#and charlie being isolated from everyone as the god of space was.

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

Back to the Future – Glass talks to Swedish actor Rebecca Ferguson about her roles in Dune, Mission: Impossible and the lessons we can learn from spaghetti

Rebecca Ferguson is on location in Budapest, possibly dressed up as a sci-fi high priestess with glowing blue eyes and a three-pronged bouffant. Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s 2020 reinterpretation of David Lynch’s 1984 Frank Herbert adaptation, needs reshoots of its own, so Ferguson is talking to me over the phone in between takes from what sounds like a galaxy far, far away …

In accordance with “soon-to-be-released-Sci-Fi-epic” law, Dune is shrouded in secrecy. As yet there are no behind the scenes featurettes, and no leaked stills to give an insight into Villeneuve’s vision for Ferguson’s character, Lady Jessica, the age-agnostic mother of Timothée Chalamet’s cosmic hero, Paul Atreides.

So, I do the only thing you can do when imagining the new cast of a reboot and attach Ferguson’s disembodied head to the beheaded body of her Lady Jessica predecessor. Et voilà, Rebecca Ferguson: live from Budapest, possibly looking like a futuristic, blue eyed, heavily bouffanted, Lynchian high priestess.

She’s called back from a location with better phone coverage and we’re discussing cities, from the “incredible” (Budapest), to the inhabitable (London, Ferguson’s second home), via LA, which, putting it mildly, fits neither criteria in the 37-year-old’s glowing blue eyes. “The idea of moving to LA has never, ever, ever been on my agenda,” she declares.

The first thing that strikes you about Ferguson is that she’s passionate talking about practically everything. “Look, there are people I love, who love it there … and I get it. When people there look at you and smile, there is a joy,” she pauses, reliving early encounters with LA, and smiles … “And a happiness which is so lovely and endearing and light – but I can’t take it too long. I just want to smoke a cigarette and kind of blow it in someone’s face.” An apology seems on the tip of her tongue, but she decides it would ruin the joke, and merely says, “I don’t actually smoke, by the way.”

She spends much of the year in a Swedish fishing village – “a different world”, she says, possessing all the things she loves: row boats, the ocean, her friends, grilling fish and just the right amount of smiling and joy. Ferguson’s open and only slightly sardonic disdain for the folly of wanton joy suggests, to me, two things. One: that while she clearly loves Sweden, the place of her birth and homeland of her father, the English side of her mother is potent.

And two: the ability to “get in and get out”, as she puts it, remains a priority. As a teen, Ferguson was unknown to the world but famous in Sweden as the star of soap opera Nya Tider. When the show ended and she was 15, she got out. “I studied, had a beautiful child, worked in restaurants, shops, God … in hotels – I did everything.” Everything but act, other than a couple of minor, un-recurring TV roles and student films in exchange for free lunch.

“I never wanted to go to drama school, mainly because I didn’t want to be like every other Swede in film. Not to criticise Lars Norén or … Ingrid Bergman, but all I could think was ‘I don’t want to be a drama student with a fucking purple beret on my head, I don’t want to be like them’. I think, now, looking back, I was just terrified I wasn’t going to get in.”

Eleven years after Nya Tider, Ferguson starred in Swedish language film, A One-Way Trip to Antibes. “And that was the gateway for me.” Soon after she was cast as Queen Elizabeth in BBC period drama The White Queen, which was less a conveyer belt towards ‘the big time’ as it was a treadmill cranked to 11. But playing Queen Elizabeth on the BBC isn’t without its drawbacks – play the role well enough and the whole world will think you’re English.

Being called Rebecca Ferguson probably doesn’t help, and her English is too perfect to be considered a second language. Most of all, though, it’s to do with the version of Englishness that lives so prominently in Ferguson: her mother’s version. “My mother is quintessentially English,” she says. “When she came over to Sweden, words and expressions like ‘whoops-a-daisy, ‘holy moly’ and ‘kerfuffle’ still existed – it’s how she spoke and it became the natural way of speaking for me, too.”

It made Ferguson a convincing Brit, laying the groundwork for the most seamless England/Sweden switcheroo since Ferguson’s own mother integrated so adeptly into her adopted home that, in 1975, she was awarded the ultimate endorsement: appearing on the sleeve of an Abba album. And yet, beyond the whimsical lingo, Ferguson is neither stiff, stoical nor repressed – three fundamentals of Britishness.

On chat-shows, she’s gregarious and tactile and warm, and this confuses people who go by the “if it looks like a Brit and sounds like a Brit …” metric. It’s a little like painting a cat with black and white stripes and saying, “what’s wrong with that zebra and why is it such an outrageous flirt?” “I’ve seen those bloody comments! It’s so weird. It makes me think I should stop touching people altogether, which is sad because, you know … we’re here, we’re together, we’re human beings.”

The problem is, when your wagon’s hitched to a vehicle like Mission: Impossible, where each instalment is an event, and every instalment ends with the promise of another instalment (Episodes 7 and 8 are in the works), chat show appearances are unending. Rumour is that number seven will be filmed in space, which is a worthwhile trade for the talk-show couch merry-go-round, depending on where you stand on heights. “In space? That’s news to me, but with TC nothing surprises me.”

TC is, of course, Mr Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise. “So,” I ask her, would she do it? “I would probably say ‘fuck off’ to that. Heights are my greatest fear and I’m not doing cognitive therapy acting … then again, I never thought I would jump 40 metres off that house in Vienna (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation). That was bloody terrifying. But I did it … and got to do something that I never thought I would do, so maybe it is all just therapy?”

He’s a force of nature,” Ferguson says. “I’ve never met anyone like him.” There’s a unique fascination around Cruise, due to his personal life and the idea that the line separating him from his Mission Impossible character, Ethan Hunt, has become almost non-existent; that the actor has permanently morphed into the character, who now spends his days playing the role of the actor he once was. Which is a crazy suggestion, obviously, but Cruise is so intensely fascinating that I can’t help such ideas whirl through my head whenever I see him interviewed “out of character”.

I ask Ferguson what it’s like to have a relationship with someone so divisive, who invokes such strong opinions, and whether she feels strangely protective of Cruise. “I don’t think I can. I feel there’s no need to be protective of him. He’s powerful …  just the way he is. I feel like I’m supported by him all the time.” Nor does she tire of being asked about him. “He’s an interesting person to talk about, and a very interesting person to get to know.

The boyish charm, the need to always be doing fun things for everyone while making sure everyone feels safe … Sometimes we’ll start laughing and unbuckling our seatbelts just to fuck with him,” which weirdly is the only Tom Cruise anecdote I think I’ll ever need. “We’ve had some beautiful moments filming together.”

On which note, with our allotted 30 minutes long expired, I ask Ferguson what ‘together’ means to her, but she seems to have re-entered whatever foreign galaxy she started the interview in, and the question gets chewed up on its way over. She responds, “spaghetti?” which, after some clarification and deliberation, we decide to stick with, despite the kerfuffle. “Because togetherness is the opposite of isolation and segregation,” and nothing represents the importance of togetherness like than the profoundly sad sight of a lone strand of spaghetti.

by Charlie Navin-Holder

#rebecca ferguson #tom cruise #interview #photoshoot #nick thompson shoot #mi5 interview

[kaelen-tyr]

taps  //  self

Day is done, Gone the sun...

Kaelen was alone in the apartment. He’d asked Electra and the kids to leave, even if it was selfish to do that. The Games were on the big television in their living room as Kaelen lied on the floor, a hand clasping Thirteen’s paw while the dog lied there, unable to lift its head.

The sun set on the tenth day of the arena, and Kaelen lied on the floor, helpless as Thirteen barely opened his eyes. There was crashing in the arena, darkness, blood...everything that came with an arena.

From the lake, From the hill...

Kaelen remembered taking Thirteen in. Unexpected, but necessary in the isolation of his bunker in One. He’d never been one to seek out company often, but that was because he had the luxury of a big family at home. Companionship was never far away, until he was back in his home district, skulking among the miners and hoping to find rebels within them. It was all for a lost cause; a cause that landed him with a permanent brand on the wrist of the hand that now slowly pet the top of Thirteen’s head. 

But Thirteen was never a lost cause. The thirteenth puppy to be trained by Peacekeepers - with no success. Kaelen saved him at the last second. He’d never intended on having a pet; and he adopted a shadow instead. When Kaelen came home bleeding, Thirteen tried to lick his wounds. When they moved back to the Capitol, Thirteen adjusted. Whenever Kaelen came home with a busted rib, a busted face, busted knuckles, Thirteen was there to lie at his feet and lap up water as his Kaelen drank whiskey. 

From the sky.

It did seem strangely...whimsical that Thirteen fell into his lap when he did; with the name he did. But it was all the more push for Kaelen to fight. 

He always fought for his family. Bu, there is a luxury that comes with parents being alive. You always assume they will be the one who fights to keep your siblings alive. Until they die. 

Everyone, all the Tyrs, were still alive when Kaelen got Thirteen. It was the first creature fully, entirely in his care. And he did all he could to keep the growing puppy alive and healthy.

And in turn, Thirteen plodded alongside him at his brothers’ grave, at Crycinna’s, at his father’s, at Marcia’s...

And that was only for the blood relatives and old friends he’d lost. Thirteen was there with him for every other burial, every other grave visit.

All is well, Safely rest...

And Thirteen was there the first time Kaelen showed Electra his new apartment. It wasn’t a one-bedroom, like he always had. It had several bedrooms, an unspoken indication of what he hoped to have with the woman who’d been knocking him on his ass for years. Thirteen placed his head on Electra’s lap the first time she sat down, and chased Thing the first time he visited.

At some point, the cuddling and the chasing combined. For all parties. It became their home. And as Electra grew bigger, Thirteen transitioned from sleeping on Kaelen’s side of the bed to sleeping on her side of the bed. When Jett was born, he slept by the child’s crib. When Charlie came along, he did it all again - by Electra’s side until he was by Charlie’s crib.

And now, here Kaelen was, lying on the floor next to his best four-legged friend as Thirteen slept in the hallway, guarding Jett and Charlie’s rooms with life seeping from him with each breath.

God is nigh...

Shepherds aren’t built to last forever. The bigger the dog, the shorter the life, unfortunately. Kaelen always knew that, but he knew that at 27.

And eerything was different at 36, with several Games and two rebellions behind him. Both rebellions were failures in his eye, and he was sad he let Thirteen down so much. The dog deserved more, the kids deserved more, Electra deserved more, his family deserved more.

But there was only so much a man could do on his own. And maybe all he could do was save Thirteen from the slaughter, and raise him in the shadow of a rebel. Was Kaelen even a rebel anymore? It didn’t feel like it, but he hoped Thirteen viewed him that way.

If only he was all he hoped his dog saw him as. If only he was that big, that strong, that powerful. But he would only be a man, always. About six feet tall and hoping to topple a century old regime. How had he ever been so stupid, so arrogant, to think he could? But in the the final moments of his best friend’s life, he couldn’t be doubtful. He had to be strong, to know he’d done all he could to right the wrongs in his life.

Kaelen took Hunter’s tongue, took his voice, and hadn’t said a word yet. How many years ago was that now? At least twelve, if not more. And Kaelen never told him. Kaelen still wondered if he ever should. There were few people he loved more, trusted more, than Hunter. With the kids, Kaelen’s time was preoccupied. But every second with Hunter was a selfish reminder to try better; every second with Hunter was a reminder to fight. Every second with Hunter was hopeful, joyful, and, most of all, more than anything, it put a smile on his face.

So Kaelen smiled at Thirteen, and wished the dog had the energy to stick his tongue out in response. But there was nothing. Kaelen squeezed his paw, and there was nothing. Kaelen rolled onto his side to grab the dog’s back and hold him close. 

And there was nothing.

Thirteen died on August 1st, in the year 118, as ice encapsulated the 122nd Hunger Games arena. He died beside his best friend, Kaelen Tyr. He died in the hallway where he protected his family: Kaelen Tyr, Electra Conduit, Jett Tyr, and Charlotte Tyr. And Thing, who was now sitting at the end of the hallway, facing the door. Kaelen hoped that wretched creature was standing guard over the one who’d now slipped away from them.

Kaelen stayed there until long after the sun set on the Capitol. Until it was nearly too dark to navigate the hallways to turn on lights. He’d cried, shamelessly, and called the veterinarian to inform them of Thirteen’s passing. He caught glimpses of the darkened arena, but it was on mute, and it didn’t matter. Panem existed outside the Games, after all.

With a shaky deep breath, Kaelen sunk to the ground again next to Thirteen’s body. The veterinarian would be there soon to assess, but there was nothing to be done. All Kaelen could do was keep the body of his old friend company, while staring at the doors of his children’s bedrooms.

Right now, Jett’s had a drawing of a little robot on the outside. Inside was an intergalactic wonderland he and Electra wouldn’t have been about to create without some outside help from the mentors in Three. And Charlie’s had a picture tacked out front of a snowman outside their building from February. She’d taken the picture by pressing down on the shutter of her father’s camera after he’d adjusted all the settings. She claimed that picture as her own, and inside the room was a fort made out of pillows and blankets she’d surely demand to rearrange soon. She was a little younger than Jett, still finding what she loved and asking for it to be reflected in the space that was her own. Her parents obliged, because they had the privilege to do so.

One day, Kaelen hoped, his son might make it to the stars and find a new world. Through Electra, they’d always be eligible as tributes in Three between 12 and 21 years old. He hoped...he hoped, he hoped, he hoped, he hoped they never saw the inside of a launch tube. And if they did, fuck everyone, he hoped they won no matter how many gallons of blood they had to spill.

But he imagined Jett among the stars, in a little capsule, talking over an intercom back to some abstract base, telling them the stars were less exciting than he’d hoped. He imagined Charlotte taking pictures - not just of the mountains where she loved to trek alongside her parents, but of the realities of Panem and beyond Panem’s border. He hoped his children, already so skilled, both exposed something new, something wonderful, something...

As he sat looking at the doors that led to his children’s lives, he clearly, truly, whole-heartedly hoped they were not rebels. He hoped they did not shed their blood, did not break their bones for false promises and power-hungry people. 

Kaelen had never been one for distinguishing the difference in words. And it’d been a long time since Kaelen really, really hoped for something. 

But looking at that drawing, looking at that picture, he really hoped his children didn’t rebel.

He hoped they revolted. 

#th:self #self-para #para #th:jett #th:charlie #th:electra #taps

[hysterialevi]

Shards of Sanity - pt. 2

Fanfic Summary: After waking up from a drunken brawl, Joe Roberts finds himself trapped on a ship full of people gone mad, and is forced to survive in a living hell built around his deepest fears. He becomes isolated from the rest of his fallen comrades and ends up being stuck in a nightmare where the biggest threats are the ones he can’t see, and even reality doesn’t trust itself.

Fandom: Man of Medan

Point of View: third-person

Warning(s): Strong language, graphic violence

Author’s note: Thank you guys for all the support you gave me on the first part (both here and on AO3). It really means a lot to me, and it’s so cool to see that you’re enjoying this fic so far. I hope you’ll stick around to see more of it. Stay awesome!

1:47 A.M.

Tightness.

That was all he could feel.

It was in his chest, his throat, his breath... even his mind.

As Joe carefully treaded through the ship’s insanely narrow hallways, he took every step with an absurd amount of consideration, admittedly terrified of what could be up ahead.

There were beads of cold sweat lightly trickling down his furrowed brow, and despite it only having been a few minutes, the blood gushing from his ear had already hardened into a sticky texture, causing it to cling uncomfortably to his neck.

It didn’t look like there was anyone else in the immediate vicinity at the moment, but every once in a while, Joe would hear the distant screams of panicked soldiers and erratic gunfire, their cries traveling throughout the ship as if they were trapped within the walls.

It sounded like hell was breaking loose in the other areas of the ship, but so far, Joe had yet to see any movement in this particular corridor.

One wrong move however, and he would probably end up like his comrades soon enough.

He had to be extra careful.

Steadily inching his feet down the flickering hallway, Joe reached a corner at end and placed his hand on the wall, hoping to take a peek of the other side before moving on.

He should’ve been okay for the moment, but after everything that happened in the sick bay, Joe would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t still a little shaky.

It was the first time he killed someone like that, after all.

He could shoot at the enemy well enough, but murdering someone who was on his side -- especially when it was just because of a misunderstanding -- tore Joe apart with guilt.

What if he had explained things better? He wondered.

What if he approached the doctor differently?

Would that man still have attacked him?

Would he still be here?

Joe had no idea.

Shaking these useless thoughts out of his mind, Joe slowly leaned his body into the hallway and took a glimpse of what was around the corner, only to immediately spring back in horror when he spotted a pair of legs being dragged away in the distance.

He couldn’t see what was pulling the corpse or whose body it was, but he overheard a disturbingly meaty squelch that sounded like something was tearing into its innards, nearly making him vomit on the spot.

Jesus fucking Christ...

What the hell had he gotten himself into?

This wasn’t the first time the soldier had witnessed death, but even then, this chaos was something entirely new on its own.

...Wait a minute.

Joe recalled the doctor mentioning some sort of... “creature.” A monster that was following all of them.

Could that have been what he was referring to? Could that have been the monster dragging those legs away?

Was that the same thing that killed Miller?

No, Joe convinced himself. Surely not.

Surely, he was mistaken.

Monsters like that didn’t exist.

The doctor had to have been seeing things.

Still though... it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

Even if Joe didn’t fully believe the doctor just yet, the fact was: people were dead.

And something on this ship was killing them.

Bringing his gun closer to his chest, Joe held the pistol with an iron grip and slowly inched his way around the corner, his hands trembling with an uncontrollable fear.

The squelching noise had stopped for the moment, but now all Joe could hear was something thumping against the floor in an almost rhythmic pattern, sort of like they were footsteps.

Oh, Jesus... what in God’s name was he hearing?

Was the monster walking away from the scene? Was it safe to proceed?

How would Joe even deal with something like that if it detected him?

Were bullets enough to kill it?

There were a million thoughts running through Joe’s head right now, and every single one of them told him to just hide somewhere... but he knew he couldn’t do that.

After all, there was no guarantee that anyone else on this boat was even still alive. Just based on what he had seen already, Joe had no other choice but to assume that everyone else was either dead, or waiting to be killed.

If Joe wanted to get off this ship, he was going to have to contact someone.

He was going to have to reach the radio.

The only problem now... was actually getting there.

Nearly crushing the pistol in his hardened grip, Joe clenched his jaw out of anxiety and practically forced himself to walk around the corner, his heart pounding heavily in his ears as he wandered into a larger room.

It looked like whatever that thing was had run off for now, but in its wake, it left behind a morbid display of blood and gore, including the mauled body of a fallen soldier.

There were bloodstained shreds of clothing scattered all over the floor, a trail of some strange greenish slime, and -- most intriguingly -- a series of numbers written on the wall in what looked like someone’s blood.

Joe instantly flinched at the ghastly sight, almost having to stop himself from immediately turning around.

“Oh... fucking hell...!” The solider whispered with a gag, his gaze nailing itself onto the corpse.

The poor man’s stomach had been ripped open by something horrendously sharp, revealing a repulsive pile of exposed organs. And for some odd reason, it looked like the person’s eyes were completely white, as if they had just been... blanked out by something.

Their face was also stuck in a terrified expression, leading Joe to believe that they had been frightened to death.

...What the hell was going on in this ship?

Tempted to investigate the body, Joe glanced around for a moment before eyeing the corridor in front of him, looking for a way to barricade it.

He was pretty sure that that was where the creature went earlier, and despite it not being around right now, Joe certainly didn’t want it creeping up on him while he was distracted by something.

Rushing over to one of the doors, Joe pushed it open until it was completely blocking the path and held it in place, leaving nothing more than a little slit of space to squeeze through.

Afterwards, he picked out a random crate sitting nearby and used it as a giant doorstop, ensuring that if anyone decided to pursue him, they couldn’t just simply close the barricade shut.

That should’ve been enough to hold back the beast -- he hoped -- but then again... Joe did just witness it drag a full-grown man as if he weighed nothing.

He didn’t know what the limits of this creature’s strength was, but if he was lucky, he’d never have to find out.

Jogging back to the corpse, Joe crouched down and took a closer look at the dog tags hanging around their neck, hoping to figure out who the poor bastard was.

“Oh, shit...” Joe cursed under his breath, suddenly recognizing their face. “B-Buckley? Jesus Christ... what the fuck happened to you, man?”

Examining Buckley’s injuries, Joe stared at the deep lacerations with a revolted expression, trying to understand exactly what on earth killed him.

No human could’ve caused this type of damage. Not with their bare hands, anyway.

It looked like something had been trying to rip him in half by clawing at his abdomen -- but why?

For food, maybe?

The doctor did say this creature -- whatever it was -- had chased after other soldiers before. Maybe it was searching for a meal.

But, no. That wouldn’t make sense. There were no bite marks. Other than Buckley’s stomach, the man appeared to be perfectly intact.

So, what other reason would it have to kill these people in such an awful manner? What was the point in hunting down all these victims?

What the hell was Joe really looking at?

Overwhelmed by confusion and stress, the soldier decided to leave the corpse alone for now and simply rose to his feet, bringing his attention to the writing on the wall instead.

As disturbing as it was to leave a message in blood, Joe had hoped it would’ve been some sort of explanation as to what exactly was going on around here, only to end up with more questions.

He read the smeared text to himself, his eyes narrowing in both fear and skepticism:

“731. LET THE WORLD KNOW.”

Seven, three, one? What did that mean?

Was that some sort of combination? Or maybe a date?

Those numbers carried no significance for Joe.

He had never seen anything of importance involving those numbers, and he didn’t recall the doctor saying anything about them either.

Joe let out an exhausted sigh and dragged a hand down his face, already regretting ever setting foot out of the medical ward.

None of this made any sense.

Something was going around slaughtering people and making them lose their minds. The doctor mentioned that he couldn’t trust anything he saw, and a part of him didn’t even seem to believe that Joe was entirely real.

How could so much have happened within the span of a couple hours? Was anyone even left?

Was Charlie, or the sergeant, or Patterson, or anyone still alive?

Joe quickly shook his head at the thought, afraid to accept he was the only survivor.

“N-No...” he muttered aloud, his breath shivering with worry. “No, there’s no way. This ship’s full of people who are trained to kill. I... I can’t be the only one left. That’s impossible. There has to be someone else. There has to. I just gotta find them.”

A second voice interrupted his thoughts.

“...Joseph...”

Nearly leaping out of his skin at the sudden voice, Joe instantly let out a startled shout and whirled around in terror, only to find the most horrific, distorted creature standing directly behind him.

Its skin was gray and mottled with rot, its head dangled freakishly to the side from a broken neck, its nose had fallen off due to decay, its lips were stretched tautly around a row of sharp teeth, and -- hiding underneath its tangled vines of black hair -- Joe saw a pair of blank eyes sitting lifelessly inside two sunken sockets.

What was most disturbing about this creature though, was how much it resembled a human being. Despite its skeletal physique and hunched-over posture, Joe couldn’t help but notice that it looked somewhat like a woman.

He stumbled to the floor at the terrible sight and helplessly backed towards a wall, aiming his gun at the monster.

“W-What...” Joe stuttered, unable to speak coherently at the moment. “What... what the hell? Who are you?!”

The creature ignored his question and simply repeated his name in a wispy voice, offering no response.

“...Joseph...”

The soldier unloaded a few, thunderous shots straight into its body, only to freeze in shock when the bullets ended up flying right through them.

He glared at his pistol in bewilderment, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“What the fuck?!”

The monster continued with its approach and limped towards the petrified soldier, its emaciated feet sluggishly dragging across the floor as an unholy shriek escaped its mouth.

Oh God, why wasn’t Joe’s gun working?

How was this creature still moving?

Not only did the bullet not harm it, it also seemed to have completely missed its body.

How the hell was Joe going to kill this thing now?

If guns weren’t enough to hurt it... then... what was?

Putting his weapon down, Joe completely plastered himself against the wall out of distress and held up a protective arm, almost hyperventilating as the creature got closer to him.

“N-No...!” He exclaimed desperately, shutting his eyes tight. “Stay back! Get away from me!”

But the beast was relentless.

With every torturous step that it took, Joe could feel its lanky shadow steadily towering over him, gradually blocking out more and more of the light in this area.

There was, realistically speaking, nothing Joe could do to defend himself in this situation.

The creature was supposedly immune to his attacks, and the longer it pursued him, the more Joe prepared for its deadly claws to tear right through him.

Oh, Christ... he was going to end up just like Buckley.

He was going to die right next to him, and become nothing more than another forgotten corpse to add to the pile.

He was going to be ripped to shreds by this inhuman beast, and he was powerless to stop it.

To Joe’s surprise, however... it never happened.

Instead of the excruciating death he had been anticipating, the only thing Joe experienced now was an unexpected silence.

It didn’t sound like the creature was there anymore, and all the light had returned to his vision as if the thing just suddenly disappeared.

There was no more movement. No more growling.

No more danger.

Where... where did it go?

Still sitting on the floor, Joe hesitantly opened his eyes to a slit and lowered his arm, absolutely perplexed about what was happening.

The beast was nowhere to be found.

Did it walk away?

Did it decide to leave him alone?

What... what just happened?

Carefully rising from the floor, Joe brought himself to stand up and used the wall for support, undeniably still trembling from the mysterious encounter.

Unlike a few moments ago, there was no longer any sort of creature threatening to kill him -- and in its place, Joe saw nothing but an inexplicable absence standing in front of him.

What the hell was going on?

Was Joe starting to see things now, too?

Was this what the doctor was talking about?

That would’ve explained why he attacked Joe. Perhaps he saw him as some sort of monster. Or maybe, he thought one of those creatures was disguising themselves as the soldier.

Whatever it was, Joe couldn’t deny that the doctor’s insanity didn’t seem so insane anymore.

At first, Joe simply thought the man had lost his mind due to the war. But now that he had experienced one of these hallucinations for himself, he really couldn’t blame the doctor.

It was starting to affect his own mind just like it affected his, and Joe didn’t even want to think about what other horrors awaited him.

Before he could think about the subject anymore however, the questions racing in Joe’s head instantly came to a halt when he suddenly noticed a new addition to the grotesque scene, sending his mind into a frenzy.

Accompanying Buckley’s mangled corpse, Joe spotted a new body lying motionlessly in one of the corners of the room, its eyes wide open in horror as a puddle of blood began spreading underneath it.

Wait, what the hell?

When did that get there?

Joe didn’t recall finding anyone else’s body when he arrived, but judging by the freshness of the blood, they didn’t die that long ago.

When did this happen?

Cautiously approaching the random corpse, the soldier gazed downwards and took a look at their face, his heart immediately sinking with grief once he recognized them.

“Oh, my God...” Joe breathed out in disbelief. “Charlie? You were here all along? Oh, no.”

But it got worse.

Bringing his gaze to Charlie’s torso, Joe pointed out quite a few bullet wounds sitting in his chest, leading him to a horrifying conclusion as he recalled his recent actions.

Wait a second...

Didn’t he... didn’t he try to shoot that beast earlier?

And didn’t the ammo just phase right through it?

Why didn’t it affect the creature?

Why... why did Charlie have the same amount of bullets in his body as the number of times Joe pulled the trigger...?

...Why... oh no...

Oh, GOD no. Oh, fuck.

Dropping his pistol to the floor, Joe’s mind instantly went into a state of paralysis as he collapsed to his knees, helplessly trying to wake Charlie up once the realization hit him.

Joe killed him.

He killed his only friend on this entire goddamned ship.

This was his fault.

This was all his fault.

“Charlie!” Joe called out, aggressively shaking his body. “Charlie, can you hear me? Oh, fuck... I’m so sorry, Charlie. I didn’t... I didn’t know it was you! I swear I would’ve never shot if I... if I -- oh, Jesus Christ...”

Drained of all energy, Joe gave up on his pointless confessions and simply lay his hands on Charlie’s bloodied chest, not even bothering to hold back the tears spilling from his eyes.

What the fuck was happening on this ship?

Why was everyone dead?

What was the source of these hallucinations?

There was just so much going on all at once, and Joe didn’t even know how to begin unravelling it.

But regardless of how long it would take, or how hard he’d have to fight, Joe was hellbent on learning the truth now.

Something was happening here that the government didn’t want people to know about.

Something was causing his comrades to see their biggest fears, and turn on their fellow soldiers.

Something brought this ship to Manchuria.

And the answer was in the cargo hold.

Joe remembered many of the guards expressing some sort of fear when it came to going down there. Many people, especially Patterson, always tried to find a way out of their shift because they were spooked by something.

But even then, the superiors insisted on surrounding that area with a heavy amount of security.

It was obvious that they didn’t want to leave any chance of their secret being exposed, but after everything Joe had seen tonight, he was going to find out why.

He didn’t care who would try to stop him either.

Whatever they were hiding down there just cost him his best friend, and he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try to blow the whistle on their whole operation.

It was his job, after all, to protect his country.

...Even when it meant protecting it from itself.

#man of medan #man of medan fanfic #joe roberts #joseph roberts #man of medan joe #until dawn

[nightcoremoon]

I think part of the reason why I hate horror movies is because of the overreliance on jumpscares and shock value and BWAH SUDDEN LOUD NOISES rather than on atmosphere, believability, tension, fear.

here's a list of horror movies from google and the reasons why I hate them, or why I love them, or that they're not actually horror movies.

A quiet place: haven't seen it yet but it's a thriller more so than a horror. thrillers can be scary though but then again so can comedies. and romances. 50 shades is definitely scary: it is psychological abuse after all.

Halloween: slasher film, automatically boring and shit. I'm including the entirety of the franchise here, by the way, and I'm also gonna be including Friday the 13th, nightmare on elm street, etc. They're all the same brand of sensationalist garbage. maybe the very first in each series could be redeemable but the mass volume of shitty and terrible CGI gorefests have ruined them forever. "oh no the scary unkillable monster is coming after us and he's gonna kill us in overly violent ways" 💩

Hereditary: I don't even give a shit it looks trite EDIT maybe it's okay but I don't give enough of a shit to bother to ~give it a chance~ because hey. that's what fucking horror games are for.

Insidious: boring, not scary, 0/10

Get Out: haven't watched yet but will because it's a cinematic masterpiece that defies genre conventions

Bird Box: IM SO FUCKING SICK OF HEARING ABOUT FUCKING BIRD BOX SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT BIRD BOX HOLY SHIT. It's just the goddamn happening by shyamagofuckyourself and it's an excuse to profit off of sensationalist suicide. oohh so spooky. eat my ass, boggart

It: too much bad cgi makes it a comedy. plus a bunch of kids say fuck a lot. good movie that's technically horror I guess but is it scary? nah.

Suspiria: I've never heard of this movie

Annihilation: same

Split: M NIGHT SHYAMALAN IS A SHITTY FILMMAKER and also it's ableist as fuck so

Mandy: google you suck none of these movies have any mainstream appeal

The Conjuring: 💩💩💩

Hush: ??? you know what fuck it I'm skipping the ones that don't matter

The Vvitch: 🙄 my mom's a witch, my best friend's a witch, I'm a witch. hey yeah maybe let's not buy into christian colonialism please? scary witches are boring as shit. gimme something actually scary. like Catholics.

The Nun: wait shit not like that! and by that I mean BORING AS HELL aside from the jumpscares. which are shit

The Babadook: clearly an LGBT movie, not horror

Cabin in the Woods: a parody and an excellent one at that. at least the gore is in homage, or hilariously over the top

Sinister: the fucking epitome of shitty jumpscares and shock value and lack of atmosphere and bad acting and bad plot and jesus fucking christ this is one of the worst and most boring movies I've ever had the misfortune to see DONT WASTE YOUR GODDAMN TIME

Saw: it's actually a thriller with Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Michael Emerson, and Tobin Bell. it's a campy cheesy low budget true to form horror film with adequate writing, good acting, AMAZING MUSIC BY CHARLIE CLOSER, and isn't over the top with gore considering it's all practical effects. top fucking notch but spawned a dozen terrible sequels.

Shaun of the Dead: it's a touching and heartfelt romantic comedy... with zombies, EXCELLENT CINEMATOGRAPHY, excellent acting, and sad parts that will rip your fucking heart out, stomp on it, and grind it to dust. literally one of the best movies ever made of all time, eat shit tarantino.

The Ring: eh, the original Japanese was better (Japanese horror is its own genre and not a part of this criticism, I actually really like original Japanese horror unfucked up by american audiences as long as it doesn't just gratuitously glorify suicide as Japan does), but this was still a really good mystery thriller with some really cool effects, and is the only movie that has ever actually scared me for real. even now I hate that there's a tv with a vcr right at the foot of my bed.

The Sixth Sense: shyamalan made a couple of good movies. this was one of them. but it wasn't a horror movie and if you didn't know the twist IT WAS A FUCKING AMAZING ONE. like, goddamn empire strikes back levels of supreme and god tier plot twists. it went a little overboard on shock value but compared to the rest of the COMPLETE BULLSHIT on this list (AND IN HIS OWN MOVIES) it really could've gone way further.

The Descent: goddamn claustrophobia. too much horribly cgi'd gore and terrible decisions to be truly enjoyable though. would've been a much better movie without the mutants and the middle finger to physics throat stabbing and the JUST FUCKING KICK IT YOU GODDAMN IDIOT and oh yeah the subtle misogyny. the first half was good tho

28 days later: shitty remake of a merely ok movie EDIT I was thinking of 28 weeks later, 28 days was actually okay I guess

Scream: did not age well but it's okay for being meta, despite the fucking torture porn of drew barrymore at the beginning. allowed for scary movie 1 though, so I'm glad it exists.

Paranormal Activity: PARANORMAL FUCKING ACTIVITY CAN EAT MY ASS, ITS SUCH A SUBLIME FAILURE OF EXECUTION. I WANTED IT TO BE GOOD BUT IT WASNT. oh well at least it inspired five nights at Freddy's. I'll go ahead and throw all shitty found footage movies under this one, including unfriended.

Blair Witch Project: a fucking pioneer of its time. a genre definer. truly scary. good movie. I'll go ahead and throw all good found footage movies under this one, including cloverfield.

The Shining: a thriller, not horror. but goddamn is it the scariest not horror movie ever made. Stephen king you magnificent bastard

Alien: goddamn fucking alien. science fiction masterpiece. director's a little creepy but eh, sigourney weaver kicks ass, and alien isolation is such a good game (despite its many flaws), and it's just so iconic in terms of sheer scope of concept. it's the same horror movie as anywhere else but in space, and I still can't fucking believe this was made in the 70s. this and Star Wars were FUCKING AMAZING, and the xenomorph? THATS ALL PRACTICAL EFFECTS BABEY. NO OVERRELIANCE ON CGI GUTS AND SHOCK VALUE HERE, ITS JUST PURE HORROR AT ITS FINEST. good movie. aliens was better. everything else... eeehhh...

The Thing: same as the descent but with men instead of women, and EVEN WORSE DECISION MAKING. IT IS UNBELIEVABLE JUST HOW GODDAMN STUPID EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM COULD POSSIBLY BE. and in the remake yeah the practical effects were mind blowingly fantastic and inspired dead space which I believe is one of the best horror games if not just best games or horror pieces of media if not just best pieces of media constructed. but the prequel? 🙄 no thanks

The exorcist: masterpiece of practical effects without an overreliance on jumpscares and gore

Jaws: it's Stephen fucking Spielberg in the 70s and one of the most influential horror films and just films in general

Hellraiser: okay I'll give all works by clive barker a pass here because goddamn is he a demented fucking genius if ever I saw one. if only Jericho was actually a good game, it could've been the next doom 3

Poltergeist: an actually good horror movie that depends on atmosphere and effects more so than jumpscares and gore? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP

Evil Dead: campy but misogynist. the sequel was a comedy so it's okay. the next sequel is also a comedy AND ARMY OF DARKNESS IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER FUCKING MADE. FIGHT ME. and fuck the remake. sam raimi should've retired after spiderman 3. maybe even before that.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: honestly not bad. it was actually freaky and believable. rednecks really are fucking scary with all their inbreeding and terrible music and hatred of black people. I refuse to acknowledge the original and the sequels.

Psycho: eh, hitchcock's worst is still better than most of the shit on this list.

The Wicker Man: OH GOD NOT THE BEES! AHHGUBLAHH MY EYES! AAAAAHHHHH!!! fucking excellent comedy. but it doesn't have any naked ladies in it like the original did. oh well, can't please everyone.

Night of the Living Dead: THOSE ZOMBIES ARE BULLSHIT. ZOMBIES CANT USE WEAPONS AND THEY SURE AS FUCK CANT TURN YOU INTO A ZOMBIE BY STABBING YOU WITH A TROWEL. THEY HAVE TO BITE YOU. FUCK YOU GEORGE ROMERO. Also, dawn of the dead was just sensationalist garbage. "They tore apart a real pig carcass tho so it looked like real intestines" what? the fuck??? who gives a shit????? I watch movies to escape from reality, dumbass. I don't beat off to chopped up human carcasses. If I want a zombie movie I want the walking dead sans the soap opera bullshit and the racism and then "no one is safe and everyone will die" boring mentality propagated by twd and got and other things I used to like but no longer care about (because why should I give a shit about it if everyone could die? I can already be sad enough about all the real people I know who die. enjoying the pain of the deaths of those important to us is a privilege the cishets have). the walking dead seasons 1&2 was pure horror and the very best kind. don't give me boring contrivances. "but sheena, night of the living dead was a trope definer! everything in it was original!" yeah, you know what else is original? *farting noise* George Romero is just rob zombie without a rock band. his best work was fucking call of duty. that's pathetic. "maybe you just don't like gore" HEY YEAH SURE I DONT WANNA SEE UBER REALISTIC INTESTINES AND ORGANS IF THEY ARENT PART OF A MEDICAL DEAL SO IM JUST A BIG DUMB HATER. I'm the one in the wrong. fuck me, right?

Don't Breathe: A FUCKING TURKEY BASTER FILLED WITH SEMEN. THATS SO STUPID I FORGOT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SCARY. BEST CRINGE COMEDY OF THE YEAR :D

Tremors: legitimately great movie with a hundred shitty sequels. like saw but your faves win so you walk away filled with determination rather than sad and disappointed. enjoyment of tragedies are a privilege awarded to those who are neurotypical.

Zombieland: gore done right. the only casualty is mindless zomzoms and bill murray. good. granted it counts as a romance and a comedy but honestly last time I watched it I cried at the part where you find out buck isn't tallahassee's dog. god I love that movie. AND FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS IS THE MOST BADASS MOVIE OPENER EVER.

The Fly: Jeff fucking goldblum. amazing effects for good reasons. need I say more? the original doesn't exist because 1950s horror movies are all bad because all 1950s movies are bad. the 1950s should just be purged from america's records except for pleasantville.

All other Stephen king movies: hit or miss but mostly still good. although very few are actual horror.

10 cloverfield lane: more of a thriller like above's misery but still an amazing movie.

Peeping Tom: literally a movie about how creepy it is to fetishize the deaths of women WHILE LITERALLY FETISHIZING THE DEATHS OF WOMEN. like, come on man. how do you miss your own point so completely?

Invasion of the body snatchers: it's not horror and if it's made to be horror using gore it's shit. the whole thing is just an allegory to the joe mccarthy communism witch hunts anyway.

Cube trilogy: the ultimate b movies. so bad they're good. and it's such an interesting concept too!

Killer Klowns from Outer Space: fucking alien clowns come to earth to turn us into cotton candy by killing us using carnival fare. THIS IS THE GREATEST BAD MOVIE EVER MADE.

All horror movies based on horror video games: either irredeemably bad, or action movies

All creepy Netflix horror movies: wow any idiot with a camera and basic cgi skills can throw shit together to make a movie these days, huh

The Slender Man: I am literally too pissed off about this movie to insult it.

Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve, the Slender Man movie on YouTube: triumphs of meta, editing, found footage, proof of concept, and story. Slenderman is such a malleable entity for a perfect horror experience, HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY FUCK THAT UP? YOUD HAVE TO BE INTENTIONALLY SABOTAGING YOUR WHOLE MOVIE TO FUCK IT UP AS BAD AS SOMEone who exclusively directs remakes... oh... oh no.

Wrong Turn: one mediocre movie and a dozen loathesome snoozefests coasting by on shock value

Troll 2:

oh god

they're eating her

and then

they're gonna eat me

...

oh my gooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

(Troll 2 is literally the worst movie ever made and I have to respect it for that at least)

but yeah, horror is just bad for movies. but for video games, though...

#long post

[hcourageous]

i’m thinking about you tonight, like i do on january 24th every year. i’m thinking about how this year, twelve years later, seems so much harder than before. i feel like i’ve lost so much. i’ve lost myself. i’ve lost potential love. i’ve lost friendships. i’ve lost.... if i’m being honest i’ve lost faith. in god, in the world, in myself. i’ve lost faith in people.

i rely so heavily on substance abuse and have fallen back into self harm tendencies when is comes to my body. not eating at all or eating so much i make myself sick. i buy things i don’t need and spend money when i shouldn’t. all so i can drown out how much i’ve lost.

everything i want seems so far away from me. the people i love are so far away. this year, twelve years later, feels so much harder, because i’ve never felt so alone. so empty. so scared.

i’d like to say i don’t know this girl i’ve become. but i know her too well. i know her flaws and her habits. i know her wretched addictions and i’ve battled them all my life. i know her. i can’t escape her. and i’m terrified of the reality this is the only version of me there is. the broken monstrosity of a thing.

i miss you charlie. i miss when even when i felt alone and small and terrified, i had somewhere to go. someone to be with. to run away with. i miss the freedom of running through open space. i miss your grumpy charm and your absolute trust.

i miss when riding made everything right. because you were mine and i was yours. some how two pieces, two broken, jagged pieces of two lonely, angry souls fit together to make a whole. you made me feel seen and wanted in a way i’ve never felt again.

i feel so alone tonight. there’s so much pain. i’m sober for the first time in awhile. i want to be strong for you. i know this isn’t how you’d want me to live. i’m struggling, but i know you’d tell me to keep moving. keep fighting til the end. never let them break your spirit. because they never broke yours. you stared down anyone that tried to mold your flame into something tameable and laughed in their face, chasing them off and standing your ground.

i haven’t done a very good job of following the example you set. i’ve let the world break me charlie. my spirit is so empty. i opened myself up to people, so desperate to be loved and wanted and needed, and they let me down. not everyone. but enough. too much for any one person to bear.

people used to call me brave. i don’t feel brave. i’m not sure i ever did, but i certainly don’t now. i feel like a coward hiding in my disfunction because i don’t know how to live anymore. or at least, lost the will to try. i feel lonely, and empty, and burying myself in a lack of real identity with booze and material things and bad jokes about my rapidly declining mental health.

i’m so tired of being rejected. i want to believe that i can be loved, by someone good and kind. but all evidence points to something else. i feel isolated by the idea that, since you’ve been gone, i’m back to being everyone’s second choice. invisible. just a fleeting shadow. like i hold no permanence in anyone’s life. i just exist for a time and then.... i’m gone. and no one cares.

i forged my entire personality into armor, forcing people to see me while keeping them at arms length, but inevitably my desire to be vulnerable and soft betrays me and i wind up in the embrace of people who view me as temporary. i get hurt. i pick myself up. and i get hurt again.

i don’t know how to pick myself up from this charlie. i don’t know if i can. i feel like i can’t breathe. i’m falling apart, but i can’t afford to fall apart. i can’t afford to break. the second i do.... i have no where to go. i’m so scared. what happens to me when i have no where to go.

of course, i have people who want to help. but they are in no position to help. i feel guilty that i’ve put them in an impossible position of wanting to do something but can’t. of causing them unnecessary pain. i’m not worth it.

god i want to be so badly though. i want to view myself of being worth the trouble. of accepting love and help and affection.

i miss you charlie. it’s been twelve years. i still remember the last time i saw you. you were so tired. you deserved so much more. i hope you know how much i love you. that if i could go back, if i could bend time to my will just to say goodbye. to be with you when you went. god i’d give anything. anything. it’s the only real regret i have and it’s so intense and painful it’s hard to have regrets for other things, because they just don’t measure up.

if heaven is real, you were it for me brother. maybe i can’t ever have that again because you were it. i’m just grateful for that time with you. i wish i could say that you’d be proud of me. it kills me that i... i really don’t think i can. i don’t think you’d like who i’ve become. this messy, broken, loud mouthed alcoholic who got so lost after you died she spent the next twelve years shutting down a little more each day to become this... half person. this empty thing.

i don’t know where to go from here. i just miss you. i don’t know how to be okay. i feel like i just.... for once need someone to take care of me. the problem is, i’ve never had anyone like that. not my parents, not my siblings, my friends try their best, but god we all have our traumas. in a world built to break my generation down, there’s only so much we can do. and you’re gone. the only one to ever see the real me. before i became this. you’re the only one in the whole world who just saw.... me. and you’re gone.

i feel like an imposter in my own skin. i miss you so much charlie. twelve years feels like a lifetime, but so short. like time is punishing me for my grief, making it feel like losing you only happened yesterday, but a hundred years of yesterdays.

it’s too simple of a thing to say, but i miss you.

#tw: depression #tw: substance abuse #tw: self harm #personal #long post #idk guys i just.... needed to let it out i guess

[ecoutez-moi]

part 5 - gratefulness in our lives

DAY  27  - MONDAY - March 15

Adreanna C.

Of course! I am grateful for:

1. God & His many blessings

2. Family

3. Friends

4. Great health

5. Being in my right mind

6. Remaining financially stable during these hard times

7. Having a roof over my head

8. Having so much love & support surrounded around me

9. The mistakes I’ve made & continue to make every now & then because I only learn from them

10. LIFE

DAY 28 TUESDAY- March 16

Sophia C.

10 things I’m grateful for

1. A steady job that allows me to have a income to not only purchase what I need but also little wants that bring me joy.

2. A group of work friends who takes me as I am. They listen to my Debbie downer complaining when I feel burnt out and take in my over-the-top extra-ness when I feel motivated without making me feel bad about being either way.

3. A healthy and relatively smooth first pregnancy with only annoying but not-too-scary symptoms or complications.

4. Being able to spend time with my family and have them feed me/talk to me while transitioning to a new place.

5. Having the financial means to get a bigger place.

6. Having support from my partner during an isolating time.

7. Having different types of friends and relationships to lean on in different aspects of my life- an empathetic brother and an aggressive sister to stand up for me in the stuff that I’m too meek in.

8. The recovery of my family after health scares.

9. A body that allows me to live and enjoy life.

10. The experiences and relationships that brought me to where I am today and continue to help me grow as a person.

Rachel C.

Rachel’s Gratitude List

   •    A safe place to live

   •    A caring partner in life

   •    My health

   •    The ability to find the positive in a situation rather than getting stuck in the negative.

   •    Access to clean water to drink

   •    A way to make a living in the midst of this pandemic.

   •    Food 😊

DAY 29 WEDNESDAY - March 17

Didi

Today I’m grateful to wake u p  and still can see a beautiful view of the sky. A fresh smell in  the morning. A good breakfast which tastes so amazing even if it ‘s just a scrambled egg. A peace of mind I had because I wake up to live like there’s no tomorrow. Love and Bless <3 

Maritza

I’m grateful for everything

Happiness friends and love Nd  music

DAY 30 Thursday  - March 18

Kristin D. 

I am grateful for:

1. Loving parents and family

2. Friends

3. Health

4. Safe shelter

5. Food provision

6. Current employment

7. The opportunity to sit still (this is spiritual)

8. New bible study

9. Mentoring program

10. Lessons that I will learn from the last 2 difficult weeks

Ivy F.

1. Yoga

2. Breathing

3. Fresh foods

4. My parents

5. Support of friends

6. Hope for change

7. Rain & sunshine

8. Simply feeling - allowing myself to get more comfortable with openly feeling my emotions

9. A laugh that hurts so good

10. A bright smile

Justus W.

Grateful for strength and wisdom in my marriage!

Grateful for the trials I’ve been through that added clarity to my thinking

Grateful that my mother and brothers are taken care of

Grateful for the gifts God had given me to use.

Grateful that every time anyone negative or crazy is in my life God always exposes them.

Grateful that in my years of cross country driving nothing terrible has ever happened.  

Grateful that God must have a lot of patience with me 😂

Grateful to have a home and safe place.

Grateful that since I turned 18 God has provided for every bill. Never missed a payment on anything

Grateful that I know God. And that if anything on this list ever changed I could still stand on the Word and have faith!

DAY 31 March 19 FRIDAY

Klisha T. 

Hmmmmmm 10 things

About to get the kids to bed but theres so many things lol

For health, for my kids, for healing for Mya, for my husband, for salvation, for God's grace

For our best friends Myo and Natalie

Literally for a place to live

Running water

Food

Is that 10? Lol

DAY 32 March 20 SATURDAY

Vlad S.

My wife

My family

My friends

My dogs

My creativity

Nature

Good food

My neighborhood

Biking

My youth

Kevin M. 

I am grateful for my health - I am

Obviously getting older but I feel like I am healthier than when I was younger. I am feeling the healthiest and most grounded I have felt in a long time.

I am grateful for some space in my life.

I am grateful for the deep, connected friendships I have cultivated over the years. I feel as we all get older these friendships are going to be what sustains me.

I am grateful to be inspired everyday by what people are creating in this world.

I am grateful I get to work at something that interests me.

I am grateful that most days I wake up and can put my energy towards things that excite me.

I am grateful for my mom, dad and my sisters and the family I was born into.

I am grateful I am still very close to my mom and sisters.

I am grateful that I get to live in NYC and that the city still excites and inspires me.

I am grateful for Al-Anon.

I am grateful to be free of any substance addictions in my life.

I am grateful for the natural talents, skills, gifts that I have been given by God and that I can use those everyday to what I do or in service of others.

I am grateful that I have been blessed with the resources that I need to live a comfortable life.

I am grateful that it’s easy for me to see the good in people.

I am grateful that I have a curious mind.

I am grateful that I feel my feelings deeply.

I am grateful that I am nor afraid to cry in front of people.

I am grateful that I always want to be better.

I am grateful for my three children and that they have such big, bold and expressive personalities.

I am grateful for the many years I have had in partnership with Leslie and all the incredible adventures we have had.

I am grateful for the other romantic relationships I have had in my life and the wisdom they have given me.

I am grateful for the times life teaches me how to let go.

I am grateful that alcoholism in my family has given me the opportunity to form a deeper connection to my spirituality.

I am grateful that I have so many things I am grateful for!!!

DAY 33 March 21 SUNDAY

I missed today :( 

DAY 34  March 22 MONDAY

David H.

1. Everyone in My family is healthy

2. Thru this last year where our family members could not meet , my cousins have announced engagements and pregnancies so our family is growing

3. Work is good , the word is getting out that I’m not bad at this

4. In a world where ppl have a difficult time

This year, my business has thrived

5. My perspective on life is more keen

6. I have the capability to low you now as a passerby than I did years ago when I was closer

7. God was always with me. But I only see him now

8. From our last conversation you’re in better place now and I’m thankful for that

IM so happy for you. I couldn’t genuinely say that years ago

9. Perspective

10. Christina, you’re a bigger part of my life than you know.  I’D kill for you

DAY 35 MARCH 23 TUESDAY

Chrissy K.

My ten.. I’m grateful..

- even though my sanity and energy is tested everyday- I’m grateful for this extra time I’m having with the kids, to watch them grow in small ways everyday

- most of family and friends have been healthy (or able to recover), safe, financially stable during the pandemic

- being able to ride out half of the pandemic in San Diego, meaning more space, more things for the kids to do ie, zoo, beaches, closer to cousin

-having access to some beautiful outdoors

- great weather so we weren’t cooped up inside all year

- super humbling and challenging living with the in-laws.. but grateful charlie and Benny are able to bond with them

- the timing of things.. bro was out in ny right before pandemic hit so was able to help At the store, in-laws decided to go to Korea for extended time so it allowed us to have time alone in sd, my maternity leave rolled right into quarantine

- food

-korean dramas 😂 keeping it real- turned into korean lady putting on kdrama while I do dishes and cook

- finally able to drink again.. pass that glass of wine or beer

DAY 36 MARCH 24 WEDNESDAY

Shav G. 

1. my health

2. my sleep schedule

3. my ever supportive family

4. my friends i get to jam with every day

5. my studio being close by

6. the city that inspires me every day

7. my recent boom in love interests 🤣

8. my view

9. my doormen they’re my bff’s

10. my drive to do better

Anne C.

[11:17 PM, 3/24/2021] Anne C: this is amazing - love that you're creating and holding space for something positive.

[11:17 PM, 3/24/2021] Anne C: life has been very tough - giving me a beating with what its throwing at me.

[11:18 PM, 3/24/2021] Anne C: so I'll like to say i'm grateful for strength

DAY 37 MARCH 25 THURSDAY

Marion G.

What a great idea! I would love to!

1. My family

2. Good health

3. Great friends (you included!)

4. Coffee in the morning

5. A good night's sleep (when I get one)

6. The time I've been able to spend with my kids this past year.

7. Peace of mind

8. Having a job during these difficult times

9. Wine

10. Music

What a great exercise to do first thing in the morning! Miss you!! ❤

Bonnie Y.

DAY 38  MARCH 26 FRIDAY

Sina W.

1. My parents. They’ve really been there for me through the challenges of covid & especially through the break up. Paying for therapy & spending a lot of time with me watching shows and just crying was very needed.

2. Ty. I would say “my friends” but I haven’t seen my friends like that. I spend every day with Ty lol. He is my friend soulmate and I hope everyone finds a friend like him. He walked me to my apartment every night when I was being harassed by my ex, let me crash with him, fed me, and above all has made incredible sacrifices to be a part of this music journey with me and I can’t thank him enough.

3. Nature. I’ve spent a lot of time connecting with nature, reading about nature, and sitting in nature. It’s been very meditative and helped me keep a level head.

4. Music. Just grateful to do what I love & be able to take everything I’m feeling and turn it into something tangible and productive. It has been my saving grace through quarantine and I don’t know what I’d be doing if I didn’t have it.

5. Edibles lol. Between October and February my anxiety was through the roof. I’ve been through a lot of shit recently and thank god there’s been something to take the edge of sometimes.

6. Books. I’ve read 20 books since Christmas. I’ve been really excited about learning recently. Everything from meditation to the ice age to gentrification. It’s given me a lot of perspective and makes me really happy.

7. My sister. We recently started getting a lot closer and I always hoped that would happen.

8. My DOG. He makes me so happy. Like pure joy. I love him so much.

9. The sun. Not very common in Portland but every week we may get a sunny day and every time it happens it’s a reminder that this will be over soon. When the world was open, the clouds didn’t bug me so much. But now I look forward to the sun like no other.  

10. BLAZER GAMES. Omg. I have not missed a game this season. It gives me something to look forward to & they are so fun to watch.

Anna B.

1. My health

2. Friends

3. Intuition

4. Abundance

5. Setting boundaries

6. Mindfulness

7. Family

8. Frank

9. Creativity

10. Feeling safe

DAY  39 MARCH 27  SATURDAY

Jon R.

10 things I’m grateful for.

1. Friendship with genuine connection

2. Like minded individuals/creatives

3. My family (we’ve been dysfunctional for years but a new leaf has turned over and we’re all making a strong effort to be a better unit)

4. My litter brother finally making the choice to better his life and get off the streets

5. God!

6. My girlfriend

7. You. (we can go months without talking but we always pick up where we left off. Since day 1 you’ve been an honest friend who’s opinion I value and I love you dearly)

8. Fashion

9. Music

10. Good health

DAY 40 MARCH 28 SUNDAY

Allie G.

Hey Christina!!! Hope you are doing swell(: hmmm 10 things?

My friends

My house

The weather today 🔆

Healthy body

Healthy mind

Avocados

Live music

Laughter

The ocean

And YOU for allowing me to sit and think about that

DAY  41 MARCH 29 MONDAY

Ray T.

I’m grateful for the almost 25 years of friendship with Christina Chow Mein

Ann K.

Hi Christina,

I hope you’re doing well!

Today I am thankful for:

1. the Hubs (today is our anni)

2. having all our needs met everyday

3. healthy kids

4. getting to and from work safely

5. growing garden seedlings

6. COVID vaccine

7. teachers

8. consistently having work to do

9. longer hours of daylight

10. friends that remind me of God’s goodness

#grateful #lent #lent2021 #love #blessings #God's grace

[her-culture]

Tim Burton and the Cult of the White Freaks

by Archita Mittra (20), India

I almost didn’t write this article. When I was 12 or 13, I went through an intense punk phase, complete with electric blue highlights, ripped jeans, inscribing Green Day lyrics on the walls of my room, and a vocabulary of extremely colourful expletives. I was a devoted rebel without a cause. I was suffering from a severe identity crisis.  I’ve always been a weird person. I’ve always liked the strange and eccentric characters. I took to writing emo poetry and creating morbid art, because I couldn’t speak, because for the most part of my childhood and my teenage years, I didn’t have the right words, the right face, the right personality, to fucking speak. I’m 20 now, and I still make morbid stuff, and things have changed, but only a bit. I close my eyes and I’m back there in that dark room with no light, a child with sewn lips, trying to articulate a trauma that knows no language. Somewhere in that demented darkness, I discovered, among other things, the films of Tim Burton. I fell in love with him and just some months back, I think, he betrayed me. This is why I almost didn’t write this article.  Let me tell you why I fell for him in the first place.  My skin’s brown as a dried walnut, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s going to stay that way, even if in my fantasies I’m white as Mia Wasikowaska’s Alice exploring a Gothic wonderland and having tea with a Mad Hatter wearing too much of white face paint. And, for as long as I could remember, that was a problem to everyone else. Why wasn’t my skin tone as fair as my parents, all my relatives would whine at every wedding and social gathering that my shy and introverted self was forced to attend. In holiday pictures, people teased me by asking if I was adopted. My classmates and I would play a game where the person with the lightest skin tone would win. During the annual school play, I was supposed to be grateful because I was getting to wear an expensive and exquisitely beautiful gown, pretending to be a spoilt stepsister and not the beautiful and oh-so-white Cinderella. Hey, at least I got the limelight for a bit. And yeah, it’s so okay, that even the colour pencils I use to make my art, label the peachy-pink tone as ‘skin’ and my brown flesh as well, just brown. Brown as tree bark, I suppose. For a long time, I kept telling myself that my shyness, my social anxiety, my crippling depression wasn’t because of all the bullying I had to endure at school, wasn’t because I was darker than everyone else around me, that it was just a manufacturing defect. Isn’t it normal for people to make fun of those who st-st-stammer? Isn’t it abnormal to st-st-stammer when you’re talking about the things you love and the things you fear? So, I did the only thing I could. I stopped talking. I wrote instead, but even that frightened me. Tim Burton was the best friend I never had. Because his films with all their Gothic visuals and macabre aesthetics, were about people supposedly like me. Beetlejuice wasn’t my first Tim Burton film but it is significant in two respects. One, it was Burton’s breakthrough film that landed him the offer to direct the blockbuster Batman films and kick-start the superhero industry. Two, it introduced to the world what is now regarded as the popular stereotype of the Goth girl: the charming Lydia Deetz. For my depressed 14 year old self who was tired of making up imaginary friends to play with and slitting wrists, the black-clad, eye-liner-wearing psychic and photography enthusiast became both my role model and my mirror image. She was introverted (yay), creative, super duper depressed and could talk to ghosts. She was me! Of course there was something strikingly wrong with this image and I tried to ignore it by smearing a shit load of face powder on my brown brown face: she was white. Years later, Tim Burton’s trademark vision gave way to the pastiche dark fantasy comedy Dark Shadows, which although failed commercially, greatly pleased me aesthetically. Johnny Depp was playing a delicious vampire, fashion icon Helena Bonham Carter was a psychologist, a sassy teenage girl was later revealed to be a werewolf, the whole family was as dysfunctional as mine and the soundtrack included both the Carpenters and Alice Cooper. What else could a lonely POC girl, steadily losing her mind in a world of Gothic films that reflected back her own emptiness and strangeness, ask for?  And even now, despite everything that has happened to me, Edward Scissorhands still remains as one of my favourite films, and although I pride myself as the type of person who doesn’t cry while watching a movie, my eyes were watery by the time Edward and Kim had parted ways and Edward remained in that dark castle, lonely as he ever was, making snow with his scissor hands. I was simultaneously Edward, this misfit-monster abandoned by God and his parent, and Kim, the suburban girl, slowly tasting what it is to love a stranger whose heart is so familiar and to dance for the first time in snow. And I thought, as I watched the pain in Edward’s eyes that it was Burton and not Edward, who was pleading to the audience to look beyond appearances and voicing for the first time, his childhood issues of alienation and misrepresentation. Soon after watching the film, my diary entries (I kept several journals because I didn’t have ‘real life’ friends to talk to) began to be addressed to a mysterious man named Edward while the Johnny Depp fan art I made bore the note ‘the only Edward I ever loved’ much to the annoyance of my Twlight-obsessed classmates. The movie wasn’t perfect, but then again, most beautiful things never are. And I’d long outgrown my fangirly love for Depp, long before those allegations about abusing Amber Heard began. But the love story with Tim Burton doesn’t end here. In 2010, when Alice having slain the Jabberwocky is preparing to leave, the Hatter softly requests her to stay. Alice promises to come back but the Hatter is unconvinced, saying she won’t remember him. Alice was not ready to comprehend the implications of that exchange, but I did and it terrified me to death.  Tim Burton’s movies were the wonderland I would run away to, to escape my harsh reality, to forget this world that wouldn’t treat me as one of them, because I wasn’t fair enough, because fuck it, I wasn’t normal enough. I was trapped in the world of the Mad Hatter, a dream concocted by Alice, a world that is fragile and ephemeral, a world that disappears the moment Alice wakes up and forgets her dream.  I’ll come back to this later, but for now, let me tell you the final lesson I learnt from watching Tim Burton’s movies: I learned to hope. In his delightful stop-motion animated feature Frankenweenie, Victor attempts to bring his dead pet dog Sparky back to life and he does so with disastrous consequences. Watching it and remembering all the pets I’d loved who died and would sell my soul to bring back, I was filled with a childlike sense of hope and the realization that I wasn’t alone for believing in and desperately hoping for impossible things, I wasn’t alone in being misunderstood and misrepresented. For once being the weird kid in class and scribbling poems and doodles on the sly, didn’t matter. Not having people to connect to, or appreciating me for the messed-up person I was, didn’t matter. I was okay. I didn’t have to be normal like everyone else, because there were people like Tim Burton who could totally get me. At least that’s what I felt when he said stuff like, ‘I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world.’ And as much morbid a Tim Burton film may appear to a first time viewer (especially if it’s Corpse Bride), Burton’s characteristic brand of Gothic-ness wasn’t so much as a celebration of death, as it was a celebration of life. Working within the Hollywood system, Tim Burton has managed to retain his personality and also be, subversive. And that was so fucking inspiring to me.  Why then did this man, who dresses up in black, whose films have tried to teach me to fall in love with myself and to believe in magic, miracles and impossible things, suddenly, betray me?  Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children should have been my perfect film. After all, it’s a film about kids who are eccentric and don’t fit in, has time travel and a love story thrown in the mix and a secret house where they can be themselves. It is exactly the stuff I relate to and enthusiastically devour.  But this is what Tim Burton did. When asked about the lack of diversity in his films, he said ‘Nowadays, people are talking about it more. But things either call for things, or they don’t. I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct, like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black — I used to get more offended by that than just — I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.” In that singular moment, my whole carefully-constructed illusion came crashing down, so efficiently, I didn’t even realize it. Okay, I told myself, I’m a POC and I’m not ‘called for’. All through my life I have been worshipping a man in whose imagination, I have no space, I do not exist. I’m the Mad Hatter in Alice’s world, alive for a short time, useful as a plot device and erased out of the narrative, the moment Alice returns to the real world.  Is this the kind of space WE occupy in the white imagination? Okay, I tell myself. At least unlike Steven Moffat, he isn’t famous for saying a string of problematic things. Okay, perhaps it was someone else’s fault- maybe Ransom Riggs or a Disney executive didn’t want too much tampering with the too-white source material( Never mind what he did with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by adding a back story to Willy Wonka that I totally loved). Plus if he really suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, as his ex-partner Helena Bonham Carter claimed, we shouldn’t take his words to heart. Maybe he didn’t mean it. It’s just one blunder, I told myself. It doesn’t change anything.  But it did. It changed everything. I couldn’t make any more excuses. Taking a look at his entire filmography-a career spanning over three decades- I realized that casting white, pale-as-death people is his artistic and directorial choice. It’s his fucking personal and creative choice. He just said that out loud. And it’s shoved into my face that this is a world running on white privilege and racism and hate crimes. That it’s the discrimination that POC face on a daily basis both from the whites and the communities who have internalized such values is the reason why I’m too afraid to even consider studying abroad in the UK or USA because Brexit and Trump administration yada yada, why I’m never ‘pretty enough’ to be considered to take part in college fashion shows built on patriarchal beauty conventions, why I still spend a part of my earnings on cosmetics that promise me ‘fair’ skin. My skin color isn’t an issue, most charming hypocrites will claim, it’s my shyness and weirdness and my lack of fucking ‘normal-ness’ that’s to blame.  I wish someone would just tell me that I was born okay, that I am okay, that I’m not some sort of manufacturing defect most people think I am. In other words, Tim Burton’s niche audience wasn’t as inclusive as I made it out to be. It had outsiders and misfits yes, but only the white ones. Tim Burton’s fan club is a cult of white freaks, not Black freaks, not POC freaks, not any non-white freaks.  I can’t be a part of this fan club, because in their world, I don’t exist. I am not ‘called for.’ When Ash Davis responds to Burton’s comment, she writes this brilliant article and says, ‘I write fanfiction for the people Tim Burton says are not ‘called for’. My mind, likewise, is a movie theatre where I edit my favourite films and include myself in the lead. I change the endings, add more romance when I’m lonely, put on costumes so outrageous that my mum won’t even let me wear on Halloween, deliver the dialogues my mouth will never speak, and feel a sense of belonging that is every bit delightful and artificial and illusory. In the films I direct in my mind, I look like the typical Tim Burton heroine. I’m white, not brown.  This is what the white gaze has done to me.  When I fell in love with his films, I thought I was seeing myself reflected back in Jack Skellington, in Lydia Deetz, in Edward Scissorhands, in Ed Wood, in Willy Wonka, in the Mad Hatter, in young Victor, in the Corpse Bride, in Ichabod Crane, but I never saw myself. I only saw what I wished so desperately to be seen as. Do I stop watching Tim Burton films after that racist comment? No. A part of me still hopes he’ll apologize or better yet include people who actually look like me in his next film. A fangirl, can hope, right? After all his films did help me to get through some dark times, albeit in a twisted way and I can’t erase those tense growing-up years when his oddball characters were all I could hold onto. But at the end of the day, he belongs to the mold of white film directors who make white movies for a predominantly white audience and think diversity POC-narratives aren’t important at all.  But do Tim Burton films help me feel less lonely and less marginalized and less threatened by the big bad world out there? Not a bit.

#tim burton #white washing #whiteness #film #animated film

[thefabulousfulcrum]

This is really important, and it's not being said enough. Please pass it around.

Thoughts on The Vegas Shooting (or Why Men Keep Doing This)

article via Medium

Charlie Hoehn

I’ll never forget April 20th, 1999.

I was 12 years old, sitting in art class in middle school. We were playing with clay and making sculptures.

Suddenly, our principal came on over the PA. Her voice trembled.

“I have an important announcement to make. All teachers and students need to hear this. I will wait 60 seconds for everyone to be completely silent.”

The next minute was eerie. My friends and I exchanged confused looks, and nervously laughed. Our teacher held her finger to her lips. Silence.

The principal’s voice came back onto the PA:

“There is a shooting at Columbine high school. All students are to go home immediately.”

Columbine was 15 minutes away from us.

I remember taking the bus home, and walking into my house. My mom turned on the news. I recognized that fence. We’ve driven by that fence.

My mom knew the teacher. Dave Sanders. She’d substituted with him at Columbine.

In the last 18 years, we Americans have experienced too many of these shootings. And I want to share a few of my thoughts on why I think they keep happening.

By the way, this isn’t a political post about guns, or the media. It’s a post about mental health.

Over the past few years, I’ve found myself in the mental health space. And I’ve learned a lot about mental illness. Particularly that men in the United States REALLY struggle in this realm, and have very little support.

I believe mental illness is the single greatest health crisis we will face in our lifetimes. Mental illness affects every single person on the planet, whether we are personally ill or not.

If we have a better understanding of what causes mental illness, we don’t have to be so afraid. We can take better care of each other, and prevent these tragedies from happening.

Sadly, most Americans still fail to address mental illness as a massive problem. It’s still taboo, still stigmatized.

I was watching Jimmy Kimmel’s impassioned, raw speech last night about the Vegas shootings. Like Jimmy, I felt sick and heartbroken by the tragedy. But something he said stood out to me:

“There’s probably no way to ever know why a human being could do something like this to other human beings.”

Sadly, researchers know exactly why human beings do things like this.

There are clear reasons. And they are preventable.

Why mass shootings keep happening.

It’s tempting to call these shooters “psychopaths” and “pure evil,” or to blame the media or guns, but that absolves us of looking deeply at what each of us — as individuals, family members, friends, and community members — could all be getting wrong.

Now, I’m not a psychiatrist. And I don’t know very much about the Vegas shooter. I’m just a guy who studies mental health.

Again, this is not a political post about guns, for the same reason it’s not a political post about weaponized cars. I’m not as interested in the tool as I am in what causes a person to use it so destructively.

Nor is this a post in defense of the shooter. What he did was beyond horrific. He is not excused from this by any stretch (though I truly feel sympathy for the shooter’s brother, who seemed to be totally caught off guard by this behavior, and now he has to deal with the aftermath for the rest of his life).

The goal of this post is simply to shine a light on the root causes of men committing mass shootings.

1- Men in the United States are chronically lonely.

Boys in the United States — just like all human beings — need touch, caring, warmth, empathy, and close relationships. But as we grow up, most of us lose those essential components of our humanity.

What’s worse: we have no idea how to ask for those things, or admit we need them, because we’re afraid it will make us look weak.

As a man, you might be thinking, “Not me, I’ve got drinking buddies. I play poker with the guys. I’ve got friends.”

But do you have confidants? Do you have male friends who you can actually be vulnerable with? Do you have friends whom you can confide in, be 100% yourself around, that you can hug without saying “No homo,” without feeling tense or uncomfortable while you’re doing it?

For most men, the answer is “no.” So, we spend our time posturing instead.

From an early age, we have an unhealthy ideal of masculinity that we try to live up to. Part of that ideal tells us that Real men do everything on their own. Real men don’t cry. Real men express anger through violence.

The byproduct is isolation. Most men spend the majority of their adult lives without deeper friendships, or any real sense of community. Not to mention a complete inability to release anger or sadness in a healthy way.

There is a fantastic documentary called The Mask You Live In, which explains how boys in our society are ultimately shaped into mentally unstable adults. My friend Ryan recommended this film to me, after confiding that he cried throughout the entire thing. I cried, as well. 

Simon Sinek echoed similar insights on Glenn Beck’s show:

“We’re seeing a rise of loneliness and isolation. No one kills themselves when they’re hungry; we kill ourselves when we’re lonely. And we act out, as well.

In the 1960’s, there was one school shooting.

In the 1980’s, there were 27.

In the 1990’s, there were 58.

In the past decade, there have been over 120.

It has nothing to do with guns, it has to do with people feeling lonely.

How do we combat the loneliness that kids are feeling? All of them attacked people in their own community, and all of them attack people they blamed for their own loneliness.”

This loneliness compounds as men grow older.

Without deeper friendships or a strong sense of community, the isolation is soul-deadening and maddening. You are alone.

Any slight from someone you care about can feel emotionally traumatizing. After enough rejections and feeling like an outcast, you begin to believe that people are just cruel and not worth the effort. You perceive people as threats.

Before we ask, “How could he do such a thing?” we have to understand how he felt on a daily basis, and how those feelings grew over the years.

2- Men in the United States are deprived of play opportunities.

You might be offended by this suggestion.

How could this guy talk about play after a shooting?! Play is for kids!

Wrong.

Homo sapiens play more than any other species. It’s impossible to prevent a human from playing. We play shortly after we are born, and the healthiest (and least stressed) humans tend to play for their entire lives.

Play may be God’s greatest gift to mankind. It’s how we form friendships, and learn skills, and master difficult things that help us survive. Play is a release valve for stress, and an outlet for creativity. Play brings us music, comedy, dance, and everything we value.

The irony is that loneliness would not be a problem if we all got ample time to play. Not only would we have deeper friendships, we’d also have better relationships with ourselves. Play allows us to enjoy our own company. If you truly know how to play, you are rarely alone.

But that is not the state of affairs in the United States. We are lonely because we don’t play, and we don’t play because we are alone.

There is a very strong correlation with play deprivation and mental illness.

When you deprive mammals of play, it leads to chronic depression. When you deprive a human child of play, their mental and emotional health deteriorate. Play suppression has enormous health consequences.

“But the Vegas shooter loved to gamble! He went on cruises!”

That’s not the type of play I’m talking about.

To better understand this dynamic, we need to look at the background of another mass shooter.

In 1966, Charles Whitman shot his wife and mother. Then, he climbed up the tower at the University of Texas in Austin, and shot 46 people. In total, he murdered 16 people. At the time, this was the biggest mass shooting in United States history.

Dr. Stuart Brown and his team of researchers were commissioned to find out what “The Texas Sniper” had in common with other mass murderers.

They found the key when they looked at their childhoods.

Brown recalls:

“None of them engaged in healthy rough-and-tumble play. The linkages that lead to Charles Whitman producing this crime was an unbelievable suppression of play behavior throughout his life by a very overbearing, very disturbed father.”

In other words: Healthy and joyful play must be had in order to thrive. Play is how we bond, and form our deepest connections with other human beings.

“It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your kids are?”

Ever since that famous ad aired, parents have shamed each other into watching their kids like a hawk.

If you let your kid walk up the street alone, you’ll either get a call from another parent, or the cops will pick them up. Our kids are stripped of their right to experience life on their own terms.

In an effort to improve our kids’ test scores and beef up their future resumes, we’ve stripped away nearly all of their free play opportunities. Recess has been sacrificed in the name of Scantrons, and pills are prescribed to the kids whose bodies and minds cry out for play.

The result: A generation of the most anxious, depressed, and suicidal American children on record.

This is all in alignment with Dr. Peter Gray’s research, who studied the rise of mental illness and the decline in play:

“Over the past half century, in the United States and other developed nations, children’s free play with other children has declined sharply. Over the same period, anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased sharply in children, adolescents, and young adults… The decline in play has contributed to the rise in the psychopathology of young people.

This is why I believe mental illness is the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes. Because those kids will grow up into isolated adults who don’t know how to play, or seek out their friends when they are lonely.

They are alone.

In the most memorable chapter of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, the author describes the research of James Gilligan, a young psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School in the 1970s.

Gilligan was invited to make sense of the Massachusetts’s prisons and mental hospitals, where he interviewed murderous inmates. He included in his notebook this heartbreaking observation:

“They would all say that they themselves had died before they started killing other people… They felt dead inside. They had no capacity for feelings. No emotional feelings. Or even physical feelings.

Universal among the violent criminals was the fact that they were keeping a secret. A central secret. And that secret was that they felt ashamed— deeply ashamed, chronically ashamed, acutely ashamed.

I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed or humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed.”

ALL OF US will face difficult times in our lives where we will experience shame, humiliation, disrespect, and ridicule.

Do you know what gets us through those hard times?

Do you know what the difference is between you and a killer?

Friendship: Love and support from the people you played with.

I often think of the final line of Stand by Me:

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12… Jesus, does anyone?”

I don’t know much about the Vegas shooter. Maybe he was a psychopath.

But I’m guessing he wasn’t.

Instead, I am betting that these factors about him were likely true:

He felt deeply lonely. He had no significant friendships to rely on, and very few quality people he could confide in.

He experienced play deprivation. He didn’t have joyful fun with himself, or with others.

He carried with him a deep sense of shame. About what, I have no idea.

Even though we’re in the safest period in the history of civilization, these shootings will keep happening in America. They happen every single day. Guns are a part of the problem, and so is the media. But there is a bigger problem.

We are a culture that continually neglects the mental health of our boys, and our men.

The good news is that you, as an individual, can make a difference. Reach out to someone who you think could be lonely, and go do something fun together. Confide in each other. Be a safe and supportive person to be around.

If you’ve noticed their personality has drastically changed, invite them out for several hours. Be there for them. You could save their life.

And it wouldn’t hurt to have these books in your library, either:

1- Mental Health Emergencies

2- Play

3- Fearvana

[vileart]

The 30 Year Old Dramaturgy: Kevin James Doyle @ Edfringe 2017

(No) Sex and the City – New York Revelations  

New York comedian Kevin James Doyle is coming to the 70th Edinburgh Fringe Festival with a show all about sex – or the complete lack of it.

Raised as a clean-living young Christian he knew that sex had to be saved for marriage. But then, God forbid, he hit 30, his engagement broke up and he was still a virgin.

 Laughing Horse at Southside Social (Venue 264)

 August 3-14 and 16-27

Time: 23:15

Guidance: 18+

Tickets: Free non ticketed

What was the inspiration for this performance?

The inspiration for this particular show was anxiety. The anxiety of doing 8 minute sets of comedy sets when I had 60 minutes of stories that were closer to me and more what I have wanted to talk about than a two minute joke. Having been a performer for 16 years or so now, it's rare to feel like you have to get something out artistically.

 Usually I go from project to project hoping something bigger or comes along, but I have never felt that intense urge to work on material like I have this show. Maybe it is getting older and more serious about my career and my "art" but I just got so anxious about the thought of not doing the show that is in my head that I had to do it to calm that anxiety.  

It is called The 30 Year Old Virgin and it is very personal, about growing up in a conservative home, getting engaged young, breaking off my engagement, being a virgin as an adult and how I ended up there. So it makes sense that I had to get this stuff out because its about my formative years in my home growing up, the biggest heartbreak I have ever experienced and feeling weird about my life choices as an adult as life didn't play out like I expected. 

If you hold that stuff in its going to be very

difficult, if you talk about it it has the potential to be more compelling than any new joke about food or how annoying people can be at concerts or how public transportation sucks.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Yes. The shared experience of live performance has the potential to bring people together like nothing else. The internet and social media are deceptive because they give us the opportunity to interact with anyone about anything which has been revolutionary but proven to have the drawbacks of shallowness or bring out our lack of empathy. The is no better conversation than over a beer or a coffee after a play, a film, a concert or a comedy show. 

I read TV recaps and I comment on people social media and use my own but seeing a performance, then having a beer after and talking about it with a friend, or stranger for that matter is much more fulfilling and memorable and beneficial. It doesn't make the other bad its just different. Filet mignon is better than McDonalds. 

Cognac from 1875 is better than Jameson. A bespoke suit is better than Men's Warehouse. A swiss watch is better than a timex. Belgian chocolate is better than Sour Patch Kids. 

And if anyone disagrees with these comparisons I would prefer to discuss it in person over a beer after a performance than online.

How did you become interested in making performance?

I was always enjoyed making my family and friends laugh. My parents suffered through years of me on the basketball team sitting the bench. In 8th grade my mom suggested I audition for the school play, You're A Good Man Charlie Brown, I did and was cast as Charlie Brown. I found an outlet for getting attention and making people laugh that was not disruptive and annoying. 

After that I kept pushing towards more forms of creativity, going to school for theater, performing stand up in New York, writing sketches, writing short films, storytelling and hosting events. Anything I could find to get the energy out of me that desires to have people pay attention to me and when is not curbed I become very obnoxious. When I am performing I am slightly less obnoxious.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

The only one that is true across the board for any show is "doing it" rather than talking about "doing it." If you want to write a script for a show you have to write it, not talk about writing it. Or in the case of the show I am working on now, I had to book a show and get on stage and talk for 60 minutes in front of people. 

I spent a lot of time writing in a notebook and at a certain point I found that I was avoiding getting on stage to perform the show because their was safety in the notebook. I think the approach for any show though is make it, then refine it, then refine it more, then refine it more and then at a certain point it will be as ready as its going to get. 

For this show I spent 5 years gather and developing stories through years of stand up, a few months collecting all that stuff in a notebook, 2 hours putting it all in order on a one page document, then performed it for the first time. Now I will refine it all by performing over and over again until its "done."

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

This is very different from anything I personally have ever done. My first few years in New York I acted in plays and musicals. Then I wrote an off broadway sketch show, then I did stand up which is mostly 10 minute sets. 

This differs because it is my show, it's 60 minutes and all the the stories are in an arch of beginning, middle and end. I have lots of material that does not fit into this show cause it doesn't serve the story, so I care much more about the arch of the story and making that as funny as it can be, than having my funniest joke ever in there if it doesn't serve the story.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope the audience will laugh, cringe and remember the times they felt the same way. One thing I am very excited about in this performance is that it deals with growing up, heartbreak, pain, anxiety and things that everyone knows and has experienced. 

The specifics of the story are mine but the themes its covers are universal. I have seen a lot of comedy that is the performer vs. the audience and I love the comedians that can make that entertaining and compelling. I never felt comfortable doing that and I would much rather connect with the audience through bringing them into my life and experiences. 

I have tried to do it in certain shows before, reading from my childhood journals, telling short stories about growing up but never on this large of a scale, this vulnerable and this long of a story. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

I have put together a number of shows at people homes. It felt right to do this show in a living room with 25 people drinking wine, rather than at a bar. 

I am doing both of those, but even the shows I have done at bars I have set the room up to have the audience closer and the lights up a little more, so that its not the performer isolated in the lights and the audience watching. 

The first time I performed the show which was very very scary for me was in a friends living room with people on the floor and on couches, I could look them in the eyes, no spotlight. For some reason this felt much less scary than being in the dark. 

I think instinctively I knew that people need to know that I see them and I am sharing something with them, not talking at them. I think it has also forced me to not hide, kind of like facing the fear rather than getting through it by not seeing it for what it is. 

Doyle’s The 30 Year Old Virgin world premieres as part of the Free Fringe and is a funny, vibrant, honest and vulnerable set of revelations about his upbringing and the subsequent rollercoaster ride of horniness and climactic hilarity.

“There I was, aged 30 and had never had sex – so what was I going to do? There was nothing for it but to dive right in to a whole new world where I was a total innocent, fumbling in search of experience,” says Doyle, “But can you imagine what it’s like to date a girl at that age and reveal that you’ve never had sex?”

Doyle is known for his delightfully entertaining storytelling, full of painfully funny home truths and personal revelations. There was, for example, the moment when as a hormone-fuelled teenager heading off for school his mother confronted him with a lotion bottle from the bathroom shouting “Kevin, this stuff’s expensive, stop it!”

An Edinburgh Fringe first timer he has an extensive track record in the USA. Doyle’s successful long running Off-Broadway comedy, How to Be a New Yorker had over 400 performances in Times Square.

He also hosts Great Times, the popular New York stand up show which is a testing ground for new material from comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Mike Birbiglia, Ilana Glazer – writers from Saturday Night Live, TheLate Show with Stephen Colbert and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Doyle brings many years of comedy experience and bucket loads of finely honed material with him across the Atlantic. He’s also dogged by lingering parental disappointment that such a promising young man should have ended up as a comedian.

“As it’s a premier I’ve got no reviews to share with people so I told my parents about the show to see what they thought,” says Doyle, “My mum’s response was ‘Are you sure you want to talk about this stuff on stage?’ and Dad weighed in with ‘You don't have to swear to be funny, I hope your show is clean comedy’. Encouragement means everything.”

from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2sEeuYB

#Theatre #Blogger #visual art #Edinburgh Fringe #Experimental Critique

[newstfionline]

Britain to test schools and hospitals after 75 out of 75 high-rise buildings fail fire safety tests

By Griff Witte and Karla Adam, Washington Post, June 26, 2017

LONDON--Britain on Monday confronted a rapidly growing fire-safety crisis after tests of the exterior cladding on dozens of public-housing towers revealed a 100 percent failure rate, raising fears that this month’s deadly inferno in London could be replicated elsewhere.

Out of 75 high-rise buildings tested since last week, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament late Monday afternoon, not one passed. That’s up from 60 failures out of 60 on Sunday--with hundreds more towers yet to be examined.

Javid said the government will immediately expand testing to include schools, hospitals and private residential buildings--suggesting that the scope of the problem could be far beyond what was suspected even days ago.

The revelations came less than two weeks after London’s 24-story Grenfell Tower was transformed overnight from a home for hundreds into a charred ruin--and a death trap for at least 79 people.

At the time, officials described it as a horrific anomaly--an “unprecedented” blaze, in the words of the city’s fire commissioner, the likes of which had not been seen in modern Britain.

But after the dozens of failed safety inspections and the hurried evacuation of thousands of public-housing residents, Grenfell is looking like something else entirely: a dire warning.

Critics say that far from being an isolated case, the blaze is symptomatic of a loose regulatory system that allowed as many as 600 towers to be encased in a material that helps spread flames, rather than stop them.

And the problems may not end with residential high-rises.

“This is massive. This is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Arnold Tarling, a British surveyor and fire-safety expert. Cladding is not just on high-rise apartments “but on schools, leisure centers, hospitals, office blocks, hotels--you name it.”

He added: “My view is: Assume it doesn’t work.”

For the cash-strapped local councils that manage the public-housing buildings--and for the tens of thousands of residents who live in them--the dismal test results have brought an agonizing choice: evacuate without a plan for where people should go next, or allow them to stay and risk another fire.

“Everyone is absolutely terrified,” said Kathleen Hughes, who cares for her husband, who has Alzheimer’s disease, on the seventh floor of a north London high-rise that is wrapped in cladding similar to the kind used at Grenfell. “There are a lot of children on that top floor. We have one staircase.”

Her building has not been evacuated, and she said that despite her fears, she hopes it won’t be. “I’m 75, for God’s sake,” she said. “I don’t need all of this on top of what I got.”

For the British government, rapidly growing evidence of the scale of the problem has brought a different kind of question, but one that’s no less difficult: Why was a type of cladding that was long restricted on high-rises in the United States and continental Europe permitted to be used on towers in the United Kingdom?

The maker of the cladding tiles--the U.S.-based successor to metals giant Alcoa, which is now known as Arconic--said Monday that it is not allowing the product to be used on tall buildings worldwide.

The cladding--known as Reynobond PE--has sheets of aluminum surrounding a flammable plastic core. It’s cheaper than a fire-resistant version, also sold by Arconic, that has metal in place of the plastic.

British investigators have said the Grenfell blaze began when a refrigerator in a fourth-floor apartment caught fire. The flames rapidly climbed the building’s exterior, using the cladding and insulation as fuel. The building was engulfed in fire within minutes, and it burned for days.

As recently as May, the Association of British Insurers warned the government about the risks posed by flammable cladding, particularly the potential for it “to cause fire to spread upwards uncontrollably.”

Investigators have said they are considering manslaughter charges, although they have not said whom they would charge.

John McDonnell, a senior figure in the opposition Labour Party, has said Grenfell’s victims “were murdered by political decisions that were taken over recent decades.”

Karen Buck, another Labour lawmaker, called the failed fire-safety tests evidence that what started at Grenfell is “turning into a national emergency.”

“The tragedy of Grenfell Tower exposes the overstretched state of social housing, especially in London,” Buck, who used to represent the area where Grenfell is located, wrote in a piece for the Guardian newspaper.

The crunch in local housing budgets and space has not only left communities with potentially hazardous buildings. It also has complicated decision-making over what to do with residents who live in them, and who may need to be housed elsewhere while the dangerous cladding is removed.

As soon as Charlie Lawrence saw news of the Grenfell fire, he had a feeling that his building was covered in the same plastic tiling. “I had a gut instinct,” he said.

His instinct was correct: The cladding on his building in the north London neighborhood of Islington failed the test.

But at least for now, he and his neighbors are staying put while scaffolding goes up to take the cladding down.

For Lawrence, an unemployed 20-year-old with a 19-month-old son, the predicament has inspired dark thoughts about what happened at Grenfell--particularly a baby who was thrown from a window in a last, desperate act by a mother who was engulfed in smoke.

“You don’t want to be thinking those kinds of things,” he said, “especially if it can be stopped before it even happened.”

#Britain #fire safety #Grenfell Tower fire #cladding