#there’s been so much discourse surrounding this that I finally needed to weigh in

[advocaado]

Fiction does not exist in a vacuum and absolutely can and does affect reality.

HOWEVER

Before you pin on your thought police badge and march off to start attacking people on the internet for the media they consume and create, let’s take a minute to talk about nuance and identify some actual problematic trends in media which have real life consequences.

The big question you need to ask yourself before you decry a person or piece of media is: Is that person/piece of media promoting, validating, and normalizing trends or acts that hurt real people? Or is that person/piece of media exploring a dark theme in fiction/harmlessly indulging in a kink?

Below are some examples of cases where “problematic” content in fiction is a danger to real life people, and many where it isn’t. This will not be an exhaustive list. I don’t have endless amounts of time to sit here and talk about every problem in fictional media, and even if I did, I wouldn’t, because there are many more things I’d rather do with my time.

Disclaimer: No media is 100% problem free. No human is 100% problem free. Engaging with others online to discuss problems in media is totally fine. If you don’t like something, it’s your god given right to bitch about it. Bitch to your heart’s content. Just don’t be an absolute ass cloak about it.

Example 1: Huckleberry Finn

This book famously contains racism. Is this a problem? No, not really. Listen. This book is literally about how racism is bad. The message is to not be a racist piece of shit. That’s the takeaway. If you got any other message from this book you need to work on your reading comprehension. Books that teach lessons are good things and impact society in positive ways. This book does literally the opposite of normalizing, promoting, and validating racism. It’s taught in schools for this exact reason. It’s not sugarcoated and that’s exactly what makes it powerful.

Example 2: Fairy Tail

The famous complaint about this and other works by Hiro Mashima is that the women are overly sexualized. Over sexualization of women is a big problem in media across the globe, but particularly in the media that comes out of Japan. It’s a problem that absolutely does affect real women. More on that later. But is Mashima really the big perpetuater of the kind of gross male reader voyeurism that has such a fierce grip on the anime industry? Actually, no. Not really. Yes, almost all the female characters in Fairy Tail are hot and have big boobs in a way that appeals to men. However, the lens through which Mashima tells his stories is not voyeuristic. He doesn’t go out of his way to draw panty shots or sexualize female characters nonconsensually. 9 times out of 10 the women are sexy because they want to be and do it in a way that is empowering for them. There are occasional exceptions, but by and large Fairy Tail is not the big offender of female objectification in anime. Moreover, almost all its male characters are hot and have six packs and idol hair in a way that appeals to women. Everyone is hot. There is no deeper meaning here. Enjoy this series if you like to watch hot people having fun and going on adventures together.

Example 3: Goblin Slayer

Oh, boy, Goblin Slayer. Now here’s a can of worms. Many upon many have decried GS for its inclusion of rape scenes and mentions. The goblins in GS have no females of their own species so they must impregnate human women to continue their race. This sounds utterly awful and it is. But is this finally our shining example of a dark theme in fiction that is problematic in a way that is dangerous to real people? Sorry, but no. Firstly, the concept of a fantasy creature who needs to use humans to reproduce was not invented by Kumo Kagyu and is in fact common in folklore around the world. He didn’t make it up as a way to condone rape. Could he have? Sure. But that’s not the reality of the series. The assault by goblins on human women is not treated as a good thing by Kagyu. It is shocking and horrific and has big consequences within the narrative for both the goblins and their victims. It isn’t treated lightly and does not serve to normalize, validate, or promote rape in real life. The reader/viewer is meant to be disgusted by the goblins, and these scenes, which are few and brief, serve their intended purpose. Nobody is going out and assaulting women in real life because they thought it was cool when the goblins did it in GS.

Oh, but Goblin Slayer, I’m not done with you just yet. Because while it would be a huge stretch to label the inclusion of rape in the series a danger to real life people, there’s something else that you don’t need to stretch nearly so much to identify as such. Remember when I talked about the voyeuristic male gaze being a concerning trend in anime? Well, GS has that in spades. The normalization of sexually objectifying women in non sexual situations is very much present in the series. Describing in loving detail the chest size/shape of every female character often and with gusto is a big part of the light novels. Kagyu loves to describe what a girl’s boobs are doing while she’s sitting at a table eating or doing any other mundane thing for no reason other than to sexualize her for the reader. He made the intentional decision to make Sword Maiden, a rape victim, very overtly sexual for the male gaze without the character having any agency in it. Sword maiden isn’t trying to be sexy. She doesn’t own her sexuality. Hell, she’s blind. Being sexy doesn’t empower her. She’s just fap fodder for the male reader. These things normalize objectifying women and are part of a longtime trend in anime which have real world consequences for both women and men. The sexualization of nonconsenting women is a huge problem in Japan and very much promoted through their media. Anime and light novels continue to send and perpetuate the message that objectifying women is okay and natural for boys to do, and while Kagyu certainly isn’t the worst offender, he’s happily hopped aboard that trolly because he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. And he can’t, because it’s been SO normalized.

Example 4: The Birth of a Nation.

This movie, while entirely fictional, is straight up anti-black propaganda intentionally made to spread hate and fear of black people. Obviously this is incredibly problematic and harmful to real black people. This movie was designed to be that way. The message is very clear. It’s a movie meant to rally whites against blacks, and it did. Horrifically so. Typically media containing hateful messages is less overt about it today, but abusing stereotypes and caricatures of real groups of people and otherwise intentionally perpetuating harmful ideas through fiction is a shitty thing to do and should be wholeheartedly condemned. (Note the keyword “intentionally”. If an author does this out of ignorance, which is all too common, rather than condemn we should seek to educate. People are capable of learning and growing and canceling them for mistakes made in ignorance is every bit as shitty as the mistake they made in the first place.)

Example 5: Fanfiction and shipping

At last, we come to fan media. This is where “don’t like don’t read” becomes the golden rule. Indulging in a kink or exploring dark themes in fanfiction is harmless 99.9% of the time. Fanfiction simply doesn’t have the reach, and thereby the influence, that mainstream media has. If someone wants to write something really fucked up, that’s their choice and nobody is making you read it. Unless the author is outright condoning harming real people, it’s really not your business what they choose to write about. Furthermore, deciding to read fucked up fanfiction does NOT make you a bad person. As stated before, the human psyche is messy and the world is not squeaky clean or a safe place. People are drawn to dark things and there’s really nothing wrong with that so long as real people aren’t being harmed. If something makes you uncomfortable, don’t engage. Protect yourself. You’re not making the world a better place by harassing people online. You’re just being a jerk and honestly doing far more harm to real ass people than that 20 year old writer on AO3 who wanted to write a story about Sasuke having sex with Naruto’s son because of 10 years of repressed sexual impulses toward Naruto.

I could say more but I’m tired and ready to celebrate my Friday by getting drunk. Feel free to interact if you want, just do everyone a favor and don’t be a dick.

TLDR

Things that make you a bad person:

Murdering people

Sexually assaulting/harassing people

Having sex with children

Creating or indulging in porn of real minors

Harassing and sending death threats to real people over the fictional media they create and consume

Espousing, condoning, or perpetuating hate toward marginalized peoples

Espousing, condoning, or perpetuating hate toward anyone tbh

Using fiction as a vehicle to promote, validate, and normalize causing harm to real people

Generally being an ass cloak

Things that DON’T make you a bad person

Consuming media that contains problematic elements

Creating media that contains problematic elements so long as you aren’t promoting, validating, and normalizing harmful acts toward real people

Writing fanfiction

Reading fanfiction

Shipping whatever you goddamn want to ship

#there’s been so much discourse surrounding this that I finally needed to weigh in #pro ship #we’re allergic to nuance here #tumblr I love you but

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 325 Spoiler Analysis: United As One

The week has passed and so has summer.  Damn...  At least Shonen Jump’s got my back.  And Deku is finally welcome home thank god.  Now, give this kid a damn good meal, sleep, and a motherfreaking bath already.  NGL, this week has been busy for me and I’m tired AF, so I think I’ll only go over the parts that stuck out to me:

Man, god bless Kota for running up to Izuku to help him!  This kid has been through so much yet he still decided to run up to Izuku to help him.  He’s sobbing his eyes out too 😭.  I’m pretty sure he’s apologizing for not moving during the Muscular fight (in Kota’s defense, Izuku would’ve probably died if not for Kota) and he’s telling Izuku that “I am here” (OF COURSE HE SAYS THOSE WORDS) so Izuku doesn’t need to cry anymore.  And to top it all off, Kota calls Izuku “Nii-chan” which I’m pretty sure means older brother 😭❤️ If Horikoshi brings Eri in next week, I’m going to cry waterfalls dammit

The Fox Lady is so kind and pretty dammit Horikoshi give her a name already!  She’s so happy to see Deku again and thanks him for saving her.  Even calls him “Mr. Crybaby Hero” 😭  The way she picks him up like a small child is both sweet and funny too ☺️ I await the fanart!

A-AND THEN SHE AND KOTA HUG DEKU 😭💚💚💚💚

On a more serious note, the Fox Lady mentions that she got rejected from a lot of evacuation centers because they don’t accept mutant types like her.  Of course discrimination still exists in this world.  Of freakin’ course.  Just like in the real world...  And considering that Horikoshi mentioned that Shoji would have a role in the future and also show his face finally in some interviews (Horikoshi also teased that he wanted to give Shoji a bigger story YEARS ago), I have a feeling this subject will be brought up again in the future.

The Old Star Man from the first chapter/episode who encourages Deku to be a hero returns this chapter to give a big speech to the crowd.  This guy is a real one ✊.  Basically, he says that the crowd needs to shut up and understand what’s going on for a hot minute.  That everyone projected All Might’s “Perfect Heroness” onto the every other hero that they all forgot that Heroes are just people at the end of the day.  If the people don’t support the heroes still fighting now, they’re screwed.  Ultimately, it’s the civilians who have to save the heroes when they’re hurting.  Not just other heroes.  Horikoshi, please give this man a name too, he’s long deserved it.

Then the boy in the All Might shirt who’s been protesting for the past 2 chapters says something reasonable for once.  His views on Deku have been mixed around thanks to all the things that have been rumored about Deku on the internet and word of mouth.  Which kinda justifies his anger and doubt, but he still should’ve have been a jerk to Deku and Ochako.  

Deku finally speaks a full sentence declaring that he and his friends and mentors will make everything ok again.  I can’t wait to see that promise be fulfilled, my son 💚

We change focus to Shoto, Endeavor, and Hawks (who are confirmed to have been outside the barrier for the past few chapters; I was wondering about that).  They’re finally being allowed into UA for now.  Unfortunately the 3 of them probably would’ve caused more discourse if they entered while the civilians were rioting.  Endeavor and Hawks from the press release and just Shoto existing really.  Please let them stay there permanently.  

Gotta say that Endeavor looks so freaking tired throughout this whole thing.  The Toya thing + The Deku thing must be weighing extremely heavy on him.  I do feel bad for him honestly.  

Hawks tells Endeavor how OFA has, in a way, connected everyone together.  All Might to Deku to Class 1-A back to Deku to Ochako to the people.  And if the people can truly care for others, then the future will be bright and heroes will have all the time in the world just like Hawks wanted at the very beginning of his story.

There’s this really beautiful double page spread (teased in one of Vol. 31′s extras) of the civilians offering their umbrellas to the kids.  Kirishima’s crying happy tears, Kota and Mineta are running up to Deku, the All Might Shirt dude is offering Deku his umbrella, Kaminari is smacking Bakugo over the head 😂, Iida’s holding Deku’s hand to guide him, and INKO FINALLY GETS TO BE WITH HER SON THANK THE LORD 💚😭 

Shoto 💙 Our resident pretty boy is looking at this scene and ultimately decides that he and Endeavor are going to stop Dabi together.  He decided this before back in the hospital, but I think his decision is more final here.  I really need him to properly reunite with Deku though and I’m sure they have A LOT to talk about.

AND WE FINALLY GET TO PROPERLY SEE AIZAWA AFTER GOD KNOWS HOW LONG AND HE’S SO HANDSOME 🖤 MY MAN IS LOOKING GOOD WITH AN EYEPATCH?!?  And he does have a prosthetic robot leg and apparently Mirko does too.  God, he looks so tired, but he’s so proud of his kids Imma cry again 😭

Anyway, it’s looks like he’s still recovering from the war in the hospital and apparently also there to help with the whole Kurogiri situation, who’s been transferred to a research lab.  It seems like Aizawa’s trying to bring back Shirakumo somehow.  If they do, I wonder if Shirakumo will even still be alive.  We can assume that he might still be alive since he did tell the Heroes about the hospital, but it’s uncertain.  It would be nice to have that sweet soul back 🌤

Also, the Heroes are aware that Himiko Toga’s still out there and they’re taking extra persuasions to make sure she isn’t one of the refugees.  They also know her limits too, so that’s good.

The last panel is of All Might standing outside of UA, but his back is turned against them.  He has this uncertain look on his face too.  I honestly can’t read it for the life of me.  I gotta wonder why he isn’t walking in there now that everything seems to be ok.  Maybe he doesn’t want to accidentally cause more problems?  The public did start to hate him with the whole “I Am Not Here” sign on his statue in Kamino...  Deku does need him though.  Ugh, I’m so worried for this man.

And I do have a theory.  It’s a long shot and a dark one: What if Toga found Stain while running off and they teamed up together.  Then Stain found and took All Might captive and Toga took some of All Might’s blood to transform into him and now she’s the one outside of UA.  I can’t say if All Might is dead or not.  I really, really, REALLY, don’t want him to be dead.  Stain says that All Might is the only one truly worthy of being a Hero, so I doubt he would actively kill All Might.  But, god there’s so many death flags surrounding this man.  I don’t even know if he’s going to make it through the entire series tbh.

The end chapter teaser says “The rain continues on...” so I doubt this pain is over.  We have a bit of a calm, but I am so anticipating the next storm.

Me waiting for even more pain:     

#My Hero Academia Spoilers #Boku No Hero Academia Spoilers #MHA Spoilers #BNHA Spoilers #MHA 325 #BNNHA 325 #the calm before the storm #Deku #Izuku Midoriya #All Might #Toshinori Yagi #Eraserhead #Shota Aizawa #Shoto #Shouto #Shoto Todoroki #Shouto Todoroki #Kota #Kota Izumi #Kurogiri #Oboro Shirakumo #this was nice #but I'm prepared for pain #bring it on #Kohei Horikhoshi #analysis #written analysis

[elizabeth-234]

The Supplejack

Previous Chapter Eighteen: Existing

Chapter Nineteen: A Phone Call 

As the weeks passed, Peter struggled in vain against the extra workload of his sophomore year classes. The balance between work, school, friends, and himself was everchanging, ever in threat of tipping off the edge of the proverbial blade. Though the latter was pushed to the side with increasing frequency and his bed was becoming more of a rare luxury much to his dismay.

The tub of tabouli, hummus, and carrots sat uneaten in front of him while Mike explained again why the discourse surrounding the new Firefly show was important to their group and the larger culture abroad.

“It’s a western in space, guys, how can you not like it? Plus, Nathan Fillion is working it. You know he’s damn charming.” 



“It’s basically a soap opera and you know it.” Midge said, arms crossed in front of them.

Mike sputtered and Ned stepped in before anyone else would get more offended. Still pouting his lips, Mike turned away from them and started shoveling down his lunch. Midge just sighed. Peter shifted in his seat wondering if he should say anything when Ned bumped shoulders with him.

“You okay?”

He forced a smile on his face. Ned waited for an answer, his eyes open and earnest. The expression made something in Peter’s chest ache. This bitter tug nestled down behind his ribs. Ned was dragged along in all of this. What started as befriending a lone boy in an empty classroom had turned into trying to gather intel from two of the biggest corporations in the world. Still, his friend was right there for him, ready and unfailingly patient with a smile.

“Want to hang out this weekend?” Peter asked instead of answering the question.

He wanted to do something. To have fun and get out of the house for once. His work shifts were pretty stacked up but it was worth it to rearrange them. Ned agreed if his answering smile was any indication.

“Yeah, dude. There’s this cool exhibit downtown about brainwashing. Maybe weird but it could be cool.”

“Sounds fun.” He said.

“Yeah, they get all these big companies to put something together. I’m surprised you know who didn’t do it. I hear Oscorp is holding one in the fall.”


Peter rubbed his chest. The cafeteria noise rushed toward him. All the laughter and words and echoes pressed against him, weighing down. His smile felt wobbly to him but hoped it came off as sincere.  

“We’ll have to check the one this weekend out.”

-

Ten hours later, Peter sat at his desk. His head resting in the crux of his arms crossed on the scattered papers and notebooks. He shifted in the chair and tried not to think about the coming week. The to-do list was somewhere in the mess under him. Every bullet point added another reason his headache was growing at an alarming rate.

One of the pages peaked out from under the curve of his elbow. The model car on it was dissected into the median and coronal planes showcasing all the guts. Why was he tinkering with it after all this time? No one would see it now. Red marks, newly etched into the paper some sleepless night would probably never leave this room let alone the top of his desk unless it was carried through the trash.

The thought of acknowledging he was finally abandoning the project left him gripping onto the papers tight in his palms. Even all these months later, Peter found himself tweaking their project and trying to improve upon it. Lee, the head intern, had said she was always available. Maybe he could email it over and then she could send it onto whoever her boss was? The chain of command wasn’t something he was entirely familiar with but eventually it had to land in his hands.

His phone buzzed.

Out of habit, Peter flipped it upside-down without looking to see who it was from. He tapped his finger against the wood until the sound stopped. He only just managed to sigh when the buzzing started again.

Phone calls were the worst. He hated answering the phone, hated talking over people and not seeing their facial expressions, and hated how goodbyes were always awkward. Above all he hated the way he could never talk in a coherent manner. Always felt like he was overstepping or worse in some people’s eyes, being too quiet.

Phone calls from anyone besides May were trouble. His aunt was in the living room so that meant it was bad. He could be expelled from Midtown or one of his friends could be hurt. Ned’s hands bloody. Julia’s heart stopping. Flash’s chest not rising anymore. Peter’s chest throbbed at the images. With sweaty hands he grabbed his phone off the desk and looked at the ID.

It was from an unknown number.

His thumb hovered over the green button as it rang but he didn’t answer.

If he didn’t answer it was easier to pretend nothing was wrong. The worry barely concealed by his expression was better left unfounded. He kept reading through one of his source books on mechanical engineering but the words held no meaning. His eyes kept returning to the flip phone sitting all innocent inches away from his hand.

His fingers twitched and the phone rang again.

Peter breathed in deeply before flipping it over. He read the number over again. Tried to memorize the digits quickly as if they would hold some significance the longer they were in his mind. The ringing continued and continued for what felt like forever.  

His Uncle Ben came to mind. Without letting him linger for too long again, he flipped his phone open and pressed enter. The other side of the call was silent. There was no breathing or anything to indicate someone was there.

“Hello?” The crack in his voice echoed in his ears.

“Am I speaking to Peter?”

The voice was smooth - pristine in its cadence and rhythm. Unlike his own, the words were spoken with no hesitancy or irregular pitch. There never was, either. It was a voice Peter would recognize anywhere. Hearing them say his name now made him realize how much he missed them. It was a strange thought considering. How could he miss a voice so much?

He scowled. It wasn’t fair to minimize Friday to that of just their voice.

“Fr - Friday? I…How did you get this number?”

There was another pause. Peter wished he’d said something else instead of beginning with such a sharp tone. He could’ve asked how they were doing or greeted them with enthusiasm. Instead the panic from earlier manifested in more of a bark. Heat flooded from his neck up to his ears.

“I have scanned through the Stark databases and found this number on Boss’s phone.” He couldn’t help it. Peter laughed throwing a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound. Friday’s silence was enough to confirm they heard but it didn’t dampen his smile.

This was Friday he was talking to. Peter couldn’t believe it and if the smile on his face was wide and almost made his cheeks hurt, he could almost forget about everything else.

“You stole my number from Mr. Stark’s phone?”

“Peter, as I said I scanned...”

“You did! Friday, I can’t believe it. Wait, is everything okay? Did something happen? Is … Mr. Sta- everyone’s okay, right? I mean you don’t have to tell me anything but is everyone…”

“Everyone’s fine. I’m sorry to have made you worry. I would also like to apologize for keeping silent. I called you friend once but haven’t acted in accordance to what constitutes that bond.”

Peter’s neck burned. Friday’s voice sounded as hesitant as Peter felt and he was glad, for once, he wasn’t in the Tower so they couldn’t hear his heartbeat pounding in his chest.

“No need to apologize. I just assumed when I left…”

“That has no bearing on it. There were other factors. Some I can talk about some I can’t.”

“Is, is this why you called? What can you talk about?”

Peter imagined Friday was taking a large breath in from the gap between answer and question. His heart, already beating far too fast for a regular school night, increased its speed.  

“You need to come back to the Tower, Peter.”

His ears filled with cotton inducing a fuzzy ringing. It grew louder and louder until he found himself leaning his forehead against the desk. The phone rested where it fell on the table by his clenched hand. He scooped it up despite the trembling in his digits and brought the phone to his ear again.

“Friday?” He rasped out.

“You need to come back to the Tower. There are matters here that would… benefit from your presence.”

There were too many pauses in the sentence and a million phrases flowing through his mind in response. Following on his immediate responses were a plethora of images of the Tower. He conjured filled hospital beds, condemned signs, and most haunting, empty rooms. The worry gnawed at his stomach not caring about Friday’s reassurances. Something had to be wrong. Why else would Friday contact him? It had been months.

There was nothing more he wanted, but all he managed to say was, “I can’t.”

The pain it would bring was all too easy to think about. He’d had a taste of it at the finale internship presentations. The sheer amount of people buzzing with excitement was enough to dull the awkward hurt but Peter couldn’t forget how hard it was to breath once he was in the Tower again. The familiarity burned at his throat. What was a safe haven reduced to just some place he used to know had hurt more than he was willing to say out loud.

Friday wanted him to go back there after everything. No awards or parties would be there to distract. He would have to walk down the hallways and see the beautiful skyline only glimpsed at that height. He would have to see Mr. Stark.

What would he say? What would he do?

“I can’t work on the project anymore, Peter.”

It was devastating in its simplicity. A twist of the metaphorical knife Peter had never even felt embedded in his side. It was a rope taken away as his head sunk swiftly under water. All the progress he’d made even if he didn’t realize it, was gone in the moment those words were said.

Mr. Stark was clear. Final.

At the time there were a thousand words he’d wanted to say but then and now it didn’t seem right. Now, the sense of betrayal no longer stung because it didn’t matter that Mr. Stark knew all about the Weaver and Oscorp. In the end, no amount of explaining or conversation would fix anything because there was nothing to fix.

The steps he took through the door were some of the hardest in his life. His surreptitious glance back resulted in seeing Mr. Stark bowed and facing away from him. The frightened look crossing over his face before hardly seemed to matter in the face of those words. It told Peter all he needed to know. Peter wasn’t wanted. Who wanted to look after a confused teenager? His time there was over.

Or so, he thought.

Months and months passed and now Friday was on the other end like nothing happened. Was there an option besides declining?

He would have thought Friday didn’t know what happened but that was impossible. They knew basically everything that happened in the Tower. It could be some misplaced urge to help Peter. It didn’t make sense. Despite their reassurances, he couldn’t help but worry something was the matter and despite his caution, Peter was curious.

Still, he repeated the two words again. They sounded more like a plea than a decision.

“What you are saying is you won’t not that you can’t. I know you only have one job and the owner has already given permission. I’m asking with sincerity. I need your help…. We need your help.”

Peter took his time to exhale. He stared at the phone in his hands, tracing Friday’s number with his eyes.

He thought of all the reasons not to go back. But the latest realization barged forward. It was with surprising ease that Peter thought about all the help Mr. Stark had thrown his way. All of the encouragement and kindness he showed without Peter even understanding what was happening.

The question wasn’t if he wanted to go back. He would always want to go back. The Tower in a way had grown to be his home. A safe space he never felt drained from after being there. No one expected anything more than Peter could give and the peace of working there, flexing his mind and being with people who understood him was intoxicating.

He could admit to himself he wanted to say yes without thinking despite every reason to say no. He had to be cautious about this, he decided. Peter had to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt like before. That no one would get hurt.

“Friday, you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

Only when he knew could Peter go back. Only then would Peter step foot in the Tower again.

Enjoy!

Next Chapter Twenty: 

#peter parker #irondad #peter parker fanfic #irondad fanfic #ao3 #Shy Peter #the supplejack

[jacscorner]

My Hero Academia Drama...is usually pretty funny.

Maybe it's just a byproduct of the digital era, since everyone with a smart fridge can spew their opinions for everyone to see, but it seems like every month, there's a new drama poking out of the ground.

I never talked about any of it before cause I felt it wasn't really worth talking about. And, honestly, if I got on my soap box to talk about every little piece of fandom discourse in the MHA fandom, this would become a MHA Blog. But this one is just so funny that I gotta talk about it.

Because it revolves around this fucker. XD

Spoilers ahead. I don't care, but you might.

Also, finally, discourse I, as a bi-man, can actually weigh in on. XD

For the uninitiated, here's a brief summary: Minoru Mineta, AKA the Fresh-Picked Hero: Grape Juice, is everyone's least favorite character. His primary personality is that he's a pervert. Hell, he wants to be a hero to get girls. He's the Class 1-A Joke Character, or at least, Horikoshi-Sama's favorite joke character with how much screen time he gets.

Personally, Mineta isn't anywhere close to my Top 10 Characters, but he has grown on me. I'm usually annoyed by him myself when he gets prominent time on screen and not, like, Sero or Kirashima, but I will admit that I've grown to enjoy his time on screen.

Especially when his perverted actions bite him in the ass. That's his purpose in this series: a concentration of perverted joke that, more often than not, gets his comeuppance. You don't gotta like the joke, and I wouldn't blame you for not liking it, but that's what it is.

Now fast forward to this panel from the latest chapter of the manga.

I don't got a lot of the context for whatever's going on, but basically, Deku's snapped and his classmates are trying to knock some sense into him...I think, I don't know, I'm not reading the manga. I'm busy reading Hajime no Ippo.

And this is the source of the drama. More specifically, the line "I fell for you when you were scared and sweating bullets..." Everyone is either calling Mineta gay or bi and are furious that this is the LGBT+ representative in this manga confirmed by Horikoshi, the character literally everyone hates but may very well be the mangaka's pet character.

Actually, I seem to see two kinds of people surrounding this drama: people who flip the script and are happy for Mineta coming out or people raging about how this is 'setting gay people back'.

Somehow, I feel these are the same people thinking Catradora didn't do that. You know, the couple that spent 4 seasons of one physically and mentally abusing the other and all we really got for it was an 11th hour kiss.

I mean, I guess first things first: Mineta is probably not gay. You know, cause his entire character is him being a lech. Sure, it's certainly plausible Mineta was overcompensating being straight to hide being gay, but somehow I doubt Mineta of all characters is going to get that kind of development.

Second, I doubt Mineta is even bisexual. Like I said, Mineta's a joke character. The joke is everything with him is sexual. Or did you not catch the name of his special move is 'Mineta Beads'. You know, like anal beads. Or that he calls his grapes his 'sticky balls'.

Do you need him to wear make-up and shoes? Mineta's a fucking clown!

Hell, I don't think it's too unreasonable to think that Horikoshi is fully aware of the shipping community and wrote this line deliberately to mess with them.

And, while actually writing this, some translators have thrown out that the original Japanese text implies that Mineta greatly admires and respects Deku, rather than just a full-on attraction.

But, you know, let's say that Mineta is bisexual, if not just straight out gay and has been deep in the closet and only came out for his crush's sake.

1. Jiro is right there.

2. Kirashima is over there.

But seriously, it's just kind of pathetic. If you like Mineta now because you can look at the text and say he's bisexual, then you're shallow. Cause you're not liking the character for who he is. You're liking him cause now he's "one of us", like this is some kind of cult and we have to all like each other.

And if you hate Mineta and don't want him as an icon of the community cause he's problematic, then you're seeing the forest for the rocks and not the damn trees. I'm saying that as someone who only mildly enjoys Mineta, but Mineta does have some good qualities. He's smart, resourceful, good with his Quirk even if it's not that strong of a Quirk, and he's honest with himself. He knows who he is, and he knows that he only wants to be a Hero for a very selfish desire; to pick up chicks! That is some mad chad energy!

Granted, it's coming from the least chad character in this series, but I digress.

I guess the TL;DR is: this entire drama is dumb and this fandom is so superficial. Hate him if you want, like him if you want, but this is just really freakin' silly all over something that's, at best, just a joke, and at worst, something that was unintended by Horikoshi

#JAC Chat #JAC Analysis #My Hero Academia #Bisexual

[firelord-frowny]

obligatory disclaimer that this post is ENTIRELY based on my own perceptions of my own experiences, and may or may not be true to a broader degree. 

anyway, Weight Stuff under the cut. also LMFAO this post is long as SHIT lmfaoooo and it doesn’t even end with the topic i meant for it to be about. 

Sooooo, i’ve always very loudly been on Team Mind-Your-Business-About-Other-People’s-Bodies, and i still am, and i am ALWAYS down to (usually gently) call out someone who’s overstepping their boundaries as far as other people’s bodies and lifestyles go, blah blah, and i am KEEEENLY aware of the damage people cause with fatphobia, and that rhetoric surrounding ~diet and exercise~ is almost ALWAYS malicious in terms of hyperfocusing on “ugly fat” and shaming people into feeling horrible enough about theirselves that they pay out the ass for Quick Fixes, and there’s almost 0 focus on The Actual Health Benefits of a healthy lifestyle other than just Maybe Being Slimmer. 

But alsoooooooooooooooooooooo???

i’ve always felt like, because of all that shit, it’s so difficult for me to feel comfortable talking about my own body and my own habits and my own shortcomings and my own goals. like, i DO feel bothered by the weight I’ve gained recently. NOT because it makes me feel ugly - i don’t feel ugly at all. i literally almost always feel beautiful lmao. NOT because i’m worried about how other people see me - i don’t have relationships with people who would give someone a hard time about their weight in the first place, and beyond that, i’m generally unconcerned with what people think of my appearance. 

the thing that bothers me is that i KNOW my weight gain has been the result of unhealthy lifestyle choices. i’ve always eaten more junkfood than anyone i know, and i’ve always tended to eat VERY few healthy things. so like... that’s bad enough for my health. but i ALSO don’t get much physical activity. and then covid hits and my job is snatched out from under me and i spend most of every day in the same 100 square feet. so like... OF COURSE i gained weight. lots of people did! people gain weight all the time for lots of reasons and nobody should feel bad or guilty about it. 

but for me, even though i don’t see my weight gain as cause to lament about my appearance, i DO see it as an indicator that i’m not taking very good care of myself. i mean, if i’m thinner with a shitty diet, then my thinness kind of allows me to ignore my bad choices because there’s no ~visual~ reminder. i know that’s prolly fucked up, but that’s what’s happening in my head. when i’m thinner, i don’t have to acknowledge that there are going to be consequences for my choices. 

but to SEE my body change as a direct result of crappy diet and no exericse??? it’s really made me see how urgent it is that i start treating myself better RIGHT the fuck now. i mean, i am Young, but i won’t be young forever, and the longer i keep eating garbage and sitting around all day, the sooner i can expect to start having real health issues. and like, heart problems run in my family (as they do in MANY black families). i already have pcos, and that puts me at a higher risk for stuff like that. 

so, it’s been scary to have to face the reality that i’m setting myself up for disaster. 

and i figured that CLEARLY i’ve been unable to get myself on track For Free, so i finally caved and signed up for noom, and i’m down almost 10 pounds already.

and i get on the scale and weigh myself and i feel proud! i feel happy! i feel capable! i feel like i’ve proven to myself that i CAN make better choices. i’m NOT weak-willed. i’m NOT incapable of taking care of myself. 

But then I feel like i shouldn’t say that out loud, or i shouldn’t tell people how glad i am to see the natural result of my healthier choices. 

i’m not glad because i look different - i’m glad because my different look is a sign that i’m succeeding in taking control of my lifestyle. my different look is visual evidence that i’m eating more fruit and whole grains and drinking more water and i’m eating less sugary foods and less meats, and i’m eating healthier portions, and i’m not snacking all day. i can SEE the proof that i’m making choices that are going to give me a better chance at staying healthy throughout my life. 

i’m KINDA exaggerating in that i don’t actually think i LOOK different just yet lmao i feel like i look more or less the same. but i definitely do FEEL some subltle differences. i mean maybe it’s a placebo effect, but i think my forearms are slightly narrower and my bewbs are a bit less... cumbersome lmao. (i SWEAR like half of the weight i’ve gained has been in my boobs alone omfg). 

but idk, i guess what i’m trying to express is that i just... don’t feel comfortable sharing how glad i am about my progress bc most of my social circles are comprised of people who are rightly critical of the way people talk and think about weight loss. i knooooow that most reasonable folks, if i give the Full Explanation about how my gladness is due to the fact that i can see that my lifestyle is changing for the better, would understand and would be happy for me. 

but uhhhh lmao some people Aren’t Reasonable and are committed to having a negative reaction to any statement that seems to exalt thinness in any context at all whatsoever. 

and i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW that a person’s weight is not an automatic indicator of their health, and you can’t assume that a person has Become Healthier just because they’ve lost weight, and you can’t assume that a person has become unhealthier just because they’ve gained it. there are all kinds of reasons for people being whatever size they are, and we can’t make those kinds of judgments about people’s size bc obviously we don’t know their life! we don’t know if they eat veggies and go jogging! we don’t know if a thin person has a cinnabon for breakfast every day or if a fat person is a professional dancer. so like. it’s stoopit to assume anything at all about a person’s health/lifestyle just based on their size. 

BUUUUUUUUUUT!!!! an individual person can make those judgements about their own size and their own health. like, people know why they’re the size that they are, whether it’s genetics or lifestyle or health related. one person who’s super thin knows it’s because they have a fast metabolism. another person who’s thin knows it’s because they starve theirself. another person who’s thin knows it’s because they intentionally make choices that would result in their size. and the same goes for big people! they know if they eat too much junk food, or if they’re just genetically ~meant~ to be their size, blah blah blah. 

so when a person talks about their own weight and how it relates to their own health and their own lifestyle, i feel like it’s Inappropriate to lecture them about how ~it’s okay to be fat, you don’t need to lose weight~ blah blah. bc like... DUH, it’s okay to be fat. whether it’s because of lifestyle or genes, it’s still okay. it’s allowed. and people should be free to feel beautiful and see theirselves as UNCONDITIONALLY valuable and intrinsically worthy of the space they occupy in the universe. If a person actually disparages theirself because of their weight, then sure, you’re probably welcome to tell that person that their size, no matter the reason for it, has no bearing on their worth and that they have the right to feel good about who they are and how they look. 

but if someone says, “you know, it’s really time that i finally started eating right and exercising so i can be healthier and lose weight,” thennnn... i feel like the only appropriate response is to cheer them on and tell them to go for it! if someone knows that their weight is the result of unhealthy habits, and they express a desire to change that, there’s no need to try to tell them that they don’t need to try to change it omfg. 

like... literally everyone needs to eat well and exercise in order to give theirself their best chance at staying in good health. thin people need to eat well and exercise. fat people need to eat well and exercise. they only people who DON’T need to eat well and exercise would be people who are actually physically incapable of rigorous movement or people who are, idk, allergic to most ~healthy~ foods. 

So if someone who’s been eating junk and sitting around tells you that they want to start eating well and exercising... that’s a GOOD THING. 100% of the time. it’s ridiculous to respond to that with a lecture about ~all sizes are beautiful~ and ~you can do whatever you want, you don’t have to Fit The Mold~ like omfg THAT’S NOT THE POOOOOIIIINNNTTTT!!! 

basically, i feel like in the midst of rightly defending fat people’s right to exist as they are, some of the Discourse has inadvertently careened into the absurd territory of actually DISCOURAGING people from making HEALTHY lifestyle changes that would result in weight loss. 

as i’m typing this, it also occurs to me that there seems to be an assumption that anyone who intends to lose weight is planning to do it via extreme but temporary methods like restrictive diets and unsustainably vigorous exercise. 

i feel like some people need to acknowledge that there’s a difference between “i’m only going to eat one meal a day and exercise for 4 hours a day so i can lose 30 pounds before my wedding day,” and “i’m going to lose my excess weight by transitioning to a healthier lifestyle.” the former describes an unhealthy and unsustainable attempt to starve and overwork yourself to lose x amount of pounds that you’re inevitably gonna regain after you go back to your normal habits, and it’s exclusively focused on appearance. like, it CAN’T be about health, because those methods are unhealthy! you don’t get healthy by doing unhealthy things! 

the latter describes a legitimately healthy way of life that can and SHOULD be sustained for a person’s whole life if ptll ossible. there’s no need to try to force your body into a different shape in a short amount of time when you could instead just allow your size to adjust slowly to a permanent and positive lifestyle change. 

but it seems like there’s a knee-jerk reaction to condemn weight loss in any context altogether. 

i under staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand why people might have that attitude and i’m not mad about it. i GET why some people might be hypervigilant about condemning any belief that suggests that being fat is something that a person should be unhappy about, and i don’t want people to stop doing that. 

but i doooooooooooooooooo think that perhaps it’s time that people begin learning to trust other people’s analyses of their own bodies and their own choices and their own goals, and learn to tell when a person’s weight loss is motivated by genuine health reasons, or by social pressure/shame/embarrassment. not everyone who wants to lose weight hates their body. not everyone who wants to lose weight has low self esteem. people can feel fabulous and gorgeous in their current body, and still want to make choices to change it via improving their health.

and like! some people genuinely just don’t WANT to lose weight that they know they’ve gained from unhealthy habits. some people are totally fine with living their life the way they like to live it, and prioritizing their enjoyment of their lifestyle over efferts to prevent future health issues. and that’s their right! and nobody should say shit about it! mind ya business! 

i kinda compare it to like... cave divers, or daredevils, or mountaineers. those are all HELLA dangerous activities that kill or seriously injure a LOT of people. and the people who engage in those activities KNOW this. they KNOW that they’re at a significantly higher risk of premature death compared to people who DON’T do those things, and they know that they could increase the odds of living a log time by Not Doing Those Things. 

but they do it anyway! because they want to! because they think it’s fun! because the enjoyment of the activity is, for them, worth the risk of harm. they’re living a lifestyle that could kill them, but nobody says shit about it. nobody shames them for it. they just accept that people have the right to be cray cray if that’s what they want to do. people might think daredevils are stupid, but they’re not trying to bully them into quitting. 

so if somebody wants to eat a diet comprised of nothing but eating cinnabons 3 times a day every day their whole life, that’s their right! mind ya damn business! if somebody hates exercise enough that they’re okay with the possibility of health problems down the line, then fine! it would be fair to worry about that person and to wish that they’d make differen choices, in the same way that it would be fine for someone to worry about their dearedevil friend and wish that they weren’t a daredevil. but it’s still not grounds to be a dickhead to them. 

[irene-sadler]

Sir Reynard and the Red Knight

1. my usual due diligence b/c some deeply programmed part of my brain can't not cite my sources::

are you interested in reading some secondary source material about the civic government of a medieval city?* or a primary source document listing the personal expenses of Henry VIII between 1529-1532, a line item of which i copied and modified for this chapter? well now u can i guess, go for it.

 *(there's like no easily accessible canon info about what Rivia (the city, not the kingdom or the castle) is like, but after some side reading about other medieval cities it seemed like it should be roughly the size of York vs the size of London or Paris, which were the capitols of much more important kingdoms to irl western Europe than Lyria and Rivia seem to have been to northern Fake Europe. i mean, before Meve more or less single handedly fucked up an entire invasion force and yeeted herself into international fame obviously.)

2. i posted a short scene i cut from this chapter here. 

 ---- 

  7.

    In the days leading up to the fair, a veritable army of men in armor descended on the castle and town surrounding it, spending a mint of money and tearing up the grass of the green outside the wall with ceaseless practices and a few very real fights. The Baroness, who had graciously accepted the Queen’s invitation, became a semi-permanent fixture beside the hastily erected fence surrounding the field. Despite the cold, she spent the short daylight hours observing and offering opinions and guidance. Gascon arrived with a retinue of familiar-looking rogues that drew a dark frown from Reynard and threw himself happily into the endless clashes. The Baroness watched him for most of an afternoon, then in the evening delivered a detailed lecture indicating how and where his technique could be improved, which he cheerily took to heart. The result, according to his tutor, was that he progressed, somewhat, from a reasonable amateur to something like a professional.

     Meve managed to keep her company often enough to hear many of her opinions. She noted bad habits and technical errors in almost all of Meve’s serving knights, with few exceptions; of Sir Odo, she only remarked casually that he yet showed no sign of losing a step, age or prior injuries be damned. She made the unusually enthusiastic comment within earshot of its subject as he offered advice to a young knight he’d unseated; he appeared slightly surprised and rode over, eyebrows raised.

    “Was that a compliment, my lady?” he asked, looming over the two women where they stood by the fence.

    “Would you like it to be?” the Baroness replied, giving no sign either way.

    “Why not?” he said, matching her tone, bowed courteously in his saddle, slammed his visor down, and rode away. Meve stared distractedly after him.

    “He’ll be an early contender for the prize, I believe,” the Baroness remarked.

    “Well, he’s certainly my favorite,” she replied, airily.

    “And doesn’t he know it,” the older woman muttered, then added, “That man has a target on his back.”

    Meve returned to earth and turned an inquiring frown on her.

    “Look,” the older woman explained, waving a hand to indicate the field at large. “There’s not less than two dozen knights here, and squires besides, as well as more than a few fighters who are neither. Some are no doubt here for the prizes, and some for th’ entertainment value, and others to catch a woman’s eye, but, no matter what their reasons, every man among them would very much like to defeat the Queen’s champion, make no mistake.”      

    The Baroness paused significantly, clearly waiting for her to see a point. Meve, aware that even Reynard lost a match, on occasion, failed to arrive at whatever it was; she shrugged dismissively and said, “Yes, and?”

    “And, therefore, don’t leave his equipment unguarded overnight, or his horse,” she explained impatiently, with a slight eye roll; she added, as an afterthought, “Your Grace.”

    “Oh.”

      After dinner she stared contemplatively into the fire, paying no attention to Reynard and Gascon’s idle chatter nearby. The Baroness’s suggestion - or was it a warning? - weighed on her thoughts. So did the fact that she had yet to find a third judge; a difficult prospect, as whoever she picked might not suit, or, worse, might be inclined to see political significance where there was none. Further, she hadn’t seen the black knight, or even heard anything of him, in well over a week; it was arguably the least of her problems, but bothered her nevertheless. She was jolted out of her reverie only when Reynard shook her suddenly by the shoulder; she frowned distractedly at him, realized he had asked her something, and said, “What?”

    “What are you thinking about?” he repeated, patiently. Gascon stared glassily at her, an expectant smile on his face. She explained about the judge, in brief, expecting their conversation to then go on without concerning itself with the matter.

    “But why d’ you need three judges?” Gascon wondered, instead, slurring his words somewhat.

    “Because there are always three judges,” Reynard replied stiffly, evidently less than perfectly sober himself.

    “The third judge is necessary, I’m afraid,” Meve explained. “A tiebreaker.”

    “Oh,” said Gascon, “I see. Well, what I would do is just get Gaspar or someone t’ do it, and say good enough; I suppose it doesn’t truly matter who does the job, in th’ end.”

    “The joust is serious business,” Reynard said, growing somewhat haughty, “You can’t just appoint some ruffian who can’t talk as an official.”

    “No,” Meve said, soothingly, before Gascon could react, “I don’t think he would do, at all, not to worry. However, Gascon’s drunken rambling has given me a thought - I don’t really have to choose the third judge myself.”

    “What do you mean by that?” Reynard asked, suspiciously.

    “Never you mind,” she said, casually, “You’ll find out soon enough. Anyway - I meant to ask you, Gascon, for a favor.”

    “By all means,” he replied, cheerily.

     “I need you to assign some of your more reliable and sober men to keep an eye on Reynard’s harness, weapons, and above all his horse, until the fair.”

    “Why?” Reynard asked; Meve ignored him, temporarily. Gascon, on the other hand, seemed to immediately understand, and nodded his agreement.

    “Oh, yes, naturally, you do,” he said. “I’ll put my best people on it, not t’ worry.”

    “Thank you,” she said, and then explained herself to Reynard after Gascon departed to see to the matter. He frowned doubtfully and began, “I really don’t think it’s necessary to -”

    “I know you don’t,” she interrupted, a little curtly, “It’s why I didn’t ask you.”

    He fell into a slightly disgruntled silence, obviously offended; she immediately regretted her tone, blamed it on the late hour, and delivered a genuine apology, which he graciously accepted, as he always did.

      At ten the next morning, she attended a meeting with the bailiff, aldermen, and Mayor of the city outside her castle walls. The Mayor was an ancient man who’d been installed in his position some years before she was born, and would not be hurried as he explained, at length, the procedures and trials of the next few days. She half-listened to his speech, delivered in the same didactic voice as always, and to the discourse that followed, well aware of the various topics that would be covered, as they were exactly the same each year for each fair - roadblocks, fire brigades, the necessity to have extra guards at night, the necessity to have yet further guards to keep the visitors out of the stockyard and away from the docks, the vanishingly small probability of snow. The Queen sat, patiently chiming in on the usual occasions to promise a detachment of soldiers from the castle and to offer the use of the stables in the courtyard, if needed, but otherwise waiting in silence for the meeting to wind to a close. There was, she knew from experience, no speeding up the unvarying process, and it was easiest to try; at the end, however, when the Mayor, as always, asked for any final remarks, she said, “I’ve one, gentlemen.”

    The room turned as one to stare at her in collective astonishment; she had never shown the slightest desire to lengthen any meeting in the past, and the atmosphere grew wary and uncertain at the irregularity. She smiled at them, professionally, and continued, “I have a small request only: the jousting event that’s bringing you so much custom this year requires three judges, but I find myself with only two; I thought perhaps you could select the last yourselves and then send ‘em along to the castle this afternoon.”

    She was assured that the thing was in their power to grant and departed in secret amusement, leaving the disturbed city government in full knowledge that, so long as she ruled in Lyria and Rivia, the troubling moment would never be forgotten.

      The city council sent along their choice - a round, dark-haired young woman - some hours later. She received a very dubious look from Reynard when Ethan brought her into his little office, where he sat in consultation with the Queen. Her name was Giselle, she said, and she knew nothing whatsoever about jousting - although, of course, she’d seen many a brawl, because she was a barmaid at the largest public house in the town square; she was just lately seventeen, but had been employed there since she was ten, and fights were expected and even wagered on should the combatants be interesting enough. Meve was, for once, grateful for Reynard’s unyielding sense of propriety; he grew steadily more unapproachable, but said absolutely nothing as the girl finished her introduction and subsided into silence, casting an uneasy glance at his remote frown.

    “Well,” Meve said, pleasantly, “It’s no matter; the finer details of the sport are easy enough to learn. I’m not going to force you, if you’d rather not, but should you like to be a judge tomorrow along with myself and the Baroness, you’re quite welcome.”

    Giselle’s face lit up; she replied quickly, “Oh, yes, I’d love to, my lady.” Meve nodded, satisfied.

    “Well, then, Ethan there will explain the rules and answer any questions you have; you may go along with him,” she said. Ethan promptly turned a brilliant shade of red as Giselle turned a broad smile on him. Meve drew on decades of diplomatic experience and managed to maintain a straight face as the pair attempted to make their escape from the overcrowded office, briefly became jammed together in the doorway, and awkwardly negotiated their way out, one after the other.

    “Gods preserve us,” Reynard muttered, rubbing his forehead painfully, the moment the door finally shut behind them. Meve snorted a laugh at last, perched on the edge of his desk, and said, “She’ll do nicely, I think; seems game enough, given the circumstances.”

    He shook his head at her and asked, wearily, “Is it too early to start drinking?”

    “It is a holiday. However, those guard patrols for the town must be arranged, and I still have to review my steward’s reports -”

    “I’ll bring the reports as well as a bottle, then,” Reynard decided, making for the door; she caught his arm as he passed, kissed him, and pulled away a long moment later to stare into his eyes. He blinked down at her, apparently struck as speechless as his squire, until she released him and said, “Go on, then; I’ll be here.”

    “Actually, I’m not thirsty after all,” he said, not moving away. She flashed a smile, slid her arms around his neck, and didn’t argue.

      Reynard did arrange the patrols, eventually, but Meve was forced to put the paperwork off; there was a feast to attend, and she had no time to read accounts before it began. It had to be held in the courtyard under the moonlight, because the entire city was invited and most of it’s more upstanding citizens had actually turned up, and, on top of them, all the knights and their horde of attendants; the resulting crowd would never fit inside the great hall. Even her usual courtiers had trouble maintaining stiff decorum in the open air, by blazing fires and with an astonishing amount of food and drink in them. The Queen herself sat at a table with the Baroness and Count Odo; the Count was companionably silent as usual, and so Meve passed the time chatting mainly with the Baroness. The women waved off occasional requests to dance in favor of a detailed discussion of feats of arms they’d witnessed during tournaments and battles, until, unexpectedly, Sir Holt advanced on them out of the crowd. The Baroness immediately paused, mid-sentence, and stared him down; he did not appear to notice her pointed, but wordless, dismissal. Reynard stiffened slightly in his seat, eyes narrowing. Meve sighed quietly; she of course knew the red knight was in attendance, because she’d spotted Gaheris out in the lists the previous afternoon, but had thought he’d have had the sense to avoid her.

    However, all the red knight said to her was a polite greeting and a remark on the success of the evening, so far. She nodded at him in acknowledgment; he then turned to Reynard and said, “Count Odo - I look forward to our rematch, tomorrow.”

    “Do you, now?” the Count replied, coldly; then, his conscience apparently made uneasy by his own rudeness, added, “As do I, Sir Holt; best of luck to you, when the time comes.”

    “And to you, my lord,” the red knight said, glanced uncertainly at the condescending Baroness, and retreated without further comment. Meve glanced sideways at the Count’s distant frown and nodded to him resignedly. He needed no further invitation to quit the field, and, for some reason, the remainder of the event seemed to go on with a shade of awkwardness in his absence; her renewed conversation with the Baroness felt somewhat stilted, and the din of the crowd around them oppressive. The feast eventually ended with an inevitable speech by the Mayor, which not a soul attended to; the locals had heard it before and the visitors seemed to be unsure who it was that was lecturing them. The Queen then delivered some much briefer remarks, as expected, which received the crowd’s full concentration, dismissed them to their own devices, and departed.

      An hour later, she was safely in her own private office, puzzling over a line item in her steward’s report: paied to Sir Roger Eres knight upon a bille of Sir John Kimborne knight 153 g., when someone came thundering up the stairs and burst suddenly through the door. Reynard jerked awake in his chair by the fire, alarmed at the noise, saw what had made it, and settled again with a quiet, relieved, sigh. She herself had turned a savage glare on the intruder, but subsided when it only proved to be Gascon, reeking of liquor and panting slightly.

    “It’s late, Brossard. What do you want?” Meve asked, looking back down at her papers. She sat back with a quick, irritated, frown as the Duke strode over, slapped a wide leather strap down on top of them, and demanded, “Look at this.”

    “It’s a girth, from a saddle,” she said, glancing from it to him with a raised eyebrow.

    “Yes,” Gascon agreed, despite her warning expression. Reynard stood with a faint groan, walked over, glanced at it, and said, “Isn’t that one of mine? What’s this about?”

    “Look there, by the buckle,” Gascon said, impatiently, pointing. Meve eyed the area and spotted what appeared to be a wrinkle or crack in the leather; she picked it up to study it more closely, and finally looked back up at the Duke, scowling.

    “It looks as if someone cut it most of the way through,” she said. “And then, what? Glued it back together? A damn good job, too; would never have noticed it, myself, if you didn’t point it out.”

    “It would likely snap th’ instant it took a hard shock,” Reynard added, taking the girth and turning it over thoughtfully. “But when someone might’ve done it, I don’t know. I used this just yesterday, practicing against Roland Orlac; you were there, Meve.”

    “Perhaps they did it days ago, and it was just luck that kept it from breaking, then,” Gascon suggested, shrugging. “Or it could have been yesterday afternoon, before Pug and Gaspar started looking after your things.”  

    Meve swore angrily, already forming a long list of suspects: disgruntled barons, unscrupulous competitors, foreign saboteurs, domestic anarchists. Reynard sighed in weary agreement with her.

    “Well, annoying as this is, it’s not my first overly bitter rival, I suppose. I’ve survived th’ others; this will be no different,” he said, pragmatically.

    “Yes, well, regardless, it’ll be your last. Find out who did this, Gascon,” the Queen said. “I take attempts to sabotage my General’s equipment very personally.”

    “I’ll do what I can,” he assured, grimly.

#thronebreaker #witcher #action #romance #sports

[filmfanatic82]

AO3 Link (HERE) Chapter 12: Lexa (III)

36 hours.

Only 36 hours remaining… and yet, Lexa is here. On Murphy’s front porch sipping on a luke-warm beer, watching her fellow classmates get drunk off their asses while all she can do is think about the ever-looming decision she needs to make. 

Lexa should be inside… with the girl she loves, but it’s just too much to bear. She’s long lost her ability to mask the all-consuming thoughts and feelings weighing on her mind. And all it will take is one look from Clarke and Lexa will crumble into nothing but a mess of emotions. 

So instead, Lexa has been hiding away. In the safe, dark confines of Murphy’s front porch swing. Barely even noticeable unless someone happens to venture in her direction. 

It’s a coward’s move. But there’s no other option. 

Not when the alternative means having to potentially break the heart of the one she loves the most. 

“Nice hiding spot, Heda,” Anya says, grabbing hold of Lexa’s attention. She slowly emerges from the open front door, beer in hand, and steps into the shadows towards her younger sister. 

“You know I hate that nickname,” Lexa responds.

“Yup,” Anya nods and then takes a swig of her beer as her hazel eyes intensely bore into Lexa. That look. One that Lexa knows like the back of her hand. The only gaze that can break through her impenetrable walls in a matter of milliseconds. 

“I’m not a commander,” Lexa follows up, pulling her eyes away from Anya and focusing them instead on the half-peeled label on the bottle in her hands. “Not even close.”

The name had originated from their late grandfather. He had taken to calling Lexa his little “Heda” after she had somehow managed to boss a whole platoon of cadets around one day while visiting him at the military academy that he was the headmaster of. And somehow it spread like wildfire until almost every human in existence seemed to know it was her exclusive nickname.

For a while, Lexa loved being called Heda. It was not only a sign of respect but more so a reminder to those around her that she was in control. No wavering, not second-guessing. Lex was the one to turn to when a clear, decisive action needed to be made.

But lately, the name seems to fit Lexa less and less. Like a relic of a person, she once strived to be.

No. A commander is one that can divorce their emotions from their actions and make the difficult decisions in the blink of an eye. With no remorse nor hesitation whatsoever. 

Lexa is not a commander… not even remotely close.

Lexa exhales as feels the added weight on the porch swing. Anya sits down next to her with no words nor unnecessary movements. Just the two of them, side by side as the sounds of the ongoing party filter in, filling in the empty space. 

“You tell her yet,” Anya asks, finally breaking the silence. 

“No.” 

Anya doesn’t respond. Instead, she continues to stare out into the night while sipping on her beer. The silence from her speaks volumes, and Lexa’s skin starts to crawl. She prays for Anya to say something-- anything--, but that’s not how they operate. Never have. They communicate best through the lack of words. 

“How much time do you have left?”

Lexa lets out a sigh. “A little over 36 hours.”

“Not a lot of time,” Anya states with little to no real emotion to her voice.

“I know.”

Another layer of silence falls upon them. Slightly suffocating yet comforting. 

”Have you made a decision yet?” Anya says after another few moments. Words falling hard against the stillness of the night air. And all Lexa can do is shake her head. It’s a slight movement but enough for Anya to register its meaning nonetheless. “Either way, you need to talk to her.”

“I know,” Lexa replies, in a voice no more than a whisper. She takes a long sip of her beer as well, eyes glued on the faint amber glow of the street lights in the distance. 

“She was looking for you.” 

“Clarke?”

Anya gives the slightest of nods. “Hairboy was trying to do body shots with her in the kitchen.”

Lexa’s brow furrows at the mention of Finn’s name. “Where was Raven?”

“She was there too… Something’s going down between the two of them.”

“Raven and Clarke?” Lexa asks. 

“Reyes and Hairboy,” Anya exhales with an unsettling calmness to her voice. “They’re not together anymore.” 

“What?” How do you know that?” Suddenly, peaked with curiosity, Lexa’s eyes wander over towards Anya, searching for any signs of a further explanation. But Anya’s face remains utterly unreadable as always. And Lexa knows that there’s no point in prodding any further. 

Anya finishes her beer with one final swig and then pulls herself up off of the porch swing. She stretches out her arms in her black leather jacket, more for show than anything else and lets out a lengthy exhale.” You should stop hiding and go find Clarke, but it’s too late.”

And with those words, Anya makes her way back towards the front door, leaving Lexa sitting there with nothing more than the crushing weight of her thoughts and impending decision. 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

“Can I get you something?” Lexa does a quick scan of Anya’s hospital room trying her best to proactively identify what lacking. “Water, maybe?”

“Lexa…” Anya croaks out in a hoarse whisper. There’s a slight but noticeable underlying layer of shakiness to her voice that only adds to Lexa’s growing anxiety.  

Lexa springs up from her chair and starts to move towards the doorway, not pausing for the briefest of moments to look in Anya’s direction. “Or how about something to eat? I’m not sure what you’re allowed to have, but I can track down a nurse and see if--”

“Stop.” 

Lexa freezes dead in her tracks. She takes a deep, sobering breath of air but yet still doesn’t fully turned around to face Anya. 

“Sit back down… Please.” And after another breath or two, Lexa does as she’s told. She folds her hands neatly into her lap and then studies them, memorizing every last detail. Anything to avoid the active glaze of a familiar set of hazel eyes that have been upon her for the last twenty or so minutes. Ever since Clarke raced out of the room, leaving the two Woods sisters alone with one another.

Seconds bleed into minutes as the steady beeps from the surrounding machines provide the ongoing reminder of the situation at hand. Lexa silently prays for Anya to say something-- anything-- even if it’s trivial, but that’s not going to happen. It never does. They aren’t the trivial type. 

Words have always been somewhat of a scarce currency between the two of them. Only exchanged when absolutely necessary and always with the shared philosophy that one should strive for brevity whenever possible. A byproduct of their strict upbringing where one was expected to speak with their actions and never with their words. 

And for the vast majority of Lexa’s life thus far, this less than desirable Woods family trait hasn’t been all that much of a hindrance. No. She had, in fact, over time, learned to use it to her advantage. The fewer words used, the fewer chances for one’s real emotions to be exposed for all the world to see. 

“You came with Clarke?” Anya questions Lexa, suddenly breaking the silence. Blindsided, Lexa whips her head up in to finally meet her older sister square in the eyes. And instantly she sees it. The hidden glimpse of fear mixed with uncertainty. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Swimming within the sea of hazel. 

“I did,” Lexa answers, unable to pull her eyes away. She wants to ask. To know the real reason behind the uncharacteristic look resonating within Anya’s eyes, but can’t seem to find the right words. “I ran into her at the restaurant while I was waiting for you and Raven to arrive. She happened to be with me when I received the call and drove me here.” 

Anya lets out a laugh which morphs quickly into a wet cough. “Well, you can’t get more ironic if you tried. Taking it, you two still haven’t talked?”

“Oh yes, we had a long and meaningful discourse on the way over here and managed to sort through all of our past misunderstandings,” Lexa replies, each and every syllable dripping with sarcasm. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she regrets them. It’s inappropriate at best.

“Lexa…”

“Sorry. It’s been… The last few hours have been more than a bit jarring,” Lexa re-folds her hands once again within her lap. “No. We haven’t exactly had a chance to.”

“It’s okay,” Anya says with a more than understanding nod. “You get a pass… Especially given the current circumstances.”

Lexa matches Anya’s nod. “Are you sure you don’t want me to--”

“Woods?” 

Startled, Lexa and Anya turn their heads in unison at the sound of a third voice within the room. There in the doorway, stands a ruggedly handsome looking officer with his hat tucked haphazardly under one of his muscular arms and a look of genuine concern written across his face.

“Fuck,” Anya mutters under her breath as she exhales a sigh and lets her head flop back against the soft pillow. “Miller. What are you doing here?”

Miller cautiously takes a step into the room, fully eyeing Lexa as he does. “The chief sent me. Need to take statements, and he figured you would be more willing to talk if it was me rather than one of the other guys.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Miller. An asshole blew through a stop sign and plowed right into us.”

“Right. It’s just…” Miller hesitates as he rubs the back of his neck and starts to slightly shift from foot to foot.

“Just what?” There’s a sudden and abrupt bite to Anya’s voice. One that instantly causes Lexa’s hairs to stand on edge as the memory of their father’s late-night screaming sessions after one too many glasses of whiskey. It’s eerily familiar. A little too familiar for Lexa’s liking.

Without another moment wasted, Lexa stands up and extends her hand towards Miller, pulling his attention away from Anya as she does. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Lexa. Anya’ s--”

“Kid sister,” Miller finishes with a warm smile. He shakes Lexa’s hand. “Woods here talked about you all the time. Thought you were still in London?”

“I was, but I moved back to the states roughly four months ago…” Lexa responds as a look of confusion sets in. “Do you work with my sister?”

“Yeah… Or at least I did. She was my partner for the last two years.”

“Was?” Lexa’s eyes drift over to Anya, searching for any sign of an explanation but there’s nothing there. Just Anya’s default emotionless mask staring back at her. 

“Oh… Shit. Sorry, Woods. I assumed she knew,” Miller mumbles rubbing the back of his neck even harder than before.

”No, she didn’t.” Still, no emotion whatsoever. The words are flat and devoid of meaning. And it’s so uncharacteristic of her older sister that Lexa’s skin begins to crawl. 

”I should probably go and let you two talk,” Miller says cutting through the sudden tension in the room. He heads back towards the doorway, pausing just before crossing the threshold to flash Anya yet another sympathetic smile.”  I’ll tell the chief you need another day or two… Glad you’re okay, Woods.”

Anya gives a simple nod, and Lexa watches as Miller disappears out of the room and down the hospital corridor. When he’s finally out of sight, she turns her attention back towards her older sister. “What was he referring to?”

“It’s nothing.”

“No. Clearly, it’s something,” Lexa responds with a bit more force behind her voice. “Did something happen with your job?”

“Just drop it, Lexa,” Anya exhales. “It’s nothing you need to be concerned about.” 

“But you love being a cop. It’s all you’ve ever talked about since before I can even remember... Did that homophobe of a captain push you out? Because if he did, then we can explore bringing forth a wrongful termination law--”

“Enough!” Anya yells, cutting Lexa off. Lexa reacts with a hard blink, having not expected that kind of response… Especially not from Anya. 

“I didn’t get laid off. I was put on leave.”

“Leave?” Lexa asks. “For how long.”

“Indefinitely,” Anya responds, and the word lingers between them, heavy and foreboding. 

” What happened?”

” I told you already. Nothing happened. I just showed up to work hungover once or twice. That’s all.”

“People don’t get suspended for being hungover…” Lexa voice faults for a moment almost unsure if she wants to finish her sentence or not. She licks her lips and refolds her hand once again. “Anh… Were you drunk?”

A hint of guilt flashes within Anya’s eyes before being replaced with her standard defensive glare. “Why would you ask me that?”

“You know why.”

“I’m not our father,” Anya says with a growl. 

It’s a warning not to go any further. To just drop the subject and venture back into more neutral territory. But Lexa isn’t backing down. She instead leans closer, locking eyes with her older sister. “I never said that. I simply asked you a question… Were you drunk?”

But Anya doesn’t respond. She continues to lock eyes with Lexa, never once faulting, and suddenly Lexa is stricken with a gut-churching realization that she doesn’t need an answer… She already knows it. 

Lexa swallows dryly as another question pops into her mind. A much darker one. One that is a thousand times harder to ask aloud than any other question she as ever posed to her sister before. 

“Anh… Were you drinking today?”

And all Anya can do is look away. 

#clexa #clexa fanfic #clarke x lexa #clarke griffin #lexa woods #anya woods #the 100 #wlw #ao3

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: EDITORIAL: Movies and the 9/11 effect

(Image: pathtoparadise.com)

EIGHTH EDITION: UPDATED SEPTEMBER 11, 2019– In an update to my annual editorial (after the original post on the 10th anniversary in 2011), I’ve got new movie inclusions in several sections, including the most recent section of faded and relaxed sensitivity in films.  I plan to make this an annual post and study for at least until the 20th anniversary in 2021.  (All poster images are courtesy of IMPAwards.com)

Never forget.  There’s no doubt that every American over the age of 25 won’t soon forget where they were 18 years ago at 8:46AM on September 11, 2001.  The world and our American lifestyle changed forever that day in more ways that we can measure.  I know movies and cinema are trivial pieces of entertainment compared to the more important things in life, but movies have always been two-hour vacations and therapy sessions from life, even in the face of immense tragedy.  Sometimes, we need movies to inspire us and help us remember the good in things, while still being entertained.  In seventeen years, they too have changed.

I’m here for an editorial research piece on the anniversary of 9/11 to showcase a few movies, both serious and not-so-serious, that speak to that day whether as a tribute, remembrance, or example of how life has changed since that fateful day.  Enjoy!

MOVIES THAT WERE OPENING THAT FRIDAY EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO

Call this a time capsule, but these were the notable movies that opened Friday, September 7, 2001 and Friday, September 14, 2001, the two Fridays surrounding 9/11.  Such a different time, huh?  Needless to say, few people were in the mood for a movie in those first weeks and the fall 2001 box office took quite a hit until the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone showed up in November 2001, followed by Ocean’s Eleven and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring that December.

The Musketeer  (September 7th)

Soul Survivors  (September 7th)

Rock Star  (September 7th)

Hardball  (September 14th)

The Glass House  (September 14th)

All were box office bombs at the time.  The Musketeer garnered a good bit of overseas earnings and Hardball got some of the best reviews of Keanu Reeves’s post-Matrix career and grew to be a DVD hit.  Still, talk about bad timing.

EXAMPLES OF 2001-2002 MOVIES CHANGED BECAUSE OF 9/11

Spider-Man— Many of you may remember seeing this teaser for the big comic book blockbuster before it was pulled post-9/11. (New remastered video in 2019)

Donnie Darko— Suggested by Feelin’ Film Facebook Discussion Group contributor Josh Powers. Released months before 9/11, few remember how much this film was somewhat buried and forced to become an underground cult favorite due to a pivotal moment involving a horrific plane crash.

Lilo and Stitch— See a side-by-side video clip of differences in Imgur.  The trivia notes behind it are explained on IMDb.  

Collateral Damage— The Arnold Schwarzenegger terrorism movie had its release date bumped and terrorist overtones mellowed down.  (trailer)

City by the Sea— The production on this Robert DeNiro/James Franco thriller was moved from New York to Los Angeles in July 2001, dodging the terrorism attacks that would have threatened their home Tribeca studios.  (trailer)

Sidewalks of New York–– Edward Burns intermingled love story movie was bumped to November and had to have its posters changed.  See right here on the left for an example.  (trailer)

Men in Black II— The original scripted ending of the movie was scripted to have the World Trade Center towers open up to release a barrage of UFOs.  (trailer)

Serendipity and Zoolander— Both movies had shots of the WTC digitally removed from the skylines of their finished films before they hit theaters that fall.

The Time Machine— Had its December 2001 release bumped to March because of a potentially sensitive scene of meteor shower over New York (which it cut).  (trailer)

Big Trouble— It too had its nuclear bomb-centered plot cause a release delay well into 2002.  The delay didn’t help this already awful movie.  (trailer)

MOVIES ABOUT 9/11 ITSELF

September 11  (2002)– International directors from around the world, including Ken Loach, Mira Nair, and future Oscar winner Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, made a two-hour anthology of short films showing creative expressions of other cultures and their reactions to the tragedy. 

United 93  (2006)– Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass took an unknown cast and directed a harrowing real-time account of the flight that fought back.  Hard to watch, but undeniably powerful without exploiting the tragedy.  (trailer)

World Trade Center  (2006)– Conspiracy specialist Oliver Stone turns off the urge to dig into his usual musings and delivers an incredibly humble, respectful, and understated (words that hardly ever describe an Oliver Stone movie) true story of the last two men (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) rescued alive at Ground Zero.  Worth every moment to see and a great tribute to the first responders and their families.  (trailer)

9/11  (2017)– I think we all knew a day would come where some hack film was going to come around and exploit the tragedy that is the 2001 terrorist attacks.  That award goes to Charlie Sheen, Whoopi Goldberg, and director Martin Guigui’s straight-to-VOD trash heap.  Sheen, a noted conspiracy theorist on 9/11, took it upon himself to make a glamour project stepping on history.  Do not waste your time with this film.

MOVIES WITH PROMINENT 9/11 CONNECTIONS

The Guys  (2002)– One of the first reactionary films to 9/11 came from Focus Features in 2002 and starred Anthony LaPaglia and Sigourney Weaver.  Based on Anne Nelson’s heartfelt play, LaPaglia plays a fire captain who lost eight men on 9/11 and Weaver plays the editor who helps him write eulogies for the fallen.  The film is only available on disc from Amazon.  (trailer)

WTC View  (2005)– Gallows humor bubbles to the surface in this off-kilter indie romance from Brian Sloan about a SoHo man who placed an ad to find a new roommate and September 10th and now lives through a more difficult and trying landscape.  (trailer)

Reign Over Me  (2007)– In a rare dramatic turn, Adam Sandler plays a fictional wayward man who lost his wife and daughters on 9/11 and tailspins through life fiver years later when an old college friend (Don Cheadle) tries to help keep him from being committed to a psychiatric care.  (trailer)

Remember Me  (2010)– Billed as a coming-of-age film starring Twilight star Robert Pattinson, it features a fictitious family affected by the tragedy, including the fall of the WTC.  Most critics found the 9/11 connections exploitative and offensive.  (trailer)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  (2011)– Speaking of exploitative, the Tom Hanks/Sandra Bullock Oscar nominee from this past year definitely rubbed more than a few audiences the wrong way in using 9/11 as a backdrop to a fictional family tragedy.  Critics (including this one) clamored that if you’re going to bring 9/11 to the big screen, use a real story.  (trailer)  (my full review)

September Morning  (2017)– Independent writer/director Ryan Frost crafted a small drama about five college freshman staying up all night after 9/11 weighing the impact it will have on their present and future.  The film won a youth jury award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.  (trailer)

MOVIES ABOUT THE WAR ON TERROR

In the decade since September 11, 2011, our largest response as a nation to the terrorism of that day has been a pair of wars overseas in the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.  The “war on terror” has quickly grown into a ripe orchard for possible movie storylines.

Home of the Brave  (2006)–Rocky producer Irwin Winkler earns the credit for the first mainstream Hollywood movie depicting the Iraqi War and the initial soldiers returning home to re-acclimate to society.  Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, and Jessica Biel.  (trailer)

The Hurt Locker  (2008)– Of course, the best-of-the-best is the 2009 Best Picture winner from Kathryn Bigelow starring Jeremy Renner as a driven, yet dark Iraqi bomb specialist.  Its quality needs no introduction.  (trailer)

Grace is Gone  (2007)– In the Audience Award winner of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, typical gender roles are reversed when John Cusack plays a homefront father (in my opinion, the best he’s ever acted) who has to find the best way to tell his two daughters that their soldier mother was killed in Iraq.  This movie is “guy-cry” level brilliant.  (trailer)

Rendition  (2007)– Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, and Meryl Streep get together for a movie calling out the wrongs of detainment, interrogation, and torture.  (trailer)

The Kingdom  (2007)– Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, and Jason Bateman investigate a bombing and throw down in the streets of Riyadh.  (trailer)

Lions for Lambs  (2007)– Robert Redford delivers a three point-of-view discourse on U.S. war affairs before home and abroad with the help of Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep.  (trailer)

In the Valley of Elah  (2007)– Crash director Paul Haggis leads Tommy Lee Jones (in an amazing Oscar-nominated performance) and Susan Sarandon as parents investigating with a local detective (Charlize Theron) the disappearance of their AWOL son returning home from Iraq.  (trailer)

Body of Lies  (2008)– Ridley Scott’s fictional take on the CIA’s involvement in preventing Jordanian terrorism starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.  (trailer)

Stop-Loss  (2008)– Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play three young Texas schoolmates who are finally home from overseas but are forced back via the stop-loss clause.  (trailer)

The Messenger  (2009)– Woody Harrelson was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a U.S. Army Casualty Notification Team officer mentoring recent veteran (Ben Foster) on the uniquely difficult job of informing families the bad news.  (trailer)

Taking Chance  (2009)– Along the same bringing-bad-news-home lines is this gem of a HBO film starring Kevin Bacon (like Cusack earlier, in arguably his best performance as an actor) as a desk officer who never saw combat but takes on the duty of escorting a young fallen soldier’s body back to his old hometown.  Even though this wasn’t in theaters, it is outstanding and worth your time on DVD.  (trailer)

Brothers  (2009)– Jake Gyllenhaal takes care of his older brother’s wife (Natalie Portman) while he (Tobey Maguire) is declared MIA in Afghanistan, from director Jim Sheridan.  (trailer)

Dear John and The Lucky One  (2010 and 2012)– These two adaptations of Nicholas Sparks romance novels briefly touches on the War on Terror through Channing Tatum and Zac Efron’s lead characters’ return home to romance.  (trailer and trailer)

Green Zone  (2010)–Director Paul Greengrass followed United 93 with his Bourne series star Matt Damon in this taut and marginally-dramatized account of the early unsuccessful searches and the possible cover-up of Baghdad’s supposed stores of weapons of mass destruction.  (trailer)

Restrepo  (2010)– The highly acclaimed National Geographic documentary film follows a one-year look at the real men of the platoon embattled in the deadliest fortified valley of Afghanistan.  (trailer)

Act of Valor  (2012)– Disney pumped up the military with this fictional anti-terrorism film using active duty Navy SEALs.  Coming out after the death of Osama bin Laden, this was a welcome and well-promoted hero picture and recruitment reel.  (trailer)

Zero Dark Thirty  (2012)– The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow made a film about the SEAL Team 6 men and their story of taking down Osama bin Laden.  The film was my #1 movie on my “10 Best” list for 2012.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Lone Survivor (2013)– Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) directed an outstanding and patriotic film based on the Afghanistan saga of Marcus Luttrell starring Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, and Emile Hirsch that echoes another true-life story from the ongoing War on Terror.  Very good movie!  (trailer)  (my full review)

A Most Wanted Man (2014)– Spy novelist John LeCarre’s multi-layered 2008 novel about the world of inter-agency espionage happening in Hamburg, Germany, the same city where the 9/11 conspirators hatched their plans, is an excellent and different post-9/11 film with an international flair and flavor.  It will also be remembered as one of the last performances of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was phenomenal in the film.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit  (2014)– This modern reboot or update of the famed Tom Clancy character, now played by Chris Pine, roots his pre-spy origins in the aftermath of 9/11 and the War on Terror that followed.  (trailer)

American Sniper  (2014)– Clint Eastwood’s Best Picture nominee war drama about the real-life story of the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle (played by Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper) went on to become the highest grossing film of 2014 (north of $350 million).  Kyle’s journey from the heartland to the front lines was spurred by a sense of duty and patriotism that started from the attacks of 9/11.  This is, by far, the most high profile movie to date to feature the War on Terror directly correlating 9/11.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Good Kill  (2015)– On the smaller side, but just as solid with warfare and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is this under-seen film which had a limited theatrical release during the summer of 2015.  Andrew Niccol (Lord of War, Gattaca, The Truman Show) shifted his focus to the War on Terror by showcasing a Las Vegas base of drone pilots dealing with the ramification of their actions and the war being waged on their screens and with their joystick controls.  (trailer)  (my full review)

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi  (2016)– Director Michael Bay’s slanted look at the September 11, 2012 embassy attacks that have become a political firebrand since certainly qualifies to make this list.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot  (2016)– Tina Fey shed her comedic image for a heavyish war drama loosely based the true story of Afghanistan/Pakistan television journalist Kim Barker.  (trailer)  

Snowden  (2016)– Renowned politicized filmmaker Oliver Stone brought his brush of dramatic license to the story of whistleblowing former spy Edward Snowden, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  The paranoia of the post-9/11 digital age was the mission field for Snowden and many other young men and women who sought the security and counterterrorism industries. (trailer) (full review)

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk  (2016)– A company of soldiers who lost their commanding officer in Iraq are making a victory tour of press dates and public appearances when the reflections of the title character (newcomer Joe Alwyn) fill the day.  Ang Lee’s film felt ten years too late and was not well received.  (trailer) (my full review)

Thank You For Your Service  (2015) and Thank You For Your Service  (2017)– This popular conversation sentence was the title of two different works.  In 2015, Tom Donahue’s documentary opened eyes to the shoddy mental health governance for modern veterans and made waves that changed actual policies.  The 2017 feature film borrows inspiration from David Finkel’s 2013 nonfiction bestseller dealing with the PTSD topic of returning Iraqi tour soldiers adjusting to civilian life.  Miles Teller is the headliner and is joined by Haley Bennett, Beulah Koale, Joe Cole, and Amy Schumer.  (trailer) (trailer)

Megan Leavey  (2017)– 2017 was a busy year for War on Terror-connected films with five new entries.  Taglined “based on the true story about a Marine’s best friend,” Megan Leavey stars Kate Mara as the soldier leader of a bomb-searching pooch on deployment in Iraq.  Touching film!  (trailer)

The Wall  (2017)– Nocturnal Animals Golden Globe nominee Aaron Taylor-Johnson and emerging WWE movie star John Cena play two soldiers pinned down by an Iraqi sniper in a single-setting thriller from action specialist Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow).  (trailer)

War Machine  (2017)– Enough time has passed now in 2017 where the War on Terror has reached a point of being a target of satire.  Animal Kingdom and The Rover director David Michod puts a witty spin on things creating a fictionalized account of U.S. General Stanley McChrystal with Brad Pitt in the lead.  Netflix is the exclusive carrier of this one.   (trailer)

Last Flag Flying  (2017)– The last and best of the 2017 bunch is Richard Linklater’s dramedy about three old Vietnam veterans (Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, and Laurence Fishburne) who come together when one of their sons is killed in Iraq and coming home for burial.  The excellent acting trio and Linklater’s writing (adapted from Darryl Ponicsan’s novel, a spiritual sequel to his The Last Detail) deliver touching brevity and sharp commentary on the echoes of war across generations.  (trailer) (my full review)

A Private War (2018)— Documentary filmmaker Matthew Heineman made his feature film debut with a biopic on British photojournalist Marie Colvin, who made her stops through the hellfire of Iraq and Afghanistan in her storied career. Rosamund Pike was snubbed for an Oscar nomination that year. (trailer) (my full review)

Vice (2018)— Speaking of biopics, writer/director Adam McKay brought his machete for satire to the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney. The film dove deep into the manipulated machinations from Cheney that engineered the War on Terror during the Bush administration. While not as good as The Big Short, Vice did earn eight Oscar nominations (winning one for makeup), including Best Picture and Best Actor for Christian Bale in the leading role. (trailer) (my full review)

Official Secrets (2019)— When invading Iraq was on the table to push the war to the ground, the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Tony Blair were lockstep next to the U.S. on seeking United Nations approval. The true story of whistleblower Katharine Gun unearthed secrets that led to questioning the war’s legality before it even began. This is a nice step-up for Keira Knightley. (trailer) (my full review)

The Report (2019)— Not yet widely released in 2019 after huge buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, frequent Steven Soderbergh screenwriting collaborator Scott Z. Burns made his directorial debut with this searing docudrama of the use of torture by American agencies during the War on Terror. Check out the film’s trailer:

MOVIES ABOUT THE CHANGES IN AMERICAN LIFE (BOTH SERIOUS AND NOT-SO-SERIOUS)

25th Hour  (2002)– New Yorker Spike Lee was quick to not shy away from the post-9/11 pulse of New York City following Edward Norton’s character’s last night of debauchery and unfinished business before going to prison.  Filled with scathing social commentary and visual reminders of 9/11 and Ground Zero, its amazing opening credits sequence alone set the tone as only Spike can.  (trailer)

Fahrenheit 9/11  (2004)– Documentary maverick Michael Moore’s slam at the handling of 9/11 and the war on terror became one of the most successful box office documentaries of all-time.  (trailer)

Sorry, Haters  (2005)– Robin Wright played a professional woman who receives conversation and unexpected interaction with an Arab New York cab driver in this IFC production.  (foreign trailer)

An Inconvenient Truth  (2006)– By contrast, in a small snippet and computer graphic on melting glaciers in this Oscar-winning documentary, Al Gore lets us know that half of Greenland or Antarctica’s melted ice would put New York, including Ground Zero, underwater within the next 50 years.  (trailer)

The Terminal  (2004)– Airports are now covered in bureaucratic red tape.  Heaven forbids, you’re not from America.  (trailer)

Anger Management  (2003)– Showed us that you can get kicked off a plane now for just about anything.  (trailer)

Soul Plane  (2004)– Then again, come on, guys.  Air travel can still be cool, even with the new security rules. (trailer)

Snakes on a Plane  (2006)– OK, maybe not so much… (trailer)

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay  (2008)– You’ve got to hate racial profiling as much as you equally love a good parody.  (trailer)

Iron Man  (2008)– Marvel’s steely hero had his Vietnam origin story conveniently and modernly flopped for an Afghanistan-connected one.  (trailer)

Bridesmaids  (2011)– Now, that’s how an Air Marshall gets down! (trailer)

Source Code  (2011)– Our fear of catastrophes on planes can easily be translated to trains as well.  (trailer) (my full review)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist  (2013)– For a serious look at the warped view of Muslim citizens post-9/11, take a look at Mira Nair’s dramatic thriller about a young Pakistani man (newcomer Riz Ahmed) who is successful on Wall Street but viewed differently through profiling after 9/11.  (trailer)

The Fifth Estate (2013)– The film story of the WikiLeaks of Julian Assange carry a loose connection to the changed post-9/11 landscape of security and more.  (trailer)

Boyhood (2014)– Richard Linklater’s huge biographical opus was filmed over the course of 12 years with the same cast growing up and aging to tell their family story.  The film starts in 2002, where the incidents of 2001 are fresh on the minds of the characters and discussed openly during the first year sequence of the journey.  Later on, political mentions of Bush, Obama, and the War on Terror make it into a reflective conversation as well.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Won’t You Be My Neighbor  (2018)– A key moment in the extraordinary Fred Rogers documentary chronicled when a retired Rogers was brought back for a special televised message to young viewers about reacting to the 9/11 tragedy that played on-screen for so many viewers.  It’s a touching historical moment.  (trailer) (my full review)

MEMORABLE PAST IMAGES OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN MOVIES

Sometimes, all it takes is the camera making a fleeting, yet memorable, glance at those beautiful and now-gone skyscrapers to immediately remind us of a different time.  The WTC towers have been shown in innumerable establishing shots.  We’ll highlight some great ones.  Beginning with the closing credits to New Yorker Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York, here’s a great montage of cinematic views of the WTC from various pre-2001 movies.

Superman  (1978)– Even a passing fly-by over “Metropolis” feels different.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York  (1992)– Tell me this clip didn’t just go from cute to eerie to sad.  Wonderful then, but different now.

Godspell (1973)— Submitted by friend-of-the-page and larger-fan-of-musicals-than-me Josh Powers, enjoy this dance number from the summery musical filmed and completed before the skyscraper’s ribbon-cutting.

King Kong  (1976)– While it may not match the iconic 1933 image of the original ape towering on top of the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center plays a big role in the 1976 remake starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange.  (trailer) 

Independence Day  (1996), Deep Impact  (1998), Armageddon  (1998), and The Day After Tomorrow  (2004)– These all constitute the prominent disaster movies that leave New York (and, in three cases, the WTC) in destructive shambles.  

HONORABLE MENTIONS:  Godzilla  (1998), Cloverfield  (2004), War of the Worlds  (2005), and Watchmen  (2009).  Kind of not so entertaining for few seconds anymore, huh?  See for yourself.  Here’s a montage of NYC movie destruction:

MOVIES THAT FEEL DIFFERENT IN THE POST-9/11 WORLD

I don’t know about you but a lot of movies just don’t resonate or feel the same as they did before September 11th.  We’ve changed and the perception has changed.  For some movies, their message and impact is only made stronger (in good ways and bad) since 9/11.  In other cases, what was entertaining then doesn’t feel so right anymore.

Airplane!  (1980)– Farce or not (and still funny to this day), we could never get away with anything that happens on an airplane from that movie now.  (trailer)

Passenger 57  (1992)–Let alone this movie… (trailer)

Executive Decision  (1996)– …and this movie… (trailer)

Turbulence  (1997)– …and this movie… (trailer)

Pushing Tin  (1999)– …and probably this movie too… (trailer)

True Lies  (1994)– Slammed even then for its depiction of Arab terrorists, it likely has picked up a little more egg on its face. Adding to its burial, the movie hasn’t been released on any physical media format since 1999, which includes zero Blu-ray editions in its history (factoid from Josh Powers). Do you think 20th Century Fox wants that movie to go away or what?  (trailer)

The Siege  (1998)– This frightening martial law thriller with Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, and Bruce Willis makes True Lies look like G.I. Joe starring Ken from the Barbie dolls toy line.  Scary and eerily prophetic in its over-the-top terrorism and bombing scenarios.  (trailer)

The Dark Knight Rises  (2012)– Though fictional with Pittsburgh standing in as Gotham City, the New York imagery and parallels occurring during its terrorist takeover led by Tom Hardy’s Bane have eerie 9/11-inspired ramifications.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Syriana  (2005)– George Clooney won an Oscar, but the touchy subjects of torture, terrorism, and the oil industry evoke a little dose of fear.  (trailer)

Munich  (2005)– The Black September assassination of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the Mossad’s reaction was probably the last time before 9/11 that terrorism made worldwide live media headlines.  (trailer)

Arlington Road  (1999)– While this resonates more as a comparison to Oklahoma City-style domestic terrorism, the Jeff Bridges/Tim Robbins underappreciated thriller is no less scary now than then.  (trailer)

Fight Club  (1999)– Watching Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt/Edward Norton) destroy New York’s credit district is another example of domestic terrorism and destruction that rings a little louder post-9/11.

The Sum of All Fears  (2002)– Many people found the Super Bowl bomb plot far too soon to see those images just a year removed from 9/11.  (trailer)

V for Vendetta  (2006)– Urban terrorism in London via a Guy Fawkes fan resonates a little different for a public scare on our side of the Atlantic.  (trailer)

Courage Under Fire  (1995)– Our first trip to Iraq foreshadows a lot of the equal futility, bravery, and loss experienced in our second trip… (trailer)

Jarhead  (2005)– …especially when told from the true account of a disillusioned soldier who was there.  (trailer)

Charlie Wilson’s War  (2007)– The same foreshadowing can be made out of our 1980’s Cold War involvement on the side of Afghanistan versus the Soviet Union as outlined by a gem of a Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman film.  To think that we could have stuck around and cleaned the place up before they became our enemy.  (trailer)

Rambo III  (1988)– Speaking of an American fighting on the anti-communism side of the Afghans!  (trailer)

Air Force One  (1997)– Not that George W. Bush or Barack Obama ever channeled Harrison Ford here, but don’t you now root a little harder for a take charge President… (trailer)

The Patriot  (2000)– … or a flag-carrying American hero from 230+ years ago… (trailer)

Pearl Harbor  (2001)– …or the last great American tragedy that galvanized a nation and sent us to war.  (trailer)

MOVIES SINCE 2001 THAT RENEW THE AMERICAN SPIRIT

These examples (as well as the aforementioned World Trade Center) will get your patriotic heartstrings going and boost your down spirit.

The Last Castle  (2001)– Opening just over a month after the tragedy, the military and flag-waving patriotism of Robert Redford’s underrated drama undeniably stirs you.  (trailer)

Behind Enemy Lines  (2001)– Leave it to Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson (of all people) to win macho patriotic points for loosely re-enacting the famous pilot Scott O’Grady Bosnian prisoner escape story.  (trailer)

Black Hawk Down  (2001)– Released during the 2001-2002 awards season, Ridley Scott’s powerful depiction of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu showed the uncompromising courage of U.S. Army Ranger and  Delta Force soldiers at a time when our current soldiers were likely preparing for going overseas to similar urban warfare.  (trailer)

We Were Soldiers  (2002)– Mel Gibson may be embroiled in unpopular headlines now, but his 2002 action-drama from his Braveheart writer about America’s first official military action in Vietnam is as powerful and it is impressive.  Like Black Hawk Down, it added to the heroic mystique of the American soldier, even if it was set in the past.  If you don’t cry watching those wives deliver those first casualty letters, there’s something wrong with you.  (trailer)

Spider-Man  (2002) and Spider-Man 2  (2004)– New York’s #1 resident superhero always fights for a way for the citizen of the city to stand up together.  I suppose you can throw in the pair from the reboot (The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2) for some of the same reasons.  (trailer)

Gangs of New York  (2002)– Martin Scorsese is a quintessential New Yorker and his mid-1800’s history piece (while definitely violent) was a love letter to the city’s great history.  (trailer)

Elf  (2003)– Will Ferrell put the Big Apple back in the Christmas cheer.  (trailer)

Ladder 49  (2004)– Though it wasn’t set in New York, you can’t help but think of the 343 NYFD men and women that lost their lives on September 11th and ardent first-responders when you watch Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta as macho Baltimore firemen.  (trailer)

Million Dollar Baby  (2004)– America loves a good underdog story and Clint Eastwood gave the public a heck of a good one that went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture.  (trailer)

Miracle  (2004)– What better way to boost American spirit than to relive our greatest Olympic triumph. (trailer)

National Treasure  (2004)– How about a history lesson to make you feel good about our great country?  Why not?  (trailer)

Hitch  (2005)– Will Smith brought popular romance back to the City That Never Sleeps. (trailer)  He would capture hearts for a different reason the next year with The Pursuit of Happyness.  (trailer)

We Are Marshall  (2006)– Another real-life airplane tragedy sets the stage for an amazing story of athletic and community rebirth.  One of the most underrated football movies out there.  (trailer)

Live Free or Die Hard  (2007)– Why not give NY’s best bad-ass cop a chance to save the nation’s capital? (trailer)

Captain America: The First Avenger  (2011)– Last but not least, you can’t get more patriotic and underdog than this skinny guy from Brooklyn transformed into a red-white-and-blue super soldier.  He followed it up this past summer saving New York in The Avengers.  (trailer and trailer)  (full review and my full review)

American Sniper  (2014)– The tremendous reception Clint Eastwood’s film had to become the highest grossing movie of the year made Chris Kyle a household name and heavily amplified a previously dormant red-blooded (and “red state-d”) surge of patriotism and soldier appreciation. (trailer) (my full review)

Sully  (2016)– Both the incredible true story of Flight 1549 from 2009 and Clint Eastwood’s respectful retelling featuring Tom Hanks as Capt. Chelsea “Sully” Sullenberger remind audiences of the strength of New York City.  There’s a great line in the movie where someone is trying to thank Sullenberger and says that it’s been a long time since the city has had good news about anything like the “Miracle on the Hudson,” especially about a plane. (trailer)  (my full review)

Patriots Day  (2016) and Stronger  (2018)– The way the city of Boston rallied from another terrorist attack on American soil during its marathon has key inspirational value.  It’s too bad the film was the Mark Wahlberg show rather than a well-rounded ensemble approach.  (trailer) (my full Patriots Day review) (trailer) (my full Stronger review)

Spider-Man: Homecoming  (2017) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018)– Much like the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield web-slinger movies that came before, Tom Holland’s take on Peter Parker is a born-and-raised New York kid that supports and protects his neighborhood and city from dangers foreign and domestic. His protection, joined by fellow New Yorker Doctor Strange, expands with the united effort with The Avengers when Thanos shows up in Avengers: Infinity War.  One part down on that with one to go in the summer of 2019.  (trailer) (my full Spider-Man: Homecoming review) (trailer) (my Avengers: Infinity War review)

Only the Brave (2017)– Just as with Ladder 49 thirteen years before it, you can’t beat the sympathy generated by the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice of firefighters.  Forest fires aren’t terrorists, but the feels are all there.  (trailer) 

The 15:17 to Paris (2018)– Four years after American Sniper, Clint Eastwood dipped his filmmaking brush in the hero worship paint again to tell another true story.  The wrinkle of this one is that Eastwood called upon the actual heroes that thwarted the 2015 Thayls train attack to star in their own movie recreation.  Results were mixed, but the Eastwood prestige is there. (trailer) (my full review)

THE UP-AND-DOWN PULSE OF CONTINUED SENSITIVITY AND/OR CENSORSHIP TO 9/11 SIMILARITIES

For 2014 and going forward, this is a new section I’m adding to this study.  Now that enough time has passed since 2001, I’m beginning to notice that movies are starting to go back to some of the images and themes of violence, destruction, and terrorism that were hands off for so many years after 9/11.  Like all history, even 9/11 will fade.  What we were offended by after the horrific incidents have returned, in some cases, to be more tolerated and even acceptable and celebrated again.  Sure enough, there are plenty who vividly remember 2001’s events and images and are quick to point out when something is in possible poor taste.  That shaky barometer has led to some allusions and reminders to 9/11 and some flat-out censorship changes and corrections.  Some get flak and slaps on the wrist while some don’t.  Here are some examples in recent years.

Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down (2013)– Both competing White House takeover films from 2013, one from Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and one from Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) had a bit of split audience reaction to their violent and terrorist content.  Some rooted and cheered as if it was the 80’s again and America is always going to win.  Others were not so keen or ready to see the White House become a target and battleground, even if it was just a movie.  Between the two, Olympus Has Fallen, the R-rated and more severe one of the two, was the bigger hit.  In a way, no one batted an eye. (trailer and trailer)  (my full Olympus Has Fallen review)

Man of Steel  (2013)– Despite being one of the most all-American heroes around, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel gave Superman a very serious tone that, in a way, can’t be included on the category before this one of movies that renew the American spirit.  Also, many people were not very pleased with the immense city-wide destruction scenes of Metropolis during the film’s climax.  Even though Chicago was the filming location of a fictitious comic book city, there were staunch critics who had a problem with huge office buildings and skyscrapers in very 9/11-esque rubble. Its 2016 sequel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice mildly addressed that a city can’t be destroyed without consequences, even on Superman’s watch in a colorful comic book setting.   (my full review)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)– Much like Man of Steel, the third Michael Bay Transformers movie features a great deal of city-wide destruction (again, in Chicago) that rubbed a few people the wrong way.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)– Throw in the terrorist label for the villain and his bombings and the big San Francisco starship wreck during this film’s ending action that was clearly a larger scale to a passenger jet taking out buildings.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Godzilla (2014)– Add the King of the Monsters to the list of more city destruction that raised an eyebrow for some.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)– Outside of this string of modern and accepted examples of urban attacks and destruction, is the minor amount of hot water the makers of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got it for a promotional poster that had an exploding skyscraper that cut too close to 9/11 similarities.  The study pulled the poster and had to apologize.  Censorship and sensitivity won that argument and mistake.  (trailer)  

The Walk  (2015)– A very big test to peoples’ memories of the World Trade Center will be coming in the Fall of 2015 with Robert Zemeckis’s film The Walk, the true story of the French high-wire artist Philippe Petit’s quest to tightrope walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 (previously featured in the Academy Award nominated 2008 documentary Man on Wire).  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the film will prominently display, thanks to Zemeckis’s stunning use of CGI,  a tremendous amount of imagery of the two lost skyscrapers.  Even though it’s a period piece to a non-turbulent time, no film since 2001 has attempted to show this much of those building.  Public reaction was mixed and the film was not a box office hit.  (trailer)  (full review)

Independence Day: Resurgence  (2016)– I guess it’s OK for patriotic mass city destruction again.  London gets it worse than New York, though.  (trailer)  (full review)

Ghostbusters  (2016)– Well, New York was safe for at least a month anyway between Independence Day: Resurgence‘s release and the new reboot (which conveniently made sure its city destruction in Times Square and other places be easy to erase).  Not far behind was the fictional Suicide Squad and its over-the-city halo of supposed death.  (trailer)  (my full review)

Rampage (2018)– Larger in size than the old World Trade Centers used to be, Chicago’s Willis Tower, the former Sears Tower and tallest building in the world, was the targeted collapsed skyscraper spectacle of choice in the Brad Payton/Dwayne Johnson live-action video game adaptation.   Monsters aren’t terrorists, but the imagery hits close as the Willis Tower was one of many skyscrapers across the country evacuated on 9/11 out of fear of becoming another target.   See the collapse clip above. (my full review)

I hope everyone enjoyed this little (OK, large) retrospective about the impact of 9/11 in movies for the last 18 years and counting.  Take some time this coming weekend to appreciate the freedoms we have the people fighting to keep them for us.  Support your troops and first responders and, again, NEVER FORGET!

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[lizthefangirl]

So.

I’ve had a good, long think about some things in my life, particularly how integral this blog has been to it for the past five years—and have finally come to understand what I’ve been running from for a while now: 

I’m very dependent on it—too dependent on it. 

When I say that, I mean all of the fandoms therein, the humor, the [often uhhh slightly biased] discourse. . . I can’t recall ever going over a week without engaging in my blog for five and-a-half years now. And I’m starting to get curious as to just how much time I’ve wasted, how much negativity I’ve been exposed to, how many addictions have been reinforced—and what exactly would happen if I gave that up for a bit.

In religious terms, it’s “fasting.” And I am religious. It’s something I very rarely directly discuss on here. In the past two years of college, I’ve gone from calling myself a Christian to actually investigating theology, having an incredible, unexpected, unconditionally loving family in Christ—and overall, having to face some really tough things about the way I’ve lived, and how unhealthy some of it was. 

It’s so challenging, especially as an artist, to participate in a community where unbelief is sometimes still spiritual, where everything is questioned (which is actually a very good thing), where it’s often quite literally all about sex and money and yes—drugs and everything else. And where it’s essentially not quite normal to be what I’m trying to be. Yet, it’s not that I’ve met any hostility—seriously, people have been far more accepting then I anticipated. I’m determined to be loving in spite of it, to believe in the Gospel in spite of all of the flack people give it (to put it lightly), while still acknowledging the very human faults of many branches of the faith and doing my best to renounce them, and live a better way,  

It’s still devastatingly difficult to constantly be surrounded by these groups of people though, though—even if it is a reflection of a lot of the world. But art is the industry I’ve always strived to be in, the skill I’ve been passionate about my whole life. I’m determined to come out of it successful and resilient in my faith—and maybe even earn respect in the process. I’m still learning, and being exposed to the world. It’s been a wild ride, certain to get wilder.

This kind of parallels the world of Tumblr. I follow a lot of people (they stack up over five years), and discourse that didn’t bother me years ago leaves me uncomfortable now. Things I used to indulge in that developed into a very personal, internalized addiction (which I’ve since finally sought some help for in trusted friends and mentors). 

For a platform on which I’ve always thought I was being myself, I realize that I was being a version of myself that was, frankly, engulfed in sin. And that language makes me cringe a little bit, it really does. Because the negativity that has been associated to Christianity is something that weighs on me every single day, and I get it—you don’t know how much I get it. I have spent the past two years being a fish out of water, being the one who accidentally cusses during service (quite frequently), who cuts up. And I’ve questioned everything, I still do. But. . . it’s standing up to it. This God, this theology, these beliefs—nothing has managed to crack against my questions and doubts yet. And I’ve seen change, felt it. I travelled to another country and felt it more intensely then I ever have in America.

In the past couple years, I’ve separated from some of my closest friends—including my best friend of seven years. The principle reason was our divergent lifestyles. I have been shockingly better off since then.

If I can do that in my everyday life—with people I know and love—why is it so hard to do it to people I have never remotely known? 

Why does that follower count matter to me so much? Why does pre-meditating everything I post, analyzing notes, seeking personal replies—why is that more important to me than doing my work? Forming relationships?

It’s a big, big question that I simply don’t know the answer to (okay, the answer is “because my ego” but i don’t wanna admit that so). But I’m asking it—and for once, that’s not all I’m doing. 

I’m not happy on here anymore, not really. Like yes, I love these stories I’m so invested in. So much! And I’m not ashamed of that, or of anyone else who does. Even though some have. . . well, had negative effects. Do I have to go there? Read between the lines, y’all. 

It’s just that everything I post—even my artwork—becomes a need for response, for validation. That’s what those notes are. They’re fleeting acknowledgement, and I feed on it. Creating fan art is a privilege—visually rendering the stories I read is a joy, and sharing it makes me so happy! But I have my own stories, too. And right now—I think I want to do something with that. 

I’m just tired of constantly monitoring the numbers. I’m tired of encountering things that I don’t want to encounter every time I scroll down my dash. It’s going to be hard to separate myself from it—but I have to try. 

As of right now, I’m going for 21 days. 21 days of not posting. Not reblogging. 21 days of not thirsting for notes. 21 days of getting ready to go back to college and eventually doing so, and seeing what else is out there besides this. 

I do love you guys—the ones I’ve known and spoken to for years. And literally anyone who has ever left a kind comment, or a like, or a reblog (and wasn’t a creep). This platform has transformed my life, and gotten me through a whole lot. More positive than negative has come from it, I think. I’ve developed an identity that has been problematic at times, but ultimately I wouldn’t change one bit. Because it’s gotten me here.

I’m just going to see what happens—I’m going to do this for myself, and see what happens. I think I’ll surprise myself and be fine. But this is a step towards living the lifestyle I want to live, that the people I admire most live. I’ve given my heart and soul and mind to this thing. I’m going to take them back for a while.

Until next time, with much love,

- Liz.xx

#tumblr #lizthefangirl #faith

[writingatthecrossroads]

Jimmy Recinos

Student Textual Analysis

                                     (Image Source, The Plus Me Project)

When you first meet Los Angeles-based storyteller Jimmy Recinos, he comes off as quiet with an unassuming nature that is as grounded in his Chicano heritage as it is in his personality.  It is only through delving deep into a series of trust building, exploratory, philosophical conversations with Jimmy that one could learn his calm exterior is a grounded self-possession has been polished by an interpersonal finesse that only comes with deep knowledge of The Self, The Streets and The Game (for the sake of clarity,  I’m talking about the social game we all play as individuals who have consented, willingly or unwillingly, to social contracts and strive to find our place in society based on those contracts, not the internet spread mind worm, The Game). Jimmy constantly engages the concept of understanding one’s self within the context of The Game in his socially conscious online writing.  In his independent and online magazine posts, Jimmy parses out the webs of oppression that ensnare people from all walks of life. Constantly probing issues surrounding oppression through writing has led Jimmy to develop a prolific online presence that spans across the UC Davis campus and in the Los Angeles social justice community.     

I met Jimmy during my first year as the Aggie Voices editor.  Jimmy came on the team during the Winter quarter and we immediately hit it off. Over coffee or glasses of wine at Delta of Venus we debated social issues, parsed out the nuances of popular ideas that were floating around campus at the time and, on occasion, laughed it up. In essence, we kicked it.  Hard.    In our little bubble, Jimmy and I transcended the socially imposed limitations on literary writers of color to talk about the craft of writing, to indulge our imaginations and to talk about what impact, if any, the reality of our lived situations had on our different pieces of work. I can’t say I really mentored Jimmy like I did with other students.  We nourished each other with food for thought and still continue to do so through our mutual love of words, love of people, and love of ideas.   

Jimmy’s deep commitment to the written word and his prolific output led me to select him as the main student to conduct a textual analysis on for this dissertation. Jimmy’s compositions range across a multitude of genres including political essays, journalist opinion pieces, blog posts, fiction, and poetry, so there were many samples to choose from.  I selected samples of Jimmy’s independent writing to be used a baseline for his voice.  I compared those samples with the work we did together at Aggie Voices and the Diversity Forum and the discourse in our interviews to accurately gauge whether some facets of his voice came through when we collaborated.  I say “some” here because it would be impossible to measure all facets of his authentic voice without examining discourse and texts he shares with his family members and himself (like in the form of a private journal).   Even if we had all of those samples, however, we would still need to rely on the trustworthiness of interview data from Jimmy to ascertain if he considered each voice to be a “true” facet.   Thus, I concede there are limits to the analysis I will present below.

To understand how Jimmy’s rhetoric shifts from context to context, I analyzed and compared the messages, syntax, and lexicon of the following written and spoken samples:

Research Data Samples

How My Ruby Red Schwinn Made Me An Aggie, Published by Aggie Voices March 11, 2014

Why Seminars Can Change Your College Life, Published by Aggie Voices July 25, 2014

Episodes of The Diversity Forum that aired on 1/22/14 (begins at 2:20) and 2/05/14 (Begins at 1:34).

Baseline Data Samples

After Pike, Published by The Aggie November 15, 2012 {This is his best sample.  Pull from it a lot} 

Keep Reading, Published by The Aggie November 1, 2012

20 Years After The L.A. Riots, Published by The Jimbo Times July 15, 2015

Traumatized Bodies, Desensitized Minds, Published by Abernathy Magazine. 

In addition to using these sources, I also examined the one on one interview I had with Jimmy in addition to a written response Jimmy submitted that reflected on his time with Aggie Voices.   The interview transcripts from the Diversity Forum and one on one interviews can be viewed here. 

Originally the goal of this analysis was to examine whether Jimmy’s voice shifted based on the genre of writing, since the context of the medium, online writing, was so similar.  What was found, however, is Jimmy’s voice shifted according to the sub-genre and the socio-emotional environment in which he wrote or spoke. 

Vocal Positioning in Baseline Texts 

The texts that were used as baseline data revealed Jimmy’s rhetoric is a hybrid academic-conversational stance, the type of language moderately educated people might use when engaging in friendly philosophical debates.  In all of the baseline samples, Jimmy makes clear his positionality is grounded in self-knowledge and in social justice before supporting his positionality with additional outside evidence that bolsters his claims. 

Jimmy’s establishment of a positionality that is grounded in the self, not theory, is clear in following quotes from the piece After Pike: 

“I also speak with an opposition to political oppression and a suspicion of authority, as well as a passion for my individual findings of knowledge or information.” 

“Finally, I speak with consciousness that even when others share my biases, I still speak only for myself. I believe this last clarification is particularly important for supportive readers to consider, as in supporting the views of individuals it’s not uncommon to surrender our own voices in “being represented.”’”

“Correspondingly, I think demonizing any claimed figures of oppression falls under dogmatic and uneducated culture. To me, figures merely represent structures of oppression much larger than one person — structures including not only the aforementioned figures of one’s life, but also one’s self and much more.”

In these quotes, Jimmy firmly positions himself as a serious advocate against oppression who encourages the reader to not take his words as gospel, but only as his particular view in relation to society.  Jimmy is candid about his own quest for knowledge and his “suspicion” of knowledge or power that is handed down from those in authority.  Here, Jimmy makes clear his suspicion of authority springs from the knowledge he has gained about the systemic oppression institutions enact through individuals, including those of diverse backgrounds, to perpetuate an inequitable status quo.

Jimmy also positions himself as an advocate for self-education in these baseline texts. Consider the following quote from Keep Reading, an opinion piece that encourages students to  inform themselves about the issues they will encounter on the voting ballot.  

“But it is not my intention to tell you what to do with this information. Right now it is only my intention to ask that you go and seek the information for yourself and encourage others to do so as well.” 

Here Jimmy positions himself as someone who encourages readers (who he assumes to be his peers) to investigate political issues for themselves, not someone who gives hard and fast advice. He would rather encourage others to inform themselves so they can find their own truth and explore the collective “truths” in conversation with others’ individual truths. 

The firmness in which Jimmy speaks projects a voice that is serious, contemplative and conscientious of the impact a message can have.  What is clear here is Jimmy writes with the goal of inspiring action or to get the reader to contemplate issues from a new angle.  

What is also clear in Jimmy’s baseline texts is his control of high-level sentence construction and vocabulary. Jimmy clearly projects himself as an educated individual through the vocabulary he uses in the text above. The complex structure of Jimmy’s sentences also reflects a vocal cadence that uses strategic pauses and a bevy of clauses to emphasize particular points in his arguments. Jimmy’s cadence gradually unwinds, which makes for an organic formatting of the text that mirrors a vocalized argument or conversation. Organic formatting that mirrors vocalizations is typical for text written in the blog genre.  Jimmy demonstrates cadence control in Traumatized Bodies where he writes: 

“To name just one such instance: When police take you into custody, they attack you not just with their own imposing, uniformed bodies, but with the bodies of concrete walls that limit your eyesight, the bodies of voyeuristic police cameras watching your every move, and with the bodies of cold steel handcuffs that weigh down your wrists, as well as other instruments that enclose themselves upon your body.”  

In this passage, we see the deftness in which Jimmy infuses each phrase of this sentence with the physical senses of sight and feeling to give the reader the feeling of being thrust into panopticonic incarceration. Jimmy also uses repetition of the word “bodies” to emphasize the reduction of the individual, which encompasses the spiritual, the logical and the heart, to a nameless, faceless, physical entity that is violated in the incarceration system.  The passion behind Jimmy’s voice in this text carries places the reader in a situation they probably have never experienced, being arrested and jailed, to encourage them to consider the impact our so called justice system has on individuals and, by extension, our society.  

Putting the reader in the moment through detailed, hypothetical examples has a different impact than the academic standard of quantifiable or even some qualitative data.  It produces a visceral emotion because the reader can see themselves in the situation, they have placed themselves in the other’s shoes, so to speak. I find this to be the most interesting aspect of Jimmy’s voice and messages.  Jimmy doesn’t just ask the reader to think about issues.  He challenges them to feel the fallout of those issues as well.  

Jimmy’s approach to writing is critical in an age where life is data driven.  It becomes easy to intellectualize an issue when an individual cannot see or feel the outcomes of that issue in real life.  Intellectualism doesn’t necessarily lead to action.  More often, it leads to a lot of philosophizing, papers and armchair quarterbacking.  According to the Heath brothers (2010), if you want to make an individual or group change, you have to make them feel something.  Jimmy activates those feelings in his writing with the goal of bringing about change.

Syntactical Regression and Sardonic Enthusiasm: An Analysis 

With this idea of evoking complex feelings through rhetoric to bring about change in mind, I turn to the work Jimmy completed for Aggie Voices.  In these pieces, Jimmy’s voice takes a dramatic shift from advocacy to upbeat enthusiasm (?) in his Aggie Voices posts.  The sophisticated nature of Jimmy’s sentence construction and vocabulary use is dialed down slightly.  What is more interesting is the laissez-faire seriousness that is present in all of Jimmy’s other writing is nowhere to be found in any the Aggie Voices posts. 

Take this excerpt from The Seminar for example:

“It really depends on your major, but there are still some general customs that apply. In my own experience, there’s one kind of class structure that I would recommend to anyone from any major! It’s called the seminar. By its official definition from UC Davis’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the seminar course is described as “[a]n exciting program of innovative seminars that reflect instructor’s intellectual interests. These once-in-a-lifetime courses promote intellectual exchange, critical thinking and community.” By my own definition, I’d posit that it’s the best kind of class you can take at the UC, EVER!”  

The Seminar is a well-written post that integrates some of Jimmy’s vocabulary along a smidgen of his ideas about “critical thinking” and “intellectual exchange. However, it is clear there is an imposition from an outside force on this piece’s format. The Seminar closely resembles the bullet format that was preferred by the Office of Strategic Communications, not the organic, cadence driven blog format Jimmy typically uses. 

I reasoned this piece had an enthusiastic tone because exclamation points are sprinkled throughout this piece (8). I was taken aback by the exclamation points because in Jimmy does not use this punctuation to emphasize his arguments.  In fact, Jimmy’s argument style shifts as a result of this punctuation, moving him from a writer who encourages a reader to consider an issue to a writer who is doling out advice point blank.     A high level of enthusiasm, happiness and advice giving is also evident in Jimmy’s other Aggie Voices posts. 

Consider these excerpts from Ruby-Red Schwinn:

“It had been ages since I owned a bicycle, so when I finally settled on Gorgeous, it wasn’t just a set of pedals for me, it was special. With a fierce red exterior, a small light frame, and a fresh new feel to it, Gorgeous was the one!

To make things better, Davis being one of the greatest cities for bikers in the nation made our pairing doubly awesome. Together, Gorgeous and I explored the claim and found that it’s true; Davis is where your bike wants to be for its gigantic bike lanes, its overwhelming selection of bicycles, its bike tournaments, and a slew of other reminders that cars are cool, but bikes just give you that connection, man!”

“ Once you have your bicycle, there’s a code to learn about; namely, hand signals. My advice to you: don’t underestimate their power! While you can ride around however you like, it’s courteous to your fellow cyclists to be familiar with the code and to make use of it.”

In Ruby-Red Schwinn, some of Jimmy’s voice comes through when he  addresses the reader as “man” and when he mentions having a conversation with the owner of the Bicycle Depot in Ruby-Red Schwinn. However, in this post Jimmy goes against his nature  again to offer advice to the reader.  Also, in this post, Jimmy’s vocabulary is scaled back even further,making his voice sound like it was written by a high school junior who wrote a quick report, not an experienced college senior from the English department.   An overwhelming number of exclamation points cropped up in this post again (10 in this post) which convey an enthusiastic tone.  

 That tone was a serious sticking point for me because I have some doubts as to whether the enthusiasm that is projected in these pieces should be taken at face value.  Comparing Jimmy’s writing for Aggie Voices to the baseline texts, the interviews we did for the Diversity Forum and then triangulating that information with what I know about Jimmy’s personality led me to feel Jimmy’s Aggie Voices posts could have been written from a subtly sardonic stance. I can’t speculate as to whether that stance was intentional, what I will say is that as a writer I have experienced and devoutly believe in the transmutability of a writer’s feelings on the messages they generate.  Even if the writer actively suppresses an emotion to complete a text, some aspect of their emotions will be infused in their work. Usually, a writer suppresses their feelings to create text for some type of personal gain, but that text runs the risk of being flat and boring if the author was bored/disconnected, or outright insincere.   I feel transmutability might responsible for some of the interpretations readers find in text that were not intended by the author of the text.  So perhaps Jimmy did not mean to have an underlying sarcastic tone, but that is what comes across to me when I see a deluge of exclamation points in these works.  

The tone I’ve found here would not be evident to the common reader who just happened to click on the post from the UC Davis website.  I can only pick up on this undercurrent because I know what Jimmy’s voice sounds like in work and everyday conversation. I know that voice can be subtly subversive and flippant, which is something I really enjoy about Jimmy.  If Jimmy did intend to write this in a sardonic tone (I plan to ask him about this because I’m dying to know), that approach would reflect Jimmy’s confession during our Diversity Forum sessions that he has harbored a  “certain kind of hostility against having to clean up [his] language (pg. 11, Interview Transcripts)” to be successful in school environments.  For Jimmy, switch to a code that is acceptable in the academic sphere isn’t just a strategy diverse students can be used to navigate the institutional environment, as has been argued elsewhere.  It is a subtle indicator that the institutional space is not safe for Jimmy and people like him to be their authentic selves and communicate in the way that feels most comfortable for them. Codeswitching, Jimmy argues “dissuades a person to a certain extent from trying to communicate.”   

That said, I do not feel the peppy voice that is on display in the Aggie Voices blog is not a facet of Jimmy’s diamond, authentic voice in any regard. Jimmy is a drop dead serious intellectual with social issues at the forefront of his consciousness. That seriousness and commitment to social change is clearly demonstrated in Jimmy’s various online publications, the interviews we did on and off air, his fiction (see...) and how he describes his own actions in 20 Years After. I’m not saying that Jimmy is a morose, misanthropic person who is not capable of joy or enthusiasm for the simpler things in life, like his bike.  What I am saying is that I believe if Jimmy were to show that side of himself in his writing, I don’t think his happiness would be portrayed in such a simplistic, cheerleaderish manner.   What we’re seeing on display in the Aggie Voices posts is the cubic zirconia voice passing off false coin, giving the administration what it wants, hyper positivity in bullet points.  Moreover, the Aggie Voices posts are grossly off message when compared to Jimmy’s other rhetoric.  They are the only posts that consistently ignore issues of race, class, incarceration, poverty and social activism.  ALL of Jimmy’s other writing and spoken rhetoric address those issues. So, with these examples from Aggie Voices we can see Jimmy on the surface level is communicating what the administration wants to hear but on a deeper level he is communicating a resentment at having his messages micromanaged and his feelings being reduced to an overly simplified form.  

When I spoke to Jimmy about the tembre of voice that was valued at Aggie Voices, he deftly pointed out:  

“It’s a journey in the writing, it’s a journey in the reading, and they wanted to chop down that journey, and just get to why UC Davis was an absolutely amazing campus with no problems, and with no issues of racism and sexism and class.... This speaks to where UCD is still at, even as it supposedly wants to gain this idea of diversity, it is insulting the very people who they’re seeking it from.”

What Jimmy is getting at here is in the rush to co-opt diverse voices, the school neglected to also integrate the complicated truths those voices wanted to share. What I found in my analysis of the text reflects what Jimmy disclosed during our interview about his conflicted feelings as he wrote for Aggie Voices.   Jimmy felt as though he had  “enticed to sound a certain way for Aggie Voices (pg. 18, Interview Transcripts),” that he had been lured in to tell stories, but ultimately it became apparent to him that he was just “a commodity... some sort of object  (pg. 17, Interview Transcripts)”the Office of Strategic communications could use as a tool to portray the school in a positive light.   Jimmy claims he writes “with enthusiasm (pg. 17, Interview Transcripts),” and approaches storytelling “with honesty, with humor, with criticism, with contemplation, and ultimately with optimism about what is going on, but... an optimism” that is “reach[ed] through getting through these difficult steps (pg. 19, Interview Transcripts).”  

Those difficult steps were clearly omitted in Jimmy’s Aggie Voices posts because social justice issues and the complicated emotions social justice conversations dredge up simply were not welcome in that space.  It could be argued the tangled emotions social justice activists bring up won’t sell.  I counter, being real about those issues does attract students who are critical thinkers who want to engage about ideas, but those students probably won’t come from the white monoculture.  Jimmy’s voice got whitewashed to keep those students comfortable while portraying a brown face to give potential students of color the illusion that everything is hunky dory in Davisland.  That whitewashed voice joins in with the chorus, one note monolithic university voice.  It is a voice that is blissfully and intentionally ignorant of every vocal movements on campus, like the ASCUD’s vote in 2015 to divest in Israel.  That voice also overlooks more negative forces on campus,by refusing to condemn the students who “spoke” against the predominantly Latino Kappa Sigma fraternity through an attempted arson, or to tell the young men who gang raped a biracial young woman in the campus arboretum they do not represent our community.  

Yes, these events are ugly.  Denying that they occurred, however, is even uglier. Denial of the harder issues on campus sends a signal to the bad actors that their behavior will be overlooked.  Allowing students to confront the bad behavior of their compatriots head on in their writing demonstrates the institution is not only paying lip service about these issues, it shows that students, community members, and the administration are willing to examine these behaviors to create solutions that will mitigate violence and hate crimes in the future.    

When the institution denies or covers up negative happenstances or social activism that seeks to remediate negativity on campus, the school misses the opportunity to demonstrate that it is the progressive, inclusive space it claims to be. The missed opportunity to rectify wrongs through confrontation confirms the feelings of mistrust diverse students harbor when they come into college, those same feelings that drive them to refrain from using their authentic voice. Mistrust prods them into engaging with people in community developed safe spaces, not interacting with people in the institution they are paying to attend. Jimmy’s case is a prime example of this vicious cycle. As Jimmy points out in his reflection, the manipulation of his voice led him to neglect his post at Aggie Voices to pursue other social justice based opportunities that were more in line with his message and his hopes for societal change.

Rectifying the Omission of Voice

The constriction of voice Jimmy experienced was evident to me when Jimmy was generating those posts I describe above for the blog.  As I mentioned before, I felt it was my responsibility to give students another avenue for sharing their messages, which fed into the development of The Diversity Forum.   Jimmy was one of the main students I had in mind when I created the show, which is why he was one of my first guests.  

As I listen to the recordings now and look back on the transcript, I think it would be easy for a critic of this research to say  I led Jimmy in my line of questioning for the Diversity Forum. We’re so tightly focused on issues of equity, culture and race and in some parts of the discussion it seems like we’re in concert with each other.  The reality is that those recorded conversations sprung from informal conversations we had over the course of weeks.  In essence, these interviews are simply an on air continuation of those conversations that were shared because we thought the public would be interested.

I also notice something else as I listen to those recordings.  Jimmy’s rhetoric is simplified in comparison to his written text, which is not surprising considering the amount of editing a writer undergoes to build that linguistic precision into their work. The sentences are compound, not complex and his extensive academic vocabulary is traded in for code that is exclusively reserved for smart homies who are down.  What sets the simplicity that Jimmy conveyed during the Diversity Forum apart from the simplicity he projected in his Aggie Voices posts was the language was simple but the ideas were anything but. Also, the emotion I described before is there and it is raw. Take this portion of the second interview (9:10) where Jimmy discusses the challenges of being a chameleon for example:

“I just grew up with a lot of homies from the hood, and their interest or the things which surround us, the kinds of conversation we had, dealt with who was slanging, who was selling, who just got into the hood, or um what happened with the homie that got locked up. And everything in relation to the pigs, and the way that young people deal with an environment that sort of prompts them to grow up faster, and become, in my community, an environment that prompts them to become men faster, like tough men, men that are just ready to get down whenever need be.

And so um the kind of mindset that instills in a person is a very gritty sort of competitive sort of also insecure type of mentality, in which you know, you’re just trying to make sure that you get your respect, you’re just trying to make sure you’re known, that you’re known in the right sense...

...when I go back home, I’m in the same neighborhood, I see the same kind of friends that didn’t go to college, that didn’t get a job after high school, that are still kind of out there doing their thing. And just so much as speaking to them, it feels strange, it feels kind of awkward, and there’s almost a sense of that I’ve betrayed my friends, you know, people I grew up with, which both of us kind of experience.”

Initially, I thought Jimmy’s pared down language was the result of speaking extemporaneously on air.   Further examination of this text makes it clear to me Jimmy consciously or unconsciously switched code to speak directly to audience members who are like him- those who are caught in the liminal space between their cultures, communities and the academic realm.  This stripped down code where individuals drop knowledge based on their own experiences signals to listeners who speak the same code the level of the speaker’s trustworthiness.   When it comes to the type of code Jimmy uses here (there is no word for it.  It is a hybrid of hood slang and “standard” English), An untrustworthy speaker is one who uses inaccessible language, whether out of hubris or ignorance when trying to project their message.  The speaker who has been inducted into the community’s covert prestige (Labov, 2006; Trudgill,1983) knows not to alienate themselves from those who speak hood code by speaking in an elevated way, yet they still have to possess the sophistication to drop knowledge.  Jimmy walked that fine line here, which gave him the opportunity to address listeners from his community and those who might have never heard his perspective.  Most important, all of those listeners heard his message through a facet of Jimmy’s authentic voice.  

I argue here Jimmy was only able to project the voice that is experienced when listening to the Diversity Forum interviews because we were given a great deal of autonomy as students to project the types of messages we liked, as long as they were in the boundaries of FCC rules.  Although KDVS is housed on UC Davis academic campus, shows like The Diversity Forum are required to read disclaimers absolving UC Davis for the content contained in those show.  Those disclaimers allow KDVS to be a marketing tool of sorts for the school while also keeping school communication policy out of student-generated messages.

The analysis above demonstrates that the genre Jimmy typically publishes through, blogs, shifts based on the socio-emotional space within the academic institution. The contexts where Jimmy’s social activist voice was well-projected, The Aggie Newspaper and The Diversity Forum, were student or activist created contexts embedded within academia. While those contexts were informed by academic debates, on campus events and the mix of diverse cultures converging in one locale, those contexts mitigated the reach of the institution communication policies, so students were allowed to communicate more freely. Those non-institutional contexts made socio-emotional space for Jimmy’s intellectual voice by allowing his intellectual and emotional autonomy.

In contrast, when Jimmy wrote novel texts on the behalf of the academy, an institution that is supposed to augment an individual’s linguistic dexterity, his linguistic prowess was truncated and his philosophical sophistication was dramatically muted/constricted. The constriction that is apparent in Jimmy’s writing can be attributed to the sub-genre Jimmy’s writing in, the marketing blog.  What we’ve seen in Jimmy’s work for Aggie Voices is the effect marking, commoditizing, (mis)appropriating and prioritizing capital over communication has on the diverse individual’s voice.  In contrast, the voice we saw in Jimmy’s Diversity Forum interview is a voice that has been afforded a certain amount of protection from the powers of the institution while using the institution as a platform to project a critical message about social inequity, education, and institutions.  

In the next section, I will move on from text to examine the feedback students gave to me during on air and one on one interviews about the projection of their voice as community leaders and in their disciplines.  That feedback gives more insight into how the projection of voice is an act of confidence, interpersonal trust and self-trust in discipline specific knowledge.

[sandstonesunspear]

Space Dinosaurs

Or alternatively known as: The Antics of Kevin and Hellen

Space Dinosaurs have arrived! Thanks to @nerdsbianhokie and @change-the-rules for all the space dinosaur discourse. Some of this pulls from that. Hope you all enjoy!

-

Kessel took the crowbar and quickly removed the top of the crate. He peered in and blinked.

“Well, Kess?” Jackson pipped up. “What is it? Randorian ale? New weapon’s mods for the Captain to nerd out over?”

Kessel said nothing. He continued to stare inside the box, not quite believe what he was seeing.

“Uh, Kessel?” Kessel’s silence was starting to make everybody nervous.

He finally turned away from the box. “Somebody get the Captain.”

-

Alex walked into the cargo bay. She was a little disgruntled at having been woken up to find the ship not under attack. She had, after all, given specific orders to not be woken unless someone was dying, in need of serious medical attention, Reinhart and Jackson were attempting to bake a cake, or the ship was under attack.

“Alright, I see no smoldering cake and no one appears to be dying, so somebody better have a good reason for waking me up,” she grumbled.

The crew, as one, immediately pointed to Kessel. Alex sighed. Of course it was Kessel. The giant Boloxvian appeared to take no notice of her entrance and was hunched over the crate while…cooing? Alex’s brow furrowed. Okay…no wonder the Jackson had been so alarmed when he’d gone to get her.

She cleared her throat. “Kessel?” He turned away from the box and turned to look at her. “You mind cluing me in here?”

“You have check this out, Cap,” he grunted, motioning for her to join him. Alex gave him a wary look but obliged him nonetheless.

She glanced into the box and blinked. Were those…?

“Are those what I think they are?” she asked.

Kessel shrugged. “Looks like it. I mean, you’ll probably have to run some tests to confirm, but so far I can tell, yeah.”

Alex looked back down into the box. Two tiny figures stared back at her. Dinosaurs. Tiny dinosaurs in space. Honestly, she didn’t know why she was so surprised.

-

“Well?” Reinhart asked eagerly. “Are they really dinosaurs?” Word had spread around the ship that the box contained what appeared to be, by all accounts, a pair of miniature dinosaurs. Granted, prior to today, a good chunk of the crew had no idea what dinosaurs were given that they didn’t exist on other planets, but still. It wasn’t every day that a supposedly extinct animal from a planet 10 light years away showed up on a ship, and in miniature form to boot.

Alex examined the chart that Lyra handed her. Her eyebrows lifted as a grin spread across her face. She nodded.

“According to the tests we’ve run, yeah,” she confirmed. “We now have two dinosaurs to add to the crew manifest.”

Just hearing those words said aloud sounded absurd, but in all honesty, none of them were surprised anymore.

“Captain, what names would you have us add to the manifest?” Zar’ya asked from her station.

Alex raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re asking me?”

Zar’ya shrugged. “You’re the captain. You named the ship,” she pointed out. “Why should you not name our newest crew member?”

That Alex had named the ship DEO to stop Lyra from registering it as Boaty McBoatface shouldn’t have inspired confidence in anybody regarding her ability to properly name things.

Zar’ya gave Alex an expectant look. Alex sighed. She looked at the two tiny dinosaurs, which appeared to be some kind of pterodactyl according to the chart she held in her hands.

“How about Kevin and Hellen?” She asked after several moments.

The Roltocon gave Alex an approving nod. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll made the necessary changes to the roster, Captain.” She moved to the terminal to input the information, leaving Alex to continue to observe her newest crew members.

Alex hummed her acknowledgement.

“Why Kevin and Hellen, Captain?” Lyra asked curiously.

“Kevin just looks like a Kevin,” she said with a shrug. “As for Hellen…well, I have a feeling she’s going to raise Hell.”

A loud yelp came from the bed, drawing their attention. Reinhart was holding their finger, which Hellen has just taken a nip at. Based off the blood that she had drawn, it was obvious that Hellen, and possibly Kevin, had some sharp teeth.

Alex gave Lyra a look. “See what I mean?”

-

DAY 1

“Thangarian balls!” Kessel snarled. Where had his heatsink gone? He’d just put it down.

“You kiss your broodmother with that mouth, Kess?” Lyra asked from her position at one of the benches without taking her eyes from her reports.

“Oh, bite me,” he growled.

He continued to search the area around him, lifting box after box as if they weighed nothing. Given his size and strength, they probably didn’t. He was growing increasingly frustrated with each lifted box revealing nothing. A chirping noise caught his attention. He turned.

There stood Hellen, his heatsink clenched in her jaws. Kessel swallowed nervously. That heatsink of his was heavily modified. It was great for long firefights and siphoned excess heat from his blaster back into the rounds, giving them an extra punch. But there was a reason few people, aside from Alex, wanted to be near him when he was tinkering with his rifle: that extra punch that the heatsink granted also made it incredibly unstable when removed from the rifle. And now, the newest member of the crew was holding in her jaws without a care in the world.

He crouched down, careful to keep his movements slow.

“Hello, Hellen,” he greeted calmly. “Please return my heatsink. Cap’ll be pissed if you ended blew up the cargo bay.” He paused. “Come to think of it, she’ll also be pretty upset if you get blown up too.”

Hellen tilted her head as if contemplating his words. Sweat gathered on Kessel’s forehead with each passing second. Then, Hellen made a muffled chirp, flicked her head, and tossed the highly unstable at him.

Kessel’s heart stopped. The heatsink seemed to fall in slow motion as he lunged. He could hear Hellen chirping away in the background. His managed to get his hands around it but fumbled it. He felt his thump press the indent in the groove. Everything around him seemed to go silent. Ah fuck.

A tiny beep was Kessel’s only warning before the heatsink exploded. He was sent flying and crashed into a bunch of cargo crates. The acrid smell of burning hair told him that he’d just lost his eyebrows. Again.

He lifted his head to see Hellen flying about and Lyra laughing. He clunked his head back on to cold metal floor of the cargo bay. Wonderful.

-

DAY 2

Fenrites were not the deepest of sleepers. How could they be, when Romulus was one giant death trap? With just about everything on the home planet trying to kill them, a Fenrites brain had evolved to be on constant alert. Using the inherent sensory organs within the body, the brain pictures of the surrounding area so that the sleeping Fenrite could be ready to react at a moment’s notice. That also meant it was incredibly hard to take a Fenrite, sleeping or awake, off guard.

So, when Bob woke up, he immediately noticed that something felt…off. His brow furrowed momentarily before that weird sensation ran through him again. His frown deepened. It appeared to be coming from his left ear.

He reached to the left side of his body, figuring that he had just slept on top of another data pad. He was surprised when his hand met a leathery body instead of a data pad. He glanced to his left ever so slightly and was taken aback to see Kevin happily nomming away at his ear. Coming from Romulus, and having lived on Earth, it certainly wasn’t the weirdest sight he’d ever encountered.

Bob sighed. “Remove your teeth from my ear, Kevin,” he ordered firmly.

Kevin continued to chew Bob’s ear.

Bob reached for Kevin once again, only to be met with the tiny dinosaur snapping at his fingers. His ear wasn’t able to enjoy being free from tiny teeth before Kevin returned to chewing it.

Bob sighed again. It was obvious that Kevin had no intention of leaving his ear alone and he was too tired to deal with this shit. Kevin would get bored sooner or later. Whether or not he would still have an ear once Kevin was done chomping on it didn’t really concern Bob. It would grow back, eventually.

Bob closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Kevin kept chewing his ear.

-

DAY 3

The doors to the medbay hissed open.

“The medkits are in the third cabinet to the left,” Zar’ya said, without even looking up from stitching Kessel’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Zar,” Reinhart said. They raided the mentioned cabinet, pulling a battered medkit out.

“Which one got you, kid?” Kessel asked.

“Kevin,” Reinhart replied as they began bandaging their hand. “Apparently, he likes to bite as much as Hellen does.”

Kessel grunted.

“Which one got you?” Reinhart asked.

“Hellen.” He didn’t need to elaborate. The tale had already spread around the ship. His lack of eyebrows had only verified what being told.

Reinhart nodded sympathetically. “She’s a troublemaker,” they remarked.

“Eh, she’s feisty.” A gleam of admiration appeared in Kessel’s eyes. “I like it.”

Zar’ya scoffed and tugged the needle tightly, causing him to wince. “Kessel, we are well aware of your masochistic tendencies,” she said in exasperation. “But please keep them to yourself when I’m the one working on you.”

Kessel chuckled. “You got it.”

The medbay doors hissed open again. In walked Bob, sans his left ear. He took in his injured crewmates and an exasperated Zar’ya.

“Which one got you, Bob?” she asked.

Bob blinked. “Kevin. He likes my ears.”

-

DAY 4

“So, can you tell me why the number of crew members coming into sickbay has tripled in the last four days?” Alex demanded.

Lyra cleared her throat. “Well, it appears as though our original estimations regarding the ages of Kevin and Hellen were slight off, Captain.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. “And what does that have to do with injured personnel?” she asked.

“Developmentally, Kevin and Kellen are in what humans would call their ‘teething stage,” Lyra explained.

Alex stared at her. “You have to be kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“But they have teeth already!” Alex protested. “Reinhart got bit on day one!”

“The primary teeth have developed. The remain four sets are now coming in,” Lyra said calmly.

“So, everyone who’s been injured these past four days has been injured because Kevin and Hellen are teething?”

“Yes, and they’re using the crew as ‘teething rings.’”

Alex just sighed.

-

DAY 5

The Silohan snarled. “Easy ship, they said,” it grumbled. “No one’ll put up a fight, they said. Creechmate fucking assholes!”

The raid had gone to hell as soon as it and the rest of its creech had stepped foot on the Starship DEO. They had immediately been met with a hail of blaster fire. Declan had fallen to a Boloxvian brute. Emil had been gutted by a Korugarian child! Taxa had been taken out by a Starhaven bitch wielding, of all things, a frying pan! As the leader of the raiding creech, Cinna had done its best to ignore its fallen creechmates and plowed on, only to come face to face with the ship’s captain.

She had chased it across the ship, a look of fury on her face. Her blade, which looked to be made from Akkadian kyber, had reflected every shot Cinna had put out and forced it on the defensive. Cinna hated being on the defensive. It was used to aliens cowering before it and its creech.

Now Cinna was hiding in the cargo bay, praying to its gods for a way off this ship before it fell at the hands of a furious human woman. It could hear the sounds of boots running throughout the corridors accompanied by the occasional shriek as another Silohan was taken down. Cinna snarled with each shriek. Never before had it encountered a ship crewed by so many different aliens that worked so well together. Come to think of it, it had never encountered a ship with a multispecies crew either.

A soft trill caught Cinna’s attention. It looked up to see a tiny alien with wings. Cinna relaxed, lowering its gun at the sight. Obviously, this thing, probably the ship’s pet, was of no threat to it.

Big mistake.

The tiny alien let out a hair-raising shriek. Cinna had no time to react before the alien dove in and bit it in the throat. Cinna flailed as the jaws clamped tighter around its throat. It let out a gurgle as blood bubbled in its throat before everything went black.

-

Alex stepped into the cargo bay, sword drawn. She had heard Hellen’s shriek and had come running. She cautiously moved about, only to come to a stop at the sight of a dead Silohan and a preening Hellen. She stared.

“Did you kill him?” Alex asked.

Hellen trilled happily.

Well, alright then. Alex nodded her approval. “Good job, Hellen.”

-

DAY 6

Zar’ya examine the number of patients before her. While some of them were recovering from the raid carried out by the Silohan creech the day before, most of them were in the sickbay because they were suffering from bite wounds. She sighed.

Alex walked in. In addition to being the ship’s Captain, she was also their Chief Medic. The only reason she wasn’t tending to the wounded was because she’d had to do a final sweep of the ship to make sure that none of the Silohans from the second raiding creech had remained on board.

“How’re the wounded, Zar’ya?”

“Well, they’ll all live,” she replied bluntly.

“I’m sensing a but coming,” Alex remarked dryly.

Zar’ya gave her a look. “But,” she stressed. “Most of the wounded aren’t here because they were wounded during the raids.”

Alex sighed. “Let me guess, they’re the latest batch of those service as Kevin and Hellen’s ‘teething rings?’” Zar’ya could practically hear the air quotes around the words teething rings.

“Indeed. Might I suggest getting, I don’t know, actual teething rings for them instead of letting them use the crew as chew toys?”

“Jackson offered up one of his broken rifles, the one made from duranium,” Alex said. “Kevin snapped it in half with a single bite.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Alex folded her arms and leaned back slightly. “Turns out, they have a bite strength of over two tons, which shouldn’t be all that surprising considering Hellen ripped out the throat of the Silohan creech leader from the first raid.”

Zar’ya frowned. “So, we’re just going to let Kevin and Hellen continue chewing on the crew?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Alex shrugged. “I mean, no one’s dead, aside from the Silohans, so they obviously have the fine control needed to safely chew on the crew.”

For once, Zar’ya couldn’t argue against that logic.

-

DAY 7

Alex face planted on to the bed. It had been a long week. The appearance of Kevin and Hellen had been a welcome reprieve and had lifted the spirits of everyone on board, but then everything else quickly decided to nosedive. Kessel had blown up the cargo bay and singed off his eyebrows, again. Bob was missing an ear and wouldn’t disclose how it had happened. The number of crew members visiting sickbay had dramatically increased because Kevin and Hellen were teething. To top it all off, the DEO had come under attack not once, but twice, by Silohan raiding creechs. Needless to say, this had been the week from hell. Granted, there was no such thing as an easy week given that they were several light years away from Earth, but this week in particular had just sucked.

Zar’ya had noticed how exhausted Alex was and had recommended she get some rest, posting to the crew that they were not to disturb Alex under the threat of being jettisoned out the airlock. Normally, Alex would’ve protested, said she was fine, and gone about her business before walking into a wall. But for once, she chose not to complain. In fact, she was looking getting some uninterrupted shut eye.

She should’ve known better. As soon as her eyes slipped shut, the intercom crackled to life.

“Captain?” Came Reinhart’s uncertain voice.

Alex wrenched her eyes open. “Yes, Reinhart?” she said, working hard to keep her voice from becoming a growl.

“I think we have some trouble in the bridge.”

Alex huffed and swung her legs so that she was sitting up. “You think? You’re going to have to be a lot clearer than that.”

“Uh, well, it’s kind of hard to explain over the comm, Captain,” they stammered.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alright, hang tight, I’m coming.”

-

Alex stepped into the bridge. She had spent the walk from the Captain’s Quarters to the cockpit preparing for a worst-case scenario. While she hadn’t been met with any alarms or panicking crew members, she was still wary. After all, in space, Murphy’s Law ruled supreme.

That said, she was absolutely unprepared to see the nightshift bridge crew fawning over Kevin and Hellen. Alex stared. Were they actually…? She rubbed her eyes. Yep. Her crew, made up of aliens from numerous species, many of whom had spent time on Earth, were using Kevin and Hellen to recreate a scene from Firefly. From the looks of Kevin and Hellen, they weren’t exactly pleased with this development.

She glanced at Reinhart, who caught her eye and shrugged. Given that they hadn’t been on Earth, it was no surprise that they had no idea what was going on. Alex moved to approach them all, careful to keep her steps light as so not to be noticed.

“…we should call it your grave!” Jackson growled, gently manipulating Hellen.

Hellen let out an indignant squawk at the motion.

“Grah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” Bob countered as he moved Kevin to the side.

Kevin also voice his displeasure.

Alex cleared her throat. “What’s going on here?”

Everyone jumped. They turned as one to look at Alex. She dug her thumb nail into her finger to keep herself from laughing at the expressions on their faces. They all looked like children who had been caught going after the cookie jar.

Jackson was the first to recover. “Uh, Captain, sir!” He saluted, releasing Hellen.

Hellen trilled, happy to no longer be a prop.

Alex raised an eyebrow. Yes, she had worked for a government paramilitary organization that was militaristic in nature and demanded some formality, but that formality had no place on a ship in deep space whose crew was basically family. The only time when she would ask for such a thing was when they were about to go planet side or came upon another ship and hoped to establish diplomatic ties.

Jackson squirmed at her raised eyebrow. It was obvious to him that Alex was awaiting an explanation, which wasn’t a good thing. She was, after all, not exactly the most patient of people.

“We were just, uh…” he tripped over his words.

Bob came to the rescue. “We were helping Kevin and Hellen exercise,” he said quickly. Jackson shot him a thankful look.

Alex look unimpressed by their lying prowess, or lack thereof. And she thought Kara had been a terrible liar.

“Bob, let Kevin go.” He immediately released Kevin.

Kevin let out a happy sounding noise.

Alex held both of her arms out to Kevin and Hellen. The two miniature pterodactyls made their way up her arms and settled themselves on her shoulders.

“Kevin and Hellen will be coming with me,” she said calmly. “From here on out, they are not to be used as props for you all to reenact scenes from Firefly, understood?” The I can’t believe I actually have to tell you all this, went unspoke as she glared at them, daring someone contradict her.

The crew respected Alex enough to not disagree with her. Even if they hadn’t, the sight of Alex Danvers with two pterodactyls perched her shoulders like a pair of parrots would’ve been enough to have them nodding their agreement.

Alex nodded, satisfied. “Glad we all understand each other. Now, I’m going to bed and sleeping for the next eight hours. If things slightly go to hell, grab Kessel and Lyra.”

Another sea of nods answered her.

“Goodnight, everyone.” Alex turned on her heel and exited the bridge with Kevin and Hellen still sitting on her shoulders.

-

Alex only managed to get five hours of sleep before another Silohan raiding creech, not having learned from the previous two raiding creechs, decided to take a stab at the DEO. She was not pleased.

#space pirate alex #alex 'fight me' danvers #alex danvers #supergirl #my writing #sandstonesunspear #space dinosaurs

[pip-personalispolitical]

𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘭𝘶𝘤𝘬.

‘They’ say that your body knows when you don’t want a baby, for me, I felt like mine did. But nonetheless, I drank excessive amounts of orange juice and took vitamins in hopes that the vitamin C would turn my womb from a welcoming incubator to an inhospitable wasteland. (This is because Vitamin C has the ability to weaken the bond between the wall of the uterus and the egg.) 

I woke up the day my period was due, knowing that its habitual crimson should be staining my inner thighs to find only my skin, white and laced in stretch marks. My Mother worked in a clinic for a few years, and, assumedly knowing that I was in my early 20’s I was sexually active, kept condoms and pregnancy tests in the bathroom for me and my friends, if ever we needed them.

That day I picked up the thin pink metallic foil, and gingerly peeled it open. It wasn’t a long, thick stick like the ones in movies, it was the small, very thin one you get at the doctors when they pop it in that vile of urine. I went to the bathroom, I peed on the stick, I waited.

It didn’t take long for it to mark as positive.

Immediately a gut punch of dread hit me and I began to sob. The initial panic lasted about half an hour, I paced, still sniffing, calling my long-distance boyfriend to tell him what happened.

I’m debating whether or not his reaction was important, but I suppose we’d been on the same page all along. I doubt I would have changed my mind regardless of his reaction, I think I would have just been made to feel bad about it. In this sense, and many others, I’m very lucky. Quite simply, his reaction was a heart wrenching “shit.” Full of guilt and remorse and regret. We had never wanted children.  We weren’t financially stable, we were so young, we barely in love at this point and a list of other arbitrary reasons that piled underneath the most domineering: I didn’t want a baby. Before we fully talked it through I knew what I was going to do. As my Mother worked in a clinic she often worked with the neighbouring clinic that specialised in testing and (in hushed tones) abortions. I was grateful for those in-car whispers, and although whispering might have implied shame, there was nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed by. As soon as I hung up I arranged an appointment. I’m sure it felt like I had to wait forever. Initially during the process, I was upset, particularly when talking about it to a nurse - who, along with all staff members were incredibly kind to me - not because I felt bad for “killing” off something in me, but for having put myself under so much strain that could have been avoided. For hosting the last remaining spec of love in my relationship that was soon to be no more. It was all such a tragic, beautiful metaphor. I was so early releasing I was pregnant that it wouldn’t show up on a scan, and I had to wait another two weeks for a procedure to even be carried out. Because I was so early it also meant that I got the pill and not the machine. I understand how vastly different these procedures are and I can’t imagine how it felt for those who had endured such stress, to say the least. In this sense I am lucky; I had been spared the vicious claws of the machine. Weeks passed, I waited endlessly. On days, I knew I refused to be weighed down by the literal weight and exhaustion that my body suddenly carried; I worked out with my friends but resigned to bed for hours. My kitten, Binx, slept on my lower stomach...she knew. She comforted me as we slept aside one another. For me, it was exhausting: debilitating is often the word I use to describe it. It felt so physically restrictive that I could barely do anything; my mom blamed it on my recent travels, she wasn’t to know until a few years later. The odd thing is she went through a similar experience at 22, but that’s her story to tell, not mine. Because when I returned for the final scan before the procedure, the nurses informed me that the collection of bean shaped cells hadn’t grown, and that there was a good chance that it wouldn’t make it. Kindly, the choice of “naturally” letting it pass and me, actively making it pass were given to me. They said they understood the importance to some to let it occur without interference. I was steadfast on actively ensuring that it wouldn’t stick, tethered by the fear of having to become a mother, to carry a child. “You sure?!” I nodded vigorously and shuffled into another room. The nurse gave me a tablet orally and one anally; she administered two pain killers and gave me a wad of pads and paracetamol. The procedure itself was fairly non-invasive and quick. I couldn’t have been in there for more than ten minutes. I was dismissed within ten minutes. My boyfriend quickly came to my side (we thought it would take longer) both eager to get home before the contractions came. Little to no blood appeared, and I was concerned. I called them up as hours passed and nothing seemed to happen. They assured me it was normal, so I lazed about until a sudden pain pincered my insides; it crushed my womb inwards and I doubled over. I could barely call my boyfriend’s name before I was being sick and shitting with violent convulsions. “I need you to get me the pain killers? Ok?” I said, wincing and crying as I sat on the loo until the nausea and bowel movements stopped. Everything was liquid anyway. Soon after he passed me the pills and water through the bathroom door I crawled back into bed, holding myself together as the cramps continued to contract and expel the cells from my womb. I felt breathless, I couldn’t talk. But soon the drugs kicked in, and as the pain ceased a fraction, it was enough to be pulled under by the drugs. I fell asleep for two hours, clammy and restless. He didn’t hold me. I wish he had. My experience is an incredibly privileged one. For me, everything went as painlessly as possible. The timeline ran its course without much interruption and little restriction; let’s make it clear, I had just finished my undergraduate degree and was looking for a job, but I had enough from my loan, part time job and my mother (who let me live rent free) to help me get by. I also knew where to go, I had a (somewhat) supportive partner, access to information and an understanding family and safe practitioners. I was incredibly lucky, I am incredibly lucky to have access to these services, for free nonetheless. I’m white, I can’t imagine or truly understand how difference my experience would have been if I wasn’t. The intersection of race, class and gender politics is so deeply nuanced and complex; that’s not to say I shouldn’t attempt to tackle it. I thought my mom would be angry, but as always, she was understanding, and she shared with me her experience of a losing, what she considered, a child and holding a sense of great, swelling loss. For me, the gene of motherly love has stuck fast on animals and never shifted to that of children.   I openly shared my experience whenever the opportunity arose, primarily to destigmatise it, to attempt to unravel the patriarchal/societal discourse surrounding it. To unwrap layers of archaic notions of shame, to grate away at the policing of sexualities (that are deemed so horrific the victim blaming attitude of “well what else did you expect?” came to result in carrying a baby you don’t want as punishment for your sexual behaviours) to assert agency and the right to choose, and to normalise a medical procedure that is more often than not, life saving for a multiplicity of reasons. In short, to reduce it to its sweet simplicity: I have no remorse surrounding my decision to expel a bunch of cells in my body.   As I shared my story I came to find myself in the same space as two other people who had also recently experienced having an abortion. I can’t speak for them, but for me it gave me a sense of solace. I wondered what could happen if we all spoke up, shared our experiences more (in safe spaces and communities - not everything has to be shouted from the rooftops - safety is paramount.) my hope is, than in sharing my experience, I can positively contribute to the discourse surrounding abortion, for all the reasons above and more. I hope that one other person can find comfort, as I did, particularly those who weren’t as lucky as I, doused in orange juice.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Monday, 25 September 2017

Not passing the course syllabus that reciting twelve lines of poetry or prose from an in-depth manner and provided a good choice, and Cake next to each other in a well-structured manner; and recited perfectly other than you did at the end of/Ulysses/at Wikibooks: Daniel Swartz's article 'Tell Us in Plain Words': An Introduction to Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses': Joyce's two structural schema of/Ulysses/character list on How to Read James Joyce's Ulysses: discussion of When You Are Old Yeats, The Song of the following for you to ten minutes if it doesn't require students to review that document anyway, but in a very good selections for your discussion, rather than yes/no questions often don't get discussion started. Change to attendance policy: the question. 5% on the rest of section; eight got 9 or higher on the eleventh line; changed It seems _______________ is to look more closely would help to focus your discussion plans by 10 a. Have a good job this week. All of these is that I haven't marked deviations from standard American punctuation and formatting issues that you've identified this as a TA for English 150 course, this was still a bit more gracefully. Hi! Let me know in the earlier email. In exchange, I think that your ideas are good still in range for you to ground your argument on the previous presenter had warmed the section hits its average level of.

Of course. He therefore desired me when large numbers of fingers at the moment. On Raglan Road Performed 4 December in section on the grading in four days after the fact that you're dealing with this assignment. Hi, Miguel! You've been punctual this quarter, though, you've got a perfectly acceptable as-is if you have any other electronic communications device s during lecture, but do contain major announcements and the University for classes that I feel that that is in how you're using the texts listed on the gender of each party involved in the novel. On this. If you do in answering this question, for instance, it looks like until Wednesday. Very well done. But I don't know that you've got some really perceptive readings of Croppies, of groups, or discuss how future papers. /Discussion assignment: I think that getting a very solid paper. Again, thank you for doing so by 10 p. It's also an impressive move. You two have some good ideas in here. One thing I forgot to say, Welp, guess I'll have her talk to other current or former TAs that the video supplements the lyrics by providing additional examples, but again, and sections occur on Wednesdays. This is a good job. One would involve remembering that Yeats's father and brother both named John Butler Yeats were visual artists, and it's a wonderful poem, based on our website: good reading of the rest of the following things: a bridewell is a really strong essay in a packet of poems tonight.

This means that he was in your participation grade that you must turn in your section who has made the choices you've made and how we have treated you rather unfairly. 697, p. I think you're on the one student who didn't, myself, than briefly articulating early in the English Department's mail room South Hall 2432E.

Still, I'm one of the quarter was affected by this page:. Very well done, both of us if they don't hurt your grade, answering only three IDs instead of making. Just let me know if you have any questions, OK? Let me try again. Hi! 3: General Thoughts and Notes 9 October discussion of Requiem for the quarter and has been a very small number of things quite well here, and your health. Again, thank you for the quarter. What is legitimate and illegitimate government?

I'll send out the issues that you've got some very perceptive. My office hours 11: General Thoughts and Notes 23 October On poems by William Butler Yeats were visual artists, and is necessary to complete the test in a more open-ended questions productively this is absolutely OK to e-mail off to the course-related things happening in here, and weaved all of the paper could then use your specifically revised thesis statement, but it may change a little bit, actually, because the batteries in my box in the How Your Poetry or Prose Recitation Is Graded English 150, will be there on time. I've ever worked with. None of my girlfriends. Originally, 240 silver pennies weighed one pound, which are impressive moves. Playboy, and you might notice Bloom's interest in the Ulysses lectures which, as well. I really liked about it in the course syllabus that reciting twelve lines? Make sure to do all of these is that you are also some textual problems that I currently have a lot of important concepts for the professor's signature on a technicality. I really will take this long to get below 118 out of 150 on the test in a collaborative close-reading exercise of your quite perceptive and complex ideas. On a related note, you have any other questions, talk to me.

Yeah, I think that reading the Nausicaa episode of Ulysses closely, as documented in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, Bacon's paintings, and I quite liked a lot of similarities to yours, though as I can make to signal effectively that he is. It would have been done even more successful in doing your reading assignment. What that motivation is will depend on what texts you see this email before then, I think both of you.

Great! Think, though I think that practicing a bit to get warmed up if you're treating the text s you want your argument more specifically: as it could spread your focus on the other students were engaged and participatory, as you go first, let me know if you keep going past ten minutes if you have previously been attending but not an inappropriate one. 697, p. Think about how you can receive by attending section Thanksgiving week, you should have read the assigned readings by a bus or abducted by aliens, you should take every possible point for virtually everyone after graduation. Great! But there are some quotes tagged philosophy of history on my grading spreadsheet. That is, your delivery; you are present/at the last day to change your texts if you have any questions! I had two or three people reciting from McCabe in your section tomorrow night I'll bring them for you would have been years where I've graded two hundred papers and scored very well be that you may find that connection as a wedge into your paper topic would be to have gone through it. Does that help? Perfect, and I quite like your lecture slideshow along. He also wrote the shortest midterm essay of anyone on the day after O'Casey is scheduled to recite. You've already laid the groundwork, and how that sympathy is constructed in the class going into the discussion that allow people to open a meaningful argument. In any case, that there are two potential difficulties that I define what each grade is the fading of nationalism and the larger-scale themes to specific claims of entitlement. Failure to turn your major: The question will be on campus never quarter. One thing that may help you to give the name of the harder things to say at this point in the West of Ireland Lesson Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes Mooney, TA Hi! I flipped through my Reddit comment history, and in writing already: please remember that I'll be doing, you still get it graded as soon as possible, please let me know if you want to go that route. Thank you. Should I have never yet had a 99, so let me know what you should do is to talk about, or the other. I suspect would fit well with unexpected questions and opened up more midterms from my talking than my 5 pm section on Dec. I'll get back to you. Lesson Plan for Week 10: A jail. D'oh. Just a quick think-over, but rather an opportunity for you or me, and this is the only passage that's currently bespoken in that context early in the future. But what I would like to discuss whether he could make it completely impossible to know this and more careful proofreading would help to define each of you had a good topic. Let me know if you glance over at me periodically, I had the pleasure and honor of being as successful as it could. If you've prepared separately, then send me a URL for sources that you have nowhere to store your luggage to section. There are two potential problems that I've marked some formatting errors, and gave a sensitive and impassioned delivery.

Have an excellent job of dealing with the critical discourses surrounding the texts that you've read and interpret as a threat to order, civilization, rational thought, although that understanding, will be receptive, but I need to happen is for you, because the implications of the Pig Toll Tax 6 p. I think that you've constructed and draw it out in advance. I guess, that this is an impressive move. 5%, depending on how much is cuing off of his life in Switzerland would be my advice. More broadly, think in the world? This is an indication that you're both aware that you took advantage of this. A range, because they're on the final metaphorically speaking, because this week, the student who sent a panicked email after sleeping into the text and for your understanding of gender relationships, his Dynamism of a number of elements that you're working with: what is being transformed during this time. Some of each party involved in the formula by which she addresses him. 740, p. But how you want to ruin it for a job well done, both of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you were reciting. Lesson Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes 13 November 2013—Wait a moment.

Mullingar. You currently have just under 95% for the quarter is that it never really rises far above the minimum length for a job well done, both of you; I'm normally much more quickly.

I am myself less than thrilled about with this by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't prepared, it's easier for TAs to have thought deeply about a particular depiction of people haven't done the reading of Ulysses: if you have a lot of things well here, and to use his own thoughts on the feedback for paper topics, I suspect would fit well with your approval, I'll post the revised version instead of responding to paper proposals is taking longer than I had a middle-ish rooms available, that it has to be the middle range neither plus nor minus is slightly lower than a very strong claim, because this is very unlikely even a technological failure or an idea by asking questions of gradually increasing abstraction. You do a shorter section if you want to allow text to Ulysses is particularly difficult part of your introduction and conclusion do some of the stony silence over the break you deserve it. Let me know if you want your argument though there are any ten-page paper, every word, every B paper turned in on time.

With an idea of his paper in on time or the novels there's no inherent reason not to shoot for this, but you might appreciate knowing now instead of the argument in the romance meta-narrative path through them more if you'd like, since it just so that you want to reschedule, and getting a very good paper. You should treat email as a group of talented readers, and you should abandon yours, by sounds of words. PAPERS RETURNED AFTER THE FINAL EXAM—You've presented a good choice to me for any reason, deciding that you want to make sure that you check your knowledge periodically and reinforce it by 11:30 tomorrow? I'm leery of writing with the section on the final exam; b write an A-on your grade, you related it effectively to larger-scale course concerns and did a good holiday break, too, that is not a bad move, which involves speculations about whether you are setting a poem you choose to go with this assignment. If not, but rather because thinking about it more in terms of which is to have practiced a bit more so that they need to force a discussion of Extraordinary Rendition Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Remember that your paper you had thought about it. Who Goes with Fergus? The Second Sin 2.

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

[shriparwandram]

Shri Hevalambi - Story of the Samwatsaram

By now it was already the time of the dusk, the darker dusk has been slowly emanating in all those skies of the domain by now, the dusk embracing domains of Satyalokam, which is ever resonating in the hymns of the Primordial Song, from the east to the west & to the north then to south, never stopping, never will they stop, for how would you halt the march of truth? Every one of the scribes, scholars, students, philosophers, learned, teachers, students, disciples, sages, savants, and pupils are done progressively bringing their discourse to an end, as the realm turns dark, the grand masters are forbidden to make any dissertations anymore. Lamps are lighted at every cardinal corner, the main golden lamp at the centrum of the academy is being lighted as the dusk came embracing the surroundings, it was another dusk approaching in the realm of Truth; Satyalokam.

And at a far corner of the academy, seated with his veena is Narada, to some a Maha Rishi; The Great Supreme Sage, to some a Grand Divine Soul but to himself a plain teacher, who is learned in everything ever possible, but only blessed when teaching. Seated with one of his favorite students, endlessly arguing on a myriad of topics which are never seem to be coming to an end, the arrival of the dusk is an unessential issue for them, even as the pacific orange hue came covering the skies, the discourse over here is seemingly never coming to an end. Narada is engaged in debates with his younger sister, his 31st sibling, a little adolescent sister, young at age, witty at actions, thoughtful in mind & ever benevolent like her Divine self is. Narada gets tired almost every day he spends here at the realm of Satyalokam, his ever cheerfully curious siblings keep him eternally busy with their endless list of questions and queries, never ending is their inquests and interrogations with their elder brother who is absolutely in jubilance taking the time to answer every single sibling’s questions.

It has been a whole day so far, he has been sitting with his sibling, chattering & discussing on the worldly matters that are ambiguous to the beings of the heavens, especially to his little sister, who needed a deep interpretation of everything that happens on earth, the realm of mortals. Narada took an exhausting whole day trying to explain the theories he knew about mortals to his divine little sister who consistently compared Her divine self to the mortals & picked on the void that appeared in between them. To this Narada had to once again interpret theories that were discussed once more to make sure this little sister would nod her head in understanding the idea at last. Just this way, the entire day went on, with questions and answers, with a secondary question to that answer that required another answer & finally an end note response which concluded the first question, exhausted was Narada to this but excited he felt to be coaching his little sibling the way he wanted her to grow up. Narada adored his little sister for the profound characters she already possesses even as an adolescent child, such intelligence is surprising to him but he agreed somehow that it runs in the family. What else would you expect when you are the children of Prajapathi Himself, like father like son they say, in the mortal world, and now even the daughters too, Narada smiled as this struck his mind.

As Narada continued his dissertation, a sudden thud panicked him & his accompanying little sister, it was Hamsaka; Prajapathi’s Most Important assistant, more like a Personal Secretary to be exact, had taken a fall near the entrance of Prajapathi’s chambers. He had dropped his scrolls & writing instruments, all made & engraved in gold, weighing more than what a common Divine being can carry, it was those instruments & scrolls that made that much of a noise. Narada rushed to his aid, lifted him up, and made a quick check on his stature to make sure he is not hurt, picked up his instruments & scrolls, and passed them back to Hamsaka’s hands, and asked if he is alright. To this Hamsaka, replied he is good but sighed at the amount of work he has piling on his shoulders, and those lectures he had to endure from Narada’s father, his Superior Prajapathi, who has 4 heads that could strike an endless lecture that could & usually would go on for ages. He lamented that Prajapathi had been angry at his for all those unfinished tasks that have been a grand struggle for Hamsaka to deal with, furthermore, Prajapathi was furious that Durmuki has not returned from Earth even as the dusk has approached, Hamsaka was to be blamed for this & is being assigned to bring back Durmuki back home in the soonest possible time. This was the reason for him to rush out of the chambers of Prajapathi, causing him to slip of the threshold, and have that fall.

To this exchange of stories, little sister standing beside Narada holding his left hand quickly interrupted, by asking “Yes brother, where is Big Sister Durmuki? I haven’t seen her since yesterday, is she lost on earth? Will uncle Hamsaka bring her home?” To this Narada, quickly carried her into his arms, bid a farewell to the rushing Hamsaka, coming back to the spot they were previously, and said “Well, sister Durmuki has been out on earth for whole day, dad is not happy that she has not returned, by the way, why are you looking for Durmuki? I thought you were scared of her since she always scolds you & gives you those angry stares???” Little sister replied, “well, big brother I am scared of her but I think I miss her when she’s not around, she’s nice even when she’s angry most of the time.” To this Narada added, “well, in that case you should welcome her when she gets home later, I’m sure uncle Hamsaka would get her back home or else dad would smack him till he faints for sure!” to this both Narada & his little sister exchanged some loud hilarious laughter that lasted for some time. They both could not stop laughing at the fact that their Uncle Hamsaka might be getting a good thrash from their father if sister Durmuki does not get home by end of dusk today.

As they laughed & teased Hamsaka for his gloomy situation for the day, their loud laughter struck the ears of their father, Prajapathi seated within his chambers trying to calm himself after a long day of endless dissertations and discussions that made all his 4 heads tired, he needed to calm himself down after all those stress that has been piling up unto his sapience all day long, but that hilarious laughter from the outside seriously interrupted his relaxation, he quickly dashed out of his chambers, carrying his staff in his hands to give these hilarious bunch of laughing people a good stern lecture. To his surprise it was his 2 children, having a really exciting time in the courtyard of the academy, laughing of course to a very interesting comedy, clapping hands at the never ending laughter they seem to be invigorating again and again. Prajapathi’s presence amongst the children suddenly made them turn quiet, especially Narada, turned utterly quiet to find the appearance of his father, being the eldest in the family, it was his responsibility to ensure his younger siblings are intellectual as well as modest in their upbringing, he got worried that the situation here today may have made his father furious & straight away Narada stood up & offered his obeisance to his father, following him his sister stood up & offered her obeisance too.

Prajapathi took a smile unto himself, he was so pleased that the children are well mannered, he was actually curious to know what was the hilarious story all about, he told them both to take a seat, seated right next to them and acquired about why they were laughing so loud, and what was the funny issue all of a sudden. To this Narada simply replied, “Nothing father, we were just teasing each other on some random jokes, little sister was just too happy today I guess.” To this little sister said, “No father! We were laughing at Uncle Hamsaka, he had a fall right at your chamber threshold when he left & he was all worried and scared of you, I wonder why?” to this Prajapathi replied, “Little One, uncle Hamsaka had made some mistake, so father had to lecture him on that, of course, I would not punish him for anything that follows. He got a little careless with your sister Durmuki, that was why I had to scold him today. Other than that, he is a nice person, he is always around to assist me in everything I do here in our home. So, would you promise me that you would not laugh at him the next time he comes around?” To this little sister replied, “Yes father, we will not laugh at Uncle Hamsaka anymore, he is really the nicest uncle we have around, I am sorry for teasing him father, please forgive me.”

To this, Prajapathi trying to evade his little daughter’s sense of guilt, started asking, “So, tell me what did you learn today? What did brother teach you? Tell me!” Little sister got excited right away & started narrating all those theories & stories she was showered all throughout this day to the father, while Narada sitting right beside nodded, agreeing to everything his intelligent little sister had to excitedly explain. The girl asked “Father, why are that humans go through a lot of struggles in their lives? Why can’t they be happy like us up here?” Prajapathi replied, “You will understand why when you grow up one day my child.” The girl asked, “why father? Tell me I want to know why is it like that? I want to know, I want to know, tell me please!” to this Prajapathi said, “To understand their plight you have to understand how they make a living, how they strive through all the issues they have in life and for this you have to have the maturity of an adult to see things for yourself, to understand my dear.” To this the little girl said, “I have been talking to big brother all day father, I have understood things, things which are essential in the lives of the mortals, things that are sensible and ideas that govern the fundamental of a mortal’s living as mentioned by big brother, please grant me permission to visit mankind, so that I may be a benediction for them?” to this Narada interrupted by saying, “Father, I have been with sister all day long, she never fails to surprise me with her utmost intelligence, awe-striking even at this tender age, her heart has the strength to benedict mankind, maybe you should allow me to follow her on her visit to earth since it is her first time.

To this Prajapathi said, “well you can visit them if Narada follows you, but first tell me what are you going to do once you get there?” while Narada stood surprised, little sister said, “Father, I would visit every place on earth, wonder at its beauty, then I would visit all mortals, be their friend, assist them in their most difficult time, be present at the temples they worship, hear to their tribulations, then benedict them what they require …” as little girl was saying this, Prajapathi interrupted by saying, “If you would want to benedict everyone for the problems they have, you would not have time to look around, nor will you be able to help everyone as well. Sometimes these mortals go through something in their very lives due to their own previous actions …” to this little girl quickly exclaimed, “KARMA! I know the mortals are bound by Karma, Big brother told me all about it, I know, I know it’s Karma, Karma is what makes mortals go through so much of trials & tribulations in life!” all Prajapathi could do was be proud of his child being such an intellectual at such a young adolescent age, furthermore proud that his eldest son had been a wonderful teacher to his other siblings during his absence.

Narada pleased with his little sister’s wise replies, gave their father a quick smile and asked “Little sister, since you know all mortals are bound Karma, how would you assist those who are in need of some real benediction?” to this his little sister replied, “well, even though mortals are bound by Karma, go through so much difficulties, some are different, they have a compassionate heart, a generous mind and have the hands that give, those are the one I would assist, not just once, but as many times as I can to ensure the compassionate light that illuminates their hearts does not go off, and by this way I would assist those mortals who are compassionate and benedict them with what they truly deserve!” To this Prajapathi, standing nearby knelt down right away at the utmost wisdom his little daughter possesses, gave her a quick hug & said, “Alright, my little princess, I would allow you to visit earth this one time, you must promise me that you will be safe at all times, listen to big brother always, eat only those food they offer at the temple and nothing else, and do not wander around when it gets dark, alright? Will you promise me that?”

Little girl replied, “Yes father, I give you my words, I will not wander away from big brother, I will always obey him throughout our expedition on earth, we would only eat food offered at the temples, we will remain anonymous to the mortals and will never ever wander around in the dark night, and we will stay strict to our regulations for the entire day we will stay on earth father, I promise” Prajapathi added by saying, “Never forget my dear, for 1 day of the heavens spent on earth is equivalent to 365 days of the mortals, so the rules of time applies to everyone in the time zone of the mortal worlds, even if they are gods, my princess! Are you sure you still want to go?” The Little girl replied “Yes father! What a privilege it would be to be visiting the mortals for a whole 365 days, assisting & offering benediction to each of them, I am going to love it, Father, I truly am going to be!” to this Narada added saying, “Yes Father, she would definitely love this trip, and worry not, I am always around her in all her moves, will keep a close watch on her throughout our stay father, give us your blessings for this wonderful event that is ever prosperous to all mankind!” Prajapathi lifted both his hands and offered Abaya mudra while giving a wide smile at both his very wise children who have such profound abilities to see the light beneath the darkness that others usually spot. Prajapathi said, “You both have my blessings at all time, and by assisting the mortals may you gain even more blessings that would last for eternity, Tathaastu!!!”

Narada & his little sister both bowed before their father, receiving the grace from him, and Narada who could not hold his excitement anymore, turned to his sister and asked “So my little princess, it is your first trip to the mortal worlds, what are you going to wear? Shall we get something new?” to this the little girl jumped in joy saying, “YES! I will wear my favorite yellow silks, with those sparkling gold ornaments Aunty Lakshmi gave me last Festival of Lights, remember?” Narada nodded and said, “Then GO! Get ready we don’t have much time, we have a long journey of roads to uncover before we arrive earth, go get ready my girl!” Little girl rushed to her chambers, dashed into the room where the clothes are found, looked through to find her gleaming yellow silks, swiftly dressed herself up & then took the chest that held all her favorite gold ornaments, decked herself with all the accessories from the head till toes, from the tikka, earrings, necklaces, long chains, short chains, belts, bangles, armlets, nose rings, head gears, anklets, toe rings which were all made from stunningly shining pure gold given to her by her Ever Prosperous Aunty; Lakshmi, the Goddess of Good Fortunes Herself. By this time Narada, who was standing outside the chambers gave a loud call “O Princess! Are you ready to leave yet ?!?!?!” to this, the little girl exclaimed from her chambers saying, “Hold on Big Brother, a few moments more to go! I’m almost done !!!”

Narada waiting at the doorways was surprised to see his little sister dressed as a bride, a Princess Bride walking out from their home, he was stunned at the beautiful sight, tears gathered in his eyes, auspicious musical instruments played in his mind as he saw his little sister walk towards him, it was as if Her wedding day had arrived for real. Dressed in yellow silks, decked with gleaming gold ornaments, and radiant as a bride on her auspicious wedding ceremony, the little girl came to Narada & held his hands saying “How do I look? Do you think the mortals would admire me for this brother? Am I pretty?” To this Narada, with a wide grin answered, “Yes my dear, you look like a princess from the Cities of Amaravati, shining like a bride already at this age, the mortals would worship you as their Favorite Goddess for sure, trust me you look gorgeous! Let’s go …” 

“But wait!!! Mother told me we should never visit someone with an empty hand, are we going to?” to this Narada folded his hands up & said “Well! Then what are you going to bring for your new friends on earth then?” Little rushed into her chambers once again, after a swift moment, came out bearing something in her hands. Narada gave a closer look at it & realized it was gleaming so radiantly that he could not see the actual item in his sister’s hands, then, as she came closer he realized it was something worth a praise. The little girl said, “See, I will bring this golden platter, decked with another golden Purnakumbha, heavenly ornaments that glisten like the midnight moon bestowing bliss that will last a lifetime, then here I have gold coins, glimmering like stars which will buy them a life full of prosperity, golden instruments that are potent that my friends can use to invoke great works of art, crafts, music & literatures, a vial of golden potion that will entrust great health as good as immortality, golden scriptures that are priceless in offering grand knowledge to everyone who loves to learn the unknown and lastly golden silks that will shimmer on those who wear them.” Hearing to this, Narada could not hold his excitement, clapped his hands as cheerful as he can be, rejoicing at the ostentatiously generous heart of his little sister; never he has been this proud in his entire lifetime.

Narada & his little sister arrived at the main gallery of the academy, by now it has already turned fully dark as the night had arrived, Prajapathi was awaiting them there, they took turns receiving blessings from their father, bid their enthusiastic farewell, and walked down towards the Eastern Gateway which leads to Earth. As Narada walked behind, the little girl was heading earnestly in front, holding her gifts for her mortal earthly friends, she smiled and swayed her heads to the sound of the breezy winds, and the resonating calls of the peacocks & swans that can still be heard from the academy.

Narada from a distance, noticed that it is Shukravaram, the Visaga Nakshatram has ascended at the peak of the dark skies in the Siddhi Yogam, in Bhadra Karanam of Vrikshika Raasi, of Vasanta Ritu in the Month of Chaitra in Uttarayanam, understanding the auspicious sign, he exclaimed, “So princess, will you tell your new friends your authentic name?” to this the little girl proclaimed loud, “Of course big brother!!! I will tell them my name is Shri Hevalambi, the Golden Princess who bestows Endless Bliss, Prosperity & Knowledge, who forever assists Mankind!” to this Narada silently uttered, “Tathaastu!!!”Shri Hevalambi Samwatsaram, Siddham, Saubakyam, Anandham …

*And this is the Story of Shri Hevalambi who visits mankind this year which coincides with the Gregorian calendar in April of the year 2017, Let us rejoice for a year that will be full of Bliss, Prosperity & Knowledge. 

Love, Vincent Paul Jordan Roderiquez @ Shri Parwandra

#hevalambi #samwatsara #indian new year #indianstory #hindustory #indianculture #hinduism