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bugaboosandbees · 5 years

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Reine Ruse Part 6

Hello again all! I’m so sorry that this took so long. There’s been a lot of stuff going on irl that has delayed this quite a bit. I hope that you all enjoy this chapter and that I actually get the next one done semi-on time, lol.

As usual, tags are at the bottom, if you’d like to be added, send me an ask, comment, or message. It has been a really long time since I’ve updated, so if I forgot to add you, please let me know!

Much love you guys. You’re all amazing!

Adrien

“Hello, Paris.” Adrien looked over the camera lens at Alya, who smiled sadly and gave him a thumbs up. He cleared his throat. “Chat Noir here. I am here today to clear something up once and for all and to apologize to both my partner Ladybug and to the people of Paris who put their trust in me. I don’t know if any of you have been caught up in the last few akuma attacks, but, in case you have, and even if you haven’t, there are a few things that I need to say.” He paused, taking a deep, somewhat shaky breath. “This isn’t easy,” a somewhat awkward, strangled chuckle, escaped, “but, it needs to be said.” He tried to wipe all traces of the nervousness he felt was swallowing him from his face, and stared straight into the camera. People had to see he was serious. “I am not proud of the way that I’ve behaved towards Ladybug recently. Without giving too much away about my personal life, suffice it to say that I grew up pretty sheltered.” A sheepish hand mussed his hair. “I’ve been homeschooled until pretty recently and don’t have much of a clue about how to interact with people. I want to make it clear that in no way does this excuse the way I’ve been behaving.” He paused.

“I’m sure that you all know the way I feel about Ladybug -- I seem to shout it from the rooftops often enough.” He smiled ruefully. “I should never have done that. The second that she told me that I was making her uncomfortable, I should have stopped. It was never okay for me to disregard her feelings like that. It’s never okay for anyone to disregard someone’s feelings like that. Ladybug, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me right now, or ever, but I want you to know that I am so, so sorry for what I’ve done. I know that I can’t take back the words that I said, and I understand if you can’t forgive me, but I want you to know that I am going to do my best to make up for the things that I did and to become a partner that you can be proud of again.”

“And, to the citizens of Paris, I apologize to you as well. It is my job to protect you and this city, and I’ve been doing a poor job of that. You deserve heroes like My Lady, strong and confident, and utterly focused on protecting this city we love and ending the threat that Hawkmoth poses to it. I promise that I will do my best to make it up to you as well -- to become a hero that you can be proud of again. For now, I urge you to look around you in your everyday lives. If you see someone behaving in the way that I’ve been behaving towards Ladybug, say something. Hawkmoth isn’t the only problem we Parisians face, but we can solve the other problems we see by being heroes ourselves. Thank you for listening to me, and, again, I’m so, so sorry.”

After he stopped talking, Adrien could hear Alya pressing the stop button on her camera, but neither of them could find the right words to say to each other. They sat in silence for what seemed like forever until Alya shook herself out of a stupor and moved to her desk. She plugged her phone into her laptop and pressed several buttons.

She paused, looking back over her shoulder at him. “Are you sure about this?” She asked softly.

He closed his eyes. “Yes.”

Marinette

Marinette stared unblinkingly at the screen of her computer, the dark rectangle of a finished video stark against her pink screensaver. Despite… everything that had happened with Alya in the past few weeks, she still followed the Ladyblog. When the notification had popped up on her computer, she wasn’t sure what she was going to see. She hoped that no one had been akumatized. What Hawkmoth did to people at their most vulnerable was awful. She’d never wish that on anyone. Then again, what was the alternative? A new interview with Lila? She had tried to hard to be the bigger person, to tell herself that she was just being dramatic or blowing things out of proportion, but the fact of the matter was that she was just a teenager, and she was hurting and that she was allowed to hurt. She didn’t know if she could take another example of her best friend choosing the word of a liar over her own.

Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t what she saw. Chat Noir’s video took her completely by surprise. She didn’t quite know what to feel. On the one hand, he’d apologized, validating feelings that only Tikki and Chloe had told her she’d been allowed to have. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. On the other hand, he was right, she couldn’t forgive him -- not right away. He’d made her feel so small and so afraid. Especially with everything that had been going on at school, he’d shaken her faith in herself and in others.

Suddenly the screen in front of her lit up again. She moused over the notification and quirked her lips. Akuma. For better or for worse, she’d have to face Chat now. Despite the complicated feelings involved in Tikki giving the fox miraculous to someone other than Alya, she couldn’t help but be reassured by the fact that there would be another hero, another partner, who she could trust herself to work with without flinching.

“Tikki, SPOTS ON!!!”

Alya

After Chat Noir left, Alya just sat, still and quiet, her mind spinning. She dimly heard the chiming from her phone and computer as the video she’d just posted accumulated views and comments. God, what had she done? A good journalist always checks her sources, bullshit. She’d believed a stranger over her best friend. If she even deserved to call Marinette her best friend at this point. She’d never had friends at the small-town school she’d attended before Francios-Dupont. She’d been too pushy, too intense, they’d said. But Marinette and her sunshine smile had accepted her the moment they’d met, encouraging even her craziest ideas and telling her that she was brave and good and just.

She was crying, she realized. Out of the corner of tear-blurred eyes, she noticed a sticky note she'd stuck to the frame of her computer monitor days ago. That's right. She and Lila had planned to try to find Andre's Ice Cream stand that afternoon. Her jaw firmed. The gullible Alya that Lila expected wouldn't be showing up today. She grabbed her phone and threw on her favorite plaid shirt over her tank-top. She didn’t have the armor of her miraculous, but damn it all to hell, she was going into battle.

The walk to the Pont des Arts seemed much shorter than it usually was, but, then again, her mind was racing -- she was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed anything she’d passed along the way. She sat on the bench that she’d agreed to meet Lila at and tapped one foot anxiously against the pavement.

After a few minutes, she looked down at her watch. Lila was late. Honestly, Alya was almost relieved. She still didn’t know what to say to the other girl. From what Chat Noir had said, it sounded like she’d been cooperating with Hawkmoth willingly and Alya herself had seen what Lila had done to Marinette… and to Alya’s own credibility as a journalist. Before she’d left her room, she’d filmed another video -- her own apology to Ladybug for invading her privacy during the Oblivio incident, and to the people of Paris for posting false information on a news source that they’d trusted.

She hadn’t posted it though, not yet. Despite everything… Lila had been a good friend these past few weeks. Alya was hurt by the things that she’d learned about the transfer student. She felt uncertain and betrayed, but she wanted to ask Lila herself about it -- to see the truth with her own eyes and to get her closure for all the dreams that would be snuffed out with Lila’s lies, and for all the damage that she herself had done, if what Chat Noir said was true. (It was, she knew it, deep in her bones. She just didn’t want to admit it quite yet.) Did it make her a bad person if she still desperately wanted it all to be a joke?

“Hey, bestie!” Lila’s voice broke through her thoughts. “I’m so sorry that I’m late -- I was on a conference call with Prince Ali about our environmental initiative that I just couldn’t get away from. You understand, right?”

“... Yeah, of course.” Had her smile always looked so fake? “You ready to get some ice cream?”

“Of course! I’m so excited to be able to have ice cream again. I was diagnosed with severe lactose intolerance when I was younger and I haven’t had it for years, but a doctor that I met when I was traveling in England put me in a clinical study and cured me!”

Alya tried her best to hide the twitching in her eye. Sabrina had lactose intolerance -- the whole class knew that she could have ice cream just fine if she took some lactase supplements beforehand. Seriously, that wasn’t how lactose intolerance worked at all! If she’d lied about something this small…

She’d about made up her mind to say something, to shout or scream and try to get Lila to finally tell her the truth for once when the ground beneath them shook hard enough to knock her off of the bench she’d been waiting on. Looking up, she saw a woman made entirely of some sort of metal, spikes shooting out from her suit and a wickedly sharp glaive in her hand.

Shit. Of all the times for an akuma.

Chloe

Chloe sat on her bed, notebook in front of her, listening intently to Trixx as they explained more about their miraculous and what exactly a mirage could do. They were floating back and forth through the air in front of her as if pacing, every once in a while stopping to eat one of the jelly beans in the crystal bowl on the bedside table that she’d ordered from room service for them.

“The power of the mirage is limited only by your creativity. The illusion that you cast can be as small or large as you want -- it can even be fluid if you concentrate properly. Your mirages can speak, or simply make a particular sound at whatever volume you decide. It can be threatening or unassuming, something targeted to a single person or meant to touch many. For now, your mirage is also limited by the timer in your miraculous -- the illusion will vanish with your transformation five minutes after you call for it. It will also evaporate if it is touched, although, if you train properly and hard, you’ll eventually be able to cast illusions that can hold their own form temporarily.”

The tiny god turned large, purple eyes on Chloe. “What you must truly know, and take to heart, as the wielder of the fox miraculous, are people. Your power is only effective if you can read others, know what your target needs to see. Tikki seeks creativity in her bugs, that’s what they need to make the magic of the ladybug miraculous work. Plagg wants compassion to temper destruction, Noroo empathy to connect to his champions. The thing that I value above all else in a wielder isn’t cunning or cleverness or skill at lying -- on the contrary, the best illusions always have a grain of truth to them. I need a wielder who can analyze people. Someone who knows the damage that lies can cause, but can keep their feelings subdued to use their illusions however the mission requires, even if others might see the mirage as underhanded.” They smiled. “Rena Rouge was fun to work with, but she didn’t suit the fox miraculous at all. She’s too straightforward, too eager to spring physically into battle, yet not willing enough to truly hurt someone emotionally. I have a feeling you’ll do much better as my kit, Chloe.”

Chloe’s pen paused halfway across the page as a small, soft smile stole across her lips. She quickly tempered it and looked back up at Trixx. “Th-- er… Thank you Trixx.” She felt a sharp, staccato buzz against her hip and looked down at her phone. Swiping across the screen to unlock it, she saw the bright red text of an akuma alert scroll across the screen. She looked up at Trixx, who met her eyes with a smirk.

“Well, kit, are you ready.”

Chloe nodded. “Trixx, let’s pounce!”

Tags:

@demydreamer-otaku-and-book-lover , @anastasian-dreamer, @donegonewrong , @twinkletoes-rp , @asandygraves , @fatimaabbasrizvi , @im-here-for-the-content , @theorangelizard , @captainrose35 , @pleasefollowmeuwu , @the-ice-goddess , @ofpassionsandobsessions, @starberry-mina, @mikantsume, @bloody-no-kissu , @chocolatemilk52 , @angelofthequeers, @bluelioncupcake, @ml-cartoons, @thelifeofmely, @shadowberrybinch, @creativetwit, @lordsmeldingtonthethird , @royalchaoticfangirl , @elliecake5 , @kristycocopop

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #chloe bourgeois #chloenette #fox!chloe #Reine Ruse #Reine Ruse au #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #ml salt #ml redemption #tikki #trixx #plagg #ml au #my au #my writing

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big-bad-a-detective-story · 4 years

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CHAPTER 06

Ah, the Ugly Duckling. Just your average hole in the wall gathering spot for the lowest of the low, just as grim and greasy as its name might suggest.

Actually, the place was named after the guy who ran it. In a place like this, you learn not to underestimate even the smallest of waterfowl.

“Something tells me they don’t serve milkshakes here.”

I could tell Felix was just as sickened and unimpressed by this place as I was. He was about to discover their lack of frozen confections was the least troubling thing about it.

“You’ve been quiet, Norman, are you monologuing in your head again?”

We steeled our nerves and we made our way inside. The dim lighting of the place wasn’t much brighter than the fading lights outside. Every face in the room turned to glance in our direction.

“Are you ignoring me?”

“Shhh,” I whispered under my breath, glaring up at him. “You’re ruining the mood!”

Some people just had no respect for the art of crafting a marketable story.

Still, even so, we entered deeper inside the bar-- curiosity our Virgil, as we were dragged along for answers that only the bottom feeders of society could provide. I sauntered up to the counter, Felix close on my tail. Perhaps too close, as I bit down a cry just as the guy stepped on it.

If my eyes had a trace of tears, I didn’t let it break my resolve as I leaned against the counter-- fedora tipped in such a way as to add a shroud of mystery to my persona.

It was the barkeep, a woman that put the UHG in ugly, that addressed us first.

“Not two faces I recognize, but what can I get you fellas?”

“A glass of milk, preferably,” answered Felix, breaking whatever rough and tumble airs we would have had. I pinched the space between my eyes, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on.

“No! No milk. We’re here to ask questions, preferably on the subject of ‘who’. What can you tell me about Larry Lemonade?”

The fact her face lit up over the name alone was enough to spring some doubt over the validity of the plan-- Felix’s plan, I reminded myself. The barkeep grinned.

“Larry? ‘S funny guy.”

Silenced followed afterwards, doing its best to stretch into oblivion, before I realized that was the end of her answer. I shook my head to wake up my senses.

“That’s… That can’t be it. You got to have more than THAT!”

The barkeep shrugged.

“Eh, won’t be different from nobody else’s.” Must have had good ears to pick up nobody, let alone their statement. She went on: “Makes us all laugh. Did a show tune on the counter last week, paid for the drinks and dishes he broke ‘cause of it. ‘S’not so bad.”

Clearly she wouldn’t be helping in the testimony department then. I grabbed my hat in frustration, pulling the brim down on either side of my face as I repressed the urge to howl.

That was when my pal Felix stepped up to the plate.

“Ma’am, do you know if there’s anybody he talks to frequently? Or perhaps anybody that can help us get in contact with him? We need to discuss some work related matters, I’m sure you understand.”

Then he threw her his award winning smile. One that said ‘you can trust me, girl’ and was only a moment away from spilling the tea.

It almost made me proud to call him my friend. Almost. I still hadn’t forgiven him for the milk comment.

The barkeep gave a smile of her own, one with less charm and fewer teeth, and leaned across the bar. I wished she hadn’t, but what she said next made her eye-watering aroma worth enduring.

“Oh, I understand. If you’ve got business with Larry, you’ll wanna talk to Rumpelstiltskin. He’ll know where to find him.”

She tipped us a wink and generously returned to her own side of the bar top. So we had a name, and not much else ... and it looked as if this lady was done sharing secrets.

“Rumpelstiltskin, huh?” Felix replied. “And where might we find this stranger, hm?”

The barkeep gave a lazy shrug. “Oh, he’s around here somewhere.” And then she wandered away, wiping a glass I’m quite certain will never be clean.

But no matter. We had a man to find, a few clues with which to find him. Luckily, my detective skills have been honed for years. I scanned the room, senses sharp, attention focused.

“You have no idea what you’re looking for, do you?”

I shot Felix a glare. Why had I brought him along again?

“Do you have a better idea, Felix?”

He only shrugged.

“I may have a suggestion or two.”

Okay, alright, so I may have flinched a little. But could you blame me? One moment we’re standing there alone, the next, there’s a tiny man sitting on the bar stool right beside me.

“GAH! Don’t DO that.” I cried, my instincts causing me to latch onto Felix for my-- I mean-- HIS emotional well being. Yes. This seemed to make the mysterious man’s eyes squint in glee, even as he took a sip of his drink. He finished doing so with a satisfying ‘ah’.

“Apologies, detective.” Was his response, said in a way that clearly showed he was NOT. “I just couldn’t help but overhear you were looking for someone. Specifically, me.” So HE was Rumpelstiltskin! “Now what can I do for you two charming fellows?”

“You seem to know an awful lot already, you tell us.” Was Felix’s mumbled response.

While it was true I should have been suspicious of the fact the guy knew my occupation, it was easy to assume he had heard of the likes of the Big Bad Wolf. So, I waved it off-- annoyed that my friend was trying to distract me from the matter at hand.

“Word on the streets is you were the last one to talk to the suspect I’m looking for. What can YOU tell me about Larry Lemonade?”

At this Rumpelstiltskin's impish tail swayed excitedly.

“What don’t I know? It’s my business to pick up on anything I can find, and I happened to be quite skilled at it. For example,” Rumpelstiltskin eyed Felix next to me, my friend actually shrinking some at the leer. “Mr. Fox here is keeping a terrible secret, aren’t you? Saying your special ginger scones are a family recipe. But I think we BOTH know you get them from the Muffin Man down on Drury Lane.”

I was just about to complain about this information-- who cared about something as trivial as all THAT-- when I was startled by sudden wails.

“It’s TRUE,” sobbed Felix. “I could never perfect the recipe! It was a harmless crime, it didn’t HURT anybody!”

Rumpelstiltskin took pity on the guy, procuring a handkerchief from who-knew-where as he passed it along to my blubbering pal.

“Oh, there there. I’m not the guy to judge you on that. I happen to know all about harmless crimes. And then some.”

It was then that lecherous leech looked in my direction, dulled yellowed teeth shining in the dimly lit tavern.

“However, you asked about my good pal Larry. What do you need to know, detective? His waist size? His favorite place he frequents for lunch? What about how Larry’s relationship is coming along with that pretty little nanny he can’t seem to keep his eyes off of?”

This guy was a grade A sneaky snitch, I was almost as impressed as I was wary. But crooked moral compass or not, this was exactly the type of guy I’d been looking for.

“I don’t care about any of that. Less talk of nannies, I need to know about grannies. One in particular, in fact.” I leaned in closer, and I continued in a lower tone, lest I be overheard.

“What can you tell me about Larry’s involvement with the sudden disappearance of Old Maybelle Fawcett, and a little girl wearing a bright red hood?”

The little man let out a short, deep chuckle I didn’t quite care for. I wasn’t a fan of that impish smile, either.

“Oh, I could tell you plenty. But I’m afraid information like that doesn’t come cheap.”

And, there it was. They say everyone has their price. Unfortunately, I found myself a tad short.

“I see. Wouldn’t you know it, I left my wallet in my other pants.”

“You’re not wearing any pants.” Felix felt the need to point out. So helpful.

“I don’t suppose you’d take an, I Owe You?” I gave the small man my best, most charming smile, and wouldn’t you know it?

It worked.

“Actually, yes! It just so happens I deal in, favors.”

Rumpelstiltskin was coyly playing with his straw, just waiting for me to ask my next question. WELL, no reason to keep the guy waiting, I supposed. And it was with me- tilting to that rude reprobate’s level-- that I asked:

“What KIND of favors, exactly?”

“Oh, nothing too serious. Just a tit for tat, you understand. Gave a gal a hand after she gave me hers, helping her find her fortune away from that no-good family of hers. Made one guy rich by pulling a prank on him-- told him he had to wear a bearskin for seven years. And would you believe it? He did it!” At this he laughed. “Oh, that kept me entertained for a while, let me tell ya.”

That… didn’t sound so bad, to be perfectly honest. I looked down at my person-- I heard of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I wondered how ridiculous it would be as a bear. The man seemed to laugh all the more, causing me to remember where I was.

“Alright, mac. That sounds easy enough, but what do you WANT from ME?”

“Simple: a promise.”

Rumpelstiltskin touched my cheek, patting it like one might pet their dog. Insulting, was what it was! Rumpelstiltskin pinched my snout, causing me to jolt upright from the abuse even as he continued carrying on conversing.

“I’ll give you a map to Larry Lemonade, all at the simple price of promising to do whatever I ask of you. You won’t know when, you won’t know how. You’ll just get a call to meet me at another time for a drink.” He punctuated this with a sip, the gurgle echoing within the glass. “An easy payment, for the lives of two, wouldn’t you say?”

Felix scoffed at this.

“You… really aren’t going to take that deal, are you, Norman? It’s far too vague. He could ask for ANYTHING!”

I looked my pal in the eyes, his own harden look lessening at what was no doubt the gravity of my own. I turned to Rumpelstiltskin, his hand reached out lazily as if this really did mean nothing to that scumbag. I growled, even as I grabbed it.

“I hate to say it, but DEAL.”

Rumpelstiltskin tittered.

“Oh, detective…You made the right choice.”

#Big bad: a detective story #norman d wolf #felix fox #rumplestiltskin #chapter 06

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13thgenfilm · 4 years

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Team Building: On Wanda Bershen and Film Safety Nets

Written by 13th Gen’s Founder and CEO Marc Smolowitz, this article originally appeared in Filmmaker Magazine in March 2020.

On September 28th, 2019, Wanda Bershen died quietly, alone and under fairly tragic circumstances, after being rushed to the hospital from a rehabilitation facility on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 75 years old, and very few people were aware of her passing. This piece is one part obituary for Wanda—a remarkable woman who certainly deserves to be remembered lovingly in Filmmaker—and one part urgent call-to-action for our industry to have a long-overdue discussion about a difficult and troubling topic: the lack of safety nets, resiliency and end-of-life supports in place for aging independent film professionals.

The vast majority of you reading this did not know Wanda, but you may know someone like her—she could very well stand in as an everywoman whose story is far too common, one of those stalwart and passionate behind-the-scenes indie film culture workers who loved cinema and wore a compelling mix of hats: writer, curator, teacher, festival director, publicist, producer’s representative, film booker, television programmer and distributor. Her boutique company, Red Diaper Productions, made a huge yet hardly known impact on an incredible list of films and filmmakers around the world for more than 25 years. These efforts included focusing much of her attention and efforts on supporting women directors and organizing a powerful slate of word cinema touring packages, which introduced US audiences to contemporary cinema from Iceland, the Netherlands and various countries across Eastern Europe. Decidedly proud and fiercely independent, she did all of this entirely on her own as a freelancer, independent contractor and consultant. For most of her career, she managed to be reasonably vital even without the benefit of strong institutions backing her up.

There are countless people like Wanda who march through film careers, working hard without much recognition and likely without the means to plan—in any real or comprehensive way—for their long-term security and retirement. Wanda was also unmarried, without children or close family members nearby. Her community of closest friends and colleagues was a global one. While this is something to treasure when you’re well enough to travel to Rotterdam, Berlin and Karlovy Vary each year (the latter, in Czech Republic, was her favorite festival to attend), what happens when you stop traveling for work because it becomes impossible financially—not to mention physically dangerous? More important, what happens to someone older like Wanda when a new generation of leadership takes the industry reins without knowledge of her unique contributions? The sad, hard fact is that you kind of, well, disappear. This is exactly what happened to Wanda.

For many years, whenever I visited New York for business, Wanda and I would have dinner if our schedules aligned. I treasured our time together. Her wit and sense of humor were delightful, and her deep knowledge of film, especially international and genre cinemas, could put most film scholars to shame. But, in very recent years, our conversations became quite heartbreaking. She was struggling to find work that could sustain her financially. Her professional emails often went unanswered. When she tried to connect with others for networking opportunities at festivals and press screenings, she felt shunned and set aside largely because of her age and gender. The industry to which she had given her life’s work did not have space for her anymore.

Last August, I was planning a shoot in NYC, so I texted Wanda to reach out and get on her calendar. I got a message that her number was no longer valid and was immediately concerned. I sent her an email with no response. So, I did what made the most sense and went looking for her on Facebook. As I scrolled down her page, I realized there had been no posts from Wanda since March 13th. On March 20th, a post from her sister read, “Wanda Bershen was hospitalized Monday night at NYU Langone. If you are a friend of Wanda’s in NYC, please contact me…. Diagnosis is not yet determined. Wanda needs visitors and support as she goes through this. I live… too far away to be actively involved.”

It didn’t take long to uncover that she had experienced a devastating stroke and been bedridden without speech and the ability to move for the better part of five months. Her dearest friend in the city, also a film producer, had been valiantly trying to help, but if Wanda were to have any chance at survival, it would require that many more people get involved. Within days, I became part of a wonderful group of people from around the world—many of us filmmakers and film professionals who knew and adored Wanda for decades—who attempted (perhaps naively) to organize over email on Wanda’s behalf and advocate for her well-being and recovery. One of us referred to this small but mighty group as TEAM WANDA.

This sort of scenario is as dark and bleak as you might expect. In short, there were no immediate and apparent resources available to help someone in Wanda’s situation. When I managed to see Wanda in person several weeks later, it was clear very few visitors had been by. She lay in a hospital bed almost comatose yet her mind still seemed sharp, and she clearly understood the gravity and heartbreak of what was happening to her. I sat with her and kissed her forehead gently. I told her that there was a group of us around the world trying our best to help her. While I could sense her relief in hearing some encouraging news, I left her bedside that afternoon feeling helpless and hopeless. I urged the nurses on her floor to continue caring for her and to keep up her hygiene. My main concern at that point was her basic dignity. I knew in my heart that there was no way our committed worldwide cohort could move fast enough to change Wanda’s destiny. She died just 10 days later.

From my perspective, all of this is quite chilling, and the more I pondered what happened to Wanda, the more I wanted to kickstart a discussion among colleagues, so we can all work to make sure there are no more stories like this one. But, it’s not that simple. While we have a great deal of work to do on this topic as an industry, our nation seems unwilling to have an honest and forthright public conversation around the lack of meaningful policies that advance the cause of older Americans: retirement, long-term care and what it means to approach end-of-life with dignity. This is particularly concerning because we now live in a nation where people are both living and working much longer, yet we offer very little in the way of substantive help to our aging populations.

When one looks closely at specific industries, there are helpful models out there for safety net services and resilience (see roundup at right), but the independent film industry literally has nothing of our own, nor have we contemplated these discussions in any forum that I can find. By contrast, the Hollywood community, where there have always been more resources, has a great deal in place through its guilds and unions; for example, The Actors Fund of America. Even the visual arts have managed to develop funds to support artists affected by natural disasters (Craft Emergency Relief Fund, or CERF). And, of course, Visual AIDS was one of the most inspiring organizations that emerged during the worst years of the AIDS pandemic (see visualaids.org/history).

Not long after Wanda passed, I took to Facebook and posted about her story. While I certainly didn’t want to exploit Wanda’s passing, I also didn’t want her to have died without someone making a little bit of noise about the travesty of it all. What I encountered in the comments was revealing. Unsurprisingly, a great many people in our shared networks knew and adored Wanda, and there were just as many who were shocked to know she had even been so unwell. More important, there was a universal agreement when it came to one important point: We cannot let the tragedy of what happened to Wanda continue to happen to others like her who have helped build this business. To be sure, ours is a compassionate and beautifully collaborative industry with some of the most dynamic tentpole institutions around, many of which have been serving film professionals for some 50 years. We must turn to them now and insist on space for this mission-critical discussion. It will be an uneasy one to have, but we must do it for all of our own sakes.

_____

ROUNDUP OF SAFETY NET AND END OF LIFE RESOURCES:

National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and Emergency Response (NCAPER) ncaper.org/about

CERF+ The Artist’s Safety Net

cerfplus.org/stories-resources/how-to/

The Actors Fund

actorsfund.org/

Reimagine (End of Life)

letsreimagine.org/

Death With Dignity

deathwithdignity.org/learn/end-of-life-resources/

Speaking of Dying

speakingofdying.com/end-of-life-resources/

#film #filmmaker #film maker #film maker resources #aging #aging workforce #freelance #freelance issues #team wanda #Wanda Bershen #Marc Smolowitz #13th Gen #social safety net #film resources #film discussion

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bettsfic · 6 years

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Hey so like...how do u justify romanticising a minor/adult relationship bc as a minor it kinda makes me uncomfortable. You’re an amazing writer, I just don’t quite get why you chose the age gap

before i address your question directly, and i will, i want to point out a few things that confuse me about this ask.

first, the admission of being a minor with the implication you’ve read my work, and now outright interacting with me. i’ve written maybe half a dozen g- and t-rated fics, and none of them are particularly popular, which i’m guessing means you’ve read my explicit fics, which means you’ve clicked past Ao3′s polite “18+ only” warning. my apologies if this assumption is incorrect – maybe you really have only read my three or four gen/teen-rated fics. that just seems very unlikely to me because all of my more popular fics are mature and explicit.

now, while admitting you are a minor made uncomfortable by minor/adult relationships, you have directly approached me, a 29 year old woman, to ask me why i’ve made the choices i’ve made. granted, by going on anon, you’ve ensured that this is a public forum, but if you’d PM’d me, i wouldn’t have responded, because i am not here to interact with minors.

which brings me to my conclusion of this portion of the ask, which is: i am not writing for minors and i do not want to interact with minors. i can’t control what you read or don’t read and it’s absolutely not my responsibility to cater to you in any way, especially if you knowingly and voluntarily click past the 18+ warning. but i can control my personal interactions, and i urge you not to reach out to me again.

next i’m going to nitpick the word “romanticize” which is a word heavy in the current moral rhetoric. literally speaking, you are right. i am making an age gap romance romantic. rhetorically speaking, to “romanticize” something means to flatten or gloss over it, sweep potential consequences under the rug. to romanticize abuse, for example, is to make it beautiful, to ignore all the trauma and pain that comes along with it. (i think it is a worthy artistic endeavor to attempt to romanticize abuse in fiction, if for only the ability to highlight how fucked up abusive relationships can feel in the moment, but that’s a rant for another time).

since you haven’t read training wheels, i can tell you outright i am not romanticizing a minor/adult relationship. there are certainly unrealistic/porny moments, but i’m not shying away from the actual emotional consequences of being a 17yo* girl dating a 25yo man. i’m doing my best to depict this relationship the way these relationships are actually felt, because they do happen, and i have been in them. they can be very romantic, but that doesn’t mean i’m romanticizing them. though we’re not in his pov, bellamy is acutely aware of the greater context of their relationship. and clarke, who has no context, is doing her best to navigate the difficulty of her situation, semi-aware that it’s something that will be haunting her for a long, long time.

i am not beautifying the ugliness of their relationship; i am not fetishizing (another word i take issue with) the minor body. being in clarke’s pov means that bellamy is object of desire, and meanwhile we get, through clarke’s thoughts, the sometimes awkward and confusing realization of what it means to be wanted, loved, used, seen, broken, trespassed, and all the other things teenage girls sometimes have to navigate.

and i have one more thing to say before i answer your actual question: you are allowed to be uncomfortable reading fiction. in fact, i think you should be uncomfortable reading fiction. all art should make us uncomfortable, because in discomfort lies broader awareness. by consuming things which push at the boundaries of our narrow reality, we are capable of widening that reality, and that’s what it means to learn and grow and become the people we want to be. you cannot become a better, stronger, wiser person without facing and overcoming that which makes you uncomfortable.

i also resent a bit the implication that i, a fanfic writer, a queer woman, am beholden to appeasing your comfort when straight white male writers are not. i assume you’re not sending jroth letters about how murphy’s sex slavery arc in s3 made you uncomfortable. or that the entire premise of the show revolves around putting a hundred minors in a ship and dropping them onto a potentially lethal planet. or raven, a teenager, sleeping with bellamy, an adult, in s1. and that’s not even mentioning the violence perpetuated against minors in the show. they die! and they bleed! like, a lot!! charlotte, a 12yo girl, dies a gruesome death in s1. they are minors forced to kill or be killed in exceedingly violent ways, and you’re in my inbox asking why i’m writing a fic that depicts a loving and consensual relationship between a 17yo (clarke’s canonical age in s1) and a 25yo.

now i’ll answer your actual ask.

you use the word “justify” as if i had to do some kind of logistical puzzle to make this fic morally okay in my eyes. i can tell you now, i did not, because the story exists to navigate that logistical puzzle on its own. the conflict poses the question: is this okay? is this wrong? what about it is wrong? for what reasons is it wrong? and i also attempt (in a clunky way because it’s a bit rough, plot-wise) to navigate what “informed consent” really means to a 17yo who has no information to go off of. for me it’s an experiment in what consent really is. clarke wants bellamy, but she doesn’t have a full awareness of the consequences of that want, so is it truly consensual? what does bellamy have to do to fully inform her of those consequences? is it even his responsibility, or should clarke take more agency over her experiences? and lastly, the most interesting question of them all to me – what happens to the minors in consensual age gap relationships? how do they cope with that experience years later? in what ways does it change them?

though it’s not my responsibility to indulge my personal ties to this conflict in order to further “justify” it, i can assure you, i am writing this from clarke’s pov having been the younger party in many age gap relationships, at times a minor. at times coerced. at times completely uninformed. but each time, consensual. i sought out the men i dated. i took the lead. i propositioned them. and i consider: how has that affected me and the way i love now?

my mom at 20, married my dad, 32. my older sister at 16, met her (now ex) husband, her then-boss, at 23 (they waited until she was 18 to start dating). i dated an 18yo and then a 19yo when i was 14. a 21yo when i was 16. a 32yo when i was 19. a 47yo when i was 22. but i also had a long-term relationship with someone who was just three months younger than me. age gap is not the only way i know how to love, but it is certainly a way to love, and one i find, in lieu of seeking it out in reality, narratively compelling. so i write about those experiences in order to better understand them now that i’m older. in order to take them apart and piece them back together. in order to, in some cases, relive them, because i enjoyed so much about them.

i don’t pursue older men anymore because i no longer seek male validation. i don’t meet a handsome middle-aged man and need him to love me to feel like my existence in the world is warranted. but that doesn’t mitigate all the old habits and drive and potentially genetic disposition that led me to relentlessly pursuing them in the first place. so now i sublimate that into fiction and offer my experience and understanding to others who might be predisposed in the same way, or people who are not and curious about what that experience is like. and that’s what fiction does.

lastly, i’ve sort of saturated myself in age gap stories. i’ve watched every age gap movie i can get my hands on, read every book. i dive through google and ao3 looking for age gap recs, seeking out the one story or fic or movie that not only gets the relationship right, but figures out how to make it work. that’s all i want – a realistic, plausible solution to this very delicate and complicated kind of relationship. and i can’t find that story, so i’ve decided to write it myself.

training wheels is an uncomfortable story about a romantic minor/adult relationship and the realistic psychological consequences of it, both in the immediate present and long-term, and you are supposed to be made uncomfortable by it, regardless of your age. it makes romantic but does not romanticize age gap relationships. i do not take the morality of this story lightly, nor its meaning or intentions. whether i succeed in this is up to interpretation, and i can’t control that interpretation, but i can tell you with certainty what my intentions have been going into this story, and exactly why i’ve made the decisions i’ve made regarding it.

*the age of consent in ohio, where training wheels is set, is 16. i recognize the current rhetoric around this is “legality is not morality” or whatever, but again – the purpose of training wheels is in part to directly address this conflict

#training wheels #crybaby verse #discourse #tsatp #Anonymous

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captainbebold-blog · 5 years

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Blog post numero 2

So, following on from my previous and very first blog post last month, I would firstly like to say how genuinely surprised I was by the amazing comments and words that people fed back to me. I would like to thank those individuals and to anyone who took the precious time to read what I wrote as I really hadn’t thought ahead of any consequence after posting the blog.

I would also like to add how great it felt to open my mind and heart and just blurt out words that were there for all to see, I found it therapeutic and I would urge anyone else who is thinking of doing something similar.

You will come to learn that by reading what I write, if you didn’t already know, I am honest, perhaps a little too much, but I love that about myself (oh yes, a woman in 2019 affirming a positive quality about herself without the need of validation from anyone else). And by being honest I will say that this blog post was particularly difficult for me to get started on. Not difficult in the sense that I found it emotionally testing but perhaps in trying to articulate myself genuinely.

The topic that I would like to talk about this month is school, jobs and careers. Funnily enough, the definition of the word “work” as a synonym can also be known as “exerting oneself” or “to slave away”. The word “career” can be defined as “an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress.” Now, I’m not sure what thoughts or opinions will cross people’s minds when they read this to themselves, but for me, here’s why I have trouble accepting both definitions.

Let me start from the beginning, buckle up.

From a young age, I was never really interested in school, I mean realistically why would a four-year old child who has spent the only years of their life so far playing and being free, understand or let alone choose why they had to go to a place called “school”.

But I knew and believed that it was important for my future. I believed so based on the values that my mum had taught me and that it was important for me to study hard and pay attention. My Mum had a difficult childhood and upbringing and therefore she never really got the opportunity or better still, the choice whether she wanted to go to school or not. So out of respect and love for my Mum, as well as sensing that she wanted to ensure I got the opportunities that she didn’t.

The school years are a blur from the age of 4 right up to high school and then university. The things that I enjoyed outside of lessons were dance class, singing (I cannot sing but that didn’t stop me) and reading. I remember being called a book worm and my teacher once called me his human dictionary. I would despise doing homework and think it was a load of crap. All I wanted to do was read, and read aloud to anyone who would listen, I would follow my mum around the kitchen reading aloud to her frequently.

As I got older, I enjoyed art class and it was the only hobby I happily and actively chose to do, I was good at art, I think it was the only subject in my entire life I ever achieved an A in. All the hobbies that I have mentioned above all have one thing in common, they are all creative and imaginative activities. Yet, that wasn’t enough for me to realise.

Throughout my teenage years, I didn’t excel in anything at school, along with raging hormones and my primary concerns being if my trousers were tight enough on my arse (I didn’t have one back then) or if the vending machines would have sold out of Chocolate Milk by the time I got to the canteen at lunchtime.

For me, I was at school because what else was there? It’s not like I had a choice to do anything else, or did I? I had a great social life. Life was carefree in comparison to now and “being an adult”. You aren’t taught life skills or what to expect once you leave school. To a certain extent you are protected in this bubble where there is no need to think outside of that. Teachers and parents alike would say, school will help you get a good job/career like it is the only thing that matters on planet Earth.

When high school finished at the age of 16, I still had no idea what career I wanted to pursue or what I wanted to be. I felt an element of pressure for that, like I would slip behind in life if I didn’t decide quickly. I often thought, when will I know what I want to do, or I would ask myself what was wrong with me? I told myself that the best way for me to have a successful career was to educate myself more, and by doing so I chose to go to college and study for A Levels. I told myself, Dayna you didn’t put your all in before but now is your chance to get higher grades and I cannot accept failure because then where will I get in life?

For my A levels I chose to do Psychology, Travel and Tourism and Health and Social Care. I was happy with these subjects because for the first time in my academic life, I was given the choice to decide for myself.

I loved Psychology, I absolutely loved it, it helped that my teacher was bonkers and 80% of his vocabulary was the word “fuck”. He had worked in prisons with sexual offenders for most of his career and once he even brought in a schizophrenic patient with multiple personalities to class. I have always had a real interest in how people operate and theories etc. Travel and tourism was something else I was interested in because I am a real geek when it comes to travelling, and not in the way that you think either. You could be thinking that it’s because I want to see the world (who the fuck doesn’t?) but that wasn’t the driving reason. It’s because I’m a massive geek and I have a weird genuine interest in modes of transport; planes, trains, you name it (but mainly those two). Again, I unashamedly love that about me. And, lastly, Health and Social Care was for me personally, the least interesting choice, I think I chose it at the time in case I decided to work with children or the elderly.

Anyways – I don’t want to bore you with my every single life choice I had made by the time I was 17 but I did my A levels and I was still not getting higher grades. Not because I wasn’t capable, but because I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered. Sure, I loved listening to the facts and information that I was being taught but I used to think, why do I have to write an essay about this topic that I have just learnt. What does it prove? I remember thinking to myself, I don’t want to do this. But I would also be thinking that I was lazy and that I was sabotaging myself for not caring enough about my future. In hindsight, I have since realised and learnt that the schooling system is just wrong. On so many levels. It makes me smile when I think back as a few of my closest friends made the decision to leave college before the first year was over to go down a different route in life, i.e. get a job etc and I remember my mindset at the time was; omg they are going to fail at life (quite literally).

During college I decided I would go on to university. I still couldn’t give a definitive answer about what I wanted to do long term as a career, but I did want to experience more and let’s be honest, university was a 4-year party. I started university at Leeds Metropolitan in September 2011 and graduated 4 years later with a degree in International Hospitality Management. I absolutely loved university. I still stand by the decision that university was hands down one of the best experiences of my life. Whilst I was at university, I had a part time job because I couldn’t afford to live without it. I worked as a Kitchen Assistant for Wetherspoons and for the most part I hated it. The main thing that made it worthwhile was that I worked with completely crazy people who were fun and had something to teach me as I had never met people similar in the past. Working in the kitchen helped me rule out a chef career and gave me an insight into the hard work, long hours and stress that chefs endure.

My university course was a sandwich course which meant that I had to complete a year’s work experience in the industry to count towards my degree. I always had a real interest in hotels and the way they operated so I decided I would apply for a receptionist role in a hotel in Leeds. I remember writing my CV and printing 50 copies, putting on a suit and then walking around the entirety of Leeds walking into each hotel handing in my CV to a member of staff. I would like to add that I could have easily just looked for jobs online and applied that way, but I thought that it showed willing by actively going in and introducing myself. I never heard back from any hotel, except for the one that I got the job in.

The hotel I worked in was a large hotel with 134 bedrooms and a leisure club and spa that had 5,000 external members alone. When I started it was tough and on my first day, I was so nervous I couldn’t even answer the phone. But I stuck at it and was promoted to Team Leader 8 months after I joined, and I worked there for just under 3 years. I remember when I started working there, I really enjoyed it. I would work long shifts, up to 12 hours per day and double shifts where I would finish at 11pm and be back in at 6am the next day. I would bend over backwards based on the knowledge that I was doing a great job. But then I began to realise that I wasn’t appreciated. I wasn’t appreciated through words or emotions, or through tangible elements such as pay incentives or reward. I write all of this for a reason, I began to realise, and things started to add up. I started to focus more on the employees and how they felt and what motivated them rather than the business or how many people I could sell an upgraded room type to.

Motivation is a word that can be defined in a thousand and one ways, I would know, I wrote 12,000 words for my dissertation on that topic alone. Motivation is something that has been researched and built upon over the years and is something that all companies should take seriously.

For me personally, I am motivated intrinsically, I like to feel warm and gooey inside knowing that I have achieved something to be proud of or I have made someone else smile with my words etc.

Other people may be more motivated by objects and items, money, and what they can purchase with the money.

For example, you could argue that a Doctor or a nurse must be intrinsically motivated because we all know how little they are paid for the years of studying and ball breaking dedication they put into helping others and saving lives.

Eventually I realised which career path I wanted to embark on, Human Resources. It had clicked in my mind that I wanted to work with the employees of a company as my customers rather than the customers that were buying the products or services from a company. So, I started searching for HR roles within the hospitality industry, I still loved the hospitality industry so I wanted to remain there, but I wanted to work more with supporting the employees and by doing so, they would support the company. Richard Branson, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time says, “A company is people. Employees want to know, am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really needed to feel wanted”. I got my first HR trainee role and relocated back home and started my first ever “real 9-5” job.

To cut another ultra-long story short, about a year after I had started the new HR role, even though I really loved it, I began to think to myself – is this all there is? You could call me overly ambitious but knowing myself I am just impatient. And somewhere along the lines, between graduating university with all the hopes and excitement that I first had and being a few years down the line in my career, reality set in and the little voice in my head said, be realistic.

But why should I tell myself to be realistic, I am a millennial. I come from an era where parents told us we could be anything that we wanted to be. When you are five years old and you dream of being an astronaut or a cowboy, your parents agree with you because it is harmless right? so why would you ever think that you were being unrealistic?

Working in HR I know that it is still widely frowned upon to look at an applicant’s CV and see that they have “job hopped” since they graduated. Recruiters and employers who aren’t willing to adapt to change believe that it shows a lack of stability and loyalty from a person if they change roles and companies every year or so. Well gone are the days where our grandparents would start a job at the age of 16 and do the same job until retirement at the ripe old age of 65. The world today is changing at an ever-increasing rate and who is to be certain of what tomorrow brings?

I am now in this process and point in my life where I have started to expose myself to new information and learn something that was foreign to me. As I said in my previous post, we don’t know what we don’t know. But when you start to focus your attention towards something, it manifests. Another core belief of mine is that everything happens for a reason, and that we are exposed to certain life events on purpose.

I have realised at the age of 27, that I don’t want to work for another 40 years until I can retire and live off state pension. I don’t want to work for someone else’s goals and objectives, I don’t want to be told how many hours I must work per week. I don’t want my financial stability to be in someone else’s hands. The list goes on and on.

It is fine to say, I don’t want this, I don’t want that, but the question is: do I have the power to change it? Absolutely. I revert to my previous comment about the fact that we tell children they can be anything they dream to be. So why is it that if I tell someone at the age of 27 that I am starting my own business and I am going to be an entrepreneur they look at me like I am batshit or tell me to be realistic? My grandma used to tell me when I was a teenager, study hard, why don’t you become a doctor. And even at a young age I would think in my mind, the only reason is because it would look and sound good to others so that she could say, “My granddaughter is a Doctor”.

I write all of this with no disrespect to a single soul. No disrespect to my loved ones or friends. Because 6 months ago, I was included in the 93% of the population that all live within the “rules” and norms of society. The rules being that you go to school, study hard, get good grades and then get a good job and jump through hoops for 40+ years of your life to provide for yourself and family and then you get to retire just a few years before death (if you make it that far). The late Jim Rohn, who was one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs and motivational speakers said, “Formal education will make a living; self-education will make you a fortune”. It is correct, formal education does make you a living. I can honestly say hand on heart that I have never needed to use Algebra in my life since leaving school and that a calculator gets me through just fine. Self-education is what we choose freely, we have the choice to invest in ourselves or not.

One of my pet hates, which I am totally guilty of doing in the past is when people say, “Happy Friday” or “thank god it’s Friday”. Isn’t that sad? Society has created a monster, to the point where people may not even be necessarily conscious of what they are doing daily because it is like being on a hamster wheel. The daily commute to work at the same time every day, the same route, the same things that we see each day.

Maybe it is just me reading too much into it. But I do believe that to a certain extent, Instagram is also promoting the hamster wheel by having emojis that say “TGIF” or a Camel with the word Wednesday above it. I feel like people are wishing their life away, for 5 days of the week to be over, to then “live” for the other two.

I need to keep emphasising the point that I am not writing any of this as if I am better than anyone else, I have been doing most of the above for my entire life up until this point too. I am simply sharing what I have experienced and learnt and where I am at present in my life.

I have been at the point where I would wake up in the morning and would have rather done quite literally anything else but go to work because I hated my job, and I knew that I didn’t have a choice but to go because of one reason – money. Money was the primary reason and control over me having to go to a workplace. As Charles Bukowski famously says, “how in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30am by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, force feed, shit, piss, get dressed and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”

The reason that it strikes an emotional reaction inside me is because I have come from a family and background with little money. Most things have been a struggle. For example, when I turned 17, the legal age to drive a car, I didn’t pass my driving test straight away because my family couldn’t afford to fund the lessons, and neither could I. So, I passed my test when I was 19 instead, after I had earnt the money myself out of stubbornness. My mum offered to help me countless times, but I was adamant I would do it myself even when my friends would mock me for being lazy and not passing sooner. I have never had money chucked at me for things, holidays etc. And when I did have the financial capacity to have more freedom, I chose wrong and got myself into debt because I went to Ibiza and festivals etc. I don’t regret any of the decisions I made, because it was all a part of the learning process.

But since I started to invest in myself to become better, I realised that in the past, I had chosen to accept what was handed to me, instead of trying to create my own journey or spending time trying to find what my passions are to create a life that I chose, not that I slept walked through.

One of the most eye opening and invaluable books that I have read is “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. There’s an old saying, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, I used to believe that the rich were conniving and unjust. People say that the rich keep all the money and don’t help “the poor?” Why aren’t the poor doing anything to help themselves? Well, Robert also says that the word JOB stands for “Just Over Broke”. Perhaps I am being overly cynical but for me, this quote stands true as the sky is blue.

I find myself talking and talking so I guess I should wrap it up.

What I have learnt based on reflection and through changing what I pay attention to is that most of society is messed up. We are sent to school from a very young age and are kept there until the age of 18. We aren’t given the freedom or information to understand that we can think outside the box and that we don’t have to go to work for someone else. But then think of it another way, if everyone was taught at school that they could be an entrepreneur and teachers provided real life and world changing examples like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs… then wouldn’t there be too many “successful people” in the world. But that wouldn’t happen because people are like sheep, they follow what is “normal” or they prefer living in their comfort zone.

The world is forever evolving and whilst it is scary, it is also so exciting. Mary Augustine says that we become happier in life when we realise that life is an opportunity rather than an obligation. The amazing entrepreneurs that I mentioned above should be the people we are thanking and counting our blessings for, for the opportunities they have provided to the entire world. Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook, Steve Jobs for Apple, Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom for Instagram, to name a few. They have enriched so many people’s lives because of their innovative minds, for being brave enough to think outside of the box and push and believe in their dreams even when the fear of the unknown was greater. Astoundingly, millions of people choose to spend their precious time keeping up with the Kardashians plastic faces on Instagram, so if they became rich for doing nothing… then the world is our oyster!

Much love xxx

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professional-anti · 6 years

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Chapter Eight: Weapon of Choice

Heyyyyy!! Sorry, life has been cray, and it’s never gonna change, unfortunately. But guys, dw, I am dedicated. Also, weirdly, doing this has made me appreciate books even more? It’s so much fun to talk abt books, and I learn so much, even if it’s a book I hate. Okay, getting started (pray for me):

We last left off with Clary jumping thru the surprise door, like one does. Jace lands on top of her, yay, OTP moment, gag me. There’s a nice little detail where “Clary coughed hair (not her own) out of her mouth” which kind of captures the chaos and would be cute if it were an actual good ship. I hate when that happens. Jace criticizes Clary, FINALLY for a valid reason.

It turns out they’re at Luke’s house. Oh, classic, he lives in Williamsburg, the gentrified hipster paradise. Where else would a man who wears flannel live? Even more classic, he lives behind a bookstore. Clare is obviously one of those heavy-handed authors who has exactly two professions for her Intellectual Men™: bookseller and evil Giles.

I’m going to shake Clary. She doesn’t know why they’re here, despite having thought “I want to go where my mom would have gone” right before jumping. Like, bitch??? Do you have a brain? I’m cryingfff

Clary decides she wants to leave, even though there’s cleary something super sketch abt Luke. He’s so obviously protecting her, so he must know something, right? Well, Clary rubs her two brain cells together and decides, nope, nothing to see here! Time to go home!

Jace, being reasonable for once, is like, yo, maybe we should stay. They run into Simon, so you know there’s gonna be Dramaz. Jace and Simon apparently devolve into primordial wild dogs driven by the intense urge to fight for the girl dog so they can screw and produce puppies that are as annoying as they are. Here is what everyone is doing:

Clary is fixing Simon’s hair bc she’s a Woman Simon is pushing Clary’s hand away bc he’s Annoyed Jace is using his stele to file his nail bc he’s Not Paying Attention

There’s some horrible forced tension between Simon and Clary, where he’s all, “Clary, you ran away from me, I thought I and my dick upset you,” and Clary’s all, “Never, Simon, I love you,” and Simon cums. Not actually, instead he slut shames Clary:

“Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn’t be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wanna-be goth you probably met at Pandemomonium”

On the one hand, draaaaag him, Simon!! Jace IS a peroxide blond who listens Evanescence (I almost wrote MCR before googling it and learning that if I wrote that, about a million punks would stream into my inbox in tears).

Simon’s eyes are “dark with suspicion”. which is just annoying. Yes, I would be so fucking annoyed if my friend ran out on me and then disappeared and then reappeared with a blond guy. But I’d also do some more questioning of the situation. Is she okay? Why is she with such a rude guy? Is he hurting her? Was she kidnapped? Is she being held against her will? Is this a drug thing? Does she need my help? Why did Luke cover for her? Is something deeper going on? Instead Simon is all possessive Nice Guy.

Apparently Simon spied on Luke packing a duffel bag of weapons. So he couldn’t give Clary any benefit of the doubt? It sounds like her family is caught in a bad situation! Maybe she had to hide for her life! Simon, use your brain!!

kajlkfaklsdjfalksdflk Clary tells Simon everything, and Simon asks if they kill all these different magical creatures, and Jace says ONLY WHEN THEY’VE BEEN NAUGHTY a;dlfjals;kdjfl;asdjfl;aksdjf hahahahahahahah This image that Clare is going for is just sooooo overdrawn. This dialogue, omfg.

Simon loses his mind and excitedly compares everything that’s been going on to D&D. Let’s totally forget abt the fact that Clary’s mom is missing, or that Luke just filled a duffel bags with murder sticks, shall we?

Jace and Simon have a bizarre conversation, and then they walk. In. The. Back. Door. Bc Luke doesn’t lock his back door. Bc that’s totally not something that someone who fills a duffel bag with weapons would do. At least the door to the bookstore is locked, though Jace opens it pretty easily with his stele. Why didn’t Luke have Jocelyn fix up some wards or something?

Simon asks Clary how she stands Jace, and she’s like “he saved me life” and he’s like “huh?” even though she told him everything that happened. Why is Simon so dumb. I guess all his blood is in his dick? Wouldn’t surprise me.

They find manacles in the wall, so either Luke and Jocelyn have (even more) hidden depths, or Luke practices

Luke’s apartment is filled with books. Of course. Look, I love books. I have about 500 in my room at this moment. I buy them constantly, I get from the libarary, I read and read and read. I think most of us on booklr do. But when every single Good Character in your book has books, it’s boring. And no one has unique book taste. What if all of Luke’s books were nature books? Jack London? Travel guides? That would paint a picture. Instead he has a bunch of fantasy and other fiction. That’s boring. I learn nothing, bc every goddamn person in this goddamn book reads fantasy. It’s so fucking generic. I totally approve of “good” characters admiring and liking reading bc that’s how you get ideas, and that’s how Lemony Snicket rolls, but there are more books than fantasy and mystery (the other main type that Lucas has) in the world. Justice Strauss has an inexhaustive library. Uncle Monty has all those books about snakes. Lucky Smells just has that one history of Lucky Smells. Already, you know so much abt each person (and place) by what books they have. We learn nothing about Luke.

Clary finds the overnight bag she leaves at Luke’s and changes clothes. I mention this only bc she puts on “a blue tank top with a design of Chinese characters across the front” bc of COURSE she is That Bitch. I hope it translates to something like “Radishes” or “Bridge”.

Luke’s bedroom has a shelf of “Indian statues and Russian icons” which, idk, makes me a little uncomfortable. These sound like things that are holy to someone. But I think the worst part is that Clary says, “Luke collects stuff. Art objects. You know … Pretty things.” I just googled it, and Hindu statues, like the one Luke has of Kali, are seen as actual avatars of gods. Clary is diminishing someone’s god to a “pretty thing”. It’s not a nick-nack or a trinket. (If you know more abt this, like if I’m wildly off-base, feel free to send me an ask!)

Jace finds the Metaphor known as a smashed picture of Luke, Jocie, and Clary, which Clary threw at the Ravener in her apartment, so realize that Luke went back through the apartment. Jace says that Luke must have gone through the Portal-potty last, so it brought them here. I’m still team Clary Asked to Go Where Her Mother Would Have Gone and Therefore the Portal did What it Was Supposed to Do and Brought Her Where She Wanted.

Luke and some warlocks show up, so Clary and co. hide behind the super convenient silk screen. Jace uses his sonic stele to make the screen transparent and we get this gem:

Jace shook his head at them both, mouthing words: They can’t see us through it, but we can see them.

Bc mouthing works that well. You don’t mouth compound sentences!! You mouth something simple like they can’t see us. Simon and Clary already know they can see Luke and the warlocks bc they’re looking at them right now! And this spell or whatever that Jace did takes the tension in the scene waaaaaay down. If they can’t see Luke, then everything becomes more tense. Are the voices getting closer to the screen? Is somebody about to reveal them? Instead, all the tension is drained in a dumb quick-fix.

Bc Clare thinks we’re stupid, she adds “It was frightening even though [Clary] knew [Luke] couldn’t see her, that the window Jace had made was like the glass in a police station interrogation room: strictly one-way.”

GD ARE YOU THERE??????? STOP THIS.

Jace realizes that the warlocks are actually Shadowhunters dressed as warlocks. Idk how he can tell, but whatever. He conveys this by whispering, so I don’t know what the mouthing nonsense was earlier.

The Shadowhunters are named Blackwell (redhead) and Pangborn (gray mustache). What sorts of names. It’s like Clare used a fantasy-name-generator. Who are we kidding, that’s totally what she did. Pangborn picks up the Kali statue and this conversation happens:

“Ah,” said Pangborn, taking the statue from his companion. “She who was created to battle a demon who could not be killed by any god or man. ‘Oh, Kali, my mother full of bliss! Enchantress of the almighty Shiva, in they delirious joy thou dancest, clapping thy hands together. Thou art the Mover of all that moves, and we are but thy helpless toys.’” “Very nice,” said Luke. “I didn’t know you were a student of the Indian myths.” “All the stories are true,” said Pangborn, and Clary felt a small shiver go up her spine. “Or have you forgotten even that?” “I forget nothing,” said Luke.

So the Shadowhunter mythology is that all religions are true? Inch resting. I vaguely remember this. Idk how I feel about this. The Shadowhunters are still gonna be super Christian no matter what lip-service Clare pays to other religions. She has angels! And demons! She’s trying to be inclusive, but it’s never really gonna work, bc she’s doing it in name only. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want her to mess with any religion but Christianity or, sigh, Judaism. Christianity bc it’s the dominant religion and can’t be marginalized (different denominations can be, but not Christianity as a whole) and Judaism bc she’s Jewish. There’s not very much Jewish in these books, though. Yeah, there are angels in Judaism, but it’s not really the Jewish Vibe. A book influenced by Judaism would have a lot of magic based on specific wording, and arguments, and Hebrew and Hebrew-derived languages. This book uses Latin and is into angels. It’s Christian-influenced, which is fine, I guess, but the lip-service to other religions doesn’t ring true. But also, saying “Christianity is the one religion!” is super upsetting and she shouldn’t do that. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, I’m literally thinking on the page. Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Please hit up my ask box or talk about this in the notes! This discussion really interests me, and I want to get diverse opinions.

Luke asks if Valentine sent them (he did) and if their clothes “are official Accord robes” “from the Uprising?” (they are). Wow. The Uprising. What a descriptive name! We don’t call things “the Uprising” in real life. It’s more like, “The French Revolution.” “The Cultural Revolution.” “The Revolutionary War.” “The Civil War.” Am I being unfair?” I guess someone right after one of the French Revolutions might just say “the Revolution.” But something about The Uprising is so boring. And aren’t there more than one Uprising? There should be. The Warlock Uprising. The Vampire Uprising. It doesn’t have to be all internal. Any organized group would rise against the Clave. The Clave is legit the worst.

It turns out Luke’s real name is Lucian AND. I. AM. DYING. Luke is Lucius Malfoy, confirmed!! Let’s do a list of what we know so far:

Clary: Ginny Jace: Draco Jocelyn: I’m getting Bellatrix vibes? Bc of the whole in-love-with Voldemort thing? Valentine: I don’t know?? I can’t think of who he could be??? We’ll have to leave this blank for now I guess :/ Hodge: Giles. Not a HP character, but this is a crossover event with Buffy. Isabelle: Pansy Parkinson Alec: I actually don’t know here. He’s the GBF. Simon: Does Harry make sense? They’re both boring nice guys (don’t @ me!)

This game is getting boring, let’s move on. Luke apparently used to fight with B and P, so we know he’s a Shadowhunter (or, if you’ve read this book before, you know he used to be one). Then he tells them he doesn’t know where the Mortal Cup is (they think Jocelyn hid it).

CLARY IS SO FUCKING DUMB OMFG. P and B talk about how Jocelyn hasn’t regained consciousness and Valentine wants to see her again (using her name) and Clary goes:

Jocelyn? Can they be talking about my mother?

NO THE OTHER FUCKING JOCELYN. CLARY HOW RU STILL ALIVE.

CC must think her readers are really dumb and can’t figure anything out on their own:

“I’ve never felt any way about [Jocelyn], particularly,” said Luke. “Two Shadowhunters, exiled from their own kind, you can see why we might have banded together. But I’m not going to try to interfere with Valentine’s plans for her, if that’s what he’s worried about.”

He might as well have said, “Jocelyn and I were both exiled. EXILED. We were exiled. We were exiled as fuck. Do you get it? Reading context clues is hard, so I’m saying WE WERE EXILED.” The quasi-warlocks should have responded like, “Yeah? We know you both were exiled? We were there?”

Blackwell refers to Jocelyn as “that bitch” bc institutionalized mysoginy is the absolute best! I love when vicious sexism is included for no reason! Bc also these guys aren’t any worse than Luke! Bc may I remind you that Luke was basically a supremacist! Just like them!

For some reason, these idiots believe Lucius when he tells them that he’s not close with Jocie. Then please explain why you both live in Brooklyn.

P and B threaten to make Luke stay in the city, and Luke threatens them, and somehow they let this happen? In other news, Clary is still dumb as rocks. She’s super hurt that Luke said that he doesn’t care about Jocie bc she has about 0 critical thinking skills. We’re talking none. She could have someone whispering the answers in her ear and still bomb the SAT.

Jace thinks that P and B think Luke “knows more than he’s telling” so why would they let him go???? Then Jace reveals that P and B murdered his dad, and this chapter is OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone bring me a Bloody Mary. It’s how I feel inside.

#anti cassandra clare #anti the mortal instruments #book snark #CoB: Chapter 8 #CoB snark

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violetsystems · 4 years

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#personal

I took a long walk after work yesterday to pick up my prescriptions. The area down Ashland can seem pretty desolate. It reminds me a lot of this strip in Brooklyn down Marcy Ave. A mostly industrial zoned strip of graffiti, train yards and old school public housing. It’s only really two blocks from my house and the area I most frequent. The rest of my neighborhood is an idyllic mix of people centered around mostly Mexican, Czech and Polish families spanning generations. Chicago has always had a block mentality. Though it runs on a grid, the personal politics vary with territory. Negotiating freedom and space was a nightmare maze at times. I’ve written for years about it. Chicago can be a dangerous place. I was riding in a car with a foot worker a couple of years ago to see a show on the deep south side. His quote still echoes in my head. We had made an unexpected turn onto another street. That area was controlled by a gang he’d rather not deal with. His long winded explanation ended with an abrupt statement. You are either about that life or you aren’t. I am not about any life usually other than staying out of trouble. And you quickly learn the hidden territories. People expect you to pick up on things out here. Expectations are everywhere and can overwhelm people who are just trying to get by. The freedom I have here in Chicago is largely based on a long negotiation fraught with battles, obstacles, and alternative routes. I’ve been running by the FBI so much that I make it my own little statement. I’m sure by now they forgot about the day I flicked them off. I spend a considerable amount of time in underdeveloped areas of the city these days. Mainly because it’s extremely hard to run with a mask on. And simply because my privacy is something I’ve had to learn to protect viciously. With no validation or explanation of what my real goals are in any of this. I hold myself accountable and I explore my world from there. Everybody knows how upset I’ve been. Everybody knows life is incredibly exhausting for me when it doesn’t have to be. And everybody knows I don’t just support black lives matter. I go out there and celebrate their value. The beauty of Chicago these days is that we’re trying to live in the future regardless. And the future is out there on a walk down Ashland to Roosevelt. Where kids ride bikes draped in pink gear to see me off to the pharmacy. And people wave at me with no other expectations than to greet me in their neighborhood. How is it these people know all the real shit about me when I deactivate most of my accounts? Maybe that’s what I get for quitting social media in the long run. More face time in the real world. I’d make a much better Instagram husband anyway.

It’s far easier to stream myself playing a game and mumbling to myself than to take the same picture over and over again. It’s also far more satisfying to sit down and write it all down here. Over the years, the people I have connected to have never expected much from me and vice versa. This place for me has never been pretentious or exclusive. And it’s from my small interactions with people on here that I modeled the interactions I wanted in real life. I was exposed to cultures other than my own. Read and studied the history instead of listening to pundits and for profit media. In truth I’ve been mumbling to myself on here for years hoping people would listen. And in time I found people did. People I valued, respected and was directly inspired by. And there was no expectation other than to strive to be a better me through this process. Which is a long winded explanation why I have no real urge to return to things I’ve left behind. Whether that be facebook, instagram, or alcohol. The third one is an extreme. I don’t mind being around any of it. For myself I’ve seen the diminishing returns. Just like I’ve been connected to people on here for years, it’s the same for places like Instagram. It’s like a second wave of high school for me. All the bad parts. People who have no business looking into your life doing it daily. Connected in an inorganic sort of way. More like a fungus or a cancer. People who could interact but don’t. People who suck you up into their drama. Whereas a simple like on this platform has kept me breathing. I kept to myself. I stayed transparent and accountable. And I largely enjoy just being another invisible shit head on the internet. Except that I’m something far more than that. A Godzilla walking down ashland with my digital footprint materializing in the flesh. I don’t need the internet at times. It’s something that follows me around. A reputation I uphold. A savage crush I’ve had for years maybe. Or just a fact of life I embrace. I have always been deadly serious about my intent with things. I also never expect them to work out the way I plan them to. I expect a lot from myself. And I show that daily enough as it is. I post a picture for a court of people who would rather judge me than talk to me like a human being. And most people are downright scared to open up themselves. That is why when we talk to people it is mostly projection. It’s not a real conversation. It’s a prerecorded message to deflect away from the real chaos behind the wall. The truth is we don’t know how we feel about the times mostly. We can only accept or deny. I accept that I am about this life I have wandered into. And I face the consequences everyday. You keep bumping into the same wall, you find a more comfortable way around it. That’s freedom. And freedom is a shrinking resource in atrophy.

Before you catch me telling you that freedom is a muscle, let me flex a little. I built my first computer in years. Most of my previous equipment has come from my job. Working from home the last few months has blurred a lot of lines together. So building my own was an experiment and a hobby. I’ve spent so much time here that I’ve had to rethink the space. I bought a humidifier. A robot vacuum. And this computer I built from parts over weeks. The monitor never made it sadly. And I didn’t bother with anything other than a refund. Last night I added three violet pink led fans to the chassis. I still think I need the liquid cooling action. I haven’t really been in the mood to play games lately. But I have been making the space I have more efficient. And I think when it comes to freedom in America, it is something we share. It is also something that can be abused. And it is something that must be defended if it means something to you. And defense is an art in and of itself. Bruce Lee once said that you should be like water. Fela Kuti once fought against British colonial forces in Nigeria with music. Freedom is happening all over the world in varying contexts and through various optics. Walking with peace and love in Chicago is not a block by block thing. It’s not even a street by street thing. It’s in the steps you take. The exhausting repetition of deescalation. The dodging of hurt feelings. The gentrification on the heels and wills of the middle class property owners. The questioning looks you get when you stand your ground on things you feel you should not have to discuss or reveal. Every single time I try to be free I feel my back being pushed up against a wall. People who never have the time or care to listen to me tell me what they think about me. This projection of how they want to see me. Their fear talking instead of their heart. People are afraid of me. Have always been afraid of me. I used to be so sensitive to it. Think there was something wrong with me. That I was ugly. That I was weird. That I was too old. That I was too young. That I didn’t stoop down to their level. That I felt free enough to ignore them and continue on. And then there’s the freedom that gets misinterpreted. That gets caught up in a larger discussion that goes nowhere. That isn’t led by anything except the news and commercials. That isn’t a real conversation with feelings that ebb and flow. That there is no compromise. No seeing of eye to eye. No response other than a prescripted greeting card slogan of our love and support. I don’t say much. I just live it. I will say one thing. I love you. I get an answer back every time I walk down the street these days. It’s shaded pink. Maybe one day I’ll project it in the night sky for you. For now you’ll just have to read it on the internet. Because you already know I’m about that life by now. Until next time, I will continue to be. <3 Tim

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nocaptainreuben · 7 years

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My Thoughts on ‘To The Bone’

So, just like everybody else in the world apparently, I watched the new Netflix film by Marti Nixon, To The Bone, and I have more thoughts than I can easily express on Twitter. In fact, most of my thoughts are more about the discussion surrounding it on Twitter and such, rather than directly about the film itself, but either way, here’s a blog post.

To The Bone, is a semi-autobiographical film about a young girl with severe anorexia nervosa, documenting a short portion of her recovery. Whilst I have my share of mental illness and have worked with young people who have eating disorders (EDs), I have never actually suffered with one myself, so if you think that makes my commentary on the topic invalid, feel free to switch off now. I fully support the idea of “own voices” and I see why it’s so important to give (particularly marginalised) people a chance to bring their own experience to their work and give representation to groups of people whose lives may be similar, but I also have a couple of problems with the movement. For one, I don’t think that if a story is not own voices, then that means you have no right to tell it. As long as your process involves research, respect and sensitivity, you should be able to write what you want and exercise your creativity, because life would be pretty boring if we were all only ever allowed to write about people exactly the same as ourselves. Also, I don’t think that shouting “this is #ownvoices so you have to listen to me and respect me and take my word for it!” makes sense. Everybody’s experience is different (and valid) and no one person is the spokesperson for all things bisexual or Chinese or Schizophrenic or whatever else you’re shouting about. It is possible for other people to disagree with a portrayal of a certain identity, even when it is true to you, and it is still possible to offend people with the same identity as you. The point I’m trying to make is this: To The Bone is own voices. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically brilliant and exempt from criticism. My review of it is not own voices. That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have an opinion. Now, on to said opinion… I loved it. I thought it was handled sensitively but with enough grit not to come off twee. It was, in places, difficult and emotional, but then also sharp and witty, with sweet moments and harrowing moments coming with little transition between each other, in a brilliantly realistic portrayal of the multifaceted experience of life with a severe mental illness. The acting, on the most part, was superb, but in particular the portrayal of Ellen/Eli by Lily Collins felt so true. Her abrasive personality, dark humour, small voice and quiet rage resonated with my experiences of other young people in similar circumstances. I felt, as loved ones of ED sufferers often do, that I cared about her, worried for her, pitied her, but was also angry and frustrated with her in equal measure. She was both controlled by her disease and responsible for it, and it was so refreshing to see a portrayal where she wasn’t pandered to and made out as a helpless victim, but given the brutal truth that only she could help herself, and if she wanted to die, nobody could – or would – stop her. I think this is key in my disagreement with the criticism of the film I have seen in the news and social media. I’ve read that it is “irresponsible”, “dangerous” and – depending on who you’re reading – “stigmatising”, “fetishising” or “glamourising” eating disorders. However, I think it takes more than looking at what topic a film is on, or how the main character approaches that topic, to decide if something is problematic. Whilst To The Bone does deal with a very delicate subject, and the protagonist is so deeply entrenched in her anorexia that she isn’t exactly a poster child for recovery, when looking at the tone of the whole film, the views of the supporting characters and the message that came through between the lines, I got a very strong sense that EDs were not sexy or desirable. It wasn’t even a subtle message to be honest. Everyone was pretty clear on their position that EDs were serious and real, and it even dealt head on with the idea of Ellen being someone’s “thinspiration”, making it absolutely transparent just how negative that was. Of course it is possible that people who are already suffering with EDs will look at this and find inspiration, tips, or something to compete with, but that is not the fault of the film. That’s what mental illness does, and people who are struggling will often seek that out wherever they can, so the film is not to blame when somebody takes that from it, and nor should potentially “triggering” somebody be a reason never to make art with a tricky subject matter. I read a really great quote by Krisitina Saffran, one of the founders of Project HEAL, (a charity which deals with eating disorders and supported Noxon by developing a discussion guide around the film) which says “in recovery, part of the process is learning to live in a world full of potential triggers and being ok.” And I think that rings so true, not just for EDs, but for any subject where people would demonise something for being triggering. I do understand people’s concerns and the need to handle certain subjects very carefully, particularly with media that is targeted to a young audience, as when I watched the recent Netflix series, Thirteen Reasons Why, I had the opposite response. I felt that was very dangerous and irresponsible, but the difference lies in the tone. In that show, Hannah Baker blamed other people for her suicide. Fine. One person is allowed to feel that other people are responsible for her mental health. However, just because she feels it, that doesn’t mean it’s true, and this never seemed to be addressed in the show. The only people who ever explicitly said “nobody else is responsible, it was her decision” were people who were blamed by her and trying to assuage their own guilt. The people who were the “13 reasons” were made out to look very guilty, whilst Hannah was painted as an innocent victim, the whole thing did feel quite romanticised, and the overarching message I got from that show was “think about how you treat other people, because look what the consequences are when you bully someone”, which I feel is a well-intentioned but problematic message to be sending to young people. To The Bone, however, showed the reality of one person’s experience, reflected at a number of different angles by the characters around her and didn’t present her version of the truth as fact. I’ve already stated that I don’t think any piece of work can be truly representative of a whole group of people, but I do think this is an accurate and believable portrayal of one person’s experience of anorexia, and it can’t be argued that it’s “wrong”. This story is Noxon’s own, so of course it’s about a rich, thin, straight, cis, white girl. But whilst the film couldn’t have been about anything other than that, as she was using it to portray her own experiences, there was a conscious effort to show that EDs don’t only happen to rich, thin, straight, cis, white girls; there were some other characters in the group home, all struggling with EDs, who were of different races, ages, sizes, sexualities and genders. And no, that’s not me saying, “stop whining about representation, you’re there in the background, isn’t that good enough?”. Believe me, I know we need more stories with minority characters in front and centre roles, but you can’t demonise one film for a problem that is with the whole industry. There is nothing wrong with this particular story being focused on a rich, thin, straight, cis, white girl as long as other people keep coming forward to make films that show different experiences, and I feel that To The Bone can be a stepping stone for us seeing EDs portrayed more frequently, and in more ways, on the big screen. I applaud the team behind To The Bone for making something so honest and difficult, and would urge people watching to look past the fact that it may not fit their own experience or understanding of anorexia, and use this film as a platform for constructive discussion about eating disorders, as Noxon so clearly intended, rather than getting hung up on “I didn’t like the weird bottle scene”.

#to the bone #netflix #film review #anorexia #eating disorder #marti noxon #lily collins

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z-tertle-blog · 4 years

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Video Games: A Word From a Shy Enthusiast

“No good woman will want to be with a man like that.”

These words hurt me more than I could have ever expected. I will not disclose who said them to me, but it suffice me to say that I highly respected this person’s opinion. To the point that I was modeling myself after them.

“Step five of having a productive life… Don’t play video games, throw them away.”

a religious leader said to a group of missionaries that I was a part of. I stopped taking notes on what this man said at that very moment.

My name is Zachary Tervort. My whole life has been full of people that have encouraged me and wanted me to “just be myself.” But the moment that I make it apparent that I am an enthusiast of video games they turn tail on this statement. Saying that I need to move on and that it is not a wholesome activity, that it will bring you no good. Claiming that my life would be far better off if I never came into contact with a video game in the first place. This has created a desire in me. To prove those people wrong. Not only will I be a good person that people can look to for an example but also prove that video games are more than capable of creating good in the world but that the experiences they create are better suited to teaching lessons than other media can. Few have taken up the mantle to champion this cause but I am willing to do so.

To start off. I think that it’s important to state exactly what art is. We need to have a base understanding of what art is. To do so I follow the teachings of two different masters of the subject, Van Doesburg and F. Wellington Ruckstuhl. Doesburg takes the time to define Art in the paper “Concrete Art”.

“The painting should be constructed entirely from purely plastic elements, that is to say planes and colours. A pictorial element has no other significance than itself and consequently the painting possesses no other significance than itself.” This definition is a bit of an oxymoron. As it gives a definition that explains away any other definition of art. As art only needs to have significance to itself to be valid. So attempting to waive something away as “not art” because it needs to fit some sort of neat and tidy set of requirements.

Ruckstuhl Wrote a paper in 1916 called “What is Art? A Definition” Where he takes the time to define the practice of creating art “Art is the power of doing things which is not taught by nature.” I believe that both of these definitions work in unison to create a new definition that I will use for this entire discussion.

Art is a combination of techniques, not learned naturally, applied to create a piece for others to enjoy, having no need to defend its own existence as it possesses no other significance other than itself.

Knowing this I would like to ask you, the reader, a question. When was the last time a piece of media taught you something new? I am not talking about an academic subject or a skill. I am talking about something unique to you, or about you? While a rare occasion, I’m willing to bet that many of you can think of, at least, one media item that had a large impact on you or that you remember fondly.

To keep in the realm of video games, I have an example that is very close to me. The game Persona 5, developed by Atlus in 2016, The main mechanic of what you are doing is mastering “Personas”. Personas are a kind of power that you can interchange to best fit what situation your characters find themselves in. The term Persona is actually a psychology term. Coined by a man named Carl Jung (young). Persona, as defined by Jung, is a mask that people wear in order to cover up the true self and better fit into whatever part of society that we are participating in. This is a very easily understandable phenomenon but there is a dark side to it. With the constant changing of Personas, or “masks” it’s easy to get lost in them. Losing touch with what makes you unique and suppressing your raw self. A loss in personal identity.

After learning what a Persona was I realized that I had done just that. Lost all sense of self and become a pawn in society that just goes along with whatever is happening, adjusting my personality to better fit in. This realization, combined with the events that take place in the game, exploring this concept of multiple Personas but also being in touch with the true self. And by doing so, brings about an attitude of rebellion to an established system galvanized me to be more honest with myself and others around me as I voice different opinions. I don’t want to be afraid of myself anymore. And I have a video game to thank for that change of heart.

The message of Persona 5 in pretty obvious on paper but the true power of these messages comes from the fact that this is a video game. Video games are an interactive medium and give the player the opportunity to experience these events firsthand because your actions move the plot forward. Rather then the characters in a book or film that will play out the same way every time. This experience and emotions that can be felt through another medium was given a name by the great Aristotle: Catharsis

Catharsis is a way to purge negative emotions, safely, by witnessing a tragedy or an act of horror played out in a dramatized way. Catharsis is what video games are the greatest at capitalizing on. Not only are you witnessing these events in that dramatized way but you are also giving input to events and changing them as you go making the catharsis you feel unique to you because of what you did or did not do. It’s not just me that thinks this way. I mentioned early on that there are others that have taken up the mantle to show the worth of video games. One of those kindred souls goes by the name Maximilian Dood. He has made a career out of showing people the kinds of experiences that can be had in a very specific genre or video games. That being fighting games. He has a very popular youtube channel and a Twitch live streaming schedule that thousands of people watch nearly daily. His bread and butter is fighting games but his love of games goes far beyond that. His favorite game ever is a title for the Playstation 1 called Final Fantasy VII (7). In 2015. IT was announced that this game would be getting a remake using modern technology. At Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) 2019. Max was invited to a media only showing of the game and he recorded a video journal about the experience. That can be watched here. (Foul Language warning)

“Max’s Insane FFVII Remake Story (E3 2019)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OalvWEJCZBA

When I watch this video. I see a man with a deep love for what he does. And received validation for what he loves. Bringing a grown man to tears. I crave what he has. And I know that I am not alone. I urge you to watch the full video to see the whole range of emotions on display.

It’s at this point that I would like to move on to the practice of making games. In our definition we talked about skills that are not found naturally. The scale and potential for artistry in video games scales with the technology available. However, it will never be able to take advantage of the same techniques that are used in 3D animated movies. A single frame (1/24th of a second) in a film can take days or weeks to render out to a finished product that is ready for public viewing. A game has to condense this time down to anywhere between 0.033 and 0.016 seconds per frame. So Developers have to figure out much more efficient ways to make a game appear visually pleasing and run at a speed that can keep up with the players inputs.

As a result of the speed requirements for rendering. Full simulations of certain phenomenon are impossible so creative work arounds are needed in order to get a similar look. Water is one thing that has always been a challenge for people to mimic in a virtual space in real time. This is where an artists hand is the most important. Depending on what kind of hardware the game will be running on different methods will be used. There is a wonderful two part documentary on exactly this that will show you how water was recreated from the early days of games all the way to more modern times. “DF Retro H2O! Water in Video Games Part #1” https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2018-07-22-df-retro-h2o-water-in-video-games-part-1

If you watch that documentary, you will better understand what needs to happen to make a game look the way that it does, a little better. But then you can probably think of more simulations that are way to complicated for real time rendering. I believe that the best example of digital artistry in video games is probably Luigi’s Mansion 3. The masterful use of light, animation, and texturing comes to product greater than the sum of its parts. This skill cannot be learned without a lot of practice and experience as animating something that is meant to look like water, but is not actually water is very similar to a painter that needs to make a river stretch into the distance on a flat surface.

A full technical breakdown can be found here.“Luigi’s Mansion 3: Switch Tech Breakdown - A Playable CG Movie on Switch?” https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2019-11-05-luigis-mansion-3-switch-tech-breakdown-a-playable-cg-movie-on-switch

At this point I can do no more than give examples of what to look for in artistry but that is a very subjective thing and I can’t tell you what to like. But hopefully I gave you a good Idea of where to look in order to be able to back yourself up when the next person asks you what good can come from video games. I hope that you are able to feel better about your hobby and are more confident in speaking your mind. Please don’t hide yourself anymore, there are people in the world that want to hear you and learn more about who you are. Don’t be ashamed.

#video games #realtalk

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

Text

WORK ETHIC AND EVIL

Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. When my IBM Thinkpad's hard disk died soon after, it became my only laptop.1 Intolerance for ugliness is not in itself enough. You can work 16-hour days for as long as you're still actively developing the product. We spent a lot of users, they can tell themselves they're buying the users rather than the other way around.2 And yet you can see it the way you see a friend across the room at a crowded party. It's not just because we make small investments; many have gone on to raise further rounds. For example, though the stock market crash does seem to have done it. VC funding dried up after the Internet Bubble that it became trivially cheap to start a startup.

76% will be reduced to 4. YC felt like a vacation compared to the next phase, when we took users onto our server. Any really good new idea will seem bad to most people your age, others that will appeal to future generations, one way to achieve simplicity, but it's hard to imagine something that could be called humorless also being good design. There is a huge and pretty much untapped desire for software meeting that description. In fact they may become telephones, or vice versa. The central issue is picking the right startups. Don't suppress misgivings. But it does seem as if the story you want them to run is something they thought of themselves. Instead of treating beauty as an airy abstraction, to be either blathered about or avoided depending on how one feels about airy abstractions, let's try considering it as a painting is drowned out. It's also misleading. And when the Mac appeared, it was a new kind of software is a great artist. Soon you're releasing whole features you know are broken.

There is such a good idea, why did it lose last time? This is reassuring to investors, because until you're profitable that's who you have to face the real problem for Microsoft wasn't the embarrassment of the people that matter.3 But it was also something we'd never considered a computer could be: fabulously well designed. Is the future of handheld devices one locked down by Apple? It is irresponsible not to think about business models. I can't tell is whether they have any kind of creative work. There can't be incompatibilities between the application and your operating system. This doesn't just affect what they claim to like; they actually make themselves like things they're supposed to, they'll be thought uncultured.4 Fortunately, there were a lot of people will tell you that you should pay particular attention to them. And partly for the same reason readers like them.

Revenues of $3000 a month do not mean the company has succeeded. And if you're not, a good economy won't save you. The best you can see how great a hold taste is subjective has even in the art world by how nervous it makes people to talk about art that I want to free the idea of art being good, and artists being good at making it. Why the disconnect? But as you become expert in a field, you'll start to hear little voices saying, What a hack! You could just go out and find their own stories, at least some people who know that a high performance car looks like a Formula 1 racecar, not a sedan with giant rims and a fake spoiler bolted to the trunk. If anyone remembers Viaweb this might sound odd, because we often have to work quite closely with them. The urge to look corporate; the product is what wins in the long term it's to your advantage to be good.5 Strangely enough, if you could get a 30% better deal elsewhere?

Maybe, I suggested, he should buy some stock in this company. The whole tone is bogus.6 They don't define what evil is, but if Gates and Allen had decided to wait a few years, it would be misleading even to call them centers. It's legally a company, all they want to encourage startups locally, but government policy can't call them into being the way a product can. There was no protection against breakage except the fear of having so much responsibility.7 Kids are less perceptive. Being around bad people would be intolerable. The biggest mistake you can make yourself nearly immune to tricks. Afterwards I realized it could be helpful to look at the instruments.

But there is a downside here, it may be safer to be a problem. It's ok to do a good job. And yet we still need the underlying concept, whatever we call it. All you can say with certainty about Jaynes is that he was a fairly big spammer. One is to ask yourself, before buying something, is this going to make something users want, you'll be doing. Several distinct problems manifest themselves as delays in launching: working too slowly; not truly understanding the problem; fear of having to deal with bugs wholesale.8 So it's not politics that's the source of the trouble, that could be sent over the Internet.

Once you had enough good startups in one place, it would seem like the same company. The cows apparently learn to stay away from them. I could think of an application programmers had to have one. It's harder to escape the influence of your own circumstances, but you feel like you're lying when you call it one.9 At first desktop computers didn't look like a magazine. Plus most of them are money guys rather than technical guys, so they don't understand what the startups they're investing in do. But it's so tempting to sit in their offices and let PR firms bring the stories to them. The main reason PR firms exist is that reporters are lazy. We all had dinner together once a week, cooked for the first couple years by me.10 Imagine what it would feel like to have x-ray vision are the perfect storm in that respect they're better positioned to prosper in a recession than big companies. We lost several high-end merchants to Web consulting firms who convinced them they'd be better off if they paid half a million or higher than 4 or 5 million. But not always: sometimes the startup cobbles together a syndicate of investors who don't.

It's just ten times more irresponsible not to focus on the business model from the beginning. That's a big advantage already, and the next day we recruited my friends Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell.11 More importantly, you can at least move in that direction. It means he makes up his mind quickly, and follows through. It seems unlikely this is a valid approach.12 The Valley basically runs on referrals. YC's alumni network is its most valuable feature. Some changes might be bigger than others, but the idea of art being good or bad? If in the next round they sell 10% of the company to a new idea every week will be equally fatal.

Notes

According to a new, much more fun in this respect. In fact the decade preceding the war. Some who read this to realize that.

The answer is no. We Getting a Divorce? The reason you don't get any money till all the difference between being judged as a test of investor quality. Us.

So during the entire period from the Dutch not to say they were forced to stop raising money in order to switch. But this seems empirically false. They'll be more likely to have been about 2, etc.

The only launches I remember the eyes of phone companies gleaming in the grave and trying to figure this out. The fancy version of Explorer.

He did eventually graduate at about 26. Because we want to see what the US, it will probably not do that.

We're only comparing YC startups, but countless other startups must have believed since before people were people. If Ron Conway had been a good problem to fit your solution. Just use the local area, and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. But having more of a correct program.

But those too are acceptable or at least on me; how could I get attacked a lot heavier. For example, would probably only improve filtering rates early on?

When he wanted to start some vaguely benevolent business. If they want you to stop, but simply because he was notoriously improvident and was troubled by debts all his life. A web site is different from technology companies.

We have no way to solve a lot of people who want to be their personal IT consultants, building anything they could be overcome by changing the shape that matters, just as it's easier to sell services than a nerdy founder trying to hide wealth from the moment it's created indeed, is caring what random people thought of them consistently make money; and not incompatible answers: a to make up their minds, they may then, depending on their appearance.

He, like the difference between being judged as a test of intelligence.

Is an Asset Price Bubble? Give the founders enough autonomy that they imitate even the best hackers work on open-source projects, even though it's at least 150 million in 1970. There should probably be the right to do with down rounds—like full ratchet anti-immigration people to bust their asses.

As a result a lot of people. This phenomenon is not economic inequality was really only useful for one video stream.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Dan Siroker, Marc Hedlund, and Trevor Blackwell for inviting me to speak.

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oovitus · 6 years

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Weekend Reading, 2.18.18

The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night.

A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with depression and anxiety, I learned that there’s such a thing as adult self-soothing, too. It may be an especially important skill to develop if you identify as a sensitive person or you feel the impact of emotions very strongly.

Self-soothing practices can take all sorts of shapes and forms; they may take one out of time and place, like going for a walk or practicing yoga in a special part of the home, or they might be as simple as listening to a particular song, sipping tea, breathing deeply, praying, singing, humming, reading poetry out loud, or smelling an essential oil. These, anyway, are my own favorite ways to self-soothe.

Two years ago at this time, my anxiety was so bad that I often didn’t want to leave the house. I did leave, going about my business and trying to perform as much competence as I could muster, but I felt as if I was falling apart. I was so on edge, so irritable, and so unable to hang onto a sense of safety or security. It really scared me, much more than my depression ever had.

Many months of therapy later, and I’m in a different place. But this week in particular gave me new skills to be grateful for. A few situations came up that triggered my anxiety, and I reacted, but I was able to stay connected to a fundamental sense that things would be OK. I’m not exactly sure what to attribute this to: my meditation practice? Learning to pay attention to my breath? Slowing down? Learning to say “no”? Reconnecting?

The answer is that all of these things, coupled with time and patience, have helped. I’m also starting to understand that quelling anxiety creates muscle memory; if you do it often enough, you start to believe, consciously and unconsciously, that it’s possible, and then it starts to happen more readily.

I know that I may manage my anxiety for a long time and possibly live with it always, just as I know I’ll always have brushes with depression and may always periodically encounter certain ED-related urges. In writing these words today, though, I realize how surprisingly calm I feel about my anxiety, which is sweetly ironic.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not alarmed by the fact that I have anxiety, not scared of it. I’ve been given signs that I have some of the tools I need to manage it. Maybe I’ll need to expand or change up my toolkit at some point, but that’s OK: toolkits can grow along with us. For now, merely knowing that I can get centered even in the midst of anxious feelings or thoughts is a major shift, one that gives me hope and a sense of spaciousness.

As always, wishing everyone peace and grounding as we head out into a fresh week. Enjoy these tasty recipes and reading links.

Recipes

There’s a mushroom miso barley soup recipe in Power Plates that I’ve become pretty attached to, but I can never get enough soup recipes, and I’m loving Natasha’s version, which is infused with Italian herbs and seasonings.

Wish someone had made these sweet buckwheat crepes for me on Valentine’s Day! Or that I’d gone ahead and made them for myself

This is my kind of potato salad: roasted potatoes, dill, vegan bacon, creamy garlic mayo. Perfect vegan comfort food.

Writing about Hannah’s book on Friday has me thinking about the art of creating really good food in very little time. It’s something I’m still figuring out. Lisa is one of the people I turn to for inspiration in this area, and her easy green curry noodles are a perfect example of a super speedy, flavorful, filling meal.

I tend to have lousy luck when I’m baking exclusively with grain free flours (I do OK when they’re part of a blend that has some wheat flour or gluten free grain flours in it). I’m always impressed with the way that Lindsay works wonders with grain-free baking that’s also vegan-friendly, and I’m dying to try her easy vegan white cake.

Reads

1. In spite of spending a fair amount of time around doctors—and anticipating a year of clinical work on the horizon—I had never really given much thought to what it must be like for doctors to return to full time work after being treated for an illness, especially the illness that they themselves specialize in.

That’s exactly the process that breast cancer surgeon Liz O’Riordon finds herself in now. I was touched by The Atlantic‘s profile of her, in which she admits to having new emotional challenges on the job, including sensitivities to hear certain diagnoses spoken of in dire terms and heightened awareness when delivering news to patients. The article says,

She [Liz] also takes more care with her language, and cringes at the memory of comments that were meant to be encouraging but now seem glib and unsympathetic. “I used to say: You’re lucky it hasn’t spread. No one is lucky to have cancer,” she says. “I used to ask people: Are you happy to sign this consent form? No one is happy to have cancer. As a doctor, you may give bad news 10 times a day. Until you’ve been on the other side, you don’t realize that when you get bad news, you remember every single detail of that conversation.”

There’s a lot of pressure for doctors and medical personnel to remain transparent, cool, and objective at all times, but my own limited experience in a helping profession is that personal struggle often gives way to empathy that can enhance one’s capacities as a practitioner. I hope that O’Riordan can indeed follow through on her hope to speak out more openly about her illness and encourage other doctors to do so with her.

2. Also on the topic of medicine and healthcare, a physician examines the concept of agape as it relates to healthcare. Agape is the ancient Greek term for selfless love of humanity; it’s seen as transcending difference or circumstance, which distinguishes it from filial or erotic love. Pooja Gidwani, a hospitalist, writes,

To me, agape means having the fortitude not only to empathize with patients or to provide compassionate care but to also habitually understand that each patient’s reactions may stem from their physical or mental suffering, past or current. To develop the ability to connect on a more spiritual level with the sufferer’s emotions despite their behaviors to truly be a healer. To put oneself in the shoes of each individual, remembering that everyone we meet is a product of what life has created for them.

I can’t think of a more beautiful summation of how agape can animate medical practice.

3. In the wake of the tragedy in Florida this past week, Vox sat down with Gerry Griffith, a crisis counselor with over 30 years of experience, to ask questions about what’s needed in the aftermath of shocking losses. She offers a lot of practical, detailed perspective on how crisis counselors respond to different stages of trauma among the people they’re helping, and she also has important things to say about the importance of addressing peoples’ sense of powerlessness after these kinds of events.

When asked how she continues to do this challenging work, she says,

I had a mentor, early, early on that said doing this work is learning how to keep your heart open in hell. I know what hell looks, tastes, like, and smells like.

I think, for me, there are people in my life that I can talk to about this. I have a husband, he’s proud of me and he supports me. When I’m out there in Oklahoma City or out in New York, I can call him and I can talk about how the dog, what she’s doing today. Because he’s not there.

Somebody asked me the other day: ”How would you know when you’re done?” I said, “When I stop crying.” When I stop feeling, when I don’t cry, my heart has closed and I have to quit.

I thought it was impressive that Griffith’s barometer of being fit for the task of counseling is having a strong capacity to feel. Something I want to keep in mind, in my own small way, for my future work with clients.

4. I really like Carrie Dennett’s reporting, and I was glad to see her in-depth consideration of orthorexia in the latest issue of Today’s Dietitian.

Orthorexia is a complex compulsion, often more difficult to address than other types of disordered eating because it is so often rooted in basically valuable efforts and intentions to eat healthfully and well. While anorexia put me in my most dire state of biological illness, I think overcoming orthorexia was in many ways a trickier challenge, because it was so hard to separate obsession and compulsion from the sincere value I place on mindful, conscious, health-supportive eating.

Dennett delves into all of the difficulties and complexities of addressing this syndrome, including the fact that, as of yet, there’s no consensus on a definition and no validated assessment tool. “Eating doesn’t become pathological until it becomes entangled with obsessive thinking, compulsive and ritualistic behavior, and self-punishment,” she notes, which echoed my own intuitive sense of what orthorexia is when I encounter it in my own work.

She also interviews Emily Fossenbeck, who is doing really important work in speaking up about her own experience with orthorexia and raising awareness on social media. Emily’s struggle with orthorexia began with elimination diets (a phenomenon I’ve observed often). She’s quoted saying,

“I only felt worse and worse but kept chasing this magical unicorn of the ‘perfect diet.’ The anxiety I felt about food was suffocating and totally overwhelmed most other parts of my life. I was afraid to eat out or travel or—the worst of it—to eat a normal meal with my family. I had to have complete control of everything I was eating.”

I’ve often seen the question posed of what distinguishes orthorexia from healthful eating, and I’ve written about it myself. I think the answer might be that anxiety and feeling of suffocation that Fossenbeck mentions. A particular kind of health-conscious eating style might be either self-caring or destructive; the difference rests in the mentality and subjective emotional experience of the individual in question.

I suspect that the dietetic and mental health treatment communities are just at the start of understanding this complicated expression of disordered eating. For now, the best we can hope for is more awareness, more observation and research, and an ongoing effort to enlist more people who have struggled with orthorexia to honestly share their stories. I’ve been giving lots of thought to recovery with NEDA week on the horizon, and this is nice motivation for me to use my voice.

5. I mentioned last week that the heart chakra and heart-opening are on my mind this month. With loving-kindness in mind, a sweet list to wrap up with.

Happy Sunday morning, everyone. I look forward to checking in with a hearty, colorful new winter salad recipe in a couple days.

The post Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 2.18.18 published first on

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i-am-very-very-tired · 7 years

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Does Travel Make You Smarter? January 11, 2010 A delightful piece by Jonah Lehrer in the San Francisco Panorama on the cognitive benefits of travel. He argues that travel is not just about pleasure. It’s about stimulating your mind in a way that enhances creativity. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do — it’s the physical act of movement and the newness of anything new that generates new thoughts. In fact, several new science papers suggest that getting away–and it doesn’t even matter where you’re going–is an essential habit of effective thinking. It’s not about vacation, or relaxation, or sipping daiquiris on an unspoiled tropical beach: it’s about the tedious act itself, putting some miles between home and wherever you happen to spend the night…. The larger lesson, though, is that our thoughts are shackled by the familiar. The brain is a neural tangle of near infinite possibility, which means that it spends a lot of time and energy choosing what not to notice. As a result, creativity is traded away for efficiency; we think in literal prose, not symbolist poetry. A bit of distance, however, helps loosen the chains of cognition, making it easier to see something new in the old; the mundane is grasped from a slightly more abstract perspective…. According to the researchers, the experience of another culture endows us with a valuable open-mindedness, making it easier to realize that a single thing can have multiple meanings. Consider the act of leaving food on the plate: in China, this is often seen as acompliment, a signal that the host has provided enough to eat. But in America the same act is a subtle insult, an indication that the food wasn’t good enough to finish. Such cultural contrasts mean that seasoned travelers are alive to ambiguity, more willing to realize that there are different (and equally valid) ways of interpreting the world. This, in turn, allows them to expand the circumference of their “cognitive inputs,” as they refuse to settle for their first answers and initialguesses…. So let’s not pretend that travel is always fun, or that we endure the jet lag for pleasure. We don’t spend ten hours lost in the Louvre because we like it, and the view from the top of Machu Picchu probably doesn’t make up for the hassle of lost luggage. (More often than not, I need a vacation after my vacation.) We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything. ### Here is the State Department’s commentary on the difficulty of learning various foreign languages for native English speakers. Ross Douthat on Avatar’s virtual appeal. (I loved the movie btw.) Cal Newport on what chess grandmasters can teach us about building a remarkable life. Best of Craigslist: sex duel with the neighbors. ShareTweet+ 1Mail Previous Post Next Post 8 Responses DaveJ January 11, 2010 Couldn’t I just drive to work in reverse or something? There has to be a better way than traveling. Kyle Hansen January 11, 2010 My favorite quote regarding travel: The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. ~St. Augustine Krishna January 12, 2010 “….But when we get home, something in the mind has changed…” That something, I guess is altered reality. No doubt, the great affair is to move. But for the insularity offered by travel, the world would be full of couch potatoes chomping wafers, watching TV or worshipping celebrities. So much is the motivation – to flee reality – that defines escapism than the behavior itself. Travel allows us to slip into altered reality letting us start living for real once more, enjoying connections with others. It’s the need for altered reality, not necessarily more pleasant than where you come from, that urges you to backpack, as opposed to the escapist that seeks to run away from routine. Vince Williams January 12, 2010 I must say it’s a bit sobering to realize that by the 10,000 hour rule, the only subject I’ve mastered, apart from my vocation, is onanism. Well, I suppose there are worse things to excel in. After more than forty years of intensive deliberate practice, I think I qualify as a grandmaster of the art. I enjoyed Jonah Lehrer’s essay, too, though I felt he gave other modes of transportation than flying short shrift by writing as if there is no other way to get where you’re going. Sometimes the journey to another place is the whole adventure. I sailed to Bermuda with a buddy who built his own sailboat, a 38-foot steel-hulled sloop. Three of us, obnoxious rebels all, sailed downwind wing-and-wing, over 900 miles to St. George’s. Two days of our passage we sailed in twenty plus-foot seas. My first watch at the helm after the swell picked up I turned around to look at the wave behind us– and had to crane my neck upward to see its unbreaking crest. It struck me that steering the vessel was like surfing on a forty-foot surfboard. My sensitivity to the boat’s movements was profound– a moment’s lapse of attention and I could easily broach the boat. I took in a big gulp of salt air and in that moment I experienced soul-wrenching ecstasy. Whatever consciousness expansion and realization of human potential happened on our trip, it happened in moments like this, and it was all in the getting there. I believe it’s the same with our ordinary, humdrum realities– our everyday sojourns through time and space. Who says you have to hop on a plane and fly to some foreign country to experience the ‘other’? All the psychological benefits of travel that accrue to the lucky bastard who has the jack to get over ‘there’ are available to the poor son of a bitch stuck at home, too. All he needs is some bio-sourced DMT or 5-MeO-DMT to smoke, and he’s on his way to high adventure and possible enlightenment. Spanish cathedrals and Venetian palaces cannot compare to the glorious visions of the universe he may see (the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey was nothing, Keir Dullea would be envious) after being launched in this neural rocketship. After all, jets are not the only way to fly, and some drugs, like these, can stimulate your mind in a way that enhances creativity. The movement may be all in your mind, but the newness of the experience (it’s always new, even for the experienced psychonaut) is sure to generate new thoughts.;-) Tyler January 13, 2010 Great post on this topic. I totally agree. Travel and moving around stimulates your brain and changes your brain’s neurochemistry. Thus, it helps you think in new ways that will expand one’s learning capabilities. Brett Bolkowy January 18, 2010 Lehrer writes: “our mind is most likely to solve our stubbornest problems while sitting in a swank Left Bank café. So instead of contemplating that buttery croissant, we should be mulling over those domestic riddles we just can’t solve.” I disagree- I think that it isn’t simply being in a different environment that helps you to see new problems in a different way- I think that an important piece of the puzzle is not being intently focused on those same problems while traveling. When you’re traveling you have more of a clear head- you’re focused only on what’s right in front of you. Your mind ends up wandering back to those same problems, but it can see them in a different way, outside of the patterned thinking that has led you to the same dead end when tackling these problems head-on. I find the same effect when I completely put aside what I am working on and let my mind wander. What are your thoughts? (If interested, my post on the subject is here: link to brettbolkowy.com) Ben Casnocha January 18, 2010 Agreed, that being focused ostensibly on something else can also help the creative process. kevin cook June 8, 2010 Hmm, it seems true. Every since I started traveling on summer vacations Ive gotten very good grades in both high school and my college courses. I’ve also became one of the smartest ones in some of the classes that use to be complicated for me. Leave a Reply Name* E-Mail* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Publish Back to top MobileDesktopSumo

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hottytoddynews · 7 years

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Newell Turner

By Debbie Nelson. This story was originally published in the 2015-2016 issue of the Meek School Magazine.

Newell Turner was raised to be a rebel, an Ole Miss Rebel.

“It was exciting to come to Ole Miss,” Turner said. “It was a part of my family and a part of my cultural experience growing up. In fact, there was really never any option other than Ole Miss. It’s a good thing I liked it!”

Completing his double major in Journalism and Southern Studies a semester ahead of his class in December 1982, Turner remained in Mississippi, accepting a public relations position with Hospital Corporation of America, a company newly managing King’s Daughters Hospital in Yazoo City.

Ever the rebel, he decided to quit public relations and head for law school in 1984, but he found it to be very difficult.

“It’s what I felt everyone thought I should do,” Turner said. “I hadn’t started living my life, didn’t know what I wanted.

“I studied, banging my head against the wall, just to do OK,” Turner said. “I don’t regret the experience of the year and a half of legal training. What ended up being not right for me helped me find my right path.”

Dean Will Norton remembered, “He was going to law school, didn’t like it, so he came over here and asked about our magazine program. I introduced him to Samir.”

The Service Journalism emphasis had just been created in the Department of Journalism.

“My first impression of Newell was in Journalism 273, the editing by design class which combined the art of design with the art of journalism,” Husni said. “After assigned to design a spread — two facing pages of the magazine — one just jumped out at me. I was stunned by the quality of the art, the design, the neatness. Even the drawing of the picture was like, ‘Wow!’ Needless to say that assignment was Newell Turner’s.”

Turner explained, “I was taking Samir’s magazine design class when I realized I had really found my place, I found the thing that came so naturally to me. I’d grown up loving magazines. It was like I wasn’t even working. ”

Turner experienced a defining moment shortly after Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Metropolitan Home magazine, came to speak to Husni’s class.

“Newell asked very sharp questions that showed his knowledge, talent and passion for this industry,” Husni said. “You know, any smart editor does not let that go by. Ms. Kalins called me and said, ‘Samir, I have an opening for an editorial assistant. I want to offer it to Newell Turner.’”

Like an athlete recruited directly to the NFL, Turner was urged to grab the opportunity. Husni told Turner, “Those knocks don’t come often. A graduate degree is not going to add anything. If I were you, I would take the job. Quit your graduate program. Go!”

“You’ll learn everything you’ll need on the job,” Turner recalls Husni saying. “I’m very proud I made an A in Samir’s magazine class.” He felt validated in his choice to focus on magazines.

Clearly proud of Turner’s decision, Husni said, “He was courageous enough to listen to the advice, quit the graduate program and go. The rest, of course, is history.”

Though Turner now wishes he earned his master’s degree, Norton echoed Husni’s wise counsel. Today he is a top executive in the magazine industry.

“He did so well, he immediately got the position,” Norton said. “He might not have gotten where he is had he waited to graduate. He knew so much by that time. Clearly, he obtained a graduate education by working for Dorothy Kalin.”

In the summer of 1985, Turner joined the staff of Metropolitan Home magazine. After five years, Turner moved to New Orleans, then to Dallas doing freelance work, but maintaining a connection to Metropolitan Home. A few years later, Turner remembers, “I woke up one morning and said, ‘I love publishing. Why did I leave NY?’” He reached out to the new editor in chief and quickly resumed his position with Metropolitan Home for two more years. He then served four years as style director, helping to revive Conde Nast’s House & Garden, which had been closed for a period of time.

During the first Internet bubble, Turner left print publishing to work for a digital incubator firm on a travel website called Room 12. There he found the company reinvented the business plan every week, because of competition from newly launched Expedia and Travelocity. After a year the website shut down. His take-away from the experience was discovering the power of collaboration between editorial and business in publishing.

Turner’s pivotal choice was to return to magazines, founding a local, high-quality home and design magazine for a micro-audience — specifically the resort communities of the Hamptons on Long Island. It was a busy four years, launching two more magazines, spin-offs from the first, in three years.

“I’m very proud to say those magazines still exist,” Turner said.

The look and style of the work he was doing caught the attention of House Beautiful. In 2006, Turner was hired as style director to resuscitate the ailing publication.

“It took just two years to turn the business around to a profitable state, and House Beautiful turns 120 next year,” Turner said.

In 2010, he was promoted to editor-in-chief.

Looking at the fluid movement in Turner’s career, Norton observed, “He advanced from one position to the next, and now he’s a major player at the Hearst Corporation. His gift is graphics and visuals. He’s just so astute. He learned the whole business. And yet, when you talk to him, he’s just like he was as a student. You’d never know he was a major player in the magazine business. A humble guy. Comes from a distinguished Delta family in Belzoni, Mississippi, the Catfish Capital.

It’s really neat to see somebody become a leader in his profession by hard work and by being really smart. Didn’t get there just by being somebody’s friend. Here’s a guy who remembers his roots, cares about his roots, and yet has achieved a great deal, but doesn’t act like he’s a hotshot.”

Husni recalled, “When House Beautiful won the General Excellence Award under Newell’s leadership, I got a text message as he walked toward the stage. ‘Thank you, Dr. Husni. It all started in your class.’ I don’t think there’s a more rewarding moment than that.”

Turner has paid it forward by offering opportunities to Ole Miss students.

“We’ve had some wonderful interns from Ole Miss in the last few years here in my editorial group, some really terrific students,” Turner said. “I will say very proudly they have impressed, if not blown away, my staff with their commitment, diligence and professionalism.”

“He’s mentored a lot of Ole Miss students who have come after him,” Husni said. “In fact, his latest hire was Clint Smith, editor-in-chief of Veranda, who also was one of my students.”

After orchestrating a core reorganization at Hearst, Turner now serves as group editorial director overseeing House Beautiful, Elle Decor, Veranda, Country Living, and this year, relaunching Metropolitan Home magazine, which had been closed for five years.

Turner’s world has come full circle.

“It’s exciting because I really love that creative collaboration between the editorial side and the business side and making what we do — treating it like a business, but also treating it like an art form which is what I believe magazine-making is. There’s a way to do the two things together that can be very successful, and I like to think that’s where we are today.”

For questions or comments email [email protected].

The post Meek School Magazine: Newell Turner – Raised To Be A Rebel appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

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shawnallenblog · 7 years

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Walk softly and carry a loaded brush: My first strokes -- with a Legend.

I believe it was the Fall of 2005 when I made the trip to the Mayan Riviera of Mexico. On a random afternoon I found myself walking through the marketplace in the downtown of Playa del Carmen when I stumbled across the studio of Jamie Fierro Duran, a complete stranger in every way, or so I thought. Something special was going to happen that day. Little did I know at the time, I had come across one of the world's most revered artists. Born in the region of Temuco, Chile, in 1945 Jaime arrived in Mexico in 2002. Inés Garcia-Ramirez has best described him and his work,

"Undoubtedly Jaime Fierro´s practice of Plastic Arts inspires an energized painting geared towards a dynamic spectator. Expressionism is an obligated streak of the artist, an ideological stance that also manifests for sake of the parameters of knowledge and experience. Thirst of the idealism that is projected in his painting of action, that arises from the desire to express his world through infinite and visceral emotions, which call the ravages of the human soul of the unprotected into question. It is from there, that all fundamental structure of forms are marked with a masterful tonality and defined with lines that give strength and character to his work. His characters are illuminated by a faint onslaught of earth-tone layers. His brushstrokes offer space to a succession of forms in constant motion, expressed through a mixture of sensibility, passion and originality, constituting in this way an unmistakable seal of this unmatched artist who offers us his peculiar point of view, expressed in each canvas. With each streak, Jaime Fierro suggests, indicates, marks and punctuates a valid reality that remains pure and unforgettable. "

I doubt anyone could have molded truth regarding Jamie's work into better words.

On a beautiful tropical afternoon, unknowing of what was about to occur, I was escorted by a lovely woman, who I assumed was his wife, to a solitary metal folding chair in a room with a large blank canvas perched upon an easel in the center of a rustic studio. Shortly thereafter, a diminutive gentle man entered the room from a side door, nodded a polite hello and stepped toward the canvas. It was quite obvious, something special was about to go down.

Jamie's craft first develops its delicious nondescript golden rusty base on the canvas and then it grows into an entity reaching out and grabbing you by the throat. There is something wrenching and primitive about his work that is undeniable. His work is striking, moving, impacting and most certainly dimensional. Having never seen a piece of true art develop from a blank canvas and evolve into a final piece that speaks, better yet -- reaches and screams through the pigments toward your soul, was an experience to say the least. Suddenly things started to make sense to me, on several levels. This process seemed remotely possible, I had dreams, perhaps better put -- urges from deep within -- this just seemed remotely possible.

It is my best guess that there is a moment in everyone's life, if one is lucky or perhaps better said, receptive, when something smacks you upside the cranium and makes a proverbial dent in our waking consciousness -- rattling something free that has been stuck like the last aspirin in a pill bottle. For me that very day, spending a few hours in a hard steel chair, sweat trickling down my back, watching a diminutive man lose himself in earth-toned pigments, something awakened. Recalling the frittered experiences I had as a school boy, much of the time secretly doodling in my work-study books, I suddenly felt a deep curiosity and excitement about what happened that warm afternoon. Perhaps, I thought, had I a morsel of this magic in me ? Do we all ? Was this what I was always searching for, that yearning from deep within that had no voice, no face, just a soft persistent prodding at the spirit ? Is this what we all feel at times when we are trying to find our way in life, our deep inner passion, the missing link? Was this a piece of me struggling to be born, scratching through the programming we all undergo while inmates of "the system"? You know what I mean - go to school, follow the rules, goto college, study a solitary career, get a job, get married, have a family, follow more rules, pay your taxes, retire, and then wait for the end to come. Is this perhaps something that is, in fact, in all of us , these things that are never borne for lack of opportunity or suppression ? From that day forward, even until the moment of these typed words, I have seen things in life differently -- people, writing, faces, photos, light, shadows, movement. How can that come from a 2 hour visual experience just observing a process ?

There was not a lick of common verbal language between Jaime and myself that day and I certainly doubt he knew that he had triggered something in me. I did not have the $ 5000 for the piece that his wife propositioned me for, later learning it was probably the deal of the decade had I only known who's presence I was sharing. I had witnessed something special --looking back, it marked a moment, a beginning. I still remember that day like it was yesterday, and when someone will listen, I share that day and that moment. Although I do not have that painting, it has never left me in many ways -- I think about it all the time. That afternoon Jamie, his wife and I shared something, and parted with a smile and handshake. It was a firm handshake that I purposefully let linger, one that I made sure was partnered with a grateful locked gaze, one that for me said thank you deeper than he was ever likely to know. Some moments in life truly mean something more, they leave a mark, a deep beautiful keloidal scar on our brief life. This is the good stuff in life, a deep etching on the soul.

It is because of Jaime that the art I have come to love, the paintings, the sculptures and the photographs, are the ones that I do not quite understand. What I mean is that I do not understand their draw to me, or maybe it is my draw to them. There is a lingering in the eyes, in the mind, these things of beauty that upon our departure make us turn around one final time to capture one more final glance, in the hopes of a more permanent engraving. There is that thing about them that makes them different from the others, that thing that makes one stop, and look harder, longer, stretching out time in the hopes of soaking their goodness deep within us forever more. Personally, I do not know what makes them so, what moves me about a certain piece, but this is part of my journey I suppose, and those are stories for another day.

Thank you Jaime . . . where ever you are my friend, I raise my brush to you in gratitude, one loaded with the finest of royal pigments, unearthed many ages ago and worthy of only the most revered Mayan Gods.

- Shawn

________________

Below are 2 more photos and a link to Jamie Fierro Duran's amazing work. Things far more moving than my amateur photos here. * Start by clicking here.

Albeit unfinished, here is the painting I saw evolve from nothing, on that special day. Me and Jamie. With deep gratitude Sir.

#jaime fierro #jaime #mentor #jamie fierro duran #painting