while this is by no means confined to the late 2000s and still happens, I feel like series writers in the late 2000s in general were really bad about specifically bringing in a love interest of color to make their white lead characters seem Not Racist™ by dating them but then having that character be basically a punching bag for the Real Romance of the series: two straight white people.

To José Rubia Barcia Mexico City, 6 February 1947 Dear Barcia, Your letter arrived a few days ago and I had to wait a few more to reply, because I was overwhelmed with work. I’m now at leisure to do so as shooting finished on the 1st of this month. I was getting a bit fed up of that damned Tampico and heaved a sigh of relief after shooting the final scene. In fact, I left the studio with a raging fever and was in bed for three days with the onset of pneumonia. Even today, finally out of bed, I still have stabbing pains in my right side. I won’t say much about the film, as you’re already familiar with its fairly mediocre story. I made a few good changes, including a suggestion of yours to do with them not escaping en masse from the prison, etc. It certainly won’t put me up there with the greats of Mexican cinema, white or Indian, but it has put me on the map as a commercial director. I finished it, although not without great effort and squandered energy, in the thirty-four days they gave me to complete it, managing to stay under budget at the same time. I’ve had offers to do other films, particularly with Negrete, who has become fond of me, but for the moment I’m cutting loose and heading off alone to France towards the end of the month at the latest. I’m taking advantage of a free tourist flight that will get me there directly. The main purpose of this trip is to take up my brand-new position as Secretary of the Film Archive and to assess the situation in France for myself. I fear it’s not a particularly happy one where cinema is concerned, and I’ve been told that even what I would earn at Cine France and at the archive wouldn’t be enough to put stale bread on the table. I feel duty-bound to make the trip though. I’ll probably be back in Mexico by the end of March. The crisis over here continues with little sign of resolution any time soon. This is not to say though, that all production has stopped. I would say you should come over here at once to stake your claim and wait it out a few months, but I know this would be impossible for a number of understandable reasons. You should wait until I get back and then you could come out at once with your tickets paid. I promise to get you on board as a writer and, for filming, as a dialogue ‘arranger’. Our glorious trades union allows no mention of the actual director to prevent a shadow being cast over their wonderful members. But, of course, my title doesn’t really matter. As for your script for Don Álvaro, now I know how things work over here I think the only way is to get Armando Calvo to read it. If you want me to, I could arrange an introduction and give him the script. I don’t think there are any other suitable actors. Negrete is out of the question, and the Baledones etc., monstrous. I see you are as ill-informed as ever about dubbing at MGM. I’ve heard no news that they are planning to come down here and Demetrio, who wrote a few days ago acknowledging payment of my debt, made not the slightest mention of a relocation. I see Godoy’s little birds are still spreading rumours. The general impression among the refugees over here is that there is no sign the situation in Spain is going to improve any time soon. I shall attempt to make it to the Motherland next month under the auspices of the International Film Federation. It seems highly likely I’ll be able to spend two weeks there, which would be wonderful. In any case, and if that falls through, I shall go to Biarritz to spend a week with my mother. As far as I’m concerned, you may do whatever you like with our unfortunate story. Send our very best greetings to Evita’s parents. We often reminisce about our splendid banquets and conversations; I always remember Eva with a gastronomical tear and in the warm glow of friendship. Please extend our greetings to the rest of the family of course, Our warmest regards to you and Evita, Buñuel Elba 9F PS Let me know if I can do anything else for you. You can count on me from 1 April, of course, when I’ll be back over here again. I’m leaving my family in Mexico, to Jeanne’s great despair. I won’t take them to France unless I can do it with $10,000 earned over here, or a guarantee I’ll be paid enough over there to live comfortably. The same day I wrote this letter I took to my bed with a glorious lung infection. To top it all, I was still convalescing from the first illness I gave myself after a bout of overeating and have now broken out in the most terrible rash. Forgive the delay in sending this unfortunate letter.

Jo Evans & Breixo Viejo, Luis Buñuel: A Life in Letters

As we come up on Thirteen’s third to last story, I just want to take a moment to really appreciate this era of the show, which is without question my absolute personal favorite era of New Who for so so soooo many reasons.

It has meant so much to me to see an unhinged, weird and deeply problematic female-coded character on TV who isn’t subjected to a cavalcade of punishment specifically because she is an abnormal female-coded being.

To see a character like that be a figure of authority and trust, even when she fucks up.

I love the anti-Imperialist message of it all.

The ways the stories constantly challenge white savoirism and the white man’s burden, how they challenge us to question the morality behind what the Doctor does and has always done on TV.

I love the way this era has handled questions of trauma, identity and memory.

The way it addresses abuse, the very naked way it takes parental abuse and slots sci fi terms into the sort of horrid self justifications and “I wouldn’t hit you if you weren’t bad” type speech abuse survivors know all too well, tackling that head on while in no way suggesting you should empathize with or forgive your abuser.

I love that Thirteen has reached a place where she can claim who she is. She doesn’t need memories beyond those of the lives she has lived since she was Theta Sigma at the Academy. She started out so unsure of herself, so lost and confused, and as the story progressed that only got worse and worse leading to increasingly bad judgement as she Went Through It. Yet now she has reached a place where she can look back on her life - gaps in memory and all - and say “I know who I am” and mean it.

I am consistently impressed by the way the writing reaches back to previous stories and uses them as a springboard moving forward. Dialogue from previous seasons are so overtly about events in later ones in ways that make every rewatch an absolute delight. This whole thing was planned out and plotted long in advance, and the knowledge of where this story was always going suffuses it as it built to where it currently is. The way this allows the writers to not revisit certain themes or concerns, because they know they have already explained and established certain concepts and reasons in previous stories we have seen has been incredible. The connections between Yaz’s grandmother’s watch and the Flux storyline alone! The multiple encounters with fanatics who have turned destruction into religions, figures who buy into the justifications for their terrible deeds in truly frightening ways! All of it was so clearly meticulously planned.

I can not express enough how much I have loved that Doctor Who has regular human companions and plots that don’t center around the Doctor.

The fact Ryan was a teen boy discovering his place in the universe while traveling the universe. His journey from a surly, prickly, resentful teen to an emotionally mature young man who wanted nothing more than to be there for the people in his life was a central part of the seasons he was in, but in no way directly tied to the Doctor themself nor was it framed as some universe ending mystery or struggle, which was both something we actually had never seen in New Who before and a joy to watch. He was confronted with various models of adulthood and masculinity throughout his journeys, situations that pushed him to constantly reevaluate what he had previously accepted to be the way things simply were, and in the end he discovered there is no greater strength than the ability to be there for the people you love. I love that his journey got to be the emotional heart of the show for so long, and am so pleased with how his journey ended.

The vulnerability of Yaz’s character arc. I don’t think we’ve ever been directly told before that any companion at all is someone with a history of suicidal ideation, and watching her slowly build up a sense of self worth while overcoming truly impossible situations, I really can’t put it in words. Yaz is without question my favorite New Who companion, she is the one I can relate to the most, the one whose reactions to it all probably most closely match what I myself would do if I had a chance to travel with the Doctor. Having story after story show how exceptional she is while she herself is unable to recognize her own abilities, it challenged me to rethink some of my own past experiences I had downplayed as things “anyone could/would do” and all the many times in my own life I had dismissed or minimized praise. I am a 33 year old grown adult, and this fictional character appeared during a true low point in my mental health and challenged me to reassess things. I too am someone who carries with me some pretty horrific scars from a childhood spent being bullied. I too tried to find a line of work that would let me “help” others (of course the one Yaz chose is a problematic mess, but she chose it for idealistic reasons and has not experienced its real darker side) and poured so much of my sense of worth into it, not getting anywhere with it hurt in ways I couldn’t quite explain. She is a character with a whole story arc about how the children of immigrants can/will never truly know their family’s history - a whole story about what means when your past is quite literally a foriegn country you have never visited. I never expected to find a character I could relate to and connect to on this many levels, but there she is, shining on TV as she finally FINALLY has reached a point in her journey where she knows she is good at this, that she can get it done, that her contributions have worth. Wow do I love this character.

I love that these characters get to live rather than see their lives ruined. New Who has had a distressing tendency where every person who joins the Doctor winds up dead or in some other other dramatic life changing state where they quite literally can never go home and/or see their loved ones ever again. It was reaching the point where imagining the chance to travel with the Doctor - being invited to come along on the journey - was no longer an appealing offer. After all, of the New Who companions, the three total prior to this era who got to see their families again after their journeys wound up stranded in another timeline, suffering with memories of a literal year of hell and trauma no one else around them could ever relate to or understand, and with their mind wiped so that they would go through life in a state where they explicitly believe themself to have no value or worth. Every single companion other than those three wound up dead or in a situation where they would never - ever - be able to contact the people they love again. It was all starting to get rather depressing and really not worth getting invested in any of them anymore? But thankfully we are seeing again that not all journeys with the Doctor end in torture and death. Fantasizing about journeying with the Doctor can be fun again.

I love that the Doctor is no longer just a super rich drop out from Eton the Academy whose parent’s name and money netted them a second chance at the school. No longer just a rich elite who was so endlessly bored with their life they decided to steal a vehicle and travel to other places to tell the people there they knew how to solve their problems better than they did. Now we have the story of the abused refugee forced to assimilate and abdicate their own identity. A perpetual outsider, in diaspora, journeying the stars searching for a sense of home.

I love how these new additions to the lore allow me to go back and revisit older stories through an entirely new lens.

Take - for just one example out of many - the story where the First Doctor companion Steven Taylor leaves for example. Before Series 12 I really didn’t think that much of it - in part because it is missing and watching the reconstructions can sometimes be a chore - and in part because I just didn’t connect to it all that much. But now? Now I look at that story about a scientifically advanced city of wealth exploiting the poor outside of their walls (which of course has always reminded me of Gallifrey), one that decides to do scientific experiments on the Doctor and extract traits from them and graft them into their own people, and I see a direct parallel to the Doctor’s forgotten past and trauma. I see the Doctor forgive the chief scientist as soon as he offers up an apology, and think about how starved for Tecteuns affection the Child must have once been. And I see them delight in the destruction of that city’s laboratory - calling it a place of evil as he does - and I know One has reached a place where they are ready to move on (that story, of course, was as close to One’s regeneration as Flux was to Thirteen’s). I love so much that I can read these things in brand new ways, gain new understandings of the characters from them. Find new depths. It’s what I love most about these sort of old franchises where so many authors are writing whatever they want within that world. There are so many audios and books and old stories I have revisited through entirely new eyes since the end of Series 12, and there are few things I love more than how fresh and new they felt with this new lens to view them through.

Speaking of, I love how open the Doctor Who Universe feels at the moment.

How many stories there are to be told, places to explore, unanswered questions left to our imaginations. Things are not all neat and tidy, and that urge to come up with stories is so very much there. I can not wait to spend years enjoying the various works made playing within this vast sandbox.

I could keep going, I am really emotional about this era? But I will just conclude by saying that I am going to miss Thirteen herself and I am also going to miss Chibnall’s creative direction and vision behind the show.

I deeply hope that moving forward we will not be returning to all white writers on the show, but fear that is the direction we may be moving back to. It was nice, for just this one era, to have stories penned by writers of color.

I am so tired of fans of this era being made to constantly apologize for liking it, hand wringing whenever they mention it brings them any form of joy. There is nothing wrong with honestly, earnestly, enjoying a TV show and I refuse to apologize for doing precisely that.

This is my favorite era of New Who, and I am very very sad that it is so close to ending.

A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

Some time ago, I put together a Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, as a basic resource for disabusing people of some of the many completely ridiculous yet absurdly widespread beliefs about trans people that simply have no basis whatsoever in reality. And wouldn’t you know it, every single lie exposed in that primer is not only still widely believed, but is presently being used as a basis to sign some absolutely horrific human rights abuses into law. So it’s high time I follow that up, in this case focused more on who keeps actively spreading these lies and why. I’m going to try and keep things as light as I can here, but we’re going to be looking at the most monstrous side of human nature, so apologies in advance if this is a dark read.

First, let me just note that there are two things I don’t plan to do in this piece. I’m not going to waste time debunking the arguments of the people I’m highlighting (much of this is already covered in my earlier primer, others have done the work in cases where I haven’t, and frankly these people’s claims should be self-evidently utter nonsense to begin with). I am also going to be very selective in what I link to, or even share related images of, as I would frankly not like to fill a post on a blog I generally try to keep safe for all audiences with media directly dealing with, for instance, child sexual assault, and much of the relevant information also involves stochastic terrorism against innocent people, and I would prefer not to throw more fuel onto such fires.

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

To some degree this is obvious. We’re talking about people who scaremonger about the possibilities of trans women dominating competitive sports and assaulting people in restrooms, despite the status quo already reflecting the conditions they insist would make these inevitibilities for decades and centuries respectively, and their grim visions never once having come to pass, and also constantly insisting that the woman in the photo below is actually a man, going further to say this is evident to anyone giving her the merest glance.

It goes beyond that though. There’s at least a little plausible deniablity in claims like this, or that “science is on their side” if they were simply uninformed about the world they live in, never actually looking into what laws exist, what science actually says, and never actually meeting a trans person or even seeing a picture of one of us. I’m talking really bold lies here. Like wholecloth fabricating a story that a convicted murder was trans, including anecdotes about wigs dresses and a planned name change, in a major newspaper. Or to cite an old favorite of mine, the time a pack of bigots walked up to a crowd of people peacefully picketing a transphobic legal proposal, started roughing them up and taking closeup photos of members of the crowd to stalk online when they got home, got sufficiently riled up for one to straight up assault an innocent person half her size, filmed the whole thing, uploaded it to youtube, and used stills of that assault as acomanying photos when they went home to write articles about the assailant being a “grandmother” attacked by rowdy trans women. And yes, they did monkey’s paw my wish to see that specific image on newspapers. Interesting side note, when it came to real public light that J.K. Rowling endorsed this sort of hatred, it was because she accidentally pasted some profanity laden rambling about how the imagined moral character of the other party in that incident, years after the fact, into a post praising a child’s fan art of her work.

To be a little less niche, transphobes can’t get enough of spreading the lie that the young fellow in this photo is a girl. Specifically a trans girl, providing proof that all their scaremongering about the dastardly threat of trans girls in competitive sports has finally come to pass.

To be fully clear, that’s a man (or a boy if you want to split hairs about him being 17 in that photo). Mack Beggs. A rather insidious choice for this sort of story, considering the actual context for that photo. See, Beggs attended high school in Texas, during a (still ongoing as I write this) period wherein that particular state had caved to this exact sort of propaganda, and in order to head off a wholly imagined wave of trans girls competing on girls’ sports teams, and enacted a law mandating that in all such competitions must compete under whatever gender is stated on their birth certificates. And as it happens, the first, and to my knowledge ONLY time this has come up was with Beggs here, who again, is a man, as no one with a grip on reality could argue against, has “female” on his birth certificate. Which is another way of saying he is a trans man. The guys in the same boat as trans women who we talk about a whole hell of a lot less because their existence is extremely inconvenient to the majority of transphobic propaganda. Case in point. And this is all information it is really impossible to come across if you’re coming across this photo in any sort of respectable source. Take this story, which is as unambiguous about this as you can get. And yet, in the very comments section of that story, there they are. Carrying on like this story about a trans guy, forced by a transphobic law to compete as a girl, which he absolutely did not want, and received horrific threats over, using phrases like “female to male” and bringing up that he was assigned female at birth and is on testosterone-based HRT, is about a trans woman cheating the system. Or to quote word for word, “Now also transgender female want to be male also compete in female sport. biological born“ That’s not “being confused,” that’s standing next to you in a white desert and complaining about being adrift in a black ocean, bald-faced, not even trying to be convincing just make a power play, lying through one’s teeth.

I could spend this whole article on just this point. Lying about who they are, various people’s falsified credentials, whole websites full of “anonymous parents of children who think they’re trans” turning out to be one single woman documenting the abuse of her very much trans son, or of course the people behind the whole “bathroom bill” panic candidly admitting it was all based on utter fiction. I do have other points to cover though.

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

It is extremely difficult to find oneself in a position of having to explain to people that a particular group of people is effectively in control of press outlets, as that is rather classically a claim conspiracy theorists absolutely love to toss around at various marginalized groups (including trans people hilariously enough, but of course the most common and lingering version of this is the antisemitic variant). I really can’t get around it here though. Specifically in the U.K., you honestly can say that transphobes control the media. I already touched on this with the assault case I mentioned above and the fabricated story about the murderer, but this is a pretty well-documented situation. I mean, even The Guardian calls out The Guardian on this, and that’s the outlet that gets the most attention because it’s the one with the most otherwise respected name, but every paper in the country has been running transphobic propaganda pieces on a weekly if not daily basis for years now, and while they do get reprimanded by watchdog groups and have mass walk-outs over the worst of it, it’s not like there’s some governing body with the authority to step in about it. Meanwhile the BBC is constantly inviting diehard zealots like Graham Linehan to news programs where he compares being trans to being a nazi, and hosting debates where someone just sits down and repeatedly chants the word “penis” at a trans woman.

Things are better in the rest of the world, but we still have right-wing creeps like Jesse Singal both writing horrific propaganda pieces (we’ll get back to that one) and blackballing trans writers out of covering trans issues ourselves (and personally stalking the hell out of those of us who try). We’ve got our Joe Rogans and Tucker Carlsons out there (no way in hell I’m linking videos here, have a real information link and a still).

The line between diehard transphobes and straight-up nazis basically does not exist.

What even is there to say here? You can easily poke around havens for nazi activity for yourself and compare the particular unique vocabulary used there to the primary bastion of anti-trans hate speech on the internet (the “feminism” section of what was originally a site for parenting tips before violent fascists took the forums over) or just peruse the follows of the thousands of people I’ve blocked on social media and see if you can sort out a clear division in the networks of channers with frog avatars and the accounts with names like GoodieXXrealwoman, or you can read up on Gab and Spinster, the two twitter alternatives that are just different portals to the same server, set up by the same guy. Maybe do some research into “the LGB Alliance,” or WoLF but any way you slice it the only real difference to be found is the general purpose nazis take a little time off now and then to watch borderline pedophilic anime and the really dedicated transphobes think to use language that sounds vaguely well-educated and left-leaning. I mean, this came from the “feminist” side of the fence:

And not to belabor the point here, but the ones claiming to be a bunch of “feminist mums” sure do let the mask slip any time they’re confronted with the fact that “women” includes black women, and oh just have a whole thread about all the weird conspiratory theories these people have about how trans people’s whole existence is some sort of Jewish plot for world domination. I swear a few months ago they were all passing around a story about some bank having an above average number of trans employees and they were all just “and we all know who controls the banks, right?” about it.

Transphobes endorse an awful lot of people who are openly pro-pedophila.

This is the part where I am really loath to link the many many specific examples I have on hand. Or to talk about this at all for reasons of good taste. Or, for that matter, to talk about this in a tumblr post when there’s an ongoing problem of people with backgrounds strongly tied to this site making baseless accusations of pedophilia against every queer person they can find, so let me be very clear just what I’m talking about while avoiding anything too graphic.

That’s James Cantor. Transphobes love him for being one of the closest things they have to a scientist on their side. And I am featuring him in a screenshot here showing that he is followed by current queen of the transphobes J.K. Rowling, while speaking to both another big name in transphobic circles, Debra Soh, and based on their names, what I’m guessing is at least one straight-up nazi. And in case you think “the P” he’s talking about adding to LGBT (or “GLBT” as weird anti-queer bigots who also have issues with women often write it) might stand for “poly” or “pan” he’s all too happy to clarify that.

This is the entire thrust of Cantor’s work and life. He is the world’s biggest pedophile rights advocate. He wants it declassified as a mental disorder, all stigma on it removed, and tirelessly pushes forward the idea that the majority of.. people who feel compelled to sexually assault children are good people who present no potential harm to anyone and should in fact be lauded.

I am not generally one to claim that someone with a PhD is spewing out questionable garbage with regard to their field, but the reason I am aware of Cantor at all is that other transphobes keep trying to hold up a particular post on his blog as "a study” (which it is not) that offers “proof” (in the form of a blurry jpeg of basically some random numbers) of some ridiculous quackery about how trans kids will “grow out of it” if exposed to conversion therapy (another way of saying torture), which Cantor himself seems to be pushing, so I am somewhat skeptical of his academic chops. And I am, of course, REALLY suspicious that all these other bigots gravitate to him purely because they’re that desperate to find anyone with a PhD in anything that backs them up against literally every scientist in a relative field, to the point that they merely forgive his particular advocacy they are plainly all aware of, particularly when such a common fig leaf used by transphobes is “keeping children safe from sexual deviants.”

And of course, Cantor is most often invoked when coming to the defense of Kenneth Zucker. This Kenneth Zucker.

Those are separate papers. Zucker isn’t controversial though for organizing panels to discuss how attractive people agree small children are (at least not exclusively). Mostly, he’s known for running a conversion therapy center which subjected gay and trans children to various sorts of torture in an effort to “fix” them, which at least for those trans "patients” I have spoken with involved a fair amount of having them strip completely naked and talking a lot about their genitals.

Zucker is something of a controversial figure with the transphobic scene, as they are extremely on board with his sexual torture of queer children, but he does actual work (for some value of the term) involving trans people and thus is not able to commit as fully as they would prefer to making life horrible for trans people, due to a professional obligation to acknowledge reality now and then. As an aside, the similarly positioned Ray Blanchard, while not to my knowledge particularly interested in the attractiveness of children, lives in a similar purgatory of trying to reconcile his career, bigotry, and sexual hangups, yielding compromises like this:

Of course, that’s just looking at the straws transphobes grasp at when looking for scientific credibility. Real leaders of the movement include Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy, which is about what you are afraid it might be, and features a very young child in a cover feature he did not consent to posing for. Or Julie Bindel, who among other things is rather infamous for writing whole articles on subjects like whether a teenage girl she came across maybe has a huge penis you can totally see if you really squint at her skirt. Again, I will not share a link to go along with that one.

Transphobes terrorize and attempt to defund charities and other unambiguously good organizations.

Graham Linehan, previously best known for cowriting some sitcoms and possibly spending a year angling to get into my pants so awkwardly I didn’t pick up on it is now best known for trying to pull the plug on a children’s charity, in a story that somehow also involves Donkey Kong. Well, and the interview about nazis. And possibly the other interview about “defending me from nazis” until it got into his head that I might not be as young and hot as he imagined. Rather not link to a far right extremist youtube channel though.

There’s also a current effort to replace Stonewall (an organization named after the location where a pair of trans women kicked off a riot which is generally agreed to be the start of the LGBT+ rights movement) as the UK’s primary LGBT+ rights organization with the “LGB Alliance.” The hate group mentioned above, with the skull face and the rifle. Closest I can find to an article on that effort on short notice that isn’t propaganda.

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

I don’t want to directly link to grown adults skulking around children’s playgrounds and bathrooms plastering surfaces with mass printed stickers of crudely drawn penises, but would encourage you to read this very long post, being sure to load all the images, to really understand how deeply strange this behavior gets.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough, this really extreme behavior I’m citing, and the specific people involved in the examples I’m giving, these aren’t random cranks on the fringe of things. The people going on televised panel discussions, writing up news stories, and testifying before lawmakers in efforts to pass horrifically discriminatory if not literally life-endangering laws (there is a major ongoing effort to legally end all medical care for trans people, and I don’t just mean care directly relating to being trans) are literally the same people involved in the sexualization of children, nazi collaborations, and roving gangs assaulting people in the street. At a bare minimum I urge people, when booking guests and handing out writing contracts, to do background checks and see if they’re platforming actual terrorists. If we could actually bring legal consequences to bear against the worst of this, that would be great too. As things stand though, the whole world is just consistently citing a bunch of racist, woman-hating, serial liars with no real credentials, and questionable attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, as “trusted experts” and refusing to seat actual trans people or people who have legitimately committed lifetimes to academic and practical work with trans people any seats at the table.

V8 Ch 4 and Qrow’s speech about Clover.  And how we talk about how a character grieves, versus how grief is handled by writers.

So I really shouldn’t post this tonight because it’s 4 am and I’m tired and I’ve been thinking about this too much today already and this is something I should read over more..... But I’ve got to get it out before I can try to sleep. So, first off I apologize if this comes across poorly, or overly confrontational. It’s not at all how I mean it and I’m genuinely not upset with literally anyone. Just seeing some things that have me thinking about this more and more and it has me a little concerned, and I want to talk about it a bit more directly. 

I’ll probably add to this later or clarify or something… I just had to get it out of my head. 

I already talked about this some in response to theonceoverthinker’s post about it, and I’m too tired to try to cover all of that again, so if you want more context on how I feel about this, and why, please go read it. 

But I’ve seen some more posts about this conversation, and while for the most part I agree with a lot of what’s being said (and often on both sides of whether or not this was a good speech from Qrow) there’s one thing that I do want to address a little more that I think a lot of people aren’t aware of. 

In talking about this it’s important that we differentiate between having a problem with how we think the writers are going to use this speech to frame things, and having a problem with the fact that Qrow said what he said in the context of his current emotional state and grieving process. 

Do I think this was just amazing perfect writing and handling of Qrow expressing these feelings? Absolutely not. I have plenty of issues and really can’t say how I feel about it until I know where they are taking it/how they are using it to frame the entire situation.

Do I think it was just inherently awful callous dialogue that frames Clover as only important to Qrow because of his semblance and what that meant for Qrow/interaction with his semblance? 

Absolutely not. 

And that’s exactly where I have a bit of an issue. 

Because I totally understand people’s concern with that speech. And I have a very hard time right now trusting that CRWBY will handle it properly and not just use it to turn the narrative into blaming Clover. I don’t know if I trust them or not. I just don’t know. And that is deeply concerning. 

But the just surface of what Qrow said, without knowing how they will use it and further show his feelings, is not just the inherently awful thing I’m seeing some people take it as. And the reasons I’ve seen for people saying so, while completely valid things to take issue with in regards to CRWBY’s intentions in writing them, can’t just be blanket applied as issues with the fact that Qrow said them at all. (this is one of the things I feel fairly certain I’m not explaining well rn, and I’m just too tired to figure out. So I hope it at all makes sense).

My point is; depending on how things go from here on out, CRWBY may be completely wrong for why they included these lines and what they are having them mean. But Qrow, as a character, is not inherently wrong for having said or felt them. 

I can totally see why you would interpret these lines as concerning, and just plain poor takes on how to frame what happened in ch 12, and who to blame, and the nature of Clover’s importance to Qrow.. And like I said, it could very well be intended that way and negate everything I’m saying here. But by itself it’s not so black and white horrible. 

And this is exactly why I’m so nervous about how they handle Qrow’s grief. Because grief is a complicated thing. And what someone like me, who has processed a similar grief in a similar way, gets from this kind of scene can be very different to someone who hasn’t. And all of this said, I’m not trying to assume what anyone else has been through, or invalidate any grief, it’s very likely that others have dealt with a similar loss and feel very differently, or experienced their grief very differently. But, what I hope we all can agree on is that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong. 

The thing about the kind of grief that Qrow is dealing with right now? It’s very rarely shown how people actually deal with it, especially in more than just one short scene. And if it is, it’s often romanticised and sterilized to be made into something easily understood by people who haven’t gone through anything like that. 

Because the truth is, this kind of grief is ugly. It’s complicated and contradicts itself. It can seem selfish and self absorbed. It is angry and reactionary. 

And it is very easy to say that what Qrow said is toxic or wrong. But it’s not. The intention the writers have in having him say it that way very well might be. But just what he said? 

Y’all that’s fucking grief. 

Fresh. Ugly. Messy. Angry. Confused. Tired. Grief. 

Healthy grief does not mean fair, clear headed, sensitive, open minded takes from the get go. 

Grief is incredibly flawed and unflattering.

And what concerns me is seeing people say it was outright terribly written dialogue, that was callous, and showed that Qrow didn’t really care about Clover beyond how he made him feel better about his semblance. 

Because when you’re grieving like that, one of the biggest fears is that people will tell you you are grieving wrong. That you’re being selfish. That you’re making it all about you. That somehow the way you are grieving proves that you didn’t really love the person as much as you thought. That if you just loved them more, if you were less selfish, if you were just a better person, you wouldn’t think those kinds of things.

And you internalise that shit. You internalise even just the fear of people thinking that. And that’s how people close up about their grief. That’s how people feel guilty for how they grieve. And that makes actually processing your grief and starting to heal so much harder, if not impossible. 

Qrow is still in the immediate aftermath of this loss. I’m awful with the exact timeline, but it’s what, like somewhere around 48 hours? With continued trauma going on around him. 

It is literally not possible for him to process everything fully like this.

The fact is that someone struggling with that kind of grief and trauma, and it having happened in a situation as complicated as what happened on the tundra (regardless of how terribly all of it was written), they’re going to say things that seem selfish. Or even victim blaming. Because they are processing. They are having to reconcile their own hurt and anger and grief and confusion. Fight between how they feel about the person they’ve lost, and their instinct to, in some way, protect themselves from a painful truth of how things really happened or who was to blame, or what mistakes they made. Even with Qrow accepting some of that blame, maybe even way more than he should, he’s still going to reflexively try to avoid taking parts of it that are particularly painful. I hate 90% of how people think of the stages of grief, mostly because they are not the clear linear thing that is often thought of. But this is the anger in a sense. It’s a protective lashing out. “If Clover had only!-” He wants to be angry, wants to be able to just say Clover was wrong, but as soon as he does he cuts himself off. He feels bad for trying to put the blame on Clover. That’s natural. 

Is it cool if CRWBY is trying to frame that as right? Fuck no. But the fact that Qrow is feeling it, is expressing it, is struggling with it back and forth? There is nothing wrong with that. 

Hell. Qrow even being able to say that it was his fault in some way, that he chose wrong in working with Tyrian, but then also stand firm in that he did not actually kill Clover, and apparently this is not the first time he’s said that. It might not be perfect. But the fact that he can even be there at this point is huge. 

I have said nearly exactly that same speech.  I said and thought things in the first week, even months, of my grief, that, even at the time, I knew were selfish. Were making everything about me. I hated myself for it. But I couldn’t stop it. And If I had tried? I wouldn’t have processed everything. I would have chastised myself for feeling things that I thought were wrong to feel. That’s not how you process grief. It’s how you get stuck in it. 

But the way Qrow looks at the pin? The way he pulls his thumb over it. The weak little laugh. The way he rushes to hide it. The fact that the first time we see him really asserting himself and his innocence is when Harriet threatens to take it from him. 

I know all of that. That exact expression, movement. 

He is so close to breaking. And he’s Qrow. He’s self conscious, self hating, isolating, Qrow. Talking about how this just confirms his own ideas of his position in relationships, his own fears about the danger of his semblance? That’s easy. That’s normal. It hurts like shit, but it’s manageable, he’s done it plenty of times before. Now it’s just a bit more raw. 

But flat out talking about the entire loss that was Clover? About their bond ,and who Clover was as a person, and his potential, his future? The loss that Clover experienced in having his life cut short? 

Maybe I’m shamelessly projecting again. But I truly do not believe that Qrow could manage to think, let alone talk, about that right this moment, and not completely break down. Which he knows he can’t afford to do yet. 

Talking about himself. About his semblance and what Clover meant to him in that regard. Is painful. It hurts. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s familiar. 

It’s angry. It’s small weak laughs because you are nowhere even close to okay but you can’t be as broken as you really are right now, so you’ve just got to stick it out.  

Qrow is Qrow. Regardless of whether the writers pull this off appropriately or not, I have no doubt that this man understands, and has thought long and hard, about autonomy. About the tragedy of how death strips every last shred of it from a person. About the cruelty of someone’s death not even being seen as about them. 

But right this moment, he can’t focus on that. There’s too much still to do. To worry about. To protect. 

Talking about Clover? Just as Clover? 

Facing that unfairness, that loss of autonomy, that stolen future (whether or not that future involved Qrow)? That is an entirely different kind of pain. 

I’m four years removed from my loss and I still can’t think about that too much because it’s physically painful. It’s irreconcilable. I can joke and laugh and be crass about how empty I worry my life will always be without Emma. But thinking, talking, about what I feel when I just sit with the fact that she’s not just not here with me, but she’s gone. All the things she never got to do or be or feel. The crushing cruelty of her having no say in how her story ended, or how she is remembered. I have made talking about my grief my career. And that is still something I have no words for. Thinking about it in those first few days? Is a large part of why I don’t remember so much of that time. It was too painful, so I just blocked it out. 

I said things. I thought things. I believed things. That were not fair. That were more about me and my pain than Emma. Hell, I know there were moments I was angry, and there wasn’t even anyone to try to blame for what happened. It was ugly emotion after ugly emotion. Bitterness piled upon bitterness. But that was part of the process. 

My point is. I totally understand if this speech makes you nervous. If you can’t trust the writers to turn it around into something good, that doesn’t frame it as Clover’s fault, or as Clover only being important to Qrow because of his semblance. 

But please know, that what Qrow actually said? Even if he was starting to blame Clover. Even if he was focusing only on how it hurt him because of his semblance. That is a natural part of grieving. It doesn’t matter if it would be an awful outlook for him to have at the end of everything. 

He’s not at the end. He’s processing. 

And outright saying that him saying that the semblance thing is what ‘really stings’, or being angry that Clover didn’t just listen to him, or anything else, is wrong and uncaring, isn’t fair. 

It might not be the right perspective. It might be blatantly wrong and unfair and self absorbed. But that’s okay. He’s not callous for that. 

His feelings about Clover, his respect for Clover, his grief over Clover’s death and the loss of his autonomy? None of that is diminished by him having moments where he wants to blame Clover, or where he focuses more on how this hurts him than how unfair it is for Clover. (again. I’m talking about just the surface of him saying this, not the intent and eventual narrative the writers have in doing it this way). 

I just want people to be careful as they talk about this. Because it’s valid. And both sides are valid in multiple ways. 

But please. Be careful in how you show your dislike for what you feel/fear the writers are going to do, and how you frame the issues with what Qrow said. 

Grief is an incredibly isolating thing. And when it’s fresh it’s so easy to feel horrible, to literally hate yourself, for the thoughts you have while processing your grief. 

We all want this to be handled properly, and we all are nervous about how bad it could be if it isn’t. But the last thing we need is people saying that Qrow is wrong or selfish for feeling and expressing what he is feeling, while he processes something so overwhelming and complicated as everything that is going on right now. 

It’s not fair to Qrow, but more importantly, it’s hurtful for everyone watching who has dealt with or is still dealing with these unpleasant, often shameful and seemingly vilified aspects of grief. 

There is no wrong or right way to grieve. There is nothing wrong with you for thinking things you normally wouldn’t, or for focusing on your own pain. The ugly parts of your grief do not mean you don’t care about the person you lost enough.

Just remember that the concern here should be about how the writers intend to use this speech. 

Not that Qrow said what he said. Those feelings can be wrong, unfair, selfish. But there’s nothing wrong with him for feeling that way right now. It doesn’t mean Clover meant anything less to him. 

It’s just grief. 

i watched the ep twice bc i didnt take notes the first time BUT. hsmtmts 2.04 thoughts under the cut

gina first. my favorite part of the episode was when she admitted that she feels out of place living in someone else’s house and that she wanted a bigger part in the play. i was SO worried they were gonna just let her happily sideline herself in a “yay she learned her lesson about not being the center of attention” kind of way bc i would not be able to handle that two seasons in a row. let her be angry!!! she has a lot to be upset about

the gina/carlos conflict was awful bc theyre making carlos unreasonably annoying this season. last season he was nice, he was enthusiastic, not competitive and just rooting for other people. idk why they needed to flip him so drastically to being spoiled, rich, selfish, pushy, and bitchy. and on top of that i have not been vibing with the pieces of dialogue theyve been giving him this season just to score woke points. its so unbearably obvious that even though hes a brown gay character, he was written by a white gay person who thought, on some level, that he was giving the gen z kids the #hashtag representation they wanted. his delivery of every line that screams “remember, im mexican” is so awkward, it doesnt land well, and im begging them to stop. they want so badly to commodify his character and parade him around as a “look how diverse our show is!” thing and im so so sick of it bc you can tell, with all the surface-level pieces of dialogue, that they dont actually care at all

(”look around, theres not a lot of me at this school” we GET it, this show wants to be glee so bad)

im honestly starting to slowly ship rina less and less. in season one i loved seeing someone make gina happy, especially since she had no friends before opening up to ricky. but now its just a whole mess and i wish she would love herself a lil more to realize that its not worth all this stress. he made a choice and no amount of conflicted moments of eye contact is going to fully take that back. im not necessarily against love triangle plots, but i HATE the whole “women wait around hopefully while male character, whose decisions have already hurt multiple people, makes up his mind” bullshit

that being said, gina handled the situation like a CHAMP, im dying over how quickly she was able to mask her pain and make the joke about the twix bar. im love her

we were absolutely ROBBED of an ej/big red performance this episode!!! i am at my LIMIT we better get gaston next week or i will riot

on the ej train, him not getting into duke was extremely predictable. we all kinda saw that coming and knew that would be his main point of growth this season. im glad they didnt wait super long to do it. now please @ writers i am BEGGING you to give my man more screen time than one scene per episode

its very odd that they keep making mr mazzara have emotionally tough conversations with the students. i will do a parallel gifset of those once the season ends. i liked his convo with ej for the most part, but he really didnt have to beat him over the head with the “youre an emotionless robot” thing again. its clear ej is gonna throw himself into av club or whatever (even though at the end of last season that was supposed to be big red?) and discover that he has a lot going for him. because he does, he literally has everything going for him, thats why they had to make his “problem” not knowing himself. bisexual ej caswell ftw

i love the parallels between ej and nini this episode? i think since the beginning ive felt that there was a lot about them under the surface that was similar. it was interesting seeing ej tell nini about duke first, instead of the obvious choice of ashlyn. i wouldve loved to see how that scene wouldve gone with ricky, gina, carlos, or big red though bc each reaction and attempt at comforting him wouldve been so different. i didnt love that nini had to be pulled away from the conversation, but im glad they can still talk to each other after everything that went down. and i love the juxtaposition of ej’s convo with mazzara directly following nini’s convo with miss jenn bc theyre essentially the same.

speaking of, i loved miss jenn in this episode. her stories are always so funny, but i loved seeing her care so much for nini and guide her, like a teacher. i loved how she pointed out that everyone who loves nini just wants her to be happy

im glad nini is leaving yac bc there was no good way to keep that up honestly. but im pretty annoyed that they were so obvious about it? like, they immediately made it the worst place in the world without exploring it very much. the place is super unrealistic, ive never been to drama school but im sure it wouldnt be like that. no creative arts place for KIDS would be so impossibly limiting. plus the weird bluish coloring in comparison to the nice warm tones of the rest of the show was, again, a dead giveaway. why send her to the school at all if it wasnt even gonna matter?

even though im glad nini left yac, im NOT looking forward to the way miss jenn is about to bend over backwards to put her in the play somehow. she plays obvious favorites and im so annoyed

(sidenote: nini just? decided to leave yac without consulting her parents??? ummm)

granted is a very good song, one of my faves so far

ricky deciding to tell nini he wants her to stay was stupid. what did he think that would accomplish? who in their right mind would drop out of a good school for you?

i loved when nini said yac was missing something, and miss jenn said “ricky” and nini said “you.” that was so so sweet and cute

i think the kourtney/howie thing is gonna grow on me. i hate amatonormativity so im not a big fan of them introducing a whole ass character exclusively so kourtney can have a love interest, but i loved the gesture he made of bringing her the pizzas and her flashcards. i feel like kourtneys love language is acts of service, and she was literally this meme when he did that for her:

i liked seeing ashlyn try to be there emotionally for gina! i want more of them together

overall this episode was okay. not enough songs, and i wish they were spreading out the emotional conversations through the season instead of packing them all into literally one episode, but what we did get was pretty good.

after watching the preview i see that next weeks episode is gonna be about carlos’s party, and i love party episodes. BUT i hope that after that ep we finally get an advancement on the north high stuff! i dont give too many fucks about lily, but i wanna see my son asher angel

Reasons why I don’t like Supermartian

Not my gif

Disclaimer: My intentions with this post are to expose what I thing about this ship . In no way, shape , or form do I intend to offend those who ship it . If you like it , who am I to tell you that you are a bad person for it , right ? But I wanted to put out there some of my thought so here it goes . ( and sorry this is a giant of a post )

It’s a relationship based in lies :

Let’s talk about the biggest elephant on the room Megan’s hole identity and life are based in lies . She manipulated her backstory a couple of times throughout the series and directly lied to her teammates. Instead of being truthful to herself she choose to lie not just to her all her teammates but also to Conner her boyfriend , twice . First when she base her hole appearance and demeanor in the show Hello Megan , and after when she lied about not being a white marsian . And she wasn’t penalized for any of those wich bugged me a lot. Because what it or not relationships are build on trust and if you lie about something so vital as your identity to your partner , a red flag should come in order .

The lack of privacy :

Megan is a telepath and that fact alone already brings some apprehension . But the fact that she doesn’t know or seem to don’t want to control her powers respecting people’s privacy is an alarming fact . As it is shown in the first season when she enters Conner’s mind and he gets angry at her , rightly so . I could talk about the insident that se parentes them in the first place but that is something we are going to talk later . The thing is , the total neglect Megan has for other people’s privacy is very questionable.

Megan and Lagoon boy:

Now this is what first made me thing Megan’s deal was definitely not what Conner deserved , when Con breaks up with Megan after she misused her powers on him , she jumps to a new relationship in no time at all . And goes on in a rebounding relationship with Lagoon , whirl Conner try’s to move on . But when we come to think Con is finally find someone that is worthy of him , they get back together ! That is so unnerving, because Megan didn’t change her state of mind , didn’t change how she deals with her powers ,she just didn’t change .

Conner needs someone who can understand him :

Con goes through a lot of trials , troubles and tribulations on his life mainly because of his origen . He is a clone of Superman and was made by the bad guys , but he gets through , he faces some major problems , and before people say he is also a angry person , and it’s not just Megan’s fault . Let me tell you , that boy didn’t ask to be born , but yet he was burned with the purpose of being a unemotional clone , but then he is freed from the bondage he was born into , still the man who he is originated from ignores his existence because he is a reminder of what bad people can do . Can this guys even catch a break ? Of course after all this turmoil he would be angry , but also having a feeling of being wanted and being very fragile emotionally , giving the space for abusers and abusive partners to take advantage of him, Whitley he is convinced he cannot find anyone better . Because who would love a freak such as him right ? That is the thought Conner has and it is distressing to know that yes he was abused. So yes I think Conner would be better with women or man who better understood him and how he feels .

It is an abusive relationship ship :

Talking about misusing powers let’s go back to why did Megan and Conner broke up on the first palace . Conner himself tells us how it happened . Megan pryed in his mind and changed his thought about her , she abused her power and literally tried to make him forget that he was angry with her . And that is where this gets even more serious , Conner feels totally deprived of privacy , and totally violated , he felt humiliated and betrayed by the person he trusted and loved the most , he felt abused . CONNER KENT WAS ABUSED ! And no one seemed to understand the gravity of this . Megan is his abused , and he can’t go on with his life and carry on because what she did marked , and scarred him so deeply he thinks no one but her will want someone as broken as him . And yet the shows writers put them back together again ,what a message ( go back to the person who abused you , because no one else will want you).

Romanticizing and abusive relationship:

At last something the media and all the industries love to do . To romanticize abusive and toxic relationships . But this time around it could have been different, because in this situation we get the inverse of what usually is portrayed. The male is the victim , and it comes to show that this story line could have been so much better . It could have tackled abuse and showed to the views that abusive relationships are not always what they seem . This arc and the relation between this two character have broughten up so many discussions so many things that need to be said . But the writers chose to underestimate the views and only labelled it as a romance story, when they could have shown the effects that an abusive relationship causes in a person's life.

In conclusion :

I’m not here to say you are a bad person for shipping them . But I would like to warn peole to look in the nuances of this characters . Because once you get the bigger picture of what is happening between this two it is quite difficult to maintain yourself in a more neutral ground , when you look into it it’s impossible to keep it impartial .

I HAVE VERY ANGRY FEELINGS SO LET’S GET THE EASY STUFF OUT THE WAY:

 ANNA CHARLES:

Mama is in serious trouble and she needs to talk to her parents about it as soon as she can; any decisions she make are time sensitive at this point. I don’t know why hearing that her father was looking for a child custody lawyer would make her not want to talk to her dad, for me it would’ve made me think that my father really wanted me, and it would be easier to sit down with him. I hope she talks to one of her parents soon.

 MANCEL:

Sneaking out are we, Nat? This feels very one night stand-like & I didn’t want that for this couple mostly because Natalie called Marcel out over having them often. I kinda get her subtly blowing him off, she didn’t want to be one on his sex-capades but I do think that Marcel really genuinely likes Natalie. I also think that she put it on him hard to have him coming and asking her to come back to his place LOL. They’ll work it out soon. Also, Marcel’s wife, I wonder what kinda mess she’s gonna stir up….

 WILL:

I don’t have much to say about Will but I like the interaction he had with April and her bringing up to him the issues with medicine and race bias. Approaching medicine without considering how things would appear on/in a non-white person is a huge disservice to POC seeing medical help. For example, the main reason why Black women die during childbirth is that there is some belief that Black people tolerate more pain that white people – totally untrue – so doctors and nurses ignore when Black women are in pain and telling them so, thinking we’re exaggerating. It’s a huge, global issue and I’m glad it’s being talked about on the show.

 MAGGIE:

I actually didn’t expect for Maggie to find no one related to Auggie using those DNA ancestry sites, I halfway thought she would find someone and have to convince them to come and donate their kidney. If they don’t get a kidney for Auggie, I would like for Maggie and Ben to adopt more children who may have medical issues. They need someone to advocate for them and both Maggie and Ben can give them that because they understand. I also like that Maggie told them to stop with the “strong Black woman” trope, it ignores what heartbreaking, emotional b.s. we go through & frames it as “you’re strong, you’ll get over it”. I know Doris meant well but that trope needs to DIE!

 ETHAN, APRIL, NOAH:

THEE EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL!!!!!

April baby’s Noah sooo much, she needs to realize that she cannot shield him from everything and all of his bad decisions. I understand him being compassionate and wanted to help his patient, especially since it’s a man whom he looks up to, but he put everyone in an impossible situation and took a moral-ethical decision into a moral-ethical-legal decision. And to do it all so sloppily! His immediate shift from being a passionate advocate to emotionally numb at Dr. Coleman’s suicide? Dead giveaway!

Both Noah and April emotionally manipulated Ethan; Noah by going to April and April for directly pleading for Ethan to do nothing ‘for her’ – they both know that Ethan loves April and would do anything for her and that would extend to protecting her brother. For April to ask that of Ethan makes me question if she ever loved him at all; she knows his moral character and the position he’s in as Chief of ED and twisted that to meet her goals when she should’ve respected that and let Noah fail. I mean the look on Ethan’s face when she asked him to look the other way ‘for her’, he looked crushed like he knows she’s using him through his feelings for her and I think that’s why he was so angry when he fired Noah.

I don’t think that Ethan would’ve turned Noah into the police, I think he wanted to put that fear in him; when April confronted him, he was standing outside probably thinking of the two avenues he had in front of him and knowing that turning Noah in would’ve ended it permanently with April and he doesn’t want that. Ethan firing Noah was the best outcome – Noah gets to keep his medical license & him moving to practice in ATL would cut the umbilical cord to April and give him some autonomy to make decisions knowing that she’s not there & cannot save him.

Do I think Noah was wrong when advocating for Dr. Coleman? – no, absolutely not. Do I think he was wrong for how he handled the situation? – Yes. Assisted suicide is not legal in Illinois, Noah should know that being a medical resident in Chicago, what he could’ve done was testified on Coleman’s behalf if it went to trail, help get him a payable bond so he can rest at home and whatever he would’ve done at home would’ve been it. Noah didn’t play the situation smart. What I do hope is that his character comes back to Med in the future when he is a more well-rounded doctor. Meanwhile everyone’s mad at Ethan for even calling the police when Dr. Coleman even understood that it’s what’s had to be done. Medical professionals are bound by law to report things like that to police & Dr. Coleman knew and accepted that reality.

I think I’m more upset with April than Noah; Noah ran to his big sister for help but it was her who manipulated Ethan’s love for her as a means to an end. You don’t do that to someone you love (or loved); you at least have that respect for them to not blackmail them like that. Then her asking him to not ruin everything Noah has worked for, Noah ruined it himself! That really puts all accountability on Ethan when the onus isn’t on him! Noah’s actions, Noah’s responsibility. I really question her love for him and I hate that because I have such a slow burn for Chexton – it’s very unfortunate. Looking back on their relationship, it’s full of April passing judgment on Ethan and wanting him to do things the way she wants them done – like his relationship with his sister & the way he chose to protect her with her sleazy baby daddy – and the way Ethan does exactly what she wants him to do, even taking her brother under his wing and mentoring him. Like Ethan is someone she considered marriage and children with AND she acknowledged that Noah asking Ethan to look the other way on a legal matter was a “big ask” only for her to turn around and do the same thing; she’s totally blind when it comes to her and Noah’s shortcomings.

I’m really tired of the writers framing Ethan as this unwavering bad guy & it’s all because the writers don’t know what to do with his character or his relationship with April other than have them but heads. They’ve been butting heads for the past 3 seasons, it’s ridiculous and redundant at this point. There’s so many ways they could’ve taken their relationship and expanded upon the character growth they’ve had for both parties but no, they had to regress and start at square one.

At this point, shelve Chexton and free Ethan.

Idk where this episode will lead Chexton or Mancel but here’s to hoping it doesn't go right to hell. 

The imagery of BBC ‘Dracula’: mythology, alchemy, literature. Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Mirror

One of the cross-cutting images of the entire work, which underlies the very narrative structure on which it is built, the image of the mirror is one of the most ancient in European culture. Which is not surprising – a reflective surface capable of showing a person himself was probably initially perceived as magical – not by chance, as in the situation with photography, the earliest myths and fears associated with mirrors speak of soul abduction.

In Dracula, the image of the mirror is presented at the same time as a literal object that the protagonist fears, his main phobia, a metaphor for his ability/inability to look at himself, and the resulting all this motive of duality that unfolds the story as a drama of reflections.

Let's start with a literal mirror. I don't know if you noticed, but in the first episode, with the exception of the scene in Jonathan's room in Dracula's castle, there are no mirrors at all. And even that only thing of Harker Dracula instantly breaks. It is interesting how he does it – not as a negative character, grimacing angrily at the sight of a hated object, or an unforgettable queen in various versions of the story about Snow White, destroying a mirror showing her not what she wants. Dracula breaks the mirror instinctively, doing it in one movement as if delaying or trying to think about it could be almost more dangerous than the object itself is. It is possible that this is so. He then tells Jonathan that he cannot provide him with another mirror in return, as he does not keep such things in his house. From that moment on, not once during the two episodes did he look at his reflection, including the scene with Dorabella, where the Count shows a young woman what could have been in her life, reflected in the water, but does not look into it himself.

The third episode looks in huge contrast to the first two. Now Dracula, who woke up in the twenty-first century, looks at himself constantly. In fact, if you peer closely, he does just that throughout the episode. And not only literally, but also metaphorically. Which, in general, is logical: given the events that took place in the castle, and then on Demeter, we can assume that for the first time in many years Dracula plucked up the courage to see himself, to meet with himself and think about what he was.

Judging by what the Count sees in the mirror, the answer is not very inspiring.

It turns out that there is nothing majestic, bright, and attractive either in himself or in his life. His spectacular charming appearance is a mask, an illusion, and an old man with gray hair and sunken eyes looks to him from the window glass, his house is a pompous empty room, trying to replace the unattainable sun with an excess of artificial light, his woman is a silly girl who is not afraid of death because she is unable to appreciate life.

The ruthlessness and brightness of the reflections leave no chance for false interpretations. In this sense, the relationship between Dracula and his new lawyer is especially eloquent. You need to understand that the reflection of Jonathan Harker in modern reality is not Jack Seward, but Renfield. Obsequious, stupid, pitiful, ready to do anything for the sake of influence and power. It is the worst mirror the Count has ever seen, and, as he begins to conjecture, perhaps just the one he deserves.

The reflection in Renfield and in Lucy leads Dracula in the end to what he fled from for so many years.

To the needle and the sun.

Needle

When you talk about images in works of art, you always have to keep in mind that images are inseparable from motives and plots with which they travel through time and that every time you discover a particular object and symbol in a text, you, like a fisherman in an old fairy tale, can bring the whole world to the surface. And it doesn't matter at all whether the image is large or small, is it constantly mentioned in the text or is the central one in a single short episode.

In Dracula, the needle occurs only once, but its appearance can serve as an example of how a single image, arising, ‘gathers’ an archetypal story around itself.

Globally, in Dracula, there are two central archetypal plots: the plot of the beauty and the beast and the plot of the sleeping beauty. I suggest looking at how one of them works at the image level.

I'm talking about the plot of the sleeping beauty. 

Let`s recall the episode in the isolation ward. What does Dracula do before making an incision in his arm and filling a test tube with blood? That's right, he gives Zoe a needle. The same spindle, which in a fairy tale makes a sleeping beauty fall asleep (symbolically, like a caterpillar, plunge into a transformative state, from which it will emerge as a butterfly).

In the film, Dracula plays both the role of a witch taking revenge for the fact that she was not invited to the party, and a prince called to wake up the beauty. This is literally shown in the scene when, in a vision of Zoe, who drank the Count's blood, Agatha and Zoe look into each other's eyes, connected by Dracula and standing on opposite sides of him. Moreover, pay attention – Zoe stands behind the Count's back, symbolizing the past, while Agatha is right in front of him, metaphorically meaning the future.

Well, and if this is not enough for someone, a little later they will show us Zoe, lying in bed, and Agatha, entering the door.

And what comes after her?

Sun 

Author`s note

This part of the article contains thoughts that I unexpectedly discovered a few days ago in a beautiful text The Petruvian Man by @devoursjohnlock. I highly recommend this article to those who are interested in the topic of images and the structural construction of Dracula.

In the first episode, the sun rarely appears, in the second it is hidden almost all the time behind clouds or fog, and in the third it crosses the hero's path several times in a row – first in Bob's house, where Zoe threatens to collapse the roof if Dracula does not surrender, then – in the form of golden light, hugging the building of the Jonathan Harker foundation, where the Count is brought in a box, until it finally bursts into the window of Dracula's own house, categorically and victoriously, putting an end to all the vague games.

We will not talk here about the meaning of the sun as reason, consciousness, openness, new life, clarity, and realization of an integral personality. This is understandable, and we talked about this earlier. Let's look at it as an image that is used in this text a little unusual, but that's why it is no less interesting, creating depth and additional context where you don't expect it.

We are talking about the scene at the very beginning, in the first episode, which at first glance seems to be nothing more than a joke, an attempt by the writers to ‘dilute’ the drama, so to speak. But it's not that simple.

Remember how Dracula leads Jonathan Harker to his room and walks past the portraits of Petruvio and the architect’s wife? Remember what he says to Jonathan?

‘This castle was the Widower`s final work. A monument to his lost love and the sunlight, to which he could never return.’ And then Dracula adds: ‘...he died here in the arms of his wife,’ – in response to Jonathan's remark how this could be possible, as Petruvio was a widower, saying: ‘It must have been a cold embrace.’

Reflecting later on this gloomy joke, Johnny concludes that Petruvio considered his wife his sun: ‘What else is sunlight, but the face of one`s beloved?’, and guesses that behind her portrait is hidden a plan of the castle. And then words follow, which, in combination with what was said earlier, create an image that becomes a kind of symbolic prologue to the entire text and at the same time a brief description of the plot.

Finding the plan, Johnny deciphers it and discovers a way out behind Petruvio's portrait. Then he says: ‘Petruvio’s wife was the sunlight, and he stood guard at the door.’

Does it remind you of anything?

What happens in the last scene in the third episode?

The catharsis of the uniting of the two, which became possible only because both realized and accepted their – as we could see from the very beginning – natural roles in this play. Agatha took the role of the sunlight and the liberating power of love and mind, and Dracula – the role of the door.

And on a figurative level, this was laid down from the first minutes of the film. Spoken in words for those who do not read visual messages. Down to the smallest details, like the architect who died in the arms of his wife, who by that time was already dead. As well as Agatha, who was physically dead for one hundred and twenty-three years by the end of the third episode.

Rather, as in the case of the needle, and in many others, here words only confirm and express directly what is said at the symbolic level, and it is impossible to separate one level from other. Reading them at the same time, moving between them, and looking at them together, you can see the whole story, and even guess what is it about.

But more on that later.

Part 3.

Who is she? (Peter Parker Imagine)

Writer’s note: Hey guys! This is my first Peter Parker imagine! Please let me know what you think, and feel free to request other imagines!!! I really loved writing for Peter, it was so fun!

Word count: 3.8k

‘What have you gotten yourself into, (Y/N)?’

The little voice inside your head kept nagging and nagging you about your decision to fight in Berlin. Against other Avengers, no less. 

‘These are your allies. Your friends. Why did you say yes? How are you going to be able to fight them?’

No matter how much you tried, that little voice just wouldn’t seem to shut up. Maybe because you knew that, no matter how today went, there was absolutely no way it would end well. Friendships and alliances would be lost. Broken. Maybe forever.

‘Well, I guess it’s a bit late to go back on your decision now, (Y/N). Suck it up and fight.’

And that’s exactly what you had to do. So, as the rest of your teammates hung around, speaking to one another in the airport parking lot, you pulled on your suit, strapped on your holsters and belt, laced up your boots and slipped on your mask and hood. You had been taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D. when you were young and had risen through the ranks surprisingly quickly, besting many senior agents with much more experience than you. People were both awed by and envied you. You seemed to have a natural gift for being an agent; over the course of ten years, you had become an expert marksman, fighter, and strategist, which in itself was incredible for someone as young as you.

“You getting ready, oh, Angel of Death?”

Sam Wilson’s sarcastic question snapped you out of your inner monologue and caused you to look up surprisedly. “Angel of Death” had become your nickname during your time at S.H.I.E.L.D., which eventually carried on to be your nickname with the Avengers. Though, it surprised you that Sam, of all people, was the one calling you that. Usually, it was Tony who liked to jerk your chain using your less-than-friendly nickname. And given current circumstances, you didn’t really expect Tony’s antics to be tolerated, let alone used actively among team Captain America. 

“Yeah, yeah, keep joking, you glorified chicken. We’ll see who’s laughing when I’m kicking ass out there and you’re getting your ass kicked,” You shot back, a slight smirk crossing over your lips (not that Sam could see it with your mask up) and a joking tone seeping into your retort. Sam exaggerated his look of shock and hurt before putting his hand over his heart, “You wound me, (Y/N).”

At this, you straight up laughed, which caused Sam to chuckle, too. You loved bantering with Sam and the two of you had always gotten along well. However, the tension that previously permeated the air quickly returned, and your laughter died out just as fast. You glanced over at the other members of your team and scanned their expressions; Clint was focusing on prepping his arrows and bow, Steve was in what looked like a deep conversation with Scott who looked equal parts confused and lost, Wanda looked slightly enerved but otherwise calm, and Bucky was standing aside silently. Suddenly, the same old feeling of being out of place arose inside of you, but you quickly pushed it back down and ignored it.

‘No, no, no. None of that, (Y/N). You’re one of the Avengers and one of the best agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever had. Nick Fury told you that himself. Get it together and kick some ass,’ The little voice in your head spoke up again. This time, it actually helped put you slightly at ease. Despite obviously being the youngest person there, you knew you could help. What scared you, though, was the fact that you knew that you could do some serious damage as well. And given that this damage might be inflicted on people you considered friends, you definitely still felt uneasy.

Almost as if she had read your mind, you saw Wanda look at you and offer you a comforting smile before walking over to you. “I know that look, (Y/N). You’re afraid,” Wanda spoke softly, simply stating her observations. You gave a half-smile before replying, “Well... maybe not afraid, but definitely nervous. I don’t want to sound cocky or snobbish, but I know I’m strong. I know that I’m a good fighter and I can do some serious damage. But never before have I ever had to use my skills against somebody I considered a friend or ally, let alone four of them at the same time. I don’t want to hurt anybody and honestly, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to do it when the time comes. Despite several years of training and going on missions, I still have difficulty controlling myself. Nick Fury himself said I have a gift for hitting it where it hurts and can overdo it sometimes.”

“Well... I’m not a fighter like you are, but believe me that I understand the feeling of not being able to control your powers and abilities. I went through that, too. I’m still going through it, even now,” Wanda gently placed a hand on your shoulder as she spoke, and somehow, you felt your worry dissipate slightly, “Just remember, (Y/N), you’re here to help your friends. And we’re all going through the same thing as you. Clint will have to fight Nat, I will have to fight Vision, we’re all going to have to fight each other. This is going to be one of the hardest things any of us have ever done. But we’re all in this together. As a team. Whatever happens after will happen, but for now, we must do everything we can to help Steve.”

When Wanda finished speaking, you realized that now, everybody else was watching the both of you, too. However, you ignored them and simply gave Wanda a hug before whispering, “Thank you, Wanda. That helps a lot.” Wanda squeezed you gently in return before pulling away from you. Then, suddenly, Steve came forward until he stood directly in front of you. You had to tilt your head back a fair amount, given that Steve was over a foot taller than you and otherwise, you couldn’t see his face. 

“(Y/N), I know that I’ve asked the impossible of you, to be here and fight against people you consider friends, allies, even family. Especially somebody as young as you. These should be the formative years of your life. I’m sorry that I had to ask for your help, and I’m so grateful that you’re helping us all.” You watched Steve’s face as he spoke, and you could tell his words were genuine. After all, he was Captain America, the voice of reason and goodness himself. When Steve had finished his little speech, you just stepped forward and wrapped your arms around his torso, hugging him tightly.

“It’s okay, Steve. You just want to help a friend. I get it. You don’t need to apologize,” You mumbled into his shirt as Steve hugged you back tightly. While Sam was like a big brother to you, Steve was like your adopted dad. When you first joined the Avengers, he was the first one to welcome you and stuck by your side as you got to know everybody else and adjusted to your new situation. He made sure that you did your training, but also that you took care of yourself. He always had a soft spot for you, and he was always the first person you would talk to whenever you were unsure about something or just needed advice and support. Steve had always been there for you, so now, it was your turn to return the favour. 

Steve let you go and turned to the others just as alarms suddenly went off, echoing across the entire airport parking lot. A voice came over the speaker, speaking quickly. 

“They’re evacuating the airport,” Bucky said, looking over at Steve.

“Stark,” Sam muttered, to which Scott replied, “Stark?!”, looking startled by the revelation. Shifting into full Captain America hero mode, Steve simply nodded his head, looking more serious than you had seen him in a while, “Suit up.”

*TIME SKIP*

You were in position alongside the rest of your team, those who were backing Steve and Bucky, though Steve insisted that you stayed slightly behind. Almost like you were their secret weapon. You were watching from the sidelines, not yet revealed to Tony and his team as they confronted Steve. He had run out towards a helicopter, but it was quickly shut down by an electrical grenade from Iron Man himself. It had started by just being Iron Man and War Machine, but then suddenly the Black Panther leaped in and joined, followed by Nat. Steve was completely surrounded and you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end at the sight. You could feel your senses becoming heightened; you were going into fight mode. 

You made to take a step forward but Scott’s voice quickly came over the comms to stop you, “(Y/N), no! Steve told us to stay put. Just hang on.” You knew you easily could’ve ignored Scott, but your better judgment knew to trust Steve. He knew what he was doing. Suddenly, you saw Tony cup his hands and bring them up to his lips before shouting “UNDEROOS!”

You barely had enough time to process the word before Steve’s shield was wrenched from his grip and his hands bound by some weird, white ropes that hadn’t been there even a moment ago. There was a blur of red and blue and you watched as a figure elegantly flipped and landed on top of an airplane tug, holding Steve’s shield. You could make out that there was some kind of symbol on the new hero’s chest, but you couldn’t make out what it was. You’d never seen this person before. 

“Damn, Tony got somebody too!” You heard Scott hiss under his breath over the comm, causing you slight concern. “Don’t worry, Scott,” you replied quietly, speaking into the comm, “We’ve got this.”

“Nice job, kid,” you heard Tony say, addressing the new hero who had just appeared. This piqued your interest; Tony called you “kid” too, and he only did that to people who really were kids (essentially). So, was this new hero somebody like you?

“Thanks!” The new hero said, and it was clear by his voice that it was a guy talking, “Well, I could’ve stuck the landing a little better, it’s just the new suit. Wai-it’s nothing- Mr. Stark, it’s-it’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Yeah, we don’t really need to start a conversation,” Tony replied, looking slightly annoyed. You had to stifle a giggle; this new hero must really be NEW. New to the hero scene, definitely new to meeting Tony. His slight awkwardness and enthusiasm were actually kind of cute, and you definitely remember when you were that way. Granted, it was years ago, but still. The boy’s demeanor made you smile.

‘Wait, no. Don’t get distracted by the new guy, you’re here to fight and help Steve’ the little voice in your head scolded you for getting distracted, so you quickly wiped the smile from your face and continued to listen.

“Okay,” The new hero acknowledged Tony’s comment, falling awkwardly silent for a moment before continuing, now addressing Steve and saluting him, “Cap-Captain. Big fan, I’m Spider-man.”

“Yeah, we’ll talk about it late,” Tony interjected again, getting increasingly annoyed by Spider-man’s rambling, causing you to stifle another giggle, trying so hard not to laugh. This was so awkward but so funny. 

“Hey, everyone,” Spider-man added on, and you actually let out a small snort this time from trying so hard not to laugh. You almost felt bad for this Spider-man guy and were definitely experiencing second-hand embarrassment for him. He definitely wasn’t smooth, and because of that, now you had to regain your composure from trying not to laugh. Man, had the situation not been what it was, you definitely would’ve loved to meet Spider-man and get to know the person behind the mask. You felt as though the two of you would be great friends. 

‘Pull yourself together, (Y/N)! What are you, a third-grader?!’

“You’ve been busy,” Steve said simply with a slight smile, to which Tony snapped back, “And you’ve been a complete idiot.” He then rambled off about how Steve dragged Clint out of retirement and Wanda from a safe place. 

‘Oh, boy. Tony’s gonna be pissed when he finds out Steve brought you along, too,’ the little voice whispered in your head, but you brushed the thought aside as Tony said, “I’m trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart.” 

Whatever laughter you had been trying to stifle seconds ago vanished, and you immediately switched back into fighter mode as Steve stated, “You did that when you signed.” Things were not looking good as Tony yelled at Steve to turn Bucky over to them, but Steve just looked away for a moment before looking back. At that moment, Sam’s voice came over the comm again, “We’ve found it. The Quinjet’s in hangar five, north runway.”

You knew that this was the turning point. This was it. So, you quickly unsheathed a couple of your throwing knives and got ready to fight. Suddenly, Steve put his hands up in the air. That was it; the signal. So, without taking even a moment to hesitate, you threw one of your specially-designed knives and cut the ropes binding Steve’s hands together without giving him so much as a scratch. 

“Aw, damn, (Y/N)! That was supposed to be my shot!” Clint’s exasperated voice came over the comms, to which you replied, “Sorry, old man! You gotta be quicker than that!” 

The look you imagined on Clint’s face made you laugh, but you bantered with him like that all the time so you were sure that he didn’t mind; he was used to you calling him “old man”. To him, you were like an adopted teenage daughter and he loved you like one. All the Avengers had adopted you as a family member of their own, and you loved them as your family in return. That was what made this battle so difficult; you were fighting part of your own family.  

“Alright, Lang,” Steve said, after which Scott immediately grew and punched Spider-man as he grabbed the shield before returning it to Steve, “I believe this belongs to you, Captain America.” If it were the time and place for it, you would’ve face-palmed; Scott wasn’t any better than the Spider-man guy in terms of awkwardness. 

After that, the battle really took off. Iron Man went after Wanda and Clint, while Rhodey stayed behind to fight Steve, though not before having located Sam and Bucky. T’Challa ran off immediately afterward, probably after Bucky, and you noticed that Nat and Spider-man just stood by as Steve began to fight Rhodey. 

‘Oh, no. Here we go!’

Steve went after T’Challa to try and stop him from going after Bucky when Spider-man suddenly shot what looked like webs and swung off. That amazed you; the guy was surprisingly nimble and almost looked like a professional gymnast in terms of how graceful his movements were. 

‘Focus!’

“Cap, where am I needed?” You shouted in the comm, but nobody gave you an answer as they were preoccupied. So, you decided you would do what you knew to do best; fight. However, your overwhelming curiosity about the new hero got the best of you, so you decided to pursue him and prevent him from getting in the way of any of your teammates. As you sprinted after the web-slinger, you passed Natasha fighting Scott and Steve fighting T’Challa, but none of them had noticed you go by. “I’m going after the web-slinger!” You said to nobody in particular, just hoping somebody heard you over the comms as you sprinted at full capacity.

‘Man, that dude is fast!’ 

You watched as Spider-man swung into the building where Sam and Bucky were, so you decided to take a shortcut in order to intervene. As you got to the main area where Bucky, Sam, and the web-slinger were fighting, you heard Spider-man yell “You have the right to remain silent!”. “What the hell is with this guy?” You muttered to yourself, running to catch up to Sam and Bucky. Then, you watched as Spider-man shot a web that blocked a vent on Sam’s jetpack, causing him to fall. 

In retaliation, you quickly threw three knives, one after the other, and they caught Spiderman’s suit, pinning him against the wall behind him. “Sam!” You yelled as you ran over to him, helping him free the webbing off his jetpack while still keeping an eye on the new hero, who seemed to be both surprised and amazed. 

“Woah! Who are you?! You have crazy good aim, how did you manage to do that?! You only got the fabric of my suit but entirely missed my skin! Is your mask enhanced to improve your aim? Or do you just know how to do that instinctively? That’s so cool, I-” 

“You must be new to this because you’re talking way too much for a fight,” You cut the web-slinger off, though his rambling about how cool your aim was amused you. At the sound of your voice, Spider-man seemed taken aback once again, “Wait a sec, you sound kinda young. Like, my-age-teenager young. Wait, hang on, if you’re that young... then, how are you such a good fighter?!”

“Man, you’re really geeked out by this, aren’t you?” You chuckled, sheathing your knives after setting Sam free from the webbing that stuck him to the railings, “You’re not the only teenager with abilities, Spidey. Though my abilities aren’t powers, like yours. Also, did you know that you ask a lot of questions?”

“Ahh, sorry. Mr. Stark did mention that I do that sometimes. Right, sorry, my bad, gotta get back to fighting.”

With that, Spider-man freed himself from your knives, shooting a web and slinging down towards you. However, you expected this and as he swung in to land a kick, at the very last moment, you jumped to dodge his strike, twisted in midair and kicked him instead, causing him to hit the floor and roll a few feet. You heard him groan in pain as he clutched his stomach where you had hit him before he quickly shot another web and was back up in the air.

“Man, you hit HARD! That was kinda mean, you know!” He groaned, trying again to land a hit on you, “But, that was also kind of awesome!” He shot a web towards your hands, but you grabbed a knife and swiftly severed it before it even made contact with your skin. “Ah, ah, ah! Don’t you know it’s rude to hold a lady’s hand before taking her out to dinner first?!” 

Your joke must’ve caught Spider-man off guard because he hesitated, and in that moment of hesitation, you managed to throw another knife which, in the perfect trajectory, shattered one of his web-shooters on his wrist. “Oh, COME ON! That’s not fair! You distracted me with a joke! I didn’t think you’d actually be funny!” He cried, looking from his wrist back to you, but you were relentless. He had to keep swinging with only one web-shooter now, which made him less nimble than he was before. However, he caught you off guard and managed to land a blow, which threw you back into a wall. Your vision exploded with spots of darkness and your head ached terribly from the impact, but after a couple seconds, you got back up on your feet.

As soon as you did, Spider-man was back, trying to land another hit. However, he misjudged the timing of his web-slinging and straight up crashed into you full force, knocking both of you over and causing you both to roll a few feet, all entangled. You were disoriented and were struggling with this boy to get him off and land a few punches. But Spider-man was STRONG. Stronger than any teenage boy could ever be; he deflected your hits as if they were nothing. If you were to land any more hits, it would have to be due to timing and strategy. 

However, in the ensuing struggle, your mask has slid down your face enough to reveal your eyes. When Spider-man saw them, he straight up froze, as though enchanted by them. The truth was that he WAS enchanted; your (Y/C) eyes were beautiful and there was a fire in them that was so passionate and strong that he found himself wanting to be engulfed by that fire. He wanted to get to know the girl that embodied that fire, and suddenly, he wished that he could get to know you as the person behind the mask. 

Then, suddenly, he was breathless. Literally breathless. He couldn’t breathe and was gasping and wheezing for air. You had taken the opportunity of him gazing into your eyes to knee him as hard as you could in the gut and had effectively winded him. With that, you got up, but not before swiftly taking off Spider-man’s other web-shooter and webbing him to the floor. You were breathing heavily as you threw the web-shooter little ways off before turning back to Spider-man.

“I’m sorry, Spidey. But I had to. Lesson number one: never let your guard down. Shame we had to meet this way, I really think we could’ve been great friends otherwise. You actually seem really cool. I hope to meet you under better circumstances next time,” You said honestly, looking down at the hero on the floor. You chuckled for a moment before pulling your mask back up over your face and turning around, heading off to free Sam and Bucky and continuing on your mission. 

Peter took a few moments to catch his breath, pulling off his mask and watching your figure run off as he took into consideration what you had said. ‘”You actually seem really cool. I hope to meet you under better circumstances next time.”’ Your words echoed in his head and he felt his heartbeat speed up in his chest. “Oh, man...” he whispered breathlessly to himself, “Who is she? She’s so cool...” After a couple more seconds, Peter slipped his mask back on, managed to free himself from the webbing, retrieved his webshooter, and swung off in the direction you had gone. Under his mask, he couldn’t help but smile a bit to himself. Despite the fact that you had dealt him some serious blows, and that he was definitely going to be feeling them tomorrow, he still wanted to see you again. Peter wanted to know more about the girl behind the mask, the girl who had defeated him on the battlefield. And he was going to do whatever it took to talk to you again. 

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘The Sound of Thunder’ Review

Saru: "Perhaps in being less like you were, you are becoming more like you are meant to be."

By nature I love brevity: Now that's what I call... a serviceable action story with a few plot holes and a few decent character moments. Some promise, and a twist I didn't see coming.

A while back, in my review for the Short Trek 'The Brightest Star,' I complained that the writers clearly had a lot that they wanted to do with Kaminar, the Kelpiens, and the Ba'ul, and that they'd tried to shove more into the episode than would really fit. As 'The Sound of Thunder' began, I steeled myself for a repeat of that; I wasn't sure that the writers would be able to rein in their excitement at the species and character that they had created enough to write a story that was manageable. It turns out I needn't have worried about that. The hour runtime was plenty to tell the story they wanted to tell and communicate the things they wanted to communicate.

The thing is, this episode made it abundantly clear to me just how little we needed 'The Brightest Star,' and just how unuseful the developments in it were. 'Thunder' contains a good deal of shots that were directly taken from 'Star,' and all of the major reveals about Saru and his people, as well as all of the plot developments, were reiterated here. Of course this is for the benefit of the people who haven't seen the Short Treks, but it rendered even the scant things that 'The Brighest Star' accomplished entirely moot.

'Thunder' is a fairly by-the-numbers action story. Its plot contains a few rather basic twists and reveals, and the suspense is built well. I like that the reigning - and most obvious - theory, that the Ba'ul are the evolved Kelpiens, turned out not to be the case at all. DIS has a pretty bad track record as far as keeping its plot developments secret goes, so a good surprise when the audience expects something else is nice to see.

The Ba'ul were a decently effective enemy; their appearance was pretty scary and their fear of the Kelpiens made for a believable motivation. They reminded me and the viewers I watched this with of Armus from TNG's 'Skin of Evil,'  The major problem was that the Ba'ul voices, especially over subspace on the bridge, were nearly impossible to understand. I'm all for creepy atmosphere, but maybe run their voices through a lighter modulator next time.

I was rather pleased with Saru in this episode. I liked that he became emotionally unable to handle the situation, especially after the loss of his ganglia back in 'An Obol for Charon.' That sort of a change, especially when his ganglia have been shown to have a profound effect on his emotions in the past, would definitely alter his ability to control himself. I liked his interactions with his sister, which were of course well acted by Doug Jones and Hannah Spear. Saru and Siranna had a much deeper and more interesting relationship in this episode than it was in 'Star,' due to the added layer of Saru's departure. That's not a stock relationship, and the fact that Siranna took over for her father in the hopes that it might lead her back to him makes it emotionally deep.

There was a really great scene early on in the episode, with the newly rejuvenated Culber, Saru, and Stamets in sickbay. We got an insight, albeit a small one, into what it's like for Hugh to return after his consciousness spent so much time trapped in the mycelial network. He doesn't feel like the same man that he was when he died. His new body, identical to his old one but still completely different, reflects how he feels inside. Hugh can't reconcile his new self with the old, even though very little is actually different. Though Stamets truly wants to help and to support his partner, he can't do so tangibly because he has no clear idea what Hugh is going through. Saru, on the other hand, has in a way also been recently reborn. This gives them a connection that I didn't expect to see but was glad I did. This scene proves to me that the show is definitely going to explore Culber's return in a way that's meaningful to his character. I'm really happy about that because in the first season his character was only really used in ways that serviced Stamets'. If they give him his own arc here, I'll be very, very pleased. And of course, both he and Stamets are miles ahead of characters on other shows who are 'the gay guy' and nothing more.

I'm not so pleased with the resolution, specifically the use of the Red Angel in this episode. It was quite the deus ex machina - is it angelus ex machina here? - to have the Angel step in at the very end to stop the Ba'ul's plan and save the Kelpiens. Except it isn't even angelus ex machina, since the Angel is nothing even close to a supernatural being. After all this discussion and exploration of faith, the main symbol in this show of something people put their faith in is nothing more than a guy in a suit with some advanced technology? That's about as disappointing as this show has gotten. Despite my misgivings about how this show has handled faith and belief, I really have appreciated the fact that it did so. Besides, the way that it's handled these topics has been better than many shows, and the individual episodes have said some things worth saying even if the show as a whole has yet to settle on a particular approach. But this is a big let-down.

Strange New Worlds:

We've already been to Kaminar, in 'The Brightest Star,' but DIS in its main form hasn't visited it yet.

New Life and New Civilizations:

The Ba'ul are new to this show. I've already talked about most of my thoughts regarding them.

Pensees:

-Okay, enough with the tricky camera movements without purpose already. To direct well, you don't just have to know how to make flashy shots, you also have to understand when to do it and what it does to the scene when you do.

-They mentioned the Prime Directive, but it really didn't factor in as much as might have been appropriate. This show should start being a little more careful with the way it sidesteps the PD to tell its stories.

-Those Ba'ul ships were pretty dang intimidating, like something you'd see from the Borg.

-How did Saru transport himself to the planet when the ship was at Red Alert and the shields were up?

-Okay, so SuperSaru! was kind of cool. But he's quite lucky that the Ba'ul stronghold contained only about eight drones.

-I like Burnham's white t-shirt in this episode. How much you want to bet that shows up for sale on startrek.com within the week?

-Pike's slight peace offering to Tyler in Saru's report didn't feel earned. I haven't been invested in their conflict yet.

-The answer to fear is hope in this episode. I like that.

-Next week: SPOOOOOCK!

Quotes:

Saru: "We all come from somewhere. We bring that place with us wherever we go. That never leaves our hearts. Not entirely."

Pike: "We can stretch General Order One, but let's not break it in the process." Too late.

Saru: "For 18 years, I dreamt of returning to my village. It has not changed at all, but I see it quite differently now."

Siranna: "Return to the stars, Saru. There is no place for you here."

Siranna: "Your face is beautiful to me. Part of me hoped I would never see it again, because it might mean you were free."

Competent but not exceptional. 4 out of 6 heavily modulated voices.

Star Trek fandom runs very deep in CoramDeo's family.

The Ticking Crocodile (The West Coast Vampires Saga #2) —Prologue

This is the sequel to The Breaking Point, it is necessary to the enjoyment of this story to have read The Breaking Point first.

DISCLAIMER: The places and characters featured hereinafter are the property of Warner Bros., Joel Shumacher, Janice Fischer, James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam and no attempt is being made by the author to claim ownership or profit from the use of the aforementioned characters. The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the original authors and any character names or places mentioned in the original works belong to the copyright holders and are used in this story for nonprofit entertainment purposes by an amateur writer. The original characters used in this story are the creative property of MissMelpomene (parting writing credit goes to my brother) and are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

"I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us."

The room was lit with the sterile white intensity of an operating room and furnished with the same warmth and expectation of visitors as a morgue, as if the vampires were afraid the mere stereotype of a poorly lit, ornately furnished Dracula lair would attract unwanted attention. The table was round, an unsubtle reminder to those that sat at it that they were all equals, from the only one at the table who actually believed that.

The vampire who sat at what would be the head of the table was understatedly handsome with robust, dark eyebrows. His dark hair, swept neatly back from his forehead, was the same color as pencil graphite and the dark gray suspenders he wore. His lighter colored dress shirt was unbuttoned to the second button, and he wasn't wearing a tie. "You know Max isn't directly responsible for this situation," he said.

The vampire to his left was a woman, of approximately the same age as him, though she carried it better, with an aristocratic nose and egg-white blonde hair styled in a classic chignon. She wore an ivory blouse that was made of a soft, liquidy material like silk or satin, and white, wide leg linen pants, tapping her short burgundy colored acrylic nails on a bourbon glass. The amber liquid was tinted red from the blood she mixed in like soda water. "No," a single piece of hair was carefully pulled out so it framed the left side of her face attractively, and it stayed in place perfectly even when she moved her head. "but his inability to control his progeny has exacerbated it." She tapped the large ring on her index finger on the rim of her glass. "Teenage boys need what Max is either unwilling or incapable of providing." She ran her hand over the soft buzzcut of the 6'7" brick shithouse of a vampire sitting immediately to her right, but not at the table. He could have been fifteen or twenty-five, it was impossible to tell, with eyes that were so brown they were almost black and the neutral expression of someone who was either waiting to kill everyone else in the room or incredibly bored on his face. "A mother's touch."

The twelve-year-old vampire to her left had neatly trimmed light brown hair and dark purple circles like bruises under both of his eyes that made him look like he hadn't slept in a century, which for all anyone knew might have been the case. His chair was pulled up flush with the table so his clavicle was pressed against the edge of it, and he wore a dark blazer and dress shirt, and a sour look. "This has nothing to do with Max and you know it."

"I disagree," the woman said without turning to look at him, still petting the tall, broad-shouldered vampire on her right like he was a dog lying obediently across her feet. "it has everything to do with Max, my dear."

"Santa Carla can't handle a group that size." Sat directly across from her was a late thirties Korean vampire with cheekbones you could dance on, and a black tee shirt that cut into his biceps noticeably, though maybe that was the point. A point which was obviously lost on him, because they were all vampires, and every one of them could break the heavy wooden table with one hand, even the one who looked like a twelve-year old.

"Eight now," the vampire to his right was a pretty sort of plain, with pin straight ash blonde hair and very straight, long nose. She was wearing high-waisted black slacks and a sleeveless white blouse that wasn't nearly as nice of quality as the one the other blonde woman was wearing. Her legs were crossed at the knee and she wasn't touching the table, her right forearm lying on the thigh that was on top, and her left hand resting on her right wrist. "including Max."

"We're getting off track." The vampire with the thick eyebrows said mildly, tapping the side of his hand on the table. Though it was incredibly quiet, even by their standards as vampires, it was as effective as banging a gavel in a library. The only ones who didn't look at him was the vampire who towered over them all even while sitting, and the twelve-year old vampire who was bouncing his leg nervously, staring at the fine grain of the table and shaking his head incessantly.

"And let's not forget," the Korean vampire hit the table pointlessly if it was to get their attention, because they were all already listening. "Patrick was Max's problem first and it's because of him that our coyote is back on the west coast in the first place." Agreement went around the table from everyone but the vampire at the "head" of the table, and the twelve-year old vampire.

"Dutton hasn't been west of Kansas in a decade," the former said gently. "are we even sure it's him?"

The Korean vampire snorted. "Some of us are old enough to remember the last time a single human got this uppity." He glanced sidelong sarcastically at the twelve-year-old vampire. "I'm sure."

The twelve-year-old vampire didn't take the bait. "Speaking as the only one sitting at this table who's actually met the man personally, this isn't just another uppity human we're dealing with."

"Raymond is right." The vampire with the Groucho Marx eyebrows said, wringing his left hand anxiously. "This is bigger than Max." One chair at the table was noticeably empty and he glanced sidelong at it. "Patrick drew attention to all of us."

The woman laughed like someone hitting an empty champagne flute with a fork. "How convenient then that he should be killed by a human before we could deal with him and escape all punishment."

"That's enough, Sadie," the vampire with the thick eyebrows said with a prolonged sigh.

"It's not nearly," Sadie replied. "Simon." She added coyly, taking a slow sip of her blood and bourbon. Even the ice stayed at the bottom of the glass rather than touch her.

"Max is not on trial," Simon said carefully. Despite that, Max's absence was still painfully evident, the empty chair to Simon's right where he should have been sat was pushed in, but it still felt intentional, no matter what Simon said.

"How convenient again," Sadie said mildly.

"Enough," Raymond, the twelve-year-old vampire said with an emphasis on the two halves of the word that made it sound like two separate words. "you're all dead. Dutton's going to kill all of you."

"Why are you even here?" The Korean vampire snapped instantly, like he had been itching to say something ever since the twelve-year old vampire sat down at the table.

"Because I asked Sadie to bring him," Simon said. "because he's the only one who has personal experience with Dutton."

"And how'd that turn out for you, huh, Raymond?" The Korean vampire asked. "You run away instead of just dealing with him?"

"Obviously, because unlike you I actually have a brain in my head," Raymond said mildly.

The Korean vampire stood up and Simon sighed "sit down, Park."

"There is no dealing with him," Raymond said.

"He's just a human," Park replied, grabbing the back of his chair and sitting down heavily.

"Any human can get lucky, darling," Sadie said, stirring her bourbon with her finger and sucking the blood/alcohol tonic off her finger without smudging her lipstick or dripping on her blouse. "look at poor Patrick."

Poor Patrick indeed.

"None of you get it." Raymond said. "and that's why he's going to kill all of you."

"Don't be melodramatic, Raymond dear."

"The Reverend isn't a man," Raymond said, looking directly at Park with a shell-shocked look in his deep-set gray eyes. "he's a storm. He's God's wrath. A pillar of salt. There's no weathering him or hiding from him, there's just getting the hell out of his way." The other vampires stared at him like he just finished telling a ghost story. Raymond's foggy gaze dripped over the edge of the table and landed in his lap. "...our punishment," he said quietly, more to himself than the table.

"He's not the boogeyman." Raymond went on, gripping the table so hard that splinters of wood popped up between his fingers. "He's a dead man. His soul is a shell, but it doesn't matter how much vampire blood he puts in it, he can't fill it. The only reason I've lived this long is that I already know what you dumbasses refuse to accept."

"Which is?" Sadie asked, tapping her ring on her glass again.

Raymond glanced sidelong at her but only for a second. "That fighting him isn't an option." Park scoffed. "Keep braying, jackass," Raymond said. "you'll be the first to go. He's smarter than you and more patient than you. He can't be reasoned with or bribed, and unlike us, he isn't afraid of dying. If he knows we're here, and trust me, thanks to our good friend Patrick, he does, he'll smoke us out eventually. He'll cut the head off the snake," he looked at Simon. "and pick the rest of us off one by one until there's no one left this time. Not even me."

The rest of the table was silent.

"Well," Sadie said, taking a sip of bourbon demurely. "you certainly paint a bleak portrait of our future, Raymond dear."

"No shit," Park said. "I'm not a little kid, Raymond, and your bedtime stories don't scare me."

Raymond refused to look at him. "If you're not scared, you're even dumber than you look."

Park shook his head, tapping his knuckles on the underside of the table as he bounced his knee anxiously.

Simon looked across the table at Raymond, tilting his head to try to get Raymond to look at him. "You're the only one who knows him as a man. You survived, this long, you've lived."

"The one who made me wasn't so lucky," Raymond said. "the only difference is I ran, he didn't. But he always comes back."

Park scoffed again. "So we can't run, we can't hide, we can't fight, according to you," Raymond flipped him off. "what the hell do you expect us to actually do?"

"Most likely?" Raymond asked. "Die." He glanced at Simon, whose thick eyebrows had formed a shelf over his eyes. "We'll all probably die."

Thank you for reading.

26 Mar 2021: Amazon: cooler but not fresher. Facebook’s habit. NFTs.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: part - about 3.5m worth - of Beeple’s Everydays: the first 5000 days]

Amazon: cooler but not fresher

“I asked [two young employees] if they liked working at Amazon Fresh and they both said, “Yes.” I followed up with, “Beats working at a supermarket?” and they both said, “Yes.” It’s a problem that it’s not cool to work in a supermarket.” 

That’s a US supermarket executive visiting an Amazon Fresh store in Chicago. Also:

“I was amazed that the cart weighs the produce and snaps a picture of each item. [...]

“I couldn’t find a ripe avocado and the bananas looked chilled. [...] The stores don’t seem to have a personal touch, especially if you need something special. I don’t think it will be a weekly destination for me, but I’m sure it will be for some people.”

Elsewhere in grocery and retail:

Asda equal pay: when seeking equal pay, lower-paid shop staff, who are mostly women, have won the right to compare themselves with higher paid warehouse workers, who are mostly men. 

John Lewis will permanently close eight more shops - most were already struggling before the pandemic. 

Big investors shun Deliveroo[’s IPO] over workers' rights. 

43% of weekly shoppers experience spoilage, damage or theft of delivered grocery - HomeValet has a “smart box” take on grocery delivery packaging that fixes those problems.

Facebook’s habit

Facebook’s AI algorithms gave it an insatiable habit for lies and hate speech. Now the man who built them can't fix the problem. Good long read on Facebook’s efforts to understand the system it had created. 

“A former Facebook AI researcher who joined in 2018 says he and his team conducted “study after study” confirming the same basic idea: models that maximize engagement increase polarization”

Needless to say, there are competing views within FB about what “fairness” should mean, particularly in relation to politics. And unfortunately *testing* for fairness remains a nice-to-have:

“But testing algorithms for fairness is still largely optional at Facebook. None of the teams that work directly on Facebook’s news feed, ad service, or other products are required to do it. Pay incentives are still tied to engagement and growth metrics. And while there are guidelines about which fairness definition to use in any given situation, they aren’t enforced.” 

It ends on this despondent note:

“Certainly he couldn’t believe that algorithms had done absolutely nothing to change the nature of these issues, I said.

“I don’t know,” he said with a halting stutter. Then he repeated, with more conviction: “That’s my honest answer. Honest to God. I don’t know.””

Political platforms

Bad news at the newsletter platforms. Mailchimp employees on unequal working conditions that led to women and people of colour quitting jobs. And Substack writers are mad at Substack over advances given against future revenue shares to writers who may have controversial or discriminatory opinions (although tbh, this is what all publishing companies do: offer authors with varying views advances on future royalty revenues).

It is getting harder for all platforms to remain neutral. Partly this is because neutrality is impossible: as platforms (and tech companies generally) get bigger, they wield more power. And partly it is because people actually want the platforms they use to take political, ethical and value positions.

Related: Very interesting read on moderation: whether each layer in the infrastructure stack should moderate its own layer or moderate the layers above it. It has interviews with leaders at Stripe, Microsoft, Google Cloud and Cloudflare. 

NFTs, “non-fungible tokens” and art

Last week, a digital image by artist Beeple sold for 69 million US dollars. It’s a jpeg image by an artist called Beeple, and the auction house Christie’s handled the sale. To be more accurate, it wasn’t the image that sold for $69m, but a digital file on the blockchain that references the original image, although of course the very idea of “original” is complicated by digital files anyway (look, is this the original, on the Christie’s website?!). OK, let’s do NFT questions:

What is an NFT? A “non-fungible token” is a digital file that is put on some kind of blockchain so that it behaves less like a digital thing (infinitely and easily copyable and shareable) and more like a physical thing (not easily copyable and shareable). 

Hold on, what, “non-fungible”? Money is fungible: it doesn’t matter whether you have this £10 note or that one, they’re both worth £10. “Non-fungible” is the opposite: only you have this unique thing, like a painting.

Is an NFT art? Everything can be art. The question is always whether it is good art, and the easiest way to know is to look at a lot of art.

Are NFTs good? Sometimes. They let true fans express their fandom by buying and collecting things. They make some money for artists, although most aren’t going to make 69m. They let artists benefit from the secondary market - that’s a good but occasionally sweary piece.

Are NFTs bad? Often. They’re hard to understand. When they use proof-of-work blockchains - eg Ethereum as of mid March 2021 - they are profoundly wasteful of energy. They are prone to scams because while the blockchain guarantees the chain of ownership of a digital file, it doesn’t do the same for the artwork the digital file points at, so there are some instances of artists being NFTised without permission. Though this may be more a characteristic of scammers than of NFTs. Some people speculate that NFTs are being used as marketing for cryptocurrencies.

How can NFTs be both good and bad? NFTs - and cryptocurrencies more generally - are a mirror: you see what you want to see. The excitement of being part of something new. The wish to make the world afresh. Taking apart industries that are inefficient. The white heat of investing in things that go to the moon. A way to socially signal others. The virus amplifying wealth inequalities. The underlying trend to monetise everything. Pointless showing off. Buying a file that merely points at some art. A scam.

Can you get off the fence, newsletter? OK, NFTs are on balance, bad. NFTs are everything you don’t understand about art multiplied by everything you don’t understand about technology multiplied by everything you don’t understand about money. And, right now, most of them are bad for the environment.

Who’s Beeple again? Beeple is an artist. The newsletter featured a Beeple image in August 2020. Co-op Members will be pleased to hear that the newsletter didn’t pay him $69m for it.

In other countries

A changing nation: how Scotland will thrive in a digital world - “this strategy sets out the measures which will ensure that Scotland will fulfil its potential in a constantly evolving digital world”.

Data, surveillance and how India is creating platforms to give people more control over how information about them is used (Related?: Two UK broadband ISPs trial new internet snooping system with UK Home Office.)

Spain to launch trial of four-day working week - “government agrees to proposal from leftwing party Más País allowing companies to test reduced hours”.

Various things

Self-driving startup Voyage bought by Cruise, which is owned by GM and Honda. Voyage was interesting because it focussed on a taxi service in retirement communities, and has designed an interior for Covid safety.

Is test and trace really the most wasteful public spending programme ever? Or have there, in fact, been larger squanderings of taxpayers’ money in the past?

'Right to repair' law to come in this summer. Manufacturers will need to make spare parts for appliances available to consumers - will this apply to mobile phones and other devices which have become decreasingly repairable as they became smaller and more complex?

A petition to Amazon: lower the number of parcels we have to deliver.

Black tech employees rebel against diversity theater.

I have one of the most advanced prosthetic arms in the world - and I hate it.

Co-op Digital news

Reflecting on one year of remote working at Co-op Digital - Co-op Digital colleagues in their own words.

Thank you for reading

Thank you friends, readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

Remembering George A. Romero: The Lasting Political Impact of Night of the Living Dead

What is a zombie? Is it a creature from some far away place? An inhuman monster from a far flung planet? Or is it a person that you know turning on you? George A. Romero’s seminal 1968 Survival Horror Night of the Living Dead is a film that knows that a true and visceral fear comes from the latter of these options. 

The 1950′s were a golden era for cold-war paranoia Horror cinema, where the constant threat of annihilation came down from distant worlds. Horrors like The Thing from Another World played ferociously into the fear of invasion of the body and the home (even if that home is a research base in the Arctic) by creatures from far away places. Films with a more satirical slant like Invasion of the Body-Snatchers criticised that fear, and the awful McCarthy Witch-Hunts that fuelled it. These films (and the classic Twilight Zone episode The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, which is Rod Serling at his most scathing and brilliant) paved the way for the onus in Horror to fall onto the specific individual rather than the vague alien threat. Audiences of the 1960s got a new thirst for movie monsters that looked like people, and that thirst was only encouraged by the one-two knock out that kicked off the decade with Psycho and Peeping Tom, both released within months of each other and both exploring killers that are terrifyingly human. 

The decade continued with enough Vincent Price led horrors to fill a House of Wax (I know - that was from 1953. Just let me have that joke), movies mostly about sadists and torturers, yet most of whom bared recognisably human traits. They became your friends and neighbours, and so the paranoia continued. The Horrors of the 1960′s were either personal or political, but not usually both. Similarly, the films were either about Monsters or Human monsters, but not usually both. In 1968, that changed. It’s hard to express what a strange and careful amalgam Night of the Living Dead is, and harder still is to work out how the hell it manages all that in a tight 90 minutes. The film is personal and political, about monsters and human monsters. 

Though the concept of Zombies had been tackled on screen before, Romero’s film laid the ground rules for what a zombie is and should be, as well as crafting the framework for almost every Zombie film to come. The actors playing the Zombies in the film have very little makeup applied* and don’t look all that different to their still breathing counterparts. They just move a lot slower and aren’t as chatty. Modern audiences are used to running, screaming, SmartZombies with almost super-human abilities, which I don’t take too much issue with. Different directors will interpret monsters in their own manner. But it does make them inhuman, and what makes Romero’s Zombies so effective is that they really aren’t all that special, that they sort of ARE still human. They’re just a bunch of occasionally naked people who are acting on a disturbingly primal instinct: to kill and to eat. 

*this might have been down to budgetary issues - the film cost a meagre $114,000

The violence these ex-people inflict upon the living is far more upsetting and troubling than any violence that a creature from mars could inflict: Barbara being attacked towards the end of the film by her brother Johnny is invasive and terrifying. What is really scarier: being attacked by a monster, or being attacked by a loved one? The commentary is bleak but pertinent - that humanity’s tendencies to turn on and cannibalise itself is the ultimate terror. Romero builds his film on more specificity than this, highlighting that the violence of Modern America is this cannibalisation in effect. When the gun that is used prolifically throughout the film is first discovered, the one item we see placed directly next to it is the American Flag.

To have such a vivid criticism in a Horror film from 1968, when absurd jingoism battled with the vanguard of objectors and protestors, is bold to say the least. 1968 was when the Vietnam War saw its bloodiest year, and the culture of violence against the so-called other was at its peak. This leaks its way into the film, through the crowds of Zombies outside, and seeps through into the boarded up house, where the real terror unfolds. For all the violence that America committed overseas, it also committed at home. This violence befell upon on its own citizens - namely Black citizens. Medgar Evers and Malcolm X had been assassinated by the time the film’s script came together, and Martin Luther King would be assassinated just months before the film saw its first cinematic release. Though Romero has claimed that in retrospect, he would’ve liked to have explored race in the film more thoroughly, it is hard to watch the film and not see political and racial commentary permeating the story. It is impossible to watch the film and not recognise that Night of the Living Dead is one of the only (if not THE only) major Horror films of the 1960′s to feature a black protagonist. This in itself is landmark, but even more so is how the black protagonist, Ben, is portrayed. 

Make no mistake about it: Ben is the hero of the film. He is consistently portrayed as a natural leader, and moreover, he knows he is the leader. He discovers that the Zombies are afraid of fire, and he sets about dismantling and re-assembling the home as a fortified refuge. He is a literal fucking torchbearer. 

Eschewing tiring stereotypes of the era (stereotypes which would be heavily reinforced in the Blaxploitation genre a couple of years later), Ben is allowed to be a true original, bearing none of the harmful and limiting cliches that white writers loved to apply to black characters in that era (and hell, lets not pretend it was just a 1960′s thing. Black characters in Horror - and cinema in general - are still wildly underrepresented and often poorly written or underwritten). Ben doesn’t cower in the corner, he isn’t superstitious or paranoid, and when faced with a panicky coward who attempts to overthrow his authority, he only gains agency. Because creeping up from the basement is the real villain of the film, and he’s not a Zombie. He’s just a regular looking guy named Harry. 

He’s been hiding in the basement, all the while Ben has been protecting and reinforcing the home that Harry has failed to protect. “How long have you guys been down there? I could’ve done with some help up here”, Ben says. What is great about this right from the get-go Ben is not taking any crap from Harry. He’s not allowing him to get away with his selfishness. Harry is immediately threatened by Ben, and spends the rest of the film this way. He constantly speaks in a raised voice to Ben, he calls him “crazy” and “stupid” and meets every suggestion of his with anger and confusion. Harry is so used to being the boss that he wilfully segregates the house, even though that means putting himself and his family in mortal danger, in a dark basement with only one exit. “The cellar is the strongest place!” he insists. He is using his masculine, almost militaristic bravado by relying on the concept of ‘strength’ and ‘power’, when really what the situation calls for is intelligence - and the ability to get the fuck out of there if they need to. He is tearing down a house that Ben is trying to keep together.

Ben blankly tells Harry:  “If you’re staying up here, you’re taking orders from ME”. This sticks in Harry’s throat, and he carries this with him throughout the film, unable to fathom that he has just been told what to do. Harry is someone who is asking for a fight - he wants a chance to be angry, to exercise his power, or just to speak his mind about everything. The growing tension and air of violence within the house mirrors the torn world outside of it, and highlights just how prone to violence Men can be if they tell themselves they are ‘protecting themselves’. And yet, Harry has nothing to protect himself from in regards to Ben. Ben is not a danger to him and is the one trying hardest to - and most likely to - keep them all alive. Harry is consistently the aggressor in the situation, and uses everything in his power to remove the agency and power of this Black Man who is smarter and more of a hero than him. Harry doesn’t realise that in trying to sabotage Ben, he is really sabotaging himself - or maybe he does know but he doesn’t care, because he’d rather die than listen to a black man. Harry is just like the Zombies outside: functioning on his most primal emotions. His happen to be fear and anger. Towards the end, Ben desperately tries to push back the Zombies and stop them from overcoming him. But it’s already too late, because the real threat is in the house and he’s not looking to help. 

He’s looking at the gun which Ben has dropped, and which he wastes no time in grabbing and turning on Ben himself.

What reason does he have to point the gun at Ben, who is unarmed? What purpose is he serving, besides acquiring a sort of ‘power’ from the gun, and from having something that Ben doesn’t? This is what Harry is obsessed with: Power. Not Zombies, not survival, but supremacy. And it is ultimately his suicide, as a fight over the gun leads to Ben killing Harry. Harry, once again, was the aggressor, the one who purposefully provoked Ben and couldn’t believe it when he stood up for himself. This moment is iconic, landmark, and a confrontation that the film has been building towards. It is what the film runs on, the hubristic, prejudicial fear of the White American Man that anyone who is not you is your enemy. And by the time morning comes and the Zombies have left, something much more terrifying has taken their place: the so-called saviours.

Throughout the film we see footage of this group of cops and vigilantes, who look and function scarily like a lynch mob. The news footage of them is frighteningly authentic as they casually boast about how to kill Zombies, almost as if they were never people at all. They show no remorse, no emotion, and almost enjoy their self-appointed work. There are shades of Vietnam Soldiers in them, as well as striking visual similarities between them and the vicious foot-soldiers featured in harrowing news footage from that era, sent in with weaponry to disperse protestors and marchers. And of course it is them who enact the bleakest ending to a Horror Film ever put on the screen. 

Ben, who has done everything right throughout the film, is murdered by the mob. They don’t call out to him when they see him. They don’t attempt to ascertain whether or not he is infected. They aim and they shoot. His so-called protectors kill him. They are the ones appointed to help, but they are hunters. “Nice shot”, says one of them. It is a sport to them, and not a human life that they’ve just taken. The phrase “Shoot now, ask questions later” comes to mind. The White authority figure has killed the Black person. The action of pulling a trigger is as simple and unremarkable to them as taking the life of the victim is. It is all too familiar. 

Whether or not this film was intended as political, these images carry an inherent cultural relevance unlike any images seen in a horror film since. We may not live in a world of Zombies, but we do live in a world where scenes like this happen every day, enacted by people with power stolen from their victims. It is an audacious final scene; remorselessly grim but achingly real. Horror films have implemented the fake-out happy ending ever since. Final frames will always attempt to lull you into safety then throw you back out again. Jason will burst out from under the water to claim another victim. Death will convolutedly send a swinging billboard to swoop down and crush a teenager.

But do many horror films carry the weight that Night of the Living Dead carries? That weight was achieved by tapping so keenly into what we fear and what we know about our culture, and what we fear and know about ourselves. The twist wasn’t that there were still Zombies out there, it was that there were people out there and that they were the monsters. This may have been covered many times since, but in a 1968 monster movie, it was revelatory and unflinchingly critical.

We are currently going through a resurgence of quality, smart Horror cinema. We are also going through a time of Political and Societal inequality. We need more of our art to reflect this. Aren’t the shittiest political times when we get the best Hip Hop and Punk albums? Shouldn’t Horror cinema be the same? Horrors that tap into social politics should be thriving - and the best (but perhaps only) example of this in modern Horror is Jordan Peele’s Get Out, which doubtlessly and deservedly will be entered into the great modern Horror canon. After the passing of Romero, Peele has expressed his love of Night of the Living Dead, and I hope that more Horror directors begin to make films that carry with them this social comment. I hope we get more Horrors from Directors of Colour, and Female Directors. I hope we start to get perspectives that we haven’t heard enough from in the genre. Now is the time for angry, personal and political filmmaking, and I hope that we get Horror films that are as pertinent today as Night of the Living Dead was in 1968 - and still is in 2017.

[josuro] vicis

rating: t summary: Rohan knows the theory, not the practice behind it all. 

[=]

Kishibe Rohan had romantic experience. If pressed, he might reluctantly admit to having these experiences vicariously, for the sake of his work. Pink Dark Boy was by no means a fluffy, sweet shoujo manga series, but intimate personal relationships were very much woven into the fabric of a realistic, gritty society that he wished to capture and anyway, Rohan hated not knowing something others did. He had little interest in participating in these kinds of activities directly, the thought of wasting his precious time and energy on people who were not worthy of his attention churning his stomach, so he stopped couples on dates in remote areas and took to reading about first kisses and steamy encounters, taking notes methodically. Some could say that writers had no business writing about things they had no background in, but his audience wasn’t the type to be interested in erotic makeouts and anguished confessions of love anyway. He kept it brief and vague enough to feel believable and continued spurning the advances of faceless fans and the young girls he had the misfortune of making eye contact with when he rarely ventured outside.

In retrospect, he really ought to have also actively spurned Josuke’s advances, which he caught onto fairly early because he was observant and not oblivious to meaningful long looks and uncharacteristic favors done with contradicting explanations. He had no idea what he had done to make Josuke so enamored with him, but it brought him great satisfaction to know that someone so insufferable and big-headed had been brought down by his prowess and inmate charm. The only reason why Rohan did not utterly destroy him was because he was Koichi’s precious friend, and even someone as gifted and peerless as Kishibe Rohan could acknowledge strength when he saw it. So he allowed Josuke’s increasingly frequent visits to his house and the boy’s slow creep closer into his space and said nothing when eventually Josuke laid a tentative hand on his knee and continued saying nothing when his seemingly blasé reaction about the whole ordeal emboldened Josuke to bring his conventionally handsome face with his rugged features closer to kiss Rohan on the mouth.

So he was finally feeling firsthand the phrases like ‘nibbled on my bottom lip’ and ‘put his tongue in my mouth’, and admittedly, they were not all that unpleasant. Josuke followed the procedures faithfully, so those kinds of actions were as accurately commonplace as his repeated readings of them suggested. Rohan had not read much about the intensity of the ‘heat pooling in my stomach’ and the feeling of the ‘grip of his hand on my thigh’; some things one had to actively seek out, it appeared. He had closed his eyes to best immerse himself in the whole experience. Josuke brought up a hand to cup his face and he felt the infamous ‘heart skipped a beat’.

When Josuke eventually stopped, Rohan contemplated invoking Heaven’s Door to read about the other perspective in the act of ‘making out on a couch’. Doing so might not match the mood, though, and an artist was an expert at reading the mood.

“No offense,” Josuke said, “but you’re kind of a terrible kisser.”

(“Whoa man!” Okuyasu said to Josuke on their way to school the next day. “That is one serious bruise on your face. Is there a new Stand user around? Do you need my help giving them an ass whooping?”)

[=]

“Koichi, I need your help,” Rohan said. “Introduce me to Josuke’s ex-girlfriends.”

Koichi sputtered.

“Or ex-whatevers. That’s all irrelevant. I just need to know who he has made out with in the past.”

“This kind of retaliation is a little too intense for me,” Koichi said. “I don’t know if I can help you with something like that.”

Explaining that he had no intention of dating the girls that Josuke had dated only helped to confuse Koichi even more. Rohan decided to switch tactics. “Never mind about that idiot then. You’re going out with that Yamagashi girl, aren’t you? Tell me about your sex life.”

Koichi let out an unrestrained gargle scream. “I’d really prefer you just Heaven’s Door me without my approval if you really want to know about all that,” Koichi groaned. “I mean, I don’t actually want you to know but if you’re going to-”

Rohan used Heaven’s Door on Koichi.

It proved to be a fruitless exercise, as Koichi’s pages on Yukako were filled with decadent explanations of ‘Yukako’s hand, lily white and soft like a pebble smoothed by years of traveling in the ocean to reach the grasp of a fair maiden, was gentle and loving in mine’ and ‘her lips, trembling and warm, touched mine and I heard the choirs of the heavens open up and sing’. Rohan thought Koichi might be a useful consultant to write some of the dialogue in Pink Dark Boy when his editor suggested that he needed more flair.

(Though he had promised Koichi that he would never interfere with his thoughts again, Rohan erased a recent memory that read ‘is Rohan-sensei interested in dating Josuke?’)

Reading the stories of the girls that he saw most often with Josuke also did not prove to be very relevant. Not every girl had an entry about kissing Josuke, and those who did told nothing about technique that could help in his predicament. In any case, unlike the inaccurate conclusion Koichi had drawn about Rohan’s interest in Josuke’s personal life, Rohan was not particularly eager in dating Josuke (though he’d think about a ‘first date’ if Josuke ever brought it up, which would not happen in the near future during his current imposed solitude from the boy), but his pride was put out from being unskilled at something. Making out was such a trivial past time, but the thought of Josuke knowing he was not good at it was humiliating. Still, it seemed that there was no helping the situation beyond turning back time (currently impossible) or inviting Josuke back to change his mind (difficult, considering he had not yet found or had honed a method to indicate that he was actually a great kisser).

“Look,” Josuke said, after arriving quickly following Rohan’s sudden summons, “I get it was random and I guess I should have said something first, I didn’t even tell you how I felt yet so…”

Rohan used Heaven’s Door on him right then and there in the foyer.

He found the entry in Josuke’s head: Kishibe Rohan doesn’t kiss well. It was sandwiched between things like ‘he’s arrogant as all hell and can’t say things nicely but Rohan has a nice face’ and ‘I don’t know anything about manga but Koichi’s right that his manga is pretty good’. Rohan contemplated his options. He certainly could erase the thought and the memory that they had kissed, but Josuke would most definitely get it in his head again to try and kiss him and then they would back at this point. He could revise the thought to say that Kishibe Rohan kissed well, but a next kiss would prove it wrong. Making Josuke think that all of his kisses were good seemed counterproductive to the goal of being a generally good kisser; Rohan didn’t want people to just think he was skilled - he needed to have the proof behind that conclusion too.

“Did you just use Heaven’s Door on me?” Josuke asked, blinking as he felt something odd about himself and stared at Rohan’s back to him. Josuke touched his coif - but gently, as not to pull a hair out of place - as if it represented his mind. “I don’t really feel any different. I don’t think I like you any less.”

“I didn’t add or remove anything from your book.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Nothing; I didn’t do anything to you.”

Josuke would get no concessions. “If you were trying to check if I’m trying to trick you or anything - I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen it. I don’t know why myself but I think I like you or something.” He sounded bashful even if Rohan wasn’t looking at him. “It’s totally weird, I know, and I’ve been trying to figure it out and wondering if I should make you change my mind or something…”

“Unlike students, I don’t have the leisure time to do silly things like think about pubescent crushes and improving my kissing technique.”

Josuke followed him into his studio. “Erm, I know it’s a little presumptuous of me to think this, but since you didn’t mess with my mind to make me hate you or anything…” Finally armed with a paper cutter he used to cut his screen tones, Rohan turned to face Josuke with the full intention of finally decimating him and his beautiful face, Koichi’s friendship be damned. His bloodlust must have been palpable, since Crazy Diamond was now hovering behind Josuke and watching him carefully. “But I don’t really care if you’ve got no talent at kissing. I mean. It’s not some kind of thing you’re just born with and have no control over.”

Rohan’s grip on the blade in his hand tightened. “Get to the point, Josuke.”

“What I’m saying is…and you can totally erase this thought from my mind…you can definitely get better at making out. And, uh, I can help you with it if you want.”

“You can - help me?”

Josuke, for all his youthful bravado and confidence, was squirming. “If you’re going to make me say it, I mean I’ll volunteer to be the person you make out with. Obviously, I have ulterior motives here.”

“And you’re saying you’re an expert at it, aren’t you?”

“Ack! Well, when you put it that way. I’m not terrible at it, but it’s not like I’m the best kisser in all of Morioh, much less the best in Japan. I don’t go around kissing everyone, you know!”

Rohan let his hand flatten on top of his desk, although he kept the paper cutter right underneath. “If I have to learn something, I don’t take lessons from anyone who’s only second best.”

Josuke immediately straightened up and puffed out his chest. “Then actually I’ve been called the best kisser in the region. I’m pretty sure my ability could make anyone fall in love with me in no time.”

This was typical ‘flirtation’, this kind of unfounded boasting. “I don’t believe everything I hear.”

Josuke came closer, and Crazy Diamond disappeared, a good peace offering and an offering of his neck as any. “Then I’ll prove it to you. If you’re okay with that, obviously.” When Rohan did not say otherwise, he came right up and put his hands on the desk on either side of Rohan’s waist and kissed him quickly, testing the waters and ready to pull back if he got burned. The paper cutter was cool under Rohan’s palm but it was left on the table, and the feel of Josuke’s neck behind the collar of his jacket was red hot.