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caneannabelle · 3 years

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ok hi guys. it’s been a while. i wrote this analysis back when Mag 187 aka Checking Out aka The One Where Helen Dies first came out and literally ever since i’ve posted it i’ve wanted to redo it because it feels. lacking. listen if there’s one thing i hate it’s incomplete media analysis and i must right my wrongs lest i be forced to look upon myself and crumble from within. that being said, i’ve been putting off this rewrite for a long long time bc Life Gets Weird. tldr this was written over the course of several months so i apologize for inconsistent quality. anyways let’s get into it!

part one: recap!

it’s been a while! let’s just go over what happened. the scene i wanna focus on in particular is this one:

VICTIM

You’ve got to help me!

ARCHIVIST

[Angrily] Don’t touch me!

[THE ARCHIVIST PULLS AWAY, AS THE VICTIM FALLS AND IS CRYING]

HELEN

Oopsie. Not so easy, is it? Keeping up your humanity?

(187).

that being said i’m gonna be kind of all over the place but! i do think that’s a good jumping off point.

part two (part one): disparaging everyone’s problematic fav

in my original post my point was that in reflexively reacting to a victim with disgust and anger jon inadvertently reveals the nature of his dedication to helping victims as ego driven, especially because this line is directly preceded by him asserting his moral high ground over helen as being a “protector” as opposed to her indulgence in destruction. what i’m saying is homeboy has a savior complex. honestly there’s a lot of evidence to support that claim but i think the most obvious example would be jordan kennedy. like.

JORDAN

…Yeah. But wrong. Sick.

What did you do to me?

ARCHIVIST

I helped you.

JORDAN

Helped me? I don’t feel right, I, I just – Ah! No I don’t – argh! I don’t want this!

(184). to be clear it’s an action with a good intent! he just wants to help someone who once helped him! BUT it also demonstrates a lack of conscious empathy. i feel like i don’t have to argue this since jordan Literally vocally said he didn’t want this several times throughout the scene but the point remains that while jon’s intent is good the actual application of his saviourism removes the autonomy of those he affects. i’m not gonna touch on the “is it objectively immoral to become an oppressor for the sake of self preservation while existing within an extreme system in which all are oppressed regardless of your individual status” query mostly because i do not have the brainpower available rn to come to my own conclusion about systems of power and the way they’re represented in tma (which is a whole other rant tbh) but jon DOES rob jordan of the ability to come to his own conclusion in this debate and make his own choice, thereby removing his autonomy. you know. autonomy. free will. the thing that is central to jon’s internal conflicts. huh.

anyways i NEED to stress that i’m not saying that he’s the same as jonah or the web or even annabelle (although annabelle is a victim. no i don’t take constructive criticism). i just want to point out that his actions reflect a lack of understanding. while he’s able to empathize with the pain others experience and is eternally hyper- aware of it he is unable to view that pain through any lense besides his own and uses it in his cycle of self pity and blame, minimizing it at any point possible in the quickest way and Not prioritizing the wishes of the victim but instead the efficiency in decreasing his own guilt. anyways back to 187- both the victim and jordan are treated as props by jon (and helen) and once they serve their purpose in reaffirming the two’s sense of self are cast aside and ignored. ok from here i’m gonna get conceptual and self indulgent bc it’s my analysis and i get to bring up vague convoluted philosophy.

part two (part two): part two

let’s talk about the distortion for a sec. i refuse to believe helen and michael were both completely gone and it was just the distortion piloting their visage, mostly because… like that’s not what the text would indicate

HELEN

Michael isn’t me. Not now.

ARCHIVIST

What happened?

HELEN

He got… distracted. Let feelings that shouldn’t have been his overwhelm me.

Lost my way.

(101). it’s heavily implied that there was SOME remainder of michael in there, even if the being wasn’t him. maybe i’m way off base here but the way i interpreted the implosion of michael was that it was driven by his inability to maintain the repressed resentment and anger he had for gertrude. like it’s pretty clear that some warped version of michael’s feelings were trapped inside of the distortion and i’d go as far as to say that they were integral to his formation as it. i’m gonna operate on the assumption that michael and helen are two separate beings here for a sec even though we know they’re not. As opposed to michael’s resentment for the archivist, helen actively sought refuge in the institute and from the small amount we saw of her Pre-Distortion it seems like her paranoia is internally directed. i think you could even say that while michael was caught in an eternal battle with the concept of connection, helen is caught in a battle with the concept of self. the point is that she thinks of jon in a less “The Archivist” sense and more as just That Guy who she had an intense connection with that one time.

ARCHIVIST

So… S-so what do you want?

HELEN

I don’t know. Helen liked you, so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.

(101). i would also like to point out that helen’s emergence as the distortion coincides with jon coming to terms with his identity as the archivist. parallels, baby! SO helen is a newly formed being that is grappling with the concept of her own existence and jon is reevaluating his understanding of identity as he comes to terms with the fact that he is turning into the thing he’s fighting against and this is all happening at the same time. live laugh love. stay with me here, i promise i’ll get back to 187. Throughout seasons 4 and 5 helen attempts to validate her own moral decisions via jon who she once saw herself in. conversely, jon sees both an image of what he could become AND arguably a representation of his past failure in her.

ARCHIVIST

It did. I think… I mean, you remember how I was back then, how paranoid. The Not!Sasha was there, and I could sense something wasn’t right, but I just couldn’t place it. It left me a suspicious wreck. Then when Helen Richardson came in, it seemed like… she was in the same place I was, but worse, further along. I thought, maybe if I could help her, that would mean… maybe I wasn’t beyond help?

(188). helen and jon lie at opposite ends of the same spectrum. both of them derive pleasure from the suffering of others

HELEN

Oh, John! This existence can be wonderful, if you just let it.

ARCHIVIST

[Sadly] I know.

(187). needless to say that a LOT of jon's arc and the themes surrounding him focus on the concept of autonomy and addiction and i think it'd be fair to say that this component is an aspect of that. repressing these qualities is both a way of reaffirming his control and also just.. him trying to be what he perceives as Good, and season 5 is the point at which this comes to the forefront of his character- particularly the line between what is intrinsic and what he truly has control over. a battle of the concept of the self, if you will. while the two share similar traits, jon is intensely moralistic while helen indulges in a twisted sense of hedonism and both are fueled by an inability to expand their viewpoint. helen fully immerses herself within these qualities and intentionally blinds herself to any concepts of morality (indulgence), and jon actively pushes back on this as hard as he can and follows black and white moral framework (repression). this means that in order for their relationship to function he must either accept her, choosing to let go in his personal battle with autonomy OR she must break out of her worldview and conform to standards of human morality which goes against her own nature.

part three: questions i do not have the answer to

so. what does it all mean. WELL. 187 is the boiling point of all this tension. we know that helen relies on jon to validate her sense of self and we know that jon sees himself in helen, both past and present

HELEN

But that doesn’t make any sense. You barely met her. You had half an hour together, and she spent most of that ranting about mazes! She was positively delirious with paranoia!

ARCHIVIST

True. But as you’ll recall, I was pretty paranoid myself at that point.

HELEN

So what? You saw yourself in her? A sad reflection? A possible future?

(187). I’d argue that 187 is demonstrative of jon’s inability to either fall into complete indulgence in intrinsic values that lack moral validity vs. maintain and image of self that does not conflict with the values he attempts to uphold in order to find internal satisfaction and yes both of those concepts are inherently egocentric as he bases his moral judgement on what he can justify to himself instead of what can be calculated via empathy. however. paired with the alternative (helen). is that BAD. is it inherently selfish to do what you perceive as good in order to feed your own savior complex? and if so, is it inherently selfish to indulge in destructive qualities as to not delude yourself? is honesty vs deception a black and white question? if not, where does helen even fall? in not deluding herself does she achieve a moral high ground? IS she deluding herself by denying the potential to be facetiously benevolent at the detriment of both her personal enjoyment and her honesty? does helen even posses the capability to repress her violent qualities? if she doesn't, does she have any autonomy? if she and jon are both inherently selfish and intentionally resistant to introspection, what makes them different? i do not have answers but i do think the text is meant to invoke these questions. i mean,

MICHAEL (STATEMENT)

There was a great evil, she said, and Michael was going to help her fight it. Am I evil, Archivist? Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature? When it embodies its nature? When that nature is created by those which revile it? Perhaps Gertrude believed so. Michael certainly did. He believed everything she told him.

(101).

part 5: conclusion

so once again. what does it all mean. well! even post helen’s death jon continues to fight for autonomy and preserve his moral worldview so. i think that probably indicates something good.

MARTIN

Huh. She couldn’t help what she was, I guess.

ARCHIVIST

She didn’t even try.

(188). i honestly don’t have a thesis i just find it incredibly interesting how the themes surrounding these two intersect and play off of each other. anyways looping back to 187 i do think in a broad sense jon killing helen is representative of him choosing to stick by his convictions and keep fighting. i don’t have any good way to end this but thanks for sticking around during my self indulgent rambling!

#also apropos of nothing but #this scene reminds me of a clive barker story #truly that has nothing to do w this analysis i just wanted to throw this in the tags #anyways! hope this makes sense #i had a friend who’s never listened to tma read over this to make sure that it’s coherent #and she said it was fine so.. alice ty #this was fun! i have lots of Thoughts on tma and i should write them more often #the magnus archives #mag 187 #jonathan sims #the archivist #helen richardson #helen distortion #michael shelley #tma meta #the distortion #the spiral #tma

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dickstailcoat · 3 years

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So, I’m finally near the end again of SNS 1 (who needs sleep anyways) and I already have thoughts when comparing it to later stories he has written, be it in the SNS series or entirely new ones. I’ll provide a more thorough in-depth analysis once my notes are organized and I don’t have to deal with my day-job, but here’s a huge observation that I already see in book 1:

Rob is way in over his head.

From the get-go, we see a feminist character who is not as inclusive as many readers would like to think or feel. Repeatedly, she body shames herself, as if this is all women think about when considering their appearances, and judges other women for their ideals. She defies expectations of women, yet bows down to a man, ignoring that strong pillar of her personality. She preaches inclusivity yet shuns other women in the story who are bound by society and literally have no choice. There is something strange about her, as if she is a hero, but not one who knows the depths of the problems she faces, or the consequences of what her actions might bring.

In layman’s terms: throughout the story, there is just something off.

Eventually, the plot dwindles into some far-off abyss (let’s be honest, since book 2, the plot has gone south), and we get a more and more superficial character who appears to be all over the place in her ideals and morale, and less and less a strong woman. As a consequence, we see that core pillar of her personality, being a feminist, disappear.

This is when as the reader, if you take a critical eye to it, you realize what that ‘something’ is. She reminds you of your brother, father, uncle, grandfather, boyfriend, husband, and male friend. She knows the issues exist, she sees them, she can critically assess them, she even constantly makes light of them, but she doesn’t truly experience them fully as all women do.

Now, I’m a clown myself who often tries to make light of situations; however, I know even I will break sometimes because being a woman sometimes really sucks. I know Lilly hasn’t experienced sexual assault like many have, but she has experienced restrictions and worry over what will happen to her if she doesn’t conform to the expectations. I’m living in an very open society, and I still feel anxious, nervous, and upset over that. I still sometimes feel sad because there will always be a man saying I can’t. This happens to her too – repeatedly – and she barely bats an eye. But, she is a female character, so why doesn’t she?

The reason for this is simple: Rob is a man, and can never fully comprehend the true worries, fears, and issues women faced now, let alone then when they were much more severe.

As you read on, you begin to wonder as a reader: whose voice is this? Is it the author’s or Lilly’s? It is normal for an author to put a little bit of themselves in a character, sometimes even more so! But there is a problem when it is a man doing it to a female character. We start to see the mix of ideals and experiences; we start to see the boundary where a male writer cannot grasp what women go through on a day-to-day basis.

That would be fine initially, perhaps, for any new author. Why should we limit artistic expression? But it starts to blur into the reader’s perspective as to whether Rob himself feels this way. Because in this story, it is one single ‘joke’, and is never dealt with - not once - properly. We don’t know for an absolute fact if he himself feels this way, he’s never made it clear! But it starts to look worse and worse as the stories go on and women are less and less powerful except when they are needed to bring the reader back in from the lost plot, as if to say “Hey look! I do care sometimes!”

The result is an author writing about inclusivity, but instead, it comes across as discriminative. We have a single flat tone, as if someone is pressing a C note throughout the story, and never progressing. I don’t know about you guys, but if Taylor Swift played one single note for her entire career, none of us would be listening. It stays there the entire time, a ruler-straighter tonality of constant comedy, turning and warping the inclusivity into cheap plot devices, and mental walls for the readers that he has to shakily try to break every so often.

With that in mind, after a few books the author’s ‘colours’ start to show if this continues.

I started this series way back in the age of the dinosaurs, and adored it. I still do! I have nothing against the stories themselves or characters, I love me a good Victorian romance, but my goodness – the way the subject matter is dealt with is practically insulting of late!

I decided to go back to SNS 1, and look at it critically, as if I’m back in uni trying to dissect Shakespeare. Worryingly, it’s already visible in book 1, and is excused repeatedly with commentary by the author using what I like to call ‘false empathy’. An Instagram commenter recently mentioned that A/Ns are unprofessional, and I agree, I think they’re dangerous. It is better to be upfront in the Prelude or Foreword, or shameless about the fact that you don’t care (G.R Martin, anyone?) because this starts to add the author’s view. With Rob constantly trying to excuse things, it makes everyone question things more and more – although perhaps in light of recent events, this is a good thing.

The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, “This was how it was in the time” is not an excuse to have the main female character constantly beat her appearance and dismiss other female characters whilst her own personality is diminished. It tricks readers into thinking a male author cares - but does he? Can he? Will he ever truly understand?

Probably not, it’s impossible.

However, this doesn’t mean he needs to stop, and that I despise his stories (okay, maybe a little bit 😉). It means he needs to change. It can’t be ‘this is what happened and this is how it was’. It needs to be this is how it was, this is what happened, this is how it felt, and this is it’s impact. It means he needs to read a book on feminism and issues women experience. It means he needs to ask women to gain a view as to how these things actually feel, and to gain insight into how it’s not something to make a 24/7 joke out of for multiple years. He needs to read up on how those who do not fit the particular ‘box’ of discrimination he is dealing with tend to not like it when you constantly make fun of it tactlessly. There are ways to go about it, you can be funny and deal with serious issues.

Instead, Rob has chosen (and I mean chosen, the OG fandom has been trying for years to message and help this get fixed) to continue on this flatlining path where the star of our story is turned into a joke and a male stereotype of women. It is a shame, because Lilly is pretty damn cool, but he conveniently plucks that core principle out of her as the books go on, until she is eventually a husk whose only purpose is to be funny.

In case you guys ever wondered why the OG fandom stopped reading, stopped being active on the content, and why we only post memes and have turned these two into a running joke, but still keep original Lilly in our quotes, this is why.

#storm and silence #sns #rob thier #lilly linton

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jedimordsith · 3 years

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How do you deal with doubts as a writer? I am currently writing a fic but I keep wanting to restart because its not “perfect” or the way I hoped it would be. I hate restarting and I just want to finish it, but I’m so unhappy with where the story is right now. It’s really making me doubt myself and my capability of making a good story.

First off, please accept all the hugs. 🤗🤗🤗 It is crazy hard and super frustrating when fic doesn’t work the way you want.

I’m not sure how cohesive my thoughts are today, but I’m going to try to answer this as best I can.

1. Remember that there’s no such thing as perfection.

This sounds cliche, but it’s a hard (and inconvenient) fact. Language is inherently incomplete and fluid. To make matters worse, we all speak/write and consume it through the lens of our own understanding and experience. So it is physically impossible to produce anything that absolutely 100% conforms to our vision and is perceived the way we perceive by everyone else all the time.

While this can be cause for frustration, it can also prompt us to give ourselves the grace we both need and deserve as creators.

2. Blame the muse.

Have you seen Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk about muses? As someone who has written both under the influence of a muse and strictly via formula as “work,” I deeply hold to the idea that muses (a) are real, (b) can be fickle, and (c) cannot be rushed.

If something is fighting you, it may not be a reflection of you at all. Some stories have a life of their own and that’s okay. Viewing things through this lens doesn’t necessarily make it less frustrating when things don’t work, but it does make it easier to keep your head out of an angry, depressive, or doubting spiral when it happens.

3. Give it time.

I know you said you want to finish, and I empathize with that feeling. (So, so much. Really.) But sometimes fics need time to “ripen.” Especially if they are complex or near and dear to our hearts.

Case in point: Gift and DBW each took around 3 years to complete and even then neither is as good as it could have been.

If you can, maybe set the fic aside and work on something else. Or make a deal with yourself to finish a full draft and then set it aside. Make a list of things that aren’t working and then go do other things and let your subconscious chew on it. (I swear to the Force that this does work. Just be prepared to get whacked over the head out of the blue with ideas and solutions.)

Circle back around to the fic every month or every few months and see what happens. You may be surprised at the solutions that “magically” present themselves once you have a little distance!

4. Get a Duck (or a friend).

Are you familiar with Rubber Duck Debugging? Turns out the same process works for us writers!!

As a prime example, I struggled with a particular chunk of Oracle until I sat down and talked through the problem with sweet and patient @celinamarniss, who helpfully pointed out that I’d actually already written the solution into the fic... I just couldn’t see it. 🤯

[Full disclosure: I also talk to my dogs and my Artoo Detoo when I’m writing at weird times and don’t have a person to bug.]

A trusted friend or beta can do amazing things for changing our perspective and feelings about our fics and can be instrumental in getting them back on track when they derail!

5. Check in with the rest of your life.

This one is huge for me. I could literally write you a book on this point by itself.

Writing does not exist in a bubble. If you are tired, stressed, hungry, generally anxious, or overwhelmed, all of those feelings can glom onto your fic and make you feel far worse about it than is actually called for.

So take a step back, check in with yourself, and do some self-care. As a bonus, even if it isn’t the root of the problem, this will definitely set you up to better tackle fixing your fic!!

6. Recognize that the struggle is a sign of growth.

I am watching Haikyuu!! right now and there’s a series of episodes where my beloved Volleyball Idiots are a hot mess. Every member of the team is actively pushing outside his comfort zone, trying new things, and drilling skills. And guess what? They suck. Everything goes from pretty good to disaster. Catastrophe. Gloom, despair, and agony. Seriously.

But it’s temporary. More importantly, it’s a sign of growth. This is true in writing, too.

If you’re writing something that’s challenging you, it means you're at the top of your game and pushing the envelope, dude!! That is the opposite of sucking or being incapable!

I’m not gonna lie -- it can be a miserable feeling while you’re in the trenches, but it also means that if you stick with it, your story has the potential to be amazeballs.

[Further disclaimer: None of this is theoretical or idealistic. This list is legit what I do with my writing when I’m struggling, and it is what I know that other writers, both fanfic and pro, do when they struggle.]

Writing can be a brutal hobby. It can also be breathtakingly beautiful and rewarding. Don’t let the brutal rob you of the breathtaking. It will get better. I promise. ❤️

#writer problems #writer's life #writing advice #writing is hard #long post

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crackcrocs · 3 years

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DEATH WILL ONLY BE THE BEGINNING #3

3. Transformation Central

the entities of my personalities would like to come together in one voice that speaks through me, we or I call this collection of words from the mustiest corners of my brain to this note page to voice something that might come close to what I feel underneath the skin I wear. In all my unorganised words- I might even go as far as to call this a poem, titled:

‘TRANSFORMATION CENTRAL’

sub characters in my head would appreciate if this could be visualised & understood through as deep a lens as humanly possible. even I confuse myself so if you can decode or relate to any of this, wonderful. If not, I’m locked in my own mind, swallowed the keys to my soul.

SIMILARITIES & INTERCONNECTEDNESS BETWEEN HUMAN & PLANT CONSCIOUSNESS EXIST! if you look closely at my nose freckles you’ll see the resemblance of the constellations above. if you look at the human veins & the layout of a tree, this is further proof.

{VISUALS THROUGH A SEPIA WINDOW STARING @ THE AUTUMN LEAFS; IMAGINING THE SEEDS UNDERNEATH, THROUGH NUMB ROOT VESSELS THAT PERMEATE THROUGH EVERY MEMBRANE OF MY EXTERNAL TO INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT}

~FEATURING THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF DEPRESSION & PERFECTIONISM.

here goes:

What is this part of my mind ?

If you want; delve inside-

I may look sweet like Alice,

but underneath it all

I deteste looking in the mirror

-cos I see the mad hatter.

my inner child needs a platter-

full of care not distortion & abuse pls.

less fibbin would’ve been a breeze.

now following the dead fish in the stream!

HOW on EARTH do I fit with the cod & the Haddock?

I’m the rainbow fish- beat & battered.

dim my own light cos I’m too afraid to shine.

alone.

thieves tried to steal my shiny scales.

I sat and watched them grow.

In the sea realm they were mean gargantuan selfish whales, with poisonous shark fangs & alligator tails. scorpion hands. (gremlins)

and still they make me feel like the alien-

I cant take it.

Make it make sense ?

I can’t.

controller in my hand-

Off balance stance.

anxiously I move round like a wobbly jelly.

where’s the button to balance my chi & shut out the ego ?

the teLLIE telling lies to our vision!

change the channel aura terracotta orange- daily dosage of vitamin D & C.

catch me sun gazing by the sea

head buzzin like a bee.

speaking from a dusty box

stuck on top of a forbidden shelf

cos I dunno how else.

I’m tryna delve deep but forgot how to dive

How can i visualise? scenery foggy-

the establishment man with the glue gun got me xD

inner monk burning but at peace

Cos I refuse to believe

If the only way is the American dream

Interconnected; like the frog in science -let’s dissect it!

down to every floating atom spirit neighbouring your door

subcategories & divisions, it’s more!

than the rich and the poor -prism that’s been built

do we all feel like a performance monkey on stilts?

will my data be extracted & used to mould a robots personality some day?

well obviously not.

does the price of our lives all amount down to slave ways?

LABOUR YAY!

but morals & values it seems we’ve forgot.

sO If i don’t speak its cos I’m lost.

or maybe i’m enlightened-

Standing at the edge of the porch;

watching TRYING to understand how the flowers grow.

questioning eVERYTHING man made!

I’ve stepped out of the perfect picture frame

I can see the coal pollute the sky

I need to hop on the train-

but I’m comfortable

Sunset to sunrise statue standing still.

what’s the ingredients to life’s yucky pie?

I’ve exceeded mental lotteries.

Sanity n universal peace would be a trophy.

TIL then I’ll be crafting & shaping a solid pottery reality,

with a few pence, gum, and a bandana of belongings tied to stick.

thinking one day I’ll be laying the bricks

& building a kingdom of bliss.

guess for now I’ll use the intricate delicate materials in my tool box- that’s all I’ve got.

might have a long way- maybe worth a shot.

I observe, cruisin in the sky.

dunno why..

I jus look @ the hills.

Only time & history reveals.

no thanks mr men-

I don’t want your prescription pills.

there’s enough propaganda as it is.

I won’t jump on the merry go round-

til my core trusts & envisions we’ll actually feel safe!

I don’t want to take part in this faux fur, sweet nothings & a jack in a box punching blur, so called future.

oh and genuinely thanks quarantine-for once again, I can hear bird sounds!

guess this is me tryna speak out loud!!!...

it’s not thrilling

system time killing everything-

mother nature’s oxygen

everything is nauseating

clock ticking, I better start creating.

they should write a book on how to be free when the system set us up to believe that we’re tied to the cut down trees that gives them a currency of greed that they breed.

If blindfolded, I don’t wanna eat what they feed.

Whilst they profit of us -tell us smile and the bandits don’t wanna see us happy.

they’re too busy robbing all our hoods.

In exchange for the silence, they’ve granted us with a 21’st century fashion garment of a slave muzzle! labelled conform.

More delusion to add to the already desensitised norm.

zootonic diseases, welcome covid 19 to your plastic kiddy tea party!- apologies for questioning your motive!

Been handed too many hot plates with a post it note saying HOLD THIS.

we’ll be okay just hush.

Same Shan message told to every generational seed.

If we don’t TRY overpower-

we’ll never succeed!

it’s getting even more scary.

Artificial intelligence.

Societal negligence..

my canvas isn’t clear-dunno am I schizo ?

finger painting, cos it makes more sense.

struggling to blend.

borderline conspiracist pretending to be fine;

moving the goal post, hovering above the race line.

who made the chalk? who set the lanes?

I wanna know it all, maybe¿ far past insane.

I can fit all I need in the palm of my hand,

Maybe even less! cut a finger off not sure it’ll even add stress.

hi from personality Peter, even sober- always away with the fairies.

Pass the pixie dust, I’m in a rush

Found shelter in the comfort of pan physicists timer, no not the one on your phone!

Ring ring, skeptical! is it my demon or my mommy on the phone?

I’m stuck in the airspace of an infinite glass filled with beach particles trying to form myself standing up still attempting not to slip through the hands of my very own discovery.

time is running out & ill go when I go.

I’m sitting inside the fly trap -

stardust, chakras can you feel the sensation colors like a starburst.

deep emotion is a curse.

still entrapped in the sand dune of nothingness-

flipping a domino monopoly of solidified thoughts as I sway with the wind.

I’m the trapped sandbox in the playground & the slipping sand in my own hands.

Inhale chronic but I wanna enter the quiet realm of white noise

-color of a wife beater vest, calmer than the ease in ignorance of a red neck.

sadomasochistic, messes.

but oblivion, seems like less stress.

Unfortunately I can see, with all eyes

empathetic paralysis, gets me vexed.

Punching truth into the core of your chest!

It’s not funny, neither is the one on the receiving end..

My limbs are numb

& im done playing octopus alchemy.

I want minimalism & life can be simple,

Evil entities have made it hard.

Maybe I’ve got stars above my head like an old cartoon character.

But I can’t make it make sense, are they out to get me. worse all of us? Or have I bottled myself tryna re mesh the broken shards,

I feel glued to the floor cos there’s a pretty price to pay if you want more.

I see life through a different lense, maybe born downside up, Benjamin button I came out the back door-

Outside looking in, digesting confusion.

Is to be a product of environment a sin?

rummage through my messy brain.

personalities sardine packed in this tin

I’m the wizard of my mania

Scaring & attracting the black crows-

they’re my friends.

Sometimes still a cowardly lion

Roaring pain & true riddles at the wrenching wicked witch posse of the west.

will my voice ever be loud enough to shed light wit my words and grate the sweet zest

In to the cake i’m baking?

Probably not.

Got more thoughts than the autumn leaves collected by the garden rake. alone.

gathering & storing the pains of yesterday.

sometimes I stay in line

Other times in my head Im on my hands juggling out of time.

but I really don’t mind if I lose or win.

we all have a pace

I jus don’t want the 1% to win the race.

It’s unfair!

Humanity does anyone care ??

Half lady

half fairy

Good MOOrning-

from my anagrams.

no I’m not a cow.

twister fidget spinner brain in the flesh-

form of expression this time around lyrics.

feel I’m jus a silly rubix

& still mourning

I don’t like dairy

pass the oat milk.

Are you aware the industry are sabotaging our diets?

we want peace!

the powerful elite-

perceive & deceive

the scene they want us to be.

chuck the narcissistic psychopathic pie back in our face-

every time we almost found & addressed the Programme & Control man in the maze.

evil & extroverted- he said that the anarchists have to be the cause of riots.

working isn’t class. I said let’s switch roles- he said pass.

It’s piss! Who’s got the bomb & the guns?

Who got the land? off wit OUR heads 4 fun!

it’s pure scary.

Pharmaceutics handshake.

with the cooked up suppliers, also crooked wack liars.

I’d rather shot a gallon of bloody blubbery infused slaughter house milk

If it meant we didn’t use cocoons for silk.

why not add a drizzle of bleach to the concoction & maybe that’s a reach.

every time I guzzle fakeness, it taste peak.

I want real fruit, what next-

a seedless peach ???

what’s the difference between a weirdo & a freak?

layers & levels to the shit.

Magnifying tapping the window of society, I’ll be puffing green til I get to the land of Oz.

sponge soaked soaking up emotions

Suffocated by deduction of care in life

feel entrapped in this paradigm

what am I thinking ?

got the verbs & a cuppa tea

It’s mixed with torment & desire to be free.

I’d rather be awake than asleep

When I get too comfy I feel weak

Demons they reap

underneath

rip the seems as I bleed

Concrete

Solid

Emotions

Is all you’re getting

It’s all sad scenes in the imagery I’m setting

people need care we seem to be forgetting

why are we in debt wit

a posse of clowns

pay the price so we can get a frown

here’s some seratonin

quit ya moaning

life is all sound

aw yeh¿ if you’re not an over thinker!

product of environment- Sirius flickers

theyve done a ritual like it’s Wicca

now here’s your gold sticker..

for managing to co operate.

In this world fuelled off of evil n hate

waking ups a bloody disgrace

I am not amazed.

Man I love my fam n my friends

Just hate this part of my brain that feels the need to play pretend

sometimes I feel insane

but I’m calm

need to escape so I don’t do harm

Gold lioness in the sky by the sea

with puff the magic dragon

fire out my mouth, fuel helps me breathe

I will shine bright

Promise imma be alright

even tho I’m not sure why

I function like this

I wanna be myself

It’s just hard to find the comfortability

To feel happy and pretty

Lay me down on a bed of roses

Ring around sing about overdose emotions

Sorry dunno how to communicate

Heads in a constant debate

Should I go or should I stay

My head clashes

Burnin the next ciggy as my thoughts become ashes.

#LCZABIBU #deathwillonlybethebeginning

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

Text

10/6/2021 DAB Transcript

Jeremiah 6:16-8:7, Colossians 2:8-23, Psalm 78:1-31, Proverbs 24:26

Today is the 6th day of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I am Brian, it is wonderful to be here with you today. As we continue our journey and settled into this 10th month of the year, as we continue our journey through the book of Jeremiah and the letter to the Colossians. We’re reading from the Common English Bible this week, Jeremiah chapter 6, verse 16 through 8 verse 7.

Commentary:

Okay so, we’re reading in the 2nd chapter of the letter to the Colossians in the New Testament. And, what Paul lays out today is our reality and in describing that reality he’s kind of coming against some other behaviors that have been taught, like this is what will lead you to righteousness. So, he says don't let anybody judge you about eating or drinking, or about a festival, a new moon observance or sabbaths. These religious practices are only a shadow of what was coming. Don't let anyone who wants to practice harsh self-denial and worship angels rob you of the prize. And so, what is the prize? The prize was described today. Literally, I can't say it in another way that's better, or teach it, like Paul teaches it out of this letter exactly as it's intended to be received, so I simply want to reread about five verses while highlighting this is supposed to be the reality, we live in. This is supposed to be what normal looks like to us. And so, Paul says “See to it that nobody enslaves you with philosophy and foolish deception which conform to human traditions and the way the world thinks and acts rather than Christ. All the fullness of deity lives in Christ's body. So, all the fullness of God lives in Christ's body. And you have been filled by Him who is the head of every ruler and authority. In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision not administered by human hands. The circumcision of Christ is realized in the stripping away of the whole self, dominated by sin. In other words, that was cut away and discarded, the self, dominated by sin. You were buried with Him through baptism and raised with Him through faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead, because of the things you would done wrong and because your body wasn't circumcised, God made you alive with Christ, and forgave all the things you had done wrong. He destroyed the record of the debt we owed with its requirements that worked against us. He canceled it by nailing it to the cross.” Oh, that is our reality. And it's not like we have encountered these concepts in Paul's writings, but here it is laid out concisely, we aren't who we were. Things have changed. We have changed. In fact, so much so that who we were is well, dead, no longer existing. We have been resurrected into a new life. Again, this is kind of, I mean it's a mind blowing, let's not, let’s not take that off the table, its mind blowing. But it's also essential Christian teaching, like 101. It's the basic understanding. But man, if we could get the fundamentals, if we could get the basics down, because if we look at this and this is the reality, then why don't we live like this is the reality? Like, that’s the question, right? If this is the reality and we’re now living in reality than what are we doing, besides living in a false reality that is considerably less then what the good news offers us? On one hand, we can make this really encouraging and bolster ourselves and rise up, and yeah, we’re going to do this, but on the other hand, this is not really just about us. This is how the world will know, this is how Earth's people, who do not know Jesus will come to understand. We have been entrusted; we’re supposed to be living this reality. Anything less is just less.

Prayer:

And so, Holy Spirit, come into that. We confess that we have elected to live less, more of the time, then is easy to admit. The letter to the Colossians tells us that the fullness of God is in Christ, and we are filled by Christ who is the head of every ruler and authority, that's hard to get our mind, it's so big and so good, it's hard to get our minds around. And yet we choose to ignore things like this when there, they change everything. You change everything and we just try to moderate that which essentially makes us live less than You've offered. And we don't want to do that anymore and we need to not do that because we are the light of the world, a city on a hill, the salt of the earth. And so, come, Holy Spirit, not only let this message transform our own hearts and encourage us but give us a sense of purpose and understanding about why this reality has been offered to us in the first place. Come, Holy Spirit into this we ask You to lead and direct us and guide us. Lead us into all truth. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here, so be sure to check that out. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can check it all out with the drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. Places like the Community section which is well, that's where different links are to get connected on social media, provided social media platforms are up and running but it is also the home of the Prayer Wall. The Prayer Wall is there and available day or night, no matter where you are in the world and no matter what is swirling around in your life, you don't have to be alone, which is one of the things that we worked so hard around here on as we come around the Global Campfire, to know that we’re not alone. Just that one thing, that one piece of knowledge, even if it's just knowledge that we’re not alone is so helpful sometimes when we feel nothing but alone. And the Prayer Wall is always there and so you can always go and ask our brothers and sisters to pray for us. We can also go and pray for our brothers and sisters. And that's how works right, we give and we receive and we give and we receive from one another in so many different ways, so don't be a stranger to the Prayer Wall.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this mission to continue to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered to anyone who can hear it, anyone who will listen anywhere on this planet, any time a day or night, and to build community around the rhythm, as we call it the Global Campfire. This rhythm, the next step forward together. If that is meaningful to you, then thank you for your partnership, we wouldn't be here at all, if we weren't in this together. So, thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And of course, if you have a prayer request or encouragement; certainly, the Prayer Wall is a place to go but you can also hit the Hotline button in the app, that little red button up at the top, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hey everybody, Tony the Narrator here. Just a big shout out to everybody just to let you know that I’m praying with you and for you. I love all of you but yeah. Quick prayer request if possibly; my Mum’s come down with COVID for the second time. She's had both of the Oxford shots and she still come down with it and she's got a cold at the same time and it's really, she's, she's going through it, bless her, she's going through the ringer. She actually got it in November 2019 before we all knew what it was. So yeah, it was, it was, she was one of the very early cases and she picked up a new version of it so, if I could just, please beg your prayers over my mum. I’ve already told her that your all praying because I know that I can trust you guys in DABC. I’ve told her that she's got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Christians around the globe praying over her right now because time is irrelevant when you’re speaking to the Lord and she also said to say thank you and she said all that’s lovely, which is very English thing, don’t worry. And so, yeah, please hold my mom up in prayers she’s going through it and this is a really beautiful opportunity for me to be able to share the gospel with her and to let her know that actually she's got a Jesus who is caring for her. So, guys, I love you so much. I'm going to be able to share the gospel with my mom because of you and I love all of you. You’re all mine.

Hello beautiful family this is Susan calling from Albuquerque. I just wanted to lift a couple people up in prayer. The first one: Mark the teacher in Australia, he called about his brother who's been missing in the Outback for a couple months now and can’t imagine how, how worried you must be. I'm just kind of speechless. I can’t imagine. And the other is Bonnie from Virginia who has managed, who came here from another country and I'm assuming it's from a culture that, where women are thought of as no less important than dogs. And I, you came over here and managed to escape from a very big abusive situation. Oh, my goodness, you are so courageous and I'm so grateful you are here, there is no accident you came here and we're just all loving you and supporting you and I just wanted to say that and I'm so glad you called in. So, Father I wanted to lift up Mark and Bonnie today and we come together because Your family we love you very much and we love Your children and our brother and our sister. Please encourage Mark. Please help him find his brother-in-law. I know that they're terribly worried and they need peace of mind, please comfort this family and help them find an answer very soon. And Bonnie, please continue her recovery from this abusive marriage. I'm all out of time now. Love you all.

Good morning my DAB family. This is Judy from Georgia. This message goes to Victoria Solider. Victoria, I'm so sorry my sister to hear about your brother passing. May God comfort and keep you in His care and comfort the rest of your family and give you the strength to get through this time of mourning. We’re all praying for you my dear. Have a great day everyone. God bless you all.

Good morning Daily Audio Listeners all around the world and here in the United States. This is Maurine from Alexandria. I want to call myself Dr. M, because that's how many people refer to me. So anyway, I wanted to let you know that I am so grateful to all of you for your contributions, for your prayers and I want to say a quick prayer for everyone today, Sunday. For your healing, for your deliverance, for God's peace and for God’s protection in your life. For all those who are suffering from COVID, I pray for God's healing. For all those who have lost their loved ones, I pray for God's comfort. For all those who are finding strength in the word of God, may you be strengthened in every area of your life. Father, thank You so much for my brothers and sisters all over the world. Thank You so much for this place where we can come together to pray and to study Your word. May Your divine presence strengthen, encourage, provide, protect and heal. In the name of Jesus, by the way, thank you for such a beautiful, beautiful time together daily. And we ask that your blessing continue on Brian and his family. Lord, we love You, we bless You, we worship You. In Jesus name. Amen.

Good morning everybody, it’s Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower calling. I just want to lift up Victorious Solider in prayer today and her family, over the loss of her loved brother. Dear God, dear God, I am so thankful that her brother has been saved and is enjoying the benefits of his faith here on earth. I am joyful that his heart and soul and mind and body are with you, right at this time. But for those left behind God, it's hard. And I pray Your arms of comfort about each and every one of them and that You would strengthen them and guide them and lead them through this hour of grief. I pray dear Lord that You would especially bless Victorious Soldier with leadership she needs in guiding this family through this terrible time. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

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fakeboitherottengirl · 4 years

Text

my 100 ideas

Most of these totally suck but i wrote 100 of them so let me know if any of them sound like something you would read or have any ideas for how to spice them up with blood and gore and how to get the most shock possible out of the idea.

-Two girls become drifter killers to fund the abortion of father-daughter incest

- Zombies like EDM and converge on a rave, replacing the drugged up crowd with nobody noticing

-human farming and a cannibal restaurant

-girls discover fairies and torture them

-two pageant stars become pro-ana superstars

-people earn points in an online game called “Calligula” by committing crimes and filming them

-A boy befriends a vampire trucker and reminds him of his last mortal love

-mall goths murder a “poser” in the woods

- De sade as a transcript of a hurtcore chatroom

-neighborhood kids who congregate at “dirt Hill” bully a child to death who comes back and haunts them in their teens

-A suicide club starts at a highschool

-Oliver twist remake where they are prostitutes instead of thieves

-A glitch in time leaves a rapist turned into a child and lands him at the mercy of his victim

-killer caterpillars

-Aliens that can only get you if you think of them

-A bulimic girl vomits up a baby

-Monsters live in the sand of a beach

-Experiments done on kids to turn them into weapons

-A pedophile on the run with his victim writes a fake memoir supposedly penned by the victim about murdering his family to escape

-Women storm the white house to torture/kill a rapist president

-An exchange studentl living in germany is called upon by the ghosts of a murdered jewish family to kill the family next door who are descendants of the nazis that killed them

-addicts at the end of the world trying to stay high

-anti-aging cream is made of dead 3rd world babies

-Bigfoot, our protagonist, tries to befriend a group of campers but accidentally kills them all off

-Prtending to be underaged, a girl traps a sadist pedophile in his own BDSM dungeon

-An american pedophile in asia becomes possessed by the ghost of a little girl killed in a brothyl

-a girl mutilates herself in her room in an attempt to look “beautiful” by cutting off all the features she finds ugly

-Satanists overtake a christian summer camp for SRA rituals

-A girl who is being molested’s dolls com to life in order to kill her stepfather, told from the POV of her favorite teddy bear

- A girl falls in love with a ghost who she can only see when she asphyxiates so she becomes hooked on duster

-A mute autistic girl befriends a demon who gets vengeance on her bullies

-Two DID alters fall in love and write love letters to each other in a diary even though they can never exist at the same time, plan revenge on church gardner who abused the host and caused the split in an attempt to be whole

-A child who killed another child is released from prison upon turning 18. When another child goes missing he must solve the mystery to clear his name with the help of his murder victim’s sister (who turns out to be the real killer)

-An adopted girl, upon turning 18, searches for her birth family only to discover a human puppy mill

-Two little boys abduct and murder another at a carnival and watch the panic unravel as the adults search for him

-A cult leader drives his followers to mass suicide

-A mother and daughter break a murderer out of jail and fight for his affections

-a school adopts lobotomies for problem students

-A human trafficker crosses paths with a telekinetic child

-An adopted girl finds out she is the blood heir to an enormous hurtcore ring

-A woman becomes aware that she is a character in a story and begins fighting the writer, who plans to write her into a tragedy

-a rich girl who has spent her life in a self sufficient high rise accidentally hits a lower-floor elevator button to discover that the zombie apocalypse has been happening for over a decade

-The son of a truck stop stripper living motel to motel comes across a magic pack of cigarettes that each grant a wish when smoked. In the end he gives his last one to his mom and she wishes he was never born and he disappears.

-An abusive troubled teen camp in the wilderness combats a masked slasher

-Activists free elephants at a circus but are captured by sadistic clowns

-Patient zero of a zombie virus goes around infecting hundreds of people through her work in a fast food chain because she cant take paid time off

-A vigilante caring for her murdered best friend’s infant has to take out a chain of criminals while still keeping up with the overwhelming task of motherhood

-A new club drug goes around the rave scene, highly addictive, eventually turns you into a zombie but so addictive people cant stop using it

-A girl wakes up and lives the same day out 100 times, with each day becoming more gruesome and out of control as she tries to stop the death of her best friend from happening

-A woman with no memories is arrested for involvement in a hurtcore ring

-Teens in a mental hospital after a rash of suicide attempts begin to die in strange accidents around the hospital

-A girl singer rising to fame realizes shes being prepared to be sacrificed by a death cult

-A boy who accidentally murdered his sister as a child becomes obsessed with a local girl who looks like she would have grown up to and stalks her, killing everybody close to her to “get his sister back” for his dying mother

-after trying acid for the first time a college girl is dragged back in time and witnesses the slaughter of the natives by settlers and is taken in by a native family fighting back

-A conscious zombie takes out a white supremecist stronghold

-Teens at a christian youth retreat battle a tentacle monster that feeds on virginity

-A haunted house bonds with the family that it is killing after falling in love with the lonely teenage daughter

-After abuse in the industry, a porn star seeks revenge against the producer who abused her, rendering her infertile

-A little girl who lives in a funeral home forms a bond with a senile old man who believes her to be his dead wife reincarnated

-A cursed school play production where the creepy theater teacher has a deal with the devil to sacrifice the lead girl, who grows a thirst for blood

-Upon puberty a girl starts to gruesomely turn into a mermaid despite her family’s assurances that these changes are beautiful and special

-a homeless prostitute forces her son to be her daughter in order to scam and kill pedophile men

-somebody nearby dies whenever a child sucks her thumb and she tries to break the habit

-after discovering her beloved guide dog is a demonic hell hound who needs human flesh to survive, a blind girl goes about finding deserving victims for him to eat

-A band of punk rockers find themselves set upon by nazis after one is killed at their show, the nazis have super-meth

-Everyday life in a small town is disrupted when the residents awake to find themselves living with grotesque cartoon physics

-A date-rapist catches an STD that turns his penis sentient and against him

-A boy who has never seen the sunlight is identified as a kidnapped infant and returned to his family, who have no idea how to handle his PTSD

-A tween popstar’s lyrics contain satanic messages that make his fans killers they kill their families and go on robbing sprees to afford his concerts

-A prim and proper young woman crosses a zombie-infested city to reunite with her (female) childhood best friend who she is in love with

-A chubby loner girl suddenly becomes an asset to her girl scout camp when it is set upon by monsters that only she knows how to fight from reading about them in horror books

-A kidnapped boy realizes he is outgrowing his captor’s attraction and sets out to eliminate the competition of new boys brought into the house

-A redneck boy and his incestuously abusive brother are the lone survivors of a monster attack on their family farm and the boy has to decide if he wants to help his abuser survive or take his chances on his own

-A school for poor children where children are farmed for their organs for the rich

-a young junkie discovers one day that he has the power to regenerate lost body parts

-An interracial group of rich friends finds themselves lost in a bad neighborhood overnightdurring a full moon where the occupants of the neighborhood come alive as werewolves

-A small Amish-type religious community is completely cut off from the world during a monster attack and carry on business with no idea that the outside world has collapsed other than that they’ve stopped receiving letters and newspapers. A team is sent out to scout the damage

-A girl who has her driver's license for the first weekend is held hostage as a getaway driver for two sadistic maniacs on their crime spree

-At a sleepover, two elementary school girls decide to kill another

-An ex-amish girl assimilates herself into society right when a monster attack begins to crumble it and must get back to her family to warn them that the world is ending

-Desade’s 120 days rewritten in the modern day hamptons

-a new diet pill causes moths to take up residence in somebody’s digestive system

-a group of white people go to film the “horrors” of a supposedly cannibal tribe, but when their racist notions are false, they force the people to conform to what they expected to find so they have something for their film

-a “murder circus” where participants pay to torture victims runs into a clash with protestors

-fights to the death like dogfighting but with human children

-a young man gives himself up to a sadist to pay off his sister’s drug debt

-A young woman working in the crime scene clean up business tries to shelter her own daughter from the horrors of the world by locking her in their apartment and becoming more and mor agoraphobic

-A home invasion turns the tables when the serial would-be-rapists/robbers break into the home of female vampires

-In the aftermath of the end of the world, a small tribe of hardened cannibalistic survivors now have to face forced assimilation back into society

-Trapped in a building with an active shooter, a group of elementary school kids fight back with school supplies

-An international tour group of study abroad students become stranded in the alps with a snow monster

-a team of serial killers/lovers is put to the test when one of them gets a woman pregnant and decides he wants to quit killing and become a normal person

-A teenage punk with a specialty for giving piercings turns into a back-ally abortionist in a wealthy suburb

-Twins who share a body and each have a head get into a feud over a lover and attempt to separate

-A group of racists find themselves cursed by a flesh-eating virus that starts with a change in skin pigment

-Racists hunting illegal immigrants come up on the wrong side of a desert spirit after destroying water left out by humanitarian groups

-A police force in a poor city is hit with a curse that transform them into flesh hungry pig-monsters and the local youth must take them out to protect their neighborhood

-A massive flood turns into a struggle for survival for a dorm building full of art students

-A woman is convinced that her son, conceived through a rape, is a demon

-A mental hospital during a zombie outbreak

#writeblr

23 notes · View notes

ptrparkcrs · 4 years

Text

& you say rise above (self-para)

summary: peter meets an old friend in an unexpected place and faces dire consequences word count: 3002 trigger warnings: violence, injury, death mention, spider-man cops (completely useless, but existent)

It was ten seventeen PM. He had been at work late, probably too late, troubleshooting something small and nitpicky that even he barely understood. At least there was always food somewhere in the building, and FRIDAY liked him enough to not yell at him when he stole a second donut, or a third, or when he ordered an extra-large pizza on Tony Stark’s credit card. As long as he didn’t leave his workspace too greasy and saved some leftovers for Tony, he’d probably be fine.

Whatever it was he had been supposed to be working on, clean energy or artificial intelligence or consumer goods or fancy sunglasses, it probably wasn’t supposed to have been reconstructing the lenses of Spider-Man’s mask to better conform to his facial expressions, but Peter had had to do some repairs after Gabby had torn the thing to shreds. If Tony caught him sewing on the clock, what was he going to do? Let Spider-Man go without a mask? Put Peter’s life at risk? No, he’d be fine. He’d been too antsy to focus on real work, his ribs still healing, his face still a little tender. He’d needed a concrete physical distraction and the satisfaction of knowing he was fixing something.

(He’d be totally fine in a day or two; he was almost there, but Gabby had done a pretty solid number on him. Broken ribs, a black eye, scabs where the pavement had rubbed his chin raw, the whole shebang. He told everyone it was a bike accident, even though he didn’t own a bike, because nearly beaten to death by a chemically ramped-up teenager wasn’t something that could realistically have happened to completely normal, non-superhero guy Peter Parker. In retrospect, he should have said he’d crashed his skateboard into a taxi again, which he had done more than once in high school, but hindsight was 20/20.)

Still, the time spent on the mask during the day had meant a pile of unfinished work, which had meant staying at the tower later. Peter knew that, as best as he’d tried not to be, he was a nepotism hire. He’d waltzed into Stark industries with little training and few qualifications, and he was determined to prove that he was just as suited to be here as anyone else. Yeah, he’d had the internship, but he’d gotten that through sheer dumb luck and minor internet fame, and he and Tony both knew it had been a cover, anyway. Yeah, he had a college degree, but most of his actual work experience had been mediocre photography for a vaguely predatory, second-rate newspaper. He’d been a child prodigy, sure, but last he’d checked most child prodigies peaked sometime around high school, and building the Spider-Man suit for personal gain wasn’t about to go on his resume. He knew any interview process he’d gone through had been performative; he knew that the job had been his no matter what, so long as he hadn’t actually blown up the company. He didn’t want Tony to regret his decision, and he really did want to keep his job. That meant actually doing his work, even if he did have to stay long past dark.

So he’d finally finished—the work and the mask—and headed home to find Sandwich demanding a second dinner and a walk. Fine. Okay. He could do that.

“All you’ve got going for you is your body, bud,” he said. “Don’t know why you’re so determined to ruin that.” Sandwich was beautiful, in a scraggly rescue dog kind of way (Aunt May said he looked like the dog from Annie, which was probably a compliment), but he was also dumb as a rock. He put a few treats in the bowl anyway and went to find a leash.

As he dug through the storage cube where he was sure he’d left the good collar, Peter heard sirens. They sounded close, maybe a few blocks away, and getting closer. His police scanner was on his nightstand, but there wasn’t time to check. Sirens were as good a cue as any.

“I’ll be back soon,” he told Sandwich, as he grabbed his suit from the pile on the floor, pulled it on, and headed towards the window. “We’ll walk later. Promise. Please don’t eat the couch again while I’m gone.”

The dog grunted and went back to eating.

&&&

Web swinging was hard today. His body groaned with every movement, resisting the stress of his acrobatics. Still healing. He hadn’t realized she’d gotten him quite that badly; he’d been up against way worse than a single teenage girl, but he hadn’t had anyone try so determinedly to kill him from such close range in a long time--not since Norman, or maybe Harry, but that had felt a little more reluctant. Fine, he’d go easy on the somersaults.

So long as whatever was up there wasn’t a troupe of murderous acrobats, he’d probably be okay. At least the new mask was holding up well.

What was up ahead, three or five or seven or twenty-six blocks from his apartment, he’d lost count, was—lights. Sirens. Yelling. A strange, echoing thump-thump. Shit. He dropped himself onto a rooftop to survey the scene, his ribs only groaning a little bit as he landed in a crouch. A bank, long closed for the night, its windows smashed. A row of police cars, like a barricade. Coming in from the north, fire trucks, an ambulance. A small throng of bystanders, their phones out, edging around the scene. A trail of broken asphalt running away in the opposite direction.

And in the middle of it all, a figure.

A man, maybe. In a long jacket, something more than the night obscuring his face. He—if it was a he—didn’t seem very big, but he hovered several feet above the ground, supported by what appeared to be a pair of giant robotic arms. Another pair spread wide into the night air, lashing at anyone who tried to approach.

Peter was pretty sure he’d seen those arms before, or something very like them. Mostly in sketches, then once or twice in a lab in college, never in use, just propped up safely against the back wall. They help my dexterity, Peter. More precise.

But that had been in a secure research lab up at Columbia, where the arms had helped a man’s clumsy hands study nuclear physics at an atomic scale, not ravage a bank on the Lower East Side. Stolen tech, maybe? A copycat? Convergent evolution, two people independently building the same machine at the same time? But what were the odds of that, really? These were robotic arms, not clean energy or self-driving cars. It was too niche. Who was this man, and what could he want?

He swung down, closer, landing on the hood of a police car. The officer standing next to it looked down at Peter and sighed.

“Hey, Spider-Man,” he said. “You can go home. We’ve got this.”

Peter tethered himself to a lamppost closer to the bank and leapt off the hood, angry at his stupid fragile body keeping him from somersaulting away for maximum dramatic effect. “That’s what you always say, Bill.”

��It’s David.”

“I really don’t care.”

He landed on the lamppost, but just barely. The many-armed man had seen him coming and was getting closer, one of his robotic limbs swiping at Peter’s perch. Peter leaped off before the pole could crash down and rolled to the ground, where he finally got a good look at his assailant.

He hadn’t imagined it. He knew those arms.

“Doctor Oc—"

Doctor Octavius. His thesis advisor. A kind, absentminded, academic type, the brand who left their office littered with sticky notes to remember to buy milk, who replied to emails four days late at two in the morning. He’d called Peter a genius kid, said he’d had what it takes to save the world. Because that’s what scientists do, Peter. We change things. We fix them. We make them better. We help the people who can’t help themselves—you get that, don’t you?

Oh, he got it.

Doc was wearing glasses, and his jovial smile had twisted into a sneer, but it was unmistakably him. He lowered himself to the ground, all four metal arms swirling around him.“Oh, great,” he said. “It’s the bug boy. What, couldn’t send any of the real superheroes to stop me? Daddy too busy arresting innocent people?”

With all due respect, Peter thought, what the fuck? Sure, he wasn’t an Enforcer, but his old professor going on a crime spree with a set of weaponized robot arms, probably having some sort of episode, called for enforcement.

He lifted himself off the ground slowly. His body was already screaming for a break, and they were barely getting started. “Look, dude, I respect the whole eight-legs thing, but you don’t gotta be so literal about it. It’s kinda—what’s the word? Tacky.”

Doc lunged at him; Peter dodged. “Wait, no,” he continued. “Kitschy. Campy. Gaudy.” Another swipe, another dodge. “No, I was right the first time. Tacky, it’s tacky.”

The next swipe came from behind him, and Peter jumped out of the way just in time. “What do you even want, Doc? For a guy in tights to teach you that robbing banks and taking hostages is wrong? Congrats, you got it!” He didn’t know if there were hostages; he’d been too stunned by Otto to check, he just assumed there were. There were almost always hostages when the guys in costumes got involved.

“How do you know my name?” Octavius growled.

Yep, there were hostages.

“I dunno, it was just a vibe. You kind of look like my dentist.” And the man who shaped my college career, but same thing.

Most nights he could go on like this forever. Banter, dodge, punch, jump, repeat. Talk him into submission, until he was too worn down by Peter’s endless punchlines to punch back. Tonight, he was tired. He was injured. He had a dog at home waiting for a walk. This needed to be quick—rescue the hostages, get Otto taken in and looked after. (Kindly, he hoped; the Otto Octavius he knew was a good man, and was probably in there somewhere, scared and confused.) In the morning, maybe Peter Parker could call to innocently, coincidentally check in on his old mentor and get the full story.

“You’re a nuisance, Spider-Man. You know that, don’t you?”

“So it said on my report cards.”

Octavius stepped closer, and Peter webbed one of his metal legs to the ground, but he kept swiping. In his real arms, the human ones, Peter could see a briefcase, presumably full of the stolen money or techno-weapons for looting safety deposit boxes. So he already had what he wanted, but still the hostages, still the rampage, still the crazed look behind those horrible dark goggles. Peter could deal with him, the cops could free the hostages, they’d be fine, this was fine, everything was going to be fine.

But how had this happened—why had this happened? Did he poison everyone he touched? Ben, Gwen, Norman, even Harry, all either dead or driven mad by his proximity. Who next? Tony? May? Steph? MJ? His high school science teacher? His next-door neighbors?

You ruin everything, Peter Parker. They’re safer if you don’t love them, if they don’t love you. You’re a time bomb. A nuclear blast. Look at what you do to them. What you’ve done. You’re not worth it.

His spider sense alerting him to an incoming blow put a pause on the cycle of self-loathing. He couldn’t dodge in time, and an angry fist landed hard against his face. He groaned, and he tasted the blood from his (now probably broken) nose as it dripped into his mouth. “What do you want, Otto?” he spat.

Shit.

“Doctor” he could get away with as a joke, but how would Spider-Man know Doctor Octavius’s first name? He wouldn’t, that’s how. Not unless they knew each other in real life, civilian life, faces uncovered and feet on the ground. Peter, you idiot. His cover, which he had so carefully maintained for the past eight years, was about a minute from being blown by an academic in octopus cosplay.

This shouldn’t have been happening. He was a professional, he was good at this. He had learned from his past, he was doing better, and these were amateur mistakes. He was off his game, that’s what this was. He was exhausted, injured, overworked, stunned by the improbability of it all. His whole life was improbable; he should have known to expect this kind of thing by now, but he wasn’t convinced he wasn’t living out some middle schooler’s sadistic Mad Libs. He still had time to fix this.

Otto said nothing; he just laughed.

Peter tried to launch himself in the air for a swing and a kick, but his reflexes were slowing, his injuries worsening. Whatever healing he’d done had been set back several days, and every movement was more labored than the last. Before he could evade, the arms, all of them now free of webbing, wrapped themselves around him and pulled him in. Peter hissed in response, his exhalation short and shallow, doing his best to suppress a yelp.

“Oh, come on. Personal space, dude,” he said, and the top left arm pinched his wrists together in response. He was now being held fast in evil, sentient handcuffs, no hopes of swinging away in sight. Nothing this stupid would have happened to Tony; Tony would have had lasers and lights and taken out this guy in minutes. Hell, he could have called in the Iron Legion for backup if he’d wanted, but a single man didn’t deserve it. Peter was a disappointment, again. This should have been so easy, and yet.

And yet.

Peter wasn’t Tony Stark.

“Otto,” growled Octavius.

Peter said nothing.

“Why did you call me that?”

This time, Peter squirmed. He was being held tightly, so tightly. His wrists were raw, his chest burning, and at some point, he had started to bleed. Work was going to have to buy bike accident twice this week. ”I told you. You look like my dentist. His name’s Otto. It was a lucky guess.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

His head spun and his mouth tasted like iron and asphalt as the world tunneled in around the edges of his vision. His hands still tied, he tried to gain some leverage with a kick, but the other arms squeezed even tighter until he was sure he felt a crunch. Great. This was it, this was how he died. Sometime around midnight outside a random bank because his college thesis advisor had taken up a life of crime and he’d been too weak and injured to do anything about it. Yeah, that tracked.

“Who are you, Spider-Man?”

Peter couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could only steel himself as his spider sense turned on high alert. Imminent danger, big time. Yeah, he got it. With the human hand not holding the briefcase, Otto pulled the mask from his head.

And immediately dropped him, limp and winded and battered, to the ground.

Peter’s bare skin was so cold, the streetlights so bright, every sound and smell heightened without the mask.

Otto’s face had cleared with recognition, and his sneer fell away. “Peter?”

Peter groaned. Then he peeled himself off the ground and launched a flurry of web bombs until Otto was wrapped tightly all over. It wouldn’t hold long, but it would have to hold long enough to get him taken safely into custody. Locked up in the Raft for ten to life, a brilliant man’s work cut short by his own creation. (Was it too soon to make Frankenstein jokes?) But Peter couldn’t think about the tragedy of it yet. He had to keep moving.

He kept his head down until he found the mask by Otto’s feet. His hands were shaking, and it took impossibly long to fit it back over his head. It was twisted or too small or made for someone else entirely, bunching around his neck and pulling uncomfortably against his swollen face. And then he stood up, wobbly and wheezing, and faced the officers who were pulling the hostages from the building. Maybe they’d been inside. Maybe they hadn’t seen him. Maybe it was okay.

“You’ve got this from here, Bill,” he said, and, with every ounce of willpower he had left, he swung away on shaky arms to pick up his dog, call Aunt May, and hide in his childhood bedroom for the rest of his life.

&&&

The officers may not have seen him, but there had been bystanders. There are always bystanders, just like there are always hostages. They have cameras. They have social media. They flock to danger, to drama, to sensationalism. They post suffering for the likes and the retweets and the fleeting moments of fame. A Spider-Man sighting was pretty commonplace--novel, but not extraordinary. But this tableau, a hero in crisis, an identity revealed, that was media gold. This was a millennial icon’s Pyrrhic victory. This was a new weak spot in the Accords. And under all that bravado, he was just a scared little boy. They didn't recognize him (there was at least one audible boo when someone realized that Spider-Man was just another pasty white boy), but they’d seen him, and that was enough.

The responsible thing would have been to keep his secret, to respect the sanctity of what had happened here tonight. But the bystanders are never responsible.

While all the others had been texting and tweeting and snapping and streaming, at least one had had the wherewithal to take a picture with one of their fancy, enormous, three-lensed phone cameras and capture Spider-Man unmasked, clear as day, battered and bloody but distinctly him, and send it straight to the Daily Bugle.

(The ball’s in your court now, Jameson.)

#( self-para )#( & you say rise above )#tw: injury #tw: violence #tw: death mention #( yeah i fucked with my own canon for dramatic effect sue me )

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texanredrose · 6 years

Text

Happens So Fast

Weiss turned, tray in hand, and scanned the cafeteria with her good eye. Admittedly, the floor plan was much more open than any dining situation she’d been familiar with, students even allowed to eat outside among the trees rather than inside, but there were certain similarities. Open seats in less than ideal positions, friends grouped up together, a few teachers milling around under the pretense of fetching their own lunches while keeping an eye on their charges- typical of any high school, even one so far away from her homeland.

Aside from a surprisingly familiar face, her first day at a new school had come with remarkably few surprises.

“Oh, hey, are you the new girl?”

Up to, and including, that.

“Well, I’m certainly new. Jury’s still out on the second part,” she replied dryly, turning to see the blond boy from earlier that morning, the same one who’d quite nearly lost the fight between himself, his backpack, and the door. “And you are?”

“Jaune. Jaune Arc.” He held out a hand- nevermind the tray she carried- and smiled wide. “I’m a local.”

“Charming.” A sigh slipped past her lips, starting towards the doors; a lunch out among the pleasant air seemed novel enough for her to try it at least once. “Weiss Schnee.”

“That’s a really pretty name.” Keeping pace with her, Jaune hurried ahead to open the door. At the very least, his heart seemed in the right place. “Where are you from?”

“Atlas.” She spied an empty table, which would work well enough. As she sat down, Weiss noticed she wasn’t alone and resigned herself to entertaining company. Honestly, she’d rather enjoyed the distance everyone else had kept so far; back in her homeland, she could hardly take three steps without being surrounded by people who cared about as much for her as most people did about the grass beneath their shoes. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“That’s okay! We can talk about other things.” He offered in a friendly matter. Before she had the chance to point out that she actually intended on eating her lunch, Jaune suddenly went stock still, shrinking down where he sat. “Oh no. It’s them.”

“Them?” Turning around, she followed his gaze to see two groups of people entering the little courtyard in front of the cafeteria, each bedecked in what would be considered uniforms for the sheer conformity of each person wearing it.

On the one hand, bluejeans and black leather jackets, sigils stitched into the right shoulder that provided the only difference between them, calf high boots, and letters across the back- BYRP. This look she’d already dissected, having run into Blake earlier in the day, much to her own surprise, though she hadn’t been formally introduced to the other members of the ‘crew’, as some had taken to calling the four. It painted such a starkly different picture to the Blake she’d become familiar with during her brief time on the shore with the Faunus.

On the other, board shorts and tank tops with sigils on the front and the letters CFVY on the back, putting on display rather impressive muscles from the four, the whole lot also wearing sunglasses though of slightly varying designs.

The two groups seemed to regard the other with very pointed disinterest. It was almost funny.

“They’re bad news.” He puffed out his chest a bit with a little bit of bravado. “Don’t worry, I can protect you; they don’t usually give me any grief.”

“How are they bad news?” She glanced at the young man, raising a brow in askance to prove that she genuinely wanted to know.

“Well, like... they’re gangs, and they start nothing but trouble.” He seemed genuinely surprised when she waved her hand for something more concrete, begging him to continue. “Like- okay, like, BYRP-”

“Burp?”

“Yeah, that’s what they call themselves.” He jerked his chin towards Blake’s group. “Each one of them just gets up to no good. That little one? Her name’s Ruby, and she’s a total speed demon! Always talking about how fast she goes! She’s always getting tickets for speeding and she never pays ‘em!”

“... go on.”

“And, and Yang, the blonde- she’s dating a teacher! A teacher! And, yeah, we don’t know who yet, but she talks about her teacher girlfriend all the time! Probably the only reason she hasn’t been expelled.” A headache began to form and she rubbed at her temple absently. “And Pyrrha, she’s... well, I mean, she can be nice, I guess, but she can break people in half! She’s, like, a black belt, and she’s always getting into fights!”

“Here on campus?”

“No, no, at least not since that one time, but, honestly, the dude kinda deserved it.” He winced. “Cardin’s... a royal ass.”

“Wonderful. What about Blake?”

“Oh, them, well, they used to run with a really rough crowd. Called themselves White Fangs, used to cause all sorts of trouble!”

“And what have they done recently?”

“Uh... oh! They got into it with Professor Oobleck once a few weeks back, trying to correct his lesson about the Faunus Relocation.” A moment passed as he tilted his head. “I mean, Professor Oobleck admitted they were right, but they could’ve been nicer about it.”

Mentally, she summoned the deepest depth of her patience. “And the other group?”

“Oh, CFVY, they’re just as bad!” He quickly glanced around at the sudden uptick in volume his voice had taken, comforted when no one seemed to be paying their conversation any mind. Then he continued in a softer voice. “Well, take Coco. She’s always running red lights and she never followed instructions during art class.”

“Oh, the horror.”

“Look, I’m just saying, there’s a pattern of behavior.” Jaune shrugged. “Fox is always tripping people or shoulder checking them and Yatsuhashi? I mean, look at him, he’s always scowling like that, as if everyone around him is this huge inconvenience. Then there’s Velvet.” He shook his head. “No, she’s not someone to mess with; she lost her ear in a brawl when she went on vacation. Vacation! Can you believe that? People should relax on vacation.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Huh?”

“Where did she go?” Weiss raised a brow. “On vacation.”

“Oh... I dunno.” He shrugged. “Does that matter?”

“Yes, it does, because I can see from here that it’s a clean cut, but not the sort made by a surgeon.” She tilted her head, using her good eye to examine the two groups standing off facing each other. They didn’t seem aggressive, per se, but they definitely looked like they were posturing for show. The question was: who was the show for? “In some parts of Remnant, Faunus still face heavy discrimination.” A frown touched her lips. “My part of the world is most certainly one of them. That’s not the sort of wound inflicted during a bar fight and cleaned up after; it was probably made by a blade, clean enough that whatever medical profession she sought- if any- didn’t deem removing more to be necessary.” Her gaze shifted. “And Ruby hardly looks old enough to be at this school, much less to drive a car. What kind does she drive? Do you know?”

“Uh, no... I’ve... never actually seen her drive.”

“I suspect she doesn’t, especially since I saw her chaining up her bike this morning. And him, Fox you said? Have you ever waved to him and he didn’t react?”

“Oh, all the time! It’s like no one exists around him!”

“... you do realize he’s blind, right?” He pointed out the striped cane- red and dark brown, a strange color combination but it worked. “He literally can’t see, so it’s no wonder he bumps into people who aren’t paying attention themselves.” She sighed. “And the big one, Yatsuhashi. He’s not scowling; he’s quite clearly relaxed. You can tell by the slump of his shoulders. This is coming from someone with a genetic predisposition towards ‘resting bitch face’; I know that look, and it conveys nothing more than disinterest.”

“Well, what about Blake and Pyrrha? They’re still bad news. And Coco.”

“Oh, yes, imagine a student hearing an incorrect history that she has a vested personal interest in and being polite about it being taught incorrectly. See the previous mention I made about ‘heavy discrimination’.” She shrugged. “And you yourself can admit that Pyrrha’s done nothing wrong that you can remember, except beat up someone who deserved the treatment. Not sure about Coco, though.”

With every word, he seemed more confused than before, shifting uncomfortably when she shifted her gaze back to him. “Well, we can at least agree that Yang’s definitely in the wrong, right?”

“Well, let’s see. What’s Yang’s full name?”

“Uh, Yang Xiao Long, but why does that matter?”

“Because the ‘teacher’ she’s dating is my sister,” Weiss replied with a little smirk. “And I can assure you, she doesn’t work here. Or at all, actually; she’s studying at the college for her teaching degree.” She shrugged. “Although we’ve yet to meet face-to-face, Winter made sure to clear it through me before the two started dating, and given the recent development of that relationship, I think that rather effectively debunks the idea that Yang’s some sort of deviant.” A pause, and then she narrowed her eyes. “If anything, shame on the teacher for dating a student, by the by. I think that’s an important distinction to make.”

Jaune blinked, his shoulders slumping. “So... you’re saying...”

“That you should use your eyes- seeing as you have two of them- rather than putting stock in exaggerated rumors.” She stood up, grabbing her lunch tray and giving him a small smile. “And, just to be clear, you should endeavor to learn a bit about a person before judging them one way or another. As another example: I don’t want to date you. I’m a lesbian.”

“I- well- I don’t know what-”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you actually wanted to get to know me as a person before asking me out on a date.” When he remained silent, she nodded. “You’re a nice enough guy, Jaune. But... try to remember that everyone you meet is a person, first, and there’s far more to them than meets the eye.” She turned her head, ensuring he could see the damage done to her left eye that robbed her of vision. “And coming from someone who’s half blind, let me assure you: it was a difficult lesson to learn and even harder to put it into practice. Be thankful you’ve gained the knowledge much easier than I did.”

Turning away, she started towards the groups of troublemakers, who seemed to be quite content trading barbs between them.

Velvet narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. As much as she enjoyed the daily shit talking with Blake’s crew, she did want to eat today. “Look, Belladonna, it’s been fun, but now you’re bugging me. Step off.”

“Like hell I will.” They narrowed their amber eyes. “We go through this every day, Scarletina. Just give it up already. It’s getting old.”

“It really is.” Ruby grumbled, a little furrow to her brow as she outright pouted.

No, she would not lose because of that damn pout. “Then move it. We ain’t got all day.”

“What seems to be the problem?” A new voice cut in, prompting all eight of them to turn their heads to acknowledge the fool who’d dare interrupt their daily beef.

“Oh, uh, h-hi, Weiss.” And in the blink of an eye, her calm and cool rival of years turned into a stuttering, blushing fool. “W-we were, just, well-”

“We’re determining who eats first.” Coco supplied, obviously intrigued by the newcomer’s appearance.

Snapping out of her surprise, Velvet nodded. “Yeah. We ate first yesterday. It’s their turn.”

Weiss blinked. “I’m sorry; you’re arguing for the other group to eat first.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “It’s only polite.” She shot a look at Blake. “But they’re being difficult, as usual.”

“Look, we both know they don’t always have enough pizzas for all of us, and it’s practically the only thing you eat!” Blake snapped out, apparently regaining their ability to properly speak. “So just go in and grab your food, you punk!”

“You’ve got the runt! You go grab food!”

“Okay, my food is getting cold, so as amusing as this is,” Weiss said, turning towards Blake. “You four come with me. You’re eating first today.”

“Finally!” Ruby threw her hands in the air and turned towards the cafeteria. “They better have some cookies left!”

Velvet watched with a smirk, taking a bit of pride in the annoyance flashing across her rival’s expression, but it died in the next moment when Weiss laid a hand on their forearm and pulled their attention away.

“Come along, now. I’d love to hear more about your friends.”

As BYRP started towards the cafeteria, Velvet watched, mood souring with every step.

“Uh oh. Someone is jealous.”

“Shut up, Coco.”

“Wait, who’s jealous?” Fox paused. “It’s Velvet, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Shut up, Yatsu.”

Fox whistled low. “So what’s the score?”

“That new voice you heard was a very pretty girl turning Belladonna into a blushing mess, and our sweet little Velvs is jealous.”

“I am not jealous.” She rounded on her friends, her glare hardly effective against them. “Who would I even be jealous of, by the way? Belladonna? Ha! I could get a girl as pretty as that to go on a date with me.”

“You can’t count yourself,” Yatsu said, earning a groan and two snickers for his contribution. “But, seriously, you think you’re jealous of Belladonna?”

“I am not-”

“Excuse me.” Velvet turned around slowly, coming face-to-face with the woman who’d so effortlessly thrown her rival off guard. “Here.”

Umber eyes fell to find a pizza being held out towards her. “Uh...”

“To make sure they didn’t run out.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Everyone wins.” With a little bit of hesitation, Velvet accepted the pizza box. “There we go. Enjoy your lunch.”

After Weiss had walked away, Velvet regarded her lunch with a furrow to her brow. “I’m stealing Belladonna’s girl.”

Yatsu sighed. “You idiot.”

“I have twenty-twenty vision compared to you,” Fox said with a groan.

Coco just put her hand on Velvet’s shoulder and pushed her glasses down so their eyes could meet. “Velvs, honey, light of my life... do you really think you’re jealous of Belladonna?”

“Of course!” She gestured with the pizza box. “Who else could I be jealous of?”

“Uh, Weiss. Obviously.”

“What?” A laugh burst from her lips. “Oh, that’s funny as hell, Coco. You really had me going there for a sec.”

“God, you’re hopeless.” Her best friend threw her hands in the air. “Fine, fuck it, let’s go help you make an idiot of yourself. What are friends for?”

Velvet watched as her rival and their crew exited the cafeteria, heading in with her friends to grab their food.

It still made her laugh a little, though.

Her? Jealous of Weiss? For what, effortlessly getting Blake to do something?

Ha! Yeah, right!

#TRR writes #Frappuccino #Grease!Frapp AU #BECAUSE I AM BOTH ENCOURAGEABLE AND INCORRIGIBLE #Elderburn #because NO ONE CAN STOP ME but it's legit just for the joke

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irenayanvibe · 6 years

Quote

A blissful morning, Light and making through the vacant I’m wide awaken In front of my closet, I seem to sway Wondering who I should be today I hear as I walk Glances and glares and even mockery for the art that I wear They expect a change in the way I be To express something that just isn’t me People see my yeezy’s now, but is it really easy, how? The world is trying to break my shell, stripping me off of my beautiful gown. To leave me with nothing at all, no rights, no liberty, just to break me down. Remember those souls walking left to right, dressed in striped pajamas of black and white Their identities were robbed one by one Stripping them of their lightness, plunging them into night Stamped, conformed, unified, reshaped, and twisted No longer human, a final solution to a problem that never existed. Some say fashion is nothing, don’t try to be unique But Fashion, Fashion is sexy, and cute maybe walking art it is my me creatively It is the cloth that sticks to your skin, tight like a mother hugging her child at night It’s the way you be you, not we, Your own identity Not huddled like sheep Souls locked away so deep In uniformity conformity de who you arity It shows the world who i want to be a symbol of creativity, shouting to the world Look I matter, I have the rights and freedom Look at me artistically we were told to be who we be Not who others want to see So when you stare and you judge And you let yesterday's news shape your views, Think about who you are, before you dis A sun streaming morning Im wide awaking standing in front of my closet, Thinking and thinking ...

Original short slam poem by Irena Yan

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emersonmanandnature · 4 years

Text

August 22, 2020

United States Of Turmoil

The importance of being present, not in your interior being but a physical presence that is seen and heard. But what does this do for you as an individual person? Does being seen give you anymore authority than you have now?

We seem to know the boundaries of our lives without stepping over the line. How did this willingness to be defeated in our world even before you have touched your inner consciousness with your personal foundation of your truth just beginning?

Constant conditioning in childhood forced you to accept becoming a part of a group. Never separate from the conformity of your societal peers. And this of course made it easier for the wealthy to begin the dismantling of the middle class and to influence dirty politicians through money contribution to do their biding in our so called freedom of choice in this new era of manipulating oligarchs.

Why haven’t people realized that the new mouthpieces for our two party system, which is a crime against democracy but that is the way the elites of avarice want it by limiting choices so they can keep a reign on all the politicians that do whatever they demand even though it crushes people lives and destroys the future freedom of ideas that can help society create a better life for all and not this vocabulary of controlling lies against other innocent human beings.

All candidates start off promising their constituents the moon but once in office they understand pretty quickly that if they want to stay in office they better toe the line and do what they are told or powers that be will buy an up and coming new politician willing to do all that is asked of him no matter how criminal it is.

What choices are we free to choose when we are given a narrow means of escaping the bombardment of lies curious truth.

In today’s society everything is made with a price tag on it so the minions will feel like they are the new hipsters, the new cool and the young will follow like vultures looking for a place to rob, but of course they will follow the laws that are made now by the elites of crime.

Why did you become a repeating voice mouthing what others say as your truth? Our society is built on conformity. Conformity of your mind and your physical presence. You are the workforce, the patsy that works without knowing why and for who. It is just something you were born too. And it is harder now than ever to walk away from the controlling force of greed ingrained in the constitution of the united states of corporations.

As we move further into the technology of manipulation and deceit we will become even more afraid to stand up and fight the powers of money and to survive our individuality keeps a consistent facade of acceptance, not willing to become any more than just a body that pays his taxes on time. We are afraid to rock the boat of power that controls our lives on all levels of our existence.

We endure our lives in anger and depression because we are unable to see our inner insights as our truths. We are controlled through our indoctrination into a supposedly free society only to find that the wealthy rigged the game and put the blame on the very people they took advantage of. The powers that be are con artists creating a visual picture of their status with extravagant parties and beautiful mansions as a means to control the populace wit envy. What have the offspring of these historic con men and women done in their life time that could match they're founding fathers? If anything the children of the rich have become even more arrogant and compulsive in destroying lives and killing this planet.

The hypocrisy of money is an illusion bought and sold to the people as a over priced reality show that cannot be cancelled.

The fact that we objectified ourselves by taking selfies creates a lessening of you being present. What purpose is taking an image of yourself when the external world is waiting to be discovered. What do you do of such monumental importance that you take your eye away from a beautiful scene and turn the camera to you as if you were a star just being noticed. We all want to be seen and heard and we all want praise of our living presence but to take pics of yourself is just plain egotistical. And that is exactly what is happening to mankind. Our egos have been exposed to the ease of producing ourselves for others to see. Social media becomes the vehicle to lose sight of your personal self and surroundings and to exploit yourself as if you were a god sent to earth to save mankind. Ego generated hypocrisy that will lead to the deteriorating knowledge of your inner self. You my friend are being exploited, distracted from your life by posting on social media as if that had anything to do with your real life, your real presence in your own unique skin. You have been snookered and conned into thinking that these presentations of yourself is actually you not an addiction to being physically scene not as who you are but who you want to escape to become.

You no longer write your own inner truth to this crumbling world of no values but hide behind disguises that shadow your lost intuition replaced now with an ego that thinks only of what’s in it for me.

Our democratic representatives are looking to do their normal bait and switch by telling the wonderful things they will do for us in office when in fact we know if we don’t get a new group of honest people who care about fairness in this monopoly greedfest of the few against the many we will never break through the animalistic personalities of these men and women of godly egos.

What is the democratic party? What do they stand for, if they can’t connect with the majority of people in their own country? Where is their truth of consciousness, where has our freedoms been since the American Revolutionary War, where else but in the hands of the new American wealthy that wanted to break from Great Britain so they could collect taxes directly from its citizens and exploit the inhuman treatment of slaves! We have always existed under the thumb of the greedy but now it is as plain as the tears flowing in the misery of our incompetent leaders who don’t even try and hide their allegiance to their rich patrons bribing them.

The wealthy have always been in power infiltrating every level of our government including the congress, senate, judges, law enforcement, colleges, corporations… and then slowly, methodically strip the American people of their liberties and their hard earned income? It is outrageous and criminal what is being done in this facade of our government of the people for the people. Let us be truthful this is a country by the corporations for the corporations period. We see the fluff that comes out of tv news or should I say scripted news that gives us no info on the wars taking place around the globe promoted and funded by the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Turkey… and the Military Industrial Companies that are making billions off the killing of innocent men, women and children.

What would god say about this if god actually had a voice instead of being a religious puppet for the prophets of wealthy preachers.

The life we live today is a scam of corporate capitalism whereby the American people are still insulated from the horrors happening in other countries as we sip our covid19 juices not giving a shit about the dark death spreading around the world.

The wealthy have their own news organizations to distract us from the underlining cruelty of these merchants of terror, these egotistical indulgent, buffoons of greed.

We are not in a two party system of democracy we are lead by one party who’s loyalty is the corporations and the ultra-wealthy that suck up our tax dollars and make us, the American people pay their bills as they move their money off shore, paying no taxes that each of the American people must pay or be thrown in jail.

In a society governed by laws it should be obvious that any corporation or wealthy monopolies that don’t pay his/her fair share of taxes should be arrested and put in prison for fraud and money laundering. What kind of a democracy would allow this? Well, we have one and it isn’t a democracy it is an oligarchy. Where a few individuals control the population with intimidation and fear! By allowing the citizens of a country to become overwhelmed with the problems they continually face does one thing very well, it makes people frightened with anxiety so they won’t act to make changes. Instead they must put all their effort into working 2-3 jobs so their children can eat!

All Americans must know that we are losing our freedoms along with our income. Are the oligarchs trying to reduce america to a third world country where the people live in squalor? Is that the answer they demand, that the prosperous bankers foreclose on private properties in order to create an america that doesn’t have any family owned land anymore.

Intimidation of the talking heads spewing bullshit like I have never heard before. Sure there are some egos that used to spout off about the turmoil in the world but they were within the bounds of responsibility. Now there is no responsibility in news media and the radio jocks spewing there paid service to incite a certain group to feel and act a certain way is necessary in order to dupe these once responsible citizens into thinking that someone else, the minorities, the hispanics, the asian invasion, the poor, the elderly or anyone else besides the true culprit pitting the citizens of the US against each other in order to allow the paid politicians to keep passing bills that enhance their wealth on the backs of these very people believing the crack pot talking heads and it seems are looking to blame anyone else besides their own criminal behavior. Listen we are under attack by the politicians bought and sold by the Koch brothers and others that want everything in this universe and no one will have the nerve to take it from them.

But there is more happening now in the syphoning of our precious natural resources and our tax dollars right into the hidden accounts of the 1%.

This criminal activity must stop! We are the people that built this country and must step up and defend ourselves from these criminals that wear the style of celebrities as men and woman of stature. They are common criminals that have been allowed over centuries to accumulate wealth off the backs of workers and now are at a point where they feel embolden to exert even more pressure on our courts and representatives to take even more from the American people and societies worldwide. They are the living embodiment of evil, satan would have a hard time outdoing their violent nature with no sympathy for the killings they do world wide for profit, they must be stopped. We must as a community of people not be intimidated by their power because they have no power but physical power whereby we have the truth and our determination to stand up and confront these mercenaries of greed and put a stop to their destruction of this planet. We will not allow their one sided purpose of choosing money over human beings be our last rites. There are billions now spreading the truth of the destruction of this planet and protesting the grave gluttony of the elites sociopathic nature.

These men and women of egotistical facades are nothing but hollow beings of avarice. Money is their god and the people suffer for their greed.

They have joined forces with other worldwide robber barons, dictators, all with their particular vices for giving pain and suffering to anyone that stands in their way. For they are so unsure of their own being that they must prove themselves by killing innocent men, women and children.

They are attempting to put a strangle hold on the world whereby they will control everything on this planet and we will be forced to serve them anything that stimulates their egos!

They have the politicians in Washington DC do their bidding for them as they stand behind the curtain pulling the strings on their bought puppets as they play the meek, silent game as this planet is sold off for profit. They have mercenaries all over the world fighting battles not for freedom but for their own selfish needs to take the land, to rape and exploit its minerals adding more wealth to their coffers as human beings perish in the dirt fighting to protect their land and heritage.

We have a united network of criminals doing the bidding of the 1% as they move over the globe taking what they want and leaving havoc and destruction in their wake and when filing their limited taxes they will write off the deliberate murdering of people as a business expense that won’t be paid by wealthy corporations, the very people that stole and murdered innocent human beings for profit.

#greed #criminals #politicians #egos #sociopathic nature #money #hypocrites #cjcorwinoriginal

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gahdspeed · 4 years

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this 'check-up' essay was first submitted in May as a nonobligatory requirement for my philosophy class. i thought posting this here would give me something to look back to in ten, twenty or maybe one hundred years. it'd also serve as an evidence of living in these excruciatingly exhausting times & being a witness to continuing culture of violence, terror & social injustices that the majority of the philippine population face everyday. see this as a receipt manufactured in anger.

Notes and Investigations in Quarantine

I. The first month of the lockdown was perhaps the hardest time I've experienced this year. Just two nights before Duterte officially declared the lockdown of Central Luzon, my cousins and I were still drinking alcohol in a funeral home. We’d lost one of our uncles suddenly and we were granted permit to hold a funeral procession under the suspecting eyes of deployed military members. On my tito’s final night, I remember escaping from my relatives to observe how the streets and highways had looked so surreal in their vast emptiness and terrifying silence. A pandemic sounded too archaic to me to even occur in 21st century. Or perhaps, it was just my petty fears of no longer doing the things I was free to do before this disease brought everything into a halt that got in my way of fully realizing the weight of the current situation to others.

Before the crisis, as much as possible, I rarely stayed at home. We don’t really have internet, nor the signal was any better, so I would always go to my cousin’s house to connect to their wifi. Disconnection from the virtual world just made every day harder to get through. Getting away from my thesis, backlogs from previous sems, and not being able to do a thing about being locked in our home that I abhor, I spent the first two weeks silently crying at night or sleeping all day. I grew tired and ashamed of asking favors from friends and classmates for a certain e-book that I needed for a paper or online announcements in my classes. I thought I was just making another set of excuses to make up for my lack of trying, and that I just didn’t have enough resources to work on my thesis or requirements. But I wasn’t too smart to realize sooner that not everyone under a pandemic is in their sane mind to continue worrying about such trivial things either. Most importantly, I failed again at recognizing my own incapability to work under such emotionally draining times. I was consumed by academic pressure, and my own guilt of having spent five years in a supposedly four-year course that I feared will lead to another extension of semester just because I didn’t work harder back then. I wept for my mother in silence, who all her life worked for our survival, and has been wanting to retire by the end of the year at age 62.

Possibly the worst week I had to endure during that first month was the week where we were given quarantine passes, and I finally had to line up in front of groceries to purchase essential goods. Everyone at our house, including myself, is immunocompromised: my mother has pre-existing conditions relating the heart and lungs, father’s a PWD, and I have weak lungs as well, that were only made weaker due to my years of smoking. The thought of having brought the virus with me at home frightened me so much that I’d spent that week having nightmares. I would wake up in the middle of the night short of breath, trembling and tired. That experience felt unreal. I got through that whole week in panic and fear, intensively exhausting whatever free facebook had to offer to research everything about coronavirus, what systems does it attack, measures to take, etc. I don’t think doing that had done me good, either, because I’d just suspect myself of containing the virus when I notice a quick delay in my breathing that almost led to me calling our local hotline for suspected patients.

Being locked within the confines of our home and being exposed daily to a familial situation that I’ve been struggling to negotiate with for so long just opened wounds that I’d rather forget existed and once again found myself somewhere other than the present. I realized that the more I stay at home, the more my tendencies of repeatedly grasping our current state just naturally come out of me, and it’s something that I’ve been trying to veer away from. If we only had internet and better network connection, at least the feeling of being connected with people in the virtual realm would help me release from this claustrophobic suffocation somehow. I find it petty for a reason, really, and lack of internet connection didn’t really bother me before. But I couldn’t find better ways to keep my sanity amidst a pandemic that wouldn’t put myself and others at risk.

If I were to place myself in that situation again, I’d probably conclude that one of the few things to come out of a crisis like this is the realization of wanting to continue enduring, but it's the ideal kind that's fueled by constant questioning and fiery refusals. Some friends I’d opened myself to in the beginning of the lockdown had told me to be thankful for still existing despite everything, which most had seemed to downplay my inner wars like they were never real. I had succumbed myself into years of battle with self-loathing and depression that I’ve forgotten how to fear for your life when the opportunity gets robbed of you. But life in these times do and will not, in any way, exude that kind of sense of triumph in surviving especially when the act of resiliently struggling is being forced to us by an already exposed broken system that hides itself in the form of a disease. A lot of people I know have told me to just make use of this time to be creative, make art, devote the entirety of my break into my thesis, and dismiss my anger at celebrities who use their platforms to sing ‘Imagine’ for no relevant reason. They basically told me to just be thankful, and I refuse to conform to that. My very guilt lies within the fact that whatever comfort of a household not exactly economically thriving but doing just enough offers, only mirrors those who couldn’t even afford to bask in the assumed promises living under a fractured governance holds. I feel like all these bourgeoisie fronts will only discredit institutional failures committed by those in power to respond to our needs on the basis of equality, transparency, fairness and empathy. I’ve been too vigilant to be too grateful to be alive because I know that would just invite romantic disillusions about life that’d likely betray us in the end and keep our eyes away from propagators of this self-serving idealism.

II. For a week after seeing the controversial Japanese cult classic Battle Royale (2000), I couldn’t sleep properly. Something about it felt familiar, or at least the feeling that it evoked when I saw it was the kind that I'd met somewhere but couldn't really recall. This mystery immediately triggered a second - and third - screening in a row, an attempt to decode my newfound weird fascination with it.

I’m not really the type of cinephile to enjoy films that belong to the action-thriller genre, although admittedly, Battle Royale is objectively of god-tier standards no matter how I keep on trying to steer clear of it - conflict is present, decisions made by the participants are all driven by a single urgency, stellar cinematography, straightforward storyline. As a package, I'd say that the film is a product of both technical and poetic triumph only auteurs aesthetically and politically different from directors behind cliché action blockbusters can achieve. And it left me in a strange quest to answer what had really drawn me into its fractured, vividly violent world.

At first, I was just trying to reassess a cinematic bias that was once unwelcome in my years of involvement with films. But after going through it for the last time, the series of internal and external reassessments had transformed themselves into pleas for negotiation, and implicitly denial of truth.

Why Battle Royale, with its characters struggling to survive the forced institutional (and along with, the philosophical) challenge within a limited time, felt strangely familiar upon seeing it, was because I've seen and have been a witness to the exact same drive of characters and even creators of the film that motivates almost everyone today. I've seen it on people's faces in groceries during my once-a-week shopping routine as the representative of our household. I’ve felt its energy through the empty shelves of essential products most people are accused of hoarding. I’ve watched it through locals in long, excruciating lines where they loudly accuse one another of subtly slipping themselves in while those who lined two hours early before the store opens tirelessly let things go. I notice it within me, whenever going out for these routines & find myself always in a rush and panic, sweat dripping from thirty minutes of walking from our house to the market under the sun.

It would be absurd for many to compare an intensely exhausting day under a lockdown with a film whose portrayal of explicit violence committed by teenage kids in response to the survival challenge imposed by their totalitarian government had Japan’s cinema board infamously censor it from the world. But the film’s concept didn’t exactly emerge from the vacuum either. When the ever-incompetent World Health Organization officially declared the global spread of coronavirus as pandemic, most of us, unprepared and uninformed, were forced to make use of whatever means and resources we have in order to make ourselves stay alive, while the politically and economically powerful few didn’t have to bother a second in their lives scavenging for food while putting themselves at risk. Like characters in Battle Royale, we are armed differently, and it isn't even based on choice¸ because most of us simply didn’t have that luxury to start with. A film may be just a film, but it may be brutally speaking of investigation and observation of daily realities we face more than we would like to acknowledge.

#2020 pandemic #philippines #politics #fuck the government #eat the rich #stay alive #stay mad

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thinktosee · 4 years

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STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, SLAVERY AND MILITARY CONSCRIPTION – BEHAVIOURAL MANIPULATION AND CONTROL THROUGH COERCION and FEAR

“I think a lot about him especially when it comes to my writing or what kind of teacher I want to be. David was fearless and uncompromising of his values in everything and that only pushes me to do better, because I can practically hear his signature critique otherwise.”

- Zylph, U.C. Undergraduate and David’s friend from St. Joseph’s Institution International High School, singapore

A. INTRODUCTION

Image courtesy picturequotes.com

Military conscription, slavery and hostage-taking are immorally coercive processes designed to oppress, disorient, intimidate, disenfranchise, affect, subjugate, manage, re-orientate and control the victim’s behaviour and actions. Their basic premise is FEAR or the overwhelming ability or threat by the bully, criminal or aggressor to inflict unimaginable physical or psychological pain/distress or both on the victim. These criminal acts originate from a personal desire by the bully/aggressor/criminal for social, political and or economic advantages. These crimes go against the public interest, and yet, they were and still continue to be framed by the bully as mutually beneficial - “cooperate and nothing will happen to you.” Or “It’s for your own good. You will like it”

B. DEFINITIONS and CONTEXT

1. Stockholm Syndrome

Poster for the 2018 movie, “Stockholm.” Image courtesy www.imdb.com

“A psychological response wherein a captive begins to identify closely with his or her captors, as well as with their agenda and demands.” (1)

On Aug 23, 1973, two criminals’ attempt to rob a bank in Stockholm, Sweden led to the taking of 4 hostages. They were only released on Aug 28. However, the victims refused to testify against their kidnappers (2). Perhaps the words of Natascha Kampusch, a victim of another tragic kidnapping may explain this phenomenon :

"I find it very natural that you would adapt yourself to identify with your kidnapper," she says. "Especially if you spend a great deal of time with that person. It's about empathy, communication. Looking for normality within the framework of a crime is not a syndrome. It is a survival strategy.” (3)

“Stockholm Syndrome” could essentially be said as a coping or survival mechanism by the victim, in the light of the prolonged ordeal which she encountered.

"It's some kind of a context you get into when all your values, the morals you have change in some way." – Kristin Ehnmark, a hostage in the 1973 Stockholm bank robbery (4)

2. Slavery

Image courtesy www.independent.co.uk

“A condition in which one human being was owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons.” (5)

Slavery is as ancient as human civilization. In Exodus 9:1, the Lord commanded Moses to tell Pharaoh to “Let my People go….” From the 16th to the 19th centuries, we learned that Africans were abducted and traded as slaves by the millions to the New World of the Americas. (6) Perhaps unbeknown to many of us, the European colonials were also actively slave-trading in the Dutch East Indies. (7) Slavery’s connection to colonialism, be it European-imposed or localized (8), is undeniable. It was a system of exploitation and discrimination of the human worth in the worst possible way. Slaves were denied their rights to freedom and dignity. This institutionalization of slavery was possible through an elaborate system of governance, laws, customs, education, and other forms of physical, social and psychological coercion, manipulation and restraint. It ensured the total submission of the slave. What was considered immoral or abnormal in one place, was legalized and normalized in another. The slave felt trapped, disenfranchised and helpless. His identity, his very existence, was violently crushed. A new identity was imposed – a tradeable and replaceable product - a slave. Fear, once again was the underlying tool. This time it was wielded by the slave owner and supported by the state.

The American Civil War of 1861-65 was about slavery. I like to highlight an example - the basis for the decision by the State of Mississippi to leave the Union :

“[O]ur position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-the greatest material interest of the world... A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization….” (9) (10)

This statement should always be remembered, particularly since slavery continues to exist in its various tragic manifestations today, as this title of an Oct 2018 report by the United Nations attests :

With 40 Million Forced into Modern Slavery, Third Committee Expert Urges States to Protect Rights of Women, Girls, Companies Must Remedy Violations (11)

A slave may also be someone we know – an abused live-in partner, worker, child, or hostage. Fear, that potent tool of a criminal, is the favoured modus operandi.

Our family’s copy of a classic. A great dramatic tale of Southern plantation life, (built and sustained by slave labour) during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. Hollywood made this into a movie in 1939, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the lead roles. (12)

3. Military Conscription

Image courtesy abc.net.au “Why Australia said no to conscription.”

“Conscription, also called draft, compulsory enrolment for service in a country’s armed forces. It has existed at least from the time of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (27th century bce), but there have been few instances — ancient or modern—of universal conscription (calling all those physically capable between certain ages). The usual form — even during total war — has been selective service.” (13)

Compulsory enlistment or mandated militarized public education is slavery. It presupposes the state, that is, the ruling few, has a claim on the life, freedom, choice and dignity of a citizen, for the public good (I have not encountered any instance where this so-called public good is reasonably and satisfactorily justified. We should thereon read the term “public good” broadly. I submit that in reality, it means for the “good of the self-serving ruling class.”)

Modern conscription may be traced to the Prussian state in the 19th century. (14), (15). This was a period of wars and carnage, including the Napoleonic campaigns, in feudal Europe. (16) The Prussian kingdom deemed it necessary to introduce universal conscription for the security of the “fatherland.” Military expenditure then was said to be as much as 75% of the state’s budget, far above the average of 25% across Europe. In most respects, Prussia could be said to be a militarized kingdom. (17) The French statesman, Count Mirabeau was believed to have said, “Prussia was not a country with an army but an army with a country…” (18) This is a weighty distinction, and it still applies to this day, especially among us who wonder about the youthful soldiers who are shipped far away to another continent to engage in wars in “defense” of their home and country. Or just as curiously, youth who are conscripted and still not allowed to vote or voice their opinion on the matter.

Conscription, especially in peace-time is harmful to the conscript. It is designed to upend the conscript’s identity, with a corollary to establishing a new one, with an affiliation to the military-state apparatus and its agenda. It may be further expressed as follows :

“The tactics of a thought-reform program are organized to:

1. Destabilize a person's sense of self,

2. Get the person to drastically reinterpret his or her life's history and radically alter his or her worldview and accept a new version of reality and causality,

3. Develop in the person a dependence on the organization, and thereby turn the person into a deployable agent of the organization.” (19)

C. CONCLUSION

Image courtesy cnn.com

Slavery, abduction and conscription have a common feature – the power dynamics overwhelmingly favour the criminal or offender. The methodologies employed are also similar – fear, threat, harm, disenfranchisement, anxiety, intimidation, inducements/rewards and the like. The objectives too coincide – to control, oppress, induce conformity, empathy and helplessness, with a view to “own” the victim. That’s right – a conscript is a slave and a victim too. Abduction is obviously illegal. Slavery, within its traditional definition, is no longer legal. Time also to call out conscription for what it truly is – brain-washing-cum-slavery.

Slavery exists so long as we live in fear.

Image courtesy Amazon.com

“Fear is the greatest weapon in God’s arsenal. It is why the church concocted Hell.”

- Cardinal Franklin, played by F. Murray Abraham, in 2018’s “Robin Hood.” (20)

In the Spirit of David Cornelius Singh

By David’s father

https://thinktosee.tumblr.com/

Sources/References

1. https://www.britannica.com/science/Stockholm-syndrome

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22447726

3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/11/natascha-kampusch-interview

4. “Promises to Pay (Vol. 1) : Banks, Battles and Bellies”, p235. Rezvi, Masood. 2018. Published by K.M. Rizvi

5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology

6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zy7fr82/revision/3

7. https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/05/two-centuries-slavery-indonesian-soil.html

8. “Race and Slavery in the Middle East. An Historical Enquiry. Lewis, Bernard. 1994. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1.

9. https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/five-truths-about-black-history

10. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

11. https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/gashc4244.doc.htm

12. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-gone-with-the-wind-1939

13. https://www.britannica.com/topic/conscription

14. Ibid.

15. http://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/docpage.cfm?docpage_id=3895

16. https://www.britannica.com/event/Napoleonic-Wars

17. Ibid.

18. Chap 7, “The Prussian Military State.” Showalter, Dennis. “Early Modern Military History, 1450-1815.” For readers who wish to learn more, we also suggest separately exploring the connection between Prussia and Imperial Japan.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230523982

19. https://culteducation.com/cults-in-our-midst2.html

The reference here is based on the research findings of Prof. Margaret Thale Singer and originally published in her tome, “Coercive mind control tactics.” Prof. Singer performed extensive research studies on trauma experienced by POWs and cult members. She was the leading authority on the subject. A brief overview of her research is also available via this link :

http://www.psychologicalharassment.com/coercive-mind-control-tactics.htm

20. https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/robin-hood-2018/

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untiediknot · 5 years

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Tico Phillips - ID # 620091551

When it comes to gender representations and stereotypes in mainstream media, it’s difficult to contend with how it might benefit women and men - or even to reconcile with the various changes needed in the way gender is represented - without first recognizing the many nuances which exist within media itself and outside of it. Let me begin by saying that this is a really complicated, contentious issue. Entire books, lengthy ones at that, have been devoted to media and its impact. Nonetheless, I will try my best to unpack a few points. First of all, because “mainstream media” encompasses such a wide variety of platforms and products, it is difficult to address these kinds of issues directly without first breaking down this term more thoroughly. Broadly speaking there is print and broadcast, whether it be music, film, television, books, news and the internet to name a few. Any one of these would merit its own deep dive into the topic of representation of women and men.

In my opinion, mainstream media (at least in its current state) is by design and definition hegemonic. It both reflects and projects normative values - it may challenge those norms but ultimately cannot pose a fundamental threat to them. Representations of men and women in mainstream media may be progressive, even transgressive, but only to a certain point. The limits of mainstream media to “accurately” represent anyone or anything is a perennial argument for the importance of independent media. For instance, the other day, I recently watched the 2019 movie Hustlers, whose plot mainly consists of a group of female strippers who conspire to rob wealthy Wall Street men.

youtube

While on the surface this narrative does sound transgressive (take for instance, the idea of the film itself being exclusively female led - by a diverse case of women of colour no less - or the premise of disenfranchised sex workers taking control of their lives and exercising autonomy using their wits - instead of their bodies - to get ahead), one cannot forget that the whole ‘point’ of the movie is heavily reliant upon its conformity to and position within outdated tropes of women primarily as sex objects and men primarily as financial providers. Even if it seeks to represent an experience that is for the most part ‘inspired by a true story’, its presentation is, for lack of a better term, tired.

Mind you, I thoroughly enjoyed the film - and I would recommend everyone go see it whenever they get the chance - but what with its thematic focus on sex, materialism, vanity and greed (especially through a gendered lens), it quite frankly doesn’t tell us the viewers anything we don’t already know (or haven’t already seen) time and time again about male/female power dynamics. In fact, the closing line of the film was particularly poignant. One of the main female leads, Ramona retorts, “The whole country is a strip club. You have people tossing the money and people doing the dance.” With that being said, men (particularly the ones behind the scenes ‘pulling the strings’ as it were) are almost always tossing the money in their funding of these projects and women (particularly the ones on the world stage) are almost always ‘doing the dance’, struggling to keep up - especially if job prospects and opportunities are limited.

Representation matters, no doubt. It’s just that I think that the politicalization of representation is an intentional capitalistic strategy by these powers that be (i.e. the bigwigs). Media is a consumable good, that goes without saying. It can also be used as a tool to distract. In fact, Brooks and Hebert argue that “much of what comes to pass as ‘important’ (or not important) is based often on the stories produced and disseminated by media institutions.” For instance, getting politically unaware people to dialogue about representation in media is a way to get them to interact with media, and at the same, preempt actual political work. People may know for instance the names of all of Kim Kardashian’s children, but ask them to name the elected members of parliament from the House of Representatives and they blank out. They may know precisely how many females/blacks/LGBT identified individuals are on their favorite TV shows but not on their city planning or school boards. Why is this? As discussed in section 1 of Whose Perspectives, the gatekeepers of the media are for the most part, responsible for “selecting, constructing and representing perceived realities - while obscuring others”, mostly for their own gain, financial or otherwise. After all, there’s nothing more dangerous than an educated public, so if they (the public) are kept ignorant (and pacified), they (the elite) can continue to push their agendas and continue to line their pockets, because they know that the public will ‘buy’ whatever they sell - literally and figuratively speaking.

Mind you, to say that media’s influence is purely negative would be negligent at best. I think that while there are definite drawbacks, there are also definite benefits. For instance, seeing people who look, act, or represent themselves the same as you can be comforting if you struggle with a sense of belonging or feeling alone or alienated from your peers. Consequently, as a society we're seeing a lot more diversity now, especially on television, and that's really exciting, especially since media tends to mimic and mirror society itself. Take for instance the critically acclaimed TV series ‘Pose’ on FX which explores how race, class, sexuality and gender intersect within the lives of the queer, trans and gender non-conforming participants of the underground ballroom scene in New York City. It should be noted that this is the first ever show in history with the largest cast of transgender actors (and characters).

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If someone had no prior concept of the struggles faced by these minority groups, just engaging with the show might influence how they treat and interact with the oppressed and disenfranchised in their own neighborhoods, inadvertently teaching them compassion and tolerance which may (hopefully) result in them advocating for equitable legislation that benefits everyone - inclusive of people from all walks of life. Thus, when it comes to gender representations and stereotypes in mainstream media, perhaps we should not contend with how it benefits (or does not benefit) men and women across all walks of life, but rather the various responsibilities that we have as individuals (and as a collective) to create content not with the intent to sell or make a profit (as the gatekeepers are prone to doing), but rather to advance civilization forward in meaningful ways.

References

Brooks, D. & Hébert, L. (2006). Gender, race, and media representation. In B. J. Dow & J. T. Wood The SAGE handbook of gender and communication (pp. 297-318). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/9781412976053.n16

Donald, P., et al. (2011). Gender and Media Content. Whose Perspective: A Guide to Gender-Aware Analysis of Media Content

Ryan Murphy Productions (2019). Pose (FX) Trailer HD - Evan Peters, Kate Mara series. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t4YuPXdLZw [Accessed 16 Sep. 2019].

STXfilms (2019). Hustlers Trailer #1 (2019) | Movieclips Trailers. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUG2U-IxPx0 [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].

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