#and its not that scary re-watching it; but its the IMPLICATION that makes it scary | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sublime-beyond-loss · 2 years

Text

The End Of The ‘Keeping The Narrator Company’ Livestream

The end has come after 42 days of nonstop company keeping lol. I put together these two videos as a sendoff to both the stream and the game.

youtube

Make sure to watch it all the way through. The way it is structured is deliberate. This video is very personal to me and maybe a tad over the top in sentimentality, but I think I've earned the right to a little sentimentality lol. Maybe just like how I thought nobody would care about the stream and was proven wrong, others will still get meaning out of this video too. This video is meant to represent what the Narrator as a character and The Stanley Parable as a whole means to me as a creative inspiration after a long bout of depression destroyed so much of my creative energy. All of this has helped me to begin the long and ongoing process of escaping the awful place I have been in.

The video is also about how fictional works inevitably take on new forms through the creativity they inspire in others. The death of the author is also the (re)birth of the author. An endless cycle of inspiration branching off and growing only to inspire more branches to grow. Ideas building upon one another. The end never being the end does not have to be a cycle of stagnation. There will always be sparks of inspiration to carry us onward.

It's also mild commentary on one of the big things this stream showed, that the game fundamentally denies you a means to interact positively with the Narrator in almost all cases. Skip button? He will never notice that you're not pushing the button. Zending? He has nothing to say unless you start to defy him. Even the freedom ending, where you do play out his story in the way that he wants, you are denied because he remains an impersonal narrator lacking any of the nuance the other routes give him. But for me, and staying true to the hopeful theme of the stream, it doesn't matter much because I still found meaning in the act. I like to think that I both honored and gave something back to this game in the form of a unique interaction with it. I don't think there are many other games out there that would get someone to consider sacrificing 41 days of their PS4's lifespan to it for no in-game benefit lol.

One thing that ultimately inspired this video as the sendoff for my time with this game was the unavoidably of pressing the skip forward button. The big irony of the stream is that it only happened because that button has already been pushed to its conclusion. This stream about defying pushing the button only exists because the emotional weight of pushing it has already occurred. This meaningless gesture toward this character I empathize with only takes on any sort of meaning after having pushed the button to its conclusion. You cannot escape the button, really, because you would not avoid pushing onward until after you've already seen the content that lies ahead, but on the other hand, defying it only has its impact once you've seen how bad it gets.

As I spoke of in my blog post about running this stream, I saw a lot of myself in the skip button scene and I think the desert that comes after it scared me in a different way because of all the unpleasant implications it has. I cannot know the true meaning behind the desert and I have a million different theories, but the general conclusion I come to about it and the epilogue is that, yeah, the unknown is scary, and when facing the unknown but likely sad fate of this character I empathize with, I have made the choice to interpret it in a hopeful light because of what I see of myself in it, even if everything about it points toward cynicism. Death of the author and all that jazz. This desert is a bleak thing to be confronted with, but one must confront it. I understand that all too well. It is so easy for me to envision the effect my own depression has had on my mind as the same sort of desert and I know now that it was never the end that I thought it was. It's the start of something new after what has felt like several eternities filled with pain, solitude, and apathy. I think the post-skip desert is a place of endings but also a place for new beginnings. A place for new possibilities to rise up out of the dust of what came before. Maybe I'm just a hopeful fool who wants to see hope in a game so lacking in it. Maybe it's because the game can feel like a mirror at times, but I guess I just like to think that there is hope to be found in this game that so badly wants you to interpret it as a hopeless spiral. I leave this game defying it to the very end lmao.

Well, this is the end of the road for me. I could not keep the Narrator company forever, even if it was fun to pretend like I could for a little while. Regardless, I'm going to carry this spark with me into whatever I create next. It is that which inspires inevitably taking on another new shape as the cycle continues.

Take care, pal. It's a desert out there, but I think we'll be fine.

youtube

This second one is even more personal and unlikely to resonate with anyone but me, but it still carries the theme of sincerity mixed with silliness. It's flawed due to my own inexperience (I didn't catch that I was filming in vertical mode till it was too late to fix it, for one lol), but I've decided to accept the imperfection of it. I'll let you in on something so that maybe this video will have a little more meaning. When I was a kid, my grandma would take me and my sister to this park all of the time and we would never miss a chance to walk this forest path. Even as an adult I would still get together with her every once in awhile to come to this park and walk the path with her. This is the first time I've walked it since her death. It's a lot lonelier now, but I'm glad to have finally walked it again. All it took was a stupid little livestream that made me want to take a video outdoors so that I could end it on a joke about touching grass lmao.

EDIT: There is also a post-livestream Discord chat. If there is anyone left who isn’t already in there who wants to keep chatting now that the stream is gone, message me and I’ll get you an invite.

#the stanley parable #the stanley parable ultra deluxe #tspud spoilers #tspud

31 notes · View notes

clarke23 · 6 months

Text

Blog Post #3

For our class, one of our assignments was to watch both Candyman (1992 version) and Candyman (2021 version) in order to see the differences between them even though they both are based on the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker. Even though in the original short story, Candyman was not Black he was made into a Black character in the 1992 movie. The reasons for this change are not entirely confirmed, but some believe that he was turned into a Black character due to the racial connotation/implication in American housing projects which is the start of the many ways that the 1992 Candyman was racially problematic. Another way that the 1992 Candyman was problematic was due to its usage of Black characters as tools for the white protagonist or as the antagonist/monster. Helens Black friend, Bernadette was basically used as a filter for Helen to say the things that would be too offensive for Helen to say as a white woman.

The living situation of those in the housing project (Cabrini Green) is terrible to say the least. The movie makes it seem like the people living in Cabrini Green live in such a degenerate and animalistic manner that they would write words on the bathroom walls in fecal matter (and that no one bothered to ever clean it up either). It’s frankly dehumanizing for these people, and the location was based on a real life housing project which makes it even more offensive. Finally, the Black male characters are often portrayed as trying to hurt the white female protagonist (the thugs in the bathroom and of course Candyman himself). Also, Candyman’s obsessive and dangerous lust for Helen brings back very disturbing imagery from the early 20th century (Birth of a Nation).

I would say that all of these racially problematic aspects of the 1992 film can be attributed to the fact that it portrays Black trauma through a white lens. However, the 2021 version of Candyman sought to change this and shift the lens towards a Black lens that understood how to portray Black trauma to a (primarily) Black audience. A very notable example of this is when the newer movie portrayed the backstory of Candyman it used puppets instead of real actors to avoid re-traumatizing the Black audience with all too familiar themes of violence against Black bodies throughout history and to the present day. The 2021 film shows respect not just to Black audience members but also other marginalized groups that are frequently killed in horror as a trope (LGBT people). It is refreshing to have a film that can still be scary but does not re-traumatize Black people like me who just want to enjoy a movie.

0 notes

alilaro · 2 years

Text

i think we should utilize doppelgängers as a horror trope more often. it installs such a nauseating primal sense of dread. its like something instinctual and ancient in your body telling you something is very, very wrong.

#doppelgängers #doppelgangers #doppelganger #horrorcore #lake mungo #lake mungo has a great example of this. the movie is so slow burn that when THAT SCENE happens its so intense #the first time i watched it it surprised me so bad i had to pause because i fucking started crying #and its not that scary re-watching it; but its the IMPLICATION that makes it scary #it really is like bone-deep; like your ancestors are trying to warn you from beyond the grave #its like the fear you get when you look in the mirror too long and you start to fear your reflection isn't actually you anymore #us; black swan; and possessor are all movies that hit that sweet spot of lovecraftian-esque horror #*

20K notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

I'm sorry, but as someone who can't stand how Yang acted for 80% of Atlas, saying "her feeling like she had to help raise Ruby is demeaning and unempathetic to Tai" is a HORRIBLE take. If Yang held it against Tai that'd be one thing, but she doesn't, least not as far as we've seen.

And "she decided he's an unfit parent"? That's literally just headcanon. Where is this stated or supported in any way? Literally everything, from the show to the comics to the manga, shows she absolutely values her father and his guidance. Her providing similar guidance to Ruby at some point doesn't change that, she's stated to be Ruby's mother figure, a woman in her life she could seek advice on in regards to things as well.

Like anon I get you're frustrated by how empathy and morality are handled in this show, I am too, but this just ain't it.

I have simillar feelings on the Weiss scene too but that's another story, you already kind of covered it.

Agreed, though I don't want to rag on the other anon. As said, I can very easily see how someone would come to that conclusion, especially given how often we discuss parts of the show without actually re-watching those scenes, leading to iffy interpretations down the line. A fandom pretty heavily focused on a "Tai is a bad dad" reading + Yang's unfair criticisms of others from Volumes 5-8 (notably her most recent characterization. The one fresh in everyone's mind) = an easy opportunity to mistakenly slam the two together. It happens. That's why I try, whenever possible, to re-watch moments, or at the very least re-read transcripts. I'm well aware of how easy it is to get sucked into how the fandom discusses scenes and take that interpretation at face value, when in fact what's canonical has gotten pretty warped across, in this case, six years of content and discussions.

But let's talk about Weiss a bit more! I think it's worth re-emphasizing that, yes, I'm well aware that she was the victim of that dinner party. My own criticism lies less in that specific moment and more the conceptualizing of our heroes as a whole, which leads to some missed opportunities in that moment, some quite important. For example, most classically heroic characters would be horrified at nearly hurting/killing someone, regardless of whether that was intentional or not. That's a crucial part of what makes them heroic: cherishing life and shouldering responsibility for others' safety, even when it's clear from the audience's more objective perspective that they weren't at fault. There's a happy middle ground here between acknowledging Weiss' horrific panic attack and acknowledging Weiss' responsibility moving forward to ensure that her trauma doesn't endanger others—given that her trauma is drawing on literal, combat techniques—highlighting her desire to do right by the people of Remnant, even when they're snobbish, rich assholes. Any reading that boils things down simply to "Weiss is the only victim in this situation and besides, why do we care if a racist Atlesian bites the dust 😒?" is a small representation of the much larger writing problems of Volumes 7 and 8: acting like Mantle is full of only good victims, Atlas only evil perpetrators, and a defense of the latter isn't worth anyone's time—certainly not the heroes who never, ever make mistakes with massive consequences. Weiss' near attack also carries with it the beginnings of a lot of themes that RWBY never capitalized on, but pretended were an important part of the story by the end of that Atlas arc, like Ironwood's supposed propaganda, or Whitley's question of whether power should be solely in the hands of a few, individual huntsmen. Weiss' situation might have been reframed into something that looks intentional: Here's not just a girl, but a Schnee girl, attacking a poor, defenseless civilian with her scary powers. Are we really going to leave the safety of our kingdom—the world—in the hands of people like her? You should be backing the army, people who have your real interests in mind, led by the man who saved that woman's life—General Ironwood! And the audience would rightly be going, Hey now wait a fucking minute. That's not what happened! It was an accident born of trauma and abuse. How can you manipulate the people into thinking otherwise? Into thinking Weiss is the enemy here? Like, if you're going to write Ironwood/Atlas as the awful, propaganda spewing antagonists... actually write that story.

So the party scene could have been the launching point for a lot of important work, both in terms of Weiss' characterization (a hero learning to balance flaws with her people's safety; taking responsibility for her mistakes, no matter the initial intention) and the world building (what does it mean for a Schnee to (mistakenly) attack a civilian when tensions are this high and faith in huntsmen is beginning to fail?) But for the purposes of what we actually got, that lack of reflection on Weiss' part, as said, reads badly when pit against her actions in Volumes 6-8. Because my brain is super focused on Star Wars atm, I think Anakin is a decent comparison to all this. Meaning, we know where he ends up—super scary Sith Lord who is going to do All The Bad Things Ever—and that will, naturally, color our reading of everything that happens in prequal material. When Anakin gets pissed and cuts the limbs off a Separatist, it produces a "Yikes" reaction in the audience because we know that anger, grief, frustration, and fear are going to lead him down an awful path. In contrast, when Obi-Wan is challenged about his no killing unarmed men policy and cheekily looks to Rex to kill him instead, we don't really go "Yikes" because we know Obi-Wan remains true to the Light for his entire run. All their actions have the primary reading of "They were justified that time/they made a mistake/they're allowed to be human/etc." But only Anakin has the secondary reading of, "That action is REALLY BAD—more bad than Obi-Wan's—because we know where it leads. It reads as setup for his inevitable fall." That's basically where the RWBY group is at the moment, provided you're unhappy with their lack of empathy in the later volumes. If the group had remained more compassionate then yeah, we'd continue to shrug off past moments that sorta imply otherwise because we know that's not who they really are. Weiss never grappled with nearly hurting someone only because, hell, RWBY doesn't let her grapple with anything! She didn't even get to respond to getting speared through the gut. But knowing where they end up—knowing that Weiss will be party to Ozpin's treatment, will help betray Ironwood, will accuse Marrow of abandoning her city only to do nothing for it in turn, will threaten her brother, will give the wish to destroy her entire kingdom and displace all its people, etc.—creates that "Yikes" response whenever we see something earlier that even somewhat aligns with her current characterization. It doesn't erase the 100% correct reading that Weiss was the victim and made a totally unintentional mistake in that moment. It doesn't erase the knowledge that RWBY rarely capitalizes on the implications of scenes like this anyway. It only adds another reading in the form of, "Well, knowing where she ends up... I can kinda see that future version in her here too."

#rwby #mymetas

18 notes · View notes

turtle-paced · 3 years

Text

A:tLA Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

Well, not quite on the long weekend, but here’s the recap anyway.

Book 1, Chapter 6 - Imprisoned

(0:55) Previously, on Avatar, the Water Tribes know what it’s like to be stuck at the ass end of the world slowly dying, but Katara’s hope is actually inspiring and she and Sokka found the Avatar for a reason. It’s going to be a Katara-centric episode. The group is still heading to the North Pole, while Zuko continues chasing them.

(1:45) We’re out of the snow! It’s still winter (seeing as the next episode is titled ‘The Winter Solstice’), but yeah. No snow. At the very least, this area’s warm enough that snow isn’t an all-winter condition.

(2:02) This is what I mean by the show bringing up supplies when they’re an issue. Note that Sokka doesn’t actually know what any of these nuts are. He hasn’t spent enough time in the Earth Kingdom to know what’s edible.

(2:48) The character contrast in two nutshells. Aang and Katara run towards the loud booming noises in the forest, Sokka advises hanging back (but goes with the majority). Then, when they find Haru, Aang and Katara want to make friends, but Sokka says he looks dangerous so they should be cautious. It’s a joke, mostly at Sokka’s expense, but it’s also consistent characterisation that helps give Sokka an important role in the team even when he’s outshone by ridiculous amounts in the direct combat department. He thinks very differently in some ways to his sister and his friends. This is sometimes unhelpful and sometimes downright necessary for the characters collectively to succeed. Today is an unhelpful day.

(2:56) Upon seeing Katara, the practicing earthbender drops everything and runs, going so far as to block pursuit. No questions, no chances, just immediate flight. Weird reaction, hey?

(3:06) Aang says that Haru must be running somewhere. Like a village. Which should have a market. Like I said back in episode one, every main character is smart. Showing it in these tiny, low-stakes, incidental conversations makes it believeable when they do big, dramatic smart things.

(3:21) Pan over this Earth Kingdom village. It’s pretty different to Kyoshi Island, and honestly looks a fair bit more prosperous. Earthbending means this village has got a very neat-looking mine and that building a wall around town isn’t a big deal. Interestingly, most building here are made of wood, or at least significantly involve wood in their construction (lintels, structural beams, doors, floors, I think even the rooftops).

(3:40) We get Haru’s name here as Katara spots him and follows him into his mother’s store.

(3:55) As soon as Aang says ‘earthbending’, Haru’s mother slams the doors and windows closed. Until now, the gAang has only travelled in free territory. Scared, paranoid territory, but free territory. This episode is a quick and brutal look at life in an occupied Earth Kingdom village. There’s a lot of fear here.

(4:09) Right on cue, Fire Nation soldiers drop by. The taxes they’re collecting are extortionate and their schedule for payment is arbitrary. The occupying force is taking financially and using this as a terror tactic. This becomes more explicit as the soldier says “we wouldn’t want an accident, would we?” and creates a fireball in his hands.

(4:58) Love the worldbuilding on this show. Why’s the Fire Nation here? Sokka asks, and Haru’s mother has an answer. Turns out all those coal-fired ships the Fire Nation uses? They need coal. The village is being exploited for its natural resources, too.

(5:09) Katara asks why Haru doesn’t help fight back, as he so clearly wants to. Especially since it means not bending, which she says is part of who she is. Haru’s mother explains that Haru would be arrested and taken from the village for earthbending (hold on to the information that the walls and mine are clearly products of earthbending), just like Haru’s father was. So let’s add some deeply personal and cultural oppression to the list of things going on here.

It’s also a tough lesson that resisting the Fire Nation in places like this isn’t as simple as saying “fight back.” There are serious risks involved.

(5:43) More panning over Earth Kingdom scenery. Vegetable patches and a silo can be seen. Little visual touches to remind the viewer that these background characters were in this place before the story arrived there, and will continue on offscreen once the story leaves. It helps make the world feel real.

(6:08) Katara and Haru go off and bond. Katara apologises for accidentally bringing up any hurt related to Haru’s father, ‘cause she’s a good, considerate person.

(6:18) Haru tells Katara how brave his father was to resist the Fire Nation invasion, against what odds. After which Haru’s father was taken away, and his family haven’t seen him since. The only way Haru can feel close to his father is by practicing earthbending, which also puts him in danger.

The entire backstory here gets into the big issues - invasion, mass internment, cultural oppression - by linking it with the much smaller slice of life. Just Haru, missing his father.

(6:48) Katara gives the exposition on her necklace, the last memento she has of her mother. The conversation leaves off pretty brutally as well. “It’s not enough, is it?” “No.” And that’s it. There’s only acknowledgement of their mutual pains, not closure. There’s not enough. There’s a hole there that cannot be filled.

(7:05) As Katara and Haru head back, they pass the mine collapsing. What happens when an earthbender-produced mine has to operate without earthbenders? It seems very likely to me that earthbending is a major part of mining safety and maintenance in Avatar world, and the removal of earthbenders from town would logically result in more mine collapses and accidents.

(7:32) Haru bravely earthbends to rescue the old man from the mine collapse.

(7:59) One of the really nice things about Aang? He’s impressed by Katara’s accomplishments, even one as small as inspiring Haru to his own little rebellion.

(8:12) Sokka brings up that point from back in 1.04 that if they hang around a village (especially an occupied village) they’re going to be in trouble. They have to keep moving. Continuity! Learning the lessons of previous episodes!

(8:41) Fire Nation soldiers show up in the dead of night to arrest Haru for earthbending, on the information of the old Earth Kingdom man Haru saved. Informants and midnight arrests - it’s a freaking scary depiction of life under occupation. Not to mention the moral texture it brings to the series. The Fire Nation is inarguably wrong and oppressive. But that doesn’t make the people of the Earth Kingdom saints. Individuals have a range of responses to the Fire Nation, and here we see it’s up to and including willing collaboration with their oppressors. We’re never going to see this old man again. He never gets any on-screen comeuppance. He never gets told he was wrong. This is just a lesson for the main characters.

The show’s worked up to this idea, with the hostility of the Kyoshi Islanders and Bumi placing the gAang under arrest. Now it’s serious. The characters can’t assume that Earth Kingdom people will be on their side.

And this ultimately leads up to the point that this conflict isn’t about one nation being inherently bad and the others being inherently good.

(8:56) Love to see some mundane uses of bending - in this case, Katara doesn’t bother actually pumping water, she just yanks it out of the pump.

(9:23) And a nice thing about Sokka - when he sees Katara is upset, he moves to comfort her physically. However, also notice what Sokka actually says. Part of his idea of comforting Katara is working on solutions to the external problem, working out what happened and what they might be able to do about it. It’s very pragmatic and not very touchy-feely. While it comes with the best of intentions, and Katara doesn’t even have to ask for Sokka’s support and assistance, you can see where Katara might want a friend who’s a little more emotionally supportive. Different people fill different roles.

(9:31) But on to the main event! Katara’s got a plan to break Haru out of Fire Nation prison. Thus far Katara’s been strong and capable, and particularly impressive in how she’s dealt with a grief-stricken Aang. This marks her first opportunity to take up the foremost heroic role in an episode. She’s making the plans, she’s driving the action, she’s saving the day. It starts with her getting arrested for earthbending.

(9:49) A team plan! Katara had the basic idea of using airbending to simulate earthbending, but it looks to me like Sokka did the actual engineering of finding the vents that connect, while Aang’s going to be doing the actual bending. This is also a classic example of how Sokka’s character development is going to go over the course of the series and the reason he’s such an important part of the team. He puts the details into the big ideas.

(9:55) And here’s Aang’s fun-loving, lighthearted nature shown as a flaw rather than a virtue (in a fairly comedic, low-ish stakes kind of way) before the serious long-term implications become most apparent in season three. He’s goofing off and not taking responsibility for his part in this plan. Later, when Aang doesn’t want to find a firebending teacher and doesn’t want to think about how he’s planning to deal with Ozai, that’s perfectly believeable. We’ve seen him skip out on small details, so we can believe Aang would skip out on the big ones.

Furthermore, in character and plot terms, the character trait that’s a minor hiccup in the plan this episode causes serious problems later, and yet remains an important strength in other episodes (and across those episodes in how Aang actually keeps moving forward). There’s nuance there in Aang’s character, and nuance in the plots that recognise that things aren’t usually as simple as ‘this character trait good, that character trait bad’.

(10:18) This entire scene gives me the giggles so bad, starting with this Fire Nation soldier’s bemused reaction. Earthbending style.

(11:17) The group exchanges a bunch of anxious looks. Despite the comic nature of the faked fight, they did just arrange for Katara to get arrested by the Fire Nation and hauled off to a prison for dissidents. This is serious stuff.

(11:30) Cut to a port, and Katara on a boat. Nobody seems surprised that the prison is offshore.

(12:15) Cameo from George Takei here, hamming it up.

(12:41) The faux affability of the welcoming is shown by the Warden’s willingness to use fire on a prisoner when the prisoner simply coughs. Followed by condemning the man to a week of solitary imprisonment. Also worth noting that the Warden is completely unfazed by the presence of a young teenager amongst the prisoners.

(13:05) The Warden helpfully points out that the rig is made entirely of metal, which earthbenders cannot affect with their powers. (At this point in the series.) It brings a pretty significant limitation of earthbending to the table in a series set just as their world’s industrial revolution is going global.

It’s also a good indication of how hard imprisoning a bender is. This rig must be absolutely brutal to live on, for the guards as well as the prisoners. It couldn’t have been cheap to build, either. I’ll come back to the topic of criminal justice and bending ability later in the series, but for now just keep in mind that prison for benders a) requires cruel conditions and b) is logistically burdensome to say the least.

(13:16) The Warden also describes earthbending as ‘brutish savagery’, so here’s some fire supremacy for you all! Again, the big thing - the Fire Nation taking over the world and thinking that’s okay - is reflected in the little thing, a Fire Nation character casually dismisssing any worth in earthbending (when we just a few minutes ago heard Haru speak about how important it was to his family bonds).

(13:47) Katara looks over the prisoners and sees a lot of people in absolute despair. Keep an eye out for female prisoners. I keep raising this background detail thing because it tells you how the writers and animators are thinking about the “normal” state of the world.

(13:52) A nice touch from a design standpoint is that Haru is about the only person wearing a deep, living green, rather than the prisoner brown/grey/very dried-out green combination.

(14:11) Haru did at least succeed in finding his father, Tyro.

(14:29) This exchange does nicely to set up Tyro as a kind individual whose sense of humour has not been totally eradicated by the situation he’s in.

(14:52) Tyro tells Katara that there’s no escape plan, only a survival plan.

(14:58) There are some female prisoners in this shot! Which is evidence of female earthbenders, even though we still don’t see very many in the rest of the series.

(15:14) Much like in town, Katara is reminded that things aren’t necessarily so simple as “fight back”. She’s talking to people who have been dealing with the Fire Nation, unsuccessfully, for years. What does fighting back look like to these people, after all this time? What do they stand to lose?

(15:21) I do love this exchange. Tyro says, “I’m sorry, but we’re powerless,” and Katara replies, “We’ll see about that.” What she wants and what she aims to achieve is to give the prisoners here their power back. She’s trying to help them to help themselves. Even though this speech doesn’t work. Very eloquent for an impromptu speech, too.

(16:44) Aang and Sokka arrive to provide backup.

(17:01) Katara refuses to leave the prison until she’s accomplished her objective. She emphasises that it’s the people she’s not giving up on. For all her character development over the series, this trait stays exactly the same, arguably the very core of her character.

(17:30) We get the split in group opinion again. Katara and Aang want to stay and help, Sokka wants to leave. Outvoted, and aware that he’s not going to overcome Katara’s stubbornness on this point, Sokka says they’d better hide.

(17:48) Two guards report an Appa sighting to the Warden. This is actually a really good drawback to the convenience of having a flying bison, narratively - he’s just not all that inconspicuous.

(18:06) The Warden throws a man overboard for questioning whether the difference between a flying bison or a flying buffalo is all that pertinent. Love this show. I’m also getting serious “do the tides command this ship?” vibe. Only less competent. Though the Warden does have the competence to get the core point that there’s something amiss, and orders a full search of the rig.

(18:42) Aang wishes he knew how to make a hurricane, because then the Warden would run away and the party could just take his keys. Now this is what people mean when they call Aang naive. Note that this wishful thinking from Aang doesn’t involve direct confrontation with the Warden. He wants the problem to go away. It’s not an issue with Aang’s intellect, it’s an issue with Aang’s psychology.

(18:53) Sokka wants to give the earthbenders some literal power. Some literal substance they can bend so that they can free themselves.

(19:08) It’s Aang who points out that earthbenders are able to bend coal, and the Fire Nation keeps coal on the rig. Naive, not stupid!

(19:22) Like I said, Sokka doesn’t often lead the way or deal with the party’s biggest ideas, but he is absolutely unmatched when it comes to making their goals into workable plans. As Katara asks Sokka “are you sure this is going to work?” we can be sure that the details here were Sokka’s doing. Moreover, he’s applied knowledge of vents he picked up earlier in the episode.

It’s also worth noting that Sokka was against staying to rescue the earthbenders and still put his all into coming up with a plan once he was outvoted. He works with Katara and Aang in good faith so that the disagreement doesn’t wreck their teamwork.

(20:02) Once again, Aang provides the muscle as he airbends some staggering quantities of coal onto the deck.

(20:22) Again, quite realistically, the earthbenders are hesitant to take the opportunity Katara’s just provided. The Warden underlines the point that it’s Katara’s inspirational words versus years of oppression and despair. Sure, that is the problem here. Katara tries, and she’s mocked by the villain for trying.

(20:59) But as the lump of coal crashes into the back of the Warden’s head, the show says that Katara was right and the Warden was wrong. Katara’s faith was not misplaced and her words and actions did make a difference here. Even if it sounded silly to start with.

(21:09) Love that the coal actually ignites when hit by fireblasts.

(21:25) Yes, we did see a female earthbender prisoner fighting back there! And I’m still pretty sure that this is one of the vanishingly few occasions we’ll see female earthbenders active in the background of the series.

(21:57) The earthbenders prioritise getting off the rig.

(22:05) Here’s Katara again. This is the first we see her actively participating in this skirmish. She hasn’t actually done much fighting - the point here was always what she could do to empower others to fight. She’s still got her necklace at this point. Notice also Aang’s creative use of airbending to propel small pieces of coal at the Fire Nation soldiers.

(22:33) The earthbenders steal a Fire Nation ship and head back to the mainland. Katara’s lost her necklace in this shot. Haru and Tyro spell out the effect of Katara’s actions.

(23:04) Tyro declares his intention to take back all their villages, which tells us that the prisoners were not from just one place. They must have been brought in from several towns and villages in the general area. Looks like the gAang’s leaving some insurgents behind them, right in Ozai’s coal supply.

(23:26) Haru thanks Katara for her help with that small thing of returning his dad for him, and wishes he could do the same for her. She also realises that she’s lost her mother’s necklace at this point.

(23:35) And who should pick it up but Zuko, who we haven’t seen for almost two whole episodes. Presumably he’s followed a report of Avatar-based shenanigans, and he’s got real sharp eyes to pick out the one Water Tribe thing in all this.

#a:tla #fine toothed comb edition

37 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 5 Review: Rampage

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Star Wars: The Bad Batch review contains spoilers.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 5

Over the weekend, I watched The Clone Wars with a friend. She likes the clones themselves a lot, so we jumped around a bit between episodes that focused on them. When I got to the Bad Batch arc, I warned her the humor was broad, the action goofy, the characters stock types. But she adored it.

This team is the team in every war movie, she said, and loved them for their distillation of these archetypes she had such fondness for, such genre expectations around. I’m trying to bring some of that fondness here. After all, I enjoyed it when The Mandalorian ripped off Kurosawa, and Star Wars as a whole always takes bits and pieces of the pop culture (and social culture) it remixes. So why not here?

It helps that “Rampage” is just a solid space adventure, with convincingly frightening antagonists, a couple of great twists, and a sense of assurance in its characters now that they’ve been on the screen for five episodes (or nine, counting TCW). The Bad Batch reach out to an underworld maven named Cid (voiced by TV royalty, Rhea Perlman). She tasks them with rescuing a child called Muchi, who has been captured by slavers. Meanwhile, Omega has become firmly part of the group. There are some really cute moments where she plays with her new com link, or high-fives Wrecker.

I was expecting the com link to become more of a plot point, and maybe it will later, but it’s actually nice that it doesn’t serve as an entire B-plot here. That allows more room for the actual spectacle. It also concretes the com link as an emotional center for the clones. The moment where they explain that it used to be Crosshair’s is poignant. Omega herself may not express much sadness over the fifth member of the crew, but she’s now firmly taken his place. She’s part of the Batch in every way that matters, but she also still acts like a kid. (In particular, I’m old enough to remember the novelty of toy walkie-talkies. That’s probably not still a thing in the age of cell phones, is it?)

It’s a busy episode, but that’s good. The first twist — that Cid is their contact, and isn’t a man — was tired but fine. The second — that Muchi the rancor is the kidnapped child — really took me by surprise and ushered in an entertaining second half. (Yes, this is a little bit a reversal of the same twist that ushered in Baby Yoda, but nevertheless.) Perlman’s performance as Cid is delightful, joining Amy Sedaris’ Peli Motto as new Star Wars women who just want to do their sketchy jobs.

At first, I was worried about the re-appearance of the Zygerrian slavers as antagonists. It’s been a while, but I don’t remember enjoying the The Clone Wars arc where they kidnap Ahsoka: it seemed to gloss over the horrors of slavery in favor of giving Ahsoka a glamorous new outfit. Here, while they stray a little too far the other direction into “anonymous sci-fi villain horde,” they’re frightening mostly by implication, but effectively so. We see how they imprison both people and animals, and the prospect of them taking any of the clones, but especially Omega, was legitimately scary. We also see how they hook to the Empire, with the leader Raney claiming they’ll have more free rein under the new regime.

The combat scene that makes up most of the last half is a lot a fun by virtue of the variety. It travels, and has distinct beats even though it’s technically one long exchange. It tells a story in the action itself, like the climactic battles in Return of the Jedi or The Phantom Menace. First comes the setup, then a creature feature tussle between the slaver’s brezak, and finally the clones trying to capture the rancor. I love a good creature fight, especially when you can see the strengths of both combatants: the rancor throws her weight around, while the flying lizard is fast and fragile.

The knife-versus-light-whip fight between Hunter and the Zygerrian reminds us of two things: Hunter is cool, and light whips are also cool. (I also enjoyed Cid calling Hunter the “dark and brooding” one, even if that doesn’t come out quite as strongly in his dialogue.) That fight is short, but it gives way to the funny spectacle of Wrecker going toe-to-toe with the teenage rancor and winning, albeit barely. It’s just so much fun to see how much effort both combatants are putting in; it’s hilarious that Wrecker tries to do wrestling moves on a rancor, but it’s also convincing, since we’ve already seen him flip a starship.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The final twist — that this rancor belongs to Jabba — is a bit goofy but fine. This isn’t the rancor from Return of the Jedi, thought. That one is canonically male and named Pateesa. While Muchi is probably also destined for a life of eating people who have disappointed Jabba, it’s nice to know she won’t be the one Luke takes out — and that this isn’t a case of absolutely every part of Star Wars being connected to another.

Overall, I wouldn’t mind more The Bad Batch episodes like this. Where the character connections aren’t convincing, there’s genuinely cool and inventive action to balance it out. And the character connections are getting better, especially when it comes to Omega’s integration into the crew.

Watching The Clone Wars also reminded me the extent to which Nala Se, Omega’s former caregiver and the chief medical officer of Kamino’s cloning facilities, is a villain. In one arc, where clone trooper Fives clashes with the Kaminoans, she’s ready and willing to kill an injured clone to cover up the existence of the secret inhibitor chips. Whatever fondness she might have for Omega, it’s going to be superseded by her job and the money the Kaminoans make on selling the clones. Maybe we haven’t seen the last of her.

The post Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 5 Review: Rampage appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3fQisIk

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

rachelbethhines · 4 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - One Angry Princess

There’s two halves to this episode. The first is a well constructed, if over simple, mystery for the kiddos to solve. The other is a failed attempt at being ‘deep’ and ‘mature’.

Summary: Attila is finally opening up his own bakery, but people generally don't want to stop by because of his scary helmet. The next day, Monty's Sweet Shoppe is destroyed, and Attila is arrested. He is about to be banished from the kingdom, but Rapunzel makes an appeal to investigate the matter further.

The Episode is Meant to be a Homage to 12 Angry Men, but Misses the Point of the Original Film

So for those who haven’t seen the movie, (though really you should) 12 Angry Men is about a jury trying to decide if an accused person is guilty of a violent crime. At first the evidence seems clear, but one lone juror refuses to vote guilty until the evidence has been gone over again. One by one he convinces the other men to vote not guilty as they each have to face they’re own personal biases.

Sound familiar?

In the show Rapunzel is the sole believer in Attila’s innocence despite evidence to the contrary. She insists on investigating herself while challenging everyone else’s personal biases.

The difference?

12 Angry Men is a hard hitting look at how privilege, prejudice, and cognitive bias can interfere with the American judicial system. None of the jurors are named, but they are all middle class, presumably Christian, white guys. And that is the point. They are all different from the accused; a young, poor, arguably non-white teen (the play is intentionally vague about the kid’s race so that you can slot any minority in there) who has a history of getting into trouble. If you were to change the ethnicity, race, gender, class, or age of any of the 12 characters then you would suddenly have a very different story. It’s their backgrounds and pre-formed opinions that inform their decisions. Even the main protagonist is not exempt from re-examining his own personal biases.

Meanwhile the writers of Tangled: the Series are too busy showing off how clever Rapunzel is to actually deal with the themes of injustice and bigotry that they added in themselves in the first place.

Rapunzel Knowing Attila Before Hand Weakens the Message

In 12 Angry Men none of the jurors know the accuse. In fact, they can’t know him. It’s against the law. In order to have an impartial jury, no one can have any ties to either the defendant or the prosecution, and they must not have knowledge of the case or have had specific experiences that might cause them to be biased or unfair.

Rapunzel being Attila’s friend means that she already has her own bias and an invested interest in making sure Attila goes free. She’s not acting out of the simple goodness of her heart here. She’s doing something that directly benefits herself.

I don’t expect a children’s fantasy show to recreate the US judicial system with all of the complexities there in, but I do expect it to uphold it’s heroine as the selfless person it claims her to be. Yet the show constantly undermines this supposed character trait by only having her help the people she befriends, and only if that help doesn’t require anything emotionally challenging or mentally taxing from her.

How much more powerful would this episode be if Rapunzel was defending a stranger or someone she actively disliked? Imagine if it was Monty who was being accuse and Raps had to swallow her pride in order to do what is right. But that would require the show having Rapunzel actually learn something instead of placing her on a pedestal. It would also mean giving Monty a reason to exist rather than keeping him around to be a convenient red herring.

Rapunzel Shouldn’t Have to Prove Attila’s Innocence

Rather than have a courtroom drama the show opts to have a ‘whodunit’ story instead. This unfortunately gives the implication that Corona’s judicial system runs on a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mantra, which is backwards to any humane legal system. ‘Innocent until proven guilty’, ‘reasonable doubt’, ‘due process’, are the cornerstones of our modern social ethics.

In 12 Angry Men, we never find out if the accused actually committed the crime or not. That is because his actual innocence isn’t the point of the story. It’s about whether or not the system is working like it should or if it’s being compromised by human error.

Once again, I don’t expect a recreation of the US judicial system, but if you’re writing a story for a modern audience then you need to reinforce modern morals. Simply crouching Corona’s legal system as ‘of the times’ or ‘fantasy’ while ignoring why we no longer have such systems in place reduces the story to puerile fare.

It also means that show’s writers didn’t put enough thought into their world building.

No One Calls Out the Obviously Corrupt System

The show has interwoven throughout its ongoing narrative themes of classism, injustice, abuse, and authoritarianism, but then fails to follow through on those themes by not having any of the protagonists actually examine any of these issues. They just sit there in the background, even as the show tries it darndest to present Rapunzel as an arbiter of reform. However a person can’t bring about change if they can’t even admit that there is a problem to begin with.

In this episode alone we have

Banishment is considered a reasonable punishment for an act of vandalism. A crime that is usually considered only a misdemeanor unless the damage goes over a certain amount. Keep in mind that not even most felonies would be given such a punishment in the real world

Introduces the prison barge that regularly carries away convicts. In the past ‘undesirables’ would be shipped off to prison colonies as a form of persecution. Attila and every other person we see subjected to Corona’s legal system are of a lower class.

Many prejudge Attila based off his appearance, lower class, and past upbringing. However, it is either Attila who is expected to change or Rapunzel who is expected to win people over. At no point is anyone told that they shouldn’t be prejudiced to begin with.

There is no judge, jury, or lawyers. The king alone decides the fate of criminals, the Captain is expected to be the both the prosecutor and the ‘executioner’, which is a conflict of interest, and the defendant has no one to represent them unless they so happen to know a kind statesperson. Meaning you have to be either rich or well connected in order to even have a chance to defend yourself.

Oh and there’s this...

Uh, yeah you do. You’re the flipping king. You make the law. You’re the one to bring charges against Attila, and nearly every other criminal in the show, in the first place.

The show constantly wants us to view Frederic as simply an everyman who is only doing his job, but he’s not. He’s a ruler and as such he has powers and responsibilities that no one else has or ever will have. The series gives both him and Rapunzel all of the privileges of being in charge without holding them to account for the consequences of their actions.

By not pointing out how wrong these actions are, the show winds up avocating them instead. When I call Tangled the Series authoritarian, this is why. Because authority is never questioned even when clearly wrong and nepotism is presented as the solution to conflicts as oppose to being the problem itself.

The Show Introduces Complex Issues but Then Oversimplifies the Conflicts Surrounding Those Issues

The creators of the show have constantly declared that the series is ‘not for kids’. That they were shooting for an older audience than the pre-school time slot they were given. Now ignoring the fact that Tangled was always going to have a built in audince of pre-teen girls and ignoring that children’s media can be mature, TTS lacks the nuance needed to viewed as anything other than a pantomime.

As stated before, this episode alone ignores the very real issues interlaced within the conflict in order to give us an overly simple mystery that anyone over the age of five could figure out.

It’s frustrating to watch the show constantly skirt towards the edge of complexity only to see it chicken out and go for the low hanging fruit instead. As a consequence the series winds up being for no one. Too shallow for adults and older teens, but too confused in its morals to be shown to small children and younger adolescents.

I wouldn’t recommend this show to a parent, not without encouraging them to view the series either before or alongside their child in order to counteract it’s ‘lessons’ and I know parents within the fandom itself who’ve stopped showing newer episodes to their kids; stating that they want their child to be old enough to point out the harmful messages to before doing so.

Once Again No One Learns Anything

Rapunzel doesn’t learn that the system is flawed. Attila doesn’t learn to open up to people. Nobody learns to treat people with respect and to not judge others based on appearances alone.

The whole point of the episode is to just show off how much ‘better’ Rapunzel is than everyone else. The show constantly feels the need to tear down other characters in an effort to make its favs look good as opposed to just letting the mains grow as people.

Conclusion

Tangled the tv series is no 12 Angry Men. It’s no Steven Universe/Gravity Falls/Avatar:TLA/She-Ra/Gargoyles/Batman:TAS either. It barely reaches the same level as the likes of DnD, Sonic SATAM, or Voltron. Interesting ideas but poor pacing, build up, and lack of follow through, with some naff decisions thrown into the mix bring things down in quality. And unlike the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon from the early 80s, TTS lacks the benefit of being a pioneer in the field of animation, where such flaws are more forgivable.

#tangled #anti-tangled #Rapunzel #rapunzel's tangled adventure #king frederic #critique #salt

41 notes · View notes

butterflydm · 4 years

Text

is this love? and if it is love...

So what Fighter says at the end of the episode, about how he wants Tutor thinking about how he feels about Fighter. Hmm.

Because their relationship has mostly been defined by Fighter pushing until he gets a reaction of some kind. From the very start, he wants Tutor’s attention on him all the time, good or bad. He’s been the main proactive element in the relationship (with certain important exceptions).

It seems like Fighter’s mom has been out of his life for a very long time (maybe all of it?), since we didn’t see any evidence of her in the house. And his dad is controlling and also talks down to Fighter a lot. So probably the most attention Fighter ever got from his dad as a kid is when he was acting out, and it was likely punishment of some kind. Which means he’s been trained from childhood to seek out negative attention (that the other older student we see him hang out with the most is aggressive Dew is probably no coincidence).

In general, Fighter doesn’t ask for things he wants, because no one has ever shown an interest in helping him get anything he wants. I think he doesn’t trust the vocabulary of expressing genuine desire at this point. To be so incredibly hungry all the time and yet believe that asking for food is the thing most likely to leave you starving? So, instead of asking, he either just takes what he wants or attempts to trick the other party into giving it to him (both tactics used liberally on Tutor).

And when he tries to give things to Tutor, he makes it safe by trying to create a zone where the giving and accepting isn’t a vulnerability for either of them – oh, it’s just a game so you might as well go along hehe, look! what a coincidence that I happen to have what you need lol it’s not like I care bro – he’s trying to give Tutor plausible deniability in letting him no-strings accept things without either side needing to express vulnerability. Except, of course, that Tutor has zero interest in that kind of plausible deniability.

I am just… constantly fascinated by two people with such different ways of interacting with the world fumbling at each other and trying to figure out why this person makes no sense and yet is so intriguing and attractive. Because just as Tutor’s desire to put everything into words goes against all of Fighter’s self-protective instincts, it’s clear that Fighter’s all-action/no-talk approach grates against Tutor. Watching Fighter’s face is a very different experience from just reading what it is that he’s saying; he almost never says what he actually feels. At most, he likes to only imply it. But Tutor obviously doesn’t trust subtext. He wants things to be main text only, thanks.

I’m really curious about how exactly Tutor’s family lost its money because I wonder if the reasons are related to this tendency of his; I do feel like we will learn more at some point, because Fighter’s subtext re: his emotional struggle has been main-texted this recent episode with his conversations with his father and Hwa, and it all lined up with what had been implied before through subtext. If that was a relative of Tutor’s who showed up at the end of the episode, maybe we’ll find out next week! We were told in… episode four, I think… that his father got sick and died, and his mom has to work as an in-house maid now but I feel like there are still some lines missing in there from point A to point B.

(I’m also tempted to go back and rewatch all the Tutor & Hwa scenes through this lens – between the implications of Tutor getting angry at the idea of being Fighter’s pet charity case, and Hwa straight-up telling Fighter that she pities Tutor… and Hwa is not a subtle girl so if she does feel pity towards Tutor, I’m sure he’s noticed – then we’re seeing a complicated story of a friendship between two people who used to be on the same social-class rung, but now one of them has tipped off into a different rung. And does the friendship still survive in that case? Depends on the people involved, yeah? But this would definitely also have an impact on Tutor’s perspective on Fighter, as we saw with Tutor’s wistful mention that Fighter’s big fancy house reminds him of the house his family used to have.)

To go back to Tutor and Fighter and my initial thought – Tutor has been pushing Fighter to use his words but he hasn’t really expressed anything himself. Fighter questions Tutor’s feelings at the end of episode six and, well, yeah. It’s a fair point.

From their first kiss at the end of episode two, Tutor has structured all this in terms of a challenge to Fighter’s relationship with Hwa or to Fighter’s sexuality. It’s all about Fighter’s side of things and never about Tutor’s own potential feelings. Even as early as Fighter and Hwa’s first meeting, Tutor is teasing Fighter to be the one to admit to something, and doesn’t actually admit anything himself. But Fighter doesn’t want to admit to liking Tutor if that puts him out on a limb alone, with Tutor leaving him now that his curiosity about whether or not Fighter is attracted to men has been satisfied, because Fighter has no concrete evidence that this is personal on Tutor’s side of things (Fighter wants proof that this matters just as much as Tutor does).

Neither of these boys wants to be the first to admit to having actual feelings for the other one, because emotional vulnerability is scary. Which you know. Fair.

58 notes · View notes

thesunkenblog · 4 years

Text

Black Horror and Narratives of Suffering

In their sanguine smears of crimson across the silver screen, horror movies have always painted impressionistic images of metaphorical real-life anxieties; our recreational fears bed down closely with the cultural conditions of the moment in which they were conceived. However, in such coded terms, audiences often consume these sign systems uncritically; it isn’t groundbreaking to draw parallels between Godzilla and nuclear anxiety, B-movie 50-foot women and the midcentury atomic age, or vampire resurgence and the 1980s AIDS epidemic, but the social conditions these movies are mapped onto are not typically on the moviegoer’s mind as they kick back buckets of searingly salty popcorn and cower behind plush seats in the dark of the theatre. Herein lies black horror's didactic value as a medium that helps to illuminate historical and modern issues within the overt fabric of its narrative and imagery -- black horror isn’t hiding what it’s talking about, and black audiences are invited to participate in the catharsis of seeing their own fears on screen in hypothetical situations without the burden of witnessing real-life violence.

Or are they? As we enter into the study of black horror in a moment of black horror renaissance and national racial tension, we must consider the political implications of replicating brutal racial trauma in a venue largely taken to be recreational entertainment. The very inclusion of black characters in a genre formerly exclusionary, abusive, or maligned is striking, and global voices are raising in choir-praise for the nascent popularity of black horror; creators like Jordan Peele are broadly celebrated as bringing authentic black life (and death) to screens at last, and historically contextualized shows like Lovecraft Country (2020-) are praised for pulling no punches about the true horrors of racism through the ages. A history of social symptoms in black myth and reality surface in a multiplicity of themes: the legacy of slavery and subordination, the appropriation and coveting of black culture and bodies, interracial relations and tensions, black intuition, complicit white liberal culture, isolation, othering, the inheritance of trauma and domination, and the consequences of difference, to name just a flinching few.

The question of authenticity and responsibility in narrative, though, is hard to grapple with after such a long history of absence from -- or reckless “representation” within -- the genre. Diverse stories, depiction, and creators are critical to making media space for blackness, and it is a chief value of entertainment to stoke these ideas and start these conversations at times when viewers have their guards down -- folks are more receptive when they're kicking back, suturing with the screen, and watching TV than when they're doomscrolling through the exhaustion of the day's fraught tensions in the news -- but we must ask if the underpinning of every single black story with the narrative-important presence of trauma induces plot exhaustion, threatens to retraumatize black audiences, and ultimately denies imaginative diversity in the content of black stories. (Many black critics have cited the same issue within the onslaught of Important Race Movies popular in the Academy in the contemporary theatre, and we can turn the same questions of not frequency or longevity of representation but content to black horror, as many critics appraised the inescapable slavery narrative in the same ways.)

Should we be concerned with the privilege of escapism in the horror genre? White audiences see their fears reflected in horror, yes, but much of the popcorn-appeal for blockbuster scares is the opportunity to be voyeuristic to others’ poor choices and dire circumstances -- horror may teach us about ourselves and help us to unpack our own anxieties, but it is also frequently described as an exercise in comparison. Yes, you just lost your job, but watch this teenage waif get chased by a machete-wielder for 96 minutes; it could be worse. An element of disconnect lets horror viewers enjoy terror on screen at the characters’ expense when they do not relate too closely to them; Jaws seems a little less scary if you live in a landlocked state, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre seems a little less immediate a threat to you if you live in Manhattan. The savvy horror fan leans on a reassuring mantra: I would never run upstairs. I would never turn my back on the dead-but-not-really-dead body. I would never leave the weapon lying out in the open. I would survive this movie.

White audiences leave the anxiety they experience on the behalf of black characters subject to black horror in the theatre as the house lights come up; black audiences enter and leave with the fear of relation stuck to them like spilled soda laminated onto the soles of their shoes. The modern black horror character shares in a smart black sensibility and intuition for danger that growing up in a culture that necessitates a survival mindset creates: black characters often do everything “right,” but still suffer brutality. The black horror fan percolates in an unsettling mantra: I would run out of the house early, too. I would grab the baseball bat early, too. I would do the same as he did. I know my aunt, uncle, dad, brother, ancestors, contemporaries did the same when it happened to them. I know what the police lights in the rearview mean, and it’s not the relief of help arriving in the last ten minutes of the movie. I know what this terror is like -- not just terror like it. I might not survive this movie. I might not survive my movie.

You wanted representation? Up on the screen -- that’s you. That’s personal.

What does it mean for violence toward black bodies to be commodified via the media industry, often consumed by non-black eyes who walk out of the theatre with no repercussions, especially at a time when virality of brutality towards black lives is more visible than ever, forever shared and looping across digital spaces? Black horror has often re-created thematic violence in detail, but in the trend to take it further in pursuit and daylighting of historical injustice, real blood has intermingled with stage; Lovecraft Country recreates scenes from the Civil Rights archive in one-to-one scale, and in a recent-of-this-writing Lovecraft Country episode, the death and funeral of Emmett Till is wound into the narrative directly. Is it responsible for horror to borrow the blood of our ancestors for its fictional worlds in such a literal manner? Where do we draw the line? When is it exploitative? Exhausting? Empowering?

Trauma narratives are critically important stories to tell -- warts and all -- but if fiction media is a place to be inventive and especially a place for the potential escape for black audiences into a narrative world where they can see themselves on screen in an entertainment setting, we must ask what it means for your inclusion onscreen to see all of your stories rooted in the very real social abuse inflicted on your lived experience. Much of black social identity is bruised with this shared experience and history of social trauma, but by recreating this in creative media with few exceptions, are we mandating that our stories must be about suffering? It is worth asking if the very act of a representation in media that showed us living our lives -- even our fears -- with no acutely racial repercussions or menace would be just as -- if not more -- subversive.

Of course, these questions aside, art doesn’t have a singular purpose, and if it did, it would not be entertainment and ease; this is an idea horror knows well, and discomfort is often productive. Black horror is not just a place for reconciling and affirming black fear in a controlled setting. It also functions as a teaching medium -- a vehicle for fear and empathy, horror coded with many real issues and lived experiences like Jordan Peele's Get Out (2017) or Us (2019) is a masterclass in conveying the consequences of otherwise abstract social injuries. Peele’s works, among others, resist the trappings of performing blackness as a narrative product for white audiences to consume. While Hollywood has gradually introduced more black bodies on screen over the years, they have often been failingly voyeuristic in nature, puppeted for the consumption of non-black audiences and relying on aforementioned distance and narrative device or on exploitative "correctness" for the purpose of letting white moviegoers indulge in recreational "wokeness" for the duration of the runtime. Black visions from black lenses for black eyes are always inherently revolutionary, to this end. Peele's impact in criticizing the "post-racial lie" of the Obama era spoke truth to power in symbols entertaining and cathartic for black audiences and cut a wide swath of space for black creators to come in proving a viable market for black horror that resists personal and narrative stereotype by modeling representation after wholly gestalt black lives -- not MacGuffins or monsters for white protagonists. Modern black horror has also provided black viewers with narratives of the possibility of survival, displaced from the realities of personal consequence, allowing a freeing of the genre to be both thrilling and reflective -- coping mechanism and entertainment. White audiences are confronted by this black lense when they are not “in” on the terror, accosting them in unexpected ways and inviting viewers to empathize with Black characters as human and to experience embodied terror on their behalf through the horror medium -- a strikingly effective mode of cinematic empathy.

Celebration and criticism are, of course, not diametrically opposed to one another; these arguments exist in tandem within the discourse. Going forward, we must continue to grapple with the positivity and power of this generic shift while staying critical of the black horror canon at large. We must see the theatre as not a Sunken Place unto itself but a space open to representation, reconciliation, and imagination.

. . .

Blog #1 - AFAM 188 FA20.

#black horror #horror #halloween #ucla #ucla afam 188 #jordan peele

4 notes · View notes

bombardthehq · 4 years

Text

Hallucinations as top-down effects on perception Powers et al, 2016, read 27-28.06.20

a review of the state of the literature of top-down effects on perception in neuroscience; and then applies it to hallucinations (we're reading for the first part, but we'll take the second too)

They say 'present-day cognitive scientists' argue cognition does *not* influence perception. They cite: Firestone C, Scholl BJ (2015): Cognition does not affect perception: Evaluating the evidence for 'top-down' effects [in sense do they use 'perception'? perhaps more like Roftopoulos restricted sense? also: this shouldn't be seen as argument against the penetrability of 'perceptual belief' in Lyons 2011]

but 'work in computational neuroscience' challenges this view, & they also think hallucinations pose a challenge to 'srict, encapsulated modularity' [Fodor]; they'll illustrate it with 'phenomenology(!) and neuro-computational work'

MODULES OF THE MIND

Fodor shout out! they give a summary of his modular parsers - "for example, theearly vision module takes in ambient lightand outputs color representations" - which are cognitively penetrable only in a very strict, delineated way.

Fodor's modules are annoying for scientists because they're pooly defined, so difficut to falsify. Some 'ultra-cognitive neuropsychologists' even claim that the brain 'hardware' is irrelevant to the 'software' they're interested in & resist empirical evidence!

a strict modular approach requires 'functional segregation', with different parts of the brain doing different things inaccessibly to one another, but evidence supports an 'integrationism' of the brain [we saw this with the knots "Vetter & Newen" were tying themselves into]

the authors prefer "predictive coding" [like O'Callaghan et al], which they use to model the integrated mind via "functional and effective connectivity data" [a whole new language of buzzwords to learn!]

PREDICTIVE PERCEPTION IMPLIES COGNITIVE PENETRATION

while perception that corresponds to truth would be adaptive, perception that allows misbelief could also be adaptive if the misbeliefs are adaptive

we might, per Hume & Heimholtz, 'perceive what would need to be there for our sensations to make sense'

so the brain uses both bottom-up information and top-down inferences, as Heimholtz argued [fascinating - who was that guy?]

it uses the top-down inferences to 'compute precision-weighted prediction errors' to arrie at 'an optimal estimation' - cite a bunch of 'predictive coding' & 'attention' papers

top-down has a long history in neuroscience, from the 80s

Friston K (2005): A theory of cortical responses -- the origin of 'predictive coding'

contra Fodor, some studies claim that 'early visual processing' ('perception' in Roftopoulos) is influenced by 'non-perceptual information' ... "semantic priming increasesspeed and accuracy of detection by minimizing prediction error" ... " Word contexts result inambiguous shapes being perceived as themissing letters that complete aword" ... a bunch of others

THE BURDEN OF PROOF: ESTABLISHING TOP-DOWN INFERENCES IN PERCEPTION

they go over Firestone & Scholl's criticisms of the 'new look' research

they say that they're plagued w/ problems that can be avoided by following these guidelines:

1. Disentangle perceptual from decisional processes 2. Dissociatereaction time effects from primary perceptual changes 3. Avoid demand characteristics 4. Ensure adequate low-level stimulus control 5. Guarante eequal attentional allocation across conditions.

these issues are inherent to tasks where perception guides a behaviour decision (so research would have to be done without that)

but a 'Bayesian formulation' doesn't permit this distinction; 'Signal Detection Theory' appears to, but it also allows cognition to influence perception.

"Top-down processes can even alter the mechanical properties of sensory organs by alteringthe signal-to-noise ratio" [wow]

they will argue that top-down influence is clearest 'when sensory input is completely absent'-- 'when experiences are hallucinated'

HALLUCINATIONS AS EXAMPLES OF TOP-DOWN PENETRATION

Hallucinations can be consistent w/ affective states; guilt & disease when depressed, etc.

hallucinations are fairly common in even 'non-clinical' cases; they occur in 28% of the population -- hallucinations may be 'an extreme of normal functioning', not a 'failure of modularity'

they give some support for hallucinations being top-down: "prior knowledge of a visual scene conferredanadvantage in recognizing a degraded version of that image" & patients at risk for psychosis were 'particularly susceptible to this advantage'; similarly, patients who were taught to associate a difficult-to-detect noise w/ a visual stimuli began hearing it when shown the visual w/out the noise -- esp. patients 'who hallucinate'

experiences of uncertainty increase the influence of top-down

they feel that studying penetrability via hallucinatory experiences gets around the problems Firestone & Scholl identify; neuroimaging might do it too

now they'll try to integrate this understanding of halluciations as top-down w/ 'notions of neural modularity and connectivity'

BRAIN LESIONS, MODULARITY, CONNECTIVIT AND HALLUCINATIONS

They propose that "inter-regional effects" mediate top-down influence on perception

these are often discussed in terms of 'attention'; 'predictive coding' theory conceives of attention as 'the precision of priors' and 'prediction errors'

a bit of statistics jargon for modelling we don't care about, although they make the interesting equivalence between 'change over time' (uncertainty) and 'predictive relationship between states' (reliability) [difference & repetition baby!] -- the gist is that all this stuff is a promising, plausible explanation of some difficult areas of the data but ['precision weighting'] is still waiting on more empirical trials

so someone walking home after watching a scary movie might have 'precise' enough 'priors', ie. a strongly-weighted 'background theory' (in Fodor's terms), to actually see the shadows on the street as being darker than they are... & if they were precise enough, strong enough, they'd really hallucinate

their support: a single case where a lesion caused hallucinations; 'functional connectivity' between the lesion location ad othre regions; 'effective (directioal) connectivity' in patients w/ Audo-Visual Hallucinations

they'll use these to argue that 'top-down priors' influence perception, contra strict encapsulation

1. lesion-induced hallucinosis

with 'graph-theory' fMRIs of the brain are parsed into 'hubs (sub-networks)', with a subset of regions connecting those sub-networks ('connectors'). see:

lesions are more likely in 'rich-club hubs', regions that mediate long-range connectivity between connected information processing hubs

the limbic system is a rich-club hub & has been implicated in 'the global specification of' precision weighting

it is not, however, part of *early perception*; they'll instead show "regions like orbitofrontal cortexpenetrate perceptual processing in primary sensory cortices giving rise to hallucinations"

~this part gets very heavy on the neuroscience & is beyond me - but the gist is that they're able to look at which hubs do what & how that gets disrupted by lesioins. It appears that there are definitely such things as modules like Fodor's parser, responsible for different faculties, & which parts of the brain these are found in is well settled - its just that these seem to be cognitively penetrable bc of how they behave with lesions. However, these are not 'proof' of it, just 'candidate' explanations for penetration

2. lesion effects on graph theory metrics

re: connectivity, lesions are more disruptive, & can be disruptive of the whole brain, when they occur in between-module connectios (rich club hubs); & they alter connectivity in opposing, un-lesioned hemispheres [this is a challenge for 'cognitive neuropsychology' - the sophist-like 'cognitivists' from before]

"We suggest that the rich-club hubs that alter global network function ... are also the hubs involved in specifying global precision and therefore updating of inference in predictive coding" -- & thats how early perception is cognitively penetrated (ie. 'higher' priors re: precision are mediated by the same stuff that mediate 'predictive coding' in early perception) [note this is a 'suggestion', but they do give a study in support]

there *may* be a connection w/ schizophrenia and lesions in these areas, but it hasnt really been shown yet; but some neuropsychiatrists do work off of this

"In our predictive coding approach informational integration (between modules) is mediated via precision weighting of priors and prediction errors, perhaps through rich club hubs" -- but "the exact relationshipbetween psychological 9modularity and modularity in functional connectivity remains an open empirical question."

ie. percetion is cognitively penetrated because 'predictive coding' (used in early perception) is mediated by a 'precision weighting' of 'priors and prediction errors' via rich club hubs

3. directional effects

'Dynamic causal modeling' (DCM) is a way of looking for 'directional' connectivity in fMRI data

one study examining 'inner speech processing' found very little connectivity "from Wernicke’s to Broca’s areas" in schizophrenic patients w/ auditory hallucinations (vs. schizophrenic patients without them) -- suggesting 'precision of processing in Broca's was higher than in Wernicke's'

they say that this data is consstent w/ informaton from 'higher' regions penetrating lower regions

[Wernicke's area is involved in comprehension of written & spoken language, while Broca's area is involved in the production of language; the idea here is that the patients who experienced auditory hallucinations woud also, when processing language, rely more on the higher level functions of Broca's area for precision weighting and much less so on the earlier perception of Wernicke's area]

'predictions' are top-down (ie. 'flow from less to more laminated cortices') while 'prediction errors' are bottom-up (the opposite) [what are 'prediction errors'? maybe like an 'error warning'?]

a lot of neuroscience stuff about the insula, priors, and lots of things I dont understand, which I dont need to note; the conclusion is tat they speculative that rich club hubs are "well placed to implement changes in gain control as a function of the precision of predictions and prediction errors." [ie. rich club hubs are the 'court' and 'court of appeals' of the brain, 'hearing' prediction & prediciton errors & itself 'sentencing' gain control changes]

another paragraph of studies showing similar things, this time with 'bi-stable perception', percepts that switch dominance 'on their own' (without a change in sensory input) -- this happes more in schizophrenics, but currently hasnt been looked at w/r/t hallucinations specifically

DISCUSSION & FUTURE DIRECTIONS

a summary of the above

their argument is that the data is inconsistent with 'an encapsulated modularity of mind'

w/r/t hallucinations, it looks like the top-down 'gain control mechanisms' ... 'sculpt' perceptions even in the absence of sensation

perception is cognitively penetrated insofar as it minimizes 'overall long-term' prediction error; so the knowing how the Muller-Lyre illusion works doesn't act on my perception because 'the illusion is Bayes optimal' - seeing in this way is more *overall long term* precise

there is some contradiction about schizophrenics & their tendency to perceive illusions - sometimes it works less, sometimes more. Thye say that this cannot be generalized & ought to be treated case by case; there is a *hierarchy* of perceptual systems and 'informaton processing can be impaired at different levels of the hierarchy'

so illusions might fail at a lower level in the hierarchy while hallucinations are generated at a higher level

they discuss work they did w/ ketamine; it doesnt normally cause hallucinations, but they found that it did in the MRI scan which is 'perceptually denuded (dark, still, rythmically noisy)'

ketamine enhances 'bottom up noise'; they argued then that sensory deprivation induces hallucination via top-down priors. "This is similar to the paradoxical effect of hearing loss and vision loss on hallucinations."

higher level precision increases to compensate for lower level prediction errors

so the increased bottom-up feed of ketamine creates prediciton errors when sensory deprived & this produces halluciations -- the priors top-down predictively organizing the error-filled bottom-up feed

so in general, hallucinations are produced by 'the dynamic interaction between priors and prediction errors'

they hint at some arguments that are strongly consonant with our own experiences of schizophrenia. Fist, that it is possible to 'conjure up' hallucinations at will. Secondly, that there are two types of hallucination - those 'with insight' (accompanied by a sense of unreality), and those 'without insight' (which feel as real as any other percept). We have always argued both of these things. [We have always argued that schizophrenia involves a kind of top-down *compulsion*, ie. I *have to* conjure this...]

2 notes · View notes

angieschiffahoi · 4 years

Text

Reasons why Terminator Dark Fate is a worthy sequel of T2

It wrapped up a stale story and respected its predecessor’s finale

Skynet is dead, long live Skynet. Yes, there is no fate and Sarah was able to kill Skynet, but Skynet wasn’t a product of only its time nor an incident made by rogues: Skynet was a warning of what would become of people if they were too arrogant. It’s a tale of hybris. Men get too self-reliant and create something that will bring about their downfall: they become God, but by becoming God they commit a sin so big, they will need Jesus Christ (John Connor or James Cameron, if you will) to save themselves. I mean, if you don’t see the correlation between the Virgin Mary and Sarah Connor (Sarah is also the wife of Abraham, the quintessential mother in the Bible), y’all are blind (she gets inseminated by an “angel” sent to protect her, by her own son, ergo God). Terminator Dark Fate didn’t become woke, it did what T2 started to do, it de-christianized its message for a wider audience (Hollywood doesn’t pander to white christian americans anymore in 2019, go figure). In both movies, Sarah isn’t the Virgin Mary anymore, she’s the mentor, she takes action and she changes her own future and that of billions of people: she becomes the saviour. In the sequel to TDF she obviously was supposed to be the mentor to the new saviour. By killing John, it gave the story back to Sarah and a new hope for the future, taking out some of those harmful tropes where women are only good to “birth” the father of the resistance and not be them. John Connor was never a character you were going to be satisfied with, because he’s an ideal. You liked the teen version, because he was a rebel-ish punk who did everything he wanted, had a motorcycle and a pet robot. You were never going to like the gritty future version of a man destroyed by everything and also he was never supposed to become that. All of Sarah’s struggles the moment she found out she was pregnant were to protect her son from that future. Hadn’t they killed him off in 1999, he would’ve just been a 45 year old drunk - that’s where his character was going after defeating Skynet.

It isn’t contraddictory to have another AI replace Skynet.

Skynet and Legion are a cautionary tale, they are false gods, Frankenstein’s creature and the devil. It’s not repetitive, it’s not something that can be prevented in full, because humanity IS on that path. Humanity wants to play God and Sarah and John’s effort to stop Skynet was silent, it was secret (despite Sarah’s efforts to have people believe her, nobody did). Do you really think it would be so difficult to imagine another company, working on a similar project, at the same time in the late 90s - early 2000s? The only weak point is the implication that Legion would occupy terminators and the same tactics as Skynet, but I’m guessing if Sarah has been killing Terminators in the past for 30 years, Legion could’ve “read” something about it and developed itself to fit the past or got inspired, I don’t know. It’s not that far-fetched to have another AI use the same tactics.

It introduced a new scary terminator, who is perfect for 2020

The Rev-9, like its predecessors, is an inflitration model (and that’s the only reason they cast a latin actor) who is built to hunt the same way the first two were, but it does it better: because 2020 is a scary time. The T-800 had to look on a phone book and kill three Sarah Connor before getting to the right one. This one? It needs a working internet connection.

Also, to all of you saying that politics should stay out of movies,

- the T-800 was an intimidating male hunting a defenseless woman

- the T-1000 was a cop hunting a supposed “crazy woman and criminal”

- the Rev-9 is an immigration officer hunting a defenseless immigrant.

not that hard to spot the similarities.

It answered the question “what happens to terminators when they fulfill their purpose?”

Arnie is old and that’s what made it so much more believable for me.

People keep using this quote from The Terminator to say how terrible writing and what a huge plot hole it was to make the T-800 a dad: “That Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop.Ever. Until you are dead.”

Here’s a few reasons why their reasoning is biased:

First, off screen reason: this is the first movie, Cameron had no idea what would become of its own sequels. He hadn’t predicted Arnold would have such a following and I’m sure a re-programmed Terminator wasn’t in its plans. The first movie was about the horror of the terminator, we weren’t supposed to feel anything for it but fear, because its purpose was to scare us and nothing else.

Second, in-character reason: Kyle Reese is a soldier in the future. He has only seen these machines kill and maim and knows that, just because this one has skin and hair and muscle on its endo-skeleton, it isn’t less machine than the ones he has been fighting all of his life. He only knows this one’s worse: because he has a single purpose.

Third, non canon reason: Cameron from TSCC. Nobody was offended when she started to develop feelings for John in that series, why is everyone so offended by Carl now? Yeah. But it’s not canon, so let’s go to the last reason.

Fourth, canon, on-screen, in-character reason: THE WHOLE EFFING MOVIE YOU LOVE SO MUCH. Terminator 2 is all about the differences between the T-1000 and the T-800. Yes, it was re-programmed, but it wasn’t programmed to get attached to John, to learn from him, to almost act as a surrogate father, to give him a sign of their relationship as he was lowered to his death. It has been established machines can feel. Even the Rev-9, who’s still fully on mission, has a personality, the same way Patrick’s was. They exist, therfore they are. They have their own thoughts, their own doubts and that means they can develop a conscience and get attached. Carl says he doesn’t love his family the way a human would and it shows, the same way the T-800 from T2 didn’t love John like a Kyle Reese would have.

It gave us a new found family dynamic and used old tropes to tell new stories

Dani, Grace and Sarah have an amazing dynamic. Adding Carl to the mix was a bonus, because it created tension, but at the same time it gave us back that soft T-800 everyone of us fell in love with at 10-13 years old.

It did what TFA tried to do but better, imho. Star Wars fans were starved and when Disney made that movie, it still was considered a good producer of excellent content (now, not so much). TDF was produced by a variety of studios, because nobody wanted to take full responsibility after the disaster that was Genysis (and who could blame them?). Nobody praised TFA for its attempt to start a new saga, re-using ANH’s storyline with new characters and then build from there a new story, but it’s because they didn’t do it right. TFA doesn’t give you time to care about the characters, it’s a messy introduction of what could’ve been a very good trilogy if only they tried harder.

TDF, in my opinion, did try harder. It gave us a simple hunter-hunted storyline, where all of the cast is in the same place at the same time. This way, you can care about the development of their relationships. You care about Grace and Dani, not because the movie told you to, but because you can see Grace’s affection and ammiration from the very first scenes and, by the end, you see the affection Dani has for this stranger who’s sole purpose it taking care of her, when she’s so used to be the one to take care of others (see the first few scenes with her brother and father). You care about Dani and Sarah, because the whole movie builds up to the mentor storyline without telling you. You care about Carl and Sarah, because of all the build up from past movies, but also because of the little things (”I’m never f* calling you Carl” to calling him just that a few scenes later or Sarah calling out the Rev-9 by telling it, “we’re not machines”). Everything it did, it did without telling us what to feel and that’s rare in a world where franchises are constantly telling you who you should like and why, instead of writing a good story and letting you figure it out by yourself.

-----

It is not by far a perfect movie. Having 3 producing companies and six writers didn’t help, the same way it didn’t help that Tim Miller was basically ghost-directing for the ever-too-busy James Cameron.

It could have been better in many ways: firstly, by using smaller scenes and a smaller budget and maybe a little less CGI and a little more practical effects. It was too ambitous and fans hadn’t yet forgiven this franchise for Genysis, because fans are butthurt babies who only want things to be they way they want them (I hated Genysis, don’t get me wrong, but I decided if this movie was going to be worth it once they said it wouldn’t be a sequel and watched a couple of trailers, it isn’t that hard). Another reason it bombed, beside the active boycotting, was the close to absent promotion except for a couple of lines.

Anyway, this messy post is just to explain the reasoning why I believe it is a worthy sequel and, in my opinion, without the nostalgia goggles on and taking out of the equation the “originality” factor, I dare say it’s perfectly on par with The Terminator.

#terminator dark fate #terminator #terminator spoilers #spoilers #angie rants #ignore #personal #long post

11 notes · View notes

cyanpeacock · 4 years

Text

“On yer bike!”: An introduction to the wacky world of cyclins, and cell division control.

Just like you cycle through your thoughts and emotions in a day, your cells cycle through a process of their own, to divide and grow so that you can do amazing things - like reading this post.

Setting the scene:

Your DNA comes in long curly strings called chromosomes, literally “coloured bodies.” From the day you’re conceived, these chromosomes replicate, segregate, and are separated into new cells. They build you!

We’re diploid organisms, so in most of our cells, we have two sets of chromosomes. We call the amount of DNA in a cell 2n - two times n, where n is the haploid amount of DNA (the amount in a single set of chromosomes, which you would normally find in an egg or sperm cell).

Some very clever sod came up with imaginative names to identify these stages of cellular replication and division. Here they are:

M-phase: Mitosis. Here, replicated chromosomes separate, and one cell, containing two diploid sets of chromosomes, divides into two. 4n becomes 2n.

G1: Growth phase 1. Your cell grows to its optimum functional size, making sure it contains the right amount of everything for it to work, so far as it knows. Here, it might leave to a state called G0, or quiescence - the cell is no longer part of the cycle of division. It may be re-induced to divide by the presence of certain conditions, or go on to some kind of cell death. In this stage of the cycle, the cell contains 2n DNA.

S-phase: In S-phase, your cell begins replicating its chromosomes. 2n becomes 4n.

G2: In G2, the cell goes about replicating all the little machines inside it that make the cell able to function. It contains 4n DNA, and grows in size to accommodate all the molecules that get synthesized within it.

So, we see this progression, with the exception of cells in G0:

M → G1 → S → G2

[2 * 2n] → [2n] → [2n → 4n] → [4n]

And back to M.

Now, how is this weird little progression controlled?

Cell division control genes, and their products:

It gets complicated, but basically, the progression is controlled by two families of proteins, encoded by the cdc genes. cdc stands for cell division control - makes sense, right? These genes make proteins, which act as little machines to control the division and growth of your cells.

One family of proteins produced from cdc genes is called the cyclin dependent kinase group, or Cdk proteins for short. A kinase is a protein that phosphorylates a substrate (another molecule in the cell). All it does is add a little phosphate group onto the molecule, and that’s enough to change its behaviour entirely!

Cdks are always present in your cells, and there are several types, but they don’t really work on their own. They can’t take the proper shape to phosphorylate anything without their pals, the cyclins.

Cyclins are a bit strange. Again, there are several kinds, but unlike Cdks, they’re not present in the cell all the time - and for good reason. The different types need to be created and destroyed at certain times, so that they can cooperate with the Cdks to make the right things happen for your cells to divide normally.

So, how do cyclins and Cdks pair up to do this?

Well, that requires looking at their structures.

Parts of a puzzle:

Cdks are pretty small, about 34 kilodaltons in weight, if you wanted to know the measurements. They have a little pocket on the side called the kinase domain, but without a cyclin pal, it doesn’t work!

Cyclins are also pretty small, and often very structurally different, outside of a small region called the cyclin-box. The cyclin-box is the bit that binds to a Cdk, which changes its shape, and activates the kinase domain. They also have an N-terminal destruction box - we’ll cover what that means in a little while.

So, a particular cyclin gets made, and through mystical processes vaguely described by physics, it floats along to find its best bud, the Cdk. Their shapes just - want to fit together, because of the basic laws of attraction that apply in this part of spacetime. We call this kinetics of association and dissociation. There’s handy maths for it, but that’s for another time.

The cyclin binds to the Cdk, and that little kinase domain pocket on the Cdk becomes active! It can hold onto the -OH group of serine and threonine amino acid side-chains, and add on a phosphate group nicked off ATP to its substrates.

This action changes the shape of various molecules to produce an overall interaction with your DNA, so that it can be duplicated, and so that different sections can be transcribed into RNA, then translated into proteins. All this lets your cells grow and divide. Boom! Brand new cellular material. Isn’t that awesome?

Then, when enough time has passed, a protein called E3 ubiquitin ligase comes along to degrade the cyclin, by recognizing its N-terminal destruction box and tagging it with ubiquitin. Ubiquitin targets the cyclin to the proteasome - a little shredder for molecules, so their constituent parts can be recycled. It literally looks like a little bin with a lid! This terminates the action of the complex, and the cell is free to progress into the next stage of the cycle, or into quiescence.

Who does what?:

As you might have guessed, the specific transitions between cell cycle stages are controlled by specific Cdks and cyclins. Thanks to the very clever work of many individuals, my lecturer Professor Andrew Fry (University of Leicester) included, we know quite a bit about precisely which cdc genes and products do what, and when.

M-phase: Entry into M-phase from G2 is controlled by Cdk1 + cyclins A and B.

G1: In G1, it’s Cdks 4 and 6 + cyclin D. This combination permits passage through the G0 restriction point.

S-phase: Cdk2 + cyclin E permit passage into S-phase. Cdk2 + cyclin A allow for progression through S-phase.

What does that look like, paired up with the little sequence we made earlier?

M → G1 → S → G2

[2 * 2n] → [2n] → [2n → 4n] → [4n]

(Cdk 1 + A/B) → (Cdk4/6 + D) → (Cdk2 + E) → (Cdk2 + A)

You’ve probably noticed these transitions don’t line up precisely. That’s because this is a very fluid process - we’ve just made these discrete distinctions to make it easier to learn the major transition points, before you can visualize the whole process in motion.

Study in vivo:

Did you know that these cyclins and Cdks are virtually identical between laboratory yeast cells and humans? They’re more than 95% similar!

This means we can use carefully-measured application of radioactivity to generate mutant yeast cells, with single point mutations in their genomes, to study them - no humans get harmed in the process, unless we’re careless with the X-ray machine. (O_o)

Some of these mutants fail to grow and divide at all, and some, perhaps more usefully, fail to grow and divide at certain temperatures.

These temperature-sensitive yeast cells with mutations in the cdc genes can be induced to grow and divide again. We can add plasmids to them - little circles of DNA containing certain genes, one of which might restore the function lost by the mutant yeast cell.

This is called complementation, and it lets us retroactively figure out which gene has gone wonky in the mutant, by looking at the gene on the specific plasmid we introduced from our plasmid library (yes, we have a whole archive of them now!). It’s the process that allowed us to confirm that human cdc genes can cover for mutant yeast cdc genes, and perhaps vice versa in the future.

We can also use the oocytes of marine animals (egg cells) to study the transitions between cell cycle stages. Frog oocytes are good for this - they’re big, and translucent enough for the cycle stages to be observed under a light microscope, so it’s not too expensive either.

It’s possible to take the cytoplasm from a frog egg cell we’ve noticed is in mitosis, and inject it into another cell that’s not doing much at all, yet. The introduction of the foreign cytoplasm drives the cell into mitosis - so there must be the presence of a mitosis promoting factor, or MPF. We can see the mitotic spindle form under a light microscope. Isn’t that neat?

Through experiments like this, we’ve figured out that there’s an order of dominance to the cyclins and Cdks present in a cell, i.e. some cyclins and Cdks take effect over others.

MPF, or Cdk1 + B, is dominant over all other cell cycle stages.

SPF (S-phase promoting factor), or Cdk2 + E, is dominant over G1 phase cells, but not G2 phase cells.

So, why do we care?:

Well, it’s just plain interesting!

However, beyond human obsession with novelty, the study of cdc genes and their products has implications for a wide range of human diseases.

Perhaps most notably, cdc genes can be implicated in cancer, where cells divide outside of the healthy range of control. By studying them and elucidating their structures, we can get a clearer idea of what might be going wrong in some kinds of cancer, and how to fix it.

We have the technology, here, today, now, to make replacement cdc genes from a functional template like the plasmids I mentioned earlier, and introduce them into new cells using something like a virus - SV40 is one that works in humans. It’s limited right now, because we don’t want anything to go horribly wrong with it, but it’s possible.

It’s a pretty funky little cycle, and although it’s scary when it goes wrong, it’s a joy to watch in motion when it goes right.

I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

#fliptext #sciblr #medblr #could have said more but then i'd be getting into modern alchemy #i mean #this is already #but i'm talking full like... grey magic #helical rotations and electron transfer and whatnot #decided to leave that for another day #wondering if i should make a sideblog for this kind of thing #many thanks to prof. andrew fry for his excellent lectures and powerpoints on this particular piece of the puzzle

4 notes · View notes

haleighdennis · 5 years

Text

Petscop Scared Me. Here’s Why…

At this creepy time of year I made it my business to research and create some creepy artwork inspired by games such as #bendyandtheinkmachine

View my Insta for art-related content: https://www.instagram.com/dennis.haleigh/

I had never really been interested in the #horror genre before, and #bendy was a flippin’ good game to start with. I strongly recommend it. (Bonus points if you watch #razzbowski ‘s lets play. Super, super entertaining.)

After learning about bendy, I wanted to research some more of that scary goodness, but honestly, I can’t handle gore or gross stuff. I figured, if I stuck to the cartoon-y stuff, I wouldn’t be scared crapless.

I don’t think I could have gotten things more backwards. I couldn’t stand #fnaf for instance. Too scary.

Jeez. Who’d-a thought!?!?!?!?!??????????

Then, I dug into #dokidokiliteratureclub and its various mods. Big mistake.

THEN I heard that if you like #dokidoki you should check out [insert various other foreign and obscure meta game titles here]. These effectively terrified me. But there was something wrong with my fears. They were just that – fears of the “what if,” with no real grounding in reality.

“What if my stuffed animals are evil?” A question I hadn’t seriously considered since watching Toy Story 2 in elementary school.

“What if cartoons are out to get us?”

And worst of all: “What if game characters can manipulate the world around me?”

Studying game lore led me to creepypasta, which is by far some of the most baseless fearmongering, jumpscare-driven clickbait that exists on the internet. Also some of the finest entertainment for those such as myself who astonishingly lead dull lives in the real world.

Studying the creepy led me to discover a deep dark secret of moviemaking, gaming and creative industries in general: turns out, my darkest fears were true. Entertainment has the ability reach directly out of our screens – be they VR headsets, phones, computers or TVs – and effect the real world. Your drawings can peel off of their paper and effect the environment around you.

Don’t believe me? Well today, grasshopper, I want to talk about #petscop

I would strongly recommend viewing this series if you are 13+ and like a good scare (warnings for language and disturbing content). If you’re like me and you want to explore the lore and the alleged basis of media, Petscop is richer than deep dark hot chocolate and an engaging book by the campfire in the dead of winter.

There’s one catch: The alleged basis in reality I referenced above will make your blood run cold, not due to a well-placed jumpscare or frightening imagery, but because the game forces you to do the following:

1) Look beyond the game

2) Look past yourself

3) Challenge yourself

Seriously. That’s the scary part. Allow me to explain…

****MILD SPOILERS FOR PETSCOP BELOW****

The “dark secret” of Petscop is that this series that looks cute on the surface is really a cautionary tale about #childabuseawareness (#abuseawareness ). The fictional player in Petscop accumulates information over time relating to several cases of abuse and murder. The player is shocked by what he learns and sees. Some internet theorists assume that the entire game of Petscop is supposed to demonstrate an #AI training ground, where an unknown individual is attempting to re-create the scenarios surrounding these deaths of various children. Play testers like our fictional guide are AIs involved in this experiment.

In fact, the truth is, the characters in this goofy game has a life outside of their code. And, no, I’m not talking about creepypasta Sonic.exe materializing as a plushie to kill you dead.

I’m talking about references within the game to real child abuse and murder. It’s not a pretty thing to research. Oh. You thought you’d just come for a quick scare and then you’d be merrily on your way? Fat chance. Turns out, there is heavy implication suggesting that Petscop was created as more than just another creepypasta clickbait thrillride. It actually tries its best to make its viewers *over-dramatic gasp* think.

How does it do this, you ask? By alluding strongly to a true story about a young girl who was abused and murdered by her adopted parent and several “therapists” and “professionals.” This was all part of a shockingly vain (and I mean doomed from the start) attempt to make the child feel natural love her new mother. When the girl reacted like anyone would to blatant abuse and bullying, she was murdered in cold blood. I won’t post the full story here cause its some heavy stuff, but see the below links if you want to learn more. WARNING: disturbing content. 13+ only please.

Game Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC88jsc-wpg

ADVOTI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrODA-ybqdE

No, I don’t think I’ll be watching a Let’s Play of #thebindingofisaac any time. Ever.

Now, I look back on ALL the above-mentioned fear-filled games and can’t help but thinking that they are dealing with serious topics a bit too lightly. Don’t’ get me wrong. No one is going to blame you for enjoying some haunted fun this #halloween but I would ask you to consider – and remember – the truehorror stories of our age. Be solemn for those who have suffered and pray fervently for those who inflict the suffering (forgiveness and second-chances are not always a popular opinion, but hey). Pray for those who have a duty to pass judgement – that they would help make wrongs right – and that the stories would of victims be told and paid attention to with the same viral awareness of the poor-audio, one-off indie art project that viewers of Petscop have become obsessed with.

And, most of all, don’t dwell in the dark. With #Christmas and #Thanksgiving just around the corner. Make a change in yourself. Reach out. Become that stereotypical charitable little old lady who encourages the downtrodden, picks up the fallen and loves the lost ones of this world. Who knows? You, dear reader, may have been lost on your journey once upon a time. Can you remember who came alongside and helped you? No? News flash: we all need someone like that at some point in our lives. The meaning of life is to be that person constantly. It’s not easy. It’s not always fun. But it has its rewards.

And if you are of religious conviction like myself, your love and kindness – choosing to forgive vs. hold a grudge; offering a smile instead of being just another frown – has an eternal impact because 1) right and wrong exist, 2) God exists and 3) the people you interact with will literally exist forever.

BRB ya’ll. I need to check out another horror game.

#adoption #fostersystem

2 notes · View notes

preciseprose · 6 years

Text

Dipper v. Emotional Conflict

After re-watching every episode of Gravity Falls, listening to every commentary track available, and reading “Lost Legends”, I’ve come to the following conclusion about Dipper Pines:

His greatest weakness is his inability to resolve internal emotional conflicts on his own.

I see a lot of my younger self in Dipper. We’re both nerdy dorks who are confident—often to a fault—in our ability to think, plan, or argue our way out of conflicts. Logical reasoning comes naturally to us; emotional sensitivity does not. We shine the brightest when tasked with solving problems devoid of emotional complications because we have a hard time understanding them. So when cornered by emotional conflicts that are difficult to resolve or that are unfamiliar, our confidence nosedives.

Dipper’s response to unfamiliar or difficult emotional conflicts depends on both the circumstances in which the conflict arises and whether the source of the conflict is external or internal. In “Dipper v. Manliness”, Dipper’s self-confidence is challenged externally after he’s publicly emasculated by failing a strength test and privately emasculated after Mabel and Stanley make fun of his love of BABBA, a stereotypically feminine pop group.

This conflict does not require immediate resolution, so Dipper does not immediately face it. Instead he wanders into the woods, eventually finding guidance in the form of the Manotaurs, a clan of hypermasculine half-man half-taurs.

The manotaurs are of course nothing like noodle-armed Dipper. They’re about as intelligent as the rocks they crush with their horns; disparage BABBA for its femininity; and characterize the Multibear, a multi-headed bear who loves BABBA, as their enemy merely because he refuses to conform with their toxic masculinity. Unsure about what it means to be a man and lacking the self-confidence to support his past perception of manliness, Dipper tries to fit in with the manotaurs even though doing so requires him to reject the effeminate parts of himself. This rejection of himself creates internal emotional conflict that reveals itself when Dipper, tasked by the Manotaurs to murder the Multibear in order to prove his manliness, discovers he has more in common with the Multibear than the Manotaurs.

The realization that killing the Multibear would be akin to killing himself is enough of a shock that Dipper realizes he doesn’t need to be traditionally masculine in order to be a man. His self-confidence somewhat restored, Dipper is able to tell the overwhelmingly masculine manotaurs their way of life is flawed without fear. He resolves his external conflict by rejecting its very existence. Yet when Dipper meets up with Mabel and Stan a few hours later, it is clear Dipper has failed to resolve his internal conflict on his own.

There is no objective reason Dipper shouldn’t have shed his internal conflict after telling off the Manotaurs. His internal conflict stemmed from his independent decision to act like someone he was not, not from public embarrassment or from being bullied by Stan and Mabel. All that’s required of Dipper is from him to take the inferential step that standing up for himself was, in fact, manly. That Dipper immediately discusses his distaste for the Manotaurs with Stan and Mabel upon meeting with them shows he’s on the verge of making the realization for himself. Nevertheless, Dipper’s internal conflict is only resolved after Stan and Mabel assure him his rejection of the Manataurs was manly.

But of course he can’t come to the realization himself, he’s only twelve! Not even the most emotionally sensitive 12-year-old boy should be able to figure out the intricacies of manhood after a single shot at it. Dipper’s lack of self-awareness shows he has room to grow. And grow he does; physically and mentally.

Dipper and Mabel’s summer in Gravity Falls occurs during the sunrise of their transition from childhood to adulthood. During the course of the show their bodies are changing (although only Dipper’s is discussed) and they’re experiencing romantic attraction for the first time. Mabel joyfully throws herself into these new feelings of attraction without restraint and absent any expectations because she isn’t looking for anything serious. She’s not interested in grown-up stuff; she just wants to hold hands and kiss cute boys without consequence while she can. Dipper, however, views his attraction to Wendy, a girl three years his senior, as an opportunity to finally leave childhood behind and move on to glorious adulthood. He puts enormous pressure on himself to establish a serious romantic relationship because, whether or not he realizes it, he views such a relationship as a stepping stone to maturity.

Dipper knows he lacks what is necessary to charm Wendy, but his desire to grow up blinds him from realizing he cannot gain what isn't there by pretending to be someone he is not,

by executing an elaborate plan,

or by sabotaging Wendy’s existing romantic relationship.

Dipper’s immaturity blinds him to what Mabel understands intuitively: 12-year-old’s can’t sustain serious romantic relationships because 12-year-olds haven’t lived long enough to gain the emotional maturity, experience, and patience such relationships require. His inability to figure this out frustrates his goal of growing up as fast as possible and results in massive internal emotional conflict over how he should present himself to potential romantic partners. It is this self-imposed internal conflict that causes Dipper’s self-confidence to implode whenever he’s first meets or is alone with a person he classifies as a potential romantic partner. This is why Dipper is awkward around Wendy and, before he dehumanizes them per Stan’s instructions, the girls he meets during “Roadside Attraction”, but is never awkward around Pacifica—even when she’s hugging him.

This view is confirmed by Dipper’s behavior following his discussion with Wendy in “Into the Bunker”. After their battle with the Shapeshifter, Wendy confronts Dipper about his feelings for her. She tells him the she’s flattered he likes her, but that she’s too old for him. And to stop Dipper’s thoughts from spiraling out of control, she reassures him that she loves spending time with him and that things between them don’t have to be awkward. After this point Dipper is no longer awkward around Wendy, but not because he resolved his inner emotional conflict.

Unlike the conflict in “Dipper v. Manliness”, which existed for maybe a few days, Dipper’s conflict over how to present himself to potential partners has stewed within him for weeks. One short conversation is not enough help for him to move past it. If it was, Dipper wouldn’t still have a crush on Wendy 15 episodes later.

Accordingly, the reason Dipper is no longer awkward around Wendy is not because he understands he cannot date her eventually, but rather because she expressly told him she will never return his feelings for her. The change in Dipper’s mind was not that he shouldn’t pursue a serious romantic relationship at his age, it was that Wendy is not a potential romantic partner.

It’s not until after Weirdmagedon that Dipper finally moves past this inner conflict; and even then, he does so indirectly. Alex Hirsch provides an excellent explanation of how this comes to pass in the commentary track for “Scary-oke”:

“Dipper wants to grow up too fast. That’s his flaw as a character. And it builds to a choice that he has the chance to skip over childhood and then he comes to appreciate childhood. And when he returns at the end of this summer, he’s not in such a rush. He’s not in such a rush to date Wendy and to be a government agent, and all of this stuff.”

At the end of the show, Dipper still doesn’t grasp that he will never date Wendy—and thus his awkwardness around girls he likes will continue to manifest itself—but at least he’s no longer putting so much pressure on himself to find a girlfriend.

To close, I’d like to discuss why Dipper doesn’t view Pacifica as a potential romantic partner, and what I believe the implications of that view would have been had the show continued past season two. Once again Alex Hirsh’s commentary, this time from “The Golf War”, speaks with more clarity than I can provide:

“[The writing staff] loved that [Pacifica] brought out . . . pure instant sass and rage from Dipper. He’s so protective of his sister that he becomes way more assertive around Pacifica because he has no ambiguity in his mind about how he feels about her; he can’t stand her. And his normal social fear melts away when there is someone he hates that much.”

This confirms my theory on why Dipper isn’t awkward around Pacifica.

More interesting, however, is Matt Chapman’s (writer and voice actor for Gravity Falls) commentary on Dipper and Pacifica’s relationship. During the commentary track for “Northwest Mansion Mystery”, Chapman states:

“What’s so exciting about this pairing, Dipper and Pacifica, is that Dipper is normally very . . . he doesn’t have a lot of confidence. Yet around Pacifica he has tons of confidence.”

Based on her actions in “Northwest Mansion Mystery” and “Face It”, Pacifica is clearly attracted to Dipper. She admires his confidence around her, appreciates his willingness to not judge her despite her family’s past actions, and is genuinely touched by his ability to look past the protective facade she maintains and see her for who she truly is.

I don’t think I’m overreaching by stating that Dipper would eventually figure out Pacifica has feelings for him had the show continued. How he would respond to that discovery is subject to more speculation. Personally, I believe Dipper would have a hard time coming to terms with the knowledge that Pacifica’s has feelings for him. I think he'd drive himself nuts trying to resolve his older feelings of distrust and dislike for her, with new feelings of attraction to her, and the knowledge that she’s attracted to him. And while I have many more thoughts on this subject, this analysis is already long enough so I’m going to cut it off here.

Dipper is an extremely well-written character. He’s an excellent reminder that childhood can only be experienced once, and shouldn’t be rushed. He also serves to remind those just starting puberty to remember that emotional sensitivity plays just as much of a role in relationships as does rational discussion. Overall, he’s one of my favorite characters of all time and I’m glad he’s in one of my favorite shows of all time.

#gravity falls #dipper pines #pacifica northwest #character analysis #pinetree speaks #dipper vs. manliness #the inconveniencing #double dipper #boyz crazy #into the bunker #the golf war #roadside attraction #face it #lost legends #lost legends spoilers #gravity falls meta

455 notes · View notes

glitterandrocketfuel · 5 years

Text

YBC Hot Takes: Alone Together

Part 3 in this month’s Peterick Institute for Flexible Metallurgical Haberdashery is under way! Today’s discussion takes on Part 4 of the Youngblood Chronicles, viewed through the lens of Patrick’s solo career during the hiatus.

Alone Together - Alone in the Dark. Without You, I’m Just Me.

The vixens hand off the briefcase to the mystery woman in the RATATAT limo, passing Patrick's solo career into the hands of the music industry. Patrick's solo career makes its way out into the world, and into the hands of people who are ready to see this strange musical dreamer from a band that never quite fit into expectations or did the right thing be taken down a peg, made to fit in someplace where he can be marketed and controlled and served up at the pleasure of the forces that profit from creativity rather than create it.

youtube

In hiatus terms, each of the boys is going through their own personal hellscape. Joe's sense of humor (though underrepresented in media interviews, Joe's always had a killer sense of humor) deserted him in the darker times of hiatus-ville. Plus, humor comes from pain. Andy's forced to hear corporate-pablum music and face TeeVee with someone who looks like the quintessential PR person "image consultant." Basically the worst version of "suddenly I have nothing to do all day but watch TV" ever.

And Pete, well, we all know Pete's relationship with the paparazzi is one that is complex and painful. He knows exactly how to mug for the cameras and use it to his advantage, but damned if he doesn't bleed for it, and does it ever change him. Fame changes you and Celebrity can turn you into a weapon towards its own ends as you're driven to do more and more outrageous things for the spotlight while having less and less control over your own image and narrative. And lest we forget, deep cuts can be made in 140 characters or less. Hiatus!Pete was known to make some thoughtless tweets regarding the band's status that cut them like, oh, a hook cuts through a vixen, and Patrick, without the shield of the Pete Wentz Celebrity Show, is about to experience the full thrust of social media and celebrity all alone (while Pete is in his own separate media hell).

But while each of these scenarios shows the boys grappling with their own individual nightmares, there's another level of interpretation: The other band members are all aspects of Patrick's solo career.

Andy represents Patrick's artistic integrity (much in the way Andy is the true north for the band). He's under attack by consumption and pretension, the "selling out" aspect that wants to package and make palatable and soften and distort and produce by committee (all the things that Patrick's grappled with in his controlling professional nature). The label doesn't quite know what to do with him, how to package him. They would love nothing more than to leverage his Fall Out Boy fame, but Patrick Stump, Soul Punk is not an outgrowth of that, it's a departure from it. But he's also a little (blonde, pale, white) guy in a suit and a bow tie who's aligning musically with hip-hop, soul, R&B, rap, and synth-pop that they just don't know how to sell.

Joe is Patrick's playfulness, his creative compass. After all, it is Patrick and Joe who were both kids when they started on the whole crazy ride. Joe put the band together and where Pete pushes Patrick to stretch his limits, Joe leads him in more subtle ways. Joe is under attack by fickle, fickle youth. The "kids" who catapulted Fall Out Boy into stardom are the same ones who tossed accusations about them selling out when they changed up their sound or started playing bigger venues.

Even as far back as IOH, Pete played with the concepts of aging out of "the scene" and the implications of their changing fame on their sound (nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy when you've gone platinum). And those same "kids" (the fact that they're little girls dressed up and made up like young vixens is another layer altogether, commenting on the changing music scene and how we're commercializing 'em younger and younger but I digress...) are the ones who are simultaneously embracing Patrick at shows and in tweets...and excoriating him the same way for not staying the same.

Pete is the Spotlight, shining harsh and violent on an alone-on-stage Patrick who doesn't have a band to hide behind or stand with him when he's a solo artist. The frontman antics and media scrutiny, the gauntlet of interviews Patrick has always been able to slide into Pete's inbox or avoid in favor of being one of two or three or four where he could count on Pete taking the lead all rest solely on Patrick's shoulders now. Not all these things are bad--Patrick on stage as frontman, doing his own thing and coming out from behind the shell of his awkward youth, is the stuff vixens dream about at night.

But while Patrick has learned to do it, he's not learned to master it the way Pete has--not had a baptism of fire, so to speak. He can perform being a performer, but he can't tame and direct and hack the attention the way Pete can. The celebrity rides him, not the other way around.

The sexual overtones of Pete being on display are significant here, both for Pete as Pete and for Pete-as-Patrick. Without Pete being the "heartthrob" of the band, all the sexualized attention is turned onto Patrick alone and if you're not born to it, it turns on you in a heartbeat.

Patrick, pushing his solo career, plays in the hallowed halls of venues every night, but whatever the realities are, his ears start to hear more and more of the critics. For the first time, he's doing this without a Pete Wentz Patented Safety Net.

He's slimmed down, glammed up, dressed up, sexed up in the spotlight, his music unrestrained by a pre-defined "sound" of Fall Out Boy that he must remain faithful to. But without the Pete-Buffer he stands alone and all his ears can hear are the critics. The tapes are on loop, playing "we liked you better fat," and "go back to Fall Out Boy."

Pete racing through the halls, pursued with murderous intent by the vixens who so recently wanted sexytimes, is Patrick flailing between the broom closet of his past with Fall Out Boy and punk, and his present as an outsider in hip-hop (y halo thar, Big Sean). The halls are a maze, and Patrick's front-facing persona is only reunited with himself after the critical voices have laid their poison.

Cruel reviews, selfish reactions from fans who don't want him to change or strike out on his own. Sinister whispers designed to break him down and manipulate him back into staying in the lane that the media and the public have already assigned to him--either go back to Fall Out Boy or stay in the same musical lane.

Or the really scary option of having to be a nostalgia/reunion band that does nothing but replay its old glories over and over again or desperately attempts to try and re-create the same thing again and again. Missing the mark each time because the magic never stays the same. Tap-dancing harder and faster for half the thrill each time and never be able to move forward or move on.

In the end, though, Pete finds Patrick in the befouled sacred space of music and does his best to patch him back together by providing the hook. But it's not a hand, it's not the vital connection to the band that makes him whole, it's a weapon. A crude one, only good for lashing out and hurting, and already test-driven by Pete himself.

Pete, who has done this before--had his guts opened up and his innards dissected by the media and gossip mills which thrive on consuming intimate, personal experiences and regurgitating them in carnival fun-house distortion back into the public eye--and conquered it in his own way as best as he could.

Patrick's public-facing self reunites with him, but the damage has been done both internally in the music space and externally, leaving him broken and un-whole. Instead of the talented hand and crafty fingers, he's got a clumsy weapon, good only for destroying what came before.

#peterick institute #ybc meta #ybc hot take

12 notes · View notes