#i think ill collect more examples throughout the movie

[ellenembee]

I agree with all the posts out there talking about the Persuasion "adaptation's" character assassination. From what we can see (though I fully admit trailers aren't always true to the movie), Anne is not the calm, reserved, rational, reliable, sensible, and above all self possessed woman of the books, but rather some kind of modern construct built from Austen's more popular women like Lizzie and Emma. (In reality, Anne, Elinor, and Fanny Price would be on a blanket sipping tea while Lizzie, Emma, Catherine, and Marianne were off vexing men and making trouble.)

One thing I haven't seen mentioned, though, is that from the context of the times, Anne was not just being swayed because she valued her family's continued support and Lady Russell's opinion, but because Lady Russell's concerns were real and frightening. Marrying Wentworth *before* he made his fortune was an *incredible* risk to her safety and wellbeing. Throughout the book, we see countless manifestations of "what if" scenarios:

Mr. Elliott as an example of how she likely would've been disowned by her family if she'd married Frederick anyway

Anne's old school friend Mrs. Smith as an example of her life if she'd married anyway, been disowned, and Frederick had died or become injured enough to not be able to properly support her

Benwick and Fanny Harville as an example of what might have happened if she'd kept the engagement but agreed not to marry him until he'd made enough to support them

Her sister Mary's comfortable life as an example of what she might have had if she'd said yes to Charles Musgrove.

Louisa Musgrove as an example of how Anne might have acted if she'd been less risk averse and less prudent in her youth.

You can argue the validity of Anne's situation compared to these manifestations (likely Lady Russell would have risked angering Sir Elliott and taken Anne in with the idea of an eventual reconciliation), but there are countless other examples throughout the book. They are meant to reinforce the point that Anne is reconciled to her own actions, much as she might regret them.

This is not a book where Anne blames herself or her family. She did the "right" thing by breaking it off with Frederick. She just now wishes with her whole being that she hadn't done the "right" thing.

"... but Anne, at seven-and-twenty, thought very differently from what she had been made to think at nineteen. She did not blame Lady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her ... She was persuaded that under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and every anxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, and disappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement than she had been in the sacrifice of it."

And later, to Frederick:

"If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk."

In hindsight, she sees all the risks and all the examples of her possible life choices, and thinks now it would have been worth the pain and risk. To be disappointed by fate would have been far better than the constant estrangement from the man she has loved for eight years.

Anne sees all the possibilities of how her life might have played out in the people around her, and she accepts it.

And the best part is that Frederick acknowledges that Anne was right to be cautious.

"He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry, and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them ... He had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind ...

Fredrick knew he'd been resentful and proud. And he owns up to his mistake of thinking ill of her for so long. He admits he was his own worst enemy when it came to his happiness with Anne. And Anne reinforces this with her words to him near the end:

I have been thinking over the past ... and I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly right in being guided by [Lady Russell] ... Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides ...

Anne is calm. She follows her conscience. She is sensible and, yes, resolute when she needs to be. She's amazing as she is and doesn't need to be made into something she's not.

She is appealing because of who she is, and it's also why she's my favorite Austen woman. To divorce Anne of these things is to create a new character and inherently alter the story.

So call it something else. Say it's "inspired by" Persuasion if you want. But don't pretend that you can alter the main character's very personality and still call it Persuasion.

#persuasion #jane austen #i haven't gone this deep into literary critique since my Brit lit days #but Anne deserves better #and she also deserves to be understood in the context of her times #she did what she thought was right #she regretted it #but she never blamed herself or her family #it simply was what it was #time for another read through of the book i guess #not my anne #okay i might be done now #but probably not lbr #still salty #mine

[crazy-purple-kitten]

im watching the mitchells vs the machines. this whole family is so neurodivergent

#my ramblings #the mitchells vs the machines #this will become a reblog chain of my thoughts #ill try to limit them #examples: #aaron calling everyone to see if they want to talk about dinosaurs #katie having an obscure interest that she i shamed for #katie twiddling with her jacket strings while trying to make eye contact(which she doesnt seem comfortable with) and then making fun out of #it #the dad not wanting her to fail because 'failure hurts #AND THIS IS THE FIRST 10 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE #i think ill collect more examples throughout the movie

[demi-shoggoth]

2021 Reading Log, pt. 14

66. A Universal History of the Destruction of Books by Fernando Báez, translated by Alfred MacAdam. The second book about the destruction of books I’ve read this year, and also tied somewhat surprisingly to another author and book I read. Báez obviously holds Borges in great esteem, quotes him and makes reference to his fiction throughout. In a Borgesian way, the author encourages the reader to pick up the book and read from any point, to create “an anthology of possible books”. This has the effect of making there not really being a continual build of thesis or argument throughout—it’s mostly just a list of things that happened, one after the other, not even always in chronological order. There’s good information to be gleaned here, but the actual process of reading it isn’t as impactful as Burning the Books.

67. The Unnatural Order of the Three-Eyed Skull’s Field Guide, Vol. 1 by Andrew P. Barr. @andrewbarrillustrator​ has a tumblr, and I discovered him through it. This book is a collection of drawings of monsters, ghosts, killers and cryptids, each with a little bit of microfiction detailing their habits and sightings. All of them are native to Ontario, Canada, which I never thought of before as a setting for Night Vale style weirdness, but it works. The monsters are imaginative, spooky and often gross, and the book would make a great collection of plot hooks for a horror investigation RPG.

68. The B-List edited by David Sterritt and John Anderson. People who pay attention to this blog know I’m a big fan of B-movies, and this book purports to be a collection of essays on said movies by the National Board of Film Critics. Eh… sorta? The definition for B-movie, already a big tent, is so broad here as to be practically useless. Any definition of B-movie that includes Platoon and The Conversation is stretched to the breaking point. Many of the critics seem embarrassed to talk about “real” Bs, or should be more embarrassed of how much they’re willing to share in what’s supposed to be an essay about a movie (I’m thinking of the “review” of The Last Seduction that’s all about how horny the author is for Linda Fiorentino). There are a few good essays in here—on movies like Grindhouse, Eraserhead, Targets—and it’s always nice to read a review by Roger Ebert, but most of this book is skippable.

69. Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz. The book is about how cities decline, and why the idea of civilizational collapse and the “lost city” is an oversimplification. The cities covered are Çatalhöyuk, Pompeii, Angkor and Cahokia, and Newitz explains how a combination of environmental factors and political instability led to the gradual abandonment of three of them (Pompeii is a pretty obvious case of why it was abandoned). Throughout, they also talk about how cities come and go, but cultural traditions persist, and the introduction and conclusion apply this to thinking about the modern and near-future world. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood, but this book didn’t grip me the way I thought it was going to. It’s fine, but nothing special.

70. Botanical Curses and Poisons by Fez Inkwright. This book is clearly a labor of love; it has original illustrations by the author and is overall a handsome volume. Like many of the books I’ve read over the last year and a half, it is about poisonous plants, but more about their uses in society and lore than their actual toxins. As such, plants that are harmless or mostly harmless, but still associated with witchcraft and ill-luck, are also covered here. The plants and the lore are global. My one complaint is that could stand to be more rigorous in its research—some passages are awfully close to unsourced Wikipedia entries (see asphodel for an example).

#reading log #archaeology #poisonous plants #b-movies #monster book

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Have you watched Lupin? What did you think? (And are you a fan of the books or other adaptations of the character?)

The short answer is yes, I have seen Lupin on Netflix. Overall I enjoyed it so long as I suspended my disbelief at certain things.

Unfortunately it took being struck down by Covid and being bedridden for me to actually to binge watch the whole series. So I was behind the curve when my friends, French and those outside of France, started to talk about it around me. I had to beg them not to give away spoilers until I had seen it all.

It did surprise me that it won rave widespread reviews outside France because usually French drama series don’t travel very well outside of France. I’m sure even Netflix had no idea how successful it would be for them. I’m sure being in Covid lockdown had something to do with it. In any case I don’t begrudge its success as it’s well earned.

However I wasn’t too surprised that within France itself the French reviews were decidely mixed and divisive. The critic at Le Point painfully hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “Le plus gros défaut de l'ensemble reste la pauvreté des personnages, tous unidimensionnels, caricaturaux et aussi épais que du papier à cigarette.“ - loosely translated as, ‘the biggest flaw of the whole thing remains the poverty of the characters, all one-dimensional, cartoonish and as thick as cigarette paper’.

There’s a growing amount of good French stuff on TV and streaming services but a non-French audience will not have had the chance to have seen all of it yet. I can think of any number of French television drama/dramedy/cmedy series that are much better than Lupin with better plots, characters, and even a truer perspective of French society and even modern day France (Dix pour cent (Call My Agent!), Le Bureau des Légendes, Engrenages, Baron Noir, and Paris Police 1900). But you would be hard pressed to find anything that comes close to Lupin just for the sake of something fun to watch during the Covid lockdown.

What makes the current generation of home made French television series so interesting is how much of it is a reflection of France’s own anxieities about itself and its role in a increasingly English speaking dominating world. In a funny way it sees itself as defiant plucky Asterix fighting off the Roman American cultural hordes from totally invading their Francophone culture.

For sure, it has societal and racial issues stemming from its colonial legacy and issues of immigration and integration (France has the largest Muslim population in Europe). However it seems to want to ‘resolve’ these issues through the almost sacramental adherence to French secularist ideals rather than American inspired ideas of social justice and equity. There’s always been something very admirable about the French - from the time of General de Gaulle and perhaps before - always swinging from snooty ambivalence to outright antipathy towards the influence of American culture ‘americanising’ French culture (no to Walmarts or fast food chains for example).

Is it any wonder then that Netflix’s ill-conceived American series ‘Emily in Paris’ was widely hated and mocked within France for just perpetuating those lazy American tropes of Paris and French culture?

Personally I know Francophile Americans, long resident in Paris, who were frankly embarrassed and spent a lot of time apologising to their French friends. I have one American friend who has told me that she was so mad that she would have blind folded Emily and shoved her hard in the car boot and drive her all the way to the poorest of the banlieues in the grimey crime saturated suburbs of Paris - Seine-Saint-Denis came to mind - and dump her preening arse there. She would slap her and tell the spoilt entitied brat to make her own way back home - you know, to her spacious apartment in one of the most expensive arrondissements of Paris that of course(!) any American intern working for French marketing firms can afford.

I digress. My apologies. Watching this God awful show gives me PTSD.

Onto Lupin.

Thankfully Lupin doesn’t try to play to non-French tropes of what Paris is or isn’t. It does skim the surface of current discontents within French culture and society (race, class, power, and money) but ever so lightly so as to not get in the way of just spinning a good crowd pleasing yarn. It invites you to have fun and not to think too much. I have to be honest and say I enjoyed it as long as I suspended my disbelief here and there.

Lupin refers of course to the character Arsène Lupin, the French gentleman thief who stole jewellery from Parisian haute bourgeois and aristocracy at the turn of the century. Lupin, as written in the novels and short stories by Maurice Leblanc between 1905 and his death in 1941, was the archetypical anti-hero, a Robin Hood who stole from those who deserved it but kept the loot himself. He was often portrayed often a force for good, while operating on the wrong side of the law.

Lupin never really made much of an impact outside of France as he had within France where is revered with many French film and television adaptations. In England, we already had a Lupin type character in the form of A.J. Raffles, a cricket playing gentleman thief with his aristocratic side kick, Bunny. E.W. Horning’s stories of Raffles’ daring heists proved to be quite popular with the British public when Raffles first appeared on the scene in 1898. And even later Leslie Charteris’ The Saint took over the mantle from Raffles as the gentleman thief/adventuring Robin Hood.

I think Hollywood tried to introduce him to an English speaking audience (legendary actor John Barrymore even played him) but he didn’t really take off and eventually they found their gentleman thief archetype in Sir Charles Lytton aka The Phantom (played by David Niven and Christopher Plummer) in the Pink Panther movies. So Lupin never got the English audience he deserved.

I first got wind of who Arsène Lupin was when I was growing up in Japan as a child. As strange as it sounds Lupin was big in Japan especially after World War Two. The Japanese did their own take on the Lupin character using Japanese actors and plot lines but it was Lupin.

I don’t know how exactly but I remember watching these scratchy DVDs of these Lupin inspired films. I think it was one of my parents’ Japanese friends who was mad for all things Lupin and he had studied French literature in France. Jogging my memory I now recall these black & white films were done in the 1950s. One starred Keiji Sada and the other version I remember was with Eija Okada (he was in Resnais’ classic film, Hiroshima Mon Amour) as Arsene Lupin called (I think) Kao-no Nai Otoko. I didn’t understand most of it at the time because it was all in Japanese and my Japanese (at the time) was pitiful, but it looked fun.

There was even a Japanese manga version of Lupin which was called Lupin III, - so named because he was the grandson of the real Arsène Lupin.

The 1960s manga series spawned generations of TV series which I do remember watching and finding it terribly exciting if somewhat confusing.

It was French expatriate friends whom my family knew that introduced me to the real Arsène Lupin. They had a few of the books authored by Maurice Leblanc. It was in French so I read them to improve my French but enjoyed the story along the way.

I also remember them showing me scratchy episodes of the 1970s Franco-German TV series ‘Arsène Lupin’ with the monocle wearing Georges Descrières in the lead role. It was a classical re-telling of the adventures of the aristocratic gentleman-burglar and very family friendly viewing. I don’t really remember much of it to be honest.

It was some years before I actually started to read more of the Maurice Leblanc’s novels and short stories collection. I have them all now. I was a teen and I remember being stuck in a snowed in a Swiss Alpine chalet and with nothing else to do but pull out a few dog eared books from the bookshelves belonging to our French host and read to pass the time.

I read Les Dents du tigre, Arsène Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes, and Les Huit Coups de l'horloge and thoroughly enjoyed them in the original French. I was already reading classic detective and mystery novels (Sherlock Holmes, Poirot etc) so it was natural to read the adventures of Arsène Lupin.

I haven’t got around to reading all the novels and short stories but I have read most of them and I enjoyed them all immensely. In the same way Conan Doyle, through Holmes and Watson, manages to conjure a convincing picture of late Victorian and early Edwardian England, so Leblanc manages to give us a taste of Belle Epoque France through the eyes of his suave gentleman-thief, Arsène Lupin.

Indeed it's a lot like reading Sherlock Holmes in that you're always trying to figure out how he did it, but the difference is that you are rooting for the bad guy. You can’t help but be drawn to this gentleman thief who is charming, comic, playful, and romantic and generous. Lupin is not an intellectual puzzle-solver but first a master criminal, later a detective helper, who maintains his curious ethics throughout his adventures. In this regard he is very much the anti-Sherlock Holmes; and I wasn’t disappointed when I actually read the story where Lupin faces off with Holmes himself. Brilliant!

I’ve also seen the 2004 French movie with Romain Duris in the Lupin lead role and it also starred the majestic Kristin Scott Thomas and the sexy Eva Green.

It was a decent adventure flick and it was a clear confluence of different Lupin novels (The Queen's Necklace (introducing Lupin's childhood), The Hollow Needle (where the treasure is the macguffin of the story), The Arrest of Arsène Lupin (the gala on the ship as a backdrop) and Josephine Balsamo, (one of Lupin’s most memorable opponents in the The Countess Of Cagliostro).

Romaine Duris, a fine classical actor, was I felt miscast because he didn’t have Lupin’s levity of wit and be at ease within himself. I love Duris in his other films but in Arsène Lupin and even in his other film, Moliere, he seemed ill at ease with the role. Perhaps that’s just me.

The latest Netflix adaptation (or reimagining to be more precise) is a welcome addition to the world of Arsène Lupin.If you don’t over-think it, it’s bags of fun.

Omar Sy is immensely likeable. Sy is a deservedly a big star in France - he won the best actor César for “The Intouchables,” an international hit - and has played forgettable secondary characters in big-budget American special effects movies (he was Chris Pratt’s assistant in “Jurassic World” and a minor mutant in “X-Men: Days of Future Past”). It was reportedly his desire to play Arsène Lupin, whom he’s compared to James Bond (“fun, funny, elegant”), that led to the series, created by British writer George Kay. And it is on his charm that the series largely, though not entirely, rests.

So the basic story revolves around a jewellery heist. Sy plays Assane Diop, a first-generation French-Senegalese man in contemporary Paris. A collection of Lupin stories, a gift from his father - whose undeserved fate Assane set himself to avenge in long-delayed, Count of Monte Cristo style upon a criminal tycoon - has made the actual Lupin books a foundation of his life and profitably illicit career. This fan-ship goes as far as borrowing practical ideas from the stories and constructing aliases out of anagrams of “Arsene Lupin,” a habit that will attract the interest of a low-level police detective (Soufiane Guerrab as Youssef Guedira) who shares Assane’s love of the books. (That the detective also shares an initial with Lupin’s own adversary, Inspector Ganimard, is possibly not a coincidence.)

Among the many comic delights of Lupin, is an unspoken one. Time and again, the show’s hero, master thief Assane Diop is able to slip into a place unnoticed, or by assuming a minor disguise that prevents witnesses from providing an accurate description of him to law enforcement.

Why is this funny?

Because Omar Sy is six feet three (and, since most actors are short, seems even taller), is roughly as wide as soccer pitch, and is memorable even before he flashes his infectious million-Euro smile. This is not a man for whom anonymity should be possible - even allowing for racial bias in a majority-white country, Assane would be memorable and distinctive - and Lupin seems cheekily aware of this. Like the various incredible sleights of hand Assane deploys to pull off his thefts and escapes, his ability to be anyone, anywhere, is treated more as a superpower than as something even the world’s greatest criminal would be able to pull off.

At one point, when he’s slated for a cable news appearance as a much older man, we learn that Assane is also a master of disguise. The revelation of this skill arrives with a wink in the show, and it feels pointless to ask where he learned it, or how he affords movie-quality latex and makeup. Or rather, asking the question feels wrong.

We know this is impossible, the show seems to be asking its viewers again and again, but isn’t it so much fun?

The performances and the production - it has that particularly European filmic quality of feeling natural even when it gets stylish - keep the series warm even as the plot is made up of incredulous contraptions that require everything to go right at just the right time and for human psychology to be 100% predictable. Its physics are classical rather than quantum, one might say, and like the world itself, which becomes more curious the deeper you peer into things, it is best handled along the surface. You do not want to take too much time working out the likelihood of any of this happening. Just go along for the ride.

Somehow, though, it all works because Sy is so magnetic and charming that questioning plot logic feels wildly besides the point. Though he never looks appreciably different in his various aliases (including one ill-conceived live-TV appearance done under old-man makeup and a thick beard), he changes his posture and voice ( if you watch it in French that is) enough to allow for the willing suspension of disbelief, in the same way that any lead actor as Superman has to do when playing Clark Kent. But Sy and the show are at their strongest when Assane is just being his own Superman self, utterly relaxed and confident in his own skin, and so captivating that his ex-partner, Claire, can’t really resist him despite ample reason to.

If Assane seems practically perfect in every way, he is not perfectly perfect. His most obvious failing is that his criminal shenanigans and revenging make him less than reliable in his daily life, affecting his relationships with ex-partner Claire (Ludivine Sagnier, whom non-French audiences might recognise from “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope”), who despairs of his inability to show up on time to see his son Raoul (Etan Simon). Like Sy, Sagnier brings a lot of soul to her part - though onscreen far less, she’s as important as Sy to the series’ success - and the two actors have great chemistry. Also impressive and key to creating sympathy are the actors who play their flashback teenage selves, Mamadou Haidara and Ludmilla Makowski. Really, you could do away with action elements and build a series around them.

This is a pity because Lupin often fumbles its emotional reveals in other parts - the story of Diop being torn between his job and his family feels like wheel-spinning, rather than genuine emotional intrigue.

Soufiane Guerrab is wasted in the Young Detective Consumed by the Case role and spends most of this season pinning colour printouts of book covers to cork boards and getting waved off by his colleagues, who are all blinded or otherwise hampered by careerism.

But to my mind the weakest link is the villain himself and his daughter. Veteran actor Hervé Pierre hams it up as Hubert Pellegrini, a business tycoon who is the patriarch of the Pellegrini family. He just comes across as animated cartoon villain with no character depth (think moustache twirling Russian villain, Boris Badenov, in the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon shows). He just emotes anger a lot without any nuance or hint of complexity.

Even Clotilde Hesme who plays the daughter who is unaware of her father’s criminal tendencies is miscast. For the record I adore Clotilde Hesme as she one of France’s most talented classical actresses (that non-French outsiders will not have heard of). She is a classically theatre trained actress and is one of the best stage actresses of her generation that I have ever seen. I’ve seen her in plays where she is just mesmerising. She has said before that she’s more comfortable on the stage than she is on the screen. And when she has been on screen she still has been a powerful presence. She’s actually won a César too. Here in Lupin, she seems to have no agency and looks bored with nothing really to do.I really hope they give her more scenes in the next part of Lupin.

The series is at its best when following Diop enacting his plans, and when revealing each one from a different vantage, making us privy to every moving part like a magician revealing his secrets. The show captures the momentum of a clockwork heist, the tension of sudden obstacles and the ingenuity of improvised responses, with thrilling precision (especially in “Chapter 1 - Le Collier de la reine,” directed by Now You See Me’s Louis Leterrier).

Lupin is also politically incisive when it wants to be; it brings to mind Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated 2019 film Les Misérables, which adapted the broad strokes of Victor Hugo’s novel about the 1832 Paris Rebellion, and modernised the story by focusing on the police brutality faced by non-white Parisians.

Lupin opens with Diop disguised as cleaning staff and entering the Louvre after-hours, alongside dozens of forgotten, anonymous non-white workers as they pass by “La Liberté guidant le people,” Eugène Delacroix’s famous painting of the July Revolution of 1830 which replaced France’s hereditary rule with popular sovereignty.

Before any semblance of plot or character, Lupin centres broken ideals and promises unkept (without giving too much away, the show’s primary villain has much more nationalistic view of French culture and history which merely adds to a cartoonish caricature than a complex character). The rest of the episode is about valuable jewels once owned by Marie Antionette - one of the most recognisable symbols of wealth and extravagance in times of extreme poverty - which are put up for auction by the Pelligrini family, and bid on by other wealthy collectors with bottomless purses and no sense of irony.

Granted, beyond this auction subplot, explorations of race and class are largely limited to individual interactions, but the show continues to refer back to (and implicitly comment on) its source material in ways that wink at the audience. An elderly, unassuming target of Diop’s schemes seems like an unlikely victim at first - Diop, though he acts in his own self-interest, usually displays a moral compass - until this victim reveals the colonial origins of her wealth, immediately re-contextualising the ethics of the situation, in a manner that Leblanc’s stories did not. (The show is yet to apply this lens to Arsène Lupin himself, who Diop treats with reverence, but that’s a secondary concern since Lupin is entirely fictional in-world).

Barring some nagging structural problems - like cutting to flashbacks when things are getting exciting, or epilogues that feel ten minutes too long - Lupin mostly works. It plants a few personal seeds early on, which it keeps hinting at without fully addressing, but by the time its scattered elements come into focus, the show finally figures out how to weave them together, and delivers a mid-season cliffhanger that renders many of these flaws irrelevant.

Lupin manages to have fun even with an antiquated premise - the story of a suave con-man who charms his way through high-profile robberies - while adding just enough new spin on the concept to feel refreshing. Omar Sy may not have much to work with, but his alluring presence makes Assane Diop feel like a worthy successor to Arsène Lupin.

Lupin isn’t going to win César, BAFTA, or Emmy awards, or even turn heads for its ability to develop tertiary or even secondary plots or characters - that doesn’t really matter. You’re there to see a difficult hero be difficult and heroic - everyone else is there to be charmed, vexed, or eluded by them. Sy’s performance bounds off the screen, and is almost musical. He floats through scenes like he glides over the roofs and through the back alleys of Paris; he outmanoeuvres his foes with superior literary references and sheer athleticism. He is irresistible and also good at everything he tries, even kidnapping.

I would encourage anyone to watch Lupin for a fun care free ride. But the only caveat I would make is watch it in the original French.

If you don’t know French then put on the subtitles to understand (that’s what they are there for). The real crime is to watch this (or any film or television series) dubbed in a foreign language. It’s disrespectful to the actors and film makers and it’s silly because it’s comical to watch something dubbed over.

Please watch it in the original French.

Then go and read the books. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #lupin #omar sy #netflix #tv show #culture #personal #arsene lupin #japan #maurice leblanc #france #french #society #arts

[gaalee-events]

What is GaaLee Hallo-week? How does it work?

GaaLee Hallo-week is basically a Halloween-themed ship week for the pairing Gaara/Rock Lee. Each day from Oct. 24 - 30th, there will be different prompts to fill. There are (at least!) two prompts per day: a spooky prompt and a sweet prompt, riffing off the idea of trick-or-treat. There is no sign-up and no obligation. Creations for this event can be fanfic, fanart, playlists, icon sets, panel edits, moodboards, memes, closet cosplay, or any other fannish pursuit you can think of! As long as it features the GaaLee pairing and fits a prompt, it counts!

Sounds great! How do I participate?

There’s no sign-up for this event, and it’s open to everyone. On the appropriate day, simply post your creation on Tumblr, indicate which prompt you’re filling, and tag the @gaalee-events blog! You can also use the hashtag #gaaleehalloweek, but be sure to tag the blog as well to ensure your creation doesn’t get lost. The GaaLee events Tumblr will then reblog your work for all to see! If you don’t have a Tumblr or would prefer to participate only on Ao3, that’s also fine. When you’re uploading your work, you can add it to the GaaLee Hallo-week Collection by typing ‘GaaLee_HalloWeek’ (without quotes) into the ‘Collections’ box. For people who choose to participate just on Ao3, the organizers will create a link post on Tumblr with a link to your fic. If it’s been 24 hours since you posted and you haven’t seen your contribution reblogged, please send an ask to @ghoste-catte, as it may have gotten lost in notifications.

So, what are these prompts you’re talking about?

Each day has a scary prompt and a sweet prompt associated with it! For a handy rebloggable visual guide, check out the prompts page!

Day 1, Oct. 24 - Haunted House -or- Hallowed Ground

Day 2, Oct. 25 - Demons -or- Deities

Day 3, Oct. 26 - Nightmares -or- Sweet Dreams

Day 4, Oct 27 - Fear -or- Wonder

Day 5, Oct 28 - Movie Night! (The Amityville Horror -or- The Addams Family)

Day 6, Oct 29 - Scary Stories (“I do not love men. I love what devours them.” - Prometheus Illbound, Andre Gill -or- “People don’t want to see what can’t possibly exist.” - Mort, Terry Pratchett)

Day 7, Oct 30 - Trick-or-Treat (free day!)

How do the Movie Night / Scary Stories / Free Day prompts work?

In the second half of the week, let your imagination run wild! You can be inspired by the suggested movies, images, or quotes, or you can create something for the overall theme of “Movie Night” or “Scary Stories”. For the final day of the event, you can create whatever your heart desires, as long as it’s scary or sweet, and GaaLee-themed! As with the previous days, you can also use “Trick-or-Treat” as your prompt and create something based on that.

What are the minimum requirements for a prompt fill?

This is left open to the individual participant’s discretion. If you feel that what you created meets the prompt, then it counts! A single creation can only count for one day, but it may be inspired by one or both prompts on that day. (For example, you could create something for October 25th to fit the prompt “Demons”, or “Demons and Deities”, but not “Demons” and “Nightmares”.) You can create multiple creations for a single prompt or a single day. If you make something that has multiple components, like a multichapter fic or a multipage comic, each chapter/comic page/etc. can be counted towards a different day/prompt, as long as they’re posted on the correct day and fit one of the prompts for that day.

Do I have to participate in all seven days? Do I have to fill every prompt?

Not at all! You can fill just one prompt on just one day, you can fill multiple prompts across multiple days, or you can fill all the prompts on all seven days. Think of this event like that bowl of candy on your neighbor’s porch that’s labeled ‘Take One’ -- you can do whatever you like with it; nobody’s going to stop you. That being said, if you do create something for all seven days, you’ll be in the Monster’s Ball, which sounds very cool but really just means that your creations will be listed at the top of the event wrap-up summary in a fancy text box.

Does everything I make have to be Halloween-themed?

Nope! While we’ll all be getting in the mood for Halloween, ghosts, ghouls, and pumpkins don’t need to feature in your creation. As long as you feel like your creation fits one of the prompts, it counts. That being said, we’d love to see the fandom flex their horror muscles and go full Spooky Season on us. Bring on the blood and guts!

I have something I’m already working on that fits one of the prompts, can I use it for this event?

Yes, with a couple of caveats! The creation must be new and posted on the date of the prompt that it was created for. If you already have a partially published project and something new you’ve created for it fits one of the prompts, that can absolutely count. For example, if you’re writing a 20-page comic about a haunted house, and you post a new page on Oct. 24th, you can count that for the prompt “Haunted House”. If you say you created something with this event in mind, we’ll take your word for it. The only other restriction is that if you’re creating your project for a different event (such as an exchange, ship week, theme week, big bang, etc.) and it also happens to meet one of the GaaLee Hallo-week prompts, you should check the other event’s rules to ensure they don’t have any restrictions on counting a single work towards multiple events.

Are there restrictions about what kinds of content can be created for this event?

Because of the Halloween theme, it’s to be expected that some works might be transgressive, upsetting, or triggering. However, we want this event to be enjoyable for as many people as possible! We ask that you use caution and consideration in your creations and be mindful of the ways that traditionally ‘scary’ tropes have been used to harm marginalized groups. Tag judiciously and use your best judgment. Be wary of ableism, such as using a person’s mental illness or physical disability as a scare factor or to make them seem more monstrous or mysterious. This does not mean you can’t create works with or about disabled or neurodivergent characters, simply be mindful of how those characteristics are portrayed and the role they serve in your work. Avoid transphobia, such as portraying a male character in a woman’s costume for laughs or using a character’s trans identity to make them seem villainous. (Lookin’ at you, Buffalo Bill.) This doesn’t mean your characters can’t explore gender roles! But it’s important to be thoughtful and intentional about how you portray transgender characters in a horror setting. Also, please be aware that the word ‘spook’ is an anti-black slur, and should be avoided in the creation of your works. (‘Spooky’, the adjective, is fine.) This is not a comprehensive or exhaustive list, and your judgment as an individual creator is important! If you have concerns about something you’re making, you’re more than welcome to message either of the organizers (@ghoste-catte or @puregaalee) for feedback. The organizers reserve the right not to reblog or republish work that is not appropriately tagged or that may not fit the spirit of the event.

What about sexually explicit (NSFW) content, is that allowed?

NSFW content is more than welcome, with some guardrails. NSFW content posted on Tumblr should be appropriately tagged and behind a ‘Read More’ cut. Any NSFW content hosted off-site should likewise be clearly labeled. If you choose to create NSFW images, be aware of Tumblr’s content guidelines. You may want to consider posting a cropped or censored image on Tumblr and linking to another site (Twitter, Privatter, Pixiv, Imgur, etc.) for the full image. Individuals under the age of 18 may not create sexually explicit material for this event.

I’m so excited, I just can’t wait! Can I post my creations early?

Please wait until the assigned day to post your creations for that prompt. Creations will not be reblogged until the assigned day for the prompt that inspired them.

Eek, I’m running behind! What if I created something for a specific day, but I didn’t get it posted in time?

Late postings will be accepted throughout the week, so if you created something for October 25th’s prompt but didn’t get it uploaded until October 28th, that will still be reblogged. The two weeks following the event will be reserved for ‘late posting’, during which time you can still upload your creations and tag the blog to have them reblogged. An event wrap-up will be posted after the end of the late posting period.

There’s an awful lot of words on this page, but none of them answer my question!

Please send an ask to @gaalee-events and we’ll get it answered as soon as possible!

#gaaleehalloweek #faq

[creepychippy]

Twisted Truth - Luigi’s Mansion 3 Fanfic

The whirring of Machinery, static Noises of Light and the occasional Chit-Chatting between some Ghosts echoed throughout the Laboratory that belonged to a certain little Ghost Researcher, who was currently researching something on his Computer.

17 Spectras were given the Duty of protecting valuable as well as important Elevator Buttons that were handed out to them away from a green clothed Plumber.  “He’s a malicious Ghosthunter who wants to stuff you into Paintings.”, as they were told. Most of them have put up a Fight against said Menace but were captured by him in the End regardless, including another Ghoul that was being deployed into one of the dome-shaped Capsules at the Moment, prominent by the all to familiar humming Sound that the trapped Souls got used to after a While.

“Gloria!”, the muscular Swimmer beside her called out, knocking a few Times on the Glass to get her Attention. He in Return got a sheepish Wave from her, her other Hand readjusting the Wig she was wearing on her Head as it got a little bit messed up during the Exchange Process.

“Yeah, I... sadly got captured. The Plumber’s got some groovy Moves however, I tell ya that.”

For a few Minutes, the ghostly Residents exchanged many Words between them, which however died down after a While, as there was seemingly nothing to discuss about anymore. That is however until the quiet Pianist took Note of something.

“Kruller, you seem to be pondering about something. What is on your Mind, if I may ask?”

Upon hearing his named being mentioned, the ghostly Cop snapped out of his deep Thoughts, resulting him glancing around in a confused Manner for a few Seconds before he turned towards Amadeus.

“Ah, I- it’s just-... n-nothing, really...”, he stammered out, his Hand shakingly fixing his Sunglasses. Even though he was one of the few Ghosts who got caught early on, he seemed still shaken up about it.

“Are you sure it is nothing? It appeared as if something is troubling your Mind, at least so it did to me.”, the ghostly Pianist calmly explained while having one Arm behind his back and gesturing with the other.

“Uhm, well...”

For a Moment, Kruller hesitated, but he quickly collected himself.

“Isn’t... it weird? All of this?”

“What do you mean, Dearie?”, a sweet Voice beside him suddenly chimed in. Apparently, the Conversation between the Cop and the Pianist has gotten the Attention of the ghostly Maid.

“I mean, what I’m- uhm... what I’m going to say next may sound strange, but... I don’t believe that the Plumber that Miss Gravely t-told us about is as evil as she makes him out to be...”

Upon noticing that some confused Stares were aimed towards him, his Voice went quieter at the last few Words, as some Sweatdrops were building on his Forehead again.

“Elaborate, please.”, the ghoulish Pianist told the ghostly Cop, his Eyebrows furrowing a little bit.

“I just mean- I mean, look at him. Miss Hellen told us that we potentionally have to face off against an evil Baddie who along a malicious Scientist wants to lock us into P-Paintings and keep us trapped in them forever. However, when I-I watched him through the Cameras from Time to Time, even encountered him-... all I saw was a scared and frightened Human, p-perhaps... lost even...” 

At this Point, every Spectra’s Attention was turned towards the nervous Mall Cop, quietly listening to him explain.

“Lad, Ah fought against Enemies that wanted me dead when Ah was alive, regardless if they were wetting their Pants or not. Just 'cause he was frightened doesn’t mean that he's innocent or that he doesn’t have any ill Intentions.”, a booming Voice that had an scottish Accent to it suddenly broke the Silence that had built itself around the Room just mere Seconds ago.

“Actually... I-I think I have to agree with Kruller in this Case. For someone who is supposed to be ‘a scary and vicious Ghosthunter who wants us locked away forever’, he appeared quite hesitant with attacking me, at least for the first few Moments. Not only that, but we have been trapped inside of these Capsules for Hours now instead of these terrifying Paintings that were mentioned.”, the thin Bellhop chimed in out of the blue as he folded his Arms, him seemingly pondering about something as well.

“Erm, t-that’s not the only Thing, though... P-please take a Look at that Capsule that stands besides Dr. Potter and Ug.”

As everybody turned towards the transparent Device, it turned out that said Capsule was empty.

“N-now look at all of us. Which one of us is missing?”

Thinking about it, everybody eventually came to the same Conclusion.

Morty.

“That is indeed weird. Where is he?”, the green Gardener scratched the Back of his Head, as he was puzzled as to what could have happened to the Movie Director.

Raising his Cap slightly with his gloved Hand, the ghostly Hillbilly decided to throw his own Argument into the Round.

“Well, maybe dat good ol’ Pipsqueak of a Plumber jus’ snatch'd dat shiny Button right out of our dear and beloved Director’s Hands when he wasn’t lookin. After dat, he jus’ left him ’lone to do his own lil’ Thing.”

“B-but don’t you realize something?”

Kruller was now staring at Clem, hoping that he would understand what he was trying to get across.

“It means that the supposed ‘malicious’ Ghosthunter and his little Scientist Friend wasn’t out to capture all of us like we were told and previously had assumed, else Morty would be here with us at this very Moment.”, Serpci exclaimed as the Revelation suddenly came to her Mind.

“Exactly! A-and besides that-”, once again, the intruiged Glances were being directed at the ghostly Cop, “- I-I think there’s something else I noticed...”

Timidly adjusting his Sunglasses as they slipped off a little bit before, he voiced the other Realization he made out aloud to everyone.

“E-every Ghost, i-inside this Hotel, us included, behaved much more... how should I say this... ‘agitated’ or ‘aggressive’ than usual...”

The ghostly Residents quietly looked at each other. Now that Kruller mentioned it, the ghoulish Inhabitants of this Place did indeed act out much more strangely as of lately.

“T-take Steward for Example. Remember when we talked about the Encounter we had with the Ghosthunter?” 

“Yes, I did.”, the red clothed Bellhop answered while staring at the purple Cop.

“Y-you said that you threw the Luggage inside the Garage at him when he fought against you, right?”

“You did what now?”, the sweet Voice that the undead Maid carried turned into a much more shocked Tone upon hearing this sort of Information.

“I know that you work a lot and are probably under a lot of Stress, but it isn’t like you to suddenly act out like this, Dearie!”

“Well, I... I don’t know what came over me. I just saw the Luggage and my Mind instinctively went ‘throw it at the Plumber’.”

This Time, some concerned as well as worried Glances were shared around the Group.

“A-and you, Chambrea. Please tell us how your Encounter went again.”

“I was peacefully cleaning the Room and saw a pretty Suitcase, but the green Ghosthunter appeared out of nowhere all of the sudden. Out of Panic, I... swallowed the Suitcase and fled the Scene...”

A slight Blush crept across the Maid’s Face as some murmuring from others could be heard. Meanwhile, Kruller decided to explain his Part of the Story, and at the End he finally turned towards the ghostly Chef beside him.

“Well, I was cooking in ze Kitchen as usual, until ze Plumber and his weird Doppelganger suddenly broke into it, which caused me to drop my Dish and.... suddenly lash out... at zem...”

At first, the orange Cook was confidently telling his Part of the Story, but his Voice dropped as soon as Realization dawned on him and he uncomfortably rubbed his Neck.

“Mister Wolfgeist, do you may want to continue?”, Chambrea calmly asked him, however Worry was now stretched over her Face.

“I was playing on my Piano, until that green Plumber walked into the Auditorium. I thought I could ignore him and simply just throw some Chairs at him to scare him off, but he turned out to be much more persistent than what I had previously assumed him to be. After that, he captured some Goobs, causing my Concentration to be thrown off and ulimately leading me to become really mad at him. In a Fit of Rage and Attempt to finally get rid of him, I... possessed my Piano and tried to slam it into him... destroying it in the Process...”

The well known nonchalant Expression that the Pianist carried on his Face was suddenly replaced with that of Dread, as he slowly looked down upon his Hands.

“Um Himmels Willen... what in Lord’s Name just came over me...”

On and on the Explanations went, with most Ghosts expressing the Feelings of Regret and Guilt as well as that of Unease and Concern along the Way and everybody making Revelation after Revelation.

“Just what the Hell is going on?”, Johnny blurted out while holding his Hands against his Head, as the current Situation admittedly made him more and more anxious as well as puzzled.

The DJ next to him tried to talk to the ghostly Swimmer in order to calm him down: “Johnny, Sweetie, please chill out. I’m sure we can find out what exactly is going on!”

“I be sure that Hellen be behind all o' this! I swear on me other Eye!”

“Miss Gravely? Why would you think that she would do something like this?”, Dr. Potter questioned the aquatic Pirate while adjusting his Glasses.

As every Soul was beginning to get into a heated Argument, including Ug who only was able to speak Gibberish, the ghostly Maid noticed that the Bellhop beside her was starting to act more nervously.

“Steward, Dearie, is everything alright?”

“...’s all my Fault...”, he mumbled in a tense Manner, his Sentence being barely audible, and he anxiously rubbed his Arms.

“Steward?-”

“It’s all my Fault!”, he blurted out all of the sudden, causing the Discussions between the Spectras to come to a Halt and look at him.

“How is this your Fault? You can’t be behind all of this, now can you?”

Crossing his Arms, Amadeus proceeded to stare at Steward questioningly, like he was trying to knock some Sense into the Bellhop for even bringin up such Claim.

“A-apologies, Stress got over me again. It’s just... I could have maybe prevented this and I’m blaming myself for it.”

The ghostly Cop gave him a sympathetic Glance and spoke up: “How so?”

“All of you perhaps heard about how a special Guest came to the Last Resort to visit us, correct? King Boo, as I recall. Before he arrived here, everything was running pretty smoothly and-”

“So ya think it was him?-”

Promptly, the ghoulish Pianist held up a Hand towards the pink Electrician.

“Clem, let Steward finish, it is rude to interrupt him when he wasn’t finished talking.”

“M’sorry.”

Clearing his Throat, the blue Spectra continued: “As I said, everything was pretty normal. That is until I went onto Miss Gravely’s Floor to retrieve the Elevator Buttons as well as Instructions and hand them out to you...”

He stopped for a Moment and grabbed at his Bowtie slightly, but collected himself and proceeded with his Story.

“No matter where I looked, there were Sculpures as well as Painting of this particular Guest everywhere. I... I think I even caught some Glimpses of Merchandise of him... Gee, I-I should have warned all of you and talked about it after all of what I have seen instead of keeping it to myself. In Hindsight, it was definitely a red Flag and certainly not normal...”

Some disturbed Expressions where exchanged in the Round, until MacFrights finally spoke up.

“So ya think a small wittle Boo who calls himself a ‘King’ could’ve done all of tis?”

“It wasn’t a small Boo, far from it! He was far bigger than Miss Gravely, his Appereance was much more different as well as menacing than that of a regular Boo and he wore a Crown with a Gem on it!”

“A Gem?”

The intruiged Queen chimed in as her yellow Eyes stared into those of Steward’s.

“Yes, a giant purple one.”

“Hmm, you’re definitely onto something then.”

In a Matter of Seconds, the entire Attention was now focused solely on Serpci.

“When I was alive, I was told Stories about how Kings and Queens amongst the Lands would use Gems that contained great Powers within them to rule over their respected Kingdoms. Even in todays Era, Tales of Folks using these particular Gems to harvest their powerful Abilities and utilizing them to their Advantages still make the Rounds.”, she recalled to the Group, one Hand resting against her Cheek while the other supported her Elbow.

“Of course!”

Ths Time, everybody turned their Heads towards the Capsule that contained the Triplets, since one of them, Ginny to be precise, seemingly remembered something.

“It has to be Mind-Controlling Magic that he’s using against us! Me and my Sisters know about a Tale that took present inside of the Evershade Valley a long Time ago. A Being with powerful Abilities apparently was able to use Mind-Controlling Magic against the Ghosts that reside there in said Area. We were so impressed an fascinated by that Story that we even have a small Replica of the Gloomy Manor inside an Aquarium in one of our Rooms!”

“So-”, Soulfflé kneaded his Temples, “if I’m understanding zis correctly, all of zis Trouble is happening because our dear Hotelowner has an Obsession over a big oversized Marshmallow who decided to trick and manipulate the entire Hotel? Just great...”

Even though it was pretty apparent what was going on, there were still some unanswered Questions that lingered in the Air.

“But what Reason would they have to bring a Ghosthunter here out of all Places, let alone send him after all of us? It just doesn’t make any Sense in my Head!”

Seeing Gloria getting so frustrated, Clem let out a tiny Snicker followed by a sarcastic Comment while he casually leaned back in his Rubber Duckie Floatie that he was lying on.

“Before ya totally break yer Head over such complicated Question, why don’‘t cha ask the Lady who’s behind all of this hersel-”

A familiar humming Noise once again echoed throughout the Room, interrupting the undead Electrician in his Speech, and every trapped Soul turned their Head towards the Source of the Commotion.

A certain ghostly Hotelowner with her beloved Pet was deployed into one of the Capsules this Time.

This was going to be one long an interesting Discussion.

#lm3 #steward #chambrea #kruller #soulffle #amadeus wolfgeist #king macfrights #dr potter #morty #ug #clem #serpci #nikki lindsey ginny #captain fishhook #johnny deepend #dj phantasmagloria #hellen gravely #polterkitty #luigi #gooigi #e gadd #king boo #drabble #fanfic

[chaotic-sporatic]

Otherkin and did/osdd

I wanted to make a thing about did/osdd because I feel like some of the people who are currently in the otherkin community may have it without knowing they do. I’m doing this because that was me not that long ago. Like a few months ago...

Quick vocab review

Some words people might not be that familiar with, especially if y’all don’t know what did/osdd is

Alter- alternate personality

Host- the person who is seen most often (may or may not be the “original”)

System- the collective group of alters

Fronting- being in control of the host body

Dissociatiation- disconnection from ones body, thoughts, and the passage of time.

What is did/osdd?

Did and osdd are dissociative disorders that develop before the age of 7 due to consistent trama. In order for the child to cope with what is happening to them, the brain causes the child’s personality to split into separate pieces that develope independently from the “original”. You may be familiar with the term “multiple personality disorder”. Essentially that is what happens, however the correct terminology for this condition is known as dissociative identity disorder (did). This is due to a better understanding of the illness as a dissociative disorder. People with did have alters (which are more like separate people than personalities), suffer from amnesia, experience depersonalization and dissociation, get frequent headaches, and may have confusion regarding gender and sexuality.

Osdd (other specified dissociative disorder) is extremely similar to did, and is usually grouped together with it because of it. However, it is diagnosed when a person does not fit all of the requirements to have did but still suffers from many of the same things. There are two types of osdd (osdd 1a and osdd 1b). In osdd 1a, the alters are harder to differentiate between one another. In Osdd 1b, there is little to no amnesia like there is seen in did.

People with these disorders can often describe it sometimes feeling like you’re watching you’re body from a 3rd person perspective. They also can describe it feeling like a haze or fog surrounding them, dulling their senses.

New alters form throughout the hosts life due to the brain having learned that new alters=coping with trauma at an early age. Some people might have many alters wile some people only have a few. It just depends on the person and the circumstances that they have been in.

Why does this have anything to do with otherkin?

Well dear reader, you’d be surprised to know that within these disorders there are many alter types that mimic the same things seen in otherkin. It is quite possible for non-human alters to exist. They can be animals, demons, angels, cyptids, and so on. All things that are common kin types. Alters like this form when someone is, for example, treated like an animal. The brain, in order to cope with this, may create a wolf alter because it thinks that you must be one if you’re being treated like one. Similar things happen to demon, monster, and ghost alters.

And for fictionkin and factkin, these kinds of alters are called introgects. Introgects form in the image of something that the host may be familiar with, and can even be in the image of friends or family. Most of the time, these alters will form because the brain thinks that that person might be able to help you if they were really here. That they could make it better, or simply not as bad.

Not all alters are nessisarily good and can cause anxiety, depressive episodes, self harm, or harm to others. These alters are called persecutors. They form when the brain wants you to be stronger than what happened to you. Not all persecutors are bad and they shouldn’t be demonized. In their minds, the things they do are all to make you stronger, even if what they do is awful.

What about my memories?

Alters can have memories from a time before this one. An example from me would be that one of my alters is Spinel from Steven Universe. She remembers the garden, the ingector, beach city, and even things that happened outside of the source. I used to think she was just a character who I kinned, but in fact she was an alter all this time. She formed because at the time of watching the Steven Universe Movie, I felt abandoned by someone who I thought cared about me. She however over came what happened to her and grew stronger because of it. Because of that correlation, in order for my brain to cope, I formed an alter.

What does my shifts have to do with this?

It is quite possible that when you experience a shift, it is acctualy an alter fronting or even coming closer to the front. I used to have a lot of issues with this when I was first part of the otherkin community. It felt like I didn’t have control of who I was.

How do I know if I suffer from did/osdd?

Well, it can be hard for some people. Especially when most people are in denial about it. I know I still am. Not every person who is in the otherkin community has did/osdd though. Relating to an animal, entity, or character is not the same as haveing an alter. I still firmly believe that otherkin is something that exists outside of having a dissociative disorder. I am in no way saying that everyone in the otherkin community has did/osdd. Spirituality and mental illnesses are not always correlated!

Did/osdd is just as common as people with red hair, so it’s not something a select few suffer from. It’s not as rare as some people think it is, and many suffer from it without even knowing it. People who suffer from it aren’t supposed to know about it. It’s a defense mechanism that is there to protect the host from trauma and the memories that come with it.

Can it be cured?

There is no medication that can cure or even treat did/osdd. It can be treated through therapy and integration. Integration is when one alter “fuses” with another alter and even the host. You can’t control when this happens and it can be extremely emotional for the system. During this process, traumatic memories will most definitely surface. For this reason, many people are not open to the thought of integration. It can be hard to remember what happened to them for some people. For others, it’s easy and they are able to handle the knowledge much better.

All trauma should be seen as something you can’t ignore. Yes, it was bad enough. No, you are not weak or exaggerating what happened. Yes, you can heal!

#osdd1b #osdd1a #did osdd #did #disociative identity disorder #otherkin #otherkin community #otherkin help #fictionkin #fictive #did fictive #alters #system #factkin #factive #therian #otherkin self care #actuallytraumatized #actuallyosdd #actuallydid #actuallyplural #actuallymentallyill #mental ill health

[davidanderson7162]

Cartoons for Everybody

It is not true that just children take pleasure in cartoons. Cartoons have been showing up in print media as well as television for decades. They are extremely entertaining and also are suitable anxiety busters for the worn grownup. For youngsters, animes can be academic in addition to enjoyable. It holds true that there are some that are violent, those are best prevented. It would certainly make good sense to pick intelligently what you desire your children to see Kids TELEVISION Online.Kids TV Network

Exactly how do they profit your youngsters?

- Some animes carry messages in social understanding. Cartoons almost always have stories that centre round a hero. The hero is always combating evil as well as victories. Happy endings are constantly great to have.

- There are those that develop vocabulary. Kids learn new words as well as enhance in their speech.

- An added advantage is that, those youngsters watching programs like these find out to focus. This helps them focus as well as educates them the ability to follow consecutive episodes.

- They learn life lessons, they discover sharing and exactly how to recognize right from incorrect. They find out that it is not always the large and also the solid who constantly win.

- Animations constantly obtain stored away as terrific memories and those pleased associations are carried appropriate into adulthood.

How do they profit adults?

- Viewing an anime when you're ill in bed is a splendidly recovery exercise. Remember those times when, as a youngster you did precisely that?

- Researches reveal that viewing cartoons lowers the danger of anxiety associated illness in adults. A great laugh launches endorphins in the mind. These endorphins make us really feel far better mentally and physically and are the best de-stressor that money can't purchase.

- Individuals like these find they associate better to kids as well as have a much better understanding of them.

- Obviously, this is a great way to kill time as it keeps individuals out of mischief. The still mind, as they claim, is the devil's workshop!

Throughout the years animes have actually advanced from one dimensional characters on the screen as well as paper to a three dimensional one. Modern technology has made cartoon personalities realistic. Both adults and children connect to the story Children TELEVISION Online.

Anime Vs Cartoons: What's the Difference?

In the "Anime" neighborhood, for most fans as well as fans, "Anime" is "Anime and also "Cartoons" are "Cartoons". For them both of the things are truly different from each various other.

Firstly, many individuals obtain puzzled between an Anime and also an Anime, even if both are animated that doesn't imply that they both are very same. There are a lot of differences in Anime as well as Cartoons. While both are caricatures that might be computer animated, anime generally has visually distinctive functions for characters. So, below I will certainly now clarify the difference in between these 2. Anime are Japanese computer animated production, that are available in various layouts like, television series such as dragon sphere z, Naruto, one piece etc., computer animated brief films, and also full-length films. However animations are two-dimensional illustrated visual art, non-realistic or semi-realistic illustrations.

Anime characters have distinct facial and also physical features that are extremely comparable to truth, their large eyes and tiny mouth are developed due to cuteness. On the various other hand, cartoons physical features are very much from reality than anime. Anime characters additionally reveal various kinds of distinguishable faces whereas animes do not.

Cartoons are normally made to make people laugh, so the style mostly is funny. Yet there are likewise several animes that are academic, showing something good to mainly young children and also youngsters in an enjoyable, interactive way. For example, mickey mouse, Donald duck, pests bunny and so on

. Unlike cartoons, anime does not adhere to just one or more genres. Anime programs and also movies are all based on some sort of story which proceeds through the whole series, for instance, bleach, one item, Naruto, etc. Anime is based upon real-life problems or something that are closer to human feelings and also have a lot more categories than cartoons such as, dramatization, school life, slice of life, love, activity, and so on

. However if you check out both of them as different entities, or as same, you will not be able to locate a clear difference between the two, which is why a lot of the people get puzzled in between both and wind up calling anime as well as animes are very same Children TELEVISION Online.

The initial animation was stated to be generated in 1499. It depicted the pope, holy Roman emperor, and the king of France as well as England playing the game of cards. However, Japanese animation began in the very early 20's, when Japanese filmmakers were trying out various methods. By 1930s, as an alternative to the live activity sector, computer animation was established.

As anime are two-dimensional numbers drawn and utilized in animations, as caricatures in papers, and also publications. If we were to define what Anime is after that the basic suggestion of several of the common as well as agreed upon notions would certainly be "Japanese, animation, vibrant layouts, as well as hand-drawn" would certainly be primary buzzwords.

Today, Anime only appears to refer "animations just from Japan" to make it extra understandable for individuals. After all this is human nature to like the important things which are conveniently understandable and conveniently categorized.

To make the distinction more clear, let's take the example of the tom as well as jerry and dragon sphere z. So, you may believe what's the difference in between both when they both are computer animated and have excellent visuals, histories, sound impacts as well as even the computer animated drawings behave. But, there are lots of distinctions in them which differentiate them from anime to animation. Like, their principles are absolutely different, as you know every episode of tom as well as Jerry is various as well as is not associated with any of the previous episode or continuing some sort of tale from a point but in dragon sphere z every episode is connected to the previous one, and proceed the story from where it stopped in the previous episode. And their categories are various too, as tom and also Jerry is purely based upon a pet cat and also mouse battle and made to make people laugh and their watch time enjoyable. On the various other hand, dragon sphere z is sort of a journey of a saiyan to conserve the Planet and also the universe from several dangers, he defends conserving every person, with the aid of his family members, close friends and fellow saiyans. Dragon ball z is can be categorized in various categories, like activity, experience, comedy, very power, etc

. An additional thing in which some individuals may unique anime as well as cartoon would certainly be that cartoons are for youngsters whereas reach of anime can be extended to many various other age and other locations Kids TV Online.

However what I believe is, cartoons are not simply children product, because as we can see in the newspapers, as well as on television also, there are many cartoons containing as well as targeting lots of political, spiritual sights. Most of these messages are concealed as well as indistinguishable for kids, to ensure that grownups can appreciate viewing them with youngsters. Whereas some of the anime consists of high grown-up material and thus are not secure or good for little kids to see. Those type of anime are made completely concentrating on adult target market. But there are likewise some anime collection which are definitely risk-free to enjoy with children. However nowadays, even normal anime's might have some scenes which are not meant to be enjoyed by kids.

So, I think, where cartoons are secure for kids to see, anime shouldn't be thought about secure sufficient for them. But despite just how old you obtain, you can still appreciate it as it is.

I really feel that, anime has much deeper thought in them, well created characters, broad story-line, a solid style, sensible background animation, the real world scenarios, discussions, expressions, etc. all of these things bound us together to view all the episodes (whether there are 12 or 24 or more than a thousand of episodes) of the anime collection. Whereas on the various other hand, animes, regardless of whether they are telling a story or simply going for funny, have superficial characters and themes.

Cartooning for Kids: 3 Books That Can Help You Get Started

Many children I understand love to attract eventually. Several of them love it a lot, they take place to produce video games, comics, cartoons, and comics. If you are seeking some exceptional books on cartooning for youngsters, below are three that can aid you get going.

Among the outright finest general intros allows Publication of Cartooning by Bruce Blitz. He starred in a public tv program for years, and I was able as a young person to learn from his techniques.

Guide covers whatever from basic cartooning abilities, like integrating various facial forms, features, and hairdos, to make various characters. It likewise demonstrates how to attract bodies and also add motion to them so they are funny and also dynamic, and not just stalling.

He does a terrific work of introducing animation results as well as devices. Those are the kinds of things that make animes enjoyable and bring them to life, like the wavy lines appearing of a piece of pizza, to show that it smells excellent. Or the lines on a pool of water or a mirror, to reveal they are reflective. And also one of the most enjoyable of all, those little grains of sweat or activity lines, like when someone has actually just thrown a sphere Children TELEVISION Online.

There is also a great deal of mention on just how to create cartoons, consisting of how to lay them out, invent jokes, as well as do your lettering. For kids who wish to attempt their hand at superhero-type comics, he covers different means to make your male go from dopey to wonderful, from absolutely no to hero. Likewise included are numerous positions you might utilize, like training, taking off, flying, and also boxing.

This extensive work additionally has an area on animation portraiture or caricature. In this way you can draw funny pictures of on your own, good friends, family members, as well as teachers, and offer those away as presents. You may even wind up offering your job!

An additional outstanding summary is Everything You Ever Wanted to Know concerning Cartooning yet Hesitated to Draw. The writer is a Disney-trained musician, so it's a perfect recommendation if you like that design. Yet it too covers every little thing from expressions and also drawing action presents, to cartoon format.

One specific area I such as is exactly how to attract your animes from various camera angles, like way down reduced. That way, if you are trying to attract something from the viewpoint of a very tiny character, like a computer mouse seeking out at an individual, you can obtain an excellent funny aim to your job.

Art for Children: Cartooning: The Only Cartooning Book You'll Ever Need to Be the Artist You have actually Constantly Intended to Be motivates youngsters to try out various techniques to obtain their own designs. The design hangs and also open, so it's easy for kids to comply with. There is also info on composing jokes as well as developing panels Children TV Online.

So if you have an interest in cartooning for children, these 3 books to help you get going are perfect. You will have 3 completely different designs to examine, and you will have great deals of suggestions on attracting fundamentals, plus information on how to put whatever together into your own anime creations. Delighted cartooning!

8 Memorable Youngsters' Anime Adaptations to Motion Picture

When a well enjoyed children's TV series makes the change from the little to the hollywood it normally spells a break from tradition and also an attempt to interest an entire new target market. Computer animation resorts to live activity, rough-and-ready image resorts to CGI, obscure commentary artists are replaced by prominent Hollywood stars as well as puppets are switched for real-life actors. To commemorate the incredible brand-new film of eponymous cult TELEVISION series Stories of the Riverbank [talesoftheriverbank.co.uk/ trailer], here are some motion picture gems that really improve their kids' TELEVISION starts, and also some stinkers that ought to have adhered to what they're best at:

Garfield (2004 )

On the one hand, Bill Murray seems like he's constantly been the voice of Garfield - his effortlessly sarcastic wit seems completely suited to the lasagne addicted fat feline. On the various other, pretty much whatever else regarding this movie sucks. The performing's not up to much and also the animation's nothing short of tragic. The initial comic strip as well as anime series didn't endeavor to far from Garfield's litter tray, so this attempt to stretch things to more than an hour just ends up a mess.

Little understood fact: Bill Murray recorded a lot of his audio for this in Italy while shooting "The Life Aquatic" on a watercraft.

Authorities Garfield website - garfield.com/.

Tales of the Riverbank (2008 ).

Though not a cartoon, this new motion picture is absolutely worth a mention: when Johnny Morris initially placed his voice to these shore pets in the 1959 TELEVISION collection of the same name, it could have been debatable. However it turned out that making pets appear like they were chatting was a huge success. Today the adorable Hammy Hamster once more joins GP, Owl as well as buddies in a fracturing feature length waterfront prance. With a winning, British voice actors and also an innocently jolly story, this motion picture is set to become a company family members favourite. Little understood fact: In the '60s TV program, the animals were adjusted to look like they were speaking utilizing peanut butter on the roofing of their mouth.

Official Website - talesoftheriverbank.co.uk/ trailer. TOTR on IMDB - imdb.com/title/tt1043748/.

Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 ).

There were the Samurai Pizza Cats and after that there were the Bicycle Rider Computer Mice from Mars - yet both were bad copies of what was undoubtedly the supreme animal/mutant based cartoon activity collection embeded in a drain ... including a speaking rat. "Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles" was a computer animated TELEVISION show in the 80s, a trilogy of live-action films in the 90s as well as more lately a computer system cartoon animation (TNMT). The films are mainly dreadful - however watch out for an instead snazzy-looking Vanilla Ice in Adolescent Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Glop. Traditional. Little recognized fact: In the UK the TELEVISION series was called Adolescent Mutant Hero Turtles as the word "ninja" was considered as well terrible.

Scooby Doo (2002 ).

Among the much better remakes, this is about as close as you're going to get to the original collection without returning to full animation. All the one linings are there, as are all the trademarks that made the original such a smash hit. There's additionally a healthy and balanced dosage of self mockery to make certain the grown-ups can enjoy it as high as children. Any person that located Scrappy Doo more than a little bothersome in the original will enjoy the spin at the end. The only secret that still remains is this - what worldwide IS a Scooby Snack ?? Little recognize truth: In a very early version of the film, a certain Jim Carrey was connected to play Shaggy.

Official Scooby site - warnerbros.com/sd_brand/index.html.

Thunderbirds (2004 ).

The initial puppets had lots much more magic and also personal appeal than the 'live' actors in this substandard remake. Creator of the initial TELEVISION series, Gerry Anderson, also contradicted a $750,000 deal to write an endorsement of the film for its launch. A substantial flop. Enough stated.

Little bit understood truth: The motion picture is routed by Jonathan Frakes that played Riker in Celebrity Trip.

Flintstones (1994 ).

Translating a computer animated classic right into a live-action film using the real world actors isn't always simple. Perhaps the most essential item of the jigsaw is the spreading. In the case of 1994's Flintstones they soooo really nearly got it right. John Goodman as Fred Flintstone - place on. Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma - made for the duty. Rick Moranis as Barney Rubble - all good. Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Debris? - Um ... intriguing. At the very least the sound-track (courtesy of the BC52s) appears wonderful!

Little bit recognized fact: Halle Berry plays a character called Sharon Stone (obtain it!?).

Transformers (2007 ).

Hardcore Transformers fans who bear in mind the 1980s hit cartoon show may really feel a little peeved that, in a separation from the original collection, Spielberg as well as co. have decided to opt for some more modern-day automobiles. So Bumble-bee's no longer a huge yellow VW Beetle! Boo! Nevertheless, those that can not bear in mind the initial (virtually anybody under the age of 30) will enjoy the continuous robo-action.

Bit understood fact: The 1986 "Transformers the Movie" was one of Orson Welles last ever movies - one of his very first was Person Kane.

Tom and also Jerry the Granddaddy of Kids Cartoon Movies.

Everyone has their very own preferred animation flick or tv show; as a matter of fact animations are now a big component of a youngster's very early years as well as in addition to enjoyable to adults too. If you were young in the 60's, 70's or 80's after that you'll have been lucky sufficient to have actually enjoyed the initial hand attracted animated standards, like the Flintstones, The Jetsons or among the most prominent as well as lengthiest running, Tom and Jerry.

The Tom as well as Jerry reveal begun as a TV series and then took place to become a number of feature movies; it has been running given that the 40's and also has because won 7 different Oscar awards for ideal animated short. Back then you needed to await the program to come on at a specific time, though today were fortunate enough to be able to purchase a Tom and also Jerry DVD set anytime we like and also relive the magic in our very own houses.

The characters are easy Tom a troublesome house cat with a preference for mice and also Jerry a reluctant mouse with a kind heart; both are friends at heart, however constantly wind up attempting to win one over on each various other generally with Jerry winning the day. The simple as well as funny slapstick comedy of this crazy duo is what's made it so popular in nations around the world; you'll find the preferred films playing in practically any kind of resort area on all continents.

So where did it all start? Most individuals do not understand that Tom and also Jerry has had more than one maker in over 50 years of broadcast; the initial 2 were the gifted William Hanna and Joseph Barbara. They came to the MGM workshops in the 40's with their concept and Tom as well as Jerry became a reality in individuals's houses. After a brief time the program was reduced and the team broke up until the 1960's when MGM made a decision to reboot the project, they hired Gene Deitch for 2 years, but his eccentric imagination didn't mix well with the program. In 1963 the workshops employed a new director Chuck Jones who became the next creator of the motion pictures.

An instance of an especially excellent film is the magic ring which came out in 2002, it was composed and also routed by both of the original makers as well as additionally worked together on by Chuck Jones. If you're a fanatic of the lovable pet cat and also mouse duo after that you'll love this movie, it would certainly also be a wonderful introduction to the personalities for your very own youngsters.

[moriganstrongheart]

On Firefly, Mediocrity and Problematic Media

When I first set to writing this, I intended to write a review of Firefly. I had recently rewatched Firefly and its tie-in, semi-sequel movie Serenity with my fiancée, and I wanted to express my thoughts on it. But I put the original first draft aside after writing two sentences and did not revisit it until months later. By then, I found I was no longer interested in reviewing Firefly, opting to explore issues of underlying misogyny and mediocrity in media instead. I think that Joss Whedon’s work is a good case study for these problems, as he exists simultaneously as a folk hero of sorts when it comes to speculative fiction, and as the harbinger of the now divisive Marvel Cinematic Universe. And Firefly being so beloved by its fans, I think it's worth diving deep into its problems to illustrate my points.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate Firefly’s problems is in how it appeals to its fans. While I find the character interactions the best aspect of the show, I’m sure that quite a few fans—primarily young, white males—are attracted to the space western setting of the show and all the trappings that come with it. The Verse is filled with guns, alcohol, rape, savages and prostitutes—everything a new frontier needs, or so I expect is the intent. I don’t think these are ever the focus of the show, nor are they something Whedon ever places on a pedestal as ideals to strive for. But they are a part of the worldbuilding, and so were included with intent. There has been a debate for several years among fans of speculative fiction on whether worlds inspired by historical periods or specific cultures should include these so-called “less favourable” aspects of that period or culture, or if the speculative nature of the fiction should allow for their exclusion. I want to make it clear that I am in the second camp; I don’t believe that just because a fantasy world is set in a medieval time period that women shouldn’t be allowed to be knights, or that aliens or people of colour have to necessarily be slaves in a colonial space opera. It is speculative fiction after all, and we are under no obligation to hold ourselves to any supposed cultural or historical accuracy.

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the cultural and historical accuracies being strived for have flawed origins, having been decided by academics with their own bias, or even maybe their own agenda. I would make further arguments that historical fiction and literature are themselves often coloured by the author’s intent, and so certain aspects are accentuated while others are ignored or downplayed in order to tell a specific story—often to the detriment of minority groups. It’s impossible to divorce bias from one’s work, no matter how objective the work claims to be. This has been proven time and again, evidenced by the revision of textbooks throughout the years.

Regardless, counter arguments to the exclusion of “less favourable” elements are normally that doing so waters down the source material, diminishing its authenticity and, more interestingly, it represents a disagreeable emotional sensitivity on the part of the opposition. This point of view assumes that the opposition is averse to certain perceived realities in the world, and that the narrative they want to ascribe themselves to would be unrealistic and, as such, not entertaining. In reality, all parties are involved in some form of escapism. The outcry for realism is a smokescreen for the desire to keep a specific form of escapism, one which can only be described as a violent, misogynistic power fantasy. The source of this outcry—again, predominantly young white males—sees the inclusion of bigotry and sexual violence as essential to their viewing experience, as they take enjoyment out of them. That isn’t to say that having violence, sexual themes or social inequality don’t have a place in fiction; they just need to have a purpose. Without purpose, they are only there to service the twisted fantasies of the target audience.

For an example that brings us back to Firefly, it never really feels like Irana’s career as a courtesan serves any other purposes than as an excuse for partial nudity, sex scenes and for Malcolm to call her “whore” on the regular. There are times where her position as a high-ranking courtesan opens doors for the Firefly crew, but this is a contrivance of how courtesans work within the Verse, and not a part of the skillset she has accrued to become a courtesan. The only true exception to this—that I can remember—is her role in grooming the magistrate’s son in the episode Jaynestown, which directly affects the primary conflict. Apart from this instance, none of her meaningful contributions to the plot necessitate her being a courtesan. She could have just as easily been someone with social or political clout. However, this wouldn’t have allowed for her to be the ship’s prostitute, there only to drive Malcolm up the wall and have someone he could call “whore” without guilt. As such, it became necessary for Whedon to not only make her a sex worker, but to create an entire system around her which would give her importance to the plot. In essence, he wanted his cake and eat it too. It’s disappointing, as the idea of having a sex worker being an important member of the main cast is interesting enough as a concept to explore. Ideally, this person would be treated with respect by others for their work, and their value should come from them as a person, not from a fabricated social status.

As a side note, I acknowledge that most people in the show respect Inara, but it is because of her fabricated social status and not because of who she is as a person. The only people who respect her for who she is and what she does are women and the one person of colour on the crew.

There are a lot of other small decisions within Firefly that show Whedon’s intent, such as the characterizations of River’s mental illness and Jayne as a character. I can’t help but wonder if Firefly were produced today on HBO or Netflix, if the showrunners would have allowed the inclusion of far more sexual violence and bigotry in hopes of attracting a larger audience. Because while we have collectively become much more cognizant of issues like diversity and the portrayal of women in media, shows with portrayals of sexual violence and bigotry tend to perform better overall. Unfortunately, the vocal minority shouting their preferences on social media only helps to reinforce this trend.

However, I don’t want to make the wrong impression. Sexism, racism, violence and bigotry are not the focus during Firefly’s runtime. In fact, Whedon generally does a good job of representing healthy relationships, strong female characters and positive representation of people of colour. For example, Zoe and Wash’s relationship is very admirable, and Kaylee is perhaps the best character on the show. The problems exist beneath the surface, informing everything from story conflicts to character motivations. Whedon comes off as a guy just wanting to have some fun, someone who is cool and trendy, just rude enough to be interesting, but knowing where to draw the line. Really though, he’s just the best of a bad lot within the entertainment industry. A lot who are, unsurprisingly, white men catering to their younger selves.

As a white man myself, I am constantly checking myself and the works I create to ensure I am providing a compelling story while avoiding trappings indicative of a male power fantasy. Because of the environment I grew up in, it can be easy to rely on tired old tropes instead of thinking of meaningful and interesting things to write. Does that mean that catering to the needs of a diverse audience is too difficult, and as such, is detrimental to the creative process? I don’t believe so, despite what many may believe. If anything, it forces writers to think of novel, more captivating stories that don’t rely on tropes and power fantasies to work. I believe that the reason people have become so weary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and similar works is because they all rely on a power fantasy to function. I myself have grown tired of seeing the same story over and over, and it is only in the last decade that I realized the reason for this is that most people behind the works I consume are—again—white males catering to their younger selves.

This has led me to question if it’s right for me to have my voice heard at all. Would I not just be another straight, white male entering a space already filled with the same? Perhaps, but I don’t think the intent of fostering diversity in media is to exclude white people. In fact, if people like Whedon were the worst in terms of what white males have to offer the entertainment industry, I think we’d be in a better place. The problem is that the majority of the media we consume today is problematic and doesn’t allow for any variance from what’s trending among a young white male audience. All I can do is hope that shows like Firefly can be used as a learning experience for creating more compelling and varied stories. Stories should rely on interesting characters, worlds and the interactions in between them to be entertaining, and not on fulfilling the twisted power fantasy of the audience under the guise of realism.

#my discussions #discussion #firefly #mediocrity in media #problematic media #serenity #joss whedon #mcu

[aglimmerintheriver]

How to mentally keep baneful spirits out - no tools required AKA How Not To Give A F*** About the Uninvited

You can find so much info on here and throughout the web about negative entities and protecting yourself from them. Just as there is so much info, there are all of these different perspectives on how our energies associate with them. In this post I hope to cover a lot of different perspectives, as well as some creative methods for dealing with baneful spirits and your own defense magic tool set.

Introduction

A lot of mythical creatures are based in energetic truth- the vampire is aligned with the energy vampire, the evil and feared witch (like in the Witch movie) is aligned with the early-Christian understanding of the Wise People. The word Witch came from Wic, which means ‘Wisdom’ in Germanic languages. Think of anything given malevolent or benevolent power in the media, and you can likely tie it to misconceptions about the witchcraft and pagan community.

In Shonda Rhimes’ “Grey’s Anatomy” there is an episode where Dr. Miranda Bailey talks about how her OCD creates negative, scary fears within the mind that feel so real that they become real, but she also says that if her mind can think up and believe in these terrible, scary things, she can also think up positive things that make her feel better about those fears- things that help create a buffer, to save her from being so afraid. I’m completely blanking on which episode this was, if you know please let me know and I’ll add it in. By bringing this up, I want to point to something that inspired me to write this post: that elasticity of our perception and of the power we hold within ourselves being dependent on our awareness of our power.

All of this to say that this is not a post created for someone experiencing demonic intrusion. I may or may not have experienced this kind of interaction and if I have, I was simply saved by calling on Jesus (holy freaking heck did not expect the Christian god to help me out but he did) and asking that he save my soul from the attack. If you are under demonic attack or believe that you are, please consult a shaman or a witch who knows how to deal with demonic power. My understanding of demons is that they were the very first spirits here, and so they are the oldest of the old and have a lot of power. That’s not to say your power stands no chance against them, but if you feel overwhelmed by the spirits you’re facing, a lot of the times it is helpful not just for our spiritual protection but also for our perception of how safe we are to call on someone outside of us for help- whether that be a deity or other type of spirit we revere as having badass protective strength or another human we believe can help protect us/banish whatever’s in your sphere.

Perception and Reality

What we believe is what we see. Another way to phrase this is, ‘Where the mind goes, your energy flows”, a very famous phrase within the spiritual community (I believe it has Buddhist origins but not sure of who said it first). This is why a lot of witches are recommended to meet with a therapist or psychologist regularly to ensure our mental health is strong. A lot of people within our community believe that mental health creates spiritual gaps wherein baneful spirits can creep in and target us, but others believe that the cause of mental problems is our spiritual health itself. I’m in the camp of believing mental health is important no matter how you see the correlation- taking care of your brain is just as important as keeping up with the rest of your practice. 

Another aspect of protection and magic is not just ‘what we see’ but how. To bring in a little cognitive function theory, someone with extroverted intuition (or Ne) would likely see a situation and the world from twenty or more different lenses. This is like viewing the world through a multi-faceted crystal and being able to look at all these different crystal-edges and see a different distortion. And that’s really what our view is mostly, because it is nearly impossible to go around living your life and be able to see everything EXACTLY as it is. It’s just not reasonable to think you’re going to be able to have a clear lens every time. If you do and if you’ve developed that, please share how you did and help me figure that out haha, but until then I’m going to work with my understanding that our perception is going to have some type of illusion to it.

And here comes what this post has been leading to- the thing I’m excited about. The Imagining, and the power in that imagining. This is mental craft.

The You-Shaped Perception

In focus meditation you’re told that attention to the breath or to one sensation is important, because you’re narrowing your cannon-sized attention to the size of a pinhole. In much the same way, mental magic is about not just changing your lens, but also how you use that lens.

You       can.         do.            Anything.

It’s true. I mean, within physical means, right? You’re only going to fly if you know how to build mechanical wings, so this isn’t some offhanded promise meant halfheartedly. Nope, I mean this with all of me.

The mind is our friend and our enemy. I’m not even a big fan of meditation and yet I know that. It’s that changeable lens we see things through and how we think of them.

Our mind, my friend, is our power.

In speaking of the mind, I am not just thinking about your brain matter, or your reason, or whatever. I’m talking intention (leading to manifestation) and conscious attention to changing our thoughts.

Think something long enough and you start to believe it. Don’t like your thoughts, or how you feel? What thought or visualization would help you feel better?

There are rabbit holes we fall into where we either can’t control our thoughts and feelings due to mental illness and other times when we just don’t want to control them. Sometimes it feels good to be swept away by our own ocean of emotion and madness. It’s part of being human. The former situation (with the rabbit holes) is likely to be helped by a mental health professional and possibly some anti-depressants. The latter can  a p p a r e n t l y  be helped by meditation. 

(Also, did you know that meditation helps grow the gray matter in your brain? Sitting down and just watching your thoughts pass like clouds, allowing your body to rest, opens you up to expanded compassion, self awareness, contemplation, and helps your memory. If anyone is interested in practicing this, I’m going to be working through this free online MBSR/Mindfulness course in the hopes of helping my depression and my powers of intention- it looks like a great resource especially during this time of political and global tension. I believe our souls are deeply connected to one another and also to the overall soul of the world. Everything that happens in it is something we collectively experience and all of the stress along with this social isolation that the majority of us are experiencing is incredibly traumatizing. I highly recommend checking this out and seeing how it affects you over a few weeks’ time: https://palousemindfulness.com/ )

The point I’m trying to make here is that 98 times out of 100 times, YOU control your perception. And that’s a very empowering and creative thing. Especially when you identify as a witch 😄

gif of Joaquin Phoenix as the joker with a smiling mask on, then pulling up the mask and grinning.

DAMN TABITHA JUST GET TO THE POINT ALREADY

Okay okay. Here’s my point.

You can use creativity in your craft. You know this already. But you don’t need a book of spells (they’re fun to read though) and you don’t need the latest books on psychic magic. You can seriously just use your magical brain.

Intention is everything. Your natural intuitive powers are where your strength lies- I’d say it’s the key to unlocking whatever the heck you want in life. 

Look at your life like it is a children’s story book or movie, alright? It sounds stupid but please stay with me if you made it this far, because I think this is where it gets good. You know how the main character faced this seemingly impossible task or challenge, and they didn’t know how they’d do it but they did it anyway? Things just worked out for them, either because they did some work to help meet their goal and they fought to believe in themselves, or because the writer(s) wanted to throw them some tools that would help them easily get their goal.

You’re the main character and you’re the author of your story. And not only are you the author, but you’ve got all these spirits helping you co-author what unfolds in your life. So it doesn’t matter if there’s a damn fire-breathing knife-throwing monster standing on top of you while you sleep because in your witch brain, all you need to do is say “I am stronger than you will ever be. I am the apex predator” and watch that nasty bugger fucking deflate.

What is the most empowering thing is realizing that you are worth fearing, yourself.

Now this isn’t an excuse to take on a bad-bitch persona and mess your life up. Don’t go around hexing people willy nilly, please. Don’t think you can conjure a demon and be able to control it.

Just know that you can control yourself and the space you’re in. Cause you a badass, bitch.

An actual example from my real life

I have a little known disorder called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Essentially it’s scary AF because I have dislocations on the daily and they’re painful and honestly, it’s the bane of my existence. 

That’s not even exaggerating haha.

So along with it comes a lot of second guessing self worth, because of how it’s perceived and how I’m perceived because I’m a lady with EDS. The questions I’ve fielded, the conversations I’ve had, the experiences I’ve had to deal with as a result of it are utterly ridiculous (sometimes, downright despicable). 

One day I was talking to my therapist about self-perception and not feeling strong enough to face life with my handicap, and she asked me to point out the strengths it’s encouraged in me. I was able to point to a few things and while I did, I could see Brigid beside me and this oak shield forming around my body, and I imagined that every word I spoke, every good quality I have grown from having my disorder, made that shield stronger.

There are the times when I rabbit hole and I forget what that armor means and looks like. I forget that it’s there. But inevitably, something happens that would normally feel like it was undermining me and instead, I remember that oak shield and Brigid’s protective, loving energy, and I remember how expansive it feels to see myself as being worth this life and as having valuable traits to offer to the world. That’s when I see that shield again.

As you can see this isn’t only for spirits, but it applies even in those situations too. I’ll detail my channeling session that ended with calling on Jesus another time haha as this is getting quite long. To wrap this up:

TL;DR: “How not to give a f*** about unwanted spirits”

- Decide not to give a f***

- Decide what you will give a f*** about

- Find a couple practices for protection that you like and stick with them

- Know what clairs you have that are strongest (and if none feel that strong right now, that’s perfectly normal. Don’t put pressure on yourself, just enjoy exploring how your intuition works and pay attention without obsessing (or try not to obsess anyways). You have time to experiment with intuition, I’ll try to find some good sources for this and write something for those of you frustrated with figuring out where your skills lie or how to use them.

- Know that they’re working, that you’re a freaking badass witch, and that nothing can come into your space without earning your wrath (which can just be a GTFO and a call on your fave deity if you like)

A lot of the time, spirits who show up don’t actually have any dominion to stay. You have the power. You own the space, you own YOUR space (the space of your body). So own that you own it and do it with certainty. Feel the POWAH haha.

Sources mentioned:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/

#witchblr #spiritblr #protection magic #magick #banishing #mental magick #manifestation #intuition #imagination #intention work #visualization

[syms-things-5]

Clear The Area: Chapter Three

Previous chapter HERE

Warning: Not explicit (yet); some mild language.

Summary: 29-year-old nurse Sarah Bernette has worked hard to get where she is. Moving to Boston from a nowhere dump of a town, she’s studied hard and is grateful her stress is finally paying off. Despite being fostered repeatedly throughout her childhood, she’s since found some comfort in the form of her adopted parents, Jocelyn and Noah, and a pseudo-adoptive family of sorts in form of the Evans clan who have treated her as one of her own ever since she moved in with best friend, Shanna. Valuing them above all else, she appreciates their support even more when her long lost birth mother decides to reappear in her life after so many years, and is surprised to find out just how supportive Chris is in particular. As she struggles to maintain a firm grip on both her professional and private lives, she finds an ill-advised solace in her growing mutual attraction with him but how long before everything unravels and threatens to pull the rug out from underneath her?

Note: I apologise for my spelling/grammar errors.

CHAPTER THREE

“So, completely, out of the blue, just like that, she’s asked the courts to intervene to ask you to meet her?”

Sarah was sat with Audrey on their break at Joe’s across the street from the ER. It was a favourite haunt of theirs; it was cheap but the coffee was always strong, always hot, and the waffles were to die for. Plus, the chef was so supportive of staff, he would insist on giving them double the amount of toppings. Sarah contemplated using them as wedding caterers should it ever some to that. The location also gave them the added bonus of being far enough away from their work that they felt like it gave them a decent break when they could eventually find a spare 5 minutes, and clandestine enough that they could freely complain about the latest regulations imposed upon them by O’ Brien, the Ward Co-ordinator, and his questionable personal hygiene.

“Fuck me, the nerve.” Audrey shook her head in bewilderment. “You’d think she’d have taken the hint the first time around.”

“Well, there’s always the possibility she thought her letters might not have reached me and now she’s just trying to cover her bases.” Sarah suggested, taking another drink of her piping hot coffee and feeling course through her body, a comforting warmth for the first time that day. She was struck in that moment by her own empathy for this woman. She wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Don’t go making excuses for her. It’s arrogant is what it is, paying for some fancy lawyer to do her bidding. If she wanted to do right by you, she would have responded all those years ago when it was you reaching out to her. Don’t you take pity on her now. You have to make it clear to them, the lawyers or whoever the fuck this is, that you’re happy, you’re in a good place, and you have all the fucking family you need,” Audrey emphasised each point by stabbing her finger on the table. “You need whatever bullshit she is selling.”

Rarely did Audrey mince her words. She could be relied on to tell you straight exactly what she thought and at several times during their friendship, Sarah counted her blessings that she was on the right side of her. 

“Yes, yeh, of course.” she lied. Perhaps lied. She wasn’t sure what she was thinking in that moment. At various times during the days since she had received the notice, she’s swung back and forth between rejecting their request outright or taking the opportunity to see what she was like in the flesh, to see whether she was anything like she had pictured in her mind. Just to satisfy her curiosity at least. Shan suggested they should arrange to meet her and perform some sort of “drive by” and run away at the last minute. As more and more time went by, Sarah found herself warming to that suggestion.

“What do your folks think about it?” Audrey asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t told them about it yet. They’re in town next weekend so I’ll wait and tell them in person I think.”

Audrey nodded in understanding, pouring them what was left of their coffee pot. “I take it you’ve told Shan about this?”

“Yeh but we don’t get a lot of time to discuss things at the moment. More like passing ships in the night.”

“Oh right, I forgot. Cap’s back. How is it going? Is he still hanging out at yours?”

Sarah nodded and watching Audrey’s eyes light up, looking giddier than she’d ever seen before.

“How is he looking? Like, abs wise? I bet there isn’t an inch of fat on him. I bet he walks around in his towel, all wet after a shower. Still buff as hell, right?” She flashed Sarah the naughtiest smile she could muster. She swore Audrey was imagining him right at this very minute.

“Can I remind you that you have a very real and very lovely husband at home?” Sarah playfully jabbed her friend with her fork.

“Don’t tell mer you haven’t noticed.”

“How do you expect me to answer that?” Sarah protested, her voice reaching a little too high for her liking and she could sense Audrey’s doubt in her declaration. “For your information, I haven’t really spoken to him much since he got back.”

“Y’know, I like my husband a normal amount but if I was single and living in close proximity to that, I’d be all over that shit.”

Funnily enough, Sarah didn’t doubt that for a second. She’d seen up close and personal her flirtatious remarks to him after she’d been forced into introductin them some years earlier. She marvelled at how shy she’d become when she was typically so verbose and confident. Things progressed quite quickly that evening thanks to the shots he kept pouring for them and the arm she kept draped across his wide shoulders, practically sat in his lap. He wasn’t complaining one bit. She recalled fond memories of a random video recorded on Audrey’s phone that was meant to be a ‘Happy Birthday’ message to Michael but instead became an example of what not to show your husband when hanging out with an A-List Movie Star. Aside from the occasional political rant and last night’s episode of Jimmy Fallon, Chris was often Audrey’s favourite topic of conversation when he was in town.

“You know why he does that.” Audrey hinted before taking the last few bites of her waffles, feigning innocence.

Sarah knew where this train was going and was keen to stop it before it derailed and killed innocent passengers. “We need to get back. I have an x-ray to collect and you have a bladder irrigation in cubicle two.” Audrey’s shoulders dropped and she grimaced at the thought.

As they were heading back, they narrowly avoided colliding with Greg seemingly leaving for the day. Sarah would soon regret her jibes as Audrey made an unmistakably loud call-out in his direction. He may have just about escaped her clutches but turned to swagger his way back towards them, grinning widely.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?” He asked coolly, and to his credit he seemed genuinely interested. Sarah had thought he only reserved that kind of over-interest for consultants who might be able to further his career but perhaps she’d been too quick to judge him after all.

“Yeh, it’s going really well, thanks. How are you? You finished for the day?”

Sarah inwardly groaned. Audrey was going somewhere with this.

“Just heading home to get changed and then probably just head for the gym, I think. Might try and get a game of tennis in if I can.” He held up his bag to indicate his racket was inside. Sarah saw the label for YSL.

“Oh, you play tennis? How funny! So does Sarah!” Sarah figured she might have played twice in her entire life and one of those occasions ended in her swearing never again to pick up a racket. “Oh my god, Sarah, can you believe this? Such a small world. Sarah was the team at her college in fact.”

How could Greg not notice the insincerity?

“Really? Hey, y’know, if you’re free sometime, I’d love to have a match or two,” he smiled widely at Sarah as she died a little inside. “I haven’t managed to find anyone here who plays yet so it would be good to make a friend at least.”

Sarah spotted the earnestness in his eyes and almost felt a little sorry for him. Nevertheless, she nodded along in the hopes of ending the conversation as quickly as possible so she could get inside and stab Audrey with a scalpel. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Greg. He was perfectly nice, very ambitious with the intelligence to match, and even under the harsh lights of the Ambulance Bay, he was clearly a very attractive man; all height, with not a hair out of place. It was more her issue than his. According to Audrey, she was unsure of herself around overly good-looking men. Audrey first pointed this out to her when they were on a night out. She said a lack of self-esteem somewhere inside her meant that she automatically wrote herself off whenever it came to guys she deemed herself to be unworthy of. Then Audrey - and she may have been drunk at this point, Sarah couldn’t quite remember herself - insisted on writing out a list of pros that started with green eyes and ended with her “impressive butt”. She laughed when Audrey told her that she somehow made scrubs look fashionable and not dowdy, and that she should treat herself once in a while to an item of clothing that wasn’t a hoodie or a pair of jeggings.

“Well, I’m sure that could be arranged,” Audrey winked at him, and Greg seemed agreeable to that idea. “You’re not doing anything tomorrow night, are you Sarah?”

“Um,” she really tried hard to wrack her brains but came up short. “No, not that I can think of right at this moment.”

“Well, great, maybe meet you at Roxbury Gym tomorrow night? I have a membership that lets me bring friends and family so there’d be no problem.”

Of course he did.

“Er, yes, OK. Sounds good. Just don’t go hoping for Open standard or anything. It’s been some time since I played.” She directed that last comment squarely at Audrey who had never looked prouder of her work. Greg smiled at them again and wished them both a good afternoon before backing away and heading to his car, his bag swung confidently over his shoulder.

“Wow, thank you.” Sarah said sarcastically.

“Hey, you can thank me later, sugar.”

*

It was just after eight when she got home. Shan was working late so Chris had texted her to ask if she wanted to share a pizza that evening and she’d agreed like it was the greatest idea in the world. It was actually paying off now that Chris was there most of the time; if he wasn’t keeping the fridge stocked with beer and various groceries, she’d found him hoovering the hallway the day before, apropos of nothing.

He wasn’t immediately present when she entered the apartment. She dumped her bag by the door and collected some post from the side table Shan had left for her.  The TV was on low on C-Span and she spied two scripts on the coffee table, one looking vaguely Marvel-ish. She dare not look at it in case there was a microdot inbred into every page that would alert them to intruders touching the paper. Or it was fingerprint-sensitive. Also, she genuinely wanted to be surprised when she would inevitably see it at the cinema. She’d been invited to a premiere on one occasion and Chris found it both hilarious and endearing that she turned him down, preferring to see it in a packed screening with honest movie fans instead of critics with annoying lights at the end of their pens. She also didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of Mark Ruffalo but she kept that nugget to herself.

Just as she was heading towards the bathroom to wash up before dinner, Chris emerged from Shan’s bedroom, a towel slung low on his waist, a slight steam rising off his skin. Sarah couldn’t stop the knowing laugh from escaping her.

“Ouch. Thanks.” Chris retorted.

“Oh no,” She realised how that sounded. “It wasn’t anything, y’know. Um, it wasn’t, um...” Sarah’s brain had stopped working and she became increasingly aware of time passing very slowly with Chris just staring at her. “I was talking to Audrey about something earlier and you just reminded me is all.”

“Oh, Audrey, nice. How is she?” That seemed to change his attention for the better, thankfully.

“Married.”

Chris snickered to himself. “Man, she loves you, y’know. You’re lucky. She seems like a good friend.”

“Yeh, I know. She’s great. Not many friends would work so hard on setting me up on a date.” Sarah had only intended to say that last part under her breath as she turned to head into the bathroom.

“A date?! You?”

It was evidently now Sarah’s turn to feel affronted. “Yes, me. Why so surprised?”

“Not surprised at all. Just. OK, yeh, surprised, but only a little bit. You always seem so quiet on that front. I actually can’t remember the last time you went on a date.”

“That’s not a helpful comment, Chris.”

“Daniel!” Chris clicked his fingers. “It was Daniel and he rode to work on a skateboard!” He was momentarily proud of his powers of recall until he noticed the look on Sarah’s face. “He was nice. He liked....stuff.”

Sarah couldn’t keep up the pretence any longer. “I remember he had an unnatural obsession with onion rings,” She laughed. ‘It took me forever to disinfect the place of the smell!”

Chris laughed heartily at the memory. “Well, I hope whoever this new guy is, he’s worthy of you.”

She was grateful for the nudge and he smiled back at her. “Pizza will be another 10 minutes I reckon, so be quick.”

Sarah shot him the finger guns in acknowledgement, regretted the finger guns, then closed the bathroom door behind her. She toyed with the idea of getting a shower but really, really wanted pizza before Chris had the opportunity to devour it. His appetite was truly off the charts when he wasn’t in training mode. She couldn’t quite believe what he could put away or where it ended up because it certainly made no difference to his physique.

As she re-emerged fresh and in a change of clothes, Chris was laying out the pizza and beers on the coffee table. She rarely ate anywhere other than at the kitchen table but Chris told her to live a little and relax. She followed the delicious smell of pepperoni and garlic bread and quickly gave in.

“So who’s the new guy?” Chris asked when they were both a couple of bites in.

“Just this guy from work. He’s new to Newton’s but only there for a few more weeks I think. Audrey is obsessed with setting me up with him. What?” She spotted Chris’ growing smirk stretch across his face. “Seriously, what is it?”

“So he’s not gonna be there for long? Never had you down as a hit-it-and-quit-it kind of girl before.” She could tell he was trying hard not to burst out laughing. 

“Great, so first I’m not dating at all and now I’m only interested in serious relationships?”

Chris held his hands up in protest. “There’s nothing wrong with that by the way! It works for me. If the girl is into it, even better.”

“It’s different for guys, though. You can get away with it because it’s assumed you’re naturally immature. For women, it’s like... we’re immoral or something.” She picked a large red pepper from her slice, placing it on her plate only for Chris to pick it back up again and add it to his. “The bar is held a lot higher for us, you have to admit.”

“Yes, perhaps. But there’s nothing wrong with enjoying sex without the pressure of asking yourself so many questions afterwards. You don’t have to see them again if you don’t want to. You don’t even have to learn their names. So long as it’s safe, just enjoy it for what it is. I don’t think there is anything immoral about that.” He shrugged.

Sarah smiled at him. “Is this what got you here?” She had only meant that as a passing joke but recent events had completely slipped her mind. Chris paused mid-bite unsure of how to respond. Sarah turned towards him fully prepared to apologise. “Mate, I’m-”

“Don’t worry about it. God knows, I deserve it.” He wiped his fingers with a napkin. “It was what it was.”

Sarah wasn’t sure if that was an admission of sorts and was unsure of how to respond. He could see the thoughts crossing through her mind and nodded slowly, wordlessly answering the question he wanted to ask but was too wary to do so. He hadn’t felt much like talking of late preferring the relative comfort found at the bottom of a beer bottle or glass of whisky. Scott, his friends, his sisters, everybody had worked out quickly enough that it was a topic he did not want to discuss. Everybody except his mom, that is. He readily acknowledged that he had been avoiding the conversation but also a growing awareness that his relationship with Jenny had been possibly symptomatic of something else he’d been trying to avoid of late: that he was getting older and had little understanding of what he wanted to do or where exactly he wanted to be. Sarah also didn’t want to put herself in a position his mother might be better suited towards. 

“It’s so stupid.” He shook his head, resigned. He took another deep breath before picking up his beer bottle contemplating taking a mouthful. “Things just got out of hand. It’s my own fault. I should have thought more first instead of running into things. You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“No, not at all.” She tried to sound as genuine as possible and he was grateful. She never thought he was an idiot. Naive maybe, but not an idiot. “I’ve know you long enough to know that you’re not a bad person. Plus, y’know, it takes two as they say. Look, I’m probably not the best person to advise on this kind of thing anyway.”

He seemed grateful for the brief assurance. “I think you’re better than you think you are.”

She attempted to change the subject. “So, you’re back filming next month?”

“Yeh, just for a few days hopefully.” He decided to follow her lead. “Then I’m free for a while. Should be easy enough.” He seemed to relax a little more physically at the thought of his impending freedom. The immense financial security meant he tended to take longer breaks between projects now, and he was a little fussier about the project when he did eventually choose to work again. “Shan said you folks were coming this weekend?”

“Next weekend now, but yeh. Looking forward to it. I haven’t really spoken to them much recently and Dad’s been so busy lately and Mom’s worrying about his blood pressure again so it’ll be good for him to switch off for a while. I was thinking of taking them to a photography exhibition in town.”

“Steve McCurry?” His eyes lit up exponentially at the name. “I’m dying to see that one. It’s a shame they don’t keep the studio open past nine now. That would’ve been ideal.” He scoffed and Sarah felt a sadness for him. Not so long ago, he’d had to leave his nephew’s school play halfway through and via a fire door when one of the parents insisted on joking with him loudly throughout the first fifteen minutes about whether he saw any acting talent on stage and then subsequently bugged him to play golf during an interval. It was hard for him to just go out and enjoy normal things such as exhibitions or theatre or, hell, even a casual walk through a park. They were beautiful at this time of year now that Summer was just around the corner and the weather was getting much warmer and brighter. For Chris, any simple trip now relied upon precision timing and stealth-like skills to avoid being seen and quite frankly, that must have sucked.

“Well, you’re welcome to come with. I’m sure we could sneak you in with a disguise somehow.” she winked and nudged him with her shoulder to break the silence, and there was a smile forming in the corner of his mouth. 

“Fuck it. You’re on!”

*

Next Chapter HERE

#Chris Evans #Chris fic #fanfiction #Evans fic #Sarah Bernette #Clear The Area #chris evans x original female character #Syms Writing

[breakingbadfics]

Death of the author

CW: Light discussion of politics, mentions of the Alt-Right, and White Supremacists. 

Consider this a “Change of Pace” entry. I’m trying to figure out what the next essay is to be about as well as the eventual long term for this blog. 

I wrote this essay back in mid 2019, long before the idea of this blog would come to mind, it’s been lightly edited prior to posting and added to. and I think this essay shows some of my influences much more heavily than my other writings.

What does My Little Pony and The Matrix have in common?  Death of the Author. 

Death of the Author is not to be confused with “Separating the Artist from the Art,” a self explanatory concept to distance a work from a creator who’s beliefs are more than a little unpleasant, easiest example is acknowledging that, yes,  H.P. Lovecraft was a Mega-racist, however, his contributions to the horror genre have created a base that is nearly ubiquitous with the genre to this day, like wise with Orson Scott Card. this concept in itself is an especially controversial subject, but is not the focus of this piece.

Death of the Author is what allowed The Matrix, a movie with a collection of metaphors about being an lgbt person, and an activist for the rights of yourself and your allies to be grossly misinterpreted as a way to justify being a bigot, the most egregious misinterpretation being that of “The Red Pill Scene.”

In the context of the film, The Red Pill Scene is the part of the traditional heroes story where the hero “accepts the call”, Neo is quite literally making the choice to leave the safe world he’s been living in behind and embark on his adventure that will result in a death and rebirth into being The One who will save humanity. In the now very much understood to be the direct metaphor, it’s a scene in which Neo, the stand-in for a lgbt person, specifically a trans person, is being told by a much older lgbt person “You are trans, you have the choice to embrace it, but regardless of what choice you make from here on out the road ahead is going to be bumpy and rough on you, because the system around you is designed to make sure people like us aren’t able to prosper, and if you join us, you won’t be able to opt out.” 

That is the very understood metaphor that most people accept with the modern understanding after The Wachowski’s came out as Lily and Lana in the “post-matrix trilogy” reality of the real world.

However due to the Moral Neutrality of Death of the Author in other circles the Red Pill(and all the other metaphors in the film) takes on an alternative meaning. And I can be “polite” in my explaing the bad take on how this scene plays out, but just to hammer the point home we’ll get dirty so you can know where the take is coming from, The Red Pill Scene for White supremeacists, and The alt-right (but I repeat myself) is such.  Neo, a disgruntled white person is being told that the world is controlled by soulless machines. Jews, people of color, etx. Everyone around him is mind controlled and can and will attempt to stop him from saving the people smart enough to also realise they’re being held captive by non-whites and save them all. This of course, all being told to him by Morpheus, a black man. So have fun working your head around that. 

This of course the most extreme example being the most ubiquitous, poke around on chan sites and sooner or later you’ll see the phrase “red pill” having been memetically adjusted to mean “hey tell me about this thing” or even more specifically “I already had an opinion about this but either way I want you to confirm my choice.” But I digress. 

These two interpretations are so wildly on the opposite ends of the spectrum that the only commonalities between them is “You will likely need to be violent at some point” 

I’m naturally only covering the two interpretations, the matrix itself has been picked apart by an untold number of people and people interpret it in as many ways as possible in terms of philosophical meaning. That is the nature of Death of The Author. 

Death of the Author also covers in a round-a-bout fashion, selective canon, a subjective acknowledgement of canon elements throughout a long lived franchise- see; Star Wars, Star Trek, the belief that there was never any sequels to The Matrix. This variant of the philosophy allows one to be able to continue interactions with a text, specifically a text that consists of multiple volumes (or contributions, each one made by an individual author) but also deny interactions with parts that they personally dislike. 

More often than not, you can attribute the death of the author to a bad take in a case of fiction, another primary example being Fight Club, often missed for the scathing critique of unhealthy male behaviour and propped up as some sort of moral guideline for how to live your life. Which is again, not to say this is the fault of Death of The Author as a philosophy, it is morally neutral, these bad takes can more often be attribued to the simple fact that unless directly stating it most attempts at satire or parody will have a contingent of people who agree with what is said, not what is meant, and death of the author unfortunately does make that..very easy, for good, or ill. 

Where does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fit in with all this?  Well there are certainly alt-right members of the brony fandom who are painfully missing the point, but we’ve already dwelled on the negative enough, so let’s get happy. 

In Episode 1 of Season 1, the first part of a two part pilot, in the background of a shot during a party scene; a pony with a grey coat and blonde mane and tail is seen in the background. This particular pony stood out the most amongst other background characters due to a mistake caused by the animation staff. According to the supervising director at the time, this particular error was spotted after hasbro greenlit the episode for air, and because it amused him he chose not to order a correction so it was left in as a nice little easter egg. 

The nameless background pony would eventually be caught by 4chan among other places and very rapidly developed a following of fans and given a nickname, Derpy Hooves. This particular following and new nickname would echo back to shows staff becoming the name internally referred to by the show’s staff. 

Friendship is magic creator Lauren Faust, who also enjoyed the popularity of the character when asked in an interview would state that a character named Ditzy Doo existed in an unaired episode, that would be implied to be this particular background pony, So naturally now depending on the fan this particular character would be reffered to as either Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo.  

Ditzy Doo would go on to become a recurring easter egg with in the show, something similar to that of “where’s waldo” but with horses. This practice would continue until episode 14 of season 2  where the character would have a set of spoken lines and would be addressed by name. This however resulted in a degree of controversy in which some people expressed concern that the presentation of the character was an offensive attempt at portraying people with mental or physical disabilities. This event resulted in the episode being altered in future airings and the character disappearing from the show for the vast majority of Season 3. Beyond Season 3 the character would continue to appear until season 5 where they would finally have a voiced role in the 100th episode of the show, and then eventually having another speaking role in the christmas special “The best gift ever.”  It is also worth noting that Hasbro never gave her an “official name” with almost all of Ditzy’s merchandise either having no name present, or more often than not a singular image of a muffin in place of a name, even going so far as to have “Muffins” be the credited name she was given in all voiced instances of the show. 

Muffins, Ditzy Doo, or Derpy Hooves isn’t the only case of background characters growing a large following of fans with in the show; a variety of characters have been swept up by the fans, given names and personalities built entirely out of bit gags. Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and who knows how many more have all been seen in background moments which would be built on by fans and then echo back into the staff to be integrated into the show further. One would say this is fanon but at the end of the day, the writers and show staff had very little more intent with the characters beyond “does this background character look good?” and “Does this bit part character stand out enough to automatically be recognizable for the bit they need to be doing” it is still what I believe to be an example of Death of The Author, an act of choosing to ignore the intended meaning,and giving what amounts to window dressings a full life as fleshed out characters in fan content and in small instances of the show; an interpretation separate from the writers original intent. 

Now the question is does someone need to actively defy the author to participate in The Death There-of? No. I don’t believe so.  In much the same fashion no one need actually be a clan member to inadvertently say or do something that's passive aggressively racist(yes a bit of an extreme, I know) one need not actively defy the author, merely ascribe to an alternate interpretation of a work of fiction. Refer to Fight Club, the film does everything it can with out directly stating “most of the people in Fight Club and later Project Mayhem are bad people, because they were already doing the things Tyler Durden was ascribing to” and almost unilaterally all the bad takes are built around this idea that they’ve achieved the perfect ideal masculine because they’re the “living in the moment, violent psychopath” nihilist the movie is actively condemning. 

The simple fact is that death of the author ultimately, in a grand scale amounts to this; did a writers intent show through hard enough for their intent to be heard? And Subjectively, how much does a person believe in the meaning that they, or the writer themself have imparted into the story? 

#change of pace

[myhauntedsalem]

What are Ghosts Really?

Ghost stories and tales of human spirits who return after death have been part of human culture for thousands of years. No doubt even ancient humans had tales of ancestors returned from the grave in shocking and terrifying ways.

Back then, as today, some people likely dismissed those tales as the the products of overactive imaginations or outright lies. Surely that’s true in many cases, but with thousands of reported sightings we eventually have to ask ourselves if there is more to this phenomenon.

Is it possible that ghosts are real? If we looked hard enough, would be find a scientific explanation?

When we look back at a great many of the discoveries throughout human history it is interesting to note that many of them were considered impossible or outlandish just a few years before they were proven. In a couple of decades will science be able to prove the existence of ghosts?

Or, are ghosts entities of the spiritual realm, the inhabitants of a world that can’t be measured or quantified with science or math? Are they part of the fabric of another universe we will never understand?

There is plenty of evidence of ghosts and the paranormal to suggest, whatever the answer, something is going on that defies our understanding of the known universe. This article attempts to present some theories about ghosts, and why they are so mysterious. In the end we attempt to answer the question: What are ghosts really?

Theory #1

Ghost are the spirits of humans who have passed away.

It is a widely-held belief supported by many major religions: When we die, our spirit continues on. However, not all religions agree on what that spirit does after death.

In most Christian faiths, the spirit heads off to Heaven or Hell, and doesn’t stick around to bother the living. Still, despite the Judeo-Christian influence in much of Western culture, many of us cling to the idea that human spirits walk the earth.

Maybe this is a coping mechanism of sorts, perhaps born of our need to hold on to our relatives after they are gone.

On the other hand, witnessing a spirit you did not know in the living world is hardly comforting. There are countless eyewitness stories of human spirits haunting houses, and they aren’t all there to make us feel better.

But how is this possible? While we really don’t know what happens to us when we die, some people theorize that basic physics plays a part.

The Law of Conservation of Energy says energy can’t be created or destroyed, but can only change form. So, what happen to our energy after we’re dead? Is it converted to another form? Believers say this is proof enough that spirits live on.

Is it possible we can end up stuck in this world, wandering around forever after death? Perhaps it would be because we are afraid to move on, or maybe because something is preventing us. Even worse, what if there is simply no place to go after death, and we are all meant to reside on this earth in spiritual form until the end of time?

Theory #2

Ghosts are visitors from another dimension. Are Apparitions Interdimentional Beings?

Perhaps ghosts aren’t the spirits of dead people as many of us are prone to believe. Maybe they are inter-dimensional beings, people or entities who are living in another time and place. It’s a wild theory, but not totally unsupported by science.

The concept of a multiverse is contemplated by many theoretical physicists. This idea says there are many universes besides our own, all humming along in parallel with ours. In some other universe the Beatles may all be alive and still together, the Chicago Cubs may be World Series Champions four years running, and you may be a rich and famous moon-rock baron.

Other physicists theorize there may be many different dimensions besides ours, as well as many different timelines.

Of course it’s all theory, but what if those timelines or dimensions get crossed up and we catch a glimpse of the other side? Perhaps ghost sightings occur when the fabric of these many universes or dimensions gets twisted up temporarily.

So this begs the question: If other beings are accidentally crossing into our dimension, do we ever cross into theirs? Maybe occurrences such as astral projection and lucid dreaming can be linked to short trips into separate but similar dimensions.

Theory #3

Ghosts are demons attempting to trick us, or angels here to protect us.

There’s another school of thought that says there is no such thing as ghosts. This is comforting news, until you hear the second part of the theory. Ghosts are actually demons or angels manifesting in a manner understandable to humans.

That’s right, that ghost of Grandpa beside your bed at night might actually be a guardian angel looking down on you, making sure you are safe.

Or, those ghosts you see wandering around your house, Grandpa included, may be demons masquerading as human spirits in order to gain your confidence.

Yow! That is not a happy thought! Demons are supposedly particularly fond of portraying little children in order to befriend human children. Hey, if they were nice they wouldn’t be demons.

An offshoot of this idea says that demonic spirits are able to control human apparitions and make them do all kinds of horrific deeds.

For example, a demon may hold human spirits in this world, gain power from them, and prevent them from passing to the next realm–whatever that is.

Of the five theories in this article, I think it’s safe to say that number four here is the least desirable for any homeowner.

Theory #4

What we see as ghosts are the residue of past events somehow recorded into the environment.

Another theory says that ghost sightings can be explained by past events somehow recording themselves into the environment. What we recognize as a ghost is really just history playing back. There is no spirit present at all. It is like watching a movie. For paranormal investigators, this is what they would call a residual haunting.

Some investigators speculate that different types of natural geology or geography such as certain rocks or large bodies of water above or below ground, may be conducive to residual hauntings.

This idea is reinforced by reports of apparitions who appear to walk straight through walls in places where there were once old doorways. Occasionally, like on battlefields such as Gettysburg, ghosts are reported to be seen going about their business just as though the war was still raging.

It’s a fascinating idea, and it might console people who fear their home is haunted, but this theory falls flat when spirits start talking to and interacting with the living.

Theory #5

Ghosts are products of our minds, which may be more powerful than we realize.

It’s all in your head, man! The simplest explanation for ghosts is that they are purely imagined. It’s nice to wrap the whole phenomenon up in a neat little package like this, and some people just prefer to dismiss the idea altogether. Less comforting is the realization that maybe the ghosts you are seeing aren’t real, but perhaps you have greater psychological issues at hand which are causing you to hallucinate.

But ghosts can be in your head without your being ill, and without a runaway imagination. Perhaps ghosts and ghostly activities are extensions of the subconscious, either yours or someone else’s.

Or, maybe, even of a collective consciousness shared by the entire human race. Science has yet to fully understand the powers of the human mind. Who knows what kinds of crazy things we all might be projecting into the world?

But does this make things any better? Are you more or less comforted to know that the apparition you’ve been seeing wandering about your home is a projection of a family member’s subconsciousness rather than a real ghost?

#What are Ghosts Really? #paranormal #ghost and hauntings

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/24/2018: HEREDITARY

I am not ready to talk about HEREDITARY. I tried it when it came out in June, and while I think I hit all the points that were important for mass audiences, I wasn’t really ready then either, to say what I wanted to say. It isn’t because it’s so unusually beautiful, which it is. It isn’t because it’s “the scariest movie ever made”, which it is not, although it intermittently reaches seldom-seen heights of horror. It also isn’t because, contrary to popular belief, it is deeply flawed, with certain understandable markers of being someone’s first feature. It is because it feels so profoundly personal to me, even while I know that this is a not-uncommon reaction to Ari Aster’s breakout debut. It doesn’t make me special that I would take this film about grief, guilt, mental illness, genetic disorder, and irresolvable family friction so personally, but as usual, I have something I need to say about it. My experience with the movie tells me something, not about why we need HEREDITARY, but why we need art.

                                                                         (spoilers abound)

This story, about a woman who recently lost her seriously disturbed mother, and who subsequently loses her also-disturbed daughter to a car wreck caused by her teenage son, has been accused of emotional exploitation by some. HEREDITARY is aggressively harrowing, with interminably protracted suspense, teasingly dense shadows, and a constant unnatural drone that characterizes everything you see, however mundane, as malignantly abnormal. Most audiences may accept this kind of brutality when it is buffered by a fantastical metaphor, as with an EXORCIST or a SHINING. You can scare someone half to death, as long as you reassure them that whatever they’ve seen probably isn’t going to happen to them, even if it reminds them of something that did, or could. If you just make people feel bad, however, they may turn on you. This is Ari Aster’s big mistake, if you want to call it that; I know parents who refuse to watch the movie, due to its infamous scene of violence against a child. It’s easy to see why any reasonable person might want to opt out of this unusually shocking scene, in which young Milly Shapiro is accidentally decapitated while her teenage brother races her to the hospital, after having neglectfully caused her need for a hospital trip in the first place. But, I think it also calls into question the place for and purpose of the artist’s contract with the audience. This concept usually refers to the unspoken promise that a filmmaker makes to his viewers, that whatever happens in the movie, even if it is confrontational, will fall within the bounds of what the viewers basically expect when they buy their tickets. It means something like, when a family-oriented entertainment producer like Disney adapts a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, the audience won’t have to see the huntsman eviscerate an animal to get his ersatz proof that he has killed Snow White, and they won’t have to see Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters mutilate their own feet to try to fit the glass slipper. Part of the problem many people have with HEREDITARY is that Ari Aster’s contract with his audience is a little unclear. It blends psychodrama about irresolvable family issues that can hit way too close to the literal home for any ordinary person, with the unthinkable but entirely doable desecration of the human body, with outrageous supernatural horrors that, while scary as hell, can seem preposterous in light of the more terrestrial torments that have gone before.

To try to be more succinct, which is difficult with such a complex film, my own problem with HEREDITARY is that it contains metaphors for real-world elements that are already in the movie. To go back to the example of THE EXORCIST: Regan’s transformation from an innocent child into a vile self-abusing demon serves as a ready metaphor for puberty, mental illness, addiction, and really anything that turns your loved one into someone you no longer recognize. Writer Peter Blatty sets this up beautifully by using banal troubles like drafts in the house or parental antagonism as agents that weaken Regan’s defenses against the forces of darkness, just as they can weaken the average person’s defenses against depression or alcoholism--the things that warp them away from their best, or at least, most socially acceptable self. HEREDITARY gets itself into a sticky spot by giving Toni Collete a family history of emotional and physical violence, schizo-affective disorder, alienation, and neglect that is as convincing as can be, and then throwing a comparatively flimsy (however great-looking) metaphorical tarp over all that in the form of witchcraft and demonic possession. A similar problem occurs in Boots Riley’s otherwise excellent SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, where he stages the action in a world--our world, however surreally dressed up--that turns on an axis of slave labor, and then he concludes his story with an outsized metaphor for slave labor. I wouldn’t really kick anything in either of these movies out of bed, at the end of the day; I’m just saying that it gets a little awkward when you craft this grandiose metaphor for a legitimately terrifying real-world thing, while that thing happens to be standing right there in the room with the metaphor. 

Anyway. It is interesting to note that while the movie seems to have hurt a lot of people’s feelings based on their own contemporary reality, its spiritual DNA has been active for hundreds of years. Witchery has been a handy metaphor for, or even out-and-out "explanation” for, mental illness in women throughout history. (Ok, so it’s been an excuse for LOTS of things that have happened to or around women throughout history, but I only have so much space!) In HEREDITARY, Toni Collette describes her recently deceased mother as being extraordinarily private, having “private rituals” and even “private friends”, which we soon realize were signs of her being a devil worshiper. However, in some ways, mother and daughter are not so different. Where the mother practiced dark arts, Collette is a successful gallery artist. Her hyperreal dioramas seem like metaphorical expressions of her feelings toward her insane and abusive parent, but as we find out along the way, they are entirely realistic descriptions of actual things that have actually happened in her life--including the notorious car crash, but also things like the mother trying to force her breast on her infant granddaughter, which we later learn was part of an effort to implant Milly Shaprio with a demon. Shapiro, who inhabits a Baba Yaga-like treehouse in the yard, is also an artist, crafting twisted-looking dolls out of refuse and carrion, and like her mother, she also has unwitting witchy inclinations, perceiving grim specters and ill omens all around. Notably, no one outside the maternal bloodline perceive these things, and it seems that male members only perceive them when being supernaturally attacked. While Toni Collete and Milly Shapiro both use handcrafted art to process the trauma handed down to them by their maternal ancestor, all three women participate (knowingly or otherwise) in an ancient artistic tradition that, for some, amounts to a legitimate religion--but for many others, especially in the modern world, it is a way of dealing with feelings of impotence and subjugation. A sense of disappointment, worthlessness, and damnation plagues the women at the center of HEREDITARY, whether it involves Toni Collette’s complaint that her family blames her for all of their misfortunes, or her accusing her teenage son Alex Wolff of failing to acknowledge his responsibility for his sister’s death, or his sister ominously remarking that her grandmother’s doting attitude disguised the matriarch’s attempts to control or deform her--”She wanted me to be a boy,” Shapiro mutters, and we’ll find out she specifically wanted the child to be a boy vessel for a boy demon (about which, more later). HEREDITARY depicts a family out of control, who cannot escape the fate that has been devised for them, but who have adopted some interesting, literally artful means of trying to synthesize feelings of power.

HEREDITARY begins to fall apart, not as much because of its indecisive attitude toward fantasy and realism, as because of its last act left turn away from its heretofore cogent discussion of the disenfranchisement of women, and the guilt women live with when they fall short of their clan’s desires for strong sons, good little girls, or perfect mothers who serve their people instead of serving themselves. Make no mistake: Alex Wolff, who delivers an above-and-beyond performance as an average young man who is alienated by his freak sister and unstable mother, is always at the center of the film. The guilt he acquires from being an unwilling murderer is as potent as anything I think I’ve ever seen in a movie. So, it isn’t that this male experience of disappointing your family, and also feeling victimized by their very existence, is absent from the first leg of the story. It’s that when the film finally tries to make sense of itself, by revealing that Toni Collette’s mother intended to offer one of her male progeny as a vessel for a masculine entity that would bring her great wealth...well, it sort of flies in the face of the psychological depths we’ve plumbed up to that point. For one thing, the movie’s title suggests a singular focus on the intergenerational passing-down of trauma and blame, and the collection of damaged women to whom we’re immediately introduced are obvious experts in this matter. It doesn’t quite work when the story vacillates between sympathizing with these doomed females, and then sympathizing with a young man’s fear and loathing of adult women, who he perceives as irrational and castrating. And how is it possible that the profound mystery surrounding the family’s progressive ruin is rooted in something as shallow as money? I tried to develop a theory that it works as the final insult of any familial loss--that death is incredibly expensive to manage, and inheritance can be just burdensome as it is a blessing--but I don’t know, there’s not enough on the table for me to make a meal out of.

Setting aside the idea of sacrificing your son to a money demon, though, one can say that even if HEREDITARY is a little unsteady in its construction, the individual components are solid. And here I don’t just mean compelling, but also, real. This is the reason I people are so bothered by HEREDITARY--that it tells the truth in a much more direct manner than most audiences expect of a supernatural horror film. While that may be an unwelcome experience, it may be more helpful to think of this unpleasantness as a gift that art can give us.  This kind of nasty confrontation with trauma is important for an individual’s personal development, integrity, and self-knowledge. The more demandingly exhibitionistic a movie is, the better chance we have to untangle ourselves from the billowing curtain of metaphor and anthropological generality, and to be purified by the excoriating light of realism--not the artistic genre, but actual contact with reality. 

Here we find my own big reveal, my left turn away from what my previous paragraphs have led you to expect. Let me tell you about my mother. My mother was an enormously popular person. Extremely sharp, funny, fashionable, cultured--all things that help keep one’s private persona in the shadows. A prolific artist, she created hyperreal paintings and drawings from miniatures, like toys and model train props, that represented an exaggerated simulation of reality. Much of her work was about female pageantry, social expectations of women, or the chintzy objects that littered the lives of 1950s and 60s housewives, like kitschy bric-a-brac and tawdry paperbacks. People absolutely loved her for her taste, her humor, her ability to express herself. She did not like me. This was so true that, even without a history of physical abuse, that her peers sometimes say things to me that reveal their awareness of the facts of our relationship, or lack thereof. I hear things like, “Your mother loved you, you know!”, in a tone of voice that suggests that they know this would be late breaking news, without ever having asked me how I feel or what I think. From the earliest age, I seemed to refuse to meet the expectations people have of their children: I hated to be touched, I cried endlessly, I quaked with anxiety and a nameless guilt day and night, I burned with an aimless anger. I could draw, and did so compulsively, but nothing nice or bright. I was acutely aware of sexuality, violence, vanity, and shame. I was no fun whatsoever. Later in life--very recently in life, actually--I discovered that I have two important, inherent qualities: One, that I have a genetic inability to process copper properly, a mineral that is psychoactive and can make you pretty unhinged in large quantities. Two, that I suffer from a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a range of mental conditions that have been historically ignored in women, largely because of misogynist prejudices that society holds about essentially-female dysfunctionality. Unfortunately for me, my mother died when I was a teenager, almost two decades before I would find out these things that might have made her more tolerant of me. 

Fortunately, I guess, I think I know why my mother took such an exception to me, and it isn’t all about me. It’s about her mother. My maternal grandmother was also an artist of sorts, but more in terms of artifice. I haven’t decided whether it is fair for me to spill all of the details of a story that belongs to more people than myself, but I will go so far as to say that my maternal great-grandparents meted out trauma and shame in a manner that my grandmother allowed to contribute to her painful estrangement from her sister. For my purposes, what it really did was teach my mother that darkness--any kind of darkness, even darkness that belongs to you and you alone, that you have a right to, that should be yours to process as you see fit--is inappropriate. It is just as inappropriate in adults as it is in children, which she would see very clearly in her mother’s strict orchestration of their household into an unimpeachably pure, Rockwellian model of what an American family should be like. While my mother found her way into the revolutionary world of hippie rebellion and art-making, she never let go of her prohibition against sadness and rage, even in her own child, and I suffered from it until she suddenly, rapidly and gruesomely died of lung cancer when I was barely old enough to drive. Afterward, her mother obsessed over me in a way that was simultaneously scathingly intense and unmistakably impersonal. I looked like my mother, and my grandmother’s identity was rooted entirely in dominating a family, so she couldn’t do without me. I couldn’t let her know anything about myself; my feelings about horror, pornography, death taboos, sexual identity, and media that is out to hurt you, are what make up all that I am, and are the opposite of everything she believes in. With that weight on my back, I had to pretend that we had this archetypal American familial intimacy, even when I didn’t have it with my own mother, even when I hated being touched, even when I hadn’t learned how to receive affection. Early this year, she died at 90 years old from a misdiagnosed colon condition. As my family rushed to her side to say goodbye, we discovered that her shadowy sister had pushed her doctors into lifesaving measures that would have extended her existence into something so horrific that it would have stood up to the ugliest scenes from JACOB’S LADDER, had she not miraculously died before regaining consciousness. As perversely relieving as that was, my ears ring with the sound of her last phone call to me. Intended to be a heartfelt goodbye, it devolved quickly into the woman, completely possessed of her mental faculties, absolutely screaming for her life. It was a sound as chilling as anything from any of the sadistic movies I love so well, and I really heard it, in my real life.

This all would be enough to make me talk the way that I do, but it isn’t all. Recently, my father revealed to me some details of my mother’s struggle with cancer that I had never heard before. Although my mother had been told to go straight home and make her peace upon diagnosis, she and my father plunged full bore into magical thinking. They experimented with hypnosis, acupuncture, reiki, anything that might activate my mother’s internal ability to heal herself. Soon they found themselves in the office of a charismatic self-help guru-type in a neighboring city. Incidentally, this person is now at the center of an increasingly bizarre trial that is slated to begin this January, due to her authoritative involvement with a Scientology-like cult that allegedly maintains a secret inner circle of brand-wielding sex slavers. But anyway, back to my little memoir: It isn’t clear to me what she claimed was the scope of her powers exactly, but I know that she specialized in a form of “healing” that involved hypnosis and carefully selected words, I suppose not unlike a magical incantation. She said to my mother: “I am going to heal you.” The reason she said this so forcefully, was that my mother was the physical double of a previous client of hers; a client who died from the same specific form of lung cancer that plagued my mother; and who lived in the house we had moved into, only months before my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That woman died, we moved into her house, and by pure coincidence, my subsequently sick mother found herself in the office of the self-styled healer who had treated the previous owner of our new home for the very same illness. “God has given me a second chance,” the healer said, “and I am going to heal you.” My mother saw her for several months, until one day she arrived to find a third woman in the office. Astoundingly, the healer described the young coed as having supernatural gifts. The two instantly began terrorizing my mother, screaming at her and cursing her. My mother, sobbing hysterically, begged to know, “Why are you yelling at me?” and they replied, “WE’RE NOT YELLING AT YOU, WE’RE YELLING AT THE CANCER!” When he told the story, of course, my father accidentally said “demon”, not “cancer”, but in any case, they were trying to exorcize her. My mother never went back, and, some might remark, she died.

Naturally, I wanted to tell this story to anyone who would listen to me, as soon as I had heard it. It was one of the weirdest things I had ever heard, and it happened to my family. While some people’s jaw dropped in exactly the way mine had originally, I received some unexpected feedback, too. On some occasions, a dear friend would pause at the end of my story, make a calculated “surprise” sound, and then, very gently, explain to me that coincidences exist, self-hypnosis and group hysteria exist, and I shouldn’t take any of it too seriously. I found myself, not just disappointed, but embarrassed. I wasn’t trying to tell people that I believed my family was cursed by god or the devil, or that we had been molested by some evil sorceress. I was simply trying to say that, somehow...isn’t there some kind of spiritual truth to this? Isn’t it worth remarking on, that my life, my history, had congealed into such an incredible metaphor for itself? Isn’t it so much more compelling than any kind of fiction I could ever have written, any artwork I could ever have created in order to process the exact kind of trouble my family has suffered? Isn’t this just amazing, all by itself, without even the benefit of theatrical interpretation? Of course, the conclusion will be that I absolutely have to give this some kind of theatrical interpretation, or else I will go out of my mind. I’m close enough as it is. But, in some ways, I felt like this interpretation has already happened at the hands of Ari Aster, with his horrific fable about how inherited trauma among generations of women gives way to the machinations of a corrupt cult. People who know me well will realize that I’m still leaving out parallels between HEREDITARY and myself, in this already too-long piece of analysis. But I guess what I’m trying to say for now is that I need HEREDITARY, and we each need a HEREDITARY of our own to put our most unspeakable experiences on a pin, under a spotlight, inside a bell jar, to be examined from every angle and exactingly diagnosed, whether we like it or not.

#blogtober #hereditary #ari aster #horror #supernatural #witch #cult #toni collette #milly shapiro #alex wolff #gabriel byrne #anecdotal evidence #mental illness

[claramcguireartistry-blog]

Top 5 Wedding Blogs to Follow in case You're Planning Your Wedding

The late spring wedding season has formally arrived—and you'll be seeing exposed cakes, Edison knob outside lighting, and blooms in abundance through October. Prospective love birds have likely officially wrapped up their late spring occasions, yet for those of you simply beginning to consider your wedding next summer, presently is the ideal time to get a little motivation.

1. This marvelous Southern CA blog is an absolute necessity check whether you're getting hitched locally

Getting hitched in California? There are various web journals committed to the brilliant express that offer insider tips for the best merchants, bloom ranchers, settings, and the sky is the limit from there. Southern California Bride remains our go-to suggestion for those in SoCal who are hoping to wow their visitors.

Noteworthy notice: Though they give tips, traps, and information for everywhere throughout the US, Ruffled Blog is situated in California—and they realize how to enable you to design an incredible gathering. Locate the best tips for your territory by perusing by area.

2. Non-conventional couples will love our next decision

Not every person likes to shading inside the lines—and in the event that you need to swear off a first move, avoid the bundle tossing, or discard the detailed cake, there's still a lot of #weddinginspo out there. Draw up Rock n' Roll Bride for some extraordinary, out of control thoughts to kick you off.

Good notice: How does a geek tastic wedding or a vault committed to pizza conveyance forever stable? Find magnificent thoughts like these and more at the Offbeat Bride.

3. Remain on-pattern with this flourishing asset

With a huge number of social adherents, Style Me Pretty needed to make our rundown. It's a standout amongst the most well known wedding web journals to ever exist, in light of current circumstances. Perusers love their recommendation, design tips, and shocking photograph sets—and we do as well!

Respectable notice: Get the charm and glitz of a customary wedding, regardless of your objectives, spending plan, or course of events, with a little assistance from Green Wedding Shoes. You'll cherish the plenty of thoughts and DIY venture plans they have accessible.

4. Keep it natural with some master direction

Easygoing, straightforward, and downplayed tastefulness have been excessively stylish as of late—and the natural look is detonating in prevalence. In case you're seeking after something outdoorsy and extraordinary, make certain to bookmark Rustic Wedding Chic.

Noteworthy notice: The rural stylish is one of the most straightforward to accomplish with a little diligent work. Helpful couples should peruse DIY Bride for ravishing, simple to-do ventures.

5. Financial plan cordial assets and tips

Hoping to spare a couple of dollars so you can spend too much on your special night? Can't legitimize burning through the majority of your reserve funds on one day? You can at present have an awesome wedding with a lower spending plan! The Budget Savvy Bride has huge amounts of tips and suggestions to enable you to set aside extra cash without settling on quality.

Respectable notice: Kiss My Tulle started as a spending wedding blog and has extended to incorporate everything the straightforward millennial lady of the hour could seek after. We're talking DIY thoughts, spending agendas, and everything in the middle of to enable you to handle your wedding arranging (without going insane all the while!).

Reward: we have the deets on gathering arranging and how to ensure your wedding music is on point

Exquisite Event Entertainment has been helping couples have astonishing weddings and gatherings for quite a long time—and our accomplished Los Angeles wedding DJs and MCs can work with you and your organizer to ensure your unique day goes off easily. Get in touch with us to study our extraordinary lighting bundles, DJ administrations, and photobooths!

Best Wedding Cake Scenes in Movies

Each wedding has something that makes it a mark occasion. For one lady of the hour it could be about the dress. For the following, the most imperative angle could be the music. And after that there are the weddings that spin around the sustenance. From tidbits to appetizers, some pre-marriage ceremony put a lot of significance on what is around to eat. While you may have an incomparable steak or brilliant finger sustenances on your enormous day, there is no wedding nourishment more essential than the wedding cake.

Snap here to see 10 Best Wedding Cake Movie Scenes

Wedding cakes nowadays can cost upward of $1,000. They can be robed in fondant or decorated with genuine blossoms. Maybe they are a transcending heap of cupcakes or smaller than expected cakes. Regardless of how you cut it, the wedding cake is one thing individuals remember — and it isn't a direct result of the taste. The wedding cake is something beyond a dessert shop masterpiece, it is an ordeal the whole wedding gathering recollects, regardless of whether the lady of the hour and man of the hour softly feed each other chomps or crush it in their cherished's face. That individual association with the sweet is the reason we recall any film scene that includes a wedding cake.

In films, wedding cakes will in general take the spotlight. They can sing, much like the lovable cake from Muppets Take Manhattan, or be flung over the room in a rambunctious sustenance battle. The cake might be too wonderful to even think about ignoring, much like the fabulous elephant cake in Rachel Getting Married. The thing is, a wedding cake is something to recollect, be it, in actuality, or in the motion pictures. Look at these exemplary true to life cake scenes that you unquestionably always remembered.

Tips for Handling 5 Wedding-Day Disasters

Nobody needs to hear the words wedding and calamity in a similar sentence—particularly when it's your own wedding that is being discussed. While genuine catastrophes are fortunately uncommon, littler disasters are not bad, but at the same time not enough to blow anyone's mind even with the best arranged weddings.

As a portion of LA's busiest wedding DJ's, we've seen a lot of bloopers, and we would say, the strongest couples not just have an extraordinary disposition toward the unforeseen, yet in addition are furnished with strategies to guarantee any disasters don't escape hand. To enable you to ride out harsh spots in your big day, we've assembled a rundown of tips for how to deal with wedding accidents.

Imagine a scenario where: It's falling down in buckets on my open air wedding.

While a stormy wedding day isn't excessively likely in LA, each savvy couple has a Plan B, even in radiant California. It's a smart thought to lease a tent for an outside wedding—at any rate, it'll give your visitors an obscure spot to chill. You may even need mutiple; for example, in the event that you have live performers, they may require a secured territory to play.

Another thought? In the event that the conjecture isn't looking extraordinary, incorporate a reasonable umbrella on every visitor's seat as a cute gift. On the off chance that it downpours, everybody has an individual haven, and your picture taker will get some truly cool Mary Poppins-esque shots.

Most importantly, it is key for you as the lady of the hour and man of the hour to stay cheery about a blustery function, and your visitor will stick to this same pattern. Since there's literally nothing you can do to change the climate, simply unwind, have a decent giggle about it, and appreciate the magnificence of the compelling force of nature—that is the thing that the couples highlighted in this NY Times article did, and the wet climate wound up being an affectionate memory for them. (Clue: read the entire article for progressively extraordinary thoughts for what to do in the event that it downpours at your wedding).

Consider the possibility that: I have a closet breakdown on the move floor.

Stains, tears, runs, broken heels, popped ties, and even feathered creature crap on a lapel are reasonable worries for any lady of the hour or lucky man. With regards to fixing closet breakdowns, there's not a viable alternative for being readied. Prior to your big day, collect a "medical aid unit" with things, for example,

Additionally, toss in some bandages, moleskin, and moment ice packs, just on the off chance that you or an individual from your wedding party experiences a cut, rankle, or a face-plant into the move floor.

Any move floor disasters can likewise be moderated by an ace wedding DJ, who will realize exactly what to state—and play by occupy the group—in most any circumstance.

So in the event that you or a visitor does to be sure have a humiliating minute, basically grin, snicker, and proceed onward. Almost certainly, everybody will understand, and the less dramatization you make out of it, the more rapidly individuals will proceed onward to the following thing, similar to a line dance or eating cake!

Imagine a scenario in which: I stumble on my dress when I stroll down the passageway.

For the most part, the most ideal approach to approach any incident is with cleverness—and that is never more valid than with regards to a slip or outing. Dismiss it and continue. For somewhat viewpoint, look at this story: one couple's picture taker truly fell through the ice, and he continued shooting the entire time. It's a quite sure thing that any lurches you take will be inconsequential in correlation.

Consider the possibility that: I wake up with seasonal influenza on my big day.

Becoming ill on your big day is the most exceedingly terrible! While you can't absolutely kill the opportunity that you'll contract the muck, you can take measures to forestall ailment and guarantee your insusceptible framework is working in best structure for your wedding and special first night.

Paving the way to the day, take insusceptible boosting nutrients and enhancements, drink a lot of water, and get your 8 hours of rest each night. On the off chance that conceivable, abstain from spending too much time in swarmed open spots, and if your sister asks you to keep an eye on wheezing baby, this is one time when it's legitimate to state no. In the event that you do wake up on your big day feeling off, ensure you have some OTC cures in your purse—ibuprofen, Pepto, decongestant, and so forth.— to give some help after all other options have been exhausted should you need it.

Imagine a scenario where: my playlist goes haywire and the chicken move stalls out on rehash.

On the off chance that one thing can cut down the vibe of a wedding gathering, it's terrible music, or an absence of music totally. Luckily, this accident is practically 100% avoidable. Skirt the DIY playlist and contract an accomplished, proficient DJ to deal with your music. Additionally, ensure the DJ you pick has their own demonstrated reinforcement framework if there should arise an occurrence of crisis for one less thing to stress over.

Last useful tidbits

In the event that you do wind up getting fatigued in spite of doing your best to be a trooper, don't be excessively hard on yourself. It's

#candid #candid wedding photography #best candid wedding photography

[paradoxicalpatton]

Coffee and Flowers

Title: Coffee and Flowers (This is temporary until I can think of a better one)

Summary: Patton is a father who runs a flower shop across the road from a small coffee shop. He decides to start getting a daily coffee every morning and immediately falls for the cute barista.

Pairings: Logicality, background Prinxiety. (Let’s ignore the fact I only ever write Logicality)

Trigger Warnings: None, will edit if necessary.

Chapter: 1

Word Count: 1956

Taglist: @my-happy-little-bean ​ @toujours-fidele ​ @preyed-llama ​ @a-valorous-choice ​ @milomeepit ​ @ironwoman359 ​ @painfullybisexual (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!)

Author’s Notes: So firstly I want to say thank you to my moon, @preyed-llama ​ for helping me come up with the plot and what not, and for generously agreeing to be my beta. I couldn’t have done this without her! I’m at a bit of a blank with Opposites right now, but there should be a new chapter in a few days.

Chapter Excerpt: “Sorry about that, $17.50 yeah? Here you go!” Honestly, this man made Logan jealous, how did he run across the road and back and not break a sweat?“Thanks, um, what name was that under?” Logan grabbed a permanent marker and a tall coffee cup, awaiting to her the strangers name.“Oh, just Patton will be fine!” Logan quickly wrote it on the cup, while trying not to stare at the beautiful smile Patton was giving him.

Master list || Next Chapter

Patton Sanders was an ordinary man. He was 28 years old, adopted a boy named Thomas, and ran the local flower shop ‘Once and Floral’. You could say that Patton lived a very normal life, both he and Thomas were happy, content with what they had. But Patton felt as if something were missing, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. That morning Patton had driven Thomas to school, usually Thomas would take the bus, but he was feeling a little ill- he refused to stay home because today his class was learning about bees, his favourite insect- so Patton drove him instead. This of course meant that Patton was a little late to open shop, no one was there but he still felt a little guilty. He unlocked the door and entered, quickly setting everything up that wasn’t ready the night before.

Patton owned a very small flower shop, so he was the only person working there, but he didn’t mind. On days that Thomas was too ill for school, he would come with Patton to work, earning extra pocket money for being his dad’s ‘Best Busy Bee’. The flower shop was indeed small, but it was very homely. The walls were painted a pale yellow, most of the paint having chipped off over the years, exposing the old wooden boards underneath. The front of the store had two large bay windows, these being the main source of light, that had soft pillows and blankets covering the ledge. Every wall was covered in flowers from top to bottom, the wall closest to the register had a tiny bookshelf in the middle; with all kinds of books about the types of flowers, the meaning of flowers, and what flowers you should use together to send a message. Every flower was categorised in colour order, red flowers on the wall to the right of the door, all the way to purple flowers covering the left side. Above the door were small white mayflowers, it only seemed fitting as they meant ‘welcome’. Throughout the centre of the store were miscellaneous plants, such as cacti or ferns, all planted neatly in cute little pots Thomas had painted- surprisingly or not they all had a bee on them somewhere- they were a favourite with all the elderly ladies that would come in. Behind the register was a long counter that was covered in ribbons, wrapping paper, cellophane and different shaped boxes and baskets. It wasn’t much, but it was his, he loved that flower shop just as much as he did Thomas.

Now, usually Patton would get a good night’s sleep, he’d make sure Thomas and himself had dinner by 6pm, they’d watch a movie together, and Thomas would be asleep by 8pm. Patton would tuck Thomas in and leave his room, making a round around the house, locking every door and window. He’d stay up for a little while longer, spoiling himself by watching a few animal videos on YouTube before heading to bed by 9pm. This was their every day routine, and neither of them had a problem with it. Last night, however, a customer had requested a large number of flowers for their wedding reception, and Patton had stayed up until 3am planning and sorting what flowers he should arrange for them. So, to say that he was tired the next morning was an understatement. He’d finished moving and setting up books and magazines, potted plants and ready-to-buy bouquets by 9am, moving over to the front door and turning around the hanging sign to say ‘Open’. He must’ve fallen asleep at the register because the next thing he knew was that Mrs. Davidson was shaking him awake.

“Oh, Mrs. Davidson, I apologise for being so unprofessional. How can I help you?” Patton stood up, stretching his back while stifling a yawn. Mrs. Davidson giving him a soft smile as he focused his attention solely on her.

“Dearest Patton, I’ve told you countless times, just call me Elizabeth. Anyway, I was wondering if you had any houseplants I could give to my sister? She’s visiting this weekend and I’d like to get her something.” Patton guided Elizabeth towards the centre of the shop, the potted plants organised neatly. Patton circled the stand, looking at each and every plant as Elizabeth described her sister, giving the friendly father an idea on what she’d like. He stopped in front of a small bonsai tree and picked it up off the shelf before turning to his lovely customer.

“How about this? It’s an Ulmus parvifolia, but most people call it a Bonsai tree. They generally signify love, balance and a calm peaceful energy. As well as inner strength, intuition, and wisdom.” Patton walked back to the register, confident that Mrs. Davidson would purchase it.

“Oh, it’s perfect. She won’t have to take too much care for it will she?”

“Not at all. It needs to be kept in a place where natural light will shine but shouldn’t be left in sunlight for more than 5 hours. She should only water it when the soil seems to be dry and must make sure not to over water it.” Patton wrapped a lavender coloured ribbon around the pot, explaining to Mrs. Davidson what needed to be done.

“My love, you are an angel to this world. Alright, how much do I owe you?” Mrs. Davidson pulled her purse out of her large handbag, leaning on the edge of the counter as she waited for Patton’s response.

“$25, I threw in the ribbon for free so don’t worry about that.” Patton placed the Bonsai tree next to the register as he kindly took Elizabeth’s money, making sure to thank her as he did so.

“Patton, is this one of the pots your son painted? Oh, what was his name again?” Mrs. Davidson picked up the plant, examining the ceramic white container it was in.

“Yes, it is, his name is Thomas. I can quickly change it if you wish?” Patton looked up at Mrs. Davidson once he was done. Patton was very good at reading people, and he realised that the thought of changing the pot hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“Dear, I wouldn’t change this for the world. You should sell the pots separately as well, they’re just the cutest. I must be off now, you should get a coffee from the coffee shop across the road, it’ll keep you awake.” Mrs. Davidson shifted the Bonsai tree, so it was sitting comfortably in the nook of her arm as she walked out the peaceful flower shop, smirking at the sign by the door that read ‘Leafing So Soon?’. Patton watched her leave, the bell atop the door ringing as it shut.

Maybe he should grab something to drink, he didn’t want to risk falling asleep again.

It was common knowledge that Logan Woods was the most attractive man in town. Dark mocha coloured hair fell lightly over his black glasses that covered his caramel eyes. He was fairly tall, his body thin yet still slightly muscular. And although he could have anyone he wanted, he stayed single, confusing everyone that met him. Logan ran the local coffee shop, it wasn’t too big, but it was welcoming.

‘C8 H10 N4 O2’ was a simple coffee shop, the walls a dark brown tone which complimented the light brown floorboards. Miscellaneous items in the store would contrast the dark colours with white accents, the small lounge chair in front of the fireplace being the best example. Throughout the shop were clear glass vases filled with white plastic flowers, most pictures hanging on the walls being the components that made up a coffee under a microscope. Just like Logan, his coffee shop was in fact very nerdy. A lot of people who knew him were surprised he’d wanted to be a barista instead of a teacher.

Virgil, his younger brother, was of course very supportive of him. Plus, Logan made amazing coffee, why wouldn’t he support that. Virgil was always the first customer in each morning, he was still in university and none of classes started until after lunch, so he liked to kill time at his brother’s shop. Logan didn’t mind this, it gave him someone to talk to until the morning rush started, plus he got to help Virgil with his studies. This morning, however, Virgil was studying contemporary music, which wasn’t Logan’s most knowledgeable area.

“I do not see why studying contemporary music is a necessity? What will it help you achieve?” Logan was busy cleaning up his store as Virgil read over some of his course work. Logan was moving swiftly around the store, collecting dirty plates and cups and wiping down the tables before preparing more coffee.

“Don’t ask me, as long as I graduate I don’t care.” Virgil took a sip from the coffee Logan had made him, his favourite white chocolate mocha. Logan moved back over to his brother, leaning his back against the counter to face Virgil.

“What time does you first class start today?” Logan picked up Virgil’s timetable he’d scribbled down in the back of his journal, checking what time he needed to leave.

“I think half past 10 but I don’t know anymore.” Virgil lent back on his chair holding onto the counter he was sat in front of.

“Virgil, you realise it is now 10 o’clock? You need to leave now.” Logan closed the journal, placing it in Virgil’s carry bag.

“Huh, I probably should go. Alright, I’ll see you later Lo.” Virgil jumped up off the chair, grabbing his bag and heading to the door. As he opened it he was met with another man on the other side of the door.

“You got another one!” Virgil called out to his brother before finally leaving the coffee shop, leaving Logan chuckling softly to himself so that no one else could hear. Logan walked around the counter as the new customer approached, quickly tightening his apron.

“Hi, welcome to Caffeine, what can I get you today?” Logan stood behind the register, looking up the man that stood before him.

“Hello! Um, could I-uh, could I please have a-uh, a tall caramel macchiato?” Logan stared in awe at the man in front of him. He was absolutely stunning, slightly messy chocolate brown hair and honey eyes behind black framed glasses.

“Uh yeah, that’ll be $17.50” Logan punched in the order, ringing up the handsome guys bill.

“Oh shoot, I left my wallet back at the shop!” The man glanced behind him, noticing that he was now the only customer there, “I’ll be one second!” And he was gone, in a blink of an eye, the man had sped out the coffee shop and across the road, before rushing back to the register Logan was standing behind. “Sorry about that, $17.50 yeah? Here you go!” Honestly, this man made Logan jealous, how did he run across the road and back and not break a sweat?

“Thanks, um, what name was that under?” Logan grabbed a permanent marker and a tall coffee cup, awaiting to her the strangers name.

“Oh, just Patton will be fine!” Logan quickly wrote it on the cup, while trying not to stare at the beautiful smile Patton was giving him.

“Alright, it shouldn’t be too long.” Logan got to work, making the drink before calling him up.

“Have a good day.” Logan handed him the drink, their fingers brushing ever so slightly.

“Uh- yeah, you too!” The barista watched as Patton walked out, placing his head in the palm of his hand as he lent on the counter. A content smile forcing its way onto his face.

Patton, that’s a nice name.

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