#but mainly because it alluded to jason
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The cafeteria scene in ST4 Chapter 1
Sooo character introductions are always the most crucial points for a characters arc and because I’m in denial I re-watched Eddie’s cafeteria scene. And let me tell you that scene? It’s not only a brilliant character intro but also an amazing set up for what we can expect in this season. Because it foreshadows nearly everything that is going to happen. Say about the Duffer brothers what you will, but they are pretty good at this kind of thing. Here are my thoughts:
Before we see Eddie we hear his voice reading an article about D&D titled “D and D: The Devil’s Game” from a magazin:
“The devil has come to America. Dungeons and Dragons at first regarded as a harmless game of make-believe, has now both parents and psychologists concerned. Studies have linked violent behaviour to the game, saying it promotes satanic worship, ritual sacrifice, sodomy, suicide, and even murder.”
The kids tend to try to explain the supernatural with the help of D&D and there are parts of the article that do come true or foreshadow what is going to happen:
The headline saying „D and D: The Devil‘s Game“ → The existence of Vecna who is portrayed as the devil pretty much all season (Henry basically has the fallen angle aesthetic going on). His mind tricks and hallucinations can be seen as “playing with his prey” before their deaths.
“The devil has come to America.” → This is hinting at Vecna’s plan to take over Hawkins and ultimately succeeding in bringing the Upside Down (hell) to Hawkins (small town America).
“Dungeons and Dragons at first regarded as a harmless game of make-believe, has now both parents and psychologists concerned.” → Here we have a self-referencing moment going on. Yes, in the series D&D started out as this harmless game, but for the group it turned out to be a reality. The consequences of those experiences are discussed and shown this season (mainly El losing her power and confronting her past, Max’ depression). At the same time we do know Max, Fred and Chrissy are seeing the school counsellor and of course parents are up the wall with the whole “Eddie is a cult leader” mess.
“Violent behaviour” → I mean we know the violence level of the show so no surprises here. But it also hints, I think, at Jason turning more and more violent throught out the show.
“satanic worship” → This might be stretch but the satanic worship could allude to the fact that Vecna is behind everything and that the Upside Down obeys him and/or is ultimate goal of taking over Hawkins. I mean we see the Devil raising to power here. But Vecna also has the Mind Flayer under his control as well as the Demogorgons.
“ritual sacrifice, sodomy,… and even murder” → The four murders as sacrifices to open the gates which are very brutal
“suicide” → Might just be a small nod to the fact, that Victor Creel tried to kill himself in prison.
The discussion after that sets up the conflict with Jason:
„Society has to blame something. We are the easy targets.“ // “We are the freaks, because we like to play a fantasy game. But as long as you are into band or science or parties or a game where you toss balls into laundry baskets. It’s forced conformity that’s what killing the kids. That‘s the real monster.”
People are afraid of what they don‘t understand, D&D being accused of being a cult of satanism, Jason immediately reacting to Eddie‘s comments about basketball, establishing a direct opposition→ foreshadowing Jason’s man hunt for Eddie (like seriously just because he makes fun of your game? Grow up, Christian boy), and we have an ironic twist: the people concerned with Eddie being a satanic cult leader become like a cult themselves, grouping around a leader (Jason), who tells them to take a stand.
“It’s forced conformity that’s what killing the kids.” → probably one of the most important sentences of the series. Eddie‘s character is a staple for who this series was made for: the freaks, the outcasts and the nerds.
The rest of the scene is used to teach us more about Eddie:
„Me? I am army-crawling my way toward a D in Ms. O‘Donnell‘s. If I don‘t her final, I‘m gonna walk that stage next month, I‘m gonna look Principle Higgins dead in the eye, I‘m gonna flip him the bird, I‘m gonna snatch that diploma. I‘m gonna run like hell outta here.“ „This year is different. This year is my year. I can feel it. `86, baby.“
“This is going to be my year.” → He foreshadows his own death and it establishes his goals, what is at stake for going into the whole mess that his life will become. I mean that boy just wanted to graduate and piss his teacher off. (But it is this wholesome goal that makes his death more tragic, still unnecessary, but also still tragic.) It’s also a friendly reminder that these guys are still young and have a whole life ahead of them. Their concerns revolve around school and graduation and around the social structure in High School.
“Do you know what that means? It means you boys are the future of Hellfire. I knew it the moment I saw you. […] looking like, looking like two little lost sheep. […] We showed you that school didn‘t have to be the worst years of your lives, right? I am here to tell you that there are other lost little sheepish out there who need help. Who need you.“
Eddie making plans for the Hellfire Club after he is gone (as in after he graduates), worrying for the other kids that are the outcasts: Dustin and Mike looking after the lost sheep not knowing that he will be gone forever. :(
Here we see Eddie‘s loud side. Being right in your face, not shying away from speaking his mind and putting his opinions out there. He is also this goofy guy, walking on top of tables, standing in the middle of the cafeteria announcing his plans. And under that is his caring side: he is passionate about D&D and the future of Hellfire (he sees Dustin and Mike as his legacy, giving them the task to continue his work), but more so he cares about the people that don’t fit in, that fall through the social High School hierarchy. He wants to give the outcasts a home where they can feel comfortable. His conversation with Chrissy is just a more fleshed out scene about his empathetic side.
So in conclusion the Duffer brother’s knew what they were doing. They basically said: Here is the whole plot of season 4 laid out for you and here we have a charming, intriguing and handsome new character, that is foreshadowing his own death in his first few minutes on screen - don’t get attached, but have fun while it lasts. Duffers, you really are just like Papa.
#babsi babbles#eddie munson#justice for eddie munson#stranger things#stranger things spoilers#stranger things 4#people probably already pointed it out#but here are my two cents#everything is up to interpretation#fell free to add#stranger things analysis#tw suicide#long post#my thoughts#analysis
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Who will die in s4?
Let's begin with the characters we have some evidence for, of their possible deaths in s4:
Steve - Last year the stranger writers twitter kept tweeting telling people to "stay hydrated", and make sure they were "drinking enough water"; here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Water has an underlying significance in the show, it is usually depicted surrounding the upside down creatures/people's special powers. There’s definitely something going on with the water references in the show as well as in the tweets. Steve was shown underwater during the st4 sneak peek teaser. The stranger writers tweeted that Steve wasn’t drinking enough water. That tweet about Steve not drinking enough water could allude to his possible death/serious injury.
Dustin - In s3 ep.4 Dustin says to Steve, “If you die, I die.” I think whenever/if Steve dies, Dustin will die as well. Steve just shrugs and says "okay" after Dustin's comment.
Nancy - (based off of these comments from Natalia in interviews)
W mag interview:
The Last magazine interview:
is she...hinting towards Nancy's possible death??
Chrissy - Chrissy was officially revealed as a new character in s4 in the 2nd new cast member announcement on insta. Chrissy is described as "Hawkins’ High lead cheerleader and the most popular girl in school. But beneath the seemingly perfect surface lies a dark secret." In the 1st new cast member announcement, Jason Carver was described as "a handsome, rich athlete dating the most popular girl in school."
We know from those captions Chrissy and Jason are dating. Based on some *leaked info*, it appears as if Chrissy will die. I have a theory that this will be the event that sparks the party's attention, and causes Robin and Nancy to team up and investigate if the Upside down/the gov. is involved again, and it will also spark more hatred towards the hellfire club, because Eddie sells drugs to Chrissy, and and her death will be passed off as an overdose, which will cause Jason to blame Eddie for her death.
Eleven - Eleven was not originally intended to survive in s1. It was planned for her to make this big sacrifice for her new friends, and mainly for the person who took her in (just like Elliot does with E.T.) I think it's highly likely the Duffers will want to use this E.T. parallel for Eleven in the show again (but more permanently).
In the show's original pitch the Duffers wrote, "If Mike is the Elliot of our show, then Eleven is our "E.T."
from my byler proof master slides (145-147):
(*possible spoilers - There was also a video going around awhile ago that someone who snuck onto the set took, and claimed it was "Eleven" being wheeled out of a building by EMT's. It's very hard to tell from the video if it actually is Millie Bobby Brown or not. In the caption the person claims in one other scene he captured, it was her "photo double")
I kind of doubt they will kill her off until s5 if they do, but who knows.
Other characters who we don't have as much evidence for but could be contenders:
Likely:
Vickie - She will probably be Robin's love interest given that she is described as a "cool fast talking band nerd, who catches the eye of one of our hereos" - Robin is also in band. Since she will spend time with Robin probably, Vickie could be involved with the upside down stuff, or most likely at least some kind of battle with the rest of the Hawkins group as well (Nancy, Eddie, Robin, Steve, Dustin, Lucas, Erica, and Max).
Maybe? :
Max - I think Max will play a more key role this season in discovering how the upside down is involved this season, which puts her more at risk. During the st4 sneak peek, Max stands in the CENTER of the hawkins group formation, as if she led them over to see something:
Steve also looks like he is looking directly at Max, as if she was just talking or about to explain something to them. I doubt the show would kill off 2 kids in the group of 6 (Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max and El) before the final season, so I don't think Max will die if one of the other 6 does.
Other possible characters who might die this season that I have no concrete evidence for but are still possibilities because of their plot lines/descriptions:
Murray (dies trying to rescue Hopper)
Victor Creel?
Unlikely to die this season because they were signed as a new season regular/for a recurring role, meaning they were signed for s4 and s5:
Peter Ballard
Argyle
Eddie Munson
Dmitri
Lt. Colonel Sullivan
Jason Carver
Yuri
Source: indie wire
Because Argyle will be a new series regular, I don't think it's likely that Jonathan will die this season because they are described as "new best friends".
Very Unlikely to die this season:
Will or Mike - (I don't think either of them will even be contenders to die until POSSIBLY s5) I believe Byler is endgame because of all the evidence that they are endgame in the show, but there is always the possibility that the show will pull a 'reddie' parallel and kill off either Mike or Will. There is a decent amount of Stephen King/IT influence in the show, which is why I'm even mentioning this possibiltiy- and we all know how much they love using references to other things, especially 80's media. HOWEVER, just like fear street (directed by Leigh Janick, who is marrried to Ross Duffer, and also is set roughly in the 80’s where kids fight supernatural evil and is filmed in a lot of the same locations as ST like the mall, the town streets, etc.) I trust that the Duffers will break stereotypes and let the gay people live and be happy together.
Even though I think it's highly unlikely Mike or Will will die in s4, Mike wasn't seen in the recent st4 sneak peek teaser (but neither were Jonathan, Argyle, and Joyce -unknown if Will is the one in front of the burning car but I think it is), and Finn was the only person who posted a picture of the clock with the caption "In the upside down, meanwhile..." and not "Meanwhile, in the upside down...", like all the other cast members and official ST accounts. He never fixed the caption, which leads me to believe it wasn't a mistake, but rather a clue. I wonder what this means for Mike's storyline this season - does he get stuck in the upside down somehow?!?
#stranger things#st4#st4 theory#stranger things four#byler#byler is canon#byler theory#st4 spoilers#st4 leak#st4 leaked info#st4 speculation#stranger things speculation#stranger things theory#stranger things spoilers#stranger things leaks#stranger things 4 spoilers#stranger things 4#stranger things season 4#stranger things obsessed#stranger things analysis#stranger things 4 theory#stranger things season 4 theory#stranger things four theory#stranger things season four theory#stranger things four speculation#st theory#byeler#byler is endgame#jopper is endgame#st4 bts pics
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Defrost
Weather is starting to turn cold here so quick Wintry S2 fluff with a still kinda bad demon kitty.
Vicky decides to cause a snowstorm at the worst time, for Eleanor.
Michael was beaming. This was absolutely hilarious.
It was only his third ethics lesson and definitely his favorite so far, none of which had anything to do with what he was supposed to be learning. Presumably.
When he’d begrudgingly arrived, all of the humans had been gathered waiting for class to start, Chidi stood at the chalkboard tapping his foot, while Jason and Tahani sat awkwardly at either ends of the couch, as if it wasn’t obvious enough that they were having a ‘secret fling’ the rest of the dummies were too blind to notice.
There’d been an annoying twinge in his chest when there didn’t seem to be any sign of Eleanor, the one human who wasn’t afraid to sit near him and make these damn lessons somewhat bearable.
“She’s decided to skip today. Apparently the weather was far too good to stay inside when there’s good ‘Arizona style skin baking’ to do.” Chidi had explained with a groan when Michael had asked about his missing classmate.
The brief irritation and pettiness that Eleanor hadn’t asked him to ditch classes with her was quickly replaced by a burst of giggles, his hand moving to his mouth.
“What is so amusing?” Tahani asks, looking up.
“Oh, it’s great, trust me! I was about to warn you all; Vicky’s about to get Janet to mess up the weather so that we have a week of insanely cold snowstorms! Apparently something to do with Eleanor giving you ‘the cold shoulder’, yada yada,” Michael waves off, addressing the egocentric princess; “And...Ha! Eleanor is out there sunbathing?! Oh, that’s priceless!”
Why did he never think of that in all those reboots? Maybe because sending murder hornets after Chidi whenever the two of them tried to have a romantic picnic or soak them in torrential rain seemed too similar. But this was even better! If only he could take credit for it.
A flash of white outside the windows gets all the humans to their feet as they turn to see Michael’s words come to fruition. Heavy, sharp winds carrying the thickest of snowflakes begin whirling around and burying the ground outside in a quickly rising layer of powder.
“Oh, so THAT’S snow! Awesome!” Of course the Florida DJ hadn’t ventured far enough beyond his swamp city to see such weather before; “I wanna go eat it!”
“Trust me! You really don’t wanna go out in that, it’s not designed to be fun. I’m supposed to make some announcement to be broadcast in your homes later about a glitch and you all needing to stay inside.” Michael warns them of that.
Chidi turns on him; “And you said Eleanor’s out in that?!”
“Yeah! Imagine her trying to make her way back in that! She’s probably frozen solid already. That’ll teach her to skip class, right, Teach?” He raises his hand in the air.
Chidi leaves him hanging. As does Tahani. Not even Jason will indulge him.
Ugh. So much for a team. He drops his hand down as their stares on him turn to full on glaring.
“Tough room.” Michael puts his hands in his pockets.
“You’re supposed to not torture us anymore, you need to go make sure she’s okay.” Chidi tells him.
Oh, for fork’s sake. Why should he do that when Eleanor was gonna leave him to endure this dumb lecture while she got to relax and top her tan up? This was the best he was going to get to payback...as well as for the eight hundred previous defeats that he seemed to care less and less about each day.
“She’ll be fine! It’s only a bit of snow. And anyway, this isn't my torture, it's Vicky’s - speaking of which, Janet will be offline for a little bit as she’s supposed to be helping fix this, but it’s really just to make your quarantine more boring.”
See? He’s nice enough to fill them in on that and what thanks does he get?
“Okay then, I’ll go-.” Chidi starts towards the door.
Michael huffs and blocks the professor’s path; “No, you’re supposed to stay in...Plus your limbs might fall off from frostbite in five minutes.”
“You just said-.”
“I know what I said, she’ll still be fine...” Michael turns and stomps his way out the door, muttering under his breath; “...So long as I find her quick.” He clears his throat and exits into the snowy chaos.
It’s lucky his extra senses are able to help him find the path towards the beach, as the fog is getting denser along with the downpour. He snaps a pair of snow boots on to help him trudge through where his loafers don’t help quite as much, along with a long, blue coat flapping behind him. He doesn’t feel the cold as bad as the humans would, but it’s still a pain in the ash. It’s bad enough relinquishing control of his experiment, now his beautiful torture city is going to be wrecked by this wintry storm.
He hopes he wins some major extra credit scores in these ethics lessons for journeying out into this to help bring one filthy cockroach back...even if she was the most enjoyable cockroach to be around.
A claw reaches out to grip his ankle.
“AH, SHIRT!” He almost trips, at first expecting one of the ice demons to have taken off their skin and planning to surprise him; “Sven, is that you?!”
He glances down, seeing the hand still exposed through the snow on the ground, his sight adjusting to make out the fallen form, half-buried alive...well, close enough.
Oh. Crab.
He kneels down and digs the inches of snow away, exposing Eleanor’s shivering, half-naked form on the ground. Her hair is damp and her lips nearly bright blue, arms hugged tight around herself, her swimsuit possibly making her more cold than if she was wearing nothing at all.
“Eleanor? Eleanor, can you hear me?” He shakes her by the shoulder.
Flakes are caught in her eyelashes as she tries to open her lids, teeth chattering like those little wind-up novelty set he has in his cabinet.
“H-h-h-hey b-b-bud.” She says, smaller and weaker than he’s ever heard her; “C-c-care to t-t-turn up the...th-thermostat...a b-b-bit?”
About another twenty degrees Celsius?
Michael sighs, brushing the snow away from her hair, though more quickly falls on her. He knows he should take this moment to mock her, to take advantage of this rare opportunity to see her in true misery...But he’s pretty sure she’s going to pass out at any moment. And, damn it, has she always been this small?
He shrugs his coat off and swaddles it around her frame, trying to make sure every corner is tucked in against the icy wind, before he lifts her up.
Her head turns to find its way to the crook of his neck.
“Wow....H-h-how are you so warm? You made of f-f-fire?” She whispers, jaw still moving rapidly beyond her control.
“Yes.” Is as much as he reveals, for now.
He scoops her close in his arms, turning to go back to the clown house before spotting Vicky beyond some trees, possibly on her way to look for him.
Cursing inward, he turns and heads back towards the rocks near the beach.
“R-r-really not in the mood for a beach read r-right now, man.” Eleanor barely has the strength to stand in her giant coat burrito as Michael releases her near some boulders.
Michael snaps his fingers, summoning an igloo behind the giant rocks, out of easy line of sight for any potential scouting demons, though he knows not many venture this far out - usually making it the perfect spot for his and Eleanor’s after-school study groups (aka the Make Fun of Chidi and Forget To Study groups).
“Oh, n-nice! An ice house for me to f-f-freeze in some more!” Eleanor’s quickly numbing face makes it difficult for the sarcasm to translate on her face.
Michael rolls his eyes and nudges her to get inside.
Obviously, it’s no mere igloo. It’s more like one of those ‘glamping’ - as Tahani would say and then lose points for using - pods or tents, essentially a portable mini-apartment with a sofa, a TV, a stove and a lit fireplace that doesn’t melt the walls. Because magic.
“F-f-fork...I t-take it back,” Eleanor exclaims, swaying as she clutches the coat around her and glances at the surroundings which are, of course, bigger than the outside would allude to; “This is pretty swe...Sweet set...”
Michael sees her begin to fall to the floor despite being no where near the large sofa. He catches her and hurries her over to the fireplace, snapping his fingers to ignite some more flames.
“Better?” He asks, rubbing her arms, watching her aura and studying her vitals.
Probably not the best thing for a human to get hypothermia, even when already dead. Especially so. The ones being tortured in the snowy Bad Place neighbourhoods looked rather happy, though that was mainly because their mouths were frozen in permanent smiles, the ice forever smothering their screams.
Eleanor nods a little, before shuffling out of the coat.
“T-that things too wet...So is this...” She gestures to her skimpy blue bathing suit, struggling to move her numb fingers; “Dude...gimmie a hand?”
A hand? Wait.
She wants him to...? Oh. Right.
His throat suddenly goes dry, which is ridiculous as he shouldn’t ever need to hydrate. Michael nods, moving his fingers to fumble the knot on her back, allowing the bra to slide off of her after a couple of minutes.
He hears her chuckle; “Wow, even demon boys still struggles to get a human bra off, huh?”
Michael feels the blush on his cheek, not having expected that to be a skill he would need to learn.
He watches her keep her back to him, pushing her bottoms down to her ankles before kicking them aside on the warm, white ‘carpet’ he made up for the igloo, before she shuffles as close as she can to the fireplace. Sitting bare naked and not seeming to give a fork that he can see every inch of her.
Thank Upper Management the whole shivering and blue-tinted skin doesn’t make her the least bit attractive...Not that she ever was...Gross, dumb human.
“Lemmie guess...Vicky’s latest idea? Why didn’t you tell me, man? I thought we were a team.” She berates over her shoulder to him.
“Hey, I was going to tell you and the others at class. It’s not my fault you decided to ditch without giving me a heads up.” He tries to look away as the side of her breast is in view when she turns and this...Damn it, why does she have to be so carefree and public with her nudity?
She smirks; “What’s the matter, dude? First time you seen a hot human naked you weren’t covering with scorpions?”
“Please, as if I care if your skins are covered or not.” He rubs the back of his neck; “You should be thanking me! I decided to venture out into this weather to rescue you, of my own accord, with no external persuasions needed!”
“Chidi told you to find me, didn’t he.”
��Yes, he did. But I could’ve said no and I didn’t. So...” He shrugs; “Progress?” Is it? He’s still new at this.
Eleanor suddenly starts to laugh and Michael can’t help but smile. He takes it that he’s right then. He notices that her face is still rather off-color, her lips now a shade of lilac, even though her shivering isn’t as violent as it was when he found her.
His chest aches, just for a second, as he remembers hesitating to come out.
How he’d been excited at the idea of Eleanor suffering from this...Why wasn’t it enjoyable to see it happening before him?
“Uhm, Janet’s gonna be AWOL for a couple hours...But I could get something to warm you up? Humans like drinking warm liquified chocolate when it’s cold, right? Or I could fill one of those bags with dangerously scalding liquid?”
“How about you just bring that internal fire of yours over here, bud?” She curls a finger at him, her other still wrapped around her shoulder; “You can be my hot water bottle while we wait this out.”
He isn’t sure what she means about that until he goes to sit next to her and, suddenly, Eleanor is grabbing his arms and folding them around herself as if he were now the wrap to make up her human-flavoured burrito. Her hands grip his, tight, bringing them around to rest around her stomach.
Michael shifts, awkwardly. He’s still getting used to the whole ‘hugging’ thing, which was mostly something Eleanor did as her own torture to annoy him, also Jason sometimes not having much of a concept of a personal space. It’s a whole other set of issues he thinks to put his arms around her when she’s completely naked. She has no qualms about leaning back into him.
“Awww, yeah, that’s nice. Demons make for good bean-bag chairs.” She smirks as she snuggles into him.
He isn’t sure whether to be flattered or insulted.
“Am I...helping then?” He asks, oddly nervous.
“Mmm hmm.” She hums, her heartrate steadying a little, as well as the pink returning to her lips.
The glow that fills Michael’s chest as he watches her smile in his arms, that sated buzz rushing through his stomach, is what he had expected to feel from seeing her be successfully tortured. Instead it had brought him some weird after-sad sensation that was new and frightening. And yet, helping her, making her better...That was the result that made him feel better?
Holy shirt....What was happening to him?
“You okay there, buddy?” Eleanor asks after a while, “You’ve got the look I used to have when someone told me they were bringing their toddlers out to lunch with me.”
He shakes his head; “S’fine....A-are you okay?” His hands shift around her middle, wanting to make sure she’s getting as much warmth as she can from him.
For some reason it matters a lot that she is. The softness of her skin beneath his fingertips is distracting him from working out what he’s heard in his ethics lessons so far that might explain this.
“Well, sat nude in an igloo, cuddling up to the demon who tortured me for three hundred years, isn’t quite the weirdest thing that’s happened to me in this place...but it’s also far from the worst.” She quips.
He feels as if he could melt now, that look she’s giving him making his essence fizz like a well-shaken soda bottle.
“Thanks for coming to get me...Eventually.” She says, moving a cold hand up to touch his cheek; “Damn, that touch would be good payback if you were human.”
“Sorry.” He smirks back; “I can’t help being a hot Architect, Eleanor.”
“And they call me full of myself!” She grins; “Whatever, we’re right and we should say it.”
That’s not what he meant but...Sure, he’ll take that.
“Actually...your face could do with helping mine warm up.” Eleanor’s thumb brushes against the corner of his mouth.
Michael frowns; “...Really? How?”
She smiles, a twinkle in her eyes; “Like this.”
She moves in close, before he can even comprehend her next action, pressing her lips against his and sucking, lightly, her tongue invading his mouth while her hand gently head his head in place. Michael freezes, to start, stunned in shock and confusion.
Do humans really do this just to...warm up? He wouldn’t be against the idea if that was the case, but...This is Eleanor Shellstrop in front of him, Arizona born and bred, almost ninety per cent of her actions were a pathway to sex.
Fork!
Michael pulled back, ignoring the softness of her lips, resisting the temptation to lose himself in...whatever that was.
“Ugh! Gross! Why do humans do that? Your food holes are for eating, you horny dinguses!” He makes a show of rubbing his lips on his hand.
Eleanor is laughing again; “Oh my god, you’d think I gave you cooties or something!”
“Is that a thing?! A human disease?! Do I need to disinfect myself?”
He starts to shuffle away but she reaches to grab his hand; “Relax, Mikey...It was just a bit of fun. Don’t worry, if you’re not into gross humans, I’ll be all good and pure and restrained...for one day.”
He gulps, feeling as though he should be relieved; “G-good. W-why would I ever want to...Again...I mean. Good. Thank you.”
Now he has to stop his eyes from looking at her again, now that she’s warmed up and dried, no longer shaking like a leaf and looking smaller than usual. She’s sat in the glow of the fireplace, giving him that smile she had every time she saw through him, saw who he was, always too impressed or pleased with herself to be angry at him.
Damn it, he should have left her to freeze.
You know you couldn’t do that. Not anymore.
She’s beaten you. Accept it.
“If you’re not gonna warm me up the fun way, the least you can do is snap us some hot chocolate.” Eleanor says, turning back to the fire and putting her palms up.
Michael sighs. Yes. That he can do, easy.
“And some dry comfy clothes....I wouldn’t wanna prolong your torture any longer.” She winks at him; “It’s only fair.”
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Yeah Marian (or Marion, as it's spelled in RoS) nearly gets forced into a marriage a couple of times. Or, well, with de Belleme in Robin Hood and the Sorcerer I would say it's more like an excuse to get her to his castle so he could sacrifice her for Magic Ritual Stuff. But in Herne's Son she actually does get forced into a marriage, that's true.
And yeah RoS Marion is very much an action girl (in Witch of Elsdon she actually beats Robin up to convince him that she's no more a liability than any of the other outlaws). At the time I think that was somewhat new, having her be a part of the gang so to speak. She doesn't get to do a lot of the hand-to-hand fights and generally has no melee weapon, but she shoots as well as any of them. Or better even, maybe. At least in "Seven Poor Knights" in the beginning when the outlaws were sort of competing on who could shoot most accurately, she and Robin were the only ones of to hit the target. But on the other hand in actual fights they always hit the target when it matters, so that doesn't narratively count for anything.
I did get around to watching the first episode of BBC Robin Hood, too, and one sort of half-similarity I noticed is that Much is /definitely/ not the sharpest tool in the shed in either. I find it way more irritating in BBC RH, though. Dunno why. I guess it's just that in RoS Much is not so much stupid as just... well, naive, really, and inexperienced, and youngest of the group (the actor was the youngest, too, only 18 or so when they started filming the show). Whereas with BBC RH Much it's more like cliche comic relief character stupidity which for some reason really gets on my nerves sometimes.
With what you said about Robin and Guy's relationship in Robin of Sherwood... yeah, you're partly right. Keep in mind, RoS has two separate Robins, though (if you've done googling I think you'll probably have already found that out, right?) Gizzy is half-brother to Robert of Huntingdon, but not to Robin of Loxley. Robin of Loxley canonically has no biological siblings, but he was raised by Much's parents so they're basically brothers, the two of them. (Considering that I do find it funny that they have different enough accents that even I can hear it, and I'm not a native English-speaker and my accent ear is downright horrible.)
Fun fact, by the way: according to Kip Carpenter (who created the show and wrote almost all episodes), the reason Guy and Robin number two were revealed to be brothers is that the cast and crew of the show were at some party at one point, and someone pointed out to Kip how funny it was that the only two blondes in the room were Jason Connery and Robert Addie, who played Robin and Gisburne.
I find incredibly funny, by the way, that BBC went and made their Robin Hood both Robin of Locksley and the Earl of Huntingdon at once, and Robin of Sherwood had both Robin of Loxley and Robert of Huntingdon (although Robert wasn't the earl, just the earl's son and heir) as Robin Hood, but kept them separate characters. Like, my understanding is that most adaptations choose one of those two, but not these shows I Guess.
I'll have to admit that one thing that is going to take me some getting used to in BBC Robin Hood is how clean and kind of new everything looks. Like maybe the difference is just made by the sharper image of newer cameras, but like everything in RoS, even various noblemen's places, looks kinda rough around the edges, worn, lived-in. Like in Nottingham castle, there's straws scattered on the floor, servants hurrying somewhere in the background, an open fireplace in the center of the hall rather than on one wall or something, there's always some random items scattered about, and so on. Whereas my first impression of BBC Robin Hood's Nottingham Castle is... kind of like it's all new and shiny, you know? Everything's clean, in perfect condition and orderly, very few things have a look as if they'd been in use for a while.
And I feel like it shows even more with the lower class characters. Sure, their homes and their clothes are less impressive, less showy... but even the buildings don't really look that old, the clothes seem clean and straight as if recently ironed, and it doesn't look as if they've seen much use.
Compare Robin of Sherwood. The ordinary people's homes look kind of shaggy and while they're in good condition, they don't look as if they've been built yesterday, you know? And everyone's clothes, and that includes the outlaws (except Nasir whose clothes somehow always stay neat, but then again half the time Nasir's there mainly to look good so whatever), are kind of like... there's a little bit of stain in them, you might see some mended tears (in some episodes you can see the outlaws actually repairing their own clothes, too, I think) and patches, and frayed edges and such. They're still in good condition, obviously, but they've seen enough use that they no longer look new.
I'm not complaining, mind you, but it just feels weird because I'm not used to it. (So does the show starting by Robin returning from the Holy Land to find everything a mess, even though I think it's a fairly common way of starting Robin Hood stories. In RoS neither of them was at any point involved in the Crusade stuff.)
Yeah, BBC Robin Hood is known for not being accurate with the times when it comes to physical appearances, hence it’s contemporary edge. I mean, the costumes are kind of obvious with it: (Guy’s leather biker armor, Marian’s hair going from straight to curly as if by magic, and a good majority of the characters costumes in general. I could keep going.) And as you’ve pointed out, even some of the sets look as if they are perfectly neat. Despite taking place in the 12th century, they also allude to political things of the 21st century at times and use contractions not yet used in those times. I think they made it this way though to help adapt it to modern times when it came on in 2006 and keep it interesting for the kids (since it is still a kids show too.) It’s cheesy at times, and some things are just so damn obvious it hurts or makes you laugh, but that’s why I love this show. I think the costume department started to do a little better towards the middle of Season 2, but Season 3 is where they really shined with the more historically accurate costumes thanks to new costume designers. I can’t say anything different about the sets though XD.
As for Much, the writers sadly made him the Butt-Monkey a good majority of the time in the show. And it’s sad, cause I actually see a lot of wonderful potential with Much and adore his character as Robin’s former man-servant and best friend. I’m glad to see they have Much in ROS and like the idea of him being Robin’s foster brother. I will warn you that the writing for some characters may get to you at times (the fandom knows that all too well), but it’s still worth the watch. <3
And yes, they are two separate Robin’s which surprised me. In my previous reply, what I was talking about concerning Archer was if the show wasn’t canceled, the writers were planning to make Archer the new Robin (spoiler spoiler), so the two different Robin’s kind of reminded me of that along with the whole half-brother thing. I’ll probably find it a bit weird to get use to, especially since that was something I didn’t like about the Russell Crowe one, but I’ll get to that bridge when I get to it. :)
I love those little tid bits though about how the crew just sat together and was like: lets make the only blondes in the cast related, and bam, Gisborne/Huntingdon became half-brothers. Haha, nice!
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Just thought I'd quickly pop in to give some brief opinions about the Sonic movie, since I was fortunate enough to see it yesterday (with a full audience at that). This is by no means all that I have to say on it, but there's no harm sharing a few early thoughts for now. Some slight spoilers ahead, of course.
In short, I really enjoyed it! Even more than I thought I would, and I was already pretty pumped to see it come the last few weeks. :D
- Ben Schwartz officially has my favourite vocal portrayal of Sonic, as I feel he combines the best aspects of Jason Griffith and Roger Craig Smith's portrayals. As for Sonic himself, in a departure from how I usually feel about the character overall, I thought the titular hedgehog was actually really endearing, and not at all annoying. I also found it intriguing how they played around with Sonic's speed in unconventional yet logical ways, like how he performs basic tasks like reading in a matter of seconds, or talking to and playing games with himself.
- Jim Carrey was of course brilliant as Robotnik. He was hilarious and menacing in equal measures (and interestingly enough, both sides seemed to come together a lot of the time), he was treated as a credible threat despite his comedic quirks, and even putting Carrey's appropriate trademark hamminess aside, he truly does get Eggman's character beyond the face value aspects. His voice also seemed to be channeling a bit of Mike Pollock come his full “transformation” at the end.
- I actually quite liked Tom Wachowski, mainly because it feels like they actually tried making him a full character rather than use him as a blank slate for Sonic to compensate for as per the norm in most “fictional character in the real world” movies of this type. And although he's certainly important, Sonic is still very clearly the main character, so that helps too. He's definitely no Chris Thorndyke, and if he ends up reappearing in a sequel (which seems likely since Sonic's still on Earth and is now living with him), I'd honestly be fine with that.
- I thought the humor was pretty good for the most part, and there were a surprising number of lines that I was not expecting. A certain line by Robotnik in his very first scene in particular caught me off guard, not helped by the shit-eating grin on Carrey's face as he said it. XD There were one or two jokes at most that were a bit on the questionable side (anyone who has seen the movie can probably guess what I'm referring to), but luckily they don't last for long. And hey, if a couple of weak jokes is the most I can really criticise (compared to, say, character assassination), then I'd say it speaks well for the overall film.
- It might just be a coincidence, but I like how they alluded to Eggman's unexpected strength in the games by having Robotnik handle himself well in a fist fight. The jump cut to the burly guy at the western bar getting thrown out of the window by the doctor was awesome and got a chuckle out of me.
- I knew he was coming due to the leaks, but it still made me smile when Tails popped up at the end. And he looks great. :D I find it curious though that Tails acts like he knows Sonic, yet it seems that Sonic doesn't know Tails, given all that talk about being lonely and Tom being his first real friend and whatnot... Maybe their friendship will be brought to life in a sequel...?
- The credits sequence was just perfect, and the Special Stage references made me grin like an idiot. And I know some people will gripe about it not being a typical Crush 40 rock song, but I think Speed Me Up is pretty catchy, and still fitting for Sonic's character despite not being high-octane.
- Longclaw saying goodbye to Sonic gave me more feels than anything in the Zombot arc of IDW, which is hilarious given she was killed off immediately after she was introduced. I was actually kind of sad to see her leave the movie so soon, since she seemed like a nice character. At least we got a cameo from the echidnas in the process, and if the echidnas are around, we should probably expect a certain red one in particular to appear in the future...
- Am I looking into it too much, or is Robotnik's robotic walk in the Mushroom Planet meant to resemble the walking animation of the Death Egg Robot? Possibly foreshadowing that robot by any chance, or at least a similarly humanoid mech...?
- Am I also overthinking it when I ask if Sonic repeatedly hitting Robotnik's craft in the final battle is meant to be a reference to the classic routine of hitting him 8 times in the 2D games?
- Either way, regardless of which ones are intentional or not, it was really fun seeking out the impressive amount of Easter Eggs. Funnily enough, the Badnik label in Robotnik's truck got the biggest reaction out of me. :P I'm sure there's dozens more that I missed, but that'll be part of the joy of rewatching it, right?
- If a sequel does indeed manifest, I'm 90% sure that Metal Sonic will be involved. And depending on how they portray him (taking how Sonic and Robotnik have been portrayed into account), I honestly think he'll have the potential to be Metal's best portrayal since the OVA. But we'll see what happens.
So much on my mind, lol. I'll have more to say later on to be sure, but you get my drift for now. REALLY enjoyed the movie, definitely recommend it, and it's cathartic as hell to see Sonic get his due respect from audiences and reviewers... Although it's equally amusing to see certain groups try to cancel this movie for daring to give a shit about its intended audience, as well as the critics and Doug Walker non-fans who are still bitter that they didn't get the “glorious trainwreck” they were hoping for.
Bring on Sonic the Hedgehog 2: This Time It's Metal.
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Sociopath Profile: Freddy Krueger
Dream Demon form (left) and former human form (right)
Full name: Frederick Charles Krueger
From the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise
Appearances: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1984), 3: Dream Warriors (1987), 4: The Dream Master (1988), 5: The Dream Child (1989), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Played mainly by Robert Englund (pictured)
Requested by @crossover15
One of the biggest horror icons of the modern age. You likely know the glove claws and the red striped sweater from a mile away. Freddy Krueger is a truly deplorable monster. The bastard son of 100 maniacs was a child predator who killed (and potentially molested) numerous children when he was human. He only became more dangerous once he became a Dream Demon. Even death hasn’t stopped him from being a deplorable psychopath.
[POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW]
Freddy gets his kicks from causing people pain and suffering. He loves to torment his prey relentlessly before killing them. He took pleasure in killing children when he was alive. And when the parents killed him, he took his retribution out on the teenage children simply for the sake of petty revenge. All to prove that they can’t even protect them. When he does invade people’s dreams, he goes all out in making them the most torturous visions of what they fear most. He definitely takes pride in his work.
"When I was alive, I might have been a little naughty, but after they killed me, I became something much, much worse. The stuff nightmares are made of."
Despite his despicable nature, he’s not without his superficial charm. When he was alive, he was able to hide the fact that he was a child murderer by putting on the guise of a loving husband and mourning father. However, once his wife found out and he killed her, he was still able to get acquitted by the legal system. As a Dream Demon, one of his most notable characteristics is his flamboyant personality and depraved sense of humor. He’s frequently being bombastic and cracking jokes as he torments his prey.
He seems to have a bit of an ego as well. In the first film, he makes a comment alluding to the idea that he views himself as a godlike entity. This would definitely tie into a grandiose sense of self-worth. And it’s notable since everything about him that makes him godlike is only because the other Dream Demons granted him these powers and that his power is useless when pulled into the real world.
Tina: Please, God!
Freddy: [brandishes claws] This is God!
He knows how to manipulate others as well. In Freddy vs. Jason, he takes the form of Pamela Voorhees to convince Jason to start a killing spree in Freddy’s hometown. He banks on the idea that the spree will be blamed on Freddy and will make people fear him again since people had forgotten about him and he needs fear to fuel his power. There’s also the idea that he specifically preys on the victim’s greatest fears in their dreams to get the largest reaction from them. Even when he isn’t in your dreams, he’s still trying to wear you down and get you to sleep. You have to sleep eventually. He’ll either tear them to shreds in their nightmares or make them die of sleep deprivation.
Not only that, but he also tries to leverage his past of abuse as a way to gain sympathy in Freddy’s Dead. He shows that he was raised by a sleazy pimp and was bullied relentlessly into isolation as a child. The problem is that he also shows telltale signs of sociopathy even then. And while he attempts to paint himself as a victim, he gets no sympathy.
And unlike many other slasher villains, he kills people for the sheer enjoyment of it and nothing less. Even Michael Myers, who showed sadistic tendencies as well, killed because it was in his nature to do so. He was a monster, plain and simple. Freddy, on the other hand, has even less reasoning than that. It’s obvious that he embraces his evil nature by his most common form. He can look like whatever he wants. He doesn’t have to look like a deformed, burned corpse. He does that because it terrifies people and he loves to make sure you’re scared before you die. He doesn’t kill because it’s in his nature. He kills because he enjoys every fucking minute of it.
But don’t worry. He’s only fictional, so there’s no reason to truly fear him... Probably...
I think...
See more profiles here.
#Freddy Krueger#Robert Englund#A Nightmare on Elm Street#crossover15#request#character analysis#profile
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Staron au where Sharon is cap and from the 40s and steve is agent 13 and from modern era?
a personal favorite of mine!
There were many things about the future that confused her, but Agent 13 had to be one of the most confusing.
He was…handsome. Didn’t really like her that much, a total workaholic, and had white piping on his SHIELD uniform. Claimed he had had an all-white uniform once, but decided it washed him out.
“Irish, part of the deal,” he had said with a shrug. She doesn’t know his name. Just calls him various names that she thinks fit. She calls him Jack, John, Tony, (that one as a joke, but he found it kind of funny) Tommy, Jason, anything.
Fury likes pairing them up for missions. Natasha claims that Sharon should go out with him.
“Gotta get something good from the twenty-first century,” she alludes, winking. Sharon just sips her coffee.
“The movies got better at film technique, I think I’m good, Natasha.” She sighs, rolling her eyes.
“I wish you still blushed at sex jokes.”
“If you would’ve stopped making them and having me look things up on Urban Dictionary, I might still be.”
13 is frustrated, mainly because of Cap. Sharon. Ronnie, once, but Natasha was threatened. He…okay. He likes her. Didn’t really think he would. She’s Captain America, legendary hero and onwards and so forth, but hey.
She hates Starbucks with a passion, refuses to pay a load of money for clothes, and thinks thrift stores are the best thing in the world. She buys a ton of records, plays them around SHIELD solely because she knows it ticks Director Fury off, and also tried Lunchables last week and said if they had this during the war, everyone would’ve enlisted.
“You have horrible taste in food,” Maria Hill remarked, not even looking up from her phone.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t give my palate enough diversity during the war,” Sharon states flatly. “I’ll try harder if I time-travel to get some French cuisine or curry or whatever. Anything in particular?” Steve snorted, pouring more coffee.
That’s not even at the Very forefront of Steve’s mind right now, however, because Senator Pierce announced that one Miss Sharon Carter is a fugitive of the law, government, and SHIELD. Which doesn’t make sense, because Sharon is stubbornly loyal. It’s annoying.
So Steve decides to walk out of work, claiming that he has to take his aunt to a…life insurance appointment? (Natasha still doesn’t know how Steve got into SHIELD, he’s such a shit liar.)
He finds Sharon in about an hour and a half with Nat by her side. They’re in a mall, looking for Hoboken, New Jersey.
“Gross,” Sharon mutters.
Rumlow is in the mall. Steve isn’t exactly surprised that he’s Hydra–man was an asshole with a superiority complex. Sharon looks determined to bring down a fight at a mall, which is stupid, and so Steve slings an arm around her shoulder as Hydra soldiers march past, scanning the crowds.
“Laugh,” he hisses. “Like I said something funny–”
She lets out a laugh that’s only somewhat convincing, but hey. They don’t look.
“Please never tell me to do that, you’re not funny,” Sharon says. And then there’s Rumlow in the escalator. Natasha’s already disappeared, sent a text to Steve already, probably.
“Public displays of affection make people feel uncomfortable,” Steve murmurs.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Sharon mutters. She catches sight of Rumlow, eyes widen, and she looks back to Steve. “Pucker up, buttercup.”
It’s a nicer kiss than most he’s had. She’s soft, makes it last long enough to be publicly uncomfortable but not dirty looks abound. It worked, however, and Steve grins.
There’s a lot to contend with. With everything falling around them, Bucky Barnes being back from the dead? That was a curveball, and then literally everything else–
Steve did find a new best friend though, and that’s Sam Wilson, AKA the coolest human being alive and ever–but still.
He visits Sharon in the hospital.
“Surprised the serum didn’t fix you after two hours,” he says.
“Aw, shut up,” Sharon mumbles. “I could still take you on.” Steve snorts, poking her arm as she whines in pain.
“Yeah, you totally could. I can see it now. Sharon gets up from a hospital bed to fight me.”
She finds out his name is Steve Rogers after she picks up his wallet for him, and there’s his driver’s license.
“I’m just going to say it: I’m a dumbass,” Sharon says. “I could have done this in the first week.” Steve makes a grab for his wallet, Sharon bumping him away with a well-placed elbow and a grin. “You got forty bucks in this here wallet. What do you think about treating me on a date? Since I saved the world, basically.” Steve rolls his eyes.
“I’m getting you pizza out of a dumpster on 34th.” Sharon cheers.
#role reversal au#staron#steve rogers#sharon carter#lovelyirony writes#i love them okay#sharon's a disaster baby who is FUNNY#steve is still shit at lying
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hey could u link the post where u talk about how "they could have ‘lexa’ but not show her face if they can’t get alycia" i haven't read it and that concept seems interesting. Or you could just say what it's tagged under and I'll find it whatever's easier for u. Thank you!
I think I just casually mentioned in a post. I think I went in-depth talking to someone else about it and didn’t publicly post about it.
I do only seeing them having Lexa in the show through Madi or people talking about Lexa. I don’t see her phycially manifesting again. However, IF they wanted to show Lexa visually without Alycia they could still do so. They would have to mainly use Lexa’s outfit, hairstyle, props, and/or stock audio or visuals that they recorded previously to make it happen. Or if by some strange reason Alycia was willing to record new audio for the show (highly unlikely; bascially laughable how unlikely). Lexa’s hairstyle is very iconic, so is her commander coat, her knife, her gloves, etc. you could still use these things.
There are two ways I could see them ‘showing’ Lexa that would make sense storywise. The first is if Madi is able to access the Flame in a City of Light style and able to see more than just memories. For instance, let’s say that Eligius III was equipt with CoL type of technology that would then be a ‘viritual reality’ platform for the Flame to then display visual information of the Commander like Clarke saw in 3.16 when she saw Lexa and Becca. Now, if they are able to have this type of moment, I only see them using Becca because I think they would be able to get Erica Cera back on the show, plus she holds more importance storywise. So, I could see Becca telling Madi of all the commanders that have come after her but before Madi. They would then pan to a line up of 20+ people with their backs turned to Madi (Jason has said that there are 27 or so minds in the Flame). There are men, women, and children. Each of the previous commanders who minds all in the Flame. Commanders that lived into their 20s or died in their early teens. So they could have them all lined up and the person on the far right could be standing there and we see someone’s back who looks like this:
We all KNOW it would be Lexa, however, that could be anyone that would just need to put on Lexa’s outift and hairstyle. This person would just need to stand there in the lineup and wouldn’t need to say anything.
The second is that we know that the Flame show memories POV style. The Flame is showing everything that the commander sees so there wouldn’t be a need to show Lexa if it was her memories. The only reason why we saw Becca’s face in the “memories” that Madi saw was because of Becca seeing her reflection in the hazmat suit helmets. Now they could show a memory of the commander before Lexa and show a “little Lexa” and Luna… they’d just have to cast young actors that looked like younger versions of Alycia and Nadia. However, this is VERY unlikely because we already know about nightblood novitiates and the conclave and don’t see how it would add to the story/forward moving plot seeing little Lexa and Luna.
A moment that they could possibly use of Lexa could be something relating to The 100 coming down to earth and people telling her about it or something. They could show a POV from Lexa of people telling her about the “sky invaders”. Hey, if they are able to get the Gustus actor and/or Dichen it would be a pretty cool call back moment we never got to see. Plus, we could FINALLY see some sort of Anya and Lexa moment. HIGHLY unlikely though.So, here is a cosplay of Lexa that alludes to what I’m picturing…
The camera POV would show the memory from Lexa’s eyes, therefore we wouldn’t have to see her face (aka: needing Alycia). They would just have to avoid reflective surfaces. The memory would start with Lexa looking down at her dagger with the gloves; she might also be sitting on her throne. People would then walk into the room and she would look up as they told her. The issue would run into Lexa’s response to people in the memories and needing Alycia’s voice (if they can’t get a good enough vocal impersonator for Alycia). How to combat this is that they could have Madi say what Lexa said in the memory. This would be similar to how in Madi’s nightmare seeing Becca’s death, she was saying things Becca was saying when the camera panned to Madi in the rover.
So, that to me is logistically how you could work out a POV of Lexa without necessarily having Alycia and/or Alycia audio. I’m not sure why they would need to show a POV memory of Lexa’s instead of just Madi telling people the memory she had. I think they would go that route intead of going through the trouble of the POV memory. I’m not sure either what use it would be in the storyline.
#Anonymous#answered#commander lexa#i really don't see them visually showing lexa again#i think the first scenario would be the likely of the two
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Global Agricultural Films Market Upcoming Trends, Growth Drivers and Challenges
Agricultural Films are otherwise called plasticulture, which alludes to the utilization of plastic materials in different agrarian applications. The objective of this report is to break down the current and expected patterns of the rural movies market, as it is guessed that rancher all over the planet would request these materials. The review covers a top to bottom examination of the market capability of the different kinds and utilizations of the horticultural movies market. The report investigates potential open doors in the created and arising economies so that organizations can make methodologies according to their designated districts.
ChemIntel360’s global Agricultural Films Market study is a 140+ slide report containing in-depth analysis on historical and forecasted spending and consumption patterns in the sector. We offer granular value and volume data from a global, regional, applications, and application industry perspective. The industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% mainly due to growing need for improved crop quality and agricultural productivity is expected to bolster the market over the forecast period.
Request for Sample Copy of this Report @ https://www.chemintel360.com/reportdetails/Agricultural-Films/234#popup
Scope
This study contains global and regional market size data. The numbers are broken down by application (Greenhouse Film, Mulch Film, Silage Film), by Type (LLDPE, LDPE, Reclaim, Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate, High-Density Polyethylene and Others). The historical period runs through 2015-2020 and the forecasted period from 2021-2026.
Market Overview
The global Agricultural Films market, which grew from US$X.X billion in 2015 to US$X.X billion in 2019, dropped marginally to US$40.31 billion in 2020, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Spending is expected to recover in 2021 to value US$X.X billion and increase to US$X.X billion in 2026 at a CAGR of X.X%. Cumulatively the market is expected to value US$X.X billion during the forecast period as compared to US$X.X billion during the historical period.
The vital driver for market development is expanded accentuation on worldwide agrarian result because of the rising food interest of the steadily expanding populace. Furthermore, rural movies work with the increment in the space of controlled agribusiness by giving materials that move cultivating. Cultivators are relied upon to involve agrarian movies as it is adaptable and simple to create material.
The Global Agricultural Film Market is classified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the world. The Global Agricultural Film Market in the Asia Pacific region is projected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period owing to the rapidly growing population.
Key Players
The major players in the market are Trioplast, Berry Plastics, Armando Alvarez, Polypak, Barbier Group, Plastika Kritis, Rani Plast, Agriplast., SHANDONG SHOUGUANG JIANYUANCHUN CO., LTD., HANGZHOU XINGUANG PLASTIC CO., LTD.
For More Detail @ https://www.chemintel360.com/reportdetails/Agricultural-Films/234
About Us:
ChemIntel360, part of AgileIntel’s broader research offering, provides an integrated portfolio of quantitative and qualitative research reports on the chemicals sector. Our studies make use of credible market intelligence.
Contact Us:
Mr. Jason Victor
Skype ID: ChemIntel360
mail Id: [email protected]
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It’s alive, and hungry.
(Some of my thoughts inspired by the TLJ novelization ahead)
There’s a lot to untangle here, but I’m just gonna go ahead and dive right in. This post is mainly about one particular observation in regards to Ben and Rey, their relationship to each other, but also to the Force. Which also brings me to Fry’s portrayal of the Force as a character.
Before the book was released, Fry made several hints at what we could be seeing in the novelization. In particular, he pointed to “one character that we might not have thought of as a character so far.” I immediately guessed he was alluding to the Force, something which he first denied, but soon confirmed after all.
I worked really hard to make the Force a presence in the novelization, almost as if it’s a character in its own right.
- Jason Fry
Before the official release there was an influx of all these tidbits and quotes. They were exciting to read, but without the context of the rest of the book, or even chapter, much less Fry’s overall use of language… I made a decision not to draw my conclusions based on that. And having now read it, I seem to have arrived at a different place than most if not all the readings I have seen… You decide what you make of it.
So… certain words and expressions have been pointed out, denoting their explicit sexual subtext. Including but not limited to: hunger/hungry, prey, predator. I wasn’t sold purely on this basis. But keeping that particular reading in mind, I went from there noting down usage of similar words and expressions, regardless of context in an attempt to map it out and see where it leads me. Some of them being: howling, feral, raw, to will, ignite, rage, drink in, lust to dominate, haunted, aboil. Things that by mood are really easy to attach to a reading focusing on carnal desire.
And I’m not going to question anyone’s liberty to interpret it that way. Personally I just think that there are multiple things present here that aren’t being distinguished from each other and that this isn’t the main purpose of using such language.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t sexual tension between Ben and Rey, but I sensed a difference in connotation deriving from context. Which is why in my opinion, there is a psychological inconsistency present in attributing all of the above to something Rey and Ben are at this point expressing in such an explicit way.
We are dealing with two emotionally deprived people who are struggling to get their deepest most profound wishes across to each other without breaking down. And I don’t think that their physical attraction to each other can claim equal precedence to the emotional connection yet. And such language would (again, in my opinion) do that.
There is a different pattern that emerged from my observation, one that outlined the character that is the Force. It is something that has been written about before, by most authors working on SW content I imagine. But I think that it’s also obvious that with Ben and Rey, and what they are to each other… the role of the character that the Force itself has to play has also changed. It is more active, more present and imposing.
Comparing the scenes in the film and the book… there is a slight difference. And as the film is the primary canon, we can draw our conclusion from there. The physical attraction between them is painfully obvious (no really, I am in pain). But Fry also said that one of his aims with the novelization was to expand what we learned in the film.
Instead of focusing on their physical attraction, he’s instead describing their divine, cosmic mediator. In a way that we haven’t really seen. It’s not the energetic equivalent of elevator music but a wild, feral presence. An untamed power for which the user is the tool. Something that Rey eventually admits to herself in the book. And something that also applies to Ben.
The language in focus appears overwhelmingly consistently in places where the Force is somehow present or involved in what is happening. In most cases mentioned explicitly:
“Rey reached out, feeling the Force alive and hungry around her, and found the weight of the lightsaber in her hands.“
- Jason Fry, TLJ novelization
As for the scenes involving direct communication between Ben and Rey, there is obvious “interest” and curiosity. The emotional investment is only increasing. And Ben is definitely assertive in the pursuit of what he believes to be right (the physicality of which we can see in the film). Whether it is a specific action or a reaction he’s looking for. But to me, the scenes where it’s about their reaction in response to the other, the language used emphasizes state of mind and emotion over feeling. And in describing feeling, we seem to be shifting into the Force-field.
I think it’s easy to attribute the way the Force manifests to either Ben or Rey, because after all they draw from each other through the Force bond, and become amplified by it. But personally I felt like that was a distinction to be made. Which at the same time is not taking away from what’s going on between the two. Actually I think it’s the opposite as we see the Force act like a really thirsty, divine matchmaker.
This has been an opinion.
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Hi! Can I ask what makes West End Games the "genesis point" of Star Wars old cnaon? Isn't it just the movies?
MY TIME HASCOME. Have a [tl;dr] of my notes on WEG.
Okay so - are the WEG games the genesis point of the old canon or is it the movies is the kind of question I’m not super interested in, so i’m more going to focus on what makes West End Games key, and the part they played.
Let’s dothe time warp – we’re in the mid-eighties, let’s say 86. Return of the Jedi was released in 83, the movies have been adaptedin as many forms as possible. There’s been children books, storybooks, activitybooks, nonfiction, etc. There’s been magazines and strip comics in newspapersand two trilogies of novels published by Bantam, plus Foster Splinter of theMind’s eye, there’s been Atari games and toys beyond counting. There’s been publishedscreenplays and artbooks, a Guide to the universe compiled by a fan andofficialized, some odds and ends I’m notcounting, and that list may seem long, but it’s ten yearsof content – the rate of release was nothing like today’s or the nineties’. Towrap it up, between 84 and 86, there’d been the Ewoks and Droidstv series, as well as the Ewok movies (I think a lot of kids loved them, but olderfans, not really) but the overall release rhythm was winding down: Kennerstopped producing SW figurines in 85 (they’d start again in 95); in 86 theMarvel run of comics ended (they published two spin-off series til 87, Droidsand Ewoks, tho). Star WarsInsider, still the Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine at that point, would start its runin 87, but it featured little about SW for years - outside of themerchandising pages at least. Fandom was certainly active, but the rate of official content had dwindled next tonothing, and nothing new was on the horizon.
In myperiodization, that’s the end of the First Legends Era, and at this point SWwas basically dying, nevermind the Ewoks and Droids stuff. Again, I don’t meanthe core fandom, but without regular new content the wider audience was justlosing interest.
Somethingchanged that of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here typing this, and somethingwas West End Games, a small company who, until then, had mostly publishedhistorical and fantasy RPGs. They could buy the license because… well, no onewas interested. Again, Star Wars had stopped being a hot property.
That didn’tlast long, and West End Games kicked off the Second Legends Era, expandingon the universe in a way none of the previous spin-off products had.
Their firstpublication was Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game in October 1987, covering thefirst movie’ events. It was followed a month later by a Sourcebook and until the license changed hands at the end of the nineties, WEG released over ahundred books, sourcebooks and miscellaneous stuff, including the Adventure Journal, which arguably kickedoff the long tradition of SW short stories that other official magazines wouldlater continue. Many of these first short stories were later reprinted, mainlyin the Tales anthologies - and a lot of people were angry when some of the Special Editions changes invalidated bits of these stories (the very first Canonpocalypse). The West EndGames material also started the tradition of in-universe works; most of theirguides and sourcebooks had in-universe passages, but some of the sourcebookswere fully written from an in-universe point of view.
There’s anumber of factors behind the success of the WEG Star Wars line; for thecore fandom, it came at a time when there was very little new content: WEG’s shortfictions were the only new fictional content (bar Ewoks/Droids stuff) from 86to 91, and with the Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine, WEG was basically the only regularsource of content. It was also an encyclopedical exploration of the GFFA, more on that below. It was aninteractive kind of fictional content; a way to become an active participant in the galaxy-sized storyof Star Wars rather than remain a passive audience, more accessible thanthe electronic games of the times.
And it wasgood. Like, critically-acclaimed good.
The WestEnd Games publications had a hugeimpact on the franchise in their time, and their products remained being ratherinfluential in later years. They’re still being so, as that “roleplayinggame material published in the 1980s” alluded to in the 2014 Canonpocalyseannouncement – i.e., the source from which the Inquisitorium, the ISB andSiennar Fleet Systems, and a great many other elements since, were pulled andbrought to the NEU.
But to goback to your actual ask, there’sa reason for looking at the West End Games products specifically as a the base of the old Legends canon (and also a source ofelements and concepts for the NEU). The RPG outlook is a very specific one; oneof statistics and numbers and rules that users learn to navigate the setting ofthe adventures. To create a RPGfrom an already existing world,you’d define a number of categories and subcategories for worldbuildingelements, break down those elements to measurable characteristics – but alsoelaborate on context and fill in many blanks. It’s a very methodic way to doworldbuilding, one oriented towards a specific purpose.
Inpractice, that meant the West End Games books, although not planned as such,doubled as a set of incredibly detailed reference books, something without equivalent at the time. Althoughthe first publications centered around the movies and, once the ExpandedUniverse really took off in the early 90s, some of the novels, comics and games,the company had soon started to create as much as adapt, branching out to new,unexplored grounds. With the adventures came details about the galaxy’sgeography and history, its inhabitants and its technology, the inner workingsof the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. And if some of these publications tied tothe movies or other products, this was no-one way relationships: from theTarkin initiative to COMPNOR, the ISB or foundational texts such as the Declaration of Rebellion and otherelements great and small, the galaxy was laid out in West End Games’publications, comprehensively and extensively.
Thing is, if many of the books featured pre-written adventures or “adventure seeds”, the fundamental goal of sourcebooks and the overall worldbuilding of the WEG stuff was to create a universe for the players to tell stories – stories in which the narrator has no control over the characters, but stories nonetheless. In a way, the sourcebooks were reference books intended for storytellers.
Which is why they became the base of the “old canon”, when it took off in the early 90s, with the Dark Horse comics and Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy – and make no mistake, the only reason these happened at all was because WEG had made Star Wars a viable brand again. Their success had proven there was a market.
And as we’ve seen, they’d already done the worldbuilding, extensively; Lucasfilm has always had final approval on the WEG books too, so the content was considered as “official” as could be, and continuity already mattered (if always with the caveat that Lucas could invalidate it if he came back to SW, as finally happened). It’s well known Zahn was sent WEG sourcebooks by Lucasfilm (who would later develop an internal “canon bible,” way before the holocron database, but wasn’t there yet), and over the years, writers used the sourcebooks as resource materials; I wish I could give you a list but I’m working on it. Recently Jason Fry said he still used the sourcebooks. Hidalgo talks about them here and there.
Moreover, anumber of Legends (and NEU) writers, of fiction as well as of nonfiction, first contributed to StarWars through WEG; Troy Denning, later to write novels for the franchise,authored two “gamebooks,” i.e Choose your own adventure books, and a sourcebook;Bill Smith wrote and co-wrote a number of books for WEG before writing twotitles for the first series of Essential Guides ; Daniel Wallace alsowent from WEG to the Essential Guides, though he only contributed to thefinal published issue of the AdventureJournal, and the rest of his RPG writing was done in the context of Wizardsof the Coast publications. Peter M. Schweighofer, who would also go on to writefor WOTC, wrote or co-wrote a number of WEG books; he also edited the Adventure Journal and wrote a number ofshort stories. Pablo Hidalgo went from playing the WEG games to writing forthem before joining Lucasfilm. There’s more but I’m still working onthat list.
#star wars#meta#star wars history#west end games#canon#legends#my notes are way messy so this is messy too#anon#ask
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I Love You, You Pay My Rent: Chapter Four
First Chapter (Prologue)
Previous Chapter (Chapter Three)
Nico had been living with Will for three and a bit weeks and in that time Will had never invited anyone one else round to their home. It was therefore a surprise when he woke up one morning and found a stranger in the kitchen. The stranger was wildly attractive, even with sleep messed hair. He was also shirtless.
Nico stared at the stranger. The stranger stared back.
"What up," the stranger said by way of greeting.
Nico, not always rude but also definitely not a morning person, continued staring blankly in total incomprehension.
Will came out of his room then, thankfully not shirtless because Nico definitely would not have been able to deal with that, but looking incredibly rumpled and not at all with it. Will stopped and looked between Nico and the stranger. For some reason he seemed mildly alarmed. He must have thrown on clothes very quickly because his sweatpants were inside out and his tshirt was back to front. His hair was a complete mess too, more so than usual like he'd been running his hands through -
And finally it dawned on Nico what was going on and he couldn't believe he had been so slow but he at least managed to stop himself blurting oh my god out loud.
"Oh god," Will said.
Nico gave him a look, and Will shook his head frantically looking unbelievably panicked. The stranger was oblivious as he poured himself a glass of water. Nico was busy freaking out because stranger, male stranger and wait did that mean Will –
He blamed his next words on his jumbled thoughts and lack of ability to think clearly.
"Who is this honey?" he asked.
Will's expression might have been worth it, he looked so confused: for a split second he was the picture of a deer in the headlights. Then he cottoned on to what Nico was doing.
"Oh god," he said again and Nico wasn’t entirely sure if he playing along, commenting on Nico’s plan, or simply still panicking about the situation.
The stranger looked at Nico in some surprise then over to Will. Will closed his eyes. He didn't have to do much acting to seem like he was simultaneously freaked and wanting the ground to swallow him whole. Nico thought that was probably a good thing given Will's acting ability.
"You didn't mention this last night," the stranger commented. He seemed amused more than anything else which was lucky because Nico was belatedly realising this gambit could have gone a whole other way.
"You didn't mention me?" Nico asked and he was actually beginning to enjoy his role.
"I-" Will said but his voice gave out.
"Are you kidding me Will Solace?" Nico demanded. "I thought after your brother’s graduation-"
"Can you stop bringing up my brother’s graduation?" Will snapped and Nico thought he might have to revise his previously formed opinion of Will's acting skills.
The stranger looked between them.
"Maybe it would be better if I -"
"And who are you?" Nico demanded, rounding on the unreasonably attractive person standing in the middle of their kitchen. He realised his own jealously of the stranger - the tall, muscular, beautiful stranger who looked nothing like Nico - might be leaking into his tone. The stranger recoiled slightly, and Nico thought he might have overdone it.
“I’m gonna go,” the stranger said.
He went back into Will’s bedroom. Neither Nico nor Will had moved when he returned with a shirt and shoes on this time. He gave Will a final glance as he left and Nico felt a hot spike of unreasonable jealously in his stomach. When the door shut, Will slid to the floor.
“Oh god,” he said.
“You’ve said that,” Nico commented. But he did take pity on Will, mainly because Will looked like he regretted everything, and went and got him a glass of water. After some thought he also took a box of painkillers out the drawer.
“I’ve never done that before,” Will said as Nico handed him the water. “That’s not me.”
He sipped the water silently for a minute or two. Nico sat next to him and tried to reconcile his own muddled thoughts.
“Thank you,” Will said eventually. “I don’t know if I could have dealt with that on my own.”
Suddenly he smirked, looking more like himself.
“Though I am sorry about whatever happened at my brother's graduation.”
Nico began laughing and it helped distract him from the spiky feeling in his chest.
“You don’t remember? You left with Dave. I was heartbroken.”
“Dave? I don’t remember Dave.”
“I can’t believe you don’t remember! Honestly it’s Christmas 2013 all over again.”
“Hey, you said we were on a break!”
“Well we sure weren’t on a break with Dave,” Nico yelled. “Not the first time. And not the second time after my father’s funereal!”
“Babe, come on I would never let Dave come between us!” Will protested. “Screw Dave!”
“You did,” Nico retorted. “That was the problem!”
“Well how about that time at your grandmother’s?” Will countered in a dramatic sitcom yell.
“How about you two shut up for once?” Octavian shrieked through the walls.
Will rolled his eyes but started laughing and Nico made a rude gesture in Octavian’s direction, and wondered why such a fancy building had such thin walls.
“You know I didn’t even know his name,” Will said after the laughter had died down leaving a hollow space.
“It’s not the worse thing you could have done,” Nico said, though privately the jealous part of him decided he would rather Will was confessing a murder.
Will shook his head.
“I should have at least known his name.”
“How drunk were you?” Nico teased gently.
“I don’t know. I don’t even think I was that far gone. I was just –“ he shook his head and shut down in the way he sometimes did. It reminded Nico of the fortune cookie thing, that alluded to some mysterious past.
Will tipped his head back, and though it hit the wall with a sharp thud he didn’t wince. He looked so ragged and torn. Nico wasn’t sure he liked seeing Will so down.
“Hey at least he was hot right?” he said gently bumping his shoulder against Will’s.
Admitting Will’s one-night stand had been hot was the closest he’d ever come to admitting aloud, or even hinting that he was gay. Jason had found out accidentally, and the only good thing about that was that Nico had never actually had to say the words. It felt strange vocalising even something as innocent as the other guy’s attractiveness - even to Will who had just slept with him - but Will didn’t seem to even register the meaning behind the words, just burst out laughing.
“Are you suggesting I’m shallow?”
“I’m saying you could have done worse.”
Will bit his lip to stop himself laughing and nodded.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
Nico was pretty sure Will wasn't ready to think about what he'd done and he knew he definitely wasn't ready to think of the implications of what Will had done (because Will was apparently single and not at all straight and-) so he suggested a movie. Nico was going to let Will choose one of the ones of the list since he obviously needed cheering up but Will surprised him by letting him choose. Nico was surprised at the sudden power, and instantly worried that whatever he picked would be an awful disaster. There were a couple of films on there he knew he'd like, but he had no idea what Will enjoyed other than the endless array of Disney movies. He wasn't sure he was ready to bare his soul to Will even if it was only the tiny part of his soul that was in charge of things he liked.
So to circumnavigate all of that he chose a horror movie at random.
"Slasher Killer Blood Revenge of the Darkness: 3?" Will questioned.
"That's not what it says," Nico protested.
"It might as well," Will said. He shrugged. "Whatever, I like a good Slasher Killer Blood film."
Nico raised an eyebrow at him.
"Sure it won't be too scary for you, Disney boy?"
"I'll cope. I guess this is standard for you Death boy?"
"I actually starred in one of these once."
Will laughed.
"No you didn't," he said but he didn't sound one hundred per cent sure.
For the first ten minutes Will was annoyingly calm, which Nico took as a challenge. Usually horror films didn't bother him and it would have been a walk in the park but he'd managed to pick a genuinely frightening psychological thriller. Still he refused to break before Solace.
He tried very hard not to grin in triumph when Will paused the movie but Will just went to get another glass of water. Despite his claims he hadn't drunk all that much the night before, Nico thought he might be just a bit hung over.
Though Will was right behind him, though he could hear him moving about in the kitchen, though all he had to do was turn and he'd see him, the second Nico was left alone on the sofa he began to silently panic.
He jumped when Will asked him if he wanted anything and tried to cover it up be reaching for a cushion.
"Nico?"
"Coke."
Neither of them had bothered to open the curtains and the light that tried to sift through the gaps made strange shadows in the corners of the room. Which he was absolutely not concerned about. Not at all. He'd survived hundreds of horror movies that had left Jason, Percy, Leo, even Reyna a wreck.
"Here," Will said handing Nico his coke.
Nico drew his feet up onto the sofa in case there were monsters hiding under it, and took the drink. Will had brought back a thing of m&ms and Nico grabbed a handful as he restarted the film.
He hated that Will seemed so relaxed about everything but then, almost as soon as the movie was playing again, Will jumped. His water went flying, and he bumped into Nico who knocked the m&ms all over the floor. Nico was feeling smug until something on screen leapt out of the shadows and he actually let out a scream that he almost immediately stifled.
Twenty minutes later and Nico was really beginning to regret his choice. He was now sitting close enough to Will to almost be on his lap, though Nico wasn’t sure whether he’d moved closer or Will had. The characters on screen were exploring an abandoned house, like morons, and the music was doing the thing and Nico was trying very hard to maintain his composure because Will was right next to him and –
Will screamed, Nico screamed and somehow they had both grabbed at the other one and Will was so close, his arms around him.
The banging sound that had scared both of them so thoroughly continued and almost at the same time they identified it as the door. Will let go of Nico to run his hands through his hair, laughing nervously and self-depreciatingly. He paused the film, which was actually a relief.
“You’re stronger than you look Neeks,” he commented as he stood to get the door.
Nico managed a small, tight smile and tried to get his heart rate down from the million miles an hour it currently felt like it was doing.
“I’m coming,” Will yelled at the continued banging.
“Five dollars on Octavian complaining about something,” Nico said.
“Done.”
He wrenched open the door, Nico twisted around on the sofa to watch. Instead of Octavian (there went his five dollars) there was a slim guy with curly brown hair. He was kind of like the boy next door version of the model Will had slept with.
“Cecil.”
Cecil came in, eyes immediately clocking onto Nico with a worryingly huge grin.
“I was coming to check on you,” Cecil said sloping over and hauling himself up to sit on the counter.
“You disappeared last night,” he said helping himself to a banana out of the fruit bowl. “And you haven’t been answering your phone. Lou Ellen thought you were dead.”
“But you weren’t concerned?” Will asked.
“Nah I didn’t think anyone could bring themselves to hurt your pretty face. Who’s that?”
“Nico. Nico this is Cecil. We’re friends. It’s unfortunate but we’ve known each other too long to do anything about that now.”
Cecil looked Nico up and down with the trace of a smirk and then glanced back at Will.
“So you’re not dead?”
“Evidently.”
“Did you have fun last night?” Cecil asked with an even bigger grin.
Will fixed him with a look, but if anything Cecil’s smile only got bigger.
“You want me to leave you two in peace? Only it’s Kayla’s birthday thing? You remember?”
Will’s eyes got very wide.
“Oh no.”
“We didn’t think it was like you to forget. That’s why Lou put money on you being dead or at least kidnapped. Drew said distracted, I guess she was closest.”
“Oh god, okay wait there, I’ll be like thirty seconds.”
Will dashed off leaving Nico alone with Cecil. Seconds dragged as Cecil gave Nico another once-over but this one far less friendly.
“So,” Cecil said leaning forward and putting his chin in his hands as he stared at Nico.
“You must be pretty interesting to make Will forget his sister’s party?”
Nico wasn’t sure how to respond to that, or the sudden seriousness and intensity of Cecil. He may have been jokey and teasing around Will, but the second Will had vanished it was like a switch had flipped. Now suddenly scrappy, easy going Cecil seemed almost intimidating.
“I’m not –“ Nico began but he wasn’t sure where he was going to go with that so it was almost a relief when Cecil interrupted him.
“Don’t hurt him,” Cecil said in a low voice. “He’s been through enough. Whatever this is don’t – I have to say that shirt looks a lot better when it’s the right way round.”
Will, who had come out of his bedroom properly dressed and was responsible for Cecil’s abrupt change in manner, paused only to flip Cecil off before grabbing his keys.
“I’ve got to go,” he told Nico. “Kayla’s my sister. I’ve never missed her birthday, I can’t believe -”
“Well you have one, or was it two, drinks last night." Cecil quipped. "That’s anyone else’s equivalent of a bottle. We’ll tell her you were too hungover –“
“You won’t do anything of the sort,” Will threatened as he pulled Cecil off the counter and towards the door.
“I could tell her the truth.”
“I could murder you in a way that would be undetectable by most forensic specialists.” Will suggested cheerily.
“See you Nico,” he said without changing tone.
And then the door shut and Nico was alone.
He wasn’t scared. He totally wasn’t scared. But he did open all the curtains and turn all the lights on to banish the shadows. Then he microwaved some pizza because he couldn’t be bothered to cook, and put on cartoons because they were fun and light and didn’t involve dungeon-demon-shadow-monsters.
If he kept busy he wouldn’t have to think. So, he cleaned up the m&ms and washed up and washed his bed sheets and managed to stay away from thoughts of Will (and demons) until he ran out of chores.
Will was gay. And apparently, if his willingness to sleep with some random guy was anything to go by, single. That –
That changed things.
Before he’d viewed Will as completely unattainable. He’d been resigned to another drawn out period of secret longing that would ultimately turn into pain as Will decided to get married and ask Nico to be his best man.
Now –
He didn’t know what to think. His chest felt funny, butterflies were multiplying in his stomach. Will was - and that meant there was a chance - but how could Will ever want someone like Nico? Will was beautiful and perfect and gorgeous and kind and -
He was spiralling. He could feel himself spiralling.
He clenched his fists and told himself not to be stupid. He shouldn’t be falling apart over some guy. Especially not Will.
There were other things to think about. Like Cecil’s very distinct personalities and mild threats, like how he had to figure out what to get Reyna for her birthday next week, like the possibility of demi-gorgon-demon-shadows creeping under the door and murdering him while he slept – no not that last one.
Nico was kind of relieved when Will returned because it forced Nico to confront the fact that they were going to be continuing living with each other and so he really couldn’t spend all his time on edge. It was also getting dark and Nico was afraid. He’d never been afraid of the dark before.
“I spent that entire meal terrified someone was going to sneak up behind me and murder me,” Will admitted as he threw himself down onto the sofa next to Nico.
“I was fine,” Nico lied.
“All the lights are on and you’re watching cartoons.”
“Unrelated.”
“So you’re going to refuse to watch the fluffy and light Tangled with me? Because obviously you don’t need it and you hate Disney.”
“I’ll stay to keep you company,” Nico said magnanimously.
Will smiled in response and Nico’s heart fluttered automatically, even though there was something not quite right about it. Will’s smiles were usually bright as the sun, even the small ones, but this time it didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Did you make it to Kayla’s thing in time?” Nico asked.
“It had already started. But Kayla wasn’t mad,” he paused, gave a rueful smile. “She should have been.”
Will shrugged and Nico thought his mind was somewhere else.
“You want me to put fluffy and light on, or are you going to do it?” Nico asked trying to cheer him along but he thought his own voice was starting to sound kind of hollow. He didn’t like how worried Will looked.
“I’ll do it in a sec,” Will said. “But there’s actually -”
He took a deep breath. Nico was starting to realise why he was so on edge. Will’s uneasiness was familiar because it was the same uneasiness Percy had shown right before he’d admitted he was proposing. Nico couldn’t take any more bad news. He couldn’t think of what Will could possibly want other than maybe kicking him out, maybe the one-night stand was going to move in instead and –
“I need to ask you something. And I need you to hear me out because it’s a really strange request and I know that but –“
Will stopped and bit his lip.
“Okay I know this sounds crazy,” he said. “But Cecil kind of thinks you were the guy I went home with last night -”
“That actually explains a lot,” Nico said.
Will gave a tired little smile.
“Sorry for whatever he did. The point is –“
“I don’t care” Nico blurted out. “That you slept with him or that he’s a guy or that –“
Will was looking at him strangely now.
“That wasn’t what I was going for,” he said and he looked closer to actually laughing now. “But thanks.”
Nico nodded and had to press his lips together to stop anymore outbursts because if he thought he could delay whatever was coming then he’d keep talking until the sun imploded and the universe died.
“Nico I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend for a bit. Please? The other’s all think I slept with you anyway and I swear you’ll never have to meet any of my friends and I’ll keep Cecil away but please can I just tell them we’re dating?”
Will’s words came out in a tumbled rush.
“Nico?”
Nico realised he hadn’t responded. He tried to unglue his mouth, remember how to make his tongue work, how he formed words, figure out what he was going to say because how did he respond to that?
“Okay,” he said.
Next Chapter
#Will Solace#will solace/nico di angelo#Nico Di Angelo#writing#solangelo#fandom#percy jackson and the olympians
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Maddison Brown
https://youtu.be/nmqCKgVo9qU
Dynasty Season 3
Maddison
Brown, the former model-turned actress who scooped up Kirby Anders ' role in season two (the sister of the Carrington family butler Joseph Anders, played by Alan Dale).
"She comes in with an agenda
without trying to give up too much," Brown says of her depiction of
Anders. "She wants her childhood vengeance on Fallon. What I think, if I
remember correctly, was alluded to in season one. She has quite a path coming
into the house because she's very single-track minded about what she feels, so
she learns that she's really right, and that there's someone else who's really
responsible for having her sent home when she's a baby–that's been thought
about again in season one.
Who is boyfriend or husband of Maddison? Who is Brown dating now a days?
Liam Hemsworth
The 22 years old Brown is likely to change her relationship status. Maddison is currently capture with Liam Hemsworth, holding hand together. Maybe the ex-boyfriend of Miley is dating now with an Australian model/actress Maddison Brown openly. The confirmation is yet to come but everyone is crossing the fingers when Miley kissed her new partner.
What is the Net worth of Maddison Brown?
Well, in an interview, Brown said that she worked many time in modeling career before she came into acting professional to make career. Maddison is the most popular model in Australia and also earned fame and assets from modeling career and also worked for top brands like Calvin klein, Jason Wu, Marchesa etc. And it can estimated that she had nearly made $1 million from modeling and currently she is an Australian actress where she has played plenty of drama and movies. And Maddison has collected nearly $1 million to $5 million till 2019.
Career Maddison Brown became an actress from a model? What is the height of Brown?
Maddison-Brown career before she was an actress
She said in an interview,
"Sure, I actually did modeling when I was pretty young but my acting
agency said I should step into modeling because I was pretty tall for my
age."..
She is 5' 10 "or 1.78 m tall and one of the Richest Women who was born in Australia. She is also on the list of" Most Famous Model. "Maddison Brown is one of the famous celebrities with the age of 22. In addition to her acting career, Maddison Brown is best known as an Actress. Model and actress Brown, mainly known as Miu Miu's advertising woman.
Earlier life of Australian Ex-model Maddison Brown
Based in Australia on April 23,
1997, she has two sisters named Allyson and Nicki. Yet she didn't share the
name of She's family. She was cast in the 2015 film Strangerland as the sister
of Nicole Kidman's character Catherine Parker. She received her first acting
credit in 2004 in the TV movie Go Tall, though a model since 2011.
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What War Games Tell Us About the Use of Cyber Weapons in a Crisis
Last week, Jason Healey argued that “there is now a well-documented instance of cyber deterrence,” pointing to a report of conversations within the Obama administration. Some White House officials argued against a cyberattack, citing asymmetric vulnerabilities in tit for tat engagements within the cyber domain. Healey highlights a powerful example of cyber restraint within the Obama administration, but is it deterrence? The United States has also exercised restraint in the nuclear domain, but it is unclear even now whether that restraint is a result of adversary deterrence efforts or a normative nuclear taboo. So what is driving the cyber restraint Healey identified?
In order to understand the motivations behind cyber behaviors, I performed a longitudinal analysis of strategic war games conducted at the Naval War College from 2011-2016. These free-play games, which feature 150-200 U.S. government experts and senior leader players, situate players within crisis scenarios and then allow them to play all instruments of national power to resolve the crisis. Over the years that I analyzed, these war games varied the adversary, the intensity of the crisis, and the players. Like the evolution of cyber operations in real life, the way cyber capabilities were designed in the games evolved in complexity, representing the institutions and capabilities that developed from 2011 to 2016. Bottom line: a lot of things changed between the games.
However, what remained remarkably consistent across the games was how players utilized cyber operations. In five of the six games, players launched offensive cyber operations only after conventional weapons conducted destructive attacks. Additionally, players were more willing to place systems on nuclear alert than to launch cyberattacks or even cyber-enabled information operations. Over and over players cited concerns about escalation in their cyber restraint, articulating fears that cyberattacks could “lead to nuclear war.” Further, in all of the six games, despite large scale adversary cyberattacks (up to nuclear effects in allied countries), none of the “blue” teams chose to respond to cyberattacks. In one game, a player explained, “this is cyber—it’s different psychologically.” In all of these games, players were told who had attacked them in cyberspace, essentially priming them for retaliation. The lack of support for retaliation in these games is, therefore, especially compelling.
This research suggests two types of restraint: restraint in using cyber operations and an overall restraint in responding to cyber operations. What causes this restraint? Is it deterrence or is it a cyber taboo? These games couldn’t definitively answer this puzzle, but they do suggest a series of potential hypotheses about cyber restraint. First, restraint in utilizing cyber operations could be a uniquely U.S. phenomenon tied to a perception of asymmetric cyber vulnerabilities combined with overwhelming conventional superiority (what Healey’s article alludes to). In other words, why open the Pandora box of cyber operations when the United States has the option to respond to any significant problems with economic punishment or military might? A secondary hypothesis suggests that cyber restraint derives from a false cyber-nuclear equivalency in which the institutional legacy of Strategic Command and the narrative of “strategic” cyber weapons has led to an extension of the nuclear taboo to the cyber domain. These hypotheses are largely agnostic to the adversary—mainly because the games I analyzed featured different adversaries with different cyber, conventional, and nuclear capabilities. Restraint was consistent despite these threat differences, suggesting that cyber restraint was not a product of adversary-tailored deterrence but instead internally derived incentives.
Perhaps more puzzling is why these games also show restraint when responding to cyber operations—a phenomenon not found in the nuclear domain. Once again, this could be a strictly U.S. form of restraint, in which the United States—as the largest economic and military power—can withstand significant cyberattacks without retaliation because it relies on a greater conventional and nuclear superiority. However, there could be a more generalizable explanation which links cyber restraint to emotions and argues that the virtual and novel threat of cyber operations fail to generate the kind of fight or flight gut reaction created by more evolutionarily-primed threats. If this final hypothesis is true, then the restraint in cyber response may permeate beyond U.S. borders and suggest that cyber operations are highly unlikely to lead to escalation in other domains.
Finally, the one war game which did not display cyber use restraint has important implications for foreshadowing the long-term strength of the cyber taboo. In that game, the player leading the blue team executed an extraordinarily risk-acceptant “escalate to dominate” strategy that featured early first use of cyberattacks against a series of domestic and military targets followed by a large-scale conventional offensive. This game highlighted how important the risk proclivity and personality of leaders are to when and how cyber operations are used. Previous research highlighted the large role that risk aversion played in the Obama administration and restraint across a series of domains. The Trump administration is much more risk acceptant, which may lead to less incentives for self-restraint in cyberspace.
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Timur Banding Barat (East vs West)
An Analysis of How Film Directors Work When Displaced Between Cultures
Jason Hartstein
301162165
IAT206W
For Michael Nixon & Novia Shih-Shan Chen
The phenomenon of “whitewashing”, in which a film features a white actor or actress playing the role of a nonwhite character is almost as old as Hollywood itself with the earliest examples dating as far back as the 1915’s “The Birth of a Nation” (Griffith, 1915). Despite its age, in our modern day it is still seen as an egregious issue. This year the film Ghost in the Shell, released March 31, garnered significant enough criticism for casting a white actress as a Japanese character so far as TIME magazine reporter Eliza Berman having to create a dedicated webpage called A Comprehensive Guide to the Ghost in the Shell Controversy just to keep up with it (Berman, 2017). Public attention towards the issue only appears to be growing, in an article this August by website theguardian, journalist Steve Rose reported that British actor Ed Skrein had stepped down from his role in the upcoming “Hellboy” film to make room for an actor of proper ethnicity to play the originally half-Japanese character, noting that “Film and television used to be able to get away with whitewashing, but when the word is associated with a project these days it tends to stick. It comes up at every press conference, it generates a cloud of Twitter memes” (Rose, 2017). While it is of course natural that the professionals that work in front of the camera in the film industry would generate the most controversy when issues arise, ethnicities of those behind the camera remain relatively unexplored in comparison to casting choices. To be specific, film directors both in the white and nonwhite sectors of the film industry have begun to leave their own cultures in order to explore and portray others in their filmmaking with varied, though generally positive critical and financial results. Although there technically are no ethical limitations on who can direct a film regardless of what culture it depicts, it is important to note the specific differences that arise between whites and nonwhites when they decide to direct films outside of their own cultural spheres. Stuart Hall refers to signs in semiotic analysis in his 2001 book “Media and Cultural Studies” by “signs appear to acquire their full ideological value – appear to be open to articulation with wider ideological discourses and meanings – at the level of their “associative” meanings (that is, at the connotative level)” (Hall, 2001, p.168). Essentially, to analyze is to attempt to view the signs (symbols) for what they mean ideologically and connotatively (under the surface). Through careful semiotic analysis of the signs and codes presented, it is possible to extrapolate that while nonwhite-directed films depicting cultures outside of their own tend to be objective and nuanced in their portrayals, white-directed films of the same nature are seeming to edge dangerously close to Orientalism, a concept coined by literature professor Edward Said as the patronizing and inaccurate depictions of the “East” by Western cultures. In terms of cross-cultural film direction, the white-directed films “Sicario” (2015) and “The Raid: Redemption”(2011), contain connotations that exhibit noticeable attributes of Orientalism, which are then magnified when contrasted and cross-referenced with nonwhite-directed trans-cultural films “Snowpiercer” (2013) and “The Last Stand” (2013).
It’s important to note that connotative analysis of a film does nothing to detract from its artistic merits nor does it attempt to make any claims as to its subjective entertainment value, as all four of the film examples in this paper are considered to be positively reviewed by critics, with several achieving near-universal acclaim. This is meaningful as the majority of critics nor analysts have not yet found any fault with the idea of cross-cultural misrepresentation by film directors. Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 film “Sicario” received a 93% approval rating on the review-aggregate website RottenTomatoes. Likewise, Bong Joon-Ho’s 2013 film “Snowpiercer” recieved a 95% score, Gareth Evans’ 2011 “The Raid” recieved 85% and Kim Jee-woon’s 2013 “The Last Stand” recieved 60%. Films are not judged based on their connotative meanings, which has nothing to do with whether they are subjectively “good” or bad”. Rather, this analysis is about what the directors have chosen to communicate through their choices of imagery when depicting cultures outside of their own.
Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian director, and while his film “Sicario” deals with mainly American characters, the film spends the majority of its runtime portraying Mexico and American attempts to disrupt its criminal underworld. As such, it is portrayed as a grim land entirely defined by the presence of drug cartel gangs and gang violence taken to the utmost extreme. While it may thematically and narratively enhance the experience of watching the film, the fact that Villeneuve’s cultural identity is not that of Mexico means that what is seen in the film is his own interpretation of that place. That is, he has filled in the gaps in his experience with his own personal coding and signing of the city of Juarez, Mexico in the film standing in for an idea of a fearsome foreign city rife with corruption and violence.
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Figure A. Juarez scene. (2015, Lionsgate)
Figure A is the film’s idea of Mexico and Mexicans in a nutshell, with the signature visual being a group of headless bodies hanging from a bridge. It is a veritable war zone of a city, with US officials unable to enter safely without police assistance and in the middle of a heavily armed convoy, and consistently having to alter their route to avoid streets that are experiencing unrelated gun violence. As a result, these images are in direct conflict with how the city of Juarez wants itself to be seen in the modern age, with New York Times reporter Victoria Burnett noting that according to residents and officials, the Juarez in "Sicario” is “yesterday’s hellhole”, a place different from the much calmer and safer Juarez of today (Burnett, 2015). In an article published on the Tribeca Film Festival website, Tribeca staff member Matthew Eng reported that the mayor of Juarez, the Mexican city in which a large portion of the film takes place, called for a boycott of the film along with citizens stating that “This film tries to portray a situation of violence as if it were the current reality of the city, which is not the case" (Eng, 2015). The article addresses the issue that the film deals with subject matter outside of its directors cultural scope, comparing it to other white-directed films about Mexico (that were not boycotted), specifically citing Steven Soderbergh's “Traffic”, Joshua Marston's “Maria Full of Grace” and Matthew Heineman's 2015 documentary “Cartel Land” (Eng, 2015). The film has codified Mexico in such a way that has come off as perverse or insensitive when viewed through the lens of a white director being the one to do it. Eng goes on to state that “Sicario, which generally fares better (and digs deeper) when alluding to bureaucratic prejudice and hierarchical gender politics, often feels like a detached stranger in a foreign land that it's not always ready to respectfully traverse.” The film is seen to be a journey into an “other”, a foreign land vague, incomprehensible rules and little to no morality, under the helm of a white director. For this reason, any negative connotations attached to the film and any inaccurate or outdated portrayals of Mexicans are a direct result of Villeneuve’s code in how he has constructed his filmic version of Mexico.
In direct contrast is “Snowpiercer” by South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, where the film does not take place in South Korea. Rather, filmed in the Czech Republic, the film can be seen as “international” in its portrayal, with Figure B displaying its diverse cast and taking place literally around the entire world, the film is about a global train system running indefinitely on perpetual energy through an uninhabitable world where the inhabitants of the train have segmented into a dystopian class system.
Figure B. Lead cast of Snowpiercer. (CJ Entertainment, 2013)
In contrast to “Sicario”, the protagonists are largely white and seemingly American, but the antagonists are white as well. The “international” concept of the film has been taken quite literally by some researchers, with Brandon Taylor’s 2016 article for Cineaction Journal “The Ideological Train to Globalization: Bong Joon-ho's The Host and Snowpiercer” stating that “with the advent of Snowpiercer, (Bong) has extricated himself from the Korean national approach and entered into a liminal space with no assured or concrete discursive formula. Snowpiercer is thus neither an American film nor a Korean film. It operates in a trans-National discourse that makes it culturally illegible to both American and Korean
audiences.” (Taylor, 2016) Here the South Korean director’s choice of an American hero with the entire world as the setting space prevents his code from speaking too loudly about any lack of cultural knowledge - there are no “other” foreigners in “Snowpiercer”, Bong Joon-ho has decidedly not made any assumptions or generalized images about any particular group. Though this may have removed a stronger sense of “cultural identity” from the film entirely, it is still an example of a positive departure from a director’s own culture in order to explore the concept of another. This is an important contrast because both of these films happen to feature a distinct connotative sign - an ethnic “ferryman” character that acts as a bridge between two worlds in either film.
Figure C. Alejandro. (Lionsgate, 2015)
In “Sicario”, the character of Alejandro (Figure C) played by actor Benicio Del Toro acts a Mexican ally to the American protagonists (though Del Toro is actually Puerto Rican), providing invaluable intelligence on cartel activity and other forms of expertise that make the operations impossible without him (Villeneuve, 2015). In “Snowpiercer”, the ferryman characters are played by actors Song Kang-ho and Ko Ah-sung, a “security specialist” and his daughter, they act as technological experts that are able to overthrow the dystopian class-divide systems and allow for a coup due to their knowledge of the train’s security systems (Joon-ho, 2013). Both characters act as bridges between the status-quo and the unknown, but the difference between them is easy enough to discern just by the choice of actors.
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Figure D. Korean cast of Snowpiercer. (CJ Entertainment, 2013)
In “Snowpiercer”, the protagonists are ferried onwards by characters of the director’s own race (Figure D), adding dynamic diversity and allowing the director to infuse the film with aspects of his own culture instead of codifying another. The matter of importance in this case is that he is both In contrast, Benicio Del Toro’s character in “Sicario” simply reinforces the problem with Mexican portrayal in the film, as he is shown as an intelligent and likable individual with understandable motivations in stark contrast to any other Mexican shown in the film who are depicted as nearly inhuman. It lends the idea to the film that the white American heroes require an “acclimated” Mexican, and emphasizes the divide between a civilized and acceptable Mexican unlike any of the others in the film in order to reach the “other side” across from the civilized world of Western culture.
This is not to say, of course, that white directors specifically shouldn’t portray other cultures, but it is paramount to take notice of the power dynamic inherent when white directors are the ones doing said portrayals. Although “Sicario” and its unfortunate codification of Mexico cannot be officially classified as Orientalism, Orientalism has expanded since its inception past the “Orient” to include regions like the Middle East and Africa as a catch-all term for disingenuous and marginalizing depictions of any non-Western culture by the West. For this reason, it is reasonable to refer to the problem with Villeneuve’s connotative elements as Orientalism indeed, its narrow and brutal depiction of Mexico being that which Edward Said originally defined. While Mexico is not part of the “East” or the “Orient”, it is far enough removed from Western (United States) culture for its depiction in the film to be classified as an act of Orientalism in filmmaking.. The power dynamic between the United States and Mexico is overwhelmingly prevalent throughout the film, and to take this codification lightly is to delve closer to Orientalism than may be appropriate. In terms of power and authority, Edward Said writes in “Orientalism”, “There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from traditions, perceptions, and judgments it forms, transmits, reproduces.” (Said, 1978, p. 102) Naturally and needless to say, the issue of white privilege needs addressing in this subject, as a white director naturally carries more influence in the world through his works regardless of whether or not he is aware of it, and this responsibility carries over into the connotations he inserts into his work. Inversely “Snowpiercer” opts to move beyond singular culture and work on a broader scale outside of the director’s cultural scope, avoiding the issue of cross-cultural conflict entirely as Snowpiercer can be seen as a culturally unidentifiable globally centralized film.
Gareth Evans’ 2011 film “The Raid: Redemption” is an action film shot entirely in Indonesia that showcases the Indonesian martial art pencak silat, which tells the story of an Indonesian SWAT team attempting to raid the hideout of a crime lord, having to fight their way out once ambushed and trapped inside. Evans is a white film director, and while his film may have garnered significant praise as an action movie, as a portrayal of Indonesia it may contain problematic connotations that lean towards Orientalism at worst, and stereotyping at best. While there is of course organized crime in Indonesia as in most developed countries, The Jakarta presented in the film is a fantasy, with a massive fifteen story complex housing a large and complex gang operation that is both ruthlessly efficient and deadly.
Figure E. The Raid promotional image. (Sony Pictures Classics, 2011)
Figure E shows the monolithic structure as it appears in the film with over 20 floors, but such a criminal stronghold does not exist in Indonesia and is an additive element purely for dramatic purposes. In the 2017 book “Surveillance in Asian Cinema: Under Eastern Eyes” by Karen Fang, Evans is interviewed at length and admits that the building in the film is fabricated and does not actually exist in Jakarta. (Fang, 2017) This in itself is dangerous imagery for a foreign trans-cultural director to be infusing into another culture, especially since his only goal is admittedly to promote pencak silat and this could ostensibly be accomplished in any number of ways. Though Evans is ostensibly pure in his self-proclaimed mission of promoting the martial art, he appears to at least be somewhat aware of the implications of his success, stating of his Indonesian supporters “they haven’t seen me as some white devil, outside guy that’s fucking with their culture and stuff”. However, this isn’t enough to avoid the possible Orientalism inherent in the creation of the movie due to its semiotic content, in fact the connotations of the film are the most literal in terms of Orientalism given that Indonesia falls within The Orient. According to Edward Said, “Our role is to widen the field of discussion, not to set limits in accord with the prevailing authority.” (Said, 1978, p. 231) For Evans, he is the figure of authority in the creation of the film and the connotations present in it are all on him. Karen Fang writes that, in reference to the target Indonesian audience of “The Raid: Redemption”:
“The cultural hybridity of Indonesian movie audiences in the early twenty-first century is the product of a long history. Ideas about martial arts, about heroism, and about the villainy and violence of local power brokers like the drug lord (antagonist of The Raid), have been shaped by long-standing indigenous political traditions but also by three hundred years of exposure to the West under colonial domination” (Fang, 2017)
If the trend continues, it runs the risk of Indonesians and the country in general gaining the connotation of being derelict and criminal as the film portrays the antagonists, or simply as “kung fu experts” for the protagonists, images which Evans has been involved in from ground zero. So while he may have received local approval and success, it does not excuse the potential of Orientalism, especially from an outside perspective in a politically charged place like Indonesia. To this end, he is fundamentally acting as the colonial presence in this relationship. Since the success of “The Raid, Redemption” and its sequel, a lookalike film starring the same actor this year has been made titled Headshot, not involving Evans, which according to IndieWire writer David Ehrlich “feels like it was cut together from The Raid’s deleted footage” (Ehrlich, 2017).
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Figure F. Headshot fight scene. (Vertical Entertainment, 2016)
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Figure G. The Raid: Redemption fight scene. (Sony Pictures Classics, 2011)
Figures F and G demonstrate the stylistic similarity of the two films, essentially boiling down to Asian martial artists assaulting one another if it is to be taken at face value, the point of the film being the demonstration of their martial arts prowess as it takes center stage at every key moment of the film and is the signifier. This is a damaging stereotype, noted in Psychology of Men & Masculinity journal’s 2012 article “Asian American male college students’ perceptions of people’s stereotypes about Asian American men” that:
“In contemporary U.S. society, this stereotype has been fuelled by medial portrayals of East Asian male actors (e.g., Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li) as highly skilled martial arts experts. The portrayal of East Asian male actors in such roles may have the effect of turning East Asian American men into “caricatures rather than three-dimensional human representations of masculinity” (Wong et. al, 2012)
So while these issues may seem benign at first glance, there is support that Evans may have had a hand in forming Indonesia’s modern global identity through his incredibly successful film contributions but may have also infused it with potentially damaging connotations to Asian males’ identities, now not only just for East Asians.
This was not the case with South Korean director Kim Jee-woon’s 2013 American film “The Last Stand”, as the film is another example of nonwhite cross-cultural filmmaking that takes a safer, more subtle and considerate approach that also does not threaten to damage cultural identities. The film coincidentally deals with similar subject matter as “The Raid: Redemption” in that it is an action movie that deals with a group of heroes banding together to take down a wanted criminal. However, the thematic approach ends up being the exact opposite. The film acts as a comeback vehicle for Hollywood icon Arnold Schwarzenegger, being his first film since a decade prior. As such, it presents Schwarzenegger as a hero sheriff protecting a small innocent town from an invader, a Mexican drug lord (Jee-woon, 2013). As opposed to anything negative, the imagery of the town in the film is symbolically shown as “classic” America, or Americana, as a peaceful and dusty border town vaguely resembling the all-American Great Frontier in a stylistic choice showing great respect to the culture he is transplanted into for the job.
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Figure H. The Last Stand action scene. (Di Bonaventura Pictures, 2013)
As opposed to derogatory signifiers and signs being prevalent in its cultural depiction, the American town in the film is depicted as something pure to be defended from outside invaders, as the hero of the film uses all of the resources at his disposal to do as seen in figure H.The connotative elements in this film are fully realized by the director as American in every sense, reinforced by Jee-woon’s own admission of the film in an interview with Dave Trumbore for Collider that “if I were to make a comparison, it would be an American canvas with my colors on it. That’s probably the way I would best describe it” (Trumbore, 2012). The film is The film could potentially be seen as a mild example of cross-cultural filmmaking in the sense that it resulted in an average American action film, but for Jee-woon it was the point, he notes that “Using the strengths of the American system, the American process, and melding that with my strengths and utilizing that, is probably one of the biggest reasons why I’m here.“ Instead of portraying the culture outside the director’s as corrupt or broken for dramatic purposes which would constitute a form of reverse-Orientalism.
Throughout these four film examples of cross-cultural directing, it is clear that while the intent is certainly not malicious nor is it being received as malicious due to the overwhelming critical praise for the films, it is important to note the influence and power that privileged directors have over their audiences and what their images can mean when put to analysis years later. Moving forward with proactivity when handling other cultures, the ability to work outside one’s culture opens up endless filmmaking possibilities just as Gareth Evans and Kim Jee-woon were able to completely transplant themselves into other film cultures, or to completely move outside cultural boundaries like Bong Joon-ho. Currently, there is support for the idea that directors are perfectly capable of constructing nuanced and compelling portrayals of other cultures, but semiotic analysis shows that those portrayals are not just pieces of entertainment nor do they occur in a bubble, both parallels and stark contrasts can be found in almost any pair of films to learn from even when they were created under cross-cultural circumstances.
References
Action A Go Go (2014) The Raid: Redemption promotional image. Retrieved from http://actionagogo.com/2014/02/18/oscar-a-go-go-part-4-why-cant-an-action-film-win-an-academy-award/
Bong, J.H. (Director). (2013). Snowpiercer [Motion Picture]. South Korea: CJ Entertainment.
Burnett, V. (2015, October 11). Portrayal of Juárez in 'Sicario' Vexes Residents Trying to Move Past Dark Times. Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/world/americas/portrayal-of-juarez-in-sicario-vexes-residents-trying-to-move-past-dark-times.html
Charles' Fav Movie Clips (2017, Jan 26) Welcome to Juarez scene - Sicario [Video File] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU9QfF6FhHs
Ehrlich, D. (2017, March 02). ‘Headshot’ Review: ‘The Raid’ Star Iko Uwais Stars in Another Brutally Exhausting Bloodbath. Retrieved November 16, 2017, from http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/headshot-review-iko-uwais-the-raid-indonesia-1201788781/
EDGAR RENTON. (2017, May 15). Headshot | Iko Uwais vs Very Tri Yulisman | Fight Scene | 1080p [Video File] Retrieved December 04, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ktAAuJyaqw
Evans, G. (Director). (2011). The Raid: Redemption [Motion Picture]. Sony Pictures Classics.
Flood Magazine (2014) Cast of Snowpiercer. Retrieved from http://floodmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/snowpiercer-screenshot.jpg
Fang, K. (2017). Surveillance in Asian cinema: under eastern eyes. New York: Routledge.
Hall, S. (2001). Encoding/decoding. Media and cultural studies: Keyworks, 166-176.
MFA+Filmdistribution. (2014, March 14) Über die Charaktere der Gefängnis-Sektion [Video File] Retrieved December 04, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RqsdbCvTg8
Movieclips. (2015, November 20). The Last Stand (5/10) Movie CLIP - Welcome to Sommerton (2013) HD [Video File] Retrieved December 04, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2HEnbmtknM
Reddit. (2016). Sicario still. Retrieved from https://i.redditmedia.com/BI9BeBv-1xz2CAkbRcS27DlONjuHLxc_cFaXJis6rs8.jpg?w=1024&s=ed3961434ac5d5a9695fc73130d97319
Rin Asogi (2015, September 20). The Raid Redemption – Machete Fight Scene [Video File]
Retrieved December 04, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dUp2uOcEY0
Rose, S. (2017, August 29). 'The idea that it's good business is a myth' – why Hollywood whitewashing has become toxic. Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/29/the-idea-that-its-good-business-is-a-myth-why-hollywood-whitewashing-has-become-toxic
RottenTomatoes. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2017, from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Scott, A. O. (2014, June 26). Stuck in Steerage for the Postapocalypse. Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/movies/in-snowpiercer-the-train-trip-to-end-all-train-trips.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Taylor, B. (2016) The ideological train to globalization: Bong Joon-ho's The Host and Snowpiercer. (2016). Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The ideological train to globalization%3a Bong Joon-ho%27s The Host and...-a0456344444
Trumbore, D. (2012, November 07). Director Kim Jee-Woon Talks THE LAST STAND, Differences Between Korean and American Filmmaking, His Unique Directing Style, and More. Retrieved November 16, 2017, from http://collider.com/kim-jee-woon-the-last-stand-interview/
Villeneuve, D. (Director). (2015). Sicario [Motion Picture]. Canada: Lionsgate.
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Wolfram's Parzival and The Grail in Arabia
Wolfram's Parzival and The Grail in Arabia
I've talked about Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival in two prior posts on this Blog. The Holy Grail and the Silmarils, and Biblical Influences on Arthurian Legend. In both of those I mentioned Graham Hancock's theory that Wolfram's Grail was really The Ark and he was secretly supporting it being in Ethiopia. I no longer agree with Hancock's take on it, even as much as I used to. Fortunately his theories were irrelevant to my actual arguments there.
I do think The Ark's legacy was an influence on how Wolfram depicted the Grail. But I think there is another key influence to possibly consider.
Disclaimer, this is a fiction Blog not a History blog. While I'd like to think some hints at forgotten History might be here, I am not claiming Wolfram was simply changing names of a true story. I include this disclaimer because you'll be surprised how often this type of fiction inspires real conspiracy theories.
People like to criticize Wolfram for Medieval European ignorance in calling Arabs Pagans. However this criticism seems to forget that the story is supposed to be contemporary with King Arthur (216-537 AD according to the Annals Cambrie, died in 542 according to Monmouth and the Brute Tysilo), a generation before Muhammad was born. Arabia at this time had Pagans, Jews and Christians, it was diverse. Mecca specifically was mainly Polytheistic, with 360 Idols in the Kaaba before Muhammad took it over.
But the key thing with my differing from Hancock is I can no longer agree with Zazamanc being based on Aksum. Much of the geography in Wolfram seems intentionally confusing, and scholars have long disagreed on if Zazamanc is placed in Africa or Arabia. It's safe to say many medieval Europeans often didn't know the difference. And what was meant by India or Indes is also confused and contradictory as Hancock discuses.
Queen Belacane is not named after Makeda, but rather after a name for the Queen of Sheba from Arabia tradition, Bilqis. (most theories on the Eytmolgoy of Bilqis I disagree, it probably comes form combining Baal and Qos or Quzzah) But more interestingly is how the name of Zazamanc possibly resembles the name Zamzam, the name of a well near Mecca that Islamic tradition says is the Well where God spoke to Hagar in Genesis 21. And if the theory that Kadesh-Barnea is Mecca is true, then I think it very well could be.
Locating her so far from Yemen need not discredit the significance of her possibly being named after the Queen of Sheba. The breaking of the Mar'ib Dam caused many migrations northwards in Arabia, and the area of Mecca is believed to be have controlled by people from Yemen for much of the history leading up to Muhammad. According to Sarwar (Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar. Muhammad the Holy Prophet. pp. 18–19.) 400 years before the birth of Muhammad, a man named "Amr bin Lahyo bin Harath bin Amr ul-Qais bin Thalaba bin Azd bin Khalan bin Babalyun bin Saba", who was descended from Joktan and was the king of Hijaz placed a Hubal idol onto the roof of the Kaaba.
In addition to Zazamanc, I have a hunch Janfuse and Tribalibot with it's cities of Tharbronit and Thasme should be placed in Arabia as well. Maybe even also specifically the Hijaz. Tabala south of Mecca could be related to some of those names. Also Thabir, a mountain near Mecca.
That's a total of three kingdoms ruled by Queens. We are sadly lacking a lot of information about Pre-Islamic Arabia, but I have argued that there is some evidence it may have been surprisingly Feminist.
In Secundille's kingdom of Tribalibot lived a race of half-men boars like creatures which included came Cundrie and her brother Malcreatiure. The Koran says in Sura 5:60, 7:166 and 2:65 that Allah once turned a group of Jewish Fishermen living on the Red Sea into Apes and Swine for violating the Sabbath. Muhammad refers to this as a story the Jews of the area already knew, so it was probably a local tradition among some Arabain Jews of the Hijaz. Could this story have inspired Wolfram?
Secundille gave land of hers to Feirfez to rule with his bride the Grail Maiden. And that was Hancock's reasoning for thinking Wolfram was saying the Grail wound up in Feirfez's kingdom, wherever it was.
I'm considering identifying Secundille's tribe with the Quraysh and Belacane's with the Banu Khuza'a.
Wolfram's Grail indeed was not a Cup or linked to the Last Supper in any capacity. It is described as a Stone from Heaven. The Black Stone of the Kaaba is also supposed to be a Stone from Heaven. Jason Covalito speculated at Wolfram's Arabic inspiration being the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, but I think the Black Stone of the Kaaba itself is a far more direct comparison.
What about the Grail Castle, Munsalvaeche? The name means Mountain of Salvation, while my first instinct was to think Moriah or Zion or The Mount of Olives to be that mount. There is one potential Biblical Mount of Salvation we shouldn't overlook. Mount Sinai aka Mount Horeb.
I have argued Mount Sinai could be Jabal Shu'yab in Sana'a the Capital of Yemen. That city wasn't there in antiquity of course. The City was founded in the 530s (contemporary with King Arthur) by Abraha. After the Jewish Himyarite King Dhu Nuwas was defeated by the Aksumite Kingdom in 525 AD, Abraha was appointed to be the Aksumite Governor of Yemen. But he wound up declaring himself an independent King, and made Sana'a his Capital.
He aroused the wrath of Kaléb, however, by withholding tribute who then sent his general 'Ariat to take over the governorship of Yemen. 'Abraha rid himself of the latter by a subterfuge in a duel resulting in 'Ariat being killed and 'Abraha suffering the injury which earned him the sobriquet of al-Asräm, "scar-face." [ "Abraha." Dictionary of African Christian Biographies. 2007. (last accessed 11 April 2007)]
So he could also be described as a Wounded or Maimed King, and it was even specifically a Duel. Could he be partly the basis for Anfortas? Along with material taken from the earlier grail romance. And removing things that painted him more negatively.
He is also said to have built a great Church at Sana'a Al-Qalis and repaired the irrigation system at Ma'rib. Islamic Tradition says he died in 570 AD, the same year Muhammad was born, when Allah thwarted an attempted invasion of Mecca.
Feirfez marrying the Grail Maiden, Repense de Schoi, daughter of Anfortas, could be read as implying the Grail moves to his Kingdom. That theory of Hancock's I think is valid. So is Wolfram trying to secretly say the Black Stone of the Kaaba at Mecca used to be in Yemen at Mount Sinai? That's a stretch, but it may have interested him to construct such a narrative.
There also it seems used to be other Stones at other Kaabas. A Red Stone in the city of Ghaiman and a White Stone at Tabala south of Mecca, which I mentioned above.
On the subject of Mount Sinai. Second Maccabees, (a text that is included in Catholic Bibles) Chapter 2 verses 4-8, a story is related that Jeremiah took the Ark of the Covenant and The Tabernacle to Mount Sinai (doesn't name it but that's what it would be) where it was hidden away by God. I doubt that is the Ark's real fate, but it's something Wolfram could have drawn on.
I don't know how old this tradition is, but I've seen Muslims claim The Black Stone was once in the Ark of the Covenant. And that The Ark of the Covenant is hidden in The Kaaba. (From this spun off a modern conspiracy theory about a Super Weapon called the Ark of Gabriel being in Mecca and now somehow was taken by Russia). Specifically I've seen The Ark claimed to be in the Babut Taubah or Tabut Taubal, which is supposed to be just the stairwell to the roof of the Kaaba. But it's claimed that "Tabut" means wooden box (I don't know Arabic), and they say The Ark is alluded to in the Koran in Sura 2:248. Again, I also doubt those theories are true. Well that's my speculation on Wolfram. I may do posts about other Grail Lore in the future.
#wolfram von eschenbach#Parzival#Munsalvache#Holy Grail#Graal#Grail Maiden#Mount Sinai#Mecca#Makkah#Belacane#Zamzam#Queen of Sheba#Zazamanc#Secundille#Sana'a#Shu'yab#Saba#Yemen#Arthurian Legend#Kaaba#ark of the covenant
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