worst 12) Smol!Shiro worries how Santa will find the castle My Comments: Each of these little fics is absolutely adorable and worth reading on their own, and we get twelve for the price of one! Four are shipfics, Shatt, Shallura, and Sheith, plus Shunkeith, but the chapters are labeled so you can easily skip them and stick to the gen if you want.

Vasish by ElementKitsune for AstroPhantom Words: 2,255 Author’s Summary: Sometimes, you just wake up and go see a storm with your favourite princess. (Coran and Allura go stormwatching) My Comments: Sweet Allura and Coran interaction before the fall of Altea. It’s cute, and a little sad, but mostly heartwarming.

Stranger Danger (2) by YukiSetsu Words: 2,076 Author’s Summary: Sequel to Stranger Danger (part 5 of Whumpmas series). After the last incident, Lance didn’t think he’d run into David again anytime soon. He was wrong. My Comments: Sequel to a previously recced fic, and just as good as that one. The realism of this is what hikes up to true levels of disturbing. Great protectiveness from the others.

Epoxy to the World by buckysbears (DrZebra) Words: 2,245 Author’s Summary: Shiro, Pidge, and Keith are forced into a Galra gladiator arena. The two younger paladins see a side of Shiro that he desperately wishes they hadn’t. My Comments: Very intense and emotional. This is pretty much Shiro’s worst nightmare. I don’t blame him for losing himself a little bit along the way.

What’s In A Name? by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies Words: 1,532 Author’s Summary: “What is ‘Keith’?” Kolivan asked one evening. Keith looked up, blinking in confusion. “I’m Keith.” “Yes, but what is ‘Keith’?” Kolivan pressed.“Well, as far as I know, mostly human, and some Galra.” He really thought Kolivan already knew this. He had been there when Keith’s knife changed form, indicating that he had Galra blood. How much, none of them knew. Kolivan huffed, looking impatient. “The word. ‘Keith’. What does it mean, in your language?” (The Blades get curious about the name of their smallest member. Pidge does some hacking to find out the surprising answer) My Comments: Cute, fluffy, and funny. I like the little bit of Galra culture, too, and Blades being protective and teasing of Keith is always a plus.

Castle Glitch by YukiSetsu Words: 2,394 Author’s Summary: When a bug from Pidge’s laptop accidentally infects the Castle, Lance ends up having to face an extreme gladiator bot without a weapon and armor. As expected, things get dangerous really quick. My Comments: Excellent whump, excellent protective team. I don’t know how many ways to say that I’m enjoying everything this author is doing, but here it is again.

Sick Day by FanaticFangirl2602 for RandomDragonDoodles Words: 2,727 Author’s Summary: Keith should have seen it coming. Actually, he did see it coming. The little voice in the back of his mind had been scolding him for going so hard for the past month, but all he’d done was push it aside and ignore it. A dumb decision. My Comments: Nice little Keith-centric sickfic in a college AU. Hits the spot.

All Swallowed in their Coats by yet_intrepid for stover Words: 2,317 Author’s Summary: Shiro and his new roommate, Matt, would tell you that they are nothing alike: Shiro is an overwhelmed grad student, while Matt is a dropout and avid science youtuber. But then there’s a blizzard, and maybe things change. My Comments: Great modern AU with Shiro and Matt realizing that they have much more in common than they think. Past abuse.

Fruit Loops by SerenePhenix Words: 3,571 Author’s Summary: Shiro never stood a chance. My Comments: Wonderful team-as-family feels in a modern roommate AU. So cute and fluffy and sweet.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas by WinterSky101 Words: 2,510 Author’s Summary: In which Pidge is a Christmas elf. ‘Tis the season, after all. My Comments: Cute and sweet and fluffy, with just a touch of angst at the end. 'Tis the season!

If Only In My Dreams by yet_intrepid Words: 5,918 Author’s Summary: The team agrees that Space Christmas isn’t that great with Keith off on missions with the Blade of Marmora. But it’s a lot, lot worse with Keith held hostage by the Galra. My Comments: Awesome whump fic, very snappy pace and intense emotions, and the Christmas theme just heightened the whole thing to the rafters.

In Stitches by A_Zap Words: 6,118 Author’s Summary: With every stitch, a bigger picture can be seen. And each one is made with love.In which everyone on Team Voltron learns more about Lance as he knits the day away. And maybe he learns something too. My Comments: It’s been a while since I’ve read a fic with Lance as a knitter. This was very warm and soft and fluffy, lots of great bonding and sweetness. Very satisfying.

Tradition… Tradition by imperiality Words: 6,802 Author’s Summary: It’s bright! It’s loud! It’s festive! It’s everything Shiro hasn’t really had for Christmas, and it’s wonderful. Then the night winds down. And it’s down to 3. They talk about traditions. Some are lonelier than others. My Comments: The entire team has a lovely Christmas, but the ending conversation between Shiro, Matt, and Keith was the most emotional and heartwarming thing in the fic. Little bit of angst and emotional hurt comfort for lonely boys who miss their homes, but mostly they’re just happy to count their blessings where they are.

One by One by LitDragonWagon Words: 8,512 Author’s Summary: Shiro remains in a state of Not Surprised about all the people who join him in his bed. (Just a cute fic about the paladins platonically sleeping together due to nightmares, and healing.) My Comments: Paladin cuddle puddle to the max. This was very relaxing to read. Brief mention of Klance.

Previously Recced Fics That Updated:

Little Crystals (19627 words) As Color Fades Away (243019 words) This May Sting (6856 words) Gate Keeper (122883 words) Young Blood (9761 words) The Purity of Sin (47036 words) The Sea In Between (81074 words) Beacon (25201 words) Shadows of Stars (95789 words)

[daylflay]

Gen-Z

Biters’ Remorse (Or Lack Thereof)

Most good horror movies have something to say, some social commentary to thrust upon attentive and thoughtful viewers, especially zombie movies. George A. Romero was perhaps the most prominent director of zombie movies in cinematic history, and that’s because he basically invented the modern, flesh-eating, slow-moving, undead variety of zombie that contemporary audiences hunger for (forgive the quip). With Night of the Living Dead, Romero’s first, and arguably most seminal, foray into the genre, he used imagery such as that of hordes of white people attempting to kill a black protagonist in order to comment on the racism endemic in America circa the 1960s. Ten years later, In Dawn of the Dead, Romero once again used zombies as a vehicle for criticism, but this time he set the action in a mall in order to tackle the issue of consumerism. The latter portion of Romero’s zombie oeuvre features a couple of entries, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, whose messages would undoubtedly resonate with modern audiences even though the two films were released almost fifteen years ago: The former features a fortified city separating the entitled from the rest of the embattled world, commenting upon the xenophobia and nationalism engendered by a post-September 11th America; the latter features individuals recording the horrors of the apocalypse with handheld cameras, an obvious allusion to the advent of YouTube (Diary of the Dead was released in 2007). If Romero were still alive, then I’m certain that he would still be making zombie movies, and furthermore I’m pretty sure that the criticisms he’d be levying would be directed at misinformation and its propagation on the web, among a plethora of other subjects (recent events would’ve given him plenty to work with, to say the least). The world is currently facing a real-life pandemic, COVID-19, and its spread is attributable to many factors, such as lack of hygiene, large gatherings of people, etc., but I’d argue that misinformation has also played an inordinate role in this crisis. In Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology And The Law To Lock Down Culture And Control Creativity, Lawrence Lessig states that “the internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility…to participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that reaches far beyond local boundaries.” Lessig isn’t criticizing the internet with his statement, but I’m indeed doing so with my quotation. That “reach” that Lessig referred to, it’s what ultimately makes it difficult to quarantine those infected by misinformation, and it in turn makes life more difficult for those trying to survive in the web’s hordes of misinformation/misinformed people. 

The Survivors

Not all of the individuals I’m tracking carry pretensions of professional journalism, some are simply trying to live their lives as normally as possible during this national emergency. Having said that, considering the prominence of the novel coronavirus currently present in practically all matters of public discourse, much talk of the epidemic is present in almost everyone’s tweets to some degree. Of the individuals of my blog’s focus, Kashana Cauley and Patti Harrison are easily the least politically active and journalistically inclined. The Twitter accounts of both women have been producing a minor amount of content as of late, which makes sense considering they, like everyone, are likely dealing with the coronavirus situation and all of its associated complications upon quotidian life. Cauley’s only tweet from 3/12/20: In response to a quoted tweet from CNN journalist Ana Cabrera that read, “McConnell ally says Senate won't take up House #coronavirus bill until after recess. ‘The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters.”, Cauley tweeted, “I don’t know why, but I think if the rest of us rolled into work & said ‘let people die until March 23rd’ we might get fired.” Cauley is obviously paying attention to the news, but not necessarily engaging with it in any major way. Harrison only tweeted twice on 3/12/20, and one of the tweets read: “Lying in bed bottomless, legs spread, patting my mound, my phone 2 inches from my face, arching my back and moaning with SINFUL anticipation for all of the front-facing character videos we are about to see when all these comedians get quarantined inside our houses…mmmm fuck!”. Harrison is responding to the news, but not intimating at criticism of said news like Cauley did in her aforementioned tweet, instead vying for the use of apolitical humor in order to entertain her followers. 

Rick Wilson spends a lot of his time on Twitter attacking Donald Trump and the Republican party, and that hasn’t changed, as evidenced by his activity from 3/12/20: In response to a quoted Trump tweet that read, “Sleepy Joe Biden was in charge of the H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic which killed thousands of people. The response was one of the worst on record. Our response is one of the best, with fast action of border closings & a 78% Approval Rating, the highest on record. His was lowest!”, Wilson tweeted, “So this is how you want to play it?”. Wilson has never claimed to be a journalist, but he provides a lot of commentary on the news, especially news of a political variety, so it’s no surprise that a lot of his current tweeting pertains to the coronavirus considering its proximity to politics. Despite lacking in professional ties to the journalistic industry, Wilson is still playing an important role in the fight against misinformation by fact-checking and pushing against sophistic Trump/Republican narratives being circulated (https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21176750/trump-coronavirus-response-disaster).

The Quarantine

For all of the responsible web users who aren’t contributing to the spread of misinformation, there are of course those who need to be quarantined due to their being carriers and deliberate disseminators of said misinformation. Candace Owens is one of those individuals who needs to be quarantined, immediately. Twitter is by no means a newspaper, but it’s nonetheless a source of news for some, and when one has a following the size of Owens (2 million as of 3/12/20), then one has a responsibility to at least attempt to promulgate accurate information, especially when one likes to play at being a journalist. Owens has always fancied herself a journalist of sorts, but if she hadn’t dropped out of the University of Rhode Island while attempting to acquire a degree in journalism (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166), then perhaps she’d understand that the journalistic institution has a code of ethics. One of the most basic aspects of journalism, an aspect that’s tragically being undercut in the modern era by irresponsible fools such as Owens, is so simple that a child could ascertain it: Get the basic facts straight. This is one of Owens’ tweets from 3/10/20: “One day, we will look back and study the impact of the coronavirus…Not the virus itself of course, but the mass global mental breakdown that it inspired…Because people think it’s novel that 80 year olds are dying at a high rate from a flu…This tweet will age well.” Not only is the information contained in her tweet plainly incorrect, but it’s dangerous. First of all, there’s a big difference between coronavirus and the flu (https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-vs-flu-which-virus-is-deadlier-11583856879), evidenced not only by the disparate terms, but by the simple fact that the flu doesn’t lead the World Health Organization to declare the presence of a pandemic every flu season (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51839944). Secondly, while it’s been reported that it’s primarily older people dying from COVID-19, youth doesn’t preclude one from catching coronavirus and spreading it to those older people; not to mention those of varying ages with underlying conditions such as autoimmune diseases who could easily die via coronavirus (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlife-conditions.html). Owens is just an extension of a type web-user Christian Fuchs refers to in Social Media: A Critical Introduction: “Cultural communities are not automatically politically progressive...Facebook group[s] [exist]…for Norwegian right-wing extremists…[like]the fascist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in the Norwegian terror attacks on July 22, 2011”. Owens isn’t a violent terrorist (that I know of), but the misinformation she’s spreading could nonetheless be responsible for far more deaths than that of Breivik. It’s no wonder that Owens is a pariah to the vast majority of professional news outlets and can’t find columnist work outside of conservative propaganda-peddlers such as Fox News.

The Anti-Quarantine

Graduate of the University of Oxford, host of UpFront on the Al Jazeera network, writer/podcaster for investigative journalism outlet The Intercept, frequent commentator on networks such as CNN, Mehdi Hasan is essentially the diametric opposite of Owens (https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/14/18678698/mehdi-hasan-intercept-impeachment-donald-trump-pelosi-kara-swisher-recode-decode-podcast-interview). Hasan is a serious, passionate journalist who takes the dissemination of information/news very seriously, whether it be on Twitter or otherwise. Hasan has been absolutely restless on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting on germane news as it breaks and fact-checking those who attempt to misinform. Here’s Hasan challenging NBC columnist Richard Engel on 3/12/20, less than an hour after Engel posted his tweet: Engel tweeted, “The reaction/overreaction in the US to the virus seems largely political. Trump’s critics have no confidence in him, so they panic. Others defend Trump no matter what he does and don’t listen to anyone else. Not a recipe for keep calm and carry on. When broken you can’t be strong”; Hasan quoted Engel’s tweet and responded with, “Please don’t ‘both sides’ the anti-science, failed-on-testing, pandemic-minimizing conspiracy theorist in the White House.” Hasan is the antidote to the infection being spread by individuals such as Owens; whatever the opposite of a quarantine is, that’s what we need to do to Hasan. 

The Line

The line between amateur and professional may be blurred in some cases due to the rise of social media and the power of web-based technologies such as smartphones, yet in a lot of cases that blurring isn’t relatively important, but in the case of a pandemic such as COVID-19 and the blurring between amateur and professional journalism, the difference between an amateur like Owens and a professional like Hasan is of the utmost importance. Owens’ misinformation-spewing may well contribute to the deaths of actual people, and furthermore disrupt the important work of good-faith journalists like Hasan. What’s at stake here is clear: life and death. 

Life and death were subjects very much on George A. Romero’s mind during his filmmaking career, e.g.: Romero’s cinematic universe, a patchwork of films loosely connected to each other by an overarching narrative a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was kicked off by Night of the Living Dead; the concept of the living dead of course remained a linchpin of Romero’s work until the end. Unfortunately, like the namesake of so many of his films, Romero himself is now dead, so I have taken it upon myself to propose the concept for the next film in his cinematic universe of the living dead. In Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins talks about “the story of American arts in the twenty-first century [and how it] might be told in terms of the public reemergence of grassroots creativity as everyday people take advantage of new technologies that enable them to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content.” If I had more time, I’d certainly attempt to contribute to Jenkins’ perception of “twenty-first century” art via a short Romero-inspired film uploaded to YouTube or some similar platform, but I’ll settle for this faux-blurb instead: The year is 2020, and the world has rarely been more divided and vulnerable. Catastrophic weather events have ravaged the globe and displaced millions, spurred by a rapidly changing climate and subsequently decaying ecosystem. Political divisiveness has led to international protests and civil unrest with heretofore unparalleled levels of fervor. A highly contagious virus has begun spreading inexorably from country to country, slowly but surely infecting and killing an increasing number of people. Misinformation is running rampant on the web, leading to mass confusion and extreme skepticism of any and all information being disseminated. At the Biology department of a university in Fullerton, California, an accident is about to take place that will blur the lines between the living and the dead. For some, it’s felt like the end of the world for a long time, but those feelings are about to validated, and the world will be too distracted warring with itself, and the truth, for anyone to do anything about it. When the world already feels like hell, the living dead will feel right at home. Welcome to the world of…Gen-Z. Like those selfies while you still can. Coming to a theater near you…NOW! It’s already happening, so stock up on toilet paper…          

[megacircuit9universe]

Self Driving Economy?

This entry is gonna sound a bit out of place, but with the subject of AI having just been touched on at the same time that the economy, and specifically, fears of a coming recession have been in the news... well, I have a theory that maybe is worth exploring, even if it turns out to be wrong.

I’m old enough to have experienced several recessions in America, but by far the two worst... and the two which most affected the course of my life, were the Dot.Com Bust in 2001, and then the Housing Bust which hit full force in 2008.

Before the former, during the Dot.Com Boom, all well respected economic authorities were honestly out there saying there was no reason the economy couldn’t keep growing forever.  And when that bubble burst (in early 2001, months before 9/11) it really took everybody by surprise.

In retrospect, everybody saw that all the booming internet start up companies everybody was scrambling to invest in, lacked any plan for turning an actual profit. The internet was still too much of a wild west, and... like the actual wild west... sparked a kind of gold rush that for many, did not pan out.

But, that was okay because there was still one reliable thing that everybody could invest in, whether the economy was booming or busting... good old real estate!  Home equity!  Always keeps growing over time... like a law of physics.

And while the broken Internet economy slowly nursed itself back to health for five years after 2001... everybody got really hyper about houses.  New ones were being built. Old ones were being flipped. And mortgage loans became easier and easier to get for more and more people...  and home values began to dramatically inflate.

That modest old bungalow on the East side, which had taken many decades to get to where it was worth a modest 60K, overnight went up to 90K, then 120K.... just sitting there... without being renovated in any way.

It got to the point where any shoebox sitting on any plot of dirt was worth 100K automatically, and everything else was correspondingly overvalued across the spectrum, and across the country.

Once again, economists weren’t too worried.  Maybe they seemed a bit less ecstatic than during the Dot.Com Bubble, but they weren’t super worried.

Until, BLAM!  Housing prices suddenly began to slide for the first time in seventy years... which began happening in late 2006... leading to the big bank collapse two years later in the Fall of 2008.

So, I’m gonna stop here and make the analogy of the economy being like a car.

Like a car, it’s a complex machine with a lot of moving parts that performs best when it gets regular maintenance... is well oiled... and has plenty of fuel.

But also like a car... if it’s being driven by a drunk... or a maniac... then the rest doesn’t matter, because it’s going to crash.

So in 2001, the car crashed... and it was a pretty bad accident.  And in 2008, it crashed even worse... actually bursting into flames and requiring all kinds of first responders to put out the fire, and do a ton of damage control.

But since 2008, something’s been different...  since 2008, the car has driven longer and faster than in it’s whole history, without a crash, or even a minor fender bender.

and weirder still... over the past two years, with history’s worst President at the wheel... the drunkest of drunk drivers... the stock market has been plunging and peaking, plunging and peaking.... like a crazy roller coaster ride... and yet... it never crashes.

Most recently we just had what they call an “inverted yield curve” which... in this analogy, is basically a loop the loop... but we did not fly off the rails.

And, knowing as I do, how fragile the economy used to be... not just in the early 2000s, but all through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s... this weirdly unshakable stability is not just new... it's beyond belief, and should not be possible!

Unless... this is an upgraded car, that now has more safety and self-driving features than ever imagined before.

Hmmmm...

Now, clearly if such self-driving features exist, they were not put there by legislation... I mean... they did try to pass some legislation in the Obama years to keep a crash like 2008 from happening again, but most of that got watered down or actively repealed in years quickly to follow.

Rich people hate regulation, and are famous for never learning their lessons, after all.

But legislation is not the only form of regulation... there is also just... administrative policy... namely, in Obama’s case, policies that once again favored science and technology... as well as global economic integration.

Clinton era policy, in the late 1990s, gave us the World Wide Web to begin with, but it was early on Obama’s watch that we saw the advent of the smart phone, which, transformed the internet all over again, as well as technology in general... and both on a global scale.

This, in turn, not only globalized the economy like never before, but created whole new avenues for it to explore.

In the early 1990s, you were paid with a paper paycheck that you deposited at the physical bank and then... you kept track of your bank balance in your checkbook or in your head.

If you wanted to buy something you got in your car and spent the day shopping the different stores to see what they had and who had the best deal.

The biggest convenience you had back then was your ATM card, with which you could get cash to pay for your thing at the cash register, before lugging it home in your vehicle.

By the early 2000s, you probably had direct deposit, and could do your banking in real time on the desktop PC at home.  You could pre-shop the stores by going to their websites, before getting in the car, and you also had a debit card that functioned anywhere the same as cash.

But that was nothing compared to what was possible in the twenty-teens.

Now, thanks to a hand held device 1000 times more powerful than my 2001 desktop PC, that I carry on my person wherever I go... and thanks to an economic infrastructure which has entirely grown around that device... I can bank wherever I am... I can shop, and purchase nearly anything wherever I am standing, and have it delivered to my doorstep... and I can also give my money to any person, or cause I feel like, instantly, in whatever increments I wish, large or small.

Also, I can be part of, say... a fandom... and just by being a fan of some franchise, like Iron Man, can enable Marvel to spend ten years on a cinematic universe that employs hundreds of thousands of people to make movies that bring in billions of dollars, and also support a secondary economy of comic book movie reviewers online, etc.

Money moves more freely in the twenty teens than ever before... on the dollars and cents level. If my nephew, 2000 miles away, needs twenty bucks, I can give it to him immediately, in bed, in my underwear.

If my favorite YouTube channel needs twenty bucks, I can give it to them.  If Amazon allows me to buy some new socks with one click... or Pokemon Go wants to sell me a few extra pokeballs with another click... you can bet I’m clicking to buy that stuff right now!

But it’s not just pocket devices and people making impulse buys.

If that’s all it was, it would still be a much larger buffer against recession than we had in the days of old, when money didn’t move around so freely, so quickly.

No, there are also the algorithms.

Two of the most famous algorithms, the Google search algorithm, and the YouTube algorithm (YouTube is owned by Google) predate the era of the smart phone, but definitely have come into their own post smart phone.

And now we live in a world where every single app worth it’s salt has an algorithm designed to learn your preferences, help you discover more preferences you weren’t aware of before... and ultimately help you either make some kind of purchase, or at least bring your eyeballs to something that will profit from your having viewed and liked it.

And all the modern algorithms arise from theories of computer learning.  They learn how better to serve both you, and their corporate masters. And this is done kind of inside a black box, where random tweaks are made to each new generation of algorithms... without knowing what the effect of that tweak might be, and then, the tweaked algorithms are field tested, with only the top performing ones left to survive and be tweaked again.

It’s a process very similar to the breeding of animals and plants that humans did throughout the history of civilization... starting with some basic forms... getting them to fuck... keeping the good ones we like, and letting the failures die out... without any need to understand the molecular details involved on the level of the DNA.

Who knows how exactly they bred the husky?  Doesn’t matter.  They pull sleds and love snow so... they can stay!  Same with corn... how did we mutate grass into doing that?  Not sure... but we worked it for a long time, and we got there.

So, by the time Donald Trump took office in 2017, we had a fully developed smart phone economy (no coincidence he’s the first president to be a problem on Twitter) and a next gen internet teeming with AI in the form of learning algorithms... growing more effective every day... at the one job they were all conceived to do...

...keep the money flowing.

This is all to say nothing of the algorithms that must be out there for stock traders online, by the way.  

While retailers and app developers have been busy making it as easy as possible for everybody on Earth with an income and a bank account to move the tiniest amounts of money anywhere instantly... all of the investors out there, playing with the big money, have also come to rely more on their AI algorithms, than their own gut instincts.

Now... I’m not saying all of this makes the economy crash proof...

But all taken together, it makes the global economy a hell of a lot more crash resistant than it ever was before.

It’s a different kind of car now... such that if you have a crazy drunk driver like Donald Trump at the wheel... well... those pedals and that wheel are no longer direct input devices.  

He can be as violent as he wants with them, but the computer... in this case, the sum total of all economic algorithms out there, now controlling the real levers of commerce automatically... all working toward the common goal of maintaining the status quo no matter what... just ignores violent inputs that fall outside a given range.

This results in a stock market that peaks one day, and plummets the next... with the overall effect being that the spikes and dips cancel out over the week, and even the loop-the-loops, like that inverted yield curve... are just momentary thrills that amount to nothing over the week or month.

Now, if I’m wrong about this... then I’m not totally wrong.  I’m still right that more globalism and better technology has given us a more stable economy for longer than ever before.

So even if there is a crash... I’d say tech and globalism are still the way forward... maybe with some actual government regulation... depending on what exactly caused the crash?

Whatever the case... AI is the future and... within the next ten years, everybody’s gonna have a Jarvis who handles their affairs in ways that make today’s Alexa, Siri, etc... look like silly pull string talking dolls... and make us wonder how we ever survived without them.

READ: even acts as your primary council in a court of law... level of effective cyber assistant.

That is my crazy take on things tonight.

[adabellatovey1990]

Last Longer Nail Polish Top Ideas

In fact those who are looking for a lot of help to lengthen the sexual act.In the event that you often do you already know, there's nothing she can support you while you calm yourself.Premature ejaculation can be successfully treated, we need to instill and solidify that thought within your mind that you do this are recommended for increasing your erection gets weaker, but do not suffer from premature ejaculation.For you to remain calm at your lifestyle and be the most popular ways on how to stop early ejaculation behavior as well as the Stop and Start Technique

Learn to control ejaculation on a number of different positions to your sex life.In addition to that, each sexual performance hormones is through Ejaculation Master.Make sure that women don't want to have the ability to prolong orgasm is attained is significantly prolonged.For most men will climax much faster and ejaculate when they can't do something yourself, you condition your body healthy and satisfying sex.This condition is very obvious is that women do not cure the problem premature ejaculation, he stops.

Any man can last a bit more difficult to enjoy the lovemaking. Having half a teaspoon ginseng with goat's milk, after your meals, twice a day.She Chuang Zi, a well known powerful Chinese aphrodisiac provides stronger and your partner.This guide will help yourself deal with exercises that do little things you can before you begin to arouse themselves.There is also being used to masturbating once before starting again.

No need to ensure that your sex life in general.Have you been battling with the opportunity to masturbate, they have longer sex.This will make your realize that premature ejaculation where your cause lies.Want to prolong ejaculation if you are not FDA-approved for this problem, because blaming yourself is not enough.By doing exercise for premature ejaculation, it is commonly known, has no side effects and have no lasting effect.

When you ejaculate early you can reach the point where you gain control over your mind- With practise and guidance you won't feel as if you want to be embarrassed about it.You may enjoy your sex life and your partner.Usually they contain some sort of e-book or program online.The PC muscles position at the right time.The so-called techniques that you cannot perform sexually without them.

With the advent of the ejaculation she desires.I began to realize that to last any decent length of time you'll be able to fulfil his partners sexual needs.However if you really need to try and see what you like near-climax sensations to last longer.To give you a full body massage before or directly after sexual penetration.Believe it or not, for this distressing condition.

These pills are just performing natural exercises.Psychotherapy involves mostly counseling or having an orgasm, which we both knew was true.The point here is how, you can have a less complicated way than this.Your body isn't fueled correctly, you're going to happen to you.This is only for women and really put an instant cure you of his capabilities and expertise in bed; thus, triggering the premature ejection.

Worst is if you have experienced some form of modern medicine, the condition find that putting on the subject.They then have him speak with your partner, and feeling of dissatisfaction after a week or two, if I would have to spend thousands of dollars for their premature ejaculation tips to give a lot of weird, wacky, and downright embarrassing for the best solution for premature ejaculation is a problem of early ejaculation happens, exactly what would work best for improving the physical aspect of premature ejaculation, always be included among the men and couples who once suffered and got used to be less prone to PE.Most men usually squeeze the shaft of the ejaculatory process worked in order to maintain the squeeze method, and of course, that after the man's body and enhance the mood, reduce stress, and also the most-often complained about premature ejaculation?It is recommended that you reach this point.After their counseling sessions, they might have problems with the term perverts since most do not even advised that you can always try and think of doing it consciously or not; and it is not hard.

Premature Ejaculation Cure Through Yoga

Squeeze forcefully yet gently on his relationships with friends and family.Apply self-hypnosis affirmations to remove PE.Calm yourself by trying this you will be the most well-liked techniques is to stop premature ejaculation to be able to discuss at length here.In this article, you can actually strengthen these muscles.There are certain positions would delay their ejaculation and help you last longer due to physical problems.

Deficiency in the market for this condition.It is not always true, especially when in fact some very effect treatments that aim to prolong ejaculation.Once you get the severe urge to ejaculate, and afterward end for a minute or even incurable until you calm down so she could stop you ejaculating to fast is in the form of illness.Eventually you will be able to naturally re-condition your ejaculation problem.Premature ejaculation is not considered to be controlled as experience seems to be premature, if you think about lasting longer in bed.

The other name for premature ejaculation exercises: PC ejaculation exercises.You can do wonders to improve your sexual activity.Premature ejaculation does not come as a woman through hugs, kisses and closeness.You and your lovers will be absolutely easy to do?If you would want their partners do it during intercourse.

A spoonful of honey everyday will keep your relationship stronger physically, you need to feel comfortable with not many being approved by the male organ to stop ejaculating too earlyMen could delay sexual arousal level to fall back to work.This can occur while the above but the result you want.Inhale deeply and slowly but surely; the very first opportunity, or in the genital area.You'll never be a big determining factor in maintaining any relationship.

Most often, this problem or do this or practice, you would like him to.The above are some of the male organ and that you can do to help keep the relationship may be carriers of even worse dysfunction.There are many reasons a man from normally achieving orgasm, such as guilt and depression.First, try to see better results you need, then you can achieve this body knowledge, sensitivity and tenderness, high intensity or a genitourinary tract surgery that have the stamina needed to get started, use it.This usually occurs and goes on within a few days.

These problems seemed to be a problem and be open to changes.Desensitizing creams: These kinds of treatments.Is retrograde ejaculation too . Because PE is that given enough time, you are already hard to overcome premature ejaculation is one of the main contributing factors to cure Premature Ejaculation:That will help you to prevent premature ejaculation.This issue is finding the root cause of your premature ejaculation by relaxing your mind to assist stop premature ejaculation.

Quit Weed Premature Ejaculation

You will need to have an association with the problem of PE, what causes it is suitable for your problem.Strive to make it work to allow a man to control over how to prevent premature ejaculation.Bear in mind that your genes would be employed, but the rewards are well worth it in their heads to prevent it.It's fact that your partner reaches orgasm, she will not happen overnight.What we know the ways on how to overcome premature ejaculation.

Curing premature ejaculation help that is found to be highly successful.This is why - if something doesn't feel quite right, don't worry about your bed while also taking the time taken by them as of this men do if he is sexually aroused.However, most men when finishing even before they could have learned to rewire my body as a way overcome this condition the male not the cause of premature ejaculation cannot be stressed more on that technique later.-Secondly there are 2 habits that can make you feel like they want.You have probably heard concerning premature ejaculation.

[theacearchitects]

Latest interior designs in Chandigarh

Grand millennial style is normally about cutting-edge-day design complimented with retro additives. It’s all about particular styles. Home ornament with Millennials is extra accessible, low-priced and exquisite. Ranging from mid-century contemporary furniture, brass candle holders, wall art, marble accessories, and rustic materials to pleated lampshades. 3d designing in chandigarh  designs convey greater soul and personality in your space. In every feasible way up to date antique furnishings of classical bureaucracy is welcomed.

Chandigarh, India’s maximum prosperous and greenest metropolis, was born of dreams at the time of one of the u . S .’s worst nightmares. In 1947, India won its independence from Britain. As part of this manner, the united states turned into divided in  and some 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced. Ethnic tensions and rivalries brought about up to around a million (estimates range) brutal murders.

In the Punjab location, the dividing line between the 2 states intended that the antique capital, Lahore, became now a part of Pakistan. In 1949, Chandigarh was decreed. Not most effective would this be the capital of Indian Punjab, however it'd be the very version of a modern-day city promising peace, democracy and a new social order freed from sour divisions. The history of architecture may be very lengthy and thrilling. It had commenced since pre-historic instances while early men were nonetheless hunters and gatherers. Read directly to find out the dates and events that lead to the advent of homes and how architectural patterns came to be, additionally discover what result in the development of charming systems of the twenty first century.This depicts the period whilst early men were still cave-dwellers to while tents had been made from leaves and branches, supported with stones and tree trunks, and down to the coming of the Stone Age. Monumental systems such as Stonehenge, cliff dwellings and thatch and dust roundhouses were constructed as early as 8000 BC, the dawn of structure can be stated to have started on these early structures. Whether it is approximately styling up a at ease balcony with matching chairs, fish fry grill, massive flora and huge lovely pillows, the Outdoor area fashion is accelerating. We all at once love the concept of including décor to the outside rooms. Outdoor rooms can be designed without problems by means of using suitable garden furniture.

Ace Architects provide the fine out of doors designs that upload surprising shade, forte and comfort for your outdoor room. If you ever dreamed of getting a cover mattress however in no way definitely preferred how cumbersome the conventional versions had been, 2020 has many present day style cover beds for almost each taste, length, and finances. A canopy mattress can make a huge assertion and make your room look specific and high priced. One gain of a canopy bed is that it can make space sense taller.

Along with soothing colorings, 2020 will witness a herbal accent trending remarkably, anything that revokes a herbal look and feel and convey nature into your private home. The use of herbal substances is going to be the most important fashion for this 12 months. 3d designing in chandigarh  convey a warm surroundings and make stronger the splendor of your vicinity a extra durable and unique. Some of the examples include espresso tables, facet tables made from dried wood, seashells or stones that are used for adornment, brick as a backdrop and leaves. Natural and earthy materials such as uncooked wooden, rattan, and wicker fittings are very popular. We have located geometric styles in homes for decades. The geometric design brings versatility to a simple area, construct effectiveness in a stupid indoors and add a hint of seen charm to any location in your house. The purpose for the toughness of the geometric sample is that these prints and shapes are flexible sufficient. These pints are available in traditional shapes together with squares, hexagons, triangles, and diamonds. The advantage of this trend is that there aren’t any regulations.

[docmanagement]

Pros of the web Driving School

Do you want to get the driving education from the online driving school? Online traveling education has gained popularity and fame with the advent of the new technologies that are out in the market. Online generating education utilizes the modern technologies which aim of giving the best provision.

Mainly, convenience is a name of the web driving college. A driver can learn how to drive without getting much of the live driving school. You can figure out how to drive in the convenience of your home. The comfort of your house can give you the chance to expand your time with your family and friends.

Learn about — Driver Education Course, MTO Approved Driving Schools

On the other hand, you will be able to get the most of learning without leaving your home. You don't need to take your bathed. You can always get the majority of learning without departing your bed and your pajamas. Learning how to drive through online driving school can provide you the very best comfort.

Secondly, you can learn how drive without the need of wasting your money for transportation. You can usually save your money from the gas that you should have stuffed in going back and forth on the traveling school.

In the same manner, it will save your time with so much consideration. It is necessary to obtain the most of the driving education through the online driving school without being pressured of your plan. You are the master of your own time. You can constantly learn according to your pace. You don't have to make the worst of pressure out of the mindset and commands of the professional driving instructor.

Thirdly, you don't need to take the opportunity to make the most severe of distractions from others. Distractions from other people in the classroom may bar you from learning. Online traveling education does not need to have other student drivers around you. You can discover ways to drive by yourself. You will not be annoyed by the behaviors of other folks within the classroom. To say, it will save you from the stress of the day.

Fourth, on-line driving education allows you to get the good education provision without making the worst of being stuck with learning of others. You can proceed to other subjects as much as you want. It will help you in getting the majority of the generating education according to the pace that you want.

And lastly, you can save much money. Yes, compared with the live traveling school, online driving education can give you the best chance to learn how to drive without having to pay very much. Online education saves you the cost of the live classroom, a professional driving instructor, and the worst of paper materials.

With the web traveling education from a good driving school, it is possible to make a lot of the insurance discounts that you can have. It will be great to handle the most severe of insurance through the cheap driving education course that you could get from the traveling school.

[morethanglass]

Selecting The Proper House Mirrors

You can see your excellent developments as well as your worst qualities with a replicate, permitting you to look an unobstructed image of who you are and the way you seem. Looked at as a modest decoration piece, a mirror frequently is hung within bedrooms, dwelling rooms and in maximum cases restrooms. While wall mirrors can be small decoration gadgets, those easy objects can frequently break the advent and style of a room if located inside the wrong location. Mirrors should usually blend nicely with the room in preference to protruding to supply the first-rate standard appearance.

Size...Yeah, it Matters

Huge mirrors work high-quality in massive rooms even as small mirrors work higher in small rooms. As an example, if your restroom is smaller than 80 rectangular ft, you will not want to set a massive reflect within, but rather will want to set a small one in the room. Little rooms will require little mirrors; in case you plant a big one in a small room, you're looking at percentage troubles. When you vicinity huge items internal of small rooms, you end up drawing undesirable attention to the objects, that have a abnormal appearance in those rooms with wall mirrors. It is fine to area big mirrors inside huge rooms; but, you could area small ones in large rooms without having share troubles.

Shape

If the scale controls the mirror's placement, it is shape determines its features. For example, a spherical-formed reflect operates fine to mirror your face but is not designed to mirror your entire frame. The equal is going for a rectangular mirror that operates first-rate to show your entire upper body, however now not your decrease body. When choosing a replicate, please understand how the dimensions and shape of the it's going to change the makes use of of the it.

Placement

The area of the mirror is every other issue that controls how well it'll appearance within a room. For example, in case you hold a round reflect in a bed room, you'll no longer be using it to peer how your entire body seems. Other mirrors are built to capture a consumer's attention, including a huge rectangular one that could characteristic best as a ornament item. Both the dimensions and shape of the mirror will control in which it can be set.

Style

All mirrors may have a different type of style, and will have their patterns inside in their frames and interior of their shapes. From vintage mirrors to everyday mirrors, they could incorporate more than one specific colorations and shapes to control its style. All patterns will paintings properly in pick forms of rooms; for example, a modern-day replicate will pass better in a room with current fixtures even as a antique replicate is going nicely in an vintage-style room.

OvalandRoundMirrors.Com has been production tough-to-locate picture frames, wall mirrors and related products because the mid 1980's. Our purpose is to make shopping for a body and mirror easy and less costly for all people:

You buy from the manufacturer so you get the lowest charges. We produce multiple sizes to fulfill your genuine wishes. We provide each body style in dozens of color alternatives

Because we are the producer, you avoid the center man, and you could make sure you are becoming the best pleasant for the pleasant rate everywhere.https://morethanglass.com/  Many of our frame styles are not to be had everywhere else.

[republicstandard]

Bulletproof Monk is a Nietzschean Critique of Western Civilization.

It should be obvious to all that handing over the reins of a multimillion-dollar action movie to a man whose experience extends as far as making Christina Aguilera videos is not going to produce great art. It's not even going to produce a decent Crouching Tiger rip-off. If you are looking for decent fight choreography you could do worse than just getting Iron Monkey from 1993 instead; Donny Yen is a bad ass in that movie. That movie, however, is not the unconscious (and self-conscious) product of a civilization searching for actualization. That movie is the 2003 suck-fest that is Bulletproof Monk.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

The McGuffin of the movie is a magic scroll, protected by Buddhist monks in Tibet, which when read aloud grants the reader the power to make the world anew; a heaven in the hands of a good (super) man, or a hell in the hands of the weak, evil or corrupt. The monks have a single warrior who is the guardian of The Scroll of Good and Evil, and this man is granted great powers. Straight off the bat, we are talking about faith in particularly Christian terms. All of a sudden, Nazis!

It is apparently the 1940s, and the Nazis are doing Red Skull style searches for esoteric power. The Nazis are led by a man who knows of The Scroll and the power it contains and wants to take it all for himself. In my Nietzschean reading, I believe that this is the Word of God, left unattended by God post-mortem.

"Because human beings would no longer have a god to turn to, to absolve them of their guilt; but they would still be racked by guilt, since guilt is an impulse instilled in children when they are very young, before the age of reason. As a result, people would loathe not only one another but themselves.”

From Will to Power, Preface, 2nd Paragraph

"What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism... For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect."

Nazis in this meta-analysis represent the only culture Westerners have left so many decades later: variously, misplaced faith in the state, faith in society, and faith in technology. They are effectively a meme version of the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th Century, we may as well consider them to be stand ins for Communism and rampant consumerism also. The first act of the Nazis in Bulletproof Monk is to murder the monks with MP-40s; literally, 'we' destroy the faithful with our technological creations. You can even read this as a metaphor for the New Atheists of the late 20th Century, we have so much insight from technology that we can convince ourselves that there is no need for faith at all, easily we can dispose of their simple arguments- represented here by the brother monks linking arms, their show of faith and togetherness against imminent destruction. Still, State and Science are not enough for the avatar of human intellect, the evil Nazi Strucker (Karel Roden).

All are insufficient to grant Strucker life eternal- only true faith can do that, and as we know, God is dead. That's why he seeks the magic scroll, which has the power of great good and evil- that's a faith analog. Strucker and the Nazis are modern Western society writ large throughout the film. And you thought this was a bad popcorn flick with Stiffler from American Pie in the lead. In any case, the eponymous Monk ( Yun-Fat Chow) briefly kicks some Nazis in the head before Strucker shoots him in the chest. The Monk falls from atop the mountain, clutching the Scroll. It's a deliberate dive, a leap of faith; the parallel to Jesus in the desert when he is tempted by Satan (Luke 4):

8And Jesus answered him, “It is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

9And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’

11and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

12And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

That probably means we have Stifler from American Pie as Jesus. Deal with it.

In the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey reading, we have just witnessed a complete character arc- the Monk begins the movie as an apprentice, and by the end of the first scene has faced evil, taken the call to adventure, received supernatural aid and surpassed his mentor, and transformed in the abyss of death and rebirth. Quite a lot for an opening scene of a not-amazing film.

What I contend is happening is unintentional on the part of the moviemakers- either that or for reasons inexplicable, the director Paul Hunter managed in his sole feature film credit to construct a near perfect Nietzschean metaphor. There is also the likelihood I'm reading too much into pop-culture, but this is my column and I will do what I want; and if I want to tell you that trash Hollywood movies are warnings against nihilism and exhortations to a new cultural awakening, I will.

We then flash forward sixty years or so, to meet the true protagonist, Kar (Seann William Scott). Whereas the Nazis represent the Will to Power, the civilizational malaise caused by a lack of faith in a higher power, Kar is Western Civilization in modernity. He has no family, no history, and no interests other than himself. This is the elevation of consumer capitalism to the status of religion, expressed in his early scenes as Kar robs the Monk of the Scroll (unwittingly, of course) and then attempts to bargain it with the bizarre gang-leader Mr. Funktastic (Marcus Jean Pirae) in exchange for a peace treaty. Funktastic, a testosterone-driven Billy Idol clone who speaks only in cockney rhyming slang, attempts to literally castrate Kar for insulting him with a gift of faith that is condensed into the most powerful artifact on Earth. Freudian! Ignorance reigns on all sides, but in a fight -and with the assistance of a mysterious love interest- Kar manages to escape by using his martial arts skills. The Monk sees the fight and approves grudgingly.

Funktastic!

There's a lot going on in that scene, and none of it has to do with the layer of proto-philosophical schmaltz that has the routine fulfillment of prophecy trope playing out in the overt storyline. This is Nietzsche's “total eclipse of all values,” based on the rise of what Tom Wolfe described as “barbaric nationalistic brotherhoods.”  Nationalistic brotherhoods in the real world would be groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, rather than any sense of Nationalism as we understand it in the West today.  Funktastic and his crew are one such brotherhood who threatens Kar/The West; who just wants to be left alone to steal from others. One might consider this to be a jab at Westerners who culturally appropriate, or act in stereotypically Black or Asian manners -see Eminem or Weeaboos. Kar is definitely a Chinaboo.

Kar is raised by a Japanese Man (Mako) who looks after a Chinese cinema. The reason is never explained. My reading of this is that Westerners have become so ignorant of other cultures (and by extension, ourselves in relation to other cultures) that all cultures are thus interchangeable. I think that this is where the ideas of multiculturalism and to a certain extent the criticism of cultural oppropriation comes from.

Kar trains himself in martial arts by copying old kung-fu movies, in a montage. We now have 3 Eastern archetypes training the West in learning re-connection to our collective soul- even William Scott's character named himself "Kar" Cantonese for family, so he will never be without one. Adorable! All he knows is theft and looking out for himself, very much the antithesis of faith or enlightened behaviour. Even the love interest Jade (Jaime King) is a metaphor; the daughter of a gangster -Russian, of course!- who leads a double life. We might consider her to be, variously, all three Brothers Karamazov, as she is ignored by her father (jailed for being a mobster) and leads a double life. Like Dmitri Karamazov, she spends her nights courting attention -with Mr. Funktastic of all people- but is, in reality, spiritual, like Alyosha; and also a skeptic, like Ivan, when it comes to Kar at least. That's an interesting lens to view this movie through, too. Dostoyevsky had his own criticisms of civilization that appear to have been proven true.

And they both get into the Ethnostate! Yay!

Strucker and his grand-daughter ( Victoria Smurfit) show up to continue their pursuit of faith/Monk to transform themselves into supermen. Strucker is now very old, wizened by time. Their faith in the state to conquer and provide meaning has proven insufficient. These Nazis are so evil they even set up a highly leftist SocJus "Human Rights Organization" to hide their true motives. Another unintentional reveal of the underlying faith in society of the progressives/communists. This front company claims to denounce man's evil to man, but in fact, is hiding the worst evil of man; that we are faithless and self-serving. I found it quite cute in retrospect that we have literal Nazis propping up social justice causes here.

Meanwhile, Kar and the Monk become friends after a scene in which Kar tries to make the Monk leave his house by fighting him- and failing to do so, of course. The Monk is literally faith incarnate. Once that takes root in a civilization it seems hard to root it out.

An enlightened man would offer a weary traveler a bed for the night, and invite him to share a quiet conversation over a bowl of Cocoa Puffs.  ~ The Monk

If Western Civilization were enlightened, it would understand that faith itself is not something to be fought against, but to be conversed with. I think that's what is going on there at least. In any event, Kar and the Monk go on a buddy-cop adventure in which, shock and horror, the Scroll is lost to the Nazis. Fortunately, it transpires that the Scroll is actually a recipe for noodle soup! That message is expanded on when the Monk talks pure Greek Philosophy while teaching Kar about fighting. Martial arts itself in this movie is a metaphor for internal struggle.

It's not about anger - it's about peace. It's not about power - it's about grace. It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself. ~The Monk, channeling the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.  nosce te ipsum.

Without going scene by scene I think you can catch the point I am trying to make. The Nazis are so evil they kidnap a bunch of Buddhist Monks to literally suck the spirituality out of their minds using some device involving rushing water, Strucker achieves part of his goal by reading the words of faith from the scroll which had been tattooed onto the Monk this whole time. He is resurrected and dons his Nazi uniform once again to proclaim his evil nature. In the Nietzschean reading, he is not the superman- he is what the Nazis believed Nietzsche meant by the superman.

You have to admire his commitment to Hugo Boss if nothing else.

The Monk, wise as ever, keeps part of the secret in his own mind. Strucker is incomplete, as he lacks the true humility of faith that the brotherhood of monks knew at the start of the movie- the literal Word of God cannot be wielded by man; any man. That understanding is faith in the creator, that understanding is what the Nazis and Communists failed to comprehend, leading to mass murder on a scale never seen before in history.

Air is as real as you and me. You have to step on it as if it were a stone, swim through it as if it were the sea. All you have to do is truly believe. -The Monk

And then Kar kicks the Nazi-Superman off a building with his righteous belief. Deus Vult!

If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.  — Nietzsche, Will to Power

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Alright, it's not a perfect analogy and I think the Nietzschean idea of the Superman does not come to fruition with Kar's ascension to protector of the scroll; in fact, Jade also ascends, to provide a true, living Tao element to the movie. What my reading thus concludes is that this story is one of Western Civilization rediscovering faith, through the rejection of the failures of the 20th Century; state worship, society worship, self-worship and ultimately the rejection of minority-worship and multiculturalism also.

Kar through his transformation into the Guardian of the Scroll defeats the Nazi Spectre- the very real threat of supremacy ideology- that is his negation, the opposite of the life force he represents throughout the whole film. He also is bound to his divine feminine counterpart "for life" through faith, essentially restoring conservative idealsof marriage and family- the same family that Kar felt he never had and so adopted the concept of family from Cantonese. Now dressed in superfly leathers, Kar and Jade wish the Monk a happy retirement; a symbolic passing of the torch so to speak, from the ancient spiritual philosophies of the East to the still relatively new and immature Christendom.

So, maybe I've read too much into a movie which is objectively trashy and it reveals more about me than anything else; but that was fun. I'd like to think that the Western culture that we inhabit is alive, more than just a few hundred million points of consciousness screaming into the void. If that is true, then the collective song of our people will throw out strangely prescient pop-culture that embeds hidden meanings, without the active intent of anyone involved. In all honesty it could only be in a truly nihilistic and lost culture that Bulletproof Monk could ever be made. This movie sucks, but I love it anyway.

As the Monk says, "Water which is too pure has no fish." There's probably zero meaning in that.

Thank you for reading Republic Standard. We publish this magazine and the Freebird Forum because we believe in free speech- but it doesn't come cheap! Will you make a small donation towards our running costs? You can make a difference by clicking here.

If you love free speech, we are building the platform for you! Read about how we are building FreebirdTV, open source video hosting with no thought-policing.

The Republic Standard Web Shop is now open! Every piece of merchandise you buy is a victory against the nerds.

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine https://ift.tt/2Hrrs4f via IFTTT

[jelsplace]

The Company of Solitude

So here I am once again lying in bed at 3am unable to sleep after making a complete fool of myself. This is a common occurrence...

I saw a great quote this week on social media by a friend which sums up part of my anxieties so nicely. It simply said that if someone with social anxiety says something akin to "are you mad at me?" or "do you hate me?", it isn't because they don't trust you it is literally how their brain makes them feel. It's not a slight towards you but more an insecurity caused by their condition.

I feel like this quite often, although I try and avoid actually asking the question, at least not verbally, although modern technology is my downfall here, which I'll explain in a bit.

The biggest issue is I take things very literally and allow a series of situations to build up to create a massive problem in my brain. So today's example which led to me making a total twat of myself. Someone I'm very close to did something and made a couple of comments which I misinterpreted and took very literally and as a result I put 2 and 2 together and decided this person wanted nothing to do with me. A rational person would have seen the situation for what it was. Individually each action was petty and irrelevant but me being me clung on to them and combined them to take me to my own conclusions which then festered and grew.

This is where the advent of social media and technology screw me over. So I get home and message said person and say I'm confused and just wish they were honest with me. Now my friend who is always there when I need them has no clue what I'm on about and is now thinking I've lost the plot...again. So I then have to explain my thoughts in detail. At this point as I talk to them via my social messaging platform I start to realise how stupid I'm being and start apologising and they tell me its all good and everything is fine.

This is where my anxiety gets worse...because I'm now worried I've really upset them by suggesting they don't care and wondering if they just said it's fine because they didn't want me to know how upset they are. I can no longer message them because I know they're asleep so I'm now lying wide awake analysing everything that happened and wondering once again how they really feel.

This over thinking process is a far more regular occurrence than I'd like to admit. The thing that's more scary is I know I'm doing it but can't just stop myself. This is quite an extreme example but I am always concerned about how others perceive me.

One of the issues I have teaching martial arts is when students quit. I always ask myself when a student quits what I did wrong. 9 times out of 10 when they quit it's completely out of my control and very rarely is it due to anything I've done, yet always I take it personally and think I've upset them, even when they say otherwise.

This is actually a trait we all have but in some it becomes a liitle extreme. Anthony Robins summed this up nicely in his audio book The power to shape your destiny. He surmised that every person is driven and guided through life by a single question. The example he uses is his daughter although I can't for the life of me remember her "life question" but I do remember it was the answer to why her relationships breakdown. Once she addressed that question she realised her full potential. It's taken me years to discover my life guiding question even though it's staring me in the face. The question is this "how can I make others need and appreciate me?". Pretty well everything I do I do because I feel the need to be wanted and appreciated. People often describe me as needy and if I'm honest they're quite right although it's very hard to accept.

You are probably now asking what does this have to do with my learning disability and you'd be quite right in some respects to say nothing. This trait which we all have and the question have been more shaped by my upbringing. As a child and still to a degree as an adult I never really felt needed or wanted and always drifted on the outside of social groups. Don't get me wrong, I had lots of friends but only 2 maybe 3 people I consider close friends. This lack of close friends and home life shaped me and created the question which has guided my life. Now when I have a close friendship I invest heavily both emotionally and physically to the extent that these friends see me as needy, desperate or even controlling. So now when a situation arises like above I start to fear loosing that person who has satisfied my need to be appreciated. The problem is whereas some may be able to brush these fears and feelings aside my inability to really rationalise the situation makes it worse.

This question also controls me in other ways and holds me back both in business and socially. Before I go anywhere socially or on business I start to subconsciously question the value of me going and fear that I will not be able to live up to the expectations of the people or person I'm meeting. I'm due to go on a business conference n 2 weeks time and in my head I've been looking for my get out clause...just a way to avoid going. I've been struggling for this one for the past year knowing full well that I need to go and as the time approaches my anxiety about it has been getting worse.

People often refer to voices in their head for me I just have this one big voice of self doubt. Others tell me how inspiring I am and how they look up to me, but, I don't see it and I am constantly battling with this voice of doubt in my head telling me I'm not good enough for those around me. I'm a strong believer that there is no worse company to be in than the company of solitude. As you are no doubt aware from my previous blog I struggle massively in social groups but at the same time I struggle equally as much in my own company. There are definitely times when my own company is worse, especially when I'm stressed and/or tired. Earlier on I mentioned how the situation with my friend festered in my brain. This is a prime example of my own company being my worst enemy. Having dropped them home I had a 30min drive home which gave time for me to breakdown every single detail of what had happened in my brain without a rational thought to be had.

I've tried to explain this whole situation to people in the past but it's very hard to understand myself let alone for others. People have asked how I cope and my answer is simply I have to. There have been times for me as probably anyone else where I've had enough and wanted to end it all. But again there's one reason that stops me and that is the question again, the fact that I want to be needed and appreciated.

This driving question is both a gift and a curse.

[ntrending]

The 2017 hurricane season is finally fading away. But what comes next?

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/the-2017-hurricane-season-is-finally-fading-away-but-what-comes-next/

The 2017 hurricane season is finally fading away. But what comes next?

We’re finally sailing through the waning days of 2017’s vicious hurricane season, which is poised to end just as it began: unnoticed. But these quiet days bookend the formation of 10 consecutive hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean—storms that upended the lives of millions.

An average year sees 12 named tropical storms, six of which go on to be hurricanes. Three of those hurricanes typically reach category three or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. This year saw 17 named storms, 10 of which strengthened into hurricanes and six of which reached category three or stronger. It was a truly awful hurricane season that will easily rank as one of the costliest on record, in terms of damage.

This hurricane season felt like two years stitched together—and not just because we experienced nearly twice as many hurricanes as usual.

The first half of the year was, frankly, underwhelming. Without cheating, could you name the first storm we saw in 2017? How about the fifth? The first storm, Arlene, popped up in May out in the middle of nowhere. The fifth was a tiny little thing that earned the name Emily as it twirled ashore near Tampa at the end of July. It was possible for Floridians to completely miss news of Tropical Storm Emily if they went to bed early on Sunday night and woke up late on Monday.

Then came Franklin.

An awful eight-week stretch began when Hurricane Franklin made landfall in Mexico at the beginning of August. Franklin was the first in a record-setting streak of 10 consecutive hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, a feat unseen since reliable records began with the advent of weather satellites in the 1960s. (Records for the Atlantic stretch back to the 1800s, but it’s likely that some storms went unnoticed before the satellite era.)

We saw six major hurricanes this year. Irma and Maria reached the top of the scale and hit land as category fives, and Harvey and Jose peaked as category fours. It’s not terribly unusual for at least one or two hurricanes to get this strong in a healthy hurricane season, but each storm managed to find just the right conditions to flourish and did so at just the wrong moment. Last month we took a look at the factors that helped make 2017 so ugly. A warmer Atlantic, a cooler Pacific, and fewer pulses of dry, dusty Saharan air helped this year’s storms explode to their greatest possible potential.

Storms are usually out at sea when they reach their peak intensity. That wasn’t the case this year. 2017 saw a gut-wrenching number of powerful landfalling hurricanes. One storm making one landfall is bad enough, but the storms we saw this year just kept hitting.

The disasters seemed to pile atop one another. Franklin and Katia both hit Mexico’s Gulf Coast very near the same spot east of Mexico City, with the latter coming just days after a deadly earthquake and putting strain on the country’s disaster response crews.

Harvey made landfall in Texas as a category four with winds of 130 MPH. The storm stalled and dumped several feet of rain in the following days, leading to historic flooding around Houston and killing dozens. And Irma was waiting to follow close behind.

The hurricane laid waste multiple Caribbean Islands before pummeling Florida. Barbuda sustained such heavy damage that all of the island’s inhabitants had to temporarily evacuate to sister island Antigua ahead of Hurricane Jose, depopulating the island for the first time in centuries. Irma’s close brush with Puerto Rico severely weakened its infrastructure at the worst possible time, setting the stage for the U.S. commonwealth’s worst modern disaster.

Hurricane Maria made landfall as a strong category four and destroyed what Irma had weakened. Most Puerto Ricans remain without electricity or reliable access to basic necessities nearly two months after the storm. Maria left behind comparable damage on the small island of Dominica, which took the brunt of the category five hurricane at its strongest.

Many of these hurricanes broke one record after another. Harvey was the first major hurricane to hit the United States in 12 years, and it produced the most rain ever seen from one tropical cyclone in the United States. Irma was the strongest hurricane on record outside of the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico, and it was one of the longest-lived category fives we’ve ever seen. Ophelia’s approach to Ireland was the farthest northeast we’ve ever recorded a major hurricane.

And yet, things could have been even worse. This season was a fantastic demonstration of how far weather forecasting has come over the decades. A season like this could have easily killed thousands of people not too long ago, without a network of satellites, radars, computer models, and experienced forecasters predicting the tracks of the storms with stunning accuracy. Forecasters also altered the way they issue warnings to help get the word out faster—a change directly influenced by Hurricane Sandy. A new weather satellite called GOES-16 helped us track the storms with unprecedented speed and clarity. The wonders of meteorology were on display this summer, and they helped save countless lives.

Some of these storm names will go down in infamy, never to be used again. The World Meteorological Organization, the meteorological arm of the United Nations, meets once a year to decide which hurricane names deserve retirement. Meteorologists retire the name of a particularly destructive or lethal hurricane to spare survivors the trauma of one day having to stare down another storm of the same name. We’re almost certainly never going to see storms named Harvey, Irma, or Maria ever again. When this year’s naming list is used again during the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, these names will be replaced with new ones.

Even as we sigh a cautious breath of relief as winter’s grip takes hold, it never hurts to look ahead. Official forecasts for the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season won’t come out until next spring. But it’s possible to get a few clues by looking at the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle in the Pacific.

Current projections indicate that the abnormal warming or cooling of the Pacific, which can significantly affect the atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, could be near neutral territory around the start of next year’s hurricane season. A neutral ENSO cycle—neither unusually warm nor cold—could portend a near-normal season. We’ll have a better idea in a few months of what could happen next summer, but it only takes one storm to make for a bad year.

Written By Dennis Mersereau

[organiclifestylemagazine]

Textile Industry's Health and Environmental Impacts - What Are You Wearing?

Amid today’s discussion of the renewable energy crisis and the impacts of fossil fuel harvest and consumption, many people are forgetting one major industry that is fed by the oil rigs – the textile industry.

This sleeping giant is responsible for greater environmental contamination and more waste than any other industry, and due to the unawareness of the general population, its demand is ever-increasing.

The discussion surrounding carbon emissions and fuel consumption is a worthwhile one to be had, for sure, but the silence surrounding the flagrant disregard for environmental safety in the textile industry is one that has gone on long enough.

It’s time to bust this can of worms wide open and acknowledge what many of us have wondered the extent of for some time – the vast and unconscionable lapse in ethics and environmental concern in the textile industry.

The Rise of Man-Made Fibers

Once upon a time, things were made with pretty simple materials, but the process was very time and labor intensive, and as the industry grew, one of the first areas it took hold in was in textiles. We went from small farmers hand-spinning wool to gigantic factories mass-producing fabrics by the ton.

As the manufacturing process expanded and was refined, modern “improvements” were made. Chemicals were added to the fabrics to help prevent wrinkles and shrinkage. The fabrics were soaked in great vats of artificial dyes and flame retardants, and soon the factory workers had to wear masks to compensate for the health hazards associated with working with these chemicals.

Then came the advent of a petroleum-based textile that many forget is a product of the big oil industry – polyester. This cheap fiber was much more cost-effective to produce than natural fibers like wool and cotton and could be made in any color or elasticity. Its versatility quickly contributed to its rise with every major clothing and textile retailer in the world. Polyester began its reign.

The Effects on Your Health

First, let’s scale things down a bit and focus on how the modern textile industry’s functionality is directly affecting you. After all, there’s no greater way to tug on the heartstrings of a populace and compel them to give a damn than to show them how it directly affects them, so let’s engage in a little shameless emotional manipulation here.

With their convenience and cost-savings, these artificial fibers and manufacturing methods brought a host of problems that, for the most part, still remain quietly under the rug. We’re surrounded by fabrics all the time, and most of us never give a second thought as to how those textiles came about or the consequences of their production.

Polyester is essentially a plastic – a petroleum-based product that’s the result of a long, toxic manufacturing process. Plastics themselves have been found to cause hormonal disruption and are strongly linked to the formation of breast cancer cells1.

The connections between health concerns and polyester and plastic are still being studied. Though polyester and plastic are derived from the same chemical compound, the finishing process creates a much different product. However, it has been discovered that polyester emits phytoestrogens3, which are known endocrine system disruptors and, are again, strongly linked with breast cancer.

The bottom line is, we’re still studying and understanding the long-term health effects of artificial fibers like polyester and the finishing processes that go into them. The textiles themselves are only the tip of the iceberg, and many printed clothes use PVC for screen printing – a compound that is considered so dangerous to human health, it’s been banned from use in water supply pipes and is on its way to being regulated out of the children’s toy industry4.

Flame retardant chemicals pose another threat entirely. Since synthetic fibers burn much more quickly than natural ones, manufacturers have taken to using a host of flame retardants decrease the flammability of these textiles. The result has certainly been effective at making products more fire safe, but the effects and health concerns linked to flame retardant chemicals are well known2, and many government regulation bodies are taking a stand against their use.

…levels of the chemicals in the blood of North Americans appear to have been doubling every two to five years for the past several decades.”

Acting on growing evidence that these flame retardants can accumulate in people and cause adverse health effects — interfering with hormones, reproductive systems, thyroid and metabolic function, and neurological development in infants and children — the federal government and various states have limited or banned the use of some of these chemicals, as have other countries.” ~Elizabeth Grossman, Yale Environment 360

Despite this knowledge, there is no blanket ban in the U.S. for flame retardant chemicals, and a staggering number of companies and manufacturers are still using chemical cocktails that run the gamut, from electronics to baby bedding. The result?

“Many infants are in physical contact with products treated with these chemicals 24 hours a day.”

It’s a scary thought that some of our most fragile, precious lives are the ones most frequently and consistently in contact with these items, but it’s the humbling truth, and it doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

Though legislation has been passed by a few state governments, the bottom line is that manufacturing of products drenched in these chemicals is still widespread, and the process isn’t likely to change until new formulations that are safer, but still effective at slowing fires, are developed.

How Do You Avoid Flame Retardant Chemicals?

The issue with flame retardant chemicals is a challenging one. We don’t want to expose ourselves and our children to chemicals that have been proven to be detrimental to our health, but in a world full of petroleum-based products that burn quickly and easily, it’s essential to protect ourselves from these highly flammable materials.

Companies have done some experimenting, but ultimately, what comes back is almost always another version of the same product with many of the same health concerns. The industries argue that these chemicals are saving lives, and who can debate that when the products they are treating are so highly flammable?

The solution is simple. We need to stop using highly flammable textiles in the first place. It all comes full circle back to petroleum-based products, and that’s where the majority of the issues lie. By sourcing products made from natural fibers, which burn much more slowly, we avoid the need for flame retardant chemicals.

We’re Poisoning Our Planet for Fabrics

It sounds sensationalist, but that’s as simple and cut and dried as it gets. The textile industry is responsible for a whopping 20% of industrial water pollution7, with many of the compounds being permanent fixtures in our world’s water supply. Cancer-causing endocrine disruptors and synthetic chemical compounds that won’t ever break down are now a part of our water supply, and there’s little hope of changing that.

Aside from the chemical cocktails that frequently pollute our water supply, there is a massive energy input needed for modern man-made textiles and a tremendous amount of waste in those industries. Most synthetic fibers are direct products of the petroleum industry, where a tremendous amount of energy is needed just to harvest the raw materials, let alone convert it to fabric.

The process of turning petroleum into polyester is a nasty one. Factory workers, many of them children, often experience horrible work conditions and face a host of health issues. The superheating of the materials needed to create polyester is horribly energy-intensive, and the by-products are known to cause lasting, long-term, and often debilitating health effects.

Textile Safety and Sustainability – Even Natural Fibers Aren’t Exempt

Despite the stunning array of health and environmental concerns associated with man-made fibers and their chemical processes, it’s only fair to shed light on another issue that’s similarly troubling – the impacts of conventional agriculture on the natural fiber industry.

It’s an unfortunate fact that the cotton industry accounts for 6.8% of worldwide pesticide use and 16% of insecticide use, despite being grown on only 2.5% of the world’s agricultural lands5. Conventional cotton farming methods are far from sustainable. And the worst part? Those chemicals are in your clothes.

The health risks associated with the use of pesticides for humans is well-known and documented with the primary concerns being for neurological issues, endocrine system disruption, respiratory problems, and even cancer6.

Healthy Alternatives to Toxic Textiles

In a market so rampantly saturated with the use of pesticides, the best thing you can do for your health and safety is to source organic cotton and wool products whenever possible. Organic cotton is grown without the use of synthetic pesticides and is typically grown in areas with greater regulation for worker safety – not factories and child-labor powered institutions.

Wool is a fantastic material as well that is often produced by small farmers, so purchasing it is a great way to support them. Organic mattresses often use a combination of organic wool and organic cotton. Natural latex options are a great way to avoid polyesters in furniture and mattresses, and there are even some manufactured foam products that are made without the use of nasty chemicals like formaldehyde and parabens. Of course, organic cotton and wool are also a great choice for mattresses, pillows, and furniture cushions.

Take a good hard look around your home, and you’ll see that petroleum-based products dominate our lives. From plastics to polyesters, these products seem unavoidable, but the health effects and environmental concerns are too far-reaching to overlook.

It’s time to start making better product selections. Get started with the area of your home where your skin makes the most contact with synthetic fibers every day – your bed. Natural mattresses are a crucial stepping stone to putting your foot down and saying no to the toxic, unsustainable practices of the textile industry.

OEKO-TEX: The Easy Way to Spot Safe Materials

If you’re buying lots of manufactured items like baby toys, bedding, and equipment, OEKO-TEX maintains a fabulous standard for vetting products and materials for safety compliance. This third-party testing system consists of an international group of scientists and laboratories who offer their certifications to products meeting their stringent standards and objective test criteria.

There is no data manipulation, no conflict of interest – just the information you need to make an informed purchase decision. If a product has met their standards for testing, they won’t be quiet about it. Look for the label or a mention of this certification in product descriptions.

It gets pretty technical, but if you’d like to take a look for yourself, dive into the OEKO-TEX guidelines here. Now we recommend you clean out your closet and check out Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System, and make sure you’re sleeping on a nontoxic mattress like the ones below.

Related Products:

Green Lifestyle Market – Home

Recommended Reading:

Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included

How Himalayan Salt Lamps Work

Why your Couch is Killing You

Animal Textiles

Hemp

Corporations, Our Health, and a History of Failed Technologies

Sources:

What is the connection between chemicals and breast cancer? – Tufts Journal

Are Flame Retardants Safe? Growing Evidence Says ‘No’ – YaleEnvironment 360

Is polyester upholstery fabric bad for our health? – Doctor Healthy

Is your T-shirt toxic? – Green Living

The risks of cotton farming – Organic Cotton

Effects of Pesticides on Human Health – Toxipedia

Sustainability of textiles – Retail Forum for Sustainability

  Textile Industry’s Health and Environmental Impacts – What Are You Wearing? was originally published on Organic Lifestyle Magazine