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the-library-alcove · 3 years

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So a while back, a fairly left-wing friend of mine was shocked at the thought of Left-Wing Holocaust Denial, asking how it could even be possible, how can the Left even deny the Holocaust given everything (quote: "why would the LEFT be in denial? After you read Elie Wiesel, you can't deny any of it. Same with Maus, Frieda Appleman-Jurman's memoirs, and all that. Also, Lois Lowry won a Newberry medal for Number the Stars"). So I've been chewing on this for a while now.

First, Right-Wing Holocaust Denial is straight up "denial that the Holocaust happened"--often with an undertone of "But we wish that it had and it was a great idea". They deny the number of deaths, or excuse the Nazis, or say that the Jews had it coming, or say that it didn't happen at all, that sort of thing. It's a very blunt, straightforward form of denial.

Comparatively, Left-Wing Holocaust Denial takes a different, more sophisticated form that functions on multiple levels--with an undertone of its own along the lines of "the Jews are exaggerating to try to portray themselves as victims"--and to talk about this form of denial, I have to explain what the Holocaust was.

So this gets a bit long, because what is being denied is long, but I will ask you to bear with me.

But, TL:DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

The Holocaust, 1939-1945, was the culmination of literally centuries of anti-Jewish hatred from Christian Europeans, dating back well over a thousand years.

For one example, there were anti-Jewish riots in France in the 1020s in misplaced vengeance for the Islamic destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009 CE. Decades later, the Crusaders butchered 99% of the Jewish population of northern Europe, beginning in 1096 and continuing for centuries, such that a population of nearly 100,000 in 1050 CE was reduced down to less than a thousand in 1350 CE, as genetic studies show.

Jews were vilified as "Enemies of Christ", and various forms of attack to whip up mobs against Jews became common enough to get names of their own: Blood Libel (the accusation of Jews stealing children and murdering them to use their blood) and Host Desecration (the accusation that Jews were stealing consecrated Hosts and "torturing" them in order to attack Jesus), among others. These resulted in thousands of Jews being attacked, harmed, killed, and expelled.

Pogroms, massacres, and expulsions were just part of the pattern; Jews were effectively second class citizens at best, confined to marginal parts of cities (the original ghettos), subject to ritual humiliation (there was a part of Carnival in Rome that featured "The Running Of The Jews" where the Jewish population of the city had to race and be beaten by the Christians and there are designed-to-be-humiliating carvings of Jews on churches), and so forth. Jews were the scapegoats of choice--a powerless minority made to do the dirty work (such as tax collection) by the powerful and then liquidated when the lower classes got upset, as a distraction (King: "It's not my fault you're hungry!" *motions to table laden with food* "It's the fault of those greedy Jews who I force to work as tax collectors! Go kill them instead of me!"). And that cycle further entrenched the hatred.

Martin Luther took this to new heights during the Reformation; initially, he was "nice", saying that the Christians should treat the Jews gently to get us to convert... and when we didn't, he got nasty, writing a book titled "On The Jews And Their Lies" where he outlined a "how to persecute Jews and make their lives utter hell so they'll convert" prescription of behavior.

And this all became deeply baked into the culture of Europe, in plays, architecture, pop culture, stories, and conspiracy theories over the centuries. Even after the ghetto walls were torn down in the early 1800s by Napoleon and Jews were allowed to integrate into mainstream society, that hatred did not go away. If anything, the resentment grew, culminating in outbursts like the Dreyfus Affair, where a French-Jewish artillery officer was made into the fall guy for another spy, because he was Jewish.

There was a "Jewish Question" in the countries of Europe. A political National Question that went, "What shall we do with these Jews who live in our lands who we do not want?" And many of the Jews desperately wanted to prove that they were Good Model Citizens, but it didn't matter. Some of us, seeing the writing on the wall, and that the Europeans would never accept us, started agitating for political separation and independence--Zionism.

During this time, the old religious-based hatreds were being ostensibly phased out, and it was the era of "scientific racism", so a new word was coined--"antisemitism", to replace the old "Judenhass", to sound more "scientific". More anti-Jewish accusations were created, such as the "Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", which is a Russian-made forgery that is supposedly the record of a meeting of Jewish elders in their master plan to control the world; it was written to distract hatred away from the Czar and onto a scapegoat. (Essentially just an updated version of the kings' tactic of scapegoating the Jews from centuries earlier)

So the hatreds stayed, regardless of what new clothes they wore. After World War One, when the Nazis said that the blame for the loss and subsequent humiliation and economic collapse of the Weimar Republic was because of the "Jews stabbing us in the back", there was a massive population of people who were already primed to hate and resent Jews and just needed that excuse to focus that hatred. They passed laws that specifically stripped citizenship from the Jews on racial grounds, instituted blood purity laws--again, on racial grounds--and built up to the Holocaust, where the Jews were not seen as human, but as vermin, out to contaminate their pure race.

In the process, they killed nine out of ten Jews who lived in Europe. Their hatred to the point that they diverted efforts to fight the Allies just so that they could kill Jews. Local people hated Jews so much that they collaborated with their own conquerors, just so they could kill Jews. Because they hated us so much, had hated us for centuries. Their "Final Solution" to "The Jewish Question." This part is what the Right Wing denies.

And then, in the aftermath, nobody wanted the remaining victims. Literally, the British said, "We'll carve off part of our Empire to give to them rather than let them come here."

So, after centuries of hatred and marginalization, Europeans gave into their hatreds that they had been raised with and murdered us in our millions, and we were traumatized.

And some of us went to the USA--the few that the US was willing to take in--and many more, not having any other place to go, went to British Mandate Palestine with the hope of self-governance in the future Jewish territory... having learned that they could not trust non-Jews.

That is the Holocaust and what led up to it, and some of the aftermath of it.

Left Wing Holocaust Denial erases all of that, except for the Holocaust itself, which is taken out of context as a moral lesson.

The Left Wing Unofficial Narrative Of The Holocaust is that the Nazis arbitrarily picked several groups of fellow European Whites, the Jews being just one of them, agitated against them in order to make an Enemy, and then killed them in order to cement power. Thus, in this narrative, the Holocaust was thus an aberration brought about by demagoguery and propaganda. Thus, it is imperative to remember "Never Again", because it can happen to anyone.

According to this narrative, "Jews" are just White Europeans who practice a different Abrahamic Religion, and who played the aftermath of the genocide for undeserved sympathy points to get a colony of their own where they could become oppressors in turn, and that they are getting special treatment that ignores the other victims of the Holocaust.

In doing so, the Left needs to ignore...

...the racial aspects of the Holocaust and the decades and centuries before it--the blood purity laws, the specific "racial science" that Othered Jews, and so forth--in favor of a "Jews are White" narrative.

...that the Jews were specifically targeted by the Nazis for extermination, to the point of irrational, self-defeating fixation, whereas only the Roma were as targeted for complete eradication alongside the Jews--in favor of a "But what about the other victims too?" narrative.

...the Nazi obsession with hating Jews (which has not gone away) as a fundamental part of their ideology, and pretending that the Nazi hatred of Jews is no different than the eugenics and political oppression that other groups were victims of--again, in favor of a "Other people were victims of the Nazis too!" narrative.

...the centuries of hatred and victimization that preceded the Holocaust and culminated in it--in favor of a "Jews are just European White People" narrative.

...the trauma that happened when you've lost your homes, your families, your way of life, and your society, and nobody made any efforts to help you, and how it becomes apparent, after trying to fit in and integrate for decades, that you can be Perfect Citizens and the Christians will still hate you so we need to defend ourselves for our own sakes--in favor of a "Jews are oppressors and didn't learn the right lessons from the Holocaust" narrative.

So, TL;DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

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myfandomrambles · 4 years

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Azula Character Analysis

Born a princess with a high position

Was favored by her father and second in her mother's eyes

Deeply skilled bender from a young age

Attended the royal girl Fier Nation academy and had private tutors

Was around severe abuse emotional and occasionally physical

Abandoned by mother due to political intrigue which affected her

Aware of her parents' murder of her grandfather

Rose to crown princess after her father coronation and brother banishment which she watched

Was used as a weapon by her father against her uncle and bother by age 14

Had a few friends who became partners in hunting the avatar her brother

Was a skilled tactician able to infiltrate the heart of the earth kingdom

Overthrow the earth king

Nearly killed the avatar

Achieved high status for this but shared it with her brother is a skilled protective manner

Had a tumultuous relationship with her brother

Betrayed by her friends

Attempted to kill her brother

Became fire lord but felt rejected through this as she was unable to claim victory along with her father

Suffered a mental health breakdown

Was beaten by Zuko & katara in an Agni Kai losing her status

Overview:

Azula is a complex character who is gifted, clever, beautiful, and deeply psychologically injured. Her story is one of abuse, manipulation, and war. She was raised by abusive people in a cult of power and supremacy; by the age of 14, she was being used to put the same trauma out on the entire world.

The prime driver for Azula’s character is the necessity to retain control over her situation and due to her status as the princess of the world’s dominant power, this is control over everything. Control and power are the only things Azula truly understands as valuable. This control also equals safety, safety from physical harm during a battle, and emotional harm by others. We can see this control manifest in her emotional distress at having even one hair out of place during her training (2x01). She uses her place of power to hold fear over other people, those she considers lesser than her, by invoking the fear of losing their place and physical harm. Her social power and skill in bending back up the threats.

Azula’s need for control started as a child who grew up being taught through the iron hand of Ozai who demanded perfection. Her status as a prodigy with fire bending, physical aptitude, and intelligence gave her positive attention from her father but also led her to be inculcated even stronger into the idea that fear is the only way. Her father taught with the fear of retribution for failure as much as any positive attention. The more blatant abuse Zuko suffered from their father for showing what was perceived as weakness and emotionality was another teacher that she must always control every part of her. (2x07, 3x06)

This control via strength without understanding was worsened by her other connections. Her mother failed to connect and attune to her daughter so even in early childhood they were always moving past each other. Azula’s failure to show empathy was met with judgment and punishment and we don’t see them ever repair the relational rupture. Their mother then abandoned them accompanied by their parents murdering their grandfather and threats against her brother. Leaving her with only Ozai as a point of influence and even more surrounded by violence. (2x07)

Azula also gained little perspective outside of the pure ideology of the fire nation royal family and royal academy for girls. She carried the beliefs of fire supremacy and nationalism with no outside input which left her with the schemas of power in her nascent socio-political awareness and added to the stunting of her ability to gain empathy. She was taught to view the world as nations and people only worth understanding to beat not for its own sake. (2x07, 2x19-20, 3x05, 3x06)

This pain leaves her spending the whole second season [spanning months] as a weapon of her father. She is forced to travel around the world, originally with only staff, with the goal of hurting her own family in the name of not being shamed. To prove she can do it she gives herself the task of stopping the avatar. Azula is able to escape a fight with some of the strongest benders we see in the show easily and is persistent to a fault. (2x03) We see her skills of strategy and combat shine here as well as many of her trauma responses. The biggest one being she is acting in a mindset that can not shift from using the world and not experiencing it. (2x01, 2x03, 2x07-8, 2x13, 2x15)

Azula’s pure genius shows in her ability to take over Ba Sing Se on her ability to read other people, manipulate court games, and her sheer belief in her infallibility. We see her play the Dai Li and Long Feng with only the backup of her two friends. She has an iconic moment of power “Don’t flatter yourself you were never even a player” and invokes her belief in the divine right of kings or lords. (2x18-20)

Once she proves herself and can bring her brother and uncle home, if in a way not planned, putting her back in a secure place of princess she longs to keep. We see her try and maintain control by being the one who understands both her father and Zuko. We see her struggle greatly with normal life but thrive within the system of the place. (3x05-6, 3x11)

However, we see her set world start to collapse when Zuko leaves and her only two friends choose to take a chance for love versus staying in her control bubble. This challenges her sense of safety she works so hard to maintain. It also goes against her understanding of interpersonal relationships and her innate power. (3x11, 3x13, 3x15)

This causes a breakdown in the end. However, this leaves her without a throne and a sense of safety. After the show, we see her mental health stay in a deteriorated state, struggle with the past, and joins a group that wants to harm the new age of peace. (3x18-20, Comics: The Promise Part Three, The Search. Smoke and Shadow)

Relationships:

Zuko

Zuko and Azula are one of the key family dynamics within the story. Azula acts as a foil to Zuko during their childhood being the golden child to his scapegoat. She was Ozai’s favorite whereas Zuko was closer to Ursa. They both suffered severe trauma as young people but Azula spent the time trying to not be viewed as poorly as Zuko. (3x07, The Search) Something she directly tells their father, to not be treated like Zuko (3x18). Building your relationship with your sibling as wanting to prove you are better than them sets them up too but heads, something she acknowledges was also going to come down to them deciding who is the right one to succeed their father.

During the main plot, we see them start as the predator and the prey (2x01, 2x08). Both of them lived in the mindset Ozai Taught them, she was born lucky and he was lucky to be born (1x20, 2x07). She is the long arm of their father only claiming some autonomy when she chooses her team and attacks the avatar as well (2x03, 2x08).

Azula brings Zuko back into their fold because next to Iroh she understands Zuko the best. She knows easily the only thing he wants is to feel in control of his life and craves the respect of their father, these are things she also needs. We see her also offer the double-sided act of letting Zuko take credit. It is partially protective as should he live Azula is protected, Suko would be the one who failed. It can also be some degree of kindness for her brother because she does like the system the way it is and Zuko being in pain causes worse stress.

They continue to bump heads as we see Azula feel most at home within the bureaucracy whereas he struggles to feel as if it was right. Zuko still carries the pain of shame for his actions at the same time Azula pushes much of her emotion down. Part of this is Azula knows where she stands and as long as others play the part she has no worries. Zuko breaks this steady normal as a child when he wants to be empathetic to soldiers and again when he feels the need to save the earth kingdom she wanted to kill in total war. (3x01, 3x05, 3x16)

Their reactions during The Day of Black Sun (3x11) set them on their paths for the end and they mirror each other. Azula uses the time to play her role and waits for the fire bending to turn on to win. Zuko uses the time to pull away from their father for good. They continue to be antagonistic and Zuko is an axle in her relational rupture with Ty Lee and Mai. (3x14-16)

Their final Agni Kai for the title of Firelord shows how much Zuko has learned in his complex bending style and ability to hold control while we notice Azula loose form entirely relying almost completely on her raw power. Her very body language giving off how sick she is currently in her movements now disjointed and lacking precision which conflicts with the controlled fighting we see from Katara and Zuko. (3x18-21).

They have spent their whole life used as pawns by their parents and stuck in the milieu of war and suffering. Azula’s status as her father’s favorite offers her the status Zuko wants but she also lacks the time and ability to grow Zuko earned through his relationship with Uncle Iroh. Their understanding of each other is strong but Azula fails to offer sympathy to her brother when he chooses things she wouldn’t and treats him poorly. And Zuko needs to be able to challenge her so he can properly heal, along with team avatar, the fissures in the world.

Ursa

We see that Azula and Ursa do not understand each other and the abuse they both suffer disallowed them to properly attach. Ursa didn’t understand Azula’s natural predispositions or her trauma which left Azula often being told off by her mother or treated as separate from the bond Ursa had with Zuko. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Ursa was forming a scapegoat golden child dynamic more so she couldn’t bring herself to look past her trauma. (2x07, The Promise, & The Search)

During the fire nation teens' conversation at ember island, we see that Azula generalized her mother's view of her as a monster as much as the other conditioning she had as a kid. This whole where her mother’s attunement should be opened even more space for what Ozai taught her. Azula lack’s a full ability to process this but it is the one time we see Azula even come close to verbalizing painful emotions other than paranoia and anger. (3x05)

If we are to believe the memory we see from Iroh (1x12) she was already immune to violence as a pre-teen believing that Ozai’s assault of Zuko was justified and even taking gratification from it. This play into her relationship with her mother as the gentleness her mother might have displayed towards her child was missing making the hardest part of the indoctrination become the most prevalent. Worsen when Ursa abandons her children and seeks out her new life. The effects of this are her willingness to be cavalier with life, and failure to attach to others (3x17).

Azula’s relationship with her mother ends up being the breaking point in space after the betrayal of her friends. When we see her experience hallucinations and paranoid thought they center around her mother and their relationship, rather there was love or not being the central question. (3x19)

Paranoid delusions around her mother continue in the comics where we see Azula unable to interact from a clear headspace. (The Search)

Ozai

Ozai is Azula's main force of identity shaping her internal and external perceptions to the point of making her more of a human tool than a real daughter. The craving for her father's need is just as strong as Zuko’s but instead of trying to restore it her job is to keep it and not rock the boat. This is seen in her letting Zuko take credit for the killing the avatar which brings her brother back in (3x01) and when she asks Ozai to not treat her like Zuko when he becomes the phoenix king (3x20)

Throughout the show, everything she does is to please her father from going after her brother and then succeeding in killing Aang. (2x01-2x20). She also parrots her father's belief about weakness, fears power, and the might of the fire nation. Examples include naming the city New Ozai, demanding the divine right of kings, and her obsessive focus on acting and appearing perfect.

Ozai’s abuse permeated everything Azula was and is leading to her becoming the shadow of a person we see at the end of the series.

Ty Lee & Mai

Next to her blood family Mai & Ty Lee are her most influential relationships. She considers them generally friends starting when they went to the same school (2x07). We see that even as a child she had the highest status in the group and already needed to win. However, they do seem to have some genuine care for the princess even if it is never balanced. For example, when recruiting Ty Lee she uses manipulation and fear to force her back into serving the fire nation. (2x03). Mai and Ty Lee are skilled fighters making them useful to Azula, something she values more than anything other than loyalty. She has trouble conceptualizing their emotions as validly seen in her calling their emotions performances, however in the same episode we see her care about making Ty Lee cry and experience very human emotions of envy herself. They bond over their traumas and their shared love of destruction (3x05).

None of the three of them are particularly well adjusted but what Azula has on her side is an utter belief in her competence and her belief that their friends will fall in line with that ambition. For the most part, they do; Ty Lee often flatters her and Mail generally does as she’s told when Azula is around. However one of Azula’s most pivotal moments comes when this obedience falls through. Mai loves Zuko more than she fears Azla’s wrath and Ty Lee can’t bear to see them hurt each other. Earning one of Azula's most characterizing lines ``You should have feared me more”. This betrayal and shift in her stable world put Azula over the edge and fuels paranoid thoughts and a slip into worse mental illness. (3x14)

To consider Mai and Ty Lee to be the manipulative ones or otherwise treat them as the bad or abusive party to Azula is unfair. They are doing what they can as they believe Azula has the right to be in charge and suffer consequences when they step out of line. However, it’s equally unfair to assume everything Azula does is machiavellian; she too is acting on sincerely held beliefs and as a daughter of abusive or neglectful parents. I think Azula has a hard time conceptualizing others as full people objectifying them in her schema of the world but unlike some of her behavior to Zuko, I doubt it’s intentionally cruel.

Developmetnal Trauma

Adulti-fication (2x01,2x03, 2x07, 2x08, 2x13 2x19-20, 3x01-2, 3x05, 3x15, & 3x18-21)

Anger (3x13-20)

Control fixations (2x01, 2x03, 2x07, 2x7, 2x13, 2x19, 3x01, 3x05, 3x15, & 3x18-21)

Conditioned Value Systems (2x01, 2x07, 2x19-20, 3x01, & 3x05)

Empathic Deficits (2x03, 2x07, 2x15, 3x05, & 3x11)

Harm to Animals (2x07 & 2x15)

Hypervigilance (2x01, 2x03, 2x07, 2x08, & 2x19-20)

Obsessive Thoughts (2x01, 2x03, 3x05, & 3x18-21)

Locus of Control breakdown (2x01,2x07, 2x15, 3x05, 3x14, & 3x18-21)

Paradoxical Arousal, [Functions best during high-stress situations and worse under normal or positive] (2x03, 3x05, 3x13-5)

Paranoid Thoughts (3x18-21)

Perfectionism (2x01, 2x07, 3x05, 3x13, & 2x17-20)

Positive & Negative Psychosis Symptoms (3x18-21)

Recklessness (2x03, 2x07, 2x08, 3x05, & 3x15-16)

Risk Seeking Behaviors (2x03, 2x13, 2x15, & 3x11)

Social issues (3x05)

Trust Issues (2x13, 3x01, 3x11, 3x13, & 3x18-21)

Violent Play Behaviors (2x07 & 3x05)

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theatticoneighth · 3 years

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Watching The Queen’s Gambit; on the Remarkable Unexceptionality of Beth Harmon

‘With some people, chess is a pastime. With others, it is a compulsion, even an addiction. And every now and then, a person comes along for whom it is a birthright. Now and then, a small boy appears and dazzles us with his precocity, at what may be the world’s most difficult game. But what if that boy were a girl? A young, unsmiling girl, with brown eyes, red hair, and a dark blue dress? Into the male-dominated world of the nation’s top chess tournaments, strolls a teenage girl with bright, intense eyes, from Fairfield High School in Lexington, Kentucky. She is quiet, well-mannered, and out for blood.’

The preceding epigraph opens a fictional profile of Beth Harmon featured in the third episode of The Queen’s Gambit (2020), and is written and published after the protagonist — a teenage, rookie chess player, no less — beats a series of ranked pros to win her first of many tournaments. In the same deft manner as it depicts the character’s ascent to her global chess stardom, the piece also sets up the series’s narrative: this is evidence of a great talent, it tells us, a grandmaster in the making. As with most other stories about prodigies, this new entry into a timeworn genre is framed unexceptionally by its subject’s exceptionality.

Yet as far as tales regaled about young chess wunderkinds go, Beth Harmon’s stands out in more ways than one. That she is a girl in a male-dominated world has clearly not gone unremarked by both her diegetic and nondiegetic audiences. That her life has thus far — and despite her circumstances — been relatively uneventful, however, is what makes this show so remarkable. After all, much of our culture has undeniably primed us to expect the consequential from those whom we raise upon the pedestal of genius. As Harmon’s interviewer suggests in her conversation with Harmon for the latter’s profile, “Creativity and psychosis often go hand in hand. Or, for that matter, genius and madness.” So quickly do we attribute extraordinary accomplishments to similarly irregular origins that we presume an inexplicability of our geniuses: their idiosyncrasies are warranted, their bad behaviours are excused, and deep into their biographies we dig to excavate the enigmatic anomalies behind their gifts. Through our myths of exceptionality, we make the slightest aberrations into metonyms for brilliance.

Nonetheless, for all her sullenness, non-conformity, and her plethora of addictions, Beth Harmon seems an uncommonly normal girl. No doubt this may be a contentious view, as evinced perhaps by the chorus of viewers and reviewers alike who have already begun to brand the character a Mary Sue. Writing on the series for the LA Review of Books, for instance, Aaron Bady construes The Queen’s Gambit as “the tragedy of Bobby Fischer [made] into a feminist fantasy, a superhero story.” In the same vein, Jane Hu also laments in her astute critique of the Cold War-era drama its flagrant and saccharine wish-fulfillment tendencies. “The show gets to have it both ways,” she observes, “a beautiful heroine who leans into the edge of near self-destruction, but never entirely, because of all the male friends she makes along the way.” Sexual difference is here reconstituted as the unbridgeable chasm that divides the US from the Soviet Union, whereas the mutual friendliness shared between Harmon and her male chess opponents becomes a utopic revision of history. Should one follow Hu’s evaluation of the series as a period drama, then the retroactive ascription of a recognisably socialist collaborative ethos to Harmon and her compatriots is a contrived one indeed.

Accordingly, both Hu and Bady conclude that the series grants us depthless emotional satisfaction at the costly expense of realism: its all-too-easy resolutions swiftly sidestep any nascent hint of overwhelming tension; its resulting calm betrays our desire for reprieve. Underlying these arguments is the fundamental assumption that the unembellished truth should also be an inconvenient one, but why must we always demand difficulty from those we deem noteworthy? Summing up the show’s conspicuous penchant for conflict-avoidance, Bady writes that:

over and over again, the show strongly suggests — through a variety of genre and narrative cues — that something bad is about to happen. And then … it just doesn’t. An orphan is sent to a gothic orphanage and the staff … are benign. She meets a creepy, taciturn old man in the basement … and he teaches her chess and loans her money. She is adopted by a dysfunctional family and the mother … takes care of her. She goes to a chess tournament and midway through a crucial game she gets her first period and … another girl helps her, who she rebuffs, and she is fine anyway. She wins games, defeating older male players, and … they respect and welcome her, selflessly helping her. The foster father comes back and …she has the money to buy him off. She gets entangled in cold war politics and … decides not to be.

In short, everything that could go wrong … simply does not go wrong.

Time and again predicaments arise in Harmon’s narrative, but at each point, she is helped fortuitously by the people around her. In turn, the character is allowed to move through the series with the restrained unflappability of a sleepwalker, as if unaffected by the drama of her life. Of course, this is not to say that she fails to encounter any obstacle on her way to celebrity and success — for neither her childhood trauma nor her substance-laden adolescence are exactly rosy portraits of idyll — but only that such challenges seem so easily ironed out by that they hardly register as true adversity. In other words, the show takes us repeatedly to the brink of what could become a life-altering crisis but refuses to indulge our taste for the spectacle that follows. Skipping over the Aristotelian climax, it shields us from the height of suspense, and without much struggle or effort on the viewers’ part, hands us our payoff. Consequently lacking the epochal weight of plot, little feels deserved in Harmon’s story.

In his study of eschatological fictions, The Sense of an Ending, Frank Kermode would associate such a predilection for catastrophes with our abiding fear of disorder. Seeing as time, as he argues, is “purely successive [and] disorganised,” we can only reach to the fictive concords of plot to make sense of our experiences. Endings in particular serve as the teleological objective towards which humanity projects our existence, so we hold paradigms of apocalypse closely to ourselves to restore significance to our lives. It probably comes as no surprise then that in a year of chaos and relentless disaster — not to mention the present era of extreme precariousness, doomscrolling, and the 24/7 news cycle, all of which have irrevocably attuned us to the dreadful expectation of “the worst thing to come” — we find ourselves eyeing Harmon’s good fortune with such scepticism. Surely, we imagine, something has to have happened to the character for her in order to justify her immense consequence. But just as children are adopted each day into loving families and chess tournaments play out regularly without much strife, so too can Harmon maintain low-grade dysfunctional relationships with her typically flawed family and friends.

In any case, although “it seems to be a condition attaching to the exercise of thinking about the future that one should assume one's own time to stand in extraordinary relation to it,” not all orphans have to face Dickensian fates and not all geniuses have to be so tortured (Kermode). The fact remains that the vagaries of our existence are beyond perfect reason, and any attempt at thinking otherwise, while vital, may be naive. Contrary to most critics’ contentions, it is hence not The Queen’s Gambit’s subversions of form but its continued reach towards the same that holds up for viewers such a comforting promise of coherence. The show comes closest to disappointing us as a result when it eschews melodrama for the straightforward. Surprised by the ease and randomness of Harmon’s life, it is not difficult for one to wonder, four or five episodes into the show, what it is all for; one could even begin to empathise with Hu’s description of the series as mere “fodder for beauty.”

Watching over the series now with Bady’s recap of it in mind, however, I am reminded oddly not of the prestige and historical dramas to which the series is frequently compared, but the low-stakes, slice-of-life cartoons that had peppered my childhood. Defined by the prosaicness of its settings, the genre punctuates the life’s mundanity with brief moments of marvel to accentuate the curious in the ordinary. In these shows, kindergarteners fix the troubles of adults with their hilarious playground antics, while time-traveling robot cats and toddler scientists alike are confronted with the woes of chores. Likewise, we find in The Queen’s Gambit a comparable glimpse of the quotidian framed by its protagonist’s quirks. Certainly, little about the Netflix series’ visual and narrative features would identify it as a slice-of-life serial, but there remains some merit, I believe, in watching it as such. For, if there is anything to be gained from plots wherein nothing is introduced that cannot be resolved in an episode or ten, it is not just what Bady calls the “drowsy comfort” of satisfaction — of knowing that things will be alright, or at the very least, that they will not be terrible. Rather, it is the sense that we are not yet so estranged from ourselves, and that both life and familiarity persists even in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Perhaps some might find such a tendency towards the normal questionable, yet when all the world is on fire and everyone clambers for acclaim, it is ultimately the ongoingness of everyday life for which one yearns. As Harmon’s childhood friend, Jolene, tells her when she is once again about to fall off the wagon, “You’ve been the best at what you do for so long, you don’t even know what it’s like for the rest of us.” For so long, and especially over the past year, we have catastrophized the myriad crises in which we’re living that we often overlook the minor details and habits that nonetheless sustain us. To inhabit the congruence of both the remarkable and its opposite in the singular figure of Beth Harmon is therefore to be reminded of the possibility of being outstanding without being exceptional — that is, to not make an exception of oneself despite one’s situation — and to let oneself be drawn back, however placid or insignificant it may be, into the unassuming hum of dailiness. It is in this way of living that one lives on, minute by minute, day by day, against the looming fear and anxiety that seek to suspend our plodding regular existence. It is also in this way that I will soon be turning the page on the last few months in anticipation of what is to come.

Born and raised in the perpetually summery tropics — that is, Singapore — Rachel Tay wishes she could say her life was just like a still from Call Me By Your Name: tanned boys, peaches, and all. Unfortunately, the only resemblance that her life bears to the film comes in the form of books, albeit ones read in the comfort of air-conditioned cafés, and not the pool, for the heat is sweltering and the humidity unbearable. A fervent turtleneck-wearer and an unrepentant hot coffee-addict, she is thus the ideal self-parodying Literature student, and the complete anti-thesis to tropical life.

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arcadianmoonshadowjedi · 4 years

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Personal Opinions on Rapunzel and Cassandra’s Friendship

Ok so this is one post that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, especially since this is perhaps one of the relationships in the series with the most polarizing views ever (maybe even the number one relationship that is) ranging from people who ship them romantically to people who hate their friendship all together and think that they should’ve never been friends to begin with. So I thought it would be worth a share for me, mostly focusing on S1 and 2. This is not meant to be any hate for either of these girls because they are both among my faves in the series!

ALSO: I will NOT tolerate any hostility or rudeness on this post. If you don’t agree with my opinions, either lets have a friendly, respectful discussion or just scroll by and leave this as it is, thank you!

If you don’t know by now, I personally do not ship them, and never have I since I first started watching the series. I also never interpreted any of their interactions as romantic or saw the two of them as a “potential couple.” I would say this could mostly be due to the fact that I am a hardcore New Dream shipper who strictly believes Rapunzel and Eugene only have romantic feelings for each and I personally don’t think they would have any romantic feelings for anyone else. And I’m also the kind of person who values platonic love so much I also don’t like when they’re shipped (this applies to male-female platonic love as well).

However, I do think that their friendship really made for an interesting story. Now in my opinion, I personally don’t think their friendship was 100% toxic, or devoid of love or happiness, and nor do I think it was entirely a healthy one either, otherwise it wouldn’t have fallen apart by the end of S2.

To start off, I’ve always felt and stand by my opinion that the friendship was very flawed from both sides. The problem with Rapunzel, esp in S1 and less in S2, was that she was a socially stunted teen who was barely out of the tower and barely had time to learn about healthy friendships and boundaries, and this has caused her at several times to unintentionally step on Cass’s personal boundaries, be extremely pushy and at times annoying. Cass on the other hand, as we all know has a super “bitchy”, distrustful personality and has her own insecurities and struggles with self-esteem that negatively affect her own judgments and actions. I feel like a lot of Cass’s trust issues and tough, bitchy exterior stem from her trauma of being abused, neglected, and eventually abandoned by her own mother. I have this headcanon that even though she has no memory of this incident (PTSD can cause a person to forget a traumatizing memory but still continue to suffer as a result of it), she basically has this idea that if her own mother didn’t stay and love her, why would anyone else do so? Cassandra grew bitter to a point where she pushed people away and avoided attachment to avoid the same trauma from happening again. Of course that was until she befriended Rapunzel after Rapunzel persisted in making this friendship happen even after all the pushing away Cass was attempting to do. Based on the canon we got, I would definitely conclude that this was each of the girls’ very first close female friendship in their lives and both had a whole lot they needed to learn in order to grow and build healthier relationships in general. In my opinion, despite the flaws of this friendship, both girls did need it (Rapunzel needed a blunt gal pal who, along with Eugene, could help her discover more of the real world around her and learn more about social interactions, whereas Cassandra needed someone to help her to open up her heart more and know that she is worthy of being loved).

The reason why I don’t agree with a lot of the “Cassandra is malicious and evil to Rapunzel” or “Cassandra’s entire goal and purpose in the whole series (Even in S1 & 2) is belittle and demolish Rapunzel” claims is because I feel like they erase all of Cassandra’s positive traits and great sacrifices she has made for Rapunzel, whether it was their TBEA sneakout adventure which put her at risk of losing her job and home just to make Rapunzel happy or Cass getting her hand charred to get Rapunzel to snap out of the reverse incantation, just to name a few. To also say that Cass was never nice to Rapunzel or never cared for her erases the fact that there were several times she got out of her comfort zone to apologize and make peace with Rapunzel after a conflict (her hugging Raps in Challenge of the Brave after she completely Effed up and in Rapunzel Day One after she opened up about her feeling hurt) or whenever she comforted Rapunzel in her pain (QFAD and BTCW).

As for the claims that “Rapunzel is selfish” or “takes all of her friends for granted” claims, I’m equally opposed to that and they leave an awful taste in my mouth. Rapunzel, as we all know, was trapped in a tower for 18 whole years and has NEVER interacted with anyone besides Gothel and Pascal. Of course Eugene was the first human outside of the tower she interacted with, which throughout the events of the movie and all the trials and sacrifices that they went through, their relationship has so much stability to it. However, not every person Rapunzel interacts will share the understanding she has with Eugene. Rapunzel lacks so much social understanding and skills that there are times she doesn’t know when to have the right type of interactions (remember the bear hug?), let alone experience in royalty. However Rapunzel herself is a major people pleaser and will do whatever it takes to make those around her happy (even if gets really pushy and annoying at times) but she will eventually stop with her pushiness especially when she sees how harmful it can get. Just like Cass, there were several instances where Rapunzel will willingly fight for her, like in BTCW with Adira, even though Cass was technically in the wrong or in Freebird (An episode I’m not a fan of but enjoyed some aspects of it) when both of them fought to save each other or even Rapunzel sacrificing the last egg to turn Cass back.

As for the flaws of the friendship, I would definitely say that alot of it had to do with both lack of proper communication and understanding of boundaries. As we all know Cass doesn’t always have the “fluffiest, kindest” ways of communicating her feelings or her pain and can in turn lash out really badly and come off as condescending and rude. Rapunzel on the other hand, wasn’t really the best at reading social signals (Challenge of the Brave is the best example of super flawed communication and understanding on both sides) or understanding personal boundaries. I personally don’t believe that Rapunzel would “put up someone else’s shit to please them” but she would be more like, if they’re not pleased, Imma force them to be pleased (mostly in a cute, clumsy way, namely Under Raps when she felt the need to constantly “cheer up” Cass or “comfort” Cass in Big Brothers, even when Cass told her she didn’t need it, other examples include Rapunzel’s Enemy with Monty and Goodbye & Goodwill in Vardaros).

However I would say I saw so much improvement throughout S1 and mostly the first half of S2, where we do see them have so many friendly and goofy interactions (In Like Flynn with the pranks, the “game face” in Pascal’s Story, the Island eps, etc).

Then there comes the midseason and this is were I would say the friendship completely fell apart. And I think this is mainly where the argument that Cassandra is controlling over Rapunzel comes into play. Cassandra at the very beginning of the season, as we know the King assigned her with keeping Rapunzel safe, she basically gave up her dream of potentially becoming a guard to accompany Rapunzel. At the same time, Rapunzel is out in the real world outside of Corona and wants to discover more. We see these two have clashes of views and ideals that lead to certain debacles (Freebird is a prime example, tho I personally wish they did something else besides the whole bird plot lol) and then Rapunzel and the Great Tree, especially when Cass expresses that Rapunzel should take caution (which in itself feels "limiting" Rapunzel's desired freedom). I know that there is alot of anger over the argument that Cassandra was belittling Rapunzel by calling her naive (which I agree was a shitty move on her part). But I personally never thought it came from a place of wanting to "bring down Rapunzel and seek control over her" but more of a panic over the fact that they were in a dangerous location and the fact that the gang was nearly killed in it. Adira's points were also valid but Cassandra's insecurity and jealousy of her lead to her reacting hysterically and to make extreme accusations against her. Rapunzel was also stressed from being overwhelmed by the reverse incantation, which also led to her to shut down Cass in an unhealthy, humiliating way.

I feel like this along with the progression of S2 led to the betrayal and I feel like the whole Moonsandra arc should've been more focused on the problems with the friendship and Cass's insecurities rather than the whole Gothel drama. However, I always felt that it was a very complicated friendship that needed lots of mending and better communication on both sides, and I feel like that's where they got to in Plus Est En Vous. Both Rapunzel had grown to better understand social skills, communication, and boundaries a whole lot better than when we first saw her and Cassandra (tho S3 needed much better writing) she had grown to reclaim her self worth and accept that she was worthy of love.

As much as I was upset Cass left Corona, realistically that was what they both needed to give each other space to grow and learn in a healthy way.

#tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rapunzel #tangled rapunzel #princess rapunzel #rta cassandra #tts cassandra #tangled cassandra #tts #rta #personal opinion #tangled series character analysis #tangled analysis #character analysis #tas's thought dump

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kensboytoy · 5 years

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The Classifieds Ch. 1

Title: The Classifieds Fandom: Beetlejuice (Movie) Pairings: Beetlejuice/Reader Ratings: Explicit Chapters: 1/? Summary: A curious leaflet falls into your possession on the day you move into your new place. You decide to call on the services of one 'bio-exorcist' and realize that you might be crushing pretty hard on a dead guy. How seductive can a sleaze like Beetlejuice really be?

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Moving into a new place was already a pain in the neck. Moving all by yourself? The worst. Well, except when you donated all your furniture to Goodwill because you knew that you weren’t strong enough to lug it up the teetering second story floor where your new place was. So, three big poofy comforters, several dozen pillows, stuffed animals, and many, many boxes full of weird 80’s toys later… Well, you collapsed in your makeshift nest and enjoying the rest of your busy evening in total silence.

The only lights you had were battery-powered string lights because the electric company hadn’t turned the power on yet, so you made it a lazy, comfy space all your own.

But without power, you couldn’t sit down and edit on your laptop or even use your phone (you’d need it to be on power-saving mode until the lights came on.) So you tried reading. That worked until the sun went down and your shitty vision was impaired. Then you tried sleeping but every creak of the apartment settling gave you a fright.

You idly flipped through the leaflets you had gotten in the mail around, squinting to see if there were any coupons to use. A small business card fell into you lap:

Betelgeuse: The 'Bio-Exorcist'

Call BETELGEUSE, BETELGEUSE, BETELGEUSE!

You snorted. It was cute! Maybe you wouldn’t throw it away. But… there was no number on the back? You flipped it around and held it to the light. Nada.

“Pft. Like a dorkier version of Bloody Mary.” There was a smile on your face and you folded the paper up neatly to put in your wallet.

With a yawn and a stretch, you arose from your nest and waltzed into the bathroom to brush your teeth. The only light you had was a pocket flashlight you had gotten along attached to a rape whistle from some medical center long ago. You stared into the mirror for a moment as you patted your face with a warm towel.

“Bloody Mary, I don’t believe in you. Bloody Mary, I don’t believe in you. Bloody Mary, I don’t believe in you.”

You waited. Nothing. You shrugged your shoulders. That myth had been scary when you were younger but it never yielded any results.

As you started brushing out your hair, you continued.

“Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice…”

Another yawn and you closed the medicine cabinet before you changed into your nightgown and waltzed back into your bedroom. You flopped into your makeshift bed and stared at the card once again.

“What the hell is a Beetlejuice?”

Had you been looking at the mirror for a moment longer, you would’ve seen Bloody Mary, hair done up in curlers and charcoal face mask covering her very surprised expression before flickering away the moment you began to speak the words for the other spirit.

He was… stronger? Maybe that was the wrong word. Mary only had a passing interest in terrifying people, whereas Beetlejuice?

He thrived on it. Hell, almost got off on it, if he was honest. There was something delicious about scaring the living shit out of breathers.

So, Mary never stepped in when it was clear that the person had moved onto summoning him, instead. It’d be rude.

And summon him you did.

The lights flickered for a moment before shutting off, throwing the entire room into a pitch-black darkness that shouldn’t have been possible. Some of the light outside should still have been filtering in, or at the very least there should have been moonlight. Something. Anything. but all you got was darkness.

Darkness and the faint feeling that you were no longer the only one there.

After a brief moment, there was the distinctive sound of slithering and something crawled across your foot, wrapping around it as the lights flickered back on to reveal a… guy?

Well, a slob. He was normally built everywhere except for his stomach where he was decidedly bulky enough with a round beer belly. His hair was wild and all over the place - you couldn’t decide if his hair was white, blond, or green from the moss covering every inch of him. He looked like a bad Halloween decoration you’d leave on the porch to scare neighbors away from trick-or-treating.

“Why hell-o there, sweetcheeks,” he purred, voice somewhere between when you inhaled a fat cigar and the flush of a toilet. “You called?”

You yelped, flinging your blanket off you in a state of panic before grabbing your phone and fumbling to turn the camera light back on. You didn’t have a chance. The lights came back on to illuminate the figure in front of you and you shrunk in your seat.

And then you squinted.

“What the fuck?” you managed to gasp. “What the ever-loving fuck.”

Your hands instinctively reached for a pillow to cling onto for dear life and to use as a potential weapon if he got any closer.

“Holy fuck, there’s a fucking crazy homeless man in my fucking house and he looks like Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror fucked a pile of moss. What the fuck.”

Had you not been completely terrified, you would have said he was kinda cute. Kinda. If you were into creepy corpses with shit-eating grins.

“I understood-” Beetlejuice paused, counting on his grimy fingers for a moment and having to think about what he was about to say. “More than half of those words, I think. But I’ll go ahead and treat ‘em like compliments, babes.”

There was a wide grin on his face that displayed his crooked teeth and showed off some of the most prime real estate for bugs that existed in this or any other plane of existence. It would have been charming to a certain type of people, but as you had not taken any hard drugs in your life, the chance of you being one of those types of people was slim.

Spitting into one hand and using it to slick his hair back in a manner that usually turned a few stomachs, the ghostly, grody apparition leered down at you in what could almost be likened to a man leering at his hangover-curing breakfast after a long night drinking.

“Beetlejuice, at your service. Bio-exorcist and professional haunter since the late black plague.” He swiftly bowed and smirked. “What can I do for ya, little breather?””

“Oh, you’re Beetlejuice? I mean, I guess… that makes sense.”

You paused and sat up, staring at him over and over again, your heart still racing. He certainly made the place smell damper than an apartment in this neck of the woods usually was.

“Uh. Your ad - well, I found your ad in my mail. It was pretty vague. It just said to call your name three times-”

You reached out and touched his leg and then quickly recoiled. Oh, he was real. You were not dying.

“What the fuck. Am I really seeing you? I swear to God I don’t use coke or anything weird and - holy shit - you’re real.” You poked at him. “You’re actually here and not some Hatsune Miku hologram what the fuck is happening.”

You scrunched your face up and furrowed your brow.

“Bio-exorcist? …Living exorcisms?” you frowned. “Shouldn’t it just be ‘exorcist’?”

Pursing his dangerously chapped lips, the poltergeist frowned at you and let his bushy brows furrow into a look of confusion, mimicking your expression.

“I’m real, dollface. What, you didn’t think my business card was serious?”

Oh, now that was worrying. He’d spread those out as much as possible during his last visit to the world of the living, and what if people were just calling him up for no reason other than thinking it was just some prank?

“Just ‘cause I ain’t flesh and bone doesn’t make me any less real.”

Then the subject of bio-exorcism. Oh, one of his favorite topics, aside from how good he was with his tongue and how easily he could drink anyone in any dimension under the table. Despite the fact that sometimes, he did drink under the table.

Not a lot of bars liked that. Wasn’t really a good party trick either.

“I'm here for spirits, y’see? If some living jackass moves into their place, I chase ‘em out. Keep the crib empty. Make sure no one’s tryin’ to regular-exorcise them.”

You frowned.

“Well, like I said, it was pretty vague. Slipped in with the coupons you usually think you’re going to use but never end up using.” You took out your wallet and removed the slip before handing it over to him. It was one of his more vague cards that left out the specific details of his gig. “There was something about it that just made me… I dunno.”

You, being the sweet young thing you were, blushed and cleared your throat gently.

“I’m really sorry - honestly I am. But I… Well, how to put this very gently and in a sincere way… I personally don’t believe in ghosts. Not saying they can’t be out there, especially not after that crazy weird stunt you just pulled.”

You held up your hands defensively, trying to show that you didn’t mean any harm.

“If I did, I think that’d open a lot of gates to my already hard-to-deal-with trauma.”

Then, you sighed and slumped back in your big cushion of a bed to stare up at him. You were studying him in what little light there was now that it was back on. He didn’t really look like he was fucking around.

“But I guess this might shake that idea up.” Your eyebrow perked up in inquiry. “Are you some sort of ghost advocate? Like… their protector?”

“Their… protector?”

Beej stared, open-mouthed and slack-jawed for a long moment before leaning back and slapping a hand across his knee as he let out the world’s loudest hoot of laughter and fell into hysterics.

Oh, first you didn’t believe in ghosts, and now you thought he was there to protect them? That was absolutely rich.

Just because he worked for them didn’t mean that he was suddenly their protector.

Tears of absolute mirth rolled down his ghostly cheeks, the spirit having to try a few times before he could actually stop laughing. Chuckling and wheezing a few more times before he could actually calm down enough to answer you, he glanced down at you and let his face fall utterly blank.

“No.”

A wave of his hand and a cloud of smoke, a pair of reading glasses appeared perched upon his face along with a booklet in his already outspread palm.

“I am solely here to facilitate the removal of pre-mortem nuisances from the property of any spirits, hauntings, or those of the ghostly persuasion,” came the weirdly educated, prim and proper voice before it dropped down a few registers to rock tumbler. “I boot living folks out of ghost homes.”

You shrugged, not fazed by his childish behavior. Sure, you thought he was weird and yeah, it was freaky to have a stranger in your house. But for all you knew, he was harmless. Annoying but harmless.

“Well, I’m not a ghost and there ain’t one here, my dude. I don’t think I need your services…” You frowned and opened up your wallet again, this time grabbing a couple twenty dollar bills and handing it to him. “I feel like an asshole for calling you. I was gonna use that for take-out but I think you should have it. Y’know. For showing up to perform your services of, uh, removal. Like a cancellation fee you gotta pay if you fuck up.”

You thought for a moment. And then uttered words you never thought you’d ever say:

“Or you could hang around here for awhile. Lights aren’t on and there’s no cable… But I could order that food for two-” Wait. “Uh, if you eat? Sorry. I don’t want to seem ignorant. I just. This shit is a lot to process.”

Annoyed at yourself, you rubbed the bridge of your nose.

“What I’m saying is that even though there aren’t ghosts, you can kick it if you don’t want to go back to wherever I summoned you from. Can’t imagine it was pleasant.”

“No ghosts, huh? What 'm I, chopped liver?”

As if to prove his point, Beetlejuice kept very steady eye contact with you as he reached into his torso and stuck a hand out the other side, the other moving to yoink off his head and alas-poor-Yorick with it.

Practical effects were good. But to do that on the fly? And as convincingly as he did?

That wasn’t really… something possible.

Beetlejuice pulled his hand back through and replaced his noggin as he stared right at you, one grimy brow lifted as he wordlessly pocketed the bills. Even if he didn’t typically use living money, there was still bartering worth in the paper. He could always sell it to some sentimental dumbass who missed the green of the living world.

Which were… far more people than most thought. Most would assume that the first thing you’d do when you died is embrace socialism.

But apparently not.

You grimaced. Not because the sight was scary to you - you had grown up on horror movies. It was just the suddenness of his motions that unnerved you. You ran your fingers through your hair and shook your head before he continued.

“And we do eat. it isn’t something we need to do, but it’s… fun. Little reminder of breather life.”

“This is nuts. I’m talking to a dead guy on my first night in my new place. Who the fuck even prepares you for this shit?” You sighed and moved towards the edge of your bed. “Look, man, I’m going to play the dumb living human card a lot tonight and I’m sorry but…”

You eyed him up and down again curiously.

“I didn’t even think there was a God or an afterlife - to me this just feels like some drug trip. But… you’re real.” You stood up to walk around him. Your hand gently touched his lapel, fingers sliding down the fabric before you pulled away. “I’m having a fucking existential crisis with some zoot zuit wearin’ - pimp? - showing up because I said his fucking name three times.”

Your eyes locked with his briefly.

“I’m guessing say it another three times send you back to - Hell? Purgatory? So I won’t, ‘Juice. Unless this is painful to be here.”

Annoyed at the situation, you rubbed your tired eyes. Without another word, you unlocked your phone and pulled up a Chinese delivery place's menu.

“Well, dinner’s on me. I promise not to ask you anymore super stupid questions if you stay. Lord knows I’m too dumb to get this shit. But, uh. Company would be cool. If you want.” You blushed. It wasn’t like you were asking him for a date. But you were curious if you could learn more. “Or I could send you back to whatever bliss awaits you. Uh. Dealer’s choice?”

His face contorted at the mere mention of the other side. Sure, it wasn’t eternal damnation. but it also wasn’t blissful. It was… mostly like being alive. Paperwork and jobs and having to still deal with money.

Capitalism didn’t stop along with someone’s heartbeat. No, the fucking system stuck around post-mortem. Perhaps there was some special place where the really exceptional people went - to some sort of good place - but Beej’d be fucked if he ever saw it or even heard mention of anything like that.

“Eugh. No, the longer I can stay topside, the better, dollface,” he grimaced, one eye following you as you walked around and examined him. And sure, he tried to look his best, puffing out his chest and sucking in the gut he had. After all, he did that around any pretty little thing he saw, on the off chance that… well…

That you’d wanna hitch a ride on the B.J. Express. First and only stop: Fucksville.

Christ, that line was probably why he never got laid unless it was through the exchange of some cold, hard cash. He nearly owned a huge stake at Dante’s at this point.

“I'll stay with you,” he proclaimed, then as if he could read your mind, “Consider it a date. I'll pay ya back for this.”

“A date?” You didn’t sound repulsed like a normal person should have been. No, you were more perplexed. “A cool ghost pops into the world of the living and wants to go on a date with some random human - no wait, what did you call me, a breather?”

You laughed softly and handed your phone over to him, the menu pulled up. You rested your chin on your hand as you looked up at him quizzically.

“Not trying to presume anything, but, uh. I heard demons and shit were hot, right? I mean, you guys can have orgies and orgies without fear of STDs or baby-making. Plus, again, demon girls are hot. Now you’re stuck on a date with a breather?”

Figuring it was a joke, you shrugged.

“Whatever floats your boat. You don’t gotta pay me back. Like I said, I could use the company.” You flashed him a smile. “You are pretty cool, after all. It’d be nice if you stuck around…”

“Oh, yeah, no. Don’t get me wrong, succubi are great. They’ll ride you until you can’t see or walk straight. But, uh.”

Rubbing the back of his head, he tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t be an outright lie, but that wouldn’t make him seem like too much of a creep. After all, most folks didn’t go for creeps. And those who did? They were usually into the stereotypical “hot stalker” creep. No, he couldn’t blow this shit with his usual molestation and upfront attitude. He might actually have a chance here.

“They don’t tend to be my type. Waaaaaay too aggressive. I prefer to be the one in charge,” he said, glancing at the living human to see what sort of reaction that would have on you. To see if you scoffed, turned red, or both.

To see if you would be into banging.

You blushed. Well, you had asked so you couldn’t be mad. Not like you were. Beetlejuice seemed gross and weird but… no alarm bells were ringing yet.

“So I was right about the pimp suit?” you chuckled. “Well, if you wanna live lavishly like a King then by all means, order whatever you want. Just be careful ‘bout the duck. It’s the fanciest thing on that menu but…”

You waved your hand flat out as if to say so-so.

“Not worth it. The kung pow chicken? Super bomb.”

You relaxed back in your cushions and waited for him to place his order.

“I get more of a switch vibe from you, Juice. But I’ll believe you. I’d be confident with a cool suit too.” You pursed your lips for a moment. “Did you die in that suit or do you get to pick your outfits in the afterlife?”

A switch?

Oh, that was entirely true. Hell, if anything Beej could be a pushover if someone batted their eyes and pursed their lips in the right way. But would he ever admit to it outside of either regular or sexy torture?

Never.

...well, maybe. But he’d have to be either overwhelmingly drunk or high to do so. He didn’t like to admit that there was any part of himself that was anything other than a smooth-talking, dominant, seductive casanova, but he knew that secretly there may have been something that wasn’t wholly dominant about him.

However, he wasn’t about to let this pretty young thing know. Not unless there was a whip or stilettos involved.

“Nah, doll. I'm all daddy.” He thumped his chest at that, shooting you his best smile. Which was more like looking at a pane of broken glass.

“And this old thing? Buried in it, but can change if I want. I just think it adds a certain charm, don’t you agree?”

You giggled, delighted that this old dirt bag used such a trendy title. Sure, older gals used to call men Daddy all the time, but the way he said it wasn’t exactly in that context. It was more like the horny millennial fad.

“You must have been fucking some younger spirits to get that lingo, Daddy-O,” you teased, purposely using the outdated version of the name.

At his narcissistic question, you decided to indulge him just a little bit.

“I like it. Not everyday someone pulls off stripes so well,” you complimented to boost his ego. “If only I could see you properly, but all these little lights can only show me just a little taste.”

Maybe he could light up the room. If you goaded him with compliments… Free utilities were free utilities, man.

“I guess a Daddy does need a suit. Maybe a nice belt…”

Oh, you hoped it was too dark to see your clever little smirk. You liked playing this game with a dead man.

“But it depends on what kinda Daddy you are, Juice. The word is so carelessly used nowadays. So many wimps using it to sound cool.” Woah, hello sudden confidence. It was nice to feel like you weren’t some meek geek. “There are lots of ways to wear the name up here in the living.”

Oh, but he wasn’t going to fold just like that. Even if you were acting so confident, Beej still had enough ego to topple civilizations. Granted, had you taken the lead and pushed him over, that would be a completely different story.

But as it was? He could deal with words.

At least until you either started pointedly giving commands or begging for his cock. Either of those - anything that was explicit and couldn’t just be mistaken for simple flirting - and he would be a goner.

With a snap of his grimy fingers, the lights buzzed and came on. Not with their usual electric glow, but with what almost seemed like candlelight from within. He wasn’t really turning the power on - he was using them to conduct a different light source.

And from there? His suit was all the easier to see. Along with the very obviously hard cock that pressed against the front of those striped slacks.

“How’s about it, dollface? Like what you see?” he purred, running a hand down his body for either your amusement, or for your enjoyment. Depended on whether or not you were just teasing to be a tease, or if you would actually go for a roll in the hay. “Does Daddy measure up to what you were thinking?”

You gawked. You stared! Your eyes were round like dinner plates. That blush burned your face so suddenly that it was an obvious tell. And your heart nearly skipped a beat. That was very unexpected, despite you explicitly trying for this very result.

Beetlejuice was gross. But in a very, very attractive way. A slob with charm.

“O-oh wow,” you murmured. Bashfully, you looked away and grabbed the pillow you were holding earlier. You bit your lower lip. You didn’t find it wrong to embrace being dirty, but part of you felt like it would be too ‘slutty’ of yourself to start flirting harder. The ghost just met you - would you really want to mess with someone who would hit it and quit it?

“That and more,” came the soft reply. “You sure I called a bio-exorcist and not some other dirty line?”

Cautiously, you sat forward in your seat and looked up at him. God, he was cute.

“I can see lots of us living folks calling you up.” You wet your lips eagerly. Then, you paused. And blushed even harder.

It was then that you realized that you were only in your pajamas. No underwear underneath, nada! Just the thin fabric of your shirt and pants. It was pretty revealing in this light if you could look at yourself the way he was leering at you.

“I-I feel very underdressed compared to you… Um. Sh-should I change into something nicer? I, uh, don’t want you to think I look like a trash goblin.”

Oh, he could instantly see that you were hardly wearing anything once the lights flickered on, his eyes doing a full sweep of your body and taking in your warm, plush form as he felt his cock twitch. Hell, it was probably something that was very visible.

A slow grin spread over his face, Beetlejuice leaning in and reaching out to touch your thigh as he gave his lips a long lick. Entirely done just to draw attention to how long and talented his tongue looked. Just wanting to spur you on and encourage the little slut to get up and climb over and onto his lap.

“Oh, not at all. I think you look good enough to eat, babes.”

Slut? Was that already what he was thinking of you as?

Well, given that some of his favorite folks were sluts? Including himself? He thought of slut as a term of honor - the way some folks might call their pals bastards.

Almost immediately, the hand on your thigh slid further inwards, pressing against the clothed flesh of your cunt. Straight to the point. After all, as much as Beetlejuice did love himself some good bush, he hated to beat around it.

His thumb set to stroking you through the thin fabric of your pajama bottoms, the lights beginning to dim a bit more. Grow hazier. Grow more seductive. in line with his mood and actions.

“In fact… I think i could forego dinner for somethin’ sweeter.”

You stared at that tongue for a moment and let your face feel hotter. It was clear you liked what you saw. There was a small piece of your mind telling you not to let some creep get it on the first date, but...

He was cute. Gross. Very, very much so. But he was a poltergeist just looking for fun.

When he touched you, you gasped involuntarily. Your back stiffened along with your now hardened nipples and you froze. What should you say to that bold statement?

“Do you do this to all the humans who summon you or did I catch you in a mood?” you breathed. It wasn’t a denial or a refusal. And from how the thin fabric clung to your wet self, that very much indicated that you were already turned on from the sight of him.

“You haven’t even been here ten minutes and you’re already so handsy.”

You tried to be as playful as you could despite being so nervous.

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna skip foreplay and try and get to it… Why, that would be no fun at all, Daddy.”

Oh, you were playing with fire now.

“Well, when I see such a cute little doll, surely you can’t blame me for being so eager to get to know you,” he purred, fingers slipping past the fabric as soon as he could see that you wouldn’t put up a fight and plunging knuckle-deep into your soaked little cunt. Getting a good feel for what he’d be fucking later.

And then you insinuated that he wasn’t gonna give you any foreplay. Beetlejuice didn’t take kindly to that. He may have been a pervert, a scoundrel, a knave, a bastard, a…

He forgot where he was going with that.

Oh, right. he may have been all of those things, but he was also an egotistical prick. Meaning that if he could have someone begging for his cock after being teased for hours, then he would put in the extra effort.

So one of his striped tentacles slipped forward, curling up your shirt to wrap around your tits and mimic fucking them.

“Are you gonna be good and let me have what I want, babes? Or does Daddy have to take it?”

With your cunt throbbing and body aching for his touch, you moaned abruptly as soon as he entered you with those dirty digits. You squirmed and let your tight hole wrap around him, tightening as he played around. The tentacle was what really caught you by surprise. There was a small squeak from your lips and you tensed up before allowing him to continue.

Oh, was he threatening you?

“Well… what happens if I struggle?” you asked curiously. It was clear you were a little freak who enjoyed the idea of both. “Will that tentacle make sure I join you in the afterlife?”

You were pouting a bit up at him. Your body wanted him to continue, that was clear. But you wanted to know which side of the dice to roll.

“I wanna know what Daddy’s capable of - if he’s mean or if he wants to be playful…”

“Depends on how you act, sweetheart. Daddy’d love to just be playful, but if you don’t behave…”

He leaned in at that, rancid breath blowing in cold clouds along your skin as he chuckled to himself. Wondering what your reaction to his next words would be; if they would repulse you, or if you’d be hornier than ever.

Thankfully, he was already buried knuckle-deep in the best lie detector there was when it came to something like that.

“Daddy’s fucked dollies that were unwilling before. That fought and screamed and cried.”

Oh, he didn’t even touch on if he would kill you for not behaving or not. He was a vengeful spirit, of course he would. He knew that there was life after death, so dooming a toy to forever have to be fucked by him? Essentially creating his own undead sex slave? It’d be like heaven for him. honestly, it was kind of a wonder he hadn’t done it yet. Well, he did like it when they were warm, after all.

“But Daddy knows best.”

Your heart started to beat faster at that. You weren't scared - no… quite the opposite. Thrilled? You were playing with a powerful being now. One that could kill you in an instant but was deciding to indulge your dirty fantasies. Maybe he could sense what freaky shit you were into. The more likely thing was that he hadn’t had a proper fuck in awhile and now had a prime toy to test out.

Your cunt constricted around his fingers, being the dead giveaway that he needed that you were indeed a little freak.

“What does Daddy like best? When they cry or when they give in easily?” You watched him closely for a response, your teeth raking over your bottom lip. “I…”

You were very embarrassed at the next words that fell from your lips:

“Wanna make sure ‘m good enough for you and can keep up..”

Beetlejuice grinned at that. Because even if he did enjoy forcing himself upon people and watching as their will slowly drained away until they were nothing but pliant little fuckpuppets… He had to admit to being charmed by obedience. It was pretty rare that people actually begged for him. Most were disgusted by, well, all of him. The only good lays had been at Dante’s and those were paid for. Having a willing, breathing slut? Oh, that was priceless.

And so, he stroked your hair. Rewarding you for being so good for him so far. Good enough to make his cock throb and leak. Leak a nasty green, glowing ooze.

Ectoplasm. It wasn’t just something that the dead produced on their flesh when trying to scare the living. No, since their bodies technically couldn’t produce real cum, it made do with the closest thing it had.

“I like both. but you’re being such a good doll for Daddy. I'm thinking being willing’s gonna be the hottest thing you can do.”

You could see the bulge in his pants, your eyes widening like two full dinner plates. Eagerly, you wet your lips. His fingers were still curling and uncurling in you that you almost found it so unfair that you couldn’t see what he had in his pants. Your imagination was running wild! Was it a tentacle like the one groping your tits? Or maybe it was something even more peculiar? Dude was a straight up ghost! He could have anything.

Whatever it was, you were eager to have it be inside you.

So you sidled up closer to him and gently sat on his lap, not wanting to crush the poor poltergeist under you. You had no idea what his limitations as a now corporeal being really was so you played it safe.

Shyly, you fiddled with his tie and bit your lip, worrying the skin until it broke. How was one supposed to flirt with a ghost that was knuckle-deep in your pussy? God, he was so handsome…

“Good,” you murmured, mouth so dangerously close to his. “I wanna be good for you, Beej.”

#Works of Oz #Writing #Beetlejuice #(Yes I plan to do ALL versions of Beetlejuice for my fics soon!)#Fanfiction

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drakonics · 5 years

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<DIR> // HC DUMP: GENERIC.

/under the cut for potentially disturbing/mature mentions. you’ve been warned.

<o1> contrary to annoyingly popular and recurring belief seto is/was the furthest thing from spoiled given his seemingly polished upbringing and generally standoffish person as a whole. after a watered down past at the orphanage his new life he intended to give mokuba was the very furthest from anything he ever wanted. everything and anything gozaburo ever ‘gave’ him was double edged and even though seto could truly have cared less about the abusive fool inflicting on him he broke his stubborn streak when the bastard truly surpassed all unthinkable lows and began using mokuba as leverage to ensure seto did whatever he wanted. that being said any accomplishments made by seto are strictly his own. he has built his own network of success from the very ground up fully eliminating any and all traces of his ‘father’ over the years ensuring kaiba corporation became something all his own without the stain of adoptive ties to reflect on the company when mokuba someday succeeds him.

<o2> despite being unable to recall the exact events leading up to the untimely deaths of his real parents seto suffers from vivid recurring dreams/chronic nightmares centering around the scattered cause. born to a japanese father and a mother with egyptian roots dating as far back as the ancient days, the two met during an expedition in giza where seto’s father was conducting research on the first pyramids and his mother doubled as a tour guide at the time and was later revealed ( due to extensive research conducted by seto himself ) to be the successor of ancient tomb guardians with blood of the medjay hailing from the old kingdom. fittingly enough seto inherited her striking blue eyes and sinfully soft brown hair with his father’s more stern personality as an opposing trait, whereas mokuba took after their father in terms of looks but maintained their mother’s immovably caring personality. the kaiba brother’s pendants although made by mokuba also contain a second digitally reconstructed and salvaged image of their deceased parents, courtesy of seto’s personal additions alongside the intricate self destruct mechanism integrated in conjunction to the duel tower.

<o3> for all of his top of the line prowess and upkeep with personal/public appearance the greatly esteemed president of kaiba corporation is in fact not in the prime of health. the true meaning of rest is simply lost him and not an option given he is expected to be anywhere at any time whenever the occasion calls for it day or night. seto wages around 3-5 hours of sleep within a 24 period and never manages them consecutively resulting in consistent sleep depravation, chronic insomnia and bouts of sickness. in effort to counter balance the tolls taken on his health seto maintains a strict self-training regimen, a particular diet and coffee in dangerous dependability. when confronted about his overall decline of health seto merely states he will sleep when he is dead and the path he shapes known as his life will never stop regardless if he sleeps or not.

<o4> courtesy of kaiba corporation and his personal profits, seto has officially deemed a select percent of his entire generated revenue in donations to orphanages worldwide. to better the future and generations to come seto believes giving children like him and mokuba a chance to reclaim and successfully live their lives will make the most lasting impact. depending on their schooling success kaiba corporation also offers free admission to the duel academy upon graduating base grade school or fully paid tuition up front for college. as per seto’s endless pursuits in bettering his own technological finesse continue to evolve he is constantly adjusting the prices of all other kaiba related entertainment: kaiba land officially has multiple locations set up worldwide which operate strictly on their own real time via the intricate crystal cloud network. a handful of nature reserves are also in continued production as well as personal cruise lines that offer travel to and from all forms of attraction or personal getaways. all parks and attractions are operated at significantly cut costs to make them more easily accessible and affordable to the people with mandatory pre-release periods, however mainly focal on children in general.

<o5> it is excruciatingly important to note that a bout of sudden ‘kindness’ from seto is hardly true kindness at all up front if at all strictly due to him believing ( and being forcibly taught by ) that kindness is an immediate show of weakness. at many points seto was beaten by gozaboru whenever he cried due to the afflictions gozaboru made on mokuba. as such was just proclaimed another weakness gozaboru refused in a heir, seto grew to resent tears and emotions as a whole, effectively crushing his own as a detrimental drawback. lack of proper upbringing paired with a stunt in social growth since childhood effectively cut him off from normal development one would have according to generation and therefore seto suffers from severe social impairment and is unable to make emotional connections. many defining factors of his tyrannical business front and hellbent on remaining top-of-the-world persona were injected by gozaboru himself and forcibly imprinted ( to the point of both physical and mental ) abuse that carried into and ultimately tarnished his adulthood. seto has been put through more forced consumation attempts than he cares to count in one lifetime, compliments of gozaboru wishing to extend his own corporate clutches and influence via other rich or corporate owned families worldwide. attempts that have scarred seto to such a degree he is wary of women in general and utilizes sex in itself as a power play and tool and inherited gozaboru’s manipulation in the form of trauma ( as if unwanted sexual occurrences and attempted assassination efforts were not enough. ) adding to his already fiercely independent and withdrawn personality, seto firmly believes others will never simply approach him but that they all have an underlying motive and purely intend to use him because of his position, wealth and grand success; a defining paranoia that has sadly been proven time and again throughout the course of his arranged future successes which only further contributed to his inability and overall unwillingness to trust, forging the cold settlement that most if not everyone is out to hurt him so he fully intends to shut them down and hurt them first. while even but a fraction of his trust is ten times hard earned and rarely given, seto is loyal to a fault and would staunchly go to the very ends of this world and the next if it means protecting anything ( or anyone ) he cares about.

<o6> although official records state seto dropped out of high school by choice, gozaboru withdrew his son seeing his intellect was years beyond what modern day education was capable of on the falsified notion that seto himself was above normal schooling and destined for much greater. in reality, gozaboru already knew seto surpassed him in every way possible and despite having groomed him as the perfect heir to someday succeed him, implemented a planned attempt to murder his own son in fear of losing his company and having everything taken from him. gozaboru attempted a number of recurring set ups in attempt to separate mokuba from his older brother and kill him off long before deciding seto was a liability, attempts that Seto was not only fully aware of in entirety but also planning a counter measure in turn. while it is known seto effectively manipulated the big five against gozaboru in conjunction with his inhumane treatment towards his own subordinates, official records state gozaboru was driven to suicide and took his own life by jumping out of the window of kaiba corporation’s presidential office on the top floor. the unpublished truth remains undiscovered to this day: seto turned gozaboru’s own murderous machinations against him and killed the man himself solely based on the belief that he was merely giving back everything that bastard ever gave him and his little brother. thanks for nothing, gozaburo.

<o7> officially unreleased to the public and deemed solely for his own personal use, seto’s next generation of neurons links him to an encrypted network constructed with any and all depictions of ancient egyptian lore he has personally salvaged in effort to hopefully someday fully piece together the ongoing mysteries shrouding his past life and any ongoing connection he clearly has to the departed pharaoh. utilizing the original state of the art bleeding technology seto has successfully constructed a subconscious research vein dubbed the STEM, allowing it not only to connect with and create images solely based on the user’s brainwave activity but fully reconstruct scenarios based on their dreams and fleeting visions. In its final stages the STEM places the user in a catatonic state by integrating itself directly into their central nervous system and works in perfect conjunction with the nervous system to provide real time feedback, lifelike sensations and produce results generated directly from either. by diving his subconscious, seto has been able to place himself at the heart of many scattered memories pertaining to his past, effectively allowing him to ‘re live’ or experience certain occurrences as his past self, courtesy of obtaining DNA sequences in unorthodox means. ground breaking as it is the STEM is it hardly comes without its immediate faults and dangers as it forcibly dives into genetic memory and imprints at an alarming and often much too realistic rate. as the centered drawback of reproducing a near immaculate 3D world and structure at will, due to the overall strain placed on the user’s body their vitals are continually monitored and the system is set to cease immediate operations should they fall beneath the natural threshold of safety.

<o8> prolonged use of the STEM has adverse and potentially life threatening side effects, one such that seto has deemed the ‘bleeding edge effect’ where the user will experience severe bouts of hallucinations caused by the user’s past life memories ‘bleeding’ into the present and can cause permanent mental disorientation or push the user to insanity if proper rest between sequences and extended safety protocol is not met during use and after. unbeknownst to seto himself by linking to his ancestor and diving his subconscious to the egyptian afterlife he has unwillingly attached the soul of his past incarnation to himself, effectively transcending the plane of digital space and dimensions alike. by utilizing this alongside his breakthrough with the quantum cube, seto has ultimately forced his own soul and that of his priest side to exist as one in present day.

#❐┊DATA ENTRY: CMD PROMPT!#MY INTELLECT IS UNPARALLELED!#PERSONAL DIRECTORY!#catch me writing whole novels up in here #fight me

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eisforeidolon · 5 years

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Episode: Nihilism

Then: Michael gloats about how no one spent any time questioning why he previously vamoosed for no reason. It's such a clever gotcha … for the writers to lampshade their own incompetence of making the characters somehow ignore a giant plot hole anyone who isn't permanently concussed questioned endlessly. One I still question, because Michael's “plan” to leave and then arbitrarily come back to break Dean's will … somehow … makes no sense and screws around with angel lore yet again.

Anyway.

Now: I did actually mostly enjoy this episode, aside from a few not-entirely-minor quibbles.

First, I have to say: Wow, the actress who plays Pamela looks almost exactly the same. Also, this is the kind of cameo I actually really love when the show does! It doesn't make death meaningless or have the characters accept a replacement goldfish substitute from an alternate universe as the same person (as creepy as that is). Yet it still allows us to revisit old favorite characters.

I liked the smug – almost gleefully so – way that Jensen played Michael. It actually largely mitigated how easy it was for the rest of the team to capture him for me, which I kind of expected to be annoyed by. He's exactly the kind of villain to monologue instead of just getting on with killing everybody. It also mostly fits that he doesn't take them terribly seriously and so isn't prepared for their alternate holy oil molotov plan. As well as how he's more vaguely interested in examining the cuffs than actually concerned when they do bind him – and not only in light of how he has his own backup plan. There's still the slight hitch that having been in Dean's head, he should realize just how many other villains have gone belly up from not taking the Winchesters seriously? But then, he is exactly the kind of villain that would think he's so far above all of them that he's obviously different – even when them includes an alternate version of himself.

That said, I was not impressed that inexplicably Castiel can no longer see reapers. I swear, he gains and loses more powers on an episode by episode basis ... ffs. Nor did I appreciate that said reaper suddenly was willing to act as a get-out-of-monster-hell free card. Billie and the reapers wouldn't even step in to save their own from being killed in Funeralia (13.19) but now, LOL NON-INTERFERENCE? NEVERMIND! I mean, it just feels so lazy. I give Yockey more credit than a lot of the current lot, and in the end it's partially a season-size pacing problem, but? Imagine if instead they'd stretched this out to another episode and given Sam and the others the time to find a legitimate, clever way out of being trapped, with Michael taunting them all the while. (I could happily watch a couple episodes' worth of just Michael mocking them all, tbh.) Instead, they're cheat-teleported back to the bunker. Heck, Yockey could have just gone with Michael being too smug to have bothered to have sufficient backup monsters! That would work perfectly well, too. I get maybe it was partially meant to bring reapers back to the audience's attention to prime us for the reveal at the end with Billie? And maybe we’re meant to forgive it because the threat from the monsters is still on in the background? But it just doesn't work for me.

Another thing that I actually can forgive because I think it fits with Michael's ego is not having enough imagination to give Dean more than one night at his fantasy bar that repeats over and over again. Even if Cas and Sam hadn't broken in during this episode, Dean had already noticed having deja vu. So on the one hand, it fits how smugly overconfident Michael is, on the other, it really is a stupid plan. I did actually like that Dean's fantasy did still involve killing monsters – since I've always felt like his desire to be out of hunting was more tied to all of the issues with destiny and the apocalypse and all of that manipulation from cosmic forces and weight of the world stuff than the old-school routine of just saving individual people from individual monsters.

Ugh, Maggie. Her being in charge for reasons here really is one of the dumbest things they've sprung on us yet. The only good thing about the whole side meander with the AU!hunters is that I had been cringing at how, once again, I expected the mystically warded bunker to suddenly be just that easy for monsters to waltz into? Yet instead, they actually weren't able to break in without having a turned hunter on the inside. I really did appreciate that!

I'd seen several complaints about saying Dean “thrives” on trauma was annoying and insulting. I kind of get that, especially in light of Ross-Leming's obtuse comment about Dean having antibodies against evil so they never have to deal with him being traumatized? However, while I think perhaps there might have been better ways to phrase it, I think the meaning – that given something he actually knows to fight against, Dean is irrepressible – is clear enough from the context. I did appreciate Sam figured out that's why Dean wouldn't be fighting, because he’d been put in a comfortable fake memory, as well as how he was able to identify which memory was the false one so quickly. I thought it was a nice touch that the music went wonky in the background as Dean remembered what they were saying about Pamela was true. As well as that it was Sam saying their code word that was the final clue slotting into place rather than Castiel's overblown speech. While I can see where it might come off as a rip-off of the Ezekiel thing, I think the situations are sufficiently similar that it only makes sense for them to sort out in a similar way.

Michael's imitation of Castiel was just as funny in context. From what he said to Jack to what he said in Dean's head to Sam and Castiel, I think Michael was telling the truth, or more accurately, a version of the truth. We all have certain nasty thoughts that linger in the back of our heads – resentments, annoyances, uncharitable thoughts – the ugliest version of ourselves. I think Michael was picking and choosing out of that part of Dean to find the things it would hurt the most to say; not thoughts Dean never had, but thoughts that clearly didn't encompass what Dean felt overall. Carefully chosen partial truths without context, specially tailored to hurt those they were aimed at as much as possible that would therefore also make Dean feel guilty, too. If Michael had felt like this much of a character from the beginning... Also, regular world Michael acted like allowing Dean to survive the experience of being possessed intact was some special boon, so this one making a point to say he's going to rip Dean apart on the way out being an additional consideration fits well enough.

While I like a good fight scene as much as anybody, if they're on equal footing because they're all just projections in Dean's head? I actually think it should have been easier for them to take down Michael. Sam, Dean, even Cas? They all have plenty of experience getting their hands dirty in physical fights, whereas we've seen this Michael spend a lot more time actively avoiding them. That, and I did actually find myself kind of mildly annoyed it was Sam and not Dean that was the one to physically shove Michael into the freezer. Yes, the fight was a joint effort, and yes, Dean is the one actually keeping him contained in his mind when it comes down to it. However, with all that we got in the previous episode of Dean really wanting to personally strike back at Michael and how Sam had already played such a major part by figuring out how to get into Dean's head and drag him back to reality? I felt like perhaps it would have been a more powerful moment if Dean had actually done the physical shoving as well. I don’t think it was a big deal or anything, but ... meh.

Likewise pretty ambivalent about all of Michael's monsters just wandering off rather than continuing their attack at the end. I get that they were all supposed to be under some kind of control, but it's just so very convenient. When it's put on top of the teleport home earlier in the episode (and how they're such crappy monsters they couldn't even kill Maggie, dammit) … Again, it didn’t ruin the episode for me, but after Michael was previously shown negotiating with certain monsters or offering them boons, but actually here it’s that he’s controlling them? Michael’s plans and motivations have generally being fairly nebulous and vague all along, so this is just so par for the course I can’t even get that annoyed about it.

Similarly, while I appreciate them trying to tie the invasion of AU!Michael in as the consequences Billie warned Dean would come from universe-hopping? It also seems like a fairly flimsy hand wave. It's better than no attempt at all, leaving it as a hanging thread that was just dropped, but “this whole multi-versal quantum construct we live in, it's like a house of cards and the last thing I need is some big dumb Winchester knocking it all down” seems like it should refer to the potentiality of something a little more colossal than yet another archangel with daddy issues. Maybe that's just me.

As to the end where all the books about Dean's death have changed to have the same ending bar one? Well, by the very concept, all the books can be changed. So, when that one alternative to Michael destroying everything is clearly also awful, it seems the more prudent route to go would be to figure out how to make all the books change again as Plan A rather than going directly for Plan Horrorshow. Not only have the Winchesters made a long-term habit of changing fate, but they've already done it in this specific way once – granted for the worse, but still, it's clearly possible.

I feel like there was something else I meant to address about this one, but I didn’t make a note of it and I actually watched this a couple of days ago and I’m coming up completely blank.

In the end, i feel like what really made me like this episode despite some obvious flaws was Jensen’s portrayal of Michael and the other characters’ reactions to him. Which, honestly, just makes the fact that the season took so long to actually get here and give us something meaty from this storyline feel even less like any kind of reasonable choice.

#spn season 14 #spn 14x10 #negativity for ts

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cruelfeline · 4 years

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While most clones are probably going to try and stick to primes ways, I could see a few trying, a bit to enthusiastically, to mimic etherian customs as an attempt to prove they're not a threat. They'd get things almost right. Or they'd do things correctly but not understand why, like keeping something not because it's something they particularly like, but because they saw an Etherian do the same thing. Or they'd insist on eating Etherian food before their bodies can handle it.

I can definitely see this happening, anon!

Personally, I like to headcanon/categorize clones into three general classes when thinking of their initial post-Prime behavior. Well, four, I guess, if you count "remarkably well-adjusted." But for those who have behavioral pathology, three:

Class I describes a clone who employs what I like to refer to as the "Hordak Technique" for dealing with Prime's absence: cling to his teachings as much as possible and maintain a safe distance from others via aggressive behavior. These clones tend to be aloof, standoffish, and may become violent depending on individual circumstances. They are resistant to change. Some may be holding out hope that Prime will return and thus maintain certain behaviors to appeal to him. Others are just lost and frightened, and they employ anger and aggression to combat that fear. The challenge in handling these clones is clear: they are simply difficult to bond to and may even be dangerous in some instances. Hordak, upon landing on Etheria, is a good example. So is how I predict Yudi will be.

Class II describes clones that are neither aggressive nor overly eager, but rather those that maintain a very blank affect and essentially withdraw into themselves as a defense against the trauma they've experienced. Some of this is a sort of continuation of Prime's teachings, while some of it is a kind of extended emotional shock. These clones can be challenging to handle because they are the ones least likely to voice their own needs; rather, they end up masking hunger and exhaustion and illness until it becomes an emergency. Most clones, I think, will fall into this category: distressed, but quiet. For caretakers, they are less difficult to deal with than class I clones given the lack of rudeness and aggression, but they pose the challenge of really being able to assess how they're doing. They may be fairly pliant and cooperative, but also hard to read.

Class III describes the sort of clone you're thinking of, anon: enthusiastic, willing, nigh-on friendly individuals who take to their new lives with gusto. They're cheerful, helpful chaps who partake in Etherian customs and behaviors whenever they have a chance... even if they don't really want to. They maintain a happy expression and seek only to assist their caretakers and new friends, but beneath this jolly attitude is the same loss and confusion that their other brothers are experiencing. These clones mask in this fashion largely out of a sense of duty to their hosts (throwing themselves into the idea of "if I'm useful, I'm good," displacing from Prime to Etherian) and out of a need to belong. Cut off from the hivemind and from Prime's false facsimile of love, they react by grasping onto any bond they can, even if they feel the need to throttle their pain to do so. These clones can be, counterintuitively, very difficult to manage because they, like class II's, will mask their pain but seem fine while doing so. While a class II clone is withdrawn and silent and clearly needs care, a class III will look to be adjusting very well to their new life while suffering within. Whereas, for example, a class II clone might not tell anyone they are hungry and thus need closer assessment, a class III clone will eat, but as you say: they'll eat something because they think they should, even if it makes them sick or is unsatisfying, solely to please their hosts. They thus escape closer assessment while actually needing it.

Wrong Hordak actually strikes me as potentially this type of clone, and I've seen this portrayal of him in various fanworks: happy to help, seems to be adjusting splendidly, but actually hurting very badly inside.

...anyway! I don't know why I wrote all of that. It's probably weird that I have clone classifications. Oh, well!

#horde clones #obviously there are overlaps in these classifications #and clones can switch from being mostly one to mostly another #I don't think ofnthese as hard and fast rules #more like an easy way to organize them based on common behavioral characteristics #hordak

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alexschurick-blog · 5 years

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When it comes to psychological experiments the period spanning the 40 years or so after the end of World War II was nothing short of scary.

Scientists were physically administering electric shocks to people with sometimes, high doses of electricity, putting others (often children) through severe mental and physical trauma and abusing animals to an extent that doesn’t even bare thinking about for a compassionate human being.

We also had the authorities at Harvard turning a blind eye to experiments with LSD in a basement conducted by students trying to make contact with God, and subjecting a man by the name of Ted Kaczynski to 3-years of humiliation and anguish in the name of science.

In case you don’t know, Kaczynski later went on to be the Unabomber and killed 3-people. You can decide whether the authorities at Harvard deserve any culpability in regard to his later actions.

It’s almost unfathomable now to think of any of the following experiments being sanctioned.

However, that doesn’t mean that the ones already conducted don’t offer an amazing insight into the human psyche.

So, prepare to be appalled, as well as fascinated by what is to follow.

7 Dreadful Psychological Experiments

1. The Stanford Prison Psychological Experiment

This notorious experiment has spawned books and even movies such were the shocking results and conclusions.

In 1971, Psychologist Philip Zimbardo constructed a fake prison under (ironically) the Stanford psyche department and kitted it out with survey cameras so all the action could be filmed.

He recruited 24 undergraduates to either play the part of an inmate, or that of a prison guard.

Whereas the prisoners were kept in their cells 24/7 the guards were rotated on 8-hour shifts.

The guards were instructed to be strict and not to tolerate any ‘trouble makers’ or disobedience.

It didn’t take them long to follow their instructions, when on day 2 the prisoners rebelled and blockaded their cells.

The 2-week experiment lasted a mere 6-days when the ‘prisoners’ were pulled out with Zimbardo starting to fear for, not just their safety, but their lives.

Less than a week was all it took for the guards to resort to shocking tactics of sexual humiliation as well as psychological and physical abuse.

Some prisoners were already showing signs of learned helplessness and depression.

The Take Away

As human beings we all have the capacity to act in appalling ways under extreme circumstances.

In 1939 there were almost 70 million Germans on this planet, do you really think that more than a tiny minority were anti-Semitic or wanted to rule the world?

These students weren’t unusual and if you’d been one of them you would have almost certainly acted in a similar manner – even though you probably think you wouldn’t.

2. Stanley Milgram’s Shocking Experiment

Milgram’s is possible the most famous psychological experiment of all time and almost as concerning as the Stanford experiment.

He hypothesized that the followers and enablers of Adolf Eichmann one of the most instrumental Nazis when it came to organizing the Holocaust, may be no more than normal people submitting to authority.

Milgram told his pairs of subjects that he was conducting an experiment on memory and then assigned one of the pair as the teacher and one the pupil or learner.

Unbeknown to the person who was assigned to be the teacher in each experiment (it was done through a rigged ballot), the other person was really an actor aware of the real purpose of the experiment.

The teacher and student were split into separate rooms and the teacher was then instructed to apply an electric shock to the other person every time they got a question wrong.

The severity of the ‘shocks’ were increased incrementally and the participants could even hear the other person screaming in pain.

Yet by and large they kept applying the shocks to such a level that there would have been a lot of explaining to do with dead bodies and severely damaged people if they had been real.

Some resisted at first and said they didn’t like administering the pain, but continued to do so when told by the man in a white coat it was all part of the experiment.

The Take Away

Not only are we all capable of inflicting pain upon others, we are also massively influenced by authority figures and under such ‘perfect storm’ situations all rational behavior evaporates.

If a person in authority (or even perceived authority) delivers a message over and over again from a position of power, eventually we start to believe it,

In the meantime I’m off to buy a white coat.

The Good Samaritan Experiment

Over 40 Princeton students were recruited to supposedly deliver a talk on another part of campus in the early 1970’s.

When getting their instructions they were then primed with one of three statements designed to elicit mild, moderate and severe urgency in terms of how quickly they needed to get to the venue and start their talk.

On their route the experimenters had positioned a man doubled up in pain, coughing uncontrollably and obviously in a lot of distress and in need of help.

They wanted to see what effect the urgency of the instructions had on the students likelihood of stopping to help.

Less than 50% of students stopped at all and a mere 10% of those who were told their talk had to start quickly and people were waiting for them.

Some literally even stepped over the man and didn’t stop.

The irony was that these were Seminary students and half were told they were giving talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Take Away

Many of us will help others, but the likelihood of us doing so is dependent on so many factors, not least of which is, are we in a hurry or not?

4. The One Marshmallow Or Two Experiment?

Another famous Stanford experiment from the 1960’s led by Walter Mischel involved testing the ability of children to resist short-term pleasure for longer-term gain.

4-year-old children were placed in a room one at a time with a bowl of marshmallows and not a fat lot else to focus their attention on.

They were then told that they could either eat one marshmallow now, or they could have two when the experimenter returned in 15 minutes time.

The majority of children opted for the latter option, but then caved in when left alone to their own devices.

You may think that wasn’t very surprising, after all most kids like shoveling sweet shit into their mouths and self control isn’t usually a word adopted to describe 4-year-olds.

However, the real genius of the experiment was the follow up and tracking of the participants.

The kids who resisted were far less likely to have issues with drink and/or drugs later on in life and overall were far more successful than the kids who gave into temptation.

The Take Away

Maybe teaching kids self control should be higher up our collective agendas?

5. The Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes Experiment

The day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, teacher Jane Elliott decided that she wanted to help her third-grade students understand the consequences of being a minority in a Society rife with racism, fear and hatred.

With their permission (although being given permission by an 8-year-old for such an experiment is dubious at best) she split the group into those with blue eyes and those with not.

She declared that blue-eyed people were superior and treated that group accordingly by being more relaxed about discipline with them, giving them longer recess times and paying them more attention.

The other children were ordered to sit at the back of the class and were treated harshly and with contempt.

The most staggering part of this ad lib experiment was the fact that as soon as the end of just the first day massive changes had already taken place.

The blue-eyed children who had been previously struggling started to perform better and similarly the smarter brown-eyed kids were all of a sudden struggling.

Not only that, but the blue-eyed kids soon started to taunt the others and gloat.

Elliott was wise enough to flip the exercise after the first day to give both sides the opportunity to understand what it feels like to be treated in such a manner.

An important finding in an experiment that has been replicated many times with the same results, was that the dark-eyed kids didn’t taunt their fellow students to the extent that they had been taunted.

The Take Away

It seems that for the most part we find it difficult (although of course by no means impossible) to truly empathize with minorities.

Unless that is, we too have been treated poorly because we belonged to a minority group first.

Some people have never been treated poorly by minorities because they were/are too powerful.

6. The Bystander Effect Experiment

In 1964 Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York in full view of an undetermined number of people, but in all probability well over 20, but probably less than the 38 reported at the time.

Her assailant, Winston Moseley didn’t even kill her quickly.

After stabbing her once and somebody shouting at him to ‘leave her alone‘ he ran back to his car, only to return shortly after to stab her multiple times as she lay on the ground bleeding.

The media were up in arms at how many people had failed to do anything and it sparked a storm that has never quite abated.

The Bystander Effect is the belief that the more people who witness a scene such as the one above, the less any one individual is likely to do anything about it.

Psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane decided to test this theory 4 years after the event.

This time however they used the ruse of somebody having a life-threatening seizure and as per the Milgram experiment the study group could not see the person in trouble only hear them.

The results were startling similar to what happened with Kitty Genovese.

The more people who were aware of the person needing help, the less likely anybody was to offer it.

The Take Away

On an early Coach The Life Coach course I was looking for volunteers for a couple of processes I wanted to teach.

I sent out a blanket e-mail asking people to step forward.

Nobody did.

What I should have done was e-mail people individually and ask them if they’d care to help out.

So if you ever find yourself in medical difficulty surrounded by strangers, don’t cry for help in general.

Instead point at one person and say, “You there, I think I’m about to shuffle off this mortal coil, could you possibly arrange for an ambulance my good fellow” Or something like that.

7. The Robbers Cave Experiment

In the summer of 1954 two buses picked up two groups of eleven 12-year-old boys and took them to Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma.

None of the boys knew any of the others in their group and neither group knew of the existence of the other, at least for the first week.

After the first week social psychologist Muzafer Sherif arranged for the boys to meet one another and for a competitive element to be introduced.

Already the boys had created distinct group cultures culminating in giving themselves the names of ‘The Rattlers’ and ‘The Eagles’.

However, this was taken to a whole new level when it was announced there would be a series of competitions including a baseball game.

The Rattlers took over the field immediately even planting a flag to demonstrate that they now owned the field even before the game had gotten underway.

From thereon in things deteriorated rapidly from name calling and verbal abuse to ransacking of the ‘oppositions’ living quarters and stealing of property.

Like The Stanford Prison Experiment the organizers soon had to step in to avoid the very real chance of physical violence.

During a 2-day cooling off period the boys were asked questions about one another and even though only 2-weeks earlier they had never met any people in their group they still viewed them far more favorably.

The Take Away

From an ethical stand point like a number of these experiments it leaves a lot to be desired. All the participants were white and all boys aged 12, so it’s hardly representative.

However, we see this kind of behavior all the time and at almost every level.

A certain unnamed President has crushed it!

He has taken the ‘us and them’ model to a whole new level.

But do you know why, and maybe more importantly, how, he has done that?

Because he can, and because too many people have allowed him to.

And (for the most part) they are not bad people – they have just been conned by a second-rate car sales person who understands cognitive biases.

So what’s your take?

I’d love to hear on the comments.

The post 7 Dreadful Psychological Experiments (and why science may have benefited from them) appeared first on A Daring Adventure.

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mandibierly · 7 years

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‘Broadchurch’ Season 3 Premiere Postmortem: Creator Chris Chibnall on the Final Case

Olivia Colman as DS Ellie Miller and David Tennant as DI Alec Hardy in BBC America’s Broadchurch (Photo: Colin Hutton)

The premiere of the third and final season of BBC America’s Broadchurch ended with a chilling realization: whoever sexually assaulted Trish (Happy Valley‘s Julie Hesmondhalgh) outside her friend Cath’s 50th birthday party came prepared to do it — carrying a condom, blue twine to bind her wrists, and some kind of cotton gag. The case will introduce DI Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and DS Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) to new Broadchurch residents, but as we learned, familiar faces still abound in the series. Beth Latimer (Jodie Whittaker) is now an ISVA (Independent Sexual Violence Advisor) and will stand by Trish throughout the investigation, while Beth’s now-estranged husband, Mark (Andrew Buchan), continues to struggle both with the death of their son, Danny, and his subsequent decision to collaborate with local newspaper editor Maggie Radcliffe (Carolyn Pickles) on a book.

Yahoo TV will speak with creator Chris Chibnall, who once again wrote all eight episodes, for weekly postmortems. Let’s begin.

What struck me straight away is how much we heard from the crisis worker at the SARC (Sexual Assault Referral Centre) where Hardy and Miller took Trish to collect evidence. In most shows, that sequence would have been a montage, with no dialogue at all. It was obviously important to you to have the audience hear how a rape survivor should be treated and to understand each step of that process. Chris Chibnall: It’s where the whole show started, to be honest. When I had the idea for investigating a sexual assault within Broadchurch, myself and my colleagues went to talk to people who worked in that field, so we visited a Sexual Assault Referral Centre, we talked to sexual violence advisors, we talked to survivors of these crimes, we talked to specialist detectives. I wanted to ensure that this was the right thing to do and the right way to tell this story. They all knew the show, and I asked, “Is it appropriate that we do this story in Broadchurch?” Unanimously, they all said, “Yeah, not only is it appropriate, but we think you should because we think this story needs to be told.”

What we wanted to tell — and what I wanted to tell — was an example of best practice of how a survivor of a crime like this is looked after, how there are heroic [people], mostly women within that area, who provide incredible support and incredible sensitivity and an extraordinary service for people who’ve been through these kinds of traumas.

Another moment that seemed very purposeful on your part was what Trish says to Hardy and Miller after she’s showered and changed her clothes: “Do you believe me?” That’s first, then it’s “Who did this to me?” Women worrying about whether they’ll be believed is definitely a theme this season. I wanted to honor Trish’s experience, and I wanted to guarantee [it] to the audience. I wanted everybody to be in no doubt, this is not a story about was this woman raped or not; this is about a woman who has undergone that and now, how does she survive that and live through that? How is she supported and how do the police investigate that? I wanted to be very clear about the parameters of our storytelling, absolutely.

It’s also true that here in the UK the police currently operate from a position of believing the person who’s made the allegation. That’s under discussion here, at the moment. It’s a very controversial question.

Julie Hesmondhalgh as Trish in BBC America’s Broadchurch (Photo: Colin Hutton)

Describe how you decided to you have the attack happen during a friend’s 50th birthday party and for Trish to wait two days to report the attack. It seems like you really wanted to hit head-on the things that we normally hear women wrongly being “blamed for” in these cases: “Well, you were drinking heavily.” “You waited to report it.” I think, obviously, crimes happen to people when they’re living their lives. Not to sound too facile about that, but I really wanted to tell a story about a woman who’s going about her everyday life, who’s doing the normal things that people do. What I didn’t want to do was to show that kind of cliché of the 24-year-old girl in this short skirt running down a dark alley. It was much more about the quite common occurrences of women in their late forties who are being attacked and, obviously, parties are prime territory for things like that. I really wanted to ensure that we could discuss those issues and that there’s no sense of victim shaming or victim blaming within the show.

Miller gives her cell number to Trish, and Hardy is somewhat angry about that. He says, “She can’t be ringing you all the time.” Ellie shouts, “She’s been raped!” How did you approach their different approaches to the case? Having that double act in Hardy and Miller and the humanity that David Tennant and Olivia Coleman bring to those parts enables me to offer quite nuanced opinions and perspectives on the approach. Both of them are clearly there to support Trish and want the best outcome for her. Ellie, historically and currently within the show, will break a rule in the cause of empathy and human sympathy, whereas Hardy is a little bit more by the book. He doesn’t want to break the rules. He’s very keen to do things properly.

Also, what’s key about that scene, there’s a couple of things: One is, they both kind of respect each other’s positions, too, and they both understand it. Also, the climax of that scene is the first time in the episode where we actually use the word “rape,” and it was giving the first use of that word the appropriate weight and power and force and just being very careful, generally, how we approached everything.

Beth working as an ISVA and Beth and Mark having, unfortunately, separated after the death of a child both feel like very realistic next steps for those characters. Why was keeping that family in the story essential to you? I think the Latimers are the emotional center and the emotional heartbeat to Broadchurch as a complete series. I like to think of it as a television novel, really. I think the joy of returning television series is the amount of time that can pass, so the time that has passed off-screen has also passed on-screen. We’re now revisiting these characters three years after the events of Season 1, a year and a half after Season 2, so it becomes a real joy to be able to think where those characters might have gone, how the impact of the events we’ve seen on-screen landed in their off-screen lives. Also, I knew all along I really wanted to explore the long shape of grief that affects them both in very different ways. And, I really couldn’t imagine the show without Jodie Whitaker and Andy Buchan, who are just amazing actors and, like I say, the emotional core of the show.

Ellie’s son Tom (Adam Wilson) has also returned. He’s 15 now, and he and a friend have been suspended from school for supplying links and files of porn to other students. Again, that’s an issue we’ll see recur this season, and not just with teenage Tom but also with older men. As a parent myself, and for all the parents in the show and in the audience, a big thing is the access to pornographic material that our kids have and what that is going to potentially do to them and how do we stop it? How do we control it? I think the show has always been concerned with those matters. I think, really, this year, what we’re dealing with is, what is society’s attitude to sex in general and how is that changing people’s behavior?

Broadchurch airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America.

#_revsp:wp.yahoo.tv.us #David Tennant #_author:Mandi Bierly #_uuid:9fd2114c-1f1d-3d5a-b044-97e4f176cc91 #BBC America #Chris Chibnall #Broadchurch #Olivia Colman #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT

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joeahj · 5 years

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Japan’s laws on rape are some of the oldest and least updated in the Western world – until 2017 they had not been updated in 110 years. Prior to Shiori’s case, a rape conviction meant only three years in prison – whereas you would get 5 years if you were convicted of theft – and it was impossible for men to file charges of rape. The outdated laws also mean that a victim has to prove that they ‘fought back’, and it is police protocol to ask victims to re-enact what happened to them with a life-sized doll. This requirement of re-enactment is considered to be so deeply traumatic that it is described by some as ‘the second rape’. Crime statistics rely on people reporting incidents – but how likely is it that anyone will come forward in a society that considers silence a polite and recommended custom? Not only do victims face grim laws, they also face an ingrained Japanese societal norm of silence around sex. This seems like an oxymoron when you consider that Japan’s comic book franchises thrive on highly questionable sexual content. The concept of men forcing themselves on women and women fighting at first before eventually submitting to men is saturated throughout the country’s comic book industry. According to the New York Times, “rape is often depicted in manga comics and pornography as an extension of sexual gratification, in a culture in which such material is often an important channel of sex education”. Frighteningly, the reality gets worse when you look at the of the number of children and young girls who are groped repeatedly on the underground in Japan while wearing school uniform (and these are statistics based on those who came forward – I can only imagine that the actual number is higher). After a year and a half of getting nowhere with the police, Shiori decided to go public with her case. A decision like this wouldn’t be taken lightly within the Western world, but in Japan, it is almost unheard of. To begin with, Shiori faced public backlash and even death threats. Her family were dismayed and her trauma was discussed, questioned and mocked by (often female) Japanese officials on live TV. With all of this in mind, consider for a second how brave Shiori is. Consider how much it must have cost her personally to come forward publicly and force Japan to look at its ugly, misshapen laws and attitudes. There are glaring areas of misconduct within this case. On first arriving at the police station, Shiori asked to talk to a female officer. Only after recounting her story did it turn out that this officer was in the traffic division and unable to file the case, meaning Shiori had to start all over again with a male officer. Mr Yamaguchi has connections with Shinzo Abe – Japan’s Prime Minister – which put mounting political pressure onto the case, and despite it being normal protocol, the police did not arrest Mr Yamaguchi on his arrival back in Japan. Her first court case was dismissed and so Shiori went through civil court to sue Mr Yamaguchi for damages – and again she was dismissed on ‘lack of evidence’. Unlike many other men named throughout the #MeToo movement, Mr Yamaguchi continues to enjoy his career, power and privilege. Shioiri, on the other hand, fled Japan and now lives in London while having to cope with her personal struggle and the public opinion of her. Despite all of the odds stacked against her, Shiori Ito continues to fight for justice, and there are glimmers of hope shining through. As a direct result of her determination not to be shamed into silence, plus the global force of #MeToo and mounting political pressure from Abe’s opposition, legislation in Japan has changed. Men can now report rape, and those convicted of rape will receive a minimum sentence of 6 years in prison. Is this glacial change? Of course! But considering Japan’s culture when it comes to violence against women, any inch of ground gained is vital.

https://www.girlsglobe.org/2018/07/18/shiori-ito-rape-case-brave-woman-exposing-japans-darker-side/

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gyrlversion · 5 years

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Knife crime in Britain at its worst for a decade, new figures reveal

The number of criminals caught with knives is at its highest level in a decade, as police release a harrowing photograph of a blood soaked hospital bed as a stark warning about the dangers of carrying a blade.

It was revealed last year more than 21,000 offences of possessing or making threats with blades or offensive weapons resulted in a conviction or caution in England and Wales – the highest level since 2009.

The shocking figures also laid bare that one in five of the culprits is a child and almost two-thirds of cases did not result in an immediate prison term – despite a promised crack-down on knife crime by politicians.

It comes just a day after a 17-year-old boy is fighting for his life after being stabbed outside Leyton tube station, east London, as the spate of violence continues in Wild West Britain.

This week, Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged an immediate £100 million boost to police forces in his Spring statement to battle knife crime, as politicians and the police desperately try to face down the country’s knife epidemic.

West Midlands police tweeted this stock image of a trauma unit as a warning to people carrying a knife. It said: ‘If you want to carry a knife…… Think before you do. This might be what awaits you’

Most of the money promised by Philip Hammond will pay for a ‘surge’ in street policing in an effort to tackle rising levels of violence on the country’s streets

West Midlands Police tweeted a stock image of a trauma unit as a warning to possible knife users earlier in the week, with grisly image of a hospital bed covered in blood.

The caption said: ‘If you want to carry a knife…… Think before you do. This might be what awaits you.’

Eight-year-old girl threatens to stab police officer

An eight-year-old girl has taken a knife into a primary school and threatened to stab a police officer in the heart.

North Yorkshire Police said officers attended a primary school in the Harrogate district on February 18 after a young pupil produced a kitchen knife in class.

‘The class was evacuated and the police were called,’ said a spokeswoman.

‘During the incident, the girl made threats to the attending officers and teaching staff.

‘The incident was brought to a safe conclusion and no-one was injured and the knife recovered. The girl is now receiving appropriate support.’

The incident came to light in a tweet by a Police Community Support Officer, Matt Murphy, based in Knaresborough, saying that a week of action to tackle knife crime had been launched by the force.

He went on: ‘Only last week, an 8-year-old took this knife into school and made threats.

‘When I arrived the child told me they would stab me in the heart. So this week we are educating people around the dangers of knives.’

Judith Kirk, North Yorkshire’s assistant director for education, said it had been an isolated incident and said safeguarding was the county council’s statutory duty, which it took very seriously.

She said an academy trust which was involved in this case would have its own policies and procedures to deal with any incident, and had received advice and guidance through North Yorkshire safeguarding protocols.

Despite two-thirds of cases not resulting in an immediate prison term, the Government insists offenders are now more likely to go to jail for knife or offensive weapons crimes.

The statistics also show in 2018, the criminal justice system dealt with 13,555 offences of possession of an article with a blade or point.

In addition, there were 7,016 cases where an individual was found with an offensive weapon, and 913 where a blade or weapon was used to make threats against others.

The combined total of 21,484 is the highest since 2009, when it stood at more than 25,000.

In 4,430 instances – 21% of the total – the offender was aged 10 to 17.

Justice minister Rory Stewart said: ‘Knife crime destroys lives and shatters communities, and this Government is doing everything in its power to tackle its devastating consequences.

‘Sentences for those carrying knives are getting tougher – they are more likely to be sent straight to prison, and for longer – than at any time in the last decade.’

A number of incidents in recent weeks, such as the death of, girl scout Jodie Chesney and private school pupil Yousef Makki, both 17 – have brought sharply into the focus the escalating issues facing the country.

Over the past 12 months, 27 under-19s have been stabbed to death. There were 285 knife killings in all – the highest toll since the Second World War.

Twenty people – including Jaden Moodie, who was just 14 – have been murdered in London in the first three months of 2019.

In total the criminal justice system in England and Wales dealt with 21,484 knife and offensive weapons offences last year – the highest number since 2009, official figures show.

Knife crime is not just isolated to more urban areas.

It is rising faster in the Home Counties and rural areas of the UK than in London.

Kent has seen the biggest rise in knife crime since April 2010 with an increase of 152 per cent while London has only seen an 11 per cent rise.

Tory MP is ridiculed online after calling for all knives sold in the UK to have a GPS tracker in the handle

A Conservative MP has defended his call for all knives to be fitted with GPS trackers and registered on a national database.

Scott Mann was widely ridiculed on Twitter after making the suggestion to his 6,000 followers.

He called for a national database similar to that for guns – but pointed out there should be exemptions for ‘fishing etc’.

The MP for North Cornwall tweeted on Thursday morning: ‘Every knife sold in the UK should have a gps tracker fitted in the handle.

‘It’s time we had a national database like we do with guns. If you’re carrying it around you had better have a bloody good explanation, obvious exemptions for fishing etc.’

But Twitter users were quick to rip apart his idea and questioned the practicality of fitting hundreds of millions of knives with battery-powered locators.

Stephen Robinson wrote: ‘A database that would contain every single household in the UK. Millions of knifes being tracked at once. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.’

Norma Moore tweeted: ‘For pity’s sake – get real! Go and look at ordinary kitchen knife sets before you make such silly statements. Imagine the costs and practicalities involved.’

Graham Love wrote: ‘You’re not the sharpest gps tagged knife are are you?’

But today Mr Mann, 41, hit back, saying: ‘It was a thought process and I wasn’t talking about butter knives or things like that.

‘The majority of knife crimes in the UK are carried out with bladed instruments from kitchens.

‘No one else is coming up with any ideas, people can shoot me down if they like but people are being stabbed on the streets and we need to do something about it.

‘People have come up with no suggestions. When kids are dying in the streets we need to take a stand.

‘We need to start thinking about how we are going to deal with this massive issue.’

Across 34 counties in England and Wales outside London, knife related offences have risen by 45.7 per cent, as reported by The Guardian.

It is believed gangs targeting county lines for drug trafficking is a major factor behind the increase.

Dr Rick Muir, director of the think tank Police Foundation, said: ‘Previously, the people selling drugs in Margate or Blackpool would be from those areas.

‘Whereas organised criminal gangs in the bigger cities are exporting drugs directly into these areas.’

There have been 26 knife murders across the UK from January 1 to March 7, while last year there were 135 homicides in London alone.

While the number of knife-related crimes is significantly higher in the capital and major UK cities, it is spreading at a much higher rate to rural areas.

Knife crime in Birmingham is up by only three per cent since 2010 but in neighbouring Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia, it has risen by 42 per cent.

Staffordshire police superintendent Ricky Fields said: ‘The correlation we think it is attributed to is around county lines, urban street gangs.’

There are concerns that substantial police cuts are linked with the increase in knife crime – something Prime Minister Theresa May has denied.

Senior police officers and opposition MPs said the Government’s austerity drive was among the reasons for the spiralling bloodshed.

Ex-Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe said an extra 20,000 officers were needed.

That would almost make up for the decline in numbers in the past decade from around 143,700 to 122,400.

John Apter, national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents the rank and file, said: ‘Policing has been stripped to the bone and the consequences are clear, splashed across newspaper front pages and TV news bulletins – children being murdered on our streets.

‘This is the true cost of austerity that we warned of but were ridiculed for doing so. Those concerns have become a reality but still the Prime Minister fails to accept the harsh truth.’

The National Audit Office has said that since 2010-11, police funding has fallen 19 per cent in real terms to £12.3billion a year.

Twenty people – including Jaden Moodie, who was just 14 – have been murdered in London in the first three months of 2019

A graphic shows the 26 murders that have devastated the country so far this year

What are the laws on knives in the UK?

It is illegal to…

– Sell a knife to anyone under the age of 18, unless it is a knife with a folding blade that is three inches long or less.

– Carry a knife in public without good reason, unless it is a knife with a folding blade that is three inches long or less.

– Carry, buy or sell any banned knife

– Use any knife in a threatening way, even if it is a legal one

Source: West Midlands Police

Announcing the emergency funding in the Spring Statement earlier this week Mr Hammond said: ‘The Prime Minister and I have decided, exceptionally, to make available immediately to police forces in England an additional £100 million over the course of the next year, ring-fenced to pay for additional overtime targeted specifically on knife crime and to fund new Violent Crime Reduction Units to deliver a wider cross-agency response to this epidemic.’

Earlier this week Mr Javid, said he was ‘deeply concerned’ about rising levels of knife crime.

He said: ‘I’ve been doing everything in my power to ensure we have the strongest possible response in place, but tackling this requires action on many fronts.

‘Law enforcement plays a key role – and it is clear from speaking to police leaders in recent weeks that they need an immediate increase in resources.

‘I’ve listened to their concerns and this £100million – including £80million new funding from the Treasury – will allow them to swiftly crack-down on knife crime on the areas of the country where it is most rife.’

Former Met chief blames political correctness for Britain’s knife crime epidemic, saying it drove senior politicians to ‘dramatically reduce stop and search’

by Lara Keay

A former chief of the Metropolitan Police has blamed political correctness for Britain’s knife crime epidemic.

Sir Paul Stephenson believes the drop in the use of police stop and search operations is the result of ‘naivety and unanalysed political correctness’.

He also claims senior politicians have been more preoccupied with avoiding blame than taking responsibility for the overwhelming number of young people killed with knives.

Former Met Police boss Sir Paul Stephenson (pictured outside New Scotland Yard headquarters in London) believes the drop in the use of police stop and search operations is the result of unanalysed political correctness’

He told public safety officials on Tuesday: ‘Let no-one peddle the nonsense of simple ‘go to’ solutions, there aren’t any. Let no-one tell you that we haven’t been here before – we have.

‘And am I alone in suspecting that recent statements on this matter by some senior politicians owe more to avoidance of blame and self-justification than they do to acceptance of responsibility for the mounting toll of young bodies in our mortuaries and effective policy-making?’

As Home Secretary, Theresa May oversaw a huge drop in the number of stop and searches, from 23 people per 1,000 in the year 2009/10 to five in 1,000 in 2016/17.

They have become extremely controversial over claims they disproportionately target the black community.

In his Spring Statement yesterday Chancellor Philip Hammond revealed a £100million government boost in the fight to tackle knife crime.

Most of the money will pay for a ‘surge’ in street policing as forces grapple with escalating violence nationwide.

The Treasury said the cash will free up existing officers to respond to crime and go on patrols.

Most of the funding will be spent in the highest knife crime areas, which include London, the West Midlands, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Wales and Greater Manchester.

The announcements come amid a week-long crackdown on knife crime by police forces across the UK.

Operation Spectre was launched on Monday providing amnesty bins for youths to anonymously give up their weapons and encouraging more stop and searches among officers.

There have been 24 murders in London so far this year and two others in Birmingham, many of them using knives.

At the beginning of the month the nation was left horrified by the murders of two innocent 17-year-olds Yousef Makki from Manchester and Jodie Chesney from London.

The post Knife crime in Britain at its worst for a decade, new figures reveal appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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alisonfloresus · 7 years

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Considering Hair Transplant? Insider Tips Here…

Everyone has heard of or even seen hair transplant horror stories, maybe in a magazine, online or even worse seen the obvious ‘plugs’ in a elderly friend or relative. However hair transplant surgery has jumped leaps and bound in recent years to make it a viable, safe and not too risky option for those suffering with male pattern baldness, many celebrities such as Nicholas Cage, Brendan Fraser Mather MOcanhey, Dwayne Johnson (‘the Rock’,WWE) Salman Khan (Bollywood) and even Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are believed to have had hair transplantation surgery, although such is the stigma attached that none of them have admitted to it publicly, it only becomes obvious when studying before and after pictures.

History of Hair Transplant

The origins of hair transplant surgery stem from Japanese dermatologist, Dr. Okuda, who in 1939 published a revolutionary method in a Japanese medical journal of using small grafts that were similar to the way hair transplantation is performed today. This method involved using hair transplant grafts to correct lost hair from various body areas, including the scalp, eyebrow, and moustache areas.

In the late 50’s one physician in particular, Dr. Norman Orentreich, began to experiment with the idea of relocating or transplanting the hair on the back and sides of the head to the balding areas. Dr. Orentreich’s experiments showed that when bald resistant hairs from the back and sides of the head were relocated, they maintained their bald resistant genetic characteristic regardless of where they were transplanted.

This principle, known as “Donor Dominance”, established that hair could be transplanted from the bald resistant donor areas to the balding areas and continue to grow for a life time. This laid the foundation for modern hair transplantation. During the 60’s and 70’s hair transplants grew in popularity. However, the standard of care involved the use of larger grafts that were removed by round punches and often contained many hairs.

In the 80’s hair restoration surgery evolved dramatically, as the large punch grafts were gradually replaced with a more refined combination of mini and micrografts. This “combination mini micrografting” hair transplantation procedure no longer used the punch to extract the bald resistant grafts. Rather a strip of bald resistant hair was surgically removed from the back of the head and then trimmed into mini and micrografts.

Types of Hair Transplant

There are two main methods of Follicular unit hair transplant surgery. Follicular unit Transplant commonly known as FUT or ‘strip surgery’ and Follicular unit extraction, commonly known as FUE The main difference is the method of extracting the transplanted hair. FUT and FUE are really complimentary forms of HT, not competing methods of which one must make a choice.

FUT versus FUE

The 90’s saw the gradual introduction of a very refined surgical procedure now known as “follicular unit hair transplantation” or “FUT”. This exacting and labour intensive procedure transplants hairs in their naturally occurring one, two, three, and four hair “follicular unit groupings” in which they grow naturally.

The concept of creating the entire hair restoration using exclusively follicular units was proposed by Dr. Robert Bernstein and was described in the 1995 Bernstein and Rassman publication “Follicular Transplantation”. Critical to the success of the follicular unit hair transplant procedure was the introduction of the binocular microscope by Dr. Bobby Limmer of San Antonio Texas in the late 1980’s.

Dr. Limmer found that by using the microscope to examine the donor tissue he and his staff were able to successfully isolate and trim the naturally occurring follicular units into individual grafts. Dr. Limmer shared his techniques and findings with his colleagues and together with Drs. Bernstein, Rassman and Seager, was a persuasive advocate for the follicular unit hair.

The process involving follicular hair transplants is considered to be the most effective among hair restoration methods. In follicular hair transplant, the surgeon transplants hair from the permanent zone in the back of the scalp onto the affected areas.

If you need a large area covered, then you most likely want to go for FUT because it is the more economical in terms of number of grafts for price paid. If you absolutely, positively don’t want strip surgery as you are worried about scarring, then FUE is your only alternative. Contrary to popular belief, both methods leave scars. FUT will leave a narrow line across the back of your head, whereas FUE will leave little unpigmented dots across the back of your head. The only difference is that the FUE scars are not concentrated together and therefore harder to detect when wearing hair very short.

There is no doubt that FUE procedures are harsher on the grafts than FUT procedures. Because of this the final growth yields tend to be lower for FUE compared to FUT. But BOTH procedures work for the most part.

Hair Transplant Cost

FUT surgeries are performed by reputable surgeons around the world however FUE is mostly available through a number of specialists, the vast majority of reputable ones that I know of are in the United States and Canada. Pricing for FUE from these reputable surgeons is currently close to $ 7- $ 11 US dollars per graft for FUE, and depending on what level on the Norwood Scale, a scale used to measure the progression of male pattern baldness, can be quite costly. Pricing for FUT from these same surgeons is normally in the range of $ 4-6 per graft, however in Asia and Eastern Europe prices can be even lower.

Does Cheaper Means Better?

Many of my clients do sometimes look to cut costs by using other surgeons especially in countries such as India, Pakistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe. Although I’m sure there have been success stories via this route please remember in these countries there is little guarantee or action available to you if something does go wrong. I have seen hair transplant using the FUT method, although not a horror story in terms of scarring or suffering, it did not yield the expected results of a more established surgeon placing the same number of grafts (2,000). He is therefore left with poor hair coverage but now has lost the option to ‘shave it all off’ due to huge smiley faced scar in the back of his head!

Check, Check and Check

I recommend considering hair transplant surgery only after you have tried the non-surgical treatments on the market. Then when you certain you wish to get a hair transplant I would advice thoroughly researching reputable doctors, of course price is always issue, but in the case of hair transplants it should not be the most important factor. Indeed the money saved is nothing compared to trauma of having to live with a badly scarred scalp for the rest of your life. If you decide to go for more budget surgeon, please do insist on seeing photos of the surgeons previous work and do not be afraid to ask for contact details of their previous patients.

from JournalsLINE http://journalsline.com/2017/06/18/considering-hair-transplant-insider-tips-here/ from Journals LINE https://journalsline.tumblr.com/post/161977115790

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