#The whole team is now having a crisis because they realize that means Danny has died

[dani-halfa]

Danny Phantom: Arcs and build up

Okay, let's talk about character arcs, continuity and built up.

Usually when writing a story in a series, there are some episodes dedicated to exploring certain story elements that later become important for the plot. This isusually called "foreshadowing" or "built up".

Foreshadowing is when the writer gives certain clues about what is going to happen next in the story without being explicit about it.

"Build up" is when there are some episodes that set up for a important event in the story. For example: A character becoming evil. Before the character turns completely evil, they are likely to have a few episodes exploring how they are slowly getting worse until they finally decide to betray the heroes. This really helps feeling the character's arc more realistic as their development didn't feel like came of nowhere.

Now let's talk about Reign Storm, The ultimate enemy and arcs in Danny Phantom.

Danny phantom is a character driven series, so when talking about arcs i'm going to refer to them as "character arcs".

Let's start with Vlad's character arc:

Vlad Masters is first introduced in the episode 7 in season 1 "Bitter reunions". In this episode we learn about his motivations, personality, goals and backstory. We know that he wants to get his revenge on Jack, and make Maddie and Danny "join him". Another of his personal goals is stealing and becoming more powerful.

Near the end of the episode Vlad foreshadows that he is going to see Danny again some time.

In "Shades of Gray" he is the one that gives Valerie the ghost hunter equipment, he makes a small cameo spying on her to check if she got her package.

In "Maternal instincts" we get to see more about his character and "fruitloopness" as Danny would put it. "Bitter reunions" made it clear he is a "fruitloop" but "Maternal instincs" proofs this even further by showing his extreme methods to get what he wants are.

"Maternal instincts" he still wants to Maddie and Danny to be his family. He ends up ruining his relationship with Maddie ( she thought of him as a close friend) and Danny even more. He's so desperate to the point that he really believed Danny wants to be his son after everything that happened.

In "Million Dollar Ghost" he tries stealing the Skeleton Key. After escaping from the guardian, his ghost portal blews up and goes to the Amity Park to steal Fenton's portal.

In a "Million Dollar Ghost" he also tries to break the bond between Jack and Danny, however, his main goal is the ghost portal. After he is beaten by no other than Jack. He accidentally finds the Skeleton Key but the guardian eats him.

Up until this point we know that:

Vlad wants to do something with the Skeleton Key (Reign Storm).

He has ruined his relationship with Danny and Maddie, both realizing what kind of person he is.

His main goals and motivations.

He is using Valerie for his own goals.

He is the one the gave the equipment to Valerie.

Now, Valerie's arc:

Her character is really first developed in "Shades of Gray". We all already know her backstory at this point: She used to be a rich girl that used to hang out with the popular kids until one day Cujo and Danny as Phantom made her dad lose his job at Axiom Labs and that ruined her life. She lost her own social status and her friends left her.

This made her hate ghosts with a burning passion. After receiving a package from Vlad, she started to train to become a ghost hunter and hunt Phantom.

Later in "Life lessons" she teams up with Danny (Phantom) to escape and fight Skulker,who was trying to hunt them down.

Valerie and Danny in the same episode start developing feelings for each other after Danny tries to make up to Valerie by helping her with her second job. She also learns that not all ghosts are totally evil, which becomes crucial in future episodes.

So until now we know that:

Valerie hates ghosts due to an incident that ruined her life.

Has a crush on Danny but doesn't like Phantom.

Is Training to be a ghost hunter

Her relationship with Danny is very complicated.

I noticed how Valerie has only two episodes in season 1 despite being one of the most interesting characters in the show.

As for Danny's arc:

Since he is the protagonist, i'll write a short summary of his arc in season 1:

This season is mainly about him learning how to control his powers while growing up into a responsible teenager. In some episodes, he slowly grows to understand that not all ghosts are evil and don´t want to harm anyone (Like Cujo and Wulf). He also solves conflicts without his "punching first,ask questions later". He grows closer with his family, specially his sister Jazz, who finds about his secret.

Besides these character arcs "Fright Night" is an episode that introduces the Fright Night, who later serves as a secondary antagonist in "Reign Storm".

Why did i talked about all these arcs? Because they all become important for Reign Storm.

Danny's, Vlad's and Valerie's arcs were all building up for this specific episode. So, when you watch this "Reign Storm" you already know who these characters are, their personalities and development.

You know where Vlad got the key to open the ghost king's prision. You know about Danny's and Vlad's rivalry. You know why Valerie decides to team up with Phantom. You also know all the ghosts that help Danny during his battle against the Ghost King.

Reign Storm is a great episode on its own but it works so well because of all the set up and foreshadowing in season 1. It feels rewarding so see everything paying off in this episode.

Now i'm going to explain my issue with The Ultimate Enemy:

There's very little built up and foreshadowing for such an important episode.

I mean,look at this:

There are only two episode between Reign Storm and The ultimate enemy.

Identity Crisis, which establishes that halfas can be separated.

The fenton Menace that focus on Danny and Jazz relationship and is important for the special.

There is very little build up to Dan's character or his tragic origins. Or how crazy the whole episode is in comparison to the rest of the series.

You could argue that "Control Freaks" and "Memory Blank" foreshadow alternative timelines and Dan (even if Memory Blank makes no sense). But still doesn't feel enough. The series would need more a few more episodes to develop Danny´s character.

Like, why no an episode about him hurting someone with his ghost powers? Or him thinking he is turning evil? Why no an episode about Vlad showing he still has some humanity left inside him foreshadowing his alternative future self?

It doesn't help that The ultimate enemy lacks continuity: Danny having a dark side? Vlad actually showing he is capable of feeling sorry? Danny going to an alternative future caused by him and not having nightmares about it? A Fusion of two powerful ghosts? The ending hinting at Dan returning? (Which he never did because the show was cancelled)

Sure, Jazz and Danny relationship changes ,that's great, and Clockwork appears in Masters of time again.

However, The ultimate enemy introduced so many great concepts and they weren´t that well-explored in later episodes, which is a pity. The special itself is very entertaining but i think i would had worked better as a story arc finale and not airing two episodes after Reign Storm.

It´s also a bit weird since there are other episodes that have build up like Flirting with Disaster, Secret Weapons, Kindred Spirits yet this The Ultimate Enemy doesn´t.

I would have really liked for the writers of show to have more time to create an arc about Dan and not just two episodes. Or at least return in a season finale. That would have been a great idea.

#Danny Phantom #Dan Phantom #dark danny #vlad plasmius #Vlad Masters #valerie gray #danny fenton #jazz fenton #Reign Storm #the ultimate enemy #DP characters arcs #dp analysis

[kinglazrus]

Therefore I am

Phic phight 2020

Submitted by @kili-kai-wox (kilikani on ffn): Danny is surprised when he receives an A+. I wonder what subject it could be from?

Summary: There are two things Danny never expected to get out of his philosophy class: an A+ and to be confronted about his never-ending existential crisis

Warnings: discussion of/thoughts about death and the meaning of death.

Word count: 2971

Today is a grim day for Danny Fenton. It just might be the end of him. He's backed into a corner, enemies approached from all sides. His allies have abandoned him. Friends, family, all gone. He's on his own out here and it doesn't look like he's going to make it. Rations are getting low.

Jazz slaps her hand against her forehead and groans. "Don't be so dramatic!"

Danny, pinned against the lockers by his friends and sisters, howls in outrage. "I'm almost out of gummy bears!" He shoves the near empty plastic bag in Jazz's face, shaking it furiously. "And look! It's mostly just the white ones! I might as well starve."

"Ooh, I love the white ones!" Tucker snatches the bag out of Danny's hand. Fishing a few gummies out, he pops them into his mouth and chews, a blissful smile on his lips.

Danny moans. "My rations."

Sam rolls her eyes.

Danny was on his way to the cafeteria for lunch when they cornered him. They came out of nowhere, surging out from the crowd of shuffling students, surrounding him before he could realize what was happening.

With Jazz in front of him, Sam to his left, and Tucker to his right, they block off all routes of escape. Except the ghostly ones, but too many students are milling about for him to safely use his powers.

Danny doesn't like the look in their eyes. Sam's eager glint, Tucker's grin, Jazz's stern frown. They all set him on edge.

"Can I just please go to lunch?" he begs. Thanks to Skulker, Danny didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning, except a handful of cereal. The only thing he wants right now is to go get some food, even if it's the crappy cardboard pizza they serve in the cafeteria. He needs sustenance damn it!

Tucker stealing his gummy bears is the deepest betrayal he could get right now.

"No," Jazz and Sam say at the same time.

Tucker stealing his gummy bears is the second deepest betrayal.

"Come on, man," Tucker says around a mouthful of gummies. "Just spill it."

"It wasn't my fault," Danny whines, wilting against the lockers. Jazz's frown deepens, turning from disappointment into a full-blown pout. Left with no other choice, Danny relents. "Fine! But I'm telling you, he was asking for it."

He's about to expose his plans but stops when he catches their confused faces. "What?" he asks.

"Lancer was asking for it?" Sam asks. She leans against the lockers next to Danny, eyebrow raised.

"Lancer?"

"Yeah. Mikey told us what happened in philosophy class. And we told Jazz," Tucker says. "What do you think we're talking about?"

Danny thinks about his parents' new ecto grenade—completely harmless to humans, of course—rigged up in Dash's locker, ready to explode as soon as someone opens the door. "It's not important right now. Philosophy? I got an A, yeah. Awesome, right?"

"And you didn't tell me!" Jazz says, offended.

Oh, Danny thinks. That's why she looked disappointed. He doesn't know how he was supposed to tell her, though, because this is the first time he's seen her all morning.

"Dude, you didn't just get an A," Tucker says.

"Okay, A+."

"Dude."

Sam, exasperated, grabs Danny's shoulders and forcibly turns him toward her. "Mikey told us how Lancer stood up at the front of the class and said your paper was the best he'd ever read in that class."

"Oh." Danny's cheeks burn and he ducks his head. "Yeah. That."

When he turned the paper in last week, he honestly thought he would fail the assignment. The night before it was due, Cujo managed to dig his way out of the Ghost Zone again and immediately wanted to play. Danny was happy to oblige since, for once, he had all his homework done on time and there were no ghosts to take care of that night. The real trouble came when he had to go downstairs for dinner, leaving Cujo in his room with a stern reminder not to leave it.

Miraculously, Cujo obeyed the command. But that meant there was a bored, excitable puppy in Danny's room, alone, for almost an hour, with nothing to play with. His room hadn't been neat when he left it, but it was trashed by the time he came back. His backpack was particularly mangled, and his essay ripped to shreds.

Danny hadn't thought Lancer would accept "a ghost dog ate my homework," as an excuse for not having the assignment done. But he no longer had the library books he used to write the damn thing in the first place. Which meant he had to replace his typed, carefully referenced, well-thought out essay with a rushed, handwritten mess that consisted only of Danny's personal thoughts.

Suffice to say, he wasn't too confident in the new essay. The last thing he expected was to get a passing grade for it, much less actual praise. Danny doesn't get praise, not outside hero work, at least. He gets lots of sighs and disappointed looks. Maybe a stern, "This is proof you can do better," when he pulls a grade higher than a D. But not praise. Never praise.

"It was... something," Danny says. He doesn't usually get embarrassed by attention, although that doesn't necessarily mean he likes it either. But getting called out by Lancer in front of the whole class was an entirely new experience.

Before Lancer started handing out the papers, he had stood at the front of the class and waved the stack in the air.

"I have to say, I'm very impressed by the work some of you did. Very thoughtful," he started. "But there is one paper in particular that I would like to bring up."

Lancer shuffled through the stack, shifting everything around until a bundle of loose leaf ripped from a notebook sat on top. The pages were stapled poorly, and the handwriting was borderline illegible. Danny knew instantly it was his and expected the worst.

"This paper was, perhaps, the most insightful essay I've ever read in all my time teaching this class," Lancer said. He beamed in Danny's direction. "It was speculative, introspective, and intuitive. Written purely from the student's own thoughts on life and death. This is what philosophy is about, and I hope I can see similar work from the rest of you in the future."

Danny sank into his seat as Lancer walked down the aisle, heading right for him, and held his paper out.

"Thanks," Danny muttered, taking his assignment. He couldn't bear to lift his gaze and meet the burning stares of his peers. The worst part, though was when Lancer asked to see Danny at the end of the day.

"Are you gonna go?" Tucker asks.

"I don't know." Danny's grip on his backpack tightens as he thinks about the paper stuffed inside. "I'm not in trouble or anything, and it didn't really sound like I have to go."

"I think you should." Jazz reaches out and ruffles Danny's hair, smiling proudly at him. "You did good, little brother. You're smart, and Lancer knows that. Whatever he wants to talk to about, I'm sure it's good."

Danny grumbles, shoving Jazz's hand away and fixing his hair. He doesn't make it neat, but he messes it up the way he likes it to be messed up. There's a difference.

"I guess. As long as no ghosts interrupt, I'll go," Danny says. Jazz is right—she usually is, much to his chagrin. Whatever Lancer wants, after what he said about Danny's paper, it has to be good. But he still hopes the Box Ghost shows up so that Danny doesn’t have to go.

"Can I have my gummy bears back?" Danny asks, turning to Tucker.

Tucker, cheeks puffed with gummies, looks down at the empty bag. He slowly shakes his head. "I don't think you want them back."

—

Danny hesitates outside Lancer's door. The final bell rang five minutes ago, and most students have already fled the school grounds. The football team is still here, somewhere, because they have practice in half an hour. Everyone else is out front waiting for their buses. Jazz left in the initial crowd. Sam and Tucker offered to hang around and wait for him, but Danny waved them off and told them to go ahead. They have better things to do.

It crosses Danny's mind that he can lie to them. If he skips out and only tells them he talked to Lancer, they will probably accept it and leave it at that. Jazz might probe him a little about it, but if he acts annoyed about it, she'll stop. But he's being ridiculous. There's no real reason why he can't walk through this door right now and get this over with. Jazz is right. It's probably a good thing. But something about it sets Danny on edge.

Sighing heavily, he reaches out and knocks on Lancer's door, standing on his toes to peek through the window.

Lancer, sitting at his desk, grading a pile of new assignments, looks up. He sees Danny and smiles, waving him inside.

Danny pauses for a second, then turns the handle and steps into the room.

"Please, Mr. Fenton, close the door and take a seat," Lancer says.

Danny does as told, closing the door a little too hard, and shuffles over to the desk closest to Lancer's. Swinging his backpack off his shoulder, he sets it down on the floor beside him and slides into the chair.

While Lancer makes a few more notes on the paper in front of him, Danny scans the classroom. Sometimes it feels like he spends half his day in this room. Lancer teaches a surprising number of courses. Danny's almost impressed by the range. Little hints of each course are scattered throughout the room. A poster about calculating surface area by the window, a cartoonish timeline of US history along the top of the wall, aperiodic table taking up most of the back wall.

For philosophy, there's a collage of famous philosophers taped to the front of Lancer's desk. Danny thinks a former student made it, because it's just some images cut out and glued onto a stiff piece of poster board.

Danny stares at each face in the collage, trying to recognize them. Friedrich Nietzsche is the only one he can identify by name. The only reason Danny remembers him in the first place is his wild mustache. Hard to forget something like that.

"Mr. Fenton."

Danny's head snaps up, gaze jumping to Lancer.

"I'd like to congratulate you again for writing such a wonderful paper" Lancer says. "But I had a few questions."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Are you okay, Mr. Fenton?"

Danny blinks. "I­­­– what?"

"In your paper, you spoke a lot about death, dying, and our perceptions of life now that we know there is some form of afterlife. Some of your points were rather... personal."

Danny thinks back over his paper. The moment he realized he had to make the whole thing up, he decided to talk about the one philosophical debate he was personally invested in: the significance of life after death. He mentioned his parents' views on the matter, that ghosts are mindless monsters, but mostly spoke about his own and what questions he had about it. Thanks to his personal experience with dying, he had a lot to talk about.

Lancer reaches for an open notebook sitting on his desk. Lifting it up, he scans the page for a moment, then reads, "'Some people falsely believe ghosts are not, and never were, human, but are instead creatures from another dimension connected to our own. While some ghosts definitely aren't human, I have met countless that were. They remember living and dying, and there is evidence of their human lives left behind. What does this mean for people who are still living? If we can die and nothing changes for us, does dying matter at all?'"

Danny immediately recognizes his own words. Lancer must have written down what Danny said in his essay. It makes him uncomfortable. He doesn’t want his thoughts lying around where anyone can read them. He especially doesn't want Lancer to pick and choose them at random for whatever this conversation is.

"That doesn't really sound personal," Danny mutters.

"No, it doesn't," Lancer agrees. "But the things you go on to say after this point are concerning, to say the least. Which brings me back to my original question. Are you okay?"

Danny's face scrunches as he thinks. So what if he got personal? It's a personal matter. That was the whole point when he wrote it. He doesn't understand what Lancer's getting at.

Lancer sighs and keeps going. "'Lots of people think about what happens after they die. Usually, they're talking about religion and what waits for them on the other side. Personally, I wonder about what happens to everything I leave behind, and what dying would do for me.' Would you like to expand on that?"

Danny leans away. "No?"

"What dying would do for you," Lancer repeats.

"What are you­­– oh." Finally, realization dawns on Danny. He squirms uncomfortably. "I'm not– I don't want to–"

He cuts himself off with a sight. How is he supposed to explain what's going on in his head without giving his secret away? Danny's not okay, but he isn't not okay, either. He's just... dead.

He died, but he lived, and it changed him. And yet, at the same time, nothing changed at all. In the grand scheme of things, Danny died and everything stayed the same. No one noticed, except his friends, who were there and are probably scarred for life.

Besides, Danny lived, in the end. So he's supposed to be fine, right? But he doesn't know how to deal with going through something that traumatic and realizing it didn't matter.

Ghosts look at life differently. They don't regret dying because once you're dead, whatever led up to that point no longer matters. They remember their lives, but they don't care about them. If Danny had died all the way that day, he wouldn't care either. Thinking about that messes him up.

Lancer watches him expectantly. Danny realizes he's been silent for too long, and he has to say something.

"It's complicated."

"We have the time, if you'd like to try," Lancer says.

Danny shakes his head. "I really don't. You don't need to be worried about me, or anything. I don’t want to die or anything. I just..."

My whole life is just one big existential crisis.

"Mr. Fenton." Lancer stands up, pushing away from his desk.

Danny keeps his eyes on the philosophy collage as Lancer approaches. Holding himself perfectly still, he doesn’t look away, even as Lancer crouches next to Danny's desk.

"Okay."

There's nothing special about the word, or the way Lancer says it. He has no clue what's going on in Danny's mind right now, but he's looking at Danny with warm eyes, offering him a comforting smile, and Danny actually feels like he could be okay.

"For whatever it's worth, Mr. Fenton, I don't think my days would be the same without you. But I understand."

He really doesn't, but Danny appreciates the effort.

"If this isn't something you'd like to talk about with me, I won't push it. Perhaps I could have approached you more delicately about the matter." Lancer pats Danny's shoulder. "I hope you will talk to someone, if you need it. And don't let this stop you from pursuing your interest in philosophy."

Danny doesn't have the heart tell Lancer he only took the class because he thought it would be easy.

"You have a knack for it."

"Um, thank you," Danny says.

Lancer pats him again, then stands. "Don't let me keep you. I'm sure, as you students would say, you have to get vibing."

Danny grimaces. "We really wouldn't."

Dismissed, he gathers up his backpack and practically sprints to the door, yanking it open. Halfway out, he pauses, looking back over his shoulder. Lancer is back at his desk already, resuming his grading.

"Thanks, Mr. Lancer," Danny says. "You're not really 'hip', but... you are kind of cool."

He runs out of the room before Lancer can respond. Lips pressed in a firm line, he contemplates whether today was good or bad after all. A+ on his essay? Good. Getting praised in front of the class? It sounded good, but it felt bad and it was awkward as hell. Tucker eating all his gummy bears? Definitely bad.

The talk he just had with Lancer? Debatable.

Danny rounds the corner, heading for the front doors, and almost barrels right into Dash. He swerves at the last second—thank you reflexes—and skitters out of Dash's way.

"Watch it, Fenfreak," Dash says.

Danny rolls his eyes. "You get more creative every day, Dash. Why are you even still here?"

"Practice tonight, duh," Dash says.

Right. Danny gives Dash a critical look. "Going to your locker?" he asks.

"My stuff's already in the gym, dweeb. Why do you care?"

"I just thought I saw Paulina put some in there early. Could have been a love letter or something." Danny shrugs.

An eager gleam enters Dash's eye. Danny almost feels sorry for the poor guy. He's probably the only person who can't tell Paulina is hopelessly in love with Star. Why else would Paulina say she can't date any boys because she's saving herself for the ghost boy? Seriously.

Dash runs for his locker, yanking it open. As a resounding bang echoes down the hall and green go splatters all over the walls, floor, ceiling, and Dash, Danny finally makes up his mind. Today is a very good day.

#phic phight #phic phight 2020 #tw discussion of death #danny phantom #danny phantom fanficion #phanfic #phicc #tumblroneshots #lancer is a good teacher #lancer bonding #sort of #dash gets pranked because why not

[coll2mitts]

#77 Grease (1978)

Slick your hair back and grab your team jacket, we’re hand-jiving our way through Grease, a movie about bunch of hot, self-motivated ladies with their whole futures ahead of them settling for a bunch of schmucks.

Grease is a strange experience to relive as an adult, because it was (as I suspect with a lot of people) ever-present in my childhood, and I didn’t understand the great majority of references then.  This movie was intended as an 8th birthday present from my mother; I came home from school one day and the VHS was sitting on our kitchen countertop unwrapped.  I didn’t recognize it, so when I asked my mom what it was, she feigned confusion for about 10 seconds before she gave up and said, “I bought it for your birthday, I guess you get it early now.”  She promised me I’d like it when I popped it into the VHS player, and she wasn’t wrong.  I hadn’t watched this movie in over a decade and I still could recite the majority of the dialogue.

While this movie is a toned down significantly from the stage show, it is still fairly raunchy in parts.  What is kind of hilarious to me is Grease’s gradual shift in categorization over time as a “kids musical”.  In 5th grade, my sister played Sandy in her elementary school’s production of it.  I asked if she remembered any of the lines they changed to keep things “appropriate” (the Kidz Bopification, if you will) and she responded, “No, I just thought it was weird I had to go out and buy a sexy outfit.”  Conversely, my 5th grade play was about the history of America and I dressed up like Martha Washington.  I’ll never forget the 50 Nifty United States from 13 original colonies... SHOUT ‘em, SCOUT ‘em, TELL all about 'em, ONE BY ONE till we’ve given a day to every state in the U-S-A.  AL-A-bama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, CON-NE-TI-CUT...

Anyway, do I think it’s weird that a movie about a bunch of horny teenagers has become Baby’s First Adult Musical?  Sorta.  Not really.  I mean, the dudes act like children for the majority of this, so I’m not surprised, at least.  It had, for sure, turned me off from wanting to date high school dudes when I was in high school.  The high school girls, however... we’ll get there.

It’s the first day of school, and the oldest high school seniors I’ve ever seen are poised to take on their last year at Rydell High.  The “T” Birds and their very uncool matching jackets are reunited after a summer apart and their super-senior leader Kenickie, played by the late Jeff Conaway, regales the tale of lugging boxes to earn money for a sweet ride, which you could feasibly do back in the 1950s.  Danny, played by John Travolta, spent his summer getting action at the beach, which he eloquently describes as “flippin’”.  

Frenchy and her new neighbor Sandy rendezvous with the Pink Ladies, who have very cool matching jackets and the unabashed confidence to go with them.  Stockard Channing, who plays Rizzo, is turned off by Sandy’s pure, seemingly holier-than-thou persona, and is dismayed when Sandy starts to describe her sickly sweet summer romance.  Her interest is only piqued when Sandy mentions her hunky date was notorious playboy and Rizzo’s ex, Danny Zuko.  

Sidenote: When I was a child, I thought Sonny asked if her “jugs were bigger than her nets”.  I asked my mother what “nets” were, since I surmised that jugs meant breasts, and she didn’t know, which I thought was weird.  It wasn’t until THIS MOMENT that I realized he was asking if her jugs were bigger than Annette’s.  Who the fuck is Annette?  Like the Mickey Mouseketeer Annette?!  Rizzo sings about her later and I’m just like.. this revelation has lead to more questions than answers.

Rizzo hatches a plan to call Danny out on his shit and reunite Sandy with Danny at the school pep rally, as they know her boyfriend is an asshat.  He predictably reacts maturely; Not wanting to admit his previous story of getting fresh with some cute Australian girl down in the sand was somewhat hyperbolic, he plays it off like he doesn’t give a shit about her, reducing Sandy to tears.  Frenchy comforts Sandy like the supportive queen that she is and invites her to join the Pink Ladies at a sleepover.

Honestly, a Pink Ladies sleepover looks lit as fuck.  As a kid (and now, tbh) I was Jan, I wanted to be Marty, I wanted to fuck Rizzo, and I wanted Frenchy as my best friend.  I would totally be down to drink champagne, eat Twinkies and mutilate our body parts with needles.  Sandy is a bit of a late bloomer and reacts to these series of events by puking.  Rizzo decides to be a bit of a slag and make fun of Sandy for being an inexperienced virgin before shimming down a drainpipe to get laid by some jerk with a shitty car and a 6-year-old condom.

Sandy, whose night has done nothing to alleviate her heartbreak, sings a song about being in love with a coward.  Part of the deal Oliva Newton-John signed to be cast in this movie specified she have her own solo number, so “Hopelessly Devoted” was written and filmed after the rest of the movie had been completed.  This feel pretty obvious, since it gives off a very strong 1970s pop Best Original Song vibe.  When I was a kid, I used this song as a break to use the bathroom or grab a snack, but as an adult I find myself humming it every so often.

Speaking of contract-obligated solos, we’re treated to a Travolta-led “Greased Lightning”, which I always thought was weird, cause like, who is going to sing a song about their friend getting tit in their sweet car?  Jeff Conaway played Danny on Broadway, he deserved better...  Also, I’m CONVINCED this song got the Pop-Up Video treatment, but couldn’t find it online anywhere.  Otherwise, how the hell else would the fact that they thought John Travolta putting the saran wrap on his crotch was too racy live rent free in my head for like 20 years?

After encountering Sandy on a date with a jock, Danny decides he’s going to join a sports team to prove to her he can be a motivated team player.  Instead, he just physically assaults several members of his school, but it’s fine because he’s wearing a uniform when he does it.  This is enough to impress Sandy, as she accepts Danny’s invitation to the school dance.

The other gang members are going through their own drama, as Rizzo is sick of giving it up to Kenickie without receiving a modicum of respect.  

“A hickey from Kenickie is like a Hallmark card.  When you care enough to send the very best.”

Danny regresses and continues to act like a shithead to Sandy in front of her friends.

“I don’t like tea.” “You don’t have to drink tea!” “Well, I don’t like parents.”

Jan and Putzie begin an innocent and adorable romance, which proves it’s possible to start off a relationship with mutual respect, even if your friends make fun of you for it.

“I also think there’s more to you than just fat.” “...Thanks.”

I love this scene, there’s so many good lines.

Frenchy, who had dropped out of Rydell to pursue a career in cosmetology, is also in crisis as her stint in beauty school went very poorly.  After hours, she somehow hallucinates Frankie Avalon advising her to get her high school degree.

As a child, I was so proud of myself when I realized all these women played other roles in the movie, as if facial recognition was an important skill.

The day of the big dance finally arrives, as National Bandstand comes to Rydell High with roofie-wielding predator and television host Vince Fontaine.  Rizzo arrives with the leader of the rival gang, while Kenickie has his best girl, Cha Cha, as his date, because they are both very well-adjusted teenagers that know how to work through conflict by communicating and not using desperate attempts to make each other jealous.  Danny and Sandy are cutting up a rug until Sonny attempts to physically assault Sandy, and Danny just lets it happen because another one of his exes, Cha Cha, starts to dance with him while Sandy is rebuffing Sonny’s advances.  Cha Cha and Danny subsequently win the contest.  Honestly, this is so fucked up, I would have dropped Danny after this lapse of good judgement.

But no, Sandy still allows him to take her on a date to the drive-in, and it’s not until he elbows her in the boob and then tries to cop a feel in front of everybody that she finally blows him off.  Then he has the absolute gall to act emo about it because he’s afraid people will think he’s a loser.  Jesus Christ.

Kenickie is also hurting, as he discovers that Rizzo is pregnant and she doesn’t want anything to do with him, regardless of what being an unwed mother will do to her reputation.  He decides to process these emotions by racing Greased Lighting for pink slips, as he likes to live his life a quarter mile at a time.  Unfortunately, Danny steals Kenickie’s thunder (road) yet again, as he’s forced to take his place in the race because of a car door-related closed head injury.  Sandy is impressed by Danny’s driving skillz and decides to sex herself up for an unreliable and emotionally manipulative teenager.  Danny has a similar inclination and decides to put on a nice sweater to win Sandy back, which is something, I guess.  They declare they’re the one each other needs, oh yes indeed.

The school year ends, and all the boys end up paired with the girls.  Rizzo finds out she’s not pregnant and reunites with Kenickie?!  Marty ends up with Sonny even though he’s a handsy creep.  Danny and Sandy are just an mess with incompatible expectations of each other.  But at least Jan and Putzie and Frenchy and Doodie are fairly inoffensive.  The end.

This movie is great, even all these years later.  The entire cast is fantastic, even those with smaller bit parts.  I was *living* for the school staff, Principal McGee and Coach Calhoun especially.  Grease also jump started my lifelong love for Stockard Channing.  She’s great in The West Wing, but her part as Sister Husband in Where the Heart Is may be my favorite performance of hers.  I’ve watched that movie so many times I can’t even call it a guilty pleasure, I love it so much.

Olivia Newton-John wasn’t even sure she wanted to be in this movie and requested a screen test so she could see if she was good at acting.  John Travolta was enamored with her and helped convince Olivia she was perfect for the part, and he wasn’t wrong.  She gives such a strong performance as Sandy; I bought her transformation from clean-cut cinnamon roll to sexpot completely.  John Travolta was also unbelievably charming as Danny, and I found myself giggling at his line deliveries constantly.

The songs are also unbelievably catchy (albeit somewhat annoying after you’ve heard them 700 times).  Barry Gibb, my favorite Pras-adjacent composer, wrote the theme for the movie and it just bops so hard.  As a well-documented detractor of Doo Wop music, there’s not a whole lot else here for me, but that’s not going to blind me to the excellence of this soundtrack.  There is a reason this movie is revered as much as it is.  10/10, fun for the whole family, as long as the kids don’t understand the references.

#100 best musical movies of all time rotten tomatoes #unwarranted opinion #grease

[youveneverbeenalone]

Inktober for Writers/Fictober:

Day 27- Cage (Darejones)

So, two out of three ain’t bad. At this point, it’s likely that I’ll stay behind, but I will still finish, so help me. I took liberties with today’s prompt, because I don’t think that whoever created this list meant for it to be interpreted this way, but oh well. Also, sorry but they needed to argue a little more. This piece fits with all the others from this month, though is a direct sequel to Day 7- Confusion.

As always, prompt list here list here, and links to previous days at the bottom. Let me know your thoughts if you’re so inclined. Thanks for all the support!

Day 27

Their second big fight is almost entirely his fault. And it all starts with a question.

But it’s not really a fair question, and he knows it, though he has to do something to make up for the fact that she practically forced him to get checked by Claire. And it’s not that he doesn’t like seeing Claire, but lately she makes him feel uneasy, and pretty damn guilty - particularly when Luke is around. So when they get to his place and he’s in his room changing out of his armor, he calls over his shoulder to her where she sits on the couch, drink in hand.

“So what all happened between you and Cage?” He uses the most innocent tone he can, but immediately her heart starts to race, and a flush rises on her cheeks.

“Why do you want to know?” She sounds particularly cagey as she answers him, and he can feel her staring daggers into his back as he steps into his sweat pants.

He carefully pulls on a t-shirt, minding the bandaged wound at his side, and gathers up his suit as he walks out toward his under-the-stairs closet.

He shrugs, still working hard to keep his voice neutral. “No reason in particular. He just made a comment tonight which confirmed my previously unvoiced assumption that you two used to date.” He pulls open the doors and places his gear in its trunk, and he hears her scoff and mumble under her breath.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘dating’.”

He closes the trunk with a huff of a laugh and crosses toward her on the couch, cocking his head at her. “Well, do you mind if I ask what happened?”

The sigh she lets out is long and exasperated, almost pained. She’s silent for long enough that he starts to wonder if he should have let these particular sleeping dogs lie. But after an awkward beat, she throws back the rest of her drink, wiping her mouth with the back of hand as she swallows. Then she speaks, voice clipped.

“I’m an asshole. That’s what happened.”

His brows start to furrow because her tone is nothing but bitter self-reproach, and he didn’t mean to poke what is clearly still a very sore spot.

“Jess, I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. I just thought it might help to talk about it, because you still get a little tense whenever he’s aroun-”

But he doesn’t get the chance to finish that thought, because she’s cutting him off, her tone prickly.

“Yeah, well you’re one to talk. What happened between you and Claire, anyway?”

He closes his eyes and nods his head. “I deserve that. And I suppose it’s only fair.” He reaches for the glass she poured for him earlier where it sits on the coffee table, and takes a big drink before letting out a long sigh.

“Well … I, too, am an asshole. I’m also a stubborn, reckless idiot with a savior complex and an allegedly non-existent sense of self-preservation. We barely even got together before all of that became too much for her to handle. But I don’t blame her. I do tend to be the center of entropy in the universe.”

With an internal grimace, he realizes that all came out surprisingly wistful, so he huffs a weak laugh at himself as he tries for some self-deprecating humor to lighten the mood. But it doesn’t seem to work. Instead of laughing with him, she sits, silently assessing him as the tension between them thickens. He raises his glass to take another drink as another awkward beat passes.

But eventually she speaks, and with an exaggerated and tightly controlled calmness that barely masks the defensive tone underneath. And all of that works together to raise his anxiety by several degrees.

“So you still have a thing for her? Is that why you hate interacting with her so much?”

His eyes go wide as saucers because this is definitely not how he intended for this conversation to go. Suddenly, he’s leaning toward her, because he has to make her understand what he’s actually trying to say. He takes a deep breath to keep from sounding desperate, because that probably won’t help his case any.

“No, Jess, I don’t have a thing for her. And I don’t hate interacting with her, I just … God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I guess I’m a little jealous.”

Her brows draw down in confusion. “Of Claire?”

He runs a nervous hand through his hair. “No. Of Luke.”

But apparently that still isn’t enough of an explanation for her. “What are you… Why the hell are you jealous of Luke if you don’t still have a thing for Claire?”

He lifts his free hand, making a mindless gesture in the air as if it will help him find the words with which he is suddenly struggling.

“Because it’s not really about her. I-it’s the principal of the thing. She couldn’t handle being with me, in large part because of my vigilante activities, but she can handle it with Luke just fine. And I have to think that’s because he’s more capable… stronger. ‘Unbreakable’.”

He hates the disgust that drips from his lips as he says the word, but it’s an issue that has been festering and itching under his skin for weeks now. And it’s finally bad enough that it’s pushing its way to the surface, meaning he can ignore it no longer.

But she still isn’t getting it. She turns toward him on the couch, and gives him a hard stare. “What- Where is all of this coming from?”

“Jess, come on. Where do you think? You saw what happened tonight. I tried to take down a whole group of guys by myself, but I got shot in the process. Because I wasn’t quick enough. Because I wasn’t strong enough. Because my skin isn’t bulletproof.”

He’s sure the face of confusion she’s making is a good one if it matches even a fraction of the confusion that’s coming across in her voice.

“Right. Which is why I chewed your ass for rushing in all by yourself, like an idiot. Thank God that point has finally managed to sink in your thick skull.”

That’s not his issue, though. He shrugs as he tries again to get her to hear what he’s saying. “Yeah. But if it had been Luke? He could have taken down all those guys on his own. Easily.”

She freezes in a shrug for a moment. “… Okay? And?”

He huffs a sigh and deflates, shoulders rolling forward as he forces out the thoughts that have been hounding him for weeks.

“And I couldn’t. Because I won’t ever be able to do the things he does, no matter how hard I train. My senses don’t stand up to super-strength and bullet-proof skin.”

Her whole body goes rigid, and her tone turns downright frightening with the acid lacing it. “Okay, I think you need to revisit your feelings about Claire. Because if you’re not still carrying a torch for her, I do not understand what’s causing this existential crisis.” But right as she finishes that thought, she cocks her head at him and lets out a bitter huff of a laugh.

“Wait, wait. I think I get it now. This is some kind of dick-measuring contest, isn’t it? That must be why you asked me about him - to see how you measure up. And because you need me to tell you about how much of a train wreck our relationship ended up being so that you can feel superior to him in some way? Jesus.”

If his eyes were wide as saucers before, they’re full on dinner plates now, but he can do nothing but gape at her as his tongue goes numb and lifeless in his mouth. Anxiety starts coursing through his body, and it’s only his muscle memory and breathing exercises that keep him from hyperventilating. Because holy shit, what is even happening? His free hand reflexively curls into a white-knuckled fist as he tries to formulate a coherent response and stop her from thinking anything worse about him.

“Jess-”

But, apparently, she’s still not done.

“Goddammit, Matt. I’m fucking you. Not Luke. So what the hell do you want from me, here?”

He can’t help but hang his head. It takes him a few tries to finally answer her, and his voice is low and harsh.

“It’s not you, Jess. It’s me. Because I don’t … I don’t fit. You and Luke are ridiculously strong. Hell, Danny is too, part of the time. But not me. All I can do is fight. But that’s not always enough, and I’m …”

Suddenly, his chest is getting too tight and his breathing is becoming labored, preventing him from finishing the thought that is running on loop at maximum volume in his head.

I’m not enough. I’m not enough for the group. I’m not enough for you, Jess.

But something in his face must give his inner dialogue away, because suddenly she’s sighing and shaking her head, voice hesitant and strained.

“Look, I’m sorry if I made you feel bad earlier. But you’re still missing the point. And fuck strength, okay? You’re a very capable fighter, and you add plenty to the team. But I’m telling you that you need to learn how to accept help. Because in most of these situations, it’s suicide for any one of us to go in alone. Luke included.”

He sits silent and still for several beats, his head is in his free hand and elbows on his knees. Eventually, he calms his breathing and his overwhelming anxiety enough to try swallowing his pride and speaking.

“So, uh, I don’t know what to say. Except that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to subject you to that very embarrassing meltdown.”

But she just shrugs at him. “It’s whatever. I did chew you out pretty hard before. So, I guess… sorry for that.”

“Actually it was a very effective ass-chewing. It made me start thinking about my limits. But, unfortunately, those thoughts about limits quickly transformed into thoughts about my insecurities. Then the topic of exes got thrown into the mix, and it was very… not good.”

He’s happy to hear her scoff at that. And this time when she speaks, her voice is much more pleasant to hear, a mixture of concern and confusion.

“But seriously, why does it bother you so much?”

He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Well, when it’s the four of us … it makes me feel like a liability. And when it comes to you and me, it’s because… I can’t match your strength. Not even close.”

She shrugs at him again. “But why the hell does that matter? Do you really think you need to? Because I’m going to hurt you? Or, because you think you need strength to impress me?”

He hangs his head, because now that she’s saying it out loud, he can hear how ridiculous it sounds.

She huffs an exasperated sigh at him. “That’s what I thought. So a word of advice: knock that shit off right now. You don’t need super-strength to impress me, Murdock. I’m already here. And besides, I wouldn’t have made such a scene in the warehouse if I didn’t already care about you.”

He can’t help but chuckle under his breath and give her the tiniest of smiles at that. And as he does, the knot of anxiety that has been coiling in his stomach starts to loosen. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She smirks at him for a beat, then crosses her arms in front of her chest. There’s a playful challenge in her voice as she speaks this time.

“Damn right, you’re sorry. So what are you gonna do about it?”

A small, slow smirk spreads across his face as he places his glass on the coffee table and slowly slips off of the couch and sinks to his knees. Then he starts to slowly move toward her, pausing at her feet. He takes one foot in his hands and slowly lifts, brushing her pant leg up just enough to press a soft kiss to the inside of her ankle.

“What are your thoughts on groveling?”

She hums at him, as though she’s considering his question carefully. “Hmm, it’s a start.”

He switches feet then, pressing another soft kiss to the inside of her ankle as he chuckles. And suddenly all of the worries and insecurities of the last hour start melting away as she threads a hand through his hair and leans down to align their faces - so he knows she’s being serious.

“I meant it when I said you don’t need strength to impress me. So why don’t you use that Columbia education of yours to start thinking of some other ways to do that.”

And he can do nothing but smirk at her. Because, somehow, she always seems to know what to say to quiet his racing thoughts.

He still has some of his own work to do on that front, though, and he knows it. And, he will admit that he does still wonder about her relationship with Luke, if only because of the pain and regret she still feels about it. But that’s a conversation for another time, when both of them feel less defensive and vulnerable. For now, he’ll try to be with her in this moment, free of the insecurities and doubts that so often plague his mind. Because she’s right here - smirking at him, her hand in his hair. And if that isn’t proof enough of her interest, he’s doesn’t know what else would be. And he will do everything he possibly can to make them both forget about his lack of super-strength.

Day 26 | Day 28

#inktober for writers #fictober #my fic #a prompt a day #darejones #messica #mess #matt murdock/jessica jones #matt x jessica #mattjess #jessica x matt #matt murdock x jessica jones

[cinephiled-com]

New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-feras-fayyad-sheds-light-heroes-war-syria-powerful-doc-cave/

Interview: Feras Fayyad Sheds Light on the Heroes of the War in Syria in His Powerful Doc ‘The Cave’

Oscar nominee Feras Fayyad (Last Men in Aleppo) delivers an unflinching story of the Syrian war with his powerful new documentary, The Cave. For besieged civilians, hope and safety lie underground inside the subterranean hospital known as the Cave, where pediatrician and managing physician Dr. Amani Ballour and her colleagues Samaher and Dr. Alaa have claimed their right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts, doing their jobs in a way that would be unthinkable in the oppressively patriarchal culture that exists above ground. Following the women as they contend with daily bombardments, chronic supply shortages, and the ever-present threat of chemical attacks, The Cavepaints a stirring portrait of courage, resilience, and female solidarity. I was honored to sit down with talented director Feras Fayyad to discuss this powerful film just as rash decisions by the U.S. President were making life exponentially worse for Fayyad’s countrymen were already struggling for their survival.

Danny Miller: This is such a powerful, important film, I hope that it is seen far and wide. Life has obviously been horrendous for Syrians for years and yet much of the world has not been paying that much attention. Now Syria is in the news again for very upsetting reasons having to do with the current U.S. administration. Does it bother you how little most Americans seem to know about what’s going on in your country?

Feras Fayyad: Thank you so much for what you said about the movie and also for this important question. Yes, I think Syria has been an “undercover” story for a very long time. Without the refugee crisis, I sometimes think there would be no coverage whatsoever even if the country burned completely. I do feel as an artist that I have a responsibility to help people see more of what’s going on, to make sure that people learn about the struggle people have over there and the extreme dangers they face every single day. And now the current news is so sad, so scary, so horrible. As a Syrian I keep asking myself how it’s ever going to end and then I wake up and find there is a whole new war happening with the Turkish people coming in. and the Kurds having no choice but to align with Syrian regime and the Russians. There is just endless destruction happening in my country.

And yet your film shows such humanity, such goodness among the Syrians who are so courageously trying to help others amidst such constant turmoil.

It was very important to me to try to bring this story to light, to show all of these extraordinary people who are trying to help their society, change their society, make life possible. The people in this film are working so hard to help their country but they are being systematically hunted down. That’s what I think people here don’t understand, they see all these Syrian refugees and they focus only on what that’s going to mean for other parts of the world, forgetting that these are people who desperately want to stay in their own country. Nobody wants to go leave their home, but in most cases they have no choice, they have to leave or face certain death.

Al Ghouta, Syria – Dr. Amani (center) and Dr Alaa (right) in the operating room. (National Geographic)

Dr. Amani is such an amazing character. With all the incredible stress they were under with their work in the cave, was it difficult to get her to agree to allow you to film there?

When I approached Dr. Amani, her first reaction was that she didn’t believe that anyone outside of Syria would care about this story. I spent a lot of time convincing her how important it is for people to see what they were all doing there. She eventually agreed that it would be helpful for the outside world to understand what is happening, how so many people were being affected, and how Syrians are trying to help their own. She was still surprised, though, when she realized that she was going to be one of the main characters in the film.

Did you always know that you wanted to have most of the footage in the film come from the Cave and not above ground?

We shot a lot of other footage but in the end I felt that focusing on this underground hospital was the most important story to tell. I didn’t want this film to turn into the classic refugee story, I wanted to show how these brave Syrians were fighting what was going on by providing help to these desperate people inside the country, I wanted to show how this woman was trying to change her society.

I imagine you had enough footage to make three documentaries.

Oh, definitely. We followed Dr. Amani around for hundreds and hundreds of hours, she gave us such incredible access to her life and the work they were doing in the Cave. She trusted how I was going to tell this story and never made any demands on us whatsoever.

I’m guessing that the scene where the guy tells Dr. Amani that should be home taking care of her husband and kids was not an isolated incident.  

Not at all, she heard that many, many times. Amani was the first female hospital manager in the entire history of Syria. There has never been a woman leading a hospital at all, much less in such a serious situation where she was managing over a hundred people who were serving about 400,000 people in such a war-torn area. You have to understand that Syria has been an extremely patriarchal society. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to tell Dr. Amani’s story. All of us Syrians grew up in this patriarchy where we were forced to call Assad our father, his picture was everywhere. It was just embedded in the culture that women should be serving men and not more. Things were starting to change in Syria with the democratic revolutions against the system, and the people in the medical profession were always on the front lines of that.

And then in these makeshift hospitals I assume the situations were so dire that the people had no choice but allow women to assume greater responsibility.

Yes, although Amani was really in a unique situation. She was very inspiring so many women and she worked very hard to increase the number of women working in the Cave.

Al Ghouta, Syria – Nurse Samahar, Dr Amani and Dr Alaa working in a subterranean hospital in Syria to save the lives of victims of chemical and conventional weapons in the Syrian Civil War. (National Geographic)

With all of the amazing work the people in the Cave were doing, it was so devastating to see it shut down after the chemical attacks in that part of Syria. Who provides medical care to the people in that region now?

It’s all been taken over by the Syrian regime. Dr. Amani is now living in Turkey and is not able to come and go nor is she allowed to practice medicine. I hope that changes for her but she’s basically living the life of a Syrian refugee along with so many others. She is wanted by the Syrian regime and if she goes back now, they would kill her.

That is so horrible. It must be incredibly dangerous for you and your crew to go back and forth into Syria. How do you deal with that?

I was jailed and tortured by the Syrian regime for 18 months, partly because of my other films. While I was there, I witnessed the torture of many women.

So I assume that now you go in and out of the country very secretly?

Yes, there are different ways that I go in to minimize the risks. Getting our footage out was always very dangerous as well. We used WhatsApp to get a lot of it out and smuggled flash drives. It remains a very dangerous situation for everyone. I never stay in the country for more than three days and I never bring in a phone.

What do you hope that people who see your film understand about Syria?

I hope they will begin to understand the situation in my country and put pressure on the politicians to start finding real solutions. Our country has been destroyed by the current regime and from Russian bombing and now what’s happening with Turkey in the north. The number of people who have been killed in Syria, and who are still being killed, is simply unbelievable. And many more just disappear. What will the future of the country be? Right now it’s mostly about death.

Al Ghouta, Syria – Young boy receives medical treatment in the emergency room. (National Geographic)

Such a nightmare, and it only seems to be getting worse in recent weeks. Do you hold onto a belief in your heart that one day your country will be restored and that many people will be able to return?

That is my wish, of course, but right now I just feel so strongly that I need to make people aware of what’s going that I am willing to risk my life and my team is willing to risk their lives to document what we can. We hope that once people understand what is happening, and understand some of the history of this part of world that they will be inspired to work for a better Syria.

Do you worry that this film will put you even more of the crosshairs of the Syrian regime?

I worry most of all for my family members who are still in Syria: my father and my mother and some of my sisters. I have one sister in Lebanon and one in Sweden but I worry every single day about the people I know who are still in the country because of the current regime. I will continue to do this work to remind people how urgent this situation is and that the Syrian people need help.

National Geographic’s The Cave is currently in select theaters. Click here to see if it’s coming to a city near you.

#Dr. Amani Ballour #Feras Fayyad #National Geographic #Syria #The Cave #Interviews #What's Hot

[fmservers]

How to read fiction to build a startup

“The book itself is a curious artefact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It lasts. It is reliable. If a book told you something when you were 15, it will tell it to you again when you’re 50, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.”—Ursula K. Le Guin

Every year, Bill Gates goes off-grid, leaves friends and family behind, and spends two weeks holed up in a cabin reading books. His annual reading list rivals Oprah’s Book Club as a publishing kingmaker. Not to be outdone, Mark Zuckerberg shared a reading recommendation every two weeks for a year, dubbing 2015 his “Year of Books.” Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, joined the board of Room to Read when she realized how books like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate were inspiring girls to pursue careers in science and technology. Many a biotech entrepreneur treasures a dog-eared copy of Daniel Suarez’s Change Agent, which extrapolates the future of CRISPR. Noah Yuval Harari’s sweeping account of world history, Sapiens, is de rigueur for Silicon Valley nightstands.

This obsession with literature isn’t limited to founders. Investors are just as avid bookworms. “Reading was my first love,” says AngelList’s Naval Ravikant. “There is always a book to capture the imagination.” Ravikant reads dozens of books at a time, dipping in and out of each one nonlinearly. When asked about his preternatural instincts, Lux Capital’s Josh Wolfe advised investors to “read voraciously and connect dots.” Foundry Group’s Brad Feld has reviewed 1,197 books on Goodreads and especially loves science fiction novels that “make the step function leaps in imagination that represent the coming dislocation from our current reality.”

This begs a fascinating question: Why do the people building the future spend so much of their scarcest resource — time — reading books?

Image by NiseriN via Getty Images. Reading time approximately 14 minutes.

Don’t Predict, Reframe

Do innovators read in order to mine literature for ideas? The Kindle was built to the specs of a science fictional children’s storybook featured in Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age, in fact, the Kindle project team was originally codenamed “Fiona” after the novel’s protagonist. Jeff Bezos later hired Stephenson as the first employee at his space startup Blue Origin. But this literary prototyping is the exception that proves the rule. To understand the extent of the feedback loop between books and technology, it’s necessary to attack the subject from a less direct angle.

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is full of indirect angles that all manage to reveal deeper truths. It’s a mind-bending novel that follows six different characters through an intricate web of interconnected stories spanning three centuries. The book is a feat of pure M.C. Escher-esque imagination, featuring a structure as creative and compelling as its content. Mitchell takes the reader on a journey ranging from the 19th century South Pacific to a far-future Korean corpocracy and challenges the reader to rethink the very idea of civilization along the way. “Power, time, gravity, love,” writes Mitchell. “The forces that really kick ass are all invisible.”

The technological incarnations of these invisible forces are precisely what Kevin Kelly seeks to catalog in The Inevitable. Kelly is an enthusiastic observer of the impact of technology on the human condition. He was a co-founder of Wired, and the insights explored in his book are deep, provocative, and wide-ranging. In his own words, “When answers become cheap, good questions become more difficult and therefore more valuable.” The Inevitable raises many important questions that will shape the next few decades, not least of which concern the impacts of AI:

“Over the past 60 years, as mechanical processes have replicated behaviors and talents we thought were unique to humans, we’ve had to change our minds about what sets us apart. As we invent more species of AI, we will be forced to surrender more of what is supposedly unique about humans. Each step of surrender—we are not the only mind that can play chess, fly a plane, make music, or invent a mathematical law—will be painful and sad. We’ll spend the next three decades—indeed, perhaps the next century—in a permanent identity crisis, continually asking ourselves what humans are good for. If we aren’t unique toolmakers, or artists, or moral ethicists, then what, if anything, makes us special? In the grandest irony of all, the greatest benefit of an everyday, utilitarian AI will not be increased productivity or an economics of abundance or a new way of doing science—although all those will happen. The greatest benefit of the arrival of artificial intelligence is that AIs will help define humanity. We need AIs to tell us who we are.”

It is precisely this kind of an AI-influenced world that Richard Powers describes so powerfully in his extraordinary novel The Overstory:

“Signals swarm through Mimi’s phone. Suppressed updates and smart alerts chime at her. Notifications to flick away. Viral memes and clickable comment wars, millions of unread posts demanding to be ranked. Everyone around her in the park is likewise busy, tapping and swiping, each with a universe in his palm. A massive, crowd-sourced urgency unfolds in Like-Land, and the learners, watching over these humans’ shoulders, noting each time a person clicks, begin to see what it might be: people, vanishing en masse into a replicated paradise.”

Taking this a step further, Virginia Heffernan points out in Magic and Loss that living in a digitally mediated reality impacts our inner lives at least as much as the world we inhabit:

“The Internet suggests immortality—comes just shy of promising it—with its magic. With its readability and persistence of data. With its suggestion of universal connectedness. With its disembodied imagines and sounds. And then, just as suddenly, it stirs grief: the deep feeling that digitization has cost us something very profound. That connectedness is illusory; that we’re all more alone than ever.”

And it is the questionable assumptions underlying such a future that Nick Harkaway enumerates in his existential speculative thriller Gnomon:

“Imagine how safe it would feel to know that no one could ever commit a crime of violence and go unnoticed, ever again. Imagine what it would mean to us to know—know for certain—that the plane or the bus we’re travelling on is properly maintained, that the teacher who looks after our children doesn’t have ugly secrets. All it would cost is our privacy, and to be honest who really cares about that? What secrets would you need to keep from a mathematical construct without a heart? From a card index? Why would it matter? And there couldn’t be any abuse of the system, because the system would be built not to allow it. It’s the pathway we’re taking now, that we’ve been on for a while.” 

Machine learning pioneer, former President of Google China, and leading Chinese venture capitalist Kai-Fu Lee loves reading science fiction in this vein — books that extrapolate AI futures — like Hao Jingfang’s Hugo Award-winning Folding Beijing. Lee’s own book, AI Superpowers, provides a thought-provoking overview of the burgeoning feedback loop between machine learning and geopolitics. As AI becomes more and more powerful, it becomes an instrument of power, and this book outlines what that means for the 21st century world stage:

“Many techno-optimists and historians would argue that productivity gains from new technology almost always produce benefits throughout the economy, creating more jobs and prosperity than before. But not all inventions are created equal. Some changes replace one kind of labor (the calculator), and some disrupt a whole industry (the cotton gin). Then there are technological changes on a grander scale. These don’t merely affect one task or one industry but drive changes across hundreds of them. In the past three centuries, we’ve only really seen three such inventions: the steam engine, electrification, and information technology.”

So what’s different this time? Lee points out that “AI is inherently monopolistic: A company with more data and better algorithms will gain ever more users and data. This self-reinforcing cycle will lead to winner-take-all markets, with one company making massive profits while its rivals languish.” This tendency toward centralization has profound implications for the restructuring of world order:

“The AI revolution will be of the magnitude of the Industrial Revolution—but probably larger and definitely faster. Where the steam engine only took over physical labor, AI can perform both intellectual and physical labor. And where the Industrial Revolution took centuries to spread beyond Europe and the U.S., AI applications are already being adopted simultaneously all across the world.”

Cloud Atlas, The Inevitable, The Overstory, Gnomon, Folding Beijing, and AI Superpowers might appear to predict the future, but in fact they do something far more interesting and useful: reframe the present. They invite us to look at the world from new angles and through fresh eyes. And cultivating “beginner’s mind” is the problem for anyone hoping to build or bet on the future.

Via Danny Crichton https://techcrunch.com

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