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hidiingplace · 3 years

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TODD HEADCANON + PARENTAL FIGURES.

general. Todd has a variety of parental figures in his life. Many of which are no longer in his life, but have made a huge impact on him... mostly in the worst of ways. Todd in general has a very wary relationship with parents, but he is partial to his scepticism of mothers in particular. here’s why. (PS SORRY IT’S SO LONG.)

celine. She was Todd’s adoptive mother. She began as his foster mother when he was first given up for adoption at the very young age of 18 months. before this time, Todd suffered intense neglect, but he does not know that until much later in his life when he meets his maternal grandmother. Celine took Todd in and raised him up in her house hold as a single mother. She was quite wealthy, and just before Todd’s 4th birthday, she officially adopted him before moving to Paris with him to further her career in high fashion. Despite adopting him, she never changed his last name to her own. After the adoption, Todd’s personality became far more boisterous as he became comfortable with Celine as his mother and was becoming a growing young kid. He was made of trouble, and was considered to be a very exhausting, unpredictable, volatile little kid who had terrible separation anxiety, strange eating habits, and was just over all very difficult. Celine grows angry and eventually decides that Todd is not worth the effort. Despite adopting him, she leaves Todd at the edge of a farm in the France country side when he is 6 years old. Todd has very few memories of Celine, and most are shrouded with her disappointment, annoyance, and blatant abandonment.

1st foster family. Todd’s first foster family was an okay foster home, but it wasn’t great. The family wasn’t wealthy, and were the type of people who took children in in order to collect the checks from the government. It resulted in an overcrowded, under-maintained household in which the foster mother and foster father would often express their frustration towards the children. They were known for putting locks on doors to keep children locked up and quiet, making them share clothing, making them share beds. violence between children was not uncommon in this home, and more often than not the foster father would ignore it entirely, while the foster mother seemed to try a little harder. Todd went hungry a lot, and because of his smaller size, red hair, and freckles, was often teased brutally.

2nd foster home. after his first foster-home was shut down due to complaints, Todd moved on to another foster home that appeared much better. It was. Todd had clean clothes, a nice bed to sleep on, and was well cared for by a single foster mother. She was a woman who loved her biological children and who they had turned into, and wanted to have another child around to rear. However, the older siblings were not so kind and often abused Todd. When Todd fought back and defended himself, the foster mother would always blame Todd for being the ‘bad kid’ and often disciplined him but never the older siblings. While this foster mother appeared to care deeply for Todd and provide him lots of affection and attention, it was always a double edged sword. Todd’s behaviour eventually became very aggressive when he started to try and express his frustrations without knowing how to. He would break things, throw things, have tantrums, and yell at his foster mother for being unfair. It got so bad that at only the age of 7, Todd was checked into a group home for troubled kids.

1st group home. Todd was put into this group home as the youngest kid there. The conditions weren’t great when it came to care for the children, and acted more like a prison than anything else. The rooms had locks on them, the windows had bars on them, you had scheduled play time, scheduled amounts of chores, scheduled visits with friends. It was far too much structure for a child who had never experienced stability and structure. At only 7 he wasn’t able to handle it. The group home was run by two woman who often played on this role of ‘good cop and bad cop’ with the kids. They were never consistent, and often the children had no idea when they were the good guys or the bad guys. Todd was routinely punished. While he was never physically struct in this home, he was routinely restrained, locked in his room, forced to skip meals, given extra chores, and labeled as the kid who was easy to blame when things were stolen. Todd only remains at this group home for 4 months after he lashes out violently and pushes one of his fellow group-home kids down the stairs in a fit of rage.

2nd group home. This would be Todd’s worst group home, and his last. The conditions were similar to his first group home, but it was run by a woman who was far more strict and cruel than the other group home he had been at; at least the other woman were nice sometimes. While much of the rules were the same as before, violence was used on children who wouldn’t behave properly. Yelling, screaming, emotional abuse were the most common. Threats of violence were always used before actual violence, but it wasn’t uncommon to wake up to screaming fights between the kids in the group home or even the kids and the caretaker going at it. Todd was once again labeled the violent trouble maker and the thief. He often stole food, toys, clothes. He lied a lot, and about everything. He was able to start fights between two people without even throwing a punch or getting directly involved just by manipulating people the way he had seen previous caretakers and foster-siblings do. He was aggressive with other children as well, and the fellow group home kids made jokes that Todd was going to grow up to be a murderer all the time. Todd eventually leaves this group home by slowly filing the bars off his window and slipping out in the middle of the night.

avery rebane. Todd’s biological mother is technically the first mother he ever had. She raised him until he was 18 months old before giving him up for adoption after discovering that having a child and caring for it wasn’t fun after you couldn’t use him to manipulate your family members into giving you money any more. After giving him up for adoption, Avery spends the next 17 years using and manipulating, as well as abusing her romantic partners for her own gains (including her ex, Joey Hamilton, who she kept Todd’s birth a secret from while Joey was sobering up). When Todd officially turns 18, she quickly looks him up and is able to track him down as living in Paris. With the hope of using him for money (assuming that he was still raised by someone wealthy), she flies to Paris on the credit card she stole from her mother and ‘reconnects’ with Todd. Todd is just excited to have a seemingly good parental figure in his life. Avery tells Todd that giving him up was the worst mistake of her life and that she wants to live with him here in Paris and build a relationship. She manipulates Todd so friecely and with such boldness that he doesn’t even see it. Todd jumps at the chance to have someone in his life care for him like this. It isn’t until his girlfriend at the time informs Todd that she’s done some digging on Avery that Avery’s story beings to fall apart. It’s then that Todd tracks down his maternal grandmother to get some information on Avery, and what he learns shatters him. After his grandmother tells him the full story, Todd cuts Avery from his life and decides to move to Canada to be with his grandmother. Avery STILL routinely harasses both Todd and Joey for a variety of reasons, and Todd has an anger for Avery that is unparalleled. Both Todd and Joey have a restraining order on Avery, which he actively ignores. She’s a long-term drug addict and many of her rage fits and incidents happen when she is experiencing withdrawals and is desperate to get money for her addiction.

grandma faye. Todd’s connection with his grandmother is instant. When he speaks to her on the phone regarding Avery, she bursts into tears. She reveals to him that Avery used and abused him when he was first born, and that more often than not, Faye was taking care of him for those 18 months until Avery gave him up for adoption without telling her. She warns him of Avery’s habits, and Todd believes her. After moving to Canada, he quickly moves in with her and helps her. She’s dying, so he spends as much time with her as he can. He learns about his maternal grandfather who has passed away 5 years ago, and learns that his grandmother actually knows who Todd’s father is, but has kept it a secret all these years. A few weeks before she passes away, she gives Todd Joey’s name, but Todd decides at first that he doesn’t want to know the man. Todd becomes the benefactor of everything Grandma Faye owned (which wasn’t much), but it’s more money than he’s ever had in his life time. When his grandmother dies, he realizes its the first time he’s ever actually bonded with someone the way a child and parent should. It destroys him that she’s not around and in a last ditched effort to find that again he goes to Joey.

joey hamilton. Joey’s reaction to Todd is disbelief at first, and it isn’t until Todd begins to tell Joey the stories he heard from Grandma Faye that Joey begins to believe Todd is actually his son. The relationship is awkward at first, as Joey holds a lot of guilt over not being there for Todd. Todd keeps much of his past a secret from his father, not wanting to make the guilt worse. Eventually, Todd moves in with Joey after Todd helps settled his grandmother’s will and testament. They eventually become incredibly close and develop a real father-son relationship that Todd never imagined he would have. When his father starts dating Mickey, it only gets better.

step-mother. Mickey comes into Joey and Todd’s life about a year after Todd and Joey connect. Todd is actually very skeptical of Mickey at first. He doesn’t trust many people, and certainly not parental figures. She seems bubbly and kind, and actually reminds him at first of his second foster mother. However after a long few months of patience and Mickey simply being herself, Todd does a 180. After a certain breaking point where Avery returns to Joey and Todd’s life after hearing Joey has moved on to dating Mickey, Mickey proudly stands up for Joey and Todd in a way Todd has never experienced. Mickey defends them, and even goes as far as to call Todd her son rather than Avery’s. It’s this display that changes Todd’s mind about Mickey, and later that night she is actually the one who holds him while he gets tearful about not understanding why his biological mother was so awful to him and his father and didn’t want him. Mickey and Todd from that point on have a quickly bonded relationship. Todd will actually seek out comfort from Mickey before seeking it from Joey. He will also be more inclined to talk about his past and his emotions with Mickey than anyone else –– including his father, and step-sister.

#todd rebane ( general ).#todd rebane ( headcanon ).#abuse mention tw #foster care mention tw #neglect mention tw #drug addiction mention tw #violence mention tw

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qsdblogging · 3 years

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10 More TV Shows You Need To See

This is the second installment of my recommendations of shows for you to add to your own lists. I watch a lot of television and I’ve got, what I consider to be at least, a wide variety of shows under my favorites.

If you haven’t seen the first list, you don’t need to unless you want to see another list of ten shows you may want to check out if you’re looking for anything new to watch.

Warning, though, some of these don’t end the best way and may end up more as a disappointment. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

I. Warehouse 13.

Pete and Myka, U.S Secret Service Agents, are deployed to South Dakota’s Warehouse 13 with a new assignment from an authority above and outside the government.

Intrigued?

With the Warehouse comes assignments regarding objects that hold some sort of abilities that can cause people to do wild and crazy things. It’s their job to find the artifacts (as they all hold significance to history) and bring them back to the Warehouse for safe keeping.

Things get wild and some serious topics get handled, but the show isn’t alone. It’s connected to another on this list, Eureka. More on that when you get to Eureka.

Some familiar faces are Eddie McClintock who played a part in Bones, one episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Joanne Kelly who played a role in The Dresden Files television series, Allison Scagliotti who played roles in Stitchers, The Vampire Diaries, and Drake & Josh, Aaron Ashmore (twin brother to Shawn Ashmore, who has been in the X-Men movies alongside appearing in The Boys, and voicing Conrad in Man of Medan) from Killjoys, Lost Girl, and Smallville, and Jamie Murray from Castelvania, Gotham, The Originals, Once Upon a Time, Defiance, and Dexter.

I highly recommend, especially because the dynamic of the characters is really interesting and covers a lot.

II. Eureka.

As mentioned above, this is connected to Warehouse 13. But only in the last two seasons of this show are the two connected.

Eureka is a town full of geniuses and advanced technology that the government funds, and when a new sheriff comes to town, he’s exposed to all the daily occurrences the locals get up to. And maybe a couple instances of time travel that may or may not have to do with the connection.

The town is full of faces you may recognize. Colin Ferguson who has roles in Haven, The Vampire Diaries, and Maytag commercials, Erica Cerra who has roles in The 100, Supernatural, Deadly Class, and the first Percy Jackson film, Felicia Day who has roles in The Magicians, Supernatural, Con Man, The Guild, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Trevor Jackson who has roles in Grown-ish, and a couple Disney productions.

It’s a huge science fiction show and if you’re into that, give it a watch.

III. Alphas.

Now, like the two above is, Alphas is a science fiction packed drama. And it’s rumored to be connected, like be in the same universe, as Warehouse 13 and Eureka. It’s never been confirmed, but there is one character (same name and job) that plays a part in both Alphas and Warehouse 13, which is the stem for the theory. (Plus, some other ideas floating around).

But Alphas focuses on a team that investigates people with supernatural abilities while they, themselves, have abilities. These powered people are referred to as Alphas, due to their nature.

Unfortunately, this show ends on a cliffhanger in its second season.

Yet, I still recommend giving it a shot because it truly is an interesting show and it’s got some people you may recognize.

IV. Haven.

If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s “Colorado Kid”, you’ll most likely enjoy this show since it’s loosely based off of it.

Set in the coastal town of Haven, Maine, FBI Agent Audrey Parker comes to town to find that the residents have dormant curses, or rather troubles, that can be triggered at any given moment. She, along with the Sheriff and the town’s black sheep, must deal with the troubles’ deadly effects. And a few things may be revealed about herself too along the way.

It’s pretty interesting and I enjoyed it quite a lot when I first watched it. I’m not the biggest fan of Stephen King, and the connection seems to barely be there, but I wouldn’t know given my dislike for King.

I highly recommend giving Haven a shot, however, especially if you’re a crime and fantasy fan.

V. Lost Girl.

Lost Girl focuses on the gorgeous and charismatic Bo, a supernatural being called a succubus who feeds on the energy of humans, sometimes with fatal results. Refusing to embrace her supernatural clan system and its rigid hierarchy, Bo is a renegade who takes up the fight for the underdog while searching for the truth of her own mysterious origins. (Taken from IMDB).

Plus, there a lesbian romance or two.

Now, the show itself is pretty strong holding in its own storyline and lore, but the last season does get a bit rocky feeling. It could’ve been better, and it definitely feels a little rushed, but it wasn’t too bad of an ending. However, it’s not a show that got cancelled before it could wrap things up and it leaves things pretty open-ended.

In my books, that’s a point. I highly recommend this is if you’re a fan of fantasy.

VI. Almost Human.

Unfortunately, this is one of the ones in the list that only has one season (that seems to be out of order and frankly I’m not entirely sure of the order myself, so rely on googling it yourself and hopefully you find the right order) and was cancelled not long after airing.

BUT, it’s a good watch. It’s set in the distant future, where cops are assigned an android partner to protect and serve. Things get pretty wild and I’m quite sure there are some bombs involved at some point, but there’s a bonus to all the madness of Almost Human.

Minka Kelly and Karl Urban. Two incredibly beautiful human beings.

I highly recommend bingeing this single season show.

VII. American Gods.

This shows feels very confusing. But it’s still a good watch.

It centers on a recently released ex-con named Shadow Moon. He runs into a man full of mystery named Wednesday (and you’ll later come to find out who he really is, or you may already know given your knowledge on the book of the same name or just how well you know mythology) who seems to know more than Shadow about his own life and past.

There are Gods, mischief, and a lot of crazy shit in this show. So far it’s on it’s third season as far as I know (I have to rewatch the first two before I pick it back up).

You should give it a shot, but I won’t blame you if you feel way too confused about the whole thing.

VIII. The Boys.

Now, there’s a lot of controversy regarding this Amazon Original Series, but honestly, I think everyone should at least give it a chance. I know a lot of Tumblr users were put off on trying to due to the advertisements on the site.

If you don’t know what this series is about, it follows a group of vigilantes set on taking down the corrupt superheroes that are abusing their powers and status.

It covers a lot of ground. Murder, sabotage, terrorism, capitalism, and a lot more. Feminism and sexual harassment occur, but there are warning before each episode for what you may see in the contents.

Some familiar faces include Karl Urban, who’s known for his roles in Thor: Ragnarok, the newer Star Trek movies, Almost Human, Lord of the Rings, and more, Erin Moriarty from Jessica Jones, Laz Alonso from The Mysteries of Laura, Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl and The Covenant, and Jensen Ackles from Supernatural has been confirmed to be joining the cast for its third season.

The Boys is currently on it’s second season, being released on a weekly schedule. So, if you like superheroes and graphic content, this show might be it for you.

IX. Chuck.

Chuck is the result of when a twenty-eight year old computer geek inadvertently downloads critical government secrets into his brain, the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. assign two agents to protect him and exploit the knowledge, turning Chuck Bartowski’s life upside down. (Taken from IMDB).

This is one of the shows I cannot recommend enough to people. It’s the right mixture of action and comedy, plus a little romance. Spies, love, and murder, oh my! What more could you want?

Plus, Zachery Levi plays Chuck. If you don’t know him by name, you probably would recognize him from some of his roles with the most recent being in Shazam!, Fandral in the second and third Thor films, voicing Eugene Fitzherbert (or Flynn Rider) in Tangled, and Heroes: Reborn.

If Zachery Levi playing a lovable computer geek turned spy doesn’t interest you, maybe some more familiar faces will.

Yvonne Strahovski from The Handmaid’s Tale, The Astronaut Wives Club, acting as Daenerys in a Princess Rap Battle on Youtube, and Dexter. Adam Baldwin from Firefly/Serenity, Bones, Angel, The Last Ship, and Independence Day. Brandon Routh who plays Ray Palmer from the DC Shows. Matt Bomer from Doom Patrol, American Horror Story, White Collar, Magic Mike, and True Calling.

X. Deadly Class.

Unfortunately, I have a truly bad streak with new shows. Deadly Class, like others that have been mentioned in these lists of mine, got cancelled and on a cliffhanger no less. However, that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the action-packed coming-of-age story set in the 1980s.

Following a new recruit for a high school training assassins, things get pretty wild when you pair death and teenagers.

#deadlyclass #watchlist #tvshows #chuck #eureka #americangods #alphas #theboys #almosthuman #lostgirl #haven #warehouse13 #qsdblogging #qsdbloggingpopculture #qsdpopculture #findingqsd

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c0ry-c0nvoluted · 4 years

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THE ENEMY IS NOT A SKIN COLOR. THE ENEMY IS A CLASS.

White privilege. The phrase implies special rights. The phrase implies having a jumpstart in the race by way of DNA. What it doesn’t imply is that that white-skinned Jim or Judy is gonna win that race, just that the game is rigged in their favor.

I don’t hate the concept. The validity of it, I mean. It honestly rings some-kind-of-true in my brain when taking into consideration the general social status of people of color. But there’s a problem with it. Not in its validity, but in its generality, its assumption, and the overall affect it has on our society.

The biggest and most obvious problem with it is that there are tens of millions of white people (if not hundreds of millions worldwide), who are all struggling just to make ends meet (if they can at all). There are “poor white folk” everywhere. And there are white kids who are terrorized by their own parents. There are white boys and girls getting bullied at school or in their neighborhood. There are white people suffering at the hands of violent criminals, scam artists, corporations, policemen… And I’m not talking about white criminals suffering, here...

I worked with this insanely gorgeous blond who was one of several dozen (I don’t remember the actual number) of women who were raped by this cop in my city (San Diego). He’d follow them from clubs, pull them over, take what he wanted from them, then send them on their way. He got away with it up until he didn’t, but how many cops still do? His choice of victim was young and white, as are most serial killer victims, but does their skin color matter? In the sense that they’re preferred as targets, yes, but not in the sense of right and wrong. Their white skin, in this case, wasn’t doing them any favors.

But let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Is “white privilege” real?

Well that depends on what you consider “white privilege” to be, and I think that’s where our signals are getting crossed. I think that if you look at it on a more psychological level you’ll see that, yes, “white privilege” is a real thing in that “white people are less likely to be demonized or judged negatively based solely on their skin tone.” (But not on their appearance. If a white person is dressed like a thug, he/she is going to get negatively judged the same way a Hispanic would. Whereas vice versa, if a black person was dressed like a total bookworm, they’re going to get judged as such, not as a criminal.) But blacks being judged more often solely on skin color is 100% true. Black-skinned people have been demonized throughout our nation’s history (and many other nations) and this demonization, along with insidious, covert attacks on black communities by those in power, have caused two things (among a plethora of others, but two for the sake of my point). 1: It’s caused non-blacks who are not racist but are just recognizing the patterns they’ve been force-fed by the media, to unintentionally relate black-skin with ignorance, violence, and criminal behavior. And 2: It’s brought about disparity, anger, and emotional trauma in the black community that is the cause of the higher crime rates in those communities and more black-on-black crime than white-on-black crime (by the people, I mean. I’m not counting by the government because that’s a whole other fuck-storm of shit that isn’t only aimed at blacks, but at any who are considered “lower-class,” which, yes, the majority of blacks in our country are. That’s not to say there are more poor black people than poor white people. I really doubt that’s the case. But the percentage of blacks or other minorities who are poor vs the percentage of whites who are is likely leaning in the direction of exactly what makes “white privilege” a valid argument. But I’m not a “facts” guy. The numbers are just ways to distract from the problem, so you’re not gonna catch me quoting them to cry foul on the BLM movement. The reality is that yes, there are probably more poor white people total than blacks in this country, but the psychology, the demonization of blacks, is a real thing.)

But there’s a problem with looking at this as “white privilege.” Number one: if we do that we (unintentionally) discredit any white person who is or has suffered. Those who are, or have suffered, will absolutely not take kindly to being told that they are “privileged”. And what happens when they are told this? It makes anyone with white skin who has suffered or is suffering (and there’s a fuck ton of us) think to themselves, “Oh, fuck no! You think I got it good? You think you’re the only one who has problems? You think you’re the only one who’s getting fucked by the system? Well fuck you, and your white privileged bullshit excuse to whine to the guilt-ridden middle class to get your free handouts! The government has fucked me over more times than I can count!” And what does this mind-state do? It creates a racial class-war between those who have white skin and are suffering, and those who have black/brown skin and are suffering. And who wins in this scenario? If you guessed “the upper-class” you get a prize. (Whatchoo want, a fuzzy bear? A goldfish in a plastic tub? G’ahead. Pick something nice out. You earned it.) So now you got poor white people with guns itching to shoot any black person with or without a gun who supports a movement that indirectly claims that their suffering is invalid. And what does this “civil class war” accomplish? It creates more “criminals” for the fucking private-owned prisons to make money off of, further separating the upper-class from the lower, creating more suffering, more anger, more hate, MORE RACISM.

So is white privilege real? Psychologically, yes, to the extent that our society psychologically favors white skin over black/brown. But has it ever made me any more money? No. Has it ever stopped the cops from pulling me over and searching my car? Fuck no. I’ve been detained, searched, followed, fined, towed, impounded, harassed more than most people you know, regardless of your color. I’ve lost count of how many damn times I’ve been harassed by the cops in my city. Shit, I wrote a goddamn rap song about it back in the early 2000’s called SDPD, smashing on the fuckers for harassing a guy who was just trying to get by. And I was NEVER a criminal. I NEVER had any weapons or hard drugs (ok, some pills and plenty of pot, but…), I was NEVER robbing anyone or breaking into cars or homes or gang banging (maybe just a smidge of graffiti, but that shit’s art), or causing any kind of…ok, no, there was some drunken shenanigans, for sure, but that was mostly my boys, not me. Lol The point is, being white DID NOT stop me from getting constantly harassed by the cops in my city. You know what did? A new car, less homies in the ride, no smoke blowing from the windows, and a slightly more tempered demeanor while driving. I still bump my rap music, but I’m not in a car full of teenage “trouble-makers”. I still speed, but I come to a complete stop at them signs, bruh. I still run red lights, but I look reeeal fucking carefully when I do. I still zip in-and-out of lanes on the freeway, but I keep it below 80 (mostly). So the only thing that’s changed is that I “appear” to have more money (with a nicer ride), and I show more maturity in being on the road. My skin color hasn’t changed, but my run-ins with the cops have.

The bottom line: Crying out “white privilege” ain’t gonna help anyone but the rich who’re sitting back and raking in the dough off all the drama and weapon sales and fines and arrests and damaged property that needs to be rebuilt. So don’t make our society’s problem about a skin color. When you do that you divide people into groups when you should be uniting them. Divided we fall. I know most of your intentions are righteous, (and this goes out to white people too who’re acknowledging their “privilege”), but you’re doing it wrong. You’re creating enemies by unintentionally discrediting anyone with white skin who has suffered at the hands of the system, claiming that you own the rights (the privilege?) of deciding that they’re the ones who are privileged, all while they’re slowly rotting in inequity right beside you.

THE ENEMY IS NOT A SKIN COLOR. THE ENEMY IS A CLASS.

And that class is the rich. The 1%.

Are most of them white? Yes. But will that stop them from stealing money from poor white people? From bankrupting small businesses with corporate industry? From putting blue-collar white people out of work and replacing them with machines? From taking their homes when they can’t pay back their loans? From putting them in prison when they fight back right next to you for equality? No. Because the 1% only care about profit, and they don’t care who they have to manipulate, rob, demoralize, or demonize to get it, or what skin color those people have. Let’s get our heads right. Open them angry eyes and see who the enemy really is. And fight THAT enemy, not the enemy that their manipulation has created for you.

How? The real solution to “white privilege” and inequity and inequality is a very simple concept but an incredibly complex task. It involves creating a society where money is obsolete. When this happens there will be no more inequality. There will be no “superpowers” or 1%. There will be no poor. There will be no rich. There will be no profit other than the profit of betterment, progress, knowledge, discovery, science, quality of living. But there’s only one way to make money obsolete, and that’s by removing labor from our society. Sound crazy? That’s because you don’t realize how close we are to doing it anyway. A fully automated society is right around the bend, my dudes. We have the technology to make ALL LABOR OBSOLETE, in which case no one will have to work, in which case money will have no significance. What will have significance? RESOURCES. But this is a topic I’ve discussed before and will again soon and more directly. So for now what can we do? We demand a society that serves the people’s interests, not the corporations’. Unfortunately I can’t tell you how to this because I’m not into politics, I’m into actual change, not perpetuating the same system that’s fucking us all. My advice? Start spreading the concept of a RESOURCE BASED ECONOMY as loud and as often as you can. This type of society eliminates corruption and inequity and is only just now becoming possible thanks to advancements in technology. Look into it. Spread the word. AND STOP CREATING SEGREGATION AMONG OUR PEOPLE. Please, for fuck’s sake, stop adding to our problems and start moving towards eliminating them. #fightsmarter2020 Thanks for reading. -cc

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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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Theory, uh, I think 4? Autonomy

I'm the boss of me, you're the boss of you, I'm the expert on me, you're the expert on you, most of the time the person who's going to make the most optimal decisions about that person's life is that person. Some minor adjustments for kids and people who can't make decisions for themselves. But not as many as you might think.

Kids should get to say no to hugs. Adults should get to say no to sexual contact they don't want or really almost any kind of contact. Medical consent is important. People who want to do drugs get to make that call for themselves. People who want any given kind of sex can do it as long as they can find a willing partner or partners. People get to leave situations they don't feel comfortable in. People get to end relationships they're not comfortable in. People get to break off friendships and dissolve family ties if they so choose (with the caveat that minor children have to be taken care of by somebody.) There's also privacy: my journal is mine and I choose who if anyone to share it with, my mail is mine, my medical information is no one else's business, my innermost thoughts and feelings and flights of fantasy are mine. My beliefs are mine, and expecting someone to espouse a belief they don't hold is, eh everyone's going to think I'm talking about racists or something, I'm talking about the pledge of allegiance and Christians being expected to testify in church but go off I guess. Drug tests at work are an overreach. Having to take a job to survive rather than because you want to pull your weight or do a particular type of work (most people want to contribute, that's not really an issue) is a violation of personal autonomy. Military service is a horrific violation of personal autonomy. Bullying, harassment, hazing, etc are bad, abusive and controlling relationships (not always romantic) and communities ("cults", but also a lot of things that don't get called cults) violate autonomy, denying people the information they need to make informed decisions -- I feel like this wording can be twisted? eh -- is messing with their autonomy, prison is have I mentioned prison, prison bad, part of the reason prison is bad is, I mean, the autonomy thing, trying to control what people think and believe is a violation of autonomy.

(Requiring someone to be in therapy at all is iffy, and requiring a specific result from therapy is an incredibly bad idea.)

Chattel slavery in the US was an especially egregious I mean there aren't words for it violation of autonomy. Modern human trafficking (which is mostly not sexual by the way) is a violation of autonomy. In general, poverty fucks hard with people's ability to choose what we're doing with our lives. Repressive governments mess with people's autonomy and overly restrictive company policies (or excessive work expectations, like bosses who expect you to be in contact on your off days) can mess with people's autonomy. School fucks hard with people's autonomy. Institutions for people who can't or aren't allowed to live independently can fuck with people's autonomy really badly. Religious groups can fuck hard with people's autonomy (although, of course, religion is an important part of many people's identities and people do get to choose to be members of religions with a lot of socially enforced rules of personal conduct.) In times/places where forced or at least highly pressured marriage was a thing, which isn't my world but is some peoples, that's an autonomy thing.

And there's things that aren't really direct violations of autonomy but are still pressure. For instance, nobody's going to arrest me (in the time and place I live in) if I walk down the street wearing a bowtie and suspenders. But I might get some weird looks and I might have a lot more trouble finding a job, if looking for a job was a thing I was capable of doing right now. I might get taken less seriously at the doctor's, I might get treated worse if I had to go to court, I might have a harder time getting government benefits, I might get ignored or given poor service at a store, I might get taken less seriously if I'm meeting up with an elected representative to discuss a political issue. (Or I might not, idk, and it might depend also on things like...whether I pass for fashionable or not, which intersects with all sorts of things like money and skin tone and size.) So, how much freedom of self expression I get depends on how much I'm willing to pay for it. In relationships, in actual money, in power, in safety, potentially in actual lifespan.

There's also "cop in the head" stuff, where nobody's actually making you do anything but you're making yourself do it because you've internalized societal pressure, or what your parents expected you to do, or what your toxic ex expected you to do, or whatever. Occasionally there's no outside consequences, but often the head cop partners with social pressure and legal enforcement. Oh, violence is intrinsically messing with people's autonomy (and is usually about an attempt at control) and killing someone is the ultimate removal of their ability to determine their own life course. I mean, yes, murder, but mostly I mean when the state does it. Police and the "justice" system, you know?

#theory series #drug mention #autonomy #sexality #I am tired and have been writing too much in one go so if this doesn't make sense that's why #death tw #violence tw #I am so sorry I'm so loopy #maybe I'll rewrite later

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darklingichor · 3 years

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Odd Thomas, Forever Odd & Brother Odd by Dean Koontz *MAJOR SPOILERS* Long post

I've written a little bit about these before. My goal was to listen to all seven of the Odd books plus the two short stories... I couldn't make myself do that.

I use to really love those books. I use to really love Dean Koontz, just recently, the writing has started to annoy me. Since I haven't read any of his new stuff since Saint Odd came out, I can't say it's because the writing has changed. I think I have changed, I'm just not sure in what way. So, I'm going to look at the first three books in the series because 1. I like them the most (sort of). 2. Because I honestly feel like the series should have either ended there or jumped to Saint Odd. 3. Because I'm going to see if by writing about them, I can figure out why reading Koontz in my 20's was like a breath of fresh air, but in my 30's it feels like when the air conditioner is some how making everything too cold, yet not cooling things down at all: uncomfortable and bafflingly frustrating.

Odd Thomas is a 20 year old fry cook in the small california desert town of Pico Mundo. He's seen as sweet but strange to all but a few people in town. He grew up with a mostly absent father, a crazy mother and a loving but wild grandmother, the last has already gone to the great beyond, so what family he has, he has found.

He has a girlfriend named Stormy, they've been together since they were sixteen, his boss at the Grill where he works, Terry, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of Elvis Presley, a 300 lb mystery writer named P. Oswald Boone (Little Ozzie), his landlady who is afraid she'll turn invisible, and the cheif of police.

Odd also sees ghosts, or The Lingering Dead as he calls them. He trys to help them crossover. Sometimes it's as simple as talking to them (though they don't speak back, "the dead don't talk") oftentimes is complicated and dangerous. Hence why his close relationship with the cheif comes in handy and also why it formed. He has other gifts. The occasional prophetic dream that usually only gives him bits and pieces to work off of, he sees these spectors of calamity that tend to show up right before something bad happens (like an earthquake or a shooting) they are black shadow things that Odd calls Bodochs, and psychic magmatism, where he can find anyone he's looking for by wondering around with a clear picture in mind.

Everyone in his circle knows about his gift other than his landlady who is slightly and gently insane.

There is one other person in his circle, the ghost of Elvis who Odd had been trying to help crossover since he was in highschool.

The first book takes place over the course of three days.

To avoid a blow by blow, I'll summarize. After an eventful morning during which he helped a murdered twelve year old cross over by catching her killer, Odd goes to his shift a the Grill. There, he sees a creepy little man that reminds him if a mold and fungus, followed by a group of Bodochs. He finishes his shift, goes looking for the guy he's dubed Fungus Man.

He eventually finds his way to Fungus Man's house, breaks in and finds it unnaturally cold and silent. He discovers a room that is pitch black except for a small red light. He soon finds that what has made this room so black and the house so cold and quiet is the mob of Bodochs occupying it. After the Bodochs stream out, Odd is able to see that the room is an office and Fungus Man (aka Bob Roberts) is obsessed with serial and mass murderers, he has a file cabinet full of folders on them and posters of famous murders on his wall. Bob seems to be planning something, but Odd doesn't know what, as his only clue is a planner page in a folder from the killer cabinet. The folder is labeled with Bob's name and the date is two days away.

A series of happenings eventually leads to odd trying to stop a horrifying plan

*SPOILERS STOP READING RIGHT HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE END*

So, Bob is a satanist in cahoots with a couple of other satanists to shoot up and blow up the Pico Mundo mall, among other places. He is able to stop them from completing their goal, but some people do die, including Stormy who was working at an ice cream shop at the mall.

Forever Odd

It's months later and Odd has moved into Stormy's apartment. He wakes up to find the ghost of one of his best friends's stepdad at his bedside. Strangely, Danny, a guy with brittle bone disease, with whom Odd grew up, was not mentioned in the last book.

So, the ghost of Danny's stepdad convinces Odd to go to his and Danny's house. Once there, Odd finds stepdad's body and discovers that Danny has been kidnapped.

What follows is a slightly weird story.

Odd eventually finds Danny and his kidnappers. One is a bug-shit woman Danny was talking with on a phone sex line. To impress her he told her about Odd. She's into her own twisted form of the Vudun religion and decides that Odd can show her the lingering dead and wants him become one of her crew. She kidnapped Danny to lure him out.

Danny is rescued, bad guys defeated, and Odd decides he needs to get out of Pico Mundo for a while.

Brother Odd

Odd has spent the last several months at the St. Bartholomew's Abbey, in the California Mountains, as a lay visitor among the monks and nuns. The Abbey is also home to a a community of disabled children. Odd becomes close with four people in particular The Mother superior, The Priest at the head of the monks, Brother Knuckles, an ex mob guy turned monk, and Brother John, a wealthy guy turned monk. Only the first three know of his gift.

Waiting up to see a snow storm break, Odd finds Brother Timothy unconscious or dead on the grounds. He is then clubbed on the back of the head and knocked out. A search for Brother Tim leads to a strange mix of science and the spiritual that I for one found really cool.

** SECOND SPOILER**

Elvis crosses over in this one and Odd contemplates becoming a monk. Two reasons I think that this should have been the last one. Another reason is that he comes very very close to connecting with Stormy though a conduit to the otherside. Third, this is the last book where Odd is truly Odd.

See, Odd hates guns and will only use one as a last resort. In the first, Odd takes out most of the bad guys with a baseball bat, in the second, bug-shit lady was killed by a cougar, the bad guy in this one was killed by someone else.

Although his ability to see and help the lingering dead is not the main focus of the second or the third, it's still something he does. There is character progression from the first to the third. When we meet Odd he is trying to carve out a life dispite his traumatic childhood and while trying to do right with the gifts he has. After he loses Stormy, the second commitment becomes more intense, because of his conviction that the only way he will meet Stormy on the other side is to live his life in the best way he can, and that means using his gifts to help people. He's sadder, slightly less heedful of danger, but still fully committed to flighting the good flight, in his unconventional way.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, in the fourth through the seventh, the train is derailed, possessed, and also on fire.

Not only does his primary gift take a back seat, but the fight he is flighting isn't between the forces of good and evil, or even between justice and injustice, it's a culture war.

And the side of the war that Odd is on is peopled with climate change deniers, dooms day prepers, anti-government people who supply other "good guys" with guns, other anti-personnal gear, tech that circumvents federal guidelines. All the "bad guys" are anyone with any sort of power judges, lawyers, cops, corporations, politicians. Their victims are the hard working Americans, the waitresses, the truck drivers... Strike that. The victims are the Christian hardworking Americans who evedently are being "persecuted in their own country" (this might be a different rant for a different blog but I maintain that there is a big difference between Persecution and Denial of Entitlement. Persecution is being in danger of being harassed, hurt, killed or imprisoned for your beliefs, ethnicity or culture. And when that happens justice is less likely to happen for the person or people targeted. Denial of Entitlement is when a person, or people, cry injustice because they either can't dress up their persecution of others in their beliefs, or can't force those beliefs on others, through law, or through being amazingly obnoxious).

Not only are anyone in power corupt, they are satanists, not are they satanists, they are the same sect of satanists who attacked Pico Mundo, not only are they the same satanists that attacked Pico Mundo, they have an actual connection to Satan. Like they can call up demons and monsters.... Yet for some reason they still use bombs, guns and weponized diseases to wreak havoc.

Now, if Koontz wanted to showcase some characterization of how to fight against a corupt system, that's cool, I mean I'm all for calling out people in power. But this vears into government lizard people territory, and if that was the type of book he wanted to write then that's cool too,but he essentially highjacked Odd's story to do it.

I have a hard time believing that when Odd picked up the ghost of Frank Sinatra at the end of Brother, and walked off into the sunset, that the original intent was to end up in the middle of a plot to plant nukes around the country and then, accompanied by pregnant girl who is some how The Virgin Mary's mother, to a house where time travel is possible and mutant pigs fade in from a post apocalyptic future and want to eat people, where they pick up a sort of dead, sort of immortal child, who is neither of those any more. Only to then to leave them to go on a road trip with an old lady, who some how has connections to the metaphysical, and a microchip planted in her ass that makes it to where she doesn't have to sleep, to rescue kids kidnapped by the powerful satanists to be used as human sacrifice. Along the way, they meet up with some fighters in this coming war, who while they do not wear tin foil hats, they have the cheerfully bloodthirsty air of cult members waiting for the end times. (Side note about the roadtrip book: Deeply Odd is the most boring, yet weird book I have read since Breaking Dawn. Say what you will about the crazy pigs and time travel in Odd Apocalypse, it's at least interesting).

And then to end up back in Pico Mundo to fight said satanists. The in increasingly nonsensical plots really just there to deliver commentary on how the world has gone to shit and everyone is to focused on the material.

Again, remember that Odd is pretty apolitical. He's never voted, owns only the clothes on his back, prefers Shakespeare and old movies to tv, which I figure also includes the news. How does this not equal out to a kid being a patsy for this group, which essentially takes over the narritive. I mean, yeah, he's still doing his thing, but he has many of his moves ditcatated by this group. This includes carrying a gun, all the time.

Again, Odd hates guns. Granted, by the last book, he has spent three books killing people with guns while talking about how much he hates killing people with guns, but up till the last two books, his hatered of guns is seen as a virtue, and then suddenly, he's an idiot if he doesn't arm himself to take a piss.

This makes very little sense to me. Odd is a simple guy, he wants to live his life as long as he has to, do right by the dead and make his way back to Stormy, all the while perfecting his pancake recipe. How the fuck did we get from this to "Everything is shit, there are three type of people, those in power who are working for the devil, those on the side of the angels and the idiots who don't see what's going on. And dispite all the supernatural stuff, we still need to busta cap in someone's ass.

I know that Koontz is Catholic, and I speculate that he had a renewal of his faith somewhere, but also somewhere along the line he took a turn into conservative libertarian territory if that is a thing that can exsist.

I feel like originally, the idea was to have Saint Odd follow Brother Odd, at least in some incarnation. It makes sense, the satanist sect want to come back and finish what was started, and take out the town and Odd, who cocked it up to begin with. In the first book Odd describes Roberts and his cohorts as playing satanists but just using it as a delivery system for their sick want to kill people and be famous for it. It follows that others who are also playing at being satanists would come back to town to get revenge for their fallen brethren. This also trucks with Forever Odd where the bug-shit lady was playing at being a Vudun, and with Brother Odd where people played at being faithful.

This is how ai think it should have gone:

Odd goes from the Abbey, where he is shown, yet again, that evil is a human driven force, that those who wallow in pride, in want of adoration and perfection can be the down fall of themselves and others, back to his home town to defeate these sad delusional people once and for all.

Odd goes home for Christmas at the end of Brother, decides he wants to take vows, and goes about the process of becoming a man of the cloth. Maybe he goes back to St. Bart's, and he figures out a way to help the lingering dead from there, or, after he is confirmed in whatever capacity, he goes back to Pico Mundo and works along side Stormy's priest uncle. He sort of Father Dowlings it until he passes.

Instead, suddenly the structured feel of all of the supernatural things, which (implied by the third book) are based in science and the laws and rules of the universe that God laid down, turns into... Magic?

Doesn't matter how or why, what matters is there is a war! And the little fry cook shall lead them!

Seriously. Five years of Christian School has me seeing the turn that Odd's story takes, a couple of ways.

First it is either an overworked Christ story, where Odd is swept up in a war between the oppressed and the opressers, even though his life and mission is mostly one of mercy. In the end being a sacrifice that saves millions (by preventing the spread out f a weponized strain of rabies) but his sacrifice will only be remembered by a handful of people at first. The difference is of course that Odd buys into the culture war even though it make no sense.

Or, it's a Saint's story. Struggle, strife and miracles. See, it use to be that to be canonized, you had to have three miracles. His miracles? Well, first, his helping of the dead to cross over could be one, the preventing of whatever demon the satanists summoned in Deeply Odd, could be another, and finally, somehow managing to send Little Ozzie the manuscript for Saint Odd after Odd himself had already died, could be the last.

Either way, books four, five, and six are completely unnecessary.

So why does knootz's writing annoy me? It's self righteous and condicending. Poking fun a people who watch tv, enjoy unsophisticated things, bemoaning those who don't see just how stupid it is to buy into media, and how people are just marching their own way to misery because they just don't Get It.

It's the same time of people who look down on adults who do kid stuff sometimes "Why would you read John Green when you can read Dickens? Why would you watch Inside Out when you can watch Citizen Cane?"

Why would you eat coco puffs? Adults don't do that!"

I'm sorry, have I outgrown fun? A book is a book, a movie is a movie, breakfast cereal is breakfast cereal and you should be able to watch anything you want on tv without being shamed by a book that has an exploding cow in it.

#book #books #odd thomas #dean koontz #spoilers #revisit 7 8 and 9 #Book blogging 2021 #revisit

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brulermag · 6 years

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An Immigrant Nation

I remember taking the Greyhound to Houston, Texas coming from New Jersey, and there was a long line. This was the third connection I'd made and I was exhausted. Carrying around a few bags, I listened to my music while I waited to check in. Suddenly, my headphones got caught on my jacket and snapped and I was visibly upset. The guy behind me who was Mexican, reached into his bag and without hesitation, handed me a pair of headphones. "There you go! I know how it is to be without music on these long rides." "Thank you so much!"

We proceeded to get on the bus and he sat next to me. "I'm heading back to Houston to see my wife. I've been gone for a while and I can't wait to see her." He pulled out a picture and said, "This is Kelly and my daughter Raye." This man seemed proud of his family and his eyes welled up when he spoke about them. His name was Guadalupe and he lived in Houston, Texas but was coming from Louisiana because of work there. He was undocumented and was trying to make a living for his family. Because Texas is predominantly Mexican-American, he said he was shunned by his own community because he could not afford paperwork and staying legally in this country.

"They say they are a community and help each other, but Mexicans who come here and have babies born here in the USA tell their kids to look and act white and to not speak Spanish. They don't ever tell you this but its true. They feel that it will give their children a better future to submit to White people rather than challenge the 'norm.' And then the ones that are newly undocumented, well they don't help much. Some people are very welcoming but my very own people have looked down on me. I don't expect people to help though, so I look for whatever work there is to support my family. This time around, it's in Louisiana. And pretty soon I'll move my family down here. Its hard because if I do the move and I lose my job because of ICE, or before I get my paperwork to be legal, I can be deported and what will happen of my family?" This was in 2000.

A few years later, I was a server at a very popular restaurant in Philadelphia and as I waited for patrons to come and dine, I stood next to one of the bus boys and talk to kill time. His name was Reimundo and he was an undocumented Mexican. He was super polite, soft spoken, well mannered and kind. He did everything with a smile and never asked questions. I asked him if he planned to go from bus boy to server because of his demeanor and professionalism.

He looked up and said, "I cannot." "How come?" I asked. "You'd be great!" As naive as I was, I asked those questions. I'm a Puerto Rican. We're American citizens. Born and raised in New Jersey. While I have faced racism I could never walk in the footsteps of Reimundo. I never had to move to a new place and learn a new language. In a place where they didn't want me. Where I don't really exist because I can't afford a visa/citizenship. That I would be giving myself away if I tried to apply because I was already in the country illegally...simply because I wanted a better life for myself and too often times my family. I can't even imagine how that feels. Where do I go? Where do I stay? What do I do? As Americans, we complain about a lot of things, but this is a whole other level.

If you're harassed or a victim of crime, who do you go to? Many undocumented people never see a doctor or a lawyer or a cop simply because they are afraid to be reported and taken away. Reimundo looked and me and said, "I begged for this job. I have friends who know the owner and they told him I was a hard worker. He liked me and here I am. I can't become a server. It's too suspicious." "So how long have you been in America?" "3 and a half years." "Did you come with your family?" "No. I came alone. My entire family is in Mexico. I came here for them. There was no jobs in Mexico. Nothing. My family was facing extreme poverty. My mother was getting sicker. I needed to do something. She told me not to come because she feared for my safety, but I would do anything for my mamita linda."

I didn't ask him how he got here because I felt like I was already being intrusive. But he told me anyway: "I ran. I ran and ran and it took a long time but I finally got over." He paused and walked over to a table to pour water. He came back and opened a small booklet he had in his back pocket. "This is my saint of a mother." "When was the last time you saw her? Does she come here to visit?" "I haven't seen my mother physically since I came here. 3 and a half years. And I miss them like crazy." "Don't you ever feel lonely and want to hug them? I know if it was me, I'd go crazy." "Well, yes of course! But I am here working hard for them. Every dime is for her and my brothers and sisters. I leave here and I go to my other job. I repeat. This is my life. I made this sacrifice for them. I don't regret it one bit."

With the hostility of The Trump Era almost 17 years later, you'd think being an illegal immigrant was the worst crime ever. But actually, early settlers of America were the first immigrants and basically claimed America for their own. There wasn't formal paperwork like there was to keep slaves or free them; there were no laws against them. And as they established their usurpation, they made their own laws according to land ownership and everything else. By the late 1800's, they sent for their families. It wasn't relatively easy to get on a boat and get here, because late 1800's immigrants faced racism themselves in America. But they eventually came over and made their place in every fiber of American History. Because of immigrants we have a melting pot of food, culture, jobs, education, art and everything else you can name of.

It seemed that if you were from Europe, America was a sure fire way to get ahead in life. But for Asians and existing African Americans this was not the case. There were rules in place during The Gold Rush of 1849. When The Chinese heard of these opportunities, they migrated to America but Americans weren't too happy about that. They put in place The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to exclude The Chinese from taking advantage of The Gold Rush. The opening of Ellis Island in 1892 was truly the first Federal Immigration Station. While Europeans struggled to make their place in America, they eventually fit right in by designating parts all over America where their like kind was. Laws favoring European countries for immigration ended in 1965 and allowed Asians and Latin Americans to make their way to America for a "Better Life."

But it wasn't a very good life for Latin Americans. They were stereotyped, made fun of in pop culture, were designated as "Lovers" and "Salsa Dancers" and were ridiculed for their accents. It's always been hard for Latin Americans to climb corporate ladders because a Latino was not seen as a formidable opponent in the business field. To this day, you can count on your fingers the number of Latinos who have won Oscars and in 60 years of The Grammys, very few Latinos have performed LIVE. In fact, you can count on your fingers how many have.

Latinos have been discounted in American History even when we make history in America. There have been limited views of immigrants and their descendants so how do we expect America to understand an illegal immigrant at all? It doesn't surprise me one bit when Middle American White People on The Right shake their finger at illegal immigrants. Those are the very people that employed them in fields, in the back of kitchens and everywhere else. As soon as a dictator like Trump stepped in and said they'd get tax breaks, they sold them out on a dime. That's the American way sometimes.

America is an Immigrant Nation. A rich, colorful nation that have borrowed from our customs, creativity, culture and the list goes on and on. I have to remind you that not every white person feels the same way many do about illegal or legal immigrants. And millions agree that we should be a country of opening our arms and welcoming all. But at the same time, they do need to be more vocal about it, especially during this time. These are the times where being white and vocal really matters. But do not mistake the rest of America and every race and ethnicity...WE do not need a white face to lead us; but we do not mind the allies.

Here are some reasons America should get off their moral high horse: Most of our cities, states and counties are named in Spanish, you just don't know it because white people butcher pronunciation of foreign language! All joking aside, some white people from the reddest of states live in counties that are either Spanish, Native American or of some foreign language. Remember America is rich in diversity even way before immigration became common. But that's another American History lesson on how The French, The British, The Spanish made their marks in America.

America is an Immigrant Nation. The most famous restaurants and foods white people absolutely love and frequent are Mexican Restaurants. In fact, they think every Latino in the world are Mexicans and think we all make mole and tacos. If we're in 2018 and most Americans didn't know Puerto Rico was part of The United States, you can imagine how immigrants of any nationality today are hesitant to come here.

And when we hear "We need things made in America again" these are from people who had no problem sending off their products to be made in China because it is cheaper. In fact, America has relied on China for a long time in terms of trade relations and everything else. Even Trump who co-signed on this slogan has his products made anywhere but America. And while some American companies boast they now make everything in America, its simply a fad and they will return to investing with The Chinese and everyone else. So where does this leave immigrants today?

Well, Trump is looking into keeping Illegal immigrants and probably legal ones from getting government benefits and government housing. He's trying to build a wall (which is really a verbal threat more than anything), he's bad mouthing immigrants of all kinds and he's trying to discredit ethnicity in general. He's stripping away sanctuary cities and wants Europeans to infiltrate Puerto Rico to boost the economy and migrate to America to replace immigrants. In other words, MORE WHITE FACES IS BETTER.

It all comes down to Trump's presidential victory and the true colors of a weak minority called White People; who will certainly do anything to destroy any race that isn't their own. Once a land of the free, America has become the most racist modern country in the world. Other countries laugh at us, our president and the policies. Trump is destroying everything with the help from half the country. But this doesn't kill the resilience of The American People (and by American People I mean those who aren't traitors); We will persevere, we will grow, we will continue to allow immigrants and we will celebrate every national and cultural tradition of ALL including white people.

America is an Immigrant Nation. Say it loud, hold it in your heart and cling to it. I leave you with this: O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, And every gain divine! O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

By: Xavii Matisse ©

#An Immigrant Nation #America #USA #Immigrants

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metawitches · 5 years

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Recaps of The OA Part 1 can be found HERE.

Welcome back, kids! Are we all ready to ride along with The OA as she questions the nature of reality and causes chaos in the world around her? Part 2 continues where Part 1 left off, with no time jump, though the extended opening segment introduces viewers to the new character Karim Washington, so it takes a while to find out what happened to the OA. Most of the rest of the original cast returns in some capacity.

While part 1 explored the interior of the mind, with themes of reality vs fantasy, the darkness inside, free will, captivity and willing sacrifice, Part 2 expands those themes, taking the dreams, visions and stories of Part 1 and turning them into an interdimensional reality where the boundaries between the dream world, the real world, and other worlds barely exist. It’s not quite as mind-bending as Part 1, but it’s still fun, with new ideas to ponder.

Let’s start with a quick video recap of Part 1, courtesy of Yiğit Sarı:

youtube

Recap

Angel of Death begins with the caption “7 hours 46 minutes earlier”, which refers to the time of Prairie’s shooting.

Pounding on a door can be heard, and a figure can be seen skateboarding at high speed on a rural road. The figure is lit from behind, as if a car is following closely with its headlights on. The skater passes a tall blonde woman wearing a red dress who’s standing off to the side of the road. It’s The OA. The skateboarder loses his balance and flies off the road, spinning through the air, out of control.

Private Investigator Karim Washington wakes up from the dream to answer the pounding on the door of his houseboat. It’s an elderly Vietnamese woman, who wants to hire him to find her missing granddaughter. He tries to send her to the police, but she refuses, because her granddaughter, Michelle, is invisible.

Karim doesn’t understand what she means, so he asks a friend to interpret. By invisible, the grandmother means they are homeless immigrants. The family was living in Michigan. Michelle’s father disappeared, and might have died. Her family was evicted and ended up in a shelter.

The literal meaning of saying Michelle is “invisible” is that the government has no official documentation for her, since she’s an illegal immigrant. In other words, she’s invisible to the government, and needs to remain that way, so the whole family doesn’t get deported.

But Part 1 also used the term “invisible self” frequently. It was the title of the final episode. Does Mrs. Vu also mean that Michelle has an exceptionally strong invisible self? Does she sense psychic sensitivity in Karim?

Michelle has been sending her Grandma money. She came to San Francisco because the money is better there. She was communicating with Mrs Vu frequently and sending money up until 2 weeks ago, then she just stopped. He grandmother came to search for her.

Karim asks to look at the texts, but they are in Vietnamese, so he can’t understand them.

We normally know Michelle Vu as Buck.

Mrs Vu shows them a photo of Michelle playing drums and says she’s a great drummer. Then she asks if Karim will look for her granddaughter. Karim asks if she has any money. She shows him that she has $31,000 in an Ether account, a form of cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, but not as safe or established. Michelle sent the money just before she vanished.

Karim tells Mrs Vu that most underage girls who have been missing for more than 72 hours are either never found or found dead. Mrs Vu looks deep into Karim’s eyes and tells him to look for Michelle.

Karim starts by having an associate check police, morgue and hospital records while he and Mrs Vu take the train to visit the family Michelle was staying with.

Bao and Denise greet Mrs Vu warmly, while their your son Donald stands quietly off to the side. Karim asks Mrs Vu to wait outside. She refuses at first, but leaves when he threatens to drop her case. He keeps her phone and tells her he knows her English is better than she tells people.

Denise and Bao tell Karim that Michelle was quiet, shy and helpful. They took her in because the church asked them to. She wasn’t the type to sell her body or get into trouble. She gave them $50 twice to help cover her expenses.

Karim asks Bao to translate Michelle’s texts. They are what you’d expect, telling Mrs Vu that she wants to come home, that she’s trying to be strong, and that she’s trying to raise money so they can have a home again.

When Karim is done, he makes arrangements for Mrs Vu to sleep at Bao and Denise’s apartment, telling her he’ll call when he has more information. He stops to buy some M&Ms, then shares them with Donald when the boy walks by the store.

He asks what Donald wanted to tell him. Donald takes his hand and leads him to a big green house that’s a few blocks away. The mansion is abandoned, so Donald leads him inside and upstairs, then points at a set of double closet doors.

Karim opens the doors, and discovers Michelle has built a nest inside, with bedding on the floor, and drawings all over the ceiling.

The drawings are of math equations, religious and spiritual symbols, scientific and geometric patterns, and other figures. There is a labyrinth, and there are other shapes with repeating circles.

For a moment, Karim’s eye is reflected back at him by something in the wall, under the rose poster, as if another version of Karim is watching through the wall.

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Donald tells Karim that Michelle wasn’t doing bad things. She was making her money from playing phone games. She was making thousands of dollars from the game, but the game doesn’t have a name, so you don’t talk about it.

It’s the Voldemort of games.

Karim finds Michelle’s phone hidden in a niche in the wall, behind a poster of a red rose. The house has a stained glass red rose window in the attic.

Donald puts the code into Michelle’s phone and shows him the game. Green lines forming successive rectangles move within the screen, like doors toward the viewer, or the infinite line of doors that would appear when two mirrors were held up to each other.

As a screencap, you can see that there is something else attached to the rectangles. Are they trying to escape or trying to go through the doors?

Suddenly, a guy jumps Karim and Donald, then grabs Michelle’s phone. He’s filthy and emaciated. Once he picks up the phone and gets into the game, he begins ranting,”I’ve solved them myself. I’ve solved everything. My brain can hold all the brains. My thoughts can dry water. I’ve seen a million versions of myself… [Karim tries to help him.] These are mine. I did this.”

When Karim tries to rest a comforting hand on Liam’s shoulder, Liam panics and jumps out of a window, which had been covered by crumbling, old shutters. He lies on the sidewalk, bleeding from a head wound. Karim sends Donald to school, with the promise that he’ll visit Bao and Denise again later, and he’ll definitely find Michelle.

While the paramedics prepare Liam for transport to the hospital, the cops harass question Karim. He’s been harassed questioned by these cops before, and every word he says is viewed as arrogant backtalk, no matter how innocuous. It’s clear that the police aren’t going to be of any more help than they have been so far, whether it’s investigating Liam’s jump and what goes on in the house or finding Michelle. Plus, they take Michelle’s phone into evidence.

Karim draws a quick sketch of the game on his phone to show to others when he asks around. His next stop is a warehouse of computer nerds doing black market work. A deaf security guard explains that the game really doesn’t have a name, but the kids call it Q Symphony and the players are called Q-kids. He confirms that the players make money from the game, then tells Karim he can find Q-kids at a house called Big Blue.

We’ve had red and green color references, but the only blue references I’ve caught are the sky. Now the blue references are about to start, with a giant blue tarp covering the front of what looks like a crack house, but is actually a gamer house, full of kids so absorbed in games, they’re physically wasting away.

Instead of looking to the sky or other people to dream, these kids look to their screens. They don’t even look up or at each other the see if they recognize Michelle, a gamer like themselves. There is no loyalty among gamers.

Big Blue: Question the Answers

Karim and his trusty orange car.

Come back in a few episodes and reexamine the wire sculpture.

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Karim wanders through Big Blue, asking if anyone’s seen Michelle. No one has. In one crowded room, a kid sends Michelle’s photo to the rest of the kids in the room, who shake their heads “no” without looking up.

One guy does try to stop Karim, as he enters a room with handmade wire sculptures. Karim insists on entering, since he’s not a gamer. In fact, Karim hates games. The woman in the room, Fola (played by Zendaya), corrects him.

Fola: “It’s not a game. It’s a puzzle. A game is one side against another. There’s a winner and a loser. Puzzles don’t have losers.”

Karim: “Well, you lose if you don’t solve it.”

Fola: “No, you’re stuck if you don’t solve it. The designer wants the player to figure it out. It’s not a war. It’s a mystery.”

Karim, gesturing to the wire sculptures: “You built this?”

Fola: “We did, yeah.”

He pulls out the photo of Michelle, and explains to Fola that he’s looking for a girl who Made $31k playing Q Symphony. She immediately knows who he’s talking about, and tells him Michelle stopped coming to the house about 2 weeks ago- about the same time she stopped contacting Mrs Vu.

Fola: “Symphony doesn’t like people working together, and after a while, she did not need us.”

Fola doesn’t know where Michelle is, because Michelle surpassed her in the puzzle. Karim tells her he’s desperate to find the other girl. She explains that Karim will have to follow in Michelle’s footsteps, and “at a certain point, the game goes IRL- in real life.”

She takes him to a set of tall outdoor steps, decorated with a mosaic on the baseboards.

Fola: “The early levels on the phone are just about weeding people out. It’s really about getting here.”

Karim: “And that’s why Michelle came to San Francisco.”

Fola: “It’s why we all come.”

Karim: “How much can you make playing Symphony?”

Fola: “Well, there are five levels. Level one, it’s $50. Level two, 500. Level three, 5,000.”

Karim: “How many people do that?”

Fola: “Not many.”

Karim: “You?” Fola nods her head. “And they really pay?”

Fola: “Yeah, yeah, in ether. They want people to keep playing.”

Karim: “Why?”

Fola: “Level four is $50,000. I don’t know anyone who’s made it that far except for maybe Michelle. Level five is a million. Here. [Hands Karim back his phone.] Now that I’ve gotten you to this level, solve it.”

The first task is the solve the riddle “Above the sea, below the stars,” using a five letter word. The game turns Karim’s camera on and encourages him to view the world through the augmented reality it’s creating.

Karim tries “birds” then “plane”. Both are incorrect. Fola mentions that you only get three tries at the answer, then you have to wait a week before you try again. He realizes he needs to be more specific and gives the flight number of a particular flight he can see in the sky right now.

Possibly that serves to ground the player in this space-time?

He’s given the next clue: Three wise, man. To be solved with a six letter word.

Fola says that now he knows how good it can feel to solve the puzzle.

Fola: “Ultimately, a puzzle is a conversation between the player and the maker. The puzzlemaker is teaching you a new language. How to escape the limits of your own thinking, and see things you didn’t know were there.”

Karim: “Sounds like God.”

Fola: “Except it’s real.”

Fola tells us that this season, the game and puzzle makers will take the place of the gods and goddesses, like Khatoun, who guided the characters in Part 1. She assumes all puzzlemakers have a benign, selfless goal in mind for the player, and by extension, assumes that all gods and Goddesses do, too. Part 1 proved her wrong in that assumption.

Karim, on the other hand, always assumes the worst of everyone. He accuses Fola of helping him only so that she can advance in the game. She replies that she wants him to fall in love with the process.

Karim shows her a photo of Liam on the sidewalk after he jumped, and asks if that’s the way she wants him to fall in love. Fola replies somewhat coldly, saying that Liam was always unstable. If people climb mountains, some will fall. Something would have happened to Liam sooner or later.

The chance to find out what’s at the top of Puzzle Mountain is work the risk. She thinks Michelle won the game and her previous life doesn’t matter to her anymore, that’s why she hasn’t been heard from. They agree that only the people who’ve finished the game and the person who built it know what happens to the winners.

Pierre Ruskin sits in an expensive looking greenhouse restaurant and speaks with his fiance, Nina, on the phone. He speaks in English, she speaks Russian. Nina feels Pierre has betrayed her because of something that happened in a house. Pierre assumes that the woman who informed Nina has sent her photos or a video.

Nina asks how many were in the house and what he did with them. She says she can’t unsee the things she saw in that house. Pierre tells her to come to the restaurant, she’s still his partner in all things. Nina agrees to meet him, but she tells him that she’s not his partner anymore and she doesn’t want him near the house.

The scene shifts from the restaurant to a dock, where Nina Azarova is waiting to catch a ferry. When she turns her head, we realize it’s the OA, but not the OA. This is a different reality from the one the OA was born in. Nina hangs up and removes the ring from her ring finger as she walks toward the ferry.

As the ferry crosses San Francisco Bay, Nina looks back toward Alcatraz Prison and the Golden Gate Bridge. She hums the melody that Prairie frequently played on her violin, and fidgets with her keychain, which is decorated with a realistic looking blue eyeball.

Does she need to remember that she’s being watched? Or to keep her eyes open and notice everything?

Nina continues looking out toward the back of the boat, when she’s suddenly gripped by intense chest pain and collapses. She thinks she’s been shot, but a bystander tells her it’s a heart attack.

32:30 minutes into the episode, we transition to the ambulance which is taking Prairie Johnson, aka The OA, to the hospital, after she was shot in the chest during a school shooting 2 YEARS ago. Just in case you thought this was Nina/Prairie/OA’s story, you have now been informed that, in fact, she’s just a small cog in the machine.

I hope a few of you were smarter than me and fast forwarded to this moment, then went back later to watch the first half hour.

Prairie wills herself toward the light that is Homer, while Steve chases the ambulance, begging to go with her. Prairie flatlines, and a glowing light takes her spirit from this dimension.

Prairie: “They said it would be like jumping into an invisible current that just carries you away.”

There’s that word, “invisible” again.

Prairie gasps into consciousness in Nina’s body, her ears ringing intensely. She asks the paramedics where she is, they tell her San Francisco. Then Prairie has some unPrairie-like reactions and becomes upset because her hands and feet have nail polish on when she didn’t before.

The woman who was held captive and on camera in front of her captor for 7 years, who jumped dimensions on purpose, would be more clever than that in this situation.

Prairie wakes up some time later in a hospital bed. A nurse shows up within moments to test her sanity. She answers the questions correctly, except Joe Biden is president in this dimension, not Barack Obama, and she goes by Nina. The nurse lets her look at herself in a small mirror, and she realizes that her face looks like her, but not quite the same. She finally catches on that she must have jumped.

Prairie notices an orderly lurking nearby with a dose of a sedative for her. The nurse assures her that it’s just to calm her, but OA still has the same issues with doctors and medical care- namely, she gets panic attacks. The nurse won’t budge on the sedative, insisting it’s standard procedure for patients like OA, which I assume means patients who aren’t calm, cooperative and dignified at every moment.

The nurse tries to force the shot on OA, so OA tries to move away from her, then to run. The nurse calls out that she has a combative patient, a 5150. OA isn’t violent, just trying to avoid an unnecessary, unwanted medication, but she’s held in place by two huge orderlies and given the shot.

With that, we go to the opening credits, 38 minutes into the episode. Karim’s dream from the opening was 7 hours and 46 minutes before Prairie jumped into Nina. There’s still 30 minutes left in the episode.

It’s evening, and Karim plays basketball in the neighborhood with a bunch of computer types, so he can work them for information about the game. They immediately figure that it’s a recruitment tool. One woman, Tess, suggests that it could be about crowdsourcing a problem. She thinks sounds like something Pierre Ruskin would do.

She tells him that with his first company, Ruskin didn’t hire anyone. “Just posted a prize on some obscure message board. Five grand for the best low-cost carbon panel. Overnight, 200 people working for him, without a soul on the payroll.” She knows about this because, “I won the five grand for the best panel, and his name was on the check.”

Karim thanks her for the information. She says if he wants to thank her, to forget her name. She dribbles the basketball into the night.

Karim is on the phone before she’s out of sight, calling his associate for Pierre Ruskin’s address.

Piere Ruskin is trying to visit Nina/Prairie, his partner in all things, who isn’t easily swayed by spoiled men in any of her incarnations. The nurses fawn over Pierre, but Prairie declines his visit. He doesn’t take the news well, and trashes the waiting room. No one forces a sedative on him or puts him on a locked ward.

Next in line is Prairie’s newly assigned case worker, Melody, who has good and bad news. Prairie asks to hear the bad news first. Melody checked into Homer’s whereabouts for Prairie. There aren’t any in St Louis but she discovered there’s a psychiatrist in the Bay area with his name.

The good news is that Prairie’s other contact is waiting to speak with her on the computer- Prairie’s adoptive mother from her original dimension, Nancy Johnson. In this dimension, the Johnsons never adopted Prairie, so Nancy doesn’t recognize her and doesn’t know how to help her. She does answer Prairie’s questions, even when they get uncomfortably personal.

Prairie realizes that she never went to live with her Aunt Zoya in this reality, so Nancy and Abel adopted the baby boy they’d originally planned to in Prairie’s world. Prairie thanks Nancy for everything she did for her as a mother, even though it’s not the right Nancy. This Nancy seems to be feeling a connection to Prairie, just as her adoptive mother felt an immediate connection, but they aren’t allowed to continue talking.

When Prairie hangs up, Melody reveals that she now has very bad news. Prairie has been put on a 14 day psych hold. Prairie can’t bear the thought of another 14 days in that hospital, and insists she’s confused, not crazy. Melody explains they need to do this because Prairie threatened the nurse, but Prairie can go stay at a private clinic and it will be like a spa vacation. Prairie has no choice but to agree.

Melody’s bad news when she arrived to see Prairie was that Homer isn’t in St Louis. Then Prairie rebuffs Pierre Ruskin, he gets angry, and five minutes later, Melody has the hard news that Prairie’s on a 14 day psych hold. And, oh yeah, someone has pulled some strings to get her into a particular private clinic, Treasure Island. I guarantee that someone was Pierre Ruskin, who wants to hold her hostage until she cooperates with his control again.

Melody takes Prairie to Nina’s penthouse apartment to pick up a few things before they go to Treasure Island. Prairie can’t get her key to work, but the doorman, Al, is very kind and helpful. The penthouse is gorgeous. Prairie is overwhelmed that she’ll get to live there eventually.

Nina has a canary like the one OA swallowed in Part 1, and an aquarium, reminiscent of the one Homer found in his vision. OA examines Nina’s photos and realizes that her father and Nina were together until he was an old man. Melody tells her he died recently (shot in the bathtub). Then OA realizes that Nina wasn’t on the bus in Russia when it went off the bridge, so she didn’t go blind.

Melody reminds Prairie that they need to gather clothes and supplies for the clinic, so they look in Nina’s bedroom. Her closet is locked with a keypad and password that Prairie doesn’t know. Her clothing seems too formal for a clinic.

Karim has Pierre’s house staked out, and listens to an interview with one of his top executives, Bert Gabel. The interviewer says that the Wall Street Journal called Pierre “the prophet of the valley.” When asked how Pierre is able to accurately predict the next big thing, Bert says that Pierre knows where to listen and how to listen to the world, which is whispering its intentions all the time. Pierre hears things in a way that isn’t possible for most of us.

Karim gets a call back from his associate who does the research for him. She’s looked into the kids who are potentially playing the game and disappearing. We only hear Karim’s side of the conversation, which is cryptic.

Karim: “What did you find?… How many of them? Nationwide?… Those five kids in the Bay Area…. What do you mean f–ked up? All playing the game?… Yeah, but how many have a prior history of mental illness?… Yeah, so we don’t know it’s the game cracking them up… Yeah, cause there are like thousands of kids playing… High-strung, spectrum-y math types. How many would crack up anyway?”

He hangs up when someone leaves Rushkin’s house, and he follows them.

It sounds like she found some evidence that the game is messing kids up, but it’s hard to prove, given the types of kids who become obsessed with games and the societal prejudices against them. There were 5 kids in the San Francisco area that she took particular note of, but that’s all we know about them.

Now let’s take a scenic ride to Treasure Island. Two beefy orderlies escort Prairie inside. Her case worker isn’t invited in, which seems strange.

I think Karim’s soundtrack just went to Stranger Things for a second. That can’t be good.

He’s followed the car to a hidden, underground business called Curi. Michelle drew a picture of the sign in her closet, so Karim definitely wants to get inside. When a cleaning van passes behind him, Karim purposely backs into it. Once both drivers are out of their cars, Karim makes a deal to join the cleaning crew inside Curi for the night.

Once inside, the Stranger Things rhythm returns off and on, so we know we’re in big trouble here. Karim finds computer monitors with sheep and trees as the screen saver. In another room, technicians analyze audio recordings for key words.

He spots a young woman being escorted downstairs and through a set of doors, but the doors lock before he reaches them. They have a keypad exactly like the one on Nina’s closet, leaving no doubt that Ruskin is involved in both instances.

Karim peeks through a window into the room and sees exposed air ducts in the ceiling. He climbs a utility ladder to reach the ducts, then crawls through the ducts, in another callback to Homer’s vision. There is an ambient red glow throughout this sequence.

Karim finds an opening in the duct so he can spy on the room below. A dozen or so women are either sleeping or speaking into microphones, recording their dreams. There are other people in the room with them, monitoring them closely.

Prairie makes a diagram on the wall of her room in the clinic, illustrating the similarities and differences between her life and Nina’s. Nina got to live in Paris with Papa and go to college, while Prairie was a blind orphan adopted by an abusive family who made her think she was crazy, then she was kidnapped, held hostage and tortured for 7 years.

Getting on that bus really was a huge mistake.

Footsteps approach the door. Prairie sits down and waits to see who it will be.

You can tell he’s a different person because of the beard.

It’s Homer!!! It’s Dr Roberts, the psychiatrist from this dimension with Homer’s name and face, but not his memories. He’s a third year resident at the clinic. The universe has played yet another cruel joke on the OA, and Homer has no idea who she is. She gasps out his name, shocking him, until he decides she read it on his name tag and instructs her to call him Dr Roberts.

They proceed to have a confusing, if brilliant, little walk and talk, in which everyone but Homer tries to figure out if they’re dreaming.

The rooms and halls are all institutional and white. Homer helps OA up, and they briefly stumble over who wants to be called what. Then, he begins his standard new patient speech as he brings her to meet the director of the clinic. As they walk by the other patients’ rooms, one by one, OA sees every single one of Hap’s other captives- Renata, Rachel, and Scott. They look as shocked to see her as she is to see them. They all seem sure they’ve entered a nightmare again.

Homer’s speech- you’ll appreciate it later:

“I’m taking you to meet the director. No, no, no. [Makes Prairie stop pawing him.] He’s a remarkable man. I’ve been studying under him for my entire residency. I first read his book back in med school. It’s actually the reason that I chose psychiatry. It’s okay. He’s had tremendous success with his patients. There’s really no one like him in the field. You’re in good hands. I’d like you to meet the head of the clinic- Dr Hunter Percy.

Hap turns around and says, “Hi.” He excuses Homer.

We’re all gonna die.

The Angel of Death has arrived.

Once they’re alone, Hap moves closer to OA. “It is you, isn’t it? Hello, Prairie.”

Prairie lunges at him.

Commentary

Karim said he hates games, but he seemed to enjoy the word game Fola gave him that was part of Q Symphony. I think what he hates are lies and manipulations, the games people play between each other in their “real” lives.

I quoted Fola’s entire description of the game levels and pay off because I have a strong feeling that the game is connected to the type of dimension hopping the OA was teaching the boys and Betty. If so, then that would suggest there are five levels involved with dimension-hopping. We are given a few clues: the game designer wants people to win but to do it on their own,without collaboration; and few make it to level five, but they receive a large cash payout when they do.

Are these the levels between heaven and h–l? Levels signifying travel expertise and ease or the number of possible lifetime jumps? Do they signify the steps toward self-actualization/finding the ideal self and an ideal dimension? It has to be significant that the person who has a counterpart that’s involved with dimensional travel, who has practiced the movements, is one of the few to get the farthest.

OA is held prisoner and labeled mentally ill, again, after replacing a wealthy woman who should have been able to buy and lawyer her way out of that situation. Where were Nina’s Russian mobster attorneys? How can Hap and an upstart like Ruskin outmaneuver her old money? Surely her father left her set up with protection.

The kid in Big Blue who asks everyone if they’ve seen Michelle initially asks Karim if he’s the plumber. It’s an odd question, since they’re obviously squatting. Do squatters call in plumbers?

That could be a veiled reference to Homer’s vision, where the bathrooms were flooding. It could also have something to do with the game.

Liam said, “My brain can hold all the brains. My thoughts can dry water. I’ve seen a million versions of myself.”

My thoughts can dry water.- Is he the plumber? Before he lost it, could he control the invisible current one uses when dimension hopping, drying the flow to leave the current and enter a dimension?

My brain can hold all the brains.- Multiple personalities? Or multiple minds from multiple dimensions?

I’ve seen a million versions of myself.- If we assume Liam’s condition has something to do with the game, then something at a point higher than Fola has reached, either level 4 or 5 or both, appears to open the mind to the vastness of the alternate dimensions. Liam says he’s seen a million versions of himself, and his brain can hold them all. Did he touch all of those dimensions and now those minds have all jumped into him? Was he just driven crazy by the thought of so many versions of himself? Was he taken to millions of dimensions using time dilation, then returned? What happened to Michelle, and the others?

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Images courtesy of Netflix.

The OA Part 2 Episode 1: Angel of Death Recap Recaps of The OA Part 1 can be found HERE. Welcome back, kids! Are we all ready to ride along with The OA as she questions the nature of reality and causes chaos in the world around her?

#alternate realities #Angel of Death #Brit Marling #Emory Cohen #Jason Isaacs #Kingsley Ben-Adir #metacrone #recaps #review #science fiction #speculative fiction #The OA #Zal Batmanglij #Zendaya

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sarcasmncriticism-blog · 6 years

Text

2017.

I haven’t blogged in years. When you go through things, the very thing you’re passionate about becomes obsolete. For the last few years, I’ve become somewhat reclusive. My life has changed COMPLETELY from 3 years ago. With 2017 coming to an end, I needed to write--document--the year I’ve had. So here’s a snapshot of the experiences and lessons learned during my 2017.

I attempted to start the year fresh and work on my family....that lasted 3 weeks. I finally made the decision to cease my efforts for good in January 2017.

I endured verbal and mental abuse.

I learned to deal with humiliation.

My apartment flooded in March.

This was the year of the SHOW for me: 2 Chris Brown shows, Bruno Mars, Jay-Z, Vic Mensa, Jagged Edge, The Internet, OT Genesis, Future, 2Chainz, Gucci Mane, Chance the Rapper, Pastor Troy, Monica, Boosie...and a plethora of others I don’t feel like remembering. Just know I was #ConcertBae2017.

I was laid off with no valid reasoning in May, 2 days before I was supposed to close on new house. It was BS but I get it. My boss didn’t like that I questioned her business practices. As the only licensed person on her staff, I told her point blank I wasn’t risking my license to scam people out of money.

I got another job within 30 days and was fired 10 business days later - again with no explanation....again before closing on a new condo. (I was determined to be a homeowner this year lol)

Then I was hired 3 days later and with that job came respect and responsibility. My salary increased, I have staff, I am in charge of a million dollar account. It’s annoying truthfully but being a lower level employee doesn’t suit me (Obviously-I’ve been fired 3 times lol)

My cousin was murdered in August.

A month later, my friend Seth (#TeamFirkForever) passed away in his sleep.

3 weeks later my grandmother passed away in her sleep.

I experienced being handcuffed for the first time by a cop determined to find narcotics in my car. He found nothing of course - but he had done the SAME thing to me the week prior as I was passing through Ellijay. Harassment! I was with 2 black men. I don’t know if he thought we were running drugs since we were out of town or what but I definitely felt targeted - which is TERRIFYING nowadays.

I watched almost everyone get engaged or married as I started over and felt nothing but happiness for them.

I evaluated the environment my child was in and realized it was unnecessarily toxic. More determined than ever to get a new place.

I took a trip with a childhood friend to Colorado and it was AMAZING!

I grew tired of bitter arguments and adopted a nonresponse approach (I only respond if a legitimate question is asked).

I was sued by a scammer for 1000s who caused an accident. It was technically my fault for ‘following’ too closely even though we were at a complete stop prior to collision (they need to change that law). Not a serious wreck. maybe $1000 worth of damage between the 2 cars (that’s being generous). Told my insurance company I had video of the man telling me about his pre-existing health issues - which he claimed I caused in the accident. My insurance company paid him anyway. I have a new insurance company now. :-)

I’ve grown closer to my inner circle.

Benihana became a fav.

I dealt with the person who was supposed to care about me telling lies to family and friends in an effort to save their own face from their indiscretions. It only worked on their family though. Nobody believes that BS and if they do, I hope their 2018 is blessed as they continue life with no rationale.

I no longer can deal with anyone who cannot take responsibility for their actions.

I had a close friend go through a divorce and another who faced the reality her partner was a mooch and cheater. We became each other’s support throughout our personal devastations. The 3 of us are in a better place.

I kicked myself in the face everyday for giving up on my dreams in order to have a successful family-only to get fucked over. I kept myself from becoming bitter as I see the very people that I helped in the music industry become more successful than myself within the field. (On the independent shit...traded it all for a husband and some kids....and it was a major fail).

THE ECLIPSE!! I felt something spiritual happening in the universe. Incredible experience.

My Macbook screen cracked (thank God for insurance).

Age is no longer a viable excuse for being an adult and conducting yourself in a completely idiotic fashion. I will distance myself from you immediately.

I stopped conversing with people who added nothing to my life.

I lost 20 pounds due to stress. Trying to gain that back.

I saved one my best friend’s life. Scariest moment of the year for sure.

I realized, I’ve outgrown most of my family and friends. I’m more career driven and I love working towards success. The average person doesn’t think like that and it’s sad. I can’t stay around those type of people because I become “boujee” in their eyes. lol

Depression was a thing for me this year.

I’ve grown extremely impatient with people who do nothing or live mediocre lifestyles. I can’t deal with it. It irritates me when I can’t say “hey let’s take a flight to NY next month and hang out” or “let’s go to the cabins for the weekend” and everybody is crying broke in advance. Stop working retail jobs in yall mid-late 20s. Let the teenagers have them. I’m not saying this to come down on people but I’m sick of seeing #goals on the most basic things on social media and they’re still not achieved (ex: pics of like 10 friends showing their passports-YOU CAN GET A PASSPORT AND TAKE A TRIP!) This does not apply to those in transition. This applies to those who are complacent.

I applied for my master’s but couldn’t start in January as planned. I need 2 additional business classes first. I’ll save up and pay for those out of pocket.

I’m over people who’ve been in school for 17 years with no certifications or degrees. They inadvertently become leeches. More doing. Less talking.

I will never settle again due to loneliness. Loneliness is a vacation compared to a toxic relationship.

I recognized how condescending I come off, but it comes from a good place. Working on my delivery in 2018.

In 2018, I will pressure those remaining in my life to progress. I will challenge everyone to better themselves and their surroundings. Things are tough-especially if you’re doing it alone (respect to all single mothers and fathers). I’ve had it tough this whole year (really the last 3) but I didn’t break. I didn’t decide to live off the government, friends, men, parents or grandparents. I didn’t go into some hole and replay all decisions that led me to this point. I encourage everyone to set goals and go after them. Make short term goals to catapult you toward your longterm goal. Life derailed my plans but life is an obstacle course. I went through so many life/personal changes and so many challenges in a city where I have only ONE cousin. DASSIT! No local support system whatsoever. This is not to highlight the bad. Difficulties develop character.

Learning happens when pain is the teacher. Some of the greatest lessons come from empty pockets, hungry stomachs, and broken hearts. - Bishop Bronner.

Happy New Year!

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